"part5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith Brooke - Lord of Stone)
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- The Book of the World, ch.46, v.43. |
| After that one night with Lila, Bligh was always waiting in the square with time to spare. The priests learnt to pick him for the labour gangs - he worked hard, despite his lame leg, and he had his particular talent for finding the dead. "It's the lie of the land," he explained to a curious work-mate. "You understand the form and consistency of the mud. You understand the differences between hitting a bone with your pick and hitting stone." The dreams of bodies came to plague his nights, so that by morning, as he stood in the town square, he felt more exhausted than the night before. Somehow, the dreams were more horrific than the real thing. In the day, it was just bones and flesh, but come the night these remains took on new possibilities. A rotting arm, adrift in the mud, could flex the fingers of its hand, a skull could blink, old boots could stamp mud in your face as you stooped to retrieve them. By the morning of his eighth day on the labour gangs, Bligh realised that he was losing control. He would spend maybe an hour or more at a time with his mind wandering or simply blank, and his body working methodically away. In the afternoon, he recognised that familiar pressure in his head - a dull, throbbing ache that rivalled the one in his leg; the sense that he was being squeezed out of his own skull - and he hesitated, by the crate with body parts and bits of uniforms. He looked at the hand in his hand and for a time was fascinated by its waxy texture. It had once been part of a man, he realised. Someone who had known friends and lovers, someone for whom things had mattered. Bligh hurled the hand into the crate in disgust. It was so simple not to think about what you were doing. Now, he was shocked at how easy he had found it to do just that. He backed away from the crate, away from those hands and torsos and heads, those bones with strips of torn flesh where bald vultures and crows had pecked. He put his hands up to his face, then snatched them away at a memory of the hand he had just discarded. His own hands had smelt of earth and rotten meat, a smell which had become something he took for granted. He took another step backwards and suddenly there was an arm across his shoulder, a hand on his arm. He flinched at the touch and a voice said, "Calm, my son. Calm." Bligh pushed at the priest, who stumbled and for a moment looked at him with anger instead of the customary well-practised compassion. "Calm," he repeated. "It affects us all, you know. I dream of the bodies, and of the violence which spawned such folly. It causes great pain." The softness of his tone irritated Bligh. What did the priest know of the violence? What did he know of the bodies? All he did all day was ride his wagon and supervise the labour gangs from a sanitary distance. The priest reached towards him, but Bligh's vision had darkened and his head was roaring and he swiped the man's hand away with a heavy swing of his fist. This time, the priest did a less good job of covering his anger. The priesthood were not accustomed to being treated with anything but subservience. The Church's sympathy was clearly a rationed commodity. The priest stared at him through narrowed, watering eyes. "You ... " He was panting for breath, so that he had to swallow and start again. "You can set off now," he said. "For a child of violence has no place with the Church. Repent, son, and I will talk to you later. Go! And while you walk, think upon your ways of violence." It was at least six miles back to Abeyat, and with his limp it took Bligh until the early evening before he saw the houses and the ruins rising in the distance. At one point, he was passed by the two wagons, ridden by the priest and another. They both ignored him so he watched the heaped bodies instead, as they rumbled along the track. Later, the wagons passed him heading back out, empty, and later still they returned with the two labour gangs. Bligh walked. His anger simmered constantly in the back of his head and there was nothing he could do to control it. The phrase, a child of violence, kept swimming around in his mind. Was that what he was? He did not really understand what it meant. He thought of his mother and the way she had seemed torn about him: what he had taken for love, but also a hostility which had made him think of her as selfish, uncaring. He thought of his travels, and of why he had really joined the Civil War. Had there been ideals involved? Now, he did not know. Maybe he had always had a self-destructive impulse, a wish to damage anything that threatened to be good in his life, a wish to damage himself. Maybe he was, indeed, a child of violence. He thought he was probably mad. In a sane world he would be locked away for the good of the masses, but Trace was not such a place, as it struggled to recover from its war. He needed help, he realised. If there had been a Jahvean church in Abeyat, he suddenly felt that he would have gone there and pleaded his infirmity with the Brothers. Even old Black Paul could have helped. Or the healer in Passerat, despite his Elementalist perversities. It was dark by the time he entered the town. The familiar sewage odour of the streets was threaded through with the smell of cooking. He recognised the sweet smell of caprolea, the local delicacy made from goat meat, olive oil, mushrooms and honey. The people of Abeyat ate well, with the money from the Church for the body-clearing and from the railway for the coke supplies the town had appropriated during the war. He passed the church, with its porch of burning candles, and for a moment he considered spending the night inside. He walked on. He could not bear the prospect of a priest doing the nightly round of the homeless, trying to achieve a spiritual return for the Church's charity. When he reached the desolation of the shanty town he sensed that something unusual was happening. He hesitated near to the place where he had stopped the week before, and Lila had come to him and shown him around and told him the rules. Instead of taking the well-worn path through the ruins, Bligh scrambled up over the heaped rubble, careful not to dislodge any debris as he went. He reached a wall and climbed up to walk along it for a short distance, before dropping down again, on the far side. He descended a steep incline, fearful that he might miss his footing and fall, to be buried beneath a cascade of rocks. Sheltering behind another wall, he could look out into a clear area where the people of the shanty town were gathered. They sat on rocks and on the floor, a radio playing somewhere in the background. Every person there twitched to the rattly drum beat of the music, as if they were all puppets, played by the same wire. The focus of the gathering was a large fire, walled in with a ring of round stones. Bligh cowered behind the wall and closed his eyes. He could sense the electricity - the magic - in the air, and it made him feel sick, dizzy. They were performing the Prayer of the Body, a calling to the world of the spirits, a calling to the Gods. Bligh looked again. The ceremony was being mediated by the old man from Lila's extended family. Her uncle, he thought. The one who sat through meal-times, unable to hear a word that was spoken, spilling most of his food and always staring at Bligh. Now, he was animated, chanting a rhythmical incantation, holding his skeletal hands in the air with his eyes rolled back so that the whites flickered red with the light of the fire. Bligh lost track of time, just watching the people and the merry dance of the flames. He only came to his senses when a woman took up the old man's chant, adapting the rhythm and the speed to her own pattern, tipping her head back and forth so that it seemed her neck would snap. Bligh recognised, with a horrified fascination, that the woman was Lila. Her eldest daughter was clutching her hand, urging her on, crying, "Mama do it! Mama do it!" Lila was wailing now, a note that reached into Bligh and twisted his barren heart. He hugged himself tightly and closed his eyes as she threw herself to the ground in front of the old man. When he opened them again she was hugging herself, too, and then she began to tear at her hair and her clothes as she writhed in the dirt. Now, he recognised the word she was repeating. "Belahar! Belahar!" she cried, the name of the man she had lost to the war. "Belahar!" One hand was pressing at her crotch now, and the atmosphere had changed and there was a new sexual energy pervading the ritual. "Belahar!" she cried in agony, in ecstasy. "Belahar!" Bligh felt enraged and, at the same time, terribly frightened and alone. He pulled himself away, withdrew, but then he realised that his body was moving, regardless, climbing up over the broken wall which had shielded him, hitting the ground with a painful jolt which stopped him for a moment. "No!" he cried, but his mouth did not move and no sound emerged. He dragged himself on, through the twitching onlookers, stopping before the old man and then lunging, pushing him so that he sprawled in the dirt. He turned and kicked the symmetrical stones into the fire and a great fountain of sparks and smoke rose up. He reached down and caught Lila by the hair and threw her aside. For a moment her eyes held that glazed look of the ritual possession and then it was as if a blind snapped down and she was glowering at him, resenting him. "No!" This time the sound emerged from his mouth. He looked around as his pulse raged in his ears and the fire roared. "No!" The people were staring at him, but no one rose to challenge him. The old ones, staring, rocking gently in an echo of the rhythm now lost. The younger men, fit and wounded, staring. The women, glaring and seething like Lila before him. No one moved. "This is wrong," he bellowed. "You can't do this. It's sick. Do you think that if the Lords were among you they would recognise ... this as anything but a cheap sham? Do you? There's nothing Holy about this charade. Nothing! It's sick ... " He was losing track, suddenly scared and vulnerable and wondering what he could possibly be doing in front of these people. He did not know where the words had come from or what he had meant. All he had was the anger that had overtaken him and now that was receding rapidly. He looked around at the gathering, once again, and he felt painfully sad. These poor, pitiful people were desperate ... for something to believe in, for something to give their empty existences some kind of meaning. Once, there had been the revolution, but now this was all they had. He searched the people's faces and a strange realisation came over him. Some were angry and cursing him - the old man, struggling away, kept glaring back and spitting - but they were not going to rise up and beat him, as he had expected. They would not drive him from town. Lila reached up and pulled at him, gently, her hand hooked into the waistband of his trousers. He looked into her face, her cheeks smeared with tears and filth from the ground. Her daughter was there, too, a seven year old with a jug of wine which she pressed at him, her eyes pleading with him to accept it. He did not understand these people's response. He felt the anger rising again, but this time it was distant and he knew it would not erupt. He snatched the wine and took a long drink. Then he passed it to Lila and she drank a little and then stopped and felt her mouth tenderly. Bligh saw that there was blood on her lip. Had he hit her? He did not think so. People were talking now, and someone had turned up the volume of the radio. Bligh sank to the ground, confused. What was happening to him? The thoughts spinning through his head, uninvited, scared him. He knew, now, that he was mad. Lila pushed a piece of greasy meat towards him and watched as he ate for the first time since morning. "I hear voices," he said quietly. He felt, irrationally, that he had to explain himself. "My head ... I can't keep track of it all. I see bodies, too. All day, all night. They talk to me." He drank some more wine, and felt its heat in his belly. "I'm mad," he said, and Lila rested her hand over his wound and her daughter wiped his brow with the hem of her skirt. "Mad." He drank some more. He thought he had said enough, but then, he decided, he had barely started. The wine tasted good and the sound of the radio was relaxing him, although he had never liked this new, southern music. He felt comfortable for the first time in months, with these warm people and their wine. Especially their wine. |
