On (GollanczF.)

by Adam Roberts

  Elanne became increasingly impatient during the course of Tighe’s halting explanation, and started waving his hand as if he would wave away the whole narrative. He said something very rapidly, out of which Tighe only caught the words ‘small’ and ‘story-telling’, then he paused and said, ‘Your doctor. He says you are better.’

  ‘Much better.’ In fact Tighe had started the morning with another half-supported walk about the ward, his first with his cast off. It hurt in a jagged sort of way when he put too much pressure on his left foot, but otherwise it was not bad.

  ‘Good. Abliou, get up. Get up now and show me how you walk with your mended foot.’

  Vievre, who had been hovering in the background throughout the interview, started forward to help Tighe up off the mattress, but the Cardinelle held out his arm and Vievre stopped in his paces. It was clear that Elanne expected Tighe to get up himself.

  Tighe sat up and pulled his left foot underneath him. Pushing with his hands against the floor and straining with his right leg, he lurched up a little way, collapsed back on to the mattress, and tried again. On his third attempt he wobbled unsteadily to his feet, lurched forward and had to hop several times to avoid falling over. The Cardinelle did not move from his stool, only moving his head to follow Tighe’s progress with an unblinking gaze.

  Once Tighe got going it wasn’t so hard. He was able to hobble, brushing his left foot against the floor and then falling back on to the right with each lopsided step. He made a painstaking circuit and came back to the mattress.

  The Cardinelle nodded, once, as Tighe stood resting his poor foot on top of the good one. ‘You can walk.’

  ‘Not good,’ said Tighe.

  ‘Good enough. Flatar hardly need their legs anyway. You are talked about all through the army, little boy. It is a good omen that you fell on us as we embrolal here and it is a very good omen for the sky army. Everyone agrees, so you will become flatar. You will train quickly, I’m afraid to say, but that is dioparad manifolle of things. But your flatar platon will treasure you as a good omen.’

  He stood up briskly. One of the Cardinelle’s soldiers collected the stool on which he had been sitting and folded it back up. The Cardinelle made a single jerking gesture with his head, bending it forward and back again. He turned and made the same gesture to Vievre, who virtually fell forward upon the floor to bow low in return.

  He marched to the door. ‘Prelette Vievre,’ he announced. ‘You have worked well at bringing health to this omen-boy. He will bring luck in the campaign. Say your goodbyes to him tonight.’

  Much later that day, with what amounted almost to tenderness, Vievre took Tighe through his last language lesson, and explained as much as he could about the army. ‘It will be different tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They will train you in your platon.’

  ‘What is platon?’

  ‘A part of the army. Larger than the smallest part. You will have brothers, sisters there.’

  ‘But no father!’ Tighe declared. He found that he was crying. It was stupid to cry, but there you are.

  Vievre’s own eyes were bulging with moisture. ‘Your platon chief will be father,’ he said. ‘You will fly again – they choose you for the flatar because you are small, thin. Flatar need to be small because the flat cannot carry much weight. But they choose you also because you have flown – flown here like a little bird. Fallen here.’

  ‘No father!’ repeated Tighe. ‘None like you!’

  Vievre gave himself over at this point and started crying as well. ‘My purepul little bird,’ he said, putting his arms around Tighe’s neck. ‘To lose you!’

  ‘I will come here’, said Tighe, ‘many times to say good new day to you, Vievre.’

  ‘Only if you are ill, I think,’ said Vievre. ‘Only that would be allowed. But never mind! Never mind! You will have a new family. You will have training. You will fly.’

  He sat in silence for a long while.

  The two of them ate together, sharing an evening meal. As the day moved to its close the light through the open door bulked, darkened. The patch of light cast by the sun through the doorway shrank away faster than a snail could crawl, as if it wanted to leave the ward, until eventually it was gone altogether. Vievre stood up in the dusk and lit one of the wall candles before pulling a door shut. For a while they sat in silence as the dusk winds grew and thrummed on the far side. Eventually Vievre spoke.

  ‘I will tell you this, my little bird,’ he said. I had a son and a daughter.’

