The Wayward Muse, page 11
After seeing Hillbeck, I set out on a much longer expedition, to pay a call that was somewhat overdue, of which my conversation in the Sprite had served to remind me.
Although it’s the highest point on the island, Snowspur isn’t really a mountain and is far more often capped with cloud than fallen snow. The exposure of the island to the weather-fronts moving eastwards from the ocean does, however, ensure that Snowspur suffers far more wind than any mainland ridge of comparable height. It’s struck by lightning with remarkable regularity, twice or three times every year; no tree that ever struggled to extend its branches to the sky from the ragged peak survived unblasted for long.
Snowspur’s peak was no place to build a house, but there was a hollow beneath an overhanging ledge, only a hundred meters from the summit, which qualified as a place of relative safety; it was there that Eirene Magdelana had established a home of sorts. She had improvised a series of walls beneath the ledge, compounded out of brick, loose stone, canvas, mortar and mud; they formed a chimerical edifice that was part hut and part tent. No sane person would have lived there, but no sane person did. There was only one man on the island who could instill enough composure in Eirene to enable her to remain coherent for an hour at a time, and only one who ever deigned to try.
A cold, damp April day was by no means the best time to make an ascent of the mountain, but I knew that the path leading from the road where I left Jean-Jacques to wait with the carriage was trustworthy and well-worn. Eirene walked up and down at least twice a week to obtain provisions from one of the farms nearby. She still had money lodged with the island’s banker; I had no idea how much, but I presumed that her capital would last as long as she did.
Eirene was sitting outside when I arrived, in the early afternoon–not in front of her residence but on top of it, on the ledge that formed its narrow roof. The cloud had let the summit alone for once, but the wind was blowing keenly from the northwest–the direction from which a keen-eyed person could just make out the tip of Lucifer’s Light.
“I knew you were coming, Axel,” she said. “You’ve news for me, I think. I’ve been waiting a while, but the wind bade me be patient and the rain didn’t care to let the secret out.”
She could have seen me approaching simply by walking 30 meters or so around the shoulder of the mountain, but that wasn’t what she meant.
“I’ve news of a sort, Eirene,” I agreed, as I laid out the gifts I had brought on the bare rock: a freshly-baked loaf, a round cheese, a bottle of red wine and a phial of laudanum. She picked up the bread immediately, and began to break it piece by piece, feeding the morsels into her mouth and nibbling at the cheese in between. I uncorked the wine for her and she took a liberal swing. She offered me the bottle, but I shook my head.
“The voice of the air is faint at the best of times,” she told me, between mouthfuls. “The spirits of the sea can only whisper, but their whisper is as clamorous as it is corrosive when they scent ripe flesh. There’s ripe flesh in this, Axel, and flesh that’s doomed to quick decay as well.”
“Not mine, I hope,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure of the wisdom of saying so, given that it was almost a question. Questions tended to confuse her.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice. “They can’t catch your scent,” she said. “Your flesh has no odor, for creatures of that kind.”
“There’s a new lighthouse-keeper on Lucifer,” I told her, wondering if his–or his sister’s–might be the “ripe flesh” of which she spoke.
“I dreamed about him,” Eirene admitted, furrowing her brow. “I dreamed that I knew him well, but I can’t see his face. It’s eclipsed by Edom’s–but all faces have grown somber now that I’m lost.” She sobbed abruptly, as she often did when pronouncing the name of her old mentor, but she didn’t pause for long. “What have you made of me, Edom?” she whispered. “What have you made of our dreams? But the keeper’s not the one... not the one who’s still to come, whose flesh is ripe... Oh, Edom, Edom! It’s my time too–I can’t imagine that I’m safe, Axel, when the clouds can reach me. The clouds are the sea riding on the wind, and they have the sea’s interests at heart as well as the sea’s power to drown and wash away. Had I not ceased to care about the demands of the flesh, I might be afraid. Oh Edom, Edom! Was it always bound to come to this?”
