He grew concerned when it became evident that he would not be able to halt the dissolution of all the knowledge he had worked so hard to acquire over the years. The idea of confessing what he had done to the old man in hopes that there was some way to reverse its effects was quickly becoming his only option. During this time, Anotine could sense there was something wrong with him. She promised that if he could be patient for a few more days, she would beg Scarfinati to let them go on a vacation. During one of their midnight meetings, she wondered if it wasn't time they should be married.
The feelings of jealousy began to disintegrate along with his memory, hut they were replaced by a sense of guilt. Anotine s concern for him, her desire to he with him, showed that his paranoia had
been unfounded. During a particularly troubling night, he decided to confess the following morning. He only hoped that even if Scarfinati could not forgive him, Anotine might find it in her heart to.
The next day, before he could present himself to his mentor, he heard Scarfinati calling to him from the private study on the second floor. As he mounted the stairs, he wondered if his theft had been discovered. When he reached the closed door of the study, he knocked meekly on it. "Enter," Scarfinati said from the other side.
He opened the door and saw Anotine sitting at the study table in front of the open book. She looked straight ahead with a perfectly blank expression, her mouth slightly open. Next to the open book was the original page that Below had stolen. How it had gotten there, he could only surmise. Scarfinati must have been aware of the theft all along and taken it back through some act of magic. The mysterious old man was nowhere to be found.
Scarfinati never appeared again at Reparata. Below came to realize that the bogus symbols he had inserted into the book on the forged page had been studied by Anotine and put to use in her mind. Because of their ill effect, her thoughts had seized. She could neither think ahead nor remember, but sat perfectly still, staring into that moment when everything came to a halt. He now could no longer deny the truth of his selfishness, and this plunged him into a great depression.
Using a formula the old man had taught him, he entombed Anotine in a chemical ice that was impervious to heat. In that way he hoped to preserve her until he could conceive of a way to free her mind. With the last of his own fading knowledge, he set about learning the symbology of the memory book. This he finally mastered and, almost at the last second, was able to reverse the effects of his mnemonic disintegration. Even when his thought processes had returned to full efficiency, and he was using his mnemonic world as a creativity engine, he still could not discover a cure for Anotine, who lay completely immobilized in her clear sarcophagus.
Her presence tormented him so that he invented a drug that would, for the short time it took control of his body, make him forget the pain of his guilt. Sheer beauty, as he called it, became his refuge, but when even that lost its effectiveness against his anguish, he knew he had to escape. He finally sold Reparata, and with the fortune it brought, he hired a ship and a crew in Merithae. Anotine was loaded into the hold of the ship, and Below gave orders to the captain that he was to stay perpetually out on the ocean. Once a year they would be allowed to dock in order to take on supplies and change crews. It was an odd request, but he had the wealth to back it up. The thought of not knowing with any certainty where Anotine was at any given moment came as a great relief to him.
He spent the next few years searching for Scarfinati, but never found him. The lessons the old man had taught him proved exceedingly valuable, though, and he sold his services to the wealthy and powerful in order to survive. Each spring, he would make his way back to Merithae and wait for the ship to put into port. Then he would visit the hold where Anotine lay like a beautiful insect in amber. It was on his last visit to the coastal town, as he was watching her sail away again toward the horizon, that all at once his mind conceived of a magnificent city. This seed of a thought began to sprout behind his eyes right there on the dock as the outgoing ship diminished against the horizon to a speck of white sand and then fell through the neck of the hourglass.
26
When I finished telling Anotine about what I had witnessed, she remained perfectly still, staring vacantly at the hourglass as if the symbols of the story had again caused her mind to seize. I feared that it had been a cruel thing for me to reveal the secret of her past, and I admonished myself for having been so foolish.
"I thought you would want me to be honest" I said to her.
She broke from her trance and looked up at me. "I'm not angry, Cley," she said. "I'm merely confused. I know the Anotine of your story is not me, only a kind of distant relative, and yet now that you have recounted the tale, I am having memory flashes of that time and that place, Reparata."
She stood up and walked over to where Below sat sleeping. I followed her and stood at a distance, wondering how she might feel toward this man who had both destroyed her and then given her life in his memory. I heard her whispering and saw her hands moving in an expressive manner. She walked back and forth in front of him, continuing to expound, while he sat slumped in the chair, his arms limp at his sides. This went on for some time, but I could not hear what she was saying. I chanced a look out through the dome and saw that the sun was beginning to rise.
She suddenly stopped talking and moved in close to the body to run her hand over his hair. Remaining in that pose for almost a minute, she studied his features, maybe trying to remember what he looked like in his youth. She then leaned over him, her breasts flattening against his chest, and brought her hands up to either side of his face. I pretended to turn away, but watched from the corner of my eye as she proceeded to kiss him on the lips. It lasted a moment, and when she was done, she leaped back and screamed in surprise.
I could hardly believe what I was seeing, but the sleep-weighted body of Below abruptly sat straight up in the chair. Rushing over to where Anotine had backed away, I put my arm around her. Together we watched as the old man, with eyes still closed, turned the chair around to face the console. His wrinkled hands came up slowly, like the hands of a marionette, to turn dials, flip switches, and adjust the two long levers in front of him. As he performed his tasks on the board, I could feel the floor of the dome begin to rumble.
"We're moving," said Anotine, and she was right. The dome had come to life at Below's insistence and was now cutting through the thick waves under its own power.
No sooner did we realize this than the Master fell forward, the effect of his miraculous animation leaving him as if the invisible strings had been severed all at once. His head and shoulders landed on the console, and in the process must have activated one of the controls, for the chair began moving along the low rail it was connected to, traveling smoothly around the inner circumference of the dome.
I tried to catch up to the orbiting throne and turn it off, but I couldn't get close enough without risk of being run down. Eventually I gave up, and Below continued to make his rounds like the hand of a clock made to indicate seconds. While he circled, Anotine and I dressed.