The City of Woven Streets

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Torrential rains and wild winds have been flinging the ship every day for over a week. I am grateful that the sea has finally calmed down a little. I sit near the hatch of the hold and watch the golden sunlight discernible around its edges. Mirea has slumped down to the floor with an arm bent under her head. Her breathing runs smooth, and every now and then a faint snoring steals into it. I lean my head to the wall and close my eyes. I waken when someone pokes my arm.

I open my eyes. 479 squats next to me. She places something in my hand, raises a finger quickly to her lips and starts moving toward the back of the hold.

The guard has just checked on us, so I dare to take a closer look at the object. At first I think it is a bundle of fabric, it is so soft. When I begin to unfold it I realize it is a long strip of paper folded into a leaflet, opened so many times its surface has worn shabby and linty.

I have seen the contents before.

The images have been copied recognizably, but roughly. Many details have been left out. Yet they still tell the same story: about an inkmaster who left the island, fell ill on the continent and could not return for the Ink-marking. Who began to dream and suspect the tattoo ink had something to do with dreaming. And whom the Council began to stalk. I notice a few new pictures have been added in order to make the story clearer. The Council breaks the cable of the air gondola, and the gondola carrying the inkmaster falls to the ground. Dark sludge leaks from the Ink Quarters into the sea, where it kills plants and singing medusas. On the final page of the leaflet is a picture of an eye with an eight-pointed sun as the pupil.

Many memories from the recent weeks posit themselves in a new manner. A cluster of prisoners in the corner of the hold gathered around something. A loose piece of a conversation heard in passing, in which an inkmaster was mentioned. One of the prisoners handing something to another and hiding it quickly, when the hatch of the hold was opened. All things possible enough to happen for other reasons, too, but collected over such a short time, now given a meaning.

I hear the chain of the anchor begin to clang on board and the anchor splashes into the water. The ship glides on for another moment, but the sounds are a sign that the guard will soon come to herd us to the deck. 479 has made it nearly to the back of the hold. I think about what to do. I do not want to be caught with the leaflet in my hand. Yet I must talk to her. Hastily I push the leaflet in the only hiding place I can think of, under the waistband of my trousers.

I catch 479 under the glow-glass swaying in the corner. We are too close to the other prisoners, but I must ask.

‘Where did you get it?’

479’s black eyes flash in the faint light of the glow-glass. She glances at others and says in a half-whisper, ‘You must be quiet.’

‘This is important,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen the same pictures elsewhere.’

Footsteps and cries carry from the deck. 479 glances towards the hatch, but it remains closed.

‘It has been circulating hand to hand for two weeks already. Don’t you dare tell the guards.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ I say. I begin to take the leaflet out from under my waistband.

My hands do not find it.

I search again, but the leaflet is gone. It must have fallen along the way. I look behind, and two things happen at once.

I see Mirea spread the leaflet before her eyes. The hatch of the hold creaks as it opens, and a slanted, sharp light flares in through it. The shadow of the guard appears in the hole.

Mirea startles and tries to push the leaflet behind her back, but the guard has already seen it. And it is not Bug or Oyster or even Moth. It is Stingray.

‘You. What is that?’ she asks.

Mirea is speechless. I am frozen in place. I do not dare to look at 479.

‘Bring it to me,’ Stingray says. ‘Right now.’

Mirea begins to move. She climbs the steps to the hatch of the hold and hands the paper to Stingray.

‘Get out,’ Stingray snaps. ‘The rest of you too!’

Other prisoners gather between Mirea and me. She is already on the deck. As I stand there on the dirty floor and wait, there is commotion ahead. Wind swallows the words waving outside. Eventually I climb through the hatch. The day is glass-clear, burnished with bright-spun sunlight. Apart from Stingray, Octopus, Moth and Ant are among the guards today.

‘Keep moving!’ Octopus shouts and gives a push to a couple of women to make them walk faster.

Stingray is standing next to Mirea. Her hair glows orange like straw on fire, and she is studying the pictures in front of her eyes. Prisoners are gathered around them.

‘Who gave you this?’ Stingray demands.

