Muezzinland (25 page)

Chapter 18

They landed at Semguine, where the psycopter refused to have anything more to do with them. "Entreat my master yourself," it rudely said, before flying away.

"There is a train we can take from here," Khadir informed them, "and on that train we must have a long talk about what is to come." He wound the black cloak around his malformed body and put the white hat on his head, as if to seal the fate of the next few hours.

They walked through the dusty lanes of Semguine, following pictsym signs to the railway station. Nshalla felt paranoid. Her gaze lay half upon the road ahead, half to the skies, in which she anticipated a fleet of air-to-ground missiles.

They did not come.

It became clear that they would have to buy new clothes and other goods, and Semguine seemed as good a place as any since it was a bustling market town. However, they had no money. Since the mines of Taoudenni they had survived on luck and goodwill. So Gmoulaye made the necessary sacrifice, selling her speaking bangle, the database ear-ring, and, having first emptied it of her financial details, the bank ear-ring. Because a local web hacker happened to bump into them they sold these for good prices, haggling over tiny cups of honeyed tea until terms were agreed.

So they made their purchases. Nshalla found it exciting, as if she was preparing for a true adventure, though she realised that the proximity of Mnada was responsible for her feelings. The better to disguise themselves as Berber women they each bought a kaftan, the long, front-buttoning robe of the locale, and two pairs of babouche—floppy open-ended footwear. Nshalla bought an Apple WristPerson with DenseNet optical cabling, Gmoulaye bought a bendir drum, a pair of tam-tams and a buzzing flute, while Mnada bought a book on humanist ethics pictsymed long ago by some Mediterranean poet. This however still left them with a sizeable sum, and rather than carry local money they each bought a gold ring, anticipating selling them later in the journey. Thus equipped, they departed the markets.

At the railway station they found the solar train. It was not exactly a wreck, but neither did it inspire confidence. At the turn of the century it had been on the cutting edge of Aphrican technology, imported in software form via optical links from the heart of the Pacific Rim, made by those migratory robots descending to summer pastures from their cyberlairs on the Atlas summits. But now it was dilapidated. Its solar fans were dusty, and in places the individual cells were loose, hanging by wires. Elsewhere, the wheels were splitting to show carbon fibres, the carriages were filthy, unpainted, with transputer screens dead and air-cleansers hanging lifeless like elephant trunks, while every spring in every seat had become fixed to leave them looking like mountain ranges.

The polycarbonate nameplate
Hyperion's Narghile
was tatty, its edges eaten away by microbes. Silicon enhanced moss grew from pits in the roof.

Khadir led them to the rear of the train, where in minutes they were ensconced in a four-seater at the middle of a carriage, Khadir by a window, the others sitting ill at ease and glancing at fellow passengers. The train was half full. Gloomily, Nshalla stared out of a cracked window.

With a hiss the solar train began to move. The carriages bleeped, sending messages to one another and settling into line, while the engines at the front and rear became hunchbacked lumps of plastic and metal as they forced the carriages along the railway track.

"So," said Gmoulaye, looking with an insouciant air at Khadir, "you wanted to talk with us."

"I did," Khadir replied. He glanced at those passengers within earshot, then switched to the Gan tongue. "Listen well, all three of you. So far you have done much. You have escaped the immediate clutches of the Empress and her agents, though of course she is still searching for you. You have observed the creation of the gods. Crucially, Mnada is still free. You have also discovered that Muezzinland is something to do with Mnada's brain, and you have learned that its purpose is related to the gods made by the virtual people. Mnada, you feel that you are being drawn there. We have to put all this information together as we decide how to negotiate the obstacles of the final phase, that of discovering the truth about Muezzinland."

"You have any suggestions?" asked Nshalla.

"I do. During my investigations at the Accra palace I discovered that Muezzinland is intended as a tool of control. It is designed for the direction of the gods." He glanced at Nshalla and Mnada, then added, "This I discovered during my confirmation of your story."

"You spoke with the Empress?"

"I would never dare it," Khadir confessed. He sighed. "Am I man or god? I don't know yet."

"Then what did you do?"

