The dark eyes stared at the antenna, then at Kit, and back at the antenna again. The Lotus stopped swaying, held very still. Kit was two feet away. He reached out with his free hand, very slowly, reached down to touch the scratched fiberglass hide.
The engine raced, a sudden startling roar that made Nita stifle a scream and made Kit flinch all over—but he didn't jump away, and neither did the Lotus. For a second or two he and the car stood there just looking at each other—small trembling boy, large trembling predator. Then Kit laid his hand carefully on the brown hide, a gingerly gesture. The car shook all over, stared at him. Its engine quieted to an uncertain rumbling.
"It's okay," he said. "Will you let me take care of it?"
The Lotus muttered deep under its hood. It still stared at Kit with those fearsome eyes, but its expression was mostly perplexed now. So was Kit's. He rubbed the curve of the hurt wheel well in distress. (I can't understand why it's mute,) he said unhappily. (The Edsel wasn't. All it took was a couple of sentences in the Speech and it was talking.)
(It's bound,) Nita said, edging out of the shadow of the building she stood against. (Can't you feel it, Kit? There's some kind of huge binding spell laid over this whole place to keep it the way it is.)
She stopped short as the Lotus saw her and began to growl again. "Relax," Kit said. "She's with me, she won't hurt you either,"
Slowly the growl dwindled, but the feral headlight-eyes stayed on Nita. She gulped and sat down on the curb, where she could see up and down the street. "Kit, do what you're going to do. If another of those cabs comes along—"
"Right. Fred, give me a hand? No, no, no," he said hastily, as Fred drifted down beside him and made a light pattern and a sound as if he was going to emit something. "Not that kind. Just make some light so I can see what to do down here."
Kit knelt beside the right wheel, studying the damage, and Fred floated in close to lend his light to the business, while the Lotus watched the process sidelong and suspiciously. "Mmmfff—nothing too bad, it's mostly wrapped around the tire. Lucky it didn't get fouled with the axle.
"Come on, come on," Kit said in the Speech, patting the bottom of the tire, "relax it, loosen up. You're forcing the scrap into yourself, holding the wheel up like that. Come on. " The Lotus moaned softly and with fearful care relaxed the uplifted wheel a bit. "That's better. " Kit slipped the antenna up under the Lotus's wheel well, aiming for some piece of chrome that was out of sight. "Fred, can you get in there so I can see? Good. Okay, this may sting a little." Molten light, half-seen, sparked under the Lotus's fender. It jumped, and an uneven half-circle-shaped piece of chrome fell clanging onto the pavement. "Now hunch the wheel up again. A little higher—" Kit reached in with both hands and, after a moment's tugging and twisting, freed the other half of the piece of metal. "There," Kit said, satisfied. He tossed the second piece of scrap to the ground.
The engine roared again with terrible suddenness, deafening. This time Kit scrambled frantically backward as the Lotus leaped snarling away from him. With a screech of tires it swept so close past Nita that she fell over backward onto the sidewalk. Its engine screaming, the Lotus tore away down Fiftieth toward Madison, flung itself left around the corner in a cloud of blue exhaust, and was gone.
Very slowly Kit stood up, pushed the antenna into his pants pocket, and stood in the street dusting his hands off on his shirt as he gazed in disappointment after the Lotus. Nita sat back up again, shaking her head and brushing at herself. (I thought maybe it was going to stay long enough to thank you,) she said.
Kit shook his head, evidently in annoyance at himself for having thought the same thing. (Well, I don't know—I was thinking of what Picchu said. 'Don't be afraid to help.') He shrugged. (Doesn't really matter, I guess. It was hurting; fixing it was the right thing to do.)
(I hope so,) Nita said. (I'd hate to think the grateful creature might run off to— you know—and tell everybody about the people who helped it instead of hurting it. I have a feeling that doing good deeds sticks out more than usual around here.)
Kit nodded, looking uncomfortable. (Maybe I should've left well enough alone.)
(Don't be dumb. Let's get going, huh? The ... whatever the place is where the dark Book's kept, it's pretty close. I feel nervous standing out here.)
