After half an hour Jarvis turned onto his side and went to sleep, leaving Rosacher to contemplate the vista without the benefit of the old man’s minimalist conversation…and that, Rosacher assumed, was the point of the exercise: to make him aware of the biotope that Griaule had become, supporting a vast biotic community; to have him experience it and be amazed and let him mistake it for divinity. Well, he was amazed, the view was spectacular; but he perceived in the centrality of Griaule to the biocoenosis not proof of divinity, but rather evidence of the principles expressed by men of science such as Alfred Russell Wallace and Alexander Von Humboldt. And so, armored against magical thinking and superstition in all its guises, he leaned back against a scale and gazed at the dragon’s wing, suspended above like a remnant of a huge broken umbrella. A variety of birds—wrens, orioles, grackles, caciques, and the like—had suspended their nests along the underside of the wing, some of them quite elaborate, and the air was busy with their flights. Hundreds of them perched along the wing’s edge preparatory to soaring up and away in their search for food, and Rosacher became mesmerized in tracking their dartings and swoopings. As he watched his thoughts moved in similarly erratic orbits, passing from topic to topic without apparent logical connection until he found himself considering his business in relation to Griaule, noting mistakes and missed opportunities. Prominent among these was the idea that things would have gone much easier if, instead of scoffing at those who professed belief in Griaule’s divinity, he had embraced them, if he had promoted mab as the sacrament of a living god and held up addiction as an exemplar of religious faith. Why, he wondered, had he not seen this before? Had he done so, there was no telling how far his influence might have spread, how powerful he would have become. Neither the Church in Mospiel, nor any church, for that matter, could stand against a religion that delivered on its promises in the here and now, whose sacrament bestowed rewards that were tangible and immediate, and not some vague post-mortem fantasy. There would have been difficulties—the Church would have been loath to yield up its power, yet yield it they would have. Given that the faith of their devotees could be subverted by the swallowing of a pastille, how could they not?
As he imagined the world he could have made, picturing himself ruling over the length and breadth of the littoral, perhaps over an even more substantial realm, he recalled staring out a window in his apartment at the lights of Morningshade many years before and seeing in their patterns an answer to his problems so flawlessly simple as to seem the product of a visitation. His current problems were not as severe, but the solution he had extracted from (or had been offered by) the patterns of the birds was, he realized, no less elegant, no less mysterious in its advent…and, he told himself, no less relevant. This was not a missed opportunity. He could still take advantage of it. In fact, it might be easier now that he would only have to deal with a single person: Breque. Ludie would be assiduous in her attention to detail for a while, but gradually she would cede her authority to Breque and give herself over to the pursuit of pleasure. By the time Rosacher was ready to move against Breque, her role would likely be reduced to that of a figurehead.
Of course he might not have to move against Breque; he might be able to turn him into a complicitor—that was something he would have to explore, but first things first. He needed a building, an edifice the equal of a cathedral and devoted to a similar purpose, yet constructed in such a fashion so that its function would be unclear to the Church until late in the day. Not that their knowledge of his plans would make a difference one way or another. They would rattle their sabers and might, in extremis, be provoked to send an army against Teocinte; but the militia had grown powerful enough to defend the city and, once Mospiel’s troops had a taste of mab, it would be a short war.
Movement caught his eye—something crawling toward them about fifty feet below their perch. Not crawling, exactly. It appeared to be oozing toward them, inching along. He couldn’t make out the particulars of the shape, but it seemed quite large, seven or eight feet wide, and flattish, a motley green in color (or else it was covered in lichen). Every so often it lifted what Rosacher supposed to be its head, exposing a ridge of liverish flesh marked by dark round splotches. He thought about waking Jarvis, but no threat being imminent (the creature’s pace was glacial), he resolved to keep an eye on it and let the old man sleep. Two longish wires (feelers, he realized) poked up in the interstitial area between two scales adjoining his, distracting him. The insect or whatever-it-was never showed itself, however, and he fell into a drowsy reverie, making idle lists of things he would do if he intended to put his plan into action…and was jolted awake by a blow to his leg and Jarvis yelling at him to lend a hand.
The creature had closed to within six feet, lifting itself off the scale, revealing more of its liverish underside, including a lipless slash that Rosacher assumed to be a mouth. It waggled and rippled like the tip of a dark tongue, and emitted glutinous grunts as if its mouth were full of mush. Jarvis fended it off with one of the poles, jabbing at the dark splotches with the hook—they weren’t discolorations, but furred bulges. Rosacher grabbed the second pole and began jabbing as well. The creature’s strength nearly knocked him down, but he persevered and, after several minutes of strenuous effort, they succeeded in diminishing the thing’s enthusiasm for the fight. It lowered its head and retreated, backing away, following the same track it had used in its approach.
Jarvis, leaning on his pole, said between gasping breaths, “Haven’t seen one of them for ages. Thought they’d died out.”