A Red Sun Also Rises

5. CITY AND HOME

Clarissa was unconscious for but a moment, then stood, leaned on me heavily, and said in a hoarse voice: “My goodness, Aiden!”

“Steady yourself,” I said. “You’ll get used to them, as I have.”

Lord Brittleback asked, “Who leads the Servants in this group?”

Spearjab pointed. “That one. Humph! Her name is Kata.”

“Much obliged, old fruit. Miss Kata! You’ll find the foreman’s office at the top of the main avenue. Will you take the Workers there, please? He’ll give them their assignments.”

Kata looked perplexed.

“Oops!” Brittleback exclaimed, realising he’d used English words to name things that had no meaning for the islanders—foreman’s office; avenue; assignments. “Hum!” he muttered. “This is bloody awkward!”

Mr. Sepik stepped forward and said, “I’ll deal with it, sir.”

“Ah, good fellow!”

Sepik ordered the Koluwaians and the six young Yatsill to gather in a group. While they were doing so, I stepped over to him and said, “Mr. Sepik, my companion and I were transported here from Koluwai. Do you come from that island?”

“No. I am from a neighbouring island,” he replied. “I was sailing to Koluwai to trade when a storm appeared over my boat. I was sucked into it and awoke here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I was just a boy.”

He ushered the group away, back in the direction we’d come, and I returned to Clarissa’s side.

The prime minister transferred his attention to the three new Aristocrats. “Hallo, chaps, what’re your names?”

“Lord Prosper Possibly, Prime Minister,” the first replied.

“Baroness Bellslant Jangle,” said the second.

“Earl Nesting Beardgrow, sir,” the third responded.

“Bloody excellent!” Brittleback exclaimed. “You go off with Colonel Spearjab and he’ll sort out estates for you.”

He received three nods of acquiescence.

Spearjab waved at me and said, “Cheery-bye, old thing!” then, “Toodle-pip, Miss Clarissa! Humph! Harrumph! What!” before leading his wards away.

The prime minister shouted after him, “Stop off at a tailor shop, Colonel! Have yourself and the nippers kitted out!”

He next addressed the remaining Aristocrats. “That goes for the rest of you, too. Clothes, please! Clothes! Can’t have you running around with bare shell on display! By the Saviour’s Eyes, it’s positively indecent!” He gestured toward the Ptall’kor. “And take this bloody thing back to its pasture, would you?”

The Yatsill named Sir Gracious Whipstripes stepped forward and said, “I regret to inform you, sir, that Tokula Pathamay was killed by an Amu’utu. He declared his name. We brought his remains back with us.”

“Blast it!” Brittleback exclaimed. “We can ill-afford the loss. Very well, make a detour, would you, and cast his remains into Phenadoor with all due ceremony. At least he’s gained that which is denied the rest of us, Saviour be praised!”

Whipstripes nodded and, with his colleagues, reboarded the Ptall’kor.

As the living vessel departed, Mademoiselle Clattersmash said, “If there’s nothing else, sir, I shall depart. I feel a wee bit out of sorts. Perhaps a Dar’sayn meditation will help. I shall go to the Temple of Magicians.”

“Out of sorts, old fruit? Probably exhaustion. The journey to the Shrouded Mountains is a bloody demanding one. Off you pop, then, Mademoiselle.”

She gave an awkward bob and went on her way. Lord Brittleback clapped his hands in satisfaction. He then spoke to Clarissa and me. “Well now! Your physical structure is a mite different from the other Servants’. Taller. Paler. Why is that?”

Clarissa found her voice and answered. “Because we aren’t Koluwaians, sir. Our origins lie elsewhere.”

“Humph! How odd! Well, let us not tarry here, hey? Parliament awaits! Don’t be concerned—they’ll ask you a lot of bloody questions, for certain, but I won’t allow the session to trundle on forever. You’ll be clothed, fed, watered, and housed in good measure. Come along! Come along! In we bloody well go!”

He ushered us up the steps. As I ascended, I again became aware of the heavier gravity. Clarissa felt it, too. “Phew!” she gasped as we reached the top. She stopped, turned, and surveyed the city that was fast growing around us. “I feel like I’m dreaming. It looks as if a crazed architect is re-creating London.”

“I can understand why Kata is feeling uneasy,” I noted. “It must be very unsettling for someone who’s only ever lived in the Koluwaian fashion.”

“Chop-chop!” Brittleback cried out. “Follow me, please!”

We walked behind him, past a Yatsill in the uniform of a concierge—though with the addition of a brightly decorated hedgehog-faced mask—through tall doors and into a high vaulted hallway. Its floor was inset with a colourful mosaic of irregularly shaped ceramic tiles. Wooden scaffolding had been erected against its walls, and far overhead, platforms stretched from one side of the space to the other, close to the ceiling. A Yatsill was up there, painting a bewildering mural.

Oil lamps cast a complex web of shadows around us as we proceeded along the corridor. The click-clack of Lord Brittleback’s feet echoed loudly, as did those of the various other Yatsill we saw hurrying back and forth between arched doorways that gave access to rooms to the right and left of us.

“There’s so much to bloody organise!” the prime minister declared. “Social and economic policies, regulations and mandates, infrastructure and administration, industry and leisure, this and that, one thing and another, whatchamacallits and thingamajigs.”

We stopped in front of another set of doors, lofty and narrow. Two Yatsill, dressed as Grenadier Guards and wearing duck masks, stood to either side of the portal. A great many muffled voices were audible from the chamber beyond.

“And this,” Brittleback continued, “is where all the decisions are made.” He reached up and grasped a handle. “Welcome to the House of Lords.”

