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same. We in England and in the other so-called developed nations of Europe are
as fossilised as the strange sea creatures you sometimes find in a lump of
coal, and as stonily resistant to change. And I'll tell you why, Robert it's
because of aether. It's because of lazy engineering. When you can make
something work with a coating of wyreglow and a spell, why ever worry about
improving it, eh ... ?'
Grandmaster Harrat's monologues always went along these lines.
He seemed to me to be torn between hope and frustration with frustration
generally winning out. But beneath all of that, I sensed a deeper sadness.
Something, I felt, had been done which couldn't be undone. Some wound, some
worm, which was endlessly turning inside him. Something which related to me,
to Bracebridge, to aether, and my mother.
Through that winter and into the damp early spring in the year 85
of that Third Age of Industry, my wanderings around Bracebridge grew wider. I
felt as if I was claiming the place, mapping it out before I left it. I
would climb over the scrolled and filthy cables of the road bridge which
spanned the rail tracks as they curved south beyond the factories. The
sulphurous heat of the engines blasted beneath and I would ponder as the
wagons clacked by especially aether trucks, with their straw bedding looking
soft enough to break my fall when the best moment would be to make my leap,
and the places to which that leap might take me.
By then, I was missing a lot of school; a fact which the teachers were able to
accept without challenge, knowing as they all did of my mother's worsening
illness, and welcoming as they probably did one less sullen face at the back
of class.
Mother's a troll . . . Mother's going to
Northy-ton ...
Grabbing apples and tins of polish from stalls at the
Sixshiftday market and throwing them uselessly over walls, braving the blast
on that shuddering bridge, smoking stolen cigarettes, facing up to the
balehounds as they launched themselves at the fences, wading carelessly
through the cuckoo-nettles and sweating through nights of agonised sleep my
whole life seemed filled with a sense of breaking through many small,
invisible barriers. At each new turn in the street I
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was half expecting to find the trollman standing there; not Master Tatlow but
someone terrible and tall and in a vast dark cape, as I imagined him, with his
face an endless shadow. I took to carrying a knife, but the thing was blunt,
cheap, unaethered, and it soon broke in my pocket. I was like one of
Grandmaster Harrat's filaments; charged and ready to erupt into spitting
flames.
IX
Grandmaster Harrat, in his long workroom, moved to draw the blinds back from
the skylights.
`Impurities, Robert!' he said. `Imprecision! That's what we must fight against
. . . Think of lightning, Robert! I used to look out over the rooftops of
Northcentral from my nursery when there was a storm and will it to strike
Hallam Tower. And marvel, Robert .. . I used to marvel.
There's no fudge, no doubt. Even then, I could see the start of a new,
different Age. Perhaps one day I'll be able to explain ..
I watched as he leaned over one of the demijohns of acid and a droplet of
sweat slid from his chin. Today, all the wires and efforts and smoking spills
had failed to produce the slightest glow. But I didn't care.
Shifterm by shifterm, these visits had acquired a soothing predictability, and
his failures were as much a part of it as the taste of marzipan. I'd
learned by now to keep well back at the crucial moments from the sparks, the
burning rubber and the huge chemical-filled jars. Electricity seemed to be
dangerous and volatile, and all that Grandmaster Harrat's experiments had
convinced me of was that it would never work. After all, who would ever want
to risk having this stuff charging through their house when they could rely on
the safety of coal gas, lanterns or candles? All in all, though, I had come to
look forward to these
Halfshiftday afternoons as rare times of escape and tranquillity.
I could picture the scene back at home at this moment, or at any other moment
lately. These last shifterms my mother had lapsed into a feverish coma,
tossing and writhing, her eyes wide and white, her thin limbs stretching and
aching as her jaw gaped and she struggled to breathe. Beth would be tending
her now, just as she did every day and night. She braved the edgy darkness and
the scuttling walls of that room. Beth would be wiping Mother's face and
limbs, heating the stone bottles and seeing to the fire and smoothing the wild
sheets, holding those long impossible hands that no one else could bring
themselves to touch. A few nights ago, the last time I had dared to look in
there, my mother had been clawing at the vanishing Mark on her left wrist. The
wall above the bed, even after Beth had finished mopping it, was still thinly
streaked with hieroglyphs of blood.
`I really thought we'd reached the essence this time, Robert ..
Master Harrat's voice and the clink of bottles drifted over me. `I really
thought we'd managed it ... Sometimes, I almost wonder if it will ever come
about ..
He looked at me. For once, he almost seemed to expect an answer.
His glossy lower lip quivered for a moment and his eyes grew grave. He had a
way of looking at me like this sometimes. I'd guessed by now that I
wasn't the first lad he'd brought back to his house to eat fairy cakes and
watch as he fussed over his experiments. But there was more to it than that.
Grandmaster Harrat nodded to himself then, as if he'd reached some final
conclusion. Without speaking he went over to a small, heavy door set in the
walls between the gaslamps and spun a numbered dial.
His silence in itself was unusual and I had no idea what to expect as, on a
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