Recursive Descent

I woke on the Ariel Angel, where the gentle rocking was a familiar rhythm. My bunk was directly beneath the cook’s—unfortunate because the man had the habit of farting in the middle of the night. But that was not a problem at the moment. I was late.

On deck, the sun was high. Men were crawling up and down the rigging like spiders. Oh yes—I was late. The captain glared at me and said nothing—the worst kind of reproach. “I-I’m sorry,” I said. “I was having a dream. A very long one.”

“Do I look interested?” the captain said. “Write a damn book about it someday.”

My water pail was waiting for me. The sailors had spit globs of mucus into it—standard procedure when the deck boy overslept. And, by the smell of things, someone had pissed on my washrag. When I turned to go get a new rag and bucket, I found Palok, the first mate, blocking my way.

“Where are you going?” the man said. “You’re already late.”

“It’s—soiled,” I said, indicating the washrag, which I was trying to carry on my shoe to avoid touching.

“Soiled?” said Palok, grinning. “You mean someone took a piss on it? That’s no reason you can’t wash with it.”

“But,” I said, “it’ll get the deck dirty.”

“Piss is one of the most sterile liquids known to man,” Palok intoned. “I read that somewhere. Sometimes I drink my own piss. Don’t you?”

I shook my head. I could never tell when Palok was joking or not. “I… I…”

“I… I…” mimicked Palok. “A little piss won’t hurt the wood. It’ll be good for the shine. And you can’t afford to waste more time. Roll up your damn sleeves and get your little pink hands wrinkly with piss.” He laughed.

I knew better than to object. My back bore scars from the whipping I had received the first time I had done it. But the dream from the night before was fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t suppress a flash of anger. I’m important, I wanted to say. I discovered a forgotten city five hundred miles north of here. I captured a morl. I’ve kissed the kind of girl you only dream about. I cried out when Palok grabbed my neck.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that look,” said Palok. “Don’t let your eyes flash at me.” With his superior strength, he forced me to my knees and pushed my head toward the bucket of soupy water. White and green clumps of spit floated on the surface. “Drink up,” said Palok.

I wished I had never woken up. The water rippled from my breath. Palok’s hand was clamped around my neck. I couldn’t move.

“No,” I said.

“No?” Palok laughed. “Your contract doesn’t end for another two days. Don’t get sloppy yet. Until you go to shore with your fifty gold pieces and buy yourself some tits and ass, you can’t say no.” He thrust my head into the water. Soap and spit stung my eyes. “You can’t even think it.” He thrust again. I choked. “You can’t even think about thinking it.” He thrust again. I came up sputtering.

Palok released me and tossed the soiled rag onto my face. The smell of urine gagged me. Dripping and disgusted, I sagged against the ship’s railing as Palok strolled across the deck. Over his shoulder, he yelled, “Get to work! And come see me in the cargo hold this evening.”

My dream was fading fast. The names of all the pilgrims were growing fuzzy—drowned out by the sound of the waves, the creak of the ship’s wood. Their faces were hard to see. The sun and the ocean air were real. The flapping of the sails was real. The water dripping from my face and hair was real. The rag, which I plunged into the water and began to scrub with, was real. Everything else was a dream, I thought. A malignant lump grew in my throat.

The shrine in the heart of the mountain was a fiction. I would write a poem about it tonight. Father Ori’s reign of terror—another falsehood. Lilly’s awkward affections were part of the dream. It would all find its way into my papers—if I could remember it all by evening.

I scrubbed at tobacco stains. These were my real problems. They were hard to remove—and they multiplied behind my back. The sailors stocked up on chewing tobacco whenever they docked. Then they spent weeks covering the ship with the chewed remains. I, in turn, spent my time scrubbing the filth away, so they could do it again.

A sailor kicked my bucket as he passed, splashing my shirt. “Do you like the presents we left you?” said the sailor. “They were my idea.”

I couldn’t even remember the man’s name. He was a newly hired able seaman who had joined the crew less than two weeks ago. Apparently, he’d seen a way to bond with the rest of the crew by targeting the deck boy.

