The train was warm and it travelled along speedily.
Jacj said, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Home,’ I said. ‘Where else?’
‘You mean—’ He sounded thoughtful, and there was a long silence. Then he added, ‘Where do you mean?’
‘Home. Where we lived.’
‘And Mum and Dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Do you know exactly how long you’ve been in the army?’
‘The period of service was four and a half years. A bit more than that because they don’t count the induction period. But I was demobbed exactly when I was expecting it.’
Four and a half years? What was happening four and a half years after Jacj went away? And everything that happened after four and a half years – ahead of us, events still to come?
I said, ‘I think Mum and Dad will be expecting you.’
‘Is there anything you’re not telling me? It sounds as if there is.’
‘No – but I’ve been away too. I haven’t seen them for a long time.’
‘What about Djahann? Is she still there at home?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said again. ‘She was when I left. But there’s a lot I don’t know. Almost everything, in fact.’
‘How long have you had that beard? It makes you look older. Last time I saw you, you were just a kid.’
‘You too,’ I said. ‘You’ve put on weight.’
‘You’ve lost some. You were getting a bit plump when I joined the army, you know that?’
Then we said no more and the train journey continued.
We stopped at one place, then another. It was a line I knew well after so many journeys to and fro in the past. Many of the stations were more brightly lit than I remembered, and the houses, the ones we could glimpse through the train window, seemed to be showing more lights. Could it really be true that the junta had fallen, that an election was being promised? The snow was falling again and whenever the train slowed I could glimpse through the window the fat flakes drifting down. It was as yet a gentle fall, not a blizzard, not a powdery assault that would leave a frozen layer that stayed around for weeks. There was nothing a new government could do about the weather in Glaund, but there were other things they could put right. I sat back, leaning against the headrest, eyes half-closed, wondering about that future and thinking about the islands out there in the night, in the wintry sea. Was snow falling on Dianme too? It was a moment of unreality, believing in what I had seen. Once I had not known the Dream Archipelago even existed and now once again it felt to me as if it had become unreal, distant, concealed. I reached down to touch the stave, which still rested inside the deep pocket at my side. My fingers touched the smooth wooden blade. I felt no responding sensation of awareness from it.
Tomorrow, I thought, tomorrow I shall walk down to the beach in Errest and look across at Dianme, restore my faith in what had once been an island of promise and loveliness, forget about the dream place I saw.
The train arrived in Errest. I needed to work. I had an idea for a new composition, inspirationa l, arising not from what Ormand Weller had called the consensus, the gradual and the imperceptible advance of time, but from my own reality, the life I knew. As Jacj and I stepped down to the platform I thought that at last it was the right time to compose what I had promised I would. The new Glaund would need a triumphal march – I would be happy to include cannon effects, folk dancing entr’acte and even a couple of sea shanties.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST IS A CONTEMPORARY NOVELIST and a leading figure in modern SF and fantasy. He was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968. He was selected for the original Best Of Young British Novelists in 1983. He has published thirteen novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction. His novel The Separation won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the BSFA Award. In 1996 Priest won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Prestige, which was made into a film in 2006. Directed by Christopher Nolan, it went to No.1 US box office in its first week and received two Academy Award nominations. He has been nominated four times for the Hugo Award, and has won several awards abroad, including the Kurd Lasswitz Award (Germany), the Eurocon Award (Yugoslavia), the Ditmar Award (Australia), and Le Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire (France). In 2001 he was awarded the Prix Utopia (France) for lifetime achievement.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE ADJACENT
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST
The eagerly anticipated new novel from “one of the master illusionists of our time.” (Wired)
In the near future, Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled from Anatolia to Britain when his wife, an aid worker, is killed—annihilated by a terrifying weapon that reduces its target to a triangular patch of scorched earth.
A century earlier, Tommy Trent, a stage magician, is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy.
Present day. A theoretical physicist develops a new method of diverting matter, a discovery with devastating consequences that will resonate through time.
“Utterly absorbing.” Library Journal
“A wonderful piece of fiction, an intricate puzzle.” Publishers Weekly
“A marvel of craft and feeling.” Locus
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THE ISLANDERS
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST
The Dream Archipelago is an endless sprawl of islands spanning a vast ocean between two warring continents. Some of the islands are deserts, swept barren by hot winds, while some are icy wastelands. Some have been sculpted into vast works of art and others are home to terrifying creatures. Many have multiple names, several have none and some may not even exist at all.
There are no reliable maps of the Dream Archipelago, but visitors are invited to travel with a mysterious gazetteer written by the islanders themselves—artists, authors and scientists; lovers, rivals and murderers—which documents their intertwining lives in a place where dreams are reality and nothing is certain.
“A glowing mosaic of a novel.” Sunday Times
“One of the most complex, challenging and satisfying fictions from one of our finest novelists.” The Telegraph
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Christopher Priest, The Gradual
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