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He wished they hadn’t moved the sea. He missed its refreshing imbat , its monstrous many-legged denizens, the darkly-mumbled connotations of an island home. He also liked to swim. First they had moved the city underwater. This was pleasant, in its way: drab conurbations flushed by a salty embrace, crenellations tinctured, dull streets drowned in prismatic light.
Like most of the Queen’s experiments, it was horribly unsuccessful. Communication proved difficult. Possessions floated away. There was a general resentment - most probably at the overt reminder of seadweller superiority, which was certainly in poor taste.
So the sea had been removed. In place of the imbat and the poyraz, the land-wind, there was now just wind - a dry definitionless sort of wind that trailed dust and refuse round the city; an acrid apathetic stench. This bothersome scent lingered in the chambers of the nose; insisted on following Sully about his daily business. It was there in the dawn air as Sully took his exercise. It was there in the midturn haze as Sully posted bounties. It insinuated itself into his palate as Sully ate his dinner, like the hot stink of a sewer grating or the unlooked-for dogshit in the tread of his heel.
Eventually Sully knew he was unwell. Whereas once it took him seconds to get ready in the morning (roll sideways; twenty press-ups; hit alarm; roll forwards; twenty sit ups; leap outside), now he felt sluggish and wounded. It was as if a devil had installed a tollbooth between brain and body and instructions which should have been immediate were now being unforeseeably delayed. Inducements were required, bribes, to be so bold. Sully found himself drinking coffee, not for pleasure, but out of a perverse necessity. “Oh, excuse me Mr. Devil, I’d rather like to move my left elbow, but I believe it would be worth your while, if you catch my drift”; a surly wink exchanged; a caffeine molecule palmed deftly under the counter of said tollbooth operator. He hadn’t managed his start-of-turn routine in less than five minutes. It was degrading.
And that was why Sully had gone to Eloise. She had led him into her quiet study, pulled out a stethoscope (why did she have a stethoscope?) and told him to lie down; whereupon she performed a thorough examination, the kind he’d often seen but never had expected to receive (“say ‘aah’”; “ahh”). He had talked about his symptoms. It was important to talk about your symptoms.
Afterwards, Eloise had sat down gently beside him. He’d stared deeply into the dry beds where her limpid purple pools (of gloopy iris gunk) had lain so long ago. She gave a solemn pronouncement.
“Jake, I think you’re unhappy”.
Unhappy. Sully felt bisected, as though the inescapable fact of his unhappiness were as a rock on which the once untrammeled torrent of his life had split and left thereafter two new institutes - one a proud stream, much diminished; one a stagnant basin: brackish, fetid, toxic and impure. It was, succinctly put, a bit of a fucking shock.
“Er. Well.” Sully coughed, to indicate distress. “What do I do about it?”
Eloise smiled. “I wish I knew”.
Sully had headed somberly out of Eloise’s chambers, trudged back to his apartment and moped. He felt that moping was the proper response, given the circumstances. However, after several minutes of protracted lamentation, his disposition remained unchanged. So he decided to go for a walk, instead.
Walks were good. In A Gentleman’s Primer (a book for which he held a biblical, almost childlike reverence) walks were described as “both salutary physical exercise and a sound means of directing an excess of youthful vim and vigor which may otherwise prove deleterious”. Jake wasn’t sure what could rightly be termed an excess of youthful vim, but whenever he felt at the mercy of some extreme emotion - anger, perhaps, at the treatment of a friend, or the gnawing guilt brought on by failure - he prescribed himself a long perambulation.
Sully’s apartment was based quite near to the centre of the city, a temperate housing block home mostly to lowblood clerical workers and the occasional dersite trader. It boasted a lovely little garden which formed a rudimentary plaza at the heart of the complex, dotted with palm trees and aromatic plants. Jasmine thrived absolutely, and its perfume was normally enough to put you in a quasi-trancelike state. Sully’s favourite part was where a trellis-bound bougainvillea formed a sort of fenced off seating area. The trellis was so insubstantial a frame, and the bougainvillea so vital, that the caretaker (a shabby Prospitian with many a thrilling tale to tell) had introduced to this arrangement a malleable metal wire, connecting the cumbersome vegetable to one of its many neighbours - a sturdy palm. A tender shoot had grown along the wire and brushed against the trunk of this same tree, as if to say: thank you. Whenever he encountered this scene, he was consequently cheered. The palm reminded him of Meg.
