The Southwind Saga (Book 3): Flood Tide

by Kovacs, Jase

  I sit there in the darkness and try to feel the presence of that slave across the decades that separate us. Did he feel as helpless as I now do? Robbed of his life by the vulgarities of fate, that had taken him from a sheep station in Australia or a village in India or a city in America and put him in the hands of men who served the glory of the rising sun? Did he dream of his friends as I dream of mine? Did he hope that somehow his sacrifice was in service of those he loved? Or did he just wish for sleep and food and the end of pain?

  "Help."

  The voice is weak. Faint. So vague I think it is a trick in my ears the same way my eyes flash with false light. It's nothing. I'm alone in this cell. I'm all—

  "Please."

  I sit back against the wall. I can feel rather than hear a deep hum rising from the earth, which reminds me of the diesel engine on Voodoo, back in the Time Before, when Dad had the fuel and supplies to keep her running sweetly.

  No, I tell myself. You're not hearing anyone. You're not.

  But you are, says Katie.

  Goddamnit.

  I know where the pleading voice is coming from. Not from my cell and not from mad corner of my mind. For that, at least, I am grateful.

  I crouch down in the corner. I force myself to ignore the acrid stench of urine and place my ear over the small hole. I feel the faint caress of a rising breeze and distant gasping, like a man struggling to draw breath while lost in the depths of a fever.

  "Is someone there?" he asks.

  Yes. I think. I'm here. So I say it.

  "Please. Oh please, help me. I'm on fire. My skin is melting. My hair, oh god. All my hair." The voice is that of a man, but so bereft of hope that he sounds like nothing more than a lost boy. It sounds familiar. Like the ghost of someone I once knew. "I need water. Please. Can't you hear me?"

  "I can hear you."

  "Please. I need water. I'm on fire. Oh god, oh god." His voice lifts into an unholy shriek that rises out of the hole like a fist and sends me staggering backwards. "It burns!"

  He howls like an animal caught in a cruel trap, before sinking in a blubbering cry as if he was drowning in a black mire.

  In the quiet that follows I feel the deep thrumming of distant engines, like drums in the jungle summoning warriors. I sit back against the wall and try not to think that soon I will share the man's agony.

  Why else would the Green Lord take you?

  My conversations with Katie always had the logic of a dream, so I don’t question that I can now see her clearly despite the pitch black of my cell. It has been years since I saw my sister in the flesh. Years that are etched around her eyes and mouth. She would be twenty-three.

  Oh, he's probably got a tea party set up for me, I reply. Cakes and sweets and Turkish delight.

  It's rare I can get Katie to laugh. She buries hers in a snort. Maybe. He does seem a little obsessed with you.

  What is it with these guys? Is it just alpha male creep shit?

  You had to cut the Pale King in half before he got the message. Now the Green Lord is giving you the cold shoulder. What are you laughing at?

  Their names. What did Zac say the others were called?

  The God of Rocks and Creeping Things. The Pneuma of the Great and Empty Desert.

  That's what I mean. What the hell is a Pneuma?

  You should've asked Mr Dictionary while you had the chance.

  Poor Zac. Christ, I hope they made it. They did, right?

  Katie gives me a long, sardonic look. I'm imaginary, not magic. I know what you know, kiddo.

  Then what good are you?

  I would’ve thought my charming company would be enough. But you only dredge me up when you have no one else to talk to. I feel so used.

  That's harsh.

  But fair. It's okay, I'm cool with it. So... Abigail, right?

  It's her, isn't it? She's played Zac like a fiddle. Played all of us. A servant of the Green Lord and we let her into our confidence like fools. It's no wonder he knew we were coming. It's no wonder we walked into an ambush. She was feeding Zac bait the whole way.

  So why did you let her?

  For the same reason I took Alan on my crew. That I let Michael join the fleet. For the same reason I make any decision I later regret. I went against my instincts.

  Matty, your instincts are always to sail away from anyone who gets close to you. We're trying a new thing, remember? We're trying to be part of a society.

