“Harrison,” said Clarence, and despite being on the verge of kebab-hood, the kid shot me an evil look. “My name is Harrison Ely. We’re not your enemies.”
“Be interested to know why you think that’s true,” said the man. There was still something about his face that struck a chord, at least what I could see of it under the ashy pseudo-camouflage. “But I think I’d better leave the questions up to the rest.” He moved the drawn bow off Clarence long enough to gesture toward the door. If I’d been close enough I might have tackled him then, but I wasn’t. So I didn’t. “Go on,” he said. “You first. And make it quick—I’m not staying here any longer than I need to.”
• • •
I won’t bore you with a description of our entire journey, except to say that as we left the house and its charred perimeter behind, the scenery became increasingly impressive. No, that’s a stupid, weaselly word. It wasn’t impressive, it was stunning. Gorgeous. Transcendent, even; as affecting as the first time I’d seen it. As we made our way out of the grassy foothills and up into the lower reaches of the mountains, I again had the strangest sensation of being under the influence of psychedelics. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken them, but the “is”-ness of everything becomes almost heartbreaking. Water is so unbearably transparent and yet full of color, and moves so strangely. Light is more refracted. Textures are astounding, and details you would otherwise overlook, like the pattern of bark on a tree, become as intricately fascinating as the most engrossing piece of art. And everything, simply everything, seems almost to glow from within, as if it has been constructed just for you to see at that moment and admire in its peak of perfection.
Kainos, once we got away from the site of Anaita’s apparent hissy fit, was a lot like that. Not because we were on drugs, and not because it was somehow supernatural, but because it was sort of ultimately natural, like a landscape created to remind people that we were part of nature and nature was part of us. Each tree seemed to bask in a certainty of its place in the universe. The soil was pungent with the smells that soil can give you, and they were all, even the slightly foul ones, just glorious. Even the rocks seemed to have a presence, like fascinating people. But I think it was the sky that really did me in. It was just a sky—blue, high, and full of streaky clouds—but for nearly the first time in my life it felt like something that was truly the crown of creation, the milky sapphire that surrounded us, and in which we were all fortunate to live.
“It’s a beautiful place,” I said at last, because I felt like if I didn’t say something the feelings would make my chest explode.
“It is,” the stranger replied, and for a moment the watchful look on his face eased. “When I first came here, I’d just walk. Walk and walk for hours. Lie on my back and watch the clouds. Like being a kid again.”
And then I recognized him. It was something in the light as he looked up that brought back a photograph I’d seen in his house, one that had been taken when he was about the age he appeared to be now, hiking up a mountain somewhere, looking young, healthy, and full of purpose. Completely unlike what he’d looked like when I’d first seen him in the flesh, in fact. He had been pink then, very pink, and very, very dead.
“Edward Walker,” I said. “You’re Edward Lynes Walker.”
He turned so quickly I didn’t even have a chance to step back. The arrow on the tight-drawn string was only about three inches from my left eye. “How do you know me?”
I considered telling him how his death and the disappearance of his soul had started me on a journey through a world of craziness, had nearly got me killed or worse a couple of dozen times, and eventually led me even into Hell itself, but I decided it could wait until I had a better idea of how things stood here. “I knew you when you were alive,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true, but I had spent a lot of time studying the living Ed Walker, so it wasn’t a complete lie, either.
He wasn’t content with that, but I drew the line and politely refused to say more until we got to wherever we were going. He threatened me a little, but I could see his heart wasn’t really in it. He might have shot me if I’d tried to disarm him, or maybe even if I’d tried to run, but he was at heart a scientist and a humanist and couldn’t quite work up the anger to skewer me in cold blood. At last, and none too graciously, he told me to get going again.
The journey lasted through the dying afternoon, and I had the pleasure of watching the sun setting in a world I’d never visited before. Except I felt pretty sure I had.
“This is Earth, isn’t it?” I said.
“Bobby!” Clarence thought I was going to try to trick Walker, and he clearly didn’t feel as confident about the man’s unwillingness to murder as I did.
“Yeah, it is,” Walker said. “Seems to be, anyway. An Earth without people. No farms, no cities, no dykes or canals or roads. Not even Native Americans stringing salmon nets across the river.”
“Huh,” I said. “Place looks a lot happier without us, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Walker said. “Now, a little less chatter or someone’s going to hear an unfamiliar voice and put some arrows in you, and maybe hit me by accident. I hate those kind of accidents.”
I took the hint.
We hiked up what looked like a deer track, out of the scrubby oak forest and into something altogether more northern and more hoodoo. The air turned tangy with the smell of resin, and soon we were surrounded by redwoods and pines tall enough to block the light. I thought we must be getting close, since the cover was deep enough for hiding pretty much anything you wanted to hide, but I was still startled when a high-pitched voice out of the trees said, “Stop or you’re dead.”
“It’s me, Sharif,” Ed Walker called. “We’ve got company. Run ahead and tell them.”
“Will do!” said the voice, which sounded like it belonged to a young boy.
A few moments later we reached a level promontory. Men dressed in the same caveman-chic as Ed Walker appeared from the shadows, quickly surrounding us. They all had homemade weapons, cudgels, spears, and more bows, so I kept my hands visible and tried to look harmless. Clarence was doing it too, like a new kid on his first day of school.
“Give them some room,” a familiar voice called from back in the woods. Our captor walked us forward, through a good-sized crowd who had come to stare at us, until I could see a group of men and women around a small fire whose glow was almost completely blocked by the stones piled around it. Sitting in the middle, still wearing the tattered remains of the suit he’d had on the last time I’d seen him, but also wrapped in skins and rags as well, sat Sam. “That you, B?” he called. “Hey, and the kid, too! I was beginning to wonder if you were coming. Took you guys long enough.”
“I just got your message,” I said. “In fact, you were over in my neck of the woods, what, yesterday? So it hasn’t been very long. You okay, man?”
“Yesterday on Earth. It’s been a good bit longer here.” Sam laughed—not the cheerful kind. “So, what do you think of the place? I hope you like it, old buddy, because I don’t think any of us are going to be leaving.”
forty-three:
another fine mess
“WELL, DAMN, Ollie,” I said to Sam as we seated ourselves on a couple of the rocks ranged around the fire. “Sorry about this.”
“It’s one of your best, Stanley.” He shook his head in his best Oliver Hardy style. Usually this is funny, sort of, even when we’re in a horrible situation, but I don’t think either of us was feeling very cheerful. Knowing how much water you’ve both seen go under the bridge isn’t much comfort when the bridge finally collapses.
We all sat in silence and tried to warm our hands. Many of the Kainos-folk, who’d been watching our exchange like worried kids spying on the grown-ups, began to relax, or at least not to feel actively endangered. There were no real children, of course. Even the sentry Sharif, who in person turned out to look like a teenager, had probably lived a long full life, since that was the only kind of volunteer the Magians had recruited to come here, experienced adults willing to trade in the coin-flip of Heaven or Hell for a more nuanced afterlife. I imagine by now some of them were regretting the decision. Ragged, many of them bandaged, the Third Way pioneers looked a lot more like international refugees than the souls of the great and good enjoying their reward. A quick estimate of the number of campfires scattered through the woods told me there were probably only a few hundred survivors here in total. Not exactly an army.