Glass

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘I only explored.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  Subadwan felt pressurised, wondering if Zelenaiid was using her as some kind of messenger. ‘Nothing much,’ she replied.

  Tanglanah uttered a single disbelieving laugh. ‘Nothing? Then it is for nothing that my kind live up here on this inaccessible plateau. What did you find?’

  ‘If you must know I found an iceberg in the Archive of Noct. But it melted in my hot breath. So I left, and concentrated on Gaya.’

  Tanglanah seemed almost savage in reply. She pointed to the setting disk in the sky. ‘There is Gaya! We must depart for it, leaving five hundred years of failed experiment behind. Your people are doomed–’

  ‘No!’ Subadwan automatically yelled out.

  ‘They are doomed to remain here.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Subadwan asked, closing in on Tanglanah.

  ‘We have failed here. We shall depart in the Spacefish.’

  ‘Leaving us?’ Subadwan asked.

  ‘Of course. You humans will die, since the networks and the data that we support will falter, then cease working.’

  Subadwan felt a tremendous anger welling up inside her. ‘I won’t have it. Gaya love me, I will not have it!’ Her anger boiled over. The nearest woman was small, dark-skinned, carrying a lute. Subadwan ran, lunged, and hit. The woman collapsed.

  There were groans, gasps. Subadwan looked down at her victim. The body was melting, and yet it seemed to be running against the flow of gravity in three dimensions, as if along cubic runnels, faster and faster, until with a sigh there was nothing left. The women were all as weak as parchment, Subadwan realised, in abstract bondage caused by the deterioration of Cray.

  Except Tanglanah – embodied Tanglanah – who approached and stood in front of Subadwan: and now Subadwan felt afraid. ‘You have killed one of our kin,’ Tanglanah said.

  ‘You killed two of mine. And they were flesh and blood. These kin of yours are only electronic lumps, aren’t they?’

  Tanglanah winced.

  Subadwan continued, ‘Do you think I never knew? Rhannan and poor Aswaque didn’t have the required skills, so you killed them and allowed me to become Lord Archivist.’

  ‘I deny it.’

  Subadwan felt a tight, bitter hatred of Tanglanah. For all these weeks and months she had suspected the pyuton, guessing about the traps, and yet she had been strung along until she was in too deep. She had hoped some good intentions lay within Tanglanah, but now the pyuton was revealed as utterly callous. For all her conscience, for all her sincerity and desire to care, Subadwan now felt a primitive, desperate urge to equal the score. Knowing that it was wrong, that it was childish, she none the less took advantage of Tanglanah’s hesitation and with cursing fury lunged out at the nearer women, hacking at the two-headed dog-woman, kicking a pale-skinned midget. Both melted just as the first had. Delayed emotion made her choke with fear and horror.

  With immense force Tanglanah slapped Subadwan across the face, flinging her to the ground. There was blood on the rocks. Subadwan, choking, saw some of the other women running away. Tanglanah turned and called, ‘Come back! She is but human! I can kill her now, and then we must fly down to Cray. Come back!’

  Subadwan kicked out, but Tanglanah was tall and heavy, entirely different from the others because she had manifested in the real world, and was no longer solely electronic. Subadwan knew then that she had to escape.

  But Tanglanah had other plans. Subadwan found herself restrained by a glowing spider’s web. ‘I will complete my relationship with you later,’ Tanglanah said, the irises of her eyes spinning with rainbow colours. ‘But for now stay here, and consider the fact that you are a triple murderer.’

  ‘Double murderer,’ Subadwan sneered back.

  Tanglanah departed. The other women, now joined by the black-domed creature, continued to work at their vegetable dirigible, a green and brown bladder that looked as if it was to be inflated. A wicker basket lay nearby. From thin air the women pulled objects and tools, creating reality from their imaginations just as Subadwan had when creating the bat. She knew that the bat was her only chance for escape.

  But the emotions within her were too violent. Furious, frightened and awed, she was too upset to think. Realising that these emotions must be spent, she hammered at the ground, screamed, shouted, and clawed at the webbing. After a few minutes, and with tears upon her cheeks, she stopped, exhausted. Tanglanah looked across at her, but then turned away.

  A knife. She needed a knife. One appeared in her right hand. She slit the webbing at ground level. The knife vanished.

