Walking on Glass

by Iain Banks

  The dizziness made him stagger (he only then realised he-or his host - was walking), and a wave of fear pulsed at him, sending him out and away, breaking off, back into the strange, dark, light-speckled space again, his heart beating wildly, his breath quickened.

  He collected himself, snapped his fingers a couple of times, back in the real room inside the Castle Doors.

  He vaguely considered giving up his little experiment; that experience had been frightening and alien, but he decided to persevere. This was much too fascinating to abandon now, he might not get another chance to explore so, and anyway he wasn't going to give in to some undisciplined streak of cowardice, not him.

  He let himself fall gently towards another of the soft-looking orbs of shifting colours, and entered it as before. There was the same feeling of dizziness, but no fear this time.

  He was looking at a pair of hands, holding small stalks in one hand, taking a stalk at a time from the bunch and planting them quickly, accurately, into holes in brown earth. His back was sore. The arms were brown, like the earth. They were his arms, the arms of the person he was inside, and he wore some sort of loose, filmy covering. The arms were very slim. He - or rather the other person - stood up, straightening that sore back, putting one arm behind their back and stretching again. The view was of lots of women doing the same thing he was; stooped, putting shoots into the ground. The landscape was fiercely lit by a high sun. The ground was brown, he could see distant shacks and what looked like thatched roofs. There were some hills in the distance, green, cut with terraces like map contours made solid. Tall trees with naked trunks and all the leaves in a round bunch at the top. The sky was blue. A thin white vapour-trail stretched across it. There were a few clouds, pure white. His belly rumbled, and he thought of -what? The child in his belly.

  The woman whose body he had invaded bent back to the soil. Why yes! Now he thought about it he could feel the weight on her chest; tits! The child must be small, because his/her belly felt normal, if a bit empty (and at the back of her mind the woman, he realised, was looking forward to a small meal of some stored, baked grain in another few hours, after which she still would not feel full-she would still be hungry. She had always been hungry. She always would be hungry. Probably so would this child, like all the others). A woman! Quiss thought. A peasant; a hungry peasant; how odd! How strange to be in this way inside her body, there but not there, here but not here, listening in. He tried to sense her own feelings about her body, as the woman bent to her task again, methodically planting the small green shoots. She was chewing on something, her mouth working on some substance, she was not actually eating; something numbing, something which helped to deaden thought and make the work easier.

  How very, very singular, Quiss kept thinking. And although this was a woman's body, strangely it didn't feel all that different to being inside his own; less than he would have imagined. Maybe he just wasn't making full contact, he thought, but somehow he got the impression he was. The woman didn't seem totally aware of herself. Not specifically as a woman. What about her - ?

  The woman's hand moved, involuntarily, towards her sex, actually brushing the gathered-up material of her clothing between her legs. She stood up, puzzled almost, then stooped back to her work. A pain or an itch, she thought. Quiss was amazed; just by thinking something he had made the woman do it.

  He imagined that she had an itch behind her right knee. She scratched there, quickly and hard, hardly breaking the rhythm of planting and stooping. Fascinating!

  Then something was pulling at the woman's leg, but she ignored it. In fact she didn't seem aware of it. Quiss didn't understand; he could feel the tugging. It was quite urgent and insistent... then he remembered where he was really standing. His head swum slightly for a moment as he re-oriented himself mentally, then he was aware again of the weight under his arms and on his feet. He took his arms out of the loops and ducked down, back into the room under the Castle Doors.

  "Don't do that! Don't do that!" a small attendant squeaked, jumping up and down as it tugged on the hem of his tunic. "You can't do that! It isn't allowed!"

  "Don't tell me what to do, you... nanobrain!" Quiss kicked the attendant square in the chest, sending it tumbling away from him over the slate floor. It quickly picked itself up, pulled its loosened cowl-brim back down tight and glanced at the opened door. It put its little hands together, the yellow-gloved fingers meshing.