Mirea stares at her feet and remains quiet.

Stingray crumples the paper in her hand, drops it and crushes it under her boot. Her fingers fall to the handle of the whip.

‘Its contents are lies,’ she says. ‘And blasphemy. Just like the rumours circulating in the house, which without any doubt originated from this piece of paper.’ She leans close to Mirea and speaks in a voice that is soft, yet taut at core. ‘Why are you all here?’ she asks.

Mirea’s lips move, but I cannot hear the words.

‘Louder,’ Stingray says. ‘Tell everyone.’

‘Because we are sick and tainted,’ Mirea says in strangled sounds.

‘What are you tainted with?’ Stingray continues.

‘Dreams,’ Mirea says.

‘And why does the Council in its great mercy let you live?’

‘Because we work,’ Mirea says.

‘Correct,’ Stingray says. She straightens her back, stands tall and gleaming in the early afternoon, and looks around. Her voice hits us clear and metal-hard. ‘Dream-plague will claim the lives of each of you in time, and the only way to deserve your place in the House of the Tainted in the meantime is work. And honesty.’ She turns back to Mirea. ‘Now, will you tell me where you got this piece of rubbish?’

Mirea does not look up. I begin to feel terror. I did not wish for her to get in trouble. I should have been more careful. This is my fault.

‘Will you tell me?’

I cannot get my mouth open.

Mirea is quiet. Stingray raises her whip. I think she is going to lash it across Mirea’s face. Mirea still says nothing.

‘Very well,’ the guard says. ‘Back to work, all of you.’ She keeps the whip raised. ‘You will be among the first to dive today,’ she says to Mirea. ‘Take your place.’

Mirea looks up and begins to move towards the nearest dais. Stingray lowers her whip.

The rota starts: the first row dives and the hourglass is turned. They bring their harvest, blood-red branches and some white ones. They dive again. When the sand has settled at the bottom of the hourglass, the guards throw the rope ladders down. The divers begin to climb. I step on the dais, waiting for my turn. When Mirea tries to climb over the rail to the deck, Stingray stops her.

‘Not you.’

Mirea stares at her. I glance around. Octopus is watching in silence, her face still. Moth is handing blankets to shivering prisoners. I catch the movement of her head as she turns away.

‘You are going back,’ Stingray says. ‘Unless you have something to tell me.’

Understanding spreads on Mirea’s face. Her mouth opens and closes again. She does not look my way. Without a word she looks down and jumps back into the water.

Words gather within me heavy and cold. Still I do not speak.

It is my turn to dive. Before I do, I take note of where Mirea is. Moth prepares to turn the hourglass. She is looking into the water, too.

The sea is cold and heavy and pulls me in. I seek Mirea with stinging eyes until I see her. Her movements are slow, weighed down. Through the thick sediment I spot a cluster of blood coral further away. The reef is turning white, but deeper there are still branches that spread like tendrils of hot blood. I try to estimate whether they are too far. I see others wondering about the same, making tentative swimming movements towards the branches that would certainly buy a better meal or warmer night, then deciding against it. They are just out of reach; even if we could get special permission to use long-handled hoop nets instead of baskets, we might not be able to reach deep enough.

I kick back to the surface to breathe.

During the following dives I keep an eye on Mirea and only manage to collect a few thin branches. Eventually the bell begins to clang, and it is time for the rope ladder. Shivering, I climb up the side of the ship. Mirea climbs behind me. I step onto the board, and the blankets Moth is offering are already close. I think of the hot herbal drink, which has hardly more taste than water but restores warmth to the body for a moment.

Then I hear Stingray again.

‘Back,’ she tells Mirea. ‘Unless you have changed your mind.’

Mirea’s body is blue with cold and all colour has vanished from her lips. Words slither within me, they are slimy and swollen inside.

I hear a splash as Mirea plunges back into the water. Moth is offering me a blanket. My hand is already touching it.

I turn back.

‘It was me,’ I say.

Stingray spins around and stares at me.

‘What did you say?’

‘Let Mirea back into the ship,’ I say. ‘The leaflet was mine. I lost it and she found it by mistake. She barely had time to glance at it. Please let her out of the water.’

