Governor Lampley continued to drop further and further into an abyss of gnawing terror.
Governor Lampley continued to drop further and further into an abyss of gnawing terror.
Governor Lampley continued to drop further and further into an abyss of gnawing terror.
On another floor lined with mirrors that shot their dazzle into his eyes like a volley of arrows, more women pulled and tugged girdles over obstinate hips with concentrated effort, bending reverently over unfolded brassieres to match the arbitrary cups against overflowing breasts, holding up corsets which coldly mocked. Breech-clouted boys waved huge fans, stirring the piles of garments on the tables.
The elevator continued downward. Shoppers strolled by book counters with untempted glances, heading for the infants' wear to examine tiny shirts, diapers, kimonos, blankets, fingering the embroidery, pursing lips, smiling, shaking their heads. They stood abstractedly before bright prints, sat stiffly on padded chairs, thumped mattresses, fiddled with gifts and notions.
On a lower floor overhead lights glared down on roulette tables, card games where the players squinted suspiciously over their hands, blankets on which dice-throwers were shooting craps. The walls were covered with posters: LAMPLEY FOR SUPERVISOR; A VOTE FOR LAMPLEY IS A VOTE FOR YOU! The Governor was puzzled; he had never run for that office.
The walls closed in again, the elevator tilted further, so that the Governor was sitting on the side of the cage. It picked up speed now, whizzing along, rounding banked curves, allowing momentary glimpses of open spaces like railroad stations. "How far are you going?" Lampley asked.
"Not far," said the clerk, coming out of his lethargy. "We're almost there."
"Where?"
"There. Where else?"
They rounded another curve and shot down a grade. A bird near the Governor ruffled its feathers sleepily. "I just want to get back."
"Who doesn't?" demanded the clerk harshly.
The walls of the shaft—it was a tunnel now—were transparent. There was water pressing against them, a powerful stream, judging by the exertions of the fish swimming against it. They ran a long way through the river—Lampley was sure it was a river from occasional sight of a far-off, muddy bank—and then the glass walls showed only earth, with the roots of trees reaching down and piling up, baffled, against them.
The walls became opaque, then vanished. They were running down the side of a mountain covered with patches of snow. In places the snow was piled in great drifts, carved by winds into tortured peaks; elsewhere it lay in thin ruffled streaks and ovals. Out of these shallow patches dark bushes sprang bearing red and yellow fruit. The bare spaces between the snow were of moist, eroded earth where small brown plants grew spikil.
The Governor could not see the sky nor the roof of the cavern—if they were in some sort of cavern—only the ridges and spurs of the mountain slope. There were scars on the rugged ground as from landslides, great bites where the drop was sheer and jagged rocks stood out like drifting teeth, but none of the slips could have been recent for the mounds at their feet were firm-looking and grassy. They rounded still another curve and the elevator slowed to a stop.
The clerk, who had clung protectively to the controls, straightened up and looked inquiringly over his shoulder. Lampley stared back at him. "All out," said the clerk, waving his hands. The birds fluttered, cawed and shrieked, flying through the open door with an angry whir of wings. They wheeled in uncertain circles and then made off in small, separate flights. "All out," he repeated.
"I don't want to get out," said Lampley. "There's nothing for me here."
"Are you sure?" asked the clerk.
"I...." Lampley paused, uncertain.
"You see?" demanded the clerk triumphantly.
Resigned, the Governor made his way out. The clerk smiled at him, not unfriendly, and Lampley almost begged him not to leave, not to abandon him but to take him back. If the right words came to his tongue, if the earnest feeling projected them into sound, he was sure he would not be deserted. Then the elevator started slowly backing, gathering speed as it went, running silently, shrinking in size until it was merely a small speck on the side of the slope. Only the terminal bumpers and the greasy track on which it had run remained.
CHAPTER 4
Lampley looked about him. Mountains shut off every horizon; the near ones sharp, serrated, detailed, those far-off hazy, soft and rounded. It was impossible to make out the character of the more remote, but those on either side gradually melted into foothills with twisting streams appearing from between shoulders and disappearing again behind ridges. The light overhead, nebulous, indefinite, emanated from no discernible body. It had the quality of sunlight filtered through thin clouds, soothing to the eye as the balmy air was pleasant to the skin. He felt refreshed.
Beneath his feet a fan-shaped plateau canted downward until it merged with a mighty plain far off, a plain enclosing a vast lake. A broad river meandered across the plateau and continued, as near as he could tell, on the plain below. Dense blue-green grass grew lushly, heavily powdered with yellow, white, and purple violets, dandelions, daisies, buttercups and tiny pale blue flowers. The Governor took off his shoes and socks, stuffing the socks into the shoes and knotting the laces together. He slung them over his shoulder. The grass felt electric, rejuvenating his feet as he trod on it.
A black fox crossed his path and paused to stare over his sharp nose before continuing on. A squirrel balanced its body erect for a swift, curious scrutiny before it was off with a flick of its tail. Other small animals bounded past him, none seemed afraid. He thought he saw deer in the distance, and a bear, but he was not sure.
He came to a bank of the river and followed it down. He could see now it was joined by a number of tributaries before it emptied into the blue, unruffled lake. Other rivers foamed down the more rugged mountains on each side of the plain, all made their way to the lake which seemed to have an island in it, a long way from shore.
When he reached a confluence with one of the branches he hesitated and followed the smaller stream back until he came to a place where it was crossed by high, flat-topped steppingstones nosed into the splashing and spuming water. He tested the rocks gingerly, but they were firm, and though wet, not slippery. Each time his progress was stopped by such a meeting he found a similar set of stones not far away.
Nearing the lake he saw its color was a warm blue, with violet tones. There was no hint of paleness in it; it was majestic, assured, unique. He quickened his pace. The island assumed more definite shape. It was large and irregular, with capes and promontories thrusting out into the lake. Heavily wooded, willows came down to the shore, behind them oaks and maples spread red and yellow leaves. Still further back the blue tips of firs pointed above.
He came to the shore, a rocky beach, where the water lay perfectly still over and between round, mossy stones. He waded in; the water was delightfully cool without a suggestion of coldness. He reached down and laved his face with it. When he straightened up he saw a rowboat a little further out, unanchored, its bow resting on the rocks, its stern hardly moving. The boat was the color of the lake save for a silvery trim and silvery oars were neatly shipped in bright metal rowlocks.
The Governor made his way carefully to the boat, freeing it from the rocks. He climbed in, laid his shoes in the stern, began rowing toward the island. After a few strokes he paused and looked upward. The haze was evidently permanent, which might somehow account for the unvarying, equable climate. He shipped the oars and allowed the boat to drift. A fish jumped in the water and splashed a widening circle. A bird, white and gold with carmine beak, flew overhead. Everything was serene.
There was no wind but there seemed to be a weak current, for the boat drifted very slowly, equidistant between the shore and the island. The features he had noticed before became more differentiated; he noted a number of landspits, small coves, moonshaped beaches. The woods did not everywhere come right down to the water; in places they retreated to make room for soft green meadows. He picked up the oars and rowed a long distance before coming even with a particularly inviting cove.
He debated whether or not there might be a still more desirable one farther along. The temptation to refuse decision was great. It was with a distinct effort that he turned the bow and ran the boat ashore.
