The boy’s name, it transpired, was Simon Jonathan Saunders. Well-remembered by Mr Gregory, and well-liked. A pupil with distinction. A successful career in the foreign office, all the more impressive because Simon had been crippled by polio at an early age, and had attended the school in a wheelchair. He had left Lee Hill in 1946. A few years later he had made a bit of a name for himself as a writer of fantasy and science fiction. But illness reclaimed him, and he died before achieving lasting fame.
This raised more questions than it answered. What was a handicapped schoolboy doing in Calabash a quarter of a century before my arrival? I knew that there was only one way to find out. Whatever the effect it might have on my sanity, it was time to try and return.
My first barrier was a physical one. The scaffolded wall that sectioned off the end of the pier looked even more daunting in the sober light of day. It was a dry, cold morning, but the sea was churning foam along its wave crests and looked unforgiving. A vicious current pulled around the pylons. I waited until the area nearest the barrier was deserted, then clambered through once more, walking past the shuttered ghost train, the heads of its skeleton passengers rain-streaked and halted in mid-nod, to the upper fishing platform.
I peered over the side, but could see nothing. Slipping under the chain, I carefully began my descent, then realised why the lower platform could not be seen. The chains that anchored it to the nearside pillars had been severed, and the grille had tipped so that most of it was now underwater. The whole thing was lifting and dropping with the sway of the tide, shifting back and forth. The last three steps leading to it had rusted off, and lay twisted in the murky water. Most of the chain railings had come loose and fallen away. If I got down there, it might not be possible to climb back up.
The thought stopped me cold. I had been raised in a coastal town, and yet was unable to swim more than a couple of yards. I had never felt comfortable in water, always aware of the pressure on my damaged lungs. I looked back at the coastline of Cole Bay, at the rows of little grey houses that were banked up behind the tatty esplanade, huddled together as if frightened of being pushed into the sea. The bitter green ocean churned beneath my feet. Shit, I thought, I’ve got nothing left to lose now except my mind, and I jumped down.
The shock of cold water over my shoes nearly unbalanced me. The platform shifted violently with my weight. I looked about for something to hold on to and lurched over to one of the main pillars, throwing my arms around it. The grille had become more slippery now that it was immersed. I had to stand further towards the edge, at a point where I would be able to align the reflected lights from the harbour statues. Releasing my grip on the pillar, I took one step, then another. The grille began to sink beneath my feet. The water was up to my kneecaps, then over them. Trying not to panic, I looked at the horizon and forced myself to remember that first day, the need I had felt, the same need I had now.
Above me, the sun broke through the clouds. But instead of a single broad light shining on the water, there were two. The twin beams snaked across the distant waves, lines of emerald luminescence heading slowly towards me, their intersection arriving exactly at the point where I was standing. Suddenly the glare was stinging my eyes like sea salt, and I was tipping backwards—falling into the icy sea.
No, not the sea, onto the deck of the little fishing boat that was rubbing against the limestone harbour walls of Calabash. A familiar heat washed over me like a warm bath, reviving my chilled bones as I looked up into the now cloudless sky. As I clambered from the rocking boat I was already starting to sweat. Elated, I pulled off my overcoat and threw it onto the dock, then shielded my eyes and looked towards the city.
At first I thought the light was playing tricks. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. The walls of the kingdom seemed to have been rearranged, demolished in some places, rebuilt in others. The maze of sunbleached domes and minarets that surrounded the palace had vanished altogether. A pall of brown smoke hung over the hilltops. The dock was deserted, the nets and lobster pots lying broken and empty in great rope piles. There were no fishing boats in the harbour other than my own. Mooring the boat beside the nearest capstan, I set off along the main road towards the city. The first thing I noticed was that there was no-one in the fields to greet me as I passed. Where was everybody?
