The Inferior

by Peadar O'Guilin

  ‘You didn’t say where are we.’

  ‘We are in the old p-p-part of the Ways. I…I am sorry, Indrani. I have done something v-v-very stupid. I stole you out of Wallbreaker’s house and now we will b-both d-d-d-die.’

  Indrani shocked him by throwing back her head and laughing until she was too weak to laugh any more. Later, when Stopmouth cut up some of the remaining Bloodskin flesh, she looked at it in disgust.

  ‘If you knew what I w-w-went through to bring you that f-f-food, you wouldn’t t-t-turn your nose up so easily!’

  ‘Keep it, then!’ she said. ‘It is good I die.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No,’ she said. She closed her eyes and spoke wearily. ‘I sorry you die, Stopmouth. I sorry you and me cannot go home to our Tribes.’

  ‘Tell me about your Tribe,’ he asked, more to make peace than anything else.

  ‘Your brother always ask. Always, always. But even if I tell, there are not the words in his head to see.’ She pointed at the Roof and the Globes which hung directly overhead. ‘My Tribe is there. My Tribe watches me and it laughs. Many there are glad I hurt. Many are not, but quiet now. Very quiet. Afraid to ask for me.’

  She seemed terribly sad.

  ‘Your T-Tribe live in the Globes?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Globes are…No, we live in Roof. I tell only you this who save me. Not Wallbreaker.’

  Stopmouth hid his delight at these words by studying the Roof. Sometimes from the tallest towers he’d seen how it curved down towards the horizon. Tribal legend spoke of how the Traveller and his band of hunters had almost reached it before disaster had struck. He told Indrani the story, but she just smiled and shook her head.

  ‘The Roof never, never comes to here!’ she said.

  Her smugness angered him and he was on the point of storming off to hunt when she opened her eyes wide and sat up.

  ‘Wait, Stopmouth. I’m sorry. You are right. The Roof not come to here, but there is one place where here reaches to Roof. You must walk many, many territories to find this one place.’

  So it was true after all! The Traveller had found the end of the Roof! Stopmouth imagined going there himself, climbing inside and looking down on Wallbreaker from above. What strange creatures must live there, and what hunts could be had! No wonder Indrani turned up her nose at the flesh here below. A pity, he thought, that no human could ever survive such a journey. Even the Traveller had only seen the place from a distance. And he alone of a band of ten fierce hunters had returned to tell the tale.

  ‘Stopmouth,’ said Indrani, answering his grin, ‘I see you think as I do. You must to take me there!’ She put one hand halfway to his, and then, with a shiver, withdrew it. ‘You cannot go to your Tribe, but my Tribe, if I go there, must to take me. And you too if you are with me.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, delighted to see her smile. He knew she’d change her mind when she recovered her strength. For now, it was enough to share impossible dreams as he and Wallbreaker had done so often. But Indrani hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘The Roof is many distant from here,’ she said, ‘with many eaters of flesh.’ She made a disgusted face. ‘We cannot to go without the Talker. We must to get the Talker back from…from him.’

  Stopmouth gaped at her. Did she really think he’d sacrifice the Tribe’s one chance at survival to save himself? Obviously it was the fever talking and not her. And yet Stopmouth was young. He was stronger than he’d ever been in his life and in love with an extraordinary woman. He watched her as she collapsed back into exhaustion and at that moment knew he would do anything to keep her safe, even if it meant crossing half the world.

  ‘I know where I m-might find another T-T-Talker,’ he said. ‘T-tell me if I’m r-r-right.’

  Stopmouth couldn’t look at the walls around Bloodskin without a tremor of horror. The last time he’d stood here, Rockface had led him through this very window. A tenth of a night later he was lying with blocks of stone embedded in his legs. He swallowed back his terror and poked his spear through the gap. It was still unblocked, so he heaved himself up and crawled inside. There, he waited for his eyes to adjust before moving forward. The house hadn’t changed since his last visit. No creature made its home there, except perhaps the tiny ones who lived in the moss and who, according to Wallbreaker, ate only plants and not each other.

