Lightfall (36 page)

If he could only think of a way to get inside her head, he thought, he'd happily leave himself behind. Iris could stay in an endless sleep, and he would be her daylight. He capered about his cell, flinging bits of magic at the walls, to see if he could get the proper mix. Here and there a stone turned into a diamond. Music played on the spiderwebs. A rainbow shot the transept, washing his naked body pink and green and lavender. Honey seeped up through the cracks in the floor. The mice turned solid gold.

Soon he was so caught up in his tricks, he no longer felt the minutes slip away. It had turned into a circus now. He'd held back all his life: never once touched a blind man's eyes or stopped a bullet or a speeding car. The maker and the healer in him were trapped like everything else. But now he had nothing to lose, so he spent his powers lavishly. The forces poured from his agile fingers, game for anything once. It wasn't any use, of course. He'd already hypnotized the only one who might have loved him for it. But that was the rule of logic, and logic had no meaning here.

He walked up the walls like a daredevil kid, then stopped to peer from the highest windows, hovering like a hummingbird. He stood at her feet and did a hundred changes, turning into a tiger, an eagle, a monkey, a swan, a coyote. Nothing worked. Before the night was half gone, he was so obsessed it had slipped his mind exactly what he wanted here. He was like a jester, turning himself inside out to get the queen to laugh, when what was needed was a king.

The more she slept, the madder he got. Love was meant to make them one, but something had gone wrong. If only he'd had an enemy to pluck her from, he would have been a hero. As it was, he caromed around the walls till he couldn't even see her. Given half a chance, he could have spilled out jewels by the thousand, till the two of them stood hip-deep in the vast-ness of their power. He could have made roses bloom in caves. All he wanted to do was be himself.

And since he wasn't, he threw it all away till the hours had no choice.

They ate him up and ran for daylight.

She woke to a piercing ray of sun that shot through the high round window in the tower. She smiled as she squinted up at it. At first she thought they'd made it through. The dark was banished. Then, as she came up on one elbow and saw Michael standing haggard at the door, she realized they were nowhere yet. Night and day were not the issue. A jolt of panic shook her as she slid down off the altar—still a little wobbly from the drug, but wouldn't show it. She was halfway to Michael before he turned. His look was so shy and powerless, even Iris was surprised.

“What time is it?” she asked him gruffly.

“What do you care?” he answered like an idiot, putting on a gentle smile that made her want to slap him.

She had no fear that he'd bar the way. She barreled by and shouldered through the doorway, stopping on the steps. The sun was directly in her eyes, shooting across the hills as if it had dug in on the highest point. The moon was nowhere in sight, but then it was meant to be invisible until the thing began. She still didn't know if it came at once or gradually. And where had she learned that they lasted seven minutes? Was it something one of the boys had told her, studying up for school?

What boys?

“You sure you want to watch?”

“No,” she said deliberately. “I want to stop it.”

And though he gave a contemptuous laugh, she did not flinch or waver. She leaped down three stone steps to the gravel path and raced ahead to the street. The fields were completely empty. She couldn't at first see out to the park on the point, on account of the stand of firs that clustered at the brook. But she already had a picture in her mind: all of them strung in a line at the edge, holding hands and staring out to sea. Nobody blinked. They'd reached the zombie stage. Their eyes would be fried before they ever saw the lip of darkness. She could do all the shouting and shaking she liked, for all the good it would do.

Suddenly, Michael was at her side, trotting to keep abreast. “How do you feel?” he whispered.

“Get away from me,” she snapped, shoving him aside. She could see the park was crowded now. All of Michael's people were huddled on the lawn. At least they had not yet gone to the brink.

“But Iris, they don't need you,” insisted the prophet, touching her arm.

She jerked it away with a snarl. They passed beneath the sighing firs. She could see them in groups like picnickers. Like families. They turned their ashy faces toward the sun, as if to get a little color. Iris went up to the nearest group. She reached to grab a woman about her age, when Michael gripped her arm and spun her around.

