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When
I Sailed The Sea Of Stars
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I, Nine, the Narrator, was breaking the rules again and enjoying every much-loved, precious minute of it. Oh, minutes ... hours ... I really couldn't help but adore this linear thing. Hell, time's gorgeous when you aren't used to it. So, at the ... moment (gods, mortal habits are a damn feel-good treat) was existence. I smiled a smile that belonged to a toothpaste ad and pushed the lipstick-red Cadillac to even greater speed, then eased my foot off the accelerator and cruised. Yup, existence was pretty darn good. I'd fallen in love with this car already. Expensive, sure, but who was I to be set back by something as trivial as money? The sound of the engine, even the way she handled was fantastically creamy, extravagant. I couldn't even hear the engine above the rock music pounding out of the stereo, but I could feel it - muted, purring vibrations just slipping through the smooth black leather of the upholstery. In a skirt this small, that leather sure was good to sit on. It merited wriggling my butt every so often just to feel the way it slid against my bare thighs, like warm soft ice almost. Yum. The road was the Toirdhealbhach Way, perfectly maintained and straight as a Catholic priest. The world was an obscure one, hidden somewhere among the huge tangle of the Helix on the opposite side to Chronicle House, and a skinny backwater offshoot from one of the larger universes. It was a law all unto itself, this one. Cycalye, they called it, a small world in a universe only a smidgen larger than it was, a little-known leaf on the great fuchsia tree of possibility. It was in many ways similar to Earth, a world and universe I've come to know quite well, but in others strangely, invitingly different. And positively begging for a Chaotic trip. So who better than me, Nine, to give it one? Only the most powerful Narrator there was (and yet still managing to be the outcast), disobeying all the basic rules and regs to traverse my glorious domain. Here in Cycalye I was mortal, seventeen and rushing headlong into the joyride that was life. It was tremendous fun. ~ There were stars out, shining as if through a massive sheet of glass, frosted and distant and glittery as tinsel. The wind shot through my hair and whipped it against my face, stinging and getting in the way, but I didn't give a damn what my hair did, this was existence to the max. The music throbbed around my ears, the bass shivering through the wheel to my fingers and the guitars singing like something unearthly, something wild and erotic. I was singing along with them without even realising. It did that to you. Rock'n'roll. The basis of numerous cultures, and all thanks to me. ~
It'd probably been in one of my less controllable moods, too high on E or LSD or thread to notice. I had a number of little bad habits like that, most of them illegal and most of them taken in quantities that would make any mortal very suddenly reminded what mortal actually means. I'm afraid I'm to blame for most of that kind of thing in the Helix. No-one else has the imagination. So, I thought, trying to piece it together, there I'd been, dangerously high on XTC and Chaos, and trying to Narrate. And Cycalye had been the result. Well, lucky it. The air was icy and slightly smoky, holding the sharp twang of exhaust fumes and the warm scent of whatever perfume I'd gifted myself with. The car I'd got hold of in a city reminding me somehow of Miami, but with a darker, more subtle quality. Magic in the air, no doubt. I had always liked magic. And here was the result. Cycalye was a world where harpies and wyverns flew around tower blocks, and computers were used by geeks and mages, alchemists and hippies alike. Where forests marched south for the winter and shamans smoked nicotine cigarettes and let their familiars watch TV. An exhilarating concoction of slick technology and the opulent, murky fantastic. It was just luscious, really. This was my kind of world. I hardly knew how long I'd been driving here now. The CD ended and I flicked the radio on instead, ending up with a western station that warbled blues at me for the next half hour. The stars spun overhead, refreshingly unfamiliar, a net of metallic pinpricks, eternal as the seas. The thought that I could cause something this magnificent to spring into being was kinda intoxicating. Stimulating, I guess you could call it. The combination of the world and the music and the speed and that just great sense of power was really turning me on. Or maybe it was the leather. Whatever, it was so delicious. Mm. I could feel the beginnings of a Chaotic high creeping up on me, the fading residue from the world-hop springing back in my face. I could've hugged it. When I came to a small town a while later, I was waiting for it. I took the L-turn far too fast and left rubber on the road, then pulled up outside a suitably seedy looking all-night bar and got out, ready to impress. My new sleek Cadillac was already showing up the road-grimy jeeps and station wagons and carts in the dusty street. I loved the way it stood out, glamorous, the deep dark