And all the time a great dark something was moving beneath these glinting bits, as though he, the observing eye, were a diver floating just beneath the surface while something impossibly large, something too big and traveling too deep to be fully comprehensible, passed slowly, slowly beneath him. It did not know he was there, and his fascination with it was almost as great as his naked terror, but nothing in the universe could have been more exposed than he was, a worm without even a hook, floating above the great shadow. . . .
Doom. . . .
This third step brought the dark, as though the Big Nothing passing beneath him had risen and, without realizing it, accidentally swallowed him whole. Dark surrounded him now, permeated him, but it was a darkness that burned, the darkness inside the oven after the door has closed.
He screamed, but there were no words. He knew no words. There were flashes of light, but they had no more meaning than the burning darkness. He was not only bodiless but nameless. He had no brothers, no sisters, no fathers, no mothers, only pain and confusion. He was a singularity, one infinite point at the center of everything, and all that surrounded him was finite. He turned himself inside out over and over again.
The oscillations came faster now, hotter now, faster and hotter and he could not he tried but there was no sense or sound or sight or anything but fast and hot and. . . .
Faster hotter faster hotter broken-backed jerking scratch needle white heat can't stop strike out no no more no make it no faster hot stop make no it won't it too stop hurting not why understand no hot make faster inside stop inside hotter outside stop make faster no make hotter it stop. . . .
Stopmakeitstopitwon'twhywon'titmakeit. . . .
And then something finally did. Something blue, something quiet, something clingingly cool poured over and made everything slow down, slow down, blessed creeping syrupy slow frost that held him and covered him and let his deep black empty heart go slow, go so very slow, until it beat only once in an age, once in an aeon, once when everything began and then again when everything would finally stop. . . .
Doom. . . . The fourth step.
And with that singular and potent reverberation came nothingness. And it was welcome.
He came up nameless, out of fundamental blankness into another, lesser blackness, a still place with no time except now. He only knew it was a place because he had a sense of himself as an individual thing, and thus a dim feeling that anything that existed must exist in a place, but he was in no hurry to know where he was, or even who he was. With the acceptance of personal existence came a certain commitment, he knew, and he did not wish anything so strenuous or permanent just yet.
The blackness, although it encompassed everything, nevertheless had a shape, a shape he had seen before, wide at the bottom, narrow at the top—a mountain, a cup emptied and then turned over, a pyramid. . . . He was in the darkness—of the darkness—but he could still feel the impossible geometry of the black form, the vertices both converging and simultaneously extending upward in parallel, forever.
And as he felt himself alive and tiny and for this moment unnoticed in the heart of the black pyramid, something began to sizzle in the emptiness. When he saw the torn place moving before him, he realized that what had ripped the darkness was light, a fizzing irregular glow like a Fourth of July sparkler. . . .
. . . His parents' balcony, him with a cripplingly bad respiratory infection and too sick to go down to the fireworks, even those on the compound's green, but his parents having their own show just for him on the balcony, so he could watch it from his bed. . . .
The jagged place tore more widely, light spilling out now. For a moment—only a moment—he was disappointed to see the beautiful darkness compromised so easily and so carelessly. But as he floated in all that black he could not look away from the light, which was spreading before him, becoming a field of regular shapes, angled lines, a grid that turned inside out from white lines on black to black lines on a white. . . .
. . . Ceiling. . . .
. . . And he came to realize he was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling of some institutional room, all insulated tile and easy-clean surfaces.
Hospital. The word came to him after a moment, and with it the slowly dawning realization that he must have awakened—that he must somehow have been thrown out of the network and back into his body. Another thought came to him tardily, and he braced himself for the pain that . . . that . . . (the name finally came) that Fredericks had described, but after long moments of looking up at the acoustic tiles, it still had not arrived. He had, however, become aware of two other presences on either side of the bed, leaning over him, which could only be his mother and father. A quiet joy filled him as he opened his eyes.
The shape on his left side was hidden by shadow, so deeply hidden that he could not see it, only feel it. What he perceived was sentience, but also emptiness and the cold that came with it. It was not a pleasant feeling.
The shape on his right had a head that was nothing but light.
I've been here, he thought. But it was an office, not a hospital. When I first . . . when I first came through. . . .
Hello, Orlando, said the thing with the face made invisible by its own brilliance. It spoke with his mother's voice, but it was not his mother, not by any stretch of imagination. We have missed you. Although we have not been very far from you.
Who is "we"? He struggled to rise but could not. The thing on his left side moved, the chilly shape he could not quite see; for a heart-stopping moment he was terrified that it would touch him. He turned away violently, but the light on the other side was blindingly bright, so he was forced to turn his face back toward the acoustic tiles. A small thing was crawling there, a tiny thing, perhaps a bug, and he pinned his attention to it.
"We," in the sense of "I," the not-his-mother continued. "You," I suppose it could even be said. But of course that would not be strictly accurate either.
He could make no sense of that. Where am I? What is this place?
The thing of light hesitated. A dream, I suppose. Perhaps that would be the best explanation.
So I'm talking to myself? So this is all in my head?
