A Red Sun Also Rises

4. IMMERSION AND TRANSFORMATION

I lay still, with my eyes shut. The citrus air whispered past my ears. The yodel of an animal echoed from the far distance.

Kata’s voice: “Sometimes it is this way. The Valley of Reflections can be difficult.”

Clarissa: “You should have warned us. Had I known the meat would affect us in this manner, I would have refused it.”

“But it is tradition. The valley cannot be traversed without first tasting Yarkeen.”

My mouth felt dry and there was an unpleasant sensation in my stomach, as if I’d swallowed a ball of tobacco. I opened my eyes. “Clarissa.”

“Aiden! Are you all right?”

I sat up, blinked, and saw that the Ptall’kor was gliding through an area of rocks and bubbling springs and waterfalls. The air was filled with pollen and steam. My skin was wet with perspiration.

“No, I’m not. Do you remember Jekyll and Hyde?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“There is a darkness in me, Clarissa. I’m afraid it can rise to the surface and take over, just as Hyde did with Jekyll. I think it has a name.”

“A name? What are you talking about?”

“It is called Jack the Ripper.”

“Aiden, surely you don’t mean to suggest that you’re the Whitechapel killer?”

“A part of me is. I’m insane. I can’t control myself.” I indicated the landscape. “And I’ve been sent to Hell.”

“You’ve been hallucinating.”

“I gutted Tsillanda Ma’ara with a sword.”

“You did no such thing. Look around you. Are the Yatsill still with us?”

“Yes.”

“Is the one called Tsillanda Ma’ara among them?”

“Yes.”

“Then obviously you didn’t kill it.”

“The experience was real.”

Kata said, “Not was, but will be. The valley shows the future, not the past.”

“Then it is the same. I saw the dead creature. It had been slaughtered in the same fashion as the Ripper’s victims and I was standing over the corpse with a long blade in my hand. The meaning of the vision is obvious—I was responsible for the murders in London and I will be responsible for more.”

Clarissa reached out and gently touched me. “Do you actually remember killing any of the women in Whitechapel?”

“No. I black out when Jack possesses me.”

“You’re talking absolute rot. You’re leaping to conclusions with no proper evidence to support them. It’s a hysterical reaction. A hallucination is a hallucination and nothing more. The fact that you stumbled upon the corpse of Polly Nichols that night is explanation enough for your vision. Anyone who suffered such a shock would have difficulty in processing the experience. Their memory would return to it again and again.”

“Where was I when the other atrocities occurred?” I asked.

“Out performing your duties.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, but the fact that I can’t vouch for your whereabouts on those nights doesn’t make you a maniacal killer. I have absolute faith in your sanity and goodness.”

I sat silently digesting this, then asked, “And you? You ate the meat, too. Did you experience a vision?”

“I saw myself driving an autocarriage through a London street. My passenger was wearing a Viennese mask. That’s all I remember.”

I accepted a skin of water from Kata and slaked my thirst.

“We are close to the Cavern of Immersion,” the Koluwaian informed us.

Passing the skin back to her, I examined my hands, expecting to see blood on them. There was none.

Something occurred to me.

“Clarissa, if our visions were of the future, then we will be returning to our own world, for we both saw ourselves in London.”

My friend shrugged. “If that’s true, then Tsillanda Ma’ara will also be transported to Earth. Do you really believe a creature such as that would be left alone long enough for you to murder it? Of course not! As I said, just a hallucination.”

The sound of falling, dripping, and trickling water, which was all around us, took on a hollow quality and the mist suddenly darkened.

“We are entering the cavern,” Kata stated.

I peered through the vapour and gathering gloom and saw mighty stalagmites rising up to barely discernible points high overhead. Pools were dotted about. Some of them bubbled and steamed.

The Ptall’kor sank to the ground. Tsillanda Ma’ara crossed to us. “Please escort the children to the pool. We will protect you.”

The Wise Ones disembarked and stood with their spears poised. One of them had a long length of rope coiled around its left shoulder.

“Protect us?” I asked Kata. “From what?”

The islander and her fellows began to guide the children off the Ptall’kor.

“We are sheltered from the Eyes of the Saviour here,” she replied. “There are Amu’utu.”

“What are they?”

“Dangerous.”

I helped Clarissa down and we waited while the islanders pushed the children into a tight group then herded them forward along a trail of worn stone. I followed behind, with my companion holding on to my arm. The Wise Ones walked to either side of the path.

“Kata, you keep mentioning the Saviour,” I said. “Do you mean God?”

“A god, yes. The Saviour watches over the Yatsill and protects them. The Saviour is good.”

As we penetrated deeper into the cavern, the light slowly faded and hundreds of small, glowing indigo-coloured beetles swarmed around our feet, darting in and out, narrowly avoiding being trodden on, as if playing a game of “dare.” At first, I took each step awkwardly as I attempted to avoid them, but then I noticed that Clarissa—who, unable to see the insects, was moving more naturally—hadn’t crushed a single one, so I relaxed a little, allowed the insects to look after their own welfare, and turned my attention to our surroundings.

The walls and roof of the vault were closing in around us. The space was pierced through by a great many stalagmites and stalactites, and was increasingly illuminated by the little beetles, which streamed across the rock in incandescent rivulets, shining through the roiling mist, replacing the watery yellow light of the exterior landscape with an intensely shimmering blue.

“Might you risk removing your blindfold, Clarissa?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I sense enough through my eyelids to know we’re surrounded by a peculiar radiance, and a gentle one, but it remains too much for me.”

The path inclined downward.

We trekked along it for maybe half an hour before a gurgling moan echoed from somewhere ahead of us.

My hair stood on end.

“What was that?” Clarissa whispered.

“Amu’utu,” one of the Koluwaians answered.

