Fain the Sorcerer (6 page)

In which Fain crosses the Bridge of Exasperation

 

Fain walked among trees which bore fruit like resinous organic gems, until he reached a chasm of steam. A thin bridge of wood and rope receded into mist. The Bridgekeeper had an espaliered head, a bone lattice through which veins and tendons were woven like vines.
‘
Step out upon this bridge,
'
it said,
‘
and you will meet a challenger who will ask five questions. Answer correctly, and you may pass.
'
As Fain stepped onto the bridge he saw that several threads of gutting fed into it from the Bridgekeeper, veins twisting into the hand rope.

Fain peered ahead as he walked, expecting the challenge at any moment. An hour later he was still walking without obstruction through hot wet steam. Soon the smoke was dry and far beneath the bridge a landscape of red-black lava crawled like luminous molasses.

Sunset rivers were skirting debris which seemed to topple without ever reaching the ground. Crusts cracked open to weep gold, heaving piles of palaces with folk still at the windows. A watchtower of crumbling salt dissolved into the tangle of angled troughs which were once streets. Mangled treasure and molten shortcuts were folding over each other, the terrain eating itself. Watching, Fain could not tell whether this was truly disarray. He had a spectacular headache. Before him was always a flashing sheet of shredded air, and the receding bridge. The same was behind him. He continued walking forward through a drizzle of white ash.
‘
Remember to ask for the gift of flying,
'
he reminded himself, ticking off gifts as he watched creation forever unknitting itself. Days passed.
‘
When you look while recalling the names of what you see,
'
he thought,
‘
you
'
re at best seeing to the limit of example. By casting off those names, you see further.
'
As Fain followed this thread of thought and realised that wisdom never comes of approval, he found that the landscape was tilting. Soon he was grasping the hand rope as the world, the bridge and himself turned entirely upside-down. Below his hanging head smoke rushed into the sky, and above his feet were caves of cremation from which golden holes breathed dirty steam.

As he stepped hesitantly forward it became clear that his vision had inverted, not the world. His eyeballs had revolved like two doorknobs, and it would take a while for his mind to straighten the world picture again. As Fain realised this, he saw a heat-blurred, haggard-looking figure walking toward him along the bridge. He braced his wits as they met.

‘
Are you the challenger with the five questions?
'
the stranger rasped.

‘
No. Aren
'
t you?
'

‘
No. Don
'
t you have any questions to ask me?
'

‘
How long have you been walking?
'

‘
Three days. You?
'

‘
Three, the same. So the bridge takes six days to cross and we
'
re in the middle. Where do you think you
'
re going?
'

‘
The rainforest. Is that where you came from?
'

‘
Yes. What
'
s ahead of me?
'

‘
The black desert and the dune cities. Do you have any advice for me?
'

‘
If you want to enter the pyramid, flatter the eye. Anything I need to know?
'

‘
Watch out for gnats.
'

‘
Well, goodbye.
'

‘
Goodbye.
'

Now below his head was a landscape bleached and heavy as the calm after battle. It seemed to be several intermeshing labyrinths of ice, so tightly interlocked that none of them could function. As he walked past these pearlescent platforms the world continued to roll over, amid a torrent of pain. After several instants of flickering upright and coming loose again, the world picture finally anchored itself in place: sky above, ice below. It was like the skull of the world.
‘
Knowledge tells a story,
'
Fain thought,
‘
wisdom makes sense of it, power changes it.
'
Creeping sentinels of steam slowed over the scratched face of an iceberg. The silvered spars of gloom were like buildings under construction or in ruins. Again he glimpsed faces in sharded holes, and later a bloated hill made entirely of twitching hands. The creaking mineral hell became dirtier and darker until the bridge reached the opposite shore, and Fain stepped off onto a desert of black salt under a blue sky.

 

 

 

 

In which Fain faces execution

 

After trudging through the desert for two days, Fain spotted a broad-backed animal with a flat head, near the gentle rise of a hill. Cart-sized and lizard-like, it was trolling along and looking cute as it inspected the ground.
‘
This thing looks pretty harmless,
'
Fain thought, and retrieved the rope from his pack. Looping this into a simple bit harness, he approached the quiet creature from behind and leapt onto its back, throwing the harness over its head so that it wedged between its jaws. The creature seemed startled but was soon conveying Fain across the jet salt plains.

