Alexander C. Irvine (33 page)

A few minutes
later, Stephen halted Archie. “This is what darkness is,” he said, and put out his lamp.

Archie closed his eyes, heard the sound of water falling, opened them again. All he could see were bright images of the lamp flame, and those faded in a few seconds, leaving him in a darkness more absolute than he could have imagined. He could feel it, just as Stephen had said he would, a gentle weight resting against his skin, reminding him of the way the breath of the cave had seemed like ghostly, inquisitive fingers. But this darkness asked no questions. It knew the answers already.

He felt in the midst of an immense space, supported by the press of the dark. He couldn’t feel his own weight, couldn’t tell where his feet ended and the floor began. This is the darkness of a child in the womb, he thought, or of a soul loosed from its body. He thought that if a light were suddenly to return, he would see himself exhaling darkness, watch it trail away into the shadows. Light was an absence of dark, he realized, not the other way around.

Stephen lit a match, its eager flame like a hummingbird sun. He lit three cotton torches and used a stick to fling them away onto ledges high up on the walls of a mammoth series of domes. Five, Archie counted, forming a semicircle each higher than light from a torch could reach. He saw the stream of water he’d heard, separating into jeweled drops as it fell through the light to patter on the rocky floor.

“I’ve never been here before,” Stephen said. “Heard it. Knew it had to be big, but never came this far.”

The torches burned low, bringing the dark out to reclaim the majesty of the domes. “I like to show visitors a little virgin cave,” Stephen said. “You got a feel for the cave, Mr. Prescott. You’ve done better than most.”

“It’s like a cathedral,” Archie breathed, as the torches faded to afterimages in his blind eyes. “If this is where you found the chacmool, I understand why it chose this place.”

“Chacmool’s all through the cave, Mr. Prescott. Everywhere. It’s in the darkness you feel and the peculiar grand gloom you see. This is the chacmool’s place.” Stephen’s voice floated into the space, coming from no fixed point.

“It can have this place,” Archie said. “But it can’t have my daughter.”

After a pause, Stephen answered. “No, it can’t have this place, Mr. Prescott. Your chacmool is all through this place, but it’s my place, too. The world, up there, doesn’t know that. Nothing up there is mine. But there’s a new world, waiting to be born.” Archie heard his feet scuff on the dusty stone floor.

“You brought the voices back, Mr. Prescott, and for that I know you’re a good man. And you’re trying to save your daughter cause she’s all you have, isn’t she? Well, this new world is all I have, and your daughter’s only one girl.”

The darkness folded around Archie as he realized what was happening. He’d been right yesterday. The chacmool had laid a trap for him in the cave, and he’d walked right into it. “Stephen, please …”

“No, Mr. Prescott. I can’t give this up.”

Something clattered hollowly against the rocks near where Stephen stood. “If you are what I think you are, that’ll lead you out. I was supposed to kill you, but I can’t do that.”

“My
daughter,
Stephen. Please.” Archie held out his hands and found nothing to support him. “Please don’t leave me here.”

Stephen made no reply. The quiet crunch of his footsteps faded away.

“Don’t leave me, Stephen!
Stephen!”
Archie’s voice rose to a broken scream. He kept screaming Stephen’s name, paralyzed by the crushing darkness all around.

Stephen felt like
he was sleepwalking as he passed the mouth of the cave on his way to the toolshed. Ground fog lay heavily among the trees and obscured the path, but his feet seemed to know their own way. The sun had just risen, but the dawn had no freshness. Its light seemed like another strange kind of fog, clinging to things, dripping from branches and twisting birdsongs into unrecognizable murmurs. He hadn’t slept again, lying awake next to Charlotte with his mind cluttered by gabbling voices. Twice during the night she had rolled against him and begun stroking his stomach, trailing her fingers through the curly hairs that grew there. Both times he had stopped her before she went any further, emasculated by the tumult in his head and his conflicted conscience. He had felt like warning her away, saying
I’m one small step from a murderer, blossom. One very small step.
And then he had burned with desire to make love, crush her to him, and when she had fallen back to the edge of sleep, speak to her. Justify himself:
If it’s not just for me? If it’s for our children, for every black child who could be born and live and be able to say
I am free?

