Pallahaxi

by Michael G. Coney

  It was wonderfully cool outside the bar and I dawdled over lighting the lamp, savouring the fresh air. Then I made my way along the dim passage and down the steps.

  As I opened the cellar door there was an inexplicable gust of cold air and the lamp went out. I stumbled forward, holding the lamp with one hand and feeling about with the other. I remembered a box in the middle of the floor which served as a table; among the various items of cellar equipment I had seen matches. Despite my care I reached the box sooner than I expected, banging my shin. For a moment I hobbled about, rubbing myself and muttering. Then I saw a square area of light beyond the box.

  The hatch into the sewer was open. I distinctly remembered Browneyes closing it after Wolff and I had entered the cellar, and I couldn’t think of any reason why it should have been opened since—unless Browneyes’ father had been cleaning the place out. But he wouldn’t have forgotten to close the trap-door. Thieves could get in that way.

  Or smugglers.

  The light in the floor was flickering now, becoming brighter, and soon a corresponding bright area appeared on the low ceiling. Someone was coming along the sewer. My imagination began to run riot. If smugglers caught me here, they would knife me. I made for the door as quietly as I could, but in my fear I had lost my sense of direction and found myself fumbling at a barrel. The light grew brighter still and I watched it hypnotized, unable to move. A hand appeared through the floor, holding a lamp. The entire cellar sprang into brilliance as I stepped out of sight behind a huge barrel. I shuffled backwards as quietly as I could until I was brought up against the wall. Then I sat down slowly—or maybe my knees gave out with fear—and peered out from under the concealing bulk of the barrel which was mounted on a stout timber frame. The hand had disappeared and the lamp sat alone on the stone floor. For the first time I noticed four distil cans beside it.

  Then two hands appeared. Large and hairy, they gripped the edge of the floor and a man hauled himself through the hole. Huge, dressed in dark ragged clothing, his face covered in matted fur like a lorin—I recognized him before he stood and the barrel hid all but his legs from my view.

  It was Silverjack. The feet remained motionless for a while and I sensed that he was listening. Maybe his instincts were allied to his animal appearance and he had become aware of my presence in the way a lorin would. I cowered lower, trying not to breathe, trying to merge and become one with timber and stone. At last he moved, striding barefooted across the cellar to the door. Again he stopped, and uttered a low whistle.

  He waited for some time then whistled again, soft and low like a newspigeon. I heard a movement beyond the door and Silverjack moved back into the cellar as another pair of legs arrived quietly, barefooted like his but not hairy; a woman’s legs. There was a whispered conversation of which I caught only a few words. The woman’s voice was almost inaudible but I heard Silverjack say:

  “Ysabel, before the grume.”

  Then there was a long pause during which the two pairs of feet faced each other closely, touching while Silverjack and the woman made little sounds and I felt my face go hot and I kept repeating to myself: don’t find me here now, don’t find me here now…

  At last Silverjack turned away, lowered himself through the hole, took the lamp and was gone, letting the trap-door down behind him. The cellar was quiet again, the woman had apparently departed and I crawled stiffly from my hiding place. I fumbled around, found the matches and lit my lamp. For a while I considered the situation but there seemed no way out of it, nothing I could do except, quite simply, carry a case of bottles upstairs.

  The noise hit me like a wall as I staggered through the bar door with my head down, concentrating on not dropping the case and trying to think of nothing else.

  A cool hand touched my wrist and I looked up to find Browneyes smiling at me. “Bring it behind the bar, Drove,” she said.

  I did so. I placed the case beside a pile of empty ones and straightened up, finding myself confronted by Browneyes’ father and mother. Neither spoke, and the silence was an awkward one.

  “Drove brought some things up for us,” said Browneyes happily. “Isn’t that nice of him?” She smiled at me with her dimples, innocent and charming.

  I felt dirty. I averted my eyes from her father’s alarmed, searching gaze only to find I was looking at Annlee, whose face was pale with lips unnaturally red, whose hands were white with pressure where they clutched a brown bottle.

  “It’s quite all right,” I muttered unhappily, edging away.

