Time's Dark Laughter Part 2

The tumbrel rolled past a second set of gates, into the Inner City, and finally into the castle. Joshua felt every turn, saw every hallway reflected against the interior of his closed eyelids, through a lens of dark memories.

In time, he was put into a private cell. Still semiconscious, he felt himself washed, dressed, probed, and exam-hied by dozens of hands over the course of many hours- perhaps days. There were periods of light, dark; confusion. And then, finally, he woke up.

He found himself in a small, dirty, windowless room. He had no idea where he was, though his head felt clear for the first tune since . . . since the night Rose left.

What was the fantastic story she had told him? She was going back to The City With No Name! To find something she had lost there, she had said. No, Beauty didn't know- he would only have stopped her. She wanted Josh to come.

He had told her he couldn't possibly-he himself had already lost too much there ever to dare returning. That was why he always wore the mesh helmet she had given him, to block out the transmissions from the City.

It was gone. His helmet was gone.

He crawled all around the floor of his cell looking for the helmet, but knew it wasn't here. Rose had taken it that night, and almost immediately he had begun having spells. Tunnel Twenty-two, she had told him. Below the City. That's how the Pluggers escaped; Twenty-two on the sanitation maps.

Who are the Pluggers? he had wanted to know.

My comrades-in-circuit, she had said with a laugh. The Humans she and Josh had freed, the ones who had been plugged into the Queen, with Rose.

There is no Queen, he had told her. She had parted her hair, showed him her outlet. Where's your outlet cap? he had asked, alarmed.

We uncapped it, she had said defiantly. Join us, she had said.

She had removed his helmet as he slept. He awoke hearing her say "Forgive me, I want you there." Then the spells began.

And now he was here. Where was that? He tried the door. Locked. Could he be in the City now? He had dreamed he was in the City, he knew ... or was it a dream? His heartbeat quickened in fear and uncertainty. Ollie would worry, he knew. He wished Jasmine were here to help-she always had a plan. He flexed all his muscles. Everything seemed to be in working order.

It was a disorienting situation, and Josh searched his mind for something to get a grip on. The Word is great, the Word is One, he thought-the chant of Scribes for generations. However strong was the necromancy that had brought him here, he should be able to find words to write that would counteract it. A good Scribe could write his way out of the gravest danger, and Josh marked himself a pretty mean scribbler.

He wasn't pious, the way some Scribes were-making a big thing about how many words he knew, or how extravagant were the flourishes of his calligraphy-but he believed with simple faith in the power of the written word, and read every chance he got, and wrote when he could.

So he tried to think of words now-to steady himself; to transport him to safety. Sesame. Madrigal. Rocket fuel. If only he had something to write them down with. He reached for the quill he kept in his boot, but he was barefoot now, his clothes were not his own. He had read a book once about a prisoner who tunneled his way to freedom from his cell, but Josh didn't hold much hope for that here. He would need implements for that, and he had none. He tried to think of more powerful words. Suddenly, behind him a door opened.

He turned to find a Vampire watching him curiously. Reflexively the hairs on Joshua's neck bristled, and he crouched, ready to fight "So, you're awake," the Vampire said quietly. "What do you want?" Josh growled hi monotone.

"You are fortunate," said the Vampire with great tran-quility. "It is said you will have an audience with the Queen." Whereupon he closed the door again.

Josh relaxed his muscles, but not his resolve; wherever he was, he had to escape.

The Queen . . . Joshua's fists opened and closed as he tried to think. What was happening to him? What was happening?

He spit into a pile of greasy dirt and mixed it with his finger into a viscous ink. Next he tore a long piece of straw from the mat on the floor; and then a square of canvas from his bedding. And finally, using the straw as a pen, with the calming satisfaction of a lifelong ritual, he set down the record of what had befallen him.

Jasmine and Ollie made good time to Joshua's camp, found nothing of interest; then hitched a ride on a mailboat they helped repair, from where it had beached some miles north of Newport, all the way down to Ma'gas". Once there, they split up: Jasmine took the bars to the north of the main pier; Ollie, those to the south.

The first tavern on the wharf was called the Thirsty Bones. The building itself was only a few years old, and Jasmine well knew why. The last time she had been to this town, over five years before, there had been a fire that destroyed half the waterfront. It had been started by Joshua, in the bar run by Jasmine's friend Sum-Thin; while Jasmine was dueling the Priest of Hoods. It was quite a time-a turning point, even.

