Kitabı oku: «The Book of Fire series», sayfa 5

Chapter 6

The grey air was oppressive in this part of town, the memory of the Great War clinging to the buildings like a shroud. We picked our way down the old road, avoiding the shelled buildings which felt like tombs after nearly two hundred years of desolation. Their scale could only mean we’d arrived in the city centre and we walked soberly, the way we might through Arafel’s graveyard. And although there were no visible human remains here, I could feel anguished faces staring out of every crumbling window and burned-out metal box Grandpa used to call cars and lorries.

Never before had I been quite so aware of the erasing effect of the Great War. A hundred thousand people had once lived in the bustling city of Exeter, and now it seemed even the scurrying ants avoided this place.

‘We haven’t come across any large life whatsoever, let alone the Prolet insurgents,’ Max muttered, voicing my thoughts.

I threw a glance at the sky, where a silent flock of vultures shadowed our progress.

‘Aside from baldies anonymous of course,’ he conceded with a quick grin.

I grinned back, grateful for our new ease, and immediately noticed the new bronze-edged angular weapon hanging over Max’s right shoulder.

I nodded. ‘What’s that?’

‘This old thing?’ he repeated airily. ‘Oh, just something I picked up back there.’

‘Back there, where?’

‘Er … in the museum,’ he muttered, faint colour creeping up his neck.

‘Max Thorn!’ I exclaimed, trying to prevent a laugh from escaping. ‘What on earth can a respected Arafel hunter pick up at a wreck of a museum that could possibly be of use in the Dead City?’

‘It’s just a keepsake – nothing to get excited about.’ He flushed, shifting the stolen item further down his back.

I made a grab for it.

‘OK, OK, it’s a cheiroballistra,’ he admitted, sidestepping deftly.

‘A cheiro-what? What in the name of Arafel is one of those?’ I asked.

‘A cheiroballistra. Y’know, a … Roman … crossbow,’ he answered as though it was the most natural item in the world to loot.

‘You stole a Roman crossbow from the museum?’ I repeated, this time unable to keep from laughing.

‘No! Well, not exactly … This has got to be a reproduction. A real one definitely wouldn’t be worth stealing! But this one is made of some other hard-wearing material I can’t really identify and … Look, it’s not like anyone was using it, or looking at it even!’ he defended. ‘I just thought it might come in useful, and, well, I’ve always wanted one.’

‘And now we get to the truth!’

‘Cool!’ Eli signed. ‘Get me one?’

Max shook his head teasingly as I smiled, aware it was the first time the three of us had shared a joke in ages. And maybe he was right. Its addition could hardly hurt, and besides which, it looked as though the ice between Max and I had finally thawed, which was worth all the looted crossbows in the world.

‘Just so long as your pockets aren’t stuffed with little tin soldiers too!’ I winked.

We walked for a while in an easier silence, our footsteps interspersed by the groaning breeze. Eli had dropped a little way behind to observe the vultures, or so he said.

‘Do you think there’s any chance Aelia could have got it wrong? About the Prolet insurgents hiding out here?’ Max asked after a few minutes. ‘I’ve seen no fresh water, let alone anything a group of sixty people could survive on for more than a day or two.’

‘Not sure.’ I glanced around, unable to deny the truth of what he was saying. The buildings felt as dead as the people who’d once lived in them.

And Aelia. What was her real motivation for stealing the Book? I recalled the glint in her eye when she talked about the Voynich, how I’d tried to navigate the maze of conversation about the Book of Arafel, without revealing the whole of Grandpa’s precious secret. And finally, there was August. And his stolen kiss.

I inhaled softly, trying to order my wayward thoughts.

I’d told Aelia about the cipher, even drawn it out for her, because I needed her specialist symbolic knowledge. And I knew the cipher was useless without the keyword. I also told her Thomas’s original research was destroyed. But I was obviously the worst actress in the world because she guessed it still existed, as well as where it was most likely to be hidden. Had she worked out the keyword already? She had a much better understanding of Latin and genetics than anyone I’d met before.

And finally, there was the question that spun harder than all the rest: how long did I have before she traded the Book for the Prolets? Or August? Or both? If any of them were still alive.

‘Look, just because Aelia drops into Arafel and steals the one thing she knows will create a reaction, doesn’t mean anything’s changed between us, OK?’ Max offered a little roughly. ‘And that goes for arguments too. It doesn’t change the fundamentals … At least not for me.’

He smiled at me and I nodded, painfully aware he was a much better human being than I could ever be. Then the full force of his words hit home. I grabbed his forearm.

The one thing she knows will create a reaction.

‘Actually, I don’t think Aelia has ever been wrong about much. Max, what if she didn’t steal the Book of Arafel to trade with Cassius, but as an act of deliberate provocation?’

