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Winter Tide Page 18


  I recoiled instinctively—but I had promised to look. I forced myself to reach out again. Even braced, its presence burned and froze, but it had drawn the spell to strengthen will and I made myself persist. I could see now how the thing fit itself into Trumbull’s form, how it was formed to fold forever into new shapes, to adapt endlessly. How the terrible cold and heat allowed it to maintain identity through all those permutations.

  And—harder still—I let the thing look back at me, and sensed the others following my example. I felt it examining joins—invisible even to me—between mind and body, refolding itself to better mimic those connections.

  Felt it shrink from something I could not see, then extend a cautious tendril. Felt a hint of Yithian emotion: jagged and vast and faceted with a million associated memories.

  And returned to awareness of my own body, Trumbull’s inner self fully and mercifully invisible once more. Tenebrous impressions lingered among the rest of us—by our own desire, I suspected. A clutch of mammals, we huddled together for warmth.

  Trumbull turned her gaze on Audrey, frowning. “You appear perfectly sane.”

  Audrey blinked. If she felt any fear or repugnance, she kept it well hidden. “Do people often go mad at the sight of you? That seems like it would be awkward.”

  “Do you know of anything odd in your heritage? An unidentified grandparent, or an adoption under doubtful circumstances?”

  “Of course not. My family’s been in Massachusetts for three hundred years, and our records go back even further. Ask the Daughters of the American Revolution if you don’t believe me.”

  Trumbull shrugged. “The interference could be from earlier, I suppose—though the blood is strong.”

  “I’ve seen her blood,” I said. “It’s fine.”

  “I suppose you’ve only examined a few people of the air. You should know what you’ve bound yourself to. Your pupil is unmistakably dust-blooded.” She edged away from the rest of us and lifted a hand, as if preparing to defend herself. I resisted the urge to back away from both. Trumbull looked more threatening, but “dust-blooded” was a word rarely heard outside cautionary tales.

  Audrey raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d better explain what that means. It sounds like an insult.”

  “It’s—” I looked at Audrey, a little nervous myself. I’d made her read the Litany—perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t. “It means you’re related to the people of the rock.”

  “The Mad Ones Under the Earth.” Apparently the phrase had stuck in Audrey’s mind. I looked at Trumbull, still on her guard against some expected attack, and it occurred to me that for the Yith to lay such a dramatic label on one race out of all those that walked the planet, that race must have made a notable impression.

  Audrey’s bloodstream didn’t look entirely like Charlie’s—or Leroy’s, now that I thought on it. I had assumed the differences were due to youth and health. “How is that possible?” I asked. “I thought they didn’t have children any more, or come to the surface save to guard their gates. It must have been a long time ago.”

  Trumbull lowered her hand as Audrey continued to appear annoyed but nonviolent. “They do both, very occasionally. For experimental purposes. A female might take a lover of the air to test out some obscure magical theory, or a male choose to sire a half-blood child out of boredom and abandon it later. Either way, the other parent’s survival would be remarkable. From the state of your student’s blood, I would guess no more than five generations past—though I wouldn’t be shocked if it were only a single generation.”

  “Impossible,” said Audrey. “I’d have heard something.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Charlie. “It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing people would talk about.”

  “Or do,” said Audrey.

  “Your air-born ancestors wouldn’t necessarily have had much agency in the matter,” said Trumbull. “But clearly the Mad Ones didn’t have your raising.”

  Audrey sat back and flexed her nails against the slate. She traced the nearest sigil thoughtfully with her finger. “Say this is true. I’ve learned a lot this week. It’s kind of wild how much. Enough to know that the different kinds of people spread all sorts of rumors about each other, and not all of them true. So what makes you call the people of the rock mad? Am I going to wake up one day gibbering? Will I end up in an asylum?” She took a deep breath. “Is it a bad idea for me to study magic? Everyone who believes in it at all, and some who don’t, says magicians risk their sanity, but I always assumed they were blowing smoke.”

