Galloglass

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘I’m so glad to see you again,’ said Neptune.

  ‘You seem different,’ she said, sniffing him.

  ‘Oh, he’s awoken,’ said Malvasia. ‘And I think he may even have epiphanised as well.’

  ‘It’s been a big night,’ said Neptune.

  ‘Right,’ said Mirabelle. ‘Showtime. We’ll talk afterwards.’

  Mirabelle and Malvasia went up on the stage. The band moved aside for them, and the saxophonist clapped. Soon the whole room was clapping and meowing.

  Mirabelle took the microphone.

  ‘Greetings, awoken ones,’ she said. ‘I have some good news and, alas, some bad news. The good news is that we now have over one hundred awoken cats, cats who understand both the value of comradeship and the extreme danger we are currently in. I believe most of you are here. But the bad news is that so many of our comrades still have no idea of what is in store for them on Midwinter’s Eve. We need as many of them as possible to understand and to come over to our side. We need to prevent the Diberi from being able to cast their spell, which, as we know, could threaten the entire world. They only need one hundred of us, don’t forget, and there are several times that amount who are still unawoken. Go upstairs, all of you, and try to explain to as many of our fellow cats as possible what’s happening. Time is running out.’

  A ginger cat in the audience spoke up. ‘But, what if they don’t believe us?’ he said. ‘I’ve tried this before and everyone just thinks that we’re insane conspiracy theorists.’

  ‘Then you have to try harder,’ said Mirabelle. ‘As I said, time is running out.’

  The Bermuda Triangle stretched into an isosceles shape and then back into an equilateral again and sighed. It felt sad. Today was the day it was leaving home, possibly for the last time. At least it was not going alone. It would be accompanied by the Northern Lights, who had been with the Bermuda Triangle enjoying a pre-Midwinter holiday when the offer had been made.

  The two entities had left the Otherworld within a year of one another – hundreds of years before, and not long after the Great Split – and had always kept in touch. They had left for the same reason every great entity leaves the Otherworld – for the fame and fortune available in the Realworld. In the Otherworld, no one had ever been that impressed with the colours and shapes the Northern Lights made in the sky – the whole Otherworld sky already looked like that much of the time.

  A psychotic piece of geometry was more unusual, granted, but Otherworld adventurers were extremely good at escaping from the Bermuda Triangle and back in the olden days some young people had even started using it as – horrors – a kind of game.

  In the Realworld, though, people were properly afraid of the Bermuda Triangle. They treated it with respect. It had even had a pop song written about it! There were no pop songs in the Otherworld. And, OK, there was no denying that the Bermuda Triangle did make people disappear – but only to the Otherworld. It was not as bad as all that. But people were still afraid, which was kind of fun. Meanwhile, the Northern Lights had had package holidays based around it, and entire books written about it. It had posters, films – a whole industry.

  The Luminiferous Ether had also turned up to visit the Bermuda Triangle, although just for the weekend. On these occasions it always overindulged, then cried over the past. Its fame had waned back in the nineteenth century; people no longer even believed in it, thanks to diligent scientists and ‘progress’.

  Life as a global celebrity – even when you were long washed-up – was taxing, which was why it was so important to take breaks. But the Northern Lights, the Bermuda Triangle and the Luminiferous Ether had agreed this time that the breaks were just not working any more. They were tired. Fed up.

  They wanted to go home.

  But the Otherworld didn’t want them back. Or at least it would not agree to take them until it had expelled all its galloglasses, which was going to take for ever. The Realworld didn’t really want to let the Northern Lights go anyway because it liked them. The Bermuda Triangle was a different story, of course, and therefore the subject of many complex negotiations being conducted by the Guild. But complex negotiations took a very long time.

