Glass

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘Go away father, if you’re determined to be an utter fool.’

  His tone hardened. ‘Father is it? Subadwan, you won’t be telling me to go away in a few years… if I come to visit you.’

  ‘If? So you’re just going to ignore me?’

  ‘Umia could not have acted wrongly. Besides, the law says the Lord Archivist of Gaya–’

  ‘I know all that,’ said Subadwan. ‘Go away if you can’t even be original.’

  ‘I was just trying to point out that I follow the law.’

  ‘There’s a higher law than Crayan Law,’ Subadwan said.

  ‘Trite nonsense.’

  Subadwan glared at him. ‘What about Baths law?’ she asked.

  That took him by surprise. Subadwan awaited the burst of anger. He replied, ‘How clever you are now you are one whole quarter of a century old. Well, I shall just leave you to consider your actions for the next quarter of a century.’ Now he was tugging at his beard, his eyes flashing. ‘Perhaps then you will have something different to say to me.’

  He reassembled the key and made to leave.

  ‘If you’re still alive then,’ Subadwan said, calculating her words for maximum effect.

  ‘I will be,’ he retorted, ‘if only to see how much you have changed.’

  Brynnon unlocked the door and departed.

  As the rest of the day passed, an inner sense told Subadwan that Brynnon would be the last visitor she would entertain for some time. Well that at least gave her something to think about.

  She toured her prison, looking for cracks in the plastic, looking around the lavatory hole and the lift door, checking the seals of the sash window and the skylight. Nothing.

  Night arrived. Standing tip-toed on the chair she studied the sky. The aeromorphs were low. She counted them. One, two… seven… a few more to the east: eight and nine.

  For an hour she examined the heavens, counting and recounting the aeromorphs until, as if her unconscious mind had for some time been on the verge of solving a puzzle, a sudden understanding came. The synthesis of facts.

  There were thirteen aeromorphs. Now four had descended from the sky. How could it be otherwise? She herself had experienced part of Gwmru inside an aeromorph, led there by Tanglanah. The electronic beings were indeed connected to the aeromorphs. So if the flying machines were destroyed, then maybe…

  Escape was essential.

  CHAPTER 20

  Every morning Dwllis woke to a fresh lump of qe’lib’we taken from Cuensheley’s inexhaustible supply. This morning was no different. Hearing him move about the room, Cuensheley awoke. She smiled at him. ‘My outer addict,’ she said.

  ‘Good morning, Cuensheley. My status is no joke.’

  ‘Don’t be so fussy. Come here.’

  Dwllis laughed. ‘Why?’

  She threw the bedclothes off and sat up. Dwllis had seen her naked once or twice before, an unavoidable intimacy caused by sharing a room, but this action was different. A direct, lusty look shone in her eyes. Dwllis felt his heart begin to pound with distrust and apprehension.

  ‘Come here, I said,’ she repeated.

  He sat, not moving. She crawled over to him, caressed him, and kissed him. For some minutes he half enjoyed her attentions. Memories of Etwe lay far away. She straddled him and with surprisingly deft movements stripped off his gown. Dwllis knew what she wanted.

  He tensed. ‘Relax,’ she said, one hand upon him, the other upon herself. ‘Relax, Dwllis…’

  But he could not. Once he realised there was no going back, that she intended to seduce him all the way, he clawed at her, trying to roll himself up into a ball. But she was a strong woman and she was on top of him. She resisted; she demanded. In sudden panic Dwllis yelped and struggled free of her, leaving her wide-eyed and astonished on her hands and knees.

  ‘How dare you?’ he said. ‘What do you think you were doing?’

  ‘I should have thought it was obvious. What’s the matter?’

  Hastily he pulled on his underwear. ‘I gave you no permission, did I?’

  She looked at a loss. ‘Permission? Don’t you want to be my lover now you’ve left Etwe?’

  ‘I never said so.’

  ‘Words aren’t everything. Honestly, if I’m so distasteful to you, why didn’t you sleep somewhere else?’

  Dwllis gasped at her audacity. ‘It was you who forced me into this room. I wanted to sleep in the other room.’ He threw on some city clothes, snatched at random.

