The City of Woven Streets

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The web-maze is torn and tattered, turned strange and almost impassable. I still know the way, but the path is blocked by downfallen wall-webs, broken threads, slashed streets and buildings. Valeria has picked up a dim glow-glass somewhere along the way, but it is dying and does not show every pile of yarn ahead. She stumbles, almost falls.

‘Wait,’ I say.

I stop and turn towards the House of Webs. The wind blows this way, carrying the scent of smoke.

The sphere of the fire blazes above the buildings. I try to conjure the time that is diminishing for us, attempt to see the route of the flames in my mind. The threads of the tapestries in Weaver’s study are dry and brittle; they will cling to the fire greedily. The wooden furniture will feed the blaze further. From Weaver’s room the fire will spread to the Halls of Weaving and into the Tapestry Room, where silkweed sparkles in all colours. I do not know if it will emit a sweet or salty scent as it burns. Then the fire will reach the linen in the cells and dormitories, if there is any left, and the oils in the kitchen and sick bay, and the liqueurs and medicinal supplies. When the solid buildings crackle in the wrap of flames, it will be the turn of the web-maze.

The fire is dream-fire, and I demand it to tame and stall.

Nothing happens. The glow continues to swell.

I command the fire again. The Web of Worlds hovers nearly within my reach, and I grasp for it, but I can merely brush it before it yields. I reach closer, raise my hand against the flames.

The knot that binds the waking of the earth stirs.

The tremor is no stronger than a common shudder as it passes through me. But when I look at Valeria, I see she has felt it too.

‘I cannot,’ I say. ‘I won’t have the strength to hold together the foundations of the island if I stop the fire.’ And I may not want to; there are constructions for which the time has come to crumble.

Valeria steps to me, takes my hand and pulls me into a run.

Clouds of smoke push past us. My eyes and throat begin to sting. I do not think of all corridors and corners of the maze, of every forking path, but only of the next turn: to the right after the third alley, past five openings and to the left, across the clearing and a tight turn in the opposite direction. The orange light grows in the direction of the house, and the heat. The air was still cold when we left the house, but sweat pours down my cheeks and between my breasts, dampens my forehead and eyebrows and upper lip. And underneath everything a slow ache throbs. I push it away.

We find the skiff and pull it down the slope into water, when the first flames burst into view. The threads wither and blacken and crumble into ash that scatters into wind, colourless. We begin to punt along the canal that has burst its banks. The streets are near-deserted here. At the doorway of one house stands a man, maybe the age my father would be if he were alive. I glance at Valeria. The skiff is tiny, but it may just carry another person. She nods.

‘We are headed for the harbours,’ I yell at the man. ‘The island cannot take another flood.’

The man stares at me.

‘I’ll be damned if I get on the same boat with a Dreamer,’ he says. ‘Or believe what your kind says.’

The tangle inside me tugs. At first, holding it was like tensing a muscle somewhere in my body: I felt it, but was able to push the sensation aside and do other things. Now I am more aware of it every moment.

The man spits towards us. The saliva makes a circle in the black water.

The tremor is like a shiver of cold, slight and soon over. I think it must have come from within myself. For a moment everything is quiet and still. Then there is a great roar in the distance, like something huge slipping out of joint deep under the island. A shooting pain cuts through my innards. It is gone quickly, but leaves behind a hollow feeling, as if my blood runs thinner.

The man at the door starts, glares at me and throws the door shut.

The sound of the seashell horn carries along the water and stones. Go to the trading harbours, Janos said; he must have thought it was safer. But if the Council has called a citizens’ meeting, he will be at the square, and we must warn the Dreamers, warn everyone.

‘There isn’t much time,’ I tell Valeria.

She takes the oar from my hands and pushes the skiff forward.

The Tower still stands smooth and unbroken, a blade slicing the sky. Yet its surroundings have turned into a churning vortex of people. The call of the seashell horn splits the air again. People are streaming in from all directions, like into a tightening net, which pulls them towards the same centre. They come wading through the streets and along canals, along rope bridges running between rooftops and on the walls of buildings. We guide the skiff among other boats as far as we can. Eventually we hit a jam we cannot pass.

More boats are arriving behind us, and we cannot turn back. At the edge of the canal the water has receded enough to leave only a shallow layer on the pavement. Valeria stands up in the skiff. It sways furiously as I do the same. Valeria steps onto the nearest boat. The family sitting in it barely has time to move, before we have already crossed over them from one side to the other. The father shouts curses behind us. On the next boat, two disgruntled-looking old women stare as we use their vessel as a stepping stone.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say to them.