"I overheard conversations, like most hackers. The Empress is in great difficulties with the Aetherium. Although the gods attacked us at Mengoub, there was a battalion of soldiers there also, who had been sent up by the Empress. As yet she does not realise the true power and knowledge of the gods, so I intervened, leaking to the Aetherium that you, Mnada, were the reason for the attack. This will give us time. Here is my suggestion. We must make with all speed to Fes University, the private headquarters of the Aetherium, and there find Muezzinland in our attempt to understand, and perhaps wrest control of it."

Mnada nodded in agreement. "There's bound to be an interface of some sort between the real and the aetherial. The Empress will use the physical part while the aetherial part will exist inside Muezzinland. If we could just take out that interface…"

Gmoulaye grunted her unease. "The gods are also making for Muezzinland, where they are being drawn, like Mnada. Is it wise to meet them again?"

Khadir told Mnada, "There are ways of concealing your presence in the aether. I can use my semi-divine attributes to shield you from the gaze of the gods. But yes, it will be difficult. And yet we must encounter Muezzinland. The process of domination begun by the Empress must halt. She is something of a monomaniac, as you are aware. And of course there is the future of Nshalla the experimental control to consider. Both sisters live under the threat of immense danger."

Nshalla considered what Khadir had said. It sounded complete and true. But as she recalled the harshness of the journey across the Sahara, she wondered about its violent ending. "Why," she asked Khadir, "did the Bambara gods attack Mengoub? They were searching for Mnada, weren't they?"

"They guessed I was there," Mnada added in a soft voice.

Khadir nodded. He seemed uncomfortable with this disconcerting thought. "It seems possible that the gods can sense Mnada. Certainly they can sense Muezzinland, and they feel deeply attracted to it."

"If they want me, I will constantly be in danger," Mnada said. "I'd better go to Fes on my own."

"I won't hear of it," Nshalla immediately said.

"Nor I," added Khadir. "There is no immediate danger."

Mnada attempted a laugh. "The danger increases exponentially as we near Fes."

"That may well be correct," Khadir admitted.

"So your suggestion is that we rush headlong into worse peril?" said Gmoulaye.

"We have no other option," said Khadir. "The centre of events is now Muezzinland. We cannot afford to be helpless bystanders. We have abilities. We have knowledge. We have courage. We have Mnada. With these things, I believe we can reach Fes and locate Muezzinland, and, in the end, take control of it… and perhaps also determine our own futures."

Gmoulaye seemed unconvinced.

"Would you rather these two sisters wandered aimlessly around Aphrica," Khadir asked her, "buffetted by powers they do not understand? Would you have them caught either by the Empress or by the gods themselves?"

"I am a kahina," Gmoulaye replied. "I sense nothing but danger in all this. I will reserve judgement."

"We'll follow you," Nshalla told Khadir.

Mnada said nothing as she stared with vacant eyes out of the window.

Khadir looked at all three of them, then said with a wry grin, "Then it is settled, inasmuch as it can be. We make for Fes."

Nshalla asked what she felt might be a vital question. "You are a god of sorts, Khadir. Are you attracted to Muezzinland?"

"Not in the consuming way felt by the real gods. For them it exerts a visceral, almost sexual attraction. For me it is an interesting phenomena, nothing more."

Nshalla nodded. This too felt like true speaking.

They passed through the town of Zagora. A few kilometres before the next stop at Agaz, Nshalla began to wonder exactly how numerous the gods were. The Songhai shamen had spoken of many. She asked Khadir, "How many gods are there?"

"I do not know. Do you wish to know?"

"It could be useful information."

He agreed. "The train stops for an hour at Agaz station. Why not step off with me and perform a little exploration?"

"All right," Nshalla said.

At Agaz station—a disheveled collection of concrete platforms and half-dead servitor robots—they disembarked and made for a grove of lemon trees. Gmoulaye remained aboard to look after Mnada, for they dared not lose her now she had been found. From a pouch beneath his left armpit Khadir produced what at first seemed to be a rodent, but which, when it stretched its wings and ruffled its azure feathers, turned out to be an electric swift.