Anchor was arguably the most important dream. The first and therefore oldest ‘stable’ bubble, Anchor was home to the Autumn Queen and the lynchpin of her mighty Empire (long may she reign &c &c). From the outer rim, Anchor shone with a majestic and ethereal light, the diadem that held all other dreams in thrall. At least, that’s what the propagandists said. Sully knew firsthand that most of what the Court churned out was, in fact, A-1 premium grade horsebollocks - although what bubbles looked like from outside was a mystery to him. If he ever got the chance, he’d have to ask Aradia about it. Her or the other guy. (“There’s another guy?”, Jake had said. “Yes!”, said Meg, “Only you’re not supposed to say his name. It’s bad luck.”)
Humans were a minority on Anchor, and certain folks were never seen at all. Jake himself lived in a region relatively light on other doomed Englishes. Indeed, he’d noticed that dreamers tended to keep their distance from doppels wherever possible. The exceptions to this rule being Eridans, who didn’t have much say in the matter, and Karkats, who sought each other out with a desperate infuriated passion. He’d often thought how difficult it was for Meg, sharing a home with countless other Megidos who served as Pawns; the chirruping and burbling of one’s internal voice fragmented across a thousand other minds, rebounding and redoubling in volume: part feedback loop, part shattered funhouse mirror. But Meg’s attitude was simply to shrug it off and get on with the business of her everyday life. (Or rather, death. He found it difficult to remember he was dead. Sometimes he’d look himself in his mirror and say: “You’re dead, Jake”. It never seemed to stick.)
Jake pushed open a wrought-iron gate and took the path which wound into the city. The branches of the pines swayed listlessly and many-fingered palm fronds chattered; sprinklers puttered, cutlery chimed, insects stretched and scratched themselves into a high and barely audible whine. A child’s voice screamed in ecstasy, or agony. It was too hot.
He idly felt the foliage that dangled from the verges of the trail. This stretch was home to a curious tree, with soft, feathery leaves and bunches of a vivid coral fruit. When crushed, the shells of these tiny spheres disintegrated to reveal an unremarkable kernel, releasing a weak aroma. They called the plants ‘fake pepper’. How unfair a branding. Some adventuring type had doubtless happened upon this specimen, hoped for peppercorns, and in a fit of high dudgeon had given the noble vegetable a hurtful sobriquet. Supposing, though, it had been discovered first? Its merits judged on its own terms? Why, then it would have had its own name, and in all probability the erstwhile ‘pepper’ would have been the ‘fake’ instead. Jake decided to call these trees ‘crackleplumes’ from here on in. It was the only reasonable response.
The dust gave way to a slapdash tarmac, and the tarmac melted and reformed into a well paved street. Stones sprouted, sun-bleached, from the ground. The sky became a brilliant eyeball white. The road grew wide, and buildings burst forth from either side like filthy exclamations. These houses had been knocked down, rebuilt, joined together, levelled, burned, restored and bombed; here they crouched, carbuncled with balconies and other galls: defying building regulations; old as balls. Clotheslines and cables stitched the sky like steepled hands; giant structures whose purposes had now become obscure dominated the horizon. From out of doors and back alleys and from every conceivable level spilled people, stalls and stands. Restaurants with marble tables and cheap little plastic stools. Cafes serving suspicious drinks. Coffee houses. Dens of sedition. Dens of contrition. Hazard drums. Hawkers. Falconers. Bone-grubblers. Bonneters. Jewellers. Spies.
Jake thought back to book he’d read about the Adriatic (fiction or non-fiction; he couldn’t recall). He recognised the small church with its door forever locked, the key kept by a monk with a wasting disease. And there above the doorway was a triforium, which was architecturally important, somehow. Perhaps the reason Jake felt such a connection to this place was because he’d helped to create it. Were these his memories, then, made into brick and flesh? Or the memories of another Jake? Was this the limit of his imagination?
Jake stopped at one of the street traders. This particular cluster was frequented chiefly for its nuts, dried fruit, and spices. In his wanderings throughout Anchor, Jake often passed this stall, and just as often found himself browsing through its wares. He accounted the owner - a carapace by the name of Felicitous Gallipot - a personal friend of his.
“Gally, old salt, how have these climactic times been treating you?” He banged his fist on the counter for emphasis, exciting a handful of hazelnuts out of a beaten copper ‘sampler’. Felicity, by now accustomed to Sully’s bombastic address, rolled her eyes and bent over the storefront to embrace him.
