The Serpent Mage (29 page)
Authors: Greg Bear
Chapter Thirty
The taxi driver — a portly Lebanese with a well-trimmed mustache and curious, darting eyes — took Michael, Shiafa, Mahler and Mozart from the stadium parking lot to the Waltiri house in record time. The streets were almost deserted. "I'm the only one out this time of day. Everybody else, they stay home," he said. "I'm not afraid of these spooks. It's fear hurts people." He glanced nervously in his mirror at Shiafa. "Don't you think that's what hurts people?"
Nobody answered. Mahler and Mozart seemed to be in dreamy shock. The modem buildings and sprawled clutter of Los Angeles was completely contrary to their experience. "Ugly," Mahler said under his breath again and again, but he did not turn away. Mozart, sitting between Shiafa and Mahler in the back seat, was frozen, his hands folded and clamped between his knees, only his eyes moving away from the cab's center line.
Michael was too tired to do more than broadcast a light circle of awareness tuned to Tarax or Clarkham. His more experienced eye — helped by the driver's occasional observations — was already picking out the city's new incongruities.
The late morning sky over the city was cut through with wildly tangled clouds on several levels. Michael had never seen their like before. The air smelled electric, and his palms tingled constantly, telling him that the song of Earth had been disturbed by the Realm's death. Some of the Realm's qualities had been passed on to the Earth, perhaps by Tarax's design. Michael wearily realized that magic would not be so difficult on Earth now.
"No people at all up and down Wilshire. On a Wednesday!"' the taxi driver said, waving his free hand out the window. "And you're my first fare today. God knows why I work, but 1 got no wife, no kids, this cab's my life."
"We appreciate your working," Michael said.
"Take my advice. You all look very tired. You belong to some rock band, some group? I notice your dress. That's a fine wig. You look all rumpled, like you've been playing a concert all night… Funny." He shook his head.
"We're musicians," Michael said. He found his head nodding as if to some inner beat and had to stop it with an effort of will. "Hard couple of days."
Mozart laughed abruptly and without explanation, then grabbed the front seat and leaned forward. "Is it all this bad?" he asked plaintively. "Is there no place the eye can rest?"
"Sorry," Michael said. "We'll be home soon." He glanced at Mahler. "Arno Waltiri's house."
Mahler's eyelids assumed that languid expression Michael had seen before. "Waltiri. Brilliant youth. He must be very old by now."
"He's dead," Michael said. Time enough to explain the details later.
John and Ruth were sitting on the front steps of the Waltiri house as the cab drove up and deposited the four of them on the sidewalk. John paid the fare, and Ruth hugged Michael as the others stood on the concrete and grass, squinting and blinking in the bright sun.
"Everyone has their own tiny estate here," Mozart said, gazing at the neighborhood.
Michael and John embraced peremptorily. "Welcome back," John said. "You've been gone during the worst of it. Ruth and I thought you'd choose this morning to come back. It just… seemed appropriate."
"After the earthquake," Ruth said. "After the false dawn."
Michael introduced them as they walked to the house. He reached into his pocket and produced the key, still there after all he had been through, and opened the door.
A warm wind blew out of the house, redolent with jasmine, honeysuckle and tea roses. The interior of Waltiri's house was overgrown with flowering plants and vines. They ascended the walls to the ceiling, forming an arch, and covered all the furniture, leaving only the floor and a narrow passageway clear. On every branch and twig, peering from every tiny hollow, birds blinked at him through the foliage. Pigeons and sparrows rustled and backed away on the floor as the door opened wider; others regarded the intruders with sleepy black eyes, unperturbed.
"All right," Michael said slowly, stopping in the hallway and spreading his hands.
"I feel a power," Shiafa said. Ruth regarded her with frank worry, obviously thinking of the hill wife her great-grandfather had taken.
Mozart sat on the front step and leaned his head on one hand, staring out at the street, too jaded by marvels to care much about a houseful of forest and birds. "Where do we sleep? In there?" he asked, gesturing behind him.
Michael, Shiafa and Mahler walked down the flowered passage until they came to the stairway to the second floor. The birds made way for them and did not seem unduly disturbed. "Surely this is magic," Mahler commented. "All these birds, yet the place is so
clean
."
"Do you feel anything?" Michael asked Shiafa.
"Yes. It feels powerful. Someone important is here."
A large black crow with red breast-feathers and white-rimmed eyes hopped down the stairs, ignoring them, intent on its descent, until it reached the bottom. Then it turned its attention to Michael, beak open and thin black tongue protruding, angling its head this way and that.
