Everville

  She was too exhausted to refuse. She tossed the keys in his direction. “Pick ’em up and open the door,” she told him. While he did so she cast a glance up at the mountain, which was just visible between the houses opposite. There was a smoking spiral of mist around the summit.

  “Do you know what’s going on up there?” Seth said.

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  “It’s dangerous, right?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Buddenbaum says—”

  “Have you got the door open yet?”

  “Yeah.” He pushed it wide.

  “Put on the light.” He did so. “I don’t want to talk about Buddenbaum till I’m sure the kid’s okay,” she said, stepping into the house.

  “But he says—”

  “I don’t give a shit what he says,” she told him calmly. “Now, are you going to help me or are you going to get out?”

  * * *

  III

  Harry and Raul were almost at the tree line when Raul stopped in his tracks.

  “Somebody’s talking—” he said.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Well I do,” Raul replied, looking around. There was nobody in sight. “I heard voices like this before, when I was sharing Tesla’s head.”

  “Who the hell is it?”

  “The dead, I think.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Aren’t you bothered?”

  “Depends what they want.”

  “He’s saying something about his wife, finding his wife—”

  * * *

  “He hears me!” Coker yelled. “Thank God! He hears me!”

  Erwin looked back up at the mountaintop, thinking again of what Dolan had said, standing outside his candy store: We’re like smoke. Maybe it wasn’t so bad as that, being smoke, if the world was going to be overtaken by what he’d seen up there, coming through a crack in the sky.

  Coker, meanwhile, was still talking to the creature who’d saved D’Amour, directing him into the trees . . .

  There were two people there in the shadows. One a woman of some antiquity, sitting with her back to a tree trunk, drinking from a silver flask. The other a man lying face-down a few yards from her.

  “He’s dead,” the woman said as Harry leaned over to examine the man. “Damn him.”

  “Are you one of Zury’s people?” Harry asked her.

  The woman hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat on the ground inches from Harry’s foot. “Mary Mother of God, do I look like one of Zury’s people?” She jabbed her finger in Raul’s direction. “That’s one of his!”

  “He may look like one,” Harry replied, “but he’s got the soul of a man.”

  “Thank you for that,” Raul said to Harry.

  “Well, and are you man enough to carry me down?” the woman said to Harry. “I’d like to see my city before the world goes to Hell.”

  “Your city?”

  “Yes, mine! My name’s Maeve O’Connell, and that damn place”—she pointed down through the trees towards Everville—“wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for me!”

  “Listen to her,” Coker rhapsodized. “Oh Lord in Heaven, listen to her.” He was kneeling beside the harridan, his bestial face covered in bliss. “I know now why I didn’t go to oblivion, Erwin. I know why I waited on the mountain all these years. To be here to see her face. To hear her voice.”

  “She’ll never know,” Erwin said.

  “Oh but she will. This fellow Raul will be my go-between. She’s going to know how much I loved her, Erwin. How much I still love her.”

  “I don’t want your hands on me!” Maeve was roaring at Raul. “It’s this man’s back I’ll be on or I’ll damn well crawl down there on my hands and knees.” She turned to Harry. “Now are you going to pick me up or not?”

  “That depends,” said Harry.

  “On what?”

  “On whether you can shut your mouth or not.”

  The woman looked as though she’d just been slapped. Then her narrow mouth twitched into a smile. “What’s your name?” she said.

  “D’Amour.”

  “As in love?”

  “As in love.”

  She grunted. “That never got me any place I wanted to go,” she said.

  “She doesn’t mean that,” Coker said. “She can’t—”

  “People change,” Erwin said. “How many years has it been?”

  “I haven’t changed,” Coker said.

  “You can’t be the judge of that,” Erwin replied. “It’s no use breaking your heart over this.”

  “Easy for you to say. What did you ever feel?”

  “Less than I should,” Erwin replied softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Coker said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Whether you meant it or not it’s the truth,” Erwin said, turning his gaze from the woman—who was now clambering up onto D’Amour’s back—and again studying the Heights. “You think there’s more time than there is,” he said, half to himself. “And there’s always less. Always.”

  “Are you going to come with us?” Coker said.

  “I’m glad for you,” Erwin replied. “Seeing your wife again. I’m really glad.”

  “I want you to be part of it, Erwin.”

  “That’s nice to say. But—I’m better, staying here. I’ll be in the way.”

  Coker slipped his arm around Erwin’s shoulder. “What’s to see here?” he said. “Come on—they’re leaving us behind.”

  Erwin glanced round. The trio were already twenty yards away down the slope. “Come see the city my sweet lady built,” Coker said. “Before it disappears forever.”

  TEN

  I

  After the tumult, silence.

  The rain of stones dwindled to a drizzle and then ceased altogether. The sea calmed its frenzy, and came lisping against the shore, its waters thickened into mud. There was no sign of life moving in its shallows, unless the glistening remnants of Iad’s eggs, bobbing in the filth, could be called life. Nor were there birds.

  Phoebe sat amid the rubble of what had once been Liverpool’s harbor, and wept. Behind her, the ships that had once swayed at anchor here were smashed in the streets; streets that had been reduced to gorges between piles of smoking debris.

