At the Edge of the Game (12 page)

I have visions. Clear
and vivid they are, but I know they are just visions. Beautiful vistas of my
own manufacture. For as long as I can remain under the spell I will dwell here.
I shall know this place as my home, for where else can one find such beauty? Only
on days such as today, cloudless, clear and bright, can the Salt Desert be seen
from our apartment, high though it is in a tall city tower. It is beyond the
city, all around the Terminal Sea, shining in the sunlight, lifeless and
serene. When the wind blows strongly from the east, crystal clouds drift over
the city, settling on roofs and pavements, making the city surfaces look as
though they were coated with snow. No region of the earth is more barren than
the Salt Desert. More barren even than Mars, as the saying goes. Unsheltered
plants cannot long survive the salt blizzards. The urban vista of Dublin Far
City is one of apparently continuous rooftop, unbroken by greenery. Only those
artificial canyons where the expressways cut wide swaths through the cityscape,
converging on the base of Dublin City Cylinder, offer any break in the
uniformity.

The Liffey
Falls also shine. The great river is shrouded in dense clouds of vapour during
its miles-long cascade from the heights of the African plateau to feed the
Terminal Sea. These clouds produce haloes and rainbows that offset the darkness
of the Cylinder. Throughout the millennia, the Liffey has cut a great channel
into the African Wall, dozens of stadia deep and wide, that keeps the waters
contained and the city safe from inundation. Some scientists have claimed that
eventually the channel walls will fail, and that Dublin Far City will be
flattened by the resultant deluge. A few have even claimed, outrageously, that
such an event could topple the eternal City Cylinder.

Even the
African Wall shines. The early morning sunlight falls obliquely on its steep,
rocky slopes, providing a brash yellow backdrop to the luminescent light
effects of the Liffey Falls. Mottling its boulder-strewn slopes are the faint
greens and arid browns of patchy scrubland. At dusk, with the last of the
sunlight shining from the west, the African Wall usually takes on an orange
colour. That is the time when many of its native creatures emerge from their
dens in search of food. Their calls - cries, howls, roars - can carry across to
the far side of Dublin Far City as the hushed twilight sets in.

But now, an
hour after dawn, the sun's light is brilliant and unsullied. Helen is still
asleep. She won't waken for another while. I have told her about the strange
spells I have been having, but my account of it has made little impression on
her. She believes I have simply been dreaming, probably while slumped
half-asleep in an armchair. She asked me when the spells took place, and I had
to admit that I do not know. I could not place them within the sequence of my
waking memories. However, I do not believe they were dreams. They were too
real, too rooted in complex sensation and in facets of the real world. I
believe that what I experienced was more like a trance, though what could have
caused it, I do not know.

The book by
Conrad Boehm - was it I who composed these paragraphs, then?

‘We make a steady
ascent through the Atbay foothills. We are close to the edge of the forest, at
the altitude where it yields to open, craggy bush and grassland. I have always
favoured the forest over the open plateau, have always felt uneasy under the
unimpeded glare of the high-altitude sun. Now, as we leave the forest edge
behind us, I feel that familiar tenseness spread over me. Around us is the
thick-bladed, brown-hued grass of this region, as well as rough scrub and
occasional, thin-trunked trees. To the east is a high silver barrier of great
rocky peaks, the tallest Atbay summits. Though it is high summer, these
mountains are snow-capped and barren.

‘I lean forward
and rest my hand on my dispatches case. Yes, here is my purpose. I carry a
private communiqué from my Queen to the Prime Minister of the Dublin Cities. Its
contents are secret, even from me. The sun-and-sphinx wax imprint of the Royal
Seal protects the document. In the carriage with me are my three bodyguards,
Iourno, Paz and Ephraim. They speak little in my presence, except to instruct
me what to do in those instances when they suspect that my security is in
jeopardy. They are freedmen of desert extraction, culturally quite alien to one
of my Patrician standing. In common with most of those lacking citizenship,
they care little about affairs of state. They are indifferent to my mission and
its import. They certainly do not care about my personal concerns. However,
they set great store in courage, duty and honour, and they are completely
trustworthy. They all carry heavy sidearms beneath their dark jackets. Under
their shirts they wear discreet microfibre body armour. For this is by no means
a routine journey to the Cities. I am travelling incognito, and my mission is
secret. There are parties abroad who, if they knew of this journey, would
dearly wish to prevent me from reaching the Dublin Cities.

