A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  There was a wardrobe at the foot of the pod. He limped to it, opening doors to see jeans and jumpers, shirts and suits. A number of women’s skirts and dresses, T-shirts, pairs of jeans. Markriss smiled, holding them to the candlelight, sniffing fabric in an attempt to catch a trace of her. Maybe he wasn’t fooling himself. Maybe he could smell a whiff of perfume, a lingering echo. Pleased, he put them down.

  Their podroom was too small for a podside cabinet. The pod itself had a cot-like frame on either side that ended halfway between the head and foot. The frame provided enough room for candles, a man’s watch, a single metal key that brought a rush of nostalgia, his retracted knife and a sprinkling of brown dust beside a random pyramid of tobacco. He picked up the key, holding it to his eye and turning it from end to end; he imagined the small box and smiled at the thought of its contents. Markriss fingered the dust. Hesitant, lifting fingers to his nostrils, savouring the smell. Piahro. The sleeping drug.

  He’d smoked the narcotic since he was a teenager. As a man he used it far less, yet he still relished the intensity of its odour, perhaps above all others. ‘Piahro’, the scientific name for a substance that apparently drove Poor Quarter residents to riot, soothed the pain of winos, vagrants and madmen, and fuelled protestors. Naturally grown, the plant was smoked, injected or ingested. In concentrated form, a gelatine-based chemical derivative, it could enter the body via pores. Media sources claimed piahro abuse was rife in the Poor Quarter, though the truth was the drug healed more than it harmed. The media and the Authority hid its benefits, and, along with that, its actual uses.

  Pleased to find at least ten grams, he limped deeper into the flat, patting pockets, feeling the empty sense of something lost, something he had carried. Something important. Again, he struggled with recall. Without knowing what it was, he missed the object’s weight. Distracted, Markriss pressed light switches. When the flat remained dark he raised his candle, looking around the tiny space with understanding, nodding. Something remembered. The uprising, the lack of electricity. Power, the first thing to go when looting began.

  In the kitchenette he lowered his candle, taking a glass from one of the cupboards. He peered into the fridge. Their obligatory bottled water was warm, which meant the uprising had been going for some time. He slammed the door shut, catching a flash of reflected light. Squatting, he narrowed his eyes. Photos mapped the smooth fridge surface, haphazard jigsaw pieces. He exchanged the bottle for his candle, raising the flame and crouching on his heels, gasping soft pain.

  Pictures, memories. Ark tourist spots they’d visited in those early days of exploration and hope, those bright apple-cheeked smiles, heads pressed close, Chileshe beside him in every frame. Favoured shots, gazing into each other’s eyes with complete love, a unanimous proclamation. Together, they’d made a near impossible journey. It was as if he looked at two people he hadn’t seen in an age: the Chile in the photo was the woman he remembered when they first married, eyes glittering with expectation. She wore no glasses. Her face was rounder, her cheeks and thighs bearing more flesh, her skin bright as though lit from within. There was a quality in her eyes Markriss hadn’t seen since they arrived in the Ark. Casual, almost sly knowledge, happiness the Chile he knew never expressed. Regret thumped, akin to his pounding skull. His legs screamed fire. He lowered the candle, deflated, poured the bottled water into his glass and knocked it back greedily, only to spit the mouthful into the sink. The hot, iron taste was disgusting.

  Claw-fingered worry raked his gut. Where was his wife? She should have been there. Slim panic began from nothing, surprising Markriss, building into a crescendo that drove him from the kitchenette, shadows trembling as though in fear of his presence. The feeling of a bad occurrence on the horizon. A need to stop it happening, if he could.

  Returning to the podroom for the security of his knife, he lurched towards the door, reaching for the handle as candle flame exposed a large poster just above his head.

  He stilled, chest raised, stood to attention, right hand placed across his heart.

  Even in the vague light, he made out the green six-pointed star representing the fourth heart chakra, the gold capital O dead centre and rusty orange background, still bright. At the foot of the poster, a phrase that reverberated throughout the Poor Quarter, the tenet of their belief, passed from parent to child like a nursery rhyme. Words that gave pride, simplicity in the extreme:

  TODAY AS YESTERDAY, TOMORROW AS TODAY, IS TRUTH!

