"It's too late to put things right," Finch said. "Too much has gone wrong." Ruined neighborhoods. The vacant stares of the people from the camps. The fighting in the streets. The effects of decades of nearconstant war.
"As much as they can be put right, Finch," Shriek said.
"And after? What then?"
Shriek's dark gaze, from a dark place. The rectangle hanging in the air like a magic trick. A terrible power. Something in between.
"After? After, I'll be gone. Somewhere. Everywhere. Nowhere. A pile of ashes at the base of the towers ..."
"And I'll still be here," Finch said. It came out like an ache.
Shriek, forceful: "You are a man who did the best he could in impossible circumstances. That's all."
After Shriek left, he would be alone. Terrribly injured. In an apartment with two dead bodies. In a war zone.
The door lit up. Became a reflecting mirror.
"I'm leaving now, Finch," Shriek said.
"Wait!" A last burst of curiosity. "Tell me what happened. How did you end up in this apartment?"
Shriek's features softened. "I tried something dangerous. Something impossible. I tried to use the nexus at Zamilon to go back in time. I tried to change the past so I wouldn't have to change the future. But you can't do that. And the past caught up with me. The attempt almost killed me."
The door had begun to hum. An intense white light shot from it, silhouetting Shriek. The hum became a kind of unearthly music.
"And the gray cap?"
"He got caught in the door I'd made."
"What does that mean? I don't know what that means," Finch said.
"You might ask yourself who Samuel Tonsure really was," Shriek said. Then nodded at Finch, and stepped through the door. Disappeared into the light.
The light went out.
The rectangle clattered to the floor.
The metal fell in on itself.
Just a bar of metal again, as before.
Finch knew he would never be able to make it do what Shriek had done. Knew that he would never see Shriek again.
4
unlight. Warm against his battered face. Curled up on the couch. His ankles and wrists seemed made of broken glass. Could feel the fragile bones shifting. Sending the glass up into his arms, his legs. His whole body hurt. Ached. His jaw was sore. Couldn't feel his nose anymore.
A vast and formless rush of city sounds from beyond the window. Sporadic gunfire. The thud and shift of something heavier. Like a giant striding across Ambergris. But distant. So distant.
Someone had applied field dressings to the stumps of finger and toe using torn fabric.
Tried to get up. A hand held him down. A voice he knew said, "Don't get up yet." The accent more pronounced. As if she were no longer acting.
An arm propped up his head so he could drink from a cup of water. It tasted good. Even though he had trouble getting it down. Even though it mixed with the blood inside his mouth.
Sintra's face came into view. He looked up at her with what he knew was a stupid, childlike dependence. Everything stripped away from him. Couldn't raise his arm far enough to wipe his eyes.
"Just lie there," she said. An oddly clinical concern in her voice. She wore forest green. Camouflage pants and shirt. Brown boots made out of something soft. A long knife sheathed at her waist. A rifle in the crook of her left arm, muzzle pointed toward the floor.
"Sintra," he said. Turned his stiff neck to follow her as she got up for more water. Saw again the bodies on the floor. A moment of disorientation. A man and a gray cap. Looking like they'd fallen from a great height. Except the Partial, face down, was sporling the remains of his fungal eye out across the floor. An army of tiny, black, fernlike mushrooms with golden stems had traveled from the eye to colonize the back of his head.
A croaking raven's laugh at the unexpected sight. Even as he realized there'd still be a recording there, somewhere, in the mess.
Tried to say to Sintra, "How did you find me?" Wasn't sure it came out right.
Sintra gave him more water to drink. Perched beside him on the armrest. "The city is catching its breath this morning. There is no one in this building now. Not a single Partial. No eyes left in this apartment. Their attention is elsewhere."
"How did you know? To look here."
Her voice from above him, matter-of-fact: "I've followed you here before."
"When?"
He felt her shrug. "I've followed you everywhere. Especially the last few months. Before the towers started firing on the Spit. I have followed you so much I know more about you than you do." Not said like a joke. More like she was weary of it. Tired of being a shadow.
The words lay there, in the sunlight. Finch picked over them again and again. Didn't find what he was looking for.
"Did you kill them?" she asked. Motioning toward the bodies.
"One of them."
"But not before he got to you." Said it like he was a problem to be solved. Like a threat.
Finch thought for the first time about the sword on the floor. Looked toward it.
His own gun appeared in her hand. Again.
"Finch ..."
"Are you here to finish me off?"
"No, just to stop you from doing anything stupid." She held out a pill to him. "You'll feel better if you take it. Maybe long enough to get back to your apartment."
Took the pill gladly. Willingly. A test both of him and of her. Swallowed. A vague warmth spread through his limbs.
The old absurd idea crept up on him with the warmth. It still isn't too late. We can get out of Ambergris. Cross the river. Make it to Stockton or Morrow ... Readying himself to make the argument again. That if they left together they could leave their old selves behind, too. But he couldn't get the words out. Dust on his tongue. To say them would mean he was delusional. That he was pursuing a ghost.
"What happened to the man who was here before? Your case?"
A deep, shuddering breath. "First, tell me the truth," he said. Had no cleverness, no deception, left to him. "Whatever it is."
She considered the question for a moment.
"We work with the rebels sometimes, in exchange for other favors. Who was the man in this apartment? Was it Duncan Shriek?"
"Who is `we'?"
"The dogghe. My people. Who was the man in this apartment?"
The dogghe. The Religious Quarter. She was part dogghe, part nimblytod. Had no known address. Came to him in the night. Seemed to move around the city with ease. Of course she worked for the dogghe.
"Yes, Duncan Shriek," he told her, because it didn't matter anymore. "Someone who is an expert with ... doors. Why me? Why not Blakely or Dapple. Or even Wyte?"