City At The End Of Time (44 page)

Ginny had started shaking, little tremors at first, but now her teeth were chattering. Jack reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled it away.

“The last time he visited, he told me we were going to take a walk. We climbed the stairs out of the basement, and the wind was whistling outside. It was cold—below freezing. The air smelled like snow. I noticed that they hadn’t put in carpet or wood floors—just plywood. It was really just an old abandoned house that had never been finished. He said we were going to meet the Queen.”

Jack pulled his hands apart so he wouldn’t bruise his fingers.

“He said the Queen paid him to find special people. Somehow, I saw that the guy’s clothes were actually pretty shabby. She couldn’t be paying him much. And now his skin looked old. I thought maybe I’d found myself a
real
vampire—a poor one.” Ginny’s voice dropped below a whisper. Jack could barely hear her.

The warehouse creaked. Yards off, a cat meowed. The meow echoed around the rafters as if there were dozens of cats.

“He was as afraid of the woods as I was. I knew the Queen wasn’t the woman who started fires, because we passed the car when we walked into the trees—just parked there, on the dirt driveway. Smoke was drifting out of an open rear window. The woman was inside. I saw her veil move. She was looking right at me but I couldn’t see her eyes.”

“You didn’t run?”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think about jumping the lines because I knew the woman in the car would set fires everywhere, and she wouldn’t even need to leave the backseat. I could almost
see
her doing it—hundreds of little blazes dropping from the air. She’d burn the woods, the house, any path I tried to take, anywhere I tried to go.”

“Using fires—like wasps.”

Ginny glanced left for a second, chin down, defiant, working hard to get it all out. “I wonder how many of them are out there, hunting us?”

Jack cocked his head. “No idea.”

“We walked between the trees for five or ten minutes. I thought we were walking in a big circle—we kept passing a black lake covered with green duckweed. Everything was getting dark. There was a storm coming in, low black clouds—lightning.”

“Sideways lightning?”

Ginny nodded. “Then he said something about a moth. Maybe it was
the
Moth. ‘The Moth is coming to introduce you.’ The trees—I noticed that their branches grew down into the dirt. The leaves moved, independently. But they weren’t really moving, they were just changing—getting bigger or smaller, shifting left or right, but without moving—because the trees were black and
solid
, like stiff tar. I thought, maybe each time a tree seemed to move, it was becoming a different tree—I don’t know how to describe what was wrong with them. The guy with the coin seemed as scared as I was. He said, ‘The Queen in White expects perfection. That’s part of her charm.’ I asked him how old he was, how old the Queen was, and he said, ‘What an odd question.’

“I think I saw another man—but it wasn’t a man. It stretched up and out until I could see right through it—right through him. We came to the center of the woods. I knew it was the center, but we had never left the circle. Maybe the path was a kind of spiral, but special—curving inward, but not in space. There was like a big lake of frozen jade-green water—all carved up, gouged out. I couldn’t see the sky over the lake—it just wasn’t there.”

Jack didn’t want to hear any more. He shifted a few inches to his right, as if she were a package about to explode.

“The clouds dropped and cut off the trees. Leaves fell like little flat rocks, ice cold. They stung when they hit my head and my arms. The light became gray and icy. The shadows had edges sharp as knives—if you walked over one, it could cut you. Everything smelled like lemons and burning gravy and gasoline—I hope I never smell anything like that again.

“‘Don’t say a word,’ the thin man told me. He pocketed his coin, held out his hand, wiggled his long fingers. I couldn’t help it—I showed him the stone, still in its box. He reached out as if to take it, but instead he backed away and said, ‘Don’t move. Don’t look. I’m sorry.’

“He started running. He left the circle we were on, and I heard him crashing through branches. I guessed that the circle was a trap—I had been hypnotized by the spiral. I couldn’t lift my feet.”

Jack covered his mouth.

“The same clouds…in the sky…like the ones that flew in over the city to get you,” Ginny said. “The man wanted to deliver me to something that didn’t belong here, something angry, sad. Disappointed. I stood between the trees. The leaves were spinning around the Queen or whatever it was in the center…I couldn’t see her. But she was tying up everything into one big knot. Her knot was the center of the spiral. I didn’t believe it, but I understood it—everything that
could
happen was
going
to happen, and all of it would happen to
me
, and some of it would even be stuff that couldn’t happen.