  He erupted from the one-room allocation, litter and dust circling before him, a swirl of movement. Candles and blue lamps lining the road stuttered in his presence, sending a domino wave of shadow along bricks and stone. On the other side of the road stood a lengthy row of one- and two-storey terraced allocation flats.

  Forehead burning, his mind filled with mosaic imagery, blurring actual vision. The deep blue of electric lamps became patches of mellow green, a gateway towering in the darkness, the features of people he knew and those he did not. Rolling, churning without end. His legs pumped. Nothing else, only the urge to run.

  Poor Quarter residents backed away, staring owls. Infant children playing in the safety of front gardens stood open-mouthed, tugging garments for comfort. He ignored them, stumbling down the road, aware of the distance people kept from him, intense agony cramping his legs; driven by the urge to find her. His thighs and calf muscles twitched and twinged as though they hadn’t been used, causing him to slow to a walk with a half-hunched gait, creating even greater alarm among the surrounding people. Cries of horror came with almost every step, coinciding with gritted winces of sympathetic pain; still he kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he had to find her. It was the only thought his confused brain would allow.

  He staggered along glittering tarmac, almost falling, stretching fingers like a sprinter to maintain balance, pushing himself upright and into the path of school kids he recognised, expressions alarmed at the sight of him, bouncing Markriss towards a burly man strolling home for the evening. The man looked up, saw him coming. Vyasa! Maybe he could help. He’d been walking with his nose pointed at the pavement until he saw the body hurtling into his. Vyasa took a casual step to one side, holding out massive arms. Markriss tripped into the embrace.

  ‘Hey, watch it . . .’ He caught Markriss by the shoulders, at arm’s length. ‘Markriss? You shouldn’t be out here. Where’s Ayizan, he should be making sure—’

  ‘Chile!’ Markriss screamed, loud enough to conjure surprised wails from those nearby. Head angled upwards, facing the man full on, unfocused. ‘Where’s Chile . . .?’

  Vyasa let him go, shocked; arms raised in surrender, mouth quivering. Markriss spun, sending people scattering for cover before he began to run hard, letting his feet land where they wished, pushing on despite the spasms of his legs. Lurching in all directions, he kept on. Temple. He needed to get to the Temple. Vyasa’s cries grew distant and faint. He tripped, rolled with the tumble and rose again, not feeling the fresh bruises and cuts, sprinting past a group of stunned women and the outer rows of houses, into streets where blue lamplight thinned. Beyond, more buildings disappeared into dense shadow at a point where concrete night fell. And still he ran.

  A hundred metres before that segregation of light and shade, Markriss saw the dusty building. Isolated from the terraces and shops on all four sides, a former school, its solitary spacing effectively creating a town square. The doors were shut, seemingly locked. Markriss pelted into them, fists banging against the wood, trying a sharp kick when he received no reply. His jaw dropped in a silent scream. Hands clasped his bare foot in pain. No shoes. He’d run out of the house with no shoes and hadn’t noticed. He collapsed, running footsteps coming from every direction around him, echoing and bouncing from quiet streets.

  They halted above his head.

  ‘Kriss, what’s going on, tell me what’s wrong? How’d you get here with no shoes, you can hardly walk . . . What happened?’

  Chile’s face s
wam above him. He tried to speak.

  ‘Wallace . . .’

  His voice lacked strength. He had to save his breath. She lifted him to his feet with an ease that penetrated even his fog of confusion. So strong she was, so strong. He stumbled, scraped toes and strained muscles crying in protest at last, though she stood firm enough to break his fall. Righting them both, she gave him a long, clinical look, feeling his forehead and neck.

  ‘Markriss . . . who’s Wallace?’

  He couldn’t speak. There was nowhere for him to start, no explanation. He had no idea.

  ‘Ayizan . . . where’s Ayizan?’

  Her eyes hardly blinked. She stood before him, mouth forming an almost seamless line.

  ‘He’s meditating, Markriss. In here. Don’t you remember what time it is?’

