Fain the Sorcerer Read online

  Fain looked around him. Above the fireplace was a painting of blind black sharks in a bright yellow sea. Strolling over, Fain scrutinised the dark signature in its corner—Drake the Adept. An old crone, her face like a whiskery potato, stabbed his shoulder with her chin and said ‘Something eldritch aint it? There’s another over there—by the door.’

  Fain went with her to the other, smaller painting—this portrayed a triangular, pointed building with a saucer-like eye near its base. The structure seemed to be in the centre of a lush, curlicued forest grown from red earth. ‘What do you know about this Drake?’

  ‘It’s said these are not imagined scenes but a record of places he visited on his travels. He’s now a powerful wizard. Have you really never heard of him?’40

  ‘No,’ said Fain, and began to feel numb. He was choking, his throat a fizzing absence. Black blood filled his mouth. ‘I mean yes,’ he said, and swallowed. ‘A strange gremlin creature once mentioned him to me.’

  ‘Sit down, young man, you look ill. And let me read your palm—I will see all of your past and future in it!’

  Before Fain knew what was happening, the old hag had his palm unrolled and was tracing lines in it. Her finger began tracing circles and she started to shudder and shriek. ‘Spirals! Spirals!’ She bolted up and whirled around the room, batting at invisible designs and knocking over the furniture. She pointed at him. ‘He’s Fain, a spiral beyond his life!’

  What with a crone babbling words weird as green carrots and pointing his way, Fain attracted the attention of a ready mob, at the head of which a hod carrier stated their case: ‘I know of a jackass called Fain who pulls spuds in a village miles from here. And I’ve heard tell of a wizard called Fain who wears fine clobber and spends gold like a penny. Which might you be?’

  ‘Fain the Sorcerer,’ said Fain, without thinking or standing.

  ‘That’s the Fain who abducted the princess, according to the King’s soothsayer Charlie.’

  ‘Already?’ Fain blurted.

  ‘Hold him!’ shouted the hod man, at which Fain became as thin as soup and then vanished altogether, his chair tipping back to hit the floor.

  But Fain, standing to dash invisibly from the inn, found that he was plunged into darkness. He realised he was blind, and with a screech of fear, re-materialised again, rubbing his eyes. The mob, surprised but with motives supported by what they had seen, rushed at him. Fain ducked aside, disappearing. ‘Where are you?’ roared the hod man.

  ‘Over here,’ Fain called from the door, unable to lie. He reappeared, mortified. Throwing gold with one hand and sardines with the other, he faded away again. Someone entering the door was pushed aside by thin air and, believing that he was under attack, threw himself at the hod man.

  CHAPTER 14

  In which Fain visits the Pyramid of Puva

  ‘It seems,’ Fain thought, walking away from the inn a day earlier, ‘my powers make it more difficult than ever to be among my fellow men.’

  Why had he been blind when invisible? Fain realised it must be to do with the light which brings pictures into the eye to be captured there. If the eyes are invisible the light will pass straight through without stopping. ‘Perhaps I need some guidance from a wizard mentor such as this Drake I keep hearing about.’

  Fain bought a horse, a travelling sack, rope, a lantern and other supplies, and left Envashes town. Reaching the cave in the forest, Fain found the old man sitting nearby, with the vase still in place. ‘You! Old idiot! Need any help with the vase?’ He dismounted and smashed the vase with a single kick.

  The greybeard shouted ‘Damn you, I will cook you fine!’ or something like that, grinning. ‘This urn is enchanted, and it falls to you to receive its final three wishes!’

  ‘Tell me, old man, are you Drake the Adept?’

  ‘No. You have two wishes left.’

  Fain was about to curse, but had to hold his tongue because the wishing was in play. ‘I want to be able to become invisible at will, including my clothing, while still being able to see. I want to visit the place in the picture in the Duke’s Tongue Inn in Envashes town—not the picture of the black whales, not the one of the jouster with fruit on his lance, not the one of the pig, I mean the picture of the triangular building in the forest, and I don’t want to be inside the painting itself, but at the location which inspired the picture, and fully clothed please.’

