door, and we opened it.
“Here we are, my fine shrimp,” he said. “The Lady Indigo’s quarters for the voyage back to HEX. You stand here and wait for her. If you need to relieve yourself, there’s a lavatory back there, through that door. Use it; don’t befoul yourself. She’ll be down when she’s ready. Got to chart our course back now, she does, with the captain.”
He was talking to me like you’d talk to a pet or a farm animal, just to hear the sound of his own voice.
He went out.
There was a lurching, then, and through the round cabin window I could see the evening sky dissolve into stars, thousands of them, floating in a violet blackness. We were moving.
I must have stood there for hours, waiting beside the door.
At one point I realized I needed to pee, and I went through the door that the sailor had pointed to. I suppose I expected something cramped and old-fashioned, but what waited behind the door was a small but luxurious bathroomwith a large pink bathtub and a small pink-marble toilet. Which I used and flushed. I washed my hands with pink soap that smelled like roses and dried my hands on a fluffy pink bath towel.
Then I looked out the bathroom porthole.
Above the ship were stars. Below the ship the stars continued, shimmering points of light. There were more stars than I had ever imagined existed. And they were different. I didn’t recognize any of the constellations Dad had taught me when I was young. A lot of them were impossibly close—close enough to show disks as big as the sun, but somehow it was still night.
I wondered when we would get where we were going.
I wondered why they were going to have to kill me when we got there (and somewhere inside me a tiny Joey Harker screamed and yelled and sobbed and tried to get my body’s attention).
I hoped that the Lady Indigo hadn’t returned to find that I wasn’t waiting for her. The idea of disappointing her ripped through me like a knife in the heart, and I ran back to the doorway and stood at attention, hoping she would come back soon. If she didn’t come back, I was certain I would die.
I waited another twenty minutes or so, and then the door opened and happiness, pure and undiluted, flooded my soul. My Lady Indigo was here, with Scarabus.
She did not spare me a glance. She sat on the small pinkbed, while the tattooed man stood in front of her.
“I don’t know,” she said to him, apparently responding to a question he had posed to her in the corridor. “I cannot imagine that anyone could find us here. And as soon as we reach HEX, there are guards and wards such as there are nowhere else in the Altiverse.”
“Still,” he said sulkily, “Neville said he picked up a disturbance in the continuum. He said something was coming.”
“Neville,” she said sweetly, “is a jelly-fleshed worrywart. The Lacrimae Mundi is sailing back to HEX through the Nowhere-at-All. We’re practically undetectable.”
“Practically,” he muttered.
She stood up and walked over to me. “How are you, Joseph Harker?”
“Very happy to see you back here, my lady,” I told her.
“Did anything unusual happen while you were down here waiting for me?”
“Unusual? I don’t think so.”
“Thank you, Joseph. You need not speak until next I tell you to.” She pursed her big lips and went back to sit on the bed again. “Scarabus, contact HEX for me.”
“Yes, my lady.”
He touched a tattoo on his stomach, a tattoo that looked a bit like something from the Arabian Nights, a bit like Dracula’s castle and a bit like the world seen from space. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his pupils wereflickering with light—not glowing steadily, as they had when he had summoned the ship to the football field.
He spoke in a deep sort of voice then, the sort of voice you’d get if you dipped Darth Vader in a giant vat of maple syrup.
“Indigo? What is it?”
“We have the boy Harker, my lord Dogknife. A world-class Walker: He will
“Here we are, my fine shrimp,” he said. “The Lady Indigo’s quarters for the voyage back to HEX. You stand here and wait for her. If you need to relieve yourself, there’s a lavatory back there, through that door. Use it; don’t befoul yourself. She’ll be down when she’s ready. Got to chart our course back now, she does, with the captain.”
He was talking to me like you’d talk to a pet or a farm animal, just to hear the sound of his own voice.
He went out.
There was a lurching, then, and through the round cabin window I could see the evening sky dissolve into stars, thousands of them, floating in a violet blackness. We were moving.
I must have stood there for hours, waiting beside the door.
At one point I realized I needed to pee, and I went through the door that the sailor had pointed to. I suppose I expected something cramped and old-fashioned, but what waited behind the door was a small but luxurious bathroomwith a large pink bathtub and a small pink-marble toilet. Which I used and flushed. I washed my hands with pink soap that smelled like roses and dried my hands on a fluffy pink bath towel.
Then I looked out the bathroom porthole.
Above the ship were stars. Below the ship the stars continued, shimmering points of light. There were more stars than I had ever imagined existed. And they were different. I didn’t recognize any of the constellations Dad had taught me when I was young. A lot of them were impossibly close—close enough to show disks as big as the sun, but somehow it was still night.
I wondered when we would get where we were going.
I wondered why they were going to have to kill me when we got there (and somewhere inside me a tiny Joey Harker screamed and yelled and sobbed and tried to get my body’s attention).
I hoped that the Lady Indigo hadn’t returned to find that I wasn’t waiting for her. The idea of disappointing her ripped through me like a knife in the heart, and I ran back to the doorway and stood at attention, hoping she would come back soon. If she didn’t come back, I was certain I would die.
I waited another twenty minutes or so, and then the door opened and happiness, pure and undiluted, flooded my soul. My Lady Indigo was here, with Scarabus.
She did not spare me a glance. She sat on the small pinkbed, while the tattooed man stood in front of her.
“I don’t know,” she said to him, apparently responding to a question he had posed to her in the corridor. “I cannot imagine that anyone could find us here. And as soon as we reach HEX, there are guards and wards such as there are nowhere else in the Altiverse.”
“Still,” he said sulkily, “Neville said he picked up a disturbance in the continuum. He said something was coming.”
“Neville,” she said sweetly, “is a jelly-fleshed worrywart. The Lacrimae Mundi is sailing back to HEX through the Nowhere-at-All. We’re practically undetectable.”
“Practically,” he muttered.
She stood up and walked over to me. “How are you, Joseph Harker?”
“Very happy to see you back here, my lady,” I told her.
“Did anything unusual happen while you were down here waiting for me?”
“Unusual? I don’t think so.”
“Thank you, Joseph. You need not speak until next I tell you to.” She pursed her big lips and went back to sit on the bed again. “Scarabus, contact HEX for me.”
“Yes, my lady.”
He touched a tattoo on his stomach, a tattoo that looked a bit like something from the Arabian Nights, a bit like Dracula’s castle and a bit like the world seen from space. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his pupils wereflickering with light—not glowing steadily, as they had when he had summoned the ship to the football field.
He spoke in a deep sort of voice then, the sort of voice you’d get if you dipped Darth Vader in a giant vat of maple syrup.
“Indigo? What is it?”
“We have the boy Harker, my lord Dogknife. A world-class Walker: He will
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