by Tom Fletcher
‘Don’t lie.’
‘Please just tell me.’
‘You owe me a lot of money, Alan. A good old mountain of bugs.’
‘I pay when I pick up, Daunt. You know I do.’
Daunt bared her teeth. ‘I’m giving you an out here, rat. I’m not talking about what you buy. I’m talking about what you stole.’
Alan shook his head. His mouth was dry. Daunt was one of the more vengeful and vicious Discard authorities, and that was saying something.
‘Queen of Mushrooms don’t stay queen by giving shit away, warbler,’ Bittewood breathed into Alan’s ear. Alan shuddered. He could sense his captor’s size.
‘Bittewood here is right,’ Daunt said, ‘and you know it. I don’t give my wares away for nothing, not even to friends, let alone chancers like you. And I don’t tolerate theft.’
‘But they weren’t for nothing. I paid in kind.’
‘With your cock?’ Daunt laughed, a short sharp sound. ‘No! More like I should have charged you for the fucking and all. It was a disappointment. And I’d heard that was one thing you were good at.’
‘I am good at it.’
‘You were shite.’
‘I’m not just going to stand here and be insulted.’
Bittewood snarled, ‘Let me cut him, Daunt. Just a little bit.’
‘Not yet.’ Daunt grabbed Alan’s face, her long nails digging into his cheeks. ‘What did you do with what you took? Did you sell them? There were too many for just you. Have you still got them?’
She was hurting him. And that ‘Not yet’ had sounded stone-cold serious. It was time to get to the point. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daunt. I played your hall. I watched your meatheads brawl. We ate some soup together, drank some tea. I bought some mushrooms. We fucked. I left. I didn’t take anything. I didn’t steal from you.’
‘You took the vials?’
‘I don’t know anything about the vials.’ He resisted the urge to swallow. ‘I didn’t take any vials.’
Daunt put her knife to Alan’s throat. ‘Take your coat off,’ she said to him and then, to Bittewood, ‘Search him.’ Bittewood removed his knife from the back of Alan’s neck, allowing him to unstrap the guitar and shrug his coat to the ground.
Bittewood stepped around to stand in front of Alan.
Alan hoped his face did not betray the fear he felt in that moment. By the Builders! Bittewood was big, he’d already known that, but he hadn’t realised how … ugly he was. He had long black hair, but it was thin, greasy and straggly, and he was bald on top. His bloodshot eyes were large and icy blue, and they bulged out of the mess of scars and full, yellow spots that was his face. His mouth was wide, his lips wet, his neck long and his torso bare and hairless. His skin was pale and greyish. He was not particularly musclebound, but he was very tall and wiry, and his long, dirty fingers felt as strong as iron as they prodded and poked all over Alan’s body. He had a crossbow on his back and a rusty – maybe bloody – short-sword at his waist. He stank of old sweat gone acrid.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ Alan asked, as Bittewood picked up the discarded coat and started going through the pockets. ‘It’s not as—’
Bittewood shoved two fingers into Alan’s open mouth and felt around. ‘Be quiet,’ he grunted. Alan gagged, tried to turn his head away, but Bittewood grabbed him by the hair and held him. Daunt laughed, mirthlessly. When Bittewood was done he withdrew his fingers and wiped them on his brown plus-fours, a look on his face that might have been a smile. Alan spat. ‘What swamp-hole did you pull this fucker out of, Daunt?’ he asked. ‘What possessed you? He’s a creep. He’s a monster. You’re better than this.’
‘Well, Alan, there are some folks out there who don’t take me seriously.’ Daunt put her mouth to Alan’s ear. ‘It’s hard to believe, I know.’
‘There are heavies, and then there’s that.’
‘Lots of us have heavies. I’m the only one with a Bittewood, though.’
‘Thank the Builders.’ Alan watched as Bittewood shook Snapper around, listening for anything hidden within. ‘As if I’d keep glass vials in my mouth, anyway. He just did that for fun.’
‘Probably.’
‘He makes me uncomfortable. Are you done with me yet? I want to go. I want to get far away. I want to have a wash.’
Daunt lowered her knife. ‘You understand that I can’t just let people steal from me,’ she said. ‘I have to uphold my reputation. I have to send messages.’
