Arcadia

42

When Chang stepped through the ironwork in the cellar into the world on the other side, it was not that time stopped; he was aware of its passage, but simply did not know what it meant. He no longer knew anything of himself or his surroundings; he was hungry but had no idea how to feed himself; he was thirsty but it took days before the idea of drinking occurred to him. He crawled in a delirium, with no personality or memories or sense of himself. He stumbled around thoughtlessly, falling and tripping, often lying on the ground in puddles or in bracken so his skin was scratched and bloodied, his clothes torn and made filthy.

He heard a murmur of voices but could not understand what was being said. He felt himself being picked up, manhandled onto the back of a cart. He stared upwards into the blue of the sky as the cart lumbered along, not knowing where he was going or why. He should have been afraid, but he couldn’t even manage that.

They took him somewhere, laid him down. Someone removed his clothes and bathed him. Fed him water and some sort of broth; nursed him. He slept, for days and days. As he slept, his memories once more returned, but only partially. Now there were just dislocated and meaningless fragments.

After a very long time, Chang realised how great was the damage he had suffered. The effect, he realised, must be cumulative, a disruption on top of a disruption. The only thing he could do — and even that was an effort — was to shut down all the higher functions, the ones fed by the various implants, and operate more or less as nature had provided, by guesswork, memory and intuition. It was desperately hard.

This was Anterwold, then, Angela’s invention, and as he slowly came round and began to observe it, he had to admit her achievement was extraordinarily impressive. Not for the first time, he was awestruck by her abilities. Every leaf and twig and insect seemed to be perfect. The climate fitted in logically with the vegetation, the vegetation with the wildlife, the wildlife with the society that had grown up inside it. He didn’t like it, this primitive, dirty place with its simple bovine pleasures, its lack of movement and incurious approach to everything, but it undeniably worked.

He had no choice but to stay with the people who had found him. They gave him a name, Jaqui; they called him that because, apparently, he reminded them of some character in a story. They, not he, decided he was a hermit. He was expected to speak semi-nonsense and they were ready to interpret his mumbling confusion as wisdom. People began to ask him things, and nodded knowingly at his meaningless answers. Occasionally he saw some obvious stupidity and he could not help himself. He would, very briefly, access his memory to diagnose an illness and then say what should be done about it. He paid for that with splitting headaches but this infirmity, also, was seen as something almost holy. Others asked for advice: should they get married? Would their child be healthy? Always he threw the question back: what do you want to do? This gained him a reputation for wisdom, which he did not deserve, and kindness, which he did not want. He wanted to be left alone, so he moved out of the village into an abandoned shepherd’s hut where he wouldn’t be so bothered. But still they came to ask questions and, in return, they fed him and looked after him. Slowly he realised how fortunate he was. He had permission to act strangely; it was expected. He wasn’t going to starve or be locked up.

But he had to escape; weeks went by before he could reconstruct that last conversation with Angela and realise that his best chance of returning was long past. Six days, she had given him. He had missed it. Nor did he know where he had arrived, so he couldn’t even go back there in the hope that, perhaps, the light would be there.

His one remaining chance was the emergency fallback. The fifth day of the fifth year at Willdon. What in God’s name did that mean? They had heard of Willdon, but not what her instruction meant. But when it passed, Angela was going to try to shut the whole thing down. In theory, that could not be done if he and this girl were still in it, but he knew her well enough not to underestimate her. She might find a way. He did not want to be in here if she did.

Chang came across the scholar Etheran after he had been there for three months. He had left the village of Hooke which had adopted him as its mascot and gone wandering to try and find out what Anterwold was. He met Etheran as he stopped at a wayside inn to beg for somewhere to sleep. The scholar watched as the landlord shook his head reluctantly. ‘No room,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘May I beg you to reconsider?’ the scholar said. ‘He looks in need of rest.’

The kindness warmed him, and he answered the questions that followed. Where are you from? Why are you a hermit? He was unlike any person Chang had yet met in this static, unchanging place. There was a flicker of autonomy there and he knew he had to investigate it. Soon he became the one asking questions, pressing to see if Angela’s defences had held up. Could Etheran begin to change, think, develop new ideas?

