This was no longer a little inconvenience. Ludicrous though it seemed, she was in trouble. The birds were coming at her from all directions, their attacks capable of doing no little damage. She went on yelling in the hope of keeping them at bay while attempting to scramble to her feet. Twice she almost did so, but her heels slid over the rocks. The closest of the birds were in pecking distance now. Beaks stabbed at her arms and shoulders and at her back.
She started to flail wildly, catching birds with her hands and even knocking a few of them over, but there were too many to floor. Sooner or later, one of the beaks would puncture an artery, or stab her eye. She had to get to her feet, and quickly.
Shielding her face with her arms she got onto her knees. The birds didn't have much room in their skulls for brains, but they sensed her vulnerability, and escalated their assault, pecking at her back and buttocks and legs as she struggled to rise.
Suddenly, a shot. Then another, and a third, this accompanied by a hot spray against Phoebe's left arm. The tone of the squawking instantly changed from mob mania to panic, and parting her arms Phoebe saw the birds retreating in disarray, leaving three of their flock dead on the ground. Not just dead in fact, almost blown apart. One was missing its head, another half its torso, while the third-which was the sprayer-still twitched beside her, with a hole the size of her fist in its abdomen.
She looked for their slaughterer.
"Over here," said a faintly bemused voice, and a little way along the shore stood a man wearing a coat of furs, his cap fashioned from an animal pelt, with the snout as a peak. In his arms, a rifle. It was still smoking.
"You're not one of Zury's mob," he observed.
"No, I'm not," Phoebe replied.
The man pushed back the peak of his hat. to judge by his features he was of the same tribe as the hammerer, his head flat and wide, his lower lip bulbous, his eyes tiny. But whereas the cross maker had been unadorned, this creature's face was decorated from brow to chin, his cheeks pierced with rings perhaps fifty times, from which tiny ornaments dangled, his eyes ringed with scarlet and yellow paint, his hair teased into ringlets, which softened his beetling brow.
"Where are you from?" he said.
"The other side," Phoebe said, the correct vocabulary, momentarily deserting her.
"You mean the Cosm?" "That's right."
The man shook his head, and his decorations danced. "Oh," he sighed, "I hope that's the truth."
"You think I'd dress this way if I was a local?" Phoebe said.
"No, I don't suppose you would," the man replied. "I'm Hoppo Musnakaff. And you?" "Phoebe Cobb."
Musnakaff had unbuttoned his coat, and now shrugged it off. "We're well met, Phoebe Cobb," he said. "Here, put this on." He tossed the coat to Phoebe. "And let me escort you back to Liverpool."
"Liverpool?" That sounded like a mundane destination after such a journey.
"It's a glorious city," Musnakaff said, pointing towards the lights along the shore. "You'll see."
Phoebe put on his coat. It was warm, and smelled of a sweet perfume tinged with oranges. She plunged her hands into the deep, fur-lined pockets.
"You'll soon warm up," Musnakaff said. "I'll attend to those wounds of yours while we go. I want you to be presentable for the Mistress."
"The Mistress?"
"My@mployer," he replied. "She sent me along here to see what Zury was up to, but I think she'd be happier if I forsook the spying, and brought you home instead. She'll be eager to hear what you have to tell her."
"About what?"
"About the Cosm, of course." Musnakaff replied. "Now will you let me give you a hand?"
384 Clivc Barkcr
"Please."
He came to her (the perfume on the coat was his, she iscovered: He reeked of it) and putting his arm through hers escorted her over the slithery rocks.
"That's our transport," he said. There was a manycolored horse, as bright as a peacock's tail, a little way ahead of them, grazing on the coarse grass that spurted between the slabs of what had once been a fine road.
"King Texas had this highway laid, when he was wanting to impress the Mistress. Of course it's gone to ruin since."
"Who's King Texas?"
"He's the rock," Musnakaff replied, slamming his foot down. "Crazy now, since she left him. He loved her beyond love, you see; rock can do that." "You know I don't have a clue what you're talking about, don't you?" Phoebe said.
"Let's get you up on the nag, eh?" Musnakaff said. "That's it. Right foot in the stirrup. And up! Good! Good!" He flipped the reins over the horse's head, so as to lead it. "Are you secure?" he asked.
"I think so."
"Take hold of her mane. Go on, she's not going to complain." Phoebe did as she was instructed. "Now," said Musnakaff, gently coaxing the animal into a walk. "Let me tell you about the Mistress and King Texas, so you'll understand her insanities better when you meet her face to face."
It was the sound of panicked shouts that roused Joe from his stupor. He lifted his head up off the fine red sand of Mem-6 b'Kether Sabbat's shore and turned it back towards the sea that had delivered him here. Two or three hundred yards from the beach was the good ship Fanacapan, loaded down with passengers. they squatted on the wheelhouse roof; they clung to the mast and ladders; one even hung on the anchor. But their weight and agitation was proving too much for the vessel. Even as Joe watched, The Fanacapan tipped over sideways, pitching two dozen of its passengers into the water, where their shouts were redoubled.
Joe got to his feet, watching the disaster unfold with sickened fascination. The people in the water were now scrabbling to climb back on the boat, their efforts assisted by some of their fellow passengers, and violently opposed by others. Whatever the intention, the effect was the same. The Fanacapan tipped over completely, clearing decks, wheelhouse, mast, and ladders in two seconds, and as it did so its timbers cracked and with startling suddenness it proceeded to sink.
It was a pitiful sight. Small though the vessel was, its descent threw the dream-sea into a fair frenzy. The waters churned and spurned, seeming to seize many of the people in the water and pluck them down. they went shrieking and cursing, as though to their deaths, though Joe supposed it could not be by drowning. After all, he'd lingered under water for several minutes with Phoebe, and had not lacked for air. Perhaps these panicky souls would discover the same; but he suspected not. Something about the way the waters circled these flailing souls made him think there was sentience there; that the dream-sea would be as cruel to these failed voyagers as it had been kind to him.
He turned his back on the sight, and scanned the shore. It was far from deserted. There were people along the beach in both directions as far as his eyes could see, which was a long way. The gloomy sky had given way to an exquisite luminescence, the source of which was not a heavenly body but objects themselves. Everything was shining with its own light, some of it steady, some of it glittering, but glorious in its sum.
Joe looked down at his body, at his blood-stained clothes and his wounded flesh, and saw that even he was shining here, as though every pore and crease and thread wanted to make itself known. The sight exhilarated him. He was not unmiraculous in this miraculous place, but came with glories of his own.
He started up the shore now, towards the groves of titanic trees that lined it, so vast he could see nothing of the island itself. This was, he was certain, Mem-6 b'Kether Sabbat. On the voyage Noah had rhapsodized about the color of its sand. There was no shore so red, he'd boasted; nor any other island so fine. Beyond that Joe had little sense of what to expect. The Ephemeris was not one island but many, he knew that, an archipelago formed-so tradition had itaround pieces of debris from the Cosm. Some of that debris was alive: the tissue of trespassers, which the dream-sea had transfon-ned and fantasticated, using the minds of those men and women as inspiration. Most of the debris was dead stuff, however, fragments of the Heiter Incendo that had slipped through a crack. With time, and with Quiddity's attentions, these became the lesser, plainer islands in the group. Though they numbered in their thousands, Noah had said, most of them were deserted.