The Wondermark Gazette

The train-whistle sounded far-off — as if the engine were a hundred cars ahead, instead of merely three-and-a-coal-car-staffed-by-surly-midgets-with-grimy-sneers-and-a-bad-union. The shrill, echoing sound heralded my entrance into a new world of doubt and betrayal, of moral uncertainty, of under-sea train-rides of dubious safety. Any constable worth his pepper would have been able to glean my identity from the deep, anxious finger-prints gouged into my ticket-yam, so hard did I squeeze that starchy tuber. I wondered: would I have to answer to constables anytime soon? Were there any survivors, indeed, of the Countess’ fearsome bombardment of the village? And perhaps most importantly: was the train itself susceptible to aquatic mer-man attacks?

With a shuddering lurch, the car began to move. By clutching a yam, I had made myself in deed a Yam-Runner, if not by creed; so long as the formality of shuffling sweet-potatoes from one yam-depot to another was observed, any passenger, theoretically, could ride this line. The Yam-Runners had many strange and stupid traditions, I had learned, and perhaps it was best to smile softly and take the proffered yam without asking too many questions, if it would earn one a ride off the island.

I expected the train to burst into the dawning sun-light, I suppose, but the blackness outside the windows remained un-changed even as the sound of dense rock around us gave way to a thinner, more hollow and gurgling sound, accompanied by a sudden pressure about the ear-drums. I had heard of this phenomenon before — the Peruvians called it ‘gnome-bobbing,’ and it was supposedly caused by tiny men swimming back and forth in the ear-canal. It was a constant problem in the heights of the Andes, where apparently they had quite an infestation of tiny ear-men, though I couldn’t explain its occurrence at this severe depth. Regardless, I plugged my ears with my fingers and began to softly sing in Ancient Andean, as I had been instructed by gauchos those many years ago.

A shadow fell over my lap, and I looked up to find Ursula, the Yam-Runner woman who’d first found me on the mountain-side, mouthing something. I let her speak for a while, then removed my fingers from my ears: “What?”

“I said, that’s a lovely song,” Ursula said, folding her tall frame into the seat opposite mine, facing towards the back of the rocking car. I looked away from her, at the featureless blackness perhaps passing by at great speed through the window — it was impossible to tell, so I naturally assumed we were moving near the speed of light.

Resting in the seat next to me was the wicker basket I’d been given by the mysterious man high in the Yam-Runners’ observatory. I saw Ursula craning her neck discreetly, trying to discern its contents — but I gave her no satisfaction, and said nothing about it. She’d used me, and tried to kill me; I could let her peer without volunteering what was in my basket.

“Headed back to Easthillshireborough-upon-Flats, then?” she ventured, her voice high and trilling in what probably passed for a pleasant conversational tone when you lived inside a mountain with a bunch of anti-social vegetable-smugglers. “Shame what’s become of the place, since the violence broke out.”

I shrugged, still staring at the darkness outside.

“We’ll be in Dublin soon,” she continued, “and from there you can find over-water passage, I’m sure.”

“Whatever,” I said to the window. I wasn’t one for small-talk with liars and nasty-folk.

“Ah,” she said. “So I take it you’ve seen the jade, then?”

I bristled at the word jade. My eyes flashed to the shard of light green glass still resting in the wicker beside me — safe in the basket next to the Tome of the Precious Lore. An instrument of murder and an instrument of healing, bumping gently together in this jostling passenger-car.

Presumed instrument of healing, I reminded myself. I hoped I would be able to somehow use it to heal Lara, back at home in her hospital bed. Given the chance, minutes ago, I had not been able to use it to heal Rikah.

Just like Grenadon hadn’t healed anyone, I thought. Slowly, I picked up the delicate book and opened the cover. The text looked strange to my eye — swooshy, hand-written, with delicate line-work clearly laid down painstakingly by someone with too much time on their hands — and I wondered how anyone could possibly remember what all those letters were supposed to mean.

“You’re holding it upside-down,” Ursula said softly.

I glared at her. “I know.”

“It’s a great read,” she shrugged. “Inventive, subversive. Pity, really — Grenadine could have made a lot of money. But the series never really caught on, once the Church got wind, naturally. Those kill-joys really know how to destroy a franchise.”

She must have read my baffled expression, because she added: “You haven’t seen the jade, have you?”

A buzzing electric lantern ensconced on the car’s wall provided a good light-source for me to examine the shard. It was milky white along the side where it had sheared from the massive stone in Grenadon’s cave, but its rounded edge was smooth and glossy green. “Just hold it to my eye?” I asked.

“Jade holds light far longer than glass,” Ursula nodded. “You’re looking back decades, at least — who knows how long?”

After a few seconds of adjusting the jade to the light, a faint, ghost-like picture began to appear — a figure moving within the stone as if sluggishly trapped in amber. The image was fragmented and blurry, but soon I was able to focus enough to discern a cave-like environment. The figure’s features were indistinct, but something about the way he moved seemed familiar to me — lithe, sinewy, determined. Annoyed. “Is it Grenadon?” I breathed.

“Of course.”

“He’s writing,” I said. “He’s…he’s placing a book on a shelf. Stretching. Now…going to sleep?”

“Let me just spell it out for you,” Ursula said. “Grenadine wrote the Tome of the Precious Lore. In an afternoon. As fiction.”

No — that wasn’t right at all. Public education on the island really was awful. I racked my brain for the names of the authors Peapoddy had described to me, those many months ago…”Rubidarch and Mouseketeer? And Plaxus the Unwise? They wrote the books, I thought?”

