Ambient (23 page)

"We kept running into people-"

"Bear us wist, and hold, Enid," someone said. "Your copesmates eye wary."

"From under lumps of gold serpent's heads lure with poison
tongue aflick," said the woman wearing a long blue nightshirt;
she looked almost normal, until beneath the brighter light I saw
that each eye held two pupils. "He may stand yet to let trail
bastard scutches trip fast upon our track."

"Bepissing us," said another, "striking deep with artful craft."

A young girl pushed forward, holding a tissue to her large blue
eyes-eyes constantly tearing, eyes set at the end of short stalks
rising from her face.

"Lozel's paws roam free from oppro knocks," she said. "And
set a bridge aspan to owner's shores. We know those ways, no
matter how thick the blood of sisters runs."

"Leah-" Enid began to say, but was interrupted.

"Leaving prints on every mind," she went on, "setting aghast
the undeserving. Smudging all with woodworm ways. Sighting
their paths ariding death's baby carriage. A secret stolen is a secret lost, Enid. A labyrinth broached sets loose the minotaur.
Danger's end must need quicken-"

"Bestill your mouth!" Enid shouted, moving next to me, raising her arms as if setting to fight. "My brother knows and respects our ways. He comes not incog, wrapped tight in liar's
shrouds. Seamus seeks his sister's shoulder, thereon to set his
head."

"Yet bonaroly there moves in mysterious ways, her wonders
to deform," said Ruben, staring at Avalon. "So vulture-eyed and
leering prim. Last eve she tarried en casa, Enid. In su casa. When
morningshade sent Serena off, beasts set aprowl through our
hough. "

"One we axed onehand," Lester laughed.

"Her charms seduce Seamus's flesh," Ruben continued.
"Drives him hard to twist and turn. What if her fire blinds his
eye and bums his sense away?"

"Toss by and see," Enid snapped. "There is naught to
fear-"

"Mayhap your sense is singed by brotherlove," Derek said,
brushing hair away from his mouth. "His fornicatress might with
ease slink murder past as you viz on, brow dim with thought of
one who was, but is no more."

"Bloody bloody balls," said Enid, her voice low.

"Those who folly deceive," screamed another, in the back,
"deceive all else so well-"

"Folly is as folly does," yelled Margot, swinging her swordstick, sidescuttling forth like a crab. She jumped down onto the
tracks with a thud and waddled toward us; I groaned as she once
more stamped upon my foot, digging in those nails. "Reason
runs when fear trips by. Lay still minds ablather and hear me."

They settled; Margot was considered by all to be one of the
most logical-and meanest-of their number. Her words usually
stuck where she threw them.

"Mewlypuke stands tall here, tall and stupid," she said, gesturing to me. "His lollipop, the same. What sins they tote are
writ plain on their eyebrows. Words of smoke these hoblobs grunt.
Clench easy if you stand to hold, but for whose point? Prick
pimples into ulcers for so much good as that. "

"They're not of us, Margot-"

"Caprichos up and down," she said, poking Avalon in the
stomach with her stick. "Here. Can't reap what can't be sown.
And eye those shiny whites filling her puss. Pop them out and
old gummy granny grins. As for him-" Taking her stick, lifting
it, she brought it down cleanly, knocking off my remaining ear.
"Ambients both," she said, flashing her sharp teeth. "Angels
unaware, mayhap. Fools sans money, morelike. So you would
carve your own? Tear the flesh that binds you? Spill the blood
that sets you springing? Go, then. Do your will. But bear my
words on bitter days later."

Margot's tact carried; the crowd relaxed. Undercurrents of words
suggested that they all gave pause to thought.

"Go your ways," she said. "Spend your fear in worthy guise. Peak your wonder and off. Enid and I shall layaway the cullions
to the safe house."

The group dispersed, eyeing us carefully as they disappeared
into the tunnel's void.

"Margot, thanks-" I began saying; she laid her stick hard
across my knees. I nearly fell down.

"Brainsitter," she said, crossing over to Enid. "For your loving sis I overed and conned and extraughted your way clear."

"Whatever," I said, rubbing my knees. "I'm glad it worked."

"Who reddied your sconce?" she asked, peering upward.
"Fools attempting to pound sense therein?"

"They weren't that charitable," I said. "Where are you going
to take us?"

