Time's Dark Laughter Part 17

She walked closer to him, interested. "How are you called?"

"I am Aba."

"I am Paula."

Tentatively-with no more than a whisper of movement-they bared their necks to each other. "How is it that a Vampire reads?" she asked uncertainly.

"The same way he bleeds-from the heart."

"My Word, but you have a poetic turn, for a savage. We must read together sometime."

He winced, as if stung. "If my wings make me savage hi your eye, I would rather read alone." He turned away.

She came up to him, touched his arm, stopped herself. "Wait," she mouthed. He looked at her. She studied his face closely. He looked kind. She said, "You're lonely, too."

"I am alone," he shrugged.

"I heard the story of how you rescued Ollie from the castle. It was a n.o.ble act."

"It was an ign.o.ble and deceitful act ... in an honorable cause."

She regarded him thoughtfully. "You are a creature of some layers, it would seem."

"Like a Book ... of many pages." He bowed his head to her to lay the compliment at her feet. He liked her quiet way, her solemn forthrightness. He thought: She's proud, without being arrogant.

As soon as the Plug made contact, Rose was aware of a tingle, like an internal flush. She walked beside Candlefire, yet she felt as if she were walking inside him-she saw with his eyes, felt the ground with his feet. Their senses were one; they functioned in perfect unison. They went into a black cave and lay down.

Flashes of light, like distant exploding novae, in a black s.p.a.ce that twisted on itself. Rose soared along the curve, then turned, broke through the curve, into- A deeper blackness. Lights no longer sparked here, they flowed. Rather, the photons flowed, in concentric waves that interfered with one another, settling into troughs of void, crests of sublime intensity. Intense brilliance. She moved into the light.

The light had a texture that enveloped her and filled her at the same time, a moving texture like a hum, the sound of glowing. All other light was stationary to her, fixed forever in time, as s.p.a.ce tumbled and curled around her in a series of interlocking doughnuts, helices, knots, and bowls. She was the light.

The light was a wind, she was the wind-light blowing down the spiral corridors of s.p.a.ce, through echoing time, once more into a void.

The Void. No Thing. No light. No sense; only the No Sense. Perfect, an eternal moment. Again. Again. Again. The moment rebounded, then hovered between the two consciousnesses, in the cable, in the humming electrons, spinning packets of energy; buzz, the moment, vibrating, humming, No-Thing humming softer and softer, dissipating into a fine, final sigh, like a soul pa.s.sing dead lips and disappearing into the wilderness.

So the caves sheltered a great orgy of self-indulgence: Pluggers plugging, Books reading to one another, old friends coming together, coming apart, breaking hard, in and on one another in great splashes of emotion. The caves seemed not so hollow. Yet still, Paula felt very alone.

"You seem lonely," a voice behind her said on the afternoon of the second day.

She turned. A young, thin Vampire sat near her in a She thought: How like a book he is, and how unlike a Vampire-he gives, and doesn't take.

He thought: She's hard on the outside, to insulate a center that easily shatters.

Beauty called to Aba just then. The Vampire excused himself, with the hope that he and Paula would talk again soon, and walked over to the Centaur, who was saying good-bye to D'Ursu Magna. The great Bear had rejuvenated his spirit hi the caves; but now, with winter nearing an end, exhaustion had finally overcome him. He needed to hibernate for at least a few weeks before returning to his King.

"I'm not certain what I've learned on this journey," D'Ursu said, scratching behind his ear, "but I hope I've been of some help."

"You have been of great help," Beauty a.s.sured him.

"Even so," the Bear scowled, "your woman is happy where she is, and your man is still not found. Furthermore, my King will receive no help from this stinking city on the Sticks. It all seems to have been a waste of tune."

'Time is never wasted, D'Ursu Magna. Only put aside for later consideration."

