by Heide Goody
“How much does the consular mission pay you?”
“It’s not very British to discuss something as vulgar as money, Mr Mammon-Mammonson.”
“I could pay you more.”
“Why would you do that? The last time we met, you threatened to gut me. Yesterday, you sent me flowers. And today you offer me a job? I believe that would be described as mixed messages.”
“Did you like the flowers?”
“I have never understood the point of sending recently killed plants to someone as a sign of affection. I have never understood the point of flowers as a gift at all.”
“They are colourful and decorative, Mrs Grey. They are attractive.”
“That’s because they are trying to draw attention to the plant’s organs of reproduction. They are the vegetable equivalent of a push-up bra.”
“Or a vajazzle.”
“Indeed.”
He looked her in the eye for a long second with the critical appraisal of a horse trader counting teeth. “I would like to understand you better,” he said.
“Me or the consular mission?”
“I would like to understand the relationship here, how you perceive it. You and your colleague came here because of a small number of human souls that legitimately belong to this company. Two days ago, you raided a place of education with objections to Mammonite cultural practices.”
“We visited the school, searching for a person we believed to have been killed by illegally kept Dinh’r.”
“Do you hate Mammonites, Mrs Grey? Are you prejudiced against us?”
“Prejudiced, no.”
“Then why do you do what you do? Are you driven to save the lives we take? Doesn’t the world have bigger problems than the globally insignificant goings on of one financial institution or one tiny community in its village ghetto?”
“I do not do what I do in order to save lives,” said Vivian. “If I wished to save lives I would go to Africa and dig wells and lay tarmac roads. Better still, I would get the highest paid job I could and use that money to pay others to dig wells and lay roads. I do not know how many people there are on the planet so how can I care if there are seven billion and one people or seven billion and two? We are overpopulated as it is and I am sure the quality of life of every living thing on earth would rise somewhat if three or four billion people just quietly died and freed up some space and resources. I have no interest in saving lives.
“Similarly, I have no especial love for my species. Psychologically and physiologically, we’re horribly flawed and we only hold our dominant position because of one or two quirks in our evolution. Even if we weren’t doomed by the coming Soulgate, even if we did not wipe ourselves out with environmental degradation, even if we survived the unavoidable death of our sun, my species could not continue for more than a million years or so. Because, by that time, it would have evolved into another species, one that would look upon us with the same detachment and disdain with which we regard our primate ancestors.”
“You are a nihilist, Mrs Grey,” Xerxes laughed.
“A pragmatist,” she said. “There is one governing factor in all human life, in every decision ever made: pain. We suffer. We don’t wish to suffer, physically or otherwise. We experience our own pain and, vicariously, the pain of others. I do what I do to ease humanity’s suffering. If you presented me with a magic button that would instantly and painlessly kill every other human being on earth, I would press it now without hesitation.”
“Every other human being?”
“The knowledge that one is about to die, at this instant, now, is also a form of suffering.”
“I could arrange for you to be painlessly killed at some undisclosed point in the future, if you wish,” offered Xerxes.
“You are very kind but I have a job to do. I am not interested in the individual suffering of those people you have imprisoned.”
“Stored.”
“They are victims of their own cupidity. My concern is with humanity, the flock as a whole. The end of the world is coming. We have a plan for humanity. It’s not a nice plan but it’s the best plan we have. This.” She gestured behind her and away, figuratively towards the imprisoned humans. “It’s not part of the plan.”
“A mere handful of people,” said Xerxes.
“It’s the thin end of the wedge,” said Vivian. “Like dress-down Fridays, buy-now-pay-later offers and the words ‘no offence but’, it is a bad precedent and the thin end of the wedge.”
Xerxes inhaled and slapped his chest reflectively.
“I appreciate your honesty, Mrs Grey.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said.
“I believe in a plan too,” he said. “At the bottom is a row of numbers – large numbers – and the return of our glorious mother to this world.”
“I see.”
“And I strongly suspect our plan and your plan will come into conflict. Sooner rather than later.”
“I suspect the same.”
“I wonder what will happen then.”
“One of us will be deeply disappointed, Mr Mammon-Mammonson.”
By late afternoon, Rod was back in the consular mission offices in the Library of Birmingham and trawling through CCTV footage of Gas Street Basin and nearby Broad Street. It was a task that he threw himself into with considerable gusto, partly because he enjoyed the opportunity to play armchair detective (well, desk chair detective) but also partly so he could drive the text he’d just received from Kathy from his mind. Local police and business CCTV covered the city centre with an almost complete blanket, one that only became truly patchy and tattered as the city spread out into suburbia. Rod had heard pub philosophers debate the morality of electronic surveillance, often accompanied by the cry that the UK had more CCTV cameras per capita than any other country in the world and that Big Brother was truly in charge. However, in Rod’s opinion, these beery defenders of civil rights undid their own argument by constantly posting their pictures and personal information on social media.
Fifteen minutes of searching found the man Nina had identified. Even on the image gleaned from a CCTV camera fifty yards away, the young man’s facial scars were clear. And even though Nina’s description hadn’t rung a bell, Rod realised that he had seen that face before.