“Well enough; well enough.”
“Had any more trouble with the local muscle?”
“Not since your intervention. Your moirail is a regular purest-pure.”
Jake blushed. “Indeed. Incidentally, Guar and Serving send their best”.
“How’s Can Town faring these days?”
Jake whistled. “Serving says the citizens are kinder, but the beaks and rum-becks are completely out of their depth. The place has been running slowly down since the last Mayor disappeared.” A sore point, to be sure. “Now!” Jake rubbed his hands and raised his eyebrows high. “What new wholefoodinous delights await the unwary patron of chez Ms. Gallipot?”
Felicity slid her tattered panama well up, and tapped her forehead with a fingernail, affecting deepest thought. It made a pleasing tok tok noise. “Well, for a buck of broad taste such as yourself, I’ve something pretty special.” She reached into a large sack resting on the ground behind her, transferring its contents to a paper cone by means of a metal trowel. Jake looked on, amicably.
“There. Try some of these.”
Sully placed a paw around the new delectables. The packed rustled as he popped one into his mouth. It tasted mostly of ink, shells, and the idea of blue. (There was a time where saying food tasted like “the idea of blue” was the preserve of the snootiest of self-absorbed gastronomes, but in the dreamworld this was likely-as-not an accurate assessment of how it came to be.)
“Lovely. What d’you call ‘em?”
“Deep-sea cashews. Figured you’d approve.”
“Spot on. I’ll take two packs.”
Jake paid the Felicitous Gallipot, waved, and left. On his way out he greeted and embraced numerous other traders he knew and accounted personal friends of his. Sully was grateful to be able to say hello, to say please and thank you, to be able to wish a carapace working hard a customary nuts upon it, to be able to give gifts to other dreamers on feast days and on special occasions; in short for all the myriad social exchanges and kindnesses which qualify our relationships and help to weave our lives into the fabric of something more.
It often seemed to Sully that the enterprise of polite and courteous behaviour was as a group of individuals maintaining a defensive wall. Each tip of the hat, each door held open, was a fresh coat of plaster into the yawning cracks which daily appeared and which, unchecked, would threaten the collapse of the entire edifice. It was a subject on which he had often engaged the Mayor. He had even gone so far as to write a book upon the subject.
Sully had once been partnered with a former criminal. This lansprisado recounted with great intensity how one of the things he loathed most about the penitentiary was how these aforementioned rites were nowhere in evidence; indeed, it was a prerequisite for one’s survival there that this system was done away with altogether. Jake was terrified of prison. And so he vowed to take a double enjoyment from these social gestures: a primal firsthand pleasure and a second surrogate helping, on behalf of his friend and all those whom unhappy circumstance prevented. To use the man’s curious lingo - life certainly was a motherflippin’ miracle.
But how peculiar it was that this wall of well-mannerisms should, at the same time as keeping out a horde of hungry evils (Captain Callous, with his disdain for the needy, Baron Badmouth with his tactless, reckless speech) should serve to enshrine still other, subtler, corruptions. Take, for example, the way in which manners are used as a yardstick to gauge the worth of an individual. If yon hapless fellow should happen to use yon fish knife for yon salad course, and furthermore care not a hang about it, it is anathema; his presence cannot be tolerated; he is a savage. Or for the cull who wishes to enter a fine establishment for the consumption of liquor, but is prevented by their lack of adequate attire. Here it seems that a great injustice has occurred, and individuals who should be afforded the protection of the Walls are instead expelled: prey for the wild animals and the baking sun without; blackballed into oblivion. Take for example those manifold occasions on which the force of established custom has proven thoroughly misguided. Here our would-be heroes, our valiant defenders of the Walls, persist in error despite evidence to correct them. “What ho, my comrades, the gun emplacements along this stretch appear to be facing inwards; oughtn’t we turn them round?” But no; it was always so, so must always be so: and a great many of our people are made food for powder thereby.
How are we then to solve this problem? The temptation is to tear the Walls completely down and start again from scratch. Yet surely in so doing we would destroy both good and bad.
It was in this state of mind Jake marched smack into a building with such force that he turned around completely, stumbling backwards. His momentum, not having the good grace to be diminished by such exertions, propelled him further back, whereupon he pitched over and fell forwards onto something soft. Jake detected the presence of someone else. There was an awkward pause.
