Red Sun Also Rises, A (12 page)

She said, “Oh!” and, for the first time since I’d met her, she did something typical of her gender.

She fainted.

° °

5. City
and
Home

Clarissa was unconscious for but a moment, then stood, leaned on me heavily, and said in a hoarse voice: “My goodness, Aiden!”

“Steady yourself,” I said. “You’ll get used to them, as I have.”

Lord Brittleback asked, “Who leads the Servants in this group?”

Spearjab pointed. “That one. Humph! Her name is Kata.”

“Much obliged, old fruit. Miss Kata! You’ll find the foreman’s office at the top of the main avenue. Will you take the Workers there, please? He’ll give them their assignments.”

Kata looked perplexed.

“Oops!” Brittleback exclaimed, realising he’d used English words to name things that had no meaning for the islanders—
foreman’s office; avenue; assignments
. “Hum!” he muttered. “This is bloody awkward!”

Mr. Sepik stepped forward and said, “I’ll deal with it, sir.”

“Ah, good fellow!”

Sepik ordered the Koluwaians and the six young Yatsill to gather in a group. While they were doing so, I stepped over to him and said, “Mr. Sepik, my companion and I were transported here from Koluwai. Do you come from that island?”

“No. I am from a neighbouring island,” he replied. “I was sailing to Koluwai to trade when a storm appeared over my boat. I was sucked into it and awoke here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I was just a boy.”

He ushered the group away, back in the direction we’d come, and I returned to Clarissa’s side.

The prime minister transferred his attention to the three new Aristocrats. “Hallo, chaps, what’re your names?”

“Lord Prosper Possibly, Prime Minister,” the first replied.

“Baroness Bellslant Jangle,” said the second.

“Earl Nesting Beardgrow, sir,” the third responded.

“Bloody excellent!” Brittleback exclaimed. “You go off with Colonel Spearjab and he’ll sort out estates for you.”

He received three nods of acquiescence.

Spearjab waved at me and said, “Cheery-bye, old thing!” then, “Toodle-pip, Miss Clarissa! Humph! Harrumph! What!” before leading his wards away.

The prime minister shouted after him, “Stop off at a tailor shop, Colonel! Have yourself and the nippers kitted out!”

He next addressed the remaining Aristocrats. “That goes for the rest of you, too. Clothes, please! Clothes! Can’t have you running around with bare shell on display! By the Saviour’s Eyes, it’s positively indecent!” He gestured toward the Ptall’kor. “And take this bloody thing back to its pasture, would you?”

The Yatsill named Sir Gracious Whipstripes stepped forward and said, “I regret to inform you, sir, that Tokula Pathamay was killed by an Amu’utu. He declared his name. We brought his remains back with us.”

“Blast it!” Brittleback exclaimed. “We can ill-afford the loss. Very well, make a detour, would you, and cast his remains into Phenadoor with all due ceremony. At least he’s gained that which is denied the rest of us, Saviour be praised!”

Whipstripes nodded and, with his colleagues, reboarded the Ptall’kor.

As the living vessel departed, Mademoiselle Clattersmash said, “If there’s nothing else, sir, I shall depart. I feel a wee bit out of sorts. Perhaps a Dar’sayn meditation will help. I shall go to the Temple of Magicians.”

“Out of sorts, old fruit? Probably exhaustion. The journey to the Shrouded Mountains is a bloody demanding one. Off you pop, then, Mademoiselle.”

She gave an awkward bob and went on her way. Lord Brittleback clapped his hands in satisfaction. He then spoke to Clarissa and me. “Well now! Your physical structure is a mite different from the other Servants’. Taller. Paler. Why is that?”

Clarissa found her voice and answered. “Because we aren’t Koluwaians, sir. Our origins lie elsewhere.”

“Humph! How odd! Well, let us not tarry here, hey? Parliament awaits! Don’t be concerned—they’ll ask you a lot of bloody questions, for certain, but I won’t allow the session to trundle on forever. You’ll be clothed, fed, watered, and housed in good measure. Come along! Come along! In we bloody well go!”

