Yes, said Gip.
Raven snapped three times. From the white trunk flew doves, he extended his arms, three landed on the left, two on the right. His expression clouded. He motioned with his fingertips, glared at the trunk. No sixth bird appeared. Snapped three more times. Nothing. The crowd shifted uneasily, the lack of symmetry was unsettling.
With a shrug, Raven lifted his hands over his head, the doves exploded into a shower of sparks. Kellogg screamed and lunged, a Helper straightarmed him behind the barricade. But Gip seemed less frightened than delighted: all around him fire came sizzling down, and he spun happily as though basking in the year’s first snowstorm.
THE AIR IN THE cavern felt diluted, sapped. Debbie was bumped from behind. This time the touch didn’t feel sensual, but urgent. People seemed to be congregating with new purpose, someone pushed her — and the whole group heaved and she was swept up, into the tunnel, bodies pressed around her on all sides.
And now they were running.
Down they went, zagging left, a hard right — starlings wheeling in a massive flock. No one said anything. The tunnel descended, swerved, Debbie tripped but she was caught and bolstered, there was no room to falclass="underline" a mad, wordless stampede down through the dim warrens of the city.
On they went, and then the tunnel seemed to angle upward again. Debbie’s feet met stairs. She climbed, she was lifted. Ahead a shaft of light shone from some window or opening, and they reached it and burst into the night. The air felt sharp and cool. She looked around: they’d surfaced inside the gates of the Mount Mustela Necropolis.
Pushed up from underground — disinterred — here they were, a faceless horde, their numbers inestimably fading into the shadows. Everyone had gone still. The only movement came from a shirtless guy in a strange helmet, hoisting a lithe figure atop the roof of a little crypt. This person rose to her feet and swept back her hood: the girl with the handprint haircut.
Everyone pressed in close, leaving Debbie behind. The Hand moved to the edge of the crypt’s roof, a pastor facing her parish. No one said anything. The silence reminded Debbie of that dreadful empty moment between a screech of tires and the explosion of steel and glass.
The Hand spoke: Look!
She pointed east, where a brilliant gloriole floated above People Park — the stagelights fanning up from the common in a silky wash. Then she pointed west: the entire Zone was cast in darkness, lights out all the way from Whitehall to Lowell Canal. And, finally, south: in LOT the Dredge Niteclub glowed in purple strips around its rooftop, the Mews sparkled and gleamed, Mount Mustela glittered like a circuitboard.
Here it’s just darkness and damp cold, preached the Hand. There it’s all sunshine.
Voices swelled in dissent — shouts, jeers, someone barked, someone squawked.
The Hand hushed them, beckoned them closer.
Debbie, abandoned on the periphery, realized the Hand was whispering. She caught a few chilling words — All their good deeds and dreams won’t save them — and backed away, ducked behind a gravestone, crawled into a scraggle of shrubs, and lay there in the cool wet earth, her pulse throbbing through her entire body, while the Hand murmured instructions Debbie couldn’t hear to the mob among the graves.
PLEASE, SAID RAVEN, Gip, reach into this trunk and pull out everything you find.
Gip produced a straitjacket, a half-dozen locks, various harnesses and clasps, leather straps, a length of chain that unravelled, yard after yard, into a pile. While this collected at Gip’s feet, a Helper shuffled onstage — the sketchy character with the facial growth.
Raven covered his microphone, hissed, Get out of here.
The guy went scuttling past the trunk and off into the shadows.
Did that man drop something inside that box? said Kellogg. Pearly? A piece of paper? Pearl?
Pearl squeezed Kellogg. Pure delight lit her eyes. How about our boy up there, she whispered. Look at him! He’s so happy. Have you ever seen him so happy?
The chain’s end wriggled clanking onto the stage.
Kellogg, for the benefit of anyone within earshot, hollered, That’s our boy!
Raven knelt. Gip, please install me in these restraints. Go on. Begin with the straitjacket. Yes, one arm here, the other here. Now these buckles, there you go.
Gip did as he was told. Closeups appeared on the videoscreens. Everyone watched.
Now test the clasps, said Raven. Make sure they’re tight. How old are you, Gip?
Ten and one quarter, said Gip, yanking at an errant cord. Nearly two.
Ten and two quarters! Is that more or less than ten and a half?
Obediently, the crowd laughed.
Gip straightened. They’re all done.
Good, Gip! Good. Yes, they’re very goodly tight indeed.
Isa Lanyess wondered, An escape trick? and Wagstaffe scoffed, You can bet he’s got something a lot more exciting in store than that, and those watching had to agree. Those not watching included Cora and Rupe, flushed into the lightless courtyard of Laing Towers with a dozen co-residents: no one had any power, what was there to do?
Now, Gip, if you could just step back about five feet — yes, that’s it, a bit farther. .
Onto the stage came two Helpers (not the weirdo, noted Kellogg, he’d disappeared) to lower the bound illustrationist into the trunk. A camera swooped overhead and Raven appeared on the videoscreens, a mummy in its sarcophagus.
While my illustration transpires, said Raven, I will be in seclusion. Let good Gip be your guide. And remember: that which we see with our own eyes is the only true miracle.
From somewhere: drumrolls, a splash of cymbals.
The truth is nearly upon you! screamed Raven. I will reveal it from here, like this. Gip, good man, shut me into this box, lock it surely.
Gip closed the lid. The two Helpers swept up the chains, wound them around the trunk, helped him slide the locks in place. The crowd cheered.
Kellogg nudged Pearl. That’s our boy!
Over the loudspeakers came Raven’s muffled voice: Thank you, Gip! Everyone, a round of applause for Gip. Now, if I can direct your attention to the videoscreens. .
FROM ITS ONRAMP Guardian Bridge reminded Calum of a woman, knees up and spread, and he smiled a little at the thought of a retreat down the birth canal — what a perfect way to start a new life. Lights ran along the suspension cables in lilting rows reflected shivering below in the water. Above: a starless sky, a faint moon like a pearl lodged in mucky riverbed. Across the Narrows was the mainland, so close.
From the loudspeakers in People Park Raven implored, Believe, believe. .
With a great boom, the bridge disappeared. Where its outline had been traced in lights now hung only the night. For a moment Calum felt he might be falling — but the road remained steady under his feet. He was not floating in space. The bridge wasn’t gone at all. The lights had merely been turned off. He stepped forward: solid ground.
Calum took another step, another, each one met pavement, and now he was walking out along the pedestrian concourse, gaining confidence. In fact this darkness abetted his escape. He even laughed, though nervously, it was eerie to be moving through such pitch.
A dozen paces out, twenty, fifty. He reached the bridge’s midpoint — halfway there.
And back on the island the drums started up again.
Calum stopped. He turned. People Park glowed.
My friends, said Raven, his voice echoing, with the guidance of good Gip Poole, and bolstered by your nature, are you ready to believe?
The crowd roared.
Do you believe?
From the thousands in People Park came a frenzied bawling, beastly and primal, hungry and desperate. It chilled Calum. He couldn’t move.