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The City of the East was built over a dozen layers of ledge and shelf, and its myriad rooms dug into the wall were mostly connected by tunnels and in-ground staircases. A broad central shelf was home to a continual pageant and dramatic performance; as soon as one troop of actors dropped, exhausted, another would take up the play exactly where it had been left. There was shame in relinquishing the play and some of the actors played so hard and for so long that they were virtual corpses by the end, dropping down from sheer fatigue. New actors would not, by tradition, step into the arena until the previous actor had stopped speaking; but as soon as a gap
opened up, actors would rush to the middle and gabble at the lines, or sing snatches of song, whilst they cleared the space of the bodies of their forerunners.

Crowds watching the play were not large, but they were continuous; as some of the audience left, new people would drift up to watch. The play was a lengthy, complex version of the history of the world, full of diversionary narratives and highly stylised, repetitive speeches. For some observers, watching the play was a religious ritual. For others it was a more conventional sort of entertainment.

At the back of this shelf were several ranks of prophets and doomsayers, whose hectoring tales of apocalypse filled the air and conflicted with the musical declamations of the actors. Occasionally quarrels would break out between actors and prophets, and the audiences would enjoy these fist fights as much, or more, than the ritual drama or religious speechifying.

The city was rich in springs; water flowed so copiously from a number of slant-lying pipes and holes in the wall that it wasn’t possible to dam it up and charge money for it. This was one reason for the city’s enormous population: water was free. It dribbled out of standing pipes by public ledges.

Tighe tried to find work amongst the maze of shops and hostels that occupied the lower ledges and shelves, but the city was crowded and work was difficult to find. He traded his suit, finally, for a bag of precious jewels, some electronic components and a sack of biscuits. He kept the gun, uneasy and thrilled by the ceaseless activity of the City and uncertain when he might need it.

His plan was to make his way back west, past the Meshwood. Partly this was an end in itself: he wanted to find out what had happened with the war, whether the Empire still stood or whether the Otre had conquered it all. But apart from that, it was an attempt to make his way homeward, back to the village. It ought to be possible, he thought, to find a way upwards; to buy passage in a calabash, for instance; or to work his way around. If he put his mind to it, it ought to be possible to find his home again.

He was nearly eleven: the age at which a child becomes an adult. One evening he pushed his way through a crowd in a narrow defile in the wall and bought some fortified water in a clay jar. The defile was crammed with people drinking this liquor, and singing and playing palm-on-palm games for money. Tighe laughed and joked with the people he met, but the crush of the crowd meant little to him.

He took his fortified water away and found a residential ledge where he could sit in peace. Slowly he drained the rest of the jar, feeling the petrol taste of the liquor on his tongue and the roof of his mouth, letting it fuzz
his mind. He was greatly changed by his experiences. He thought often of the Wizard and of his Lover, who so resembled his Grandhe. Sometimes he tried to piece together the narrative, the ways in which the Wizard had manipulated his village, his family. It was complicated, and there were a number of different narratives that could explain it.

He dozed off, the jug in his lap. He was woken by two ruffians, both much taller and bulkier than he, who had jumped on his sleeping body. One was sitting on his legs and the other held back his arms; the one on his legs was running his moist hands through Tighe’s clothes, looking for valuables.

‘You foul drunk,’ he snarled. Tighe, terrified, found himself laughing because there was a stench of liquor on the mugger’s breath. The irony seemed comical. The ruffian behind pulled his arms back and he gasped in pain.

‘I have a jewel!’ Tighe blurted. ‘It is valuable! It you take it, you might leave me in peace!’

‘Foul drunk,’ said the first ruffian, slurring the words a little, ‘where is this jewel?’

‘Free my hand and I’ll reach it out.’

The ruffian seemed to be having difficulty following Tighe’s words he was so inebriated. His head wobbled, perhaps in agreement or perhaps because he was so drunk. His fellow took it for confirmation and loosened his grip on Tighe’s left arm. Tighe snaked his hand down to his boot and pulled out the gun, firing it almost straight away. The noise was enormous and sudden in the quiet evening. The ruffian on his legs fell backwards, shot or startled Tighe couldn’t tell. The other released his grasp and started away, running awkwardly. Tighe stood up, aiming his gun, laughing hysterically; but he had enough self-control not to fire. Instead he hurried away in the opposite direction, leaving the mugger lying on the ledge.

