Redworld, page 17
But it was a catchy tune. And as Borch led the squire back to check-out, he was trying hard to whistle it.
And so it was over. No one suspected Josi of being a lamia. And even better, as soon as these fingerprint cards were filed, they would be lost forever. Neither Josi nor the squire would have a record.
Yes, it is over. I have obstructed justice. I am an abomination to my trusting employers. What would the coronel say? He would say, “I could fingerprint my own mother.”
In short, I am a criminal.
At that very instant the coronel walked around the corner of the file cabinets and came straight toward the print bench. My heart jumped to my throat. He knew everything. Well, so he knew everything. I’ll play it out to the bitter end. I turned and gave him a brief smile.
Dite pushed the squire’s card out of the holder and examined it carefully.
“What’s up?” I said. (It was a little unusual for him to show up at this hori.)
He continued his survey of the squire’s card in silence. He saw, of course, that I had criminally altered the prints. How could he miss it?
He put down Vys’s card and picked up Josi’s.
Hers, too? he must be thinking. What incredible treachery is afoot here tonight?
I waited numbly. Fall, axe, and put me out of my misery.
“The temple expressed great interest,” he explained quietly, “so I came in.”
I knew that much already. Was he playing games? Surely he had detected my blatant deceit. In his next breath he was going to say in his dead, emotionless voice, “Randol, let’s go around to the arrest desk.”
He put the cards down. “Routine,” he grunted. “Carry on.” And he left.
I leaned on the print table and began to shudder.
The clatter of keys snapped my head up again. Ballein was bringing Boogi in.
The little villein grinned at me, “Hi, Squire Pol.”
“Well, hello, Boogi.” I began the typesetting procedure for his fingerprint card. “I hear Gard gave you a hard time.”
“Oh, yessir. That preacher fellow. A bad man, Squire Pol. He said a lot of bad bad things about M’sl Josi.” His face hardened into a dark mask. “He dies, Squire Pol.”
“You leave him alone, Boogi.” I printed him quickly.
“He dies,” whispered Boogi, this time to himself.
I caught Borch’s eye. He called for Boogi, and I watched them disappear around the corner. What would happen to Josi if Boogi executed his crazy threat? Execute … bad choice of words.
LATER THAT MORNING as I walked out to the collegia I was trying to put it all together.
The squire could tell me nothing. He knew only that Josi was leaving. To go where? He didn’t know. And he wouldn’t understand if she told him. Josi could tell me everything, but from her I had got only tantalizing bits and pieces. But it all added up to this, that soon she would be gone forever, presumably home to her Earth. Could I live in a world without Josi? I didn’t really know. I needed to talk to Gil. It was time to take the elixir to the Death Hut. It was time to risk all. Tonight. Fortunately, my offnight.
27
Jeil
IT WAS EVENING. Chym lab was over. I picked up the vial of elixir from my cabinet and studied it somberly in a red shaft of the setting sun. The liquid swirled around as though alive. Ah, magic draft, can you point the way to Gil, and life beyond death, and back again? Can you take the place of Josi?
And now what? It was too early to set out for the Death Hut. Nor did I want to go home and wait. I knew I looked like a madman. One look at me and Mother would order me to bed with ice packs and needles.
I headed for the gym. I would lie down on the pads in the storage room, and relax, and rest, and perhaps drift into sleep, and dream of Josi.
I opened the door of the room, rounded the corner of the equipment cabinets, and there, sitting cross-legged on the pads and combing her long red hair under the dim light of the wall lamp, was Jeil Gard.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Hello, Pol.”
“Oh … excuse me. I didn’t know anybody was back here.” I fumbled for the proper words. I didn’t know what to say. Damn, what was she doing here, anyway. I turned to go.
“Wait …” she said. She put her comb back in her purse and shook her hair evenly about her shoulders.
“Yeah?” I said.
“We haven’t talked in a long time.”
“No.”