Her mournful tone wasn’t matched by any uncertainty in her actions. I watched her devouring the bread and the cheese, sucking on the mouth of the wine-bottle like a babe at the teat. I believed what she said, though. The demands of the flesh hadn’t released their grip on her, but she had ceased to care about the kinds of rewards they offered to ordinary folk.
While I watched her, the wind seemed to be eating into my flesh despite the warm cloak I had wrapped around my upper body. The cold air I drew into my lungs as I breathed seemed strangely dank and stagnant, although it should have felt fresh and sharp. I knew that the sensation had to be illusory, but I had no idea why I was dreaming it, let alone why I was dreaming it while wide awake
“The lighthouse-keeper’s name is Phelim Kracy,” I told Eirene Magdelana. “He has a sister, who used to live in a perpetual dream–I think she has awakened now, though.”
Eirene stopped eating, and sat very still for a moment or two. “Phelim,” she repeated, eventually. “Yes, that was his name, Phelim. A thankless child, but... not as thankless as Lucian.”
I presumed that she must mean Lucian Sombre, the reputed black magician: the father of her mentor, and the pioneer of modern morpheomorphology. I had no idea why she would describe him as “thankless.” The more interesting datum seemed to be that she seemed to know Phelim Kracy’s name. I had to be patient, though, and to hope that she would offer more information of her own volition before I risked prompting her.
After a while, she resumed eating, The food seemed to bring her down to Earth. She was nodding her head repeatedly as the information I had given her soaked into the deeper layers of her consciousness. “I knew that I knew him,” she said, “although his face was confused with another’s, and with Edom’s. So he’s coming here at last, a hundred years since the ship went down. Not chance, Axel. Not coincidence. The morpheotic flux is all astir; the sea and the rocks are dreaming, and Lucifer’s dream has been Lucian’s since Vyvyane went down. I knew. I knew I’d live to see the day, if not too many others. It’s the clouds, you see... the somber clouds...” Except, of course, that it might have been the Sombre clouds.
My breath had caught in my throat, but I suppressed the question that rose to my lips. I waited until she had shoved Edom Sombre’s image to the back of her mind and returned to the issue of present consideration.
“Phelim was a child when I last saw him, unformed by any dream,” Eirene went on, eventually. “His mother Karenne was one of Edom’s, one of Lucian’s... one of the favored few. I never ministered to her dreams as a healer might, alas... I never did. Bad woman, mother, healer... and mad.”
“Phelim came here with his sister Candida,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.
“No sister,” Eirene said. “All alone. If I had been a sister ...no need, no need at all. Poor Lucian.” She sobbed again, clearly in distress. I was still at a loss to know why; I hadn’t come to upset her, or to find out more about Phelim Kracy. I had to agree with her, though, that it couldn’t be chance, or mere coincidence, that she had known his mother. I didn’t believe that the world dreamed, or that its dreams could be shaped by any god or healer, but I knew that there had to be a pattern here, of causes and effects.
I knelt down and put my hand on the old woman’s shoulder. There seemed to be hardly any flesh upon the collarbone and the blade, but she wasn’t starving. She was old–75 at least, I thought–and it was time alone that was shriveling the meat on her bones. She was still powerful, though, in her own way. Her hands hadn’t much strength, but they certainly had power.
“They needed me,” she whispered, “but they couldn’t recognize their need, and I wouldn’t. Bad. So he’s come, has he... with his father following behind. Why? Running away? Yes, in panic–but panic sometimes leads us where we need to go... he’s drawn, Axel, like a toy on a string. He’ll come too, Axel, I know it. He’ll come too, now. But the sea scents ripe flesh, and there’s death and decay on the air. Bad... and mad. But music, too... music, too.”
I didn’t dare to ask for any explanation of the cryptic parts of this speech, although the puzzle seemed to be growing uncontrollably. Perhaps, in retrospect, it wasn’t just the fear of making her even more confused that stopped me; perhaps I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to spoil the game. There had always been an art in the interpretation of Eirene’s ramblings, and I was ever the artist.
