Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (49 page)

Finch turned away from a thought that truly terrified him. That
Bliss didn't work for the Kalif at all. That Dar Sardice was just the
first of the masks he knew about. That the "long game" was beyond
comprehension.

The sounds of oars from beyond the open doors. Of a boat thudding
up against the steps.

"That'll be Rathven," Bliss said. "Do you really want to involve her
in this?"

No, he didn't.

"I don't have it. Sintra took it from me in the apartment," Finch
said. Almost triumphant. Almost proud of Sintra. "There was nothing
I could do. The dogghe have it now. I couldn't stop her."

Bliss erupted from his seat. Suddenly seemed twice as tall. Mouth open
in an expression of rage beyond any caricature Finch had ever seen.

Flinched before it. Pushed back in his chair. Waited for the blow,
but couldn't look away.

Bliss's eyes were dead. Something else shone through. Something
hostile. Something alien. Like a mask had slipped. Peering out through
the urbane little man's face was something other.

Then it was gone. Bliss was just Bliss. "No matter," he said, with a
smile that cut. "A complication soon solved." But Finch didn't think
it would be that easy. Hoped it wouldn't.

Footsteps walking up the stairs.

A reptilian smile from Bliss.

"You're just a spectator now, Finch. Just another pawn. But I'll
leave you with this: Did you ever stop to think that maybe Wyte
represents the future of this city? That maybe you're the past. Still
living, but the past nonetheless. There will be a day you'll remember
this conversation in a much different light."

Then he was walking into the bookshelves. Which turned into a
door fringed with green and gold.

Which he stepped into.

And was gone.

Rathven came in, holding her gun and a disgruntled Feral.

"Was someone in here with you, Finch?" She let Feral down. The
cat ran to him, rubbed up against his legs.

Finch shook his head. "Talking to myself." Leaned over to pet Feral.
Felt like he'd escaped some great danger. Had come across the edge,
the outline, of something that his map could not encompass. That
neither Finch nor Crossley could ever understand.

Somewhere out there the Lady in Blue was readying for invasion.

Somewhere Sintra was bringing the strange piece of metal to her
superiors.

Somewhere Shriek was trying to come home.

And he was in a secret room surrounded by books, petting a cat.

From far above, he heard the mutter of mighty engines coming to
life. A groaning, rending roar. A rising hum behind it. A metallic
scream like the cry of a raptor.

The ceiling vibrated. The floor rumbled. A plume of dust. Feral
looked up, concerned.

"I was coming to tell you, John," Rathven said. "The towers are
changing. The electricity is out. Everywhere."

Panic and a surge of energy. "I've got to get to the roof to see it."

She shook her head. "No, you don't. You're too weak. We can take
the boat instead. The tunnel leads out to the bay."

Wincing, he settled into the boat opposite Rathven. It felt strange to
be in a boat not made by the gray caps. The wood so stiff. The lack of
give beneath his feet. She lurched onto the seat opposite him. Set the
lantern by her feet. Two gas masks there. Binoculars, too. Feral paced
on the steps, watching them leave. Rathven had left food just in case.

Ribs of light from the lantern sent across the ceiling made it seem as
if they traveled down the gullet of a great beast. Cool, under the earth.
Overhead, there might be violence. There might be mobs. Street
sweeps by the Partials. Poisonous clouds of fungus. Almost anything.
But down here, there was just the shudder from the towers.

Were they entering a new life? Would it be better than the last? He
didn't know.

"They'll sing your praises," Rathven said. "If Shriek leads them back."
She stared at him as if the enormity of events had finally found her.

Have I done what's best? Have I done the right thing or the wrong
thing?

"They won't even remember my name, Rath."

"I will," she said.

An emotion rose up in him that he didn't think he deserved to feel.

Facing each other. Two survivors. Gliding through a dark tunnel,
headed for the light.

Now Finch can see the frailty death has lent them. Now Finch can see the
vulnerability. The way the light uses them in the same way it uses him ...
and looks out across the damaged face of Ambergris.

The wide expanse of the bay confronts their boat. A stiff, hot wind
rising. The Spit just a trace of black smoke. The towers shambly and
green to the left. Shuddering and quaking like something alive. Debris
falling off of them into the water. On the right, the north shore, and
the long arm of the HFZ. Agitated. Alive. A curving hand reaching
out across the water toward the towers. A wave of orange-green-red
spores. Already torn and jagged at the limits of its reach. Already
fading back into itself.

From the towers, an ungodly roar and cacophony. Lines of light
reach out from the tops of the towers into the city. Toward the bloodred mushroom stations. As if helping to hold them up. In front of the
towers, the tiny shadows of rows of gray caps lined up on the bridge.
As if in worship.

In that space between the towers, the gate-the door-has finally
found what it was searching for.

