Blackthorn

by Terry Tyler

  "I have a city that runs like a well-oiled machine, all but crime and trouble-free, and I will ever be remembered as Saint Wolf, who tamed Blackthorn and introduced meaning into the lives of the masses. Whilst you, you charismatic bastard, will rule over the whole friggin' circus when I'm gone. We won."

  "And so fucking easy." Ryder sounds quite bewildered. "I expected more resistance."

  "Like I said, the success was in the detail. They hear about Sceptic Vic's midnight enlightenment and they want one, too, so they have one. The mind is highly adept at convincing itself. These idiots who reckon they've experienced their moment―they really believe they have. They don't realise that they've conjured it up themselves."

  My whole world caves in.

  "Do you ever feel guilty?" Ryder.

  "Hell, no! If you're dumb enough to believe in a supernatural being just because some handsome traveller tells you he had a vision, you deserve all you get!"

  They both find this uproariously funny.

  My heart is thudding so hard I am surprised they can't hear it.

  It can't be.

  It can't be, but it is.

  It's all a lie.

  There is no Light.

  I think of that wonderful day when I saw Ryder in the spirit field. The day I found my faith.

  Parks sent me to follow Ryder, on Wolf's instruction.

  Is he part of the deception, too?

  My head feels as though it might burst, as scenarios fade in, fade out―the curious presence of Vic, yesterday. Moonlight, evicted because she could see through the lie. One day you'll realise what bullshit this is. The House of Angels―the whispers I heard, from those who said it was nothing more than an excuse to reopen the brothel.

  If I felt foolish before, lying on this mezzanine in fear of being discovered, it is nothing to how I feel now.

  Only an hour ago I believed the Light had answered my prayers, entered my heart and soul. Even now, it is hard to accept that it was all in my mind, but it was, because the Light does not exist.

  I heard about others' euphoric moment, and wanted one of my own. But it's worse than that: I conjured it up to give my life meaning, because I have nothing else.

  To make believe I mattered.

  Poor gullible old Hemsley, who thought he'd had a spiritual enlightenment.

  Poor old Hemsley.

  Those words hurt more than anything. More than the lie.

  I have always known that I am not the sort to inspire love or even friendship. But I thought I had earned the respect of the man to whom I have given my life.

  Yet all the time he was laughing at me. Laughing at his errand boy with no balls.

  They're chattering again.

  "It's been a long game," says Ryder, "and it will continue to be so."

  "Yes, but you can be less hands on, now, 'specially now we've got Star doing the donkey work."

  "Yes, that's good. I might recruit another like her, so I won't have to do any bloody prayer meetings at all―you have no idea how fucking tedious they are!" They laugh. "And I might phase out the Angels of the Light once I'm running the show."

  Silence.

  "You know I wasn't happy about that, don't you? A step too far. You know; Indra."

  "Yes, that was a shame. I thought Slovis and Ogg would behave themselves once I'd given them what they wanted; I misjudged. But I'd keep it, if I were you; it's popular, on the whole, and it's correcting the birth-rate imbalance, but if you want to make changes once I've gone, it's all yours."

  "I can't believe you're talking about it so matter-of-factly. About when you're gone, I mean."

  "Yeah, well, I'm no coward. Or maybe I am; I don't know. But I'm buggered if I'm going to be fed like a baby because I can't hold a damn spoon. I don't intend to hear one whisper about my not being fit to govern; that, to me, would be the real hell. I've always lived life on my own terms; I'll die that way, too." Pause. "No, don't. I'd prefer not to talk about it, to be honest. I've made my decision, but it's not the easiest thing to think about."

  I hear a rustling of paper, and peep down. Wolf is unrolling a sheet of diagrams, plans, but I can't see exactly what.

