TRANSLATION
TRANSLATION — ONE — 4
Woke up. Got dressed. Had breakfast. Spoke with Ergates the ant who said it's just been work work work for you lately master Bascule, why don't you have a holiday? and I agreed and that was how we decided we ought to go to see Mr Zoliparia in the eyeball of the gargoyle Rosbrith.
I thought I'd better clear it with the relevant authorities first and hence avoid any trouble (like happened the last time) so I went to see mentor Scalopin.
Certainly young Bascule, he says, I do believe this is a day of relatively light duties for you. You may take it off. Have you made your matins calls?
O yes, I said, which wasn't strictly true, in fact which was pretty strictly untrue, truth be told, but I could always do them while we was travelling.
What's in that there box you're holding? he asks.
It's an ant, I say, waving the box at his face.
O this is your little friend, is it? I heard you had a pet. May I see him?
It's not a pet, it's a friend; you was right the first time, and it's not a him it's a she. Look.
O yes very pretty, he says, which is a pretty strange thing to say about an ant if you ask me but there you go.
Does it — does she have a name? he asks.
Yes, I says, she's called Ergates.
Ergates, he says, that's a nice name. What made you call her that?
Nothing, I says; it's her real name.
Ah, I see, he says, and gives me one of those looks.
And she can talk too, I tell him, though I don't expect you'll be able to hear her.
(
Does she, does she now? mentor Scalopin says with one of them tolerant smiles. Very well then he says, patting me on the head (which I don't much like, frankly, but some times you just have to put up with these things. Anyway where were we? O yes, he was patting me on the head and saying), off you go (he says) but be back by supper.
Righty-ho, I says, all breezy like, never thinking.
Swing down past the kitchens to see mistress Blyke to flash my big soulful eyes and give her the soppy smile all shy and bashful and scrounge some provisions. She pats me on the noddle too — what is it with people?
Leave the monastery about half nine and lift to the top; the sun is shining in through the big windows across the great hall straight into my eyes. Damn sure it doesn't look like it's getting dimmer to me but everybody says it is so I suppose it must be.
Grab a ride on a wagon heading for the south-west hydrovator along the cliff road, hanging onto the back of the truck above the exhaust; bit steamy when the truck stops at junctions, but beats having to ride in the cab and talk to the driver and probably get patted on the bonce again like as not.
I like the cliff road because you can look over the edge and see right down to the floor of the hall and even see the big round bobbly bits what would be the handles of the drawers of the bureau if this was a proper size place instead of being BIG like it is. Mr Zoliparia says of course there weren't never no giants and I believe him but sometimes you can look out over the hall with its mountains like cupboards and mountains like seats and sofas set against the wall and the tables and poufs and so on scattered about the place and you think, When's them big bags coming back then? (Bags is my own coining and I'm quite proud of it — means Boys and GirlS. Ergates says it's called an acronym. Anyway, where was we? O yes, hanging onto the back of the truck rolling along the cliff road.)
Ergates the ant is in her box in the left breast pocket of my jacket-with-lots-of-pockets, all safely buttoned down. You all right, Ergates? I whisper as we bounce along the road.
I'm fine, she tells me. Where are we right now?
Um, we're on a truck, I sort of half-lie.
Are we hanging off the back of a vehicle? she asks.
(Blimey you get nothing past this ant.) What makes you think that, I asks, stalling.
Must you always maximise the danger of any given mode of transport? she asks, ignoring my stalling.
But I'm Bascule the Rascal, that's what they call me! I'm young and I'm only on my first life I tells her, laughing; Bascule the Teller nothing, that's me; no I or II or VII or any of that nonsense for yours truly; am good as immortal for all intents and purposes and if you can't act a bit daft when you never died not even once yet, when can you?
Well, Ergates says (and you can just tell she's trying to be patient), aside from the fact that it is folly to throw away even one life out of eight, and the equally salient point that in the present emergency it might be foolish to rely on the efficient functioning of the reincarnative process, there is my own safety to think about.
I thought you was indestructible to a fall from any height on account of your scale and mass-to-surface area given the relative size of air molecules? I says.
Something like that, she agrees. But if you landed the wrong way it is conceivable I might be crushed.
Ho, I'd like to know what's the right way to land from this high up, I says, leaning out over the drop with the wind in my hair and gazing down the way at the treetops of the forest-floor, what must be a good couple of hundred metres below.
You're missing the point, says Ergates the ant, sounding sniffy.
I thought for a moment. Tell you what, I says.
Yes? she says.
When we take the hydrovator up the cliff, this time we'll go on in the inside; how's that?
Your munificence astonishes me, she says.
(She's being sarcastic, I can tell.)
The hydrovator car is one of the old wooden ones what creaks a lot and it smells of rope-oil and varnish and the empty water tanks underneath the deck make big boomy spooky noises as it climbs up the wall of the hall. The floor of the car is mostly taken up with six big military vehicles which look like airships with wheels. They're guarded by some army lads who're having a game of pinkel-flip and I'm thinking of joining in because I'm a pretty good shot at the old pinkel-flip and I probably could stand to make a deal of gambling tokens on account that I'm so young and innocent looking and yet a bit of a hustler really but then Ergates says, Don't you think you should make those calls like you promised brother Scalopin? and I says, O I suppose so.
I'm a teller, so the calls have to be made, I suppose.
I find a quiet spot near the gates where the wind ruffles in, and I sit down and lean back and let my eyes go mostly closed and I tap into the crypt where the dead people are.
From the top of the hydrovator I cross the marshaling yard on the frieze near the roof of the hall and head into the wall through various passageways and tunnels and take a tube along the inside of the wall to the far end of the great hall. I get off at the corner station and climb up some steps; I come out in a galleria on the outside of the wall what extends out from the greenery and bluery and etcetery of the babil plants. From here I can look down onto the terraces and little villages on the roofs of the parapet merlons with the little fields on the crenels and if I look right down I can see the flat green valley that is the allure but I expect none of this terminology means much if you don't know much about castles.
Anyway, it's a pretty impressive view, and sometimes you'll see eagles and rocs and simurgs and lammergeiers and other big funny-looking birds wheeling about just to add a bit of local colour, and further below there's more walls and towers and allures and steep roofs — some of them terraced too — and below that the
