Winter's Tale Part 41

"You couldn't have, " Peter Lake said, his eyes beginning toswim.

"Ah, we did, not even ten minutes ago."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to believe me, " Pearly said."You can see for yourself." He turned to the men drawn up behind him. There was a stir in their ranks, and a pa.s.sage opened in them, through which came a dozen men, all of whom were soaked with blood and carrying the limbs, quarters, and head of a horse. They looked like the men in the meat markets who hoist whole lambs or sides of beef onto their shoulders. But the hide was still on the pieces that they carried, and though it was covered with blood, it was white.

Thus, Peter Lake was broken. He stepped off the column, and let the sword clatter onto the ground, where Pearly picked it up.

"Here, you see, " Pearly said, indicating the pile of horse flesh, "is your invulnerability. Here are the results of your beliefs. Here is what your sentiments have brought, and here is the end that you must endure."

Peter Lake dropped to his knees.

Pearly raised the sword in both hands, and rested the tip between Peter Lake's collarbone and the base of his neck.

"Do you know what will happen now?" Pearly asked.

Peter Lake remained silent.

"You'll rot on the floor until the dogs stream back into the city. They'll fight over what's left of you and the horse, and take the pieces to their dens under the piersa"that is, if the rats don't come first. And as for Beverly Penn, you saw her for the last time at the beginning of the century, and will never see her again. You have come to the common and inevitable end, though you struggled hard to get to it. In a moment, you will be forever mute and forgotten. There will be no one to remember you. Nothing. It was all in vain."

Peter Lake looked up into the morning sky and saw the great plumes. Perfectly shaped, pure white, many miles high, they stood immobile in the cold blue air.

"Just clouds of steam and ash, " Pearly insisted."It happens sometimes, after a fire."

"In my understanding, " Peter Lake said, "they were to have been more than that...." But suddenly he became still, and his eyes vainly sought what he could hardly hear.

As Pearly, too, strained to listen, the tip of the sword left PeterLake's shoulder, and hung in the air. From the north came a sound like rolling thunder that grew louder and louder as it approached. It was steady and electrifying. Then it swept by thema"hoofbeats drumming the ground. The whole island was shaking.

Peter Lake turned to Pearly once again."I thought we had seen all the horses on the island ford to Kingsbridge, " he said."But it seems, " he continued, nodding at the carca.s.s piled near him, "that at least one unfortunate animal didn't cross the river.

"That's, the white horse, " Peter Lake declared, his outstretched right arm pointing toward the thunder."And the way he's running, he's going to make it."

Pearly hadn't changed his stance. Peter Lake took the tip of the sword and replaced it above his collarbone."And so am I, Pearly, so am I, although in a way that will never be clear to you. You see, it works. The balances are exact. The world is a perfect place, so perfect that even if there is nothing afterward, all this will have been enough. Now I see, now I'm sure of what I must do. And it must be donequickly."

He moved the sword until it began to cut into him. Then he looked up, far past Pearly."Only love..." he said."Drive hard."

The sword was driven into him until its hilt came to rest on his shoulder and he was dead.

FROM the sound and speed of his galloping, the milk horse had appeared to those who saw or heard him, and to Peter Lake, to have been taken up by thunder. But to him it was a smooth and easy transit in which earth and air faded into a silken dream, enabling him to fly. As he gathered speed, the ground and sky blurred into lines of viscous color, and he soon began to leave the ground in buoyant leaps that left only the sound of wind whistling past his ears and the edges of his hooves. Then he would touch the ground again, and recall what it had been like to be enmeshed in the machinery of the world and to know firsthand its frictions, complications, and love. But he found that in his weightless acceleration a smooth and perfect silence pulled him ona"the sure sign of pastures where thewildflowers were stars, and where enormous horses lived in a perpetual stillness, and yet never ceased to move.

Though whenever he touched the ground his love for those who were still full in the world held him back, the clear ether pulled him from his long dream, and he rose high into the air. He saw the white wall closing in over the bays and inlets. As he flew into the clouds he saw that they were as he remembered them. And once more, Athansor, the white horse, many times beaten, pa.s.sed far beyond the cloud walla"never to fall back again.

IN the courtyard where Christiana had kept the white horse, the salver lay in shadow, but light hit the wall just above it, and, as the sun rose, the clear and perfect line between sunshine and shadow descended. At first, the salver was illuminated only along a thin upper strip that burned like a hot wire. And then, as the light dropped in a golden curtain, the tray caught fire. Almost as strong as the sun itself, it lit the dark side of the garden with rich light that emanated from the untarnished metal in blinding colors. As the inscription took the fire of the sun, the courtyard began to fill with gold light.

THE SUN'S launch motored across the cold currents that now made the harbor green, gold, and white, and its engines sang in a deep and perplexing sound as the boat pushed gently through the unbroken swells. The pa.s.sengers turned to the south, where a vertical white wall had transformed the harbor into an infinite sea. Even as the wall kneaded and tumbled, buckling out and pulling in, it rose straight up, beyond the limits of vision. Hardesty said that it had swelled with the ruined city's smoke and dust, and that such a thing could be very beautiful if it were caught in the morning sun.