  ‘You choose well, young stranger,’ cackled the old lunatic.

  And though Fain had intended to go back in time immediately to harvest more wishes from the old man, he found himself instead standing before the massive pyramid in the heat and birdcalls of a foreign jungle.

  ‘I am so stupid,’ Fain thought, shaking his head, and before doing anything else, sat down to decide what his next wishes would be. ‘Future travel, instant land travel, and knowing the location of Hackler Thorn at any time, wherever he is.’ Making a mental note of this, he stood again and walked toward the pyramid.

  Fain climbed the broad stone steps toward the dish-eye. Reaching it, he saw the legend around the iris which read: AS A CHEAT WITH LITTLE TIME DISSEMBLES UNTO UNION. Fain waited until nightfall, using the time to find a sturdy log and drag it up the steps. By nightfall the iris seemed to have swollen a little, and a small hole had appeared at its centre. Fain stood before the eye and began to flatter it, stating that it was beautiful, perfect in its roundness, and that he understood it. He wished he could add that he and it were the same, that they would be together always, but his recent oath prevented him. Yet the iris had grown larger and the hole at its centre had revolved open. Fain braced the entrance with the log and ducked through.

  Inside, the stone of the passage wall was cool and moist, granular beneath his hand. Raising his lamp, he saw that the wall was patterned with jigsaw curlicues which he realised were the outlines of a thousand stone geckos, ingeniously interlocked. He emerged into a titanic vaulted hall, the pointed ceiling lost in mist. The building was completely hollow, and lit inadequately here and there with flaming torches. Fain noticed that even these sheer inner walls were complicated with interlocking lizards.

  Against the far distant opposite wall there was something like steps and a throne. Dowsing his lamp, he decided to become invisible. He was glad to find that he could still see what was around him, but found that not being able to see his own feet made it difficult to walk. Several minutes later he reaches the steps, which led up to a square head on a stained stone pedestal. It almost resembled a huge stone owl. Fain found it was near to impossible to climb the stairs without visible legs, and reappeared in sheer frustration halfway up the steps.

  ‘Tomb robbers have cored the marrow of this place,’ boomed the square granite head. Fain noticed that it had a single round eye. ‘What do you hope to gain here?’

  ‘Information about the sorcerer Drake.’

  ‘I am Suvramizana, idol of time. Drake the Adept was drawn here by the Sertris Eye. He expected, wrongly, that it related to his craft, because the eyeball happens to be the only way one disguised sorcerer can recognise another.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Fain, who had arrived on the platform on which the pedestal stood. He had to crane his head to see the sad, flickering stone face. There was a stone teardrop suspended from the oyster eye.

  ‘Your eyeballs turn upside down when you become a true sorcerer. Being completely round, it is the one part of the body which can be inverted without an external observer being any the wiser.’

  Fain doubted this, as he had met people whose entire face could be turned upside-down without looking much different, but he kept silent on the matter. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Since the excommunication of the sky,’ chimed the statue mournfully. ‘Time is not what people believe it is. It is the colour which is always present but which cannot be seen until truthfully named. Its name is not “time”. Decisions of life can be forged in a moment—the contours and notches of the moment will tell you a great deal about the
man.’ The echoing voice faded, a pause. ‘Yet I cannot sense any such thing with you. I can taste the dissolution and miscommunications surrounding a person who has begun life in the middle.’

  ‘As opposed to what?’

  ‘There are, now and again, folk born with the knowledge of what the world’s judgement of them will be after they die; they know what their life’s legacy will be. These people are remarkably content, whatever their circumstances.’

  ‘Even if their legacy is one of failure, or a life of pain and torture? Why are they contented?’

