A City Called Smoke: The Territory 2

by Justin Woolley

  Squid shook his head. “No.”

  “You will remain there until I return.”

  The guard vanished momentarily until Squid saw him descending through the wooden structure of the tower on a ladder. Inside the base of the tower they saw him lift a hatch set in the ground and continued to descend, closing it over his head.

  Squid wondered what was down there, what an underground town looked like. He supposed it would be much like the Rock. Living underground made sense out here; it had always been much cooler inside the Rock than outside. Escaping the heat was worth it, even if that meant burrowing inside the earth.

  It wasn’t long until the guard re-emerged from the ground beneath the tower. He didn’t climb back up, though; instead he walked toward the group, stopping a short distance away, raising his rifle and aiming it at them.

  “Remain where you are,” the guard said. “You are expected.”

  “What do you mean, ‘expected’?” Squid asked, but the guard didn’t answer his question.

  “Move toward the gate slowly.”

  Squid turned to look at the others.

  “I suddenly have a bad feeling about this,” Lynn said. “How did they know we were coming?”

  “Maybe they’re just being cautious,” Squid said. “We’re outside the fence now, maybe they have to be extra careful who they let in.”

  “I gotta say I agree with Lynn,” Nim said. “I think probably we should be leaving.”

  “Of course you’d agree with Lynn,” Squid said. He felt annoyed that they would be reacting this way after everything they’d been through to get here. He was sure the town’s inhabitants were just being careful. He would be doing the same if strangers turned up wanting to be let into his town. He looked at the others.

  “Am I really the leader of this group?” Squid said.

  Lynn nodded. “You are.”

  “Then,” he said, “I say we go in. Archibald told us they would be helpful. He hasn’t been wrong so far.”

  “I said step forward to the gate,” the guard in black repeated. His voice was followed by the sound of his mechanical rifle being cocked and locked, ready to fire. The same sound echoed from the tops of the towers. They were ready to shoot them right there. “Do it now.”

  “I think it’s too late for us to leave anyway,” Mr. Stix said.

  The five of them walked forward until they stood in front of the gate on the downward-sloping roadway. The guard waited off to the side. Squid was still very aware that he kept his rifle trained on them. This wasn’t how he’d expected to be welcomed here. There was a creaking groan from in front of them as the gate began to move. The clunking of a heavy chain emanated from behind it as the monstrous gate was lifted inward and upward. When it had retracted about halfway to the roof of the tunnel it gave a shudder and stopped. Behind the gate was a rock-wall tunnel that continued downward at the same slight angle as the ramp. It was dimly lit by widely spaced lamps, the view quickly deteriorating into pitch black.

  The sound of footsteps echoed out of the tunnel and from the gloom came a close formation of soldiers marching in step, swords at their waists and rifles held identically against their shoulders. Their rhythmic footfalls continued as they marched out of the tunnel. The two lines of troops coming toward them split apart, one moving to either side of the group, and stopped with military precision, lifting their black boots and slamming them into the dirt. Their red cloaks fluttered gently in the breeze. Not soldiers, Squid realized, Holy Order clergymen. Oh no. He looked at Lynn. Her eyes were wide with fright. This was his fault. He had led them here.

  “Never mind,” Squid said to the guard. “We might just continue on.”

  Squid turned to take Lynn’s arm.

  “Run,” he said.

  Seeing him in motion the Holy Order clergymen lifted and cocked their rifles in near perfect unison. Squid froze in place. They wouldn’t make it two steps.

  A voice came from the tunnel. Another figure was emerging, a woman. She wore the dress of a Sister, identical in every way but one to those that Squid had seen in the Territory. He could remember the same intricate patterns of the lace over a thicker plain fabric, but instead of being white this dress was a deep, dark black.

  “I’d advise against that,” the woman in the black dress said. “Drop your bags and weapons on the ground.”

