The Ships of Aleph Read online

  Some time later I was distracted by the rumbling of my stomach. I closed the book and went back to my cottage. In the larder I found black bread and pale, bland cheese. The meagre fare was enough to stop the hunger. I drew water from the well – it tasted odd, but quenched my thirst – then went back to my book.

  When darkness fell I reluctantly left off my reading; although the recreation of my family kitchen had lamps on the shelves the angel had said nothing about providing oil, only food.

  That night I slept fitfully, and dreamt of drowning.

  The next morning more bread and cheese had appeared, along with a pot like the one my mother kept honey in; this contained a thick gloop which tasted as sweet as honey, though it held hints of other, unidentifiable flavours.

  I waited a while in case the angel returned. When it did not, I examined the other cottages and found every one packed with books. I had not known there were so many books in the world! I also found, lying on their sides rather than upright, books with empty pages, and beside them, a quill.

  All my life I had sought learning, and here it was.

  I resolved to approach this bounty with an ordered mind. I would record my reading, and my conclusions, a job made easier by the strange quill, which wrote flawlessly without ink. I set to my task with joy.

  I also took time to explore my environment, as much to rest my eyes as because I thought I would find any new information out there. As expected, I soon encountered the thickening mist in every direction, and I experienced a disquiet that grew the further I walked from the village.

  The angel returned after ten days. I found it standing beside the table in my kitchen when I came back to my cottage for my evening meal.

  ‘Are you happy?’ it asked, as though we had left off our conversation mere moments ago.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I believe I am.’

  ‘Good. Do you have all you need?’

  ‘I ... yes, I think I do. Actually ... could I have some oil? For the lamps.’

  ‘Light can be provided,’ it said. Then it added, ‘You have no wish to return, then?’

  ‘Return where?’

  ‘To your village.’

  It had not occurred to me that this was even possible. I thought about it, though not for long, balancing my old life as a misfit who dreamed against my new one, living in my dream. ‘No. I have no desire to go back.’

  ‘Good. Then I will leave you for now.’ It made to go.

  ‘Wait ... you said when I first came here that I could ask questions. Is that still true?’ I should have thought about this before, maybe considered what I wanted to ask.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then ... ’ I searched my whirling thoughts and hit upon the book I had been studying most recently, a treatise on the disposition of the heavens, ‘ ... I want to know about stars.’ Some scholars thought them eternal fires; others, holes showing a glimpse of the light of Heaven beyond. ‘What are they made of?’

  ‘That is not a question I can answer.’

  I wondered if I had misheard it. ‘But you are an angel! You know the mind of God.’ My words were thoughtless, insolent. Who did I think I was to talking to?

  But the angel merely said again, ‘That is not a question I can answer.’ Then it left.

  The next morning, along with my food, I found a white hemisphere the size of my palm. It was featureless save for a slider on the bottom. When I moved this along its track, the object lit up with a cold white light, like starlight. Presumably I had not angered the angel with my presumption, for it had granted my request. I wondered if I was being tested; perhaps it had refused to answer my question because I needed to find out the truth for myself. Maybe the answer was in the books.

  I began to keep a note of questions to ask the angel when it returned, which it did, every ten days. I noted its answers with equal care and as the sun grew smaller and winter – or a re-creation of it – arrived, I found a pattern emerging.

  The angel would answer any question I posed, save those that dealt with God, or with the sky, such as queries on the nature of the sun or stars. It would even provide answers I could have found in my books: for example, the writer of a treatise on the fauna of the Inner Spine mountains suggested that perhaps the snow-hares did not hibernate, and instead changed form. The angel confirmed the truth of this. Sixty-seven days later, in a different book, written some years after the first one, I found this written down as a solid observation. Had the angel known I would discover the answer for myself, yet chosen to tell me anyway? I asked that, but this was another question it would not answer, presumably because it strayed into matters of the spirit.

  It also told me some things no man had recorded, such as why the Duke’s ship had finally foundered. There was, it said, a ring of rock just inside the lip of the world that helped control the flow of water over the edge. When I asked what was beyond that, and where I was in relation to it, the angel was predictably uninformative.

  I asked about myself. It told me that I could chose to live out my allotted span of days – however long that might be – either here or back in the village. I was becoming emboldened so I asked, ‘What if I were to ask to be returned, not to my village, but to Omphalos, to the halls of the University?’

  ‘If you wished. But what would you do then?’

  ‘Why, tell people what has happened to me!’

  ‘Are you sure? You would go back to the world exactly as you left it, save for the time that has passed and your remembered experiences of being here. Why should the words of a rootless stranger be heard in the halls of great scholars?’

  It was right, of course. ‘But why am I here at all?’ I asked.

  Again I thought I detected faint amusement. ‘That is a question every thinking being must answer for themselves.’

  ‘No, I mean why am I here, in this constructed place, with all these books.’

  ‘To learn and think and question,’ it said. ‘Such is your talent.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That is not a question I can answer.’

