by Tom Fletcher
The Cavern Tavern was a great hollow in the western side of the House. A section of the exterior wall had at some point been knocked through, or blown away – as to what by, and when, accounts varied – and part of the floors of four storeys had been destroyed, presumably by the same event. A crater was left in the vertical surface of the House. But for as long as anybody living could remember, this crater had served as a meeting place. A bar had been put in, with barrels of beer and bottles of wine stored in the room below. The rough-edged overhangs that looked down on the space had been turned into balconies. The gaping hole in the wall had been made safer – if not completely safe – by an ornate, cast-iron railing. It now provided a view over south-eastern Gleam, with the Black Pyramid dead centre of the panorama. An ancient honeysuckle curled around the metal. There was a low stage. The huge floorspace was filled with tables and chairs.
The Cavern Tavern wasn’t quite busy yet. There were customers, huddled around tables or sitting alone up on the balconies, but the space swallowed their voices. The bar was being tended by one of the Pennydown twins – Quiet Diaz, Alan thought, though he still was never sure, even now. His brother would join him later, when it got busy.
‘Evening,’ Alan said, putting his elbows on the bar. ‘Diaz, is it?’
‘It is,’ Quiet Diaz replied. He betrayed no intention to move. His small eyes were steady and his little mouth flat. His features were all clustered in the middle of his gigantic, pasty, hairless head, and they were not amused. He wore a long, loose black shirt that hung almost to his knees and stood with his arms folded, his hands hidden in the voluminous sleeves. He looked like the Black Pyramid itself, but with a big pale melon stuck up on the point of it.
‘What do you want?’ Diaz said.
‘As if you have to ask.’
‘Dog Moon.’
‘See? You already know.’
‘Stuff’s disgusting.’
‘It’s cheap.’
‘It’s whisky for tramps and idiots.’
‘The name’s Wild Alan.’ Alan held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Quiet Diaz’s mouth curved into a small, derisive smile, as if of its own accord. ‘You’re joking,’ he said, ‘but you’re bang on.’
‘Look,’ Alan said, leaning in and lowering his voice, ‘I like Dog Moon actually, and what I like about Dog Moon is that, although it tastes like shit, it burns like hell. The burn is what I want. I want the burn, Diaz. I am all about the burn. And, anyway, I don’t give a fuck what your opinion is on anything. Now serve me, quickly, and then we can stop talking to each other.’
The little smile on that giant face turned into a deep frown and Diaz turned away, his movements languid. Alan was sure that he was moving slowly just to irritate him. Diaz took a glass from a shelf and reached for an open bottle of Dog Moon.
‘No,’ Alan said, ‘not a glass. A bottle. A bottle, man. What do you take me for?’
Diaz looked at him for a moment. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he said, before reaching under the counter for a full bottle of Dog Moon and plonking it on the counter. ‘How many glasses?’
‘Five. And make it two bottles, actually.’
Alan took the bottles and the glasses and deposited a handful of bugs on the bar, their shells iridescent in the light of the sunset. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and turned away.
He sat by the railing for the view, and for what little breeze there was. Gleam was either warm or it was hot, and tonight it was hot. Hot and humid. Steam rose up from the swamp, as did fireflies, small, skittish lizards and the smell of green.
Beyond the window, the air was alive with the buzzing of insects and the cries of birds. No human voices, though. The House was unusual in that it had space around it; most buildings in Gleam were at least squashed up against each other, if not actually conjoined. But the House rose alone. It was connected lower down, but only by bridges. There was some distance between the House and the closest structures, which were nameless, as far as Alan knew. They were round towers, like the House, but smaller, and they were swaddled in rusted pipes. The setting sun turned them pink. Flocks of white birds flew around them, tiny in the distance.
Spider arrived first, as silent as ever, carrying his battered old violin case. He folded himself into the chair opposite Alan and nodded before taking a glass and filling it. He knocked the drink back, repeated the process, wiped droplets of whisky from his tangled black-and-white beard and spoke.
‘All right?’ he said.
‘Yes, thank you. And you?’
‘I’m all right.’ Spider entwined his fingers together. ‘Thought we could put on a show afterwards.’