After this incident Tighe decided he needed to act more like a man, less like a child. With some of his jewels he bought a slave, a short, skinny girl. She could, he decided, act as lookout when he was too tired, or drunk, to pay attention to the world around him. She herself was as fluttery as a bird; she slept little, waking at the slightest disturbance. Her eyes were surrounded by sunken, dark skin. Her hair was thin and portions of pink, inflamed-looking scalp showed through. There were yellow dots of infection in the pores of her face. Tighe started buying twice as much food, to make sure that she was fed; but she ate very little. ‘This is why you are so thin,’ he scolded her. But all she would say was ‘Yes, Master.’ She said very little else.

She was, however, a good cook, whenever Tighe felt more extravagant and hired a public oven as well as some ingredients for food. He thought
sometimes of using her, since he had not experienced that physical release in many months and she was, after all, his: but the truth was he found her offputting and unattractive. She was so small, so scrawny, she looked as if she might break in use.

Week followed week, with Tighe simply staying in the city and living off the wealth earned by the sale of his antique suit. One day he saw somebody wearing it: a plump, rich man, striding up and down one of the ledges as proud as the sun. Tighe wondered how much he had paid for the thing.

There were hundreds living in the city; perhaps even a thousand. It was an enormous number, but eventually Tighe came to recognise most of the people on the shelves and ledges. It was possible to become familiar even with so large a number of people. As his supply of jewels began to diminish, he began to think that the City of the East was boring to him: the drinking, the endless theatre and preaching. He debated with himself what to do: secreting three of his most exquisite jewels in a twist of leather tucked into his boot, he decided he would make his way through the lands of Otre towards the Meshwood.

He explained his plan to his slave girl, and to his surprise she began to cry. ‘What are you crying about?’ he asked, alarmed.

‘The city is my home,’ she said. ‘I have only known the city.’

‘Are you not curious to see the wonders of the worldwall west of here?’ he said. ‘Come! You must be curious.’

‘No, Master.’

‘Well, perhaps I will sell you to a new master before I go,’ he said, feeling compassionate. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, feeling in a confiding mood, ‘I was a slave myself once. Yes! I know the difficulties of being a commodity. I have been a Prince and a slave, and I have been to the end of the world. I have had such adventures! It is surprising to me that you would not wish to have adventures of your own.’

‘I’m sorry, Master,’ said the slave girl, weeping bitterly and hiding her face in the crook of her elbow. ‘I do not have an adventurer’s soul.’

‘Well,’ said Tighe, embarrassed and trying to comfort her by stroking her hair. ‘Well, don’t worry.’

Tighe spent an evening drinking, working through two jugs of fortified water, and then losing a whole jewel to a fellow drinker playing palm-to-palm. He didn’t have the natural dexterity for the game and was hazy about some of the rules; but it was exciting playing, and even the bitterness of losing so much had its thrill.

In the morning Tighe woke with a drinker’s head; his eyes were sore and his head throbbed. He was intensely thirsty and he stumbled unsteadily along ledges and up a stairway to a standing pipe, his slave girl following on behind.

There was an injured man at the pipe, wearing the yellow bandana of slavery. It was a common sight: a slave filling jars with water to carry back to his master’s house – except that this slave had only one leg. Tighe didn’t think he had ever seen a one-legged slave before.

The man balanced on a crutch that fitted under his armpit and was tied round that shoulder with a tether. Tighe barged him out of the way, forcing him to drop his jar and he cried out in terror, fearful that it would break and he would have to explain its loss to his master. But Tighe had a dry mouth and needed the drink.

After he had finished, he turned on the slave. ‘How clumsy you are with your single wobbly leg! You can’t keep your balance, you fool.’

The slave was sitting on the ground, his one good leg and his crutch stretched out before him. The pot was unbroken. Something twitched in Tighe’s memory. He dropped to his haunches and looked carefully at the slave’s face.

‘I’m sorry, Master,’ mumbled the slave, his eyes on the floor.

‘You have a name,’ said Tighe, slowly.

‘No slave has a name, Master,’ said the slave humbly. ‘A slave is only a slave.’

