Red Sun Also Rises, A (11 page)

Her deep brown eyes slid away from me. I followed her gaze and saw she was looking at Clarissa.

“Because of her.”

“Clarissa? What has Clarissa got to do with it? She knows no more of this world than I.”

“It is not what she knows of this world. It is what this world knows of her.”

I pressed her to explain this but she would say no more, lapsing into a sullen silence.

The countryside slipped past, field after field of grains and sweet-smelling herbs, and as we progressed, strange dwellings came into sight, clustered together and reminiscent of papery wasp nests but big enough to house many Yatsill. Kata explained that these were nurseries filled with the young, who grew to maturity with astonishing rapidity.

Yatsill farmers—dressed in frocks of coarse unpatterned linen—were busy tending to the crops. They paid us no attention as we glided past.

We made three short stops, during which Mademoiselle Clattersmash disembarked to collect herbs. Spearjab informed us that she used them to manufacture poultices for the treatment of wounds, and also to brew various concoctions that, when mixed with the Dar’sayn liquid we’d seen collected from the fruits in the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings, produced specific effects during meditations.

The farms were on a slight gradient, the land rising smoothly ahead of us, so the horizon appeared to be getting closer and closer as we drew nearer to the crest of the ridge lying across our path. We could now clearly see, on the other side of it, the tops of towers and chimneys, the latter sending plumes of smoke and steam into the air.

To our right, the slope steepened into much rougher terrain, which wrinkled upward in increasingly jagged waves until it became the range of quarry-scarred mountains. Three of the four moons dotted the heavens above the peaks, faint circles in the yellow sky.

“What! What!” Colonel Spearjab declared loudly. “Home sweet home! Hurrah!”

As he made this pronouncement, a breathtaking vista opened up before us, for the slope led not to the brow of a ridge but to the edge of the continent, and to the right and left the ground dropped away, a sheer cliff at least a mile high, with a sparkling emerald sea lapping at its distant base. Into this precipice a vast semicircular bay intruded, the land inside it descending to the sea in a series of nine colossal steps, and as I looked down upon them, I saw they were swarming with Yatsill. About a third of the terraces were heavily forested and the trees were filled with houses in the Koluwaian style, but it appeared that the forest was in the process of being cleared and a city the size of London built in its place. The size of
London
! It was simply staggering! The creatures, with the same wondrous efficiency of termites and ants, were constructing, at an apparently preternatural pace, what had taken centuries for my species to achieve—a vast, sophisticated city. And it was expanding before my eyes!

The topmost terrace was already entirely stripped of trees and looked to be a manufacturing district, for there were many large brick buildings and foundries with tall chimneystacks belching out the sooty clouds so symptomatic of industry.

The next level, which was half-complete, contained row after row of humble abodes, similar in size and arrangement—or so I later learned from Clarissa—to the “two-ups, two-downs” seen in England’s northern cities, such as Manchester and Leeds.

Next came a terrace of spires and minarets, rising from what I took to be temples and administrative establishments, all constructed—or being constructed—from a white variety of stone much like marble.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth steps were being made into attractive residential districts, with many a square patch of greenery and long roads lined with shops.

The seventh level was partially landscaped and already resembled a dreamlike version of Regent’s Park.

The eighth terrace, Colonel Spearjab revealed, was given over to barracks for the City Guard and workshops for artisans, while the ninth, and smallest, was an almost self-contained fishing village.

The most incredible aspect of the whole city, though, was the speed at which it was supplanting the forest. Every single part of it looked brand new, and every single one of its inhabitants appeared to be involved in its construction.

“Magnificent!” the colonel bellowed. “Welcome to Yatsillat!
Welcome
, I say! Ha ha!” He pointed at the sea. “And behold, Phenadoor!”

