The Third Bear (31 page)

As I may have mentioned, one thing they have in abundance around here is vodka. We drank a lot of it. For a long time.

Eventually, she noticed the pearl-handled revolvers on the table next to us.

"Oh, those are nice," she said. "I used to have a pair like that back in Brighton. Used them for magic shows."

"I killed a man with them yesterday," I blurted out.

Liz laughed, said, "These things happen. Just can't be avoided."

"No, I mean it. I killed a man. He's in the freezer in the kitchen. I mean, the freezer isn't working, but it seals the smell in. I mean, it keeps the seals out."

Liz laughed even harder at that - was it forced? - but when I invited her and her companions to stay the night, they told me they had to be farther south by dusk if they wanted to cross into China on schedule.

I asked Juliette her opinion. She thought it was a convenient excuse.

Then I read her another correction.

Erratum #6.-"The Mystery of the Texas Twister, "Michael Moorcock, issue one

From Zodiac's quarters, there now issued the unworldly strains of a violin. Even Begg was astonished. Then he smiled broadly, remembering his old opponent's only apparent passion - his passion for music. The strains were assured and subtle, from an instrument of extraordinary age and maturity. At first Begg tried to identify the piece. Clearly, he thought, some modern master. But then he realised that the composer was Zodiac himself. Gradually it moved from classical to romantic to contemporary structure, a perfectly integrated piece, that led the listener slowly into the nuances of the music. Moreover it was somehow in perfect resonance with the landscape itself.

should read:

From Zodiac's quarters, there now issued the unworldly strains of a violin, in a Russian mode. Even Begg was astonished. Then he smiled broadly, remembering his old opponent's only apparent passion - his passion for the types of music that he had always claimed would change the world. The strains were assured and subtle, from an instrument of extraordinary age and maturity. They conjured up a landscape of deep water and thick forests. At first Begg tried to identify the piece. Clearly, he thought, some modern master. But then he realized that the composer was Zodiac himself. Gradually it moved from gypsy-classical to romantic to contemporary structure, a perfectly integrated piece, that led the listener slowly into the nuances of the music. Moreover, it was somehow in perfect resonance with the landscape itself, as if it had brought the pristine world of the north to the south. Underlying this resonance: a subtle strain of menace, for transformation is not without peril.

The day before Liz arrived at my doorstep - two days after I had finished the last session with Ed and four days after James called me for the last time - I was sitting in my favorite chair in the lobby, staring out at the lake, when I realized a figure was standing twenty feet to my left, having apparently just entered the lobby through one of the holes that led to the lakeside. His boots were wet. He was dressed all in black. He wore a ski mask, also black. He was tall, over six feet. I could see the white of his eyes through the holes in the mask. He was looking at me intently and pulling out something ominous from beneath his overcoat. I raised my pearl-handled revolvers and shot him before he could complete the motion. It happened as if preordained. It happened as if we were both part of some stage production. There was a tiny puff of smoke, a burning sensation in my hands, and two small holes opened up in the man's chest. He made a huffing sound, almost of surprise. His hands dropped to his sides and he crumpled against the wall. The sound of the guns had been so inconsequential that it hadn't startled the seals or Juliette.

For a long time, I continued to sit in my chair, holding the revolvers. That the man was dead seemed certain. That it had been Gradus seemed selfevident. That it had all occurred in a vastly different way than I'd expected bothered me. In my imagination, Gradus always approached from afar, visible from a distance, and I had time to think about what I was going to do. In reality, it had been quick, decisive, and without thought.

As I looked at the body, I began to cry. I began to weep, hunched over in my chair. But I wasn't grieving for Gradus. As if the bullets that had entered Gradus had instead taken the breath out of me, had expelled something from me, I was crying for my past life. I was weeping for everything I had thrown away to get to that point. In that moment, it had finally hit me how irrevocable my decisions had become, and how few decisions I had left before me. I would never again be Jeff VanderMeer. Not in any meaningful way.

Then, after a while, I dragged the body over to the freezer in the kitchen. I didn't remove the mask. I didn't want to see his face.

Erratum #7: "The Carving, "Steve Rasnic Tem, issue three

Then following the flight of chips, white and red and trailing, over the railing's edge and down onto the rocks, she saw the fallen form, the exquisite work so carelessly tossed aside, the delicate shape spread and broken, their son.

She turned to the master carver, her mouth working at an uncontrolled sentence. And saw him with the hammer, the bloody chisel, the glistening hand slowly freed, dropping away from the ragged wrist.

This man, her husband, looked up, eyes dark knots in the rough bole of face. "I could not hold him," he gasped. "Wind or his own imagination. Once loose, I could not keep him here."