‘You’re Mulvaine, I think,’ said Tighe.

The slave twitched, but kept his eyes on the floor. ‘No slave has a name, Master,’ he said again.

‘Mulvaine!’ said Tighe, his heart tumbling in his chest with joy.
‘Mulvaine – it’s me! Tighe – you remember … the platon? The army? We carried you into the Meshwood – Mulvaine –’ He reached out and touched his severed leg, cut off high up near the hip. ‘I thought you were dead, I truly did. Your leg!’

The slave, tentatively, looked up at Tighe. ‘This is another lifetime, Master,’ he said, in a wobbly voice.

‘A year ago, no more,’ said Tighe. ‘Tighe! You remember.’

Mulvaine, a distant focus coming over his eyes, started trembling. Tears were coming out of his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but only sobs emerged.

‘Why do slaves cry all the time?’ Tighe demanded.

‘Tighe,’ said the slave in a low voice. ‘I can’t bear to think of my life before. It’s too painful.’

‘Come,’ said Tighe, with sudden determination. ‘Come, take me to your master and I’ll buy you. I’ll buy you!’

Mulvaine’s master was a wrinkled man. He had fought in the war in a senior position as an Otre officer, Mulvaine explained to Tighe as he hobbled along, and had been wounded in the foot. Surgeons had removed the foot, and he had taken Mulvaine on as a slave because he did not want a slave who was more whole than he was himself. ‘It flatters his sense of himself, I think,’ said Mulvaine, ‘to order me about. I have less leg than he, for all his missing foot.’

‘My foot is broken too,’ said Tighe, ‘although not missing, for which I am very glad. But I think this man would rather have my two valuable jewels, and perhaps my slave, in exchange for you with your crutch and your ugly face!’

But Mulvaine’s master was a stubborn old man. He lived with two other veterans of the war in a narrow corridor-like room high in the city. The other two old men shared a female slave between them; but Mulvaine’s master was attached to him. ‘But see these jewels!’ said Tighe. ‘See how valuable they are! They’re worth far more than this cripple.’

‘I’m
used
to him,’ said the old man, scratching his stubbly chin. ‘What good would those jewels do me?’

‘You could buy five slaves with this!’

‘What use would I have for five slaves?’

‘Well, you could buy anything you like. And I’ll give you my own slave in part exchange.’

‘Don’t like the look of her. Diseased look. She’ll not last the winter.’

Tighe became more and more exasperated. ‘Now, don’t be stubborn,’ he warned.

‘You young barbarian,’ said the old man, becoming heated, ‘I
commanded a dozen men! I gave my foot to the war! I’ll not have you coming in here, calling me names.’

Tighe himself had taken on a more arrogant manner since coming to the city. He quailed before the anger of the man, before telling himself that he was a man now. ‘But these are unusual, precious jewels,’ he insisted. ‘You’d be a fool to pass this by.’

‘Are you calling me a fool now?’

‘I say what I see,’ said Tighe.

‘Fool! I commanded a dozen men!’ The old man reached up his staff, which he used to lean on when he walked, and made a pass at Tighe’s head. Tighe leant back and the end of the stick swished past. ‘How dare you!’ the old man blustered.

At the far end of the long, narrow room the two other old men cackled at their compatriot’s impotent rage.

‘Only a fool would turn down so excellent an offer,’ said Tighe coolly, encouraged by the mockery from the others.

The old man’s face darkened in pure rage and he struggled to get to his feet, the better to be able to beat Tighe with his stick. Tighe leaned forward and pressed him back into his seat with a firm hand on his shoulder. The old boy struggled like a tantrum-struck baby, gasping and spluttering. There was a loud exhalation and his eyes glazed. He fell back into his chair, his face in a rictus of astonished pain.

Tighe stepped back uncertain what had happened. The other two old men were stumping up from the far end of the room.

‘He’s dead!’ said one.

‘Died of apoplexy!’ said the other.

‘Apoplexy!’ said the first, with a tone almost of glee.

The second old man prodded the corpse with his own walking stick, and then turned to Tighe. ‘You taunted him to death.’

‘Taunted him to
death
!’ gloated the other.

‘Accidentally,’ said Tighe, hurriedly.