Widdershins
Page 23
‘Your mother understands the good work we do here. She understands it is in your interest.’
‘You’re lying. I command you to release me.’
‘Hmmm… You are very much like your father, child. He too tried to assert his power in this place. He was not capable of understanding that the Realm of Logic stands above all.’
‘My father was a good man.’
‘Your father was a sick man.’
‘You dare, sir.’
‘Are you questioning our judgment of the matter? I was one of many who over saw his detention. He was gravely ill and in his latter days he grew only worse.’
‘You kept my father down here?’ Cassandra’s voice was faltering.
‘For a time. But he was soon transferred. His mind required a firmer discipline.’
The feeling of vertigo was rising in the Princess. She felt sick. Literally sick. Like she was going to throw up at any moment.
‘There is a train of thought, Cassandra, that certain illnesses of the mind can be passed down, inherited from our parents. I personally do not think that you are of the same degree that your father was, but you will understand our caution to release you. It is best for all if we keep you here a while longer, so we are able to better observe you.’
Cassandra threw up a bit in her mouth. The Inquisitor’s words were disorientating. He was speaking slowly, articulating every single word. Teasing her.
‘Cassandra? Are you alright?’ His words spiralled around in a kaleidoscopic echo. ‘You are not sick, yet you feel sick. It is in your mind only. Do you not control your mind? Are you not queen of your thoughts?’ The Inquisitor’s words span Cassandra round and round like a wheel within a wheel. ‘Cassandra, are you well? Cassandra?’
It was the voice of Rufus. The voice of her mother. The voice of Mr Eccleston. The voice of Martha. And she saw them all, all the Lords of Parliament, crowded around the dining hall table, eating and drinking and laughing at her. They were tearing the duck meat from the bone with their razor sharp teeth. The red wine looked like blood. They were drunk. They were all drunk and laughing at her. And her mother was laughing at her too. She felt like she was shrinking, then she fell off her chair and was in a dark hole looking up. She saw their faces circling the light above. They were faces one minute then skulls the next. Laughing skulls right out of the pages of the Zolnomicon.
The hall span…
The torches span…
The doors span…
Her knees buckled and the Princess fainted.
She awoke back in her cell with an itchy blanket thrown over her. She was wet through in sweat.
Still here, she thought and was briefly grateful. For a moment she could have been certain she would wake up in one of the lower cells.
She could still see him. The feeble man behind the door, quaking back and forth, chanting that word over and over.
She could see his skinny, tortured face…
She didn’t know him…
But we know him…
For that man, locked away deep within the Academy, used to go by a name before he was branded nameless and insane…
And that name, was Job Button.
***
Abe Goodfellow came from a wealthy background. His father, like his father before him and his father before that, had long served the Academy as an inquisitor. Abe had joined at the age of fifteen in order to follow in his family’s footsteps. After six years, his father was still one of the leading inquisitors in the Empire, but Abe was not the brightest of students and had hardly progressed through the Academy’s ranks. Whilst his friends went on to become inquisitors and justiciars in the unreasonable world, he stayed within the Academy, cleaning the halls, preparing the rooms, and doing whatever was asked of him. In this respect, he had the same attitude towards life as a dog: as long as he was given some praise and not beaten too much, he remained a loyal companion; though in all other eyes but his, he was a slave.
Among his duties was the upkeep of the cells, and the delivery of food to the inmates. It was a fairly easy job with little room for error. All he had to do day in and day out, was push a trolley through the corridor, stopping at each cell to slide a portion of soup or bread through the portal. Then, at another time in the day, he came back around and reached through the portal to reclaim the plates and bowls. Occasionally, an inmate would forget to put the bowl back and he would have to bang on the door and request it.
‘Bowl, please,’ he said, rapping his fist against a door.
After waiting a reasonable amount of time, he asked again.
‘Excuse me, bowl.’
When still there was no reply, he squatted down, put his face to the floor and looked through the tiny opening. From what he could see the room was empty, except for the soup bowl, which lay just out of reach.
‘Hey, wake up in there,’ he said, exasperated.
The retrieval of bowls was never usually this troublesome.
When still no reply came, he took it upon himself to reach in with his arm. His hand slapped about blindly, then he withdrew and took another look. The bowl seemed to have moved an inch or two further away. Odd, he thought.
He stood and unhooked the keys from his belt.
He wasn’t allowed to open the cells, but figured if the inmate was able to sleep through his knocking and frolicking about they would sleep through a quick intrusion.
What didn’t occur to Abe Goodfellow, was that the inmate wasn’t sleeping at all.
Upon opening the door, he was met with a mighty strike to his nose from the elusive soup bowl.
The blow sent cartilage into his throat and tears out of his eyes. In the confusion, the inmate grabbed him, pulled him in and struck him again on the back of the head. The force was hard enough to dent the bowl, but not enough to send him to sleep; and so another clout was needed, and this time, Cassandra put every fibre of muscle into it, so that when he hit the floor, she thought she’d killed him.
