Nightingale

Chapter 24 Revelations

"Come in...." a woman called with a British accent. Bron leapt in surprise, then stood blinking stupidly into the darkness. He could see through the glass door, barely. He opened it and entered, then stood peering into the shadows.

A young woman crouched upon a black sofa. A low coffee table stood poised before her. Some glass balls upon it glowed a hot pink, providing the only interior light. She stood and skirted the table, nearly invisible in the darkness.

"Oh, hi!" Bron said, embarrassed. "I didn't see anyone."

She stood before him. She was shorter than him, and had straight black hair, a slender figure. She wore a flimsy red dress, and droplets of sweat had beaded on her chest. She obviously wasn't used to the heat of Utah. She might have been anywhere from twenty to fifty, for there was an agelessness to her eyes.

She appraised him as if he were a fine stallion. "So," she said at last, "You're the asufaak arru'yah, the dream assassin."

She raised her hand, palm up, as if to wave, and suction cups blossomed in perfect little ovals on her fingertips. Bron stood, unsure what to do. She nodded toward his hands, begging him to do the same. He raised his hand, self-consciously showed his sizraels. She smiled graciously.

"My name is Monique. I'm the Weigher of Lost Souls. Has Olivia told you about me?"

"Not much," Bron admitted. "She said you were friends in college."

"Good," Monique said. She had a commanding presence. She stared, as if looking through him, for a long time. "Olivia can't really tell you who you are. That task is left to me to discern. She can teach you about music, but my... specialty, is people—the history of our people. Would you like to know who you are?"

Despite his clash with the enemy, Bron had been told little about the masaaks. He knew even less about the Draghouls and dream assassins. "Yes," he said.

"Knowledge carries a price," Monique suggested. "Knowledge ... changes you. With it comes responsibility, but I will demand more than just a promise to take responsibility. Before I teach you, I must lay your mind bare."

Bron's stomach tightened. He froze with indecision.

"You're afraid of what I will see?" Monique asked. "You have to overcome that fear. I'll learn everything about you—every lie you've told, every lustful thought or deed you've acted upon. I'll learn the deepest secrets that you fear to tell."

"I'd rather not," Bron said. He glanced around for Olivia, wondering what she'd gotten him into, but she hadn't followed him onto the boat.

Monique said, "Olivia is not allowed in here. Not now. This is for me and you alone." She said it in a tone that made Bron suspect that Monique wasn't just Olivia's old friend, but some sort of superior.

"Have a seat," Monique said gently. "I mean you no harm. You and I must talk." Bron felt suddenly nervous. He was stuck on a houseboat in a wasteland with a strange woman who seemed to have unnerving power. She gestured toward an overstuffed recliner, and Bron sat, found himself falling backward into its cushions, as if dropping into a cloud.

Monique knelt before him, and took his left hand in both of hers. The low-cut top of her flimsy dress was tantalizing. She wore no bra, and her small breasts reminded him of Whitney's, and so she filled him with embarrassing longings. He didn't believe that Monique was trying to tempt him. He suspected that she was dressed scantily only because it was so hot. He tried to look up into her heart-shaped face, into those ageless eyes. Monique smiled.

"You lust after me," she said. "Don't be ashamed. You're at an age when your hormones are awakening. It's not just me that tempts you, it's almost everyone—girls at your school, teachers, strangers on the street."

Bron said nothing. He wanted to deny it, because it made him feel embarrassed and out of control, but she was going to peer into his mind. He couldn't hide what he felt.

"I have seen into the minds of a thousand men," Monique said. "Some were criminals, but others were visionaries, and men of profound virtue. Even the greatest of them suffered the same temptations that you do. Some people were so craven that they could not qualify as human. Yet I've also encountered nobleness and beauty, order and insight, and longings for greatness. The mind is like a container, and it holds mainly what you decide to let it hold, what you treasure. I don't expect to find anything inside you that I have not encountered before. At your age, you're like a sponge. You take in everything you see and hear, and you're still learning what thoughts and ideas are of value and what can be discarded."

