The River of No Return

they think. And I’m sure they’ve told you that the Guild is a global organization with a presence in every age. But it isn’t true, Nick. The Guild is a bank, you said, and you were right. Have there been banks in every human culture? In every age? No. Follow the money, follow the mercantile economy, follow the flow . . . and you will find the Guild. No money, no market economy? No time travel, no Guild. It’s that simple.”
    “So?”
    Alva banged her hands down on the table and her eyes turned on again like black lights in a disco. “It’s clear as day! What makes markets? Armies! Set armies on the march, and money flows! Set an army moving across the landscape and you have the trickling beginnings of an economy, for they must eat, Nick. They must be paid. Turn your farmers into warriors and then into consumers. Now blow that picture up big. Set the world at war across time and space. Move your armies and your money farther and faster and deeper . . . before you know it you have a river. That river doesn’t flow with water, Nick, and it doesn’t flow with love. It flows with blood and money!”
    Nick looked down at the foil crisp bag, then picked it up and scrunched it into a ball. Surely war itself wasn’t the Guild’s fault. Surely money wasn’t the Guild’s fault. Take away the Guild, and the milk of human kindness wouldn’t just bubble up from the sewers. Take away money, and people wouldn’t just turn to one another and start singing “Kumbaya.” Take away war, and money wouldn’t just become scrap paper. He sighed and looked for a trash can. When he couldn’t find one, he glanced up at Alva. “What do you do with anachronistic garbage?”
    “Just leave it. Gordon is the bartender. He’ll deal with it later.”
    Nick opened his hand and the bag uncrumpled with a tinny crackle. He wiped his greasy palm on the linen towel. The silence between them lasted a moment too long, and was suddenly awkward.
    “My lover . . .” Alva paused. “Ignatz Vogelstein, my lover who recently died used to wind me up just to see me go. I’m sorry I let myself get worked up just now.”
    “It’s fine,” Nick said.
    “No. This was all too much to lay on you.” She looked down at her long, ringless fingers. “You’re writing the Ofan off as crazed conspiracy theorists now. And maybe we are. Who knows? The real point is, whether I’m right or wrong about the Guild’s past, we can all agree that the future—the Pale—isn’t acceptable.”
    “No,” Nick said. “It isn’t. And I’m a grown-up. You don’t have to protect me from your version of the truth.”
    “It’s just that the Guild’s plan—of just keeping on doing what they’ve always done, with the added distraction of killing Ofan—isn’t going to save them or us from the Pale. Maybe there is a talisman. Maybe we can find it and use it. I think it’s more likely that we will have to follow in Eréndira’s footsteps and risk everything to find the change we need . . . and that even then we might fail.”
    Nick looked at the beautiful, contradictory woman who stood before him. Whore, philosopher, queen. He had known that she would mess with his head when he accepted her invitation to drink beer together, but he had no idea that his entire world would be shattered into smithereens down here in this weird simulacrum of a pub. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said.
    “Yes. Mr. J. H. Christ saw it all for what it is. And he wasn’t alone. A lot of people can see the forest for the trees. Natural and Ofan alike.”
    “Don’t tell me Jesus was Ofan!”
    “Don’t worry.” Alice slipped off her bar stool. “He won’t be turning up in this pub.”
    Nick laughed, a little shakily.
    Alva spared Nick a brief smile, but it faded quickly. “The situation couldn’t be more serious,” she said. “The future has changed, in spite of the Guild’s shepherding. They are scared, as well they should be. Their own future, their tame and miserable slave, has turned and is marching toward them. Toward us all.”
    “Like a cornered tiger. That’s how Ahn described it to me.”
    “Ahn should know.”
    Alva went to the door and opened it, turning back and raising her eyebrows at Nick, who was still standing behind the bar like a moose in the headlights. “Are you coming back up to the sunlit lands with me, or do you intend to stay and become our publican?”
    * * *
    Nick stood on the top steps of the house in Soho Square. Solvig was