“I know you come here. I’ve even tiptoed in and watched you. You don’t sleep well. You moan and twitch.”
What the dark deep!
“Do you have to stand there, staring at me? Please sit down.”
I sighed and sat down beside her.
“Pol, you look terrible. Is anything wrong?” Her voice dropped lower and lower.
“I’m just tired.”
She hesitated a moment. “You know, once, long ago, we almost had something going. Do you remember?”
“Yes, we had some good times together.”
“We sat on my porch, and we studied together.” She paused, as though thinking back, and then she began a melodic monody:
“Her hair was black with sparks of red.
He looked up and gray eyes cast
A glamoring net on him …”
Siris! I remembered. I remembered everything. I remembered my hands on her body … and other things. The recall was stark, total, overwhelming.
In a slow, stretching catlike movement she lay back on the pad. Her long russet hair fell loosely about her face and shoulders. She pulled the strands away from her face. She whispered, “Would you please kiss me?”
I hesitated.
She frowned very slightly. “Do you have a girl?”
As though that mattered, or solved anything. Ah Josi, frozen, distant, vanishing (perhaps this very night) into imaginary stars … And with no further thoughts of me, that’s certain.
“No,” I said, “I don’t have a girl.”
She reached up, took my carry case from me, and put it on the floor.
I looked down at her and watched an amazing transformation. The long red tresses were turning into black ringlets. And even in the dim light I could see that the eyes were no longer brown, but gray.
Josi! Where did you come from? How did you get here? How did you know I had to have one last mergence with your body, or die?
I lay down beside her and began kissing her lips. Then her cheeks, her throat. I pulled her to a sitting position, stuck my hand down the back of her tunic, and unfastened her brassiere clasp. I let her down again and searched out her right breast and nipple. It hardened at my touch. Together, we worked her tunic up under her and left it in awkward clumps and folds under her waist. I helped her roll her smallclothes down. They dangled from one leg. She began breathing in irregular barely audible gasps. Hold it, Josi, let me get my belt unbuckled. Pants down around my ankles. Smallclothes. Siris, how we are trussed up.
She spreads her legs wide as I mount her.
She moans, and she climaxes. So soon, Josi? This isn’t like you. She opens her eyes and looks up at me. She gasps apologetically, “I’m sorry.”
I smile down at her. “It’s all right.” I peel off slowly and lie there beside her.
She felt down through my rumpled clothes. “You didn’t …?”
“No.” I got up.
“What are you doing?”
“Just ensuring a little privacy.” I pulled my pants up so I could walk. Then I took a chair from a stack at the side of the room and took it over to the door, and jammed it under the knob. I turned back to Josi. “Take your clothes off.” I kicked my shoes off and began to strip. She looked at me, then she stood up and pulled her dress over her head, then her slip. Odd, I had never noticed how her breasts hung like melons. “Come here,” I said.
She walked over to me. I put my arms around her waist and pressed her body into mine. She locked her arms around my neck. Our mouths searched and found. Our tongues flickered. My hands moved up and down her sides, over her buttocks, lifting, exploring. I got a hand in between us and felt her breasts. The nipples were stiff. The time had come. “Lie down,” I said.
She lay down on the pads. She watched me with half-closed eyes as I knelt over her. I moved slowly, to make sure we would climax together. And as I moved, she moved. She met me, thrust for thrust. Her body began to convulse and heave.
She gurgled. She pulled my mouth down on hers so hard that our teeth rattled. She screamed into my mouth, and we exploded together.
I waited a moment, then I kissed her gently on the cheek and rolled off her. For a time we both lay there in the silence. Then I sat up and fumbled around for my clothes. “You’d better get dressed,” I said. “Josi?”
No answer. She was asleep, facing me. I spread my tunic gently over her, then I finished dressing, even down to my slippers, and then I closed my eyes.
I must have slept for two or three hori. When I awoke the door was slightly ajar, and by the lamplight I could see that she was gone. My jacket was folded neatly on the pad beside me.