‘That should do it,’ said Balthazar, pawing the student’s drooling face to check for life.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Cassandra, staring at the weapon in her hand and considering what an odd way to go it was.
‘No, still breathing, unfortunately. Take his keys.’
‘Goodness… This is really happening isn’t it?’
Cassandra was not acquainted with danger. She wasn’t sure exactly how one was supposed to act in these kinds of situations. So, she thought, it was best to do whatever the talking cat asked. She pried the keys from the student’s hand and locked him inside her cell.
That was a little too in medias res. But don’t worry, we’ll go back a bit.
She had been sleeping when the cat came to her, slipping himself through the portal at the bottom of her door. When she woke, she was startled to see its green eyes staring back at her; and when it spoke, she leapt up from the biting blanket and flattened her back to the wall.
‘You’ve caused me quite the upset,’ it said.
‘You’re a cat?’
‘Well observed.’
‘But cats can’t talk?’
Balthazar rolled his eyes. He hated that almost all his conversations began this way.
‘Listen to me, girl–’
‘How did you get in here?’
‘No time for–’
‘How are you doing that? You’re not real, you can’t be.’
‘I assure you I am.’
‘Well you would say that wouldn’t you.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m dreaming. And you’re part of my dream, so of course you’d say you were real, else I’d wake up.’
‘Yes… that does sound plausible… but this isn’t a dream.’
‘Of course it is. Cats can’t talk. It’s impossible.’
‘Highly unlikely, I would say. Impossible, no. We share a connection you and I. Our threads have been wound together.’
‘Stop talking, it’s not right.’
‘
Perfect.’
‘What?’
‘Just my luck. A smart arse. To think! I actually prefer the stupid ones.’
‘I’m not stupid.’
‘Supposedly not. Though, sometimes girl, you can be so educated that you are indeed completely stupid.’
‘What are you trying to say? In fact, no. Stop talking. Go away. I need to wake up.’ Cassandra lay down and closed her eyes.
‘You are awake.’
‘Not listening.’
Balthazar wasn’t patient. He sauntered up to the Princess’ face, went down to her feet and dug a claw into her little toe.
‘OUCH!’
‘Oh, sorry, did that hurt?’
‘YES!’
‘But if you were dreaming, it wouldn’t hurt, would it?’
‘Well… it depends.’
‘Depends? Depends on what?
‘How deeply I’m dreaming.’
‘This is ridiculous.’
‘Tell me about it, it’s logicide.’
‘There we go. Logicide. That’ll explain it for sure.’
The Princess rubbed her toe and sat staring at the cat. He’d drawn blood.
‘Well, what do you want?’
‘Coming round are we?’
‘No. But you must have a purpose. Is it to frighten me? Make me go mad?’
‘My servant,’ Balthazar rephrased, ‘associate, is imprisoned somewhere in here. I cannot find him, but I was able to find you – and you are going to help me find him.’
‘This is preposterous. Bedlam incarnate. What if I don’t want a part in this dream. I’d like to wake up thank you very much.’
‘You could stay here forever. That’s the alternative.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘I don’t do silly dreams, I’m a logical, reasonable, perfectly ordinary member of society.’
‘Ok. Let me put it this way, girl. You can stay here – forever. Or you can come with me and escape this place. Now, if this turns out to be a dream, you’ll wake up just as you are, but if by some chance this is real, then you’ll get out of here. Let’s have a little wager on the pensées shall we? Do you feel lucky?’
‘…’
‘Well, do you?’
Cassandra did feel lucky; and so they waited for Abe Goodfellow to do his rounds, and when he did, began their escape.
All the corridors looked the same. Getting lost was easy. But Cassandra remembered virtually everything she read. Her memory was faultless. You might say it was her greatest gift. It was times like this, that she could really show off. Using the door numbers alone, she steered them through the labyrinth, this way and that way, until they came to Inquisitor Sinclair’s office.
‘This is very dangerous,’ she said, ‘but a little exciting too.’
Balthazar looked askance at her; he failed to see anything exciting about it, and found her enthusiasm disconcerting.
She spied through the keyhole and saw the table furnished with golden ornaments. There was no one sat behind it. She tried various keys in the lock until one clicked.
Inside, the smell of the burning Zolnomicon was still lingering in the air. She stared mournfully at the flames.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the cat.
‘Nothing.’
She searched the table.
‘It was here, I swear it was here. A big red book,’ she said, sweeping papers onto the floor.
‘A drawer perhaps?’
She opened one of the table’s drawers. Two books were hidden within: the Codex of Logic, and the big red book titled: Committal Register. In her rush the Codex of Logic was flung onto the floor.
Balthazar began to browse the open pages. They detailed various methods a person could use to test their own mind for traits of insanity. It was mildly entertaining.
Cassandra browsed the register. There were many names; at least five people a day were taken to the Academy, sometimes as many as ten.
Along the column of names she saw her own; next to it, the date of her committal, a marking of her assessment, and a column titled treatment, which read: Re-education. But the word was crossed out in red and replaced with: The Hall of Atonement.
‘The Hall of Atonement?’ she said aloud, pricking Balthazar’s ears.
