With his free hand, the Traveler reached into a small pouch he wore around his waist and took out the white fruit. He gracefully brought it to his mouth and took a bite. Then he put the fruit away, took the piece from his mouth, and forced it between Aria's lips, all without casting a glance at her. Instead, he looked into my own eyes and told me silently but as clearly as if he were speaking that what I had wrought through my work was the very face of Death.
I cringed in my chair like a child, unable to look away from him. Then, I don't know where he found the strength in his willowy frame, but after replacing the cotton veil over her face he lifted her with one arm and slung her over his shoulder. Now carrying the baby in one arm and with Aria's form draped over him, he walked lightly to the window. There, he lifted one of his enormous feet and kicked the glass out with two well-placed blows. I could hear the shards breaking against the wooden sidewalk four stories below. With his passengers still secure in his grasp, he stepped up onto the windowsill and crouched so that his height fit into the opening.
"No," I said, knowing what he was about to do.
He turned his face to me and smiled.
I jumped out of my chair in order to try to stop him, my head pounding and my intestines tightening like a fist. I took three steps and then fell over the body of Garland. On my way to the floor, I watched them fall. I listened but did not hear anything hit the ground. With all my strength, I scrabbled to my feet and made my way to the window. Looking straight down, I expected to see them all sprawled like broken dolls on the walk. Instead, I saw nothing. They had vanished.
The fact that the ugliness I had projected onto Aria's face had killed Garland was too much for me to accept. I knew, even through the dizziness, as I staggered to the lab table and vomited, that he had been right and that, at this point, the Master would kill me as if I were just one more piece of human trash from the territory. My only chance was to try to make it out of town and hide in the surrounding forest. This seemed rather unlikely, considering the condition I was in. I had a feeling that it was over, the end of the line. I wanted to cry, seeing how far I had fallen in one short week. He was right: I was a vain and stupid man. One cannot serve a monster and expect not to be devoured someday. As I straightened up and cleaned myself off, my first thought was that worse than death would be my being sent to the sulphur mines. If I was to be brought back to the Weil-Built City for trial, I would have to find a way to commit suicide.
I left the room and staggered down the stairs to the lobby. There, lying in the middle of the floor, beneath the broken-down chandelier, were Mr. and Mrs. Mantakis, dead in each other's arms. A pool of their commingled blood spread out around them. It looked as if they each had been shot no less than twenty times. I stepped past them and could not believe that I felt a pang of remorse. Unbelievably, actual tears were welling in my eyes. I ran past them and pushed through the front door, knowing that the gruesome tableau I fled was a fraction of what Garland had seen in Aria's face.
Outside, the morning sun blinded me for a few moments as I tottered down the street, reeling from the aching of my head and joints. The continuing pains of withdrawal weTe era>wgh to make a bullet seem welcome. As my vision cleared, I saw bodies strewn everywhere in the street, fresh blood turning the fallen snow a deep red. Up by the church, I could make out the uniformed soldiers of the city. Gunshots sounded, and those without uniforms fell face first in a race to the ground. Flames billowed from the tops of buildings, devouring gray wood, and thick smoke spewed forth from the broken windows of the bank.
"Cley," I heard a familiar voice yell. I turned and saw the Master standing a hundred yards away. He was dressed in furs and wore a broad smile. Greta Sykes strained at a golden leash he held tightly. He waved to me. "It's been nice working with you," he called over the din of the mayhem. I saw him crouch down then, and he appeared to be whispering something in the werewolf's ear. Even from the considerable distance that separated us, I could see she looked exactly as she had in that vision or dream in which I had met them in the mines of Gronus. Then he unhooked her collar and she was dashing toward me.
I turned and tried to run, but at that very moment the coach and four came charging out from the alley between the bank and the theater. I lost all my will to live, knowing I was trapped. The breath left me in one great torrent as I prepared myself for the sharp fangs and long-suppressed revenge of Greta Sykes.
"Cley," I then heard another familiar voice call. I looked up and saw that the driver of the coach was not the Master's porcine henchman as I had expected but instead Bataldo. I thought I was going to be crushed beneath the horses' hooves and the wheels, but at the last moment, they swerved to my left and came to an abrupt stop. "Get in," said the mayor.
For a second, I could not move. When I did, it was to turn and see the werewolf push off the ground fifteen yards away, springing directly at my throat. The door of the coach opened and out stepped Calloo. He strode over and grabbed me with one hand, pulling me back out of the way. Then turning with a grace and precision I would not believe him capable of, he made a fist and drove it into the side of Greta Sykes' head, burying one of her metal bolts deep beneath the skull. She shorted out on the ground before my eyes, jerking, sparking, spewing yellow liquid as he dragged me to the coach and threw me inside. The door closed with a bang and the horses responded. We flew past the sound of whizzing bullets, children screaming, the Master laughing eternally deep behind my eyes.
We stopped briefly at the mayor's house to collect guns, ammunition, and warm coats and blankets. Calloo staved in the wooden wheels of the coach and turned the horses loose. He told me that it was held to be true that the demons of the wilderness had a special appetite for the flesh of domesticated animals, and the smell of the beasts would attract them like a magnet. Bataldo could not stop crying as he ran from room to room, setting the drapes and shelves of books, the bedding and the furniture on fire.
Outside, we stood for a moment at the boundary of the woods and watched the smoke pour from the open windows. The mayor told Calloo and me that he had watched as Drachton Below's werewolf ripped out and devoured his wife's intestines on the main street of Anamasobia.
"Why did you save me?" I asked as he wiped his eyes clear.
"It doesn't matter what we were, Cley. I was no innocent; none of us were. We will head for paradise. There is no room for hatred there."
Calloo simply nodded and then rested one of his huge hands on Bataldo's back as much to hurry him along as to comfort him.
We set out into that vast forest that the members of old man Beaton's expedition had referred to as the Beyond. I was still nauseous and aching from withdrawal, but I ran on and on, determined not to slow the others down, pacing myself a few yards behind Calloo, who seemed tireless. It felt good to run amid the tall barren trees, over the hardened snow. I felt like a child running away from my guilt. I did not care if I froze to death, if I was rent to pieces by demons, if I was caught and killed by the Master's troops. Had it not been for the elusive promise of Wenau, I probably would have sat down where I was and waited for Greta Sykes.
After running for an hour, the mayor collapsed on the snow, heaving for breath. We decided to stop and give him a few minutes rest. I could not have gone on much longer myself. From our position on top of a wooded hill, we could look back and see smoke from Anamasobia rising high into the air. Even as far away as we were, I noticed that a flurry of fine, black ash was falling around us.