An
Exhalation of Butterflies
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By Nigel
Atkinson
"There are a billion stories in the
Great Redoubt." - anon.
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"There are no utopias, just
gaudy-clad dystopias" - ibid.
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The two hundred and fifteenth echelon of the
underground country was, in Loomis' not-completely
unbiased opinion, the most beautiful of all of the
underground lands. He rested his hands on the
balustrade and gazed down on the patchwork of
farms and spinnies half a mile below his feet. The
scents of poppies and ripe wheat rose to meet him.
He sniffed deeply, and became aware of the bakery
halfway up the pillar that supported the
Lepidoptery – there would be fresh mushroom and
bilberry pasties this afternoon. He decided to
investigate them later. Loomis leaned forward
tentatively, then pulled back at once. Heights
were not his strong suit.
As he mustered his dignity, he became aware of
someone standing next to him. He looked down. An
apprentice boy stood there. Loomis did his best to
ignore him, and turned his eyes towards the
buildings that barnacled the rim of the nearest of
the seventy-five lesser light wells. The well was
five miles away, but it was just possible
distinguish individual premises. Brightly coloured
refectories and tailor shops from whose windows
trailed gaudy flags and pallia dotted the higher
parts of the wall. Lower down were the dormitories
of the auxiliaries who worked the well's baffles
and prisms.
Loomis' eyes turned to the waterfall of light
pouring down the well. Today, it seemed to him
that the scintilla of the Earth Force was rising
from the well. That was a common optical illusion.
The intellect knew that the light was cascading
down from the Earth Current-kindled luminary a
hundred miles above, but sometimes the eye chose
to disagree.
Loomis glanced to his side; the boy was still
there.
He adopted his most imposing stance. "What do you
want, lad?"
"How old are you, Master?" The boy asked. Loomis
leaned on his pollen broom and brushed away the
clump of Red Admirals that were dancing on his
pollen stained brow. He attempted to pierce the
boy with a flinty look. It seemed to have little
effect. The youth of today, he thought,
in my day we had respect for our elders.
"I'm exactly the right age I should be,
Apprentice."
The boy persisted. "And what's that?"
"Old enough to give you a clout, manling."
The boy shrugged. "And then will you tell me how
old you are? They say you are a thousand years old
– at least!"
The lad's ear was a tempting target. But for once
Loomis didn't have the heart. In truth, he was
quite amused by his determination. Not that he
would admit that of course, curiosity was all
right in its place, but too much of it always led
to trouble. He could vouch for that. But, he still
had some sense of duty left. The mysteries of the
Lepidoptery were only part of what masters must
teach the apprentices. Due deference and a respect
for the natural order were also important, if less
academically demanding.
Loomis nodded towards the clump of apprentices who
were circling round Mistress Melrig at few dozen
yards further along the gallery. "I'm old enough
to wonder why you aren't attending to your studies
with the good mistress yonder." The boy bit his
lip and discovered something fascinating about his
bare feet.
He wriggled his toes
in the thin layer of discarded scales that covered
every surface in the gallery. Loomis wondered
whether he was trying to taste the floor with his
feet. Many a young apprentice tried that trick,
after the mystery of where their charges tasting
organs were had been revealed to them, but the boy
seemed to old for that particular silliness.
Loomis estimated the he was about twelve years
old, almost old enough to take his name. Almost as
old as his son had been … Putting the old wound
aside, he turned his attention back to the boy.
"Well?"
He shuffled his feet. "She's, y'know."
"Enlighten me."
"A bit, um, dull."
Loomis wrinkled his brow and peered over his nose
pouches at the boy. He tended to agree with the
apprentice's assessment of Mistress Melrig. As far
as Loomis was concerned she was the worst fusspot
in Wrangwysh Toft Lepidoptery, and quite possibly
in the entire Great Redoubt. She's probably
boring her poor students half to death, he
thought. But, all that said, she was a sister of
the guild, and it would not be seemly to allow
such criticism to pass unscathed.
Loomis' hand was fast enough to pluck a butterfly
from its darting, twisting, unpredictable path. So
the boy never had a chance of avoiding the
retribution that came to him in a blur of precise
motion.
"Ow!" The lad exclaimed as he reached to comfort a
painfully twisted ear lobe. "That hurt!"
"Consider yourself lucky. I'm in a benevolent
mood, otherwise I'd have pulled your ear right
off."
From the look on the boy's face, Loomis guessed
that the lad's definition of benevolent was
different to his.
"Did you think that was unfair?"
The boy look several seconds to answer, his
freckled face twisting as it echoed the battle
going on in his mind. Eventually, he decided on
discretion rather than continued defiance.
