Stained glass

 He shivered.  There was a breeze but it wasn’t cold.  The dry grass growing defiantly next to the verge rustled and the sound made his skin crawl.  It felt like bony fingers gently probing him again and he let out a squeal and shuddered, drawing his legs up as though trying to get them underneath him enough to stand up and run away.  The air was hot around him but he couldn’t sweat.  All he could smell was dry air, baked, like he’d stuck his head in a tumble drier just after it had been unloaded.

“Griff?” said a voice nearby.  “Griff, is that you?  Why are you out here, man?  What’s wrong?”

He pulled his arms in tight to his sides and squeezed his eyes shut so hard that little pinpricks of coloured light burst like fireworks in front of them.

“Griff?”

Hands grabbed his hips and pulled.  Dry grass crackled and shattered, flinging fine yellow fragments into the air where the breeze caught them and made them dance.  He slid across the sere earth and his t-shirt, the blue one with the picture of the dolphin on the back, rode up underneath him so that the earth scratched his skin.  Minty-fresh breath scoured his face and then he was hoisted up, lifted into the air and swung around.  He collided with something hot and smooth and slid along it a short way.  The smell of old, hot leather filled his face now and he inhaled deeply, trying to flush out the memory of mint.

A door clicked shut behind him, and then there was the familiar thunk of another one opening.  A sound like a sack of potatoes being set down heavily, a click of a closing door, and then the deep throated rumble of an engine starting.

“Please,” he tried to say, but his throat was dry and his tongue seemed too thick and too large and a whisper barely scraped out of his mouth.  “Please, not again—“

He woke up and found he was lying on a bed.  The mattress was firm and covered with a pastel green sheet that was rough, but smelled clean.  He tensed, waiting for impact and only gradually relaxed as none came.  He stretched his legs out, and then his arms, emerging from a fetal curl, and finally turned over on to his back and opened his eyes.

The ceiling was stained glass.  Blues, red and yellows assaulted his eyes and he squinted, trying to see a picture, but the desert sun beyond shone through too brilliantly for comprehension.  He turned his head, looking to the side, and found that he was in a small room; barely enough room for the bed and a metal table with two drawers before the door, solemn and closed.  There was a bottle of water on the table and a clean-looking glass next to it.

The water was cool even though the room was warm and tasty faintly of minerals and had just a frisson of gas in it.

“Not world seven,” he said, though it took three tries to get more than a croak from his voice.  “Not world seven.”  When had he last tried to speak?

He was wearing his t-shirt still and his back was rough under his rubbing fingers — he guessed he’d grazed it.  He was wearing underpants but his jeans had disappeared, as had his socks and shoes.  He felt dirty, unwashed and a memory of sulphurous water pouring from a shower like urine made him twitch.  He’d been avoiding water in world seven.

Getting off the bed was easy; getting his legs to support his weight took a little longer.  He felt like he’d not walked in months but he was sure he could remember walking — and then crawling — through a long tunnel in volcanic rock.  Black, sharp glassy edges everywhere.  The noise of something burrowing nearby.  Voices, people crying and wailing.  Lamenting?  Was the right word?

He opened the door, wondering what he was going to see.

“Griff?”

“Honor.”  If there was one person, one woman, he really didn’t want to see right now, it was Honor.  She was wearing some kind of Victorian outfit — a long, heavy dress, black leather boots, a waistcoat of some kind with dozens of pockets — a photographer’s jacket, perhaps? And she was carrying a stupid parasol that he hated the moment he saw it.

“Griff.”

Ah.  Baylor.  Undoubtedly the reason he was here now and not still in world seven.  He looked at the man, if that’s what he was, who was standing behind Honor.  Honor looked concerned but restrained, while Baylor looked like he wanted to run over and eat Griff.

“You,” he said, reluctant to say his name.  “You got me out?”

“Got you out?  What?” Honor looked around and Baylor ignored her.  Griff half-smiled as he could remember a time when Baylor treated him like dirt as well.

“I sent Jack,” said Baylor.  “Much the same, right?”  Ah yes, Jack, Baylor’s little errand-boy.  Given all the dirty work.

“Not the same at all,” Griff said.  “Why do I hurt so much?  I don’t remember much of what happened…” he trailed off as memories started to surface.  “Much at the end,” he said after a few moments.

“What happened?”  Honor looked between Baylor and Griff, her eyes bright and searching.  Griff knew she was worrying about herself, but she’d been given world two to work with.  Not the easiest assignment for a woman, but safer by an order of magnitude than exploring new worlds.

“You made a discovery,” said Baylor.  He rubbed his hands together, almost gleefully.  “A big one.  One that pertains to all the worlds, we think.”

“I remember… I remember… stained glass?”   Griff’s mind was filling up with memories now, dark corridors and cramped rooms made with strange numbers of sides and angles.  All the rooms had an odd number of walls; they were triangular, pentagonal, heptagonal but never square and never rectangular.  There had been a lot of stained glass; no paintings, no sculptures, just stained glass on the walls everywhere.  No windows though.  Never a view to outside, as though it didn’t exist.

He shuddered suddenly.  Outside didn’t really exist in world seven though, did it?

“There was no outside?” he said.  “I think I remember there was no outside.”

“Sort of,” said Baylor.  “You found a closed system, that’s certain, but we don’t know if there are more of them.  We’re going to try digging, see how closed the system is.”

“I’m not going back!”  The words were out before he even thought them.

“No, you’re not.”

“What is going on here?  Somebody tell me!” Honor actually stamped a foot, as though she were still a little girl.

“That’s ok then.”  He relaxed with a sense of wonder that he’d tensed up so much.  Everything hurt again.

“Three days recovery.  Then you get to lead on world nine.”

Griff shook his head in disbelief.

“What happened to world eight?” he said, wanting to scream that three days wasn’t long enough.  Hell, three weeks wouldn’t be long enough for what he could remember going through.

“You’ve been gone for four months,” said Honor.  “Straight.”

Griff’s eyes widened.  “Three days isn’t going to be en—“

“It’s what you have,” said Baylor.  “What you discovered changes the whole game.  We need to have you in world ten.  They’ve also got stained glass.”