  So when the nice man with the clipped Northern European accent had turned up on the Astral Plane near Bermuda and asked for a meeting, it had been granted. And what an interesting proposal he had made! If the Bermuda Triangle, the Northern Lights and the Luminiferous Ether would agree to meet him above the Old Town (they had been given precise coordinates) on the evening of the 21st December then he would guarantee that they could go back to the Otherworld. All they had to do was help him with a bit of magic. How hard could that be? The Luminiferous Ether helped people with magic all the time, and even though it was supposed to be neutral it sometimes gave things a little nudge in one direction or another.

  The Bermuda Triangle turned around for one last time, swallowed a ship and an aeroplane, and looked at the place it had called home for so long now. Then, with a last sigh, it nudged the Northern Lights, who were quite glad to be going back to more familiar territory. Together they shook the Luminiferous Ether and told it to pull itself together (it was still moping around despite promises to take it back to a place where people valued and believed in it). Then the three vast entities set off.

  Dill Hammer handed Maximilian his lunch-box.

  ‘I’ve turned it into a bento box,’ he explained. ‘It’s sort of Japanese. You’ll like it. Lots of strange things in it today! Check out the different compartments. Black noodles and tempeh with spicy ginger sauce in this one, and steamed spinach with pumpkin seeds and chilli in that one.’ Dill pointed to the different sections of the lunch-box. Maximilian had never seen anything like it. ‘Leftover chocolate cake here, and black grapes over there. Should keep you going for your first day at the university.’

  ‘Thank you, Dill,’ said Maximilian.

  ‘Are you ready?’ asked Odile, coming in, dressed for another day’s work.

  ‘I thought it was your day off?’ said Maximilian.

  ‘It’s all these awful bindings,’ she said. ‘We’re at capacity at the hospital and so I’ve got another day of home visits. I can give you a lift to the university if you like? Wolf’s already got up and gone.’

  Dill Hammer handed Odile her own bento box.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ Odile said to him.

  Love! That was positive, surely?

  Maximilian waited for them to kiss on the cheek or something, but instead they just looked awkwardly at each other and then – for reasons unknown – at him.

  In the car, the radio news was full of disaster.

  ‘Oh my,’ said Odile. ‘Another tsunami! There’s some kind of massive storm moving across the Atlantic, apparently.’

  ‘I know, Mum,’ said Maximilian. ‘I have ears too.’

  ‘I wonder if someone’s done a big spell that’s gone wrong.’

  ‘It would have to have been a really massive one,’ said Maximilian.

  ‘I hope they don’t start closing things down,’ said Odile. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what the world’s coming to lately.’

  Effie, Wolf and Raven were waiting for Maximilian by the university entrance. But there was no sign of Lexy. What on earth had happened to her? It seemed that Effie and Wolf had gone for breakfast together in some arcade in the Old Town and Wolf had filled her in on his adventures. Then they’d been planning strategies. Midwinter was the following day, and they would need to do something about the Diberi before then. But what? Then they’d met Raven off her bus and walked to the university together.

  ‘We have to go back to the chapel,’ Raven was saying to Wolf when Maximilian joined them. ‘You can learn to meditate there, and then we can read in this book about how to do a cleric’s prayer. They’ve got free candles and stuff.’

  ‘We’ll go after classes finish this morning,’ said Effie. ‘And we need to have a meeting as soon as possible and make some kind of plan. The chapel’s an ideal place – we wo
n’t be overheard by the Diberi.’

  ‘Does anyone know where Lexy is?’ asked Wolf.

  ‘I think she’s ill,’ said Effie. ‘Maybe she’ll be here tomorrow. Someone should drop over to her house on their way home and see if she’s OK.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Raven. ‘It’s not really on my way home but I should practise more on my broomstick. Oh, why are these books so heavy?’

  Raven was clutching several books that all seemed to be religious guides or manuals for prayer.

  ‘Where did you get them all?’ Maximilian asked her, as they walked through the big university gates and towards its main butter-stone building.

  ‘My mum’s account with Rosewater Books,’ she said.

  ‘Any sign of your art, by the way?’ asked Maximilian. ‘I was wondering if it was scholar, like me.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve wondered that too,’ said Raven.

  ‘Have you ever tried my spectacles?’