“Actually,” I said. “I didn’t care for them. But it’s the thought that counts.”

The sailor blinked and walked away—not bright enough to think of a proper response. I blinked too—not sure where I had found the courage to speak. Words had simply tumbled out of my mouth—like something I would have said to the Wizard, or the Hunter, or the Singer. I would pay for it later.

I worked for hours. Scrubbing. In the back of my mind, a fantasy flickered. Perhaps this was the dream. I scrubbed furiously at wooden planks. Maybe all of these things—the ship, the tobacco, the first mate—were mere thoughts flitting through my sleeping brain. It wasn’t the first time I had entertained the fantasy.

But the fantasy became more and more difficult to believe as my arms grew sore and the sun baked my neck. My muscles burned. Sweat poured into my eyes—evoking a feeling of déjà vu that I couldn’t place. The bucket of soap and spit emptied as the sun sank. Soon I couldn’t remember the details of the dream that had made me oversleep. And I was glad. I couldn’t afford to oversleep again. It would be best if the dream evaporated completely.

None of it was real. None of them were real. I repeated as much over and over, with each thrust of my hands, with each squeeze of the rag, with each breath. And by evening, I believed it. My burning muscles were the only real things in the world. Palok, done with his shift, took that moment to knock over my bucket, now almost empty.

“Come on,” he said, “we gotta do inventory in the cargo hold.”

He had never asked me to do inventory in the cargo hold before, and suddenly I had the distinct feeling that he was taking me down there to hurt me. I even saw, in a flash, how it would play out. I would lash out, shoving him against the wall, knocking the back of his skull into a shelf. Then I would hide the body in a box until later that night. Then I would lug it up the stairs, onto the deck, and shove it overboard. Then I would clean decks for one more day, bighting my lip as the captain launched a search for his missing first mate. Then, by evening, I would find myself dropped off at the ports of Drymar, as per my contract with the Ariel Angel. Then, I would have to decide what to do with my fifty gold, and my life. In part, it would be the thought of Palok’s body, limp and dead and shoved into a box, that would compel me to go on the pilgrimage. Somehow, just getting away from it all seemed best when you’ve recently murdered someone by accident.

But then, to my surprise, a scream from above shattered the twilight. A sailor in the rigging was waving his arms. Pointing. But at what? Palock and the other men on deck rushed to starboard, peering into the darkening ocean. And then they saw it—a shadow under the waves, a massive darkness beneath the surface. Their breaths caught. No one could inhale. Bubbles exploded fifty meters out—a prelude to the catastrophic emergence of a scaly head with ruby eyes. The head—as large as the Ariel Angel—rose skyward, where the first evening stars were just beginning to twinkle. Salt water rained down. Sailors screamed. Some ran. Some jumped into the water. Others—the hardened ones—tried to maneuver the boat toward safety—wherever that was. I stayed frozen in place. My hands gripped the railing.

The moonlight, refracting off the sea monster’s scales, sent mysterious sparkles across the ship’s hull. The creature’s eyes glowed red, igniting a feeling of déjà vu amidst the terror. When ruby eyes locked on my petrified body, flooding me with red light, I knew what was about to happen. The gaping maw—the giant cavity—rushed toward me. The abyss closed around me. The Ariel Angel’s beams shattered, cracking and exploding. Then—only darkness.

***

I woke younger, and to the familiar smells of my mother’s cooking. She had begun to cook—almost nonstop—after my father had died. Firing the maid had been both a financial decision and a psychological necessity—a way to channel her insanity into meals that she sold at Grennport’s evening market. And it smelled wonderful. Judging by the thickness of the aroma, I had overslept.

As I tugged on my shoes, I shuddered at the dream I’d escaped. It was already fading, but I could remember two things with total clarity—the glowing eyes of the abyss, and globs of mucus floating in a bucket.

I’m late, I thought. She’ll be angry. Déjà vu floated at the edges of my mind.

In the kitchen, she didn’t look up from the vegetables she was cutting. The carrots disintegrated with furious speed. “You need structure, Nial,” she said. “You need discipline. I won’t always be here to wake you up.” An onion tried to withstand her knife and failed—sliced into twenty pieces in a matter of seconds.