After pulling the door open, the prime minister ushered us through into an enormous circular room with a raised circular dais at its centre surrounded on all sides by benches, which were set progressively higher from front to back, the rearmost ones being far away and at a considerable altitude. High overhead, the domed ceiling was inset with large panels of stained glass. The light that shone through them illuminated the vast space with a soft haziness, through which dust motes drifted lazily. Everything looked and smelled brand new.

The seats were packed with top-hatted and bonneted Yatsill.

We walked through a narrow passage, between seats, from the door to the stage, and as we drew closer to the platform the words of the individual who stood in the centre of it emerged from the general cacophony.

“. . . and, in conclusion, it must be evident to the right honourable ladies and gentlemen that these bladed weapons are far more suited to our needs than absurd and impractical projectile launchers. Those few who’ve urged the manufacturing of the latter are allowing themselves to be seduced by what can be done rather than by what should be done. I urge them to reconsider and to vote aye to this amendment, thus ensuring the City Guard is appropriately armed. What say you?”

The crowd roared, “Aye!”

A Yatsill seated behind a desk at the edge of the stage and dressed in red robes, a tricorn hat, and a very long curve-beaked bird mask, banged a gavel.

“The motion is passed!” he bellowed. “Thank you, Viscount Whoops Bumpknock. I now give the floor to Lord Upright Brittleback, the prime minister.”

The crowd cheered as Brittleback escorted us up onto the dais.

“My Lords, ladies, and gentlemen,” he announced, holding his arms outstretched. “None can deny that a dissonance has come among us. Indeed, one need only look at this magnificent chamber to see how significant its effects have been. I think it fair to say that we have all embraced this new permutation, and—”

“No!” someone shouted. “No, not all of us!”

The prime minister turned to the red-robed Yatsill and said, “Lord Speaker-Judge, I would—”

The gavel banged on the desk.

“I recognise the Right Honourable Yarvis Thayne,” Speaker-Judge announced.

Ten benches back, the Yatsill who’d objected stood up. The creature, an unusually thickset specimen, wore neither clothes nor a mask. “Thank you, Lord Speaker-Judge,” it said. “No, Prime Minister, not all of us have embraced the destruction of the old ways. Some of us ask why it is necessary. Some of us denounce the devastation of the forest and the replacement of perfectly serviceable tree houses with brick-built monstrosities.”

“Monstrosities, Yarvis Thayne?” Brittleback cried out. “Monstrosities? I see nothing monstrous in progress!”

“Progress? What for? We have long enjoyed stability and tranquillity. Why change?”

“In order to become more than we bloody well are, old fruit! By the Suns, what will you object to next? Our language? Our ability to think? Would you have us revert to an animal state though we’ve been blessed by the Saviour with intelligence? It won’t do! It won’t do at all! We, the Aristocrats, have the ability to shape this world. Whatever we do must assuredly be as the Saviour intends. Would you have us remain immobile merely because the divine plan is obscure to us? No, sir! No! I say forward! Forward, not backward, nor static!”

Most of the gathered Yatsill loosed hurrahs of approval. Shaking his head disapprovingly, Yarvis Thayne sat back down.

The prime minister gestured for quiet, and when the crowd had settled continued, “I have at my side the origin of the dissonance, Miss Clarissa Stark, and her companion, Mr. Aiden Fleischer. As you can see, they are, in form, rather peculiar.”

“Thank you,” Clarissa murmured.

“Indeed, they claim a different origin from that of the Servants.”

“Different?” came a distant voice from the backbenches. “How is that possible?”

“That, sir, is the very question we shall seek to answer now.” Brittleback turned to us. “I give you the floor, chaps. Would you explain?”

The crowd fell into an expectant silence.

I said, “Um.”

Clarissa touched my arm and whispered, “May I, Aiden?”

I nodded. “Please.”

My companion surveyed the gathered Yatsill. Raising her voice, she declared, “We are of the same species as the Servants but our origins lie far from their birthplace, which is called Koluwai. We are from Great Britain, on the other side of the planet Earth.”

I saw masks turn as the Yatsill looked at one another.

“From the great where on the other side of the what?” Brittleback asked.

There then commenced one of the most frustrating debates imaginable. Again and again, Clarissa attempted to describe our world, but no matter what her choice of words, they were quite obviously lost on the Yatsill, who failed utterly to comprehend even the notion of continents, let alone the idea that Ptallaya was one planet among many.

Clarissa attempted to describe the differences between humans; tried to explain how racial characteristics, or culture, or both, separate the nations of Earth; tried to make it clear that Ptallaya and Earth were globes floating in a vast void; but, plainly, to the Yatsill it was incoherent nonsense.

Somehow, the conclusion was reached that the storm had behaved unusually and had damaged us.

Clarissa quietly spoke to me from the side of her mouth. “The more I talk, the less they understand.”

Yarvis Thayne stood again and was announced by Lord Speaker-Judge.

“So we have welcomed these newcomers among us,” Thayne said. He held out his arms and swept his long-fingered hands around. “And the repercussions are obvious. That we have allowed them to so completely sweep away our old traditions is, I maintain, regrettable and dangerous, for if the storm was abnormal, then might the dissonance not be abnormal, too? And if that is the case, then aren’t all these changes also abnormal?”

The hall rumbled with hums and haws, some in agreement, most not.

“But I see my warnings will be disregarded,” Thayne continued. “So I shall say nothing more on the subject at this moment, other than to table a request.”

The prime minister asked, “And what might that be, sir?”

“I ask that these two be assigned to serve in my household.”

A murmur of surprise rippled around the arena.

A short and bulky Yatsill in one of the front rows shouted, “Objection!” and stood. His mask resembled the face of a goat and had horns curling from its sides.

“Baron Hammer Thewflex,” Speaker-Judge declared.

