Cosmocopia (12 page)

The penthouse was mostly dark, with just a single handheld candle lighting a small sphere of space: Lazorg and Serrapane standing close to each other, near cushions, not inspecting the rack of finished ideations.

Crutchsump cleared her throat noisily, and the two turned to face her.

The strings of Serrapane’s caul dangled loose.

And at that exact moment, Crutchsump knew what she must do to keep Lazorg.

8. Love and Ghosts

THE SHRINE RUN BY Palisander hadn’t changed in any objectively discernible manner in the past year, but to Crutchsump’s eyes the two-room ghetto outpost of the Cosmocopian teachings appeared to have shrunken and acquired new layers of grime, poverty and despair. She marveled at how the ineffable majesty of the Cosmocopia could be contained in such a humble hole. (And the visit here certainly dissuaded her immediately from seeking out the old apartment she had shared with Lazorg, where their romance had first been consummated, for fear of experiencing a similar dreary disillusionment.)

Behind Crutchsump, entering the shrine through its clattering curtain, Lazorg said, “I can’t believe I let you drag me here. Don’t you know I should be home doing studies? I’m using Dunt as a model for small busts. He’ll do well enough, until I feel confident in having Serrapane sit for me.”

“I know your work is important, Lazorg. But this visit is too.”

“I’m not making the progress I thought I would. It’s these damn cauls. They hide so much that’s distinctive to an individual. Mouth, cheekbones, jaw line—I know the veils are socially necessary, but still. … If only I could convince Serrapane to sit face-naked—what a triumph! I know I’d craft a masterpiece then! Although how could she possibly show the portrait off to anyone afterwards!”

Crutchsump bit the inside of her cheek to keep from replying to this bold effrontery. How could Lazorg dare to display his infidelity and lust so openly, masquerading as artistic ambition?

Or did his alien origin innocently betray propriety?

She couldn’t decide.

But given what she had witnessed, she knew she couldn’t risk not acting on her worst suspicions.

Confronted in the penthouse on the night of the dinner, both Serrapane and Lazorg had cavalierly shrugged off Crutchsump’s polite but brittle insistence on knowing what they were about. Serrapane casually securing her caul as if it had come undone in a wind, the trio had rejoined the dinner party amidst a politely suppressed air of general curiosity. And the next day, Crutchsump had chosen not to trouble Lazorg with any further accusations or imputations.

Argument or threats or recriminations were all beside the point anyway: she possessed ultimate confidence in her instantly inspired plan to retain Lazorg’s affections forever.

A plan which would utilize Serrapane’s own grandiose séance, and which first involved a visit to Palisander.

Crutchsump advanced to the altar. “I know your work is very important, dear. But so is this visit. And it won’t take long. You need to understand about ghosts, and I don’t have the words. They’re dangerous, and you’re not familiar with them, being from another plane.”

Lazorg seemed to take these words to heart. “Well, all right. I admit that much about this plane is still foreign to me.”

Crutchsump grabbed a handful of incense sticks and began arranging them in the sand-filled pot set before the Cosmocopian model. “I only have your safety at heart, Lazorg.”

The incense smoldering, they ventured into Palisander’s private quarters.

The noetic had removed his traditional loaf of a hat and was furiously scratching his scalp through his caul. He replaced the hat with whatever dignity remained to him, exclaiming, “Conceptus blast this case of scaly itch! Not even Hackberry’s Salve works! Now, how can I help you, children?”

Crutchsump laid a hefty sum of scintilla into a brazen bowl, and Palisander assumed an attentive pose.

“I’d like you to explain ghosts to Lazorg.”

Lazorg preempted Palisander. “I never believed in ghosts back home. But I’m willing to admit they exist here. Still, what real harm can the dead do to the living? Spirits are by definition immaterial. They can only affect weak psyches.”

Palisander looked at Crutchsump, who returned his gaze and shrugged.

“What are you talking about?” the noetic asked Lazorg.

“Ghosts. The uneasy souls of the dead.”

“That may be what ghosts are on your plane, but such is not the case here.”

“What are your ghosts then?”

“Ghosts, insofar as long experience with them over millennia have taught us, are direct sendings from the Conceptus, his agents.”

Lazorg blithely waved off the mention of that distant demiurge. “That grain of sand at the heart of the Cosmocopian pearl? How can anyone know anything definite about the doings of such an enigma?”

