“Once I finally contrived to meet with Reiner and Petra, it was in the fields of the agricultural district. Convincing them that I was their long lost friend proved to be difficult enough. Instilling in them a sense of safety, in face of the obvious peril of acknowledging that I was alive and well was also no mean feat. It was Petra’s research group that had gained such amazing ground with the hopper technology. As soon as I explained my discovery of Silinthalis, Petra’s understanding leaped ahead of mine. She understood immediately that Dannum, or Pretchis as she knew him, must have been able to listen to the entire city, merely by touching the walls of the Dannustine Palace. Safe in his bedroom, he must be able to root out those dreamers of dark dreams, those minds bent on insurrection. They made the decision to help me that night, and we talked till dawn. We would wake Ahken, and on the hopper, he would record the dream that I’d witnessed.”
“That’s not exactly how things played out though.” Stanwick commented as she walked over to the side table and took a swig from the liquor bottle, “I had a window seat for the whole spectacle. I’d been living with Ahken and his parents for the better part of a year, a formally adopted member of Kith Tiarsis. I slept in a domicile next to Ahken’s. That morning, I woke before Ahken, watched him throw a fit when his mother tried to drag him out of bed, and I listened to them try to explain to him what was expected of him. I went and joined the adults. I held Ahken’s hand for comfort as he strapped in to the hopper, told him to relax, felt him nearly crush the bones in my fingers as his eyes rolled back, and then I watched the drool pour down his chin as his mouth slumped open. I’ll tell you what … Really, really shitty way to start your day, from everyone’s perspective. He was under for twenty minutes, everyone too afraid to try and pull him out of it, because we were all scientists of Arctum and we knew the risks. Twenty minutes, and what we couldn’t know as we watched him writhe and struggle, was that for every minute he was under, one and a half millennia poured out of him, filling the glardium crystal cube with the future.”
West leaned through the window, raising his voice, “What a future though. The magnificent dream, Somnium Mirificum, the dream of thirty-thousand-years. We spread the dream throughout every home in Allim, and the people rose up, not because it was right, or because they felt any great injustice had been done to them, but because Ahken’s dream showed them how glorious they would all look in their uprising. Most of the people chose to become Leechborn, because they had witnessed for themselves how powerful they would become, how they would crawl the walls of the Dannustine Palace, and give chase to the bastard guards who had marched the people they loved into the zenith pyres. Even the fires of Pompeii pale in comparison to the wrath and havoc that was unleashed by the hunger of the newborn Blood-Brood. Ever hungry, the children of the Delvers tore apart the walls of the city. They were met by Dannum’s brood, his most loyal guards, who we soon learned had stood by him since the birth of Allim, feeding on the penitents, and doing his bidding with ferocity and religious fervor. So the Leechborn Wars began.”
David ran his fingers through Stephanie’s hair, and watched as she pulled away from him, desperate to show that she was still awake, “You must be shattered hon. You think you’ve heard enough for tonight?”
“Dad, is this a school night?”
David raised his eyebrows, “Sweetie, you need some sleep, school night or not.”
Stephanie looked imploringly at Stanwick, “Tell him I don’t need to sleep. He’ll listen to you for sure.”
Stanwick laughed, “Spiff, you really should get some sleep. I’ll make sure we wake you up really early, and we will have pizza, or steak, or lobster for breakfast.”
“For real?”
“Absolutely.”
Stephanie jumped off the couch and planted her feet loudly on the hardwood floor, making a meal of every step as she walked towards the bedrooms. She spun suddenly, “How about all three?”
Stanwick shrugged, “If you’re asleep within the next ten minutes, I’ll throw in a rack of ribs.”
Stephanie clasped her hands together, spun on the ball of her foot, and ran into the nearest bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.
Charlene pointed a finger at Stanwick accusingly, “You’re going to be a bad influence on that child.”
David turned to face Charlene, “Right? I mean, between the steak for breakfast, and the destruction of a civilization, what hope does Stephanie have?”