“I must correct the honourable gentleman,” Thewflex shouted over the general hubbub. “Due to their form, as odd as it is, we keep referring to these newcomers as Servants.” He pointed at Clarissa. “But I would remind you all that this one is an Aristocrat. Indeed! Indeed!”

More noise, and a voice called, “Aye! She must be given an estate of her own!”

“Yes,” Thewflex agreed. “Despite that she is not Yatsill, she must have an estate. By the Saviour, anything but that would be perfectly rotten!”

“Absolutely!” Brittleback agreed.

Clarissa indicated to Lord Speaker-Judge that she wanted to address the Parliament.

“Miss Clarissa Stark!” he announced.

Clarissa cleared her throat. “If I understand it correctly,” she said, “the Servants work in the houses of the Aristocrats.”

Hundreds of masked heads nodded. Someone said, “Until they are released.”

“In which case, if I am an Aristocrat, and, as such, am to be given an estate, I request that my companion, Mr. Aiden Fleischer, be assigned to serve me.”

“I oppose that motion!” Yarvis Thayne shouted.

“I bloody well support it!” the prime minister countered.

“Indeed!” Baron Hammer Thewflex agreed. “Indeed! Indeed!”

Voices were raised. Cheers echoed.

Speaker-Judge banged his gavel until the assembly quietened.

“The motion is passed. A decision must also be made concerning the role Miss Stark will play in our society. The Council of Magicians will take up this matter. Baron Thewflex, will you escort Miss Clarissa and Mr. Fleischer to the Council at once, please?”

Thewflex gave a thumbs-up—such a mundane gesture struck me as incredible, coming as it did from such a bizarre-looking creature—and made his way to the edge of the platform and the narrow corridor that led out of the chamber. He waved for us to join him there.

“Toodle-pip, old things,” the prime minister said to us. “When you’ve settled in, I’ll drop by for a cup of tea.”

“You have tea here?” I exclaimed.

“Of course, old fruit! Of course!”

Clarissa and I crossed the stage and followed Thewflex out of the building.

“So you’ve made me your skivvy?” I ruefully asked my companion.

“Whatever is necessary to keep us together, Aiden. Obviously I don’t expect you to actually work in that capacity. I’m still your sexton.”

“No, Clarissa. I relieve you of that duty. Here, we are equals. In fact, if anything, you are my superior, for you are certainly handling our peculiar circumstances far better than I.”

We passed through the front doors and descended the steps to the road. To my utter astonishment, Thewflex raised a hand and yelled, “Cab!”

A two-wheeled vehicle came careening around a corner and drew to a halt in front of us. In design it was boxy and sloped from a wide base to a narrow and very high top upon which the driver was perched precariously. It was pulled by a cream-coloured beast, tubular in form, which ran along on multiple legs. The awful-looking monster had a thick knot of tails curling out from its rear—two of which were held by the driver like reins—while its pointed neckless front end was split by a massive mouth. There were at least twenty small eyes clustered irregularly above and below the long maw.

“What’s that hideous thing called?” I asked Thewflex.

“A hansom cab,” he answered, opening the vehicle’s door. “Hop in.”

“I meant the beast harnessed to it.”

“Ah. It’s a Kaljoor. Yes, indeed! Come along! All aboard!”

Rather clumsily, Thewflex hoisted himself into the cabin. I gave Clarissa a hand up and followed.

“Where to, guv’nor?” the driver called.

Thewflex leaned out of the window, looked up, and said, “The Temple of Magicians, and make it snappy!”

“Tell that to the Kaljoor, mate!” came the response.

Thewflex grunted, and as the hansom jerked into motion, he turned his goat mask toward Clarissa and said, “The Working Class have been singularly lippy of late. I can’t abide their backchat. One might almost think they consider themselves our betters because they’re assured a place in Phenadoor. I feel we Aristocrats are losing the respect that’s our due. For crying out loud, the idiots would be nothing without us! Nothing!”

My friend frowned and was on the point of asking a question when Thewflex directed our attention to the scene outside.

“Look at that, Miss Stark! Marvellous efficiency! Busy days! Busy days! Indeed so!”

He was referring to a large tract of land that had been forested when we’d entered the House of Lords but which had, while we were inside, been cleared and was now swarming with a dense crowd of Yatsill. As we passed alongside it, we saw a seemingly endless line of Ptall’kors arriving, all laden with stone blocks, having their cargo unloaded, then departing. Roads and alleyways already criss-crossed the area, and in the squares between them, large edifices of a vaguely Georgian style were being erected with astonishing speed.

“Incredible!” I whispered.

A tall, thin tower caught my attention. It was similar to the minarets I’d seen illustrated in books about Damascus and other Arabian cities, and I realised it was but one of a great many that dotted every level of New Yatsillat.

“It’s for the City Guard,” the baron said in answer to my query.

“A watchtower? What are you watching for? Why does the city require guards?”

“The Saviour’s Eyes are not always upon us,” he responded.

Before I could pursue the subject further, the hansom rocked around a corner, veered across the road, and, though having travelled only a short distance, came to a jolting halt.

“Temple of Magicians!” the driver announced.

Thewflex pushed the door open and heaved himself out. We followed and saw we’d arrived at a colonnade-fronted structure.

“Gee-up!” the driver said. The hansom rattled away.

“You forgot to pay him,” I noted.

“Pay?” Thewflex asked.

“Never mind. What do your Magicians do?”

“They have insight. Yes, indeed!”

“Into what?” Clarissa asked.

“I haven’t a clue,” Baron Thewflex replied. “I’m not a Magician.”

We entered the building and were met by a Yatsill wearing a crow’s-head mask and long yellow robes.