Would that make it all right?

Maybe he had slept. In the darkest hours, anyway, he hadn’t exactly been awake. At times the voices had subsided into a quiet rushing noise like faraway rapids; at other moments he’d had to hold the blankets tightly to remind himself where he was. Fires had sprung up in the corners of the room, then faded out, leaving a stinking roasted odor behind. Charlotte muttered sleepy complaints and tossed on the bed, uneasy but not alarmed enough to wake up.

It had not been sleep, Stephen decided, but he hadn’t been awake. He’d passed the night somewhere in between, in a place where he could see and smell dreams that weren’t his own. And somewhere deep inside he was certain that no living man had dreamed those dreams.

He hadn’t been able to return from the place, either; it was still all around him as he popped the shack’s door open. The chirp of warped wood set off a fresh flurry of voices, but he couldn’t pin any of them down. Prescott brought the voices back, Stephen thought, but I can’t understand them anymore. Was that because of Prescott or something in Stephen himself?

I
am not a murderer. I do this for the Bishops and Bransfords who aren’t yet born. Her life is not worth all of theirs.

Jane’s appearance shocked him. Her skin had grown nearly transparent from days without sun and her eyes blinked feverishly deep in their sockets. She was so thin that Stephen could see the pulse under her jaw. The blanket he’d brought her lay flung in a corner, wrapped partly around a rusting shovel, and she hadn’t touched any food in at least two days, since the dried apples. The rest of the food he’d brought her lay exactly where he’d left it.

Worst of all were the scabs. Stephen had seen fading scars on her face and hands when the chacmool brought her, and even then she had been picking at the scabs, but they had been few and small—just normal from the itch of a healing burn. Now the scabs had grown to cover one entire side of her face, nearly closing one eye and pulling the right corner of her mouth into a smirk. They covered her hands as well, fusing the fingers together into single crooked hooks. Still she stroked the green quetzal feathers, and the feathers stroked her back, leaving fresh lumps of scab wherever they grazed unblemished skin.

“Is it time now? I think I’ll miss this body, now that it’s been healed. But is it time?” Scabs cracked as she spoke, and when she smiled her bottom lip split open and began to bleed. Stephen could see her nearly hidden eye rolling under a crust of dried blood, peering past him in hopes that the chacmool had come with him. When that shattered gaze returned to him, Stephen had to force himself not to run.

“Yes, it’s time,” he said. “Time to finish your travels.”

She stood, keeping the feather cloak wrapped tightly about her. “Hooray, it’s time,” she said, and all of the voices in Stephen’s head echoed her.

A
rchie had
no
idea how long he screamed for Stephen before his voice gave out and he sank to the floor, still choking out wordless guttural whispers. There was no time where there was no light. He lay on his side, feeling carefully about him to make sure he wasn’t on the lip of some invisible abyss, and gave up.

I
will die here,
he thought, the chill of the cave seeping into him.
If I stay here, I’ll go mad and die of thirst. If I move, the rock will open under my feet and my body will lie in a hole, decaying into a stringy curiosity for some scientist a hundred years from now.

I’m buried alive again.

He couldn’t move. If he explored the floor around him, he would find that there was no floor, that Stephen had led him onto a narrow spire with nothing but emptiness all around, burying him in space, in a bubble encased in stone.

Ridiculous, of course; he’d seen the cavern in the light of Stephen’s own lamp, and knew that he was near a wall, a solid wall that curved into a solid floor that extended beneath the domes towering over him.

But it was cold like his grave in the Brewery, and where there was darkness, there was no knowledge. Outside the sun might be shining, but here the only real thing was the dark.

If the sun is shining, it’s Sunday. And if it’s Sunday, Jane’s going to die tonight.

The thought came unbidden, and Archie tried to reason it away. She’ll die quickly, he answered. That’s more than I can hope for. He shivered, feeling the cold settle deeper into his body.

