Chapter Twenty-Four

'"Behind him, the sun was sinking far beyond the snow-tipped Sierras.
'"The sky was flame-red, offering the promise of a fine, new day.' There." Krysty closed the book.
"Not bad," Ryan said grudgingly. "Guy who wrote that knew something about staying alive and about killing. Trader used to say that it's a craft like any other."
Krysty had begun reading it shortly after Norman had left them to their own devices. The library was disappointing, with whole shelves of ancient volumes dissolving into dust as soon as they were touched.
"Bookworms!" Doc had thundered. "There are rarities of all sorts here, particularly on the scientific side of literature. And all neglected so sadly. In many ways it is as great a tragedy as the destruction of the great library of Alexandria. I would wager good money that many of these books that have been irreparably allowed to slide into ruin are the sole examples of their kind in the whole of Deathlands."
"Did everyone read books in predark times?" Dean asked. "Thought they all glimmed vids."
"Oh, indeed they did, young man," Doc said. "They 'glimmed' vids until their brains turned to warm oatmeal. And they sprawled on couches like bloated potatoes, stuffing their bodies with popcorn and their brains with pap. They had the attention span of a rabid goldfish. But there were still a few bearded prophets and suspicious eccentrics Were they or had they ever been members of? Forgive me, as my mind wanders again down dark back roads. Books are sacred, young Dean. Mayhap your pending scholastic peregrinations" He stopped, seeing the bewildered expression. "When you go eventually to school. Then they may teach you some love and respect for the underpaid and unacknowledged arcane skills of the author. But this" he swept his ebony swordstick around the ranks of shelves, "this is a blasphemy against culture."
But there were still a few books left that had escaped the ravages of time. Doc turned up his nose at the tattered collection, mainly of cheap paperbacks, finally coming across a collection of the poetry of someone called Auden in which he immersed himself.
Dean wandered around looking angry at the world, until his attention was caught by a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that J.B. and Mildred had taken from a cupboard and begun, spreading all the hand-cut pieces over a stained and scratched refectory table.
"What're you doin' there? Just fitting the bits together to make a picture? Easy-peasy. Here, this bit of sky goes Oh, it doesn't. Well, how about looking for that bit of tankard by the old man's hand?"
And he was hooked.
Jak was the most ill at ease.
There was nothing in the library that caught his attention, and the puzzles weren't worthy of his time. He kept lying down on one of the sofas, closing his ruby red eyes and dozing, waking to walk, catlike, to the windows that opened over the gorge, peering through them at the sheeting rain.
"Something sick here," he said finally, his face pressed to the cold glass.
"How do you mean, Jak?" Krysty asked.
"Books and state house. No norm baron would let all go like this."
Ryan turned his face toward the albino teenager. "You got any guesses to make?"
"No, Ryan. Because can't say exactly what's wrong, doesn't mean everything's ace on line."
"Agreed."
"I get feelings here like I've never had any other place," Krysty added.
Ryan shook his head. "What's the use of that? You think we should leave, say so. You think we should stay, then stop going on about odd feelings!"
It had been that kind of day.


LUNCH HAD BEEN BROUGHT into them by Norman and three of the serving women. It was decent new-baked bread with some surprisingly good cheeses and an assortment of fresh vegetables and fiery spiced dips.
After the food had been left, Krysty commented on the appearance of the servants. "Their eyes are kind of lifeless."
"And they all seem to me to be suffering from pernicious anemia," Mildred said. "If I was their doctor, I'd be prescribing a course of iron and vitamins and I'd want them to have their blood tested. They look pale as parchment and they walk in such a listless manner."
"What's the uniform here?" Ryan asked as he munched a buttered roll filled to the brim with thin-sliced peppered tomatoes and bean sprouts.
"Norman is a poem in tattered pastels," Krysty replied. "But the men and women we've seen all have a kind of medieval look to them. All wear either very dark blue or very dark gray blouses and pants. High-collared tunics. No hats. Soft shoes so you can hardly hear them moving. Men are clean-shaven. Women all have neat hair cut short."
"What are you doing?" Ryan asked curiously. "I can hear your fingers fiddling with something."
"Well, pardon me for living, lover," she said with a smile. "Just that fire-opal pendant from the store."
"And I was fiddling with my little crucifix," Mildred said from the table where the large jigsaw puzzle was slowly coming closer to completion. Only a large section of oak paneling at the rear of the landlord's parlor still needed filling in.
"And I fiddled while Rome burned," Doc added, laughing in his fine, rounded, deep voice. "All right, friends. Not one of my mind warps. A reference to" His voice faded away. "But I forget what."


