by Tom Fletcher
‘I’m just trying to get to know you.’
‘Aye, right. And I suppose your motives are entirely honourable.’
‘I’m not honourable,’ Alan said. ‘This is the Discard. I mean, are you?’
Churr didn’t say anything. She smiled, folded her arms over her chest and looked away.
*
The squelches and shrieks of the snail being killed echoed around while Alan and Churr were fucking hard in a room full of small cracked jars that had once contained a kind of ink, judging by the shiny black patina on the floor. Churr had black diamonds all over her and he traced them with his fingertips as she rode him. Whoops and cheers from the roof of the building reached them through the open window, as did the flickering light of campfires and the Gleam torches. The floor was smooth and cool against his back. Churr leaned down to kiss him and he put his arms around her. They moved their hips in circles. Sweat pooled on his belly. She stiffened and shook as she came, and he let himself come too then, his stomach tightening, his hips jerking and his mind filling with white light for all too brief a moment. Afterwards he felt lost again. Churr got up and went to the window. The dried ink on the floor was alive with reflected light. He walked over to her and stood next to her. ‘That was good,’ he said.
‘I thought so too.’
‘What now?’
‘I need a drink – more drink. Not whisky, though; something long and cold.’
‘I know a place.’
‘I’m sure you do. But we’re not going there, we’re going to a place I know.’
‘Some dirty, dangerous transient dive?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Perfect.’
In The Cup and Skull, Alan sank pint after pint, talking little. Churr knew the barman – a big bald man with a long grey goatee and leather jacket – and spoke mostly with him. The light in there was electric and green, and strong-smelling smoke hung thickly in the air. Alan realised after his third drink that he should be spending the evening alone. He thought about the wound on Billy’s hand and ordered another.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Churr asked him.
‘Nothing.’
‘You’ve lost interest now we’ve fucked.’
‘No,’ Alan said, but as soon as she said it he knew she was right. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got you involved in this.’
‘I’m not involved in anything.’
‘I mean me. This. You should be with some better people.’
‘I’m quite capable of choosing my company.’
‘I’m not much company, though.’
‘No. So. I’ll ask again: what’s wrong?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Summarise.’
‘I used to live in the Pyramid. My wife and son still live in the Pyramid. My son is being bullied by his classmates. In a few years the Alchemists will start Bleeding him. I have – had – an arrangement with one of the Arbitrators that meant I could visit him, but things have changed.’
‘What do you mean, bleeding?’
‘In the Pyramid the Alchemists use blood for their magic. They take it from the workers. It’s the price the citizens pay for their nice thick walls, I guess.’
‘Fucking Pyramidders.’
‘Billy won’t leave. Marion won’t leave. They’re safe there, in a way. I can’t promise them a life out here. I can’t promise that they’ll be safe.’
‘They prefer the Pyramid, even with the bullying, the Bleeding …’
‘Yes. So if I were to save them—’
‘Who would you be doing it for?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You can’t tell them that they don’t know what they want.’
‘No. It’s insane that they would choose that over the Discard, but the lies they learn in there ensure it.’
‘The answer is obvious, Alan.’
‘Is it?’
‘Let them live the way they want.’
‘But he’s my son. Marion is an adult – she can deal with the consequences of her decisions. But Billy …’
‘So find a way to stay in touch. Find another way to visit him. Talk to him. Tell him your truths. When he’s old enough he can choose for himself.’
‘You know what I need?’
‘What?’
‘Mushrooms.’
‘I haven’t got any on me, but Pighead probably does.’
‘No, I don’t mean—? Pighead? Who’s Pighead?’
‘Barman.’
‘Oh. No, I don’t mean right now. Actually I could use some right now. But what I mean is, to get to see Billy I need mushrooms. That’s the cost of getting in. I used to get mushrooms for an Arbitrator, but now he wants more – more than I can get from my usual supplier. And not just some little efforts from some damp room in the House or something, but the strong ones. And a lot of them.’
