Everything is upon a great scale upon this continent. The rivers are immense, the climate violent in heat and cold, the prospects1 magnificent, the thunder and lightning tremendous. The disorders2 incident to the country make every constitution tremble. Our own blunders here, our misconduct, our losses, our disgraces, our ruin, are on a great scale.
-Lord Carlisle, to George Selwyn, 1778
The most important place in the southeastern United States is advertised on hundreds of aging barn roofs across Georgia and Tennessee and up into Kentucky. On a-winding road through a forest a driver will pass a rotting red barn, and see, painted on its roof,
SEE ROCK CITY
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
and on the roof of a tumbledown milking shed nearby, painted in white block letters,
SEE SEVEN STATES FROM ROCK CITY
THE WORLD'S WONDER.
The driver is led by this to believe that Rock City is surely just around the nearest corner, instead of being a day's drive away, on Lookout3 Mountain, a hair over the state line, in Georgia, just southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Lookout Mountain is not much of a mountain. It resembles an impossibly high and commanding hill. The Chickamauga, a branch of the Cherokee, lived there when the white men came; they called the mountain Chattotonoogee, which has been translated as the mountain that rises to a point.
In the 1830s Andrew Jackson's Indian Relocation Act exiled them from their land-all the Choctaw and Chickamauga and Cherokee and Chickasaw-and U.S. troops forced every one of them they could catch to walk over a thousand miles to the new Indian Territories in what would one day be Oklahoma, down the trail of tears: an act of casual genocide. Thousands of men, women, and children died on the way. When you've won, you've won, and nobody can argue with that.
For whoever controlled Lookout Mountain controlled the land; that was the legend. It was a sacred site, after all, and it was a high place. In the Civil War, the War Between the States, there was a battle there: the Battle Above the Clouds, that was the first day's fighting, and then the Union forces did the impossible and, without orders, swept up Missionary4 Ridge5 and took it. The North took Lookout Mountain and the North took the war.
There are tunnels and caves, some very old, beneath Lookout Mountain. For the most part they are blocked off now, although a local businessman excavated6 an underground waterfall, which he called Ruby7 Falls. It can be reached by elevator. It's a tourist attraction, although the biggest tourist attraction of all is at the top of Lookout Mountain. That is Rock City.
Rock City begins as an ornamental8 garden on a mountainside: its visitors walk a path that takes them through rocks, over rocks, between rocks. They throw corn into a deer enclosure, cross a hanging bridge and peer out through a quarter-a-throw binoculars9 at a view that promises them seven states on the rare sunny days when the air is perfectly10 clear. And from there, like a drop into some strange hell, the path takes the visitors, millions upon millions of them every year, down into caverns11, where they stare at back-lit dolls arranged into nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale dioramas. When they leave, they leave bemused, uncertain of why they came, of what they have seen, of whether they had a good time or not.
***
They came to Lookout Mountain from all across the United States. They were not tourists. They came by car and they came by plane and by bus and by railroad and on foot. Some of them flew-they flew low, and they flew only in the dark of the night. Several of them traveled their own ways beneath the earth. Many of them hitchhiked, cadging12 rides from nervous motorists or from truck drivers. Those who had cars or trucks would see the ones who had not walking beside the roads or at rest stations and in diners on the way, and, recognizing them for what they were, would offer them rides.
They arrived dust-stained and weary at the foot of Lookout Mountain. Looking up to the heights of the tree-covered slope they could see, or imagine that they could see, the paths and gardens and waterfall of Rock City.
They started arriving early in the morning. A second wave of them arrived at dusk. And for several days they simply kept coming.
A battered13 U-Haul truck pulled up, disgorging several travel-weary vila and rusalka, their makeup14 smudged, runs in their stockings, their expressions heavy-lidded and tired.
In a clump15 of trees at the bottom of the hill, an elderly wampyr offered a Marlboro to a naked apelike creature covered with a tangle16 of orange fur. It accepted graciously, and they smoked in silence, side by side.
A Toyota Previa pulled over by the side of the road, and seven Chinese men and women got out of it. They looked, above all, clean, and they wore the kind of dark suits that, in some countries, are worn by minor17 government officials. One of them carried a clipboard, and he checked the inventory18 as they unloaded large golf bags from the back of the car: the bags contained ornate swords with lacquer handles, and carved sticks, and mirrors. The weapons were distributed, checked off, signed for.
A once-famous comedian19, believed to have died in the 1920s, climbed out of his rusting20 car and proceeded to remove his clothing: his legs were goat legs, and his tail was short and goatish.
Four Mexicans arrived, all smiles, their hair black and very shiny: they passed among themselves a bottle that they kept out of sight in a brown paper bag, its contents a bitter mixture of powdered chocolate, liquor, and blood.