She settled herself now into a chair in a corner of the Thirsty Bones and let her mind roll around the times in her life that had in some way seemed pivotal since her birth, in the middle decades of the twenty-first century, three hundred years before. Her conversion to Neuromanity, certainly; only her brain and nervous system remained of her original Human self. Everything else about her-from the nuclear heart to the viscous, oxygen-carrying Hemolube that simultaneously oiled her parts and fed her nerves- was a synthetic creation of what in those old days was called Western Technology.

She could still die, of course: the Hemolube could be drained from the valve at the back of her head; she could drown, given enough time. But barring unforeseen trauma, her brain was expected to senesce at a vanis.h.i.+ngly slow rate. No Neuroman had yet expired of natural causes.

There were other turning points, though, in her history; in the world's history, too. The Bacteriological War, the Nuclear War; the Clone Wars, which ended in the death of most Humans. The Great Quake, and the Coming of Ice. The Age of Ice, when Jasmine first explored Dundee's Terrarium with her Vampire lover, Lon. Her quest five years ago with Josh and Beauty. Lon's death, and Sunt-Thin's. Her return to the Terrarium, to rule as Queen Redmasque over the children of the jungle. And now, here, back in Ma'gas', with Ollie, on this new journey.

It had been a wild and tumbling life, but somehow Jasmine sensed that the biggest tumble was still to come. There was a simmering feeling hi the air, like a pot ready to boil. She smiled at her mood: quiet excitement, as before a great battle. She noted her fear, but didn't let it consume her; rather, she used it as a weathervane of the moment, or as a tool to hone her perceptions. Yes, this was quite a time, too.

She stood and got a beer at the bar, then sat down near the front window. Ma'gas' was always a wide-open town, but Jasmine sensed an even greater undercurrent of frenzy than usual. The s.e.xual bartering that ordinarily took place in the alleys and below the docks had spilled out onto the main thoroughfares. Jasmine watched two brawls within fifty yards of her window, and both left dead bodies that no one bothered to clear away. The quays were crowded beyond belief, swollen with animals Jasmine had never seen so far south-Ponies, Otters, Snow Leopards, Wongs, Ursumen. It was as if they were all ma.s.sing for some event.

They weren't, though. It was just the Ice Madness: displaced by the encroaching glaciers, or often just by the thought of the encroaching glaciers, they crammed into the port town, dizzy with abandon and droll with fear. They had the smell of hopeless high rollers. Jasmine watched them through the window as she considered her next step.

A cargo of slaves was being off-loaded from one of the s.h.i.+ps at the dock. Humans and Centaurs, mostly; a few mixed breeds. One of them bolted, but the guard-a Basilisk-swooped down and tore out the prisoner's belly before he had run ten steps. Scavengers sniffed the entrails; backed away, fearing a trap, grew bold, and dragged the carca.s.s into an alley.

A band of jugglers drew a crowd for a little while, tossing torches among themselves. A crew of laughing pirates pa.s.sed. There was a contest of some kind. A small troupe of musicians got thrown into the harbor after a dispute, pre-sumably over money. Two Hermaphrodites approached a Vampire, and after some discussion, he picked them up and flew them to a s.h.i.+p in the bay.

Jasmine watched it all, sipping her drink. When she felt she had a sense of the current temperament of the place, she began to circulate, asking questions.

Had anyone seen a dark-haired Human having convulsions? Acting strange?

"All Humans act strange," she was told.

"Convulsions of conscience, perhaps."

"Why waste time looking at Humans?"

"Yes, there was one, last year, heading north."

"Yes, I saw three, and killed them all."

"Yes, but it's none of your business."

"No, but Georgio spoke of such a thing. He'll be back next month."

"A dark-haired Human having convulsions? What an amusing idea."

Not a particularly fruitful line of questioning, Jasmine decided. Humans were not held in high regard, even as a commodity on the slave market.