They recrossed Madison and again started the weary progression from doorway to driveway to shadowed wall, heading north.
At Madison and Fifty-second, Nita turned right and paused. (It's on this block somewhere,) she said, trying to keep even the thought quiet. (The north side, I think. Fred, you feel anything?)
Fred held still for a moment, not even making a flicker. (The darkness feels thicker up ahead, at the middle of the block.)
Kit and Nita peered down the block. (It doesn't look any different,) Kit said. (But you're the expert on light, Fred. Lead the way.)
With even greater care than usual they picked their way down Fifty-second. This street was stores and office buildings again; all the store windows empty, all the windows dark. But here, though external appearances were no different, the feeling slowly began to grow that there was a reason for the grimy darkness of the windows. Something watched, something peered out those windows, using the darkness as a cloak, and no shadow was deep enough to hide in; the silent eyes would see. Nothing happened, nothing stirred anywhere. No traffic was insight. But the street felt more and more like a trap, laid open for some unsuspecting creature' to walk into. Nita tried to swallow as they ducked from one hiding place to another, but her mouth was too dry. Kit was sweating. Fred's light was out.
(This is it,) he said suddenly, his thought sounding unusually muted even for Fred. (This is the middle of the darkness.)
(This?) Kit and Nita thought at the same time, in shock, and then simultaneously hushed themselves. Nita edged out to the sidewalk to get a better look at the place. She had to crane her neck. They were in front of a skyscraper, faced completely in black plate glass, an ominous, window-less monolith.
(Must be about ninety stories,) Nita said. (I don't see any lights.)
(Why would you?) Fred said. (Whoever lives in this place doesn't seem fond of light at all. How shall we go in?)
Nita glanced back up the street. (We passed a driveway that might go down to a delivery entrance.)
(I'll talk to the lock,) Kit said. (Let's go!)
They went back the way they had come and tiptoed down the driveway. It seemed meant for trucks to back into. A flight of steps at one side led up to a loading platform about four feet above the deepest part of the ramp. Climbing the stairs, Kit went to a door on the right and ran his hands over it as Nita and Fred came up behind. (No lock,) Kit said. (It's controlled from inside.)
(We can't get in? We're dead.)
(We're not dead yet. There's a machine in there that makes the garage doors go up. That's all I need.) Kit got out the antenna and held it against the door as he might have held a pencil he was about to write with. He closed his eyes. (If I can just feel up through the metal and the wires, find it...)
Nita and Fred kept still while Kit's eyes squeezed tighter and tighter shut in fierce concentration. Inside one garage door something rattled, fell silent, rattled again, began to grind. Little by little the door rose until there was an opening at the bottom of it, three feet high. Kit opened his eyes but kept the antenna pressed against the metal. (Go on in.)
Fred and Nita ducked through into darkness. Kit came swiftly after them. Behind him, the door began to move slowly downward again, shutting with a thunderous clang. Nita pulled out the rowan wand, so they could look around. There were wooden loading pallets stacked on the floor, but nothing else—bare concrete walls, bare ceiling. Set in the back wall of the huge room was one normal-sized double door.
(Let's see if this one has a lock,) Kit said as they went quietly up to it. He touched the right-hand knob carefully, whispered a word or two in the Speech, tried it. The right side of the double door opened.
(Huh. Wasn't even locke
d!) Through the open door, much to everyone's surprise, light spilled—plain old fluorescent office-building light, but cheery as a sunny day after the gloom outdoors. On the other side of the door was a perfectly normal-looking corridor with beige walls and charcoal-colored doors and carpeting. The normality came as something of a shock. (Fred, I thought you said it was darker here!)
(Felt darker. And colder. And it does,) Fred said, shivering, his faint light rippling as he did so. (We're very close to the source of the coldness. It's farther up, though.)
(Up?) Nita looked at Kit uneasily. (If we're going to get the dark Book and get out of here fast, we can't fool with stairs again. We'll have to use the elevators somehow.)
Kit glanced down at the antenna. (I think I can manage an elevator if it gets difficult. Let's find one.)
