"No Present Like Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swainston Steph)

CHAPTER FIVE

The following day, the subculture of Awndyn was invisible in the bright winter sunlight. The black and amber crosstrees and crow’s nests of fishing cogs anchored in the harbor protruded above the houses as if the rooftops had masts. The harbor master’s office had sculptures of caravels in shining bronze on its tower tops, complete with wire rigging.

I met Lightning and Serein Wrenn at the quayside. They were watching the procession of boats still plying out to a deep channel called Carrack’s Reach where the tall ships were anchored. A crowd had gathered on the promenade. The air was cold but a glorious sun beat down, flattening the waves to translucent ripples that lapped up inside the harbor wall, hardly moving its heavy sheaves of green-brown bladderwrack.

Wrenn and the Archer descended to a rowing boat that was stowed with our belongings. Wrenn sat upright on the plank bench with his scabbarded rapier and sword belt gripped between his knees. Lightning leaned on the gunwale, trailing his fingers in the water, with a distant smile on his woodcut face. He carried a bow and a quiver of exquisite arrows, and the circlet around his short hair glinted in a most annoying way.

I sprinted along the jetty, wings half open to build up airspeed. I ran faster and faster still, toward the lighthouse at the end. I passed it, reached top speed; the jetty ended, I jumped off into the air. My wings met below me, I swept them up till the primary feather tips touched.

I flew over the waterfront that was lined with several hundred people. Some ducked, swearing. They had a glimpse of my boot soles and ice axe buckled across my waist. I heard their murmur of envy ripple like waves.

I leaned with my wings held up in a V-shape to circle tightly, and began to rise on a weak thermal above the chaotic roofs. I reached the height of the buff sandstone cliffs and soared above, seeing their grassy tops. Then I turned out toward the ships; the sea’s surface sped beneath me. I would miss Awndyn’s homeliness. I had taken a pinch of scolopendium with breakfast and as a result I was less afraid of the ocean. When you’re intoxicated, the balance changes between all the facets of your personality, making a different character. I was eager for Tris.

A group of people proceeded along the rough stone jetty. From high above I mostly saw their heads. The woman with a walking stick had long red hair over a green shawl held tightly closed; it was Governor Swallow, surrounded by her attendants. They stopped at the foot of the lighthouse and looked out to sea. Swallow began to sing. She keened, she swelled the dirge with all the force of her opera voice. The wind gusted the melody up to me; clear and high, it slid over eerie minor notes that prickled my skin. Her melancholy lament rose past the crowded quay, past the rowing boats to the caravels. The rowers heard it. Lightning heard it and looked back. The breeze blew it to Tris. I didn’t know why she sang a dirge, but it seemed apt.

Outside the harbor, the boats began to churn from side to side. At least I don’t have to sit in one of those little tubs. Colorful caravels lay at anchor, scattered some distance apart. As I gained height and my viewpoint widened I saw around thirty-like brightly painted models, some with windmills on deck to wind winches, some drab and barnacled, some with men sitting in the complicated cat’s cradles of their rigging, all lashed to buoys with flags atop, and streamed out in the same direction by the flowing tide.

The fleet was a sober reminder of Mist Ata’s talent. Her patience and willpower could conquer the world. In the fifteenth century, caravels were developed from ungainly merchants’ carracks, although since that time they have undergone many improvements. San recognized their use for bringing supplies and troops to the Insect Front, so he made a place in the Circle for a Sailor and held a competition that Ata’s predecessor won. The first Sailor immediately tried to deter Challenges by forbidding any Zascai company to build caravels. It was a plan that the Emperor certainly didn’t condone. Ata knew it, and ignored the ban. For her first Challenge in fourteen-fifteen she made caravels in sections, in Hacilith where the Sailor couldn’t observe them. She had them dragged overland on a road she commissioned to be built, to a secret assembly yard made for the purpose at the coast. She sailed her new ships cockily around Grass Isle-their sudden appearance frightened her predecessor. That’s the kind of determination Ata has, and joining the Circle had not affected her admirable ambition. She planted vast forests to grow elm and oak for future ships.

The Stormy Petrel was by far the largest caravel, sixty meters in length. No surface was left undecorated. At her rear was a high aft castle, painted red and spiraled with gold curlicues. The forecastle at her bow was slightly smaller, and between them was a low deck with the largest of her four masts. The black hull was very rounded, its sides slanted in steeply, giving her a teardrop shape when seen end-on. Stormy Petrel’s figurehead was a muscular young man with a folded breechclout. Above him projected a square prow heavily decorated with scarlet zigzags and the Castle’s sun. A varnished spar jutted from it like a tusk, and at the waterline five meters below the prow a taut anchor cable ran from its port. The foremost part of the deck was a sort of promontory with cross-planking through which I saw the waves.