The sands were fine and soft and golden, darkening a short way from the lake into a pale brown border between the beach and the greensward. He stepped out of the boat and hauled it clear of the water. Impulsively he took off his clothes and put them with his shoes. He rolled on the grass like a boy or a horse. The grass was soft as down, yet springy and lithe beneath his body. He lay prone, snuffing in the smell of the bruised stems. He stretched out his hands to reach into a patch of clover with the idle thought that one of them might be four-leaved. He saw with horror he was reaching with the reddish, vestigial, unteachable hands on foreshortened arms of his son.
He felt sweat on his forehead as he shivered in terror. He jumped up and ran for the boat, slipping and sliding on the crushed grass. He lay trembling, eyes shut. Fearfully he drew his hands toward him and opened his eyes. These were his own hands, familiar, middle-aged and freckled, normally colored, still fairly smooth despite the raised veins, still cunning to hold and twist and manipulate. His own hands, attached to his own arms. Shaken, he sighed in shuddering relief.
He walked slowly over the grass toward the interior of the island. Under the nearest trees—larch, beech, hickory—wild strawberries grew thickly. He picked quantities of the elusive fruit, crushing it with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, enjoying its sweetness, allowing the juice to trickle slowly, deliciously down his throat. He had not tasted wild strawberries since the day he and Mattie decided to get married (No children till we can give them the things they should have).
The trees were well spaced, letting the light enter freely between them. There was no young growth, no saplings; all the trees were full grown and healthy, with no sign of deadfalls or rotted logs. Only, far apart, raspberry canes bearing their garnet, black, white or green thimbles.
The trees didn't thin, they stopped abruptly. Ahead was a natural clearing; in the center of the clearing a jungle growth of stalks and vines rose in a high and inextricably tangled mound. Lampley advanced, irresistibly attracted. He tried to part the interwoven stems but they refused to give. On the ground were flat stones, some with sharp edges. He picked up a fair-sized one and went back to the woods. With some trouble he used it to saw off an oak branch.
He shaped the club to the right heft and bound the stone to it with vines. He was dubious of its strength and his doubts proved justified when, after hacking through some of the growth, the head came loose. With new patience he reaffixed it and continued to cut away. His arms began to ache; short, blinding flashes darted behind his eyes. He persisted; there was no reason, no goal—he was simply impelled to clear his way into whatever lay hidden by the tangle.
After refitting his crude ax again and again, he tore away the loosened vines to reveal a white stone column, tapered slightly at base and capital, its smooth sides spotted with the marks of the sucking disks and clinging tendrils he had torn free. Beyond the column he was faced by an enclosed, roofed rectangle. In this dim area no vines grew except the sickly, inhibited, baffled ends whose invading thrust had faltered in complete discouragement. Doubling back, they had interwoven in their attempt to return to the light, but they had not been able to make a curtain impervious enough to prevent him seeing the backs of the other pillars and the high roof they supported.
He shouldered his way in and peered through the dusk to make out a table flanked by two wide couches. Both table and couches were of the same stone as the columns—marble, Lampley guessed—the couches piled with soft furs. He took a tentative step forward.
Something glinted dully on the table, it was a bronze ax. He picked it up, balanced it, tried the edge with his thumb. It was reasonably sharp and the handle was firmly fitted into the head.
With mounting enthusiasm he attacked the vines from the rear, chopping and slicing, confident in this fine tool. Triumphantly he cleared the space between two pillars, dragged the cut growth clear, returned to his task. He freed another pillar, opened another space, dragged more vines away.
Now the interior was lucid enough to show the floor as one large mosaic of gleaming stones. The picture they composed was of a central fire, the flames red, blue and yellow, surrounded by smaller, less brilliant fires. On the outer edge animals turned their heads toward the warmth: horses, oxen, elephants, lynx, hippopotami, wolves, lions, zebras, elk.
He resumed his work, finished clearing one of the long sides and pulling down the severed branches from the roof before stopping again. Backing away to the trees he saw the building was so simple in design, so artfully proportioned, that it might have grown in this spot. The low pitched roof was copper, untarnished, like the new-minted pennies he had picked up in the hotel.
There was almost full visibility inside the little temple now; on impulse he hacked holes in the ivy on the other three sides for crude windows. The fresh light illuminated the ceiling, intricately painted in abstract designs with colors as bright as those of the mosaic. The table and couches were the only furniture, but on the floor, neatly laid out against columns, was a variety of fishing equipment.
He picked up a rod and held it out. It was limber, fitted with silk line and a dry fly. A searching vine-tip had tried to loop around the reel; he disentangled it. Carrying the rod, he left the temple and sauntered into the woods. There were no paths, no need of any beneath the widely spaced trees, yet he seemed to be following a definite avenue, broad and almost straight. Despite his nakedness and recent exertions he felt no chill in the shade; there was no tiredness in his muscles nor discomfort from the ground under his feet.
He passed natural clearings where saplings had not encroached upon the low-growing plants he recognized as edible, though clearly uncultivated. There were peas and beans of strange species, large and succulent, spattered with rainbow tints, purple melons, green cucumbers, golden-yellow leeks and onions as well as unfamiliar shrubs with broad green leaves and many kinds of flowers.
In a much larger clearing there was a pool of the same deep blue as the lake, roughly oval and perhaps twice the size of the little temple. At one end rushes grew tall, at the other, lotus offered their heavy flowers haughtily upward. The rest of the pool was covered with waterlilies and lily pads on which there was constant movement.
He thought they must be teeming with water beetles or very small frogs; when he squatted at the water's edge he discovered the figures to be tiny men and women leaping and frolicking on the moss, rolling smooth pebbles tall as themselves, swimming out to the pads, climbing the lilies and diving from them, sporting in the water, showing no signs of alarm at his presence.
He lay down flat for a closer look. Some wore loincloths or loose robes, most did not. Their graceful movements accented their strength and endurance; they performed feats easily, which, if done in proportion by any full-sized man would have exhausted him quickly, yet these went from one game to another without flagging. They moved so swiftly it was hard to estimate their number; he thought there might be fifty of them here. He had no way of knowing if this was all of them or whether those in sight constituted a part of their number, with the rest engaged, perhaps, in less active pursuits.
As he became accustomed enough to tell them apart he saw there were no children among them. Lampley could understand why they should segregate their young, for some of their amusements were startling even to a worldly adult; however the simpler variations suggested that they did perpetuate themselves in the customary way. Except when forced by circumstance to take a position on obscene literature, sex-offences or unconventional behavior, Lampley was morally relaxed; he viewed their recreation with the detached interest of an anthropologist, the appreciation of an aesthete, the envy of a man past his youth. He remained silent and watched for quite some time.
He noticed one female wandering apart from the rest, neither joining the others nor being sought by them. He thought there was dejection or despondency in the set of her shoulders, in the aimless way she placed one slender leg before the other or clasped her hands behind her neck. All of the tiny people were exquisite, but she, because of her repose and aloofness, seemed even more beautiful than the others. Without quite intending to, he reached out his free hand and lifted her close to his face.
She gave no sign of surprise or fear, but stared back into his eyes whose irises were the size of her head. He marveled at the fineness of her features, the flowing lines of her body, the gracefulness of her arms and legs, the regal carriage of her head. Her loveliness was poignant and perfect. He could not take his eyes from her.