I glanced at Yazziz Yozkulu. All the Wise Ones had crouched down and were now absolutely motionless, with their spears at the ready.

Kata and the other islanders held the children back. The Yatsill youngsters stood quietly. Even their fingers stopped wiggling.

A Koluwaian man hissed at me, “Don’t move!”

I felt Clarissa’s fingers tighten on my arm.

A few yards in front of us, the path curved out of sight, disappearing behind an outcropping of rock. From around that bend, another awful moan now sounded, along with a scraping and the rattle of falling stones. There was something dreadfully uncanny about the noises. I trembled uncontrollably and would have taken to my heels were it not for Clarissa’s firm grip.

A huger spidery leg came into view, but, bizarrely, it angled up to the cavern roof rather than down to the floor. It was a bluish-white, with long thorns projecting downward from its leading edge. I tried to back away but Kata whispered, “No! It will sense you!”

I froze—with terror, I admit—for the creature was coming into full view now.

The wormy blue-coloured body of the Amu’utu was around fifteen feet high and shaped somewhat like an upside-down cone. Three multi-jointed legs extended from the upper, thicker part of it and disappeared into the mist and shadows above us, where their ends clung to the ceiling by means that were hidden from view. As it moved, small fragments of rock dropped from above it. The thinner end of the creature, which hung six feet above the ground, flowered outward into a complex arrangement of snappers, teeth, jaws, and hook-like appendages. Its skin was semi-transparent and fluttering organs could be glimpsed pulsating within it, as could the blood, which radiated a milky blue as it throbbed through arteries and veins.

The monster swung slowly and deliberately toward our group then stopped. Pinkish light suddenly flowed in waves across its skin and I had the distinct impression that it was extending its senses into the cavern, groping around with them, seeking movement, seeking food—seeking us!

The Yatsill and Koluwaians remained motionless, as did my companion and I.

A tremendously long spiny tongue slid out of the Amu’utu’s twitching maw, its end slithering to the ground where it began to feel about, like a blind serpent.

All of a sudden, without any indication they were about to do so, the Wise Ones scattered, each of them scurrying in a different direction.

The Amu’utu let loose a tremendous whistle, sounding exactly like a locomotive venting steam. The tongue whipped up, shot out, coiled around one of the Yatsill, and started to drag it toward the flexing jaws. Its prey—it was the individual with the rope around its shoulder—kicked and struggled and cried out, “My name is Tokula Pathamay, and I die untaken!”

“Untaken!” Yazziz Yozkulu shouted. “The Saviour has favoured you! You will be delivered to Phenadoor!”

The Wise Ones rushed in, jabbing their spears into the giant beast, aiming for the visible organs. Blood spurted and the Amu’utu shook and shuddered. A second tongue flopped out of its maw and wrapped around Tokula Pathamay’s four legs, yanking the Yatsill up into the jaws, which, with a horrendous crunch, closed over the victim’s head. I choked back a cry of horror and was almost pulled off my feet by Clarissa, who hissed, “Tell me, Aiden! Tell me what’s happening!”

The Amu’utu’s colour darkened to a sickly green and its whistle changed into a weird clanging. It dropped the shattered remains of the Yatsill and slumped closer to the ground. One of its three legs lost its grip on the cavern roof and folded as it descended. Then the whole thing suddenly fell and hit the floor with a squishy impact. Yazziz Yozkulu led the Wise Ones as they charged at the stricken monster and plunged their weapons deep into its body.

“An animal attacked us,” I whispered. “A demonic thing. The Yatsill are killing it but they’ve lost one of their number.”

A final chime escaped the Amu’utu. It gave a twitch and died.

Lifting dripping spears above their heads, the Yatsill chorused: “Tokula Pathamay! Tokula Pathamay! Killed unseen but untaken! Untaken! Untaken! Tokula Pathamay shall be given unto Phenadoor!”

I turned to Kata. “What do they mean?”

“The Saviour did not witness Tokula Pathamay perish,” she answered. “Even so, it is better for a Wise One to die thus than the other way. The remains will be carried with us to Yatsillat and there deposited in Phenadoor. It is a rare honour for a Wise One.”

“Other way?” Clarissa asked.

“Yes. Tokula Pathamay will never be other than Tokula Pathamay.”

With that incomprehensible reply, Kata turned away, and she and her people repositioned themselves around the children.

The Wise Ones spread out, and after retrieving the rope from their fallen comrade, left the corpse behind and led us farther into the cave.

For what felt like hours, we descended along the path, our party illuminated from all directions by the millions upon millions of tiny beetles, so bright now that the mist itself glowed blue as it thickened around us. The sound of bubbling water increased, echoing from the walls and ceiling.

“I can’t keep this up for much longer,” my companion said quietly.

“Are your legs paining you, Clarissa?”

“Dreadfully.”

Kata, overhearing this, pointed ahead. “The place of Immersion.”

I guided Clarissa to a rock, and as she sat on it, told her, “The path has ended at the edge of a pool. Steam is rising from it and I cannot see the far bank.”

Tsillanda Ma’ara approached, the ends of its four legs click-clacking over the rock. “You are strange,” it said, “and this is a sensitive time, therefore I shall assign to you no duty other than to keep watch and alert us should another Amu’utu draw near.”

I nodded.

The Yatsill reached over its shoulder and pulled a spear from its harness. “Take this.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no experience with weapons.”

The creature’s black, expressionless eyes glittered. It pointed a finger. “This is the sharp end. Stick it into any Amu’utu that comes close enough.” And with that, Tsillanda Ma’ara pushed the spear into my hands, snapped its fingers together in what I took to be a sign of dismissal, turned its back, and stalked away.

“Was that humour?” Clarissa asked.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion.”

