The carvings stared down from the walls and made the room a darker place.
– Liv’s room, said Virgil Jones. Hasn’t been used since, you know, she left with, er, me. Liv’s carvings, I hope you don’t mind them, I brought them back when, er, I stayed here some time ago. Before I left K, you know. But never mind that. It’s a bed.
One bed. Elfrida Gribb lay down on it at once. A moment later she was sound asleep. No doubt her nerves, on which she had been living ever since Ignatius’ death, had finally rebelled and demanded a period of regeneration. Flapping Eagle felt frankly relieved.
Virgil left him alone, saying: -Gather your strength, that’s the thing. He moved over to the window, averting his eyes from the misshapen objects on the walls, and looked out at the mountain. A fly settled on his cheek; he brushed it away. It settled on his other cheek; he brushed it away again. The third time, he slapped at it, and it was crushed against his face. He wiped the corpse away.
Despite the ugliness of the carvings, despite the presence of Elfrida Gribb, despite the absence of any sense of direction, Flapping Eagle felt safe here. The brothel air was heavy with the scent of solace. But sanctuary was not for him, or at any rate not for long. If he had failed to achieve stasis-failed, that is, to ingrain himself into the Way of K-he would have to revert once more to kinesis. But that involved knowing what to do, not only with himself, but with Elfrida.
Flapping Eagle stared at the mountain. -You’re winning, he said aloud. He turned to the bed and flung himself down beside the sleeping Elfrida, to gaze emptily at the ceiling. Soon he, too, was asleep, tired and asleep.
Media came into the room to watch him dream. Looking at his face, the face that had changed her life, the firm-jawed face with the shadow of a beard and the closed, long-lashed eyes, she began to think heresy. Perhaps it had something to do with being in Liv’s room; Liv who had left the brothel and its safety for the sake of a man; (hard to imagine now that that man had been Virgil Jones) Liv who had placed herself and her desires above her duties, and seized her moment; but Media, watching the dreaming face, was forming this thought in her mind:
Where he goes, I go.
It was the face that did it.
She spoke softly to the sleeping Eagle:
– What you need is a woman who can cope with you, she said.
Madame Jocasta was pacing the corridors of her realm again; but she was not enjoying it, not listening for the sounds behind the doors, for, at Virgil’s request, she had closed the House’s doors. Silence everywhere. In her own room, a moody, pensive Virgil; in her predecessor’s room, the hidden forms of two people who, she was afraid, would change her small world, too much, far too much. Already Virgil was lost within himself; already Media was afflicted with Flapping Eagle, despite her allotted specialty.
She stood silently outside the door of Liv’s room, which was fractionally ajar, and heard Media’s voice speak its one sentence. She retreated quietly, her worries redoubled.
But she had given them sanctuary, she thought; she would not, could not break that pledge.
At the head of the mob were Flann O’Toole and One-Track Peckenpaw. There were perhaps a dozen more, all regular customers of the Elbaroom. They carried sticks, stones and a length of rope.
– The House is closed, said Jocasta from the door.
– ’Tis not your women we’re afther, said O’Toole in a thick voice, flowing with the fumes of potato-whisky. ’Tis that bastard Eagle.
– We got a harmless little lynching in mind, said Peckenpaw.
– I see, said Jocasta. You want a scapegoat.
– Jesus forbid, grinned Flann O’Toole. But the slightest consideration shows how all our troubles began with his coming. ’Tis entirely logical to speed his going, is it not, now?
– Flann O’Toole, said Madame Jocasta. You know what place this is. When anyone enters the House they leave the world behind. It is a place to escape to; no evil comes here. Flapping Eagle has sanctuary. If you take him by force, the House loses its meaning for you all. You will be hanging a part of your own town. Is that what you want?
The crowd shuffled morosely. Flann O’Toole stopped grinning.
– Now listen, Jocasta, he lurched. What in God’s name are you protecting him for? Now you know we wouldn’t do a thing like that, violating the sanctity o’ the House and all, but that Eagle, he’s no friend to you, or your Mr Jones.
– Go away, O’Toole, said Jocasta.
– Okay, said Peckenpaw. Okay, Jocasta. You win. But we’ll keep watch right here on your doorstep. And if he shows his pretty face outside, Virgil Jones’Ü have some more digging to do.
Bestowing a contemptuous look on him, Jocasta closed the door. The look made no impression on One-Track Peckenpaw.
L Kill or Cure
FLAPPING EAGLE SAT at Virgil Jones’ feet, or, more precisely, sat beside him on the low bed in Jocasta’s room as Virgil spoke. There was a satisfaction on Virgil’s face and an excitement in his voice, but of a faintly morbid kind, the satisfaction and excitement of a man who senses events are running his way once more, but is highly uncertain of his power to direct them. A spider wove its webs on the ceiling.
– More cases of fever, said Virgil Jones. Certainly there will be more. I’m afraid K is vulnerable now. The Achilles heel exposed. An object lesson in the fragility of the best defences. And make no mistake, the Way of K was a very expert defence. They practised their eyes-to-the-ground life for so long, it became second nature. Hence the confusing illusion of normality you succumbed to, and that entrancing, ethereal quality. They lived here, but they lived for their preoccupations, and thus seemed detached, intoxicating, complete. The expertise grew with the power of the Effect, keeping pace, and they might well have resisted it forever. Gribb’s death changed all that. Now there are many who find it an effort to keep their minds off Grimus. And they need to, whereas before the deaths they could even joke about him. Hence the determination of the lynch-mob. Hence the attitude of Mrs Gribb. I’m not sure she is so much in love with you. She needs to love, that’s more important. It will get worse; for now, the instant they relax, they will be open to the Dimensions. Some of them will die. Which will make the rest even more manic. A gloomy prospect, I’m sure You’ll agree.
– Jocasta and her girls don’t seem to suffer, said Flapping Eagle.
– Ah, said Virgil. There you have the extraordinary nature of this House in a nutshell. A refuge, you see, from the Effect as well as the mob. Because, as you hazarded earlier, it has become, for them, an end in itself. The only thing that matters to them. Though I fear you may be unsettling dear Media, you know. You do have almost as powerful an effect on women as, as Grimus, ha ha.
– I’m sorry, said Flapping Eagle stupidly.
– The simple fact, said Virgil Jones, is that Grimus is in possession of a stupendous piece of knowledge: that we live in one of an infinity of Dimensions. To accept the nature of the Dimensions involves changing, entirely, our ideas of what we are and what our world is like. Thus rewriting the book of morality and priorities from the beginning. What you must ask yourself is this: is there such a thing as too much knowledge? If a marvellous discovery is made whose effects one cannot control, should one attempt to destroy one’s find? Or do the interests of science override even those of society, and, indeed, survival? Is it better to have known, and die, than not to have known at all? A fair number of questions, I’m afraid.
– And you’ve decided, said Flapping Eagle, that science must yield.