Glass

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘No, I do not think he did. But Iquinlass may have.’

  Cuensheley said, ‘I think you ought to hide this. I’ll keep it. I think Tierquthay will be after it – which means he’ll be after you.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘He is Lord Archivist of Selene, isn’t he? You’d better move in with me for now.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  Cuensheley seemed surprised. ‘Suit yourself. But I think Coelendwia might meet an intruder soon. You realise that all this means we’ll have to get into the Archive of Selene again?’

  Dwllis’s fears were confirmed by this statement, for the idea had occurred to him. ‘Perhaps,’ he replied.

  But she was not listening. She was examining the fishtail. ‘Look at the wear marks on this,’ she said. ‘They’re obviously from a mechanical lock, not an electric one, because of these fans of scratches. Somebody’s used this fishtail a lot.’ She held the chain up to a lamp. ‘Somebody pale judging by this hair still caught in it. Querhidwe, maybe. I know somebody who could analyse this hair to see if it belongs to a person or a pyuton.’

  Dwllis said, ‘As you wish. I am but a historian.’

  Cuensheley offered him a piercing look in reply.

  Dwllis had no answer. But when she undid the top buttons of her gown, he jumped up, trembling, and said, ‘No, no.’

  She stood, offering him the locket from around her neck. ‘I only wanted you to have this in return for the fishtail. What are you frightened of?’

  He laughed – a too-loud laugh that he knew she would see through. ‘Nothing. I must go. It is late, as you said.’

  He took the locket, and with Cuensheley tailing him departed the courtyard. She managed to kiss him once before he left. ‘Don’t do that in public even if you must in private,’ he said.

  Cuensheley shrugged.

  Dwllis walked home. Not wishing to speak with anybody else he watched from behind a spray of leaves until Coelendwia, patrolling the base of the tower, was out of sight. Then he ran for the door, but before entering he turned to survey the city. Hot, dusty and loud it lay spread before him. At that moment he hated it, because it represented something of his torture.

  The moon hung above the sea, and Dwllis realised that it was beginning to look something like a fish. He entered the Cowhorn Tower, to find a message. His presence had been requested by the Reeve.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was as if Subadwan was floating in dark syrup, surrounded by a hundred suspended panes of glass illuminated along their edges. The panes were of different sizes and colours, each labelled in the top left-hand corner with an abstract symbol. She noticed that, faint as a bleached picture, each was also etched with a pair of human lips. The temptation was to touch one.

  She touched one. Nothing.

  She kissed one.

  ‘Headmerger welcomes you to its country,’ said a voice.

  Subadwan understood. The mask was a headmerger, a device so sophisticated it represented a pyuter landscape: but which?

  Before her, the glass pane bubbled and billowed. As it enlarged, the others faded away. Subadwan was not frightened, however, for she knew that this Archive pyuter would do her no harm.

  The pane was a notepad. Each pane must be devoted to a different topic, this one apparently covering the keeping of order amongst the doorwarden ranks. A short summary of points was spoken by the lips, with accompanying diagrams and portraits flowing like electronic ponds across the glass surface. This pane would be useful. Here the shortcomings and strengths of Archive staff were noted. Becoming excited, Subadwan wondered what other secrets were at hand.

  Some were pleasant, others shocking. The third pane she kissed covered secret meetings Rhannan had had with the Reeve, meetings designed to redefine the historical limits placed by society upon Gaya. Nothing had been agreed. Subdued, she read on.

  There were panes devoted to Aswaque, to herself, and to Aquaitra. The pane on Aquaitra was terrible. There were reports detailing drinking binges, suspicious activities in low-life courtyards to the south, association with substance-crews and rowdies. This was not the Aquaitra she knew. It was not the Aquaitra anybody knew, come to that.

  More panes. One on that popinjay in charge of the Cowhorn Tower. He was an odd character, raised by a guardian independent in Cochineal Mews, unlisted parentage and siblings. Rhannan had made notes of his possible uses, mentioning the quantity of memory accumulated in the Cowhorn Tower, but there was no indication of her acting on it.