She began to rub his hand, his wrist, and suddenly his sizraels popped. She studied them.

"But I want you to know, Bron, that there is nothing you have done that others have not done. There is no longing so strange that I have not seen it before, no desire so perverse. You think that your greatest secrets, your greatest fears, are unique to you. But they're the same secrets and fears that we all share. I will leave the choice to you. I can teach you, but first I must be sure of you. The world is infinitely more vast and strange than you can imagine, Bron. You see it through a thin filter of the things that you know of and have learned over the past dozen years. But we can share with you memories of people who have lived over the past million years, through tens of thousands of lifetimes. Have you ever wondered how Einstein saw the world? Or Rasputin? Or William Shakespeare? Or Jesus? The memory merchants can reveal it all to you—the secrets of those people and others vastly more interesting, ancient people whose legacies have been lost in time. If you will but permit me, I can show you something you would never have imagined."

Bron didn't entirely trust this woman. She was too intense, too strange, and the way that she looked at him hungrily as she studied his hand, left him unnerved. His mouth suddenly went as dry as the desert, and his palms began to sweat. He felt an electric tingle pass through them, a current that went up through his body and warmed him. She smiled.

She wasn't very old, he realized. She couldn't have been more than thirty, about Olivia's age. He would never have admitted it, but he suddenly wanted to kiss her, and he could tell by the way that her pupils went wide that she felt something, too.

His palms had begun to sweat, as if the heat in the room were growing. He tried to pull his hand back, to wipe it off, but she clutched it all the tighter.

Almost against his will, he nodded.

Monique reached up with her left hand, as dainty as a child's, and tenderly touched his temple, as if to sweep the hair back from his brow. He felt an electric tingle, heard a sizzling. Golden lights flashed around his head like a halo.

"I want to show you something," she said. "I won't add it to your memories, just show you something that has been passed down among memory merchants now for a quarter of a million years."

She closed her eyes and planted her fingers across half of his face, touching the eyelid under his brow with a thumb, his forehead with her forefingers, and others spread out until her pinky reached just behind his ear.

Suddenly Bron's eyes seemed too heavy to stay open, and he found himself....

Straddling the back of a woolly mammoth, his legs lost in thick hair. At this season in the year, the mammoth's fur was burnt orange on top, bleached by the sun, and hung in long ragged wisps that fell out in the slightest breeze. The mammoth was shedding, its winter coat coming in. The hair smelled rancid, almost moldy.

Ahead and on either side, the land was scarred and torn. Mastodons had come this way on their migration north in the spring, tearing down trees and eating every green plant in their path—grass, bush, tree.

It had been a hard year, and now weeds cropped up among the rocks, while broken trees with scraggly limbs clung to life. What should have been fertile ground had been trodden to mud, creating a broad highway that wound through the hills.

His mammoth suddenly grew wary, paused in its tracks, raised its trunk and waved it in the air as it sought an elusive scent. Its small ears flapped forward. Then it drew back and blew a warning call, much like that of an elephant, but far deeper.

Tutuk, for that was the rider's name in this memory, peered across a broken horizon, covered in rough hills and rocky bluffs, and searched among the rocks for any sign of a hill tiger, or a pack of dire wolves. To the left, a river ran. Wheat grew beside it to a height of fifteen feet. This was ancient wheat, Bron realized, a species that had become as extinct as the mammoth.

Tutuk could smell the autumn-ripe grain, but the air also carried a taste of cold and coming winter.

He did not trust the wheat field, for too often he had found that humans hid in there, and the humans in this area were craven things that hunted their own kind by night and wore the skins of their enemies. They worshipped serpents and jackals, and smelled of putrefaction, for they believed that if they smelled of death, death would love them and pass them by.

