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By Root 560 0

all, are a tender part of the brain. A sentence crossed his mind: The soul is a castle where even God can’t look. He was not sure what its author meant, but for him it now made perfect sense. He would lock himself inside and that beggar in a top hat could bang at the door as long and loud as he pleased. Pretending to struggle a little against the vicious little drills, Gabriel simply thought of what he had learned in the Subtle Army: if you are tortured, hold your breath and try to faint as quickly as possible. He would do it his way, trusting that he could use a little dissociation trick he had mastered during Transpherence training and years of afternoon naps. Instead of looking at the hypnotizer’s eyes, he focused himself on his own reflection in the intruder’s pupils, short-circuiting him with this narcissistic ménage-à-trois. Working on his breath and silently repeating his own name in a chant to parry the orders he was supposed to obey, he hypnotized himself into a half-dreaming state, until everything that happened was purely between himselves, his mind a stubborn block of solid fog that would relinquish nothing of any importance or interest to them, just the usual off-the-cuff hieroglyphics of sleep, so involuted as to be senseless. At the surface, though, he remained aware enough to hear the man say:

“Now, Mr. d’Allier, now … You will answer any questions Mr. Wynne will ask you. Will you please do that for me?”

Gabriel vaguely nodded his head. He could hear a drawer being opened and some machine being installed on the desk. He knew that sound: someone was fitting a tin horn onto a phonograph and cranking the mechanism to record every word Gabriel would pronounce under the influence.

“Mr. d’Allier,” said Wynne, “how are you?”

“Fiiiiiiiinnnnnnne” moaned Gabriel, hoping he was not overdoing it. He could feel his mind unfocused and foggy, but knew that if it was drifting, it was drifting away from them.

“Do you swear you will tell me truth, and nothing but the truth? Raise your hand and swear, Mr. d’Allier, if you please …”

Gabriel felt himself slowly raising an arm that was heavier than he expected.

“I swear,” he murmured.

“Say that again, if you do not mind, louder.”

“I swear.”

“Mr. d’Allier, there is one thing we would like to know above all others. Would you please tell us what or whom A Blast on the Barren Land evokes for you?”

A flurry of images gushed forth in his brain. Whatever they were, they would have to do.

“Flap,” said Gabriel, after a pause, not without surprise.

“Who?”

“Flap.”

“Who is Flap, Mr. d’Allier?”

“Flap is … a friend.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Her. I met her in the Greenhouse in Grönland Gardens. I took a path that I thought would take me out of the hothouse but did not. It kept on, it seemed forever. At some point, I fell asleep under a tree. And after a while, I woke up, feeling a fresh sensation below the waist, and Flap was over me.”

“Over you?” said Wynne, in a faltering voice.

“Over me. Yes. I opened my eyes, and I saw her. She was rather cute but a bit on the chubby side, with little dragonfly wings on her back. I asked her who she was and what she thought she was doing. ‘I’m Flap the Fat Fairy,’ she said, ‘and human semen is like honey to me.’ Then she spat something on my belly and flew away. I reached to see what she had spat and it was a little heart-shaped ice crystal she had kept in her mouth all the time. It immediately attracted two little elves or fairies on my belly, who were commenting on my withering ‘snowdrop’:

‘Oh, you naughty Pocket!

Look, she drops her head.

She deserved it, Rocket,

And she was nearly dead.’

“Then they fought for the crystal, tugging at it till it burst in a cold blast and Rocket and Pocket both ran away, leaving the land quite barren. That’s all I remember.”

“Rocket and Pocket, hmmm,” said Wynne, who sounded tired. “Please, kind sir, wake him up,” he asked the man, hastily hiding the phonograph back in the drawer.

“Wake up, Mr. d’Allier,” said the hypnotist in a low but firm voice, putting his gloved palm lightly on Gabriel