Read Online Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea by Caitlin R. Kiernan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Caitlin R. Kiernan
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little ways left to go. I open the book and read the words aloud again, the words underlined in red ink, that I might understand how not to lose my way in this tale which is almost all that remains of me: “No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their truer nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a construct of the mind of man.”
I think this means I can stop when I’m ready.
I’ve been in Lowell for almost a full week now, writing all this shit down. Today is Monday, Libra 17th. We are deep in winter, and I have never been this far south.
There is a silence here, in this dead city, that seems almost as solid as the bare concrete around me. I’m camped far enough in from the transfer station that the hanger noise, the comings and goings of the zeps and spinners, the clockwork opening and closing of the dome, seem little more than a distant, occasional thunder. I’m not sure I’ve ever known such a profound silence as this. Were I sane, it might drive me mad. There are sounds, sounds other than the far-off noise of the station, but they are petty things that only seem to underscore the silence. They’re more like the too-often recollected memory of sound, an ancient woman deaf since childhood remembering what sound was like before she lost it forever.
Last night, I lay awake, fighting sleep, listening to my heart and all those other petty sounds. I dozed towards dawn, and when I woke there was a woman crouched a few feet from my bedroll. She was reading the monk’s book, flipping the pages in the dark, and, at first, I thought I was dreaming again, that this was another dream of Sailor. But then she closed the book and looked at me. Even in the dark, I could tell she wasn’t as young as Sailor, and I saw that her head was shaved down to the skin. Her eyes were iridescent and flashed blue-green in the gloom.
“May I switch on the light?” I asked, pointing towards the travel lamp near my pillow.
“If you wish,” she replied and set the book back down among my things. “If you need it.”
I touched the lamp, and it blinked obediently on, throwing long shadows against the walls and floor and ceiling of the room where I was sleeping. The woman squinted, cursed, and turned her face away. I rubbed at my own eyes and sat up.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“We saw you, yesterday. You were watching.”
The woman was a Fenrir priest. She wore the signs on her skin and ragged clothing. Her feet were bare, and there was a simple onyx ring on each of her toes. I could tell that she’d been very beautiful once.
“Yes,” I told her. “I was watching.”
“But you didn’t come for the mark,” she said, not asking because she already knew the answer. “You came to find someone.”
“Does that happen very often?”
She turned her face towards me again, shading her eyes with her left hand. “Do you think you will find her, Dorry? Do you think you’ll take her back?”
It hadn’t been hard to locate the temple. The old federal complex lies near the center of the dome, what the bombs left of it, anyway, and finding it was really no more than a matter of walking. The day that I arrived in Lowell City, one of the Transfer Authority’s security agents had detained and questioned me for an hour or so, and I’d assured her that I was there as a scholar, looking for records that might have survived the war. I’d shown her the paper map that I’d purchased at a bookshop in Bosporos and pointed out the black X I’d made about half a mile north of the feddy, near one of the old canals. She’d looked at the map two or three times, asked me a few questions about the journey down from Holden, and then made a call to her senior officer before releasing me.
“You don’t want to go down that way,” she’d told me, tapping the map with an index finger. “I can’t hold you
I think this means I can stop when I’m ready.
I’ve been in Lowell for almost a full week now, writing all this shit down. Today is Monday, Libra 17th. We are deep in winter, and I have never been this far south.
There is a silence here, in this dead city, that seems almost as solid as the bare concrete around me. I’m camped far enough in from the transfer station that the hanger noise, the comings and goings of the zeps and spinners, the clockwork opening and closing of the dome, seem little more than a distant, occasional thunder. I’m not sure I’ve ever known such a profound silence as this. Were I sane, it might drive me mad. There are sounds, sounds other than the far-off noise of the station, but they are petty things that only seem to underscore the silence. They’re more like the too-often recollected memory of sound, an ancient woman deaf since childhood remembering what sound was like before she lost it forever.
Last night, I lay awake, fighting sleep, listening to my heart and all those other petty sounds. I dozed towards dawn, and when I woke there was a woman crouched a few feet from my bedroll. She was reading the monk’s book, flipping the pages in the dark, and, at first, I thought I was dreaming again, that this was another dream of Sailor. But then she closed the book and looked at me. Even in the dark, I could tell she wasn’t as young as Sailor, and I saw that her head was shaved down to the skin. Her eyes were iridescent and flashed blue-green in the gloom.
“May I switch on the light?” I asked, pointing towards the travel lamp near my pillow.
“If you wish,” she replied and set the book back down among my things. “If you need it.”
I touched the lamp, and it blinked obediently on, throwing long shadows against the walls and floor and ceiling of the room where I was sleeping. The woman squinted, cursed, and turned her face away. I rubbed at my own eyes and sat up.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“We saw you, yesterday. You were watching.”
The woman was a Fenrir priest. She wore the signs on her skin and ragged clothing. Her feet were bare, and there was a simple onyx ring on each of her toes. I could tell that she’d been very beautiful once.
“Yes,” I told her. “I was watching.”
“But you didn’t come for the mark,” she said, not asking because she already knew the answer. “You came to find someone.”
“Does that happen very often?”
She turned her face towards me again, shading her eyes with her left hand. “Do you think you will find her, Dorry? Do you think you’ll take her back?”
It hadn’t been hard to locate the temple. The old federal complex lies near the center of the dome, what the bombs left of it, anyway, and finding it was really no more than a matter of walking. The day that I arrived in Lowell City, one of the Transfer Authority’s security agents had detained and questioned me for an hour or so, and I’d assured her that I was there as a scholar, looking for records that might have survived the war. I’d shown her the paper map that I’d purchased at a bookshop in Bosporos and pointed out the black X I’d made about half a mile north of the feddy, near one of the old canals. She’d looked at the map two or three times, asked me a few questions about the journey down from Holden, and then made a call to her senior officer before releasing me.
“You don’t want to go down that way,” she’d told me, tapping the map with an index finger. “I can’t hold you
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