"Arno?" Michael inquired softly.
The crow lifted its head. "Arno is dead," it squawked. "Now is the time of marvels. Boy become man. Death of worlds. Gods die too."
Michael kneeled to be closer to the bird's level. "Were you Arno?"
"Helped be him. Arno was man. Gone where dead men go."
"Are you…?"
"Am feathered mage," the crow said, strutting. It spread its wings, revealing iridescent black plumage and, under both wings, the lettering of its bondage.
Mahler shrunk back. A sparrow landed on his shoulder and chirruped, the first actual bird noise they had heard since entering. Mahler did not attempt to brush it off, but he was clearly enchanted and unhappy at once. "What does this mean?" he asked.
"It means we'll be sleeping at my parents' house," Michael said. "Doesn't it?" he asked the crow.
"Come back. Time to confer. The bonds soon will break. We choose you. Come back."
"All right," Michael said, standing. "I'll be back."
Outside, as they walked the few blocks to his parents' house, John asked, "Pardon the cliche, Michael, but what does it all mean?"
"There's magic on Earth again, and.the Sidhe are no longer its only masters," he said.
"That sounds suitably portentous, son," John commented dryly. "Bring it down to my level."
"I think I understand," Ruth said. "We're all together again. There's no other place to go. Fairyland is dead. We have to live together."
"We will share the rent," Mozart said muzzily. "Do we have to walk much farther?"
They did not.
Chapter Thirty-One
John seemed dazed. He followed Mozart, Mahler and his son up the stairs to the second floor. Mozart peered into the bathroom while Michael pulled towels from the linen closet.
"There's plenty of room," John said. Mahler squared his slumped shoulders and yawned. John suddenly seemed to focus on the two men, and his eyes grew wider as he stared at them. Michael walked past him with the towels. "They can stay in the guest room; there are two beds in there," John suggested.
"One can stay in my room," Michael said. "I don't think I'll be sleeping."
"Right. Michael's room."
Mozart inquired where that was, and John opened the door for him.
"Good. Crowded and busy. I'll stay here." He thanked John and shut the door behind him. John stood in the hallway, hands in pockets, blinking owlishly.
"We are very appreciative of your hospitality," Mahler said. "I do not know why your son brought us here."
"I don't either," John said. "But we're glad… to have you."
Michael emerged from the bathroom. "There. All set out. Do you sleep?" he asked Mahler.
"I haven't slept in many years, but today… yes. I'll sleep." He entered the guest bedroom and swung the door shut, smiling at John briefly through the crack before the latch clicked.
Michael put his arm around his father's shoulder. "I'm sorry to upset everything on such short notice."
"Don't mind me," John said. "I just can't accept what's happening. Those two — they're
really
Mahler, Gustav Mahler, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?"
"They are," Michael said.
"They were held by the Sidhe… for all this time?"
"However long that was for them," Michael said. He paused at the head of the stairs. Ruth was in the living room, busily making up the couch, apparently intending it as a bed for Shiafa, who stood near the front door watching her. "I don't think Shiafa sleeps, either," Michael said.
"Who is she?" John asked softly.
"Where are you from?" Ruth asked her in a high-pitched, nervous voice clearly audible on the stairs.
"She's the daughter of a Sidhe named Tarax," Michael told John, too low for his mother to hear.
"I was born in the Realm," Shiafa said to Ruth.
John glanced at Michael. They had stopped halfway down the stairs, eavesdropping by silent and mutual consent.
"Oh? That's what we called Faerie, until now, isn't it?"
"I do not know."
"Yes. I think it is. You know, you remind me of… Well, never mind that. Have you known my son long?"
"Not long," Shiafa said.
"Is he important to you?"
"Yes."
"Oh," Ruth said breathlessly, fitting the top sheet and blanket over the couch cushions. She kept a constant watch on Shiafa from the corner of her eye. "Will you be staying with us for some time? I'm sorry. That's not polite." She stood, smoothing her hands down her legs, and tossed a strand of hair back. "This is not easy for me to accept. Are you and Michael, my son… lovers?"
"Jesus," Michael breathed, immediately resuming his descent.
"No," Shiafa said. "He is my teacher."
"Mother, no time for this now," Michael interrupted. "Shiafa probably won't be sleeping. She may want to clean up-"
"Good… GOD," Ruth said, staring at Michael with a fierce expression. "John, is any of this happening?"
"You know it is," John said.
"She looks just like my great-grandmother. She could
be
my great-grandmother!"
"No, she couldn't," Michael said.
