The Golden Cut

by Merl Fluin

  The High Priestess sits on an egg. The dazzling incipit could be a violent confrontation in which life is possible. An irreplaceable friend: disillusionment. The gold seekers called themselves Argonauts between two numbers during the rip-roaring era.

  I am in the present. When atoms aggregate, the only thing that matters, the only thing that exists at the elementary level, is their shape, their arrangement, and the order in which they combine. The saloon owners, the madams, the slick-fingered dealers, the soiled doves... they all get their cut. You cannot depict a mystery. An inspiration and a great asset, a secondary emetic on open fires and in rude stores. Moving from the one-dimensional line into the two-dimensional plane, a blaze of pearly colour within.

  The Magician could be a prestidigitator who is hiding something under the table, or to the contrary an initiate arguing that the commonplace notion of motion is absurd. As he peered into the amber depths of the glass of whisky he held in his hand, he revolved the shaft of his compass. Living in a large cavern hidden among the bluffs, we will endure public ridicule. Firearms are necessary in country like this. A seed head no longer survives as a ghost.

  The Fool has a name, but he does not have a number. There is a sense of luminous calm. Now recovered from his own wound with only a slight limp to show for it, the pole of the system gave himself the luxury of taking back his promise. Because one might expose a secret, all fall dead at the first fire: φ. The likker’s been known to make eyeballs bleed.

  27.

  TJ spoke into Cowhead’s ear:

  “He’s fucked us both over. Let’s get out of here.”

  Cowhead clattered down the cobbled ramp and came to a halt at its foot. There was nothing but darkness in every direction. She took a right and skittered on, then shied when they reached a dead end. TJ urged her with her legs, but there was no room to turn around. Cowhead had to walk backwards. TJ twisted her neck pointlessly to try to see the invisible path behind them.

  Voices seemed to be coming from in front of them, more birdlike than human. A splotch of light from the throne room appeared in the blackness behind them. A shadow jagged across the light: robed, limping.

  TJ slung her legs around, slid down Cowhead’s haunches to the floor, and ran. She flashed past the foot of the ramp and hurtled into the darkness on the other side. She stumbled, one, twice, many times, but she kept on her feet and kept going.

  The ground rose and regained its phosphorescent glow. TJ took a turning into a dim corridor lined with books. Her heart pounded in her throat, her legs shook. A brocaded tapestry across the corridor ahead looked like another dead end, but she ducked behind it and barged through a door on the other side into one of the library rooms.

  Far and high in the distance she heard Cantos bawl: “Get her, get her too!”

  She kept running, vaulting over desks and tables, scattering books and papers in her wake. But her direction lost its certainty. One room led off the next in impossible spirals that brought her back where she had been.

  At last she chose a narrow side door behind a book stack, burst through it and hurtled into Cantos’s arms.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, ruffling her hair with one hand and gripping her upper arm viciously in the other. “ If you hadn’t tried to pull a stunt or two, I’d have left here a disappointed man.”

  28.

  “It’s given me an idea, though.”

  They were in a cell somewhere deep in the basement of Alexandria. The hacienda’s fungal heart asserted itself down here. A musty odour settled on everything like dust; black constellations of spores dotted the grey-white floor. The fleshy walls absorbed every sound. Their room was windowless, but there was a trapdoor in the ceiling, and another door in the wall.

  “Too right it has. An idea about running off and leaving me alone with that dirty bastard.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “You did do that.” Cowhead snorted and pawed at the ground beneath her bunk. She was nursing a cut lip where Little Dove or False Uncle had yanked at the bridle to lead her into the cell. TJ’s legs were dark with bruises.

  “Stop whining and listen. We’re only of any value to Alexandria while we’re together. It takes both of us to make the Mouth of Hypatia appear, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Right. And Cantos can only leave here and do whatever, rule the numbers and conquer the world and all that, if Alexandria thinks it’s got fair exchange for the thigh. And it will only think that if it’s got both of us.”

  “Ok.”

  “So even if only one of us gets out of here before Cantos leaves, that’ll be enough to put a stop to him. He’ll either have to stay here himself or else give the thigh back to Alexandria and leave without it.”

  “Fuck off out of here, then, TJ. Just fucking go. I never asked you to come and get me. I don’t want you.”

  Cowhead got up, felt along the wall with her fingertips, shoved open the door in the wall of the cell and stalked out. TJ hesitated a moment, then rose with a groan and went after her.

  A corridor took them to a latched wooden door that in turn led into a high-ceilinged room. Crates were stacked on the floor and against the bannister of a short staircase that led to a landing and another door. TJ ran up the steps and tried the upper door. Locked.

  “Do you know if this goes anywhere?” TJ called down to Cowhead. No reply. “Have it your own way,” she muttered under her breath.

  TJ explored the crates and boxes at the foot of the steps. Some were empty, others packed with straw. As she rummaged she found that in some boxes the straw was wadded around glass instruments, empty flasks, full phials. It was full of mildew, a green and black scent. She opened a phial and a chemical tang sliced the air. Her heart thudded, the straw crackled. She pushed the stopper back into the bottle with a grimace.

