Glass

by Stephen Palmer

‘Of course.’

  Subadwan was tempted. The fact that Tanglanah had made representations to Rhannan and Aswaque made her imagination fill with possibilities. The urge to know what was going on was too much. Surely one meeting could do no harm.

  ‘Where would we meet?’ she asked.

  ‘If not at our Archive, then any venue of your choice offering private chambers.’

  ‘How about the Damp Courtyard?’

  Immediately the pyuton replied, ‘When?’

  ‘Half an hour?’

  ‘Lord Archivist Tanglanah will be there. Please arrange her entrance so that nobody is alerted.’

  The link was cut. Dressing in thick breeches and a coat, pinning up her hair and pulling a floppy hat over it, Subadwan departed her house and ran down to the Damp Courtyard.

  The Damp Courtyard, though not one of Cray’s more salubrious hostelries, was Subadwan’s favourite. After submitting at the door to a check for technological parasites, luminophage debris and other Crayan flotsam, she walked into its lush interior. In form it was a quadrangle based on the ancient design of the cloister. An outer ring of luxuriant blue vegetation rose ten, twenty feet high, touching meshes slung across the quadrangle that were laid to trap city dust and grime, and halt the descent of metal fragments. Some plants grew from the ground, others were potted in earthenware bowls shaped as trepanned human heads. It was a design also used in the Baths, and so known to be old. Scattered around this annulus were black iron tables set with silk cloths, and this was where the clientele sat. A pool of clear water lay central, home to aquatic spiders, monkeys augmented with fins and gills, and, inevitably, an array of nuisance life, such as purple pipe creatures, and a breeding pair of violet stalkers, which were related to the lumbering pedicians.

  As Subadwan entered the courtyard and looked around, her eyes adjusting to the illumination provided by glass bowls of glow-beans, she was surprised to see a lone gnostician sitting cross-legged at a table. Gnosticians, though not aggressive, were considered a problem by many, and at best were tolerated. However it was Gaya’s policy to nurture the creatures, some of which showed intelligence.

  The gnostician glanced at her. The tentacles under its chin twitched, and its low-set eyes, above which a moist mouth burbled, widened in some unfathomable gesture. Though dressed in chunky cotton shirts, these garments were not enough to disguise the hunchback, the double-jointed limbs and the deep violet tone of the creature’s skin.

  Subadwan glanced at the windows bordering the courtyard. These windows faced rooms owned by yardkeeper Merquetaine, a friend and a follower of Gaya who enjoyed much business provided by Archive students. She spotted the yardkeeper, carrying a tray of biscuits to a couple sitting at the edge of the pool, and called her over.

  Merquetaine approached. She was six feet tall and elegantly dressed in skintight breeches partly enclosed by a knee-length black jacket featuring diamante lapels. She enjoyed a reputation as the lover of many men, and some women, but those who came to know her more deeply discovered that her wisdom was only a little less than Rhannan’s.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’ Subadwan asked.

  ‘One minute only,’ Merquetaine replied.

  Subadwan led Merquetaine under a cloister arch, where it was cool, and where lipreaders were defeated by sprays of leaves. ‘I need to borrow a private room for an hour. Do you mind?’

  ‘Use the red room at the top of the stairs.’

  ‘Gaya praise you. Now, my guest wants to remain anonymous. Can I borrow the key to the wicket gate?’

  In reply Merquetaine handed over a fishtail, then hurried away. Subadwan left the courtyard by its main entrance and waited, bandanna covering her mouth, earpads in place, just off Red Lane. Ten minutes later Tanglanah appeared.

  She was taller even than Merquetaine. Wrapped from head to toe in a grey robe edged with crimson, Subadwan could make out little of her features, even when a burst of light flashed through the alley perspex. She unlocked the wicket gate, led the way up a spiral staircase, then entered the red room. This was a small chamber furnished with chairs, a pyuter console, air conditioning fans, and a wine butt, all these items, as well as the wall plastic and floor vinyl, being some shade of red.