He looked down at me in confusion.

‘A deliberate act of provocation? To who? To what end?’

A sudden chill, like winter ivy, coiled around my core. August had forbidden Aelia to use me as proof of an outside world, but now he was gone, and she was desperate to mobilize her threatened Prolet world. Perhaps Aelia wasn’t thinking of negotiation at all. Perhaps she needed a spark to start her Prolet revolution.

I stared up into Max’s darkening scowl. He suspected it too, I could tell.

‘To draw me,’ I whispered, as a heavy thud filled the silent night.

***

I turned as though in slow motion. The silhouetted road was empty. My breath was patchy and jagged. Eli had completely disappeared.

‘No!’ I gasped, my voice sounding oddly disembodied.

I forced my legs into a sprint back to the place I’d last seen him and whirled around, real panic clawing up my throat.

‘Eli! Eli! Max! Where is he?’

Max started running towards me.

‘He was there just a second ago, where in the name of Araf … Aarrgh!’

His shocked yell tore through the night as a large pale limb suddenly twisted up out of the ground, and wrapped itself around his right leg.

‘Aarrgh! Get off me! You son of a bastard …! Get off!’

The whole street started to shrink, as Max buckled under the sudden pressure of assault, half of his right leg disappearing into a gaping hole I’d not noticed before.

‘Max!’

I pelted forward, not caring about the noise I was making, just as a second thick limb reached up and wound around Max’s other leg. He slammed to the ground, grappling for one of his hunting knives, but whatever had gripped him was far too strong. And in one raw breath, half of Max’s body disappeared into a black hole, leaving only his chest and head exposed.

‘Tal,’ he yelled hoarsely, his face paling to ashen as it squeezed the breath from his body, ‘whatever happens … I …’

But what he was going to say was lost as he disappeared from sight, leaving me completely and utterly alone in the City of Dust.

‘No! No! No!’

I flew over the last few metres, my feet barely touching the ground, and threw myself down beside the hole.

‘Take me too!’ I screamed furiously into the black. ‘You can’t take them and leave me here! You underground son of a cave bitch! Take me too!’

The edges of my voice grated like sandpaper, while my chest felt like it was being anchored to my feet with a vice. I hadn’t told him. He was gone and I hadn’t told him.

And then nothing. The desolate street was quiet, save for the faint hissing of the vultures, watching from a nearby rooftop, and the wind. Moaning. Always moaning.

‘This isn’t how it’s meant to be,’ I whispered into the dust.

Then the pale limb reached up, and took me too.

***

I was dimly aware of a metallic object being dragged, extinguishing any remaining light through the sour-smelling tunnel. Then I was set on my feet, and as I fought a momentary dizziness, my eyes were drawn by a tiny flicker of light.

It was only a small lantern, but enough to illuminate the glistening rock walls weakly. I swallowed my panic, knowing I needed to stay calm. To think. But my new companions stole all my attention anyway, and I gazed in wonder at a towering snow-white satyr and a small grubby child in a headscarf and smoke-grey tunic.

To my intense relief, both Eli and Max were seated behind the satyr, their hands bound and mouths gagged, but otherwise unharmed. Instinctively, my hand closed over my catapult, as we all stared at one another in some doubtful sort of stand-off. Then I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

‘Prolets, by any chance?’

‘I’m Lake, and this is Pan – as in the god, not the dish!’

The small girl laughed at her own joke, before clamping a white hand over her mouth.

‘We’re not supposed to laugh. Sound travels a looooong way underground,’ she whispered, her eyes wide and dramatic.

I smiled cautiously. Her cheekbones gleamed tightly in the half-light, while her arms looked pitifully thin, lending weight to Max’s theory about survival in this barren place. Then I looked from her to the imposing white satyr, its broad muscular chest defined by the hollows between its ribs, and inspiration struck.

‘Untie my brother and friend, and we’ll give you all the food we have.’

There was a poignant silence while the satyr looked meaningfully at the child, starvation written all over its broad white face. After a beat she relented, sighing.

‘OK, but not a word to the others.’

I reached into my leather ration pack and withdrew a wrap of cape gooseberries, two bananas, a round of goat’s cheese and a wedge of rye bread. It was everything I had, but I could see they needed it more than I did.

Lake turned the proffered food over in awe, before nodding at her pale companion who in turn reached to pull off Max and Eli’s gags. Then, withdrawing an ugly-looking blade from a sling, he freed them of their bindings with a single upwards slice.

‘Well of all the jungle ways to introduce yourselves. I thought you wanted to eat us!’ Max joked.

