by Judith Huang
He threw the grate open and then the door. The flat was empty, looking as devoid of Clara as the Prism antechamber had been of Sofia.
“Clara! CLARA?!” Kirk yelled uselessly. He swore.
Locking the door behind him, he looked about the flat for something, anything, that may indicate where Clara had gone. A pathetic piece of paper had landed on the ground near the door—a forgotten shopping list. Perhaps she had gone out for groceries, he thought. Sofia must have taken the opportunity to sneak out of the flat while her mother was gone. Perhaps all that was needed was to sit here and wait for Clara to return.
But something definitely felt wrong. The apartment didn’t seem temporarily vacated, but rather, eerily abandoned, as though its occupants had disappeared for good. Kirk took the cube out of his bag and tried opening it again. Once more the room with the table and the chandelier filled the flat. But he still wasn’t able to reach Sofia.
Perhaps he should head down to the nearest FairPrice, thought Kirk. Clara might still be there. He’d wait for another hour, and if Clara still hadn’t returned, he would head out and look for her elsewhere. But something told him that Clara wouldn’t be found. It was already too late. He would have to head for the Voids himself, if he were to have any chance at all of getting away.
As day faded into night, there was still no sign of Clara, and she still wasn’t picking up his calls. Kirk decided to leave the cube in Sofia’s room for safekeeping, and decided he would take one last look at the nearest FairPrice, the one Clara always went to. He was fairly confident that if nothing had happened to her, he would be able to find her. She lived such a circumscribed life that all her movements were terribly predictable. And if he couldn’t find her, the first thing he would have to do was to get himself off the grid and into the Voids, for the ISD would be on his trail pretty soon, if they weren’t already.
Part 2
Chapter 13: The Fisherman
Once upon a time, there lived a fisherman. He lived in a house on stilts that stood in the middle of the sea.
One night, the fisherman had a dream. A beautiful woman with the appearance of a goddess descended from the clouds, her feet laced with lotus petals. The woman had fair skin and dark eyes, and her hair curled around her face like seaweed.
“Upon you will be founded a city, a city past compare in riches and marvels and beauty,” she said. “But first, you must lose yourself, riding on the waves of seven oceans. Only at your journey’s end will you come to rest, and only then will the city rise. It will be a city of eternal summer, a land of surpassing beauty. Indeed, it will come to be known as the city of the gods.”
“Where must I journey? Where should I go?” asked the fisherman, staring in awe at her radiant beauty.
“Before, between and beyond. Tomorrow night, take your boat and sail towards the rising moon,” she replied. “And you will find your destiny.”
And so the fisherman packed up his things and set sail, leaving everything he knew behind him.
Before, between and beyond—he thought, wondering where the moon would take him. He imagined the many splendours of the city in his mind, of its sparkling jewels, its pearls and gold. He imagined strange rare flowers blooming in the day, at all times of the year, and their rich perfumes, blanketing the palaces at night. He dreamt of the carpet of flowers he would tread on by night, of the gorgeous hills and rivers and valleys, the rich and redolent perfumes of his imagined country.
And so, for many days, the fisherman sailed tirelessly, searching, searching for this Shangri-la.
One day he came to an island where he saw a man who looked like a ghost. He had skin whiter than a pearl and hair as red as rust.
“Excuse me,” said the fisherman to the man. “I am looking for a place of surpassing beauty, a land of eternal summer.”
“What a coincidence,” said the strange man. “I have been shipwrecked on this island by a storm, with my servant and my only daughter. But I, too, am seeking such a place.”
“Do you know where I should look? Perhaps we can look for it together,” said the fisherman.
“In truth, I have heard of such a place, though only in legends and stories,” said the man. “But I believe it is somewhere in the Southern Sea, for a creeping creature on this island once told about such a place. He said he had visited it, one time in his life, but could never find the way to it again. But then again, he is an inveterate liar and lazy to boot, a most indolent fellow, so I would not take his word for it.”
“So you haven’t found it yourself?”
“No, I have not. But please leave me now, for I am in mourning, and that is why my face is pale as the moon. My wife, whom I loved more than life itself, was drowned at sea in the storm that shipwrecked me here. Last night, she came to me in a dream, telling me that for her sake, I must build my home here and not seek the land of eternal summer.”
The fisherman thanked the man, apologising for disturbing him in his grief. For his troubles, he gave the man a gift of five fish. In exchange, the man gave him a ring, on which was inscribed a certain word, but being illiterate, the fisherman could not read it. Grateful, the fisherman tied the ring around his neck with a piece of string. He decided he would have to find this island creature himself.
So the fisherman hiked across the island, following its streams and tracing its rivers, hacking through its jungles and scaling up its hills.
On the third day, he met a man whose face was beautiful and noble, with dark brown eyes small and proud. Yet his back was doubled over, for he carried on his back a big pail full of rubber sap. His clothes were filthy and his bare chest had the look of a man who was half-starved. Curious, the fisherman called out to him.
“Hello, friend,” he said. “What are you doing? Do you need some help?”
The man grunted, shifting the burden on his back. “No, my friend, I cannot accept your help,” he said. “For I am carrying this pail for the father of the one I love, so that she may be set free, and I may not rest or put it down.”