A small, dark-bearded man with a dusty black derby on his head, curling payess at his temples, and a ragged21 fringed prayer shawl came to them walking across the fields. He was several feet in front of his companion, who was twice his height and was the blank gray color of good Polish clay: the word inscribed22 on his forehead meant truth.
They kept coming. A cab drew up and several Rakshasas, the demons23 of the Indian subcontinent, climbed out and milled around, staring at the people at the bottom of the hill without speaking, until they found Mama-ji, her eyes closed, her lips moving in prayer. She was the only thing here that was familiar to them, but still, they hesitated to approach her, remembering old battles. Her hands rubbed the necklace of skulls24 about her neck. Her brown skin became slowly black, the glassy black of jet, of obsidian26: her lips curled and her long white teeth were very sharp. She opened all her eyes, beckoned27 the Rakshasas to her, and greeted them as she would have greeted her own children.
The storms of the last few days, to the north and the east, had done nothing to ease the feeling of pressure and discomfort28 in the air. Local weather forecasters had begun to warn of cells that might spawn29 tornados30, of high-pressure areas that did not move. It was warm by day there, but the nights were cold.
They clumped31 together in informal companies, banding together sometimes by nationality, by race, by temperament32, even by species. They looked apprehensive33. They looked tired.
Some of them were talking. There was laughter, on occasion, but it was muted and sporadic34. Six-packs of beer were handed around.
Several local men and women came walking over the meadows, their bodies moving in unfamiliar35 ways: their voices, when they spoke36, were the voices of the Loa who rode them: a tall black man spoke in the voice of Papa Legba who opens the gates; while Baron37 Samedi, the voudon lord of death, had taken over the body of a teenage goth girl from Chattanooga, possibly because she possessed38 her own black silk top hat, which sat on her dark hair at a jaunty39 angle. She spoke in the Baron's own deep voice, smoked a cigar of enormous size, and commanded three of the Gédé, the Loa of the dead. The Gédé inhabited the bodies of three middle-aged40 brothers. They carried shotguns and told jokes of such astounding41 filthiness42 that only they were willing to laugh at them, which they did, raucously43.
Two ageless Chickamauga women, in oil-stained blue jeans and battered leather jackets, walked around, watching the people and the preparations for battle. Sometimes they pointed44 and shook their heads. They did not intend to take part in the coming conflict.
The moon swelled45 and rose in the east, a day away from full. It seemed half as big as the sky, as it rose, a deep reddish-orange, immediately above the hills. As it crossed the sky it seemed to shrink and pale until it hung high in the sky like a lantern. There were so many of them waiting there, in the moonlight, at the foot of Lookout Mountain.
***
Laura was thirsty.
Sometimes living people burned steadily46 in her mind like candles and sometimes they flamed like torches. It made them easy to avoid, and it made them easy, on occasion, to find. Shadow had burned so strangely, with his own light, up on that tree. She had chided him once, when they had walked and held hands, for not being alive. She had hoped, then, to see a spark of raw emotion. To have seen anything.
She remembered walking beside him, wishing that he could understand what she was trying to say.
But dying on the tree, Shadow had been utterly47 alive. She had watched him as the life had faded, and he had been focused and real. And he had asked her to stay with him, to stay the whole night. He had forgiven her...perhaps he had forgiven her. It did not matter. He had changed; that was all she knew.
Shadow had told her to go to the farmhouse48, that they would give her water to drink there. There were no lights burning in the farm building, and she could feel nobody at home. But he had told her that they would care for her. She pushed against the door of the farmhouse and it opened, rusty49 hinges protesting the whole while.
Something moved in her left lung, something that pushed and squirmed and made her cough.
She found herself in a narrow hallway, her way almost blocked by a tall and dusty piano. The inside of the building smelled of old damp. She squeezed past the piano, pushed open a door and found herself in a dilapidated drawing room, filled with ramshackle furniture. An oil lamp burned on the mantelpiece. There was a coal fire burning in the fireplace beneath it, although she had neither seen nor smelled smoke outside the house. The coal fire did nothing to lift the chill she felt in that room, although, Laura was willing to concede, that might not be the fault of the room.
Death hurt Laura, although the hurt consisted mostly of things that were not there: a parching50 thirst that drained every cell of her, an absence of heat in her bones that was absolute. Sometimes she would catch herself wondering whether the crisp and crackling flames of a pyre would warm her, or the soft brown blanket of the earth; whether the cold sea would quench51 her thirst...
The room, she realized, was not empty.
