The hard leather of Adam’s belt blistered his hand, and still he gripped it tighter.
The passage was indeed a quarter mile long, but otherwise, it bore no resemblance to Senlin’s fantasy. He’d expected graceful surfaces and an orderly thoroughfare. Instead he found a tunnel like a mineshaft. There were no lanes or rails. Inbound traffic battered against the outbound traffic like rams on a bridge.
Tourists, merchants, rogues, and wanderers buffeted him on every side. His toes were stamped, his heels shaved, and his elbows knocked numb. Smoke and soot from infrequent oil sconces burned his eyes like black pepper. He couldn’t catch a solid breath. The smoke undulated like an upside-down river along the iron rafters above them. The distressed bray of pack animals, the stubborn barking of the man that drove them, and the rattling sob of an overcome young woman were all amplified by the horn of the tunnel walls until Senlin felt he might scream and break into a run.
But there was no room to run and no good air to scream with.
The experience was so terrible and so at odds with his impression of the Tower that, even amid that chaotic slog, he convinced himself that it must be some anomaly, a fluke. Perhaps he was caught in the rush of an annual festival, or it might be that some regular mechanical device, a fan or regulator, had temporarily failed. For all he knew, he had blundered upon the servant’s entrance.
After two days of sleepless panic, the march and the bad air quickly exhausted him. When the press of bodies abruptly relaxed and the air sweetened a little, Senlin knew they were at last inside the first cavernous ringdoms of the Tower, though he could not see it for the smoke in his eyes. He stumbled on tear-blurred cobblestones, half blind, and landed on one trembling knee. Still, he gripped the lifeline of Adam’s belt like a mountaineer who, having crested the final summit, could not believe he had arrived at the top.
But of course, he hadn’t reached the top. He had only groped his way to the foot of the Tower. And here, the trail began.
Chapter Five
“The Tower’s well produces a water that is famously crisp and pure. It is this untainted source which gives the local beer its ballyhooed flavor.”
- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, III.II
Senlin woke in a dusky chamber to a terrible scream. Frightened and disoriented, he leapt from the rickety cot he lay sprawled upon. The pine boards creaked and bounced beneath him like the slats of an old pier, and the air was rank with rot and mold. Above him, in a gloomy corner of the room, a blood-colored shadow suddenly flapped. Senlin threw up his arms to defend himself against the red wraith descending upon him, and let out a hoarse yelp.
The large parrot hopped down from his roost, landed on an edge of Senlin’s disheveled cot, and cawed again, its voice piercing in the small room. The bird cocked his head at Senlin, its small black and white eyes shuttering curiously.
The only light came from an oil lamp with a low flame that lapped the air like a cat’s tongue. It cast an orange glow on walls that seemed as thin as the mildewed wallpaper that covered them. A dented zinc sink caught the drips from a primitive faucet. The only other furniture, a three-legged stool, seemed as likely to throw a person on the floor as not. The majestic bird, completely out of place in the shabby room, picked at the brown blanket tangled on the cot with its hooked beak.
How long had he been asleep? He didn’t feel well rested. In fact, the nausea of exhaustion was still turning his stomach like a winch. It felt like two hours had passed. Or four, perhaps. It was impossible to say for sure.
It was a moment more before Senlin remembered how he had come to the room.
By the time he and Adam had broken from the smoggy burrow into the cavern of the Basement, Senlin was an absolute wreck. His eyes were nearly swollen shut from the fumes of the tunnel. His arms and legs felt unnaturally heavy, as if he’d fallen into water while wearing all of his clothes. He was hungry and exhausted and couldn’t catch his breath without choking on soot.
Adamos Boreas had helped him into the first lodging they’d come upon, which had been little more than a row of tarpaper flophouses. There was no lobby or central hallway. The doors of the rooms exited onto the street where a thick-necked innkeeper sat on an upturned crate shaving bits of ahle wurst into his mouth. The smell of that pork sausage had seemed as rich as frankincense to Senlin, and his mouth watered like a dog’s.