  There was no choice but to obey. The five of them did as they were told, slipping the bags they carried off their backs and letting them drop to the ground. Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes pulled the swords from their waists, Nim relinquished the dagger and Lynn the small axe she had kept despite being unable to wield it. They threw them with a clatter in a pile in front of them. Mr. Stix looked longingly at the small black case that contained his mechanical pistol before he tossed it, too, on top of the other weapons.

  “Collect all that,” the woman said to the four Holy Order clergymen closest to her, gesturing somewhat dismissively with her hand. The four clergymen broke rank, handing their rifles to the men next to them and moving forward to pick up the group’s possessions.

  “My mother gave me that pistol,” Mr. Stix said.

  “We’ll be sure to take good care of it,” the woman said. “We’ve always got a use for weapons.”

  “Who are you?” Lynn asked, panic coloring her words. “How are you out here?”

  “My name is Priestess Regina,” the woman in the black dress said.

  “You’re a Sister?” Lynn asked, a statement and a question in one.

  “A Black Sister, yes,” Regina said. “I am warden here. We had expected you earlier. It had crossed my mind that you had perished on your journey.”

  “No such luck,” Lynn said.

  “Indeed,” Regina said. “Though you won’t be here for long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The priestess didn’t answer her.

  “What is a Black Sister?” Squid asked.

  “We are Sisters of Glorious God the Redeemer, but with a special place in his plan. All Black Sisters have been exiled beyond the fence. Some chose a life of service to the Church after being banished, others had worn the white before they were sent away. A few, the noblest and most faithful among us, chose to come to this place voluntarily and live their life in black as the ultimate service to our Church.”

  “And what is this place?” Lynn asked. “Where are we?”

  “This is the only presence mankind maintains beyond the fence. It is a place of both sanctuary and punishment, a place for those who have been banished to live out their lives and maybe recover some purity. This is the prison of Glorious God the Redeemer, Lynnette Hermannsburg. This is Pitt.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The Administrator lifted his head as he heard the door to his cell creak open. He could see only through one eye, his left, and even then not very well. His vision was blurred in the center and wouldn’t clear no matter how many times he blinked. It was an effort to hold the eyelid open at all. His right eye had been swollen shut since the beating some Holy Order thugs had given him what must have been a week ago. It was only the most recent of a collection of beatings he had received; some seemed well organized and officially endorsed and others were more likely just the brutal tendencies of individual clergymen. He had always thought the Holy Order attracted those who dreamed of exercising power over others. He had taken each of the beatings, though. Part of him believed he still deserved it. He had allowed the Diggers to be destroyed, after all. He had failed his people.

  He cleared his throat before he tried to speak. It had been a long time since he’d tried and his throat was dry and tight. His lips were swollen and split and his voice sounded raspy, mumbled and unfamiliar.

  “Long time since you’ve visited,” the Administrator said. He knew who his visitor would be even before she entered the cell. She was the only visitor he’d ever had.

  “Yes,” the High Priestess said. “I’m afraid there’s been much to do. The government was left in quite a me
ss, you know.” She turned back to the door. “Clergyman,” she said, “could we get a little extra light in here, please?”

  “Of course, Your Holiness,” a voice replied from outside the door. A moment later the Administrator’s working eye was assaulted with the light of a portable gas lamp carried into the cell by a red-cloaked clergyman. It was a feeble light really, just a hand-held lantern, and yet after so long without light it felt as though he were gazing into the sun itself.

  “Well,” the High Priestess said, “you do look awful, Administrator – or, given that I have just signed the decree that has dissolved your government, should I simply call you Harold?”

  “You can call me whatever you like, you old bitch.”

  The High Priestess chuckled. “Nice to see you’ve still got some spark,” she said. “It makes me pity you less.”

  The Administrator already knew why she was here. If she’d officially dissolved the government then there was only one piece of business left that involved him.

  “Shall we go then?” he said.

  High Priestess Patricia continued to smile at him. “Indeed, Harold, indeed we shall. The Supreme Court is ready to sit in judgment of you for the crime of treason. I hope you can still walk.”