“I was having a dream,” I said. “Two dreams, I think.”

“I don’t care,” she said, slicing a tomato in half. “Dreams are just—” She cut the tomato into fourths. “—things you wake up from.” She cut it into eighths. “Every dream ends.” Sixteenths.

“Every dream.” Thirty-seconds. “This world, though, is real.” Sixty-fourths. “This world.” I lost count of the fraction. “You would never have overslept if your father was here.” The knife gleamed.

I sat at the table and began to eat the first course. Even breakfasts were divided into multiple courses. My omelets were filled with multicolored peppers and covered in morlish spices. She bought spices every week—spending money frantically at the river market. It was the only thing she did with as much relish as cooking. She seemed to take pleasure in buying the best spices and the most beautiful vegetables—and then destroying them.

“Eat up,” she said, watching me with bloodshot eyes. “Eat.”

“In my dream—” I began.

“Eat!” she said. “While you were dreaming, I was slaving away. Eat.”

I finished all three omelets, only to find my plate refilled with the second course—fried potato wedges covered by a tangy peanut sauce. As always, it would have been wonderful if I hadn’t been full from the first course. Over the past weeks, I had noticed my belly beginning to protrude. And whenever I walked to Grennport, I had to stop and catch my breath every few minutes. “Eat!” she said, interrupting my thoughts. I forced two potato wedges into my mouth at the same time and gulped them down.

“If you’d woken up earlier,” she said, producing a bowl of chocolate and strawberries, “the chocolate would still be warm and gooey.”

When the breakfast was finally finished, my mother gave a contented smile and returned to her cooking—preparations for the next meal.

“In my dream,” I said. “I was on a ship.”

“It was just a dream.”

I had been trying to tell her about my plans for weeks. “I’m thinking about making it not a dream.”

“Dreams don’t come true,” she said absently, obliterating a squash. She was cutting so furiously that beads of sweat stood out on her forehead.

“There’s a ship,” I said, “called the Ariel Angel. It’s a book merchant’s ship. They take books from the printing presses in Seadom and distribute them all across the ports of the South Sea. I’ve seen it in the dock the last few times at the river market.”

“That reminds me,” she said, “I need to go there today. There’s a man selling aged morl spices! He only comes once a year.”

“I talked to the captain,” I said. “He’ll hire me for two years. The cargo hold will be full of books, so I’ll be able to read all the time. And maybe I’ll learn something about the publishing industry, you know, so I can—”

“That reminds me,” she said, “there’s a morlish cookbook that I meant to buy. It shows you, step-by-step, how to make goulfalk and merpleig—and lots of others too. I hope it’s still there. That captain from the ship—what was it—the Ariel something was selling it.”

“The Ariel Angel,” I said. “He’s going to hire me for two years. I’ll get to eat and sleep for free. And when I finish, I’ll get fifty gold.”

“That reminds me,” said my mother, “I need you to go to the bank and make another withdrawal…”

I stopped trying. She spoke a different language. I walked over to her, close enough to feel the flecks of vegetables flying off of her cutting board. “Listen, I…” I said. Then, I simply hugged her—for the first time in weeks, since my father had died. Her whole body went stiff. I felt as if I were embracing a wooden post. But at least there was a pause in her vegetable obliteration. I held the immobile pillar even tighter.

“Good bye,” I whispered in her ear.

When I let her go, the cutting resumed—a little slower—and picked up speed. By the time I had left the room, she was cutting onions faster than ever. I could hear the knife slamming again and again into the cutting board. And I fancied that I could also hear her sobbing. But I didn’t look back because I didn’t want to find out that she was only crying because of the onions. I picked up the backpack that I had packed the night before and left the house. Outside, I knelt in the grass and rammed two fingers down my throat—inducing a surge of vomit that tasted like eggs, potatoes, and chocolate. Then, I set off toward the river market—not to buy things, but to be bought.