It was impossible for him to put her down again, to part from her, to walk away as though he had not touched and held her. Guiltily, furtively, he carried her back to the temple, holding her against his chest, fearful that the beating of his heart must be a frightening thunder in her ears. He told himself he would not keep her long; before she was missed he would take her back.
He placed her on the table and sat on the couch admiring her. The diminutive face was haughty and sullen but in no way distressed. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head, falling with seeming artlessness to her shoulders, her breasts were high and taut—round, defiant shields—her thighs long and sleek. Even allowing for the difficulty of discerning blemish in so small a being, the glowing color, pale yet warm, the smooth hands and feet, the clustered body hair, all spoke of such flawlessness that he had to control his fingers lest they close in upon her to squeeze out the essence of beauty.
He whispered, "Do you hear me? Can you understand me?"
She moved her head slightly aside. Whether from outrage, annoyance or indifference he could not tell. He did not think it was incomprehension. When he repeated his questions she made no response at all.
She seemed to weary; he thought he detected an effort to keep her head erect, her eyelids from drooping. He placed her gently on the couch, ran a fingertip lightly over her side. She trembled and stiffened. When he took his hand away she curled in a graceful pose and closed her eyes. He covered her with one of the furs from the other couch; she did not move.
He picked up the fishing rod from where he dropped it outside when he had brought her in. The vines appeared to have grown; he must chop them closer, root them out if possible, clear the remaining sides entirely. There was no reason to allow the temple to be covered again.
He strode purposefully back to the lake. By chance he did not arrive at the cove where the boat was but further along the shore where a narrow pier, no more than a series of poles stuck into the lake bottom with planks laid on the cross-pieces, jutted out a few yards over the water.
He walked to the end and gazed into the clear depths. Marine flowers—vegetable, mineral or animal—wavered in a multitude of bright hues. Swimming, basking, or feeding among them were myriads of translucent fish, large and small, silver, blue, red, orange, green, nacreous gray. Below them flatfish moved slowly, rippling their bodies in lazy humps. Above them torpedo-shaped swimmers sped madly with barely perceptible flicks of tail and fins. Just under the surface, breaking into the air every now and then, thickly clustered schools of shiny fingerlings raced and darted in confusion.
Lampley was not a practiced angler, he was dubious of his ability to cast the dry fly and he saw he had brought along the wrong equipment. He let out a length of line awkwardly and watched the fly float on the surface, then very slowly sink downward. The excitement which had fevered him since he came upon the figures at the pool subsided. He was content.
The crimson fish shot from nowhere at the now invisible fly and the rod jumped almost from his hands as the reel unwound. The fish ran out toward the channel, the line lifting clear, like a knife cutting up through jelly. It circled and leapt, a dazzling blot of whirling color against the lake's placid blue.
He gained back considerable line before the fish ran again. He reeled in, the fish dived; each time it took less line. At last Lampley brought it gasping and thrashing on its side to the end of the pier. Lying flat, he was able to reach down and hook two fingers under the distending gills to lift it into the air.
He carried the fish back to the temple. The vines were winding around the base of the columns again; loose tendrils crept toward each other, ready to intertwine upon meeting. He came in nervously, eyes averted, as though by deliberately not searching for her he would assure her still being there. She was on the couch where he had left her, one tiny arm—was his memory playing him tricks? It did not seem so small as it had—thrown over her eyes.
He had no knife to scale the fish, no fire to cook it. He was not hungry himself but his captive might be. He put his rod away, took the bronze ax and the fish outside. With the edge of the ax he managed clumsily to cut the flesh from the backbone in a crude filet, then he scraped the filet free of the skin. Tentatively he tasted a piece; it was delicious.
He wished for a gold platter on which to serve food to her. He longed for a retinue of slaves to prepare her meal, an army of servants to wait on her. He stood by the couch, sadly deficient, a slice of raw fish in either hand, eager, tremulous, yet happy.
The woman stirred, opened her eyes, threw off the fur cover with some effort. She stood erect, stretching, shuddering in obvious pleasure, pointing first one leg and then the other, massaging her flanks and stomach sensuously. She had unquestionably grown larger: he could see the faint, fine down on her arms now, the intricate convolutions of her ears, the roundness of her navel. She was the length of his hand instead of less than that of his finger.
He made his voice as low as he could. "Would you like to eat?"
She turned to him as though she had not been aware of his presence until he spoke, but having learned of it was completely unaffected. She stretched again and looked up at him disdainfully. With some difficulty he broke off a crumb of the fish and offered it to her. Her glance did not waver from his face; she reached out her hands and accepted the morsel, nibbling it daintily, still staring at him. When she had eaten it he offered more; she turned away and re-settled herself on the fur, her back to him, her hip curving high.
He put the rest of the fish on the table and took up the ax. He trimmed the new growth of vine down to the ground and cleared one of the short sides. He stopped to sharpen the ax on the stone he had used for cutting before he discovered it. He freed a corner pillar on the opposite long side before he put up the ax and went to the pool.
It was deserted. Had he caused them to leave, or brought some worse disaster on them by stealing the woman! He ran his fingers through the moss, peered intently at the water plants—they were gone. He was not cruel or unreasonable; if she would only communicate with him he would do anything she asked.
He twisted a flat leaf into a cone-shaped cup and filled it with water. It leaked only one slow drop at a time, a growing, fat, wet pearl which swelled until its weight detached it. Lampley felt quite complacent over his cleverness in contriving so tight a cup. He returned to the temple and sat on the other couch, watching her sleep, holding the water in readiness. She had not covered herself; she was now the length of his forearm.
He must have been too intent. She moved and turned, opened her eyes and stared back at him indignantly. She did not make the slightest attempt to hide any part of her body from him; she seemed to taunt him with its promise, so impossible of fulfillment. His hand shook as he held the leaf out to her. She grasped it and drank, smiling secretively. Instead of returning it she threw it on the floor, spilling out the water that was left.
"Would you like to go back to the pool?" he asked.
She did not answer; her full-lipped mouth set in a cruel line. It had been a stupid question; she was tall enough to slide off the couch without help and walk to the pool. Tears came to his eyes and his throat ached at the thought of no longer being able to hold her in his hand. He implored her to forgive him for having carried her away, he pled with her to speak to him. He put his ear close to her mouth to hear her words if she spoke.
She allowed the set of her lips to change without softening. She moved to the opposite end of the couch, tidying her hair, twisting her head as though looking in a mirror. He reached out, hesitated, touched her. He ran his hands and lips over her body, fondled her, half in abject pleading, half in equally abject desire. She trembled; he knew it was with rage and loathing, not fear.
With the ax he fell upon the remaining vines, cut them to the earth. Those he had mutilated before were growing again but they were not high enough to give him release in chopping them down. When the temple was cleared all around he came in again and stood looking at her. She was still taller, still unrelenting. If he had originally wooed instead of capturing her she could not have regarded him so.
Remorseful, he went once again to the pool. The lotus blossoms had gone, leaving the dry pods swaying stiffly. The rushes and waterlilies were brown and brittle, the moss was fuzzy in decay, the edges of the lily pads were softly rotting. The small people had returned, unchanged in size—she alone had grown, afflicted by the wrong he had done. They lay near the edge of the pool in listless attitudes. Their hair had turned gray or white, they had lost their suppleness, paunches and wrinkles were visible.