  He came to the door onto the street and listened hard for sounds of Bloodskins.

  When Indrani heard that he meant to come here, she had shouted at him and called him a fool. Then she’d wanted to come with him.

  ‘It is my fault,’ she’d said. ‘And I fight good!’

  ‘You’re still too w-w-weak, Indrani,’ he’d replied, not wanting to hurt her feelings. Really, he thought, she’d slow him down. He couldn’t hunt with somebody too afraid to come within touching distance of him.

  As he looked out onto the terrible streets of Blood-Ways, he wished he’d given in and let her come. What harm, he thought, if they both died here instead of at some other point on the mad journey she’d proposed? And if he didn’t make it back, what chance of survival would she have anyway, surrounded by enemies and unable to hunt?

  He heard nothing–the Bloodskins in this area must have all been asleep. He retraced his footsteps from the night of his injury: up one long street of mostly empty houses; round the corner to where the wreckage of a Globe had reduced the buildings to dangerous rubble.

  When he stood in front of the house where his legs had been smashed, his memories so terrified him that he lingered in the dangerous open for many heartbeats before slipping inside. A great quantity of rubble cluttered the doorway, more than he remembered. Holes gaped in walls and sometimes he could see twisted bars of metal underneath. They flaked under his hands. Stopmouth found his way back into the room where he’d had his accident. No fire lay in wait for him this time; only darkness. He tried to slow his breathing and listened intently to the sounds of the house. All was still.

  He unpacked the equipment he’d brought. First he removed the hides, which he stretched across the ruined doorway to the room. Rubble had already blocked most of it and for that he thanked the spirits. Next he used a bit of tinder and some scraps of wood he found in the hallway to light a small fire of his own.

  Shadows danced about the walls, but now Stopmouth could see the wreckage above him. A curtain of metal hairs still hung from the hole in the ceiling, while the rest of the Globe had slipped deeper into the room. He could reach it just by raising his hands and standing on his toes. The metal was sharp in places, sharp enough to cut his thumb when he touched it. The whole thing looked unstable, as if it still had farther to fall. This worried him, especially when he thought about what had happened the last time he was here. But if he and Indrani were to have any chance of survival, there could be no turning back. So he licked the blood from his thumb and set about the task of building a pile of rubble tall enough to stand on. It looked very shaky when he’d finished. Tiny fragments, like the ones he used to chip off walls as a boy, lay everywhere. At that moment he had a memory of Wallbreaker scolding him for damaging masonry before either of them had ever dipped a spear: ‘You shouldn’t, Stopmouth,’ Wallbreaker had said. ‘I know you can’t see it, but someday there’ll be no more buildings. Nobody knows how to make them–certainly no human. Well, maybe I will.’ He’d grinned then, his dimples already prominent. ‘See all those straight lines on the forest floor, brother? Houses once upon a time. Definitely houses.’

  Stopmouth’s pile of rubble now reached almost to the black maw of the torn Globe. He lit a torch from the fire and climbed to the top, wary of standing straight until he’d passed under the jags of metal.

  Here, bright colours danced in the light of the flames. He saw designs that would have bamboozled the Hairbeasts: curls and glinting lines. Strange, strange shapes packed the insides of the Globe. When he reached up, his hand found most of the surface to be soft, like skin over layers of fat. Tiny black designs ran
across some areas and seemed to move from the corners of his eyes. He pulled at several items. Nothing came loose, although once the entire Globe creaked as if it were about to fall down on top of him.

  Stopmouth wanted to spend more time investigating these wonders. Here, at last, he’d seen something that Wallbreaker never would. But he’d come for a reason, so he stopped fumbling about and whispered the phrase Indrani had taught him.

  ‘Acteevate!’ he said.

  Nothing happened. He cursed himself as Indrani had cursed him with words he’d never taught her. ‘Easy!’ she had said. ‘So easy it is! Activate! Activate! Activate! Just say it!’

  Three little sounds and it had taken him the best part of a day before he could approximate Indrani’s pronunciation.