"Home would be best," said Enid. "But if what you list holds,
they'll keep lights on for you all over. There'll be no rubs at the
safe house. There you'll stay womb-safe."

"How'll we get there?" asked Avalon.

"Trip with us in like paths, headbent evernear," said Margot.
"You'll settle soon enow."

Avalon looked puzzled, as if she didn't understand.

"Will there be anything to eat there?"

"Corpsechewers may gnaw their own picked bones-"

"Don't pish them so, Merricat," said Enid, reknotting my turban. "There'll be food of basic type."

"Good. "

"Ready and ablewill, then. Breeze with us now," said Enid.

"Will they find us?" asked Avalon. "Where we're going?"

"Once we skim they'll find us not at all," said Margot. "Time
weighs heavy and this station stinks with fear like fusty rooms.
The low road awaits. We'll slip away. Up and over, around and
down. "

Enid pulled an extra flash from her jacket and pitched it to
Avalon. Her own chainsaw swung freely below her arm, beneath
her wrap. She picked up Margot, perching her behind her head, on her shoulders; Margot's stubby legs vised Enid's neck. She
grasped Enid's spikes as if to steer.

"Those torches'll be all right?" I asked.

"Gas," said Enid, "eternal flames."

"I didn't know Con Ed still worked down here."

"Nor do they."

Just into the tunnel, beyond the light, I detected an unexpected
odor. Waving my flash along the walls, I saw iron cages hanging
from the overhead girders. In the cages were corpses of advanced
grades.

"Overzealous explorers," explained Enid, "who go because
it's there."

"And they're there," said Margot, "because we're here."

With every step it became clear to me that during our adventures I'd pulled all of my muscles while breaking my bones.

"At our casa you whiled last eve?" Enid asked. "In our room?"

"Yes," I said.

"Bedded there to bide away with sweetums?" she said. "Have
we then lost what Godness lent us to keep?"

"Sanity?" I asked.

"I spec he was all agog to let swive her unshelled motherspearl," said Margot. "Much maidenhead he'll answer for at
trumpet-time. "

"While leaving by traditional modes. In hand awaits ever relief's sweet kiss," said Enid.'

"His paws linger to grope grander fare, in glory high."

"Miss me?" I asked Margot.

"In your absence," she sighed, "so heartfond was I that all
clouds above turned gray-gold light."

"You understand them?" Avalon asked me.

"Sure," I said.

"Why do you talk like that?" she asked them.

"Our gab leaves weak minds apuzzle," said Margot. "With it
we select who gives ear."

Avalon stared at Enid; vizzed Margot bobbing along. "Aren't
those nails painful?" she asked.

"For those who fall upon," said Enid.

"A look as death redoubled finifies you," said Margot, turning
to eye Avalon. "Wherein did mewly press you on?"

"Pardon?"

"Flying you after airy promise and painted allure?"

"What?"

Margot laughed. "New bonnets for old boneache."

"You'll pick it up after a time," I told Avalon.

Enid steered her flash toward a dark passage leading off to the
right. "Waysalong here. Through the dark dark deep."

"This looks pleasant," I said; our coils of light streamed into
the passage's depths. It appeared no more than a crude tunnel
chiseled through. The chipped walls were daubed with niter, and
cobwebs; splashes of fungus enlivened the monochrome of the
rock. "Where does it go?"

"Follow," she said. "We adapted this to all purposes."

"Come this way often?" Avalon asked me.

"Often enough," Margot said, overhearing. "Such a traipse
encows you, sweets?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Avalon said.

"Your flabberskin all acreep?" Margot continued, so keen to
annoy as Enid wished to overlook. "These wet walls dry your
own as sludge bemires your twinkling toes?"

"There's no need to be so fuckin' nasty-" Avalon shouted.

"No need but much desire."

"Hushabye!" said Enid, stopping in midstride. "Don't spend
useful air ticing words to fill. Both assail overmuch overlong.
Hush and carry forth."

We hadn't gotten much further along before Avalon spoke once
more.

"What's your problem, anyway?" she asked Margot. "You
act like you think everyone's against you."

Margot, hearing this, laughed; had I not known her for so long
as I had, hearing that sound echoing through the dark would have
given rise to deepest terror. Her gaiety's rasp raked the skin bloody
raw.

"Think?" she said, calming enough to speak. "Know. Know
now, knew then, shall ever know. "

"What makes you think anyone cares?"

