China Mieville - Kraken

When Billy was done there was a thimbleful, more than a drop but not much more. He dipped a needle into it. Dane stood, made a devotional sign, joined them. He glanced up. Wati hibernated through the union’s defeat in a doll strapped on the vehicle’s roof. Billy rifled through the papers he was using, scraps from his bag, all manner of odds and ends.

“Is this going to work?” Saira said.

“Works for Byrne,” Billy said. “Let’s see.”

“Are we actually finally going to find out what his plans are?”

Billy kept his eyes on Dane’s. He put the needle to the paper and dragged his hand, without looking, across the page. He drew a line, only a line.

“Oy,” Billy said. “Grisamentum. Pay attention.” He drew another line, and a third, and this last time suddenly it spasmed like a cardiogram, and there was writing. UP YOURS, the writing wrote. Tiny scratchy font. Billy redipped the needle.

“Let me,” Dane whispered, and Billy waved him back.

“You aren’t thinking straight,” Billy whispered to the little residue at the bottom of the container. “You’re probably a bit foggy. You must be a bit dilute, a bit mucky. Your little brain must be… little.” He held a pipette over the ink.

“We can dilute you a bit more. Does alcohol sting? We’ve got some lemon juice. We’ve got some acid.” Billy would swear the tiny pool flinched at that. The pigment that was Grisamentum swilled in the cup.

“What are you doing?” Billy said to the ink.

“My people…” Dane said.

Billy dipped, scratched, wrote. FUCK YOU.

“Right,” said Billy. He dipped the needle in bleach, and then into the ink. A tiny amount: this had to be a delicate kind of attack. The colour twitched, left a little fade. Billy mixed it, dragged the needle again.

BASTARDS, Grisamentum wrote in itself.

“What are you doing?” Billy said.

FUCK YOU.

“Where’s the rest of you?” Billy said.

FUCK U.

Billy dripped in more bleach and the ink rolled. “We’re not going to pour you down the sink. You don’t get to dissipate painlessly with rats and turds.” He held the pipette over the glass. “I will piss in you and then bleach you so you dissolve. Where is the rest of you?”

He wrote. The penmanship was ragged. FUCKERS.

“Alright,” said Dane. “Bleach that murdering bastard.”

WAIT. Billy scratched. INK FACTRY. CLOSED.

Billy looked at Saira. Dane whispered to the toy he carried, though Wati was not in it. “Why take all the books?” He dipped more bleach again.

RESERCH.

“How can he read them all?” said Dane. “Research? Why does he care anyway? What in the name of God has all this been about?”

It was Grisamentum’s plan that started the countdown to the fire to come. Kicked everything into motion. Only by the superstition of Adler, one of the few who knew his boss still lived in that intermediate ashy way, had the Londonmancers found out about the scheme. Grisamentum’s intended theft had made them intervene, against their own oaths, because they could not have that burning.

“Why,” whispered Billy, “do you want to burn it?”

DONT CRAZY WHY?

“So what is it?” Billy said.

“What’s he doing?” Fitch said. “Why did he even want the kraken?”

CANT U GUESS?

The ink wrote that, forcing the needle unexpectedly to the paper and scribbling with Billy’s hand. Billy redipped.

MAGIC.

ONLY I CAN BE.

“Okay,” said Billy after seconds of silence. “Does anyone understand this?”

“Why’s he saying this?” Dane said. “You’re not even bleaching him.”

“He’s crowing,” said Paul, suddenly. Billy nodded.

“Bleach the motherfucker,” said Dane. “Just on principle.” Billy dipped the bleach-tipped needle and the ink swilled to get away.

NO NO BE ITS MAGC ONLY I CAN. NO 1 ELS IN LONDONN CN BE.

“He’s losing it,” Saira said.

“Ink,” Billy said.

THEY STARED AT HIM.

“That’s what he means,” Billy said. “That’s what no one else in London can be. The kraken’s ink. Anyone else might be able to use it, but Grisamentum can be it.”

Such a magic beast. Alien hunter god in its squiddity. Englassed. Knowing how this stuff worked, Billy thought. It had the biggest eyes-so all-seeing. Bastard of myth and science, specimen-magic. And what other entity, possessing those characteristics, being that thing, had the means to write it all down?

“Jesus,” Billy said. “This has always been about writing. What do you mean?” he said to the ink. “How does it work?”

CAN B IT CAN WILL BE INNNK

It was too gone, too bleached and limited, that little drip of Grisamentum, to answer. Alright. Analogies, metaphors, persuasion-this, Billy knew, was how London did it. He remembered watching Vardy gnosis up, from will, and Billy decluttered his mind and tried to mimic him.

So.

With script, a new kind of memory, grimoires and accounts. Traditions could be created, lies made more tenacious. History written down sped up, travelled at the speed of ink. And all the tedious antique centuries before we were ready, the pigment was stored for us in the cephalopod containers-motile ink, ink we caught and ate and let run down and stain our chins.

Oh, what, he thought, it was camouflage? Please. Architeuthis lives in the aphotic zone: what purpose would the spray of dark sepia serve in a world without light? It was there for other reasons. We just would not get the hint, not for millennia. We didn’t invent ink: ink was waiting for us, aeons before writing. In the sacs of the deepwater god.

“What could you do with kraken ink?” Dane said. Not scornful-breathless.

“What can you be with it?” Billy corrected.

The very writing on the wall. The logbook, the instructions by which the world worked. Commandments.

“But it’s dead,” Billy said.

“Come on, look at Byrne, he’s worked with thanatechs before,” Dane said. “All he needs is to wake its body up, just a little bit. For a little bit of ink. All he has to do is milk it.”

It would not take so much to bring that preserved kraken an interzone closer to life. Thanks to Billy and his colleagues there was no corruption, after all, no rot to cajole backward, which was always the hardest battle for necrosmiths. A threshold-life would be enough to stimulate the ink sacs.

“But why would he burn it?” Saira said. “Why the burning?”

“His plan sets it in motion,” said Fitch at last. “That’s all we know.”

“Maybe it’s to do with his crew,” Billy said. “It must be him has Cole’s daughter. Maybe it’s out of his control. What are you doing with the girl?” He said the last sentence loudly to the ink spot. “What are you doing with Cole’s daughter?” He shook it to wake it.

WAT?? ALK? NO GIRLL INK

“Bleach it away,” said Saira. Billy wrote an alarming jagged line, and the words IS TATOO IS U? An arrow. Pointing at Paul. Paul stood.

“Hey,” said Billy. “Why do you have the girl?” He wrote in tiny print again. TA2 NO CATCH YOU YES. HELO

“That’s enough,” Billy said. A couple more meaningless scrawls, the words came again, and this time fast.

WHAT WILL THEY DO 2 U?

“What? Do what?” Billy wrote, looking away. “What’s he talking about?”

“Wait wait,” shouted Fitch, and Billy pulled the nib up and looked at what he had written.

THEY HAVE U & TA2. WONT LET YOU LIV I PRTECT U QIK

“What…?” “Wait…” “Is that…?” Everyone was sounding it out.

They have you. Paul was standing. And Tattoo. Dane was beside him. They won’t let you live.

Billy stared at Saira and Fitch. I protect you, Grisamentum was telling Paul. Quick.