If Senlin had been in any better shape, he would’ve argued against taking the room. He thought the whole row of shanties should be burned down and the ashes deloused. But weary beyond argument, Senlin let Adam check them into a room where he could sleep for a few hours while his young guide looked after his belongings. Senlin sprawled himself upon the cot like a spill, his limbs pouring over the sides limply. He’d been too spent to even notice the parrot perched above him. He’d slept deeply.
He wondered where Adam was.
He turned on the faucet. The connecting pipes shuddered and water sprayed briefly from a rag-repaired joint in the plumbing, and then the basin began to fill. The murky water smelled vaguely of sulfur, and had Senlin been more awake he might not have plunged his face into it so eagerly. The water felt wonderful on the wounds on his cheek and hand, but as thirsty as he was, he still couldn’t bring himself to drink it. The guide had recommended caution when confronted with suspicious plumbing; a single sip of bad water had ruined many a holiday.
When he straightened again, he realized he was soaking his coat’s lapels and there was no towel, only a rag on a peg hardly large enough to dry a mouse. His corduroy suit, pink from the desert clay, now began to redden as the embedded dirt turned to mud. Recalling the change of clothes in his satchel, he turned to locate his luggage.
While his back had been turned, the parrot had managed to make up the bed. The clever bird screeched again, and then in a roughly human voice said, “Time to go! Time to go!”
“Give me a moment!” Senlin replied, flustered. His hair drenched his collar as he hunted about for his bag.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that his satchel and the parcel of women’s silks were gone. When he reached for the pockets of his trousers, he found them turned out. His small change, the pence and halfpence, was gone. He had been robbed. His razor and soap, his journal, his comb and coat brush, his linen gloves and handkerchiefs, his vest, trousers, socks, his guidebook and the tickets that were tucked inside. All gone.
In a panic, he felt the waistband of his trousers. The telltale lump of bills was still there. He let out a rueful laugh. How clever he had been to insist on the secret pockets! Though, really, how clever could he be? This marked the second time in as many days that he had been robbed.
“Time to go!” the parrot repeated in its coarse voice. With its tidying complete, it leapt back to its perch in the corner and began to preen.
Senlin’s hand was on the doorknob when he spotted the book in the shadows under the cot. Dropping to his hands and knees, he fished it out, tapping loose a tagalong ball of dust. It was his Everyman’s Guide. To his great relief, the train tickets were still wedged inside, snug as a bookmark.
He still had most of his money and he had his passage home. For a man who’d just been robbed, he felt very fortunate.
How could he have been so wrong about Adam? He’d always thought himself a good judge of character. Years of experience had taught him how to distinguish the liars and cheaters from the merely nervous students. He should’ve been suspicious of anyone who still posted notes to the Lost and Found after two years of futility. Boreas was irrational, superstitious and desperate. Such men couldn’t be trusted, no matter how sympathetic they seemed. Adam wasn’t even sensible enough to steal the guide!
Angered by this further setback, which would only make his reunion with Marya all the more humiliating, and embarrassed by his lapse in judgment, Senlin dropped the guide in his coat pocket. He moved the tickets to his secret pocket, withdrew a few shekels, and exited the room. With a parting squawk, the parrot reminded him of t
he relative time.
The streets and blocks of the Basement city were all contained within a single, vast cavern. Senlin supposed that all of Isaugh, from the schoolhouse to the spits of the cove, could have easily fit inside. Sweating pipes, patched with yellow moss, were girded to the chamber walls and domed ceiling where they ran like a maze in every direction. A slow rain of condensation splattered his shoulders, the slate pavers, and the clay tiles of cottage roofs. Thousands of snails, some as large as cows, clung to the waterworks above, their shells the color of dark, unpolished jade. The trails of these giant shells glistened like cracks in glass.
As strange as the scene was, it wasn’t the bottled city or the bull-snails that first captivated him. It was the hulking, iron merry-go-round turning in the public arcade. He’d been drawn to the arcade by the aroma of shish kebabs. He bought two of the skewered morsels, and as he paid, he asked almost automatically if the vendor had recently seen a woman in a red helmet. His question was shaken off, as it had been a hundred times in recent days. The goat tasted good, but probably benefitted from the seasoning of starvation.
