It grew cold. Wetness surrounded him. His clothes were soaked. A woman with a bucket stood above him.
Time passed. He stared at the woman. Behind her shoulder the material from which the pumphouse was built showed a hole, and through that hole he saw a pale crescent.
That sight brought him around.
The Spacefish!
He managed to speak to the pyuton he now realised was Etwe. ‘My destiny lies in the Archive of Selene,’ he spluttered. He spat filthy water from his mouth. ‘We must go inside. Something happened there, Etwe, and we must discover what it was.’ From an inner pocket he withdrew the metal fishtail. ‘Querhidwe gave me this. It is the key to my life. It must be, there is no other answer. Come on Etwe, we had better go. Is it night or nocturnal day?’
‘It is midnight precisely,’ Etwe answered.
Dwllis found his mind clearing. He stood up. Tottered. His belly ached. ‘Have we any food?’
Etwe handed him packets of biscuits, which he ate to the very last crumb, washing down the mouldy meal with brown water in which dead leaves and other plant debris floated. He ate and drank it all. He wanted to be as fit as possible for this last task.
‘Are you willing to assist me?’ he asked Etwe.
‘If you say there is hope in that Archive, I must help you. But you know how dangerous it might be?’
‘I know full well.’ Dwllis drew himself up to his full height. ‘I have been there before, you know, and I know a secret way in.’
First checking the streets for aeromorphs, they departed the pumphouse. The city lay quiet. Dwllis gripped a rod of plastic, his only weapon, and wondered what lay in store.
~
Reeve Umia stared at his minion in amazement. ‘Pikeface is here to see me?’
The minion nodded.
Umia repeated, ‘That ghastly creature is here? To see me?’
The minion nodded again.
Umia sent the minion away. Alone again, he staggered back to the statue of Noct, where he fell in abasement. ‘Noct, save me. I did not request the presence of that lunar mutant. Why is he here? What will he say to me?’
The disembodied voice of Lune replied, ‘Umia, there is nothing to fear. This is a creature of Selene.’
‘But Gaijin is gone,’ said Umia. ‘What shall I do? Dear Gaijin is gone, and there is only you to advise me.’
‘Gaijin is not gone,’ Lune replied. ‘Gaijin now has other plans that do not include talking with you. But Gaijin is a black insect with no heart. We are well rid of her.’
‘But what shall I do?’
‘My advice is not to panic. The rumours of this creature cannot all be true. He is here to bully you, that is all. But you must not allow him to manipulate you. The Archive of Selene has split asunder, and Pikeface comes from the wrong side. Has Iquinlass contacted you?’
Umia shook his head in muzzy confusion. ‘Who? I recall the name, I think.’
‘Do not let Pikeface get the upper hand!’
‘Yes, yes… not take the upper hand.’ Umia pressed a pad on the control panel of a pyuter. ‘Send the lunar messenger in.’
Seconds later the door into Umia’s spherical chamber opened. Pikeface entered. The door shut with a snap.
Umia could barely look at the dreadful head. It slowly bent this way and that, as if trying to hypnotise him. Then Pikeface examined the layout of the chamber, studying the statue, the plants below, the furniture, the pyuters, all without moving from the door.
‘Why did you request this personal interview?’ Umia asked.
Pikeface approached. Umia smelled fish. He gagged. The merciless yellow eyes stared down at him.
Pikeface took a final look around the room, then answered, ‘I have come to have words with you.’
‘Why didn’t you just use the networks?’
Pikeface stared on. Lacking eyelids, he did not blink. Again Pikeface turned to study the chamber. He walked away, strolled around the circumference, then knelt down with a barrage of creaking armour to peer upon the pale garden. His body was immense. Umia watched, fascinated, horrified, repelled by this gargantuan presence and yet unable to look away.
Pikeface approached. ‘So the legend is true?’
‘What legend would that be?’
‘That the Reeve of Cray lives here alone, never to leave, at the centre of his hierarchical web.’
‘That is true.’
Pikeface’s head slowly swayed, to the left, to the right, to the left again, like a sly animal about to pounce. ‘Then you are alone here, Umia.’
‘Apart from you.’
The pike mouth opened. Umia heard a hiss. ‘What is the origin of this custom?’
