Part 17 (1/2)

Several more of the Sivarts vanished. There were only a few of them now. He was close, but Lamech could not find his way to him.

Sivart and his reflections said, ”You know how he did this? He learned it from Caligari, that crazy little guy who brought the carnival here. You remember: 'Everything I tell you is true, and everything you see is as real as you are.' What did that mean anyway?”

”No,” Lamech said, ”the technique came out of the Agency. Somebody stole the secret and brought it to Hoffmann. Greenwood, probably.”

”That's just the story. Bunch of smoke. Truth is, we're dabbling in something a h.e.l.l of a lot older. This goes back, back to the beginning, maybe. It came in with the carnival, and your boss got hold of it somehow. We'd all have been better off without it.”

”How do you know this?”

”You don't think I got caught right away, do you? I saw it firsthand. Not the way the Manual Manual said to, though. I jumped in at the deep end, went right for the spooky stuff. I wanted to know what makes him tick.” said to, though. I jumped in at the deep end, went right for the spooky stuff. I wanted to know what makes him tick.”

Lamech was out of breath. He stopped walking and put his hands on his knees. ”Well?”

”n.o.body taught him to do the voices,” Sivart said. He was pacing back and forth, his reflections multiplying and converging while he spoke. ”He was born like that. Grew up in a little village out in the country, immigrant family, hardworking folks. He stole bread by impersonating the baker's wife, calling him out of the shop with her voice. Clever boy, see? Later he hid in a church balcony and pretended to be an angel, tricked the minister into altering his sermons. Convinced him to put in strange things about overturning the order of the world, no salvation but in topsy-turvydom, et cetera. When they figured out what was going on, they put the kid down as some kind of devil. Probably would have killed him if the carnival hadn't taken him in.”

Something was wrong. Sivart was shaking as he spoke, and when the face of one reflection was visible for a moment, Unwin thought he saw tears. Lamech noticed, too. ”Travis,” he said, ”we don't have time for this.”

Sivart tore the cigar out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. ”It could be important, Ed. Will you listen to me for once? Hoffmann was just a boy when his mother gave him to the carnival. And that monster Caligari taught him but never taught him enough. So Hoffmann thought he'd figure it out on his own. He sneaked into the old man's mind one night, trying to learn his secrets. Caligari caught him and kept him there. Tortured him, wouldn't let him wake up. Worst of all, he knew that Caligari had kept something from him, would always keep something from him. He would never share the secret that made him powerful.”

Lamech looked calm now, as though he had arrived at an understanding of some kind. ”Sounds to me like Hoffmann needed a lesson, Travis. Sounds like he was getting ahead of himself.”

There were only two Sivarts now. They both turned away and threw their hands in the air. ”What do you know? You haven't seen what I've seen. Anyway, you better let me in on the plan. Who is it you're recruiting? I hope he's good.”

”Under the circ.u.mstances,” Lamech said, ”it's probably better that I not tell you.”

The Sivarts were quiet for a time. Then they stood straight, stretching to crack their necks. When they turned around, their eyes were closed and they were grinning. ”What circ.u.mstances, exactly?”

”I know who you are,” Lamech said.

The Sivarts took a deep breath. There was a squelching sound as the face of the nearer loosened and crinkled around the edges. It slid off and fell to the floor, folding like an omelette where it landed.

Unwin stepped back. Down in the third archive, he heard himself whimper into the pillow.

The face that had been masked was squarish, dull, bored-looking. Enoch Hoffmann opened his eyes and rolled up his sleeves. The biloquist was wearing his pajamas now, blue with red trim.

The real Sivart fell back against a transparent wall, a marionette whose strings had been cut. He looked groggy, exhausted, invisibly bruised. Had his mind already turned to dust? No: he coughed and grimaced at Lamech, managing a little wave.

”I ought to strangle you,” Hoffmann said to the watcher. His regular voice was as Sivart had described it in his reports-high-pitched and whispery, barely a voice at all, empty of feeling even when it threatened.

”You'd have to wake up first,” Lamech said. ”And you're not going to do that, are you? Now that you've finally caught him, you can't bear to let him go. You're as much a prisoner as he is.”

The magician was ignoring him; his gaze was fixed on the spot where Unwin stood. Hoffmann came toward him, and Unwin felt as though his damp clothes had frozen solid. The corridors stretched, so that the magician seemed to approach from a great distance, with the inevitability of a nightmare. The look on his face was unreadable-it might as well have been carved into a block of wood. ”Who is it you've brought with you?” he asked.