The only one not looking at the cloud wall or speculating on things to come was Martin, who, almost as a matter of faith, had not taken his eyes from Abby.

The reverberations of the engine, which was just below the hatch cover on which she lay, had long before cleared her hair from herface. They made her seem as if she were moving of her own accord, although she was not, and sometimes her hands would roll slightly in response to the motions of the boat. When her left index finger stretched out, and then receded, Martin held his breath. He thought he saw her lips purse, just slightly. Then he thought he saw her breathe. When they told him to look at the white wall, he could not tear himself away from Abby. Because she was moving. It had to be the vibrations from the engine, and nothing else. But now her fingers were stretching. And now she was breathing. And now, in a sudden and decisive moment, her eyes opened in shock.

After Martin found his strength, he told them. She had already looked at him and smiled. When Asbury saw that the child had opened her eyes, he gripped the tiller very tightly, because now that he had found what he was looking for so close at hand, it was difficult to keep the boat pointed to the Battery. Mrs. Gamely tossed the crumpled poultice into the harbor, and cried. Virginia, with supreme self-restraint, approached her daughter as if the child had just awakened from a nap. Though Virginia was trembling and blinded by tears, she did nothing extreme or abrupt, and simply took Abbyonto her lap.

Hardesty, as was his wont, was putting things together. He knew that, in the eyes of G.o.d, all things are interlinked; he knew that justice does indeed spring in great surprise from the acts and consequences of ages long forgotten; and he knew that love is not broken by time. But he wondered how, without proof, his father could have known, and how he had found the strength to believe. Hardesty's thoughts then turned to Peter Lake. But he was interrupted by a marvelous thing.

For then, in an overwhelming confusion, he saw before him all the many rich hours of every age and those to come, an infinitely light and deep universe, his child's innocent eyes, and the broken city of a hundred million lines which, when seen from on high, were as smooth and beautiful as a much-loved painting. All time was compressed, and he and the others were shaken like reeds when they realized fully what had come about, and why. And then they were taken by a wind which arose suddenly and carried them up in fulland triumphant faith. As they ascended, in mounting cascades, they saw that the great city about them was infinitely complex, holy, and alive.

Rising above it, slowly and in silence, they saw that all its parts were of one piece, a painting of risen gold and animate clouds the long plumes of which climbed gently upward, billowing to heaven. The fine bays and rivers that surrounded the city had been moved to come alight, and for a hundred miles the bays and the rivers and the sea itself were a pale shimmering gold.

EPILOGUE.

THEY rose far enough to see that the swirling goldwas real, and that it covered all the oceans, and rolled through all things with a promise of final benevolence that was certain to be kept. And then they were gently set down, in the heart of a new city that was all spring and sun.

We, on the other hand, must continue up into the islands and seas of rushing cloud, to leave them in their reborn place, which is now visible to us only as a lake in the clouds opens to reveal its thriving color and its new breathing. But, as we part, there are certain things that we can know.

Because Jackson Mead's bridge was not able to penetrate the empyrean, he, Cecil Mature, and Mootfowl disappeared with no trace, and were soonforgotten. But Jackson Mead was convinced, as always, that the next time a new means at his disposal would allow him to return to the high place from which he had been cast. And he knew that if he could not return, he was now perfectly willing to bide his time. When he would come back once again no one would know him, and he would have the great privilege of starting over.

That very morning, they began to rebuild the city. Barges appeared in long chains, taking rubble out to sea, and the sound of the pile drivers, the m.u.f.fled explosions under iron nets, the optimistic banshee shrieks of saws, and the puffing and the whistles of The Sun's machinery itself, was music.

Though Harry Penn lived to see some of the new building, he died soon after it began. He died in full faith, and later Jessica Penn bore Praeger de Pinto's child, who was a Penn through and through and would himself guide The Sun into an age that we cannot even imagine.

Pearly was left in the streets. He had his place even in a new city that was so young and innocent that it could not know evil. He recovered after a fashion, and awaited developments. Without him, after all, everything would be milk and roses, which is not enough to turn the world gold.

It is all white now.... We have left the city. It is on its own. But there are a few more things to tell.

So much was changed and renewed that some circ.u.mstances might puzzle us. Nonetheless, the fact was that Mrs. Gamely wed Craig Binky in what turned out to be a marriage made in heaven, and the lion lay down with the lamb.

Do you remember the children who came to Marko Chestnut's studio and were speechless and terrified while he painted their portraits and the ram dashed off the slate roof and cascaded down the skylight? Most of them became painters themselves. They remembered. And Abby Marratta would see it all. Her future, and the one great demand made upon her in the end, would also be something that we cannot imagine, though perhaps we can if we look at the good faith of her predecessors.

Now there are no more lakes in the clouds. The city is deep within its new dream. What of Peter Lake, you may ask? Was the past fully reopened to him? Was he able to stop time? Did he rejoin the woman that he loved? Or was the price of the totally just city his irrevocable fall?

At least until there are new lakes in the clouds that open upon living cities as yet unknown, and perhaps forever, that is a question which you must answer within your own heart.

ALSO BY MARK HELPRIN.

A Dave of the East, and Other Stories.

Refiner's Fire Ellis Island, and Other Stories.