“It isn’t true that no member of the Council has been seen. There was the woman of flame who appeared to Hal P’Jardas. One the general claims to have seen but probably hasn’t.”
She frowned. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about Tamlar of the Flames. I heard about her from Arnole!”
He peered at her. “You continue to astonish me. You have seen demons. You have read pre-Happening books. Now you admit familiarity with a story that probably wouldn’t be recognized by a dozen persons in the Fortress. The Archives have the original account, of course, but the book I spoke of and the Artifact in the cellars are the first bits of confirming, physical evidence.”
“And where did this book come from?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I found it, purely by accident, but if you tell anyone I have it or where I got it, I am likely to be chaired or bottled by morning.”
“Will you at least stop talking about it and show it to me!” she said irritably.
He leapt to his feet and brought it from the next room, unwrapping it with great ceremony to lay it open before her. She stared at it, unbelieving.
“It looks like me.”
“Indeed. That’s what I thought the moment I saw you.”
“She’s carrying a drum.”
“As a matter of fact, I brought one for you, if you want it.” He pointed to a small drum lying on the table, one he had purchased on his way back from his visit to the costumer’s.
“And this resemblance was the reason you sent the letter?”
“No. I didn’t know you resembled the picture, but your name had come before me three times. Once in a letter to me from a person unknown, once from the lips of an old friend of yours, a little boy you played with in the Apocanew park, and once in a discussion of Faience among certain officers. This book was only the final flick of the whip. To my mind, all that was a sufficient cause for action.”
“Because of this ‘Protector’ bit?” she asked, running her finger along the pertinent line of text.
“That, yes. Come, sit down. Let me expatiate!”
He guided her to a chair and sat down opposite her, leaning forward intently. “I’ve come to believe, from experience and reading and what I’ve learned on the outside, that the Regime—I suppose really, one might say any regime—is rather like a pot of porridge. If vigorously stirred every now and then, it can be a nourishing if not always tasty staple, but if left on the heat unstirred for some time it becomes increasing stodgy. If left untended, it can char into an immovable solid, like coal.
“Thereafter, it is incapable of being stirred, incapable of providing nourishment. When a regime is like that, citizens have to resort to bribery or lawbreaking to do quite necessary things like digging wells or fixing roads, thus joining corruption to congealment. Between the Dicta and the Chairs and the bottles, our Regime has been charred for at least one or two generations, not only immovable but also immoral.”
She frowned at him, for he was making her decidedly uneasy.
Her expression made him blather self-consciously, “The Regime cries out to be stirred, vigorously! If there is truly a Guardian Council, then evidence of it should stir the Regime to its roots…” He paused, as though making room for her to object. “…and what would be better evidence than for one of them to show up!”
She shut her lips firmly and put on her vacant expression.
This made him even more self-conscious. He said in a wheedling tone: “If it makes you too uncomfortable…”
“If I am not to be I, how can I be uncomfortable,” she said sharply. “Who am I to deprive you of your amusements, Doctor? I am yours to command, and since you take this Guardian Protector thing seriously, I presume you don’t intend to endanger me.”
He flushed. “No! Of course not!”
“Your whim is my command,” she muttered.
He nodded, face as serious as he was able to make it be. “I suspect there’s little difference between whim and inspiration at the beginning of any chain of events. It’s what happens later that tells us which is which.”
She rose and went to the table where the book lay, open. “What does this mean? ‘This is Dezmai, in whose charge are the howls of battle, the roars of great beasts, the lumbering of herds, the mutter and clap of thunder, the tumult of waves upon stone, the cry of trumpets, the clamor of the avalanche…’”
“I have no idea,” he replied. “Also, please, once we leave this room today, don’t feel impelled to quote it. Say absolutely nothing about it. Not to anyone. Don’t respond to any questions. I don’t want anyone to hear your voice.”
“Many people here know who I am.”
“I’ve brought you Dezmai’s costume. It will cover you from head to toe.” He opened the box and presented it with a low bow.
“And where are we going?”
“We’re going down a great many stairs to the cellar where the device is.”
“We’re going to see the device?” Her face lighted up with excitement.
“We are. The place has been fully excavated by now, and it’s well lit. When you enter the chamber, there will be a short stair in front of you. You’ll go down it, and the device will be directly before you. All you need do is go down the steps, walk up to the device and look at it. Really look at it. Stare at it. As though you are…memorizing it.”
“Why?”
“Observe the picture in the book. That’s what she’s doing.”
“What is this device? It looks like a frozen wave.”
“It’s what you see there, a shape, like a chunk of dark glassy stone, yes, a featureless mass except for a place halfway up one side where there is a good deal of cloudy discoloration. Everyone thinks it’s magical, of course. The bishop is staking his career on it…”
“The bishop?”
“He’s ambitious. If this thing turns out to be magical, it comes under the Division of Culture, which is BHE, which is the bishop’s purview. The thing certainly looks sorcerous, doesn’t it? Though, oddly enough, the text says nothing about it.”
She nodded. “It sounds simple enough.”