Three women sat on, an elderly couch, as if they had come as a matched set in some peculiar52 artistic53 exhibition. The couch was upholstered in threadbare velvet54, a faded brown that might, once, a hundred years ago, have been a bright canary yellow. They followed her with their eyes as she entered the room, and they said nothing.
Laura had not known they would be there.
Something wriggled55 and fell in her nasal cavity. Laura fumbled57 in her sleeve for a tissue, and she blew her nose into it. She crumpled58 the tissue and flung it and its contents onto the coals of the fire, watched it crumple59 and blacken and become orange lace. She watched the maggots shrivel and brown and burn.
This done, she turned back to the women on the couch. They had not moved since she had entered, not a muscle, not a hair. They stared at her.
"Hello. Is this your farm?" she asked.
The largest of the women nodded. Her hands were very red, and her expression was impassive.
"Shadow-that's the guy hanging on the tree. He's my husband-he said I should tell you that he wants you to give me water." Something large shifted in her bowels60. It squirmed, and then was still.
The smallest woman clambered off the couch. Her feet had not previously61 reached the floor. She scurried62 from the room.
Laura could hear doors opening and closing, through the farmhouse. Then, from outside, she could hear a series of loud creaks. Each was followed by a splash of water.
Soon enough, the small woman returned. She was carrying a brown earthenware63 jug64 of water. She put it down, carefully, on the table, and retreated to the couch. She pulled herself up, with a wriggle56 and a shiver, and was seated beside her sisters once again.
"Thank you." Laura walked over to the table, looked around for a cup or a glass, but there was nothing like that to be seen. She picked up the jug. It was heavier than it looked. The water in it was perfectly clear.
She raised the jug to her lips and began to drink.
The water was colder than she had ever imagined liquid water could be. It froze her tongue and her teeth and her gullet. Still, she drank, unable to stop, feeling the water freezing its way into her stomach, her bowels, her heart, her veins65.
The water flowed into her. It was like liquid ice.
She realized that the jug was empty and, surprised, she put it down on the table.
The women were observing her, dispassionately. Since her death, Laura had not thought in metaphors66: things were, or they were not. But now, as she looked at the women on the sofa, she found herself thinking of juries, of scientists observing a laboratory animal.
She shook, suddenly and convulsively. She reached out a hand to the table to steady herself, but the table was slipping and lurching, and it almost avoided her grasp. As she put her hand on the table she began to vomit67. She brought up bile and formalin, centipedes, and maggots. And then she felt herself starting to void, and to piss: stuff was being pushed violently, wetly, from her body. She would have screamed if she could; but then the dusty floorboards came up to meet her so fast and so hard that, had she been breathing, they would have knocked the breath from her body.
Time rushed over her and into her, swirling68 like a dust devil. A thousand memories began to play at once: she was lost in a department store the week before Christmas and her father was nowhere to be seen; and now she was sitting in the bar at Chi-Chi's, ordering a strawberry daiquiri and checking out her blind date, the big, grave man-child, and wondering how he kissed; and she was in the car as, sickeningly, it rolled and jolted69, and Robbie was screaming at her until the metal post finally stopped the car, but not its contents, from moving...
The water of time, which comes from the spring of fate, Urd's Well, is not the water of life. Not quite. It feeds the roots of the world tree, though. And there is no other water like it.
When Laura woke in the empty farmhouse room, she was shivering, and her breath actually steamed in the morning air. There was a scrape on the back of her hand, and a wet smear70 on the scrape, the vivid red of fresh blood.
And she knew where she had to go. She had drunk from the water of time, which comes from the spring of fate. She could see the mountain in her mind.
She licked the blood from the back of her hand, marveling at the film of saliva71, and she began to walk.
***
It was a wet March day, and it was unseasonably cold, and the storms of the previous few days had lashed72 their way across the southern states, which meant that there were very few real tourists at Rock City on Lookout Mountain. The Christmas lights had been taken down, the summer visitors were yet to start coming.
Still, there were people there. There was even a tour bus that drew up that morning releasing a dozen men and women with perfect tans and gleaming, reassuring73 smiles. They looked like news anchors, and one could almost imagine there was a phosphor-dot quality to them: they seemed to blur74 gently as they moved. A black Humvee was parked in the front lot of Rock City.
The TV people walked intently through Rock City, stationing themselves near the balancing rock, where they talked to each other in pleasant, reasonable voices.
They were not the only people in this wave of visitors. If you had walked the paths of Rock City that day, you might have noticed people who looked like movie stars, and people who looked like aliens, and a number of people who looked most of all like the idea of a person and nothing like the reality. You might have seen them, but most likely you would never have noticed them at all.
