The Factory Trilogy 01 - Gleam

by Tom Fletcher

‘Well – yes, but—’

  ‘Very well,’ Weddle said, and he was off again.

  Alan guessed the Pilgrims could afford to house everyone because the rooms they offered were cells, really. Compared to the accommodation at the Safe Houses, or in the Pyramid, they were tiny and rank, not exactly desirable. You had to bend over in order to fit in, and the original-structure concrete walls were stained green. The ancient mattresses were lumpy and damp. Instead of proper doors, they had lockable gates.

  And even so, Alan felt his heart lift when Weddle gestured at one with another slight bow. His own cell! A bed! An actual, proper bed! And a lock! After Green knew how many nights spent out in the swamp, or in Glasstown, or on the Oversight, this was luxury.

  He locked the gate, threw himself onto the bed and kicked off his boots, wincing at the smell. Spider took the room opposite him, and his actions mirrored Alan’s almost exactly. Nora was next door, and he thought that Churr was opposite her, though he couldn’t tell without leaving his room and looking. ‘I might go to sleep,’ he shouted, then, ‘That’s it! I’m going to go to sleep!’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ Churr replied.

  Nora didn’t say anything, and Spider was already snoring.

  But he couldn’t sleep. He could almost feel the swamp pressing in whenever he closed his eyes. Instead of darkness, he saw Marion’s bruised face, and he saw Billy. he kept imagining his son being kept in a cell like this. The Pyramid had its own dungeons – Eyes had told him about them, though he hadn’t gone into detail and Alan hadn’t pushed the man; it was obvious that the memories were too painful for him to fully recount.

  He couldn’t keep Eyes’ visage from his mind either. That ravaged face, all the pain he’d suffered – and so much of it recently, on this half-cocked quest to come and collect a bag of bloody mushrooms. Eyes was the one who’d taken the fall, time and time again. And maybe he wouldn’t even come back. The Pilgrims sounded confident in their abilities, but … Alan had fully expected Eyes to die before they’d reached Dok, and he still wasn’t sure.

  He sat up when he realised that, and hit his head hard on the stone ceiling. ‘Fuck,’ he said, and touched his scalp gingerly. No blood. He slipped off the bed and sat on the floor with his back against the wall. He had been expecting Eyes to die, and yet he hadn’t acknowledged that until now, not even to himself. Marion had always said he was good at compartmentalising, but he hadn’t realised just how good.

  He wanted a drink, and he wanted a body to hold close. The urge for physical intimacy roared in furiously whenever he had a moment’s peace; it was as sudden and profound as drunkenness. He wanted some of those damn mushrooms, too.

  Maybe the Pilgrims could help him out on that front. It might take his mind off all the other stuff, anyway.

  He unlocked and opened his gate as quietly as he could, and then set off down the long corridor back to the central hall.

  *

  The Sanctuary was a soft, white globe that expanded and collapsed almost as if it were breathing. Air rushed in and then out via a series of gills along its side, creating the squeezebox sound that Alan had heard from the top of Dok. It looked like a mushroom itself – a gigantic puffball – but Alan had eaten puffball back at the House of a Thousand Hollows and knew that they were generally solid. And they didn’t breathe. But then, this was Dok, and things seemed different here.

  Close up, he could appreciate the true size of the thing. Pilgrims hurried in and out, pushing trolleys and carrying baskets through its frilly, fringed base as if they were merely passing through bead curtains. Seeing them next to it like that, Alan estimated it was big enough to contain four good-sized storeys, and plenty of people. The trolleys the Pilgrims were pushing in and out bore people, usually moaning in pain or gibbering softly to themselves, though a few of the trolleys coming out were empty, and occasionally stained. Many Pilgrims were wearing the mushroom-collecting backpacks.

  ‘Curious?’ came a voice from behind him; a familiar voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Alan said, turning. ‘Ippil, right?’

  ‘That is correct.’ Ippil smiled.

