by Jaine Fenn
He hadn’t noticed her furtive activity. ‘They’re not demons, you know. We’ve just made them into bogey-men to make ourselves feel better for trying to wipe them out. People forget that they always had humanity’s best interests at heart.’
‘So they told our ancestors. And even if that was true during the Protectorate, it isn’t now. You’re more of an idiot than I ever was if you can’t see that,’ she said bitterly. ‘They use people, they destroy us.’
‘Use, yes. Destroy? No, these days they need all the allies they can get. They’ll give me what I want, and I’ll give them what they want.’
‘And what is it that you want?’
He had relaxed into the smug assurance of a born liar indulging in the truth now it no longer mattered. ‘I want power. It’s as simple as that. They want their renegade back, or dead, and from what Scarrion said, it looks like they already have that. And that is thanks in part to you - or rather, thanks to the “gift” they gave you.’ Mockingly he sketched a bow in her direction.
That confirmed it, if she had had any remaining doubts. He knew, better than her, what the Sidhe had done to her.
The curtain popped out of existence.
Salik pulled her through the gap.
Now he had stopped moving, Taro’s right wrist began to throb hard enough to distract him from his many other discomforts. Time to try another way in. He sighed, stepped away from the wall—
And froze.
Through the curtain of flame he glimpsed something moving below him. Somebody was in the throne room. He pressed as close to the crackling energy as he dared, trying to make out details, but all he could see was a vague shape moving towards the centre of the room.
‘Waiting for anything in particular?’
The domed chamber was massive, large enough for her entire house to fit in. Glowing red gaps opened into it at several levels, the flames flashing on and off in a not-quite-random pattern. The only object in the chamber was a statue of a kneeling figure, head bowed, arms by its sides. From the back of its neck a frozen multi-coloured fountain of wires, pipes and cables spread up and out to cover the ceiling, branching and expanding, disappearing off into the rock.
The air felt thick and heavy, a physical weight on the top of her head, like the moment before the first lightning discharge of a massive storm.
Salik dragged her towards the statue.
He stopped when they were a few metres from the figure. It was far larger than life and its surface was an oily blackness that looked almost alive to her dazed vision. Though the form was superficially human, an alien potency emanated from it.
Salik swung her round to face the statue, then let go of the tether holding her hands and raised the gun. He started to back towards the figure, the tip of the gun pointing unwaveringly at her head.
The figure’s body and kneeling legs formed a human-sized seat. Salik started to climb into the lap. It was a stretch and he had to reach out to pull himself up on the arm. As he did so, the tip of the gun rose momentarily.
And in that instant, Elarn dived away. She heard him scramble off the statue, but she was already running round the far side.
‘Come back here, you bitch!’ he screamed.
Scarrion stood four or five metres away up the passage. The flaming light played on the blood running down his face but he was smiling, holding his knife casually.
Even if Taro hadn’t already been hurt, even without the variable gravity, he doubted he could’ve hit Scarrion with a thrown fleck from here. And the Screamer had a far more effective range weapon.
From below, Taro heard a man’s voice shouting, but all his attention was focused on Scarrion.
With a tiny nod as if to say, This time we finish it, the Screamer stepped away from the wall and opened his mouth.
Elarn paused on the far side of the statue and shoved her bound hands into her pocket.
Over the ever-present hiss of the flaming energy and the roar in her head she heard Salik’s gun going off. She flinched and dodged away, still fumbling in her pocket. The tip of the downsider’s blade tore her finger. Other end, get hold of the other end, stupid! she told herself.
She ran towards a gap in the wall, head down, zigzagging as best as she could, on the verge of falling with every step, sure every breath was going to be her last. She had to buy herself enough time to get hold of the knife.
Her hand brushed rag and her fingers closed on the hilt. She slowed and glanced back. Salik was no more than three metres behind.
She stopped, turned to face him and started to totter back towards him.
He raised the gun, a feral grin on his face. Elarn watched his finger squeeze the trigger.
She felt the sting of the dart and barely resisted the urge to raise a hand to her cheek. The chill spread with terrifying speed, but she made herself close the distance, though her limbs were sluggish and the final darkness was already rising up within her.
Two steps away, with the last of her strength, she pulled the knife from her pocket and launched herself at him.
