Metronome

by Oliver Langmead

  ‘Is your sword really the Sword of Eden?’

  Thyme grins his wolfish grin. ‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘Give her enough belief, and she will burn brightly. For that is the nature of lies, and that is the nature of dreams.’ Almost as an afterthought, he says, ‘Have faith!’ and we step back into the light of the sun.

  Metronome

  We descend towards Babel’s sparkling waterfront.

  ‘Not much further hence,’ Thyme repeats, ‘to thy Sleepwalker.’

  At a gated river crossing the dusty knight elbows us through the crowds, and for the first time I get a good glimpse of Babel’s river. The waters swirling below are a rainbow mess, simultaneously oily and clear, and the whole thing looks so polluted with colour that it takes me a while to realise why I am so delighted by the sight.

  There are doors lined up haphazardly on both walled banks, all open, and it is from them that streams are running and filling the river. From one door a lovely crystal waterfall drops and informs the flow, and from another, a slow-moving oily mess sloops and swirls into the main body of water. I realise that there must be hundreds, thousands, of doors like these, feeding the river from dreams, stretching all the way up to the tower itself.

  ‘Sammy would love this,’ I say, reminded of her art. All those ridiculous, formless colourful messes she would paint with her hands so that she could feel what she was making. I remember how I ran out of space on the fridge back in our house in Edinburgh, and then the notice board I set up beside it, and then even the walls and cupboards, until the whole kitchen was a rainbow explosion.

  ‘An unfamiliar name,’ says Thyme, who must have heard me speak.

  I smile at him. ‘My daughter. I was saying she would love this place.’

  Through a couple of flaps of canvas, the self-professed liar brings us to a busy bazaar, and continues on between the tents. ‘Babel is no place for the young,’ says Thyme, ‘or the unwary. There are plenty here who would take advantage of those without guides to lead them, for there is profit to be found in the dreams of fools. Dream of solid stones, or great forests, and thy dream might be sold to the tower.’ Thyme ushers away a boy trying to sell tiny copper replicas of the tower. ‘Or worse yet, dream of gold, and thy dream might be sold to the Golden Gate: a distant outpost, where gold is always in demand.’

  Through a sandstone archway at the edge of the bazaar we come to a wide and sunny courtyard with a fountain at its centre. Doors line the walls, and Thyme gestures towards a closed one in the corner in the manner of a magician revealing his finest finale.

  ‘Thy Sleepwalker’s dream,’ he says.

  I give him a grateful nod. ‘Thank you. For bringing me here. I’m in your debt.’

  ‘Thou art,’ he says, and he grins his wolfish grin. ‘Take care, Manderlay the Bard. And remember: have faith!’

  And as if to highlight his advice, Thyme unbuckles his sword belt, pulls himself onto the fountain’s rim and sits cross-legged there. Eyes closed, he raises his hands to the blue sky, lost in prayer.

  I head across to the metal door at the corner of the courtyard, and as I go, I wonder who it is that Thyme is praying to. Some god of lies, maybe.

  *

  Dry lightning reveals the silhouettes of distant mountains. I hunch my shoulders against the overwhelming screeching of jets as they fly overhead in formation, and stumble uncertainly past a congregation of tanks and transports.

  Endless dust. A dry cough that refuses to leave my throat.

  March’s compass directs me up to where there is a packed-earth compound. The soldiers at the entrance, who are all figments, peer at me through their dusty goggles but let me pass. Inside they loiter around the terrible bulky shapes of heavy ordnance, and when there is the boom of a shell hitting home, none of them wince like I do.

  Through an opening in a bunker, I enter a clinical hallway where nets hang from the white ceiling dividing up beds. I traipse a long trail of dust across the clean ground, and glimpse wounded soldiers being tended to by serious-looking medics. As I progress the wounds get worse: a head so swathed in bandages that it might be a white and brown turban, skin so burned that it looks as if it has been boiled.

  Through plastic sheeting curtains, I push open an emergency exit and find the dreamer.