Tutuk dug his heels into the mammoth's neck, and stopped. He pulled a ram's horn from his pack and blew hard upon it, twice. If an animal heard that call, the horn would give them pause. If friends heard it, they would reveal themselves. If humans heard it, they would merely hide and wait for a chance to strike.

Wheat stalks swayed, and something rushed out. At first Tutuk thought that it was a tawny lion, but instead a woman with a broad nose and weak chin burst from the rushes. Her skin was pale and creamy, her hair a light red. She wore a skirt of woven reeds, and had lines running down her chest, tattoos created by poking a sharp stick in ashes and then sticking it under the flesh. The ashen tattoos circled her small breasts in double rows, and an ivory nose ring announced her wealth. There was wisdom in her eyes, and she smiled in relief to see Tutuk.

"Tcha khaw!" she called in greeting. Come, member of my family. "Tcha khaw!"

She was short and stocky, Bron thought. Stockier than any person he'd ever seen, and there was something odd about her face, deformed. She had deep-set eyes, and almost no chin.

Tutuk recognized her immediately. She wasn't human. She was Neanderthal, or as he called them, "the hunting family." Humans were scavengers, eating mussels and locusts and nuts, stealing dead kills from lions. But the khaw were a nobler sort, taking only fresh meat that they hunted with their own spears. They were brave in the face of danger, gentle with one another.

The woman raised her hand, palm outward, and Tutuk did the same, flashing the sizraels on his fingertips.

The Neanderthal woman smiled at that and gave a shout of joy. She was so happy to meet Tutuk that she did something Bron had never seen before—she broke into dance, leaping forward a couple of steps, then leaping back, swaying and singing, "Yi, yi, yi!"

Soon more Neanderthals came lunging from the wheat, dancing and singing. There was a young man with a scraggly beard that could have been the female leader's little brother, and old men with rheumy eyes, and naked children, and a dozen warriors with spears.

One of the warriors shouted, and girls ran out of the tall wheat, bearing fine skins—an offering of tiger hides—along with bone knives. A pair of boys came out bearing the skin of a wooly rhino, and upon it was part of a recent kill, the rhino's haunch. Last of all, the leader of the tribe motioned to the tall hay and called out the name, "Neptu!"

A girl of thirteen or fourteen crept forward. She wore a skirt of woven grass, and she had green ivy and wild pea flowers in her hair. She blushed prettily and ducked her head.

These Neanderthals had seen memory merchants before, and they knew what Tutuk had to offer. Wisdom was valuable beyond measure, and anything that he wanted in the village was his for the taking—their clothing, their weapons, their food, their daughters.

Tutuk smiled and looked the tribe over. There was a wealthy man in the back, a Maker by the looks of him. He would be the kind of man who napped spearheads from obsidian, or carved idols from the sacred oak. He was old, but not so old that Tutuk feared that he would die soon. He was the right age to craft weapons for the tribe, and to teach his apprentices his skills.

With a click of his tongue, Tutuk commanded his mammoth to kneel. Then he threw his left leg over the mammoth's neck and simply slid to the ground, slowing his descent by holding onto the beast's long hair.

The Neanderthals would want to know how to become mammoth riders, of course, but that was something that Tutuk could not teach them. He'd caught this mammoth as a calf, had touched its mind and trained it from birth, and though it might obey others now, Tutuk would not part with it.

Instead, he strode up to the Maker, hand raised to show what he was, and the old craftsman lifted his chin slightly.

Tutuk grasped his cranium, sent an arc of electricity through his hand, and showed the old man things. He showed how the Neanderthal arm was strong and powerful, the arm of a hunter, but it was too short to throw a spear far.

So Tutuk showed the old man how to make a spear thrower. Simply by carving a piece of wood, some two feet in length, he could make a base where the butt of a spear would sit. On the other end was a handle that could be gripped. By balancing the spear in the base, and then hurling with his might, Tutuk showed how other Neanderthals had been able to cast a spear for three hundred yards, making it easier to slay the wildebeests, mastodons, and tigers that roamed these hills.