‘You know, if you’re talking about a way into the Pyramid – there are a lot of folks out here who might be interested in helping you out. The Arbitrators are getting a little too bold with their raids, taking people’s bugs, taking their livestock …’ She paused. ‘I was talking to a woman at a bucket-fire over near the Hinning House a few months ago. She said they took her brother’s neighbour.’
Alan felt the anger stir. He remained silent for a moment. Then he replied, ‘No, I’m not getting into the politics of it. This is about my son and only my son. I’m not waging war. I’m not dragging any innocents into my mess and I’m not going to provoke any backlash. I don’t need a gang, I don’t need an army, I just need some rare and powerful mushrooms.’
‘Oi!’ Churr shouted. ‘Pighead! Got any mushrooms in?’
‘Naturally,’ Pighead growled. ‘Wait a sec.’ He ducked behind the counter for a moment and then reappeared. ‘I got long-leg bonnets, toadthrone, rustcaps, dream-meat and tunnellers. I’d have more but those damned bandits are getting braver.’
‘Dream-meat, I think. Alan? Dream-meat? I know this isn’t what you were talking about, but they’ll take the edge off another long, hot Discard night.’
‘Go on then. And hey, Pighead, you got any teeth? Old Green’s Teeth?’
Pighead frowned. ‘A couple. Didn’t think you were the sort. What, you want ’em?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You know teeth?’
‘Yeah, I know teeth.’
‘Why do you want teeth, Alan?’ Churr asked.
‘Because they’re strong. I want out of my skull, Churr.’
‘But it’s such a pretty skull.’
‘The outside of it is okay, I grant you. But inside it’s a right mess.’
‘Well, you want to get fucked up tonight, that’s up to you. But in the longer term – what you’re saying is, we need to get our own supply.’
‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But yes, I suppose that is the logical conclusion. And what’s this we? Our? I don’t know about that. We’ve only just met.’
‘Maybe Daunt and I have our own history.’
Alan squinted at Churr through the haze. ‘Wait. You want to go up against Daunt?’
‘That’s what it would take, right? That’s what we’re talking about?’
Alan shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘That’s what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘This conversation’s kind of getting ahead of me.’
‘But Daunt was your usual supplier.’
‘Kind of. I couldn’t afford to buy what I needed, so …’ Alan trailed off.
‘You stole? From Daunt?’ Churr tipped her head back and laughed, more loudly than she had all night. ‘Oh, Alan. You poor little thing.’
The night was reshaping itself around him and he hadn’t even taken anything yet. ‘Daunt and me go way back. We’re good friends.’
‘Let me clarify things for you.’ Churr took Alan’s chin in her hand and looked into his eyes. ‘You’re not Daunt’s good friend. You’re wrong. You don’t know her at all. You’re an idiot. You don’t mess with Daunt. You’re fucked. Okay?’
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‘Okay,’ Alan mumbled.
‘You need lots of potent mushrooms for your friend at the Pyramid. You’ve burned your bridges with the only real supplier in town. Are you rich?’
Alan shook his head.
‘You’re not rich. So you can’t just hoover them up from all the Discard’s Pigheads. The only option is to set up our own supply.’
‘This our again …’
‘I’ve got a good eye for an opportunity.’
‘I’ve got my own friends, Churr.’
‘Have you got a Mapmaker? I can get you a Mapmaker.’
‘A what? No, of course not. We don’t need a Mapmaker. Do we?’ Alan wrenched his face free of Churr’s grip. ‘What do we need a Mapmaker for?’
‘Getting safely to Dok.’
‘What?’ Now Alan laughed. ‘Firstly, no way am I tangling with those psycho Mapmakers. Secondly, no way am I going anywhere near Dok. I’m happy in most stinking hellholes, but even I draw the line at Dok. Thirdly – yeah, I stole from Daunt, and maybe that was foolish, but surely setting myself up as her rival would be drawing her attention in a much more obvious and confrontational manner. And you – I like you a lot, and I know you can handle yourself out here in the Discard, but I don’t want you putting yourself in all of this danger for my sake.’
‘It would be for my own sake.’
Alan stood up. ‘Maybe so. But …’ He trailed off.
‘But what?’
‘I’d feel bad.’