  ‘I am curious,’ Alan said. ‘I’m tired, too. I’m a lot of things right now. I’m in danger of being overwhelmed – or maybe I was overwhelmed already and now I’m just … I’m just going through the motions.’ He waved a hand. ‘I’m walking and talking like a real person, but in truth something crashed through me recently and I think it took all of the important parts away.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘I can’t pinpoint the exact moment. Maybe it wasn’t even that recently. Maybe it happened some time ago.’

  ‘You do look exhausted,’ she said. ‘And emaciated. You and your companions need to eat, and perhaps then you will feel a little more human.’

  ‘What do you eat down here? Mushrooms?’

  Ippil shook her head, and laughed. ‘No – well, not any that grow here. Nothing that grows – or lives – here can be eaten for sustenance. Our crops are for medicinal purposes only.’

  ‘Your crops? You’re … fungus farmers?’

  ‘That is correct,’ Ippil said again. ‘The swamp imbues these walls with properties that are perfect for our needs. Of course, the swamp is also the cause of many of the afflictions we try to treat, but’ – she sighed – ‘such is the nature of things.’

  ‘So what do you eat?’

  ‘The mushroom people trade with us. They supply us with food from the – what do they call them? The Archway Gardens? Food, and other essentials.’

  ‘The mushroom people – the guys covered with the mushroom tattoos?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ippil said, and then, after a moment, ‘That is correct.’

  Alan pursed his lips. ‘I’ve got a lot of questions,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to work out where to start.’

  ‘People often find it difficult to gather their thoughts when first exposed to the Giving Beast,’ Ippil said. ‘It’s partly because of its physical strangeness, but mostly because it fills the air with spores that affect the mind. It encourages honesty, and peace. So some people – people who, for example, try to focus on one thing at a time, or mask certain aspects of themselves in order to present one particular facet, or achieve one particular goal – suddenly find themselves unable to function in the manner to which they are accustomed. Everything they repress comes to the surface and they find themselves telling the truth, even to perfect strangers – and even if doing so is detrimental to their aims.’

  Alan opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again.

  ‘In addition,’ Ippil continued, acknowledging Alan’s reticence with a brief smile, ‘it aids us with our healing. It calms down our patients, many of whom are distressed, and it provides an environment conducive to recuperation. It does not necessarily heal people, but it seems to slow the progress of various conditions and diseases.’

  ‘So it is a mushroom?’ Alan asked. ‘It is a big giant mushroom?’

  ‘It’s a fungus,’ Ippil replied, ‘but it is much more than that.’

  ‘And it just happened to grow in the exact right spot? Right in the middle of this sunken tower where you can grow all these other mushrooms that heal people?’

  ‘It is one of the mushrooms that heals people.’

  ‘And they’re all just mysteriously drawn to it?’

  ‘No, they’re not drawn to the Sanctuary; they’re drawn to what rests beneath the Sanctuary.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘The Sump,’ Ippil said, frowning. She moved her hand in front of her face in a gesture like a cross, or maybe a mushroom. Either way, it was clearly a gesture of warding. ‘It’s where the Pyramid’s produce ends up. The fruits of its folly, and of its labours.’

  ‘I used to live in the Pyramid,’ Alan said. ‘The Pyramid doesn’t produce anything.’

  Ippil gazed seriously into his eyes. ‘I know you’re telling the truth,’ she said, ‘but you’re wrong.’

  ‘The afflicted, t
hen,’ Alan said. ‘They’re drawn to what the Pyramid puts out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘We don’t know, exactly. For the past few decades we have kept the Seal closed – ever since Idle Hands.’

  ‘Okay,’ Alan said. ‘I want to know what Idle Hands is, but this is all too much. Earlier you mentioned food. Maybe we could continue this conversation over a meal?’

  ‘Later,’ Ippil said. ‘Go and get yourself something to eat. I have to attend within the Sanctuary, but I will meet you back here in four hours. For the kitchens, head around to the other side of the Sanctuary and beneath the wide archway.’

  ‘Can I go in? To the Sanctuary? I want to see my friend.’

  ‘You can, but you won’t be able to see him yet. Tomorrow, maybe. It depends on his recovery … if he recovers.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you, Ippil.’

