Galloglass

by Scarlett Thomas

  So she always had to leave too soon.

  Today (in Otherworld time) Effie had woken up early in the large, comfortable bed in her lovely light room in Truelove House. This room always had fresh linen and clean towels, unlike in her Realworld home in the suburbs of the Old Town, where if Effie wanted anything cleaned she had to do it herself, and where it never got fully light at this time of year anyway. She’d looked at her watch – it told the time in both worlds – and calculated that she’d have to leave the Otherworld by early evening if she wanted any chance of being back in the Realworld in time for supper.

  But there was still a whole Otherworld day to enjoy, and Effie was going to spend it in the nearby town of Froghole with her cousin Clothilde. She was sure she’d have enough lifeforce for that.

  As usual, the morning was warm and bright. After eating the lavish breakfast that Bertie the maid brought for her – a massive bowl of creamy porridge with maple syrup and fourflower jam, and soft toasted muffins with peanut butter, banana, chocolate chips and marshmallows, and a pot of tea – Effie dressed in the blue silk jumpsuit that Clothilde had made her. She brushed her hair and scraped it into a slightly more tidy ponytail than usual. Then she put on the long necklace that held a vial of deepwater that her friend Maximilian kept topped up for her. She didn’t have to put on the golden necklace that held her Sword of Light, because she never took it off. She’d stopped wearing her Ring of the True Hero lately, because it seemed to drain her in ways she didn’t understand. She’d threaded it on a string to wear around her neck, but she usually didn’t even bother with that.

  Soon there came a knock at the door, and her cousin’s voice. ‘Are you ready?’ Clothilde asked.

  ‘Nearly,’ said Effie. She took her wooden caduceus from where it was propped against the wall and used her magic to shrink it to the size of a hairpin. She admired the two snakes wrapped around it, and the wings carved into it. It had been a gift from her Otherworld cousin Rollo. She tucked it into her hair at the back. ‘But do come in.’

  Clothilde entered the room. She was wearing a long, flowing dress in one of the Otherworld colours that was close to what we would call yellow. It was something like summer parties and pale marzipan and the middles of soft cakes all mixed into one.

  ‘So, are you very excited about going to Froghole?’ Clothilde said.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Effie, grinning.

  ‘And getting your consultation at long last?’ Clothilde raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Double yes,’ said Effie. ‘I mean, I don’t think they’re going to tell me that I’m not a true hero-interpreter but . . .’

  ‘It’s good to have it confirmed,’ said Clothilde. ‘And there’s your shade, of course. I guess you’ll already know all about it. I know what you’re like with The Repertory of Kharakter, Art & Shade. You must have read it fifty times by now.’ Clothilde smiled. ‘Do you already know what you think you are?’

  Effie shook her head. ‘No. I heard that if you find out too much about the shades in advance it can distort the results of the test. So it’s all still a complete mystery to me. I’ve saved that part of the book for after today.’ She smiled. Clothilde squeezed Effie’s arm gently. Effie knew how excited Clothilde was for her. It was so wonderful having someone who understood her so well.

  In all the time she’d been visiting the Otherworld, Effie had still not actually been to an Otherworld town. People kept meaning to take her, but Pelham Longfellow – the other traveller who regularly visited Truelove House – was always being called away urgently to investigate ‘the Diberi situation in Europe’, and Clothilde couldn’t leave the Great Library for very long. But today, at long last, it was finally going to happen.

  ‘And you’ll be getting your Keeper’s mark as well,’ said Clothilde.

  ‘I know,’ said Effie. ‘I can’t wait to be able to help you all in the Great Library. To be actually allowed to go in, and—’

  ‘Oh no!’ Clothilde suddenly put her hand to her mouth. ‘We’re supposed to do a sort of official induction in the Great Library before you get your Keeper’s mark. I can’t believe I forgot. I think it’ll only take five minutes. We’ll do it before we go. Is that all right?’

