23: Lights Out

The top leaf contained the private Ducal residence—a somewhat smaller space than the great public hall I’d visited yesterday. The lounge was appointed with gilded sculptures of animals, a gently twitching shag rug, pastel murals of flowers, gilded antique furniture, and a pool of living water in the center of the room.

The fat little Duke was snacking on kessence lizards by the water’s edge, with Weena and a very attractive ghost woman at his side. This new woman had flowing blonde hair and long, flexible limbs. Her puffy lips curved in a reckless grin. Somehow I felt like I’d seen her before.

“What’s become of Charles?” keened Weena, running up to us. She must have seen the big jiva’s attack. By now I was cynical enough to suppose that, whatever true grief she might feel, Weena was milking the tragedy. “Where has my lover gone?”

“He flew into the sky,” I said shortly. “The Earthmost Jiva chewed him down to a sprinkle. You know that Charles was dreaming of a trip to the center of Flimsy. The new ladder-mantra works. So you might say that Atum’s Lotus is done. But it’s still evolving anyway. Even though the big jiva tried to eat it.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Weena tearfully. “I hate you.”

“I think this guy’s totally hot,” said the new woman from across the room. What was her story?

“This is Janie,” said the Duchess, walking over to fondle the lissome form. “And, Janie, this is Jim. Janie teleported in from Yuelsville last night. The yuels sent her to repay us for letting them nab Ginnie. Ginnie had some piece of information that the yuels wanted. And, at our end, Weena didn’t want Ginnie around. I think she was jealous.”

“Oh, shut up!” yelled Weena. “Why is everyone against me?”

Janie laughed and looked pleased. “I thought it’d be interesting to see how you jiva-freaks live.”

“Janie’s a pistol,” interjected the Duke. “I hope she stays with us for good. I’m ready for a new assistant.”

“You big silly,” said Janie, giving the Duke a playful slap. She rose to hug the Duchess, and favored Weena with a spiteful boo-hoo poor-you moue. In the midst of all this posing, Janie managed to give me a discreet wink as well. I didn’t quite understand why.

“Doesn’t anyone care about Charles?” wailed Weena. “How will I survive without him?”

“I care about paying Charles’s debt,” said the Duchess. “That’s for sure. We’ve got a meeting with Boss Blinks in half an hour.”

“Weena’s been nagging me for a commission on the Earth tax,” added the Duke, in an equally callous tone. “I guess that’s what she means by survival.”

“The question isn’t whether you get a commission,” the Duchess told Weena. “It’s whether we kill you.” Weena tried to say something back, but the Duchess cut her off with a menacing frown. “For now, you’re to escort Jim to Monin’s farm, okay?”

“I’ve told Janie to go along too,” said the Duke in a studiously casual tone. “I told her I’d pay her extra.”

“Yes,” said the Duchess, giving the Duke a look. “Janie can take care of Weena.”

“Have I lost your trust?” protested Weena. “Why burden me with this newcomer?”

“Why is everyone so uptight?” interrupted Janie. “That’s my question. Why can’t we all be friends?” She struck a cheesy, pouty pose. “Good friends.”

“Not now, Janie,” said the Duchess. “I want you meet Boss Blinks Bulber now—so you’ll fully understand the Weena problem.” She said this even though Weena was right there. Evidently Weena’s feelings didn’t matter anymore. “And, Jim, you come to the meeting too,” added the Duchess. “It’s time to start showing some goddamn team spirit.”

“Blinks will be here any minute,” said the Duke.

“Top-thecret wred alert,” said Janie with a sarcastic lisp. She was acting as giddy as a high-school kid.

The Duke led us to a different lobe of the hollowed-out leaf—this was his so-called situation room. It had a straight wall along the inner side, and a rounded outer wall that followed the leaf ’s edge. Looking out through a long, low ribbon-window, I could see the monstrous, glaring Earthmost Jiva, the rolling meadows of Flimsy, and faraway glints from the Dark Gulf. For the thousandth time, I wondered if I’d find Val at the center.