“Would please remove your head from out my ass?”
Oh no. Sully tried to extract himself but was denied; his back was being pinned down from above. He could feel his face flushing. The voice started to laugh.
“S’not my actual ass, darling. Merely the ass pertaining to me. Grammatically. Nope, my keister remains firmly on terra firma. Which is more’n can be said for yours, floating as it is about two foot’n the air.” Sully felt a sharp prod in the aforementioned region, which sunk his face further into the unsavoury softness of the mysterious ass analogue.
Wait. That smell was familiar. Suede? Velour?
As a hand guided him upwards, the bruised darkness fell away to reveal the mundane and awful truth of the situation. He had been resting in a pile of brightly coloured, unspeakably illegal smuppets. Sully tried to brush himself down, and to his horror discovered several of the little blighters still clinging to him. One impertinent chap’s proboscis had hooked itself flirtatiously into the front of his pantaloons; another had fallen into his open shirt where it lay like a nurseling babe; three or four of them hugged themselves tightly to his bootstraps by means of an unseemly velcro.
“Excuse me, miss...”
Still slightly giddy, Jake turned, and caught the face of his aggressor/savior/tormentor. It was not a face you saw in Anchor. Unless, that is, you happened to pass by one of several ‘wanted’ posters. If this was a movie, Jake thought, one of those selfsame posters would, transported on a solicitous breeze, snag on my leg this very instant. I would stoop down to pick it up, and see her name in huge gothic letters. Roxy Lalonde. Which would be awkward, but after a humorous misunderstanding, we’d soon become the firmest friends.
Meanwhile, Roxy had taken Jake’s reverie as the perfect opportunity to run fast as possible in the opposite direction.
“Wait. Wait! I just want to talk! Oh, fudgeballs.” Sully ran. He left a trail of plush rump in his wake.
***
He had lost her, but not for want of trying. At one point he had grabbed a lamp-post with his left hand and swung round it for a breakneck turn, like Batman (or was it Donkey Kong)? He had even tried a spot of Matrix-style wall runnyness, only it had, whilst making him look at least one-fifth more dashing, sorely capped his maximum velocity.
Eventually, Roxy had sort of...vanished. Went off the radar. He guessed that she had left the bubble. How she had done that without a Gate or some extreme spacetime shenanigans was a bit of a puzzler.
Jake felt cheated, felt overcome: at first by a sense of helplessness, then increasingly by a discomfort brought on by the fact, the inescapable, inexorable conclusion: he had no fucking idea where he was. The old familiar landmarks were no help (the cavernous basilica with its crown all catawumpus; the distant mountain with its quarry battle-scar). Aid of a more immediate nature would be required. Sully looked about.
A storefront lay to his left, its plate glass smeared juggalo white; occluded; abandoned. But look! Not quite. For the far left of the window housed an aperture, behind the aperture was a sign, and on that sign there read:
GHOST SHIPS
apply within
in an aggressive typeface. Sully found the door and pushed it far too hard. He tumbled inwards, and a small bell chimed.
The room was bare save for a battered armchair and the redoubtable rectangular dispensary which opposed him, separating the building’s interior from its customer-facing half. There was the faint smell of incense, heavy and stimulating; masking something. Sully eyed the chair, dismissed the prospect, placed his hands upon the counter and called out. His voice echoed into the rooms beyond. There was a small pile of neat business cards to one side. They gave no clue to what the nature of this business was, but he pocketed one and made to leave the store.
“HELLO!”
Sully swallowed a scream. An improbable agglomeration of fabric rose malevolently from below. Billowy trousers evoked the fortune teller. Mischievous cuffs conjured the magician. The whole ensemble was a riot of colour which looked like it might spill over into full-blown revolution. Two vacant eyes fixed him from behind a hooded veil.
“Prrrospective customer. How can we help you today?” The voice had a sultry feline drawl, but the accent, pitched at a deep Russian, had overshot, striking the territory halfway between Bond girl and Connery-era Bond. It was 100% fake, mildly offensive, and utterly endearing.
“Well, I’ve gotten myself a little lost, so what I’m looking for -”
“Ahh, what you’re looking for, yees. Madame Apeten sees all. Here at Ghost Ships , we specialise in finding ones who have been lost to the darkness of the dreaming. Mmm. Is it an unrequited love you search for? Or perhaps a missing moirail!?”
