angel in the maze

Nagy’s party machine

2007-08-04T02:07:00.000-07:00

This is it. Calvinus is really going downhill. He can barely sit up now, and the times at which he makes any kind of sense are few and far between. His intellect still frightens Nagy when he’s sane, but most of the time he’s a vegetable, a second child, shrieking nonsense in the dark of his bedroom where the curtains stay closed in broad daylight and it stinks of stale cigarettes and horrible medical chemicals and uneaten food, a sad, mad place. He looks like a skull, his skin is grey and kind of blotchy where the mercury has stuck inside little veins and blocked them. His eyes are humongous, discoloured, rheumy. He smells terrible – like he died already and no one’s noticed yet. Nagy’s made up some vague story about trying to find out who the poisoner is, but Calvinus was lying staring at the wall when he told him and Nagy’s sure it didn’t even register. Not much does these days. Nagy left him quietly, when it happened, and slipped out back to HQ. Even with his new-found hate of the Architects and their burgeoning regime, Nagy actually prefers being at HQ than in Calvinus’s house; at least the people there are alive and healthy, if not exactly sane. The place is literally overflowing; even though Cephall and the Reconstruct project have moved out to their original site, the old community centre, both buildings are bursting at the seams with new recruits, old recruits, bright young zealots fresh out of tech college, full-timers, part-timers, clever workers, thick workers who they’ve got doing all the grunt jobs, foreign workers; they’ve got a Legrady electrical engineer called Karel, who joined them out of the blue and rarely ever speaks, but when he does it’s literally pearls of wisdom, especially to the trainee engineers. Ramir’s talking about putting him on the staff cause he’s so good at what he does. Nagy doesn’t see him a lot, but he seemed nice, if awkward, when they met. One evening Nagy gets back from his babysitting duties to meet Dane barrelling down the corridor; the boy crashes into him and they both go sprawling.
‘Whoah, Dane, watch where you’re going! What’s the hurry?’ Nagy reprimands, rubbing the back of his head where it hit the floor. Dane gets up, blushing.
‘We gotta message from Unit Vagus he says he ain’t coming back but he done everything he was sposed to and he’s not gonna tell no one about what he done – ’
‘Ok. I’ll see what’s going on. Next time, take a deep breath and calm down before you start talking, alright? It’s not a race.’
‘Right!’
Dane’s already hurtled off round the corner. Nagy shakes his head.
Vagus says he won’t tell anyone. Yeah, Vagus says. Great words to base your political future on, Nagy.
He knows it means they’re going to get away with it, he’s got a feeling. He doesn’t really care any more; he knows that the only thing that will happen is more of the same, but harder and more tedious with the added stress of trying to win the election.
Ramir’s going to rule you; why not let him do all the work for your campaign? He obviously wants it done his way.
There’s no point trying to wrest the control from control-freaks. If they want all the extra work, well, let them have it and good luck to them because they all go insane in the end. Nagy wishes he hadn’t thought that when he sees poor wasted Calvinus in his mind’s eye. He was the original control freak in politics, the workaholic, sleepless and iron.
You know what he used to say; if you want something done properly, fire the idiot who’s on the job and do it yourself.
Nagy, be the idiot, admit you’re an idiot and Ramir will do everything.

It’s quite strange, really, knowing that they’re so dependent on Vagus’s scribbled little missive being the truth. He could tell anyone and they’d be arrested before you could say ‘Wasn’t me’, but they’ve heard nothing yet. Orders are, get on with your usual work, ignore what’s going on now and concentrate on what’s going to happen once we’re in power. Nagy wonders at the wisdom of that, that a political party can shut itself off from the world at a time of crisis and not look a bit suspicious. Calvinus thinks so; he probes Nagy whenever he’s sane about the Science institute and its resident conspiracy-theory, Dr Larken. Nagy, terrified at those bloodshot, sickly eyes boring their way into his, rambles quasi-vaguely about Larken but he’s careful not to give too much away. He doesn’t know what his pretence is like. Poor, probably.
Letting the Regime down again. You’re not good enough for the Creator.
That’s what they’ll say to me before they Reconstruct me for my sins and failings.
What kind of time is Nagy living in, that he can be frightened of his own thoughts? Of the people he works with, of eyes watching him for signs of weakness all the time. This sense that he’s constantly on trial is really getting to him; that’s what he hates most about the Architects. The pressure to outdo each other, where the losers get a ‘talk’ with Ramir - and they come out having aged about fifty years; so everyone competes increasingly hard, just to avoid the weekly bottom spot. It’s usually some hapless recruit who ends up there, but occasionally one of the staff get in trouble. You never know who it’s going to be and your last fervent prayers of the week are ‘Please, Creator, say it’s not me who’s underperformed this time’. Nagy’s sort of immune because his work is so different to what the others do; Ramir is reliant on him to explain the situation. While Nagy’s present lot is not exactly wonderful, the liberty he gets as opposed to, say, Einor Lanegan, stuck slaving away on Reconstruct research week after week, is enough to stop him really flipping out, for the moment at least.

One morning he’s in Calvinus’s room with him as usual, and Calvinus suddenly calls out in a feeble, cracked voice, from his bundle in the corner of the bed. So weak, his request cuts through the dark heat and claustrophobia of his sickroom deathbed sanctum.
‘Nagy, I’m going. Come here,’
Nagy freezes. The world flips into focus sharper than it’s ever been before, one of those moments where the whole of history comes crashing out of the sky and hits you in the face for daring to change it. It’s a weird feeling, being such a significant part of a city’s immortality, even if it’s just for a short while. Being able to say ‘I was there, I saw it.’
This is it. He’s dying.
WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO I'M NOT READY FOR THIS
He goes over to the bed. Calvinus is barely visible, cocooned in the filthy sheets, the top of his grey forehead and his sick eyes above the hem of a blanket. A claw-hand emerges and it’s clutching a bit of paper with wild scribbles all over it.
‘Yes, sir? Is there something I can do?’
His voice catches in his throat. He’s sort of developed an affection for Calvinus and this undignified end, a last choking, barely audible gasp from the iron tongue of disparaging wit, makes him desperately sad.
‘Get someone. Anyone who can write. A witness.’
Nagy suddenly realises what the paper is; it’s Calvinus’s last will and testament. He doesn’t want to see what’s in there. If he’s made Seneschal then Ramir will be unstoppable, and his vision will steamroller over the city as they know it, Calvinus’s city, and it will never be the same again.
Let us fail. Let him name someone else as Seneschal.
I’ve seen the future and I don’t like it. Let it not happen that way.
‘Right you are; don’t go anywhere yet,’ he gabbles and sprints out the door. Some gormless clerk is passing; Nagy grabs him before he can protest and hustles him inside. He sees the man’s wide, white moon-face screw up at the smell of dying Calvinus.
‘Quick, Nagy,’ croaks Calvinus, shoving the will into Nagy’s hand with a burst of surprising strength-of-the-desperate. ‘I don’t have long.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Make him sign it then sign it yourself,’ he whispers. Nagy’s so nervous he’s hardly there, but he shakes the clerk’s shoulder and thrusts the paper at him, grabs a pen from Calvinus’s desk and forces it into the clerk’s damp inky hand.
‘Sign the bottom line where it says Witness, quickly.’
‘Why?’
Nagy nearly kills the man. He grabs him by the front of his shirt and shouts
‘What do you mean, why? You’re a clerk, aren’t you? You know much more about this kind of thing than I do! Sign the damn thing or he’ll die without a legal testament – for fuck’s sake, just sign it! Now!’
He lets go and the clerk scurries to do it. There, one swift, neat signature on the line that says Witness. Easy as that, but there have been so many dead Seneschals who never had such luck. Their wills were illegal, and what came after was not politics so much as small-scale warfare, a vicious, backstabbing power struggle. They’ve avoided that, and Nagy did it the fair way: he got it signed, he signed it himself, even though he didn’t know what it said. It’s law, he doesn’t know it and it’s going to affect him. If he’s named as Seneschal he can’t refuse.
‘Now stay here and shut up,’ Nagy snaps at the clerk. He turns back to Calvinus who has sunk with a sort of final relief on his face.
‘Nagy,’ he says faintly. Nagy bends down next to him.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘You know what I have given you, don’t you?’
Nagy bites his lip. He wants to scream, No, why have you done this to me? I can’t have what you’re giving, it’s all going to go wrong. You’ve come all this way and still fallen in the trap we set for you. The only one you never saw coming, the only one there was.
Oh for God’s sake, Nagy, be a man about it. Take what you’re given and make it yours.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you,’ he says stiffly.
‘Look after it, won’t you? Don’t let Larken get you too.’
The man’s breath squeaks and rattles in his hollow body. The poison’s eaten him from the inside, it ate his mind and ravaged his anatomy. He shuts his eyes and something goes from the room. It takes Nagy a minute, then it registers. They’ve killed him. Nagy has actually been part of the scheme to kill a man outright to achieve an end.
‘Is he dead?’ asks the clerk.
‘Go away. Get out of here and tell the world.’
I hope no one ever finds out about what we did to you. What God did to you.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly to the man-thing on the bed. If he thinks hard he can imagine the curt reply, oh, never mind that now, just shut up and sort it out fast.

‘Well, Architects, this is indeed the day we make history. Unit Murat is the new Seneschal of Northbridge,’ Ramir announces at the whole-Order meeting that night. The crowd are quiet at first, faces turn and enquire of each other, then it hits them all at once, all the work they’ve done, all the posters they’ve stuck and the slogans they’ve said and the relentless campaigning always afraid of Security, always looking over their shoulder for the rival party or the heavy hand of the law: no more of that. They’ve won, they’ve got absolute control of the city. They’ve broken through the centuries of corruption. They’re Nagy’s party machine, and Ramir’s, and the Creator’s.
Nagy, sitting there on the stage, feels a surge of pride, despite the events of earlier, as after a shocked silence, the hall finally erupts with applause and shouting. And heavier than the pride is the responsibility that settled around his shoulders when he read Calvinus’s testament, which is still unbearably bulky and new and he doubts he’ll ever get used to the feeling. But the ordinary Architects don’t know that; they don’t know that he’s not as avid as they are to effect every word Ramir has fed them in his power-sweet rhetoric. The hall’s absolutely rammed with these grassroots even though meeting is in the warehouse with the huge open space on the ground floor which is usually full of engineering things, big half-finished structures with cables and wires and bits of metal trailing. Karel works here with the tech students, seemingly in permanent assembly time which he never remembers to sign for, it’s become his territory and theirs. They’re at the back now, sitting and standing all over the entrails of their latest creation.
‘Under the new Architect Regime this day will be declared Official Holiday of the Creator; the day in which we began the construction of the new life, under His divine leadership. This is the ultimate proof that sheer industry and determination yields the best results, Units. Look on what you have achieved here as the role-model for every goal in your life as an Architect, and you cannot but follow the Well-Paved Way with truly iron-shod feet. You will be perfect, my Units, flawless, efficient, unstoppable. And you will love your beautiful new city with the joy only visual, aesthetic precision brings. Unit Ackermann!’
Karel the Legrady waves from the back of the hall where he’s perched on his machine with the students. He’s a tall spare man, sort of stringy. He looks like he was born to wear overalls and engineer’s boots; they’re a second skin on him. He’s got curious hair: almost blood-red, thick and straight and jaw-length with streaks of grey, and a neat pointed beard of the same colour. Prominent cheekbones, stern blue eyes in a pale skin.
‘Yes, Leader?’ he calls.
‘Would you and Unit Lanegan please present your Blueprint for a city-wide electricity grid? Units, this is the first thing we will do as the ruling party of Northbridge – is it not, Seneschal Murat?’
‘Indeed, Leader, that is the blueprint. Among many others, of course.’
Karel has made his way to the stage now and he and Einor are unrolling an enormous blueprint on a reel. Karel goes up the gantry at the side of the stage and hangs the top of the blueprint to the ceiling. It’s fantastically complicated, beautifully drawn and completely incomprehensible to most people in the audience; there’s an excited gasp all the same when they read it, City-State Electricity Network.
‘Take us through the proposal, Units.’
Ramir stares at Einor, who blushes and looks at Karel. Karel smiles.
‘Right, I start at the beginning: the title. Sorry my General so poor, I only came from Legrad two month ago – but I try very hard for you. Okay, State Electricity Network is meaning basically, every place in Northbridge to have electricity provided by plants that the government own and state workers run.’
He reaches a lean hand up and indicates the main drawing, and everyone can see how much he really knows as he begins to talk about it. How much he loves what he’s doing, what he’s capable of. His voice is full of energy; it’s not the nasal drone of Einor or the twang of Tyndell or the dry, snappy cadence of Nagy. Although his speech is clumsy and his accent prominent, the Order listen to him like one great big pair of ears on stalks. He’s one of those presenters who understands what he’s talking about so well that he, the man, fades into the background and the ideas shine through him like he’s made of glass. Fantastic ideas, futuristic, high and fast and rocket-science. Difficult, of course; many faces are confused, even Einor’s when it comes to a certain bit. This is the future Ramir has promised them, and eyes turn to Ramir as if to say, My god, he really meant it, he’s giving us what he said he would.
‘There, you see?’ Karel finishes, pulling the bottom of the blueprint. It rolls up with a neat snap like a blind. ‘It is possible and we can do it if we work very hard. Having so much to do now means we get it right for the future and we can enjoy what we have done, no worries for how it will not work. Thank you for your attention.’
Loud, enthusiastic applause, particularly from the back of the hall where Karel’s techie students are glowing with the force of the ideas. They can’t wait to get out there and start building. Ramir shrugs expansively.
‘Well, what can I say? The future really is in our hands, Units. Which leads me very neatly on to my next address: the structure of this Regime. Nagy and I have had long discussions about this and we have decided that it is best for him to tell you, as the political controller of this side of things.’
Mihan, watching Ramir, notices a faint flicker of anger in Ramir as he says this; the man’s eyes dart to Nagy, who looks that kind of charmingly embarrassed when you know he’s not really and he’s loving the attention. Nagy stands up.
‘Well, my display is less impressive than Unit Ackermann’s, but I have done my best.’
He goes to the big drawing board on a stand at the side, and pins up a long sheet of paper with columns and things on it.
‘There is no point in us all doing little tasks here and there; that only leads to a sort of dogsbody-ism which is hardly becoming for the Architects of the future. Instead, the Leader and I have come to the decision, now we are in power, to centralise the Architect Regime here, in this building which has become our spiritual home. As you know, there are at present rough divisions of labour in this Regime, with Karel and Einor in charge of engineering, Mihan in charge of propaganda, Cephall with the medics and so on, with the Leader the keystone of all these arches, naturally.’
Nagy’s neat analogy draws smiles from the crowd but Ramir does not smile. It seems that this proposal is more Nagy’s idea than Ramir’s, or perhaps Ramir wishes it was his. Nagy continues.
‘This regime is going to be huge, because it’s not a government, it’s a society. Just as in today’s society, everyone has a job – well, the majority of people have jobs, and they’re a fixed affair. We have come to the conclusion that a programme where everyone has a set role and knows what they’re doing, is more efficient than simply doing whatever task there is, in a completely unsystematic way. This is far too big an institute to be as haphazard as that, so what the Leader and I propose is this.’
He goes over to his paper and points at the row of columns at the top.
‘The set-up we’ve got is to be formalised: departments here at HQ who will be part of a city-wide board. Labour management, that’s going to be Unit Lanegan’s department. Mechanics and engineering, that’s yours, Unit Ackermann: heavy workload but I’m sure you’ll cope. Coordination and resources management will be Unit Tyndell. Administration and clerical, Unit Antira. Recruitment and martial operations will be Unit Cave. Unit Igrain, Propaganda, obviously. Lastly, Biomedical and Chemical Research will be run by Unit Cephall. I will be directing the political and legislative side of things for the time being, but my role as city governor will gradually become obsolete. The Leader will be the true controller of the Regime, and in time people will be able to live solely by his teachings; there will be no need and no room for a political figure such as Seneschal. And that really will be the future.’
Nagy bows to Ramir elegantly and a thin smile flicks across Ramir’s face.
‘Here is where you come in, Architects, Units, dear components,’ Ramir says. ‘You are the little wheels in the master machine without which the department leaders, the big wheels, cannot run. Those of you who work full-time here and are affiliated to a department will stay with that department, and the most productive of you will be selected for city-wide positions of responsibility. Anyone who wants to work in a new state factory – and we will need thousands of you if Unit Ackermann’s blueprint is to be carried out – please sign the list on the door. Those of you who work in so-called ‘lay’ factories and would prefer to stay there, I hope you are doing your bit to spread the teachings and processes that are correct and Architect. That is to be your job, and you are part of Labour Management. Creator bless you all, my Units, in your new and useful roles. Next week, the beauty and the mystery of the Reconstruct project will be revealed to you by the Medics.’
The usual eruption of applause. The air crackles with purpose, there’s a buzz the like of which has not been there since the very first meeting, when Ramir wooed them with words and blinded them with science. The maelstrom spins faster and faster; the future’s coming, flying headlong and the desperate, burning desire of so many in that Regime is to race towards it at equal speed with arms flung wide and eyes open, streaming with wind-tears, embracing as much of its vast splendour as they can reach. So many promises made that night to the Creator are promises to follow the Way to the letter, if only more of this striking vision is revealed to them, if only it works and Northbridge can really become the futuristic paradise they have been shown tantalising glimpses of. It is only Nagy who is afraid of the future as he tries to juggle committees and policy and Ramir and Security and assassins and civil servants, all the nitty-gritty of a job that is full-time as only politics can be. God, the responsibility, it’s killing him. He feels terrible that he’s allowed this to happen, to get in the mess he’s in. It’s depressing how little he knows about how to run an entire city, and orders from Ramir start flooding in, new strategies to apply, little changes to the law, things he personally rejects but has to accept all the same. Nagy thinks the same thought over and over again.
What the hell am I doing?

god, sorry it's been such a long time

2007-07-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

life keeps getting in the way of my writing. and while this is a good thing because it gives me new experiences, it doesn't make for very interesting reading here. if indeed anyone is reading this stuff at all.

here's something to chew on while i get back into writing....

Breaking out

Over the next few weeks all anyone can talk of is what they’re going to do once Calvinus is retired. They barely see Nagy at all; he’s with Calvinus almost constantly, taking care of him, helping him out, being loyal. If the other Assembly members get suspicious, well, let them. To all intents and purposes, Nagy is simply being a paragon of virtue, giving all he can to the legal ruler of the city. Just a civic duty. He’s really busy, often staying at the Assembly building for days at a time. Only Ramir sees him regularly, closeted in his workshop room in the evenings and the weekends when there’s no politics going on. Nagy frequently comes out of there with trouble in his face, his eyes far away and worried, but he never says anything to the others about what goes on, what he and Ramir talk about. Einor tries listening at the door a couple of times but he can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s all very mysterious, but they reckon everything will be revealed in time – and of course they’re too scared to ask Ramir about it. Mostly they ignore it and carry on as if nothing is happening, like they’re expected to do.
There’s a noticeable energy about the ever-growing workforce these days, now they’re so close to what they’ve been wanting so long. Mihan’s got about ten people in the Propaganda Department, of which he is chief editor. They’re a hive of industry. He can’t stop thinking of new slogans, new designs. Maybe this is his assembly time? His designs are bold, cartoonish, stylised like the Urban Realists but there’s something about them that’s infinitely easy to see as part of real life. He can’t draw properly, but he’s been trained to engrave and print. Woodcut-like, figures in motion, simple, blocky. He likes them, especially the one about the Transportation. There’s an early version of it on the wall of his office (his own office! Imagine). A bright blue sky, orderly square buildings made of white concrete stretching for miles down a street that teems with equally orderly people, pretty and shining and picture-book. The pavement on the near side of the street has a metal shelter on it, curved like a breaking wave rolling over, with a red flag attached to the roof of it. It’s burnished, silvery, reflecting the cartoon sun. The road’s got metal rails on it, dead straight and there’s a set for either side of the road. Coming down the rails on the street is what looks like an enormous cart with enclosed sides and a roof, not drawn by horses but attached to the wires that are strung above the street, connected by a big aerial shaped like a Y. There are people inside it; Mihan took great care in drawing them through the filmy blue wash he put over the windows of the Transport. He looks at it again. Big black square text, ‘This is how we will be travelling in 5 years,’ and underneath, their emblem, the hand holding the hammer, which he came up with in the most blinding flash of inspiration he’s ever had, and ‘Architects: Building the Future of Northbridge’ at the bottom.
All he does is think about what Ramir told him, that night when he was still afraid of Ramir, when Nagy had been beaten up, when they were all hating Northbridge and Mihan just wanted more than anything to go home to Jerboa. And that vision, The Master Blueprint, that’s every single inspiration for him. He’s hanging everything he’s got on it happening – because he believes, because he dares to have dreams. It’s got to happen. It’s waiting in the wings of time, the ether between the impossible and the real, and he believes totally and utterly that if he stretches out far enough he can help to bring it in. Not single-handedly of course; it needs everyone to reach for it. They’re all going to be part of it, after all, this world of glass and steel and sunshine. If only they can convince enough people to vote for them. Vote for what they’ll promise, rather than what they can see now. It takes dreamers, imaginative idealists like him to express the ideas but behind them all there’s a hard core of seriously rational, logical thought to validate it all. It’s coming. Soon it’ll be perfect.

* * *

Nothing like this has ever happened to Nagy before. He always dreamed of it, being in the midst of a great web of intrigue, but he never thought he’d have helped plan the intrigue as well. He always imagined himself solving the puzzles, like working out chemical formulae and energy transfers and things, deducing one thing from another and you get such a buzz when you work it out and it all slots into place like a layer of graphite. Politics is like that. He’s learning, building up his awareness of people and policies and their twisted, tangled views, separating the big knot that it used to be of ‘him’ and ‘everyone else against him because he’s a radical’. Now he knows who might support him, who might not if he says something stupid, and who won’t in a million years. But he hasn’t got time to say anything stupid at the moment. He’s taken up entirely by the deteriorating mental health of Calvinus, and his equally deteriorating physical condition. Vagus has done a good job. Calvinus was never exactly a shining example of good health, but look at him now! Nagy’s almost sad, what’s happening to him; it must be awful, those first stages of madness where you’re occasionally lucid enough to actually realise you’re going mad, and there’s nothing you can do, but then it all slips away again and you forget who you are, forget how to behave and sink back into some horrible fog of craziness.
Calvinus is now shut in his house in case he does himself or anyone else any harm. All government is suspended and the city is now in Political Crisis mode, which basically means anything goes because the civil servants are running the place. Security have got their hands full trying to work out who’s behind the poisoning. Hired assassins everywhere are having a field day, as is the Northbridge Post. One rainy afternoon Nagy’s upstairs with Calvinus, who has developed an obsessive attachment to him: he’s the only one Calvinus’s failing sanity has identified as ‘on his side’, because he was there when it first happened, he was helping. He’s mixed cures. Nagy agrees with everything that he says. How’s Calvinus meant to know that it’s all programmed and controlled by Ramir? He’s just a poor madman.
‘Nagy,’ comes the feeble reply from the tangled chair across the room. Nagy looks up from Calvinus’s desk where he’s reading reports from the head of Security, one Commander Metz, who Nagy’s met before and is terrified of. Nagy turns round.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘They’re coming for me, aren’t they, Nagy? Nagy, I’ve been bad, haven’t I?’
Calvinus’s face is wasted, grey, twisted expressions for twisted thoughts. He starts crying uncontrollably like a child and Nagy’s heart wrenches to see it, what they’ve done to him already. He’s been reading Calvinus’s papers and, against every rational fibre of his brain, he can see that Calvinus is not as bad as people think. What an intellect, what a way with words, a great speaker – and Nagy suddenly realises.
My God, he’s everything that Ramir is. That’s why he’s done this. He can’t take having to beat someone honourably, he has to get in and destroy them horribly, in his own way. And I’m part of the whole sordid enterprise.
His head hurts with the flashing revelations. He’s been unveiled after what feels like years of blindness, the light’s pure white and it kills his poor underused eyes.
What the bloody hell do I think I’m doing? This is sick.
Calvinus is sobbing his heart out. His brain’s gone, he thinks he’s about seven and having his first guilt-attack, that terrible moment where you suddenly become old enough to understand that you’ve done something really bad – but he’s a clever, powerful, fearsome man at the same time. Everything’s messed up and horrible in his head.
This is the future we’re offering Northbridge? Poison and madness to whoever gets in Leader Ramir’s well-paved way?
‘I’ve done terrible things, Nagy, I have, I have! I’m evil, Nagy!’
If you’re evil, what does that make us?
‘Shh, sshh, it’s alright, sir, it’s alright. Stop it now, come on,’ Nagy says automatically, getting up and gently holding Calvinus’s shoulders, pinning him against the back of the chair. Calvinus buries his head against Nagy’s chest and cries, talking and choking and making no sense. Nagy’s ashamed of what they’ve done to him. They’ve ruined him totally. He’ll die of this, in the end, it’ll never get better. It’s only a matter of time before his brain can’t function at all – and then he’ll just go. Nagy hopes he can die peacefully in his sleep one day. He untangles Calvinus’s painfully tight arms from around him and places them gently, firmly, on the arms of the chair. Calvinus wipes his face and seems to be having an interval of lucidity.
‘Nagy, what’s going on? Why am I at home so much these days?’
‘You’re ill, sir. Your doctors have told you to stay at home and rest until you’re better because the stress of your job will undoubtedly make it worse, whatever it is that’s wrong with you. I have no idea what they’ve diagnosed but I’m sure they’ve got their reasons.’
How many times has he answered like that? He’s practically got it off by heart now and his voice doesn’t shake any more when he says it. It grosses him out, the extent to which he’s stringing Calvinus along, but he knows it’s for the best when he thinks about it and estranges his emotions, like all good Architects should be able to do on demand. Probably they should do it constantly, just listen to their inner voice of duty which usually speaks in Ramir’s compelling tones. He shakes his head as Calvinus snorts, his wasted face showing a little of the contempt that used to freeze the strongest of characters, before which the most stalwart socialist or the most devout cultist on the Chamber floor would quail and sell out to him. It’s part of what makes him practically unbeatable, his icy, cruel, amused dismissal of anything and everything that matters to you.
But we’ve beaten him.
Does that make us more committed than anyone who’s been knocked down by his intellect and let him walk on them ever since?
‘Oh yes, I know exactly what their reasons are, Nagy. They’re the ones behind it all, they want to get rid of me because the College of Medics put them up to it. I know they don’t like the ban on importing toxics but I’ve told them again and again that it’s better for the market and that makes everyone happier in the long run.’
That’s one continuous statement. Calvinus barely pauses to think; he doesn’t even need to order his thoughts, they’re already perfectly formed.
He would have made a brilliant Architect if he wasn’t such a money-grabber.
‘Never trust doctors, Nagy, they’re all out to get you.’ He groans and scrubs at his eyes which are red rimmed and grey-lined. ‘As soon as I feel a bit better, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m not having people poisoning me and getting away with it.’
He stops, a crafty look coming across his face.
‘In fact, as I’m stuck here and not allowed to do anything, I’d like you to find out for me, Nagy. I trust you enough to do this for me – but you probably know by now, if I find out you’re double-crossing me and you’re in with whoever’s doing this, I’ll get my revenge even if I’m dead. Go now, I want to sleep. Come back tomorrow and tell me what’s going on out there without me in control.’
Nagy is only too glad to leave. He’s terrified by those last words, even though he knows the bit about him is a complete stab in the dark.
Assassins stab in the dark every time.
He can’t believe Calvinus has already worked out he’s being poisoned. He’s got to get back and tell the others, and why has Vagus run away? Did he plant his notes with Larken, like he said he would?
Is it all going to work?

