The Rays: Part 1

NaNoWriMo 2008! This year I have so much madness going on alongside nano that to do it...well, properly, I suppose...just wouldn't work. So this year it's not really going to make sense. I pretend this is postmodernism, but really it's just nonsense. I mean, if you're slightly patient with it, it ought to make slightly more sense after a while, but, uh, not MUCH more. I'm sorry. Anyway, enjoy...1

Chapter One: Living Daylight 2

To sleep perchance to dream – no chance. Not here. Not now. 3

- Is she -4

- Have they got her or have they got into her?5

- What are we going to do? 6

- It’s inadvisable to comment - 7

- What’s she quoting from?8

- Sorry?9

- I said what’s she quoting from?10

- Oh, Hamlet.11

- What are we going to do?12

- It’s inadvisable to comment on what goes on in this house.13

- Is that a quote from something?14

- Tender is the Night.15

- Well, stop it. It’s giving me shivers to hear it. I don’t want to think of them getting you. Or getting into you or whatever it is. 16

- It’s nothing. I really can’t say a word.17

- I said stop it! This isn’t like you – this is no time to be messing about!18

- It’s inadvisable - 19

- Have they got you?20

- - to comment -21

- To sleep - 22

- Sit down! Get back!23

- to comment -24

- Palatino- Nauporta -25

- Nauporta has murdered sleep.26

- If she can put her name in there – she must still be - 27

- to comment perchance to sleep to be inadvisably dreaming28

- - and scrambling it, is that good or bad? Listen – it’s me, can you hear me at all? 29

Can you hear me? Wake up – it’s me – it’s – I can’t add any more lies or stories to this; I can’t risk it – so it’s Glauca. I know you don’t know that name but you do know me. If you’re in there – behind all the words and ideas and stories – then please keep trying. I’m going to find the part of you that’s embedded in the dreamline, if I can. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m going to try. You have to keep trying too. I don’t know if you can hear me – but I am here. I know it’s not safe to make promises and that they’re more stories yet, so I won’t promise to get you out, and I’ll try not to promise even to try. Safest only to talk about things which are concrete, and nothing is, but the safest thing I can say is just that I am here. I am here. I AM HERE. 30

Chapter Two: Olive Green Hair31

Amanda met Chris at an office party when she was twenty one. When Amanda was twenty one, that is – she had no idea how old Chris was, and from that day she never seemed to age at all. At the same party, she met Sophia, who was nineteen at the time and had been working at the institute for only a month. 32

The party was for all those working at the Lowfire Institute, not just the lower levels. It was therefore held on one of the highest floors, where Amanda hadn’t been needed since she’d started work there a year ago. It was spacious here, and light and airy, and she let the cool wind from the open windows soften and sting her face in turn as it circulated. She knew that she was already turning pale, and that her eyes were tired from weeks of working by gas lamp and candlelight, but she was still elated. Despite living and working in darkness, and being isolated from her colleagues on the upper floors (who, despite the fact that there was no angle from which their studies could be considered normal, regarded the lower levels as just a bit too weird) the job was everything she could have hoped for. And who knew – if she worked hard – promotion wasn’t impossible – promotion to a job so important that no one would even tell her what it was. 33

In fact it mildly irritated her that she had to work in the darkness. They weren’t in the Shadow Halls, but on the level above them, and she was sure that it was actually unnecessary for them to be down here. For Death Scholars and scryers into other universes and Darkness Calibrators and whatever other strange people worked down there, the darkness, the moist ceilings, the caverns gaping wide below the clean institute halls, were all necessary for one reason or another for their work to function. But Amanda was assistant to – alright, so she didn’t know precisely what he did, but it was all about words and stories – which surely, surely, functioned and could be read, if anything, better in the light? 34

Still, she wasn’t complaining. A bit of darkness was worth the job, which paid well and never stopped twisting and surprising and being exciting. 35

Chapter Three: Ace of Gates36

The last thing to do, after they’d covered over and padded the skylight and blocked up all the windows, was the door. It was huge and glass and towered above all of them, even Ambience, who was the tallest, but he and Nauporta together heaved it shut and then all five of them set about insulating it with fur and polystyrene and sheets of mirrors. Darkness fell in the library. 37

“We should really have lit the lamps first, shouldn’t we?” Nauporta said. She smiled, and then wondered what for, given that no one could see it. Even she couldn’t see it, but she could feel it at the corners of her mouth. All it felt like was a strain on her muscles; she thought smiling ought to feel nicer, somehow – nicer than a pulling, a twist.38