‘I could make you feel good again.’
Alan sat back down. ‘It’s like you know me really well,’ he said.
‘You’re quite a simple character.’
‘Is that so?’
Pighead interrupted, bearing a tray laden with teapots and small cups. ‘Mushroom teas,’ he said, putting the tray down. ‘Dream-meat in this ’un, and Old Green’s Teeth in that ’un.’ He eyed Alan warily. ‘Good luck,’ he said, and then returned to the bar.
‘The point is,’ Churr said, ‘you may have your own friends, you may not want me to get hurt, etc., but this is my plan. My idea. My potential profit.’
‘Then why aren’t you doing it anyway?’
‘Maybe I will.’ Churr smiled as she poured herself a cup of tea. ‘The question is, are we colleagues, or rivals?’
‘All I am is drunk,’ Alan said. ‘You’re taking advantage of me. Listen, I’m not committing to anything – not tonight.’
‘At the very least acknowledge that if you want to see your son again, you have to somehow secure a supply of mushrooms from Dok.’
Alan nodded. ‘I suppose that is the awful boiled-down truth that I was dimly aware of but was hoping to run away from for the night. Yes.’
‘The other awful truth you need to confront is that you’ve pissed Daunt off.’
‘She doesn’t know it was me who stole from her, though.’
‘Doesn’t she?’ Churr raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s interesting. I guess I have some leverage.’
Alan paused for a moment. ‘I guess you do,’ he said, feeling miserable.
‘Good. Well done. Now then. Let’s drink our tea and have fun.’
‘This night isn’t going the way I planned it.’
‘Maybe you chose the wrong woman to sleep with.’
Alan poured his own tea. It was green with pale flecks floating in it. ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ he said.
‘You’re mad, then.’
Alan didn’t say anything.
Churr lifted up her cup. ‘To Billy,’ she said.
‘To Billy.’
*
A writhing mass of pale, arm-thick worms spilled out of the snail when it was cut open. They slithered towards Alan and wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, lifted him up, up, up into the sky. They were utterly smooth and featureless. The shell had been smashed into millions of uniform triangular pieces that formed a pattern when he looked down upon them: an intricate mosaic depicting Marion’s face. He laughed to see her again. She was smiling at him in a way that she hadn’t since before Billy was born. The mosaic covered the flat, stone rooftop, beyond which was only darkness. When Alan inhaled, the darkness rose up into the sky like black mountains; when he exhaled, the mountains receded once more, as if he were blowing them flat. The remains of the snail crawled across the mosaic, pulled by more worms, like a slug with tentacles, disrupting the pattern of Marion’s face.
‘Get away!’ Alan shouted. ‘Get away, slug!’ But it either didn’t hear him, didn’t understand him, or didn’t obey him. It left a thick trail of pink slime behind it. The black mountains rose and fell all around. Slowly the worms turned him around so that he was facing upwards. He could hear Marion’s voice from below: ‘Get the fuck out, swine!’ It was a scream, but it sounded distant. A black diamond hovered in the sky like a hole. All around it stars were pinpricks in a purple sheet. The diamond descended towards Alan’s face and he saw that it was the entrance to a tunnel. Marion’s voice came again: ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’ The tunnel was made out of black and white diamonds, receding. It was like looking into a mirror reflecting another mirror. He strained and twisted as much as the worms permitted, but the tunnel curved just enough to prevent him seeing the end of it. The purple of the sky darkened as he inhaled, lightened as he exhaled. The sound of his breath was almost deafening; he could hear it rushing into and out of his lungs, whistling through the narrow passages of his nose and throat, first one way and then the other. He could feel the oxygen filtering through into his blood and the blood moving through his veins. He felt like it was beating against the inside of his skin.
