Greg Bear Songs of Earth 02 The Serpent Mage

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think. Can you reassure us?"
Michael hugged his father tightly. "I'm still my father's son and my mother's
son," he said. "It'll take me some time to tell you what's been happening.
Right now, I have one more thing I have to do."
"Involving the Sidhe?" John asked. Ruth came into the hallway and leaned
against a wall, her arms crossed. Michael went to her and hugged her, as well.
"Not involving the Sidhe," Michael said.
"Where's Shiafa?" Ruth asked.
Michael laughed and shook his head. "She's not with me. I'm not sure where she
is. But she's fine."
"It's not that I'm prejudiced," Ruth said.
"I'm going to look for Kristine," Michael explained.
"In a bottle of wine?" John asked.
Michael lifted the unlabeled bottle. "It's probably just as well you didn't
try this," he said. "It's very old."
"How old?"
"Maybe sixty million years."
"That's impossible," John said, and then laughed dryly. "But then, I suppose
it isn't. Let me know what it tastes like?"
Michael nodded. "What did the people with Moffat and Crooke say about Mahler
and Mozart?"
"I don't think they were convinced at first," John said. "Everybody's out of
whack these days. Nobody knows what to do or where to turn. But Moffat seemed
to have things in hand."
"I'm going out the back way," Michael said. "Try to keep the people calm. I
think everything's going to work out."
"But you're not sure?" Ruth asked.
"No. I'm not sure."
She gave him a sad and intense look, her face pale and tight in the vibrating
light of the candle. "I can't believe you're still my son," she said ' Have
you met your great-great-grandmother yet?" Her eyes narrowed to slits.
"No," Michael said, smiling now, knowing what she was getting at.
"Great-great-Grandpa's Hill wife hasn't come my way."
"If she does," Ruth said, "be sure to tell her something for me."
"What's that?"
"Tell her, 'Boo!'" Ruth said. John took her outstretched hand, and she
extended her other hand to Michael.
He grasped it firmly.
Chapter Thirty-Six
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Bear, Greg - Songs of Earth and Power Vol. 2 - The Serpent Mage
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Michael was certain that there was more to Clarkham than had met his eye.
Page 194
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Clarkham's concealment of his creations' gateways in bottles of wine was a
master stroke. That all of Clarkham's worlds were derivative might or might
not be relevant; he certainly did not wish to underestimate the Isomage.
Clarkham had, after all, escaped the combined plots of the Sidhe Councils
with Michael as the barb on the end of a spear-shaft centuries long. And
Clarkham was much older than Michael.
That was balanced now by the millions of years of memories from Manus. But
Michael had hardly had time to catalog the broad features of those memories,
much less take full advantage of them. (What would he become when he had
absorbed the entire treasure?)
He carried the bottles down the dark street, vaguely making his way by the
candlelighted windows of the houses. He avoided the few people he saw some
drunk, some young and rowdy, some furtive and frightened. They carried
Cole-man lanterns and flashlights and made a great deal of noise. Their world
was crumbling. He did not want to think about them now, or about the
responsibilities of a maker and mage
He was concentrating on Kristine. How long had it been since her kidnapping?
Weeks? Months? What had happened to her in that time?
What did she remember? Had Clarkham locked her in some dismal dream-world, as
he had Michael? Did she think Michael was dead?
He was going back to where his first journey had begun, Clarkham's
always-empty, always-full house.
Once inside, he would drink a toast.
But from which bottle?
The stolen bottle of mage's nectar, however old it was, did not seem the most
promising. Clarkham had not considered it important enough to take along with
him. Or perhaps Waltiri had hidden it from him.
And Clarkham had simply given away or abandoned the other wines, perhaps
thinking it next to impossible that anyone would divine (no pun intended,
Michael thought wryly) the secret of his worlds'
gateways.
But Clarkham knew the secret was out. Michael had intruded once already. No
doubt the Isomage, or whatever was left of him, would be on the alert.
Michael stood on the front porch of Clarkham's house. Despite all that had
happened, the house still seemed nothing more than a slightly run-down
dwelling in a moderately ritzy neighborhood.
In the upstairs dusty-floored guest bedroom, Michael took his Swiss army knife
from his pocket and cut the lead foil on Clarkham's bottle. With a pop, the
cork came out cleanly and in one piece. Michael smelled the varnish-like stain
on the cork's end and then smelled the bottle.
It had not soured.
The gate was clearly inviting him.
He took a sip and sprayed it across the back of his tongue, as his father had
taught him. He closed his eyes.
The flavors paraded, and he tasted again the distinct divisions. He counted
carefully, using all of his heightened senses to mark the borders on each
range of tastes.
Thirty-five, thirty-six different flavors one dusty and grassy, the world
where Clarkham had last conversed with him and then thirty-seven, richer by
far, thirty-eight, thirty-nine
Like counting the iron gates in the alley between worlds. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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