“The grim folk were barbarians. They were bigger than our ancestors, stronger, more constant in size and form, but savage. Bloodthirsty men who preferred killing to lovemaking or anything else.
“And the grim men were entirely immune to iron and iron’s daughter metals.”
Harris frowned as what Doc was saying sank home. “Hey, wait a minute.”
“Some of the men and women of the grim folk were better than others. More beautiful, more tolerable. They came to live on the fair world. And they were more prolific than the fair folk, more fertile. Those of our ancestors who wanted to have larger, healthier families found it no hardship to bring some of the grim folk into their bloodlines. And while this was going on, while these crosses were taking place, it became harder and harder to move between the grim place and the fair place.”
“You think I’m from this grim world.”
Doc nodded. “I’ve been rooting around in antique records and collections of legends, calling to experts on the talk-box, since you went to sleep. A lot of them put credence I never would have imagined into this twin-world idea.”
“So I’m a savage.” Harris felt himself get mad.
Doc cracked one of his rare smiles. “And most of us are the descendants of you savages, too. Caster Roundcap, an arcanologist I talked to this morning, who takes this sort of thing seriously, suspects that most modern men owe a quarter or more of their ancestry to the grim men. It explains a lot. A greater resistance than our ancestors had to iron poisoning. Increasing uniformity in the size and physical nature of people over the last three thousand years, something that still confuses arcanologists.”
Harris sat back, his thoughts running around in circles. They thought he was a caveman. Some sort of Neanderthal.
But, wait. If his people were the ancestral boogey-men of the fair world folk, what were their ancestors to his people? He shot Doc another glance, looking again at the sharp-pointed ear revealed by the wind whipping at Doc’s hair.
Then another thought occurred to him. “Wait a minute. There’s no way.”
“Why not?”
“Something I learned in college. I was a theater major. That accounts for my glittering job prospects. When people move apart and live in isolated communities, their language changes. That’s where dialects come from. After long enough, the languages are almost completely different. It takes a scholar to figure out that they’re related.”
“True.”
“But you’re speaking English. Weird English, maybe. But I understand it.”
“We are speaking Low Cretanis.”
“I don’t speak Low Cretinish at home.”
Doc shrugged. “Perhaps your speech adapted itself when you came here, a mystical transformation. It’s something I admit I hadn’t considered. It’s a good question. But you’re speaking the vulgar speech of the Islands, regardless of what you spoke on the grim world.”
“The hell you say.” Harris thought furiously, then recited: “ ‘The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.’ There, did that rhyme?”
Doc looked startled. “Yes.” His lips began moving silently as though he were reciting to himself.
“What are the odds of a random rhyme surviving some sort of hocus-pocus translation like you were suggesting?”
Doc didn’t answer. For the first time since Harris had met him, he looked stunned. “That was William Shakespeare.”
“Yes!”
“Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act Two, Scene Two.”
“Yes, goddammit, yes! How do you know that?”
“There’s no need to curse . . . Shakespeare was an insane fabulator several centuries ago. He wrote plays about places that never existed. They’ve survived as classical examples of fantastic literature. There has never been any proof that he himself really existed; it’s long been suspected that Shakespeare was a quill name for Lord Conn MaqqMann, the poet who ‘discovered’ his work.”
“No, he was real. Where I come from. And Denmark was real, and Richard the Third was real, and England was real, and William Shakespeare wrote about them.” Harris blinked. “Okay. So there are some people who think somebody else wrote the plays for him. But they don’t deny he existed. And we’re speaking the modern version of his language, English, whether you like it or not.”
Doc pulled over and parked beside a high, rickety wooden fence and looked closely at Harris. “Of all the things I have seen since you arrived, I think that disturbs me most. For everything else there is a reason. Not for this . . . duplication.”
“Sorry.” Harris waited a long moment. “Shouldn’t we get going again?”
“No. We are there.”
Harris looked up. Over the fencetop, he saw the metal girder framework of a skyscraper under construction.
Phipps entered the Manhattan office of his employer and cursed to himself as he felt his armpits go suddenly damp. The air-conditioning never seemed to help. He didn’t know why his employer affected him this way. The old man might be murder on those who stood in his way, but he was always solicitous of his own people. Fixing their ties, inquiring after their families, giving them little gifts and big bonuses. And yet there was something about him, as though he were a hooded cobra hiding inside a teddy bear.
The old man sat in his leather-bound throne of an office chair behind his gleaming desk and smiled. “Bill. How’s the arm?”
Phipps, rueful, gestured with his right arm. He didn’t move it much; in its cast, hampered by the sling, it wasn’t very mobile and still gave him shooting pains. “Could be worse. I can’t wait to catch up to the guy who kicked me. He got his lucky shot in. Next time I kill the son of a bitch.”
“No need to curse, Bill. But, yes, you’ll get that chance. Do you have some news?”
“We found her.” Phipps set the manila folder in front of the old man. His employer flipped it open and peered at the files and photographs it contained.
“The woman is Elaine Carpenter, born Elaine Johnson, one of her friends from high school. The man is James Carpenter, her husband. She works with a suicide hotline part-time. He’s a tax lawyer. They live in Connecticut, and this Donohue girl is staying with them.”
“Good, good. How did you find out?”
“I had Costigan make up some of those instant business cards out of a machine. General Carpentry. Gave one to every apartment manager on the block and quoted nice high rates. But for the manager of the girl’s building, he had a special offer. A low, low introductory rate. And—surprise!—it turns out the manager had a door he wanted repaired. We gave it to him dirt cheap . . . and while Costigan was doing the repairs, he asked the manager how the door got broken.” Phipps smiled in rich appreciation. “The manager told him the story. Also, how he had to collect the girl’s mail and send it to her, since her keys were lost. Costigan got him alone and asked him a few questions.”
“And?”
“And then he finished fixing the door.”
“No, I mean—the manager?”
“Oh. He’s gone on a river cruise. He may pop up in a few months.”
The old man crinkled a smile at Phipps’ word-play. “Good. We’ll visit Miss Donohue again tonight, after the house is asleep. Do you have a man in place?”
“Naturally. I’ll have the device out to him within the hour.”
“Excellent.” The old man waved him away. But as Phipps reached the door, he called, “Bill?”