  March stands tall at a bullet-scarred balcony where he can survey the whole valley before him. The white of his vest is in contrast against the endless gloom. He turns to see me, but does not seem to recognise me.

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any fruit on you?’ he asks. ‘Trying to eat something healthy every time I feel the need to light up.’ The boy soldier takes the cigarette from behind his ear and flicks it over the wall. ‘I’m gonna end up eating too much acid at this rate; burn a hole right through my stomach.’

  ‘I don’t. I’m sorry.’

  He frowns at me. ‘Wait. Who are you?’

  Of course he does not recognise me. Before I dreamed that I was young; now I am old. ‘I’m Manderlay,’ I tell him. ‘William Manderlay. You helped me with my dream last night. The dream of the valley and the church on the hill. You gave me your compass.’ I hold it out to him. ‘I came to return it. To say thank you. There aren't any nightmares left in my dream now.’

  A pause. ‘Manderlay? But you’re—’

  ‘Old. I know. This is me. The real me, I mean.’ The compass in my hand shakes as I struggle to keep a grip on it. I feel embarrassed by how feeble I am.

  March takes his compass and watches the needles turn there. He runs his free hand through his bright hair. ‘Hell,’ he says. ‘Didn’t think I’d ever see this again. Thanks for this. Seriously. I’d be pretty much lost without it.’ He pockets it, and folds his arms, leaning against the balcony wall. ‘I owe you one, Mister Manderlay.’

  I join him at the wall and rest my weary legs. ‘I met another nightmare-hunter last night. Or Sleepwalker. Whatever you call yourselves. But her name was June.’ At the mention of her name March screws up his face as if he has tasted something sour. ‘She took something from me. Something important. So I thought I’d ask you what you knew about her. Maybe where I can find her, to try and get it back.’

  March squints up at the desert sun, and at the helicopters hovering in between, and then leans to pull his camouflaged jacket on. ‘I never get good news,’ he says. ‘Always gotta be something to balance it out. You know like in the movies, where the guy gets the girl, or wins the lottery? For me, it’s always – you get the girl! But she’s pregnant with another guy’s kid. Or, you win the lottery! But you’ve gotta have your arm chopped off.’ He sighs. ‘June’s trouble,’ he says. ‘Got some odd ideas in her head. What did she take?’

  ‘An old notebook of mine.’

  ‘All right,’ he says, grabbing his rifle. ‘Then let’s go get it back.’

  *

  March leads us through Babel, and where he goes the folk we pass treat him with nods of respect or gushing greetings, as if he is some kind of local hero. The young soldier takes it all in his stride, and continues on with me – the funny old man pottering along in his wake – to a long set of gardens and orchards. People kneel in prayer on the grass, or picnic on the multitude of fruits and vegetables, or tend to the endless greenery.

  At an orange tree, March slings his rifle over his shoulder, grabs a particularly ripe-looking specimen and peels it. ‘June’s door usually shows up around here somewhere,’ he tells me.

  Popping a segment into his mouth, he nods at my violin case.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My violin.’

  ‘You a musician?’

  ‘Not so much these days.’ I smile, and show him my hands: blue veins protruding, the shudder I am unable to shake.

  ‘Arthritis?’ March flicks orange peel into the bushes we pass. ‘My uncle got it in his knees. Real shame. He was a hill-walker, you see. Every weekend he’d be up in the hills and mountains. Walked the earth as if he meant to see every corner of it. Damn near killed him when he got the
diagnosis.’ He glances at the trees we pass as we head into the dappled shade of their canopies.

  ‘It’s a cruel disease.’

  ‘Sure is,’ he says. ‘Your best bet is to think young.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Think young.’ March stops, then, ‘Ah. There we go.’ He points at a yellow door, embedded into a tree nearby. ‘Always yellow,’ he says. ‘Like she owns the bloody sun.’ He finishes off the last segment of his orange and swings his rifle around, before knocking at the worn wood and listening for a few moments. The birds in the trees around us sing their songs.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like she’s in,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, hell. I’ve always been curious anyway.’ He grabs the handle, and opens the door.