  And here at last were notes concerning Tanglanah, the Archive of Safekeeping, and a certain abstract country. So Rhannan had known of it. Subadwan was amazed.

  ‘The abstraction must be explored,’ droned the lips, manifesting Rhannan’s thoughts, ‘but how? The Safekeeping Archive is dangerous. Potential for mob rule.’ Diagrams of the position of the Archive scrolled across the pane, accompanied by images of Tanglanah, her adjutant Laspetosyne, and then thirteen of the Assemblage of Fifteen. Subadwan added Tanglanah and Laspetosyne to thirteen and made fifteen. Did the two pyutons wish to set themselves up alongside the other thirteen exemplars of their Archive, or was there a deeper kinship? Rhannan had made no notes. But although Subadwan had already guessed that Tanglanah represented not only the Archive of Safekeeping but also a wealth of secrets, it remained a comfort to hear that suspicion from another’s lips.

  Further exploring the pyuter country, she came upon one pane that was a window upon the external world, allowing her a complete view of her chamber, and a reflection of herself in the dark pyuter screen… a reflection like her, and yet unlike. She shivered.

  Time to leave. She let herself relax, then raised her hands to peel off the mask. Reality appeared suddenly, just as the pyuter country vanished. In one hand she held floppy neoprene.

  ‘Aquaitra wishes to see you,’ said the pyuter voice.

  ‘She’s here now?’

  ‘She stands outside your door.’

  Replacing the headmerger, Subadwan made to open the door herself. Her scalp felt cold.

  Aquaitra entered, eyes wide. ‘’Dwan!’

  Aquaitra was staring at the top of her head. Subadwan felt a bare scalp. Fuzzlocks lay scattered on the floor like snakeskins.

  Aquaitra slammed the door shut. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Something of Rhannan’s. I can’t tell you just now.’

  Ashamed, remembering now the wig that Rhannan wore, Subadwan searched for something with which to cover her head. At the rear of a drawer she found a cloth cap which, red with embarrassment, she put on.

  Subadwan could not tell whether Aquaitra was tired or nervous, but her friend seemed tense. Guessing the cause, she said, ‘Forget I’m Lord Archivist for a moment. It’s just me.’

  ‘I know, I know. You will be unhappy if formality intrudes, so I will try to remember you are ’Dwan.’

  ‘I’m still Subadwan, your friend.’

  Aquaitra nodded. ‘I thought you might like to hear news off the streets, news that is strange and worrying.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘At the Archive of Selene–’

  ‘Not that place again.’

  ‘– the pike monster has started to assist Tierquthay.’ Aquaitra frowned, then sighed. ‘A frightening man. I saw him on the steps of the Archive as I walked past on my way from Plash Street back to our Archive. Pikeface they call him. He is horrible, a huge man, seven feet tall.’

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘Seven feet tall, with bulging muscles and black hair on his chest. But he has the head of a fish, all black and greasy, with staring yellow eyes. And yet he can speak. He is a rabble-rouser – he spoke to a crowd of three hundred as I passed. He wears a great blue and black cloak, and steel boots.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘As I passed by the Archive, I thought I heard that he had been made Tierquthay’s Advocate.’

  ‘What is a pike, anyway?’ Subadwan asked. ‘Pyuter,’ she called, ‘what fish is a pike?�
�

  ‘The pike is a voracious species extinct since the arrival of the gnostician and associated species, known for being vicious and for eating other piscine species.’

  ‘Voracious,’ Subadwan mused. She recalled the circumstances of Querhidwe’s assassination, then said, ‘Perhaps this is the Archive of Selene’s response to their Lord Archivist’s death, converting Crayans away from Noct and the Reeve–’

  Aquaitra gasped. ‘You mean the Reeve had Querhidwe assassinated?’

  ‘No, no, um, I don’t know,’ Subadwan said, waving her hands in a firm gesture of denial. ‘Gaya love me, it could have been anybody for all I know. But a pike, Aquaitra. A voracious fish that eats other fish. It’s got to have some meaning, hasn’t it?

  Aquaitra shrugged, then glanced away.

