The Gone-Away World (68 page)

I smell something.

I feel better.

It's ludicrous.

I'm going to die but I don't mind because I smell something which reminds me of good times. What
is
that? Then Elisabeth smells it too—and her face goes absolutely still. And suddenly she grins, wide. A tiger's grin. Humbert Pestle, stalking towards us, stops in his tracks.

Greasepaint.

The refugees behind us look a lot less grey and wan than they used to. They look almost
avid.
Around their eyes and lips they have traces of white make-up, and they are wearing black, in fact they are wearing black polo necks, with a few overcoats and things thrown in. Not refugees at all. Substitutes.
Ringers.
The Matahuxee Mime Combine. And then a figure steps from their midst, slender and sprightly.

“Hello,” says Ike Thermite. “My name is Ike Thermite.” He smiles. “And
we,
” he adds, “are the School of the Voiceless Dragon.”

H
UMBERT
P
ESTLE
roars something furious which sounds like “No” and charges towards us. His huge, dreadful fist thunders at my head. And Ike Thermite's narrow fingers brush it to one side and his shoulder hits Humbert Pestle and drives him back, and all around us the Matahuxee Mime Combine are making a fighting wedge, a slender knife where each person supports and protects the next, and the ninjas are having a really bad day. The students of Wu Shenyang have a great deal of pent-up aggression, and while they don't generally believe in that sort of thing, they are prepared to make an exception today in honour of the Clockwork Hand and most especially those who burned Master Wu alive in his own home. Of course, no one knows exactly who those people were, so they're content to assume that the person they are presently hitting very hard was solely responsible. Elisabeth Soames dives for the steps leading up to Leah Lubitsch, and a second later it rains unwary members of the Hand. I look for Gonzo. It's like one of those movies where a hundred bad guys attack the hero one at a time; the only danger is that he may get out of breath hitting them. I am liquid. I am steel. I hit people.

There's a guy with a pole. He thrusts it at me. I slide past it, and he tries to use the broad side. I roll under it. He twists. I twist too. He flies past me, and now I have the pole. I glower at him. Run away, little man. I am on a job here, saving a friend. If I weren't, we'd be pursuing that conversation in terms you would not enjoy.

He decides to fight someone else. I glance around.

Down by the door, four ninjas pursuing Zaher Bey find themselves confronted with a prune-faced bloke aged about a hundred and nine. They laugh at him. Ronnie Cheung turns on his heel and drops his trousers to expose his ugly, wrinkled arse. The ninjas freeze. It isn't just the sheer gall of this action; Ronnie Cheung's arse is a startling sight, and where it cleaves there are suggestions of unspeakable mysteries, hirsute awfulnesses best left unexamined. Ronnie smiles over one shoulder at the ninjas, removes his left leg from his trousers, and kicks the nearest one in the throat. Then another. The third and fourth realise their mistake and rush him. Ronnie kicks up with his other leg, wraps his trousers around the head of the smaller one, and drags him down into the path of the other. Then his bare leg scythes onto the fallen guy's head and it breaks open. The fourth ninja tries to run away, and Ronnie punches him in the back. The ninja lies on the ground, thrashing.

I decide I can safely leave Zaher Bey with Ronnie for the time being and turn back to the fight.

Ike Thermite is going toe to toe with Humbert Pestle. Pestle is impervious; Ike is untouchable. It's a draw. Master Wu obviously didn't teach him any Secret Internal Alchemies either. I had this crazy hope, for a moment.

Ike hits Humbert with a combination. It's a blinder. Pestle takes it in his stride, and Ike has to dodge fast and low. He's in terrific shape. He can't do this for ever. Sooner or later, something has to give.

Something does. Humbert Pestle lashes out, and Ike Thermite is slow. He absorbs the blow, flies across the room and lands in a heap. Pestle follows, smashing through the fight around him as if it were a garden hedge. One mime and one ninja are clubbed to the ground. He doesn't care. He wants Ike. He stands over him and slowly raises his left hand up, his right on Ike's head. In a moment he will exchange the two, palm for fist, and Ike will break open and die. Pestle's shoulders ripple as he begins the strike.

Someone hits him with a broom handle.

It's a very ordinary broom handle. It's light and strong and not a terribly frightening thing. It breaks on his head like balsa. Pestle drops Ike and turns around, wrath-of-God slow. Scary as hell.

It's only as I glance down at the fractured broom in my hands that I realise who was dumb enough and brave enough to do the deed.

Oh
bugger.

