Glass

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘I often wonder why you live with a pyuton,’ said Cuensheley. They had reached the Copper Courtyard, and he gave her the food baskets.

  ‘I have just explained why,’ Dwllis said. This line of questioning he did not like.

  Cuensheley favoured him with a smile, then, as if on a whim, kissed him on the cheek. Surprised, Dwllis had no time to jump back. Hair ribbons flapping she turned and walked into the courtyard, leaving Dwllis to suffer the glances of smirking passers-by.

  He returned to the Cowhorn Tower in poor mood. As he fretted in his study he imagined many excuses for not attending the musical evening, but all seemed artificial, and he knew that if he offered any to Cuensheley she would see them as false, which would cause more difficulties. The woman was a problem, nothing but a problem, with her airy ways and probing questions. He could not imagine why she played these games, unless she was considering blackmailing him over his addiction.

  ~

  If there was anything truly feared by Dwllis it was arguments. He could not stand the thought of arguments. Anger to him was the worst human failing. So when he announced to Coelendwia that they would that night be making a survey of the Cemetery, and when Etwe then approached at speed, he feared the worst.

  ‘Do not try to stop me,’ he told Etwe, hands raised.

  ‘You can’t enter the Cemetery,’ she said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  Coelendwia nodded. ‘’Tis, sir–’

  ‘Don’t stop me!’ Dwllis yelled. For a moment, the force of his own voice shocked him. ‘Coelendwia, we both will explore the Cemetery for clues to this damnable lens. My mind is quite made up. We shall go tonight.’

  ‘The idea is absurd,’ Etwe said. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

  Dwllis would not tolerate this dissent. Leaving the wide-eyed Triader to gape at Etwe, he hurried into his study and began noisily to prepare a sack of equipment. He knew the plan was risky, but he had decided. He was the Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, after all, a man of the Reeve himself.

  As evening became night, he calmed. Midnight arrived, and he went to see Coelendwia at the front door.

  ‘I am ready. Let’s go.’

  Coelendwia looked up and down at Dwllis’s attire.

  ‘What is it?’ Dwllis asked, wondering if he had failed to tie his laces, or somewhere missed a button…

  ‘Will you be dressed like that, sir?’

  Dwllis looked down at his blue kirtle, silken socks under loafing shoes, and at his splendid azure smoking jacket, which tonight he wore over a ruffled shirt. ‘Do you consider it too vulgar for the Cemetery?’

  Coelendwia seemed in a quandary. ‘Sir, I must advise you. The Cemetery is a filthy, muddy place choked up with barrows and druidic accoutrements.’

  ‘You think the druids would prefer something paler?’

  Coelendwia took a deep breath. ‘Sir, I’ll be going in tough Triader orange, with big boots and a woolly hat. Follow suit, and…’

  He left Dwllis to form a conclusion. Dwllis without a word saw that the little man had a point, and offering no alternative view returned to his room to change into hardy clothes, choosing cotton breeches belonging to Etwe, a thick coat and a hat. As an afterthought he put on earmuffs loaded with speech amplifiers.

  Thus dressed, they walked down to Sphagnum Street and then north, up Crimson Street until the Morte Street gate appeared.

  ‘We shall enter from this point,’ Dwllis said.

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Dwllis paused. ‘You had better lead, Coelendwia, on account of your Triader skills.’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  The gate – two basalt uprights with a monolithic lintel – had no bar, and so they walked through, carefully and with trepidation. Morte Street, petering out at the Swamps wall, was not an illuminated way, and so the only light they had this gloomy night leaked from their hand lamps – wire mesh filled with glow-beans on the end of a string. It did not bode well.

  ‘Do you have any plan, sir?’ asked Coelendwia.

  ‘Of course. We shall proceed directly to the centre of the Cemetery, then inch eastward.’

  ‘As you say, sir.’

  Since only pyutons were interred here Dwllis knew he would encounter nothing grisly. That left living denizens, including the druids, lone soothsayers declaiming their epigrams from the Cemetery wall, and minions of the Reeve’s deputies. Following Coelendwia’s hunched figure Dwllis peered to either side, raising and dropping his lamp as the occasion demanded.

