The Transmigration of Souls (35 page)

Brucie stepped up onto the lintel, stepped up under the door, stepped into deeper gloom, a darkness not quite black, distant light, grayish-white light, shining on them from beyond the door. The light from... inside. What the Hell are we facing? Lord Ahriman? Who the Hell is that? Spatima Zarathustra’s chief demon. Is it Angra Mainyu that’s waiting for us?

And now, walking under the giant’s door, “What the Hell am I remembering? Some God-damned cartoon...”

Sotto voce
, Ling Erhshan, walking close behind him, said, “
Jack and the Beanstalk
.”

o0o

Standing under the inner edge of the door, looking out into the vast gray space beyond, Astrid Kincaid clutched her M-80 tightly across her chest, feeling alone and very old.

I miss having Tarantellula with me. It felt like I had a comrade, even though I hardly knew her. Comrades. Soldiers. Something to hold on to. Tarantellula... and sudden memories of Corky Bokaitis, of Francis Muldoon, of all the others, Fred, Barney, toy soldiers, living and dead.

I can feel the wounds, new and old, left by all the people connected to me who are gone. I can feel the dead, hanging on in memory like ghosts...

Beyond the door was a misty room so large the far walls and ceiling were invisible, shadows looming out of nowhere, like shadows falling from a distant sky. Far away, across a floor made of smooth, veined marble, a floor so flat and shiny it looked as if it were made out of some liquid, was a misty dome of pale pastel light. Gray light? No. Faintly covered with pink.

One last childhood memory, driving down 70S toward Columbus, Ohio, under the gray light of a winter dawn. Christmas, 2009. Out on a flat plain, so very different from the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, the city loomed, gray stone buildings rising out of the ground, jutting over the far horizon, surrounded by a smoggy mist lit pale pastel pink by the light of the rising sun.

Like that. A dome of pale pink mist, Columbus in the morning, but with all the buildings gone... Is this it, then? Is this the stargate Genda thinks will take us through Platonic Reality and out the other side, right through to the
real
reality of God’s Machine?

Well,
his
version of God’s Machine, perhaps. Edgar and Amanda... for them this is merely part of a well-oiled mythology. God’s Machine is a part of their universe, and the gate goes nowhere but to Ahriman’s Heart of Darkness holds Prince Ardry Bright-Sky prisoner.

No gateway to God at all.

One of these will be true.

Either we escape or... we come back here, fair-haired prince rescued by Maiden Fair, brought back to life and love and throne and... ah, yes. Squire Edgar’s anger. Just another silly love story.

She clicked the safety off her gun, put her finger through the trigger guard, and snarled, “Let’s go.”

o0o

Ling Erhshan stood quite still by the edge of the Well, submerged in the dull, pervasive ache of his wounds. Arm’s gone away, ghost limb left behind, fingers clenched now in a hard fist, making the muscles of his missing forearm ache. Vanished skin over the big bite in his side starting to itch. Reach there with your real hand, reach around your stomach, pains lancing away from a broken rib, and try to scratch. Leathery stuff there, covering the hole through which your intestines almost fell, leathery magic stuff put there by Squire Edgar. Deep pain from the rip in your thigh, neatly sewed shut after you fainted...

Squire Edgar was standing with his back to the Well, mother-of-pearl light rising up behind him, mist curling gently above his shoulders. Why am I calling it the Well? Old memory. Lost memory. The Well of Liquid Light. I don’t remember, but the name seems so apt. Pool of liquid light spread out beneath the mist, shivering gently, moiré ripples on its surface.

Memory from long ago. Physics class at Beijing Polytechnic, my first year away from... home? Call it that. Boarding schools and orphanages. All I had for homes. Ripple Tank, full of water and obstacles, the old-fashioned way we studied wave phenomena. This is sort of like that.

Squire Edgar with anger on his face. “We’ve made a mistake coming here. We’ve got to turn back.”

Amanda turning to look at him: “Too late now. When the Emperor engaged us to retrieve his only begotten son...”

Omry Inbar with a fairy on his shoulder, reaching up to touch her, ever so gently: “I’d be willing to turn back...”

Yes you would. Found what you’re looking for, maybe? No reason for you to go home again. Nothing back there but ongoing life as one more fat Jew in a land of Muslim oppressors.

