Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (34 page)

Remembering Duncan's words: "They found me and infiltrated me-I
could feel their tendrils, their fleshy-dry-cold-warm pseudopods and cilia
and strands slowly sliding up my skin, like a hundred any hands. They tried
to remake me in their image."

"And you found a way to use him." An echo of his voice against the
stone. A place more like a memorial than a home.

"Yes. After awhile. After we managed to remind him that he was
human. Amazing how long that part took."

Finch said, "What happened next?"

Pain in her smile. "Do you want to know a secret?"

He leaned in toward the Lady in Blue, humoring her. This close she
looked somehow off-balance. Something in her eyes. The faint smell
of cigars. Masked by the freshness of some subtle herb.

"Duncan Shriek isn't dead," she whispered.

Then she jabbed something into his neck.

No time for surprise. No time for anything but falling through the
gullet of the skery. Again.

ame to: On the battlements of a fortress at night. Gun emplacements
dark and menacing.

Duncan Shriek isn't dead. For a moment he was losing his balance.
Then someone propped him up from behind. I don't believe it. Not
Crossley, not Finch.

Cold, with a wind blowing. Above, the heavens, laced with stars
that seemed to be falling in together. A wash of silver and gold across
the sky. Beyond the walls, a vast empty space. A desert? In that space,
a thousand green fires blossoming. He knew this place-he knew it.
It had been in his memory bulb dream. Shriek's memories. Bliss was
here.

The Lady in Blue stood beside him again. Surrounded by dozens of
soldiers. Intent on moving supplies, guard duty, or cleaning weapons.

"This is the monastery fortress of Zamilon, or at least a version of
it," the Lady in Blue said, as if reading his thoughts. "Abandoned for
many decades, until we came along."

Duncan: "Where the eastern approaches of the Kalifs empire fade into
the mountains no man can conquer, the ruined fortress of Zamilon keeps
watch over time and the stars. Within the fortress . . . Truffidian monks
guard the last true page of Tonsure's famous journal."

Below the battlements, the great hulking shadows of some kind of
machinery. Engines of war flanking a wide road that led to a huge
door. Looked like it was made half of volcanic rock and half of charred
book cover. Set in the door, a smaller door, and a small door set into
that one.

Painted and carved into every surface, radiating outward, the symbol
from the scrap of paper:

Finch pointed to it. "What's that?"

"It's part of how we travel through the doors. Part of the .. .
mechanism. But it means something different to the gray caps. It
doesn't work the same way for us as for them. Thankfully."

Turned to the scene beyond the battlements. Furtive movement
out there. Occluding the fires at times. A suggestion of long, wide
limbs. Of misshapen heads.

"And all of that?"

"Those are the fires of enemy camps. Not gray caps. Not human.
Something else. They don't know what to make of us. And we don't
know what to make of them. But we have to hold this position. Do
you want to know why?"

Felt again like he was falling. "I'm not sure."

The Lady in Blue pulled him around. Held him by the shoulders. A
vice-like grip. An almost inhuman strength. He understood now, on a
physical level, how she had held on, and kept holding on, all this time.

"You don't have that luxury, James Scott Crossley. That out there is
nothing. It's just the latest thing to make us falter, to make us doubt
ourselves." She released him. "When we started out, we didn't really
understand. We had to learn fast."

"You read Samuel Tonsure's journal?"

"That and other things. Shriek's books after we found him."

"And you learned about Zamilon?"

"Sometimes by hard-earned experience. But now we know: Zamilon
is a nexus for the doors. It exists in our world, but it also exists in many
other worlds simultaneously."

"And Duncan needed to go through it for his mission? He was on a
mission for you?"

"Yes. But he's unpredictable. We think he went somewhere he
shouldn't have. Triggered a trap. I'm not sure we'll ever know what
went wrong unless Shriek chooses to tell us."

"So it's dangerous to travel through the doors?"

She stared up at the wash of stars. "It can be. We only use doors
leading from or to Zamilon. Anything else has resulted in disaster. We
don't know why. But Duncan has no such constraint ..."

Remembering the Spit: Through many doors . . . The doors smaller
then larger, then smaller again. Oval. Rectangular. Square. Inlaid with
glass. Gone, leaving only gaping doorway and a couple rusted hinges.

"Who knows about the portals, the doors?"

The Lady in Blue laughed. "Duncan Shriek knew. Maybe some
people have always known. Ambergris's early kings may have had the
knowledge and lost it. Every schoolchild used to know. Because every
scary story about the gray caps implies that they can move quickly from
place to place . . . So far we've kept it from the rebel cells operating in
the city. There's too much risk of them being captured by the gray caps
and made to talk. And on the other side, the gray caps seem to have
kept the doors hidden from the Partials."

"How much do the gray caps know about you?" How much does Stark
know? Or Bliss?

"They know we're out here. But we're blessed by their concentration
on the towers. It makes it easier for us to operate."

"Tell me why I'm here," Finch asked. The question he didn't want
answered.