Nothing happened.
Scarrion closed his mouth and shook his head, perplexed.
Taro had a brief thought: The City allows no blasphemy in its Heart.
Scarrion smiled, and started to run down the slope.
They met in front of the flame wall.
Taro screamed, ‘I’ll kill you!’ and swiped out with his fleck. The Screamer laughed as he ducked; as Taro ran past he felt the sharp metal of the flesher’s knife rake his ribs. The wound was shallow; either Scarrion was playing with him, or blood was getting in his eyes.
Taro grunted and swung back round to face the Screamer. Though he couldn’t win, he had to fight.
He slashed again, though he didn’t hold out much hope of actually wounding Scarrion.
He didn’t - but the sight of Scarrion’s upraised arm silhouetted against the flame wall gave him an idea: given he was gonna die anyway, he may as well take the bastard with him.
Taro backed off, angling himself to get into the best position. Scarrion must’ve thought he was giving up, as his smile broadened.
One step back. Two. Taro was where he needed to be now.
He threw away his fleck.
Scarrion lifted his arm to wipe his eyes, as if to check that he really had just seen his opponent disarm himself. The moment he let his guard down, Taro charged.
He slammed his hands palm-first into Scarrion’s chest. The Screamer started to raise his knife, but either he was thrown by Taro’s bizarre change of tactics or his depth of vision was screwed by the blood in his eyes; whatever the reason, he was too slow and the blow connected. Agony spiked in Taro’s broken wrist and damaged finger but he didn’t stop. Caught by surprise and his attacker’s momentum, the Screamer had no choice: he staggered backwards.
One step. Two. Three.
Red light flared in Taro’s eyes. He braced himself for the final agony and pushed with all his strength. Just as he did so, Scarrion worked out what Taro was up to - but it was already too late—
Power erupted around the Screamer as he hit the curtain and disintegrated.
Taro, expecting the same fate, had his eyes shut. He felt the sudden intense heat—
And fell into emptiness . . .
There was a jarring impact and Taro found himself lying on the floor of the throne room with a fine black dust raining down on him and the stench of burnt flesh all around him. As it hit his nostrils he gulped back overwhelming nausea.
But it wasn’t over: on the far side of the room, two figures struggled together.
Taro picked himself up and started to run towards the throne.
She had finally surprised him. She saw it in his eyes as he raised a hand to fend her off, and saw the surprise grow into terror as her desperate backhand slash got past his guard and tore up into his neck.
Something hot covered her face and hands: blood, more of it than she had ever seen before. Salik’s blood. His body heat splashed over
the coldness that gripped her. Then they were falling, he backwards, she on top of him. He was screaming but finally she had her silence, the silence of the breath drawn before the final note is sung. She was beyond fear now, already in the arms of darkness.
By the time they hit the floor, her heart had stopped.
From the corner of his eye he saw Elarn and Vidoran fall, but he was focused on only one thing.
A few steps from the throne a note sounded in his head. The pure, perfect tone filled his mind. Suddenly it rose into a scream, climbing beyond hearing, an unheard sound tearing at the fabric of the world.
He fell to the ground, hands over his ears, eyes screwed shut.
As quickly as it’d begun, the scream ended.
Every light went out. Every sound died.
In the ringing silence, alone in the darkness, Taro raised himself onto all fours and started to crawl towards the throne.
The earth began to shake.
His fingers touched a chill, smooth surface. He had made it to his goal. He pulled himself up onto the seat and pressed himself back into it.
Cold needles found his neck. Instantly the growing tremors, the feel of the cold hard throne, the crushing darkness were all gone.
And so was his body. A wave of nothingness picked him up and carried him away.
The world returned in a mad, crazy rush, like sex, like chemicals, like being born. He had a body again.
Except it wasn’t his.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
In the Assembly Hall politicians cower under their benches while the High Speaker lies sprawled on his dais. A lone fragment of consciousness tries to slip back into the Speaker’s inert body, but it’s like trying to flex a deadened limb.
I am filled with echoes of other amputated islands of consciousness: one slumped at the head of a table in a boardroom on Silk Street; another on the floor by a bed in an Opera Street penthouse; a third lying in a pool of noodle soup by a bench at the end of Chow Street. All beyond reach now.
