Shriek: An Afterword

Most days since, I’ve been glad they didn’t.

5

Sometimes—only sometimes—I wonder who I am writing this account for. Who will read this? Will they care? I am past the delusion that I’m writing an afterword for Duncan’s The Early History of Ambergris, and I suspect that you, dear reader, if you’ve come this far, are past that delusion as well.

Sometimes, I think I’m writing out of anger and sadness, out of a sense of injustice—a sense that my life, that my brother’s life, should have been easier, that we should have been more successful. At other times, I think I’m writing this account to preserve some part of me after I’m gone. Or that I am in some sense trying to write past those bodies in the cathedral, or my red ribbons for wrists, or Duncan’s heartbreak.

There are certainly those who would prefer I not write this account—they’d prefer to have the same image of Janice they’ve always had, the same thoughts about Duncan. A more full-bodied likeness would ruin all of the stylization they’ve spent years accreting to both of us. {Who are these people, so intent on our ruin? Your oft-mentioned flesh necklace? Janice, no one cares enough to create an image of us—and they haven’t for years.}

Then there are those who simply hate what Duncan represents, those who cannot accept the truth and thus must reject the messenger along with the message. It’s common enough in life, isn’t it? Mary is a prime example. She’s still waiting there, at the party, but I honestly don’t want to write about that yet. There are more important things to discuss first, and it’s possible I won’t have time to finish this account, but I’ll soldier on because there’s nothing left to do.

A gate. A mirror. A door.

Somewhere there’s a door, surely?

One afternoon, after I had guided a family from Stockton on a tour centered around Trillian the Great Banker, Sirin appeared at the head of the stairs leading to the second floor. He beckoned to me with one long, graceful finger, and disappeared up the steps.

His office was the same as it had always been, down to the butterfly paradise residing in glass flasks at his back.

“I have a job for Duncan,” he said, without preamble, smiling from behind his desk.

At the time, Duncan hadn’t yet begun to “benefit” from the pittance Frankwrithe & Lewden would pay him for the infamous omnibus and still made his marginal living editing the AFTOIS newsletter for a Lacond whose health had begun to fail. So the money would come in handy. But I couldn’t imagine that Sirin, whose current fortunes depended on the continued publication of the great Mary Sabon, would have anything of value for Duncan.

“What sort of job?” I asked, sitting down heavily. My stump was throbbing against the strap and wood of my artificial foot. If Sirin had been a kinder man, he would have met me on the first floor.

“A writing kind of job,” he said, and smiled again. “The sort of writing job I think might appeal to Duncan, if presented to him in the right way.”

I already didn’t like the sound of it.

“What is it?”

“We have a pamphlet we need written. The original writer proved unreliable and it’s scheduled for publication in less than three months.”

“Unreliable how?”

“He was blown up by a stray fungal bomb.”

“Oh.”

“But,” Sirin hastened to add, “it had nothing to do with his assignment. Wrong place, wrong time. Strictly.”

“What’s the title of the pamphlet?”

“The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris. Do you think Duncan would do it?”

I didn’t know how I felt about this proposition. Sirin had more or less abandoned us after the war. On the other hand, he had gotten us a job during it. He had helped Mary more than us of late, but no one could say his choice didn’t reflect good business sense.

“A travel guide?” I said.

“Yes. A travel guide. Duncan will have to understand that up front. There will be no place for his outlandish theories in the piece, unless they add an element of entertainment. We don’t want to upset the tourists—think of the effect it would have on your own business.” Again, the smile, the upturning of the lips as his eyes acknowledged the debt I owed him for my position.

He named a compelling price for completion of the project.

“I’ll try,” I said. “Thanks for thinking of us.”

I don’t really know how I felt. My expectations of influence and power had decreased so rapidly and so monumentally that I believe at the time I felt Sirin was bestowing a great honor on Duncan. I believe I thought that Sirin was attempting to usher us back into the ranks of the Privileged, the Chosen. I was mistaken, but can anyone blame me for hoping?

At the door, I turned and asked, “Why didn’t you give the assignment to Mary Sabon?” {And if not Sabon, surely a member of her flesh necklace would have welcomed the opportunity?}

“She’s busy with other things,” and then, catching himself, “but more importantly, she’s not the right person for this. Your brother is somewhat unique in that regard.”

It did not take much convincing—by then Duncan had begun to chafe under the restrictions and limited audience of his AFTOIS soapbox. He welcomed the opportunity to do something different. {I welcomed the promise of money.}

“It’ll be like old times,” he said in this very room. “It will be like before the war.”

His right eye writhed with gold-green fungi. His left index finger had formed a curled purple tendril, like a fern. His neck was encrusted with a golden patina that pulsed like the skin of a squid. His smell was indescribable. Yes, it would be like old times.

For two months, Duncan lugged thousands of pages of books, magazines, and old papers down here. For weeks, he labored on this very typewriter, creating his early history of the city. I believe he thought he might be creating a Machine of his own, made from the city’s leavings. {The assignment came at the right time—it came as I was attempting to synthesize and explain all that I had learned over the years. It took two months, yes, but also thirty years to write that account. My findings might have been destined for a travel guide, but that didn’t mean I had to make them shallow or incomplete.}

I left him to it, after a while. I stopped in every few days to see how it was going, but that was all—I had my own life to lead, and an ever-growing list of tourists to exhume the city’s highlights for….