Time's Dark Laughter Part 18

The Queen closed her eyes again and opened up her mind to the girl, letting flow, in synchronous progression, the layers of electromagnetic field that were her thoughts and perceptions, mixed and woven with those of the hundred Humans that lay in the room beyond, connected by head cables electronically-umbilically, in their own way. The child absorbed it all; received the transference, stored it in a thick, proton-rich metafield created by the cube of midbrain the Queen had foreseen the child would possess, that configuration of gray matter she had engineered through the art of copulation.

When the transference was complete, the child said to the Queen, in the thought-voice that was already louder than it had been at first, Mother too. Must no. No no no.

No no no. Child yes yes. Yes yes yes. Yes yes no. Yes yes. Yes no. Yes yes. No. No. No." Whereupon the strange and birdlike little creature jumped from the throne and landed, on all fours, in the Queen's still-gaping belly; and tore open the monarch's abdominal aorta with her delicate, clawlike little hands. The onlookers gasped and retreated, as the Queen quickly bled her life out onto the dais. The child hopped back up on the throne-beside Isis, who watched with unperturbed interest-and said to the incredulous gathering, without making a sound: Queen dead. Long live the Queen.

CHAPTER 14: A Father-and-Child Reunion.

IT was at the depths of a night late in April of the year 127 Age of Ice, toward the end of four days and nights of violent, continuous storming-an expected occurrence for the season; typical, in fact, following a brief false spring-that the good ship Atlantis popped to the surface of the ocean some twenty miles south and west of The City With No Name. The series of events surrounding this emergence is difficult to interpret without invoking popular fallacies like divine intervention, coincidence, fate, Providence, syn-chronicity. The circ.u.mstances were, however, neither more nor less than a click in the ratchet of Time's wheel; they therefore are opaque to a.n.a.lysis.

First of all, there were none of the frequent Vampire reconnaissance flights from the City-this because of the turbulent and generally dangerous flying conditions, and because Vampires hate rain (and water, for that matter) more than most creatures. So no spies saw Joshua's craft when it surfaced-which was all the more remarkable since, almost immediately after it broke the waves into the churning night, the craft was struck by lightning.

The lightning bolt had three effects: it rocked the small vessel's sailor into a state of deaf, shaking semiconscious-ness; it damaged the ship's electrical system sufficiently to make it impossible, temporarily, to resubmerge; and it caused the elliptical crystal bubble to glow the eeriest of gossamer-green glows.

St. Elmo's Fire, it used to be called; the ungrounded static electricity built up on a ship during a storm. Only this was no ordinary ship. This was a floating bubble of polymer-silica gla.s.s, and one of its probably less remark- able properties was that it could efficiently store a charge- even a great charge-for considerable periods. So the lightning bolt was in the gla.s.s, now giving it a crackling, green incandescence that all but blinded the voyager within.

It was a long ordeal. The ship was tumbled about every axis, dragged up swells and down troughs, heaved upside-down into the torrential air, then swallowed with a belly-sucking Thud under the next wave. Josh was tossed recklessly from crate to wall, until, in a flurry of sustained will before losing consciousness, he managed to tie himself firmly in place to the steering shaft.

He revived momentarily several times-only to think he was about to die each time. Once, there was a horrible gut-wrenching Crunch, and Josh was certain the hull had burst open; but it was strong stuff, this polymer.

It was like a difficult birth. This little embryo, a light, tentative, radiant egg, pushed out of its black, fluid womb into all the raging chaos. And truly, the Earth wailed that night.

Until slowly-it's tempting to say inevitably, though that would, of course, be untrue-the crystal ship was drawn by the currents toward the yawning of cave-mouths in the cliffs south of the City that formed the entrance to the Bookery tunnels. Not so surprising a destination, really-^-for it was the sweep of the continental shelf, the inexorable tectonic nudgings, and the endless lapping of these very same currents that had hollowed out this meandering cove in the first place; and to this cove would these currents ever return.

The ship was about two miles out when it was first seen by a Bookery lookout as a speck of light sometimes altogether obscured, moving up and down in the darkness. By the time the craft was a mile offsh.o.r.e, most Books and Pluggers had been told of its approach, and stared silently at the apparition from numerous crevices and caches that dotted the cliffs around the cave mouths. It hovered there about an hour, as the storm began to break, then somehow swirled out of its crosscurrents and headed directly for the main cavern entrance, swept forward on huge swells that pounded the cliff rock and echoed through all the tunnels.

The waiting Humans were all armed, though they little knew what to expect. No one had ever seen a floating, glowing ball such as this; not even the aged, worldly Jasmine; not even Ollie, who had once been a pirate; or Aba, who had proved to be a Vampire of great learning, in spite of his misbegotten heritage.