Dodge. Twist. I am air. I step, skip, shuffle. Elvis Walk (defensive, agile) becomes Lorenz Palace Step (random directions making up a usable pattern of attack), and on and on. My hands blur and slap, stroke and twist. Humbert Pestle lunges. I gouge his eye. He roars and strikes down. I savage the muscles in his arm. He kicks, and I punish the joint, lock it, stress it, let it go and whisper away into the space next door as he slams into where I was. I do all these things and it is not enough. Somewhere over there Ike Thermite is broken, out of the fight, and Ike was infinitely better at this than I am. Ike was a senior student. It's not enough.

He hits me. It's not a full strike, just a love tap. It picks me up and winds me. No time. I roll. I feel his foot stamp on the ground. Keep moving, don't tense; breathe, live. I move. Blind Man's Sword: a sequence to use when you cannot see, a system of deflections and evasions which appear to imply knowledge of the enemy's movements. Bluff. It works. I move again. He is stalking me, moving smoothly and fast. He is too big to be that fast, or maybe too fast to be that big. I can see. I wish I couldn't. A thumb fills my vision, and I duck, move away off-axis. It's a feint. A kick lands in my chest, and I feel my ribs flex. All the air comes out of me. I see colours, black and white and grey and red all at once, then purple and yellow together, laid over each other, then other colours without names. I dodge the follow-up, turn my shoulder and shunt him back, just as Ike did.

I'm going to lose.

I stare up and around in desperation. Where is Sally Culpepper and her gun? Elisabeth is on the gallery. She has Leah behind her, safe for the moment. I meet her eyes.

And I see her.

I see Elisabeth Soames in every moment that I have known her. Every frame of every minute. Elisabeth with cake. Elisabeth stamping her foot. Elisabeth as Andromas. Elisabeth kissing me. Elisabeth, as revealed by a single, white, little-girl sock protruding from the end of a sofa. And I see her, a million years ago, in Master Wu's house, asking about the Secrets. About the Iron Skin meditation.

There aren't any of those.

But there are. I am fighting one. Therefore . . .

I will make one up.

And he does. It is a good secret. It is so good, it could almost be real.

I will make one up.

You sneaky, underhanded, cheeky old sod.

Align the chi
. . .
Feel the ocean
. . .
You will storm the strongest fortress.

I look at Humbert Pestle. He is unbeatable. He is impregnable.

He is
mine.

In that moment I place my absolute trust in the hands of a dead man who wore sandals in winter and asserted a belief that the Chinese space programme was unfairly disadvantaged by the position of the Moon. This is perhaps a slender thread from which to hang the future of the world. Like spider silk, it is strong enough to do the job.

I slow down. It's not about fast; it's about where I need to be, and where he needs me not to be. I step lightly. It's not about power; it's about timing. Humbert Pestle chops at me, but I am not there. He strikes, but I am outside his centre line and the blow has no strength. Well, it snaps my head back and it hurts, but that's all it does. I crack his hand as he withdraws it. He tenses. I slide past his guard and slap him. It doesn't hurt him, but it is extremely embarrassing. I have just girly-slapped him in front of all his ninja kiddies. I have no respect. So
nyah.

He slashes at me. He tries to catch me with a fist coming up as I go down, but I am already turning away, and he looks for a moment like some guy posing at the beach, arm bent and tensed, massive bicep straining. Hey, Pluto, where's my spinach?
Nyah nyah nyah.
He breathes. I breathe with him. His elbow catches me on the way back and nearly stuns me, but the follow-up is in the wrong place, because I am in the right one. I stamp on his instep. Something snaps. He's tough enough to ignore it, but it hurts anyway. The rhythm of his breathing is broken as he holds in a grunt of pain.

I touch Humbert Pestle, and I
listen
to him. I let my hands rest on him as I stroke aside his terrible punches. I taste the air as he exhales. I learn him. I understand the way he moves. I know where he is strong, and where he is not. He is a fortress. But he is not invulnerable. I breathe out. I breathe in. Humbert Pestle works through his pain. It is irrelevant. He breathes out. He breathes in.

Now we move in concert. I mirror him, step with him. I stick to him, slip and slide and duck and dive. His mace-hand goes over my head with a terrific
woosh.
It frustrates him. He stalks me some more, and finally he is following me. He does not know it. He thinks he is setting the pace, but he has fallen into a rhythm. It is syncopated and abrupt. It varies. But it is a pattern, and I know it intimately, at a level beyond mistake. I can break it. He cannot. He doesn't realise he has to. I could strike now, hit him endlessly—but there's no target. He has made himself into a weapon, an armoured monster. There's no point. I breathe out. So does he. I breathe in. So does he. We are locked together.