They came to Rock City in long limousines75 and in small sports cars and in oversized SUVs. Many of them wore the sunglasses of those who habitually76 wear sunglasses indoors and out, and do not willingly or comfortably remove them. There were suntans and suits and shades and smiles and scowls77. They came in all sizes and shapes, all ages and styles.
All they had in common was a look, a very specific look. It said, you know me; or perhaps, you ought to know me. An instant familiarity that was also a distance, a look, or an attitude-the confidence that the world existed for them, and that it welcomed them, and that they were adored.
The fat kid moved among them with the shuffling78 walk of one who, despite having no social skills, has still become successful beyond his dreams. His black coat flapped in the wind.
Something that stood beside the soft drink stand in Mother Goose Court coughed to attract his attention. It was massive, and scalpel blades jutted79 from its face and its fingers. Its face was cancerous. "It will be a mighty80 battle," it told him, in a glutinous81 voice.
"It's not going to be a battle," said the fat kid. "All we're facing here is a fucking paradigm82 shift. It's a shakedown. Modalities like battle are so fucking Lao Tzu."
The cancerous thing blinked at him. "Waiting," is all it said in reply.
"Whatever," said the fat kid. Then, "I'm looking for Mister World. You seen him?"
The thing scratched itself with a scalpel blade, a tumorous83 lower lip pushed out in concentration. Then it nodded. "Over there," it said.
The fat kid walked away, without a thank you, in the direction indicated. The cancerous thing waited, saying nothing, until the kid was out of sight.
"It will be a battle," said the cancerous thing to a woman whose face was smudged with phosphor dots.
She nodded, and leaned closer to it. "So how does that make you feel?" she asked, in a sympathetic voice.
It blinked, and then it began to tell her.
***
Town's Ford84 Explorer had a global positioning system, a little screen that listened to the satellites and showed the car its location, but he still got lost once he got south of Blacksburg and onto the country roads: the roads he drove seemed to bear little relationship to the tangle of lines on the map on the screen. Eventually he stopped the car in a country lane, wound down the window and asked a fat white woman being pulled by a wolfhound on its early-morning walk for directions to Ashtree farm.
She nodded, and pointed and said something to him. He could not understand what she had said, but he said thanks a million and wound up the window and drove off in the general direction she had indicated.
He kept going for another forty minutes, down country road after country road, none of them the road he sought. Town began to chew his lower lip.
"I'm too old for this shit," he said aloud, relishing85 the movie-star world-weariness of the line.
He was pushing fifty. Most of his working life had been spent in a branch of government that went only by its initials, and whether or not he had left his government job a dozen years ago for employment by the private sector86 was open to debate: some days he thought one way, some days another. Anyway, it was only the joes on the street that really believed there was a difference.
He was on the verge87 of giving up on the farm when he crested88 a hill and saw the sign, hand painted, on the gate. It said simply, as he had been told it would, ASH. He pulled up the Ford Explorer, climbed out, and untwisted the wire that held the gate closed. He got back in the car and drove through.
It was like cooking a frog, he thought. You put the frog in the water, and then you turn on the heat. And by the time the frog notices that there's anything wrong, it's already been cooked. The world in which he worked was all too weird89. There was no solid ground beneath his feet; the water in the pot was bubbling fiercely.
When he'd been transferred to the Agency it had all seemed so simple. Now it was all so-not complex, he decided90; merely bizarre. He had been sitting in Mr. World's office at two that morning, and he had been told what he was to do. "You got it?" said Mr. World, handing him the knife in its dark leather sheath. "Cut me a stick. It doesn't have to be longer than a couple of feet."
"Affirmative," he said. And then he said, "Why do I have to do this, sir?"
"Because I tell you to," said Mr. World, flatly. "Find the tree. Do the job. Meet me down in Chattanooga. Don't waste any time."
"And what about the asshole?"
"Shadow? If you see him, just avoid him. Don't touch him. Don't even mess with him. I don't want you turning him into a martyr91. There's no room for martyrs92 in the current game plan." He smiled then, his scarred smile. Mr. World was easily amused. Mr. Town had noticed this on several occasions. It had amused him to play chauffeur93, in Kansas, after all.
"Look-"
"No martyrs, Town."
And Town had nodded, and taken the knife in its sheath, and pushed the rage that welled up inside him down deep and away.
Mr. Town's hatred94 of Shadow had become a part of him. As he was falling asleep he would see Shadow's solemn face, see that smile that wasn't a smile, the way Shadow had of smiling without smiling that made Town want to sink his fist into the man's gut95, and even as he fell asleep he could feel his jaws96 squeeze together, his temples tense, his gullet burn.
He drove the Ford Explorer across the meadow, past an abandoned farmhouse. He crested a ridge and saw the tree. He parked the car a little way past it, and turned off the engine. The clock on the dashboard said it was 6:38. A.M. He left the keys in the car, and walked toward the tree.