He ushered us up the steps. As I ascended, I again became aware of the heavier gravity. Clarissa felt it, too. “Phew!” she gasped as we reached the top. She stopped, turned, and surveyed the city that was fast growing around us. “I feel like I’m dreaming. It looks as if a crazed architect is re-creating London.”

“I can understand why Kata is feeling uneasy,” I noted. “It must be very unsettling for someone who’s only ever lived in the Koluwaian fashion.”

“Chop-chop!” Brittleback cried out. “Follow me, please!”

We walked behind him, past a Yatsill in the uniform of a concierge—though with the addition of a brightly decorated hedgehog-faced mask—through tall doors and into a high vaulted hallway. Its floor was inset with a colourful mosaic of irregularly shaped ceramic tiles. Wooden scaffolding had been erected against its walls, and far overhead, platforms stretched from one side of the space to the other, close to the ceiling. A Yatsill was up there, painting a bewildering mural.

Oil lamps cast a complex web of shadows around us as we proceeded along the corridor. The click-clack of Lord Brittleback’s feet echoed loudly, as did those of the various other Yatsill we saw hurrying back and forth between arched doorways that gave access to rooms to the right and left of us.

“There’s so much to bloody organise!” the prime minister declared. “Social and economic policies, regulations and mandates, infrastructure and administration, industry and leisure, this and that, one thing and another, whatchamacallits and thingamajigs.”

We stopped in front of another set of doors, lofty and narrow. Two Yatsill, dressed as Grenadier Guards and wearing duck masks, stood to either side of the portal. A great many muffled voices were audible from the chamber beyond.

“And this,” Brittleback continued, “is where all the decisions are made.” He reached up and grasped a handle. “Welcome to the House of Lords.”

After pulling the door open, the prime minister ushered us through into an enormous circular room with a raised circular dais at its centre surrounded on all sides by benches, which were set progressively higher from front to back, the rearmost ones being far away and at a considerable altitude. High overhead, the domed ceiling was inset with large panels of stained glass. The light that shone through them illuminated the vast space with a soft haziness, through which dust motes drifted lazily. Everything looked and smelled brand new.

The seats were packed with top-hatted and bonneted Yatsill.

We walked through a narrow passage, between seats, from the door to the stage, and as we drew closer to the platform the words of the individual who stood in the centre of it emerged from the general cacophony.

“. . . and, in conclusion, it must be evident to the right honourable ladies and gentlemen that these bladed weapons are far more suited to our needs than absurd and impractical projectile launchers. Those few who’ve urged the manufacturing of the latter are allowing themselves to be seduced by what
can
be done rather than by what
should
be done. I urge them to reconsider and to vote aye to this amendment, thus ensuring the City Guard is appropriately armed. What say you?”

The crowd roared, “Aye!”

A Yatsill seated behind a desk at the edge of the stage and dressed in red robes, a tricorn hat, and a very long curve-beaked bird mask, banged a gavel.

“The motion is passed!” he bellowed. “Thank you, Viscount Whoops Bumpknock. I now give the floor to Lord Upright Brittleback, the prime minister.”

The crowd cheered as Brittleback escorted us up onto the dais.

“My Lords, ladies, and gentlemen,” he announced, holding his arms outstretched. “None can deny that a dissonance has come among us. Indeed, one need only look at this magnificent chamber to see how significant its effects have been. I think it fair to say that we have all embraced this new permutation, and—”

“No!” someone shouted. “No, not all of us!”

The prime minister turned to the red-robed Yatsill and said, “Lord Speaker-Judge, I would—”

The gavel banged on the desk.

“I recognise the Right Honourable Yarvis Thayne,” Speaker-Judge announced.

Ten benches back, the Yatsill who’d objected stood up. The creature, an unusually thickset specimen, wore neither clothes nor a mask. “Thank you, Lord Speaker-Judge,” it said. “No, Prime Minister, not all of us have embraced the destruction of the old ways. Some of us ask why it is necessary. Some of us denounce the devastation of the forest and the replacement of perfectly serviceable tree houses with brick-built monstrosities.”

