The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [12]
Every creed has its myth of immortals. The sailors have their Flying Dutchman, the explorers their Vespucci, the Jews their Lamed-Vav. Poets, perhaps, have Gilgamesh–
I, too, have been immortal. Until the knife descends I shall be immortal still, but that, I fear, is soon to end. Who was I? I, too, was a poet, and of the worst kind – one with delusions of grandeur. When Vespucci went on his voyage of exploration I went with him, for there must always be someone to record great discoveries. I was with him on Caliban's Island, when he roused Les Lézards from their deep slumber in the deep metal chambers inside the great crater at the heart of that terrible island. Almost alone, I managed to escape, blinded by the terrible sights I had seen. I took to sea and for days I floated, half-crazed and dying. When at last he found me I had all but departed this earth–
He – fixed me? Healed me? But he did more than that – and he took the knowledge of the island from me, and then let me go. But he had not repaired my sight. Perhaps, already, he thought I had seen too much–
I had thought he had forgotten me, but the Bookman never forgets.
Now, I fear, he is coming back for me, and perhaps it would finally be an end. Perhaps I could rest, now, after all the cold long years. But I fear him, and know that he would not rest, not until what was started on that cursed island can be brought to an end. He is bound with the lizards, I believe, and vengeful. Perhaps he was theirs, once. Their stories are interlinked–
But why, you ask, I am telling you this? Perhaps because I suspect you, too, will have a role to play in this unfolding tragedy. Perhaps because I knew your father, who was a good man, and your mother, who you didn't know–
No. I have not the heart to tell their story. Not now. For me, as I sit here, alone, on the water's edge, waiting for him to come, no words remain, and language withers. Only a final warning will I deliver to you, my friend: beware the books, for they are his servants. Above all, beware the Bookman.
Yours, in affection–
Gilgamesh
Orphan, stunned, leaning against the wall as if seeking support in the solid stone, scanned the letter again, the words leaping up at him like dark waves against a shore. He felt pounded by them, and fearful. His vision blurred and he blinked, finding that tears, unbidden, unwanted, were the cause. He wiped them away, and a drop fell onto the page, near Gilgamesh's signature, and he noticed something he had missed.
In the small margin of the letter, Gilgamesh had scribbled a couple of lines in small, barely legible writing, almost as if hiding them there. He cleared his eyes again and tried to decipher the words. When meaning came, dread wrapped itself around his neck like an ex ecutioner's rope, for it said: "I know now that he is near, and moving. His next target may be the Martian space probe you told me about. For your sake, and Lucy's – stay away from it. If I can I will tell you myself–"
There was no more.
And time, for Orphan, stopped.
He was a point of profound silence in the midst of chaos and noise. That silence, holy and absolute, was his as he stood against the wall of the train station, the letter falling slowly from his hand to the floor, too heavy to be carried any more. Lucy. The thought threatened to consume him. Lucy, and her gift to the planet Mars: a small, innocent volume of verse. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Somewhere in the distance a whistle blew, rose in the air, and combined with the clear, heavy notes that echoed from Big Ben. They tolled seven times, and their sound jarred against Orphan's own bell of silence,