| In the morning he felt awful. This was the first time he had been so thoroughly drunk since coming to Trace. His head boomed distantly and his vision was blurred. Acid kept rising in his throat and his whole body ached. He remembered Lila's wails of ecstasy, but he did not know if they were from the possession ritual, when he had been a mere onlooker, or if they were from later in the night. He had woken with her lying across his chest. He was still wearing his shirt but his trousers had been lying some distance away in the rubble. His memory did not go much beyond kicking stones into the fire and yelling at everyone. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt as if it was lined with the dry dust of the street. Now, he stood in the square, waiting for the priests, one amongst many hoping for work in the battlefield. He knew that it was unlikely that they would pick him, particularly if it was the priest he had argued with the previous day. But Bligh had always been stubborn. He would not give up without at least trying. He rubbed his eyes and his vision cleared, but that only seemed to make his head hurt more. There were more men today. That would reduce his chance of work, too. There was only so much space on the wagons. He heard voices across the street and he rubbed his eyes again and looked. Two priests approached, talking with two men in the uniforms of the old State Police. Where were the wagons? he wondered. The labour gangs could not do their work without wagons to transport them and to remove the bodies during the day. There was a murmur of interest from the men in the square. Someone complained that they would have to walk to the battlefield today, and another said that at least that meant they would spend less time with the dead. Another hoped that did not mean a cut in pay. The priests and the policemen stopped before the crowd of expectant men and surveyed them, as they did every morning. Then one spoke. "We want a man who goes by the name of Bligh," he said. Bligh did not think he had heard correctly. He noticed that a space had opened up around him and now the four were looking directly at him. "What is it?" he said, although his throat ached when he spoke. "What do you want?" The policemen stepped forward and seized his arms. "What have I done?" he demanded, although memories of his argument with the young priest kept flashing through his mind. "You have been charged with the State crime of Malicious Blasphemy," said one of the policemen. "You are to be detained at Her Majesty's will until such time that a trial can be arranged before a council of the priesthood." "What?" Bligh did not understand. What had this to do with the young priest, he wondered? "What does that mean?" A priest stepped towards him and fixed him with limpid green eyes. "It is Blasphemy to defame the Six, or to misrepresent the Book of the World," he said. "But that is not a State crime. It is Malicious Blasphemy to do so whilst claiming to be one of the Lords, yourself ... " |
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- The Disciples' Story, The Book of the World, 2nd Addend. |
| Later, when darkness had fallen and they had pulled off the road to eat some bread and dried meat, Carew put a hand on Bligh's arm. "Listen," he said. "You need help. It's no good spilling your guts to an old hack like Divitt Carew. You need someone who knows what they're talking about." Bligh looked at him. warily. He was scared. He had managed to talk to Carew, but it had not been easy. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "You keep saying that. Well I do know. There's a healer I've heard a lot about. He's unconventional: before the war he was tried for blasphemy, for the reason that his healing technique never once invoked the power of the Lords. He won a suspended judgement with the defence that, if the Church believed in its own scriptures then one such as himself could not cure the faithful without the influence of the Lords Elemental. He spoke for two hours and he didn't once admit to any kind of faith himself." Bligh sensed that Carew was missing something out. He waited, and when the journalist said no more, he prompted him, "And?" Divitt Carew glanced at him briefly. "The healer's name is Hammad Fulke." Bligh felt dizzy as a rush of memories bombarded him. His small room in Dona-Jez as Madeleine arrived in the rain and the dark, saying she had to be with him and she did not care what her parents said. The two of them, running hand in hand as snipers fired from Anasty's rooftops. Madeleine, clutching him and gasping, whispering words of love to him as they lay in a heap of sweaty bed-clothes. Bligh had always avoided talking of Madeleine's past. In their time together they could only have mentioned the name of Hammad Fulke three or four times, yet Madeleine had been Fulke's lover for nearly a year. "I don't know," was all he could finally think to say. Would he never escape that man's shadow? "You've been wandering across the country," said Carew. Bligh wondered what he was implying. "I traced your progress - the news stories didn't say where you were being held, so I had to do some detective work. I spoke to priests, I found an old tramp who knew the train timetables by heart - he told me, to the minute, every train you'd travelled on, every town you'd stopped at, but he didn't know anything about where you slept, or where you worked. "You have to understand, Bligh: you were always heading north. It was inevitable that you'd end up in Dona-Jez, whether you knew it or not. Why don't I just make it easy and drive you straight there?" Bligh did not answer, but he climbed into the car when Divitt Carew started it up. "Oh yes," said Carew, when they had been driving for a few minutes. "What do the People's Police want with you?" Bligh looked at him sharply. "When I was talking you out of Abeyat, the priest showed me papers he had received from the UPP in Anasty. I had to pretend I knew all about it and that Embassy custody would save him a lot of paperwork. I only succeeded because the Church instinctively distrusts the revolution." "What did they want?" "They were charge papers," said Carew. "You were wanted for desertion from the UPP militia." Bligh thought for a moment, before producing an explanation. "In Anasty," he said. "I tried to join them, but I changed my mind at the last minute. They'd written up some papers for me, but I never actually joined." Carew was not satisfied. "But what have you done to them, Bligh? If they sent the Police after everyone who could technically be termed a deserter then half of the surviving male population of Trace would be locked up. You must have done something to upset them." Bligh knew the answer. "I think you'd better ask Merc Domenech about that," he said. Just then, he thought madness might be his safest option. |
| Divitt Carew had interviewed Merc Domenech, only a matter of days after the end of his march on the Citadel and the slaughter of Parliament Square. "He remembered me from four years ago," he told Bligh. "He remembers everything. He did something no one has ever done to me before." Carew shook his head as he drove, a single rubber blade sweeping rain from the windscreen. "I was unable to write about him. I sat down that night and went through my notes, but I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what I could say. I've never known the feeling ... "He's risen so quickly," he continued. "Now, the Transitional Government faces a new threat, if they're not careful. Domenech has a popular appeal that could even rival support for the first revolution." "The country's not ready for another war," said Bligh. "That's what Domenech says, and he'll deny that he's doing anything to provoke it. 'The revolution must be completed,' is one of his favourite lines. But all the time, in the background, his propaganda team is raising the temperature. He thinks he's a God, Bligh. He really does, although he denied it when I challenged him." "It is a common madness," said Bligh. "Is that why he wants you, then? He knows there must be six Lords Elemental - he needs you to fulfil his madness, whether you want to cooperate or not. He's dangerous, Bligh." But Bligh did not need to be warned about Merc Domenech. He wondered if Domenech really did believe that he carried the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Soul, or if he was as confused and scared as Bligh. He thought, perhaps, that Domenech might be frightened of him, too, frightened of the alternatives he presented. They entered Dona-Jez in the early hours of the morning. It was too late to find a room, so they stayed in the car, sleeping propped up in their seats and waking stiff and unrested. "Where do we find Hammad Fulke?" asked Bligh, but he knew the most likely person who would know. "I have an old address," said Carew. He grinned. "But this is Trace - it won't be as easy as that." They left the motor car where they had parked it the night before. Dona-Jez was a small town, spreading around a junction on one of the main routes down into the heart of Trace from Feorea. The older buildings were built of solid stone, but filling the gaps, and spreading around the fringe of the town, there were houses built since the railway lines had been laid, wooden framed terraces with plaster laid crudely between thin wooden laths. It was strange to be back in Dona-Jez. Bligh felt that if he tried hard enough he could simply blank out the last year and his biggest worry would be the disapproval of Madeleine's parents. But, at the same time, he felt distanced from the place, as if he had never really lived here, never been happy here, never been in love. He knew his first fantasy, of return to an easy past, was no more than an illusion. The wounds of time had changed everything. He kept expecting to see people he knew, but there were none. Only the streets were familiar. Divitt Carew led him to a road by the school where Madeleine had once taught. Bligh had often admired the old terraced row opposite the school. There was nothing grand about these houses and flats, nothing too showy, but to live here was a sign of success. He had often thought that if he had been the settling type then a street like this would be an inspiring goal. Also, it was close to the school, and so, when they had just been friends, he would dream of seeing Madeleine out of his window, having her calling in after a hard day for a drink and a chat. Later, when they were lovers, it would have been convenient for her work. He had not known that Hammad Fulke had lived here. As Divitt Carew told him that this was the place, Bligh's mind was churning with thoughts of how they must have met: Fulke, spying her on her way to work, planning to meet her by chance in the street and seduce her. Or equally - Madeleine had always set out to get what she wanted - it could have been the other way around. It might even really have been chance, he concluded, as they mounted the stone steps that led to Fulke's door. "What do we do?" he said. He did not want to be here. Suddenly, the prospect of explaining his illness to a stranger was nothing when set against the prospect of meeting the man who had won Madeleine's love. It terrified him. He had never understood what had bound Madeleine to him for so long - love was just a word to cover ignorance, he had always assumed. The thought that she could share such a bond with another disturbed him. He eyed the steps, leading back to the pavement, the street. Divitt Carew put a hand on his arm. "Don't think of it," he said. "You couldn't out-run me, with that leg. And you're a fugitive, remember? I'm going to get you healed, whether you want it or not." He clapped Bligh's arm, and then turned and hammered on the door. He thought she was a girl, when the door slitted open and she peered at them from the shadows. Her eyes were haunting - almost circular, with small pupils and rimmed with short, black lashes. Her hair was black