‘Yes.’
I was aware that Renettia had also left the shade of the canopy and was standing behind me. I felt reassured by her doing that. I took out the etching tool and quickly drew a short line, a straight one, not far from the handle.
‘Forty simoleons,’ I said.
71
After Taner Couter had departed on his way to Ferredy, Renettia and I went to Yenna. This was outside the Ruller Group, in a remote part of the Dream Archipelago. Renettia had never been there before. We saw at once that the arrangements for the adepts were not good – there was no shading canopy, for one thing, and we had to stand exposed to the sun. No other adepts were there. Renettia said little to me – this was her way, as it was the taciturn way of most of the adepts.
As soon as we arrived, Renettia asked me for the stave she had given me for practice.
I gave it to her, but to my surprise she broke it over her knee – it snapped at the point where the blade met the handle.
‘You no longer need it,’ she said.
She dropped it in a bin. I wanted to have a look at it, see what if anything was inside it, but she warned me not to.
We adjusted our own staves. Renettia said this was always essential on arrival at a new island.
Other adepts began arriving and Renettia and I went to find some food. While we were eating she congratulated me on how I had removed Taner Courter’s detriment.
‘The first one is never easy, Violin, but you made it seem natural,’ she said.
‘How was that calculation done?’ I said, remembering a long walk through streets behind the harbour, while Msr Couter followed with his luggage.
‘It was your calculation, not mine,’ she said.
‘But—’
Silence.
Why had we come to Yenna? She did not say. Why was it called Overhang by the local people? She did not know, or she did not say.
When we walked across to the yard behind the Shelterate building I was surprised to see Kan was one of the adepts who was there. I tried to speak to her, but she turned her back on me.
The port in Yenna was a largely industrial one, so the arrival of passenger ships seemed to me unlikely. However, within an hour or so of our taking up position a small ferry did arrive and about twenty or thirty passengers came ashore.
One of the male adepts, someone I had not seen before, said, ‘Hey, Violin. It’s you again.’ Some of the others laughed.
I went forward.
‘Mave Louster?’ I said to a young woman, who was burdened with a baby in arms and a small child in a push chair.
‘You want my stave?’ She appeared grateful I was there.
‘Twenty thaler,’ I said, holding the stave between my fingertips. She had come from Mee, the island next to Yenna, a short trip, an increment of less than fourteen minutes. Renettia nodded her approval at my work.
After that we went to Cheoner, where the port was called Cheoner Maxim. I remembered having passed through this island while I was travelling. We adjusted our staves immediately we arrived but I waited in vain with the other adepts for two days. On the third morning a newly disembarked married couple selected me. I heard two of the other adepts commenting on my violin case.
The situation this time was unusual. The man had apparently lost his stave while on the ship and needed a replacement. I was not sure what to do about this but Renettia was standing by and she said that had to be dealt with before anything else. She sold him a new one.
One hundred simoleons.
She pocketed the money then passed the man’s new stave to me. I identified the island location, then established the detriment, which was a fairly large one of just over seven days. My etched lines on the pristine blade were a matter of pride for me. Renettia and I set about the calculation that would correct the gradient.
Forty more simoleons – this was paid to me.
To enact the calculation we required a car, which Renettia obtained easily – she later told me that on Cheoner all the adepts used the same car. Some islands were more difficult and if they were needed cars had to be borrowed, or some other method had to be devised. I wondered about that.
Renettia drove us through an industrial complex, turning left and right, apparently without planning. I sat in the front passenger seat beside her while the couple were behind us. I was struggling with the calculation, trying to make sense of the gradual data that I was finding on the stave. I had no idea what I was doing. I had removed the violin case from my back to give myself more space, but it was in the foot well in front of me and my legs were cramped and uncomfortable. I had written down a string of values on my memo pad, all taken from the stave, as Renettia had taught me earlier, but I was not sure what the next step would be.
Seeing my expression Renettia stopped the car and took the pad from me. We were in bright sunshine.
‘What do I do with the numbers?’ I said. ‘What do they mean?’
She looked closely. The couple behind us were silent. Without the car’s movement the temperature inside the passenger compartment was rising rapidly. Renettia frowned, checked the stave, looked again at what I had written down. Then she passed the pad back to me.
‘OK,’ she said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s OK. You finished.’
‘But – what have I finished?’
‘The calculation is correct.’ She restarted the engine and began turning the car around so that we could drive back to the harbour. ‘You have worked it out. Well done, Violin.’
‘I’m not sure how,’ I said quietly, not wanting to seem too inexperienced in front of the man and woman.
‘It matters only that you have done it. You might never know how.’
Back at the harbour in Cheoner Maxim we watched as the couple went through the Shelterate process, then they walked out with their luggage to board the ship to their next destination. They had said to me it was an island called Slow Tide, but I had never heard of that. The stave had indicated the island of Nelquay.
‘The same. They meant Nelquay,’ Renettia said. ‘You will have to be there for them, because the gradual between here and Nelquay is steep and irregular. Do you want me to stay with you? I think in fact you could work on your own now. It’s your choice.’
