The Third Bear (27 page)

- Jeremy Owen

Lake Baikal, Siberia - North of Yolontsk, Near Olkhon Island

Dear Jeremy:

I am writing this sitting in the waterlogged lobby of a rotting, half-finished condominium complex. I am surrounded by cavorting freshwater seals and have two pearl-handled revolvers in my lap, a bottle of vodka in my right hand, a human body in the freezer in the kitchens behind me, and a rather large displaced rockhopper penguin staring me in the face. Upstairs, on the second floor, is the room I've made my headquarters. It has a bidet but no bath. The toilet seat refuses to stay up. The wallpaper has succumbed in places to a grainy black fungus, despite the moderate climate. I smell mold everywhere. (Would you believe fish have appeared in the lobby on occasion?) Sometimes the electricity works, but mostly I hope it doesn't because I'm convinced that with all the water everywhere I'm likely to be electrocuted, perhaps even while I sleep.

I don't know the name of the condominium complex because the dilapidated sign out front is in Cyrillic, but it almost certainly includes the words "Lake Baikal" in the title. Lake Baikal Prison Camp Suites, perhaps. Or, Lake Baikal Indoor Swimming Pool & Seal Habitat. Or, Lake Baikal Zoo Suites.

Still, it has a magnificent view. The front wall of the lobby has eroded to the point that the windows have fallen out, so there's nothing between me and the lake but a bit of mortar and marble. Sunsets are particularly magnificent, even if the atmosphere is marred by the seals snuffling in to sleep on the soggy carpeting, on the couches, and sometimes even on the tables. As for the penguin, her name is Juliette.

Did James tell you that the local shaman has inscribed my contact lenses with tiny mystical symbols? The shaman goes by the name of "Ed" because his real name is so convoluted that he long ago gave up making anyone learn it. The symbols supposedly bring me luck and ward off the Devil. I'm not sure it's working. I'm also not sure how he managed the inscription.

I also admit to being more than a little confused as to how I wound up here. (And, for a while, I was confused as to how Juliette got here. Trade winds? Hitchhiking?) But, then, anyone would share this feeling, if put in my position. That I blame your brother is understandable, I think. That the vodka permeating this part of the world like a particularly harsh cliche dulls most of my anger is also understandable.

My splendid isolation - although how can one truly feel isolated surrounded by a convocation of such magnificently oratory mammals? - has been interrupted by several calls from your brother. Right here in the lobby. On this weathered battle tank of a telephone next to me, a black phone that looks like a prop from Dr. Strangelove. The last call came just a few days ago. Did James tell you about it? I imagine not.

"Jeff," came his voice crackling through the bad connection, with what sounded like traditional Russian folk Muzak bleeding into the background.

"James," I said. "What the fuck am I still doing here? Tell me exactly what you want me to do."

Your brother's money had just about run out, rubles drifting through my hands, and I was thinking about asking Juliette to go hunt me up some fish.

"It's time," James replied with a kind of quivering anticipation in his voice. "It's time."

"No shit, it's time. It's past time," I said.

"You must write now."

"I must write now. Great. What do you want me to write about?" He'd told me while I was still in Florida that I would be writing a short story, but since I'd gotten to Lake Baikal, it had quickly become clear that I wasn't just writing a "story."

"All of it," James said. "Even this."

I paused for a second to think about that statement. "Even this?"

"Yes, even this."

"And how about... this?"

"Yes, yes - all of it! It's all important. Phone conversations. The shaman. Gradus. Your life. Hell, even the penguin. Just start at the beginning - whatever you think is the beginning. And don't forget the Errata part. That's important for the Change."

"Jesus Christ."

"It's so important, Jeff," James said, and I could tell he was pleading now. He thought he had to convince me. He'd forgotten I had been talking to Ed a lot. He'd forgotten what I'd left behind. He'd even forgotten what I'd had painstakingly etched into the edges of my contacts.

James' voice broke with some unidentifiable emotion as he said, "Jeff, it'll all be worth it. You'll see."

"I hope so," I said. "Because my room doesn't even have a bath. And that lake is fucking freezing."

That's when I hung up. Juliette, standing patiently by the chair, looked up at me with a stare that said, "Maybe you shouldn't have done that. Maybe he had more to say."

Well, if he did, it couldn't have been important, because he hasn't called back.

So let me throw both you and James a bone: Here's your first correction. Ed helped me with it by consulting his Book (more about that later). Hell, in a way even Juliette helped me with it. Finding it. Picking this bit over any other. Weighing the "exact pressure of each word as it impacts the world," as James had once said. I can almost feel that pressure in the way the ice hanging on branches in the early morning seems brittle, ready to fall.

And when it does? What will happen then?