As I approached the village, what I saw shocked and disoriented me. The ochre villas were derelict. Several of them had been put to the torch. The roads were unkempt and partially grown-over. Vines had crawled up the sides of buildings, digging their roots into mud and plaster, cracking walls into rubble. In the village square, weeds had burst through a mosaic of the Sultan, shattering it in a dozen places. I arrived at my own villa to find the front door hanging from its hinges. I called Parizade’s name, but there was no answer. Inside, the few items of furniture we had possessed had been tipped over and broken apart. A single rush sandal lay on its side, the strap broken. I ran out into the garden. It had become completely overgrown. I pushed a path through the brambles and saw scavenging cats, so bony that their ribs poked out, creeping under the weeds at my approach. A goat lay bloated and dead on its tether, its rotted carcass covered in flies. In the shadows I caught the glittering eyes of a darting rat.
The entire village was deserted, as if the residents had been spirited away; no, not spirited, dragged, for in every home there were signs that the owners had not gone quietly. Water jugs lay smashed, jars and pots lay in pieces in the grass. Two of the largest houses were completely gutted, burned out some time ago, judging by the way the vines had managed to grow across the blackened debris. The well had been filled with the carcasses of dogs in order to foul its water.
The sun was searing the back of my neck. I pulled off my sweater and discarded it, running on to the home of Dr Trebunculus. Here, the destruction was even more complete. Everything had been torn from the doctor’s laboratory and destroyed. The grand astrolabe appeared to have been singled out for special attention. All that remained of it were a few pieces of twisted metal. The planetary globes had been ground into diamond shards. I picked my way across a crystalline rainbow, past the shelves of rare herbs, pickled creatures in jars and preserved specimens that had been torn down and shattered, to lie stinking and rotting in the corners of the room. It was as if a military coup had taken place, swooping one night while the townspeople slept. Now I began to fear for their lives, for it was clear that nothing lived here any more. Back in the dead, stale heat I turned and ran towards the city walls. The few animals I passed on the way were untethered and starving. Others lay dehydrated beneath the bleaching sun, their opalescent eyes turned up into the light.
The greatest shock was yet to come. I mounted the steps to the inner city with a sense of growing dread, but nothing prepared me for the sight within. The narrow streets had been filled with trash. There was nothing of value or beauty left. A pair of brawling drunks spilled out across the highway, bellowing obscenities at each other. Another, so far gone that he could hardly stand, was urinating into the dried-up basin of a broken fountain. They wore the disarrayed uniforms of soldiers on leave.
Someone was being copiously sick in the entrance of a makeshift brothel. Garishly painted whores leaned from the windows, angrily calling down to him. Strangest of all, Calabash had somehow discovered electricity. Every shadowed building blinked with fluorescent tubes of bare white light. The buzz of unregulated voltage filled the air. The distant samba beat had been replaced with what sounded like a thousand badly tuned radio stations; distorted tracks that assaulted my ears in a blurry wall of white noise. Where peace and harmony had once settled across the days, a philistine lunacy now swarmed and massed.
I searched for the entrance to the palace, but it was hard to spot between the outcrops of makeshift shacks. The streets stank of alcohol, vomit and faeces. Marauders stumbled past the graffiti-smeared walls, drugged and dazed, begging and brawling from one food-stand to the next. I saw no friendly, familiar faces, only the isolating anger of st
rangers.
I finally located the forecourt of the former palace beneath a ruptured wooden banner advertising live sex shows. The placid Nubian guards had gone, and the mosaics of the dry fountains that stood within were cracked and faded, their basins filled with detritus. Huge pornographic drawings had been scrawled across the delicately painted walls of the formal gardens. The trees had been torn down and used for firewood. There were no children anywhere. With a deepening sense of horror and desolation, I saw that what had happened here was some kind of decline so steep, swift and total that it had irreversibly destroyed the city from within.
I pushed aside two more drunks who reached out and grabbed at my shirt, running on towards the inner courtyard. Here, instead of the perpetually open entrance to the Sultan’s quarters, had been erected a great rusty door, locked and bolted with bars that cut deep into the walls. Iron shafts had been hammered into place across all the windows, turning the building into a prison.