He went away from them, walking slowly through the woods, glancing up at the light or down at the soft humus underfoot. The trees stopped short before a saucerlike meadow. Milky-blue poppies grew so thickly their petals crushed against each other, hiding the stems and ground beneath. He plunged into them, then halted; sharp stones hurt his feet.
He bent down and pushed the flowers apart. Their roots grew in twinkling, winking emeralds and rubies of all sizes and cuts. They were packed loosely enough for air and water to seep in, tightly enough to make it not easy to work them free and gather a handful. He tried to select the largest stones, discarding one for another, moving deeper into the field. His hands and cradled arms full, he let them drop and chose the smaller, more evenly matched gems. He threw all these away also and began all over; whatever combinations of size, cut or color he picked up did not equal the possibilities of this profusion.
Dissatisfied, he turned from the poppies. They had called to him, promising, then promised again and yet again. He could not—with a handful of stones such as these—say the promise had not been kept; he could not say it had.
He paused to bathe his bruised feet in the pool. The lotus plants had disappeared completely, the rushes drooped brokenly, the lilies floated like scraps of worthless paper, the lilypads were limp and soggy. The little people had lost their hair and much of their flesh, their skins stretched over protruding bones. They did not move save to turn over a weary hand or draw up a cramped leg.
He came to the temple. The persistent vines had again begun their climb up the pillars. The woman stood on the couch, her hands over her breasts, fingers open around the nipples. Her head was level with his chest; she tilted it to look at him with the same inexorable hate. He poured the rubies and emeralds at her feet. She glanced down, kicked a fur casually over them.
"I thought you might like them," he mumbled. "They ... they—"
She hunched up one shoulder. He was sure she understood his words.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, then he saw she had eaten more of the fish. "Are you thirsty?"
She threw herself down on the furs, buried her face in her elbow. Resentfully he took the ax and cut back the vines. Those he had chopped down at first were dry and brittle; they would burn if he had some way of making fire. He gathered a trailing handful and brought them inside. Her back was turned as he arranged them on the mosaic. He laid the flat stone next to them and struck it slantwise with the ax. Some of the blows resulted in futile sparks but the stems did not ignite.
He gave up; with the fishing rod he returned to the lake. He pushed the boat into the water and rowed with the current past the pier, heading for the deeper parts. He laid the rod over the stern and let the way of the boat pull the line slowly from the reel. The fly stayed on the surface.
His eyes searched the further shore. Some of the distant mountain peaks were bare, others were forested to the top. Some fell in palisaded steps down to the plain, some descended in series of rounded hills, some sloped evenly. Nearly all carried rivers to the lake. There were no signs of any way out of the cavern.
On the island side, great trees grew out over the water. From their boughs fell seed-pods which floated diagonally across the current to the other shore. Waiting for them at the edge of an extensive swamp were yellow swans with black beaks who stretched their long necks to gobble the prizes. They fought among themselves for the tid-bits, flapping their wings, rising partway into the air, twisting, their webbed feet tightly curled.
Past the overhanging trees the island curved inward in a wide, crescent-shaped beach of blue sand. He was tempted to land but the current carried him on before he could make up his mind. He passed a flat cape and low bluffs against which the calm lake churned white. He thought he made out the ruins of a castle far behind the bluffs, but the quality of the light changed from soft to hazy; what appeared to be ruins might as well be a natural formation of rock.
He guessed he must be halfway around the island; it was easier to drift on than row against the current. On the opposite shore animals had come down to drink, tapirs and zebus, raccoons and gazelles, llamas and koala bears. A few raised their heads as he passed, the majority paid no attention.
There was a ruffling of the water and an ominous sucking sound as the tide changed its easy momentum into an irresistible pull. Furiously the boat was whirled around—stern, bow, bow, stern—in a dizzying circle. He rowed with all his might, feathering his oars in panic as often as not, almost falling backward as they failed to bite. He half rose, digging them in, pulling desperately, returning, pulling with all his strength. The boat steadied; the bow pointed straight ahead. Almost as quickly as he had been caught in the vortex he was free of it. He inhaled raspingly, dropping his head on his chest.
The lake widened; it was so far across he could barely make out details on the mainland. The island changed character; forbidding basalt walled it, interrupted by inlets where the water surged in sullen, angry obstinacy. Foam gushed and spouted from great holes in the rocks, adding to the tumult. Lampley thought he saw ships in one of the inlets—high-prowed, single-masted vessels with low free-boards guarded by overlapping shields—but like the ruined castle they could have been oddly shaped masses of rock.
He must have almost circled the island, for he saw the plain he had followed from the elevator on the further shore. This part of the lake was placid and the undertow negligible. He put up his oars and took the rod in his hands, pulling at it so the fly skipped lightly over the water.
The fish was green and gold, pure colors, unsullied. It was clearly too heavy for the line. Lampley played it—awkwardly—exhausted it, brought it to the boat and unhooked it to lie, flopping and dying and turning a mottled brown, on the floor-boards. He looked down at the cruel, voracious mouth and felt his own setting in similar lines. He rowed to the island and landed on an unsheltered beach of reddish sand.
It was a long way to the temple; he began to think he had missed it when he saw the roof and columns ahead. The vines had made great progress in his absence; in places they had reached the eaves and were writhing over the cornice.
She was leaning against a pillar, facing him, one hip slouched lower than the other. She was nearly four feet tall; her proportions had not altered, nor did her increased size reveal any imperfection. He was shaken by the same mixture of awe and lust, admiration and avidity.
When he showed her the fish she went to the table and taking the scrap left of the first one, threw it out. The emeralds and rubies lay disregarded on the furs, the pile of withered vines was as he had left it. He waited with diminishing hope for her to give some further recognition of his presence. "I have been all around the island," he said, knowing she would not acknowledge his speech.
He cleared the vines away, wondering if she approved his industry. He explored the woods until he found a plant on which gourds had dried. He kicked one, broke off the neck, filled it at the pool. There were no signs of her people. The gourd did not leak at all as he carried it back.
She had divided the fish in half, skinned and boned it less wastefully than he had the other. She was able to work at the table now, though with some difficulty. Tall as a very small woman she yet retained the tantalizing, provocative, shameful appeal of her original size. He set the gourd down shakily.
She took it up as though it had been there all along and she had only now come to need it, and poured half its contents over herself. It seemed to him, weak with longing, that she displayed an added, lazy insolence as she smoothed the water over her breasts and under her arms, moving in studied tempo, reveling in the pleasure of her own touch. She walked slowly to the vines and dried herself carefully, over and over. She neither concealed nor displayed her body; she acted as though she were alone.
He put his hand on her arm, she looked up at him in the simulated surprise of cold inquiry. Her lips were pressed together, but not so firmly as to disfigure their symmetry. Her eyes were gray, with green and golden flecks; the slight droop of the lids emphasized her look of disdain. Her skin was smooth as glass. He could wait no longer. He was consumed with desire for her.
He clasped her, lifted her, threw her on the couch, began kissing her gluttonously. He tried, first with cunning, then with violence, to part her lips, to move her arms from their rigid position. She remained completely passive, her eyes wide open in their implacable scorn. He paused in his onslaught, begged her to forgive him, to say something, to voice even a rejection. She lay silent, unmoving, unresisting as he wept and shouted.