The situation room was dominated by a pair of imposing thrones. The Duke and the Duchess ascended to their perches. Weena, Janie and I found seats on a rubbery sofa that ran along the rounded wall. I felt uneasy about Janie. She was a puzzle. I couldn’t quite decipher the levels of betrayal going on.

In the center of the room, a transparent ball was suspended in the middle of a stalk that grew from floor to ceiling.

“See the model, Jim?” said Weena, pointing . Her voice was shaky; she was truly upset about Charles—and unnerved by the hostility of the Duke and Duchess. “You’ve inquired about Flimsy’s geography,” continued Weena, forcing a brave, bright tone. “Isn’t this lovely?”

Grown by the geranium, the ball was a model of the afterworld. The upper hemisphere with filled with air, and the lower hemisphere with water—the Dark Gulf. A twinkling green ledge ran along the gulf ’s outer edge—the fields of Flimsy. Layered structures and hanging stalactites lurked beneath the fields—the underworld. The gloomy waters at the very bottom were a-jiggle with linked beets and radishes—the mega-jivas. A glowing haze drizzled from the domed sky’s center into the heart of the Dark Gulf. The shifting column of mist represented the abode of the fabled goddess of Flimsy.

“Where are we right now?” asked Janie, for the first time sounding interested.

“I wonder if a stupid little tramp like you can grasp that this isn’t drawn to scale,” said Weena, glaring at her. “It’s more along the lines of a cartoon. The band of green along the edge breaks into a septillion slots—so of course you can’t see where we are.”

As if to contradict Weena, the responsive display illuminated a hair-thin slice of the model’s edge—and proceeded to zoom in on it. The narrow slit of light expanded into a trapezoid that filled the ball, a toy landscape with hills and a swamp and even a little model of the giant geranium plant itself. Along the left edge of the trapezoid was a bluish zone with tiny blimps—some of our alien neighbors.

A sudden pooting noise distracted me—a snub-nosed Bulber was pushing in through an iris-like door in the situation room’s outer wall.

“Hey there, Boss Blinks!” called the Duke from his throne. “We’re getting our act together right now.”

The Bulber circled the room, fouling the air with sulfur, then came to rest. He was about five meters long. He had at least twenty eyes on his pebbled mauve hide; the eyes were wobbly like fried eggs. Boss Blinks studied us for while, and then he made a blubbery sound that my teep transformed into colloquial speech. He sounded like a Chicago gangster.

“A deal’s a deal,” the Bulber was saying. “Me and the boys are gonna be stripping you clean tomorrow if you ain’t paid up in full. You got a lotta nerve, thinking you can bullshit your way outta this, Duke. I notice that your jiva sun was trashing your Atum’s Lotus, you dumb shit.”

“We’ll start paying you tomorrow!” shrilled the Duchess. “But it might take a little time until the full amount is—”

“Paid in full tomorrow,” repeated Boss Blinks. “That’s what the contract says. Weena wrote it up and you signed it. Once you’re in default, we’ve got a legal right to loot the joint. Clause twenty-two.”

“We’ll pay you double what we owe,” implored the Duke. “Just give us the chance to finish paying you.”

“Maybe,” said Boss Blinks after a pause. “I’ll think it over. Depends on what kind of kessence we see coming in. And I mean starting early tomorrow.”

“Our agent is leaving in a few minutes,” said the Duchess, gesturing at me. “We’re almost set.”

“Heard that before,” said the Bulber. He swam menacingly around the room once more, then wallowed out through the door he’d entered, leaving a smell of broccoli and ammonia.

“Way wack,” said Janie in a subdued tone. She gave me a look that was almost sympathetic.

“Guards!” yelled the Duke right about then. Four sturdy ghosts trooped in from a side door and seized me by the legs and arms.

“The eggs are ready,” explained the Duchess. “Take it like a man, Jim.”

The room’s leafy ceiling began to glow. Through a window I glimpsed a fiery tendril from the Earthmost Jiva, coming for me once again. The sky-beet was going to inoculate me with ten thousand jiva eggs—perhaps some of them had been passed up from the mega-monsters of the Dark Gulf.