Erratum #z: `Box of Oxen, "Alan Dean Foster, forthcoming in issue four

The son of Russian immigrants, one of the observers peering through powerful binoculars immediately recognized the Cyrillic letters stamped on the side of the cylinder. His hasty translation provoked consternation and not a little alarm among his coworkers. Frantic, coded messages were sent to various parts of the country.

should read..-

The son of Russian immigrants from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, one of the observers, named Sergi, peered through powerful binoculars and immediately recognized the Cyrillic letters and shamanistic symbols stamped on the side of the cylinder. There were also some mutterings in Russian. His hasty translation of the Cyrillic provoked consternation among his co-workers. Frantic coded messages were sent to various parts of the country. As for the symbols, Sergi failed to mention them to his co-workers, for they promised both the destruction and redemption of humankind. They brought back to Sergi memories of vacations with his family, of walking through a forest of silent fir trees only to emerge at the banks of Lake Baikal near Shaman Rock, which rose from that limitless blue like a shrine. His father had told him that the strongest of the heavenly gods lived there, and negative or bad thoughts could disturb the god's slumber. He had always been careful, therefore, to never complain while on their vacation, and to live always in the moment, absorbing the mysteries of that clear water and the stillness that wavered forever between peaceful and watchful.

Deathless prose it ain't, but according to Ed and the Book, that is the appropriate correction. We are now Closer than we were to the Change, as James would say.

But James also said to start at the beginning, and that's a good deal more difficult. How do you determine that? Beginnings are continually beginning. Time is just a joke played by watchmakers to turn a profit, don't you think, Jeremy? Well, maybe not. That could just be the vodka talking.

Maybe it starts with meeting James for the first time at the World Fantasy Convention in 2003, where he was debuting Argosy. But I talked to him for about four minutes, tops, so that's probably not it.

Perhaps it starts with the writers' convention in Blackpool, England, where a dozen or so of us writer-types - Liz Williams, Jay Caselberg, Neil Williamson, Jeffrey Ford, and others - wound up trapped in a small woodpaneled room at the butt-end of a couple of spiral staircases and a maze of corridors. We were there for a reading, but found no audience, so Gwyneth Jones told us the uplifting story about how she walked downstairs one night to the sounds of a frog screaming as a cat disemboweled it.

That was the first time I felt my world shift in a way that signaled potential cataclysm. I mean, there were less personal harbingers, like 9/11, the war in Iraq, and any number of other calamities. But for some reason, sitting there next to Jeffrey Ford in that town that seemed like a combination of hell and a carnival, where the next event slated for the convention hall was a double bill of Engelbert Humperdinck and David Cassidy - somehow that moment signaled a downward spiral. I remember thinking, Is this what being successful is going to be like? Trapped in a closet with a bunch of other successfulpeople? Somehow, even though the rest is murky, I can see the connection between that moment and this one - sitting here, drinking vodka and talking to a penguin.

I've tried giving vodka to the penguin, by the way. She doesn't like the taste. The seals, on the other hand, seem designed to imbibe the stuff. Clearly, they are Russian, while the penguin is not. Ed explained Juliette to me the first time he came over. An escapee from a passing circus. In love with an Antipodes or Falklands that she (he? sexing penguins is one skill level beyond me) will probably never see. Far from home, just like me and the man in the freezer.

"When you get to your room at Lake Baikal, you'll find a box on the bed in your room. There will be a pair of pearl-handled revolvers in the box," James told me after he'd sent me the plane ticket.

"Guns?"

"That's what I said."

"What the fuck will I need guns for?"

There was a pause. Then: "Nothing to worry about, Jeff. If you need to hunt game or anything."

"Hunt game? With pearl-handled revolvers?" I asked, incredulous. "Isn't that a bit...I dunno...fancy? Do I just run out into the forest with my pearlhandled revolvers, or do I invite some deer to a cocktail party and then gun them down?"

But it wasn't until I actually reached Lake Baikal and brought up the subject again over the phone that James told me the truth. "Actually, I should be honest. There are people who would like to see us fail."

For the first time, my bullshit detector went off. I realize now it should have gone off much sooner. "Fail at what? Writing a short story?"

A pause. Then, "It's more complicated than that. You'll have to read everything I left you in your room to understand."

"So there's someone after me?"

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know. It could be one of several people. Let's just call him `Gradus' for now."

"That's fucking hilarious," I said. "Should I start calling myself Shade? Perhaps I can call you Kinbote?"

"Call me whatever you like," James said. "I know you're bitter. You're selfhating - and you have every right to be. But don't worry - when you truly take in what Lake Baikal has to offer, all of that will change. Now, go up to your room on the second floor. Everything you need is there."

And he hung up.

Leaving me to worry about a faceless shadow named Gradus that might one day, one night, appear in the seal-choked lobby and force me to use those pearl-handled revolvers. From that moment forward, I could not rid my dreams of him: a silhouette, a too-white glint of eye, a swift and certain death.

When you truly take in what Lake Baikal has to offer, all of that will change.