I watched and kept up a running commentary as Kata and the other islanders shepherded the children to the edge of the pool. Yazziz Yozkulu stepped forward with the long rope in its hand, tied the end around one of the juveniles, and said, “It is your time of Immersion. You will emerge from the waters Wise or Shunned.”

The child turned its head and looked at the Yazziz, and though in size and form they were a match, with nothing but minor details to distinguish them from one another, there was something in the youngster’s countenance that I was surprised to find myself interpreting as a sort of bemused innocence.

Could it be that I was starting to recognise expression in the ghastly features of the Yatsill? It seemed impossible, for they were entirely inhuman, yet, indisputably, something about the child struck me as immature and ingenuous.

Yazziz Yozkulu pushed it into the steaming water and it sank like a stone.

Perhaps two minutes passed, then the Yatsill hauled on the rope and pulled the youngster out of the pool. It stood meekly while he announced, “You are Shunned. Do not feel sad. You are favoured with a place in Phenadoor.”

The process was repeated with a second child, then a third. They both joined the Shunned, though why Yazziz Yozkulu made this decision eluded me, for they both left the water exactly as they’d been upon entering it.

However, when the fourth child was dragged from the pool, it emerged limp and unconscious.

“Tsillanda Ma’ara, this one has been made Wise.”

Tsillanda Ma’ara answered, “Denied a place in Phenadoor. Now a vehicle for the Saviour. Responsible for the protection of all. It is a sacrifice. It is an honour.” The Yatsill signalled to Kata. The Koluwaian and three of her fellows stepped over to the stricken child, gently lifted it, and carried it away.

The ritual continued until every child had been in the water. Of the nine, six were declared Shunned. Three were pulled out unconscious and Wise.

“As ever, fewer and fewer each cycle,” Yazziz Yozkulu muttered. “I pray those who travelled ahead of us have met with greater success.”

“I feel it is unlikely,” Tsillanda Ma’ara responded. “However, we cannot know what the Saviour intends, and can but trust that there is purpose behind our dwindling numbers.”

A stone rattled behind me. I turned. The fat body of an Amu’utu descended out of the mist, its intricate jaws flexing and quivering. I gave a shout of fright, stepped backwards, tripped over the end of my spear, and went sprawling onto my back.

Before I even realised what was happening, my right ankle was clamped tightly in a coiled tongue and I was being dragged yelling and screaming across the ground.

The Yatsill came racing over and Tsillanda Ma’ara shouted, “Declare yourself! Do not die with your name unspoken!”

“I don’t want to die at all!” I screeched. “Help me! Help me!”

The Amu’utu emitted a high-pitched whistle as thrown spears pierced its flesh. I felt stones grinding against my back, spines digging into my ankle, a wooden shaft in my hand. The spear! I was still holding it!

With sheer terror powering my inadequate muscles, I forced myself into a sitting position and jabbed the spear into the horrible appendage that gripped my leg. The cavern suddenly whirled around me as I was flung into the air. My back impacted against something soft, my head against something hard, and I blacked out.

I think I was oblivious for mere moments. When my senses came fluttering back, I sat up and saw the Amu’utu on the ground with the Yatsill gathered around it, stabbing it over and over.

The islanders were guarding the children, with the exception of Kata, who was standing at the edge of the pool, gazing into it.

I looked around.

“Kata! Kata! Where is Clarissa?”

The Koluwaian pointed down.

“You knocked her in.”

I leaped to my feet. “What? She’s in the water? Get her out!”

“It is forbidden to all but Yatsill.”

Without thinking, I took three steps and dove into the pool. In the split second before I hit the water, it occurred to me that I would boil to death, for it was bubbling and producing thick clouds of steam. However, it was not heat that assaulted me but freezing cold, though in the first instant it was impossible to distinguish between either extreme.

I didn’t stop to wonder why hot clouds were billowing up from icy water, but, fighting to overcome the shock to my system, I rose to the surface, sucked in a deep breath, then forced myself under, kicked hard, and peered around through slitted eyes. Blue light glimmered faintly in the upper reaches of the pool but it quickly became dark as I pushed downward. Tiny creatures wriggled against my skin. I groped around until my lungs were close to bursting, then propelled myself up, took another breath, and dived again.

Three times I went down and failed to locate my friend. On the fourth, I was so filled with despair, so afraid of being left alone in this world of grotesqueries and primitives, that I half-decided to stay under and let myself drown.

The fingers of my right hand encountered flesh, slid across an elbow, and closed tightly over a forearm. Mentally, I praised the God I no longer believed in and dragged Clarissa Stark to the surface, hauled her out of the pool, and collapsed beside her.

Kata leaned over me. As if from a great distance, she said, “She is alive, but you have committed a sacrilegious act. Perhaps the Yatsill will banish you to the Shelf Lands.”

I didn’t respond, but lay gasping, clinging on to consciousness. I’d passed out too many times since my arrival on Ptallaya. It had been a welcome release, but not one I’d allow myself while my friend was in danger.

I got to my knees and bent over her prone form. I called her name and shook her gently but she didn’t stir. Closer examination revealed a long swelling above her eyebrows. Perhaps she’d knocked her head while falling. She was breathing steadily, though, so the injury probably wasn’t serious.

Kata touched my shoulder. “We must leave the cavern now. I will help you with her.”

I nodded miserably. We lifted Clarissa between us and bore her rather awkwardly along the path. The Yatsill trekked ahead, with the Koluwaians following behind, bearing the three senseless youngsters.

The party retraced its steps without incident, stopping only to pick up the body of Tokula Pathamay. The return journey felt interminable, and I could have wept with relief when I finally saw the Ptall’kor and, moments later, we climbed aboard it.

Yazziz Yozkulu approached and said, “Lay your friend beside the newly Wise. We will look after her. Do not be concerned. They will all recover.”

“I’ll stay with her.”

“It is not necessary.”

“I insist.”