As he chewed, he watched the dozen grown men who rode the black merry-go-round before him. They seemed as joyful as his students when he dismissed them for the day.
The merry-go-round clanked and whirred and rumbled the ground. It seemed as ancient as a millstone. Twelve stools stood welded to the iron wheel, and beneath each were foot pedals that might’ve been taken from a bicycle. If one rider slowed his pedaling, the others cheered and jeered him back up to speed. They seemed, working altogether, to be powering the merry-go-round, though its plodding speed didn’t seem to match the frenzied efforts of the riders. It seemed a strange pastime for grown men, and then he saw the fountain spurting from the conical hub of the machine. The water cascaded down the slope of the cone towards a trough that frothed at chin-level with the seated men. Ivory stems curled up from the trough to their mouths, and they drank from these fixed straws with great relish while they pedaled.
Senlin licked the grease of the goat meat from his lips. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so thirsty.
And just when he thought he might be desperate enough to chase along and try to jump aboard the spinning fountain, a loud clunk shook the whole machine and it came to a stop. The men aboard hardly had time to whoop in anticipation before the whole disc began to turn back the other way. It spun so rapidly in reverse that the hunched backs of the men blurred together. The troughs threw out a sideways rain. Some spectators scurried to keep from getting drenched, while others opened their mouths and tried to catch some of the fountain’s wake. A single lash of the stuff splashed Senlin across the face. He tasted the pungent liquid running down his cheeks. It was not water. It was beer.
Without warning, one rider lost his grip and was ejected from his seat. He first flew and then rolled across the flagstones of the arcade. A passing tourist had to leap to keep from being bowled over. The merry-go-round, seeming to have exhausted its coiled energy, clicked to a dead halt like an unwound clock. The remaining eleven riders dismounted unsteadily. They went away on wobbling knees and crossing feet, and the seats they left behind were soon refilled.
Overcome with empathy, Senlin ran to the thrown rider. Even before he turned the man over, he could tell by his tattered collar and rank odor that the man was a pauper. When Senlin rolled him onto his back, the man’s eyes were closed; his jaw hung loose, showing a largely toothless maw. Senlin wondered if he hadn’t been killed by his tumble.
But then the man’s eyes popped open and he expelled into Senlin’s closely drawn face a wind that smelled as sour as a spittoon. He wasn’t dead, only drunk. The man’s initial burst lengthened into an uproarious cackle. He grasped Senlin’s coat to pull himself up, but only succeeded in ripping one entire lapel free. They both gaped at the shred of corduroy that the man held in his fist. The drunk made a pitiful attempt to reattach the strip.
Senlin realized with sudden clarity that he was in no position to rescue this man, or anyone else for that matter. If they stood side by side on the street, he doubted anyone would be able to tell them apart. A mere three days off the train and he already looked like a beggar.
His wife was missing. He had to get ahold of himself. He was a headmaster, after all.
Beneath the snails and the plumbing sprawled a city of public houses, shops, hostels, and cottages. Most were built out of hob or clay or crumbly black cement, and their walls were warped and dimpled. Gas lamps cast the city in a dusky twilight. The crowds were not as stifling as they had been in the bazaar outside, but they were every bit as motley. At one moment, a woman in frills might pass by on the arm of a fancy gentleman, the two of them smelling like potpourri and hair wax. The next moment, a pilgrim in colorless rags might hobble by, reeking like a fishmonger in August. What Senlin wouldn’t give for a good scouring sea breeze! Here and there, a reliable structure stood like a tree among reeds. The red brick façades of shops and guild houses gave the streets some semblance of civility; otherwise, the architecture was rather pitiful.
He couldn’t help but feel disappointed: this was not the glittering center of culture he expected. The Basement might’ve been, for all its lackluster, a port town where sailors came to lose their sea legs. There were fountains of beer everywhere, for heaven’s sake! He’d passed six more since the first. The Everyman’s Guide was a little vague in its description of the Basement’s atmosphere, casting it as something of an amiable gateway to the greater attractions above, but even this seemed an exaggeration. It was more comforting to think of the Basement as the Tower’s mudroom. It was the place where one knocked the road from their boots before entering the hallowed halls above.
