Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (17 page)

 
          
Come
off it, Worm. You've never died.

 
          
Ah,
but thousands have died into me. I know ten thousand deaths, and more. Things
are getting critical, Yaleen. Your first incarnation has been dead about a year
and a quarter. She'll be blowing up the Moon in a few more weeks.

 
          
Quite a few.
Two score
or so.

 
          
Time
flies.

 
          
Not
at the moment!

 
          
Why
are you hanging back? What is it that scares you?

 
          
Being killed, old pal.
Being tossed willy-nilly
halfway to nowhere.
You lost me last time, in case you've forgotten.

 
 
 
         
I have a stronger grasp now. I've analysed
your last flight, in as much depth as I'm able, and I do believe I've figured
out how to steer you to a worm-world.

 
          
Ho
hum
.

 
          
Worm
of the River: is that you?
This was Peera-pa, sounding somewhat awed.

 
          
Mardoluc
was less abashed. Excuse me: is this a private quarrel, or can anyone
join
in?

 
          
We
aren 't
quarrelling, said the Worm, we 're merely
discussing tactics.

 
          
Can
you slow time at will?
asked
Peera-pa. And can you
dream the True which lies behind phenomena?

 
          
Can
you stop time completely? Mardoluc asked.

 
          
Me?
Er . . . not quite yet. Look, folks, I really can't hang around much longer.
I'm losing touch with myself. I'll see you all when you die. Bye!

 
          
Hang
on!
I cried. But the Worm departed, with what seemed to me like suspicious
haste.

 
          
Mardoluc
sighed. Oh dear. So near, yet so far. Shall we show Yaleen the five rites of
contemplation?

 
          
Yes,
that might bring a breakthrough.

 
          
What
are those? I asked.

 
          
Techniques
of ours, he said. There's the rite of duration and the periodic rite. Then
there’s the ephemeral rite and the instantaneous rite and the synchronous rite,
which is what the time-slowed lovers are busy at. .. .

 
          
What
kind of breakthrough?

 
          
Why,
to being!
exclaimed
Peera-pa.

 
          
Oh,
you mean to those shapes that cast the shadows?

 
          
You
can actually see those?
Peera-pa sounded a bit awed once again.

 
          
She
already glimpsed them in Ka -space, Peepy. She says so in her book. Remember
the riddle of the raven and the writing desk? Remember how she guessed that the
void dreams the shape of our universe, unawares? She already knows more than
the River-Worm knows. But she
doesn 't
know what she
knows.

 
          
I'll
say I don't, I said.

 
          
That
5 because you haven't disciplined yourself, Yaleen. You've gobbled knowledge
like a cat let loose on a finger-kissingly cooked bouillabaisse of butterfish.
The cat doesn 7 know the soup; it just feeds. In its haste, it doesn 7 really
taste. Next moment it will catch and scrunch a fly.

 
          
How
do you know a cat doesn 7 appreciate good cooking? Maybe a crunchfly for afters
tastes as good as a crouton? (I didn't really believe it!)

 
          
There
you go, off at a tangent.

 
          
Huh.
You mentioned cats. I was talking about shapes that cast shadows—which I
happened to glimpse just a bit ago, before you two joined me!

 
          
Really?
There's hope for you yet! Let's instruct you in the first rite, of
duration.

 
          
Okay,
if it'll pass the time.

 
          
No,
you mustn 7 pass time. Time must pass you. Start by observing what you see.
Next, try to observe what you can't see. Look in the gaps! Catch the breath of
Being
on the hop, between in and out. Usually the world is
breathed too fast for us to notice. . . .

 
          
Immeasurable intervals passed by.

 
          
I didn't become too adept at this
breath-of-Being business. Nor did my two instructors seem unduly adept; though
I guess they had to be a long way ahead of anyone else I'd ever met. Maybe the
Cognizers of Ambroz's world could have given Papa and Peepy a tip or two, but
again maybe not.

 
          
Anyway, whilst I was busy observing
and not-observing, something sinister started to happen. Credence loomed
slowly into view, close by Papa. With what seemed immense patience she began
prising Peepy's hand out of Papa's grasp—and suddenly I lost touch with the
two of them!