“Welcome, Baron Hammer Thewflex,” he said, with a bow. “Welcome, Clarissa Stark. I am pleased to see that you’ve received your eye protection. Welcome, Aiden Fleischer. Baron, thank you, and you may go about your business now. Miss Stark, Mr. Fleischer, this way, please.”

Thewflex nodded, saluted—the second Earthly gesture I’d seen him make—and departed.

We fell into step beside the Magician.

“I am Father Mordant Reverie,” he declared.

“What a name!” I blurted. “But Father? Are you a priest?”

“Priest, Magician, sorcerer, call me what you will, young fellow. The title makes no difference to the function.” The Yatsill regarded me curiously and emitted a small grunt. “Hmm! It’s a shame you weren’t also made an Aristocrat, Mr. Fleischer. As a mere Servant, your mind is closed to me, though your emotions play clearly across its surface. They are fascinatingly complex.”

“Closed?”

“Obscured. Inaccessible. It doesn’t shine with inventiveness like Miss Stark’s.”

“My apologies.”

My sarcasm went unnoticed. “Accepted,” Father Reverie replied. “What is this guilt you feel?”

“I’m sorry, Father, I don’t know what you mean.”

“You appear uncomfortable with yourself, as if you have done something wrong.”

An image of Polly Nichols’ corpse flashed into my mind’s eye. I swallowed nervously.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” the Yatsill said. “I’m sure you’ll come to terms with the issue in due course. Now then, the Council awaits. Don’t dawdle, please.”

Like the House of Lords, the Temple of Magicians was new, clean, and still being decorated. Artisans were carving a frieze into the upper walls of the corridor we passed along, and a complex geometric pattern into the large door we came to at the end of it. Father Reverie dismissed the two Yatsill working on the latter. As the pair scuttled away, I realised that all the artisans, like the cab driver, wore flat caps, baggy suits, and plain masks. Obviously, it was the uniform of the Working Class.

Our guide conducted us through the portal into a big oblong cloister. We passed around the edge of this, through another set of doors, along a second corridor, and into a room that very much resembled the interior of a church. He escorted us to a bench beside a lectern and we sat facing a gathering of about a hundred Yatsill, nearly all in crow’s-head masks and yellow robes, though I counted five who were unclothed.

Behind us, a stained-glass window depicted the two suns over a sparkling sea. The bright yellow light—which made the chamber far less gloomy than my little church back in Theaston Vale—shone through it and illuminated the billowing clouds of incense curling from a censer hanging above the congregation. I later learned that the scent, which was similar to cinnamon, was Dar’sayn, the liquid from the fruits of the Ptoollan trees. The Magicians employed it to deepen their meditations.

Father Reverie took up position behind the lectern and said, “Fellow Magicians, I present to you the dissonance, Miss Clarissa Stark, and her Servant, Mr. Aiden Fleischer.”

“There it is again,” I whispered to my companion. “No debate. I’m your lackey.”

“What’s important,” she replied under her breath, “is that they keep referring to me as the dissonance, not to us. I think I’m starting to understand a little of what’s happening, Aiden.”

Before she could say anything more, Reverie asked her to explain how we arrived on Ptallaya and where we came from. Once more, Clarissa went through the story. This time, there were no questions. The gathered Magicians simply sat in silence.

“Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash,” Reverie called. “Will you please recount the events of the Immersion and how Miss Stark came to be an Aristocrat?”

One of the crow-masked figures stood. Clattersmash had told Lord Brittleback that she was going to meditate—obviously, she hadn’t done so for long. Now her unmistakable voice emerged from behind the face decoration, and in a concise manner—but in tones that noticeably quavered—she described our discovery in the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings, the journey to the Shrouded Mountains, the events in the Cavern of Immersion, and our long journey from there to New Yatsillat.

She sat down, rather heavily.

Reverie addressed the congregation. “Whatever you make of this, there are two certainties. The first is that, compared to our other Servants, these two are rather different in form. The second is that the dissonance brought to us by this one—” he gestured at Clarissa “—is far-reaching in its influence,” he held his hands wide, “and has been accepted without question by all but a few.”

One of the unclothed magicians stood and said, “The parliamentarian Yarvis Thayne and I represent that minority.”

“Father Yissil Froon,” Reverie responded, “you are the oldest, longest serving, and wisest of us—but see how many oppose you, or at least disagree with you!”

“That does not make me wrong.”

“But why do you object?”

“Because long ago, the Saviour looked upon the Yatsill and found us pleasing, though we lacked self-awareness, did not recognise the glory of Phenadoor, and were little more than animals. But it angered the Saviour to see us taken by—”

A ripple of disapproval ran through the congregation, interrupting him. Someone hissed, “Blasphemy!”

Father Mordant Reverie rapped on the lectern and snapped, “Be careful what you say! As the survivor of many, many cycles, you are held in very high regard, but that does not grant you licence to transgress.”

“I understand,” Yissil Froon replied, “but cannot explain my objection without some reference to that which may not be spoken of in the sight of the Saviour. I shall be as circumspect as possible.”

“See that you are. Continue.”

The Magician bowed and continued, “The Saviour created a division. At Immersion, some of the children were made Working Class, and thus could never be taken, while the others were endowed with intelligence, language, and self-knowledge. These latter, the Aristocrats, were able to transmit their abilities to the Working Class and raise them from the animal state, but to do so, they sacrificed immunity—they could still be taken.”

Reverie nodded, held his arms out, and said, “We, the Aristocracy, are both honoured and cursed. Honoured because we are vehicles for the Saviour’s will and reveal to the Working Class that the bliss of Phenadoor awaits; cursed because we know the same bliss is denied to us. This is common knowledge, Yissil Froon, not an explanation. What is your point?”