‘Units, as you no doubt know, things have taken a very significant development in the Calvinus affair,’ Nagy announces at meeting. Ramir is not there but he has instructed them to have the meeting anyway. Everyone goes quiet and Nagy is suddenly terrified. This is criminal, what they’re doing here. They could get hanged for this.
No, it’s politics. That cancels out the criminality; politicians are above the law these days.
‘What’s happened, Nagy?’ asks Cephall anxiously.
‘Well,’ says Nagy, ‘it seems Calvinus knows he’s being poisoned. Don’t ask me how, cause I haven’t said anything and I know who’s been in and out of there, I’d have seen them. But the fact remains, this has come up far too fast for my liking and I haven’t had time to check things. Things like where Vagus is.’
‘Vagus? No one’s seen him for days,’ says Einor, looking dismayed. Then some invisible thunderbolt lands on him and the colour drains out of his face.
‘Oh Creator, what if he’s – ’
‘What if he’s what?’ blurts Mihan, looking equally frightened.
‘Done a runner, I think is what we’re all trying not to say,’ Nagy interjects grimly. ‘We have no way of knowing unless we find him, or some trace of him. It’s safe to assume he has gone of his own volition. Which opens up more terrible questions.’
Nagy pauses, almost enjoying himself. He feels like an actor in a tragedy, seeing the white masks of faces around him, everyone like the ground’s been whipped out from under them and they’re falling into an abyss of dread, the realisation that it’s gone horribly, horribly wrong. You can taste the panic in the air.
‘Yes, we all know what I’m talking about. Who’s he told? And how long have we got before the rumour goes city-wide and we get arrested?’
‘Oh God, it really could happen, couldn’t it? We were functioning so well,’ Tyndell says sadly. Mihan shakes his head. He can’t believe it’s going to end now, before it even begins – no, it’s not. He’s going to keep it alive.
‘We’re not going to be arrested!’ he shouts. ‘We will not be beaten by a bunch of corrupt, stupid, in-bred malingerers just because they’ve got Security on their side. Let’s think positive here, alright! I for one refuse to believe that this is the end. We’ve got so much to give!’
His face is burning, his legs are jelly but everyone is staring at him with sort of awe-disbelief-shock on their faces. He looks round.
‘What?’ he exclaims. ‘Am I the only one who feels this way? I trust Vagus. Hear that? I actually trust him. If he was really against us he wouldn’t have bothered to poison Calvinus at all, would he? He wanted the same things we do, and I truly believe he’s helping us get them, wherever he is now. I don’t care what happens to us; we should carry on doing what we’re doing, hold our heads up high and show people we’ve actually got some convictions, not just worming and wheedling and selling each other like every other politician. We’re more than political. We’re for life.’
‘Exactly, Unit Igrain. Exactly,’ says Ramir’s deep voice from behind them. Mihan nearly faints he’s so surprised, so delighted. He feels dizzy and clings to the table, but manages to stand up straight and look like he’s vaguely composed.
‘The rest of you should be ashamed. Where’s your resolve? Especially you, Nagy: you shouldn’t be sitting unproductive, you should be working extra-hard on your public image. You never know, they might even choose you as Seneschal next, if you really get in with Calvinus. You’re functioning tolerably well, but there’s room for progress.’
Nagy has gone white.
‘Me, Seneschal?’ he croaks. ‘I couldn’t be Seneschal, no way!’
‘No, but the Creator could, through me and thus through you. I can be the middle man between you and the Creator. I am the process, He is the input and you are the outlet. Just as I am now, and just as He is. Think correctly, Nagy, and there is always a simple solution. Let the Creator take the burden of leadership for us all; be happy to follow His every word, and you will do no wrong.’
Mihan wonders at this man. It’s like he descended from heaven to guide them, and if they look too hard, ask too much, he might vanish into the ether and leave them rudderless. They’re absolutely nothing without him; they’re less than nothing, the slimmest flicker of a shadow of a doubt in some Calvinite’s mind.
‘We can win this election. Nagy, you can win it for us. Unit Igrain, a new instruction for you: from now until further notice, all Propaganda is to be for the election campaign and should be suitable for this purpose. Engineers, your tasks are on hold until the Creator tells me it is time: I want every single Unit, apart from Nagy, in the Propaganda department and producing as much as possible. Processed?’
‘Processed,’ they chorus, obedient as so many Reconstructs. Nagy’s disgusted to find himself answering with the zeal of the rest.
This means more babysitting and more sitting in that house feeling guilty. I can’t take much more of it.
He knows his faith has gone, and he doesn’t miss it much. It’s blinded the others, their fear-love for Ramir. They’re doing ridiculous things, irrational, stupid – plain criminal, sometimes, because he tells them it’s the future. Like the Reconstructs; they can’t possibly be legal. Collecting street scum and down-and-outs and literally taking their minds apart in a bloody, gruesome way.
Wiping them clean. Making them new and useful. Giving them a purpose and a way to aid society.
You know all the propaganda, it’s forced down your throat enough to make you sick.
Nagy hasn’t realised before how much he hates it, what he’s got himself into. Hates it, hates it, hates it deep in his subconscious which he’s been suppressing in case it got him into trouble with Ramir and his Creator. He’s frightened that the others have given Ramir so much of themselves, they’re willing slaves of a god that doesn’t even exist. And in return he gives them ridiculous rules, impossible tasks, fear and punishment and a crippling workload. But they love him and worship him for it. It makes no sense.
It’s because he makes it easy.
They don’t have to think for themselves any more about morals and conscience and all that humanity stuff. Following orders removes any semblance of responsibility: are the machines to blame for a badly designed product? Not in the least. Fault lies with the designers, the Creator[s]. Become a machine and all you feel is the happy efficiency of knowing your function and being able to process it, no worries. Added to the fact that it’s much easier to do the task and not get your head kicked in, than it is to feel morally superior. Ramir takes away choice and this cancels the conflicts that come with choice. The way is clear and straight and easy, every other path has bad consequences: why the hell would you bother to make it deliberately hard for yourself?
Yeah, that’s it.
Ramir’s words run in Nagy’s head again and again. Be happy to follow His every word and you will do no wrong.
That’s a horrible philosophy. Why did I get taken in by that?
I wanted it easy. Sick of thinking, sick of getting it wrong, sick of failing.
Everything is sick now. I’m sick, I’m overrun with Ramir, he’s using me like a virus uses cells to copy itself. It forces those poor cells to do what it wants, the little bastard.
He’s had enough of it, being used and manipulated by Ramir. He doesn’t feel like his own person, he’s being controlled from the outside, dancing on invisible strings.
If he wants to be Seneschal so badly, why did he make me be the Assembly rep?
That’s something he’ll never understand. But he might as well use it to his advantage, if he ever gets anywhere near Seneschal. He’d have far more political clout than Ramir, Ramir’s only a cult leader after all. Mihan’s wrong, they’re not political, they’re still religious, social, ethical: they don’t have the wormy wriggly ability to do well in politics. He does: he understands it all now, especially after spending so much time with Calvinus, just listening to him ramble.
I can’t make him let go of me.
But if he’s Seneschal – which, it’s true, he might be – he can gradually loosen Ramir’s grip on the city by changing small things in the instructions he’s given. If he’s going to be a puppet ruler, he might as well be a clever one. He won’t let Ramir have his every whim. That really would be disastrous.

mercury madness

2007-04-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

Mercury madness

Vagus is frightened. More frightened than he’s ever been in his whole life. He crouches in the cellar of the Seneschal’s residence like he’s been doing all night, but the fear’s beating tight in his throat now. He can’t breathe, however deep and full he makes his lungs there’s never enough air. The vial of mercury and the syringe are snug in the junkie needle case, brown leather in his pocket reproaching him for not taking it himself and ending this. Sweetest, most painful of all poisons, quicksilver, madness slowly percolating every thought and the torture only lasts as long as you hang on to your fading sanity. If you just let go, give it all up, it’s the bliss of the truly crazed.
Can you do that to someone else? Take their mind away?
We do it all the time. The Reconstructs are worse than this.
He feels really sick now, he needs to piss, he needs to scream and it will all stop. The dust and rot and horrible mulch smell in here is choking him. No one’s been down here for years, that’s why he chose it. No one would bother digging through the soft wall from the sewers like he did, Calvinus isn’t worth the effort.
Is Ramir worth the effort?
Yes, cause he’ll fuck me up if I don’t do it.
Anything’s better than being fucked by him.
Vagus wonders again and again why he’s even here. Why he didn’t just stay where he was, on the dole in Jerboa. It was alright: not much, but it was a life. Better than this he’s living in now, this sickly culture of fear and fanatics and Ramir-worship. He hates the man. Hates him for making him do this, and he hates himself for getting into all this mess when he could so easily have said no and walked away, left it, got on with his life.
You were played for a sucker, which makes you a sucker.
It’s your own fault.
He shakes his head. Now is not a good time to be arguing with his conscience. He’s just going to do it, get it over with then escape from everything, leave Northbridge, go east to Legrad or south to Brenna. If he doesn’t do it, Ramir will catch up with him. Ramir always catches up with everyone. He caught up with that woman who leaked their details to the press, making them out as psycho fanatics. Now she’s a Reconstruct, doing very well, said her first words last week. What kind of end is that? To have your brains removed and replaced by little machines, you can’t do anything unless you’re told to. Same as before, really.
If you do it you’re safe from the brain-drain. If you don’t, you’re not. Simple as that.
Vagus can hear movement upstairs somewhere, lots of footsteps. He’s so frightened. He knows what he’s meant to do but he doesn’t want to do it. Inject someone else with mercury, actually end their life in that slow painful way. How do you summon the nerve to do that? Such a small action, such huge consequences. He’s going to change Northbridge’s political history for good, and no one will ever know it was him, if he does the right thing. The plan is, get up to Calvinus’s bedroom or wherever it is he sleeps, distract the staff and guards on duty, sneak in and jab him, then get out via the cellars again. He hasn’t got a map or anything; all he knows is which window is Calvinus’s from the outside. First on the left.
That’s not going to help me now.
He creeps up the stairs. It’s time to move, he’s been sitting here far too long already. It’s about one in the morning, he thinks, though his watch has stopped and he actually has no idea. He feels disoriented, alone in the dark with no clock, no one to run to if it goes all wrong and say Get me out of here, please, help me.
The stairs are stone and dark, slimy. He nearly slips, grabs the rail and a huge cobweb tangles round his hand. He whips it away, biting his scream back. He hates spiders even more than he hates Ramir. Something about the way they move. He goes up the stairs more, heart racing, stomach turning over. He thinks he might vomit soon if he can’t calm down. Even his eyeballs are shivering, he’s so tense. There’s a door at the top of the stairs. Where does it lead? Another sour-smelling passage lit with dribbly candles, doors all off the sides. Ratty red carpet on the floor, big, heavy-framed pictures leer from the walls. Fat old men in wigs, with scrolls of paper and books and globes and stuff, like Vagus saw once in the Northbridge Art Gallery when they had a free opening. He creeps down the corridor. Heart thumping. Which door is it? They all look the same. No, one has a sign outside it with ‘Seneschal’s Private Bureau, No Admittance,’ on it in peeling letters. Vagus tries the handle, it’s open. Chaos inside, books and files and huge heaps of paper on every surface, a candle burning low in a little jar on the desk. Chairs, table, tall cupboard, on every wall are maps and pictures and bits of paper pinned up. The red official robes and hat that Calvinus wears are hanging over the back of a chair. Vagus is surprised: he thought he’d wear them all the time. What if he doesn’t recognise Calvinus without his red clothes?
What if I poison the wrong person?
God help me.
The room suddenly seems claustrophobic, so small and so mad. He shuts the door on it and goes away, heart sinking. He doesn’t know if he can take being in this house for much longer; the walls are shrinking in on him, it’s far too hot but he can’t stop shivering. He climbs some more stairs, past a grandfather clock that ticks brokenly, past a huge grimy window where the outside darkness streams in and mixes blue with the black. It’s a house in Central Ward, one of those big ones with all the balconies and towers and stuff, but it’s falling into disrepair because Calvinus is so miserly. It’s a maze, this house; he wanders randomly along sleepy corridors, up stairs, down stairs again, past what looks like the same door about a hundred times, into rooms thick with dustsheets and the foul sweetness of decay, until he thinks he’s found the right door. It’s a different colour to the others, sort of red rather than grey. It’s unlocked and he turns the handle quietly, quietly. His heart’s beating so loud he wonders what the point of being quiet is; surely anyone can hear the thump of his fear in his ribs like a cannon. The room stinks of smoke and a sickly perfume smell that he knows is Shivano, the worst of the new hard drugs that Northbridge can’t get enough of. Calvinus is sitting slumped in an armchair, there’s a candle burning down and the room is crumpled, the bed unmade, the curtains drawn. It’s close, humid, oppressive, sort of dirty. Vagus shuts the door. Just him and Calvinus now.
It’s going to go wrong. He’s not as far gone as all that.
He slides the thin vial of mercury out of the junkie case, fits the syringe to it and goes up to Calvinus. At least, he thinks it’s Calvinus. Yes, it’s got his horsy face, the twisted nose, the wily politician-mouth that’s so clever with its words.
If I give him this he’ll never utter another clever word again, it’ll only be gibberish and madman’s ramblings.
The man’s skin is waxy, sort of greased, and he’s mumbling and twitching in his druggie dreams. A fitting end to the man who’s responsible for half of Northbridge’s addiction and debt problem, being poisoned all alone in a sordid, dingy room, off his face on who-knows-what. But he’s human all the same, he’s alive, he thinks, feels; cut him he bleeds red just like the rest of us. Vagus watches him for a long time, finding him strangely pitiful in sleep, vulnerable, almost beautiful, an ordinary specimen of humanity but achingly significant all the same. The man who’s supposed to be unassailable – without all his defences, his assassins, his scheming and second-guessing and spies, he’s not much, really, just a man, a sad drunken drug-riddled sack of a man like anyone else in the city. Asleep and alone. They say he has numerous mistresses and a string of bastard children, but where are they now? They’ll miss him when he goes mad and doesn’t recognise them any more. They’ll miss him and they’ll grieve and they’ll curse the one who took him from them.
I don’t believe in curses.
I DON’T BELIEVE IN CURSES
He gets the syringe out and looks at it in the gloom, the mercury sloshing silvery inside it, thick, viscous, glittering. It’s quite a nice-looking poison, almost like jewellery. He presses the syringe a little bit and the silver shoots out in a tiny fountain on his hand. He wipes it quickly on his sleeve where it glimmers wetly. His hands are shaking and he’s sweaty, jittery. Nervous as hell. He’s thinking of Selen again. Poor forsaken Selen who Ramir says is dead, doesn’t exist, never did exist. The Creator told him so. Selen said once, thou shalt not kill. Anyone, whoever they are, however bad they are, they’re alive and you have no right to make it otherwise.
Have I gone too far for that now? Am I beyond the reach of a compassionate God?
The Creator is my god now.
Vagus is still poised with the needle in his hand. Where to stick it in? The mark will get found anywhere, so it doesn’t really matter. In his wrist, in his arm, in his neck. It does the same job wherever it goes. He looks at Calvinus. One arm is flung out over the chair-back, his neck is twisted to one side. Easy targets. Vagus takes a deep, slow breath. He’s shaking even more now. The room is timeless, out of touch with the world. Nothing else has ever mattered apart from killing this man, and he can’t bring himself to. Everything he thought he stood for, once when he was young and foolish, what seems so long ago but it’s only a year or so, the Blueprint and Ramir and the Creator and technology and community and everything the Architects are about: this is his last chance to show he still believes, or he’s given up forever.
He’s doing it now, he’s steadying his hand very lightly on Calvinus’s neck, he’s easing the needle between two fingers into the blueness, the vein, the blood that runs below the papery skin. It’s gone in; Calvinus grunts and half-turns but Vagus holds him gently and presses the plunger down. It’s so easy. He’s not waking, he’s not shouting or struggling or any of the things Vagus imagined he’d do. He doesn’t even know. The syringe is empty; he returns it to the junkie case. Nothing but a tiny hole with a thin line of blood on Calvinus’s throat. Vagus wipes it away tenderly, suddenly ashamed of what he’s done, sad, afraid, guilty. He’s started taking lives on command, the slipperiest of all slopes.
I didn’t have to do it. I could have run away instead.
It hurts, what he’s done. He can never change it, however much he wants to undo, to erase the last few moments from the history of the world. This will go down in books, in print, in time and Vagus doesn’t think he can take the responsibility of that. He wants to suck the poison out, un-infect Calvinus, make him whole and healthy again.
He wasn’t healthy. He was off his face half the time and no one even knew.
He knows that doesn’t make it alright. Even the fact that he’s working for Ramir, for God, for the future, none of that makes it alright.
This has gone far enough. I’m getting out before he makes me do anything worse.
If anything can be worse than this.
The real world comes crashing back into the room. He’s just poisoned a man. He’s standing in a stranger’s room with a hypodermic in his hand and mercury on his sleeve at three in the morning. He can already imagine the heavy hand of a Security man landing on his shoulder like a death knell, the two doom-laden words, You’re Nicked.
GET OUT OF HERE QUICK his senses scream at him. He doesn’t think about it, really. He just goes any which way, shuts the door on Calvinus and walks, panicky-quickly down all the stairs down the sour corridor and the slimy staircase and out through his tunnel into the sewers, the stink welcoming, the cold the sloppy floors, anything but that sad house and the sad man in it. He closes the tunnel with the pile of rubbish that was there before. He’s shaking again, really bad this time. His legs are so trembly he has to sit down on a mossy stone ledge. It’s only just hit him now what he’s done. Calvinus was totally helpless, a paralytic, a child, a consumptive. He was so gentle with him, like he cared for him, like he was administering life-saving miracle cure, not a poison. It’s for your own good. The irony, the horrible sick humour of it makes him despair. It would have been better if Calvinus had screamed and struggled and he’d had to force him down, have to earn the right to stick the needle in like he meant it, like it was his utmost desire. He could deal with that, with giving as good as he got. This was too easy. Vagus sees again the needle sinking into that white flesh and the blue-grey-purple below it and he whimpers, involuntarily. It was a routine. He destroyed a man by numbers.
‘What have I done?’ he whispers to himself, alone in the sewers where the water splashes and gurgles and the rats own the place, ‘what the hell have I done?’

