***
When he awoke again, the city streets were empty. The crowds had passed and there was nobody left as far as he could see. The rain was coming down heavier than before and rivers of water poured from the guttering making the steps he was lying on run slick and wet and soaking him right through to the skin. Over in the distance the weird light that had so excited and moved the crowd continued to flash its eerie spell over the clouds and rooftops and through the din of the rain he could hear the sound of chanting voices carry on the wind from somewhere not far off.
Gingerly climbing to his feet, Solomon began to shiver from the cold and pulled his sodden coat around him to try and stop the rain from running down his neck. “This will not do,” he said to himself. “I’ll catch my death if I don’t get out of this rain.”
For want of a better plan he turned and pushed against the wooden door he’d been sheltering in front of. To his surprise, it swung open easily and he stepped inside. Walking through a dusty, dark corridor for a few paces, he opened a second door, this time panelled with large panes of stained glass, and found himself, eventually, walking inside an enormous, imposing chamber.
A thick blue carpet covered the floor, great marble pillars stretched up to the ceiling at the centre of which a vast glass dome loomed over the entire space. The sheer size of the room took Solomon’s breath away. It was a grand space, a fine, luxurious palace that, when first built, must have stood as a statement of wealth and power, an expression of great civic pride.
Not anymore, though. The glass dome was cracked and broken in many places so that the rain dripped and poured through, falling down onto the carpet below in loud, sodden splashes. The carpet itself was torn and threadbare in patches; the elaborate plasterwork that ringed the dome was crumbling and falling away; the marble pillars were covered in dust and a black, thick mould that grew from their bases in long, filthy fingers.
The centre of the room itself was filled with bookshelves. Freestanding rings of shelves ran in concentric circles following the curve of the dome above, each ring starting and finishing at a short walkway, which led from the centre of the room to a large desk over in the opposite corner from where Solomon now stood. Above this hung a sign which read ‘Issue Desk’.
‘It’s a library,’ thought Solomon. ‘Or at least it was once.’ Many of the shelves he could see had fallen or been pushed over, kicked and hammered until they toppled on top of one another, their contents spilled onto the floor. Pieces of broken shelves and chairs were scattered everywhere he looked, in amongst which were pile upon pile of torn, tattered books, each one ripped apart, their pages tossed aside, their spines left cracked and twisted on the floor.
Solomon walked carefully into the room, watching his step as he made his way through the wreckage all around him. The only light in the place came from the emergency lamps located above each of the exits, their orange, sodium bulbs casting a weird glow over the room through which Solomon had to peer to see where he was heading. At first glance, there were no signs of life at all in the place. The entire building felt as though it had long ago been left abandoned and unloved. Only once he reached the Issue Desk did he find evidence that any other soul had visited here at all recently.
Standing in front of the desk, Solomon raised his plastic bags of books and rested them down on its scratched, battered surface. Behind the desk he found an old oil lamp, still full of oil, and a box of matches. Striking a match, he lit the lamp and began to look around. There was a chair behind him and he settled himself into it, grateful for the opportunity to take the weight off his feet again. On the desk in front of him, he saw a pile of papers, several piles, neatly stacked and organised, each page covered, so far as he could see, with a tiny, handwritten script. Beside these, he found a chipped, china mug (not recently cleaned) and an aluminium thermos flask which, when he lifted it, he found to be half full and still warm.
Solomon put the flask back down and glanced warily around the room again. Whoever it was that used this place was probably not far away and, still bruised and beaten from his journey through the crowds, he was not keen to meet any more residents of this strange city he’d found himself in. Satisfying himself that the room was still empty, he leaned forward and began to examine the papers stacked so perfectly all along the desktop. There were at least seven piles, so far as he could see, each one containing several hundred pages, well over a thousand in total, and each one covered in the same, hard to decipher, handwriting. Whoever’s work this was, it clearly represented a major undertaking, the task of a lifetime, perhaps. He lifted the pile furthest to his left and tried to read it. “The Impossible City: A history.”” read the title page.
