Long ago I used to mark Doors and Floors with chalk in this manner because I was afraid of losing my way. I had not done it for years, but as I looked at this yellow mark I thought at first that it must be one of my marks, which had somehow survived Flood, Tide, Wind, Rain, Mist. Yet at the same time I knew that I have never possessed any yellow chalk. I have some white chalk, some blue chalk and a small amount of pink chalk. But yellow chalk? No, I have never had such a thing.
Then I saw that on the Pavement by the Door were more chalk marks, this time in white.
Words! Not the Other’s words. He rarely ventures this far from the First Vestibule. No, these were someone else’s words. 16! I stood for a moment trying to take this in. This had never occurred to me: that 16 might leave written words to make people mad! (I had to applaud his ingenuity. I am not sure it would have occurred to me.)
But would they in fact make me mad? All the Other’s warnings had been against my speaking to 16, against my listening to him. Was it not probable that the danger resided in some quality of 16’s voice? Perhaps the written word was safe? (I realised that the Other had been annoyingly unspecific.)
My eyes turned cautiously downwards. I read:
13TH ROOM FROM THE ENTRANCE. THE WAY BACK IS AS FOLLOWS. GO THROUGH THIS DOOR AND TURN LEFT IMMEDIATELY. GO THROUGH THE DOOR IN FRONT OF YOU AND THEN TURN RIGHT. KEEP TO THE RIGHT WALL. MISS TWO DOORS AND THEN …
Directions. It was only directions.
This did not seem too dangerous. I paused and examined Myself for signs of imminent madness or tendencies to self-destruction. Finding none, I read further.
They were directions from the Sixth North-Western Hall to the First Vestibule. Although the Path itself was somewhat meandering, the directions were clear, precise, efficient and the letters themselves square, upright and pleasing.
Using these directions, I traced 16’s path back as far as the First Vestibule. Each Doorway I passed through was carefully marked with yellow chalk. The marks were somewhat below my eye-level. (I estimate that 16 is between 12 and 15 centimetres shorter than me.) Beneath each Doorframe he had written his directions again so that if any were destroyed by a Tide or a mishap, he would still have the others. How methodical he was!
I went to the Second Northern Hall and got some blue chalk. Then I returned to the Sixth North-Western Hall where I had first seen 16’s directions. (This seemed to be as far as he had gone.) Underneath his writing I wrote:
DEAR 16
THE OTHER HAS WARNED ME OF HOW YOU INTEND TO MAKE ME MAD. BUT IN ORDER TO MAKE ME MAD, YOU MUST FIRST FIND ME AND HOW WILL YOU DO THAT? THE ANSWER IS YOU WILL NOT. I KNOW EVERY NICHE OF THESE HALLS, EVERY APSE, EVERY PLACE TO HIDE. RETURN TO YOUR OWN HALLS, 16, AND REFLECT ON YOUR WICKEDNESS.
Writing this letter lessened the hunted feeling I had been experiencing. I felt much more in control of the situation – almost as much as 16. My only difficulty was that I did not know how to sign the letter. I could not write ‘YOUR FRIEND’ as I did when I wrote to the Other or to Laurence (the person who had wanted to see the Statue of an Elderly Fox teaching some Squirrels). 16 and I were not friends. I tried putting ‘your enemy’ but this seemed unnecessarily confrontational. I considered ‘the one who will never submit to being driven mad by you’ but that was rather long (and not a little pompous). In the end, I simply put:
PIRANESI
This being what the Other calls me.
(But I do not think that it is my name.)
I ask the Other about 16’s writing
entry for the fourteenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
I met the Other this morning in the Second South-Western Hall. He was wearing a suit of medium-grey wool and an impeccable shirt of a darker grey. His mood was calm, serious and focussed. When I told him about the words that I had found chalked on the Pavement of the Sixth North-Western Hall, he simply nodded.
‘Can 16 impart madness through the medium of the written word?’ I asked. ‘Ought I not to have read it?’