  “It depends what you study,” said Trumbull. “The people of the rock started out much like the other branches of humanity. So far as we can tell, their madness isn’t carried in their DNA.”

  “In their … what?” I asked, since I suspected no one else would.

  “In their…” Trumbull counted on the fingers of one hand. “It isn’t passed down in their blood. But they studied domains of magic inimical to rational thought, and shared that knowledge with their children. They value the power they get from it more than what they’ve lost. Or so we infer—the dangers of exposure, and the cruelty with which they destroy suspected outsiders, make it impossible for us to sojourn among them for most of their history.”

  “Huh. So I shouldn’t study…?”

  “Transmutation of material forms into energy. Nor should anyone else. Fortunately I doubt those secrets can be found in Miskatonic’s stacks.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Audrey shook her head, smoothed her hair, and frowned. “You sound awfully reassuring. Why did you—” She mimed shrinking away, and made a passable imitation of the way Trumbull had moved her hand.

  “As I said, the Mad Ones have children for … experimental purposes. Very scientific people, that way. They might easily have attempted to make heritable those things they valued or found intriguing. I must say, you show remarkable skill at magic for someone who has been studying, as I calculate it, for three days and a handful of hours.”

  “I’ve only been working on basic stuff. And I think Miss Marsh has been hurrying me a bit.” She glanced at me and lowered her eyes. “I haven’t taken offense—I know you want to keep going on the more advanced material with Mr. Day. I’ve been doing my best to keep up.”

  “Your best has been remarkable,” I admitted. “It took us weeks of study to successfully perform the Inner Sea, the first time. And I had already tried it as a child. You didn’t have to do it by yourself, but you picked up the principles very quickly.”

  “Huh.” Audrey hugged her knees.

  “I don’t think this changes anything,” I said, as much to reassure her as because I was confident in the decision. “We keep studying, but you let us know if any of it strikes you oddly. We don’t try anything that’s known to drive whole races to mindless sadism. And we keep an eye out both for signs of trouble in ourselves and for, um, troublesome relatives.”

  Caleb put a hand on Audrey’s arm and looked at her solemnly. “You could follow Grandfather’s suggestion and bear my offspring. Children of water and air and rock: they would terrify everyone.”

  I was about ready to slap him, but Audrey laughed and swatted his hand away. “You are the most improper man I’ve ever met, and I’ve met Jesse. Do men of the water always go around making indecent proposals, or is that just one of my special powers?”

  “They do not,” I said to Caleb. “And Mother would have something to say to you and to Grandfather.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Audrey. She turned to Trumbull. “Okay, enough of that. I know how the story you told earlier ends, and I’m kind of sick of it. What do Yith tell their babies, when they tuck them in at night?” She lifted her chin in challenge.

  If I were not careful, I realized, I would start to interpret everything I found admirable and exasperating about her—her skill, her persistence, her refusal to give in to anything stronger and older than herself whether Yith or university—as a sign of her perilous heritage.

/>   “You may be overgeneralizing from your own experience,” suggested Trumbull.

  “I admit I don’t know if you tuck your babies in, or sleep at night. But I’m pretty sure you have kids, and I know you tell stories.”

  Charlie tapped his cane. “I don’t know if any of us will sleep tonight if we hear what the Yith do with their children.”

  “You disapprove?” Trumbull asked mildly.

  “I wasn’t under the impression your bodies were immortal. Your kids all go the way of Asenath Waite—you steal their lives so that you can keep going.”

  “Charlie,” I said, my voice low and urgent.

  Trumbull laughed. “Miss Marsh, your people are always so politely circumspect about these things. Do you think we’re ashamed? Ephraim Waite wanted to live forever, and failed—as all must, sooner or later. What we seek isn’t individual immortality, but the preservation of memories. As a child, I would have submitted to that purpose if called on—as most are—and I still will, someday, if I lose the ability to carry my recollections with the respect they’re due. But for as long as I can carry them I’ll remember the taste of your saltcakes, the sensory impressions that never transmute properly to words, after this world is barren rock. The young mind that nurtures my next body through its development stewards no such store of experience.”