‘Well, we’ve got to earn our keep.’
Spider raised his eyebrows. He was wearing a severe black suit that made his skin paler and the bags under his eyes darker. It was something that Alan, Spider and Eyes had settled on way back: formal wear at all times, but wear it how you will. He lit a roll-up and put it in his mouth.
Eyes arrived soon afterwards, preceded by the scent of his strong-smelling ointment. He clapped Alan on the back and threw himself into a chair. ‘Lads,’ he said. ‘Lads, lads, lads.’ He reached for the Dog Moon with a shaking hand and poured himself a glass, which he sipped. He wore a visor to keep the sweat from his eyes. ‘Is this Churr meeting us?’
‘Yeah,’ Alan said. ‘And the Mapmaker.’
Spider and Eyes looked at each other. Spider laughed. ‘A Mapmaker? Coming into the House?’
‘Yeah.’ Alan felt like he was shaking as much as Eyes was.
‘You ever met a Mapmaker, Spider?’ Eyes asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Maybe they’re not that scary,’ Alan said.
‘Aye, right.’ Eyes laughed.
‘What’s the plan, then?’ Spider asked.
‘Really we need to wait for Churr. It was her idea originally. We were talking about my visit to the Pyramid, and how Tromo wants more mushrooms than I can buy or steal. Churr has some kind of history with Daunt that I don’t know about, and she saw that we have a mutual interest in getting to Dok and stocking up, even setting up our own trade route.’
‘If it was that simple then everybody’d be at it,’ Eyes said. ‘Daunt has serious muscle.’
‘We’re going to start off small, though. Firstly, we need to just get to Dok and back, with enough mushrooms for me to see Billy and for Churr to make some bugs. Daunt won’t even know about it. Then I guess Churr will start ramping things up. Our involvement at that point is moot. I don’t know what she’s thinking, or what you’re thinking, or even what I’m thinking.’
‘What’s in it for the Mapmaker?’ Spider asked, making roll-up after roll-up and lining them up on the table.
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s probably something we should establish.’
‘It’s a friend of Churr’s.’
‘Mapmakers don’t have friends. It would be interesting to know how they know each other.’
‘We’ll ask her,’ Alan said. ‘So, Eyes, are you in?’
‘Yeah, I’m in. Dok might be hell, but it’s a hell I haven’t been to yet.’ He stole one of Spider’s smokes and lit it with one of the small candles from the middle of the table. ‘Besides, who knows what havoc we could wreak inside the Pyramid?’
‘What do you mean?’ Alan asked.
‘We could give them any old shite, Alan! They won’t know the difference. They say there’re rivers of poison in Dok. There’ll be all kinds of toxic mushrooms down there. Stuff that could cause them real damage.’
‘No, I told you, we’re giving them what they want. I’m not risking trouble with the Arbitrators. I’m not risking the safety of my family, Eyes. No. No. No.’
Eyes smashed his fist into the table. ‘Then fuck you, Alan!’ He hit the table again and glasses fell over, rolled, hit the floor and smashed. ‘This is the Pyramid we’re talking about! The fucking Pyramid! You getting to see Billy, yeah, well that’s fucking great, but
what about everything they’ve done to us?’ He was standing up now. ‘We’re not aiming high enough, laddie! In fact, fuck Dok. Let’s aim for the Pyramid direct. Get Billy and Marion out. Get all the good ones out, if there are any other good ones. Kill the rest. But is Marion even good, now? Can you say that? Isn’t she one of them now?’
Alan stood up too, and back-handed Eyes across the face.
‘Oh, that’s rich,’ Eyes said, smiling through the nosebleed, ‘coming from you. Don’t tell me you still love her – not you, with a different squeeze every night, you. Who was it last night? You still into women, or are you back on to lads again? Might as well move right into the Sleepless Pavilion, earn your keep that way. You must be pretty good in the sack by now, whoever knocks on the door. What would Marion say if she knew? You think me questioning her allegiance is worse than what you do again and again and again? Aye, right.’