‘You,’ Stingray says. ‘In that case, you’d better go and fetch her.’

I look at the guards. I look into the water. My hands and legs tremble with cold and the weight of the heavy words. I jump into the sea.

Salt water floods into my eyes when I open them, but the stinging is no longer as unbearable as it was on the early dives. I turn around until I see Mirea, and my heart knots into a tight twist.

She is swimming towards the deep-growing corals.

Don’t do it, I think. Those rewards will not save you. And they don’t need to; I have taken the blame, as I should. But she does not hear me.

I go after her. She has been in the sea for too long. She does not have enough strength left for a dive that even the most experienced of us do not dare try. She swims deeper and deeper, and is always just ahead of me, slightly too far for me to reach. Once I manage to grab her ankle, but she slides from my grasp in the water, slippery as a fish. I feel the pressure in my chest and swim to the surface for air. I expect her to do the same any moment.

When I break to the surface, I take deep breaths until I am no longer gasping.

‘Where is 317?’ Moth yells at me from the deck. I am still waiting for Mirea to appear on the surface. I begin to understand she is not coming.

I dive.

She is there, deep enough to pick the blood-red branches next to her, but no longer able to do so. I see immediately that her limbs are cradled by the sea, back and forth, not moved by any will of her own. I swim towards her, kicking hard and not moving fast enough. I need stronger lower limbs and larger feet, webbed like a seagull’s, and wide fins to replace my hands. I need a chest that will hold the breath of a dozen men, so I can give her half of it and make her move of her own will again.

My head begins to feel like it is squeezed by invisible hands, inside and out. Shadows float before my eyes, and lights, and their embrace is deep and silent. I am close enough now. I wrap an arm around Mirea, clutching her tight against my chest so the hunger of the sea will not tear her from me, and kick as hard as I can towards the surface. Strength is bleeding from me, whatever little there is left. The water no longer feels so cold. I continue to swim, but I hang in the water-space now without weight to pull me down or lightness to lift me up: suspended, like a bird with a great wind under its wings. A shred of seaweed, ready to be claimed by the waves, until fish and time tear it to dust.

Shadows grow denser and wrap around me, and I am theirs.

Then someone is pulling me up, into the air where my body weighs like a thousand stones, and my chest stings and I vomit salty, salty tears of the sea.

I lie on the deck, too heavy to move. A meter or two away Moth is pressing Mirea’s chest repeatedly with her hands. Mirea’s head lies in a pool that is not just water. She is the colour of bone coral, and her chest is not heaving.

Octopus, who stands next to them, points at the hourglass. The final grains of sand drop to the bottom. Moth must have been trying to revive Mirea since they last turned it.

Moth’s face is a darkening sky as she places Mirea’s arms next to her sides and leaves them there. She closes Mirea’s eyelids with her hand.

‘Cover her with something,’ Octopus says. ‘We are leaving for the day.’

I hear another voice. My neck does not turn enough to see, but I recognize it as Stingray.

‘There are still many hours of daylight left,’ she says.

A short silence. Then, ‘We are returning.’

It is Octopus. Her boots are heavy on the boards as she walks away.

The boat with blood-red branches resting in it is hauled to the deck and we are ordered down into the hold. Moth takes me into the cabin. At first I think it is to make me feel warmer. Then I realize it is because they want to isolate me from the rest of the prisoners. I already know that when we return to the House of the Tainted, I will not be taken to my cell, but somewhere colder and smaller.

I see Mirea’s unmoving face before my eyes, and think of the images I drowned her with. I am ice and bitter water, and things that sting in dark crevices between stones.

I am taken out of the ship last, and when I walk along the deck, I see the horizon. The sea is smooth and almost without movement, and the shoreline is bare, like the waves are holding their breath. Everything is calm, like the dead are.

The only light in the cell comes from a glow-glass pipe above the door. It hovers on the walls, a blue-white flow that does not tell me if it is day or night. The floor is cold stone under my back. If I straighten my legs and place my arms over my head, I can touch the walls with my toes and fingers. There are no blankets or bunks here. In one corner there is a stinking hole in the floor. In another, a jug of water that tastes of mould, and a piece of bread with white stains growing on it.