“As you wish.”

The Ptall’kor moved out of the mouth of the cavern and back along the Valley of Reflections. This time there were no hallucinations during our passage through it, and the only vision of the future I saw was the dreadful possibility that I might find myself on this strange world without Clarissa.

I placed a hand on her arm, gazed down at her blindfold, and whispered, “Please, wake up. Please! I cannot stand to be alone.”



° °



We were crossing a landscape of flowery hills and fat, sparsely distributed trees. The suns were behind us, still low. Overhead, long ribbony things were corkscrewing through the air, flying northward.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. I’d been in a virtual stupor since Clarissa’s accident—overcome by exhaustion but too concerned to sleep.

She was still unconscious.

The Wise Ones—Yazziz Yozkulu, Tsillanda Ma’ara, and the others—had been oddly quiet since we’d emerged from the valley. They appeared to be in some sort of deep contemplation—or, like me, in a trance—and were squatting motionlessly with their heads cocked at a curious angle, as if listening to something.

Fatigue finally won out. I flopped down, closed my eyes, and dropped into a dreamless void.

When I awoke, it was to find Yazziz Yozkulu squatting over me.

“How are you feeling, old thing? Sound as a bell, I hope! I say! What is a bell, anyway?”

He asked the question in clear, well-enunciated English.

“Par—pardon?”

“Ah! Somewhat befuddled, hey? Not surprising! You’ve been snoring away for an eternity. An eternity, I say! What! What!”

“I—how—um—you’re speaking English!”

“Quite so! Quite so! And what a versatile lingo it is, too! Bally marvellous! Harrumph!”

I sat up, gaping at him.

The Yatsill waggled its long fingers. “Humph! Humph! Having adopted it, I feel it only right and proper that I should also assume a suitable moniker. Yazziz somewhat equates to chief, though I think I prefer colonel, but Yozkulu has no equivalent. Humph! What’s your opinion of Momentous Spearjab?”

“Mom—Mom—what?”

“As a name, old boy. As a name.”

“It’s—it’s—unusual.”

“Ah! Splendid! Ha ha! Then it’s settled! How do you jolly well do? I’m Colonel Momentous Spearjab.”

The creature extended its hand. Hesitatingly, I took it and shook it, conscious of the sharp-edged digits pressing against my palm.

“I’m—I’m Aiden Fleischer.” I looked down at Clarissa. “She hasn’t awoken?”

“Ah, the redoubtable Miss Stark! Let us summon Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash. She’s rather a medical expert, don’t you know!”

The colonel waved at the Yatsill I’d known as Tsillanda Ma’ara, who was standing at the stern of the vessel. “Yoo-hoo! Mademoiselle! Would you join us, please?”

Colonel, mademoiselle—the titles suggested genders, though I had made the assumption, perhaps unduly, that the Yatsill were hermaphroditic.

Tsillanda Ma’ara—now Crockery Clattersmash—scuttled over and greeted me in English. “Hello, Mr. Fleischer. Your friend is comatose but no need to fret—it’s a normal reaction. She’ll awaken before we reach Yatsillat.”

“A normal reaction to what?”

“Why, to being made an Aristocrat—what we used to call a Wise One. You’re very lucky she was or we’d have to banish you for your transgression. As it is, we suspect you were following the will of the Saviour when you entered the pool.”

Clarissa muttered something unintelligible, shifted slightly, and groaned. I clearly heard the bones of her legs creak.

“I don’t understand. Made an Aristocrat?”

Colonel Spearjab gave my back a rather too hearty slap. “Ha ha!” he exclaimed. “My good man, you’ll be waiting on her hand and foot from now on! Hand and bally foot, I say!”

“But what has happened to her? For that matter, what’s happened to you? You sound like an entirely different—er—person.”

“Growth! Betterment! It comes to those the Saviour looks kindly upon! Indeed it does!” He threw his head back and took a deep breath. “Smell that fresh air! Sublime! Simply sublime! Harrumph! What!”

Mademoiselle Clattersmash wriggled her fingers. “Miss Stark will recover in due course. Don’t worry yourself. Look.” She reached down and pulled at the top of Clarissa’s blindfold, gently yanking it until the eyebrows were exposed. The wide bump that had marked my friend’s forehead before was gone, replaced by two small lumps, one above each brow, exactly like the nascent horns displayed by the Wise Ones, or “Aristocrats” as they now called themselves. I glanced at the three inert children and saw that they, too, had somehow acquired the protrusions.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I’m still at a complete loss.”

“Of course you are,” Mademoiselle Clattersmash responded. “How could you not be? You haven’t the wherewithal, I’m afraid. But there’s no shame in being a Servant, Mr. Fleischer.”

“A servant? What makes you think I’m a servant? I’m a priest! My title is Reverend, not Mr.!”

The Yatsill made a rapid clacking noise that sounded like a close approximation of laughter.

“Really! My dear sir! I’m the priest! Now don’t you go getting ideas above your station! It’s unseemly! Very bad form! Oh, dear me, yes!”

“If you would simply explain—”

Colonel Spearjab interrupted. “Humph! Mademoiselle, you were obviously quite right in your assertion that these two are a dissonance. Perhaps, then, we should postpone any conversation about the roles they will play in our society until we have arrived at Yatsillat. What! What! I’m certain the Circle of Elders—”

“The House of Lords,” Mademoiselle Clattersmash corrected.

“Ah, yes. I do beg your pardon, the House of Lords—”

“And the Council of Magicians.”

“Absolutely! Indubitably! Most certainly! Ha ha! I am certain that both august bodies will be eager to interview our new friends, so let us leave the questions and decisions until then, hey, what? Our responsibility, for now, should be nothing more than to get back home as rapidly as possible.”