The Sailor must seriously want to impress the islanders with the Empire’s ingenuity and riches. Stormy Petrel inspired confidence in me, too: Mist was pragmatic, so if she had spent money on decoration, the rest of the ship must be sound and formidable. She would be as trustworthy as the best Sailor in the world could make her.

A narrow balcony ran the Petrel’s length on both sides, three meters above the waterline. Baroque wood carving clustered around the stern, picked out in the Castle’s colors, red and yellow. The vertical dimensions of the fixed lanterns were tilted to the rear, and the entire top of the aft castle slanted backward, so the Petrel looked like she was racing along even when she was sitting still. The diamond-leaded stern windows were adorned with ruby-stained glass sunbursts. The sun-in-splendor formed a sumptuous centerpiece below them, covered in dazzling gold foil. It scintillated with sunlight reflected from the waves.

Banners twined from the masthead, spinning on their cords like kites. Mist’s plain white pennant was the longest. I also recognized the argent swan of Queen Tanager, and Cyan Peregrine’s sleeping falcon. There was the black plow insignia of Eske manor, Shivel’s silver star, and Fescue manor’s crest of three sausages on a spike. Carniss manor must have sent funding too, because its flag was there, a black crescent pierced by an arrow. One hundred years ago I told a Rhydanne girl called Shira Dellin that she had just as much chance of driving the Awian settlers from the lower slopes of Darkling as she had of hitting the moon with an arrow. The settlers founded the manor of Carniss and they immediately took that image for their badge, which made it even more painful when they proved me right.

I made a controlled descent between the first mast and mainmast, and dropped with a hollow thud onto the deck. I settled my wings and folded them. Cinna’s scolopendium was so good I couldn’t feel them ache at all.

Lightning and Wrenn climbed aboard and joined Mist by the wheel. Wrenn grinned uncontrollably. He was brimming with excitement. Sailors began to stow the flags. Mist called, “Make sail! Half-deck hands below for the capstan. Brace full the foresails! Send order, if you please, to Master Fulmer on the Melowne; we shall be under way…Welcome to the ocean, Serein,” she added.

With the Melowne behind us, we slipped past the ships in Carrack’s Reach, black barrel buoys on our left side. An Awian racing yacht called the Swift Shag ran close to escort us; her bell rang in salute. “They’re wishing us luck!” I waved. I was completely high on the fact I wasn’t afraid.

Ata leaned on the wheel. “How are you, Jant?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh.” I was staring at the carved mascle emblem on the bow of our sister ship. The Melowne was painted in the colors of Micawater, dark blue and white lozenges; she carried so much ornament she looked as if she had been decorated with the fittings from a bankrupt brothel.

“Tell me, what day is it today?” Ata asked.

“Mmm.”

“Let me see your eyes.”

I took off my sunglasses and looked at her. “Well, okay,” she said eventually, but with some doubt.

The Melowne flew all the canvas she could, to match our pace and kept behind us on the right. Lightning didn’t greet me, being deep in conversation with the Swordsman. He pointed to the great blue wedding cake of a caravel. “She’s named after my sister. Little Melowne…”

“Yeah,” I said. I leaned over the railing and noticed that no two wave peaks were ever the same shape.

“She was the youngest of my family,” Lightning began. “The youngest of nine. She died when she was only six years old.”

“That’s a great shame,” Wrenn said.

“Oh, I’m all right. I got over it around the turn of the first millennium,” Lightning said staunchly. I heard that in the year one thousand, through the use of many economic pressures, he eventually managed to run the Avernwater dynasty into the ground and turn their manor back into parkland.

“It was a long time ago, you understand,” he said quietly. “Melowne was the youngest of my family; she was full of life, happy all the time. My second-eldest brother, Gyr, was exceptionally fond of her. He tended to be morose and she brought out the life in him.

They were playing, one morning in midsummer, while we prepared to celebrate godsloss day. A flowery parade headed by the July Queen came toward us down the avenue and the young maiden playing queen was about to pass in front of the palace. People lined the streets to cheer her. Inside the palace we wanted a good view, so all us children ran up to the top floor. I found a roof window. Melowne and Gyr were just below me, out on the parapet. Melowne had daisy chains around her head and in the buckles of her shoes. She leaned right out over the balustrade as the procession passed below and he held the back of her dress. She was laughing with delight, pointing at the chariots and kicking her feet. She kicked Gyr under the chin accidentally and, in shock, he dropped her. I just saw her vanish.” Lightning pointed down over the railing.

“That’s terrible.”

He nodded slowly. “My little sister’s death caused an uproar. Nothing was the same after that. My brothers hated Gyr…and I did too. He became enraged and silent; eventually he left us to found a new manor at Avern. I don’t think I ever forgave him.”

I paced across to Mist in the hope of less sentimental talk. She watched the supply ship carefully before relinquishing the wheel to her second-in-command. I think she had appointed her sons and daughters to all the officers’ positions. “Gentlemen,” she said, “let me show you your cabins.”