  We step out onto a forest plateau. Ahead of us is an awesome sight. Between two thickly forested expanses rests a great grey dam, dividing a silvery reservoir from a set of sparkling falls. The sun is powerful here and the air is close and muggy, filled with the buzzing of insects. I feel overdressed, and I observe March as he wipes sweat away from his brow. The nightmare-hunter grabs his compass and watches the needles turn. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘She’s not in. There’s a nightmare here, but no June.’

  ‘What about that?’ I point to a station set up at the very centre of the tall dam. Something is reflecting or glowing in there.

  ‘Could be anything.’

  ‘Maybe she left it here,’ I say. ‘My notebook, I mean.’

  March seems uneasy. ‘Maybe. I don’t really like the idea of messing around in June’s dream, though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not her biggest fan. She’s… uh, not very good at her job if you ask me. But I wouldn’t like it if one of the others was in my dream without my permission. Seems a bit disrespectful, maybe. I dunno.’ He shrugs. ‘I guess we could pop down and have a look. Might save us having to hunt her down, wherever she is. Just… tread careful, yeah?’

  ‘I’ll follow in your footsteps.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and he ducks into the forest path, leading down to the dam.

  By the time we reach the edge of the concrete it becomes apparent just how big June’s dream is. We are both out of breath and there are great dark patches around March’s throat and beneath his arms.

  ‘Her real name is Kareena,’ March tells me, ‘and she lives somewhere in India. I don’t know her last name, or anything else about her really. Just that she’s got this real hang-up about nightmares. Some hippy rubbish about befriending them or something. That they’re a “natural” part of dreaming. Whole line of Junes always been that way. It’s a pain in the arse.’ At the edge of the dam, he glances over the edge, and then steps back from it. ‘Christ, that’s a long way down.’

  ‘So your name isn’t really March?’

  ‘Nah.’ He grins at me. ‘You’re best off calling me March, though. Some nightmares can do some nasty things if they find out your real name. You ever hear about random killings – folk claiming it was the voices in their head telling them to do it? Yeah. I guess some Sleepwalker a while back came up with the bright idea of giving us all code-names to stop that from happening. Twelve months for twelve Sleepwalkers.’ March’s hair is so drenched with sweat now that it looks as if his fire has been put out. ‘It might sound a bit stupid,’ he says, ‘but a lot of stuff in dreaming is stupid, and sometimes you’ve gotta fight stupid with stupid.’

  All at once an enormous shape leaps over the edge of the dam from behind us.

  March is thrown back with a surprised yell, and his rifle clatters to the ground. I stumble back, panicking, and try to work out what is happening.

  The massive, multi-legged creature scuttling towards the fallen soldier is familiar, and I feel my heart lurch when I recognise it. It is the wooden spider from my dream – legs the thickness of tree-trunks and a body like two yachts stapled together.

  March has drawn his side-arm and rolls towards the edge of the dam. He fires twice, but the spider does not slow down. It raises its legs, mandibles waving, and makes to spear him in place.

  I am frozen, staring at March as he rolls, narrowly avoiding the spider’s legs. It leaps around to better pin him down. I take a step forward to where his rifle has fallen, but then a better idea strikes me. Something I can see signposted at the station nearby. Something I know how to use.

  At sea, you do not have very many options when it comes to dealing with pirates. Sometimes, you can employ armed guards, but more often than not, whoever’s cargo you are shifting is too cheap to afford them. As such, the best pirate-repellent we ever had was the fire-fighting system. Pirates, being pirates, do not tend to have particularly robust boats. More often than not, they are to be found in motorised dinghies, flimsy things that might be turned over by a large wave. So, we would turn the hoses on them. Dodging bullets, certainly, but throwing pirates from their perches through sheer force of water pressure.

  I dash across and unhook the hose from the wall.

  With my hands tingling I turn on the water and aim the hose. At first there is only a disappointing sprinkle. Then the rubber in my hands turns rigid and my feet slide back, fighting for purchase as the pressure hits. A tremendous sparkling stream hits the spider’s flank, and it turns, scrambling, too late to stop me. It tries in vain to bury its stake legs into the hard concrete.

