But found' Found a remorseless upthrust of images welling into consciousness. Not the much-to-be-expected nightmares of pain, torture, privation and death to which he in his condition would naturally be prone. Not that, but totally disconnected visions. Kicking through his skull. Disordered as a wet-writhing mass of fish dumped from a net to a boatdeck. Data was whirlpooling from the depths of his memory. Fractional glimpses of people, places, events. Tastes, temperatures, smells and tactions. Sights and sounds. Nuances of weight and balance.
Mango yellow. Cassava squirt. Seasalt algae sunbaked. Albatross shadow. Crab scuttle cavecool. Coconut split. Knock-hollow coconut rock-shattered. Finger-lick of moisture. Fingers? Digits. Vestigal talons. Articulation.
His hand was working itself.
Experimenting with itself.
His left hand.
Fingers closing to a fist. Slowly. Opening again. Slowly. Thumb touching first finger, second, third. Odolo slapped his delinquent left hand with his obedient right. The left hand ceased its fidgeting.
But still the memories upswirled, rising in torrents like the blood of the dead in the legend of Pelikan Ova. Memories of ice delicious on days hot. Of nights by mosquitoes tormented. Of seadream diving near the Galley Gate deeps. Of green tea, blue gin, creamed coffee, sherbet and other potatiory delights. He tried to stop the memory- flux. But could not. He was losing sovereignty over his own mind. Was, in a word, going mad.
Worse — the very wall was moving!
Odolo stared at the wall. Then realised, to his relief, that the impression of movement came from the shuffle-shift of an overlay of cockroaches. Free protein! He realised he was hungry. Unless breakfast came soon he might murder a few of the six-legged ones for the pleasure of his belly. Then, as he watched, a waking nightmare abolished both relief and hunger entirely. A shadow amidst the shadows formed itself into a claw. It raked the wall. Knifed its talons in among the cockroaches. They fell in a scrattling rain, sklattering to the flagstones. Odolo felt first strangling fear then Silence.
As if he had become What?
A pool of clear water.
Silent. Poised. Ready. Waiting.
For what?
While Odolo waited for revelation, the cockroaches scrambled back on to their wall. Then a couple slipped from the justling shadow-hugging mass. More fell as a shadow-formed claw again raked the wall. The fallen cockroaches mucked around on the flagstones. Then, as if drawn toward Odolo by a superior Power, they perambulated toward him, onmarching steadily as if with hideous intent. They were going to — to eat him?
He shrank away from the oncoming monsters. Then the leading cockroach hesitated. Shimmered. Flickered. Softened. Dissolved. Reformed itself as a butterfly. Which took to wing, rising shadow-soft and shadow-silent to the sunlight above. Where it flashed into sudden glory, then swooped between the bars of the cell. Gliding away to freedom.
Odolo glanced back at the cockroach army. It had vanished. Something small and green had taken the place of the insects. It took to the air as he watched and began to circle just overhead. Not another butterfly, no. Not a butterfly but a dragon. A tiny little dragon, barely a fingerlength from nose to tail. It chirruped happily as it flew.
Had all those cockroaches gone to make one dragon in miniature? No. On the flagstones at Odolo’s feet were two mango-sized beasts. A lion and a unicorn. Even as he watched, the two tiny animals began to fight. They wrestled each other to the edge of the vomit hole. Slipped. Then fell. From the depths below there came a hideous squealing.
Vampire rats!
Attracted by the noise, the dragon dived from the heights and plunged into the vomit hole. Moments later, it emerged. Covered in filth. It settled on the flagstones. It flapped its wings furiously, hissing. Muck slished away from its scales. Still hissing, the dragon took to the air. It ascended. Up, up it went, climbing as it circled. As it gained the heights the sunlight caught it, sparking a flare of dragonfly iridescence from its wings. The dragon slipped between the bars, disappearing into the sunlight.
An illusion, surely.
An idle piece of dreamery adrift in the daylight.
Yet… motes of dust were still aswirl in the turbulence left by its flight. Odolo closed his eyes. Opened them. Looked upward again. Saw no trace of the turbulence. It had smoothed away to nothing.
‘It never happened,’ he said.
Perhaps not.
But other things were happening already.
In the dankest comer of the cell a miniature cloud was forming itself. A tiny self-important black cloud coruscating with impatient energy. As sparks of lightning crackled from the cloud, something began to form in the air just above it. Something smooth, oval. Glowing whitely. An egg! A luminous egg! Which hovered above the cloud for a moment. Then fell. Shattered on the flagstones. Splat! Yolk gleamed golden in the sweltering shadows of the cell. Then the cloud disintegrated into a downpour of miniature pearls.
Then the words began to spin again, jumbling swiftly and furiously as they torrented through the helpless mind of Odolo the hapless. In panic he screamed:
‘Help me! Help me!’
Then, in desperation, slammed his head against the door of the cell.
Something spoke inside his head: BE STILL!
Without thought, Odolo punched himself in the head. In tones of authority the voice said: STOP THAT!
Odolo hit himself again. It hurt. Then something hurt him far worse. Pain flooded his body. Pain? PAIN!
Then the voice again spoke inside his head:
I not you am. Not your symptom am. Thing am. Listen to me, Odolo dishonourable.
‘Hi, Thingam,’ muttered Odolo.
I am a Thing.
Thus the thing, with dignity and swift-improving control of grammar. Then grammar lapsed again as the thing — thing? — Thing! — said:
Binchinminfin is called me.
‘Binchinminfin? That’s your name?’
My name is Binchinminfin.
The Thing was learning quickly.
Odolo lay as still as total paralysis. Was he dreaming? He tested reality. He tried to manifest a naked damsel. He failed. But in his dreams he could always cause naked damsels to manifest themselves. Not just to manifest themselves, either, but to [Here a deletion. Drax Lira, Redactor Major.']
So he was not dreaming.
The undreaming Odolo lay in a sweat of terror. A Thing! A Thing in his head! What could he do? Dig it out with a mango spoon? He giggled hysterically. Then got a grip on himself. Could he negotiate with the Thing? He could try. Out loud, he said:
‘What do you want?’
The voice in his head answered: SILENCE. BE STILL! STOP THINKING.
Thus the Thing. But how could he stop thinking? As he was still thinking about it, the painting of a monster which covered the cell door came to life. Its single baleful eye winked open. Odolo screamed.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ said an unsympathetic voice.
It was surely the turnkey speaking. As artistic mischief had made the cell’s spyhole the pupil of a monster’s eye, the opening of the same momentarily brought the hideous door painting to life.
‘Help me!’ said Odolo. ‘I’m going mad!’
‘That’s syphilis then,’ said the turnkey, ‘isn’t it? It’s syphilis which makes madness.’
Then Odolo in his agony started screaming like a skavamareen.
‘Skeder erket mol,’ said the turnkey.
Then, after making several additional comments equally as obscene and unsympathetic, the turnkey departed, satisfied that his charge was in good shape. Odolo was left to his fate. Jumbling discords of random-