‘Vagus back yet?’ Einor asks. It’s a bright, cold sunny morning and they’re off to their various duties. They’re in the new canteen, staffed by a dour, stringy woman with a rigorously healthy outlook on food. They’ve got so many permanent members now that it was ridiculous for them all to go out to the street stand for food, they’d clean them out.
‘I haven’t seen him. But we’d know if he’d been caught, it would be in the papers. Headline news, I expect,’ Nagy replies confidently. Mihan only looks at his porridge, worried. He reckons Vagus has done a runner, couldn’t take killing Calvinus. Nagy shrugs and gets up, swinging his coat on.
‘Well, I’m off to the Chamber. You’ll soon hear whether Vagus has done it or not.’
He leaves Mihan and Einor both thinking the same thing.
‘He hasn’t done it, has he?’
‘Well, it is quite a hard function to process, I’d say. Taking another life in cold blood.’
‘We do it all the time! What’s so different about Calvinus and a Reconstruct?’ Mihan exclaims. He could’ve done it. Then Ramir would truly love him.
‘Shh! Keep your voice down, for goodness’ sake. Honestly, you’re a nightmare sometimes, blurting out whatever comes into your head willy-nilly,’ Einor says repressively, peering over his shoulder at the canteen lady, who isn’t listening.
Mihan is stung. He gets up, deliberately bumping the table so Einor’s coffee slops over his hand as he drinks, and goes. He knows where he’s appreciated and it’s not by Einor any more. Einor used to be his friend but they’ve sort of drifted apart now Einor’s an engineer and Mihan’s a Propagandist. Work comes first, as always.
By the evening Vagus is still not back, and neither is Nagy, though he’s often late when he’s coming from the Chamber. Meeting seems rather empty without them, especially Nagy who’s usually sounding off about something that happened in the Assembly. They’re waiting anxiously for Ramir as well, who has disappeared into his workshop and shows no sign of coming out. They’re avoiding conversation. They’ve said it all already.
Mihan can’t bear it in the room any more. He goes outside and stands in the cold corridor, as though if he waits for something to change it will. These things make him so scared; they’re the signs of the machine breaking, they’re the spanners in their otherwise so thorough works. It shouldn’t be like this. He spins round as their messenger boy Dane rushes through the door with a bit of paper in his dirty little hand.
‘Urgent message for Leader Ramir, Mister Igrain!’
‘Dane, how many times? It’s Unit, not Mister. What’s it about?’
Mihan’s not really concentrating. He knows what it is. His heart sings; Vagus has done it. Calvinus is on the way out and Nagy is on the way up.
‘It’s from Mister, uh, Unit Na – I mean, Unit Murat, he said it’s urgent,’ Dane gabbles, waving the bit of paper. Mihan takes it from him firmly and pats him on the shoulder.
‘Alright, Dane, you’ve done your quota. I’ll take it to Leader.’
‘Thank you!’
Dane scuttles off and Mihan unrolls the bit of paper in trembling fingers. Nagy’s writing, usually so neat, is a frenzied scrawl.
Leader
C is malfunctioning and I’m staying here until everything’s a bit calmer. Please can someone cover my night duty? I’ll be back in the morning
Nagy
Mihan can’t believe it. It’s actually happening, everything they’ve plotted and schemed and worked out so long ago with such precision, it’s working just as they said it would. It’s like a dream, Mihan’s afraid he’ll wake up any moment now and it’ll be last night, with Security pounding on the door cause they’ve caught Vagus doing his mission and they’ve dragged everything out of him. He touches the wall just to make sure it’s really there; cold and solid meets his outstretched hand. Only then does he let the smile, the amazed happiness, spread across his face and render him imbecilic for a moment, paralysed with the gratifying feeling that it’s not all going wrong, it’s as right as can be, nothing is more right than this. He rushes down the corridor to Ramir’s workshop and knocks on the door smartly.
‘What?’
‘Leader, it’s me, it’s Mihan! Nagy just sent a message for you!’
Ramir bangs the door open with a tangle of wire in his hand. Mihan stands up straight and correct but a boulder of guilt rolls down his throat. He’s interrupted the genius at work, probably on something groundbreaking and unimaginable. Ramir’s still somewhere else, in the last throes of his assembly time. Mihan tries not to look guilty.
A mistake acknowledged with shame is both a mistake and an embarrassment. Take your faults like a man, then pray and repent for them to be removed from you.
Some blueprint or other. There’s one for every situation. How will I ever remember all of them? What if I’m asked to recite one and I can’t?
JUST STOP PANICKING
‘What do you want? I don’t have all day,’ snaps Ramir.
‘Leader, Nagy just sent this with Dane who said it was very urgent.’
Ramir grabs it and reads it, his lips twitching soundlessly as he makes out Nagy’s scribbles. His face goes from tired and cross to exultant, lit from within.
‘Yes! Brilliant news!’
Mihan pretends he doesn’t know what it says. It wouldn’t do to let Ramir know someone’s reading his mail: he’s the one who does that to other people.
‘What is the news, Leader?’
‘Calvinus is down! We’re through, Mihan. We’ve done it, we’ve freed Northbridge from him and now we can really start to break through the masses! Get back to meeting and tell the others right away. We haven’t got a moment to lose.’

politicking

2007-04-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Some weeks later Ramir calls them all to a meeting at a very funny time, in the middle of the night. They’re all sitting there yawning at the table, apart from Ramir, who looks as fresh as a daisy, and Nagy, who was awake anyway on night duty, training up a few congregation volunteers. Ramir is in a rare good mood, smiling and sharing a joke with Cephall, who looks sleepy and confused. Ramir looks round.
‘All present?’
‘Yes, that’s everyone,’ answers Nagy. Ramir nods to Rufilla and she begins typing.
‘Good. Units, I know this is a very inconvenient time to meet, but you are all inured to physical discomfort, of course, because the Third Blueprint says that work comes before bodily want or need. So it shouldn’t matter to you what time it is; you’re ready to function whatever the hour. Anyway, enough of that. I have received a letter from Calvinus, just ten minutes ago, that says… ’
He picks up a piece of thick paper with the government stamp on it.
‘Greetings to Ramir from Lord Calvinus, Seneschal. It has not escaped government notice that your association, the Architects, blah blah blah, although of questionable political opinion, and so on and so on, are significant enough to warrant legitimisation as a party which therefore entitles you to send one delegate to the Assembly from now on… blah blah… probationary period… scrutiny… strictly above-board dealings… yes, that’s it, nothing else is relevant, I don’t think.’
‘Above board? Hah! I like that, coming from him,’ exclaims Nagy.
‘Quite. Anyway, this is a great day in Architect history, Units. No more grubbing for funding in the muck, we’re official now. We can attend the Assembly, we can produce any propaganda and display it anywhere we want, we can have rallies, we can run for Seneschal election even! Well done, units. It is down to your effort that we have earned this privilege, and I promise you, this will make things much easier from now on.’
‘Who’s the delegate?’ snaps Vagus.
‘Yeah! How do we decide that?’
Ramir looks around them.
‘Who do you think, Units? I know exactly who we should have. Unit Murat, this job is made for you. Do you accept?’
Nagy looks amazed in the silence.
‘Me?’ he says incredulously. ‘You want me to represent you at the Assembly? Well, I…’
He stops, laughs shortly. No one says anything, moves, smiles, objects. They sit there like disengaged Reconstructs. They all know he’s the best choice, but more than one of them is bitterly disappointed. He shrugs expressively.
’I don’t know what to say, for once. I’m flattered. It would be an honour to represent this regime anywhere, especially somewhere as prestigious as the Assembly.’

It’s time the political system around here was explained, insofar as any sort of system can be applied to Northbridge. It is essentially well-designed chaos, that very special sort of chaos that works just well enough to make people realise they need it, and however bad it is, it’s still a hell of a lot better than it would be if they cleared it out and started again – that really would be chaotic. There’s been a lot put into politics over the years, by various people, and it’s a big part of what makes Northbridge the way it is. If you changed it, no one would know where the hell they stood and things would get messy.
Essentially, it’s an autocracy. The Seneschal has the highest power in the city-state of Extended Northbridge; whatever the parliament says, they can overrule it. One man or woman is ultimately in charge – it’s never been a woman yet, but there’s nothing to say a it can’t be. Anyway, the Seneschal sits in the centre of the Assembly, which is a cross between a parliament and a bull ring, yah-boo politics being the norm here. It has a representative from every legalised party, religion, cult, union, Guild, association with a significant influence over the people of Northbridge – the significance is decided by the government of course. Fair’s fair… right?
The Seneschal is meant to listen to all these representatives equally, but what’s a bit of shady dealing when there’s money and power and stuff like that involved? This is modern predatory capitalism, don’t’cha know: eat or get eaten by some other bastard with more money and contacts than you. The Assembly is always rife with corruption and intrigue, which is what makes it both the favoured haunt of the Northbridge Post journalists – the NP is the ‘serious’ paper round here – and quite a dangerous place to work, if you’re not extremely aware of cause and effect: or in simpler terms, who you’ve offended this week who’s got a short fuse and enough money to pay for your removal, and who you haven’t, which doesn’t always mean they’re your friend.
As regards the general population of the city, they can’t do a lot. They can vote for the new Seneschal if the old one dies or goes mad or falls from grace in a big way – should they happen to care which new crook rules their city instead of the last one because it won’t make much difference – but other than that, they have to be involved with a represented group in order to have any chance of a say at all. Hence most of them are involved, or completely not interested in politics. There’s not much middle ground in Northbridge; it’s just not a middle-ground kind of place. You know.

They’re all in the bunk room now, the meeting’s done. It’s nearly two in the morning, but none of them are remotely tired any more. They’re all totally amazed.
‘I can’t believe it’s happened at last! I was starting to think we’d never get the message across to anyone!’ Mihan exclaims. Nagy nods.
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Just in time, though. It was sort of hanging in the air, you know, just hovering over us, and it was equally likely we’d be declined. I remember writing that letter of application and thinking, oh God, we’re never going to get it, it’s going to be a disaster. Not that I’m saying it was the letter that swung it,’ he adds quickly as Vagus raises an eyebrow, ‘far from it, it was atrocious. But still, we got it.’
‘You scared about the Assembly, Nagy?’
‘No! It’s going to be brilliant! I’ve always wanted to get in there, even just to have a look around the building, see if the stories are true.’
‘What, about assassins and all that? You’d better watch your back, Nagy, Calvinus will have someone onto you the instant you walk through that door, you know.’
‘Yes, I know that. I’ll just have to be careful. It won’t be very useful to the Master Blueprint if I get killed trying to set it up…’
His face grows thoughtful.
‘Though what I really don’t understand is why he isn’t taking the job himself. That would make much more sense than me doing it. I’m bound to get his instructions wrong sometime, and we all know what happens when we do that.’
‘It’s cause you’re expendable and he’s not, Nagy – at least, he thinks he’s not. He don’t care if you get done in, but this way he can avoid the poison daggers and pull your strings at the same time,’ snaps Vagus. Nagy looks like he’s been punched; his mouth flaps for a second but he doesn’t say anything. Vagus continues, fired up now.
‘You know it’s true, Nagy. He’s just using us, and the more we play along, the more stuff he’ll make us do. I’d reject the job, get free while I still can, if I was you.’
‘What kind of remark is that, Vagus? You don’t think that – at least, you’d better not, or you’re in the wrong place and you’d better leave before we get you thrown out!’ Mihan shouts, unthinkingly, just saying what he feels. Everyone shushes him frantically and he claps his hand over his mouth. Wrong thought is worse than wrong when it’s out loud.
‘God, look at you all!’ Vagus exclaims. He’s half-laughing, half-disgusted. He waves a hand at them. ‘Can’t even talk openly any more, can you, you’re so shit scared of getting in trouble with him,’ jabs his thumb towards the door. Mihan spins round, half-expecting Ramir to be standing there listening. He’s not, of course, but you never know.
‘I mean it! It’s ridiculous! We’re sposed to be working together or something, but all we do is try and make ourselves look good by smearing other people in the dirt, cause we’re so scared that we’ll all go behind each other’s backs over little tiny details that no one should give a shit about. He's just one of us and not the best one either, but for Creator knows what reason, you’re all frightened of him! I tell you, I’ve had it absolutely up to here with this place, and you can report that to who you like.’
Vagus gets up and barges out of the bunk room. The others all look at each other with frightened faces.
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘Who knows, Mihan? He’s really not right at the moment, and I don’t know why. He should not have said that stuff, it’s going to catch up with him. It always does.’
‘He’s the one who’s shit scared, not us at all,’ Cephall says suddenly. They all jump; they thought he was asleep in the corner. He continues talking.
‘You can see it in his face, he’s really frightened of something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s eating him up and he’s letting it get the better of him. He’s panicking and that’s what made him come out with all that.’
‘So? I panic all the time about stuff, but do I come out with crap like that?’ Mihan counters. ‘No, cause I’ve learned that saying what you mean isn’t always telling the truth. It’s the whole flawed thought argument again, isn’t it? He thinks he’s always right and we’re all against him, and he’s dead wrong! He’s the one against the rest of us, he’s letting everyone else down,’ he says bitterly. ‘I sometimes think he’s not one of us at all, he’s got some hidden agenda that’s nothing to do with the Regime or the Master Blueprint. Does anyone else think that?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Mihan, but you’re right, he is acting strangely,’ says Nagy. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about Vagus, I’m sure he’ll see the error of his ways and come back to us when he’s ready. There aren’t enough of us to get rid of him, and I’m overworked as it is without having to cover his duties as well if he leaves, so let’s not hold it against him unless it gets really bad, right?’
‘Good idea. I’m going to bed. Restful off-shift, all of you,’ Einor says and climbs up into his bunk, kicking his boots off at the top like he always does. The others all follow suit, but sleep does not come easily to a lot of them that night.

Several days later, Nagy comes back from his first assembly meeting. He’s spitting angry, absolutely seething. Mihan greets him as he bangs into the bunk room.
‘Evening Nagy. What’s the matter?’
Nagy shakes his head incredulously and the invective begins.
‘Why the hell did I take that job? It’s horrible, Mihan, it’s absolutely awful, everyone staring at you in that room, not knowing anyone and they all know you, God, it’s terrifying, standing up and giving our views when absolutely no one else shares them, I know they were laughing about me behind my back. And that man! Creator stay my hand, I’m going to do something bad to him if he makes one more Brenna joke! I mean, what difference does it make if I’m Brennan? What a racist! And the rest aren’t much better, specially the right-wingers – oh no, don’t even get me started on them. I need to calm down or I’ll really lose it.’
He sits down on Mihan’s bunk next to him and runs a tired hand through his hair. He looks exhausted.
‘What about Calvinus? Is he the racist you were talking about?’
‘Of course. No wonder so many people hate him. I mean, it’s true he’s made the city a lot richer than the last guy, but he’s corrupt as they come! And he’s in charge of about five million people’s lives! I wouldn’t trust him with his own life, let alone everyone else’s.’ He sighs. ‘Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Right – what would you have, money or the truth?’
‘The second one, of course. That’s what we’re all about, isn’t it?’
Nagy looks sadly at him.
‘Well, you see, that’s the whole problem…’ He whacks his fist into his hand. ‘Hell, listen to me! One day in there and I’m doubting everything I’ve ever stood for. I mustn’t let them get to me, I mustn’t weaken,’ he says fiercely.
‘Just believe, Nagy. It’ll be alright. Be who you really are, not who they force you to be. Then you’ll get a label as the honest one in a bunch of crooks – and that’s a good face for the Regime, honesty over power, uprightness over shady dealings behind closed doors, that kind of thing.’
Mihan’s amazed. Nagy, sharp-as-nails razor-wit Nagy, going to pieces over people who are nothing and no one? Where’s his faith gone?
‘Creator! Mihan, why can’t I think like you? You’re so clear, you know where you’re going and nothing gets in your way; it’s amazing.’
Mihan would laugh at that, if it wasn’t so upsetting. He smiles sadly.
‘Nagy, you’re the one who taught me how to be like that. It’s doubts, your problem. If you don’t think about them, they’ll go away. I only believe so strongly because the Regime’s just about the only thing I can trust, and even then, I sometimes wonder what I’m doing.’
Or do I? What am I doing?
What I want to do.
I could so easily have stayed at the Jerboa Gazette, not got involved with all this. I might even have been successful.
Mihan shakes his head. When he starts to think like that he just gets depressed. Nagy pats him on the shoulder encouragingly.
‘I think everyone does. It’s because it’s so hard. We believe, sure, but getting other people to is a different matter. You know. Anyway, I’ve got to go; thanks for the advice. See you at the meeting, where I’m sure I’ll be asked for a full report on today’s events.’

Mihan watches Nagy go. He looks down at his hands in his lap, wondering.
What am I really doing?
He doesn’t know if he’s meant to be here after all. This place, this building, these people, they've become his world. His beliefs, they’re his world too. He so desperately wants there to be something else out there apart from the cruelty of men, the ultimate hopelessness of life, something bigger than him. He almost knows it, when Ramir’s there and he’s talking about the Creator like He’s in the room with them but only Ramir can see Him. Mihan wants to see Him as well, and he never has, at least, not properly. That time with the Reconstructs, when the first one sat up and said ‘Ramir is the mouthpiece of the Creator,’ his heart did a great leap and he thought he saw a huge golden eye watching him over the desk, and love and appreciation was shining out of the eye and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but when he looked again it was gone and he couldn’t remember what it looked like, all he remembered was the warmth.
Is the warmth enough to base my whole life on? To give everything I’ve got to the word of one man, human like me, fallible, mortal, flawed?
Ramir makes him wonder. Mihan knows he’s right, knows he’s the one. Ramir’s got the prescience, the big ideas, he’s the man with the mission. But Mihan has some serious doubts about the way they’re going to carry out their plan for Northbridge: the Reconstructs, for one. It sickens him sometimes, what they do to them. He knows they can’t feel it, he knows they’ll never feel anything ever again, he knows it’s for the best. Better they’re being useful than idle criminals – but still, to take their mind apart and put it together how you want, rather than how it is? Surely that’s over the line.
But who draws the line?
It’s technically perfect. No one likes criminals, the jails are getting too full, and if they can be turned into something so useful, so flawless, who could object? And even if they did, they know Reconstructs don’t object to the way they are; they’re programmed to release endorphins when they do a task right in the name of the Creator. Humans entirely without vice. What humanity could have been if there was no money, no power, no inequality, no materialism, no possession.
That’s the end result, Mihan. It’s the means you can’t accept. But you know the ideas.
Questioning = flaws
Freedom = weakness
Thought = wrongness
Individual = nothing, group = everything. We are just units in the master machine.
The Third Blueprint: The thoughts of an individual are simply thoughts/The thoughts of the group are an ideological force/One man cannot build an empire on his own.
He can’t wait long enough for it. It’s starting, the age of technology, the age where cleverness and diligence is far more valued than money or status, a meritocracy, classless, without prejudice, where anyone is your friend because they share your beliefs, and anyone who renounces those beliefs in favour of the bad old ways is not just your enemy, they’re everyone’s enemy. Why put yourself through that when it’s so much easier and nicer just to shut up and get on with it, and if you don’t like it, don’t think too hard about the whys and wherefores.
Soon everyone’s going to be like that. Not just us. Ramir will teach everyone.
Mihan’s afraid of Ramir. Been well-taught: obey or get punished. Of course, most of the time he’s jumping for the chance to obey, but when there’s something that makes him think what? he can’t be serious, the only way to get it over with and get it right, is to ignore your conscience and just do it completely out of context. It’s the context that messes with your head, so blot it out, or, if you really can’t, there is one other option.
But who would do that to themselves?
Volunteer for Reconstruction. Be eternally freed from ‘wrong thought’ and be rewarded in the next life, one of the Creator’s guard of honour, perfect unstoppable super-human. He knows what they go through. He's the one who does it to them, Creator’s sake. He imagines feeling what he program, nothing but a sort of fanatic love for one man; no emotions, nothing has any effect on you apart from what the transmitter tells you, and you obey unconditionally. No doubts, no questioning. No nothing.
Could you do that to yourself, Mihan?

Meeting time again. They’re all round the table, Nagy’s on his feet, telling them about the political issues of the day. Rufilla’s typewriter clicks mercilessly.
‘Labour rights came up. I gave our position as Pro reform, but no-one’s told me exactly what the reforms are going to be. I assume they’re for the better – well, they can’t get much worse, can they? I also said we were very involved with workers at the grassroots level, which didn’t go down too well with Security and the right wingers. What’s my direction? Aggravate them, show whose side we’re on, or suck up to them and, er, kick them when they’re down, as it were?’
‘Kick them now, they deserve it!’ Mihan blurts before he can stop himself. Ramir looks at him coldly and he freezes. He didn’t mean to say that.
‘Speaking out of turn shows unconsidered thought. Wrong thought, Unit Igrain. Don’t let it happen again. Repeat that, please, Nagy.’
‘Do I side with the right-wingers to get what we want, then dump them once we’ve got it? That would get us some useful rich contacts, but it’s a bit, erm, well, you know…’
‘Corrupt, perhaps?’ Vagus suggests archly.
‘Thank you, yes, that’s exactly what I meant. What should I do, Leader?’
Ramir frowns, as if it should be obvious: why are you even asking, you know our ideology don’t you? Do you need me to do everything for you?
‘Side with them, of course. We’re beating them from the inside out. It hurts much more that way, and it’s quicker. If we show our colours on the Chamber floor we’ll get ripped apart like all the other left-wingers. Let’s bide our time, wait for a few other blueprints to be realised. Speaking of which, Vagus, Nagy, there are a few things we need to discuss. I think you know what I refer to, but I trust no one else knows anything of this.’
‘Do you mean the poiso – nnff,’ Nagy starts to say and stops himself.
‘It’s time to tell you, units, something that may shock you. It shocks me too, that we have to stoop this low in order to rise to the dizzy heights of control – but there you have it, it’s a cruel world out there. We crush, or we get crushed.’
‘Tell us, Leader,’ says Einor. ‘If we truly believe, we’ve got to know.’
‘Quite so, Unit Lanegan. Very well, I’ll tell you. I have for some time been working on a nasty little blueprint with Unit Vagus, on how we might gain power. Once Unit Murat has enough support in the Assembly and he’s got us a favourable reputation that shines through everyone else's oil and mud, once we’ve got that, Unit Vagus is going to poison Calvinus.’
Mihan’s dismayed at that. Can they really do no better than a common crook, paying for the removal of people who get in the way of his schemes?
‘Why can’t we just beat him honourably in the elections?’ he asked. He sounds so innocent.
‘Because until he dies, there won’t be an election,’ Einor replies promptly.
‘And knowing him, he’s got it all planned out already, how he’s going to mess everyone else’s campaigns up from beyond the pale,’ Nagy adds, pulling a face. ‘Don’t you see? We need to force an election, once I’ve got my image right, and the only way we can do that is to make Calvinus be unable to rule any more.’
Mihan is embarrassed at his scant knowledge of the Northbridge political system. For Creator’s sake, he’s meant to be a core member of a new and thriving political party but he still doesn’t have a clue about how the whole thing works.
Why am I so bad at all of this? I try harder than anyone and I’m always the one who bungles things we’re all meant to be good at.
‘You’re all very quiet, units,’ says Ramir nastily. ‘Good; I assume that means there are no objections?’
‘Why would we object? We want to get rid of him, don’t we?’ says Nagy. ‘I mean, after today, I’m all for any scheme that gets rid of him.’
‘How are you going to do that, Vagus? I swear he’s untouchable or something; don’t you read the papers? He’s survived more assassination attempts than Neel Merion, and that includes all the slow poisons which you can’t see or smell or taste,’ Cephall says, dismayed. ‘It was in the Science Institute journals, how he must have a superhuman immune structure and they wish he’d donate his body to them once he dies.’
‘Well, it’s funny you should mention the Institute, actually,’ says Ramir, ‘because I’ve been doing some research and I know exactly who we are going to frame for doing this: a Dr Larken, who’s quite high-up in the Institute.’
‘Cause he’s mad as a hatter?’
‘Because, Cephall, he’s the expert on obscure and subtle poisons and logically, he’s the most likely culprit. Everyone knows he hates Calvinus after that ban on importing toxic substances.’
Mihan sees the opportunity to make a sharp political comment. He’ll show them he understands just as well as they do, he’s not some stupid novice.
‘His whole empire runs on drugs, and he banned toxics?’
Lead balloon. Einor shakes his head wearily, rolls his eyes behind their glasses.
‘Yes, Mihan, so the Northbridge drug dealers could have the whole market, instead of cheap foreign muck being imported from Brenna – sorry, Nagy, no offence. Honestly, don’t you ever think these things through?’
‘I thought he’d banned local toxin suppliers as well, actually – ’
Einor actually laughs at that. Ramir puts his foot down.
‘Alright, that’s quota. This arguing is unproductive, units, I make the decisions around here. Never mind the process for now, Unit Vagus and I will engineer that. But this is the overall blueprint: Vagus is going to use a slow poison; probably mercury, since it’s intravenous and unless they cut him open they’ll never find it. You, Unit Murat, will recognise the symptoms when he starts feeling them, and you will run forward to help him, thereby showing your loyalty. Stay with him when he’s down, make yourself indispensable. He’ll begin to trust you. As he deteriorates, and if you keep at it long and hard enough, he’ll think you actually are indispensable. Make him depend on you, humour his delusions; tell him about our plans for improving output in factories, building new public facilities – but Creator’s sake, nothing about the Master Blueprint. Agree with everything he says. If in a lucid interval he twigs that it’s a poison, which he will – he’s not stupid – then this is what you do.’
Ramir pauses, leans forward a bit. The room is dead quiet. Even Rufilla’s not typing this bit down in case someone else reads it and turns them in.
‘You tell him you’ll investigate; even mix some, er, cures for him. You were a student of chemistry for a while, were you not?’
‘I was.’
‘Well, use a bit of technical jargon to show whose side you’re on. If people start to suspect you, tell them you’re doing all you can, you were only an apprentice after all so you’re really out of your depth, keep telling people that it must have been an expert who did it because the poison’s very complex. They’ll automatically think of Larken: high profile expert on poisons with a long-held grudge against Calvinus. That’s the first place they’ll look, and that’s where Unit Vagus will plant his research, disguised as Larken’s own work. He gets arrested, no one can prove it wasn’t him because he’s absolutely mental and he’s known for memory loss. Calvinus dies, Nagy, with you in his favour – if we’ve engineered it correctly, you might even be named in the Testimonial as his successor; in which case, you will rule the city, with our help, and the Master Blueprint will become a reality. I know it’s disappointing to stoop this low, but to climb we must fall first, so we know what we can endure.’
The moment hangs in the air. No one knows quite what to say; it’s a bold blueprint, a brilliant blueprint, it’s the way forward. They can see it now, Calvinus on his deathbed in a candlelit room with Nagy there at his side, Calvinus gasping with his last breath that he names Nagy as his successor, the arrest of Larken, the trial, the funeral – and then, at last, at last they would have the city. It could take years, or it could all be over in weeks. Who knows with Calvinus?

sound check

2007-03-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

i wonder if anyone is even reading this. oh well, if you are... i flatter myself that you are the slightest bit interested in the development of this story so - if you don't like spoilers, LOOK AWAY NOW

i just want to get this story out of my system, and since writing the whole damn thing will take forever, i will give a very brief blurb:

ok. essentially it's about transformation (and i won't say any more) but it's also about art and science and the precarious mediator that is politics. it's about repression and freedom, and about culture shock, and it's got a post-punk soundtrack, if anyone can hear that. i really hope you can.

yeah, i guess that's all from me for now. i was in a weird mood when i wrote this so, if it sounds deeply pretentious and arty-farty, i apologise profusely. i'm sure when i read this next time i will think, oh god what have i done? but hey - it takes all sorts.

directive 1

2007-03-26T16:58:00.001-07:00

Architect Order Directive 1
Issued 53rd winter, Year of Storms

The word Comrade is henceforth not to be used when addressing a member of the Order; instead let the word Unit be applied to said member of the Order.