I rubbed my eyes. Only at this moment did I grasp the fantastic deception that my craving mind had played on me. Oh Josi … it wasn’t you after all.
So who is the sorceress? You, Josi? You, Jeil? Perhaps all women are lamiae in their chosen times.
I knew now it would be this way with all women, and forever. I would see Josi wherever I looked. Every female face would change into Josi’s face. Every color of hair would change into Josi’s black ringlets, and every eye turn gray. Every sway of hips would be Josi’s, and all swinging legs turn into her springy walk. All voices would become her lilting lyric.
This was madness, and it could not long continue.
I opened my case and took out the glass vial.
Yes, before insanity further spreads, I must do this thing.
On to Vys Street.
28
The Death Hut
IT WAS NOT QUITE midnight. It occurred to me at this point that I had never before been in the serail this late at night. Oh, sure, I had worked at the paper mill on occasion past supper time, loading rush orders or setting type for emergency letters for Gearing, but I had always got away by the eighth or ninth hori.
There was some light from Brightstar and its lesser companions. Once my eyes adjusted I could even see the very faint shadows.
Nothing moved.
I paused at the Tower and looked up. Odd, there was a light at the very top. There must be a window of some sort up there. And then a shadow dimmed the light momentarily, and my hearts stopped. Josi was working up there. I watched. The shadow vanished. I relaxed.
Go, Josi, destroyer of my life.…
I walked on, and passed the paper-mill complex, standing somber in the starlight. Ah, Magna, my once savior. D-douzaine solati every Cinqueday. You fed us, Mother and me, and I am grateful.
And then on to the Death Hut.
On, poor little house, how many wretches have come here to die within your final shelter? And how did they know to come here? By reputation, probably. And of course, every once in a while there was another little feature article in the news-sheets.
I reach into my tunic pocket and clutch at the vial. Its hard cold surface reassures me.
The door of the shack is closed. Does that mean that someone is in there? I had hoped for privacy. Contacting Gil will be difficult enough without an audience. And of course the whole thing may be a washout anyhow.
I push the door in. The hinges shriek. I step inside, behind protecting flickers of starlight. I look about the interior. Hard to see anything. Damn! There is someone there … huddled on the old packing case to my right. I wait, wondering whether to call the whole thing off.
A plaintive mumble floated over from the shadows. “Randol? Pol Randol?”
This was startling. Who could it be? I stared and squinted into the semi-blackness. My eyes were becoming a little more accustomed to the dark. I made out an indistinct face. Or what might once have been a face. There was a black patch over the right eye.
It took a moment to register. Then it hit my skull like a sky-metal hammer. “Uri Rone!” I gasped. “By the backside of siriS! What are you doing here?”
Again that disembodied voice from the darkness. “You’re an incredibly stupid person, Randol. Why does anybody come here?”
Again the silence. Then he said, “When I was in the militia, before you stole my job, we used to come up here and fingerprint a dead tramp. They came here to die. They knew how to die. For them it was easy. How did they do it? I’ve been sitting here for hori ….”
I couldn’t believe this. “Why do you want to die, Uri?”
“None of your business.”
“Have you tried to get a job?”
“Everywhere.”
It was his face, I thought. He’s too disfigured. Even the guild can’t help him. Or won’t.
“Do you have a place to stay?” I asked.
No reply. With no job and no money, he’d probably been locked out of his lodgings. And he was probably hungry. Everything that he lacked, I had. I should have felt humble. At the very least I should have felt pity for him. Instead, I felt annoyed and frustrated.
“Do you know how they do it?” he said. “How they die? Is there a trick? Do you have to be drunk?”
I sighed. Well, maybe I could help the poor son of siriS. But dammit, why did he have to be here. Everything was now thoroughly fouled up. He didn’t have the right. I said glumly: “Did you bring a bottle?”
