The Outsorcerer's Apprentice (37 page)

He was working, therefore, from first principles, rather like Archimedes or one of those guys. Also, he wasn’t consciously trying to account for the slightly odd properties of the echo. Even so, his subconscious got onto the problem straight away, and, in the time it took the man to sit up and rub his eyes, it had come up with a viable hypothesis that happened to be perfectly correct. The echo sounded funny because he was inside a cylinder–a cylinder, moreover, that tapered dramatically somewhere out of sight overhead. Sort of a bottle shape.

Because of the way the mind works, he wasn’t conscious of all the calculus and equations he’d just performed. Instead, he attributed the flash of insight to intuition, which he’d been brought up to mistrust. That’s all the thanks his subconscious got for all that hard work. It’s an unfair world.

I’m in a
bottle
, he thought.

Then he realised that that thought was the only one he’d got, like the very first stamp in a brand-new stamp album. His frown deepened. Once again, his subconscious raced. It realised that it occupied a brain equipped with vast memory-storage capacity, a very big stamp album indeed; therefore, wasn’t it a bit odd that all that space had just one thought in it?

Well, now there were two, but that wasn’t the point. Surely there ought to be, well,
dozens
. And, while he was at it, he couldn’t help noticing the substantial quantity of intellectual plant and machinery cluttering the place up–logic and cognitive processes and arithmetic, and God only knows what that one over there was supposed to be for. Unless the inside of his head was just warehouse space, presumably they’d been put there for a reason. I must be somebody, he realised. With a thing,
name
, and a personality
and a, what’s that other thing, a
history
. And what, now I come to think of it, am I doing in a bottle?

If he really was in a bottle. He looked around. There was nothing to see, absolutely nothing at all. There was light, quite a fair amount of it. What was lacking was anything for the light to play with.

Now then. All from first principles, of course, but it didn’t take him long to come up with a theory. I’m in a glass bottle, or just possibly a jar; and the bottle or jar’s in—

Nothing?

That’s where a frame of reference is so devilishly useful. A frame of reference lets you know instantly if being inside a glass bottle inside nothing at all is normal, the same old same old, just another day at the office; or whether it’s odd, a bit strange, possibly even a cause for moderate concern. But, as far as he could tell, he had no frame of reference, not even a scrap of a corner of one. Awkward. And, since he was stuck in a bottle surrounded by nothing at all, it wasn’t immediately obvious how he was supposed to go about changing that. In which case, presumably, all he could do was wait patiently in the hope that the frame of reference he must once have had would at some point return and start making sense of things. Well, of course it will. It’ll come back when it’s hungry. They always do.

At which point (from first principles) he realised he’d discovered the concept of time. For about two and a half seconds he felt rather excited about that, though he wasn’t sure why. A small part of him was trying to tell him that finding out stuff about how the world works is a good thing and something to feel pleased with yourself about. Quite why, he couldn’t say, but the instinct was surprisingly strong. Maybe that’s what I’m for, he told himself; after all, I must be for something, or else why the hell bother having me in the first place? Assuming I exist,
of course, but I’m pretty sure I do. Well, of course I exist. I’m thinking, aren’t I? And if you think, you exist, surely. Stands to reason, that does.

He stood up and peered down at himself. He was, he noticed, a sort of drab pink colour, in striking contrast to everything else, which was no colour at all. When he patted the top of his head, he felt something soft and sort of woolly; it felt a bit like the thin black hair on his arms, legs and body, but longer. He tried to think of a reason for it–how being partially thatched could possibly make him a more efficient pink entity in a bottle–but maybe he was missing pertinent data, because nothing sprang immediately to mind. Also, there were hard, vaguely scutiform plates on the ends of his fingers and toes. Crazy.

Am I alone?

Now where, he wondered, had that thought come from? For one thing, it meant he’d invented mathematics, simply by postulating that there might be such a thing as more-than-one. But of course there was, because he had ten fingers and ten toes; therefore, plurality exists. Any damn fool could tell you that. In which case, given the possibility of multiple entities, there might be more like him, maybe as many as five, or ten even, out there somewhere. Out where? He peered, but all he could see was nothing, with more nothing just beyond it, set against an infinite backdrop of zilch.

Now here’s a thought. I’m in a bottle, but I can’t see it. I know it’s there, because of the echo. Therefore, things can exist without me being able to see them. Therefore, even though I can’t see other entities like myself, there may be some, somewhere. Whee!

