The Serpent Mage (28 page)
Authors: Greg Bear
Michael probed his memories, saw a ghostly figure in gray commissioning Mozart to write a requiem… and the Maln moving in to end his career on Earth before he could finish the requiem —
Clarkham! The figure in gray, as Moffat had heard, could have been no other. Mozart had almost certainly been Clarkham's first victim, even before Coleridge.
Once again the emotion he felt toward Clarkham lay rich and heavy in him, not precisely anger, but a kind of
necessity
.
Michael's thoughts came to an abrupt dividing line. He looked across the stage, where Mozart was even now sitting at the piano, as casually as if he were alone.
Beneath the oily black sky, with time's heartbeat fluttering in his palms like a wounded dove, Michael felt tears running down his cheeks.
You'll kill yourself. Say good-bye to everything you've ever been. There's a sixteen-year-old boy still buried in you who wants nothing more than a normal adolescence. You'll kill him; he is you. A new person starts here, not normal, weighed down with impossible responsibilities
. He thought of the key and Waltiri's note and the door through Clarkham's house. If he had simply left that avenue untraveled, would any of this have happened? Would he have involved himself in this incredibly convoluted, beautiful, horrible nightmare? It seemed that all of reality had changed when he entered that door.
The Jehovah's Witnesses, with their crazy and unshakable convictions about history and prophecy, about the way the universe was… Were they any crazier than he, with his new knowledge? Perhaps not.
But they were weaker.
The most frightening realization of all was that
he
could be master of this particular nightmare. He could swing worlds one way or another, creating paradise or hell or simply continuing the monstrous progression of the past.
Mozart applied his fingers to the keyboard without hesitation.
/
am the key. A few realize that now. But I am not even sure who I am or what I am going to do
. Michael tried to recall the self-confidence he had felt earlier, the undoubting assurance of what had to be done. He could not. Something like that assurance was necessary, but he had disliked himself, feeling thus.
Still, he did not have the luxury of long introspection.
Mozart sat at the piano with head cocked to one side, listening to the music before his fingers drew it from the keys. Then he began to play, slowly at first, with implications of unease, fear, in the key of G minor. But he quickly moved to the major, and the music began a climb to exaltation.
For a moment, Michael tried to analyze that music. Then he simply shut his eyes and let the music penetrate him. Without analysis, without the feeling that there was a score behind the sounds — there wasn't, of course — the music could do what it was meant to do. It could define and create a language of worlds, not words or thoughts, guiding Michael at the same time that it put the audience in a spell. They would learn the differences between worlds, and they would discover they had a choice…
For Mozart's playing was virtually a definition of sanity and peace and order. It was not lacking in conflict; it did not sugar-coat. It calmly and confidently outlined a place in which it would be wonderful to live.
From what Michael remembered of Mozart's music in Waltiri's collection of records, that was what virtually all of his music had done. In a world of people adapted to hard times and social infighting and inhospitable realities, it had gracefully outlined an alternative.
The best that we can be.
Michael looked down at his hands, folded before him.
Something glowed between the intertwined fingers. Ulath was still watching him. There was apprehension in her eyes. The Ban of Hours, listening to Mozart's music, had clasped her own hands before her breast and lowered her head as if in prayer.
"Shiafa," he said softly, raising his hands. "Will you join with me, this once?"
She was trembling. "We will die," she said. He thought of Eleuth, trying powerful magic before she was ready.
"I don't think so. If we don't try, we'll die anyway, and everybody with us."
"My father will protect me," she said. "He is the God of the Realm."
"He has left you to me," Michael reminded her.
Would Tarax interfere
?
"What do you want from me? That which I will give only in mating? I don't even know what that is."
"No mating," Michael said. "No loss. I need what you have inside you, but I cannot take it. You can only give it to me — to us — and I will not keep it."
Shiafa lifted her eyes to the sky. The music was not so much heard as lived, now. Mozart was succeeding. "I am so afraid," she said, shuddering.