We fight some more. We breathe. The thing is, I am a littler guy than Humbert Pestle, and I'm using a lot less energy. I don't need as much oxygen. His heart rate is going up. He's starting to feel tired, and he doesn't like it. He doesn't understand. I can see it in his face. He's cross and just a little nervous—he should not be feeling this way. Not so soon. He does this kind of exercise every day. He's pretty much the hardest bastard in the world. He may not be a young kid any more, but he's in tip-top shape. He can't be tired. Push through it. It's the enemy.

I breathe. He breathes. He throws a combination so fast I can't imagine being able to block it. I don't have to. I was never going to be in its path. I was already leaving the target area when he decided to launch it. I slap him again because this man is trying to kill me, so I don't feel bad about messing with him. His ninja kiddies look shocked and unhappy now. They're watching him, all of them, even while they fend off the Voiceless Dragon School and keep this area clear. Come on, Humbert! Snap him like a twig! He is weak! What's the hold-up?

No pressure.

Humbert Pestle is fifty-five. That means his maximum safe heart rate, notionally, is around one hundred and sixty-seven beats per minute. I can see the vein in his neck walloping away. He's at around one seventy now. I breathe. He is still with me. We're still in this weird mirror dance. He throws a couple more punches, but they're weak and slow. There's not enough oxygen in his blood. He should back off, but he won't. It's not who he is. Weakness is an enemy. Fight through it. I look at him. It's time. I slip a punch and come round in front of him, and I look into his eyes and sigh.

I put everything I have into it. I give him my grief when I heard about Master Wu. I give him poor mad George Copsen's horror at destroying the world, and every stupid death I saw in the Go Away War. I give him Micah Monroe and the soldiers who didn't make it. I give him the foal-girl we buried in Addeh Katir. I give him the crazed cannibal dog in Cricklewood Cove and Ma Lubitsch's endless mourning. I give him my broken heart when Leah shook my hand.

I breathe all the way out, long and slow, and the noise which comes from me is a sadness which could kill you. And Humbert Pestle breathes out with me. He takes my sorrow. He thinks that sigh is me giving up. He draws back his hand for one killer punch.

His heart tops one ninety.

I uncoil and hit him in the chest. I feel the force travel through him from sternum to spine. I know him. I could draw his organs on his skin.

His heart stutters, cramps and stops.

Humbert Pestle staggers. He clutches at his shirt in absolute horror and falls to the ground.

Ghost Palm of the Voiceless Dragon Style, fucker.

Humbert Pestle dies.

The ninja kiddies freeze. Each and every one of them has that Tupperware feeling.

Epilogue

After.

P
INE SMOKE
and the smell of snow; Cricklewood Cove in winter-time. Elisabeth is with her mother for the next few hours, and Leah has taken Gonzo's parents off on some vital jaunt. There is a very strong directive inherent in this curious circumstance. Gonzo and I are to get together and
talk.
We are to
sort things out.
Otherwise, we will
brood
and be
unmanageable.
This is not an acceptable outcome.

The Battle of Jorgmund Actual was two months ago. On the whole, given that the plan was a failure and the enemy ambushed us, it was a roaring success. It helped that Ike Thermite and K are devious beyond all reasonable expectation, and that Master Wu laid his ninja trap deeper than his own grave. Laid it, in fact, in me.

Humbert Pestle died. Jorgmund did not. You can't kill a machine.

On the other hand, you can
own
one.

The ownership of Jorgmund is vested in the Clockwork Hand. The Clockwork Hand is controlled by the present master. That master is chosen by acclamation, or by combat, meaning that the present master of the Hand and chairman of Jorgmund Inc. is, well . . .

Me.

I thought about trying to do good with it. I sat in the Nameless Bar and we all discussed it drunk, and sober, and half asleep, and perky with Flynn's coffee. I almost persuaded myself it could be done. I could turn the monster around. And then Elisabeth wandered over and dumped the Spawn of Flynn in my lap. He looked up at me through a field of snot.

“What do you think?” I said.

“The lady with the flower on her back is having a baby,” said Spawn of Flynn, “but you're not to tell anyone.”

Sally Culpepper went bright red. Jim Hepsobah choked on his coffee.

“The coughy man is the daddy,” the Spawn of Flynn added.

