Damnation For Beginners Part 7

"Tremors," Gillespie said. "You never notice them until you can see the ground below. Some trick of the subconscious, I suppose. Filters it out. But you feel them as soon as you're reminded that the building is moving."

Jack glanced down, and realised that the whole structure had moved several feet since he'd last checked. Indeed, it was still moving now, sliding ever so slowly over the surface of h.e.l.l. He heard a further rumbling sound coming from the foundations, followed by the subterranean trickle of fluids, and the whole building obscured another inch of that blood-slicked, treacherous ground.

Gillespie pointed down at the landscape. "So, you see what's ahead of us?"

At first Jack could see nothing but the labyrinth of fluidways and twisting walls, the clutching silhouettes of countless ruined structures rising from pools as red as wounds. And then he spotted something moving down there: a long, dark shape in one of the ca.n.a.ls. As he watched, he began to notice others in the gauzy distance-boats, or barges, and they were manned. Hunched white figures moved about on their decks.

"Mesmerists," Gillespie said. "Those ones are Icarates, Menoa's own soul collectors. You see that tower where the ca.n.a.ls converge? It's one of their collection depots. They bring souls there before shipping them back to their boss."

Jack spotted the tower about half a league away. A vicious collection of stone spikes, it looked far less ruinous and far more purposeful than the neighbouring structures. It stood on arched foundations over the junction of at least seven ca.n.a.ls, like a great black thorn tree. "What happens to the souls brought there?" he asked.

"You don't want to know," Gillespie replied. "But I'll tell you anyway. Menoa boils them up and changes them into whatever he needs, whether it's a brick or a roof tile for one of his citadels, or a sword for one of his uglier creations. And that's the very place our neighbours want to take us. The idiots think that if they give themselves over to the Lord of the Maze, they won't have to suffer any more of this." He jabbed his thumb at the apartment behind him. "A sword doesn't have to think, does it?"

Fear gripped Jack. The tower was too close, and he wasn't nearly ready to undertake his escape. His plan might take weeks to prepare, but by the look of things he had mere days left. "We have to stop this building," he said.

Gillespie grunted. "Yes we do," he said. "But that's easier said than done. You'll see what I mean when you speak to the others."

Gillespie's idea was to call a residents' meeting. Perhaps he and Jack together could talk some sense into the others? Failing that, the pair of them might attempt to disrupt the forward progress of the building by a combined effort.

After his somewhat removed yet violent encounter with Dunnings, Jack didn't particularly want to meet the rest of his neighbours. Gillespie referred to them as The Suicide Club, or The Biggest Bunch of Cheerless Halfwits it's Ever Been My Misfortune to Meet, or sometimes just Those a.r.s.eholes. He explained that there was a neutral territory in the heart of the building, a chamber where all the neighbours could speak to one another. He called this place The Room of Gloom, and said that Jack would have to make some further alterations to his surroundings in order to access it.

"You need to create a tunnel," he explained through the hatch. "The narrower, the better, since there's no s.p.a.ce whatsoever inside this building. You'll have to jostle with the other consciousnesses in here, shove them about a bit. I'll guide you, so you cause minimal damage. I've already warned everyone to let you through, but we don't want to aggravate anyone more than we need to."

"What about Dunnings?" Jack said. "He's already furious."

"Sod him," Gillespie said.

Under Gillespie's guidance, Jack began the process of creating a pa.s.sageway from his own quarters to The Room of Gloom. First, he created a small door in the inner wall of his apartment. Then he lay down on his bed with his eyes closed, and attempted to reach out beyond that door. It was like trying to stretch out his hand without actually moving his hand. After a few false starts, he finally got the hang of it, and soon sensed a tunnel forming like a tendril outside his apartment. It helped to visualise the conduit as a root or a branch growing out of his own consciousness, which is essentially what it was. He could feel the other dwellings shifting around him as he extended this new ghost limb. He probed and prodded, directing his will into the smallest gaps between neighbouring souls, and then gently forcing them apart. Walls and ceilings trembled, but they shifted grudgingly, just as Gillespie said they would.

Finally, Gillespie told him to stop. The pa.s.sageway had reached its destination.

"Now imagine a window at the far end," he said.

"What sort of window?"

The other man rolled his gaze skywards. "Whatever the h.e.l.l sort of window you like. Make it out of studded leather for all I care. I've already summoned the others. I'll meet you down there." His unruly mop of hair vanished from the hatch.