  ‘The Archive of Selene wants to eat authority,’ Subadwan mused. ‘They want to draw everybody in, especially now the moon is changing. It’s got to be a direct challenge. This city’s going mad. Three assassinations. You listen to me, Aquaitra, that Pikeface won’t last long.’

  Aquaitra shuddered. ‘You have not seen him.’

  Subadwan was not listening. ‘It’s Noct versus Selene. The Reeve must be beside himself, with all this lunar evangelism in the streets. I bet the noctechnes start getting really nasty now.’ Subadwan looked at Aquaitra. There was another matter. ‘Aquaitra, I’ve had some odd reports about you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘From reliable sources. It’s all a bit strange. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘No.’

  Subadwan tried to laugh, as if it were trivial. But Aquaitra’s denial unnerved her. ‘Of course you do. It surprised me, I must admit.’

  ‘What did?’

  Subadwan grinned, then chuckled. Then her face fell. ‘Now I’m Gaya’s Lord Archivist I can’t really ignore all this… carousing.’

  ‘Carousing?’ Aquaitra sat bolt upright. ‘Carousing?’

  Subadwan did not know how to go on. ‘There’s been talk of you going into dives, Empty Quarter substance lounges, that sort of–’

  ‘’Dwan, what are you talking about?’

  Subadwan leaned forward. ‘Look, Aquaitra, I know the Empty Quarter. I know what it’s like. But I have responsibilities now.’ She sat back. ‘Not that I really want them. No, that’s not right, I am taking on the responsibility.’

  ‘’Dwan, you’re rambling.’

  ‘But this low life has got to stop.’

  Aquaitra shook her head, her expression a mixture of revulsion at the charges and surprise at the prosecutor. ‘I do not go into the Empty Quarter other than for Archive duties.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Well who has told you?’

  ‘People. I can’t say, it’s secret.’

  Aquaitra sat back, exhaling a sigh of frustration. She tapped at the arms of her chair. ‘I think that somebody is trying to separate us,’ she said, looking directly into Subadwan’s eyes. ‘This is not the first time that odd things have happened to make you suspicious of me. And have you noticed that it is only one way? Somebody is deliberately trying to blacken me in your eyes.’

  Subadwan remembered the faked emergency call and realised that Aquaitra’s points were valid. But the pyuter reports were detailed, coherent, and they had been taken seriously by Rhannan. And yet the name Tanglanah came to her mind. Yes, Tanglanah…

  Aquaitra continued. ‘Somebody wants to make me leave your service, perhaps, or not help you so much. Perhaps somebody with ambition who is jealous of our friendship and who wants me out of the way. That’s what it is, ’Dwan.’

  Subadwan wanted to believe this, but the detail in the reports had impressed her. She wanted Aquaitra to leave, wanted a distance between them, just briefly, while she considered the whole affair. On the spur of this moment only one plan commended itself. ‘I’ve got a job for you,’ she told Aquaitra. ‘I want you to take charge of the investigation into the assassinations of Rhannan and Aswaque. Gwythey will help. I’ll direct. Find out everything you can.’

  Aquaitra stood, and Subadwan, heart sinking, knew that her friend had seen this for the distancing manoeuvre it was. ‘I will do it,’ she said, ‘because you are the Lord Archivist.’

  But not for friendship, Subadwan thought. ‘One other thing,’ she added.

  Aquaitra turned. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll need some sort of wig. If you wouldn’t mind…’

  The conversation had produced in Subadwan a black mood. She felt isolation combined with a dread of pressures and responsibilities to come. Not for the first time she felt she was mistakenly Gaya’s chosen – an unpleasant, shaming thought, but one she could not repress, deny, or otherwise excise from her mind. Gaya had chosen her, and Gaya made no mistakes – unless dealing with human beings was itself a mistake.

  ‘There is a communication from Umia,’ she was informed.

  Head in hands, she replied, ‘Put him through. Audio only.’ She did not want him to see the vulnerability in her face. How easy it would be to drown under this deluge of calling people…

  ‘Lord Archivist?’ said Umia.

  ‘I’m here,’ Subadwan replied.

  ‘It is time for your decision.’

  ‘What decision?’