  Tanglanah unwrapped herself and sat. With undisguised interest – for this was the closest she had ever been – Subadwan studied the Lord Archivist. Tanglanah was a dark-skinned pyuton with a large head and rainbow-irised eyes, each one seeming to change from second to second like the twinkle in a glass pane. Her clothes were of the richest twill. A silver brooch shaped as a lizard and as long as Subadwan’s hand clasped her undershirt.

  When she spoke her voice was husky, lacking the metallic twang of cruder pyutons. ‘I’m glad you were able to come, Subadwan, so first let me thank you.’

  ‘I came out of curiosity.’

  ‘That is an excellent motive.’

  Subadwan nodded. ‘I expect you wish that Rhannan and Aswaque also possessed my curiosity,’ she crisply replied.

  ‘When you said you came out of curiosity, you seemed to imply that this was a lesser motive. But curiosity is one of the greater motives of the conscious being. Didn’t you know? To answer your point, though, I expect to see those two at a later date.’

  ‘I talked to Rhannan about meeting you.’

  Tanglanah did not reply.

  Subadwan said, ‘What exactly did you have to say to me?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of abstract countries?’

  ‘No.’

  Tanglanah smiled. ‘Good.’

  ‘Good, why?’

  ‘Because you therefore have no preconceptions. But allow me to continue. An abstract country does not exist as a physical place, yet it is possible to feel there, to feel trees and rocks, and water on the hand. One can feel the sun’s heat on the face. I want you to experience an abstract country.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How did I guess you would ask that question?’

  Subadwan laughed, disconcerted by Tanglanah’s attitude. ‘Gaya love me, it’s reasonable enough.’

  ‘Have you ever loved a man, Subadwan?’

  Stranger and stranger. ‘Um, yes, I have. More than one, actually.’

  ‘Then you’ll know that love is unquantifiable. It is a feeling that one can describe, experience and understand, but never quantify.’

  Subadwan leaned forward. ‘You sound like you’ve never loved anybody.’

  That seemed to take the Lord Archivist by surprise, but she replied, ‘What do you mean by love?’

  Subadwan sat back. She had expected talk of plots, strategies, secret operations. ‘Aren’t we getting a little out of the light, here, you and me?’

  Tanglanah considered. ‘No,’ she replied.

  Subadwan nodded. ‘So you really want me to say what I mean by love?’

  ‘Your understanding has no small bearing on my proposal.’

  Again Subadwan nodded. ‘Well, it’s… you said love was a feeling?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I don’t think it is. It’s not an emotion. Love is the source of emotions. When you’re in love you feel joy. When I loved my last man, Gaya praise him, I felt all sorts – joy, happiness, excitement. Lust. Bit of anger.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Love,’ concluded Subadwan, getting the thoughts clear in her head, ‘love is wanting to get somebody inside you, almost. Or maybe get inside them.’

  Tanglanah nodded in agreement. ‘When we love, we want to map a person into our conscious mind, map them as deeply as we can. True love and true understanding are one and the same thing.’

  This sounded like a conclusion, but Subadwan did not want the pressure to let up on Tanglanah. ‘We?’ she asked. ‘Then you’ve loved somebody?’

  Tanglanah paused once more for thought. ‘People and pyutons are both creations,’ she said. ‘The creation I love is abstract. I want to understand it as best I can. But I have one problem.’

  Another pause. Subawan felt that here she was
meant to ask what the problem was. She remained silent.

  ‘That problem,’ Tanglanah continued, ‘is familiarity. One feels a kind of ennui sometimes. Somebody who is free of familiarity needs to experience my abstract country, to understand its strange moods.’

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘Possibly. I have not yet decided if anybody is to help me.’

  ‘Does this have anything to do with your Archive?’ Subadwan asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘I would not expect you to.’ Tanglanah’s eyes took on a sinister, yet fervent expression. ‘But if ever you experience this place, Subadwan, then you will as sure as black is black believe that my offer has nothing to do with my Archive.’

  Subadwan sat back. ‘That’s all?’

  Tanglanah nodded. ‘Think on this first discussion. It is a private matter, concerning neither your Archive nor mine. I will call you. Or you can call me at my Archive, although you will not want to identify yourself.’

