A Rose-Red City

Nine

Jerry had been standing by the doorway, listening in the darkness to that thick breathing, nauseated by the fetid stench, trying to stop his gun shaking so much. He had just decided that Asterios knew he was there and was waiting for him and he had lifted a leaden foot on a rubber leg to step forward.

Then his gun was gone, and he was on the floor. He never knew afterward whether he had been struck by the monster or by the bursting door frame, or whether it was merely the force of the sound itself. The momentary roar of Ariadne’s Uzi, the shattering of glass as bullets ricocheted, the smashing of wood— all vanished before a bellow of pain from Asterios like a great pipe organ at full volume, unbearable in that tiny space. Darkness and the stench of carbide and noise— and impact. Head down, the brute charged; table and chairs crumpled and were rammed into the far wall. The cottage rocked like a boat.

Jerry rolled into a ball and covered his ears to ease the pain in his head. Rampaging in pain-maddened frenzy, the monster wheeled sideways, hurling the icebox across into the cupboards. Then it straightened and lunged, still roaring, at Ariadne, and she gave it another burst of gunfire. Louder yet, the monster went right by her and cannoned into the piano, exploding it out through the wall.

The cottage settled back on its foundations.

There was sudden silence… until hearing returned, and the children were screaming.

Dazed, Jerry clambered to his feet. Through the remains of the far wall and the acrid smoke, he saw a very faint tinge of light; false dawn, perhaps, but good enough.

Had they escaped? Apparently! The demons were gone, and he had no idea how or why.

Coughing, he reeled over to the other bedroom and could just make out Maisie hugging Lacey and Ariadne holding Alan. For a few minutes he leaned against the jamb, feeling confused and somehow more ashamed than relieved. The children’s screams died away to whimpers as the women comforted them.

“What happened?” Jerry demanded. “What in Hades did you do?” Ariadne’s face was a pale blur; she looked up momentarily from her child. “I shot it in the nuts,” she snapped. “There, there…” Jerry choked and then shook his head to try to clear it. Why not? The bullets would not have penetrated the monster’s hide, but that would not have mattered. He had never heard of that technique, yet it made sense.

Suddenly he started to laugh. “You have written a whole new chapter into the book on demonology, Ariadne! And it took a woman to think of it!”

“Long overdue,” she said vaguely.

Huh? “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Oh… nothing. I didn’t… Forget that.” She went back to comforting Alan. Jerry turned to the front room. A cool, fresh breeze had taken away the smoke and told of the coming dawn. The piano had totally vanished, probably scattered all over the clearing by the force of impact; there would be no more Mozart ever played on that instrument. Almost the only undamaged area was the rug on which Killer still lay by the door, blissfully unaware of the epic chaos that had erupted all about him— and he would be speechless-ly furious at having missed it. His face looked like variegated marble in the faint but gradually increasing light, a statue with stubble. The wand glowed no more, but when he knelt down and put his ear to Killer’s chest, Jerry could still hear a slow and steady thumping.

That left the other bedroom, and now he realized that he was floating around in a self-indulgent, witless daze instead of behaving like a competent leader and sternly counting his casualties.

He stepped over the fallen door and for a moment he thought that there was nothing else in the room. As he had expected, almost the whole of the rear wall and part of one side had been ripped away; the roof drooped dangerously. Then he saw that there was a limp sprawl of a body in one corner, went over to it, and discovered Carlo, alive.

He ran back into the kitchen, picked up a dagger that had fallen out of the twisted ruins of the icebox, and returned to cut the youth’s bonds. Carlo groaned and opened one eye.

“You’re alive,” Jerry said. It sounded as stupid to him as it probably did to Carlo. “The demons have gone, it’s all over.” Carlo groaned again, tried to move, and lapsed into obscenities. After a moment he gathered strength and the sounds became stronger, but repetitious. If he had suffered any new injuries, Jerry could not see them. The bloody and pulped face was unbearable for him to look at; how could he have allowed his rage to turn him into such an animal? He decided to let Carlo do his own stocktaking and go in search of Gillis.