Unwin stepped aside at the last moment, and Hoffmann walked past him. He reached around a mirrored wall and came back clutching the wrist of the woman in the plaid coat. Hoffmann yanked her to her feet; she let out a cry and stumbled forward, her cap coming loose. She regained her balance, then stood straight and straightened her coat.

”Hey, kiddo,” Sivart said, getting to his feet.

Lamech put his hat back on. ”Where did she come from?”

Sivart snorted. ”She followed you, fancy-boots. Ed Lamech, meet Penelope Greenwood. She's better at what you do than you are, knows everything you're thinking, and can hurt your feelings without saying a word. Self-taught, too-a real wunderkind. Enoch, I believe you're already acquainted.”

Hoffmann, for the first time since he made his presence known, appeared shaken. His lower lip was trembling as he gazed at the woman in the plaid coat.

”Dad,” she said to him, ”we need to talk.”

Lamech was looking at Sivart. ”Greenwood? She and Hoffmann? Travis, why didn't you ever report this?”

Hoffmann gestured vaguely toward Lamech. The watcher put up his hands and started to speak, but whatever he said was lost as his hat grew to twice its size and swallowed his head. He tore at it with both hands, but the brim was stuck under his chin and his shouts were m.u.f.fled by the heavy felt.

Hoffmann took a step toward the woman in the plaid coat, arms outstretched. ”I searched for you,” he said. ”I tried so hard to find you.”

”Maybe I didn't want to be found.” She picked a piece of lint off her coat, avoiding his eyes.

”Your mother took you from me.”

”You let her get caught,” Penelope said. ”The job was more important to you.”

Sivart knelt down to pick up his cigar, listening to their argument as though to a story he already knew. And Unwin realized that Sivart did know this story, because he had played a role in it. Hoffmann and his daughter were talking about November twelfth, about the day Sivart caught Cleopatra Greenwood at Central Bank and sent her out of the city. I won't tell you what we talked about, I won't tell you what we talked about, he had written. he had written. I won't tell you what happened just before I put her on the train. I won't tell you what happened just before I put her on the train. This is what they had talked about: Miss Greenwood's little girl. They were making arrangements that day in the terminal. They were deciding how to get Penelope out of the city, away from her father. This is what they had talked about: Miss Greenwood's little girl. They were making arrangements that day in the terminal. They were deciding how to get Penelope out of the city, away from her father.

”That isn't what I came here to talk about,” Penelope said. ”I want to tell you about my new job. It's all underground, more than you know about. They have you beat, Dad. You remember Hilda Palsgrave? She used to do the fireworks for the carnival?”

Unwin drew a breath, a real one. Hilda, the giantess Hildegard: Sivart had met her the same day he met Caligari, had spoken to her while she mixed black powder for her rockets. Now she was chief clerk of the third archive. How had one of Caligari's old employees come to be with the Agency?

Hoffmann was incensed. ”You're both working at the Agency? Working for him him?”

The overseer, Unwin thought. The man Miss Greenwood had said was something worse than Enoch Hoffmann.

Though that was hard to imagine just now, as Lamech fell to the floor, rolling and twisting, beating at his hat with his fists. This, Unwin thought, was how Lamech's life was to end: suffocated by his own hat. He could not stop it from happening. And when Lamech died, the recording would end. He did not have much time.

”Penny, Penny,” the biloquist whispered, almost singing her name. ”We lost each other so long ago. Where have you been? Your eyes, when you were born, like little mirrors; terrifying! Caligari saw you and claimed you for his own. But you've come back to me just in time. I need your help. We'll work together, like we did before.”

Sivart laughed. ”Sure. We all know how well that went.”

”November twelfth was a fluke,” Hoffmann snapped.

Sivart waved his hand dismissively, but the woman in the plaid coat was listening with evident interest. She and Hoffmann stood looking at one another. He was nearly a foot shorter than she was, almost forlorn in his rumpled pajamas.

”Kiddo,” Sivart said to her. ”Don't listen to him.”

Penny ignored him. ”We need to talk,” she said again to her father. ”Alone.”

With a nervous glance at Lamech, Sivart s.n.a.t.c.hed his own hat off his head. But Hoffmann was not preparing any new tricks. ”I'm not taking my eyes off him,” he said.