He called Nina.
“Yo,” she said.
“I’ve met him.”
“Who?” said Nina.
“The man on the – Are you in a pub?”
“Might be.”
“Drinking? In the afternoon?”
“YOLO. Morag and I are planning strategy for her big date tonight.”
“We are not,” said Morag’s distant voice. “It’s not a date.”
“Whatever. We’re just sat outside the Tap and Spile, soaking up some rays and bitching about the general lack of hot men in the world.”
“We are not,” said Morag.
Rod flicked the virtual wheel on the CCTV viewer program to bring up the live feed.
“There you are,” he said, finding the two women at a Parisian café-style table squashed between the towpath and the wall of the pub.
“There…?” On the screen, Nina looked up at the camera. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two. Now one. I’m making a recording of this and e-mailing it to your mum.”
“The word is ‘mom’ Rod, you’re in Birmingham, remember? Anyway, my mom: it’s Instagram or nothing. So, what did you find out? About the guy?”
“I saw him on Monday morning. Just after I visited Annie Castleton. He was going door to door…” He closed his eyes to draw back the memory. “Selling broadband. You know, am I happy with my supplier and all that nonsense.”
“That’s how he’s getting people to sign themselves away.”
“Looks it. I’ve got him on camera. I’m going to try to see where he went.”
Ray could have been a uni student. You know, if he’d got the A-level grades. Or the GCSE grades before that. Or if he’d p
arents who would help shoulder the lifelong, crippling debt university brings, or encourage him to pursue an academic route, or even show him that such a route through life existed.
University was something that happened to other people and, as he crossed the campus green of Birmingham University, Ray felt more of an outsider than he did among the samakha of Fish Town or the Mammonites of Dickens Heath. Ray stalked beneath the shadow of the huge clock tower (which looked like it should be home to an evil sorcerer in Ray’s opinion), hating every one of the students he passed. That one looked like a smug public school wanker. That one was a gormless twat. That one was clearly frigid. That one was probably a slut.
He had come to the university to find a genuine sorcerer but this one didn’t live in a red clock tower, he had an office in the Faculty of Arts building. Ray knew however, that this afternoon, he would be found elsewhere.
Ray walked out from the green, down towards the South Gate. Just before the university grounds came up against the wide Bristol Road, he took a shortcut through a fence and entered a walled area with a small, windowless brick building at its centre. There were no identifying signs but it had the air of a pump house or maybe an old electricity transformer station. Ray had only recently heard of this place and he had never visited before. The sorcerer Ray had come to see had a secret cave, not a tower, for this simple building was the entrance to a mine. The mine had been dug by students in decades past, when mining was a university course and Britain trained its brightest and best to plunder the mineral wealth of the empire.
The door was a sturdy and featureless slab of grey. There was no exterior door handle, only a simple keyhole.
Ray hesitated. Should he give it an experimental push? Or just knock?
He reached out a hand. The door swung open as he did.
“Maybe I put a curse of obzad melichu chad’n on the door,” suggested Professor Sheikh Omar as he stepped out, “one that would kill you the moment you touched it.”
“I’d know the counter-curse,” said Ray.
Omar closed the door behind him. Something clicked shut. “You are not a student here.”
Ray cracked his knuckles.
“Is there anything this place can teach me?” he said casually.
“I certainly have nothing further I want to teach you,” said Omar.
“That’s cold, man,” said Ray. “I remember a time when you were only too happy to be my mentor.”
“Mentoring is not part of the deal when you buy a book, Jeffney. Happy to take your money, but that is the end of the transaction. You’ve been rather too slow to realise this.”
Ray produced his copy of Venislarn: A Language Primer.
“I’ve still got the book, professor.”
Omar adjusted his black-rimmed glasses to look at it properly.
“What do you want, Jeffney? A refund? I don’t know how you found this place and I’ve no intention of asking. All I wish to do is go home and curl up on the chaise longue with a naughty book and something indulgently chocolatey.”
“I’ve got some news for you,” he said.
“What?”
“News is always worth something.”
“Not today,” said Omar, stifling a yawn. “Now, be a good chap and either tell me or piss off.”
“A hundred quid.”
Omar shook his head wearily, took a Parker pen from his shirt pocket, scribbled something and showed it to Ray. It slammed Ray right between the eyes, like a physical punch. Ray stumbled in pain and went down on his knees.
“No defence against that one, eh?” said Omar. “What about this one?”
Omar held his hand out, turned it once to hold up three fingers, turned it again to hold a finger and a thumb in a crescent moon, turned it a third time to make a fist and Ray found he could no longer breathe.
“No?” said Omar. “Sorry. Tiredness makes me cranky. And cruel.”
He approached Ray.
“Now, let me guess, Jeffney. You were at Gas Street Basin this morning when the Black Barge arrived? And you saw a figure disembark. Perhaps you managed to dredge up from your memory that it was one of the be’ae tyez.”
Jeffney nodded but could only produce a strangled croak from his throat.
“And you perhaps recall something of what you learned from my book. You’re thinking that the arrival of a Carcosan word mage is significant. It would only be here if it had been summoned. As the young people might say, something is about to go down, yes?”