‘The train's
brakes engage, and it decelerates rapidly, metal wheels squealing against the
track. My bodyguards stand and draw their weapons. Paz goes to the window. Ephraim
goes to the door and watches the corridor. Iourno stands over me, looking from
one to the other of his colleagues. The train comes to a halt. Passengers
emerge from their compartments, but Ephraim allows no one to approach us. After
a brief discussion with the other two, Iourno goes to find out why we have
halted. He returns several minutes later and instructs the others to stand
easy. The train has been flagged down by a Neanderthal party. They have
parleyed with the train staff, explaining that a battle is soon to commence a
short distance ahead, and we may not pass until it has reached its conclusion;
in Neanderthal culture, battleground is sacred ground. There is no question of
us defying the wishes of these primitives. We must defer to them in this upland
country in accordance with precedent going back through the long ages.

‘People are
walking ahead, men, women and children, some carrying food and drink with them,
to enjoy the spectacle soon to take place. I ask my bodyguards whether it would
be inordinately risky to leave the train and join the other passengers. After
all, the train is likely to be standing here for hours before the journey north
can recommence. They demur, but eventually allow that in the circumstances, the
hazard is probably small. They are, I suppose, glad to take advantage of this
opportunity to take in some fresh air and stretch their legs. We disembark, I
with my precious dispatches case, and follow the crowd ahead, leaving the
cooling steam engine and its envious, dirty-faced, cursing crewmen behind.

‘The
Neanderthal party is walking in the midst of the giddy Sapient throng. The
differences, rather than the similarities, between the two human species are
most obvious in circumstances such as these. The passengers are by and large
brightly dressed in well-cut modern clothes. They are lean, mostly dark-skinned
and loquacious, being prosperous urban citizens. Of the Neanderthals, the five
males are dressed in furs and leathers. The two women are wearing dull textile
gowns, clearly of Sapient manufacture, and body ornaments they probably made
themselves in imitation of Sapient designs. They are squat, powerfully-built
people who generally speak little except at ritual occasions, such as when they
recount their sagas. They are light-skinned, as are all Neanderthals in
day-to-day life, with red, flowing manes, powerful brows, strong jaws, receding
chins. The men have worked bright red dye into their beards. The women, ugly to
the eyes of most Sapient men, have braided their hair. All seven are ignoring
the jabbered questions of the Sapient children running innocently alongside
them. It is unlikely that they understand the children's words. Few
Neanderthals find Sapient language easy to master. For that matter, few Sapients
have ever acquired a firm grasp of the universal Neanderthal tongue.

‘We draw close
to them - they do not generally walk as swiftly as Sapients. They all have the
same distant, hard look in their eyes. They are slipping into the
battle-trance, even the women, for many of their women fight alongside the men.
Each carries three assegais - one held in the hand, another two slung on the
back. These are seasoned birch staffs tipped with sharp flint flakes held on by
leather twine. Each of the men carries a Sapient bronze dagger - an item
treasured highly in Neanderthal culture. They find such weapons difficult to
construct themselves.

‘We reach a
rise in the terrain where all the passengers ahead of us have halted. Reaching
the top of the rise, we see a Neanderthal army spread out before us. There are,
perhaps, a thousand of them, dressed mostly in leathers and furs like the men
now walking past to rejoin their comrades, though some, seemingly those of high
status, wear tunics of red or blue. They are assembled shoulder-to-shoulder in
three lines, one behind the other, across a wide, flat area. The first line is
composed of assegai-bearers, fierce men and women covering their fronts with
wooden body armour. Each member of the second line carries a single assegai, as
well as a peculiar type of heavy wooden club known to the Neanderthals as a
zurk. Most of these warriors lack the body armour possessed by the first wave. I
note that there are more women in the second line than in the first. In effect,
though the Neanderthals do not use these concepts, the first line constitutes
the heavy infantry and the second the light infantry. The third line is
composed of archers. Each archer has on his back a quiver full of arrows and a
stout, blackened zurk. Neanderthal bows are crude, and the third line will have
to move well up the hill before the enemy is within range of their sharpened
wooden arrows.’