“Your sister will be there. You’ll put in an appearance, then turn around and leave. If she follows, I’ll delay her while you come back here.”
Dismé reflected, trying to decide if that made a difference. If she was covered in this costume, if her face was painted, if the doctor was there, it was unlikely Rashel could do her any harm. “If you think Rashel is going to be impressed by me, or you, or the surroundings, I doubt it.”
“Let’s try,” he said, smiling at her. “Meantime, I presume you’re all packed? Good. Did I tell you, Michael’s going with us when we leave here early tomorrow.”
“Michael said he was going,” she replied, returning his smile. “He wasn’t delighted when I said I was to play the part of your wife. I think perhaps he’s…fond of me.”
The doctor turned away and busied himself at his desk while Dismé went into the adjacent room, where there was a mirror. When she had shut the door behind her, the doctor sighed deeply and murmured, “Fond of her. Well. And of course. Why wouldn’t he be?”
34
the doctor does more than intended
Came a knock at the doctor’s door. With a quick look to be sure the door to his bedroom was closed, he opened the door only slightly to see the unremarkable face of one of his spies.
The spy whispered, “The woman’s headed down there, Doc.”
“The procession’s coming? As we planned?”
The spy nodded, scratching his head. “They’re happy with the money, Doc, but a bit confused about the detour.”
“Tell them several people along the route are celebrating promotions. They should be Praisers, as they are all the time, and keep on being Praisers down five flights of stairs. When they get to the bottom, they go away. Surely they can manage that.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure they can.”
Jens shut the outer door and went to knock on the inner one. “Ar
e you ready?”
When the door opened, his jaw dropped. Dezmai of the Drums stood before him, true to the picture in every detail except for the slightly flustered expression.
Jens shut his mouth and offered his arm. “Lady?”
Wordlessly, she took it, and they arranged themselves in readiness as the doctor murmured, “When the musicians come by, walk behind me, just as though we are part of their procession.”
They waited for some time before they heard music. The doctor cracked the door and peeked through, waiting until the masked and costumed musicians and dancers filled the corridor, capering and weaving while playing a joyous tune, the whole punctuated by the juggling of brightly colored flags and the occasional thwang of a three-stringed harp. As they went past, the doctor stepped out and Dismé fell in behind him, losing themselves in the noise and action.
The procession descended stairs that widened all the way to the ground floor and narrowed below that. At the bottom, a low hallway extended toward an open door, the curtains behind it hiding the interior of the room beyond. The musical troupe turned back well short of the spearmen standing guard, la-la, twiddle and thwang-banging along the walls and thus creating an aisle down which the doctor proceeded, Dismé close behind.
With a ceremonial salute, the doctor uttered the password of the day. The men flourished their spears, and stepped aside. From behind the curtain the doctor could hear Rashel’s voice, solemnly explaining the research which she proposed to do upon the device or artifact or “crystallized process,” punctuating her words with low, seductive laughter.
The doctor glanced back, as though to be sure the musicians had dispersed and feigned surprise at the presence of the figure behind him. He bowed and held the curtain widely aside, peering curiously within. The ladder had been replaced with a rough though solidly built stair that gave access to the central area of bare soil, now considerably lower than when he had seen it last. He stepped inside only when Dismé was at the stair.
Rashel, behind the dark slab of curving stone, was still talking enthusiastically to the intent group around her. She did not see Dismé descend the steps and approach the device from the other side. As for Dismé, she saw nothing in the cellar at all: not the people, not the circling arches, not the packed earth, not the device, but only an amorphous cloud swarming with stars, exploding with light and movement. Two galaxies lay before her, and a distant voice told her to reach out, which she did, covering the star clusters with her hands.
Some of the functionaries from Inexplicable Arts were far enough to the side that they had seen Dismé enter. Her appearance startled them into immobility, but her approach made them move to stop her. They had taken only a step, however, when a beam of light emerged from the device first to strike Dismé’s forehead and then to detonate a blast of effulgence that staggered everyone in the chamber.
The functionaries howled, Rashel screamed, the guards outside, who had seen only the light reflected from the corridor walls, shouted an alarm. For a moment the doctor saw a towering giantess, taller than the ceiling of the room, extending upward into non-existent space, her face glowing with a light that dazzled him. Within the chamber, people groped sightlessly, confusion compounded by deafness when a voice thundered:
“This is a kinswoman of Elnith of the Silences. Let no person lay hands on this woman for she is of the Guardians.”
The device or artifact or crystallized process—for in this case Rashel had quite possibly been correct—at once separated into its constituent atoms, a shower of silver dust sparkling at the top and proceeding downward until nothing was left, the whole disappearing in the space of a few deep breaths. This left Dismé standing face to face with a woman she scarcely recognized, a blank-faced female who stared blindly, dumbfounded and deaf, with no idea who or what it was before her.
Dismé turned. For a moment she faced the doctor, only long enough for him to see the curled line of light that flamed upon her forehead, before she leapt up the stairs and passed swiftly before him out into the corridor. Once there, she moved to the nearest door, her action so fast that it blurred.