Mist explained that the Stormy Petrel had five levels, including the open-air decks and topcastle. The hold was the largest, where pinnace boats for exploration were carried in a dismantled state, and at the stern, an animal pen full of ruddy, bright-eyed chickens. We climbed down the hatch to the living deck, which was above the waterline and had small, sunburst-painted shutters from bow to stern. Every sailor had just forty centimeters by two meters’ length to sling his or her hammock. I marveled that Awians could force themselves into such a claustrophobic space. Rather than their leafy towns that nestled in countryside, and their small families in roomy houses, here featherback men were crammed together without enough space to spread a wing. Mist’s cabin cut into their quarters at the stern and extended into the deck above; I could almost stand upright in it. She had a bedroom and a study that doubled as a dining room, with a polished mahogany table quite incongruous on the ship. It seemed that she intended the Petrel to be her manor house.

Back above, she said, “Jant, you have the cabin under the poop deck.” She opened a door onto an empty compartment with a sloping floor, one meter wide by two long, and a meter high. One hinged shelf was folded back against the wall above a hook for a hammock. Was I expected to fit in there?

“It’s a fucking closet,” I said.

“I swear, it’s the most luxurious passenger accommodation we have! Well, if you want to sleep outside, feel free…Come on, Lightning, let me show you the fo’c’sle.”

At least my cabin was farthest from the waves. I could lean out of the porthole and judge the level of water against the planks of the hull to determine how fast we were sinking. It had the best view, fresh air, and I could fly from the deck above. The motion of the waves swayed my cabin the most but that didn’t bother me. I was anxious to be rid of Mist’s smiling face so I folded myself into the tiny wooden box. What the fuck was I doing here?

Once noticed, the ship’s movement was relentless. I could still fly home, but then I would have to face the Emperor. I was stranded between two terrible eventualities. I sat cross-legged, elbows on knees, head in hands, fingers through my black hair like a waterfall.

Footsteps boomed up and down the tilted ladders between decks and above me. Timbers creaked. On second thoughts, Petrel seemed extremely flimsy. The sailors adjusted something, the floor righted and, even-keel, she began to gather speed.

I shuffled farther into the cabin, bolted the door and opened my razor. I started to divide up my quarter-kilo hoard of cat. I tipped out the powder on a book cover, cut it and made paper wraps of roughly a gram apiece. Why did I buy so much scolopendium? So that Cinna couldn’t sell it to his victims? No, because I need enough to stay high for the whole voyage. With an ex-addict’s ingenuity I hid the paper wraps in every possible niche, wherever they were concealed from view. I wedged them in the ceiling joists and between the floorboards. I taped them to the underside of the shelf, packed them into the lantern and the squat candlestick. I concealed wraps between the pages of books, in the whetstone pocket of my knife scabbard. I even sewed them into my coat lining.

An hour later I still had two hundred grams left in the envelope, enough to poison the entire crew of both caravels. I tipped a fingernail-full of cat into a beaker of white wine. It touched and dissolved like melting snow. I cut a line on the book cover and snorted it. My jaw sparkled. I threw the porthole open and threw up, monumentally, down the Petrel’s side.

Then I returned to the poop deck, dazzled by brightness. The fresh wind made me shudder. The mainland was ridiculously small and featureless-I could see the entire Cobalt coast, a pale green line edge-to-edge of the horizon, already turning blue. The Awndyn cliffs were a faint smudge less than half a centimeter high. In every other direction spread the indistinguishable ocean. I didn’t want to look at it. “It’s as if we can see the whole east coast,” I said to Mist.

She laughed and shook her head. “Say goodbye to it, Jant.”

I could fly back even now. I leaned over the stern and stretched my wings to feel the wind under them.

“This is something you’ve never seen before?” the Archer asked calmly.

“It’s horrible.” I hissed a breath. “It’s a travesty.” I always have to work in their world. Lightning has visited the mountains on adventurous expeditions and once when I needed help; but I defy any of them to trek to the high plateaus. I cross boundaries more vertiginous and worlds far more precarious than this, I told myself, but I didn’t feel at all reassured. “Are we in water deep enough to be attacked by sea monsters?”

Mist tutted. “Jant, there is no such thing as a sea monster. I have circumnavigated the Fourlands. I have sailed past this longitude for six hundred years, so you can absolutely take my word for it. Monsters are just the tales of drunk, braggart harpooners. You might see a whale spouting in the distance, but that’s about all.”

I sipped my doctored wine and watched the Stormy Petrel’s green wake curve out like lace from a loom. The horizon receded; I expected a clap of thunder or something when it merged with the haze and vanished. I stared in that direction for long after, memorizing the position. In an hour’s time Petrel would carry me too far to fly home.