Amanda Gray: “Damn it, Edgar. This is what I
came
here for. Ardry Bright-Sky...”

Edgar’s anger deepening, “Did you come here for
him
? Or for your certificate of Mastery?” That bitter, bitter look.

Something eating him. What?

Anger on Amanda’s face now as well. “That,” she said, “will do.”

“No it will
not
do...”

Lord Genda Hiroshige, turning to his robot lady: “Amaterasu?”

Mechanical woman looking at him out of mechanical eyes: “Whatever you think is best.” The deference of the unreal.

Rahman: “There’s nothing for
me
here. I want to go home. If this is the way...” But you could hear it in her voice: There’s nothing for me anywhere. Why home, then? Home to a possibly lost Earth? To what? Life as a faux-Lesbian in the Man’s World of the United Arab Republic? Or would she go back and become... someone else?

Passiphaë Laing said, “This isn’t our world, Edgar. We belong somewhere. Not here.” Rhino Jensen, hero of
Crimson Desert
, silent, merely holding her hand. And in her voice? Nothing particularly subtle, just: We are what we were made to be.

Amanda Gray said, “Go on back then, Edgar. Go on back and take the other cowards with you.”

Fury and sorrow mingling on his face.

Look back into all your old stories, Ling Erhshan. A thousand thousand women depicted doing just that, tearing off a man’s scrotum with those same words. But this woman wears a sword of her own. Maybe she has a right to say them.

Edgar said, “Bruce? Professor Ling?”

Brucie stayed silent, still staring at the magic water, a well full of milk flavored with strawberry syrup.

Edgar said, “Professor Ling, the chirurgeons of Têtonland can grow you new limbs. They can make you whole again. In there...” a gesture at the rippling, misty Well, “In there we all die.”

How does he know that? Is it part of some story in which we have no part?

“And to what end...” whispered Inbar, holding his pixie like a lovely doll.

Astrid Kincaid slung her rifle over her shoulder, snugging its strap up close, and said, “The Hell with you all.” She turned, stepped forward, stepped into the Well and disappeared.

Gone, thought Ling Erhshan. Not a splash, not a shift in the pattern of ripples.

“Professor Ling.”

Mind empty, Ling Erhshan took a step forward, then another and another, until he fell into the Well and was gone.

o0o

Subaïda Rahman stood silently by and watched them go, by ones and twos:

Astrid Kincaid with anger snapping in her eyes. Fed up with... all of this. Fed up with not finding... whatever intangible thing she was looking for.

Then Ling Erhshan, cradling his bandaged stump, limping on his torn leg, bending over his injured side, shuffling forward, slowly, slowly, into the Well and gone.

And that horrible Brucie Big-Dick, empty-eyed, singing softly to himself, “‘... gone where the goblins go...’“ Two quick steps forward and away.

Passiphaë Laing, girl reporter, heroic woman figure... Character from a story, imitation of life set in motion for the edification of some passive Other? Passiphaë Laing hand-in-hand with Rhino-Jensen-I-Presume, the two of them stepping forward into the pink mists of nothingness.

Lord Genda Hiroshige, fleeing God’s wrath...

Fleeing the Space-Time Juggernaut?

Lord Genda Hiroshige pausing to kiss his pathetic robot girl on the lips, both of them closing their eyes ever so briefly. And holding hands as well as they dropped away into that other world.

Away, perhaps, into nonexistence?

See the fear on Inbar’s face? See how he clutches his pixiegirl close? I’ve found what I came for, his fearful eyes proclaim. Don’t make me lose it now. Is that all you came for, Dr. Inbar, planetologist supreme? A magic sleeve to rub your penis?

Amanda Grey casting one arrogant eye round at the remainder, withering contempt for Squire Edgar. Amanda Gray turning and striding into the pool.

Edgar, standing motionless. Edgar fatalistic. “So. You put down the godhead. And it takes you back up.” He drew his long sword, a gleaming metal tensor in the half-light that spilled up from the Well. Held it over his head. Screamed the name of
Odin
, fury in his voice. Made a swan dive over the well and...

Omry Inbar looking at her, clutching his pixie doll. “Subaïda?”

Does Aarae have no opinion? Is he what
she
was looking for? Can’t she take him back to Yttria and Happily Ever After? Rahman shrugged, smiled a half-smile. “Sorry.” Took a step toward the Well, then another. Inbar ran past her, breathing heavily, and fell headlong into the mist, leaving her alone.

