“Yes, I remember,” I said, smiling. “That was a lot of fun. It really was.”
At least, more fun than the war. I didn’t want to return to those days, either, though.
Sybel smiled back. Had we ever been close? I search my memory now, thinking of the glance we exchanged back then. No, not close, but comfortable, which is almost more intimate. In the preparations for countless parties, in seeing Sybel day after day at my gallery, a deep affection had built up between us.
“Maybe after the war, I can…” The words felt like such a lie, I couldn’t continue. “Maybe the gallery can…”
Sybel nodded and looked away in, I believe, embarrassment. “That would be good,” he said.
We continued to watch the city through our window: that fungi-tinged, ever-changing painting.
* * *
Finally, it began to happen, at least three hours after nightfall. A stillness crept into the city. The only people on the street were armed and running. Once, a dozen members of a Hoegbotton militia hurried by in tight formation, their weapons gleaming with the reflected light of the fires. Then, for a while, nothing. The moon and the one or two remaining streetlamps, spluttery, revealed an avenue on which no one moved, where the lack of breeze was so acute that crumpled newspapers on the sidewalk lay dead-still.
“It’s coming,” Sybel muttered. “I don’t know what it is, but it’ll happen soon.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “It’s just a lull.”
But a chill had crept over me, as it seemed to have crept over the city. It lodged in my throat, my belly, my legs. Somehow, I too could feel it coming, like a physical presence. As if my nerves were the nerves of the city. Something had entered Ambergris. (Creeping through your nervous system, the gray caps’ spores, creating fear and doubt, right on schedule. I’d put the antidote in your food, but an antidote only works for so long against the full force of such efforts.)
The streetlights went out.
Even the moon seemed to gutter and wane a little. Then the lights came back on—all of them—but they were fungus green, shining in a way that hardly illuminated anything. Instead, this false light created fog, confusion, fear.
Sybel cursed.
“Should we barricade the window?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Sybel said. “Not yet. This might be the end of it, you know. This might…” Now it was his turn to trail off. We both knew this would not be the end of it.
We began to see people again on the street below. This time, they ran for their lives. We could not help them without endangering ourselves, and so we watched, frozen, at the window, beyond even guilt. A woman with no shoes on, her long hair trailing out behind her, ran through our line of vision. Her mouth was wide, but no sound came from it. A few seconds later, some thing appeared in the gutter near the sidewalk. It tried to stand upright like a person, tottered grotesquely, then dropped all pretense and loped out of sight after the woman. The roar of the Kalif’s mortar fire followed on its heels.
“What was that?” I hissed at Sybel. “What in Truff’s name?”
Sybel didn’t reply. Sybel was whispering something in his native language, the singsong chirp of the Nimblytod Tribe. I couldn’t understand it, but it sounded soothing. Except I was beyond being soothed.
Then a man came crawling down the street, shapes in the shadows pulling at his legs. Still he crawled, past all fear, past all doubt. Until, as the Kalif’s mortars let out a particularly raucous shout, something pulled him off the street, out of view.
Silence again. I was shaking by that time. My teeth were grinding together. I’d never understood that your teeth could actually grind involuntarily, could chatter when they weren’t grinding. Sybel made me bite down on a piece of cloth.
“The sound,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you.” (If they heard you, it is because they “heard” my protections on the door of your apartment—my attempt to help you may have endangered you instead.)
The street lay empty, save for the suggestion of shapes at the edge of our line of sight.
Suddenly, the Kalif’s mortar fire, which had been progressing in a regular circle around the city, became erratic. Several explosions occurred at once, quite near us, the characteristic whistle of destruction so banal I didn’t even think of it as a threat at first. The ceiling lifted, the floor trembled, dust floated down.
Then nothing for several minutes. Then another eruption of explosions, farther away. On the outskirts of Ambergris, gouts of flame lit up the night sky, whiter than the moon. Slowly, as the fires spread, it became clear that the conflagration was forming a circle around Ambergris.
We watched it spread, silent, unable to find words for our unease.
After a while, Sybel said, in a flat voice, “Did you notice?”
“What?”
“The Kalif’s mortars have been silenced.”
“Yes, yes they have,” I said.
Nothing rational told us that the Kalif’s positions had been overrun, but we knew it to be true regardless. Someone or something had attacked the Kalif’s troops. And yet not even H&S or F&L would have been foolhardy enough to launch an attack on so unpredictable an evening as Festival night.
That is when we decided to board up the window. Some things should not be seen, if at all possible.
* * *
Shall I tell you Duncan’s crime during the Festival, in Mary’s eyes? While Sybel and I boarded up my apartment window, Duncan was leading Mary to safety—just not a safety she had expected or particularly wanted. It was not the safety provided by a living necklace of acclaim and warmly muttered praise. It was not the kind of safety that reinforces trust or love. For where could Duncan possibly be safe with the surface in so much turmoil? I think you already know, my dear reader, if you’ve followed me this far. Some of us read to discover. Some of us read to discover what we already know. Duncan read Mary the wrong way. He thought he knew her. He was wrong. How do I know? His journal tells me so. It’s all in there.
I took Mary underground as the Festival raged above. Truff help me, I did. Why I thought this might be a good thing for us beyond ensuring our immediate survival, I don’t know. The Kalif’s men were too close to our home, and I could sense the gray caps getting even closer. The spores in my skin rose to the surface and pointed in their direction. My skin was literally pulling in their direction, yearning to join them—that was how close to turning traitor my body had become. Besides, some F&L louts were five doors down, beating an old woman senseless. It seemed clear they’d reach our door before long.
“Do you trust me?” I asked Mary. She was pale and shaking. She wouldn’t look at me, but she nodded. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved her more than at that moment, as she left everything familiar behind. I kissed her. “Get your jacket,” I told her. “Bring the canteen from the kitchen.”
And then we set off. The place I meant to take her was underground, yes, but a place rarely inhabited by gray caps. The entrance lay halfway between our home and the F&L thugs. We had to hurry. We were scurrying to a rat hole before the other rats could catch us. I had my greatcoat on, which I had seeded with a few varieties of camouflaging fungi. I was carrying an umbrella for some reason—I don’t even remember why anymore. Except I remember joking with Mary about it, to make her laugh, at least a little bit. But she was too scared, frozen. I really think she thought we were both about to die. Thankfully, I was more or less human right then, or she would have been out of her mind with terror. When you can’t count on your lover to stay in one consistent shape …