“I came here. To Ararat.”
Jonah frowned.
“We’d better sit, this may take a while.”
But Jonah was too excited, so Petreus talked while the boy walked back and forth.
“Do you recall that I was negotiating with the Lander delegation?”
Jonah nodded. “GK said you died along with two of them.”
“Well, yes and no. I was meeting with two Landers I’d not seen before: Padras Simeon, here, and Amma Melania. They’d appeared with the delegation and no one knew who they were. I met with them in secret. That’s when the bombs went off. There were two, do you remember? The first was located in the accommodation quarters. As soon as it happened I knew it was a bomb and I ran into the corridor to find you. It was mayhem.”
The trouser leg!
“But then the second blast happened and I was hit pretty badly.” He pulled back the cassock and revealed two stumps where his legs had been. They ended at his knees and were covered by bandages. No biomechanics in Ararat, it seemed.
“I was badly cut up and so was the building. I thought we might get blown out but the padras jumped on me and we did a Leap, just as you experienced. We tumbled for a long time, as if falling through water, and there was an incredible wind. I thought I was going to drown and we wrestled. But he’s stronger than he looks and he held me down until the noise and the vibrations became so great that I passed out. I woke up here, lying in the sunshine on this grass. I was confounded. One minute I was in a bomb blast in London, next I was looking up at blue sky and hearing the sound of a waterfall. And my own screams.”
“So you’ve been here all this time?” exclaimed Jonah. “It’s been eight months. We thought you were dead!”
“That’s what GK wanted you believe. I suppose he concocted some story about me being blown to bits – just some remains scraped off the walls to identify my body?”
“Yes, and they found your watch. And these.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out Petreus’ army tags.
“Ha! Looks like there’s a counterfeit Petreus buried at sea somewhere too,” said Petreus dangling his own metal plates from around his neck. “I’ve been lost without my watch, though,” and he laughed, pulling Jonah into a tight hug. “And what about you? Where have you been, stranger?”
Jonah didn’t know where to start so went back to the blast and the Rock and the crash landing in Egypt. This time he emphasized the role of Nassim in helping him see that Metricia was not all that it appeared. A tear rolled down his cheek as he described their last moments and his sense of guilt about failing to save her.
“You did the best you could, Jonah,” said his father. They embraced again and would have stayed that way had not the padras coughed politely.
“We have work to do,” he wheezed and ran a gaunt hand across his face. “Jonah, what can you recall of Abaddon?”
“Well, quite a lot. I just can’t tell you where it is. Agassi and I tried to locate it but we failed. I failed.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. That’s why you’ve come here. We plan to send you back to Abaddon, to plant a locator beacon, then to Leap back again. Agassi will do the rest.”
“We’re going back to Abaddon to rescue Nassim, you mean,” said Jonah.
The padras glanced at Petreus. Jonah knew that look.
“Oh, come on! Not you as well? Look, I’m all for destroying Abaddon. But there are people in there. Humans. My friends. We can’t just go and blow it up without getting the people out first.”
Petreus stroked his chin.
“How many people?”
“Um, I don’t know. Two for sure. But I doubt they were the only ones to be captured. I saw hundreds, maybe thousands of mutants. Where have they all come from?”
Neither man replied.
“Well?”
“He’s right, you know,” said Petreus, turning to the padras.
“Of course he’s right. But it makes it harder, no?”
“Harder to do what?” asked Jonah.
“Our task was hard enough,” said Petreus. “Leap in, plant the locator beacon, then leap out. That’s why we need you. Only you can direct the padras to the right location. You’re the only one who’s been there.”
“Okay but then what? What’s the point of the beacon?
“Agassi will do the rest with her mini-nukes.”
“Nuclear!”
“We can’t have a facility like Abaddon building this mutant army, Jonah. Do you realise the power that it gives the Council? It needs to be destroyed!”
“You’re going to drop a mini-nuke on all those people?”
“Well, we didn’t really think there would be any people there, just soldiers and, er, specimens.”
“Some of those specimens are my friends!”