They slipped through the door and went down the hall to their right, heading for a lobby at its far end. There they peered out at a bank of elevators set in the same dark green marble as the rest of the lobby. No one was there.
Kit walked to the elevators, punched the call button, and hurriedly motioned Nita and Fred to join him. Nita stayed where she was for a moment. (Shouldn't we stay out of sight here?)
(Come on!)
She went out to him, Fred bobbing along beside. Kit watched the elevator lights to see which one was coming down and then slipped into a recess at the side. Nita took the hint and joined him. The elevator bell chimed; doors slid open.
The perytons piled out of the middle elevator in a hurry, five of them together, not looking left or right, and burst out the front door into the street. Once outside they began their awful chorus of howls and snarls, but Nita and Kit and Fred weren't sitting around to listen. They dove into the middle elevator, and Kit struck the control panel with the antenna, hard. "Close up and take off!"
The elevator doors closed, but then a rumbling, scraping, gear-grinding screech began—low at first, then louder, a combination of every weird, unsettling noise Nita had ever heard an elevator make. Cables twanged and ratchets ratcheted, and, had they been moving, she would have sworn they were about to go plunging down to crash in the cellar.
"Cut it out or I'll snap your cables myself when I'm through with you!" Kit yelled in the Speech. Almost immediately the elevator jerked slightly and then started upward.
Nita tried again to swallow and had no better luck than the last time. "Those perytons are going to pick up our scent right outside that door, Kit! And they'll track us inside, and it won't be five minutes before—"
"I know, I know. Fred, how well can you feel the middle of the darkness?"
(We're closer.)
"Good. You'll have to tell me when to stop."
The elevator went all the way up to the top, the eighty-ninth floor, before Fred said, (This is it!)
Kit rapped the control panel one last time with his antenna. "You stay where you are " he said.
The elevator doors opened silently to reveal another normal-looking floor, this one more opulent than the floor downstairs. Here the carpets were ivory white and thick; the wall opposite the elevators was one huge bookcase of polished wood, filled with hundreds of books, like volumes of one huge set. Going left they came to another hallway, stretching off to their left like the long stroke of an L; this one too was lined with bookcases. At the far end stood a huge polished desk, with papers and Dictaphone equipment and an intercom and a multiline phone jumbled about on it. At the desk sat...
It was hard to know what to call it. Kit and Nita, peering around the corner, were silent with confusion and fear. The thing sitting in a secretary's swivel chair and typing on an expensive electric typewriter was dark green and warty, and sat about four feet high in the chair. It had limbs with tentacles and claws, all knotted together under a big eggplant-shaped head, and goggly, wicked eyes. All the limbs didn't seem to help the creature's typing much, for every few seconds it made a mistake and went grumbling and fumbling over the top of its messy desk for a bottle of correcting fluid. The creature's grumbling was of more interest than its typing. It used the Speech, but haltingly, as if it didn't care much for the language—and indeed the smooth, stately rhythms of the wizardly tongue suffered somewhat, coming out of that misshapen mouth.
Kit leaned back against the wall. (We've gotta do something. Fred, are you sure it's up here?)
(Absolutely. And past that door, behind that—) Fred indicated the warty typist. From down the hall came another brief burst of typing, then more grumbling and scrabbling on the desk.
(We've got to get it away from there.) Nita glanced at Fred.
(I shall create a diversion,) Fred said, with relish. (I've been good at it so far.)
(Great. Something big. Something alive again, if you can manage it—Then again, forget that.) Nita breathed out unhappily. (I wouldn't leave anything alive here.)
(Not even Joanne?) Kit asked with a small but evil grin.
(Not even her. This place has her outclassed. Fred, just—)
A voice spoke, sounding so loud that Kit and Nita stopped breathing, practically stopped thinking. "Akthanath," it called, a male voice, sounding weary and hassled and bored, "come in here a moment."
Nita glanced at Kit. They carefully peeked down the hall once more and saw the tentacled thing hunch itself up, drop to the floor behind the desk, and wobble its way into the inner office.
(Now?) Fred said.
