Free City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams Page A

on the Base."
    She belted the terrycloth bathrobe and stepped into the shower thongs.
    Mister Sellars was sitting in his chair next to the machine that put all the water in the air. He looked up as she came in and his twisted face moved in a smile. "Ah, it's good to see you."
    The first time she had seen that face she had been frightened. The skin was not just wrinkled like on Grandma's face, but looked almost melted, like the wax on the side of a burned-down candle. He had no hair either, and his ears were just nubs that stood out from the side of his head. But he had told her, that first time, that it was all right to be scared-he knew what he looked like. It was from a bad burn, he said-an accident with jet fuel. It was even okay to stare, he had told her. And she had stared, and for weeks after their first meeting his melted-doll face had been in her dreams. But he had been very nice, and Christabel knew he was lonely. How sad to be an old man and to have a face that people would point at and make fun of, and to need to be in a house where the air was always cool and wet so that his skin didn't hurt! He deserved a friend. She didn't like telling lies about it, but what else could she do? Her parents had told her not to visit him anymore, but for no good reason. Christabel was almost grown-up now. She wanted to know reasons for things.
    "So, little Christabel, tell me about the world." Mister Sellars sat back in the streaming mist of the moisture machine. Christabel told him about her school, about Ophelia Weiner who thought she was really special because she had a Nanoo Dress that she could change into a different shape or color by pulling on it, and about playing Otterland with Portia.
    ". . . And you know how the Otter King can always tell if you have a fish with you? By smelling you?" She looked at Mister Sellars. With his eyes closed, his bumpy, hairless face seemed like a clay mask. As she wondered if he had fallen asleep, his eyes popped open again. They were the most interesting color, yellow like Dickens the cat's.
    "I'm afraid I don't know the ins and outs of the Otter Kingdom very well, my young friend. A failing, I realize."
    "Didn't they have it when you were a boy?"
    He laughed, a soft pigeon-coo. "Not really. No, nothing quite like Otterland."
    She looked at his rippled face and felt something like the love she felt for her mother and father. "Was it scary when you were a pilot? Back in the old days?"
    His smile went away. "It was scary sometimes, yes. And sometimes it was very lonely. But it was what I was raised to do, Christabel. I knew it from the time I was . . . I was a little boy. It was my duty, and I was proud to perform it" His face went a little strange, and he bent over to fiddle with his water machine. "No, there was more to it than that There is a poem:

    ". . . Nor law, nor duty made me fight,
    Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
    A lonely impulse of delight
    Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind
    In balance with this life, this death."
    He coughed. "That's Yeats. It's always hard to say just what makes us choose to do something. Especially something we're afraid to do."
    Christabel didn't know what yates were, and didn't understand what the poem meant, but she didn't like it when Mister Sellars looked so sad. "I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," she said. Earlier in the year she'd thought she might be a dancer or a singer on the net, but now she knew better. "Do you want me to tell you where I'm going to have my office?"
    The old man was smiling again. "I'd love to hear about it-but aren't you running a little late?"
    Christabel looked down. Her wristband was blinking. She jumped up. "I have to go change. But I wanted you to tell me more of the story!"
    "Next time, my dear. We don't want you to get into trouble with your mother. I'd hate to be denied your company in the