"Do you not like your breasts?"
"That's between me and my breasts," Phoebe said, realizing as the words came out how absurd they sounded.
Musnakaff erupted with laughter, and try as she might Phoebe could not help but let go a tiny smile herself, the sight of which only made Musnakaff gush further.
"I'll say it again," Musnakaff told her. "This house has seen many fine women, but you are among the finest, the very finest."
It was so nicely said, she could not help but be flattered. "Well....
she said. "Thank you."
"The pleasure's mine," Musnakaff said. "Now, if you're ready, the Mistress's bearers have arrived. I believe it's time we all went down to the water."
It took less than an hour of traveling on the road to b'Kether Sabbat for Joe to lose most of his sympathy for the refugees flooding in the opposite direction. He witnessed countless acts of casual cruelty in that time. Children more heavily burdened than their parents, whipped along', animals abused and beaten into a frenzy; rich men and women, hoisted up onto the backs of imperi ous cousins to the camel, cutting a bloody swathe through those careless enough to stumble into their path. In short, all that he might have expected to see in the Cosm.
When these sorry spectacles became too much, however, he simply set his sights on the city itself, and his weary limbs found fresh strength. The people who had lived in b'Kether Sabbat were as petty and barbarous as die citizens of any terrestrial city, but the edifice they were vacating was without parallel.
As for the wave of the lad, it seethed and divided, but did not advance. It simply hovered over the city like a vast' beast, mesmerized by something in its shadow. He only hoped that he could reach the city, and walk its streets and climb its blazing towers before the lad's interest staled, and it delivered the coup de grfice.
As he came within a quarter mile of the nearest ladders-the city looming like an inverted mountain before him-he heard a shrill shout above the din and an ashen creature dug its way through the throng to block his way.
"Affique!" he said. "Afrique! You're alive!" The creature laid his webbed hands upon Joe's chest. "You don't know me, do you?"
"No. Should I?"
"I was on the ship with you," the man said, and now Joe recognized him. He was one of the slaves Noah had seconded to crew The Fanacapan: a broad, burly fellow with sluggish, froglike features. His manner, now that he was once again his own man, belied his appearance. He had a quick, lively quality about him. "My name's Wexel Fee, Afrique," he said, covered in smiles. "And I am very glad to see you. Very, very glad." "I don't know why," Joe said. "You were treated like shit." "I heard what you said to Noah Su@a Sunimamentis. You tried to do something for us. It's not your fault you failed." I'll in afraid it is," Joe said guiltily. "Where are the others?" "Dead." "All of them?"
"All."
"I'm sorry." "Don't be. they weren't friends of mine."
"Why did you not die and they did? Noah said when he was done with you-"
"I know what he said. I heard that too. I have very sharp ears. I also have a strong will. I was not ready to die."
"So you heard but you couldn't act for yourself9"
"Exactly so. I'd lost my will to his suit." "So you were hurting."
"Oh yes. I was hurting." Fee lifted his right hand into view. Two of his six fingers were reduced to gummy stumps. "And I would have gladly killed the man, when I woke."
"Why didn't you?" "He is mighty, Afrique, now he's back in b'Kether Sabbat. While I am very far from home." He looked past Joe now, towards the sea.
"There are no ships, Wexel."
"What about The Fanacapan?"
"I saw it sink." He took the news philosophically. "Ah. So perhaps I did not outlive the others so that I could go home." He made the first smile Joe had seen on this woeful road. "Perhaps I tried to meet you again, Afrique."
"My name's Joe."
"I heard my enemy call you by that name," Fee replied. "Therefore I cannot use it. This is the etiquette in my country. So I will call you Afrique." Joe didn't much like the dubbing, but this was no time to offend the man. "And I will come with you, back to b'Kether Sabbat. Yes?"
"I'd certainly like your company," Joe said. "But why would you want to come?"
"Because there are no ships. Because I found you in a crowd of ten thousand souls. And because you may be able to do what I could not."
"Kill Noah."
"From your lips, Afrique. From your lips." caravan that descended the steep hill from the house on Canning Street was nine souls strong. Phoebe and Musnakaff, both on foot, Maeve O'Connell, traveling in an elaborate sedan chair, home by four sizable men, plus an individual leading the way and one tagging along behind, both of them very conspicu ously armed. When Phoebe remarked upon this Musnakaff simply said, "these are dangerous days. Who knows what's loose?" which was not the most reassuring of replies.
"Come walk alongside me," Maeve said as they went. "It's time you kept your side of the bargain. Tell me about the Cosm. No, forget the Cosm. Just tell me about my city." "First," said Phoebe, "I've got a question."
"What is it?"
"Why did you dream this city instead of another Everville?"
"I was a child in Liverpool, and full of hope. I remember it fondly. I didn't remember Everville the same way."
"But you still want to know what's happened to it?" Phoebe pointed out.
"So I do," Maeve replied. "Now tell."
Without knowing what aspects of Evervillian life would most interest the woman, Phoebe began a scattershot account of life at home. The Festival, the problems with the post office, the library annex, Jed Gilholly, the restaurants on Main Street, Kitty's Diner, the Old Schoolhouse and the collection it contained, the problems with the sewage system "Wait, wait," Maeve said. "Go back a little. You spoke of a collection."
"Yes-"
"It's about the history of Everville, you say?"
"That's right." "And you're familiar with it?"
"I wouldn't say-"
"Yet you didn't know who I was," Maeve said, her face more pinched than ever. "I find that strange." Phoebe kept her silence. "Tell me, what do they say about the way Everville was founded?"
"I don't exactly remember," Phoebe replied.
Suddenly, the virago started to yell. "Stop! Everybody stop!" The little procession came to a ragged halt. Maeve leaned out of her chair and beckoned Phoebe closer.
"Now listen, woman," Maeve said. "I thought we had a bargain."
'We do."
"So why aren't you telling me the truth? Hub?" "I... don't want to hurt your feelings," Phoebe said.
"Mary, mother of God, I've sufferings to my name the likes of which-" She stopped, and started to pull at the collar of her robe. Musnakaff started to say something about not catching cold, but she gave him such a venomous look he was instantly silenced. "Look at this," she said to Phoebe, exposing her neck. There was a grievous scar running all the way around her neck. "You know what that is?"
""It looks like-well it looks like somebody tried to hang you.
"they tried and they succeeded. Left me swinging from a tree, along with my child and my husband."
Phoebe was appalled. "Why?" she said.
"Because they hated us and wanted to be rid of us," Maeve said.
"Musnakaff? Cover me up!" He instantly set to doing so, while Maeve continued her story. "I had a very strange, sour child," she said, "who loved nothing in all the world. Certainly not me. Nor his father. And over the years people came to hate him in return. As soon as they had reason to lynch him, they took it, and took my poor husband too. Coker wasn't of the Cosm, you see. He'd come there for my sake, and he learned to be more human than human, but they still sniffed something in him they didn't like. As for me-" She turned her head from Phoebe and peered down the hill.