"They're all over the world now, aren't they? Just like her?"
"And like us, Mother," Michael said. He gripped her shoulders tightly with both hands. "Listen. You're better prepared to accept what's happening than most people. Shiafa is a pure Sidhe. I'm training her, or at least going through the motions. The men upstairs—"
Her expression changed from anger to pain. "Michael," she interrupted, "what can we
say
to those men? John, what can we say to them? To Mo/art!"
John shrugged.
"What can we say to people centuries old, to ghosts? Dead people? Famous dead people?"
Michael grinned despite himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have called ahead."
"DAMN you," Ruth said, but she was beginning to laugh and cry at once. "God damn everything." She turned to Shiafa. "I'm sorry. We don't know how to react to all this."
Michael could feel tension radiating from Shiafa. If he didn't isolate her soon, he wasn't sure what would happen.
"We have to leave now. I'll be back in a few hours. There are people I have to call — but the phones are restricted. So I may have to talk to them in person. Mahler and Mozart are just the beginning. I came back with many others — about five thousand of them."
Ruth's face went white. "Here?"
"They're in Dodger Stadium. That's where I called you from. I have to make arrangements for them. They've been in the Realm for a long time, some of them thousands of years."
"All right," Ruth said. She pointed with a nod of her chin at Shiafa. "Will she go with you?"
"Yes," Michael said. "This is difficult for her. She can't go home."
"There is no home," Shiafa said distantly.
"So please, bear with me, with us," Michael said. "If I don't miss my guess, Mahler and Mozart are going to be asleep for hours. I hope to be back before they wake up. I don't have much time."
"We'll manage," John said, hugging his wife to him with one arm. "Won't we?"
"We'll have to," Ruth said. "What will they eat?"
"Go easy on the meat," Michael advised. "They haven't had much of that where they've been." Shiafa's skin grayed noticeably at the mention of meat.
"You look very tired," Ruth said. "Both of you. I'm sorry about reacting badly…"
"No time to rest. And no self-recriminations. We'll be back soon."
"Why was the Waltiri house full of birds?" Ruth asked.
"Please, Mother."
"All right. Go."
Michael reached out to feel for Edgar Moffat and found him sitting in the recording room in the studio where they had first met. His probe seemed to be surrounded by razors, the harsh reality now that the Realm had beached itself on Earth's shoals.
"Will we take the machine again?" Shiafa asked.
"It's the easiest way," Michael said. "I think my car is still full of gas."
They walked back to the Waltiri house under the gray, overcast afternoon. "You're wasting energy," he said, as they walked up the driveway.
"This place smells horrible," Shiafa said sharply. "It smells like death."
"Right here?" he asked, glancing at the sidewalk where Tommy had shot himself and turned into dust and rags.
"Everywhere. The entire city."
Michael shrugged. "I've gotten used to it. I don't notice."
"It smells like dead forests," Shiafa said. "Like one of Adonna's abortions."
He realized that what she was objecting to was not just the smell of smog — very light this day, he thought — but of technology and human habitations in general. The houses around them, including Waltiri's, had been made from unconsecrated wood. The power lines overhead could upset a Sidhe's sensibilities. If other human technologies were still working, the air would be full of beamed energy — radar and television and radio. How were the tens of thousands of other Sidhe reacting to this sudden change in environment?
Shiafa's mood was upon
him
now. He brushed it aside with a small shudder and told her to stand away from the driveway. He then went to the Saab and unlocked it. The engine caught quickly and rumbled to life, murmuring with twin-exhaust throatiness.
As he backed the car down the driveway, he glanced through the opposite window at the wail of the house and the entrance to the crawl space.
The wine bottles in the basement.
During the first few minutes of his first visit to the Realm, Michael had crossed a decaying vineyard behind the ruined Clarkham mansion, covered with the twisted, blackened and thick-boled stumps of thousands of dead vines.
What was their purpose
? Nothing Clarkham did was uncalculated.
Clarkham brought Waltiri bottles of wines as a gift. Waltiri passed some of them on to his neighbors.
He almost stopped the car.
One thing at a time. Priorities
. Reaching over to open the car door for Shiafa, Michael felt a buzz of excitement. Clarkham had failed at creating a personal Song of Power; he had always relied on the genius of others, even at the height of his sorceries. He had interfered with poets, composers, dancers… He had failed at architecture. Had he cultured vines simply to please himself — and perhaps anger the more abstemious Sidhe… or had he an ulterior motive?