  She touched wood. The door was old, on the verge of rot. The only remaining paint flaked and curled. He looked up at the building, swaying as a wave of pressure swept his head. When it subsided enough for him to be able to pay attention to what he saw, Markriss noticed light from the upper floors. Nearer ground level, the building’s windows were melanin dark. A prickle in his stomach when he looked up, a pull of energy. He understood what had brought him. He’d been called.

  ‘I have to see him.’

  ‘He’s in nambula, Markriss. I know you’ve woken, but there’s no way we can stir him.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb him. I just want to see him, Chile. It’s very important I see him.’

  Her full-moon eyes turned to the counterfeit ground beneath their feet. The moment stretched.

  ‘OK, Markriss. We go in, see Ayizan for one minute, then I’m putting you to pod and you’re staying there, do you hear? You need rest too, you know.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, whatever you say . . .’

  Chile produced a solitary key and opened the building door. At once, he smelt an odour of decay. She walked a little way from him, grabbing a lamp she’d left on the road, returning to lead him inside. Without the light they might have been blind; even with it, pitch black oozed about them, soaking every nook and crevice. Deeper inside, blue light began to reveal the building’s interior: random graffiti, Outsider slogans and posters, messages to fellow members, childish cartoons. Markriss tried to work meaning out of the scrawls, but Chile didn’t stop long, squeezing his arm, tugging whenever he slowed. They reached a duo of stairs. Right led up, left went down, both wreathed in shadows. She raised her lamp, filling the stairwell with blue flame. A low hum of electricity, just above perception. She inclined her head left, gave another tug and moved into the bowels of the Temple.

  For almost a minute they seemed to be doing nothing more than cleaving a pathway through the veil of black, going deeper beneath the ground. If it wasn’t for the urge of energy tugging at him, growing more insistent with each step, Markriss might have believed he was being taken on a walk of infinite length. Flickering light appeared. Chile walked slower, allowing time for his pupils to shrink. They reached a thin corridor. There were at least a dozen doors in that confined space, maybe more. Lined up like schoolchildren, they resembled the classroom doors of Regent’s and E-Lul Secondary, only much smaller. Six-pointed stars were painted and drawn in chalk everywhere. Further geometric shapes occupied space on walls and windows. Chile kept walking until she reached a point in the corridor where two doors were placed instead of one, denoting what he guessed was a larger room. Two words had been carved into the wood, one on each door—Transmutation Chamber.

  She pushed a door. On the other side they found a modest hall. Eight male ‘sleepers’ lay on their backs, eyes closed, arms laid by their sides. Scented oil sweetened musky air. A mixture of candle- and lamplight illuminated the room, exposing bookshelves and posters, crystals, plants, more geometric symbols. Chile put a finger to her lips, smiling. He knew why. The feel-good vibration of healing energy coursed through him, the muscles of his limbs finding strength.

  ‘Where is he?’ He felt a tinge of nausea, probably because it was extremely hot. He closed his eyes, swaying on his feet. Chile’s smile faded. The almost seamless line separating her lips returned. Worry and confusion replaced cheer.

  ‘He’s right there.’

  Thin bile rose, bitter and stinging. He swallowed hard, trying to speak as normal. His voice was guttural, strange.

  ‘Point . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘Point him out . . .’

  She pointed a finger in the direction of a tall man lying slightly apart from the others. He wore a faded green T-shirt and black jeans. Markriss moved closer. Ayizan was in nambula, although he was not prone. Every now and then a finger would jerk, or nostril twitch.

  ‘Markriss, you mustn’t disturb him. Come back, let him transmute.’

  Her voice, somewhere behind Markriss, relegated to a place where he could pay it no mind.

  ‘Just a minute . . .’

  He reached the Outsider, looking on his corpse-like body. Handsome, the strong features of a man who could take charge, fearing no one. A natural leader. A difficult enemy.

  Markriss crouched beside the body. Mouth moving, soft words. Loving recognition blurred his eyes, the passage of time and maturity. He smiled. The pulse in the base of his skull returned. He was filled with an immediate coldness he’d never known. His mind blanked, and he saw his fingers clasped around the unprotected neck, applying necessary pressure even as his conscience screamed against it. Pressing hard, squeezing demonic strength, the noise inside his head thunderous. The image so powerful, so instructive he made to move, stirring and creeping towards his old friend.