“A pattle of musco.”
“I thought you were broke.”
“I stole it from the wine shop.”
“Oh.”
“You ought to send for the wagon, Randol. It’s your duty. Throw me in jail. Take my fingerprints. You silly fool.”
I pulled the phial from my jacket pocket. Gil, I thought, forgive me. But this poor busht needs it worse than we do. Let’s see if we can help him.
“Uri,” I said, “I have an elixir here. We’ll put some of it in your bottle and shake it up, and then we’ll have a drink together.”
I could see him stiffen. He shook his tattered head. “It’s poison. You’re trying to kill me.”
It would probably do no good to remind him that he had come here to die.
“No,” I said, “it’s not poison. I’ll drink first. Then you. We’ll pass the bottle back and forth. It will help you relax. And then, if you really want to let go, perhaps you can.”
I waited. He was thinking. “Let me see what you have,” he said. “Open the door wide and hold it up in the starlight.”
I walked over to the door, pushed it open a little farther, and held the bottle up.
“Not much of it,” he said.
“No. But it’s very powerful.”
He said finally, “Well, all right. Here’s the pattle. Mix it where I can see you.”
I did, and put the half-empty phial back in my tunic pocket. I shook up the wine flask while Uri watched.
“Take a drink,” he said.
I put the bottle up to my lips and took a couple of swallows.
“How is it?” he asked.
“A teensie sharp. Otherwise, it’s just your original rot-gut musco.” I handed the bottle to him.
He took a long pull. Then another. He looked up, startled. “What was that?”
“Just the bells in the temple. They’re chiming midnight.”
“No. It chimed only once. It’s one hori after midnight.”
I shook my head. “It’s only midnight. It’s the elixir. It stopped time right after the first chime.”
“Oh.”
This was interesting. Maybe things would work out after all. “Let’s just relax,” I said. “It may take awhile.”
He handed the wine back to me. I let a couple of gurgles slide down. I considered certain aspects of what I was doing. Bluntly stated, with all the gloss sliced away, I was killing a man in cold blood.
I gave the flask back to him. He took it with both hands, and drank. He murmured, “I think something is happening … I wish we had more light.”
“Let me see if I can find something.” I got up and fished around on the wall behind me. Somehow, I knew I would find an oxien candle stub there, and a sparker. Sure enough, there they were.
I lit the light and stuck it on one of the lateral studs. Shadows suddenly flickered in the little room. I was in the process of turning around when the man-to-die said, “Pol.…?”
I saw what he was looking at:
A figure, a man, hunkered down on his haunches against the wall opposite us. His arms were folded across his knees. His face was in the shadows. But I knew. He was looking up at me, at my face.
My hearts began to pound. They were bursting my ears. I couldn’t hear, and I couldn’t breathe.
Uri had dropped the flagon. I listened to the gurgling of the emptying liquid. Soon there were no more sounds.
I had searched for my brother in all the dim alleyways of my mind. For months I had watched faces on the street corners of memory. I had sought him in the labyrinths of time. Finally I had drunk his magic elixir. And here he was. And I did not know what to say to him.
My throat and lung were paralyzed. I got a few croaks out. “Gil! Help us!” Oh, how stupid that sounded! It was incredible. No greeting … no “I’m glad to see you.” Not even, “Is it really you?”
“No,” said Gil. “You don’t need me. You’re doing fine.”
Well, if he said so. Suddenly, I was myself again. Nothing was strange anymore. Everything was just the way it should be.
I felt a mild draft.
The back wall of the hut had vanished. I could see outside, beyond the hut. The trash and wreckage were gone. Instead, we had a vista, a path laced with fog wraiths. The path lay in the exact middle of a pair of metal alumen strips: borch-road rails. And beyond … was Black Bridge.
Fog was beginning to drift into the shack, searching.
Gil nodded to me.
I faced the man who would die. “Uri, it is time.” I walked over to him and took him by the hand.
