Finch had never eaten two in one night.
How many would change him by just a little too much?
Fuck it.
Opened his mouth wide. Placed the bulb on his tongue. The taste of the gray cap bulb was dry. Like dirt and sand. The worst part was you had to eat them whole. Crunch down on the ridiculous size of it until your jaw ached. No good cutting them up, grinding them down to paste, adding them to food or water. Ruined the effect. His skin prickled as his mouth took in the strange texture, the taste. An odd, sickening blend of cinnamon-pepper-lime. Sour breath.
Dread, and yet also a thin layer of anticipation. To be taken out of his own life. If only for a little while.
He stumbled into the chair. Feral butted his head up against his slack arm.
Memories didn't come out the way one might expect. Nothing logical or ordered about them. Almost as if you were standing on a street corner as a motored vehicle raced by. As it passed you, a thousand pieces of confetti flew up. You had to try to catch as many of them as you could before they hit the ground.
Finch closed his eyes.
Leaned back.
Let it hit him all at once.
Come to:
At the bottom of a well. Layers of rough stone spiraled up to a distant pale light. A wriggling mass of worms or insects or something thick and strange pushing down through the light, extinguishing it. Sudden image of a monstrous City, balanced atop a single building greater than anything ever built in Ambergris, and it all housed in a cavern so huge that the ceiling is lost in blue-tinged darkness.
Come to (faster now):
A stumbling, jerky run through a tunnel. A surrounding mob of gray caps click and whistle with insane speed. A glimpse of blue sky,
winking out. A burning motored vehicle, ancient model. A parade with a huge black cat caged and orange-yellow-green lights spread out along the route. Superimposed: an enormous grub drowning in a sack of its own liquid skin. A dark-green frond of fungus five stories high. Blood, lots of blood, pooling out across the ground. A man's face, in extreme agony, suddenly gone black in silhouette, turning into a huge door made half of volcanic rock and half charred book cover. And on top of the door a smaller door, and a small door set into that one. Hand on the doorknob. Opening ...
Come to (slower now):
A stone fortress in a desert. Spinning out into open space-falling, falling, falling. And then a face Finch recognizes, the dead man's, smiling. Beatifically. More mud and dirt and the smell-sound of a river nearby. Side view of water flowing, ear to the grass. Something licks the moisture from his eyes before huffing and going on its way. Falling again, through black fabric studded with stars. The dead man falling, too, staring right at Finch, expression oddly calm. Words from the man's mouth in the clicks and whistles of the gray caps' language. And then, a sudden and monstrous clarity that can never be put into words.
Come to:
Moving slowly among a thousand swaying fungal trees in a thousand vision-shattering shades of green. Nearby, a rotting tank with the insignia of the Houses on its side, asleep under the fruiting bodies. The sound of footsteps. A hint of movement other than spores, strained through the heavy sky. Hunting for something. But what? A man. Moving in front of them. Night. Strange numbers and words spilling out emerald against a field of darkness. Shadowing the man. The orange sky dominated by the shambling hulks of floating fungal fortresses. Things crawl and fly and swim between the fortresses. Running now, just yards behind the man. But the man was turning to face them. The man was looking right at him when he disappeared. Winked out. Leaving only the smile. And that only for an instant. An intense feeling of confusion and surprise. Then: falling through cold air and couldn't feel his legs.
Returned whining. Keening. A low, animal sound from deep in his throat. Lay curled up on the chair. Sweating. Things crawled around inside his skull. Didn't know how much time had passed.
An enormous grub drowning in a sack of its own liquid skin.
Coughed. Sat up.
A rotting tank with the insignia of the Houses on its side, asleep under the fruiting bodies.
Feral rubbed up against his extended arm. Finch got up, made it to the phone, dialed Rathven, said "One done, one to go" when she answered, and hung up. Grabbed the second memory bulb. Collapsed back to the chair.
A monstrous City, balanced atop a single building.
Started laughing. Didn't know what was so funny or why he couldn't stop.
Falling through cold air and couldn't feel his legs.
Wondered how much this would mess him up.
6
he night half over. Something important slipping away?
Drank more whisky, and let it swirl around his mouth. Held the burn in the back of his throat. Followed by numbness.
The sounds out in the dark beyond the window hadn't made him shudder or start for a long time. Skitterings. Moanings. A cut-off shout of alarm.
A spotlight of lavender and crimson painted itself across the far wall of his apartment, then leapt away. Once, Finch had seen a shoal of spores take the form of a huge, bloated green monster. Spiraling red eyes. It had bellowed and dived into a neighborhood to the north. Smashed itself into motes against the ground.
A child might see that and cry out in delight.
Sidle, quick-shadow, scuttled up the side of the wall near the window. Pursuing moths that had flown into the apartment. Sidle was a happy little predator with bright black eyes. Didn't care about anything but his next meal. Finch could put him in a cage with a branch and water, and Sidle would be content his entire life. So long as he got fed.
"I guess we'll soon find out what kind of bastard he was," Finch said to an oblivious Feral. Feral was looking up at the wall. Mesmerized by Sidle's stalking of the spiraling moth. Finch wondered how many Sidles Feral had caught over the years.
Finch forced the second bulb into his mouth. Chewed it into a dull paste as he moved from the chair to the couch. Lay down. Swallowed.
The room spun a little. Righted itself.
The ceiling had a few odd discolorations but nothing to suggest infiltration. Invisible spies. Who lived upstairs, anyway? Sometimes lately he had heard a person pacing across the floorboards in the middle of the night.
After a minute or two, Finch sat up. Nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing at all.
The dead man sat in the chair next to him, smiling.
"Uhhh!" Finch leapt to his feet.
The man was flanked by a Feral grown large as a pony. A Sidle grown as large as a Feral. They both looked at him the way Sidle had been looking at the moths.
"Sit down," the man said. An order, not a suggestion. In a strange accent. The man looked much younger than he had on the floor of the apartment. Had lost the fungal beard.