  Someone shouted for beer and the spell was mercifully broken. Annlee turned away and I heard a violent rattle of glass on glass, instantly controlled, as she poured. Girth bellowed with laughter at some joke and tugged at a beer pump. Browneyes seized a number of mugs and bore them away to customers on the far side of the room. As she passed one rough character, I saw him slide his arm around her waist. She twisted neatly away and passed the beer around a vociferous group as though nothing had happened. For a while I watched the man, feeling murderous and incompetent, then suddenly I wasn’t sure which man it was. They all looked the same, and Browneyes was back at the bar, grinning at me. She thought nothing of all this; it was what she had always been used to. For the first time I realized how little I knew about her, and how different her life was to mine.

  I don’t remember much more about that evening; things seemed to settle down into a rut as several times I visited the cellar to replenish the bar stock, several times I wanted to hit men who looked at Browneyes in a way I didn’t like, while all the time the drinking and shouting and laughing continued and I hardly noticed it.

  Later I did notice the sudden silence when the door was flung violently open. Standing erect there with a face like Rax, peering this way and that through the thick smoke, was my father.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was confined to the cottage for an incalculably long time, seeing nobody except my mother and father and, occasionally, the various occupants of the other cottages in the field. These latter folk were adult to the point of senility, however, and no company for a caged boy. During my period in incarceration the sun appeared over the horizon, the twilight brightened until eventually the days were as long as the nights. The ocean sparkled invitingly and from the patio I saw the sails of little dinghies like white feathers drifting on the blue sea, every so often disturbed by a chuntering steamboat. Midsummer came and the tidal flow ceased; the weather remained unfailingly warm and calm as nature prepared itself for the grume.

  During my imprisonment I had plenty of time to reflect on the error of my ways and still remembered clearly father’s impassioned speech of outraged parenthood as we rode the motorcart from the Golden Grummet up to the cottage on the cliffs, while mother whimpered beside him.

  “I never thought the day would come when I would be forced to drag a son of mine bodily from a common inn where I found him drinking in the company of the uncouth louts of the general public.”

  This was the gist of his address and it was unfair. If he hadn’t come charging into the bar and laid his violent hands upon me I would have left quite willingly—in fact I had started to leave the instant I saw him standing at the door. But he hadn’t given me a chance, and had subjected me to an undignified struggle right in front of Browneyes, her parents, and the entire bar full of customers. In a way it proved the validity of my previous theories concerning my father; in a crisis he will always descend to physical violence.

  The following day my father had fallen strangely silent; it was as though a thick glass window had been erected between him and me. We saw each other but apparently it was impossible to converse. This would have suited me fine, had not my mother chosen to fill the conversation vacuum.

  “You see, we didn’t know where you were, Drove. You’d been seen taking the boat out—against all advice, so I understand—and when the boat arrived back you just weren’t in it. We were terrified. I thought your father would go mad with grief. Have you no c
onsideration for our feelings?”

  “Pallahaxi-Browneyes came to tell you where I was.”

  “She most certainly did not. We heard nothing, we knew nothing, we didn’t know what to think until I contacted Dreba-Gwilda and she said they had just collected their boy Wolff from the inn, and that you were there with that slut.”

  “Are you referring to Browneyes, mother?” I asked coldly, but I had moved rather too soon. Mother was still in the ascendancy.

  “I’m referring to that serving-wench with whom you’ve seen fit to associate yourself, against all the advice of your father and me.” Her face crumpled theatrically. “Oh, Drove, Drove, what are you doing to us? What have we done to deserve this? Think of your poor father, even if you have no thought for me. You’ve brought disgrace upon his head, you’ve demeaned him in front of his colleagues.

  It went on like this for several days until mother at last ran out of variations on the theme and relapsed into a reproachful silence. Relieved, I was able to view the whole unfortunate affair in a saner light. I already knew the worst; now I was ready to consider the good which had come out of the incident. Firstly I had met Browneyes again and it seemed—although I hardly dared to consider this—that she liked me. I thought it just possible that she had deliberately omitted to tell my parents where I was, in order to keep me around for longer; I clung on to that notion. She couldn’t possibly have guessed the reaction of my parents, of course. I only hoped that the unseemly brawl with my father in the bar had not soured my image.