By the time Tutuk finished, the old craftsman's jaw trembled as he fought back a sob. He teetered for a moment as the fall implications of what he had learned struck home.

With these new spear throwers, his tribe would prosper. His young men would hunt beasts from afar, and the vicious, gangly human cannibals might at last be vanquished.

As Tutuk pulled his hands away, the craftsman's eyes fluttered, and tears began to leak down his cheeks, tears of pure revelation, tears of astonishment and hope.

That is what Tutuk had desired: to bring these people hope. The world in his age had too little hope, with giant mastodons tearing down Neanderthal huts on sight, and tigers dragging children into the night, and humans encroaching on every front.

Suddenly the craftsman gave a shout of joy and grabbed Tutuk by the shoulders, then wrapped him in a powerful bear hug. Such affection was shown only to the closest of family members, and all of the Neanderthals shouted and danced, for the old man was telling them, "This stranger is as dear as a brother."

The vision ended. Bron could think of no other word to describe it, except as a vision. He'd been able to see as Tutuk had seen, smell what he'd smelled. He'd tasted the foul scent of Tutuk's teeth, felt the weariness that made his aching back sag.

For a moment, he had been another person, and he longed for more.

Monique pulled back her hands and smiled. "Tutuk was one of the greatest of our kind. He was a teacher who traveled the northern wastes through what we would now call Germany. He sought to save the Neanderthals, whom he saw as a noble people, and in time he brought peace between them and the humans. For many thousands of years they learned to live together in harmony. These people understood something that in our day we tend to forget. Wisdom is survival. Wisdom is hope, and peace, and kindness and love, all rolled into one. That is what we hope to share with the world, the wisdom to live together in peace."

For a long moment, Monique fell silent, and in that stillness Bron noticed the sound of small waves lapping the hull of the houseboat, and wind hissing through the rocks.

"How did the Neanderthals die out?" Bron asked. "I mean, they were so strong."

"And wise and kind," Monique said. "But they died by attrition. The humans, with their penchant for cannibalism, wiped them out."

"The humans ate them?" Bron asked. Astonishment seemed to cover him like a sheet.

Monique nodded.

"But humans aren't cannibals," Bron argued.

"Take a look at Wall Street," Monique laughed. "Humans have always been cannibals, looking for ways to put one another to use. Whether by slavery or usury or eating each other wholesale, what is the difference?"

Bron longed to know more, and he realized that Monique had sprung a trap. She'd given him a taste of wisdom, but only a taste. If he wanted more, he would have to bare himself to her.

"Will it hurt?" Bron asked.

"I will not lie," Monique replied. "It hurts more than words can say. That's why I can only lay bare your memories with your permission."

Bron weighed the proposal, and whispered softly, "Do it."

Monique drew close, smiled reassuringly into his eyes. Bron felt uncomfortable. The day was scorching outside, and her flimsy dress revealed almost as much as it hid. Bron didn't want to think about the possibility of being with her. He wanted to keep such desires hidden, but the fact that he feared them only made them stronger.

"Don't worry," she said.

She put her hands upon his head, and began slowly. She started with his last memory, his desire to reach out and touch her. It blossomed hot and fresh in his mind, and then other memories came—every nasty little thought, every vile fantasy that he'd ever had about every woman he'd ever met.

The feelings that they engendered were inexpressible. At first he thought that he might liken it to someone taking an ice pick to his brain, driving it deep and then twisting, in order to dislodge every objectionable thought that he'd ever had.

Shame struck him first, like a physical blow, turning his face hot and clenching his stomach. The memories flicked before his eyes, like pages in a graphic novel, bright and colorful, but they were accompanied by sounds—the voices of women and girls that he'd known.

