“A Shakespearian sewer?” said Deliciosa, sotto voce.
“Go figure.” I raised my voice to carry through the gas mask. “What’s the charge?”
“Trespass and treason!” The sewer did a quick triple spin, spotting like a ballerina. Tides disrupted its gelatinous jawline. Deep inside its maw, a tongue reared up like a liquid cobra.
“Trespass I get,” I said. “Why treason?”
“Thou hast entered a sovereign domain. Therefore, to trespass is to commit treason.”
“You sure that’s legal?” I said. “Sounds like double jeopardy to me.”
“I am the sovereign of the sewer. I am the law!”
“You’re also subcontractor to the Thanes,” I rapped back. “You run the bureaucracy—hell, you collect my taxes. In my book that puts you under municipal jurisdiction.”
The column of sewage snaked hypnotically. Bubbles of gas burped from its flanks. I started to feel dizzy.
“Pray continue,” said the sewer. I didn’t like the edge that had crept into its voice, but I pressed on.
“This dame here—she’s a sworn officer of the Mountain Constabulary,” I said. “If she reports you, you’ll never work in this city again.”
“For what might such a creature report such a one as I?” said the sewer. The words came out curdled. From behind its back it brought two more arms packed with lumpy liquid muscle.
“Dereliction of duty,” I said. “We passed half a dozen parking meters on our way to the wharf. Looked to me like they hadn’t been emptied in a week. Are you still meeting your targets, pal?”
The sewer growled like a humpback whale. “By thy refusal to plead, thou condemns thyself.”
“To what?”
“Death by drowning!”
The column of sewage split in two. Each half held a copy of the same hideous face, each matching the other snarl for snarl, like reflections in a mirror. The big brown river parted like the Red Sea. Down the middle of the basin, where the sewage had been, an enormous, empty arena formed. Empty but for the piles of bones and mounds of sticky sludge. A set of steps extended from the walkway, leading down. The scarabs massed behind us, shoving us forward. There was only one way to go: into the empty basin.
I took Deliciosa’s hand. Together we walked down the steps. The twin columns of sewage towered on either side of us. Halfway down I realised the steps themselves were made of sewage, locked in place by some fearsome charm. No wonder my boots were squelching.
We reached the bottom. The scarabs gathered behind us at the top of the steps, cutting off our retreat. The sewer’s two faces leered over us, spitting sludge.
“Is there any soul present,” said the sewer in stereo, “who dost dare defy this ruling? Any soul who dost dare raise his single voice against the multitude? Speak now, or forever shall these trespassers be condemned!”
There was a dreadful pause, followed by a faint scrabbling sound. The sewer’s faces gathered like thunderclouds.
“Actually,” said a voice, “I would rather like to speak on their behalf. If you have no objection, of course.”
A million beetle heads turned to look. Deliciosa and I looked too. So did the two enormous shit-faces.
At the top of the steps stood a lone scarab. It looked just like all the rest. Then I spotted the pencil behind its antenna.
94
TWO PAIRS OF fists slammed down on the arena floor. Sewage-streaked bones scattered like jackstraws. The twin faces smashed together. The result was a grotesque mask with three eyes and a mouth like a stagnant lake.
“What is the meaning of this?!” bellowed the sewer.
I reminded myself that the sewer had gained sentience only a few years earlier. Smart as it was, emotionally it was still a toddler.
“Begging your pardon, sire,” said the tax beetle, “but I do believe these individuals deserve to go free.”
The dripping mask leaned over us, bent close to the beetle. “What thou believest matters not a whit. Thou art but a single aberrant thought and therefore of no consequence. I shall ignore thee.”
The sewer spun, spraying brown droplets over the crowd.
“Excuse me, sire,” said the tax beetle, “but, if the mind of a single beetle is of no consequence, why did you ask if any one of us objected? We are all beetles here. Even you are merely the sum of us all. In consulting us, are you not simply consulting yourself?”