  Cowhead had gone. TJ went looking for her in the next room. This room was smaller and contained a long dark bench strewn with more instruments, broken glass, strange twisted pieces of metal. One end of this room was caged with metal bars to form a jail cell, or perhaps an animal enclosure. An iron stove stood close to the bench. TJ put the flat of her hand on it: it was cold.

  She selected a handful of metal and wire fragments from among the debris. Returning to the previous room, she ran back up the stairs and crouched in front of the door. The lock was upside down. She pushed one, two, three pieces of metal into the lock, working them up, down and around. Some of the spongy matter around the keyhole flaked and crumbled, but the door itself did not budge. TJ swore and threw the metal pieces down the stairs. They clicked and grated as they fell.

  Back out of the room and through the lab and off in another direction, any direction, looking for Cowhead. The corridor became rougher, the floor more uneven. Wooden struts shored up the ceiling, and as TJ progressed she began to find gaps in the walls and ceiling and even the floor. Some of them looked large enough to crawl through. The smell here was rank. Bending over with her hands on her knees, she closed her eyes and retched. When she stood upright again she saw Cowhead coming towards her.

  Cowhead’s arms flapped in front of her as she stumbled along like a somnambulist. TJ reached out and caught her by the elbows. She helped Cowhead back the way she had come, guiding her with one arm around her waist. When they reached the room with the staircase, she helped Cowhead to sit on the bottom step, then sat down beside her. Her arm was still around Cowhead’s waist.

  Cowhead started to weep. TJ stroked her hair.

  “I’m sorry, girl. About everything. I only wanted to help you. I tried so hard.” TJ wiped her eyes and gave a snuffling laugh. “You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on along the way.”

  “Yeah, I would. I saw it – well, some of it. I saw you.”

  “What do you mean, saw me?”

  Cowhead reached up to her own hair, took TJ’s hand, and held TJ’s thumb in front of her blind face. “Wow. So that’s what I look like these days.”

  TJ snatche
d her hand away and stared into the eye. “You can see through this?”

  “Yeah. Mama too. The other eye.”

  TJ turned pale. “Then you already know...”

  “Where she is? No, I couldn’t figure that out, like I didn’t really know where you were. I mean, I knew when you were in the desert, or in a cave, or underwater, but glimpses, jumbles, hard to make sense of. Same way with mama. She’s been out in the open somewhere, under the stars.” Cowhead paused with her head cocked. “Sunset through her hair. Mesquite, maybe. She’s frowning. No, it’s gone. What’s wrong, why are you looking at me like that?”

  29.

  “I don’t know what happened in the ring that night,” Cowhead began.

  TJ waited for Cowhead to continue, her face sombre.

  “There was a lot of noise and commotion. I remember someone grabbing me under my armpits and dragging me along the ground in the dark. Someone put a nosebag on me and the bran tasted funny. Everything went topsy-turvy. I think I heard mama’s voice, but I’m not sure. I ran for a long time through a rainstorm. Cantos was my rider, though I didn’t know who it was at the time. I ran and ran until I thought my legs were broken.” TJ reached over and petted her face and neck, but Cowhead pulled away. “Then we arrived here at the hacienda, and it was wonderful. Wonderful. I was living in a stable, with a paddock outside, and I could do what I liked. Cantos came and groomed me every day. Stroked me all over.” She closed her eyelids over her empty eyes. “He said I was never going to have to live with you ever again if I didn’t want to. He loved me.”

  “Were there any other horses in the paddock?”

  “No. Then Cantos said he had to go away for a while. He brought me out of the stable and into this room with the bunks. There was food and drink for me, I guess someone fetched it somehow, but they never spoke and I never heard any voices, just footsteps and whispers. But I saw you sometimes, glimpses of you at weird angles. I saw you climbing a big rock, and washing your face in a pool. And I saw mama the same way, weird angles.”

  “And you can still see her?”

  “Sometimes. Always outdoors. For a long time she wasn’t moving much, always the same view of the same branches overhead. I thought she might be dead. But she started moving about again, and there are others with her now.”

  “People with her, huh? Anyone you recognise, like folk from the Slits or something?”

  Cowhead’s face crumpled. “I wouldn’t know. I was never allowed to meet mama’s friends. Why was she ashamed of me?”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” TJ knelt in front of Cowhead and took both her hands. “She wasn’t ashamed of you. She was – she is proud of you, and loves you very much. But you’re a horse that’s a human and vice versa. And that’s a problem for her, because her people think that when you’re reincarnated your soul should enter your new body as either one thing or the other, not as both. So I promised that I would take care of you for her and keep you close so that she could watch you growing up without either of you getting into danger. Guess I messed up there.” She kissed Cowhead on the lips. “That’s why I came all this way to find you. I love you, Cowhead. I love you for real.”