Something was falling down the tunnel; something wet and bright. It sped towards him and he saw that it was a person. She fell out of the tunnel and landed on top of him; she was naked and covered with ink. He was naked too now, somehow. Churr. It was Churr. She slapped him once across the face, and then again. She leaned forward and opened her mouth and cold black ink gushed out of it, all over his face. The ink was ice cold. He pulled her down against him, so that her breasts pressed into his face. He grabbed hold of her buttocks, slid one hand down and around her upper thigh. His fingers, hand and then arm disappeared inside her. She started kissing him but her tongue was a pair of long, rough fingers: Bittewood’s fingers. They probed around behind his teeth and in the back of his throat and made him gag. He tried to fight her off but her skin was now fused to his; there was no space between them, and their bodies were gradually melting together. She was sinking through him. He kicked and thrashed but his limbs were bound by the soft elastic of her flesh. He couldn’t see or even breathe. All was dark and he was suffocating. Then, in the distance, there was something gleaming: a point of light. It was a torch being carried towards him. The boy carrying the torch drew back his hood.
‘Billy,’ Alan tried to say, but his voice was muffled and quiet.
‘Dad,’ said Billy.
‘I’m sorry, son.’
‘What?’
‘I said I’m sorry.’
Alan tried to move towards his son but couldn’t. Billy’s face was older than Alan remembered it. He walked towards Alan and reached out and gently placed his fingertips on Alan’s eyelids and closed them. ‘Goodbye, Dad,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll all get some peace now.’
Alan leaped forward, got tangled in the bedclothes, and fell sprawling onto the floor. He lay there for a moment, still. He didn’t recognise the room. It felt real, though. It had the anonymous air of one of the House of a Thousand Hollows’ rooms for hire. Alan’s mouth was dry and his skin was wet. ‘Churr?’ he croaked. ‘Hello?’
Churr was lying face down in the bed. He watched her until he was sure she was breathing. He crept to the sink, but when he tried to turn the tap it just swivelled in its socket and nothing came out. His brain felt like a sick toad. He was hot and couldn’t stop shivering. He went to the window and looked out. It was still dark. He had not slept; his experiences had not been dreams but hallucinat
ions. Chimneys opposite the window were expressing long jets of steam in a seemingly random sequence. The steam was bright blue in the moonlight. Sometimes pipes thought long-dead came back to life, suddenly spouting water or vapours. There were some Mapmakers who devoted their lives to tracing working pipes – or even dormant ones – back to their sources to find out what their original purposes were, and who, or what, was keeping them operational. That usually meant going deep down, though, and as far as Alan knew, not many of those fools came back.
His clothes were a sad pile on the floor by the bed. He put them back on, slowly.
On his way out of the room he noticed a half-empty bottle of Dog Moon on top of a low bookcase. The bookcase was full of ornamental crystals, covered with a thick coat of dust. He took the Moon, and then closed the door softly after himself.
7
Eyes Disappointed
‘This isn’t a good way of dealing with anything,’ Eyes said, standing over Alan.
‘It’s my way.’
‘Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re such a Green-awful mess.’
‘Well thank you, Eyes. Now please fuck off. Let’s have this conversation when I’m sober.’
‘You’re never sober, though. That’s the point. And show some respect to your elders if you would, you little pisspot.’ Eyes rubbed his head and tutted. ‘This can’t go on. Trust me. I know it well, and you know that I know.’
Alan glanced up at Eyes. The man looked older than he was. His ruined eyes were two red-raw holes in between … not crow’s feet: turkey’s feet. His head was hairless and spotted. His skin was grey and his once-red beard white and untidy. And right now his frown was severe.
‘See this face?’ Eyes said, pointing at himself with his thumbs. ‘This is how you’ll end up. You don’t want that now, do you?’
‘Don’t worry, Eyes,’ Alan said, ‘I’ll kill myself before I ever get as old as you.’
Eyes hit him, hard, across the back of the head. He wore thick rings on his big, gnarled fingers and the crack they made against the younger man’s skull was followed by silence as Alan folded up. Eyes watched, mouth twisting. He had various tics and his mouth twisting uncontrollably was one of them. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You deserved it, but I am sorry.’ He fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat and then put his hands behind his back. Eyes would be visited by trembling fits at times of distress – periods of severe shaking that lasted indefinitely – and he’d always try to hide it from Alan by putting his hands behind his back. The gesture was tantamount to announcing it.