  What now? she thought. Plainly there was no way home. And little or no hope of finding Joe, now that she’d lost her guides in this wilderness. She could bear the idea of never seeing Everville again—easily—but the thought of being separated from Joe forever was unendurable. She would have to hide that likelihood from herself for a while, or else she’d lose her sanity.

  She turned her thoughts to the fate of King Texas. Could rock die, she wondered, or was he simply lying low for a while, to recover his strength? If the latter, perhaps he might show his face again and help her in her search. A negligible hope, to be sure, but enough to keep her from utter despair.

  After a time, her stomach began to rumble, and knowing that hunger would only make her weepier, she got up and headed into the devastation in search of sustenance.

  Just a couple of miles from where she wandered, Joe stood in the veils of dust still falling where the door had been, and turned over the significance of all he’d witnessed. This was not, he knew, a total victory; not by any stretch of the imagination. For one, some portion of the Iad had found its way over the threshold into the Cosm before the shore rose to annex it. For another, he was by no means certain the greater part, which now lay buried somewhere under his spirit’s feet, was dead. And for a third, he doubted the continent from which this force had come was now deserted. The invasion party might have been defeated, but the nation that had sent it out was still intact, somewhere beyond the Ephemeris. It would come again, he knew. And again, and again. Whatever the Iad were—the dreamers or the dreamed—whatever ambitions they nurtured, they had today sent a force into the Helter Incendo, where it would doubtless be able to prepare for a larger, and perhaps definitive, in
vasion.

  Whether he would have any part to play in the defense of the Cosm he didn’t know and, for now at least, he didn’t much care. He had the more immediate of his own identity to solve. It had been a fine adventure that had brought him in a circle back to this spot: the voyage on The Fanacapan, that sweet reunion with Phoebe in the weeds, the journey to b’Kether Sabbat, his final encounter with Noah and his discoveries in the belly of the Iad—all of it extraordinary. But now the journey was over. The Fanacapan was sunk; Phoebe was somewhere in Everville, mourning him; b’Kether Sabbat was presumably in ruins; Noah dead; the Iad buried.

  And what was he, who had taken that journey? Not a living man, for certain. He’d lost all that he could have identified as Joe, except for the thoughts he was presently shaping, and how certain were they? Was he then some function of the dream-sea? Or a sliver of the Zehrapushu? Or just a memory of himself, that would fade with time?

  What, damn it, what?

  At last, exasperated by his own ruminations, he decided to make his way back into the street in search of the fire watchers who had seemed to see him in the form of their answered prayers. Perhaps if he discovered one among them who understood the rudiments of life after death he might find some way to communicate, and learn to understand his condition. Or failing that to simply come to peace with it.

  Phoebe returned to Maeve O’Connell’s house on Canning Street more by accident than intention, though when she finally found herself standing before its gates she could not help but think that her instincts had brought her there. The house was in better shape than most she’d passed, but it had not survived the cataclysm unscathed. Half of its roof had fallen in, exposing both beams and bedrooms, and the path to the front door was littered with slate, guttering, and broken glass.

  Once inside, however, she found the lower level almost exactly as she left it. With her stomach demanding its due she went straight to the kitchen, where mere hours before she’d got herself tipsy on mourningberry juice, and made herself something to eat. This time there was no judicious sandwich construction. She simply heaped cold cuts and pickles and bread and cheese and a variety of fruits into the middle of the table and set to. Her stomach was tamed after ten minutes or so and she slowed her rate of consumption somewhat, washing her food down with a spritzer made of two parts water to one of the juice. After half a glass of this a pleasant languor crept upon her, and she allowed herself to muse on the subjects that had earlier brought tears.

  Perhaps, after all, she had a few things to be grateful for. She wasn’t dead, which was a wonder. She wasn’t crazy. She’d never again sleep and wake in the bed she’d shared with Morton all those years, nor turn up to work on a drizzling Monday morning and find half a dozen flu-ridden depressives dripping on the step, but was any of that cause for sorrow or self-pity? No. She had followed her best hope for happiness through a door that had slammed behind her. There was no way back, and it was no use sniveling about it.

  The wind had risen while she was eating and was blowing dust against the kitchen window, darkening the interior. She got up and found an oil lamp, which she lit and carried upstairs, lighting lamps as she went. It was a little eerie. The empty passageways, the empty rooms, the paintings on the walls—which she’d really not noticed when she’d first explored the house but which were almost all risqué—staring down at her. Every now and again the rock beneath the city would growl and settle. The walls would creak. The windows would rattle.

  Eventually she found her way up to Maeve O’Connell’s suite, the ceiling of which was still intact, and feeling like a thief (and enjoying the feeling) she examined the contents of the three wardrobes and the chest of drawers. There were clothes in abundance, of course, and hats and books and perfumes and bric-a-brac, endless bric-a-brac.

  Had the old woman dreamed all this into being, Phoebe wondered, the way King Texas had described her dreaming the city? Had she spoken the clothes, then slept and woken to find them hanging here, ready to be worn and fitting perfectly?