  ‘You, Lord Archivist Subadwan, must agree to become one of the Triad.’

  ‘I’ve got no intention of joining the Triad. Is that clear enough?’

  Umia’s voice deepened, and quietened. ‘Then you leave me with no option. Crayan law demands that the Lord Archivists of Gaya and Selene must be members of the Triad. So it is written, Noct preserve us all. Lord Archivist, there are enforcers outside your building as we speak. They will come for you. Please don’t resist because they will use any means at their disposal to coerce you. I deeply regret this, Subadwan.’

  The line crackled, then shut down. Subadwan sat back, struck to the core. Then she was on her feet, rushing to the door. She had to escape the Archive. Gaya preserve her, she was about to become an exile from her own home.

  She ran out of her chamber, but then returned to collect the headmerger. At the top of the staircase she looked down, seeing nobody but hearing the clatter of steel-shod boots on aluminium. Here, at the summit, she was trapped. She had to descend.

  Near panic, she descended two levels before fear made her stop. The bootsteps were very close.

  She looked around. There were three doors on the landing: one her old room, the others pyuter-stacked. She slipped into one of the pyuter rooms, leaving the door ajar and peering out.

  Three orange-clad enforcers leaped up the steps, fuzzlocks bouncing, each armed with smoking black rifles that shuddered like beasts about to pounce. The rifle of one man wriggled as if desperate to kill, until he dealt it a slap across the muzzle.

  The moment they were out of sight she ran down a further two flights of stairs. Then she heard the enforcers shouting. They knew she was gone. Legs pumping, lungs gasping, she slipped away from the centre of the stairwell seconds before a column of flame roared down. They knew what she was doing.

  But now she was on a level of many rooms, a complex level where she could run, hide, play the maze. Only six levels lay below. There would be enforcers at the public entrance, but that was not the only way out.

  So far she had seen nobody. The enforcers must have cleared the area as they ascended. But now, entering a store room full of gowns, she came across a pair of frightened scribes, two pale faces, four dark staring eyes. ‘Stay put,’ she said. ‘They only want me.’

  ‘Dear mother–’

  But Subadwan was already gone, running along these linked chambers, until she came to a secondary stairwell. It was narrow and led all the way down to the first level. There came no sound of pursuit. At the first level she ran along a fleshy corridor until a large window appeared. Outside, people congregated. To her left she saw the public entrance, a dark space in which four enforcers stood. The periphery of the bronze yard was crowded with
students.

  The clamour of the city made Subadwan lose her concentration. How could she escape? A single shot and she was dead.

  One option. At the back of the yard stood a wicket gate.

  She ran around the level, flitting from room to room, ordering silence when she came across clerks, doorwardens or recorders, hurrying on with no other word, until she came to another window. Outside there were milling people, but no Triaders.

  She opened the window and slid down the fat-stained flesh, landing with a bump, knocking the breath out of her. People pointed at her and called out, but she heard nothing except the clashing din of the city. Running, signing Quiet, leave me, she sped towards the wicket gate. It was open. She slipped through and bolted it. Not that that would do much good against Noct weaponry.

  The lane running along the back of the Archive yard was dark, no motes within its perspex, and it was empty of Crayans. A covered passage led from the wasteland at its end to Dusk Street, a tunnel of plastic that Subadwan, slowing because she was tiring, followed until she stepped out into the street. Her home was nearby.

  She jumped back. Three enforcers at her door, chatting. Gaya had saved her.

  Subadwan quailed. There was now only one place for her to go. The Baths. Her favourite place in all Cray. If there was one place even the Reeve could not violate it was the Baths.

  Bitterness made her feel sick. Now she was away from Gaya’s house she was utterly alone. The tiff with Aquaitra made it worse. How would she live in the Baths? How would she communicate?

  But she was not there yet.

  Subadwan dared not return along the back lane. She would have to continue north awhile. Uncertain of managing a flight across the north of the city, through the Rusty, the Stellar, and Eastcity’s cursed Cold Quarter, she decided she would have to cling to the Swamps wall, following Platan Street to the river, then creeping through Plastic Quarter alleys until she reached Peppermint Street.