 
          
At a snail's pace Credence slid her
leg in front of Papa, as a pivot. Sluggishly she heaved.

 
          
I had all the time in the world to
work out her intention. I even managed to loosen my own hand slightly from
Peepy's. I even succeeded in shifting ever so slightly aside.

 
          
By now the something-sinister had become
something very nasty indeed. How I tried to escape! And how useless it was to
try!

 
          
Slowly Papa toppled. His bulk bore
down on me, while Credence slid from sight. His huge belly began to push me
over backwards. Slowly I fell—and the
mountain
of
Mardoluc
followed me down.

 
          
Oh yes, I had plenty of time to
observe what was going on. And what was going on was a "tragic
accident", during which poor little Yaleen would be crushed to death by
the enormous chef who had alas lost his balance.
Crushed,
suffocated—one, or both.

 
          
Where the
shit were
Shooshi and Zelya?

 
          
Upstairs, no doubt!
Sent up there on some pretext by Credence, who would now doubtless
be up there too.
She would distract and delay the two
monitors—establishing her alibi in the process—then after a suitable interval
she would pop back to the head of the stairs, spy the horrid mishap, and
shriek.

 
          
Under normal conditions I don't
suppose that Credence could possibly have thrown Mardoluc. He had to be
time-slowed, unable to readjust his balance. So who would credit that she
had
thrown him? Not Papa or Peepy, I
feared. Credence had stationed herself quite astutely before interfering.

 
          
I hit the matting, slowly-o. And he
crushed down on me, oh so slowly-o.

 
          
Damn the Credence bitch!

 
          
No, wait. When Credence had acted
treacherously before—that time when she suspended the drugged Marcialla high up
a jungle- giant—it had really been the Worm who was responsible! My old pal had
admitted as much. The Worm had played on Credence's dreams; had steered and
manoeuvred her without her knowing it.

 
          
The Worm had just bragged that it
knew ten thousand deaths.
Ten thousand ways of dying.
And it wanted me dead. In
Credence's mind it could soon find anti-Yaleen grievances to bring to the boil.
It had taken a quick look at the set-up here, and broken contact with indecent
haste. . . .

 
          
Mardoluc's mass pressed down
fiercely.

 
          
The mat beneath and the belly above
soon lost any bounce or sponginess. They were twin slabs of granite, squashing
together— with me sandwiched in the middle. I was buried alive, and a mountain
was being piled on me pound by pound, tun by tun.

 
          
Oh yes, the Worm had manipulated
Credence. I was sure of it. Credence was just a dupe.
And
Mardoluc?
Oh he was the fall-guy, for sure.

 
          
The Worm might know ten thousand
deaths, but I bet it never knew a death such as this one

 
          
Being shot by Edrick had been quick.
Shrivelling, freezing and bursting in the wreck of the rose garden on the Moon
had taken a while longer; it hadn't been interminable. This was.

 
          
Now my ribs were giving way.
Slowly.
But slowly.

 
          
I was nailed to the bottom of a lake,
with half a league of water overhead, trying to drag a bucket of air down from
the sky for my lungs; in vain. I was impaled by slow rods of blazing pain. I
was tom apart inside. I was squashed as flat as a fleuradieu under a pile of
books.
Ever so slowly.

 
          
How I begged to die. Permission
denied.
Denied.
I could repeat it for a hundred pages.
For this went on.
And on.
And on.

 
          
After the hundredth, or thousandth, stage
of my death: that was when my mind snapped and I went mad.

 
         
It's a weird old business, going mad.
Going mad isn't something which just happens to you. It isn't like getting
trapped in a thunderstorm, or catching a chill. It's something which you
help to happen.

 
          
You know that you're beginning to go
mad. So you experiment with the madness. You give it a nudge here and a shove
there. That's because you have to escape. When you're trapped in a vice that's
squeezing you intolerably, and when this just goes on and on; when you can't
die, or even faint—madness is the only way out, make no mistake.

 
          
Your mind-paths start to go astray,
They
bend. They deform. So you help them bend more. Your
mental links start to snap, to dangle down into depths where you can hide. You
follow them down gladly.

