A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

by Justin Woolley

  He shifted the weight on his backside from one bony cheek to the other. There wasn’t much room in this place to get comfortable. Below him he could feel the unmistakable texture of wood, floorboards nailed down with their edges packed so tightly together that not even a single beam of light could find a way to squeeze through.

  He held his hand in front of his face, bringing it closer and closer, straining to see it, but even as he felt his palm touch the end of his nose he couldn’t make it out. It was like the darkness had stolen every part of him. He was just a mind floating alone. Maybe, he thought, this was what happened when you died. Maybe some people were left like this, stuck hanging between life and death. For a moment he admitted that maybe he deserved this end, running away like he had done. But that was a fleeting thought; he was the most promising graduate the Academy had produced in years, after all. It would have been irresponsible of him to have done something as foolish as getting killed.

  “Hey!” he called out. It wasn’t the first time he had done so but it was worth trying again. “You should know that I’m a Digger, Trooper Melbourne Hermannsburg of the General’s Guard. Keeping me hostage is not wise. I have no doubt that you shall be hunted down and feel the full fury of the Territory’s finest.”

  He was somebody’s prisoner. That much he was sure of. Who exactly his captors were was a little less clear. He had escaped certain death at the hands of the ghouls only to be taken prisoner. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t feel guilty about leaving the general and the other Diggers behind, but they had certainly been killed. It was better that at least one of them survived to bring news of the attack—essential, even. He would be able to return to Alice and tell the tale of their gallant battle and narrow defeat at the hands of the enemy. He, of course, had battled on gamely and only just managed his own escape. It was only right that as the top graduate of the Academy this was how it would happen. He was certain that no one would find a reason to question that story. As a hero in the making, it was only fitting that it be him who outlived even the general himself.

  Melbourne felt as though he was leaning against bars. They pressed into his back, cold and hard, on either side of his spine. Suddenly a voice like a rotten apple spoke to him.

  “There’s food and water at your feet.”

  Melbourne felt around in the darkness and his fingers closed over, and half into, a tin cup of water. He raised it to his lips and drank greedily. Next to it was a torn-off chunk of bread that he tried to eat quickly but found it difficult to swallow down his dry throat and instead had to slow down and take smaller bites. A few minutes later there was a flash of light. In that moment Melbourne saw that he was in a cage covered over with heavy cloth as if he were an oversized pet parrot. A dark hand, the fingers of which wore several gold rings, placed another cup through the bars.

  “Keep drinking,” the voice said.

  This was how it had been since he had first awoken here. He had been sitting in the darkened cage and occasionally a hand would put bread or water in front of him. Sometimes it was a gloved hand, white and tattered; sometimes it was a small hand like a child’s, but usually it was the dark hand with the gold rings. It had been days now, he thought, maybe weeks, sitting in the darkness, and none of them had spoken to him except for a quick word for him to pass out an empty cup or plate.

  “I said,” Melbourne called out, “that you will face the full fury of the Diggers!”

  “I don’t think he’s heard, Captain,” said the voice that went with the rings.

  “Ay, Yellow,” said another voice, deeper but not as rotten. “Doesn’t seem like he has.”

  He had never heard his captors having a conversation before. Now they spoke loudly, clearly wanting him to overhear.

  “Heard what?” Melbourne said.

  “He seems to have recovered well enough,” said the ring-fingered man. “We should probably just let him know.”

  “Know what?”

  Then Melbourne’s eyes nearly flew back into his head as he was struck by bright light. He instinctively clamped his eyes shut to stop the sting.

  “Careful, matey,” the deeper voice said, “you’ve been in the dark for a while.”

  Slowly, when he felt the sting diminishing, Melbourne tried opening his eyes again. He had to close them two or three times before he could even hold them in a squint. As his eyes adjusted, the scene around him came into focus. He was indeed in a small cage. He could see the black cloth that had been draped over it sitting in a heaped pile on the ground. Not ground, he corrected himself, but deck. His cage was on the deck of a ship. Above the deck was a billowing air balloon, the entire ship held beneath it like a mouse in the talons of an eagle. He could feel the cold wind moving past his face. He was on the dirigible he had seen.

  Around him people were busy tying this rope, pulling that one or untying something else. He could hear the creaking of wood as the ship sailed through the air. There were people climbing the structure above like monkeys, flinging themselves across the rigging. But it was the two people in front of Melbourne’s cage that drew his attention. One was tall and wide shouldered, standing lopsided, resting most of his weight on a gnarled wooden cane. He had a red beard braided into thick tufts and identical-colored hair on his head, wild and unkempt beneath a black, curved-rim hat. He wore a red coat, black breeches and large black boots. The smaller man beside him was dark skinned with a broad nose and thick lips. He wore a piece of once-white cloth tied at the corners over his short-cropped hair. Melbourne shot a glance at the man’s hands. His fingers were covered in thick and thin, shiny and tarnished, jeweled and plain golden rings.

  “Haven’t you heard?” the little man said in the same wet accent Melbourne had heard through the dark. “Rumor has it the Diggers are gone.”