With the guards grasping my limbs and Mijjy inside my body, I had no hope of fighting or running away.

The jiva-root poked through the same aperture that Blinks Bulber had used. Her tip swayed left and right, sniffing around. And then—gradually, gloatingly, gracefully—the glowing tendril encircled my neck. I wanted to thrash and kick, but Mijjy had me paralyzed.

“Hold him really still,” the Duchess instructed her stooges.

“But what are you doing to him?” asked Janie, actually seeming upset.

Nobody answered aloud, but within me, Mijjy was singing joyful hymns of thanksgiving and praise.

My neck began to tingle as a zillion root hairs dug in, feeling for the deepest crannies of my soul. And now the transmission began. Pinpoints of energy caromed through my kessence. I was a pinball machine with ten thousand balls, a coal-chute funneling a city’s worth of fuel. The eggs rattled through me, finding their way to their goal. I sensed a faint smell of musk and burning rubber. My neck was aflame with pain. It was like being choked and burnt and stabbed—all at once.

And now as the last few eggs straggled in, the sensation transcended pain and became a crazy kind of ecstasy. Mijjy within me was exceedingly agitated, and I felt an urgent sexual shudder from the Earthmost Jiva.

And then, quite suddenly, it was over. The now-limp tendril flickered, uncoiled and withdrew.

“Great,” said the Duchess, leaning over me. “Just perfect. And, look, Duke. Jim’s got a boner. He’s into this—right, Jim?”

“Let him go,” said the Duke to his guards.

My astral dick went limp. I raised my trembling hands to my neck, expecting to feel some rank, rubbery ruff. But my kessence skin was smooth, cool and bare.

“They shrank way down inside you, Jim,” said Janie. “How nasty.”

“Don’t bum him out,” said the Duchess sharply. “Remember that you’re supposed to escort Jim to Monin’s farm, too, Janie. Or we don’t pay you at all.”

“Fuck your threats,” said Janie, unexpectedly flaring up. “I know you’re welshers. Pay me up front or I’m going back to Yuelsville right now.”

“Here,” said the Duke impatiently extending a long tube from his body to pour a pile of kessence at Janie’s feet. “Eat this. And then do as you’ve been told.”

“More like it,” said Janie, wading into the kessence mound, soaking the stuff up. Her statuesque body seemed to grow a size or two larger. She grunted with pleasure, flipped her blonde hair, and gave me a veiled, amused look, as if there were some joke I still wasn’t getting. Once again she winked.

Finally it clicked. Janie was Ginnie in disguise. The yuels had given Ginnie a new body, and she’d come here as a double agent. Before I could consciously articulate this realization, I pushed it into my subconscious, lest Mijjy and the others see.

“Stay with them until Jim goes through the tunnel,” the Duke was telling Janie. “And then you close the deal.”

“Yeah baby,” said Janie, her voice hard and tight.

“I still don’t see why she has to—” began Weena.

“Get going now,” said the Duchess coldly.

A mat of geranium tendrils swept the three of us to the field where I’d landed before, the field where the yuels had kidnapped Ginnie.

“Very well, then,” said Weena, expecting to take control. We were standing in the grass, and the geranium tendrils were gone. “I can link us to Monin’s farm. Your jiva will follow mine, Jim. You don’t have to do a thing. And as for you, Janie, can you find a way to tag along?”

Very abruptly, Janie changed her form. Once again she was visibly Ginnie—with her warm brown eyes, her punky dark hair, and her lithe frame. She wanted Weena to understand exactly who she was.

Janie/Ginnie seized Weena by the shoulders and sang a yuel lullaby louder than I’d ever heard one before. Instantly Weena’s jiva crawled out of her mouth. I felt a nasty wriggling in my throat as my own jiva left me as well.

Without a jiva in place, my zickzack skeleton collapsed. I was a wispy ghost, barely able to stand on my feet. Ginnie was still singing. My jiva and Weena’s jiva went flying off, although I had a sense that those ten thousand eggs were still inside me. If anything, Ginnie’s yuel lullaby made the eggs burrow the deeper.