‘For now,’ I said. ‘Yes – please stay with me a little longer. I am nervous of doing something wrong.’
‘We all are,’ Renettia said. We were in the canopied shelter. My violin case was on my shoulders. The other adepts were sprawled in their self-consciously relaxed positions, but I had already noticed how a feeling of tension arose amongst all of them whenever a ship was due to arrive, or was preparing to depart. Their casual attitude was an affectation, a presentation of assumed confidence for their encounters with travellers. ‘Adept work is an art,’ she added. ‘I told you this when we were in Quy. It’s not a science. You know that now.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
We watched the ship moving away from the wharf, reversing and turning around in the cramped inner harbour, then setting out towards the south. A long cloud of smoke trailed from its double funnels. It was already late in the evening and we watched the ship until the darkness closed in.
‘So we go to Nelquay?’ I said.
‘Their ship won’t arrive in Nelquay for three days. First we eat.’
72
Immediately we arrived in the town of Nelquay Stream we adjusted our staves. It was a cold place, far in the north, close to the shores of Faiandland. Renettia and I were both dressed unsuitably for the island. We agreed that as soon as I had dealt with the gradual needs of the couple from Cheoner Maxim we would move south again. Some other adept could take over, if the couple continued their journey.
The harbour at Nelquay Stream was not much more than a huge building site: a tourist complex was being constructed on a spit of land beside the main quay, a planned hotel, marina, casino. We looked at the contractor’s board at the gates of the development and saw t
hat the project was unlikely to be completed for another two years. At the present time it was a wilderness of building materials, trucks, temporary buildings. The persistent wind blew clouds of construction dust across the harbour.
Other adepts were waiting by the Shelterate building – most of them were familiar figures, but unlike us they had managed to find warmer clothes. I saw Kan again – she was wrapped up in an old greatcoat with a scarf wrapped around her lower face. She had mittens on her hands. Once again she ignored me when I tried to greet her.
Not long after, when their ship from Cheoner arrived and had docked, the couple selected me once more. Their staves confirmed that they had come direct from Cheoner, without breaking their journey anywhere and were intending to sail to Muriseay. I observed that the long voyage from Cheoner had involved a dogleg around the Reever Fast Shoals and this had created a detriment of more than five hours.
Renettia checked what I had done.
Thirty-five simoleons each.
‘We have to cross the harbour,’ I said, thinking ahead. ‘We must take them away from the town, then find the coast road.’
‘I’ll get a boat,’ Renettia said.
I sent them through the Shelterate building. We then sailed across the bitterly cold waters of the inner harbour, the four of us, crammed together in a tiny boat with an outboard motor. The couple’s luggage was piled high in the bow. When we landed on the far side we led them past the construction site where work was going on, then across a long stretch of broken ground, enclosed by a high fence, that looked as if it too was intended for future development. As we climbed higher the cold became more intense. My loose-fitting robe was completely unsuitable for this, as were Renettia’s light clothes. However, the couple we were saving from the detriment were no better off, struggling with their heavy bags.
I paused to calculate the gradual, then we returned the couple to the harbour by the swiftest possible route. They were not satisfied with what we had done and the man complained bitterly that we had overcharged. They headed for their next ship, which was already waiting at the quay, destined for Muriseay.
Renettia said, ‘I think somewhere warmer next.’
‘Muriseay?’
‘Perhaps not.’
Later, after the ship had slipped away from Nelquay Stream, Renettia and I found a small restaurant and while we were eating Renettia suggested our next destination should be Paneron. She mentioned that it was close to Winho, information that made me say that I would prefer that instead. This was the only island I knew my brother had been to, so long ago, so many years before.
‘Not Winho,’ Renettia said. ‘Paneron. You’ll like Paneron, Violin.’
73
Paneron was a lushly beautiful island, with high wooded hills and dozens of tiny islets scattered around in the area offshore. It was in a part of the Dream Archipelago known as the Swirl, close to the equator in the southern hemisphere. It was hot. We were suitably dressed once more.
As soon as we arrived in the harbour at Paneron Main, Renettia and I adjusted our staves.
Because Main was a popular tourist resort the Shelterate building was larger than any I had previously seen and three long canopied areas had been set up for the adepts in the adjoining compound. Ships came and went all the time and the port was always crowded. I had never seen so many adepts at work, so much money changing hands. I saw all the familiar faces and perhaps forty or fifty others.
We adepts worked with passengers for the next five days. Because Paneron was a popular island and the Swirl had so many more islands in relatively close proximity most of the people we worked for had accumulated only small increments or detriments. Our average fee was ten thalers or fifteen simoleons, although when two privately owned luxury cruisers docked one day we found that we could charge more than a hundred thalers a time. That became a busy and lucrative day.
Because there was so much traffic, and because the shipping routes were short and well established, the adepts had many regular procedures for adjusting the gradual effects. Most of these involved a short walk in a shady woodland area next to the harbour – several well worn paths ran through the trees. The calculation of the gradual was easy and routine.