I turned away from the railing. I had been looking out to sea for so long the size and bustle of the ship surprised me. My hands were weak, my glass was empty. I took a step and the deck tilted. Shit, if the others see my condition they are definitely going to know. I must reach my cabin, lock door, sleep it off. I edged along the railing to the top of the ladder, and felt about with one foot for the rungs. I can step down, it isn’t so far.

I crashed heavily onto the half deck, shook my wings and arms to locate them. Yes, of course the floor is bloody tipping, I told myself; we’re on a sodding ship. I clawed the cabin open, threw my coat down but it slid toward the door. I have taken too much. But it feels so good, oh god it feels good. The buzz and dislocation comes on slow when I drink cat. So I forget to be careful and I always drink too fucking much. It’ll peak soon, I hope. I was clever to return to the cabin while I still could. Now there’s no coast only sea no land to land on only sea. We must trust our memories that the Empire still exists.

I’ve taken too much. I lay on my quilt, curled up, eyes closed-can’t observe the outside world anymore, too much going on out there. Thoughts rush around my mind and cat begins to break them down to their constituent cycles. Consciousness is circular. Thoughts come in cycles. There are big, slow, infrequent cycles and fast rings repeat inside them. Words are made when sound cycles click the right combination. Consciousness is circular; thoughts come in cycles. There are big-It’s happening to me! I think I’m dying. Don’t worry, I won’t die; this has happened before. I hate it when this happens. I’m probably going to Shift. And I haven’t been to Epsilon for years. Epsilon. Words are made when sound cycles click the right combination. Oh, no, it’s starting to happen-am I dying? Don’t worry, I won’t die; this has happened before. God, I hate it when this happens. I’m probably going to Shift. And I haven’t been to Epsilon for years. Probably going to Shift. Last time, I almost died. Rayne said I was dying. Don’t worry, I won’t die. This has happened before. I hate it when this happens (it’s happening to me; it’s happening to me). I’m going to Shift. And I haven’t been to Epsilon for years. Consciousness is circular; thoughts come in cycles. Haven’t I just thought this? Words are made when sound cycles click the right combination (-to me, it’s happening to me, it’s happening to-) What is? This feeling of dying. Don’t worry, I won’t die, this has happened before. Words are made when sound cycles. God, I hate it when this happens. I’m probably going to Shift. And I haven’t been to Epsilon for years (-me, it’s happening to me, it’s happ-) I think I just thought that (-ening to me, it’s happening to me, it’s happening to-) oo to me ahp ap hap happening oo fu tu to me see words are made when words are made words worr dd hut hur lur wur wor words are ay ma may dde words are made words are made ugh dug dur wer wur words arr are geh neh ney ay made words are made ur err are arr…ar…r…

Shouts assailed from all sides and before me were market stalls running into stalls out to where the horizon met the orange sky. Constant Shoppers hustled and bustled, a little boy selling postcards of Epsilon darted through the crowd. I recognized the Squantum Plaza bazaar.

I sat on the pavement cross-legged and concentrated, changing my appearance from just a pencil sketch of Jant to something more solid that looked like me, with a few improvements.

Having brightened myself up, I staggered to my feet. I swore I would never come back here and now I’ve broken my promise again. A small gray cloud appeared above my head and began to rain on me. “All right,” I told it, waving my hands. “All right! I’m not that depressed!” The cloud showered a few more desultory drops and dissipated.

There were market stalls of mildewed books, cloth and raffia, cakes and beer. Horse brasses, porcelain, thousands of gemstones spilled on velvet. Flat green grief toads sang mournfully in glass tanks. Stalls sold ancient sea-krait scales, barometz root-looks like a sheep but tastes like turnip-trained falcons apparently “the best hunters in the Scarlet Steppe” and confused stacks of bamboo crates full of finches that cheeped and fluttered.

There were bonsai ents-little gnarled trees with root-legs stumbling around on a polished tray. A marsh gibbon capered on a stall’s canopy. It had pale green silky fur and round intelligent eyes; its back legs ended in duck feet. I couldn’t help laughing at it. The monkey pulled its top lip back in a bubblegum-pink grimace.

Now that I was trapped here for an uncertain length of time, I decided to enjoy myself. I went looking for the pair of golden shears that was the sign of the Bullock’s Bollocks bar. It was no easy task because Epsilon changes constantly.

A crowd of nasnas with tour guides wended their way between the tables. Nasnas are men with one arm and one leg each. The two nearest me were heavyset columns of flesh, and they supported each other, hopping along in a pair. The arm of each man projected from the middle of his chest, waving like a trunk. I studied their faces and caught my breath. Each had a big, single eye directly above his nose, all his features in a vertical line, a wide mouth and rough skin. The men turned their great round eyes on me as they passed. Their guide announced, “This is the edge of the Tine’s Quarter. Take special care on the road please…And if you see any Tine, run. Well, hop quickly.”