  Next there was the fascinating question of Silverjack. There was no doubt in my mind—the man was smuggling liquor across from Asta and supplying the Golden Grummet, and possibly all the inns in Pallahaxi. This was a delightful piece of knowledge and my only regret was that I had nobody to share it with. Father had mentioned Silverjack in conversation with mother several times—apparently the hairy fellow was on the verge of taking up some sort of piloting job for the Government—yet here he was trading with the enemy under the very noses of the Parls. In my eyes he had assumed the stature of a romantic hero.

  So I had some pleasant thoughts to keep me company during the slow passage of days. At last father asked me to pass the salt one breakfast time and mother, taking her cue, laid me out some fresh clothes. After father had departed for work she glanced at me speculatively a few times and eventually spoke.

  “You have a friend coming to see you this morning, Drove.”

  “Uh?”

  “I saw Dreba-Gwilda yesterday and we arranged a big surprise for you. Her nice boy Wolff is coming to see you, and you’re going out together. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Rax. It was Wolff who got me into this freezing mess. Wolff’s a fool, mother.”

  “Nonsense, Drove; he has such nice manners. And please don’t swear like that. I hope you don’t swear in front of Wolff. I must go now. Enjoy yourself, dear.” Smiling at me widely and fondly, she gathered up her things and departed for the stores.

  Wolff arrived about mid-morning, casually dressed yet still contriving to look dapper in a way I could never achieve—and never wanted to. “Hello there, young Alika-Drove,” he greeted me breezily.

  “Look, what did you tell your parents that day?” He looked pained. “That’s all in the past now, Drove. Today marks the beginning of a new era in your entertainment and education. It has been arranged that we go on a fishing trip with our mutual friend Silverjack, in order to see how the general public obtain their livelihood.”

  His pseudo-adult manner appeared to have developed further since last I had seen him, but the idea of a boat trip appealed. Anything which resulted in my getting away from the cottage would have appealed. “Are you taking fishing things?” I asked. “I must find my gear.”

  “Fishing tackle will be supplied,” he said. “I tell you, Drove, it’s all organized. Our people have some connection with this character Silverjack, added to which they seem to want to bring you and me together—can’t think why. Maybe they think we’re suitable companions for each other.” There was a twisted sarcastic smile on his face which I didn’t like.

  We set off down the hill in the direction of the harbour. When we reached the point where the steep road overhangs the outer harbour, Wolff stopped and leaned against, the wall, gazing at the boats at anchor. “I ought to tell you that some strange things have been happening while you’ve been out of circulation, Drove.” Snowdivers soared below and beside us, riding the updraft, occasionally tilting and dropping vertically with folded wings to disappear momentarily beneath the rippled surface. “Now take a look down there,” he said, pointing directly below.

  I leaned over the wall. The cliff dropped away sheer, ledged with bird’s nests, to the little beach on which we’d been shipwrecked. I could even see the rock pool where the ice-devil lurked; at present the water was calm and beguiling but ready to crystallize the instant the creature judged prey to be within range. “What about it?” I asked.

  “I made a few enquiries about that storm drain.”

  “The sewer, you mean?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep calling it a sewer. That storm drain branches out all over the place and runs under most of the town. Now here’s my theory. At night when it’s dark the boats come close around the far headland, then straight across the bay towards the coast under your cottage.” He pointed. “Then they keep close in under the cliffs to this beach, where they unload. Then the stuff is delivered through the tunnels.”

  “You’re not still talking about this smuggling nonsense, are you?” I asked uneasily.

  “I hardly think they deliver milk through the tunnels.”

  “What makes you so freezing sure they deliver anything?”

  He stared shrewdly into my face. I’d never realized how close together his eyes were. “Because I’ve seen them,” he said.

  “Seen them?” I muttered. Recently I’d decided the smuggling incident had better be left unmentioned. It wasn’t Silver jack I was scared for; I was sure the hairy man could look after himself. It was Girth and Annlee’s position which worried me—and through them, Browneyes. I was sure Browneyes knew nothing of the smuggling, or she would never have sent me down to the cellar that night when a delivery was due; but nevertheless her parents were involved and she would be affected by any revelations of criminal activities.

