by Gee, Maurice
The oars creaked. The dinghy splashed away. After a while Susan dared to breathe. It seemed she had smelt the stink of evil. She covered her mouth and nose and flooded herself with Shy. She felt a gentle touch on the boat. It began to move slowly on the thick water.
For the rest of the night she sat awake. Once or twice she peered out the windows, but saw no more lights and heard no alarms. The seals kept up their pressure, moving the boat heavily up-river against the tide.
When she guessed dawn was not far away, she drank the rest of the water from the bottle and chewed some seaweed. It still had a bitter taste, but she chewed and swallowed stolidly, telling herself she must keep up her strength. From occasional sounds, a clashing of iron, a shriek of pain, she guessed they were entering the City. She saw dim lights, the gleam of windows, gleam of muddy slipways, and saw the shapes of moored boats and long-legged jetties. The smoke drifted everywhere, like a mist.
Dawn came without colour. All that was black turned grey. The seals nosed the boat in under a jetty. Susan came out of the deck-house and looked over the side. Island Lover slid up close to her.
‘Child, I beg of you, a mouthful of that weed.’
Susan ran back inside and brought out all the weed. Soon half a dozen seals had thrust up their heads and were chewing ecstatically.
‘Delicious,’ Island Lover croaked through her full mouth. She swallowed. ‘This foul river poisons us. But now we will be strong enough to reach the sea. Susan, goodbye.’
‘Where am I?’
‘On the outskirts of the City. Soon it will wake. You must hide.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ But knew she would not hide. She must find her way to the Pit, to the Motherstone.
‘Climb up the ladder,’ Island Lover said. ‘We will push the boat out and let it drift away. May Ocean Spirit go with you.’
Susan climbed an iron ladder beside the boat. She stood shivering on the jetty. ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered. The seal heads vanished and the boat began to drift away on the Poison Water. She did not stay to watch it, but ran along the jetty and into a maze of tumble-down buildings. Here and there a light showed in a window. Once she saw a hooded shape moving sleepily. She kept close to the walls and hurried on, plunging deep into the City. She tried to think what Brand and Breeze had told her of it. Once it had been beautiful – parks and hanging gardens, a glass-clear river, shops and busy wharves and warehouses. Now everything stank. Buildings rotted by the broken streets. Foul gutters ran to the river, clogged with heaps of refuse. Stumps of trees stood like rotten teeth in the bare parks, where skinny dogs howled and moaned. The smoke lay over all, slow and brown and sticky. It lay pooled in corners, it stirred like dirty water, and floated after everything that moved.
Susan kept her cloak over her face. She hurried on, keeping close to walls, turning always into streets where the buildings were taller. Slowly the City woke. Halfmen came shuffling through the streets. She saw a man beating a chained dog. Its howls rose in a piteous wail. In a yard two men struggled over a scrap of food. Further on a woman was whipping a child. She was the first Halfwoman Susan had seen. Her hair came out of her hood in ragged wisps. She beat methodically, with the buckle end of a leather belt. The child rolled on the ground, screaming with a grey wide-open mouth. But as Susan watched, it wriggled under the blows and seized the woman’s ankle in its teeth.
Susan ran and left them, the howling woman, the biting child, she ran on across gutters, under broken walls, through bare parks, and came to a square where Halfmen were clustered about a cart drawn by four chained half-naked men. A huge urn stood on it. A woman ladled food into basins thrust at her. It was a stew of the same greasy lumps Odo Cling had made Susan eat. Each Halfman turned with his food and gobbled privately. Then they snarled for more, jabbing with their elbows, thrusting up their basins. Men guarding the cart beat them away. They cracked their whips on the backs of the four in the shafts and the cart lumbered off.
Susan turned aside into a narrow street. Buildings leaned over it and a slimy gutter ran down the centre. But at the end, across another park of bare grey earth, she saw a coal-black building. It rose in tiers. That, she thought, must be Otis Claw’s palace, built over the great hole called the Pit. That was where he held his daily court, and there, in the Pit, the Motherstone lay, safe in the dome of force Freeman Wells had built.
She hurried along the street. Half-way down she found the body of a man with his pockets turned out. He seemed to grin at her. She backed by him along the walls, and ran on, half sobbing. This place was a nightmare, this was Hell.