“Monstrosities, Yarvis Thayne?” Brittleback cried out. “Monstrosities? I see nothing monstrous in progress!”

“Progress? What for? We have long enjoyed stability and tranquillity. Why change?”

“In order to become more than we bloody well are, old fruit! By the Suns, what will you object to next? Our language? Our ability to think? Would you have us revert to an animal state though we’ve been blessed by the Saviour with intelligence? It won’t do! It won’t do at all! We, the Aristocrats, have the ability to shape this world. Whatever we do must assuredly be as the Saviour intends. Would you have us remain immobile merely because the divine plan is obscure to us? No, sir! No! I say forward! Forward, not backward, nor static!”

Most of the gathered Yatsill loosed hurrahs of approval. Shaking his head disapprovingly, Yarvis Thayne sat back down.

The prime minister gestured for quiet, and when the crowd had settled continued, “I have at my side the origin of the dissonance, Miss Clarissa Stark, and her companion, Mr. Aiden Fleischer. As you can see, they are, in form, rather peculiar.”

“Thank you,” Clarissa murmured.

“Indeed, they claim a different origin from that of the Servants.”

“Different?” came a distant voice from the backbenches. “How is that possible?”

“That, sir, is the very question we shall seek to answer now.” Brittleback turned to us. “I give you the floor, chaps. Would you explain?”

The crowd fell into an expectant silence.

I said, “Um.”

Clarissa touched my arm and whispered, “May I, Aiden?”

I nodded. “Please.”

My companion surveyed the gathered Yatsill. Raising her voice, she declared, “We are of the same species as the Servants but our origins lie far from their birthplace, which is called Koluwai. We are from Great Britain, on the other side of the planet Earth.”

I saw masks turn as the Yatsill looked at one another.

“From the great where on the other side of the what?” Brittleback asked.

There then commenced one of the most frustrating debates imaginable. Again and again, Clarissa attempted to describe our world, but no matter what her choice of words, they were quite obviously lost on the Yatsill, who failed utterly to comprehend even the notion of continents, let alone the idea that Ptallaya was one planet among many.

Clarissa attempted to describe the differences between humans; tried to explain how racial characteristics, or culture, or both, separate the nations of Earth; tried to make it clear that Ptallaya and Earth were globes floating in a vast void; but, plainly, to the Yatsill it was incoherent nonsense.

Somehow, the conclusion was reached that the storm had behaved unusually and had damaged us.

Clarissa quietly spoke to me from the side of her mouth. “The more I talk, the less they understand.”

Yarvis Thayne stood again and was announced by Lord Speaker-Judge.

“So we have welcomed these newcomers among us,” Thayne said. He held out his arms and swept his long-fingered hands around. “And the repercussions are obvious. That we have allowed them to so completely sweep away our old traditions is, I maintain, regrettable and dangerous, for if the storm was abnormal, then might the dissonance not be abnormal, too? And if that is the case, then aren’t all these changes also abnormal?”

The hall rumbled with hums and haws, some in agreement, most not.

“But I see my warnings will be disregarded,” Thayne continued. “So I shall say nothing more on the subject at this moment, other than to table a request.”

The prime minister asked, “And what might that be, sir?”

“I ask that these two be assigned to serve in my household.”

A murmur of surprise rippled around the arena.

A short and bulky Yatsill in one of the front rows shouted, “Objection!” and stood. His mask resembled the face of a goat and had horns curling from its sides.

“Baron Hammer Thewflex,” Speaker-Judge declared.

“I must correct the honourable gentleman,” Thewflex shouted over the general hubbub. “Due to their form, as odd as it is, we keep referring to these newcomers as Servants.” He pointed at Clarissa. “But I would remind you all that this one is an Aristocrat. Indeed! Indeed!”

More noise, and a voice called, “Aye! She must be given an estate of her own!”

“Yes,” Thewflex agreed. “Despite that she is not Yatsill, she must have an estate. By the Saviour, anything but that would be perfectly rotten!”

“Absolutely!” Brittleback agreed.