His hands dug into her shoulders, caressed, gripped, pulled at her body. His mouth smothered hers. He closed his eyes to shut out her derision, opened them again to see if she had relented. He pressed himself against her, forced his body into hers. The shock telegraphed back to him.
She became wild and wanton and responsive. She was avid, insatiable, shameless. She exhausted him, drained him, wore him into incapacity, then invited, teased, coaxed, compelled him into fresh lechery. The element of the perverse, inherent in her size, her captivity, her unveiled loathing, added the final touch to their ecstasy. They came together again and again without concession in a rape of the courtesan, wringing joy out of their enmity.
When he collapsed, exhausted but less than content, she calmly rose and drank thirstily from the gourd. He watched her easy, fluent movements, knowing she was conscious of him and of their embrace, knowing that it signified no intimacy to her, that she was untouched. "Won't you forgive me?" he begged. "Won't you speak, or at least show you hear?"
She combed her long hair with her fingers and twisted it deftly into place. She lifted one leg, bent at the knee, and studied her foot. She sauntered to the columns and stood at the edge of the temple looking out, her back to him.
He made himself get up and go to her, kneeling at her feet. Even in his abjection he could not refrain from embracing her legs, resting his cheek against her flesh. She stood quietly, as though waiting for his next move. When he did nothing beyond implore her pardon, she disengaged herself calmly, turned away, and walked to the opposite row of columns.
It no longer seemed imperative to keep the vines chopped down. He let them grow at will except on the one side he kept cleared. Though he knew no hunger save for her, he fished and fetched water for her to drink and bathe. He thought she must tire of the monotonous diet, remembering the berries he brought her gourdsful. She ate them greedily. When her mouth was stained with the juice he could not control his longing; he took her once more. She responded as before; as before she remained inviolable.
She grew no more, and this pleased him, guaranteeing as it did a continued mutual enslavement. In midcycle between his despair after forcing her and helplessness before doing so again, he gloated over her smallness, her estrangement from everyone but him.
He did not return to the pool. Instead, he made the longer journey to the lake for water. He went back to the poppies by a roundabout route, picked an armful, leaving the gems in which they were rooted undisturbed. She let them lie at her feet where he had placed them.
On his next homecoming to the temple she had made a fire, succeeding where he had failed. It burned swiftly on the mosaic, consuming the dried vines as quickly as she could feed them to it. He took the ax and cut some green boughs, chopping them into convenient lengths. With these and the vines the fire could be kept alive, smoking, not giving out any warmth, but adequate to cook the fish he caught.
She took a portion of whatever he brought her—fish, fruit, flowers—and sacrificed it in the fire. When she was not sleeping, bathing, preening or standing looking out, she sat beside the embers, quiet, absorbed. Though he knew her indifference was unfeigned, this additional withdrawal added to his torment. When it became unendurable—when his lust and pique and desire to master her overcame his submissiveness—he attacked her and met her raging passion.
Otherwise she did not acknowledge his presence directly. She put his portion of cooked food on the table for him, throwing it out indifferently when it was left uneaten. Watching her sleep, tending the fire or brooding, he felt the outrage of her denial. His conquest of her body should have brought submission, escape, revenge, gradual conciliation—change of some sort—not refuge in her unfailing imperviousness. She had gelded him without giving him a eunuch's compensations. Sometimes, tormented by frustration, he took her brutally, more often he approached her with tenderness and deference, only to be frenzied into ruthlessness by her apathy.
Finally he knew she was with child. He became slavish in his anxiety, his solicitude, his devotion. He tried to care for her, to watch over her food, her rest, her exertions. She submitted to his attentions when it was unavoidable, she showed no pleasure or gratitude. Swollen, she moved slowly, lay from meal to meal on the couch with her eyes open.
He stayed close to the temple, hurrying back from his errands, resisting the temptation to explore the island. When the child was born he would bathe it in warmed water, wrap it in soft leaves, cover it with the furs. After the birth some way of reconciling himself to her would be miraculously revealed, she would speak, he would discover a means of communicating with her people and reviving them. He would cherish the child, protect, nourish, develop, teach, encourage it; it would be the means of establishing himself not only with her but with this place.
A somber, thought-cloying dread hung upon his mind. He walked warily, glancing frequently over his shoulder. If she wanted to leave the temple there was nothing to stop her; so soon as she had grown tall enough to get down from the couch by herself she could have walked away. He knew she would not go yet he feared to find her gone; always when he returned it was a shocking relief that she was there. He babbled to her at length of his apprehensions, he prayed her to assure him she would change, would relent after she bore his child, that nothing would part them.
While she slept he put his hand timidly on her belly and felt the life in it. The thought excited him; he was ashamed of his excitement. He knelt beside the couch to touch her knees and thighs in selfless purity. He kissed her hands, her temples, her hair; when she stirred and frowned, he retreated, hoping she would not waken.
She was near to labor when he heard the shouts and the clang of metal against metal. He ran to her, ready to protect her and the child with his life. She moved away, always keeping a space between them. No one coming upon them could imagine she wanted his assistance or that he had established any right to offer it.
The barbarians burst into sight, waving swords, holding their round shields high above their heads. Their crooked teeth flashed, their mouths opened in wild yells, their rough garments flew back to show their coarse, hairy bodies.
He tried to pull her with him, to lift her in his arms and carry her outside. She resisted obstinately, fiercely, desperately, clinging to the couch, to the table, showing to the full the revulsion and hate in her eyes.
The invaders passed the open side of the temple; Lampley could not believe they had failed to see it or that it hadn't excited their curiosity. Yet they did not turn aside; incredible or not, they were saved. The last one was out of sight when the woman screamed.
He clapped his hand over her mouth; the barbarians came from the side he had let the vines overrun again, cleaving their way through, trampling out the fire, smashing the water gourd, scattering the latest gifts he had brought. They saw and came at him, pointing their weapons so that he could see the faint kinks in the crudely forged steel. He tried to stay, willed himself to meet the swords' edge. Only when she threw her arms around the foremost warrior, offering her ripe belly to his blade, casting a triumphant, malignant look in Lampley's direction, did he finally give in and fly.
CHAPTER 5
He ran through the woods, clamor of pursuit close behind. He headed straight for the lake, remembered he had moved the boat, changed direction. He twisted and turned, hoping to deceive them; they stayed on his heels, gaining, gaining. He reached the shore and plunged into the water. He was not a good swimmer but the current carried him to the beach where the boat was while the pursuers had to turn inland to bypass a thick copse.
He splashed inshore, reaching the boat barely ahead of them. They swarmed at him as he stumbled, pushed the boat into the water with a violent shove and clung to the bow's protection against the rocks they hurled. The missiles splashed close but soon the current took him out of range. With immense difficulty he got himself aboard, and rowed to the opposite shore with his eyes fixed on the island.
It occurred to him that he must be headed directly for the swamp where he had seen the yellow swans. He changed direction; after pulling steadily at the oars, the keel grated on something hard and unyielding. He shivered at the coldness of the air and saw he had grounded at the mouth of a small glacier embedded between rocky hills. He dressed; leaving the boat high on the gravel bordering the ice, he began walking along the shore. The island was far, far away, mistily lilac in the distance, lost and irretrievable.