He probed for answers and found the man alarmingly responsive. He was stick-thin, with long arms and fingers, and he stroked his chin methodically as he listened. But his eyes shone with interest; he laughed with delight when he could not answer something. He seemed to enjoy the encounter.

Etheran even sought him out after he returned to Hooke. Chang deliberately tried to provoke him, to see how far he would go. But even when confronted with his ignorance, even when Chang made him feel like a fool, Etheran came back with questions of his own, and fumbling, confused answers.

It was a very peculiar experience; Etheran was educated and intelligent, but there were many things he simply could not understand, rather like a colour-blind person being told about the blue of the sky. What happened to send people into this exile everyone in Anterwold saw as the beginning of time? Why did they come back? When was this? A look of puzzlement, first at the questions, then at the realisation that they had never occurred to him before.

Etheran was overwhelmed at the thought that there was useful information that existed outside the great Story of Ossenfud. That the stones and rooftops of buildings could say something it could not. The look on his face would have been comical if Chang had not had some inkling of the sheer effort involved, and of the danger if he began to throw off the shackles of immobility.

He left it there that day, but over the next few weeks and months Chang talked to him some more, then wrote him letters, cajoling and encouraging, bitter and frustrated by turns, deliberately trying to push him to breaking point.

Eventually Etheran started coming up with ideas of his own. ‘Could it be,’ he said, ‘that you could add together the rules of the domain holders, use them to date events? In the third year, or the twentieth year, of a person’s rule?’

Once the idea had taken hold it grew in him. Surely you could also use records of birth, of marriage, all sorts of things? Just think what that might tell you... That was his last visit. Two days later Etheran left, his head brimming over with new ideas. But the effort was too much for him. Just as he was getting to the point of understanding, he died suddenly and alone and all his ideas were lost.

Angela’s defences had held. Chang learned this from another scholar. This man, Henary, was brought in by the people of Hooke to look him over and see if he was dangerous. A curious encounter; the scholar did his duty, asked questions, but was clearly not very interested. He did not want to cause the hermit any difficulties, and Chang did not wish to experiment with him as well; Etheran had given him all the information he needed. So he kept him at arm’s length, not least because he could discern little of Etheran’s curiosity. Henary was a more sombre, less readable character altogether.

The encounter passed off without significance, until Henary told him of Etheran’s death. Chang was sad and relieved at the same time. He had almost grown fond of the thin, eager figure, admired the immense efforts he made to break through into a new world of understanding. But it could not be done. Etheran’s heart had given way, rather than allow him to take the next step. That was good, but Chang felt a stab of responsibility, almost as if Etheran had been a real person.

Only at the end did Henary give him something to think about. He was off to Willdon, he said. The seventh Festivity of Thenald...

After a few days, Chang left to investigate. He was lucky; after a day, a passing cart gave him a lift most of the way, exchanging the journey for company. The driver, whose name was Callan, was on his way back home.

‘Tell me about this place.’

Willdon, Callan assured him, was the best, most beautiful, most fertile spot in the world. The trees were greener, the crops healthier, the birds fatter, than anywhere else. Only when the subject of the Lord of the domain came up did his face darken. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Thenald’s a proud man. I suppose he has something to be proud of.’

‘Perhaps he will die of old age?’

‘Not him. Young and healthy, built like an ox.’

‘Mellowed by children?’

‘May such blessings be given him, but he’s been married a year and no sign as yet. A lovely woman, cleverer than he is, I reckon.’

Chang pondered this as he slept on the floor of the soldier’s hut that evening. What to do? The opportunity to go back would appear on the fifth day of the fifth year of the ruler of Willdon, that was what Angela said, and the current ruler was already in his seventh year and would remain in office until he died. So did he have to wait until then, then wait another five years after that? What if this Thenald lived for another twenty years?

He considered it some more when he first saw Thenald from a distance and realised how strong and healthy he was. He sat and meditated on his options, revolted by one, despairing at the other.