Now the grayness in the sky had chosen a direction to be east and was growing stronger— he could see trees outlined against it and make out enough of the terrain to risk walking. He jumped down through the open wall and looked around the debris of planks and spars which littered the ground. No body. He shivered and not merely from the clamminess of dawn air on his bare chest— Meran weather was more accommodating, except sometimes on Killer’s hunting trips. Had Asterios somehow dematerialized his victim? There was the bed, hurled an incredible distance from the cabin, and there something which had once been a dresser, even farther. He inspected both, and there were no human remains underneath either. Perhaps there had been other demons waiting outside to catch Gillis and remove him.

The hedge and grasslands had not reappeared— he was standing in a clearing in a pine forest, still dark and mysterious. He strode over to the barn and walked around it, saw nothing amiss there, and poked his head inside to inspect the mare. She screamed and reared in terror— he was going to have fun getting her harnessed up— so he shut the door again and left her.

It was good to be alive. He pumped up some water from the well and doused his head, then went briefly to inspect the light pole which Aster-ios had snapped so impressively— at least a foot thick— and headed back to the cottage.

He jumped in through the wall, and Carlo was sitting up.

“Any bones broken?” asked Jerry, in a cheerful, hospital sort of voice. “Just my face,” Carlo muttered, barely moving his lips.

Nothing to say to that. “Anything you want, then?”

“Water.”

By the time he returned from the pump with a bucket of water, the women and children had emerged, and he had to break the news of Graham’s disappearance to Maisie. She teetered on the brink of renewed hysterics, and Ariadne hugged her and soothed her back to shaky self-control. Alan started to laugh at the demolished icebox, found an apple, and proceeded to eat it.

A jam sandwich was produced for Lacey, Jerry’s cape returned to him, as the children were now back in their own clothes, and Ariadne made a pot of coffee. Fortunately Asterios had missed the range, or the cottage would have surely burned to the ground.

“Now what?” Ariadne asked. She was pale— they all were— but she had combed her hair and looked better than anyone else, her Meran cape and pants once more clean and unrumpled, the bloodstains gone. She had a glow of satisfaction which no one else could match, and which was probably a rare experience for her.

“If we can, we should get the mare between the traces and leave,” he said, then saw Maisie’s face and added quickly, “after we’ve had a proper look for Graham, of course.”

“Killer get up soon?” Alan inquired, studying the inert form on the floor.

“He’s a heavy sleeper, Alan,” Jerry said. They could load Killer in the wagon on that rug. Then he forced himself to look at Carlo. “If you want… that face of yours would heal in a couple of days in Mera, three at the most— bones and all.” Even his dandruff would vanish, but it was not necessary to mention that. “I don’t know if temporary stays are allowed, but I feel guilty as hell at having done that to you and I’ll plead your case to the Oracle. Do you want to come with us?”

“You still peddling that bunk?” Carlo asked. “Fairyland bull…” He hesitated and then shrugged. “I’ll come down the road with you to the highway.”

“You may never reach the highway if you travel with us,” Jerry said. “I suppose the Oracle will send you back here, but it might magic you directly back home, so you have nothing to lose. Maisie?” Maisie crossed herself. Maisie was a problem— he could not leave her here alone. Reluctantly she agreed to accompany them, like Carlo, to the highway. It was an obvious face-saving decision for both of them.

“Daddy want coffee now,” Alan said.

He had been trotting around busily on his stumpy legs, exploring this interesting disaster area. They all looked at him in astonishment, like a grove of fir trees examining a rosebush.

“Where’s Daddy, Al?” Maisie asked, kneeling.

