"So try waking," said Fletcher.
"Huh?"
"If it's a dream, boy, try waking. Then we can get the skepticism over with and get down to some work."
Howie put his spectacles on again, bringing Fletcher's face back into focus. There was no smile on it.
"Go on," Fletcher said. "Get your doubts sorted through, because we haven't much time. This isn't a game. This isn't a dream. This is the world. And if you don't help me then there's more than your dime-store romance in jeopardy."
"Fuck you!" said Howie, making a fist. "I can wake up Watch!"
Mustering all his strength he delivered a punch to the tree beside him that shook the foliage overhead.
A few leaves dropped around him. Again he punched the coarse bark. The second blow hurt, as had the first. So did the third and the fourth. There was no wavering in Fletcher's image, however: he remained solid in the sunlight. Howie punched the tree again, feeling the skin on his knuckles break, and begin to bleed. Though the pain he felt mounted with each successive blow the scene around him offered no sign of capitulation. Determined to defy its hold he beat at the trunk again and again, as though this were some new exercise, designed not to strengthen the machine but to
wound it. No pain, no gain.
"Just a dream," he said to himself.
"You're not going to wake," Fletcher warned him. "Stop it now before you break something. Fingers aren't easy to come by. Took a few eons to get fingers—"
"It's just a dream," Howie said. "Just a dream."
"Stop, will you?"
There was more than an urge to break the dream fuelling Howie, however. Half a dozen other furies had risen to give momentum to these blows. Rage against Jo-Beth, and her mother, and his mother too come to that; against himself for his ignorance, for being a holy fool when the rest of the world was so damn wise, running rings around him. If he could shatter this illusion's hold on him he'd never be a fool again.
"You're going to break your hand, Howard—"
"I'm going to wake."
"Then what will you do?"
"I'm going to wake."
"But with a broken hand, what will you do when she wants you to touch her?"
He stopped, and looked round at Fletcher. The pain was suddenly excruciating. From the corner of his eye he could see that the bark of the tree was bright scarlet. He felt nauseous.
"She doesn't...want...me to touch her," he murmured. "She...locked me out..."
He let his wounded hand fall to his side. Blood was dripping from it, he knew, but he couldn't bear to look. The sweat on his face had suddenly turned to prickles of icy water. His joints had gone to water too. Giddily, he swung his throbbing hand away from Fletcher's eyes (dark, like his own; even the dead one) and up towards the sun.
A beam found him, shot between the leaves on to his face.
"It's...not...a dream," he murmured.
"There are easier proofs," he heard Fletcher remark through the whine that was filling his head.
"I'm...going to throw up..." he said. "I hate the sight..."
"Can't hear you, son."
"I hate the sight...of my...own..."
"Blood?" said Fletcher.
Howie nodded. It was an error. His brain spun in his skull, the connections confounded. His tongue gained sight, his ears tasted wax, his eyes felt the wet touch of his lids as they closed.
"I'm out of here," he thought, and collapsed.
Such a long time, son, waiting in the rock for a glimpse of the light. And now I'm here, I won't have a chance to enjoy it. Or you. No time to have fun with you, the way fathers should enjoy the company of their sons.
Howie moaned. The world was just out of sight. If he wanted to open his eyes it would be there, waiting for him. But Fletcher told him not to try too hard.
I've got you, he said.
It was true. Howie felt his father's arms surrounding him in the dark, wrapping him up. They felt huge. Or perhaps he'd shrunk; become a babe again.
I never had plans to be a father, Fletcher was saying. It was pretty much forced upon me by circumstance. The Jaff decided to make some children, you see, to have his agents in flesh. I was obliged to do the same.
"Jo-Beth?" Howie muttered.
Yes?
"Is she his or yours?"
His, of course. His.
"So we're not...brother and sister?"
No, of course not. She and her brother are of his making, you're of mine. That's why you have to help me, Howie. I'm weaker than he is. A dreamer. I always was. A drugged dreamer. He's already out there, raising his damn terata—
"His what?"
His creatures. His army. That's what he got from the comedian: something to carry him away. Me? I got nothing. Dying people don't have many fantasies. It's all fear. He loves fear.
"Who is he?"
The Jaff? My enemy.
"And who are you?"
His enemy.
"That's not an answer. I want a better answer than that."
It'd take too much time. We don't have time, Howie.
"Just the bones."
Howie felt Fletcher smile inside his head.
Oh...bones I can give you, his father said. Bones of birds and fishes. Things buried in the ground. Like memories. Back to the first cause.
"Am I stupid, or are you talking nonsense?"
I've so much to tell you, and so little time. Best I show you, maybe.
His voice had taken on a strained quality; Howie felt anxiety in it.
"What are you going to do?" he said.
I'm going to open up my mind, son.
"You're afraid..."
It'll be quite a ride. But I don't know any other way.
"I don't think I want to."
Too late, said Fletcher.
Howie felt the arms encircling him loosen their grip; felt himself falling from his parent's hold. This was the first of all nightmares surely; to be dropped. But gravity was askew in this thought-world. Instead of his father's face receding from him as he was released it appeared—vast, and growing vaster—as he toppled into it.
There were no words now, to reduce thought: only thoughts themselves, and those in abundance. Too much to understand. It was all Howie could do not to drown.
Don't fight, he heard his father instruct. Don't even try to swim. Let go. Sink into me. Be in me.
I won't be myself any longer, he returned. If I drown I won't be me. I'll be you. I don't want to be you.
Take the risk. There's no other way.
I won't! I can't! I have to...control.
He started to struggle against the element that surrounded him. Ideas and images kept breaking through his mind however. Thoughts fixed in his mind by another mind, that were beyond his present comprehension.
—Between this world, called the Cosm—also called the Clay, also called the Helter Incendo—between this world and the Metacosm, also called the Alibi, also called the Exordium and the Lonely Place, is a sea called Quiddity—
An image of that sea appeared in Howie's head, and amid the confusion was a sight he knew. He'd floated here, during the brief dream he'd shared with Jo-Beth. They'd been carried on a gentle tide, their hair tangled, their bodies brushing against each other. Recognition calmed his fears. He listened to Fletcher's instruction more closely now.
—and on that sea, there's an island—
He glimpsed it, albeit distantly.
It's called Ephemeris—
A beautiful word, and a beautiful place. Its head was couched in cloud, but there was light on its lower slopes. Not sunlight; the light of spirit.
I want to be there, Howie thought, I want to be there with Jo-Beth.
Forget her.
Tell me what's there. What's on Ephemeris?
The Great and Secret Show, his father's thoughts returned, which we see three times. At birth, at death and for one night when we sleep beside the love of our lives.
Jo-Beth.