Behind the nearest stall sat a big, bearlike animal. Its fur was pure black and white splodges. Backward-pointing spines grew around its neck and down its back. The beast shook itself and its quills clattered. Its head was bowed; it looked so hunched and miserable that I stopped, intending to buy it and set it free. The stall holder was a greasy man with a glass eye. A parrodi perched on his shoulder, with colorful ruffled feathers. It rolled its eyes and copied his every gesture.

The stall holder saw that I was a tourist and delightedly shook the bear’s chain. “A porcupanda, sir! A highly prized delicacy. Not five hundred pounds, not four hundred pounds. Three hundred pounds to you only, sir!”

“To you only, sir,” drawled the parrodi.

I concentrated and imagined the right amount of money in the pocket of my suit. I paid the stall holder and freed the porcupanda. When I patted its head, it licked my hand then bounded away.

I walked on, to the central fountain built with stinguish technology out of solidified water. White cement could be seen between the transparent blocks. It made a wonderful three-dimensional matrix with beams of sunlight dancing through, cast by the liquid water lapping inside the fountain. A couple of wet thylacines barked and played in the great jets that fell like diamonds.

A bouquet of chloryll courtesans lounged beside the pool. The chloryll co-cultivate this quarter of the city. Their extreme beauty reminded me of Tern, slight and exquisite; their skin was ebony black. One had tiny fruits growing in her shining hair, piled on top of her head. Her floor-length dress rustled, it was made of living foliage; here and there tiny pink roses budded among the leaves. Vines wrapped around her arms like long net gloves. Behind her hung a trail of coiling tendrils, fronds and variegated ferns. These fruiting bodies were great to sleep with, but instead I wanted to have a good look around Epsilon after so long away.

The market continued into the Tine’s Quarter, where a wide road paved with eighteen-carat gold formed one side of the market square. A shiny building with smooth pillars housed four tall rectangular machines that emitted a low vibration. The salt-copper, watery-rotten smell of the Tine’s red liquid was thick in the air. A sign hung above the machines read:

TINE AUTOMOBILES, THE HEART OF MOTORING

Driving the arteries of Epsilon, you can’t beat the Carotid Café. All tastes catered for: blood, beer, coffee. Next: ten miles.

A girl sat in a low carriage underneath the sign. It was made of gold, so it must be of Tine manufacture. It was molded in feminine curves, with bulging panels over its small, spoked wheels, doors as in a roofless coach but an upright glass window fixed at the front. It had no shaft for horses.

I vaguely recognized the girl inside. She waved. “Hey, winged boy! Jant! Remember me from court? I was the Shark!”

“Tarragon!”

“Come over. Don’t worry about the Tine.” A Tine was attending to her car. He was a carnivore like all his species, three meters tall, bursting with muscle. He was naked except for a loincloth, his sky-blue skin scarred and tattooed. His blank eyes were pupil-less, uniform blue. His eyebrows were two pierced rows of steel rings: the Superciliary Sect. I thought that he could live for a week on the meat stuck between his sail-needle teeth. His taloned hands held a black rubber tube which snaked down and disappeared under the ground. He was pumping the red liquid into Tarragon’s gold automobile.

The whole floor hummed. I trod carefully, ready to sprint at any time. I kept Tarragon between myself and the growling attendant, but Tarragon was a Shark, or rather the Shift projection of a Shark, and she was just as dangerous.

Tarragon grinned with sharp teeth. Fins emerged from the middle of her back and the sides of her body. With a look of concentration she mastered her shape transformation so they retracted and her skin smoothed. She briefly became a beautiful woman rather than a Shark.

“Do you like my shape?” she said. “I find that air-breathers are nicer and more obliging to pretty girls.” Then, lost in thought, the changes gradually reasserted themselves, so that I was confronted with the difficult challenge of talking to a frothy blond teenager in a strapless dress and stiletto heels, with three rows of triangular teeth. Parallel slashes appeared in her neck; deep gills like black ribbons. They widened, inhaled, and vanished.

She concentrated on improving the shiny crimson dress wrapped around her body. A furry phlogista stole draped her shoulders. Phlogistas are rare and expensive; they’re long, like mink, but dark red in color with deep, sumptuous fur. It had a little lion’s head, but instead of a mane its face was framed by a ring of fleshy petals. This feline flower-face formed the clasp of her stole, and its yellow glass eyes glittered. Phlogistas are resistant to fire; to clean a fur you place it in flames.

I offered Tarragon my hand, but she looked at it as if it was her favorite sandwich. “You can touch the car, you know,” she said.

I surveyed the vehicle. “It’s not alive?”

“No, Jant. It’s not alive…Parts of it are alive.”

It was made of a thin sheet of pure gold, and the complicated fittings inside were gold, too: a wheel where Tarragon rested her delicate hands, and a dial that looked like a clock face but wasn’t.