“I was about to see
everything,
all at once. I turned around—completely around—and the trees spun by, but only halfway, and I saw the man in the trees—he lowered his hands and his eyes were like snowballs in his head. I turned around again, completely around, knowing that I would not see the Queen again until I had spun twice. Does that make sense?”

Jack closed his eyes and realized he could see the sense that it did make. “In that place, you have to turn twice to rotate a full circle,” he said.

“I thought you’d understand.”

“It’s got a different logic, like the jumps we make. Did you see her?” Jack asked.

“I don’t call it seeing. But yes, I suppose I did. She was at the center of the jade lake. She wasn’t dressed in white, she didn’t wear anything. At first I didn’t know why the man called her the Queen in White. Maybe he saw her differently, or knew something else about her. She was very tall. If I came from somewhere else, saw with different eyes, I suppose she might have been beautiful. She had limbs or arms or things coming out of her that I didn’t recognize, but they looked right—they fit. Even so, I knew that if I came near her, she would suck my eyes right out of my head. I felt like a piece of bloody ice. She just stood at the center of her knot, watching, infinitely curious, curious like a hunger, curious like fear—she wanted to know everything about me. And so
angry
, so disappointed. I wanted to tell her what she needed to know, just to end her disappointment, her rage—but I couldn’t explain it in words. Instead, what I had to give her would shoot up out of my skin, all the places I had been and things I had done or would do—past and future, all my selves, just a big, chewed-up mess flowing into her knot. She’d end up wearing me like a dress or a scarf. I didn’t think I was going to die—but I knew that what was about to happen would be worse than dying.”

Jack sat stiff on the cot, hands trembling under his thighs. “Umhmm,” he murmured. She smiled. “But I’m here, right? So relax.”

“That’s not easy,” he said with a nervous grin.

“Well, deal. I had been holding something back—didn’t even know it, lucky for me, because I might have told her. Maybe
you
know what I’m talking about.”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me what I did.” Ginny looked straight at him.

Jack made a circular scissors motion with his fingers.

“Yeah. When I was finished—and it took just an instant—I was flat on my face, covered with leaves. Trees had fallen all around and water was everywhere—steaming but cold. Duckweed hung on all the trees. The lake had flung itself up out of the hollow, and I didn’t see the man again—I don’t know where he went. The whole forest was flattened.”

“What about your stone?”

“I dropped it, but then I found it,” Ginny said, nodding. “It was right near the path, still in its box. I picked it up and walked back between the trees. Near the house, I saw that the car was gone. I was alone. You must have done the same thing, Jack. So tell me what I did that made them go away.”

He still couldn’t answer.

“Can we
slice
world-lines?” she asked. “Not just jump between them, but cut them into pieces,
kill
them?”

He shook his head. “It’s something to do with the stones summing up. They’re part of us. We can’t lose them unless we die.”

“I knew that when I pawned the box. It always comes back to me. Did
you
cut things loose? In the storm.”

“I don’t remember. I don’t think I had time.”

“Hold my hand,” Ginny said, and held it out.

He didn’t hesitate. Her fingers were hot and her skin seemed to glow a faint cherry-red like the iron stove in the next room. “You’re burning up,” Jack said, but did not let go.

“Sometimes I do that. It’ll pass,” Ginny said. “I survived, didn’t I?”

“You sure did.”

“I know why they want to catch us,” she said. “Whoever they are.”

“Whatever they are,” Jack added.

“They’re afraid of us.”

He squeezed her fingers and the heat subsided. “Makes you wonder about Bidewell. What are we getting ourselves into?”

“Bidewell’s not afraid, not of us,” Ginny said. “That’s why I came here. No knots, no fear—just quiet and lots of books. The books
are
like insulation. I still feel safe here. My stone is safe, too—for now.”

Jack let out a low whistle. “Okay,” he said.

“You’re not convinced.”

