"Maybe," Noah replied. Half a dozen questions appeared in Joe's head at the same time. If what was out there was coming here, what would happen to the shore? And to the city? And if it passed over the threshold, would the storm it brought go with it? Down the mountain, to Everville? to Phoebe?
Oh my God, to Phoebe?
"I have to go back," he said.
"You can't."
"I can and I will," Joe said, turning and starting back towards the crack. It was not hidden here, as it was on the mountain. It crackled like a rod of black lightning against the shifting sky. was it his imagination, or was it wider and taller than it had been?
"I promised you power, Joe," Noah called after him. "And I still have it to give."
Joe turned on his heel. "So give it to me and let me go," he said. Noah stared at the ground. "It's not as easy as that, my friend."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't grant you power here."
"On the other side, you said."
"Yes, I did. I know I did. But that wasn't quite the truth." He looked up at Joe now, his oversized head seeming to teeter on his frail neck.
"I'd hoped that once you got here and saw the glories of the dream-sea, you'd want to travel with me a little way. I can give you power. Truly I can. But only in my own country."
"How far?" Joe said.
There was no answer forthcoming. Infuriated, Joe went k to Noah, moving at such speed the creature raised its s to ward off a blow. "I'm not going to hit you," Joe said. Noah lowered his guard six inches. "I just want an honest answer."
Noah sighed. "My country is the Ephemeris," he said.
"And where's the Ephemeris?" Joe wanted to know.
Noah looked at him for perhaps ten seconds, and then pointed out to sea.
"No shit," Joe said, deadpan. "You really put one over on me."
"Put one over?" Noah said.
"Tricked me, asshole." He pushed his face at Noah, until they were almost nose to nose. "You tricked me."
"I believed you'd been sent to take me home," Noah said.
"Don't be pathetic."
"It's true, I did. I still do." He looked up at Joe. "You think that's ridiculous, that our lives could be intertwined that way?"
"Yes," said Joe.
Noah nodded. "So you must go back," he said. "And I'll stay. I feel stronger here, under my own sky. No doubt you'll feel stronger under yours."
Joe didn't miss the irony. "You know damn well what I'll be when I get back there."
"Yes, said Noah, getting to his feet. "Powerless." With that he started to hobble away down the beach. "Goodbye, Joe," he called after him.
"Asshole," Joe said, staring back up the shore at the sliver of night sky visible in the crack. What use would he be to himself or to Phoebe if he returned home now? He was a wounded fugitive. And just as Noah had pointed out, he was utterly powerless.
He turned again to scan the strange world into which he'd stepped. The distant city, the approaching procession, the storm raging over Quiddity's tumultuous waters: none of it looked particularly promising. But perhaps-just perhaps-there was hope for him here. A means to get power of some kind, any kind, that would make him a man to be reckoned with when he got back to his own world. Perhaps he'd have to sweat for it, but he'd sweated in the Cosm, hadn't he, and what had he got for his efforts? Broken balls.
"All fight," he said, going down the shore after Noah. "I'll stay. But I'm not carrying you, understand?"
Noah smiled back at him. "May I... put my arm around your shoulder, until I get some nourishment in me, and my legs are stronger?"
"I guess," said Joe.
Noah hooked his arm around Joe's neck. "There's.a beached boat down there," he said, "we'll take refuge until the procession's gone."
"What's so bad about these Blessedm'n?" Joe asked him as they made their hobbling way down to the vessel.
"No one ever knows what's in a Blessedm'n's heart. they have secret reasons and purposes for everything. Perhaps this one is benign, but we've no way of knowing." they walked on in silence, until they reached the vessel. It was two-masted, perhaps twenty-five feet long, its boards and wheelhouse painted scarlet and blue, though its voyages had taken their toll on both paintwork and boards. Its name, The Fanacapan, had been neatly lettered on its bow.
Hunger was beginning to gnaw at Joe, so he left Noah squatting in the lee of the vessel, and clambered on board to look for some sustenance. The narcotic effect of the painkillers was finally wearing off, and as he went about the boat, looking above and below for a loaf of bread or a bottle of beer, he felt a mingling of negative feelings creep upon him.
One of them was unease, another trepidation, a third, disappointment. He had found his way into another world, only to discover that things here weren't so very different. Perhaps Quiddity was indeed a dream-sea as Noah had claimed, but this boat, that had apparently crossed it, showed no sign of having been built or occupied by creatures of vision. Its two cabins were squalid, its galley unspeakable, the woodwork of its wheelhouse crudely etched with drawings of the obscenest kind.
As for nourishment, there was none to be found. There were a few scraps of food left in the galley, but nothing remotely edible, and though Joe searched through the strewn clothes and filthy blankets in the cabins in the hope of finding a bar of chocolate or a piece of fruit, he came up ty-handed. Frustrated, and hungrier than ever after his ons, he clambered back down onto the shore to find Noah was sitting cross-legged on the ground, staring up the shore with tears on his face.
"What's wrong?"
"It just reminds me Noah said, nodding towards the procession. Its destination was the crack, no doubt of that. Five or six celebrants, who looked to be children, and nearly naked, had broken from the front of the procession and were strewing a path of leaves or petals between their lord and the threshold.
"Reminds you of what?"
"Of my wedding day," Noah said. "And of my beloved. We had a procession three, four times that one. You never saw such finery. You never heard such music. It was to be the end of an age of war, and the beginning... " He faltered, shuddering. "I want to see my country again, Joe," he said after a time. "If it's only to be buried there."
"You haven't waited all this time just to die."
"It won't be so bad," Noah murmured. "I've had the love of my life. There could never he another like her, nor do I want there to be. I couldn't bear to even think such a thought until now, but it's the truth, Joe. So it won't be so bad, if I die in my own country, and I'm laid in the dirt from which I came. You understand that, don't you?" Joe didn't reply. Noah looked round at him. "No?"
"No," he said, "I don't have a country, Noah. I hate America."
"Africa then."
"I was never there. I don't think I'd much like that either." He drew a long, slow breath. "So I don't give a fuck where I'm buried." There was another long silence. Then he said: "I'm hungry. There's nothing on the boat. I'm going to have to eat soon or I'm going to start falling down." "Fhen you must catch yourself something," Noah said, and getting to his feet, led Joe down to the water's edge. The waves were not breaking as violently as they had been, Joe thought. "See the fisht' Noah said, pointing into curling waves.
The streaks of iridescence Joe had seen from the threshold were in fact,living things: fishes and eels, bright as lightning, leaping in the water in their thousands.
"I see them."
"Fake your fill." "You mean, just catch them in my hands?"
"And swallow them down," Noah said. He smiled, seeing the disgusted look on Joe's face. "They're best alive," he said. "Trust me."