"No master, it was fair. I'm sorry."
"Good. Now come, sit with me yon arbour." Loomis
said, gesturing towards a roughly cut wooded bench
nestling in under a sheltering willow tree. Master
and apprentice both sat down. Loomis wondered why
he was bothering letting this fidgety,
undisciplined, unnamed apprentice take up his
valuable time. Not that he was exactly what you
might call busy. Alone among the Elders of
Wrangwysh Toft, he did not have to spend part of
his time teaching. He was a peripatetic, in theory
anyway. More often he was just ignored by the
apprentices. Which suited him. On an impulse he
handed his pollen broom to the lad, whose eyes
formed amazed saucers almost as wide as his gaping
mouth.
"Hold onto this for a minute," he said gently.
"I'll be careful Master," the boy said in a hushed
tone. Loomis noticed that he had stopped
fidgeting, so concerned was he with his burden.
The broom was actually pretty durable. Loomis had
used it for several decades without getting as
much as a scratch on the iron-hard ebony of its
ten-foot long shaft, nor causing any damage to its
subtle gears and mechanisms. Nevertheless, it was
very unusual for an apprentice to be trusted to
hold a broom. So unusual in fact, that at least
half of Mistress Melrig's class was now paying
more attention to what was going on in the arbour
than to their increasingly testy teacher. She
hadn't noticed the reason for her charge's
increasing inattention, and was dashing, as best a
dumpy, not-very-young woman could, around the
group, shouting and slapping at heads.
Loomis ignored the increasing mayhem. It was
amusing, very amusing actually, but he had a job
to do. He held his left hand out in front of his
face; palm down and with his index finger raised
six inches above his hand. After a few seconds a
black and orange butterfly alighted on his
elevated finger. He presented his right palm to
the insect. His fingers ran quickly though a
complex series of shapes that were argumented by
the bright colours tattooed on his palm. The butterfly froze.
Loomis turned to the boy.
"Species?" He asked.
"That's a viceroy," the boy replied confidently,
"Basilarchia archippus."
Loomis wrinkled his brow. "Are you sure? Looks
like a monarch to me."
"Of course its isn't! Look there's a black streak
on its hind wing. Crosses from top to bottom.
Monarchs don't have one."
"Well, yes. But that was an easy one. How's your
nose?"
The boy shrugged. Loomis thought that was a
sensible answer. Olfactory skills were the hardest
to acquire, and among the most important. No
apprentice with a grain of sense would boast about
his or her nasal skills. It was way too easy to
come unstuck. Loomis decided it was worth a test.
With great delicacy and precision, he ran his
little finger down the paralysed butterfly's
abdomen. It came away carrying the merest trace of
pollen, bound by a tiny amount of nectar. He
sniffed it, then held his finger out. The lad
leaned forward and inhaled deeply. His forehead
tightened in concentration and his nasal pouches
ballooned up as he sniffed deep and long.
Without intending to, Loomis found himself
examining the boy's eyes for traces of red, his
nose for signs of irritation. Every year it seemed
that more apprentices were lost to the pollen
allergy, like the bright-eyed boy who had been the
joy of his life.
"A lantana of some sort, Master, I think."
Loomis smiled, the arbour was dotted with the
flamboyant red and yellow spiked flowers. "Which
one? Purple or orange?"
The boy sniffed again. "Orange?"
"Good guess, but wrong. Purple."
"How do you know that? They always smell the same
to me."
"Me too." Loomis took a span to enjoy the mixture
of surprise and bafflement playing out on the
boy's face. He held his finger up. "Look. The
pollen of the purple variety is slightly more
yellow-red than that of the orange. Of course, if
you had been attending to Mistress Melrig's botany
lessons you might have know that already."
The boy looked suitably chastened. Loomis couldn't
help but break into a smile, then a thin peal of
laughter. The boy joined, in and soon most of the
botany class were looking in puzzlement at them.
Mistress Melrig had finally noticed the source of
the disturbance, and was standing with hands on
her ample hips, gazing balefully and wagging a
finger at Loomis. He waved back cheerily. With a
flick of her severely cut, straight black hair,
she began to march towards him. Her class trailed
eagerly after her.
"Oh no." Loomis groaned. But he was spared a
showdown with Mistress Melrig. She had barely
taken ten paces when the sound of a great gong
echoed down the hourducts. Everyone froze in
surprise. There was at least a thirdhour until the
next scheduled sending, and they were not usually
announced so clamourously. Clearly something was
up.
With a circular motion of his talking hand Loomis
dismissed the transfixed butterfly. Then he stood
up and, after retrieving his pollen broom, headed
for the balustrade.