He pointed his apple at the bedroom. “I ask Daddy if he want coffee, too. Daddy likes coffee.” There was a stampede into the shattered room— and then outside, through the wall. Gillis was sitting on the grass, his shirt soaked with blood from a broken nose, his once-splendid blue suit a filthy, bedraggled mess, his face wearing a blank, dazed expression which reminded Jerry of survivors pulled from ruined houses in the London blitz. His hands were still bound but his feet were free. He must have ripped the bonds in his terror as Aster-ios entered, fallen out through the wall, and rolled under the cottage. Gillis was not a particularly personable person, thought Jerry, but he had seldom been more pleased to see anyone.

Leaving a weeping Maisie to attend to him, Jerry and Ariadne headed for the barn.

She stopped at the door and looked around the clearing at the fallen pole and the shattered cottage and she took a couple of deep breaths of the pine-scented air. The sky was turning blue, clear and cloudless. She sighed with contentment.

“How far to Mera, Jerry?” she said.

“Just beyond those trees,” he said, smiling. “Mera is always just out of sight. Usually half an hour will do it. No doubts?” She smiled back at him. “None at all. I believe, and it’s wonderful.” Then the smile died slowly. “And Alan and Lacey?” There was the problem. “We can only ask the Oracle,” he said. “If the answer is no, then you may reconsider. It can tell you the alternatives and, if you choose to return, it can probably send you somewhere where Graham will never find you.” But he wanted her to stay.

“How old is the youngest person there?” she demanded, frowning. “Hard to say.” He thought of Clio, of Rab the stableboy, and of a few others— all of whom worshipped Killer, who shamelessly took advantage of their admiration. “About sixteen, I should think. Killer’s wife was probably younger than that, but she was an exceptional case. Killer was sent to rescue some unknown Greek philosopher, who turned him down. He fancied the man’s granddaughter and brought her back instead.” She giggled, in spite of her worry. “We always get back to Killer! Is that allowed?” Jerry shrugged. “According to Killer, he had a dandy fight with the Oracle over it.” He doubted that very much; no one argued with the Oracle, not even Killer. “But obviously a field man must have discretion— I’m going to take Carlo. I feel horrible about what I did to him.” She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t feel guilty, Jerry. He deserved it. And be careful— he was swearing revenge on you last night. He’s dangerous.” He turned in dismay to look back at the cottage, feeling shivers of fear. He still had the automatic in his pocket, but, like a total idiot, he had left the other guns there. Killer would never have made that mistake. But if Killer had been conscious when Asterios came, he would have been holding the gun instead of Ariadne, and probably none of them would have survived. Yet he had been stupid.…

She read his expression correctly. “If Carlo believes that his injuries can be cured in Mera, then he won’t do anything, at least not now. You can’t be perfect, Jerry. You’ve done very well.” He shook his head. “You did it. Without you none of us would be here this morning. I wish I knew how you thought of it.” Her face darkened. She said, “Come on, let’s see to this horse of yours.” The mare was obviously enjoying a nervous breakdown and did not wish to be talked out of it. Ariadne again showed her ranchwoman’s skills and eventually soothed the mare and got her between the shafts in a way Jerry could never have managed.

“She’s cast a shoe,” Ariadne said, examining feet. “I suppose we have to use her?” He said that they did; they certainly could not move Killer without the wagon. She agreed reluctantly, and they drove over to the cottage.

Loading Killer was surprisingly easy with the rug as a sling. Carlo took one corner without argument, his face unreadable— if he had remorse for trying to kill this man, he did not say so. As unobtrusively as possible, Jerry collected all the ammunition clips and tucked them in the wagon, rendering the guns useless, and then breathed a silent sigh of relief. The rest of the equipment he decided to leave— the Oracle could send him back for it, or perhaps it would all just vanish when they had left.

Gillis was less dazed, although his face also had suffered during the night and he looked like a survivor of some major disaster.

“We are going to give Carlo a ride,” Jerry said, “as far as the highway. It is possible that we shall arrive in Mera first, but he knows that. You and Maisie may come with us or leave later. Please yourself.” The big man glared at him. “You are taking my children?”

