“To me, Raphael!”
A shriek as I staggered against the Botanist hugging my side. Something white and snarling whipped past me, tore at her sleeve so that a net of blood trammeled the falling blossom. In mid-air Anku seized the crimson lily, shearing the bright petals so that they swirled and shriveled into tattered shards. Red mist obscured my vision, clouded the faces of those fighting to restrain me as I tried to flee that horrible giggling figure with her bleeding legs splayed about a winking face.
The crowd suddenly gave way. I stumbled to a marble bench, clutched my head and wept.
“Raphael!”
I forced myself to look back. Atop the ECHO ORPHEUS the woman stood, shielding her eyes from the smoke as she scanned the hall, calling my name over and over as though her heart would break.
Not Francesca.
Ketura.
“No,” I whispered. Behind us, Paphians and Curators danced and sang as if there had been no rent in the shimmering fabric of their carnival marquee. Only the forlorn figure clinging to the ORPHEUS sought the ghost of Raphael Miramar at the Butterfly Ball.
“There is little time,” a voice said behind me. I started and glanced at Anku, terrified that this would begin my final plunge into madness, to hear my jackal familiar speak. But Anku stood alert, his tail switching as he stared at something behind me. I whirled to see a slight figure shadowed by another column. He was naked save for a wreath of ivy about his neck and a mask of leaves behind which his green eyes glowed.
“Your sister has awakened,” he said, and stepped into the light. Anku leaped toward him, to collapse whimpering at his feet. The Boy stooped to stroke the jackal’s throat.
“My sister is dead,” I stammered.
“She was asleep,” he said, and with a last flourish to Anku stood facing me. “As I was. As were you.”
“What do you want with me?” I whispered. Behind us the ball continued unabated.
“To bring the Final Ascension,” he said, laughing as though he had answered a simple riddle.
“But I am no Ascendant!” I pressed myself against the marble pillar as if its solid embrace might steady me. “I am a Paphian, a courtesan—we are whores and children!”
He made a swift cutting motion with his hand.
“Desire is my child; and cold Science,” he said. As he spoke his fingers moved in and out, in and out, as though choking an invisible enemy. “But her frigid heart will melt and your fever will rage to shake the stones from their buildings, Raphael Miramar.”
“I do not want such power,” I said, trembling.
“Power?” he repeated. “You have no power.”
“Then leave me in peace!” I cried. “I want nothing of your Ascension!”
At this foolish temper Anku stood whining. I lashed out at him, my foot grazing one silvery flank. The jackal only blinked and settled back onto his haunches, head cocked to regard me reproachfully.
“Ah, see, Anku,” said the Boy, raising his leg so that he stood on one foot like a dancer. “We are as flies to this wanton boy: he would kill us for his sport.” Then he laughed, and I looked away, frightened.
“Raphael!”
I turned to see Ketura scrambling from the ORPHEUS . A flash of shame burned me as her gaze held mine: neither blaming nor accusing, only asking how I could have betrayed our friendship by fleeing her. Then she dipped from sight and I ducked behind the column once more. A few meters away the Boy stood with his back to me. He faced a high archway which held as though fixed in pale amber the image of a jaguarondi, its teeth piercing a young inia. Beneath this frieze Anku lay with his muzzle resting upon his paws, watching his master.
Sudden resolution emboldened me. Glancing back to make certain I was not seen, I walked to the Boy, grabbed his shoulder, and wrenched him toward me as I demanded, “Come with me, then!”
“Where, cousin?” an indolent voice replied agreeably. He turned to me, slanted green eyes widening beneath a broad white brow and a feathered cap that hid his hair.
It was not he.
“Forgive me,” I stammered, dropping my hand. “I mistook you for another.”
Before he could respond I fled beneath the arch, Anku darting to follow me. My heart pounded so that I feared I might stop breathing, so painful was that ceaseless hammering inside my chest. But after a few steps the air felt clearer, flensed of smoke and scent and sound. I breathed deeply, until I felt as though a ponderous weight had been lifted from within my lungs, and looked around to see that I had entered one of the branching hallways that snaked through the first level of High Brazil. There was a low murmur as of many voices, but I could see no one. Tiny electrified candles glimmered from brackets set behind translucent petals of jadeite and peridot. These cast pale green shadows upon the alabaster floor and walls, a marine glow that soothed me yet made me feel more alert, as though the beryl light revealed shapes and designs normally hidden from sight. Cool draughts flowed from unseen air shafts. To either side were many narrow doorways. Each was surmounted by a scholiast in the likeness of a gynander with brightly colored phallus in place of a tongue, and breasts whose nipples were ocular sensors that rotated as they focused upon me. We passed doors of scented wood inlaid with plasma crystals and heated copper coils exhaling the narcotic haze of veronal. Doors of prismatic glass cast back not my face but the holographic images of other Paphians, their fingers tracing the outlines of painted lips and eyes and genitals as over and over they beckoned unseen guests. There were doors of interlocking metal gears that snapped and spun ceaselessly, allowing only glimpses into the twilit seraglios beyond, where sultry figures swayed. As I approached each room its scholiast would click and whir, the gaudy phallus unfurl as the automaton turned to fix me with its hollow eyes and pipe in a pure breathy voice:
“Welcome cousin. This is the Chamber of Equivocal Purity.”
“Welcome sisters. Inside sleeps the Ensiform Concilia-trix: rouse her to battle with your embrace.”
“Welcome cousins. The Adytum Intrigant is engaged for the Spados’ Private Bath.”
“Welcome cousins. Step carefully into the First Elevation of the Entresol of Unctuous Sighs.”
Anku ignored this prattling, pausing only to sniff at the postern whose scholiast murmured, “Welcome cousins. Circe High Brazil awaits within to change women into swans, men into swine.” Faint grunts and moans of pleasure seeped from beneath a door scaled with the hides of many pangolins. The freshly flayed pelt of a young lamb hung from the doorjamb, blood slicking the marble beneath it. Anku leaped to tug at this. I cuffed him and hissed for him to follow. He did so with a disapproving growl, slinking at my heels.
“Welcome errant brothers. Join us in the Chamber of Lashes and Gentle Lapidation.”
“Welcome rhapsodists. Retire to the couches of the Anodyne Cubicle.”
“Welcome cousin. The Exiguous Hagioscopic Chamber is engaged for Dolorous Palpation.”
The scholiast’s phallic tongue retracted into its mouth with a click. To each side of the automaton rose slender windows of glass: glowing purple, deep scarlet, jonquil yellow. Archaic figures were depicted within the panes. For several minutes I studied these curious representations of men and women, shining vehicles, and slender aviettes. Anku sat at my feet as I pondered how to enter the chamber.
From inside came a sudden soft explosion of laughter; then muffled voices.
“Roland,” I whispered. Memory of the day’s terrors faded. I felt honed to a spike of raw feeling, suddenly knowing exactly where I was, and why; and what I hunted. When I moved my hand a spidery glint of violet crept from beneath my fingers. Anku whined.