Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Volume 10

I GREW UP with two injunctions in case of fire: save the dogs and the Blue Empress. For almost all my life the jewel was a ghost-stone – present but unseen, haunting Grangegorman and the lives it held. I have a memory from earliest childhood of seeing the stone – never touching it – but I do not trust the memory. Imaginings too easily become memories, memories imaginings.

We are not free in so many things, we of the landed class. Richard would inherit, Arthur would make a way in the worlds and I would marry as well as I could; land to land. The Barony of Rathangan was considered one of the most desirable in Kildare, despite Patrick’s seeming determination to drag it to the bankruptcy court. A match was made, and he was charming and bold; a fine sportsman and a very handsome man. It was an equal match – snide comments from both halves of the county. The Blue Empress was part of my treasure – on the strict understanding that it remain in the custody of my lawyers. Patrick argued – and it was there I first got an inkling of his true character – the wedding was off the wedding was on the wedding was off the wedding was on again and the banns posted. A viewing was arranged, for his people to itemise and value the Hyde treasure. For the first time in long memory, the Blue Empress was taken from its safe and displayed. Blue as the wide Atlantic it was, and as boundless and clear. You could lose yourself forever in the light inside that gem. And yes, it was the size of a thrush’s egg.

And then the moment that all the stories agree on: the lights failed. Not so unusual at Grangegorman – the same grandfather who brought back the Blue Empress installed the hydro-plant – but when they came back on again; the sapphire was gone: baize and case and everything.

We called upon the honour of all present, ladies and gentlemen alike. The lights would be put out for five minutes, and when they were switched back on, the Blue Empress would be back in the Hyde treasure. It was not. Our people demanded we call the police, Patrick’s people, mindful of their client’s attraction to scandal, were less insistent. We would make a further appeal to honour: if the Blue Empress was not back by morning, then we would call the guards.

Not only was the Blue Empress still missing, so was Arthur.

We called the Garda Siochana. The last we heard was that Arthur had left for the Inner Worlds.

The wedding went ahead. It would have been a greater scandal to call it off. Patrick could not let the matter go: he went to his grave believing Arthur and I had conspired to keep the Blue Empress out of his hands. I have no doubt that Patrick would have found a way of forcing me to sign over possession of the gem to him, and selling it. Wastrel.

As for the Blue Empress: I feel I am very near to Arthur now. One cannot run forever. We will meet, and the truth will be told.

THEN LIGHT FLOODED our carriage as the train emerged from the tunnel on to the final ramp and there, before us, its spires and domes dusted with snow blown from the high peaks, was the Convent of the Starry Pelerines.

PLATE 9: V aquilonis vitis visionum: the Northern Littoral, or Ghost Vine. A common climber of the forests of the southern slopes of the Ishtari altiplano, domesticated and widely grown in Thent garden terraces. Its white, trumpet-shaped flowers are attractive, but the plant is revered for its berries. When crushed, the infused liquor known as pula creates powerful auditory hallucinations in Venerian physiology and form the basis of the Thent mystical hoondahvi cult. In Terrenes it produces a strong euphoria and a sense of omnipotence.

Alkaloid-infused paper. Ida Granville-Hyde used Thent Ghost-Vine liquor to tint the paper in this cut. It is reported to be still mildly hallucinogenic.

YOU’LL COME OUT on to the belvedere? It’s supposed to be off-limits to Terrenes – technically blasphemy – sacred space and all that – but the pelerines turn a blind eye. Do excuse the cough... ghastly, isn’t it? Sounds like a bag of bloody loose change. I don’t suppose the cold air does much for my lungs, but at this stage it’s a matter of damn.

That’s Gloaming Peak there. You won’t see it until the cloud clears. Every Great Evening, every Great Dawn, for a few Earth-days at a time, the cloud breaks. It goes up, oh so much further than you could ever imagine. You look up, and up, and up and beyond it, you see the stars. That’s why the pelerines came here. Such a sensible religion. The stars are gods. One star, one god. Simple. No faith, no heaven, no punishment, no sin. Just look up and wonder. The Blue Pearl: that’s what they call our Earth. I wonder if that’s why they care for us. Because we’re descended from divinity? If only they knew. They really are very kind.

Excuse me. Bloody marvellous stuff, this Thent brew. I’m in no pain at all. I find it quite reassuring that I shall slip from this too too rancid flesh swaddled in a blanket of beatific thoughts and analgesic glow. They’re very kind, the pelerines. Very kind.

Now, look to your right. There. Do you see? That staircase, cut into the rock, winding up up up. The Ten Thousand Steps. That’s the old way to the altiplano. Everything went up and down those steps: people, animals, goods, palanquins and stickmen, traders and pilgrims and armies. Your brother. I watched him go, from this very belvedere. Three years ago, or was it five? You never really get used to the Great Day. Time blurs.

We were tremendous friends, the way that addicts are. You wouldn’t have come this far without realising some truths about your brother. Our degradation unites us. Dear thing. How we’d set the world to rights, over flask after flask of this stuff. He realised the truth of this place early on. It’s the way to the stars. God’s waiting room. And we, this choir of shambling wrecks, wander through it, dazzled by our glimpses of the stars. Dear Arthur.

We’re all darkened souls here, but he was haunted. Things done and things left undone, like the prayer book says. My father was a vicar – can’t you tell? He never spoke completely about his time with the javrosts. He hinted – I think he wanted to, very much, but was afraid of giving me his nightmares. That old saw about a problem shared being a problem halved? Damnable lie. A problem shared is a problem doubled. But I would find him up here all times of the Great Day and Night, watching the staircase and the caravans and stick-convoys going up and down. Altiplano porcelain, he’d say. So fine you can read the Bible through it. Every cup, every plate, every vase and bowl, was portered down those stairs on the shoulders of a stickman. You know he served up on the Altiplano, in the Duke of Yoo’s Pacification. I wasn’t here then, but Aggers was, and he said you could see the smoke going up; endless plumes of smoke, so thick the sky didn’t clear and the pelerines went for a whole Great Day without seeing the stars. All Arthur would say about it was, that’ll make some fine china. That’s what made porcelain from the Valley of the Kilns so fine: bones – the bones of the dead, ground up into powder. He would never drink from a Valley cup – he said it was drinking from a skull.

Here’s another thing about addicts – you never get rid of it. All you do is replace one addiction with another. The best you can hope for is that it’s a better addiction. Some become god-addicts – or gods, some throw themselves into worthy deeds, or self-improvement, or fine thoughts, or helping others, God help us all. Me, my lovely little vice is sloth – I really am an idle little bugger. It’s so easy, letting the seasons slip away; slothful days and indolent nights, coughing my life up one chunk at a time. For Arthur, it was the visions. Arthur saw wonders and horrors, angels and demons, hopes and fears. True visions – the things that drive men to glory or death. Visionary visions. It lay up on the altiplano, beyond the twists and turns of the Ten Thousand Steps. I could never comprehend what it was, but it drove him. Devoured him. Ate his sleep, ate his appetite. Ate his body and his soul and his sanity.