“I am.” Gillis rose. “Then I am coming with you.” Maisie whimpered.

Jerry shrugged. “Very well— we’ll all go together, and you can argue with the Oracle.”

Just try!

Ariadne took the reins, with Alan and Lacey squirming excitedly on the bench beside her. Jerry sat behind them, keeping watch on the three adults at the back across Killer’s inert form. The sun was up, the sky was blue, the air was perfumed by the trees, and what he could really use was a good breakfast. The wagon rolled off down the road at a gentle pace.

Soon the cottage and barn vanished around a curve in the road, a road which had been straight the previous evening.

“Darling, I’m worried,” Maisie said. “A place where people don’t grow old or die is not right. It is a device of the Devil.”

“I suspect it is a device of a sick mind, honey,” her husband said. “The first chance we get, we’re going to turn this character in to the cops.” Jerry chuckled. “Can you describe to me what Killer is holding?” he asked. He reached down and lifted off the blanket which he had laid over Killer’s blood-stained form. The blood had dried now, and the skin on Killer’s face and chest was white. Maisie crossed herself once more.

“A white rod thing,” Gillis said reluctantly.

Jerry smiled and replaced the blanket, leaving the top of the wand uncovered so that he could see its color. Gillis was bluffing, or else merely lying to comfort his wife. He believed.

The road was a grassed-over trail through the pines, not even the modern gravel road it had been the previous day, but quite adequate for the wagon’s leisuely, rumbling pace. It continued to curve gently to the left.

“Ariadne?” the big man shouted.

“Yes, Graham?” she twisted round briefly and sent him a smile, perhaps the first genuine smile she had given him in years. She had not even reached Mera, and yet already it was transforming her.

“Suppose this fairy city does exist,” Gillis said. “You know what you’re giving up? The whole world for one small place, a ragtag of people collected at random from all cultures and times. That’s a fair description, is it not, Howard?”

“Very fair,” Jerry said. “Except that you have a choice of all sorts of countryside around it, without limit. And they’re a fine bunch of people. There are no locks on doors in Mera— I left my house open because people go in and borrow my books all the time. They always bring them back, too.” Gillis snorted disbelievingly. “But this Oracle you talk of is the ruler? No elections? The Oracle lives forever, also, I suppose, and whatever he says goes?”

“That’s true,” Jerry said. The two cars had apparently disappeared in the night. The road curved emptily out of sight behind the wagon and also in front. He wondered if the others had noticed. “But there are no orders to give, except when someone needs to go Outside. I never heard of anyone refusing, so I suppose the Oracle knows who to ask.” Gillis scowled suspiciously. “This Oracle— what is he? Or she? Is it human?”

“It looks human,” Jerry assured him with a straight face.

“But no freedom? No rights?” He had a lawyer’s skill at arguing. “All your present friends and family lost forever, and home and familiar things?”

“Not everyone agrees to stay.”

“And how about boredom? Do you never get bored?” He was no fool, this lawyer.

“No,” Jerry said. “There are too many good things to do and good people to meet. I have no idea how many folk live in Mera, but you can’t walk there very long without seeing faces you’ve never seen before, which means new friends to make. When I get tired of being a bookworm I go off to the exercise fields and try my hand at wrestling or tennis or fencing, or go swimming or boating— or fishing or hunting. I talk abstractions with learned friends and read a lot and enjoy music. I party with the girls and riot with the boys. Boredom is no problem. Ask me again in ten thousand years.” The big man scowled heavily and fell silent for a while.

The knob at the top of the wand was still white. The road continued to curve gently ahead and behind.

The cross-examination started again. “What language do you speak there, then? Do all these Greeks and Chinese and so on all learn English?”

“Killer knows about six words of English,” Jerry said and laughed at the disbelieving faces. “I can’t guess how he even picked up those. Where do you suppose I’m from?”

“You’ve got no accent,” Gillis said thoughtfully. “I mean you have none to my ear, so I suppose somewhere near Colorado.”