Every muscle in Alan’s body was tense; his hands were fists and his knuckles were white. Eyes was grinning at him, blood all over his wrinkly face. He looked completely mad, especially with those red eyes and the thick ointment around them. He was mad. He’d been mad ever since he came back from the Pyramid dungeons.
Spider carefully finished off another roll-up and refilled his glass. ‘Sit down, Alan,’ he said.
Alan sat back down. ‘I shouldn’t have hit you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Eyes had the trembles badly now. Alan felt sick. What the Pyramidders had done to Eyes in the dungeons beneath didn’t bear thinking about. His eyelids had been only the beginning. It was no wonder the old man harboured such anger. He did well not to surrender to it wholly. And Alan owed him so much – his life and more. But still. Times like this, Eyes’ words cut him right down to the bone. It was because there was truth in them.
‘I miss Marion,’ Alan said, ‘and yes, I still love her. I haven’t seen her in four years, but I love her, I love the Marion I knew. Maybe she’s changed, but there’s no reason to believe that she’s changed so much.’
‘Funny way you’ve got of loving a soul, is all.’ Eyes wasn’t appeased, not yet.
Alan looked at him levelly. ‘Eyes, Marion kicked me out. You know that. She doesn’t want me. Let me find what echoes of the love we had where I can.’
Spider had drifted off to the railing after sitting Alan back down. Now he turned around. ‘Are they going to show?’ he asked.
Alan didn’t know. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You should get ’em out of there,’ Eyes said, pinching his nose. ‘Billy and Marion. I’m not talking about causing trouble. I’m talking about finding another way. Dok … I’ve been thinking. Dok is bad, Alan. Dok is the worst. No fucker goes there for a reason. Every fucker’s scared of it.’
‘That’s how Pyramidders see the Discard, though. Billy and Marion – they wouldn’t come with me. Nobody leaves the Pyramid of their own accord. You don’t know what it’s like in there, Eyes – the things kids are told about the Discard. The horrors they’re warned of as they grow up. The beasts they believe are lurking just outside the Pyramid. Imagine: you are kept warm and safe, you are fed and watered, you have gardens and fountains in which to wile away your spare time, and you know that when you are old you will be looked after. You are blessed. You are lucky. To leave the Pyramid for the Discard is to throw all that security away for a life of desperation and uncertainty: a life of raw snails, undercooked toad-meat and venomous snakes; a life spent hiding from bandits and cannibals – and worse things, inhuman things. They have creatures from the swamp kept alive in great glass chambers up there, exhibited for all the Pyramidders to see, to show them what they’d be up against. Weird things, the like of which I’ve never actually seen since I was kicked out.’ Alan shook his head. ‘People with ten legs. Men and women with twisted horns and dead eyes. Heads on a torso like garlic on a rope.’
‘The Horned,’ Spider said. ‘I’ve heard of the Horned. I didn’t think any had been seen in decades, though. There used to be reports – I remember my uncles telling me – reports of the Horned from deep down. I had one uncle – he had his teeth filed into fangs and played the hurdy-gurdy. I thought he painted his face white but apparently he had some kind of condition. He spent a lot of time on the lower levels … What was his name? He told me about the Horned. Told me he hunted them in return for spirit salves, potions he said sent him a long way from his own body. Uncle Staniforth! That was it.’ Spider took a long drink. ‘He was a funny one.’
Alan waited to make sure Spider had finished before saying, ‘Well, exactly. So I rock up at the meeting place, Billy’s lanky old dad, with his shitty guitar and dirty hair, and say … what? Come with me, son! It’s a better life out here in the Discard, out here in the Factory wilds, with our Horned and our Uncle Staniforths – who sounds delightful, by the way. Yes, it’s dangerous, and yes, it’s dirty, and yes, you will have to eat toads, and sometimes there won’t even be toad, and no, you won’t always have a roof over your head, and it does rain, yes, it rains hard, and yes, there are cannibals, and thieves, and gangs, thugs, killers – worse, dangerous snakes, yes, horrible insects, crocodiles and worse, still worse …’
‘Wouldn’t you have left?’ Spider asked. ‘Of your own accord?’
‘Probably.’ Alan put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. ‘But I knew things.’