A number of very wide and steeply sloping avenues cut through the terraces all the way from the top of the city to the bottom. Our Ptall’kor passed into one that was lined with trees. It was paved with colourful cobbles, which, upon closer inspection, froze the blood in my veins, for they were hard shells rather than pebbles, meaning the murder I foresaw in my Yarkeen vision would transpire here, not in London. However, I was quickly—and thankfully—distracted from this disturbing thought by the crowds that gathered along the sides of the avenue to cheer our arrival. They were Yatsill but, unlike those we travelled with, they were clothed—and in such a bizarre manner that I repeatedly rubbed my eyes and pinched myself, half-convinced I was hallucinating again. Those creatures that stood in the front rows of onlookers wore four-legged trousers or billowing skirts. Their upper mussel-shell-shaped bodies were encased in colourful waistcoats over which long jackets were draped, some male in design, others female. Viennese masks covered their faces—all with four eye-holes, all resembling long-beaked birds or bejewelled human faces or Pierrots or Punchinello—while their heads were adorned with frilly bonnets or top hats, though in the latter case many among the crowd were throwing theirs into the air while yelling, “Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for the new Aristocrats! Hup hup hurrah! Hup hup hurrah! Hup hup hurrah!”

The rearmost spectators were rather less extravagantly dressed, their “suits” being of a baggier cut, their heads adorned with cloth caps or drab bonnets, and their masks simplistic depictions of a human face.

The hullabaloo and dazzling sights so jumbled my senses that it was impossible for me to properly explain everything to poor Clarissa. Perhaps she understood this, for she stood at my side and gripped my hand tightly, as if to shackle me to the reality she represented—the reality of Earth and home—and prevent me from drifting off into realms of madness. Had she not done so, the sheer lunacy I was now witnessing might have pushed me over the brink.

“Hallo hallo!” Spearjab exclaimed. “There’s trouble!”

He pointed to a small group of Yatsill who, unlike the majority, were unclothed. They were chanting, “Down with the dissonance! No to change! Back to the trees! No to change!”

“Backward thinkers!” he said dismissively. “Ignore the blighters. Only a bally fool stands in the way of progress. Hey? What? Harrumph! Now then, I propose a tour of the new city. But first we must stop at a tailor’s. I feel positively naked!
Naked
, I say! It won’t do at all!”

Mademoiselle Clattersmash placed a hand on his shoulder. “No, my dear. The matter of the dissonance must be addressed at once.” She pointed at Clarissa and me. “We should deliver these two to the House of Lords immediately.”

“Oh, very well, very well. Humph! Humph! Humph! But I insist that the acquisition of clothing must follow right afterwards! What!”

“I shan’t argue,” Clattersmash said. She raised her hands to her face and wriggled all her fingers excitedly. “I’m positively eager to pick out a dress!”

The Ptall’kor took us down to the third terrace, turned right onto a wide thoroughfare, and came to rest outside a monumental white edifice that reminded me a little of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Two figures were standing on the steps that led up to the building’s ornate entrance. One, a Yatsill, was wearing top hat and tails, with a white shirt and perfectly enormous bow tie. While his trousers were black, as one would expect in such an outfit, the jacket and hat were pink. His mask resembled the face of a heron, with a long pointed beak.

The other was plainly a Koluwaian male, though, like the witch doctor Iriputiz, he was of a considerably taller and skinnier build than the average islander. He was wrapped from head to toe in purple robes, had a cloth of the same colour wound around his head, and wore a Pierrot mask over his face.

“Saviour favour you,” the Yatsill said to Spearjab as we disembarked. “It’s bloody good to see you again, Yazziz Yozkulu. Welcome to New Yatsillat!”

“Colonel Momentous Spearjab now, Prime Minister. Humph! And you, sir?”

“I have settled upon Lord Upright Brittleback.”

Spearjab bowed. “Tip-top! Very nice! Very nice indeed! And
New
Yatsillat! How wonderfully appropriate! I sensed a great deal, of course, but not that particular morsel! Ha ha!” He waved a hand toward Clattersmash. “My Lord, you know Tsillanda Ma’ara, now Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash. Harrumph!”