  ‘Because, unlike everyone else, they know precisely where they fit within the story.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to fit within a story? I’m glad I don’t know, and if I knew, I’d smash my way out of it.’

  ‘You seem nervous when I speak of time.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I know what time smells like. And you’ve been through it—the wrong way.’ There was a moment’s silence, a trickle of water as the statue digested its own thoughts. ‘I see now. You’re a bit of Fain the Sorcerer. From not even a tenth of the way along—no wonder I didn’t recognise you. Fain is like a garter snake with a different flavour in each stripe.’

  ‘Where is Drake the Adept now?’

  ‘Take a look at my head. It’s a perfectly square block, with a different face on four surfaces. Each face has a different outlook and expression. Every five hundred years it rotates so that the next face looks forward and becomes active.’

  ‘What happens when you’ve rotated four times and gone back to the first one again?’

  ‘By that time I’ve forgotten what it was, or convinced myself it was something else. But that’s not important. What does the next face look like? The one to my left. Quick now! In a mirror I can only see the front one. And my worshippers are forbidden to gaze upon the face of the future. Look to my left face! Will I be happy? Tell me and I will reveal the location of Drake the Adept.’

  Fain edged around and looked at the face on that side of the cube. It too had a single eye, and was grimacing as if Suvramizana had just tasted a piece of bark.

  Fain thought about it, and cleared his throat. ‘I assure you, asked such a question in such circumstances, most men would certainly declare it the happiest face in the world.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said the statue. ‘Drake dwells in the Valley of Smohalla in the land of Zerzan. He lives behind the rain. To find him go East, cross the Bridge of Exasperation, the Black Desert, and on. Go now.’

  Fain descended the steps, crossed the massive pointed chamber and lit his lantern for the walk through the outer passage, but found as he walked through it that daylight was shining from outside. Time had passed differently inside the pyramid.

  As Fain neared the glaring exit he heard a small voice to his left. ‘I want out,’ it said.

  ‘Who are you?’ Fain asked.

  ‘A gecko called Hex. Here I am. Step back a little. Look at me—I’m twenty-seventh from the floor. This is terrible. Can I come with you?’

  ‘Why?’ Fain whispered uncertainly, and glanced back at Suvramizana’s chamber.

  ‘Would you want to be locked into a pattern like this? They won’t miss me. If the structure’s worth a damn it’ll do without little me won’t it?’

  ‘Very well, lizard. But hurry.’

  With a little puff of masonry dust one of the grey lizards popped out of the wall, clinked to the dirt floor and skittered up Fain’s body to perch on his shoulder, where it immediately flushed through with the exact colour of Fain’s coat.

  As he turned to leave, Fain noticed that other lizards had begun popping from the wall around Hex’s vacated space, until that entire wall began falling away like a million-piece jigsaw tipped sideways.

  ‘They’ve all gotten the same idea!’ piped Hex into Fain’s ear as Fain ran from the pyramid, dashing down the hill of steps as the pyramid began to crumple behind him, clouds of buff dust blasting from rectangular gashes. A landslide of grey lizards poured down the steps, but when Fain looked behind him he saw that they were already interlocking again, clotting in a zigzag of multi-levelled terraces as the pyramid settled.

  48

  CHAPTER 15

  In which Fain crosses the Bridge of Exasperation

  Fain walked among trees which bore fruit like resinous organic gems, until he reached a chasm of steam. A thin bridge of wood and rope receded into mist. The Bridgekeeper had an espaliered head, a bone lattice through which veins and tendons were woven like vines. ‘Step out upon this bridge,’ it said, ‘and you will meet a challenger who will ask five questions. Answer correctly, and you may pass.’ As Fain stepped onto the bridge he saw that several threads of gutting fed into it from the Bridgekeeper, veins twisting into the hand rope.

  Fain peered ahead as he walked, expecting the challenge at any moment. An hour later he was still walking without obstruction through hot wet steam. Soon the smoke was dry and far beneath the bridge a landscape of red-black lava crawled like luminous molasses.

