Marianne, the Magus & the Manticore (23 page)

When he had finished his meal, he came by the hatch and dropped a folded piece of paper through it. Marianne put the paper to one side and kept on with the washing. She had wanted this contact, had planned for it, and yet was now uncertain that she could deal with this man's needs and purposes, possibly very different from her own. It was only after the customers had gone and the two of them had the place to themselves that she dried her hands and unfolded the paper, reading it before she handed it to Helen, who had not tried to disguise her interest.

If you want to join us, come-to the church tonight, when
the bells ring.

Marianne regarded this thoughtfully. The dolorous ringing of the bells did not normally begin until late, after most customers had left the restaurant, sometimes not until after Helen herself had gone, after the evening rain had fallen, at the time the Greasy Girls were parading and others avoided the walks.

"You don't mind?" she said. "I really want to find out...."

Helen shrugged. "I'll come with you. We'll both find out."

They closed the restaurant and went down the busy street while there was still light in the sky, guiding themselves by the signal tower. There was in the center of the town a tower, tall only in relationship to the squatty buildings which surrounded it, for it had no graceful height to commend it as a building of interest or aesthetic value. It was simply slightly taller than other buildings, and if one scanned the circumference of the city, one might become aware that it was the highest point within that place, not by much, but by the smallest increment which would allow it to surmount all other roofs. The conical roof of this tower was tiled in red so that it appeared as an inflamed carbuncle upon the horizon of the city. The place was called by everyone throughout the city the signal tower. Who signaled from it, or when, or for what purpose was never mentioned. The church crouched near it, half in its shadow.

They hid themselves behind the thick pillars of the church porch to await the coming of darkness. While it was still dusk, the Greasy Girls began to come out of their houses, heads shaved clean, bodies almost naked, all skin surfaces annointed with some ointment which made them shine in the shadows like slime-wet frogs. A few started walking down the street, were joined by others, then still others, no sound accompanying them but the shuffle of their feet. When some fifty of (hem had assembled, they marched up the church steps and into the building. Helen and Marianne slipped around the corner of the porch to avoid them, and entered the church from an unlit side door. They were oppressed by an unfamiliar smell which aroused a kind of quasi-memory which both of them felt they should be able to identify. The music oozing from the place was deadly solemn, almost lugubrious, and the congregation bathed in this watery sound with expressions of drowned lassitude. Other than the Greasy Girls there were only a dozen or so people scattered individually among the massive stone benches. David gestured to them from behind a pillar, and they came to sit in front of him while the sad music went on and on and the hierarch sat drowsing in his high chair on the podium. David leaned forward as though to say something just as the music trailed away into inconsequent stillness and the hierarch began to speak.

"Tomorrow we will walk with the Manticore once more.

Rejoice to walk with the Manticore, for it is the Manticore who saves us from the horrible librarians. In that dread library our books are kept, and we know that others may read our lives, take us into their power.... If it were not for the Manticore, we would have no future except to live upon those shelves forever. But the Manticore peels us away, layer by layer, places us upon the walls of the city where we may become part of the city itself, strong as its walls, eternal as its stones. As we are peeled away by the Manticore, our books dim and fade, and we pass out of the power of the librarians and into the light. Oh, rejoice to walk with the Manticore—rejoice and sing."

The singing began again, awful music, deep as an ocean and as black, lightless as the terrible depths of the sea. A curtain at the back of the podium swayed briefly in some errant gust of air, and Marianne caught a glimpse of the singers behind it, women, naked and oiled, shaved and shining, singing in hard, hornlike voices with only their flabby dugs testifying to femaleness.

David whispered, "Follow me when we go out," which after a time they did, waiting until the procession of Greasy Girls had departed and then trailing him as he led them down dark side streets and into an area of high, blank-faced warehouses with railway sidings where little red lights gleamed like hungry eyes and a floodlamp blared threat against a wall alive with hunted figures, swarming with fearful faces and pleading hands.

He took them into an alleyway, through a hidden door at the base of some black, featureless building. They heard voices before they came into the room, a room which reminded Marianne of the sub-basement rooms of the library, half full of discarded junk, the other half-filled by the dozen people sitting around an old table. Marianne had only a moment to hear the voices before she was grabbed by harsh hands and thrust violently against a wall.

"I took them to church," David said to the assembly. "There's just the two of them. Nobody followed them. This one is Helen.

She says she was married to me once. The other one is the one from the library."

"Let go of me," Marianne snarled, almost weeping. "I am not from the library. My name is Marianne, and I'm not from the library." Two of the conspirators had risen to take Helen's arms, keeping her from interfering. Helen wrestled with them angrily, but they held her fast.

"Is that so?" asked a white-haired man with a beard down to his belly, wild eyes under tufts of spiky brows staring at her.

"We know that no one comes
from
there. And yet there are always people there, and you are the only one who has ever escaped."

"Don't be silly," she hissed. "People left there every night."

A hard, leaden anger was forming inside her, spinning like a flywheel.

"Really? Did you have the impression that others of the library staff left there at night?"

"They went home at night," she said. "Of course they did."

"Ah. You say they went home at night. Those of us outside never saw anyone leave, did you knew that?"

"But I was always alone at night. Absolutely alone!"

"And yet no one left. Believe me, that is true. Though, to lend credence to what you say, it is also true that you were the only one we could see at night, though we could see others from time to time in the day. Interesting. Did you know that since you have come, the Manticore walks more frequently than before?"

"I—I didn't know. I'm sure it has nothing to do with me...."

As she said this, she knew it was not true, and the heavy who within spun a little faster.

"That is unlikely. Before you came to the library, the Manticore walked one day in ten....

