The Road to Amber (7 page)

“Talk! Damn you!” I said. “I want your opinion!”

“All right.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘All right.’ What do you want to know?”

“How come you wouldn’t talk to me earlier?”

“I could only talk if you ordered me to. This is the first time you have.”

“What are you—really?”

“I was a physician he’d trained in early nineteenth-century Virginila. Name’s Don Laurel. I did something he didn’t like. Manufactured and sold a patent medicine—Laurel’s Bleafage Tonic.”

“Must have helped some people he didn’t want helped.”

“Aye, and maybe a few horses, too.”

“I just saved someone he didn’t want saved.”

“I don’t know what to tell you—except that I was arrogant and insolet when he confronted me concerning the medicine, and I wound up as transportation. You might want to try a different tack.”

“Thanks” I said, plucking a quarter from under the headlight and flipping it. “Tails. I will.”

Of Course Morrie came by later.

“Evening,” I said. “Care for a cup of tea?”

“David, how could you?” he asked. “I’ve been good to you, haven’t I? How could you go against my express wishes that way?”

”I’m sorry, Morrie,” I said. “I did it because I felt sorry for the guy—starting off with such a great year in office, particularly those health care programs, putting all those fat-cat business interests in their place, and being taken out of the game so suddenly. And—well I used to date his daughter. I still like her, as a matter of fact, and I felt sorry for her, too. That’s why I did it.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

“David, you’re a good-hearted boy,” he said. “It’s hard to fault a man for compassion, but in my line of work it can be a liability. You’re going to have to be ruled by your head, not your heart, when you’re working my cases, you understand?”

“Yes, Morrie.”

“Okay, let’s have that cup of tea and talk football.”

Three days later I was doing some work around the house when the phone rang. I recognized the governor’s voice immediately.

“How are you feeling, sir?” I asked.

“Fine, and I know l owe you a lot, but that’s not why I’m calling,” he said.

I knew it. Before he said another word, I could feel it coming: Morrie’s revenge. My test.

“Emergency?” I said.

“That’s right. It’s Betty, and from what Puleo told me about my seizure this sounds like the same thing. He didn’t say anything about its being contagious.”

”I’ll be right over.”

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No.”

I hung up, got my kit, went for Dorel. As we headed through the park, I told him what had happened.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“You know what I’m going to do.”

“I was afraid of that.”

And so, as I checked her over, Morrie entered the room and stood at the foot of the bed. I drew 3 cc’s into the syringe, then I turned her around.

“David, I forbid it,” he said.

“Sorry, Morrie,” I told him, and I administered the injection.

When she opened her eyes, I leaned down and kissed her, at about the same time that I felt Morrie’s hand upon my shoulder. This time his grip was icy.

“Me, too,” he said.

* * *

…And then we were walking in total silence through a dim place of constantly shifting shadows.

I seem to recall moving amid pieces of my world, in monochrome, as well as the way into his, down under the ground, of caves, tunnels, still pools. I knew we were arrived when we entered a tunnel lined with candles and followed it to that bright and massive central grotto where we had played so long at chess and drunk so much chocolate.

Passing through that vast gallery I seemed to acquire solidity once more. My footfalls created echoes. I felt again that cold grip which steered me. Some of the shadows fell aside, like drawn curtains.

Morrie took me through the grotto, up a corridor, then down a small, chilly tunnel off to its left which I had never visited before. I was too proud to ask him where we were headed and so be the first to speak.

At length, we halted, and he released my arm and gestured.

Jamming my cold hands into my pockets, I followed the gesture but could not at first tell what he was indicating, as we stood in a fairly average area of his office, ledges and niches full of candles. Then I saw that one of them was much lower than all of the others and was flickering now, preparatory to guttering. Assuming it to be Betty’s, I waited to see it replaced by the action of one of the invisible entities.

“It was worth it,” I said. “I love her, you know.”

He turned and stared at me. Then he chuckled.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You think that that’s her candle? No. You don’t understand. She’ll live. You’ve seen to that. Her candle is already in good shape. This is
your
candle. You started out kind of handicapped in that regard. Sorry.”