Jasmine went looking for Ollie to suggest they provision themselves and leave Ma'gas' quickly. Josh and Rose were certainly on their way to The City With No Name, if not already there. Little was to be gained in Ma'gas' beyond the general information she had already obtained-namely, that the Queen of the City was still paying top price for Humans; and that no one else wanted them, except Vam- pires-and Queen Redmasque. The story went that the magical Queen of the demented jungle tribe planted the Humans in charmed soil, where they grew into trees that guarded the tribal camp, and strangled all intruders with their aggrieved, remorseless vines. Only after a Human-tree had consumed a thousand invaders, it was said, would Queen Redmasque allow it to seed-for the flowers of these seeds then grew into Humans who were identical to the Human the Queen had originally planted; and these flowers were allowed to run free, or serve in the Queen's army, as they desired.

It amused Jasmine to hear such apocrypha about herself. The fact was, she did buy Humans from slave traders-to take them off the market. Still, she was well pleased with the rumors her little cult was beginning to generate. So Jasmine laughed silently now, at the ornate illusion that was her past, and at the imponderable design of her future.

She figured the best plan was to go directly to her hiding-cave upriver from the City and see if the sanitation maps they had left years ago were still readable. Maybe they would shed some light on Joshua's cryptic note. So she walked the wharf, in the direction Ollie had gone, and poked her head in each bar along the way.

In the fourth tavern on the south side of the docks, her attention was drawn by a large noisy crowd ringing some kind of demonstration in the center of the floor. She wormed her way to the front row of spectators and stopped cold. There in the clearing, Ollie was toying with a Vampire.

The boy had a b.l.o.o.d.y dagger in his hand and a cold fire in his face. The Vampire was staggering blindly-both eyes cut by Ollie's knife. One of the creature's hands lay, imploring, on the floor. He swung his oozing stump in great unseeing arcs, trying to club the Human devil. The crowd bellowed, made bets, hooted suggestions, and spat. Ollie stayed behind the circling Vampire, occasionally poking at him coolly with the knife, like a heartless picador.

Jasmine took two steps into the killing circle, tore the knife from the hand of her startled companion, and quickly slit the Vampire's throat: he died in a moment. The crowd cheered. Jasmine turned back to Ollie and spoke to him in an icy, restrained fury: "Don't ever let me see you behave like that again." She threw the knife to the floor, burying the point an inch in the wood.

He pulled the knife from the plank and faced her, his eyes twisted with hidden pain. "I hate Vampires," he whispered.

Jasmine turned and pushed her way through the dispersing crowd to the door. On her way out, she heard one of the spectators say, "I've never seen a Human that fast."

In the street, Ollie caught up with her. He pulled her around by the arm. "They made me this way. They've brought it on themselves," he rasped.

"That Vampire may have brought something on himself," she said quietly. "But n.o.body made you the way you are. We all make ourselves, in our own images. It's useless to speak further of it. I don't know how he provoked you, but I saw your response-and I don't permit such loveless, gratuitous displays hi my friends."

They stared at each other for a long, strained moment. Finally Ollie spoke, in his slow, guarded way. "I don't need your friends.h.i.+p. I don't even want it if it demands apologies. But I need your help to get Josh. So if it's what you require-I'm sorry for what you saw."

Jasmine's feelings were mixed. She was appalled by Ol-lie's cavalier torture of the wounded Vampire; yet she knew the source of his hatred, and shrank from that memory. And now he was being totally honest with her-he wanted her a.s.sistance, so he apologized for giving offense. His motive was simply to save his dear brother, who had once saved him. Jasmine smiled, shook her head, put her arm around Ollie's shoulder. "I think maybe we're all a little crazy with Ice these days."

Ollie said nothing, though he disagreed with her flatly: he felt not the slightest bit crazy. He felt calm, clear, and directed. He simply hated Vampires beyond all reasoning. His hatred was pure; it didn't bollix him or confound his other senses or create internal conflicts. He felt his hatred was justified-Vampires had murdered his family, tortured and bonded him at the age of ten, done things to him and his cousin he could never speak of. Vampires were hateful.

They had sewn jewels into his skin to identify the harem he belonged to: he still kept the ruby in his chest, as a reminder-if he needed one.

He couldn't explain this feeling to Jasmine; nor did he want to. This was simply the way he was. This feeling kept him strong; alive, even. He felt great warmth for Jasmine-she had helped save him, back then-and he knew she felt charity for all creatures. For that reason, he decided to make an effort to keep his feelings to himself in her presence-though he certainly didn't make a habit, he knew, of sharing his feelings. Still, he would not test her softness now; he would be a mask. But neither would he ever relinquish his hate, even though Jasmine begged him: this hatred he held too dear, like a deformed child.