When the iridescent pod was fifty yards away, it was picked up by a mammoth wave and hurled at the cliff. There was a great crash as some of the cliff face crumbled into rocks, accompanied by a loud hiss as some of the stored electricity in the boat's sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed to ground, with a dimming of its glow. The Pluggers cowered at the sound, for it was the sound of The Serpent The vessel battered the rocks all around the caves for some minutes-each time it touched ground the hiss and crackle of escaping electrons were heard, with a correspondent dimming of the glow hi the ship's hull. All the onlookers-especially the Pluggers, who remembered so vividly the whisper of the Serpent-G.o.d who had unplugged them-stared, transfixed, at this bobbing, gleaming marble. Until finally the static electricity was drained and they could see the craft for the hollow gla.s.s ball it was; until finally a wave pulled the vessel into a cave mouth, and all the Books and Pluggers ran down to see what it was.

There was a great hubbub of murmurs as they shone their lights all around, through the gla.s.s, and realized a Human was inside-a stunned, unconscious, possibly dead Human, lashed to a piece of strange machinery.

"What is it?" asked a Plugger.

"Who is he?" demanded a Book.

"Weapons for the Queen, I'm sure of it."

"Looks like a message in a bottle." Jasmine smiled as she lowered herself to the lip of rock that acted as a natural pier to the pool in which the small ship bobbed.

Ollie came down next, and then Rose. Perhaps forty people were craning their necks beside the gla.s.s vessel, and the small cave was quite packed. Rose wormed her way to the front and looked into the crystalline cabin just as Josh began to stir. He lifted his head, and the crowd outside gasped. He looked blankly at the frightened faces that stared at him through the gla.s.s; until his eyes came to rest on three in front: Jasmine, Ollie, Rose. His mouth opened and closed.

Jasmine whispered, "Joshua."

Ollie's heart jumped; his eye even moistened; he had to sit down hard.

"Dear Joshua," Rose whispered. After a moment, she turned to the crowd behind her and spoke in a somewhat louder voice: "It's The Serpent."

Perhaps, after all, it was Providence.

The next days were such a mixture of emotion that they are difficult to describe in discrete terms. To the Pluggers, it was a profound religious experience-the return of The Serpent: their deliverer, savior, destroyer, messiah. They meshed their fingers in the Sign of the Plug to him at every opportunity. To the Books, it was the emergence of a truly heroic Scribe-all the more wonderful because he brought with him his journals: detailed written records of all his exploits and adventures, replete with footnotes, dates, and maps, compiled during his weeks hi Atlantis. Furthermore, he brought many Atlantan books, including the dictionary-the profoundest list of old and new words any Book had ever seen; a book that would serve as source for the Great Lexicon for years to come.

To Aba, it was the appearance of the man for whom Lon had died-that special Human who was actually with the old master Vampire at his death on the walls of the City.

To Jasmine, Beauty, Ollie, Rose, and Joshua, it was a weaving of past and present; a miraculous recrossing of paths. It was the coming together of old friends.

But to the caves, Josh was anathema-for he was the focus around which everyone now rallied: a magnet that gave direction, and escape. So there followed, upon his arrival, several days of sentient rumblings, angry tremors. Yet nothing of greater moment resulted-for the power of the catacombs came from their embodiment of bleak, bottomless despair; and once that pit was rilled, its hollowness was only a memory.

As soon as Josh had a chance to recover from his journey of rebirth-sometime the next evening-they had a dinner together, just the five old friends.

Rose began weeping immediately upon joining the others in the small, warm room. She hugged Josh fiercely, and they held each other. "Joshua, Joshua," she muttered between sobs.

He soothed her. "Why do you cry when we're all here again at last?"

"She cries for herself," said Ollie, not completely unkindly.

"She weeps for us all," amended Beauty, his great sadness of recent weeks tempered now by Joshua's return.

"For her joy at seeing you, Josh," said Jasmine. "For all we can share now, that we haven't in so long."

Beauty raised his wine gla.s.s. "Six winters ago, in a cave not far from here, we drank to one another this toast-'To all we have lost, and all we have found.' " He drank.

They all drank, and the dinner began.

First, they caught one another up on the facts of their lives. It was a history of laughter and tears.

Rose couldn't find the words to speak of the act which had brought them all here: her removal of Joshua's protective helmet "'I pray you understand." She wept as she spoke to him. "I did it from love-that you would know what I had known-that we might someday know it together."

"I've never seen you act with malice," Josh answered softly, unconsciously adjusting the new helmet that Kshro had found for him. "I'm safe now, and we're all together here-richer for it, by the way. You can stop chastising yourself for our bruises."

Jasmine thought to herself, He's grown into a man since last we met. Beauty caught the thought in her eye, and nodded agreement. They smiled a secret smile at each other-for they had grown very close these past weeks, waiting for this night, though n.o.body had known it until now.

