Fire in the Wall

by S G Dunster

  “Blyks—the bandits who are pursuing us,” Eap said, “are has-beens. They were once like you and me.” He gestured to include me and Lil. “Our enemy tempted them away and took their shells, leaving them only ensnared intelligence and agonizing drive, with nothing solid to latch onto.”

  Arapahoe frowned. “Ghost stories.”

  “It is far worse than a ghost story. Blyks are pure starvation. They’ve not eaten, drunk, slept. They long only for one thing. That is permanence; the comfort of a world that makes sense. They seek it, in telling after telling. They are kept running, running, trying to find comfort. And all the while, they’re being used. Without form, they can be made into anything; willed by those who drive and control them through fear and temptation,” Eap said. He eyed the serving girl, mincing through the door, carrying trays with our plates of food. “Lust,” he added. “Where anything seems possible, it’s easy to be led astray. Things seem like they have no price. But souls are still real, Logan.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I replied testily, nodding at the girl as she set my plate—crisp-fried trout, a fluffy scoop of mashed potatoes, and beans steamed with butter and pepper—in front of me. I shoved in a mouthful of fish and closed my eyes. So much better than I’d thought of. Actually on my tongue . . . actually in my mouth . . . .

  “They all fell,” Eap continued. “All those who came down here to live. One by one, separated from the mass of us, they were vulnerable to the two.”

  “The Wolf and the Rook,” Lil said.

  “The Grimms.” I corrected.

  “Yes,” Eap replied.

  “And this is the million-dollar question,” I added through a mouthful of potato, “how did they all end up here, anyway? And how come so many of us are . . .”

  “Storytellers,” Eap finished for me.

  “What?” Selah snapped.

  “It’s stuff I can’t easily explain in a few minutes,” I said to her. “I’m sorry.”

  Her scowl deepened. “Do me the favor of explaining sometime soon.”

  “Us,” Arapahoe corrected.

  “There’s no time.”

  “Make time.” Selah said as she stabbed her little knife into the table, glaring at me with all the force of her snapping dark eyes.

  “I . . .” I blinked at her, startled. “Okay. Come by after this. We can talk.”

  Lil sniggered.

  Arapahoe frowned at her, and I reached over and slammed my hand on top of Lil’s. She squeaked. I ignored it and turned to Eap, waiting.

  “Don’t you have duties?” Eap asked Selah, turning his glance on Arapahoe as well.

  They looked at me. I nodded, reluctantly, and they moved their chairs back and left, Selah giving me long, studying look over her shoulder as she did.

  “Your question is also hard to answer in a moment,” Eap replied. “Tellers know how changeable the world is. Those who are most talented at telling, especially. We change our world on the crust. And so we know there’s more to this world than what seems to be permanent, what seems to be inevitable. And often, tellers don’t feel up to death.”

  “Don’t feel up to death,” I repeated.

  “Not in favor of it as an institution in general,” Eap agreed. “The first of the tellers likely told a way down under the crust, down into these vast, empty chasms of generative materials untouched by any being. The mists,” He explained at my puzzled glance. “Particles, this mist is . . . little pieces of nothing, crystalline containers ready to be filled, ready to be made into whatever the first teller to cross through might want. The freedom, the possibilities must have been boggling for those who emerged beneath the crust in virgin mist.”

  He sat back in his chair, gazing at the beamed ceiling. “What is above is so solid—told over and over, virtually unchangeable. To have the freedom, the complete freedom to make whatever you wish solid, real . . . as real as anything you’ve ever touched or heard or tasted . . .” Eap’s eyes lost focus.

  “We all ended up down here in the same way. In the end,” he said, “we did not allow death to claim us. We told a different story. We told of a grave that opened on the other side, a grave that was more tunnel than grave, portal than tomb. And a talented teller, in the desperation of the throes of death . . .”

  “You dug yourself down here,” Lil finished for him.

  “I get it,” I said. “How many have come down?”

  “Hundreds. Thousands.” Eap shrugged. “Not many in comparison to the whole of humanity. But enough. The Grimms, when they came? There were already a mass of tellers down here, each with their own places, their own countries and kingdoms of telling. I’ve sat at many an old-timer’s knee as they spoke of their golden ages.”