Brine has dried on my skin, leaving it tight and itchy even where it is not covered in rash. I am still in my diving clothes. I think of Mirea, of her unmoving limbs and still face, and water and salt pour from my eyes again. My nose gets runny and blocked. I wipe it on the back of my hand. My chest is full of sharp stones. I wait for someone to come and ask about the rumours I have been spreading, the ones I really did start spreading, but longer ago than they realize: when we believed we had a plan. Before Valeria vanished, and I walked through the shadows.

No one comes.

A blue algae-mist floats in the glass pipe. I sleep for a moment or many. I dream of Valeria lying next to me, warming me. A singing medusa swims across the room and lands on my face, but instead of soothing, it stings. I wake up to the burning sensation on my brow and chill in my limbs. I scratch my forehead. Skin peels away in grainy patches that stick to my fingertips.

I do not know how long I have been here, when the flood bell begins to toll.

In a flash my mind-map of the House of the Tainted is before my eyes, and I am scanning it. The solitary confinement cells are not underground, but they are several flights of stairs below the other cells and dining halls. In any flood, they will be among the first to fill with water.

My legs tremble as I stand up. It is as if the very weight of the air is pressing me down, resting on my shoulders. I listen. Somewhere in the distance I hear people shouting and stomping, metal bars rattling. Footsteps run past, but they do not stop.

I begin to bang on the door.

‘Help me!’ I cry. ‘Let me out!’

The noises above and far away continue, but none of them draw nearer. I hit the door until my fists hurt, then turn around and kick it with my heels. I scream until my throat aches and my voice is half-gone. I do not know how long the water will take to reach here. I have only ever seen floods from the hill of Webs, and from my parents’ house. I slide to the floor, close my eyes and wait for the silence and depth of the sea to swallow me. I should have known it would not allow me an escape after taking Mirea.

A key turns in the lock.

I scramble to my feet as the door opens. Moth looks in. I take a step backwards. Breath tangles in my chest.

‘Quick,’ she says. She throws me a pair of boots, a pair of wide trousers and a brown, hooded jacket. ‘Put those on, and then follow me.’

I stare at Moth’s smooth, unreadable face, at her tall and angular frame. She has not approached me since the laundry. But I have caught hold of her eyes now and then in the dining hall, in the changing rooms, on the ship. I remember the strange demand in her voice when she asked me about the House of Webs.

Warily I grab the jacket, not turning my gaze from her.

‘The flood will rush in soon,’ Moth says, more than a tinge of impatience in the tone of her words. ‘And then we’ll have no way out.’

Whether it is a threat or warning, I cannot tell, but I do not doubt that it is true. I put the clothes on as fast as I can. At least they provide some warmth and coverage.

‘This will be much easier if you come without resistance,’ she says.

Staying here means a certain end. I step out. The corridor is dim and narrow, and locked by gates at both ends. We walk through the first gate and climb two flights of stairs. Moth stays a few steps behind me. Screams and footsteps are now closer, echoing off each other, twisting and turning in the deserted corridors. When we reach the top of the stairs, Moth stops me by grasping my arm. Her fingers are hard, her expression intent.

‘Listen carefully,’ she says. Her hand moves, and for a moment I think she is going to pull out her whip. Instead, she presses a key into my hand. ‘This will open the gates you will need to pass through. Follow this corridor, turn right and open the small door hidden under a set of stairs. Follow the passage behind it until you come to a narrow spiral staircase, then climb as far up as the stairs will take you. At the top there will be three doors. Go through the left one. That is the safest route. Don’t let anyone see you.’

My mind-map shifts its shape, expands: I see the corridors and stairs. They fit with what I already know about the house. I repeat the instructions in my mind, until I can see my path marked on the new map. Moth stares at me. I stare back, study her face. I try to see if her dark eyes are hiding things. I do not read insincerity in her, but I have been mistaken before.

‘What about the other prisoners?’ I ask.

‘The house is being evacuated,’ Moth says. ‘This is not the first flood to strike here. Will you find your way?’