Umia, keen – desperate – to placate the creature, said in a flurry of words, ‘Cray was founded five hundred years ago by folk enthusiastic to stem the gnostician invasion. It is thought that the city, once begun, built itself using plans contained in ancient memories. That is why I have fought the curse of vitrescence, and why I ordered the purge on those foul glasier gnosticians.’
‘You stray from the topic, Umia. What is the origin of the custom of Reeve solitude?’
‘It is ancient custom, of course. The legend says that if the Reeve of Umia goes amongst his people he will learn too much of them and their lives, and so become unworthy. A leader must be apart from the rabble, you understand–’
‘So the Reeve must remain here. Alone.’
Umia hesitated. ‘I would not phrase it like that. I have my hierarchy. The work of ruling, of administration, it goes on despite my not knowing the exact details.’
Pikeface took something from the pocket of his outer cloak. ‘Do you know what this is?’
‘It is a metal fishtail. Why do you ask?’
‘With this fishtail I have just made myself Lord Archivist of Selene. With it I shall make myself Reeve of Cray. Somewhere in this city there lies a vehicle in which I can approach Selene, the Spacefish. I must find it. Now die, Umia.’
‘No!’
But Umia flinched too late. Pikeface spun him around and stabbed him in the back several times, until he fell with a gurgle. His body twitched. Pikeface knelt and stripped the body, then began ripping at the plastic flesh with his teeth, gorging himself on chunks of neoprene, spattering white fluid everywhere, on himself, all around, upon the plants below. He left no part of the body untouched, gobbling bioware and flesh, cracking bones, consuming the brown brain after smashing the skull with one chop of a bare hand. Ten minutes passed. The feast ended. All that was left of Umia was a steaming carcass, wetly brown and strewn with metal grit. Above it stood the satisfied, belching hulk of Pikeface.
A weak voice spoke. Pikeface paused, listened. It was coming from Umia’s replacement forearm. Pikeface stamped on the metal limb until it was silent.
He turned to the statue of Noct. ‘Now I will investigate you,’ he said.
He pushed over the statue. Falling, it dented the metal gauze that was the dividing floor of the chamber. Pikeface took the statue and began pulling at it, tugging the arms off, gouging out the opalescent eyes, biting off the lips, pulling away the feet, then the legs, until all that was left was a pile of plastic, dark and crumbling. He kicked chunks about, but found nothing that drew his attention.
Having smashed up the furniture to his satisfaction, he descended to the pale garden. The oozing compost sucked and squelched at his boots, dragging even his formidable bulk down. He floundered about, pulling up plants but ignoring the screams of their roots, crushing kissleaves in his fingers, biting and hacking, until all was mud and debris, and a few skeletons. But still he did not find what he was looking for.
He returned to the upper chamber. No clue to the vehicle was here. He strode to the door.
A force sent him reeling. He tried to depart again. He failed again. Something invisible, inaudible, was barring his exit.
He had not damaged the pyuter rigs because of the data they might hold. He pressed a communications pad.
�
��This is the new Reeve of Cray. The old Reeve, Umia, is dead. I am the new Reeve and my orders will be obeyed because Noct is thrown down. Turn off the force field. Turn it off by all that is sacred in the beams of Selene’s light.’
But still Pikeface could not leave.
‘Turn it off!’ he bellowed into the communications rig.
The door was open. Scribes were gathering outside, staring in at the chaos. Pikeface tried to run at them. The force field hurled him back. One of the braver scribes grabbed the door and pulled it shut.
Pikeface lay alone in the chamber.
CHAPTER 21
Dwllis and Etwe crouched at the rear door of the Archive of Selene. The glowing crescent sigil was dim. Behind them a sheer glass wall stood, where once plastic and metal sheeting had been. The unaccustomed cold made Dwllis shiver.
‘Which is the grille you pulled off before?’ Etwe asked.
Dwllis tried to remember. It seemed so long. ago. His head had cleared somewhat, but his mind was snoozing. Caught by feelings of uncertainty he began to sense qe’lib’we withdrawal symptoms once again. ‘That one,’ he said firmly, standing up and walking over to the grille he had pointed at. ‘Yes, this one.’ It was pretend decisiveness, but it was enough to mitigate his symptoms.
