Catherine Suspended
If only Gus Farrow had not fled so precipitously on murdering me, or indeed if he had fled to any refuge but this one, I might have found peace.
There my body lay on the riverbank, cooling like so much stale porridge, mud-smeared from my struggle. And there he stood above with his darting eyes, his mouth still befouled by proclamations of what he had called love. Had I been in any condition to speak, I might have disputed that the sentiments of my murderer deserved such a name. But I could not form words.
Please do not infer from this that death had left me voiceless. On the contrary. I knew that I was dead; I have never been disposed to avert my mind from facts, however disagreeable. With a certain stunned detachment I noted the body so lately mine: now silent, limp, and filthy, its petticoats mingling with the muck. Nonetheless I was still screaming and found I could not stop.
Gus jerked his head and clapped his hands to his ears, so I supposed I was in some manner audible, if only to him. With his movement I realized where I was.
His hands were cottony with my ghost, though I do not think that Gus perceived me wound about his fingers. For my part, I assure you I had no desire to cling to him. Ugh, how had I become so entangled? The result was that in covering his ears my scream drove through his head, and he yanked his hands away and gaped with hounded eyes.
Then he began running.
Had I not been in a state of shock, I would have guessed at once where he was going. But even then I could not have known what it would mean for me to be carried, poor shredded ectoplasm that I was, to the city of sorcerers.
To Nautilus.
If he had stayed on the green earth, then in time I might have disentangled myself and floated free, released into the sweet blue sky and sparkling river that I have always regarded as my truest home. Or I might have come loose without any effort on my part, and dissolved into serene unbeing. But Gus allowed no interval for that. Like some unholy rabbit, he reached a burrow or gap he knew in the fabric of our dear world, and down he went. There was a wild spinning-about of which I was but dimly sensible, and after some time a landing.
And then I, who had always regarded magic as the most noxious presumption, who had certainly never felt the slightest desire to see this city so imbued with it, found myself in Nautilus. I could see why Gus had grown infatuated with the place, all pearly grandiosity and unsettled forms. There was hardly a straight line to be seen anywhere, nor a surface that did not warp and scroll, as if, in their arrogance, these sorcerers had petrified the wind itself. If I had still been possessed of my body I would have been seasick simply from looking at the architecture, and even bodiless I felt a fierce distaste.
Gus had fled, of course, hoping to escape the consequences of his guilt. So far as the rope that would have awaited him under ordinary laws, he succeeded. But he was still very young then, and very foolish. I knew quite well, for he had told me that he had won his citizenship in Nautilus only a week before: he was nearly as much a stranger there as I was.
So it seems likely that he was as astonished as I by what followed.
My scream, which had been a thin and nagging wisp of sound before, grew markedly louder; so much so that the extravagant denizens of the city began to
and refine their faces if you like. A pity you can’t consult Catherine as to her preferences.”
Practice. I wondered how many infantile wraiths Gus had already crushed like sketches that hadn’t come off, and how many more would cringe away from him in vain. I thought I could feel the little thing’s suffering like a vibration humming in his pocket, fancied that I caught the glint of a welling eye.
Gus, meanwhile, drew himself up, no doubt offended by the insinuation that I might have liked him better with a different appearance. He flashed a glance at me that was positively plaintive, as if my ghost might be persuaded to stop screaming long enough to reassure him of his personal attractions.
“And there was already the bother of obtaining the materials.” Gus was fretting outright now.
The minotaur’s lips flattened as he repressed a smile. This was the moment he’d been anticipating, I realized; he had induced Gus’s weariness at the prospect of his undertaking on purpose, so that any offer of assistance would be received eagerly.
“Possibly I can help you there.” An outright grin opened on blocky teeth. “The occasional Athenian youth isn’t too much to spare for my friends.”
Gus looked sharply at that, as indeed did I. “On what consideration?”
“Nothing just now. Possibly you can repay the favor in the future.”