  Oh yeah. Well, being part of society sucks.

  Yeah yeah, wah wah, woof woof. You want to talk about it? Let's talk. There is an implied assumption in your line of thinking. You're accepting they really can communicate telepathically.

  Do you doubt it? The chanting, the coordination?

  Fish school and birds flock in great swarms that move as one. That's not magic. But you're saying the disease grants them supernatural powers.

  You mean besides great strength, invulnerabilities, that whole exploding in sunlight thing? And let's not forget how the Pale King reached into my mind and took me into... the void between stars.

  Seeing ain't believing. You are prone to vision and delusions.

  I am not.

  Matty, you're talking to your invisible friend.

  You're different.

  I'm touched. I bet you say that to all your delusions.

  Well, at least I know you're not an agent of the Green Lord.

  And how's that?

  They try to win me over with kindness.

  Yeah. She looks around at our cell and shivers. So very kind. Let's get back on track. Abigail. She played Zac and played you? Is that the working theory?

  Reuben was waiting for us. It was an ambush.

  They could have taken us on the beach when we first landed. They could've shot the canoes to pieces as we came in.

  You know what these alphas are like. What people like Reuben are like. They don't just kill you. They have to prove their superiority first. They were watching as we explored. Having a good laugh as I dealt with Michael. Probably were behind that too; getting into his mind, making him—

  I trail off as Katie gives me one of her patented, 'you idiot' looks. I don’t think Michael needed any help acting like a fool.

  Okay. Good point.

  The Green Lord didn't need a man – or woman – on the inside. We turned up, they watched us for a bit, Reuben baited you and you reacted. If you had chased Reuben from the village then he would have led you into a different trap. As it was, he followed up your move back to the resort with an attack. It isn't magic, Matty. It's just good planning.

  But these guys don't plan. They're arrogant and cunning, but they don't plan like that. And the masalai, they're monsters. Beasts shaped by the plague.

  Assumptions again. Reuben might not plan. The masalai definitely not. But someone here has got smarts. Someone is tactical. Think about what Dad would've said. How would he have characterised what happened at the resort?

  He would've called it something like a dynamic multi-stage ambush.

  And what else would he have said? You know what I mean. You've known for a while, and you don't want to admit it.

  Oh, get stuffed. I know what you're talking about. But if I was wrong then...

  Yeah. That's my point. Your whole plan was based on the assumption that the Green Lord had sent out his fleets. That his base was undefended. That the prisoner spoke the truth. Was that the case?

  No.

  No.

  My cell feels very cold and small. I curl up on the floor and lay my head against the wet floor. Katie has disappeared. All I have is my pain and the numbness that steals over me as the stone robs me of warmth and leaves the cold certainty that I have made a terrible mistake. I listen to the distant hum of engines and the faint sobs as a man feels his humanity drain away.

  I can't even feel that.

  ***

  I have no fear of the dark. I have spent many nights sailing blind. When there was no moon and low clouds blanketed the stars. S
urrounded by a darkness so deep and complete that I could not see my hand in front of my face. The boat ploughing through an invisible sea. The wind shrieking like a banshee in the rigging and the bow pounding through waves. With no power for the lights and no fuel for a lamp and the only glimmer of illumination courtesy of the faint radioactive sliver of tritium marking north on my compass. There is nothing as long as a cold, moonless night. Every time I saw the first tinge of fire in the east, I felt as if I had cheated death for one more day.

  The cell is different. Even in the darkest night at sea, there was the motion of the ocean, the cry of the wind, to tell me the outside world existed beyond the veil that cloaked my sight. But now the man has quietened, and the distant rumble of engines ceased, and there is nothing to prove that the world beyond my skin is anything more than a memory.

  The only sign that time passes is the growing hunger that twists my belly into knots. When my muscles cramp, I stretch gratefully against the pain. At least it tells me I am still alive.

  Katie?

  Nothing.