  ‘OK,’ said Effie. But somewhere nearby the sun seemed to go behind a cloud. It wasn’t that Effie was scared of the Great Library exactly – she wasn’t afraid of anything – but the last time she’d been in there she’d almost died.

  ‘I’ll go and get my things and wait for you downstairs,’ said Clothilde.

  Effie found Clothilde in the entrance hall, carrying a large wicker basket that seemed to be full of tissue paper and colourful striped boxes. Her cousin now put these down and took from around her neck the brass key that opened the Great Library.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Clothilde.

  ‘Yes,’ said Effie, frowning slightly. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  Effie shook her head. She couldn’t lie and say no out loud. She couldn’t tell Clothilde about the slight headache that had just started. Was it because she was remembering what had happened last time she’d been in the Great Library? Or did it mean that she was running out of M-currency? Effie blinked and tried to put it completely out of her mind. Lexy had once told her that something between 90 percent and 100 percent of pain was in the mind. Which meant you could control it – if you knew how. The first step was not believing in it, apparently.

  The wooden panelled doors to the Great Library were just underneath the large sweep of the grand staircase that went up to the gallery, where Effie’s room was, and the doorway leading to the staircase to Cosmo’s private study. Clothilde approached with the key. Effie gulped silently. Would it be like it had been before?

  ‘All right,’ said Clothilde. ‘You first.’

  ‘Really?’ said Effie.

  ‘We’re not going very far in,’ said Clothilde. ‘I just want to map your version of the Great Library onto mine, so that we can go together in future. While you’re being initiated it will help you to go into my version until you build up enough strength to go to your own. Eventually we’ll be able to merge our versions in order to be in there together. And then you’ll be able to visit your version on your own too. Does this make any kind of sense at all?’

  ‘Yes.’ Effie nodded. ‘I think so.’ She already knew that the Great Library was in a different dimension and in order to become real here it had to be sort of folded down into three dimensions. Everyone did this in their own way, which meant the library looked different to each person who went in. Generating the library took lots of lifeforce. That was only one of the reasons it was dangerous.

  Clothilde opened the door.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Step inside. Just a small step. Concentrate – but not too hard. Get your brain onto the frequency you use to do magic.’

  ‘All right,’ said Effie.

  ‘Now tell me, what do you see?’

  It was the same as the last time she’d been in here. Effie described to Clothilde the small country-house library she saw in front of her, with its old-looking bookshelves and dark polished-wood floor. There was a wooden filing cabinet that held the classification system. And, of course, the books, all shelved so neatly, with their spines in dark, sober Realworld colours: red, blue, brown. Effie described the yellow wallpaper, with its faint mint-green-stripe pattern. There was a small reading table with a chair next to a window on the right-hand side. Last time Effie had been here it hadn’t had a little lamp. But today there was one.

  ‘Is it supposed to change?’ Effie asked Clothilde, when she got to that bit.

  ‘It will change a little for a while at the beginning, as you get used to it,’ she said. ‘It’s normal. There’s no need to worry unless it changes a lot. Right. Take my hand.’

  Effie held Clothilde’s hand. It was small, dry and soft.

  ‘Now close your eyes. And listen. My library is similar to
yours, but different. There are all the same books, for one thing: we don’t get to decide that bit. But my library is arranged around a central spiral staircase. There is a gallery rather like yours, but my shelves are all around the main walls. In the middle of the room are four reading desks. They are all made of old wood – again similar to your library. Each one has a pen pot containing a fountain pen and a pencil, and each one also has a little jar of peacock blue ink. And on each desk there’s blotting paper . . .’

  Effie saw Clothilde’s library take shape in her mind. Clothilde described the turquoise and gold wallpaper and the vast paintings of various birds from the Otherworld that were all large and pink.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ said Clothilde.

  When Effie did, it was Clothilde’s library, not hers, that she saw. She took a step forward, but Clothilde pulled her back.

