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Bamboo Horses, a fantasy novel by British-born New Zealand writer Hugh Cook, author of the ten-volume Chronicles of an Age of Darkness In this stand-alone alternative reality SF fantasy novel, which is independent of all Hugh Cooki's other books, business manager Ken Udamana has the problem of finding out who is murdering members of his family before he, in turn, is murdered. An arsonist is on the loose. Ken starts to worry that his own troubled teens, son and daughter, may have murder in mind. And what are the intentions of the foreigners, the Merlercians, regarding the exploitation of the Udamana family's paranormal powers? Modern fantasy fiction in a world with cellphones and its own Internet, but a world where they eat not with chopsticks, as we do, but with scissors. A truly original work, high-quality literary fiction including elements of quiet horror. |
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This page is posted online on a free-to-read online basis. However, the material is copyright, all rights reserved. For permission to use any of the material on this website contact Hugh Cook |
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Read first 30 chapters free |
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It has been a very long day by the time I finally get to sit down for my evening meal, and I am not pleased when the meal is interrupted by a call from the manager of the Yendo Business Center. Someone ("a Merlercian party") has booked teleconferencing facilities for me, an eight-hour block booking (the business center is open twenty-four hours a day) and I'm supposed to be at the center within forty minutes.
* * * Nezella is childishly delighted by the success of her stratagem. "And your wife insisted?" she said. "She insisted you come? Your wife's such an idiot!" I do not like to hear my wife described in such terms, not even by Nezella. But I do not protest. Instead, I suggest we used the privacy of the suite to transact a little personal business of our own. "Oh, no," says Nezella. "I've brought the car. You know how I much prefer the car." I do know, and, since there's no point in protesting, I yield. Leaving the business suite empty (what a waste of money, assuming that Nezella really is picking up the costs of this!) we drive off into the night, which has turned cold and rainy. During the drive, Nezella again raises the subject of my wife's broach, something she has been on about for roughly three weeks now. She seems to think that, if she puts on enough pressure, I'm going to go ahead and steal this trinket for her. I'm amazed by her overconfidence. How can she possibly think that I would willingly turn myself into a common criminal? Again, I tell her, no. If she wants the broach, she can steal it herself. I'm certainly not going to. "Anyone would think you loved your wife," says Nezella, pouting. My wife is my wife, and to be without my wife is as unimaginable as to be without my liver. I'm not emotionally enraptured by my liver, but our partnership is irrevocable. So I don't reply to Nezella's taunt. "Last chance," she says. "Consider it lost," I say. And, shortly after that, we end up in one of our standard spots, where we get down to the intimate side of tonight's business. To tell the truth, I never really feel properly relaxed on these occasions. I've always hated Nezella's car habit. I always feel too exposed. At least, though, we do have the privacy of the darkness, since she has removed the bulb from the roof light. Even if we open the door, we will not betray ourselves to any chance observers. Later, huddled beside Nezella in the sticky darkness, I tell my Chelooza story. Not the cyanide part. I'll keep Chobber's cyanide revelation to myself, at least for the moment. Today my storytelling will be limited to the threat part. It's been on my mind, Chelooza's murder threat, and it's a relief to share it with someone. The light rain drumming on the roof gives my voice a little competition, but not much. "Chelooza?" says Nezella, breaking into laughter. "She said she'd kill you?" She digs a finger into my ribs. This, I think, is intended to be playful. But it hurts. "Sort of," I say, brushing the intruding finger away. "Well, no, not really. Not that she'd kill me. I didn't say that, did I? She said that I was going to be murdered. By someone." It sounds silly now, without the support of the cyanide revelation. Chelooza is a marginal case, not the kind of person you should go taking seriously. Should I tell Nezella about the cyanide? "Well," says Nezella. "Who would have thought it? Ken the gullible! You'll be seeing ghosts next. Excuse me a moment, I've just got to get out and pee." With that, Nezella grabs her umbrella, opens the door and scrambles out of the car, stark naked. Her shadowy form vanishes into the night. When she gets back in the car, she is laughing. She parks her dripping umbrella right on top of me. I bark with involuntary rage and displace the offending item to the floor. "I dropped my necklace," says Nezella, still very pleased, my anger making no impression whatsoever on her buoyant mood. "What's funny about that?" I ask, seriously annoyed. This business of rain and wet umbrellas is not at all to my taste. We should be doing this back at the business suite. Or, better still, in a hotel room, not in the carpark of Yendo Rock Nurseries. "You'll have to go out there and look for it," says Nezella. "Me?" I say. "Now? That's ridiculous! Anyway, you weren't wearing a necklace." "What do you mean, I wasn't?" says Nezella. "Go out and look for it. You're my hero. My big strong man! Aren't you?" Well, no, I don't think so. But that's not the kind of thing you can say. Not to Nezella. Was she wearing a necklace? Not according to my recollection. But I could be mistaken. And if she wants to play a game, who am I say no? So I take the itty-bitty flashlight that she thrusts into my hands. "Just out there," says