Anders screwed his eyes tight shut and opened his mouth wide, slapped his right hand to his mouth as if he were terrified. Spiritus flew into his mouth and crawled over his tongue. Before he had time to change his mind, before his body had time to come up with any further resistance, he swallowed.
Making a decision is one thing, seeing it through is something else entirely. The fat, slippery body got stuck before it had gone very far, and his throat closed up, refused to let it go down. Anders swallowed again as Spiritus' movements tickled his soft palate, threatening to trigger the vomiting that was lying in wait.
He cupped his hands and scooped up a handful of sea water, tipped it into his mouth and swallowed again. The pressure in his throat eased, and Spiritus slipped down.
He stood with his arms dangling by his sides and breathed deeply in and out several times. All the sounds around him slowly quietened, and the world in front of his eyes stratified and flickered, as if he were looking at it through layers of cobwebs.
Then it came.
Earlier he had felt as if his hand were a remote control; now that feeling spread throughout his whole body. And it wasn't just that he could exercise control. He was whatever he controlled. When he looked down at the surface of the water, he no longer saw water, he saw what he himself was made of, what he was a part of.
He ran his hand over his face. It was still there. He pinched his cheek. The skin resisted and it smarted a little. He was a person made of flesh and blood, but a different person. Someone whose body was a space he inhabited. Outside that space he could hear the screaming of the birds, through the windows of his eyes he saw himself, and he was the sea.
He asked for safe passage for his carrier, and began to make his way down the steps. No water foamed over the edges, it was as if the sea were actually parting, gathering on either side of him, and he walked down the steps between two shimmering walls of water.
The steps were slippery with seaweed, and the bladder-wrack bubbles popped quietly as he cautiously moved downwards. He slipped and grabbed the step above to save himself.
The feeling of being the sea remained, but his former consciousness came to the fore and began to talk through the ease with which he was walking down a flight of steps into the depths.
Yes. But he'd already accepted that, hadn't he? He didn't even have enough fuel to take him back to the normal world, he no longer needed fuel. He was going to go down these steps and see where they led. Then there was nothing more.
He was going to see Maja.
He had walked down six steps. His left hand closed around the tuft at his hip and brought him even closer to his human body and consciousness. There was the sound of flapping and fighting above his head, and almost all the light disappeared. He turned around.
Only faint dots of light from the sky penetrated through the furiously fighting block of birds that had crowded down into the passageway to follow him. The flapping of their wings fanned air across his face, and as if the birds' lungs were being compressed, or the acoustics had altered, all he could hear was whistling and croaking from their throats as they struggled to keep their distance from him, while still following.
The odd gull was forced out along the edges, passed through the walls of water and was sucked up to the surface. An injured bird dropped two steps away from him, hit the rock and lay still.
Anders asked the water to close slowly around the gulls. The passageway shrank, and the birds hurled themselves up over the edges or dived out into the water, swam a short distance and then rose to the surface. Silence fell. Anders was standing on the sixth step in a bubble of air, and it was as dark as late twilight. He could sense the next step, but nothing more.
He carried on downwards.
After seven more steps it was almost completely dark around him. The seaweed and bladder wrack thinned out and disappeared. If he raised his head he could still see the surface up above, dark blue like a summer night sky, but hardly any light penetrated. He kept on going.
The steps became shallower the deeper he went. When he had covered thirty or forty metres in total darkness, they had the same dimensions as a normal staircase. He had no concept of time or space, he was merely a body moving downwards. To avoid losing contact with himself and being swallowed up by the darkness, he began to count the steps.
He conjured up the numbers in yellow against the graffiti wall of the darkness. He embellished them with flowery touches and had little animals hopping around them, to fend off the final separation from the essence of himself, a thinking being. He walked. He walked.
He was so busy creating flourishes and colours around his numbers, asserting his humanity in the great darkness, that he didn't notice when it happened. He was just considering whether to have a squirrel or a magpie on the branch sticking out from step eighty-two when he noticed that the steps were no longer heading downwards, but upwards.
He stopped. Looked around. Pointlessly. He was in total darkness. He could swear he hadn't reached any kind of landing, any place where the steps leading down had stopped and the steps leading up had begun. At some point the flight of steps had just…changed direction.
He tried to picture it, to see how such a construction might be possible. He couldn't do it. The only idea that came close was a flight of steps that turned itself inside out, becoming an upside-down mirror image of itself.
These were Maja's words from the dream. Now he understood them. The steps didn't work. They were all wrong. But he kept on going. Upwards.
After twenty more steps he could just make out the summer night sky above him. Ten more and it became an ordinary sky, seen through water. The steps had become deep once more, and when he tried to climb up on to the next one he stumbled and banged his knee on the edge.
He sat down and looked up at the sky. The air in his bubble was beginning to run out, and he asked the water to part all the way up to the surface. The passageway opened up as if he had used unnaturally long arms to draw back a pair of curtains. What he saw made him lower his head in despair.
The windows of Gavasten lighthouse were glittering in the sunlight far above him. Now he understood what the impossible behaviour of the steps meant. He had been led back to his starting point. Spiritus had allowed him to slip through, but he was not allowed to slip inside. The only thing he had got for his efforts was a sore knee.
He leaned back against the next step and pulled up his trouser leg. The jagged edge of the step had gashed his skin, and a small amount of blood was seeping out. He grinned scornfully at it and tipped his head back. The sky was clear, and what he could see of the lighthouse over the edge of the rock was shining white. He wondered what would happen if he simply asked the water to close around him. Presumably he wouldn't die, but there was always that possibility.
Exhausted, he blinked at the bright light up above and decided to wait a while after all. It was beautiful anyway. There was nothing to hope for, but…
Where had the gulls gone? His field of vision was limited, but at least one bird should have been visible. But nothing was moving across the sky except thin veils of cloud, and he could hear nothing of the birds.
He got to his feet and climbed up the next step. And the next. He had to heave himself up the last step, and once again he was standing on the rocks of Gavasten.
It was late spring.
The air was pleasantly mild, and flowers were growing in every crevice. Mayweed and chives danced in a gentle breeze coming off the sea. The lighthouse glowed chalk-white beneath an afternoon sun that was just warm enough. A wonderful day.
Anders looked around. No gulls on the water, no gulls in the sky. Not a single bird as far as the eye could see.
