There is an air of joy in K today, as the community meets itself, a sense of paradise. We are the immortals and this is our Olympus. It was a lucky day when I took the job in the pets’ graveyard.
Another jump. This time there was a tension in Liv’s voice that had not been there before.
Freyday January 26th.
Today’s is a tale of two women. For my part, it is a happy tale.
Liv Sylwan is a whore. A very exceptional whore. (Curious, by the way, how many whores chose Calf Island. It must be a very fulfilling job.) Liv rejoices in being beautiful and enjoys working with her body. She is without shame. She is also gifted with command. The brothel became hers instantly. Jocasta, who lies second to her, so to speak, was the only real opposition. I like Jocasta. But Liv is … well, Liv is.
I must confess that until the Rose I had never been what you might term a sexual giant. A pigmy would be more accurate for all my bulk. I didn’t blame the ladies, dear sweet bebummed betitted things. Who would want to be squashed under me? The Rose gave me confidence. I journeyed to new worlds where fat men were as much in demand as Rubens ladies. The terror of the titties, I. Virgil Jones, a sex-symbol! Remarkable.
I cannot quite believe that Liv Sylwan wants me. She said she did, though, and I must not call her a liar. So she does. But why? In heaven’s name, why? She says she will give up her work to keep house for Deggle and Grimus and myself—I cannot understand it. But I will not look the gift horse in the mouth. It is a happy day, when beautiful women want ugly men simply because they like them.
We are going to be married. Grimus was apparently a monk once, in his old days, and he will marry us according to the rites of our church, though I am not terribly godly. Ceremonies are fun.
As for Grimus … he’s an odd bird, to coin a phrase. I’ve never been one for judging the attractiveness of men, so I’d have said Nicholas Deggle was the best-looking of the three of us. Apparently not. Grimus is the one they all covet, the favourite of the whores (except, of course, my own Liv), the darling of farmer’s wife and Russian countess alike. The trouble is he shows no interest in them. It’s that monkish background. Trained to celibacy. Perhaps that’s the attraction. He’s hard to get.
The Axona Indian woman called Bird-Dog is the most persistent. As plain a girl as You’ll see, she dogs his footsteps as her name suggests she would. He has no time for her, though she fawns on him. She probably sees him as some kind of shaman, and worships him, poor simple child. She’ll tire of it.
Interesting fact arising from Bird-Dog’s presence here. Grimus became much taken once with the notion of finding his own double. —Logically, he said, in an infinite universe, there must be a precise duplicate of myself. That doesn’t interest me. What I’m after is a certain similarity. A likeness to me which is also entirely alien.
He was very pleased when the Axona Plateau loomed up in the Watercrystal. It hasn’t worked out as he hoped, though. Bird-Dog’s brother hasn’t chosen Calf Island yet. Perhaps he will, perhaps he won’t.
Perhaps it wasn’t really Grimus’ hope that he would. One can never be entirely sure with him.
Liv turned several pages, jerkily.
Thorsday April 5th
It’s all going wrong. I can feel it. The atmosphere of joy has gone. If that goes then it is no longer worth while. Though Grimus disagrees. —It is a Great Experiment, he says. It cannot fail. I am not sure that the force of his will can hold us together. Forever is such a long time.
Besides: the three of us never ran any suitability tests on ourselves. We took it for granted we deserved immortality, and then took it for granted that Calf Island was the place for us. We may have been entirely wrong.
The suicides are doing it. That’s what it is. Grimus is furious about them. They should never have come, he says. They should have drunk their blue bottles in peace, somewhere else. Not killed themselves here. Deggle says it’s like marriage, agreeing to come to Calf Island. A lot of people will inevitably want a divorce no matter how much in love they were at the time.
The suicides are turning people against us and Deggle is on their side. Is he right? No, he must be wrong. Everyone made a free choice. It’s not our fault.
Like a marriage … I was blind, of course. Liv doesn’t love me. I know that. I knew it then. I thought she liked me, though.
Liv loves power. She loves to be near the centre of power. She loves to be near Grimus. Through me, she is. There’s an end to it. An end to paradise. We do not make love. She talks to Grimus incessantly.
I overheard this:
—Your name, said Grimus. LIV. In the Roman numerology that is fifty-four. I was fifty-four when I drank the elixir. The numbers bind us.