"So am I." Michael unclasped his hands, and the light between them went out. He held his right hand out to her. All around, save for Ulath, the audience paid them no attention, entranced by the music. "There isn't enough time to train you and give you all the discipline. I cannot make you what your father would have you be. The old traditions are inadequate. Help me forge new ones."
Shiafa took his hand and grasped it firmly. White light escaped from between their fingers.
In the palm of his other hand, Michael felt time come apart like a squeezed clot of dust. The sky went from uncertain blackness to the nonexistence and nonquality of death. The arena skewed and bled upward, all of its coral redness fragmenting and smearing.
Now we begin
, Michael told Shiafa through their joined hands. The humans in the arena had been enchanted by Mozart's music, but they had not had time to transport. It was necessary for Michael to make his first small world and wrap them in it.
Where are we
? Shiafa asked.
We are dead, I think
, Michael said. There was no seeing, no feeling, only their thoughts and joined energy. Around them — if "around" could be used to describe relations without space or coherent time — were the people who had been in the arena and Mozart's music, pure pattern without sound. Michael used the pattern as a model.
There was no time to lay down solid underpinnings for the world. Instead, he began a "gloss"— warmth, distance, some semblance of time. What else did a world need? Limits. He established a size.
And saw three hands. His hand and Shiafa's, joined, and his other hand. In his free hand he saw a pearl the size of a walnut. The pearl blossomed and became a coral-red rose. The edges of the rose's petals spread out as red lines, vibrating to Mozart's pattern. The red lines marked out a space, twisting to meet and close off the space. The lines then vanished. Again, in his free hand was a pearl, this time the size of a baseball. He closed his fingers around it and pushed it back — not necessary. He would save it for another time.
Space and warmth surrounded the five thousand. Michael listened for the Earth. It was, of course, quite close, singing its complex, steady, but somewhat out-of-tune melody.
Do you fee I the Earth
? he asked Shiafa.
Yes.
This is what war between Sidhe and humans left behind
—
a garden gone to seed. Hatred and pain and deception
.
Yes.
Our people are more alike than either would suspect.
Yes.
I need you to help me bring all of us to the Earth. Do you feel how it must be done? Training through necessity…
She replied that she could feel the necessity but not yet the method.
Just listen
… he suggested.
Feel the addings and takings away. We must come to the Earth when it is neither adding nor taking away, and then we must synchronize
.
She was no longer afraid. He felt in her some of the confidence he had experienced earlier.
Dare
, he said.
Together, they dared.
He saw the between-worlds arrayed beneath them like nightmare relief maps, all the shadows and discarded possibilities. He veered away from them, toward the song of the true and finished Earth.
The limits of his little world were fading. His first creation would hold together only briefly.
The Earth unfolded, and around it, all the possible points of space and time. He disregarded those possible points —
how the Sidhe felt their way between the stars, back when the world had not joined with so many other worlds and was so much smaller
— and concentrated on the familiar.
Young, homesick Michael Perrin rose up and asserted himself. Shiafa did not object. Neither did the newer, more powerful Michael. Los Angeles spread its night tapestry below them.
They needed a place to let the bubble burst, a place that could accommodate everybody, an empty place…
Dodger Stadium, dark and deserted under the warm night skies
Accepted them, and Michael's first world died.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Five thousand people, some of whom had not seen the Earth for millennia, stood on the turf and soil, spread out over the diamond, infield and outfield, all the way to the fence.
Moon and sun briefly arced with shadow and fire in the sky as the dead Realm spread across and through the Earth. Everybody fell to their hands and knees as the ground shook. The noise and quaking went on for a very long time; Michael wondered if Mahler's symphony had been enough to cushion the fall. Then the noise subsided, and the ground became still.
Michael released Shiafa's hand in the silence after.
"Thank you." he said.
Shiafa sat up with her legs crossed beneath her. "This is Earth?" she asked, staring up at the dark seats arrayed in concentric rows and the few scattered security lights.
"It is," Michael said.
"It
doesn't feel
right," she said. "It feels harsh."
