As Nunnly and Doctor Hellman burst through the entrance, Misrix leaped into flight. Anotine came in then, followed by Brisden, who carried an empty liquor bottle by the neck. She put her arms around me, and I saw the Doctor run past us with the wide-barreled gun he had used from the basket the day before to signal our desire to return to the island. Leaning his arm on the ledge of the window opening, he took aim.
'Don't shoot,' I said.
'Why the hell not?' asked Nunnly.
The Doctor fired and a pop sounded. The smoke flew back in the window and filled the room. I ran through the mist to look over the Doctor's shoulder just as a bright red puddle spread across the night sky. To my relief, I caught sight of Misrix's distant silhouette against the flare. He was climbing toward the moon with powerful wing thrusts.
'Did you hit the filthy dog?' asked Brisden, still breathing heavily.
'I doubt it,' said Hellman. 'I'm just glad I didn't shoot myself. I'm not exactly a man of action, if you haven't noticed.'
Nunnly and Brisden laughed.
I thanked them for coming to my rescue. Brisden inspected the welt on the side of my face and whistled. The Doctor offered to leave the gun for me, and I accepted in order to seem as worried as the rest of them were.
'There are only two shells left for it,' he said. 'I reloaded it for you, and I have the other one back at my place.'
'So, here we have it,' said Nunnly. 'The monster has returned.'
'It was terrifying,' said Anotine. 'Cley, you're lucky he didn't kill you.'
That is when I looked around and noticed that we were all standing there naked. The gentlemen finally left after offering assurances that we need only yell and they would come running. Anotine and I went back to bed, but she was no longer in the mood for experimenting. She fell asleep in my arms, and I was left to lie awake and consider how I was going to save everyone.
The following afternoon, we all stood, this time fully clothed, at the edge of the island a few feet behind the winch.
'It's some bad business,' said Nunnly, pointing to where the ground had disappeared beneath half of the giant mechanism.
'Through the night, things have gotten worse,' said Bris-den. 'The rate at which the island is disappearing seems to have increased radically. What would you say, Anotine?' he asked.
She nodded. 'No question about it.'
'I wonder if the monster's visit has anything to do with this?' said the Doctor.
'At this rate,' said Anotine, 'we don't have much longer. There is every indication that this process will continue to accelerate.'
I could see that what they were saying was true. The winch now literally teetered on the rim, the process of disintegration readily visible.
'Do you think Below will leave us here to die?' asked Brisden.
'I'm not counting on him,' said Nunnly. 'He left us here with you, didn't he?'
Brisden tried to smile, but the intensity of his stare fixed on the precarious circumstances of the mechanism showed his concern.
'We need a plan,' said the Doctor, 'and I'm sorry to say, one that might run contrary to our host's prescribed protocol. Are you all in agreement?'
'You mean revolt?' asked Nunnly.
The Doctor nodded.
'Count me in,' said the engineer.
'Anotine?' Hellman asked.
'On one condition,' she said. 'That Cley becomes a full partner and is no longer viewed as a specimen.'
'What the hell,' said Brisden. 'Now that I think of it, this place bores me to tears. As for Cley, I have no objections.'
The Doctor and Nunnly agreed that I was now part of the group. I thanked them for their vote of confidence.
'You can reserve your thanks,' said Hellman, 'until we tell you what happens when you go against the wishes of the island.'
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'You mean Claudio?' asked Brisden.
The Doctor nodded.
'We shouldn't discuss this any more right now,' said An-otine. 'The minute our minds light up with these thoughts, the Fetch will be swooping down on us.'
'True,' said Nunnly.
'We discovered the other day that it can't pry into your thoughts if you are drunk,' I told them.
'It wobbles like a one-winged bird,' said Anotine.
'Well,' said the Doctor, 'I suggest we begin drinking as soon as possible.'
'My place?' asked Nunnly.
'Sounds good,' said Brisden, who separated from the group and walked over to the winch. 'Say good-bye to your favorite toy, Doctor,' he said as he reached his hand out and gave the heavy wooden base a slight shove.