 
          
Your self splits up. You become
separate selves, part-selves. Nobody knows these new persons, thus nobody can
capture them and hurt them; not easily! Not even
you
knew they were inside you. No more than you paid attention to
the workings of your womb and spleen and heart.

 
          
Imagine a body splitting up into
independent heart, and spleen, and womb. Imagine each organ going its own way,
toddling off on tiny legs. Now the organs of your mind do likewise.

 
          
The funny thing is that each
mind-organ on its own seems more complete—more fully furnished, competent,
consistent—than
you
ever did before,
with all your ragged edges and loose ends!

 
 
          
These
mind-organs, these part-selves are as the different cabins in an enormous boat.

 
          
This is the biggest boat you have
ever sailed in. It isn't a mere
boat.
It's
a legendary galleon—and argosy, and more! A river is too small to float it. It
needs a whole sea.

 
          
You've grown not lesser by splitting,
but larger.

 
          
A few cabins are bare and austere; a
single oil lamp lights those. But for the most part, oh the furnishings! The
panels of gildenwood and rubyvein, the ivorybone shelving, the chairs of
hoganny, the ebon scritoires inlaid with pearly shell, the voluptuous bedding,
the handbasins of mottled marble, the silver sconces, the bluecrystal
candeliers and chandelabra ablaze with candles which never bum low or drip wax
. . .

 
          
Most of all, the
tapestries.

 
          
A tapestry adorns one wall of each
cabin. Portholes are clamped tight, wearing thick brass lids; it is the
tapestry which weaves the view instead.

 
          
So here's a view of dusty Pecawar
when you were a little girl (before you became a little girl again). Here, of
broad Aladalia when you dallied innocently with Tam. There, of the spinach
puree jungles by
Tambimatu. . . .

 
          
Of the storm-lashed
Zattere in Venezia.

 
          
Of the star-dunes of the eastern
desert when you were dead, a stowaway in Lalia's memories. . . .

 
          
Those cabins which are bare of luxury
are set so deep beneath the waterline that if you did undog their brass
port-covers the water outside would be as black and solid as a coal seam. Even
though you don't go near the portholes you're aware of this.

 
          
Why should you go near them? Those
shuttered portholes are your protection. As are the cabin doors, which all stay
locked.

 
          
To move from one cabin to another you
don't use doors and dart along corridors and up and down companion ways. Oh no.

 
          
Bend
of hull, contour of deck and bulkhead, make the space of each cabin unique to
itself. And each cabin is a separate person, a part of
yourself
.
In order to reach another cabin you need only
fit yourself to
the right shape. That's the knack. You shift there
immediately.

 
          
That's why the invading pirate enemy
can't catch you. As soon as pain lays its hand on a doorknob you're off
somewhere else.

 
          
But beware: if your madness isn't
clever enough you might lose the knack. You might end up fastened away for your
own safety in the most sunken cabin of all, so deep that no enemy could reach
it by diving, so well concealed in the keel that your foe could spend the whole
voyage forcing entry on the upper decks without ever scenting you. Your madness
might swallow you—and then it might
swallow
itself.

           
So
therefore: flow with the madness. Keep shifting. Dart from cabin to cabin, and
from self to self.

 
          
Your madness is many things.

 
          
And you are many.

 
          
Where does this fine argosy sail to?
Where's its destination? Why, anywhere in any tapestry! Your madness steers the
vessel by shifting you from side to side like cargo.

 
          
In the eyes of the foe your galleon
may seem like a bumboat or a wherry, something paltry. Your foe only glimpses a
bit at a time. You alone know your vessel's true many-chambered immensity.

 
          
Shifting, shifting, you die. You
can't avoid dying. And your galleon becomes a
ship of Ka-space. .
. .

 
          
Spinning-top in a
blue void.
Bodiless in empty sky-space.
Nothing
visible but azure light. . . .

 
          
Nothing at all?

 
          
Faintly you still sense cabins and
tapestries.

 
          
Concentrate!

 
          
One tapestry takes on hue and
texture.
The rooftops of up-and- down Verrino.
Plus river.
Here's a tapestry such as poor dead Capsi might
have woven high atop the Spire, had he crafted panoramas with needle and silk
instead of pen and ink.