The Bear squinted. "You've been with Humans too long, Beaute" Centauri, if that's what you believe. In any case, good-bye for now. I'll be curled up at the end of this tunnel. If I sleep longer than one moon, please wake me, for I must go help my King once I'm rested."

"Dream well, old Bear."

"And dream up some new tricks," added Aba.

"Then, till we meet again, in the Great Forest, and may the cities all burn." He gave Beauty and Aba a great Bear hug and loosed a roar that resounded through all the caverns and echoed for a full minute. Then D'Ursu lumbered groggily down into his sleeping-cave for a short winter's nap.

Jasmine and Beauty hadn't seen each other for some years now, and their last parting had been underlaid with so many ambiguities, s.e.xual tensions and demientendres that on meeting again, now, neither knew quite how to behave.

"It's good to see you again." She spoke softly to him, as if it were then: secret, "to see you're safe."

"I am glad you are here," he nodded.

"Your face is a cloud," she whispered.

"An apt description. We are like gathering clouds, here, waiting for thunder."

They could all feel it; and a wild storm it would be.

"How are you feeling?" asked Paula.

"Fine. Tm fine," said Aba. He wasn't. His skin was gray, and he lay alone in a corner, too weak to move. In other corners of the cave, lovers whispered, Pluggers plugged, Scribes wrote exalted scribbles, and dreamers dreamed. It was dusk outside-historically a time of moment for the Vampire-and Aba had leaving on his mind, though leaving was not hi his heart.

"I brought a book of poems to read to you," Paula said. She opened the book before he could respond. "You're a creature of great sorrow, I think," she continued, then read: "Come to me, Sorrow-the darkening night/ Wraps me in peace by your side." She smiled. "It's an old poem: I copied this book over last year-that's how I knew of it. The original was crumbling. It ... reminded me of you."

"Crumbling?"

"No, no. The poem." She reached out her hand to stop his self-deprecatory thought, and touched his chest-the first tune she had touched him so. It startled them both. She left her hand there, resting lightly. "You remind me of Sorrow," she whispered.

He kept his eyes focused on her face, and nodded. "The 'darkening night,' indeed, brings no peace to me."

"And why, pray?"

"It's the time of day that brings me most to mind of my own compulsive desires."

"I've never seen you compulsive," she said; but it was almost a question.

Ever so slightly, he lifted his chest to the pressure of her hand, as he spoke a poem of his own: Perfumed, velvet black night, Shadow in dark flight, I have come, In the starlight, I will come; Secret, furtive hunger Seems to linger in the night. I see you turning to my light. Slow, now, dance to my tune, It will end, love, pale and wan, In the ice light of the dawn, Now we mingle, now we swoon, I'm the night ride of the sun, I'm the midnight of your noon, I'm the dark side of the moon.

The slow force of his words compelled her to move closer and closer to him as he spoke, so that by the time he finished, her face was only inches from his own.

"Those are powerful words," she whispered.

"They're from an ancient Vampire love song," he whispered hi return. He brought his face closer still.

She tipped her head back: hi fear, in desire; in anguish. She caught her breath. "Come to me, my Sorrow."

Tentatively, pa.s.sionately, he brought his mouth to her throat. The smell of her body heat under the dark musty overhanging cave wall revived him. He submerged himself hi the perfume of her flesh; and in her blood, which called him at his deepest center.

She tensed, then relaxed, as the hard whiteness of his tooth dented, then perforated the tender skin of her neck. She felt a warm flush spread from that point, as at the moment of a first kiss, until it changed into the vortex of a black maelstrom, which carried her to its core in great sucking waves, as if she herself were the very substance of this funneling, foaming sea.

In the distance, the wind picked up; storm coming hi.

CHAPTER 13: An Almost Bloodless Coup.

Isis sat purring in the Queen's lap. The Queen petted her with a stroke Isis considered inept but tolerable.