  The Administrator stood, the heavy chains shackling his wrists and ankles clinking as he moved. It was a difficult motion. His body had been bashed and bruised all over. He was certain that several of his ribs were broken and his muscles had begun to atrophy from lack of use. Still, he would walk out of here under his own power. Of that he was determined.

  Red-cloaked clergymen entered the cell and unlocked his manacles, leading him away to what he was certain would be nothing but a show of a trial in the Supreme Court. The High Priestess followed after them. Turning his head, the Administrator saw her moving gingerly, as if walking was troubling her, but still she looked like the cat who had finally caught an awfully elusive mouse.

  *

  If the Administrator had considered the gas lamp bad, emerging into the light of day was thousands of times worse. At first he had to keep his single functional eye closed as he stumbled along, led by the Holy Order until they were well out into the streets. Even as his eye adjusted, the white-hot sunlight was intensely painful. He kept his eye squinted almost closed, which meant he couldn’t see much of what was happening. He could make out red cloaks all around him and Sisters walking among them, and could see people staring at him from all along the sides of the street and leaning out of doors and the windows of buildings, watching as he was led to the court.

  He was being paraded. The courtroom within the Supreme Court building could be accessed from the prison through underground passageways, and yet he had been brought outside and taken on a meandering route through the streets of Alice so the people could see their once powerful Administrator, battered and broken, being led to his trial for treason. No doubt the High Priestess thought it would serve as an excellent deterrent for anyone who would oppose her, and maybe it would.

  As they brought him back around to the front of the Supreme Court he saw the Wall for the first time since he’d been locked away. The High Priestess hadn’t wasted any time in ensuring it was ready to protect the people against the ghouls. Much of this section had already been repaired, and other fortifications were well under way with wooden scaffolding covering large parts of the Wall like an external skeleton. He felt some relief, however small, that when he was gone at least the city would not fall. Still, he knew the High Priestess’s plan for those outside the Wall and it sickened him.

  As he was led toward the front of the Supreme Court there was a sudden eruption of sound. A concussive wave of air knocked the Administrator to the ground so that he was on his back before he could make sense of what had happened. His head spun and he couldn’t focus his single squinting eye. His ears sang with a high-pitched ring that dulled all other sound. Red cloaks flashed around him. People screamed. There were gunshots. All the while he lay on his back in the street, too shocked, too disoriented to move.

  He lifted his head and tried to see what was going on. Smoke rose from the front of the Supreme Court, or at least, what had been the front of the Supreme Court a moment ago. It was now a smouldering heap of strewn rubble, shattered stone and wood. In front of him he thought he saw red-cloaked clergymen fighting with each other, shooting at each other. What was happening? He tried to raise himself onto his elbows but as he did so he saw a clergyman coming toward him. The red-cloaked soldier raised his mechanical rifle and jabbed the butt, short and sharp, into the Administrator’s face. He collapsed back, unconscious.

  *

  When the Administrator woke he expected to find himself back in his cell or at least secured somewhere in the Supreme Court, but his surroundings were unfamiliar. He was on a bed staring up at a slowly rotating fan. His head hummed with a steady ache and he could feel the heat of the fresh lump on his forehead where he had been struck with the rifle butt. Just another wound to join all the rest. He looked around gingerly to see that he was in a small room with a sloped roof, an attic maybe. There were no windows, no furniture and no other occupants. At least, he had thought there were no other occupants until a tall dark figure emerged from the shadows, as he had always managed to do so well.

  “Good to see you, Your Honor,” Knox Soilwork said. “Sorry about the circumstances of your rescue, but a certain sense of confusion was necessary.”

  “Knox,” the Administrator said, his voice, even to his own ears, sounding even worse than before. “It’s not Your Honor, it’s just Harold now.”

  Knox Soilwork smiled. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

  “Oh, and Knox?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “What took you so damn long?”

  CHAPTER 26

  Lynn stumbled forward as the Holy Order clergyman pushed her from behind, trying to hurry her down the rocky tunnel. She turned and glared at him.