“The car won’t hurt you,” she said carefully. “But keep clear of the Tine. They invented these sports cars to do their hunting and to make religious sacrifices, injuring victims in interesting ways for the purpose of their worship. They’re keen on fast, fast cars, the faster the better, like this rocket; the best that meat can buy. To build speedy cars they need good athletes. You are an athlete, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Tine will do anything to lay their hands on a runner as excellent as you. If they knew about Rhydanne you would already be dead. They need athletes, that’s what makes these babies go,” she said, tapping a flipper lovingly on the steering wheel. “Take a look.”

She pressed a button and a trapdoor popped open at the front of the vehicle. I sloped around and peered inside.

Lying under the bonnet, a mass of green-purple guts quivered and heaved. Clear rubber tubes ran red liquid around them. They stank of ripe meat. Diagonally across the center were six big hearts, doubled up in a line. Solid red-brown muscle pumped in unison. I had an impression of the mighty strength they produced to drive the spoked wheels.

At the top two pale pink lungs inflated and deflated of their own accord like bellows. They were joined to the depths of the engine by a windpipe ringed with cartilage. Dark clots lay slickly around it. Nearest me was a blood-smeared glass tank of water; gleaming veins ducted it out to cool the hearts. I saw about twenty red-brown kidneys attached by a network of ligaments to a porous gold pipe that led toward the rear of the car. As I watched, hot yellow liquid spattered out of the pipe onto the forecourt making a steaming puddle; the car relieved itself.

“Ugh.” I shrank back. “God, it’s disgusting!”

“I bought it to help me in my search,” Tarragon said. “I’m looking for a way to save the sea kraits. That’s why I’m here in Epsilon instead of at home studying, basking and eating tuna.”

Sea kraits were the largest animal I had ever heard of, but I had thought they’d all died out centuries earlier in the worst disaster Insects ever caused. “I don’t understand. Why are you bothered about sea snakes? And anyway, aren’t you a bit late? Their ocean dried up a long time ago-and good riddance.”

“Yes, but I have ways to talk to them. Sea kraits are intelligent animals with a sophisticated knowledge all their own. I think it’s a great pity they died out. All their learning was lost, Jant; don’t you care? I saw you free the porcupanda just now.”

“There’s a difference between a porcupanda and a kilometer-long sea snake! The Shift’s better off without foul, slimy sea creatures!”

“So says the Rhydanne. Take care you’re not threatened with extinction yourself. The Tine will want to make sports-coupés out of you. Wait! Don’t run away! Be a nice Rhydanne and look after my car for a minute while I pay.” Tarragon hefted a slab of succulent steak, which was lying on the spare seat. She jumped down from the running board and turned her shark’s waddle into a very sexy walk as she strode into the kiosk.

I leaned on the car’s curved side, staring all around for approaching Tine. If Tarragon was right they would be waving cleavers and bent on my demise. She had called this vehicle a sports car, but I have never seen one play sports, and if you ask me it is quite unsporting, sitting in a car when one is expected to run.

Tarragon reappeared, unwrapping a chunk of the Tine’s red water frozen to a flat wooden stick. She gave it a big lick, then offered it to me.

“No way!”

“Suit yourself. Weird air-breather. You shouldn’t visit Epsilon, Jant; you don’t belong here. It makes me so sad to see you poisoning yourself. I hoped you had given up drugs.”

“Well, I’m having a bit of a relapse.” I explained the island, my fear of the sea and my current predicament on board Stormy Petrel.

Patches of gray sandpaper skin blotched her body and faded. “A voyage of discovery!” she said enthusiastically. “Well, in that case I’ll help. I fancy taking a look at your vessels. I’ll follow them at depth for a while so you don’t have to fear the sea. If anything untoward happens to your ship while I’m in the vicinity you should be relatively safe.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Tarragon. What can I do in return?”

“Learning motivates us Sharks. An edifying experience is reward enough. And although I’m cruising distant waters right now, it shouldn’t take me too long to swim to you…”

I frowned.

“All the seas are connected. Actually all the oceans in every world are one ocean. The sea finds its own level across the worlds; you can reach anywhere if you swim far enough. As long as the water is to our taste, what matters it what sea we breathe?” She continued, “I wish I could see the ocean from the outside-an immense orb of water hanging in vacuum, so my school tells me. That’s one Shift I can’t make.”

I thought about this for a while. The same sea that is surging into Capharnaum harbor laps on the beach at Awndyn, backs up the sparkling Mica River at high tide-brackishly flows into Epsilon market, glistens in Vista Marchan two thousand years ago, and is swept the next minute by Tarragon’s fins in the deep abyss. The land changes, but the ocean is a still pool, a pool like a sphere, hanging in the universe.

I decided that Tarragon was making fun of me so I giggled and she gave me a contemptuous look. “It’s true. You don’t think angler fish and manta rays originated in your world?”