  My tongue feels like a fist in my mouth. I run my hands over the walls, hoping to find a trickle of moisture. A sheen of condensation that I could lick. But the stone is cold and dry.

  I don't fear the dark. Nor do I fear the waiting. You get to be patient when you live your lives according to the rhythm of seasons, tides, and winds.

  It is the stillness that I hate.

  ***

  Time passes.

  ***

  The flickering light that banishes the gloom and lets me know I have survived another endless night is not the sun rising in the east but a spluttering lantern held by a man whose face is so gaunt and wasted that at first I think he is a masalai. I was asleep so deeply I slumbered until he kicked me gently in the ribs.

  "Come on you," he says. His voice has the rough edges of a lifetime smoker and is tinged with a faint English accent. He wears a silver loop in one ear, and his skin is seamed like dried apricot. "I expect you'll be wanting some food."

  It takes all my concentration to rise without staggering. My vision swims with stars and my head spins as powerful cramps grip my empty stomach. My instinct is to curse this man, whoever he is, but I fear that my dry throat could only offer a weak croak, so I settle for a scornful, defiant look.

  He studies me for a minute and then says, "No wonder he likes you." He turns and walks out the door with no further comment or gesture and, after a moment's confusion, I follow him.

  He holds his lantern high; it is a simple naked wick tucked into a glass bottle that sloshes with oil of some kind. The black smoke smells vaguely like burnt coconut. He walks down the passage without a backwards glance but he starts talking and I hurry after him so I don't miss a word.

  "You remind me of my first wife. Not my wife. Her daughter. My stepdaughter. Nasty, argumentative thing, she was. The daughter. Not that my wife was a peach either. Nasty bitches, both of them. But that's what you get with mixed race. I should've had my head examined, but I was young once. You want to live, you keep your nasty words to yourself. That's what I said to them and that's what I'll say to you. Fat lot of good it did either of them." He turns to me, so quickly I almost walk into his back. "You want food."

  I want to spit on him, to not admit a moment's weakness, so I hate myself when I find that my body betrays me and nods yes.

  "Of course you do. Typical. Led us on a merry chase. Kill our people. Then come to the door with a beggar's bowl. Don't worry. We've got plenty of food. Say what you like about the creepers, at least they don't bitch about food when they're hungry."

  The passage is a mix of nature and artifice; an ancient cleft in the rock enlarged by hand and shaped with concrete where nature did not conform with the military engineer's plan. We climb concrete steps set on naked grey stone and the ceiling lifts into a narrow vault. We pass an open doorway, and my eyes swim with tears at the sudden brightness. I glimpse gold and blue; sea or sky burnished by a low sun. Whether it is dawn or dusk I cannot say. A figure turns to me and, with a shock that hits me like a flogging sheet, I recognise the girl who manned the machine gun. Her face registers nothing as she turns away, lifting a pair of binoculars to glass the horizon.

  We keep climbing. I have not been listening to the man's ramblings until he says, "— of course we burnt the entire village. Not that it did much good, the natives are useless. It's not like we're racists, it's just that as a race they're completely useless. A few good ones, but even then they lack that essence, that vital spirit that would make them useful to the Lord. You don't talk much do you? I like that. I like a woman who can shut up."

  I am grateful that my voice does not betray me. "I'll talk to someone worthwhile."

  He looks back, with genuine hurt on his face. "I'm taking you to get food. There's no need to be rude."

  "Why bother feed me? Can't we just get this over with?"

  "Get what over with?"

  "You're taking me to see your Lord, aren't you?"

  "No. He's resting. First you eat. He said you had to eat." He pauses, troubled by something. His filed teeth look black in the dirty light. "You have to eat. He said you must eat."

  A hiss fills the air. For a moment I think it is something volcanic; a vent letting off pressure or a jet of steam breaking through the rocks. But then the hiss dips in tone and modulates into a crackle, and I realise it is the static of a radio channel.