‘16’s words are dangerous whatever form they take,’ he said. ‘It would’ve been better not to read it. But I don’t blame you. It took you by surprise. You weren’t expecting a written message. Quite frankly that hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility either. But this is a critical time. We need to be more careful.’
‘I will be. I promise,’ I said.
He gave my shoulder a couple of encouraging pats. ‘There’s good news too,’ he said, ‘well, sort of. I’ve managed to get hold of a gun. It was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. But – and this I suppose is the bad news …’ He made a rueful face. ‘ … it turns out I’m a dreadful shot. I just don’t seem to be able to hit anything at all. I’ll have to practice, I suppose. Not quite sure how I’ll manage that, but anyway … The thing is, Piranesi, try not to worry. One way or another this nightmare will soon be over.’
‘Oh, please!’ I begged. ‘Let us not kill 16!’
He laughed. ‘And what’s the alternative? To allow ourselves to be driven mad? I don’t think so.’
I said, ‘But when 16 sees his plan does not work, when he sees how we avoid him, he may return to his own Halls.’
The Other shook his head. ‘There’s not a chance of it, Piranesi. I know this person. 16 is relentless. 16 will keep on coming.’
Light in the Darkness
entry for the seventeenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
Three days passed. I kept watch for signs that 16 had been in our Halls, but I found none. Then in the middle of the third night I awoke suddenly. Something had woken me, but I did not know what it was.
I sat up. I looked around. The Stars blazed bright in all the Windows. The Thousand Statues of the Third Northern Hall, faintly lit by the Stars, looked out upon the Hall as if they blessed it. Everything was as it always was; and yet I could not rid Myself of the feeling that something was happening.
It was very cold. I put on my shoes and a woollen jumper, and I walked to the Second North-Western Hall. All was empty; all was quiet; all was peaceful.
I passed through a Door on my right into another Hall. Here I heard a faint sound. The sound repeated at irregular intervals and, as I walked on, it grew louder. It was like the distant bellow of an animal.
A faint blossoming of light emanated from a Door at the other end of the Hall. I had only just observed this when the light changed and brightened until it became a beam that sliced through the Darkness and illuminated the Statues on the Opposite Wall! Then, just as suddenly, it faded again.
I walked to the Door and peered inside.
There was someone in the next Hall – someone with a torch who was rapidly casting the beam from Wall to Wall, from Corner to Corner, searching the Darkness for something or someone. (This was the reason that the light had suddenly grown stronger and faded again.) The person was shouting: ‘Raphael! Raphael! I know you’re here!’
It was the Other.
‘Raphael!’ he shouted again.
Silence.
‘You should never have come here!’ he shouted.
Silence.
‘I know every inch of this place! You can’t escape! I’ll find you in the end!’
Silence.
I slipped into the Hall, an action I performed with the utmost economy of movement. Nevertheless the Other must have glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye because he swung around and shone the torch on the Door I had just passed through, but he moved too suddenly, the torch jerked out of his hand and skittered across the Pavement. The light extinguished itself.
‘Shit!’ exclaimed the Other.
Darkness returned to the Hall. The Tides moved in the Halls below. The Other cast about, searching for his torch, muttering to himself.
My eyes, which had seen little when dazzled by the torch, began to adjust to the Starlight again. At first, I saw nothing but the quiet Hall, but then a flicker of movement p
assed along the Southern Wall, East to West. It was the merest suggestion of a grey shadow against the faintly gleaming Statues and I could almost have believed that I was imagining it. But I was not. It passed through a Door leading to the Fifth North-Western Hall.
16!
The Other had found the torch. He made it give out its beam again. Then he exited the Hall by one of the Northern Doors.
I waited until he had gone and then I ran rapidly, silently, after 16. I hid Myself in the Door to the Fifth North-Western Hall.
16 was standing in the Hall. Like the Other, he had a beam of light; but unlike the Other, he was not casting it around aimlessly. He shone it steadily on the Walls of the Hall. The strong, silvery white light illuminated the beautiful Statues and gave to each one a strange new shadow, so that the Walls appeared to be thickly covered in immense black feathers. 16 moved the torch slowly, making the feather-shadows elongate, shrink, swoop and spin. But as for 16 himself, I could see nothing of him. He was a mere blot behind the dazzle of the light.