  “That’s why we sail inward,” said the man with the red beard. “With the Diggers gone we should be free to pillage and plunder.” He smiled a black-toothed smile. “We are pirates, after all.”

  CHAPTER 41

  The Administrator paced across the Council Room. He had been doing so for the last hour and it was beginning to put even Knox Soilwork on edge.

  “Your Honor,” he said as the Administrator passed him yet again, “I fear you are wearing the floor thin. Why don’t you have something to eat?”

  “How long ago were they spotted on the outskirts of the city?”

  “About two hours ago, Your Honor.”

  “So they should be here any minute?”

  “Well, that’s likely, Your Honor, but it depends how long they are held up in the slums. By all accounts the road is getting progressively more overrun by the rabble down there. We should really do something about that.”

  “I hardly think that is the most pressing issue we face, Knox,” said the Administrator as he reached the wall, pirouetted on his heels and started back the other way. “I am much more concerned about the arrival of the Apprentices.”

  “May I be blunt, Your Honor?” asked Knox Soilwork in drawn-out tones.

  The Administrator laughed. “When are you not?”

  “Why are you so concerned about these three children?”

  The Administrator stopped his pacing and turned to look at his Chief Minister. “If what the old crone says is true, then one of these children will bring about the end of Alice. If that is not a concern, then I don’t know what is.”

  “Your Honor,” Knox Soilwork said, “it is unlike you to take the words of High Priestess Patricia at face value, particularly when discussing nonsensical prophecy written so many hundreds of years ago. I do not think you should be concerned.”

  “Good,” said the Administrator, beginning another lap of pacing, “I will take your lack of concern under advisement. I, however, happen to have an altogether bad feeling about this.”

  *

  There had been a time when the Alice Inside was the only place Lynn had ever wanted to be. She could never have imagined venturing out into the filthy Outside, except maybe a
s a Digger heading out on an adventure, but now, as they drew near to the city, the Alice Inside was the very last place Lynn wanted to be.

  There was no subtlety in the beginning of Alice. There came a point during their approach where the city suddenly started, the slums surrounding the city, at least. Lynn remembered looking out at the slums from within the city. She had never liked them then—they had always disgusted her, in fact—but now as she rode through them seeing the crowded buildings filled with the poor, the forgotten, the elderly, the diseased and the crippled, she felt something different. She felt pity. The people living beyond the walls were still people, just like those inside the walls. She felt sudden guilt that she had been like all those inside the walls, all those too selfish to share what they had with the less fortunate. Everyone out here was just trying to survive. The sounds of talking and yelling and children playing in the winding streets filled the air, although the sounds battled for space with the ever-present smell. Lynn looked at Squid riding beside her. He had clamped his forefinger and thumb over his nose in an attempt to avoid the stench.

  At some point in the past the slums had overtaken the original road into Alice and a new road had formed organically. It took them until dusk to reach the Wall. The sun had sunk below the horizon but some light still clung on to day. Under the blue-black sky Lynn saw the huge wooden gate in front of them. It was at least thirty feet tall and must have been five feet thick.

  This close to the Wall the streets widened and the houses, like the people, looked less forlorn and seemed only to beg occasionally. There were businesses here too. Lynn could see metalworkers, a baker and a shoemaker plus peculiar little stores selling all sorts of knick-knacks that Lynn didn’t recognize.

  Geelong, one of the Workmen who had accompanied Squid and Lynn on their journey back to Alice, dismounted and approached the city guard emerging from the exterior guardhouse. Lynn couldn’t hear what was being said. The guard looked past Geelong to Lynn and Squid and then, apparently begrudgingly, he moved back into the guardhouse and pulled the end of a rope that hung the entire height of the wall. Up above, Lynn could hear the faint ringing of a bell and slowly, with a familiar droning like the wood was complaining, the giant gates opened inward, just enough to allow their group to ride through.

  Now that had she had been Outside, Lynn saw that there could not have been a bigger shift of environment anywhere in the world than that of riding through the Great Gate. The road under them suddenly became the smoothest in the Territory, and gutters designed to carry the rain and other liquids to the sewer system bordered it. The buildings around them were not only bigger but they seemed much sturdier, and quite a few of them were built from stone, a single one of which would likely be worth more than all the slums combined. Here the city didn’t seem to loom over approaching travelers; the wealthy buildings were quite content to stand back and engage in proper stickybeaking from afar.

  Lynn, Squid and their companions passed through the city as they made their way toward Government House. Lynn tried her hardest not to think about being back here but the thoughts snuck into her mind anyway. There was the corner where the ice-cream shop was, the street where she’d had her run-in with the Holy Order, the street that led to her school, the street that led to her father’s house, the home she had lost. They passed all these things and she kept her head down, not wanting to look at them. Beside her Squid was wide eyed as he took in their surroundings.

  “Wow,” he said, and fell silent, as though he couldn’t find the words to describe how he felt about being inside the city of Alice for the very first time. Lynn tried to imagine what it would be like, never having seen the city.

