Гарднер Дозуа - City Under the Stars

They came upon an overgrown Utopian road over which meandered a narrow trail, probably not even human-made but rather something created by coyotes or wyverns or thants as they wandered in their dream-sunk and instinctual rounds, and Hanson decided that it could not possibly be the same as the one that passed through the bandit camp. At any rate, safe or not, he was tired of fighting his way through the brush. The woods were preternaturally silent, not so much as a cricket or a knacker stirring. The only sound came from the Wall, a soft humming and buzzing like an infinite swarm of bees heard from a million miles away.

Abruptly, the Preacher gave a shudder and went still in his arms. With a cold seizure of the heart, Hanson knew that he was dead. He stared down at the man, so small, so light, and as he stared, a metal rod burst out of the Preacher’s chest, passing through skin and muscle and cloth as if they did not exist, gleaming, quicksilver fast. It bent, unfolded several joints, and then plunged into Hanson.

With a cry of horror, he stumbled back, slapping wildly at his chest with both hands, letting the Preacher’s corpse fall to the ground. The rod had already disappeared into him as completely as if it had never been there, sinking out of sight within his chest, leaving no trace of its existence behind.

It was gone.

Hanson was tempted to dismiss the incident, the bizarre thing that had leaped out at him like some monstrous jack-in-the-box and then plunged into his body as easily as a hot knife going through butter, dismiss it as a hallucination brought on by fear and fatigue. But he could feel it inside him, a heavy weight in his chest that shifted his center of balance and altered his movements in subtle ways. He felt a different man with it in him, estranged from his own body, an exile sitting within the control-cab of his skull, staring horrified and dispassionate out of the eye-sockets. Worse, he could feel the device’s desires like a burden of guilt or regret gnawing at the back of his mind. It was anxious to go home, and told him so not in words but in a cold mechanical yearning so intense he felt naked and near-helpless before it.

He stood shivering for a long moment, then bent and picked the Preacher back up again.

The Wall was not far distant, a hundred yards or half a mile, he could not tell. But not far. All the woods around him blazed with its preternatural glow. He walked toward it, impelled by the horror behind him, by the burden in his arms, and by the alien machinery now wrapped around his heart. He could not help himself.

Up close, only a few steps away, closer than he’d ever heard of anyone coming to it, the Wall refused to resolve itself into solid substance. Little flickering motes of intense reddish-pink light swirled and crawled over each other, and the humming sound, though no louder than before, passed right through him; his entire body buzzed and vibrated like the sounding board of a guitar. The Wall loomed so high now that when he craned his head, it seemed to fill the universe, and he had the vertiginous sensation of falling into it. The thing in his chest seemed to leap up with joy.

I won’t, he thought wildly. I refuse! But he kept walking. The Wall filled his sight entirely, that terrible, unearthly dazzle. Briefly, he tried to lie to himself, to pretend that he was just going to bring the Preacher to the Wall he had spent his entire life journeying toward without ever reaching, and place his body there before it, like an offering to an angry God, so that He might be moved to pity and forgive His sinning children, especially that one in particular who was named Hanson. But being so close to the Wall seemed to lend the key strength; the buzzing rose up and overwhelmed Hanson’s thoughts in a great wave.

A hole opened in the Wall like a mouth, directly before him. It was big enough for a man to walk into. No, he thought. No !

He walked in.

The Wall closed behind him. He was in a moving bubble that kept pace with him. The walls provided enough light for him to see by and enough air to breathe. But it was warm, much warmer than the air outside had been. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, ran in rivulets from his armpits. It was ungodly hot in here! He kept walking, but more slowly now. His arms ached dreadfully, and his knees were starting to buckle. He cursed his weakness, hefted the Preacher’s body, and forced himself forward.

He kept walking straight ahead, until he was sure he should have passed through by now. How thick was the Wall anyway? How thick could it possibly be ? The swarming buzz of microscopic bees made it hard for him to think.

On an impulse, he turned and walked at right angles to his previous path. The bubble tracked him perfectly. So it wasn’t guiding him! He returned, as best he could, to his previous path. But he was definitely lost now, somewhere within the reaches of the Wall, and it was growing hotter. His skull buzzed and stuttered, and his breath came in long, shuddering gasps. It was as hot as the inside of an oven. He was surprised that his hair hadn’t caught fire.

The Preacher’s body grew heavier and heavier. His step faltered, grew slower and slower, as though he were wading through mud. Finally, he stopped, and, groaning, sank to his knees in despair. The buzzing grew louder. He reached out a hand, and where his palm brushed against the glowing substance of the Wall, it suddenly stung like a thousand wasps. He whipped his hand back, and saw that it was all bloody, skin and flesh sliced away where he had brushed it against the Wall. Ignoring the pain, he extended the arm again, gingerly, index finger extended.

As he’d suspected, the second time he didn’t have to reach so far. The bubble was closing about him. There must be something he could do to stop its progress, but with the heat and noise increasing unbearably, he could not think what it was. He could not think. He could only sink down over the Preacher’s corpse, grateful that his ordeal was almost over, as the bubble dwindled around him and its molten substance wrapped itself about his skin in sudden and searing pain.

Hanson screamed.

HE AWOKE IN DAYLIGHT, lying on his back in a meadow, shaded by an elm tree bearing vivid orange fruit. A gentle breeze touched him. It carried the mingled scents of sandalwood and wintergreen.

A tall, inhumanly thin man in a charcoal gray tunic stood watching over Hanson. He had a kind face. On seeing Hanson awake, he smiled. “Welcome home,” he said.

Home? Hanson rolled over and levered himself up on an elbow, and then rose to his feet. He looked around and knew for a certainty that he had passed all the way through the Wall.

Heaven was not as he’d imagined it.

No, that was wrong. Hanson had never been able to imagine what Heaven might actually be like. Oh, when he was young, he’d been as free with a crudely ribald speculation as anyone, but as far as what it might be like to actually stand in the City of God—

Whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

He looked across a vast lawn freckled with occasional pairs of silver dots or circles—gently rolling land that stretched as far as the eye could see, and all well-manicured, trimmed, as if someone were mad enough to mow it all. Not that any man could. It would’ve taken a hundred mowers, in constant motion, tireless, insanely devoted to their task… He shook his head. There were— buildings? —here and there, isolated from each other, immaculate and pointless. A cone larger than any single structure Hanson had ever seen, delicately balanced on its point and canted to one side. A red glass sphere caught in arches of congealed lightning. What could only be a baby’s arm magnified a million times, sticking out of the earth, fingers gently moving in a way that was undeniably alive.