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you know, which is to say: only yourself. That's all we can ever know, isn't it? When
the rhythm of the dance stops, we're on our own, all of us, damned Human-kind and
demon-lovers alike. The objects of our affections have been spirited away. We are
alone in a wilderness, and a great wind is blowing and a great bell tolling, summoning
us to judgment.
*
Enough morbid talk. You want to know what happens between here and the End,
don't you? Of course, of course. It's my plea-sure. No, really.
I didn't tell you yet that Mainz, the town where Gutenberg resided, was built beside a
river. In fact, there were parts of the town on both banks, and a wooden bridge
between the two that looked poorly built, and likely to be swept away should the
river get too ambitious.
I didn't make the crossing immediately, even though it was clear from a quick visit to
the riverbank that the greater part of the town lay on the far side. First I scoured the
streets and alley-ways of the smaller part of the town, hoping that if I kept to the
shadows, and kept my senses alert, I'd overhear some fragment of gossip, or an
outpouring of fear-filled incoherence; signs, in short, that Quitoon was at work here.
Once I had located someone who had information it would be quite easy, I knew, to
follow them until I had them on some quiet street, then corner them and press them
get to spit out all the little details. People were usually quick to unburden themselves
of their secrets as long as I promised to leave them alone when they'd done so.
But my search was fruitless. There were gossips to be over-heard, certainly, but their
talk was just the usual dreary malice that is the stuff of gossiping women everywhere:
talk of adul-tery, cruelty, and disease. I heard nothing that suggested some
world-changing work was being undertaken in this squalid, little town.
I decided to cross the river, pausing on my way to the bridge only to coerce food
from a maker of meat pies and drink from a vendor of the local beer. The latter was
barely drinkable, but the pies were good, the meat rat or dog, at a guess not bland
but spicy and tender. I went back to the beerseller, and told him that his ale was foul
and that I had a good mind to slaughter him for not preventing me from buying it. In
terror, the man gave me all the money he had had about his person, which was more
than enough to purchase three more meat pies from the pieman, who was clearly
perplexed that I, the thuggish thief, had returned to make a legitimate purchase,
paying for the coerced pie while I bought the others.
Pleased to have my money though he was, he did not hesi-tate, once he'd been paid,
to tell me to go on my way.
"You may be honest," he said, "but you still stink of some-thing bad."
"How bad is bad?" I said, my mouth crammed with meat and pastry.
"You won't take offense?"
"I swear."
"All right, well, let me put it this way, I've put plenty of things in my pies that would
probably make my customers puke if they knew. But even if you were the last piece
of meat in Christendom, and without your meat I would go out of business, I'd go
be a sewer man instead of trying to make something tasty of you."
"Am I being insulted?" I said. "Because if I am "
"You said you wouldn't take offense," the pieman reminded me.
"True. True." I took another mouthful of pie, and then said: "The name Gutenberg."
"What about them?"
"Them?"
"It's a big family. I don't know much except bits of gossip my wife tells me. She did
say Old Man Gutenberg was close to dying, if that's what you've come about."
I gave him a puzzled stare, though I was less puzzled than I appeared.
"What would make you think I was in Mainz to see a dying man?"
"Well, I just assumed, you being a demon and Old Man Gutenberg having a
reputation, I'm not saying it's true, I'm just telling you what Marta tells me, Marta's
my wife, and she says he's "
"Wait," I said. "You said demon?"
"I don't think Old Man Gutenberg's a demon."
"Christ in Heaven, pieman! No. I'm not suggesting any member of the Gutenberg
clan is a demon. I'm telling you that I'm the demon."
"I know."
"That's my point. How do you know?"
"Oh. It was your tail."
I glanced behind me to see what the pieman was seeing. He was right. I had indeed
allowed one of my tails to escape my breeches.
I ordered it to return into hiding, and it scornfully with-drew itself. When it was
done, the dullard pieman seemed congenially pleased on my behalf that I should
have such an obedient tail.
"Aren't you at least a little afraid of what you just saw?"
"No. Not really. Marta, that's my wife, said she'd seen many celestial and infernal
presences around town this last week."
"Is she right in the head?"
"She married me. You be the judge."
"Then no." I replied.
The pieman looked puzzled. "Did you just insult me?" he said.
"Hush, I'm thinking," I told him.
"Can I go, then?"
"No, you can't. First you're going to take me to the Guten-berg house."
"But I'm covered in dirt and bits of pie."
"It'll be something to tell the kids," I told him. "How you led the Angel of Death
himself Mister Jakabok Botch, 'Mister B.' for short all the way through town."
"No, no, no. I beg you, Mister B., I'm not strong enough. It would kill me. My
children would be orphans. My wife, my poor wife "
"Marta."
"I know her name."
"She'd be widowed."
"Yes."
"I see. I have no choice in the matter."
"None."
Then he shrugged, and we took our way through the streets, the pieman leading, me
with my hand on his shoulder, as if I were blind.
"Tell me something," the pieman said matter-of-factly. "Is this the Apocalypse the
priest reads to us about? The one from Revelations?"
"Demonation! No!"
"Then why all the presences celestial and infernal?"
"At a guess it's because something important is being in-vented. Something that will
change the world forever."
"What?"
"I don't know. What does this man Gutenberg do?"
"He's a goldsmith, I believe."
*
I was thankful for his guidance, though not his conversa-tion. The streets of the
town all looked alike mud, people, and grey-and-black houses, many less luxurious
than some of the ruins Quitoon and I had slept in as we'd traveled.
Quitoon! Quitoon! Why was my every second thought of him, and of his absence?
Rather than free myself of the obsession, I made a game of it, reciting to the pieman
a list of the most note-worthy things Quitoon and I had eaten as we'd gone on our
way: dog-fish, cat-fish, bladder-fish; potato blood soup, holy water soup with
waffles, nettle and needle soup, dead man's gruel thickened with the ash of a burned
bishop, and on and on, my memory serving me better rather than I'd expected. I was
actually enjoy-ing my recollections, and would have happily continued to share more
unforgettable morsels had I not been interrupted by a rising howl of anguish from the
streets ahead of us, accompanied by the unmistakable smell of burning human flesh.
Seconds later the source of both the noise and the noisome stench came into view: a
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