Luoth leaned against the bar and almost fell off the stool, turning abruptly to face Seluma.

  “Did Sgolot not come? Did you see him?”

  His voice sounded slurred and tired.

  “Who?”

  “The one who was here...”

  He made a circular gesture with his glass. He had drunk far more than usual.

  It was the dead hour when the daytime crowd was slowly heading home and the night owls had not yet arrived. The radio alternated between cultural debates and meaningless chatter, and it was often impossible to tell the difference.

  Luoth never stayed out late, except when he had something to celebrate or, more rarely, when he was otherwise depressed. You did not need to read his mind to know what kind of night it was.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed.

  Seluma looked around for the guy he was talking about. Had the banker been speaking to someone while he was drinking? She couldn't tell; she never tended bar. There was no need to check the work of the bartending automaton, perfect and efficient under all circumstances. One of life's few certainties.

  “Where? When?”

  “The other day!”

  Great. He expected her to remember a stranger from any day.

  “He was here when it happened. We talked—but my goodness, he's been coming here for months, he's a customer I got for you! That's some gratitude.”

  Seluma snorted.

  “The old man with the cap and the cane.”

  “There! Is that called a cap? Funny headgear...”

  Coming from him, with his penchant for hats in unlikely colors! Tonight's was a dazzling flame red that seemed to glow in the dark.

  “But do you check yourself in the mirror when you dress?”

  Luoth straightened up, piqued.

  “This is high fashion, woman!”

  Woman?

  “You're drunk.”

  “Yes,” he admitted, head bowed. “Attan Ze came today.”

  “Kosh,” she clarified. They had always called him by his first name, so what was this new formality?

  The banker pulled his fleshy mouth into a wrinkled grimace and seemed on the verge of tears.

  “I don't like the way you say his name!” he whimpered.

  “Come on! You better go home; I'll call you a cab.”

  “Ah! No, wait!”

  An instinctive gesture to grab her, which she narrowly missed.

  “I said, you know, he used to be a carpenter.”

  “The mayor?”

  “No, Sgolot. A line of carpenters. As a young man he traveled much with his relatives, on the surface, in search of the best woods and timbers,” he began to tell her, leaning down and whispering like a conspirator. “He has seen incredible wonders all over the world.”

  Without needing a signal from Seluma, obeying internal directives, the automaton bartender slipped the still half-full mug from the banker's fingers, still wearing her unwavering smile. He did not even notice, lost in his vision.

  “There are three chasms in the earth, radiating from the Center,” he said, inspired as a preacher.

  “So they say,” she remarked.

  “I wonder if the others have names.”

  “Probably.”

  The conversation, though stunted and alcoholic, had its own charm. In her youth, Seluma had also been eager to learn about the conformation of the inhabited world. In her youth, in the sleepy village of her birth, she had dreamed of exploring distant lands.

  But once she had settled in Nelatte after a short journey and begun to build a nest on a level with the Pipers, she had never wanted to move again, content to let her imagination fly through other people's stories and picture books.

  “He says the Center is something very unique,” the banker continued. “An immense pit, tens of miles wide... There, he says, it's as if someone from the sky drove a giant nail, boom! And cracked the earth's crust!”

  He clung to the counter, panting.

  “Just think, what would happen if someone removed the nail?”

  Seluma patted him on the shoulder, protected by the heavy jacket.

  “Come on, don't worry.”

  “No, it was just a figure of speech. Someone else says it was a ball... a globe of something that fell and overflowed the lake. But those who have been there know that there is no nail in the Center, neither large nor small. There is only water at the bottom, and it keeps falling into the gorge of the three crevices, but the level never drops. How can that be?”

  “We don't know.”

  Luoth raised an arm to declaim, attracting the attention of some of the other meditative drinkers. Seluma tried in vain to get him to lower it.

  “And there, in the thick of the mist produced by the eternal waterfall, we catch a glimpse of a translucent sphere in which lives a large plant, beautiful and inaccessible by normal means. This is the Metz O Bar!”

  Seluma retracted part of her antennae in an involuntary spasm, while the drunkards smiled and raised their cups in a spontaneous toast.

  It was then that Luoth realized he was empty-handed. He looked down, confused, as if afraid he had accidentally thrown the drink away. It was time to help him up.

  “That's it, now go home, Luoth. Come on, like a good boy.”

  “Say, you know the story too—you know it, don't you, the one about a Lumacid like you who preached—”

  “Preached?”

  “She used to talk about a suspended city before Nelatte existed.”

  “I don't think we existed either,” Seluma huffed, nodding at the automaton bartender. She couldn't touch him without ruining his clothes.

  Luoth ran a hand over his eyes.

  “They say she had a strange photo...”

  “Come on, let's go. You're working tomorrow, aren't you?”

  “Ah, yes. Send me away. Maybe your beau will come here—and we don't want grumpy old men around, do we?”

  He spoke too loudly again. With the help of the automaton, Seluma escorted him to the door and handed him over to one of the coachmen, who fortunately were always stationed on the square at this hour.

  “Kosshhh...” he roared again in greeting, hissing and stuttering through his teeth. “Charming eyes!”