Margot turned her head, slowly, so as to face Avalon as we
pulled along. With the prescience so common to born Ambients
I knew she'd deciphered the inherent fear underlying Avalon's
distaste.

"Even in limoed path our way lends pause to smug minds,"
she said. "See us and see what dwells deep under seemly form,
beneath blue eyes and golden mops. No shelter gives shield to
our constancy. Our fire sets its own track, and by our glow, the
blind see. The deaf hear. The unknowing know. Those unafraid
tremble and shake."

"I didn't even know what Ambients were-" Avalon tried to
say.

"In younger time, nada listened and nada heard," Margot shot
back. "But our shouts painted the air even as we parted our
mother's legs. As their docs lifted us high, vizzed and swooned,
we hollered blast at that we reached unwanted. The gov buzzed
and clucked and left us to lozel's paws and the tests of wrinkle-
wizzers. Pillpushers took our tears to make for spit. But no one
wanted but those who bore. All others stilled their games and let
drop their chains. Had they pick they'd have doublebagged us
and dropped us full fathom doubledeep. They didn't. So they
skipped, and so we sprouted, cleaved from all eight times tri-
pleover. All viz early when vizzing with Ambient eyes. So
we vizzed, looking in mirrors, aghast at what we saw. We
knew. "

As Margot spoke, the most peculiar sense appeared in her voice's
tone-that, I think, is the only way it may be properly described. It seemed a sense not so much of regret as of disgust; not so filled
with sadness as with a sense of waste.

"None but our bearers cared," Margot continued. "And one
by one they shuffled off. We kept alone. Given wood for cake
and stones for bread, our way lined each morn with numps and
nowls and gagtoothed pricksters all achant, bespewing larkish
cries of freak freak freak. . . . Blood drained alone speckles and
tars where one may stand. Blood drained from all at once floods
high and drowns those who break the wounds. So by the Goblin
Year we'd sealed our bond; to our own and to our own only,
keep ever true. We buried ourselves neath the stones they tossed.
Made ourselves fast within the splits of the sticks they slung. Our
teeth chop hard when idle fingers pry, and so we chopped when
need called. We took the Godness they tossed off so freely and
fizzed in whose image our own forms took shape. The wise, then,
forbear, and leave us as we list, and one morn our sun shall shine-

"The wild wind reaps. The seed sowed grows the fruit as given.
This sorry world's ear listens in vain. We speak to the new world,
await solution for the trials bespoken. For oppro to set loose over
the windfuckers who troubled then and trouble now. A chance
regiven for all, in all, and to all, for a world so new it's not out
of the box. The slow fasts, the last firsts. As shall we."

The tunnel narrowed before it widened again, and with some
effort we all scraped through. We reached what appeared once to
have been one of the old equipment rooms.

"There aren't enough of you to change anything," said Avalon.

"In form, no," said Margot. "In spirit, twenty times redoubled. Our pest spreads like bloody flux. Once the bonebag withers, the soul goes traipsing light. Ambient is as Ambient does, at
end's turn. To know us is to be us."

"I'm not Ambient," said Avalon.

"Time tells," said Margot, "time sees. He knows." She nodded toward me, and smiled.

"Here now," said Enid, gesturing toward a metal disc embedded in the floor's wet concrete. "Lift away, Seamus."

As I lifted the heavy cover, hundreds of enormous beetles
dripped off, dropping down my sleeves, falling onto the floor,
scurrying away over our shoes. I tossed the lid away; my yipes
resounded.

"I so hate those beasts," said Enid, lowering her flash.

"You don't mind them at home," I said, brushing off
strays.

"In casa they move in gentle shape," she said. A ladder led
downward, I saw, its rungs glistening. Enid motioned for me to
go first. I did; they followed. It smelled worse here than it had in
the subway, or in the street. For long minutes I felt stifled, as if
my head had been unwrapped in filthy bags; then my nose grew
used to it, and I could breathe once more. Aiming my flash in all
directions, once down, I saw that we were in another tunnel, half
the size of the subway. In it stood water two feet deep, black and
smooth.

"Where are we?" Avalon asked; I helped her off the ladder,
letting her straddle my back so as to keep her feet out of the water
as we danced through.

"In the sewers," I said. "One of the old mainlines, judging
from the size."