He soon approached a walled city. The entrance was a keyhole two hundred feet high, without a door. Fain made his triumphal entry to find himself in a city foresquare. At its centre was a solid glass blue obelisk a hundred feet tall in which was suspended the body of an insect the size of a man, and around this thronged a colourful market with citizens selling snow, blue sugar, paradice, tamarinds, alligator pears and another fruit like the hardened teardrops of a giant. As these citizens turned to stare at Fain, he noticed that they were all giant lizards like the one he was riding. The entire square fell silent.

Fain awoke in pain, standing chained in some sort of royal court. What he at first thought a gong nearby was in fact a massive coin bearing the form of a coiled lizard. Groggily he regarded the reptile which sat in the chunky golden throne before him. A web-throated official was reading from a scrolled decree.
‘
And for the heinous crime
of harnessing and riding upon our Royal Sovereign as He strolled the
Royal Garden, Fain the Sorcerer shall hereby be beheaded in the
public square.
'

Fain tried to jump several days back, but nothing happened.
‘
They put a special band around your neck,
'
a small voice quailed into his left ear. It was Hex, the gecko.
‘
You bragged of your gifts immediately, just before twenty-nine of these reptiles knocked you down and started breaking your bones. The band binds your powers. But they can
'
t see me
—
tee hee!
'

But when the guards roughly turned Fain to lead him away for execution, Hex sprang alarmed from his shoulder and landed on the arm of the King
'
s throne, flushing through with the gold of his background. The King and his court gasped.

‘
Wait!
'
called the King, halting the guards.
‘
Remember Draak
'
s prophecy!
'
He gestured with a paddle-like claw to the huge disc portraying a gold lizard whorled about itself.
‘
The Golden Salamander will bring transformation to our city!
'

Fain immediately urged Hex to stay where he was.

For the next few days, Hex and Fain were treated like gods. Fain confirmed that Hex was the golden salamander, thankful that nobody could see he had not capitalised the remark. So long as Hex stayed on the throne he was safe. Freed from the binding ring, Fain had become friendly with the Lizard King and, accepting a grape from a scaly maiden, asked him the significance of the obelisk in the town square, the plinth beneath it bearing beneath the legend WHEN THE COWARD HAS CAUSE.
‘
We were once regularly besieged by the swarm-race of insects which dwell in the hive dunes to the east,
'
the King told him.
‘
But a sorcerer called Draak captured their King and suspended him in that obelisk. The blue glass is magicked in such a way that a cowardly scream of sufficient pitch would shatter it and release the Insect King. Look close at the city wall and you will see an insect lookout always observing the square. Through Draak
'
s manoeuvre all is held in suspension. The insects are held in abeyance while we hold their king and might harm him. And we are held strong by the threat of the Insect King
'
s release were we to fail in courage. There are still huge insects to the east that grow to resemble our children crucified, specifically to draw us close enough to snare and digest. They are creatures who know so little about their own motivations we have to fill it all in ourselves
—
but how does that help anything, if none of the thought processes we used to work it out, are happening in their minds when they do it? If it derives from incoherence?
'

As a lizard maiden offered purple sugar on a hand like a lilypad, Fain expressed surprise that a race of giant lizards had any trouble defeating insects.
‘
We used to eat them en masse,
'
said the King,
‘
but gorged so much we couldn
'
t stand those crunchy bastards any more. Our tongues, which were once whiplike and prehensile, have atrophied, look.
'
And he let his tongue dangle out like a rope.

‘
Still,
'
said Fain,
‘
you could squash them with those paddle-hands of yours
—
like
that
!
'

And by way of demonstration he slapped his hand down on the throne
'
s arm-rest, forgetting that the golden Hex crouched there. The lizard saved himself by springing away and landed on the ground, becoming instantly grey. Before he knew what was happening, Fain felt the magic-binding ring clamp around his neck again.

Five minutes later Fain was walking up some wooden steps to a platform in the city square. The executioner had an axe but didn
'
t seem unhappy to see him.
‘
You
'
d better start killing me, headsman,
'
Fain squeaked,
‘
or I
'
ll be asnore on the block. Credit the next neck?
'

The green axeman ignored his bluff, roping Hex to the back of Fain
'
s neck. He pushed Fain
'
s face sideways against the rough, gravelly block so that Fain could see the lizard crowd and the King on a bier nearby.