‘Some manners, if I may make such a bold request, young lady,’ one of the women says and squints her eyes.

The other one, whose face is more wrinkled, sniffles and takes a more comfortable position on the seat.

‘Don’t mind her,’ she says.

‘The Council had better replace my loom,’ the other one adds. ‘Quality wood from the continent. Swollen as a drowned man’s tongue.’

‘Don’t mind her,’ the wrinklier one repeats.

I jump to the edge of the canal, where the water splashes in all directions and then settles at the level of my ankles. I glance at the Tower. Sounds, talk and words carry from the square that I cannot make out. Further ahead, Valeria has stopped to wait. When she catches my gaze, she begins to wade towards the square.

I catch up with her and seize her hand. There are too many people here, and I do not want to lose her. The voices from the square are clearer now and louder, their words assuming recognizable forms. We thread our way through the crowd and pass through the arched stone gate. The sharp point of the Tower pricks the clouds. On the other side of the square, beyond the waves of people, the skeleton of the Museum of Pure Sleep has been worn even barer.

In front of it, a group of Dreamers stands in the auditorium, which rises from the water like the back of a large animal. I see Askari, Irena and Janos. I recognize Ila. I do not see Alva or Tirra. There are also others whose names I do not know, maybe fifty of them. They look barely a handful compared with the crowd, a scant scattering of sunlight on a mass of dark waves. One of them raises a large seashell horn to his lips and blows in it. The sound echoes in stones and fades into the sky, where evening closes around the last flame of the day. I see Janos has turned in a different direction than the rest of them. I follow his frozen stare and understand: the House of Webs blazes on the hill as a roaring, dancing forest of flames around which a scorching halo glows.

I must make it to him.

A dense row of City Guards has gathered at the foot of the auditorium, a dangerous range of rocks I have no way of crossing. They stand still with their gazes turned to the Tower, waiting for an order that has not yet been issued. Or perhaps the first blow that will give them a reason to attack. The points of their spears gleam in the light of the torches lining the auditorium. There is another ring of guards at the root of the Tower, two rings, a circle of spikes and metal and restless fires. There is an empty space made by fear around them. Apart from it, the square is filled by a sea of people, spilling, stirring, tearing apart and stitching itself together again.

I dive into it.

Valeria follows. Her hand squeezes mine. I see Dreamers pick up something in their hands that looks like sizeable rolls of fabric. They hold them by each end and raise them high. The fabrics fall open, and I recognize the large pictures painted on them.

The inkmaster leaves the island again, falls ill, does not return for the Ink-marking. He begins to dream again and study the composition of the tattoo ink. The Council approaches him, until its shadow covers him entirely, and drops the gondola in which he travels. The fabrics are unrolled one by one. The story has grown more complete: masked men attack the inkmaster’s daughter, cut off her tongue and she flees into the House of Webs. There she begins to weave a tapestry, which tells the story of how the tattoos are stealing people’s dreams on the island. The Council takes her away, and a weaver from the House of Webs goes after her, but ends up in the House of the Tainted, where the prisoners are forced to collect blood coral from the sea. Sediment leaks into the sea from the Ink Quarters and makes people sick. The island looks ever smaller in the sea. A great wave approaches on the horizon.

Valeria makes a sound next to me. When I turn to look, tears are streaming down her face. One of the Dreamers raises the speaking trumpet made from a seashell to his mouth and speaks to the crowd, speaks of lies, speaks of the truth. Speaks of rescue. The seashell amplifies the volume of his voice. The words carry far beyond the limits of the square, the words scatter into the wind.

‘Janos!’ I cry, but I’m too far away. My voice does not reach him. Inside me strands chafe against each other, grow taut and loose again, cut marks in me. I cannot let them go, because they hold everything together.

Janos, I think.

He turns his head, studies the crowd with his gaze. Seeks.

The Dreamer continues to talk. The people listen. I see paper leaflets being passed from hand to hand, and I recognize the images of the codex in them, too. The square is a dream-square, the strands of the Web of Worlds still within my reach. I want Janos to see me. I want him to know what needs to be known, to heed the warning.

Janos, I think,

and then a bright and scorching pain flashes through me,

listen, I am still alive,

bare as the fire burning my skin,

I have something to tell you,

glowing as the stone walls being tormented at the heart of the blaze,

flee, flee now, because time is running out,

the thought surges into me like heat from beyond a breaking door,

demand that they show themselves,

and Janos’s face snaps towards me. I see shock on it as he recognizes me from afar. The pain withers. I am on the square again and not amidst the raging flames. Only a narrow stripe of the day gone by is fading in the sky, and I know somewhere the ships are waiting, ready to leave, although I cannot see them.

