entry for the eighteenth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
It has been some weeks since I visited the Dead and so today I did so. It is no small undertaking to visit them all in the space of one day since they lie several kilometres distant from each other. I brought each one an offering of water and food, and water lilies that I had gathered in the Drowned Halls.
At each of the Niches and Plinths I whispered the name Addy Domarus. I hoped that one of them – the one to whom the name belongs – would somehow communicate his acceptance of it. But that did not happen. Rather, as I knelt at each Niche or Plinth, I felt a faint sense of repudiation, as if the name were being pushed away.
A journey
entry for the nineteenth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
I spent today working at my usual tasks: fishing, gathering seaweed, working on my Catalogue of Statues. In the late afternoon I gathered some supplies and set out to walk to the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall.
On the way the House showed me many wonders.
In the Forty-Fifth Vestibule I saw a Staircase that had become one vast bed of mussels. One of the Statues that lined the Wall of the Staircase was all but engulfed in a blue-black carapace of mussels with only half a staring Face and one white, out-flung Arm left free. I made a sketch of it in my Journal.
In the Fifty-Second Western Hall I came upon a Wall ablaze with so much golden Light that the Statues appeared to be dissolving into it. From there I passed into a little Antechamber with few Windows, where it was cool and shadowy. I saw the Statue of a Woman holding out a wide, flat Dish so that a Bear Cub could drink from it.
As I approached the Seventy-Eighth Vestibule, the Pavements were strewn with Rubble. At first, I saw only a scattering here and there, but by the time I drew close to the Vestibule I was walking over an uneven and treacherous Floor of Jagged Stones. In the Vestibule itself a thin sheet of Water still ran beneath the Rubble. Broken Statues were heaped in the Corners.
I walked on. In the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall the Pavement was free from Debris, but I found another problem. A colony of herring gulls had built their nests in this Hall and my intrusion among them was met with fury. They squawked indignantly and flew at me, beating their wings and attempting to peck at me with their beaks. I waved my arms and shouted to ward them off.
I reached the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall. I stood at the Single Door and peered inside. The surrounding Halls were full of a soft blue Twilight but this particular Hall – which, as I have already said, has no Windows – was dark, its Statues invisible. A faint draught – like a cold breath – emanated from it.
I am not accustomed to Absolute Darkness. There are very few Dark Places in the House; perhaps here and there you will find the Shadowy Corner of an Antechamber or an Angle of the Derelict Halls where the Light is blocked by Debris; but generally, the House is not dark. Even at night the Stars blaze down through the Windows.
I had imagined that all I would need to do to answer the Other’s question – What Stars can be seen from the door of the Hall? – was to ascertain the exact orientation of the Hall and then consult my Star Maps. But now that I was actually at the Door, I realised that this plan was wildly optimistic. The Door was approximately four metres wide and eleven metres high, which is huge for a Door but minuscule when compared to the vastness of the Sky. I would not be able to tell which Stars would be framed in the Doorway unless I spent the night in the Hall and saw for Myself.
I did not find this prospect appealing.
I remembered how I climbed a Staircase to the Upper Hall above the Nineteenth Eastern Hall and found it filled with Cloud. I remembered how that Hall was full of gigantic Figures in the throes of violent action, how every Face was distorted by screams of rage or anguish.
Suppose (I thought) this happened again? Suppose I went into the Darkness of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall and I lay down to sleep, only to wake and find Myself surrounded by horrors?
I became angry at Myself, disgusted at my own timidity. This was no way to think! Had I walked for four hours to reach this Hall only to be too afraid to go in? How ridiculous! I told Myself that the fear I had experienced in that Upper Hall was highly unlikely to be repeated anywhere else. I had, after all, entered the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall before. If the Statues had been particularly violent or frightening, I would surely have remembered. Besides, I had an obligation to the Other. He needed to know what Stars were visible from the Door.
But still the Darkness unnerved me. I put off entering it for a while. I sat down outside and ate and drank and wrote this entry in my Journal.
The One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall
entry for the twentieth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
Having completed the previous entry in my Journal I entered the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall. Dark and Cold enveloped me. A little way in (I estimate about twenty metres) I turned to face the Single Door that aligned perfectly with a Window in the Corridor outside. I sat down and wrapped Myself in my blanket.
At first I was acutely conscious of the Darkness at my back and the stares of the Unknown Statues. It was very quiet. The Hall where I usually sleep – the Third Northern Hall – is full of birds and at night I hear the little sounds as they shift and flutter on their perches; but as far as I could tell there were no birds in the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall. They apparently found it as unsettling as I did.
I made Myself focus on the one thing familiar to me: the sound of the Sea in the Lower Halls, the Water lapping the Walls in a thousand, thousand Chambers. It is a sound that accompanies me all my days. I fall asleep to it every night, just as a child might fall asleep, safe on its mother’s breast, listening to her heartbeat. And indeed, this is what must have happened now, because the next thing I knew was that I was waking suddenly out of sleep.
