Silence finds Diamond.
And the silence has shape and color, and it has meanings as deep and true as any word, and this misplaced boy suddenly hears what can only be a warning.
“Be wary,” says the presence, the Other.
Diamond isn’t breathing, and he might never breathe again.
“Danger is everywhere,” it says.
In the quietest fashion, Diamond whispers, “Monsters.”
“There are no monsters,” says the voice.
Diamond fumbles with words, with concepts. Then to the invisible agent, he says, “But there are evil ones.”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is no evil,” the voice warns. “Everything is good, and that is the ruin of All . . . !”
ONE
Wind came before the sun.
Nothing changed and nothing changed, night holding tight to the world, and then wet hot masses of angry air rose in a thousand places, suddenly punching their way through the demon floor far below the vast tree canopy.
Shifting pressures were felt. Every ear heard portentous rumblings from below. Leaves twisted in response, ready to let the wind pass, while nocturnal insects found hiding places and sleeping birds instinctively clung to prized perches. The empty air between the demon floor and canopy was crossed in a few recitations. The first impacts lifted small limbs while broad strong branches creaked and moaned but refused to bend, fighting the rising wind until the atmosphere turned furious, and then the entire canopy groaned with wrenching voices, the first touch of the day driving itself up where the great trees hung from the roof of the world.
Hundreds of thousands of nights had ended exactly this way, and Marduk had endured each of those mornings. Strong dead heartwood and the vigorous sapwood formed a single column encased inside bark and walkways and landings and homes. Every airship was in its berth, securely tethered. Bright electric lights blazed in the gloom, along with luminescent panels and forgotten candles. Rope lifts and elevators were shut down, and the few people who found themselves outdoors felt the tree shiver and heard the wind’s roar pressing close, and buttoning down whatever raingear was in reach, they either dropped low and grabbed hold of any likely handle, or they took a different measure of the danger, walking to the edge of a landing, watching the gale come straight up into their grinning faces.
Good and Diamond were awake and maybe they had been for a little while. Each yawned, and the boy sat up in bed as the first spray of rain swept across the window, and the monkey jumped to the floor and shuffled over to the old chamber pot, efficiently doing his business.
On the floor beneath the bed was a fancy metronome—a recent gift from his Archon, from Prima. Diamond pulled it out. Eight hundred recitations was the count—a short night. But he had guessed twelve hundred, judging by how hard he slept and how rested he felt and no residue of dreams.
Good helped himself to the bakebear fruit left from last night. Picking up the chamber pot, Diamond walked down the hallway, dumping the pot and using the toilet and then washing his hands with the hard soap that smelled like bride-witch flowers. By the time he returned to his room, the wind was screaming and there was as much water as there was air outside. The monkey was back on the bed, napping on Diamond’s warm pillow. Diamond pushed his face against the reinforced glass. An electric security light rocked above the locked gate. Two guards were huddled beside the gate, one inside and one out, each wearing a rubber poncho blacker than the rest of the world, resembling lumpy globs of corona fat, faceless and unwilling to move. But the third guard had abandoned his post at the house doorway, standing at the far end of the landing instead. Wearing a long poncho, the figure was perched on the brink of the open air, both hands on the railing and the feet apart, short strong legs and the stronger shoulders able to fend off the gusts and the sprays of water and every reasonable urge to stay safe and dry.
Short nights usually brought small rains and quick bright dawns.
Diamond put on yesterday’s play trousers and shirt, and then he sat beside the monkey, thinking about nothing, about everything, his mind following no particular direction while the first trace of the sun began to emerge.
Good woke and grunted at him.
The boy put two of his fingers inside the monkey’s mouth, on top of the very wet tongue.
“No,” Good said, spitting him out.
Nobody liked to be teased.
The ruddy glow was strongest near the trees, while out in the distance, where the water was thickest, the storm pushed like hot fingers high into the forest.
Diamond slid off the bed again.
“Stay,” said Good.
“You stay,” he said.
“No.”
One led the other to the locked house door, and Diamond threw the steel bolt and pushed against the pressurized air. The storm slipped through the gaps and around their feet, and then the bright keening sound fell away, leaving the home quiet again.
Good went as far as the curtain, where he planted his feet, saying, “I tell. I tell I am good, you are bad.”
“All right,” the boy said, pushing through the heavy curtain.
The first touch of rain always felt chilled, which was peculiar because it was warm enough to be bathwater. His clothes were drenched in an instant. Bare feet slid across the face of the landing, and noticing him, the sitting guards yelled at each other. The man inside the gate fought his way to his feet, but he plainly didn’t want to bother with this craziness.
Diamond broke into a slow run.
The original landing had been small, old, and in poor repair, and on her own authority, the Archon decided to have it torn away, replacing the structure with more wood and a fine eye on security. In principle, there was no way for Diamond to be hurt. The worst storm might throw him around, but the net and high railing wouldn’t let him fall. Freak winds sometimes broke necks, but his neck would heal, and this happened to be a weak dawn already past its most dangerous prime.
The one guard shuffled after him, shouting with all of his authority, words scrubbed by the wind until nothing remained except anger mixed with a great heap of outrage: his slight comfort had been disturbed by a boy’s impulse.
The third guard was still standing at the rail. Hearing the shouts, the broad back straightened, and leaving one hand holding tight, he turned and knelt down, putting his face even with the boy’s. But it wasn’t any face that Diamond expected. He knew every guard, and this was somebody else. Pulling up short, he gave a little jump, and the man shouted, “Your mother is going to be angry with you.”
“With both of us,” Diamond said.
“Probably so,” Father said.
“Where’s the other guard?”
“He went home sick. I volunteered to take over.”
The unexpected always made the boy laugh.
Then Father swung his free hand, as if clearing a space beside him. “You can’t get any wetter, I suppose. So come here and have a good look, before we pay your mother’s price.”
But Mother was in an agreeable mood. She had to give both of them her cutting gaze, shaking her head in supreme disappointment, but there wasn’t a word about her son being drenched or her husband pretending to be a dangerous young man. She reminded them where to find clean towels. She promised a rack of heart-melons if her boys would pull them from the oven in ten, no, nine recitations. Then she opened the house line and began calling women-friends, organizing her day.
Diamond and his father ate the roasted melons and dipped yesterday’s baby loafs in sweet oil, and Good consumed his share before hurrying outdoors, ready to defend his territory and perhaps have fun with his girlfriends. There was still time for a second meal before school. School occupied only the long middle of each day, save for holidays and vacations and illness. Except Diamond never became sick. A stomach virus once made half of his class throw up, but not him. Germs were no more dangerous than the air to him. Yet people talked about feeling better after vomiting, and on the principle that he might feel better than he was, he sometimes used a finger, vainly trying to take part in this ritual of purging and renewal.