  "You'll organise the building of my statue, for the gardens, and my portrait will hang in the Town Hall, above those of my father, Thorn and Phoenix, okay?" He laughs. "If there really is any sort of afterlife―because who knows? There might be!―I want to look down on my city and see people thinking, yeah, Wolf North was fucking awesome, the best of the lot. I decide how the history books will see me. Me. There will be no more Norths. I'll be remembered like Elizabeth I, the last Tudor―or Charles III, the last monarch of the old world!"

  "Sounds good."

  "It does. And when Star's doing all the spiritual guidance crap, you can enjoy having an army of minions to service your every whim. Get yourself a wife, more than one if you like―or you can take a complete break, bugger off for months at a time; I know it's been a trial, being stuck here all this time."

  "I'll drink to that!"

  Clink, go those glasses.

  I am empty.

  Everything that gave Lieutenant August Hemsley's life meaning has just been obliterated.

  They drink, they continue to jest about their great hoax, but I cannot listen. I don't want to hear my name again; not that they have anything further to say about me, for poor old Hemsley is a person of no consequence.

  I stare at the ceiling, and think of happier times. My childhood; I think about my sister, and my mother.

  Ma's little Gus.

  I turn off the evil below me, and picture only happiness; Ma, Holly and me playing in the happy woods. That was what Holly and I called a particularly beautiful section of woods over by the north wall, when we were children.

  Everything else has crumbled away.

  I have my books, but that alone is not enough to sustain a life. Less than an hour ago I revelled in a fantasy of having all the time in the world to read every book in this library. But life isn't about books.

  Everything that's worth a damn is about people.

  After a while, I hear them get up.

  Wolf says, "And if ever you feel bad, don't. You've given these poor bastards something to live for. Who cares if it's not true? It's all in the mind!"

  They walk out of the room―and, at last, I can leave.

  It's not difficult to slip out of the house unnoticed. All I have to do is wait until the entrance hall is clear of servants. Danny Foster and his fellow guard merely nod to me; I expect they've forgotten that I even mentioned some new cleaner.

  Tara might mention to Wolf that I was here, but I doubt it; I am always in and out. I'll deal with that problem if it arises.

  I no longer care.

  I head for the jail block, where I will confirm what I already know: Jay Field is not there.

  I wonder if Ryder knows about this side of Wolf's life. I imagine not. Maybe he hears the gossip; if he does, I doubt he cares. For he is not the man I thought he was. He is a narcissistic fraud of the worst kind.

  As I walk through the North Garden, I see Parks heading my way.

  He stops; he looks shifty.

  I wait for him to speak.

  He says, "Are we good?"

  I say, "I don't know. Are we?"

  He looks surprised. I can see the wheels of his brain turning: what's this, Hemsley being challenging?

  "About that little business yesterday. The prisoner."

  "He had a name. Jay Field. Where is he?"

  He stares at me. "Somewhere. Nowhere."

  "Do I need you to confirm what that means?"

  He looks from side to side, as if someone might overhear. "It was Jet. I was just there to help clear up."

  I have no need to go to the jail block.

  I use a word popular with particularly insolent shackers. "Whatever."

  Answering in this way feels surprisingly good; I can understand why they do it.

  I walk on; I feel his eyes boring into my back.


  I don't care about Parks. Or Wolf, or any of the grasping, self-serving bullies with whom I have surrounded myself for too long. Right now, I have only one issue to take care of.

  I have to tell Evie that her friend has been murdered.

  The rest, I will deal with later.

  Farther on, I see Sarah Thomas and Violet Lincoln, walking towards me in full lieutenant garb; sturdy boots, tunics over their top clothes with the insignia that shows their station in this vile city. As they come close, both put their hands to their chests and hold out their palms for me to touch. My instinct is to ignore the gesture, even to force out an example of the toilet language I would never use, but I must be careful. I must not draw attention to myself, until I have decided what course of action to take.

  I touch their palms with mine.

  "Live in the Light," I say.

  I see nothing but warmth on their faces. They, too, have been taken in.

  I walk on, towards Shackers' End.

