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He sighed, took Gregorian’s notebook from his briefcase, flipped idly through its pages. A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming, of interpretation in terms of the will and not of the intelligence. There is no such thing as truth, either in the moral or the scientific sense. Impatiently he skipped ahead.
What is good? Whatever increases the feeling of power, the will to power, and above all else, power itself. Rereading the words, he could see the young Gregorian in his mind, the doubtless gaunt magician-apprentice, filled with that sourceless teenage hunger for importance and recognition. Men are my slaves.
He put the book back, irritated by the naive posturing tone of its aphorisms. He knew this type of young man all too well; there had been a time when he was one of them. Then something tugged at his mind, and he took the notebook out again. There was an early exercise captioned The Worm Ouroboros. He read through the instructions carefully: The magician places his wand in the chalice of the goddess. The handmaid herself. … Yes, under the newly transparent allegory was the same technique Undine had taught him the other day.
The people in the kitchen laughed again.
The bureaucrat found himself wishing the day were over, that the roads were safe to travel again, and he could be off and away. This town had been nothing but disappointing. The ar-cheologists who had worked here were gone, the dig covered over and ground-stabilized, all trace of Gregorian lost in the outmi-gration of citizens to the Piedmont.
He squinted into the rain. There was a faint smudge of light in the gloom to the east, indistinct, almost nonexistent, and for a second he thought the storm was ending. Then it moved slightly. Not a natural light, then.
Who would be out on a day like this? he wondered.
The light brightened slowly, intensifying, drawing in on itself, picking up a touch of blue coloration. Now he could see it for what it was: the glowing videoscreen face of a surrogate trudging through the rain. Slowly the body took shape beneath that spark of blue — a scarecrow caricature of human form, with a rain slicker tied about the body and a wide-brimmed hat lashed to the headpiece to help keep water out of the mechanism.
Raincoat flapping in the wind, the surrogate approached.
It came straight for the hotel. The bureaucrat saw now that it carried something under one arm, a long, ski
The bureaucrat stepped to the edge of the doorway, down onto the top step. Rain spattered his shoes, but an overhanging eave sheltered the rest of him. The surrogate came to the foot of the stoop, and looked up at him, gri
It was the false Chu.
“Who are you?” the bureaucrat said coldly.
“My name is Veilleur. If it matters.” Veilleur smiled with sweet indifference. “I have a message for you from Gregorian. And a gift.”
He frowned down at that arrogant adolescent smirk. This must surely be what Gregorian had been like in his youth. “Tell Gregorian I wish to speak with him in person, on a matter of interest to us both.”
Veilleur pursed his lips with mock regret. “I’m afraid that the master is terribly busy these days. There are so many who desire his help. But if you care to share your matter of concern with me, I’d be happy to do whatever I can.”
“It’s of a confidential nature.”
“Alas. Well, my business is brief. Master Gregorian understands that you have come into possession of a certain item which has some sentimental value to him.”
“His notebook.”
“Just so. A valuable learning tool, I might point out, that you lack the training to take advantage of.”
“Still, it is not exactly devoid of interest.”
“Even so, my master must beg its return. He trusts you will prove cooperative, particularly considering that the book is not, properly speaking, yours.”
“Tell Gregorian he can pick up his book from me any time he wishes. In person.”
“I am in the master’s confidence. What can be said to him can be said to me, what can be given him can be given me. In a sense one might say that where I am he is indeed present.”
“I won’t play this game,” the bureaucrat said. “If he wants his book, he knows where I am.”
“Well, what can’t be arranged one way must be arranged another,” Veilleur said philosophically. “I was also instructed to give you this.” The surrogate laid its box at the bureaucrat’s feet. “The master directed me to tell you that a man bold enough to fuck a witch deserves something to remember her by.”
Briefly his electronic grin burned on the telescreen, bright as madness. Then the surrogate turned away.
“I’ve spoken to Gregorian’s father!” the bureaucrat shouted. “Tell him that too!”
The surrogate strode away without a backward glance. The wind lifted and swirled its raincoat, and then it was gone.
Suddenly fearful, the bureaucrat crouched down and lifted the box. It held something heavy. He stepped back onto the porch, unwrapping the wet oilskin, then removed the lid.
Stars, snakes, and comets burned wildly in the box’s dim interior. Putrefaction had just begun, and the iridobacteria were feasting.
The laughter in the kitchen died when he entered. “Lord of ghouls, man,” Le Marie said, “what happened to you?” Chu seized his arm, steadied him.
“I’m afraid something unfortunate has occurred,” a voice said. His own. The bureaucrat laid down the box on the kitchen table. A little girl wearing a red jeunes evacuees kerchief with tiny black stars about her neck craned up on tiptoe to reach for the box, and had her hand slapped. Mintouchian, who stood close enough to see within, hastily slapped the lid back on and rewrapped the cloth. “Something untoward.” He sounded dreadful, like a recording played at the wrong speed, false and subtly inhuman.
A scurry of activity. Two men ran outside. A chair was scraped forward, and Le Marie folded him down into it. “I’ll call the nationals,” Chu said. “They can lift in a laboratory as soon as the rain ends.” Somebody gave the bureaucrat a drink, and he gulped it down. “My God,” he said. “My God.” Anubis emerged from beneath the table and licked his hand.
The men who had run outside returned, wet to the skin. The door slammed to behind them. “Nobody out there,” one said.
More children came crowding in. Mother Le Marie hastily set the box up atop the pie cabinet, out of reach. “What’s in there?” one of the locals asked from the far side of the kitchen.
“Undine,” the bureaucrat said. “It’s Undine’s arm.” To his utter and complete embarrassment, he burst into tears.
They led’him protesting feebly to his room, eased him down on the bed, took off his shoes. His briefcase was laid by his side. Then, with consoling murmurs, they left him alone. I shall never be able to sleep, he thought. The room smelled of mildew and old paint. Barnacles speckled the walls and encrusted the mirror, from flies blown in at night by the fever wind, over the top of a window that would not quite close. Wind through that same narrow slot stirred the curtains now. Doubtless it would never be repaired.
The dim thunder of water on the roof slowly faded as the storm abated. The rain died away to a drizzle and finally a mist.
A voice separated from the kitchen conversation and floated up the stairs. “Mushroom rain,” it said gently.
The bureaucrat could not sleep. The pillow was hard and buzzed with fatigue. His skull was stuffed with gray cotton. After some time he arose, picked up his briefcase, and went outside, shoeless and u
The rain was so fine that the droplets seemed to hang in the air, muting and silvering a changed world. Sprays of translucent blue tubes arched over the street. Little violet mandolins sprouted from doorways, and the rooftops were hidden under delicate fantasy architectures of tan and rose and palest yellow latticework. Mushroom rain. The frothy structures were growing even as he watched.