He did not disagree.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Morning light was already touching the high cirrus clouds above Los Angeles. Michael, Shiafa, Nikolai and Ulath walked through the people sitting, standing, conversing or just staring — at the sky, the walls, the tiers of seats — while Michael tried to assess the extent of their problem.
Five thousand people. Frightened, most of them unfamiliar with the Earth. Soon to be hungry. Brought abruptly into a world already upset and confused. Most of them illegal aliens.
"I need some organization," he said. "How did the Ban administer them all in the
Sklassa
?"
"They have speakers — one for every fifty — and a knot-maker for every ten speakers. The knotmakers address the assistants of the Ban," Ulath explained.
Michael pursed his lips, thinking rapidly. "Where is Biri? The other assistants?"
"I saw Biri inspecting the walls around the field," Nikolai said. Michael probed for him, found him and sent a dubious Nikolai to bring him into the center of the group, near second base.
"Nobody should leave the stadium until I've learned what conditions are like outside. I think"— he knew, actually, but the feeling was unfamiliar—"that Bin will cooperate with us. Together, we can keep order — where is the Ban?" He could feel her presence but could not pinpoint her location.
"She has chosen to spread herself among her children," Ulath said.
"What does that mean?"
"She is diffuse now. She will attend to us all and to the Sidhe of Earth."
"How do we communicate with her?"
"I speak to her," Ulath said.
"Yes, but why did she do this now, when we need her?"
"Because Tarax is here. He has brought the Realm to its end and now begins his rule on Earth. She protects us best by spreading herself."
Michael closed his eyes briefly to feel for her.
What has happened to you now? Are you dead
?
"The Ban is not dead."
"I still have a lot to learn about the Sidhe," he said.
"Perhaps about the Ban only," Ulath suggested, smiling.
Nikolai and Biri approached, Bin trailing the Russian by several steps. "This is a foul place," Biri said. "It is dirty and painful."
"There's no place like home." Michael told him they would need a perimeter of protection to prevent people from entering the stadium and to discourage the captives from leaving.
"That is simple enough," Biri said.
"Ulath and the Ban's other assistants will help you." T
"I can do that alone."
"Fine. I have to leave to make arrangements outside. Is everybody here except the Ban?"
"The Ban is here," Ulath reiterated.
"Yes. Well?"
"I think so," Nikolai said.
"Where are Mozart and Mahler?"
"I will find them," Nikolai said, running off between the crowds of people.
They're still remarkably well-behaved
, Michael thought.
No clamoring, no confused milling about. And it's not because they're dazed, either
. Perhaps there would be fewer problems than he had imagined, at least among the five thousand inside the stadium.
Savarin approached Michael alone. His robes were stained green with grass and smudged with dirt. "This is truly Earth?" he asked.
"Yes,1' Michael said. "You aren't by any chance a speaker or knotmaker, are you?"
"Henrik is a knotmaker," Ulath said.
Savarin grinned sheepishly. "I am always the organizer," he said.
"Good. Then you'll help us—" He spotted Nikolai returning with Mahler and Mozart. "Excuse me."
Michael hugged Mozart firmly and shook Mahler's hand. "You've done it," he said to them.
"Wolferl played magnificently," Mahler said.
"Yes, well, such an audience,
nein
?"
"Would both of you be up to accompanying me?" Michael asked. "I'll need help outside. Nikolai, you too…"
"Gladly," Nikolai said. Mahler inhaled deeply and shook his head. "The air smells very bad here."
"There's lots to get used to. But there're some people — friends of mine — who would very much like to meet you. 1 have to make some phone calls — talk to them."
If phones are still working
,
"I will go," Mozart said. "This is exciting, really." He sounded more willing than he looked. Mahler rubbed his hand back across his high forehead and gray hair.
"
Ja
," he said. "But be careful with us. We are not young men, you know."
"Speak for yourself," Mozart said.
In a group, they made their way off the field and down a ramp. Michael was searching for a pay phone, though he didn't have any money in his ragged clothes.
"There is a frightened man ahead," Shiafa said as they passed the door of a locker room. Michael had felt him also — and he was armed.