When she came out she saw the sun shining red in the smoke. It seemed tiny, far away. She could not believe it was the same yellow sun that burned over Wildwood. The black building rose tiered and ugly over the park. A few trees straggled there. Broken statues lay face down in the mud. Then she saw the building was as much factory as palace. This was where Otis Claw had his laboratories, and made the smoke that would cover the world, cover Wildwood, leak into the plains where the Birdfolk lived, and the underground world of Seeker and Watcher. It bubbled and seethed from a black chimney pointing like a gun-barrel at the sky.
Susan stood and watched it. She felt sick. But she had never been more angry. She breathed in Shy. She traced the shape of the Halves locked in her belt. Then she started across the park. Her feet slipped in the mud and the hem of her cloak trailed in filthy puddles. A starving dog snarled at her and then lay hopelessly down by a tree-stump. At the other side of the park she crossed a plank over a scummy ditch that had been a stream. She approached great barred gates where a crowd of a hundred Halfmen waited silently in the smoke. These, she guessed, were the early-comers for Otis Claw’s court.
She stood as close to them as she dared. She did not want to make herself conspicuous by standing apart, but felt that if she moved among them one might look at her closely and see through her disguise. She stood still, and kept her head lowered, and held her hood about her face. The smell of Shy was delicate, comforting. She wondered if it would drift to the Halfmen close by. To them she supposed it would be a stink. She moved every now and then, keeping close to no one long. Voices murmured sourly, men snarled at each other. There was never any laughter. Once a man and a woman fought with knives. Guards rushed from the gates and dragged them away.
‘More meat for the dogs,’ said a Halfman.
‘It’ll spoil their appetite for the Woodland scum,’ said another.
Susan reeled with shock. She almost fell. The Halfman gave her a push. ‘Keep your hands to yourself. I’ll slice you up.’
Woodland scum? She wanted to rush at the man, question him. Did it mean Brand and Breeze were captured? What had happened to Nick? And where were they? But she turned away, she shuffled off. She must not get caught. She must not. She had to get to the Motherstone. No one – Brand, Breeze, Nick – no one was safe unless she placed the Halves. Everyone would die.
She moved with lowered head down the edge of the crowd and leaned on a wall. Cautiously she looked back. A Halfman was watching her. He stood on the edge of the crowd, with his hood well forward and his fingers hooked in his belt. She could not see his face, but a gleam of eyes showed he was staring at her. She lowered her head. She tried to look casual. Her hands were trembling. In a moment she shifted slowly. She looked at him again, sideways. Yes, he was watching her. She tried to think what to do. He must suspect. If he came at her she would have to touch him with her wrist. But what would happen after that?
Another fight started in the crowd. People surged to watch, and the Halfman came striding at her, along their wall of backs. She thrust her arm at him, but he caught it in both hands and held it still. His white teeth grinned in his grey face.
‘Thought it was you,’ he whispered. ‘Your eyes give you away. You better keep them shut.’
She put her head on his shoulder. She felt tears on her face. Under the roars of blood-lust and the shriek of someone stabbed, she whispered, ‘Nick, oh Nick. Thank God. I tho
ught they must have caught you. I thought you must be dead.’
12
Motherstone
He hurried her down the side of the square. They found a boarded-up doorway in a crooked street.
‘I’ve been waiting since dawn,’ Nick said. ‘I knew if you hadn’t been caught this is where you’d come.’
‘Nick, they’ve captured Brand and Breeze. I heard a man talking about feeding them to the dogs.’
‘They’d bring them here first to see Otis Claw. What we’ve got to do is get into the Pit. Maybe we can save them. Have you still got the Halves?’
‘Yes.’ She told him about the island and the Seafolk.
‘You flew better than me,’ he said. ‘There was almost no lift in the smoke. I came down in a swamp. I never saw Brand and Breeze.’ But, hiding that night in the fringes of the swamp, he had heard hounds barking and men shouting. He had thought they were hunting him. But they went by as he huddled in the reeds and he knew they must be on another trail.
‘Brand and Breeze?’