  She seemed angered. ‘I thought we agreed you couldn’t go there, you idiot. What’s this all about? Am I too old for you, or what?’

  ‘We have a mild friendship, that is all. I do not need you if you must know. I hope never to have to come here again – and I hope I never see you again.’

  Then he approached her and from her neck ripped the silver fishtail given to him by Querhidwe. With no further word he turned and departed, slamming the door; the only emotional gesture he allowed himself. At speed he descended, leaving the Copper Courtyard by the public exit, Ilquisrey’s earmuffs, grabbed from a table, upon his ears.

  Some streets away he paused. He was in Red Lane. He hurried down to the Damp Courtyard and bought a peppermint soda. Then he congratulated himself on his escape.

  So the day passed. He stayed in the Damp Courtyard. He realised that he had, under the stress of the moment, dressed in the first clothes to hand. They were an inelegant mixture of garments that ordinarily he would have scorned. Now he felt embarrassed to be seen in public.

  He truly was a street outer now, with no home and no friends, very little money, no possessions, and no prospects. A certain amount of shock dulled his thought – he did not consider himself one of the ragged urchins he so often saw, despite the possibility that he might become one – and so when he was ejected from the Damp Courtyard in the evening he thought himself somehow different to the beggars and the half-dead alcoholics.

  It was cold for the time of year. Normally the city was suffocatingly close, but now the air was cool. It was quieter, too.

  Drifting south, he ended up in a vitrified doorway on Feverfew Street. An aeromorph rushed by. There was just enough time to hide beneath a clot of plastic that had accumulated in one corner. Seconds later the glass around him shattered and he was covered in fragments. He crawled out. The house seemed unsafe so he ran off down the street, dodging pipes, ducts, ducking under swaying tubes that hissed out steam.

  The whole length of the street was one mass of glass, shattered in places, elsewhere a crush of darkly gleaming surfaces. Only the street plastic was untouched, except at the edges where vitrification was taking hold. At the further end he saw a flickering illusion of reflections, concealing the exit and the buildings there, and for some seconds he was dizzily hypnotised by the lights, the glass, the twisting refractions, so that he had to crouch down to steady himself.

  And, as he wandered south, he noticed that the ochre disease was spreading. He stumbled across human bodies, all hard as marble and translucent like medical models, their organs dull internal shapes. Everywhere lay the small sallow corpses of urban animal life. Afraid that such a condition might be contagious, he touched nothing.

  He felt tired. It was late evening. From a sleeping outer stretched half across an alley he stole a hat, the better to disguise himself. He realised there were more street people than there used to be, doubtless the result of vitrification. Where could they go? Where could he go?

  In the end, rather ashamed of himself, he found a clear doorway set deep into an old plastic house on Five Street, just behind the Water Purification House. With rumbling stomach and dry mouth, he tried to settle himself.

  Sleep came much later. Hunger, thirst, and fear of discovery by aeromorphs jangled his nerves, seeing slumber off except for two snatched hours around dawn.

  Then the withdrawal symptoms began. Automatically he reached into his pocket for his film-wrapped lump of qe’lib’we, to find nothing, not even an empty wrapper from which he co
uld lick the crumbs. Fear gripped him. Qe’lib’we he could not do without. The damnable Cuensheley had enticed him with larger and larger doses. He would have to go back and plead. It would not be easy.

  Dizzy from deprivation, and with an itching, stinging sensation along his veins, he made his way to the Rusty Quarter, approaching the Copper Courtyard from a narrow passage to the south, so as not to attract attention. The public entrance was lit ‘open’, and he saw Ilquisrey inside serving a young couple. He opened the door and entered the quadrangle.

  Ilquisrey turned and saw him. Her face darkened and she ran at him, grabbing a tureen spoon on the way. Dwllis withdrew. At the door she yelled at him, ‘You said you weren’t coming back! Get away! If you ever come back here again I’ll slit your throat with my own biscuit knife.’

  Dwllis, at a safe distance, replied, ‘I did not wish to speak with you, but with your mother.’

  Ilquisrey’s fury was tangible. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? She never wants you here again. Never, d’you understand? I’m warning you, you fat, bald fop, if I ever come across you in the streets you’ll feel my blade go straight through your heart – if you’ve got one. Now get out of our alley!’