His shoes, so unaccustomed, spurned and slipped on the gravel and the rocks, floundered in the sand. The chilling wind from the glacier slapped at his back. Ahead trees—stunted, thick-growing, crowded by underbrush—came down to the water's edge. He pushed through touching branches into still denser thickets, forcing his way against increasing resistance, being forced in turn further and further inland.
Where the tangled growth ended abruptly there was no grass, only stony shale interrupted by ragged shrubs, scanty snowdrifts, bent, leafless trees. Inconstant winds eddied around him, stinging his face, pulling at his clothes, tearing loose twigs from the trees, dead leaves and chaff from the ground, whirling them upward, driving them before it, allowing them to settle only to scatter them again for new torments. He trudged on, head down, walled from the lake—not a glimpse, a fleeting glimpse of the island—climbing, descending, detouring, making he knew not what scant advance.
Advance to where, to what? In an unknown direction to an unknown destination. Nothing could be more stupid; the intelligent thing to do was stop, refuse to go farther. But stop himself, he couldn't.
He stumbled into a valley between gloomy cliffs. There was no vegetation here save sinewy creepers which seemed to spring directly from the harsh ground, their roots mercifully hidden. They wound and tangled, twisting and untwisting, ever seeking something to climb. He tripped on them, righted himself hastily, fearful that if he fell they would choke him, hold him fast before he could rise. Small dun-colored birds fluttered through them, pecking haphazardly at unseen insects, rose in unsteady, uncertain flight only to settle again a few yards away. He fell; terrified, he scrambled up, shaking himself loose, not really believing the vines had let him go.
He looked up at the far-off peaks. What had they to offer him? Romantic towers, magic fastnesses, mystic havens? Cold, craggy, misery. He trod carefully between the vines; perhaps he could reach the next hill before they tripped him once again.
He heard an angry, outraged, murderous squealing and grunting as a horde of wild boars, tiny eyes half-closed, tusks glinting with saliva, shaggy bristles standing out, charged with pounding hooves. He was directly in their path, there was no shelter he could take, and it was clearly useless to run.
He waited, quaking, as they came closer. The foremost animal, the leader, the most ferocious, became enmeshed in the loose vines and began struggling and jerking. His companions shouldered, shoved, worried and bit him; those behind attacked the ones in front. They fell upon their stupefied leader, tore him to pieces and devoured him. Then those who chanced to be bitten or slashed were treated the same way, finally those who had merely been bloodspattered.
Lampley ran from the scene and splashed through a wide stream he hoped would at least deter the frantic beasts. He climbed over sticky clayish plants with long, tongue-like petals pulling and sucking at his shoes, and bloated grass whose watery blades split apart under his weight, giving out vile fumes to make him sick and giddy. On a rise he looked back at the boars, milling in directionless knots. Far beyond he caught brief, elusive sight of the lake and island. Reluctantly he started up a spur bare of all vegetation, grim and desolate.
The yellowish rock on which he trod was smooth and firm underfoot at first; he climbed over a ridge and began a fairly easy ascent of an escarpment biting into the mountainside. The hard rock gave way to brittle, friable material that broke and crushed underfoot. He came to outcroppings, miniature buttes which crumbled and rolled at a touch. He found himself walking in a mass of shifting stone, loose and unpredictable.
Ahead, the slope became a series of shoulder-high cliffs, mounting like steps. Very carefully he approached the first and put his hands on the edges to pull himself up. The rock disintegrated under his fingers. He stretched his arms forward and tried to lever himself up with his elbows. The entire face broke off to go sliding and tumbling past him.
He was too far up to retreat and seek a less treacherous way, the best he could do was strike out for the adjoining ridge. He moved cautiously but the strata seemed to shift so that he was faced by a palisade high as his head. He reached up to grasp the ledge. It too split and shattered. He looked in vain for an easier ascent or a crevice where he could work his way up.
Now the cliff towered over him, far above his reach, menacing, sullen. He followed it, searching for a place where it was lower. His feet slipped on the loose stone; it was like walking on marbles. He tried to run, to defeat the restlessness of the rock by speed. His ankle turned; pain and weakness fought each other; he became part of a plunging, toppling, sinking, downward slide, with gravel, debris and boulders crashing around him. The only way he could keep his feet was to run with the avalanche, to embrace the illusion that he was surfboard riding. By a tremendous effort he retained his balance.
He knew it was impossible for him to survive; he must resign himself to being crushed and buried under the landslide. It was pointless to protect his head with his arms as he was doing, it was pointless to run at all. His mind surrendered, only his body continued to fight against destruction. He could not believe his mind didn't really know fear; at a point like this communication was cut off; instincts and reflexes took over.
The roar of the fall became a rumble and then a crackle diminishing into silence as the last fragments rolled and settled. He was almost at the mountain's foot, in a sort of natural quarry hemmed in by palisades on three sides, open only the way he had come down—and this was paved with loose stones in uneasy disarray. It was impossible to scale the sheer cliffs; even at the risk of causing another avalanche he had to go back. Cautiously he began the ascent. Though the rocks turned and shifted under his feet they did not crumble. Picking his way with exaggerated lightness he covered perhaps a hundred, a hundred and fifty feet. He began to hope he might reach a point where he could strike out and away from the incohesive slope.
With a loud report a rock shot from the palisades behind him, arched over his head to crash in front and come bounding down toward him. He jumped aside. It tumbled all the way to the foot of the precipice. From near where it landed another stone discharged itself to fall just behind him. While it was still moving, a ragged bombardment from all three sides began, increasing in intensity till the air was filled with missiles. Fresh slides were started by their impact; the entire mountainside seemed to be converging on him with varying speeds, diving and plunging, lurching and sprawling. He crouched and cowered. An immense chunk shattered nearby, showering particles and dust.
The palisades erupted in staccato explosions, echoed when the projectiles hit the slide and increased its velocity. He was shaken to realize that the rocks were sentient, individually or collectively, and he was their intended target rather than an endangered spectator. He was doomed; though they missed him a hundred, a thousand times, on the hundred and first or the thousand and first, chance would expose him, make him vulnerable, destroy him. Even if the ground held firm he could not climb out of range before he was felled. And the ground was not holding firm.
There was no escape; who could control the unswerving malice of the rocks? Who indeed? Suddenly he stood erect and held up three fingers in the sign of the letter Shin, the initial of the name Shaddai.
Instantly the mountainside became still. Birds soared overhead, grass sprouted through the rubble and in the crevices of the rocks, clear brooks wound sinuously from the mountaintop, lizards basked on flat spaces, insects moved speculatively from object to object, sheep wandered in search of food.
He threw himself down on a bed of ferns, newly sprung into life. The soft, spiraling ends of the fronds touched his cheeks and hands gently. He moved guardedly, unwilling to crush the tender stems. Raising himself on his elbows he peered down at the pale, feathery snails, the stiff, spotted leaves, the hairy stalks. His throat tightened with wonder and gratitude.
He got up, walked slowly over the solid ground. When he had climbed higher than the palisades he struck out for a plateau, bare of vegetation but not desolate. Shallow ponds sparkled, crystal pinnacles glittered, mounds of quartz reflected the light. Snakes and crocodiles, strange and nameless reptiles in bright, jeweled colors moved smoothly out of his path. A tinted mist rose from one of the ponds, taking the shape of Mattie. All the women he had known showed themselves in wisps and shreds of vapor. Some were laughing, some wistful, pleading, tempting; all dissolved as fast as they formed. He fled.