‘Yes. Anyway, I set out for the City. I knew I had to find you. I got here last night and slept in a ruined building. There were huge rats. Ugh!’
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
‘No. I can get by. I drank some water. Pretty smelly stuff. We’d better get back, Susan. I think they’re getting ready to open the gates.’
They went to the square, keeping their heads low and hoods pulled forward, and stood at the back of the crowd. Soon they were hemmed in. The gates rumbled open and a surge of Halfmen carried them through. They shuffled along in a grey darkness, down an endless ramp, deeper and deeper into the bedrock under Otis Claw’s palace. The reek of sweat, the press of elbows, knees, torsos, the heat of massed bodies, the ugly snarling, overpowered them. But they kept a secret clasp of hands, kept their Shy as close as they dared to their faces. Guards posted at intervals down the ramp jabbed the crowd with spear butts, forcing it on.
The ramp curved in a slowly tightening circle. Nick guessed they must be half a kilometre underground. It was like being in a giant beehive, buried in earth. The busyness was there, the ceaseless humming, and guards darting angrily, like soldier bees. But here instead of honey, poison was made; and at the centre, in the Pit, they would find no queen, but Otis Claw.
At last the stone floor levelled out, the press eased, and Nick and Susan moved more freely. They let go hands. No Halfman would show affection. They went through another set of iron gates, a set of huge stone doors, and climbed a ramp into the chamber known as the Pit. It was vast and shadowy. The walls and ceiling showed dimly in the lamplight. In a basin-like depression in the floor lay the dome of force. It resembled a great glowing apple. Its light did not shine out, but kept to itself. It was soft, inviolate, standing high above the Halfman guards. Set in it was the Motherstone – grey, prosaic, sitting like an office desk on the floor. The guards were just as Marna had said: two rows, shoulder to shoulder, one facing the Stone, the other facing out. Susan saw at once there was no way through. She turned and looked at Otis Claw.
He sat on a throne of obsidian. She had never seen anyone more ugly. Marna had described him as a handsome youth, a golden youth. Twenty years of power and gratified lust had made him foul. He lolled on his throne in great folds of flesh. A bony skull was at the top of him, and all his flesh seemed to have fallen away from that grey point, into monstrous cheeks, and serried jowls melting on his breast, and a belly sagging sack-like, and thighs that quivered in their black silk casings. His eyes were, strangely, merry. They were little black marbles. They twinkled with a dark and secret glee. With his ruined hand, his claw, the Paingiver, Otis Claw, toyed with a broken chain about his neck.
Susan and Nick had let the crowd push past them. They stood at the back, close to the wall by the ramp. They heard the doors grind shut. Across one flank of the basin Otis Claw sat on his throne. They had a clear view, and saw at his back Halfmen holding five black dogs on leashes. A man in leather stepped forward from the throne-side: a small man, sharp and evil. For a moment Susan thought he was Odo Cling come back to life. But no, he was the new Cling, Cling’s replacement. There would be no shortage.
‘Kneel to the Lord Darksoul,’ he cried. ‘Kneel to the Paingiver.’
At once the crowd was on its knees. The guards were on their knees. Only those about the Motherstone did not move. Nick and Susan were slow, but got down before anyone saw them.
‘Lick the dust,’ cried the man.
The crowd licked. Susan and Nick, with shrinking tongues, pretended.
A new voice came, a voice both dead and jolly. Otis Claw. ‘Good, good, well done my slaves. Rise up. We shall hear your troubles. We shall see which among you shall be rewarded – and which shall feed my dogs. Although today they will taste other meat.’
The crowd rose to its feet, humming with anticipation.
‘Let me hear the first case,’ Otis Claw said. Up at the front someone stepped forward. The sound of disputing voices rose and fell.
Susan looked about the hall again. Down by the Motherstone the guards stood shoulder to shoulder. She wondered if Nick could set up some disturbance, draw them away. But no – looking at them she knew they would never move. Was there some way she could jump over the top, jump into the dome of light and reach the Stone? She remembered what Marna had said – the dome of force would recognize the wearer of the Mark and welcome her – or was it receive her? Yes, receive her. And suddenly she had it, and she almost gave a shout. She put her hand on her cloak and felt the small soft lump of the stone-silk gloves in the pocket of her shorts. She looked at the walls of the Pit, looked at the ceiling. Seeker had known.