Etwe joined him and helped him pull away the rusty grille. They slipped into the Archive.
Dwllis recognised the store room that he and Cuensheley had entered, pointing out to Etwe its yellow glowing floor, the pieces of broken plastic crescent, and the only door. ‘Just out there, go left, then down the stairs, and we will be in the research area,’ he instructed Etwe.
She led the way. The Archive was silent, though a faint humming could be heard, as of an engine rumbling far off. Dwllis doubted the place would be empty, but it should at least be quiet.
He had ascertained from Etwe that the Spacefish was presently below the horizon. ‘Soon,’ she had said, ‘it will be only a few hundred miles above the Earth. They say it’ll just hang above the city, as if by magic. The noctechnes claim they’ll shoot it down.’
They crept down the corridor that led to the gnostician room. Dwllis was worried to find the door open, hinges broken, more so when he saw no gnosticians inside, nor any pyuters. ‘Something bad has occurred,’ he said. ‘I hope there hasn’t been a massacre.’
Etwe paused for thought. ‘It’s possible that they were all transported out of the city,’ she suggested.
Dwllis tried to remember what he knew of the augmented gnosticians. ‘I think they said they had no friends outside,’ he whispered.
‘Sshhh!’ hissed Etwe.
Dwllis heard gnostician voices. They followed the corridor down, arriving at a number of cells containing one gnostician each. He saw one that reminded him of Crimson Boney. ‘Speak to that one,’ he urged.
With Etwe translating, Dwllis learned what had happened. ‘The fish-faced man has killed the old high man and assumed his place. All is chaos. The place is feverish with plots. The fish-faced man said we were bad creatures and we must not speak to one another. He had muscle men drag us to these cells. You must let us free!’
Dwllis was tempted. ‘You say Pikeface is the new Lord Archivist of Selene?’
‘Yes. He is a selfish man. He doesn’t act nicely to us. We helped moon folk with their plans, and this is how we are repaid. It is a bad thing.’
Dwllis rattled the doors, but they were steel shod polythene. Too tough. ‘I cannot force these cell doors,’ he said, ‘but we will continue to explore, and maybe find a set of fishtails.’ Experimentally he tried his own, but it did not fit in the lock groove. ‘We will be back, I promise. I tried to fight the purges but I was almost killed for my trouble. Don’t worry, I am on your side.’
‘Hurry back,’ was the gnostician’s only reply.
They explored the remainder of the cell sector, finding nothing. Returning to the main gnostician room, Dwllis paused to look inside, hoping to spot a clue.
A hiss, something whisking by, and he was pulled against the wall. He struggled; he was caught. He looked to his right to see Etwe also caught, although the thin black wires that entangled her had missed one arm and she was trying to struggle free. On the ceiling a full moon, creamy yellow, faded up into brightness, and he looked down at his body to see a tracery of wires binding him to the wall. No hope of escape.
He felt his withdrawal symptoms returning again, but he could not even fidget. All he could do was stamp his feet. ‘Escape, escape!’ he called out to Etwe, since she at least had one arm free.
‘I am trying to pull the cords away,’ Etwe replied.
Bootsteps. Dwllis put all his efforts into shaking himself free, but in vain. He looked to his left to see a solitary woman approaching, an Archivist judging by her white gown and yellow hood.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said.
Iquinlass. She pulled the hood from her face.
‘It’s you,’ she repeated.
‘Madam Archivist,’ Dwllis began, ‘we intended no harm–’
‘Dwllis, I need your help urgently.’ Iquinlass slapped at the wall, and with whipping sounds the wires retracted. With a white fishtail she opened a concealed door on the opposite side of the corridor. ‘Quickly,’ she said, gesturing them with windmilling arms into a room.
It was a tiny room, just six feet square, illuminated by a glowing crescent wall-lamp. Inside stood one divan, one rig of pyuters, and a number of plastic incense tripods. Iquinlass shut the door.
They all sat. ‘What’s happened?’ Etwe asked.
