“Yes, sai.” No more ma’am, not now. The turtle was working on her. Sanding away the gap between the worlds.
“You just forget you saw me, all right?”
“Yes, sai. Shall I put a do-not-disturb on the phone?”
Mia clamored. Susannah didn’t even bother paying attention. “No, don’t do that. I’m expecting a call.”
“As you like, sai.” Eyes on the turtle. Ever on the turtle. “Enjoy the Plaza-Park. Would you like a bellman to assist you with your bags?”
Look like I need help with these three pukey li’l things? Detta thought, but Susannah only shook her head.
“Very well.”
Susannah started to turn away, but the desk clerk’s next words swung her back in a hurry.
“Soon comes the King, he of the Eye.”
Susannah gaped at the woman, her surprise close to shock. She felt gooseflesh crawling up her
arms. The desk clerk’s beautiful face, meanwhile, remained placid. Dark eyes on the scrimshaw
turtle. Lips parted, now damp with spittle as well as gloss. If I stay here much longer, Susannah thought, she’ll start to drool.
Susannah very much wanted to pursue the business of the King and the Eye — it was her business — and she could, she was the one up front and driving the bus, but she staggered again and knew she couldn’t . . . unless, that was, she wanted to crawl to the elevator on her hands and knees with the empty lower legs of her jeans trailing out behind her. Maybe later, she thought, knowing that was unlikely; things were moving too fast now.
She started across the lobby, walking with an educated stagger. The desk clerk spoke after her
in a voice expressing pleasant regret, no more than that.
“When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken.
Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi.”
Susannah made no reply, although the gooseflesh was now all the way up the nape of her neck and she could feel her scalp tightening on her very skull. Her legs (someone’s legs, anyway) were rapidly losing all feeling. If she’d been able to look at her bare skin, would she have seen her fine new legs going transparent? Would she have been able to see the blood flowing through her
veins, bright red going down, darker and exhausted heading back up to her heart? The
interwoven pigtails of muscle?
She thought yes.
She pushed the UP button and then put the Oriza back into its bag, praying one of the three
elevator doors would open before she collapsed. The piano player had switched to “Stormy
Weather.”
The door of the middle car opened. Susannah-Mia stepped in and pushed 19. The door slid
shut but the car went nowhere.
The plastic card, she reminded herself. You have to use the card.
She saw the slot and slid the card into it, being careful to push in the direction of the arrows.
This time when she pushed 19, the number lit up. A moment later she was shoved rudely aside as
Mia came forward.
Susannah subsided at the back of her own mind with a kind of tired relief. Yes, let someone
else take over, why not? Let someone else drive the bus for awhile. She could feel the strength and substance coming back into her legs, and that was enough for now.
FIVE
Mia might have been a stranger in a strange land, but she was a fast learner. In the nineteenth-floor lobby she located the arrow with 1911-1923 beneath it and walked briskly down the
corridor to 1919. The carpet, some thick green stuff that was delightfully soft, whispered beneath her
( their)
stolen shoes. She inserted the key-card, opened the door, and stepped in. There were two beds.
She put the bags on one of them, looked around without much interest, then fixed her gaze on the telephone.
Susannah! Impatient.
What?
How do I make it ring?
Susannah laughed with genuine amusement. Honey, you aren’t the first person to ask that question, believe me. Or the millionth. It either will or it won’t. In its own good time. Meanwhile, why don’t you have a look around. See if you can’t find a place to store your gunna.
She expected an argument but didn’t get one. Mia prowled the room (not bothering to open the
drapes, although Susannah very much wanted to see the city from this height), peeked into the
bathroom (palatial, with what looked like a marble basin and mirrors everywhere), then looked
into the closet. Here, sitting on a shelf with some plastic bags for dry-cleaning on top, was a safe.
There was a sign on it, but Mia couldn’t read it. Roland had had similar problems from time to
time, but his had been caused by the difference between the English language alphabet and In-
World’s “great letters.” Susannah had an idea that Mia’s problems were a lot more basic; although her kidnapper clearly knew numbers, Susannah didn’t think the chap’s mother could read at all.
Susannah came forward, but not all the way. For a moment she was looking through two sets of eyes at two signs, the sensation so peculiar that it made her feel nauseated. Then the images came together and she could read the message:
THIS SAFE IS PROVIDED FOR YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PLAZA-PARK HYATT ASSUMES NO
RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITEMS LEFT HERE
CASH AND JEWELRY SHOULD BE DEPOSITED IN THE HOTEL SAFE
DOWNSTAIRS
TO SET CODE, PUNCH IN FOUR NUMBERS PLUS ENTER
TO OPEN, ENTER YOUR FOUR NUMBER CODE AND PUSH OPEN
Susannah retired and let Mia select four numbers. They turned out to be a one and three nines.
It was the current year and might be one of the first combinations a room burglar would try, but at least it wasn’t quite the room number itself. Besides, they were the right numbers. Numbers of power. A sigul. They both knew it.
Mia tried the safe after programming it, found it locked tightly, then followed the directions
for opening it. There was a whirring noise from somewhere inside and the door popped ajar. She
put in the faded red MIDTOWN LANES bag —the box inside just fit on the shelf- — and then
the bag of Oriza plates. She closed and locked the safe’s door again, tried the handle, found it tight, and nodded. The Borders bag was still on the bed. She took the wad of cash out of it and tucked it into the right front pocket of her jeans, along with the turtle.
Have to get a dean shirt, Susannah reminded her unwelcome guest.
Mia, daughter of none, made no reply. She clearly cared bupkes for shirts, clean or dirty. Mia was looking at the telephone. For the time being, with her labor on hold, the phone was all she cared about.
Now we palaver, Susannah said. You promised, and it’s a promise you’re going to keep. But not in that banquet room. She shuddered. Somewhere outside, hear me I beg. I want fresh air.
That banqueting hall smelled of death.
Mia didn’t argue. Susannah got a vague sense of the other woman riffling through various files
of memory —examining, rejecting, examining, rejecting — and at last finding something that
would serve.
How do we go there? Mia asked indifferently.
The black woman who was now two women (again) sat on one of the beds and folded her
hands in her lap. Like on a sled, the woman’s Susannah part said. I’ll push, you steer. And remember, Susannah-Mio, if you want my cooperation, you give me some straight answers.
I will, the other replied. Just don’t expect to like them. Or even understand them.
What do you —
Never mind! Gods, I never met anyone who could ask so many questions! Time is short! When the telephone rings, our palaver ends! So if you’d palaver at all —
Susannah didn’t bother giving her a chance to finish. She closed her eyes and let herself fall
back. No bed stopped that fall; she went right through it. She was falling for real, falling through space. She could hear the jangle of the todash chimes, dim and far.
Here I go again, she thought. And: Eddie, I love you.
STAVE: Commala-gin-jive
Ain’t it grand to be alive?
To look out on Discordia
When the Demon Moon arrives.
RESPONSE: Commala-come-five!
Even when the shadows rise!
To see the world and walk the world
Makes ya glad to be alive.
6th STANZA
THE CASTLE ALLURE
The Castle Allure
ONE
All at once she was falling into her body again and the sensation provoked a memory of blinding brilliance: Odetta Holmes at sixteen, sitting on her bed in her slip, sitting in a brilliant bar of sun and pulling up a silk stocking. For the moment this memory held, she could smell White