  Government House looked as palatial as ever. Warmth exuded from the windows, evidence of the burning gas lamps within and the unregulated use of electricity. Passing through Steven Square they approached the black gate at the front of the Administrator’s property. Two guards hurried forward. Having taken on the role of spokesperson for the group, Geelong addressed them, something that Lynn was quite happy with. “Lynnette Hermannsburg and Squid Blanchflower, here by request of the Administrator.”

  The guards looked confused.

  “We are the last surviving Apprentices of the Diggers,” Lynn said.

  One of the guards turned to the other. “Call on the stables,” he said, “and have them prepared to take their horses.” The other guard, obviously the more junior of the two, bowed slightly and hurried off. The first looked at Lynn and Squid as they dismounted. The look on the guard’s face made it clear what he was thinking. If this was indicative of those who served the Diggers, no wonder they’d been wiped out. What he said was, “If you’ll follow me, please, I will take you to the Administrator directly. The stableboys will look after your horses and your men will be given accommodation.”

  Lynn nodded to Geelong, who nodded back in acknowledgment. He would lead the Workmen back to the now empty Digger barracks on the other side of the city. Lynn and Squid followed the guard through a long entranceway, along which portraits of past Administrators hung in a neat row. They made their way up a wide staircase to a mezzanine level with doorways and corridors that led to the rest of the house running off on either side, but directly in front of them were the large wooden doors to the Council Room. Lynn swallowed. It wasn’t until now that the butterflies had felt it necessary to take flight in her stomach. This was it, then. Her fate would be decided in this room.

  *

  The guard pushed the heavy doors, leaning on them with two arms to get them to swing inward. There was a heavy sound as air rushed to move out of the way. Squid looked into the long Council Room and his mouth fell open when he saw its high bannered roof. Aside from the main cavern in the Rock, it was the most impressive room Squid had ever seen. Squid and Lynn walked skittishly along the length of the room toward where the Administrator stood, staring out a window. Squid stopped more than once to admire the ancient decorations that covered the walls of the room. When he paused yet again to wonder how the large intricate cross beams managed to support the weight of the roof, Lynn turned back to him.

  “Squid,” she whispered, “will you come on?”

  Squid looked ahead to see that the Administrator had turned to face them, apparently eagerly awaiting their arrival. As he followed Lynn toward the large man Squid began gripping the familiar shape of the key through his shirt and moving it between his thumb and forefinger. He had heard of the Administrator, of course, but only in the same way as he had heard of the High Priestess; in a town as far from Alice as Dust, these figureheads were not people but symbols. He watched the Administrator’s eyes move between him and Lynn and settle on Lynn. It was then that a look of recognition registered. It dawned on the Administrator’s face like a surprised sunrise.

  “Lynnette Hermannsburg,” the Administrator said. Squid realized that the surprise was not a pleasant one. “Your disappearance caused quite a ruckus among the Sisters. What are you doing here?”

  It was Knox Soilwork who answered. “These are the remaining Apprentices of the Diggers, Your Honor. It appears that Miss Hermannsburg is one of them.”

  Squid wrapped his left hand over his right, which was already stoutly gripping the key. He did not like the way this tall, off-putting man emphasized Lynn’s title with a long hiss.

  “Thank you, Knox,” the Administrator said, “I have eyes. I was hoping perhaps Lynnette may wish to explain herself.”

  Squid, thus far relieved that the Administrator and this Knox man had apparently not noticed him, took a slow step back as Lynn took a strong step forward. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to support his friend, it was more that he wished he could do it by not speaking or, in fact, not being here at all.

  “I told you I would never join the Sisters. Instead I decided to do as my father would have wished and serve the Diggers in the time of the Territory’s need,” Lynn said, adding, deliberately slowly, “Your Honor.”

  “And you believed the best way to do thi
s was by breaking the law?” the Administrator said. “You realize the Church will have you up on charges of treason.”

  “You should be the one who faces charges of treason!” Lynn yelled. “You murdered my father and ordered the Diggers to their death!”

  Squid was used to Lynn’s outbursts but they weren’t usually directed at someone as powerful as the Administrator. Squid’s surprise manifested itself as a small choking sound in his throat which unfortunately drew the rapid-fire attention of both the Administrator and Knox Soilwork. Four glaring eyes landed on him at precisely the same moment. He clutched his key more tightly, palms sweaty.

  “And who are you, boy?” asked the Administrator, his anger at Lynn’s diatribe seemingly directed at Squid now.

  Squid felt the familiar feeling of rising heat in his face.

  “You must answer when spoken to by the Administrator,” Knox Soilwork said.

  Squid was sure his knees were audibly knocking together.

  “This is Squid Blanchflower, Apprentice of the Diggers and until recently in the service of Lieutenant Argus Walter,” Lynn said. “And a boy braver than any man here.”

  “Is that so?” the Administrator said as he began to walk toward Squid, “Apprentice, you served with Lynnette?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The correct title to use when addressing the Administrator is ‘Your Honor,’” snarled Knox Soilwork.

  Squid glanced at Knox Soilwork and then back to the Administrator.

  “During the time you served alongside her, were you aware that she was on the run, having abandoned her duty with the Sisters of Glorious God the Redeemer?”

  “No, sir,” Squid managed to stammer, “I mean, Your Honor.”