Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

He buried his face in the greenery and as he heard the thudding of her horse's returning hoof beats he ripped up handfuls of the ferny plant, shoved them into his mouth and chomped them up.

To his surprise he felt her hand on his shoulder and realized that she'd actually dismounted to help him, or at least to satisfy curiosity. «Are you all right, Brother Thomas?»

He got up unsteadily, his recent actions having accelerated the alcohol's invasion of his blood stream. «Yeah, thanks, I was dizzy—» He brushed bits of greenery out of his hair and spat out a leaf or two. «Dizzier than I thought, not really well enough to ride all day, I guess . . . went to sleep and fell off, and I . . . banged my head a good knock on the ground just now.»

He grinned foolishly at her. Perfect, he thought. I killed the brandy smell on my breath and at the same time established an alibi for any drunken lurching or babbling I may do: Poor guy — evidently a concussion. And I get to be drunk, too.

«Let's walk the rest of the way,» said Sister Windchime. «Wait here while I get the horses.»

The sky was a deep cobalt blue by the time they'd wound their way down the increasingly well-constructed path to the valley floor, and when Rivas looked up he saw that a lot of stars were already visible, seeming to hang not too far above the highest peak of the tent. Lowering his head, a bit jerkily, he saw several makeshift towers like the ones that had ringed the field in the Cerritos Stadium, and, closer at hand, an approaching figure silhouetted by the cooking fires behind it. The figure was tall and broad and carried a staff, and for one moment of drunken panic Rivas thought it was the same shepherd who had stomped his pelican and. shot him, and whom he'd killed, the day before yesterday. «Children,» rumbled this shepherd, «welcome home. What band are you from?»

«I'm from Brother Owen's,» said Sister Windchime. «I . . . don't remember,» said Rivas. He remembered Sister Sue vividly, but he wanted to get the concussion established right away.

Sister Windchime came in right on cue. «Brother Thomas has been feverish all day,» she explained apologetically. «And on the way down the path a little while ago he fell off his horse and bumped his head.»

Good girl, thought Rivas. «We'd like to take the sacrament, please,» he said.

The shepherd clapped him on the shoulder. «Of course. I imagine you've missed merging with the Lord.»

The man had turned toward the light now as the three of them approached the tent, and Rivas could see the kindly smile curling the mouth behind the beard. Careful, he told himself; they practice that you're-home-now smile. Don't relax.

A dozen cooking fires hazed the air of the valley floor and made the many lamps and torches glow like lights seen through fog, and as the shepherd escorted Rivas and Sister Windchime on a looping course toward the tent, unseen people called greetings to them through the smoke and glare and darkness: «Welcome home, stray sheep!» «Merge with the Lord!» and «May you enter the Holy City soon!»

Oh, thanks, thought Rivas, nervous in spite of the brandy. He was trying to figure out what it was that had changed since his previous visit. Something—some smell or noise– was missing.

Under wide hooked-back flaps the tent's main entrance was a twenty-foot-tall arch spilling out a delta of yellow light against the increasing darkness, and as they approached it Rivas could see brightly painted canvas tents inside and robed figures striding about. It occurred to him now what the missing piece of furniture was—there weren't any far-gone communicants speaking in tongues. The other time he'd been here, the valley had echoed day and night with their babbling.

«A jaybush will be administering communion before very long,» the shepherd told them as he led them inside, «so it might not be a good idea to put anything in your stomachs right now, but I'll find you a tent where you can relax for a—are you all right?»

Goggling around at the lanes of colorful tents and the spiderwebs of cables far overhead, Rivas had stumbled and fallen to his knees, but as he got up, muttering apologies, he saw only concern in his companions' faces.

«Merging with the Lord will help clear your head,» the shepherd assured him.

Rivas nodded solemnly, trying to re-establish his dignity.

«It will be a well-attended ceremony,» the shepherd went on. «Several bands are here to pick up their strays, and one of the bands is going directly from here into the Holy City!»

«Called home at last after their hour of wandering in the wilderness,» quoted Rivas drunkenly.

«Amen, little brother,» said the shepherd.

To someone perched on those high cables, thought Rivas an hour later as he peered up into the smoky heights of the tent, this line of Jaybirds would look like the outline of a huge snail, all looped around and around in a spiral.

He stood up on his toes and craned his neck, but he couldn't see the white-robed jaybush anymore. The old man had wordlessly entered the tent and begun walking through the coiled gauntlet toward the center; Rivas had nervously dropped his gaze when the jaybush passed directly in front of him, but when a few minutes later the man made his next pass on the other side of the line of people in front of Rivas, he sneaked a look . . . and reflected, not for the first time, that it was hard to tell jaybushes apart. Like every other one he'd ever seen, this one had a craggy, browned face and an ivory-colored beard.

Suddenly from the center of the coil he heard an agonized gasp and the clopping thud of a heavy fall, and he realized that the distant mutter he'd heard an instant earlier had been the jaybush's formal exhortation: «Merge with the Lord.» He could now hear the faint creaking of clothes and the change in everyone's breathing as the people in the spiral tensed in anticipation. Many closed their eyes and seemed to go into a trance, and Rivas knew that if any of the far-gone men present were on the brink of entering the speaking in tongues stage—women, of course, never deteriorated that far—it would happen about now. Got them old sevatividam blues, thought Rivas.

And, sure enough, two men in the line ahead of him started up at the same instant, in such effortlessly perfect unison that even their inhalations were exactly synchronized. « Hmmm ,» they said. « Hmm? » Now joined by two more, they went on in a rush: « Yes, yes, it's boiling down nicely now, let me see — yes, I think I can even taste the heaviness . . . . Help me boil it, children, gently, each of you lend me your little flame . . . .»

Quickly but calmly several shepherds trotted into the spiral, pausing in front of each speaker in tongues just long enough to deliver, with all their strength but apparently no animosity, a devastating punch to the belly.

Finally there was just one speaker still working—» Always welcome, newcomers are, oh, quite a group, how tasty, tasty . . . yes, children, let's see if we're strong enough to squeeze it, shall we? Summon a triton for your sea-king to make a hot dinner of, ho ho ho. . . . » and then an echoing punch silenced him too. All through these noisy interruptions the metronomic «Merge with the Lord,» and subsequent thumping collapse, had been continuing without any change in pace.

Rivas wished he could sober up just for a minute and think clearly. My God, he thought, they speak in English now! It's a much eerier-seeming trick now that when it was just gibberish. How do they do it, so perfectly in step with one another? Do they rehearse it? Impossible, most far-gones can't even feed themselves . . . .

And why do the shepherds silence them now? They never did when it was gibberish.