You want to die quick? Get up and walk. Fall down a hole. Shrivel up like the chacmool did, waiting for someone to find it.

“Don’t make me do that,” Archie moaned hoarsely. “I don’t want to know if there’s nothing there.”

What did Stephen say?

“Nothing.”

What did Stephen say before he left?

“What does it matter? He left.”

You want to go crazy before you die, Presto? Do you want to die shivering and sobbing in the dark? Do you?

“Don’t,” Archie said.

Do you?

“He—he dropped something.”

What did he say?

The words ground out between Archie’s teeth. “He said, ‘If you are what I think you are, this’ll lead you out.’ But he lied about everything else—why should that be true?”

He also said he could have killed you. Was that true?

“Don’t make me do this. I’ve done enough.”

When the chacmool cuts out your daughter’s heart, will she think so?

“She’ll die quickly.”

She’ll still die. What if Stephen was telling the truth? What if you could have gotten out? You’ve spoken to the dead, Presto. What will you say to Jane when she’s one of them?

“Don’t make me do this,” Archie moaned again, but he was already crawling across the floor, feeling ahead inch by invisible inch.

Steven didn’t light
his lamp as he led Jane into the cave. The blindsight the chacmool had granted him a taste of had returned the day before, when he’d put out the lamp and left Prescott. It was a gift, he knew, a reward for the work he’d done so far. He served the master, and the master granted his favor. It was the kind of thing Dr. Croghan would do.

Thinking of Croghan, Stephen wondered how he would explain his absence. He hadn’t specifically committed to giving any tours today, but even if no visitors had requested him, Stephen knew there would be trouble. If nothing else, Croghan would be angry that he’d missed Sunday service at the church across the river. The doctor liked to have his slaves in church.

Well, I will be in church, Stephen thought, watching Jane— he still couldn’t call her Nanahuatzin—step eagerly ahead of him. It seemed she could see in the cave too. Different church, and I’ve got my very own Messiah walking next to me.

Besides, Croghan’s bluster wouldn’t matter come morning, would it?

He led Jane along the route her father had taken the day before, around Giant’s Coffin and past Bottomless Pit, where she stopped and looked longingly down. “We’re very close now, aren’t we?” she said eagerly. Her scabs had begun to bleed a faint light, a sickly glow that reminded Stephen of the decayed gleam that morning’s dawn had brought.

“Very close,” he agreed, and they went on.

The mud from the Winding Way didn’t stick to the feathers of her cloak, and she came out into Great Relief looking like she’d been freshly bathed. She stared to chatter, prattling constantly about missing her body but looking forward to the next part of her journey. Half of what she said was unintelligible, muffled by the scabs that limited how far she could open her mouth. She didn’t seem to notice, and Stephen stopped listening—the voices were growing louder, and some of them were mimicking everything she said.

She pushed ahead of him, leading the way up the branch from River Hall to Bottomless Pit. By the time he reached the pit she had already gone into the Mummy Room. She fell silent, and he had to stop and take a deep breath before he ducked through the triangular opening after her.

Real light burned in the Mummy Room, illuminating the massive carving on the wall, the altar stone before it. Jane stood facing the chacmool, her disfigured face transformed by an expression Stephen had seen on voodoo women when the
loas
started talking.

The chacmool stroked her scabbed-over cheek, strings of light dripping from its clawed fingers. It didn’t look human. Tufts of fur sprouted from its pointed ears, and its skull had lengthened, growing a thick feline muzzle. Its cloak twitched, the feathers hardening briefly into scales, then fluttering like feathers again.

It turned to Stephen. Jane stayed where she was, half of her face smiling broadly. Her eyes were closed. She swayed slightly, in time with the ripples in her own cloak.

“Stephen,” it hissed. A forked snake’s tongue flicked out between feline fangs. “You have done well.”

It touched him lightly on the forehead and Stephen gasped as the voices in his head fell silent. “But not all is well,” the chacmool purred. “Prescort lives.”