  Sunset rivers were skirting debris which seemed to topple without ever reaching the ground. Crusts cracked open to weep gold, heaving piles of palaces with folk still at the windows. A watchtower of crumbling salt dissolved into the tangle of angled troughs which were once streets. Mangled treasure and molten shortcuts were folding over each other, the terrain eating itself. Watching, Fain could not tell whether this was truly disarray. He had a spectacular headache. Before him was always a flashing sheet of shredded air, and the receding bridge. The same was behind him. He continued walking forward through a drizzle of white ash. ‘Remember to ask for the gift of flying,’ he reminded himself, ticking off gifts as he watched creation forever unknitting itself. Days passed. ‘When you look while recalling the names of what you see,’ he thought, ‘you’re at best seeing to the limit of example. By casting off those names, you see further.’ As Fain followed this thread of thought and realised that wisdom never comes of approval, he found that the landscape was tilting. Soon he was grasping the hand rope as the world, the bridge and himself turned entirely upside-down. Below his hanging head smoke rushed into the sky, and above his feet were caves of cremation from which golden holes breathed dirty steam.

  As he stepped hesitantly forward it became clear that his vision had inverted, not the world. His eyeballs had revolved like two doorknobs, and it would take a while for his mind to straighten the world picture again. As Fain realised this, he saw a heat-blurred, haggard-looking figure walking toward him along the bridge. He braced his wits as they met.

  ‘Are you the challenger with the five questions?’ the stranger rasped.

  ‘No. Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. Don’t you have any questions to ask me?’

  ‘How long have you been walking?’

  ‘Three days. You?’

  ‘Three, the same. So the bridge takes six days to cross and we’re in the middle. Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘The rainforest. Is that where you came from?’

  ‘Yes. What’s ahead of me?’

  ‘The black desert and the dune cities. Do you have any advice for me?’

  ‘If you want to enter the pyramid, flatter the eye. Anything I need to know?’

  ‘Watch out for gnats.’

  ‘Well, goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Now below his head was a landscape bleached and heavy as the calm after battle. It seemed to be several intermeshing labyrinths of ice, so tightly interlocked that none of them could function. As he walked past these pearlescent platforms the world continued to roll over, amid a torrent of pain. After several instants of flickering upright and coming loose again, the world picture finally anchored itself in place: sky above, ice below. It was like the skull of the world. ‘Knowledge tells a story,’ Fain thought, ‘wisdom makes sense of it, power changes it.’ Creeping sentinels of steam slowed over the scratched face of an iceberg. The silvered spars of gloom were like buildings under construction
or in ruins. Again he glimpsed faces in sharded holes, and later a bloated hill made entirely of twitching hands. The creaking mineral hell became dirtier and darker until the bridge reached the opposite shore, and Fain stepped off onto a desert of black salt under a blue sky.

  CHAPTER 16

  In which Fain faces execution

  After trudging through the desert for two days, Fain spotted a broad-backed animal with a flat head, near the gentle rise of a hill. Cart-sized and lizard-like, it was trolling along and looking cute as it inspected the ground. ‘This thing looks pretty harmless,’ Fain thought, and retrieved the rope from his pack. Looping this into a simple bit harness, he approached the quiet creature from behind and leapt onto its back, throwing the harness over its head so that it wedged between its jaws. The creature seemed startled but was soon conveying Fain across the jet salt plains.

  He soon approached a walled city. The entrance was a keyhole two hundred feet high, without a door. Fain made his triumphal entry to find himself in a city foresquare. At its centre was a solid glass blue obelisk a hundred feet tall in which was suspended the body of an insect the size of a man, and around this thronged a colourful market with citizens selling snow, blue sugar, paradice, tamarinds, alligator pears and another fruit like the hardened teardrops of a giant. As these citizens turned to stare at Fain, he noticed that they were all giant lizards like the one he was riding. The entire square fell silent.