Knotting his courage, he peered over the edge. On
a roadway below a clump of startled hour criers
were scurrying towards the nearest hourduct. Their
black and white coats trailed long scarves, which
twisted in the draught of their breakneck passage.
The last one in line tripped over a trailing
scarf, and tumbled headlong, much to the amusement
of the watching gaggle of apprentices. He was
quickly on his feet and chasing after his fellows
while rubbing a bruised head. By the time the
criers reached the hourduct, their minions were
arriving and beginning the slow, difficult process
of organising themselves Fifty undercriers formed
the van, behind each of them snaked a line of a
twenty-five under-undercriers. Milling around
behind them like competitors in a mad relay race
were thousands of under-under-undercriers.
Loomis shook his head in mock dismay. The news
criers were never the best regulated guild, and
this urgent summons had wrought entertaining havoc
among them.
"Master?"
"Yes, boy, what is it now?"
"Master, is it true that once the news passed
through the Great Redoubt on the wings of the
Earth Current? And there was no need for the
criers, for all of humanity's uncounted billions
could read it themselves."
"What an absurd notion!" Mistress Melrig snapped.
"What on the black Earth have you been putting
into the lad's empty head?"
Loomis shrugged. "Nothing I said." He felt an
urgent need to change the subject. "Look now, the
hour slip has arrived."
The chief news crier, a bony etiolated man called
Redeheid, emerged from the hourduct clutching a
sheet of yellow paper. His immediate underlings
clustered close to him, their pens scribbling
furiously as he recited the text to them. As soon
as the cry was done, the criers spread out. In
seconds they were surrounded by constellations of
undercriers. The next order of magnitude of pens
descended to paper. When they had the bulletin
down they sprinted headlong away from the melee,
each desperately seeking room for their own tiny
solar systems of under-undercriers. Once again
papers were inscribed, hopefully with the accuracy
and precision that was the otherwise dubious
guild's proudest boast. Then, the lowest echelon
of the crier's guild spread out in the four
canonical directions, and all points in-between.
Loomis leaned back on the balustrade. Before long
an under-undercrier came scurrying past. The
Lepidopterist's arm blurred out and snatched the
paper from the man's hand. The under-undercrier
stamped his foot and his face reddened with
indignation, but there was little he could do to
challenge someone of Loomis' high ranking. The
lepidopterist carefully read the hour slip then
returned it to the infuriated man, who promptly
fled.
Mistress Melrig snorted at his departing back. "He
might have at least told us what the substance of
the hour slip was." She turned towards Loomis
"Well?"
Loomis took up his lecturing pose, chin up, hands
grasping his robe's collar.
"There is to be an Exhalation."
A babble of excited apprentice's voices rose at
this news. The last Exhalation had been three
hundred and fifty six years ago, and there wasn't
expected to be another one for at least a hundred
years. It would be like ten year's worth of the
festival for the raising of the Wall of Safety,
all rolled into one ecstatic day. And it would be
a lot of work. A devil of a lot of work,
Loomis thought, gloomily.
"When?" Mistress Melrig asked, pointedly.
"Five years from this day."
"You jest."
"No. Five years."
Sarcasm dripped from Mistress Melrig's lips. "By
the Days of Light, our guild barely numbers five
million. How can we be expected to raise an
Exhalation in five years? And why? Have the
watchers been dismissed? Has the sun re-lit? Has
Loomis found honest work?"
Loomis shrugged. He was stunned by the prospect. A
mere five years -- it was impossible. They would
have to raise as many apprentices a possible, as
soon as possible, aye and recruit millions of
labourers. Then there was the co-ordination with
thousands of other guild houses on hundreds of
echelons and through the Great Pyramid. His head
swum.
"So," Mistress Melrig insisted. "What's the big
news?"
"There is to be a new Master Monstruwacan," he
said simply.
Everyone's head turned upwards, as though, by dint
of stunned curiosity, they could peer through the
hundreds of echelons above, past the actinic
detonation of the Earth Current-driven generators,
onward through the thirteen hundred and twenty
floors of the pyramid, to the Tower of Observation
at the apex. Silence fell over apprentices and
elders. They had not been a new Master
Monstruwacan for time out of mind, at least the
mind of the lesser mortals of the Great Redoubt.
The more senior Monstruwacans would know, but they
rarely descended below the surface. Except for
Exhalations.
Loomis' heart leapt with hope. He would ask one of
them, they surely would know what had happened to
his son.
All he had to do was wait five years. Then he
would have his chance.