  Chapter 32

  Wolf North

  One Year Earlier

  All lieutenants had been given the same instruction: 'Tell me when the traveller Ryder Swift returns. The minute he walks through that gate, I want to see him. Before he registers for work, before he visits the shacks, before he takes a step into any other area of the city, bring him to me.'

  As soon as Swift walked into the reception lounge, Wolf knew his idea had all the legs it would need.

  He caught his breath; he'd forgotten how breathtakingly perfect Ryder was. Even more important than the dazzling eyes, the heart-breaking bone structure and strong, broad shoulders, though, was a rare, indefinable quality that commanded attention. Wolf had observed his arrival using binoculars, from his library's south window; even Parks and Ward, both firmly heterosexual, smiled more than usual as they talked to him, their eyes never leaving his face.

  He'd read about people blessed with this degree of charisma, but thought they existed only in the pages of fiction until he met Ryder Swift.

  His smile might have made Wolf's heart ache, had he been a weaker man. Instead he remained in control, inviting his guest to sit, offering him wine.

  "You're quite the hero down in Shackers' End, are you not?" he said.

  Ryder appeared pleased but slightly bemused, opening his mouth to speak, but Wolf stopped him. "No―I've got no time for false modesty. You know what you've got, and how to use it to get what you want." Wolf stretched, hands meeting behind his head. "Is that a fair assessment?"

  Ryder sat back, relaxed, and raised his glass to his lips. "I guess."

  "Good. I have a proposal for you."

  He enjoyed Ryder's apprehension, deciding to play on it for a moment before saying, "Not that sort of proposal. You're not my type."

  Oh, but he was. Surely he would be anyone's type. Had he been that weaker man, if it were not essential that he prevent Blackthorn from falling into the sort of turmoil that preceded revolution and a coup by the workforce, Wolf could easily have developed a dangerous obsession with this dusty Adonis who sat before him.

  But that would not happen. Control was all. Ryder's friendship would be enough. The shared secret, that would bring them close together.

  "Let's hear it, then," said the man with the golden hair.

  Wolf shifted in his seat, allowing his face to show a measure of discomfort.

  "I have two problems. The second I will get to; the first, you are going to help me solve."

  "Shoot."

  Ryder listened without comment as Wolf described to him a city going to the bad, with food production suffering through protests and strikes. How harsher sentences and harder beatings were having the opposite of the desired effect, with Darius Fletcher and his men a big fucking thorn in his backside.

  How he foresaw that by the end of the forthcoming winter, the workers might well try to take control of the city. In such a war many would die, whatever the outcome. Blackthorn would take years to recover―and the putting down of one rebellion did not mean that another would not take place thereafter.

  He could see that Ryder was tempted, several times, to interrupt with his own comments, experiences or solutions, but he was wise enough not to; Wolf liked this. At the end of his speech, he said, "What these people need is not punishment, but a purpose. Something to live for. And you're going to give it to them."

  Ryder's eyes narrowed, an intrigued smile playing around his lips. His face showed a complete absence of self-doubt; ultimate confidence, the knowledge that whatever this task entailed, he was up to the challenge.

  This was the moment when Wolf knew his plan would work. Beneath the attractive veneer of a selfless, happy-go-lucky traveller so beloved by the shackers was a showman who fed on adoration; a peacock who actively courted it, because it was like oxygen to him.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  And so Wolf spoke of his extensive research into the great leaders of history, which had taken him on to, amongst other related aspects, the spread of religion. He ended with a little piece of post-Fall history told to him by his grandfather, Thorn, many years before.

  Even before 2024, the Christian religion in the UK had been on the wane for decades. Church congregations were so sparse that churches themselves were being sold off. The brutal devastation of the bat fever virus resulted in all but a few devout survivors rejecting any remaining belief in their gods.

  Wolf's great-grandfather, Phoenix North, grew up on the island of Lindisfarne, where the post-Fall community adopted the practice of planting trees at the heads of graves. Mourners found that they preferred the trees to the cold, marble headstones of the old world, because the trees lived and breathed.