Ray clawed at his mouth, at the invisible blockage in his airways. Omar crouched in front of Ray.
“And, for some reason, you thought it likely that I would be interested, that I would care, that I’m some sort of cosmic gossip-monger. Yet, it never occurred to you that, if such information was valuable to me, I would have my own means of finding it out.”
Ray’s chest burned. His jaw worked as he choked, as though he could somehow chew his way free of suffocation.
“You are a stupid and shallow boy, Jeffney,” said Omar. “Things will end very badly for you. A kind man would now probably say to you that he regretted ever introducing you to the smallest mysteries of the Venislarn. Do you know what I think?”
Ray shook his head, not because he didn’t want to hear, but because he was afraid he would be dead before Omar was done.
“I think I should just put you out of your misery,” said Omar. “I could do that.” He pursed his lips, giving it some consideration. “But then I’d have to dispose of your worthless corpse and my back isn’t what it used to be. And then we’d have your mother weeping on the local news and your despicable face and some earnest police inspector appealing to the public for information and…” He sighed, exhausted.
Omar flicked his wrist and air rushed back into Ray’s lungs. Ray heaved and spat, tears in his eyes and spittle across the ground.
“In future,” said Omar, “if you come across some exciting titbit, please feel free to keep it to yourself.”
Ray coughed and nodded.
“Because I have my own eyes and ears, Jeffney Ray, my own ways of finding things out.”
“Scrying,” said Ray, wheezing.
“It’s called a mobile phone. And at the other end is a man called Magic Trevor.”
“I thought it was Mystic Trevor.”
“I will call him the Great Ali Bongo if I like, boy, because he is mine. Do not think you know me or can even comprehend my powers. Do you know the story of the blind men and the elephant, Jeffney? Five men each feeling part of the elephant and thinking he understood what it was? That’s you, Jeffney. You know why? You know what happened?”
“Is it because –”
“They got trampled to death. Because they were blind and it was a fucking elephant. Now, look at me.” Ray instinctively kept his head down. “Degr ud kissaq! Look at me, Jeffney Wilson Ray!”
Red-faced and quaking, Ray raised his head. Omar traced a pattern in the air with his fingertips.
“You will forget this conversation, Jeffney. You will forget that you came here. And tonight, you will go to bed without a care in the world but you will forget to put on your darling mittens –”
“No…”
“– and you will scratch your face to royal buggery in your sleep.”
Omar made a final gesture and turned away.
Ray watched him go and then (after a moment of panic in which a fading, horrified voice cried out inside him) wondered what he was doing outside a weird little building. Was it a pump house of some sort? And why was he kneeling in the dirt? Ray stood, confused, brushed himself off and left.
At the canalside pub, Morag Senior put up with Nina dividing her time equally between messaging Chief Inspector Ricky Lee on her phone and dispensing unwelcome dating advice. Nina was ostensibly texting Ricky about the potential threat of the rune drugs but she was sending far too many messages for it to be just about that. Nina was an incorrigible flirt and Morag had met Ricky Lee and reckoned he’d be the kind to flirt
straight back.
Morag kept an eye on the Black Barge and sipped her drink. Mystic Trevor had snuck back to the Black Barge when he probably thought Nina and Morag weren’t looking. Now he was coming back across the narrow bridge.
Nina got up from their pub table to block his path.
“Woop, woop. That’s the sound of da police, Trevor.”
The occultist heaved a weary sigh.
“You’re not the police.”
“Nah, we’re way worse. Open the shopping bag.”
“I don’t have to do what you say.”
“Don’t make it difficult,” said Morag. “We’re just doing our job.”
Trevor put a hand on his tatty leather shoulder bag. He probably thought it looked like the grungy bag of secrets of an itinerant wizard, but it just made him look like an art teacher. In fact, Mystic Trevor was generally rocking a middle-aged-art-teacher-having-a-midlife-crisis vibe. The scraggy beard, ornate silver earring and wide-brimmed hat completed the look.
“You are messing with forces beyond your ken,” he warned.
“Don’t you bring my ken into this,” said Nina. “Open it.”
He looked along the towpath behind Nina, perhaps considering running. Mystic Trevor didn’t strike Morag as the type who enjoyed running for more than a few seconds. He opened the bag.
“The barge isn’t under your jurisdiction,” he said. “I can buy what I like.”
“Until you step off the barge,” said Morag. “And then it is our jurisdiction.”
She emptied the contents out onto the pub table carefully, item by item.
“Three gold-plate glyphs of Shandor. They’ll look nice on the Christmas tree. A pamphlet on the habits of the kobashi. A pipe and tobacco.”
“Not tobacco,” said Nina, inspecting it. “Gandalf’s moved on to the hard stuff.”
“It’s for my joint pain,” said Trevor.
“Joint, yes,” said Nina.
“A vial of rehpat viarr,” said Morag.
“Truth potion?” said Nina.
“It’s legal,” said Trevor.
“Yes, but this isn’t,” said Morag, gingerly lifting out a much-scratched Tupperware box with airholes punched in it. “You bought the bondook shambler?”