and tied hard at the back of her bony head. She licked her lips nervously, and said, "Yes?" Divitt Carew smiled and nodded. "Please, madam, I wonder if I may take a few moments of your time?" His manner had changed totally. Bligh watched him with interest, almost forgetting the reason for their call. "I'm trying to trace a gentleman with whom I hope to do business. Could we come in, for a moment? Please?" The door edged open another inch. "There's no man here," said the girl. Her eyes never left Divitt Carew. "The previous tenant left in the war." Carew sighed and turned to Bligh. As he did so, the door opened wider and Bligh saw that the girl had the body of a woman. She could have been any age between twelve and perhaps thirty. Carew sensed the relaxation and turned his head sharply back towards the woman. "We're not police," he said, shedding his smooth manner of before. "We don't want to cause Hammad any trouble. We have a friend in common. We need his help." "Then go," she said. "Hammad Fulke is dead." Bligh noticed a grimace flicker across her face as she said those words. Dishonesty? Pain? "In the war. You'll only find trouble if you don't go. Please." Her eyes flicked beyond them, into the street, and Bligh sensed that her fear was not simply the result of being confronted by strangers at her door. He pulled at Carew's jacket and said, "Come on. Let's go." He nodded at the woman and then turned back down the steps. "What are you playing at?" demanded Carew, as they walked away from the house. "She was scared," said Bligh. "Couldn't you feel it? She was hiding something. She meant what she said about trouble." He remembered ignoring Black Paul's warnings of trouble. "Of course she was hiding something! Another minute and we'd have known what." They walked in angry silence for a short time, then Carew said, more calmly, "Just remember, Bligh. I make the decisions - you're the mad one around here, not me." Bligh laughed. "We're all mad," he said. "Just in different ways." "You know who we have to ask now?" said Carew. "If she's still living in Dona-Jez, of course." Bligh looked down at his feet. When he glanced up, Carew was still staring at him. Slowly, Bligh nodded. |
| They waited outside the school until the mid-day break. The playground filled with children, ranging in age from toddlers to early teenagers. Even the previous year, the school had more pupils than this. There was no sign of any teachers, so Carew and Bligh walked in, through the chasing children and the squabbles and the ragged games of football. Carew looked at Bligh and raised his eyebrows, so Bligh nodded to a door and said, "They'll be in there." Carew pushed at the door and led Bligh inside. The classroom held a man and two women, seated on miniature desks as they gestured at a UPP news-sheet and argued politics. Madeleine was not one of them. The three looked up as the door swung shut. Divitt Carew stepped forward to speak, but Bligh beat him to it. "Salas," he said, to the silver-haired man. "You survived." The two women were teachers Bligh had once vaguely known. One of them, he remembered, had tried to dissuade Madeleine from her relationship with him. Salas Benjennery looked at him closely and then stood. "Fresh air," he said, breathing deeply. "I feel the need for some fresh air." He ushered Bligh and Carew out before him and would say no more until they had walked some distance around the perimeter of the playground. "You are a wanted man," he said to Bligh. "Remember Simmen Oate? No? He was in the 16th with us, in Alyk Ammar's Section. He was asking if I had known you well, only yesterday. We were in the same Section together, yes? We were friendly, yes? Had I seen you recently? Maybe we could all get together if you come back to Dona-Jez - share some beer and stories of the war? He's in the Police now. Friendly reunions are not in his plans, I think. What have you done?" "Nothing," said Divitt Carew, quickly. After a short pause, Benjennery said to Bligh, "You limp, Friend." "But I live," said Bligh. "That's enough." "Will you tell me what you've done?" Divitt Carew gave Bligh a warning look, which he chose to ignore. "Divitt thinks I'm part of Merc Domenech's plans to conquer the world," he said, shaking his head. "Ah," said Benjennery. "The Lord of Soul is looking for disciples ... " "No," said Bligh, awkwardly. "Equals, perhaps." Benjennery looked at him with a half smile on his face. "Remember my little obsession?" he said. "My quest for the fantastic? If the propaganda of Domenech's followers is anywhere close to the truth, then I have changed my mind: the death of magic could not come soon enough to please me. If you need help." Carew looked up and started to speak. "We're looking for Hamm - " "Madeleine Palmes," interrupted Bligh. "We're looking for Madeleine." |
| It did not take much for Salas Benjennery to convince them to hide until dark. They took the car out into the hills and waited by a stream through the heat of the afternoon. Warblers made their scratchy proclamations from the hillside scrub and marbled butterflies of orange and brown skipped through the air. It soothed Bligh greatly. As they drove back into town, Divitt Carew insisted they were making a mistake. "He'll have told his friend, Oate," he kept saying. "You've made a date with the People's Police, not Madeleine." "Leave me here," Bligh told him, on the outskirts of the town. "I'll find her on my own. You've risked enough already." They were to meet Madeleine in the grounds of the school, as the bells rang for evening communion. "You can't go on your own, you young fool," snapped Carew, staring bitterly out of his car's split windscreen. "Look what a mess you've made up to now." |
| A single figure stood at the edge of the playground as they pulled up in the street. They left the car and passed through the school gates. Bligh hurried as fast as his damaged leg would allow, but he stopped short as Madeleine turned to face him. He could see that she had been crying already and he swallowed grimly. He remembered his own conviction that their relationship was finished, but now doubt fogged his mind. He looked into her eyes, but was unable to think. He longed for the certainties of the past. He knew he should speak, but he had no idea what to say. He watched Madeleine's tongue flick at her lips, as if she was about to say something, and then she stopped and was looking past him. "Remember me?" said Carew, with a false lightness, as he caught up with Bligh and the three stood awkwardly in the school grounds. Now Madeleine looked from one to the other, remaining silent. Bligh was out of his depth. He turned slightly, towards Carew, who gestured at him and said, "Bligh's not well, Madeleine. We need help." "I know," she said. Her voice twisted his insides. He wanted to flee, yet at the same time he wanted to run to her and hold her as tightly as he could. He stood, rooted to the spot. He swallowed, with difficulty, and - reacting in his own familiar manner - he clamped down on his feelings. "We need to find Hammad Fulke," said Carew. Madeleine shook her head. "He's not here," she said. "Not in Dona-Jez. I don't know where he is." "Do you have any idea how we could find him?" said Carew. Madeleine shrugged. "We could start with his daughter, Aline." |
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| They slipped away from the house of Hammad Fulke by a back entrance. "Can we rely on her?" Bligh had asked, as they passed along an alleyway littered with bins and pieces of wood. "You'll be gone before you have to," said Divitt Carew. "You can leave the risks to the likes of myself. We might not need her, in any case: she's already told us Fulke is at the Citadel." Then, to Madeleine, he said, "Is there somewhere we can stay tonight?" "Come home with me," she replied. "It'll be watched," said Carew. "No one would dare watch my father's house," said Madeleine. "Is this wise?" asked Bligh, as they walked. "They never liked me." Madeleine glared at him, suddenly, and he wished he had remained silent. "They would never betray you against my wish," she said in a steady voice. "No matter what you did." Carew and Bligh waited in the shadows as Madeleine approached the front door. There was no sign of a Police presence, but they would take no chances. "Do you trust her?" said Carew, as they waited. "I have to ask, you understand." "I trust her more than I'd trust myself," said Bligh. When the door opened, they rushed across and suddenly Bligh found himself standing in that wide kitchen, being stared at by Rourigan and Adernis Palmes. Rourigan had once been a man of similar proportions to Bligh, although now he had hunched and wasted with age. He had the face of a fighter, with a crooked nose and glowering blue eyes and a jaw that jutted whenever the situation demanded. Adernis, too, was strongly built, although by comparison with Rourigan she looked almost dainty. Madeleine had inherited her straight, dark hair and her sturdy beauty from her mother, but much in her bearing came directly from her father. Rourigan drummed his fingers and stared at Bligh as his wife cut bread and meat and drew a jug of water for the table. "Thank you," said Bligh, awkwardly, as the two left the room a few minutes later. They were the first words spoken since he had entered the house. Bligh and Divitt Carew ate ravenously. Madeleine sat and watched, sipping occasionally from a cup of water. "Not eating?" said Bligh, eventually. He wished he could think of something better to say. Madeleine shook her head. "I've not been well," she said, staring at her water. "Not for some time." "Maybe we could get Hammad Fulke to heal you," said Carew, over a mouthful of cold ham. Madeleine glanced up with what might have been fear flickering on her face, but she said nothing. Later, she showed them through to a set of stairs, and then up to an attic room she said they could use for the night. She waited, as Carew went down to wash in the kitchen, and then she was alone with Bligh. "You left me," she said, poised in the doorway as if ready to escape. Bligh went over to peer out of the window. He wished she would at least come in and sit down. He turned back to face her. "The war," he said. "We were posted to Huesja." There was always a moment of horror, when you revealed that you had fought at Huesja, but this time there was something else in Madeleine's grimace. Understanding. The posting had been coincidence: he would have abandoned her anyway. "I gave you everything you wanted," she said. He had not wanted that. "I know," he said. "I took it." He felt lost. "Will you come to Anasty?" he asked. He did not want her to say yes. He could not bear the thought of seeing her with Hammad Fulke. He had never met the man, but already he could sense his power, his attraction. The thought of bringing Madeleine and Fulke together again made him feel small and inferior. "Do you want me to?" He did not know what he wanted, but he still nodded. The thought of leaving her here scared him almost as much as the thought of taking her to Fulke. They left as the sun was rising. First, they called on Salas Benjennery, who readily agreed to ride in the car with Divitt Carew. "I offered my services," he said, throwing a few things into a leather satchel. "It will be exciting." It was a short walk from Benjennery's flat to the railway. The four covered the distance in a few minutes and soon Bligh was crouching in the undergrowth, partway up the bank of a steep cutting. Madeleine lingered, as Benjennery and Carew walked away. "Take this," she said, pressing something into Bligh's hand. It was the small pistol she had carried in Comeras. Bligh stared at it as it lay in his big palm. When he looked up she was already striding away and even if the words had come she would not have heard. Later in the morning, Madeleine would report to the Police as usual; then she would call on Aline Fulke and they would travel by passenger train to the capital. Bligh glanced at a watch he had borrowed from Salas Benjennery. A goods train was due in a few minutes. He crouched and waited, but he did not worry as the watch's hands edged onwards. He had learned from Black Paul to trust the timetables. It was twenty minutes before the train appeared around the curve of the track. It would have left the goods yard three minutes earlier, but would not gain much speed until after this curve. The engine edged past him and he saw its driver working at some levers, his mate shovelling coke into the furnace. Once they had passed, Bligh scrambled down the bank and stopped as the wagons rumbled past within inches of his face. Timing his move with well-learned precision, he grabbed a rail and swung himself up. Breathing heavily, he hauled himself onto the little platform at the end of one of the wagons, then settled down for the journey. |