“It is this: we Magicians have a special function. We extend the Saviour’s protection over our fellow Aristocrats that they may live for as long as possible before being taken. With the aid of Dar’sayn, we have been extremely successful in this endeavour, so much so that at each Immersion the Saviour has been able to make ever more Yatsill Working Class while reducing the number of Aristocrats.”

“Indeed,” Reverie agreed. “Is this not a good thing? Is it not the case that more and more Yatsill are thus gaining entry to Phenadoor?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you certain? For all your sweet words, rumours persist that you were the first ever to drink Dar’sayn, and that you subsequently opposed its use.”

“Those rumours are entirely unfounded, Father Reverie.”

“Do you follow the will of the Saviour?”

“Of course I do! I am offended that you doubt it!”

“Then I ask you one more time, Yissil Froon: why do you object to the dissonance?”

“Because in complicating the manner in which we live, the dissonance places greater demands on the Working Class. The Aristocrats must therefore channel greater intelligence to them. Are enough of us remaining to do this? And can we Magicians do it while also protecting our fellows when the Saviour’s gaze is averted? I fear not.”

Reverie’s long fingers tapped on the lectern. “Hum! You feel the dissonance has tipped the balance?”

“I do,” Yissil Froon said. “Father Mordant Reverie, Mr. Aiden Fleischer is of no consequence. I have no objection to him remaining in New Yatsillat as one of the Servants. Clarissa Stark, however, as the source of dissonance, should be banished from New Yatsillat and exiled to the Whimpering Ruins, at the heart of the Shelf Lands.”

I clutched my companion’s wrist.

“The Shelf Lands are a long way from here,” Reverie said. “Past the Shrouded Mountains and beyond even the Zull eyries.”

“Precisely,” Yissil Froon replied. “We began to change the moment she joined the Aristocracy. We know, then, that her influence can reach us from the Shrouded Mountains. To escape it, we must send her farther away even than that.”

“And if we do, what then will become of this?” asked Reverie, indicating the chamber around us and plainly meaning the entire city.

“It will become irrelevant,” came the answer. “We will not require it.”

After a long pause, Reverie said, “Thank you, Father Yissil Froon. Sit, please.” Again, he became quiet, lowered his head, and appeared to be lost in thought. Then he looked up. “I shall not send Clarissa Stark to the Whimpering Ruins.”

I felt myself slump with relief.

He went on, “I shall recommend to Lord Upright Brittleback that she and her companion be allowed to remain with us, for I have faith that the imbalance between we Aristocrats and the Working Class will be corrected. However, when the Eyes of the Saviour look upon us again, if Immersion fails to increase our numbers, then I will follow your guidance, Yissil Froon. As to the roles these newcomers shall play, Miss Stark will train as a Magician with Mademoiselle Clattersmash. We can better monitor the dissonance if she joins us.”

Father Yissil Froon stood again. He turned to Clattersmash and asked, “What does Yazziz Yozkulu call himself now?”

“Colonel Momentous Spearjab,” she answered.

He nodded and addressed Mordant Reverie. “I recommend that Miss Stark’s Servant trains as one of the City Guard with Colonel Spearjab.”

Reverie angled his head to one side, as if taken aback. “A Servant in the Guards, Father? That’s unheard of, and it makes no sense. Are we to arm him against his own release?”

“It is highly unusual, I agree, but just as you, some little time before Miss Stark arrived in New Yatsillat, were told in a Dar’sayn vision that she’d require the item you now see strapped over her eyes, so it was revealed to me that Aiden Fleischer would wield a sword. Only the Guards carry the weapon, hence he must join them.”

The entire gathering chorused, “The Saviour knows all!”

“What? I can’t be a guard!” I objected. “I haven’t the constitution for that sort of thing!”

The beak of every crow mask in the chamber turned to point in my direction.

“It is not your place to object,” Reverie said. “And in future, I advise you to speak only when you’re spoken to.” He turned back to Yissil Froon. “Very well, it shall be as you advise.”

My mouth worked but no further words emerged. I was shocked. No one had ever before addressed me in such a fashion.

Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash, responding to a gesture from Reverie, moved out of the pews and approached us. She’d taken only a few steps when she suddenly reeled to one side and collapsed against a pillar, which she clutched at for support. A low moan sounded from behind her mask.

“Mademoiselle?” said Reverie, moving down from the lectern. “Are you unwell?”

“Yes,” came the weak response. “No. Just a little dizzy. I shall be fine.” She straightened, shook her head slightly, and stepped over to us.

“Come,” she said, and led us out of the room, from the temple, and into the street. It immediately became apparent that while we’d been inside, New Yatsillat had expanded even more.



° °



We were given a large empty house on the city’s fourth level, situated at the edge of a quiet little square with a fountain at its centre. Three steps led to our double front doors, which opened onto a very spacious vestibule that gave access to five big, rectangular ground-floor chambers. A steep ramp sloped up the right-hand wall to the upper floor, on which there were six more rooms. The property was plumbed, and most of the rooms had a fireplace.

Mademoiselle Clattersmash told us we’d have plenty of time to settle in and sleep before commencing our training. She left, but we’d only just closed the door behind her when there came a knock upon it and we found ourselves in the presence of three plain-masked Workers—a furniture maker, a tailor, and a grocer. Each asked what we required, and it quickly became apparent to us that the provisions would be free of charge, for the concept of money was totally lacking in the Yatsill.

Adopting the philosophy that we might as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible as quickly as we could, we ordered from the furniture maker tables and chairs, beds, desks, sofas, armchairs, sideboards, armoires, bureaus, and a great many other things, every one of which had to be described in meticulous detail.