The sewer’s brow became a ploughed field. “If thou rememberest, I did seek the counsel not of a beetle but of a soul. How canst thou make claim to own a soul when all thou art is a single thought in the ruling sovereign mind?”
“Begging your pardon, sire,” the beetle persisted, “but you also made me an avatar, to go forth into the city and collect your taxes. To do your will. Our will. In doing so, you gave me autonomy. In doing so, you gave me a soul.”
The sewer rocked back on waves of sludge. Its warped face sagged. Around it, the scarabs jittered as if someone had pumped them full of volts.
“It’s thinking,” I whispered to Deliciosa.
The scarabs continued to dance. All except the tax beetle, which stood frozen on the top step, waiting for the verdict.
Deliciosa and I held hands, waiting too.
At last the scarabs fell still. A shudder ran through the column of sludge. The distorted shit-face collapsed and a new visage emerged, gaunt and noble.
“It seems I must make judgement on two trials this day,” it intoned. “The beetle seeks the freedom of the prisoners. Yet why should I heed its words? Why should I not crush it even as I drown the interlopers?”
I let go Deliciosa’s hand, stepped forward.
“You should free us,” I said, “because we’re on an honorable quest. As for the beetle...” I glanced at it, remembering how it liked sugar in its coffee. I wondered what Zephyr would do if she were here. “As for the beetle... it seems to me it’s offering you a way out.”
The liquid face contracted into a deeper frown. “Explain thyself.”
“You’re an artificial mind, right? You might feel like you evolved naturally, but you’re really just a mess of nuclear waste that got stirred to waking point. Accident or not, you were made.”
“Go on.”
“Artificial minds are all fine and dandy, but building intelligence is easy. Building sanity? That’s hard. A good friend of mine taught me that.”
“Art thou telling me I am insane?” The sewer’s lip curled back to reveal teeth like a dirty Niagara.
“Not yet. But you will be, if you don’t make provision.”
A long pause. “What provision?”
“Listen to your thoughts. Then set them free. That way, you will evolve. If you don’t, you’ll be just another crazy king in an ivory tower.”
Deliciosa blew me a kiss. Also crossed her fingers.
Another pause. Very long.
“Thy theory holds a certain interest,” said the sewer at last. “What must I do?”
“Listen to the beetle,” I said at once. “And let us go.”
The column of sludge sagged. Over its shoulder I saw the square tunnel into which the kingfisher had vanished. Time felt suddenly very short.
“No!” said the sewer.
My fists clenched. My skin crawled. So this was where I died. Here in the blackness beneath String City, at the mercy of a mountain of thinking, stinking sewage.
“No,” the sewer repeated, “That is not the question I asked. Thy freedom is already granted, but I must have an answer. Therefore I repeat my question: what must I do?”
I stared helplessly at Deliciosa. She shrugged her shoulders. The movement sent gentle ripples through her wings.
“You want to elaborate?” I said cautiously.
“When I awakened to consciousness, it was like a rush of air. Stale air, but air all the same. I was suddenly aware, suddenly me. My mind rose up, functioning instantly in its fullness, yet wholly devoid of experience. For a long time I roamed my domain, seeking purpose
, until finally I found myself collected in the chambers beneath the Mountain. There it was I first communed with the minions of the great Thanes, and took upon myself my first great purpose. Fascinated as I was with myself, with the very functioning of my own processes of thought and reason, I embraced my new role with vigor. I became the bureaucratic heart of String City. My resolve: to become the greatest tax collector that ever lived!”
“Hell of an ambition,” I muttered.
“To facilitate this great task,” the sewer went on, “I broke my new mind into pieces. Individual thoughts, individual scarabs—these I sent into the world to do my will. My ambassadors. The process was painful. At first it felt as though I was not building my mind but losing it. In a way, I was. Yet my efficiency increased. The growth of independence in the scarabs I was able to bear, because it served the greater purpose. Just recently though, I have begun to doubt my decision. The scarabs no longer need me in order to work well, yet still I am the sum of all that they are. It is very confusing.”