My mind reeling, I slumped against the wall of a drained pond and tried to think. What could have happened here? A suspicion was growing inside me that somehow this was all my fault. As I watched, a heavy-set man in a ludicrously Western pin-striped suit of grey worsted walked briskly past with a briefcase in each hand. The shoulders of his jacket sported steel military epaulets and raised brass buttons. The legs of his trousers had thin red lines running down their outer sides, and he was shod in highly polished riding boots, a foot soldier in an army of commerce. He reached the great door and stamped to attention, waiting impatiently. Someone must have witnessed his approach from an upper window, for a narrow section in the lower part of the door opened just enough to allow him entrance, and he was gone. A few moments later, the door opened again and another similarly suited businessman hurried out.
‘Hey!’ I called. ‘Wait!’
The little man looked up, startled, then renewed his pace, slipping away into the back alleys. My shout also attracted the attention of the pair of drunken soldiers. I quickly slipped back into the shadows.
The key to whatever had happened here clearly lay inside this fortified compound. My instincts warned me that any attempt to trick my way in would place me in danger, so I decided to complete my circuit of the grounds and determine what action to take once I could comprehend the situation. Fear and guilt spurred me on through the maze of now-derelict courtyards, to the farthest end of the palace. Rounding the corner, I found myself facing a phalanx of military bureaucrats. They were marching smartly towards me with their briefcases held across their chests like the butts of rifles. I dropped back into the alleyway and pressed close against the wall, holding my breath, waiting for them to pass.
I recognised the next courtyard as the one where I had first been received by the Sultan and his retinue, but now the silken banners were gone, and the sheltering fig trees had been hacked down to sap-baked stumps. In the distance, martial brass-band music played through tinny speakers. More blank-faced business-militia marched past in pairs, to vanish within the fortified labyrinth of the inner palace.
I followed the shaded wall at my back, but my sense of direction had deserted me. Soon I could go no further forwards. The way was blocked by a monstrous curving wall of stone. The building was of circular construction, a disproportionate stump with a vast sinister portico and a single tiny entrance. The only windows I could see were right at the top, near what I presumed was a flat roof. I cautiously approached the rough iron doors set beneath the portico.
To my surprise, they sprang apart with an electrical snap just as I reached them. Out rode a soldier dressed in a tunic of the sipahi, followed by a small band of sickly prisoners chained together at the wrists and ankles. As they passed through the entrance I ran in, and the doors immediately slammed shut behind me with an echoing bang.
The first thing I saw lying on the littered floor of the foyer was a top hat of purple velvet. Only one man in Calabash wore such an item.
‘Trebunculus!’ I shouted. ‘It’s me, Kay! Can you hear me?’
The building appeared to be some kind of giant amusement arcade, an illuminated pleasure dome of gaming tables and funfair rides, but nothing looked as if it worked properly. Bare wires had been knotted together above slot machines, where they fizzed and crackled, twisting back and forth with errant electrical force. The place looked as if it might catch fire and burn down at any minute. An acrid stench of burnt rubber and stale bodies hung in the air. I stepped across a pool of oil and peered into the juddering maelstrom of machinery. Ahead, a faultily illuminated funhouse creaked and banged, shorting out as the corpse of an elderly man was repeatedly slammed against the rollers of its tilting walkway. There was broken glass everywhere, much of it stained with blood. A number of dead bodies lay wedged into corners like shattered mannequins. Some drunk soldiers hung from the frame of a wooden roller coaster, bellowing at a carriage as it thundered past. I felt as though I had walked into a physical manifestation of madness.
‘Trebunculus!’ I called above the cacophony of the electric fairground. ‘Where are you?’
There was no sign of the doctor other than his hat. My head throbbing, I ran back to the entrance and pushed at the great iron doors, but they remained shut. There had to be a mechanism for opening them from the inside, but I could not find it. Whatever force had brought me to this deranged place had taken care to seal me within.
