The Divinity Student by Michael Cisco Read Free Book Online Page A

face, sour formaldehyde smell. The Divinity Student looks back, but he can’t see the pavement anywhere—there’s not a rooftop or spire to be seen. He starts retracing his steps, trying to follow his footprints in the long grass. Everywhere he turns, more trees and corkscrew branches screening his view. It’s quiet, no street sounds, no sign of the city at all, and with a growing sense of disorientation he breaks into a run, but his path crisscrosses itself in the grass.
    He has a sensation of icy water rilling down his back and rinsing his insides, water for flesh, flesh filled with water. Panic boils wildly behind his teeth; he shakes himself, why is he overreacting? The sudden onslaught of fear confuses him still more.
    Then a tree rattles behind him; he turns to look. There’s a black something up in the boughs, watching him. He sees many dark limbs, leaf-green eyes, a porcelain mouth with fixed lips parted in an open grin.
    He recognizes it: an oro, a tree spirit, misdirecting him into the heart of the glade and forcing panic on him. Instantly, the cold inside evaporates, a raindrop, a single one, drops into his right eye, and his hand moves to the book in his coat pocket.
    “Please don’t,” a voice like rustling leaves and sighing boughs, “I want to talk to you, let’s not fight over a social call.”
    “I’ll listen.”
    Limbs spiral around the stationary spider-head. “I’ve got a message for you.”
    The Divinity Student waits, right hand resting on the book in his pocket. “—Well?”
    The white mouth moves closer, the emerald eyes remain where they were, lambent in the shade. “Divinity Student, you have been to see Magellan? He showed you something interesting?”
    “Yes, that’s true,” he replies guardedly.
    “Would you like to know how it’s done?”
    The Divinity Student sighs and sits on the ground, but he does not take his hand from the book. Yes, he would like to know, but he says nothing.
    “ . . . Magellan himself will teach you . . . provided you approach him properly.” The oro’s voice is insinuating.
    “Did he send you?”
    “ . . . No . . . But listen—I can tell you how to convince him.”
    “Who did send you then?”
    The oro retreats a little into the leaves. “That’s not important. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to anyway—but I
can
tell you how to get Magellan’s attention.”
    “All right, what am I supposed to do?”
    A long, skinny, black arm unfolds from the tree, carefully to set a small wooden box just beyond the circle of shadow at the base of the trunk. Then the oro gathers its arm back to itself.
    “Play this in the courtyard of the Orpheum, at the very top of Calavera Street, and let him see you playing it—then he will know to call you. You must not speak to him, the box alone should be your voice. He’ll send for you in his own way, and then he’ll teach you how to do that trick. Rest assured!” The eyes go out, the mouth is gone.
    The Divinity Student jumps up. With caution, he approaches the tree, but the oro is dead gone. Turning, he can see rooftops angling into the sky beyond the trees again, and the pavement appearing again at the edge of the grove, sunset warming the dark wooden box at his feet.
    Dogs’ sudden barking and he’s startled out of his reverie—they’re across the street behind a chain-link fence, snapping at some passing man, a red-haired man. The Divinity Student peers after him a moment, and then ducks into a doorway, chasing still with his eyes—it’s Ollimer, walking toward the edge of town.
    Dry wind sends dead leaves scattering, the Divinity Student walks through them making no sound, following Ollimer. The other man is nervous, looking over his shoulder and sometimes turning all the way around every few blocks; he’s hard to follow. Overhead the sky is turning a metallic twilight color; orange lights open in doorways and windows; the pedestrians thin out; cooking smells on dry desert wind