Jack opened the door he'd made.

The corridor wasn't exactly as he'd intended. A rectangular metal conduit spiralled down into darkness, more like a hotel laundry chute than a pa.s.sageway designed for people. The sides felt smooth and cool to the touch. Feeling slightly embarra.s.sed, he gripped the door lintel, slid his legs into the chute and balanced himself on the edge. Then he eased himself forward and let go.

He careered downwards at an alarming rate, his shoulders thumping against the sides of the chute at every twist and turn. At one point, the floor dropped away at such a steep angle he found himself airborne briefly before he slammed back down again. And then all of a sudden the soles of his shoes smacked against something solid, and he stopped.

He was in a tiny spherical chamber, featureless but for a single grille set low in the wall. It reminded him of the ones in his former workplace. Jack got to his feet, but found that he couldn't stand upright in this confined s.p.a.ce. He crouched before the grille and peered through.

The opening looked out into a cylindrical room with a round table in its centre. On the table sat a single plate of rather unpleasant-looking biscuits. The room was otherwise empty, without any chairs or other furniture. An a.s.sortment of different portals-at least a score of open windows and hatches of various sizes-overlooked the table from even intervals around the curved walls. Behind most of these was a face.

He spotted Gillespie to his immediate right, but he didn't recognise the others. They varied in age and appearance. Among them: a nervous, pink-cheeked lad seated behind the window to his left; a rotund woman with sticks in her hair, and wearing a tangerine dress so bright and vile it offended nature itself; a dark-haired wisp of a girl with a washed-out complexion and mournful, hollow eyes; a tweedy gentleman framed in Florian style buck woodwork; a couple of miners with seamed and gravelly faces; and a tiny blackbird of a spinster who peered out of a square portal next to Gillespie with murderous suspicion. Apart from himself and Gillespie, Jack counted nineteen others in total: nine men and ten women. Only one of the windows was empty.

"Dunnings couldn't make it," Gillespie said to Jack, with a grin. "He's probably still p.i.s.sed."

"No doubt he had good reason," the spinster said. "Don't think I don't know what you're up to, Robert Gillespie. Your ridiculous schemes won't work on us."

"No schemes, Ariel," Gillespie said. "I just wanted to introduce you all to our newest resident. This is Jack Aviso."

The old woman regarded Jack with knife-blade eyes.

"What's the point?" the boy said wearily. "n.o.body cares any more." He sniffed and rubbed a hand under his nose, and then gazed despondently at the table.

"Welcome to the carnival of fun," Gillespie said to Jack. "That's Charley, this is Morwena, Glynn, Sally, Bob Two, Harold, Mr and Mrs Clifford, Regina, Ariel, Doctor Shula, Ron, Lisa, Hope, Sandy and Mo, Beaker-don't ask me why, John, and Clementine there with the dark hair." He indicated each with his finger. "Doctor Shula, the Cliffords, and Ariel all lived in Highcliffe, too. Morwena and Charley are from Port Sellen. The others...here and there...The Heights, Sillbank, all over the place." He flourished a hand. "Bob Two was in the navy, drowned himself. The doc used pills. Clementine cut her wrists, of course. And Ariel-"

"That's personal," the spinster said. "I don't want you bandying it about."

"I'm sorry, Ariel," Gillespie said. "I thought you might like to know that you and Jack have something in common." He turned to Jack, sticking out his tongue while tugging at an imaginary rope above his neck.

"h.e.l.lo," Jack said.

"Can we go now?" the young, dark-haired girl said. "I really don't feel up to this today."

"Five minutes, Clementine," Gillespie said. "Please."

She shook her head, tears suddenly br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her eyes. "These meetings are hard for me."

"Well-"

"No, you don't know," she cried. She took a shaky breath. "I don't even...have..." And then the sobs came gushing out in great breathless surges from the pit of her lungs. "I don't...ha... ha...ah..." She grabbed her head in clenched hands and began to wail miserably.

The boy, Charley, gave her a look that managed to encompa.s.s both pity and a desperate yearning. "Clementine," he said. "I understand. We all understand."

"Ah...ah...ah..."

Gillespie muttered under his breath. "For heaven's sake."

As Clementine's sobs filled the chamber, the gentleman in tweeds said, "This really is pointless. I'm going back to my quarters. None of us have any intention of prolonging our misery more than is necessary."