| The train kept stopping and starting all the way to Anasty. It was almost like travelling in wartime again. Bligh realised that he was back in the capital when the train slowed to cross the River Ana. The bridge was long and low, its masonry heavily scarred by the fighting. At one point, he looked down between the wagons and saw only track between him and the river. He wondered how much longer this bridge would stand without repair. What, he thought, had become of the rebuilding programme that received so much attention when the fighting had ground to a halt? Bligh jumped the train, tumbling painfully in the dirt, before it came to the goods yard which was its destination. He had learnt, in his time with Black Paul, that goods yards tended to be kept under guard against black marketeers and the hungry. Now was not the time to risk a beating or jail for the common crime of vagrancy. He walked the streets, believing himself to be safest in a crowd even though it made him feel vulnerable and exposed. Whenever anyone glanced at him he searched his memory frantically to see if he recognised them. He knew they only stared because he stared back, but that did not make it any easier. Eventually, he came to the riverside promenade where a strip of parkland bordered the River Ana. This was where they had agreed to meet, but not until sunset. He had most of the afternoon to fill. He glanced across at the eating house and wondered if he would be recognised if he went for a meal. Divitt Carew had given him a few shillings. He decided against it. He could miss a meal without noticing. Instead, he wandered down to the river, lost in memories of the last time he had been in this place. Soldiers from the Cooperatives or the UPP had lounged here, chewing sugar sticks and cleaning their rifles. Occasionally one of their light field guns would send a volley of artillery fire across the river, blowing apart another wall or - just as likely - failing to detonate. He remembered a bullet ricocheting nearby as he had broken sweetbreads with Madeleine. "Tea?" one of them had said, as if this was how they normally ate. He looked up and the face of Merc Domenech was staring at him from a poster, slightly larger than life, with fierce eyes and an incongruous little smirk. OUT OF THE MAYHEM! the poster yelled at him, from where it had been nailed to a peeling plane tree. He had seen other posters like this, urging the people to Win The Stalemate and to be ready to Proclaim A New Leader. Some had been signed by the Fool, one of the fringe characters from the Elementalist prophecies, but others, like this one, went unsigned. Divitt Carew had told Bligh, during the night, of the relentless rise of Merc Domenech. "The Transitional Government would have him killed," he had said. "But you have to understand: they, more than any, know the value of a martyr, whether in jail or in the ground." "Maybe they think they couldn't kill him," said Bligh. "If they believe his myth." Divitt Carew took him seriously. "Some of them, certainly. It's complicated by his involvement with Minna." Bligh remembered hearing Domenech speak on the steps of the Citadel, denouncing the Queen and the fact that foreign influence should keep her alive and involved in the broking of her nation's power. Yet now she had become a supporter of Domenech and he had stopped attacking her. Perhaps he saw her as a symbol of the authority he craved, Bligh decided. Or perhaps he thought he could topple her from within. "Does she believe he is the Lord of Soul?" Bligh had asked. "Hammad Fulke would know about that, from what Aline says. She's obsessed with Domenech, certainly. Maybe they just see exactly the same thing in each other: a route to power." Now, Bligh stared at the poster. "Do you believe it?" he said. "Do I?" Now that he was in Anasty, he felt that he was wasting his time. He had not blacked out or erupted violently since Abeyat. He knew that he still dreamt, because he would wake up in the night, terrified and soaked in sweat, but the images no longer recurred during the day, confusing him and trapping him into saying or doing things he had not intended. He knew he was deluding himself, though. He recognised that pulse, somewhere in the depths of his mind. The pressure, waiting to explode across his senses. Hammad Fulke was exerting his influence already: Bligh's fear of his encounter with Madeleine's old love was tricking him into believing that he might be better, that he did not have to go through with this after all. He shook his head and turned away. A few hundred yards downriver there was a stone bridge. He had noticed earlier that there was a steady flow of people heading across it and into the Old Town. He thought of following them, losing himself in the anonymity of the crowd, but he remembered the last time he had been in that part of the city. He remembered being a part of that mad panicking mass of people at the end of Domenech's march when anonymity had been no protection from the bullets of the Unified Army of the People's Transitional Government. But even as he decided against going with the crowd, he found himself walking towards the bridge. He stopped where it left the river bank and pressed his hand against the stone of its high wall, trying to steady himself. Once, the bridge had been used by wagons and motor vehicles - he could see the tram-lines set into its paved surface - but now it was fit only for pedestrian use. He looked towards the middle, where the wall fell away and for half of its width the bridge, too, had collapsed. At this point of narrowing, the crowd packed together and their progress was slowed. As he watched, a small boy was nearly sent plunging into the grey waters below, but at the last moment a hand shot out and yanked him back into the flow of people. When Bligh reached the bottleneck, he kept as close to the remaining intact wall as he could. If he was Lord of Stone, he thought wryly, he would have nothing to fear from the drop: the Lords' plans would surely not be defeated by the accidental drowning of one of their number. He walked more slowly than those around him, letting them pass by on either side. Like a rock in a stream, he thought with a smile. He shook his head to see if his God would answer him, but it only earned him a startled look from a woman to his left. Fear had become dominant in this post-war Trace, he realised. It was the new orthodoxy of the revolution. He had once thought the Traians to be the most sunny, open people of the entire world. Now, he wondered how he could ever have reached such a conclusion. There were more posters, here in the Old Town. They were plastered in great swathes across the boarded ruins of the quarter. Some had been posted upside down, or sideways, forming letters and words so that their message was writ large across the city. He saw the hand of the Fool in that, and instinctively he knew that young Gaspar Sech must have taken that role in Merc Domenech's insanity: he had seen them together in Comeras, and on the steps of the Citadel. The boy's native cunning would be well suited to mad poster campaigns and whatever other chaos-rousing Domenech thought appropriate. Last night, Carew had mentioned a raid on the Feorean Embassy in which nothing had been taken, nobody hurt. All that had been done was the distribution of severed chickens' heads throughout the building, in a gesture nobody seemed to understand but which Carew said had terrified every member of the embassy staff. One version even claimed that the Ambassador had woken to find a chicken head staring at him from his pillow and he had only known that it was not a dream when his mistress had leapt screaming from their bed. Only Sech, he thought, could have thought up such a plot. A crowd of singing women, dressed in long robes of sack-cloth, caught up with him now. They were singing fervently and smiling with the same expression Bligh had once seen on the face of a man lying in the mud on the plains near Comeras. His body had been blown away from the hips down, but his blood was so full of the Doc's Answer that he thought he must be somewhere close to heaven and that the muddy, exhausted soldiers who would not meet his gaze were angels come to bear him up. Bligh looked away. "What's happening?" he asked a young man at his side. "We're going to see the Six," he said. "Or so they say. I'm not as sure, myself, but my girl here - " he nodded to a heavy-breasted adolescent a short distance ahead " - she believes, so I go along." Bligh thought desperately of breaking away from the flow but he did not. He had guessed earlier that something of this nature must be happening. Confirmation of his fears would not stop him now. How, he wondered, could they be going to see the Six if Bligh was not there with Domenech? He bowed his head and waited as the tail-end of the procession filed in through one of the archways at the base of the old Arena. He could hear the roar of the crowd inside, booming back along the tunnel, mixed in with the pounding of martial music. He had been to an international football match once, between Feorea and Trace. The sound had been similar, although possibly less intense. He pushed and jostled his way along the tunnel. The ceiling was so low that it would scrape his scalp if he stretched. Ahead, light broke across the people's heads and all the time the noise swelled like the roar of the sea. At the threshold of the tunnel, when he could look out across the massed heads and bodies that lined the stadium, he paused and checked his thoughts. The pressure was still there, but he felt secure, in control. He sensed the excitement of the crowd, the air of anticipation, but it did not draw him as he had feared it would. He let the flow of people coax him into the Arena. He stood on a banked terrace, leaning back against one of the stone walls which he supposed had been built to retain the crush of the crowd. Around him, the noise was intense. People talked and laughed, they cheered and screamed for no apparent reason, and it all built, relentlessly, up. The Arena had survived, in one form or another, for close to 2,000 years. It had stood through earthquakes and wars and plague. It was older than Jahveism, half as old as The Book of the World. The Civil War had battered it severely, but it would endure; Bligh felt certain it would endure. The crowd, waiting to see their Lords, packed the circular sweep of terraces. They pressed down into the arena itself, but were held back by a double line of wooden fencing, guarded by UPP soldiers with Feorean guns. Within the line of barricades there was a circular stage, with seats arrayed to the rear and a solitary podium at the front, with a lectern and a microphone. A man in UPP uniform stood there, gesticulating dramatically and talking in a fierce flow, but the noise of the crowd all but drowned him out. They had not come to hear this man, or the music which had preceded him; they had come for the main act, they had come to hear their saviour. The backdrop of the stage was formed by a high canvas screen bearing a vast picture of the face of Merc Domenech. The portrait was stylised, reduced to two simple tones, the highlights picked out in gold, the shadows and background a seething red. His mouth was open, as if speaking, and his eyes burned with the fever of his madness. Bligh could not understand how he appeared to be the only one to see through to the base insanity of the man. Bligh had a side view of the stage, and he could see, behind Domenech's face, the scaffolding holding it in place. When Domenech finally appeared, the crowd had already reached a high pitch of excitement. First, more UPP guards appeared at the mouth of a tunnel, to the rear of the stage. At this distance, they looked like ants, or a child's toy soldiers. The