I

  remembered my ascent only in snatches. The gentle slope becoming

  steep. The heat of the day, the cold of the evening, being properly

  attired for neither. The terrifying screech of some gigantic

  blue-black bird. The uselessness of the map. The scrabbling for grips

  on ancient tree roots and dangling vines to progress. The claggy,

  solid-yet-liquid texture of the Cothabel rations. My inability to

  light a fire to heat them.

  I

  did not know how long I had spent in the wilderness before I ended up

  where I was. Clabby. That was the name of the place. I didn’t even

  know which direction I had come from.

  My

  first conscious thought addressed the smell of the place, its

  strangeness confusing my senses. It seemed to have temperature, an

  inherent heat. I could only describe it by elimination. It was not

  synthetic. It was not like burning. It did not smell like woodland,

  or grass, which you might have expected in such a location. Did it

  come from the people? It was not like body odour in any way.

  It

  was not a pleasant smell, but there was medicine in it. Like some

  healing syrup your grandmother would force you to take, burning a

  trail down your gullet as it helped you.

  The

  first person I saw was the chief of the village. The Mister. I wasn't

  sure at first that it was even a person. Maybe I hadn’t woken up –

  this was my first thought. Perhaps some earthen monster had emerged

  from a midden to haunt my afterlife. I sat up in the bed and forced

  myself to focus. Sure enough, in the hissing lamplight, I could

  perceive the glow of intelligence in the buried eyes. Layers of dried

  out mud were piled on the face and body, so densely caked that you

  could have rooted a substantial plant there. I perceived the indents

  of fingers on the layer, where the original pressure had been

  applied.

  Once

  I heard the voice, I could tell that it was a she. I watched her

  mouth barely move as she spoke behind the mud barrier. She spoke

  fluent Severash, but I sensed that it caused her effort. The drying

  mask on her face moved as one while she talked, keeping her emotions

  hidden. I could not tell if she was consoling me or accosting me. The

  face cracked here and there as she spoke, causing dry flecks of dust

  and debris to fall. She would periodically descend to the floor to

  lift another handful of the stuff, then apply it to her face, filling

  in the cracks.

  She

  was encouraging me to drink from the cup she was holding. The cup was

  the same colour as the mud, as if she had taken a knife and carved it

  from her arm. My stomach's emptiness ached, and I was not sure that I

  could consume anything, but I located my hand underneath a crumple of

  blankets and managed to take a grip on the cup. Water. When I drank,

  having effortfully propped myself up on my elbow, the drink’s

  coldness drew an icicle down my body, then settled in my stomach,

  like a spoon tinkling on a ceramic bowl.

  ‘Thank

  you,’ I said.

  The

  floor of the room was of loose earth, like an unplanted flower

  bed.

  It was so narrow in there I could touch the walls on both sides of

  the bed if I stretched out my arms. The room was tall, and its height

  could have easily accommodated a second storey. The walls were also

  of mud, the same shade of brown as on the person's face. The roof was

  framed with long lengths of yellow timber and was thatched. There was

  little furniture besides the bed, only a little plinth with a lamp.

  The Mister, having no chair, stood over me. The lamp was a curiosity

  – a carved oblong a shade darker than the mud of the walls and

  floor, with a hollowed-out indent housing a weak whistling flame.

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  I

  was comfortable. Very warm.

  The

  curtain covering the doorway flapped open with a smart crack and an

  older woman appeared. Her hair was also heavily caked in mud, but she

  did not have the same application on her face. Perhaps no-one dared

  to outdo the Mister. Still, she looked as if she might have been

  employed in a fuel yard or as a chimney hoker. She looked down at me

  with a searching, unwavering gaze, as if examining a stray hair she

  had extracted from her dinner. I couldn't maintain eye contact.

  ‘Have

  you eaten?’ she asked. She doled out the syllables carefully,

  punctuating them with a clawed hand raised to her mouth.

  ‘No,’

  said the Mister, before I could respond. She pointed to the cup in my

  hand, letting her know that I had taken a drink.

  ‘That's

  good,’ said the older woman. ‘Take some water.’ She raised her

  hand again, as if to show me how to raise the cup to my mouth,

  nodding at me, reassuring me that I had permission.

  I

  took another drink. They watched me closely, following the cup in my

  hand, as if to see if I held the cup in the same way as they did, if

  I drank through my mouth like they did, or through some other

  orifice.

  We

  were all so close to each other, I could sense the heat from their

  bodies. Had the ceiling not been so high, the dark walls would have

  simmered with condensation.

  The

  silence expanded to fill the space, growing oppressive.

  ‘Where

  am I?’ I managed to croak, after a few lubricating swallows.

  ‘You

  are in Clabby.’

  ‘Oh,’

  I said. I had never seen these people before, and had no idea of

  their social standing, but my instinct was to pretend I had heard of

  this place, reviving a habit from my academic days, when I worried

  that to admit ignorance would reveal me as an impostor, and that

  someone would quickly show me to the door, a tight grip pinching my

  collar.

  ‘I

  don't know this place.’ I said finally. ‘Is it near the Mather

  Mountain?’

  ‘We

  have a mountain here, but it has no name.’ It was the older woman

  who spoke, her hands resolute by her sides.

  ‘Am

  I in a lodging place?’

  ‘No.

  This is our convalescent bothy,’ she said. ‘You are poorly.’

  ‘Are

  there other people here?’ I think about how to describe myself.

  ‘Other outsiders?’

  ‘No.

  There are no outsiders here. Not for many years.’ The Mister

  brought loosely-bunched fists together and interlinked the knuckles.

  ‘There are only Mudders in Clabby.’

  'Mudders,’

  I said. The word was somehow familiar, but I could not locate its

  significance.

  ‘Do

  you know about Mudders?’

  Again,

  that urge to lie. I swallowed another gulp of water.

  ‘No.

  I have heard the word, but I don't know what it means.’

  ‘We

  once lived in the city. In Chiram. Seven generations have passed

  since we absconded and created Clabby. We were only nine then. Now we

  are thirty-seven.’

  The

  woman’s chest inflated as she delivered this explanation, inviting

  me to admire their achievements. I recognised Chiram as the old name

  for Severas. They changed it when Acker Dub was in charge.

  ‘Where

  did you find me?’

  ‘You

  lay in the mud of our thoroughfare. We found you yesterday morning.

  You must eat something, if you can.’

  ‘I

  was lying on the ground?’

  They

  looked at each other, as if they didn't understand.

  ‘Yes.

  In the mud, thankfully. If you were somewhere else, in the woods

  maybe, then you wouldn't be talking to us now. You wouldn't be

  talking to anyone.’

  ‘The

  mud,’ I said. Suddenly I recalled, a foaming wave crashing in my

  thoughts. Mudders. An old-fashioned rebuke your grandmother might

  use. If you brought dirty footprints into the house with you, say.

  Didn't Mudders worship the earth? Was that right? Didn’t I read

  about them during my studies?

  ‘The

  mud is very important to you,’ I said.

  ‘It

  is,’ said the older woman. ‘We are earth. The earth is us.’

  I

  tried to understand the permutations of her phrase.

  ‘I

  think I will try to stand,’ I said.