Eloise

The goblet rang a little as he set it down, its rim barely touching that of another, producing a thin, high note of ringing clarity.

He didn't look at the woman as he stepped towards the window.

Outside the streets were deserted as he had known they would be. Now everyone was inside, warm, seeking what comfort they could; those with the low numbers having already accepted their fate and engrossed with a final enjoyment of the flesh, or sitting in solitude doubting their ability to maintain their composure.

But not all of them. Some would be surrounded by friends, the center of attention, drinking with careless abandon or lost in the euphoria of drugs; the need of careful abstinence thrown aside like an outworn garment.

He said, his forehead tight against the coolness of the pane, "How long?"

"Not very long now." He scented her perfume as she moved towards him, felt the soft weight of her hand on his shoulder. "Adara-you are not alone."

Words, comforting perhaps, but what did they mean? What else was he now but alone? Who could share his torment, ease it by taking a part of it from him? Like physical pain, it had to be borne. Like the dreams which had ruined his sleep, the sickness he had felt when on his way to this very room.

"Adara?"

Irritably he moved away from the hand on his shoulder, stepping back from the window a little, unwilling for her to see his face. A soft face, older than he remembered; the eyes shadowed pits as they stared at him from the reflection in the crystal, the muscles lax with lack of self-control. Yet control must be maintained. Tradition and pride demanded it. Self-respect if nothing else. And still it was hard.

Harder still when he remembered the incident which had happened while on his way to join Eloise.

A small thing, but it had shaken him. He had passed two Monitors in the passage and the sight had turned his knees to water so that, for a long time, he had leaned against the wall lacking the strength even to stand. An odd thing to have happened. All the years he had lived, it had never happened before. But then he had never drawn so low a number before; had never appreciated the full significance of what he had seen.

"Adara!" The musical voice was urgent. "Turn, look at me! Adara!"

As he obeyed the great bell began to toll.

* * * * *

It was a sound which filled the city, dominating, Imperious, a deep, solemn throbbing which came from the very walls, the air itself; causing little harmonics to quiver the panes of the window, to set the goblets trembling so that they touched and filled the air with singing chimes.

At the third knell he began to tremble; a hateful reaction which constricted his stomach and caused tiny muscles to jerk along the line of his jaw, the apparatus of his hands. Desperately be hid the discomfiture, keeping his face a blank mask; aware of the woman, her eyes, his own growing terror. The tolling continued, each knell a claw raking at his naked brain.

"… six… seven… eight…"

Eloise had regained her chair and sat, watching him with a peculiar intensity. Almost, he thought wildly, as if she were studying a specimen to determine how efficient its training had been. Relentlessly her voice kept time to the bell, counting the strokes; merging with the sonorous throbbing, the thin chiming of the goblets which now sang with a rising note as if the inanimate material could sense and respond to his mounting distress.

"… eleven… twelve .. thirteen…"

He felt perspiration dew his forehead, the body beneath his clothing; the trembling now increased so that he had to lock his fingers to disguise their rebellion. To remain detached. To remain calm. To accept what had to come. The teachings of a lifetime- why had they failed him now?

". . fifteen… sixteen .. sev -"

"Eloise?"

"Sixteen, Adara! Sixteen!"

Her voice was a shout of triumph filling the room with gladness and, he thought, relief.

Relief which in no way could equal his own. "Are you certain?"

"Listen!" Her upheld hand demanded silence, All around, the walls seemed to retain the tolling note of the bell so that ghost-echoes quivered in the air and tricked the senses. Yet there was no substance to the sound. It was nothing but a ghost lingering in his own brain, whispering in his ears.

"Sixteen, Adara! You were number eighteen and I was twenty-two. We're safe! Safe!"

His hand trembled as it reached for the wine. Red or blue, did it matter? Yet red was the color of blood, and blue of hope. Now there was no need of hope. Ruby liquid spattered as he shakily poured it. A man reborn, reprieved. The wine slid down his throat as if it had been water, his goblet refilled before the woman had lifted her own.

"To life," she said.

"Eloise!"

"To life," she repeated doggedly. "And to hell with conventions which insist that no one must speak of life or death, or the crazy pattern of the city in which we're stuck. To hell with the city. To hell with Camolsaer!"

"You're drunk!" he shouted. "Drunk or mad!"