My eyes are
tired. I set down Boehm’s imaginary book and gaze out the window at the bright
blue sky. From some uncharted dominion in my mind, dread darts forth in a rush,
like a stalking komodo dragon. In those phantom memories I imagined that my
name was Leo, and that my true name belonged to this diplomat of the Rift
Valley State. The book in my lap is not, after all, written by Conrad Boehm,
who is me. The author’s name on the cover is indistinct. As I try to read it,
the letters move and change. A multiplicity of names form, and none stays in my
memory more than an instant.

Something falls
through the letterbox – a real thing, acting as an anchor. Two letters. One is
addressed to Helen, the other to me. Mine bears an official government stamp of
a type I have not received before but which, dismayed, I recognise. I know what
the letter will say. I have been called up to serve in this year's auroch cull.

NOTICE OF
CONSCRIPTION

A cara,

By order of
this office, you must register in person at the Ministry of Public Health and
Safety at noon on Friday, June 1, for temporary service in the Urban Guard. Your
term of service will begin on June 5 and will terminate on September 1 of the
current year. If special arrangements need to be made with your employer,
please contact this office prior to registration day.

In the
service of the Cities

Bowen
MacDhiarmada

Minister for
Public Health and Safety

The auroch cull
will take me away from Helen just when she needs me. But there’s nothing I can
do. I have no power; nor money, influence or good luck. And now, as the door to
the dark corridor creaks open again, letting in more of the harsh red light,
casting swinging black shadows, shapes that cross the wall, I wonder whether my
luck will improve or worsen still further.

It’s Victor.

‘Still alive?’

My throat is
dry. I rasp an answer.

‘A friend for
you.’ He pushes Griffin into the room. The door shuts again. I sit up, back
into a corner, bumping my head on a shelf I had not known was there. Metal
things fall clanging on the floor in the pitch black. His is heavy breath, with
much throaty snuffling. The sort of thing that would emanate from an animal. Is
there something I can use as a weapon?

‘Jaysus. Oh,
Jaysus.’ He’s crying.

I can just about
see his shape, dark against weak red diffusion at the gap between door and
floor. Can’t stop the heave of my lungs.

‘Are you there?’
he says, then sighs when I keep quiet.

Time goes by,
eyes re-adapt. The red fringe shows he has no shoes. He’s shivering, legs drawn
up so that he can rest his head on his knees. Rattling breath comes loudly,
ever more loudly, until I can hear nothing else, the slowing sound in this
blackness becoming my whole universe.

He yelps
suddenly, as though he had drifted asleep for a moment. I want to grab
something and start swinging.

‘Don’t be
afraid, lad. Sure we’re in the same boat. Griffin is my name.’

It seems less of
an ordeal now to speak than to keep quiet. ‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Sorry for what
I did against you. I had no choice.’

‘Why are you in
here?’

‘It’s a mistake,
that’s all. I’ll sort it out with Victor. I had to shoot Tommo. I had to, ye see.
I hadn’t any choice.’ His voice gets louder as though he imagines Victor is
standing outside the door listening in.

‘I was out in
the snow with Tommo, on patrol. We have to keep an eye on things. But Tommo was
doing coke. I was telling Victor he shouldn’t be on duty in a state like that,
but he wouldn’t listen. He even let his kids at the drink. Oh, yeah. And the
wife’s as bad as him. Worse, with all her evil fucking lies and the dirt and
noise, steal and cheating and plotting against them who’s too honest not to do
the same, like me. Funniest thing ever they thought while their kid fell drunk around
the place, crashing into things, knocking the stuff off the shelves. Victor got
annoyed with all the racket, gave the little fella a thump, but the lad never
even noticed. Just kept up the spinning and the jabbering.’