The Library at Mount Char Part 53

"Oh?" He frowned. "It seems like I remember what happened, but...it can't be real. Can't be. Your Father did something, didn't he? To my mind, my memory."

"He did, yeah."

"So what really happened? Wait! No." He rubbed his temples. "On second thought, don't tell me. Whatever happened, I bet I was a huge a.s.shole in some way."

Carolyn blinked. "No. You weren't an a.s.shole. Not at all. You really couldn't be more wrong."

He looked up, not sure whether to believe her.

Carolyn's expression was gentler than he had ever seen it. "I have a proposal for you, Steve. What if I told you that there was a way to make it all better?"

Steve gave her a sharp look. "What exactly are we talking about?"

"The sun," she said. "The earthquakes. Everything."

"You're going to put what's-her-name back?"

"Not exactly. I really can't do that. Mithraganhi is with Father now."

"Dead, you mean?"

"No. Not dead. They went away. Mithraganhi, n.o.bununga, Father. We won't see them again."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'away'?"

"A new universe, I think. One Father created. One where he makes all the rules."

Steve shook his head. "You guys really are playing at just a completely other level. You know that?"

"Well...you might be surprised. I'm really not that different from you. Anyone could have done what I did."

"You know, I really doubt that."

She stood quiet for a long moment, looking down. Then, softly, "It has a price, though. In the service of my will, I have emptied myself."

Steve nodded. "Yeah. I get that, too."

She looked at him. "Do you? Do you really?"

"Yeah. I really do."

Carolyn smiled. "You know, I believe that you do. Thank you." She reached out and touched his cheek. Her fingertips were warm. For some reason this surprised him. "But I will be wiser than that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She let her hand drop. "I'm going to fix it, Steve. I should have listened to you. You were right all along."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You're going to bring the sun back?"

She nodded. "By this time tomorrow it will be just the way it used to be."

"I thought you said it was impossible. That David couldn't-"

"David is gone. I let him die."

"What? When?"

"A couple of hours ago."

"What about your whole revenge thing?"

She shrugged. "I've had enough revenge. I'm done."

"Well...yay you, I guess. But if he's not the sun, then how do you-"

She looked at him. "I found another way."

"Wow. That's great, Carolyn. Really. But what about outside? There's a famine, right? People are still starving. And that volcano, and-"

"It's not quite that bad, not yet. And I won't let it get any worse. I spoke with the volcano under Yellowstone and calmed him down. As far as the famine...there's a trick I know. A way to make a sort of bread out of clouds. It takes a lot of energy and a little time, but I have both. By the time the sun comes up tomorrow food will be falling down from the sky. All over the world. And I'll do that every couple of days until the crops come back."

"Seriously?"

She nodded.

"And the Library? The earthquakes?"

"The Library is back in hiding. The earthquakes will cease. I've put the moon back in its old orbit-the tides will normalize. Soon."

"Carolyn...that's...that's fantastic. But why?"

"Because of you, Steve. Because of what you did."

"Me? What the h.e.l.l did I do?"

"You were my friend," she said. "That's what. And you were a really, really good one. The best I'll ever have. Not just mine, either."

Carolyn cupped her hands in front of her as if to drink. Mist rose from her palms, coalesced into a sphere. It took a moment for him to recognize it as the Earth, only basketball-sized and seen from below-Antarctica on top, South America below, clouds, oceans. It hovered inches above her palm, turning slowly. Squinting, he saw the tiny contrail of a jet over the Pacific.

"Look, Steve. Right here. Billions of people. They're going to be OK now. As OK as they ever were, anyway. You have my word. I'm going to make it all better. Because of you."

Steve looked. He stretched his hand out to touch, then thought better of it. He looked at Carolyn, still not understanding. Her eyes were shiny.

"You saved them," she said. "Every last one of them. Naga. Petey. You saved them all. Just you."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Steve smiled.

A single tear broke and ran down Carolyn's cheek.

"Carolyn, why are you-"

She took her hands away. Earth hung there, unsupported now, still spinning. Steve watched, fascinated, as the contrail of the jet grew a tiny fraction of an inch.

Saved them? Me? In his mind's eye, just for a moment, he saw Jack stepping out of the shadows into sunlight.

Carolyn stepped around to the side and whispered in his ear, speaking the word that Father whispered to Mithraganhi so very long ago when he called forth the dawn of the fourth age.

For Steve, hearing this...

...time...

...stopped.

IV.

Steve floated weightless in the kitchen of the penthouse. Carolyn fished a dusty club soda out of the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table. She didn't touch her drink, but she smoked cigarettes slowly, one after another. Sometimes she didn't inhale, just let them burn down to a teetering column of ash.

