On

  my second day in Clabby, I was awoken by the touch of the Mister’s

  hand on my nape.

  ‘Good

  morning,’ I said, suddenly alert, as her great muddy presence

  became known. I tried quickly to sit up, to swing my legs out from

  under the blanket, but she was sitting on the bed beside me and I

  could hardly move. I could sense the ghostly residue of loose earth

  on my neck where she had touched it.

  ‘Well,’

  she said quietly. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better,

  I think,’ I answered, ill-at-ease at the setting. I felt the need

  to speak formally, as if I were some diplomatic envoy, but it was

  difficult to do so while lying almost horizontally in my

  underclothes, my early morning tumescence not yet subsided. I felt an

  urge to wipe furiously at my neck, to clean away whatever dirt she

  had left behind, but I resisted. She smelt of the outdoors, like a

  gust of wind that had blown across a river. There was another smell,

  something more familiar. When I noticed the moisture smearing the mud

  on her bare arm, I understood that it was her sweat.

  ‘You

  are eating?’

  ‘Yes.

  I managed a few bites, thank you.’ Someone had brought me a bowl of

  mashed vegetables the previous night and I had eaten a few

  flavourless scoops, worrying that I might soon have to make an

  escape. For now, I felt quite secure, the sultry heat of the place

  and its therapeutic smell setting me at ease.

  ‘That

  is good,’ she said.

  I

  gently moved my legs under the blanket and she responded, shifting

  her weight and allowing me to sit up. Flakes of dry earth marked the

  spot where she had sat.

  Sitting

  up, I saw that the contents of my bag had been spread out on the

  floor. There was a sudden wave of heat as I saw my crusty

  underclothes among the empty tins of Cothabel and wrinkled documents.

  ‘I

  have brought your belongings,’ she said, picking up my map from the

  sundry items.

  ‘Yes,’

  I said.

  She

  fixed her look on me for a moment, her eyes burning intensely in

  their brow caves. She wanted something.

  ‘This

  is my map,’ I said, reaching out tentatively to take the document

  from her, its greens and blues standing out against the myriad shades

  of mud brown.

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  There

  was a spark of comprehension as I explained it to her, showing her

  where Severas was, where I thought Clabby might have been. She took

  the document back from me and examined it.

  ‘Where

  is Chiram?’ she asked.

  ‘Chiram?’

  I said, confused at first, but quickly gathering her meaning.

  ‘I

  see, what you call Chiram, we call Severas. That is the old name for

  Severas, do you understand?’ I said, pointing to the city on the

  map. ‘They changed the name some time ago.’

  ‘You

  changed it?’

  ‘Yes,’

  I said. There was a person in charge down there who made a lot of

  changes. A Mister.’ I thought about how to describe him, a

  mean-spirited, some would say evil, authoritarian whose reign

  coincided with great prosperity for a small few, but horrific

  oppression for others. I wanted to present my hometown in its best

  light. ‘Acker Dub he was called. He changed the name. Many did not

  like him.’

  ‘We

  also have Misters like that,’ she said. I wanted to laugh but she

  remained straight-faced – at least her mud-caked face betrayed no

  further response. She placed the map on the ground and picked up

  another document.

  I

  was surprised to find that the second document was a cluster of

  weakly-bound pages from my Creed. It was an old version, the one they

  had given to us at Appalatis. I had no idea that it had been in my

  bag.

  Like

  most people in Severas, I had grown up as a follower of the Munlore.

  I still considered myself an adherent at this time, although most

  people pursuing Crom tended to renounce this way of thinking.

  I

  sensed the Mister’s intense regard once more and I realised she

  wanted me to explain this document too.

  I

  was hesitant to talk too much about this one, remembering my

  anthropological training. ‘Do not seek to impose your own belief

  system.’ That was the key tenet set out in Rillo's Practical

  Handbook.

  ‘This

  describes a system of belief that some people follow in the city,’

  I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask any further questions. I did not

  want to be a missionary.

  I

  recalled my childhood recitation of the Creed at the observatory. I

  had just turned thirteen, the glimmering new shoes tightly squeezing

  on my toes. My father was still alive then.

  I

  adhere to the belief that the Munlore created the Earth and

  everything in it.

  I

  adhere to the belief that the Munlore created nine other Earths and

  everything in them.

  I

  will undertake to perform only those acts which please the Munlore

  and will forgo those which displease them.

  I

  will do my utmost to ensure that our Earth is the Munlore's most

  favoured.

  I

  regretted the poor condition of the Creed as I watched her thumb

  through the dog-eared sheets. I should have been looking after it

  better, rather than leaving it to rumple beneath my dirty breeches.

  She brought each page close to her face, then gently ran her fingers

  over the letters, as if to see how well they adhered to the sheet. It

  had clearly lain at the bottom of my bag for years.

  When

  she had looked through each sheet, she arranged them once more in her

  lap. Again, she turned her burrowing look towards me. I was learning

  that this was how she asked for something. When I thought I couldn’t

  withstand the look any longer, and as I was about to tell her

  everything she wanted to know, she relented, and looked down into her

  lap again.

  ‘Do

  you have medicine in Severas, Usal?’ she asked finally.