  A procession of stronger memories joined forces with his nausea—clasped hands, a harmony of laughter, dense silences—causing him to rise and step away, fitting epileptically. Naked feet made contact with the bare flesh of sleepers. Chile grabbed at him, unable to gain purchase. He heard her voice and couldn’t make out what she was saying, or tell her what he’d seen.

  Ayizan’s eyes snapped open. Staring. Overloaded, his brain couldn’t cope, pulling the plug and plunging him back into his subconscious. The world grew North Star distant, Markriss collapsing into a dead faint. Even as he slumped into Chile’s embrace, that Outsider lynchpin refused to let go, ideology following him into the depths. The knowledge. The truth.

  A waking dream foretold that he would kill his oldest friend. Ayizan, whom he loved as a brother, and had known since childhood as Nesta.

  2

  Eyes opening, Markriss almost believed he’d been delivered into another, similar abyss and his time on the solid world of senses was over, perhaps for ever. Maybe he’d simply moved from one empty space into another. Maybe a series of chambers filled with swirling absence like the bulbous, interlocking test tubes he imagined in hi-tech chemistry labs as a child, linked by tunnel-like sections of glass, creating areas of eternal space. Maybe a vast expansion without end. The enveloping dark was womb-like. He might have stayed for ever had it not been for the pull. An urge, a forceful tug, except there was nothing to denote movement, or to cling to, only the knowledge it had occurred because he was physical and apparent inside the room. No solidity, no pain, no sensation or sense of direction. He wasn’t, and was. Nothing into something. Dissolution became mass.

  He knew this when awareness told him the darkness wasn’t absolute. Tiny beacon pinpoints betrayed that he was back. Not starlight, not here. He recognised the jittering sway: candles. He placed his palms on either side of his body, the pads of his fingers registering contact and all his nerve-endings firing at once. The scratch of clothing against his wrist, at his fingertips. One deep breath, a sweet aroma of melted wax. The almost-pain of sit bones when he pushed with his palms, rising until his back rested against the podside. The soft fall of sheets, the quiet rodent squeak of a chair. Movement, as bodies he hadn’t noticed at the foot of his pod leant forwards, towards him, emerging from the gloomed depths of his allocation.

  Their faces bore a wealth of history. Vyasa’s broad, his cane-coloured hair falling i
n all directions. Temujin’s lean and pale, all thin, dark pits for eyes, mere essentials of nose, lips, eyebrows. Bible-dark hair melding with darkness, making her look bald.

  He drifted, submerged in recollection. Bright-star Ark Lites, Vyasa staring at his outside clothing and numerous bags from across the street, eyes curious. Moving to greet him. A firm and thorough handshake, a gentle crack of bones. Days beyond that first meeting, Markriss ducking behind Vyasa’s slab of a back to enter the dull light of another compact Poor Quarter allocation, identical in layout to his own. Temujin’s eyes weighed down by the toothpick piahro splint in the corner of a mouth. Her shock at the face of a stranger, the unfamiliar hard ridges of her cheekbones.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Vyasa leant closer, his tone measured, breath heavy.

  ‘Good . . .’ The word a spiked object scratching his throat. ‘Water?’

  Temujin swivelled, saying something too muttered to hear, returning with a cup in her hand. Markriss leant forwards, gasping. Every move brought new pain. He drank. The water had the iced solidity of cold.

  ‘Do you know what happened to you?’

  Vyasa reached, indicating. He passed the cup over, wincing at the discovery of yet another ache—his right forearm.

  ‘I’m not sure. I can’t remember much. I made the jump OK, found the plane and then I think I met some being. I couldn’t tell who. We spoke, and then after—’

  ‘It wasn’t Ninka?’

  ‘I don’t even know. Next thing I’m here, and I couldn’t control my actions. I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying . . .’

  Temujin sat back, legs crossed.

  ‘Don’t worry about all that. The spiritual realms are vast, even adepts get lost. It’s just . . . obviously . . .’