– and I’m back in the study of the gargoyle Rosbrith squatting on the chair and staring at this huge human Mr Zoliparia holding a pen and shaking my shoulder and going, Bascule? You all right?
It can be a bit of a shock watching somebody come out of a crypt trip; if it’s only a minute in your time, it’s a week in theirs and a lot of things can happen in a week and if it’s been a bad one it tends to show in your face, so for the person waking you up it’s like they tell you to wake up and instantly your face goes old and pained and worn-looking and the person thinks, Oh no, what have I done?
I’m squatting on the balustrade where Ergates was lifted from, hunkered down taking more tea and biscuits with Mr Zoliparia. He’s looking a bit worried because I’m squatting here facing the drop like I’m about to launch myself into the air, but there is the safety net after all and anyway I just feel comfortable perched here and I like the view and the feel of the wind on my face.
My left arm has that sort of echo-pain you get from a bad crypt trip injury and I keep wanting to lift the biscuits with my foot and eat them that way but I think I’m gradually losing my birdishness. I can tell Mr Zoliparia wants to ask me lots of questions but I’m still finding it a bit hard to talk.
Phew, that was a hard old crypt trip that one. I suppose you could argue I should have taken a bit more time and just sent a send of myself in; a image or construct who’d have done everything I did and felt everything I felt and in fact would have been a duplicate me, except meanwhile I’d still have been fully conscious here with Mr Zoliparia, but it takes much longer doing it that way; you have to prepare thoroughly before you go and you have to spend ages reintegrating your two selves when the send comes back, sorting memories and feelings and character changes and so on; just jumping in and out with the one personality is a lot quicker; less than a second rather than up to half a day… but of course that supposed second doesn’t allow for the person who’s supposed to wake you up getting confused because almost the last thing you said to him was, ‘Just give me a minute here,’ and them totally misunderstanding what you meant on account of them being old and confused, and so you spend a week in the crypt instead of a few hours, and thusly getting so altered by your crypt-self that you think you’re a blinking hawk for the next couple of hours.
I see a flock of small birds in the distance and while one half of me’s thinking, this is how this all started, and remembering that poor dear little ant, the other half is going, Ha! Prey!
No I don’t think it is all an hallucination, Mr Zoliparia, I says (I’m missing out the bits where he keeps apologising for what happened). I think it’s all as true as you and me sitting here. There’s something happening in the crypt; I couldn’t work out what part of it’s to do with the palace and what part is to do with the chaotic regions, but there’s something going on, and there’s a watch being kept for somebody or something unusual in there and out here too, and something really disgusting from the human realm has access to the bird part of the crypt and has secured the cooperation of at least some of the birds.
It all sounds more like a nightmare, especially the last part, Mr Zoliparia says.
We’re both sitting now; I feel less like a hawk all the time. Mind you, I still need to be out here on the balcony; don’t like the thought of going inside and being trapped.
I saw it with my own eyes, Mr Zoliparia. I know you don’t hold with the crypt and all and think it’s all a dream anyway, but it’s not that simple, and what I saw I saw, and I never seen nor heard of nothing like that thing like a flayed head and making that horrible noise; I mean, you hear stories of ghosts and beasties and stuff like that from the chaotic realms coming up and snatching people and gobbling them up, but you never see it happen; that stuff’s just myth; this was real.
You are sure that because it had a human head it was something from the human part of the crypt?
That’s the way it works, Mr Zoliparia. It was something that had to preserve human form even in its monstrousness or it couldn’t function, or maybe because it might have let the birds see what it was really like, which given that birds don’t much like humans in the first place, is saying something.
And it was after you.
It sure was. I’m not saying I am what they’re actually looking for – don’t expect I am – but they’re catching and caging everybody a bit different or suspicious and that head thing seems to be involved in the round-up.
Mr Zoliparia shakes his head. O dear Bascule, o dear.
Never mind, Mr Zoliparia. No harm done.
That’s true, Bascule; least you back here safe and sound, no thanks to me. Anyway, I think you should keep away from the crypt for a bit, don’t you?
Well that might be an idea, Mr Zoliparia, I says. You certainly got a point there…
Good boy, he says. I know; why don’t we play a game? Or maybe you would like to go for a walk; take a constitutional round some of the terraces on the roof, maybe stop off somewhere for lunch – what you say, Bascule?
All sounds good to me, Mr Zoliparia.
Let’s do both things, he laughs. We’ll go for a walk but we’ll take the portable Go board with us and have a game over a nice long lunch at a rather nice restaurant I know.
Good idea, Mr Zoliparia. That’s a fine old complicated game, that Go.
Right! I’ll get the Go, then we’ll go! he laughs, and he jumps up and heads indoors. Drink up your tea! he shouts.
I look out at them birds again, circling above a far tower. I don’t want to tell Mr Zoliparia but I’m going straight back in there to that crypt just as soon as I feel able. I still want to find out what happened to poor Ergates, but I want to know what’s going on, too.
Truth be told, it terrifies me half to death just thinking about it, but I got this feeling I learnt a lot while I was in the crypt today and it’s true what they say; it’s like a addictive game, and once you come out of it a bit bruised and wounded, the first thing you want to do is get straight back in there and get it right next time. I just won’t think about that horrible head thing.
I finish my tea and tidy up the cups and stuff (you have to do this at Mr Zoliparia’s because he hasn’t any servitors) and take the tray inside just as he’s putting on his coat and stuffing the portable Go board in his pocket.
Ready, Bascule? he asks.
I’m ready, Mr Zoliparia.
Ready all right. Big stuff happening in the crypt and some poor bugger being hunted and me with a headstart on the people doing the hunting.
Bascule the Rascal, that’s me and I’m more than ready; I’m fierce.
A little bird told me.
Next original section
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TRANSLATION – FOUR – 4
Original text
I’ve got a very good view of the fast-tower from here. I’m half-lying and half-sitting cradled by the babil branches and am looking up through a gap in the foliage at the dirty great hugeness of the castle’s central tower.
You forget the tower’s there a lot of the time because (a) it’s usually behind you if you’re looking out the way from the castle and (b) it’s obscured by cloud more than half the time anyway.
According to Mr Zoliparia the fast-tower is where the space elevator was anchored to Earth.
That’s why it’s called a fastness, Mr Zoliparia says; in English fastness means a stronghold, and also because when things are tied hard against each other they are said to be tied fast to each other like the space elevator was tied fast to Earth, and in a sense tied to the Earth’s surface and space together, too (I said; and the space elevator was a way of getting into space fast; but Mr Z said no actually it was slower than a rocket or whatever but much more efficient). Mr Zoliparia thought the space elevator was a great idea and it was a shame we’d got rid of it and if we hadn’t then we wouldn’t be in the pickle we are, i.e. about to get clobbered by the Encroachment.