“This is the job of a noetic, to assimilate all the lore and wisdom relating to the Conceptus, cadged one iota at a time from the grudging multiverse. You may trust what I tell you as being the most expert knowledge available.”

“All right, all right, then. The Conceptus sends out his ghosts. Why? What are they? And what do they accomplish?”

“Like your ghosts, ours are immaterial but visible. Ghosts roam our world indiscriminately, seeking receptive minds to fasten upon. The kind of mind they look for is one possessed of a deep yearning ache, an emotional and spiritual wound. We hypothesize that ghosts are a mechanism engineered by the Conceptus to remedy any innate defects in his creation. The ghost seeks to supply whatever the person feels they must have to fill their void.”

“Seeks to supply? How?”

“By reifying the wish.”

Lazorg contemplated this momentarily. “You get whatever you wish for from a ghost? Why avoid them?”

“Wishes are dangerous. Everyone knows that.”

“Why have I never seen a ghost?”

“Sidetrack City is entirely protected against them. Surely you’ve noted ghost catchers everywhere, inside and out.”

Crutchsump chimed in. “That’s one reason hunting the volvox was so dangerous, Lazorg, why so few attempted it. I never mentioned it at the time. I was afraid you wouldn’t risk it with me then, and we needed the money so badly. But we were outside the city, unprotected. I just prayed neither one of us were in such a state as to attract a ghost.”

Lazorg tugged irritably at his caul. “Let’s assume all that you tell me is true. Why do I need to know this?”

“Because,” said Crutchsump, “we’re going to a séance. Serrapane is going to bring down a ghost. And you have to be mentally prepared.”

“The point of séance,” added Palisander, “is to converse with a ghost, tease it, seek to learn mystical tidbits, yet not invite or succumb to its blandishments. It’s foolish, almost like racing your flumerfelt mount to the edge of a high cliff and hoping you can pull up short in time. But people do it regardless.”

“Well, if that’s all the two of you are worried about, then have no fear. I’ve currently got everything I desire. A loving mate, my art, wealth—No ghost is going to fasten on me.”

No indeed
, thought Crutchsump.
Any ghost will be drawn to me, and me alone.

Beneath an ebony-lilac night sky shot through with looping filamentary walls of polychromatic stars, the lead carriage in a long parade pulled up at Serrapane’s doorstep. The driver, high atop his perch, worked a lever, and the curbside carriage door swung open. Out stepped Crutchsump and Lazorg.

Crutchsump stopped a moment to marvel, her arm entwined with Lazorg’s.

Whereas she and Lazorg lived in expansive comfort on three floors, Serrapane resided in sheer opulence. Her home, an ancestral manse, squatted on an entire city block, bounded by streets denominated Stanch, Greenwallet, Blackseep and Gandy. The family’s wealth derived from mercantile trade with other regions and cities such as Lyndtorke, East Pitchblende, Fazzbazz and distant Tarsialand, beyond the Rapeseed Mountains.

Now the palazzo shone with the light of torches along its first-floor façade. Candlelight poured forth from the windows. Music drifted out: sackbut, hautboy, kora and thumb piano.

Crutchsump stood in awe of the manse, with its walls of amber sandstone, lintels of travertine, and stained glass windows exhibiting the ideational family crest: a trader’s barquentine with sails bellied out in an imaginary wind. At five stories, the building was the tallest in the whole district.

Every moment new guests arrived, being discharged from their carriages and pushing past Lazorg and Crutchsump.

Finally Lazorg grew impatient. “Enough gawping. Let’s go inside.”

Crutchsump regarded Lazorg, big and handsome in his suit of lisle and swallows-silk. By now, his cruel lack of an introciptor hardly registered on her apprehension of his innate selfhood. Especially since she knew his secret virility.

She tugged nervously at the hem of her own maroon trapunto jacket, thinking of the fateful séance that lay ahead. “All right, I’m ready.”

They climbed a broad set of steps and were ushered by liveried servants into a capacious ballroom already half-filled with partygoers. They found their hands almost immediately occupied with drinks and finger foods.

Across the wide room their hostess, domineering and impressive in an exotic caftan and caul adorned with gemstones, presided over an adoring claque.

