The Factory Trilogy 01 - Gleam (22 page)

Some had little to no control over their bodies or bodily functions. Others had bits visibly missing, or clutched at their bodies like they were missing something internally. Sometimes there were wounds, sometimes there were smooth, bloodless holes – one woman had a perfect circle cut out of her middle so that you could see through her, and yet she was staggering along, still alive. There was a little boy with a forest of long, sharp spines growing from his back, wincing as if every footstep hurt. A whole family couldn’t stop blue fluid pouring from their noses. An enormous man had a tiny version of himself sitting on his shoulder, and then Alan noticed an even smaller copy tucked into his shirt pocket.

Some of these were not afflictions; ‘conditions’ might be a better description, or – and the word came to Alan unbidden –
effects
. But the effects of
what
?

Eventually it was their turn to climb the ladder. Nora went first, and then Alan, who carried Eyes on his back. Eyes was still breathing, but shallowly now, and his face was emaciated. He was much easier to carry than he had been, so much weight had he lost. Spider followed Alan, and Churr came last.

Alan had no idea what to expect when he crested the broken edge, but even so, he was momentarily stunned.

The first thing was the smell. It was not the swamp stink that had permeated everything for days on end now, but something earthy, pungent and rich. It made him hungry. Then the sight: he was looking down into
something as busy and intricate as an ants’ nest, except that the tiny grey things hurrying around beneath him were not insects, but people: bald men and women wearing uniform dark robes, their hems sweeping along walkways made of wood or platforms that were … they were mushrooms, Alan saw: large, flat mushrooms growing from the interior walls of the structure. The walls were liberally scattered with torches that burned and shed good light, and much of the stone and wood itself was luminous with what he presumed were some other kinds of fungus.

There was no swamp in here, though the building was tall – or, rather, deep – and obviously extended far below the level of the swamp surface, so the swamp must be pressing in all around. All those tons of sludge: the very thought of it made Alan cold. There was fluid running down the walls, and long green streaks of slimy lichen. The wooden walkways spiralled down round the interior, spanning the gaps between the giant mushrooms, all the way down to the distant bottom, where – Alan squinted to see properly – it looked as if a massive white tent gently inhaled and exhaled. He knew that didn’t really make sense, but that was the impression that he had. And then he realised that he could
hear
it. As the white thing expanded and collapsed, there was a sound like breathing, except … except it was almost musical, like the sound of air passing through a squeezebox. He could see people going in and out of the white thing, and
judged that it was about the size of a large house. He suddenly felt vertiginous.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he said, but Nora shook her head and no one else said a word.

They clambered down a ladder and dropped down onto a wooden platform that mirrored the one on the outside. Spider and Churr were behind them. From here, they could go down to the left, or one that led to the right. Alan was so busy trying to absorb it all that he missed the figure standing right in front of him.

‘Greetings,’ said a smiling woman wearing a clean grey robe, ‘my name is Ippil. Welcome to Dok.’

‘Thank you,’ Alan said uncertainly.

‘What are your symptoms?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘With what are you suffering?’

‘I’m not – I’m not ill.’

‘Your friend, the one on your back. You came with him? What are his symptoms?’

‘Um – his eyes are gone. He’s blind. But recently he got an infection and it’s bad, it’s got into him deep. He won’t wake up.’

‘Well then, you brought him to the right place. We will take him from you and do what we can.’ Ippil gestured to another woman standing next to a trolley, who came and helped Alan lift Eyes onto it. She wrapped a blanket round him and went to take him away.

‘Wait,’ Alan said, ‘where’s she taking him?’

‘The Sanctuary,’ Ippil replied, waving the woman with the trolley away. ‘The creature below.’

‘What?’

‘The Pale Goddess. The Sanctuary. The Giving Beast.’ Ippil pointed. ‘The big mushroom at the bottom.’

Other travellers were constantly arriving on the platform and being dispatched to the left or the right by people in robes. Mostly, like Eyes, they were being directed leftwards.

Alan looked down at the Sanctuary. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘We are the Pilgrims,’ Ippil said. She opened her arms wide. ‘This is where we’re led, and this is where we stay. Now, if you came in order to bring your friend and you yourselves are not ill, then you take the right hand path. But first, hold out your arms.’

Alan looked at Nora, who nodded, and the four of them held their arms out straight in front of them.

Ippil walked along the row, carefully studying their hands. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You’re okay.’ She smiled again. ‘You can go now.’

Alan set off before Ippil could change her mind, though he wanted to know why she had checked their hands. She made him uneasy.

‘We’re not safe here,’ Nora whispered, as they followed the spiral down. ‘I can feel it. It’s down there.’ She pointed down towards the Sanctuary. ‘The corruption.’