Well. All alone here now. All alone with my thoughts, my fears, my... memories? All right. And do
I
have the courage? Of course I do.

One step. Then another. And...

Falling. Falling through emptiness. Falling through the silvery pink mist that had spilled up from the Well of Liquid Light. Falling all alone in an empty pastel sky. Strange. I thought the others would be with me. No wind in my ears. Hair motionless. I could be floating in a vacuum. Not even breathing. How do I know that I fall?

Voice, neutral voice, neuter voice, voice without timber, voice without sound. Whispering to her...

Subaïda
.

Subaïda my love?

Who?

No answer.

The voice said,
By those who snatch away men’s souls, and those who gently release them; by those who float at will, and those who speed headlong; by those who govern the affairs of this world! On the day the Trumpet sounds its first and second blast, all hearts shall be filled with terror, and all eyes shall stare with awe
.

Fallingfallingfalling. Accompanied by the whispering Voice.

I know those words. Of course I know them. Heart in her chest, all the evidence she had that she was still alive, stuttering with sudden terror. Oh, God. Every child knows those words.

Memory of hearing them, droned by some bored teacher. Some teacher teaching because it was the only job she could get. Somebody poking at my back. Salim. Trying to get my attention. I must have been eight years old. Maybe nine. They used to read to us from the apocalyptic Suras when we were children, because they were exciting, because they knew we’d listen. The dull, pedantic ones could come later, when we were accustomed to listening...

The Voice whispered,
When we are turned to hollow bones, shall we be restored to life? A fruitless transformation
!

Fruitless indeed. For what good is life, simply lived over again? Why come back to the same old sorrows and fears? Better to stay down in the empty silence of the grave, unknowing, unthinking, without form, without substance, without spirit...

But with one blast they shall return to the earth’s surface
.

Whether they will that return or not.
They question you about the Hour of Doom
...
On the day when they behold that hour, they will think they stayed in the grave but one evening, or one morning
.

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. What if it’s real?

Then
: Explosion of light and sound...

o0o

A moment’s heart-pounding tumble through formless pink mist, tiny woman clutched tightly in his hands, then Omry Inbar found himself standing sunk to his knees in the surface of a cloud. A bright cloud, fleecy white wool under a dead black sky.

Curious, detached thoughts from that cool, carefully-trained scientific mind, a part of him that seemed almost lost, buried beneath endless dunes of drifting sand. It’s that Lunar sky again, featureless, dead black sky, but for the Sun and Earth...

Eyes searching the heavens. Nothing. No sun to make this cloudscape bright. No Earth to go home to now. Am I tired of forging onward? The feel of the tiny woman in his hands was one answer. “Where are we, Aarae?”

Tiny pixie face clearly frightened, big, dark foxy eyes darting and wary. “In... the heart of God’s Machine.” Pixie girl still talking from a script, speech full of meaning-freighted pauses. But she huddled close to his side, and that was all that really mattered.

A meteor fell from the black sky, trailing a line of pale pink dust, arcing downward to fall nearby. A glowing meteor with a human at its heart. Rahman, of course.

He struggled to walk, found it unexpectedly easy, like walking through fog. Though, when I peer downward... nothing. My feet are resting on nothing. I’m walking on air. Walking toward Rahman, but... They made it to a towering billow of cloud stuff and Inbar stood still, looking all around. White clouds towering higher, tumbling lower, down to a horizonless black sky. Far out in the inky dark, other clouds, moving across his vision field, only that, for their was no backdrop, other clouds, tracking in distant arcs, like planets round a central sun.

As if I stood at the center of some immense, diaphanous orrery. Planet clouds with little moon clouds swirling round them. As if they floated on some invisible surface. A bit like... some ancient spiral galaxy in formation. Can we have come to the beginning of time? No. Not the beginning.

Voices.

Ling Erhshan coming up the hill, cradling his stump, leaning into his pain, Brucie the Technician walking with him, the two of them talking. Ling said, “It all reminds me of something.”

Yet another old story? Was that all you thought about, when you weren’t building your secret rocket ship? Sudden bitter memory. They brought weapons to the Moon, these terrible Green Chinamen. Was it that which brought monstrous Americans down upon us all?