colour of blood, of seduction. I carelessly shook the dirt from my long, wind-tossed hair that would have made the cover of a highstreet magazine if it wasn't such a boring shade of dark-brown. I grinned. Rich Natural Mahogany, the hair-dyes proclaimed it, and I was happy to stick with that. I caught sight of my reflection in the glass window of the bar as I entered. Tall even without heels, nose a little too straight, eyebrows no longer too bushy since I'd taken the time to pluck them. Eyes a sultry sort of bluish-grey, and pupils that seemed to suck in everything in sight. Transforming it all was a layer of designer makeup that shrieked for a photo shoot, dark lipstick, eyelash extensions and all. Then there was the unashamedly tiny white skirt, and the low-cut, translucent blouse that would have made the Cosmic Punchline stare. I'd decided to go the whole hog (why else bother doing anything?) and was wearing Cycalye's black satin equivalent of a Wonderbra, which was certainly doing Wonders to my already ample confidence. But you let me sidetrack again. On with my tale. Inside, the bar was as dingy as it'd promised to be outside. Incense burned in little gilt holders, the ash adding to the heaps of dust and dirt on the wooden boards. A widescreen television was mounted in one high corner, and adverts blared soundlessly from beneath its covering of compulsory grime. Hookers sat round tables in silent groups, some no older than twelve, drinking whisky-and-sodas and lighting sweet-smelling joints. Behind the bar a sideburned mountain chain-smoked into an overflowing ashtray, chatting with the regulars. The place stank of pot and strong drink, an intense smell, rich and lusty. Loners dotted the tables edging the room, engrossed in their own cherished business, be it a spellbook or their would-be bestseller or the TV above the bar. A greasy, short-haired woman with nose-piercing looked up from her porn for long enough to flash me a grin laced with two glistening canines. Vampire. All faces turned to watch me as I entered. I strode up to the bar, swinging my hips and enjoying the clicking of my heels with each step, and ordered a glass of red wine, playing up to my image. It was also the only thing I could read on the menu. (They called it a menu, but in reality it was a gritty chalkboard propped against the far wall, the list of "Snax n Bevridges" badly misspelled, smudged and faded until it was almost impossible to make out. Presumably, the reasoning was that anybody worth serving knew exactly what you were selling, what they wanted, and didn't object to a little overpricing when the barman was in debt.) It was one of those places where you paid for each drink as you drank it. I fished a wad of banknotes from the recesses of the blouse, flaunting them, daring anyone to question their authenticity. The barman held one up to the light - a bluebottle-infested fluorescent strip on the ceiling - and grudgingly admitted that it was genuine, then poured my wine into a glass as mucky as the rest of the place. I turned round without thanking him and leaned back against the bar to sip it, looking about. Surveying my territory. I made this. The thought sure felt good. One of the regulars was breathing down my neck. I turned my whole body to face him. "Why, fuck the Lord if it ain't my sweet pretty Leila Bee back from up north ter see me," he leered in a fat, south-eastern accent. I'm sure the Lord wouldn't appreciate it if you did, I thought with a mental grin, and I looked up into his face, adopting the drawl. "I'm sorry, darlin', but I'm 'fraid I ain't able ter 'call ya face." His hand snaked out and made an obvious grab. I let him. What the hell. "Yer will, ma blue-eyed Bee, you make no mistake." I withdrew just enough, smiling. "So sorry sir, but I don't know no Miss Leila, and I surely ain't one." I saluted him with my glass, and took a swallow. The wine pulsed with flavours, most of which had probably never seen a grape in its life, but it sure made for interesting drinking. I drank glass after glass, flirting with the barman (he didn't talk much), tying knots in the expectant chat-up lines of the regulars. The conversation itself kept me busy for a while. The accent was easy to master, but it was hard work not to Narrate while I was at it. It was the fact that I held the status I did that ensured everything I said was true. The job of the Narrators was to tell stories, and the theory was that, somewhere in the crawling pink universes that made up the Helix, for everything that was said someone lived it out. What was that phrase? "If the world was a tale, imagine the teller" ... well, hi there, this is me. And the spontaneous art of Narrating had been refined over the nonexistent millennia to make it as simple as possible. Now, it was almost dangerously easy. And all the while I was eyeing the place, searching for a challenge. I was fascinated by all of it; the stained floor, the flickering noiseless images on the wide screen TV, the people. Each and every one of them had their own story, no doubt, and only a couple would be arrogant or stupid enough to give it. It was that kind of place.
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