The doctor, who had seen as much as anyone could have seen of what had happened, gritted his teeth tightly together and swallowed several curses at himself for meddling with things that he understood so imperfectly. So, she resembled the drawing! So, wouldn’t it stir things up to lend some support to the idea of a Guardian Council! Oh, yes, very bright of him to do a great deal more stirring than he’d intended!
“Colonel Doctor Jens Ladislav Praise,” grated one of the blinking men from Inexplicable Arts. “Is this your doing?”
“I am as surprised as any of you,” he said with complete honesty, meantime casting another glance over his shoulder to be sure that Dismé was indeed out of sight, though that in itself was a cause for worry. She had taken a door that led into the bowels of the Fortress; it was easy to lose oneself in there; and some places could be dangerous, especially for a woman alone.
As though echoing his thought, Rashel cried, “It was a woman, wasn’t it. I heard a woman’s voice. Where is she?”
“The voice came from the artifact,” said the doctor, though he was not at all sure that was true. Certainly it had come from the vicinity of the device. Dismé had been very much in that vicinity though the voice had not sounded like hers.
“But there was someone here!”
“The person left,” someone said.
There was a babble among those assembled, Rashel showed signs of emerging from shock, and though she had not recognized Dismé, the doctor decided not to wait until she had a chance to replay the event in her mind. He left them jabbering behind him and achieved his apartment by the quickest route known to him. He found Dismé already there, however, in the tiny bedroom, staring alternately into the mirror and at the Book of Bertral, open upon the bed.
“What happened in there?” he asked.
She turned on him glowing eyes and a face that seemed carved of stone. “Later.”
“Dismé,” he cried. “I need to know. How did you find your way back up here?”
“You need to know no more than I,” she said in a voice like boulders rolling together under the sea. “And I have no idea how I got here. Something knew the way, and I followed the something.” She took a deep breath and said, in a slightly calmer voice. “Perhaps matters will come clearer with a little time.”
The tone of her voice was so forbidding, so different from her normal intonation, that he dared not pursue the matter. Instead—assuring himself repeatedly that he was not frightened of her, that he had no reason to be afraid of her, that he had not ever, in any way harmed her—he fetched a bottle from the bedside cupboard and poured himself a drink. When she moved away from the book, he retrieved it. The illustrated Dezmai of the Drums bore a twisted line of light upon her forehead. The line had been on the page before, but it had not glowed until now. He leafed through the book, finding that other illustrations also glowed with light. Camwar of the Cask, glowing. Tamlar of the Flames. Rankivian of the Spirits. Among others. He read the concluding lines once more:
“Let him who reads pay heed…”
He turned. Reading over his shoulder was Dismé—a somewhat more familiar Dismé except for the blazing sign.
“Did you know this would happen?” she asked in an angry voice more like her own, brushing the sign on her forehead with her fingers, as though to verify it was there. She stared at him imperiously, awaiting his response.
“I didn’t expect anything like this to happen,” he said, flushing. “I was just throwing odd rabbits into the pot.”
She turned, her long sleeve dragging across the table where the small drum lay. It fell to the floor. When she picked it up, it roared like a far-off peal of thunder, and went on roaring until she set it down. She looked at it in astonishment.
She said, “Where and when did you find that book?”
He laid it down, gripped his hands together to keep them from shaking, and
told her how he had found it. “…and it was wrapped in oiled canvas and stitched tight. There were tools there. I took a shovel and dug it up.”
“Ah,” she murmured. “So.”
He gulped, drily. “I retained presence of mind enough to fill in and litter the hole. No one else knows it was there.”
Her lips quirked in a smile. “If the Regime were aware of this, you wouldn’t last long, Doctor.”
He shrugged, saying wryly, “As you may have gathered, I have no great confidence in the Regime. I think some things are safer buried. I’ve spent days looking at this book, at your name in it. Dismé—Dezmai. Close, as you said…”
“Who sent you the letter you mentioned?”
He frowned again. “I don’t know. I assumed it was someone who knew both you and me quite well, but it was unsigned and delivered in an unconventional way. All the mystification was intended to be intriguing, so I sent for you as soon as I knew where you were. You came, and everything…just seemed…”
“Foreordained,” she said, with stone in her voice once more. “Yes, Colonel Doctor, it seems that something certainly was.”
“There’s something else,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “When I was a child, very young, my own mother gave me this little book. See here, there’s a prayer for the soul of a departed one. Can you read that?” He handed it to her.
“It calls upon Rankivian, Shadua, and Yun,” she said.
“And I have called on them, from time to time. Now see here,” and he turned to the gray pages that followed the blue ones in the Book of Bertral. “Here are Rankivian, Shadua, and Yun. Here, evidently, they have been from the beginning. Who knew that? How did their names come to appear in a book given to me decades ago? It is a puzzle, like the puzzle of the letter I received with your name in it.”
“Your letter writer may have desired my downfall, or yours,” she snarled. “Did you think of that?”