“I do indeed.”

Clattersmash held out a hand and the prime minister reached to shake it, hesitated, then took it by the fingertips and raised it to the end of his mask’s beak, giving it a light peck. “You chose the female gender, then, Mademoiselle?”

“I did,” she replied. “It occurred to me that those in the Council of Magicians would mostly select the male. I thought it might give me an advantage to go the other way.”

“Shrewd, as always,” Brittleback responded. He turned to Spearjab and flexed his fingers toward the purple-clad Koluwaian. “You know Mr. Sepik, of course.”

“Harrumph! Back from one of your long meditations, hey, Mr. Sepik!”

The Koluwaian bowed and said, in a whispery voice, “I serve best when refreshed, Colonel. My occasional withdrawals are a spiritual necessity.”

“Humph! If you say so, old thing! I can’t quite see how not being present makes you a better Servant, but there you are! There you are! And you’ve learned this new-fangled lingo, too, hey? Jolly good show! Fast work! What! And the togs?”

Brittleback gestured toward the tall islander and said, “Mr. Sepik suggested that, in keeping with the changes to our society, his kind should be represented in Parliament, which I thought was a bloody good idea, so I made him my aide. I have acceded to his suggestion that all Servants who work with those of us in public office should be masked. A symbol of their authority over their fellows, so to speak.”

“Splendid idea!”

“Now to business, old fruit,” the prime minister said. “How many new Aristocrats do you have?”

“Only three Yatsill,” the colonel replied.

Lord Brittleback shook his head. “By the depths of Phenadoor! I should rejoice at their arrival but I find myself bloody unsettled. The parties that preceded you did little better. I fear we’re fast approaching a time when all will be Working Class and there’ll be no one left to do the thinking. Mademoiselle Clattersmash, did you gain any insight while in the Valley of Reflections?”

“I’m afraid not, Prime Minister. We can but trust that this is the will of the Saviour.”

“And what of the dissonance? From whence did it originate?”

Clattersmash turned and indicated that Clarissa and I should step forward. I led my companion to her side.

“Not from whence but from whom. These two were found in the normal manner, but as you can see, they themselves are far from normal.”

“Saviour’s Eyes! They don’t look like the usual Servants! Were they the only ones?”

“That is correct, sir. Furthermore, this one—” she gestured toward Clarissa “—was made an Aristocrat.”

I saw Mr. Sepik start slightly at this revelation.

“Ah!” Lord Brittleback exclaimed. “So the recent advances are explained! I shall present our guests to the House at once.” He stepped forward and touched Clarissa on the shoulder. “I was given a rather baffling something-or-other by the leader of our Magicians. He saw you in a Dar’sayn vision and had the thing constructed. Not bloody sure what it is, but take it, please, with my compliments, and I hope it’s of use!”

He fished inside his jacket, pulled something out, and pushed it into Clarissa’s left hand.

“Clarissa!” I cried out. “It’s a pair of goggles!”

“Thank God!” she whispered.

“What—?” Brittleback began.

“She is blind without them!” I said.

The Yatsill and Koluwaians watched as I reached up and began to untie my friend’s blindfold. She held the goggles close over her eyes. I gave her a warning then pulled the material away, and she quickly pressed them into place and held them steady while I buckled the leather straps around her head.

“Done!” I announced. “Turn to face me, then open your eyes.”

Clarissa spun until I saw myself reflected in the black glass lenses. The two little bumps on her forehead protruded above the eyewear. After a moment, she smiled widely, reached out, and grabbed me by the upper arms.

“Aiden! You have no idea how good it feels to see you again! Heavens above! What a beard you’ve grown!”

She looked down at herself, released me, and clapped her hands to her thighs. “Straight!” she almost wailed. “My legs! They really are straight!”

Spearjab said, “Though with insufficient knees and numbers, hey? What! Ha ha!”

Clarissa wheeled around and saw, for the first time, the quadrupedal mollusc-faced colonel.