Iquinlass addressed Dwllis. ‘I have no choice but to tell you this,’ she began. She was on edge, her face telling of fatigue, her eyes of dismay. ‘Pikeface has assassinated Tierquthay and become Lord Archivist. He went to see the Reeve, but he hasn’t come back yet. There were two factions: Pikeface and Tierquthay; Querhidwe and myself. Now I’m alone and I don’t have any allies, and to make things worse I don’t know the full story. Querhidwe never told me it all.’
‘What story would that be?’ Dwllis asked.
‘The story of you and Pikeface. I don’t know where Pikeface originated from, but I believe you were born here.’
Etwe and Dwllis chorused, ‘Here?’
‘Yes, in this building. I was only a human child from Gaya when you were born, but Querhidwe, she was a pyuton, much older–’
‘But I was born here?’ Dwllis said. ‘Why? How? Of whom?’
Iquinlass sighed. ‘I don’t know exactly. Only Querhidwe knew. She carried on the work that her predecessor started. I’ve been trying to find out who – what – Pikeface is, but, well, it’s not easy. You see, we saw something of the future surrounding you two, and that created the two factions; one supporting you, one supporting Pikeface. There were terrible arguments. Anyway, that’s the reason my faction stirred up the lens. We tried to make you see the part of yourself encoded into the fate of Cray. You see, Querhidwe thought that part of your future dead self lay quiescent in the city.’
Dwllis shook his head. ‘I cannot understand even one word of this, madam, not one single word.’ He looked at her, as if by the force of his helpless stare he could wring the answers out of her.
‘I know how you feel,’ Iquinlass said in sincere tones. ‘I feel as if the whole city is on my shoulders. I don’t know what to do. And now you turn up, and force me to act, to tell you…’
She seemed close to tears. Dwllis asked her, ‘Did you know that Querhidwe sent me a silver fishtail?’ He brought it out and held it up on its chain.
Iquinlass stared. Her expression changed from misery to excitement. ‘So that’s what he lost. The liar!’
‘Explain,’ Dwllis demanded.
‘Tierquthay told me he had lost the fishtail of an old box, but I always suspected it was more important than that.’ Iquinlass took the fishtail from Dwllis’ trembling hand and held it under the lunar lamp. ‘This is the activation key of the lunar orb. Look at the fine sigils engraved into it. Querhidwe must have given it
to you to thwart the enemy faction.’
‘But what will it do?’
Iquinlass stood. ‘We must find out. It could be crucial.’
‘But–’
‘Pikeface left the orb in the main shrine. Nobody has dared touch it, but if Pikeface isn’t here…’
Through a maze of corridors Iquinlass led them, her pale cloak fluttering, until, having climbed a claustrophobic spiral staircase, they emerged into the auditorium in which Dwllis had attempted to make his address. On the cushion of the central throne, basking in the light thrown by a thousand yellow sequins, lay the orb.
‘We believe it is a relic from the birth of the city,’ Iquinlass said, leading them towards it. ‘I’m not sure I should touch it.’
‘Ordinarily,’ Etwe said, ‘this would never be left by whosoever rightfully held it?’
‘Never. Querhidwe carried it everywhere. So did Tierquthay. It is distilled moonbeams, the very quick of Selene. But Pikeface maybe has other, more important concerns.’
‘Then you must use the fishtail.’
Iquinlass hesitated. Overcome by events, Dwllis sat down to watch.
‘Hurry,’ Etwe said.
At the top of the orb was a narrow slot, into which Iquinlass placed the fishtail. Immediately the orb fell apart into hemispheres, revealing a green fishtail almost the size of a hand. Iquinlass picked it up. With a snap the orb reformed itself.
‘Another fishtail?’ Etwe said.
Iquinlass nodded, then handed it to Dwllis.
‘Querhidwe must have wanted you to have it.’
‘I wonder what it is,’ Dwllis said, closely examining the fishtail.
‘Two factions are struggling,’ Iquinlass said, ‘and there will be one of two outcomes. This fishtail must be a sign from the past.’
‘We struggle in the dark,’ Dwllis observed.
‘We can guess something,’ Etwe said. ‘If Querhidwe knew that the orb never left the hand of its rightful owner, she intended Dwllis to receive this green fishtail when somebody of her own faction was Lord Archivist.’
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