I shrugged, not knowing the animals to which she referred.

The Shark sighed. “Jant, call yourself a scholar? No real student would mess with their mind the way you do. Why destroy yourself? Do you want to be found lying dead, a stiff corpse with a needle in its arm? What’s cool about that? I get here through study and you get here through pleasure. I can smell it on you. Pleasure is actually bad where I come from.”

“And what is good where you come from?”

“Little bits of fish.”

“I’m sorry, Tarragon. I Shifted by accident. I’m only here because the ocean unnerves me and I OD’d.”

“There are other methods to achieve enough disconnection to Shift.” She smiled triangularly. “By pain, or the way us Sharks do it-by thought. Promise you won’t do drugs again and I’ll teach you! You may eventually be able to Shift at will, just as I can-but probably not as well, because air-breathers aren’t very intelligent. For example you would never be able to Shift as far as my world. The degree of dislocation would certainly kill you. You must be near death to get this far.”

“Shift at will? How?”

“You can will yourself to wake up from a nightmare, right? This is no different. Your body’s not here; you’re a tourist, a projection same as me. If you must travel to Epsilon, do it by meditation-you need a relaxed state of mind to project yourself. Of course, it’s easier to leave the Shift than it is to arrive so you can either meditate or force yourself back home. All I do is wake from my trance and I return to my sea.”

It never occurred to me that I could find a different way to Shift. I had thought traveling to Epsilon city was a side effect of scolopendium, and that I could only wake when the drug wore off. “I don’t think I can.”

“Oh yes. You can travel along what, let’s face it, is a well-trodden path. It just takes patience-and concentration. I’ll show you!”

She leaned over the car’s low door, grabbed my belt and shirt front, and pulled me into the car. Her strength was incredible. I sprawled onto the passenger seat, into the footwell. My long legs waved in the air as I thrashed about trying to find purchase to jump out.

Tarragon held me down effortlessly with one little hand on my chest. She pressed a pedal to the floor, released a lever. The car lunged forward with such power I was thrown back against the seat. “Let me out! Let me out! Help!” I struggled. “Tarragon, you bitch!”

“I’ll teach you a lesson, Shark-style!” Her pert breasts heaved with laughter. She blew a wordless human scream on the car’s larynx horn.

It moved faster than a racehorse, rushed at my flight speed along the ground. Tarragon talked loudly as she steered: “Let me tell you the safe method to Shift-you should lie still and empty your mind, relax and think your way here. It might take a few years to perfect but you immortals have time to practice. Try now-think your way back to the Fourlands.”

I refused. I wouldn’t risk returning to a drugged sleep. My consciousness must be kicked out to the Shift for a reason; perhaps to stop it being damaged by the scolopendium I keep pumping into myself. What if I returned to a body lying in a coma? I’d be rejected from the Circle, could age and die without regaining awareness.

Tarragon saw me shudder and exclaimed, “You can do it! Let me show you!” She spun the wheel, swung the car around and accelerated down the Coeliac Trunk Road, into the Tine’s Quarter.

The sky was dark, and lights on either side of the Aureate’s road gave a golden glow; a chill mist made a diffuse halo around them. Skin-worshiping Tine worked by the roadside. Their arms were flayed to the elbows. Tattoos covered their skin and the shells on their backs were painted with spirals. Their muscular blue haunches were cut with lettering like graffiti in old tree trunks. They had the broken noses of heavyweight boxers and the thick arms of fishermen. They carried other bits of victims’ bodies too that I couldn’t identify.

An immense spoked wheel four meters in diameter turned un-hurriedly and a needle rose and fell. Tine fed skin backed with yellow fat under the needle; it hung over the edge of the sewing machine’s serrated gold platform. “Is that Tine skin?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re just embroidering it. They’ll put it back on later.”

They snarled as we passed.

“Don’t look,” said Tarragon. “It gets worse from here on.” But she knew I would look, because curiosity motivates not only Sharks but me as well.

Shattered glass ground under our wheels. I turned my head with a disconnected feeling. We passed burned-out vehicles at the roadside, smashed and overturned. Blackened Tine bodies lay between them, marking their experiments with engines. Long lines of automobiles had impacted so hard that they were all joined together. Metal crumpled back on itself. Tine assembled around them, carrying hoses, wielding axes. Water sprayed above them; in a flashing yellow light the drops seemed to fall slowly. Nightmare slow motion as water and blood pooled onto the road. Curtains of bloodied skin hung out of broken windows. One muscle tissue axle throbbed in pain.

We passed a gorgeous woman that the Tine had welded into her car. Her body was set into the seat as smoothly as a jewel in a bevel. Only the front could be seen; her face and neck, breasts and belly. Wreaths of gold tubes ran out of the seat into the sides of her body, completely obscuring her ribs and the sides of her slender thighs. Her hands had vanished; bulges at the ends of her arms were seamlessly attached to the steering wheel. Her long hair became a stylized immovable gold curve sweeping back to form the headrest. Her feet merged with the floor; its solid gold seemed to lap up her slender legs. She was part of the car.