  All it took was for one fanciful type (who happened to smoke a great deal of the island's marijuana crop) to claim that the souls of the dead lived on within those trees as they blossomed and bore fruit, for the belief to take root.

  People liked this idea. It made sense to them and, over the years, grew in popularity and spread countrywide, as Lindisfarners travelled south. In time, the souls were said to take care of land, even to protect the community.

  "The people had lost so much," Wolf explained to Ryder. "They needed to hold on to their loved ones, however they could. The resources of the old world soon became exhausted, with the first post-Fall communities completely dependent on their land, on the weather; thus, they were apt to develop pseudo-spiritual superstitions about the success or failure of their crops. The next generation were less educated, unworldly, so were more ready than their ancestors to accept such ideas without question, and so it went on. As you know, there's now a 'spirit field' in most settlements of any size."

  As Wolf read, he came to the conclusion that, in the same way as the first post-Fall generations needed the tree spirits, religions emerged because people needed to believe in the existence of a spiritual plane where death did not mean the end; a higher power, a divine world outside their own, to give their lives purpose and direction.

  Throughout history, clever men had seen this, and used it to their own advantage. For material gain, yes, but also as a way of keeping order. They promoted the idea that appeasement of this higher power would lead to good fortune and joy in this life, and eternal peace in the next.

  A month or so before Ryder Swift returned to Blackthorn, Wolf saw the solution to the problems of the city.

  Organised religion must make a comeback.

  "But it needs to be delivered to them by the right person. I believe that person to be you." A good choice of words; he played to Ryder's vanity. "The folk of Blackthorn are scared of hunger, of their loved ones dying, of attacks from outside―and of death itself. The nearer death seems, the more they think about something that's concerned man since he first developed conscious thought: what happens when we die. Yes, they've got their trees, but that's not enough. They need the promise of a heaven, like in the old world religions. They need guidance. Hope." He smiled. "If you were guaranteed eternal paradise after
death, wouldn't you mend your heathen ways?"

  Ryder nodded slowly.

  "How do we go about this?"

  Wolf selected a few books from the pile on his coffee table, and pushed them towards his guest. "Stay here for a few days. Have a read, and then we'll talk. I've got some ideas―I'd like to see what you come up with, too."

  Ryder picked up the books, and gave them a cursory flick through. Wolf saw the cogs of his brain ticking away behind those beautiful blue eyes.

  Finally, he looked up, and asked the question Wolf had been waiting for.

  "What's in it for me?"

  Wolf laughed, and held his arms out. "All this. All you see. It's all yours. Not yet, but soon."

  Ryder frowned, bemused. "How come?"

  "Ah. Now I'll tell you about my second problem."

  Ryder looked neither sympathetic nor shocked as Wolf told of his illness, and how he intended to choose the time and manner of his own death. This in itself was pleasing; the man who would make this plan succeed needed to possess a lack of genuine empathy.

  "My doctor tried to give me the optimistic version, but I have an extensive library; I have read all I can about it. I'd say I have a couple of years, maybe less. If you can turn my city around―and you will have anything and anyone at your disposal to make it happen―I will name you as my successor, to govern in my place. All I want is for the remainder of my time on this earth to be peaceful and problem-free, and to be remembered forever as the man who brought salvation to the new world. What I don't want is to be remembered as the North who let this great city get taken over by the rioting masses, because if it carries on the way it is there won't be a fucking city left to govern in a few years' time." He paused, for effect. "Other people's legacy is their kids. Mine is Blackthorn―and it's up to you to turn it into a shining city, the jewel of the new world."

  Chapter 33

  Evie

  Our shack's dark inside, 'cause it's only got two little windows. When I open the door Hemsley's got the light behind him, and I can't see his face properly, so I smile, thinking how nice it is that he's come all the way down to Shackers' End to see me.