His father reached down, picked up a handful of documents and IDs. Shoved them into the fire. Which flared up for a moment.
"This is the best way." John Crossley had said it a dozen times that day.
Anything else of value that couldn't tie the son to the father had been put in a storeroom on the edge of the merchant district. A neutral area. James could retrieve it at any time. The whisky. The cigars. The books. The map. The ceremonial scimitar his father had gotten while fighting against the Kalif. "Keep it hidden, son, but use it when you have to."
After a moment, James joined him. Started tossing handfuls into the flames. Photographs from the offensive into Kalif territory. John Crossley on a tank. In a window. Walking through the desert. Old journal entries. Even the little tobacco pipe he'd shown James as a youth.
"They'll never forget, never forgive, no matter who the enemy is, son. Better just to start a new life. Be someone else."
They'd never talked about his betrayal. The son had felt that asking would have meant admitting that the father had done something horribly wrong. He didn't want to let that into their world.
"Is there anyone you want me to contact," he'd asked his father. "No, no one," the old man had insisted.
When the suitcase was empty, James stood back. Beside his father. Watched the flames die down. Then hugged his father close. Sour breath. Shaking arms. The rasp at the back of his throat. Knew he was going to lose him soon.
"Welcome to Ambergris, John Finch," his father whispered in his ear.
3
till dark when he woke, except for the lanterns. Except for a hint of gray from the window. He lay on the floor. Felt hungry. Thirsty. As much as he'd ever felt in his life. Hollow, too. As if he were made of spores. Would blow away. Over all of that, the constant complaint of his nerves. Reporting pain. Everywhere.
The Partial lay facedown beside the gray cap. Arms out to the sides. On the table, the bloody knives, the pot of water. The empty vial.
He sat up and saw himself, naked, propped up on two elbows opposite. Feet almost touching. Shock. Sudden horror. Even in the dim light, the same dark hair. The rakish yet thickening features. The solid build on the edge of fat. But Shriek's features rose out of his own. The cheekbones a little higher. The eyes different. This other Finch had green eyes. This other Finch had a strange smoothness to him, a blankness. None of Finch's scars had manifested on him. Few of the wrinkles. Finch shuddered. Shriek-Finch looked like a man who had reached middle age without the physical signs of experience.
"The resemblance will fade," Shriek said. "I'll be able to take any form I like, soon." A scratchy voice. As if getting used to his vocal cords.
Shriek rose, and Finch rose with him. An imperfect reflection. Shriek held himself differently than Finch. Shoulders hunched from some invisible weight. A stare less guarded. More expressive hands. Light gathered around Shriek in unnatural ways. A gentle iridescent strobing rippled across his body. It reminded Finch of the starfish in the cavern by the underground sea.
"How do you feel?" Shriek asked.
"I feel light ... and yet heavy," Finch said. Could sense Shriek's overlay lifted from his mind. Its presence only confirmed by absence. While all of those things he'd thought himself numb to came rushing back in with a near-fatal intensity. Sintra. Wyte.
Teetered on the edge of an abyss.
Shriek's voice brought him back: "Let it wash over you. Let it wash out of you. It's not real. It's like a dam breaking."
Finch nodded. Vague resentment: How could Shriek know how it felt?
Shriek wrapped his nakedness in the blanket. Muted the strobing. A shimmer across the face. The arms.
"What now?" Finch couldn't stop staring at himself.
"Just what Bliss gave you. Just that."
The piece of metal was still in his jacket pocket. He handed it to Shriek.
Shriek nodded. "Perfect."
Perfect for what? An unease in Finch. That he hadn't thought it all through. An urge to pick up his gun and shoot Shriek.
A spark in Shriek's eyes that originated there. Not a reflection from the light.
"What are you?" Finch asked.
A low, wheezy laugh from Shriek. As if his lungs were filled with spores.
"Just someone who knows too much."
Finch watched Shriek assemble the metal strip. Must've been some button or other mechanism hidden in the symbols. Because in Shriek's hands the strip of metal clicked, and like some kind of magician he began to pull more metal out of it. Until he had a length of metal as tall as a man. As tall as Shriek.
"Whoever created this also created the doors," Shriek said as he worked. "But I've never found them. Granted, I was more interested in the gray caps."
"Where did you find it?"
"Bliss found it. Somewhere far, far away."
Bliss, again. Finch beyond surprise.
"What does it do?"
Shriek pulled it sideways, with a motion almost like pulling apart something soft, crumbly. A piece of bread or a biscuit. A frame began to appear.
"It focuses my abilities. Like a lens."
When he had persuaded it into a rectangular shape, roughly doorlike, Shriek knelt. Pressed the frame into the air like he was hanging a painting.
Let go of it.
It didn't fall. Made a snapping sound and it stayed there. About two feet off the ground. No flicker or waver. Static. Solid. Still. An intense but narrow gold-green light invested the edges of the metal. Made the symbols glow. The space inside the frame continued to show the window beyond it.
"It will be a minute or two before I can leave," Shriek said. Finch said. As Finch had watched, it had almost been like watching himself do it. A ghost watching its body move about the apartment.
"What happens next?" Finch asked.
"I complete the mission. Time doesn't work the way we think it works. Not really. I'll go into the HFZ to pick up the trail. From there, I will journey years and worlds away and return. An army gathered with me. I will be the beacon, the light, that guides them."
Words came tumbling out Finch hadn't known were there. "Why? Why do it? What does it matter to someone"-something-"so old. Who is so ... removed"-alien-"from all of this."
The intensity of his need to know shocked him.
A sad, lonely smile. "The truth? None of my books ever changed anything. Nothing I did changed anything. I always tried, and I always failed. But Bliss helped me to see that failing a hundred times didn't mean you had to fail every time."
"And you trust Bliss?"
"About this? Yes. Even if I am just an echo, this is the last chance."