crowd bayed for their hero. Then, when Domenech appeared, the noise somehow intensified. Bligh watched him as he marched stiffly to the stage and seated himself just below the podium. He held his hand up in acknowledgement, then turned back to gesture towards the others who followed in his wake. Bligh spotted Sadiq Phelim immediately. Then a young woman who held up her hands to the crowd, and to Domenech. This must be Queen Minna; Bligh had seen her picture before. Next came the man Bligh recognised as Alderas Aldivine - the Lord of Air, in Domenech's scheme of things. And then came three men, who made Bligh straighten and lean forwards, trying to see that he was not mistaken. The first was a man he was sure he had never seen, although he looked vaguely similar to Pozas Cantera. Next came his old friend Wink Hawley, his hands behind his back, looking around at the crowd and the guards as if he did not believe they existed. Bligh remembered that look: it had fixed on Wink's face as they had gone into battle, a sheer disbelief that the world around him was real. Back at Huesja, Bligh had envied him of that ability. Finally, there came a man who looked tall and awkward. He had dark hair and a heavy frame, spreading at the waist as Bligh had once done. As he watched this final member of Domenech's circle, Bligh saw that the similarities between the man and himself were only tenuous but they were enough that, should he join with Domenech, he could step easily into this impostor's place. Now, as the six followers settled in their seats at the back of the stage, Merc Domenech stepped up to the podium. He gripped the sides of the lectern and leaned forward and his eyes swept slowly across the vast crowd. "Friends," he said, and paused. "Friends ... we have come a long way together." Bligh remembered Domenech's speech on the steps of the Citadel. He shuddered as he remembered the bullets, too. The crowd had gone magically silent, as Domenech spoke his first words. "But, Friends: there is a long way to go. Blood has flowed, in the land of Trace. Blood has flowed in our fields. Blood has flowed in the streets of our villages, our towns, our cities. If you follow me, and my council of six, there can be no guarantee that more blood will not flow. Indeed. It is likely that more blood will flow. We have not yet won the battle for our own country. First, we must win our own stalemate, the stalemate imposed by those who we thought of as leaders of the revolution. But there will be blood in other lands, too, as the underclass rises up in every nation on this planet!" Bligh watched him talking. He watched his grip on the lectern, his gaze sweeping from one side to the other, and always, the giant printed screen behind him. He watched as Domenech stabbed the air with a finger or a fist, to emphasise his words, to stir the crowd. Domenech used everything he could command to drive the crowd wild in his support. He appealed to their class consciousness, whilst ignoring the presence of Queen Minna, her gaze fixed devotedly on the back of his head. He appealed to their national pride with a hand waving behind him to the Queen. He drew references from The Book of the World, but never did he claim, as the Fool's posters did, that he, Merc Domenech, carried the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Soul. He left that to his audience, breaking off, near the end of his speech, with his hands spread humbly wide, as they chanted a line from the Book. "The Lord is come!" they yelled. "The Lord is come!" Bligh looked at the people around him. He saw their mouths, opening and closing in frenzied unison. "The Lord is come!" Their eyes stared, bulging in their sockets, their necks strained forwards so that veins and tendons stood rigid beneath tight skin. Their hands punched the air as they chanted each word. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He felt the pressure building inside his skull. He did not want to be here. He did not want this almighty barrage of sound breaking across his senses, pounding him, pushing him down, down. A man turned to him, his eyes mad, like Domenech's. Others turned, stared. Bligh could not meet their looks. He opened his mouth, croaked, "Is ... come," in time with their opening, snapping mouths. He saw their tongues flopping, their teeth gnashing. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He forced his hands to punch the air, in time with the words. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He felt sick, he felt scared. He felt as if he had been reduced to nothing and he was being driven by the desire of the crowd, forced into a shape that was not his own. He felt on the verge of defeat, as if he was about to be subsumed. He knew that it was only his paranoia and the exaggerated emotions of this packed Arena, but that made it no easier. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" Domenech stopped the crowd with his hands held suddenly up in the air, his head bowed. "Enough!" he snapped into his microphone. His single word cut through the chant, so that its returning echoes rung hollowly around the Arena. "Enough," he said, more quietly. "I am, merely, a servant." But there was a smug ring to his voice, something that broke, momentarily, through Bligh's panic. "We are all servants to a higher cause. We must, all of us, remember that if you are with my council of six, then you are preparing the ground for the Lords of the Elements to lead us all to a new plane of existence, a new world of equality and peace. If you are against us, then you are against the Lords Elemental. Friends, it is that simple." He raised his hands one last time. "Friends," he said and his was the only voice in the stadium. "Friends, we are the chosen ones." He stepped down from the podium and his spell was instantly broken. Bligh looked at those around him and they were normal human beings once again. They no longer stared, they no longer chanted and frothed at the mouth. "The ... Lord ... is ... come," he croaked, but now they only looked at him, pitying him or merely embarrassed. "The ... Lord ... is ... come." The crowd filed out, but Bligh could not make his feet move. They had grown into the ground, melded with the stone of the terrace. He looked down at his heavy grey boots, and he could not see where they ended and the ground began. He tried to lift one foot, but it was like trying to raise a mountain, and he was that mountain. He lowered himself and hugged his knees to his chest. He felt completely drained. He tried but he could not stand again. He closed his eyes and began to rock back and forth, as if that would stop his relentless merger with the stone beneath his feet. "The Lord is come," he muttered, but he no longer knew what the words meant. |
|
He sensed people around him and he
opened his eyes warily. In the grey light of dusk, or dawn, he
saw the stone terrace, falling away from where he sat. He moved,
and groaned at the stiffness which had settled across him like
a heavy mantle.
"Are you all right?" said
a man's voice.
Bligh looked to his side and a pair
of UPP soldiers were peering at him, their rifles held warily
at the ready.
"Did you get crushed in the
crowd? Is that it, hmm?"
Bligh shook his head, grunted. "Okay,"
he said, eventually, when he had recovered the use of speech.
"I'm okay."
"Here, don't I know you?"
Bligh shrank back into himself as
one of the soldiers loomed closer out of the shadows, his teeth
startlingly white.
"You look familiar. Here, Roddy,
doesn't he look familiar to you?"
"I don't know you," said
Bligh.
"He's just got one of those
faces," said the second soldier. "You know, one of those
faces that looks like you should know him, only you never have."
"One of those faces,"
repeated the first, as if it was a magical phrase. "I suppose
so. Only ... "
"What time is it?" said
Bligh. He needed to know, although he was unsure of the reason.
"Ask the time! You're wearing
a watch, for the sakes of the Lords."
Bligh looked at his wrist and saw
an unfamiliar timepiece. "Evening? Morning?" he asked.
"Evening, for the sakes of
... " The soldier stopped and looked at his friend. "This
one's had too much of the heat, or the crowd. Maybe we should
lock him in a cell to cool off. What do you think, hmm? What do
you think?"
Hands gripped him, pulled at his
arms. "No, Roddy," said the soldier pulling at him.
His breath smelt of drink. "Lets just get him out into the
street. He'll have a home, or some friends who'll be looking for
him."
"Friends," said Bligh,
clutching at the word. He let the soldiers haul him to his feet
and then he stood dizzily, until the world settled around him.
"I'm okay," he said, stepping down the terrace.
"This way," said a soldier,
guiding him towards the tunnel.
They left him outside the Arena.
Which way? he wondered. He took one step and then another. He
decided to follow the direction his feet had found. It was now
quite dark and he felt that he must be late, although he did not
know for what.
He found a street he thought looked
familiar, but by its end he was lost again. He smelt spices on
the air, and the scent of old cabbage and pod beans. He turned
back.
Eventually, he found himself sitting
on the broken bridge, his feet dangling over the water of the
River Ana. He knew he had returned to familiar territory, but
he was certain that he had missed his friends, whoever they were.
It was late in the evening now, a time when most people would
be in their beds.
He could see the strip of parkland
from here, a murky area of trees and deep shadows. He pulled himself
to his feet and began to walk. So close, he felt that he must
complete his task. He should reach the park, at least.
He left the road and walked through
dew-laden grass. His crumbling boots were soaked through within
seconds.
A man sat hunched on the wall which
fronted the river. His feet were over the water, as Bligh's had
been up on the bridge. He flinched, as Bligh approached, and turned
to stare at him. "Bligh?" he said, uncertainly. "Is
that you?"
"It's me: Bligh," he said,
the first time he had spoken since the soldiers had evicted him
from the empty terrace of the Arena.
Divitt Carew, the man was Divitt
Carew.
Bligh felt relieved.
"Come on," said Carew.
"The others have been waiting since sunset. We didn't even
know if you'd reached Anasty. What happened? You have to understand
that we're risking a lot for you."
"I went to the Arena,"
said Bligh, following Carew, climbing into his little motor car.
"There was a rally. Domenech."
"You shouldn't have done that,"
said Carew, harshly. Then, when he had managed to fire the engine,
he added, "You okay, Bligh?"
Bligh said nothing. They drove off,
through streets that held only a few pedestrians and soldiers.
"We were stopped," said Carew, after a time. "Leaving
Comeras. Salas insisted that he had been travelling with me all
along, but I don't know if they believed us. They'd clearly had
reports that you were travelling with a companion in a blue car.
The priests at Abeyat must have swallowed their pride and reported
to the UPP, when they realised that I'd fooled them."
Later, he said, "I spoke with
Madeleine this evening. She's not well, Bligh. You should talk
to her."
Bligh emerged from the semi-conscious
state he had adopted since entering Carew's car. Madeleine? Not
well? He remembered her pale face, he remembered eating while
she sipped awkwardly at a cup of water. "I've not been well,"
he remembered her saying. "Not for some time."
"Is it serious?" he asked,
his eyes fixed on Divitt Carew.
Carew refused to look at him. He
stared at the road ahead. "Serious?" he said. "Oh
yes, it's certainly serious."
They stopped at a small guest house
on the fringe of the city centre. Bligh followed Carew in through
the front door and up two uneven flights of stairs. The journalist
unlocked a door and waved Bligh through. Inside, Madeleine and
Aline Fulke were asleep in their clothes on a huge bed, and Salas
Benjennery was curled up on the floor.
Bligh watched Divitt Carew move
a chair and then kick off his shoes and sit with his legs stretched,
his feet on the bed by Aline's knees.
Bligh eyed the floor, but there
was no room for his bulky frame. He squeezed onto the bed and
Madeleine stirred in her sleep. He held himself self-consciously
for a moment and then rested his head, tentatively, on her lap.
