The Factory Trilogy 01 - Gleam (23 page)

The food was rapidly turning to ash in his mouth, but his body was demanding that he eat it anyway, and though his mood did not lift, as he filled his stomach, he felt his mind and body immediately growing stronger. He had not realised how hungry he’d been.

*

Alan ducked beneath the curtained base of the Giving Beast, looked up and drew his breath. There was a strong floral scent with earthy, musty notes. The interior was humming with a low, repetitive chant: the Pilgrims were singing. It sounded like it was coming from up above. There was a fat central stalk with a wooden door in it, he noted, and wooden steps spiralling up and around that reached up and split into branches that supported the cap – although ‘cap’ probably wasn’t the right word.
Canopy
, maybe. The underside of the canopy was orange, and ribbed with thick white horizontal ridges like shelves, almost. They reminded him of the wooden walkways spiralling around the inside of the tower they were in. They were busy with Pilgrims, who at first glance appeared to be doing something to the sponge-like gills of the canopy. Then Alan realised that there were bodies tucked into the gills: the patients, packed like larvae in a honeycomb, with their heads sticking out. They were out on gurneys of some sort, and the Pilgrims were able to slide them out and back in again. The air was thick with motes of dust that—No, they were spores, dancing in the light. The light came from glass jars that hung on
ropes; they were filled with some brightly glowing sludge, fermenting mushrooms, Alan decided, upon closer inspection. They were as bright as paraffin lamps.

Then the Giving Beast ‘inhaled’, the canopy expanded and everything receded. There must have been some elasticity in it. The Pilgrims on the ridges didn’t react at all – they just carried on with their work – but Alan wobbled on his feet and nearly fell over. He reached out a hand to the ground to steady himself, and then everything came closer again. The effect was disorientating, especially when coupled with the spores. It was like he’d actually taken something: lemonsnake extract, or some of Spider’s pipeweed.

But none of that was as strange as what he then noticed: high up, at the very top of the canopy, a great glass globe was nestled in amongst the branches of the stalk. It looked like the Sanctuary had grown around it; it was entirely a part of the structure, and surrounding it were Pilgrims, kneeling on branches and small wooden platforms attached to the branches. It was they who were chanting. They faced the globe and one by one would get to their feet, approach the glass and press their foreheads to it.

There was just one thing he could see in the globe: points of pale green, stark against something dark. They were as bright and alluring to Alan as the stars of the night sky.

He’d found them.

Alan went to the bottom of the staircase that wound around the Sanctuary’s central pillar. It was a stalk, a stem, a pillar, or maybe even a leg, but he wasn’t sure if this was a mushroom, an animal or a building. Most likely it was all three. Before ascending, he reached out to the handle of the thick wooden door.

‘Can I help you?’

Alan turned to see Weddle standing there, smiling toothily, his arms folded, hands buried in the opposite sleeves of his grey cloak. He hadn’t even realised that Weddle had been nearby.

‘I was just wondering what was inside?’

‘Yes, yes, of course – that’s our storage room, but it is off-limits to visitors, yes? For our medicines, that kind of thing. Very valuable. Very dangerous, in the wrong hands.’

‘Sounds like exactly the kind of door I don’t want to open,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay well clear.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Weddle nodded. Then, loudly, ‘Better had!’ He threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

Alan hovered, one foot on the ground, one foot on the bottom step. After listening to Weddle laugh for a moment too long, he pointed upwards. ‘What about going upstairs?’ he asked. ‘Can I do that?’

‘Yes, yes, of course – why wouldn’t you be able to?’

‘Thank you,’ Alan said, but Weddle was already trundling off, laughing quietly to himself.

Alan really didn’t want to open the door. He didn’t want to cause any trouble, not here.
It must be the spores
, he thought,
affecting my mind. Changing my behaviour
, but it still left some deep part of him unaffected, able to reflect on himself, as if he’d been split into an actor and an observer.
Will they affect Churr in the same way if she discovers what’s inside the trunk?

He spiralled up and around, passing Pilgrims on their way down and being overtaken by others racing past him on the way up. The chanting grew louder. There were Pilgrims with small vials of dried mushrooms, others with blood on their robes bearing trays loaded with salves and compresses and cutting tools. He could hear the occasional scream and, as he watched, a group of Pilgrims used a pulley to raise a trolley up to one of the shelves and then lifted the occupant – a person with crocodile arms? – into a vacant gill. Alan was pretty sure that ‘gill’ wasn’t the correct term for one of the small, irregularly
shaped compartments that the canopy afforded, but that’s what he would call them.

A door he hadn’t noticed suddenly opened next to him, and a Pilgrim popped out of the central trunk, wheeling a trolley on which stood a steaming kettle and some mismatched cups, mugs and teapots. Before the Pilgrim closed the door after himself, Alan caught a brief glimpse of a dumbwaiter-type contraption with deep shelves packed with jars, bottles, vials, bags, and various instruments that he could not identify. He continued upwards as the tea-Pilgrim bustled off along a branch and started handing out the drinks.

