"You're too sane." "But if I were-if I'd founded a city the way she'd founded Everville, not with dreams but with plain hard work@'
"Yes?"
"And somebody protected it for me, kept my city safe-2'
She let the notion trail. There was fifteen seconds of silence, while Liverpool shook and trembled under their feet. Then he said, "Would you love that somebody?"
"Maybe I would," she said.
"Oh my Lord-" he murmured.
"It looks like the lad's giving up on the city," she said. "It's starting to move along the shore."
"My shore," King Texas said. "I'm the rock, remember?" He crossed the mirror to where she stood and laid his mud hand upon her cheek. "Thank you," he said. "You've given me hope." He turned from her, saying,
"Stay here.
"I don't@' "Stay, I said. And watch."
During the voyage to Mem-6 b'Kether Sabbat, Noah Summa Summamentis had spoken of the lad Uroboros's power to induce terror by its very proximity, but until now-when Joe entered the streets of Livetpool-he had seen no evidence of that power. In b'Kether Sabbat the lad's malevolence had been held in thrall to the 'shu, and by the time it had been unleashed Joe was a spirit, and apparently immune to its influence. But the survivors who wandered through the shaking desolation were plainly victims, shrieking and sobbing for relief from the madness overwhelming them. Some had succumbed to it, and sat in the rubble with blank faces. Others were driven to terrible acts of self-harm to stop the horrors, beating their heads against stones, or tearing at their chests to still their hearts.
Powerless to help them, Joe could only wander on, determined to at least be a witness to what the lad perpetrated. Perhaps there was some higher court in which its crimes would be judged. If so, he would testify.
There was a large bonfire burning in the street ahead, its flames brightening the filthy air. Approaching, he saw that it was attended by perhaps twenty people, who were circling it hand in hand, praying aloud.
"You who are divided, be whole in our hearts-"
Surely they were appealing to the 'shu, he thought.
"You who are divided-"
Their prayer apparently went unheard, however. Though the lad had left off its destruction of the city there were remnants of its shadow presence haunting the streets, and one such portion, no more than a dozen feet tall, and resembling a pillar of darkness, was approaching the fire from the far end of the street. One of the group, a young woman with a mouth that resembled a fleshy rose, broke the circle and started to retreat from the fire, shaking her head wildly. The worshipper to her left caught hold of her hand and proceeded to haul her back to the fire.
"Hold on!" he said to her. "It's our only hope!" But the damage had been done. The circle, once broken, ad lost any chann it might have possessed, and now each of the worshippers succumbed to the lad's baleful influence. One of the men pulled out a knife and proceeded to threaten the air in front of him. Another reached into the flames, searing his hand and yelling for some horror or other to keep away from him.
As he did so, he looked up through the fire, and his agonized face suddenly cleared of its confusions. He pulled his hand out of the fire and stared at Joe.
"Look... " he murmured. Joe was as astonished as the man witnessing him. "You see me?" he said.
The man failed to hear him. He was too busy yelling for his fellow worshippers to "Look! Look!"
Another had seen him now; a woman whose face was a mass of bruises, but who at the sight of him broke into an ecstatic smile.
"Look how it shines-" she said.
"It heard," somebody else murmured. "We prayed and it heard."
"What are you seeing?" Joe said to them. But they made no sign of hearing him. they simply watched the place where his spirit stood, and wept and gaped and offered up thanks.
One of their number looked back down the street towards the approaching lad. It was approaching no longer. Either it had been recalled into the body of its nation, or else it had retreated from the force of joy that suddenly surrounded the fire.
The young woman who had first broken the circle now approached Joe. There were tears running down her cheeks, and her body was shaking, but she was fearless in her desire to touch this vision.
"Let me know you," she said as she raised her hand towards Joe. "Be with me forever and ever."
The words, and the need in her eyes, disturbed him. Whatever had happened here, it was nothing he comprehended, much less sought. He was still Joe Flicker. Still and only.
"I can't. he said, though he knew they couldn't hear him, and willed himself away from the place.
It was harder to leave than it'd been to arrive. Their. gazes seemed to slow him, and he had to struggle to free himself from them.
Only when he was fifty yards away down the street, and their desire no longer held a claim over him, did he dare look back. they were in each other's arms, weeping for joy. All except the woman who'd tried to touch him. She was still looking down the street in his direction, and though he was too far from her to see her eyes he felt her gaze upon him, and knew he would not readily be free of it.
"Texas!" Phoebe yelled. "Damn you, can you hear me?"
She had long ago vacated the mirror chamber for the very good reason that it was close to collapse. Now, in a tunnel lined with his faces, she stood and demanded his presence. He didn't come, however. Remembering how much the thought of a woman's blood being spilled here had distressed him, she dug through the rock shards underfoot until she located something sharp, pulled up her sleeve, and without giving herself time to think twice, opened a four-inch cut just above her wrist. Her blood had never looked redder. She squealed with the pain of it, but she let it flow, and flow, sinking back against the wall as her head spun. "What are you doing?"
Almost instantly he rose before her in the form of liquid rock, raging.
"I told you: no blood!"
"So get me out of here," she said, chilly with a sudden sweat "or I'll just keep bleeding."
The shaking was getting worse by the moment. In the walls there was a grinding sound, as though some vast engine was slipping its gears.
"I am the rock," he said.
"So you keep saying."
"If I said you were safe, then safe you were."
The wall behind her shook so violently several of his rejected faces cracked and fell to the ground. "Are you going to take me up, or not?" she said.
"I'll take you," he said, unknitting his feet from the floor of the passage and approaching her. "But you must come with me on my terms."
She looked at him through a throbbing haze. "What... are... your terms?" she said. His face was cruder than she'd previously seen it, she realized, like a mask hewn with a dull axe.
"If I take you," he said, "then it must be here." He opened his arms.
"For your safety, you must be cradled in the rock. Agreed?"
She nodded. It was not such a terrible idea. He was a King, he was a rock, and he had a heart for love, even if it was a fossil. "Agreed," she said, and clamping her hand to her cut arm to stem the flow, let him gather her into his embrace.
Grillo was no expert when it came to babies but he was damn sure the sound coming from the child in Jo-Beth's arms wasn't healthy.
"What's wrong with her?" he said.
"I don't know."
"It sounds like she's choking."
"I think maybe you should stop."
The baby seemed to be having minor convulsions now, and with every bump in the road they were worsening. Grillo slowed down a little, but Jo-Beth wasn't satisfied. "Stop!" she said. "Just for a minute or two,"