I had guessed, of course, that there was a greater game afoot than Hecate’s haunting before I set foot on the mountain; now that I was here, sharing Eirene Magdelana’s communion with the winds, I was perfectly certain of it. I was haunted too, and not by any mere emotional infection. It wasn’t just to help Hecate that I had to go to Lucifer.
The cold had settled into my bones by now–but not lightly, as one would expect of mountain air. Whatever was welling up inside me was heavy. It was inside me, of course, even though it seemed to come from without. I was reacting to something–not merely something that was in the air, but something more profound. Unlike Eirene Magdelana, I had only a rudimentary morpheomorphic gift; the only dream-shaper I could influence very powerfully was my own, and the principal means by which I could do that was the application of my painter’s eye, which often saw more than my consciousness knew. I knew now that I had seen something at the Sprite when Hecate saw her ghost–something contained in Hecate’s frightened eyes, which had awakened the urge to paint her again. I had sensed something horrid; something that had to do, though I could not tell how or why, with the wreck of the Haemon Redondo. Hecate had sensed it too, although she had no more idea than I did as to what it might be.
There are puzzles that ought not to be hurried merely because they might lose their savor if they were; there are others which must not be hurried because they are intrinsically stubborn and grow rigid rather than yielding. This one was stubborn. I knew now, though, that I had been moved by some impulse wiser than my conscious mind to introduce the topic of morpheomorphism to the discussion in the Sprite, almost as soon as Hecate had confessed that she had seen a ghost.
There was art in all of this, and purer art than my personal taste could readily entertain.
“My friend Hecate Rain knows Phelim Kracy too,” I told the madwoman of Snowspur. “She was once in love with him, but it ended badly. She never expected to see him again–but she came here, and he has come too, albeit belatedly. I think she knew, without ever admitting to herself that she knew, that he would come here one day... because of the Haemon Redondo.”
“Even poets can be deaf to their inner voices,” Eirene observed, as the food took further effect on her composure. “Your friend came here for her own reasons, I dare say–but in her dreams she must always have known that he... they... would come here one day for their own, even if he never told her his most precious secret. You must be careful of your friend, Axel. Phelim is his father’s son. The ghosts can have no interest in her, but when ghosts rise, one woman’s flesh may smell as sweet as another’s... believe me, Axel, I know.”
I knew that Hecate believed in the surviving spirits of the dead, even though I had tried so hard and often to persuade her of their non-existence–and I knew, too, that because she believed in such things, they had the power to hurt her. Phelim Kracy must believe in that kind of ghost too; a man who believed that the maker of his dreams was a living entity, afflicted by a parasitic muse, would hardly scruple to believe that the dead might return. But the Haemon Redondo had gone down a hundred years ago, long before Phelim and Candida Kracy–or their mother–had been born. What, I wondered, could its dead possibly have to do with them?
“Hecate feels a need to confront the spectre of her lost love,” I told the morpheomorphist. “She’s been waiting a long time, without ever letting her waking mind know that she was waiting. I’ve agreed to accompany her to Lucifer when the low tide next exposes the old causeway.”
“You’ve no need to be afraid, Axel,” Eirene said, with an anxiety in her voice that did not suit the words. “You were my last success, my last prodigy. How proud Edom might have been of the kind of work I did with you, had he not had Lucian’s ambition to bear! You’ve made a peace with your dreams of which few men are capable. If you’re careful, you can shield your friend. As for the others... they can never be safe. Lucifer’s Light might be the worst place in the world for them, but it must be where they need to be. The Devil’s waters haven’t fed their addiction for a long while, and when the thirst for dissolution comes upon them, they’re more avid by far than any earth hungry for dry decay, or any fire eager for cremation. Were they here with me they’d be no safer, for the sea and the air have a compact whose amity is thunderous cloud. I’m not safe myself–although that doesn’t matter in the least, for there’s very little left of me now but dreams, and whatever may become of my flesh I shall be part of the world’s dream forever.”
“Dreams aren’t as real as that, Eirene,” I said to her–although I knew how dangerous it was to risk challenging her. “They may be beautiful, sublime, even powerful, but they can’t exist outside a dreamer. They’re not material, let alone alive.”