16 contemplated the Statues for several minutes. Then he turned the light away from the Walls and walked to a Door that led to the Sixth North-Western Hall. He checked the Jamb to reassure himself that the chalk mark he had made was still there and he passed through. I followed and hid Myself in the next Doorway.
In the Sixth North-Western Hall, 16 was shining his torch on the message that I had written. He stood motionless for a long moment. I had told him to reflect on his wickedness. Was that what he was doing? Suddenly he knelt and began to write rapidly.
No one has ever written to me before.
16 wrote for a long time, which in some obscure way pleased me. But then I thought: Why are you pleased? Why does it matter if the message is long or short? You know you may not read it. If you read it, you will go mad. Part of me (a very foolish part) felt that it would almost be worth going mad in order to read the message.
The Darkness in front of 16 coalesced into two wild black shapes that flapped and beat the Air. Startled, 16 leapt up with a cry of alarm.
It was only two rooks who had been awakened by the unusual activity and had come to see what was happening.
‘Piss off!’ cried 16. ‘Piss off! Go away! I’m busy!’
16’s voice was not at all what I was expecting.
I departed as silently as I had come. I made my way back to the Third Northern Hall and lay down on my bed. But my mind was too full for sleep.
I erase a message from 16
second entry for the seventeenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
As soon as the Sun rose I fetched my Index and my Journals. I opened the Index at R, but there was no entry for ‘Raphael’.
I quickly ate some food and thanked the House for its Beneficence. I had a question that I needed to put to the Other but today was not one of the days when the Other and I meet, so I knew my question must wait.
I set off for the Sixth North-Western Hall. The rooks greeted me noisily, but I had no time to talk to them today. 16’s message covered an area of the Pavement approximately 60 centimetres by 80 centimetres.
My heart beat fast in my chest. I glanced down:
I saw the words:
MY NAME IS …
I saw the words:
… LAURENCE ARNE-SAYLES …
I saw the words:
… ROOM WITH THE STATUES OF MINOTAURS …
What should I do? I knew that as long as the message existed I would experience a strong urge to read it. I decided that my only option was to destroy it.
I ran back to the Third Northern Hall and fetched an old shirt and some chalk. I say ‘shirt’; in fact, the garment was so ragged that it scarcely deserved the name. I tore it in two. Then I ran back to the Sixth North-Western Hall. I tied one half of the shirt around my eyes as a blindfold. Holding the other half in my hand, I knelt down and began to sweep it over the surface of the Pavement, erasing 16’s words.
After a couple of minutes, I removed the blindfold and looked. Bits of the message remained here and there.
COMPREHENSIBLE? MY
NAME
LICE OFFI
READ THE FILES ON
IS VALENTINE
YOUR DIS
KETTER
RTAINLY
GROOMED OTHER POTENTIAL VICTIMS AND I
A DISCIPLE OF THE OCCULTIST LAURENCE
ARNE-SAY
NK HE KNOWS THAT I HAVE PENETRATED TH
EN HERE FOR ALMOST SIX YEARS, DID YO
WAY OUT IS
LOCATE
NED ME THAT YOU MAY BE SUFFERING
FROM
As none of this made much sense – at least at first glance – I was hopeful that it would not affect me. (So far I feel fine.) I knelt down and wrote a reply.
DEAR 16
AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN OUR HALLS THEN THE OTHER WILL TRY TO KILL YOU. HE HAS A GUN!
I HAVE ERASED YOUR MESSAGE WITHOUT READING IT. YOUR WORDS HAVE NOT TOUCHED ME. YOU HAVE NOT MADE ME MAD. YOUR PLAN HAS FAILED.
PLEASE! RETURN TO THE FAR-DISTANT HALLS WHENCE YOU CAME!
PIRANESI
I question the Other
entry for the eighteenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
Today at ten o’clock I went to the Second South-Western Hall to meet the Other.