“If the Tine catch us, that’s what they’ll do,” said Tarragon. “Make this car grow through us. Would you like to be a passenger forever?”

“Let me go!”

“Think yourself home.”

Something terrible is happening down there. Something vast in the heart of the Aureate is pumping viscous liquid around the drains and dykes bridged with connective tissue. “Let me go!” I shouted. “I want out!”

“Think yourself home, I’m not stopping you.”

“But I don’t know how!”

“If I call out that you’re a gymnast, Rhydanne, you’d be spending the rest of your life as a car. Well, your guts will. The rest of you will make a good roadsighn. Look, there’s one.”

The roadsighn whispered, “i trespassed in the aureate, look at me, save yourselves, go home, save yourself, tarragon, where are you going, tarragon?”

His legs twined together were planted in the verge, and a membrane road sign grew from between his outstretched arms. In the mist he was just a spindly écorché silhouette murmuring, “oh Tarragon, what have you brought us?”

As we passed I saw his sticky dark pink color, stripped to pus and muscle, his face locked in a wide risus sardonicus leer; “Tarragon, who is that? where are you going?”

“We’re going deeper,” she said to me. “The Spleen is on your right. On your left you will see-”

“Am I a sacrifice? Let me out!”

Gold buildings loomed smooth and rounded, lobed against each other like internal organs. They were horribly organic, studded with empty ulcerous portals-foramina and fistulae. The Ribs were flying buttresses with nowhere to land. We skirted the Labyrinths of the Ileum and in the distance the Cult of the Oedemic Prepuce had erected a tall gold wrinkled spire with an onion dome. We drove down a rubber subway that stretched and sagged. We emerged from beneath dripping red stalactites through a puckered textured sphincter onto the shore of-

A lake. Against the black sky I could just make out its dark red liquid and hear the lapping as rare ripples ran over its stinking surface. Gold ducts of varying bores, hollow femurs and arrays of tubules sucked liquid from it and ran underground. Glomeruli like fleshy cups fountained in occasional bursts so the automobile wheels sank in ground made spongy by gastric juices. On the far side, spotlights picked out and roved over the highly polished gold shell of the Western Kidney. I tried all the time to wish myself back to the Fourlands.

“Tine are a most religious and honest people…” said Tarragon. Tine crowded the shore. It must be a feast day because hundreds had gathered. Most were Duodenal Sect; their intestines had been pulled out of a hemmed hole in their stomachs and wrapped around their waists, and I could see waves of peristalsis going around them. One was a Novice of the Flectere Doctrine, who snap all their joints to bend the opposite way. His bare feet lifted in front of him because his knees were bent backward like a bird’s. His pale blue palms were on the backs of his hands, his fingers curled outward. “You have to admire their devotion.”

A gold paddleboat that ran on striated muscle fibers and catechism ferried between the Islets of Langerhans in the distance. “We’re going deeper,” said Tarragon. “Soon we’ll reach the Heart and Lungs, and we’ll drive the length of the backbone processional. The Heart! I want to show you the Heart of the Aureate.”

“No!”

“Then think yourself home!”

“I can’t!”

“Or the brain, deep beneath the Transgressor’s Forest. In the brain there’s a temple where any creature drawn on the wall comes to life. Don’t draw stick men, they have enough of those. It’s sickening to see them, limping toward you dragging their misshapen limbs and squeaking.”

I couldn’t feel the pull. It would be at least an hour before my overdose wore off and woke me. I tried to be calm, pictured my cabin on the Stormy Petrel and imagined myself back there.

“That’s a good boy!” Tarragon exclaimed. “I know you can do it!”

She gave me a Shark’s grin but I didn’t give it back. We drove along the lakeside and I screamed when I realized what was pinging out from under our wheels and rattling off the chassis: a gravel beach of kidney stones.

Tarragon called to a whole congregation of Tine kneeling on the shore, “Hey, see my passenger? He runs marathons! He can sprint as fast as a car!”

The Tine paused and stared. They gestured to each other, howled and ran directly at us. “Hurry!” I yelled. “Hurry up!”

Tarragon stopped the car. “Will yourself home.”

Through rising panic I forced myself to stay calm and yearned, forced, demanded myself back to my body. Tarragon tapped a finger on her forehead and repeated the dictum, “Shift by meditation. Not sensation!”

The Tine were almost upon us.

The dark shore twitched in and out of focus, then a wave of distortion rolled through it. Tarragon’s face and the gold vehicle belched into disturbing shapes. They dissolved to gray. To black.

My stomach creased with fear; I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, slowly and stickily, I was back in my cabin, lying on the floor.