I knew Grimus was interested in numerology. But is this simply a monkish, mystic bond? I am becoming a jealous man. Liv says I have nothing to be jealous of. She is right. There is nothing between us.
It’s all going wrong.
Tiusday May 1st.
Mayday, m’aidez. The grand design is broken and so are we. I will try, my friend, to recount events dispassionately, but I may not succeed.
Deggle started it. The violence.
Liv finished it.
But the beginning. Begin at the beginning, go on until you reach the end, then stop. Sound instructions. The beginning, then. Two nights ago. I was awakened by a terrible crash in the Rose Room. I rushed, as rapidly as my bulk permits, to the scene. Grimus was already there, in his ridiculous nightshirt and noddycap, a large, enraged goblin, staring at the disaster.
The Rose lay on the floor, its stem protruding from the coffin, which was overturned on top of the precious thing! And stooping over it, scowling, was Deggle.
I have felt for some time now that all was not well with Deggle, and wondered how much the growing dislike of Grimus and myself in the town was a result of his machinations. We have been passing through disenchanted times in K. Suicides apart (and thank the lord, that phase seems to be over) there have been a number of defections from K. People who have chosen to live elsewhere, in the wooded lower slopes, away from the town. K itself, stultified, discontented. Natural, I suppose, god help us, that they should vent their spleen upon the people responsible for Calf Island. But the violence … the whispers about destroying Grimus’ infernal machine … I had thought we had left violence behind. And the Rose itself … I do not even know about that anymore.
Control. Control.
Deggle has been spending much of his time in the Elba-room. Perhaps he saw himself as a kind of saviour. A popular messiah. A liberator. There has never been much love lost between us. Perhaps the enmity ran deeper than we believed.
At any rate. We found him trying to shatter the Rose! Grimus recovered quickly from the shock and, displaying astonishing strength, hurled him from the room. —It must be tested, he said, and for the rest of the night he was closeted with the Rose, adjusting, permuting, testing. It was dawn before he declared himself satisfied that no damage had been done.
No damage!
—We must not allow this to happen again, he said, with a fierceness in his voice I had heard only once before, in his short diatribe against authority. —The Rose is the most valuable thing on the island, he said. I cannot permit it to be jeopardized. Will you help me?
I was caught up in the fervour of those bright, hooded eyes. —How? I asked.
—By myself I am not sure I can do it, he said. It will take our combined wills. We must expel the vandal from the island. I visited Dota in the night: he has taught me a method. But it is difficult.
I won’t bother with the ensuing argument. Suffice to say that we went into the Rose Room, agreed. At once I felt uneasy.
How can I explain it? There was a sensation in the room, like a soft inaudible whine. No, not in the room. Inside my head. And it was strongest near the Rose. I asked Grimus what it was, in some anxiety. He dismissed it: it had not affected the Rose’s functions in any way. —It was only a whine, he said. Dota the Gorf had not be
en worried about it.
He set the Rose and we fixed our thoughts upon our intentions, repeating this form of words: IXSE SIXTTES SIXE IXSETES EXIS EXISTIS. A variant, I supposed, to the SISPI formula for Travel between potential presents.
Deggle has not been seen on Calf Island since. I must presume the expulsion worked. I do not know where we have sent him, but he has gone. No doubt the Water-crystal will spot him should we desire it. I do not desire it. Not now.
I have always thought of uses of the Rose as rites. They are so very unmechanical. So. When the rite was over, it happened. I felt dizzy. I was unwell, I was sure. Grimus was saying: —It is not enough to expel Deggle. We must remove the Rose to a safer place. I have a plan.
I could hardly hear his voice … it came and went, and went.
(Now, Virgil, dispassion, tell it calmly.)
The whine. It was the whine, somehow, it must have been. Holding the Rose all that time, so close. I wonder why Grimus was not affected…
The whine filled my head with shapes and pictures and beasts and terrors. Horrors. Horrors. I tried to escape and there was no escape. They were inside.
Hallucinations? No, they were too real, they could cause pain. No, I will not describe them, the infernal scenes I saw and felt, the depths I plumbed. It was as though an army of terrors from the recesses of my own imagination had been released, my inmost fears made flesh. Horrible, most horrible. No, I will say no more about it … the Dimension-fever. So Grimus called it.
