The Strange

by Masha du Toit

  Jinan was still trying to continue her conversation with Kiran.

  “All I’m saying, Kiran,” she said, “is that they’d never have taken me captive if they knew who I am. Who my family is! And when they find out, they’ll have to do something about it.”

  “Exactly.” Kiran bared her teeth in exasperation. Her skin looked grey, and her voice grated with exhaustion. “And what do you think they’ll do? Say, ‘Oh, Frau-eid, I’m so sorry, let’s send you right back home where you can expose us as slavers?’” She glared at Jinan. “They’ll slit your throat for you and dump your body if you don’t shut the fuck up. And if you”—she leaned closer—“ don’t stop drawing attention to us, I will personally knock you on your arrogant fucking head and dump your carcass down the nearest incinerator chute.”

  Jinan’s eyes widened in outraged surprise. Before she could reply, Javiero spoke up. “Can you two keep it down?” He glanced meaningfully at the guards.

  “Sorry,” said Kiran drawing a deep breath and letting it out again. “Sorry.”

  “Elke.” It was Noor, tense with worry. “You okay? You were asleep for ages.”

  “I’m okay.” Elke tried to stretch her back, wincing as she discovered several more bruises. “And you?”

  Noor didn’t seem to hear the question. “What about Isabeau? She’s all alone. She won’t know what’s happened to us.”

  “I know,” said Elke. “She must know we’re gone by now.”

  “But she’s got nobody to watch her. Diesel’s sick. Mack Jack too. What will happen to her?”

  “Isabeau will be fine,” Elke said with more confidence than she felt. “Dolly will look after her. And Meisje will stop her from getting into any real trouble.”

  “Oh. That’s right. I forgot about Dolly. And Meisje.” Noor got up then sat down again, distracted. She moved gingerly, favouring her ankle. Elke guessed it must hurt, now that the brace was removed. “I just hate to think about her all by herself. She’ll be so freaked out, when we don’t come back. And Ndlela, sick—”

  “Isabeau will have the sense to go straight to Dolly and tell her everything she knows.” Elke did her best to sound as if she believed her own words. “I wish I’d thought to do that myself, before we left.”

  “Hey.” Kiran slid down the bench towards them. “Noor. Try not to worry. Isabeau will be fine. There’s lots of people in the Eye who’ll be looking out for her. And Meisje will keep her in line.”

  “I guess.” Noor’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  Jinan, who’d been following their conversation, leaned forward. “What I want to know is who you were meeting, there in that club. What did you stir up, to end in this mess?”

  Kiran rolled her eyes and turned her face away from Jinan.

  “I could ask you the same question, Jinan,” said Elke. “What were you doing there? Why were you following us?”

  Jinan’s eyes flashed and she drew herself up, but before she could respond, the guards called for their attention. “Sursa!” shouted one of them. “Vado!”

  By now Elke knew what this meant and so did the other prisoners. They all scrambled to their feet, the cords that bound their ankles making their movements awkward. Noor stumbled, and Javiero put out a hand to steady her, but brushed away her attempt to thank him.

  “You okay?” asked Elke, and Noor nodded. Her face was pale with strain, and the tattoo on her chin looked red and sore.

  “I just hope they don’t separate us,” said Kiran as they were herded out the door.

  They went down a broad stair and along a corridor lined with many doors, that opened onto busy offices and storerooms. Everything looked worn but efficient, and the workers and clerks seemed unsurprised at the sight of the prisoners and their guards.

  A rumbling clatter sounded ahead of them, gradually increasing in volume.

  “Any idea where we are?” Elke asked Kiran over her shoulder, when the guards were momentarily distracted. “Or where we’re going? You can understand the language, can’t you?”

  “I understand some of it, but so far nobody’s said anything useful,” said Kiran. “I’ve got a pretty good guess where we are, but as to where we’re going...”

  “We’re in the Gremium, of course,” said Jinan.