  ‘Gaya love me, certainly not.’ Subadwan hesitated. She was intrigued, but… ‘You might as well know now that I’m not interested.’

  With easy movements Tanglanah stood, then walked to the door of the red room. ‘Give me a few minutes to leave, please.’

  Subadwan assented with a vague gesture, and then the Lord Archivist, wrapped tight in her robe, was gone. After five minutes Subadwan left the room, returned the locking fishtail to Merquetaine, and departed the courtyard.

  The pall covering Cray had lifted somewhat, letting through a weak solar glow, while the moon was also visible. Subadwan paused to study it, knowing that at this moment the telescopes and monoculars of the Archive of Selene would be trained upon its faint shape, looking for signs of change on its surface. Subadwan, who considered Selene’s memoirs vulgar, walked on.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sitting at his desk, Dwllis, Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, surveyed the fifty or so fragments of metal and plastic before him. They ranged in size from one no bigger than his thumbnail to a monster as large as his fist. These were antique memories, their collection and investigation being the task that took up most of his time, though why they were appearing remained a mystery to him and to the authorities he served. They could be found like cankers on street walls, as if they were being exuded by the city itself. He kept to himself the theory that they were the echo of an earlier city.

  He stood up and began to walk around his room, hands clasped at his belly. He was a tubby man of medium height, balding at the brow with brown fuzzlocks too long down his back. A pair of pale blue eyes were dominated by thick eyebrows, and there were dark rings underneath them. His mouth was small. With large flat feet, but extravagant jacket and kirtle, he looked like a fop trying to impress but not quite succeeding.

  So he considered his position in Cray. Without him, the information carried by the antique memories would stay buried in the labyrinthine worlds of abstract data present in Cray’s networks, data so profuse that the libraries of Noct stood by it as a speck of dust before a cliff. But he, a historian at heart, could not complain of their existence. Without him, the reification of Cray’s memories would go unexamined, unnoticed even. Yet in the mass of ancient administrative minutes and undated weather reports he was sure he had found something important. How could he convince the authorities of this?

  Perhaps he should use the tradition surrounding the Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, an ancient position, with himself the eighteenth incumbent. Alternatively, he could point to the fact that some Crayans brought him antique memories and thereby stress his relevance to the city. Or he could just carry on being ignored.

  He glanced at the thousands of disks, blocks and pyramids lying dust-covered on the shelves of his study. The collection was the work of centuries. He and previous Keepers had tried to explore the historical knowledge contained in these lumps of memory. Surely that must be worth something? It upset him that his position as guardian of Cray’s history was ridiculed, and although he dimly perceived the low status of academic research in a city threatened with destruction, he nonetheless thought people should value tradition.

  At length, unsettled by his inability to raise his spirits, he departed his study. From the hall of the Cowhorn Tower he heard a tapping. He stepped outside and looked up at the tiled exterior of the tower, to see that the tapping had been made by a family of dust-birds nesting where the rightmost extrusion met the main body. With irritated gestures their chisel beaks pecked at the tiles, in one place exposing the polythene superstructure. Tutting to himself, Dwllis searched the blue sward below the nest and retrieved three tiles, each a square of white and brown plastic with the texture of canvas. He pocketed these, glared up at the birds, then returned to the hall.

  Inside, door shut, he paused. ‘Etwe? Etwe?’ he called in his cultured baritone voice. ‘Etwe, those damnable birds are pecking off the tiles again. Three of them this time.’

  No reply. The Cowhorn Tower was silent. Twenty yards above him, where the bulk of the tower swelled out into an array of galleries served by a central staircase, Etwe should be building a memory interface.

  ‘Etwe? Are you there?’

  There came the sound of a door opening, and then, leaning over the wrought iron rail that ensured safety on the lower levels, he saw Etwe, a slim, striking beauty dressed in mauve silks. Free flowing blonde hair tumbled around her pale face as her grey eyes gazed upon him.

  He blew her a kiss. ‘Look,’ he said, exhibiting the tiles. ‘It’s those birds again. I’m tempted to requisition a team of Triader lackeys with a ladder, I am. Get them to put the tiles back and get rid of the pests.’

