We made for the door and reached it without a moment to spare. As Misrix turned the key in the lock, one of the creatures leaped the width of a pool and came bounding straight at us. The door opened, I was pulled inside, and it was shut.
"We made it," I said, leaning back against the wall.
"Yes," he said, catching his breath, "but now they know where we are."
I dried off and was given an old suit of Below's to wear. The fit was unsettling in its perfection. In the room that had served father and son as a kitchen, Misrix made me a salad. I sat down at the table with my bowl of food and bread. The demon sat across from me with a cup of real shudder. I asked him if he could make me a cup, and he pushed his across the table to me. Then I asked him for a cigarette. Again he accommodated me, and together we smoked. The taste of the shudder almost brought tears to my eyes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper I had taken from the lab. Spreading it out with one hand on the table, I took a quick look at the symbols and handed it to him.
The demon blew smoke and brought the scrap in line with his spectacles. "This is what I was looking for" he said. "This is a torn corner from a handwritten book—the only book my father always kept nearby. It was written by his mentor, Scarfinati, and it described the secrets of an ingenious memory system. Now the werewolves have it, and Greta is quite capable of reading"
"Below had mentioned it to me once in the old days, but my recollection is vague," I said.
"Father would talk to me about it at great length. The idea of it is this," and as he paused to inhale I could see that he relished the role of teacher. "The adept creates a palace in his memory. He envisions this palace with a clear mind and total concentration. Once it takes root in his memory, he fills it with objects—a vase of yellow roses, a mirror, a white fruit. Each of the objects he places around the palace stands for something he wants to be able to remember. For instance, the vase of flowers might represent a concept like a mathematical formula. If the adept wishes to regain that formula, he travels through the memory palace, and upon seeing the vase, instantly remembers it."
"Everything in the palace is symbolic," I said.
He nodded. "My father designed the Well-Built City with this method. Once it was rebuilt in coral and steel, every portion of the architecture was, for him, the physical representation of a concept, a theory, an experience, worth remembering. Out there," he said, pointing behind him, "those ruins are the devastation of his memory. Every now and then, as we wandered among them he would come across a broken gargoyle or a fallen column, and I could tell he was momentarily recovering a lost fragment of himself. He found a piece of a pressed-tin ceiling that held the likeness of a pelican, and this made him weep."
"The white fruit exploded that memory palace from his mind, and, through some strange property, also destroyed its representation in the real world."
"I love to think of that white fruit," said the demon with a smile.
I stubbed out my cigarette and cut into the salad as if it were a steak.
"He's built another one," said Misrix.
"Another what?" I asked.
"Another palace. He's built one in his mind. It is magnificent, and in addition to the objects carrying symbolic meaning there are even people in this one who stand for certain ideas."
"How do you know?"
"I've been there," he said.
8
We stood next to Below's bed, staring down at him. the candle's glow illuminated his head, and its dance created the illusion that he was about to awaken.
"It's all in there," said Misrix, pointing.
"In his memory?"
The demon nodded. "I can put you in there," he said.
"How does that work?" I asked.
"You felt it in the cistern when we were hiding from the explosion. I put my hand on top of your head."
"It was like a dreaming wind," I said.
"I can put a hand upon your head and the other upon Father's, and you can travel through me into him. You will appear in his new memory palace in your present form. It will have all the reality of this world," said the demon.
"All the reality of this world?" I said, and laughed.
"The antidote is there," he said.
"I have been trying to forget about the antidote," I told him.
"It's there in a symbolic form in the memory palace."
"Maybe I could find it."
"But how would you be certain you have found it? You don't know the symbolic meanings of the objects. How do you decipher the secret language that is the center of that world?" said Misrix.
"What about you? Why don't you just enter into his memory? It would seem more direct that way," I said.
"I was there once," said the demon, "and because I appeared in my form, the inhabitants of the place were frightened of me and tried to kill me. I was forced to flee after only a short time. I know in my deepest self that if you were to go in there and some tragedy were to befall you, you would also die, here, in this world."
"There's a solid recommendation," I said.
"Yes, but you look like the other inhabitants. You could use your intelligence to decipher the symbolic system," said Misrix, putting his hand on my shoulder.
"But that could take forever."
"In the world of the memory palace time runs at a different pace. Seconds here are minutes there," he said.
"What did you see when you were there?" I asked.
"A small island that floats among the clouds a mile above a silver ocean of liquid mercury."
"He's really basting the shank with this one," I said.
"He's limited only by the boundaries of his imagination," said the demon. "On the island there is a tower called the Panopticon. It sits at the center of everything and from a series of portals issues a flying female head with streaming hair and bright, searching eyes. It moves through the village at the base of the tower, watching the lives of the inhabitants. When I was there, I was chased by it. It bit my back and neck."
"Very appealing," I said.
"For the antidote, I would guess you would have to get inside the tower, but there is no telling where he has hidden it."
"It could be an ant I unknowingly step on while hurrying after a clue," I said.
"Possibly," he said. "But remember, Father has to be able to readily find the object in order for the memory system to be worth his while. Now, would you like to take a journey?"
"I'd thought I already had," I said.
"You must go farther."
Given I was able to elude the werewolves, I could return empty-handed to a sleeping Wenau, or I could enter into a world whose atomic structure was Below and grope for the antidote. I told Misrix that I needed to take a short walk in order to clear my head. He said that he would need a few minutes to get two chairs set up.
I left Below's room and walked down the hallway. My thoughts were still adrift, and I kept returning to the image of the demon standing beside the remains of the false paradise. There was only one thing I could do to increase my chances. When I came to Misrix's door, I found it open and went in.
As I passed countless rows of objects in the Museum of the Ruins, memories went off behind my eyes like strings of firecrackers. Misrix had told me that all of his artifacts should add up to a love story, but I was beginning to think he had missed the mark. Instead, I foresaw peril and strangeness without resolution. For that reason, I took the white fruit.
It felt almost like a ball of smooth flesh in my hand. The aroma of Paradise swirled around me, and my mouth began to water. I tried to think noble thoughts, knowing the fruit's disposition to reward and punish. The taste was sweet dripping energy, and I felt it in my blood. I couldn't stop eating it. The salad Misrix had served me had left me hungry, but now I felt as if I would never have to eat again. Upon taking the last bite, I saw the mental image of my neighbors at Wenau before it flapped once and folded into a green veil as the demon's hand touched down upon my shoulder.