  "Please get out of here," it said. "You really shouldn't be in here at all. It isn't allowed. I'm sorry, but it just isn't."

  "Why not?" Quiss said, hanging on to one of the iron loops and leaning forward, glaring at the small attendant.

  "It just isn't!" it screeched, jumping up in the air and waving its arms about. Quiss found something funny about the thing's antics juxtaposed with the frozen expression of aching sadness shown on its mask. He got the impression from its sheer anxiousness that it was in some way responsible for leaving the door open. It wasn't pleading with him to leave just for his sake; it was frightened stiff.

  "Actually," Quiss said lazily, letting the iron hoop he was holding take his weight as he leaned back underneath the open hole in the glass ceiling and looked inside, "I've found this to be a quite fascinating experience. I don't see why I should stop now just because you tell me to."

  "But you must!" the attendant shrieked, flapping its arms about and running forward towards him. It thought the better of tugging at his tunic again, however, and stayed about a metre away from the stool, hopping about from foot to foot and wringing its hands. "Oh, you must! You aren't supposed to see any of this. It isn't allowed. The rules -"

  "I'll go if you tell me what it is," Quiss said, glowering at the small figure. It shook its head desperately.

  "I can't."

  "Fair enough," Quiss shrugged, and made as though to put his arms back through the hoops again.

  "No no no nonono!" the attendant wailed. It ran forward, throwing itself at his legs as though tackling him. He looked down at it. It cuddled his hosed shins like a tiny lover; he could feel it trembling. It was terrified; how delightful!

  "Get off my legs," Quiss said slowly. "I'm not going to go until you tell me what this is." He glanced back up at the dark shadow inside the glass which surrounded the hole. He shook his right leg, and the quivering attendant rolled along the floor. It sat on the slate, put its head in its hands, then it glanced towards the door which Quiss had found open. It got up quickly and took a key out of its pocket, put it in the lock, twisted it, shoved the heavy door to with some difficulty, then locked it.

  "You promise?" it said. Quiss nodded.

  "Of course. I am a man of my word."

  "All right, then." The attendant ran forward. Quiss sat down on the little stool. The attendant stood, facing him. "I don't know what it's called, or even if it has a name. It's a fish, they say, and it just sits there and... well... thinks."

  "Hmm, it thinks, eh?" Quiss said thoughtfully, rubbing his neck. A little bit of fur from the hole's collar had stuck to his tunic neck; he picked it off and fiddled with it. "What, exactly, does it think about?"

  "Well..." the attendant looked agitated and confused. It kept shifting Its weight from one yellow-booted foot to the other and back again.'... it doesn't actually think so much as experience. I think."

  "You think," Quiss repeated, unimpressed.

  "It's a sort of link," the attendant said desperately. "It links us up with somebody... in the... on the Subject world."

  "Ah-ha!" Quiss said. "I thought so."

  There, that's all there is to it," the small attendant said, and started tugging at his sleeve, its other hand indicating the door it had just locked.

  "Just a moment," Quiss said, and jerked the sleeve away from the creature's grasp. "What is the name of this Subject place, this planet?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Hmm, well I suppose I'll find out soon enough," Quiss said, and started to get up off the stool, looking up at the hole. He stood and grasped
the iron hoops, put one foot on the stool. The attendant jumped up and down, its little yellow gloves made into fists and jammed together at the small hard mouth of its face mask.

  "No!" it shrieked. "I'll tell you!"

  "What's it called then?"

  " 'Dirt'! It's called 'Dirt'!" the hopping attendant said. "Now will you go, please!"

  "Dirt?" Quiss said incredulously. The attendant beat its gloves on its head.

  "I... I... I think..." it spluttered, "I think it loses something in the translation."

  "And this thing," Quiss nodded up at the ceiling, at the shadow round the hole. "It forms a link from here to this place called Dirt. Is that right?"

  "Yes!"