  ‘You had a son and a daughter,’ repeated Tighe.

  ‘When my daughter was navien, my son became – you will not know the word. We have a word to describe it, othalpul. Angry, unhappy with the girl. That the girl was there. He had been the only one, now he was the second – oldest, yes, but my daughter was more balienette. This made him angry. Do you follow?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Tighe, although in truth he didn’t really understand what it was Vievre was telling him.

  ‘He was a boy, only a boy. Then one day he pushed his sister off the world. He was only a boy, you see, and I think in his head’, and Vievre tapped his own head to force the point, ‘he only thought: she will be gone and I will be first again in the family. I think he had no thought to kill her, you see. He was only a boy.’

  Tighe said nothing. Vievre sighed.

  ‘She was small and he was small too; but he was big enough to do this wrong. He pushed her away and she fell. In that part of the Imperial City where we lived was the ward, near the army house and the trulano. That’s a place where the City is layered on a slope, so that each ledge from below sticks out further. It is like that for ten or twelve ledges, so my daughter only fell a little way. But she was small and boudun and she broke many bones. She lived a week and then she died. But I think he had no thought to kill her and after he was very sad. There was real pain, I think, in his head,’ and again Vievre made the gesture, tapping his head, ‘not headache but his feelings, you know? We say: confla.’

  ‘Conscience,’ said Tighe.

  Vievre was silent.

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Tighe.

  Vievre shrugged with his shoulders and made his way over to the door to fit the windbreak. The howl of the evening winds was starting to become audible. As he wedged the panel in place he said nothing, then he returned to Tighe’s mattress and sat himself, cross-legged, on the floor.

  ‘In the Empire there is only one treatment’ – he used the medical word –’for such a thing. For cramla, for killing another, in your family or in the city. Even if it is a child who cramla deriginal, it is the same. If an adult kills, the adult is cast off the world. That is the law. If a child kills, it is the same. My son was crying, saying again and again how he had killed.’ Vievre was looking at the floor; without raising his head he made the shrugging gesture with his shoulders. ‘My son was thrown off the world for what he did. So now I have no daughter and no son.’

  A silence settled between them again. Tighe wanted to say something, felt uncomfortable in the speechlessness of the moment, but wasn’t sure what to say. Eventually he asked, in a tiny voice, ‘You have a wife still?’

  ‘I have two wives, as is right for a man of my position. But they were very unhappy with what happened. Very saddened. Now they live together in the Imperial City and I am with the army. The air between me and my wives’, he made a nonspecific gesture with his right hand, ‘it is not good. Sick, now. They and I cannot be together long without shouting and swearing.’ He looked up and Tighe was a little shocked to see that he was smiling. ‘But I go to war soon, and maybe there I will find another wife. With another wife, maybe more children. War makes many things possible.’

  The candle threw shuddering patches of light on the floor and walls and roof of the ward. For a while Tighe watched the pattern.

  After a long silence, Vievre got slowly to his feet. His joints creaked and sang as he rose. ‘Anyway, my little bird,’ he said, in a soft voice, ‘I think it is that, well, with yo
u I dreamt of my boy flying – do you see? You fell and you are alive. Perhaps he fell, past the Downwall Lands of the empire, past the empty stretch below – fell many miles, perhaps. But maybe he is still alive somewhere, far far downwall. Maybe he lived, somehow, and now has a new life. You are a good omen, they say. Perhaps you bring luck to us all.’

  And he squashed the candle flame between finger and thumb like killing a butterfly, lay down on a mattress by the wall and fell asleep.

  5

  In the morning Tighe practised some more walking, making several circuits leaning on Vievre’s shoulder, and several more hobbling along by himself. ‘It will get easier with use,’ said Vievre.

  He seemed subdued and Tighe could think of nothing to say to cheer him up.

  At some point in the morning a young girl came in with a bundle: it was a rolled-up blue tunic that stretched down almost to Tighe’s knees. She also had some leggings, but they proved much too baggy and she went away again to fetch a smaller size. ‘You will need the clothing,’ said Vievre mournfully. ‘Flatar feel the cold, out in the air. You should wear as much clothing as you can get.’