The tree was large; it seemed to exist on its own sense of scale. Town could not have said if it was fifty feet high or two hundred. Its bark was the gray of a fine silk scarf.
There was a naked man tied to the trunk a little way above the ground by a webwork of ropes, and there was something wrapped in a sheet at the foot of the tree. Town realized what it was as he passed it. He pushed at the sheet with his foot. Wednesday's ruined half-a-face stared out at him.
Town reached the tree. He walked a little way around the thick trunk, away from the sightless eyes of the farmhouse, then he unzipped his fly and pissed against the trunk of the tree. He did up his fly. He walked back over to the house, found a wooden extension ladder, carried it back to the tree. He leaned it carefully against the trunk. Then he climbed up it.
Shadow hung, limply, from the ropes that tied him to the tree. Town wondered if the man was still alive: his chest did not rise or fall. Dead or almost dead, it did not matter.
"Hello, asshole," Town said, aloud. Shadow did not move.
Town reached the top of the ladder, and he pulled out the knife. He found a small branch that seemed to meet Mr. World's specifications97, and hacked98 at the base of it with the knife blade, cutting it half through, then breaking it off with his hand. It was about thirty inches long.
He put the knife back in its sheath. Then he started to climb back down the ladder. When he was opposite Shadow, he paused. "God, I hate you," he said. He wished he could just have taken out a gun and shot him, and he knew that he could not. And then he jabbed the stick in the air toward the hanging man, in a stabbing motion. It was an instinctive99 gesture, containing all the frustration100 and rage inside Town. He imagined that he was holding a spear and twisting it into Shadow's guts101.
"Come on," he said, aloud. "Time to get moving." Then he thought, First sign of madness. Talking to yourself. He climbed down a few more steps, then jumped the rest of the way to the ground. He looked at the stick he was holding, and felt like a small boy, holding his stick as a sword or a spear. I could have cut a stick from any tree, he thought. It didn't have to be this tree. Who the fuck would have known?
And he thought, Mr. World would have known.
He carried the ladder back to the farmhouse. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something move, and he looked in through the window, into the dark room filled with broken furniture, with the plaster peeling from the walls, and for a moment, in a half dream, he imagined that he saw three women sitting in the dark parlor102.
One of them was knitting. One of them was staring directly at him. One of them appeared to be asleep. The woman who was staring at him began to smile, a huge smile that seemed to split her face lengthwise, a smile that crossed from ear to ear. Then she raised a finger and touched it to her neck, and ran it gently from one side of her neck to the other.
That was what he thought he saw, all in a moment, in that empty room, which contained, he saw at a second glance, nothing more than old rotting furniture and fly-spotted prints and dry rot. There was nobody there at all.
He rubbed his eyes.
Town walked back to the brown Ford Explorer and climbed in. He tossed the stick onto the white leather of the passenger seat. He turned the key in the ignition. The dashboard clock said 6:37 A.M. Town frowned, and checked his wristwatch, which blinked that it was 13:58.
Great, he thought. I was either up on that tree for eight hours, or for minus a minute. That was what he thought, but what he believed was that both timepieces had, coincidentally, begun to misbehave.
On the tree, Shadow's body began to bleed. The wound was in his side. The blood that came from it was slow and thick and molasses-black.
***
Clouds covered the top of Lookout Mountain.
Easter sat some distance away from the crowd at the bottom of the mountain, watching the dawn over the hills to the east. She had a chain of blue forget-me-nots tattooed103 around her left wrist, and she rubbed them absently, with her right thumb.
Another night had come and gone, and nothing. The folk were still coming, by ones and twos. The last night had brought several creatures from the southwest, including two small boys each the size of an apple tree, and something that she had only glimpsed, but that had looked like a disembodied head the size of a VW bug104. They had disappeared into the trees at the base of the mountain.
Nobody bothered them. Nobody from the outside world even seemed to have noticed they were there: she imagined the tourists at Rock City staring down at them through their insert-a-quarter binoculars, staring straight at a ramshackle encampment of things and people at the foot of the mountain, and seeing nothing but trees and bushes and rocks.
She could smell the smoke from a cooking fire, a smell of burning bacon on the chilly105 dawn wind. Someone at the far end of the encampment began to play the harmonica, which made her, involuntarily, smile and shiver. She had a paperback106 book in her backpack, and she waited for the sky to become light enough for her to read.
There were two dots in the sky, immediately below the clouds: a small one and a larger one. A spatter of rain brushed her face in the morning wind.
A barefoot girl came out from the encampment, walking toward her. She stopped beside a tree, hitched107 up her skirts, and squatted108. When she had finished, Easter hailed her. The girl walked over.