“I can see that,” said Petreus, rubbing his chin even harder. “But the laboratory and its army must be destroyed before they perfect the process and have a Lander army at their disposal. What do you propose to do about that?”
Jonah rested his head in his hands. It had been such a long day; he felt overwhelmed. And guilty. Nassim had been in his thoughts like a distant memory. Now he put her centre-stage. She deserved it.
“Have you done a Leap with more than one other person?” he asked.
“Yes, but it’s very hard,” said the padras, shaking his head.
“But it can be done?”
“Yes, in theory.”
“This theory, has it ever been tested?”
“Once or twice. It depends.”
“On what? Microwaves? Radiation? Prayer beads?”
Petreus scowled at Jonah but the padras smiled. “Actually, none of these things. What matters most is the location. Have you heard of the expression ‘thin places’, Jonah?
He shook his head.
“A thin place straddles two worlds. It’s simultaneously in the physical world with its temporal elements of rock and air and also in the metaphysical world, of spirit and perfect form. These worlds exist in parallel and for the most part our only access from one to the other is through practice, such as prayer or meditation or through that ultimate rite, death. When we Leap, we cross worlds, creating thin places with the effort of our hearts and minds. But it’s hard, Jonah; it’s exhausting and full of danger. We’ve lost many who’ve crossed but never returned. We pray for their souls every day,” and he made a sign of the cross on his chest.
“So, these thin places. Where are they?” asked Jonah.
“This is one, Mt Ararat. It’s no accident that we have found safety here. When the patriarch Noah opened the door of his ark, it was Ararat that greeted him, welcoming him and his family from the world of hate, through water, to a world of hope. He crossed from one world to another.”
“Is Abaddon a thin place?”
“I don’t know. I hope so, for the sake of your friends. I do know that fire and light are coming like the wrath of God to destroy that place and those who dwell in it. It would be better that they were never born.”
“Not if we can get them out first.”
Silence fell as the three considered the challenge before them.
Eventually the padras spoke. “You’re right to feel such compassion, Jonah. It’s good. But to Leap with so many people ... it’s a risk. We may not return.”
“It’s a risk I’m prepared to take,” said Jonah.
The padras thought for a moment. “We’ll go with Amma. That way if we’re separated there’ll at least be more than one to take us all home.”
“I wish I could come too but, frankly I’ll be a liability,” said Petreus, waving one of the stumps in the air. Jonah grimaced. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. After years of wanting to see his father home from the battlefield it was now his turn to leave.
The padras spoke. “We must press on. Now Jonah, I don’t need a map, or at least not a geographical one. I need a map of the heart. I need to know this place as if it were my own home. I need you to give
me every detail you can, the colours, the shapes, the smells, the feelings, everything you can. It will seem exhausting and perhaps a little pedantic. But Leaping is not a science. It’s a practice. Just as it begins to feel repetitive, it begins to become effective. Tell me from the beginning, what did you see?”
So, for the third time Jonah retold the horror of Abaddon, where the rows of mutants stared at him with eyes full of fright. All the while Petreus listened intently and the waterfall cracked its way into the doleful lake.
— PART THREE —
Chapter 23 - Napoleon, the dwarf
They made a strange army: fourteen children in rags, draped in belts of ammunition and cradling sub-machine guns; and five grown men, tied up and nervous. Only the man in the chains, his hands bound in front, grinned wryly. “Caught by a girl, eh?” he whispered to the men. “Is this how it ends?”
“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” growled Nassim and she brandished a long, curved knife discovered among the bounty of last night’s ambush.
Silas Kabar laughed and bowed. “Do as you wish.”
Nassim grunted and turned away, her black scarf catching a breeze. She’d hardly slept. Silas Kabar’s revelations had unsettled her more than she’d realised. His knowledge of Abaddon gave him power and she felt threatened by it. Even after conspiring into the early hours with Afiz, she’d lain awake rehearsing not just what she planned to do, but how. Armies needed guns and strategy, all that was true. But first they needed a leader; she knew the next few days would test her. At dawn she rose and fashioned a new ensemble: a pleated, knee-length skirt over black pantaloons and a leather jacket, stolen from a dead bandit, nipped at the waist with a belt. She armed herself with the curved knife and a pistol. Around her neck she knotted a scarf that she could draw into a hood or facemask but at this moment fluttered in the morning wind.