“Who is the one you love?” asked the fisherman.
“She is beautiful beyond compare,” said the rubber-tapper. “Her father holds her prisoner in a cavern surrounded by the sea, where all day and night she is visited by the island spirits. Only my labour keeps her from being devoured completely, and only when I have tapped all the rubber in all the rubber trees in all the land, and only when I have made them into sheets wide and supple enough to blanket the islands in this necklace chain can she ever be my bride.”
“But new rubber trees are always sprouting up,” the fisherman pointed out, “and the islands are always changing in shape and shifting in form, for new islands rise out of the ocean and old ones sink back into its depths. How will you ever rescue your true love?”
“But I must,” said the rubber-tapper. “Because if I do not, the sea will flood the cavern and she will be lost to me forever. I cannot stop—I must never stop. And where, my friend, are you heading?”
The fisherman told him about the land he sought, the land of eternal summer.
“If you seek the island creature, then you must make for yourself rubber shoes to walk up the hills,” said the rubber-tapper. “I will give you a sheet of rubber, and you can make yourself two shoes for your feet.”
The fisherman took the rubber and made two soles out of it, strapping them to his feet with twine. He left five fish for the rubber-tapper, and he walked further along the island, deep into the unspoiled jungle. Sure enough, the granite rocks were sharp, but the rubber shoes protected him, and he was grateful for the gift of the rubber-tapper.
When he emerged from the jungle to the other shore, he found a deep pit at the other side of it, and in the pit he found a pitiful creature, covered in soot, his back covered with dirty, matted fur and clothes that once must have been very splendid. When he looked closely, he realised that the creature was actually a man, draped in furs.
“The man on the other side of the island said that you have s
een the land of eternal summer,” said the fisherman, trying to hold his breath, for the man gave off an unholy stink of rotting fish.
“Indeed, I was once the prince of such a place,” said the man, his eyes forlorn. “I was the darling of my queen once, and held sway over the whole of the scattered lands, these ever-shifting islands that dip and rise in and out of the sea. Among the jewels of my empire was once such island, a place of exquisite beauty, of canals and spires and towers, of glass domes that reached the moon.
“It was a place of great wonders and infinite power, and those who came far and wide to see it marvelled at it; those who ruled in the palaces of other cities tore their robes with despair when they saw it, for none of their cities could compare. And I, who was once crown prince of it, now cry to dream of it.”
“Can you tell me how to find this kingdom?” asked the fisherman, filled with hope, for he thought this must be the city the goddess had foretold. “I will give you five fish for your troubles, and anything else you desire.”
“I am sorry, but I cannot help you,” said the man. “For the man you met on the other side of the island met me first, and I fell in love with his daughter, and because I fell in love, I tried to learn her language. And because I learned her language, I can no longer remember mine, for I despised it, and it ran away from me, as a scuttling crab runs from a heron. And because I no longer know my language, I cannot open the island’s heart, for the man threw it deep into the ocean, in a glass coffin sealed with the seal of a ring, so that none may rule but he.”
“Then that,” said the fisherman, “is what I must do. I must dive into the Dragon King’s kingdom beneath the waves and unseal this heart, for only then can I found the city that has been foretold.”
And then a great wave came crashing over the island, and it was consumed by a wailing storm. The fisherman’s ring rose into the water, twisting and turning, and the twine it was strung on strangled him as he whirled away in the whirlpool. Deeper, deeper, farther and farther down, on and on and round and round he fell, until he was sucked into the depths.
The fisherman woke up beneath the waves, a swarm of fish kneading his dead body with their lips. Their mouths gaped open and close, kissing his face with hard kisses. Dazed, he waved them away, then stood up from his dead body and walked along the seabed.
In that place he met his long-lost mother, now dead for many years. At first he did not recognise her, for she had taken the form of a fish with the head of a horse.
“My son, what have you done that you have been cast into this hell?” asked the horse head, caressing him with her words.
The fisherman was filled with shame and sorrow, for he had not thought of his mother for many moons, and had failed to throw into the sea the packets of rice and fish that the dead require. His mother was skeletal, and her voice was weak and soft.
“Mother, I have failed you and failed the goddess who came to me in my dream. I was to found and build a city, a mighty kingdom, a city of the gods, which was to be a wonder of the world. But I have failed; I have lost my life and will never see this great city.”
“Do not despair, my son,” said his mother. “When your father died, he gave me his eyes to keep, for he truly loved me, and I swallowed and put them into my belly for safekeeping. If you cut open my belly, you can have his eyes. It is said that whosoever has the eyes of his father will see the light of day one more time, and it will guide them to life again, even if they have already died.”
The fisherman was horrified. “How can I cut up my own mother?” he cried. “I have already starved you and forgotten you for many years. Let me stay here with you, and grow a horse’s head and a fish’s tail as well. And I will dwell with you in hell, for that is what I richly deserve.”
But his mother would not listen. She produced an exquisite parang, jewelled of hilt and sharp of blade.