Solomon turned the page over and stared at the writing inside. As he did so, a loud bang echoed through the room. Over to his right he saw a door swinging closed. Standing in front of the door was a young man, no older than thirty, perhaps, though it was difficult to tell in a light this dim. He wore a crumpled old suit, torn around the shoulders and slick with rain. His hair was dark and unkempt, his cheeks covered with the unruly stubble of a good week’s growth. He stood and glared at Solomon for a long moment, the anger and outrage which etched over his face slowly evaporating as his eyes rested on the bag of books which rested on top of the desk.
“You’re late,” he said.
Solomon’s forehead creased with surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I said you’re late,” said the young man again. “I was expecting you days ago.”
He stepped purposefully forward towards the desk, opened a bag of books and, without paying anymore heed to Solomon, began to empty them out across the wooden surface. Each book was examined quickly, an inquisitive eye ran over its spine and cover, before being placed in a row of neat, ordered piles.
“What kept you?” He murmured as he worked through the bags. “More trouble with the border guards?”
Solomon shuffled awkwardly in his seat. His eyes blinked, his mouth opening and closing as he searched for some way to make sense of this.
“I think perhaps you have me confused with someone else.” He said eventually. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here at all. I was caught in the storm and…”
“You’ve brought my books, haven’t you?” The young man interrupted sharply.
“Well…?”
“These are the books I requested from North Abbey two weeks ago. The books I was told would be delivered by Tuesday. Here we are on Friday and you have arrived with them. Ergo - you are late and I have been expecting you. I don’t see where there is any room for confusion.”
His tone was sharp and dismissive and he spoke quickly without at any point taking his eyes off the books he was inspecting and sorting through. Solomon sat in silence. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. The whole situation was too bizarre for him to understand, just one more unexplainable event in a day that had been full of strange events. None of it made sense. He wracked his brain trying to remember something, trying to come up with any history for himself that would explain his arrival here, but nothing came. Even now, after everything he’d been through, still he could think of nothing. Tiredness washed over him. Here in the shelter of the library he felt his eyes drooping again. His body ached, his arms felt heavy. For a moment he wondered whether he had been drugged and his skin prickled with panic at the thought. If that were true, it would mean somebody had planned all this, that he was acting on someone else’s whims now, without knowing whether their intentions towards him were good or ill.
“Is this all of them?” The young man asked when he’d finished working through all the carrier bags on the desk. Solomon, still in a daze, shook his head and lifted up the rucksack that still sat on the floor at his feet.
“Good,” said the young man and eagerly tore open the bag to pull out the last of the books. Once he was finished he took the aluminium flask and poured himself a measure of lukewarm coffee into the chipped, china mug on the desk. In between two of the books fro
m the rucksack he found a letter which he ripped open and began to read while sipping absentmindedly at his coffee.
“You must be Solomon,” he said after a moment.
“I am.”
“It says here they have everything I requested except for the Christie and two of the Barker volumes. Have you any idea what happened to them?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“I mean, are they in use somewhere? Are they lost? It’s very important.”
“I’m afraid I just don’t know”
The young man sighed heavily and slumped down in a wooden chair. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and muttered something under his breath. After a few moments, he seemed to calm down and, lowering his eyes again, looked towards Solomon as if seeing him properly for the first time. As he did so, his features softened and a concerned expression spread over his face.
“Good God, man, you look terrible! Look at you, you’re soaking wet, your hands are shaking. When was the last time you ate anything? Come with me. We can’t have you sitting around here in the cold like this; you’ll have a fever in no time. I have a fire in here. Let’s get you warmed up.”
He rose quickly from his seat and opened a door into an adjacent room, indicating for Solomon to follow him. As he rose, a trembling weakness overtook Solomon and he stumbled forward onto his knees. “Come on, old boy,” whispered the young man, springing to help him back to his feet and slowly, carefully guiding him towards a chair.
The small room they settled into had the look of an office about it. There was a great mahogany desk over at one side of the room and long, wooden shelves lined the walls, each one filled with books and papers neatly filed into box folders. In recent times, the young man had obviously commandeered the space for living quarters of a sort. All the office furniture was crowded over towards one wall, the rest of the floor space being taken over by a small, foldaway mattress, a couple of wooden chairs and a tiny portable gas heater which the young man crouched down towards and struggled to light.