On the way, I dodged thoughts of my mother by trying to recall last night’s dream. There were two dreams, I realized. I could remember the ship, the Ariel Angel, and the monster’s eyes. That one made sense. I had been thinking about joining up with the Ariel Angel’s crew ever since it had docked. Naturally, I would dream about it. But there was some kind of dream within that dream. The thought made me shiver for no reason. What if this is a dream, too? What if I wake up and my father is still alive?

Perhaps I’ve fallen asleep on his knee while he was telling me stories. I wiped my eyes. In the distance, I could hear the ruckus of the river market. It wouldn’t do to be crying when I tried to sign up with the Ariel Angel. The captain might change his mind.

But the tears kept coming. I’ll go to sleep and wake up a month ago, when he was alive. And I won’t go out to play in the snow. I’ll stay away from Stevle forever. And if I get sick, I won’t go near my father. I tripped and skinned my hands on the gravel road. The backpack made me roll. My pants ripped at the knee.

I suddenly realized what was going to happen. I would join the Ariel Angel, and a few months later I would get a letter from the priest in Grennport, informing me that my mother had cut her wrists. And I would spend the next two years in a sea of water and books, trying to forget the life I’d once had.

But strangely, and unexpectedly, there was my mother, helping me up. “You’re leaving?” she said. Her butcher knife hung loosely in her hands. Her eyes were vacant and bloodshot—as always.

I nodded. “I have to. Ever since he—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “I just can’t stay here. I just can’t.”

“Can’t you go to the bank first?” she said. “Then we can have a big going away dinner. Seven courses. You can leave tomorrow.”

“The ship sets out tonight,” I said. Her eyes seemed redder than normal. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

She closed swollen lids. When she opened them, her eyes were gone, replaced by solid ruby gems.

I ran. The sky turned black and began to rain. As I shot down the gravel road, propelled by pure terror, I couldn’t help but notice the feeling of déjà vu that struck me every time the lightning flashed. A desert… I thought, amidst the chaos of my mind. I tripped and skinned my palms again.

And there, again, was my mother to help me up. Instead of extending her free hand, she extended the butcher knife, dripping with rain and tomato seeds, and plunged it into my heart. I screamed toward the blackened sky—screamed until I had no air left, and kept screaming anyway, silently. Then, my mother stabbed me again. And again. With vacant ruby eyes and furious speed, she cut my body to pieces.

***

I woke in absolute darkness. I couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or not. Perhaps I was in the stone panther’s mouth, or the sea monster’s belly, or wrapped in a bloody omelet. I laughed.

The sound echoed for what felt like a month then disappeared as if it had never existed. Dreams within dreams, I thought. Surfaces beneath surfaces. I tried to move, and realized there was nothing to hold on to. I could feel nothing beyond my own body—no ground, no gravity, no clothes, no air. Nothing save my own existence. I couldn’t crawl because there wasn’t a floor to crawl on. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t lie down. My body floated in blackness—in utter deprivation of light, color, and life.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“Hello?” whispered the echo. “Hello?” whispered the echo. “Hello?” whispered the echo.

I wasn’t breathing. And I didn’t seem to need to. I tried to find my pulse and couldn’t, for I had no hands and no neck. Is this what lies under all the surfaces? I wondered. Just darkness and echoes? Have I descended into the final dream—beneath all the dreams? Or was I here all along? What is real? Am I lying on the stone bridge over the abyss, dreaming this? Or was I here all along, dreaming about life until I finally woke up?

The passage of time was impossible to gauge. All I know is that I floated there for a very long time. Thoughts came into existence and went out again, like sand in an hourglass. At first, I screamed—desperate for noise. My throat never grew hoarse. In fact, I couldn’t feel the screams at all—could only hear them. As time went on, I screamed less and less. Until finally I had no desire to scream at all. I had no desire to do, or be, or say, or think, or anything else. So I didn’t. And that was when the eyes appeared in the darkness—two glowing rubies, burning from within.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

“Who are you?” whispered the echo. “Who are you?” whispered the echo. “Who are you?” whispered the echo.

“I don’t know,” I said, answering the echo.