‘You know the truth about the island now,’ Askari says. ‘Staying here offers no future for you.’

‘Dreamer lies!’ someone shouts in the crowd. He receives an approving murmur in response. ‘They must be eviscerated from the island for good.’

Valeria wipes her eyes. I grasp her arm. In the auditorium Janos stares at me. Then he turns, strides to Askari and says something to him. Askari listens and glances at the crowd. Janos is still talking to him. I see Askari nod. He turns towards the square again.

‘If this is all a lie,’ he says into the speaking trumpet, ‘if the Council wants the best for you, why are they not here? Why do they not show themselves and offer help when the island needs it most?’

The words float in the square. The crowd has quieted for a moment that lingers, until a low murmur begins to grow again at the bottom of a wavering silence. It grows and folds into a stir that turns the people towards the Tower. I turn to look.

The doors of the lower balcony of the Tower have opened. The tall fires of the torches burn on both sides of them and behind falls a curtain of darkness. From there, the black maw of the Tower, a law-reader steps into sight in his loose coat decorated with the sun emblem. He walks to the rail at the edge of the balcony and raises the speaking trumpet to his mouth. The reflections of the torches revolve on its mother-of-pearl surface.

‘In the name of the Council,’ he says.

‘In the name of the Council,’ the crowd says, but the response is more fragile than usual. I see several people around me whose lips do not move at all.

The law-reader clears his throat. He is too far away for me to discern the expression on his face clearly. Behind the Tower the sky is night-blue, and in the knots of the Web of Worlds the stars have begun to surface. The pressure in my innards is insufferable. My body is focused around it, ready to collapse.

‘In its great wisdom the Council has asked you to wait,’ the law-reader says from the balcony, his words amplified by the speaking trumpet. The people of the city are listening. ‘They are right now discussing in the Tower how to best help the island, and they order you to come back tomorrow at noon.’

Stirring and rustling begins in the square. I hear Askari’s voice from behind me, but I have no strength to turn to look.

‘These people are here,’ Askari says, ‘because they need help now. How many of you have lost your homes?’

There are mumbles of agreement from the crowd. Next to me I see a man say something to a woman who nods.

The law-reader stares into the square. He wipes his brow and takes a short step backwards. He raises his speaking trumpet again.

‘This gathering is illegal,’ he says. ‘The Council did not call it.’

‘Maybe they should have,’ Askari’s voice carries from the auditorium.

A woman detaches herself from the crowd then. Alone she steps to the empty zone surrounding the guards arranged at the root of the Tower. She is not young or old, and she has wide hips and curly black hair gathered under a scarf; the light of the torches clings to its silvery stripes. She limps with one leg. Slowly, with difficulty she crosses the space separating the guards from the crowd. She stops in front of one of them. Her voice is deep and far-carrying, like a song.

‘If the Council has any interest in what is happening to our city,’ she says, ‘why would they not show themselves? Ask them to step forward.’

The guard’s face is in shadow under his helmet. He does not lower his spear, does not turn his head.

‘The Council takes no orders from the people,’ the guard says.

The woman stares at the guard in silence for a moment. Then she speaks again.

‘No,’ she says. ‘The Council claims to protect us: from the attacks of foreigners, from floods and disease.’ She pauses. ‘From dreaming.’

The crowd has grown quiet. The law-reader follows the events from the balcony. His hand raises the speaking trumpet, but lets it drop again. Air weighs on me, and my own blood weighs on me. My legs feel weak and hollow. I hold tight onto the tangle inside me. I hold onto Valeria’s arm in order to remain standing.

The woman turns her dark face towards the crowd.

‘Therefore I’d like to ask the Council,’ the woman continues, ‘why this flood has left my home in ruins.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘And why dreams have begun to bother my night-rest lately.’

Everyone knows Dreamers must be imprisoned so they cannot spread their disease. Yet no one takes a step. Even the City Guard is still waiting. My limbs pull me towards the ground. My skin is heavy, made of stone. The knot has tightened to a breaking point. Valeria is holding me upright.

A second woman moves through the crowd. No one stops her. She walks across the empty space and stops next to the first woman. She places her hand on the woman’s arm.

‘I have started dreaming too,’ she says.

The crowd stirs. Several other women and a few men walk to the Tower, next to the first two. Each one of them places a hand on the arm of the person standing next to them, until they form a chain.

‘Who wants to see the Council?’ the woman who first left the crowd shouts.

‘Show us the Council!’ Askari shouts back.

‘Show us the Council!’ a sole cry sounds from the square.