‘
Imposter, even if we do not execute you,
'
the King called,
‘
uniformity and procedures will kill you, in a way.
'

Hearing the axe-head zing as the executioner picked it up, Fain released the most cowardly scream to have been heard in centuries. The glass obelisk shattered, releasing the form trapped inside. Unblurred and unsupported, the insectile body collapsed and was something else. Its bug-eyed head was a washbasin, a couple of sieves and some bulrushes. Its many legs were branches. Its abdomen was a barrel tipped with a spike helmet and its wings were large fans stolen from the imperial palace. A sibilant cry of cheated rage thrilled from the insect lookout on the city wall.

A thundering vibrated through the hard-caked earth and, within moments, thousands of massive brown insects poured into the city like a river of swords.

Three minutes later Fain escaped into the desert, riding on the Lizard King.

56

 

 

 

In which Fain enters a city of artificial creatures

 

Five days later they entered a city which seemed like a gigantic machine. Buildings of hammered bronze breathed like kettles and smelt of bonfires, and whale-like boats floated through the sky. A giant living arrowhead lumbered toward Fain on carved lion
'
s feet. It was festooned with gold quincunxes and quatrefoils like a decorated general. Looking closer at this embroidered heavy ordnance, Fain was startled to see, behind a smoked glass panel in its belly, a spinning dice.

Nearby an old man dressed in an acid green harlequin uniform was busy with playing a trumpet, folding balloons and other street-emptying exploits. He was observing his own actions with apparent bafflement through smashed spectacles. His body bent like a bow, he feebly juggled silver rings and slapped them together without interest, interlinking them. Several metal people were watching his display.
‘
A vagabond in a crush hat eh?
'
said one of them.

‘
Do creatures like you enjoy these displays of buffoonery?
'
Fain asked the living wedge.

‘
These actions in the road are permitted, though for safety purposes we avoid understanding them.
'

At that moment the prancing relic collapsed, dropping his three cups. Seeing that all three were empty, the artificial onlookers rumbled among themselves and wandered off. Fain loaded the old clown onto the Lizard King
'
s back and they took him to what he whispered was his home, a hovel heated by wasps. Given a sip of wine, the jester roused enough to damn his circumstances.
‘
Those creatures outside, they are dicehearts, mechanical people, and this is Diceheart City.
'

‘
I
'
ve seen a mechanical man before. Who made these?
'

‘
Drake the Adept, in an access of power like a sneeze. So here they are, created and abandoned, with no idea of the why of any of it. So different than ourselves? It
'
s very complicated, how I know this; and to understand it, you would have to become another person. No bad thing.
'

‘
How did you get here?
'
asked the Lizard King, whose bulk filled most of the room.

‘
I sought Drake the Adept, but was already in a desperate condition when I arrived
—
entering the city, I merely tripped and smashed nosefirst on the ground. The incident caused the fastest assemblage of bastards I
'
ve ever seen. Some chugged, some wheezed, but none attempted an expression never done before. If there was a chance of that, oh I
'
d gladly damage my muzzle again, try and stop me. But the city controls even such feeble projects. They have their hierarchy. Only the upper echelons have pincers, for instance. However, they did pay. Since then I
'
ve tried year after year to find what amuses those contraptions, but to little avail. All I have learned are the divers arts of the cornered man: snarling, begging, screaming, sobbing, whispering, fainting, feinting, painting, panting, ranting and, of course, sitting down.
'

‘
It sounds like being cornered is an education in itself.
'

‘
And cheap. Remember that. But now, you take the stupid hat and bells of irritation
—
I am finished.
'

‘
I don
'
t want to be a jester!
'
Fain protested.

‘
You can use it,
'
whispered Hex, who had been removed to Fain
'
s shoulder again.

‘
I won
'
t be advised by a tile.
'

‘
You need something,
'
said the old greybeard,
‘
and trick-magic is about misdirection. By concealing your desires, you may trick people into being cruel about the wrong thing.
'

And with that, the jester expelled his vitality like a gas.

The Lizard King moved into the old clown
'
s house, and Fain donned the scarf, cap and bells, setting out to annoy one and all in the street. He started to flourish a bit of velvet around, manipulating it as though about to produce something from thin air. A crowd of dicehearts began to gather. Fain continued to manipulate the velvet, looking increasingly desperate. After an hour of this, Fain was approached by a scuttling carapace constable the size of a horse. Eight spiderlike legs of bone conveyed a skeletal cage fronted by a titanic, yawping set of humanlike jaws. As it capered and tilted along, a song of illness choired from its hollows.