A friend is human and can let you down
A machine is ever on your side
We are all units of the Master Blueprint
Let us reflect the honour we feel for this role in our address to each other

By the will of the Creator conveyed by the speeches of Leader Ramir

this title is NOT stolen from the automatic... i promise!

2007-03-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

On the campaign trail

Mihan and Einor have been pounding the streets for days up round the factories, spreading the word. Mihan is not enjoying himself at all. His feet are killing him, his rucksack’s really heavy and he’s got a terrible headache. And it’s raining like the Creator wants to drown them. They’re outside the Petiole steelworks, way up in the outer reaches of First Ward where the air’s thick with smog and fumes.
‘Where have we got to go after this?’
‘Don’t know. I reckon we should skip this one, actually. Thom Petiole and Calvinus are like that,’ Einor crosses his fingers, ‘we’ll get lynched if we’re caught in there.’
Mihan is so tempted to agree.
We could get out of here, back to the lower city and go and sit in a pub somewhere, be normal, pack all this stupid electioneering business in. No one else is bothering, why should we?
No, Mihan, says his conscience. Don’t weaken, you’re doing the right thing. You’re a missionary now.
‘We ought to give it a shot. At least so we can say we tried. You do want to make a difference, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but – ’
‘No! No buts. We’re going in, comrade, we’re going to spread the word.’
Einor grumbles, but Mihan is adamant. He feels good about it as well, that he’s keeping going when he could so easily have given in. Mind over matter.
‘At least let’s go in the back door,’ Einor moans as Mihan drags him across the yard.
‘I spose you’ve got a point there. We don’t want a repeat of the Haimisha works.’
Mihan’s still smarting from that incident; they went in the front door, the desk people refused to take them seriously so Mihan decided to preach to them instead. They ran for Security, and Mihan and Einor had to make a mad dash for it, finally losing the Security men in the backstreets of Third Ward. What will come of it, they still don’t know. Ramir was not pleased.
‘Where do you think it is?’
‘No idea. I reckon it’s over there.’
‘What, that one?’
‘Let’s try it. Creator, forgive us for this act of trespass, for it is in Your name,’ Mihan mutters and they make for the door, a slab of corrugated iron set in the wall. It’s open, and it leads straight into the canteen which is jammed with rough-looking workers eating, talking, arguing, laughing. Mihan’s heart does a familiar plummet into his bowels.
‘Right, let’s get this over with, comrade. Have you got the leaflets?’
‘Mihan, I can’t do it. I want out.’
Einor’s gone pale, he’s sweating in his overall, he’s shrinking from the door. Mihan grips his shoulder for a moment.
‘I know, I know. But think of how good it will be once we’ve got them out of Petiole’s grasp. Think of the Master Blueprint. Surely that’s worth the trouble of doing this?’
Einor does not answer. Mihan grabs his arm and hauls him into the canteen. Here they go again, on the campaign trail, no idea what the results are any more.
Come on, Mihan, just let yourself go. Show them how you feel.
‘Oi! How’d you get in ‘ere?’ shouts a tall worker with arms like steel bars. Mihan gulps.
Just do it, Mihan. Free the chained.
‘Are you oppressed by the government and ill-treated by your superiors?’
‘Yer wot?’
The worker’s looking at him very suspiciously. A couple more have turned round to watch what’s going on. Mihan sees their hard faces, hungry eyes, unwashed and tired and poor and he just wants to help them.
Without them we’re nothing.
‘The Architects will free you, comrade! Hear me, all who feel ignored and mistreated and under-represented in the farce we call the government: the Architects are your voice! End the corruption! We promise rights and education and benefits for all, not just those who can afford it. Join us and let your voice be heard, you who have been down-trodden for so long, supporting the gross weight of the capitalists with never a word of credit – workers, hear me, we are your word of credit!’ he shouts, and Einor unrolls the banner with their slogan, Architects: Paving the Way Forwards. Mihan made that up and he’s proud of it. He thinks it says the right things in a concise way. Headline news. You can only print so many newspapers before you’re influenced by the media, however subconsciously. There’s a few sniggers, but they’ve got quite an audience now.
‘How many of you went to school?’
There’s a big laugh at that. No one who went to school ends up in a factory like this.
‘Can you afford the rent every month? Do you pay your tax?’
‘Well, you try, otherwise you get fucked up by bailiffs, innit?’ answers one hatchet-faced woman with a baby on her lap. There’s general agreement and an old man starts to tell a very long rambling story about why he couldn’t pay his tax last time. Mihan despairs.
Help me, I’m losing them. Tell me what to say, Creator, teach me how to teach Your people. Make them listen.
He suddenly remembers what Ramir was telling them about taxation yesterday.
Thank You Creator, thank you. My every inspiration is from Your mighty brain.
‘The Architects will tax the rich and pay the poor! We’ll end poverty and want, if only enough good people like yourselves and your comrades join us and we can overthrow the corruption in the Assembly and in the Guilds!’
‘Oh, what-ever. You’re not corrupt at all, of course, yeah look at us, we believe every word you say cause we’re just poor dumb-arse workers who don’t know shit, ain’t we? Bloody revolutionaries, you’re all the same,’ rants one worker, a wiry blond-haired sparrow with an earring and a dirty face. His friends all agree loudly. Mihan shrugs, suddenly angry, trying to come up with of a cutting remark like the ones Nagy makes so cleverly. There’s always someone with an axe to grind, isn’t there?
‘Then I can’t help you. All I’m saying is it’s worth a try, because what we’re offering is infinitely better than the deal you get now. But if you can’t see that, or don’t want your life to be any better, then it’s not my problem, is it?’
Another big laugh, while the blond guy blushes angrily. A beefy worker points at him.
‘Ha, you got told!’ he crows. The blond guy looks murderous.
‘Shut yer face, or I’ll break it for you!’ he snarls.
‘Oh yeah, you will, will you? Go on then, you fuckin’ midget, go on, break me, go on!’
Screaming curses, the blond guy launches himself at the other one and they roll on the floor; several others join in the scrum. Mihan turns a stricken face to Einor.
‘What the hell do I do now?’
‘I told you this was a bad idea, I told you!’ Einor moans. ‘Do something, quick!’
Mihan gapes at the roiling mass of bodies, with the shocked onlookers ranged round the outside like fence posts, and he stops thinking. He dives into the fight and starts pulling people apart, ignoring the whacks he’s getting in the process.
‘Stop fighting, you morons! It’s not getting you anywhere!’ he screams repeatedly – and finally it stops, the mist clears and they’re all sprawled on the floor groaning or cursing, or not moving at all. He claws some blood out of his eye, hoping it’s not his.
‘You should be ashamed of yourselves, acting like a bunch of half-wits – you’re grown men and women, for heaven’s sake! Look what this system’s done to you,’ he shouts, ‘it’s turning you into animals! I’d put the lot of you in the zoo and laugh at you if I didn’t think I’d get my teeth kicked in by one of your big brothers.’
They’re sitting astonished. He pauses for breath then continues his onslaught.
‘I mean it! When people work together as a team, as part of a production line, you’re all working for the same goal – and you’re absolutely unstoppable! Think of all the amazing things humans have done when we worked together rather than against each other – we can build cities, for God’s sake!’
He lets the idea hang in the air for a little moment, then brings it down with a bump.
‘But when you’re like this there’s no hope of doing anything. I mean, what a spectacle! If I wanted to see something like that I’d go to the madhouse, I wouldn’t drag myself all the way out here to watch you miserable lot beat each other up.’
He turns to Einor for a moment, then back. He’s full of bitterness now, full of venom.
‘Right, that’s the end of the show, comrades,’ he almost spits, ‘if anything I said even remotely interested you, come to the Selenite community centre in Levers Street, Third Ward on Tuesday evenings and listen to Leader Ramir, who’s a lot better at this kind of thing than I am. Come on, comrade, we’re going.’
And he turns away. The workers, silent, nonplussed, a little afraid, part like the sea for him but he’s too angry to notice what an impact he’s had. Einor dumps the pile of flyers on a table and hurries after him across the hall, out of the door and into the yard where Mihan is leaning against the wall and wiping his brow, which is instantly soaked again by the driving rain. He gesticulates hopelessly to the door, where the renewed sounds of shouting and fighting are streaming out.
‘What have I done, Einor? How can I get through to them?’
He’s shaking. He feels like he’s just run a marathon.
‘Mihan, what’s the matter with you? You were really good! You had me totally convinced – I mean, you would have if I wasn’t convinced already.’
Mihan shakes his head wearily, refusing to believe that. He’s still cringing, imagining himself gauche and small in front of those tough, world-wise workers, especially that blond guy. Who the hell is he to try and change their lives? He knows nothing about them, nothing about how they feel but he automatically assumes they’ll believe in the same things he does.
Why do I think that? I know what I believe in, and if I didn’t think it was the right way I wouldn’t believe it. Forcing my beliefs on other people without knowing the first thing about them is not the way to make friends or supporters.
He longs for the safety of the community centre, where he knows he’s valuable, he knows he’s doing the right thing. He even longs for his Reconstruct project, the concentrated hours of studying, the calculations which are so hard but he gets a real buzz out of doing them right, the feeling that he’s on the cutting edge of technology, about to make the biggest breakthrough the city’s ever seen. That’s the real Master Blueprint, not this undignified door-to-door hawking to people who don’t care, it’s a parody of what they stand for, it’s capitalism in its lowest and dirtiest form, selling ideas: the Master Blueprint deserves better than this.
‘Oh, comrade, don’t be silly. I was a total washout. I think I’m going to go back and do penance duties for this, I can’t face it any more. I was a laughing-stock!’
‘But if you refuse to do any more, you’ll have to do more penances for disobeying orders, won’t you? Come on, comrade, let’s just get it over with. I don’t like it either, but perhaps we can talk about it at meeting this evening, if it really bugs you that much.’
‘No. I can’t take it, Einor. Join up with Nagy and Cave and do their rounds. I’ll go back and explain everything to Ramir. I don’t care what he does to me,’ Mihan says fiercely, ‘cause it’s everything I deserve. Have a productive shift,’ he wishes Einor, conventionally laying his right hand over the Architect badge on Einor’s sleeve and turning away.
‘Mihan, I – ’
But Mihan’s already gone. Einor sighs and runs a hand through his sodden hair, wipes his glasses on a reasonably dry bit of his sleeve which only makes them harder to see out of. He watches Mihan’s figure retreating down the street, shoulders hunched and forlorn, and wonders why he’s so upset.
Some people get too hung up about things.

Mihan arrives back at Levers Street in a fog of misery, a big black cloud that infects everything with its strength-eating hopelessness. He just wants to lie down in a puddle and die, he wishes he’d never joined the Architects, wishes his faith was a bit more flexible, wishes things like looking bad didn’t matter to him and he didn’t have to beat himself up about it all the time. He goes in and flicks his name-tag to ‘On Site’, ignoring Rufilla on the desk who looks at him with concern. He dumps his bag and coat in the sleeping quarters and goes to Ramir’s office. The urge to confess all his inadequacies to someone with no inadequacy is almost unbearable; he’s got to tell someone who understands him, or he’ll explode. He raises a trembling hand and knocks.
I deserve everything I get. I deserve to be punished.
There is no answer and Mihan is bitterly disappointed, let down by the man who never lets anyone down. He trails away to the meeting hall where they’ve set up the altar, a steel table, a tall dark metal lectern with the big copy of Blueprints Set A clamped to it, some bits of machinery, a battered megaphone. It’s so cold, so unwelcoming, so harsh. Mihan wanders across the floor, confused and sad. He’s adrift, marooned on some dark shore by his own faith that led him here so unswervingly and found he couldn’t keep up.
This is what I worship? Look at me, I’m ridiculous, feeling like this over a few lumps of metal. What’s the point?
‘Comrade Igrain,’ comes the deep, compelling voice from the doorway. Mihan yelps and turns round, heart beating wildly.
He’s come to save me, or kill me.
I don’t care which, either is better than this.
He controls himself, stands up straight, eyes fixed on Ramir who is advancing towards him across the floor.
‘Perhaps you would like to explain why you have disobeyed the orders you were given at the start of shift?’
Mihan gapes for a minute, his mind blank, but then it all comes flooding back and it pours out of his mouth, tangled and confused and impassioned, full of faith and doubt and contradictions, without pretence or façades; Mihan doesn’t do that kind of thing, he doesn’t understand it. And at last it’s all out, for better or worse, and Mihan feels faint with the relief. There’s a dangerous silence in the air between them, Ramir’s not meeting eyes. Mihan stands still and waits. Ramir looks up; his face is clouded with thought.
You have doubts too, Leader? Even you are assailed by these painful feelings?
That makes Mihan reel; he’s so happy it’s not just him being crazy, but at the same time it makes him sad, that no one at all is ever sure of what they do, even if they look it.
‘Go, comrade. Sign in for penance, please. I need to think about what you’ve said.’
Ramir’s voice is heavy, perhaps disappointed, perhaps worried. Mihan’s stomach squeezes and he wonders what he’s done. What he’s said.

Later, much later, it’s the session in Ramir’s office, round that table with the steel chairs and the cold electric lights. Mihan comes in late, fresh from his penances, all the dirtiest jobs he could find: he’s glowing with the feeling of forgiveness. He’s redeemed himself in the eyes of the Creator for his earlier failings by working as hard and as tirelessly as a Reconstruct, even though his back aches from kneeling on the floor scrubbing stains from the planks, his arm canes from polishing the grease off the lectern and his nasal passages are full of thick dust that makes his mouth taste horrible.
‘Are we all here, then, comrades? Good: let us begin without further delay. It seems that there has been mixed success in the factory campaign.’
Ramir shoots a glance at Mihan that no one else sees. Mihan is warily immobile. ‘Comrade Murat in particular should be congratulated for his inspirational speech in the Beardsley mills, which has gained us 120 potential supporters. May your blueprints ever take shape, Comrade Murat.’
Nagy grins amid the general approval.
‘It was your template, Leader Ramir: I just followed orders, and it’s so much easier that way, believe me, comrades. You never get it wrong if you don’t think too hard about it, cause that’s when doubts start creeping in and undoing all your work,’ he says earnestly. Vagus pulls a face – but carefully, in case other people see him.
‘Which leads me very neatly onto my next point, which is that I know a few of you are finding things difficult. How many of you can feel your faith being sorely tested by this campaign? Be honest, comrades,’ Ramir enquires, his voice soft and persuasive.
Mihan nods instantly. Might as well let it all out – and besides, Ramir will know he’s lying if he says nothing. Faces turn to look at him.
‘I make no secret of it, comrades, Leader. I’m not doing what I should and I feel really, really bad about it. I’m letting you all down, I’m letting the Regime down and I promise from now that I will remedy the situation, in the name of the Master Blueprint.’
As frank as he could. Vagus raises a questioning eyebrow as if to say, why do we care what you’re doing wrong? We’re not going to pity you for it, are we?
‘Your honesty is commendable, Comrade Igrain. Does anyone else feel this way?’
There is some uncomfortable shuffling of feet. Mihan’s wondering why he does the things he does sometimes. They don’t make sense even to him, so what must they be like to someone who’s not witnessing his every thought of garbled explanation?
Nagy nods, the picture of empathy, looking towards Mihan.
‘To be honest, it is pretty difficult to be sure you’re doing the right thing. I know that’s what faith is meant to be about, something to rely on whether or not you’re sure of anything else, a starting point I spose – but, yeah, it’s a tough assignment, especially if you’re not that good in public – ’
‘Which is a problem you obviously don’t have, Nagy, so shut up,’ Vagus says waspishly.
‘Oh, come on, Vagus, there’s no need for that!’ Einor retorts. Vagus has been winding him up all evening and he can’t put up with much more of it. The meeting descends into chaos after that. Ramir shouts at everyone, but only a few of them are listening; Vagus, Einor and Nagy are having a separate argument and Rufilla is sitting, confused, not knowing whether to type down the proceedings, such as they are, or not. Mihan quietly takes the opportunity to leave the room. He feels dreadful as he creeps down the corridor to the sleeping quarters.
It’s all falling apart already and we haven’t even got a seat at the Assembly yet, let alone control of the city. We’re a joke.
He remembers the template Nagy was talking about; he’s lost his and he’s too afraid to go and ask Ramir for another one; resources are not cheap and waste is frowned upon. The only thing he can think of to do is steal Nagy’s copy and replicate it on the typewriter in the Propaganda Materials room.
But that’s immoral. We should share, not steal.
I don’t care. I’ll put it back, so it’s not stealing really.
He rummages frantically through Nagy’s things, finds it screwed up in a ball in his bag. It’s got notes all over it, unmistakably Nagy’s neat cursive. They don’t care, you moron and What makes you think they’ll believe this, when Hacek and the Absolutes have been doing it for years and no one likes them and other, more seditious things that Mihan reads avidly, shocked. He puts the paper down, terrified that Ramir’s going to come in and find him with it and think it’s his writing. The room seems too quiet all of a sudden, too still. Someone could easily be watching him. He gets up and quickly checks in the wardrobes and under all the beds, behind the door, in the space between the bunks and the walls. Then he catches sight of himself in the wardrobe mirror and sits down again, shaking. He doesn’t know what to do about Nagy. He should report him to Ramir, but that would mean explaining what he was doing in sleeping quarters when everyone else was at meeting, and why he was going through Nagy’s bag. Besides, he likes Nagy, he doesn’t want him to get in trouble.
Erase the notes, then no one will get in trouble at all, it’ll be like they never existed.
He runs to the propaganda room with the offending paper burning a hole through his pocket, goes to the drawing cupboard, grabs a ball of rubber – and Einor comes in.
‘What are you doing in here?’
‘I – I, er, I was, er,’ Mihan falters. Einor snorts.
‘Mihan, what is the matter with you today? You’re acting really suspiciously, you know. You really should do something about it before people start to notice. Even Cephall noticed you’re quote showing signs of considerable stress unquote, and he’s half-asleep most of the time. Is there something on your mind?’
‘No, no, I – I’m fine, just a bit tired, you know how it is sometimes; I’ve not been getting much sleep recently and it’s…’
He talks nervously, too fast, too high, too much. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, all he’s aware of is the bit of paper in his pocket. He puts a hand in his pocket and
OH MY GOD IT’S NOT THERE
‘Mihan?’
‘Ye – Oh, Einor, I was meaning to ask you, have you got your template speech? Mine disintegrated in the rain and I need to use it, after what happened today,’ he gabbles.
Perfect excuse, Mihan. Brilliant.
‘Course, I’ll copy mine for you. I’ve got it here, actually. I’ll be right back.’
He goes into the copy room, a tiny cupboard off the end of the corridor, and Mihan hears the thud of the replicator, not once but twice. Einor comes back with a crumpled copy of the template on the flimsy carbon-paper.
‘Damn machine needs calibrating again, the first copy was all over the place. Anyway, I’m off to the workshop. Productive shift, Mihan,’ touching Mihan’s sleeve as is their custom. No one quite knows where that one came from, but it’s become routine. Mihan is left standing there with the new copy, still hot and smelling of ink, no idea where Nagy’s is and a million terrified questions. He takes deep breaths, tries to calm down.
Forget it, Mihan. It’s gone. It’s Nagy’s anyway, there’s no way anyone would blame you for it. They know you’re not like that. Don’t they?

Mihan never uses his own feelings again after that. They’re just not adequate. He sticks to the template rigidly, practises his speeches every night as regular as he says his prayers. He won’t let anyone down again. There are so many factories in the city, there’s no time to make your own speech different for each one. And besides, who would appreciate his efforts, except himself? Work without point is worse than idleness, runs the Twenty-seventh Blueprint. So he doesn’t bother with things he doesn’t have to, like doing it for himself. All is required of him is that he does what he’s told with no questions, no objections and no mistakes. The faces of workers blur into one big grimy mass, his routine bores him, but trying to escape the routine goes wrong. He’s safer just batch-processing. Like when he used to print hundreds of things with a hand-press, he developed little systems, little habits, quick ways of lining the edges up and setting the weight and leaving them a bit while the ink dries before he stacked them. He does that. They’re only bits of paper, nothing more. Treat them all the same and you get uniform results.
Why bother thinking about it all?
Like Nagy said, that’s when doubts start to creep in.
Just let Ramir do the thinking, he’s better at it than me; he doesn’t make mistakes.
I do. It’s all a mistake.
Mihan works, he sleeps, he prays, he eats, that’s about it. Doesn’t go out: he’s too tired. All he does is work for the Regime, for the Master Blueprint, and it’s demanding. It takes everything he’s got and that’s not enough, nothing he does is ever enough. It’s times like this that grind people down, make them angry, make them want to leave. But you have to get through them to see the other side, the good stuff, the sunlit fields beyond the wall. He only hopes the wall doesn’t get any higher than it is now.

It’s hard to believe that they were once nobodies, stuck in the backwaters of Jerboa with no money and nothing to do, only their beliefs that kept them going. Now look at them; they’ve got their own building and they’re in the process of acquiring another one, a derelict warehouse up in First Ward. They’ve got the wonderful community centre, their home, their base, Architect HQ, which gets more and more sophisticated by the day with the things they design. It’s full of gadgets that you don’t get anywhere else, really, cobbled together from bits of scrap and odds and ends but they work, they actually work. Like the one for the lighting at the services; Nagy comes back one day with this great armful of stuff that he found outside a closed-down theatre, all just sitting there in the road. That’s one of the first things; Ramir takes it away, into his workshop room, and all they hear for days is banging and hissing and Ramir shouting the Twelve Keystones at the top of his voice. They try and ignore him, just get on with their stuff, mainly research and calculations, theory work, very boring, but they can’t help talking anxiously about it across the desks in the Preparation Room. He hasn’t been out to sleep, to eat, nothing.
‘I don’t like it,’ says Nagy on the third day, when they’re all at a loose end with their work and there’s an alarming screeching noise coming from Ramir’s workshop. The others all agree, and Nagy volunteers to go and find out what the hell’s going on in there. Mihan wants to go, to see the great man at work for himself. What methods he must use! It’s genius, not madness at all. It’s got to be. They wouldn’t follow a madman.
They hear a yell and a door slam, then Nagy comes running back. There’s whitewash caked all over his head, like someone tipped a bucket of it on him, and he’s shaking.
‘He’s fine,’ he whispers, ‘just don’t disturb him again or he’ll break his concentration.’
That’s the way it is round here. Work comes first, before anything, and once you’ve got in a frame of mind where technical problems just cease to exist, you can see every connection and every calculation, you know exactly what’s going to happen in each place – then get it done, before you lose it again, for God’s sake. If that means no sleep, no food, no talking, then that’s how it’s going to be until you finish. Everyone understands that now. They’ve even got a special phrase for it: ‘assembly time’: and there’s a little sign on the door of the workshop cubicles which you can flick if you’re in there. When you feel yourself going into assembly time, then you’ve got to drop everything and run for the workshop and get your amazing idea made, even if it’s only in prototype, before you forget it; the worst thing is if you draw it out, then leave it and come back to it: you won’t understand it half as well, and it might mean that you have to abandon it, now you can’t see the connection in it that makes it all run – and it often doesn’t come back to you. In assembly time it’s like the world ceases to exist. You just don’t think in normal shapes at all, you don’t question, you just let it happen, never doubt, never even think: it’s in control and you’re the facilitator. No one touches you when you’re in assembly time.
People are in assembly time more and more often. They’ve practically abandoned the campaign trail, after Mihan’s outburst; Nagy has exclusive control of it, and he’s working with members of the congregation instead. In fact, the public seemed really eager to sign up when Ramir said they were looking for full-time workers. Mihan’s been put in charge of propaganda, of the printed stuff, the visuals, the posters, the slogans. It just flows out of him, it’s his stream of consciousness, but every piece comes back with Ramir’s Approved stamp, and it goes to the printing press – which desperately needs upgrading, it’s knackered. It’s so dangerous, Mihan worries every time that his posters will attract Security, they’ll get done for trying to undermine the government, but they never do. It seems that Security aren’t interested in them any more, now they’ve got nearly 1000 people, in and around the city, who have sworn to give themselves to the Creator in their work and in their lives. It amazes him that no one else ever gets afraid about all this, about how it’s not going to work, they’ve put so much into it, working absolutely tirelessly, time and money and effort, and it’s going to fall flat and they’ll just look like another batty cult. What if no one thinks they’re so hard-done-by after all? That’s the major selling-point, of course it’ll flop if that sentiment’s not there.
I suppose I’m just not a very good Architect. But I try so hard, why can I not get the mindset right? I’ve had less assembly time than everyone, even Vagus.
Mihan prays about this all the time, prays that he’ll get some ideas soon that will negate all his fears. Ramir has been asking quite insistently if everything’s alright, or would he like to have a chat about anything that was bothering him; not asked in a particularly sympathetic voice either, more like an interrogation. Mihan blanched and sped off on a fictional errand at that.
He’s out to get me. I’ve let him down.
I’m no good to him like this, I’m inefficient.
He’s going to Reconstruct me.
SOMEONE HELP ME

new stuff, sorry it's been so long...