  Dwllis had no choice but to leave. Withdrawal symptoms worsened as depression struck. He felt as if every artery and every vein was itching. In addition, hunger and thirst made him giddy, made his stomach hurt, and he felt a dull tiredness.

  The appearance of Etwe was a relief. She saw him first, in an alley off Marjoram Street. ‘Dwllis,’ she called, ‘I’ve been looking for you around here since the Triaders came. Are you all right?’

  ‘No,’ he croaked in reply.

  ‘How long have you been wandering?

  ‘One day.’

  ‘Come to the Swamps,’ she said, helping him to walk. He felt better for the attention. ‘We’ll get some water.’

  ‘Swamps water? I can’t drink Swamps water. Do you have any triad tokens on you?’

  ‘None. But there is a way to filter the water.’

  Dwllis retched in reply. At the Swamps wall he collapsed. From a low bush with achlorician-stripped leaves Etwe plucked a spherical fruit, which she broke in half, using one half as a basin and the other to filter water from the gelatinous liquid. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘there aren’t any bodies here. Drink it, it’s safe.’

  Dwllis had no option. Quickly he drank the water, trying not to taste it, but breathing out he caught an odour of rancid dust in his mouth, which made him retch once more. He began rubbing his hand up and down his arm in an attempt to soothe the internal itching. ‘Damnable woman,’ he muttered. ‘Damnable woman threw me out.’

  ‘You should have stayed with me,’ Etwe remarked.

  He looked up at her. He felt confused. Was this a new enemy or an old friend? And Cuensheley: was she lost forever, or had her vicious daughter lied? He did not know, and he possessed no energy with which to find out.

  ‘I must have qe’lib’we,’ he said in phlegmy tones. ‘I shall die if I do not. Perhaps tomorrow.’

  ‘It would be better to give up now,’ Etwe advised. ‘We are outers with no–’

  ‘I am an outer,’ Dwllis interrupted sourly, ‘but no pyuton is offered that status. You always have the option of returning to that damned Triad Tower.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I want to help you.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Dwllis started rubbing at his legs. He found that he could not put them in a comfortable position. If he rested them, one or the other would itch internally, would ache, and he would be forced to move. It was a constant torment.

  ‘I do want to help,’ Etwe insisted. Her long blonde hair brushed across his face as she moved closer. ‘How could I return to Triad Tower when you are here, with no food or friends? It would kill me inside, Dwllis.’

  Dwllis looked up at her. The words sounded sincere. Repressed memories of pyuton happiness came to mind. Etwe would be a useful assistant, he realised, not subject to the wear and tear, to the hungers and needs of the real world; somebody he could use to get what he wanted.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I need food urgently. How can we get some?’

  ‘Steal some. Or join an outer group.’

  ‘An outer group? What is an outer group?’

  Etwe, a smile on her face, sat at his side. ‘Cray’s outers don’t just wander in singles, or pairs. There are some organisations. We could join one to get food.’

  ‘I have had enough of people,’ Dwllis said. ‘People have let me down, as always.’ He ruminated on his troubles for a minute.

  ‘I know what is best for you,’ Etwe replied.

  Dwllis could not believe his ears. Speechless, he stared. She seemed just like the old Etwe. Even the voice was identical. But where did this disobedient streak come from? ‘What exactly are you?’ he demanded. ‘How did you spoil my translation work, and how did you get this body?’

  ‘That is my affair. Content yourself with the knowledge that I am back to look after you, like I did in the old days.’

  ‘I damned well shall not.’

  Etwe did not lose her sweet reason. ‘You have no option. You are destitute, an outer, with no idea how to find food. You have enemies, but no friends and no money. You need me.’

  ‘I have my pride.’

  ‘And pride kills.’

  Dwllis slumped. All she had said was true. He knew it, or half knew it, for full admission cost too much. Of course he could not admit that to her face. He said, ‘What, out of curiosity, do you suggest that we do?’

  ‘We must find a safe house in which to shelter. I shall go out and look for food.’ She stood up. ‘Follow me.’

