Lightmaker Read online

  Lightmaker

  by Kevin Elliott

  A Nebula Radian Publication.

  © Kevin Elliott 2020

  Dedicated to Bill Moulford

  ‘There is a single light of science, and to brighten it

  anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.’

  Isaac Asimov.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: ask the wrong question

  Chapter 2: cider without a glass

  Chapter 3: dawn comes early

  Chapter 4: glimmers in the night

  Chapter 5: truth carries a knife

  Chapter 6: learning doesn’t need schooling

  Chapter 7: you’ll take the darkest path

  Chapter 8: both silence and noise mean danger

  Chapter 9: destruction breeds change

  Chapter 10: the words of stepping out

  Chapter 11: towards your second syllable

  Chapter 12: what do you mean by horse?

  Chapter 13: your clothes will change colour

  Chapter 14: run through falling night

  Chapter 15: beware the breakfast

  Chapter 16: it’s uphill all the way down

  Chapter 17: ancient light

  Chapter 18: shadow of the future

  Chapter 19: grasp the circle’s end

  Chapter 20: stairway of raindrops

  Chapter 21: weight from the past

  Chapter 22: travel as the ancients

  Chapter 23: the wrong-colour answers

  Chapter 24: the past can catch fire

  Chapter 25: a staggering sweep of feathers

  Chapter 26: the tipping edge

  Chapter 27: numbers as high as you like

  A word from Kevin.

  Chapter 1: ask the wrong question

  Had her lookout tree escaped the sickness? The ferns choking the bank were still a slick green, and Phos scrambled through the bracken to slap her hands over the elm’s bark. She sniffed and retched: her tree wafted out the same outhouse stench as the others. What had looked like gnarled bark churned into stinking pulp under her palms. The trunk still soared upward to shoulder over the other elms, but the fingerholds she’d used to haul herself into the rustling canopy of leaves had collapsed into streaks of mush. Dad watched from the path.

  Her memories of climbing stayed fresh. Phos’s hands had gripped the twisted branches wrapping the tree’s topmost perch, and she had watched the tops of other trees flutter in the breeze as her patch of forest stretched ahead and down to follow the tunnel’s curve. To eveward, the forest gave way to rolling grassland. She’d spent hours watching donkey carts trundle across the silvery tracework of paths, a web connecting each village, Leester to Belhander and on to Drostalic, knots of whitewashed cottages settled along their tunnel’s base. On clear days, the world walls had made haze-mellowed slabs of pale blue to left and right, each fifteen miles away. The side road curled up the shallow start of the northern world wall’s slope to touch Lostaramir’s flax fields, and more villages studded the grassland further ahead until her world curved down to sweep below the horizon.

  Some days she imagined everyone living inside a hollow cartwheel, but whatever force pulled you to the ground pulled you towards the wheel’s hub; walk a thousand miles along the tunnel’s downward curve, and you still stamped across grass.

  Now the elm’s bark sloughed away, and the trunk’s damp reek left her reeling. Dad frowned, and she pushed herself away from the lookout tree and wiped slime from her hands. Her boots sank into the mud. She coughed and tugged her feet free before tramping back to Dad, who waited with crossed arms on the school path. Hoofprints and wheel ruts chopped through the sludge – carts had hauled cured leather from Belhander village or fish from Drostalic’s river – and daylight knifed through the forest to scatter shadows ahead. Dad might lend her a drill: she had to know why the wood rotted.

  Bad smells lurked everywhere, and school stank worst of all. When had chalk dust started to stink of lies? Three years ago she’d strained forward as teachers had chalked out trees and plants before writing names underneath, and she’d inhaled their dust. Each squeak of chalk had sparked memories of day-long walks when she’d explored the overgrown paths snaking around her village’s forest; sap and resin scents had tempted her into the darkness with promises of deeper secrets. But promises failed, and schooldays had withered into mouldy exercises. Cooking, cleaning, memorising scribbled lists that dragged her away from real learning – lists were like looking at food rather than eating it. Didn’t she deserve answers at thirteen?