(No, save it! But come on, this is our best chance!) Nita followed Kit down the hall to the door, crouched by it, and looked in. Past it was another room. They slipped into it and found themselves facing a partly open door that led to the office the typist had gone into. Through the slit they could just see the tentacled creature's back and could hear the voice of the man talking to it. "Hold all my calls for the next hour or so, until they get this thing cleared up. I don't want everybody's half-baked ideas of what's going on. Let Garm and his people handle it. And here, get Mike on the phone for me. I want to see if I can get something useful out of him."
Nita looked around, trying not even to think loudly. The room they were in was lined with shelves and shelves of heavy, dark, leather-bound books with gold-stamped spines. Kit tiptoed to one bookshelf, pulled out a volume at random, and opened it. His face registered shock; he held out the book for Nita to look at. The print was the same as that in Carl's large Advisory manual, line after line of the clear graceful symbols of the Speech—but whatever was being discussed on the page Nita looked at was so complicated she could only understand one word out of every ten or twenty. She glanced at Kit as he turned back to the front of the book and showed her the title page, UNIVERSES, PARAUNIVERSES, AND PLANES—ASSEMBLY AND MAINTENANCE, it said, A CREATOR'S MANUAL. And underneath, in smaller letters, Volume 108—Natural and Supernatural Laws.
Nita gulped. Beside her, Fred was dancing about in the air in great agitation. (What is it?) she asked him.
(It's in here.)
(Where?) Kit said.
(One of those. I can't tell which, it's so dark down that end of the room.) Fred indicated a bookcase on the farthest wall. (It's worst over there.) Nita stopped dead when she saw the room's second door, which was wide open and led to the inner office.
Nita got ready to scoot past the door. The man who sat at the desk in the elegant office had his back to the door and was staring out the window into the dimness. His warty secretary handed him the phone, and he swiveled around in the high-backed chair to take it, showing himself in profile. Nita stared at him, confused, as he picked up the phone. A businessman, young, maybe thirty, and very handsome—red-gold hair and a clean-lined face above a trim, dark three-piece suit. This was the Witherer, the Kindler of Wildfires, the one who decreed darkness, the Starsnuffer?
"Hi, Michael," he said. He had a pleasant voice, warm and deep. "Oh, nothing much—"
(Never mind him,) Kit said. (We've got to get that Book.)
(We can't go past the door till he turns around.)
"—the answer to that is pretty obvious
, Mike. I can't do a bloody thing with this place unless I can get some more power for it. I can't afford streetlights, I can barely afford a little electricity, much less a star. The entropy rating—"
The young man sniveled in his chair again, leaning back and looking out the window. Nita realized with a chill that he had a superb view of the downtown skyline, including the top of the Pan Am Building, where even now wisps of smoke curled black against the lowering gray. She tapped Kit on the elbow, and together they slipped past the doorway to the bookshelf.
(Fred, do you have even a little idea—)
(Maybe one of those up there.) He indicated a shelf just within reach. Kit and Nita started taking down one book after another, looking at them. Nita was shaking—she had no clear idea what they were looking for.
(What if it's one of those up there, out of reach?)
(You'll stand on my shoulders. Kit, hurry!)
"—Michael, don't you think you could talk to the rest of Them and get me just a little more energy?—Well, They've never given me what I asked for, have They? All I wanted was my own Universe where everything works—Which brings me to the reason for this call. Who's this new operative you turned loose in here? This Universe is at a very delicate stage, interference will—"
They were down to the second-to-last shelf, and none of the books had been what they were looking for. Nita was sweating worse. (Fred, are you sure—)
(It's dark there, it's all dark. What do you want from me?)
Kit, kneeling by the bottom shelf, suddenly jumped as if shocked. (Huh?) Nita said.
(It stung me. Nita!) Kit grabbed at the volume his hand had brushed, yanked it out of the case, and knelt there, juggling it like a hot potato. He managed to get it open and held it out, showing Nita not the usual clean page, close-printed with the fine small symbols of the Speech, but a block of transparency like many pages of thinnest glass laid together. Beneath the smooth surface, characters and symbols seethed as if boiling up from a great depth and sinking down again.
Nita found herself squinting. (It hurts to look at.)