Finally, Josh told his extraordinary tales: the spells, the Queen, the Selkies, the city beneath the sea.

Which brought them up to the moment. With a single impulse, they stood and hugged one another all at once, fused into a single, great groping creature by the gravity of their love.

They vowed, that night, to fuse their efforts as well- and put an end to this strange and noxious Queen, who seemed so intent on the controlled destruction of the Human race.

For a moment, the caves grew darker, trying to extinguish the light in their eyes; but the light was too strong, and in the end the caves could only twist inward on themselves to look for darkness.

The child sat on her throne, surveying her chambers. Beside her, Isis crouched, sphinxlike, eyes slits. Before her stood all the ANGELs, Vampire, Neuroman captains, tacticians, and group leaders that const.i.tuted the governors of the castle and The City With No Name.

In the brief week of her existence, the child had already grown and changed. Her tail was longer, her hands and feet more clawlike. She was six inches taller, and while her nose remained beaklike, her head had taken on more human proportion. Her face had even developed a certain allure, the flame birthmarks at her temples having mellowed into a subtle wine color, matched by her reflecting eyes.

She spoke in a child's voice to the a.s.sembled minions. Her inflections were odd, though, almost animal noises at times. And periodically one of her words would surge forward as if telepathically impelled into the minds of the listeners.

"I am your new ruler. Your Queen, my mother, is dead. Things are different now. You will follow my rule."

There was absolute silence. Some of the Vampires looked at one another. Elspeth, standing behind Fleur, glowered steadily at the throne. Isis yawned. A soft wave of generalized muttering crossed the room, then quieted against the walls. Osi closed his eyes in concentration. Ugo and another Vampire traded whispers.

Ninjus stepped forward and spoke loudly, like a warrior. "I say the Queen is dead. I say long live the Queen." He dropped to his knees and bared his neck to the child-monarch.

She had no eyelids, this bird-child Queen. And as her eyes were burgundy reflective disks, wherever she turned her head, the creature at whom she stared saw himself reflected.

Back and forth she flashed her gaze across the room; the short, jerky head movements of a raven. The silence in the room turned into trance-like an ancient magus, the child could hypnotize, probe, subliminally suggest. There were none who didn't at least feel the power. Some submitted to it gladly; some bridled; some broke under it. By the time she had finished her entrancing surveillance, six ANGELs and four Vampires, pale, sweating, terrified, had run from the room.

"Don't be afraid," the new Queen said to those still standing. "Those ones were having bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. They will be killed. Bad thoughts kill."

The Neuromans and Vampires remaining all bared their necks in unison. "Long live the Queen!" they shouted.

"Good," she said to them. "Now leave me. If you don't want to join me, leave the City before I hear a bad thought from you. I don't like bad thoughts." She paused a moment. n.o.body moved.

Suddenly she screamed: "I said leavel"

There was a restrained push for the door, and in less than a minute, the child-Queen was alone, with only Isis beside her. The little Cat licked her paw twice, licked the child-Queen's leg twice; then curled up and slept. She had no fear of this bizarre new animal that had something of Joshua's smell about it. She was barely curious. She only knew she liked the new animal's scent; and then and there seemed like a good time and place to sleep.

The child-Queen looked at the sleeping Cat, then growled in her mind. She jumped off the throne onto the dais, ran like a brachiator into a dark corner-her knuckles touching the ground every other step-and sat there facing the wall, rocking, holding her knees to her chest, brooding and silent.

Beauty ran over the hill at a gallop, Josh and Rose riding double on his bare back. It was a fine, brisk April morning, cloudless and new, and for the first time in many months they thought of nothing but the moment and the wind on their faces.

Beauty ran through the tall gra.s.s, jumped logs, splashed through ponds and mudholes. It was wonderfully, carelessly dangerous being this open so near the City. But for too long their spirits had been poor of exhilaration; so they took this time now with great, whooping glee.

They came to rest, finally, in an apple orchard inland from the cliffs above the caves. Josh and Rose dismounted, and the three of them walked hand hi hand in silence, until Beauty was cool and dry. Josh found his two old friends distant from each other, but comfortable with that distance, as if they had reached a peace with themselves. They walked without speaking for some time, until eventually they reached the large oak grove where the feast was ready to begin.

The feast was for the entire encampment, and everyone was there-Books, Pluggers, Jasmine, Ollie, Aba, Rose, Beauty-for today was a day of speeches, games, toasts, oaths, promises, and plans: for Joshua was here to guide them and tell them what to do. And their hearts all dared whisper: No more, the caves. Yet Paula and Aba hung back-if only a little-from the festivities. Their love for each other had grown over the weeks-the blue and yellow marks of Aba's pa.s.sion streaked down Paula's neck. That they were so absorbed hi each other protected them somewhat-though not entirely-from the dismay, the chill glances, and the frank disgust with which many of the Books regarded them: for it was considered the worst kind of degradation for a Scribe-for any Human-to willingly submit to the sanguinary abuses of a Vampire. Yet to Paula it was not abuse: it was love. And to Aba, Paula was no mere object of his blood l.u.s.t; she was the fountain that sustained him, body and spirit. They read poetry to each other; they shared their isolation.