  Tighe nodded at this. When the girl returned with the smaller leggings she was accompanied by a uniformed boy. He was taller than Tighe, but skinny and angular. His skin was also less sick-looking, although not as dark as a normal complexion. He marched through the door and struck a particular stance, planting his feet an arm apart and putting both hands on his hips. ‘I am flatar,’ he said, putting his head on one side. ‘My name is Ati. I have been told to come fetch the bird-boy. He is to be trained as a flatar and fight in the war against the enemy.’

  ‘Here he is,’ said Vievre, ‘as you can see with your own eyes if you weren’t acting so mensona. What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Ati,’ said the boy, a little taken aback. He shifted his stance so that it was angled towards Vievre. I have orders.’

  ‘Ati,’ said Vievre. ‘Is that a Downwall name? You have a Downwall look about you.’

  ‘My family’, said the newcomer, with a little spurt of pride, ‘are from downwall, it is true.’

  ‘All Downwallers are the same,’ Vievre said loudly. ‘You are all bad. I never met anybody from that far downwall who is good. My little bird,’ he turned to Tighe, ‘believe me. God puts culpaiden further down the wall, further away from Him. I was born upwall from the Imperial City and so I know.’

  ‘My family is a good family,’ said Ati, outraged.

  ‘You are shit, as all Downwallers are,’ said Vievre, his temper rising. ‘Your family is shit as well. Shit falls downwall, as the proverb has it, and you are proof of that. Do you contradict me?’

  ‘Have you ever travelled downwall?’ demanded the boy.

  ‘Ati – my rank is Prelette. Are you calling a superior a liar?’ Vievre was speaking very loudly now. ‘I will report you – I have met the Air Cardinelle of the whole army. I will report you for pride and un-army behaviour.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Ati, in a quavery voice, ‘I meant nothing, only …’

  ‘Shut up! This boy is as a son to me,’ said Vievre, gesturing with both his hands. ‘You will watch him, estarre him, treat him well. If not, you will be thrown off the wall! Shut up!’

  There was a frozen moment. Then Ati saluted – Tighe was later to learn that this gesture, a touching of the forehead with the hand, was an Imperial army tradition, from a junior to a superior. ‘Sir,’ said Ati in a dull voice, ‘I have orders to bring the sky-boy to the flatar house. He will be trained and will become an assievre to the flatar platon.’

  ‘I know he will,’ growled Vievre. But when he turned to embrace Tighe, there were tears in his eyes. ‘Goodbye, my little bird,’ he said. ‘Go with this boy, even if he is downwall shit. And you,’ he said, turning again on Ati, ‘take care of this boy.’

  With that Vievre dashed out of the ward, with Tighe and Ati staring after him in varying degrees of astonishment. For a moment there was silence and then Ati turned to Tighe.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Sky-boy. Will you please to come with me?’

  They stepped through the door and on to the ledge outside. It was a bright morning, the sun was below their feet and shining straight up into their eyes. Briefly Tighe couldn’t see anything other than the great wash of white light, the heart of silence and a clear morning. There was the hush in his ears of morning air settling after the dawn flurries. Then he blinked and his eyes adjusted. The boy Ati was standing next to him, looking at him strangely.

  ‘Your doctor has gone I think,’ he said.

  Tighe scowled at him. ‘My foot hurts very,’ he said.

  Ati snorted. ‘My foot hurts very!’ he mimicked. ‘My foot hurts badly, you ignorant barbarian. Your hair is stupid. How do you keep your head warm with that stupid hair? It looks like grass, it is so feeble.’

  Tighe felt a wave of weariness go through him. His foot was throbbing uncomfortably. He leaned against the jamb of the ward door and breathed out. ‘Is it far to walk?’