  ‘No, actually. Shall I try them now?’

  Maximilian got them out of his bag for her as they walked through the large old stone entrance. Raven took them and put them on.

  ‘Oh no!’ she said, after having them on for less than one second. ‘They’ve made the world entirely red and weird. Euurgh. And they’re burning my nose. Have them back.’

  ‘Worth a try,’ said Maximilian. ‘Effie, do you know where we’re going?’

  Effie, as usual, was walking too fast and was now leading the way down a university corridor that seemed darker than a corridor really should be during the day. The Tusitala School corridors were gloomy, but this was different. Here, they almost needed candles. Was there a greyout they didn’t know about? Or was it just the approach of Midwinter?

  ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Room 108 in the James Tyler Kent Building. I looked at the map. It’s this way, I’m sure.’

  ‘Why exactly are we doing this?’ said Raven. ‘I mean, hanging out with the Diberi . . . What if they attack us?’

  ‘Getting information,’ said Maximilian. ‘Like we were told.’

  ‘They can’t do anything to us here, I’m sure,’ said Wolf. ‘But I’ve got this just in case.’ He showed the others the Sword of Orphennyus in the side pocket of his rucksack.

  ‘Well, this is our big chance to find out what they’re up to,’ said Maximilian. ‘And stop whatever it is.’

  ‘I think I might already know quite a lot of it,’ said Effie. ‘But I’ll tell you when we get into the chapel. We can’t be sure we’re not being overheard here. Right. This way, I think.’

  She hurried off again.

  ‘So. Not a scholar, then,’ Maximilian said to Raven as they tried to keep up with Effie.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Raven. ‘At least I’m eliminating them. I know I’m not a healer or – don’t laugh at me, Wolf! – a warrior either. Maybe I’ll have to eliminate them all before I actually find it.’

  ‘It’ll happen,’ said Maximilian. ‘Just be patient.’

  ‘Ha! What, patient like you are?’ said Raven.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Maximilian, smiling.

  ‘I read somewhere that your familiar has to match either your kharakter or your art,’ said Raven. ‘Which really does narrow it down. I’ve never heard of an animal being a witch. It sounds wrong. Mind you, I didn’t even know until yesterday that animals could epiphanise. I don’t know anything!’

  ‘No one knows anything,’ said Wolf, mysteriously.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Maximilian, laughing. ‘I think I liked you better as a meathead than a mystic. Only joking. Don’t hit me! Right, we must be almost there now. Effie? Where’s she gone? Oh. I see. Up these stairs and down this passageway and here we—’

  ‘Watch out!’

  Raven was almost knocked over by the young man who had just come storming out of the door next to Room 108. He looked sort of familiar, but then he was gone. Had there been a flash of tweed? Yes, it was PhD student Claude Twelvetrees. He’d glared at Effie and then hurried off in a great blur. What was the matter with him? The room he’d come from had a sign on it saying SENIOR COMMON ROOM and seemed to be full of old sofas and books. It smelled strongly of coffee.

  Inside Room 108, Dora Wright was waiting for her new class, which was remarkably similar to her old class back when she’d taught at the Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange. She was quite looking forward to seeing her old pupils again – or some of them. Today she was wearing a simple faille gown and lace-trimmed cape with faux fur boots and gold polka dot tights. Her hair was in an easy bouffant. She always dressed down on university teaching days.

  ‘Come in and close the door,’ she said to the children.

  They did as she asked.

  ‘Are we safe to talk here?’ asked Effie, looking around.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Dora. ‘Best not say too much. Oh,’ she said, surprised. ‘Hello, Wolf. I didn’t expect to see you here as well.’ When Dora Wright had last taught Wolf he’d been quite different. It had been before he’d epiphanised, back in the days when he used to throw the weaker boys’ rucksacks in the river for fun.