2007-03-18T13:43:00.001-07:00

Phase two

‘Comrades! Listen carefully. This could be a seminal moment in Architect history, if we handle it right!’ Ramir calls.
They’re in the room at the back of the community hall, sitting round the metal table strewn with Ramir’s books and papers and blueprints. There are only eight of them, as well as Ramir. Mihan, Nagy, Cephall, Einor, Cave, the accountant Phi Tyndell, Ramir’s secretary Rufilla busy typing out the minutes, conservative in her high-necked grey jacket, and Vagus small and twitchy in a corner. Ramir gets to his feet and stands in front of them.
‘Comrade Murat told me this morning that we now have over 500 people who call themselves members, comrades. Is that not a remarkable statistic?’
There’s sparse but enthusiastic applause to this. Ramir smiles benevolently and Mihan is seized round the chest by the familiar swooping sensation that he gets when he’s close to Ramir.
He’s on a higher plane than us. He’s something different, something better.
‘In my meditations I was told by the Creator that when the Order was big enough, Phase Two is to begin. Comrades, let us not simply believe in the Well-Paved Road, let us act on those beliefs! Activism is the way forward. We’ve sat still and waited long enough, it’s now time to move if we’re going to make any sort of change at all.’
‘How are we to act without getting done in by Calvinus and the Industrial Front? To them we just look like another union, and we all know what happens to unions,’ Nagy replies. Mihan can barely believe Nagy’s daring: Ramir could go either way at such a remark and no one ever knows which it will be. He breathes again as Ramir smiles.
‘Ah, Comrade Murat, your realistic viewpoint is so enlightening. Where would we be without your pithy observations?’
Nagy grins sheepishly amid the laughter. Ramir gestures at them expressively.
‘Seriously, comrades; you know what to do, I’ve told you often enough. Question everything unless you know it is done properly, with the correct attitude, the correct procedure and the correct techniques. That is activism, comrades: not just listening to me, but really living it; try and be an Architect in every action, every word, every thought, and you’ll notice the difference, I promise you. Follow the Way with every fibre of your being, comrades!’
I do, Leader Ramir! Can you not see me trying?
Mihan’s desperate to communicate this to Ramir without words, perhaps through some sort of spiritual telepathy, his face electric with the effort, but there’s no obvious response, or did those powerful eyes flash his way, just for a second? He imagines the soothing reply.
I know what you’re going through, Mihan. I know it’s hard, but you’re doing very well. Just believe, never doubt yourself, never doubt me and you will see the light.
‘Our quest starts here, comrades. We’ve got an agenda, haven’t we? I, for one, will stop at nothing,’ Ramir emphasises the word with a stab on the table with one finger, ‘to get it realised. We’re here for a purpose, otherwise I never would have left Jerboa. You all know why we’re here, working so hard and giving so much of our time and energy, on what might to some - ’ he glares at Vagus, who pointedly looks the other way - ‘seem pointless pursuits. Comrade Igrain. In your personal opinion, what is the point of being an Architect?’
Mihan’s throat goes dry.
I’m going to say the wrong thing. Creator help me.
‘To – to make the – the world a productive, fair, rewarding place to live, and to build the Creator’s Master Blueprint on earth to the best of our abilities,’ he gabbles, frantic to get it all out. He’ll show them he believes, how much he cares, how it’s everything to him.
‘Spoken like a true Architect, comrade. This is the sort of attitude we need among our proletarian members: which leads me to what I was originally going to talk about.’
Ramir sits down and gets out Blueprints, flicks to the middle, the bit about factories and workers. Mihan can’t stop grinning. Praise from that mighty eloquence, for his humble efforts! How sweet life is!
‘We’ve got a large number of factory workers and machinists in the Order, as Comrade Murat will verify, and we need to concentrate on them if we’re to retain their support. This means, we go to factories, we preach there, in front of the capitalists’ noses. I know it’s dangerous, but think of the image we’ll get! They’ll see that our way is right, particularly once we leave and the capitalists vent their spleen on the workers for listening to us.’
‘Then the workers get hurt and abused for the sake of a few big words,’ Vagus says suddenly, fixing Ramir with his little eyes. The table goes dead quiet, and all they hear is the clack of the typewriter keys. Vagus doesn’t seem to notice his mistake.
‘Are you questioning my judgement, Comrade Vagus? Have you got a better idea?’ Ramir hisses at him. Mihan grimaces in sympathy, knowing the feeling when your instinctive response blurts out and you don’t mean it to.
‘No, I was – ’
‘Well don’t interrupt! If you disagree with the Master Blueprint then I think you’d better get out of here before something bad happens to you. We don’t have slackers, we don’t take the soft option and we don’t get cold feet! Understood? That goes for everyone!’
Ramir eyes them all forbiddingly before sitting down again and sighing.
‘You’re obviously blind to the finer nuances of liberation, so I’ll spell it out for you, but next time don’t object to something you don’t understand. We’re being cruel to be kind, because it’s a good analogy for believing. We show them the benefits of the Well-Paved Way, they all love it, but there’s the reminder that it was painful to get here, and it will be more painful if they don’t go on believing, because they’ll be back in a mess like this – with no rights and no voice, oppressed on all sides by corruption and poverty.’
Ramir’s voice is shaking with emotion. Mihan watches enthralled. He wants to go out there with Creator’s blessing and do it right now, get into a factory, defy the Seneschal and open people’s poor tired eyes to the wonder in the world.
‘We’re just going to look like another union; arrest isn’t going to get us anywhere, apart from in a lot of debt if we keep having to buy each other out of jail – and besides, buying your way out of trouble’s the very thing we’re against, isn’t it?’ says Nagy. Ramir snorts.
‘Then why am I bothering? What’s the point of talking about getting rid of all the corruption if we’re afraid of the way it treats us? I’m ashamed to call you comrades at times like this, you gutless bunch of malingerers. Where are your principles?’
His voice has risen to a shout and his power’s out now: when he’s angry, there’s no stopping him. Nagy looks suitably shame-faced.
Now, Mihan! Do it now! Show your love!
‘I’m with you one hundred percent, Leader Ramir!’ Mihan cries, jumping from his chair. ‘I’ll take anything Security throw at me, any torture, any punishment, I know the Master Blueprint is worth the pain!’
He’s stood up, he expects he looks stupid and yes, Vagus is torn between laughing and sneering, but he doesn’t care, it’s just so good to have confessed how he feels at last. Tyndell and Cephall get up too, they stand near Mihan.
‘We swear as well, Leader Ramir! We’re with you too!’
Then Einor, flushing, grinning, then Cave shambles up to join them with a sort of blind devotion in his ugly face that Mihan recognises instantly, it’s something he’s felt himself more than once. He towers over everyone else but he seems small and pale next to the dynamo of Ramir. Now there’s only three still sitting; Rufilla quickly leaves her typewriter and goes to stand up. Vagus drags himself over last, shrugging. Nagy is left sitting down, looking rather vulnerable amidst all the empty chairs. Rufilla, edging past Ramir, goes back to her typewriter with a murmured excuse.
‘Well, Comrade Murat?’ Ramir says a little threateningly, elated with his control over the others. Nagy nods engagingly.
‘Oh I’m in, of course I am. I was just speculating – ’
Ramir scowls and he hastily adds, ‘But there’s no need; I believe, of course I do. I was kind of… heh, you know, erm… testing my own faith, actually. Yes, er …’
Clever response, Nagy. But there’s no need, your faith is strong, if you’d only trust it and stop trying to undermine yourself with clever politicking all the time.
That’s what it’s all about; in the pursuit of rationality, of precision, of correctness, we have to let go of doubt and fear and just believe in what we do, believe that we’re guided by the Creator and with Him we can do no wrong.
Yeah. That’s what it’s about.
‘Well, that’s agreed. Being as it was an example of committee vote, it’s time to talk about that issue. Please sit down. Comrade Antira, are you getting all this?’
‘Yes, Leader,’ Rufilla replies eagerly, her fingers whizzing over the typewriter keys. As far as Ramir remembers, she’s never made a mistake, at least not an obvious one.
‘Who thinks committee rule is the best way to do things? I expect quite a few of you. Bearing that in mind, answer me this now: which is better, the Well-Paved Way or rule by committee?’
Faces turn and look at each other, some frown, some nod and smile.
‘The Way, of course,’ answers Nagy. ‘But if we all share the same belief, what’s wrong with a bit of internal democracy?’ He freezes. ‘Oh heavens, no, I didn’t mean – ’
‘Rufilla, leave that in please. I know perfectly well what you meant, Comrade Murat, and I know the answer as well. Does anyone else?’
‘Ignorance is strength,’ Cave grunts.
‘That’s the right sort of idea. If everyone has a say, then all we’ll do is argue, without stopping to consider whether we’ve really got as much of a point as we think we have. Have I ever read you the Thirty-fourth Blueprint?’
‘Is that the one about praying to free the technical mind of its natural inhibitions?’ Mihan pipes up, hoping he’s right. Ramir snorts and Mihan cringes. What an idiot that made him look.
’Why would that be that relevant now, Comrade Igrain? And no, it’s not that one. I’ll read you the Thirty-fourth, if none of you know it.’
He flicks open Blueprints Set A and turns to about a third of the way through.
‘If it comes from the Creator or it comes from stable foundations, trust it without question to stay upright to the end: it will not let you down. If it comes from mankind, from unknown or unstable foundations, question it until it crumbles, or it proves itself a sound and impenetrable structure. Only then can you be sure of it.’
He sits silent, letting them digest it, marvelling at how good his own words sound.
Ramir, they are My words, the Creator booms in his head. Of course they sound good. I would not give you this inspiration if it was not going to work. Practice what you preach.
‘So… if we are a committee, flawed thought could be the basis for our action, but if the Master Blueprint rules us we can do no wrong. Is that it?’ Einor says hesitantly.
‘Precisely, Comrade Lanegan. And the other thing is, committee rule is so slow. We want to change things, not sit around arguing about how we’re going to go about changing things and by the time we come to some sort of consensus we’ve all been hauled off by Security. That’s no way to be. If you think about it, the Great Council was a committee once, and now look at it! What a mess! Just trust me on this one, I’ll lead you through it alright. We’re going to make the world of difference around here.’
‘Is that the only copy of Blueprints? Surely there ought to be lots?’
‘Patience, Comrade Igrain, patience. If we have lots now, we’ll get done for distributing anti-state propaganda. Let’s wait until we’re sure of our support.’
‘How will we be sure?’
‘How is agreement usually formalised? Oaths, contracts, pledges. They’ve got to be serious about believing, otherwise we’ll only get troublemakers who won’t conform. Conformity is what we need; Northbridge has been a big shapeless mass for far too long. It needs to be streamlined, moulded, made efficient again. You’re all from industrial or technical backgrounds, more or less, you all know what potential this place has, if only things were done in the right way, by people with the right mindset. You’ve heard it all enough times, now get out there and do it! I suggest you do it in pairs, comrades: strength in numbers, as we know from the Tenth Blueprint. Meeting closed.’

new title for this book

2007-03-04T02:39:00.000-08:00

i have discovered that wings of sound is too much like that wim wenders film with the angels and the trapeze girl in it... wings of desire i think it is called. so i have decided on a possible change:
ANGEL IN THE MAZE
shows the maze of the city, kind of like the idea in Brazil where the girl is in the cage in Lowry's dreams, a light in a dark space that cannot escape, kind of thing.

i am sorry (to who, I'm not sure: if there is anyone out there who's given this story more than the passing once-over, this apology is for you) that i have been so remiss with posting new chapters. writing is v e r y s l o w and i am not finding it easy at the moment. i promise you there is more to come and this is only the beginning. i have all the ideas that i am desperate to share and they will be here in time so please be patient, o ye with any faith at all.

altar of science

2007-01-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

Altar of science

There’s a hall not far from the Selenite lodging house in Third Ward, district of tight-packed terraces and myriad little streets, where even street-wise newcomers get hopelessly lost, but the residents know it like the backs of their grimy hands. It’s an old-fashioned community hall that was set up by the Selenites about ten years ago to try and combat the problem of alcoholism in the area, but quickly abandoned due to unpopularity, bricks through the windows and stuff. Now there’s lights on in the windows again, there’s people going in and out, there’s bustling activity, which the old lady in the chair across the street has been watching with nosy interest all day from the shelter of a doorway. Hanging on the hall’s doors is a big grey sign saying ‘Architects First Meeting Welcomes The Forward-Thinking’, which is perhaps a little too intellectual for a slogan, given the area it’s in, but they’re not worried about that.
All day Mihan’s been in Cathedral Square telling people about it, giving out handbills and loving every minute of it. He’s part of something big. A movement of a kind this miserable city has never seen before, chasing the future like no one else knows how. He’s given out 500 bills this afternoon, every single one that he printed, and he’s heading back to the hall, feeling pleasantly tingly. He’s looking forward to tonight. Ramir has been planning this for nearly a week, shut up in his room, and everything’s been on hold. Even the Reconstructs, which Mihan has discovered a new zeal for; he was repairing people, all that time when he hated what he was doing, wishing he’d never agreed to it all. Giving them a purpose where they were lost, saving them from felonies that their weak minds would be incapable of resisting. Now even they’re on the back burner.
He’s in the street where the house is, and he can see the queue to get in stretching along the pavement past the grubby terraces, full of jostling and laughing and life, and his heart does a great big leap. There was a point where he was getting really scared, when no one looked that interested and he was dreading going back to Ramir with all the flyers he didn’t give out and say, I failed you. The very thought makes his flesh creep, the idea that he’d be letting Ramir down, letting the regime down, letting the Creator down, it scares him even more that what Ramir would do to him.
Mihan thinks of the Creator, of the splendid golden form Ramir has told them about with His face of infinite power and the thought crashes through his head like a tidal wave. He can’t get over the beauty that the world’s running towards headlong, and that he’s one of the people making it all happen. He instantly feels bigger, stronger, there’s steel in his bones. He can do anything. He squeezes round the crowds at the door and takes his place at the back of the stage they’ve set up at the far end of the hall, standing with the collection box just like an usher at Selenite services. Then Cave, who’s guarding the door, flings it wide and the crowd rush in eagerly, right up to the edge of the stage. The hall’s packed faster than he can believe possible, mainly full of factory workers and dockers, but there are a few industrialists and some soldiers at the back, tall and conspicuous in their red jackets and peaked hats. From somewhere a banging begins; Vagus with an old side-drum, hidden behind a pillar. He steps out and he’s hitting out a rhythm on it, really simple, doing it over and over again. The crowd begin first tapping their feet, then clapping, it’s like a disease, this strange rhythmic pandemic which no one knows the cause of but they’re doing it all the same and it’s new and exciting and there’s a buzz in the air – and then Ramir, dressed in black, literally explodes out of the back room and begins shouting. His face is almost frightening it’s so alive. His eyes are blazing, sort of bulging out of his head, and he’s shouting words again and again.
‘Tomorrow is ours!’ he shouts, in time with Vagus banging the drum and it’s like a wave. Cave begins as well, his voice low and scratchy compared with Ramir’s loud bark, then Einor Lanegan from the other side, then Nagy Murat, still on crutches, banging the end of one crutch on the floor, then a sort of madness comes to Mihan and seizes him by the throat and he begins yelling too. The crowd are stamping their feet in time. Mihan cannot think, all he wants to do is scream back at the figure at the front of the stage as loud as he can.
Take me, take me, I shout loudest for you. Take me, Creator, I’m yours.
Then Ramir raises his arm and drops it, and Vagus stops drumming, but the crowd go on for a while. Their faces are glowing and shiny and excited, it’s hot as buggery in the room but no one cares, they’re part of something really big here. Ramir flings his arms out wide and cries
‘Comrades, the first meeting of the Architect Order is officially in session!’
He strides to the front of the stage and opens the big grey-bound book on the stand.
‘The future awaits us, comrades. We are the Architects, the builders of a new world in the centre of the old and I have waited for this moment for so long, dear comrades, the point at which I show you the Master Blueprint that the Creator, mighty God of all men and all objects, has seen fit to reveal to me. How long I have dreamed of this, Oh Creator, when Your ideas grace the earth with their beauty,’ he sighs reverently. The crowd are silent.
‘How many of you work in factories?’ he asks. ‘Show yourselves, workers!’
A forest of arms wave in the air, many clad in overalls or the cheap padded jackets that the poor of Northbridge seem to live in.
‘Dockers? Soldiers? Engineers?’
More forests of arms. Ramir smiles. He’s sweating, and the harsh strip-lights reflecting off his gleaming shaved head make it look like there’s a ray coming straight from his thoughts into the room. His face is lit with it and Mihan feels the power of the man, a strange loveliness, formed of strength and ugliness and vision and sheer life-force. He’s more alive than anyone Mihan’s ever seen and he’s absolutely blown away.
‘The future is yours. What’s around us now is corruption and rot, and the Architects will clean all that away. We’re exploited, comrades! We’re being played for fools by the people we look up to, and it’s been going on far too long. How many of you don’t get enough pay to keep yourself fed, let alone a family? Eh? I expect there’s a lot of you who go hungry from time to time. We, the Architects, will end hunger. We will end poverty and want and unemployment and we will create a unique world for all of us, comrades! A model civilisation. Imagine it.’
Ramir sighs, letting his hands drop and his voice go quiet. Mihan strains to catch what he says; every face in the crowd is hanging on his words.
‘Buildings that touch the sky, buildings made of glass and steel and smooth concrete. They’ll shine in the sun and glisten in the rain and they’ll never be ugly, not like these hell-hole slums we live in these days. And we’ll build them, comrades, and the Creator will see them from above and bless us, bless us with knowledge and logic and the ability to raise His structures with kindness and love for our fellow workers. Technology, comrades, huge leaps in science and engineering and medicine. Diseases that kill will be annihilated, no more Lunacy Plague, we’ll cure it forever. Dangerous working conditions will be repaired, we’ll be long-lived and healthy and clever and efficient, and life will be sweet! Comrades, the glory of potential is ours, if we reach out as one and grab it. Join me, put your hands with my hands and your minds with my mind and together we are invincible! Follow the Well-Paved Way and live in the world of tomorrow, with me, your speaker, and the Creator, God most high of all things!’
Ramir flings his head back and shouts,
‘May the foundations never be undermined!’
The hall erupts with shouting and clapping. Vagus begins banging the drum again and everyone shouts this time, it’s like they’re a single organism with one voice and one brain. They’re all absolutely in thrall to Ramir, they’re following his every tiny move, watching him with hard, worldly eyes in grimy faces, some that are bloated with drink and greasy food, some that are lean and wolfish with hunger, all obsessed with the figure on the stage in front of them. Mihan sits there, shocked. He knows Ramir’s enormously persuasive, but he had no idea that so many people felt like that. He thought it was just them, the staff, who love Ramir like a father. Nagy gets up clumsily and hobbles to the front of the stage with a book and a pen.
‘How many of you would come back here?’ he calls, balancing precariously on one leg as he addresses the crowd. They scream back at him. Mihan’s just sitting there, whishing he was as brave as Nagy, to get up in front of that crowd and ask that, after one meeting – true, a phenomenally successful meeting, but still, it’s not like Ramir’s a big celebrity or anything – and he wishes he’d done it, because Ramir’s smiling benevolently at Nagy from behind as he waves the book.
‘Well, put your names down, if you like, and we’ll make sure there’s space for you at the next meeting, if it’s going to be as packed as this.’
‘Oi! What if we can’t write or nuffin?’ asks a lanky woman at the front. Laughter, a bit of applause. Nagy looks slightly flustered and starts to speak, but Ramir gets up.
‘Then the Architects will teach you to write, comrade. Free education for all if we get into power!’ Ramir booms, and the hall explodes again.
Everyone hates the Municipal Education Board. They’re the ones who decide that you’re fit for a decent job, or you aren’t. They give you your ‘Intelligence Level’ and the whole system is entirely skewed towards those who can buy a good education. Or, alternatively, there’s the specialist craft schools, but everyone knows they’re poor as hell and never get a break. Mihan studied engraving and printing at a craft school in Riverton and it was not a nice place. True, he learnt all kinds of useful stuff, but they work you so hard and there’s never a let-up. Well, they do have to keep pace with the records of the private institutes with about a fraction of the funds.
‘The intelligence level will be abolished, since it has become corrupt and meaningless through long years of elitism. Instead, we’ll set up Architect schools, free entry for everyone, no matter how clever. Everyone has a purpose, and at these schools our sole aim will be to teach you skills relevant to that purpose. None of this Intelligence Level rubbish,’ Ramir spits, ‘it’s ridiculous! What’s so good about clever people? Most of them just sit on their arses all day and waste time and money, while you, the workers, use your skills day in, day out and never get a word of credit. Workers, comrades, I am your word of credit!’ he thunders. ‘Meeting closed, comrades, meeting is closed. I await your return next week with impatience, and until then, let the flame of the Creator burn in your eyes and guide you through your work to the best of your ability. I bless you, comrades.’
Ramir’s voice has grown deep and sonorous, and the crowd are transfixed. Ramir bows to them, then turns on his heel and leaves the stage. Dead silence, then a surge, like the breaking of a colossal wave or a sheet of ice, with terrible slow grace, it gets louder and louder until it’s deafening. They’re shouting Ramir’s name, smiling and clapping and whooping and they want him to come back, they’re shocked and awed and just a little bit in love with him. Mihan gets up, hating himself for bringing money into the equation and dragging everyone back into the material world that Ramir’s been leading the way out of, he gets up and worms his way through the crowd to the door, opening it and standing on the step with the collecting box. Cave is busy shoving everyone away from the door of Ramir’s room at the back; they’ve stormed the stage and they show no sign of leaving. Mihan shakes his head, amazed. He didn’t expect that in a million years, that it would go down so well. Sort of frightening really, how the people have been starved of a revolutionary presence like that for so long; Calvinus is a deeply paranoid man, and any sign of any form of revolution is stamped out by Security before they can even say ‘Comrade’. But Ramir’s too clever for that. Religion is allowed, so long as it doesn’t interfere with politics. So long as it’s safe.