The cold fire rippled. He realized the shape was laughing. As if angered by this, the shadowy thing on his left periphery shifted. He thought he could hear it breathing, a slow, somnolent sound from a long way away. No, no, the shape on his right said. Nothing so simplistic. You're talking to yourself, yes, but that's because that's where words come from.
Am I dead?
That word doesn't mean much in this particular conversation. The glow rose a little, the fierce radiance bringing a tear to Orlando's right eye. He blinked as it continued. You are between. You are near a boundary. You are halfway between Heaven and Hell—a place which, medieval theology aside, has nothing to do with Earth at all.
Are you . . . God? Even in his distraction and disconnection, a part of him did not believe it. It all seemed too pat, too simple. The cold thing on the other side of him leaned closer, or seemed to—he felt a chill shadow inch across him, and he shut his eyes tight, terrified that he might see what stood there.
The voice that went with the radiant face was kind. Here's the question, Orlando. It's kind of a Sunday School question. . . .
Eyes tightly shut, he waited, but the silence went on. Just as he was about to risk everything and open his eyes, the soft voice spoke again.
If God is all-powerful, then the Devil must be nothing more than a darkness in the mind of God. But if the Devil is something real and separate, then perfection is impossible, and there can be no God . . . except for the aspirations of fallen angels. . . .
Orlando strained to hear as the voice, which had grown steadily fainter, whispered the last word. As if he might hear better with his vision restored, he opened his eyes to. . . .
Blackness, complete and absolute and containing nothing but. . . .
Doom. . . .
For the second time in what seemed a very short
span, he appeared to be back in a hospital. His eyes were tight shut, and the idea that those same odd bookend figures might still be sitting over him meant he was in no hurry to open them, but Orlando could tell that he was flat on his back, restrained by sheets or something equally binding, and someone was dabbing at his forehead with a cold, damp cloth.
Also contributing to the hospital theory was the fact that he felt absolutely dreadful.
"He just blinked," said Fredericks in the excited tone of someone who has been watching for something a long time.
"Oh, God," Orlando groaned. "I'm still . . . alive, then? God, that locks utterly."
"That's not funny, Gardiner."
As he opened his eyes a second sarcastic remark died on his lips. It was not Fredericks cooling his brow, but a round Egyptian woman with dark skin and an impatient expression. "Who are you?" Orlando asked.
"Just hush your mouth." She sounded far more Deep South than Nile Delta. "You were almost dead, boy, so I think you'd better keep still for a bit."
Orlando looked to Fredericks, hovering behind her, and mouthed, Who is she? His friend shrugged helplessly. The room decor gave no clues—the walls were whitewashed mud brick, the ceiling white plaster, and there was no furniture in the room other than whatever kind of lumpy, pillowless bed was beneath him.
The woman put a gentle but firm hand against his chest and pressed him back onto the rustling mattress. When he tried to resist, he realized that some kind of rough blanket had been tucked around him very tightly: his arms were virtually pinned against his sides.
"What's going on?" he blustered, frightened to be so helpless. "Are you planning to make me into a mummy or something?"
"Don't be stupid." She dabbed a last time and then stood up, fists on her full hips. Even with Fredericks wearing his slight-bodied Pithlit sim, she only came up to his shoulder. If Orlando had been vertical, the Thargor body would have towered over her. "You aren't a king, you're just an ordinary god like your friend here, and you're not even dead. You just don't rate mummification, boy. Now say your prayers and then get some sleep."
"What are you talking about? Who are you? What's going on here?"
"You were really sick again, Orlando." Fredericks looked to the woman as though asking permission to speak, but she did not look away from her patient. "When we came through . . . when we were out of that temple place . . . you were. . . ."
"You were acting like a crazy person," the woman said matter-of-factly. "Hootin' and hollerin' and carrying on something terrible. You tried to kick your way through the wall of somebody's house, and then you tried to walk across the Nile."
"Oh, my God. . . ." Orlando shuddered. "But how did I get here? And why won't you tell me who you are?"
The woman squinted at him as though judging whether he was worth the effort of serious conversation. "Watch that cursing, boy. My name is Bonita Mae Simpkins. My family call me Bonnie Mae, but you don't know me that well, so for now you can call me Mrs. Simpkins."
The headache which had been merely excruciating at first was getting worse every moment. Orlando could feel his eyelid twitching badly, but that was the least of his worries. "I . . . I want to get some answers, but I feel pretty impacted," he conceded.
"You're not well, boy, that's why. You need more sleep." She frowned, but her touch was gentle on his forehead. "Here." She drew something from a fold of her baggy white cotton dress. "Swallow this. It'll make you feel a little better."
Under the pressure of that gaze, he did not argue, but dry-swallowed the powdery ball. "What is it?"
"Egyptian medicine," she said. "They make a lot of it from crocodile poop." For the first time she allowed herself a quick smile at Orlando's horrified expression. "But not this. Just willow bark. Another few thousand years, I 'spect they'll call it aspirin."
Orlando was not as amused as Mrs. Simpkins, but he had no strength left to tell her so. He lay back. Fredericks squatted beside him and took his hand. "You'll be okay, Gardiner."