‘Nick,’ she breathed. He leaned close to her. ‘When something happens up there move back slowly with me into that opening.’
He gave a small nod of understanding. They waited. Cries of anger rose, then yells of pleading. Someone was being set to run against the dogs. They did not watch, but heard the crowd roar, and heard the dogs snarling, yelping, tearing.
‘Do not let them eat,’ Claw cried. ‘Ha! he ran well.’
Nick and Susan backed cautiously down the wall. They came to a gap between two buttresses of stone and slipped back into shadow.
‘Nick, I’m going to climb. Remember what Marna said, the light would receive me?’
‘Yes, but -’
‘I’m going to get over it and drop.’
‘Susan –’
‘Can you think of any other way?’
He could not. ‘They’ll see you.’
‘I’11 go up in the shadow between these ribs of stone. Once I’m on the ceiling I’ll just have to hope they don’t look up.’
Otis Claw’s thick laughter rang in the hall. A man screamed.
‘Good luck,’ Nick whispered. ‘I’ll get back in the crowd. I might be able to make some sort of fuss to stop them looking.’
She lifted her cloaks and drew out the stone-silk gloves. But before she could pull them on the doors of the Pit ground heavily open. The crowd gave a bark of anticipation. Brand and Breeze came stumbling up the ramp, roped together, prodded on by Halfman spears. Their black cloaks were gone, they were in Wildwood green, but green torn and filthy with swamp mud and stained with blood.
‘Nick –’
‘Go on. Up. It’s our only chance to save them.’
The guards about Brand and Breeze opened a path through the crowd. But Halfmen poked with their knives, gnashed their teeth, spat and snarled. The guards beat them back and brought the prisoners in front of Otis Claw’s throne. In the shadows, Susan drew on her stone-silk gloves. They clasped her hands and arms in a friendly way. She drew the stockings on her feet.
‘Get back into the crowd, Nick.’
He gave her shoulder a pat, and was gone. She could not tell which black hood was his in that sea of hoods. She reached out her hands. Eagerly the stone-silk met the stone. Even through her double thickness of cloaks it fixed itself with a steely strengt
h. Susan began to climb.
In the crowd Nick wriggled by straining Halfman bodies. He dug with his elbows, and was gone before hands could fix on him. He heard cries from the front of the crowd, and heard the dogs baying eagerly. When he got to the front he dropped to his knees and peered through a gap in the line of guards holding back the crowd from Otis Claw’s throne. The dogs, huge, black, muscular, red-mouthed, were straining at Brand and Breeze, but their handlers held them back. The crowd was screaming for blood. Otis Claw made a sign to his officer. The man stepped forward and cried in a voice thin and deadly as a knife, ‘Silence!’ At once the hall was deathly still. Even the dogs made no sound. The only noise Nick heard was the rasp of the Woodlanders’ breathing. They held each other and looked as if they were about to collapse.
‘Kneel before Darksoul,’ the officer cried.
Brand and Breeze swayed, they almost fell. But Brand said, ‘Woodlanders kneel to no man.’ At once guards ran forward and beat them with their spear butts to their knees.
Otis Claw smiled. ‘Now,’ he said kindly, ‘let me hear your tale. Then I must feed my dogs. The poor creatures are hungry.’
‘Ha-a,’ laughed the crowd.
‘Tell me how you flew down from Sheercliff. And tell me of the death of my servant, Odo Cling.’
‘We will not speak to you,’ Breeze said.
Claw smiled again. ‘Oh, you will speak. I have ways of seeing to that. But let us do things pleasantly. Where is the Mixie girl who holds my Halves? My pretty ornaments? How can I fix my chain until I have them? I may let you go if you give me her.’
‘We will not speak.’
‘Does she mean to bring them here and place them on the Stone? Look, Woodlanders. Do you really think she could find a way through my guards?’
Even Nick looked into the hollow where the guards stood two-deep, immovable as stone.
‘She will find a way,’ Breeze said.
‘Ha!’ Claw laughed. ‘A girl! A Mixie girl! She will enter my hall? She will find a way through my guards? This amuses me.’
