It took them until dark to reach Dust. They could see the lamps and fires burning in the windows in the distance, as if the town was a beacon of light, guiding them in. It was, Lynn realized, all too much like the Territory itself, clustered together, shivering, alone and cold in the dark.
CHAPTER 37
The Administrator stood facing the large window in his bedroom. He stared at the city of Alice spread out below like a jumbled-up jigsaw, a scattering of stone, rusted metal and wooden pieces that didn’t seem to fit together.
“All of them?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Knox Soilwork, “all of them, with the exception of support staff and engineers.”
“Are we sure?”
“Three First Apprentices made it back to Dust during the night. We received word by telegraph this morning.”
The Administrator plucked at the three-day growth that grew short and sharp from his chin. This couldn’t be happening. The attack should have worked. Colonel Woomera had agreed. The horde should have been smaller. They should have been further away. He felt a tightness in his chest and bile rising into his throat. What had he done?
He found himself looking at the Wall in the distance, the structure that had once protected the Ancestors from the ghouls, the boundary between the Alice Inside and the Outside. Of the stretch he could see, much of the top had collapsed or been pillaged over the years so that it looked like a giant mouth had taken bites from it. Huge cracks, wide enough to walk through in places, had opened between the great stones it had been constructed from, some reaching from the top of the wall to the ground. It needed repairing. They may need that wall again.
“I want the Apprentices brought to me,” the Administrator said.
“I have already sent the reply,” Knox said, “though it will take them some time to return.”
“Call back all Workmen and engineers and inform the Holy Order we will need whatever men they can spare in defense of the city. Also I want you to task the Stonemason Guild with evaluating the Wall. I need to know what it would take to repair it.”
“Of course, Your Honor.”
“And Knox,” the Administrator said, turning from the window to look at him, “does the High Priestess know?”
And because things had a way of happening like this, at that moment the door to the bedroom opened. It swung wide on its hinges and hit the wall with a bang. Standing in the doorway, with a face devoid of anything but scorn, was High Priestess Patricia. Her pointing chin was thrust forward, her kitten-killing gaze taking in the room. She had a thick book under her arm.
“High Priestess, this is highly inappropriate,” Knox Soilwork objected. “This is the Administrator’s bedroom.”
“Hold your slithering tongue, Soilwork,” the High Priestess said. “You may leave us.”
Knox Soilwork took a deep breath and stood up straight, his feet together so that he was like a black tree that had taken root in the floor. He turned his long neck to look at the Administrator expectantly. The Administrator gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“Your Honor, surely—” Knox Soilwork started, but the Administrator cut him off.
“Thank you, Knox,” he said, “that will be all.”
Knox Soilwork looked from the Administrator to the High Priestess. He sucked in a heavy breath through his nose and tightened his lips. Clearly seeing that neither would change their mind he walked from the room, having to turn sideways to fit past the High Priestess. She turned her head and watched him walk down the corridor before she shut the heavy wooden door behind her.
The Administrator stood, plucking at his chin, while the High Priestess watched him. She seemed to be calculating exactly what to say, or perhaps she was just trying to hold in the torrent of angry abuse that threatened to spill forth. She ran her long, yellowing fingernails through her taut gray hair, which was pulled back, as always, in a bun.
“Your Honor,” she began, “I understand that you, against the wishes of the Ancestors and the word of God, sent the entire force of Diggers to their deaths. Your wish for your own glory and your prideful need for a historic battle has endangered the entire Territory.”
“High Priestess,” the Administrator said, “may I be frank?” He kept his expression bland. He would not give her the pleasure of seeing the guilt that burned inside him.
The High Priestess moved to sit in a green-cushioned high-backed chair in the corner, placing the large leather tome she carried gently on the floor beside her.
“What else can we be in a time like this?” She indicated a matching chair positioned a short distance away and facing the chair she sat in. “Sit, Your Honor.”
“I’d prefer to stand, Your Holiness,” the Administrator replied.
“As you please,” the old woman said, crossing her long legs.
The Administrator found himself thinking, not for the first time, that she would have been attractive once. Those long legs would have drawn some sinful looks from her congregation. Every time he had this thought in her presence he felt uncomfortable, as though maybe she knew what he was thinking.
“What do you wish to be frank about?” she said.
The Administrator looked at her for what he hoped would be a slightly uncomfortable amount of time. “You and I both know that the Ancestors do not speak through you. The command of the Central Territory’s military forces should rest with the Administrator. I sent the Diggers to do battle with our enemy on the advice of my military advisor. It seems the information we received from the boundary riders about the size and location of the horde was wrong. Still, the Diggers have at least scattered the horde somewhat and perhaps slowed it down. A smaller force would only have been destroyed with less to show for it. Now our attention must turn to mounting another defense. Perhaps the Holy Order can assist us.”
The Administrator said this with as much confidence as he could muster, but he knew that the horde would regroup and eventually, bolstered by the numbers of the dead, it would move towards Alice.