Afiz walked down from the caves. “The children are fed and ready, Nassim.”
She heard him but didn’t answer and held up the knife, the curved blade balanced in her left hand.
“Nassim?” asked Afiz.
Slowly turning the knife and feeling its edge with her thumb she closed one eye and squinted down the blade as if inspecting it like a buyer at a bazaar.
“Nassim?” repeated Afiz.
“It’s a poor knife this,” she said.
“What?”
“The blade. It’s bent, slightly, but you can see it, if you look hard enough.”
“A bent blade can still cut,” he said.
The breeze was building now and the smell of dust and diesel fumes began to waft up the small hill.
“Indeed it can,” said Nassim. “It can threaten, it can cut and it can kill.”
She turned to face him. “The children: they call me Queen, don’t they? Shall I give them what they wish? A queen? Albeit bent. And perhaps a little weak? And not one born to rule, but one found amongst the rubble and mess of the desert?”
She sliced the air with the knife and pretended to parry.
“The Desert Queen,” Afiz said. It was a little joke on both their parts, but he liked it.
“Then let’s give them what they want!” she said and sheathed the knife with a flourish. “Silas Kabar will ride with me in the front truck. You will take the rear in the buggy. I want only children to have the weapons and allow only two men per vehicle. Leave the wagons. We have no more need for prisoners.”
“What about the airship?”
“Cover it with camouflage. We’ll need it again when we return.”
When.
She said it confidently. As if she meant it.
Dust from the odd-ball convoy followed them like a pillar as they rumbled down the meandering track to the base of the hills. Nassim sat in silence, listening to the rattle of the chassis. The sounds became rhythmic and her mind drifted. Scenarios played out like a game of chess. If Silas continued to poison the men with his whispering they might attempt a coup. She must keep him separate from the rest of the gang. If the children lost hope they might become susceptible to suggestion. She must constantly inspire them. If she lost Afiz’s loyalty she’d become vulnerable to a knife in her back. She must give him more authority. If this, then that and if that, then this. It was exhausting and ultimately futile, she concluded. The future would take care of itself. She needed to rule the present.
The sun had risen now and cast a yellow glow through the high clouds. Nothing lived here. It was a dry pit of shale and scree. Still, she shivered. She felt alone – only Wadid remained in her thoughts. At idle moments she let herself imagine just what happened after they dragged him back to Abaddon. His cries as she sped into the sky replayed over and over in her mind. She ground her teeth. How could she have let him fall? She was careless! It was a moment’s inattention with catastrophic consequences.
And then there was Jonah, the Metrician boy who listened so patiently and who had seemed to care about the fate of her family, but then who disappeared once he’d saved himself. For the briefest moment in that wagon she’d felt something. Was it affection? Metricians were the enemy but didn’t love overcome all? Hadn’t that story been told before? She shook her head. The boy had gone, like his parents and grandparents before him. History was repeating itself. She was alone, like all the rest of the wretched mob that walked the Earth. If there was anything like hope or love or kindness, it existed somewhere else, not in this wasteland.
The trucks rumbled down the craggy valley and through narrow crevices of unstable sandstone and gravel. By mid-afternoon they emerged from a narrow breach in the rock to the old traders’ route: a pitted tar-seal belt with the faintest of yellow stripes and a dishevelled railing that collapsed in places like an ancient ruin. The road shimmered south into a flat desert and disappeared north into a range of low, brown hills.
At first it looked as if they were at a T-junction but Nassim noticed the track that they’d been following ran parallel to the road for a brief moment and then veered back into the escarpment providing a choice for the journey north: easy and open or narrow and discreet.
She turned to Silas. “Well? Which way, prisoner?”