Gus was not so easily put off. “I cannot possibly spare talens for you in any significant amounts. My own projects require every drop I can muster. Already I barely sleep. Instead of resting I’m always drawing from myself, and using all my concentration to do so.”
“As to that, you have a tremendous source of wealth close at hand.” The tone was not lost on me, jocularity half concealing the fervent intent behind.
I could not guess what source he was referring to until Gus glanced up at me, his lips pursed in distaste. “That would be most unseemly. Possibly even dangerous, if I understand the mechanism correctly.”
The minotaur smiled. “Well, then, we can forget the question of payment for now—though many ghosts make an excellent wellspring, depending on the type. All that bottled fury packs a punch!” Then his eyes rolled sidelong at me and his lips flattened in concern. “The walls do repel her, I assume? She doesn’t pass through?”
“Through the walls? No, she doesn’t. I hadn’t considered—”
“The walls recognize anyone—or anything—seeping magic. She’s definitely generating talens, then.”
Gus gave a startled laugh. “The walls mistake her for a citizen? They think my poor Catherine is paying taxes?”
“She is, in effect,” the minotaur said with studied carelessness. “Not that it alters her legal status, and that’s very much to your benefit. Ghosts are nonentities under the law, so you can do as you like with your Catherine. Shall we meet at the Nimble Fire soon and discuss this further?”
“That would mean carrying her through the streets. It’s only when I return to the unworld that no one seems to hear or see her. She’s quieter in my ears there as well.”
The unworld. In all its beauty, intricacy, splendor, that was what he called it. A single fallen leaf, a bit of robin’s eggshell in the grass, I rated more precious than this whole enchanted city. The sheer waste of it all choked me: the waste of my life, of the child, of vast power turned to nothing good or useful.
The minotaur shrugged. “I advise you to give up your seclusion regardless. You are hardly the only citizen encumbered in such a manner. Charles Rollins, for one, has a minuscule sky-blue child, no bigger than a lizard, forever attempting to wring his neck and wailing. So Charles wears a muffler and gets on with his business.”
Naturally he did, I thought. So many things were different here in Nautilus, but society’s habit of winking at monsters—that was quite unchanged.
Gus was nodding in acknowledgment of the minotaur’s wisdom.
They exchanged more pleasantries, more assurances, and then our visitor left, the wall rippling behind him.
“Terrible vanity,” Gus muttered at the wall, and then confirmed all my guesses regarding the minotaur’s original form. “Imagine the expense of keeping up such an excessive appearance—an entire bull’s head, and probably improvements to his physique as well! It must drain his magic at a dreadful rate. One would think there were no serious matters to attend to.”
I would have liked to tell him that he was mistaking his own cruelty for gravity; that everything he himself did was as senseless, as wasteful and absurd, as that bull’s head.
There was a brief lull while Gus shifted about, oddly furtive, as if there were something he wished to do unobserved. Several times he glanced at me, perhaps hoping I would do him the courtesy of disappearing. He was so frank on the subject of his proposed crimes that this new discomfort baffled me. What could he intend that was so much more vile than what I knew already?
And here a change in my own outlook struck me: I was anxious what Gus meant to do. I cared, and cared to see if I could, what? Stop him? I understood then that withdrawing as I had was no longer an option for me. Perhaps I could do nothing, but that was irrelevant. I must observe, must consider any avenues I could find.
I must try. Thrash, flail, or fail as I might; it was all as nothing compared to that child’s green eye squeezed between his fingers.
At last he sighed loudly and began stuffing his soiled linens into a sack.
“My mother and father are away,” Gus informed me. “Visiting for a few weeks with my Hathaway cousins. We’re going to see Margo.” He paused, scowling. “Don’t look at me like that!”
Oh, Margo! So she was spending her old age scrubbing her fugitive nephew’s underclothes? I could not scream with laughter, so I simply screamed.
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