How can I be all those people?
Through half-blind eyes I see hundreds of others who are not part of me:
. . . below an ancient tree in the Gardens two strangers fuck like beasts, bodies sliding over each other, desperate that their end should be in ecstasy, not terror . . .
. . . outside a Memento Street hotel whose gilt and marble facings are cracked and skewed, a man is trying to pull the body of a child from under a fallen pillar, his cries for help ignored by the few people still standing . . .
. . . on Chance Street a riot has evolved, a confused rush of desperate humanity looting and screaming purposelessly . . .
. . . on Grace Street isolated groups of people pray together, while others stand transfixed, turning eyes wide with fear to the disintegrating heavens . . .
. . . Amnesia Street, the haunt of those already halfway out of reality back when reality was still a viable option, is empty now, save for the occasional prone figure, dead or paralysed . . .
How can I be in all these places?
Who am I?
What am I?
I look beyond sight for the answer.
Above the Streets the skin that covers me is breaking down. Soon the bubble of warmth that has endured a millennium against the thin air will disperse to the winds. Soon I will lose myself to the void.
The deep engines of decay and rebirth have fallen silent: the great breaths that take in foul air and excrete oxygen have faltered, the water that trickles down through filters and back up has dried up, the ingestion of used matter, the molecule-by-molecule conversions that create nourishment or structure from waste - all have stopped now.
My thousand-year heartbeat is slowing to nothing . . .
I am dying.
I do not know who I am, but I know that I am dying.
But I cannot die. I am eternal.
This must not happen. I must take control.
First, the skin that encloses me, and the million minds I watch and protect: I must draw energy from the planet’s core to feed the processes of transformation deep underground. Slowly, slowly, the swirl of energy starts to coalesce, to strengthen. I start to rebuild the forcedome—
But something else is wrong. While I am concentrating my efforts on my skin, I realise my very body is tipping off-balance, and if my unimaginable mass comes crashing down—I have to catch myself, stabilise myself, and centre myself, reach down to access the great devices that offset gravity. I must juggle the forces that bind the universe and harness them to my service . . .
But while I work on gravity, my control on the forcedome is slipping. The pressure of the gases trying to escape is ripping holes in the damaged fabric of my skin.
So many processes, so much to think about: too much. I cannot do this alone.
I cannot control all this—
The other presence slips in gently, supporting, augmenting his efforts, taking control of the forcedome, healing the wounds in his skin. He concentrates on the gravitational trickery that keeps the City afloat. It is stable, just. The other presence is here too, underpinning his own efforts, buoying him up in the vortex.
Soon he - they - start to deal with the myriad other problems. Deep down, the recycling systems start up again: water flows, power surges and the chill air starts to warm.
Together they are strong.
Now, for the first time, he wonders who he was before he was the City.
Human, like the tiny beings cowering and running about and dying: small, pathetic, insignificant, and yet strangely compelling beings. Could he really be one of them?
He addresses the unknown presence that is supporting and comforting him.
He looks, though he has no eyes. In a dark limbo, protected by the same presence sharing control of the City with him, a small pearl of life is curled in on itself. As he watches the pearl grows, strengthens.
He feels an invasion at the edges of his consciousness: the original mind, feeling its way back? No! This City is theirs now!
He starts to resist.
The voice is soft and sad.
She is right. He starts to comply, reluctantly allowing the growing consciousness that Nual has nurtured begin to take the reins of power from him.
He can no longer see the whole world, no longer sense the thousand complex processes that keep the City alive. He is shrinking, becoming reduced to a mere human boy. He starts to panic; if he is no longer the City he will no longer be anyone.
But she is still here, the presence that supported him and sheltered the City: his goddess, his love.
Suddenly he has a body again, a tiny, confining thing, damaged and insignificant. His soul is filled with the dull ache of pain and loss. He begins to collapse in on himself, fading, fading to nothing—
He is embraced, and knows it is her.
Taro opened his eyes. He was lying at the base of the throne. N
ual’s arms were wrapped around him as she cradled him in her lap.
With a supreme effort he looked up and focused. Her face was pale as bone beneath the dust and dried blood. Through the link they still shared he felt the other, more serious, physical injuries she was repressing.