‘You have to keep people scared.’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course I understand. I didn’t take your bloody mushrooms, Daunt. I love ’em, but I like you, and I don’t steal from people I like.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Though the Daunt I know and like wouldn’t be associating with that lanky pus-bag.’
‘Desperate times, Alan.’
‘Well, rest assured, I’ll be telling everybody just how bloody terrifying your new pet is.’
Daunt nodded. She looked into Alan’s eyes for a moment, then nodded again. ‘Right then. Bittewood, we’re done here. He’s telling the truth.’
‘Don’t trust him,’ Bittewood said. ‘Could’ve taken them. Could’ve hid them. Could’ve sold them.’
‘I know that. I didn’t think he’d have them on him. He’s not an idiot. Just wanted him to get to know you, really.’ She grinned at Alan. ‘You’re not an idiot, are you, love?’
‘I’m a lot of things,’ Alan said, ‘but I’m not an idiot.’
‘Glad we understand each other.’
And with that, Daunt and Bittewood disappeared back into Tanglepipe Junction.
Alan waited until the echoes of their footsteps had died away, and then exhaled. His feelings were mixed. He picked up his coat and ransacked the pockets himself. Then he went through them again.
The vials had gone.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ He scanned the gantry, and found some shards of broken glass balanced just on the edge. The vials must have fallen from his pocket when he’d dropped the coat. Beneath the gantry was only darkness.
Alan kicked the railings, and a couple of them broke off, spinning into the void below. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said.
5
Pyramid Slope
In a shadowed alcove on the sloped southern side of the Black Pyramid, Wild Alan looked at the palm of his young son’s hand and saw the brand there, red and still weeping.
‘Who did this?’ he asked.
‘Nobody.’
‘Who?’
‘I get picked on.’
‘But who by?’
‘They tell me my father is a stupid wild animal who lives with all the other stupid wild animals.’
Alan let go of Billy’s wrist, put a roll-up in his mouth, lit it and inhaled deeply. The moons looked down, full and rusty. Alan held the smoke in his lungs while he thought, and then exhaled. ‘I’m not an animal,’ he said. ‘And who is it, telling you this? Doing this?’
‘Everybody.’ Billy was wearing one of those stupid grey robes they dressed the kids up in, and it was far too long, pooling around his feet. Bit tight around the middle, though. Pyramidders didn’t want for food. Billy was six years old but he looked older to Alan. Not that Alan knew any other six-year-olds. There were families living in the House of a Thousand Hollows, but Alan tried his hardest to avoid them. He didn’t even know Billy that well, truth be told. Still, to Alan’s mind, children were brought up too quickly in the Pyramid.
Billy’s eyes were big and round inside his big round face, and big round tears hung trembling from his long eyelashes. ‘Everybody tells me, Dad. They tell me you’re no good at all.’
‘Son,’ Alan said, ‘I don’t know if I’m any good or not.’ He sat down, back to the wall, and took Billy’s hands again. ‘Don’t stick up for me if it means getting hurt.’
Billy scowled. ‘I don’t,’ he said. He yanked his hands away from Alan and walked over to the low wall that guarded against the drop. Beyond the wall, the smooth black ston
e of the Pyramid sloped steeply down into the blasted wasteland that surrounded it. Alan joined Billy at the wall and looked out. On the other side of the wasteland, the buildings of the Discard were black silhouettes against the stars: a skyline of mills and chimneys, ruins and scaffolding, domes and turrets. Columns of smoke rose from it, clear in the bright moons, and the flames of torches and campfires could be seen nestled amongst the architecture.
‘How can you live out there, Dad?’ Billy asked.
Far down inside Alan’s chest the familiar pain was back. ‘I’m sorry, son,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have chosen this.’ He took a hip-flask from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and drank deeply from it. ‘I’m sorry they pick on you.’
‘Probably they would pick on me anyway.’ Billy’s voice was resigned. ‘I’m fat.’
‘You’re not fat.’ Alan put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t say that, son.’
‘Eating is my favourite thing.’
‘Billy, I need to know about your hand.’