“It’s alright, I can find them,” Ambience said, and Palatino offered to go with him. Nauporta heard their footsteps disappearing off, clicking against the smooth white surface. A moment later, there was a glow of light to their left, and Ambience and Palatino were illuminated against the nearest wall. The glow spread, following them as they walked around the library, till the whole place was quivering goldenly with flickering light. There were no gas lamps in the library; it was all candles. Which was prettier, and more, well, library-ish, but they didn’t last long before you had to relight them. And the library was never going to look that library-ish anyway, with it’s perfectly smooth white walls and floor and ceiling and bookshelves – not to mention the fact that all the ‘books’ were just sheets of translucent, iridescent dreamline, filed away in thousands upon thousands of boxes. Nauporta, personally, preferred real books, where you could feel the paper in your hands. So did most people, which was why the library had never bothered to stock contemporary novels or anything like that: only books that would otherwise be destroyed by time – or ones that already had been.39

When Ambience and Palatino came back, all five of them set off for the circle of space in the middle of the library where the fire was. Dreamline didn’t burn – one of the many reasons why it was used – and nor did the strange plasticky material that the library was made of. The fire still made Nauporta nervous though, not least because they were completely shut in. Yes, there was a tube which produced oxygen and took in the waste products from the burning, but since for the tube to go outside would let in cold air – and that couldn’t be had – it only sent the stuff circulating around inside the walls. It was designed to hold exactly as much as would be produced over the twelve weeks they were here, and it had always managed perfectly, but that didn’t stop Nauporta from imagining it seeping out and filling the library with poisonous gases. And she wondered precisely how the tube was producing oxygen from nothing. It had been invented by someone at the Lowfire Institute, which meant that this wasn’t a miracle of science and technology, but something else entirely. The people there were scientists only in the broadest sense of the word – well, she supposed that they were scientists, but what they did – it was all ideas and things which only worked when you didn’t think about them, or only worked when you did think about them with your whole head. It was the Lowfire Institute of Paralogy – it was studying what was beyond. Beyond what? That was the kind of question that one of them would give you a three hour long answer to if you asked it. So no one ever did. But among other things, it was the study of what was beyond the normal reaches of the human mind. It wasn’t logical, or otherwise it was so logical that most people couldn’t follow it. 40

“It’s going to be boiling in here by the time we get out,” Palatino said. Which was true. But right now they were still cold from the winter outside, and they huddled around the fire.41

Chapter Four: Prosperity for All42

My mother is in despair over the grocery, but still full of helpful suggestions. She says things like, “Winter’s coming – you could put candles inside all the tomatoes and they’d have this beautiful red glow and people would buy them as decorations?”43

And it seems like a good idea at the time, so I get up three hours early and carve out the insides of fifty tomatoes and put tiny little candlesticks in them, and naturally people don’t want tomatoes with candles in them – they want tomatoes and they want candles – they want decorations that won’t, you know, rot. Which I suppose is understandable.44

“It’s always slow-going in the winter,” I say, soothingly. “There’s less to sell and the things I have are the things people don’t want as much, not nice things like strawberries that everyone always wants. It’ll pick up again come spring. And anyway, Adam’s making plenty.”45

My mother sniffs. I used to think she disapproved of Adam – his silent air, and his strange job – but too late I realised that she doesn’t disapprove of him and she certainly doesn’t disapprove of his strange job; she just wishes I could find a job that would give me accommodation and a steady rate of pay. And I tell her again and again that I like this job – like the huge crates that come in from the countryside on massive trucks, like pulling out brightly-coloured fruit and vegetables from them and washing them and deciding which ones to put next to each other to make their colours blaze as vividly as possible. I wouldn’t want to work in a huge building with tongs and a passive expression, watching a hundred experiments fail before I find what I’m looking for. 46

“He’s doing really well,” I repeat. “He’ll support us both, and Nauporta.”47

My mother smiles for the first time at the child’s name. “How is she?”48

“She’s doing well.” Not much else to say, because my mother is always asking about her, and so knows every detail of her age and how she’s doing at school and what she wants for her next birthday. Anything else I say about her tends to turn into about me – how I’m relieved that, two years later, she doesn’t seem to remember Solom at all, and yet there is a part of me that finds the fact repulsive, that wishes the girl would still cry at night for the death of her father – would at least show some signs of remembering he existed at all. Of course I don’t want my child to be traumatised – and yet – and yet –49

Chapter Five: Eternal Witchery of the Scintillating Doors50

Elisum stares at the baby, thinking how the hell did that thing just come out of me? It is quite pudgy (it has been weighed, and is nine pounds heavy) and does nothing, just sits there. At least it has been washed now; she shivers at the memory of blood and stickiness on it and on her. She is still aching and wonders, fleetingly, whether it will ever stop.51