  Before Elke could ask Jinan what she meant, the guards shouted for their attention again. The corridor had come to an end at last. They were facing a pair of double doors, through which came the noise, which had grown into an echoing, booming roar. The guards prodded them through the doors, and at the far side the prisoners came to an involuntary halt, gazing about them at the vast concourse into which they’d stepped.

  It was overwhelming. Sight, scent, and sound battered at Elke. Cargo-cans clanged and grated against one another. A nearby train let off steam in a high-pitched shriek. Can-workers grunted and sang as they heaved their burdens into place, ropes creaking with the strain. The air stank of oil, sweat, and spilled fuel, and woven in among these were subtler scents—green, fresh, and lively, a bewildering memory of an early morning rainstorm, or leaf mould on a forest floor.

  People crowded everywhere. Can-workers, overseers, inspectors, messengers, stall-holders, fugados, all intent on their work, no one sparing the prisoners more than a passing glance.

  Down the centre of the concourse, holding up the vaulted ceiling, ranged stone pillars shaped like half-human creatures. More stone figures stood, wide-legged, against the walls. It took Elke a moment to comprehend the scale of these carvings and understand that the tiny figures moving at their feet were full-sized humans.

  “So, Jinan is right,” Kiran said over Elke’s shoulder. “This is the Gremium.”

  The guards got them moving again although Elke, distracted, kept tripping on the metal rails that criss-crossed the stone floor. She tried to make sense of the place. Was it a kind of Strangeworld railway station? There were certainly enough trains, but it was hard to see where these trains might go, since each locomotive was pulled up facing one of the enormous sculptures embedded in the concourse walls.

  It was only when they passed close by one of the trains that Elke got a closer look and understood.

  The vast legs of each carved figure straddled a portal, just like the one on Ishtar Gate.

  These are all portals to other worlds? How many... Elke’s mind reeled at the implications, but she had no opportunity to stand and stare. The guards kept them walking at a steady pace, each gate-straddling statue looming over them in turn.

  Elke tilted her head back to take them in. The stone figures were like nothing she’d ever seen before. Massive, eroded, carved with consummate skill, eyes and teeth picked out with tarnished gold, the stone folds of their garments patterned in jewelled mosaic.

  One gate was a bull-headed woman holding up a newly born infant, the umbilical cord still connecting mother and babe. The next was shaped like a man with the upper body of a tiger, claws extended, brandishing a torn-off tree branch crowded with fruit that bled long drops of stony blood. Next was a creature like a roaring elephant, except with carnivorous teeth, a branching trunk, and delicate, long-fingered, human hands held up in a gesture of benediction.

  Some of the figures were hard to make out, crumbling and cracked, with clusters of ferns sprouting from eye-sockets or from mouths. They were ancient, undeniably, overwhelmingly old, but their empty eyes and spreading hands compelled attention, and spoke of the unimaginable weight of time.

  And each one straddled a portal to another world.

  Javiero kept nearly stepping on Elke’s heels, swearing continuously under his breath in a long string of Spanish profanity. “How will we ever get back?” he said when she caught his eye. “If we don’t even know...” He stared back the way they came, the whites of his eyes gleaming.

  “Get back?” said Betina sarcastically. “Still so young and hopeful.”

  Samuel had stopped his weeping and was gazing at the figures with calm wonder. “That is Yemaya.” He pointed at the carv
ing of a pregnant woman who held a full moon up above her head. “Yemaya,” he repeated softly to himself. But when Noor asked him what he meant, he just shook his head.

  Jinan Meer, close behind Noor, caught the exchange. “Is that what you call her?” She sounded genuinely interested. “I was taught to name her Imanje.”

  Samuel turned gratefully to Jinan. “You know her too? My mother taught me of her.”

  They came to a stair that led up one wall of the concourse to a walkway several metres up. The prisoners climbed slowly, hampered by their bonds.

  Tunnels led from the walkway, through which could be glimpsed yet more offices, and between the tunnel doors, mounted on the walls, were rows of glass cases. Elke knew what to expect, but she still winced when she saw what they held.

  Severed heads, exactly like the ones on the Babylon Eye’s Zero level, except that these didn’t look dead so much as fast asleep, their eyes closed, lips gently parted.