"Good morning, lady," she said. "The battle will start soon now." The tip of her pink tongue touched her scarlet109 lips. She had a black crow's wing tied with leather onto her shoulder, a crow's foot on a chain around her neck. Her arms were blue-tattooed with lines and patterns and intricate knots.
"How do you know?"
The girl grinned. "I am Macha, of the Morrigan. When war comes, I can smell it in the air. I am a war goddess, and I say, blood shall be spilled this day."
"Oh," said Easter. "Well. There you go." She was watching the smaller dot in the sky as it tumbled down toward them, dropping like a rock.
"And we shall fight them, and we shall kill them, every one," said the girl. "And we shall take their heads as trophies110, and the crows shall have their eyes and their corpses111." The dot had become a bird, its wings outstretched, riding the gusty112 morning winds above them.
Easter cocked her head on one side. "Is that some hidden war goddess knowledge?" she asked. "The whole who's-going-to-win thing? Who gets whose head?"
"No," said the girl, "I can smell the battle, but that's all. But we'll win. Won't we? We have to. I saw what they did to the All-Father. It's them or us."
"Yeah," said Easter. "I suppose it is."
The girl smiled again, in the half-light, and made her way back to the camp. Easter put her hand down and touched a green shoot that stabbed up from the earth like a knife blade. As she touched it it grew, and opened, and twisted, and changed, until she was resting her hand on a green tulip head. When the sun was high the flower would open.
Easter looked up at the hawk113. "Can I help you?" she said.
The hawk circled about fifteen feet above Easter's head, slowly, then it glided114 down to her, and landed on the ground nearby. It looked up at her with mad eyes.
"Hello, cutie," she said. "Now, what do you really look like, eh?"
The hawk hopped115 toward her, uncertainly, and then it was no longer a hawk, but a young man. He looked at her, and then looked down at the grass. "You?" he said. His glance went everywhere, to the grass, to the sky, to the bushes. Not to her.
"Me," she said. "What about me?"
"You." He stopped. He seemed to be trying to muster116 his thoughts; strange expressions flitted and swam across his face. He spent too long a bird, she thought. He has forgotten how to be a man. She waited patiently. Eventually, he said, "Will you come with me?"
"Maybe. Where do you want me to go?"
"The man on the tree. He needs you. A ghost hurt, in his side. The blood came, then it stopped. I think he is dead."
"There's a war on. I can't just go running away."
The naked man said nothing, just moved from one foot to another as if he were uncertain of his weight, as if he were used to resting on the air or on a swaying branch, not on the solid earth. Then he said, "If he is gone forever, it is all over."
"But the battle-"
"If he is lost, it will not matter who wins." He looked like he needed a blanket, and a cup of sweet coffee, and someone to take him somewhere he could just shiver and babble117 until he got his mind back. He held his arms stiffly against his sides.
"Where is this? Nearby?"
He stared at the tulip plant, and shook his head. "Way away."
"Well," she said, "I'm needed here. And I can't just leave. How do you expect me to get there? I can't fly, like you, you know."
"No," said Horus, "You can't." Then he looked up, gravely, and pointed to the other dot that circled them, as it dropped from the darkening clouds, growing in size. "He can."
***
Another several hours' pointless driving, and by now Town hated the global positioning system almost as much as he hated Shadow. There was no passion in the hate, though. He had thought finding his way to the farm, to the great silver ash tree, had been hard; finding his way away from the farm was much harder. It did not seem to matter which road he took, which direction he drove down the narrow country lanes-the twisting Virginia back roads that must have begun, he was sure, as deer trails and cowpaths-eventually he would find himself passing the farm once more, and the hand-painted sign, ASH.
This was crazy, wasn't it? He simply had to retrace118 his way, take a left turn for every right he had taken on his way here, a right turn for every left.
Only that was what he had done last time, and now here he was, back at the farm once more. There were heavy storm clouds coming in, it was getting dark fast, it felt like night, not morning, and he had a long drive ahead of him: he would never get to Chattanooga before afternoon at this rate.
His cell phone gave him only a No Service message. The fold-out map in the car's glove compartment119 showed the main roads, all the interstates and the real highways, but as far as it was concerned nothing else existed.
Nor was there anyone around that he could ask. The houses were set back from the roads; there were no welcoming lights. Now the fuel gauge120 was nudging Empty. He heard a rumble121 of distant thunder, and a single drop of rain splashed heavily onto his windshield.
So when Town saw the woman, walking along the side of the road, he found himself smiling, involuntarily. "Thank God," he said, aloud, and he drew up beside her. He thumbed down the window. "Ma'am? I'm sorry. I'm kind of lost. Can you tell me how to get to Highway Eighty-one from here?"