  Meekly, Dwllis followed his pyuton saviour down to Sphagnum Street. ‘Let us try to find somewhere in Cochineal Mews,’ he said. ‘I used to live there. I know it well.’

  Etwe agreed. The further part of the mews, abutting on to Sphagnum Mews, was vitrified and showed evidence of the ochre plague, but the near end was clear and clean. Here they found an old pumphouse, empty, desolate, but suitable for their needs. It was a two-roomed ruin with cracking plastic and rusty floors. They found plastic shavings, old clothes and pieces of dead vegetation which they made into bedding. Dwllis, ashamed at what he was being forced to do, felt an incoherent, dull anger at all the world. The withdrawal symptoms did not help. Now he was shivering, fidgeting, unable to keep still for the dreadful ache of his limbs. He suffered simultaneously from fatigue and hyper-alertness.

  To keep his mind off his aching body he began to talk to Etwe about his childhood in Cochineal Mews. ‘I was a quiet boy, you know. I never played with the other fellows like I was supposed to. Instead, I went around collecting odd twigs and bits of stone and nicely shaped fragments of dead buildings. I used to arrange them all in groups, you see, in order. I always loved order as a boy. I was a compulsive arranger of things. I suspect that’s when my interest in Cray’s history began. I remember realising all these things that had happened that nobody cared about. I saw that they were all jumbled up, all these old facts and events and things, and I wanted to do something about it. I can remember lots of things about my childhood. It was always too hot, but I never complained. It was a tight household, ours, with certain rules that you had to follow, but the trouble was nobody ever told me what they were, and I had to find them out by experience. They were good times, though. I don’t mind now that it was so… difficult. Nothing was ever easy for me. Even arranging my pieces of twig and suchlike was frowned upon. I remember thinking that there must be ten rules for things not to do for every rule that said you could do something…’

  And so eventually he fell asleep, in Etwe’s arms.

  ~

  When he awoke next morning, he was rolling about the floor, limbs and head aching, itching, driving him to the edge of madness. He craved his drug, but his mind was too clouded to think of schemes to get some. All he wanted was for some to arrive. Etwe shone in his thoughts like a beacon.

  �
�Get qe’lib’we,’ he managed to croak.

  She offered him water and broken biscuits. ‘Forget the drug,’ she said. ‘I found these packets behind the Glyptographic Courtyard with other rubbish. They’re old, but edible.’

  Dwllis scoffed the stale crumbly biscuits. Nausea rose in his guts, but he managed to hold the meal down. The food brought the focus of his clouded mind back to his body, making the craving for qe’lib’we worse, centred on his stomach, as if a cold pit lay there, waiting for warm drug-laden digestive fluids to appear. He rolled around some more, then made the effort to stand, encouraged by Etwe in a cooing voice. He failed.

  He saw no future. He would die soon. He felt as though his circulatory system was being dissolved from the inside.

  Lying desolate on the floor, the city around him only half real, a shadow of its former self, he began chewing at the fingers on his left hand. It dulled the ache. Etwe tried to stop him, and this led to fights, one-sided fights, since he was far too weak to resist her. So he took to hammering his hand and feet against the wall – it transmuted the ache to pain – until Etwe again stopped him. He yelled at her to leave him. Etwe said something about tying him up, but he screamed so loudly that she decided not to. He began shivering again, and this she could not stop. He felt he had won a victory. He shivered as much as he could. It negated some of the ache, but, more importantly, it annoyed Etwe.

  Time itself became a tormentor. The red blazes of dawn and dusk were out of sight. He had no idea of the hour, of the day. Plastic delirium surrounded him. He imagined every slight sparkle, every mote of light to be a sign of the luminophages. Anything yellow he screamed at. Etwe fluttered around him. Often he thought she was Cuensheley handing him lumps of qe’lib’we, so he would crawl across to her and beg for the stuff, offering her any and every sexual service, pulling down his kirtle and underwear, until Etwe convinced him she was not Cuensheley, and he collapsed, sobbing.

  The point of crisis came when he started to realise that the pumphouse was itself made of qe’lib’we. How he missed that fact before he did not know. He could smell the yeasty smell, could feel the drug giving like a plump cushion under his fingertips. But for some reason he could not rip any off, and scrabbling at the floor produced nothing.