  Repressing a flash of irritation, I tried another. ‘Is this solely my fate? You have told me this is not Heaven but I have read of another place, which some theologians believe must exist though the Scriptures do not mention it, a place where those who are taken from the world before their potential is fulfilled live out their lives to determine whether Heaven or Hell is their eventual destination. Is that where I am?’

  ‘To answer your questions in reverse order: this is not such a place; and you are alone here.’

  ‘But am I unique?’

  ‘You are alone,’ it repeated.

  In truth, I did not greatly miss human company. However, I did miss the sea. I asked the angel whether it might be possible, now I had been here for nearly two hundred days, for the re-creation to be expanded, perhaps to include the sea. It refused, giving no explanation.

  It did accede to other requests, such as one for seeds and tools. I planted out the garden behind the cottage with my favourite vegetables, consulting various books to ascertain how best to cultivate my small patch of ground. I enjoyed the contrast to my life in the libraries, and took joy in the physical exertion, the chance to replace the smell of musty paper with that of newly turned earth. When summer came, the fruits of my labours were a welcome addition to my diet.

  I also asked for chickens, but was told that chickens, like the sea, were not permitted. I was not surprised, for I had seen no animal larger than an insect here. I asked the angel why insects were permitted while chickens were not. It said that the insects were necessary for the cycle of life, a theory I had come across myself. For a few weeks I made a practical study of the interaction of these small creatures with the plants they lived among. But I found such experimentation less rewarding than the pursuit of pure knowledge already gained by others’ observations. I went back to my books.

  I often went days without considering my situation, lost as I was in investigations into the categori
sation of flightless birds, or the history and genealogy of the great families of Omphalos, or the construction and operation of the complex devices used the thresh wheat on the outer plains. I had a routine, involving regular meals, time in my garden and, odd though it might seem, small but regular religious observances. I found they gave me comfort. I also felt compelled to continue my devotions because if I were truly outside the world then by implication I was closer to God, even if the one servant of His I had encountered was careful to steer clear of divine matters. I often wondered if the angel’s refusal to answer certain questions was due to my mind not yet being ready to comprehend the answers. This possibility encouraged me to further improve myself with study.

  Yet I was also aware that I was a prisoner. Sometimes I felt compelled to test the bounds of my prison. I never got more than nine hundred steps from the village before giving up, driven back by an apprehension that came in part from piety.

  As time passed I found my conversations with the angel changing. I began to spend less time asking questions and more time explaining my own thoughts and conclusions. Insofar as I could tell from such a bland countenance, the angel was not bored by my observations, and sometimes our one-sided conversations went on for some time. One day, when I had been here for just over a year, my heavenly visitor waited until I had finished speaking, then asked, ‘Do you dream?’

  Momentarily thrown I answered that I thought so, but had never been good at remembering my dreams. It suggested I keep a book by my bed, to record them.

  I did as the angel said, and my recall quickly improved. However my mind’s nightly musings provided few new insights, being usually a reflection of my day’s study, sometimes mixed with recollections of my old life, and occasionally infected by the nightly passions normal in any young man of solitary habits.

  I decided, as my second winter approached, that I was going to attempt a small act of rebellion. Remembering childhood tales of heroes and magic I chose to make my stand when I had been in my comfortable prison for five hundred days – the magic period of time for spells and enchantments.

  I spent some of that day asleep. When I retired for the night I attempted to stay awake, with the help of a tracklebur I had picked earlier; whenever I felt my eyelids getting heavy I ran it along the tender skin on the inside of my wrist.

  At the same time, I listened. I may have fallen towards sleep, but I jerked awake at a tiny sound from below. Heart hammering, I slid out of bed. I crept across the bedroom floor, taking care to avoid the creaky board. On the landing I crouched low, then lay flat in order to peer down the stairs.

  In the minimal starlight that came through the open shutters it was hard to make out much detail, but I could see a figure, paler than its surroundings, walking across the room. It gave no sign of knowing I was there and simply carried on to the door, opened it, then left, closing the door gently behind itself.

  I counted to fifty then went downstairs. In the pantry I found the usual provisions. Perhaps my sustenance did not manifest through God’s bounty after all but was brought to me by a physical messenger, who appeared unaware of being watched.

  The next night I repeated my experiment. This time however I did not attempt to hide myself. Instead I rushed downstairs as soon as I heard the door open. The angel carried a shallow box under its arm, and was heading for the pantry as I stumbled into the kitchen. Before fear could get the better of me, I blurted, ‘Are you the same one?’

  ‘I do not understand the question,’ it said, in the calm, even tone I knew so well.

  ‘Are you the same one, the same angel who comes to talk to me?’

  It said, ‘We are all the same one.’ Then it opened the pantry door.

  Its words made me feel cold inside; I had begun to think of the angel who visited me as a particular friend but that was no more than a comforting self-deception.

