by Andy Graham
“And Lenka?”
“I don’t know. She was sleeping this morning when I came here and she wouldn’t wake up.”
“Wouldn’t wake” A chill ran down her spine. “What happened then, Ben?”
He scuffed his feet on the floor and mumbled something into his T-shirt. It took a while to get the words out of him in a way that made sense, but even then she wasn’t sure she understood.
“The scream fields?” she repeated, squatting down in front of him.
“Ray’s grandad Stann talks about them lots. But he said I wasn’t to go there on my own. To the ice cream fields. And he said something about sweet stuff rotting your teeth. And your sole.” He looked at the bottom of his shoes, a frown on his face.
“Ice cream fields? I don’t understand.”
“I thought I could find an ice cream and it would wake Lenka up.”
Stella ruffled his hair. “That was a good idea.”
He shrugged, dug a lump of snot out of his nose and flicked it at the dog. Stella ran through the logistics of what to do next, how to explain her presence here. “Where’s Lenka now?” she asked as she pulled out her phone.
“Don’t know. The men couldn’t wake her up either.”
She froze. “What men?”
“When I got back from the fields I heard someone here and I was scared and so I hid and climbed on the roof where Ray told me I couldn’t go but I know he used to go there when he was littler and . . . ”
His sentence went on, punctuated by breaths in odd places, never quite getting to the point. She repeated her question, picking through the details she managed to get out of him. Even allowing for the imagination and memory of a hyperactive four-year-old, the facts she pulled together left her cold. Why would an ambulance crew in an unmarked vehicle take Lenka and Drak with them?
32
A Farewell
Ray sat on his bed and pulled out an old toothbrush to clean his rifle. It had been part of his routine the last few days, an attempt to break up the monotony of waiting. He’d attempted shuttle runs between the kneeling statues along the palisade this morning, too. The sprints hadn’t lasted long. Not because of his back, that was holding up. Nor was it the cold mountain air. He just hadn’t been able to ignore the small eye holes carved in the statues’ chests or bellies. Unable to shake the feeling the statues were watching him, he’d headed back to his hut to find Brooke waiting for him.
It was the first time they had been alone since their night underground. She was sweaty from the training ground where she and Nascimento had been coaching the kids. Aalok had thought it a good idea and the big man had proved a natural childminder once he had learnt to keep his tongue in check. The sight of Brooke, red-faced, breathless and gleaming with sweat, made Ray hungry for her. A bed wouldn’t leave as many bruises as a cave floor, either, he reasoned. Both Nascimento and Orr had been very interested how the couple had picked up so many scrapes on their knees and backs.
“What?” The defiance in Brooke’s eyes was stronger than before.
“Nothing.” He rested the rifle in his hands. The power packs on this new model threw the balance off and made them heavier. He wasn’t sure which of Chester’s new innovators had designed them, but he wondered if that person had ever had to use them in a real-life situation. Up-downs were the solution, he’d decided. Any new piece of kit and its inventor had to survive Aalok and his up-downs.
“Do—”
“I—”
They started and stopped at the same time. She sat on James’s bed, and indicated for him to go on.
“Do the palisade statues also look like the person inside them?” Of all the questions he had and the things he wanted to do with her, that was probably the safest thing to ask at this time.
“Sort of. The last person to see them, before the statue was sealed, carved the face. I always hoped they just weren’t very good crafts people, but I think some of those faces are more life-like than I’d like.”
“And the eye holes?” He threw her a towel.
“Some of the vanquished were told they could watch the forest for us in return for a few more days.” She had stripped off and was changing into clean clothes from her pack. “The holes of the ones that screamed too much were sealed earlier rather than later.”
“What is it with you people and your statues?”
“The scaredevils? I’ve already told you this. We know what’s watching us. And waiting for us.”
“Well, if those scaredevils stand there and do nothing, they’re more likely to desensitise whatever they’re supposed to scare off.”
She pulled a face at him as the door banged open. James walked in, rubbing his hands against the cold. Seeing Brooke sitting topless on his bed, trousers around her ankles, he blushed and walked straight back out again.
“Great. Now we’re never going to hear the end of it. Get dressed before the rest of the squad gets in here.”
“We’re only talking,” she protested, pulling her trousers up. “And don’t even think of trying to cash in the bet you and the others have got going about me. I can name the handful of people that know about it — that I have one, what it is and where it is. If I so much as hear a whisper about my tattoo, I will make you pay.”
Ray’s grin faded. “Why are you here, Brooke?”
She stuffed her sweaty clothes into the side of her pack. “Us.”
“Listen. About what happened—“
“Us,” she repeated, “Aalok wants us,” and stalked out of the hut.
The squad assembled in the small orchard by the Dawn Rock. The thinner tree branches were trapped in a glaze of ice. Frozen droplets struggled to break free from the underside. Aalok and Sci-Captain James went through the mission objectives again. The squad listened to the recordings from the previous expedition and checked what maps they had. All in all, they learnt nothing new other than the second team was due to arrive in the Angel City any day now.