"How long do we have before the train leaves?" asked Khadir.

Nshalla consulted her WristPerson. "About fifty minutes."

"That will be enough time." So saying he launched the bird into the air. But it did not fly off as a normal bird. One second it was a few metres above Nshalla, the next it was gone, as if a switch had turned it off.

"Now we wait."

To pass the time, Khadir picked lemons from one of the trees, and using his fingers as a press and his feathers as a sieve, drained enough juice into two sugar-glasses to produce a refreshing lemon squash. Nshalla found herself warming to Khadir ever more.

After half an hour the swift reappeared on Khadir's hand. Its forward parts, in particular its head, were scorched, emitting a faint smoke that smelled of burned tyres. Khadir told Nshalla to link the right eye of the bird to her transputer using the DenseNet optical cable, and this she did, whereupon a stream of data was dumped into the device.

"There is your information," Khadir said.

"You mean the swift has flown right around the Sahara Desert in half an hour?"

"Swifts are known to be fast birds."

Nshalla looked at what had been gathered. Already she knew of two virtual cultures that had created gods, the Songhai and the Bambara. But there were three others. In the eastern Sahara, the virtual Nuer people of Sudan had created six gods, all presently making west for CisAtlasian Morocco. The goddess Tanit had been created in Free Tunis, and she was travelling south-west. Meanwhile, far away in Dogon Mali, the creator god Amma had been formed. Altogether this meant thirteen gods were abroad in the world, all powerful beyond human understanding, all making for Fes.

Khadir shrugged as they made their way back to the solar train. "Only Sajara and the four Bambara gods need concern us," he said, "since only they are following our path."

"Five is quite enough," said Nshalla. She wished now that she had not suggested the exploration.

The solar train made for its final stop, Ouarzazate Town, lying between the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas Mountains. Now they were climbing, and the train was finding the steeper inclines difficult. Nshalla wondered how they would get over the range into Marrakech beyond.

As they approached Ouarzazate Town, Khadir took Nshalla to the rear of their carriage, where he spoke to her privately.

"I have a suggestion to make to you," he said.

"Go ahead."

"It concerns your sister. Like you, I wish to know what it is inside her skull that has been altered by the Empress. There are various ways we could approach this. We could psychoanalyse her, for instance."

"That would take far too long," Nshalla said.

"Yes. Tell me, have you notice how much calmer she has been since we all met in the Sahara? Before, you were telling me tales of a shapeshifter, of a mad woman whose mind was like a volcano pouring illusions and aetherial fantasies out into the open. Now she is calm. Why, do you suppose?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"No. But I know a way that might help us find out."

"Tell me about it," Nshalla enthused.

Khadir's expression became serious and Nshalla's spirits were dampened. He said, "Bioplas is the prime method of reifying abstract concepts. For example, the concept of Sajara, rainbow serpent and god of the sky, has been created by the virtual Songhai and reified into the awful god we know. Suppose we were to persuade a lump of bioplas that it should model the inner workings of Mnada, perhaps even form itself into the truth of how she perceives herself. That would be essential knowledge."

"I think I already know the answer," Nshalla said. "Mnada wants to be a free woman. She wants to be herself."

"That is true. But who exactly is she?"

Nshalla shrugged. "Mnada, my sister."

"You see, all you have is comparative information. You know her as your sister, as the daughter of the Empress, and she who was mistreated as a child. You do not know who she
is.
"

Nshalla was uncertain, but she replied, "I think I see what you mean."

"There is a way of using bioplas to look into a person's mind, to view their self image. Of course, it uses the aether. But you would have to help."

"How?"

"Certain subjects are susceptible to deep hypnosis," said Khadir. "We must hypnotise Mnada when she is not aware of it, and then allow her to dream. The lump of bioplas we place next to her head. Slowly, perhaps over the course of a night, that lump receives such a strong aetherial flow from Mnada that it mimics the structure it senses."

"You mean Mnada broadcasts her inner self?"

"Yes. But she must be hypnotised so she cannot consciously stop the process. During an ordinary dream she could simply wake up. You must help hypnotise her."