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on level twelve . Only when he saw a man
dismantling some scaffolding did he recall Major Hauk’s recommendation and
understand that the order must already have been given. The loss of his work
struck home to him then, and he leaned against the railing, his chest
constricted and his eyes brimming. He straightened, ashamed of himself. The sun
hung in a haze of iron-coloured light low above the western hills, looking red
and bloated and vile as a vulture’s ruff. That polluted sky was his creation as
much as was the painting, and it would be good to leave it behind. Once away
from the valley, from all the influences of the place, he would be able to
consider the future.
     
    A young girl
was sitting on the twentieth level just beneath the eye. Years before, the
ritual of viewing the eye had grown to cultish proportions; there had been
group chanting and praying and discussions of the experience. But these were
more practical times, and no doubt the young men and women who had congregated
here were now manning administrative desks somewhere in the burgeoning empire.
They were the ones about whom Dardano should write; they, and all the eccentric
characters who had played roles in this slow pageant. The gypsy woman who had
danced every night by the eye, hoping to charm Griaule into killing her
faithless lover - she had gone away satisfied. The man who had tried to extract
one of the fangs — nobody knew what had become of him. The scale hunters, the
artisans. A history of Hangtown would be a volume in itself.
     
    The walk had
left Meric weak and breathless; he sat down clumsily beside the girl, who
smiled. He could not remember her name, but she came often to the eye. Small
and dark, with an inner reserve that reminded him of Lise. He laughed inwardly
-most women reminded him of Lise in some way.
     
    “Are you all
right?” she asked, her brow wrinkled with concern.
     
    “Oh, yes,”
he said; he felt a need for conversation to take his mind off things, but he
could think of nothing more to say. She was so young! All freshness and gleam
and nerves.
     
    “This will
be my last time,” she said. “At least for a while. I’ll miss it.” And then,
before he could ask why, she added, “I’m getting married tomorrow, and we’re
moving away.”
     
    He offered
congratulations and asked her who was the lucky fellow.
     
    “Just a
boy.” She tossed her hair, as if to dismiss the boy’s importance; she gazed up
at the shuttered membrane. “What’s it like for you when the eye opens?” she
asked.
     
    “Like
everyone else,” he said. “I remember… memories of my life. Other lives, too.”
He did not tell her about Griaule’s memory of flight; he had never told anyone
except Lise about that.
     
    “All those
bits of souls trapped in there,” she said, gesturing at the eye. “What do they
mean to him? Why does he show them to us?”
     
    “I imagine
he has his purposes, but I can’t explain them.”
     
    “Once I
remembered being with you,” said the girl, peeking at him shyly through a dark
curl. “We were under the wing.”
     
    He glanced
at her sharply. “Tell me.”
     
    “We were…
together,” she said, blushing. “Intimate, you know. I was very afraid of the
place, of the sounds and shadows. But I loved you so much, it didn’t matter. We
made love all night, and I was surprised because I thought that kind of passion
was just in stories, something people had invented to make up for how ordinary
it really was. And in the morning even that dreadful place had become
beautiful, with the wing tips glowing red and the waterfall echoing…” She
lowered her eyes. “Ever since I had that memory, I’ve been a little in love
with you.”
     
    “Lise,” he
said, feeling helpless before her.
     
    “Was that
her name?”
     
    He nodded
and put a hand to his brow, trying to pinch back the emotions that flooded him.
     
    “I’m sorry.”
Her lips grazed his cheek, and just that slight touch seemed to