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Authors: Stephen Palmer
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Raknia remarked.
I turned to face her. “Can you read my thoughts?”
There was the hint of a smile on her face. “You might say that. You have deep feelings, Ügliy, and I can see the ripples they create.”
I turned away. I did not like the idea that I was so transparent to her. It gave her more power than she had already. Now I felt ill at ease. “I think we’d better go,” I said, “we’ve waited long enough.”
“We’ve stood here less than a minute.”
I fretted. Something here was pressing down on me, a force, a feeling, perhaps the rumour of this haunted lane. Then I saw a shadow move from the corner of my eye and I jumped, cried and clutched Raknia, who in turn squeaked and clutched me.
I pointed at the shadow. “A wraith!”
“No, no, it’s a shade—”
“Run!”
I felt all reason depart, terror enclosing me as if to fill my lungs with soot then dump me down some nameless hole: I just had to get away. The force was animated—after me, and me alone.
Then from a doorway I saw a shape emerge. It was the wraith that had sought me out before. It blocked my way, and I felt two passions tearing me apart: the terror, which seemed like suffocation, and the urge to declare my feelings about my life. After a few moments spluttering I yelled, “Leave me alone! I’ll do what I want to do, so leave me alone!”
I noticed little of the flight that followed: the flash and blur of lamps, clattering boots, voices, the stink of soot and urine, the jabbing of my crutch into my armpit. I stopped once to take my bearings, then felt panic descend once more.
I was running alone.
The return of calm was like a cooling of my body. The flicker of a lantern and the baroque curl of a wrought iron fence returned me to reality. I recognised the street I was in. I stopped, gasping for breath, my throat and chest aching, nose and eyes running. I coughed, then bent over my crutch, trying to calm the pains in my side.
I had been a fool to think that I could reverse a haunting. But I realised one thing. I had shouted at the wraith, words I could not remember, but they were bitter words that would be interpreted as a declaration of intent. Those words were unambiguous.
I must become a citidenizen.
30.2.583
What is this strange emotion that is seeping up from my toes, from my legs—this is the only way that I can write what I feel, though it is inaccurate—and entering into the place inside my chestwhere my heartbeats? Some, I have heard, call it joy. Some say it lives in a bottle of raki. Some know it as the daemon spirit of the countless taverns that line the harbour. I have never been drunk in my whole life. Thrice, perhaps, I have sipped alcohol from a glass and felt a few minutes later its inevitable effect on my head, accellerated by an empty stomach. My precious head! But what I feel now is other than drunken pleasure, for it is deeper, finer, more noble, and I will call it joy.
I think I feel joy because I tread my wonderful path of bright light.
I cannot be certain of this. I do not deal in certainties—though I do like them. Nogoth life is uncertain life and I have learned this lesson well. But it seems to me that joy is approaching, seeping down from the high strata of the citidenizenry, offering me hope, and, perhaps, though it seems unlikely, sustenance. And yet, why not? Why should the Mavrosopolis not recognise the potential that resides in me? I am sensitive to absurdity, and I find it absurd to think that the Mavrosopolis would ignore anyone so useful, not to mention so driven as myself.
I am an apprentice now. I have to show myself not as the person I am, but as the person I will become. I have to think forward into time and imagine how it will be when I am a citidenizen—so good, so true, so right—that somehow I might clothe myself in correct attributes, and be recognised as the fine fellow I will be.
I am impatient with the people of the Tower of the Thawers. They are stolid, rational, slow,
I turned to face her. “Can you read my thoughts?”
There was the hint of a smile on her face. “You might say that. You have deep feelings, Ügliy, and I can see the ripples they create.”
I turned away. I did not like the idea that I was so transparent to her. It gave her more power than she had already. Now I felt ill at ease. “I think we’d better go,” I said, “we’ve waited long enough.”
“We’ve stood here less than a minute.”
I fretted. Something here was pressing down on me, a force, a feeling, perhaps the rumour of this haunted lane. Then I saw a shadow move from the corner of my eye and I jumped, cried and clutched Raknia, who in turn squeaked and clutched me.
I pointed at the shadow. “A wraith!”
“No, no, it’s a shade—”
“Run!”
I felt all reason depart, terror enclosing me as if to fill my lungs with soot then dump me down some nameless hole: I just had to get away. The force was animated—after me, and me alone.
Then from a doorway I saw a shape emerge. It was the wraith that had sought me out before. It blocked my way, and I felt two passions tearing me apart: the terror, which seemed like suffocation, and the urge to declare my feelings about my life. After a few moments spluttering I yelled, “Leave me alone! I’ll do what I want to do, so leave me alone!”
I noticed little of the flight that followed: the flash and blur of lamps, clattering boots, voices, the stink of soot and urine, the jabbing of my crutch into my armpit. I stopped once to take my bearings, then felt panic descend once more.
I was running alone.
The return of calm was like a cooling of my body. The flicker of a lantern and the baroque curl of a wrought iron fence returned me to reality. I recognised the street I was in. I stopped, gasping for breath, my throat and chest aching, nose and eyes running. I coughed, then bent over my crutch, trying to calm the pains in my side.
I had been a fool to think that I could reverse a haunting. But I realised one thing. I had shouted at the wraith, words I could not remember, but they were bitter words that would be interpreted as a declaration of intent. Those words were unambiguous.
I must become a citidenizen.
30.2.583
What is this strange emotion that is seeping up from my toes, from my legs—this is the only way that I can write what I feel, though it is inaccurate—and entering into the place inside my chestwhere my heartbeats? Some, I have heard, call it joy. Some say it lives in a bottle of raki. Some know it as the daemon spirit of the countless taverns that line the harbour. I have never been drunk in my whole life. Thrice, perhaps, I have sipped alcohol from a glass and felt a few minutes later its inevitable effect on my head, accellerated by an empty stomach. My precious head! But what I feel now is other than drunken pleasure, for it is deeper, finer, more noble, and I will call it joy.
I think I feel joy because I tread my wonderful path of bright light.
I cannot be certain of this. I do not deal in certainties—though I do like them. Nogoth life is uncertain life and I have learned this lesson well. But it seems to me that joy is approaching, seeping down from the high strata of the citidenizenry, offering me hope, and, perhaps, though it seems unlikely, sustenance. And yet, why not? Why should the Mavrosopolis not recognise the potential that resides in me? I am sensitive to absurdity, and I find it absurd to think that the Mavrosopolis would ignore anyone so useful, not to mention so driven as myself.
I am an apprentice now. I have to show myself not as the person I am, but as the person I will become. I have to think forward into time and imagine how it will be when I am a citidenizen—so good, so true, so right—that somehow I might clothe myself in correct attributes, and be recognised as the fine fellow I will be.
I am impatient with the people of the Tower of the Thawers. They are stolid, rational, slow,
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