‘
The compropede will take you to be judged,
'
said an armorite with a head of metal thorns and eyes of cherry-coloured glass.
‘
You must be eaten into the cage.
'

The jawed conveyance began to nip at Fain, who struggled as he was gathered horribly into the giant mouth and ejected into the cage on its back. Fain felt he was on the jolting cart to the gallows.

The Diceheart Palace was topped by two massive milk-glass hands raised as if in prayer but slightly apart, and at such a height that Fain could only imagine he saw some fluctuation or effect between them. Fain was disgorged finally within a court of authority. At its head was what Fain took to be the diceheart autarch, a massive mechanical heart which unfolded like a rose to reveal a pearl the size of a cannonball. Flanking this on one side was an armorite with pincers and a head like a sky-blue minaret, and on the other a dull olive-coloured sarcophagus with eight legs, topped with a baby head of red studs. The walls were crowded with onlookers, or perhaps mere regulatory devices.

‘
They tell me you are king of this place,
'
Fain addressed the rose.
‘
Now I see their claim is rather farfetched.
'

‘
Your dismal antics in the street have bored one and all,
'
tolled the rose,
‘
with your flourishes, time-wasting, and jewellery made from apricot stones.
'

‘
Don
'
t be confused by his accusations,
'
whispered Hex,
‘
it
'
s his way of showing he
'
s curious about you. He thinks he
'
s asked a question and so expects a reply.
'

Unaware of what question had been intended, Fain decided upon simple truth.
‘
I am Fain the Sorcerer, and I quite frankly hate it here. Empty metal creatures, your city is a marvel! I suppose its emulation of a lobster halved lengthwise is symbolic? A community of dolls, ministers and tin soldiers the shape of fat moths
—
what
'
s the point?
'

His audience looked at each other and began chugging strangely, jigging up and down.

‘
Indeed you are all so begging for a punch in the nozzle I cannot find it in my heart to disappoint you.
'

The dicehearts were laughing, with a light squeak of hinges.

‘
I find you empty, and suspect that you are, technically, dead. This rack-and-pinion morality of yours, like yourselves, is large but as weightless as an owl. And it ejects blue smoke!
'

There was amiable uproar in the court. What the old jester hadn
'
t realised was that the dicehearts found truth amusing, their laughter a means to evade it. They were more closely modelled upon humanity than he had suspected.

Fain turned to a nearby observer, a round frame in which pink lace flubbered with every breeze. An eye occasionally opened in the membrane, then clenched away again.

‘
You sir
—
that rather fanciful assemblage which exists where your head should be
—
need any help getting rid of it? Observe as I juggle this cloud of dust!
'

Fain gestured for quiet in the ensuing chatter and, approaching the autarch, announced:
‘
My main intention was to perform a very particular illusion for you, the upper echelons of the city. Observe these dozen large metal rings.
'
Fain clashed them together.
‘
I will perform a disappearance, with the aid of an assistant
—
you sir!
'
He led the pincered, minaret-headed courtier into the performance area, much to the apparent delight of all.

Fain slipped the rings together, linking them, then unlinked them and juggled with them, catching four on each arm and four around his neck.

‘
Now sir, use those pincers of yours to snip through the rings on my right arm.
'

The diceheart sliced through them, the twanged tangle hitting the floor.

‘
And through the rings on my left.
'

The diceheart cut through these.

Fain removed his scarf.
‘
And
—
careful now
—
those around my neck!
'

The assistant snipped through the five rings about Fain
'
s neck.

‘
And now I will disappear and steal the royal barge!
'

Freed from the binding ring, Fain vanished and walked out of the hilarity-filled court. The airboats were docked beside the milk-glass palace. He re-appeared as he walked up the gangplank to one of the ballooned barges. A tall, white-haired man in a black robe was stood at the front tiller, and Fain was about to order him to cast off when the guy ropes writhed loose, the gangplank fell away and the ship pulled into the sky with frightening speed. The old jester turned from the tiller to look at Fain, then seemed to suck in a hard breath, his white beard retreating into his chin. He removed his smashed spectacles and the eyes told Fain that this was Drake the Adept.

61