They are calling the baby Ambience after the project they are working on at the moment. It’s very unusual for them to work on a joint project, as normally their aims are diametrically opposed, but the baby’s birth coincided with one – so it seemed fitting. She will get help with it; people to help bring it up. Better, she is told, that he doesn’t live with you until he is five. Of course you will visit him all the time, as much as you like, but he probably at least shouldn’t sleep with – well, because you’re down there, in the dark, in the Shadow Halls. You have to live down there to immerse yourself, yes, of course, we understand that. But it’s a bad environment for a young child. Shadows will get into his head. Let the nurses bring him up – he’ll just be two floors above, and you’ll have a lift direct into his room. 52

And she doesn’t mind this, really; if anything it is rather a relief. Things will go on as they’ve always gone, after all. There’ll be no cataclysm, no abrupt change in her life. She’ll go back to the Shadow Halls, and to exchanging life for death. The baby will be happy. Musile won’t have to bother with it. She won’t have to bother with it either if she doesn’t want to. 53

Chapter Six: Vaguely Disturbed People54

Kismet lay by the fire, staring into it. “I see your souls in this,” she murmured.55

The others took little notice. They had been in the library for two weeks, and Kismet was like this – considered herself on a different plane, and liked murmuring better than speaking, generally.56

“No, see –“ she sat up and pulled Nauporta towards her. “That one’s you, that little twist of bright white near the edge. And the edge of the core, that’s Chrysalis. The coal is Palatino. Do you see it?”57

“No,” Nauporta said. “It’s a fire – look, never mind. I’ll see it if you want me to see it. Can I get back to reading now?”58

“Nauporta, you’ve been reading for an hour, I’ve been timing it, you’ve got to stop anyway.”59

“What?” She pulled her watch-chain out of her pocket and glanced at it. “Oh, perfect.” She threw the sheet of dreamline down, her face matted with scowls. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know it’s utterly inexcusable for a librarian to treat a book like that, but I’m annoyed and it’s dreamline - it’s not like it’s going to damage it. More likely the book’ll damage the floor.” She picked the book up and disappeared amongst the shelves to put it back where it belonged.60

“I don’t blame her,” Ambience said. “I’m bored to death. Do you really think we have to wait a whole hour between books?”61

Palatino said, “Ambience, we’ve been enforcing these rules for…well, I’ve been working here a year. You?”62

“Three years.”63

“Right. So you know…”64

“Yes, I know, I just…they could have given us something to do. Do they want us to go mad, in here for twelve weeks and nothing to be getting on with?”65

“Why didn’t you bring something?” Nauporta said, returning around the corner.66

“Did you?”67

“Crossword puzzles,” she said, ruefully. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve never enjoyed them in my life, so why I thought I’d want them now…”68

“I’ve got a notebook,” Kismet said. “For writing poetry and – you know –“ (her voice dropped to a whisper) “revelations, if they come to me.”69

“I’ve got nothing,” Ambience said. “See, I’m part-time at the library, but I’m apprentice to a para-engineer down by the waterways too, and there’s a whole section here on 21st century engineering – old books you can’t get anywhere else. So the guy said he doesn’t mind me taking three months out to spend the winter in the library, since my job there hangs on it, so long as I can read all of them while I’m here. ‘Cause techniques developed then do directly affect the stuff we do, although a lot of the technology they used was lost in the scourge. So I thought – better not to bring anything that might distract me, I’ve got one hell of a lot of reading to do. But I was stupid enough not to worry about those hour long gaps between reading sessions…”70

“We can’t break the rules,” Nauporta said. “I’m tempted too, but we really can’t. Dreamline isn’t safe…”71

“I know,” Ambience said. He lay back, his arms beneath his head. 72

“We’re not getting any exercise either,” Palatino said. “I’m going to put on so much weight.”73

“You’re such a girl,” Nauporta said. He grinned at her, and she smiled back. “Anyway, given we’re living off pills, I don’t think any of us are going to be putting on weight.”74

“Your soul, Nauporta!” Kismet wailed suddenly. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrows halfway to her hairline. “It’s blazing, it’s gone so red – oh, it’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful. But it can’t last. It’s too hot and bright. It’s going to burn out – but it’s beautiful, so maybe it’s worth it.” She got up, walked over, and laid an arm on Nauporta’s shoulder. “I wish I could save you,” she whispered.75

“Thanks, Kismet,” Nauporta said. “That’s nice of you. Er…I’m going to go for a walk around, I think. See you later!”76

Kismet turned back to the others. “I actually have written a couple of poems already,” she admitted, in a suddenly-shy voice. Do you want to hear them?”77

“Fine, one,” Ambience said, bluntly. 78

Kismet looked a touch hurt, but she opened her notebook and began to read: “It’s called Snow in October. 79