  "The mess is this way," he says but I push past him. The next doorway opens onto a room lit by a dozen random small electric lanterns and torches. A man sits in a canvas chair at a trestle table, twisting the dials of a radio set. I walk slowly up to him, not quite believing what I see. He turns the SQUELCH knob and the static dies away to a faint crackle like a smouldering campfire. He looks at an analogue wristwatch with no strap sitting at the table. He clucks his tongue with annoyance before seeming to notice me for the first time. "Should she be in here?" he asks.

  The Englishman shrugs. "He said she could be freed. Who will she tell?"

  "That's an HF radio, isn't it?" Tattered, dog eared exercise books cover the table and the floor is littered with pencils worn down to stubs. "Where did you get it?"

  The radio man is in his early forties, and the left side of his face is knurled like old tree bark. The eye is a milky orb but still he manages to look amused as he says, "Mail order."

  My mind whirls at this: a working radio, a man checking his watch, obviously annoyed someone is late. "Who are you talking to?"

  "More like listening."

  "There are no live radio nets out there anymore. We would have heard them."

  "Hmm," says the man, tapping his sharpened teeth with a pencil. "Funny that."

  "Come on." The Englishman grabs my arm. His hand is firm, but there’s uncertainty in his eyes. He knows I’m important to the Green Lord for some reason. He wants to hurt me, but his cruelty is tempered by his fear of his master. The knowledge fills me with a sudden confidence.

  I shrug him off and look around the room. The lanterns are plugged into a narrow web of twisted wires that join a thicker cable running behind the radio. "Where are you getting power from?"

  "We're living in a volcano. Where do you think?"

  "Hydro?"

  "More like hydrothermal. There's a hot stream, runs twenty-four seven. Full of sulphur so we can't drink it. But it puts out a steady two hundred watts through a waterwheel."

  "Two hundred watts is nothing."

  "It's enough for this," he says. "It's enough to listen."

  "Come on," says the Englishman. I sense his growing confusion. This time I go with him; an angry man is one thing. But an angry, confused man is prone to act stupidly.

  I glance back as we leave the room. The radioman turns the dial slowly, his spare hand raised as if he could pluck a transmission from the electromagnetic spectrum with his fingers.

  We climb a narrow passage with yet more concrete steps. I wonder at this; why pour and set steps on the rock
instead of cutting them out? There must have been a calculation done at some point by the long departed architect; which was more efficient? I am strangely disquieted that they went with pouring concrete. Then the absurdity of my train of thought hits me. I’m in the hands of madmen who file their teeth to fangs to emulate a diseased monster, and I'm worried about how people built some stairs? I must be losing my mind.

  "Listen to me," says my guide. He stops and turns, thinking for a minute. He sits down and places the lantern by his feet. "You can't be asking questions. He's not going to like that. He doesn't like questions. But he likes giving answers. Your questions will mean nothing to him. You'll make him angry. Just listen to him though, and you'll get the answers you like."

  "What are you babbling about?"

  His eyes narrow in response to my annoyance. I couldn't give a damn. I'm hungry, my body is a litany of aches and the enemy I've long anticipated encountering is surrounded by chattering fools.

  "You think you're so smart, don't you? You think that surviving the way you have makes you special? You aren't special. You're not clever. You're a monster. You've done things. We all know it. You've done things as horrible as any villain from history. If it were up to us, we would feed you to the fire. See how special you feel then as the mountain swallows you whole. But it isn't up to us. We're not worthy of that call, don't you see? Because we're humans and humanity was a mistake, an evolutionary misstep. Have you ever read Nietzsche?"

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "Of course you haven’t. You only read engine manuals and..." He waves his hands away, dismissing whatever he thinks of me. "That's why he is so great. Because he saw that, he saw that we were the plague, we were the virus. We were choking the Earth and killing it with our plastic and waste and laziness and he did something about it. That's what makes him a great man." He nods now, filled with the confidence that is the most dangerous weapon of all true believers. "You'll see. You came here to kill him, but you'll see."