  She estimated that the women and their dirigible were a hundred yards away. Already the vehicle was moving, rising at one end. There was not much time left.

  It became clear what they intended doing. They would fly away and leave her on the plateau, landing in Cray and searching or possibly destroying the Archive of Noct now that they had guessed Zelenaiid’s location. Then a chill thought struck her: how could she depart Gwmru? She still did not know.

  The dirigible wobbled in the air, a few yards above the ground, with the basket dragging along underneath. Slowly, as if their bones ached, the women embarked. At length only Tanglanah remained, and she boarded last.

  The dirigible floated away. Subadwan crawled through the rent she had made and stood defiant. When Tanglanah noticed, thunderbolts flashed through the air.

  Just missing. Subadwan ran to one side. The bat appeared. She leaped in and took off, the smell of ozone and burned hair in her nostrils, sparkling light all around. Diving dangerously, she dropped behind the cliffs, so that the plateau stood between the bat and the dirigible. She had to stop them. If she did not they might find and kill Zelenaiid.

  The dirigible, she had noticed, descended as soon as it floated over the edge of the plateau. Its balloon was large. If she could keep her height, she could perhaps come upon them from behind and above.

  Her plan worked at the beginning. Flying around the hill to the other side she saw that they were below her, some way off, floating above the Cold Quarter and descending rapidly. She pounced. Tanglanah could throw thunderbolts: so could she. She had no idea what they were, but they came from her anger and her desperation. Three blasts and the dirigible was burst, the occupants of its basket falling. Thunderbolts leaped up at the bat, one hitting its right wing. Subadwan was jolted around her cockpit.

  Tanglanah’s panic-stricken voice sounded through the gusting air. ‘Manifest! Manifest!’

  The bat was falling fast. She tried to control it by forcing it to fly to the left, but the flapping fabric brought only chaotic descent.

  ‘Manifest!’ Tanglanah urged once more.

  ‘We must not,’ a voice cried. ‘Are we to become lumpish aeromorphs? We must not forsake our abstract grace!’

  ‘Bring destructive interference!’ cried the black dome creature. ‘Release the grip on Cray! Do not manifest.’

  But the smoking shapes of four aeromorphs appeared around the dirigible, and then Subadwan glimpsed a plummeting black shape. It was the domed creature, Greckoh. Seconds later the bat stalled, hit the roof of a building, and smashed through.

  ~

  She awoke. Dust and smoke all around.

  Dark. She remembered where she was – the crash site.

  Her limbs ached and she tasted blood in her mouth. But she could move, so she clambered out of the wreckage and struggled to the nearest door.

  Tanglanah would be searching for her, if she had survived. Subadwan knew she would have.

  She stepped out into a crowded street. Gwmru was no longer imposing itself upon Cray. She ran back to the Baths. She felt dizzy. Real bats swooped and swirled above her.

  At last… inside the Baths.

  Tanglanah was nowhere to be seen. But whatever had happened, Subadwan knew she was in danger. And yet she could not leave the Baths.

  This was the most dangerous dilemma imaginable. At any second Tanglanah might appear,
yet outside Umia’s nocturnal agents lurked.

  Minutes passed, became hours. Tanglanah did not appear. Reluctantly, Subadwan decided Tanglanah must have more important matters in hand… and she wondered what they might be.

  CHAPTER 17

  Umia strode about his spherical chamber with violent movements. He was upset, and his two advisers were offering different views, worsening his dilemma, torturing him further.

  Gaijin said, ‘O Reeve, hearken to me, to me alone. Why the difficulty? The use of sonoplasts harms all. You heard from your pyutonic deputies how flasks of the bacterium transmute themselves. All substances do! Sonoplasts equal your failure.’

  But Lune countered, ‘Umia, Gaijin’s way is the way of the vague, the frightened, the unbalanced. It is knowledge that will help you decide, and the only knowledge you have is that gained by the laboratories of your deputies, of Ciswadra and Heraber. The sonoplasts are ready. Set free the bacteria.’

  As Umia held his head in his hands, sitting bent over as if about to vomit, Gaijin retorted, ‘Gnostician power is against your power, O Reeve, for millions of gnosticians you cannot remove. Noct will support you. Noct’s pale lips and pale eye will tell you the truth, that gnosticians will never do.’