“Just wait here,” he said as it eventually sparked into life and a warm glow began to spread into the room. “Take off those wet clothes. I’ll be back in a moment.” He left the room and returned after a few minutes, carrying with him a couple of blankets and towels which he proceeded to wrap around Solomon’s by now half undressed and shivering form. This done, he turned his attention towards a camping stove which sat on the floor in front of the fire and busied himself by preparing water for coffee and a pot of soup using a packet of dry mix and water from one of several plastic bottles stored away under the desk.
Solomon watched him the whole time. Engaged in the task as he was, the young man’s actions were focused and efficient. Gone was the gruff, businesslike manner he’d presented at first sight. Now, busy though he was, he made sure to look up every few moments to check on Solomon, to mutter a word or two of encouragement and to make sure his visitor was becoming more comfortable. Right away, even after so short a meeting, Solomon was struck by the young man’s ability to immerse himself totally in whatever task was in front of him, to devote all his energies to doing the job as well as it could be done, without complaint and without fuss. Whether it was researching and writing the book Solomon had seen on the desk, preparing this safe haven inside the wreckage of the library, or looking after some poor stranger he’d stumbled across, this young man, it seemed, was capable of rising to meet any challenge.
After a while, the warmth of the fire and the soup worked its way into Solomon’s bones and he began to feel a little more in control of himself. “Thank you,” he said to the young man who, by now, was sitting on the floor in front of the fire patiently waiting for his visitor to recover. “Don’t mention it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Do you live here?” asked Solomon, casting a glance around the room.
“I guess I do. Nobody else seems to want the place, so I suppose its mine now, for what its worth. My name is Greer.” He stretched out a hand which Solomon took and shook gently.
“I’m Solomon. But you knew that, already.”
They sat in silence for a long while, listening to the hiss of the fire and the sound of the rain outside whipping violently against the windows.
“I saw your book,” said Solomon. “Looks like quite an undertaking.”
Greer laughed good-naturedly. “Isn’t it just! ‘The Impossible City’ – A history of this strange town we find ourselves in. A full unexpurgated telling of the story of the city and the people who made it. A tale of a once great place now gone very bad. It is, as you say, quite an undertaking. A folly, even. A grand task that I’ll probably never finish. And even if I do, what are the chances there’ll be anyone around to read it? Pretty slim, I’d say. Pretty slim.”
Solomon laughed with him. “Then why do it?”
“Why indeed?” Greer sighed and grimaced. “There isn’t really an answer to that. You’ve got to spend your time doing something, I suppose.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Ah, now. That’s a dangerous thing to say, Solomon. You’re treading on shaky ground there. If I start talking about my book now, there’s no telling when I’ll stop. There’s nothing authors like more than having a captive audience to talk at. I’m not even joking. When I get into the flow on this thing the time just flies past. Minutes, hours, days might go by before you have a chance to get a word in edgeways!”
Solomon laughed again. He felt warmed by the pleasure of Greer’s company and the enthusiasm with which the young man spoke.
“In all truth,” he said, “there’s nothing I’d rather do than sit here and listen to you tell me about this place. I woke up a few hours ago on a bus surrounded by fanatics. I have no idea how I got there. You tell me I’m a delivery man here to bring you some books. Well, that may be true, but I have no memory of it, no idea where I came from or who I might be. Other than my name, I know nothing. Now I find myself in this place, this great library, so ruined and rundown I presumed it was abandoned. Except it isn’t. In here I find you, squirreled away like some mountain survivalist working away on your history with books and papers piled up everywhere there’s a spare inch. Honestly, I don’t care how long it takes. If you can tell me anything about this place that will make any sense of what’s happening to me, I’d be so grateful, more grateful than you can imagine.”
Greer listened to this in silence, the expression on his face suddenly became grey and serious again. His shoulders dipped, his eyes turned to the floor and the bright demeanour he’d been working to uphold disappeared as though washed out of him by a cold injection of reality.