*****************
Five years passed like the wind rustling through
the lungs of the Great Redoubt. The Guild of
Lepidopterists grew to seven million strong, but
still remained one of the smallest of the
underground guilds. Five years of endless labour,
convoluted planning and desperate racing against
time. It was impossible to guess how many
caterpillars were raised, pupated and frozen to
wait for the great day. But in the first two
years, the effort came close to ruining the Great
Redoubt's fecund farmlands. Caterpillars were
everywhere. On the fifty-seventh echelon every
plant was gnawed down to a nub. Even where they
were under more control, everything seemed to be
covered with twitching, gliding blobs of colour,
forever seeking their first and last meal. Special
precautions had to be taken to protect infants
from suffocation, or poisoning by the many lethal
varieties infesting the underlands.
Eventually, and to the great humiliation of the
Lepidopterist's Guild, the Monstruwacan Council
decreed a six-month hiatus to get the situation
under control. Amid ridicule from the other
guilds, the Lepidopterists regained their poise.
The next great hatching was much better
controlled, and the Monstruwacan Council again
smiled on the butterfly farmers.
And so it went on, until hundreds of billions
(some said upwards of a trillion) of pupae were
stored in vast, cooled galleries on each of the
Underground Country's three hundred and six
echelons. A year before the Exhalation, the Guild
of Windmasters spread throughout the Great
Redoubt, mapping the subtleties of wind flow
through both Underground Country and the Great
Redoubt. Loomis was far from being the only
Greybeard who noted quietly that the two halves of
the Great Redoubt, despite the claims of legend,
did share the same set of lungs.
Finally, the great day dawned. As one of the
elders of his guild, Loomis was offered the chance
of watching the Exhalation from the lowest tier.
The offer was tempting; it was decades since he
had stood amid the three hundred and six fields.
There would be unbounded opulence on the lowest
tier, the fields would be flowing with food and
drink, and garlanded with millions of flowers,
their scent as intoxicating as vintage Goldale
wine. It would also be the best place to see the
display; fully a half of the butterflies would be
released from the lowest tier. But Loomis had
chosen to stay in his home, its two hundred and
fifteen fields seeming more comfortable. He also
felt that he had a better chance to meet a
Monstruwacan up there.
*****************
Loomis was one of the first people on his echelon
to feel the Exhalation beginning. He was standing
on an ornate spiral stairway, midway up the North
curve of the outer wall. Through his bare feet, he
felt a subtle change in the normal vibrational
timbre of the Redoubt's naked metal. The
spectators chattering excitedly around him were
unaware of the change at first, but then the
amplitude began to mount. At first, there was only
a single, pure tone, like a million voices in
wordless, joyful unison. Then understated
overtones manifested as harmonic variations on the
ecstatic main theme. Loomis glanced towards the
roof of the echelon. Six dozen great silk flags,
each handled by a hundred hauliers, waited for the
call to action. Loomis felt a pang of worry. He
put it aside -- whatever happened, his work was
done.
He looked down at the millions milling around
below. They were clad in colourful garb, and
garlanded with bright flowers. They were a happy
chaos of colour and joy, but Loomis was looking
for something else. He opened his mind, then
waited. As the butterfly armadas raced upwards,
gentle breezes began to play through the echelon.
From every metal branch, and bronchus and
bronchiole of the underground country's lungs;
from every hour tube; and from every balloon
highway, soft, sweet-scented zephyrs played. His
mind continued its search.
Then, someone touched Loomis' mind, with a clarity
that made even his weak mental voice sing in
harmony. He started to descend the stair,
searching for the Monstruwacan.
As Loomis' reached the floor level of the echelon,
the first butterflies erupted from the mile-wide
central light well. They were too far away for him
to distinguish individual insects, but he knew
that the almost solid-looking column of flashing
green, white and black was made up from
uncountable four and five barred swallowtails. It
had been deemed fitting that the first defiant
challenge to the Night should come from the
Aristeus named, as they were for an ancient, long
dead sun god.
The column rose with majestic slowness, its
homogeneity defying the chaotic flight patterns of
its myriad members. High above, the great silk
flags unfurled. As they measured their several
hundred yard lengths, butterflies rose from ten
thousand cages. Close by Loomis, legions of
Birdwings, Pine Whites, and Pelidne Sulphurs
formed arpeggios to the great chord ascending the
central light well. All around the echelon,
innumerable minuscule specks of the Master Word
were freed to ascend the lesser light wells. Their
passing created a coruscation of winds, tousling
the spectator's hair and whipping at the clothing.
Ill-secured hats and scarves were grasped and
thrown upwards never to return. Their former
owners cheered their losses until they were
hoarse.