I was honestly amazed – struck80

into silence, marring the air81

with nothing but breath 82

and slow condensation.83

My hands on the window,84

not moving, my legs85

juddering against the radiator –86

held still – and my eyes still too,87

fixed, watching it falling, shaken88

from the sky.89

It makes you wonder90

how we’ll cope with winter.91

(The people in countries92

where it’s really cold93

are laughing at us, but we94

are afraid, and we light fires95

and draw back into our conditioned,96

painted caves.)97

I should have run outside98

and spun in it, or broken the window99

and sat on the roof in it, 100

and tilted my head upwards,101

at the risk of water-blindness,102

to feel like a dazzled plane 103

being come at through the failing light.104

What do you think?”105

Palatino said earnestly, “It’s good, Kismet!” Ambience declined to comment, but turned over onto his stomach. And Chrysalis, as usual, said nothing, but she smiled. She smiled and smiled, until Kismet became unnerved, and put the notebook away.106

Chapter Seven: Sunflower Seeds107

This isn’t like anything, this dancing – as if the sky and me are the same thing. As if everything is the same thing as me. Once years ago I reached out for the flowers by the roadside, the first time I did this, and they felt different – I felt them claw against my skin and I knew for the first time that they were alive and that they mattered. Now the air’s full of dandelion clocks and the two of us are the same person. We could never touch again and it wouldn’t matter. There is a speck in the sky, which must be a plane. I look up as it draws nearer and I can see it whir and click – a beautiful clockwork plane. There are no flowers on this part of the road, but they grow in my ears and coil around my head; besides, ever since that day the flowers and me are the same thing. Everything and me are the same thing, and me and him most of all, dancing up here, dancing for each other and ourselves and the passers-by and the road and the clockwork plane.108

Chapter Eight: she finds a sword with a jagged blade with a silver hue to it, with a rune engraved on it. The guard resembles a hand with pearl inlaid in the fingernails.109

She tells me that the best thing about the cartography is that she has to go all over the institute, and she finds amazing things there. Yesterday she found a sword, with a jagged blade – serrated in triangles like her perfect white teeth – not silver, exactly, but with a silver hue, as if there were something silver glowing inside, behind the dull worn-out flaking metal. The guard was creepy – a crawly hand, curled fingers, and pearled fingernails shining bright than anything else on the sword. There was a rune just visible on the blackened blade, but she couldn’t identify it, so she’s sent it to the relevant people in the History department to get it checked out. 110

Actually, she says, I don’t know if that’s the best thing. There are so many things…not least that I get to spend so much time with you. 111

She smiles at me. My veins squirm and thrust themselves against my skin, burning it with their sudden flaring. 112

Chapter Nine: Chants113

“Have you seen Solom?”114

“He’s heading a ceremony, I think.”115

“Again?”116

“It’s winter; it’s a busy time of year.”117

“So’s summer. So’s spring. He never has any time for us.”118

“It’s his job. I don’t have much time either.”119

“I’ve noticed.”120

“Oh, is it me that’s the problem now?”121

“I miss you. That’s all. I feel like I had two people I loved a year ago and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, and now it’s like I’ve got none.”122

“We’ve had this conversation too many times.”123

“And don’t you think that’s a problem?”124

“What do you want me to do about it?”125

“I don’t know. Where’s the ceremony?”126

“I don’t know.”127

“Which ceremony is it?”128

“I don’t know. I think it might be in the central cavern. I heard chanting there when I walked past earlier.”129

“Fine. Thanks.”130

“Don’t mention it.”131

“See you later.”132

“See you later.”133

“I won’t. I’ll be busy. I’m busy too. The shop –“134

“Then don’t have a go at me.”135

“I’m not.”136

“Just go and find Solom if you want to.”137

“I will. I am. Goodbye.”138

“Goodbye.”139

Chapter Ten: The Blasphemous Chalice140

I love him, or I like him very much as a person and I like kissing him and all that, which is what being in love with someone is, right? So I love him, but I really don’t know what to do about him and his views which are just plain wrong. And his stupid efficient wife, who just won’t leave us the fuck alone. I think I’m prettier than her. It’s hard to tell because we look so different. What if he’s just in it for the variety? Or it could be a stupid cunning way of getting me to agree with him one day. I wouldn’t put it past him. I love him but he’s sly. He’s seriously fucking sly. It’s not that I don’t trust him – I do believe he loves me. I think. Well, anyway, it’s fun – I’m enjoying it – so why not? And to get at her it’s worth it. Sometimes she says good morning to me when I pass her in the corridor in a certain tone of voice and I wonder if maybe she knows. But if she knew she’d do something about it, she’s not the type to stand on ceremony. She doesn’t go to the Subterranean ceremonies like most people. She thinks it’s superstition. I say it’s just about the community. She says that’s what she means, she means the idea that we’re a community is superstition. I don’t know what she means. Fuck her. She never fucking talks sense. Nor does he but I love him. I don’t like his work or his ideas but I like him, and I like coiling up with him in dark corners and knowing she doesn’t know. How much would it hurt her if she found out I wonder? I’m not doing this just to hurt her, I do like him very much. It would be interesting to see how she reacted, though. I wonder if she already knows. I hope not. I think I hope not anyway. Fuck her and her wily eyes. Fuck her. 141