  “I’ve been investigating the affair ever since my suspicions were aroused in the cellar of the Grummet. Usually every third night a boat unloads down there. I’ll know it again; it has a yellow deckhouse. Here’s where I’m going to need your help. On the night of the next delivery we’re going to conceal ourselves by that rock pool, and observe proceedings from close range. We’ll use your boat to get to the beach.”

  “You freezing well Won’t!”

  He turned away and we continued walking down the hill. “Think about it, Drove,” he said casually. “It’s an interesting exercise, if nothing more. Much better than turning the whole thing over to my father for official investigation, don’t you think? I mean, I may be mistaken. Ah, well, let’s talk about something else, shall we? Have you seen anything of that girl from the Grummet recently, what was her name?”

  “Look, you know freezing well what her name is, and you know freezing well I haven’t seen anyone for days and days!”

  “Jumpy, aren’t we?” he said distantly as we crossed the fish-market and entered Silverjack’s yard. He enquired for the owner in peremptory fashion; Silverjack himself appeared almost immediately and escorted us to the water’s edge. A small steam launch, already fired up and showing a white plume at the safety valve, rode quietly at the quayside next to the slipway. I glanced around for my own boat and saw it, apparently in good shape, under cover.

  “A steam launch,” I observed. I rate steam launches as little better than floating motorcarts.

  Silverjack sensed my feelings. “A fine craft,” he said quickly, strangely deferential. “We’ll come to no harm in this. “Al
l aboard, then.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Wolff. “There are more of us to come, yet.” He looked back towards the town, expectantly.

  “You didn’t say anything about anyone else,” I complained. “I thought it was going to be just the three of us, fishing. there’s no room on that boat for any more,”

  “Here they are,” said Wolff.

  A smartly-dressed young girl was walking towards us, stepping delicately over the debris which littered the slipway, holding the hand of a younger boy, equally well turned out. At first I failed to recognize them but as they came nearer I was able to penetrate the disguises of Pallahaxi-Ribbon and her young brother, Squint.

  “Wolff!” I whispered urgently. “What the Rax is she doing here? I can’t stand the sight of her. Have you gone mad?”

  “Hello, my dear,” said Wolff smoothly, ignoring me, taking Ribbon’s hand and assisting her on board. Squint followed, scowling ferociously, and Silverjack cast off. The engine panted and we began to glide among the moored boats; there were noticeably fewer compared with the last time I had seen the harbour. Numbers of the deeper-hulled vessels were being laid up preparatory to the grume.

  Silverjack was in fine fettle during the earlier stages of the voyage as he sat at the helm smoking an ancient pipe and telling tales of the sea. In essence the tales were similar to those told by Grope the trucker except that the events occurred on water instead of land and involved storms and whirlpools rather than earthquakes and floods. Meanwhile his audience had divided itself into two factions. Wolff and Ribbon sat on one side of the cockpit paying scant attention to the raconteur as they trailed fishing lines and murmured inaudibly to each other, while Squint and I sat in uneasy alliance opposite. Squint listened to Silverjack with open-mouthed gullibility and I quietly brooded over the perfidy of Wolff. Not that I’d ever had a high opinion of him; but I’d never expected him to sink to this.

  “And look at the sky now, young lad.” Silverjack was addressing Squint as the only attentive member of his audience. “To see the sun Phu shining there, you’d never believe what it’s like in the south, right now. I’ve been there, I can tell you. Great rolling clouds and mist and the sea so thick a man could near walk on it. Evaporation, you see. And if you go near shallow water an ice-devil will seize your ship and he won’t let go for half a year, not until the rains come. Years ago, when I was younger, I used to work the grume. We’d wait out in the Southern Ocean while the sun shone so close it charred the masthead and the sea disappeared all around us in steam and there was only one place in the whole ocean where a man could see through the clouds—that was at the Pole itself. So we’d wait there, near dying from the heat and humidity while the clouds closed above in a great spiral, with the sun gone away north. And when we couldn’t see any more, then the water would begin to pull us, and we’d follow like a loxcart, the current taking us on the journey north. So we’d follow the grume…”