He walked with Jasmine now to the end of the pier, and they dangled their legs over the edge. Ollie took from his belt a bamboo flute which he had cut during their trip through the jungle. He put his lips to it and played, on the early evening air, the saddest, strangest melody Jasmine had ever heard. It struck her to the soul, and had she been Human, she would have cried.

It was a sixteen-note refrain, silver and somber as the wind hi a lonely place. It made Jasmine's heart quicken, then hush. In a way, the melancholy of the keening strains unsettled her almost as much as Ollie's earlier flagrant sadism. But she was tired, so let such considerations go, and watched the gulf tide brew in the gathering darkness as the boy's music whispered to the stars.

CHAPTER 3: In Which It Is Seen That Even Poetry Cannot Subst.i.tute for Holding Hands in the Darkness

THE rear walls of the cavern winked orange and black in the light of two fish-oil lamps. Its farther limits could not be seen at all, but only intimated by the slos.h.i.+ng gurgles that reverberated off the high recesses. It was a chill place.

A river cut along the center of the cave, running into another, larger cave at one end, and then directly into the ocean. This water was fed by a dozen tributaries that entered through dark openings in the rock, some small, some large, many indefinable. One branch of the river sidetracked abruptly into a deep, still pool that occupied a thousand square feet of one of the cave's hidden corners. Boats were anch.o.r.ed there.

Scores of tunnels opened off the nether reaches, half of them dry. None were visible in the dense lightlessness. One of these led, twisting, to a series of connecting chambers and, finally, to a small, well-lit room where dozens of people sat writing. Bookery people, militant Scribes dedicated to the mystical aspects of the written word, to the supremacy of writing as a power source, and, most recently, to the overthrow of the Queen of The City With No Name.

The Queen and her cohorts had been abducting Humans for years, using them in vile experiments. To the Books- so these Scribes called themselves-this was untenable: Humans were the bedrock of Scribery, of writing itself. To a Human, one day (it was written), would be revealed the original Word-the powerful force contained in that primordial amalgam of letters from which all later words derived. It was this great, elemental power, a function of the first key letters and their magical relation to one another, that the Book people so devoutly sought-and that they now sought to protect from the Queen's machinations.

Row upon row of them worked here now, hunched over long low tables, writing additions to the Great Lexicon. The G.L. was the lifework of the Bookery; its goal was no less than to learn and define every Human word. Every rediscovered book or journal was pored over by these Scribes, Any new word found was set down on multiple record sheets, its definition derived from context, or cross-referenced. Older members of the clan were sometimes hypnotized, their early memories searched for clues to a specific definition-some long-forgotten remark a parent had made, or a magazine article they had glimpsed in their youth.

Everyone had to take a turn setting down the G.L. record. Several rooms were set aside for it, the long tables covered with quills, inkwells, and reams of blank paper; and several more rooms were set aside for storing the records, along with their indexes.

People could always be found writing in the Lexicon- either laying down new words or adding shades of meaning to old ones. When they weren't in the caves doing that, they were out looking for long-hidden volumes, or recruiting new Scribes to their cause, or spying in the animal cities on enemies of the Word, or tending their prized winery or their mushroom gardens. But mostly they just stayed in the caves and wrote, and plotted the Queen's overthrow, and read, and wrote some more.

Beside the main writing room was a smaller cave, used primarily for conferences. Here Paula, Michael, and Ellen sat, speaking with Addie and David.

Addie was an old, old woman. Her hair was thin; her skin, the texture of a dried apple. She was almost blind, and quite powerful: her written vocabulary was greater than that of any other living Scribe.

David was a young, intense man with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses and a large writing-callus, which he constantly picked at, on the middle finger of his left hand. He tightened his eyes on Paula as she quietly spoke.

". . . So the word in Ma'gas' is the Queen's put a high bounty on any Human having spells. I'm certain that's what this kidnapping was. Otherwise, they'd just have killed him."

"But you said you knew him." David squinted. He was trying to put the event in perspective.

"Yes, but I can't think of how." It annoyed more than perplexed her-she didn't like not knowing things. Only savages were ignorant.

