I staggered across the hall, determined to finish the job before I lost all my senses. My mind was already reeling so terribly I could barely stay on my feet. I held myself up with one hand resting on the lab table and with the other I lifted the scalpel and tried to concentrate amid the quaking of my internal organs. The first shivering cut I made I knew was wrong, but there was no erasing here. I pushed on in an attempt to make another cut that would offset the one I had just made. This became a trap, and I pictured myself running headlong, deeper and deeper into a labyrinth from which there was no possible escape. My earlier precise incisions now became a desperate slashing, and the blood flowed freely, sometimes spurting across my shirt. Droplets of it momentarily blinded me. They landed on my lips, and the taste of it brought me to my knees. I struggled back to my feet, fighting off the flashes of blankness that turned my mind into a ball of night.
I continued like this, basically unconscious for some time, before, far off at a great distance, I heard myself scream in agony. Then I fell through the nausea, the freezing and burning of the chills, the tearing of my brain, the silence of my heart to a place I supposed was death but unfortunately wasn't.
I got an urgent message from the mayor that there was one more person I should definitely read before making my ultimate decision. "At this time of night?" I said to Mantakis, who was carrying his feather duster.
I put on my topcoat and took my bag of instruments. It was again snowing hard outside, and I only made the slowest headway down the street in the face of the fierce gales. The children had been out in the storm, I could tell, because the street was lined along both sides with frozen effigies of the Traveler. They appeared every now and then from behind the driving blizzard, staring down with cold eyes like a gauntlet of righteous judges. I trudged along for what seemed an eternity through the murmuring, twirling dark, and then suddenly I had arrived.
I knew I was going to trip and fall on the bottom step leading to the church and I did. Opening the big, crooked door that creaked with sounds of mirth, I entered. I took it slowly over the bridge, which seemed more unsteady than ever. In the altar chamber, only half the torches were lit. "Hello," I called, but there was no answer. The screen had again been set up, and the chairs we had used for the reading were sitting in the same positions.
"Hello," I called. In the dim light of the torches, the arms and faces of the hardened heroes appeared now to be flesh instead of stone. Either the wind outside or the echo of my own breath created a faint sound of breathing as if the church itself had life. The eyes of the painted God stared down on me.
From behind the screen came the sound of someone coughing.
"Hello there," I said. "Why didn't you answer?"
I set down my bag, took my coat off, and went to view the subject. As I stepped behind the screen, the torches blew out, bringing instant night. In a panic, I took a step forward. I felt two hands grab my wrists and pull me in. My hands were placed on a face and were made to glide over the features. At first it was all too unusual, but I felt the owner of the hands would do me no harm. Then the Physiognomy took over—math turning numbers to images in a most brilliant display of color in my mind. My body began to vibrate with energy as if I had become a machine.
Suddenly, the torches rekindled, shedding their blurred light. I found myself with my arms out, my hands manipulating thin air. This angered me greatly. In a fury, I put my coat on and grabbed my bag. Back out into the storm I went, muttering invectives at Anamasobia as I stumbled through another eternity.
I woke all too suddenly from the dream and could tell it was early the next morning by the bright light that streamed in through the window. I was shaky and nauseous and had a headache that nearly blinded me. Still, from where I sat in the chair by the small table Aria and I had shared dinner at a few nights ago, I could see her form. The cotton cloth that was attached to her head, now reddish brown with dried blood, was draped over her face. I could detect, by the gentle movement of her chest that she was still alive. I wanted to get up and see what I had done to her, but I was still too weak to move.
At first, I thought that it was all in my mind. Then I realized that the screaming voices I heard were not coming from the Mantakises but from out in the street. There was a great commotion going on somewhere, and if I was not mistaken there was the sound of either gunshots or fireworks. My first inclination was to think that perhaps the town was celebrating in their belief that the white fruit would soon be restored to the altar of the church. I wondered through the fog of my illness if perhaps I might not have been successful and that everything still might work out well, when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to my rooms.
I had no time to try to get up before the door to my study burst open. It was Garland.
' 'My god, what have you done?" he said, seeing Aria laid out on the table, her head surrounded by the bloody pads.
I reached into the pocket of my trousers for the derringer, but then remembered that I had left it in my topcoat the day before. I was about to yell at him to get out, when another figure appeared in the doorway. I thought it might be Calloo, judging from the size of him, but then my eyes focused and I saw the Traveler bending his head down in order to pass through the opening. What made the scene even more fantastic was that the thin, brown creature carried in one arm a baby swaddled in blankets.
"What kind of a circus act is this?" I asked, trying to sound powerful from within the cloud bank of withdrawal.
Garland walked over to stand before me, but I paid no attention to him. My eyes were on the Traveler, the way he moved, his long braided hair, the unearthly look of calm on his face.
"Your Master, the great Drachton Below, is here in Anama-sobia," said the father.
"What?" I said. Now Garland had my full attention.
"Oh yes," he said. "His soldiers are systematically murdering everyone. He has with him some wolfen creature that has torn the throats out of women and children. Hell has come to the territory."
"But how does this thing live?" I asked, pointing to the Traveler, who smiled gently at me.
"The fruit. I fed him one single bite of the fruit weeks ago when I first took it from the altar. Since then he has been recovering slowly. When you applied your ridiculous instruments to him, he was already well on his way back to life."
"So, Aria was right," I said. "The Physiognomy was right."
"When I ran at the altar and you kicked me, I was trying to confess, to spare her the consequences of having foolishly become involved with you. I can't waste my time on you," he said. "We are taking the girl and heading for Wenau. You, on the other hand, must go down and take your bullet. You're a vain, stupid, man, Cley. I would have killed you myself, but I think it more appropriate that your Master do it for me."
Everything was moving too fast for me to protest or even get out of the chair, and the sight of the Traveler paralyzed me with a fear, not for my safety but that the world could be so absolutely strange. They walked over, one on each side of the lab table. The baby began to cry and the Traveler softly touched the child's forehead, quieting it.
"Let's see what horror your nonsense has created," said the father. He reached out and lifted the cotton veil that covered Aria's face. The Traveler automatically brought up one of his huge hands to shield his sight as if the girl's visage were a blinding beacon. Garland was not so quick. Taking the invisible blast full in the face, it snapped his head back. He fell to the floor, and with a groan, expired, blood trickling from his nose and the corner of his gaping mouth. The holy man's face was transfixed with a look of absolute horror I had to turn away from.