The little Cat kept her nose near the Queen's belly, which was becoming rounder daily. Something was growing in there, Isis knew-something that had a piece of Josh in it It wasn't the brother smell, and it wasn't Josh himself; it was something similar, though. It had Josh about it.

She licked the Queen's bare belly twice at its greatest girth. The Queen smiled and patted Isis's head. Isis only smiled.

"It's ready," said Fleur, holding the vial of amber liquid up to the light. "We're ready."

"Delio nulong abortion gloan tog" Elspeth replied, nod-ding."O gelendis. The Queen suspects." She sat in an overstuffed chair, clenching her jaw.

"She must," Fleur agreed. "She's refusing to let any of the inner circle of ANGELs near her. You're right, of course. Osi will have to do it." He walked'around behind Elspeth, placed his spindly pink fingers on her shoulders, and began ma.s.saging tenderly. "We're sailing troubled waters, my dear."

"Logress," Elspeth grunted, leaning into the neck rub. She held her deformed hand up behind her and stroked Fleur's side.

"Lie down and let me walk on your back," Fleur suggested. "Then I'll go coerce that Vampire into involving himself. He's just like the others, the pompous a.s.s. Lots of rhetoric, but when something needs to be done, it's Let Fleur do it"

Elspeth lay on her belly on the floor. Fleur walked up and down her back. Elspeth groaned with pleasure. "Olien-tog," she muttered. "Tell that to Sire Osi. Olientog orogro dos."

Isis lay sleeping in the crook of the Queen's arm as the Queen spoke softly to her.

"Sleep, little kitten, sleep as my fetus sleeps, fetus keeps, grows in me, as you can see, as you can see. Beautiful fetus, dream unto me, beautiful embryo sleeping in utero, beauty wilt thou be, not ugly like me unapproachable me. Only kittens and embryos could love such a one as me. Unfit for Human consumption, untouched by Human hands-except once! Yes, one time was I touched, by hands and heart, little sewer Cat, once for a moment I was beautiful, as the Rose in me knows, so my embryo grows, for a Human felt warm toward me once. Joshua his name, his fetus fills me, ontogeny recapitulating the moment hi Time and s.p.a.ce when I wasn't the isolated hated fated sublimated overweighted ugly lonely used abused insanely grand and horribly unseemly Queen I've always been and likely e'er will be, as you can see, as you can see."

At Joshua's name, Isis briefly opened her eyes and raised her head; but as she didn't see him anywhere, she put her head back down and returned to sleep.

The Queen laughed a raspy laugh and continued talking to the dozing Cat, in her voice of many voices. "Lonely we are, my little black familiar, familiar to the rotting witch I am, which I am, which I am familiar with, as you are familiar, too. Lonely in this house of rubble, rubble, schemes and trouble in this cold and homeless house, this homely mother soon will be alone no more-this borning will release me from my lifelong night to the morning of my motherhood, the mourning of my long and barren, fruitless early years. Be still, the blossom ripens even now; the fruits of this labor shall sweeten our dry and tasteless life, as pomegranate to the sun-parched wanderer, our birthing fetus shall sustenance be, as you can see, as you can see, as you can see, as you can see."

Isis yawned, and settled herself a bit more comfortably.

"You called me, Highness?"

"Fleur, I am in labor."

"But that isn't possible, Majesty, you're only three months-"

"I'm having contractions, every three, as you can see, as you can see, do not quibble with me, I want this child!"

Her last word was almost a scream as she winced from the twist of another spasm. Isis sat hunched like a Sphinx on the dais at the Queen's feet, staring curiously, unmov-ing, at the monarch's face clotted with pain.

The Queen relaxed again.

"A miscarriage, perhaps-" Fleur began.

"There will be no miscarriage, of justice or embryo. You will r.e.t.a.r.d the contractions if you can, and if you can't, you will recant, and operate, and section me in Caesar's way, take a page from Caesar's book that which is Caesar's, do the C-section, amniotic sea section, s.n.a.t.c.h the b.l.o.o.d.y baby from this spastic womb before it is a tomb, but save this baby!"