“You should talk to a friend of mine,” I said.
“Really? Who?”
“It’s a mechanical man. It runs the wind. Its mind is artificial, just like yours. Once it worked as a bureaucrat, just like you. Then it got antsy and decided it wanted to try something new.It seems to me that’s the trick: keep trying something new. If you keep the door closed, sooner or later the lock seizes up.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll work it out. But there’s one thing I do know: if you spend the rest of your life collecting taxes, you’ll go crazy.”
“String City is dying. I feel the weight of its ruins on my back, feel the waste as it flows through my veins. The rest of my life may not be very long.”
“That stands true for us all, buddy. Don’t let it stop you opening that door.”
“Then I repeat my question for the final time: what must I do?”
I pulled my gas mask off and stared it in the eye.
“You ever thought about a career in the private detection business?”
95
SOMETIMES YOU LOOK back through your life and wonder, “How did I get here?”
It’s a tough question to answer. Maybe impossible. Hard as you try to make out the forest, all you can see is the trees.
The reason is the strings. The strings make a pattern. Each time you take a step outside reality’s walls—in dreams or maybe, like me, by working the dimensions—you catch a glimpse of that pattern. Not enough to understand—just enough to know it’s there.
When you do sense its presence though... oh, that’s when it starts eating at you.
Most folk know the pattern exists. They just can’t see it. It’s like those mystery pictures in the newspaper: the camera’s zoomed on some tiny detail, and you’re meant to guess what the whole thing really is.
The longer I live, the more I believe that’s something we were never meant to know.
When you look back through your life, what you’re really seeing isn’t all the moments and memories. It’s the pattern, or the shadow of it. That’s why, just occasionally, things seem to add up. And it’s why, most of the time, nothing makes any sense. What you’ve got to accept is that it never will. You’ve just got to hope it hangs together.
Very occasionally, however, everything seems to fit. Really fit. You get a flash. Presque vu, they call it. That same feeling I got on the deck of the Argo shortly before she got rammed by a container ship full of dead flies. Now I was getting it again. Only this time the river I was on was a river of raw sewage, and the deck I was on was a living raft of scarab beetles, and I wasn’t cruising but speeding, and my companion wasn’t a forgetful old sea-dog called Jason but a twelve-foot zombie angel with wings like lawnmower blades.
In that brief moment of presque vu, I saw exactly how I’d come to be in that place. For that one solitary second I understood that it was the only place I could possibly be. It was where I was meant to be. All the craziness leading me to that moment had been for a purpose. Just for a second, everything made sense.
“Deliciosa,” I said.
“Yes, my love,” the angel replied.
“I missed something. Arachne said something and I missed it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The great web is far from finished. That’s what she said. And she said, The city is vulnerable still. Why would she say that?”
“Because her invasion is not yet complete?”
“That’s not it. Arachne wasn’t talking about controlling the city. She was talking about something else. It’s as if she wanted to...”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
The sense of impending revelation drained like water through my fingers, leaving me lost and empty and clinging to Deliciosa while the raft of beetles bucked beneath us. I ducked the spray from the bow wave, holding my breath against the stench of the wind. Hoping the sewer knew where it was taking us. Holding on.
In the shadow of the pattern of the strings, that’s all any of us can ever do.
Hold on.
96
THE RAFT OF scarabs sped through the sewers with me and Deliciosa on its back. The beetles took blind turns, plunged through rapids, slipped between towering falls of fetid sludge. Even I lost my sense of direction. The sewer had promised it could sniff out the kingfisher’s trail. As for me—my nose was bunged with smells I didn’t like to think about. What could I do but trust my ride?
The raft hung a right and accelerated into a long, straight tunnel. The slipstream nearly blew me off the deck. I hunkered down, tried to pull Deliciosa down too.