  Ippil smiled and left, and Alan watched her slip through the fringes of the Sanctuary and disappear from view.

  The kitchens were long, with a low ceiling. Communal tables ran the length of the room. Even here the grey stone walls were slightly damp, though no mushrooms grew on them. Pilgrims and patients sat side by side, eating from tin plates that they’d filled themselves from a row of big bowls at the far end. Behind the bowls, yet more Pilgrims, dressed here for the heat, were sweating over fires and ovens. The room was redolent with the smell of fried onions and something that Alan hadn’t smelled in a long time: roasting meat. And proper meat, too – dog or cat or goat or something, not snail or snake or slug. It was clear Daunt was keeping the Pilgrims well supplied; this wasn’t just swapping a sack of potatoes for a bag of mushrooms. There must be caravans supplying the Sanctuary every day. How was she doing it?

  And how could Churr ever compete? They’d been under the impression that Daunt’s people were fighters and explorers who braved killer hornets and starvation and ten-headed swamp monsters in order to pluck the mushrooms from between the teeth of giant crocodiles, but that clearly wasn’t the case. She traded for them, and that was worse, much worse. It was almost cheating. Churr couldn’t offer anything like that – she didn’t have the resources or the infrastructure. Being brave, clever and handy with a knife wasn’t going to be enough.

  So what would Churr do now? And what would she expect him to do to help her? She’d fixed him up with Nora, and without her he would never have got here, so he did owe her, there was no doubt. And he owed her for being such a pig. But then, if Churr and Nora were together now, which they did appear to be, did Churr even need him at all?

  Was he now surplus to requirements?

  He shook himself, collected a plate and went to fill it up. Using a pair of wooden tongs he picked up some little round dog steaks, a heaping spoonful of oily potatoes, some roasted onions and a couple of tiny fried birds that he guessed you ate whole. They were delicious. Once he’d started eating, he couldn’t stop. It was a long time since he’d had food this good. He tried to work it out. The last time was probably … it was at Daunt’s, when he’d played at her feast; when he’d stolen the mushrooms. And he still hadn’t found a supply of them. He mustn’t forget why he was here. While he ate, he tried to work out how long he had left. Two weeks, he thought, and the journey down here had taken about a week and a half, so he didn’t have time to waste. If he didn’t get back to that fucker Tromo in two weeks, with the damned mushrooms, then Billy would pay the price, whatever the price was.

  The food was rapidly turning to ash in his mouth, but his body was demanding that he eat it anyway, and though his mood did not lift, as he filled his stomach, he felt his mind and body immediately growing stronger. He had not realised how hungry he’d been.

  *

  Alan ducked beneath the curtained base of the Giving Beast, looked up and drew his breath. There was a strong floral scent with earthy, musty notes. The interior was humming with a low, repetitive chant: the Pilgrims were singing. It sounded like it was coming from up above. There was a fat central stalk with a wooden door in it, he noted, and wooden steps spiralling up and around that reached up and split into branches that supported the cap – although ‘cap’ probably wasn’t the right word. Canopy, maybe. The underside of the canopy was orange, and ribbed with thick white horizontal ridges like shelves, almost. They reminded him of the wooden walkways spiralling around the inside of the tower they were in. They were busy with Pilgrims, who at first glance appeared to be doing something to the sponge-like gills of the canopy. Then Alan realised that there were bodies tucked into the gills: the patients, packed like larvae in a honeycomb, with their heads sticking out. They were out on gurneys of some sort, and the Pilgrims were able to slide them out and back in again. The air was thick with motes of dust that—No, they were spores, dancing in the light. The light came from glass jars that hung on ropes; they were filled with some brightly glowing sludge, fermenting mushrooms, Alan decided, upon closer inspection. They were as bright as paraffin lamps.

  Then the Giving Beast ‘inhaled’, the canopy expanded and everything receded. There must have been some elasticity in it. The Pilgrims on the ridges didn’t react at all – they just carried on with their work – but Alan wobbled on his feet and nearly fell over. He reached out a hand to the ground to steady himself, and then everything came closer again. The effect was disorientating, especially when coupled with the spores. It was like he’d actually taken something: lemonsnake extract, or some of Spider’s pipeweed.

