"Look down there," said Nunnly, who, I just then noticed, had stepped up and was standing next to me. He was pointing to the very outline of the island.
"What is it?" I asked, searching for his meaning.
"The edge of the island," he said. "Brisden discovered a few weeks ago that it is slowly disintegrating. Close your eyes and listen carefully."
I did as he said and tried to listen at a point between the wind and the far-off waves. "I think I hear it," I said.
"Now, look again," he instructed.
Concentrating my sight on a jutting root just at the rim, I noticed, the way one might notice, with the proper focus, the hour hand of a clock moving, that it was almost imperceptibly diminishing in thickness. It seemed to come apart into tiny crumbs that did not fall but instead crackled into nothing.
"Is that bad?" I asked.
"Well," said Nunnly, tapping a cigarette against the back of his wrist and leaning almost elegantly against the fallen tree, "when you are on a disintegrating island, a mile above a sea of liquid mercury, I would consider that cause for a modicum of concern."
"Do any of you know why it is happening?" I asked.
"No," he said, striking a match, "but Anotine has calculated that in a matter of a few weeks or so, we will have to worry about it while we are falling."
"How long have you been here for?" I asked.
"Forever, it seems," he said. "We were all hired some time ago by a fellow none of us had actually met by the name of Drachton Below. Everything was done through correspondence which offered handsome payment for us to come here and do research in our particular fields. Since we have arrived, we haven't seen him. We keep working in good faith, but, my god, I wouldn't mind leaving at this point."
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"I tell you, my head is so full of designs for machinery, I can hardly think of it. I vaguely recall having had a family before I arrived here, but I can no longer see their faces. That's why I come out into the wood at night, to try to remember. I experience all of the loneliness and loss, but for whom or what remains a mystery. I am beginning to wonder if I ever really knew."
We left the edge of the island and walked back through the trees toward the village. Nunnly asked me about my own life and how I had been chosen to serve as a specimen. I told him I had been chosen for my good looks.
"You too," he said, and laughed. "You'll be interested to know that Doctor Hellman believes that neither we nor the island exists. Everything to him is dreams."
"What do you say to that?"
"What can I say? I'm an engineer. My work is with matter, not with mental indigestion."
We walked on across the field, and then Nunnly showed me a shortcut back to Anotine's rooms. Before leaving me, he shook my hand again, and said, "Cley, for a specimen, you are a bright fellow. Be diligent at your work. It would be pleasant to have you around for a while."
I lay down on the brown rug in the middle of the room and stared at Anotine's back as it rose and fell with her breathing.
"The Master, asleep in the clutches of the disease, is wasting toward death," I thought. "His memory is evaporating with his life, and that is why the island is disintegrating."
As my eyes shut, and I began to doze, I remembered the drawing of the hourglass on that scrap of paper I had discovered. Particles of light passed through the neck of the figure eight.
10
I CAME AWAKE TO THE GLARE OF SUNLIGHT FLOODING the room reflecting off the smooth whitewashed walls. There was an unreal, immaculate clarity to it, a vitality that offered perfect warmth and submerged me in a sense of well-being that ignored the countless dilemmas I faced. After rubbing my eyes and reminding myself as to who and where I was, I looked around and saw that Anotine was no longer lying on her bed.
"Hello?" I called as I stood up and stretched.
As if in answer, a shrill, steady note, like the cry of a thin-throated pig, sounded from down the hall. There was no modulation to the tone at all, and its relentless nature forced me to cover my ears. In this manner, I proceeded to search out its source. I passed a room to the left, also sparsely furnished and brimming with sunlight. Somewhat smaller than the bedroom, it appeared to be a dining area, for there was a large wooden table, surrounded by four chairs.
A few paces farther along on the other side of the hall was a small, windowless space, almost a closet. I could make out that its walls were lined with shelves and that they were filled with shadowy objects, but by then I realized that the sound was coming from the room at the end of the hall. From my limited vantage point, it appeared to be a much larger space than the others. I moved up to the opening, my hands still protecting my ears, and leaned forward to peer inside.
This room was also bathed in the clear light of morning, and, to my wonder, filled with all manner of strange-looking equipment that demanded my immediate attention. All of it, though, receded out of view as my eyes came to rest on perhaps the strangest scene I had ever witnessed.
Standing by a large window opening at the far right of the room was Anotine. Her face was lifted slightly so that she could make direct eye contact with, of all things, a human, female head that floated in the air of its own volition. The sight of this caused my hands to drop to my sides, and the maddening noise that issued from the open mouth of the bodiless woman passed unimpeded into my ears, drilling my mind. The intensity of it made my head swim as I focused on the twin beacons of green light that connected one woman's gaze to the other's. Both the pain of the din and the utter madness of what I witnessed made me gasp. I fell against the side of the entrance for support.
Anotine's tormentor shut her mouth, and the noise suddenly ceased. The green rays of light appeared to retract into the eyes of the floating head, and the moment they disengaged from Anotine's, she let out a deep breath and doubled over.
Then, like a hummingbird flitting from one flower to another, the head flew across the room and hovered in the air three feet from my face. I thought of running, but instead I simply slid down the side of the entrance until I was kneeling on the floor. The horrid thing floated there in front of me, and I was hypnotized by the way its black hair writhed behind like a nest of angry snakes. The face was drawn and appeared perfectly cruel in its pale green complexion. Its lips were deep red, its sharp teeth and irisless eyes, pure white. A growl sounded from somewhere within it, obviously not its throat, for it had none. Even in my state of panic, I understood that it was admonishing me for having interfered. I was certain for a moment that it was going to lunge at me, but as quickly as it had come, it circled once around the room, hair streaming behind it, then flew out the window.
Anotine looked over at me and smiled. "You're shaking" she said.
I got to my feet, somewhat put out by her offhand reaction to my fear. "I'm glad you are amused," I said.
With this she began to laugh out loud. "There, there," she said, and she walked over and put her arms around me.
This was almost as surprising to me as the sight of the flying head. All I could think in the brief time that the embrace lasted was how fortunate I was that she was now dressed. As she released me, I suddenly realized that the act was not one of affection but merely that of a researcher comforting a frightened lab animal. It would be dangerous for me to assume that I was anything more than Cley, the specimen.
"We call that the Fetch," she said as she backed away.