  The angel did not mention the night-time encounter on its next visit, and nor did I. I resolved to remember that my visitor was a manifestation of God and as such it should not matter whether the same individual came to me each time. It was not as though I could tell them apart anyway.

  As time passed I became convinced that the angel – or angels – did indeed have an interest in my musings. This motivated me in my research. Yet the angel’s restrictions and refusals continued to chafe.

  In my third spring I decided to directly disobey the angel. I resolved to walk a thousand steps from my cottage. To prepare, I fortified myself using a technique of purifying and focusing the mind I had found in an obscure text on the less well-known teachings of Saint Aperion of the Lake. It involved fasting for three days, which also meant hiding the food brought each night. I half expected the angel to question this. It did not, which was illuminating in itself. On the third morning I carried out the exercises of the mind and breath that the Saint recommended. Then I headed out of the village, towards where the sea should be.

  I forced myself to employ a casual saunter. As my steps approached nine hundred, I felt increasingly light-headed, disconnected from the task I was undertaking. At the same time my guts felt heavy, as though my gross mortality was slowing me down. I observed these reactions, categorising them as being due to a mixture of spiritual unease and the physical after-effects of my fast. However, as the Saint had instructed, I did not let such transient feelings affect my actions.

  Nine hundred and fifty steps. In truth it was probably less: I had lost sight of my own feet in the mist and was reduced to sliding them along, hoping there was solid ground ahead. I had considered bringing a stick to deal with this problem, but had decided against it in case it made my intent too obvious. Though of course God should know what I was up to anyway.

  If He did, He made no move to stop me. Nine hundred and eighty steps, albeit the last dozen more of a shuffle. I found myself quaking, the urge to turn around growing stronger by the moment. I told myself it was a passing desire and I had risen above such feelings.

  Nine hundred and ninety. I imagined it was getting dark, then discarded the illusion. My body felt like wet clay. I visualised it as a vessel that was wholly subject to my will.

  One thousand. The darkness was complete and I could neither see nor hear anything. But I could still feel the ground beneath my feet. I forced myself to take another step, though my limbs shook and sweat oozed from me.

  One thousand and one. My breath deafened me, yet I carried on.

  One thousand and ten. What if there was no end, and I would just continue forever. What if I could never go back?

  On the one thousand and twenty seventh step, I stumbled. I do not know if the path was gone, or uneven, or whether my body had finally betrayed me. I do know that I did not feel myself hit the ground.

  ***

  I woke up in bed. It was only when my stomach contracted and rumbled that I remembered this was no ordinary morning. Memory returned in a rush that made me want to grasp my head. But, aside from hunger, I felt no ill effects from my attempted disobedience and subsequent punishment. On venturing downstairs, I found only the usual fare, which I devoured eagerly.

  I had timed my expedition mid-way between visits from the angel, but that evening I found it waiting for me in my cottage. It sat, as usual, at the table. I sat, as was my wont, opposite it. For once, I was unsure what to say.

  It saved me the effort. ‘If you are so unhappy, does that mean you wish to return now?’

  ‘Return to the world, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m not unhappy. I have been given access to the wisdom of ages, a treasure beyond any material wealth. It’s just ... sometimes I find it hard to bear, every day being the same, just me and my books, in a place I cannot leave.’

  The angel said, ‘You have an enquiring mind; it is only natural that you explore and question. But no matter how keen your mind, your body resents its captivity. This is understandable. Yet your choices remain as they were: stay here, or return to the world.’

  �
�I will stay.’

  Perhaps my foolish disobedience had relieved some hidden pressure, or perhaps my assertion to the angel made me see sense. Whatever the cause, I found myself accepting my situation, at least for a while.

  Then, on the first day of summer, I woke up knowing something had changed.

  It was no more than an intuition, formless and irritating as an unreachable itch. I went down to the kitchen muttering to myself. I was just breaking my fast when I heard noises from above: what sounded like a gasp, then the creak of a floorboard. I rushed to the bottom of the stairs just as a figure emerged from the room that, in the original cottage, my parents had slept in. Seeing me, the intruder recoiled, and I saw her head – it was a woman! – turn from side to side as though searching for an escape route.

  Without thinking I called out, ‘It’s all right – I’ll not hurt you!’

  She gasped again, and fled back into the room. Thinking she might try and jump from the window, I ran upstairs. But she had not jumped. Instead she had drawn herself into a tight ball in the far corner of the bed, from where she watched me with fearful eyes. Her clothes were tattered and torn, barely covering her in some places. She was my age, or perhaps a little younger.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said again. ‘You’re in no danger here.’ When she neither moved nor spoke I said, ‘My name’s Lachin. What is yours?’

  For a moment I thought she had not understood me. Then she whispered, ‘Merel’.

  I wanted to ask where she came from and how she had got here, but first I wanted to put her at her ease. ‘Are you hungry, Merel?’ I asked. She looked like she would benefit from a decent meal.

  She nodded.

  ‘I have food. You can share it with me.’