The Lady in Blue's features tightened. She looked away. "What
I'm going to ask from you is dangerous. I wanted you to understand
fully. So you'd know it in your gut. What's at stake. Because the war
we're fighting right now isn't in Ambergris. It's out here. It's about
opening and closing doors. Holding positions around places like
Zamilon. With the few soldiers we have.

"We don't have a functional army here." She gestured around her.
"Maybe a thousand well-trained men, if that. The rest are scattered.
Twenty thousand soldiers, Finch. Marked by the HFZ and scattered across the doors. Imagine. Each one flung somewhere else, like a pearl necklace
shattering on a marble staircase. Only, the moment after that necklace
shatters there are thousands of marble staircases and one bead on each."

"They're not dead?" Finch, incredulous.

The Lady in Blue shook her head. "No. Most of them are just lost,
and we need to bring them back ... When Duncan didn't complete his
mission, when we figured out where the bodies had turned up, where
Duncan was, some wanted to cut our losses. Abandon the mission. Try
to sabotage the towers. I said no. I said, I knew your father. I knew him
well enough to know that, in this case, we could trust you. That you'd
understand. That I'd make you understand."

"Understand what?" Finch said. "What is there left to understand?"
A fury rising in him. "Understand that when I go back I have the
secret services of not one but two countries working against me? That
the gray caps will kill me if I don't solve this case? That my partner is
probably dying? What is it that you want me to understand?"

The Lady in Blue looked at him in surprise. As if no one had spoken
to her like that for a long time.

"I understand, Finch," she said slowly, biting off each syllable, "that
you are the only one who can get back to the body while they're
watching. It's a trap for anyone else. A fatal trap. And you and I both
understand now that Duncan Shriek is alive. And I'm telling you that
if you can get to him, you can bring him all the way back and help
him complete his mission."

"What kind of weapon is Shriek? Is he a bomb?" Only thing
Finch could think of. Like the suicide bombers the rebels had used
in the past.

"No. He's the kind of weapon that's also a beacon. Also a door."
She smiled. A wide and beautiful smile that cut right through Finch.
There on the ramparts. Overlooking the desert. In a place that might
or might not be part of the world. "There may be a way."

"Just say it."

"We mean to force the door, Finch. To hijack it. To come through
in numbers. Duncan Shriek is going to find our lost men and bring
them through the gate formed by the towers. Before the gray caps can
bring their own people through."

"That's insane. The risk ..."

"If we had a better plan, we would use it."

"Even if Shriek is alive, how do you know he can do it? Bring the
soldiers back?"

"He's shown us some of what he can do already."

"How will he find them?" Each question cut him off from one more
avenue of retreat.

"They are all marked, or tagged, by the HFZ event. Each man. Each
woman. He will find them through the doors, and we will return to
Ambergris triumphant."

A strange light had entered her eyes. Like someone who had been
dreaming of something that they'd never thought could happen. And
now it was happening.

"What if they kill me? Eat my memories?" Finch asked. "What then?"

The Lady in Blue turned the full force of her gaze on him. "What's
really bothering you, Finch? Is it fear? Or is it something else?" She
turned to look out at the desert again. "Those things out there," she
murmured. "They're gray caps, and they're people. Combined. How?
I don't know. Maybe they came here during the Silence. Possible. But
even though I don't know, I understand. Because we're changing, too,
Finch. There's no one under my command who hasn't been altered in
some way. The question is how much you change. Change too much
and you're no different from Shriek, no different from a gray cap. And
then even if we win, we lose. But adapt just enough? That's what I need
from you. To adapt just enough."

An answer for everything. Yet Finch knew he'd always be searching
for the next question. He felt a hundred years old. Like the weight of
everything had piled on his back at once.

"What if I say no? What if I want you to just leave me the fuck
alone?" Stop fighting, some part of him advised. Just fall into it and keep
falling. But he couldn't. Not yet.

The Lady in Blue sighed. "You know, it's no good for the Kalif,
either, if the gray caps come through. I don't care who you are or
aren't working for. I don't care about your father's spying. I just know
you hate Partials and your father had no love for the gray caps."

"How are you going to protect me?"

"We can't protect you. But we can make sure you don't get caught."

"You mean you can kill me." Feeling ill. Realized that in some ways the
Lady in Blue was no different than Stark. Apply pressure. Squeeze. Get
what you want.

The Lady in Blue looked somehow both stern and compassionate.
In a quiet voice, she said, "I mean you know too much, John Finch.
Sometimes we have to take the cards we're dealt and make the most
of them. You can't throw away the cards now-you've already looked
at them."

There it was. Stated directly. Somehow Finch admired her more for
it. A bitter laugh of appreciation as he stood there, facing her down.

"So I have no choice."

"If it's any consolation, maybe you never had a choice. Maybe there
was never a point at which you could have turned back." She had the
good grace to look away as she said, "Our man will be in touch when
the time comes."

Finch anticipated the needle a second before it entered his neck.