“Inventions and pen names,” Ursula said. “Grenadine actually wrote ten books in the series. He figured they’d sell better labeled as non-fiction. The Tome of the Cowering Sigil was first, then Precious Lore, of course. Back in the mountain we’ve got a few of the others — Tome of the Jealous Rainbow; Tome of the Slippery Keystone; Tome of the Turkey-Leg. He started to run out of steam after the first couple,” she added.

My mouth was suddenly dry, and I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue felt like a snail reluctant to emerge from its fragile shell. Afraid of salt, perhaps? Metaphorically? Peapoddy had spent his life searching for the Tomes, believing them to possess true healing powers, as I had. “And Peapoddy?” I croaked. “He believed…?”

Ursula shook her head sadly. “Old Man P fell for the whole thing hook, line and sinker,” she said. “All you know is what you’ve been told, remember? His wife — the Countess — never did believe it, and managed to convince her kin to hate Grenadine as much as she does, which is probably why we Yam-Runners get on with her so well. But Peapoddy the Younger — well, when you’re raised with a belief, especially by your old man, you can never really shake it from your deep-down.”

“Like you, and the tree-line,” I said. “There’s nothing enchanted about the tree-line on the island. You could go past it any time, if you wanted to.”

She frowned. “That seems unlikely, or we’d have killed the Mayor and the towns-folk years ago,” she said. When she saw my sour expression she laughed. “Look at you! So sad! You’re a hero, don’t you realise? You killed Grenadine. The fraud! The faker! You set that right! And then — you drew all those sick people to the island, kept them all in one place, and delivered the signal so we could exterminate them all. You have healed them, in a way! You’ve healed the island, at least. A far better sight than Grenadine could ever have done.”

I suddenly felt ill. I had no love for the miserable, ailing whiners that had flocked to the Isle in search of a get-out-of-sickness-free card from Old Man Grenadon — but to be lauded for the horrible act of mass murder? These people had no joy, no sense of sport about it all! Such dour-pusses!

And, of course, Rikah. She was dead for a trinket. A book worth nothing. I had thought I would, at worst, trade her life for my sweet Lara’s. I had told myself that she would have welcomed death, having pined as she did for that oafy Monty. But now…

Perhaps she could have loved me, in time. I would never know.

“So, are you still going back home?” Ursula asked. “To Easthillshireborough-upon-Flats?”

“Not really interested in talking right now,” I told the roof of the passenger-car. This was a cross-roads time. I’d felt this sort of energy before, back in Peru, or in rakish Azerbaijan, or at a restaurant trying to figure if I could make it home to the water-closet or if I should use the nasty facilities there. With my manor in ashes, there was little point in returning to Waverly Hill now — the Tome was a story-book, which meant my Lara was as good as dead, if not dead already, months ago. My yam ensured passage all the way through the end of the rail-line — GIbraltar was the last stop — and what would stop me from just riding all the way there? Further, what business was it of Ursula’s? Further, why talk when we could sit in stony silence just as easily?

“I happen to be heading to Easthillshireborough-upon-Flats, myself,” she said. “At Countess Peapoddy’s personal request.”

That got my attention — “What business has she there?” I snapped. “Going to burn the place to the ground?”

“She’s going to quell the riots. You shouldn’t be so judgmental,” Ursula said. She fished in her pocket and retrieved a glass lens the size and shape of a hockey-puck, even etched with the official NHL logo. I’d seen it before, back on the mountain-side — with it, she’d shown me the under-sea rail-way tunnels. It was a light-filter that made the ocean disappear.

“If you were to take this on a ship, for example,” she said, “and peer over the side — it’s like you’re flying. You can see all the way to the bottom — nothing’s in between.”

A faint shaft of light zipped through the blackness outside the window — suddenly I was reminded that we were actually moving forward at blinding speed.

“You see everything underneath you,” Ursula went on. “You see dolphins, and fish. Canyons, and ship-wrecks. Bodies, sometimes. Skeletons of sailors, taken by the sea. With the sea removed, they lie there, un-buried, sun-light striking their bones.”

She leaned close, and placed her hands on both my knees. She didn’t speak until I looked her directly in the eye.

“There are more skeletons in the world than breathing men,” she said. “None of us will ever be a worse killer than Time herself.”

My heart was suddenly obnoxiously loud. Ursula had found the volume control somewhere, and cranked it to 11.

“Come with me,” she said. “Come back home. We can bring order to your city. I can help you. We can make it over the way you would want it to be.”

The Chief Magistrate’s fat face swirled behind my eye-lids, mocking my impotence, my ashy property. Ursula’s fingers pinched my knees. My hands clapped over hers, and she twisted her wrists to inter-twine her fingers with my own. Our palms were slick together with sweat. I had been so taken with her size and odd clothing that I had never noticed how attractive Ursula really was, up close.

This was a bad idea. I should get up, shake it off, leave. I should keep the Tome, learn to read, maybe, see for myself if anything she said was even true. Otherwise, all we know is what we’re told, right?

But I could rebuild. I could have servants again. I could be in control of everything, just the way I liked it. I could be happy again, and she would help me do it.

And then, when I was powerful enough, I would get rid of her, and Countess Peapoddy, and everyone else who had crossed me. I just had to play along for a little while, and I would be back on top.

She leaned closer, and her lips brushed my ear as she whispered: “I can make you King of that place.”

I don’t even remember telling my body to kiss her.

###

THE END of Voyages from Wondermark Manor

This tale will be concluded in Return to Wondermark Manor, which begins in March 2008! Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story, or at least managed to skim it a few times. It’s okay — my own mother “tried to read it but couldn’t really get into it.”

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