"You could describe him to the Pluggers," Ellen suggested. "Some of them used to have spells-before they got plugged in, anyway."

David bit at his callus. "Look, I think our major concern should be with the fact that after a long quiet period, the Queen has begun putting the net out for Humans again. In a big way. Whether Paula knows this guy is neither here nor there."

"I don't agree, sport," said Michael. "If Paula knows him, the boy's a good Book."

"So?" David retorted peevishly.

"So maybe we should move on the City now, before they operate on him."

"We're not ready." David was emphatic.

"I'm ready," said Michael. "Ellen is ready. Half the Pluggers are ready. The word-poor fish I caught for b.l.o.o.d.y supper was ready. So what do you mean we're not ready?"

It was an old fight brewing. David always wanted to plan more, prepare further, consider options; Michael wanted to act. Generally Paula had to come between them to prevent it coming to blows-for her alone would they desist in their bickering. For her part, Paula felt rather neutral-about David and Michael, as well as the issues that inflamed them. David was so obsessed with clauses and modifications, he could never make a decision of any kind; Michael would read about a subject until he was bored or tired, then make his decision based on some feeling or whim totally unrelated to the words he had just read. Paula could relate to neither mode.

She made decisions quickly-based on feelings, yes, but feelings engendered by her readings. To Paula, that was one of the greatest powers of words-to create feelings. That was one reason poetry was such a powerful word form. So she couldn't understand this endless debate among David, Michael, and the others. To raid the City; to storm the castle; to wait and see . . . such wasted energy. It seemed clear to her they should simply read what could be read, make a quick decision, and act on it. If the action proved ill-conceived, they could try something else. But all this talk talk talk drove her to distraction. She couldn't understand it. And the fact that everyone else did it so much made her feel, often, quite alone. It was the caves, she thought-the caves somehow created this aloneness in her, this twisting loss of direction in her friends. David and Michael were starting to go at it again, but before it could flare, Paula closed her eyes, to shut them out.

Michael made a face and sat in the corner, where he opened a book and began to read.

David picked at his callus. 'Try to think where you know him from, Paula. It might help."

Josh sat nervously in the large, intimidating room: intimidating because of all the incomprehensible machinery that lined the walls, and because of the five empty chairs that faced him.

He had been back to normal for two days. He knew who and where he was, and that he must somehow get out. This was the City he had raided years earlier to liberate his people; there was no love for him here-though he didn't think anyone could possibly know what his role had been then.

He had been moved to a larger, cleaner cell the day before, been given a bath, some clothes, some meals. And now this room of machines. The door opened.

Five creatures walked in-three Neuromans, two Vampires-and sat in the chairs facing Josh. The Vampires looked large, dark, and potent. The Neuromans were quite distinctive: one was thin, pinkish, with an almost see-through body; the second was horribly misshapen, like an Accident; the third was short, tense, and covered in toto with reptilian scales. The only way Josh spotted them right off as Neuromans was that each had the small protruding spigot valve at the back of the head through which all Neuromans refilled their bodies with Hemolube.

They sat without moving for five minutes, when finally the reptile-Neuroman spoke in a gravelly voice.

"Welcome, Human. I am "Bishop Ninjus. I am the Chief Security ANGEL. This is the Security Council, and we are here to evaluate you-because for whatever reasons, our Queen has demanded to speak with you in private. We wish to know why, and by Quark's Charm, we will know why."

The others sat in rocky silence, waiting for Josh to respond.

Josh was mystified. "What do you want me to say?" he questioned, straining for meaning in the unreadable faces.

"We want you to say why you are here," said the translucent-pink Neuroman. "I am Fleur, Chief Genetic Engineer. You must tell us why our lady, the Queen, wishes to see you."

"I'm Joshua, Human and Scribe," replied Josh, extending trust for trust. "And I'd also like to know why I'm here."

The Accidentish Neuroman spoke softly to the frosty clear one who had identified himself as Fleur. "Uman danang Gueen zologlu."

Fleur nodded and spoke to Josh again. "My colleague, Elspeth, suggests we be frank with you. Very well. For five years the Queen has been seeking a Human who was involved in the senseless vandalism of these premises. Wanton destruction of property, the deaths of the ANGEL Gabriel and others . . ."