  ‘I’ve decided,’ Phos said.

  ‘You’re desperate for this detention?’

  ‘There’ll be no detention: he’ll shout and get back to teaching.’

  Dad chuckled. ‘Grump hates questions, and you still plan to interrupt him?’

  ‘Listening tells me nothing.’

  ‘That’s why you never listen.’

  ‘Teachers don’t teach.’ Phos snatched a tumbling leaf from the air, and the wizened brown shell crumbled between her fingers. Twigs bowed under her feet as they rotted in the forest’s half-light, and she squatted beside a slime-covered puddle. What had sent this wave of sickness into her village? Were the crops already rotting in the farms clustered around Leester?

  Hushed rumours had trickled from Ferstus and villages past the moor to dawnward. She’d not believed them, but three weeks ago an ashen-faced cart driver had whispered stories of dying trees while handing her a withered elm leaf, and now decay tainted her wood. Did carts carry the sickness, or was it birds or winds? Climbing trees had let her believe she was escaping the world, but now her illusions rotted; she’d never climb her lookout tree again or watch daylight stroke the shallow hills to eveward.

  Dad tapped her shoulder, and she rose to follow him along the path. They inched together along the grass verges. Her neck prickled as a damp breeze scuttled past. She’d used scissors to stop her hair nagging her face, which was against the rules for girls, but today’s plans meant trouble no matter what. She’d clutched the coppery hairs in her fist and thought of wires before tossing them into the evening wind.

  Phos chewed a fingernail and glanced at the canopy of branches. Was this morning darker than usual? ‘How can they say the world never changes when there’s change everywhere?’

  Dad gripped her tunic sleeve to shepherd her around a puddle. ‘Would you argue if Grump said water was wet?’

  ‘You taught yourself; you said school was hopeless. The teachers sit at their desks and dream up new stories.’

  ‘Say that in class, and you’ll earn a week’s detention. And keep up: being late doesn’t suit you.’ Dad ran his hand over his head. His fine hair plastered itself to his scalp as raindrops glistened on his coat.

  ‘I don’t need escorting,’ Phos said.

  ‘The roads aren’t safe now.’

  ‘I’m best alone.’

  A branch had crashed over their path, and Phos dashed forward to ferret through a clump of leaves. She plucked a seed and brandished it at Dad, and her tunic strained at her shoulder though it had fitted fine last month.

  ‘Trees come from seeds, and plants too, and you said I came from a seed.’

  ‘I remember our conversation; you knew more than me.’

  ‘Here’s a story I worked out: plant a seed and water it, and the tree grows to escape the seed. I escaped the womb and so did you. If we imagine this world as a womb, tell me why we can’t escape? Might help us avoid the filth sweeping in from dawnward.’

  ‘Our world isn’t a seed or a womb, and we can’t escape anywhere. No reason to escape.’

  ‘I want more than baking and scrubbing. School doesn’t even allow questions.’

  Dad smiled. ‘Dress as a boy and sneak into metalwork c
lasses.’

  She flicked the seed at him, but it tumbled into the mud. Phos had handled acorns, ideas for trees, tiny plans bundled into a nut, but the handling sparked questions. Who had written the elm’s instructions? Who had drawn the designs for the leaves and set out their colours? Who told poppies to cluster, and why did gorse bushes have thorns? And why had the trees started to stink?

  They hiked forward, and a grassy clearing appeared on their left, where the village carpenter had built his one-room home: a moss-covered shack with bowed wooden walls. The door twitched in the breeze. Dad knocked before stepping inside, and Phos followed, but the fireplace was cold. Leaves scuttered over the earth floor, and two chairs had toppled in the gloom.

  Dad frowned. ‘I’ve work for him. Where’s he gone?’

  ‘He’s off searching for a seed.’

  Dad snorted and stepped outside. ‘Every time I meet your teachers, there’s the same story. Can you avoid trouble for one day? Stop blocking kitchen chimneys.’

  Phos slouched behind. ‘I wanted to see how smoke behaves indoors.’

  ‘And what did you learn?’