Mademoiselle Clattersmash nodded. “Very well. I acquiesce.” She turned to me. “You’ll not object to nursing Miss Stark, Mr. Fleischer?”

“Of course not!”

“Marvellous!” Colonel Spearjab enthused. He clapped his hands together. “Let us enjoy the journey, then! Smell that air! As fresh as a daisy! As a daisy, I say!” He looked down at me. “Incidentally, what in blue blazes is a daisy?”



° °



I was confused. The Yatsill were speaking English and I had no idea how or why.

The Aristocrats had taken on outlandish names: Colonel Momentous Spearjab; Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash; Sir Gracious Whipstripes; The Right Honourable Stirpot Quickly; and Lady Falldown Bruisebad. The Shunned—who were now, extraordinarily, referred to as “the Working Class”—went by the less extravagant appellations of Timothy Almost, Nicely Lookout, Sally Furniture, Dentworth Frosty, Jane Cough-Cough, and Harry Flopsoon.

It was madness. Total madness.

And the journey went on and on. The Ptall’kor clutched at grass and pulled itself over savannah, clutched at reeds and pulled itself along river courses, clutched at rocks and pulled itself across hillsides, clutched at trees and pulled itself over forests.

Mile after mile.

The three unconscious children regained their senses and I immediately realised they’d been transformed. Now, rather than sitting quietly like their “Working Class” fellows, they conversed in English with the other Aristocrats.

The Koluwaians retained the names they’d had before and still spoke their own language, to which the Yatsill switched when addressing them. The islanders were repeatedly referred to as “Servants,” and I was counted among their number.

I was not inclined to ponder over these mysteries. I was too concerned for Clarissa, who remained unconscious and appeared to be in extreme pain. She writhed and jerked and moaned and whimpered constantly, and all the while her bones produced sickening creaks and crunches and crackles. Something was happening to her, that much was certain, but it took me a long time to recognise what.

Realisation, when it came, was akin to a revelation. I was witnessing a miracle. My friend was being corrected.

Her bones were straightening. Her surgical scars were fading. The white streaks in her hair were darkening. And it finally became apparent that she was growing taller.

I must have slept at least fifteen times, and if the period between each sleep was the length of an Earth day, then it took more than a fortnight to travel from the Shrouded Mountains to Yatsillat.

Clarissa Stark awoke on the equivalent, I estimated, of the twelfth day.

She sat up and stretched. Her limbs were long and, dare I say it, magnificent. Her shape had altered so much that her trousers now only reached her calves and her shirt had ripped. Her black hair cascaded down to the middle of her straight back. Her skin was deeply tanned but smooth and unmarked.

“I feel funny,” she said.

I tried to speak but could only emit a croak.

“Good gracious, Aiden! Whatever is the matter with you? Have you caught a cold?”

“You—you—you look t-tremendous!” I stammered. “I mean—it’s unbelievable!”

She frowned, then uttered a small cry and put a hand to her blindfold. “What are these things on my forehead?”

“You were knocked into the pool. I dragged you out. When you emerged, there were little bumps over your eyes, like the Aristocrats possess.”

“Aristocrats?”

“The Wise Ones.”

“But why do you call them aristocrats?”

Ignoring the question, I blurted, “Clarissa! You’ve been mended! Your legs and back are straight! You are beautiful! Utterly beautiful!”

She made a noise, almost a bleat, ran her hands over her legs, then reached over her shoulder and tried to touch her spine.

“Put your hand on my back!” she cried out. “Please! Do it! Do it!”

I placed my palm against the small of her back and slid it slowly up over her shirt, following her spine to the nape of her neck.

She collapsed forward, until her head was resting on her knees, and began to sob. I put my arms around her.

“How? How? How?” she whimpered.

“I can’t explain it,” I said. “Your eyes—are they repaired, too?”

“No—even the small amount of light that penetrates the blindfold and my eyelids is uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry about that, dear thing,” came a voice. “We’ll have you sorted out with a new pair of goggles in no time at all. Humph! What!”

I looked up and saw Colonel Spearjab standing over us.

“It’s all change at Yatsillat!” he declared. “Look at that!” He pointed ahead, in the direction the Ptall’kor was travelling.

“Who is speaking, Aiden?” Clarissa asked.

“I say! Forgive me, Miss Stark!” Spearjab said. “Most rude! Most rude! I am Colonel Momentous Spearjab, formerly known as Yazziz Yozkulu. What! I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance!”

“Yazziz? That’s you? Speaking English?”

“Colonel, my dear. Colonel. But yes, absolutely it’s me, and I’m perfectly thrilled to see that you’ve made a full recovery. You appear to be as fit as the proverbial fiddle, whatever that may be. Ha ha! Harrumph!”

I tore my eyes away from the scene ahead of us and said, “Clarissa, there’s a low mountain range on the horizon. I see excavations of some sort. What is it, Colonel?”

“We are once again approaching the jolly old Mountains That Gaze Upon Phenadoor, Mr. Fleischer,” Spearjab answered enthusiastically, “but the other end of the range, what! And those excavations are quarries. Quarries, I say! We’re mining rocks and minerals, you see, to make bricks and iron and glass and whatnot. By the time we reach our destination, our artisans will have manufactured a pair of dark lenses for Miss Stark. Humph! Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I must rally the troops, so to speak. I smell Quee-tan! Ah, yes! What! Ha ha! So we’ll stop for a hunt soon. Have you ever tasted Quee-tan meat, Mr. Fleischer? Ah, no, probably not! The confounded beasts once infested all the trees in this region but have become extremely rare. Almost extinct. It’s a crying shame, for they taste absolutely delicious! Delicious, I say! Oh well. What! What! Tally-ho!”

He scuttled away.

“You taught them our language?” Clarissa asked.

“No. I have no idea how they learned it. One minute they were all speaking Koluwaian; the next, English!”