  Lune said, ‘Free the sonoplasts, Umia–’

  Umia burst out, with hoarse voice and staring eyes, ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Somebody is approaching,’ Lune warned.

  Umia continued, ‘I want to kill every cursed gnostician! They are the invaders surrounding my city! They play with the glass that is killing us off. Shut up, the both of you!’

  ‘Hither comes a personage,’ Gaijin dared to say.

  It was a Triader deputy who entered the chamber, the fins on her swirling cloak flapping. ‘I bring the final report–’

  ‘Read it, read it,’ Umia angrily demanded.

  ‘The sonoplast-freighted bacteria are ready for dispersal. One hundred flasks have been loaded upon bats, and may leave at your command, providing that the command comes within six hours – at which time the flasks will be transmuted, and may leak. Heraber counsels caution. The bacteria transmute all substances, not just glass, and this fact must be considered before the irrevocable deed of release is performed. This is an artificial bacterium, pyuter created, and so resistance will vary greatly. That is all, Reeve Umia.’

  Umia stood tall and took a deep breath. ‘Release the bacteria immediately. We will have an end to the luminophage plague. We will have an end to spreading glass. I will be loved for my deeds, the people will respect me for firm command. Yes, that is how it will go. Begin a purge on gnosticians! Those who will not leave the city must be forced out or killed.’ Umia paused. ‘We will call it redesigning. Rebellious gnosticians will be redesigned. They are a scourge upon Cray. Now leave me, and send in my director of spies.’

  ‘One final matter, Reeve. Should we make public the release of the bacteria?’

  ‘Of course not! Will Crayans understand the theories behind these bacteria? Just do it, and speedily!’

  Gaijin spoke when the chamber door was shut. ‘O Reeve, you have done ill.’

  Lune disagreed. ‘This may be the beginning of a new Cray. Or an end. Do not let the whingeing Gaijin mix up your mind, for only a small number of people know of the bacteria, all of them trustworthy.’

  ‘I predict the end,’ Gaijin responded. ‘Death will come.’

  Umia spun on his metal leg. ‘Quiet, you two,’ he ordered. ‘I will have quiet to think.’

  After a minute, Gaijin’s voice: ‘A personage is here.’

  Balloydondra, Umia’s spymaster, appeared. ‘Reeve, you requested my presence,’ she said in her suave voice. She was tall, dark, with a brash manner. The fins on her grey velvet cloak were embroidered with gold and sequins, while its lining was covered with an overlapping scale pattern picked out in pale blue.

  ‘I did,’ Umia said, voice grim. ‘Your agents failed in their duty. How now will we winkle Subadwan out of the Baths?’

  ‘Never fear,’ Balloydondra said, with a wide smile. ‘The next agent will succeed.’

  ‘You said that before. I can have you sent to the mad bats, you know. I can have you pushed into their wire pens so you fall into the blood and guano, while you watch them soar, dive, then fall upon you. Do you want their chromium fangs in your flesh, eh, eh?’

  ‘No, Reeve.’

  Umia began pacing around the statue of Noct. ‘What then is this new agent?’

  ‘Reeve Umia, the problem we have faced is that the Baths have their own defences, that we cannot overcome. Therefore we must be crafty.’ Balloydondra took from her pocket a sheet of clear plastic, thick, with a faint blue tinge, two feet on a side. ‘This is a dedicated pyuter,’ she explained. ‘We have designed it to attach itself to a swimmer, then hypnotise the victim in a barely audible voice into walking out of the Baths of her own free will. An agent will introduce this pyuter into the water when Subadwan is swimming, loosing it as the two pass close, so that the pyuter makes for Subadwan. When she hears the voice, she will become temporarily hypnotised, and fall into the waiting arms of your people outside the Baths. It cannot fail, Reeve.’

  ‘It had better not,’ Umia said, ‘or you will become hang-glider fodder. Is that clear?’

  ‘Very clear.’

  ‘Then you may go.’

  The spymaster departed, leaving Umia to his seething thoughts. But Gaijin butted into these thoughts, saying, ‘You have Noct on your side, O Reeve.’

  Lune said, ‘Light is good and always has been. Light is the ancient symbol of goodness. Cast aside your torment, Umia, cast it aside with doubt, pain, and other terrible things.’