“It’s quiet—that’s okay. But I’d like for everything just to get back to normal.”

“Was it ever normal—for you?” Ginny asked.

“Before my mother died,” he said. “Well, maybe not normal—but fun. Nice.”

“You loved her?”

“Of course. Together, she and my father were…wherever we ended up, we had a home, even if it was just for a day.”

Ginny looked around the warehouse. “This feels more like home than anyplace I’ve ever been. What about you? What’s your story?”

“My mother was a dancer. My father wanted to be a comedian and a magician. My mother died, then my father. I wasn’t much more than a kid. They didn’t leave me much—just a trunk, some tricks and some books on magic—and the stone. I didn’t starve—I had learned how to play guitar and juggle, do card tricks, that sort of thing. I fell in with a tough crowd for a while, like you, got out of it…learned the streets, started busking. Managed not to get killed. Two years ago I moved in with a guy named Burke. He works as a sous chef in a restaurant. We don’t see much of each other.”

“Lovers?” Ginny asked.

Jack smiled. “No,” he said. “Burke’s as straight as they come. He just doesn’t like living alone.”

“You’ve met those women before?”

“I know Ellen pretty well,” Jack said. “I met the others a few days ago.”

“Did you do those sketches that Miriam found…in your apartment?”

“I’m a lousy artist. The other one did them. My guest.”

“Where’s he from, do you think?”

“‘The city at the end of time,’ of course,” Jack said, trying for sarcasm, but his voice cracked.

“Mine, too,” Ginny said. “But the last time I dreamed about her, she’s not there. She’s outside, lost somewhere awful.”

“The Chaos,” Jack said.

She looked down at the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right,” he said.

“Jack, do
they
have stones like ours?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to bring them.”

“I don’t see how. They’re there—we’re here.” He pushed back, then looked down at a large cardboard box labeledVALDOLID , 1898. “What kind of books does Bidewell collect?”

“All sorts,” Ginny said.

Jack pulled up the interleaved flaps and lifted out a dusty volume. The book’s hinges had cracked and the leather left powder on his fingers. The gold-embossed words on the spine still did not mean anything. He looked up. “Gobbledygook Press,” he said. “I guess the stones aren’t finished.”

“A lot of his books were like that before. Bidewell seems to know the difference.”

“Makes as much sense as everything else.” Jack was about to put the book down, but something tugged in his arm—the faintest pull on a hidden nerve—and he turned to a middle page. There, surrounded by more nonsense, a paragraph poked up that he could (just barely) read: Then Jerem enterd the House and therei found a book all meaningless bu for these words: Hast thou the old rock, Jeremy? In your pocket, wihyou?

Ginny watched him closely as his face flushed, as if he had been prancing around naked. Tongue poking the inside of his cheek, Jack slowly flipped through more of the book. Nothing else made sense.

“What is it?” she asked.

He showed her the page. She read the lines and her jaw fell like a child seeing a ghost. “All the books are different,” she said. “I’m not in any of them.”

“Have you looked?” Jack asked.

She shook her head. “There wasn’t time.”

FOURTEEN ZEROS

CHAPTER 55

Tenebros Flood Channel

Pahtun had grown accustomed to living in the perpetual tweenlight of the outer reaches of the old flood channels. He seldom went up into the Kalpa and was content performing his duties on the wide flats, away from the wakelight glow over the Tiers—he called them by their old name, the rookery. Pahtun had been training marchers for longer than there had been breeds. A lofty, slender man with an experienced brown face, he strode along the channel floor, eyes silver-gray with caution. He knew the city was dying. It had been dying by degrees since before he had been made. Now, it was likely to finish its dying quickly.

Wakelight grew fitfully over the distant ceil. Red rings pulsed and flickered around the cracked and battered patches left by the intrusion that had blown through the lower levels of the first bion, directly over his head, and nearly claimed them all.

He finished his walk of twenty miles from the camp up the Tenebros channel, to the rendezvous between the first and second isles, and waited for the brown wardens to descend with their half-conscious burdens.

This time there were only nine rather than the usual twenty. “Great destruction,” the lead warden explained. “Many lost. These may be the last.”