Chapter Eleven: Pills and Tiaras142

I came here not knowing anything about any of them, and now they are – well, friends, I suppose – at least Ambience is, definitely, and so is Palatino, even if he is very quiet. Kismet – I’m not going to say she’s not irritating, but I suppose she’s getting more likeable. 143

But Chrysalis –144

I just don’t understand her. I thought she was shy at first because she never spoke, but I don’t think she is. I always think she’s watching me – and maybe she is – I honestly don’t know what she’s thinking at all at any given time. And she’s beautiful – so beautiful she’s almost not pretty at all, because she looks…frozen with it, there’s no movement – or, no, that’s not it. I don’t know what it is. 145

She eats almost nothing. She gives Ambience her share of pills half the time, or Kismet. She doesn’t act as though she thinks she’s superior to us and yet there is something regal, something set-apart – I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. But there is something about her that scares me, and after seven weeks in the library I still don’t know her at all.146

Chapter Twelve: Fifty Five Pairs147

I met her on a blue highway curving in from the sunset hills where the fire scratches low along the horizon, flaming in its pool of landscape. It rides, this highway, between those hills and the nearest cities on either side – Tholona and Tamara – and it’s the widest place I know for driving, all open and crystal clear in the blaze of sun and forest fires in the distance. 148

I was driving one way, her the other, and I slowed to take the curve, and so did she. And we looked at each other’s faces. Her hair was caught back in a forest green shawl patterned with fires, fires in the trees and the undergrowth and spreading out across the scrubland. Her eyes were brown. 149

Chapter Thirteen: Fifty Six Pairs150

The man she was working for told Amanda, “There’s a Paranormal Recruitment Fair on in the courtyard today.”151

The courtyard ran up to the black doors of the Lowfire Institute of Paralogy. Amanda hadn’t been out there – or outside at all – for two months. 152

“OK,” she said.153

“We get good people from there sometimes. I don’t have time to go myself, but I want you to go to every single tent and have a look round. See if you spot anyone.”154

Outside. She became conscious that she was thin – she’d been living off food pills for a week because she’d been busy and they were quicker – and that she looked tired. She couldn’t see herself, of course, but she could feel it.155

The courtyard, normally grey and imposing and quiet, had been transformed. The tents were purple and red and silver – or plum and russet rather, deep rumbling colours that nodded to the autumn-drenched trees standing beyond the gate. And they were strange shapes, and huge, no two quite the same. 156

She ducked into the nearest one, and found herself in a room containing nothing but a girl – couldn’t be older than fifteen – and a plastic crystal ball.157

“Do you want to see your future?” the girl asked. 158

No paying – these people were looking for employment today, not customers. Amanda sat down and waited patiently while the girl looked into the ball.159

“You’re going to hire someone new,” the girl said. “Um…a girl…about fourteen…”160

The tent flap dropped heavily down behind Amanda as she left, the girl looking torn and distraught. 161

This time, Amanda chose a crass-looking completely golden tent. It was taller than most, so that she barely had to lower her head to enter. 162

Inside sat a man in a smart suit. He had a small goatee and shiny black hair. He leered at her as she entered, and then as though he thought she hadn’t noticed, turned it into a polite smile. “I’m Violet,” he said, extending his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”163

“Amanda,” she said, shaking his hand quickly and then retracting it. She sat down.164

The room was full of cards – different packs of cards with different symbols on them. “I take it you’re another seer,” Amanda said, wearily.165

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’m not like the others.” This time the smile had been set to ‘charm’, and at about a hundred. She pushed her chair back slightly and looked with distaste at the slightly greasy hand she’d shaken a moment before.166

He looked at her for a long time, then said, “I think I know which deck to use.” He brushed past her – deliberately, she was sure – on his way to the other side of the tent, where he picked up a very small pack of cards and brought it over. There were only ten, and each one could fit inside his hand. He spread them out on the table, and she saw clearly now that each one had a picture of a different woman on it. They wore suits and were moderately pretty, with interested, challenging expressions on their faces.167

“I prefer these,” he said, smiling still, “to cards like those…” he waved distastefully at a pack of cards in the corner, on which Amanda could see a blonde girl in a red dress smiling vacuously into nothing. 168

She thought the man was an idiot, and couldn’t believe that he thought this would work on anyone with a gram of intelligence. “I’ve got a lot of people to get through,” she said.169

