"You'll owe me an invitation to the wedding is all you'll owe me," Testa said. Phoebe put her arms around Testa, and hugged her.
"We're not there yet," Tesia said.
"I know, I know," Phoebe replied. She stood back from Tesla, sniffed hard, and wiped the tears from under her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"I'm ready."
"Good." Tesia looked back towards the spot where they'd been seen. There was neither sound nor sign of motion. It was not much comfort, given how hard it was to judge distance under these circumstances, but at least there was no horde of Lix or children bearing down upon them.
"Let's climb," she said, and led the way up the slope again. It was impossible to judge their precise direction, of course, but as long as the ground continued to rise ahead of them, they knew they were still on their way to the summit.
After a few paces they had further evidence that they were headed in the right direction. The moaning sound was becoming louder with every yard they covered, and it was soon joined by the voice of the singer. She faltered at first, as though trying to pick up the threads of whatever piece she'd left off singing. Then she apparently despaired of doing so, and began another song: this more melancholy than the first. A lament, perhaps; or a lullaby for a dying child. Whatever it was, it made Tesia feel positively queasy, and she found herself wishing a nest of Lix would appear from the cracked ground, so she'd have something upon which to pin her trepidation. Anything rather than the sobs, and the song, and the image of the skipping child with its lifeless eyes.
And then, as the song came round for another dirging verse, the mist unveiled a horror even her most troubled imaginings had not conjured.
There, twenty yards up the slope, was the hammerer's handiwork. He hadn't built a house. He hadn't built an altar. He'd felled three trees, and stripped them, and dragged them up the slope to fashion crosses, ten, twelve feet high. Then somebody-perhaps the hammerer, perhaps his mastershad crucified three people upon them.
Tesia could not see much of the victims. She and Phoebe were approaching the site from behind the crosses. But she could see the hammerer. He was a small, broad fellow, his head wide and flat, with eyes like the laughing child's eyes, and he was gathering up his tools in the shadow of the crosses with the casual manner of someone who had just fixed a table leg. A little way beyond him, lounging in a chair, was the singer. She had her gaze turned up towards the crucified, her lament still maundering on.
Neither individual had seen Tesla and Phoebe. As the women watched, appalled, the hammerer finished collecting up his tools and went on his jaunty way, disappearing into the mist beyond the crosses without so much as a backwards glance. The singer threw back her head, almost languorously, and hafted her song to draw on a thin cigarette.
"Why would anybody do something like this?" Phoebe said, her voice trembling
"I don't give a shit," Tesla replied, pulling her gun from herjacket.
"We're going to do something about it."
Like what? said Raul.
"Like getting those poor fuckers down,,, Tesla said aloud.
"Us?" said Phoebe.
"Yes, us."
Tesla, listen to me, Raul said. This is horrible, I know.
But it's too late to help them "What's he saying?" Phoebe asked.
"He hasn't finished."
It was a damn fool thing to do in the first place, coming up here. But we've got thisfar.
"So what? Turn a blind eye?"
Yes! Absolutely! "Christ...
I know, Raul said. This is a terrible thing and I wish we weren't here to see it. But let's find the door and get Phoebe through it. Then we can both get the fuck out of here.
"You know what?" Phoebe said, nodding towards the singer. "She might know where the door is. I think we should ask her." She pointed to Tesia's gun. "With that."
"Good deal."
Just don't look at the crosses, okay? Raul said, as they started up the slope.
The singer had finally given up her lament and was simply slumped in her chair, eyes still closed, smoking her dope. The only sound was the sobbing of one of the crucified, and even that had dwindled as they advanced, until it was barely audible.
"Just look at the ground," Tesla told Phoebe. "It's no use breaking our hearts."
Eyes downcast, they continued to climb. Tesla was horribly tempted to look up at the victims, but she resisted. Raul was right. There was nothing they could do. Up ahead, the singer was talking to herself in her blissed-out state.
"Hey, Laguna... ? You hear me? I got them, I got right there. Right there. White they are. So white. You wouldn't believe how-"
Tesla put the gun to the woman's temple. The stream of consciousness stopped abruptly, and the woman's eyes flickered open. She was by no means a beauty: her skin was leathery, her eyes tiny and surrounded with coarse bristles, her mouth-which was similarly ringed-was twice the width of any human mouth, her teeth tiny, pointed-perhaps sharpened-and innumerable. Despite her drugged condition, she plainly understood her jeopardy. "I'll sing some more," she said.
"Don't bother," Tesla replied. "Just point us to the door."
"You're not one of the Blessedm'n's company?"
"No.
"Are you Sapas Humana?" she said.
"No. I'm just the lady with the gun," Tesla said.
"You are, aren't you?" the singer replied, her gaze going back and forth between the two women. "You're Sapas Humana! Oh, this is wonderful."
"Are you listening to me?" Tesla said.
"Yes. You want the door. It's there." Without looking round she pointed off into the mist.
"How far?"
"A little way. But why would you want to leave? There's nothing on the other side but more of this mist and a filthy sea. Here's where the wonders are, in the Helter j Incendo. Among Humana, like you."
"Wonders?" said Phoebe.
"Oh yes, oh yes," the woman enthused, ignoring the gun that was still pointed at her head. "We've lived a shadow-life in the Ephemeris, dreaming of being here, where things are pure and real."
My God, is she infor a disappointment, Raul remarked.
But there was more here than a misinformed tourist "Isn't the lad coming through this door?" Tesla asked her.
She smiled. "Oh yes," she said, almost dreamily.
"So why are you hanging around?"
"We're waiting to greet them."
"Then you'll never see the wonders of the Hefter Incendo, will you?"
"Why not?"
"Because the lad's coming to destroy it."
The woman laughed. Threw back her head and laughed. "Who told you that?" she said.
Tesla didn't answer though she had no difficulty remembering. The first person she'd heard that from had been Kissoon. Not perhaps the most reliable of sources. But then hadn't she had the theory supported on several occasions since? It was D'Amour's belief, for certain. According to him the lad was the Enemy of Mankind, the Devil by another name. And hadn't Grillo told her of men and women across the continent who listed on the Reef the weapons they'd use to defend themselves if, or rather when, the holocaust occurred?
Still the woman laughed. "The lad's coming here for the same reason that I came," she said. "they want to live among miracles."
"There aren't any," Phoebe piped up. "Not here."
The singer grew serious. "Perhaps you've lived with them for so long," she said, "you don't see them."
Ask her about the crucifixions, Raul prompted.
"Damn right," Tesia thought. "What about them?" she said, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder.
"The Blessedm'n wanted that. They're spies, he said; enemies of peace."
"Why kill them that way?" Phoebe said. "It's so horrible."