SECTION 3
I can scarcely keep my hands from trembling as I reach for the doorknob. For no explicable reason, I am afraid, of something I do not understand. Yet, even though I make decisions quickly, I do not make them mindlessly, and a decision, once made, is justification enough for action. Willing the trembling out of my fingers, I grasp the knob firmly.
Nothing. Not a hum, not a spark, not a shock, not even a tremor. Slightly embarrassed, I wonder what I was afraid of. Maybe it was the door itself that had me scared. Or maybe someone meant me to be needlessly apprehensive. Whatever the case, I am afraid no longer.
The door opens into a room that smells strongly of incense. Faint blue light reveals a mural covering all the walls, on which prance unicorns, satyrs, and other creatures of legend, all of them glowing a sharp silver. The colors on the mural change gradually as the seconds pass, cycling through to create the illusion of movement. On the floor is an oval rug, hooked in intricate swirling patterns, the patterns, too, reflecting brightly in the pale light. A tall chair rests on the rug, in the middle of the room, and its back is towards me.
Slowly it turns, and I motion for a couple of my comrades to join me. Swinging around, it reveals a leg clad in denim and the sleeve of a shirt, and when it turns farther, I see the rest of the sitter’s body. Katyrina Emerson, short, thin, fascinating but not quite beautiful, looks at me with eyes fully open, a wry smile about to cross her face.
“Hi,” she says. Somehow I was expecting something a little grander.
I nod. “Good evening.” An uncomfortable pause follows, uncomfortable for me at least. Stupidly I add, “Don’t you have a kitchen?”
She crosses her legs and swings the upper one. “No. I send out for pizza a lot. Or I go down the street for a salad. I don’t eat much, and I hate cooking.” Again the wry smile. “Is there anything else you’d like to know about my apartment?” I can’t help but feel the absurdity of all this.
“Actually,” I stammer, “yes. A little bit. I was wondering,” I say in that most stupid of opening lines, “I was wondering if you could help me get somewhere. I think you might know how.” I can’t believe I’m handling it like this. I’d anticipated a fight, a battle, a demand to go to Amber. But not a series of polite, inept, hopeless questions. If Tom isn’t laughing, he should be.
“And where would you like to go?” Katyrina asks, her tone like that of a seasoned travel agent to a couple of newly wed teenagers. She waits for a response.
“Amber,” I stumble.
“Of course. Where else?” She looks at the men standing beside me. “And would you like passage for the others as well?”
I hesitate, then nod. “Sure. Can you arrange it?” Fine, I think. If this is all a trivial little game, some kind of setup (as I now begin to think it), I’ll happily play along. Absurdity, though, is starting to give way to annoyance. Ms. Emerson is getting too cute.
“What’s in it for me?” she asks, and the smile leaves her face.
My God, I think. Those eyes. Emerald green and pulsing with pent-up energy; they drill mercilessly into mine. Only with the greatest effort can I tear myself away from them. So much for the trivial little game.
“I don’t know,” I manage to blurt out. “What do you want?” She is silent, and I add, “I’m not even sure you can get me to Amber. I’m not even sure you know anything about it.”
Magic words, those. Katyrina jumps from the chair and shakes as she points the index finger of her right hand towards me. Obviously, I’ve insulted her, a fact that makes me smile my own wry smile right back at her.
“I can get you to Amber, you fool,” she nearly yells. “I can get you there, and I can bring you back. Or I can get you there and leave you there. You need my help to go, and you need it again to return. Mock me even once, and you will find out what a one-way journey is like. Amber is beautiful, but you will be neither welcome nor comfortable there. Your home is here. You can’t change that.” The flurry of words has drained her, and she sits down again.
For a moment I stare at her, tilting my head to the right to display, quite contrary to my true feelings, how unimpressed I am with her outburst. I hold that pose for precisely the right number of seconds, enough to let my eyes work their way through her own, and then I complete the act of defiance with a quick shrug. If I have unnerved her in any way, she is hiding it well.
Nodding, I say to her, “Fine. You can get me there. But you still haven’t answered my question. What do you want in return?”
“Your soul,” she laughs. “Faustus-style. Do you think you can manage that?” Thoroughly pleased with herself, she sinks farther into the chair.
Stepping a little closer to her, I shake my head and smile. “Come on, Katyrina. I’m trying to be serious. I want to get to Amber, for reasons of my own. As far as I know, you’re the only person who can send me there. Now, please, I want to go quickly, me and my comrades. All I want to know is what I can give you in return for whatever passage is at your command. I’ll gladly pay it, if you’ll agree to send us right away.”
“I have asked for your soul, Derek. That is all I want.” Her eyes betray no hint of mockery, no sign that she does not mean what she is saying. Taken fully aback, I close my eyes before responding.
“What do you mean, woman? What do you mean by asking for my soul? How would I give it to you even if I wanted to?” I pause. “One more thing. How do you know my name?”
Folding her hands in her lap, she raises her eyes to the ceiling for almost a full minute. Lowering it at last, she tilts her head and stares into my eyes. “I know your name because I have been expecting you for more than a year. Someone you have never met alerted me to you, insisting that you would find me. How you did it is unimportant, although I admire your persistence. The only important thing is that you’re here.
“As for my audacity in asking for your soul, it should hardly be a surprise. You’re asking to leave this world, this Shadow, and go to the Shadowless world. Do you think that’s an easy thing for me to grant? That it takes nothing on my part? It would be easier, I suspect, for me to get you into hell than into Amber. Satan actively recruits. Random doesn’t. Nobody in Amber wants you there.
“Yes, I can get you to Amber. But to do so I must surrender two, three, maybe four years of my life. I hold life precious, especially mine. So I expect to be paid well for my services. And I can bargain your soul to many interested persons, people who can, perhaps, give back the years I lose. That’s why I ask for your soul.” She sits back, her eyes closed, silent for a full two minutes before speaking again. At last she opens her eyes, and they burn with the fire of need. I am frightened when she speaks again.
“Will you, Derek?” she intones. “Will you give me your soul?”
“I guess,” I tremble as I try to jest, “a couple grand would be completely out of the question.” As I expected, Katyrina does not respond.
How important, I now ask myself, is this whole business? Why do I want to go to Amber? Why should I surrender my soul for a father who was nothing to me, a man who may not have even remembered I existed? To know everything I can about my father, to clear his name if I can, to discover what actually happened to him and correct whatever mistakes have been made—these are worth working for, fighting for, sacrificing my life for. But are they worth giving up my soul? About having a soul, and its importance when I die, I am completely convinced. I always have been. Not for me the futility and despair of twentieth-century existentialism, nor for me the currently fashionable obsession with the present. I believe in the spiritual, and I know the importance of the future. My soul, I have always known, is bound up tightly in both.
And now I am asked to give it away. To turn away from the future, to surrender even a partial control of my own destiny. Goddamn it! I would have paid a million dollars if she’d asked me to. I would have kissed her toes and licked the floor at her feet. I would have even given a pound of flesh. But my soul? Why, Katyrina, why that?
But if I don’t do it, I will never know my father’s story. Not knowing his, I can never know mine. He was my father. I owe him, quite literally, my life. If he has been wronged, I must do something about it. Perhaps it is worth my soul to avenge his murder. If I don’t, my soul will be dead anyway.
If Derek agrees to surrender his soul to Katyrina, turn to Section 14.
If Derek refuses to surrender his soul, turn to Section 10.