  ‘You do that,’ Etwe said.

  ‘Damnable birds.’

  There came a clunk from the entrance, and the thrum of the city penetrated the tower’s soundproofing. Somebody had opened the front door. Dwllis turned, and was astonished to see before him a gnostician carrying a knobbly gourd.

  It was a young male gnostician, fiery purple of skin with a fine coating of ginger hair. His chin tentacles were limp, like drooping whiskers, and his eyes were hooded, the round mouth above both these features clamped shut. His body hair had been shaved into a herringbone pattern. Gnosticians, apparently following bizarre mating rituals, shaved patterns on to themselves with remarkable precision. Dwllis knew that under the loose, grey shawl that the creature wore the pattern would continue. This one also wore wicker sandals and a floppy hat that, when he looked closely, seemed to be present for no other reason than to conceal a number of recently healed scars.

  The gnostician approached with the characteristic loping gait of its kind. Knowing that some were intelligent enough to follow simple signs, Dwllis signalled to a cup of water, then made drinking motions. ‘Good morning, my fellow. Drink, drink?’

  Dumb, the gnostician glanced between man and cup before offering up the gourd. Dwllis accepted it, then heard a rattling sound. Something inside. It was a pencil of silicon punctured by twenty metal insert points: an antique memory. This was the first time a gnostician had brought him one. It must be a magpie creature, copying the actions of human beings.

  He smiled and said, ‘I shall call you Crimson Boney, on account of your colour, and being so thin.’

  The hairs on Crimson Boney erected and he dipped his head. Diffidently, he glanced around the hall in which they stood. When Etwe began to descend the staircase he backed away, but he did not leave when she approached. The gnostician remained before them, alternately bowing and bobbing his head.

  Dwllis turned to Etwe. ‘This charming gnostician has brought me an antique memory.’

  Etwe took the device. ‘Standard silicon, probably found in the Old Quarter. I could manufacture an interface for that.’

  Dwllis nodded. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’ He returned his gaze to the creature. ‘What are you doing here, mmm? I’ve not seen one of your kind in here before.’

  ‘Do you think this is an intelligent one?’ Etwe a
sked.

  ‘Possibly. Go and carry on with your work.’ Dwllis took the hot hand of the gnostician and led it gently into his study, where he indicated the antique memories lying on shelves. Once Etwe’s footsteps had ceased, he tried to interest Crimson Boney in the memories, shaking and rattling them, even connecting one up to a liquid screen in order to show a display of architecture. The gnostician seemed to comprehend that it was attending a show, and Dwllis found himself both mortified and excited that at last he was not being treated as an eccentric. If only his fellow Crayans could cultivate such an attitude. In conclusion, he took the gourd, rattled a few antique memories inside it, then firmly handed back the emptied gourd and led the creature to the door, and outside.

  ‘Go find more!’ he said. His voice was deep and loud enough for it to penetrate the moderate din. He possessed a good pair of lungs, as many friends had pointed out. ‘Find more, Crimson Boney. Good boy.’

  Crimson Boney hesitated, then gazed out over the expanse of the Rusty Quarter. From this altitude it stretched out in shadow, pulsing veins of light marking the wider streets, here and there a cluster of pink or yellow lamps. Then he loped off down the track to Sphagnum Street. Dwllis wondered which of the colonies outside the city it had come from. Perplexed, he returned to the Cowhorn Tower.

  Gnosticians had appeared on Earth some five hundred years ago – so suggested the little historical information that he had so far collated – and the sanctuary of Cray had apparently been built in response to what was perceived as their threat. But the creatures were peaceful, and only xenophobes attacked them. Yet Dwllis found himself troubled by Crimson Boney’s appearance. In those deep parts of the Earth from which gnosticians had sprung, were there leaders with enough intelligence and malice to desire war? Was war even a concept they understood?

  ~

  The afternoon passed by quietly enough.

  It was because he never expected to see the gnostician again that he was taken aback when, at dusk, as diurnal shadows fled under fiery evening light, there stood inside his front door a hunched figure carrying a gourd.