Ollie shared his isolation with no one. He felt relief that Josh was home and safe; great relief. Still, by and large, he remained at the outskirts, looking in. He played his flute, and from time to time little groups would even dance to his music; but the music was meant for no one save himself.

Ollie had only two other competing emotions at the moment. The first was hatred of The City With No Name. Twice in his life he had been nearly destroyed by the creatures in that place. That the place still existed was no longer tenable to him. He greatly looked forward to impending a.s.sault. He would kill many Vampires.

Which brought him to his other emotional focal point: Aba. He had been fixating on the gentle Vampire's presence, and finding that presence increasingly intolerable. But even more intolerable was Aba's refusal to justify any such hatred-the real rub was that Aba was too good.

Ollie had taken to insulting him openly-to the glee of many of the Books-but Aba never rose to the bait. On the day of the feast, Ollie was feeling even more sullen than usual-this was common for him at times when others were being particularly festive or sociable, for at such times he felt even more excluded. So he wasn't any too kindly disposed toward Aba as they met unexpectedly in a quiet area of the grove; on the other hand, he did empathize somewhat with the Vampire's sense of isolation, and so was not as openly hostile as usual.

Aba was sitting on the ground, pen and paper in hand, his back against a tree, when Ollie strolled up.

"What are you doing, Vampire?" he asked quietly.

Aba smiled. "Writing a poem," he replied.

Ollie held out his hand.

Aba considered the request, then handed Ollie the sheet of paper. Ollie read it out loud: Black Stone sitting in the black night, Cries to the fading stars: "Answer me!"

"It's called haiku," added Aba.

Ollie just looked at him, then back at the poem, as the wind shuffled through the trees. Very softly, the boy said, "I feel this way sometimes."

Aba smiled sadly. "You must never stop waiting for the fading stars to answer."

Paula walked up just then, suspiciously. She hated Ollie for his treatment of Aba. "What's going on here?" she demanded in a voice full of quiet anger.

Ollie handed the poem back to Aba, then looked at Paula. "If it isn't the Vamp tramp," he sneered.

"At least I haven't forgotten how to be Human," she said with disgust.

"No, you prove to yourself just how Human you are by bleeding half to death for anyone with a big mouth."

She slapped him hard in the face-so hard it took his breath away for a moment. Then he smiled with trembling lips and stalked away.

Paula turned on Aba. "Why do you let him talk to us that way? When will you stop his vile insults?" She was livid with anger, and there were tears in her eyes.

Aba stood and held her. "He can't help himself, Paula. He's just scared and lonely, as are we all."

She put her head on his chest. "Do you have to be so inhumanly understanding?" she said, weeping.

He looked a bit baffled as he comforted her. "I don't understand anything," he whispered.

Fastidious Ellen spent the morning of the feast with dictionary and knife in hand, walking painstakingly from tree to tree, carving ancient, rarely used words of great power, as totems to protect the gathering -..hoyden, dysbulia, Kleenex, ottoman, ref, quincunx, zarf, Bogart, E=mc*, Lancelot, Om, Canaveral, wa', pi, ergo, DNA, Cinemascope, syntax, oxymoron, wol, eloi, fab, muon, carburetor, pez, doubloon.

Others wrote words in the leaves, that disappeared with the wind-these were called Raku poems, and it was said they were read by the sky. Wine was pa.s.sed freely, as Pluggers told exotic stories about lands and adventures they had learned of while in-circuit in the castle, from Pluggers who had once lived in other parts of the world: lands where giants lived, where sorcery was commonplace, where Humans were kings and animals had lost the power of speech, where giant Lizards ruled the land.

And Josh listened to all the stories and read all the words, and felt great love for this congregation of renegades and misfits celebrating his return from a watery grave.

He stood before them and proclaimed in a loud voice: "You here today-all of you-you're my family!"

The crowd cheered wildly, and repeated the word back to him like a litany: "Family-family-"

Family. Family. The word repeated itself over and over in Joshua's mind until it was just sounds, made no sense. Family family family family family famil famil famil fami fami fam fam fam fam fam fam fam fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa faaa faaaa faaaaaaa faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ther. Faaaather. Faather. Father. Father. Father.

Father.

The word suddenly sat in his brain and would not move. Father. He jerked his head right and looked to the north. Father. Father, come.

"What is it?" Jasmine asked him. "You look so odd. You're not going to have another spell, are you?"

Eather, come.

Josh stood up, holding his head, facing north.

Father, come.