I heard him moving about somewhere out there, know what I mean, like he’s on a different planet?
“Look at these!” he goes.
Well I’m lying on the floor with my eyes shut and when I open my eyes, even though it’s only candles in there, it still feels, like, too bright, know what I mean? So it’s a job to see anything at all as such-yeah?-but I see he’s holding out a bag with pills in it, hundreds of dark little pills.
“These are seeds, these are Lok seeds. Every one of these will take us to another world. Think of that. We can travel between the branches of the tree like Dunner does, with his hammer in his hand.”
And then that Rogg speaks, that evil bastard with the greasy black hair, and he’s a Scotchman or a Geordie or something.
“Yeah,” he goes, “and you know what we’s looking for, mate? We’s looking for one of Dunner’s worlds. Know what I mean?”
I go, “Yeah?”
“He means a world where Dunner is still worshipped today,” goes Erik, “We know they exist because the seeds come from there and because of shifter stories. There are thousands like us, you see, Carl, thousands of warriors of Dunner moving between the worlds. And we tell each other stories. We swap news.”
Then that fat bloke talks: Gunnar. You know how some big fat blokes have these, like, really high little mild little voices? Which Gunnar was one of them, right? He had this gentle little voice-yeah?-really polite and high. I’ll tell you what, though, I reckon he could beat you to a fucking pulp. But he’d still talk to you like really kind and gentle while he was doing it-yeah?-in that small little gentle high voice.
And he’s like, “Do you want to know what it’s like in Dunner’s worlds, Carl?”
And I’m “Yeah” and he goes, “Tell him what it’s like, Erik, he probably doesn’t know!”
(Which I’ve got my eyes closed again-right?-and those black worms are splitting and wriggling and splitting all the time all round me. But those shifter geezers’ voices are far away, coming down like from like ten miles above me or something.)
“Of course,” goes Erik, “of course…” and he’s drawing breath, like this is the good part coming up…
“Does civilization mean anything to you Carl?” he asks, “Or democracy? Or human rights?”
“You what?” I go, not being funny or nothing, but I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
But they all laugh like I’ve made a really good joke! So I feel well chuffed, don’t I?
“They don’t mean shit to me!” I go, like doing the joke again.
“Of course they don’t Carl,” goes Erik kindly, “and do you know why?”
“Because I don’t give a monkey’s,” I go, but they’re tired of the joke now and they don’t laugh no more.
“The reason civilization doesn’t mean anything to you, Carl,” Erik goes, is that civilization isn’t there for your benefit. You’re not part of civilization. Civilization is for the others out there across the wire. They don’t care what you think. They don’t care about what you can and can’t do. They give you a dreg estate to live in and a DeSCA department to look after you. All they ask in return is that you leave them alone with their civilization. Just keep out of the way, is all they ask, and let them get on with their civilization in peace.”
“Yeah?” I go.
“Carl don’t want to know all that, Erik mate,” goes fat Gunnar in his little kind voice. “He wants to know about Dunner’s worlds.”
“I was coming to that,” goes Erik and he, like, growls. He don’t like being interrupted.
“You see Carl, in Dunner’s worlds there is no civilization, no democracy, no human rights. And there’s no DeSCA either, no Special Category estates, no wire. A young chap like you doesn’t have to go to the deskies for money or a place to live. No. What you’d do in one of Dunner’s worlds is find yourself a lord. A warlord, I mean, a great warrior, not some-toffee-nosed do-gooder who sits on committees about social exclusion and goes to the opera. You’d go to a lord and, if you promised to fight his enemies for him, he’d look after you, he’d make sure you got everything you needed.”
“Yeah?” I go.
“And Carl, mate,” goes fat Gunnar, “that wouldn’t be like a deskie flat or nothing he’d give you. Don’t think that, mate. He’d have a big hall, with a big fire in the middle, and you’d live there with all your mates. And you’d drink all you wanted, mate, and eat all you wanted and get as pissed as you wanted and when it was time to sleep, well you’d just sleep there in the hall, with all your mates around you. So you wouldn’t never have to think about money or nothing, and you wouldn’t never have to be alone. How does that sound, my old mate?”
I laughed. “That sounds like fucking heaven mate.”
“Yeah, and you don’t need to work or nothing,” goes old skull-face Laf. “All you got to do is fight! It’s your job, like. You even get to kill people and that and there’s no police or nothing to stop you.”
Which I’m like “Great!”
“Fair enough it’s dangerous,” goes Laf. “You could get killed too, know what I mean?”
“So?” I go, laughing. “Who gives a shit? When you’re dead you’re fucking dead, right?”
“Well said!” goes Erik. “Spoken like a warrior! But actually it’s better than that, Carl my friend, it’s better than that. If you die fighting, Dunner will take you home to Valour-Hall, where all the brave warriors go, and then you’d live again. And then it’s feasting and fighting for ever and ever, until the Last Battle at the end of time.”
And Gunnar’s like, “So what do you say, then, Carl my old mate? Do you want to be a warrior?”
Well, of course I do, don’t I?
“Yeah!” I laugh.
“Well there’s a test you have to pass,” goes Erik, “a little test…”
But one of them is putting this spliff into my hand-yeah?-and I don’t know what they put in it but next thing I’m down on my knees half-way through my mum’s front door, chucking up all over the fucking lino.
Well, the next few days-right?-I’m like, “Did I dream that or what?”
I even went down there to Progress House-yeah?-and no way could anyone have got in there, know what I mean? Steel plates and massive bloody locks.
Which I go, “Well, I must have dreamed it.”
But down the Locomotive when Shane and Derek and that go, “Where the fuck d’you go with that skull bloke?” I didn’t say nothing, know what I mean? Because-yeah?-I remembered that boffy geezer Erik go, like, “That’s not a threat it’s a promise.”
I didn’t feel like taking a chance.
But, like, a couple of weeks later I was just going down to the pub in the morning-right?-when this car pulls up. Which it’s only that dodgy old Mondeo and that fat geezer Gunnar driving it.
“Hop in, my old mate!” he goes, leaning back to open the back door.
So I get in the back and that evil Scotch bastard Rogg-yeah?-he’s there in the front with Gunnar and he passes me back a spliff and, like, we’re off.
Next thing we’re at the line and Gunnar is showing his ID to the cop.
And he’s like, “Alright mate? How you doing?” in his kind little voice.
“Not so bad,” the cop goes. Which he’s a bit surprised-yeah?-like he’s not used to people being nice to him and that. And he’s like, “Have a nice day!” as he lets us through the wire.
Which Rogg laughs and goes, “Anyone tell you yous can’t fake deskie ID cards, Carl? Well you can.”
And Gunnar’s like, “There isn’t nothing our Erik can’t figure out, Carl mate. He’s one in a million that geezer. He’s diamond, mate, he’s pure diamond.”
We go right across town-right?-to this posh area where I never been before. And Gunnar parks the car-yeah?- and we get out and it’s like there’s shops that don’t sell nothing but coloured fucking candles right? And shops that sell little toys made out of painted wood which any normal kid would smash in two seconds flat and they cost like a week’s money each. And all these rich bastards in fancy clothes and posh voices-yeah?-like la di da this and la di da that and “Oh really Jonathan, that’s ever so sweet of you!” and beautiful bitches in posh sexy clothes like TV stars. And you look at them and think, “ Shit, I fancy you,” but you know if you tried anything they’d just laugh at you like you was an alien from space or something with tentacles and that, or eyes on fucking stalks.
And Gunnar goes, “Do you know this place, Carl mate?”
And I go, “No.”