“Well -”
“But I ask too much. You are tired? I get you refreshment, mmm, yes?”
“Er, as a matter of fact, I am rather -”
“Good.”
She turned towards the archway behind her, and cooed:
“Sweetie, would you be ever-so-wonderful and bring our darling customer a drink of milk?”
She craned an ear dramatically towards the ceiling.
“Light of my life, can you hear me? We have a customer here, a customer, who requires refreshment before business can be conducted.”
Nothing. Madame Apaten turned towards Sully, bowed slightly and turned once more to the interior.
“HEY ASSBUTT. GET YOURSELF THE FUCK DOWN HERE BEFORE I COME UP AND TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT WITH MY TEETH. GLASS OF MILK. FUCKING. NOW.” The accent had dissolved completely, replaced by a few hundred decibels of undiluted rage. A pause, and then, from upstairs:
“HOW’S ABOUT I BRING YOU A GLASS OF SHUT THE EVERLOVING FUCK UP, ‘SWEETIE’.”
The fabric quivered, and the patron collected herself. Sully sensed fists balling beneath those flowing sleeves. She swivelled round.
“I am sorry. The ONLY COMPETENT MEMBER of our team is away on business currently. Still. Where were we? Hmm, yes. Who are you looking for?”
“I’m not.”
Jake saw the eager expression falter, and couldn’t bring himself to follow through. It was rude to ask assistance of a shopkeep without making a token contribution. You bought a stick of gum; they gave directions. This transaction would be much the same. And if Jake had got someone in mind, so much the better - it would lend an air of verisimilitude.
“Which is to say - I hadn’t been looking for him, until now. Man by the name of Tetsuo.”
“Excellent, excellent. Whose doppel?”
“Dirk Strider.”
“And his sin?”
“Er. Excuse me?”
“His sin, his sin.”
Sully stared blankly. (With empty eyes it is of course impossible to stare anything but blankly; let us say then this stare was exceptionally blank.)
“Mmm. I take it you are not religious, but I thought this would be...familiar. His sin. What makes it so that he is not an Alpha. Maybe is too kind, maybe is not kind enough. Maybe make wrong decision. This, only the gods can know, but your belief, your belief of the sin, this is what is important.”
“Right-o”. Jake considered this new perspective.
“In any case”, said Madame Apeten, “I should be writing this down in our ledger.” She cast her eyes around and visibly deflated.
“Oh generous one, could you bring us the member’s ledger from upstairs?”
She bowed again. “One moment.” In a flash, she was away. Stairs, then floorboards, creaked as she gained the room above.
“WHY ARE THERE ALL THESE INTERRUPTIONS, I AM AN ARTIST, I AM TRYING TO CREATE -”
There was a strangled cry, and a fretful moan. Jake glanced upwards. The ceiling was mercilessly unsoundproofed.
“That got your attention, didn’t it? Good. If you ever. EVER. Want to feel even a TINGLE of pleasure in this region again, you will do as I instruct you. Do you understand me. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“YES!”
“There’s a good boy. Now, find me the ledger, and I’ll see that you’re rewarded.”
Sully saw his chance and left the store in haste. Upstairs, the moans intensified.
***
It was nearly dusk outside. Relentless waiters swept crumbs, fastened tablecloths, and made ready for the oncoming hordes. In the throng of day one could shoulder by comfortably enough, but once the Turn was done one simply succumbed to the invading forces. He quickened his pace. Another Jake appeared before him, darting out from a cafe with a watering can, laying the dust in the street with wide, unbroken arcs. He waved. He waved back. Sully stepped neatly across the stones, careful to avoid the watery bits, careful not to muddy them with footsteps.
How easily it was, how terrible, one Turn should turn so fast into another, should bleed out and commingle with its comrades. For surely the purpose of the Court, the supreme artifice of that massy wheel, was to fix in place an artificial dream, to save us from the senseless unintelligible mess of living in a bubble on one’s own? And yet, Jake thought, one day was very like the next. And yet one Jake was very like the next. And if it should be that he was essentially displaceable, by another self or another’s memory of himself, what force dammed him up, what kept him from disintegrating into a formless mercurial mush of no fixed conscience? And if thus true of him, what about his confidants? Could he replace Meg, or make do with ersatz Eloise?
Of course not. Something was at play. He suspected more than just a weakness on his part, a fond (if needs be, desperate) familiarity. Sully gripped the business card between his finger and his thumb, and wondered.