By the time the pack was empty, Steve's head was encased in a sphere of boiling energy-yellow-orange, just like the former sun. His connection to the plane of joy was very strong. If anything, he would burn even brighter than had Mithraganhi. She might have to fold s.p.a.ce a little so that he didn't cook Mercury to a cinder.

She untied one of Steve's shoelaces and, using it as a leash, carried him through the great hall, up the stairs to the jade platform under the universe. David's body was there, b.l.o.o.d.y, under a plastic sheet. His pain was in the past now. Later, she would have the dead ones carry him down. She would find whatever was left of Margaret and wrap them in a single shroud. She would bury them together.

She set Steve in the heavens, then adjusted the orbits to the way things had been, before. She didn't even have to use a calculator. I'm getting the hang of this.

She had a great deal to do, but she didn't want to be in the Library anymore. Not today. The bombing had reduced Garrison Oaks to rubble, and it was surrounded by tanks, soldiers, but the Library had other doors, other facades. She chose a farmhouse in Oregon, a quiet place at the far end of a long road.

In this new place she went to the kitchen and made coffee. Unthinking, she picked up the plates and cups, washed them. When that was done she went into the bathroom-it took her a minute to find it-and drew a very hot bath. The tub's backsplash was lime-green tile, and the faucets were stiff with disuse. It's clean, though.

A long time later she got out of the tub and dried herself. Steve hadn't dawned yet, and it was a trifle chilly-something like ten below. She didn't know how to turn on the furnace. But looking through the closet she found a pink terrycloth robe hanging there, waiting for her. It was brand-new, with the tags still attached, just her size. It had almost certainly been hanging there since the beginning. She shook her head. Father.

On the floor below the robe she found a box containing a pair of overstuffed slippers. The slippers were ridiculous-the stuffed head of some cartoon cat was mounted over the toes, grinning. She examined them, bemused. Father really did have a sense of humor. Who knew? But silly though they might be, they were also soft and warm.

She put them on, then went and stood at the back window. It looked out over a broad field, white with snow. There was a barn, and a small stream.

She blinked.

On the far side of this field, a man stood, almost hidden in the forest. She blinked again. "That's impossible," she said, remembering the smoking, perforated ruin of Mrs. McGillicutty's house.

Then Father's voice came to her. "I almost forgot. I left you something." And another man's voice, hesitant and soft. "I was with...with...the small things. Father said. Father said to study the ways of the humble and the small."

And David. "Maybe a mouse could have snuck out. Not much else."

She went to the back door, not quite running, and threw it open. "Michael!"

He came to her, flanked on his left by a cougar and his right by three wolves. They stopped just outside the yard. Michael stared at her, wide-eyed, and called her by Father's old t.i.tle. "Sehlani?"

Carolyn opened her mouth to deny it, then shut it again and, after a long pause, surrendered the smallest possible fraction of a nod.

Michael spoke to the wolves and the cougar, and all of them lay on their backs in the snow, showing her their bellies.

Carolyn stared at him, aghast. "No! Don't! What are you doing? Get up!"

But he wouldn't. He lay on his back, trembling and afraid. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

She plowed through the snow to him, the yellow eyes of her cartoon cat poking up through the crust. She clouted him in the ear-gently. "Get up, Michael. Please get up. It's only me."

Michael stood slowly. "You...what you did...you..."

"I'm so sorry, Michael. I had to. There was no other way. Don't you see?"

He looked at her for a long time, doubtful. He didn't answer.

Desperate, she smiled, then touched his cheek. "It's freezing out. Are you hungry? Any of you? You should all come inside. There might be food, or..."

Michael considered this for a moment then, slowly, he smiled back. Seeing this, something in Carolyn unclenched. Michael turned to the wolves. He spoke to them. She didn't quite understand it, but they wagged their tails.

She led them into the house.

It turned out that there was food in the refrigerator, lots of it, five roasts of beef and a whole turkey. Michael and the animals ate hugely, then huddled together and went to sleep in front of the bay window in the living room. Carolyn pulled a pillow onto the floor and sat with them.

Then, for the first time in a very long while, the sun rose. Under its orange glow the shadows of Michael and his pack stretched long across the floor.

Seeing the angle of the sunrise, she thought the American word for this time of year is "April" or, sometimes, "spring." That was true, but it was also true that in the calendar of the librarians it was the second moon, which is the moon of kindled hope. Carolyn, clean and warm, sat watch over her sleeping friends. The pink cotton of her robe lay soft against her skin. The stuffed heads of the cartoon-cat slippers covered her toes. She sat this way for a time, watching as the new sun began to melt away the gray ice of the long winter.

She was smiling.

Epilogue.

So, What Ended Up Happening with Erwin?