The tailor measured us from head to toe. I asked him to make me a black three-piece suit, top hat, and button-up boots. The latter had him bemused until I showed him my feet and described how they should be shod. Once he’d understood the concept, he was confident he could deliver and enthused about adapting the idea for Yatsill feet—though they weren’t really feet at all, being more the pointed ends of the four legs. With regard to the suit and topper, he shook his head and mumbled through his mask, “No, mate. This ain’t for the likes of you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re a Servant. It ain’t seemly for you to sport togs like this.”

Clarissa pulled me to one side. “Just to keep the peace while they’re judging us, you’ll have to pose as my Servant.”

“Have I plummeted so far in the social order?” I cried out. “It’s absurd!”

“It’s necessary,” she insisted. “But it’s for appearances only, nothing more.”

I was too tired to argue, so I settled for underclothes, shirt, trousers, jacket, and a cloth cap. I mollified myself with the thought that I’d at least have the boots I wanted.

“I’ll also bring you a uniform,” the tailor said. “A Servant in the City Guard, fancy that!”

“I don’t much,” I muttered.

Clarissa decided to forego the voluminous skirts of the British female and settled for a brown two-piece suit. She dispensed with the obligatory hat, saying she’d always hated the things.

“Trousers again!” I chided. “My initial suspicions about you were correct—you’re a confounded bloomerist!”

The tailor had no objection to her choice, but added, “You’ll require the robes of a Magician, too, ma’am.”

Next we spoke with the grocer and, not being certain what comestibles might be available, asked him to use his own judgement and bring us a selection.

Finally, at long last, we were alone.

The tailor had left two thick blankets with us, which we now placed on the floor in one of the upper rooms, side by side, negligent of propriety and drawn to this socially shocking arrangement by virtue of our extreme experiences.

We stretched out, both exhausted.

“I understand absolutely nothing of this,” I said. “The creatures talk complete nonsense. I obviously lost my mind when we left Theaston Vale and am becoming progressively more insane with every hour that passes.”

“Then I’m also a candidate for Bedlam,” Clarissa answered, “which I refuse to believe. Better to regard our circumstances as similar to those of Alice, whom Mr. Lewis Carroll had fall into a rabbit hole.” She reached up to her forehead and touched the little bumps over her goggles. “Wonderland.”

“Almost horns, Clarissa. Have you any idea what they are?”

“No, but they have something to do with the way my mind has been opened to the Yatsill.”

“Opened?”

“Made accessible. The Yatsill are mimics. Incredible mimics. They’re somehow mining my memories and knowledge, and this city is their interpretation of my impressions of London. They wear clothes and speak English because of me. Even the masks they wear come from my recollections of the Hufferton Hall bals masqués. I’m not sure they can help themselves.”

“Yarvis Thayne and Yissil Froon appear to be rather resistant to your influence.”

“Perhaps not as much as they like to believe. They spoke English, after all, and the way of life whose passing they lament was no more authentic than this—it was quite clearly an imitation of the Koluwaian culture. Remember what Yissil Froon said? The Yatsill were akin to animals until the Saviour looked upon them. I suspect that this process of having my mind made accessible by Immersion must, once upon a time, have also happened to a Koluwaian.”

“What! You mean their god, the Saviour, was an islander?”

“I do, which explains why they regard the sea—or Phenadoor—as some sort of heaven, just as the Koluwaians did. What I don’t understand, though, is this business of being ‘taken.’ We need to find out what it means and why the Magicians need to protect themselves and the rest of the Aristocrats from it. To quote Father Mordant Reverie, we have until ‘the Eyes of the Saviour look upon us again.’”

“What do you think that signifies?”

“Tomorrow.”

I sat up. “Tomorrow?”

“The Eyes of the Saviour are the suns, Aiden. When they set, they won’t look upon us again until sunrise. We have until tomorrow.”

“Thank goodness! I feel that we’ve been here for weeks and weeks, but it’s barely even noon yet! Tomorrow isn’t due for ages.”

Clarissa gave a grunt of agreement and murmured, “But the night, Aiden. What happens during the long, long night?”



° °



“Get out of here! Run! Run!”

“Mr. Skin-and-Bones.”

“Please!”

“Mr. Books-and-Bible.”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Mr. Thoughts-and-Theories.”

The blade tore into her, slitting her stomach wide open. Her entrails slopped onto the cobbles. They writhed like tentacles, as if possessed of a life of their own.

I pulled on the sword and watched its blade slide out of her flesh, red and wet and gleaming.

She collapsed. My face was reflected in the black lenses of her goggles.

“No!” I screamed. “Not you! Not you!”

My terrified eyes filled the two dark circles, imposed onto her face as if they were her own—as if she’d just recognised the evil in me and was paralysed by fear of it.

Her eyes. My eyes.

The blackness of her lenses.

The blackness of my soul.

Her corpse suddenly lurched up, hands clutching my shoulders, fingers digging into my flesh.

“Aiden! Wake up!”

“Who will forgive me?” I yelled. “If there’s no God, who will forgive me?”

“Stop it! You’re having a nightmare!”

I pulled away, rolled onto my side, and curled up, my whole body shaking.

“It’s all right,” Clarissa said soothingly. “It’s all right.”

“Nine levels,” I croaked. “This place has nine levels, just as Dante described in the Divine Comedy.”

“We’re not in Hell.”

“I am.”

She put a hand on my shoulder and looked down at me. “I don’t think you’ve ever properly known yourself, Aiden. Hell is for the evil, but I think evil is more properly recognised by those who witness it than by those who commit it. I do not see it it you. Not at all.”

