Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“The dolls are magic,” I told her. “You’ve got one, so you know what they’re like. You bought yours from that old man with the pencils.”

She nodded.

“They’re magic, and it stands to reason that the bigger they are the more magic there is, right? Yours is little. Those were the kind Russ sold. Only he made a really big one, a doll as big as he is. I don’t know how he got the stuff, but he got it.” Of course I thought I could make a real good guess, but I did not say a word about the man in black. Not then and not ever. On my list of people I did not want to piss off, he was Number One.

“That doll was to fool anybody who looked into our cell. Also me, even though I was right in there with it. And it worked like a charm because it was a charm, a real one. When I looked over at Russ’s bunk I did not see the doll. I saw Russ. Russ, and no doubt about it.”

“You are fool,” Naala told me.

“Sure, and that may have helped, too. So what happened to the doll when Russ was gone? Well, the last time I saw it two JAKA guys had it. One was Butch Bobokis. You know what happened to him.”

“So. We must find the doll and take it from them.”

I was standing up and did not answer, and after half a minute or so Naala called, “Where it is you go, Grafton?”

I said, “Come here, and I’ll show you.” After that I held up both hands and said, “Papa, you come, too.”

He came, and Martya after him, and after them the two cops, although you could see the one who had driven hated to leave Russ behind.

About then I heard Naala gasp, and I said, “Yeah,” in English.

Because the thing all of us had left behind was not Russ Rathaus. It was sort of like a scarecrow, only a lot better. It lay limp on the moss and rocks, and maybe, even from that distance, you might have thought it was a dead man. Only if you looked closer you would have noticed how boneless it was. Later I found out that it had been in the trunk of his car.

Here I am going to skip a lot more, because what we said and did then does not matter much. Going back to the city, we picked up Rosalee, who had found out from Martya more or less where Russ was supposed to be and was trying to get there. We did not tell her what had happened, just that Russ had gone. I did not want to send her back to prison, so Naala arranged for another female JAKA op to take care of her and Martya. After that, Naala and me finally went to bed. Not the same bed, and no playing around or showers or anything. Naala bolted the door first and disconnected her phone.

When I woke up it was getting dark again. Naala was sound asleep, but I got dressed and went out. Here is the way I figured it, and since it turned out to be pretty much right I am going to fill you in. Russ had been hiding in the Frost Forest in that tent we found. He had gotten sick—really truly sick—and that was when he had sent Martya into the city to tell his wife and his son. He thought he was going to die, and he wanted to see them before he went.

While she was away, he remembered the big doll he had made and got wise that it was being used against him. The bigger the doll the stronger it is, just like I figured. But the closer it is the stronger it is, too. So somebody had the doll and knew about where he was. Or else they were taking it all through the forest and happened to get close. Either way, the thing was to get away from it.

So he had tried, but he had stumbled over it instead, which was even better. The guy who had been using it against him was not there, so Russ had pulled the pins out and taken it back to his tent where he figured it was safe.

Only nobody came. That was because Rosalee had been really hard to find, and after Martya finally found her, she had probably gone back to the place where she had been staying to get some sleep and a bite to eat before she went off looking for Papa Iason. Back in the forest, Russ had gotten worried.

Also scared. The Unholy Way had found out where he was, or pretty close. It was a good bet that when they found out the big doll was missing they would do something else. So Russ took off. If he found Martya, fine. He would call her off. If he did not, he could at least make sure the Unholy Way had a tough time finding him.

That was the way I had figured it, and like I said that was pretty much the way it had been. So where had Russ gone now?

My first guess was the U.S. embassy and I did not know where it was, but I happened to think of a story of my father’s. This young lieutenant had to get a pole up to hold wires. It was raining, the ground was mud, and he did not know how to do it. So he grabbed a sergeant and said, “Sergeant! Put up this pole!” Then he walked away.

Should work for me, right?

I flagged down a police car, flashed my badge, and said, “Take me to the American embassy.” It worked like a charm. The cop took me to the U.S. embassy, which was maybe a five-minute drive. I said thanks and told him to go back on patrol.

The problem there was that the embassy was closed, and ringing the bell did not work. Neither did pounding on the door. I snooped around for ten minutes or so, but that got me nowhere. I thought things over, and it seemed to me that the next place to try was Papa Iason’s. I started walking, figuring I would see a cop in a car eventually. My sense of direction is pretty good, and in spite of the odd-sized blocks and the wiggles the streets had to make to accommodate them I knew about where Saint Isidore’s was and kept walking toward it.

What stopped me was a window with a left hand and a white rabbit painted on it. The old guy was still inside moving things from a high shelf to a lower one, and there was a question I had been wanting to ask him.

So I went in, gave him a nice smile, and said, “Remember me?”

He nodded and smiled back. “You will wish to know of the Amerikan magician. He has not been here.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, “but I’ve got something else to ask you. You know that trick you sold the lady who was with me before? The doll with no face? You put a picture in front of it and it copies the picture. Can you tell me if anybody else in town sells those?”

He shook his head. “I cannot. Where there has been a crime you find one? I am afraid it comes from my shop. I have sold seven now.” He paused. “Eight it might be. No more than that. I can give the names of some who have bought them, I think…. But not all.”

Sometimes you can see when somebody gets a new idea. Their face lights up, and they stand a little straighter.

I said, still very friendly, “You just thought of something. What is it?”

(Right here I am going to change the rules a little. In this book I have called people by their right names, even though I stuck to first names, mostly, and may not have spelled all of them right.)

“Magos X,” the old man told me. “He does not sell his dolls, but he has several. Once he tells me he orders from a man in Amerika.”

I said, “I ought to talk to him. Can you tell me where he lives?”

He did. So many streets that way and so many streets this way, a big old house that had caught fire once. “His trees are a foreign kind I do not know.” Under his breath he added, “They bear strange fruit.”

All that sounded interesting. I told him I would pay a call on Magos X but I would not say who sent me.

“Oh, you may tell. I feel sure he has done nothing wrong, but he may know things of value to you.”

I tried to follow the old man’s directions and went a little wrong. Those streets will do that to you. But pretty soon I spotted an old house a good bit bigger than the others in the neighborhood, and there were enough streetlights for me to see that part of it had burned.

I knocked and listened, and knocked again, and finally heard footsteps. They sounded to me like a big man walking quickly, careful not to make a lot of noise.