Lake was across the tunnel in a heartbeat, a short stubby knife from the rope around her waist pressed forcefully against Max’s throat.

‘And we might still if you don’t learn some respect! We’ve not eaten in a long while, and Pan here is pretty hungry!’

She spoke fiercely, her short curly brown hair escaping her dirty headscarf and black circles accentuating her fine green eyes. And all at once I was filled with awe for this steely child who’d managed to survive beneath this eerie shell of a city against all the odds.

Max drew back in confusion, while Pan’s thick white eyebrows forked sharply. He looked down at his snow-white hoof-feet, clearly not wishing to undermine his small, fiery friend.

‘We’re friends, Lake,’ I intervened gently. ‘We’ve come to help you. At Aelia’s request.’

Aelia’s name bought us the instant credit we needed.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her brow puckering as she lowered her knife and stepped closer.

Now she was within a hair’s breadth, I could see she was even younger than I first thought, no more than about ten or eleven years old. She was also a true child of Pantheon, and regarded me suspiciously from beneath double eyelids. They gave her a narrow, serpentine expression that somehow suited her emerald eye colour. What experimental genetic creation was she?

I smiled gently. A tiny bloom had crept into her cheeks as a result of the food, betraying her need.

‘Lake, I think your people may be looking for me. I’m Talia.’

***

The claustrophobic rock corridor took me back to Pantheon’s underground tunnels in a breath. And to the desiccating dread I only recalled in my dreams. I told myself these tunnels were friendly, that the strix and Cerberus were many kilometres away, but in truth they were closer than any of us cared to think about. And Aelia had already mentioned Cassius’s threat to flush the Prolets out.

I forced myself to focus straight ahead, on the dim silhouette of our guides’ backs. And the first thing to strike me was that Pan wasn’t a satyr at all. His ears were too elongated and covered in white fur; while a long tail swung rhythmically from his behind as his tufted feet padded along the stone floor.

Racking my memory, I recalled a mythical ancestor of the satyr. It was one of the oldest creatures classical writers had recorded, but I was sure the physiology of this creature was related. It was also legendary for its guardianship of the young and weak; although this particular individual looked no older than Max or me.

‘Silenus?’ I asked as he turned to gesticulate before disappearing around a dark corner.

A cursory nod was all the answer I received, although his eyes were laden with care when they rested on the child. I suppressed a frown. They seemed such unlikely companions.

Lake was clearly on high alert as she led us through the damp, mouldy walls. These tunnels were much colder and tighter than those beneath Pantheon, and it wasn’t long before I was missing even the Dead City above our heads. At least it looked at the sky.

I flicked a cautionary look at her pallid skin. Born underground, she was accustomed to a lack of sun, but the Prolet underworld was warm and dry. The dank atmosphere of this new underground maze had to be a breeding ground for disease.

‘Old Roman tunnels?’ Eli signed by the light of Lake’s flickering lantern.

I nodded. It was the only plausible explanation, and it made absolute sense that the Prolet people, forced to live underground in Pantheon, would take refuge in the environment they knew best. Even so, as Pan led the way down a red earthen slope, I found myself fighting a sense of impending doom, a feeling that we were descending right into the heart of hell.

Max’s athletic step echoed behind me, and a new cocktail of relief and guilt infused my cold limbs afresh. Even when I’d come so close to losing Max, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about him.

‘That’s it, isn’t it? I’m just not him.’

His furious words echoed in my head, and somewhere in the walled-up tissues of my heart, a drop of water formed and froze. An ice tear. Because the worst part of all was that he was one hundred per cent right. It was absolutely nothing to do with him, and absolutely everything to do with him not being August. And how could I explain that?

Or my promise.

Was it too much? Could he tell? Would he even want me still?

An image of us lying naked and entwined on my reed mattress at home flickered through my head, making me grateful for the meagre light thrown out by the lantern. We’d managed to forget the world that night. Could we do it again? For ever? Could I finally leave the ghost girl behind: the imposter who looked and acted like me, but who’d actually left her real self behind in Pantheon? And if not, would a ghost girl be enough for a boy who deserved the sun, the moon and the stars? Because it couldn’t get more real than that.

We progressed through the tunnels swiftly, only just keeping up with our seasoned guides. Briefly, I wondered at the choice of such a young member as lookout, and whether Pan was the real authority, or if they’d formed a small breakaway group from the main rebellious party.

Somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was none of the above.

After a good twenty minutes hard walking, Lake’s pace slowed, and I sensed we were finally approaching the Prolets’ base camp. She held a thin white finger to her lips, and then gesticulated swiftly for Pan to go ahead and check the way. He was as dutiful as any foot soldier; and his pale, muscular frame disappeared around the mouldy corner without question, only to reappear seconds later. His brief nod, pricked ears and relaxed facial expression cleared the way, and I drew a deep breath. This was it.

