infinities (27 page)

~

We drank water and ate chocolate on a veranda held up by tall columns carved to resemble the trunks of royal palms. Our water supply was dwindling rapidly, so I took the filter and walked out into the sun again, filling all our empty water cells from the fountain. There was no wind at all to stir the air and the heat had become overwhelming. Actually frightening. I had never felt anything like it before and I dreaded returning to the narrow streets where the temperature was sure to be even higher. But we would have to move on soon. We needed to know if the second tower could offer us refuge for the night, or if we would have to make the long run to Olino Mesa.

Whether it was the heat or the anxiety this city wakened in me I cannot say, but as I returned to the veranda's shade I was conscious of my heart fluttering in a weak and rapid beat like the heart of a frightened bird. Liam was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the veranda, studying the mimic screen of his savant. "Did you find something?" I asked as I collapsed beside him.

"Yes. I know where we are now." He nodded at the screen.

I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and leaned forward. Displayed on his mimic screen was a ghastly painting. I could see the texture of the paint, so I knew it was not a true image, but that did little to assuage my horror. Pictured there was the very square where we found ourselves, but changed. The white buildings were all of dark gray stone. Thousands of people crowded the pavement, most of them men in uniforms of black and red. Black banners were draped from the balconies of the encircling buildings, while black flags flew from the top of the mast and from the ends of its cross poles. The purpose of the mast was quite clear. At least a hundred tiny figures hung from the cross poles, suspended by black ropes tied about their necks. Their faces were covered, but their legs were shown in postures of kicking, twisting agony. All of them had their hands tied behind their backs.

"
Mother of all!
" I whispered, and turned away, wishing I had not looked, and that I didn't know.

Liam cleared the mimic screen. "The painting is ancient. It's supposed to be an illustration of the crusade of Fiaccomo."

"Fiaccomo?" I knew that name. Everyone did, for Fiaccomo was a legendary figure.

It was said that in the beginning of the world the silver obeyed the will of players and all was paradise. Then the dark god came, and the goddess withdrew from the world to wage war against him. The silver vanished with her, and players were left without food or tools or clothing or the simplest pleasures, for all such things had come to them through the silver. Great armies formed to fight over what remained. Hunger and war were everywhere, and so many players died that none of those left could find a lover and there were no children. The world lay on the edge of ruin.

Fiaccomo had been trained as a warrior, but he loved life, and could not bear to see the world die. So he gathered about him brave players, and together they fought their way past the scavenging armies and ventured into the high mountains, where it was said traces of the goddess might still be found.

The goddess had won her victory over the dark god, but not without cost. The battle had left her wounded and delirious. When Fiaccomo's entreaties caused her to turn her mind again to the world she was horrified to behold her beautiful land all in ruins and her beloved players sunk in wickedness and war. She came upon the band of heroes in a fury, and in the guise of a silver flood she swept all those good players away. Among them, only Fiaccomo kept his wits. Even as his mind dissolved in the silver, he whispered to the goddess all the desires of his heart, and his passion was so like hers that she loved him, and their minds entwined in a kind of lovemaking never known in the world before and never since, and in those moments of union Fiaccomo seized the creative power of the silver and dreamed the first kobolds into existence.

The goddess gave Fiaccomo back his life, and more, she gave him a gift that he could pass through the silver unscathed, and command its flow when he had need. He returned to the world bringing with him both the silver and the kobolds, and prosperity followed after him, and peace.

That was the legend as I knew it, but the painting Liam had found did not show a time of prosperity or of peace.

"It doesn't make sense, Liam. This city is a real place. But Fiaccomo is a myth . . . isn't he?"

"I wouldn't know."

"No one can survive the silver," I insisted. "No one can pass through it unscathed."

"I won't argue it with you, Jubilee. I have only told you what the painting is supposed to show."

I looked out across the brilliant white square, but it was the dark painting I saw.

The past is deep and jumbled and more than half-counterfeited, or so I believe, and we, even with the help of our savants, can recall it only as we recall our dreams, in fragments detached from beginnings and ends. This city had gone through the silver and it was clean to look upon, but it did not feel clean. "Was Fiaccomo supposed to be one of those hanging from the mast?"

"The document didn't say. But it occurs to me, Jubilee, that in an age without silver or kobolds, there would be no reason to build temples."

I thought about that, until Liam insisted we move on.

~

A wide, straight boulevard on the far side of the square led directly to the second tower. It rose high into the cloudless blue sky, its smooth white walls tapering to a narrow summit. Arched windows looked out from a dozen different floors. They did not appear to have glass in them. "If we can get up to the top," Liam said, "we should be safe."