Soon there’s queues outside every week, people hanging round the door to hear Ramir preach. They love him; he has a sort of hypnotic effect on everyone who meets him and they keep coming back. Nagy’s in charge of the register and it’s growing and growing.
‘What does he do to them?’ Mihan asks Einor Lanegan one day as they’re printing yet more flyers on the press in the community centre. Lanegan shrugs, pushing his glasses back up his face with inky hands.
‘Do you know, I have no idea. He just makes you…fearless, like you can do anything, and all you have to do is give yourself to him, you know? It’s amazing. Wonder if he’ll ever tell them about the Reconstructs?’
‘Don’t talk about them, Einor. I hate them! They’re driving me mad,’ Mihan cries, smudging a flyer irreparably in his agitation. He sighs and chucks it in the stove. It’s cold in Northbridge now; the wind’s come in off the river and there’s no escape, it gets into your bones, that sort of damp cold that automatically makes your nose run and your feet all clammy. Einor shakes his head, pointing towards the door.
‘Shh! He’ll hear you!’
Mihan shrugs, but he looks a bit scared. Ramir’s been pretty quiet since the last meeting, where he really broke some boundaries. The subjects were hot topics: worker rights, the Industrialist Front, the corruption in the Great Assembly – usually even talking about that is a by-word for Security kicking the door down. Mihan remembers his face as he preached, the anger, the light, the power that swept the audience along until their faces glowed like his, glowed like they were face to face with the Creator and His golden skin was dazzling them, blinded and mesmerised by what they saw through half-shut eyes. Lit from behind by the projection lights, Ramir and the Creator were synonymous that night. Mihan would give anything for the man, anything. He’d die for him, gladly lay down everything at his feet, let the world go black and cold and still. He’d be alright on the other side, Ramir would guide him through the dark to the blaze that lies beyond, it has to, there can’t just be blackness forever.
‘Hey! Look at this!’
Mihan jumps, breaks off his gloomy revelations. It’s Nagy at the door, feverish with excitement, waving the dog-eared black register. He comes in and sits down, passing Mihan the book. It’s full of Nagy’s neat writing, column after column of names and dates and donations and ticks for attendance. Mihan flicks through it. So many pages!
‘Look at it, comrade! We’ve hit the 500 mark already!’
‘Brilliant! That was quick, we’ve only been up for a month. Has someone told…’
Einor jerks his thumb towards the hall, but the door opens and the man himself enters.
‘What have you been keeping from me, Comrade Murat?’ he thunders jovially. Nagy nearly falls over himself in his haste to get up. Blushing furiously, he hands Ramir the register, trying vainly to straighten out the crumpled bits.
‘We’ve got over 500 members, Leader Ramir. I was checking the books this morning,’ he says crisply, regaining some composure, his cheeks still a dull red. Ramir has this effect on all of them: they’re sort of in love with him and it makes them embarrassed, they’re gawky teenagers in front of a beautiful girl. Ramir flicks through the book. Their eyes are all on him, waiting for his words, he’s their life-or-death, he’s the decision-maker.
‘This is good,’ Ramir says quietly, and there’s real wonder in his face, a surprise and a delight that makes Mihan love him even more, that he’s human and he misjudges situations the same as the rest of them, he’s still taken aback by life occasionally.
‘Do you know what this means, comrades? We’re popular. Call a staff meeting for half an hour’s time, Mihan; it’s time for Phase Two to begin.’

fanatics and fervour

2007-01-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

Fanatics and fervour

Northbridge is not a nice city by any standards. Dirty, run-down, notoriously corrupt and in some places desperately poor, it has a reputation amongst other city-states for being a great big nasty sponge that sucks up all their bright young things and gives them only dodgy exports in return, usually at an extortionate price. In recent years these unpleasant traits have been getting worse, under the ultra-conservative regime of Lord Calvinus, the Seneschal. And a man called Lucan Ramir has come here from the southern city of Jerboa to change all this. He’s been in Northbridge for about two weeks now and he is absolutely disgusted by the baseness of life here. He’s been mugged twice and Nagy Murat was beaten raw in a back-street for accidentally bumping into a gang leader and not saying sorry nicely enough. Ramir is sitting in his tall and uncomfortable chair in his room at their place, an abandoned church hall.
Even the Selenites here are corrupt. Look at them with their hymn-singing and their stupid little festivals while this place is crawling with every sort of sin imaginable. It makes me sick, this waste, this ineffectual wandering round the edges when they all know that the real problem is the city itself, and they’re too afraid to deal with that. Useless lot.
There’s a knock at the door, a timid tap, and this seems to fit so well with the namby-pamby Northbridge Selenites that it makes him all angry again.
‘For heaven’s sake, learn to knock properly!’ Ramir shouts. ‘Come in, then.’
The door opens and a huge man comes in. He has to duck to get through the door. He has a fearsome, simian face and ugly pinched eyes, too close together in his head.
‘Ah, it’s you, Cave. How’s Nagy?’
Cave shrugs.
‘Angry, Leader Ramir. He wants to get up but Cephall told him not to. He still looks like a side of meat though, I reckon it’s best if we count him out of things for a while.’
‘Luckily I’d already catered for that, Cave. You’re doing his duties instead. Fill the gaps, Cave. The work must be done, so done it will be, even if it kills you. You know this.’
Cave grunts a response and sits down in a vacant chair which creaks ominously.
‘How are the transistors going?’ asks Ramir.
He knows already, but he wants to see if Cave has checked the details, like he should have done by now. Fear brings obedience, he thinks, seeing Cave’s face empty of colour, and obedience brings devotion.
‘Er… fine… ’ Cave mumbles. He knows no one can lie to Ramir and get away with it.
‘You haven’t checked. Cave; that’s very disappointing, you know. Get out,’ Ramir says flatly. ‘I won’t see you until you’ve done all of your duties, not just those you feel like doing. For the last time, learn some DISCIPLINE!’
Ramir’s voice rises to a scream and he pelts a paperweight at Cave, which hits him in the ribs with a thud. Cave flings his long arms over his head as Ramir reaches for another missile, his face ugly with rage.
‘S-sorry, Leader Ramir, I’m sorry, I’m – ’
‘SHUT UP!’ bellows Ramir and Cave mumbles something incomprehensible, getting up and shuffling backwards towards the door, which he opens and practically chucks himself out. Ramir yells after him,
‘Get Mihan up here right away, Cave!’ and hurls another paperweight for good measure, which takes a chunk out of the door. He sits back in his chair, fuming and sweating, and tries to think of calm things. Anger is weakness. Control.
Why are people so stupid?

Ramir is one of those people who is terrifying when he’s in control. It looks like he’s the sort who never loses it, he just stays calm and when you’re gone he makes a black mark against your name, and soon enough punishment will come your way, unannounced and inescapable. He’s not like that. He’s got a notoriously short temper and the bad thing is, he’s even more frightening when he really loses it, goes purple and distorted and spitting with rage; he roars and curses and looks almost ill, and it’s horrible to watch. You have to wonder how anyone has that much fury all piled up inside them like a constipated volcano, just waiting to be tipped a little bit too far. Mihan Igrain almost shrinks from going to see him; he never knows what mood Ramir will be in and he dreads getting it wrong. He bangs on the door. Not too loud, because that makes Ramir afraid that his authority is being undermined, and afraid is nearly as bad as angry; but if he knocks too softly Ramir shouts at him for being wimpy and unassertive. Mihan grits his teeth as the door opens and the ordeal begins again. Ramir looks rather blotchy, and his bald head is shining with sweat, even though it’s freezing in his room. He is not an attractive man, it must be said. Shorter than average, but he makes up for it by his considerable bulk; he’s not fat, just sort of dense in a way other people rarely are. He has a square, brutal face with small, cold eyes, a shaved head and a cruel mouth. His voice is unctuous and barking at the same time, and Mihan always wonders how he does it. Ramir’s face assumes a twisted expression which is actually a smile, and he beckons Mihan into his room.
‘Ah, Mihan, there you are. How are the Reconstructs?’
Mihan swallows nervously. If there’s one thing he really doesn’t want to talk about, it’s the Reconstructs. He’s had enough of them, he knew they’d never work in the first place and he’s dreading telling Ramir just how badly the whole campaign is going. He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders.
Bite the bullet, Mihan. It’s going to hit you anyway.
‘To be perfectly frank, they’re a nightmare. We can’t get the programming devices running at all even though Comrade Lanegan and I have been working flat out for four days. There’s something seriously wrong with the readouts and neither of us can work out what it is. I think it’s the crystal readers not being tuned properly so they’re not picking up the correct resonances, therefore we’re getting nothing on the screen at all.’
There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?
Ramir’s expression has not changed at all; he raises his hands in a gesture of plea.
‘Creator, help us in Your doctrines, for we are poor mortals and only with Your brilliance will we achieve the technological perfection worthy of You,’ he intones. Mihan nods, not daring to say anything in case it’s a private communication between Ramir and the Creator, as Ramir is famous for. As the Leader of the Architect society he’s said to have a special vision for the city, but none of his staff have seen much of it, apart from the bits about the Reconstructs, which they’ve seen too much of already. If they’re the way Ramir’s brave new world has to be achieved, then Mihan’s seriously considering jumping ship before it’s too late to get off, before it goes city-wide and everything starts happening all at once – before Ramir gets too powerful, he sometimes thinks. He’s spent months in the company of the most skilled, intelligent, dextrous people he’s ever met, and what have they been doing? Scientific butchery – going round collecting the dregs of civilisation from back alleys and gutters and slums and, as Ramir’s book, Blueprints Set A, puts it, ‘giving them a purpose to aid society once more and further the Architect Vision of a perfect synchronised workforce’.
What the hell have I agreed to? Mihan often asks himself, when he stands back after a day’s work and looks at what he’s done; the vision’s amazing, but is it worth this?
I know they’re asleep when we do it, I know they’ll never know the difference, it’s like dying, you’ll never know it’s happened.
But he does wonder just how much more blood and risky, messy, difficult, ugly surgery he can bear, stuck in that cellar with Cephall the surgeon as he lobotomizes them with the speed of a maniac, and him and Einor rushing around programming the crystals as fast as they can and it’s never enough, the pressure’s too much, he’s going to go mad soon. What a procedure they have to go through: Cephall doing brain after brain and fitting the crystal chips that Mihan’s assembled, tailored for each head, Cephall sealing them in there in place of a frontal lobe and connecting them to the transmitter grid so they’re controllable by thought, except it’s not working so they’re stuck as mindless gibbering atrocities, while Einor wrestles with the crystal readers and reconfigures them over and over again, with the same result: nothing. Oh, and constantly subduing their pain processors with specially-prepared drugs so a Reconstruct won’t even notice if its arm gets hacked off, it’ll just keep going until it dies. Terrifying stuff. But it’s the will of the Creator, and if it helps the new world, which it will without question, then it must be done.
‘Ah well, Mihan. There is nothing I can offer for advice, I’m afraid, but you have until the end of the week to sort out the problem, or, if it really cannot be rectified, then I shall investigate the matter myself. I know it’s hard,’ Ramir says, with something very much like sympathy in his voice, ‘I know you’re wondering how such a loving God as the Creator can drive us to such lengths to see His vision become reality, but think, Mihan!’
Ramir sweeps his arms out in a wide gesture as he begins to tell Mihan of this vision, and Mihan, despite the fact that he’s tired and hungry and sickened by his work, and he’s been in their basement/surgery for nearly eight hours today with only a ten-minute break, he’s seeing it too, this glorious tomorrow that Ramir and his God have dreamed up together. Buildings that no other civilisation can touch, gleaming and shiny and sleek, not lumpy brick but smooth poured concrete and metal and glass, the materials of the future. Electricity in every room. Automated transport. Useful industries only, with a job for everyone – no pointless pleasure-makers, like artists and musicians and actors; wastrels and scroungers, the lot of them, who’ve never done a stroke of honest work in their lives. They’ll all go first, when we get into power – at this Ramir gets rather violent, and has to stop while he composes himself again. Mihan sits spellbound.
He’s thought of everything, and it’s all true. Amazing.
None of this greedy, money-grabbing, sprawling capitalism, all untidy and tangled and backstabbing, Ramir continues, finding his focus again: everything is state-owned, and the proceeds go to everyone in return for their work for the state, who will own all the industries, insofar as anything is owned. Ramir stops talking, eyes shining with God, and Mihan shakes his head weakly, dizzied by this genius in front of him.
‘That, comrade, is the Master Blueprint of the Creator, which He has seen fit to show me alone. Stay faithful to me, Mihan, for the sake of what I have just told you,’ Ramir says softly. ‘Swear to me now, swear again, that you will do whatever I ask you, if you know it is for the future of this regime, when we seize power and save this sorry city.’
‘I swear it!’ Mihan says ardently, as Ramir takes Mihan’s right hand and cuts a finger with a tiny dagger, catching in his own hand the few drops of blood that fall from the little wound and licking them off his palm.
‘You are the first, Mihan, the first and trusted. Go now. Free your technical mind in prayer, and the kingdom of science will be yours in the next shift. Bring Vagus here.’

Mihan leaves the room, shaking and dizzy and over the moon. The future is waiting. All they have to do is reach out and grab it before the capitalists deface it. He feels reborn, the Creator’s burning in him and he’s prepared to do anything, so long as the vision captures him and holds on, sweeping him forwards in its juggernaut rush to perfection, faster and stronger and higher and more beautiful with every new day. And in the centre of this maelstrom will be Ramir, burning with a sort of holy fire, bright as sulphur showing them all the way forwards, cutting through the dark imperfection of humanity with the white light of science and ironing out the flaws that make all ideas fail in the end.
Bring Vagus here. Command me, oh Leader, and I will obey, eager as a Reconstruct.
Mihan thinks again of the Reconstructs: all he wants to do now is solve whatever the problem is with them and win Ramir’s approval. He doesn’t care if it kills him. He doesn’t need to eat or sleep, he’s got a holy quest; dying with Ramir’s smile raining on his fading sight would be the most beautiful way to go. All he wants is to see the approval in that mighty face and know that it’s for him, Mihan Igrain, lowly technician, that the light shines, for what he’s done. What could be more glorious?

Vagus is in the paperwork room, hidden in that mazy little warren of rooms at the back of the building, poring over a musty-looking book entitled Sub-Molecular Chemistry. Vagus is a small man about the same height as Mihan, but rather than just being compact, he’s scrawny like a rat, underfed, furtive, gives the impression that he could have been much bigger but got stunted somewhere along the way. He slams the book shut when Mihan approaches and gazes up suspiciously with a small cold eye. Vagus doesn’t like anyone, and no one returns the sentiments. Mihan doesn’t even know what he’s doing here anyway, since he does nothing for the regime apart from endless research on seemingly random subjects, and he never attends services either. But Mihan’s too full of bonhomie now to even register this; he smiles affably at Vagus.
‘Evening, comrade. Leader wants to see you.’
‘Oh yeah? About what?’ Vagus snaps instantly, shoving the book into a pile of papers strewn over the table.
Why do you always jump to such conclusions, Vagus? Just reach out and accept what you’re given, don’t question it all the time. Ramir will change your life like he’s changed mine, if you let him.
‘I don’t know.’
Vagus snorts and gets up from the chair, straightening his cap. He’s got a nasty blot on the front of his overall, and Mihan automatically looks down at his, which is his spare, and brushes a bit of lint off his sleeve. Imagine going to see Ramir looking like a shambles; the displeasure would be palpable. Vagus sees where he’s looking and rolls his eyes with a snort.
‘Wash behind your ears as well, did you? Little sycophant,’ he says contemptuously, barging past Mihan and leaving the room. Mihan shrugs to himself, sits down in Vagus’s empty chair and leafs through the papers on the desk. Undetectable Poisons, the title of one page says, followed by a tangle of symbols and scrawly writing. Mihan frowns and covers it up. Notes about poisons are not a good thing to be caught looking at, even if it is by a colleague. He wonders what it’s for. He flicks through the book but it might as well be in Legrady, all the sense it makes to him.

Vagus bangs on the door of Ramir’s room and it opens far too fast for his liking as Ramir appears in the doorway.
The bastard must’ve been standing right behind it.
‘Ah, Comrade Vagus, that was commendably fast.’
‘Well, I figured you wouldn’t be too happy if I ignored you,’ Vagus retorts.
Ramir nods, but Vagus can see his anger-management mask slip another notch.
‘Quite. Come in, comrade, we’ve got a lot to talk about.’
He ushers Vagus in, closes and locks the door. Vagus sits down in one of the hard chairs, but Ramir remains standing, looming slightly over him. Vagus feels threatened.
‘It seems that the time is near, Vagus. Your big moment is just round the corner,’ he says, with a cruel sort of amusement in his voice. Vagus is genuinely confused.
‘Time for what?’
Ramir scowls at Vagus and bangs his fist on the table.
‘The poisoning, you fool! Do you never listen to anything I say? The Creator has decided, it’s time to go ahead with poisoning Calvinus. Have you finished your research?’
Ramir leans over him, predatory, greedy for knowledge. They’re practically nose to nose. Ramir’s eyes are dark and cold, like underground wells where the light can’t ever reach.
‘Erm, nearly,’ Vagus gabbles, if only to get Ramir out of his face. In reality he’s still miles off, but he’s damned if he’s letting that little bomb drop before he has to.
Who the hell does he think he is anyway, eyeballing me like this? I’m my own man.
‘And what’s your plan?’
‘Ah – yes – the plan… I was thinking, should we not wait until the Reconstructs are up and running? I just meant, if things get nasty with Security, at least if we’ve got them working we can defend ourselves. On the off-chance, as it were.’
Vagus has considered that little speech very carefully indeed. Just the right amount of suggestion, not too hesitant, because that would look like he doesn’t believe it himself – and if he’s not convinced of his own idea, who else will be? But at the same time, any more forceful than that, and Ramir would think he was being undermined. Not a good career move, outsmarting a boss with a shorter fuse than a three-bronze firework and not half as pretty when he explodes. Ramir hangs there for a moment as if the ground has been whipped out from beneath his feet. Then a smirk cracks across his face.
‘You’re exactly right, comrade, of course we should. What was I thinking, rushing into something like that, and with Comrade Murat still in such a state? Thank you, you’ve opened my eyes to what I was completely passing by. You could have just saved this Regime from the long crooked arm of the law, Vagus; well done.’
He claps Vagus on the shoulder with a heavy hand. Vagus sits there, hardly daring to believe he’s got away with it. He can’t have done. Ramir speaks again and his heart sinks; he hasn’t got away with it at all. There’s always a catch. Here it comes.
‘Still, I would quite like to know what you’re going to use. I’ll need to test it, of course: we’ve only got one attempt at this and I want to make sure it goes just as I planned.’
‘Er – ’
Vagus actually can’t think of anything to say to this. How the hell can he answer that? Without revealing that he’s actually way behind on his research, he’s been doing overtime every night for weeks and he’s sick of the bloody project anyway, he never wants to see another diagram of a belladonna plant as long as he lives – and besides, it’s not going to work, Calvinus has survived more attempts than he’s had hot dinners.
‘Are you afraid of telling me what you’ve come up with?’ Ramir says soothingly, his voice all condescension. ‘Don’t worry, Vagus, everyone feels like this when they’re asked to present their works to me. I understand, you’re scared it’s wrong, you don’t want to let the Regime down. You won’t, Vagus: the only way you can let the Regime down is by failing to put the effort in. It’s less of a problem if you do the work and it’s incorrect, than if you don’t do it at all. Everyone makes mistakes.’
Vagus wants to snort derisively but he knows it would get him killed.
Afraid of you? Yeah, I’m careful of you, but that’s only cause you’ll beat the crap out of me if I don’t do what you want. I couldn’t give a stuff about your silly regime, it’s never going to get off the ground anyway.
He sighs, his ratty face the picture of contrition.
‘Yes, Leader Ramir, that’s it exactly. My work’s not good enough for you to see, I mean, I need to archive my notes, and…’
He watches Ramir’s face change, not for the better.
You’ve really blown it this time.
‘Oh shut up, you whining little man,’ Ramir snaps. ‘You’ve got until tomorrow, and then I’m taking whatever you’ve come up with and if it’s still not ready – ’
Ramir doesn’t even finish the end of his sentence, he simply bugs his eyes out in a way that’s more terrifying than any words in the world. Vagus gulps and gets up hurriedly, backing away from the horrible eyes across the desk. Ramir points a thick finger.
‘Get out, Vagus, and don’t let me down again. I’m watching you!’ he shouts, dragging the door open and shoving Vagus outside, then slamming it again. He sinks down in his chair again and opens the thick grey book open on the desk in front of him. It’s the half-finished version of The Vision; part manifesto, part prophecy, all-encompassing ideology. It’s his brain-child. He flicks through it to a bit he’s particularly fond of: the provision of labour. The golden figure of the Creator shines bright in his head as he reads, imagining preaching this to his hapless staff and all the good-for-nothing Selenites. They’ll be blown away. They’ll love him as the Creator’s representative in the world. God-on-earth.

2006-11-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

sorry, it's been ages since i posted anything worthwhile on here... you know how it is, what with life and stuff getting in the way. i'm not quite sure about whether this chapter will be revised, i'm still playing with ideas at the moment - but as it stands now, it's finished. if you see any typos for gods sake tell me, i never remember to check for them... yeah that's it, i guess... enjoy...

Ethereal house

Theorny pushes open the door of the building and Syrus reads the sign: Ethereal House, all welcome at any time. And he does feel welcome.
‘This is where the Musilists live, Syrus. Come in and I’ll introduce you to everybody.’
Theorny goes through the door and into a dingy hallway with strip lights and old posters and things on the walls. Syrus shifts his harp on his back and Theorny opens another door into a huge room, and a glorious blast of music spills out and fills Syrus’s head, choirs and a piano and it is the loveliest tune he’s heard in a long time. He turns to Theorny, his face glowing with the sounds he’s heard.
‘Who’s that singing?’ he asks softly. Theorny listens.
‘Oh! That’s all of us at choir practice. We don’t sound bad, do we? It was terrible yesterday but I think we’ve got our act together since then.’
Syrus looks into the big room, and he can barely see the other side. There are about twenty bunk beds crammed in, all jumbled up and wonky and with bedding hanging off them, and banners and clothes and ingenious wires with coat hangers all strung between them like rigging; there are a few hammocks under the gallery that runs round the side, and in a clear space of floor – the only clear space – is a brazier and a motley pile of dishes. Syrus’s eyes pop; it is an amazing space, like nothing he’s ever seen before.
‘Welcome to community living,’ says Theorny and he’s grinning. He dumps his violin down on one of the bunk beds, over in a cluster under the gallery, and he leads Syrus across the haphazard floor through another door. Syrus is hardly noticing what is going on; his composition brain is in overdrive with the sights and sounds of this place. In the next room, a long bare rectangle, there are lots of people standing in a big ring around a woman with long purple-dyed hair and dark witchy eyes who plays the piano, and these people are the ones making that wonderful music, the choir, and she is the conductor. They stop when Theorny and Syrus come in, and the woman waves at Theorny.
‘Where the hell have you been, Theo? We needed you in the tenors,’ she says, but she is pleased. Theorny jerks his thumb at Syrus.
‘Never mind where I’ve been, look at who I’ve found. This is Syrus, Lumen the harpist’s son and he’s the most brilliant musician I’ve ever heard in my life, including all you lot.’
Syrus blushes as they all look at him.
I’m too young for these people, they’re all so grown up and good looking and they can sing so well. What can I give them besides music? They’ve got that already.
He clutches the strap of his harp bag as about ten people all come forward to greet him. A tawny-haired, bookish man with large teeth comes over and shakes his hand eagerly.
‘Cassel Balan, pleased to meet you, Syrus. Ah, another harpist! Good, we’ve only got one at the moment,’ he says busily, barely pausing for breath. Syrus smiles, although his head is reeling and the angel is singing at the top of its voice as he is introduced to a few more people, whose names he instantly forgets.
Give me a break, would you? I can’t concentrate with you doing that.
No. I brought you here, let me see as well.
Well stop singing, you’re driving me mad, Syrus tells it, being greeted by a chubby young man with a permanent ear-to-ear grin.
‘Hi there! Welcome to Ethereal House, I’m Arfe. It’s good to have you here,’ he says, shaking Syrus’s hand as well, which by now would like a rest.
‘Who’s that guy there?’ he asks Theorny. Theorny points out a lanky red-haired boy who waves at them with a long-fingered hand.
A pianist’s hand, says the angel and it smiles. Yes, Syrus can see that boy at a piano very easily now. It just seems to fit.
‘Him, Ithan Tekau. You’ll like him, he’s lovely. If a bit mad.’
‘And what about him?’
Syrus points now at a tall, well-built man who looks rather out of place amidst the scruffy arty types; he’s quite sleek and his clothes actually fit him. His nails are carefully manicured, very short, and he’s got the thin, mobile fingers of a harpist.
‘Oh, Negellan? He’s… er, well, he’s just Negellan. The other harpist round here.’