Enough of the abstract theorising; time for some practical experimentation. He walked forward in a straight line (which,
for the sake of convenience, he decided was probably the shortest distance between two given points). After three paces, he simultaneously banged his nose and stubbed his toe—

Ouch. Pain. That made him frown, because he wasn’t sure he liked it. But of course, it must be an inbuilt warning mechanism, to keep you from damaging yourself by, for example, walking into one of those things that exist but can’t be seen. Ingenious and effective, he decided; my compliments to the chef. Still, probably a good idea to reduce one’s exposure to it as far as conveniently possible.

“Hello.”

The echo again? No, not possible. It sounded all wrong for that. He turned round, and saw–his reflection? Good guess, but apparently not, because the entity he was looking at, though similar to him in many ways, was subtly different in others. Partially covered in white fabric, for one thing; also longer hair and two curious sort of bumps, or swellings, on the front.

The entity spoke. “It apologises,” it said, “for any inconvenience.”

That made no sense, but he was prepared to make allowances. “Do they hurt?” he asked.

“Excuse it?”

“The swellings on your front. Are you ill?”

The entity’s face moved, producing an expression he intuitively suspected was meant to convey displeasure. “It’s supposed to be like that.”

“Really? Why?”

“Presumably you perceive it as female. Would you mind terribly much not staring? If it’s female, it doesn’t like it.”

“Sorry.” He turned away, then turned slowly back and deliberately focused a hand’s span above the top of the entity’s head. “Is that better?”

“Marginally,” the entity replied, “though it’s not easy having a conversation with someone not looking at it. But that’s fine for now,” the entity added quickly, as he started to turn away again. “It’ll just have to get used to it.”

Hang on, he thought. A million questions were bubbling away inside his head, but there was one he just had to ask. “Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Why do you talk about yourself in the third person?”

The entity’s face showed an expression designed to convey perplexity. “Say what?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s three persons in speech, right? Apparently,” he added, as it occurred to him to wonder how the hell he knew that. “There’s the first, like I, and the second, you, and then for some reason there’s
three
thirds. But you don’t seem to be using the right one.”

The entity looked at him for a moment, shook its head and said, “It wouldn’t worry about that right now if it was you. There are…” the entity hesitated. “More pressing issues.”

“Are there?”

“You bet.”

“Wow. Such as?”

“Your identity,” the entity replied. “Your current status. Talking of which, it would like to assure you that you’re perfectly safe.”

“Ah.” It hadn’t occurred to him that he might not be. “Well, that’s good.”

“And, more to the point,” the entity went on, “while you’re in there, so is everyone else.”

“Excuse me?”

The entity looked mildly embarrassed. “It’s been instructed to tell you that you’re being held in temporary isolation, pending
a review. In another time, place and context, your status here would be aptly conveyed by an annoying hourglass, or an even more annoying running horse. There is no cause for concern.”

“Great,” he said, trying to sound pleased. “So I’m just—”

“Here.”

He nodded. “And that’s all right, is it? I mean, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Expecting Someone Taller

Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?

Flying Dutch

Ye Gods!

Overtime

Here Comes the Sun

Grailblazers

Faust Among Equals

Odds and Gods

Djinn Rummy

My Hero

Paint Your Dragon

Open Sesame

Wish You Were Here

Only Human

Snow White and the Seven Samurai

Valhalla

Nothing But Blue Skies

Falling Sideways

Little People

The Portable Door

In Your Dreams

Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps

Someone Like Me

Barking

The Better Mousetrap

May Contain Traces of Magic

Blonde Bombshell

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages

Doughnut

When It’s A Jar

The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice

Dead Funny: Omnibus 1

Mightier Than the Sword: Omnibus 2

The Divine Comedies: Omnibus 3

For Two Nights Only: Omnibus 4

Tall Stories: Omnibus 5

Saints and Sinners: Omnibus 6

Fishy Wishes: Omnibus 7

The Walled Orchard

Alexander at the World’s End

Olympiad

A Song for Nero

Meadowland

I, Margaret

Lucia Triumphant

Lucia in Wartime

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by One Reluctant Lemming Company Ltd.

Excerpt from
When It’s A Jar
copyright © 2013 by One Reluctant Lemming Company Ltd.

Excerpt from
Doughnut
copyright © 2013 by One Reluctant Lemming Company Ltd.

Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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First ebook edition: July 2014

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ISBN 978-0-316-36878-0

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