When I came to my senses, Grimus sat by me solicitously, on the Rose Room floor. He had rescued me, tuning the Rose to my co-ordinates and willing me back from my inner depths. So the Rose can heal as well as hurt. I am more scared of it than I ever was.
Most of all I am scared because I can no longer use it.
Grimus wanted me to master it again, like a fallen mountaineer. He set the Rose for Thera and we grasped it.
I did not Travel I Try as I might, I could not use the Rose.
It is like a paralysis of the mind. It shuts me out from that insidious whine—but it shuts me out, too, from all the countless universes I have not yet seen. Calf Island is all I have now. And a bleak inheritance it is.
I shall be brief now, or else I shall become maudlin.
Grimus, using the Rose for intradimensional Travel for the first time, has removed himself—and it—to the mountain peak. With a great deal of effort, he has succeeded in building a double barrier against the island: a visual barrier of clouds which obscures him perennially from our sight, and a kind of forcefield which we cannot pass. There is one Gate. He showed it me in case things improved. They will not improve.
His departure has brought about the end of my—not marriage—cohabitation with Liv. I was obliged to watch the degrading spectacle of my wife pleading, begging Grimus to take her with him. Misogynist that he is, he refused. I found myself feeling angry with him for this, this, insult to my wife! Imagine that, my friend. So greatly am I reduced.
Picture Liv’s fury, then, when he took the woman Bird-Dog instead of her. An explicable choice. He wants a servant, not a mistress. The doting Axona will be a good servant, I expect. She thinks of him as a demi-god.
Liv’s fury, in the absence of Grimus, vented itself on me. She has said a number of cruel things I will not commit to this page. She despises me for not being his equal, though I never claimed I was. And for my paralysis, thanks to which she is barred from his company. She wants nothing to do with me. In her eyes, I am just a fat, weak man. Probably she is right. Yes. Probably she is.
The house where we lived is empty now. Liv has gone up the mountain, to be as near Grimus as possible, no doubt. She does not know the location of the Gate, nor how close she is. And even if she knew, Grimus would not let her pass. He will watch the island with his Watercrystal and defend the Rose, and his privacy. The Rose is all he cares for now.
I am being looked after by Jocasta. She has always been a friend to me. I suspect a rift between her and Liv. Because Liv scorns me, Jocasta adopts me. But I am past questioning motives; I accept companionship where it is offered.
Mayday, indeed.
Saturnday September 29th.
I am leaving K. It is a town made mad by a machine. Soldiers, policemen, actors, hunters, whores, drunks, wasters, philosophers, menials, morons, artisans, farmers, shoe-salesmen, artists, united by their common inability to cope with the world they have had imposed upon them, Especially as the whine grows worse, they say. I cannot hear it. It has driven some to distraction. It has led to what they now call the Way of K. Gribb’s way. Gribb and Mrs Gribb, who arrived recently. No doubt Grimus had a hand in their arrival, but now they deny him and his Effect. Obsessionalism is their defence. I cannot bear what is happening to K, place of erstwhile joy. If my mind is paralysed, at least my life is not.
Guilt. It must be someone’s fault. It is ours. It was our experiment. But the Rose … the Rose is a wonderful thing. How has it brought so much grief? It is a terrible thing, so much distortion caused by such a wonder. I must leave. I do not want to watch. The woman Dolores O’Toole is going down the mountain. I shall go with her.
As for you, my friend, I shall take my leave of you as well. I want no friends now. I shall sacrifice you to Liv in propitiation of the gods. I shall take you to her. She will probably rend you limb from limb or toss you casually aside, as she did me. That is your future. It may help me forget my past. It may help me forget K and the horrors that burnt my mind. You will be my means of self-immolation. Greater love hath no friend.
To your destroyer, I will say one last word. There was a moment, back in that fit-to-be-expunged past, when I thought she wanted me. The excellence of that moment is not dimmed by the discovery of my mistake. I thank her for it. Beginnings are always better than endings. Then, everything was possible. Now, nothing is.