  “I can’t go any faster,” she said. “Have you tried walking in these things?”

  Heavy manacles were clasped around her ankles, the chain between them long enough to allow her to move, but only a shuffling half-step at a time. Her hands were similarly bound, the weight of the chain already starting to make her shoulders hurt and the metal clasps cutting into her wrists.

  The clergyman shoved her roughly again. “Move,” he said.

  She shot him another poisonous look. “You know what,” she said, “you’re a real piece of –”

  The red-cloaked clergyman’s hand flew out, the base of his open palm connecting with the bottom of her jaw and causing her teeth to slam together, her tongue caught between them. She cried out in pain, and tasted blood.

  “Hey!” She heard Nim’s voice from behind her, back up the tunnel. This was swiftly followed by another clergyman telling him to “Shut it!” and a grunt of pain from Nim. Lynn spat the blood that was quickly filling her mouth onto the ground. As always, she had let her temper flare. She needed to be more careful. In front of her, past several red cloaks, she could see Squid restrained by the same chains, struggling to slide his feet forward. She knew she needed to pick her battles but right now she couldn’t see a battle they could win. The salvation that Squid had been so enthusiastic about, the excitement of finding a settlement beyond the fence – the excitement that even she had begun to feel – had proved to be nothing but her worst nightmare. This was nothing but a stronghold of the enemy she had been trying to escape. In fact, this was probably the very prison they had intended to send her to in the first place, and she had just turned up at their front door.

  Lynn felt something like despair settle on her shoulders. They had found nothing beyond the fence after all, at least nothing but the same maniacs who lived within the fence. They had come all this way for nothing. Worse, she had the soul-crushing feeling that they were never going to leave this place. She didn’t think Priestess Regina’s insistence that they wouldn’t be here long meant they were going to be set
free with a pat on the back and a fresh load of supplies.

  Shouting, banging and a cacophony of other unrecognizable sound floated up the tunnel, growing louder as they neared the source. Soon, ahead of them, the tunnel opened out into an underground cavern that extended down below them. All around the walls were several levels of rooms cut directly into the rock. No, not rooms, Lynn realized, cells, the opening of each one covered by a thick-barred door. The cells were linked together with wooden walkways that encircled the roughly cylindrical space, spiralling down to the floor of the cavern five levels below. Other tunnels ran off from amid the cells, dimly lit corridors that seemed to end in a sheet of darkness. In the center of the space was a wooden tower, similar to the guard towers that stood outside but with several levels, spaced so the guards were able to watch the various levels of the prison. They had entered the cavernous space level with the top of the tower, and Lynn could see several Holy Order clergymen watching them, each brandishing a mechanical rifle.

  Some distance below them the floor of the main space was filled with people of all persuasions – young, old, male, female, even children. Each of them wore a simple blue shirt and pants. Dressed like that, and with all of them looking filthy and unkempt, Lynn couldn’t tell which of them had been Insiders and which had been Outsiders. They were all just prisoners of the Church here.

  The inside of the cavern was gloomy. There was no enormous mirrored chandelier as there had been in the Rock; instead there was a scattering of lamps burning around the edges of the rocky walls. The whole scene danced in shadow, a pattern of light and dark that played off the wooden walkways and sharp rock faces with the flickering of the gas lamps. Figures emerged and disappeared into the dark, seeming to walk into and out of walls as if they could pass through the stone itself. It was almost as if the place had been designed to make it difficult to navigate, difficult to follow, difficult to maintain an awareness of your surroundings. It was disorienting. Lynn thought back to the room of Ancestors’ eyes in the cathedral in Alice. This was just another invention of the Church, intended to confuse and crush those it needed to keep in line. She saw Squid in front of her, his eyes wide as he took it all in. No doubt he was mesmerized by it. He probably considered it something of a marvel, and she supposed he wouldn’t be wrong. It was impressive; depressing, but impressive.