“I do not know that,” the High Priestess said.
“Surely you can see we must turn our attention to a new plan.”
“That is not what I am saying,” High Priestess Patricia said. “I am saying that I do not know that the Ancestors do not speak through me. My entire life I have felt the presence of something greater than us in the world and I have been guided by what I have believed this presence has wished. That, Your Honor, is the Ancestors’ voice. Even you could hear it if you listened.”
The Administrator felt his patience thinning. “If you are not here to berate me for the destruction of the Diggers, then why in the Ancestors’ curse are you here?”
What was the old crone waiting for? He wished she would deliver whatever punishment she had come to deliver and let him get on with figuring out how to clean up this forsaken mess.
“It is true that through disobeying the word of God you have broken the law,” the High Priestess said, “and personally I would like to see you brought up on charges of treason for your idiocy. But my life, like yours, exists for the protection of this Territory, and now is not the time for such measures. The punishment for your folly will come, but for now I am here to tell you a story.”
“A story?”
“Yes,” said the High Priestess, “a prophecy of Steven.”
The Administrator sighed.
“I think you will find this one interesting,” the High Priestess said as she picked up the book she had carried with her into the room. The book’s pages had been marked with so many silk ribbons and tassels over the years that it looked as though it wore some unfortunately colored party wig. As the High Priestess opened the book some loose pages moved and she gently pushed them back into place. Patricia ran her fingers through the book’s wig until she found the marker she was searching for, a dirty red silk ribbon, and she opened the book to the page it marked.
“Prophecy 12:1,” the High Priestess said, looking up at the Administrator. “Perhaps
you should sit.”
The Administrator glared at her for a moment, ready to defend his right as ruler of the Central Territory to make whatever decision he wished about whether to sit or stand, but decided in the end that it wasn’t worth the effort and sat in the chair opposite her.
“This is late in the life of Steven,” the High Priestess continued. “It is widely accepted that as he got older his prophecies looked further into the future and with more clarity than his earlier ones.”
“I suppose it’s easy to say that he had clarity when a prophecy is so far in the future that no one would be around to see whether or not they came true,” said the Administrator.
The High Priestess looked at him for a moment before continuing. “Three boys survived the Battle of Dust?” she said.
“That’s right,” the Administrator said, “First Apprentices.”
The High Priestess cleared her throat with a gentle noise. “Prophecy 12:1,” she repeated, and then read, “And so it was that Steven, he who led us to Alice, lay in his bed and was old and frail. And he spoke unto those of his followers who had gathered and said that this would not be forever. One day, as he had always said, we would take back the lands to the East and the West and the North and the South and that we would live beyond the walls and further. Then Steven said unto those of us who listened, ‘I know how this will happen. I have seen it in my dreams. There will be a great battle between men and the infected, one in which all will die but three. Of those who live a boy will be the bringer of the end of the Reckoning.’”
“It could be coincidence,” the Administrator said.
“It could be,” the High Priestess said, “but I do not believe it to be so.”
“Why have I never heard a prophecy of Steven that speaks of someone who brings the end of the Reckoning?”
“There are some prophecies that are not widely known,” the High Priestess said. “It is thought best that they are kept quiet.”
“The knowledge of a prophecy about the end of Reckoning would bring people hope; isn’t that the job of your order?”
“He is spoken of again later,” the High Priestess said, ignoring him as she gently turned two pages of the book. The pages were yellowed and thin and they cracked and popped in a way that suggested they might tear at any minute. “Here,” she said eventually, “Prophecy 13:13. And it is in the east that he will find the vaccine that will end the days of Reckoning.”
“The east; is he speaking of Big Smoke?” asked the Administrator. “And what is a vaccine?”
“The Prophet Steven refers to Big Smoke in other passages about the east, so it is our belief that he is speaking of Big Smoke here also,” the High Priestess said. “We do not know what a vaccine is, but the Church believes it to be some kind of weapon.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any reason why this should be kept secret,” said the Administrator, his voice ruffled by anger.
“There is more,” the High Priestess said, beginning to read again. “But the End of Reckoning will come with great loss. Alice as we know it will be destroyed.”
The Administrator looked at the High Priestess. “Alice will be destroyed?”
“You realize why this was kept quiet,” said the High Priestess, closing the book. “I would like to be present when these Apprentices return. We must ensure that they do not go anywhere. By no means should they be sent into the east. It is my suggestion that they be dealt with so that we won’t have to worry about them at all.”
The Administrator eyed the High Priestess without saying anything.
“And my other suggestion,” the High Priestess said, “is that you get started on repairing our Wall.”
CHAPTER 38
“I think you should encourage the people of Dust to pack up and move inward,” Lynn said to the Mayor of Dust. “Head for the larger towns. The horde will probably hang around at the battle site for a while yet, but eventually they’ll come this way.” She stared again at the words on the telegraph:
Surviving Apprentices of the Army of the Central Territory,
By order of The Administrator of the Central Territory you are hereby ordered to return immediately to Government House in Alice for debriefing.