And then he reached his destination. The chanting was loud and powerful up here, and the sound was somehow circular; and he realised that the Pilgrims were performing it in the round. He was ascending into the middle of their company and he could feel their eyes on him from amongst the branches. But he wasn’t here to cause trouble. He just wanted to have a look.

There were no visible openings or stoppers in the glass globe; it appeared to be completely hermetic. And it was full of life: thick, glossy leaves pressed against the glass, and pale pink flowers with rich red veins unfurled further in, and right in the middle was a lump of stone, or maybe a large wooden log, from which all of the plants grew. Vibrant green mosses spilled from this central object in cascades that looked like waterfalls. Lichens covered unknown objects and ferns pushed through everything
else. Condensation misted the glass at the top; at the bottom was clear brown water.

And here and there on the central object were small, unassuming, pale green mushrooms. They looked dull and inconspicuous, but they burned brightly in Alan’s eyes.

‘What is this?’ he breathed. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

‘The Terrarium,’ a Pilgrim replied. This individual was not as friendly as Ippil or Weddle; she was big, and strong-looking, with a neck like a toad’s and eyebrows like masses of spider legs.

Alan thought the Pilgrim would elaborate, but she didn’t.

‘Is it … important?’ he asked eventually.

‘It is everything to us,’ the Pilgrim replied. ‘It is the heart and soul of the Pale Goddess, and the Pale Goddess is at the root of everything. She is buried deep in our core, as we are in hers. The Terrarium is where we come to thank her, and where we come to pay our obeisance.’

‘So it’s part of her? I mean, part of the Goddess? The Sanctuary?’

‘What is it you want, man?’ the Pilgrim asked. ‘I’m trying to worship.’

‘I wanted the mushrooms,’ Alan said, pointing. He realised what he’d said as soon as he’d said it and clapped a hand over his mouth.

The Pilgrim looked at him angrily.

‘I didn’t mean to say that,’ Alan said. ‘Bloody
hell
.’

‘We do
not
curse in the presence of the Goddess,’ the Pilgrim said. ‘This is a sacred place. And we do
not
reach into her soul so that we can pilfer it for our own gain. Now,’ she said, and she prodded Alan’s chest with a finger, ‘you will be gone from here and you will not come back. You profane us.’

Alan cast a brief glance back at the Terrarium and hurried away, back down the trunk.

He tried to process what he’d seen in that last look. The object suspended in the middle of the Terrarium was not a stone block or a tree stump; it was a huge, leather-bound book, sodden and rotting, and from it grew all of the vines, the ferns, the flowers, the lichens and the mosses. And the mushrooms.

*

‘Idle Hands was a parasitic fungus,’ Ippil said. ‘It came before my time. It devastated much of the Low Discard. The outbreak came from an exploratory mission into the Sump, and the Pilgrims were best placed to deal with it because of our location, and because of our experience in healing. It has not been reported since, though the Discard is a big place.’

‘And what was it?’ Alan asked.

Ippil, Churr, Nora and Spider followed suit, then Ippil continued, ‘The first symptom took weeks to manifest, but when it did it was moving hands: a sufferer’s
fingers would bend and wiggle, and they wouldn’t be able to control them. Then their hands would start shaking. That was partly how it got its name.’ She looked around. ‘It was a very unpleasant disease. I don’t know if I should elaborate while you’re eating.’

‘Please,’ Spider said, through a mouthful of little birds. Crumbs flecked his beard. ‘Do continue.’

‘All right. This was a fungus that thrived inside the human body, and in order to replicate itself, it made its way into the sufferer’s mind and prompted them to pass it on. The second symptom was usually paranoia, which would develop into full-blown murderousness – this indicated that the fungus was well and truly embedded in the host’s brain, physically growing in there. Eventually, it would take over the brain, and the host would be little more than an ambulatory unit, carrying the fungus around until it was ready to spill from the host’s eyes, ears and mouth. Most strikingly, it would soften the top of the skull and erupt from there in the form of two long, curved horns. And that’s the second part of how it got its name.’

Alan looked confused.

‘Idle Hands,’ Nora said. ‘Idle hands make the devil’s work.’

‘That’s a sentiment I can’t quite get behind.’

‘It’s something you can joke about now,’ Ippil said, ‘but the outbreak was brutal: people turning on each other; families ripped apart. There was a lot of bloodshed. And
the elders say that it was incredibly difficult to treat. If the fungus takes hold, then it controls
all
the body parts, even bits that have been amputated.’

‘So how was it treated?’

‘Well, I told you that the various powers and potencies of the mushrooms are a consequence of where we are. We believe that what the Pyramid dumps into the Sump is magical, and that as a consequence of the rising swamp, that magic is leaching out. It is our belief that this magic is causing these various afflictions throughout the Low Discard; making people ill, making them mad, making them … different. And that’s why they’re drawn here: they’re drawn to the source of their condition.’

‘Why would they be drawn to the source?’