He was standing by the Empty Plinth. He wore a suit of dark brown wool and a shirt of dark olive. His gleaming shoes were a chestnut colour.
‘I want to ask you something,’ I said.
‘OK.’
‘Why have you not been honest with me?’
The Other put on a cold look. ‘I am always honest with you,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You are not. Why did you not tell me that 16 is a woman?’
The expression on the Other’s face flickered from haughty denial, to irritation, to reluctant acquiescence in the space of about half a second. ‘OK,’ he conceded. ‘I suppose that’s fair enough. But I never said that she wasn’t a woman.’
I rolled my eyes at this extraordinarily weak defence. ‘I have been referring to 16 as “he” for months,’ I said, ‘and you have not corrected me – not once. Why not?’
The Other sighed. ‘OK. The reason I didn’t say anything is that I know you, Piranesi. You’re a romantic. Oh, you talk about being a scientist and a disciple of reason – and most of the time you are. But you’re also a romantic. I knew it was going to be hard enough as it was to convince you of the threat that 16 poses. But I thought it would be even harder once you knew she was a woman. You would be so much more interested in a woman. I thought you might even fall in love with her. I certainly didn’t think you’d be able to stop yourself from talking to her. I know you may find this difficult to believe but I was actually looking out for you. It was so important that you didn’t trust 16, because 16 is fundamentally untrustworthy. Do you see?’
There was a pause.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thank you for looking out for me. I do not believe I would be so easily swayed in favour of a woman as you seem to suggest. Please do not keep things from me in future.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the Other. He frowned. ‘Anyway, how did you know?’ His voice became sharp with alarm. ‘You haven’t spoken to her, have you?’
‘No. I saw her in the Sixth North-Western Hall and I heard her voice. She did not see me.’
‘You heard her?’ The Other was even more alarmed. ‘Who was she speaking to?’
‘The rooks.’
‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘How bizarre.’
I decide to look up Laurence Arne-Sayles in the Index
entry for the nineteenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
The Other is right about one thing. I am not as rational as I thought. I used to smile (secretly) at the Other whenever I saw him acting out of self-love or arrogance or pride. My own actions were, I was sure, guided solel
y by Reason. But I was only deceiving Myself. A rational person would never have spoken to the Prophet in the First North-Eastern Hall. A rational person would have kept on cleaning the Pavement of the Sixth North-Western Hall until every trace of 16’s message was erased.
It is not the fact 16 is a woman that fascinates and excites me – or at least, not entirely; it is the fact that she is another human being. I want to learn everything I can about her – or as much as I can learn without going mad. (That is the tricky part.)
I have not told the Other about the message that 16 wrote. Nor have I told him that after I erased it there were little half phrases and sentences remaining and that I left these untouched.
… IS VALENTINE KETTER(LEY) … This refers to the Other. The Prophet said that the Other’s name is Val Ketterley. It is not surprising that 16 writes about the Other since, according to the Other, 16 is obsessed with him and wants to destroy him.
… (CE)RTAINLY GROOMED OTHER POTENTIAL VICTIMS AND I … Is 16 boasting of her victims? Of the harm she has done and intends to do? Unclear.
… A DISCIPLE OF THE OCCULTIST LAURENCE ARNE-SAY(LES) … Everything keeps leading back to this one same person, Laurence Arne-Sayles, who I believe is identical with the Prophet.
… (BE)EN HERE FOR ALMOST SIX YEARS, DID YO(U) … Unclear what this refers to.
WAY OUT IS LOCATE(D) … A puzzling fragment. 16 appears to want to tell me about an exit. But I know these Halls, all their entrances and exits. She does not.
I have looked up 16 in my Index, using the name the Other called her. She is not there. So I shall look up Laurence Arne-Sayles.
Laurence Arne-Sayles
second entry for the nineteenth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
Once again I took my Index and Journals to the Fifth Northern Hall and sat down opposite the Statue of the Gorilla. May his Strength and Resolution give me courage! I opened the Index at A.
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