She looked at him through the open passenger-side window and said, "You know. I don't think I can explain it. But I can show you, if you like." She was pale, and her wet hair was long and dark.
"Climb in," said Town. He didn't even hesitate. "First thing, we need to buy some gas."
"Thanks," she said. "I needed a ride." She got in. Her eyes were astonishingly blue. "There's a stick here, on the seat," she said, puzzled.
"Just throw it in the back. Where are you heading?" he asked. "Lady, if you can get me to a gas station, and back to a freeway, I'll take you all the way to your own front door."
She said, "Thank you. But I think I'm going farther than you are. If you can get me to the freeway, that will be fine. Maybe a trucker will give me a ride." And she smiled, a crooked122, determined123 smile. It was the smile that did it.
"Ma'am," he said, "I can give you a finer ride than any trucker." He could smell her perfume. It was heady and heavy, a cloying124 scent125, like magnolias or lilacs, but he did not mind.
"I'm going to Georgia," she said. "It's a long way."
"I'm going to Chattanooga. I'll take you as far as I can."
"Mm," she said. "What's your name?"
"They call me Mack," said Mr. Town. When he was talking to women in bars, he would sometimes follow that up with "And the ones that know me really well call me Big Mack." That could wait. With a long drive ahead of them, they would have many hours in each other's company to get to know each other. "What's yours?"
"Laura," she told him.
"Well, Laura," he said, "I'm sure we're going to be great friends."
***
The fat kid found Mr. World in the Rainbow Room-a walled section of the path, its window glass covered in clear plastic sheets of green and red and yellow film. He was walking impatiently from window to window, staring out, in turn, at a golden world, a red world, a green world. His hair was reddish-orange and close-cropped to his skull25. He wore a Burberry raincoat.
The fat kid coughed. Mr. World looked up.
"Excuse me? Mister World?"
"Yes? Is everything on schedule?"
The fat kid's mouth was dry. He licked his lips, and said, "I've set up everything. I don't have confirmation126 on the choppers."
"The helicopters will be here when we need them."
"Good," said the fat kid. "Good." He stood there, not saying anything, not going away. There was a bruise127 on his forehead.
After a while Mr. World said, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
A pause. The boy swallowed and nodded. "Something else," he said. "Yes."
"Would you feel more comfortable discussing it in private?"
The boy nodded again.
Mr. World walked with the kid back to his operations center: a damp cave containing a diorama of drunken pixies making moonshine with a still. A sign outside warned tourists away during renovations. The two men sat down on plastic chairs.
"How can I help you?" asked Mr. World.
"Yes. Okay. Right, two things, Okay. One. What are we waiting for? And two. Two is harder. Look. We have the guns. Right. We have the firepower. They have. They have fucking swords and knives and fucking hammers and stone axes. And like, tire irons. We have fucking smart bombs."
"Which we will not be using," pointed out the other man.
"I know that. You said that already. I know that. And that's doable. But. Look, ever since I did the job on that bitch in L.A., I've been..." He stopped, made a face, seemed unwilling128 to go on.
"You've been troubled?"
"Yes. Good word. Troubled. Yes. Like a home for troubled teens. Funny. Yes."
"And what exactly is troubling you?"
"Well, we fight, we win."
"And that is a source of trouble? I find it a matter of triumph and delight, myself."
"But. They'll die out anyway. They are passenger pigeons and thylacines. Yes? Who cares? This way, it's going to be a bloodbath."
"Ah." Mr. World nodded.
He was following. That was good. The fat kid said, "Look, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I've checked with the crew at Radio Modern, and they're all for settling this peacefully; and the intangibles are pretty much in favor of letting market forces take care of it. I'm being. You know. The voice of reason here."
"You are indeed. Unfortunately, there is information you do not have." The smile that followed was twisted and scarred.
The boy blinked. He said, "Mister World? What happened to your lips?"
World sighed. "The truth of the matter," he said, "is that somebody once sewed them together. A long time ago."
"Whoa," said the fat kid. "Serious omertà shit."
"Yes. You want to know what we're waiting for? Why we didn't strike last night?"
The fat kid nodded. He was sweating, but it was a cold sweat.
"We didn't strike yet, because I'm waiting for a stick."
"A stick?"
"That's right. A stick. And do you know what I'm going to do with the stick?"
A head shake. "Okay. I'll bite. What?"
"I could tell you," said Mr. World, soberly. "But then I'd have to kill you." He winked129, and the tension in the room evaporated.
The fat kid began to giggle130, a low, snuffling laugh in the back of his throat and in his nose. "Okay," he said. "Hee. Hee. Okay. Hee. Got it. Message received on Planet Technical. Loud and clear. Ixnay on the Estionsquay."