A Full Moon stood in the centre of the Single Doorway, flooding the Hall with Light. The Statues on the Walls were all posed as if they had just turned to face the Doorway, their marble Eyes fixed on the Moon. They were different from the Statues in other Halls; they were not isolated individuals, but the representation of a Crowd. Here were two with their Arms about each other; here one had his Hand on the Shoulder of one in front, the better to pull himself forward to see the Moon; here a Child held on to its Father’s Hand. There was even a Dog that – having no interest in the Moon – stood on its Hind Legs, its Front Paws on its Master’s Chest, pleading for attention. The Rear Wall was a mass of Statues – not neatly arranged in Tiers, but a jumbled, chaotic Crowd. Foremost among them was a Young Man, who stood bathed in the Moonlight, elation in his Face, a Banner in his Hand.
I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands.
The Eighty-Eighth Western Hall
second entry for the twentieth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
The Full Moon declined westwards, the Light in the Hall diminished and the Constellations grew brighter in the Window opposite the Doorway. I made notes of what Constellations and Stars I saw. At Dawn I slept for a few hours and then I began the journey home.
As I walked, I was thinking about the Great and Secret Knowledge, which the Other says will grant us strange new powers. And I realised something. I realised that I no longer believed in it. Or perhaps that is not quite accurate. I thought it was possible that the Knowledge existed. Equally I thought that it was possible it did not. Either way it no longer mattered to me. I did not intend to waste my time looking for it any more.
This realisation – the realisation of the Insignificance of the Knowledge – came to me in the form of a Revelation. What I mean by this is that I knew it to be true before I understood why or w
hat steps had led me there. When I tried to retrace those steps my mind kept returning to the image of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight, to its Beauty, to its deep sense of Calm, to the reverent looks on the Faces of the Statues as they turned (or seemed to turn) towards the Moon. I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery.
The sight of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.
This thought led on to another. I realised that the Other’s description of the powers that the Knowledge will grant has always made me uneasy. For example: he says that we will have the power to control lesser minds. Well, to begin with there are no lesser minds; there are only him and me and we both have keen and lively intellects. But, supposing for a moment that a lesser mind existed, why would I want to control it?
Abandoning the search for the Knowledge would free us to pursue a new sort of science. We could follow any path that the data suggested to us. The thought of all this made me excited and happy. I was eager to return to the Other and explain it to him.
I was walking through the Halls, thinking of these things, when I heard the raucous cries of birds and I remembered that the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall was full of herring gulls. I wondered whether or not to take a different Path, but, estimating that any diversion would add seven or eight Halls (1.7 kilometres) to my journey, I decided against it.
I had got halfway across the Hall when I noticed a scattering of white shapes lying on the Pavement. I picked them up. They were pieces of torn paper with writing on them. They were crumpled and so I smoothed them out and tried putting them together. Two – no, three – of the scraps fitted perfectly, forming part of a small sheet of paper with one jagged side. It appeared to be a page torn from a notebook.
I could see that, even when reconstructed, the page would be difficult to decipher. The writing was atrocious – like a tangle of seaweed. After some minutes of peering at it I thought I could make out the word ‘minotaur’. A line or two above I thought I saw the word ‘slave’ and a line or two below the phrase ‘kill him’. The rest was completely impenetrable. But the reference to a ‘minotaur’ intrigued me. The First Vestibule contains eight massive Statues of Minotaurs, each one different from the others. Perhaps the person who had written this had visited my own Halls?
I wondered whose writing it could be. Not the Other’s. Aside from the fact that I was sure he had never ventured as far as the Eighty-Eighth Western Hall, I knew his writing to be neat and precise. One of the Dead then. The Fish-Leather Man? The Biscuit-Box Man? The Concealed Person? Potentially this was a discovery of great historical importance.
Now that I knew what I was looking for I could see more white shapes lying on the Pavement. I set about gathering them up. Beginning in the South-Western Corner I worked my way systematically over the Pavement of the entire Hall, covering every part of it. At first the herring gulls made raucous objection to my doing this, but when they saw that I did not come near their eggs or young, they lost interest. I found forty-seven pieces of paper, but when I knelt and tried to fit them all together it became clear that many more were still missing.
I looked around. Herring gull nests were perched on the Shoulders of Statues and crammed onto Plinths; there was one tucked between the Legs of the Statue of an Elephant and another balanced in the Crown of an Elderly King. Peeking out of the nest in the Crown I could see two white fragments. Cautiously I approached and climbed up a neighbouring Statue to examine it. Immediately two gulls attacked me, screaming their indignation and dashing at me with wings and beaks. But I was equally determined. With one arm I hauled Myself up the Statue and with the other I beat back the birds.
The nest was a ramshackle, untidy thing built of dry seaweed and fishbones; woven into its structure were five or six scraps of paper with writing on them. I dismounted and retreated to the middle of the Hall away from the Walls, the nests and the attacking gulls.