  “And then?” Lil prompted.

  “And then, a pair of men descended into this realm who felt threatened by all the diversity. Some of these tales, told for thousands of years, were ones they’d appropriated themselves. Changed. Told anew, with just enough changes to claim them as their own.” He shrugged. “It’s the struggle of the compiler. There is art in retelling. And there are only so many themes, so many plots. Stories are re-told, and re-told, with new feathers, new colors. New views. But they did not find themselves able to swallow these older versions of their tales. They began to coerce tellers, to try to conquer. And they were succeeding.” He looked at Lil this time. “Two minds, you see, are more powerful together than any one mind or intelligence, and these two—the Grimms—were talented tellers indeed. One by one, they took on tellers whose stories they’d taken on the crust and bent them to their way of seeing things. Retold what they’d told, over and over, until each teller lost her country to Grimwoods.”

  “How come nobody stood up to them?” I asked. “There were hundreds in Grandeur, you said. Thousands.”

  “That’s the silliness of us tellers,” Eap replied. “We’re a queer folk. We like to be left to our own devices. And we’ve got an inflated opinion of our own telling power; we tend to look on each other’s kingdoms as less interesting than our own. We like to live in our world, not anybody else’s. We get absorbed.” He chuckled. “And they were charming, the two of them. Entertaining. They put on a good show. They provided excitement, surprise, food for our imaginations beyond what we could create ourselves. Sometimes it is nice to be fed. As they grew in power, so the intrigue grew. So the power of their tellings grew. They know how to tempt. How to frighten. How to stimulate. And none of us were aware of the full scale of the problem—how much of the firmament had been claimed by Grimwoods—until it was nearly too late. We then made a stronghold, but it was small.”

  “Grandeur?”

  “Yes. That is when we formed Grandeur. We gathered together, those of us who were left, and made a place together. Shunted our kingdoms together. Made a neighborhood, with boundaries— “

  “The blyk barrier.” I pointed to the labeled line which had been drawn around the city.

  “Yes,” Eap said. “We each maintained a piece of the barrier. We made small, potent tellings, things that we poured all of our telling powers into, things we fixed firm and hard in our minds. A small piece each teller could easily keep strong even in the face of the two. But,” he sighed, “temptation is not an easy thing. And any weak moment, any moment of frustration or fear or loneliness or boredom can make you vulnerable. We fell, one by one. All of us.”

  “Not you,” I said.

  Eap smirked. “I have a long and intimate acquaintance with temptation. I know all her moves and countermoves.”

  “Why didn’t you go out and fight them?” Lil asked. “Like, instead of walling yourself up and waiting for them to attack, why didn’t everybody come together and— “

  “Nobody was willing to risk that much. We all came here because we did not want to lose ourselves. We wanted to continue in our stories. In our tellings. We did not want our minds to go out like candles. Blykhood was the worst possible end.” Eap set his fork aside and dotted his lips with his napkin. He nodded at the
serving girl hovering nearby. “I’m finished, thank you,” he said to her sweetly.

  She smiled and took the plate.

  “So, how is a blyk made?” Lil asked, plunking her plate, bowl, and silverware down on top of Eap’s, making the girl flinch and blink rapidly.

  “Dark things,” he replied after she’d gone. “Anyone who has the hook of fear or pleasure in you can control most anything to do with you, body and mind. And, as you have seen, mind is everything here.”

  “So, they’re not dead. Not alive.” Lil snapped her fingers. “They’re undead!”

  Eap gave Lil a withering look. “A stupid term. Un-dead.” He scoffed. “But you are correct, essentially. The two—the Grimms—keep their victims on the bare edge of existence. Not dead, but so very much dead that they’re nothing more than shadow. Starving for pleasure, for solidity. A blyk exists in the hell of delusion and drive, fear and fleeing, always hoping to come back to something that makes sense. Something solid and real.”

  In a flash I understood. How often had I laid in bed, reading book after book after book until the room around me suddenly seemed like the unreal thing? Until my body became an inconvenience, having to set story aside to eat, to drink. Having to put it down to sleep. How many times had I starved my body of sleep to read someone’s telling?