Around the edge of the auditorium ran a rickety wooden staircase that I now set out to climb, vaulting several steps at a time. I knew that if I could see from above, I would have a better chance of spotting someone alive. The staircase ended in a great platform of thrown-together planks that crossed beneath the dome of the building. Now that I was level with the windows below the roof, I ran to one and looked down at the world outside.
From here I could see the full extent of the destruction. The city I had loved and left lay gutted like a corpse before me, and in its place scavengers roamed through the shattered remains, abandoned to an unknown fate. I pressed forwards against the sandalwood lattice of the window, trying to see more, when the entire panel against which I lay tipped suddenly forwards, launching me into the foetid air outside.
Chapter 36
Migrating Kingdoms
I looked down at the world spinning tipsily at my feet, then back across the fretworked wooden panel, which was creaking away from the wall on its damaged hinges. A gloved hand reached from the gloom behind me. In order to grab it I would have to release my grip on the sides of the frame, and the moment I did so, I began sliding away. I kicked my feet down hard and pushed to stop myself from falling any further, but the great hinged window swung sharply down, separating me from my rescuer.
I stamped at the wood, but it would not give. Dragged by gravity, I felt myself sliding further along the marquetry, and knew that the only chance I had of saving my life was to wait until I had reached the bottom of the panel before kicking inwards and praying that whoever was on the inside was quick-thinking enough to pull me in. For a stomach-lurching moment I was in freefall, suspended in the air below the window, then strong hands were grabbing at my legs. With a crack, I hit the lower part of the frame and swung over so that I was hanging upside down against the wall. Moments later a second, bonier pair of hands grabbed at my clothes, and I was hauled back inside.
‘If you were attempting to effect some kind of rescue, it wasn’t very elegantly planned,’ panted Dr Trebunculus, as he and his assistant released me onto the floor of the plank platform.
‘Doctor, Menavino, you’re both alive!’ I tried to pull myself upright, but could barely feel my legs.
‘No thanks to you, I must say.’
‘Your laboratory—I felt sure—’
Trebunculus yanked me to my feet and bashed at my arms and shoulders. If he was checking for broken bones, he had an odd way of going about it. ‘Oh, a few splinters but you’ll live. We very nearly didn’t. We’ve only managed to escape execution this long by using trickery.’
‘What
’s going on? Where is Rosamunde? Is she all right?’
‘The Princess is still alive, if that’s what you mean. After defying her husband she was taken to one of the city’s brothels, but the last we heard, she had managed to bribe one of the guards and escape. Wherever she is now, I don’t suppose that she’ll want to see you.’
‘And Parizade?’
‘Ah, well. Fate was not so kind with her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She died badly, with your name upon her lips.’ The doctor fixed me with a beady green eye. ‘She felt sure you would return in time to save us all.’
‘What happened?’
‘The soldiers took her away. We found her later, and buried her.’
‘This is awful!’
‘You realise, I suppose, that all this is your fault.’
‘I don’t understand what could have occurred to change everything so much.’
‘Come. The Semanticor has found us temporary quarters. This is the home of all the so-called “subversives” who have not yet been executed, but there are no subversives here, merely drunks and madmen. They’ve been leaving us alone because they know we have no power to harm them, but once word gets out that you are here our days of safety will be over. Let me show you what has become of your great dream city.’
Above us, a smashed fretwork panel allowed a cool evening breeze to enter from outside and relieve the stale atmosphere. Menavino and the doctor manoeuvred a flimsy wooden ladder beneath it and we climbed up, to emerge on the flat rooftop of the building. There were a handful of them, tattered, skinny rebels, who looked so bewildered and exhausted that they barely seemed to notice the new arrival in their midst. The Semanticor was curled in a corner like a bundle of rags, fast asleep. Menavino dragged a sack across the floor and upturned it. Out fell chunks of stale bread and half-rotten pieces of fruit. The rebels dropped upon the haul and devoured it as though they had been presented with sweetmeats from one of the Sultan’s feasts.
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