  Caleb glared at her. “You didn’t even like the saltcakes.”

  “I don’t have to appreciate something personally to know that it’s beautiful. Or to know that it’s an important record.” To Audrey: “This is a story I tell my offspring. I was born two worlds before Earth, and on that world I sojourned among a people who communicated by stimulating their bioluminescent symbionts—something like fungi that grew on the surface of their bodies. The symbionts went extinct ten thousand years before the people who spoke through them. After that, they communicated only through writing; they forgot the rhythm of their own songs. But I remember. Song and scent and taste, what it looks like to be conscious of every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, what every sort of sapient body feels like from within—these things matter. And they matter, too, to the children who accept mortality that their ancestors’ memories might be carried a little further through the universe.”

  “Well,” said Charlie after a moment. “I suppose if you tell yourself something for a few billion years, it gets convincing.” He stood. “If you all will excuse me, I need to get some rest. Mr. Marsh, do you want to come along?”

  I put a hand on my brother’s arm. “Do you mind staying? I still want to talk.”

  “Good night, then.” Charlie nodded to all of us save Trumbull, and left. I heard the thunk of his cane on the stairs, then the door. I would have to speak with him later, as well.

  “I, too, will rest,” said Trumbull. She held up a hand, smiled grimly at it. “I must have gotten what I needed from the ceremony, if I find myself trying to explain rather than simply record. It is the place of the Yith to attempt understanding across vast gulfs of experience; there is no purpose in expecting you to do so.” With a nod, she rose and left.

  The three of us who remained sat silent for a minute.

  “I think,” Caleb said at length, “that there’s a reason most people who meet a Yith in the modern era only spend a few hours in their presence.”

  “Because that’s about how long it takes for their arrogance to overcome your awe at the great keepers of the Archives?” I said. “Or because sooner or later, one feels compelled to pass judgment on them? I have no idea what to do with such judgment.”

  “There’s nothing to do,” Caleb said. “She’s right—everyone goes out of their way to appease the Yith, but they don’t care whether we approve or condemn. I told you I didn’t want to know her for what she was.”

  “Hard to avoid, though.” I saw Audrey staring quietly at the door, and asked: “Are you all right?”

  She laughed. “That’s an interesting question. I’m more all right than I was Wednesday morning. Leroy’s hurt, but everything else … all that’s changed is that I know more.”

  “That’s not a small thing,” I said.

  “Are you gonna keep looking at me that way? Because I promise, I’m no more likely to explode than I was yesterday.”

  “I know. And I saw this morning what you’re like under pressure. You don’t lose your mind in a crisis, and that’s huge.” I paused; I had a feeling it wouldn’t do to be dishonest with anyone in my confluence. “I’m sorry. I grew up hearing stories about the Mad Ones, and I suspect knowing one will take a little getting used to. I’ll do my best.”

  “Like I said, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few days, it’s to be suspicious of the stories everyone knows.”

  “The stories of the Mad Ones come from many sources,” I said reluctantly. “The Yith, the people of the air, the people of the water. All have testimony from those who stumble under the earth—the few that come back. All those travelers agree about what they’ve seen.”

  “Which is what, exactly? If the people of the rock learned their suspicion of outsiders from meeting the Yith … maybe they’re just a little more willing to pass judgment than the rest of us.”

  Caleb flinched, but said sharply: “And a little more willing to torture trespassers to death, and breed thinking creatures as cattle for food. Of all people, they’d see nothing wrong in what the Yith do. They might be confused that the Great Race gives any justification other than their own passing desires.”