A low flight of broad steps led up to the tower's entrance. We rode our bikes up, the tires bending around the angles of the stairs so that our ride remained smooth and secure. Great double doors stood open, as if inviting us to enter. The first floor was surrounded by the arched windows we had seen from the street. As we had guessed, they were without glass, so light and air passed freely to the inside.

The interior was a single room that encircled a central column where another set of huge doors—I suspected they were elevator doors—looked back at us, but these were closed. "Want to bet we can't get them open?" Liam asked.

"No thank you."

We stopped briefly to inspect them, but Liam was right: the closed doors were purely ornamental, like all the others we had seen in this city. "Maybe there's another way up?" I suggested, trying to sound more confident than I felt. The afternoon was waning, and I did not want to be caught on the open plateau when evening fell.

"Stairs, you're thinking?" Liam asked.

"It's worth looking."

So we rode our bikes around the column, and there it was: a stairwell, with its door standing ajar, just wide enough to allow a bike to pass.

I stopped beside it, and looked in. Daylight reached just far enough to show me a short flight of white stairs that turned back on themselves at a narrow landing. I was surprised to feel a hot breeze flowing over my shoulders and tugging at the strands of my hair, blowing
into
the stairwell as if it were a great chimney piping hot air up. "Feel that wind?" I asked. "There must be an opening somewhere above." Then I backed up my bike, and gave him a chance to look.

He peered inside. Then, "Awfully convenient," he said, turning to look at me over his shoulder.

I nodded. "Like we were expected. Does the silver have a sense of humor?"

"Oh, yes," Liam said. "Sharpest in the world."

He flicked on his headlight. Then he eased his bike through the door while I followed after him.

~

The stairs rose in a zigzag column beside the elevator shaft, with a tight, 180-degree turn at the end of each flight. I had to put a foot down for balance and skid the back tire of my bike at every landing while my headlight glittered crazily across white walls. After three flights we found a door, but it was closed and useless. Three flights higher there was another door, also closed. But we could still feel hot air rushing up the stairwell, so we kept going.

We went up past nine floors until finally, on the tenth story, we found an open door. Sunlight spilled onto the landing, but there were no dust motes drifting in the air and that absence seemed as strange as anything I had seen that day.

I followed Liam into the room. It circled the tower's central column just as the room on the first floor had, though this one was much smaller. Not surprisingly, it was also empty.

I stopped at a window and looked down on the city, blazing white in the afternoon light, with a rainbow iridescence above the rooftops that gave it the aura of a mirage. "It's too clean," I said softly. "Too perfect. There's no dirt. No insects. No birds." I shook my head, groping to explain what was troubling me. "Even if this city came out of the silver looking like this, it should be showing some wear by now. Some dust or bird dung at least."

"But there's nothing," Liam said.

"It's like some invisible curator has been keeping it tidy."

"Don't scare yourself."

I raised my chin. I didn't want him to think I was afraid. "Do you want to spend the night here? We're high enough. It should be safe."

I was half hoping he would say no, and instead opt for the long sprint to Olino Mesa. But he kicked down the stand of his bike and dismounted. "It's so late now, we don't really have a choice."

...continues

Copyright information
© Linda Nagata, 2003, 2011. Published by Mythic Island Press LLC; Kula, Hawaii. First published by Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC in April 2003.
Buy now:
Memory by Linda Nagata

Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

Stoker Award finalist and alternate selection of the Mystery Guild

For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.

Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.

The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.

"Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.

"A damn scary story well told."
—
Christopher Ransom
, author of the international bestseller
The Birthing House

"Like Stephen King, he has an eye and ear for the rhythms of rural America, and like King he knows how to summon serious scares. My advice? Buy everything he writes. This guy's the real deal."
—
Bentley Little
, author of
The Disappearance

"Keep both hands on your pants because Nicholson is about to scare them off."
—
J.A. Konrath
,
Origin
and
Serial

"Always surprises and always entertains."
—
Jonathan Maberry
, Patient Zero

"Scott Nicholson knows the territory. Follow him at your own risk."
—
Stewart O'Nan
,
Boston Noir

"A wonderful storyteller."
—
Sharyn McCrumb
, author of The Ballad novels

Learn more about
The Red Church
and the real Appalachian church that inspired the novel, and buy now:
The Red Church

CHAPTER ONE

The world never ends the way you believe it will
, Ronnie Day thought.

There were the tried-and-true favorites, like nuclear holocaust and doomsday asteroid collisions and killer viruses and Preacher Staymore's all-time classic, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. But the end really wasn't such a huge, organized affair after all. The end was right up close and personal, different for each person, a kick in the rear and a joy-buzzer handshake from the Reaper himself.

But that was the Big End. First you had to twist your way though a thousand turning points and die a little each time. One of life's lessons, learned as the by-product of thirteen years as the son of Linda and David Day and one semester sitting in class with Melanie Ward. Tough noogies, wasn't it?