Syrus sits on the bed he’s been offered and he plays his harp idly, not really playing, just fiddling with it, brushing the backs of his fingers over it. The air stinks of incense, pungent but actually quite nice, and somewhere a guitar is being played. He’s never been this contented in his life; the failure of earlier seems like a distant vision.
‘Syrus?’
It is red-haired Ithan, the lanky pianist. Syrus smiles up at him.
‘Hi, Ithan.’
Ithan sits down on the bed next to him, reaching out and touching the frame of Syrus’s harp where it rests next to him on the bed.
‘That’s a nice harp. Why is it so small?’
‘Forest harps are always this size; there’s no transport besides walking so you have to be able to carry everything you own, in case there’s a bush-fire or something.’
‘You grow up in the forest? That’s pretty cool.’
‘No, my dad did. I was born there, but we moved when I was really little. I don’t remember it at all.’
Ithan sits silent and he begins to roll a cigarette. There is something about him that makes Syrus want to tell him things, like about his angel, and about the dreams he’s been having since his dad died: dreams that make no sense but he still wakes up crying from the want of them, of the beauty he sees and can’t touch.
‘Ithan,’ he begins, then comes over all shy. Ithan looks at him.
Tell him, Syrus. He might even understand. He’s not much older than you, you know.
Syrus nods, looking back at Ithan. He can only be about seventeen, with the beginnings of a beard on his chin, and his clever eyes, eyes that look like they understand things far beyond what Syrus has even heard of, the icy heights of maths and logic and reasoning. If you looked inside his head you know it would fizzle like chemistry
‘Yeah? What is it?’ Ithan asks, and there is a faint smile on his mouth. The cigarette smoulders forgotten in his hand.
‘Do you ever see angels?’ Ithan laughs, and shakes his head.
‘No. I’m not the one who does that. It’s a harpist who does that; we thought it was Negellan for a while, but…nah. Why, do you?’
Syrus nods.
‘There’s one in my head. It sort of talks to me and when my dad died, it said it’d do something to my playing, make it better. All it’s done is made me want to play more, like, I feel weird if I don’t for more than a few hours,’ he says in a rush. For a moment Ithan is blank-faced, then his eyes widen until Syrus thinks they will swallow him.
‘Oh my God,’ he says, ‘it's you. Cass!’ he calls, leaping up from the bed and racing over to where Cassel is sitting at the brazier with Arfe and the witchy lady whose name Syrus is not sure of. Syrus cannot catch what is said, but Ithan is agitated about something, waving his arms and gesticulating at high speed. Then they all come over, and Syrus feels afraid, gripping his harp tightly for comfort.
I’ve done the wrong thing. They’re going to throw me out.
‘Syrus? Is it true what you told Ithan?’ asks Cassel excitedly. His teeth gleam and Syrus stares wildly at him, looking more like a bird than a boy, all on edge, all edges.
‘Play for us,’ Theorny says gently. Syrus nods and uncurls. He knows Theorny won't hurt him. He arranges himself round the harp like he is going to suck it into himself, hunched over it like he always plays. And he plays, he’s not sure what, but he just opens his head and lets tune after tune fall out into the world, fresh from his inexhaustible composition drive. When he wakes from the enchanted sleep that playing puts him into, the others are staring at him, slack jawed. Cassel’s eyes are shining.
‘You are the one we’ve been searching for all this time,’ he says solemnly. Syrus blinks.
‘Am I? How come?’ He feels dozy and stupid.
You’ve started, Syrus, says his angel. It has the glowing light again and Syrus wonders if his face is the same.
Why is there so much beauty in my head?
‘Why were you looking for me?’
The witchy lady smiles at him. She has a nice smile.
‘Well, you see, Cassel is a writer, and a while ago he was doing some research in the old records of the cathedral – er, Cass, why don’t you explain?’
‘Yeah. Anyway, I found this really old book with pictures in it of angels and stuff, and there was a huge long poem all in Old Forest or something, and the translation talked about ‘the son of light’ and a harpist who will one day, I dunno, lead the Musilists to recognition even though he’s young, and all sorts of stuff, and as soon as I saw you, I knew you were the one it was talking about!’ Cassel barely pauses for breath, he’s so eager to get it all across. Syrus barely takes in a word. This is lunacy.
‘Me? I’m the one you want to lead you?’
Theorny shrugs.
‘It’s predetermined. We can’t argue with that. Not that we would anyway. Yes, Syrus, you’re the one we want to lead us back to recognition.’

Syrus is lying on his bed and he is asleep, his eyes tracking behind their pale eyelids, his hands twitching as he dreams of playing the harp. Theorny watches him from his top bunk opposite, his violin in its case jammed up against his legs.
Half-asleep as he looks at Syrus with an artist’s eye, he wonders who he is. He fits in here so well, and he looks so nice when he’s asleep and not frightened of anything. He’s like a little fairy creature, not human at all. He’s too weightless to be human; Theorny can imagine him in those paintings of the Forest at midnight, with tiny firefly lights and beautiful willowy elfin people with long hair and gentle faces. What the hell’s he doing in a big rough city like Northbridge? He’s going to get squashed if there’s no one looking after him. An angel in his head can’t protect him from people with nothing in their heads besides beer and violence; they’d beat the shit out of him, given half a chance.
And he’s the one we want, just when I thought we’d never find him. Incredible.
He’d never forget the first sight of him, huddled on the doorstep of the vestment shop in an unkempt bundle with his bright hair and his glowing eyes, making that sound. Almost supernatural. What happened to him when Lumen died? Did he live like a ghost, haunting the back streets of Second Ward and the Institute, did he hide from the world, did he have someone else to love him and take care of him? Syrus suddenly jerks in the bed, still asleep, says clearly,
‘I forgot to say goodbye,’ and Theorny jumps at the sound. Syrus has woken up now, and he sits wide-eyed. His hair is a riot and he rubs his face with his hands.
‘To who?’ asks Theorny. But Syrus is already getting up and scrabbling for his shoes under the bed. He pushes his harp safely under when he’s done, and Theorny realises.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to say goodbye to Yorel and Pasani. I was living with them after Dad died, but since I met you I’ve forgotten all about them. They’ll be really worried now,’ he says anxiously, biting his nails. ‘How d’you get to the cathedral from here?’
‘Just turn left out of this street and walk down North Arterial until you hit the Ward gate, it’s not so far. Hey,’ Theorny says gently, and Syrus looks at him with those clear grey eyes of his, the grey of the sky just before the sun comes up really early in the morning.
‘Come back, won’t you? Don’t leave.’
‘I won’t. I’d never leave my harp here if I wasn’t intending to be back.’
And with that Syrus is gone.

Pasani’s flat is not cheerful any more, even though the walls are still bright yellow, it still smells of spicy cooking and it’s still warm and cosy and muddled. They both sit there tense and tight-lipped. It was Yorel who found the note, when she got back from school, and she thought nothing of it until Pasani arrived home from work and Syrus was not back. He is still absent and Pasani is beginning to wonder whether he’s run away for good.
Would he do that to us?
‘I’m scared, Mum. What if he’s – ’
‘Don’t say it!’ snaps Pasani and Yorel freezes, biting her lip. ‘He’ll be coming back – ooh, and then I’ll give him what for, running off like this.’ Her face softens. ‘Well, no, I won’t. He’s got problems, that boy, it’s not fair to punish him for them, I suppose.’
She sighs and rolls another cigarette. She’s been smoking like a fiend all evening and the room stinks of tobacco. Yorel wishes she’d give up, but she won’t even though she knows it's bad for you. She tries to concentrate on her homework but she can’t, all she can see are horrible images of Syrus caught by some gang, arrested by Security and languishing in a cell, cold and hungry and sore, or even worse dead on some street corner, floating face down in the river all pale and straggly and waterlogged. She clenches her teeth and forces the images away. No, he’s alive, he’ll be back soon. He’s probably just lost track of time like he always does.
There is a knock on the door, a light nervy tap. Pasani shrugs and gets up, but her face has drained and she looks almost skull-like. She thinks it’s Security come to tell us they’ve arrested Sy. Pasani opens the door and Yorel hears her scream.
‘Mum! Who is it?’ she calls, getting up and running into the hall where Pasani is hugging Syrus and shouting at him at the same time.
‘Sy, you little fool, where have you been, we were so worried about you going off like that, oh, anything could have happened to you and we wouldn’t have known!’ she is wailing. Syrus extricates himself from her arms and he is different, Yorel sees, he’s bigger somehow. Brighter. He’s got a sort of glow around him that’s only there when he’s really focused on his harp and she has to shake him to get his attention, he can’t even hear when she shouts his name. He scares her a bit when he gets like that.
Where’s he been?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly, ‘I should’ve come back after my audition, but I met Theorny and he took me to the Musilists and I just forgot about everything. I’ve had the most amazing day.’
‘Well, come in and tell us about it then,’ Pasani says. She is not angry, she’s just relieved, all the colour has come back to her face. Yorel is relieved as well, impossibly so; she thought she’d never see him again. But from nowhere a funny little niggling thought pops into her head.
He’s not staying. He’s leaving us, going to places we can’t reach.
They sit down on the floor like usual with their legs crossed and Syrus is itching to tell them about his day, but at the same time he’s realised that he’s not going to be living in Block 3, Fairley Estate, Second Ward, any longer, and he’s not going to be with Yorel who he’s known since he was two years old.
That is part of growing up, Syrus. You have to say goodbye sometimes, says his angel and Syrus starts. The angel has been quiet for a long while and he’s practically forgotten about it. Yorel notices him jump and she asks him why. He shrugs. They don’t need to know about it – and besides, he’s never told them before, it’s never seemed like the right thing to do. Why do it now? They’ll think he’s mad, and they won’t let him go if they’re not sure he’s all there. Save the angel for the Musilists, they understand.
‘Tell us about it all then, Sy,’ says Pasani. She looks tired; it is nearly midnight.
‘Well, I went to the Institute for an audition to the school, cause, you know, Dad wanted me to. But they failed me.’
That still rankles a little, even though he knows he’s a Musilist to his core. Yorel laughs.
‘They failed you? Are they nuts?’
Syrus shrugs.
‘I guess they didn’t like the look of me, or maybe I played badly or something. It happens. Anyway, I got kind of depressed about that so I sat in Cathedral Square and busked to make myself feel better, even though I haven’t got a license yet. And this violinist called Theorny came up to me and we did a load of duets, it just kind of happened and it was really great. I earned a bit of money and I want you to have it for being nice to me – ’
Syrus fishes around in the pocket of his coat and pulls out the motley collection of coins, shoving them into Pasani’s astonished hands. She turns them over, frowning.
‘Are you sure you want to give me all this? There’s a fair bit here, you know.’
Syrus smiles and folds her fingers round them, his face glowing but strangely sad.
‘I’m not going to need it where I’m going, you see. Theorny asked me to come back to the Musilist building with him once we’d finished busking, cause he said I’d like it: so I went and it’s the most amazing place and I reckon I’ve found where I want to be, and it’s there, Pasani, it’s there with the Musilists. Not at the Institute.’
Yorel shakes her head. She’s right, he’s leaving them again and he’s not coming back this time.
‘Come and visit us sometimes, Sy,’ she says and there is something that passes between his eyes and hers that Pasani cannot fathom, something that only they understand because they’re so close, soon to be far away.
‘Just a second, Syrus, who says you’re going anywhere? I’ve never heard of these Musilists; how can you know if they’re alright?’
‘I just know,’ he says. ‘They’re the people I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with, and I can’t tell you any more, other than they’re the most beautiful, talented, amazing people anywhere and I’m proud to have even met them.’
The light of youth is in him. He can do no wrong and he has to get back home, back to that grubby building called Ethereal House with the people who think like him and love what he loves and see the world through his eyes. Pasani shakes her head as she sees that there’s no talking to him. He’s unreachable, this weird boy she’s been given the care of. Until such time as one or both parties see fit.
He meant me to do this, to let him go when he was ready. I just didn’t know it would be so soon.
‘Syrus,’ she says gravely and he looks at her. His eyes are enormous, compelling, intense, like he’s trying to learn her face by heart. Persuading her without words to let him go. She drags herself out of his gaze and begins:
‘Your father obviously meant for you to go your own way, and I’m not going to stop you. All I’m going to say is, be careful. Don’t rush into things before you’ve worked out exactly what they’re about, because they might not be what you think. That’s all.’
Syrus nearly falls off the chair in shock. He didn’t expect that. He’s actually going to live with them, the Musilists, and she doesn’t mind even though she’s never heard of them and for all she knows they could be a bunch of murderers.
‘You don’t mind?’ he squeaks. Pasani shrugs.
‘You’re only going to run away if I stop you from going, so I don’t see the point. I wish you luck, cause it’s definitely not what I’d do. You’re going to be absolutely penniless, Syrus - you do realise that, don’t you? All cold and hungry and poor. I wouldn't do it just for music, but there you go, we're different people, you and me.’
He is grinning from ear to ear, so much his cheekbones hurt. He can’t help it.
We’re going home, angel. We’re actually going to live there, you and me.
‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you,’ he says, ‘thank you, Pasani.’
He’s so happy he could go through the roof like a firework and explode into fragments. He capers round the room with excitement until he’s dizzy, and then he collapses onto the sofa gasping for breath.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he says suddenly, morosely. ‘I mean, I can’t wait to go to Ethereal House but I don’t want to leave you. I’ve lived near you all my life, it’s going to be so weird not seeing you every day.’
Yorel looks at him; her eyes are watering but she’s not exactly crying, it’s more like how you feel just before you start crying properly.
This is the last time he’ll be here.
He’ll forget me, like he forgets everything when there’s music around.
‘I’m going to miss you, Sy,’ she says. Her voice is a bit wobbly and she swallows hard. He gets up and flings his arms round her, burying his face in her long black hair, remembering how she feels, how she smells: like tobacco and soap and spices and something else, a sweet tang that is unique to her. She is warm in his arms, and he lets her go and looks at her. Her eyes are red and she’s struggling to compose herself.
‘I’ll visit you whenever I can, I promise, Yorel, I won’t leave you. Come and see us sometimes, you’ll always be welcome.’
He wipes his face; he’s crying too, half out of distress and half out of happiness. And then it’s it: he’s going. He’s leaving Block 3 Fairley Estate. Leaving the only place he’s ever called home, going to somewhere infinitely more glorious, a place he feels completely attuned to and that’s what’s been missing all his life, that sense of perfectly fitting into where he lives, like there was a little Syrus-shaped patch in the air and he just stepped into it. He collects all the clothes he owns from the corner of the living room where he’s been sleeping: two shirts, a heap of underwear, a spare pair of trousers that are much too baggy, some very old boots and a long red scarf with holes in.
‘Keep everything else,’ he says, going over to Pasani and hugging her as well, sensing her reluctance to let him go, and he’s even more grateful to her that she has let go. ‘Thank you for everything.’
‘It’s the least we could do, Syrus. Good luck.’
She shows him out and he leaves the flat. They wave from the doorstep, but he senses that something has gone from them towards him. They’re distancing themselves, and they’ll forget him once he’s gone from sight.
Well, let them. Your place is with me now, says his angel. It looks tired, but flushed with happiness. Syrus smiles, but he’s a bit worried as well.
It’s not like I’ll never see them again, though, is it?
Well, it will never be the same. You left them. You’ve burnt your boats, I think.
How? Syrus is indignant at that, but the angel smiles mockingly.
You practically told them that they’re not good enough for you.
At your suggestion! Now piss off, you’re confusing me.
Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Oh go away, you’re giving me a headache. Come back later.
Syrus blanks out his mind and the angel disappears. He walks along the North Arterial road that leads up to the top gate of Northbridge, past mile on mile of warehouses and factories and workshops that all look the same by night. There are not many people about; it’s cold and miserable and Syrus pulls his coat tighter round him, hugging the ball of clothes in his thin arms.
This is the first night of your life, Syrus. Enjoy it.
I am enjoying it. I never realised how beautiful everything is, even up here. Look at that building there, all those windows reflecting in the street lamp. I’ve never seen things like this before.
Syrus looks around with new eyes at the street, its tall square factories with their still-smoking towers, the warehouses all lit up for the start of the night shift. And it’s all amazing him, the fact that he’s got his own life and he can walk around the city at night to his heart’s content, seeing all the grimy beauty that it hides in its brick walls and dirty windows. He turns into the alley where Ethereal House is and he knocks on the door of the community centre, then just pushes it open. All are welcome, anyway.

2006-11-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

feedback is very welcome... even if you hated it. i wanna know why so i can improve things, cause i don't want my stuff to be globally reviled. jeez, i sound like one of thiose customer survey things don't i? 'any comments, please call... or write to.... your statutory rights are not affected..' blah blah blah/ or those well annoying stickers on the back of lorries that say 'well driven? call xzxzxzxzx' i mean, who's gonna other to write down a number while they're driving, just to talk to a complete stranger about some lorry that passed them on the road in one incredibly ordinary minute of their life. i just don't get it...

anyway, where was i? oh yeah, feedback. comments please....

wings of sound

2006-11-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

chapter 2

Failing and passing

Syrus sits in a corner, in a little heap on the floor. It is three days after Lumen has gone and he is completely shell-shocked. It started after he’d cremated the body. Nothing could have possibly prepared him for how horrible it was, nothing in the entire world. The smell was the worst thing, it’s still hanging around now and he can’t get rid of it. It’s in his hair, in his clothes, on his skin, everywhere, the smell of his dad’s roasting flesh. He’ll never forget the terrible peace on that dead face as the smoke started to rise, thick and black, from the pyre he built in a patch of wasteland, as Forest funeral custom dictates: not where the passage of the soul can be interrupted by earthly beauty. Yorel and Pasani were with him, both crying. Syrus could not have cried any more even if he’d wanted to. He stood dry eyed and played the Leaving on Lumen’s harp, the best he’d ever played.
My harp now.
It is his only consolation and he plays it more and more; he finds he needs it near him just to feel human.
It’s starting, Syrus. You are becoming addicted to music, just as you should be, says his angel in his head, and it is smiling with its midnight eyes but not his mouth.
Addicted? That’s bad! That’s not healthy.
But it is beautiful. You are going to do great things.
You keep saying this, but you’re wrong. What can I do apart from play the harp? I bet there are millions of people out there better than me, much better.
I chose you. You will learn, in time.
Why can’t you ever explain yourself? You come out with all this random stuff and you never offer me any sort of reason, you just expect me to understand it all!
No I don’t, says the angel softly. You don’t have to understand anything. Just be yourself, Syrus, because you are the one I need.
Syrus shakes his head and the angel goes away. He remembers about the Musicians’ Institute suddenly, and feels terrible for forgetting.
My dad’s last wish! How the hell could I ignore it?
Furious with himself, he gets up instantly. He is stiff from inactivity, he has not been outside since the burning day and he doesn’t really want to face it now. All those people, all those lives.
Why couldn’t one of them die instead, someone I don’t love or even know?
Scribbling a note to Yorel for when she gets back from school: Gone to Musicians institute. Be back soon. Sy xx.
He shuts the door with the harp strapped to his back and goes down the stairs and out into the street. He sees the landlord of the block coming and walks the other way fast, down the road into the bright afternoon, not wanting to hear the words ‘I’m so sorry to hear about it’, ‘are you alright’ ‘that’s a pity’ and all the endless condolences. They have no idea what it’s like. It has been raining and there are puddles in the road, the gutter choked with fallen leaves. Down to Brewery Street, then along left for ever and ever, past the Haimisha factory, through the Ward gate and there right in front is the Musicians’ Institute. He has been here so many times that he barely even looks at the handsome brick building with its ornate arched façade. He goes in the door and sees Mr Hansel the clerk at the front desk.
‘Ah, hello, young Syrus. How are you? I say, we haven’t seen your dad in a while, you know – is he alright? Not ill or anything?’
Hansel is far too cheerful. Even his spectacles gleam with happiness.
‘He’s dead,’ Syrus snaps. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, if it’s all the same to you.’
Hansel shakes his head, but without any particular emotion.
‘I see. I shall remove his name from the Register. Are you here to tell everyone?’
‘No. I’m here for an audition for the school, since Dad can’t teach me any more. He wanted me to.’ Syrus’s voice goes a bit quavery but he bites his lip. Hansel nods.
‘Ah, right. You’ll want Mr Bird, then. Second floor, last on the right, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a queue, as usual. Good luck,’ he calls after Syrus who is already halfway up the stairs. Last on the right turns out to be a big waiting room full of kids, most about his age, some younger, some a little older. All have someone else with them. He goes over to the fat man in the corner who has a roll of paper and a pen, sitting in a very old armchair.
‘Name?’
‘Syrus Tor – er, Lumensson.’
Nearly forgot. You’re useless, Syrus. Never forget it again.
‘Lumensson? Lumen the harper?’ the man asks, scribbling. Syrus nods curtly.
‘What’s happened to him, then? You’ve got his harp, haven’t you.’
Syrus shrugs.
‘Are you going to give me a number or not? And before you ask, Lumen was my dad, and I said was because he died three days ago. Don’t talk about it.’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t – ’
Syrus shakes his head.
‘Don’t be sorry, there’s no point. Can I have a ticket?’
The man holds out a slip of paper torn off the roll and Syrus takes it. It has his name on it and a printed number, 17. Seventeenth in the queue. Wonderful. He is panicky as he sits and waits in the big room. It is much too hot, and somewhere a tiny sister of one of the applicants is screaming and the mother does not have the sense to take her outside. He begins to shake as he unpacks the harp and checks the tuning against the old piano in the room. He’s auditioning for his future and he has a horrible feeling that he’s not going to get in, even though Lumen had always said he was better than most of the qualified harpists at the Institute without trying.
They won’t want me. I’m not educated enough. I’m practically self-taught.
Why, Dad, why are you making me go here? It’s completely not my place and you know that.
Just do it, Syrus. Give your old man a chance, says his angel.
Syrus nods and the minutes tick by, slower and slower. And finally a formidable woman with a bad dye job calls
‘Number Seventeen, please, Number Seventeen,’ and Syrus’s legs can barely support him. He’s never been this scared in his life. And there is no one to wish him good luck.
What about me?
Like I said, you don’t count, you aren’t real.
Don’t be so sure, Syrus.
Syrus pushes open the door with a trembling, skinny little hand. There is a long room inside with a chair and a music stand, and a big table with five people on the other side of it. All of them are old, and they are nearly all men. They are the notoriously conservative, uptight Admissions Board, and Syrus wants to run away and hide, do anything but be in this room with these people. A thin man in the middle – Mr Bird, presumably – tells Syrus to sit down, pointing at the chair. The chair is too high and too upright, but he perches on the edge of it and pulls the harp in towards him, his knees up round it. It is the only thing he can be sure won’t let him down.
‘Name?’
And the whole rigmarole begins again. Until Mr Bird asks what Syrus has prepared to play. Syrus looks blank. He has not prepared anything.
What the hell do I play?
Play them The Growing, Syrus. That’s what you do best, big hard pieces.
So he tells them, his voice shaking with nerves.
‘Go on then, in your own time, please.’
He begins, the first soft notes, and he forgets everything besides the sounds that roll off his fingers and he sings the old words that Lumen had taught him when he was little, the Old Forest words that the village bard would sing over children at their first birthday, and again at their rites of passage when they were thirteen. His voice has just finished wobbling and breaking, and it is now a clear tenor. He knows nothing of what the examiners are feverishly scribbling. Of course they’ll take him.

Bird is transfixed. How does this little shrimp of a boy have this much inside him? And he cannot tear his eyes away from Syrus, who is transported totally away from here. He is glowing faintly, his eyes are unfocused and his voice raises all the hairs on the five necks at the desk.
The boy’s dangerous, thinks Bird, we can’t have someone like him here. Distressingly exceptional. The examiner next to him nudges him and whispers
‘I don’t like this, it’s scaring me. He’s too strange.’
‘Definitely. We can’t have him here.’
‘What the hell is this piece anyway? No knowledge of composers, that’s clear.’
And that’s it. They’ve decided already, even before they go through the technical tests, the sight reading which he messes up because he can't actually read music that well, the aural which he is brilliant at. He is amazing, more instinct than learning – and this is Lumen’s son, plain-as-paper Lumen?
What has he done to deserve this as his child, this alien thing, thinks Bird, seeing the utter ecstasy on Syrus’s frail little face as his hands dance on the harp strings. In fairness, they should let him in, but who will tolerate him without being driven insane? What teacher would take him on?
‘Right, that’s the end of the test. Wait outside, please Syrus, and we will discuss. When we have reached our decision we will call you in.’
Syrus floats out on a little cloud, not really aware of the world. The angel is glowing inside his head, smiling and exulting silently.

‘Oh God, don’t let him in! He’s terrifying – ’
‘I know! Did you see his eyes? He looked like he was bewitched or something – ’
‘Totally the wrong image for the Institute, letting a freak like him in – ’
‘Are we decided then? Refusal,’ says Bird, cutting through the Board’s gabbling. He feels terrible, but he has been examining for years and years, and he knows well that there are people who will be ‘the right sort’ and people who won’t, and if a wrong type gets in they usually make all sorts of embarrassing trouble, like going mad or taking drugs or refusing to learn properly. It can’t be helped, Lumen’s boy is simply the wrong sort. He goes outside and there is Syrus, leaning against the wall with his harp.
‘Syrus,’ Bird says. The boy looks round; he is white-faced, terrified, not glowing now.
‘Come in, please.’
Syrus walks back into the room, only this time he is more afraid than ever. His high has gone and his angel is not there to help him. They are all behind the desk, all impassive, all perfectly composed. He is shaking like a leaf as he sits on the audition chair again.
‘I’m afraid we cannot have you here, Syrus,’ says Bird. Syrus doesn’t move or speak; it hasn’t even hit him yet. Then it comes crashing down like a bomb and his jaw drops.
They won’t have me.
I’ve failed.
He shakes his head.
‘What did I do wrong?’ he croaks. He has to ask, there’s nothing else to do.
‘Er…we just feel that the Institute is not the right place for you, Syrus,’ stutters Bird. Syrus gets to his feet jerkily. The one thing his dad asked him to do, he’s screwed it up. He was banking on this all his life, and pouf! up in smoke in ten minutes.
‘Is there someone here to collect you?’ asks another examiner, no doubt trying to be kind. Syrus wants to explode. These people have refused him the right to be a musician. His right to live.
‘No there bloody well isn’t,’ he spits at her, ‘cause my dad’s dead and you just stopped me from doing the one thing he wanted, getting in here! Why have you done this to me?’ he shouts, face hopeless with rage. His angel howls and that is the last straw, he cannot stay here with these evil people for another second. The room is too small for him and them and this huge fury inside him. He bursts out of the door with wings of anger shooting him down the corridor, storming down the stairs and out past an astonished Hansel at the desk reading the paper. He is panting and his heart is pounding like the timpani in the finale of Bazercak’s Fever Mass for full orchestra and SATB choir.
I’ve failed. I’ve got nothing left to give. Let me die.
You’ve got everything to give, Syrus. It’s their fault for refusing to have you, and they will bitterly regret that soon enough. You’ll see, crows his angel, and flickers out of his head. Syrus is near Cathedral Square by now, and he can see the cathedral itself with its soaring spire and buttresses, the space he always feels at home in. All the anger that has driven him here has evaporated, and he’s cold and faintly nauseous now.
What the hell do I do now? I’m a failure, angel. Help me.
Play your harp, Syrus. It will make you feel better. You never know, your luck might change, says the angel and it is sad now, its eyes bottomless. Syrus shakes his head, but he suddenly really does want his harp, he wants to play it and just forget everything. He gets it out of his bag and holds it tenderly, sitting down on the ground in the doorway of some clergy clothes shop, and starts playing, and the music that wells up out of him makes him cry; he should be in the Institute, not on some street corner like a tramp, busking without a license so he won’t get any money anyway. He does not notice through his blurry eyes that a slim young man with a violin-case slung over his shoulder is watching him with astonishment.