My racing heart and panting respiration slowed. I rolled over and got to my feet, ran my fingers through my hair, and wiped the beads of sweat from my face. “Perhaps you’re right,” I mumbled, but I was not convinced. A terrible self-loathing was upon me—intense, the pressure from it almost a physical sensation.

To change the subject, I asked, “For how long have we slept?”

“I haven’t a clue. Let’s look outside.”

After performing our ablutions, we descended the ramp to the ground floor, opened the front door, and stepped out into the bright yellow light. The suns were at the noon mark. A light breeze was blowing, sharp with citrus.

Overhead, a group—or perhaps I should say “school”—of whale-sized inflated membranes were pulling themselves over the city by means of filament-like dangling limbs. They were almost transparent and were emitting an airy piping. Ribbony things, like I’d seen before, were coiling along beside them.

Small chirruping creatures, like colourful marbles with corkscrew tails, were projecting themselves back and forth between the eaves of the houses.

“Hey!” a voice called. It was the tailor, squatting on his four legs beside the fountain in the square. He straightened up and raised four very large cloth bags. “I’ve been waiting. I’ve got your togs.”

Having been almost naked for so long, the satisfaction I experienced back in the house some minutes later, as I stood kitted out in a full suit, was enough to drive away the horrors of my nightmare. Admittedly, my new outfit wasn’t that of a gentleman, but the material was smooth and comfortable.

“From what is it woven?” I enquired.

“From a substance extruded by the Ptall’kors.”

“I wish I hadn’t asked.”

My boots were of Kaljoor skin and more comfortable than any I’d ever worn on Earth.

As Clarissa exited the room in which she’d dressed, I doffed my cloth cap, bowed, and said, “Good day to you, young sir!”

“Very funny,” she said, smiling. “I don’t care if I look like a gent. This suit is far more practical than skirts and corsets and all the ridiculous paraphernalia that goes with them.”

“Believe me, Clarissa, you are unmistakably female!” I replied, then immediately felt myself blushing at my uncharacteristic boldness.

She fluttered her eyelashes in jest, but I sensed she was secretly pleased, too, by my clumsy compliment.

The tailor checked us over to make sure everything fitted properly, then touched his fingers to his cap and made for the door.

“Wait a moment, please!” Clarissa called after him.

“Is there something else, ma’am?”

“Just a question. We’ve heard that Aristocrats are ‘taken.’ Could you perhaps explain to us what that entails?”

“By the Suns!” the Yatsill cried out, throwing up his hands in horror. “No! No! Such things mustn’t be spoken of by the Working Class and certainly shouldn’t be mentioned in the sight of the Saviour! My goodness! My goodness!”

He turned, practically ran to the door, and left the house without looking back.

“That was helpful,” I observed.

Moments later, the grocer arrived with three assistants and basket after basket of foodstuffs. He explained each item—the fruits, nuts, vegetables, and meats—then presented us with a case of cooking implements. Clarissa thanked him then asked him about being taken. He shrieked and raced away.

The furniture man knocked at our door. He’d brought a Ptall’kor into the square, piled high with furniture, which he and his seven helpers unloaded and carried into our new home.

Clarissa said to me, “I’ll spare him,” and let the Yatsill depart without interrogation. “Did you notice how they arrived one after the other, Aiden? I think it’s obvious from what we’ve heard so far that the Aristocracy transmits intelligence to the Working Class through some sort of telepathic channel. It appears they also bestow upon them a remarkable ability to be organised and efficient.”

“Perhaps being an Aristocrat has made you telepathic, too,” I suggested. “You knew Colonel Spearjab’s hunting party had caught one of those Quee-tan creatures before there was any evidence to suggest it.”

Before she could respond, there came yet another knock at the door and a Yatsill poked his mask into the vestibule. “’Scuse me,” he said. “I have a cab waiting outside for Guardsman Fleischer.”

“Um. That’s me,” I said.

“You’re to get into uniform, sir, and I’m to take you to Crooked Blue Tower Barracks for training. Colonel Spearjab’s orders.”

“Very well,” I responded reluctantly. “Wait outside, would you? I’ll be with you presently.”

The messenger withdrew.

“I don’t know how I’ll cope without you beside me,” I said to Clarissa.

“As best you can. And at least you have a home to come back to.”

I pulled a package from the bag the tailor had given me and unwrapped my uniform. To my dismay, instead of pulling from it the good old British reds, I found myself clutching French greys of the Napoleonic era.

“Clarissa! What the dickens is in that head of yours!”

“Oops!” she said, sympathetically. “Sir Philip Hufferton taught me a lot of history, Aiden, so think yourself lucky. You might have ended up in armour!”

I took the uniform into one of the rooms and changed into it. The furniture maker had left us a dressing table, and while examining myself in its mirror, I couldn’t help but utter a groan. I looked preposterous. My hair was too long, I was sporting a bushy beard, the jacket and trousers drooped off my skinny frame as if they were still on a clothes hanger, and my new boots didn’t match the outfit at all.

Swallowing what pitiful remnants of my pride remained—a small meal indeed—I went back into the vestibule and gave Clarissa a rueful salute. I realised, as I did so, that my hands were shaking.

I released a shuddery breath and admitted, “I’m afraid to be alone.”

“You’ll have Colonel Spearjab with you,” she reminded me. “He’s a familiar face.”

“A perfectly foul face, but masked, at least. I suppose I’d better be off. Will you be all right?”

“Yes. I daresay I’ll be summoned by Madam Clattersmash in due course.”

“Well,” I said. “Here goes.”

I stepped out of the house.

“In you get, chum!” the cab driver called from atop his conveyance.