  Audrey considered that, then nodded. “Even the ancestors I know about have done some nasty things. However awful my secret crazy relatives were, they did something decent leaving their kids alone. Letting us grow up unburied by duty, or whatever it is they stick on kids in place of duty.”

  “Duty’s not a bad thing, necessarily,” I said. “It depends what it is—and who’s defining it.”

  “You gonna have those babies, then?”

  I started—not because I hadn’t been thinking about the question, but because I hadn’t intended to discuss it with anyone but Caleb. “Maybe. After our conversation with Trumbull, having children and doing right by them feels more important. But if some part of my mind thinks I’m going to prove a point to Trumbull that way, it’s going to be disappointed.”

  We talked more: nothing adequate to the revelations of the day. Perhaps it was a flaw in our language, or in our species.

  CHAPTER 17

  At last we noted the hour, and Audrey realized that the bus to Kingsport had already stopped running. She asked to stay the night, and we went downstairs to check the idea with Neko.

  I was relieved to see that she was alone in the living room. “There you are,” she said. “I heard Professor Trumbull go to bed a while ago.”

  “It’s been a long night,” I said. “Do you mind bunking with me? Audrey’s missed her bus.”

  “That’s fine.” She held up the Plato. “Have you read this thing? He wants people to hand over their babies to the state, and have just a few people raise them all!”

  It sounded like a horrible idea, and yet. “He could have worse suggestions.”

  She put the book down on the side table, stood to wrap her arms around me. I returned the hug, grateful.

  “Before you share a room with me,” said Audrey, looking at her hands, “you should know that I’m part inhuman monster.”

  “It’s okay,” said Neko. “We’re all monsters here.”

  Audrey whipped her head around to stare, then came over and embraced Neko.

  “Entirely human monsters, to be precise,” said Caleb. “Trumbull’s the only inhuman monster in the house.”

  “Point,” said Audrey. “In the future, I’ll try to be more specific about the crazy cannibalistic branch of my family.”

  Neko took her to find fresh sheets, leaving me alone at last with my brother.

  “I want to go to the chapel,” I told him. “Walk with me?”

  “After a day like this, you want to pray?” he asked.
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  “Or meditate. Away from Trumbull’s house. You don’t have to stick around; we can talk on the way.”

  Outside, there was no sign of the gate guards. Broad wet flakes still drifted through the air. The sidewalks, only partly cleared, were coated in a thin layer of white. I hoped Charlie had made it back without trouble. I scuffed my foot; it didn’t seem too slippery.

  The aeon that Trumbull came here from was warm: the atmosphere a different composition, the Earth at a hotter phase of her cycles. It would never snow, except perhaps on the highest mountain peaks. The same was true when they stole the bodies of the eldermost, who carved their polar cities from seething jungle rather than the glaciers that buried them now. And it would be hot once more in the time of the ck’chk’ck. How had I never noticed that in the Litany before? The Yith’s original world, however far back, must have been a sweltering place.

  “It was so good to see our elders again,” said Caleb without preamble. “But somehow I’d come to imagine them as— If only I could prove that I’d done something, they’d swoop in and make everything all right. Everything that could be made right.”

  “They could still help. Although I’m reluctant to invite them near Miskatonic at the moment.” I thought of the soldiers with their guns and talismans. “I wonder if we should do as Grandfather and the archpriest suggested. If we ought to try and … but I don’t know if I can bear it. Caleb?”

  He cocked his head, and my heart ached with the familiarity of his silhouette, with its similarity to mine.

  “What are you doing with Dawson?”

  He started, which gave me my answer, then tucked his chin and stuck his hands in his pockets. It made him look younger. “I’ve taken her as a lover.”

  “Are you trying to get her with child?”

  “It’s only been a few days. But I’m not trying to prevent it.” He shuffled. “It’s not like it was in the camps. She could bear and raise healthy offspring. If it takes after us, she’d have a powerful child to look out for her. And it is what Grandfather wants.”