He could hear the sounds of her digestion, feel her body moving
beneath his head as she slept. He wondered what had happened to
them, why he had allowed a gap to open up between them. He wondered
if it was possible to heal such a wound. And then, finally, they
were together in their sleep. |
|
'Open the door and here are the people.' - Nursery Rhyme. Salas Benjennery found them at the docks shortly after midday. "Tonight," he said, staring at Bligh. "Tonight, Hammad Fulke will heal you." Bligh thought he should feel something, but instead he just stared down at the froth and flotsam of the harbour and said nothing. The docks were a part of the Old Town, although most of the existing buildings had been erected since the railway had come at the turn of the century. The River Ana opened out abruptly here, so that the opposite bank was half a mile distant. Gulls squawked and yelped over the boats and from their rooftop nesting sites. Terns skipped along on the breeze, pausing to hover over the shallows and occasionally to dive, emerging sometimes with a silver flash of sand eel in their beaks. "Tonight," Bligh repeated, finally. "Tonight." "Where's Aline?" asked Madeleine. It was curious, her relationship with Aline. In age they were only separated by a few years, and there was often a jealous, sibling rivalry between them; but also, at times, Madeleine showed an almost maternal sense of responsibility toward Hammad Fulke's daughter. "She chose to stay with her father," said Benjennery. "When we arrived, the guards held us until Hammad sent word that he would see us." He shook his head. "They greeted each other like parted lovers. I felt that I should not be present. Then he turned to me with that embracing smile of his - " here, Benjennery glanced at Madeleine " - and said, 'I've just come from the Queen, Salas. I think I have met a challenge worthy of my skills and experience. She is obsessed with Domenech. She is drawn to his danger, his sense of threat, and also to his copious charisma.' Then he smiled and said, 'I think it is the sex, myself, but how can one heal such an illness of the mind? Do you know, Salas?' He says the Queen realises he tries to heal her, and she knows he loves her, but she sees his attentions as a game, a diversion while Domenech is busy elsewhere." "Where do we go?" said Carew. "To meet him?" "Hmm? Oh, Hammad Fulke has rooms in an old Government building off Al-Santen Square." "Is it safe?" said Madeleine. Suddenly, Bligh sensed a trap. Surely the healer would be watched, he thought, even if Fulke, himself, could be trusted. "We've come this far," said Divitt Carew quietly. "If Fulke thinks it is safe, then we can only rely on his judgement." |
| They approached the building through a service alley to the rear. "Pappy told me," said Aline. "Police watch his house from the front. He thinks it amusing." It was dark, now, and Bligh had trouble seeing where he was going. The alley was littered with refuse and rubble, which only added to his difficulties. He kept thinking that this must be wrong, but he did not know why. They entered a small yard and he peered at Madeleine, to his side, but he could not see her expression. He felt sick. They entered the building through a heavy door for which Aline produced a key. They passed along a corridor, up a flight of stairs and then they came to a door with light edging where it rested in its frame. Aline knocked, then entered, saying, "Pappy, we've come." Divitt Carew entered with Salas Benjennery, followed by Bligh and Madeleine. Aline was hugging a grey-haired man of stocky build and kissing him ferociously on the cheeks. "Pappy," she said, "these are my friends." The two separated and Hammad Fulke turned towards his visitors, barely glancing at Carew and Benjennery, nodding briefly at Madeleine, then turning his look upon Bligh. "You want me," he said simply. He fixed Bligh's eyes for a long time and then he snapped his head away and turned to lean his forearms on the mantelpiece of an unlit fire. "I don't know," he muttered. "It's a risk." Madeleine stepped forward and put a hand on Bligh's arm. "Is he too much of a challenge?" she asked. Fulke looked at her. "No," he said evenly. "But do you want him damaged?" "He already is." They spoke of him as if he was a toy, or a household appliance. "I need your help," Bligh said, shrugging his arm free. He stood uncertainly and waited. When Hammad Fulke finally nodded, Bligh did not know what to feel. "We'd better sit," Fulke said, waving at some leather-covered chairs and then sliding into one himself. "Aline and Salas have told me about you. I want to know what you think I can do." Now that he had decided to help, his manner had subtly changed. Bligh looked at the healer, and now his aggression had gone. He wanted to cooperate, to make things easier for Fulke. He glanced at Madeleine, who was watching them both closely. He felt a flicker of his earlier jealousy, but it was quickly banished. "I've been told that I carry the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Stone," he said. Somehow, the words did not sound as irrational as they had before, circling around in his head. They were better spoken. "I dream like I never have before. I black out and find myself doing things for which I can find no reason. My mouth speaks words which do not come from my brain ... it feels as if they've been relayed from somewhere distant, like ... like a radio set doesn't speak, it's the presenter miles away in his studio. People stare at me, as if they're waiting for something." "And Merc Domenech believes you are Lord of Stone, too," finished Fulke. "It is a madness which has convinced others," he mused. "Have you thought ... ?" He raised his eyebrows and paused, a little smirk twisting his mouth. "Are you suggesting that it might be true?" said Benjennery, in disbelief. Hammad Fulke shook his head. "I am suggesting nothing," he said. "Am I mad, or am I possessed?" said Bligh, coldly. "Madness is a matter of degree," said Fulke. "And before tonight is done, you will be possessed. It is the healing process." "Excuse me," said Divitt Carew. "But I've read of your trial, before the war. How can you heal without belief? You are not a doctor of medicine: you are a faith healer, aren't you?" "The Gods have no monopoly on faith," said Fulke. "The human psyche has deep resources for the healer to excavate. It is my function to open paths that have been closed to the user, to clear the detritus of an injured brain. Like a doctor who re-breaks a leg to set it straight, I re-open the wounds of the spirit so that they can heal in a stronger way." "What's happening to me?" asked Bligh. He did not understand. He felt the calming influence of Hammad Fulke beginning to dissipate, and the pressure in his head rising up. "Why me?" "It depends on your view of the world," said Hammad Fulke, after pausing to consider his words. "Language is merely analogy to the processes of the world, or the processes of the mind. Words are far from perfect, but they are the tool we use to communicate, and so I must try. "Let me start with the paradox of my own beliefs: I do not believe in the Gods, but I do not doubt that the Gods exist. They are, I believe, the product of a deeply embedded psychological need. A desire, if you like. These reincarnation myths which haunt you so mercilessly, they are the physical projection of the collective will. If people need magic, if they need the Gods to walk amongst them again - and if their will is strong enough - then the Gods walk. Such Gods are as real as any which could be explained in more conventional theological terms." "I am God," said Bligh, testing the phrase on his lips. Looking at those around him. "You are what the people want to be God, perhaps. A vulnerable man, with tremendous potential. You are not possessed by some Holy Spirit, Bligh: you are possessed by the needs of the people, stirred by the collective trauma of this awful war." "Why Bligh?" said Divitt Carew. "Why anybody? Fortune, chance, psychological vulnerability ... " "But myth is dying," said Salas Benjennery. "Magic has died with this generation. We are moving into a secular world. There has been an upwelling of religious longing, since the failure of the war, but if you look closely enough you can see that it is desperation. People fear returning to what they rose from. They fear the return of oppression. Look around you: people hope, but they don't believe. They focus on figureheads, instead, as a substitute for their own inadequacy. But magic is dead." "And so, perhaps," said Hammad Fulke, "the Lords Elemental can be defeated." |
| "The masses call it the Prayer of the Body," explained Hammad Fulke. "You may have encountered it." Bligh nodded but said nothing. "Stripped of its mysticism it could be considered a crude form of regression therapy. It is a means of opening up the basic persona to the desires of those around, or to the desires of the spirit world, depending on your view. We must open you up, Bligh. We must expose you to the desires of the masses so that we may examine the extent of your affliction. It could be dangerous for you, although my skills and experience should counter your weakness and lack of fight." Bligh stared at his hands, clasped tightly in front of him. Such a peculiar arrangement of bones and skin. He ignored Fulke's cynicism and his bragging. All he could think of was that he must get through this awful evening and get away from this place, this city. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready." Hammad Fulke came and squatted before him. Bligh met his look and refused to blink or look away. He thought that Fulke could be hypnotising him, or reading his thoughts, but still he refused to turn away. Eventually, Fulke nodded and then placed his cool, dry hands on Bligh's head. "Hmm," he said. "Aline. Come here. Feel his conflict, his heat." Another cold pair of hands settled on his scalp. He felt foolish, but he did not move. He would endure this for Madeleine, he thought. A mark of repentance. His head began to sweat, but he did not move. After an interval of what seemed like several minutes, first Hammad and then Aline withdrew their hands. They exchanged a glance but said nothing. Bligh felt excluded, but still he did not allow himself to speak. Hammad Fulke stood and went to a tall cupboard, from which he produced a number of items. "Ignore the religious connotations," he said. "The symbolism appeals to something far more basic in the human thought process." He placed a black iron bowl in the middle of the floor and filled it with kindling and coals. Lighting it with a match he said, "The Fire is our passion and our anger. It has a special affinity toward stone: it produces it, in the depths of the Earth, but also it can be retained by a ring of stones. It is your closest ally." He threw a few small gemstones into the flames, and said, "Stone gives us our solidity and bears the fertility of the soil, but also it can move and break when the ground quakes." Bligh thought Fulke was taunting him. He did not know how much of his explanation to believe and how much was disguise for what was really happening. He remembered Divitt Carew telling them that all they could do was trust Fulke. He would try. "The Air is more tenuous," Hammad Fulke continued. "It is all around us. It gives us life, yet we cannot grasp its essence." He threw a handful of herbs into the flames and their scent burst across Bligh's senses, as the gemstones glittered and glowed with the heat and light. "For our purposes we are reminded of its presence by scent and smoke." Returning from his cupboard another time, he bore a tray with bottles and fine glasses. "Aline," he said, and she rose to pour liqueurs for everyone. Glass in hand, Hammad Fulke surveyed the gathering. "There are more appealing liquids than water," he said, and then drank from his glass. "And more functional ones, but water is basic to us all, as much so as the air we breathe. It is the symbolism that counts. "More difficult in such a small, forced congregation," he continued, "is the sense of revelry, of high spirits. The element of wisdom and charisma, but also of depression and insecurity. The Soul of the party. The mood. The tension." Bligh remembered the times he had been present for the Prayer of the Body. All these elements had been there, but it was the atmosphere which had finally taken over and driven the course of events. The soul. "What do we do?" said Madeleine. She was looking at Fulke, leaning forward with her eyes alive and glowing. Bligh could feel the tension rising. Hammad Fulke moved towards her so that their faces were inches apart. Bligh wanted to leap to his feet. He wanted to tear them apart. He wanted to cry. "Laugh!" yelled Hammad Fulke, and immediately he tipped his head back and gave a mighty, booming laugh. "Yell! Cry!" he said. "Create the mood!" He laughed again, and, tentatively, Aline made herself begin to chuckle. The noise sounded wrong coming from her, forced as it was. Bligh had never heard her laugh before. Divitt Carew and Salas Benjennery joined in, Benjennery imitating Fulke in a coarse guffaw, Carew looking uncomfortable, his laugh metronomic and false. Bligh looked at Madeleine, saw tears on her face. She smiled and shrugged and then, "Hm," she said. "Hm, hm." It was the best she could manage. Bligh wondered if he was to try, too. He looked