"That was very close," he gasped. "I thought you wanted me to finish." Seth opened his eyes again. Sometime during the proceedings Seth had unzipped, and slackened his cock. He was still working it.
"I haven't time to kick back and recover," Owen replied, "Lord knows, I shouldn't have let you start, but@'
"You kissed me first," Seth said, a little petulantly. "Mea culpa," Owen said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "I'll know better next time."
Seth looked despondent. "There's not going to be a next time, is there)" he said.
"Seth-';
"There's no need to lie to me," the boy replied, tucking his sex out of sight. "I'm not stupid."
"No, you're not," Owen said. "Get up, will you?" Seth got to his feet, wiping his lips and chin with the ball of his hand. "It's because you're not stupid I've told you all I have.
I'm trusting you with secrets I haven't shared with any living soul."
"Why?"
"Honestly, I don't know. Maybe because I need your company more than I thought I did."
"But for how long?"
"Don't push me, Seth. There are consequences here. I have to be certain I won't lose everything I fought for if I bring you along."
"But you might?"
"I said: Don't push me." Seth hung his head. "And don't do that, either. Look me in the eyes." Slowly Seth raised his head again. He was close to tears. "I can't be responsible for you, boy. Do you understand meT' Seth nodded. "I don't know what's going to happen out there myself. Not exactly. I only know that a lot of powerful minds have been wiped clean-gone, just like that-because they got to the dance, and found they didn't know the steps." He shrugged and sighed.
"I don't know what I feel for you, Seth, but I know I don't want to leave you a vegetable. I couldn't forgive myself that. On the other hand"-he took hold of the boy's chin, his thumb in the cleft-"something about our destinies seems to be intermingled." Seth opened his mouth to speak, but Owen hushed him with a look. "I don't want another word on this subject," he said.
"I wasn't going to say a word."
"Yes you were."
"Not about that."
"What then?"
"I was just going to say: I hear the band. Listen."
He was right. The distant sound of brass and drum was drifting in through the broken window.
"The parade's started," Seth said.
"At last," Owen replied, his gaze going past Seth to the crossroads below. "Oh my boy, now we shall see-"
"I suggest you stand still for a moment," Raul sWd.
Tesla stopped in her tracks, bringing Phoebe to a halt beside her.
Very still, There was movement in the mist ten or twelve yards ahead of them, Tesia saw. Four figures (one of them was the hammerer, she thought) moving across the slope. Phoebe had seen them too, and was holding her breath. If any of the quartet glanced in their direction, the game was up. With luck Tesla thought she might take out two of the four before they reached the spot where Phoebe and she were standing, but any one of the quartet looked fully capable of killing them both with a blow.
Not the prettiest things in creation, Raul remarked.
That was an understatement. Each displayed a particular foulness, which fact was emphasized by the way they hung upon each other's shoulders, like brothers in grotesquerie. One was surely the thinnest man alive, his black flesh pasted over his sharp bones like tissue paper, his gait mincing, his eyes fiery. At his side was a man as gross as the first was wasted, his robes, which were pale and mud- or bloodspattered, like his brother's, open to his navel. His breasts were pendulous, and covered in bruises, the source of which was a creature that resembled a cross between a lobster and a parrot-winged, clawed, and scarlet-that clung to his tits like a suckling child. The third member of this quartet was the hammerer. He was the most brutish of the four, with his iron shovel head and his bullish neck. But he whistled as he went, and the melody was sweetly lilting, like an Irish air. On his right, and closest to the woman, ran the runt of the litter, a full head s orter the hammerer. His skin was the color of bile and had a clammy gleam to it, his scrawny form full of tics and stumbles. As for his features, they were testament to calamitous inbreeding, eyes bulging, chin receding, his nose no more than two slits that ran from between his eyes to just above his twisted mouth.
they didn't seem to be in any great hurry. they took their time, chattering and laughing as they went, sufficiently entertained by one another's company that they didn't even glance down the slope towards the women.
At last the mist closed around them and they were gone. "Horrible," Phoebe said softly.
"I've seen worse," Testa remarked, and started up the slope again, with Phoebe still clinging to her arm.
There was a subtle ebb and flow in the mist around them now, which became more pronounced the higher they climbed. "Oh my Lord," Phoebe murmured, pointing to the ground. The same motion was visible underfoot: the grass, the dirt, even the rocks strewn around, being pulled by some force further up the mountain, and then released, only to be plucked up again seconds later. Some of the smaller pebbles were actually rolling uphill, which was odd enough, but odder still was the way the solid rock of the mountain responded to this summons. Here, close to the threshold, it hadn't cracked, it had softened, and was subject to the same motion as mist, dirt, and grass.
"I think we're getting warmer," Testa said, seeing the phenomenon. This was the same extraordinary sight she'd witnessed at Buddy Vance's house: apparently solid objects losing faith in their solidity, and bending out of true. The Vance house had been a maelstrom. This was not. It was a gentle, rhythmic motion (Tidal, Raul quietly observed), the rocks being coaxed rather than bullied into surrendering their solidity. Testa was still too traumatized by Lucien's death to be in any state to enjoy the spectacle, but she could not help but feet a twinge of anticipation.
they were close to the door-, she didn't doubt it. A few yards more, and she'd have sight of Quiddity. Even if the doped singer was right, and there were no wonders to be found on the shore, it would still be an event of consequence, to see the ocean where being was born.
Laughter erupted somewhere nearby. This time the women didn't stop climbing, but instead picked up their pace. The motion of mist and ground was more urgent with every yard they covered. It was like an undertow, tugging at their feet and ankles, and though it didn't have sufficient strength to overturn them yet, it would only be a matter of time, Testa guessed, until it did.
Ifeel a little strange, Raul said.
"Like how?"
Like-I don't know-like I'm not quite secure in here, he replied. Before she had a chance to quiz him further on this, a particularly powerful wave passed through ground and air, parting the mist in front of them. Testa let out a gasp of astonishment. It was not the mountaintop unveiled before them, but another landscape entirely. A sky of roiling colors, and a shore upon which the waters of the dream-sea threw themselves, dark and foamy.
Phoebe let go of Tesia's arm. "I don't believe it," she said. "I see it, but I don't@'
Tesla "Amazing, hub?"
Hold on to me.
"What are you talking about?"
I'm losing my grip.
"So what else is new?"
Tesla! I mean it! He sounded panicky. Don't get any closer.
"I've got to," she said. Phoebe was already three strides ahead of her, her eyes fixed on the shore, "I'll be careful." She called out to Phoebe. "Slow down!" But her request was ignored. Phoebe hurried on as though mesmerized by the spectacle ahead, until without warning the motion in the ground escalated, and she was thrown off her feet. She went down with a cry loud enough to rouse anyone within a twenty-yard radius and had difficulty getting back onto her feet.