Lazorg’s gaze went to Serrapane, but then jagged off. “There’s Arbogast,” he said. “I need to ask him why my Brumidi tranche is giving me resistance along the fourth integral. You feel free to mingle, little Moley.”

Lazorg patted her shoulder affectionately, then stepped off.

Crutchsump meandered slowly through the crowd, listening to snatches of conversation, admiring the clothes, saying hello to and chatting with the minority of people she recognized from among Lazorg’s clients. The necessity for partially unfastened cauls to accommodate eating gave the whole evening a louche cast.

Her gut brain fluttered nervously, anticipating the séance.

That risky recreation, she knew, would not be open to the masses, but only to a select coterie. Crutchsump had no intention of being excluded, and so stayed always in sight of Serrapane. She did not try to track Lazorg’s path through the crowd, certain that he would soon affix himself to his patron. And without fail, before too long he validated her instincts, stationing himself at Serrapane’s elbow.

As the hour approached midnight, Crutchsump, in the midst of a yawn, noted Serrapane, Lazorg and several others trending slyly toward an exit from the ballroom. She hastened to attach herself to the elite subset.

Serrapane grudgingly acknowledged Crutchsump’s arrival with a slight nod.

“Ah, dear Crutchsump. We couldn’t spot you anywhere, you blend into the background so demurely. Thank goodness you found us. The ghosts would have lamented your absence, I’m sure.”

“They would have been alone in that emotion, I fear.”

Lazorg had the good graces to look guilty. He took Crutchsump by the arm. “Don’t feel bad, I wouldn’t have left you behind.”

Crutchsump squeezed his bicep. “I’ll always be by your side, Lazorg, no matter what happens.”

Serrapane partially suppressed a rude noise. “Follow me, everyone. The night is ripe for our taunting of the ghosts—and, by proxy, the Conceptus himself!”

Led by Serrapane, the party went down a long corridor that terminated in a lesser staircase seemingly devoted to the use of servants. Ascending, the guests nervously chattered among themselves about the upcoming brush with the ghosts.

The long staircase finally debouched on a portion of the manse’s rooftop that stretched flat across many square yards. The only illumination came from the starry weft overhead. A squad of servants awaited instructions.

As on every rooftop across the entire city, ghost traps—ornate pots and vases and basins with intricate topologies—were mounted here and there. But unlike elsewhere, these particular ghost catchers on the Serrapane roof were about to be nullified by canvas coverings pooled at their bases.

Serrapane gave a hand signal, and the servants hastened to cover the ghost traps.

A chill seemed to pass across the roof. The guests had fallen silent, their brave boasts and satirical quips now extinguished. They shifted nervously from foot to foot, eyes raised to the skies.

Suddenly a voice rang out. “There, I see one!”

Crutchsump spotted the ghost, high up, a blot against the starscape. It was dropping rapidly.

“Steel yourself against melancholy and morbidity!” exhorted their hostess. “Prepare your questions and bring them to the forefront of your mind. The pallid, timorous noetics will pay handsomely for any data we learn tonight!”

Shortly the lineaments of the ghost became discernible.

The ghost’s translucent body was amorphous and constantly in flux, like jelly shaken on a plate. Large as a carriage, its features erupted and were reabsorbed every minute: horns, fins, lobes, fans, tendrils, maws. The only constant: two white, saucer-like, pupil-less eyes. Faintly luminescent, it changed colors in subtle gradations: pastel blue to rose pink to flower yellow to smaragdine.

The ghost halted about ten feet above the people, as if probing their mentalities and choosing the recipient of its miraculous benefactions, determining if any needs were great enough to draw it down the final distance to the messy mortal sphere.

Stunned by the living cubic aurora, Serrapane and her guests were initially silent, despite all their prior determination to extract secrets. But then Serrapane called out boldly.

“Ghost! Tell us what the Conceptus has planned for our world!”

A gelatinous voice resonated from above. “Marvels and illuminations. Strange conceptions and uncanny births. …”

Along with the rest, Crutchsump had felt herself frozen, mentally and physically. But the voice of the ghost reawakened her to her purpose.

With the totality of her being, she projected forth her desires, her lack, her needs.

Ghost, help me—please! Conceptus, lift my burdens! Grant me my wish!

At first, there was no response from the ghost. Crutchsump began to despair.