‘That’s it? The Giving Beast?’

‘No. It is deeper than that. But not much.’ She looked around for Churr, and then took her hand and the two of them walked on together.

‘The corruption,’ Alan said. ‘Are you starting to get the feeling that that’s what we came for?’

On their way down they noticed Pilgrims dangling from ropes, gently plucking outlandish-looking mushrooms from the walls. They placed their spoils gently into muslin bags that they then dropped over their shoulders into open backpacks. They worked with practised ease, quickly and confidently, never dropping a thing. Churr and Nora exchanged glances, and Alan thought he knew why. The backpacks were the same as the ones Daunt’s mushroom gatherers had been carrying.
Maybe Daunt’s gatherers are not truly gatherers
, he thought.
Maybe ‘thieves’ was a better word for them
.

The deeper they went, the more the fungi, Alan noted, but the wall within reach of the walkway was completely harvested – presumably so that visitors or patients could not help themselves. Obviously the Pilgrims knew they were potent, or valuable. Maybe Daunt’s gatherers were not even thieves – perhaps they had just come here and
bought
them. Alan’s lip curled.
So much for the brave explorers!

But he was jumping ahead. He didn’t know how it worked yet, and more importantly, he still hadn’t spotted any of the pale green caps that he’d come for, though he’d seen every other colour under the sun, and a fair few that he suspected could only be found down here, far, far away from the sun: bright reds, ill greens, rich purples, stinging yellows, glowing whites, shiny blacks, strange pointed things and low, flat ones. There were big, bulbous, powdery puffballs that were mostly coloured orange-brown; masses of tiny bats swarmed around them, flicking out long tongues to gather the powder. Alan didn’t know much about mushrooms, other than their effects when ingested, but that struck him as unusual.

Churr was almost salivating. ‘There!’ she whispered, just about resisting the urge to point. ‘Look: old Green’s teeth! And there, spirit wings! Tunnellers! Dream-meat! Toadhats!’

‘Stop it,’ Alan hissed. ‘They’ll think we’ve come thieving!’

‘Any idea how many bugs all this could fetch? A fucking mountain! Why doesn’t Daunt just march on down here and take it? That’s what I’d do. That’s what I
will
do.’

‘I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t do it until
after
I’ve got what I want.’

‘I’m not sure that was the deal, was it?’

‘Just …’ Alan fell silent.

‘I really do bring out the cock in you, don’t I?’

‘Doesn’t take much, to be fair,’ Alan muttered. ‘It’s pretty close to the surface.’

Nobody spoke.

‘Might want to rephrase that,’ Spider suggested.

‘Shut up,’ Alan said as Nora giggled. ‘All of you, shut up.’

They descended the rest of the way in silence.

*

They were met at the bottom of the walkway by an older Pilgrim who’d done a bad job of shaving his head and had a couple of missing teeth. He introduced himself as Weddle as he gave them a thorough look up and down.

‘So, you’re here with a sick friend, yes?’

‘Oh,’ Alan said, ‘yes. Yes, that’s right.’

‘Yes, yes. Very well. Yes, then, if you’d like to follow me, I will show you to your rooms.’ He gave a little bow and hurried off. He was small, but he moved quickly.

‘Our rooms?’ Alan said, following. ‘But we don’t have any bugs—’

‘Yes, no, well, we don’t use bugs here,’ Weddle said.

‘Then how do you know how long we can stay?’

Weddle turned, looking confused. ‘You will stay until your friend is better, yes?’

‘Well – yes, but—’

‘Very well,’ Weddle said, and he was off again.

Alan guessed the Pilgrims could afford to house everyone because the rooms they offered were cells, really. Compared to the accommodation at the Safe Houses, or
in the Pyramid, they were tiny and rank, not exactly desirable. You had to bend over in order to fit in, and the original-structure concrete walls were stained green. The ancient mattresses were lumpy and damp. Instead of proper doors, they had lockable gates.

And even so, Alan felt his heart lift when Weddle gestured at one with another slight bow. His own cell! A bed! An actual, proper bed! And a lock! After Green knew how many nights spent out in the swamp, or in Glasstown, or on the Oversight, this was luxury.

He locked the gate, threw himself onto the bed and kicked off his boots, wincing at the smell. Spider took the room opposite him, and his actions mirrored Alan’s almost exactly. Nora was next door, and he thought that Churr was opposite her, though he couldn’t tell without leaving his room and looking. ‘I might go to sleep,’ he shouted, then, ‘That’s it! I’m going to go to sleep!’

‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ Churr replied.

Nora didn’t say anything, and Spider was already snoring.

