Iain Banks - Walking on Glass

Quiss nodded. Yes, that made more sense that what the small attendant had told him in the room he had found his way into. "Dirt', indeed!

"That is the name of this place; that is where the castle is; on Earth, towards the end of the planet's life. In a few hundred million more years the sun will become a red giant, engulfing the inner planets of its system. In the meantime, with no moon anymore, and having stopped wobbling and spinning, with only the castle, as far as I know, on the surface and all trace of previous civilisations and the species of humankind just weathered away or ground beneath continental plates a billion years ago, this is your inheritance."

"Mine?" Quiss said. He looked about. Some distance behind him, the gentle curvature of the castle's base-wall was more evident than it had been closer to.

"This," the red crow said "is one of two fates that wait you. If you want, you can join these people; become one of them, dreaming of a past time, within the body of whoever they choose, billions upon billions of years ago."

"Why should I want, or not want that?"

"You might want it because you do not wish to die now. You may not want it because you have what they sometimes call a civilised consciousness. You see, each of these people has tried and failed to do what you and your lady-friend are trying - and will fail - to do; escape. Every one of them, all these millions of individuals, is a failure. Each one has given up trying to answer the riddle they were set, and while others have chosen oblivion, these have chosen to live out what time they have left as parasites, in the minds of others in forgotten times. They experience what others have experienced, they even have the illusion of altering the past, so that they seem to exercise free will, and apparently influence what their hosts do. It is to delay death, to turn to something like a drug, to turn away from reality, to refuse to face one's own defeat. I have heard it said that this is better than nothing, but..." the creature's voice trailed off. Its beady eyes stayed fixed on Quiss.

"I see," he said. "Well, I must say I don't find it all that depressing."

"Perhaps you will, though, later."

"Perhaps," Quiss said, and did his best to assume a nonchalant air. "Do I take it that these people have to be fed, and that the castle kitchens are as large and as busy as they are because they must cater for them?"

"Oh well done," the red crow said, only a little sarcastically. "Yes, they run little trains from the kitchens, full of soups and gruels, to the furthest points of the place, wherever those may be; some trains get lost for years, others never return. Luckily these failed unfortunates need little in the way of nourishment, so the easily kitchens can just about cope, though even so they couldn't do it if they didn't mess around with subjective time... For all I know this universal basement extends right round the planet, and the castle supplies all those people; or perhaps there are other castles; one does hear rumours. Well, the castle feeds all the people you see, at any rate. They're eased out of the head-hole and given a bowl to sup from; they sit there with empty eyes, as though asleep, drink or sup, then like zombies go back to their own little world again. Their wastes are taken away in the same trains." The red crow cocked its head, and its voice sounded almost puzzled: "But don't you find this all rather... sapping? This is what awaits you, man. This is where almost all of them end up, and a lot of them were a lot brighter than you. Ask the seneschal, if you like. He will confirm what I say. Very few escape. Virtually none."

"All the same, though, like you say," Quiss said, "it's better than nothing."

"To be a parasite? To end up with your head stuck inside some cheap biological time machine? I don't believe it. I thought more, even of you. I haven't lied to you, you know. The truth is quite awful enough. It's not as though these zombies really do influence the people whose brains they inhabit. The seneschal might like to pretend that they do, that free will increases with time and these people account for the sudden impulses in the primitives they haunt, but that's all nonsense. The creatures around the holes may make them think that, but experiments I have carried out myself indicate quite definitely that only the illusion of this effect exists and anyway, which is the more likely explanation?

"I tell you: these people are as good as dead. Theirs is a dreaming death."

"Still better than nothing," Quiss insisted. "Definitely."

The red crow was silent for some time, flapping lazily in front of him, hovering there, black eyes staring, expressionless. Eventually it said, "Then, warrior, you have no soul."

It flew in a semi-circle around him, heading back for the black wall which was the castle's base. 'We'd better get back," it said. "Ask the seneschal about this place, if you like. He will be angry, but he will not punish you and he cannot punish me. Ask him," the red crow said as it beat back to the curved wall of the roots of the Castle Doors, the Castle of Bequest, "anything at all. He will confirm that I almost none escape, that most end up here, or- the brave ones, the really civilised ones - kill themselves."

They arrived back at the door; it was still ajar. The red crow flapped at its side as Quiss, following it back, walked past the pillars and columns and dreaming people. At the same man, in furs, on a stool, he had looked at earlier, he stopped and turned to the red crow saying, "Let me ask you something."

"Yes, of course you can have a preview," the red crow said, and started to fly towards him. "There's an empty -"

"Oh no," Quiss said, shaking his head, looking at the bird as it stopped near him. Quiss nodded at the skinny man in the furs with his head stuck in the glass ceiling. "I was just wondering if you knew anything about him, say. What's his name? How long's he been here?"

"What?" the red crow said, sounding a little confused, even upset (Quiss concealed the thrill of triumph which shivered through him). "Him?" The red crow fluttered a little closer. "Oh, he's been here for ages," it said, its voice recovering its usual composure. "Name's... Godot? Goriot? Gerrut; something like that. The records aren't perfect, you know. An odd case... listen, are you sure you don't want to see what it's like? I can show you where -"

"No," Quiss said firmly, and walked smartly to the door leading back to the castle. "I'm not interested. Let's go back now."

And he had gone to the seneschal, who in the kitchens" clamour had confirmed most of what the red crow had said.

"So?" the seneschal had said, obviously annoyed. "You have seen your most likely fate; what of it? What am I supposed to do about it? Just think yourself lucky you didn't take the red crow up on its offer; once you're in one of those things properly you don't come out of your own free will; too beguiling. If somebody doesn't come to get you out you stay there, tapping every form of human excitement. By the time your belly rumbles you're hooked. You come out for food and it's just a grey dream compared to what you have just left.

"That's what the bird was up to. It would have shown you the free ceiling-port down there, then just have left you. And don't trust it on free will, either. The ceiling-ports allow full control of the primitives" minds. Everything can be altered. Every mind contains its own universe. We can be sure of nothing . That is all I have to say. If you want to enter officially that place which you have already seen informally, file a notice of surrender with me through the proper channels. Now go away, please." The seneschal had scowled, and gone back up the rickety wooden steps to his office, away from the continuing chaos of the kitchens.