  With a monstrous screech it tumbles over the edge.

  I drop the hose before it throws me over as well, and rush to turn off the pressure before it whips around. Then, breathless and triumphant, with the beating of my heart causing blood to flow uncertainly through my fingers as it has not done in years, I return to March to see how he is faring.

  He is scratched, and drenched from head to toe, but he is laughing. ‘You washed it away!’ March says, as he regains his feet. ‘You washed the damn thing away! Holy hell, Mister Manderlay. That was brilliant. Like a spider in a bath!’ The nightmare-hunter wrings out his uniform and shakes himself down, before recovering his rifle.

  I am unable to help myself from laughing. ‘Fighting stupid with stupid,’ I tell him. ‘And please, call me William. Or Will. Nobody calls me Mister Manderlay these days.’

  The two of us regain our senses. March checks his compass again. ‘Alone at last,’ he says. ‘But I reckon we should get out of here before June comes back. If that was one of her friends, then she’s not gonna be very happy.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I tell him, because I saw something peculiar when I dashed across to the station at the centre of the dam. ‘Just before we go. I need to see.’ I lead us both up the steps to the small control station, which commands the ultimate view over the valley below the dam.

  And the room, just as I remember, is filled from doorway to doorway with sketches.

  They are mostly landscapes. Here, a mountain range, there, a desert. But through all of them, the artist has drawn a great black line, so straight that it must have been done with a ruler. In some of the landscapes, the black line has arches beneath it to support it, and at once I know what it is. ‘The black road,’ I say, and when I turn to see March, I notice the object hanging from the ceiling at the room’s centre, which must have caused the reflection we saw from above. It is a CD, hung up like a child’s mobile, and one that I recognise, because it is mine.

  ‘Will…’ says March.

  He is stood at the far wall, where there is a sketch like no other here. I cross the distance between us and stand before that sketch in awe, because it is like looking into a mirror. June has drawn a detailed portrait of my likeness, just as it was in the booklet that accompanied my last album. Whatever else June might be, she is certainly a great artist. ‘Why,’ March asks, ‘does June have a picture of you in her dream? What’s going on here?’

  ‘I think I might know where she’s gone,’ I tell him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She called it a map.’

  ‘She called what a map?’

  ‘March…’ I say. ‘Have you ever heard of Solomon’s Eye?’
r />   *

  After I am done describing my encounter with June, the blood seems to have drained from March’s face. ‘Jesus Christ. We’ve wasted enough time,’ he says. ‘I need you to come with me. Right now. We need to sort this out.’

  I struggle to keep up with March as he rushes back through Babel. Somehow, despite the size of his heavy pack, he manages to go at an easy jog.

  Beyond the orchards, he leads me through the streets towards an industrial district, where all manner of trucks and carts carry heaped materials – wood and stone in a myriad of different qualities – in a steady stream towards the tower.

  ‘March!’ I call after him, pausing to catch my breath at a corner.

  The nightmare-hunter glowers back at me, hands wringing at his rifle.

  ‘Not much further,’ he says. ‘Come on now, Will.’

  Beyond the chain-linked fences we come to a quarry. There are the bright yellow trucks on tracks, a spiral of roads in the dark earth and a hundred folk with wheelbarrows, passing back and forth in industry. They do not appear to be mining the ground. Instead, the people here are using all the open doors in the valley walls; they enter with empty wheelbarrows and exit laden with heavy materials. They are mining dreams.

  March avoids the valley, heading across to some kind of processing plant, where conveyor belts run beside corrugated metal offices. He halts before a set of three bizarre-looking machines.

  The closest contraption looks like a hybrid between a Chinook helicopter and an enormous armoured beetle. It has a hunched back made of slabs of thick metal, and no less than four rotors, positioned at each corner. For the time being, the beetle’s earth-stained belly is empty, doors rolled back and awaiting fresh materials.

  ‘Karl!’ The nightmare-hunter waves across at a worker approaching through the dust.