On the fifth day, Renettia said to me, ‘Go, Violin.’
‘Go?’
‘You are fully adept. You will work better alone. There is nothing more I can guide you with.’
I had begun to like Renettia after so much time with her, for all her brusque manner. I still knew little about her but I had learned that she came originally from the island of Semell, which was in Archipelagian terms not too far from the Ruller Group. She was once married but her husband had died many years earlier. She had five children, sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. All but the three youngest were now adults. She would not tell me her age. From occasional remarks about experiences in the past I worked out that she must be at least eighty years old, possibly more. Aside from her distinctive grey hair, her physical appearance was that of a healthy young woman in her late twenties or early thirties.
‘Will I see you again?’ I said.
‘Adepts are everywhere, Violin. Where will you go first?’
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ I said, but that was not true.
We agreed I would set off alone, but not until the next day. Renettia revealed that some of the other adepts had worked out who I was and through her had made a request of me. When I found out what it was I accepted. It pleased and excited me.
The evenings in Paneron were quiet in the harbour because no ships arrived after dark and it was normally deserted, but that evening a crowd of the adepts gathered under their striped canopies.
Playing my violin I walked slowly along the narrow spaces between the three groups of adepts, to and fro, back and forth. I was under the stars. I gave them a few short pieces from the standard repertoire, some of which I had not played for years. Then I played the whole of the allegro maestoso from my violin concerto, a short virtuoso piece that I knew was liked by many people. I finished with the reels and jigs I had learned and played with my brother Jacj, in the social club in Errest. While I fiddled with a rhythmic energy I had not known since I was a teenager some of the adepts came out from under their canopies and began to dance. Someone turned on a floodlight mounted on the side of the Shelterate building – it threw a single beam into the compound. A few more of the adepts emerged shyly into the light and shuffled alone, some others held each other self-consciously, these old-young people jigging in the warm night, clumsy on their feet, laughing at their own mistakes, adept only at time and the gradual.
I played them every dance tune I knew, then played them all again. The insects in the dark surrounding trees were silent, lights from the town shone in the distance, the sea lapped gently against the harbour walls.
In the morning I went to Dianme, the island that had charged my dreams all my life.
74
Dianme at last! It was the culmination of a lifetime of hopes.
But the harbour in Dianme’s only town, Deep, was on the north side, facing the mainland of Glaund. I was cold and I could smell the polluted air flowing down across the bay. I had arrived in the night. I adjusted my stave.
This change of subjective time – a cancellation of the most recent increment of seventeen hours – moved me back not only to daylight but to a slightly warmer day, with a wind from the south keeping the stench of Glaund temporarily away. It also made my transit to Dianme, in effect, instantaneous.
I had become an adept of time. I travelled free of time. I arrived at the same subjective moment as I left, Paneron to Dianme in an instant, wiping out several weeks of my subjective time.
I went from beautiful Paneron, with its rich clientele, luxury hotels and expensive restaurants to lowly Dianme, blighted by its proximity to Glaund, by its northern position, by its climate.
The journey took me several weeks in subjective time. I knew from the start that there were barely an
y facilities for passenger ships on Dianme. It was going to be a long and complex trip. Few travellers wished to be on Dianme, or to travel there, or for that matter leave there. The reality of this I had learned during my long voyage northwards, island after island, forced to follow an erratic, diverting course, seeking a combination of routes that would take me eventually to Dianme. In the hotter latitudes no one had even heard of Dianme, so my first task was to travel sufficiently far into the temperate zones that the name was at least discoverable. Then, with my ultimate destination identified, even to recalcitrant shipping lines, I had to develop a strategy of how to get there. Dianme was not a regular port of call for any of the main shipping lines, or indeed of the smaller ones. More devious routes were necessary, unexpected crossings had to be made. I reached my destination finally on a mail boat, one which sailed once a month from an island called Stemp to the three-island group that lay off the coast of Glaund.
I arrived on Dianme in the night.
I adjusted my stave. The long intervening journey disappeared. I was back at the same moment I had left Paneron. I was an adept of time. Provided I could stand the delays and inconvenience and slow journeys of subjective time, the stave allowed me to go anywhere I pleased in a split second.
I was looking good. I felt fit. I was young-old, renewed daily by my adeptness.
Now the reality of Dianme, which was a disappointment, a disillusionment.
The harbour of Dianme Deep was really not much more than a jetty and a harbour wall. Most of the boats were for fishing. No Shelterate office existed. There was a canning and freezing factory next to the port. The town itself was little more than a village. There were no restaurants but there was an inn where I was able to buy a meal. After that I found a place where protective clothes for manual workers were sold, many of them second-hand: thick working trousers, a woollen sweater, a rainproof hat. I put these on over my other clothes, feeling stiff and awkward but warm at last. I had to loosen the straps of my violin case to get it on over my bulkily padded shoulders. I went inland after that, hoping to learn history, hoping for views, scenery, some insight into how the legend of the benign wind-bringing goddess might have arisen.
The Gradual Page 31