Theorny Askar has come straight from teaching his rather tiresome beginner’s violin class at the Cathedral school, his ears ringing with dodgy intonation and horrible bow strokes and over-the-bridge squeaks. He is also late getting back to Ethereal House, where he promised he’d find Cassel and tell him about the first edition of Calamar’s complete operatic works that he unearthed in the school’s library – all in all, not the greatest day of his life. But as he turns into Cathedral Square the most beautiful sound he has ever heard meets his ears. A harp, on its own, but what a solo! The tenderness, the wonderful centred notes, and why couldn’t he get such purity out of his violin?
Who the hell wrote that piece? It’s fantastic, he thinks as he scans the square for the player – and sees him on the steps of the vestment shop in a dirty huddle, an elfin boy about thirteen staring vacantly at the rose window of the cathedral with tear-tracks on his cheeks. He looks terribly far away and Theorny wonders where he is, and wishes he could be there too, that nirvana-like state of pure creative bliss; he’s never seen anyone quite so deep into it as this boy is. He watches him play, with his beautiful hands on the strings, too hooked on the music to stop. The boy lays down the harp and wipes his eyes with his sleeve, and then notices Theorny, his pale skin flushing a little. ‘Who wrote that piece?’ Theorny asks huskily. Syrus blinks, still half in his trance.
‘What piece?’ he mumbles.
Leave me alone, I’m busy. I’m somewhere else.
Who is this? asks the angel, and Syrus shrugs. Theorny points to the harp.
‘The one you were just playing on that.’
‘I don’t know,’ Syrus says quietly, ‘I just sat down and played, I dunno what came out.’
‘You… you didn’t hear yourself?’
Theorny is amazed. Unless he’s much mistaken, the boy is a proper visionary, not just one of those dissolute artists who pretends to have dreams but really they just take too many drugs and don’t sleep enough.
‘What’s your name, harper?’
‘Syrus Lumensson.’
The name is familiar… Lumen, definitely a Forest name –
‘Like Lumen the harper?’
Syrus nods. He never realised his dad knew this many people.
They’ll all go on and on every time I tell them he’s dead. I’m sick of it.
‘I’m his son, at least I was until he died.’
‘He died? Oh God, I didn’t know! Sorry,’ Theorny says frankly, an awkward smile on his face. Syrus shakes his head but can’t be bothered to answer. Nothing to say, anyway.
‘Play again, Syrus, you’re absolutely amazing. Tell you what, I’ll get this out and we’ll do a duet,’ Theorny says, tapping his violin case. Syrus nods, a faint smile on his face. He hasn’t smiled in days – well, he’s had precious little to smile about. Theorny gets out his violin and stands next to Syrus on the pavement, putting out a little card that has his license on it, and for the next half an hour they play folk songs and ballads and ditties and hymns and anything they can think of, and the sounds echo round the cathedral square like no other street music has sounded for a very long time. Soon they have quite a large crowd round them, and Theorny’s violin case has a thick shower of coins in the bottom of it. Theorny stops playing – he is very good, with people watching his clever left hand on the fingerboard – and puts the violin down, wiping his face and laughing. The crowd applaud wildly and Theorny takes a big sweeping bow, then hauls Syrus to his feet and makes him bow as well. Syrus can’t help but grin, and the crowd begins to break up once Theorny packs up his fiddle and collects the coins, leaving half. Syrus picks them up and puts them in his pocket.
‘That was great! Thanks, Syrus, it was an honour to play with you,’ he says once they are on their own. Syrus smiles back, then realises he still doesn’t even know the violinist’s name. He puts his harp in its bag and stands up, and he and Theorny look hard at each other. Syrus can feel the buzzing in his ear that means his angel is around somewhere.
Take me with you, the angel suddenly screams and Syrus blurts it out as well. He can’t stop himself, he needs to live with music. Theorny looks surprised and pleased.
‘Take you where? Back to the Musilists? I’d love to, Syrus, I think you’re the one we really need around the place.’
‘Y-you want me?’ stammers Syrus, actually realising what he said. Someone wants him. They won’t reject him, the Musilists, they will welcome him with open arms. He thinks guiltily of Yorel and Pasani, of how they’ve been so good to him. How he’ll leave them.
‘Of course we do. You’re the most brilliant musician I’ve ever heard. Come on, you’ll like it.’
An absolute, blissful smile slowly evolves on Syrus’s face like sunshine and Theorny stares, transfixed, at the beautiful thing he has found.
He doesn’t even know my name, he thinks. He holds out his hand and Syrus shakes it.
‘I’m Theorny, Syrus. I should’ve told you before. Do you know anything about the Musilists?’
‘Why do I need to? If they’re like you then it doesn’t matter, they’re who I want to spend my life with,’ Syrus says blankly. It hasn’t even occurred to him that this might be a set-up, a big lie designed to kidnap him or something, like you read in the papers. He is instinctive, impulsive, and his dad always warned him against using his feelings rather than his head to control his actions. ‘You’ve got a good brain, Sy, and you should rely on it more than you do to get around in life,’ Lumen used to say. Syrus doesn’t care. He was lost and he’s been found; his feelings are winning this time.
‘Teach me,’ he says softly. ‘Teach me how to be a musician.’
Theorny laughs and laughs.
‘Me teach you? I can’t! You know more than me without trying, Syrus. You are the teacher, and you’re coming with me. I know a lot of people who’d love to meet you.’
Theorny pulls Syrus to his feet and they walk across the square in the direction of First Ward. Syrus feels wasted now, next to Theorny so lithe and full of bouncy good humour; he feels sick and dirty and he doesn’t know why.
It’s something to do with the playing, Syrus. This is perfectly normal, and I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to it. It’s part of your relationship with the music in you.
Syrus smiles at hearing the angel; it is happy, its black eyes glittering. It flaps its wings a couple of times then vanishes, and Theorny asks him what he’s smiling about.
‘I’m safe, Theorny. I got failed at the Musicians’ Institute when I went for an audition, and I thought that was it, that I’d never be able to do anything with myself. But then you came and found me.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve never really been to school, at least, not since I was about eight, and I had all my hopes set on getting into the Institute school and being taught properly. And besides, my dad – erm, wanted me to.’
The fact that it was his dad’s last words was still eating him up; he’d failed Lumen and he wasn’t at all sure whether this replacement was good enough.
I want to do it, though, I want to be with these people more than anything, and if the Institute won’t take me then there’s no other option.
‘Wow. I’ve had a pretty conventional upbringing compared to you, I was studying at the Institute, but it felt wrong.’ Theorny sighs, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t fit in at all, and I felt like I was being stifled by those conventions; but one day I met Cassel and he introduced me to the Musilists, and everything just clicked. My parents weren’t happy, but they said it’s better than me doing no music at all.’
They’re at the Ward gate now to First Ward, and the industrial district looms tall in front of them. Syrus does not come to this Ward much and he is struck by the smell, a horrible acrid mix of chemicals and smoke and sort of sooty, smoggy dust that catches in the back of your throat and tastes really nasty, like you breathed in poison. Theorny turns down a dark little side-street and stops outside a low grey building and the strangest feeling washes over Syrus, so strong that he has to stop and catch his breath.
You’re home, says the angel.
I’m home.

wings of sound

2006-11-02T14:10:00.000-08:00

this is the start of a book which i've been writing on and off for about 3 years now. comments are always helpful. and when i write a new bit, i'll post it on here

a little deception.... this is actually the beginning, as anyone who reads it may guess about 2 milliseconds in

if this version ever changes i'll add that in as well
***
The end

In the city they call Northbridge, up near the edge of the northern forests, there are one million people packed into an area you could walk across in an hour. It is the biggest city in the known world, bigger than Legrad, bigger than everywhere in the south and east, and of course there is nothing but an endless sea out to the west so that doesn’t count. In a tiny room in Second Ward, a man is dying. He is sick, sick with the consumption that has been hanging around the poor quarters for years choosing its victims carefully, always leaving someone behind to grieve. The room is grey, the walls stained with smoke and age and damp. The man lies in a narrow bed and a boy sits on the floor next to him with his face in his hands. Not long left in the world for Lumen Torresson; wherever he is going, he’s nearly there. Thin, lined, drawn, practically dead already, he coughs and coughs, spraying blood on the sheets, gasping and wheezing. The boy is his son and he cannot look at his father reduced to this, strong harpist’s hands wasted like pale spiders, twitching on the cover. Lips cracked. Eyes yellow like onions, voice gone where once it sang loudest at church. The boy wipes his father’s face tenderly. He knows that it is one of the last things he’ll ever do for him. Of course he knows, he can’t help but know. He’s known ever since it started.
‘Syrus,’ Lumen gasps, ‘it’s time. Come here.’
Syrus, the boy, bends closer to the bed and he is red-eyed from crying. The smell of death hangs in the air over Lumen.
Please, Dad, don’t leave me.
I don’t want to be alone.
Syrus holds his dad’s cold hand in his own, not much warmer.
‘Promise me, Sy, promise me – ’ cough, cough, splutter, oh God he’s gone already, ‘Promise me that you’ll go to the Institute and study music, it’s what you’re born for… take the harp, it’s yours…’ cough, cough, rattling sigh. Syrus squeezes the limp hand. Faint as breath, faint as winter warmth on snow, the final words.
‘I… love you… goodbye’ and that’s it. The hand goes slack, the jaw hangs open and the eyes are glassy. Syrus is numb.
I’m too young for this.
It’s all he’s capable of thinking. He shuts his dad’s eyes and pulls the sheet up over his head, and as the well-known face disappears from sight, he can’t control himself any more. He sits on the floor and howls, praying and cursing and wishing it wasn’t today, wishing his father had never got ill, wishing anything but this was happening.
‘Get me out of here,’ he begs. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. ‘I can’t take this.’
‘Yes you can,’ says a voice. There is no one there, but he definitely heard it. ‘I will help you take it, Syrus Lumensson.’
Then he realises: the voice is in his head. A man. He shuts his eyes, and there is the man himself – except he’s not a man at all, and not a woman either, but somewhere between the two, androgynous and very beautiful. It has wings, big grey ones like ghosts behind it, and a long mane of blue-black hair. Its eyes are wells of midnight.
Who are you?
I am your guide, Syrus, and only you can see me because you have a gift. You know that, don’t you? Your harp playing abilities. Far better than your father, since always. Play your harp to me.
My dad’s just died, leave me alone!
It will help you feel better.
Syrus opens his eyes, hoping for one mad moment that he has dreamed everything and his dad will come in any minute now and shake him awake. No, nothing has changed, there is his dead father on the bed with the sheet over his face and a cold smell in the tomb, the room, the gloom. Syrus reaches under the bed and gets out a big leather bag. It has an old folk harp inside it, about half the size of a full-length harp and dark with age, which Lumen has played all his life.
Had played. He’s not going to be doing it again.
This nearly makes him dissolve again, but the angel’s calm voice speaks in his head.
Cry if you like, Syrus. You produce your best sounds when you are emotional.
Syrus shakes his head. He will not cry any more. The harp lures him. He loves it, and he sits cross-legged and rests his thin fingers on it as he has done every day of his life. As Lumen had done every day of his life as well, both as a boy in Pernarogar, the forest city, and as a man here in Northbridge. He begins to play a soft, slow tune.
Syrus is a strange looking boy, not much like his father at all. He is little, just a waif, with wild ashy-blond curls of hair that hang round his face like clouds. His eyes are deep, dark grey and his skin is pale, sallow, smooth as paper. The only person he does look like is one of his great-great-great-uncles. Eliar. His dad once showed him a drawing of Eliar at fifteen, and he and Syrus are almost identical. Eliar was an absolutely phenomenal musician, another harper, they all were in Syrus’s family. But the problem was, Eliar was strange and he heard voices in his head, which finally drove him mad and he threw himself off the top of a cliff when he was twenty because he couldn’t take it any more. Couldn’t take what, Syrus always wonders.
Syrus plays with his eyes tight shut. The angel is watching, painted on his closed eyelids, and there is a light in its face that makes it lovely and alien. The music is glorious, haunting, hanging in the air like gossamer, so many layers of chords and tunes and cadences that you can almost see it. He reaches the end of the song without really knowing. Music is his bread and his meat and his drink, his air and blood, and he has a gift for it, strange and frightening and amazing like no one else has. Not many people know this about him and he wishes they did.
You are the one I have been looking for all my life, Syrus Lumensson, says the angel, and it is dead serious. Its eyes glow like dark pools with the moon on them.
Me? Why have you been looking for me?
You have the gift, boy. You are my voice when others can’t hear me, or won’t. And I will make your playing stranger. Madder. Better. Now you know you can never unknow.
The angel is not there any more, left his head and gone who knows where. Syrus can feel a roaring in his ears, his heart is racing and his nerves fizz with pure chemical ecstasy. He takes up the harp again and plays frantically, desperate to express some of the stuff inside him. The world wants it, welcomes it, hungers for it. His father’s dead body has a faint aura around it, but Syrus can see it like a blaze because his senses are overloaded and overdriven. There is so much music in his head that he is almost afraid it will explode, but finally he calms down and stops playing. He is shaking all over and his skin is hot and cold.
Am I mad?
Mad like Eliar?
The aura has faded from his father’s corpse and it lies there waxily, even deader than before. Syrus wants to cry again, the crazy rush has gone and he feels cold, tired, heavy. He wants to sleep and blot out the world.
No, Syrus, it’s the middle of the afternoon, you can’t sleep. You’re totally on your own now. Get the priest, get the doctor, get anyone so you don’t have to be alone.
You are never alone, Syrus. You have me.
He couldn’t see the angel but he recognised its voice.
Where are you?
I am inside you, Syrus. I am part of you, just as you are part of me. Go and follow your father’s dream, since he asked. Go to the Musicians’ Institute. I am leaving you now, but call and I will be there.
Syrus shrugs.
Help me, Dad, stop him talking to me –
He checks himself mid-thought.
Syrus, he’s dead, he can’t do anything.
Crying again, he puts the harp back in its bag and goes out of the tiny flat, taking the key in his pocket. He walks along the passage and downstairs two floors, along to a door with the name plate P Menno. He knocks, wiping his face on his sleeve. His eyes hurt. The door opens and there is Pasani, his best friend’s mother, ever-present cigarette smouldering between two fingers. She looks at him with dark eyes.
‘Sy, what’s wrong? Come in and tell me what’s the matter.’
That sets him off more, really howling this time.
‘He-he’s d-dead, m-my dad’s – he’s gone,’ he chokes. She hugs him, and he presses his face into her shoulder. She smells of cigarettes and tea and spices, like she always does, and he tries to control himself. She lets him go.
‘I’m sorry, Syrus. Poor Lumen. Did it happen just now?’
‘Y-yeah, ab-about five minutes ago,’ he replies shakily. He scrubs at his raw eyes with his frail hands. ‘I should go and get the vicar.’
He sounds hopeless, just like he feels. Nothing is right now he has no dad. No parents at all and no relatives either.
Oh my God. I’m an orphan.
His mother died giving birth to him, he never knew her, but his dad was everything to him. Pasani looks at him sadly; she didn’t know Lumen that well, but they got on alright.
‘Oh, Syrus, you don’t have to do that. No fourteen year old should have to do that. Go in, Yorel’s inside.’
He nods. Doesn’t want to speak, doesn’t trust himself not to cry some more. It’s like there’s a tap inside him and he can’t turn it off. Yorelei, his best friend, is sitting there at the little table and writing. She looks up and she knows what’s happened, of course she does, she knows Syrus like a brother. She gets up without a word and hugs him too, and it’s even worse when she does because she lost her dad too, but she was only five – and he ran off with another woman rather than died of consumption. He sits down on the chair and buries his face, covering his eyes with his long tangled hair. She touches his hand, her writing forgotten.
‘Sy, what are you going to do?’ she asks softly, pure dismay. He shakes his head.
‘I don’t know, I don’t know what I’ll do. He wants – wanted me to go to the musicians’ institute and train as a harpist,’ he mumbles, still buried in his hair. ‘I don’t want to go, it’ll remind me of him too much, but I can’t let him down.’
He comes out of his huddle and the world is so desolate he can barely look at it, even in the brightly-painted flat with its fire and cheerful fabrics everywhere. Pasani is in the doorway and he looks up at her with his swollen eyes.
‘I’m going to get the vicar. Will you two be okay here until I get back?’
Yorelei nods and she leaves. Syrus feels like he’s died as well. He can’t think properly, he’s in his own little world and no one else can reach him, however hard they try. Just him and his sorrow, so much bigger and more permanent than anything else.
Why did you have to die?
Why do I have to be alone?
What will happen to me now?
The questions won’t leave him alone, they buzz and flutter and whirl in his brain until he wants to whack his head on the wall so hard he blacks out, just for a bit of peace. Neither of them say anything. There’s nothing left to say, and in Syrus’s every thought there is a Lumen-shaped hole.
‘Why, Yorel, why did he have to leave me? I can’t – I can’t – it’s like he’s taken half of me with him, and I’ll never be complete again, I’ll never get used to it,’ he wails suddenly. She looks sadly at him with her mother’s eyes, black and liquid.
‘You will, Sy. I promise. I thought that as well, when my dad left, I thought I’d never be happy again now we were a broken home, you know, like you hear in the newspaper where all the problems start, ooh, they’re society’s biggest evil, and so on and so on. But you get to learn that, well, he’s not coming back so there’s no point missing him.’
She pauses, her face bitter.
‘At least your dad told you he loved you every once in a while.’
He loves me. Wherever he is, he still loves me.
Yes, Syrus, says the angel. And Yorel loves you, and I love you. You’re not alone.
A watery smile crosses Syrus’s face; tiny rays of sunlight breaks through his gloomy clouds of thoughts. He nods and Yorelei beams at him.
‘That’s better. Mum will be back soon.’

And, indeed, Pasani is back soon, with the fat little vicar of St Michal’s Church, Second Ward. Father Regan, his name is. He shakes his bald head at Syrus.
‘You poor boy. Tragic, to lose a father like that, and so young too – how old are you?’
Tactless, absolutely tactless. Syrus grits his teeth.
‘Fourteen,’ he mutters. Father Regan nods and his head shines.
Go away, I don’t want to see you. You’re too cheerful. My dad’s dead and all you can do is ask how old I am? You’ve known me since I was six months old, for God’s sake.
‘Fourteen? Terrible, terrible. Fear not, young Syrus, Selen is your father now.’
Syrus nods stiffly. Pasani looks daggers at Father Regan but he does not notice.
‘Well, where is the body?’
Syrus loses his rag. The body? Like a sack of potatoes! He can’t take much more of this.
‘He’s not ‘the body’! He’s my dad, even if he is dead, you stupid – ’
Yorelei shoots him a warning glare and he buries his face in his hands.
Help me, he pleads with the angel, stop me from hitting him, I’m so close to doing it.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. He’s up here,’ he mumbles, leading the vicar up to his flat. Already the room looks like it’s not had anyone in there for years, even though all their stuff is there and Lumen is still lying under the sheet. All traces of the man have gone, vanished, he took them with him.
‘Ah, I see. Did he leave a will?’
Syrus shrugs. Father Regan goes over and pokes through the desk, then under the bed, and comes out with a crumpled bit of manuscript paper. He unrolls it.
‘Eh hem. The last will and testament of Lumen Torresson is as follows: Item; my savings, to be left to Syrus Lumensson – ’
Syrus inhales sharply.
Of course, I’m Lumensson now, not Torresson, according to Forest custom. He’s dead alright, if he’s called me Lumensson in his will.
‘Item: the furniture, all personal effects, to be left to Pasani Menno, to do with what she will; also to Pasani Menno I entrust the guardianship of Syrus Lumensson until such time as is deemed correct by both parties. Item: my harp, to be left to Syrus Lumensson without question. Item, my savings, to be left to Pasani Menno as token for caring for Syrus Lumensson until aforementioned time. Here ends the will of Lumen Torresson signed, blah blah, witness, date… hmm, it all seems in order.’
Syrus shakes his head. He didn’t even know his dad could write like that, all legal and long words and everything. Lumen always told people he was stupid, and he certainly didn’t believe in school – Syrus had done three years in a little petty-school round the corner, and as soon as he could read, write and count, Lumen told him there was no point being there any more. Don’t coop yourself up in a classroom, he said, discover the world in your own way.
‘So, you are to keep your father’s savings. Where are they?’
Syrus reaches up the fireless chimney and pulls out a dirty tin that once contained tobacco. Inside, four golds, eight silvers and seventeen bronzes.
That’s it? That’s all we had?
Regan makes no comment on the savings; he says instead,
‘It seems that you are to live with Mrs Menno and her daughter until either of you decides that you’re moving out, Syrus.’
Syrus nods.
What the hell am I meant to say to that? You read it to me, I heard, why are you even telling me that? I’m not stupid.
His head prickles with sour thoughts.
‘Now, the matter of burial is still outstanding. Your father was Selenite?’
Of course he wasn’t, you fat old fool. He only went to church for the hymns.
‘Er, yes, but he’d rather have a Forest funeral,’ Syrus says nervously. All Lumen ever said about death was ‘don’t let them bury me, don’t let the worms get me, Sy’ and now is the time to obey. Father Regan seems not to hear at all.
‘I can offer you two types of burial. The first is a standard wood coffin, plot in the Unreserved section of the churchyard, wooden grave marker, and all that including prayers offered will cost– ’
Syrus isn’t listening to what it costs, he is seething.
Why does no one ever listen to me?
I listen, says the angel.
Shut up, you don’t count.
Syrus blots it out and rounds on Regan, all the burning anger of a fourteen-year old who’s only just holding himself together.
‘I don’t care! I’m not paying for my dad to be stuck in the ground for the worms, he’s going the proper way and I’ll do it myself if I have to!’ he shouts. Regan looks taken aback, annoyed, cheated. He thrusts the will at Syrus
‘Alright. Alright. Excuse me,’ and he pushes past Syrus and bangs out of the flat, clumping down the stairs. Syrus watches him go, the will in his hand.
I have to burn you, Dad.
I’ll play the Leaving for you, play it like you taught me. I won’t let the worms get you.
He trails down the stairs to Pasani’s flat. The door is open and he goes in, moving like a sleepwalker. He has to burn his own father, actually set him on fire and stay there with him until there’s nothing left. He can’t believe it’s happening. It’s like a dream.
‘Syrus? Where’s Father Regan?’ calls Pasani.
‘Not here. I have to burn Dad’s body. He would’ve wanted it.’
Syrus’s voice is dangerously wobbly and he comes in slowly, shoulders hunched. He can already see the flames, Lumen roasting like a bit of meat. That’s all he is now, a bit of dead meat. He can’t feel pain any more. He flaps the will in his hand listlessly. Pasani and Yorelei are in the front room, Yorelei still doing her writing. He sits down.
‘I have to build a pyre and set fire to him,’ he says again, tonelessly, handing Pasani the will. It is the only thing he can think, those few words are all that matters. The poor ravaged face crowned with flaming hair, the skin blistering, turning black. And now he’s crying again; it is all he’s capable of today. There’s no happiness anymore, only cold.
‘I’ll help you, Syrus,’ says Yorel tenderly, going over to him and hugging him. ‘No one should have to do that on their own, especially not you.’