"Are you ready?" Harry said, and without waiting for an answer slipped inside, leaving Ted to come or stay as he wished.
The interior smelled of stale incense and week-old sushithe odors, in short, of bad magic. It made Harry's heart hmnmer to smell those smells. How many times do I have to do this? he found himself wondering as he advanced into the murk. How many times into the maw, into the sickened body? How many times before I've done my penance?
Ted laid his hand on Hany's shoulder.
"There," he murmured, and directed Harry's gaze off to the right. Some ten yards from where they stood was a further flight of stairs, and from the bottom a wash of silvery light.
Ted's hand remained on Hariy's shoulder as they crossed to the top of the flight and began the descent. It grew colder with every step, and the smell became steadily stronger: Signs that what they sought lay somewhere at the bottom. And, if any further evidence was required, Harry's tattoos supplied it. The new one itched more furiously than ever, while the old ones (at his ankles, at his navel, in the small of his back, and down his sternum) tingled.
Three steps from the bottom, Harry turned to Ted, and in the lowest of voices murmured, "I meant it: about not being responsible for you."
Ted nodded and took his hand off Hany's shoulder. There was nothing more to be said; no further excuse to delay the descent. Harry reached into his jacket and lightly patted the gun in its holster. Then he was down the last three steps and, turning a corner was delivered into a sizable brick chamber, the far wall of which was fifty feet or more from where he stood, the vaulted ceiling twenty feet above his head. In the midst of this was what at first glance resembled a column of translucent drapes, about half as wide as the chamber itself, which was the source of the silvery light that had drawn them down the stairs. Second glance, however, showed him that it was not fabric, but some kind of ether. It resembled the melting folds of a Borealis, draped over or spun from a cat's cradle of filaments that crisscrossed the chamber like the web of a vast, ambitious spider.
And amid the folds, figures: the celebrants he'd seen coming here through the afternoon. they no longer wore their coats and hats, but wandered in the midst of the light nearly naked.
And such nakedness! Though many of them were partially concealed by the drooping light, Harry had no doubt that all he'd heard about the Zyem Carasophia was true. These were exiles; no doubt of it. Some were plainly descended from a marriage of bird and man, their eyes set in the sides of their narrow heads, their mouths beakish, their backs feathered. Others gave credence to a rumor Harry'd heard that a few of Quiddity's infants were simply dreamed into being, creatures of pure imagination. How else to explain the pair whose heads were yellowish blurs, woven with what looked like bright blue fireflies, or the creature who had shrugged off the skin of her head in tiny ribbons, which attended her raw face in a fluttering dance.
Of the unholy paraphernalia Harry had expected to see, there was no sign. No sputtering candles of human fat, no ritual blades, no gutted children. The celebrants simply moved in the cradle of light as if drifting in some collective dream. Had it not been for the smell of incense and sushi he would have doubted there was even error here.
"What's going on?" Ted murmured in Harry's ear.
Harry shook his head. He had no clue. But he knew how to find out. He shrugged off his jacket and proceeded to unbutton his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to join them," he replied.
"They'll be on to you in a minute."
"I don't think so," Harry said, heeling off his shoes as he pulled his shirt out of his trousers. He watched the wanderers as he did so, looking for any trace of belligerence among them.. But there was none.
It was as if they were moving in a semi-mesmerized state, all aggression dulled.
There was every possibility they wouldn't even notice if he went among them clothed, he suspected. But some instinct told him he would be safer in this throng if he were as vulnerable as they. "Stay here," he said to Ted.
"You're out of your mind, you know that?" Ted replied.
"I'll be fine," Harry said, glancing down at his nearnaked body and patted his belly. "Maybe I need to lose a pound or two...... Then he turned from Ted and walked towards the cradle.
He hadn't realized until now that either the light or the filaments was making a low, fluctuating whine, which grew louder as he approached. It throbbed in his skull, like the beginning of a headache, but uncomfortable as it was it could not persuade him to turn round. His skin was gooseflesh now, from head to foot, the tattoos tingling furiously.
He raised his left arm in front of him and pulled the dressing off his fresh ink. The tattoo looked livid in the silvery light, as though it had been pricked into his flesh moments before: a ruby parabola that suddenly seemed an utter redundancy. Norma had been right, he thought. What defense was a mere mark in a world so full of power?
He cast the dressing aside and continued to advance towards the cradle, expecting one of the celebrants to look his way at any moment. But nobody did. He stepped into the midst of the drapes without so much as a glance being cast in his direction and, weaving among the wanderers, made his way towards the center of the Borealis. He raised his arms as he did so, and his fingers brushed one of the filaments, sending a small charge of energy, too minor to be distressing, down to his shoulders and across his chest. The Borealis shook, and for a moment he feared that it intended to expel him, for the shimmering folds closed around him from all sides. Their touch was far from unpleasant, however, and whatever test they had put him to he apparently passed, for a moment later they retreated from him again, and returned to their gentle motion.
Harry glanced back, out into the chamber, in search of Ted, but everything beyond the light-the walls, the stairs, the roof-had become a blur. He didn't waste time looking, but turned his attention back to whatever mystery lay waiting in the center of the cradle.
The ache in his head grew more painful as he approached, but he bore it happily enough. There was something ahead of him, he saw: a sliver of darkness at the core of this cradle of light. It was taller than he was, this sliver, and it almost seemed to exercise some authority over him, because now that he had it in view he could not turn his eyes from it.
And with the sight, another sound, audible beneath the whine, like the repeated roll of muffled drums.
Mystified and mesmerized though he was, the identity of the sound was not lost on him. It was the sea he was hearing. His heartbeat grew urgent. Tremors ran through his body. The sea! My God, the sea! He breathed its name like a blessing.
"Quiddity-"
The word was heard. He felt a breath upon his back and somebody said,
"Hold back."
He glanced round, to find that one of the exiles, its face an eruption of color, was close to him. "We must wait before the neirica," the creature said. "The blessing will come."
The blessing? Harry thought. Who were they expecting down here, the Pope? "Will it be soon?" Harry said, certain that at any moment the creature would see him for the simple Homo sapiens he was.
"Very soon," came the reply, "he knows how impatient we are." The creature's gaze went past Harry to the darkness. "He knows how we ache to return. But we must do it with the blessing, yes?"
"Yes," said Harry. "Of course. Yes."
"Wait... " the creature said, turning its head towards the outside world, "is that not him?"