“Of course, of course, I’m sorry.” The smile still wasn’t going anywhere. She kept her face impassive.170

He motioned his hands over the cards, shuffled them around for a while, dealt them out again, made some more mystical passes, dropped them on the floor, and then picked one of them up. He turned it over, and she saw a wedding scene, with the girl from the back of the card looking adoringly at a man in a suit and glasses and wearing a white dress.171

“This means,” he announced. “that you’re going to get promoted. Congratulations!”172

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll let you know if we have work for you.”173

She got up, and walked out. Not just an idiot, but an utter fraud, she thought. Is this even worth my time?174

Chapter Fourteen: Demon’s Nothing Beam175

Glauca felt the hums from her parents feet clutter through the roof of the truck. It must be morning: it was always punctually at seven o’ clock that they climbed up there to start dancing. 176

She slept in the back seat of the truck, in the dark beneath the seat rather, because she preferred it down there, and because her parents often needed to put things on the seats. She had bobbed black hair and through the hours upon hours of driving she played with it, putting it into plaits and taking it out again, tying it into a beard and whatever else she could think of. Her mother cut it once a month with a big pair of scary scissors.177

Glauca was not allowed to dance on the roof. The universe could not accommodate any more wildness like that, her parents said. It could not cope. The whole thing would burn, like the sun burned each night when it fell and was trapped in the Lowfire Hills. 178

Chapter Fifteen: visit her face too roughly179

Musile and Limesu lie wrapped together in the darkest part of the central cavern. Solom, High Subterranean Priest of the Shadow Halls of the Lowfire Institute of Paralogy, is leading a ceremony. They let the words roll over them, heaving over their slow bodies like fattened caterpillars, and press their faces into each other. Neither of them cares much for the words of the ceremony, but they like being part of it, like having all these people around them, like Solom’s deep, comforting voice, alive and trembling with echoes, but held steady always.180

“There’s nothing else but this,” Musile whispers, kissing Limesu’s ear. 181

She whispers back, “Poison,” and kisses his. Before he can say anything, she goes on, “I love this. It’s nearly everything. But the afterlife –“182

“Oh, don’t start that again.”183

“Alright,” she says. “Just for today.” And she rests her head against his. They shut their eyes. Musile’s wife, Elisum, is not here: she never comes to the ceremonies. She thinks they’re superstition, in more ways than one. And these other people aren’t paying any attention to them, curled in a corner. Their eyes are shut, and they might as well be alone.184

Chapter Sixteen: Scissors185

She hadn’t wanted a baby. She killed things all the time for a living – nothing much, just baby birds and ants and trees and the occasional prisoner – and killing one more, a thing not even alive yet, shouldn’t have been hard. But she imagined her not-baby circulating in whatever place – well, she didn’t believe in a place, or she’d been convinced she didn’t until this irrational fear took hold of her. But she imagined it anyway, a place outside life, where all the things she’d killed twisted their broken necks to look at the not-baby, and opening their beaks and claws and eyes wide – and couldn’t do it. Musile had been furious – you’re as irrational as the rest of them – and she’d cried for nights and nights, hating herself for not being able to follow through on what she believed. 186

Chapter Seventeen: I Invoke the Hideous Hosts187

“I will now read out the names of the five librarians who have been chosen to stay in the library over the winter. As you know, they are selected only from those who have no spouses or children.”188

The group of librarians – there were about a hundred – shuffled, waiting. The staff coordinator put his hand into the bag and drew out a slip of paper.189

“Nauporta!”190

Nauporta sighed and came forward to the platform. She didn’t fancy spending the winter in the library at all, but she supposed it might be OK. And she could read all those things she’d always meant to read in her time working here but never gotten round to.191

“Ambience!”192

Ambience froze. This was bad – he had his job with the para-engineer to think of – he couldn’t just abandon it for three months. Perhaps he could talk to him – but if he did have to choose between jobs, which should he be fired from? 193

“Kismet!”194

Kismet strolled up to the platform and overtook Ambience, who was walking slowly, with hesitation in every step. She was strangely excited, and not sure why: perhaps it was a vision of some kind.195

“Chrysalis!”196

Chrysalis came delicately up, her white-blonde hair lifting up behind her, as though she walked in a breeze.197

“Palatino!”198

In a quiet, careful step much like Chrysalis’s, Palatino followed her. He thought it might be quite nice to get some reading done, and to meet some of the other librarians he didn’t know very well. 199

“Everyone else – you have three weeks holiday. We will want to see you again at the start of the third week in February. You five, come with me and I’ll explain your duties over the winter. You won’t actually have to do much; the books essentially look after themselves.”200