“Listen,” he seethed, his temper frayed, “they don't need me either. My part's over. Can't you understand? You're not
like
them anymore.”

She bent down and bit his knuckles where he clutched her. He drew back his hand with a gasp. Thrilled that she'd made him mad, Iris turned and yanked the woman to her feet. She was streaked with clay, her lips were cracked and festered, and she stunk of loose bowels. “Go!” bellowed Iris, shaking her till her teeth rattled. “Go to the woods and hide!”

Briefly, the glaze in the woman's eyes appeared to break. She looked at Iris and nodded with a smile. Then she made off across the park, weaving among the assembled bands. She laid her hand in passing on a couple of shoulders, as if to give some others courage. Iris was seized with triumph. She was sure she'd done it: the woman was going to retrieve her loved ones. The forces had gotten it wrong. These people didn't want to die. Iris made a move toward the next—a woman half her age. She helped her up and, because she was shaky, held her close and rocked her like a daughter. She stared out over the woman's shoulder, choked with hope.

But something didn't work. The first woman didn't stop after all, not till she reached the very edge. There she stood at attention, toes out over the cliff, as if she were following orders. Iris, in her confusion, loosed her grip on the one she was holding. She drew a breath to shout the woman back, and the young one slipped away and ran across to the verge. At first it looked as if she meant to fetch the stray, but all she did was stand beside her. A titter passed between them as they gazed at the cloudless sun.

Iris wouldn't have it. She clenched her teeth, whirled around, and addressed a whole circle of stooped and blank-eyed folk. “You don't have to do what he tells you,” she said, trying to control her anger. “It's just an eclipse. It doesn't mean a thing. Do you understand?”

Oh, yes, they understood. They rose as one, about fifteen of them, and clasped hands and straggled across to stand at the rim of the cliff, strung out in a perfect line. The space between them and the other two, say twenty feet, cried out for more to come and look.

Iris turned in a rage to see if this was Michael's work. He sat on a rock beneath the trees, glum and completely distracted. It may have been just cunning, yet she could feel it in her bones: he had nothing whatever to do with it. Perhaps it was all in her mind. She knew that if she raised her voice and told the crowd to flee, they would all go take their place in line. Admit it, she thought, this is your idea now.

Had it always been, from the very first?

She went to him under the rustling fir. She knelt in front of him, took his hands, and stared in his eyes with a burning urge, as if she finally meant to say she loved him. He came back from a long, long way. He smiled with a sweet expectancy. Perhaps it wasn't too late at all: he was still a true believer.

“Please,” she said. “What have you done to me?”

His face clouded over. He spoke with cool dignity: “Look, you leave mine alone, I'll leave yours alone.”

“It's all for me, isn't it, Michael? Isn't it?” He made no move to answer.
Yes
was what he meant. “If you love me, help me save them.”

“And what will you give me, Iris?” he asked with a rueful smile.

“Whatever you want.”

He gave a short laugh, like somebody bored. He said: “But I don't want
anything.
”

Then, as if the sky had its own ideas, as if to give him a hint perhaps, the shade of a crescent touched the sun. They knew it the instant it happened. They gazed up to see the edge of the moon eat into the pool of fire like a winter kill. She shut her eyes at the sear of it. Subliminally, she must have heard the faintest shower of gravel, too—or was it the merest whoosh of air? Whatever it was, she did not need the prophet's smile to turn her toward the cliff edge.

There wasn't a soul. Where the line of villagers had been standing, only the matted grass prickled to gain its shape again. Iris muffled a cry, leaped to her feet, and ran across to see—though so much started to happen now that she never got a proper look at the pitiless sea below. For some had begun to mumble prayers and score their flesh with fingernails. Those who were already half gone stood up to volunteer. Others simply wept, as they stared at the dimming sky. A sickly shadow seemed to cling to the corner of every object. Every moment, it claimed a little more.

Iris was at the rim when the first ones came toward her. She opened her arms and stood like a shield. “Go back!” she cried. “It's just a few minutes. You don't know what you're doing!”