  "And are all the people on this planet... accessible? Are all those lights you see initially individual people? How many? Can you get into any of them? Are they all unaware of people looking in on them? Can they all be affected?"

  "Oooh no," the small attendant said. It stopped jumping and bouncing around, seemingly collapsing in on itself. Its shoulders dropped, it looked forlornly down at the slate floor. It went and sat with its back to the door. "All the lights you see at the start are individuals." It sighed, talking more slowly now in a small, resigned voice. "They are all available, and can all be influenced. There are about four billion of them."

  "Hmm. Their bodies look quite similar to ours."

  "Yes, they're supposed to. It is our Subject, after all."

  That's where all the books come from?"

  "Yes."

  "I see," Quiss said. "Why?"

  "Why what?" the small attendant said, looking up at him.

  "Why the link? What's it all for?"

  The small attendant put back its head and laughed. He had never heard one of them laugh before. It said, "How am I meant to know that?" It shook its head, looked back at the floor again, "What a question." Suddenly it sat bolt upright. It turned quickly and pressed the side of its head to the door. It spun round to face him. "Quickly; it's the seneschal! You must get out!"

  It quickly unlocked the door and pulled it open, its small boots sliding and skidding on the slate floor with the effort. Quiss was on his feet, but he couldn't hear anything. He suspected the small attendant of trying to trick him. It looked at him, held out its little hands, pleading with him. "For your own sake, man. You'll be here for ever; you must go now."

  Quiss could hear a sort of deep rumbling noise from beyond the open door. It sounded like one of the main driveshafts from the great clock, heard through one of the thinner walls. It hadn't been there when he entered the room from the corridor outside. He went quickly to the door and outside. The attendant ducked out with him, and he helped it close the heavy door. The rumbling noise stopped. From along the corridor, as Quiss and the attendant went in opposite directions (the small creature scurried to a tiny door on the far wall and disappeared through, slamming it), a tortured squeaking, squealing noise came. Quiss was walking slowly towards the source of this cacophany; it sounded like metal scraped over metal. A wedge of light came from the side of the wall, and from a large square room with metal gates which squeaked and squealed as they were concertinaed to one side, and which Quiss realised must be a lift, the seneschal emerged with an entourage of black-cloaked minions. They stopped in the corridor when they saw him. Quiss looked at the small figures surrounding the seneschal, and for the first time felt genuinely apprehensive of the castle's dwarfish inhabitants.

  "May we escort you back to your own levels?" The seneschal's voice was cold. Quiss got the impression he had little choice; he entered the elevator with the seneschal and most of the small minions, and they let him out a few storeys below the games room level. Nothing else was said.

  He had tried since to find either the attendant he had met in the room, or the room itself, but without success. He thought they had probably rebuilt some of the corridors down there; a lot of building work had been going on in that area recently. He was fairly sure, too, that even if he did ever find himself in the same place, the door would be locked.

  He hadn't said anything to Ajayi about this. He enjoyed having knowledge she didn't. Let her read, and complain about not having the name of this mysterious place; he knew!

  Quiss placed his last domino down. The two of them sat looking at the irregular construction of flat, placed ivories, as though expecting it to do something. Then Quiss sighed and went to scoop them up for another game. He might persuade Ajayi to give it another go before she broke off for food or a book. Ajayi was leaning forward, putting out one hand to stop her companion from starting another game. Then she became aware that the dominoes weren't moving. Quiss was trying to prise them from the surface of the small table, and growing annoyed.

  "Now what the -" he began, and went to pick up the table. Ajayi stopped him, putting her hands on his forearms.

  "No!" she said, and met his gaze. "This might mean..."

  The old man realised, and quickly got up from his seat and went into the hot, bright space of the games room. By the time he came back from calling for an attendant, Ajayi was leaning over the table with a smile on her face, watching as a pattern of spots slowly appeared on the dominoes they had placed there.