around, uncertain. He folded his arms hard across his chest. The sound was beating at him, but he did not feel that he could add to it. He felt himself withdrawing and then Hammad Fulke caught his eye and held his look. "And finally," said Fulke, an island in this room of madness. "The sixth element must be added. Flux, the source of all change and vigour." "How?" hissed Bligh, through the laughter, and the shouting. Hammad Fulke smiled. "Flux is present at the climax. He is change, he is the element of transformation. Of possession." Bligh felt sick again. He realised that everything was in place and it all depended on him. He did not know what he should do, whether he should try to focus his mind, try to open it, to relax or to centre on the tension of his friends. He looked helplessly at Madeleine, her tear-streaked face, her hair hanging forward as she rocked back and forth. But she only laughed at him, a manic cackle that stirred some primitive fear in him and made him turn away. "It's wasted," he said, helplessly, to Hammad Fulke. "It isn't working." Fulke looked at him, skewering him. He shook his head, slowly. "No," he said. "No, Bligh, it is not wasted." He swept a hand sharply through the air. Suddenly Bligh was falling, tumbling away through the layers of his mind. He was on the mountain, running, naked. Cold stone pounded at his feet, but still he ran. He was on the torn plains of Huesja, Domenech ahead of him in a hail of shrapnel and bullets. Their eyes met and Bligh knew that they were bound together. He stood upright, like Domenech, and then blackness descended as a bullet plunged into his thigh. "Who are you?" A voice boomed through his barriers, broke across his mind. He ignored it. He was back at school and Brother Benjahmine was giving him The Lecture. "Your duty is to God, Son of God," he said. "Your vow is one of abstinence and virtue. Your punishment is the Lord's gift to make you strong." The birch cane whipped painfully across his bare buttocks for the sixth time. "Your duty is to God, Son of God. Your vow is one of abstinence and virtue." He had been caught selling sugar sticks to his friends, breaking the Order's Codes of Commerce, and Indulgence. "Your punishment is the Lord's gift to make you strong." The cane struck him for the seventh time. Later, he watched from the dormitory window as his mother walked away across the school yard, having been informed of the reason he had been forbidden to see her. It was the first time she had come to him since the previous year. He could not believe this sad, drooping figure was the same gay young thing from his one photograph. He never saw her again. "Who are you?" He did not know what to say. And then, he felt it rising, the presence that he suddenly knew was so familiar to him. It was a form, or a shape, something that spread out to occupy larger and larger volumes of his mental space, pushing him aside. He tasted the temptation of surrender. He wanted to sink back and give up struggling. It would be so easy. "Who are you?" He felt the muscles of his mouth, his neck, working, but he did not know what they said. Images seeped into his awareness and he knew that his eyes were open. He was standing precariously by the dead hearth. Madeleine stared at him, her mouth open a little. Salas Benjennery watched, fascinated, appalled. Even Divitt Carew looked shaken. Nobody was laughing any more. He looked across to where Aline and Hammad Fulke stood, clutching each other, little smiles playing across their features. Those smiles. He felt angry. He felt it rising, more powerfully than anything he had known before. Those smiles. What game were they playing? Whose side were they on? What were they doing to him? He forced a sound out: what started as an infernal bellow emerged as a whimper. He swung a hand and knocked china ornaments from the mantelpiece. He swung again and a picture flew from the wall. The Fulkes were cowering now, but the others had not moved. He kicked at the black bowl of fire and gemstones and herbs in the middle of the room. Hot coals flew, settling on furniture and carpet. One must have hit Aline Fulke, because she screamed and clutched at her bare leg. He made a sound and this time it was a roar, as people scurried about, trying to smother the fires he had started. "Who are you?" demanded the voice. "Bligh!" he cried back. "I'm Bligh." "Who are you?" "Bligh." "Who are you?" shouted Hammad Fulke. "Bligh," he said, more quietly now, subsiding onto a leather-covered seat, exhausted. Fulke had deceived him, he realised. The healer had brought out his madness and offered it freedom. If he had told him this would happen, Bligh would never have agreed. "He had already gone a long way toward curing himself," said Hammad Fulke to his daughter, analysing his case history already. Bligh did not feel healed, but then, he conceded, he no longer felt as vulnerable. He had won, he realised. He had offered his madness freedom and then he had risen and knocked it back down. "I can control it," he said, still gasping for breath. "You could always do that," said Hammad Fulke. "You just needed convincing. As I said, it was merely a matter of - " The healer stopped and tipped his head to one side. "Visitors," he said, after a pause. "Quickly." He tugged at Bligh's arm with an unforeseen strength. Bligh stood and allowed himself to be pushed towards the door. The others were there already, filing through, as voices rose from the bottom of the stairs. Divitt Carew looked down the stair-well and came running back. "Police," he said. "Peresh will delay them," said Hammad Fulke, but just as he finished speaking a single pistol shot made him flinch and then feet thudded on the stairs. They hurried along the corridor, through a storeroom and down another flight of stairs. Bligh felt so disorientated that he wanted to stop, but now he knew that he must not. He pushed Hammad and Aline ahead of him down the stairs, so that he was the last to descend. The voices were getting closer behind them, as the Police closed on their quarry. "Out here," hissed Hammad Fulke, pushing at a floor-length window, then cursing when it would not open. He barged it with his shoulder but it still refused to move. Salas Benjennery dragged him aside and then threw a chair through the glass. It shattered and suddenly there was a voice from the doorway. "Don't move!" Bligh dived at the policeman, knocking him back into his colleagues in the cramped corridor. He struggled clear and turned back into the room. "Go!" he yelled. "Go!" He saw Madeleine staggering into the darkness of the back yard, Aline Fulke clutching at her hand. Salas Benjennery made it into the shadows, waited until Divitt Carew had joined him, then moved out of sight. But Hammad Fulke stood, hesitating, in the frame of his broken window. If he fled, he would be a fugitive, Bligh realised, and he would never see Queen Minna again. But if he stayed ... Fulke took a step into the darkness and then there was an explosion and he stumbled, fell to his knees. The gun fired again and the old healer slumped forward onto his face. Bligh stopped, horrified. A hand grabbed his hair and jerked his head back. A knee or a foot slammed into the small of his back and his feet went from under him. "This is him," said one of the policemen. "This is the one." Someone fired off another couple of rounds into the darkness, but no one went in pursuit of the others. Bligh lay amongst the broken glass and looked at the still body of Hammad Fulke. "What now?" he said, but nobody answered. "What happens now?" |
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- The Book of the World, ch.31, v.60. |
| Bligh had only seen the Citadel from the outside before: the low stone facade which made up one side of Parliament Square. Sadiq explained, as they passed through its entrance and into a series of wrecked courtyards, that it spread back five times as deep as it was wide. "Here, there are the offices of Parliament," he said, "with ministerial residences and administrative quarters." If anything, the architecture was more grand here than seen from the Square. The fine buildings had clearly been ransacked during the war, yet somehow the smashed windows, the toppled and broken statues, the fountains that were dry or sprayed askew, all added dignity to the spectacle. Sadiq waved a hand vaguely and continued, "The Palace is over there, a wing once occupied by royalty but now home to the leaders of the People's Transitional Government. The Queen lives in the Council section, now, with the rest of us." Bligh saw how it was possible that, despite his opposition to the new Government, Domenech had been able to establish himself in part of the Citadel. Its scale allowed space for such rivalries, but also, his presence must lead the Government to feel that they retained some influence over his actions. It was a precarious arrangement. They found Domenech in a long office in the heart of his headquarters. Bligh sensed his presence immediately, like a storm cloud just beyond the horizon. He tried to shrug the resulting sense of doom aside, but it was difficult. For the first time since Fulke had cured him, he sensed the presence lurking inside his head. "Ah," said Domenech, rising from a seat and spreading his hands wide as if to embrace Bligh. Their eyes met and, briefly, locked and Bligh felt an answering surge of pressure inside his skull. "At last," said Domenech. His curly black hair was longer than when Bligh had last seen him, and waxed ringlets cascaded over his forehead and cheeks. He had the same, thin moustache, the same arrogant manner. The same glimmer of madness in his eyes. "Bligh," he continued. "Welcome to the Council of Six." Bligh nodded warily, and said, "Domenech." He kept his tone neutral. He did not know what was to happen, but was ready for any kind of trap to be sprung. At that moment a side door opened and a young woman entered the room, fracturing the heavy atmosphere. She smiled at Sadiq and at Domenech, and then her gaze flickered curiously towards Bligh. "Minna, dear," said Domenech. "This is our friend, Bligh. We found him in the night." So this was Queen Minna. She was dressed in a simple cotton dress, which swept to the floor, and a jacket of some light, drifting material which Bligh did not recognise. Her hair was an undistinguished brown, pinned in a loose bun at the back of her head, and her skin was an un-Traian paper-white. Her manner was dignified but unshowy, more that of a gentleman's wife than of royalty. She seemed insignificant, somehow, unworthy of the war which had so recently been fought over her. "I am pleased that you have come," she said. It was only in her tone that her true status exhibited itself. Bligh nodded and turned back to Domenech. "Would you mind explaining ... ?" he said, and settled back on the soft couch Domenech had indicated. A servant came in with a tray of savoury pastries and drinks and Bligh helped himself. "I wanted you here," said Domenech. "We thought it was best." "Who?" "The Council, and my advisers. You're not the only one with followers, Bligh. While your disciples are journalists and blaspheming healers mine are seers and political strategists. Oh, and of course, my Fool. Look around you, Bligh. Couldn't you settle to this? Wouldn't you find it easier to promote the revolution with all these facilities to hand?" "Is that the Lord of Soul speaking?" asked Bligh, holding his sweet liqueur poised at his lips. "I have never once claimed to be the Lord of Soul," said Domenech, adopting a well-practised expression of innocence. He smiled, briefly, and Bligh felt a sudden tightness in his chest. "I am a tool of the revolution, that is enough for me. "The war created people like you and me, Bligh. Either it triggered something within or it just allowed us to prosper and come together. Either way, we are here, with our potential to assume the lead in this revolution." "You're using it, aren't you? You're exploiting the desperation of the people." Bligh looked at Minna and Sadiq, but they were not touched by his accusation. "Political power, religious power ... what difference is there?" said Domenech. "It is the change you instigate which finally matters. It's not only Trace: we can lead the whole world into a new state of being, a new political and religious order. We have converts in the Wederian Congress and Presidium. Yesterday a rally closed down the centre of Euardice, delaying the special recall of the Feorean Legislature. We have the power. It is only a matter of time, now." "Why me?" "Why any of us? You, because my seers say you are a chosen one, a member of the Six. They have been right so far - I would not contradict them. If they say you are Lord of Stone, then why should I argue? I suggested alternatives but they were adamant. The Council of Six will be unstoppable." Suddenly Bligh saw the pit that Domenech had dug for himself. He was abusing the prophecies and myths of The Book of the World. He was using them to haul himself to the top, to a position of supreme power. But at some level, Bligh was sure, Elementalism still had a hold on his superstitions and he still believed. Domenech was suffering the madness Bligh had suffered and he was scared that it was true. He was bound by his cynicism and simultaneously by his superstition. He had no choice but to woo Bligh, because somewhere in his mind he was scared to go against the advice of his seers, and the teachings of his infancy. Bligh had been through all that. He had been ill, but he had been cured. He held a tactical advantage in his disbelief. He looked into Domenech's eyes, pleading through a facade of arrogance. He smiled. "What if I'm the real thing," he said, "and you are not?" The flash of fear across Domenech's face was proof enough of Bligh's assessment. He settled back in his seat and ate another pastry. He could enjoy this, at last. "There is no question," said Domenech, recovering his composure immediately. Bligh glanced at Queen Minna, then asked Domenech, "Why did you have Hammad Fulke killed?" "What?" gasped Minna, before Domenech could reply. She turned on him, and said, "Is this true? What happened?" Domenech put his hands out and pushed her, gently, back into her seat. "These things happen," he said. "He struggled with an armed policeman and a gun went off. No! Sit down. We'll talk later." Minna slumped in her chair and said no more. "You're the fifth," said Domenech, calmly, to Bligh. "And the most troublesome yet. I expect to hold the first full meeting of the Council of Six before the week is out." "You've found Pozas?" said Sadiq, eagerly. Domenech shook his head. "We're close. It won't be long." "And what will you charge Pozas with?" said Bligh. "Desertion? Breathing without divine approval?" Domenech looked at him coldly. "Don't be bitter, Stone," he said. "You betray your potential. You are worthy of far better." |