“Everyone who comes to the city arrives innocent and blameless,” he said, his voice quiet and resigned. “You can’t stay that way for long though. The city won’t let you.”
He raised his head again and looked Solomon directly in the eye. “You want to be careful, Solomon,” he said. “It’ll get you too eventually. Somehow, no matter what you do, it will get to you just like it gets to everyone.”
He leaned forward and poured himself another cup of coffee, offering the pot out first to Solomon who shook his head in thanks.
“You want to know about the city? I don’t know what I can tell you. I’ve been working on this thing for so long you’d have thought I’d know everything there is to say about the place, but I don’t. There’s too much that doesn’t make sense. And that’s the point. There is a story to tell about this city, but not one that anyone would believe, not one that makes any sense at all.”
“This used to be an important place. You know the port, just a few miles from here? Ships used to come in from all over the world to drop off their goods to trade here. There was barely a place in the world where our influence didn’t stretch. Our banks, our finance houses were the best, the most important in the world – not anymore. Our schools, our universities, the first and the best in every field. The greatest philosophers, scientists, doctors of their age all came here to study
, to work and to teach – not anymore. Certainly not anymore.”
“It sounds like a golden age, I know. I’m sure it didn’t feel like it at the time, but it certainly seems like one now. Because now look at us. There is no law anymore, no order. You take your life in your hands just walking out in the street. You can’t plan anything more than a week or so in advance. You don’t know what policy is going to be changed at the last minute, what streets closed, what businesses burnt down, what group will be the next ones to be targeted. Instead of lawyers, we have militia. Instead of philosophers we have these insane cults of religious fantasists.”
The words came out of him in a flood, a painful outpouring of despair at the state of the city around him. Solomon watched and listened as it came out, a creeping sense of anxiety tightening in his chest with every word.
“I think I’ve seen them,” said Solomon when Greer had fallen silent again.
“Who do you mean?”
“The cultists. The religious fantasists. They were with me on the bus when I arrived here. They were out in the streets, hundreds of them, thousands even.”
Greer gave a derisory laugh. “You had a lucky escape, then. They’re the worst of all. The root of the whole collapse, I sometimes think. They’re a peculiar lot. There’s no theology behind them, so far as I can tell, just a jumble of old folk tales bunched together with a reactionary fear of whatever they don’t understand, which is quite a lot.
“It’s the same sort of irrationality that has infected everything around here. Logic just doesn’t work here anymore. ‘A’ doesn’t necessarily lead to ‘B’. There are no rules you can understand or follow, just the teachings of whatever lunatic happens to be in favour this week.
“And yet…” his voice sank again and he put his head in his hands before continuing. “And yet, even in all the chaos, even in all this disarray there are times when I think I’m getting close to something. There are times I think I can almost make out the beginning of a pattern of some sort, some kind of reasoning behind it. A cipher that repeats. A code that could be cracked if only I knew how to look at it. It’s as though, despite everything, maybe there is a plan, maybe there is a hand guiding it all.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s more frightening – the idea that some dread force is out there ruling over the city, or the fact that sometimes I almost talk myself into believing it. I might as well go off and join the cultists myself! What were they doing out there this time, anyway?”
Solomon shrugged. “They seemed to be going somewhere. Something important was happening. Someone important. ‘He’s here,’ they kept on saying. ‘He’s here.’”
“Brilliant!” Greer laughed again. “That one again! That’s my favourite of them all. The ‘Myth of the Messenger’, they call it. It happens all the time. A basic Messiah cult, really. The great man will arrive (or woman, or child, or thing, I honestly don’t know) and from within him will come the power which will cleanse the city of all its sin and decay and lead us all back to the promised land. Happens all the time. They whip themselves up into a frenzy, charge up to light their fires over on Temple Hill and wait for him (or her or it) to come and save them.”
“And does he?”
“What do you think? Of course not. When he doesn’t show, they all march back down into town and look for someone to blame. Sometimes it’s us – who do you think did all the damage in the library? Sometimes the museum or the university or the other churches, it varies. Thanks for the warning. We should keep our eyes peeled later on.”