  ‘We won’t go any further today,’ she said. ‘I know Cosmo’s already told you that what we have in here is the blueprint for all existence. There are books on geometry, physics, music theory, harmony, perspective and so on. Everything that’s real has a corresponding book in here. Books can’t be removed, for obvious reasons. Well, they can, but it’s very unusual and . . . You probably don’t need to know that bit now. New books can be put into the library, but again it’s very complicated, and . . .’

  Clothilde was good at many things, but explaining wasn’t one of them. As she talked about something called a Wizard Quest, and the Great Ritual needed for a book to be accepted into the library, and where they put the book on the Great Split, and the problems of visualising the two different halves of the library, Effie’s stomach started to grumble. So soon after such an amazing breakfast, too. This lecture about the Great Library was very interesting, but Effie was particularly looking forward to getting to Froghole and doing some shopping. And having lunch out. She wondered what she’d order. Everything that was chocolatey here was really chocolatey. And the marshmallows came in colours that didn’t exist in the Realworld, and they were much softer and sweeter . . .

  ‘Sorry,’ said Clothilde, and blushed. ‘I’ve been babbling on and on. I’ve never initiated anyone before. I’m probably boring you stiff. We can do the rest next time.’

  ‘No, it’s—’

  Clothilde laughed. ‘You’re very sweet,’ she said. ‘But we should go.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Effie.

  ‘Yes, we’ve covered most of it, I think. And there’s no test. You just have to learn by doing it all really. OK. Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Effie. ‘Absolutely.’

  But as Clothilde locked the library door behind them, Effie felt weak suddenly, and strange. Was it going to be like last time all over again? She’d had to go to London, where a powerful doctor had given her golden tablets, and . . .

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Clothilde, seeing Effie hesitate.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she replied.

  Effie was determined to remain excited. She absolutely wasn’t going to ruin today by thinking about the Yearning or worrying about what happened when you ran too low on lifeforce. It would be all right. Maximilian would get some new deepwater for her when she got back. It was just . . . she couldn’t run out of power again here. She’d had the Yearning once and it had been the most awful experience of her life. Well, except for losing her mother and her grandfather, that is.

  Effie didn’t understand why her lifeforce seemed to run out so quickly when she was in the Otherworld, even without draining trips to the Great Library. She knew one reason was that Realworlders weren’t really designed to be here. But she was a traveller, and someone had once said her energy was more Otherworld than Realworld. So what was going wrong? And the Ring of the True Hero was supposed to help, but it just seemed to make things worse. Effie used to think that it turned used-up physical energy into magical energy and that playing tennis for a long time while wearing it was the key. But recently it hadn’t been working. Playing tennis just seemed to drain her as well. And she hadn’t even been playing well lately. Coach Bruce kept telling Effie she had to get back in the zone, whatever that meant.

  She put it all out of her mind. Her headache began to fade. Maybe it was in her imagination, like Lexy said.

  ‘I’m all right. Let’s go,’ she said to Clothilde.

  Back in the Realworld, in the dim silvery light of the rising moon, this almost Midwinter evening was full of slow, delicate intrigue about which most humans knew nothing. More than half the Cosmic Web was in hibernation of course, and so at this time of year those who didn’t want to be seen started creeping about, safe in the knowledge that news of their activities wouldn’t spread very fast.

  Most people ignore the constant sounds of the animals around them: the hooting, clucking, meowing, barking, howling, baying and so on. More fool them. This, of course, is the sound of the Cosmic Web in action: it is the way that animals talk to each other, spreading all sorts of news and gossip and warnings and prophecies.

  So it was that the Northern Lights were on holiday with the Bermuda Triangle, resting before the big display they always put on for the various Winter Fairs around the northern hemisphere. Even the Luminiferous Ether had given itself some much-needed days off and had gone to join them.

  Later this night there would be snow. Everything would be white and everything would be very, very silent. And, just after midnight, in the basement meeting room of the Old Town University, Terrence Deer-Hart would be presenting himself for the first time to the secret meeting of the Fifteenth Order of the Diberi, originally based in Vienna but lately moved to new headquarters in the Old Town.