I opened the cabin door, climbed in, and sat down. The vehicle jolted into motion. The Kaljoor pulled it out of the square and onto a wide thoroughfare along which Ptall’kors, various wagons, and other hansoms were travelling. To either side, Yatsill were beetling past, some in working men’s suits and flat caps, some in skirts, bustles, and bonnets, with parasols held over their heads, and some in evening suits and toppers, swinging canes and touching their brims as they passed the “ladies.”

During the first few moments of that cab ride, it occurred to me that, were it not for the fact the pedestrians were all four-legged and masked, it could almost be a summer’s day in London, but the more I looked, the more I saw the falsity of this impression. A “sandwich-board man,” for example, bore not an advertisement for “Pear’s Soap” or “Lipton’s Tea,” but for “Touchmeddle’s Quee’tan Steaks, Raw and Dripping with Goodness! Get them while you still can!” and when we passed—wonder of wonders!—a theatre, I saw that its billboard proclaimed “The Astonishing Leotard,” together with an illustration of a quadrupedal tightrope-walker juggling coloured balls while balanced on two parallel lines.

That the signs and hoardings were written in English was in itself a marvel, but to see the letters and numbers of my native language rendered in an endless variety of strange lines, curves, and angles fair muddled the mind.

I was driven past a row of shops—Hearty Henry’s Haberdashery, Twitch’s Bakery, Scoop the Grocer, Paddlecloud’s Hardware Store, Disparage the Butcher, Dignity’s Olde Tea Shoppe, Rebuttle’s Tremendously Big Pottery Emporium—then we turned right onto one of the great tree-lined avenues that sloped steeply down, cutting through the nine terraces from the top of the city all the way to the fishing village at the bottom. This thoroughfare descended at such a sharp angle that the driver stopped the hansom, unharnessed the Kaljoor, and hitched it to the back of the cabin, so rather than towing the conveyance, the beast was now lowering it down the incline.

Traffic was much heavier and there were roadworks everywhere. We were surrounded by carts transporting goods and materials to and from the various levels of the city. Those going up were struggling against the escarpment; those going down were fighting against the pull of gravity, and I witnessed a number of them coming a cropper and spilling their loads, which went tumbling away toward the sea far below.

Hawkers stood at every corner, their sing-song sales pitches adding to the general cacophony:

“Hot P’tezznam roots! Hot P’tezznam roots! Freshly dug and boiled soft!”

“Who’ll buy my Kelumin flowers? Lovely Kelumin flowers! Brighten your home! Who’ll buy my Kelumin flowers?”

“Knives sharpened! Pots polished! Knives sharpened! Pots polished!”

We left the fourth terrace and traversed the fifth and the sixth, both of which were now almost entirely filled by the new residential districts. The seventh had been transformed into a beautiful park with lakes and bandstands, banks of exotic flowers, and thickets of curiously formed trees. I saw Yatsill strolling along the footpaths and others enjoying picnics on the bluish-green grass. There was also a small group of unclothed individuals marching along bearing placards that read: Reverse the changes! Back to the old ways! Say no to the dissonance!

At the seaward edge of the park, along the top of the almost sheer drop that fell to the next terrace, the Yatsill had built a high crenellated wall with bastions spaced evenly along its length. Initially, I took this to be a defence against seagoing marauders, but as we passed onto the eighth terrace through a tremendously tall gateway, I realised the battlements were facing inward, not outward. This made no sense. If the Yatsill feared a land attack, why was the wall here rather than at the top of the first level? And what, exactly, was the nature of the threat? I determined to find this out as soon as possible.

Beyond the wall, the eighth terrace contained forts, parade grounds, and barracks. There were also builders’ yards, paper mills, printworks, and the premises of metalworkers, carpenters, and glassblowers.

The cabbie drove me to a military establishment and dropped me at the gate, above which a sign read “Crooked Blue Tower Barracks” despite there being no tower present, crooked, blue, or otherwise. Out of habit, I patted my pockets in search of loose change to pay for my ride. Of course, I had none, and regardless, the hansom clattered away before I could have handed over any coins.

A sentry—Working Class—stepped forward and said, “You must be Fleischer.”

“Yes,” I responded, then foolishly added, “How did you know?”

The Yatsill regarded me through the holes of his mask and said, “You’re underequipped in the leg and elbow department, Guardsman. Go through, please. Colonel Spearjab is waiting for you.”

He held the portal open and I passed through into a large courtyard. There were about thirty Workers in it, all dressed in Napoleonic grey. Five of them were wielding swords—chopping, slashing, and stabbing at ten-foot-tall tree stumps—while the others watched.

A figure strode over to me. When he spoke, I recognised the voice of Colonel Momentous Spearjab coming from behind the long-beaked stork mask.

“Ah-ha! There you are, old chap! We’ve been waiting for you! What! What! Here, take this.”

He held out a scabbarded sword, hilt first.

I looked at it and felt the heat sucked out of my body.

“We’ve been practising but we’re not bally sure of the technique,” Spearjab said. “Show us, would you? Hey?”

I shook my head and took a step back. “I can’t. I don’t know how to use it.”

“Come come, old fellow. Harrumph! Give it a try.”

Again, I shook my head.

“I say,” Spearjab grumbled. “I am a colonel, you know. A colonel, I say! Humph! Humph! You do realise you have to obey my jolly old orders, yes? The thing of it is, this is an order. What! Take the sword.”

I drew an unsteady breath, reached out, and closed my fingers around the weapon’s grip. Spearjab maintained his hold on the scabbard as I slowly pulled the weapon from it. It scraped free and I stumbled a little, surprised by its weight. It was much heavier than I had anticipated.

“Good show!” the colonel murmured.

I looked down at the hilt, at the ornately carved quillons and studded pommel.

“Please, no.”

It was the sword the Valley of Reflections had shown to me—the weapon I would use to kill Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash.



° °