‘Ready?’ Eli signed with a brief rise of his bushy eyebrows.

I nodded, confident we now stood a chance.

Then we rounded the corner.

And I couldn’t have been more unprepared for the view that rose up to greet us. The claustrophobic tunnel ballooned out into some sort of crumbling underground ruin. The central forum was large, about the size of Arafel’s market square, and peppered with small stone rises that looked like the remains of some sort of ancient water or heating system. Patchy, ancient frescoed mosaics adorned the top half of each mottled wall, and there were numerous doorways beneath decaying archways.

But it was the curious eyes that stole my breath. I scanned the room, my suspicions racing like wildfire. There were small hammocks hanging inside every arched inset, corroborating Aelia’s approximation of the insurgent numbers. And the group were together, and seemingly intact.

She’d just failed to mention they were all children.

Slowly the fog concealing the rebel group’s motivation began to lift. Aelia’s urgency to find them, Cassius’s fury that they were missing – even their reputed idealistic belief that a girl on the outside could be found if you looked long enough – became suddenly, terrifyingly clear. They were all too young to know any better. Or worse.

Max stepped up beside me, his golden skin paling as he surveyed the scene before us.

‘What in the name of Arafel?’

A strange silence descended as sixty pairs of hollowed, inquisitive eyes assessed our friendliness. Then a cheer erupted throughout the room, and we were surrounded.

‘Hey, take a chill pill! Told you I’d bring home the goods, didn’t I? You can’t eat them, but trust me, they’re useful.’

I glanced down at Lake, who was flushed with triumph and now seemed quite old in comparison to some of the others.

‘Lake, where …? Who is your leader?’ Max asked, in a troubled voice.

Rapid thoughts cross-fired through my head. This young Prolet group had to represent a good proportion of Cassius’s future workforce, which meant our assistance was going to reap the worst possible vengeance upon Arafel. Cassius would never let such a valuable commodity go without a fight.

Where were their parents? And why hadn’t Aelia told us the full story?

My head whirled as I frowned at Eli. This was complicated beyond everything.

‘Atticus!’ Lake called, seemingly unaware of any tension.

She scanned the chamber until a young adolescent boy, around fifteen years of age, skulked out from beneath one of the arched antechambers set into the wall.

He surveyed us all with a faint scowl before making his way towards us, the young excited crowd parting to let him through. And as they moved I noticed there was far more variety of life than I first realized. These weren’t just a group of young human Prolets, there was a pretty good cross-representation of all Prolet life gathered here. Just very juvenile in years.

Five young satyrs, one holding a three-legged dog with a pig snout, stared at us with wonder etched on their gaunt faces. To their left was an elfin boy with a pair of gold-brown feathered wings stretching and retracting rhythmically. And when he reached down to pet a tiny, perfectly proportioned griffin, I noticed his entire back was covered in the same burnished down. Towards the back of the crowd, two young girls with white hair held hands together, while a monkey with bright cerulean eyes chattered effusively, as it leapt around the towers of flat stones.

I thought at once of Isca Pantheon’s laboratories, of their cruel experimental purpose, and my stomach lurched. These children and creatures were the product of Octavia’s reign. What horrors had they endured already through their short lives? And how had they ended up here, all alone, at the mercy of whatever nightmare Cassius chose to dispatch through the tunnels?

‘Welcome to our humble abode.’ Atticus bowed with an exaggerated flourish, his eyes sharp and questioning.

He was easily the tallest after Pan, with opal-black eyes and short raven hair fashioned into two spiky horns at the front. It gave him a bold look, which together with his calculating smile, felt oddly familiar. I wondered if he’d orchestrated the whole escape; the whole group seemed to hold him in such respect.

‘Good to meet you, Atticus.’ Max stepped forward to hold out his broad, brown hand. ‘We’ve come here, at Aelia’s request, to bring you safe escort to your new home … Arafel?’

There was a low mutter of excitement around the young crowd. Clearly, the name of our village carried mysterious promise, and my heart sank a little further. Atticus raised a slim white hand, exposing a fine Pantheon dagger dangling at his side, before settling his gaze on Max. I stared, trying not to frown. If a Prolet boy had seized the chance to steal an expensive Pantheon dagger and lead a band of renegade children this far, he deserved respect.

There was a moment of silence as each considered the other. Max was by far the older and heavier, but the spiky boy held his nerve, running his eye over Max critically, before offering his own hand. I watched as a curious light crept into his coal eyes, a new doubt firing through my own veins. His manner was altogether too casual, his mood indifferent, and when he finally spoke, his voice was surprisingly authoritative.