THE RAIN NEVER STOPPED all day.
Jak, driven near mad by cabin fever, went searching for Norman and found him alone and asleep in the deserted kitchen of the big house, asking him for the loan of a coat.
"Told me couldn't find one after all. Servants must've took them," Jak reported to his friends as he returned disconsolately from his futile mission.
"It's odd," J.B. commented, trying a jigsaw piece shaped like a demented dragon and finding it didn't fit. "Dark night! Funny that they invite us here and seem to want us to stay here, yet they hardly treat us like welcomed guests."
"Give it another day," Ryan said, yawning and stretching. "Then we can move on. Fireblast! I never realized that doing nothing all day could make you as tired as this."
Forde had also been affected by the boredom of the long, drizzling day. He walked through to the library section and picked one of the undamaged books, flinging himself into an armchair and flicking through the dry, fragile pages for a few minutes. Then he tossed the book aside and hovered over the jigsaw puzzle, trying a couple of pieces and then wandering off again, staring blankly at the array of pictures. He ended up by one of the tall windows, looking out at the rain, shading his eyes to peer down into the deep valley below them.
"I reckon I'll go all the way around the bend and back again," he snarled, turning to the others, the fringes of his buckskins swinging with him. "Think I'm going to take one of my cameras and go and do some filming."
"The light good enough?" Doc asked. "I would have thought it a little too dismal for successful photography. But, what do I know?" He shrugged his shoulders. "The answer to my own question is that I know precious little about the process of taking moving pictures. Though my father knew the redoubtable Mathew Brady, of whom I'm sure you will have heard, Master Forde, as one of the immortals."
"Never heard of him, Doc," Forde snarled.
Despite Doc's warning, Forde had left the suite of rooms and not returned until close to supper time, when evening had fallen and the rain had finally ceased.
He was grinning broadly, wiping moisture from his forehead, brushing a few spots from his shoulders. The twin pearl-handled Colts gleamed in the soft golden glow of the oil lamps that Norman had lit an hour or so earlier.
"Any success with your filming?" Ryan asked, turning his head toward where he thought the man was standing.
"Think so. Just you all wait and see. Might have some surprises for you."
"What?" Dean asked. "Tell us."
"The best surprise is no surprise," Mildred said. "Why not wait and see?"
The boy's face fell. "Oh, come on, Johannes. Tell us what you done."
"What you've done. Or what you've been doing," Krysty corrected. "Not what you done."
"Sorry."
Forde sat on the sofa and stretched out his long legs, peering at his mud-splattered boots. "Sure is foul out there," he said. "Just blowing over when I came back in. Promises to be a fine, clear night. Found me a back way in through an overgrown herb garden. Sort of wicket gate, unlocked." His eyes were wide with excitement, and Mildred noticed that his fingers were trembling as if he'd been through a shock.
"What part of the mansion did that lead to?" Ryan asked. "Kitchen?"
"Through there. But you'll see on my film. I can't tell you. Too amazing. Most bizarre thing. The cellars are real old, with a low roof, and damp and smelling of salt and decay and iron." He was grinning more broadly, wolfishly, almost hugging himself with what Krysty saw as a mix of excitement and fear. "I'll process the film tonight after we've eaten and show it to you tomorrow night. And I swear it'll blow your eyes out of your head."
He turned to Ryan. "Sorry, friend. Bit thoughtless. But you'll hear about it."
"Will you show film to Family?" Jak asked.
"Will I not?"
"Will they like it?"
"Will they like it, Mildred? Well, now, I'm not quite so sure that I can answer that. Have to wait awhile and see for ourselves, won't we?"
Everyone except Ryan, sitting still on the sofa, had gathered around Forde. None of them noticed the small side door to the room, almost hidden in the shadows, open and close.
"Have you seen some of the Family?" J.B. asked. "Apart from Elric?"
Ryan wondered why the man didn't answer, unable to see Forde rubbing his fingers against the side of his nose, smirking at the others.
"What? Will someone just tell me what the man's fuckin' saying?"
Krysty answered, her words overlapping his anger. "Sorry, lover. Johannes has taken some film today that he thinks is special. Double special. Something to do with finding his way into the cellars of the house. And with the Family. Says he'll show them to us tomorrow night after supper."
"When I've processed them," Forde said. "I doubt I'll ever take any better film for the rest of my life."
Norman's voice from the gloomy corner of the large room made them all start, not knowing when he'd come in, or how much he'd heard.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Dinner is served." His voice was completely flat and toneless.