Piranesi(34)

PIRANESI

This being what the Other calls me.

(But I do not think that it is my name.)

I ask the Other about 16’s writing

ENTRY FOR THE FOURTEENTH DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS

I met the Other this morning in the Second South-Western Hall. He was wearing a suit of medium-grey wool and an impeccable shirt of a darker grey. His mood was calm, serious and focussed. When I told him about the words that I had found chalked on the Pavement of the Sixth North-Western Hall, he simply nodded.

‘Can 16 impart madness through the medium of the written word?’ I asked. ‘Ought I not to have read it?’

‘16’s words are dangerous whatever form they take,’ he said. ‘It would’ve been better not to read it. But I don’t blame you. It took you by surprise. You weren’t expecting a written message. Quite frankly that hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility either. But this is a critical time. We need to be more careful.’

‘I will be. I promise,’ I said.

He gave my shoulder a couple of encouraging pats. ‘There’s good news too,’ he said, ‘well, sort of. I’ve managed to get hold of a gun. It was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be. But – and this I suppose is the bad news …’ He made a rueful face. ‘ … it turns out I’m a dreadful shot. I just don’t seem to be able to hit anything at all. I’ll have to practice, I suppose. Not quite sure how I’ll manage that, but anyway … The thing is, Piranesi, try not to worry. One way or another this nightmare will soon be over.’

‘Oh, please!’ I begged. ‘Let us not kill 16!’

He laughed. ‘And what’s the alternative? To allow ourselves to be driven mad? I don’t think so.’

I said, ‘But when 16 sees his plan does not work, when he sees how we avoid him, he may return to his own Halls.’

The Other shook his head. ‘There’s not a chance of it, Piranesi. I know this person. 16 is relentless. 16 will keep on coming.’

Light in the Darkness

ENTRY FOR THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS

Three days passed. I kept watch for signs that 16 had been in our Halls, but I found none. Then in the middle of the third night I awoke suddenly. Something had woken me, but I did not know what it was.

I sat up. I looked around. The Stars blazed bright in all the Windows. The Thousand Statues of the Third Northern Hall, faintly lit by the Stars, looked out upon the Hall as if they blessed it. Everything was as it always was; and yet I could not rid Myself of the feeling that something was happening.

It was very cold. I put on my shoes and a woollen jumper, and I walked to the Second North-Western Hall. All was empty; all was quiet; all was peaceful.

I passed through a Door on my right into another Hall. Here I heard a faint sound. The sound repeated at irregular intervals and, as I walked on, it grew louder. It was like the distant bellow of an animal.

A faint blossoming of light emanated from a Door at the other end of the Hall. I had only just observed this when the light changed and brightened until it became a beam that sliced through the Darkness and illuminated the Statues on the Opposite Wall! Then, just as suddenly, it faded again.

I walked to the Door and peered inside.

There was someone in the next Hall – someone with a torch who was rapidly casting the beam from Wall to Wall, from Corner to Corner, searching the Darkness for something or someone. (This was the reason that the light had suddenly grown stronger and faded again.) The person was shouting: ‘Raphael! Raphael! I know you’re here!’

It was the Other.

‘Raphael!’ he shouted again.

Silence.

‘You should never have come here!’ he shouted.

Silence.

‘I know every inch of this place! You can’t escape! I’ll find you in the end!’

Silence.

I slipped into the Hall, an action I performed with the utmost economy of movement. Nevertheless the Other must have glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye because he swung around and shone the torch on the Door I had just passed through, but he moved too suddenly, the torch jerked out of his hand and skittered across the Pavement. The light extinguished itself.

‘Shit!’ exclaimed the Other.

Darkness returned to the Hall. The Tides moved in the Halls below. The Other cast about, searching for his torch, muttering to himself.

My eyes, which had seen little when dazzled by the torch, began to adjust to the Starlight again. At first, I saw nothing but the quiet Hall, but then a flicker of movement passed along the Southern Wall, East to West. It was the merest suggestion of a grey shadow against the faintly gleaming Statues and I could almost have believed that I was imagining it. But I was not. It passed through a Door leading to the Fifth North-Western Hall.

16!

The Other had found the torch. He made it give out its beam again. Then he exited the Hall by one of the Northern Doors.

I waited until he had gone and then I ran rapidly, silently, after 16. I hid Myself in the Door to the Fifth North-Western Hall.

16 was standing in the Hall. Like the Other, he had a beam of light; but unlike the Other, he was not casting it around aimlessly. He shone it steadily on the Walls of the Hall. The strong, silvery white light illuminated the beautiful Statues and gave to each one a strange new shadow, so that the Walls appeared to be thickly covered in immense black feathers. 16 moved the torch slowly, making the feather-shadows elongate, shrink, swoop and spin. But as for 16 himself, I could see nothing of him. He was a mere blot behind the dazzle of the light.