No matter, she thought. There was nothing much to see up there anyhow. Just some bare rocks and a lot of trees. She consulted her watch. It was ten after eleven. The Pancake Contest and All-You-Can-Eat Brunch would soon be underway at the Old Bakery Restaurant, and the Pet Parade lining up in the square. She was due to be one of the judges of the flower arranging at noon, but she had time to drop by and see how things were going at the Town Hall first, where people would already be assembling for the Grand Parade, even though it wouldn't start for another two hours. So much to see. So much to do. Smiling people spilling off the crowded sidewalks, banners and balloons snapping and glittering against the blue August sky. She wished it could go on forever: a festival that never stopped. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
"I don't like this," Telso said.
She wasn't speaking of the climb-though it had steadily become steeper, and now left her gasping between every other word-but of the mist that had been little more than shreds when they'd begun their ascent and was now a thick, white blanket.
"I'm not turning back," Phoebe said hurriedly.
"I didn't say we should," Tesla replied. "I was just saying-" Yes. What are you saying? Raul murmured.
"That there's something weird about it."
"It, s just mist," Phoebe said.
"I don't think so. And just for the record, neither does Raul." Phoebe came to a halt, as much to catch her breath as to continue the debate. "We've got guns," she said.
"That didn't do us much good at Toothaker's place," Tesla reminded her.
"You think there's something hiding in there?" Phoebe said, studying the black wall that was now no more than three hundred yards from them.
"I'd bet my Harley on it."
Phoebe let out a shuddering sigh. "Maybe you should go back," she said.
"I don't want anything to happen to you on my account."
"Don't be ridiculous," Tesla said.
"Good," said Phoebe. "So if we get parted in there-"
"Which is very possible@'
"We don't go looking for each other?"
"We just go on."
"Right."
"All the way to Quiddity."
"All the way to Joe."
Lord, but it was clammy cold in the mist. Within sixty seconds of entering it, both Tesla and Phoebe were shuddering from head to foot.
"Watch where you walk," Tesla warned Phoebe. "Why?"
"Look there," she said, pointing to a six-inch wide crack in the ground.
"And there. And there."
The fissures were everywhere, and recent. She was not all that surprised. The opening of a door between one reality and another was a violation of the physical by the metaphysical; a cataclysm that was bound to take its toll on matter that lacked mind. It had been the same at Buddy Vance's house as here: the solid world had cracked and melted and fallen apart when the door had opened in its midst. The difference however, and it was notable, was how quiet and still it was here. Even the mist hung almost motionless. Vance's house, by contrast, had been a maelstrom.
She could only assume that whoever had opened this door was both an expert in the procedure and a creature of great self-discipline; unlike the Jaff, who had been a mere novice, and utterly incapable of controlling the forces he had claimed as his own. Kissoon? Raul suggested.
It was not at first thought an unlikely choice. She did not expect to meet a more powerful entity than Kissoon in the living world.
"But if he can open a door between here and the Cosm," Tesia thought,
"that means he has the Art."
That wouldfollow.
"In which case, why is he still playing in the shit down in Toothaker's house?"
Good question. "He's got something to do with this-I don't doubt that-but I don't think he could open a door on his own."
Maybe he had help, Raul said.
"You're talking to the monkey, aren't you?" Phoebe said.
"I think we should keep our voices down."
"You are though, aren't you?"
"Am I movin my lips?" Testa said.
11 9
'Yep.
"I never could-d-" She stopped: talking, and in her tracks. She grabbed Phoebe's arm.
"What?" Phoebe said. "Listen."
Anyone for carpentry lessons? Raul remarked. Somebody higher up the Mountainside was hammering. The sound was muted by the mist, so it was difficult to know how far off the handyman was, but the din laid to rest what little hope Testa had entertained of finding the door unguarded.
She reached into her jacket and took out Lourdes. "We're going to go very slowly," she whispered to Phoebe. "And keep your eyes peeled."
She led the way now, up the fissured slope, the hammering of her heart competing with that of the handyman. There were other sounds she heard, just audible between the blows. somebody sobbing. Somebody else singing, the words incomprehensible.
"What the hell is going on up there?" Testa murmured. There were lopped branches strewn on the ground, and a litter of twigs stripped from other branches, presumably those judged useful by the hammerer. was he building a little house up there, or an altar, perhaps?
The mist ahead of them shifted, and for a moment Testa caught a glimpse of somebody moving across her field of vision. it was too brief for her to quite grasp what she was seeing, but it seemed to be a child, its head too unwieldy for its emaciated body. It left a trail of laughter where it ran (at least she thought it was laughter; she couldn't even be certain of that), and the sound seemed to draw patterns in the mist, like ripples left by darting fish. It was a strange phenomenon, but in its way rather beguiling.
She looked round at Phoebe, who was wearing a tiny smile.
"There are children up here," she murmured.
"It looks that way."
She'd no sooner spoken that the child reappeared, capering and laughing as before. It was a girl, Testa saw. Despite her almost infantile body, she had budding breasts, which were ruddier than the rest of her pale body, and a yard-long ponytail that sprouted from the middle of her otherwise shaved skull.
Nimble though she was, her foot caught in one of the cracks as she ran by, and she fell forward, her laughter ceasing.
Phoebe let out a little gasp of concern. Despite the hammerings and the sobs, the child heard her. She looked round, and her eyes, which were black and shiny, like polished stones, were briefly laid upon the two women. Then the child was on her feet and away, racing off up the slope.
"So much for secrecy," Testa remarked. She could hear the child's shrill voice, raising the alarm. "Let's get out of their way," she said, catching hold of Phoebe's arm and hauling her off across the slope. The traumatized ground made speed virtually impossible, but they covered fifty stumbling yards before halting and listening again.
The hammering had stopped, and so had the singing. Only the sobbing went on.
That's not grief, Raul said.
"No?"
It's pain. It's somebody in terrible pain.
Testa shuddered, and looked straight at Phoebe. "Listen to me-" she whispered.
"You want to go back."
"Don't you?"
Phoebe's face was pale and wet. "Yes," she breathed. "Part of me does." She looked over her shoulder, though there was nothing to see but mist. "But not as much... " she hesitated, full of little tremors,
"not as much as I want to be with Joe."
"If you keep saying that," Testa said, "I'm going to start believing it."
A burst of nervous laughter escaped Phoebe, but turned into tears the next moment. "If we get out of this alive," she said, doing her best to stifle her sobs, "I'll owe you so much."