But he couldn’t sleep. He could almost feel the swamp pressing in whenever he closed his eyes. Instead of darkness, he saw Marion’s bruised face, and he saw Billy. he kept imagining his son being kept in a cell like this. The Pyramid had its own dungeons – Eyes had told him about them, though he hadn’t gone into detail and Alan hadn’t pushed the man; it was obvious that the memories were too painful for him to fully recount.

He couldn’t keep Eyes’ visage from his mind either. That ravaged face, all the pain he’d suffered – and so much of it recently, on this half-cocked quest to come and collect a bag of bloody mushrooms. Eyes was the one who’d taken the fall, time and time again. And maybe he wouldn’t even come back. The Pilgrims sounded confident in their abilities, but … Alan had fully expected Eyes to die before they’d reached Dok, and he still wasn’t sure.

He sat up when he realised that, and hit his head hard on the stone ceiling. ‘Fuck,’ he said, and touched his scalp gingerly. No blood. He slipped off the bed and sat on the floor with his back against the wall. He
had
been expecting Eyes to die, and yet he hadn’t acknowledged that until now, not even to himself. Marion had always said he was good at compartmentalising, but he hadn’t realised just
how
good.

He wanted a drink, and he wanted a body to hold close. The urge for physical intimacy roared in furiously whenever he had a moment’s peace; it was as sudden and profound as drunkenness. He wanted some of those damn mushrooms, too.

Maybe the Pilgrims could help him out on that front. It might take his mind off all the other stuff, anyway.

He unlocked and opened his gate as quietly as he could, and then set off down the long corridor back to the central hall.

*

The Sanctuary was a soft, white globe that expanded and collapsed almost as if it were breathing. Air rushed in and
then out via a series of gills along its side, creating the squeezebox sound that Alan had heard from the top of Dok. It looked like a mushroom itself – a gigantic puffball – but Alan had eaten puffball back at the House of a Thousand Hollows and knew that they were generally solid. And they didn’t breathe. But then, this was Dok, and things seemed different here.

Close up, he could appreciate the true size of the thing. Pilgrims hurried in and out, pushing trolleys and carrying baskets through its frilly, fringed base as if they were merely passing through bead curtains. Seeing them next to it like that, Alan estimated it was big enough to contain four good-sized storeys, and plenty of people. The trolleys the Pilgrims were pushing in and out bore people, usually moaning in pain or gibbering softly to themselves, though a few of the trolleys coming out were empty, and occasionally stained. Many Pilgrims were wearing the mushroom-collecting backpacks.

‘Curious?’ came a voice from behind him; a familiar voice.

‘Yes,’ Alan said, turning. ‘Ippil, right?’

‘That is correct.’ Ippil smiled.

‘I
am
curious,’ Alan said. ‘I’m tired, too. I’m a lot of things right now. I’m in danger of being overwhelmed – or maybe I was overwhelmed already and now I’m just … I’m just going through the motions.’ He waved a hand. ‘I’m walking and talking like a real person, but in
truth something crashed through me recently and I think it took all of the important parts away.’

‘When was this?’

‘I can’t pinpoint the exact moment. Maybe it wasn’t even that recently. Maybe it happened some time ago.’

‘You do look exhausted,’ she said. ‘And emaciated. You and your companions need to eat, and perhaps then you will feel a little more human.’

‘What do you eat down here? Mushrooms?’

Ippil shook her head, and laughed. ‘No – well, not any that grow here. Nothing that grows – or lives – here can be eaten for sustenance. Our crops are for medicinal purposes only.’

‘Your crops? You’re … fungus farmers?’

‘That is correct,’ Ippil said again. ‘The swamp imbues these walls with properties that are perfect for our needs. Of course, the swamp is also the cause of many of the afflictions we try to treat, but’ – she sighed – ‘such is the nature of things.’

‘So what do you eat?’

‘The mushroom people trade with us. They supply us with food from the – what do they call them? The Archway Gardens? Food, and other essentials.’

‘The mushroom people – the guys covered with the mushroom tattoos?’

‘Yes,’ Ippil said, and then, after a moment, ‘That is correct.’

Alan pursed his lips. ‘I’ve got a lot of questions,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to work out where to start.’

‘People often find it difficult to gather their thoughts when first exposed to the Giving Beast,’ Ippil said. ‘It’s partly because of its physical strangeness, but mostly because it fills the air with spores that affect the mind. It encourages honesty, and peace. So some people – people who, for example, try to focus on one thing at a time, or mask certain aspects of themselves in order to present one particular facet, or achieve one particular goal – suddenly find themselves unable to function in the manner to which they are accustomed. Everything they repress comes to the surface and they find themselves telling the truth, even to perfect strangers – and even if doing so is detrimental to their aims.’