I withdrew a hand from my pocket, reached out, touched it gently.

“You mean that’s all I have? Maybe a few minutes? And you didn’t mess with it because you’re mad at me? That’s
really
the way it is?”

“That’s right,” he said.

I licked my lips.

“Any—uh—chnce of an—extension?” I asked.

“When you’ve crossed my will a second time, after I’d warned you?”

“I didn’t do it lightly,” I said. “I told you I’d know Betty years ago, and I cared about her then. I didn’t realize how much until just recently, when it was almost too late. There was no real choice then. I had to save her. Perhaps such emotions are something you cannot quite understand—”

He laughed again.

“Of course I can understand caring about something,” he said. “Why do you think I’d decided to take Governor Caisson right when I did? The son of a bitch’s business policies had just cost the town a pro football franchise—for my favorite team. And I’d been angling to get them here for over a generation.”

“So you
were
grabbing him off early?”

“You bet I was. Then you had to butt in for the first time in your life.”

“I begin to understand… Say, Morrie, you know it’s not too late to transfer my flame to a fresh candle.”

“True,” he acknowledged, “and you are my
godson
. That still counts for something.”

He stared a moment longer at the candle.

“Probably should,” he said. “Shouldn’t stay mad forever. Family counts for something… ” and he stooped and reached into an opened case back in a recess in the wall.

Drawing forth a candle, he stood and reached forward with his other hand toward my sputtering taper. He touched it, began to raise it. Then I saw it slip from his fingers and plunge groundwards.

“Shit!” I heard Morrie say as it fell. “Sorry, David—”

* * *

Lying on the floor, watching a tiny spark, feeling that something had worked properly, not recalling what… And my cheekbone was sore where I’d hit it when I fell.

I lay amid countless lights. There were things I had to do, and do quickly. What were they?

I raised my head and looked about. Morrie was gone…

Ah, yes. Morrie, my godfather. Gone…

I placed my palms upon the floor and pushed myself up. Nobody there but me, a guttering candle, and a black bicycle. What was it I was supposed to remember? My mind felt heavy and slow.

“Get a candle out of the box, David! Hurry!” Dorel told me.

“You’ve got to take the flame from the other before it dies again.”

Dies again…

Then I remembered and shuddered. That’s what I had done—died. And I would do it again and for keeps if I didn’t act quickly. Fearing the worst, I had been able to buy this brief recurrence of the light, finally finding a use for the Five-Minute Time Warp I kept in my pocket. But how long it would last, lying there, sputtering, upon the floor, I could not tell.

I moved with accelerated deliberation—that is to say, as fast as I felt I could without disturbing the air to the point of ending the enterprise. It was just a piece of wick in an irregular puddle of wax now.

I groped in the carton, took out a candle, moved it to a position above the failing flame, held it there. For a second, the first one nearly died and my vision darkened and a numbness passed over me. But it caught, and these symptoms vanished. I turned it upright then and rose to my feet, groping once again in my pocket. I carried dried stems, flowers, roots, and leaves of bleafage wrapped in a handkerchief.

I placed the handkerchief on Dorel’s seat and unfolded it.

“Good idea,” he suggested as I began eating the specimens. “But as soon as you’re finished I want to lead you to another tunnel where we can hide your candle amid many. We ought to hurry, though, in case he’s still in the area.”

I stuffed the last of the bleafage into my mouth and set off walking beside him, carrying my candle.

“Could you locate Betty’s candle and hide it, too?” I asked.

“Given the time, the appropriate form, and the access,” he said.

I followed him down another tunnel.

“I used to work here,” he went on. “I was an invisible entity before he made me a bike. If I were an invisible entity here again I could keep moving your candle and Betty’s so that he’d never know. I could correct any number of his petty abuses the way I used to. Might keep lighting you new ones, too, if you got into bleafage research.”

“I could be persuaded,” I said. “What would it take to make you an invislible entity again?”

“I’m not permitted to say.”

“Even if I order you?”

“Even then. This is a different category of restriction. I can’t think of a way to tell you how to get around this one.”