In the distance, rising from the exact center of the Basement, a white column stretched from the streets to the domed ceiling. The marble spire reminded him of a lighthouse— not only in its imposing size, but also in the secure feeling it gave him. It was the first bit of architecture that seemed appropriately grand. Even the snails left it alone. He recognized the column from the description in his guide; it was the stairway to the second level of the Tower of Babel.
Marya was so much better at taking the flaws of the world in stride, which was why she was indomitable and difficult to disappoint. She probably found the bull snails and drunken merry-go-round charming.
Senlin caught a glimpse of himself in a shop window. His usually carefully combed hair now stood out like a frayed rope; his suit looked like a dishrag with pockets. He doubted Marya would find him charming.
It couldn’t be helped. He needed a new suit.
*
A half hour later, Senlin was in a clothier’s changing room observing himself in a wall mirror in his new clothes. He’d chosen a suit that felt practical, though in fact it looked a great deal like his headmaster’s uniform: a thigh-length, square-bottomed coat, a matching black waistcoat and trousers, a white collared shirt and black square-toed boots. After pocketing enough money to cover the cost of his new clothes and a little extra for the day, Senlin secreted the remainder of his finances in his boots. He was confident that not even the most agile of pickpockets would be able to get at it there. He left his ruined clothes in a tidy pile in the changing stall.
He was somewhat surprised to see someone else had come into the clothier, which other than the elderly, bespectacled tailor, had stood empty a minute before. This newcomer was very short, a dwarf perhaps, and had a crooked nose and a tangled thicket of black hair. The gold threading in his vest suggested that he was some sort of merchant. Whoever he was, he was quite an animated talker. He was arguing with the tailor over a parcel of clothes. Not wishing to interrupt their haggling, Senlin began browsing the handkerchiefs. He’d need three, at least.
“But I don’t sell to ladies,” the clerk said with finality.
“Think of it as an opportunity to expand your market. I’m not coming to you with tatters. These are quality silks!” The wild haired diminutive man had to t
ug to get a single slip of clothing free of the parcel. He waved it like a flag. “See, they won’t even hold a wrinkle.”
“Excuse me,” the tailor said curtly and turned to Senlin, who’d selected three white, utilitarian handkerchiefs. They shifted to the counter where a brass-edged register stood. Senlin paid for his suit, boots and new handkerchiefs. All the while, the merchant watched the exchange of money like a cat tracks a bird. “Look,” he pattered on, “these silks are so sturdy, you could take this camisole, sew up the ends, fill it with gas, and lift a barge with it!”
Shoving the register drawer closed so sharply that the bell rang, the tailor removed his spectacles and began rubbing the lenses vigorously. “I don’t sell to barge captains either.”
The merchant clucked his tongue. “I love a man with a sense of humor.”
It was only when Senlin turned to leave that he caught sight of the luggage dangling from the merchant’s shoulder. The stitching was unmistakable. It was his satchel.
Perhaps Senlin was inspired by his new suit and crisp shirt, which felt satisfyingly sharp against his wrists and neck, or perhaps it was the merchant’s short stature, which reminded him of his students and filled him with a sense of authority, or perhaps it was Adam’s recent betrayal of his trust, and his subsequent thievery. Whatever the cause, Senlin felt a surge of confidence, verging on rashness. He would not let this thief go unchallenged! He would go against his usual restraint and take action. Fearing that the man might be armed, Senlin decided the safest course was to take the dwarfish thief by surprise.
Senlin stood with his back pressed to the shop’s façade beside the door; he would catch the thief entirely unprepared as soon as he exited the shop. Senlin felt an altogether unfamiliar thrill of anticipation warm him. When the shop door opened and the thief passed though, Senlin grabbed him by the collar and wrenched the dwarf from his feet.
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1) Page 4