"No," I said.
"Cley, you somehow know about the bird and the disease, so let me tell you the rest. The antidote has to be the beauty, because once I infect the people of Wenau with the sleeping sickness, I can then show up on the scene and become a hero for curing them. They will learn to respect me because I will have saved their loved ones' lives. In addition to this, I will introduce the beauty into the culture of Wenau, and soon I will be a most necessary figure since I am the only one capable of making it."
"Your plan is to spread addiction?"
"Call it what you like," he said.
"But why?"
"I want your people to accept my son, and I know they won't unless I coerce them. I must persuade them to see him as part of your society. I won't live forever, and I need to be sure he will have a normal life ahead of him. If he stays here with me, he'll become as mad as I am, and when I die there will be nothing to stop him from reverting back to his savage ways."
"You mean, you are doing this out of love?" I said.
"He's my son. Not having had any children, I don't expect you to understand the depth of my feeling."
"But there is no need for this. He would be accepted anyway, on his own merits."
"Don't be a fool, Cley. They would drive him out of town, hunt him down, and kill him."
"You speak of love, but your methods are all about tyranny, slavery, murder."
"It's too late for me to change completely. I know now there is a better way, but I am too tired to go back to the beginning. Truth lies at the end of a circle, Cley. We both have learned that by now. It's also too late for you. I can't have you ruining this plan as well. I happened to have forgotten to water down the beauty that was in your syringe. When next you awaken, I will be making a wolf of you. So good to have seen you once more. After tomorrow, you, like the other thieves, will have become my guardian."
He stood up a little unsteadily, walked to the door, opened it, and left. I jumped to my feet, took two steps, and then my head exploded.
29
When next I opened my eyes, I was strapped to the operating table in Below's lab. I could see through the entrance and places where the walls had broken down that it was morning, meaning I had spent the entire night under the influence of the new, more potent sheer beauty. There had been visions, hallucinations more intense than anything I had ever experienced. Of this, I was certain, but exactly what they were was unclear. I vaguely remembered conversing with Brisden about some philosophical point, and at another juncture I had danced with the monkey, Silencio. There were other scraps of images that also returned—a three-masted ship battling high seas, a bitten piece of the white fruit sporting half a green worm, an animated etching in liquid mercury of the Delicate pursuing us. The only part of it that I was sure of was that a radiant vision of Anotine had been with me through it all.
I was dazed and weak from the experience, but I longed to see her and worried about her condition. My promise had been that I would return quickly, and I felt each minute that had passed since I left her side to be another brick in a wall that would separate us forever. Looking to the left of me, I could see clearly the open entrance to the lab, my path to freedom, but try as I might I could not budge the straps that were tightened around my chest and legs. To the right were all Below's bizarre experiments, the tables holding clear jars of heads, jars of gilled fetuses, liquid rainbows, gears made of bone. Every now and then, at odd intervals, the diminutive lighthouse would begin to glow and the lab was filled with the darting figures of birds. These songs, in conjunction with the howling of the prisoners out back in their cages, combined to make a music that was driving me mad.
I tested my bonds again, this time crying out in order to add the force of my voice to my overall effort. When that didn't work, I simply began screaming, because I could think of nothing else to do. Thrashing my head back and forth wildly, I let loose with the sum total of my frustration.
I had nearly grown hoarse when Misrix appeared at the entrance. He stepped into the lab and passed by me, trying very hard not to make eye contact. I turned my head and followed his progress. Walking over to one of the tables, he lifted an object and started back. I couldn't help but smile when I saw that what he had retrieved was the memory book. This was my last chance.
"Misrix," I called to him. "Demon, I have a secret for you."
He averted his eyes from me as he made for the doorway.
"I can tell you the meaning of that white fruit you found in the ruins."
He stopped for a second, his back still facing me.
"I can tell you how it fits into the story of the city," I said. Of course, I had no idea what I was going to say, but I needed to get his attention.
He slowly came around to face me. "How do you know about the white fruit?" he asked.
"It's in your museum, is it not?"
He stepped closer, moving his wings, and their breeze washed over me.
"My father told you," he said.
I shook my head. "I simply know. That fruit is the key to the story you have been piecing together, and I know exactly where it fits in."
"Tell me," he said, using a claw of his free hand to push his spectacles back up the bridge of his thin nose.
"Loosen my straps, here. Let me get up and stretch my arms and legs, and I'll tell you" I said.
He laughed like a goat bleating. "My father would be very angry if I were to do that," he said. "He's waiting for me to bring him his book. I must go."
"No, you can't. He's going to turn me into one of those creatures," I said.
"He said you need to become one. He told me that was your reason for returning to the city, so that you could be made different."
"He lies," I said. "All I want is to be let go."
He shook his head and started to turn away.
"One more minute," I said.
He waited and looked back over his shoulder.
"You say your father will be angry if you help me. Just think of his disappointment when I tell him that you coupled with the wolf girl, Greta Sykes."
The barbed tip of his tail snapped the air an inch from my eyes. "That is not true," he said.
"You know it is true, and he will know it is true. Do you think there is anything that your father cannot know, any truth he cannot uncover if given a clue? Three pairs of spectacles will not make you seem any less a beast after he knows you have joined with the werewolf."
He stood there staring down at me.
"Did you have a cigarette afterward?" I asked.
He winced at this remark, and I laughed out loud.
I thought for a moment that he was going to ignore me, but then I realized he was moving away only to place the memory book down on the seat of the metallic chair. He came back to me and, with two precise swipes of his claws, severed the straps.
Sliding off the table, I reached down into my boot and retrieved the Lady Claw I had carried with me from the island. I handed it to him. "Give this to him," I said. "Tell him you found it next to the table. He will think I escaped on my own."
"Yes," he said, and I could see the concept of deception dawning in his expression.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and put my face up to his. "Now go, quickly," I shouted. "Hurry." He left the room and, once outside, took off running.
Lifting the book from where he had laid it on the chair, I opened the cover and found the loose pages filled with rows of symbols rendered in a perfectly black ink. I had no time to sort them out just then, I had to get away from the city. The minute that Below knew of my escape, he would be after me. There was no stumbling to my run now as I headed out the door and began to retrace the path that Greta had used to bring me to the lab. I thought only of Anotine, especially those quiet, unamazing moments when we simply talked and shared the present. It was this that I was desperate to get back to again.