We moved a little farther down the tunnel and he halted.

“To your left,” he said, “in that low niche where several others are burning.”

I dribbled a little wax to anchor it, set it upon that spot, held it in place till it was fixed.

“Mount,” Dorel said then.

I climbed onto th seat, and we coasted through a series of chambers. Soon the stroboscopic effect began again.

“Back to where you were?” Dorel asked.

“Yes.”

After a time, the upper world flashed into being for longer and longer intervals, as the underworld diminished.

Then we were slowing before the governor’s mansion. Then we were halted there. I was dismounting. There was still some daylight, though the sun hovered just above the western horizon. As I was setting the kickstand, I heard the front door open.

“Dave!” she called.

I looked up, watched her approach down the stair. I realized again how lovely she was, how much I wanted to protect her. In a moment, she was in my arms.

“Dave, what happened? You just sort of faded away.”

“My godfather, Morrie, took me. I’d done something he didn’t like.”

“Your godfather? You never mentioned him before. How could he do that?”

“He is a person of great power over life,” I said, “who is responsible for whatever power I possess over death. Fortunately, he thinks I’m dead now. So I believe I’ll have some reconstructive surgery, change the spelling of my name, grow a beard, move to another state, and run a small, low-key practice to cover the expense of my bleafage research. I love you. Will you marry me and come along?”

Dorel said, “I hate to tell you that you sound a little crazy, Dave, but you do.”

She stared at my bike.

“Are you a ventriloquist, too?” she asked me.

“No, that was Dorel talking. He just saved my life. Hes a rebel spirit doing time as a bicycle, and he’s been with me since I was a kid. Saved my life a couple of times then, too.” I reached out and patted his seat.

Descending the steps, she leaned forward and kissed the top of the handlebars.

“Thanks Dorel,” she said, “whatever you are.”

Whatever he was, it was no longer a blcycle. He fell apart in the day’s-end light into a swirling collection of golden motes. I watched, fascinated, as the phenomenon resolved itself into a tower about six feet in height, narrowing as it grew.

I heard Betty draw in a long breath.

“What did I just set off?” she asked.

“Beats me,” I said. “But since there was no frog I don’t think you get a prince.”

“Guess I’m stuck with you then,” she said, and we watched the bright whirlwind assemble itself into a human shape—that of a tall, bewhiskered man in buckskins.

He bowed to Betty.

“Don Laurel,” he said. “At your service, ma’am.”

Then he turned and shook my hand.

“Sorry to deprive you of transportation, Dave,” he said. “But I just got my enchantment broken.”

“Calls for a celebration,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Now that I’m unbiked I have to find a niche quick,” he said, “or, I’ll fade to airy nothingness. So I’ll be heading back below, and I’ll take up residence in the caves. He’ll never spot an extra invisible entity. And I’ll keep moving both of your candles out of his way. Good luck with the bleafage work. I’ll be in touch.”

With that, he turned once more into a tower of light. The motes darted like fireflies and were gone.

“That’s a relief,” I said, moving once more to embrace her. “But I wish things had gone differently with Morrie. I like him. I’m going to miss him.”

“He doesn’t exactly sound like a nice guy,” she observed .

“His line of work hardens him a bit,” I explained. “He’s actually quite sensitive.”

“How can you tell?”

“He likes football and chess.”

“They both represent violence—physical, and abstract.”

“…And hot chocolate. And Schubert’s Quartet in D Minor. And he does care about the balance between life and death, most of the time.”

She shook her head.

“I know he’s family,” she said. “But he scares me.”

“Well, we’re going incognito now. He shan’t be a problem.”

I was able to leave it at that for a long time. Betty and I were married, and I did change my name and move to a small town in the South—though I opted against cosmetic surgery. The beard and tinted glasses and a different hairstyle altered my appearance considerably, or so I thouht. I built up a satisfactory practice, had a greenhouse full of bleafage, and set up a small home laboratory. For over a year I managed not to be present at life-and-death crises, and when visiting my patients in hospital I was able t oavoid other patients at terminal moments which might have resulted in an undesired family reunion.