  If so, Phoebe was going to have to learn the trick of it, because nothing in these wardrobes was faintly suitable, and her summer dress had been reduced to filthy tatters. And while she was dreaming things up, maybe she’d supply herself with a few luxury items. A television (would she have to dream the programs too? if so, they’d all be reruns), a modern toilet (the plumbing in the house was primitive), perhaps an ice cream maker.

  And maybe, eventually, a companion. Why not? If she was going to live the rest of her life here—and it seemed she had no choice in the matter—then she was damned if she’d spend those years alone. Sure, she’d seen some survivors in the ruins on her way here, but why look for solace among strangers when she could conjure up somebody for herself?

  At last, having searched the room from one end to the other, she realized that she hadn’t opened the drapes and, with much effort (there were several thicknesses of fabric, and they’d not been moved, she guessed, in many years), she managed to haul the drapes apart. She was not prepared for the splendor of the sight that awaited her. The window that the drapes had concealed was huge. It offered her a panorama of what had once been the harbor, and beyond it, Quiddity, its once-crazed waters placid. Though there was no sun in the sky, there was nevertheless a pinprick clarity to the scene. If she’d had the desire and the patience she could surely have counted every ripple on the face of the dream-sea.

  Gazing out over the waters, she remembered with a sigh her meeting with Joe, in the bed of weeds. Remembered how she’d almost lost herself into the bliss of formlessness, while he, and they, had pleasured her. Was it possible, she wondered, to dream Joe? To close her eyes and raise from memory the man she had lost? It wouldn’t be the real thing, of course, but better some semblance of him, like a treasured photograph, than nothing at all. Perhaps he might even share a bed with her.

  She put her hand to her cheek. She was hot.

  “You should be ashamed, Phoebe Cobb,” she told herself with a little smile.

  Then she dragged a coverlet and a pillow off Maeve’s four-poster (she couldn’t bring herself to sleep among the litter of King Texas’s love-letters) and, making a bed for herself in the glittering light off the dream-sea, she lay down to see if she could bring herself a likeness of the man she loved.

  ELEVEN

  I

  There’s somebody outside,” Seth said.

  They were in the kitchen, Tesla at the table trying to coax Amy into eating a few spoonfuls of cereal mushed up in warm milk, Seth eating baked beans cold from the can while he gazed out at the dark yard. “You think it’s the avatars?”

  “Probably,” Tesla said. She glanced up and stared out into the gloom. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel their gaze.

  “Owen told me—” Seth said.

  “Owen?”

  “Buddenbaum. He says we’re like apes to them. When they watch us, it’s like us going to the zoo.”

  “Is that right?” Tesla said. “Well, for what it’s worth I’ve been taught a thing or two by an ape in my time.”

  “You mean Raul.”

  She looked at the boy. “How do you know about Raul?”

  “Owen told me all about you. He knows everything about who you are, where you’ve been, who you’ve hooked up with—”

  “Why the hell would I be of any interest to him?”

  “He said you were . . . you were—”

  “The gist’ll do.”

  “A significant irrelevancy,” Seth beamed. “That’s what he said exactly. I asked him what that meant, and he said you being here was all an accident, because you don’t belong in this story—”

  “Fuck the story.”

  “I don’t see how we can,” Seth said. “Whatever we do, wherever we go, we’re still telling the story.”

  “Buddenbaum again.”

  “No. Seth Lundy.” He set down his can of beans. “Here,” he said. “Let me have a go at feeding her.”

  Tesla didn’t argue. S
he let Seth relieve her of the baby, who had so far refused her ministrations, and headed out into the backyard, where she guessed she’d have a view of the Heights. The guess was good. She had to wander twenty, twenty-five yards from the house before the summit cleared the roof, but when it came into view there was much to see. The mist circling the summit had become ragged, and when she studied the holes she glimpsed large, clotted forms moving there.

  “The Iad’s here,” she announced.

  “We didn’t know until now,” said a voice out of the darkness.

  She didn’t bother to look round to find the speaker. It was one of the trio; which one of them was academic.

  “Buddenbaum didn’t tell you?” Tesla said.

  “No.”

  “Strange.”

  “We’re not certain he knew,” said another voice. This she recognized as that of the little girl, Rare Utu.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Tesla said, still studying the mountain. What were they doing up there? Nesting? “You’re here. The Iad’s here. That’s no accident.”

  “You’re right,” came the reply. “But that doesn’t mean it was planned. The history of Sapas Humana is filled with synchronicities.”

  She turned to them now. They were standing on the darkness a dozen yards from her, barely delineated by the light from the kitchen windows. Looking at them now she realized they were not as indistinguishable from one another as she’d thought. Rare Utu stood a little way to the right, her face carrying just a trace of the girlishness she had pretended. Some distance from her was the individual who’d passed himself off as a jug-eared comedian, Haheh. Again, though the signs of his public face were subtle, they were there to be seen. And closest to Tesla, his features the most plainly tainted by his assumed personality, was the moronic child, Yie. Of the three it was he who regarded Tesla with the most suspicion.

  “You seem to know human beings very well,” she said.

  “Oh yes,” Haheh replied. “We never tire of seeing the Great and Secret Show played out.”