IF, DURING the reading of Mordew, you find yourself confused by all the unfamiliar things, there is a glossary at the back.
Be careful. Some entries contain information unknown to the protagonist.
There is a school of thought that says that the reader and the hero of a story should only ever know the same things about the world. Others say that transparency in all things is essential, and no understanding in a book should be hidden or obscure, even if it the protagonist doesn’t share it. Perhaps the ideal reader of Mordew is one who understands that they, like Nathan Treeves (its hero), are not possessed of all knowledge of all things at all times. They progress through life in a state of imperfect certainty and know that their curiosity will not always be satisfied immediately (if ever).
In any event, the glossary is available if you find yourself lost.
I
THE SOUTHERN SLUMS of the great city of Mordew shook to the concussion of waves and firebirds crashing against the Sea Wall. Daylight, dim and grey through the thick clouds, barely illuminated what passed for streets, but the flickering burst of each bird flashed against the overcast like red lightning. Perhaps today the Master’s barrier would fail, drowning them all. Perhaps today the Mistress would win.
Out of the shadows a womb-born boy, Nathan Treeves, trudged through the heavy mist. His father’s old boots were too big, and his thick, woollen knee socks were sodden. Every step rubbed his blisters, so he slid his feet close to the ground, furrowed them like ploughs through the Living Mud.
He made his way along what slum-dwellers called the Promenade: a pockmarked scar which snaked from the Sea Wall to the Strand. It weaved between hovels lashed together from brine-swollen driftwood decorated with firebird feathers. Behind him he left his parents and all their troubles. Though his errand was as urgent as ever, he went slowly: a dying father, riddled with lungworms, is pressing business, and medicine doesn’t come cheap, but Nathan was just a boy. No boy runs towards fear eagerly.
In his fists Nathan twisted his pillowcase; his knuckles shone through the dirt.
He was walking to the Circus, that depression in the earth where the dead-life grew larger. Here, if fortune allowed, flukes could be found, choking in the Mud. The journey would take him an hour though, at least, and there was no guarantee of anything.
All around, the detritus that insulated one home from another creaked and trembled at the vibrations of the Wall and the movement of vermin. Though Nathan was no baby, his imagination sometimes got the better of him, so he kept to the middle of the Promenade. Here he was out of the reach of the grasping claws and the strange, vague figures that watched from the darkness, though the middle was where the writhing Mud was deepest. It slicked over the toes of his boots, and occasionally dead-life sprats were stranded on them, flicking and curling. These he kicked away, even if it did hurt his blisters.
No matter how hungry he was, he would never eat dead-life.
Dead-life was poison.
* * *
From nearby came the tolling of a handbell. It rang slow and high, announcing the arrival of the Fetch’s cart. From the shacks and hovels grown-ups emerged eagerly, doors drawn aside to reveal their families crowded within. Nathan was an only child, but he was a rarity in the slums. It wasn’t unusual for a boy to have ten, even fifteen brothers and sisters: the fecundity of the slum-dwellers was enhanced by the Living Mud, it was said. Moreover, womb-born children were matched in number by those of more mysterious provenance, who might be found in the dawn light, mewling in a corner, unexpected and unwelcome.
When overextended mothers and fathers heard the Fetch’s bell they came running out, boy-children in their arms, struggling, and paid the cart-man to take them to the Master, where they might find work. So were these burdens, almost by alchemy, turned into regular coin – which the Fetch also delivered, for a cut.
Nathan watched as coins were given, children taken, coins taken, children returned, then he turned his back on it all and went on.
* * *
The further he walked from his home, the less the drumbeat on the Sea Wall troubled his ears. There was something in the sheer volume of that noise up close which lessened the other senses and bowed the posture. But when Nathan came gradually onto the Strand where it intersected the Promenade and led towards the Circus, he was a little straighter than he had been, a little taller, and much more alert. There were other slum-dwellers here too, so there was more to be alert to – both good and bad.
Up ahead there was a bonfire, ten feet high. Nathan stopped to warm himself. A man, scarred and stooped, splashed rendered fat at the flames, feeding them, keeping the endless rainwater from putting the wood out. On the pyre was an effigy of the Mistress, crouched obscenely over the top, her legs licked with fire, her arms directing unseen firebirds. Her face was an ugly scowl painted on a perished iron bucket, her eyes two rust holes. Nathan picked up a stone and threw it. It arced high and came down, clattering the Mistress, tipping her head over.
People came to the Strand to sell what bits of stuff they had to others who had the wherewithal to pay. The sellers raised themselves out of the Mud on old boxes and sat with their wares arranged neatly in front of them on squares of cloth. If he’d had the money Nathan could have got string and nets and catapults and oddments of flat glass and sticks of meat (don’t ask of what). Today there was a glut of liquor, sold off cheap in wooden cups, from barrels marked with the red merchant crest. There was no way this had been come by legally – the merchants kept a firm grip on their stock and didn’t sell into the slums – so it was either stolen or salvaged. Drinkers wouldn’t know, either way, until it was drunk. If it was stolen, then buyers got nothing worse than a headache the next day, but if it was salvaged then that was because it was bad and had been thrown overboard to be washed up port-side. Bad liquor made you blind.
Nathan wouldn’t have bought it anyway – he didn’t like the taste – and he had no coins and nothing much to barter with except his pillowcase and the handkerchief in his pocket, so he joined the other marching children, eyes to the floor, watching out for movement in the Living Mud.
He didn’t recognise anyone, but he wasn’t looking – it was best to keep your distance and mind your own business: what if one of them took notice and snatched whatever was in your bag on the way home?
There were some coming back, bags wriggling. Others’ bags were still, but heavy. A few had nothing but tears in their eyes – too cowardly, probably, to venture deep enough into the Mud. Nathan could have stolen from those who had made a catch, grabbed what they had and run, but he wasn’t like that.
He didn’t need to be.
As he got closer, the Itch pricked at his fingertips. It knew, the Itch, when and where it was likely to be used, and it wasn’t far now. “Don’t Spark, not ever!” His father used to stand over him, when Nathan was very small, serious as he wagged his finger, and Nathan was a good boy … But even good boys do wrong, now and again, don’t they? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between good and bad, anyway, between right and wrong. His father needed medicine, and the Itch wanted to be used.
Above, a stray firebird struggled up into the clouds, weighed down by a man hanging limp below it.
* * *
The Strand widened; the street vendors became fewer. Here was a crowd, nervous, a reluctant semicircular wall of children, nudging and pushing and stepping back and forwards. Nathan walked where there weren’t so many backs and shouldered his way through. He wasn’t any keener than the others, he wasn’t any braver, but none of them had the Itch, and now it was behind his teeth and under his tongue, tingling. It made him impatient.
The wall was three or four deep and it parted for him, respecting his eagerness, or eager itself to see what might become of him. A dog-faced girl licked her teeth. A grey, gormless boy with a bald patch reached for him, then thought better of it and returned his hand to his chest.
When he was through, Itch or no Itch, he stood with the others at the edge for a moment.
Copyright © 2020 by Alex Pheby