A second voice joins the cry, a third, a whole cluster of voices. They find a common rhythm, like waves of the sea, and grow into a chorus repeating the same demand. The Dreamers are repeating it too.

‘Show us the Council! Show us the Council!’

On the balcony the law-reader stares at the crowd below. He backs towards the door, stops. He strides back to the rail and raises the speaking trumpet to his mouth.

The words are drawn in my mind even before I hear them, and I think,

Janos.

His face turns towards me and his gaze meets mine,

Janos, run now and take everyone with you,

for the island around us will wither into ashes, I will wither into ashes and be gone soon,

board the ships, for they will seize their fires and blades and

‘Guards!’ the law-reader shouts. ‘Kill all the Dreamers!’

the fires will be slow to die and

I have no strength to stop it, the order has been given, I can only look how

the screams of pain will last long and

the guards turn their spears to a lunge and take a step forward, towards the soft, unsheltered bodies of people, and their brief hours and brittle days and

your people have drowned the world over and over, and forgotten, and then done it again.

My legs give in and my knees crash painfully into the stones of the square. I feel the water absorb through the fabric of my trousers. A short distance away a City Guard thrusts his spear into a young man’s back. Valeria’s eyes darken and her breath runs ragged. The square around us has turned into a sizzling witch’s cauldron, all movement and noise and blood.

I want the knot inside me to hold, but it pulls and tugs and slips, and my grip of the threads loosens, because each new wanting is without strength. The knot begins to unravel. Deep in the sea and ground and dust, the heart of the earth awakens.

‘It has begun,’ I say.

The ground shakes beneath us.

It is like stones being yanked in one direction with a swift drag. Valeria stumbles against me. I catch her and pull her down next to me. I wrap my arms around her. The ground continues to quake. A man and a woman next to us crouch to shelter three small children. I notice the gazes of people have turned towards the Tower and I look the same way. The law-reader has vanished from the balcony. The Tower begins to sway like a tree in wind. The stone sun at its pinnacle trembles and breaks off. It rolls out of place, hangs suspended in the air for a few moments before spinning down, and shatters onto the stones. The guards barely have time to move away.

Cracks appear on the trunk of the Tower, like in glass that gives in under too great a pressure. They rupture into black, hollow rifts, and the Tower spits stones onto the square like dead teeth. Boulders fall down and throw arcs of water into air as they hit the ground. People are running away from them, darting every which way. I hear a loud bang behind me. When I look, I see the arched gate has split in two. I glance towards the hill of the House of Webs. It glows as a smouldering ember at the core of the wrap of mist, and flame-threads run in all directions from it, seeking more to seize. Not many gusts of wind will be needed to carry the sparks to the straw of the roofs and wooden structures of houses, into the tanks of the Ink Quarters and to the House of Words, where paper waits, ready to burn with a tall flame.

I fumble for the Web of Worlds again, try to grasp what moves under the island, but the threads escape my reach and I am only able to catch a few that slip my hold.

The Tower swings, what remains of it. Large boulders sway above emptiness, peel open the hollow insides, and the black water of Halfway Canal bursts through, encloses the stones crumbling into it. The building collapses before our eyes, until only a hollow-carved stub remains, a piece of curved wall and a pile of structures. The crowd churns, is crushed into swirls and frays on the edges. I hear Dreamers shouting – harbours! Go to the harbours – but every thread-end I still hold cuts me inside like a thin and bright blade.

Someone comes running. I hear Janos’s voice, but his words are swallowed by the surrounding rumble. Hands pull me up. I see City Guards scattered around the square. Some of them are trying to get orders through to the crowd, but others have dropped their spears and are withdrawing, looking for orders to follow. When they do not find them, they are caught in the flow looking for a way out.

We move, although I can barely see any more, and around us the island is coming to an end.

The ship creaks and tilts, although the sea below is not raging, not yet. The city is already half-ashes, the seam of sea and sky covered in darkness. An ember-coloured glow still shines from the island, a dimming eye. That which remains. Somewhere ahead, across a distance opens a shore, strange and difficult and necessary.

I look behind, and I finally let go. The silhouette of the island rips apart once more, collapses on itself. I feel the rifts in me as the last threads of the Web of Worlds come loose from my grip, the limits of my body give in and my spirit goes astray. Far away and yet within myself I sense the smouldering thoughts like the last spark of a long-burned fire:

she is stronger than I knew, for she still lives,

she is stronger than I knew, for she still lives,

and from her dreams all threads reach for reality, and above

the starry night sky pulls me up until I am wind and light, rips apart to reveal a universe where nothing withholds me, and

another landscape opens ahead, a world that is ready to crumble or change.