  Great barrows rose up all around. Mud squelched underfoot. The granite structures were close packed, and soon Dwllis found himself squeezing between chilly blocks until it was difficult to see where they were going. Sometimes he noticed limbs emerging plant-like from the mud, and once he trod on a head. Claustrophobia became intense. When Coelendwia led the way into a dead end, Dwllis spun on his heel: to see a figure standing under a six-foot red lumod, blocking their retreat.

  The sight froze him. ‘Who are you?’ a deep voice asked.

  The man was wearing a belted cloak and a hood, revealing no clue to his identity. The red light made him seem supernatural, while dust blown off the barrows looked like drizzle floating around him. Dwllis, heart thumping, replied, ‘Travellers. Who are you?’

  ‘Are you outsiders?’ came the reply.

  Dwllis looked at Coelendwia, then returned his gaze to the man. ‘We hail from the Rusty Quarter.’

  ‘Outsiders,’ the man grunted. ‘What are you doing in this realm?’

  Truth was probably the best defence. Dwllis said, in the most authoritative voice he could muster, ‘We seek the glass lens that of late has been floating from the east.’

  This made the man think. ‘You seek it?’ he asked after a pause.

  Dwllis nodded. ‘I am the Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, given that honour by the Reeve of Cray. I claim and accept the right to investigate all that troubles my locale.’

  ‘Then you had better follow me. The lens is a swamp object, but wedded to the technology buried here. Your name is?’

  ‘I am Dwllis and this is my manservant Coelendwia.’

  The man thought for a moment. ‘My name is unimportant.’

  ‘We must call you something,’ Coelendwia ventured.

  The hooded man laughed and turned, waving for them to follow him. His sleeve fell loose and Dwllis saw a hairy arm scabbed and scarred like a street beggar’s. A real man, then.

  The man led them up a flight of steps made of quartz blocks, great chunks that must have been settled by machine. The steps led upwards between two barrows twenty feet high or more – barrows that Dwllis noticed were marked with spirals, dots and leaf-sprays of red ochre.

  Upon the roofs of the barrows they hopped, following the man, who often would utter a laugh as he performed especially long leaps between stones, until they found themselves at a clearing lit by crescent lumods stuck into the mud. A number of people in pale cloaks milled around below them.

  Dwllis took off his earmuffs. The city din was reduced here, composed mostly of aerial noise.

  All three men lay down to watch the events below. Very quickly Dwllis realised that the dozen or so people were scribes of the Archive of Selene, circling around something, fuzzlocks bouncing, their white robes muddied and torn. The primitive earthiness offended his sensibilities, but he had to look on. He saw no sign of Querhidwe or any of her deputies.

  The man rolled over to Dwllis’ side. Dwllis caught the odour of qe’lib’we on his breath. He must be an addict too. ‘These aliens have been here many evenings since the longest day,’ he whispered. ‘They bring their dubious symbols and their foul knowledge. It is an abomination.’

  ‘Why do your people not eject them?’ Dwllis asked.

  ‘We are permitted by our craft only to touch pyuter species. Besides, battle is dangerous.’

  Dwllis knew then what he had half guessed before, that the man at his side was one of the pyutonic undertakers, an awful man of mud, cold,
dismemberment and electronic decay. No wonder he considered this place his realm; it was conceptually separate from the city, thick with dread, technologically putrefied. Dwllis was afraid now, for he realised that here he dealt with something massive and unforgiving: rituals of the electric departed.

  He asked the druid, ‘Do you believe it is these rituals that have disturbed the object?’

  ‘I think so. The aliens disturb the electronic substrate linking the barrows, but because they have no craft they blunder and bash like infants. But the lens is no ordinary apparition. I have never seen its like.’ At this, the druid took from his pocket a chunk of spongy matter, and Dwllis smelled a yeasty odour. His mouth watered and his hands itched.

  Heedless of Coelendwia, he said, ‘I’ll have some of that.’

  The druid ripped off a chunk and handed it over. Dwllis popped it in his mouth and began chewing. In moments a warmth rippled through his body, and he felt pure confidence, as if nothing could hold him back.