  Ati picked something out of a pouch from around his neck, slotted it into his mouth and started chewing. ‘Far?’ he said. ‘Not far. You smell funny. I don’t like your smell. I’ll tell you something, you azhnazd barbarian.’ Tighe felt certain that word wasn’t part of the Imperial language. It didn’t sound right. Ati spat a little globule of black spittle from his mouth. ‘I’ll tell you something. When you get to the platon, you won’t have any high-rank doctor to look after you like a mummy-mummy. You’ll have Waldea and he’s a hard father. And you’ll have us, you little barbarian, with your golzg hair and funny smell.’ He was suddenly in motion, striding away along the narrow ledge and Tighe hurriedly bundled himself into a halting limp behind, trying to keep up.

  ‘Hold!’ he called. ‘So fast! Wait!’

  The ledge sloped down, rimmed with wild mushrooms growing on the far edge. They turned a dog-leg and rounded a spur of the worldwall, and suddenly – breathtakingly – the whole base was laid out before them. Tighe forgot his discomfort for the moment in the splendour of it.

  He had never seen anything like it.

  The landscape was a series of ripples across the face of the worldwall; perhaps it had been a village once, although now it was entirely taken over by the military. Tighe could see that ledges had been dug through, diagonals had been excavated, narrow crags had been bulked up with planks of what looked like wood (but surely couldn’t be!). Doors led into the world and there was a single broad shelf away below him. Presumably the shelf was the reason why the military had been attracted to the place to begin with. But what really caught Tighe’s eye was the sheer number of people.

  There were more people than he could count; people diminished by the distance to the size of fingers, of insects, all dressed in blue. There must have been hundreds. Tighe had never seen so many human beings in one place together before. They swarmed along every ledge, and congregated in a mass on the shelf.

  And there, moored off the shelf, were what – in a flash of understanding – Tighe recognised were the calabashes Vievre had talked about. There were half a dozen enormous spheres, bright blue with red lizard stripes running vertically. They looked like perfectly round pebbles, painted and polished, except that they were so huge. But what was most unsettling about them was the way they simply hung in the air. Like clouds made solid: painted clouds made solid and smoothed by the fingers of God into perfectly spherical shapes.

  Tighe paused, and stepped closer to the edge, dropping a little to steady his balance. He wanted a better look at the scene. He could see there were ropes draped from each calabash to the shelf, some drooping, one drawn tight. There were two little wooden (again: could it really be wood?) piers poking out from the wall, and there were even people making their way along the precarious walkway. That was because – Tighe could see – there were what looked like pots hanging from underneath the calabashes. Perhaps the calabashes could go up and down according to some method, carrying the people beneath them as pas
sengers. It was breathtaking.

  The globes, he could see, were not steady in the air as he first thought. One of them was drifting very slowly towards the wall. It bumped gently into its neighbour, and Tighe saw the skin of the great sphere buckle like flesh. So, they were soft, like big fat bellies hanging in space.

  So, that was why the fall hadn’t killed him. He shut his eyes, trying to remember. There were only confused images in his mind.

  He dropped to his haunches and put his hand out to steady himself. His foot was throbbing, and the prospect of going over the ledge and falling again was horrific to him; but he wanted to take a closer look at these astonishing sky devices. His hand squelched on some of the wild mushrooms growing at the limit of the ledge and he swept away a patch.

  ‘Hey!’

  It was the boy Ati yelling at him. ‘Hey! Sky-boy! Take care!’

  ‘What?’

  Ati was running up towards him. ‘Watch where you’re stepping.’

  Tighe had been so overawed by the sight below him that he had forgotten about Ati. He leant towards the wall and got cumbrously to his feet. ‘What is it?’

  ‘What are you doing with those chemmia?’

  ‘What?’

  Ati was beside him now, breathing heavily from having sprinted up the ledge. ‘Are you crazy? Destroying the chemmia like that is a punishment offence. You want they should throw you off the wall?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Understand this, barbarian. You may be the sky-boy, the good omen for this campaign. But they’ll throw you off the world as well as anybody if they discover you destroying the chemmia.’

  ‘Chemmia?’

  With a little squeal of frustration, Ati gestured at the mushrooms. ‘Those!’

  ‘They’re only mushrooms,’ said Tighe.