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s my treatment…’ said Cassandra.
It was odd that they would send her there, he thought. But there was no time to reflect on it, because at any moment Inquisitor Sinclair could have entered his office, or Abe Goodfellow could have woken from his nap; and Balthazar had a plan that required strict timing, a plan with no room for dawdling.
‘Need I remind you we have a time frame, girl.’
‘I’ve been here four days,’ she said, ‘it feels like four weeks!’
‘Trust me, it’s been a very long four days for me too,’ said Balthazar, broodingly, lending the girl a look that said: “hurry up”.
The Princess nodded.
Her finger drew down the list of names around the date she was arrested.
‘What name am I looking for?’
‘Nicholas… or Niclas… something like that.’
Cassandra looked up.
‘Niclas?’ she whispered.
‘Yes? What’s wrong?’
‘The boy from the City Library?’
‘That’s the one. Can you see him?’
‘Erm… Yes. Here we are, Niclas. Treatment: re-education.’
‘Mmmm,’ Balthazar groaned, ‘I hope we’re not too late. Does it say where he is now?’
‘Twenty six thirteen,’ she said.
‘Right.’ Balthazar sighed. The Princess had been in room seven one seven, but the Academy was a vast building and it could take hours to find Niclas’ cell. Hours they didn’t have.
‘I’ll let you in on a secret, girl, I only have an hour, less now, until your way out of here closes. So we best move quickly.’
Cassandra pondered the time. She could see their predicament. Then she brightened and began raiding the drawers.
‘I doubt he’s in there,’ said Balthazar, ‘too big…’
The Princess pulled out the small blade of a letter opener.
Balthazar couldn’t see where she was going with this, but she was adamant that he follow her, so he did.
His confidence in the girl improved substantially when they returned to her cell and began to rouse Abe Goodfellow by slapping him in the face.
He stirred, opening his eyes one by one in a drunken daze and reaching for his sore head. He focused on the Princess, remembered everything all of a sudden, and woke fully with all the grace of an electric shock. He would have let out a shrieking scream, had Cassandra not brought the letter opener to his throat.
‘Please don’t make any loud sounds,’ she said with a firm, yet polite tone, ‘I won’t hesitate to use this in an undesirable way.’
‘You wouldn’t…’ mumbled Abe.
‘Oh yes I would – I’m crazy, remember, and therefore highly unpredictable.’
Abe went quiet.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the Princess.
‘Abe. Abe Goodfellow.’
‘Well, Abe, I want you to take me to room twenty six thirteen. Will you do that for me?’ she said, insisting with the blade.
‘Yep,’ said Abe.
Balthazar kept quiet. The boy was already ruffled enough. He didn’t need talking cats too. And he was already intrigued by the cat’s presence…
…and why was it staring at him like that?
As Abe lead them through the corridors to the cell marked twenty six thirteen, he became more and more wary of the cat’s eyes, but he dared not ask.
‘This is illogical you know,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Cassandra. ‘Tell me, Abe, do you know what the Hall of Atonement is?’ Balthazar’s eyes stuck to the student.
‘Yes…’ said Abe.
‘Well? What is it?’
‘It’s an asylum off the
mainland. Reserved for only the worst cases of logicide.’
Cassandra felt a cold rush come over her.
‘Why would they send me there?’
‘Send you?’ replied Abe, confused. ‘They won’t send you there.’
‘It says in the register. That’s how I’m to be treated.’
‘No. Probably a mistake then. It’s for complete lunatics – the highest degree of logicide. It’s more a prison if anything. Once crazies are sent there, they don’t ever come back.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she said.
Abe turned his head to examine the blade at his back and the cat at his side. There was a lot that didn’t make sense.
‘It’s here,’ said Abe.
They had arrived at Niclas’ cell without quarrel.
‘Face the wall, Abe, and don’t move. There’s a… good fellow.’
Cassandra jingled through the keys one by one. None worked.
‘Ahem,’ said Balthazar, nodding towards Abe.
‘Which is it?’ asked the Princess.
‘The square headed one for this floor…’
‘Thank you. Very kind.’
‘D…don’t mention it.’
The door opened and the Princess, the cat and Abe glancing over his shoulder, came face to face with Niclas.
Or at least, they would have, had his face not been halfway down the toilet and his legs hovering in the air.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Cassandra.
Niclas pulled out and fell down.
‘Woah… It ain’t wot it looks like… I… Balfazar?’ A smile as round as a banana and almost as yellow shone from Niclas’ face. Then he saw the Princess.
‘You!’
‘You!’ she said.
‘Wot’s goin’ on, Balfazar?’ he addressed the cat.
Abe Goodfellow frowned. Clearly these were very damaged people.
‘What were you doing?’ asked Cassandra.
‘Oh, I was finkin’ yeah, that this ’ere loo must be joined up wiv the sewer, so if I could break it off I might be able to squeeze meself down the pipe to where the rats live ’n’ that ’n’ then make me way back to the street.’
‘I see,’ said Cassandra
Balthazar smiled. It was good to have him back, he thought.