That was all the force that was needed to send the huge thing sliding, slowly at first, and then with all its weight over the edge. The rest of the group joined Brisden at the rim to watch it fall. Plummeting with great speed, it punched through clouds and appeared to diminish in size as it went.
Nunnly clapped. 'Your greatest accomplishment since arriving, Bris,' he said.
'I feel now as if I had always wanted to do that,' said Brisden.
'I'm wondering if it will disturb the dream of the ocean,' said the Doctor as it splashed into the liquid mercury, raising a geyser of silver liquid that must have been an eighth of a mile high.
'Could the disturbance awaken its sleep?' asked Anotine.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows in contemplation of her question. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'Or perhaps it might cause a nightmare.'
As far as I was concerned, a nightmare was more to the point. Events were now moving at an alarming rate, and a solution was nowhere in sight. I had forgotten for so long about the antidote that it was hard for me to again get my mind around the method of how I had even arrived on the island, not to speak of the absurdity of what I had meant to do there. I never thought that I would be thankful for being struck by a demon, but without Misrix's visit I surely would have drowned in the unreal reality of the place. The worst complication of all was that I had fallen in love with Anotine, and there was no amount of reasoning that would change that. Women I could never truly have, like the theme of islands, seemed to be a recurrent motif in my life.
The winch had surfaced after its fall—an insignificant dot in the infinity of the ocean below. I could commiserate with its situation. We all watched as, slowly, it sank again beneath the silver waves for the last time.
'Who's next?' asked Nunnly.
15
A STIFF NORTH WIND HAD BEGUN TO BLOW BY THE TIME we left the edge of the island and headed back toward the village. As we passed through the wood, the leaves now fell in torrents, swirling around us and moving along the ground in green waves. It was as if the trees had determined that they should be completely barren by evening.
'It looks like rain,' said Brisden.
I gazed up through a hole in the now tattered canopy of branches and could see dark clouds passing in front of the sun. The day had taken on an autumnal feel, and that glorious light was slowly losing strength as the sky tinged toward a dull violet.
'Twice in the same week,' said the Doctor. 'I don't recall that ever having happened before.'
'I remember entire years when it didn't rain once,' said Nunnly.
Anotine moved in close to me, and I put my arm around her. I could feel her shivering slightly, and I knew it was not from the drop in temperature. She slowed her pace, and when the others had moved on ahead of us a short distance, she whispered, 'You are here to help us aren't you, Cley? You've come to save us.'
I stopped walking, surprised by her comment.
She looked up at me.
I nodded. 'How did you know?' I asked.
'The dream I had two nights ago. In it you revealed to me the secret for restoring the island. I tried so hard to remember what you said, so that I could take it back from sleep with me into daylight. But the second I opened my eyes the words that formed the plan dissolved like the boundary of the island, crackling into nothing.'
'If I tell you now, the Fetch will come,' I said. 'Wait until later, and I will tell everyone. When I do, you must support me, for the others will never believe what I will say.'
'I promise,' she said, and reached up to kiss me.
As we began again our journey toward the village, a light drizzle started to fall. We walked without speaking, but I wanted to remind Anotine that a plan was not a guarantee of success. While crossing the field to the steps that would take us to Nunnly's rooms, we passed the Fetch, its green stare trained on a bird that lay dead on the withering grass. Not wanting it to notice us, we slipped quietly past, and once we were in the corridors of the terraced village, sprinted the rest of the way to the engineer's.
By the time we arrived, the drizzle had turned to a true rain. We came through the entrance to find cigarettes burning and quarts of Schrimley's and Rose Ear Sweet opened on the table. Nunnly and Doctor Hellman drank from glasses while Brisden directly engaged a pint bottle of the notoriously bitter distillation known as Tears In The River. Two seats and two glasses awaited Anotine and myself. We took our places and Nunnly poured. When we had our drinks in our hands, Brisden lifted his bottle toward us, and said, 'Here's to chaos.'
'Get the noise machine, why don't you,' said Hellman.