  ‘Smoke floats and smoked pastries taste yucky.’

  Her trousers didn’t reach her boots any more, and mud daubed her ankles; Phos wasn’t fussed but Dad winced. Light shuddered through the forest from behind, and the crossroads waited ahead. The other children would clump together while waiting for school, and they’d stopped bothering her with gossip months ago, so she’d have time to think out her question. She’d only get one, and she’d never hear a direct answer, but Grump’s reaction might speak: if spittle flew from his lips, she’d have prodded a sensitive spot. School would complain again, but her parents always managed.

  They reached the crossroads, where thirty children milled about beside the school path, and Dad sighed. ‘Remember me telling you about the museum city to dawnward?’

  ‘Morzenthal, past Ferstus village. You promised to take me.’

  ‘I grubbed through their archives four years back; the books might keep you quiet for a time. The priests haven’t cleared out Morzenthal’s libraries yet, and the exhibits might answer some of your questions.’

  ‘Any priests there?’

  ‘Priests hate the place: it makes their cathedral cities look like a village, and it’s older than anything they’ve built. They can’t hide it, so they’ve scrubbed it from the maps.’

  ‘You never said who built it.’

  ‘No one knows. We’ll go soon, but for now think twice before questioning your teachers – you’ve had enough warnings.’

  ‘I’ll think, then ask.’

  ‘I’d meet you after school, but there’s no telling how long your detention will take. Don’t goad your teachers, and don’t walk back alone – you can fake being pleasant.’ A burst of rain broke the silence. They hugged, and he gave her a thin smile before striding towards Leester village. She almost understood his work, even if being female meant she’d never touch money. Running back home was a choice, but so was breaking school rules.

  Outside the school, she lingered beside the decaying scatter of buildings. Moss slathered the brown walls of the seniors’ hut, and a bored junior had scratched a crude face into the green fuzz. The thatch covering the juniors’ classroom had sagged overnight. As she stepped forward, an adult barged into her from behind, and black robes raced past – a priest. She skidded over the gravel, but her legs jittered like a colt’s to hold her upright.

  Priests didn’t have masters; they saw everything, and the guards were their teeth. Run to the world walls, and they’d still find you. Proper escape meant piercing those stone barriers, but everyone told her that was impossible. Teachers said their world was a tunnel looping around to meet itself, like a wheel, and for once their words smelt true; their faces puffed up with gloating when they said there was only rock outside.

  Sometimes she’d imagine future days when she’d find a village full of girls working to understand how the world fitted together. She scowled: dreams were torment. No girl escaped the dark cloud of marriage, and she’d learn nothing but cooking and cleaning for a drunk. Mum had been spectacularly lucky finding Dad, but Phos knew not to trust luck. Even the word wife sounded like swearing, and how many wives died giving birth?

  School time, and she filed in with the chattering girls to their cabbage-bestenched red-brick cavern of a kitchen. They’d cleared the blankets she’d jammed into the chimney, but her soot marks still decorated the brickwork. Pots clashed against cutlery, and Phos hammered her fists into her dough. Why did dough need folding? She’d not waste her question on cookery, but learning might mean escape and burrowing through the world walls.

  Lunch came, but the bread’s bitter taint left her gagging. The kitchen staff stared down her complaint as half-eaten apples teetered beside the counter, and Phos stumbled into the thin air outside to stare at the distant stone curve of the northern world wall. In this light, it looked like a wave threatening to crash into her.

  The tunnel’s wall rose fifteen miles away. It bowed out in the middle before curving over her head into the vault, a rocky ceiling beyond anyone’s reach. A bank of cloud now hid the southern wall, but her cage was complete: walk forward or backwards, and you’d be an ant scrambling along the bottom of an immense pipe. Walk with a wall on each side, and you’d skirt village after village as their ring arched back to meet itself. Phos had heard of people walking the ring in a two-year slog, but teachers tried to silence the stories.