  But none of that was as strange as what he then noticed: high up, at the very top of the canopy, a great glass globe was nestled in amongst the branches of the stalk. It looked like the Sanctuary had grown around it; it was entirely a part of the structure, and surrounding it were Pilgrims, kneeling on branches and small wooden platforms attached to the branches. It was they who were chanting. They faced the globe and one by one would get to their feet, approach the glass and press their foreheads to it.

  There was just one thing he could see in the globe: points of pale green, stark against something dark. They were as bright and alluring to Alan as the stars of the night sky.

  He’d found them.

  25

  Idle Hands

  Alan went to the bottom of the staircase that wound around the Sanctuary’s central pillar. It was a stalk, a stem, a pillar, or maybe even a leg, but he wasn’t sure if this was a mushroom, an animal or a building. Most likely it was all three. Before ascending, he reached out to the handle of the thick wooden door.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Alan turned to see Weddle standing there, smiling toothily, his arms folded, hands buried in the opposite sleeves of his grey cloak. He hadn’t even realised that Weddle had been nearby.

  ‘I was just wondering what was inside?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course – that’s our storage room, but it is off-limits to visitors, yes? For our medicines, that kind of thing. Very valuable. Very dangerous, in the wrong hands.’

  ‘Sounds like exactly the kind of door I don’t want to open,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay well clear.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Weddle nodded. Then, loudly, ‘Better had!’ He threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

  Alan hovered, one foot on the ground, one foot on the bottom step. After listening to Weddle laugh for a moment too long, he pointed upwards. ‘What about going upstairs?’ he asked. ‘Can I do that?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course – why wouldn’t you be able to?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alan said, but Weddle was already trundling off, laughing quietly to himself.

  Alan really didn’t want to open the door. He didn’t want to cause any trouble, not here. It must be the spores, he thought, affecting my mind. Changing my behaviour, but it still left some deep part of him unaffected, able to reflect on himself, as if he’d been split into an actor and an observer. Will they affect Churr in the same way if she discovers what’s inside the trunk?

  He spiralled up and around, passing Pilgrims on their way down and bei
ng overtaken by others racing past him on the way up. The chanting grew louder. There were Pilgrims with small vials of dried mushrooms, others with blood on their robes bearing trays loaded with salves and compresses and cutting tools. He could hear the occasional scream and, as he watched, a group of Pilgrims used a pulley to raise a trolley up to one of the shelves and then lifted the occupant – a person with crocodile arms? – into a vacant gill. Alan was pretty sure that ‘gill’ wasn’t the correct term for one of the small, irregularly shaped compartments that the canopy afforded, but that’s what he would call them.

  A door he hadn’t noticed suddenly opened next to him, and a Pilgrim popped out of the central trunk, wheeling a trolley on which stood a steaming kettle and some mismatched cups, mugs and teapots. Before the Pilgrim closed the door after himself, Alan caught a brief glimpse of a dumbwaiter-type contraption with deep shelves packed with jars, bottles, vials, bags, and various instruments that he could not identify. He continued upwards as the tea-Pilgrim bustled off along a branch and started handing out the drinks.

  And then he reached his destination. The chanting was loud and powerful up here, and the sound was somehow circular; and he realised that the Pilgrims were performing it in the round. He was ascending into the middle of their company and he could feel their eyes on him from amongst the branches. But he wasn’t here to cause trouble. He just wanted to have a look.

  There were no visible openings or stoppers in the glass globe; it appeared to be completely hermetic. And it was full of life: thick, glossy leaves pressed against the glass, and pale pink flowers with rich red veins unfurled further in, and right in the middle was a lump of stone, or maybe a large wooden log, from which all of the plants grew. Vibrant green mosses spilled from this central object in cascades that looked like waterfalls. Lichens covered unknown objects and ferns pushed through everything else. Condensation misted the glass at the top; at the bottom was clear brown water.

  And here and there on the central object were small, unassuming, pale green mushrooms. They looked dull and inconspicuous, but they burned brightly in Alan’s eyes.