David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Meronym steadied me. I din’t ’fess the boulders was yibber-stinkin’ her, but she seen sumthin’ weren’t right. The air up here is thin’n’watery , she speaked, an’ your brain’ll get diresome hungry an’ make this wyrd place wyrdsomer .

We got to the second buildin’ an’ I slumped droozy while the Prescient worked the door open. Oh, that hollerin’ sun hollowed my head. She’s a sly un, no frettin’, Zachry! Truman Napes Third was perched on his boulder. Meronym’d not even heard him. You b’lief her or your own kin? he called me, mournsome. Are your truths jus’ “thin’n’watery air”? Am I? Oh, I was reliefed the next beat when the observ’tree door open. Them ghosts’n’their spikery truths cudn’t follow us inside, see, I s’pose the Smart kept ’em out.

So it went all aft’noon long, yay. Most o’ the observ’trees was much like the first. The Prescient opened up, ’splored the place with her orison, an’ mostly forgot I was there. Me, I just sat an’ breathed that Smart air till she was done. But stompin’ b’tween buildin’s, twisted boulders chorused me, Judas! an’ Pack mule! an’ Ship slave! Ghosts o’ Valleysmen pleaded me thru unpartin’ frostbited lips, yay, She ain’t your tribe! Ain’t even your color! an’ then’n’there, oh, frightsome sense they made, I ’fess it here’n’now.

S’picion rotted me.

No Prescient’d ever been straight with no Valleysman, an’ that day I knowed Meronym was no diff’rent. The boulders’d changed the blue sky to anxin’n’flinty gray by the last buildin’. Meronym teached me it weren’t no observ’tree but a gen’rator what made a Smart magic named ’lectric what worked the hole place like a heart works the body. She was whoahin’ at the machines’n’all, but I was jus’ feelin’ stoopit’n’judased for bein’ blinded by the Shipwoman since she’d come elbowin’ into my dwellin’. I din’t know what to do nor how to stop her plans, but Georgie’d got his plans, cuss him.

This gen’rator’s innards was diff’rent from other buildin’s. The Prescient woman glowed with fass’nation as we stepped into the echoey chambers, but I din’t. See, I knowed we wasn’t alone in there. Shipwoman din’t b’lief me, o’ course, but in the biggest space where a mighty iron heart stood silent was a sort o’ throne s’rounded by tables o’ littl’ windows an’ numbers’n’all, an’ on this throne was a died Old-Un priest slumpin’ under an arched window. The Prescient swallowed hard an’ peered close. A chief stron’mer, I reck’n , she spoke hushly, he must o’ soosided here when the Fall came, an’ the sealed air’s saved his body from rottin’ . A priest-king not a chief, I reck’ned, in such a wondersome palace. She got to work mem’ryin’ ev’ry inch o’ that doomin’ place on her orison while I ’proached nearer that priest-king from the world o’ perfect Civ’lize. His hair straggled an’ his nails was hooky an’ the years’d shrunk’n’sagged his face some sure, but his Smart sky clothes was spiff’n’fine, sapphires pierced his ear, an’ he mem’ried me of Unc’ Bees, same hoggy nose, yay.

List’n to me, Valleysman , the soosided priest-king spoke, yay, list’n. We Old Uns was sick with Smart an’ the Fall was our cure. The Prescient don’t know she’s sick, but, oh, real sick she is . Thru that arch o’ glass waves o’ snow was tossin’n’turnin’ an’ drownin’ the sun. Put her to sleep, Zachry, or she’n’her kind’ll bring all their offland sick to your beautsome Valleys. I’ll minder her soul well in this place, never fear . The Shipwoman was movin’ ’bout with her orison, hummin’ a Prescient babbybie what she’d teached Catkin’n’Sussy Tick-tockin’ was my thinkin’. Wasn’t killin’ her barb’ric’n’savage?

Ain’t no right or wrong , the ’stron’mer king teached me, jus’ protectin’ your tribe or judasin’ your tribe, yay, jus’ a strong will or a weak un. Kill her, bro. She ain’t no god, she’s only blood’n’tubes .

I said I cudn’t, the yibber’d tag me murderer an’ Abbess’d call a gath’rin’ what’d exile me from the Valleys.

Oh, think, Zachry , the king micked me. Think! How’ll the yibber know? Yibber’ll say, “That knowed-all offlander ignored our yarns’n’ways an’ went trespyin’ up Mauna Kea an’ brave Zachry went ’long to try’n’minder her, but it turned out she weren’t so Smart what she thinked.”

Beats passed. All right , I answered fin’ly’n’grim, I’ll spiker her when we step outside . The priest-king smiled, pleased, an’ din’t speak no more. Fin’ly my victim howzitted me. Fine , said I, tho’ I were nervy, see, the biggest thing I ever killed was goats an’ now I’d vowed to kill a Prescient human. She said we should set off ’cos she din’t want to get stranded in no blizzard up here an’ leaded us back out the gen’rator.

Outside, the boulders’d falled silent in the ankle-snow. One snowstorm’d gone but another, bigger un was comin’ so I reck’ned.

We walked t’ward the steely gate, her in front, me grippin’ Jonas’s spiker an’ testin’ its sharp on my thumb.

Do it now! say-soed ev’ry murd’rous stone on Mauna Kea.

Nothin’ to be gained by dillyin’, nay. Hushly I aimed at the top o’ the Prescient’s neck, an’ Sonmi have mercy on my soul, I thrust that sharky point home as hard as I could.

Nay, I din’t murder her, see in a split-beat b’tween aimin’ an’ thrustin’, Sonmi had mercy on my soul, yay, she changed my aim an’ that spiker went flyin’ high over that steely gate. Meronym din’t even cogg she’d nearly had her skull skewered, but I cogged sure ’nuff I’d been magicked by the devil o’ Mauna Kea, yay, we all know his name, cuss him.

You see sumthin’ up there? asked Meronym, after my spiker.

Yay , I lied, but it weren’t no un, nay, it was jus’ the tricks o’ this place .

We’re leavin’ , she said, we’re leavin’ now .

Old Georgie was outwitted, see, there weren’t no means I could kill her quicksharp without my spiker, but he’d not jus’ lay down an’ watch my vic’try, nay, I knowed that slywise buggah of old.

As I climbed up the rope with the gearbag, Mauna Kea took a lungsome breath an’ howled giddyin’ snow so I cudn’t see the ground clearly an’ ten winds tore our faces an’ my fingers was stiff with cold an’ halfway up I slid halfway down an’ that rope burned my hands but fin’ly I hauled myself up top an’ bringed up the gearbag with my painful stingin’n’raw palms. Meronym weren’t so fast, but she weren’t far from the top o’ the wall when suddenwise time stopped.

Time stopped, yay, you heard right. For Hole World ’cept me an’ a certain cunnin’ devil, yay, you know which un came swagg’rin’ along the wall, time was jus’ … stopped.

Snowflakes hanged specklin’ the air. Old Georgie swished ’em aside. I tried reas’nin’ with you, Zachry, you stubbornsome boy, now I got to use warnin’s an’ augurin’s an’ say-so. Get out your blade an’ cut this rope thru . His foot touched the rope what was holdin’ time-freezed Meronym. Worn face screwed ’gainst the blizzard it was, an’ her muscles strainin’ to climb that rope. Twenty feet o’ nothin’ below. Her fall may not kill her when I let time flow again , Old Georgie seen my thinkin’, but them rocks b’low’ll bust her spine’n’legs an’ she’ll not s’vive the night. I’ll let her consider her follyin’s .