Orlando wanted to remind his friend that okay was the one thing he would never, ever be, but already something was dragging him down, like river weeds tangling the legs of a drowning man.
He felt a little better the next time he woke, and after some bargaining was even allowed to sit up. All his nerves felt like they were coming back to life. Whatever was stuffed in his mattress felt as bristly as horsehair, and the light streaming in through the doorway of the room splashed with almost painful brightness against the white walls.
When Mrs. Simpkins wandered off briefly to another room, he called Fredericks over. "What's going on?" he whispered. "What happened with the temple and how did we get here? Where is here, anyway?"
"It's someone's house." Fredericks looked over his shoulder to make sure the formidable Mrs. S. was not in sight. "Pretty big, too. She was telling the truth, though—you were scanned out. A bunch of guys with, like, clubs were going to kill you, but she calmed you down."
"But where are we? It's still Egypt, right? How did we wind up here?"
Fredericks' face was unhappy. "Egypt, yeah, but I don't really know the rest. After we reached the temple place—I really thought some kind of monster was going to come out of there and just utterly devour us or something—I guess I blacked out, then I just kind of . . . woke up again. And you were gone. But we were near the edge of the river, and there was like this big city around us. And then I heard people shouting, and I went to look, and it was you, and you were standing in the river, scanning majorly, shouting something about God's offices."
"I don't remember any of that," said Orlando, shaking his head. "But I had some really weird . . . I don't know, dreams, experiences . . . about that temple place." He had a sudden, worried thought. "Where are the monkey kids?"
"They're here. They just won't come inside—that woman scares them. They were all climbing around on you when you were still sleeping, the first afternoon, and she chased 'em out with a broom. I think they're living in a tree in the open place out there—what's it called, a courtyard?"
"I don't get any of this. . . ." Orlando said. "I mean, what's someone named Bonnie Mae doing in ancient Egypt. . . ?"
"There weren't a lot of folk named Orlando Gardiner laboring to build Pharaoh's pyramids either," said a sharp voice from the doorway. "Now were there?"
Fredericks started back guiltily. "He's feeling better," Orlando's friend asserted, "so he was asking some questions."
"Well he might," Mrs. Simpkins said. "Well he might. And I s'pose I might have a couple myself. Like, where you got this, and why you were hanging onto it so tight there are still finger marks in the clay?" She held up the piece of broken pot, waving the feather design in front of Orlando's face. "Talk to me, boy. The good Lord don't care for liars—He cannot abide those who do not tell the truth."
"Look," Orlando said, "no offense, but why should I tell you anything? I don't know who you are. I mean, thanks for taking care of us and giving us a place to stay, but maybe we should just get going now, let you have your house back." He tried to climb to his feet, then had to try even harder to avoid falling down. His legs felt overcooked, and even the effort of steadying himself brought his breath fast and frequent.
Bonita Mae Simpkins' laugh was mirthless. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. First off, you couldn't walk around the corner yet without your friend helping you. Second, in another hour it's going to be dark, and if you're outside, you'll get torn to pieces. You ain't the Daniel of this lion's den."
"Torn to pieces?"
"You tell him," she said to Fredericks. "I don't take well to being argued with these days." She folded her arms across her broad chest.
"There's . . . there's some kind of war going on," Fredericks said. "It's not very safe outside at night."
"Not very safe?" the woman snorted. "The Lord has given you a gift for understatement that is truly miraculous, youngster. The streets of Abydos are full of abominations, and that's the truth. Creatures with the heads of vul
tures and bees, men and women who throw lightning and ride in flying boats, scorpions with human hands, monsters you can't even imagine. It's like the Final Days out there, like the Book of Revelations, if the good Lord will forgive me saying so about a place that ain't no more than a poor copy of His universe in the first place, no more than the work of sinful men." She fixed Orlando with an agate eye. "And what's more, from what I understand, all this craziness is your fault, boy."
"What?" Orlando turned to Fredericks, who shrugged and looked sheepish. "What is she talking about?"
"Well," his friend said, "you remember Oompa-Loompa? The guy with the wolf head? Apparently, he sort of started some kind of revolution."
"Osiris is gone at the moment, but his lieutenants Tefy and Mewat are wrathful creatures," said Mrs. Simpkins. "They are going to do their level best to get things back under control before their boss comes back, and to creatures like them, that means a lot of pain and a lot of killin'—and they've already done a goodly amount. So don't tell me what you're going to do or not do, boy."
Orlando could only sit for a moment in horrified silence, trying to make sense of it all. The angle of the light on the far wall had changed already, the shadows creeping up the whitewash, and with the woman's words still echoing in his thoughts he could almost feel the held breath of a community waiting fearfully for darkness to come. "So . . . so what are we supposed to do? What's all this mean to you . . . Ma'am?"
Mrs. Simpkins grunted, signifying her approval of a more respectful Orlando. "What it means to me is more than you're ready to hear yet, boy, but you came stomping through the tomb-builders' neighborhood with the feather of Ma'at clamped in your hand like it was your last friend, and I mean to know why."