‘Vurnit got chosen for the Alchemists. I wanted to get chosen for the Alchemists but I didn’t, Vurnit did. We’re in the same batch but he still got chosen.’
‘You could get chosen when you’re older. But maybe you’ll change your mind about what you want to be.’ Please, please let him change his mind. ‘What if you got chosen for the Alchemists and then decided you wanted to be a cook, or a gardener? You’d be stuck then, wouldn’t you?’
Billy wrinkled his nose. ‘Those are jobs for stupid people,’ he said. ‘I want to be an Alchemist.’
Alan wanted to scream.
‘So they gave Vurnit his pendant,’ Billy resumed. ‘I asked him to see it – you know how they make them all different – and he said no.’ He paused. ‘Vurnit is very thin and clever. His robe fits him just right. Everybody likes him because he’s funny but he’s not funny in front of the teachers.’
Though Alan’s childhood had been vastly different from Billy’s, he reckoned it was probably a universal amongst six-year-olds that ‘funny’ was a euphemism for ‘naughty’.
‘Is he a friend?’
‘Kind of.’ Billy nodded vigorously. ‘But he wouldn’t let me see it. He was showing it to the others but he put it in his pocket whenever I went over to him. I didn’t even want to see it that much, I was angry with him, but Mum had told me I should try and make friends.’
Alan took another swig from the flask. ‘You should listen to your mother,’ he said.
‘I do. Anyway, I asked him if I could see it and he was just ignoring me.’ The tears were welling up again. ‘Everybody was nice to him all day and nobody was talking to me. And I’d be a better Alchemist anyway. And I couldn’t do my work because I was all hot and sweaty. And after classes I was crying in the corridor on the way home and Vurnit came up to me and asked me if I was all right. I said I was. He asked if I wanted to see the pendant and I said yes. I think I said yes too quickly. He held it up for me to take and I thought we were going to be friends properly. I took it in my hand and – it made a sound like bacon – like, hot, sizzling. It didn’t hurt at first. Then it did, and I couldn’t let go. I started shouting and Vurnit was laughing. The others were laughing too. I cried in front of them.’
Alan tried to control his voice. ‘Where were the teachers?’
‘They don’t watch us outside of school.’
‘Where were the Arbitrators? The Administrators?’ Alan spat. ‘Were there no fucking Alchemists prancing about? Where was your mother? Give me that hand.’
Billy backed away from him.
‘Billy, I—’
‘Don’t swear, and don’t blame her.’
‘I’m not. It’s just—’
‘It’s not like you were there either.’
Alan gritted his teeth. The side of the Pyramid sloped down away from them, as high and steep as the sharp white mountains that could sometimes be seen catching the sunlight to the west. Black stone carved with elaborate designs gave way to alcoves like the one in which they stood, gave way to windows with balconies, gave way to columned galleries that spanned the whole side. The Pyramid was not as solid as it looked from a distance. It was a honeycomb: a hive of monks and drudges. It was intricately hollow and the closer you got to the shining, haloed point of it, the more ornate the detail and architecture became. Alan put the hip-flask to his lips once more and held it there, drained it, grimaced and put the flask away again.
‘I want to be here for you, Billy. I would be if they let me.’
‘Why didn’t you just stay?’
‘They exiled me.’
‘But only because you kept breaking the rules.’
‘Billy …’ The Dog Moon was hot in Alan’s stomach, but did nothing to burn out his fury. Vurnit and his friends, the Teachers, the Alchemists, the Administrators, the Astronomers – the whole damn lot of them, they could all go to hell. Billy was old enough to know what they were now. Old enough to hear the truth.
‘Billy, I wasn’t born in the Pyramid. Did you know that?’
Billy shook his head inside his oversized cowl.
‘There was a small town at the base of the Pyramid called Modest Mills. You can just about still see the ruins of it now: fallen-down walls and the outlines of buildings, all half buried by the dustdrifts. It wasn’t all dust then, though; it wasn’t a wasteland. Modest Mills was white stone and brick and wood, proper human-sized houses, not like the cells up here in the Pyramid, and not the giant ancient buildings of the Discard either. Modest Mills was where I was born. We weren’t Pyramidders, nor were we proper Discarders; we were in-between. We traded with both. The Alchemists and Astronomers sent their lackeys down for supplies from the Discard Wilds, the Forests of Dok, the Warehouse Wastes – animals’ parts, y’know, certain fungi, swamp plants, metal bits and pieces from the old machines. And Discarders came to sell. They did buy, too, but mostly just from each other. The Pyramidders didn’t have much that the Discarders wanted, from what I recall.’