“Is it safe enough? Shouldn’t we go somewhere else?”
“No, no. Don’t worry. We’ll be ok. They’re not interested in us at all. It’s the symbol they’re after – the library and its books and all the wicked, forbidden knowledge they represent.”
Greer laughed and Solomon with him and they fell back into silence. It was late now and the rain had stopped falling, the fire beginning to splutter and gasp as its gas cylinder ran empty.
“We should get some sleep,” said Greer at last. “We’ll work something out in the morning about getting you home.”
“Wherever that is.”
“Listen. You’re Solomon Kane. It says so in my letter from the Abbot. You work for North Abbey, doing what, I don’t know, but it’s something to work on. Somebody knows who you are and what you’re doing here. We’ll work it out in the morning, I promise.”
The business-like Greer was back again, the one focussed on a problem and determined to solve it. For the first time that day, Solomon felt reassured. Greer would sort something out; there was no doubt about it.
They settled down to sleep. Solomon on the foldaway mattress (“I insist,” Greer had said.), Greer curled in a ball on the floor under his coat and an old blanket.
Despite the weariness in his limbs and the aching in his head, Solomon found himself unable to sleep. His mind swam as he thought through everything that had happened to him that day, everything that Greer had told him about the city. He was desperate to sleep, hoping that by doing so he would wake up again refreshed and knowing what his purpose in coming here had been. At the same time, though, that very same thought filled him with dread. He could not shake the fear that whatever the truth was, he might well be better off not knowing it.
After an hour or so of lying in silence, a loud noise came from the main library room and Solomon started suddenly. As he sat up in the bed, he saw that Greer had already risen and was hurriedly putting his clothes back on. “I think they’re here,” he whispered, opening the door just a crack to peer into the library. “Good God, why is it always us?” He waved for Solomon to stay quiet but to get up and dressed.
“Be ready to run if we need to,” he said. “they’ll probably leave us alone, but you never know.” his voice trailed off, anxiety creasing his brow as loud voices could be heard next door, along with the loud crashing that meant another stack of books had been torn to the ground, another pane smashed in the great dome.
“How long does this normally last?” whispered Solomon.
“No telling,” Greer replied. “No rules, remember. Anything is possible.”
They sat quietly in Greer’s room, side by side on the small bed, neither one saying a word. The noises in the room next door grew louder and louder, the voices coming closer until, finally the door itself burst open and a group of young men tumbled into the room grabbing Greer and Solomon and pinning them to the wall.
“They’re here!” one of them cried out, a blond haired figure who stood by the door. “We’ve found them!”
At this the clamour outside grew even louder as a cheer rang out among the crowd wrecking the library and more bodies pressed themselves into the small room.
“What do you want?” shouted Greer, struggling against the two men who were holding him down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Shut him up,” the blond haired man by the door muttered and an arm was pressed firmly into Greer’s face. “The pastor is here.”
A hush fell across the crowd and, after a few moments, the press of bodies in the room parted. Through the crowd walked the old man who had spoken to Solomon on the bus. He walked slowly and calmly, placing a hand of thanks on the shoulder of the young man at the door. As he came to Solomon, he stopped and stood in silence. All eyes in the room were fixed on the two of them. He indicated for the men holding Solomon to release their grip and rested his two hands gently on Solomon’s shoulders.
“It is you,” he said at last, his eyes glowing in wonder. “It’s really you. I sat and I spoke with you and I didn’t see it but, look, it’s obvious now, isn’t it?” He glanced around at the others in the room, all of whom murmured and nodded in agreement.
“Oh my God, Solomon!” cried Greer, his head breaking free from his assailant’s grasp. “They think it’s you! They think you’re the Messenger!”
The old man’s smile spread to a wide grin that parted his lips and showed his teeth. H
e nodded purposefully to the man on his left and turned to walk away. Solomon opened his mouth to speak, to ask what was happening, to plead for mercy, but had not the time to say a word. The blow struck him dully on the back of the head. Its force sank quick to his stomach, bent his knees and swallowed him whole into a darkness which no longer felt welcoming, no longer felt safe.