He fled from the plain into a forest where leaves made an umbrella against the light, through fields where grain was turning black, past rutted gray roads and decaying rail fences. He passed clumps of berry bushes, bare of fruit, whose thorns raked his hands and face. He stumbled over plowed furrows where the dried clods were woven together with spiderwebs and made his way through harrowed fields where the exact lines were blurred by rebellious weeds, rooted at random.
The air was cold, colder even than at the glacier, and the light hazier, as though too far from its source. Weeds were persistent, but colorless and sickly. His foot came against something harder than the dry earth; he kicked the weeds aside to reveal a railroad track, crusted and pimpled with rust. There were two tracks, eight, twelve, twenty, an inestimable parallel multitude of them, the steel flaking, the ties rotted, the spikes and plates worked loose. He walked between them.
The skeleton of a model T Ford stood crosswise on the rails. The body was gone, and the hood; the brass radiator, capless, had turned green and brown. A wooden box was athwart the chassis in place of a seat, its ends sticking out over both sides. The tires were flat and shredded.
Lampley lifted the front end and shifted it so that it headed along the right-o-way. He turned the ignition key, pulled down the gas lever, stood in front of the radiator, pulled the choke-wire and twirled the crank several times. Then he went back and sat on the box, but not under the steering wheel.
The motor coughed and started, the engine missed in syncopated rhythm, shaking and rattling the frame, failing and fading, catching again. The car bumped slowly over the ties. The Governor, satisfied, made no move to take the wheel. The tracks came together in a series of multiple switches. The Ford stopped, the motor clanked and quit, steam spouted up from the radiator.
Lampley got out. The surface of the rails was no longer rusty but bright with wear. The ties were new, reeking with fresh creosote. They were too close together for his stride; he walked partly on them, partly on the roadbed.
The single diesel car panted on a siding, its garish paint flecked and peeling. He climbed aboard, walked between the rows of plush-covered seats to the front. The clerk sat in the cab, reading a comic book. He nodded when he saw Lampley. "Board," he shouted. "Aw-a-booooooard!"
The diesel started smoothly. The Governor sat down just behind the clerk and looked out the window. They were running through a petrified forest. Some of the trees were riven down the middle, showing the dark, livid heart, the gleaming saffron sapwood, the red-brown bark. Fallen trunks lay in shallow oil, black, broken by lurid rainbows. The car heeled over slightly as it rounded a curve, then more steeply on the opposite side as it picked up speed and took another.
The clerk said, "The island under the world, ay? Good or bad?"
"You can't simplify like that," protested the Governor.
"Can't I? Some law?"
"I mean...."
"Of course you do, of course you do. Enjoy the fishing?"
Lampley saw again the brilliant creatures he had pulled from the lake. "I only caught what was necessary for food," he muttered defensively.
"Necessity is the mother of convention," sighed the clerk; "necessity is the mother of conception, of prevention. Also correction, election, protection, vivisection, selection and so forth. Never perfection."
"Ah," said the Governor, thinking of the woman.
The clerk swung a handle, pulled a throttle, pushed a button. The coach was filled with whirling sparks and balls of fire. "Necessity is the mother of pretension," he sang operatically. A duststorm gathered outside the window, grit forced its way in. The car gained further momentum, swayed and rocked.
"Do we have to go so fast?" asked Lampley.
"Necessity is the mother of dissension and projection. The faster we go, the less room for argument."
The car seemed to be skimming above the rails. The clerk pressed all the buttons in front of him. A pornographic picture was projected on a three dimensional screen. Lightning flashed all around. The comic book which the clerk had negligently dropped flamed up and was reduced to curling char. The wind outside roared with hurricane velocity. There was nothing to see through the window but the lumps of earth the storm picked up and held in suspension.
The landscape twinkled into a tunnel, black and close and sooty. The tunnel spiralled upward; the diesel slowed, barely kept from slipping back on the grade. The dark sides gave way to illuminated bas-reliefs showing sphynxes and dragons pursued by hunters with spears and bows, pyramids on which victims were sacrificed with obsidian knives, battles between miniature figures in green or red against others in white or blue while their commanders rode back and forth waving microscopic swords, tableaus of unearthly quietness where boats were poled up wide, muddy rivers flowing through empty prairies.
The tunnel became black again; frigid cold swept through the coach. Icicles formed on the ceiling, frost obscured the windows in flat withes woven together. Lampley shivered so hard he became slightly sick to his stomach. He drew his jacket tight, hugging his chest, trying to control his chattering teeth. The clerk left the cab and built a fire in the aisle. He ripped out seats and fed them to the blaze. By the time the coach was bare the frost-ferns were melting from the windows.
The clerk spun a crank; the light inside turned blue. He hauled a lever back, it changed to green. He jabbed a button; the interior became dark. Lampley saw they were moving smoothly into a terminal, with redcaps running alongside on the platforms. "All out," shouted the clerk. "Change here for North and South, East and West. All out!"
Lampley stood on the platform. "Carry your baggage, sir," asked a porter.
"Sorry, I don't have any," apologized the Governor.
The porter's dark face showed his disbelief. "Everyone has baggage."
"But I don't," insisted Lampley.
"You're trying to cheat a poor man," said the porter. "You're trying to cheat society. You're trying to cheat yourself. Even trying to cheat God."
"Believe me, I'm innocent," cried the Governor.
Loudspeakers bellowed, "Innocent! Innocent!" Far-off cold echoes sounded stonily, "... cent ahahaha ... cent ahahaha...." Lights winked on and off. The porter prostrated himself on the platform. An unseen band blaredThe Stars and Stripes Forever, firecrackers and rockets went off, a phosphorescent display spelled out KISS ME KID, a barrel rolled and bumped to a stop, disgorging clowns who began tumbling, somersaulting, standing on each other's shoulders to form a cluster reaching to the arched roof where the top man wrote in white chalk on the smoky vault, DRINK MOXIE.
Lampley stood undecided, then walked briskly to the waitingroom. Its chrome and plastic benches were empty, the space between them was filled with robots busily burnishing each other's metal, adjusting each other's mechanism, screwing and unscrewing visiplates, audio-systems, sensitizers, olfactometers. He saw no humans. He paused at the unattended newsstand to look over the tattered, smudged periodicals.Journal of Subatomic Medicine.The Martian Monthly.Space News.Androids Review combined with The Magazine for Mechanical Men Astronomer & Astrogator.Time-Travel Tribune.There was nothing here to interest him.
Outside the waitingroom he came to the subway stairs, gleaming in white and nickel. They led to an underpass; he could hear the trains rumbling and thundering overhead. He followed the passage to the station; the empty tracks emerged, plunged on into darkness. He sat on a bench; no train came.
He got up and walked along the platform. It went deeper and deeper into the tunnel without narrowing to an end. He came to a place where the tracks were boarded over with heavy planks, flush with the concrete on which he walked. On the other side of the boardwalk small shops offered their wares in dusty, ill-lit windows.
The nearest displayed boots and shoes, sandals, clogs, getas, slippers, moccasins, greaves, buskins, gaiters, spats, wellingtons, overlapping damascene plates to protect the feet of the well-shod knight. All were in sets of threes: right, left, interpediate. The Governor entered; the salesman, dressed in black, hurried to him, rubbing his black-gloved hands together. "Why are all your shoes in triples?" Lampley asked.