  ‘Hello, Miss Wright,’ said Wolf. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it has,’ she said. ‘OK,’ she continued, ‘there’s been a slight change of timetable. Tomorrow I’m going to teach you the basics of plot. But today you’ve got Professor Forestfloor, teaching you about Nietzsche and tragedy. And then you’ve got the afternoon off because of the Midwinter celebrations. Tomorrow afternoon you’ve got avant-garde poetry. But my class before that. Enjoy!’

  She left the room in a puff of glitter and perfume. The children barely had a chance to exchange worried glances before Professor Gotthard Forestfloor entered the room.

  He was a reedy, evil-looking man who appeared to have bought half of his outfit from a shop called Looking Innocent When You Are Not (which did not exist) and the other half from Dark Daze, a very expensive boutique next to the Esoteric Emporium (which did). His black corduroy trousers were similar to the ones favoured by Monsieur Valentin, and his mildly checked shirt would have been, on its own, inoffensive. Forestfloor had, however, added a turquoise silk bow tie, an eagle-feather gilet, silk-chiffon socks and, most troublingly of all, fur-lined sandals. Added to all this was a bright mauve academic gown.

  ‘I expect students at your level to know the basic theories of tragedy,’ he said, without smiling, in his clipped Northern European voice. ‘I shall test you immediately. You will answer your questions on paper and in silence. Anyone who gets less than 100 percent will be expelled from the university and this ridiculous exercise in outreach and pandering to stupidity. Ready?’

  Effie and Maximilian exchanged a look. What was he up to? He clearly wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible, but he obviously had no idea what he was dealing with. It wasn’t just that Effie and her friends were brave members of the Gothmen who were skilled at facing down evil; they also happened to be the very cream of Mrs Beathag Hide’s top set for English and had been learning about tragedy since September.

  ‘Great tragedy,’ said Professor Forestfloor, ‘deals with what kind of person? Admirable, or ordinary?’

  Everyone knew the answer to that. Mrs Beathag Hide had been drumming it into them for weeks. Tragedy was about an admirable or famous person like a king or a queen or a celebrity who makes a dreadful mistake because of their enormous ambition and . . .

  ‘What does the word hamartia mean?’ asked Professor Forestfloor.

  Everyone knew that too. It was Greek for ‘fatal flaw’, the thing that meant that the poor admirable person or celebrity couldn’t really help themselves. When given the choice between an early night and a diabolical plot involving a dagger and a love-potion, tragic heroes generally chose the latter. But at least they got to wear nice clothes. Some people said that the fatal flaw was not a character fault but was in fact one simple error made by the tragic hero. The one thing they could have done differently but that stopped them from living happily
ever after.

  Effie couldn’t help thinking of her last conversation with Cosmo. An error upon an error upon an error. And she kept doing things wrong. She kept making mistakes. Did she have a fatal flaw? Was she going to die a horrible tragic death? Was she actually a bad person, just as Rollo seemed to think – an island galloglass destined for a horrible end?

  Effie answered the rest of the questions in a daze. Then Professor Forestfloor took in the test papers and looked them over.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Incredibly, you all pass. How remarkable. As your prize, you get to hear all about Nietzsche’s theories of tragedy and why it is better to be a tragic person than an ordinary one. Why we should all aim to be Dionysus rather than Apollo and die a glorious and beautiful death in the pursuit of our own selfish desires, and in so doing create harmony for all . . .’

  After class, the children fled as quickly as they could and agreed to meet in the chapel. Effie got there first, partly because she walked so fast, and partly because the others wanted to stop off at the canteen. Effie was still trying to shake off the things Professor Forestfloor had said. It was like galloglass theory all over again. Why did it seem to keep applying to her?

  As she approached the door to the chapel she became aware that an argument was taking place inside in loud whispers. She couldn’t help herself stopping and listening for a few moments. Not that she had any choice – she was hardly going to go in and disturb them.

  ‘Just come with me, now,’ someone was saying. ‘I can keep you safe. We’ll go far away from here. Please.’

  It was a faintly familiar voice, but Effie couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘No,’ came the reply. ‘I have to stay and fight. My mother. My friends . . .’ Effie did recognise this voice. It was Leander Quinn.