Shiafa sat reluctantly on the seat. "Close your door," Michael instructed her. She stared at him, eyes burning. He sighed and reached across. "Like this," he said, grabbing the handle to pull it shut.
"There is too much iron," she said quietly. "It kills."
"You can stand it The Sidhe use iron for their own purposes."
"Not like this."
He drove out onto the street. The trees cast long shadows. Time was passing too quickly; the Realm's chronometry was evident on Earth now. What that ultimately meant, there was no way of knowing. Was it a temporary effect — no pun intended, he though wryly — or a permanent distortion?
He frowned as he guided the Saab through the largely empty streets of the city. Other things were changing. The leaves on the trees seemed darker and the streets and buildings less hard-edged, as if viewed through a fog.
"Your world is sick," Shiafa said as he turned onto Melrose.
"How do you mean?"
"It is suffering."
"Because of the Realm?"
She nodded, staring at him with an expression he had never before seen — a mix of barely subdued greed and deep concern. It shook him.
"How do you know?" he asked, arguing more out of pique than disagreement.
"Even beyond the dead smell, it is afflicted."
He pressed his lips together and shrugged. But now he was really worried. Who was working to set things right again — Tarax, who had plowed the Realm onto a reef and perhaps started the disintegration of the reef? Clarkham, hiding somewhere…
in a bottle of wine
"Jesus," he whispered.
A wine of power. Flavor that seduces, a finish that lasts forever
. It seemed quite possible that Clarkham had kept that art as a backup, almost inaccessible to the Sidhe, who — as Clarkham had stated—"love human liquor entirely too much." What they loved, obviously, was not the flavor but the numbing effect. Because of that, the best of the Sidhe — those who might be interested in Songs of Power — would fastidiously avoid alcoholic beverages.
What was the word for the art of wine-making? The study of wines?
Oenology
. Having failed at everything else, Clark-ham could have hidden himself, biding his time, waiting for the proper moment. Preparing to spring a surprise.
In the Realm, Clarkham had served not wine but brandy… hiding his craft for decades in Waltiri's cellar, where not even the mage of the Cledar would suspect chicanery.
Michael was so excited he had to bank his
hyloka
to keep from flaming his clothes and the car seat. Shiafa regarded him with that same new hungry, greedy expression… and he felt himself responding. He had used her magic. That had somehow bonded them, and it could draw them together…
Shocked, he avoided Shiafa's gaze and focused his attention on the road.
The studio's Gower gate was open. The guard blinked passively at Michael and Shiafa as they walked through the floor, leaning forward to say, "Hey. Nobody's here. Everybody's home."
Michael smiled at her and nodded. "Edgar Moffat's here."
"Yeah," the guard said. "Edgar's here. Is he expecting both of you?"
"No," Michael said.
"But he knows you."
Michael nodded again.
"I remember you, but not her. Where's Kristine Pendeers?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "I'm looking for her, and I thought Edgar might help." That was a minor fib, but he hoped it would play. It did. The guard shrugged and leaned back in her seat.
In the hallway of the music building, Michael knocked on the recording studio door. Moffat himself answered this time, wearing gray slacks and a very rumpled white business shirt. His crown of hair looked as if he had been running his hands through it all night long, pushed back stiff and dark with sweat. He hardly reacted when he saw Michael, but his expression changed to nervous anxiety as he stared at Shiafa.
"We need your help," Michael said.
"I'm the only one working here. I think Hollywood packed up its bags and went to hide in the hills. Did you feel the earthquake?"
"Yes. We need you to organize things for us. You and Crooke."
"I haven't talked to Crooke for days. I don't even know where he is."
"This is important. Did Kristine ever tell you what she knew?"
"You mean, about you and the man who disappeared in front of her?"
"Yes."
"She told me a little. Enough to make the rest of this… into a real nightmare. A little knowledge is worse than none at all."
"I have some men I want you to meet," Michael said. Edgar opened the door wider and motioned for them to come in.
"Who's your designer?" he asked Shiafa. "You could be the toast of the garment district."
"And when you've met these men, I'll need you to organize a rescue operation. All the artists and musicians and writers you know. We'll need houses — hundreds of houses — and we'll need them in just a few days, maybe sooner."
"Why?"
"Refugees," Michael said.
"Who am I going to meet?"
"Gustav Mahler and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," Michael answered.
Edgar smiled warily. "Napoleon, too? Maybe Christ?"
Michael shook his head. Edgar's smile vanished. "Jesus. Crooke said he'd dreamed about Mahler, just as if he was still alive." Edgar swallowed convulsively, and his hands fluttered. "The real McCoys?"