"One day in ten. We considered it a kind of measure of the malignity of the place, not decently hidden under a cloak of sickness or a robe of age, but ourselves, peeling away layer by layer, visible on every side, confronted at every turning, our own eyes peering at us from the walls, our own mouths pleading with us, our own arms flung out to evoke our pity.

What was malign about the city, we thought, is that the Manticore walked one day in ten, a beastly decimator, herding before him our own mortality.

"Well, there are those—in this room—who will not bear it, who will trap the Manticore and kill him rather than be torn off in this fashion, sheet by sheet, as a calendar is torn. We had begun to make plans....

"But since you have come, the Manticore walks more often.

He walks one day in seven, one day in five. Soon, perhaps, every day?"

"Are you asking me?" Her voice trembled with threat.

"No. I am telling you. Explaining why we sought you out.

Since you came, the fury of the place is doubled, and we demand to know why."

"We will know why," shrilled a tall, cloud-haired woman who struck the table with her fist, raising a cloud of dust. "We will know why. We saw you outside the Manticore's window.

We saw you looking at it long, eye to eye. We believe you know the Manticore! We believe you know who, or what, he is, and how he may be conquered. We believe you are some kin of his!"

Within her the wheel sped once again, making a hum which filled her blood, set it singing. "How would I know the Manticore's name? Why would it be kin of mine?"

They looked uncertainly at one another, confused by her tone. Though they held her against the wall, she blazed at them from among their constraining arms. They could only repeat themselves.

"We believe you know the Manticore, know what it is, who it is. How, or why, or when—those are not important questions.

You looked at the Manticore as though you recognized him, as though you knew his name."

"I do not know its name. I don't know anything about this place. I have no memory of what I was before. If you are doing something to get away, I will help you or go with you, but if you go on asking me questions like this, I can't help you."

She felt hot, a^-ry tears, swallowed them, let herself snarl.

"Why am I here? Why are you here?"

The white-bearded one nodded, almost in satisfaction. "You have seen the Greasy Girls. They walk where the Manticore walks. Bald, shaven, naked, lean as leather, oiled to a brighter gloss than finished marble, walking and chanting before the Manticore, worshiping the Manticore. The Manticore laughs at them, kills one occasionally, lets them march and posture as they will. We are their antithesis. We will not accept, will not resign ourselves, will not permit, will not believe. We will resist! We will find a way to get into the library and bum it.

We will find a way to kill the Manticore. We will find a way out of here.

"And we will make you help us, one way or another. We don't believe you when you tell us you do not know the Manticore—though you may not realize that you lie to us. Still, this is enough for tonight. Tomorrow, the Manticore walks.

Soon after that, we will meet again." They let go of her and turned away, and Helen took her arm, perhaps in comfort, perhaps for comfort.

David took them out of the place, the silence behind them breaking into confused expostulation as they went through the door into the night. Helen angrily rubbed her arms where she had been held. "Damn it, David," she snarled. "That was a rotten thing to do."

He nibbed his wrist across his moustache, face as hard and determined as it had been since they had seen him at noon. "If we were once married, woman,
if
we were, then you would forgive me, knowing that what I do is necessary. If we were not, then it is of no concern of mine what you think of me.

You may have resigned yourself to this place. I have not. What the Leader said is true. We will kill the Manticore or die, but we will not merely live here to see our souls pasted upon the walls of this place...."

He left them with that, with no farewell, without a wave of hand or a gesture, and Helen began to cry silently, tears running down her strong face without a sound. "We're going to Mr.

Grassi's place," Marianne said. "He has a book I have to use."

Helen, busy wiping her eyes, did not answer, but neither did she object. Though it took them some time to find where they were and determine in which direction Manticore Street would be found, Helen said nothing in all that time.

In the second floor apartment, Mr. Grassi was unsurprised at their arrival. Marianne went directly to the shelf where her book,
To Hold Forever,
was found.

"Oh, my dear pretty lady," said Grassi. "Are you looking for more answers to other questions yet?"

"One question only," she said briefly. "Which we should have asked when I was here last, Mr. Grassi. We should not have waited, should not have delayed. We should have asked the book then how to send the message you wondered about.

How do we call for help, Mr. Grassi? We must know, for this last day has convinced me we must have help or be here forever."

She let Helen tell him what had occurred as she sat down with the heavy book in her lap. Marianne paid no attention.

She had begun to read at the place in the story which began with Grassi's question, "What do you think? A kind of underground, perhaps?" and went on through that day and the day following to the present time. She read broodingly, with deep attention, undistracted by the movements about her or the smell of the food they were preparing. Outside the windows darkness rested upon the city and only the sound of mysterious cars moving through distant streets came through the window. She read and read, finally placing her hand upon the page and reading aloud.

""They closed the restaurant and went down the busy street while there was still light in the sky, guiding themselves by the signal tower. There was in the center of the town a tower....

It was simply slightly taller than the things around it, and if one scanned the circumference of the city, one might become aware that it was the highest point within that place.... The conical roof of this tower was tiled in red so that it appeared as an inflamed carbuncle upon the horizon of the city. The place was called by everyone throughout the city the signal tower. Who signaled from it, or when, or for what purpose was never mentioned.'"

She thumped the book with her hand. "There is a signal tower, Mr. Grass!. A place to signal from or why else is it called by that name? So, let us signal from it."

"My dear ladies—now? In the dark? When dawn may come at any time and with it the Manticore? Oh, surely another time, a better time...."

The wheel within her hummed, a rising pitch of fury. "Mr.

Grassi. You are fluttering, and it is unlike you. Think of your native cunning. Think of your natural guile. Think how clever we are, Mr. Grassi, and let us go. Who knows what another day in this place may do to us? I will not wait to be used by those plotters; I will not wait to be eaten by Madame; I will not wait to be pursued by the Manticore. Stay or go with us, Mr. Grassi, but we will go, won't we Helen?"