  To live in that world permanently, a world outside myself, outside anything I created, something that still fired my imagination and made my heart race and my brain fire . . . it was bliss.

  Until it wasn’t.

  “How do we kill them?” I asked. “That’s all I care about.”

  “You can’t, until they’re let go,” Eap said.

  We were all silent. Lil was studying her ragged nail beds. She’d been biting them again. “It still doesn’t make sense,” she said finally. “Without a body, without at least a little bit of something solid, what ties them here? To living? They should all be gone. They should . . .”

  “It’s a mystery,” Eap interrupted, “that nobody has unwound. How the Grimms keep the Blyks here. All I know is what I’ve told you.”

  “We need to find Hans,” I said.

  “You understand, now.”

  Suddenly, Lil slapped the table, hard enough to make the silverware jump. “Telling. That’s what . . . . Okay, Eap?” She turned to him, her eyes wild, face flushed. “How would Hans—the Grey Man—be able to visit me in St. Anthony? On the crust?”

  Eap’s brows shot up. “He visited you. In bodily form?”

  “Through her sculptures,” I said. “Her paintings.”

  Eap tapped his fingers against his leg. Faster, faster. I could almost see the thoughts racing through his head. “Presenting as a figment, not as himself, Lil.” He focused on her suddenly. “You said it’s a piece of thin crust your town rests on—crust, over an old, empty volcano chamber which has filled with this world, the underworld Caldera.”

  “That’s what they Grey Man said. He said he could talk to me because he was coming through a thin place in the crust. Are there any places like that around here? In the Grimwoods? Could he still be there?”

  “He came to you in dreams, perhaps,” Eap said slowly. “Dreams are strange. We don’t know how the mind, robbed of will, comes up with— “

  “No, not dreams.” Lil shook her head so hard, her braids flew, whipping me in the eye. I grunted, and pressed a finger to it. “He was there,” Lil said. “Like . . . there, there. Like himself. I saw him, solid, and talked to him— “

  “In your sculptures and paintings,” I repeated. “Tellings you’d done yourself. Maybe the crust is thin enough that your tellings in St. Anthony and his tellings down here sort of crossed paths, and—”

  “Solid?” Eap repeated. “You touched him?”

  “He came alive,” Lil said. “I touched him. I sculpted him.”

  Eap passed a hand over his brow. “And you were in waking thoughts?” Lil opened her mouth, and he held up his other hand, quieting her. “Then,” he said, “There is really only one possibility. The fool.” He snapped out the last word. “If any of us old tellers were to actually come back into crust,” he muttered, “we’d be dead instantly. Dust. Because on the crust, death, the idea—the telling—is too solid. He couldn’t have actually gone up.” Eap touched his moustache and snorted. “He . . . couldn’t, could he? And yet . . . waking, you saw him.” He suddenly opened his eyes and focused on Lil. “You saw him.” He pointed at her, almost stern.

  She let out a puff of irritated air. “Yes. That’s what I said.”

  He looked at me, then suddenly ran to the window and stared up at the sky. “Sky,” he said. “Water. Is there water in your town?”

  “Yeah,” I said hesitantly. “The river. Henry’s Fork.”

  “Which sits on an old Caldera,” He continued, glancing over his shoulder at Lil.

  “Yeah.”

  “The plateau,” he groaned suddenly. “Of course. The plateau. Sky. Touching water. Firmament. Fool of a man! He sent his imprint through the boundary!”

  He dug a pen out of his pocket and drew an ugly black X on the map, right in the middle of the crescent. “There,” he shouted. “There’s where he’s gone. Up there, on a 20,000-foot plateau. Of course.”

  “Speak English,” Lil shouted back, standing and leaning over the table so her face was inches from his.

