Read Online Spin by Nina Allan - Free Book Online Page A

don’t mind me saying that. I’m getting it all wrong, I
expect.”
    “ Just you and the whole gaming industry.” He seemed
delighted by her response. “There are at least three major animé
series based on The Pirates , and
that’s just the legal stuff. Yet it was panned when it was first
published. The critics dismissed it as fantasy.”
    “ You’re not trying to tell me it’s based on fact?”
    “ Isn’t everything? Everything is real in a way, once you’ve
imagined it.”
    “ You sound like – ” You sound like the old
woman , she wanted to
say, but then thought better of it. She did not want to bring
Thanick Acampos into the conversation. It was bad enough that she
kept popping into her head all the time. Layla bit her lip and
turned away towards the window. The sunlight lay flat on the lake
like the sheen on satin. She wondered when Alcander had last been
outside in the open air.
    “ Sound like what?” said Alcander. He was grinning at her, the
gesture now more recognisable for what it was and less like a
grimace of pain. She knew it was impossible for such rapid
improvements to have taken place in Alcander’s condition, yet she
could hardly deny the evidence of her eyes.
    She told
herself it was simply that she was becoming accustomed to the way
he looked, that it was the man she was seeing now, not the monster
that his sickness had made him.
    “ Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I was going to say you reminded
me of Plato or something. One of those people. I don’t know what
I’m talking about really.”
    His mouth
stretched wide in a soundless gagging she realised was laughter. “I
think you know a lot more than you let on. Anyway, I don’t have
much time for philosophy, all those tidy little theories they dream
up. I sometimes think the philosophers are as keen on averaging
people out as the lawmen. That’s why I love the poets so much. A
poet isn’t really interested in any system of thought except his
own. The academics would say Panteleimon was an anarchist, a
supporter of the founding twelve hundred. But really he was too
wrapped up in his own life even for that. And it’s only when
someone speaks for himself and for himself alone that you know he’s
speaking the truth.”
    His speech
ended in a burst of coughing, a terrible raw hacking that made it
sound as if his insides were being wrenched free. He covered his
mouth with both hands. When he finally lifted them away Layla saw
that the palm not covered in bandages was smeared all over with
green phlegm. He wiped his hand on a square of towelling that had
been left looped over the headrest, then reached for a porcelain
cup on the invalid table. His fingers were trembling. Layla leaped
up from her seat and went to his side. She picked up the cup, which
was heavy and bulky as a beer tankard. She supposed that made it
less likely to be knocked over. The water in the cup had the same
metallic smell as the water she had drunk from the fountain on the
road to Corinth, and once again she found herself thinking of
Thanick Acampos. She held the cup to Alcander’s lips, holding it in
both hands to keep it steady.
    “ You shouldn’t talk so much,” she said. “Not all in one go,
anyway.”
    She smiled,
and he gulped the water, but his face when he raised it afterwards
had a stricken look.
    “ How embarrassing,” he said. “God only knows what you must
think of me.”
    “ I think you’re probably the most interesting person I’ve ever
met.” She took the cup from his hands and placed it back on the
table. “And definitely the bravest.”
    “ Interesting and brave.” He pulled a face. “That’s almost
worse than good sense of humour.”
    She laughed.
“What if I was to tell you that interesting is the finest
compliment I know.”
    “ I’m not sure I’d believe you. I’d have to suspend
my judgement until I knew you better.” He reached again for the
cup, and Layla saw that his hands had stopped shaking, that he was
able