That bothered Ray. If it were just an issue of access rights to the caves, they could have been in and out by now? Why was there a need for a backup squad? Adding to his unease was a garbled message on his phone from Stella, something to do with Drak and Lenka.
“Tomorrow. First light,” Aalok said. “Dismissed.”
The day wore on and their moods soured. There was a clip to Aalok’s words that wasn’t normally there. Even Nascimento’s humour had been tamed. Brooke’s foul temper lasted through the day to the evening meal, a combination of meat, beans and some kind of fried potato, covered in salt. It was a world apart from the food they were served in the barracks.
“We keep back enough salt from the mines to eat well,” Kalyene said. A dog as grey as evening snow snored next to her, head lying on its crossed paws. “But we’re going to struggle soon if we don’t start being prudent.” She heaped a second serving on the legionnaires’ plates. “Today is a special occasion. You are our guests. Please eat.”
“Why not dig deeper?” Orr asked.
“The salt is not just ours to sell. Everything demands a price; the rocks are no different.”
“It’s just a mountain.” Nascimento reached for a third helping.
“The mountains are our best friends,” said Kaleyne.
“And a friend spurned leaves you twice burned,” Orr added to murmurs of approval.
“Fuck. Seriously, dude?” Nascimento said. “You caught minstrel’s disease off Fancy Franklin here? When did you become Baris the Bard from the Buckets?”
“Free Towns, Nasty, not Buckets. Don’t make that mistake again.”
“And I warned you about using that name,” Nascimento replied.
“So did I. So did they.” Orr gestured to the crowd. Kaleyne and the Hoyden had treated Orr as one of their own since the fight. It had lead to Orr claiming that violence was the best form of diplomacy. Seeing Lukaz and his followers sitting around the fire, sharing jokes with the villagers, some glaring at Nascimento, Ray wondered if Orr was right.
; “Can’t fight us all, Nasc,” Orr finished.
“I can try. Won’t, though. You’ll all be too embarrassed when I whip your runty arses one-handed.”
The meal finished and the celebrations started. One of the men who had been taking bets on the up-downs meted out by Aalok and Orr was having his thicket of hair and beard shaved. Every cut of the blade brought cheers from the crowd. Once the last lock had been thrown into the fire, a young woman with black rings under her eyes handed the man a newborn baby. She watched tenderly as he paraded through the people, the child held high.
“When a woman is pregnant, scissors, blade or razor may not touch the father,” Brooke explained to Ray. “It’s one of the nicer traditions the Hoyden brought back to us. Though rumour has it the tradition started so women would know which men were about to become dads and so really shouldn’t be trying their luck elsewhere.” She tossed the scraps of her meal to a waiting dog. They were snapped out of the air and the animal skulked off into the shadows to gnaw at the bone. “There was a period when some men saw the number of concurrent pregnancies they were responsible for as a sign of fertility.”
“Damn right,” Nascimento said. “‘Cept for the whole children thing.”
Once they had finished their farewells, the squad made their way back to their huts, knowing this may well be the last comfortable night for a while. Ray gave his gear a final check and then stuck his head out the door. The light winked out in Nascimento and Orr’s hut. James was lost in his screen, tapping and swiping. Zipping his jacket up, Ray set off down the dusty path.
Waves lapped at Brooke’s feet, rippling out from where the waterfall broke the dark water.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Ray said.
A rock skimmed across the pool. It hit one of the ripples and ricocheted into the tumbling water that hid the passage she had led him along. He sent a rock after hers. His left-handed shot dived into the water feet away from them. She laughed and switched hands, firing a stone across the pool as easily with her right hand as her left, aiming for the reflections of the twin moons.
“You want to talk?” he asked.
“About what happened between us? No.”
“Then—“
“I’m scared, Ray.” She rushed the words out as if she was afraid of them. “About going under the mountain. It’s irrational and wrong, but the stories of my childhood and the beliefs of my people run too deep. In some ways more so than the genetic code your scientists and politicians are obsessed with.” She fired more stones into the water in rapid succession. One skittered off the surface and clattered into the rock behind. The echoes off the mountain walls took an age to die away. “Don’t you find it worrying? This obsession with perfection and purity used to stop at the skin, but that’s not enough any more.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This stuff Lind caught me looking at when I was in Sci-Corps. Comparing the genetic code of different populations and then twisting it into something else. Least that was what it seemed like to me.”
“Is that what’s been bothering you? Why you’ve been so spiky?”
“Spiky?” She threw the remaining stones at his feet. “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said since we got here?”
He took her hands in his. “I don’t know anything about Sci-Corps, Lind, Eddie Shaw or DNA. I do know there’s something about the caves that frightens you but, whatever it is, it’s not real.”
“Beliefs kill, Ray. And my people believe there are devils under the mountain. The devils let us take the salt, but at some point they’ll want payment. That belief is so deep-rooted in our culture it’s as much a part of us as our genes.” She twisted away, paused at the edge of the dusty earth and stalked over to the Dawn Rock.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“Don’t then.” She leant against the rock and hugged her knees. “I know what your counselling skills are like.”
