I did get a view of the cathedral, and of many little shops, and some fine residences, and some gilded coaches, and some dirty wagons, and some truly lovely horses, and some excellent examples of the damascened blades for which the city was famous. One of the most gorgeous was a dagger in the hand of the man who arrested me.
Four armed men of particularly uniform appearance approached me just as I succeeded in locating Santo Tome. I had been wandering the streets for a couple of hours by then and was rather pleased to have located the church without assistance other than the map. In fact, I was still holding the thing in my hand when they came up to me and began saying graceful and incomprehensible things.
"No comprendo," I explained. "Soy norteamericano."
They said more things to each other, then one of them looked at my map, pointed to it, and pointed to the church.
"La iglesia?" he asked.
"Si," I replied. "Santo Tome. De donde es Padre Diaz?"
They conferred again quickly, and when I heard Padre Diaz' name mentioned in close conjunction to another word I had committed to memory—that being "heretico"—I suspected I was in trouble. Nor was I incorrect. It was but moments later that I was given the opportunity to admire the gold and silver inlay of the dagger. There were several others in evidence, but the one belonging to Enrique—also referred to as "Jefe" by the others—was by far the most attractive.
"You—come—with—us," Jefe Enrique said to me.
"Soy norteamericano," I explained again.
"Si, norteamericano amigo de heretico," he said.
"No," I said. "I wanted help in finding an inventor named Von Kempelen. I was told that Father Diaz either spoke English or could find me an interpreter. See?"
I showed him the letter. He passed it to one of the others. The man glanced at it and handed it to the next man, who did the same. It occurred to me then that all four of them might be illiterate.
"Por favor," I said. "Interpreter, translator—para Ingles."
Jefe Enrique shrugged and gestured with his blade.
"Come," he said.
Two of them flanked me, one walked behind, Jefe walked a bit ahead and to the right. I regretted not having learned the Spanish word for "misunderstanding" though I doubted it would really have done me much good. There was a certain air of dedication about them which did not seem to lend itself to debate.
And so I was taken to the local jail, my money and blade confiscated along with my letter and map. I was locked into a pitch-dark cell, presumably while it was considered whether I might be an accomplice of poor Padre Diaz. If they decided this to be the case, presumably I would be handed over to the Inquisition.
Extending my hands before me, I moved slowly, groping my way about the circuit of my confining walls, some of them stone and some rough iron. When I felt myself to be at the door once more I seated myself with my back to it and rested. I ate some bread and drank some water that I found there. I must have dozed then, for there seemed to be a break in my consciousness.
Upon awakening, I found myself sprawled prone, my right arm hanging downward. My cheek rested upon the floor of the prison, but my temple did not. A peculiar smell, as of decayed fungus, arose to my nostrils. I moved my arm about and came by degrees to realize that I had somehow come to rest at the very brink of a circular pit. I groped about until I located a loose piece of masonry which I managed to pry free. Letting it fall, I listened to its clinking against the edges of the chasm until at length it plunged into water. At that instant a door or panel was opened somewhere overhead and closed again. In the instant's illumination this afforded I was able to ascertain the good fortune which had permitted me to fall just as I had rather than a half-pace, say, farther ahead. It was a large circular pit, occupying the center of the cell. I withdrew immediately to the nearest wall, pressing myself firmly against it.
We seem to be entombed alive, Perry. It was almost as if Poe had spoken, as if he were seated beside me there in the dark, contemplating the abyss.
So it would seem, Poe. But it's only a jail. I've been in them before, I responded in thought.
Not like this one, Perry.
Embellishments, my dear Poe. Mere embellishments.
The pit calls to us.
Let it call. I'm not inclined to respond.
You're made of sterner stuff than myself, Perry.
Not so, Poe. We are the same—somehow. Circumstances have but provided—embellishments.
Perhaps it would be better to plunge into the thing and get it over with.
No thanks.
Everything ends in the abyss, anyhow.
No reason to rush things. Make it wait.
It does not know waiting. It is not sentient.
Then we are superior to it, for we are.
Sounds vaguely like something Pascal once said.
So it does.
Such philosophy from a man of action!
I'd a decent enough education, and I usually have a book about.
What's become of us?
We got switched.
I don't understand.
I don't know the precise mechanics of it, but we wound up in each other's world. It had to do with a misuse of Annie's power.
Silence. Three beats. Three more.
Then, Or are we but a dream, Perry, in the mind of some demon? And is that demon myself?
Against solipsism I have no arguments. Nobody ever succeeded as well as Hume in proving the unreality of the real. But as he himself said of Berkeley, such arguments admit of no answer and produce no conviction.
You are myself, my doppelganger, my dark other. We are opposing halves of the same spirit, to contradict so perfectly.
We're not that different, Poe. It's just the words that get in the way.
He chuckled.
More than ever I see this as unreal, he replied, as a dialogue between the two spirits within me.
What can I say?
Nothing, I suppose. Either that, or agree with me.
I will always maintain that it's better to have been than not to have been—even though it's only a feeling.
There came a clinking sound and a brief bit of light from the vicinity of the door, off to the left, just enough light to show that a tray bearing a piece of bread and a small flask had been pushed into the cell through a hinged opening at the door's bottom.
I suppose it comes down to a choice between the pit and the moldy bread, Poe observed.
In that case, it's dinnertime.
I rose.
It's too bad you're not real, Perry, he reflected, almost wistfully. I could still like you.
His presence being sort of metaphysical I did not have to share, which was good. Shortly after I finished eating I was seized by an uncontrollable fit of yawning. Fearful of being overtaken by slumber too near the central fact of existence in this place, I lay on my side with my back against the wall. I still felt Poe's presence in some diffuse fashion about me.
When I awoke something was wrong. I'd no idea how long I'd slept, but when I opened my eyes once again there was illumination. A ghastly yellow and red glow permitted me for the first time to see the design of my prison. The place was differently shaped than I'd thought on exploring it in the dark. It was less square than I had deemed it to be and more in the nature of a rectangle—the metal walls at its farther ends, the stone ones at the nearer. Painted upon these I could now discern pictures of fiends, inverted crucifixions, dancing skeletons, people being roasted and torn apart.
The floor was of stone, the great pit at its center—which I could only discern with great difficulty. My problem in this respect being my position as strapped to some sort of framework. I lay upon my back atop this structure, where I was held in place by what seemed a single long strap. It was twisted about my legs, my torso, my right arm and shoulder. My head and my left arm were free and there was a plate of food on the floor within reach. It was a somewhat spicy beef dish, and after the bread and water I had been given thus far it proved irresistible. I had the feeling I had been drugged the last couple of times I had eaten and drunk here. But what choice did I really have? I was hungry and thirsty. Sleep, for that matter—whatever its source—seemed a superior manner of passing the time in this place.