“Puzzle after puzzle!” my friend exclaimed. “Help me up, would you?”

I stood, reached down, gripped her hands, and assisted her to her feet.

She cried out, “There’s no pain! No pain at all! I feel—I feel wonderful!”

“And you look it. You’re nearly as tall as I am!”

Her fingers clenched around mine, and in that pressure there was a wealth of inexpressible emotion.

We stood together and I resumed my descriptions of the passing landscape. The Ptall’kor was now sliding across fields of lilac-coloured heather toward a broad band of tangled jungle, beyond which I could see cultivated pastures laid out like a patchwork quilt, stretching all the way to the distant horizon.

Eventually, our conveyance came to rest at the edge of the trees. Colonel Spearjab disembarked with his fellows—including the three newly made Aristocrats, but excluding Clarissa, despite that she’d apparently joined their ranks—and they plunged into the undergrowth with spears poised.

While we awaited their return, I continued to examine the terrain, telling my companion about everything I saw. “There’s something strange about the sky to the left of the mountain range,” I noted. “It’s darker. There’s a sort of dirty smudge in the air.”

“Perhaps it marks the position of Yatsillat,” Clarissa responded. “If they’re manufacturing glass and iron and so forth, they must have foundries and factories.”

“I don’t know whether I fear our destination or look forward to it,” I replied. “This journey has been interminable but at least I’ve become somewhat accustomed to it. With travelling everything is transitory—whatever you can’t accept is soon left behind. When we reach the city or town or whatever it is, then we have to face up to the challenge of living there, perhaps for a long time.”

“Or permanently.”

I didn’t answer, not wanting to contemplate such a circumstance, though it also occurred to me that, in fact, I had nothing on Earth to go back to.

For some considerable time, Clarissa continued to ask questions about our environment, which I answered as best I could. Then she suddenly interrupted me with the exclamation, “Ah! They’re returning already! The hunt was successful!”

I could see no sign of the warriors. “You can hear them?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

Clarissa furrowed her brow. “It’s—I just—I feel them, Aiden.”

Before I could probe this statement further, Spearjab’s party reappeared, carrying between them an ovoid-shaped creature from which multiple flexible appendages extended. When they reached the side of the Ptall’kor, they squatted down and set to work ripping the thing’s skin away from the white flesh beneath. They then slit it open and scooped out the guts. As I watched this, I felt cold fingers gripping my spine, for it was impossible not to think of the corpse of Polly Nichols with intestines exposed, which, of course, led me again to a contemplation of my hallucination and the monstrousness I suspected was lurking in the shadowy regions of my soul.

The Quee-tan was sliced up, and steaks, like dense crabmeat, were distributed.

With the exception of our meal in the Valley of Reflections, we had thus far subsisted only on berries, nuts, and fruits. The prospect of flesh, in light of my previous experience, was not one I welcomed. I turned to Kata and said, “I’m hungry but I cannot eat this if it will affect me like the Yarkeen.”

“It won’t,” she answered. “This is not sacred. It will fill your belly but nothing more. Enjoy it—Quee’tan meat has become a very rare treat.”

So, cautiously, I tucked into the raw flesh. It was delicious.

After we ate, the entire party slept, and it must have been for a considerable time, for when we were awoken, the slow-moving suns were noticeably higher in the sky.

It was the yodelling of animals that brought us to consciousness. A pack of around twenty glossy green creatures with ribbed exoskeletons, bulbous heads, and eight spidery limbs apiece were passing close by. They were leaping like gazelles, clicking the mandibles that extended from their pointed faces, and emitting wolfish yips, yaps, and yowls.

“They are Tiskeen,” Mademoiselle Clattersmash told us. “They are harmless at the moment.”

We embarked upon what proved to be the final leg of our long voyage.

As the Ptall’kor hauled itself over the jungle and across the cultivated fields, the uncertainty and fear I felt concerning our destination and eventual fate were kept at bay by my delight at witnessing Clarissa’s transformation. Again and again, she stretched and danced and cavorted, sometimes coming perilously close to the edge of the living platform, and evidently causing much bemusement among the Aristocrats.

“I say! What in the name of the Saviour is she up to?” Colonel Spearjab asked me.

I regarded him, still astounded to hear the English language coming from his repulsive vertical mouth. “She’s simply enjoying the sensation of healthy limbs,” I said. “For most of her life she has been malformed and suffering pain.”

“The sensation of healthy limbs,” Spearjab echoed. He suddenly straightened his four legs, which caused him to almost double in height, and threw out his long arms, waggling his fingers. The outer lips of his mouth peeled open and the inner beak pushed outward.

“Gaaaah!” he cried out, then sank back down and said, “My goodness, that’s very nice indeed! I shall recommend it to my colleagues. Hey? What? Harrumph!”

He scuttled away, leaving me to ponder the fact that I comprehended nothing—nothing!—of this world called Ptallaya and its demented inhabitants.

Throughout the remainder of the journey, Spearjab and the Aristocrats occasionally burst into spontaneous bouts of stretching and dancing, looking so utterly ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh. Between that and Clarissa’s obvious happiness, I might almost say that it was an enjoyable period, though whatever pleasure I felt most definitely was not shared by the Koluwaians. For some unaccountable reason, Kata and her group had become rather morose and silent, and, if anything, their mood blackened the nearer we got to Yatsillat.

I asked her what was wrong.

“It is all changing,” she said. “The new ways are not our ways. The new language is not our language. We are afraid these things will be difficult to learn before we are released. How can we serve efficiently when we don’t understand anything?”

“I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Why are things changing, Kata?”

Her deep brown eyes slid away from me. I followed her gaze and saw she was looking at Clarissa.

“Because of her.”

“Clarissa? What has Clarissa got to do with it? She knows no more of this world than I.”