But it wasn't like pages flashing before his eyes. It was more like little explosions in his head, as if landmines in his brain were going off, and these dark thoughts were just bits of shrapnel. Hundreds of them blossomed like mushroom clouds by the second. Bron was shocked and disgusted by the enormous quantity of them.

He tried to pull away, to retreat into some dark corner of his soul and hide, but Monique whispered soothingly, "Don't worry. Your mind is relatively clean when compared to those of other men."

She probed through his darkest fantasies and learned of the time when he was a child that he let a girl from next door touch him.

He relived watching one of his foster mothers as she stood naked before a mirror, and he recalled paging through a dirty magazine when he was eight, kissing the pictures and laughing inanely.

Bron squirmed, embarrassed to the core.

Bile rose up in his throat, and he fought the need to vomit. He gagged, seeking air.

Why is she just touching these thoughts? he wondered.

Your memories are tied to powerful emotions, Monique whispered in his mind. Then she said softly, "Fear, revulsion, lust. Those are some of the most powerful emotions. I explored your lust."

Suddenly it seemed that she had exhausted the pornographic content of his mind. "Don't be ashamed. All of us face temptations, but you have not given yourself over to them. In time, I can tell, you can master all of your desires. You have a strong will."

Now she pulled out other incidents—quarters that he'd stolen from his foster parent's couch as a child, money that he'd taken from the table in a neighbor's house. He recalled all of the times that he had stopped and looked longingly at the neighbor's boat and wondered what it would be like to be wealthy. He felt astonished at how often he'd coveted the nicer meals that others were eating at restaurants.

Every greedy impulse that he'd fought down came roaring back to life, and for a moment it was like a fresh wound, hot and bloody, as he longed for things that he would never have.

I am a worm of a person, Bron thought, and he shrank inside himself, wishing to die.

"Not much there," Monique said. "Steel yourself. I can already tell that this next one is going to hurt!"

Suddenly, she touched his anger, and hot wrath flooded into him as he was suddenly forced to relive every insult that had been spoken to him, see every scornful gaze, hear every cruel word.

As adrenaline gushed through his veins, his muscles knotted like cordwood and a scream of outrage tore from his throat—and that is where Monique struck pay dirt, for Bron's hate was strong and unrestrained, and often as a child he'd spent long hours fantasizing about how to get revenge on older children, imagining mutilations.

He remembered his fantasies about Mr. Golper—wanting to tie him in a bag and then stab it over and over, then throw his dying corpse into a river.

He thought of Mr. Lewis, and from deep inside he flashed upon an image of the man curled in a fetal position, dirty and naked beside a refrigerator.

When did that happen? he wondered.

In the memory he knew that Mr. Lewis was dying. His wife was calling the police, and Bron was wishing that she wouldn't, that she would just let him die.

Then there were the kids at school who had all offended him, and teachers and shopkeepers.

Over and over through the years, he'd told himself that he didn't care about the insults and cruelty, that he could ignore it all, but Monique seemed to throw open the shutters inside him, letting powerful beams of sunlight lay all of his secrets bare.

He'd quit fantasizing about revenge a couple years ago, and it seemed unfair that he should see these fantasies now, paraded before him in all their monstrous cruelty.

Bron screamed and fought, began trying to wrench his head free, until at last Monique pulled her hands away.

Bron opened his eyes and struggled against the rage. It seemed to be rolling over him in waves. His muscles were knotted, his neck swollen with it.

Monique was shaken and pale. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and rivulets stole down her cheeks and neck. Her pupils were pinpoints, constricted in shock, and her breath came ragged.

Bron wondered at her reaction. He'd imagined murder before, lots of times, in ways that were horrific and brutal, but it was nothing worse than what you'd see at the movies.

"No more," Monique said. "No more for now." She pulled her hands away, as if she would quit for the day.

Bron stopped fighting her, relaxed for a fraction of a second, and then Monique gritted her teeth, grasped his skull, and sent a shock through him.

"Show me what you love," she whispered....