  Which meant he had to take special care doing his hair with his heated comb, and so he had already started, just as the moon came up, which it did so early on these last days of the year. Terrence had already given up writing for the day. He had too many flipping projects on the go and his head was spinning.

  Terrence Deer-Hart was a famous children’s writer who unfortunately hated everything about writing. He hated paper, and pens, and pencils, and words. For Terrence, even one project was one project too many. And yet here he was with three different flipping piles of paper on his desk, each in its own different way thin and pathetic and ridiculous.

  The nearest pile was the beginning of his first novel for adults. Now that he was allowed to swear as much as he liked, and write without limit about violence and kissing, he suddenly didn’t want to. He had only got three pages in, although he’d been telling everyone it was going to be a great epic with multiple volumes.

  The second pile looked like a school project that had been left on the bus, damaged by rain and half-chewed by a dog. A lot of work and thought had gone into it, and it interested Terrence far more than his novel. These pages formed Terrence’s dossier on the children who’d killed his beloved Skylurian Midzhar. They had buried her alive, the flipping brutes! Terrence was intending to get revenge, but as he was very afraid of blood, and violence, and, if we’re honest, children, he was relying on the Fifteenth Order of the Diberi to get his revenge for him. That was one of the main reasons he intended to join them. They were properly evil, and would be able to come up with a suitable death for each one of the revolting brats who had been involved with dear Skylurian’s death. Sadly, whenever Terrence tried to think of, say, boiling Effie Truelove alive, he got a migraine.

  Anyway, their names and addresses were all here. Euphemia Truelove. Alexa Bottle. Raven Wilde. Maximilian Underwood. Wolf Reed. Terrence had already given a copy to the Diberi, who had been pleased, as it turned out they were looking for children to use in some kind of evil spell. Was one of the children to be sacrificed somehow? Maybe on Midwinter’s Eve? Terrence couldn’t quite remember.

  Terrence ran the heated comb through his dense curls and tried to think himself into his third project, the one Lady Tchainsaw had said would be a work of immense genius. He quite liked Lady Tchainsaw. You couldn’t always tell what poets meant, especially not when they were Russian, but
she had come quite close to him – close enough that he could smell her perfume, the top notes of which were dead things and violets – and whispered straight into his ear. What she had said sounded something like, ‘Your abundant locks, they are so beautiful, darlink.’

  Then she had asked him to write the blueprint for a whole new universe.

  This was the project Terrence was having most trouble with. Given that he couldn’t even manage to get going on his epic adventure for adults, how the flip was he supposed to author an entire universe? He just couldn’t face it today.

  So once he’d finished his hair, he began changing slowly into the special outfit the Diberi had given him: a dangerously tight yellow jumpsuit with a small red cape. Did this ensemble suit him? It did not. It did not make him feel remotely diabolical or magical. It made him feel like something from early evening Saturday night TV shows from the olden days.

  And he was ready five hours too early, like some kind of flipping teenager attending their first flipping ball. Still, once he was part of the Diberi, everything was going to be different. Terrence would be officially evil! In return for his initiation, and for promising to kill the children, Terrence would give the Diberi all the information he had on the location of Dragon’s Green, in which they had seemed extremely interested.

  Then, somehow, the Diberi were going to take control of the entire universe. And Terrence, once a mere children’s writer snubbed by big prize juries and reviewers despite selling millions of copies of his books, was going to be the author of this universe. If only he could get started on the flipping thing.

  How did you write a whole universe? Lady Tchainsaw had given him some tips, as had Professor Gotthard Forestfloor. The main thing, they’d told him, was that this universe had to depict only the Realworld, and that this world should be extremely magical and controlled by the Diberi. There was to be no Otherworld. They’d both been very insistent about that.

  ‘Write the Otherworld out of existence, darlink,’ Lady Tchainsaw had said, ‘and you will be celebrated for ever.’