Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (23 page)

“Did you
die?”

West laughed,
“I died a thousand times. I died every day in the void, or at least
I would have if it weren’t for the leeches. So that thought, which
had never left me, came to be fully formed. Dannum must have gone
through that same rebirth as I had, and in so doing, I began to
question, could he have ever died? Could age have consumed him? Or
fire? One thing was beyond question though. Somehow, he was still
alive, still reigning over Allim, as he always had. He was Dannum,
he was Thrasus the Sixth, he was Eyernstan the Benevolent, he was
Omaris Kith Thissick, and a hundred other kings, each of them
loving the people of Allim to death, loving with a ferocity that
would scorch out the darkness. Pretchis couldn’t be allowed to
continue. I didn’t know if he could be killed, but I knew that when
I returned to the city, I needed to be strong enough to bring an
end to his eternal reign.”

Stephanie
lifted her hands imploringly, “How could you know?”

“How could I
know what?”

“How strong
you’d need to be?”

West nodded
slowly, “It’s a good question Stephanie. I had no way of knowing,
so the only thing I could do was wait until I felt confident in my
own strengths.”

“How long did
you wait then?”

“Sixteen
years.”

Stephanie’s
mouth fell open in shock. Somehow the idea of sixteen years spent
preparing for one task, was harder for her to grasp than the idea
of someone living for thousands of years. She wondered if it was
perhaps because it was so much easier to comprehend sixteen years.
Seven years had been her eternity so far, so sixteen years was
twice eternity. She thought about West’s grasp of eternity, and
felt her concept of temporal awareness shut down on itself.
Satisfied with her own reasoning in the matter, she gripped
Stanwick’s arm in an attempt to ground herself in reality
again.

“In time, I
came to understand how to will the changes in my body, and the
leeches served my every whim. I understood that without the
frequent consumption of blood rich food, I would become weak, no
matter how much plant protein I ate. By my thirtieth birthday, I
had become the alpha predator of a twelve hundred square mile
jungle. I could scale sheer rock faces with my bare hands, almost
as fast as I could jump down. I could fell a tree with no tools but
tooth and nail. Even the beasts of the river Dannum, blessed as
they were with the ever giving gift of the leeches, even they
cowered in my presence.”

“To the North
was an active volcano whose peak was sometimes visible from the
tallest buildings of Arctum, but the steeps and slopes were
desolate, and North of the volcano, there was only sea. I was the
scourge of the void garden, and the animals lowered before me. All
that was left to conquer lay to the East, within the walled city.
I’d made three attempts over the years at walking the perimeter of
the city, completing the trek only once, and for what? To discover
that there really was no entrance other than the one below Arctum.
So my only option was to either steal my way back through the
hallowed halls of Arctum, or to scale the wall.”

“At the tallest
point in the West Tertiary, the wall stood at one thousand two
hundred feet, and I was determined that this should be where I
would enter the city. A month after my thirtieth birthday, I
attempted to climb the wall. The surface was almost completely
smooth, glardium polished to a sheen, each block twenty-foot-tall
with no discernible lip between one block and the next. At first, I
imagined that with claws like the Dannustine tigers, I could
perhaps drive my fingers with enough force to grip the wall, and I
wasn’t completely wrong in that assumption. I made it perhaps
twenty feet, each handhold an immense struggle, driving my
fingertips into the glardium with enough speed to cause tiny
fractures, but twenty feet was enough to realize that the other
thousand odd feet would be impossible. I didn’t give up though. I
imagined that if the surfaces of my hands and feet were more like
those of the lizards of the forest, ridged, covered in tiny hairs,
perhaps then I would be able to make better headway.”

Stephanie
squeezed Stanwick’s finger before she spoke, “Did you reach the
top?”

West looked
into Stephanie’s eyes, and suddenly he looked haunted, “No
Stephanie. No I did not.”

“How far did
you get?”

“I’d guess half
way. Wouldn’t you say?” He looked to Stanwick for assistance, and
Stephanie wondered why Stanwick might know the answer any better
than him.

Stanwick’s eyes
narrowed, “You still haven’t?”

West pursed his
lips, “Never.”