A weak white disk in a porous pale sky, poor mimic of the sun beyond
the towers. Framed in gray, gigantic living citadels rise in a swirl of
glittering dust motes so tightly packed they can only be spores. Two,
three hundred feet the citadels rise. Circular. Studded with tiny eyes
for windows. A hundred curving causeways run between them. Rising from below, a thick forest of tendrils in constant, rippling motion.
Waves of color washing across them, strobing from greens to reds to
blues, and back again. Through this landscape, great beasts stride
in perpetual gloom. Hunched over. Half-seen, half-heard. Cities of
fungus rising from their backs.

But at the bottom of this scene, a tear or rip. Like a photograph with
a flame burning through it in a rough triangle. Turning it to ash.

A green-gold door rising.

They watch from the boat as it lengthens, enlarges itself. Encroaches
on the forest of tendrils. A whining sound. A kind of crackling and
popping that hurts his ears. And no other sound out across the bay.
Or across the city behind them. As if everyone holds their breath.
Waiting for this new thing.

The background scene becomes glassy. Vague. Blurry.

The green-gold door stops growing.

The breath goes out of him, and then returns. As if he's been dead
and now is coming back to life.

They come in numbers. In legions. Pouring through the door.
Across the bridge, overrunning the gray cap positions like an
unstoppable river, into the city. He can see them, toy soldiers,
through the binoculars. A never-ending torrent running across
the surface of the bay. Some wear strange clothes. Carry strange
weapons that discharge violet light. Some with gas masks. Some
encased in great armored suits of metal sinew and tendon. Others on
horses. Some looking human. Others like Wyte at his worst. Some
in motored vehicles. Others on foot. A few leading creatures he has
never seen before.

The rending sound becomes louder. Vibrating in his ears. He is
transfixed. She is transfixed. People will ask him where he was on this
day. He will say, "In a small boat in the bay. With a friend."

The towers shake and shake but never fall. The men and women
and things coming out from the door, their progress does not slacken.
They keep spilling out, and as they do, the scene in the background
becomes grayer and grayer. Like a smudge. The lines of force from the
tops of the towers into the city begin to waver. Until one by one they
erase themselves. Slowly. Then more quickly.

Waves now in the bay, like an aftershock. Smacking against the
boat. He is holding her tight against the awful wonder of it. He is
holding on to her like something familiar.

And still the rebels come, as the backdrop begins to fade. Things
from the other side now touch that surface. Fall forward. Into the
air. Their shapes that were in that other place graceful or translucent
become crumpled and dark. Falling. Extinguished in the bay.

And still the rebels come. Transformed and normal. Through the
green-gold door.

Something stirs in him. A hint of a feeling close to pride. Close to
horror. Because he knows, and she knows, that the world has changed.
And he helped change it.

It may not be better. It may be worse. But it will be different.

He's reached the end of being Finch. Of being Crossley. He's reached
the end, and he has no idea who or what he will be next.

He sits in the rowboat next to her and watches the end and
beginning of history.

Remembers it all.

Forgets it all.

our people read Finch in manuscript form and provided invaluable,
often brilliant feedback. Thanks in particular for comments on
pacing and logic by my wife Ann (twice, in rough draft and nearfinished form), specific comments on character and situation by Tessa
Kum, thoughts on Stark and the city itself by Howard Morhaim, and
an analysis of and a methodology for sentence fragments (and much
more) by Victoria Blake.

Thanks to Sonya Taaffe for Latin phrases. Thanks to John Coulthart
for a genius-level cover and for gray cap symbols. Thanks to Dave
Larsen for gun-related advice. Thanks to Matt Staggs for many
kindnesses and his battery-like energy and creativity. Thanks to J. K.
Stephens and Edward Duff for testing the novel's chronology. Thanks
to Heidi Whitcomb and Rachel Miller for their proofing and design
help.

Although I had the idea for this novel as early as 1998, it changed
substantially as the result of trying to write an Ambergris story for John
Klima's Logorrhea anthology in 2006, so thanks, John. Thanks also to
the Turkey City Workshop, with whom I shared an early draft of the
first fifty pages; the comments I received were crucial to determining my
approach to the novel.

Thanks to all of those readers who followed me through City of Saints
& Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword to this point. I truly appreciate
each and every one of you.

eff VanderMeer is a forty-one-year-old, award-winning writer living
in Tallahassee, Florida. Major works include the previous two
standalone books in the Ambergris Cycle, City of Saints & Madmen and
Shriek: An Afterword, as well as Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for
the 21st-Century Writer. Recent and forthcoming books include the
story collection The Third Bear, the nonfiction collection Monstrous
Creatures, the humor book (with his wife Ann) The Kosher Guide to
Imaginary Animals, and "The Situation," a graphic novel collaboration
with the artist Eric Orchard. His work has also been adapted for short
films by PlayStation Europe and others. VanderMeer writes book
reviews for the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book
World, The Believer, and the Barnes and Noble Review, in addition to
working as a columnist for Omnivoracious, the Amazon book blog.
With his wife Ann, fiction editor of Weird Tales, he has edited a number
of fiction anthologies as well as taught creative writing workshops all over
the world. He is currently working on the definitive visual/textual
overview of the steampunk subculture for Abrams Books. For more
information on his work, visit www.jeffvandermeer.com.