‘Why don’t you tell Billy those same things? Why don’t you explain the cost of Pyramid living? What it really is. Tell him what happened to you, to your parents. Tell him what they did to Eyes.’
Alan exhaled thick white smoke and narrowed his eyes against it. ‘He’s only six. Too young. And besides, we never have much time.’
A boy carrying a tray laden with empty glasses hurried past the table, but Eyes stopped him with a hand to his arm. ‘’nother Dog Moon, boy, if yer please,’ he said. The boy nodded wordlessly and rushed off, sweat running down his face. The Cavern Tavern was full now, and really hot. Alan was glad of the window seat.
‘When they exiled me I thought that was it,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d be dead within the week. Something else I owe you two for.’ He looked up from his tumbler and smiled, then raised the glass. ‘To you two,’ he said. ‘To my friends. To the band.’
Spider and Eyes echoed his words and downed the spirit. Spider winced. ‘Rough stuff for necking,’ he said. He refilled his glass once more.
Eyes fished a small clay pot of ointment from his trouser pocket and smeared some of the oily grey substance into his dry red eyes. ‘Going to have to pick up my job lot,’ he said.
‘Go soon,’ Spider said. ‘The swamp’s squeezing the bandits, so banditry’s on the up. Traders say there’s disruption on the way. They reckon the House won’t be much better-provisioned than the rest of the Discard before long.’
‘Well.’ Eyes screwed the lid back onto the pot. ‘Nothing keeping us here then. When are we heading for Dok?’
‘Depends on our erstwhile conspirators,’ Alan said. ‘But let’s prepare to go soon. The day after tomorrow.’
‘Then I’ll pay Loon a visit in the morning,’ Eyes said decisively. ‘Alan, we know more about Dok than Pyramidders know about the Discard. You know that. Come on – this Churr, she’s got into your head. I’m not wagging my finger here. Who and how you love, that’s up to you. But if you think we can really do this … I want to. I do. But I don’t know. I don’t know if even with a Mapmaker it’s a good idea. I think it’s not a good idea, Alan.’
‘I’m inclined to agree,’ Alan said. ‘But I’ve run out of good ideas. As for Churr, things are complicated. I’m not infatuated. But she has …’ He looked down into his drink. ‘She has leverage.’
Neither Eyes nor Spider said anything. When Alan raised his head, he saw them looking at each other, eyebrows raised. ‘Shut up,’ he said.
‘Nobody’s saying anything,’ Spider said.
‘Kid,’ Eyes said, ‘we don’t want to know.’
‘What it boils down to is this: you don’t have to com
e. But I’m going.’
‘I am thinking of accompanying you,’ Spider said, ‘because I have an academic interest in certain plants and substances, thought lost to the swamp, which may yet exist in Dok, it being so proximate to the swamp itself. I am still in two minds, however, so don’t bank upon my company just yet. I have appointments that I would need to cancel – appointments I am loath to cancel.’
Alan nodded. He tried not to let on how desperate he was for Spider’s assistance: the man’s reputation as a fighter was fearsome, but unlike most other famous fighters in the House or its vicinity, he had an aura of calm that almost negated Eyes’ nerves.
‘Something else I wanted to ask you,’ Alan said. ‘Unrelated. Daunt’s got a new pet. Some beast called Bittewood. Have you heard of him? More of an it, really, but let’s be kind.’
‘Never,’ Spider said.
‘Same,’ Eyes said.
‘Not a known thug, then. He doesn’t seem sharp or … spiritual enough to have come from the tribes. Maybe a transient, but again, probably not sharp enough. Maybe a bandit.’
‘The swamp’s throwing all kinds up these days,’ Spider said.
Alan felt again those fingers in his mouth and shuddered. The swamp. His mind wouldn’t linger too long on the swamp; it always skittered away from it like a startled lizard. But soon enough that wouldn’t be an option. He watched small lights moving out over the Discard – lanterns and torches. The sides of the Black Pyramid were now peppered with glowing apertures. Somewhere in there were his son and his wife. He hoped they’d be happy to see him, when the time came. ‘Never mind, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s wait for Churr and this Mapmaker and drink.’