Alan opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again.

‘In addition,’ Ippil continued, acknowledging Alan’s reticence with a brief smile, ‘it aids us with our healing. It calms down our patients, many of whom are distressed, and it provides an environment conducive to recuperation. It does not necessarily heal people, but it seems to slow the progress of various conditions and diseases.’

‘So it is a mushroom?’ Alan asked. ‘It is a big giant mushroom?’

‘It’s a fungus,’ Ippil replied, ‘but it is much more than that.’

‘And it just happened to grow in the exact right spot? Right in the middle of this sunken tower where you can grow all these other mushrooms that heal people?’

‘It
is
one of the mushrooms that heals people.’

‘And they’re all just mysteriously drawn to it?’

‘No, they’re not drawn to the Sanctuary; they’re drawn to what rests
beneath
the Sanctuary.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘The Sump,’ Ippil said, frowning. She moved her hand in front of her face in a gesture like a cross, or maybe a mushroom. Either way, it was clearly a gesture of warding. ‘It’s where the Pyramid’s produce ends up. The fruits of its folly, and of its labours.’

‘I used to live in the Pyramid,’ Alan said. ‘The Pyramid doesn’t produce anything.’

Ippil gazed seriously into his eyes. ‘I know you’re telling the truth,’ she said, ‘but you’re wrong.’

‘The afflicted, then,’ Alan said. ‘They’re drawn to what the Pyramid puts out.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘We don’t know, exactly. For the past few decades we have kept the Seal closed – ever since Idle Hands.’

‘Okay,’ Alan said. ‘I want to know what Idle Hands is, but this is all too much. Earlier you mentioned food. Maybe we could continue this conversation over a meal?’

‘Later,’ Ippil said. ‘Go and get yourself something to eat. I have to attend within the Sanctuary, but I will meet you back here in four hours. For the kitchens, head around to the other side of the Sanctuary and beneath the wide archway.’

‘Can I go in? To the Sanctuary? I want to see my friend.’

‘You can, but you won’t be able to see him yet. Tomorrow, maybe. It depends on his recovery … if he recovers.’

‘Okay. Thank you, Ippil.’

Ippil smiled and left, and Alan watched her slip through the fringes of the Sanctuary and disappear from view.

The kitchens were long, with a low ceiling. Communal tables ran the length of the room. Even here the grey stone walls were slightly damp, though no mushrooms grew on them. Pilgrims and patients sat side by side, eating from tin plates that they’d filled themselves from a row of big bowls at the far end. Behind the bowls, yet more Pilgrims, dressed here for the heat, were sweating over fires and ovens. The room was redolent with the smell of fried onions and something that Alan hadn’t smelled in a long time: roasting meat. And proper meat, too – dog or cat or goat or something, not snail or snake or slug. It was clear Daunt was keeping the Pilgrims well supplied; this wasn’t just swapping a sack of potatoes for a bag of mushrooms. There must be caravans supplying the Sanctuary every day. How was she doing it?

And how could Churr ever compete? They’d been under the impression that Daunt’s people were fighters and explorers who braved killer hornets and starvation and ten-headed swamp monsters in order to pluck the mushrooms from between the teeth of giant crocodiles, but that clearly wasn’t the case. She
traded
for them, and
that was worse, much worse. It was almost cheating. Churr couldn’t offer anything like that – she didn’t have the resources or the infrastructure. Being brave, clever and handy with a knife wasn’t going to be enough.

So what would Churr do now? And what would she expect
him
to do to help her? She’d fixed him up with Nora, and without her he would never have got here, so he did owe her, there was no doubt. And he owed her for being such a pig. But then, if Churr and Nora were together now, which they did appear to be, did Churr even need him at all?

Was he now surplus to requirements?

He shook himself, collected a plate and went to fill it up. Using a pair of wooden tongs he picked up some little round dog steaks, a heaping spoonful of oily potatoes, some roasted onions and a couple of tiny fried birds that he guessed you ate whole. They were delicious. Once he’d started eating, he couldn’t stop. It was a long time since he’d had food this good. He tried to work it out. The last time was probably … it was at Daunt’s, when he’d played at her feast; when he’d stolen the mushrooms. And he still hadn’t found a supply of them. He mustn’t forget why he was here. While he ate, he tried to work out how long he had left. Two weeks, he thought, and the journey down here had taken about a week and a half, so he didn’t have time to waste. If he didn’t get back to that fucker Tromo in two weeks, with the damned mushrooms, then Billy would pay the price, whatever the price was.