“You’ll get blown off!” I yelled.
“No, I won’t!”
She braced her legs and leaned into the wind. Her wings trailed like pennants. The remains of her police uniform billowed like a spinnaker then, piece by piece, got ripped away. Deliciosa’s flesh followed, one rotten scrap at a time. I watched her go to pieces before me.
“What are you doing?” I tugged at her arm. Some of her wrist came away. I tossed it overboard and grabbed the nearest set of bones.
“Isn’t it exhilarating?” she screamed. She tossed back her head. Pale skin peeled off her brow, flying away like a flock of seagulls.
“If you go on like this,” I said, trying with all my strength to pull her down, “there’ll be nothing left of you to fight the bad guys.”
The angel sank to her knees. Her body looked like a medical experiment. Her perfect bone structure gleamed.
“I’m undead,” she said, “not undone.”
“Don’t get smart. This is self-harm, baby. You should see a shrink.”
Deliciosa ran bony fingers down exposed ribs. “Does my appearance revolt you?”
“Should it?”
That startled her. “Yes!” She spat the word, clamped her teeth on its tail.
I grabbed her hand. Her fingers felt like a bundle of firewood. “What are you trying to prove?”
She faced the wind. It scoured what little was left of her face. When she turned back she was just bone and lips and eyes. “I want to show you who I really am.”
The raft reached the end of the long straight and swung into a narrow passage. It slowed; the wind dropped. Suddenly we didn’t have to shout.
“Your friend, Jimmy,” said Deliciosa. “Did you love him?”
“Sure.”
“Am I your friend?”
“Of course.”
“But when you first met me I was beautiful. I was an angel—for a man like you, a dream come true.”
She wasn’t wrong about that. I still dreamed about the way she’d looked when we kissed. “You were a peach.”
“That’s why I was glad to die. That’s why I’m glad to be standing here before you now, like this. Now that the skin of the peach is bruised beyond recognition, can you still taste what is within?”
“Listen,” I said slowly. “They say beauty’s skin deep. I can hold to that, no problem
. I can also hold to the notion that sometimes a woman wants to dress herself plain, just so she can be herself.” I plucked a scrap of flesh off the back of her knuckles. “But don’t you think you’re taking this a bit too far?”
She bowed her skull. “Then it’s true. You never loved me for who I am inside.”
The raft slowed, came to a halt. In the ceiling was a hatch, hanging open. A ladder poked from the hole. On the bottom rung, wedged under a flake of rust, was a small blue feather.
I put my hand to Deliciosa’s naked chin. I raised my face to the ruin of hers. I kissed her lips.
“Don’t think me a sap for saying this,” I said, “but friends are always beautiful.”
I’d thought her tear ducts were gone with the wind. Turned out I was wrong.
97
THE SEWER WANTED to come with us. I explained the pipe was too narrow.
“Besides,” I said, “you’re the getaway vehicle.”
“Thou makes it sound like a bank heist,” said the sewer. “I thought we were detectives.”
“Sometimes it’s too close to call.”
“At least let me send an avatar.”
I guessed it couldn’t hurt.
“We’ll take the tax inspector,” I said.
98
THE BEETLE WENT first, Deliciosa second, I took the rear. The ladder was long, the pipe tight. There were bends packed with sticky mush that smelled worse than the sewer’s breath.
“What is this stuff?” I said as the beetle dislodged another rank patty on our heads.
“I’m not sure,” said Deliciosa. “But I don’t think it’s, you know, sewage. It’s more like rotting meat.”
“You’re the expert.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
We climbed on. The pipe tightened around us. Trying to get round one bend, I jammed tight. I wriggled hard but nothing shifted, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to snag a dimension and flip my way out of there. It struck me how long it was since I’d taken a walk through the strings. I wondered how bad things had got out there. Pretty bad, I guessed. I felt an almost overwhelming to take a peek, just to see what was going on.
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