“It is not what she knows of this world. It is what this world knows of her.”

I pressed her to explain this but she would say no more, lapsing into a sullen silence.

The countryside slipped past, field after field of grains and sweet-smelling herbs, and as we progressed, strange dwellings came into sight, clustered together and reminiscent of papery wasp nests but big enough to house many Yatsill. Kata explained that these were nurseries filled with the young, who grew to maturity with astonishing rapidity.

Yatsill farmers—dressed in frocks of coarse unpatterned linen—were busy tending to the crops. They paid us no attention as we glided past.

We made three short stops, during which Mademoiselle Clattersmash disembarked to collect herbs. Spearjab informed us that she used them to manufacture poultices for the treatment of wounds, and also to brew various concoctions that, when mixed with the Dar’sayn liquid we’d seen collected from the fruits in the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings, produced specific effects during meditations.

The farms were on a slight gradient, the land rising smoothly ahead of us, so the horizon appeared to be getting closer and closer as we drew nearer to the crest of the ridge lying across our path. We could now clearly see, on the other side of it, the tops of towers and chimneys, the latter sending plumes of smoke and steam into the air.

To our right, the slope steepened into much rougher terrain, which wrinkled upward in increasingly jagged waves until it became the range of quarry-scarred mountains. Three of the four moons dotted the heavens above the peaks, faint circles in the yellow sky.

“What! What!” Colonel Spearjab declared loudly. “Home sweet home! Hurrah!”

As he made this pronouncement, a breathtaking vista opened up before us, for the slope led not to the brow of a ridge but to the edge of the continent, and to the right and left the ground dropped away, a sheer cliff at least a mile high, with a sparkling emerald sea lapping at its distant base. Into this precipice a vast semicircular bay intruded, the land inside it descending to the sea in a series of nine colossal steps, and as I looked down upon them, I saw they were swarming with Yatsill. About a third of the terraces were heavily forested and the trees were filled with houses in the Koluwaian style, but it appeared that the forest was in the process of being cleared and a city the size of London built in its place. The size of London! It was simply staggering! The creatures, with the same wondrous efficiency of termites and ants, were constructing, at an apparently preternatural pace, what had taken centuries for my species to achieve—a vast, sophisticated city. And it was expanding before my eyes!

The topmost terrace was already entirely stripped of trees and looked to be a manufacturing district, for there were many large brick buildings and foundries with tall chimneystacks belching out the sooty clouds so symptomatic of industry.

The next level, which was half-complete, contained row after row of humble abodes, similar in size and arrangement—or so I later learned from Clarissa—to the “two-ups, two-downs” seen in England’s northern cities, such as Manchester and Leeds.

Next came a terrace of spires and minarets, rising from what I took to be temples and administrative establishments, all constructed—or being constructed—from a white variety of stone much like marble.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth steps were being made into attractive residential districts, with many a square patch of greenery and long roads lined with shops.

The seventh level was partially landscaped and already resembled a dreamlike version of Regent’s Park.

The eighth terrace, Colonel Spearjab revealed, was given over to barracks for the City Guard and workshops for artisans, while the ninth, and smallest, was an almost self-contained fishing village.

The most incredible aspect of the whole city, though, was the speed at which it was supplanting the forest. Every single part of it looked brand new, and every single one of its inhabitants appeared to be involved in its construction.

“Magnificent!” the colonel bellowed. “Welcome to Yatsillat! Welcome, I say! Ha ha!” He pointed at the sea. “And behold, Phenadoor!”

A number of very wide and steeply sloping avenues cut through the terraces all the way from the top of the city to the bottom. Our Ptall’kor passed into one that was lined with trees. It was paved with colourful cobbles, which, upon closer inspection, froze the blood in my veins, for they were hard shells rather than pebbles, meaning the murder I foresaw in my Yarkeen vision would transpire here, not in London. However, I was quickly—and thankfully—distracted from this disturbing thought by the crowds that gathered along the sides of the avenue to cheer our arrival. They were Yatsill but, unlike those we travelled with, they were clothed—and in such a bizarre manner that I repeatedly rubbed my eyes and pinched myself, half-convinced I was hallucinating again. Those creatures that stood in the front rows of onlookers wore four-legged trousers or billowing skirts. Their upper mussel-shell-shaped bodies were encased in colourful waistcoats over which long jackets were draped, some male in design, others female. Viennese masks covered their faces—all with four eye-holes, all resembling long-beaked birds or bejewelled human faces or Pierrots or Punchinello—while their heads were adorned with frilly bonnets or top hats, though in the latter case many among the crowd were throwing theirs into the air while yelling, “Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for the new Aristocrats! Hup hup hurrah! Hup hup hurrah! Hup hup hurrah!”

The rearmost spectators were rather less extravagantly dressed, their “suits” being of a baggier cut, their heads adorned with cloth caps or drab bonnets, and their masks simplistic depictions of a human face.

The hullabaloo and dazzling sights so jumbled my senses that it was impossible for me to properly explain everything to poor Clarissa. Perhaps she understood this, for she stood at my side and gripped my hand tightly, as if to shackle me to the reality she represented—the reality of Earth and home—and prevent me from drifting off into realms of madness. Had she not done so, the sheer lunacy I was now witnessing might have pushed me over the brink.

“Hallo hallo!” Spearjab exclaimed. “There’s trouble!”

He pointed to a small group of Yatsill who, unlike the majority, were unclothed. They were chanting, “Down with the dissonance! No to change! Back to the trees! No to change!”

“Backward thinkers!” he said dismissively. “Ignore the blighters. Only a bally fool stands in the way of progress. Hey? What? Harrumph! Now then, I propose a tour of the new city. But first we must stop at a tailor’s. I feel positively naked! Naked, I say! It won’t do at all!”