They nodded, and followed him up to his office at the back of the library. 201

Chapter Eighteen: she finds a poem (1)202

Today, Sophia found a poem in a corner she’s sure didn’t exist yesterday. She quite likes it; I don’t think much of it, personally. But she’s more generous than I am. She showed it to me. As far as I can remember it, it was something like this:203

Not for me, this one. Even though204

it’s all I want – to be so mixed up205

with you we can’t tell who’s who:206

to be just puzzle pieces lying207

spreadeagled on the floor, so tangled208

with dust and dander there’s no way209

of getting us apart again.210

I try but I can’t understand what it is211

you’re getting in to. For me212

it’s pain, and it’s losing something213

you can’t ever get back. That’s all.214

I can understand lying in blank fields,215

stripping under a still sun, and folding216

almost accidentally – turning to face217

one another, the sticky sides of the grass218

chafing our sun-stoked faces. 219

But my imagination fails then – in a way220

it never has before. There’s never been 221

anywhere I can’t go, any feeling222

I can’t synthesise. Till now.223

If I can’t even manage to want it224

I suppose it can’t be worth it –225

but I feel sorry for your lonely226

expectant face, and I know that you227

aren’t capable of understanding this. 228

And I’m afraid I might not be alive enough229

to die, that I have no currency to spend.230

The sun is skidding into the hills again.231

We could go to the fields now, in the dark,232

and though the light pollution 233

outshines all the stars, and though I 234

have still got nothing to offer you,235

we can lie so still in the grass that the owls236

think we’re dead, and forget about us,237

and come out to hunt across the sky.238

We can watch their wings scoop out 239

pieces of white light 240

from the city below the hills. Then241

you’ll see me crying, I promise –242

you’ll see me empty of everything – 243

and isn’t that what you want?244

If not, then I still don’t understand.245

The truth is, I could make the place the simplest place in the world to map if I wanted to. But that’s not what she wants. She wants that challenge of mapping tie as well as space, the shifting nature of the place. She doesn’t want me to make life easy for her. She’d be a different person if she did.246

Chapter Nineteen: Utterly247

“So what do you do?” 248

“I work at the Lowfire Institute of Paralogy,” Adam said.249

Figures, thought Dathe. The man he’d just met was not talkative, but when he did speak he was completely together, and you could tell he was clever. He wore a crisp suit, making Dathe feel slightly embarrassed in his more crumpled one. 250

“And you?”251

“I’m a grocer,” Dathe said, and felt more embarrassed than ever. “I own a shop…” He trailed off.252

But Adam was interested. He had been working at the institute for five years now, and he almost never met anyone not directly concerned with it. And the people at the institute – well, it was easy to forget over time that they weren’t like other people. Some were quieter and some were louder, some were colder and some more passionate – it was hard to pin down the common factor that kept them apart from others, but there was one. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t have that. 253

“What’s that like?” Adam said. “It’s so unlike what I do.” He had become deliberately almost childlike in his interest, hoping that this would win Dathe over, because he seemed awkward, and embarrassed by his job, and probably his suit too, Adam thought.254

It seemed to do the trick. Dathe smiled and began to talk about what the job entailed, livelier than before.255

He actually seems interested, Dathe thought. He looked at Adam’s perfectly symmetrical features and his perfectly black suit again. Dathe had at first dismissed him as good-looking only in the dullest way possible, but with this sudden almost childlike smile lighting up his face he looked animated, and completely different. 256

“Anyway,” Dathe said after a while. “What do you do? At the institute, I mean.”257

“I’m an Impulsesmith,” Adam said. “It’s…a bit complicated to explain at the moment.”258

Dathe felt rebuked. The smile had gone from Adam’s face, leaving it bland again. “I should probably go and –“259

“Wait!” Dathe looked down and saw to his amazement that Adam had gripped his arm. “Can I introduce you to someone first?”260

Chapter Twenty: Memento Mori261

“Chrysalis.”262

Ambience extended her hand. The girl took it. Her hand couldn’t be more than half the size of his. It was pale and slender, the fingers adorned with three silvery rings. She let him lift it up and down for barely a second before she pulled it back again.263

She was blonde: a blonde that was nearly white, and her hair streamed down her back and hung like sheet lightning around her face. Her eyes were a pearly non-colour, and remained completely still. She was beautiful, but she made Ambience shiver somehow: her skin looked so pale, so nearly translucent, that he could imagine it was only one layer thick and that he could scrape at it with his fingernail and reveal white glaring skull bone beneath. She looked like a person who was going to die one day. Ambience had never before met anyone who reminded you of that fact every time you glanced in their direction. 264