“You must carve me up,” she said. “Don’t be afraid, I am already dead, and the pain will not be bad. For in truth you have already cut me to the quick time before time. It is an old wound, and my flesh does not feel it any more.”
And so the fisherman cut open her belly and retrieved his father’s eyes. Indeed, they lit up the darkness like tiny bubbles of light. They shone and floated and bobbed in the water. The fisherman kissed his mother, whose belly now lay open like a sea anemone, and he took leave of her, following his father’s floating eyes.
To his surprise, the fisherman could swim quite easily; he glided through the water, because he was a ghost and no longer needed to breathe. The two eyes floated and twirled around him playfully, like twin fish directing him deeper and deeper and farther and farther.
Finally, after three days and three nights, the fisherman reached the doors of a giant underwater city, its walls made of a black rock like onyx, shiny and filled with tiny flecks of light. The walls surrounded a gorgeous palace, decked in gold and green and red and pearl. Above him, on the water, a bridge made of gemstones that gleamed with the inscription of a name reached from a distant shore to the heart of the city.
“Perhaps this is the kingdom I have been searching for,” thought the fisherman, but then he heard suddenly the cry of a thousand voices, screaming and gurgling and screaming. The palace stood on the top of a vast underwater volcano, and within it spewed a constant stream of lava.
As the fisherman looked closer, he found that in the lava marched a constant stream of beautiful translucent fish, guided by an army of little crabs, which seemed to feed off the lava and the fish. This, too, was a splendid and beautiful sight, for scales flew up into the air like multi-coloured diamonds, catching the light of the lava. But when the fisherman saw that the scales were being pulled off of the fish, and that the cries were cries of pain, he sickened, turned and swam as hard and as far away as he could.
And so he swam again for three days and three nights until he came to a sparkling city filled with glass houses that spiralled through the waters. He marvelled at this city but was haunted by it—as he moved through its spires, he discovered that it had no inhabitants but only the ghosts of the spirit world, haunting it like the leftover perfumes of the dead.
As he walked through the halls, the whispers directed him this way and that until he was thoroughly confused. He found himself in an endless string of dim corridors, full of doors opening onto more corridors. There were also ladders and staircases, but when he climbed them, they merely led to floor after floor of more corridors and ladders. Finally, as he reached the top rung of the last ladder, he found himself trapped in an old bell tower.
He rang the bell, but there was no sound. He rang it again, and again he was greeted with silence. The third time he rang the bell, the sound was still and clear, and suddenly the city burst into flame. All around him he saw the spirits leaping hungrily through the city, whipping through it with a terrifying fury, and spitting him out.
As he kicked furiously to free himself of their fiery grip and angry tongues, he threw one of his father’s eyes at them, and found that they pulled back in fear. He instantly regretted the loss of the eye, but seized the moment to flap free of their clutches, and soon he was on his way again.
This time he was determined to follow his father’s remaining eye. He clutched it tightly. But to his dismay, when he released it again, the eye had turned cloudy and dull, and would not direct him any more.
Filled with despair, the fisherman buried his father’s eye in the seabed, and then fell down on his knees and wept. He had failed yet again to find the kingdom. He cried for three days and three nights, wailing his grief, and his tears made the sea swell and surge and sigh, and his cries rocked the firmament of the air and the foundations of the earth.
All the creatures of the sea took pity on him. So, while he was asleep, they sang to him a deep sea song, and filled his nostrils with the deep and precious elixir of the sea.
That night, the fisherman dreamed of paradise.
What happened to the fisherman no one can be sure. But legend ha
s it that he still sleeps beneath the oceans, dreaming his beautiful dream. And that one day, he will rise, with the knife of the sea horse and the ring of the white man, and that one day he will return to find the land of eternal summer. But as for when this might be, and as for what is inscribed on the ring, nobody knows.
Chapter 14: The Voids
In the new universe, an age passed, an aeon, a millennium. Sofia appeared in the dreams and visions of the people of her world, in her many guises.
By day she watched and guided the efflorescence of life in this world, delighting in her creation or playing with her creatures, sometimes in disguise, for they did not always know their goddess was amongst them. By night, she traversed her favourite planet in her favourite galaxy, the one she had called Mine, on the back of Milton the tiger, feeling the immense power of his haunches as they flew across the planet.
And although the peoples of her world were born, flourished and died in spans as ephemeral as the butterflies and moths, she was never lonely, for she had Milton by her side to talk to and to ask for advice, and he was a faithful companion and guide.
“So how do I get back?” asked Sofia one day.
“Where to?” growled the tiger.
“You mean I can’t go back to my world?” She was truly alarmed for a second.
“Oh, you mean to the little dimension you came from? Why would you want to go back? Isn’t it far better to be here where you are a goddess?”
Sofia pondered this a little while. Of course it was nice to be a goddess, but surely she needed to get back to school and her mother and her previous life. And what about Uncle Kirk? He was surely worried about her at this point. Who knew how much time had passed in her world?
“Of course I have to get back! I have responsibilities, you know.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, Uncle Kirk is probably worried about me. And I have homework due tomorrow.”
Milton laughed, then cocked his head to one side. “Well, if you insist, all you have to do is get to the well,” he said.