"A security guard, probably," Michael said. "Best to be open." He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Hey! We need help."
A portly, middle-aged man in a gray uniform came out of the shadows with his gun drawn. "Who in the hell are you?"
"We need help," Michael said, holding his hands in the clear and nodding for the others to follow suit. "I need to make a call. There're a lot of people on the field—"
"I saw them. They're like those freaks coming out of everywhere."
"No, no they aren't," Michael reassured him. "They're people, most of them, and so am I. But they need help. We have to call the police, the city. They're going to need shelter, food, clothing."
"What in hell is this?" the guard asked, clearly out of his depth. He was close enough now that Michael could see his sweating face and the wicked gleam on the black barrel of his service revolver.
"I need to get to a phone," Michael said.
"They're not working. I mean, they're only working some of the time. Who are you?"
Michael approached the guard slowly, hands extended, and gave him his name and street address. The guard finally acquiesced and took them to a pay phone near the end of the corridor. He did not put away his gun, however, and he stood well back from them.
Michael smiled his thanks and dialed for the operator. He got a beeping noise and then a recording: "All phone connections are for emergency use only. An operator will be on the line soon. If this is not an emergency, please hang up. Penalties may be levied for abuse of emergency services."
Half a minute passed, then a weary male voice answered. "Emergency service only. May I help you?"
"Yes. I need to reach the office of the Mayor."
"You're whistling in the wind, buddy," the operator said. "You're on a pay phone. Unless you need the police or are reporting an accident with injuries, we don't service pay phones."
"Fine," Michael said patiently. "Connect me with LAPD Central."
"It's your head."
Several minutes passed before he was able to get a line through, and then an even more weary female voice answered.
"I'd like to speak to Lieutenant Harvey in homicide," Michael said.
"Lieutenant Harvey is no longer on homicide. He's on Invasion Task Force."
"Wherever he is, I need to talk to him."
"Is this an emergency?"
"Yes," Michael said. He glanced at the guard. "I'm talking to the police now." he said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
"Invasion Task Force, Sergeant Dinato."
"My name is Michael Perrin."
There was a sharp intake of breath and then a quick, stuttered, "Hold on. I'm transferring you to Lieutenant Harvey's office now."
"Thank you," Michael said. He banked his
hyloka
carefully, realizing how tired he was. The guard held his ground, but he had lowered his pistol a few inches and was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. He inspected them closely, his eyes darting from Mozart's blue silk jacket and white breeches and hose to Mahler's dark robe and Shiafa's ragged pants and loose blouse. "Where all did you come from, anyway?" he asked nervously.
"From Dreamland," Mozart said. "We've just awakened."
"You're all German?"
"I'm Russian," Nikolai said.
"All of you?"
Michael recognized Lieutenant Harvey's resonant "Hello" immediately. "Where the hell have you been?" Harvey asked. The lieutenant sounded exhausted.
"Not far. I'm calling from Dodger Stadium. I have something of an emergency here."
"Oh?" Harvey asked cautiously.
"I'll need food, supplies and shelter for about five thousand people. Human beings. There are a few Sidhe here, as well."
Harvey's silence was prolonged. "That will stretch us a bit," he said. "Dodger Stadium? Where?"
"On the field."
"I mean, where did they come from?"
"The Realm," Michael said.
"All at once?"
"All at once."
There was a sharp edge to Harvey's laughter. "You know," he said, "I'm almost accustomed to this crap now. You gave me the basic tools to help me accept it. I guess I owe you. Are these people dangerous?"
"No," Michael said. "Mostly, they're frightened. Some have been away for a long time."
"All right. I'll see what I can do. Are you going to stay there?"
"I don't think so," Michael said, thinking rapidly. "I have a lot of other work to catch up on. We'll have a committee here to meet your people and work with them."
"I'll put together a team now. I feel silly asking you this, but when will I hear from you again?"
"I don't know," Michael said. There was simply no way of telling how much time his next few challenges would take. "Can you get me an open phone line? I need to call my parents."
"Sure," Harvey said. "Hold on for a sec."
"Thanks," Michael said.