  ‘Perhaps I n-n-need one of your ancestors to p-p-possess me,’ he’d said. She cursed him even more, and although she was still weak, she looked as if she wanted to hit him.

  He tried again, making a special effort with the ‘i’ in the middle of the word.

  This time a pale yellow glow appeared at the far end of the Globe. Indrani had taught him what to expect, but he still dropped the torch in surprise. Luckily the light from above remained steady. But how to reach it? If he had a spear in his hand, and if he stretched and held the spear at the base of its shaft, still he’d fall short of the target. Also, from what Indrani had told him, the object couldn’t be detached from its hiding place unless he touched it with the warmth of his hands.

  He would have to climb.

  He knew from his earlier investigations that plenty of handholds awaited him should he really need them: shafts of metal, ridges of various other materials. They all seemed strong enough to support his weight, but every time he tested one, the entire Globe complained with a screech.

  He decided he’d have to risk it. He and Indrani would die without a Talker and he certainly couldn’t take the one owned by the Tribe.

  Stopmouth found two sturdy handholds and pulled himself up. The body of the Globe creaked and he heard a rain of dust and other fragments falling just out of view. It all reminded him too much of his accident. He forced himself into perfect stillness until his breathing calmed. ‘It’s not going to happen again,’ he told himself. Then he pushed up further towards the glow, never putting too much weight on one side or the other. Halfway up he stretched out a hand for the sphere and couldn’t quite touch it. One foot was balanced on a padded, slick surface, the other on a series of tiny protrusions that dug painfully into his sole. Then the Talker stopped glowing.

  Stopmouth cursed. ‘Actovite!’ Nothing happened. ‘Acteevate! Acteebate!’ He cursed again and decided to climb up further to retrieve the thing by feel. He raised his left leg in search of another foothold, forcing the protrusions under his right to dig even deeper into his skin. He shifted slightly to ease the pressure and something went click!

  The whole Globe came alive and started shaking. The grip under his left hand became hot. Then he heard metal shrieking and stone collapsing. The wreckage, with Stopmouth inside, fell the last body-length to the ground. The young hunter survived the initial impact, but above him a metal object came free and smacked him into unconsciousness.

  He woke in stifling darkness. His head pounded, and when he touched it, his hand came away sticky. He heard something beating against the metal shell that encased him. For a moment he thought it was Rockface come to carry him home. Same room, different accident. Part of him wanted to laugh. The banging came again from the outside of the craft. And he heard voices now, Bloodskin voices.

  ‘It is a human. I found hide across the door. And look, embers from its fire.’

  ‘It did not hunt well. It did not come for hunting. It was sent by others of its kind. To be absolved of a crime perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps. But how can I eat it if it has buried itself under here? The flesh will rot and the spirit will never leave this place.’

  ‘Who can explain beasts?’

  Stopmouth understood every word that was spoken. When he heard the Bloodskins leaving, he reached around in the darkness until he found the little sphere that had knocked him unconscious. The Talker, of course. He marvelled once again that a metal object could feel so alive. ‘Activate!’ he said, finding the word came easily to him now. In the emerging glow he looked around again at the inside of the Globe. He wished the sphere could give off a stronger light and, to his surprise, it did just that.

  As children, he and his brother had often trapped mossbeasts under skull bowls. Wallbreaker always wanted to leave them there with no moss to see if they’d eat each other. He was surprised that they never gave in to appetite. Instead, after a few days, the creatures simply stopped moving. Like Stopmouth would now. How terrible to die here, he thought, his flesh uneaten!

  Stopmouth found he could just about stand in the confines of his prison. He pushed and prodded several surfaces in the hope that something would give way. Nothing did. He sat again and his eyes wandered. Eventually they came to rest on the tiny black designs that covered many of the surfaces. Had Indrani painted them herself? What did they mean?

  He jerked his head back in shock, bumping it painfully. The designs suddenly made sense to him, speaking through his eyes. The Talker, of course. It was as if somebody had found a way to draw a voice!