Stanwick’s fingertips,
wrapped tight in Stephanie’s small hands formed a million points of
contact, a million pathways to the child’s thoughts. It was
overwhelming, but she couldn’t stop herself. There was something
magical about the way Stephanie’s mind was working. Living
vicariously like this, experiencing the world through a child’s
eyes, lost in the crazed rush of misfires and revelations was
always something special, but there was a peculiarity to Stephanie
Beach. It wasn’t that the child seemed wise beyond her years, but
there was an inert sense of legacy. When West spoke, Stephanie
appeared to be able to empathize with his story, making conceptual
leaps with very little context. She bore a seven-year-old's quest
for acknowledgment, searching for a punchline at the end of every
rainbow, vying for recognition, but she was sensitive to the timing
and rhythm of the conversation. West had spoken one word, “Never,”
his admission to Stanwick that even after so long, he still hadn’t
been able to face his memory of that fall on the hopper. Stephanie
had felt the pain in his word, which was normal, but for a moment,
Stanwick could see Stephanie’s examination of that pain, her young
imagination rifling through the pains of her own past, imagining if
she would have benefited from reliving those tribulations, or if
they were best left alone.

Stanwick
blinked, trying to shake the moment out of her head, too absorbed,
“You made it more than half way.”

West nodded,
“After that, I gave up on the idea of climbing the highest point on
the wall. I’m not entirely sure why the idea had ever appealed,
other than the fact that it presented a challenge. I traveled
North, to the point where the wall curved around the boundaries of
the Dannustine Palace, then East until I heard the distant bells of
the Matriarchs. North of the temples of the Divinity, the wall was
only a couple of hundred foot, and it was there that I made my
return to the city.”

Brad Cobb sat in his
car watching patiently for the better part of an hour before Hannah
Beach turned up. He watched her make her way to the neighbors front
door, where there was a short exchange of words. By the time she
reached her own front door, Cobb had made it to the curb in front
of the driveway, his bill fold in hand.

“Miss
Beach.”

Hannah turned
quickly, offering a warm “Oh, hi,” then noticing the FBI
credentials in Cobb’s hand, her smile faded, “Can I help you?”

Cobb smiled
broadly, offering his hand, “I sure hope so Miss Beach. Agent Brad
Cobb, FBI.”

“It’s Hannah.”
she shook his hand awkwardly and forced a smile.

“Hannah, do you
have any idea of the whereabouts of your brother?”

“I haven’t seen
him since this morning. I’ve had classes all day.”

“Oh … but you
did see him this morning?”

Hannah thought
about it, “I heard him, he was home. Have you tried the house?”

Cobb was good
at reading people. Cobb could speak four languages, and he was an
accomplished pianist. Cobb wondered why he was thinking about
himself in third person. He glanced at his watch as he crossed his
right hand over his left to checked his pulse discretely, “Did you
notice anything unusual about your brother’s behavior this
morning?”

Hannah frowned,
and considered lying, but she wasn’t sure what kind of trouble
David was in, “Yes. There was a guy.”

“A guy?” 13,
14, he checked his watch.

“A guy. He
threw a rock or something at my window.”

Pulse slightly
elevated, but within reasonable parameters, Cobb turned his full
attention back to Hannah and made a mental note that Miss Beach was
cooperative, and forthright. Pretty too. Not relevant, Cobb caught
himself, so completely not relevant.

“Do you have
any idea who this man was?”

“Kind of.”

“Do you care to
elaborate? Anything would be helpful at this juncture.”

“Is David in
trouble?”

“Most
certainly, but in order to figure out what kind of trouble he’s in,
I really need to know a little more about what’s going on.”

Hannah glanced
over her shoulder towards the front door, then turned her head
slightly further, towards the Bleaker’s house, “Listen, do you want
to come inside?”

“Sure, if you
don’t mind Hannah, this has already been a long day, and I’m
getting the impression that it’s really just starting.”

Hannah’s laugh
was stilted, but genuine. She opened the front door, observing the
bloody fingerprint on her note on the side table. She kept her
cool, “Coffee?”