Weena was fighting back, but feebly—she too had lost her skeleton, and she’d been taken by surprise. Ginnie gave Weena’s body a vicious twist and—oh my god—tore off both her arms. She bit into one of the arms and threw the other to me.

“You eat too,” said Ginnie. “You need the strength. It’ll tide you over until we upgrade you to a primo yuel-built body.” And now Ginnie continued tearing at Weena, gobbling down her kessence like a cannibal zombie.

I looked down at the limp arm I held. It’s not as if Weena were really my friend. And without any zickzack skeleton I was flexible enough that my mouth could open really wide. I braced myself and wolfed down the arm. What a bizarre thing to do.

Ginnie fed me more. I needed it. My ghostly body took on solidity and form.

In a minute or two we’d reduced Weena’s ghost to a sprinkle. Like an angry gnat, she buzzed around us, teeping maledictions.

“I’ll punish you for this, Jim!” rasped Weena’s voice within my head.

“Bitch,” said Ginnie, flicking her fingers like frog-tongues. With a lucky grab, she managed to snag the sprinkle that was Weena’s spark of soul. And now Ginnie bared her kessence-made teeth, raising her hand to her face.

“Are you sure that—” I began.

“It’s thanks to Weena that a parasite came through the hole to kill your wife,” said Ginnie, holding the trapped sprinkle tight. “Weena was the one who sent Skeeves to kill me with an axe. Weena lured you here to get infected with those jiva eggs. And now she’s told Skeeves to trash your meat body back home. It’s enough.”

And with that, Ginnie bit into the shuddering mite that was Weena’s soul. It cracked and melted against Ginnie’s tongue. Weena was gone.

“Yes,” I said. “Oh yes.”

A great weight lifted from me with the knowledge that Weena was no more. I had some hope of charting my own course in Flimsy now. One way or another, I’d flout the jivas and find my way to Val.

“So now let’s hop to Yuelsville,” said Ginnie. “We’ll regroup there and make a plan. I already met up with the Graf there.”

“The Graf made it back to Flimsy?” I asked.

“Yeah. And I think he’s basically on our side.”

In the near distance, the Earthmost Jiva had flushed an angry shade of red. Her tendrils were lashing the air in fury.

“One thing before we go,” I told Ginnie .“Teach me your yuel lullaby and I’ll blast that frikkin’ beet to bits.”

Ginnie and I got a subliminal resonance thing happening, just like I’d done with Charles last night. This yuel-style form of telepathy worked pretty well, especially for something like a song.

Even though I’d heard yuel lullabies several times before now, I’d been unable to internalize any of them. But now, with my resident jiva gone, I was open to the information. In just a few moments Ginnie had taught me her tune. It felt like an anthem.

I pinched off a ball of kessence from my body. I set the yuel lullaby to vibrating within the ball like a standing wave—I thought of the glob as a yuelball now. Running solely on instinct, I widened my mouth and throat so much that my floppy body became an erect tube. I chucked the yuelball down my throat, cradling it in the bottom of my gut like a cannonball in a cannon. I tensed my throat, preparing for a rapid rush of contractions.

And now, as if on cue, the jiva swooped towards us, blazing with hate and menace. And, like a living bazooka, I hocked my yuelball into her fat flank.

I maintained a subliminal linkage to my yuelball, and I could feel how it expanded like a star within the Earthmost Jiva’s form—sending the sweet, insufferable music of my yuel lullaby into her tiniest parts.

The monster jiva tried to flee in every direction at once—and exploded into a million gobbets of jiva-flesh, each fragment flaming and crackling with her stolen energies.

I’d been a rebel my whole life, but never with this kind of success.

“Hog roast with fireworks,” said Ginnie, her elfin face lit in reds and yellows. She looked calmer and more powerful than when she’d been hosting a jiva. As the remnants of the Earthmost Jiva fizzled out, the world around us turned to night.

I’d killed the sun.