  The sun’s arch coated their tunnel’s rocky top and sides – a narrow band of scorching light crawling eveward like a bracelet sliding down an arm. Teachers scolded you for staring, but Phos looked dawnward and shielded her eyes. Last month, she’d walked north and climbed the lower slope of the world wall. She’d struggled upward through the stunted grass until the incline had stopped her, but the grey stone had still loomed over her head, and her neck had ached from the staring. At noon the sun’s arch had passed above, and shadows had fluttered around her feet, but even the lowest part of the glowing arch had hung far beyond reach, far up the cliff face. Teachers said the sun’s arch was there to light your work, and she’d asked if it had always slid over the walls and who had built it and how it worked, but those adult mouths clamped shut.

  The bell thudded out for the afternoon’s lessons, and the other children slouched classward. Phos scrambled into the seniors’ low-slung timber classroom – if first, she could choose her seat. Oak beams stretched over the stained plaster ceiling, and she darted to the warped back bench. Three weeks ago someone had carved the words ‘Lanky bitch Phos’ here, and her fingers stroked the crude letters. Chalk dust tickled her nose, and white powder coated the pot plant on the teacher’s table as two boys grappled with poles to open skylights. The two girls beside her argued about their nearest cathedral city.

  ‘It’s not Torzene – that’s a monastery.’

  ‘Not any more. Dad said they’re building a new cathedral there, past Ferstus, past the moor. They’re rounding up all the carpenters and roofers.’

  ‘That’s never true. Torzene isn’t….’

  Silence fell in a heartbeat, and she smelt Grump’s entrance: their teacher walked without sound, but he probably bathed in chalk dust between lessons. Phos glared as he prowled past towards his desk. His fingers sinewed around a stick of chalk and, without words, his stick-like arms scratched out a section of their world. Forty minutes of religious lecture before he’d burn her time with prayers.

  A sudden crash rang out behind, and Phos turned as two black-robed priests kicked the door open to bustle inside. Whispers rippled around their classroom, and Grump swung around with his mouth agape as the pair swaggered to the front before sitting with crossed arms. Grump’s white eyebrows stayed firm, but his chalk stub quivered a fraction, and after several heartbeats, he jittered back to his blackboard and continued drawing. She’d rock her foot soon to make the floorboards squeak at the front.

  The ceiling had sag
ged since yesterday, and the damp patch at the front had spread. Did one cause the other? Grump finished shading his drawing and stepped back before launching into his well-worn syllables, words reminding everyone how their world had never changed. She’d only get one question, and he’d kick her into detention right after the final word fell from her lips, but doing nothing meant mouldering.

  If nothing ever changed, why did apples rot in the orchards, why did the elms stink, and why did every blackberry make her gag? Now Grump mumbled the words that pushed bile into her mouth, words to stamp the right attitude into their minds, a picture of their world marooned in an endless sea of rock, a tiny wheel of life encased in darkness. Did priests see themselves as jailers?

  Phos unfolded her legs and stood. ‘Why are you so sure nothing changes?’

  Dust swallowed her words as every student twisted to face her, but Phos folded her arms – being the only copperhead made standing out easy. Grump’s mouth hung open, and his head rocked a fraction as he glanced at the priests, but they stared back at him. His face flushed crimson, and he reached under his desk to pluck out his cane.

  ‘Come forward. Face the class, and raise your left palm up.’

  Had she misheard? No one got caned. Boys had stolen wheels from the school’s cart without being caned. Astonished murmurs and gasps rippled across the benches, but Phos looked ahead and Grump’s watery blue eyes locked on to hers. She stood and walked towards him, and her arm obeyed as the others fell silent. For one moment nothing moved, but his bleached rod rose and hung above her arm for a heartbeat before Grump’s spindly arm writhed downward, and one instant of blur became an agony of fire lashing her hand. Her eyes snapped shut, and breath whistled through her mouth as her body lurched forward. Now her eyes wouldn’t open, and pain scalded her palm as her body locked itself.

  ‘Stand up and raise your left hand.’ The words sounded as if they’d drifted miles, but fury coloured his voice. If she stayed bent over, he’d slash her back, or those priests would seize her wrists.