“Where are you from, Carlo?” Jerry asked.

“That’s my business,” Carlo said.

Gillis’ head whipped around, and he stared.

“Had an accent yesterday, did he?” Jerry said. “And he doesn’t now. Right? I’m English— or I was, once.” He let them worry about it for a while, while he worried about the unchanging scenery. Then he explained, “The wand is doing it. In Mera everyone speaks and understands the same language. I promised Ariadne she could read Homer in the original— or Goethe or Chaucer or de Montaigne. Or Confucius or Gilgamesh. I gave Killer his nickname as a pun on Achilles— it rhymes in English and it rhymed in Mera. It doesn’t rhyme in Greek, but Killer got the joke in Mera. Puns translate, which is impossible anywhere else; rhymes translate. It’s magic, faerie.” The wagon rumbled along for a while in silence while they all thought about that, Maisie’s pretty young face twisted with worry at this further demonstration of the work of the Devil.

“The wand will do the same translation job Outside,” Jerry said. “It has a range of about a quarter of a mile— usually. But very rarely the range drops down to feet, or even inches, which is tricky if you have ten guys speaking ten different languages. A few times Killer has taken me along just because I know a little Greek from my school days. We can talk to each other, and I can talk to Marcus and Jean-Louis, of course.”

“Why sometimes and not others?” Gillis demanded, his methodical lawyer’s mind obviously disturbed at the illogicality of faerie.

“I’m not sure,” Jerry confessed. “I think that sometimes the wands reduce their power output very low, or probably so as to avoid attention and calling up demons. Or perhaps there are times and places where faerie won’t work. But there are times when the Oracle has warned that language will be a problem, and one thing you absolutely can not do in Mera is learn a new language, obviously.” The sun was back in his eyes again, and so far no one else seemed to have noticed the problem. Partly he was talking to hide his steadily increasing uneasiness and his frantic efforts to think of an explanation and a solution. Then Ariadne pulled up; the wagon stopped, and there was silence on the grassy forest road.

“We’re going in a circle, Jerry,” she said. He glanced up and saw the dread and hopelessness that were creeping back into her face, the hope of early morning gone once more.

It had been too easy.

He had his hand on the pistol, ready, and he pulled it out, trying not to show his rising fear. Asterios had been in the cottage, in the same room as Carlo and Gillis, yet they had survived. Or had they?

“I’m afraid the hayride is over,” he said. “Obviously we are not all supposed to go to Mera.”

“So you’re going to ditch us?” said Gillis, his bushy black eyebrows coming down dangerously.

Jerry wasn’t sure what he expected— a werewolf transformation? A suicidal assault? But so far the two men were merely angry men. “Right. The three of you out, please. I expect the road will return to normal as soon as we have left. Just keep walking and you’ll reach somewhere. Out!” Carlo jumped down, then Gillis, and he helped Maisie. Both men were clearly furious, but Jerry still held the gun.

“You’re stealing my children!”

“Daddy!” squealed Lacey. “Maisie?”

Alan started to cry. They did not want to be left with their mother, and that was not good news.

“Drive on!” Jerry said, keeping his eyes on the men. The wagon started to roll forward again. It did not move much faster than a man could walk, but the three stood in the road and watched it go. Soon the curve of the road had hidden them from sight. Jerry heaved a sigh of relief.

“What’s going wrong, Jerry?” Ariadne said quietly. “Are you sure it was their fault?” He stood up, lifted the children over the seat, and told them it was time to change places. He warned Lacey to tell him if she saw anything behind them, wishing now that he had brought the big guns— another error! Then he clambered over beside Ariadne.

“To be honest, Ariadne, I don’t know. We should have been there by now.”

“It could be ” she jerked her head to indicate the children behind.

“Adults only?”

“Would you come to Mera without them?”