  "There, you see!" Quiss said, sitting down, bright-faced with sweat and triumph. Ajayi nodded happily.

  "Gosh," said a small voice, "it's awfwy hot in here."

  "That was quick," Quiss said to a waiter as it appeared from the games room's bright interior. It nodded.

  "Welw," it said, "I was on my way here to see what you wanted fo" wunch. But I could take you-wanswer, if you wike."

  Ajayi was smiling at the waiter, finding its speech impediment more funny than she knew she ought. She was just in a good mood, she supposed. Quiss said, "Certainly you can; it's...' he glanced at Ajayi, who nodded, and Quiss continued, "... they both disappear in a blaze of radiation. Got that?"

  " 'They bofe disappea" in a bwaze of wadiation.' Yes, I fink I've got that. Twy not to be too wong; see you water..." It turned and waddled back through the games room, head down, mumbling the answer to itself, its little blue boots sparkling with reflected light from the fish under the glass floor, its steps and voice dopplering oddly as it passed a clock face.

  "Well..." Quiss said, and leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, putting his hands behind his head and resting one booted foot on the balcony balustrade, "I think we might just have got it this time, you know that?" He looked at Ajayi. She smiled and shrugged.

  "Let us hope so."

  Quiss snorted at such faint-hearted lack of belief, and looked out over the blank white plain. His thoughts returned to that odd experience in the room deep in the castle's bowels. What was the point of that hole, that absurdly named planet and the link between here and there? Why the ability actually to make those people do things? (He had, reluctantly, discounted the idea that it was only he who had this intriguing capacity.)

  It was most frustrating. He was still in the process of trying to get his contacts in the attendants to talk about this new aspect of the castle's mystery. So far they had been quite unforthcoming, despite all his cajoling and threats. They were frightened, no doubt about that.

  He wondered just how immutable the castle's society really was. Might it be possible, for example, for them - him - to carry out a coup? After all, what god-given right did the seneschal have to run the place? How had he come to power? Just how closely did the two sides in the Wars supervise the castle?

  Whatever the answers, at least it gave him something else to think about apart from the games. There might be another way out. There just might; never assume things were set and certain. That was a lesson he'd learned long ago. Even traditions change.

  Maybe this run-down heap was approaching some sort of catastrophe curve-edge, some change. Once, no doubt, it had been all its architects had intended, perhaps full of people, intact, not crumbling, fortress as well as prison... but now Quiss felt its pervasive air of decay, tottering senility made it -
if he could find the right key, or weapon - easy prey. The seneschal was only slightly impressive; nobody else was at all. He - along with the woman - was the most important person in the place, he was sure. It was all for them, it revolved around them, only really made sense if they were here, and that itself was a kind of power (as well as a comfort - he liked to feel he was, as he had been in the Wars, part of an elite).

  Ajayi sat, wondering whether to wait for the small waiter to return before she went on reading her book. It was a strange story about a man, a warrior, from an island near one of the planet's poles; he was called Grettir, as far as she could make out from the translation she was reading. He was very brave except for being afraid of the dark. She wanted to go on reading, no matter what the response was to their riddle-answer. Either way she couldn't imagine anything happening for a while.

  They were both sitting there, quiet, absorbed, a few minutes later when, from the bright, air-shimmering depths of the games room a small voice said,

  "Sowwy..."

  PART FOUR

  PENTON STREET

  Outside the Belvedere pub, in Penton Street, a table stood on the pavement, guarding the pub's open cellar doors. They must be expecting a delivery from the brewers, Graham thought. The table, wood and formica, standing over the two opened traps of the cellar, reminded him of the chair in the corridor of the School, just before he left.

  He was almost at the top of the low, building-disguised hill now; the road had all but flattened out. A few cars went along Penton Street, but it was quiet after the bustle of Pentonville Road, which he had just crossed. He looked over to the far side of the street, at some shops, a cafe. The area seemed unable to make up its collective mind whether it was run-down or not.