  What a fool.

  “Zerafia,” she heard as she came back in and straightened up.

  °°°

  Dame Lapui had cast murderous glances at him all evening, from his first entrance into the salon of busts, then into the great hall during the rector's speech and cheering, and finally into the wide, brightly lit portico where the rich refreshments were served. Fragrant juices poured from corolla-shaped fountains, fish-egg canapés, aromatic scones, and creamy sweets in soft heaps lay languidly on the tables, inviting even those who, like him, did not require much nourishment.

  He could see her staring at him, even when he pretended to be distracted, instead keeping an eye on her in the reflections on the stained-glass windows, the gleaming silver cups, even the shimmering surfaces of the ice sculptures that melted as the hours passed.

  Mingling with people was part of his duties, he told himself again.

  It always was, another voice repeated, insistently, as if to tear him from his limited vision, from the small slice of reality in which he was the Mayor of Nelatte.

  He had to admit that it amused him, despite the commitment it required.

  All those funny little people flailing around, strutting, going crazy, jostling to get the upper hand in some futile, ephemeral diatribe...

  But for them it was not futile at all! Why despise them? Shame on him, he reproached himself. It would have been petty, like mocking the little beetle that was carrying the piece of leaf bigger than itself, amusing himself by moving it here and there and making it lose its way, like disturbing the little spider by trying to break its web, just because from another point of view its efforts seemed ridiculous and unimportant.

  Well, yes, it was just the sort of thing he liked to do from time to time. But not out of malice.

  Good and evil were concepts that lost their meaning on a cosmic scale, like the idea of high and low, or the direction of time itself...

  He smiled to himself, closing his eyes for a moment; the murmur of the guests sounded more focused, more directed, as if in response to something. He had to stop pretending to admire the portraits of old professors, go back and take his seat again.

  No, he told himself again as he turned, the robe tickling his ankles. How can you watch the swarming of an anthill without wanting to stick your finger in? Not to disturb, not to destroy. Just to see. To stimulate. It's good for the ants too, really. It makes them look up, take nothing for granted. It improves them.

  As expected, Dame Lapui was ready to attack. Chirping, she clung to his arm.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “The professor has already left, can you believe it? All this is in his honor, and he's leaving! What a humble man! Good that you are still here, Your Excellency.”

  The woman's swollen, crimson lips moved with a life of their own, quivering and curling around every word she spoke.

  With a gradual but inexorable slowing down, Attan Ze Kosh forced the lady to stop in front of one of the round drink tables. In the basin of the fountain, filled with orange liquid, an ice sculpture dripped cold tears. A bird with outstretched wings, its feathers, carved into precise markings by sharp edges, softening before their eyes, smoothed by the warmth of its surroundings, while the creature's head and proud open beak sagged to the right.

  A vibration in the air, a subtle, melancholy background song seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Concentrating, Attan Ze could make out small hemispherical protrusions at regular intervals on the walls, just below the lamps. Bowls filled with singing sands. Music came from each, a different note, a harmony that changed with the movement of the body, depending on which ear was turned to the source of the sound and how it was shielded from objects and other people.

  It was a familiar hum.

  The mayor poured himself a cup of frozen liquor after offering one to his companion. The lady drank slowly, in small sips, never taking her ravenous gaze from him.

  Surely, she didn't think she was the first to try it, did she? And what did she think she had to offer that was better than all the others?

  And why should she be worse? he thought with a shudder. He swallowed the drink in one gulp and tilted his head back to look at the clear, segmented glass dome that covered the center of the square cloister. It may be the whim of a small soul, but it is a sincere whim.

  Poor woman. Just because she was fat and old, she no longer had the right to flirt? No one was judging Luoth, who had been flirting all evening with a trio of girls from good families. The young women did not laugh at him; on the contrary, they appreciated his gallantry, especially the eldest, Lapui's own niece, who huddled close to him on the sofa, her black silk shawl slipping forgetfully to expose her white arms.

  “I see your niece has returned to society. I am glad,” he murmured without malice.

  The lady nodded, and a wave of tenderness brought a new blush to her plump face.

  “Yes, poor Ala. It was about time. I insisted!”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  The mayor watched with amusement as the shawl, the last sign of mourning, fell completely from the young widow's shoulders and piled up on the pillow like an old rag.

  Luoth's drink seemed bright in the glass, as if slowly burning.

  Attan Ze Kosh had never intentionally hurt a woman's feelings. Or a man's, or anything else's. The detachment necessary in his position did not imply unkindness, far from it.

  “Dr. Iliqualoti is an extremely shy person and surely all this fuss does not please him,” he continued, no longer looking at Dame Lapui but concentrating on his own shiny nails. “Just because he left without giving us any apparent satisfaction, one must not think that he does not appreciate the honors we have bestowed upon him.”

  “Which he deserved!” exclaimed the woman, as if she really understood the importance of the distinguished professor's academic achievements. Fashion business was her domain...

  There he goes again!

  Who do you think you are, Kosh? Get off your high horse!

  There was something truly unusual about the sizzling intoxication that had seized him, and it certainly had nothing to do with the drink.