I wound Jorgmund up. I marched into Dick Washburn's office and dumped the entire sordid truth on his desk, without omission. I told him and Mae Milton to break the company up and do good things with the bits. Sally and Jim's baby didn't need a world with a thing like that in it. We made the whole thing public too, and I put the Clockwork Hand to writing letters to all the relatives of the Vanished. Most people didn't want to believe it, but they'll come around. The last of the FOX will dry up in about six months. Already the pressure is slackening, and the unreal world is coming closer to ours. People will have to choose how to live.

Jim Hepsobah and Sally got married. Gonzo was best man. I sat at the back. A surprising number of people nodded to me. Old Man Lubitsch gave the happy couple a beehive, complete with lethal bees. Ma Lubitsch gave them socks. I smiled. Gonzo's father smiled back.
Well done, boy. Well done.

Ike Thermite and the Matahuxee Mime Combine have resurrected Master Wu's school in Cricklewood Cove. There never was a master mime who lived there. Ike thinks he's extremely clever for slipping that one past me, and he probably is.

Nq'ula Jann, having figured out Humbert Pestle's dastardly plan, showed up with a vast number of Zaher Bey's pirates to rescue everyone. When it was established that we'd taken care of that ourselves, the rescuers got drunk and sang songs about shepherdesses.

Rao and Veda Tsur demanded that they should be godparents to Sally and Jim's child.

Ronnie Cheung took one look at Elisabeth's mother and announced to her face that there was a sack of bones he wouldn't mind rattling. She hit him with a ladle. Their third date passed without sex, but Assumption has given her daughter to understand that on no account is she to show up unannounced tomorrow morning.

So now here I am, knocking on Gonzo's door and feeling five years old.

He opens the door and lets me in. His right arm is still in a cast. The left one, it turns out, was only cracked. We walk into the living room and sit in front of the fire.

“So,” Gonzo says. And that's all.

Well, don't look at me. This is the most awkward moment of my entire life. What do you say to a man whose brain you have stolen? To someone who shot you in the chest and shoved you out of a truck? What does he say to you, now that you have saved his life and the world?

We say nothing for some time. Then we talk about how well everyone's doing and how weird the world is going to get. And then we dry up, because you can't make small talk with someone you've known for ever when there's an elephant in the room. And yet it all seems so clear. What's to say?

“You know I don't have a name yet?”

“You're kidding me . . .”

“Well, you never gave me one, so don't look at me like I'm the idiot.”

“That's true,” Gonzo says. “I never did.” He ponders. “Are you . . . going to do more of that?”

“Of what?”

“Derring-do.”

“I don't know.”

“I'm not,” Gonzo says definitively. “I'm done. I want to be . . . I don't know. But I want it. I need to be quiet for a while.”

“Oh.”

“So . . . if you want . . . you could be Gonzo Lubitsch.”

I think about it.

“No. But thanks.”

Silence. We stare at each other for a while, measuring.

“We could pretend,” Gonzo says at last, “that we finished this conversation.”

It's an interesting idea.

“We could,” I tell him cautiously.

“We wouldn't have to actually talk about it all.”

“No . . . Yeah, exactly.”

“Hm.” He trails off.

“We'd have to have a pretty good story, though. In case we were questioned.”

“That's true.” He muses. “I suppose we could say that I started by saying I'm sorry I shot you. Because that's a good opening line.”

“Or that I'm sorry . . . I don't know exactly. I'm not sorry I exist. But I'm sorry I didn't realise sooner what was happening. I didn't mean to try to take her from you.”

“You think we should start with that?”

“It sounds a bit flaky. But you know what I'm getting at.”

He nods.

“I think we should tell them,” says Gonzo Lubitsch, “that I said I was sorry for shooting you.”

“Okay.”

And then he throws himself at me, wraps me in his heavy arms and shakes on my shoulder, and I am murmuring things like “It's okay, it's all right” and I have to sit him down and rock him.

I honestly don't know what we say to each other. It goes on for hours, and at the end of it I'm not sure if we are friends or brothers or anything except me and Gonzo. I don't feel easy around him. But the thing is done, and from here it's all about forwards.

Z
AHER
B
EY
gets out of the car. The sun is setting over a huge green forest. Below us, in the valley, water flows and there are birds. Something huge is stalking through the trees, making them shake. A moment later something smaller squeals sharply, and then stops. In the distance there's a walled town, high towers and pale houses. The wind carries a murmur from its streets.

“The Found Thousand,” Zaher Bey says.

The world we knew is gone for good this time. The new one is beautiful and dangerous. It is
us.
I sit with Elisabeth and Zaher Bey and watch the stars come out overhead.

“Are you ready?” the Bey asks.

Elisabeth breathes out onto my cheek. We both answer him at once.

“Yes.”