“And you,” Charlene pointed at David now as she turned to face him “you need to get your head together. I’ve seen you, squirming and fidgeting through the whole story, wondering whether you’ve been cursed or blessed.”
David looked a little taken aback, “Hey now, I didn’t see you contributing.”
“I was listening to what you all were saying. I have questions. I’ve got a lot of questions, but they’re technicalities. I’m not sitting here wondering what the hell it all means.”
Stanwick walked around the front of the couch and sat between the two of them, “What kind of questions Charlene?”
Charlene leaned her back against the arm of the couch, “Have you been back?”
“To Allim?”
Charlene nodded.
“The fall of Allim wasn’t a mere political collapse, or the breakdown of our society. Allim is gone.”
“Oh!” Charlene nodded slowly, “What happened to your brother?”
“Please Charlene, don’t refer to him as my brother. If you’re talking technicalities, sure, I was adopted by Ahken’s family, and Petra has always treat with me as her own, but I am Stanwick Kith Thrass. I discovered my parentage after the fall, when the doors of the archives were thrown open.”
Charlene nodded, “Okay, gotcha … So what happened to Ahken?”
There was an exchange of looks between Stanwick and West, and some unspoken decision seemed to have been reached.
“Stephanie sweetie.” David cracked the bedroom door slowly, talking softly.
“I’m not asleep.
Stephanie flicked a switch beside the headboard, and revealed that she had been sitting on top of the covers in the dark.
“What are you doing?”
Pouting, Stephanie folded her arms sullenly, “I want steak for breakfast, but I couldn’t get to sleep.”
David chuckled softly, and sat on the edge of the bed, “I’m glad you’re awake. We all need to head up to West’s apartment. It’s just upstairs.”
Stephanie grinned, “Does this mean I get to stay up longer?”
David rolled his eyes dramatically, “No it does not. West has a spare room that you can sleep in while we talk. I know you’re excited. I am too.”
Stephanie didn’t say anything more on the matter. She jumped off the bed and ran into the den, eager to join the adults again.
CHAPTER TEN
The Hopper
David felt immediately at ease in West’s apartment. It was similar to the downstairs apartment in many respects, with a long entrance hall, doors leading to rooms on either side, the hall fed into an open plan living area. There were more homely flourishes though, or perhaps it simply felt more lived in. Stephanie had jumped with gleeful abandon onto West’s eighteenth century Chinese bed, staring up at the gold inlaid carvings, “It’s so pretty.”
West nodded, “I spent an entire year watching a man carve those little relief sculptures into the cherry panels.” An entire year in his company, and West couldn’t recall the man’s face.
Stephanie wrapped the blanket around herself and started snoring loudly, “Okay, I’m ready for my beauty sleep, you are dismissed.”
Laughing, West dimmed the light in the room, “Sleep well Princess, we’ll wake you early, and you won’t miss anything, I promise.”
“Yes, yes,” Stephanie yawned, “I take my steak medium rare.”
Closing the bedroom door behind him, West patted David’s back, “Stephanie’s a trip. You must be proud of her.”
“She never fails to amaze m
e really.”
“What will you have?” West walked towards the kitchen, and threw open the doors of a well-stocked liquor cabinet. David’s eyes roamed, recognizing many of the more familiar drinks by the shape of their bottles, but scrutinizing the less familiar bottles more closely, “Frangelico if you don’t mind.”
“Charlene, what can I get for you?” West called out to her, and not missing a beat she replied, “Irish cream and Sambuca if you’ve got it.”
Stanwick chuckled filthily in recognition of Charlene’s selection.
West reached into the back of the cabinet and pulled out a dark clay jar, tossing it to Stanwick.
Stanwick looked at the bottle and nodded appreciatively, “You’re a beautiful man West.”
Charlene leaned in close to Stanwick trying to make out what West had given her, “What is it?”
“Blood of course!”