‘It’s a theory,’ Ippil said, ‘that’s all. Once we suppose the presence of magic, though, it’s difficult to rule anything out.’

‘The corruption –
I
can feel it,’ Nora said. ‘It is a corruption of Gleam’s spirit. If Gleam itself is somehow magical, and if these people are indeed touched by magic, then it is possible that they can feel the corruption too.’

‘Why would they head towards anything that feels like a corruption, though?’

‘It’s not them, it’s the magic – the magic is compelling them.’

‘Hang on,’ Alan said. ‘Idle Hands – let’s go back to that.’

‘We use our experience and what understanding we do have to manage the growth of various fungi. Back then,
the Pilgrims were experimenting with growing a fungal antidote, but they were working in the dark. Many of the effects of these mushrooms – again, this is just our belief, but it is based on decades of experience – are magical, so they thought they’d try to manipulate the magic in the mushrooms. They were good with the fungus, but they knew little to nothing about magic and it took them a long time, while all around them, the world was falling apart.’

‘But they succeeded.’

‘That is correct: they did. They hit upon a new strain; not a fungus like Idle Hands, but a mushroom that could be cut up, dried and ingested. It could not undo any damage done by Idle Hands to the host’s brain, but it could halt it, and it did negate the aggressive urges.’

‘It stopped the spread.’

‘That is correct.’

‘So that’s why you don’t open the Seal.’

‘That is correct.’

‘And that’s why we can’t know what the Pyramid is making.’

Ippil nodded silently.

‘But,’ Nora said, ‘we know that Idle Hands is something they made.’

Ippil nodded again.

‘Good point,’ Alan said. ‘But … if you’ve got an antidote, why the fear of Idle Hands?’

‘There are dangerous side effects, but mostly, the
reason is that the antidote is very hard to grow. There is only one culture in which we can keep it alive, and it does not support a large crop.’

‘The Terrarium,’ Alan said. ‘The little pale green mushrooms.’

‘That is correct,’ Ippil said.

Alan ran a hand through his hair. ‘For fuck’s
sake
,’ he said.

Ippil pointed a finger at Alan. ‘We do
not
curse in relation to the Terrarium,’ she said, her face transformed in anger. ‘You need to learn to hold your tongue, Alan.’

The others murmured their agreement. ‘Why does the nature of Green’s Benediction upset you so?’

‘That’s what it’s called, is it?’

‘It is.’

‘Well,’ Alan said. He paused. ‘The truth is …’ he said, trying again, but he didn’t get much further. He could see Churr slowly shaking her head at him while Ippil wasn’t looking, mouthing the word ‘no’.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘Ippil, it’s what I came for.’

Ippil’s expression froze, and she said nothing.

‘Don’t look at me like that. It can’t be unusual. You must get people coming down here for them all the time.’

‘We certainly do not. Why would we? Idle Hands is not a threat any more. We have the only specimen left.’

‘I
know
that the Mushroom Queen had some of these, so one of your Pilgrims must have supplied them. Somebody here must be trading them.’

‘Well, yes: the Mushroom Queen
could
have some. Dried, they last indefinitely. And Daunt is our only trading partner with regard to Green’s Benedictions, so she might have some from previous giftings. But the issue is that they are not for us to harvest. We cannot simply open the Terrarium and take them. The Giving Beast releases them in accordance with its own cycles. So, no matter how desperately you want them, you cannot have them. No matter how far you have come, they are not yours to take. Another possibility, of course, is that the Benedictions you encountered were fake. Some Tunnellers perhaps, dyed green with the juice of refinery beetles.’

‘They were
not
fake,’ Alan said, angry with himself for not considering that. Though if they
had
been fake, it was a good job he’d lost them, instead of giving them to Tromo in good faith.

‘How do you know?’

Alan cast about for an answer. ‘She
really
wanted them back,’ he said. ‘She was going to great lengths for them if they were not genuine.’

‘Regardless,’ Ippil said, her voice even, yet steely, ‘coming here to secure some for yourself was a mistake. We cannot sanction a breach of the Terrarium, and besides, we are, first and foremost,
healers
, not one of your topside gangs, looking to make a profit by peddling poisons to the desperate. Nor are we here to supply such parasites. We trade with Daunt, but only out of necessity. Our preference would be to offer something else in
return for goods, but, unfortunately, we have nothing else to offer.’

She stood up. ‘I thought you were here because you had brought your friend, but your motives are far from altruistic. I am going to have to ask you to leave.’ She frowned. ‘All of you.’

‘But—’ Churr started.

‘No.’ Ippil had turned white with rage. ‘You have come to steal from us. You are not worthy of our hospitality. You are not worthy of the Giving Beast. And you are not welcome.’

‘What about Eyes?’ Spider asked.

Ippil thought for a moment. ‘You can go to see him, but then you must leave. You can wait for him out in the swamp. You have half an hour before I send Pilgrims to enforce your banishment. Remember: you are now being watched.’

She turned and swept away, head down, almost vibrating with fury.

‘So,’ Alan said.