“Don’t try to tempt me, Axel,” she said. “You always try to tempt me, every time you come. You understand, although you pretend otherwise. Of course, they aren’t material–but who cares about that? They’re true. You know that very well. You come here with your bread and wine and cheese, always anxious for the fate of my flesh, but you know full well that the sustenance I offer you in return is more valuable by far. You pretend to be concerned for your friend, but you ceased to dream about her long ago. What you care about is the flow of the story, the color of the music, the mood and expression of the distant voice, the forlorn steps of the eternal dance of time and chance. You have an eye as keen as any I ever encountered, Axel, but your flesh has no odor in the elemental world. I think you were sent here to try me, but it won’t work. You have no power of seduction over me. I was the one who helped you to shape your dreams, Master Rathenius. I know you better than you know yourself.”
I didn’t point out that she didn’t know herself any longer, or that she no longer had sufficient clarity of mind, most of the time, to shape the dreams of a beetle or a bird. Her art was pure, now–powerful, to be sure, but entirely lacking in what Tybalt Sphendon would have called the ability to draw order out of chaos.
“I shall always be grateful to you, Mother Magdelana,” I said, sincerely. “You taught me the folly of aspiring to purity, and the necessity of imperfection in art.”
“Don’t mock me, Axel,” she said, grimly. “I could curse you yet, if I’d a mind to. Edom taught me more than you’ll ever know! I have spirits at my beck and call that dream the very fabric of matter and time. I could curse you all, but I never would. Karenne Kracy was my friend once, in spite of all that I did not do, and I balanced her baby on my two knees. I wouldn’t hurt a friend of yours, either, although you have not always shown your friends such consideration yourself. When I tell you that you have no need to be afraid, it’s because I expect you not to play the fool. If you’re determined to endanger yourself, I suppose, there’s no better time than now–and no better place to start than Lucifer.”
“I would never mock you, Mother Magdelana,” I said, still speaking with the utmost sincerity of which I was capable. “I value your advice, as I always have.”
“Well, you have it. I’ve been dreaming a great deal lately, and the wind has been insistent in its whispers. The dead won’t be easily avenged, but they’ll have their way. The sea will claim its due, in lives lost–but you’ll be safe, unless you’re reckless enough to endanger yourself. How’s that for an oracle, Master Doubter? How close must I be to the world of the dead to cry its news so clearly? But you brought news to me that I needed, so it’s only fair.”
It was more than I had expected, although it was less than I now desired to know. I wondered whether I dared to risk a question–but I didn’t know which of several carried the greatest risk, or might tell me what I needed to know if an answer were forthcoming. I decided to stick to my original intention. I moved closer to her, shuffling along on my knees, and I bowed my head. The cold in my bones shimmered like the surface of a Moonlit lake; I could see it now as well as feeling it, but it wasn’t yet a ghost. It had no face.
“I need a dream, Mother Magdelana,” I murmured. “I want to help my friend, and I need more insight to do it.”
She cackled. “Liar!” she said. “You want to help yourself, as always. And why shouldn’t you? You’re a visionary, Axel Rathenius, and visionaries must dream, whether their visions turn to nightmares, or dissolve in the song of wind and water. Oh, Edom, Edom! Why shouldn’t you offer yourself as a blade to cut, a swordpoint to penetrate, a brush to apply the color of the world? You’ll see the dead soon enough, Axel–why shouldn’t you do their work?”
So saying, she placed her hands on my head for a moment or two; then, turning her body squarely towards me, she put her arms around me and hugged me like a son.
I was too comfortable to realize, for a few minutes, that she was weeping copiously.
“It’s all right, Mother Magdelana,” I said, when I did realize–easing myself from her grip as I said it. “I don’t intend to lose you just yet to the wind and weather. It’ll be summer soon enough, and you’ll be warm again.”
“I don’t care whether my flesh is warm or not,” she said, bleakly. “My soul is safe within the dream of the world. I shall see you once more, Axel. Once more, and once only. You don’t have to be afraid. There really is no need to be afraid–unless you want to be.”