Nezella. "No, you don't need to get dressed. Go!" I grab Nezella's umbrella from the floor and I go. The gravel is wet and hard beneath my feet, uncharacteristically real. My sessions with Nezella are so outlandishly bizarre that it is sometimes hard to credit the fact that they are actually happening. But there is nothing like painfully hard gravel for scrubbing the truth of reality into you. "Over there!" says Nezella. "Where?" I ask. "Further!" The night is one big ambush of shadows. Outside the flashlight's circle there is nothing but cold wet blindness. The poets who write about the warm spring rains? A bunch of liars, all of them. It's freezing. I'm shivering already. Is there a necklace? Anywhere? With increasing doubt, I scout around. The circle of light glints on a tear-tab from a can, on a scrap of orange peel and on an anomalous dead lily, all glistening wet in the falling rain. This is no fun at all. I would give up immediately, except I know what Nezella's tantrums are like. It's not a good idea to thwart her. So I take a few steps further. I don't think I'll find the necklace, but this has to look good. Then the engine starts. A moment later, the door slams and the tires spin on loose stones. "Hey!" I yell. Too late. The car's gone, red taillights disappearing into the night. I'm left standing naked, with nothing to protect me against the elements but Nezella's pink umbrella. "Damn it to hell, you bitch!" Earlier in the evening, when I refused to steal my wife's broach, I knew Nezella would be upset. But I never predicted this vengeance. Well. Knowing Nezella, she will not be coming back. Nezella plays for keeps. There's nothing for it but to walk all the way home. It's at least a ten minute walk. Worse, I can't hurry, because my bare feet would get cut up by the road surface. (And, in any case, my sprinting days are two or three decades behind me.) The flashlight dies halfway into the journey, by which time my feet are protesting with every step. "Come on, Ken!" I say to myself. "It's only five minutes!" My own voice is less than reassuring. It is weak, ghostly, barely audible above the rain pattering on the umbrella. And I myself am a spectral figure, a naked thing dimly visible by the inadequate light of the widely-spaced neon tubes which, in this area of private roads, are the standard substitute for proper street lights. I make it almost all the way home before I am observed. There are two people wandering down the private road outside our house, and they see me, my form dimly illuminated by weak neon lighting. There's a neon tube just across from the Moss Mansion's gate. It juts out from the utility pole which stands right by the gate leading into the grounds of Perturbations Lodge, on the left of the gate as you face it. When I'm spotted by the two strangers, I'm walking right into the illumination of that form-betraying fluorescent. I feel distressingly visible. On display. Penetrated. Compromised. "Proof," says the man to the woman, half excited, half fearful. "The perturbed area thing." The woman gives a shrill cry, a cross between a gasp and a laugh, and agrees, talking out loud as if I cannot not hear. They must be tourists, the pair of them. Most of our tourists are from overseas, and the international scare over red parrot fever has really disemboweled the tourist trade. But, even so, these must be real live tourists. Only tourists would be daft enough to be wandering round on a cold wet rainy night hoping to be scared stupid by the worst that this particular perturbed area has to offer. It's really a swindle, this night walking business. The tourist agencies charge an extortionate price for a map and a "secret list" of "possible perturbation sites" then turn the victims loose. Mitodarni says we could get a court order and put a stop to it. But that would unavoidably involve us in legal expenses, and right now the last thing we can afford is an unnecessary court battle. Anyway, pretending that I do not hear the tourists, pretending that I am the ghost that they take me to be, I turn into the grounds of Perturbations Lodge, scraping myself rather painfully on branches as I slide through the narrow gap between the hedge and the gate. Once round the back of the lodge, safely screened from view, I hunt for the cleaner's key, which is underneath the stone frog, just as it should be. For the first time, I'm grateful for the outbreak of red parrot fever. Financially, it has been a blow to have the whole season's bookings for the lodge unexpectedly canceled, but now the vacant lodge is a life-saver. An hour later, showered, warmed up and wearing a guest dressing gown and a pair of rubber boots from the garden shed, I venture across the road to the Moss Mansion. Nezella has not just my clothes, my wallet and my cellphone but also my keys. However, the latch on the laundry window has been broken for months (must get that fixed!) and, after an undignified scramble, I succeed in getting inside. Any sounds made by my entrance are covered by Melshu's snoring. For a man so old, it's amazing how he can snore. Upstairs, Iola is solidly asleep. That's one of my wife's many virtues: she never wakes up when I come to bed. It is surprising, in retrospect, just how much this has let me get away with. And now a question: by what method do I propose to retrieve my possessions from Nezella? I suppose I will have to go and beg. Dearest Nezella, we who adore you petition you ... I don't want to beg, but I don't see that I have any option. As I'm thinking about it I hear, somewhere, a cellphone ringing. It's my cellphone. It sounds as if it's somewhere outside. The phone keeps ringing and ringing, so I have no option but to go and search for it. I find it, at last, in the letterbox, the ring tone volume turned up to maximum. I answer it, but there's nobody there. The rain has stopped, and I'm alone in the dripping night, feeling tired, bone tired, and desperately in need of sleep. |
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