Charlene gasped, stepping backwards quickly, but Stanwick reached out and grabbed her wrist, laughing, “I’m just fucking with you Charlene, sorry. This is, if my eyes do not deceive me, eighteenth century Chilean pisco.”
“Peruvian.” West corrected her as he poured Charlene’s drink.
Stanwick traced her fingers along the words which were engraved into the clay.
“What’s pisco?” David asked, taking a sip from his drink.
Stanwick walked into the kitchen and started to rummage through West’s drawers in search of a knife, “Well, if Kipling was to be believed, it is a drink compounded of cherubs’ wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset, and fragments of lost epics by dead masters.” She pushed the knife edge up under the wax seal, easing the cork out slowly. Realizing that both David and Charlene were now staring at her, she explained, “It’s brandy.”
Charlene picked her cocktail up from the kitchen counter, “You all drink a lot.”
West sighed heavily, “Do you feel even slightly tipsy?”
Charlene thought about it for a moment, “Not really, just warm and relaxed.”
West raised his glass and stared at the Kahlua he’d poured himself, “We metabolize alcohol differently. The leeches are perhaps overprotective when it comes to chemicals impacting on higher brain functionality. You will literally leak alcohol before you come close to being black out drunk, and believe me when I say, sweating liquor is not pleasant.”
Stanwick raised her pisco jar, “You can get drunk, if that’s what you want, but you really have to want it, and it won’t last long. Here’s to trying though.” She touched her jar against Charlene’s cocktail glass, then tipped her head back and drunk deeply.
West pulled an oak chest away from the wall in the corner of the living room. He pressed his hand against a small framed print of Joos van Craesbeeck’s Temptation of St. Anthony, then he waited as the whole far wall of the apartment slid into a hidden recess. There, the surface which had been hidden behind the wall appeared as if it was a giant television screen, dark and glossy, displaying a shimmering animation of the night’s sky. West thumped the screen with a closed fist, “This is glardium.”
David and Charlene stepped closer, both of them transfixed by the moving luminescent patterns, the sudden pinpoints of brightness on the near black surface drawing the pair closer. A fluorescing cloud of amber, pink and cream flecks would swirl into murky darkness creating an illusion of almost infinite depth, then another arcing spray would erupt on another part of the wall, and spill into intricate dew covered cobwebs.
West traced his fingers along the trail of what looked like a shooting star, “The rills, arteries and tributaries of a once living city. At night, the buildings of Allim put the night’s sky to shame, the walls breathing every word of every thought, the stars carrying your nightmares away, to the somber reaches of the Dannustine Palace, and the aphotic, cancerous sprawl of Pretchis’ mind.”
David touched his hand to the wall, and tried to imagine how West might have felt the first time he heard the slumbering thoughts of Ahken. In the yawning deeps of his mind, David was sure now that he could hear a voice, rambling and disjointed, a deep-seated fear spreading through him. He felt West’s hand on his, “It’s the building David, everybody dreams. Don’t dip your fingers unless you’re ready to fall in.”
Stanwick placed the jar of pisco gently on the floor, and stepped up to the wall, pressing her cheek against the cold surface, spreading her arms wide and stroking the stars with the palms of her hands, “Don’t listen to a word he says. Dive in if you dare.” She reached out and grabbed Charlene’s wrist, pulling her enthusiastically, pressing her palm to the glardium.
West knelt down by the oak chest, opening two latches and lifting the lid. He lifted two small bundles out of the chest and placed them on the floor beside him, then he closed the lid of the chest and pushed it back against the wall in the corner of the room.
“You’re going to play through a recording of my experience of the battle for Allim, the Leechborn Wars, and the Mythologue. Once you get the hang of controlling the hopper, you’ll want to skip a lot, because if you don’t, events will play out in real time, and the recording covers a pretty vast expanse of time.”