  Umia sat hunched at the feet of the statue of Noct. ‘I will never leave Noct!’ he roared. ‘How dare you suggest that? Would you have me follow the foul Subadwan, and change my inner self?’

  Gaijin interrupted, saying, ‘Ignore Subadwan. She is a trifle. There are others who wish to use her. Concentrate instead on your city.’

  ‘No,’ Umia said, ‘the order has gone. Even I cannot reverse it now. And the bats are flying, raining doom upon Cray. Oh, Noct, black mother Noct, what have I done? Have I done right or wrong? All I can see is greyness, all around. Greyness… greyness… perpetual darkness, that is the answer. That is why I live here, isn’t it? Answer me, Gaijin.’

  ‘If it must be, it must be. The fate of many will change in scant days.’

  Umia kissed the statue’s feet. ‘Gaijin, I must remain the Reeve of Cray. I am the Lord Archivist of Noct. I will remain aloof.’

  Gaijin replied, ‘The aloof may become the dead.’

  ~

  Dwllis and Cuensheley sat in the quadrangle at the Copper Courtyard, a plastic table set with tankards between them. It was late afternoon and the courtyard was empty. Lamps strung from the ceiling net were dim, the pink globes interspersed with white. The copper floor gleamed. In the opposite corner, Ilquisrey was sweeping up dust and dirt with a broom.

  ‘Crimson Boney must stay at the Cowhorn Tower,’ said Dwllis. ‘Now Umia has made this barbaric declaration of gnostician purges, all the augmented gnosticians are in mortal danger. Doubtless there will be a raid on the Archive of Selene by those grotesque noctechnes.’

  ‘It’s risky harbouring Crimson,’ Cuensheley pointed out. ‘All Umia wants is the gnosticians out of the city. That’s not much to ask.’

  ‘It is symptomatic of inhumanity. Umia equates vitrescence with gnosticians. I am close to speaking with Crimson Boney. The translator made sentences last night. Why do you not come along now and see the progress? Maybe tonight that gnostician will speak to us properly for the first time.’

  Reluctantly, Cuensheley agreed. They walked down to Sphagnum Street, which was quiet. Houses southward were becoming dark and glassy as the luminophages spread. Dwllis noticed that light storms speeding through the street plastic were avoiding infected areas, so that instead of a straight river of light it now meandered, coloured yellow, orange and
red at the edges, as if internal infection had begun. Soon, he realised, the fabric of the Copper Courtyard and the Cowhorn Tower would be at risk. He wondered if the Archive of Gaya had succumbed to luminophage attack.

  They found Crimson Boney and the translator in a small chamber full of antique memories, sitting and talking. Dwllis reminded Cuensheley that its name was not Etwe, and she looked at him with distaste. Dwllis sat next to Cuensheley on a couch. At the moment he was not interested in arguing with her.

  ‘Translator,’ he said, ‘tell Crimson Boney who we are.’

  Cuensheley asked, ‘How can that translator be getting more sophisticated when you’re not here to oversee it?’

  ‘Shhh,’ Dwllis replied, one finger at his lips. ‘The routines are constantly evolving. All I needed to do was start things off.’

  Then the translator said, ‘Crimson Boney knows who you are. You are Dwllis and Cuensheley.’

  ‘Translator, go into simultaneous translation mode. Crimson Boney, I – we – want to know why you ran from the Archive of Selene to my tower.’

  Crimson Boney musically answered, and the translator did its work. ‘Because pain arrived. People not nice to me. They came at me with bright tools. The others also feared.’ Crimson Boney began to tremble, visible skin darkening to purple: a recalled emotion?

  ‘He’s really talking,’ Cuensheley said.

  ‘Until recently the thought did not cross my mind either,’ Dwllis replied. ‘But somebody in the Archive of Selene thought it might be possible, and so the augmentation programme began, started by Querhidwe’s mystic predecessor, Seleno. Gnosticians are intelligent, Cuensheley. They are conscious like us, but they are wholly different. You see, the barriers to communication were too great to overcome, so nobody ever thought to consider them anything other than clever animals – because they have no cities, because their technology is simple. Until I arrived, nobody considered the possibility of consciousness, of morals. And all because of prejudice.’

  ‘Could Umia know?’ Cuensheley asked. ‘I mean, why this ban against gnosticians? Why declare it now?’