  ‘Rear Armament’ said one design. ‘Forward Armament’ said another. Although his eyes could ‘hear’ the words, they still seemed like gibberish to him. He couldn’t understand why a person would need separate weapons for front and back. Still, the drawn voice fascinated him and he followed the little symbols around the craft: ‘Ext. View, Rear. Ext. View, Int.’ ‘Home.’ ‘Emergency Rations. Press Once.’

  Stopmouth pressed the little symbols several times, but nothing happened, not even when he pounded them with his fist. Then he remembered the protrusions that had dug into his foot earlier and how they’d caused the whole craft to shake when he’d stood on them. He found the button he’d accidentally pushed beside little symbols that said: ‘Thrust’. He wouldn’t be touching that one again! But there were other buttons where it said ‘Rations’ and, sure enough, when he pressed them, a panel magically slid open. He whooped. This death was turning out to be more enjoyable than he’d expected. Unfortunately he found no rations inside the magic panel, only packets of a stone-like substance that crumbled in his hands and smelled dangerously sweet: like rotting Hopper flesh. He didn’t dare consume any of it.

  He looked around for more symbols, sometimes pressing buttons to no effect, until he found some words that stopped him dead: ‘Emergency Escape Hatch: Press Once’.

  Was it possible? Not daring to breathe, Stopmouth pressed the nearest protrusion. Bang! The Globe shook and wisps of smoke puffed into the air around him. A small gap, which might have been larger had the shape of the Globe not been so badly altered, lay open at the top of the craft. He struggled through it, sweating heavily, holding the glowing Talker out in front of him. When he’d freed head, shoulders and both arms, he paused for a rest. It was then, half trapped in the opening, that he noticed the two Bloodskins standing in the doorway of the room.

  ‘Will I kill it now?’ asked the shorter of the two, its wispy-haired face twitching.

  ‘No. Can’t you see the glow? It is already a spirit.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stopmouth, terrified. ‘A spirit. You should go.’

  The creatures stayed in the doorway, breathing slowly through rows of tiny holes above their mouths. Their muscular legs shifted beneath them and Stopmouth was sure they were about to spring at him across the room. Finally, however, the Bloodskins looked at each other and the shorter one said: ‘We are sorry for you. I will mark this building so none will come here again.’ They turned away and loped out of the building.

  When Stopmouth was sure they’d gone, he wriggled the rest of the way out of the Globe. Now, if only he could get the Talker back to Indrani without getting killed!

  He had no idea how much of the night he’d spent unc
onscious, but when he looked out of the window, he detected the first hints of dawn in the panels of the Roof. He sprinted back the way he’d come. Four Bloodskins lounged with spears against one wall of a street. He shouldered his way through the centre of the group before they could react, running towards the house through which he’d entered the area. Already behind him he could hear the Bloodskins giving chase. Obviously these ones hadn’t heard that he was a spirit to be left alone.

  He ran in through the doorway and down the hall to the back room of the house, the Talker lighting his way. Almost there, he thought, when he saw the window waiting for him. Then he put his weight on the wrong stone. It gave way under him and he fell flat on the floor. He skinned both knees, barely keeping hold of the Talker. By the time he regained his feet, the Bloodskins were already piling into the room and he knew he’d never make it through the window without a spear in the back.

  Four beasts spread out. He’d left his own spear on the floor of the building where the Globe had crashed and had no idea what had happened to his knife. No doubt the Bloodskins thought this would be the easiest hunt of their lives. Stopmouth raised the glowing Talker, hoping to frighten them, but he’d spoiled the spirit trick earlier when he’d pushed through their group on the street. Now, though they hesitated, they handled their weapons as if they meant to use them. He thought of flinging the Talker at them in defiance. Then inspiration struck him: ‘Brighter!’ he commanded. ‘Brighter than the Roof!’ The sphere obeyed immediately and the Bloodskins screamed and pawed at their eyes. Unfortunately Stopmouth hadn’t known what would happen either, and he had forgotten to look away. Spots danced in his own vision, but he felt a draught from the window at his back and stumbled towards it. He fell outside, got up and set off in a limping run to where he thought the trees must be. His vision had started to clear by the time he’d reached safety.