Mr. World shook his head. He rested a hand on the fat kid's shoulder. "Hey," he said. "You really want to know?"
"Sure."
"Well," said Mr. World, "seeing that we're friends, here's the answer: I'm going to take the stick, and I'm going to throw it over the armies as they come together. As I throw it, it will become a spear. And then, as the spear arcs over the battle, I'm going to shout 'I dedicate this battle to Odin.' "
"Huh?" said the fat kid. "Why?"
"Power," said Mr. World. He scratched his chin. "And food. A combination of the two. You see, the outcome of the battle is unimportant. What matters is the chaos131, and the slaughter132."
"I don't get it."
"Let me show you. It'll be just like this," said Mr. World. "Watch!" He took the wooden-bladed hunter's knife from the pocket of his Burberry and, in one fluid movement, he slipped the blade of it into the soft flesh beneath the fat kid's chin, and pushed hard upward, toward the brain. "I dedicate this death to Odin," he said, as the knife sank in.
There was a leakage133 onto his hand of something that was not actually blood, and a sputtering134 sparking noise behind the fat kid's eyes. The smell on the air was that of burning insulation135 wire.
The fat kid's hand twitched136 spastically, and then he fell. The expression on his face was one of puzzlement and misery137. "Look at him," said Mr. World, conversationally138, to the air. "He looks as if he just saw a sequence of zeroes and ones turn into a flock of brightly colored birds and fly away."
There was no reply from the empty rock corridor.
Mr. World shouldered the body as if it weighed very little, and he opened the pixie diorama and dropped the body beside the still, covering it with its long black raincoat. He would dispose of it that evening, he decided, and he grinned his scarred grin: hiding a body on a battlefield would almost be too easy. Nobody would ever notice. Nobody would care.
For a little while there was silence in that place. And then a gruff voice, which was not Mr. World's, cleared its throat in the shadows, and said, "Good start."
收听单词发音 |
1
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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disorders
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| n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调 | |
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lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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5
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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9
binoculars
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| n.双筒望远镜 | |
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10
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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12
cadging
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| v.乞讨，乞得，索取( cadge的现在分词 ) | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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14
makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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15
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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18
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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19
comedian
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| n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员 | |
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20
rusting
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| n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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21
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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22
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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23
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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24
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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26
obsidian
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| n.黑曜石 | |
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27
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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29
spawn
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| n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产 | |
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30
tornados
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| n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 ) | |
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31
clumped
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| adj.[医]成群的v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的过去式和过去分词 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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33
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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34
sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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35
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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36
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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38
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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39
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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40
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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41
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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42
filthiness
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raucously
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| adv.粗声地；沙哑地 | |
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44
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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45
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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46
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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48
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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49
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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50
parching
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| adj.烘烤似的，焦干似的v.（使）焦干， （使）干透( parch的现在分词 )；使（某人）极口渴 | |
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51
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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52
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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53
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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54
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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55
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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56
wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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57
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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58
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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59
crumple
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| v.把...弄皱，满是皱痕，压碎，崩溃 | |
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60
bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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61
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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62
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
earthenware
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| n.土器，陶器 | |
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64
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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65
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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66
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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67
vomit
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| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
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68
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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69
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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71
saliva
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| n.唾液，口水 | |
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72
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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73
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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74
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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75
limousines
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| n.豪华轿车( limousine的名词复数 )；（往返机场接送旅客的）中型客车，小型公共汽车 | |
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76
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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77
scowls
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| 不悦之色，怒容( scowl的名词复数 ) | |
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78
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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79
jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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80
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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81
glutinous
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| adj.粘的，胶状的 | |
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82
paradigm
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| n.例子，模范，词形变化表 | |
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83
tumorous
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| 肿胀的； 肿瘤性的； 浮华的； 浮夸的 | |
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84
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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85
relishing
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| v.欣赏( relish的现在分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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86
sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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87
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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88
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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89
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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90
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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91
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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92
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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93
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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94
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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95
gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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96
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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97
specifications
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| n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述 | |
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98
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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99
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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100
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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101
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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102
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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103
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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104
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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105
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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106
paperback
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| n.平装本，简装本 | |
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107
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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108
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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109
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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110
trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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111
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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112
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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113
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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114
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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115
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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116
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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117
babble
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| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
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118
retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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119
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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120
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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121
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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122
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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123
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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124
cloying
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| adj.甜得发腻的 | |
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125
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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126
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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127
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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128
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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129
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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130
giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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131
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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132
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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133
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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134
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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135
insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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136
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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137
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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138
conversationally
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| adv.会话地 | |
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