For an instant she hesitated, then said, “No. Graham is a crook. Oh, he never breaks the law, but he bends it like a pretzel. He’s one of those lawyers who think their job is to find ways around the law instead of upholding it.” That was a judgment and a good topic for debate and not something he could comment on without knowing the facts; her opinions of Gillis could hardly be unbiased.

“Maisie is not a bad kid,” Ariadne admitted grudgingly, watching the road continuing in its gentle curve. “But she’s far too young to be their mother. Lacey has a great gift for music, and Maisie doesn’t know an orchestra from a bandbox.”

“And Alan?” he asked.

She smiled ruefully. “Alan is a little devil— he’s been unusually well behaved since we arrived. Maisie can’t control him now, and I’m terrified of how he’ll grow up under Graham’s influence.”

“Well, it may not be the children who are the problem,” he said. “It could be Killer.”

“Why?” she demanded, frowning.

“Too much power?” he suggested. “Perhaps it is taking too much faerie to keep him alive, so it can’t move us all to Mera.” She bit her lip and was silent, concentrating on the horse; and even to Jerry’s inexpert eye the mare was limping badly now.

If the children were the problem he had burned a bridge, for he could never abandon them in the forest as he had discarded the adults. They would be the first children he had ever seen in Mera, whereas Killer would not be the first living corpse brought back by a field team. Other wands had managed the transference while keeping a badly injured man alive, why not this one? He wished he knew more about the mechanics of the wands, knew whether they could run down like batteries.

He hoped that his first guess had been correct, that either Carlo or Gillis or both had been possessed and so forbidden to enter Mera.

The sun crept slowly around them as the road continued its turn. The clearing and the cottage had disappeared, obviously, for they had gone more than once round the loop and there had been no side roads— unless they were spiraling like a phonograph needle.

Still no change in the scenery. If a major demon could be defeated as easily as Ariadne had trashed Asterios, then why did the demonologists in Mera not know of that technique? Asterios had been inside the cottage. Could one tell if one had been possessed? Maybe they all were.

Ariadne had shrunk back into herself and become the cowering, frightened woman he had first met. Alan and Lacey were unhappily silent. The sun was almost behind the wagon again, which meant almost a complete circle since leaving Carlo and the Gillises.

He remembered the first time he had climbed to the high-diving board as a child and how that had felt. And flying into flak over Cologne. And bailing out and counting before pulling the ripcord. He knew what he was going to do next, and it felt worse than any of those.

“Look,” Ariadne said.

There were three figures ahead, and they had heard the wagon and stopped to look back: a woman in a pink sweater and green pants, a man in a badly mauled blue suit, a slighter man in jeans and a leather jacket.

The wagon stopped.

“It isn’t working.” She looked at him with doubt and fear… and anger and betrayal.

“Turn the wagon,” he barked.

“Would that help?” she asked with a brief glimmer of hope, and then even that had gone.

“Turn it!” he snapped. Gillis shouted and started to run, with Carlo behind him.

There was just room to turn the wagon between the trees which flanked the road.

“Now we get out,” Jerry said. His mouth was dry and his heart pounding. “Down you get, kids!”

“No!” Ariadne screamed. “I won’t leave them.”

“Us too. Come on! Move!” She studied him doubtfully for a moment, then Lacey had jumped down, and Ariadne scrambled down to lift Alan, not wanting to be separated from them. She certainly did not trust Jerry anymore.

He knotted the reins, released the brake, and jumped down also, stumbling in his haste. Gillis was coming puffing up to them with Carlo beside him.

Quickly, before his nerve failed him, Jerry took out the automatic and fired one shot into the air.

The children screamed, Ariadne gasped— and the mare dropped her ears and bolted. The wagon bounced and rattled, and he felt a sudden terror that the wand might be shaken from Killer’s grip— then suddenly there was no noise, just a bolting horse and wagon moving in silence, then neither had a shadow, and before they turned the bend out of sight, horse and wagon faded away into nothing, and the sun shone down on an empty road.

Killer had returned to Mera.