Stanwick stroked the back of Charlene’s hand with her fingertips, but she spoke loud enough for David to hear her, “You’re going to understand what the people around you are saying, because West understood, but don’t waste your time talking to anyone in the hopper. They’ll respond, but as soon as you go off script, your brain will fill in the blanks with junk and assumptions, so you’ll basically be talking to yourself.”
Charlene nodded, “So it’s like a dream?”
Stanwick smiled, “I’ve never had your dreams Charlene, but I doubt it.”
Loosening a wide silk cord from one of the bundles, West spread what appeared to be a black blanket on the floor. He stood up and stepped away from the blanket, “It’s going to feel disorienting. The first time on the hopper, it can take anything up to a couple of minutes for your brain to register what’s happening, because the most recent memory will create a sort of feedback loop. It will feel as if nothing has happened, and your instinct will be to step away from the wall. If you can, fight that instinct and rather imagine yourself stepping away from the wall.”
Stanwick whispered in Charlene’s ear, “Seriously, don’t listen to him. Imagine yourself falling through the wall, being swallowed whole in a tidal wave of glardium.”
Charlene was already lost in the rills though, millions of connections forming through the touch of her skin, Stanwick’s voice a distant beckoning amongst a heady cosmos of dreams. When she spoke, she struggled against the echo of her own voice, her speech slurring, “Would I hear this without the leeches?”
She felt Stanwick’s hand on her cheek, pressing her face into the cold vacuum of empty space, “You would feel nothing without the leeches. Time will come when you’ll wonder how you ever felt anything without them.” Stanwick’s voice was inside her head though, not a sound, but a rattling tin reverberation of a thought. She could feel Stanwick’s hand on her back, fingertips stroking the curve of her spine, “Without the tongues of Antrusca to give them voice, their thoughts and dreams are poured forever into the abyss of night.” Charlene opened her eyes, unnerved by Stanwick’s closeness, but when she blinked, she realized now that Stanwick was nowhere near her, rather she was leaning against the wall by David, watching West unwrap a second blanket.
West clapped his hands together, “Okay, you’re both going to need to bare your skin to your shoulders.”
David threw up his hands in protest, “What am I just going to rip the neck open on my t-shirt?” He tugged the fabric about his throat, trying to demonstrate that what West was suggesting was more or less impossible.
Stanwick shook her head, “You could just take it off, you know, like a normal human person might.”
David flushed, uncomfortable with the thought of two women seeing his slovenly physique. He bunched up the material and ripped it with his teeth and hands, p
ulling it into a ragged cape over his shoulders. He glanced jealously at Charlene, whose outfit was much more accommodating to the task.
West pulled what looked like a chrome neck pillow out of the chest and placed it on the floor. Charlene came over to where he knelt, “Is that it?”
“This is one part. This rests behind your neck, and the flat side attaches to the wall.” He turned the metal to show Charlene the flat backside of the device. “The glardium weave,” he pulled the corner of one of the black cloths, “covers your face, and attaches to the wall. It’s very lightweight, easy to breathe through.”
“I get pretty claustrophobic.” David confessed.
Stanwick raised her hand as if she were about to strike him, and David flinched instinctively, throwing his elbow up in front of his face. Stanwick grabbed his elbow with one hand, and slapped his face with the other, “You aren’t that man now David.” She slapped him again, “You’ve got to stop thinking like that pathetic sap you’ve been your whole life. Just give it up okay? Let the little guys take control of the mother ship.”
David clenched his jaw, obviously, and impotently furious. He knew she was right though. Stanwick hadn’t hurt him, he was just reacting habitually.
Stanwick picked up her jar of pisco and swigged again, “Now, before we begin, Charlene I believe you wanted to know what happened to Ahken?”
“Yes.”
Stanwick licked her lips, sipping again, “You may not recognize him in the hopper. He has changed a great deal over the years, but he has stayed true to his dreams. In march, Ahken Kith Tiarsis was gunned down, right here in New York, by Dr. Julien Beach.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 19