I considered what I ought to do. There was no possibility of retrieving the missing pieces now. The herring gulls would never permit me to dismantle their nests – nor did I want to. No, I must wait until late summer – or, even better, early autumn – when the gulls had abandoned the nests and the young were grown. Then I could come back and get all the missing pieces.
I placed the forty-seven pieces carefully in my pack and continued my journey home.
The Other explains that he has said all this before
entry for the twenty-second day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
This morning I took my Star Maps to the Second South-Western Hall.
I found the Other leaning back against the Empty Plinth, his ankles crossed and his elbows resting on the Plinth. He looked relaxed. He wore an immaculate suit of a dark navy colour and a brilliant white shirt. He gave me a friendly smile. ‘How’re the shoes?’ he asked.
‘Excellent!’ I said. ‘Brilliant! Thank you! But what I value even more than the shoes themselves is the proof they give of our friendship! I consider the possession of such a friend as you to be one of the greatest happinesses of my Life!’
‘I do my best,’ said the Other. ‘So tell me. How have you been getting on? Now that you’ve got the shoes.’
‘I have already visited the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall!’
‘OK. And did you see what stars there were? Did you make notes?’
‘I did make notes,’ I said. ‘But I have not brought them with me since I remember everything I have to tell you.’
Then I told him what I had seen in the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall. ‘The Statues are its most remarkable feature. I mean other than the Single Door and the No-Windows. The Moonlight picked out one Statue in particular – the image of a Young Man. He seemed to me to represent the Virtues of—’
‘Don’t bother with all that. You know I’m not interested in statues. Tell me about the stars,’ said the Other. ‘What could you see?’
‘I will show you.’ I opened one of my Star Maps and placed it on the top of the Empty Plinth. He came and stood by me. ‘I saw the Rose, the Good Mother and the Lamp-post. Towards morning these were followed by the Shoemaker and the Iron Snake.’ (These were some of the names I had given the Constellations.)
The Other examined the Map carefully. Then he picked up his shining device and made some notes.
‘Are any of these stars particularly bright?’ he asked.
‘Yes. This Star here. It forms part of the Good Mother. It is the tip of her extended arm, so to speak. It is one of the brightest Stars in the Sky.’
‘Perfect,’ said the Other. ‘The brightest star to symbolise the greatest knowledge. Well, while you’ve been doing all that I’ve come to a decision. I’ve decided that I will go to this room and perform the ritual there. Obviously it’s much further into the labyrinth than I’ve ever been before, so there are risks …’ He paused for a moment and looked very determined, as if steeling himself to something. ‘ … but balancing the risks against the rewards – well, the rewards are potentially immense. This information you’ve brought me is invaluable and what I need you to do now is to go back there and establish what constellations can be seen at different times of year.’
Now was the time for me to explain my Revelation concerning the Great and Secret Knowledge.
‘As to that,’ I said, ‘I too have something to say. Something has been revealed to me that I must now share with you, something that has farreaching implications for all our future research. We must cease our search for the Knowledge! When we began, we believed that it was a worthy endeavour, deserving all our at
tention, but it turns out that it is not. We should abandon it straightaway and, in its place, establish a new programme of scientific research!’
The Other was not paying attention. He was making notes on his shining device. ‘Mmm? What?’ he said.
‘I am speaking of our search for the Knowledge,’ I said, ‘and of how the House has revealed to me that we should abandon it.’
The Other stopped tapping. He took a moment to process what I had just said. Then he put the device down on the Empty Plinth, covered his face with his hands, made a sort of groaning noise and massaged his eyes. ‘Oh, God! Not this again,’ he said.
He uncovered his eyes. He turned away and stared off into the distance. ‘Don’t say anything,’ he said (though I had not uttered another word). ‘I need to think.’
There was a long silence at the end of which he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Sit down,’ he said.
We sat down together on the Pavement of the Hall. I sat cross-legged and he sat with his knees bent, his back against the Empty Plinth.
There was a sort of glowering darkness in his face. He seemed to be finding it difficult to look at me. By these signs I knew that he was angry but struggling not to show it.
He coughed. ‘OK,’ he said in a controlled voice. ‘There are three reasons – three – why you shouldn’t stop looking for the knowledge. I’m going to go through all of them now and at the end, I think you’ll see I’m right. I just need you to listen to me. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Tell me the three reasons.’
‘OK, the first reason is this. It may seem to you that what I’m doing is rather selfish – trying to get the knowledge for myself. But the reality is quite different. This search that you and I are embarked on, it’s a truly great project. Momentous. One of the most important in humanity’s history. The knowledge we seek isn’t something new. It’s old. Really old. Once upon a time people possessed it and they used it to do great things, miraculous things. They should have held on to it. They should have respected it. But they didn’t. They abandoned it for the sake of something they called progress. And it’s up to us to get it back. We’re not doing this for ourselves; we’re doing it for humanity. To get back something humanity has foolishly lost.’
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