And then he looked away, back straining into the work of removing the tool that had failed him.

should read:

Then following the flight of chips, white and red and trailing, over the railing's edge and down onto the snow-strewn rocks of Burkhan Cape, she saw the fallen form, the exquisite work so carelessly tossed aside, the delicate shape that had sacrificed itself spread and broken.

She turned to the man, her mouth working at an uncontrolled sentence, words that must, in their order, be perfect or remain unreleased. And saw him with the hammer, the bloody chisel, the glistening hand slowly freed, dropping away from the ragged wrist.

The man looked up, eyes dark knots in a rough bark face. "I could not hold him," he gasped. "I could not keep him here. He wanted to be somewhere else. He needed to be somewhere else."

And then he looked away, back straining into the work of removing the tool that had freed him.

After I had disposed of the body, and made sure Gradus hadn't left a vehicle out front (he hadn't), I poured myself a glass of vodka and went up to my room on the second floor, leaving Juliette at the bottom of the stairs looking forlorn. I wanted to read James' other letter. I wanted to know why Gradus had come all this way to kill me. I wanted to have had a good reason not to let him kill me.

The second letter was also on that annoying onionskin paper, but it had no errors and appeared to have been typed by James himself.

Dear Jeff:

If you haven't yet seen Ed's Book, you will soon, and once you do, I know that any doubts will leave you. For that reason, this letter may be irrelevant. But I still had to write it, if for no other reason than to clarify where I stand in my own mind.

Let's be clear: You are coming in late to this whole scenario. From the very beginning, I planned Argosy to represent a major shift in the world, a way to change it irrevocably. Every page, every story, every interview, even every typo has been calculated to produce one certain result: transformation. And that transformation will become apparent upon the publication of your story "Errata." Your work is the final missing piece that will effectuate the Change.

I know you, like me, believe the world is in a terrible state right now, from the environment to political systems to hypocrisy to "sleepwalking on the tracks," as Thoreau put it. This has troubled me deeply since I was very young, and the feeling has only gotten worse as I have gotten older. I built a time machine when I was a kid just so I could try to go back in time and fix things from the moment they began to break. Of course, that didn't work. How could it? There would be so many things to fix. No one could do it all. Even if the machine worked.

But now, as an adult, and having talked to Ed and having experienced the Book, my life is committed to this change. For I believe that words can Change the world. I believe that after "Errata" is published, and as the right people in the right combinations read it, you will see a transformation of the world. Like in the old myth I left on your bed: A thaw will come and words will be spoken and heard that have been frozen for years, if not centuries. Like some sort of virus, the world will become a better place. Everything will begin to make sense. There will be some kind of balance again.

For this, I needed you. I needed a final refocus and correction to what had already been done. I needed someone outside of the system, someone who had given up hope, to undertake the final part of the project. For this, I also needed someone so torn out of their normal balance, their normal world, that they could kill if need be. Because I don't know when you will read this letter. Because Argosy may need a final sacrifice, like those made by the shamans of old. Perhaps my life is needed to bring this all to fruition. Maybe that's what it will take. And maybe not.

If it has, and you read this letter after, know that I forgive you, and that you are almost done. All you must do is finish the story and send it to my brother.

I'm telling you: There will be an epiphany. There will be a shift. You will feel it. You just have to wait for it and be patient. And, depending on your timing, either I will be there to experience it too, or I won't. I am at peace with either future.

Thank you for your time and your efforts.

Your friend,

James Owen

Ever since reading his letter, Jeremy, I've been sitting in a chair in the lobby, drinking steadily, becoming more and more numb. Because I'll be damned if I go to that freezer and remove the mask of the man I've killed. But mostly because, regardless of anything else he was, your brother was a nutcase. He was completely and utterly cracked in the head. And I was stupid enough to follow all of his insane directions and thus make it to this point, which once seemed like a plateau on the way up, but now feels like a slide into the deeper depths.

James Owen. Publisher. Author. Entrepreneur. It strikes me that I never really knew him - didn't know nearly enough about his childhood, his parents, his upbringing, his education, to trust him the way I did, to let him manipulate me this way.

But now that it's almost time, I must tell you that the most extraordinary calm has come over me. Why? Because I have only one hope left, even though it's a fool's hope. Tomorrow, I will hand this entire account over to the toothless Japanese man who - fleeing from horrible crimes of his own devising, no doubt - plays the role of postal worker in these parts. Whether he is competent enough to be trusted, I don't know. (Although he was reliable enough in handing over the money orders James sent me until about a week ago.)