Mademoiselle Clattersmash placed a hand on his shoulder. “No, my dear. The matter of the dissonance must be addressed at once.” She pointed at Clarissa and me. “We should deliver these two to the House of Lords immediately.”

“Oh, very well, very well. Humph! Humph! Humph! But I insist that the acquisition of clothing must follow right afterwards! What!”

“I shan’t argue,” Clattersmash said. She raised her hands to her face and wriggled all her fingers excitedly. “I’m positively eager to pick out a dress!”

The Ptall’kor took us down to the third terrace, turned right onto a wide thoroughfare, and came to rest outside a monumental white edifice that reminded me a little of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Two figures were standing on the steps that led up to the building’s ornate entrance. One, a Yatsill, was wearing top hat and tails, with a white shirt and perfectly enormous bow tie. While his trousers were black, as one would expect in such an outfit, the jacket and hat were pink. His mask resembled the face of a heron, with a long pointed beak.

The other was plainly a Koluwaian male, though, like the witch doctor Iriputiz, he was of a considerably taller and skinnier build than the average islander. He was wrapped from head to toe in purple robes, had a cloth of the same colour wound around his head, and wore a Pierrot mask over his face.

“Saviour favour you,” the Yatsill said to Spearjab as we disembarked. “It’s bloody good to see you again, Yazziz Yozkulu. Welcome to New Yatsillat!”

“Colonel Momentous Spearjab now, Prime Minister. Humph! And you, sir?”

“I have settled upon Lord Upright Brittleback.”

Spearjab bowed. “Tip-top! Very nice! Very nice indeed! And New Yatsillat! How wonderfully appropriate! I sensed a great deal, of course, but not that particular morsel! Ha ha!” He waved a hand toward Clattersmash. “My Lord, you know Tsillanda Ma’ara, now Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash. Harrumph!”

“I do indeed.”

Clattersmash held out a hand and the prime minister reached to shake it, hesitated, then took it by the fingertips and raised it to the end of his mask’s beak, giving it a light peck. “You chose the female gender, then, Mademoiselle?”

“I did,” she replied. “It occurred to me that those in the Council of Magicians would mostly select the male. I thought it might give me an advantage to go the other way.”

“Shrewd, as always,” Brittleback responded. He turned to Spearjab and flexed his fingers toward the purple-clad Koluwaian. “You know Mr. Sepik, of course.”

“Harrumph! Back from one of your long meditations, hey, Mr. Sepik!”

The Koluwaian bowed and said, in a whispery voice, “I serve best when refreshed, Colonel. My occasional withdrawals are a spiritual necessity.”

“Humph! If you say so, old thing! I can’t quite see how not being present makes you a better Servant, but there you are! There you are! And you’ve learned this new-fangled lingo, too, hey? Jolly good show! Fast work! What! And the togs?”

Brittleback gestured toward the tall islander and said, “Mr. Sepik suggested that, in keeping with the changes to our society, his kind should be represented in Parliament, which I thought was a bloody good idea, so I made him my aide. I have acceded to his suggestion that all Servants who work with those of us in public office should be masked. A symbol of their authority over their fellows, so to speak.”

“Splendid idea!”

“Now to business, old fruit,” the prime minister said. “How many new Aristocrats do you have?”

“Only three Yatsill,” the colonel replied.

Lord Brittleback shook his head. “By the depths of Phenadoor! I should rejoice at their arrival but I find myself bloody unsettled. The parties that preceded you did little better. I fear we’re fast approaching a time when all will be Working Class and there’ll be no one left to do the thinking. Mademoiselle Clattersmash, did you gain any insight while in the Valley of Reflections?”

“I’m afraid not, Prime Minister. We can but trust that this is the will of the Saviour.”

“And what of the dissonance? From whence did it originate?”

Clattersmash turned and indicated that Clarissa and I should step forward. I led my companion to her side.

“Not from whence but from whom. These two were found in the normal manner, but as you can see, they themselves are far from normal.”

“Saviour’s Eyes! They don’t look like the usual Servants! Were they the only ones?”

“That is correct, sir. Furthermore, this one—” she gestured toward Clarissa “—was made an Aristocrat.”

I saw Mr. Sepik start slightly at this revelation.

“Ah!” Lord Brittleback exclaimed. “So the recent advances are explained! I shall present our guests to the House at once.” He stepped forward and touched Clarissa on the shoulder. “I was given a rather baffling something-or-other by the leader of our Magicians. He saw you in a Dar’sayn vision and had the thing constructed. Not bloody sure what it is, but take it, please, with my compliments, and I hope it’s of use!”

He fished inside his jacket, pulled something out, and pushed it into Clarissa’s left hand.

“Clarissa!” I cried out. “It’s a pair of goggles!”

“Thank God!” she whispered.

“What—?” Brittleback began.

“She is blind without them!” I said.

The Yatsill and Koluwaians watched as I reached up and began to untie my friend’s blindfold. She held the goggles close over her eyes. I gave her a warning then pulled the material away, and she quickly pressed them into place and held them steady while I buckled the leather straps around her head.

“Done!” I announced. “Turn to face me, then open your eyes.”

Clarissa spun until I saw myself reflected in the black glass lenses. The two little bumps on her forehead protruded above the eyewear. After a moment, she smiled widely, reached out, and grabbed me by the upper arms.

“Aiden! You have no idea how good it feels to see you again! Heavens above! What a beard you’ve grown!”

She looked down at herself, released me, and clapped her hands to her thighs. “Straight!” she almost wailed. “My legs! They really are straight!”

Spearjab said, “Though with insufficient knees and numbers, hey? What! Ha ha!”

Clarissa wheeled around and saw, for the first time, the quadrupedal mollusc-faced colonel.

She said, “Oh!” and, for the first time since I’d met her, she did something typical of her gender.

She fainted.



° °