“Tea if you’ve
got it.” Cobb responded, pocketing the note as Hannah walked ahead
of him.

“English
Breakfast, Darjeeling or Earl Gray?”

Cobb knelt
down, rubbing his finger in a muddy footprint, “Do you have a
lemon?”

“Sure.” Hannah
shouted through from the kitchen.

“Then if you
don’t mind the trouble, a cup of Earl Gray with a slice of lemon
would be out of this world right now.”

Hannah’s head
peeked out from behind the dividing wall, “Out of this world?
Really?”

Cobb didn’t
look up from the footprint. It looked like it had been made by a
flip flop, or a slipper, “I’ve been hitting this little tea room up
town recently. They’ve got me hooked on that crap.” He noticed the
three circular gaps in the grip pattern, where the rubber strap
would pass through the sole. Flip flops it was.

“So this guy …
Has David met him before?”

Hannah plugged
in the electric kettle, and turned on the coffee maker, spilling
grits on the counter with shaking hands, “I doubt it. Honestly, I
got kind of a creeper vibe from him. David posts on reddit a lot,
and I’m pretty sure this same guy commented on a post of his last
night.”

Cobb entered
the kitchen, taking off his sports jacket and folding it over his
arm, “You’re pretty sure?”

Hannah
corrected herself, “I’m certain.”

Cobb thought
about the manila folder which currently sat on his desk at the
field office, conspicuously lacking any mention of David Beach’s
on-line activity.

“You know his
reddit user name then?”

Hannah picked a
lemon out of a basket under the granite topped island, and pulled a
knife from the block by the fridge, “I do indeed.”

Cobb nodded to
himself, smiling at the fact that Hannah Beach elected to keep her
back turned to him as she sliced the lemon.

“You care to
share?”

Hannah thought
about David’s posting habits, which were mostly innocuous. What
harm could there be really. He certainly hadn’t ever posted
anything that would incriminate him. She sucked the lemon juice
from her fingers, “Would I be committing an offense if I refused to
tell you?”

“No, not at
this point, but there’s a possibility that we can help David if
he’s in danger.” Hannah still had her back turned to him, “You’d
want us to be able to help him right?”

Hannah poured
the loose tea into a glass diffuser then set it down in its resting
place over the glass kettle, “Could you give me some idea what’s
going on first? Is that too much to ask? I’m sure David will be
home shortly.”

Cobb brushed
his fingers across the granite counter, “Where would your brother
be coming home from exactly? I mean, he’s told you that he is
persona non grata with undersecretary Carlton right?”

Hannah listened
to the electric kettle reach full boil, then click off. She watched
the carafe on the coffee maker starting to fill up, her mind on
Stephanie now, “He’s probably just gone to pick up Stephanie.”

“From the
Bleaker’s right?” Cobb grinned, sure he was on point.

Hannah picked a
steel spoon from the drawer beside her, and poured the water from
the kettle over the back of the spoon, watching the loose tea shift
and bob in the diffuser as the glass kettle filled slowly, “No, I’d
imagine he took her to school.”

Cobb’s eyes
went to the clock on the wall beside the refrigerator, “Hannah,
it’s um … it’s getting on eight.”

Hannah looked
at the clock, throwing the spoon on the counter, “Gah, what the
fuck David?”

Cobb flinched,
taken aback by the sudden outburst. She didn’t know.

“You haven’t
seen Stephanie then?”

Hannah picked
up the glass kettle, and turned to face Cobb, leaning across the
counter as she set the kettle down in front of him. She looked Cobb
in the eye as she reached under the counter and pulled a china cup
off a hook, sliding it across the counter towards him, “This guy
turned up this morning, said he was here to help. I was tired, I
really didn’t pay much attention and I went back to sleep for a
while.”

“Thank you
Hannah,” Cobb offered as he picked up the glass kettle, “So when
you woke up?”

Hannah turned
her back and took a large mug from a cabinet by the window, pouring
herself a coffee, “When I came downstairs, Stephanie was on her
own, singing like a banshee, jumping around the couch
cushions.”

“No sign of
David?”

“His car was
still parked out front.”

Cobb’s eyes
widened involuntarily, “So you looked outside?”