 
          
Sunshine shimmers on wet roofs; rain
must have showered recently. Sunlight also sparkles on the river, showing how
it flows.
Clouds shadow-dapple the riverscape and shore.
Their shadows slowly drift across the fabric like grey bruises.

 
          
An inky ribbon swims into sight from
the south. It speeds along the midstream. Suddenly it ripples free of the
river. Rising, it flaps bannerlike upward towards you.

 
          
The Worm's ugly head dwarfs
buildings. Its body eclipses the whole river. But it doesn't dwarf you. Framed
within the tapestry, the Worm is a huge
miniature.

 
          
The head wavers. It quests about. You
know you can't play hide- and-seek with the Worm the way you could to escape
the torture- foe. But maybe you can fool it.

 
          
The Worm's head pops right out of the
tapestry.

 
          
Gotcha!
My, that was quick work, getting
yourself
killed so
soon. Glad you saw sense. Well done, Yaleen.

 
          
Did
you say
quick
? I was pressed to death for a year and a
day!

 
          
Nonsense!
You and I were chatting, oh, not an hour ago. So what happened?

 
          
You
know very well.

 
          
Don't!

 
          
So
take a look. Who's the master of ten thousand deaths? You are! Try another one
on for size.

 
          
Um,
I'm trying. . . . Can't quite seem to find. . . . Odd! Something's clouding
it. In fact, you seem a bit odd yourself—as though you aren't all there.

 
          
(Do you hear a footfall in one of the
dark corridors of your galleon?)

 
          
Damn
it, Worm! Credence tripped Mardoluc. She threw the fat bugger. And he squashed
me to death ever so slowly.

 
          
I’m
really cut up to hear that.

 
          
Hypocrite,
you arranged it! You used Credence the way you used her against Marcialla that
other time. That's why you scrammed in such haste—to get busy burrowing in her
brain, urging and prompting.

 
          
Gosh,
Yaleen, but you re my friend.

 
          
So
you'd do anything to ensure the pleasure of my company, including crushing me
to death?

 
          
Gosh,
I'm sorry. If only you'd taken my advice.

 
          
Hmph!

 
          
Please
don't be bitter.

 
          
Bitter?
Why should I be bitter? Off on my travels, aren't I? So let the shapes of power
dance! Let's see how I'm going to find the worms of other worlds. Oh, do get on
with it!

 
          
You're
in such a rush, all of a sudden. Something's wrong.

 
          
(Hidden cabins,
hidden tapestries, hidey holes, alternatives . . . and footsteps, creeping too
close for comfort.)

 
          
Maybe
that's because I'm the wrong shape. Such as: flat as a pancake? And who was
whining about time, not so long ago? Just a few weeks left till the end of the
world, nag,
nag
!

 
          
(The
footsteps pause.) That's possible, Yaleen.

 
          
I'll
say! The Godmind'll be mindbuming everyone before you can sing out "Jawgee
Pawgee made ’em cry". Oh, it’ll clap the telescope of time to its eye.
It'll spy out the key to existence in a trice. And zap you with it. So let's
get busy, hey?

 
          
(Sound of footsteps retreating in
panic.)

 
          
Very well.
Pay attention. Last time, you followed the psylink back to Eeden and
became a cherub. This time I'll give you an extra shove. What s more, I'll
armour your Ka against being reborn. Assuming that I've got it right
you 'll
swing around

 
 
 
         
Earth and fly off along another psylink.
You 'll
follow a psylink that’s ravelled or tainted to a
world where there’s a worm in residence. . . .

 
          
(Shapes of power begin feeding you
your sailing orders, setting the canvas of your &z-ship. The tapestry has
vanished.)

 
          
...
You won’t be reborn.
You ’ll
simply share people's
heads, the way you did with that heartwood porter and that eelwife.

 
          
How
do you know about them?

 
          
I’ve
been reading your record while we talked. Mind you, your record's strangely
patchy. Can't figure out why. . . .

 
          
(Faint
tread
of an intruder once again?)

 
          
Don’t
bother! What happens then?

 
          
I'll
be keeping a tighter rein on you. Once you've contacted another worm and wised
it up to the situation I'll yank you straight back here—thus providing a direct
link with my new ally—then I'll pump you outward again to hook another worm.