His professional pride satisfied, Loomis sought
the Monstruwacan. He found him standing a few
dozen yards to the North. He was an imposing
figure: fully a head taller than the tallest
normal man, and exuding an almost palpable air of
authority. Despite the crush, there was a little
empty zone around him, emphasizing how reluctant
people were to approach him.
Loomis' mouth suddenly felt dry and his tongue
tried to stick to his the roof of his mouth. He
took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Master," he said respectfully. "I would crave a
word with you."
The Monstruwacan tilted his head and looked down
on him. To Loomis, it seemed that a searchlight
had been turned on his soul. He had met
Monstruwacans before, but this one had a power and
clarity rare even among his caste.
"Ah, a Lepidopterist. How may I help you, child?"
"It is of a child I ask, Master," Loomis said
carefully. "My child. A boy rejected by my guild
when he was cursed by the allergy sickness and
since lost to me."
The Monstruwacan spread his hands. "Why would I
know of this boy? Surely when he left your guild
another took him in."
"No, Master. He rejected the blandishments of the
other guilds, claiming to want to seek his destiny
in the Great Pyramid … and perhaps beyond."
"Beyond? That is unlikely, its is very rare for
--" He paused, as if recalling a long-forgotten
memory, then considered the Lepidopterist
carefully. "Is your name Loomis?"
"Yes, Master! How did you know?"
The Monstruwacan's brow furrowed and he
contemplated the great ritual in silence for
several minutes. Loomis, caught in a fever of hope
and fear, dared not speak, lest he cause some
fatal upset. In the rafters of the echelon, the
last of the upsurging armies of butterflies were
rising out of sight, disappearing through the many
holes in the roof. Many would continue to climb
the light wells, accruing new celebrants as they
ascended the remaining two hundred and fourteen
echelons of the Underground Country. Fifty
echelons below the lowest floor of the pyramid,
cunning nuances of light and scent would thin the
relentlessly ascending butterfly nations by
guiding many into long, Mobius-looped corridors,
or tightly wound passages describing logarithmic
spirals where they would wait their turn. After
the majestic central column of life had passed
from Humanity's Underground Kingdom in to the
Great Pyramid, the waiting myriads would be
gradually released to continue their journey.
"There was one," the Monstruwacan said eventually.
"A boy bearing the signs of your calling on his
face. He begged to be allowed to study for our
guild. We refused. He was too old and it was
unprecedented for someone from the Underground
Country to seek such a boon. We encouraged him to
return home and seek happiness among his people.
He refused and defiantly set out to visit each of
the thousand cities. For ten years, he wandered
the Great Pyramid, staying a week in one city, a
few hours in another. In due course, his
peregrination was done, and he stood outside the
Great Observatory at the apex of our world.
"His persistence greatly impressed the Council of
Monstruwacans. You should be proud."
A lump grew in Loomis' throat, and tears pricked
at the corners of his eyes.
"We expected him to ask again for admittance. We
sought soft words to mitigate his disappointment.
However, he surprised us again. He asked
permission to brave the Land."
Loomis felt his heart lurch.
The Monstruwacan's face creased in sympathy. "He
was of age, we had no grounds to deny his
petition. Six weeks later your son – who was given
the name Brere for his stout heart – set out in a
party of forty-three brave, foolish young men.
Millions watched as they crossed the Grey Downs
without incident, skirted the Dark Palace, then
fought valiantly in crossing the Road Where the
Silent Ones walk."
Loomis felt a wave of peace encompass him. The
Monstruwacan continued: "Then, as they approached
the three Silver Fire Holes, a wave of blackness
swept from the Thing that Nods and engulfed them.
When it had passed, no trace of our valiant
explorers was left behind."
*****************
An hour later, a group of sweepers found Loomis.
He was kneeling in peaceful supplication, his face
crusted with old tears. All around him were the
bodies of millions of dead butterflies, the sad,
inevitable fraction of the Exhalation that had
failed to achieve their destiny. Their broken,
exhausted bodies were continuing to filter down,
and were already two hand spans deep around the
Lepidopterist.
*****************
High above, legions of butterflies swept through
the thousand cities then burst out of the twelve
hundred thousand embrasures of the Great Pyramid
in a detonation of colour and motion. Actinic
beams kindled by the Earth current and guided by
cunning prisms and mirrors illuminated the
circling flocks.
The four hulking Watchers quailed, if only
briefly, at humanity's defiant exultation. The
insects swept around the pyramid in ever-widening
circles. After a little under an hour they began,
slowly, to die.
Night returned to the Earth.
© Nigel
Atkinson 25 may 2001
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Night Mares
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