Perhaps. They were certainly an odd lot, this group of the first minute. They exhibited a curious insolence, with a funny tinge of irony. Eight or ten came directly up and stood about her. They could have pushed her over in a second. At first she thought they were going to answer her, and thus she looked to the oldest, a man in his middle fifties. He leered like a drunk, pressing his face up close till his nose touched hers. Then he pulled back and dived over with a queer scream.

The others laughed coarsely, pointing at Iris as if the joke were all on her. And then, in roughly descending order according to age, they stepped out into the air, each with a lovely scream—like they were riding on a roller coaster. Iris shouted “No!” at every fall, but no one listened. One was thirty. One was twenty. One was about sixteen—

“Harriet!” Iris shrieked, half a second late, and stood there all alone with nothing in her hands. She could hear the excited cries break off, one by one as the bodies hit the water. The sun wasn't even a quarter closed. “
Do
something!” Iris called across to Michael.

He still sat perched on his rock, gazing dully at the broken sky. “Me?” he shouted back. The contempt was clear from fifty feet away. “No—
you
, Iris. You listen.”

Listen to what? That shouting? She knew what it was, better than he did. Her people were clamoring in the light, banging on the trapdoor, begging to be released. Of course she owed them a moment's comfort. She'd get to them as soon as she was finished here. But if she didn't save the others now, soon it would be too late. She checked the sky: about a third. Waves of flame were lapping round the disk of the intruding moon, rather as if they were fighting back. Or no: as if they were trying to embrace it. The light was growing spectral on the cliff, turning them all to ghosts. If only they could see there was nothing final in it. The tricks of light were fleeting as a dream.

The victims of the second minute were easily sixty strong. They were a little more frightened than those who'd gone before, but they were also the best behaved. They gathered themselves in clusters of three or four, clearly matched by body type and coloring. Families, without a doubt. They seemed to take a certain pride in simply having come this far together. Tears were in their eyes, but they held their heads up high. They didn't seem fanatic in the least. As the first of the clans reached the rim, the light turned silver-gold. They exchanged a final melancholy look, shut their eyes, and went. There wasn't the breath of a scream.

Iris ran up to put herself in the way. The families were queuing up at a spot where the ledge was cantilevered out. They could have gone over anywhere, but the order seemed to calm them. The fathers winked at the teenage sons. The women pointed up at the morning fireworks, losing themselves in simpering banalities. When Iris tried to rail at them, they walked right by her as if she weren't there. They stepped off the edge like people getting into lifeboats.

Iris lurched away and ran toward the lighthouse. She hated all this pointless courage. If only they would kick and scream like children, maybe they'd have a chance. The moon was almost midpoint on the sun. Go with the living, she told herself. It wasn't till she reached the light and turned her mind to the gnashing of the saved that she realized none of the children had come to the park at all.

Maybe they'd escaped. As she gripped the latch on the lighthouse door, she thought how well it would all turn out if the children at least had made it to the woods. Soon they would be free. Then she could be their teacher. She dared not imagine any more, for fear of how the powers of the air would turn it all against her.

She stepped inside and stared at the quaking trapdoor under the stairs, as if she had X-ray eyes and could see which ones were pounding hardest. Suddenly there was a hush. The beating stopped. Then a lot of scurry and whispering, like rats. It was Roy who spoke, his mouth right up against a crack between the boards.

“Iris? You there?” She nodded soberly. Made no sound. He was doing all he could to come off generous and giving. “Hey, listen,” he said, “we've waited all our lives for this. Free us, will you? That's what you're here for, isn't it?”

God, she was sick of morals. She could hardly remember anymore just what she was saving these people for. If everyone would only wait four minutes, they could do whatever they liked. In her head she started to count the seconds.

“Iris, please,” whispered Roy, “don't make us live in the wilderness. We hate it here.”

Don't stay then, Iris thought. Go home.

“We don't fit in anymore,” he said, as if he read her mind as easily as Michael did. “Not anywhere. Just let us go.”