Stephen felt like his mind had been laid bare by the chacmool’s touch. “He’s—he can’t get here,” Stephen stammered. “He’s lost. I’m the only one who could find him again.”

The chacmool growled and pressed its claws into Stephen’s brow. “Find him then,” it rasped. “And this time do as I told you.”

Its claws withdrew, leaving trickles of blood from four shallow punctures.

“Do not fail me, Stephen,” it said. “Your dreams are not yet secure.”

The bl
indsight had
left him. No: it had been taken away, by the same touch that had blown the voices away like leaves before a strong wind. Stephen stood among the breakdown rocks on the floor of Bottomless Pit, remembering the flush of excitement he’d felt when he’d first stood there. Before he’d discovered the Mummy Room, before he’d somehow brought the mummified chacmool to the surface, before he’d delivered a little white girl into the hands of her killer. And now he had to find Prescott and kill him. The chacmool would know if he didn’t.

Stephen wiped at the blood on his forehead. When was it too late to turn back? Now, he decided. The chacmool’s claws could as easily have torn out his throat, and they definitely would if he didn’t do as it said.
So now,
he thought,
I
will be a murderer. Take that last small step.

He lit his lamp and made his way back to River Hall, wondering how he would face Charlotte. Wondering if she would know.
Will I lose my love for this?

The chacmool was testing his loyalty. After he killed Prescott, it would find another test. When would it end?

Near the Dead Sea, Stephen saw something on the floor. He picked it up and saw that it was half of a raw potato. How had it gotten there? A strange smell hung about it, one he remembered but couldn’t place.

He sniffed at the potato and the smell came to him, among a flood of associations from a Christmas pageant Dr. Croghan had put on the year before. It was myrrh.

“Chacmool giveth and the chacmool taketh away, eh, Rebus?”

Stephen saw John Diamond’s head poking from the Dead Sea. “I gave Prescott the mask, dead man,” he said. “It’s not my fault if he doesn’t take it.”

“Hedging your bets? Sorry, Johnny, that’s no good.” Diamond climbed out of the pool and stood dripping. Stephen saw that he was missing most of one arm and part of the other hand. He stood awkwardly, as if one of his legs was shorter than the other, and strips of skin had peeled away from his bald skull.

“Better find your tomb, dead man,” Stephen said. “Before you can’t get there.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. Tomb’s all around.
You
worry me, Rebus.” Diamond grimaced, working at a loose tooth with his tongue.

“Why’s that?”

“You going to kill Presto? You are. Why?”

“You know why. You knew what this was all about before I did, and you just played games.” Stephen remembered the potato and tossed it away.

“No games. Dead man do what he can. You playing games with yourself. Why you going to kill Prescott?”

Stephen paused. “Were you a slave, Diamond?”

“Nope. Born free. Not that way now, though.”

“Then you don’t know. A man, a man just like me,
owns
me. Owns my wife. If I have to kill a man to change that, I’d be a coward not to.” Stephen’s voice began to rise.

Diamond raised one of his truncated arms, then chuckled. “Sorry Johnny—Rebus—can’t shush you proper. But you don’t want the chacmool to hear us.” Diamond worked the tooth free and spat it into the Dead Sea. “New world, eh?” he finished.

Stephen nodded. “That’s what’s at stake.”

“Got it. Question you haven’t asked yourself, Rebus. Chacmool makes promises, then it’s gonna kill you if you don’t do what it says. How’s that different from your master now?”

“It’s not about me, dead man. It’s about my children, every othet Negro child that hasn’t been born.”

“Hm. You think that little girl’s the only one going into the fire? Who the rest gonna be, Rebus? You think He Who Makes Things Grow won’t want
your
daughter’s heart?”

“That—”

“I asked you this before. Listen this time. What makes you think its world,” Diamond waved toward the passage leading to Bottomless Pit, “gonna be any different than the one you got?”

Stephen couldn’t answer.

“You think on that, Rebus. You think on that while you go to kill that Presto.”

Diamond walked away down River Hall, leaving Stephen alone staring into the water of the Dead Sea.