Gadfium shook her head and looked down at the matted fur of the huge animal she bestrode, feeling its damp, rank heat welling up around her like doubt.
– Are we both mad? she asked her crypt self, – Or is it just you?
* * *
3
The angel was tall and sleek and sensually asexual; its eyes and hair were gold, its skin shone like liquid bronze. Its clothes were confined to a loincloth and a small waistcoat. Its wings varied from the coppery tint of its body at their roots through every shade of blue to white at the very tips of the feathers. It flew with an elegant effortlessness and landed lightly in front of him.
He had stopped laughing, not wanting to appear impolite.
The angel bowed slowly and deeply to him.
When it spoke its voice was like something beyond music, each phoneme, syllable and word at once utterly clear and yet setting off a symphony of tones which fanned instantly out from the primary expression like an avalanche down a pristine slope.
‘Welcome, sir. You have travelled a long way to be here with us at last.’
He nodded. ‘Thank you. Had we met during any other day of my journey I would have greeted you somewhat better dressed.’
The angel smiled, but did not look at his nakedness. ‘Please, sir,’ it said, and like a conjurer flourished one hand, and was suddenly holding a large black cape, which it held out to him.
‘I’m grateful for the gesture,’ he said, not taking the cape. ‘But if its utility is restricted to saving my blushes, I’d prefer to remain as I am.’
‘As you wish,’ the angel said, and the cape was gone.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Did I misinterpret something, or was I summoned here?”
‘You were, sir. We would ask something of you.’
‘Who is this “we”?’
‘A one-time part of the data corpus charged with overseeing the functioning of the rest, and with the monitoring of our world’s welfare.’
‘No small brief. And your current intentions?’
‘We will attempt to contact a system set up long ago which may help deliver us from what has been called the Encroachment.’
‘And how exactly is it supposed to do that?’
The angel smiled dazzlingly. ‘We have no idea.’
He could not help but smile too. ‘And what part may I play?’
The angel lowered its head, its gaze still fastened on him. ‘You can give us your soul, Alandre,” it said, and Sessine felt something quail within him.
‘What?’ he said, crossing his arms. ‘Aren’t we being rather metaphysical?’
‘It is the most meaningful way to express what we’d ask of you.’
‘My soul,’ he said, hoping he sounded sceptical.
The angel nodded slowly. ‘Yes; the essence of who you are. If you are to help us you must surrender that.’
‘Such things may be copied.’
‘They may. But is that what you want?’
He looked into the angel’s eyes for some time. He sighed. ‘Will I still be me?’
The angel shook its head. ‘No.’
‘Then whom?’
‘What will exist is what we create from you, and with you.’ The angel shrugged; a magnificent and beautiful flutter of shoulders and wings. ‘Another person, with aspects of yourself within them, and more you than anybody else, but not you.’
‘But will something of me remain that will remember this, and my time here, and who I was, and so know what became of me from this point, and whether I… did any good?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You can put it no more strongly than that?’ ;
‘I cannot. Partly, that aspect would depend on you, but I’d lie if I told you the chances are good.’
‘And if I refuse to help you?’
‘Then you may walk away. We can furnish you with items to replace those you lost in the water and you may resume your travels. On your funeral, in another fifty or so years of crypt-time, I assume you will have the usual courtesies accorded you and so take your place within the Cryptosphere. Twenty thousand years of crypt-time await even before the Encroachment is complete; there will be far, far longer than that before matters become desperate in the physical world.’
He felt he had to insist, even though he listened to himself speak and felt ashamed: ‘There is a chance of some continuity though; some element of me might survive which will remember this and know the connection, know what I did?’
‘Indeed,’ the angel said, with what was almost a bow. ‘A chance.’
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Oh well, it’s been a long life.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘Lives.’ He smiled at the angel, but it looked sad.
Strangely, he felt sad for it, too. ‘What do I do?’
‘Come with me,’ the angel said, and was suddenly a small dark-haired, white-skinned man dapperly dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying a hat, cane and gloves. He flourished the hand holding his pair of spotless white gloves, indicating the path back through the garden.
Sessine went with him, walking side by side along the path to where a rotunda set on a small hill was revolving slowly and rising; its revealed base was in the shape of a huge cylindrical screw, and gradually an aperture came into view, rotating with the rotunda, its full size being revealed after a few more revolutions.
They climbed the path to the now motionless rotunda. The doorway faced them. It was dark at first, then it began to glow with a warm orange-yellow light, like side-lit fog.
‘Merely enter, and you will have done all we ask of you. If you carry something of your being through what awaits here, you may do what you ask of yourself.’
He took a step forward. The doorway shone like hazy sunlight. He smelled the sea again. He hesitated and turned to the little man who had been in the form of an angel.
‘And you?’
The little man smiled wryly and looked back over the trees at the grey heights of the quiet tower, proud against the sky’s last dusky light. ‘I cannot go back,’ he said, and sounded resigned. ‘I shall probably stay here, in the garden, to tend it.’ He looked around. ‘I have often thought it exhibits too perfect an elegance. It could do with some… love.’ He turned back, grinning self-consciously. ‘Or I may wander the level, as you have done. Perhaps both, consecutively.’
He put his hand on the small man’s shoulder and nodded at the beautiful tower. ‘I’m sorry you can’t go back.’
‘Thank you for having asked, and for saying so.’ The small man frowned and seemed to hesitate. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘my “perhaps” earlier was overly pessimistic.’
‘We’ll see. Fare well.’
‘And you, sir.’
They shook hands, and then Sessine turned and walked through the doorway into the glowing mist.
* * *
4
Translation
Hoo-wee! Am probly hier than nbody els in thi hole wyde wurld rite now, xeptin onli thi peepil in thi fass-towr assoomin thers nbody up thare ov coarse.
Thi baloon is a grate enormis shado abuv me. Am hangin undir it by whot lukes lyk a pair ov freds from a wispy net ov moar freds whot loop ovir thi big sfeer. Thi lammergeiers strapt theez 3 oxijin tanx 2 my chest & gaiv me this lite litil pakidje 2 put on my bak. Av got anuthir mask on now, 2.
& a botil ov wotir.
& wormir cloves.
& a torch,
& a nife.
& a hedake, tho thats probly thi leest ov my problims, but nevermind.
& av got a parashoot 2, tho that mite ½ go when I get a bit hier up.
Thi birdz @ thi botim ov thi shaft seemd 2 b in a bit ov a hury & I only got about 10 minits ov instruxin on how 2 control thi baloon while I woz getin kittid out wif thi hi-alt clovin & stuf, but it boils down 2 yoosin a cupil ov pairs ov lines 2 pool hinjd flaps like airbrayks whitch shude steer me a bit, + (2 control my speed ov assent) waitin 4 thi baloon 2 slo down & then cuttin off lenfs ov plastic tyoobin sikyoord 2 thi same freds holdin me.
Thi lammergeiers brot thi baloon out ov a big shed in thi cavern @ thi foot ov thi shaft; it ran on rales atatchd 2 thi seelin. Thi baloon is juss a big sfeer fool ov vacyoom; iss as simpil as that. It lukes greyish & akordin 2 thi birds iss made ov sum sorta stuf simla 2 thi fabric ov thi cassil, so it muss b prity strong. Thi freds wer olredy draped ovir thi baloon.
Whot if busts? I askd, jokin reely, but thi hed bird luked kind ov awkwird & sed sumfin about uthir modils wif litlr baloons inside them not bein up 2 thi job & if it was goan 2 burst it wude b low down probly & they wude giv me a parashoot 4 lowir altitoods.