"Come on, Doc," Gillespie said. "You haven't even heard us out."

"So you were scheming?" Ariel said.

"I'm not scheming, Ariel," Gillespie said. "I'm trying to save your life. All of our lives."

"This isn't life!" she cried. "It's nothing but pain and struggle. It's worse than it was back in Pandemeria, because it's endless."

Doctor Shula said, "I'm sorry you've been caught up in this, Bob, I truly am. But we voted, twice, and you have to respect the group's final decision."

"Are you all from Cog?" Jack asked.

A few heads nodded behind windows. Others just stared miserably at the floor. Doctor Shula looked over. "Bob has his own agenda," he said to Jack. "Don't let him talk you into anything you don't want to do. We have decided-almost unanimously-to take our chances with the Mesmerists, and end our existence here."

"You all committed suicide?"

"As did you, I presume," the doctor said.

Jack nodded. "But I'm curious to know," he said. "How many of you are here as a result of my former boss? Mr Henry Sill."

From the number of hostile looks he received from behind those other windows and hatches, Jack guessed that a considerable number of these wretches had had some sort of relationship with the Henry Sill Banking Corporation. It seemed that Gillespie's Theory of a.s.sociation extended beyond mere similarities in the method, and geographical location, of one's death. Jack wondered if that was why he in particular had ended up as Gillespie's neighbour, since they were, apparently, the only two who did not wish to perish a second time. At Jack's comment, Gillespie hung his head in despair, as though his only flicker of hope had just been extinguished.

Doctor Shula's grey eyes hardened. "Mr Sill is responsible for a great deal of suffering," he said. "I doubt this is the only one of h.e.l.l's Middens born from his victims."

"But aren't you furious?" Jack said. "Don't you want justice?"

Charley said, "Who's going to give you justice down here? Menoa doesn't care about the world of the living. All we can hope for is oblivion."

"But Henry Sill is dead," Jack said. "He's here, in h.e.l.l."

Silence filled the room. Even Clementine stopped sobbing. Everyone stared at Jack.

"That's why I put a rope around my neck," Jack explained. "I came here to find him and to make him suffer for what he did to me." He heard his own voice start to waver. "He took my wife from me for no reason except to satisfy his own greed, and I'm going to make him pay for that."

"Are you sure about this?" one of the miners said.

"I saw his body myself."

A new look of hope came into Gillespie's eye. "He died in Cog?"

Jack nodded.

"When?"

"Sixteen months ago."

"Then he can't be far away," Gillespie said to the others.

"Wait a minute," Doctor Shula said. "We have already decided on a course of action here. Let's not be swayed by what-ifs and...conjecture. If Mr Sill is actually dead, there's no reason to a.s.sume we could ever find him in this labyrinth. For all you know the Mesmerists might already have him."

"He came here to confer with the Mesmerists," Jack said. "He had some sort of proposal to put to King Menoa. But he's still running his business from somewhere down here. The bank has a machine they use to communicate with his soul in h.e.l.l."

The miners exchanged a glance. Most of the others looked thoughtful. The sad-eyed woman pursed her lips, while Clementine's rubbed the tears from her eyes. Charley had lost his air of despondency. And even Ariel seemed to be considering the possibilities.

"He's running his corporation from h.e.l.l?" one of the miners said through clenched teeth.

Jack nodded.

Gillespie said, "I think we should take another vote."

Doctor Shula raised his hands. "It's too late for that, Bob."

"But we have a chance to get the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," the miner said.

His comrade nodded in agreement.

"He took my house," the miner went on. "He forced me to push his f.u.c.king carts and breathe rock dust until I dropped."

"His Reclamation Men took everything from me," Ariel said. "The furniture, the carpets, even the taps. Forty years of savings, gone."

"He stole my boys' inheritance," said another man.

"My mother took a loan from him," Charley said. "He... I couldn't help her. They wouldn't even listen to me."

The sad-eyed woman leaned forward. "He sold my daughter."

The group fell silent. Jack could see from their faces that he had already won the majority of them over to his cause.

"Shall we vote?" Gillespie said. "Please raise your hand if you are in favour of finding Mr Henry Sill, and having a quiet word with him."

LEAVING THE CONFINES OF A MIDDEN OR OTHER COMMINGLED STRUCTURE.

