The land of the dead is actually a little more happening than I guessed. We don't see this side of the world from our offices. Absurdly, I wonder, can people have mortgages here? What are the interest rates like? Have those fragments of the living clung onto that much?
But then I stop thinking about that because my left biceps starts to burn with a horrible liquid fire, more than the stinging ache that had bothered me by the tower. I grab it, and the flesh twists beneath my fingers. My tatt is taking a three-dimensional form: a nose and face pushes out from my skin. I try to push it back, and tiny teeth nip my palm. I snatch my hand away with a yelp. The tattoo draws a deep breath. The sensation of air entering my arm isn't pleasant.
Tiny eyes roll up in its cherubic head to meet my gaze.
'Shit.' My voice is a whisper.
'You're telling me,' the cherub says. It stretches its wings, which is a truly disconcerting feeling, as though someone is moving rods beneath my flesh. 'What the-? I'm stuck on your arm. Oh, and where's my body?'
'You're just a symbol,' I say, thinking, I've grown a bloody inkling.
The cherub squints at me. 'One pissed off symbol. This is Hell.'
'I'm sorry, I never thought about giving you a body.'
'No, I mean, what are we doing in Hell? You're not dead, yes?'
I shrug. 'I guess. It's complicated.'
'No, it's not. Don't you sound so damn uncertain. That sort of uncertainty is going to keep you here.'
'But here's the thing. I am uncertain. I've got no bloody idea what the fuck it is I'm doing here. Or even how to start getting Lissa back.'
'You need a guide. Call me Virgil.'
'You worked for Dante, I suppose.'
'Ha. Maybe we should get a coffee first.' The cherub says, and I don't argue. 'The name's Wal.'
'I thought your name was Virgil,' I say.
'Don't get cute on me, buddy.'
'What kind of name is Wal?'
'Better than Stevie wouldn't you say?'
We reach the cafe and I sit in pretty much the same seat that I sat in not so long ago when I was rendezvousing with Morrigan in the living version of this place. A lot's happened since then. The creaking of the tree dominates, louder than I have ever heard it. It's calling me, I realize. This is truly what it must feel like to be dead. There's a mesmeric quality to the sound and it generates a hunger in my chest.
I've pomped all my adult life, but I've never felt this before. This is what I'm going to have to fight against, if I ever want Lissa back.
I run through the coffee choices.
'Sweet Jesus. All I want is coffee. What the hell is a flat white?' Wal peers at the crow growing out of the barista's neck. 'What do you recommend?'
The crow cocks its head.
'Just get him something easy,' I say.
The barista sniffs. 'You saying we're not up to the task? Saying we can't make good coffee?'
'No, I-'
'We'll make you good coffee,' the crow says. 'You'll like it. Now what do you want?'
'Long black, no milk.'
'Ah, typical,' the barista sneers. 'Fucking tourist.'
The tree creaks like it's ready to tumble. Should it fall, the whole weight of it would surely break the thin shell of the earth and drive the city into that chill abyss beneath. I realize I've heard that creaking ever since I sliced open my arteries with the craft knife. It's a background noise that has lifted startlingly in volume, shocking me when I least expect it.
I sip my coffee out of a paper cup. It's cold and tastes burnt and a little ashy, but no matter, I'm still getting over the fact that my money is good here.
I look at my change. The money is subtly, slyly different. The plastic of the notes is a bleached white. The faces printed on it are the same, but the flesh hangs loose, the eye sockets are empty, and the expressions contained within change every time I glance at them. They shift from mute terror to mad laughter in an eye blink. Except for the coins and the five-dollar note-there the Queen's face is serene and motionless. She's still alive, I guess.
The cherub grins at that. 'I can't believe that after a century of federation, you're not a bloody republic yet.'
Wal grips a chai latte in its wings, taking loud sips every few minutes that disquietingly warms my left biceps. I don't understand why my coffee is so cold.
I'm not terribly comfortable with the whole thing, but he seems to be enjoying his latte. 'Haven't had a cup like that since, well, I can't remember. I do remember old Vic was still queen, and it wasn't as milky.'
'Nor was it chai, I'd wager. Which hardly makes it coffee.'
Wal grunts. 'Maybe we need to keep going.'
'How familiar are you with the Underworld?'
'I've been here a few times, day trips mostly. Been a long time between visits. So you're a Pomp. It explains a lot. The Underworld's different for you guys. It doesn't like you lot messing around. It gets you out of the way as quickly as possible. You can't change the order of things around here, mate. Your girlfriend will be up in the tree, and if she's been fighting her death like you say, then it may be faster for her.'
'What'll be faster?'
'Assimilation. The tree's going to want to absorb her.'
I'm looking at him, not comprehending at all.
'By your blank look, it seems to me that you are a pretty typical Pomp.' I'm immediately defensive. But Wal doesn't allow me time to respond. 'I don't know how you've lasted so long. What do you think a tree does?'
I shrug. 'Grow.'
'Nah. Well, yes, but how does it grow? It absorbs stuff, and it leaches stuff, too. This tree's just a wooden sieve. It separates the soul, and puts it where it belongs.
'It's the memory of the world, and a reflection, distorted of course, by the memory of it, because memory distorts everything. And it's the resorption of all that psychic energy, all those souls. The tree does that. Without this place, you'd have souls running amok everywhere, and Stirrers. Shit, there'd be so much confusion they could just walk in and take everything. Which is, from what I've heard, exactly what's been going on.'
'So Lissa's being absorbed?'
Wal grimaces, his eyes lifting toward me. 'Slow on the bloody uptake, aren't you? Yes and, like I said, it's going to be quick. As far as the tree is concerned, Lissa's been dead too long already.'
And then I notice the armed Stirrers walking through the crowd in the lower section of the lookout. Stirrers here? How brazen.
I have to get going before they spot me. I know they can't sense me because I'm holding Mr. D's key, but they'll find me soon enough if I stick around here. They approach the barista. Great. He points vaguely in my direction, with an arm and a wing, and the Stirrers head my way.
I move as quickly as I can, hopefully without drawing attention to myself, to the base of the tree trunk. Once there, I can see stairs carved into the wood. The stairs stop at each branch after winding a lazy, but steep, circle around the tree. I start taking the stairs three at a time. It's a long way to the first branch, and even longer to the top.
'Slow and steady, eh,' Wal says. 'You'll wear yourself out at this rate.'
'I don't have time,' I gasp at him.
By the third circuit I'm hunched over, my hands gripping the rough bark of the One Tree, and I'm throwing up my coffee.
'You right?' Wal peers up at me.
'Fine, just some bad coffee.'
'Just try not to get any of it on me.'
Several times I pass dead folk heading where I'm heading, though none of them seem in any hurry. They look