Dark. The book shut, wrapped, replaced. The silent blackveiled woman rising to her feet, standing stiffly before him. A hen clucking, once. Outside, the frenzied padding of the diary’s author, searching for a door he knew he could not find or pass. And the hiding whore, crouching by the donkey, behind a tree, watching.
But she did not rend it limb from limb, thought Flapping Eagle.
—Fifty-four, said Liv in a flat, regular voice. He said it was a bond between us. His always-age, my name. He is a man who breaks his bond. I knew how he thought, knew how he felt, knew him. It was a bond beyond breaking and it was broken.
As she spoke she stooped over a group of candles on the floor and lit them with flints. Then she stood erect once more, the light yellowing upwards at her from the floor, casting great shadows on the wall. Flapping Eagle remembered: the goddess Axona had looked like this. Then. Ago. Before. And the recollection mingled with the revealed history of the island, losing itself in that gloom.
She had not been speaking to him. Again, the sense of ritual: the book recited, the candles lit, the litany spoken. This was how she lived her life, embalmed in the bitter formaldehyde of old hatreds and betrayals. Flapping Eagle felt sorry for her for an instant; then her eyes focused on him through the grill of her hood.
—Aaaaaah. It was a huge exhalation of air, sobbing out from her lungs.
—Of course, she said. Of course. You have returned. The Spectre of Grimus is here to make good the bond of Grimus. Of course. So it is.
She was different, Flapping Eagle realized. The recitation, the entire rite, had altered her. She spoke slowly now, distantly, as though in some kind of trance. The past had possessed her. And he, Flapping Eagle, had become a part of that past.
—Come, she said, backing towards the bed, beckoning. Come and consecrate your bond.
Flapping Eagle sat immobile in the chair, not knowing how to react.
—Look at my body, Spectre, said Liv. Is it not a suitable altar?
Her hands moved suddenly to the back of her neck, where they undid a fastening. The black robe fell to the floor. She stood unclothed before him, her face still hidden by the
black veil, the eyes looking out at him, piercing, perhaps even mocking, the candles casting their upwards yellow glow.
—Look at my body, Spectre, repeated Liv. Flapping Eagle looked.
Liv, ice-peak of perfection. Virgil had overstated nothing.
His eyes described her to his unbelieving mind. The feet, a little too large, stained with intricate henna tracery like an Indian bride; the long, tapered legs, the right bearing her weight and the left relaxed, so that the swayed curve of her hips was accented, sinuously, consciously; the tight curls of hair beneath her navel, unshaven, untrained, pale, nestling curls; the deep, deep navel, a dark pool in the whiteness of her skin; the breasts, small, the right slightly larger than the left, the left nipple tilted a fraction higher than its partner, but both still child-rosy, soft; the narrow, straight shoulders pushed back a fraction to an almost military angle, challenging, confident; the arms hanging straight and loose, palms of the hands facing forwards, third fingers curled beneath the thumbs, a generous hint of hair shadowing the pits of the arms. The rest, the neck and face and head, unseen beneath their hood, only hinted at by those sharply quizzical eyes. He looked at her now in the whole, the black garment lying at her feet, a forgotten shroud, the dancing candles on the floor sending rich shadows to flirt with the naked body, the chaos and filth of the room forgotten in the perfection of this vision. She knew how to display her body, just enough emphasis to heighten its beauty without obtrusion. A headless venus in a slum museum.
—Is it not a suitable altar? she said.
He nodded, wordlessly, and with a sudden movement of the right arm she removed the windowed hood. It fluttered to the floor to join its companion-robe.
He had known she would be beautiful; but he had failed to anticipate how subjugating that beauty would be. Flapping Eagle had to wrestle with himself to look into that face without instantly lowering his eyes. It was the loveliness of sun on ice, too brilliant to watch. Blinding, imperious perfection. The firm, long, narrow jaw, set and tilted upwards, and the wide, wide mouth without the vestige of a smile; the nose, short and straight, flanked by cheekbones like blades or sharp white cliffs. A long face, the bones perfectly balanced by those vast lucent pools of eyes, deepest aquamarine, eyes you could almost see through, eyes that saw, effortlessly, through you. And framing the head of the ice-queen, an abundance of waving gold, rising a few inches from a central division and crashing effusively around the glitter-hard face with the sea-soft eyes, a niagara of falling hair. It was the face that did it.