  He started, blinked, and focused on her face. “Yes.” He rubbed the back of his head. “What I meant, what I have just realized . . . it simply drowns the mind. Your Hans has been talking through the storms, you see, dear Lil.” He grasped her forearm, squeezed it, and then let it go. “Risking his own neck and leading the Grimms right to you, right to your little town. Right to a thin spot, where they could reach into worlds beyond anything they’d have aspired to on their own. Driving you mad,” he thrust a finger at me. “And you,” he pointed to Lil, “and how many others? Good old Hans, he must have been lonely, indeed.” He sat, flinging his hat to the ground, running his fingers agitatedly through his curls. “Oh, my poor Monty,” he murmured. “My poor dear. What have I done to you? Where have I sent you?”

  “His imprint? He’s got an imprint, like Satie, and your . . . Monty? What’s the Grey Man’s imprint?” Lil asked. “I never saw it.”

  “No, you saw it as him. It carried his essence. His heart.” Eap agitated his hair again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hans’ imprint’s a nightingale. A nightingale, of course. Perfect for the task of flying from one world to another and singing its heart out. Perfect, too, for leading a rook to the chickadee’s nest.”

  “Oh,” Lil said, suddenly quiet. “I . . . I saw a nightingale. The first time. A small . . . grey and brown bird, with . . . it flew out of the frame.”

  Eap observed her, solemn. “And the portrait spoke. A portrait of him. Where did you get the idea to paint him?”

  “That . . .” Lil said. She shook her head and reached up to tug a braid.

  “Lil.” I reached for the hand.

  “Stop, Logan. I’m fine.” She waved me away impatiently. “Yeah. I dreamed about him. I did dream about him. I thought of the face. I must have dreamed about him?”

  “Whatever it was,” I said, “it was important to you.”

  Lil’s mouth trembled slightly, and she turned away.

  I was completely flabbergasted. What was it about Hans? Other than when she got fitty—and that was just tantrums, just her losing control, basically, of her synapses—Lil was a solid block of icy cold sarcasm and relentless drive. What was this Hans person doing to her?

  Eap leaned again over the map, studying it carefully. “Hans knows more about the Grimwoods than I,” he muttered. “Ironic that he’s the reason we’re venturing into it, and without his superior knowledge. Ah. Here.” He put a finger on a wavering line he’d drawn, leading from the round middle of the crescent’s western edge toward the center of the dense forest. “The plateau does not move around much. It is too fixed a mark—too distinguishable to all of us who�
�ve lived here. I’m not even sure the Two are the ones who made it. It’s probably leftover from some older telling. This river’s watershed comes off the plateau. So we follow the shore— “

  “Find the mouth of the river,” I finished for him, turning back to look at the map as well.

  “And follow it inland until we find the plateau,” Lil finished. She strode purposefully to the door. “Good. I’ll go tell Marco.”

  “No.” Eap gave her a mild, but still very effectively quelling look. “Our captain will tell his pilot where to steer. Logan is right; we need not unnecessarily disturb order here. A mutiny would be inconvenient. And these characters, they’re getting increasingly solid.” He eyed me. “You have no imprint, Logan.”

  I shrugged, shook my head.

  “Perhaps your people are your imprints.” Eap tapped his chin. “Unusual. But perhaps useful.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

  A grand-mal hallucination.

  I walked through the kitchen toward the engine room, keeping my chin high and my gaze directly in front of me, ignoring Corinne, my sweaty cook, ignoring the kitchen girls. This could all still be some sort of brain trip. I know Lil’s really here. But do I know anything else is real?

  Whether this is real or not, I’m in it. What good does it do right now to question that?

  The rational part of my brain rebelled. Real world. Real word. Get back to the real world, Logan.

  I turned suddenly to Corinne. She was leaning against the butcher block, her apron floured all over. She was taking a little rest from cooking. She grinned back at me and raised the little glass she held. “Care t’join me, Cap’n” She called.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I replied.

  I drank down the glass she offered. It was sweet, a bit bubbly. Kind of like flat Dr. Pepper, which, unlike Eap, I really like.

  She also gave me handmade doughnuts, and one of her kitchen maids followed suddenly with a rich, caramelly kiss on the mouth before I left the kitchen. It shocked me. She giggled at the look on my face and pushed me out the door. Feeling a little dizzy, I went down into the engine room. I wanted to go see these new things Lil and Eap had made. I was bugged and curious. I would talk to Marco after.