  He told the druid, ‘These damned scribblers must be stopped. What can you do?’

  ‘We can do nothing.’

  ‘There must be something.’

  Dwllis returned his gaze to the scribes. Around a mound of mud they were pacing, chanting, lunar symbols in their hands. Dwllis looked up to see an almost full moon hazy behind city dust, and he could see that it had lost its circular shape. Two lumps were forming at opposite ends, and the body as a whole seemed to be extending.

  ‘Yes,’ said the druid, ‘Selene is transforming again.’

  ‘Again?’ Dwllis asked.

  ‘Many centuries ago Earth possessed a different moon, and that also transformed itself. History is repeating itself.’

  Dwllis was stunned by these simple words. Sensitised to historical niceties, he immediately saw their significance. The other Cray that he believed had once stood on this land must somehow be exerting an influence over current events, like the spirit of a dead leader hanging over a congregation.

  He asked the druid, ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Centuries ago my kin lived amidst the Archive of Gaya,’ came the reply. ‘Although we have split, our tribal memories recall some old stories that the Archives conceal. Do you not see a balance in Cray, city-man? Three Archives support it: that of Selene who is tied to the Earth, that of Gaya, who is but an incarnation of the Earth, and that of Noct, who represents the night that blankets the Earth. A cosmic decision is approaching. Selene transforms and change is mooted, while the people of the Earth fall under a transforming pressure. Truly one will have to stand forth to lead the leaderless.’

  These words, spoken in tones ever more doomy, made Dwllis shiver. This druid was no fool. Though isolated from Cray, he possessed vision: he saw, and he thought about what he saw.

  ‘Look now,’ said the druid. ‘The ritual climaxes.’

  Dwllis looked down again. All the scribes were staring into the Swamps mist, as if waiting for a sign.

  ‘What’s happening, sir?’ Coelendwia asked, his voice tremulous.

  ‘They have twisted the electronic substrate,’ answered the druid, ‘in an attempt to see images of its interior. The aliens interfere with the realm of the dead. See! The lens appears.’

  From the Swamps – not far off – the lens appeared, drifting towards them, then making towards the southern wall of the Cemetery.

  ‘Does it always come from the Swamps?’ Dwllis asked.

  ‘Always. It is an object of that place. But few can see the deathly images it focuses.’

  Dwllis grimaced. ‘I can. Perhaps I should journey into the Swamps to find and understand this lens.’

  The druid glanced at him. ‘No. Many dangerous folk have their abode there–’

  ‘The Swamps are lifeless,’ Dwllis claimed.

  ‘Outsider, they are not. Where the river makes a bend there lies the Isle. I myself have not visited the Isle, but others of my dear kin have. The Swamps themselves are a shifting morass of biochemical traces and self-generating information packages, all set in gel. It is thought by some older druids that the whole area is a pyuter of unimaginable compass. Think on that if you will. Now do you see the depths you so heartily wish to explore?’

  ‘I did not wish to insult you,’ Dwllis said, ‘but I am thinking that this lens shows great interest in my tower.’

  ‘What then is inside your tower?’

  Dwllis chuckled. ‘Memories. Nothing but memories.’

  The druid considered this for some minutes, while below, the scribes, having peered into the lens and then banished it, wandered away from the site.

  ‘What do they do that for, sir?’ Coelendwia asked.

  ‘I understand little of their ritual,’ the druid replied, ‘but it seems to me that they seek guidance from the denizens of the lens. Oddly, they do not fear it.’

  ‘Who are these denizens?’ asked Dwllis.

  ‘I have seen but three. One is a grotesque creature of black with a bag body and chin tentacles like those of the gnosticians, while the other two are human, or almost so.’

  ‘Do the denizens say anything?’

  ‘No. Come, you have seen the origin of the lens. It is time for you to leave this realm and return to your own.’

  As they headed back Dwllis felt he had seen too much. Clambering over the Cemetery wall, he stood still and tried to formulate some suitable question that the druid might answer. Eventually he said, ‘We have not seen the origin of the lens, rather we have seen it swing in from the Swamps. Do you know more than that?’

  ‘The Swamps are home to many things,’ the druid observed.