In this matter my words are those of the Administrator.
Knox Soilwork, Chief Minister of the Central Territory.
Lynn, Squid and Darius stood in Mayor Rust’s office. It was small, with a window so dirty that it let in as much light as the surrounding walls. The air in the room hung heavy with a musty odor that suggested the window had been jammed shut so long that the air in the office was the same as had been in there for decades. The mayor sat in an old high-backed chair behind his desk, which was a solid piece of steel that looked like it had once been part of the water tower but was now raised precariously up to waist height on blocks of wood.
They had slept in the pub the previous night and despite being uncomfortably propped up in a chair Lynn had fallen asleep easily, a fact she still felt guilty about. How could she sleep after what had happened? All night her dreams had been a swirl of dust and blood and sound. Now this telegraph had come for them. They were being ordered back to Alice by the Administrator. What was she going to do? She couldn’t go back. Even if she kept up her disguise as Max she felt sure they would recognize her and she would be locked up in the cathedral and forced to join the Sisters, or worse.
“I’ll talk to the Workmen,” Lynn was saying to the mayor. “Some of them might be willing to stay behind. They are certainly not Diggers, but they are still numbers and can help get people out of the town if the ghouls regroup.”
The mayor was looking at Lynn. She could tell he was still unsure how to take the disastrous loss of the army and also a little taken aback that this Apprentice was telling him what to do, this Apprentice who’d turned out to be a girl.
“You think we should leave?” the mayor said.
“I don’t know,” Lynn answered. “But I think it might be a good idea.”
“But you’re from the Diggers. You must know about the tactics of ghouls.”
“I don’t think they have tactics.”
“Yes, of course,” Ferdinand Rust said. “Their behavior, then: what do you know about their behavior?”
“We are Apprentices,” Darius said, cutting into the conversation like a knife, “and we’ve only been that for a little while.”
Ferdinand Rust looked at Darius as if he had forgotten he was even in the room.
“I see,” said the mayor finally, considering this. “Well, that may be, but you’re the only Diggers we have now. We’re just a dirt-farming community, we need guidance.”
“You want guidance?” Darius said. “My advice is to listen to Lynn and get the Ancestors’ sweet sin out of here.”
“Darius,” Lynn said, “that’s not helping.” She turned back to the mayor. “I think you should convince the townspeople to leave.”
“Very well,” said the mayor.
“We will go ahead,” Lynn said, “and get back to Alice as fast as we can.”
Lynn looked at Darius and Squid. Darius still looked tired—they all did—but he had done little but sleep or talk about wanting to sleep since they had made it back to Dust. Squid, on the other hand, still hadn’t spoken to her at all.
“We will have another day’s rest,” Lynn said without taking her eyes off Darius, who was looking at the ground and yawning, “and leave in the morning.”
*
Later that day Lynn was sitting on the roof of the small hut under the water tower, staring along the main street of Dust and out into the infinite redness surrounding the town. She was thinking about her imminent return to Alice and the inevitable imprisonment that awaited her there. The Administrator was the one who had asked to see them; maybe he would take pity on her and hide the fact that she’d even returned from the Sisters, but she doubted it. Nothing got past the Sisters.
The roof of the hut began to shake slightly and she heard the rhythmic ta
pping of feet on the ladder below. She stood and watched the hatch as it was pushed open. She had wanted to be alone up here, alone with her thoughts, not that this was a problem she could solve by thinking. One way or another she had to face it.
It was Squid’s head that emerged from the hole in the roof. He looked around for a moment and then his eyes locked onto hers and he smiled a forced smile. She couldn’t help but return it. Squid pushed his small body up onto the roof and began to walk tentatively toward her, trying to stay on the line of nails that meant he was following one of the roof support beams.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said as he sat beside Lynn on the edge of the roof. Their legs dangled in the air.
“Yeah?” Lynn said.
“Yeah,” Squid answered.
Lynn stared at her feet. “All I ever wanted to be was a Digger like my dad,” she said. “My whole life I’ve wanted nothing else, and over and over again they told me I’d never be able to, that only boys could join the army. Everyone told me I should join the Sisters if I wanted to serve the Territory, but I could never do that.” She turned to Squid. “Have you seen the way the Church treats people, Squid? The way they lock them up or execute them simply for thinking something different? I could never be a part of that.”
“The sins of the father should not be the sins of the son,” Squid said, echoing the words of Lieutenant Walter.
Lynn nodded. “Exactly.” She sat in silence for a moment before speaking again. “My father was murdered, Squid.”
“Sorry, Lynn,” Squid said, because that’s what people always said when they heard something like that. “Who did it?”
“I don’t know,” said Lynn, “but I know who sent him and I’m going to find proof. The problem is I won’t be able to find anything if they lock me up when I get back to Alice. When my father was killed they sent me to the Sisters. They made me join, but I ran away. If I go back to Alice I’ll face charges of treason.”
A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 Page 22