ROM HIS WINDOW JACK could see that the building had altered course. The combined wills of its residents were now moving this whole ugly conglomeration of souls away from the Icarate depot. He stood for several minutes behind the gla.s.s, watching the barges plying the ca.n.a.ls, the red mists drifting like gossamer veils across endless furrows of black stone, and it occurred to him that this entire landscape had to have been formed by the expectations of the d.a.m.ned. h.e.l.l appeared this way because those who dwelt here expected it to be like this. Jack's own apartment reflected his subconscious desires, using them to construct a barrier against the turmoil outside. But that turmoil was itself composed of souls, many of whom had evidently lost their own defences. Fluid held no structure of its own, but simply occupied whatever s.p.a.ce was imposed by the constraints around it. He wondered what Mr Henry Sill's place of residence would be like.

Finding the banker was going to be a problem. Gillespie's theory of a.s.sociation predicted he would be somewhere reasonably close by, but it still left them with untold leagues of maze to search. To make matters worse, Mr Sill would be hidden inside some type of structure. And they had no means of searching inside such places yet. Jack decided it was time to implement the most difficult and dangerous part of his plan. He summoned Marley's book, and turned to the appropriate section.

Section Twenty Three Leaving the Confines of a Midden or Other Commingled Structure It is extremely dangerous for the Conscious Soul to leave the protection of its domicile. However, it is theoretically possible to extricate that same domicile from its neighbouring structures, and convey it across the surface of h.e.l.l in a snail-like fashion. The difficulty lies in convincing the mind, which retains subconscious awareness of the physical limitations of its former body, to accept that such a seemingly super-human feat is possible. Some Cog University Scholars have postulated that this may be achieved in one of two ways: through the use of mesmerism; or by wilfully reducing the size of one's domicile to more manageable proportions. It must be noted that both methods invoke serious risk, particularly the latter, wherein one's defences would be woefully diminished. In such a case, the Conscious Soul risks being crushed within the Commingled Structure.

Jack lay on the floor as he prepared to attempt the latter. He closed his eyes and allowed his senses to roam through the floorboards and the walls and the gla.s.s. He envisaged his surroundings as a coc.o.o.n connected to his body by a web of the threads, which he then began to draw inwards. A great rumbling and crackling sound came from all around as wood snapped and gla.s.s shattered. The pain forced a cry from his lips, but he did not stop.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

Jack recognised Gillespie's voice. He opened his eyes to see his neighbour peering in through his usual hatch.

"You're not giving up?" Gillespie cried. "Not now?"

Jack ignored him. He could sense the other apartments all around him, swelling to fill the extra s.p.a.ce he was creating around his own shrinking rooms. Even Gillespie's chamber seemed to push against his own, perhaps driven by the other man's natural instinct. As the walls closed in on Jack they began to change in colour and texture, from a geometric array of painted white panels to the smooth hard expanse of metal.

"You'll be crushed," Gillespie said.

Jack gasped. "It's the only way to get Sill."

"Sill?" Gillespie frowned. "No, you...we'll use absorption, Jack. We'll..."

But then the hatch vanished, swallowed by the contracting, buckling walls.

Jack concentrated on the windows, drawing them ever closer to his aching body. Splinters of gla.s.s loomed over his head, the broken squares no longer full of fuming red skies, but dark with views of brickwork and iron. He reformed the gla.s.s into solid pane, then howled with the agony of them snapping again. Shattering and reforming, shattering and reforming. He fought to keep structure in this crumbling miasma of wood and dust. The furniture? He imagined the bed and dresser melting like so much ice, and then flowing into the floor, hardening, turning into the polished steel of his design. The torture implements followed, the iron maiden dissolving into a pool of metal.

The coal scuttle, the chair, his wife's portrait, he absorbed them all into this new liquid form. The chromic corners of his rapidly diminishing apartment began to curve. He shaped them with his will, forming plates that slid against each other, then snapped abruptly into the correct position. He screwed his eyes shut and reached out his arms and touched cold steel: the steel of a sphere, the steel of a coffin.

And finally, the steel of an armoured suit.

He was fully encased from fist to toe in tightly fitting metal plates. The windows he'd once peered out of, and then fractured and remade so many times, now formed a thick gla.s.s faceplate about four inches high. Jack pushed his nose against it. He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn't budge. He tried to lift his arms, to no avail. In a moment of blind panic, he struggled like a caged animal, thrashing his limbs against the inside of the suit. But it was hopeless. He was trapped, completely pinned between the walls of his neighbour's apartments.