‘I think so,’ I respond. And because the only thing I understand is that I have been misreading her all along, I ask, ‘Why are you helping me?’

Swift thoughts come and go on Moth’s face. She almost smiles.

‘I know who you are,’ she says. Her face turns serious. ‘I know what your house-elder did. You shouldn’t be here.’

‘But I carry the dream-plague,’ I say.

‘You and I both know that is not true,’ Moth says. ‘Go and find the one you came to find.’

‘How do you know that is why I came?’

Moth’s eyes flicker.

‘I heard you talking about her in the laundry room,’ she says. ‘You said her name. She’s not here. Go.’

Screeching, roaring sounds arise from below.

‘Run,’ she says. She seems ready to push me, if I do not go. ‘Don’t look back.’

I run.

The sounds grow into crashing, rumbling, bone-splitting tremors that haunt my footsteps. They follow me, so heavy that I am afraid I will be buried. It feels like the earth under the sea is going to smash the island to splinters and drown all who walk on it. The floor tilts and flees and ruptures, and once a great boulder falls from the ceiling behind me, so close I feel shards from it hit my skin. But not once do I look back.

I run, until my thighs ache and my lungs sting. Three times I need to stop to open doors or gates, but eventually the last one of them throws me onto a high landing on top of the wall. I barely have time to see how a new and greater wave carrying trees, people, furniture and entire houses on its edge approaches from the sea. I cling to the iron gate I have just walked through, take shelter at the mouth of the corridor and hope that the stone arc above me will hold.

Then the world turns into churning sea and hard-hitting pain and all-devouring darkness.

I stand amidst a landscape of water and sky and light. The houses are gone, and people. I feel the dream on my skin and know I could bring them back with my will, but I do not. This space and silence are all I need.

Before me falls a tapestry I recognize. Fine strands run from the edges towards the centre, shimmering like brightness bursting forth from the sun. In the middle there is a hole that is all blackness, shadow-painted, night sealed in the core of the earth. If I pushed my hand into it, it would claim me whole, and no trace of me would be left behind.

A figure stands on the other side of the tapestry, only visible as a shadow through the web of threads.

‘Valeria,’ I say.

The shadow turns around, but the tapestry is still between us and I cannot discern the features. The shadow walks further. I reach out my hand, but it nearly brushes the dark centre of the tapestry, and I pull it away quickly. I decide to rearrange the dream: I tell the tapestry to disappear, the figure to return.

The figure stops. Around it, behind the tapestry, the island looms as if I am looking at it from far above, its canals and streets and buildings blending with the patterns. I try to see the island more clearly, but the shadow approaches me now, it grows taller and wider and encloses the darkness. It steps through the hole in the tapestry, and the spell is on me once again. I am no longer standing. I am lying on the hard ground, and my body is held by invisible chains.

The night-maere rises over me. Its outline against the light could be my own. It lowers its weight on me. The touch radiates into my whole body and with it, an unexpected power that tingles in my palms and glows in my veins. It fills me and quivers under my skin. The burn begins low in my belly, soft and sharp at once. I hear my own breathing as it turns ragged, and I feel every hair on my skin stand on end.

The power wells in me, making tall waves and seeking a way out, but the harder I struggle against the night-maere’s grip, the more closely it binds me in place. The only movement I can make is with my eyes. I am water and waves inside, and yet air and light, bound to the rock I am lying on but floating where nothing holds me. I can feel the night-maere’s mouth a mere finger-width away from mine, although I cannot see it. Its breath scorches my skin.

It whispers in words I can almost understand, sounds so close to sentences I can taste them on my tongue, and for the first time in my life I know the night-maere is trying to tell me something.

Something that is no longer just terror is pulled tight around me. I cannot move my body, so I focus my mind to tear myself free from it. I attempt to make words, but the inside of my mouth is unmoving stone and my face is still as glass.

The night-maere whispers again. The sounds swim and swirl, and are pulled away.

A raindrop falls on my forehead. The night-maere flees. My grasp of its words slips, and they are lost. My muscles twitch. Breath flows through me.

I have never been this surprised to be alive.