"My Liege, as for saving the life of a three-month fetus-"

"This is no mere fetus, you detritus, this is a Princess, and powerful enough to hold her own in this airless, fetid place if you will but deliver her. And I as well will be well pleased if you deliver me from this pain." The last words a whisper, now, as a sweat broke over her grimaced lip.

"Yes, my Queen." Fleur smiled. "We'll do what we can. Ill get the anesthetist-"

"No," she choked, "no, nay, no, nn, nn, no, there will be no anesthesia, no pain medication, no drugs or tubes or needles of any kind!"

"But my Queen-"

"I am ruler here still, and master of my own body as well as all others. I am expert at the autoregulatory control of all my body's functions, autonomic or otherwise. Give me but a moment to compose myself. I will control my pain. I will control my respirations. I will even control my bleeding as you put the knife to me. I am in control. I am master, without peer, without fear, I am mistress, without distress over this stress, or any. I am she with the power, and my time is near to be a mother, and you will help me now as I ask."

"Yes, my Queen. At once."

The Queen lay flat on the marble dais, her eyes closed, her breathing regular. Her belly was big; bigger than a three-month gestation would have promised.

Ten forms stood around her, gowned and gloved. All were Neuromans: doctors, nurses, technicians for any contingency. Isis sat watching from the throne. Fleur held a scapel. He looked around. All was ready.

Firmly he placed the edge of the blade on the Queen's belly, stretched hard and tight by the fetus within. Meticulously he drew the blade in a downward arc, slicing the skin from xiphoid to pubis. It made a yellowish, vertical wedge, dotted with points of red where the bleeders oozed. Once again he drew his knife down the first incision; deeper this time, to the fibrous peritoneal sheath; and one last time, through the peritoneum, into the abdominal-pelvic cavity, exposing the swollen uterus.

Fleur next took a few minutes to tie off bleeding vessels, though there was little need: true to her word, the Queen had shunted blood away from this area to minimize blood loss at the incision. When the way was clear, Fleur put his scapel at the top of the uterus, and made two quick cuts into it, extending the second cut down vertically to the base of the womb, opening it wide.

And then, out of the uterus jumped the fetus. Only, it wasn't exactly a fetus. Rather, it was a fully developed child, a girl child, appearing nearer three years, in age, than three months. She looked almost Human. The immediate apparent differences consisted of a head somewhat more elongated than one of normal Human proportion; strange, hollow, reflective, discoid eyes; a beaklike sort of nose; a long, oval, red birthmark flaming at each temple; dry, spindly, pointed fingers; and a thin, pink, fleshy tail.

She leapt to the throne like an agile monkey and immediately chewed apart the umbilical cord that connected her to the placenta, still attached to the lining of the Queen's uterus.

She looked from face to astonished face, turning her head with the short, jerky movements of a bird. Her eyes finaMy rested on the small Cat who sat beside her on the throne, and she smiled, and petted the creature. Isis purred and licked the child's hand: the hand smelled faintly of Joshua, and Isis was unafraid.

The child's gaze went again to the faces of the terrified Neuromans, stopping at Fleur's. She c.o.c.ked her head to the side, her smile vanishing. Fleur was suddenly aware of the child's thought, projected to him telepathically. The thought said: You bad. Don't like you.

Involuntarily, he took a step back. He felt chilled. The child continued staring at him with a kind of raw, unformed anger. Fleur felt it as a physical pressure, pushing him back, probing him, squeezing harsh, nonverbal thought into his brain, holding it there like a cold steel ball: Bad. Don't like you. He was unable to close his mind to it. He took two more steps backward.

The child smiled again. She looked down at her mother, the Queen, still gutted on the floor. The Queen opened her eyes and looked at the child.

"My baby . . ." she murmured.

The child spoke to her telepathically: Mother, give me.