“Your highness requires speed or stealth?” he asked.
“Both.”
He laughed. “You can’t have both. Taking this road north will bring us to Abaddon but it’s open and we will meet strangers or worse, Metricians. This mountain track will take longer but we’ll have it to ourselves. Your choice.”
Nassim regarded him closely and decided the face of a liar betrayed nothing but lies. She’d already made up her mind but was curious to test him. “And what if we were to travel at night?” she asked.
“There may be bandits but we have weapons. And there will be fewer travellers.”
“Very well, we’ll make camp here and move at dusk.”
“As you command,” he said sarcastically but she’d already leapt from the truck and was barking orders. Everyone jumped to action: within minutes the convoy had withdrawn to the safety of the hills and a camo’ net was dragged over the vehicles; the cook was setting up the kitchen; white smoke billowed from a small fire. Afiz, always with an eye for danger, was lugging a gun up a high rock. This is good, she thought and indulged in the tiniest thrill of success. Little victories were all that mattered right now. She daren’t hope for a future and she certainly expected no love. Obedience would suffice.
After a grim meal of chickpeas and fried locusts the children settled down to a rough sleep in the shade of the wagons. Dusts and insects filled their dreams as Nassim and Afiz positioned themselves above the camp to watch the road. Nothing moved and they spoke little. There was not much say. The plans were laid. All that remained was action.
The rosy dusk arrived too soon and the children groaned and rubbed their eyes as she prodded them awake. Even the adults complained about the brevity of their nap so that Nassim grew impatient and kicked the older men out of their slumber and into the trucks. “What are you waiting for, room service?”
she spat.
Darkness fell and by the time the machines were rolling onto the ancient highway only a small circle of tarmac was lit by the truck’s single spotlight. Silas sat, hands bound, in the cab next to her. The rest followed in close formation with just the red tail lights for navigation and at a cracking pace too, the potholes and rockfalls shuddering the convoy.
The old stories of Odysseus or Aladdin never conveyed the banality of the bits between the adventures, Nassim reflected, as the rumbling turned to hours of bum-numbing boredom. The road rushed beneath their wheels like a black river and Nassim had to prod the driver twice to keep him awake. Occasionally, she thought she glimpsed lights or the glow of a fire reflecting off a valley wall. It was hard to tell. No one bothered them, at least. Silas tried to initiate conversation, asking probing questions about her past and even attempting a game to pass the time. But Nassim trusted him less with every word so they fell into silence, watching for ruts or drifting in and out of consciousness.
In time, Silas started to snore and she took the opportunity to examine his features: tanned and taut, his skin stretched over a boney face, ingrained with dust. He looked old, but his strong, sinewy neck suggested he was probably in his thirties, past his physical prime but wiser for having survived. Not many Landers became old. Nassim had known two people over fifty – her uncle and her father. And both were now gone. Silas’ hands, hardened by the sun and nicked with scars, rested on his lap.
Unlike the rest of Baldie’s gang Silas was not a mutant – and all the more dangerous for it. Nassim shuddered and renewed her grip on the loaded pistol. This is one to watch, she reminded herself.
The eastern horizon was brightening and the ridge they’d been trailing was now silhouetted like a spine. Within an hour, the morning sun had fingered its way over the hills and was baking the road with a grey, distilled heat. They’d been driving for eight hours and dawn was beckoning them to stop.
“Here,” she instructed the driver and he pulled the truck into a narrow crevice, hidden from the road by a lone juniper tree. The rest of the convoy followed and they set up camp, not needing instructions, all exhausted by the drive. Once again they flopped down to sleep in the shadows of the trucks. Nassim intended to remain on watch herself but drowsiness settled on her like a blanket. Sitting aside from the others, her pistol in her lap, she tried to stay awake using all the tricks she’d learned while watching over the goats. She stretched her mouth and shook her head. She rubbed spit on her eyelids and pinched her arm until it turned red. But the blanket pressed on her forehead and her eyes dropped until she fell asleep.
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