Tim Powers - Dinner At Deviant's Palace

He saw a gap between two buildings, and as he got closer he saw that it was a street that he was looking down the center of; and a moment later, peering through the sheets of rain, he saw agitated human figures. He stopped and tried to see by the faint reflections of yellow light ahead what the people were doing . . . .They seemed to be leaping and whirling in the rain . . . .

Rivas almost grinned. They were doing Sanctified Dancing. And now that he listened for it he could hear over the steady whisper-roar of the rain the rhythmic hand-clapping of the people who stood around watching. No wonder they hadn't heard his battle with the trash man.

Well, he thought as he started forward again, this isn't as convenient as it would have been if they'd all been fast asleep, but it's better than a few quiet watchful guards.

He was wondering whether to sneak around the far side of one of the structures—which would involve carrying his increasingly heavy burden an extra couple of hundred yards– or just stomp right down the street in a nothing-to-hide way, giving a birdy grin and a «Shepherd's orders!» to any inquisitive people . . . when he realized he didn't have the choice. He'd been seen.

A figure with a lantern was striding out toward him, waving, and in a minute he saw that the person wore the robe—and yes, he could see the crooked staff too now– of a shepherd. Rivas knew he was in no shape to outrun anybody, so he just put on a smile and kept trudging forward . . . but he was rehearsing in his mind exactly how he'd throw the kid at the shepherd if trouble arose, and in the same motion draw his knife and try for the man's throat.

But it seemed that wouldn't be necessary. The man smiled at Rivas with a little less contempt than shepherds usually showed for people, and when he was close enough for talk to be possible over the sound of the rain, he pointed at the unconscious young man and said, «Runaway?»

«Evidently,» said Rivas without hesitation. He saw the shepherd's gaze go to the boy's ankles and stay there while a wondering frown wrinkled his forehead, so he added, «Got his leg irons off too, somehow, what do you think of that?» He was acutely aware of the pressure which was his knife sheath against the inside of his right wrist.

The shepherd waved Rivas forward and then fell into step beside him. At least the rain was making the sand firmer underfoot. «I don't like it,» the shepherd said. «It's good for them to dance, of course, when it's that or start thinking the wrong way, but it's bad that they have to do it so much lately. And now this . . . sick kid got his irons off and tried to run.» He shook his head. «You,» he said, giving Rivas a stern look that, prolonged for just a few more seconds of silence than it was, would probably have had Rivas tossing the kid and snatching for his knife, «are supposed to see to it that this kind of thing doesn't happen. You and the other trustees.»

«Yes,» said Rivas cautiously, thankful that his one-leg-iron trustee disguise seemed to be working. «I know. Well, this'll spur us to be more diligent.»

Rivas found that he'd begun walking in a knock-kneed way to keep the shepherd from getting a good look at his leg iron; he realized this would only call attention to it, and he tried to remember how he'd been walking before.

«Take him straight down the street to the penitence cage,» the shepherd said. «I'll have the other trustees rounded up. We've got to talk about how we're going to get this situation straightened out. I wish the Lord spent more time here.»

«Me too,» Rivas croaked.

They were almost even with the buildings now, and he could see that the street between the rows of wooden structures was a cracked, sand-scoured section of some ancient highway.

The shepherd was lagging behind, but Rivas forced himself to keep walking at the same pace and, much more difficult, not to turn around constantly to keep an eye on him. So it was almost a relief when the man said, «Oh, say,» and Rivas had an excuse to stop and look back.

«Yes?»

«Why do you suppose your man ran north?»

To see the pretty bald girls, thought Rivas. To go skating with the trash men. «I don't know,» he said.

The shepherd nodded thoughtfully. «Well—see you soon. We'll be in the gun room.»

You bet, thought Rivas as he turned back toward the dancers and started walking again. Hold your breath till I get there, okay?

The clapping was loud now, and Rivas could see the spectators lined up on both sides of the street. The dancers were contorting enthusiastically in the rain in spite of the two feet of chain that linked every pair of ankles, waving their arms over their heads, some skipping in short runs across the pavement and some Bo Diddleying in place. Their clothes slapped wetly around their ankles and wrists, and the ones that weren't bald snapped their wet locks and beards around like whips. Most of them had their eyes closed, and on each face was a nearly identical expression of quiet satisfaction.

Rivas walked right down the middle of the street, trying to stay out of everyone's way, for no one gave any sign of seeing him.

The section of highway ended not far beyond the dancers and soon he was walking on wet sand again. He was sure he could hear a faint booming of surf now, and he peered ahead worriedly, fearing that he might not, after all this, be able to find a boat. I'll ditch this kid and swim if I have to, he thought. I wonder where the penitence cage is, and how long it'll take that shepherd to catch on that I'm not coming back.

The sand was giving way to old concrete again under his aching feet, and then to his astonishment he was walking on what appeared to be new concrete. In some ways it struck him as more miraculous to be able to make and lay concrete than to be able to manufacture ammunition.

He glanced to his left, which was southeast, and dimly saw tall pale buildings in the distance, made into abstract geometrical shapes by the night and the rain and the miles that separated him from them. And it came to him that what he was seeing was the Holy City. The shabby structures on the glass and sand behind him were like toolsheds tucked away out of sight at the back of a big estate . . . .

The ocean is the front door, he thought; the gate the wagon brought me in through was the back door—the servants' entrance.

Rivas stopped and stared . . . and then felt goose pimples prickling his arms, for he'd noticed a sphere suspended in the air above the buildings, and it had to be huge to be visible at all at this distance, and there was no glint of light at its bottom to indicate a fire, and he was suddenly sure that the bald girl had meant helium balloons . . . but where could Jaybush be getting helium ?

Though slumped as loosely as ever, the boy suddenly began speaking, and Rivas was so startled that he nearly dropped him. « Who is it? » the boy had burst out. « Oh, him. When will the fool learn to come around to where I can see him, he knows I can't roll over. . . .»

Rivas was very glad this hadn't happened when he was talking to the shepherd. There was no mistaking it for anything but genuine speaking in tongues, and far-gones could no more decide to escape than they could fly.

He'd noticed a dark band parallel to his course on his right and he'd been slanting toward it, and now he could tell by the sound of the rain falling there that it was a wide trench full of water. Looking to his left he saw another one further away, and now he noticed a similar band ahead that diagonally connected the two. Canals, he thought. Newly constructed, too, unlike the ones in Venice. Why is Jaybush so fond of canals?

When he arrived at the canal edge he crouched and rolled the young man off his shoulders onto the new concrete, and then he stood up and simply luxuriated in the ability to stand up straight and feel cold rain on the back of his neck, before climbing down into the water. It was warmer than the rain, and he swam out to the middle of the forty-foot-wide watercourse to see how deep it got. He discovered that even out here he could stand on the bottom and still have his chin out of the water. He went back and fetched the kid and then, towing the limp body behind with a collar-grip that kept the sleeping face above the surface of the water, he began moving down the canal toward the sea, sometimes swimming and sometimes wading. The buoyancy the salt water gave them made southward progress much less strenuous, and Rivas wished the canals had extended all the way up to the bleeder huts.