  Further along the walkway they came to a halt as the guards argued with a uniformed official. After a protracted discussion, the prisoners were told to sit, spread out along the wall.

  “Some problem with the paperwork.” Kiran leaned back to keep an eye on the nearest guard. “Better get some sleep while you can.”

  Mell followed her example, leaning on Betina’s shoulder. Jinan settled down next to Samuel, who was telling her about the mythology of Niger.

  Kiran lay back with her eyes closed, but Elke felt far too unsettled to follow her example.

  The sounds of the Gremium hammered at her. Echoing voices, the rumble and bang of shunted cans, and the clattering of train wheels on metal tracks. As if in response, the interminable circuit of memory and regret crowded her thoughts again.

  If only she’d paid closer attention. If only she’d turned back sooner. If only

  She ground her teeth, forcing herself to focus on the present.

  All that mattered was now.

  All she could do, was be.

  A thin, fierce shriek drew Elke’s gaze up to the birds that flew high above, circling in the up-drafts. Full-grown trees grew out of the walls, a dripping, mist shrouded canopy thick enough to hide the vaulted ceiling.

  Bridges and walkways without railings, crossing and recrossing, strung with lanterns all along their length. Tracing each bridge to its end, Elke saw that they led to arched doorways set into the walls. Some of these doors cut right through the carved figures, severing a gigantic finger from its hand, or bisecting a throat. Balconies too, black-bronze metal, utilitarian, with no decoration beyond their own efficient curves. These must be decades, maybe centuries old, but they seemed modern in comparison to the ancient stonework to which they’d been bolted.

  Everywhere creepers grew, strung with a multitude of lanterns, or so Elke thought until she had a closer look at a branch of the creeper twining just above her head. The glowing things were not lanterns but the flowers and seed-pods of the vine itself.

  One of these flowers dipped within her reach, a thing like a spiked and softly glowing moon. She stroked it with a tentative finger and found, to her surprise, that it was as cool as milk. It responded to her touch, opening its petals wider and swivelling to cast its light into her eyes.

  “Amazing, isn’t it,” Kiran said softly. “I never thought I’d see this place.”

  Elke tried to speak and found her voice was missing. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Where are we?”

  “The Gremium.” Kiran looked up at the stone figure that towered above them, an armoured man obscured above its waist by creepers and climbing trees. “Its old name is Samad Uurka. It’s a sort of super-Eye. A gate between the gates.”

  “We’re not in a world, then?” Noor leaned forward to see Kiran’s face. “This place is out in the void, like the Babylon Eye?”

  “That’s right.” Kiran nodded towards the carved figure. “Each of those portals leads to a different Eye, or a different world.”

  “But—” Noor stared. “It’s so old. All this looks as if it’s been here for centuries. More, even.”

  “It has,” agreed Kiran. “This is one of the oldest of the Eyes. Might even be the oldest.”

  A sound from above drew Elke’s attention. She thought at first that it was the cry of a bird but it drew out too long and had a human rhythm to it that caught at the ear. After a moment she saw the singer, a drably clad figure dangling below a walkway, scrubbing at the stonework far above.

  His voice had the wailing quality of a seagull’s cry. He sang words, although in a language she didn’t understand. His song wove into the rumble and clatter that rose from the trains and can-workers below.

  Elke listened, half drowsing, allowing the sound to flow over her. Then she opened her eyes. Although the song had not changed, the singer had slipped into a language she understood.

  “…and in the storehouse fire at Maalta,” the man sang, “they died, slaves all, Mesman, Farkas and his brother Har, Haramaan and Maan, and their daughters, in the fire died.

  “Dhegheer, Bet and Nur, the dark girls, they starved, resisting punishment on Phalta farms.

  “Red-haired Tabetha, her master sent her to her death on the fighting sands. Tall Manfred and Bellie drowned, Wisdom, drowned, Mbali the beautiful, drowned, Mohandes from Angilo, drowned, small Angela, she drowned, all escaping from the slave ship off the coast of Xuto, overtaken by a storm.