The salesman opened his eyes in surprise. "How else would they be?"
"In pairs, naturally."
"But my dear sir, there's nothing natural about that. Of course there are poor afflicted creatures with only two feet; for them we recommend a very fine prosthetic craftsman who also supplies artificial ears and natural-looking uvulas. But normal persons will find themselves well-served here, I assure you. Well-served indeed." He pursed his mouth and looked at Lampley with a combination of severity and servility.
"It—it's all relative, then?" faltered the Governor.
The salesman shrieked. "You monster, you fiend, you horror! Begone! Begone, I say!"
Lampley closed the door behind him. The next shop was a tobacconist-stationery-novelty store. In the showcase were giant pipes, twists of burley, packages of latakia and perique, warped boxes of dried-out cigars, false mustaches, lapel flowers to spray water in startled eyes, puzzles, cryptograms, tiny spheres fitting endlessly inside of each other, moldering reams of paper, flyspecked envelopes, faded typewriter ribbons, filing indices in cyrillic. The Governor was not surprised to see the storekeeper was the legless sailor-juggler.
"Come in, lad; a hearty welcome to you," he said. "Been traveling in strange parts, I see. How are the women?"
"Small," said the Governor.
The juggler smacked his thigh with a big hand. He laughed till he coughed. He strapped on a pair of aluminum legs and danced a hornpipe. He took a gallon jug from behind the counter and tilted it against his lips. "Small ay? Small and naked and full of bile?"
The Governor nodded.
"Then you're poisoned, lad," said the juggler heartily. "You'll never be happy with the other kind again. O the lovelies, the darlings, the dainty morsels: they'll cut out your heart, eat your liver, pluck your eyeballs from your skull, bless them."
"But," said Lampley, distressed, "surely it doesn't have to be that way?"
"Surely, surely," said the juggler.
Lampley bit his lip. "How does one get out of here?"
"Hush," cautioned the juggler. "I have a map. It was traced by the seventh son of a seventh son and lent me under the strictest pledge of secrecy, sealed in black goat's blood. Come along with me." He led the way to the back of the store, through a passage papered in bright orange, the sheets curling apart at the edges where the glue had dried. It was barely wide enough to squeeze through sideways.
The room was triangular, with a pile of brass cogwheels in the narrowest corner. A set of bookshelves sagged against one wall. Calf-bound folios leaned on spiral-backed notebooks. In disorder on top was a collection of papers. The juggler reached among them and took out a thick roll tied with withered pink tape. "Here," he whispered. "Read it and memorize it. Never say who showed it to you."
The Governor unrolled the map. It showed an unfamiliar, an unlikely, a visionary coast. Mermaids and dolphins frisked in the seas; the shoreline was blank, labelledTerra incognita inferioris.
"Guess that will fix you up, ay lad?" boomed the juggler. "It's not everybody I'd show it to."
"I'm sure of that," said Lampley. "Thank you."
"Just don't let on to anybody," cautioned the juggler. "Not even if they torture you for it."
"I won't," promised Lampley.
"Think of me," begged the juggler. "Pray for me."
The Governor did not investigate the third shop. He walked past it to the ramp leading to the street. Outside the station the roof of the city pressed down so close buildings of four stories barely cleared it. The street was wide and paved with cobblestones; brilliant copper trolleywires ran overhead.
The city was familiar to Lampley, he had lived in it, knew the names of its quarters and districts. He began walking toward the harbor, the picture of it forming before him, the dark olive water, the black ships suddenly looming up, the tiny figures on the docks, the slowly creaking pilings. The harbor was miles away; miles and miles and miles away.
He passed block after block of gray stone, massive, empty somber buildings. A skeleton came out of one and thrust a dented tin cup before him. The Governor dropped in a coin. It went through the cup and rolled into a gutter running with chaff-flecked dirty water. The skeleton got down on its hands and knee bones to search for it.
A streetcar, royal blue, creaked and whined by. Lampley knew it was headed for the docks also, its passengers stevedores and sailors. A green trolley passed it going in the opposite direction. The motormen saluted each other by clanging their bells in the beat ofOld Black Joe.
Lampley passed under a gray stone arch spanning the street from building to building. Atop the arch were severed heads of a bear, camel, dog, elephant, ox, weasel. He dropped a coin in the slot and twirled a prayerwheel set up here to help speed the decapitated creatures to a new incarnation.
Beyond the arch, kleiglights focussed on a supermarket. Like the street, it was deserted. The endless shelves held empty cans, their ragged lids sticking cockily upward. The refrigerators were crowded with milk and pop bottles with nothing in them. Unattended cash registers rang NO SALE over and over. Vegetable bins contained carrot tops, potato peels, orange skins, apple cores, cherry stones, peach pits, bean strings, pea-pods, squash seeds, melon rinds. At the butcher counter cellophane bags of fat, gristle, bones and sinews were neatly stacked between trays of clamshells, fish scales, frogs' heads, chicken beaks. Lampley walked on.
He came to a cross-street with an arc-lamp on each corner—white, violet, gray, reaching into the blackness. He knew it was always night in this city, and he thought of the hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants who worked by day, condemned to a bedridden, insomniac existence. A red streetcar clattered through the intersection, the wires overhead throwing long, shattering sparks as the trolleywheel hit the break, reconnected, glided on.
In the next block there was a cellar with a sign COAL & ICE. The cellar was lit. The Governor peered down at a griffin, its wings folded neatly back, its arrowhead tail tucked away, shoveling crushed ice into a roaring furnace, pausing only to fill a refrigerator with dusty lumps of coal. The building which housed the cellar was divided by a lane which descended in long, shallow, stone-flagged steps. This arcade was lined with booths, small and open. Some contained iron white enameled beds with coverlets thrown back to show wrinkled sheets and indented pillows, barberchairs adjusted for immediate occupancy, office desks with letters and forms lying on them, bar stools drawn cosily up to bamboo counters, mechanical pants-pressers steaming, open and ready to crease a pair of trousers. There were booths of sheepskins and parchments with the laureate's name blank, certifying every known degree and honor. There were others containing family bibles and photograph albums, dining tables set with silver and napery, bathtubs full of hot water on whose surface floated cakes of soap and scrubbing brushes.
He came to the end of the arcade and stood at another wide street, listening to the night noises of the city. A yellow streetcar stopped beside him. The Governor climbed aboard. There was no conductor, no passengers, no motorman. The straw seats were misshapen, cracked and bristly but the brasswork on them and the doors and windows was all fresh and polished. He walked to the front of the car. The sign above his head read .VA TTAW AIV YAWOAT :OWT He jerked the control knob over the graduated notches. The car bucketed along the street.
The street became two streets, encircling a great, round building whose hundreds of mean and mocking windows were heavily barred. In front of the building was an imposing statue, carved in the same gray stone used throughout the city. Inside the prison were thousands of wretches, dirty, scabby, verminous, starving; thousands of convicts pacing, twitching, planning, calculating, remembering; thousands of convicts behind bland walls, condemned to smell their own bodies and the caustic chemicals, to feed on themselves and refuse, on hate, despair, foolish slyness.