‘I’m getting cold. I want to go inside.’
‘Billy, please don’t go. Don’t leave me, Billy. I’m sorry for losing my temper. It’s just the thought of somebody hurting you. You don’t know – you can’t know.’
‘I know what it’s like to be the one getting hurt, though.’
Alan laughed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘There’s that. How does it make you feel?’
‘Sad.’ Billy sat down next to his father and then looked up at him. ‘Angry, too.’
‘I’m angry, Billy. That’s why they kicked me out. I was angry then and I’m still angry now.’
‘They should call you Angry Alan, not Wild Alan.’
‘Where did you hear they call me that?’
‘Mum. And school. I said it before.’
Alan laughed again. ‘Well,’ he said. He put an arm round Billy. The whisky was making him feel loose-limbed. ‘Modest Mills was a hot little town – all the Discard is hot, there isn’t the breeze you lot have up here – made out of white stone and brick and wood, and there were bright little birds flitting around everywhere. The market never closed, rows and rows of stalls with canopies all the colours you can imagine, all the traders shouting all day and the singers singing all night. I wanted to be a Modest Mills singer. Even then I knew that girls liked singers. I don’t know why that mattered to me back then – I was only your age – but it did. I wanted the attention, the costumes, the power – I didn’t know what the power was but I could feel it. Some singers could just stop everybody dead. It was a kind of magic. It was a magic that was real, that I could learn.’
‘You’re a singer now.’
‘Yeah, but not a very good one.’
‘What happened to it? To the town? Did Discarders come and kill everyone? Did they burn it down? Weren’t you scared of the Discarders, anyway? And weren’t there any swamp monsters? Teacher Grumblepip says that most Discarders die before they’re forty because of swamp monsters, but here in the Pyramid we all live to be a hund
red. Was it the monsters that got the town?’
‘No, Billy. If it was Discarders, or swamp monsters, then likely they’d have made it a big part of your lessons. It was Pyramidders who destroyed Modest Mills. And they didn’t just destroy the buildings. They destroyed the people. A load of Arbitrators swept out of some low gate, all armoured up like nothing I’d ever seen, all shining darkly like bronze statues, and they tore through the streets with knives and with fire and with chaos and they killed every last citizen.’ He lit another roll-up. ‘Well. Almost. All but one.’
Billy didn’t say anything.
‘Maybe you don’t believe me. I know what they tell you in this place. I know what they tell you about the Discard. I know how wise and magnificent they appear. I know that what I’m telling you sounds impossible. But it’s true. I watched Pyramidders slaughter my friends and family, Billy. I saw them kill little children. I saw …’ He stopped. ‘I won’t tell you everything I saw, but it made me very sad, and very angry too, and even though one of the Arbitrators scooped me up and carried me back inside, and even though the Pyramidders fed me and watered me and taught me and bathed me and sheltered me, I stayed angry, and I have been angry ever since, Billy. Even though I met your mother and fell in love I stayed angry. And we had you, and you were such a joy, such a tonic, but I was still angry. And it was being angry that got me exiled. I shouted at people and asked questions and I mistrusted the Teachers, and the work that the Administrators and Alchemists and Astronomers made us all do drove me mad. I told others how Modest Mills had been razed to the ground. I wrote it down. I sang songs about it in the plazas, and when the Arbitrators came and locked me up for singing, I wrote songs about that. And then I sang those songs. The next time they didn’t just lock me up, they broke my nose.’
‘The Arbitrators don’t hurt people, though.’ Billy’s voice was quiet. ‘They’re there to help citizens and resolve disputes.’
‘When I sang songs about them beating me up, the Arbitrators visited our home. I wasn’t in. They scared your mother, they scared you.’
‘They’re not scary.’