They sat in silence, listening to the wind hissing through the leaves. Clouds scudded across the sky. There was a distant flash — a sun fan, drone or plane? — and Ray wondered how visible this place was from the air.
“About that other thing.” She shuffled closer to him.
“Us?”
“When we get back to Effrea...”
“Things will be just as they were,” Ray finished. “I don’t want to be transferred out of the unit. Not now. Besides, I’ve done ‘that other thing’ before.”
“I hadn’t.” Brooke wrapped one hand around his neck and pulled his head close, her other hand reached for the zip on his top.
A while later, Ray pulled a few strands of grass out of her hair and dusted down the back of her trousers, just as she had done for him a few moments earlier. They kicked dirt over the bare footprints around the rock and exchanged a few whispered words, Brooke nipping him on the earlobe. They held hands through the tunnel and headed back to their separate huts.
Before first light the legionnaires assembled by the orchard. Orr had represented the squad, a warm smile across his face, as he accepted the dance the Hoyden performed. It was still angular but slower and more solemn than the war dance they had seen at the Dawn Rock.
“Why do I get the feeling this is more of a goodbye-for-ever dance than a see-you-soon one?” Ray whispered to Nascimento.
“Because you’re a morose fucker,” Nasicmento replied. As Orr presented the Donian people with an ornamental gladius, engraved with the new dragon symbol Chester was pushing on the military, the big man added, “You believe in dragons?”
“Some things are too good not to believe in,” Aalok replied without taking his eyes off the ceremony. “And if your general says they exist, they exist. Right now, though, you might just want to keep your mouths shut and watch, or both you morose fuckers will be doing up-downs until you puke up the food you were weaned on.”
The sun’s rays crested the treetops high above them, bathing them in a cold light. With Brooke leading, impassive and controlled, the legionnaires stepped into a large tunnel entrance. The roar of the waterfall faded behind them as they picked their way deeper into the mountain.
The last thing Ray saw was Kaleyne, grim-faced and shaking her head.
33
Substation Two
The VP emerged from the hidden staircase sunk into the riverbank. A strong breeze tugged at his hair and assaulted his nose. He’d heard the smell of the river described as romantic, that it conjured up dreams of travel and the unknown. To him it smelt of oil and salt, sewage and failure. He popped another mint into his mouth and shivered as the ugly caw of a fisher gull split the frosty air. Unwelcome images of a shaved corpse now tainted more pleasant ones of the tattooed red-head cavorting in his bed.
His aide passed him a key as long as his hand. The wolf engraved into it matched the snarling jaws engulfing the lock on the door behind him. These things were clumsier than a swipe card but so much safer in a way — the art of hacking a lock had made the skill of picking one obsolete. This particular key unlocked, and more importantly locked, the latest addition to his series of private spaces, the network of emergency offices he was carving out of Effrea.
The underside of Effrea and Tye was more congested than street level. Tubes, tunnels, cables, caverns and subways all competed for a finite space in the clay underworld. It was still revealing secrets, some more gruesome than others, as those people that could afford it expanded downwards into spacious subterranean dwellings. Those that couldn’t, dug grotty cubbyholes and hoped they wouldn’t collapse.
As for the tunnels like this one, most of the smaller ones under the river had been blocked at both ends. Maintenance teams, and his own personal teams, still found gaps in the blockades, or daughter tunnels, budding off the main ones. Whether the new tunnels were for people to get in or out of Effrea or Tye, or both, no one knew. The security systems weren’t as reliable as he would have liked, something else he would have to bring up with Chester.
He heard his name an
d squinted into the rising sun. It was a hazy, golden-red orb hanging over the end of the river. The woman approaching was wearing a similar coat to one his mother had once owned. It had been the fashion at the time and the usually shy woman had been so proud of it. She’d been wearing it the day she had rescued the young VP from the cupboard. As the president strode towards him, with that stripy shirt just visible, hair done like so, the resemblance to his mother became stronger. Psychologically, the two women were as close as the sun and moons would ever be. The similarity brought his attention back to the weight always sitting on his shoulders and casting judgment on his every decision. The murders that seemed directed at him just made the feeling more putrid.
“We could’ve met in your office, where it’s warm and not so smelly, rather than this new lair of yours,” Bethina said as she reached him.
“It’s safer this way. There are spies everywhere.”
“There’s a fine line between caution and paranoia, young man.”
Young man? His hands twitched.
“Can we get to the point?” she asked. “I haven’t got long.”
“They’re in, under the mountain.”
“Then let us hope Professor Shaw was on to something with this element of his.” The suns rays, shimmering and rippling on the water, danced in her eyes. She appeared to be studying him. It made him feel like a frog in a science class. “Wouldn’t a message have done the trick?” she asked.
He pulled out a small box from his briefcase. “This is what we have of Shaw’s research on gwenium.”
“Ahh, I see.” The box disappeared into her coat pocket.
“Only plug it into—“
“A blind terminal,” she finished. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Really? You don’t look it.”
She gave him a withering look. “I’d heard you were a little more polished. You’ve read Shaw’s reports?”