  “We do not forget them. We do not forget.”

  The words changed and the song continued, again in some strangeside dialect unfamiliar to her.

  Noor looked at Elke wide-eyed. “What was that?”

  Elke could only shake her head.

  The guards were gesturing at them again. “Serva! Sursa, sursa.”

  The prisoners scrambled to their feet and were herded down to the main level again.

  Elke wondered what would happen if she made a break for it. Her ankle-bonds prevented anything faster than a shuffle, but there were crowds of workers about, and many hiding places among the trains and cans. The guards had iron batons stuck in their belts, but no other visible weapons. She glanced around, calculating the odds.

  “Don’t try it,” Jinan said from close behind her. “They’ll get you, and anyway, we need to stay together.”

  Elke gave a nod, glad that Jinan could not see her expression. The woman was right, but the passive obedience demanded of her was beginning to chafe worse than the bonds.

  “Serva notari!” said the guard. And when he saw that he had their attention, he pointed at a train that stood facing a nearby gate. “Vado.”

  As they made their way along the side of the train, Elke studied it with increasing puzzlement. She’d assumed the trains were just like the ones in the Babylon Eye and on the Isthar Gate, a series of metal carriages drawn by a steam-engine. But something was wrong, here.

  The carriages themselves were familiar enough, low-slung metal boxes on wheels that ran on rails, but they were connected to one another by thick, ridged growths like leathery vines.

  Another train was pulled up at a nearby track. Elke got a clear view of the locomotive, and there was no doubt about it. That was no steam engine. It was—she had no category for the creature bound by the metal armature of the locomotive. Its protruding, lipless jaws were lizard-like, but its skin looked soft and velvety, a deep, royal purple pearled with white fronds. Its narrow muzzle, bound about with metal bands, rested on its folded arms, muscular limbs that tapered into graceful, four-fingered hands. It was all head, neck, and bulky shoulders and instead of a torso, the first carriage was joined to the creature’s neck by that leathery spine.

  Somebody bellowed a command and the locomotive-beast opened its eyes, flexed its shoulders, wrapped its fingers around a hand-crank, and turned. This moved the entire length of its wheeled body back several metres, carriages rattling as they bumped each other along.

  That done, the beast snuffled, folded its elegant hands and nestled its chin on its arms again.

  A
man in a dark red uniform strode up with a shout and struck at the creature with something that looked very like a cattle prod. The creature reared up, eyes wide, shrieking like escaping steam. Clouds of vapour poured from its skin and the forest-like leaf-mould scent grew suddenly intense.

  The man brandished the prod, and the locomotive-beast, hissing, turned its crank again, moving its train-body back another few metres with a resentful eye on its tormentor.

  “Vado!” called the guard. The prisoners had reached a carriage with open doors. He gestured for them to climb inside.

  The carriage was filled with hard benches and its windows were barred. It stank, a sharp, soapish smell that couldn’t hide the reek of sweat and urine. Elke looked around doubtfully, thinking of the locomotive-beast, but all the surfaces were of metal or wood, with no sign that the carriage was part of a living creature.

  Each bench had a row of manacles on chains. The guards made peremptory gestures until first one, and then another of the prisoners fastened these around their own wrists.

  Elke fumbled for her manacle and locked it round her arm.

  One of the guards tossed a pair of ear-protectors at Javiero who, hampered by his chain, fumbled the catch and nearly dropped them. The guard grunted in disgust and went on handing out the bulky protective gear until each prisoner had a pair. When he was sure that everyone had donned their ear-protectors, the guard settled his own ear-protectors into place and slammed carriage door.

  The train jerked, paused, and jerked again. A claxon sounded, followed by the grating squeal of metal on metal.

  Elke saw Noor’s lips move but couldn’t hear her words through the muffling ear-protectors. The train gave another jerk, and then moved steadily forward.

  They’re taking us through a gate. Elke felt dizzy at the thought of the bewildering maze of worlds.

  How will we ever find our way home again? She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat, rocking with the motion of the train as it gathered speed.

  The Laundry

  “This really is the last piece.”