Feersum Endjinn

the cerebral, under the crust, under the photosphere, under the obvious.

It's here you have to be a little bit careful; it's like being in a not-so-salubrious neighbourhood of a big dark city at night — only more complicated than that; much more so.

In here, the trick is thinking right.  That's all you have to do.  You have to think right.  You have to be daring and cautious, you have be very sensible and totally mad.  Most of all you have to be clever, you have to be ingenious.  You have to be able to use whatever is around you, and that's what it really comes down to; the crypt is what they call self-referential, which means that — up to a point — it means what you want it to mean, and displays itself to you as you're best able to understand it, so it's up to you really what use you make of it after that; it's all about ingenuity and that's why it's a young person's medium, frankly.

Anyway, I knew what I wanted so I thought bird.

And suddenly I was up in some dark building above the wee twinkly lights of the city, up there with big metallic sculptures of fearsome looking birds and there was lots of screeches and squawks about the place but you couldn't see no birds just hear the noise they made and it was sort of crusty-soft under foot and smelt acidic (or alkaline; one of the two).

I sniffed about, walking quietly, then hopped up onto one of the big metallic birds and squatted there, wings by my sides, staring out over the light-specked black grid of the city and not blinking, just looking for movement, and lowering my head now and again and poking in under my wings with the twig what I held in my beak, just like I was preening or something.

Noticed my wake-up code in the form of a ring round my left leg.  Handy to know it was there, just in case things go wrong and/or Mr Zoliparia fluffs his line.

… Stayed there a while, patient as you like, just watching.

What you want then? said a voice from above and behind.

Nothing much, I said, not looking.  I was aware of the twig in my beak but it didn't seem to make speaking any harder.

You must want something, you wouldn't be here otherwise.

You got me there, I said.  I'm here looking for somebody.

Oh?

Lost a friend of mine.  Roost-mate.  Like to trace her.

We all got friends we like to find.

This one very recent; half hour ago.  Taken from the septentrional gargoyle Rosbrith.

Sep what?

Means — (this is complicated, referring to the upper data level while I'm down here in the first circle of the basement, but I do it) — means northern, I said (blimey).  Rosbrith.  North-west on the great hall.

Taken by what?

Lammergeier, I said. (Didn't know that neither til now.)

Really.  What you giving in return?

I'm here, aren't I?  I'm a teller.  You got my ear now.  I'll not forget you if you help.  Look in me if you want; see what I say is true.

Not blind.

Didn't think you were.

This bird; you catch any distinguishing marks on it?

It was a lammergeier, that's all I know, but there can't be all that many of them around the north-west corner of the great hall half an hour ago.

Lammergeiers are a bit funny these days, but I'll ask around.

Thanks.

(flutter of wings, then:)

Well, you might be in luck —

– then there was a mega-squawk and a scream and I had to turn around and look and there was a huge great bird beating in the air behind and above me, holding another torn bird in one of its talons; the big bird was red-black on black and fierce as death and I could feel the wind of its flapping snapping wings on my face.  It hung in the air, wings spread, beating like something fiercely crucified, shaking the dead bird in its talons so that its blood spattered in my eyes.

Why you asking questions, child? it screamed.

Trying to find a friend of mine I said, keeping calm.  I clumped around on my perch to face the big red-black bird.  Twig still in my beak.

It held up one foot; three talons up, one down.  See these three claws? it said.

Yup. (Might as well play along for now, but I'm checking the exits, thinking of my leg-ring with the wake-up code on it.)

You got to the count of three to move your beak back to reality you skin job, the red bird says.  You hear me?  I'm starting counting now: 3.

I'm just looking for my friend.

2.

It's just an ant.  I'm only looking for a little ant who was my friend.

1.

What's the fucking problem here?  Don't a creature get no respect for — (and I'm shouting now angrily and I drop the twig from my beak).

Then the big red bird's foot comes out like its bleeding leg is telescopic and zaps itself towards my head and wraps round it and squishes me down before I can do anything and I feel myself trapped and squelched down through the fabric of the metallic bird I'm perched upon and down through the building it's part of and down through the city and down through the grid and down through the earth beneath and down and down and down and what's worse I can feel that the ring round my leg that had my wake-up code on it has gone like that big red bird swiped it when it hit me and sure enough, I can't think what the hell the wake-up code is, meanwhile I'm still going down and down and down and I'm thinkin,

Oh shit…

TRANSLATION — THREE — 4

Once the sky was full of birds; used to go black with birds it did and birds ruled the air (well, apart from the insects) but that's all changed now; humans came along and started shooting and trapping and killing them and even if they've mostly stopped doing that sort of thing now they're still top of the roost partly because they killed off so many species and partly because they make stuff fly, which when you think about it does kind of spoil it for the birds on account they had to spend millions of years jumping off cliffs and out of trees and crashing to the ground and dying and then doing it all over again and one time maybe not crashing quite so hard but gliding a bit and then a bit more and a bit more still and so on and so on etc. and just generally painstakingly evolving in this incredibly complicated way (I mean, lizard-scales into feathers! and hollow bones, for goodness sakes!) and then these bleeding humans, these ridiculous-looking bald monkeys come along what have never showed the slightest interest in flying nor sign of adaptation to the air what-so-bleeding-ever and they start buzzing around in flying machines just for a laugh!

Makes you sick.  Didn't even have the decency to do it slow; one minute their flying machines is made from paper and spit, then one evolutionary blink of the eye and the bastards are playing golf on the moon!

Oh, there's still birds around all right but there's a damn sight fewer of them and a lot of what you would think is birds isn't; it's chimerics, or machines, and even if it is the case that what looks like a bird is a bird, if it's a big one it's probably not even got its head to itself but it's been taken over by a dead person.  Can't even have peace in your own bonce.  Birds have coped with tics and fleas and lice all their evolutionary life but these damn humans are worse and they get everywhere!

I'm flapping and squawking and walking about my perch and wishing Mr Zoliparia the human would hurry up