  ‘You are not being candid with me. Have you seen an image of me inside the lens?’

  ‘Never. But you have?’

  ‘I may have, once or twice. It is difficult to be certain.’

  The druid turned away. But before he vanished into the mist Dwllis heard him say, ‘We shall meet again.’

  ~

  Next day, under a flaming dawn sky, Dwllis was once more confronted by Cuensheley. He had intended visiting the Archivist of Selene with whom he had previously spoken, but Cuensheley had other plans. Standing at his door she made plain her grievance. ‘I’ve heard you went out last night. Is that why you didn’t come to my evening?’

  ‘Good morning, Cuensheley. I am afraid my manservant and I were out last night, yes.’

  ‘Gadding about,’ Cuensheley muttered. ‘Where are you going now? You don’t usually tramp about the city.’

  ‘Your assessment is inaccurate. I am going to see a friend at the Archive of Selene.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Dwllis stepped back. ‘As you wish, but be sure that you cannot worm your way into my life by force.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Cuensheley replied with a grin. With her blonde fuzzlocks, crimson and blue ribbons down to her waist and crisp cream garments she looked delightful, but Dwllis felt only apprehension over what she might do or say. She handed him a pouch saying, ‘That’s the week’s qe’lib’we.’

  Dwllis glanced this way and that like a fugitive. ‘Thanks.’

  Was this the hold, this simple drug? Illegal it was not, but only lessers and outers succumbed to its narcotic embrace. The social fall following any revelation of his addiction to the citizens of Cray would be fatal.

  They began their walk south. Both wore earmuffs without amplifiers, and so they talked in sign language. Dwllis suspected that Cuensheley would tire of the journey soon, for there was a limit to the time she could be away from the Copper Courtyard. He was not overly worried, though it was embarrassing to be seen in public with her.

  He signed, Who looks after the courtyard?

  Ilquisrey.

  Your daughter cannot oversee it for long.

  Cuensheley laughed. She is eighteen and no idiot.

  Dwllis had not made it his business to meet Ilquisrey, and so knew little of her, though rumour had it that she was if anything more vivacious and flighty than her mother.
<
br />   What troubles you? she asked.

  People make problems.

  She laughed again. You prefer gnosticians and pyutons to human beings, do you not?

  If that is a jibe, it is low and impolite.

  Manners are not everything. We must seize the passion of the moment.

  Dwllis looked at her in surprise. She seemed serious. Murderers kill out of passion, and I would not follow them.

  You’re such a calm, well-mannered man.

  Thank you.

  Except when you’ve been on the–

  He grasped one of her hands, then signed, We need not mention that.

  You like it though.

  So you may think.

  Cuensheley laughed as if she had scored a point. It struck Dwllis that there could not be two less alike people in Cray. Of course, his interest in pyutons and gnosticians stemmed from his position, and the alleged dislike of people was professional detachment and in no way a symptom of misanthropy as had been suggested. Cuensheley surely knew that. As for the qe’lib’we, he only chewed that once a week, although he had noticed that the pouches had recently been fuller than usual, allowing two portions instead of one.

  I like a man who is interested in clothes, she signed.

  Dwllis glanced down at his own costume: black frock coat with cream shirt, blue kirtle and black long-socks under purple boots, the whole giving the impression of sober sophistication. He replied, Do you think it suits me?

  Very much. The boots set it off well.

  Dwllis nodded, confirming that her view was correct. They had already reached the Archive on Onion Street, and he signed to her, I am going in to speak with an acquaintance. I may he some time.

  I am coming with you.

  Dwllis shook his head. I would rather you did not.

  I am coming.

  So be it.

  Dwllis, Cuensheley a pace behind, entered the cool and quiet interior of the Archive of Selene and asked a door flunkey whether any Archivists might be available.

  ‘Only the Lord Archivist is here of the superior staff,’ Dwllis was informed.

  ‘I shall see her briefly.’

  ‘That will be difficult–’

  ‘Ask her if you please,’ Dwllis replied, waving the flunkey away with a limp-wristed gesture. ‘Damnable lessers,’ he said, glancing at Cuensheley.