His father didn’t believe that everyone had to die. He had spent most of his life so far trying to find the secret to immortality. Ambience would like him to meet Chrysalis. He’d like his mother to see her too, because she thought immortality was not only impossible but also undesirable. He thought that seeing Chrysalis might change her mind about the latter: the dread that ran through you when you looked at her wasn’t easy to restrain.265

Chapter Twenty One: Project Ambience 266

“Essentially,” Elisum said, “it’s an investigation into the moment of dying itself – a study of what’s in people’s heads at that moment, and the atmosphere – the ambience around them, the feelings…we want to create a complete picture.”267

Timara frowned. “That’s not really your field, is it? Nadine tends to be occupied with the idea of dying…you two have expertise in death itself…the philosophical aspects – immortality, or the impossibility thereof.”268

“But we really want to do this,” Musile interrupted. “and personally, I think we can. I think our investigations are deeply bound up with this. I don’t see why we wouldn’t have the expertise. Please, Tim.”269

Timara folded her arms and looked thoughtful for a minute. Then she sighed. “Fine, fine. I trust you; you’ve done some very good work for the department in your time here. Just make sure it’s scholarly and scientific and that you know what you’re doing. And if in any doubt, talk to me – or to Nadine.”270

“Thanks, Tim,” Elisum said, warmly. “You won’t regret this!”271

She and her husband passed out of the room, leaving Timara looking worried. 272

Chapter Twenty Two: she finds a statuette carefully painted to depict a series of interlocked circles. It seems to absorb the light. 273

Sophia couldn’t believe that she was in love with this girl. This girl she knew nothing about, beyond her name, and even that wasn’t certain.274

She’d prided herself for years on not falling in love with Amanda, despite all Amanda’s tricks and coercions and narrative manipulation. And now this! Chris was maybe not as bad a person to fall in love with as Amanda would be – but then maybe she was; Sophia knew so little, really, that she had no way of telling. 275

They sat together in the courtyard outside the institute, and Sophia watched Chris, who sat saying nothing, staring into space. Her hand was pale and slender, the fingers adorned with three silvery rings. Her hair was olive green, although in some lights it was more of a churchyard green – the green of the stems of flowers left on grave stones – and it hung like vines around her face. Her eyes were a pearly non-colour, and remained completely still. She was beautiful, but she made Sophia shiver somehow: her skin looked so pale, so nearly translucent, that Sophia could imagine it was only one layer thick and that she could scrape at it with her fingernail and reveal white glaring skull bone beneath. Chris looked like a person who was going to die one day. Sophia had assumed, when she first met her, that she was a Death Scholar – but she wasn’t: Sophia didn’t know what she did.276

And even in the looking, she could feel it, those shudders in her spine which were quite separate from the shivers Chris gave anyone who looked at her. Sophia looked, and shivered because she was afraid, but also because she was in love with her: it was a physical, a biological, even a chemical response as much as anything. She wanted, in the moment of looking, nothing more than to sit there on the hard cobblestones with the setting sun on their backs forever and ever, and watch Chris and listen to the shudders pattering through her body. 277

They had known each other for years and years: Sophia had met her and Amanda at the same party, when she’d been working at the institute for only a month. Amanda had been there a year then. Chris had never told them quite what she did, or where she lived, or her parents names. Sophia wondered whether she had parents: to imagine Chris squalling, babyish and undignified, out of someone’s body was bizarre. And besides, in the years Sophia had known her, she didn’t seem to have aged at all. Perhaps she had sprung into being fully formed from nothing, and would stay like this for ever, as Sophia and Amanda and Amanda’s husband and everyone else in the institute and the world got older and died. Perhaps the way Chris looked as though she was permanently about to die was an illusion: a fabrication to make people feel sorry for her, because if they suspected her secret they’d tear her apart. But then it didn’t work, if that was the case – it didn’t make people feel sorry for her: it just made them terrified.278

Sophia had managed all these years without falling in love with Chris, without bothering too much about her at all, except as a nearby mystery to contemplate from time to time. She didn’t know what had changed, or why, or quite when, but there it was: it had happened. She was pretty sure there was nothing to be done about it. But it meant that the mystery mattered now. It was personal; it was necessary to try a lot harder to solve it. 279

Chapter Twenty Three: Nine of Grails280

Herm was hired by a delivery company to drive their truck. 281

It was dull work. He drove between Tholona and Tamara, two huge cities on either side of the Lowfire Hills, which took their name from the way they looked like burning when the sun set amongst them each night, on a huge curving highway with no junctions or exits. A simmering, blue-seethed highway, overshadowed with blood-orange trees which draped it in summer shadows when the heat fell in June. 282

He searched up and down that highway for anything or something, for the general and the specific, with no idea what he was after or what this driving up and down was for, beyond a pay check. He was almost miserable, but too tired to be miserable, and he drove and drove until he knew every detail of the scenery and had no need to look at it any more.