  Yes, who am I really?

  He felt like he was hovering above them all, watching them with amused curiosity, just like the ants in the example he had just imagined. Throw a stone in the middle? Stir things up with a stick? Crush them all with a giant foot?

  It had to be the combined effect of the ethereal music, the softened sculptures, the artificial light.

  “I'm sure the plaque the rector gave him tonight will be kept by our professor as one of the most precious memories of his entire life,” he whispered.

  Attan Ze Kosh set the goblet down and lingered to bid farewell to the sad bird on the verge of final dissolution.

  The glass bell they imprisoned you under is no good, is it, friend? He sighed to himself, one more look at that transparent ceiling, on the verge of remember something... something really important. No matter where and how long you hide, your destiny will always find you.

  The distraction was fatal to him. His hand, still resting on the cup, had already fallen prey to Lapui's chubby fingers, rubbing against his own. When the lady had his attention, she retreated with a silly girlish giggle.

  “Come on, they're loading the chimes,” she said, pointing to the northernmost area of the porch where the crowd of guests was beginning to trickle in. “We're going to see it in action at last! Do you like music, Mr. Mayor?”

  This time he gave her a genuine smile that warmed him like a real hot wave.

  “I couldn't imagine life without it.”

  °°°

  “Zerafia.”

  It was the radio program, a lively discussion between a man with a shrill voice —the host— and an elderly woman full of sass.

  The woman, who spoke as if she were reciting a tragic poem, even brought up the Oracle in her discourse on the faults of the rival city. Seluma, who was already gloating inwardly that someone else was suspecting the amateurish machinations of those greedy larvae, was still disturbed by such vehemence.

  “The allusion to the 'danger along the wall' that the Oracle spoke of only a few months ago can only bring to mind the Zerafian mushroom city and a new ambush, a trap set by our eternal enemies.”

  The danger along the wall.

  The wall containing danger.

  It could have meant that the wall was the danger.

  It would have been, very much so, if it had decided to move together with the other side, Seluma thought to herself, stabbed by a new uneasiness.

  But since when did she believe in oracles? Or the radio, for that matter.

  Back to work, back to concrete tasks, was the only sensible answer.

  But the temptation was great. Too strong. Could the strangeness of the circumstances justify an attempt?

  Seluma returned to the kitchen. She said goodbye to the night staff and left the management in the capable hands of the cook.

  Was it worth a try? She wouldn't have been able to rest with so much excitement in her body anyway, and after what that thoughtless Luoth had mentioned...

  Silently, she slipped into the gently sloping tunnel that led past the heavy door that had just been carefully locked. This area was not made easy for those who had to walk through it. She was better off that way, her amorphous body conforming to the concavity of the passage, smooth and coated with her own mucus secretions, which when dried formed a shimmering film, always new and different. This was her exclusive domain.

  Alone in her apartments below the restaurant, Seluma allowed herself to become tired and despondent.

  She had been rude, irritable, and tense more than ever, unwelcoming to customers, unbearable to friends. She was becoming a grumpy old woman.

  Old.

  The word echoed in her mind, causing a stinging tickle from the base of her neck to the edge of her corset.

  No, she would not have stopped. She was not going to be afraid like an old lady who is afraid of everything, especially new things and change. She had to know. Something about her scholarly past pricked her unbearably now, an itch in her flesh. It really wasn't necessary for Luoth to utter that name, treacherously.

  Taken what she needed, she moved on, crossing her resting chamber, which consisted only of a kind of hollow in which she could lie and relax her whole body, to open the thin little door at the bottom, a septum formed by her thickest special secretions, a plug that she pulled out using herself as a suction cup. With a pop, the narrower passage opened, revealing a path that was completely devoid of light, but by no means dark. The walls of the shell were partially transparent, allowing the lights of the city to shine through.

  The Coneshell stretched symmetrically into the void below the square, an ever-thinner tunnel winding downward. Seluma made her way through, her body now completely filling the space; she had to push to keep going.

  Until she came to where she could go no further, to the narrowest point where there was barely room to stretch out her head and the stalk she had formed to lay the ritual object at the bottom of her shell.

  One of her collector's goblets. Blue crystal, edged in gold, engraved with the profile of a horned animal caught in the act of leaping. Filled to the brim with the acrid white wine from the Six Islands in the Sky that only the degenerate Samavorians could drink. Concentrating, she drew the fluids of her body forward, stretching into the burrow, now as tight as a rat's nest. She opened the glands on either side of her neck to release the wave of thick, white milk that mixed with the liquid already in the mug, which sizzled and turned dark red, then purple.

  With a soft hiss, which in a few moments became a high-pitched whistle, and then died away, the mixture expanded, and with it the goblet, now swollen and soft as a bladder, until the glowing crystal shattered into amber droplets that faded into a dark, honey-scented mist.

  She closed her eyes and drew them back. She waited for the vibrating sound of the portal; she waited, drenched in sweat. Breathing was difficult in this position, with the closed passageways behind her.

  It was taking too long.

  She looked again and was dismayed to find only the pool of liquid still bubbling at the bottom of the shell's apex.

  It had not worked.