  Cowhead turned her head away, but TJ took her temples between her palms and kissed her again. Her tongue was a salamander. She rolled Cowhead sideways onto the floor.

  Droplets of blood shone and trembled like tiny flames on Cowhead’s skin. TJ raised her own arms and held her hands up high. Wet black creatures blossomed from the fungal walls.

  ***

  Cowhead lay on her side on the bunk, her breath shallow and regular. TJ lay on her front on her own bunk, propped up on her elbows and staring at her own thumb. Alexandria’s ambient fungal light drizzled them both with a grey-green sheen.

  The closed eyelid on the back of TJ’s thumb began to vibrate, then flicked back and forth. TJ’s hand jerked with the staccato of Cowhead’s sleep. Cowhead breathed rapidly, and the eye on TJ’s thumb rolled beneath the eyelid.

  “Lick your fingers and you’ll understand the language of birds,” said Irrie Corrie.

  TJ pushed her whole thumb into her own mouth.

  ***

  They were back in the tunnel where Cowhead had sleepwalked. The musty smell filled their nostrils to choking point. Their heart was pounding. Something was behind them, or ahead of them: following, waiting. They hesitated, then walked forwards on trembling legs.

  Stink of fungus. Grey and black spores swarmed up the walls and above their heads. Strips of peeling flesh hung from the tunnel walls like petals. Ribs of pink and brown showed behind the peeling.

  The only thing that was not made of mushy, quivering flesh was the unseen thing. The unseen thing had a hard carapace, an exoskeleton with nothing warm inside.

  It was close. Its mouth clattered.

  It was here.

  They turned to face it.

  Lying on the bunk, TJ whispered into Cowhead’s ear: “It’s a dream. Don’t wake up. I’m right here.”

  The tunnel floor lurched, then righted itself. Their left hand reached out and brushed the wall with its fingertips. The wall felt dry and warm. They caught one of the peeling strips between thumb and forefinger and drew it down, exposing the ribbing behind it.

  They pushed their fingers into the ribbing, pulled out a handful of flesh and kneaded it with both hands. It took on the form of a tiny human head. They shaped it in their hands, forming clumsy approximations of a nose and mouth. Thumbprints indented empty eye sockets.

  They pushed the head onto the ends of their left middle and forefinger and held it up to face the Directrix, puppet head to puppet head.

  The Directrix froze, then came closer. Mouth and eyebrows working, it inspected the head. Then it leaned back and said in its brassy voice:

  “Interesting.”

  Cowhead scrambled off the bunk. “Fuck! Fuck!”

  TJ gave her a broad smile. “That was brilliant.”

  30.

  “You never see it when you’re awake?”

  “Never see anything when I’m awake, do I, genius?”

  “Sorry.” TJ paused. “Except, hang on, actually you do, sometimes, don’t you? Do you remember ever seeing it with me? Before I got here, I mean. Through my thumb.”

  Cowhead bit her lip. “Maybe. I thought I was always asleep when I saw it.”

  “If it’s what I think it is, no, not always. I’ve seen it up close and personal: the Directrix. It’s the boss of the Star gang.”

  “Star gang?”

  “The Eleven Twenty-Threes’ enemies.”

  “Mama’s an Eleven Twenty-Three, isn’t she? I told you, it’s evil. It gives me a feeling like wasps.”

  “Things are not that straightforward, my lovely girl. Not any more.”

  TJ hunched on the bunk, her knees drawn up to her chest. She gazed into Cowhead’s eye on the back of her thumb; the eye gazed back. “You can’t control what happens in your dreams. But I think the Star gang can. Like the Directrix.”

  “Or like Cantos? You said he made things happen in your dream while you were both asleep.”

  “He told me he was going to sleep with me,” said TJ, “but I think he was lying and didn’t sleep at all. He can’t control his sleeping dreams. That’s how the Directrix could fuck him up so royally when she made him go to sleep. Anyway, that’s not what I’m getting at.” TJ leant closer towards Cowhead. “My point is that if the Directrix can do it, then it’s possible, and if it’s possible, maybe we can find out how to do it too. How do you feel about a little experiment next time you’re asleep?”

  “Will it make the nightmares go away?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe there’s something more useful we can do with your nightmares than get rid of them. One thing I’ve noticed is that time swings back and forth down here like a pendulum.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Could go either way.”

  “Funny.”

  “Attagirl.” TJ patted Cowhead’s arm. “For one thing, ti
me-flips make it hard to keep track of what His Nibs is up to. That golden dingaling of his is on a deadline, although I’ve no idea how near or far it is, or when he’s likely to make his next move. But maybe time-flips also mean that we can keep rerunning the same dream. Do it over and over until we get it right.”

  ***

  The eyelid trembled on her tongue.

  She and Cowhead both stood on the same spot, each superimposed on the other as if on a cracked glass plate in a photographer’s parlour. They were in one of the fleshy tunnels beyond the staircase. It wormed and twisted, streaked with powdery grey spores and stinking of damp.