| "You'll be staying here in the Citadel, of course," said Sadiq. "The facilities are beyond compare. Far better than that decaying little guest-house your friends are using." Sadiq smiled, clearly enjoying revealing the extent of his knowledge. "Why didn't your thugs take me when I was there, then?" asked Bligh. They had left Domenech and Minna in the office and were now ambling along an airy corridor. Bligh hoped the two were now arguing about the death of Hammad Fulke. He would like to have stayed to listen, if that had been possible. "Ah," said Sadiq. "I will admit that you were still a step ahead of us, until last night when you were observed near Fulke's residence. A suite is ready for you. We can prepare rooms for your followers, too. You might like some company at night, no? I remember your Madeleine well." "Is there a suite for Pozas, too?" Bligh was determined not to let Sadiq get the better of him. "Of course. Here. We can provide anything else that you should feel necessary." It was more like a small house than a suite. The lower floor held a living room, with a bar and a small swimming pool and furnishings far finer than any Bligh had seen before. It was lit with a beautiful, dreamy light that filtered in through tall windows with curtains of feathered silk. Upstairs, there were bedrooms, an office with two smiling secretaries and a ringing telephone, and a bathroom that was full of sophisticated equipment and fittings. "I'd like some fresh clothes," said Bligh, his mind racing. Sadiq stepped into one of the bedrooms, past the wide, circular bed, and flung open a set of double doors. "Shirts," he said, flicking through the contents. "Jackets. Trousers." He eyed Bligh's crumbling LA boots and added, "Footwear," with a light chuckle. Thumbing through the wardrobe, Bligh selected a plain shirt, some corduroy trousers, a pair of comfortable-looking shoes. He stripped, before Sadiq, and said, "I'm going to wash." Sadiq watched him through the bathroom doorway, an amused expression on his face. Suddenly Bligh registered what he had said about inviting his friends to stay here. "I can leave?" he asked, surprised. "I'm not a captive?" Sadiq shook his head, then came in to show him how the controls for the pressure shower worked. "No," he said. "Of course you are free. There can be none freer than the Six. You have seen us here - your fears have been dispelled. You have no reason to flee any more." Bligh gasped as hot rods of water pounded his tired body. He realised that what Sadiq said was true: he would not run away from this. He was no longer scared of Domenech's traps. He was a free, healthy man and he had learned, finally, how good that felt. Sadiq left him at some point and he dressed alone. The fine clothes felt strange against his skin but, he had to admit, they did not feel wrong. He looked at his dirty old clothes and went through their pockets before dumping them on the landing. He followed the sound of voices along a corridor and across an open, paved courtyard into the relative shelter of a vine-festooned verandah. "Stone's here! Stone's here!" sang the Fool, Gaspar Sech. He looked older now, a patchy tan obscuring some of his acne scars. Bligh smiled at the boy. "Responsibility suits you, Gaspar. That is, if being a grown man's toy is a form of responsibility." Sech just laughed at him and said, "He's still scared of us, hah hah!" Also seated in this area, with the acolytes and servants who seemed to litter the headquarters of the Council of Six, were Alderas Aldivine and Wink Hawley. Wink was seated on a low wall, with his back to a pillar; a small orange and yellow bird sat twittering on his hand. He noticed Bligh, after a few minutes and smiled. "I thought you were running with the cats," he said. "But they always catch them in the end, isn't that the case?" "Not always," said Bligh, surprised at how pleased he was to be with his old friend. Wink blew a kiss at his bird, and said, "Will you ask them why I'm here? Do you know, perhaps? They only prevaricate and obfuscate where I am concerned. Perhaps if I had run, for a bit, they would have taken more trouble with me." "Does the Lord of Fire have to ask?" said Bligh, settling close to Wink. He looked at the bird now ... and then had to look again, startled by its features: on one side an eye that could have been human, but for its size; and on the other, a mass of pink scar tissue. Wink shook his head. "That's what Domenech says. I tell him he has the wrong man, but he won't believe me." "Do you believe you're the wrong man? Aren't you mad, like the rest of us?" The bird. Bligh had to keep looking at it until, now, it paused in its song to look back and then its human eye winked. "Me?" Wink Hawley grinned. "I've never been saner. Here - ask King Elleo." He clapped his hands and the bird flew away, startled, to perch amongst the vines. "No, not the bird, idiot. The King - here." He gestured at the thin air in front of him. "He talks to me all the time, you see. Can't you see? Oh dear, perhaps you are mad then, after all." For a moment, Bligh thought Wink was teasing him, but as he looked at him he became unsure. Up in the hills, Wink's ghosts had seemed a clear mark of insanity, but now they just seemed sad. Bligh glanced at the bird as it perched in the vines. Just an ordinary songbird. He shook his head and left his friend with his ghost of King Elleo. Alderas Aldivine was seated on the floor, surrounded by young men and women, all taking it in turns to sniff from a small gold dish they were passing around. Bligh returned Aldivine's nod, but refused the bowl when it was held up to him. He wondered it the narcotic fumes had pervaded the air all around, affecting his senses, and his mood. Talking to Wink had deflated some of his good feelings and now he returned across the courtyard. It was late in the afternoon when he emerged on the steps that led down to Parliament Square. He set out through the Old Town, hoping that he could still find Madeleine and the others. He realised that he could have taken an official motor car, with a driver who would probably know exactly where his friends would be found. He was clearly new to this life; ordering people around was something he had never had to do before. He climbed onto a tram and people looked at him. He realised it was his clothing that drew their attention, not so much its quality as the fact that it was all clean and new. He tossed a coin to the driver as he left, several streets before his stop. Perhaps walking would be better for him, after all. He felt strangely nervous, mounting the steps inside the small guesthouse they had used as their base. He had spotted Divitt Carew's car, tucked away around the corner, so he knew that they had not yet left. He heard voices coming from the room, and he paused outside the closed door. He licked his dry lips. It seemed wrong to knock at the door of his own room, so instead he bumped against it and opened it noisily so that he did not startle his friends too greatly. Three faces stared at him as he stood in the doorway. Aline Fulke sat on the bed, wearing her usual impenetrable expression, and Divitt Carew stood by the window, his mouth open as if he had been cut off in mid-speech. Madeleine sat at the foot of the bed eyeing Bligh suspiciously. "They caught me," he said, struggling to think clearly. "I was in prison." Carew looked at his clean clothes in disbelief and said, "And?" "And then I was taken to Domenech." What more could he say, he wondered? "Hammad is dead," said Carew, bluntly. "I went back with Aline at dawn. I thought you would be too, by now." Bligh saw Madeleine shudder and he felt a tremendous sense of relief that she had finally shown some kind of reaction. "I know," he said. He looked at Aline, and continued, "I never had the chance to thank him." She turned her near-circular eyes on him, now, and he felt mesmerised, as if she was a snake about to strike. "How much more damage must you cause?" she said in a low, quavering voice. He resisted the temptation to look away. "How much will it take?" he said, instantly regretting the brutal tone he had adopted. "Where's Salas?" he said, turning back to Divitt Carew, breaking the eye contact with Aline. "If he was captured I'll have him freed." There was an expression on Carew's face that made Bligh uncomfortable. It was a knowing look, one of resignation. "He's with some old friends from the Landworkers' Alliance." "That's illegal," said Bligh quickly. What he had meant to say was that such a meeting would be risky, with the Police surveillance they were almost certainly under, but it came out too quickly and it only served to deepen Carew's sad expression. "I'm leaving," said Carew. "You don't need us any more." "Don't," said Bligh. "Don't abandon me now." For a moment, he felt vulnerable again and he saw Carew study him closely and then nod once. "Come along, Aline," said the journalist. "I'll show you the docks." In a short time their steps had receded and Bligh and Madeleine were alone. "You've changed," said Madeleine, from the far side of the bed. Bligh looked down at his clothes. They were already dusty from the streets. She meant more than that, though, he knew. "I'm cured," he said. "My wounds have healed over. I'm a better man now." "What did Domenech say to you?" "Nothing that I didn't know already. He helped me understand things a little better, that's all. What about you, Madeleine? Have you changed?" She smiled a little and he wondered what she was thinking. "What's wrong with you, Madeleine? Can you tell me?" She shook her head, chewing at her lower lip and it was then that he realised. He looked at her, suddenly, as if for the first time: her red eyes, her puffy cheeks which he had put down to stress, the way her loose dress hung across her torso. "You're pregnant," he said, scared by the sound of the word. He had never considered that possibility before; he had avoided thinking about it, assumed that Madeleine knew what to do. There were means of preventing it, he knew, but he had thought them a woman's preserve until now. She looked at him unhappily, confirming his suspicions. "When?" he asked. "I have five months to go," she said. Her voice was firmer, now that it was in the open. Bligh thought she looked better already. He swallowed. He did not know how to begin thinking about something like this. "What do we do?" he asked, not knowing why he did so. "What do you want?" "Do you love me?" She had never put it like this before. A simple question, but still one that he had difficulty grasping. It was an issue he had never learnt to understand, one he had cynically dismissed or, more often, avoided altogether. "I don't know," he said, finally. He had to put it into words, whether it hurt her or not. He could not avoid it. "I don't know words for what I feel. I don't understand it." He could see that was not enough. "I can try," he added, and wondered if that would be enough. "I can try." |
| He walked through the corridors of the Citadel in a daze. He thought he had somehow said the right thing. Madeleine appeared to understand that he was attempting to be honest. Expressing his feelings had never been easy for Bligh, at least partly because usually he did not know what they were. And then he had said he was returning to the Citadel. "You're not going back to that place, surely?" said Madeleine. "You can't!" But he had to. "Isn't that what you want?" he said. He had never understood how such an intelligent person could cling to the ancient Elementalist superstitions, but he at least thought that she would understand the part he was to play. For several seconds they had simply stared at each other, confused and angry, and then Bligh had left. For a short time, back in the hotel room, he had thought things were working out, but now he had even less idea of where he stood with Madeleine than he had before. He heard raised voices coming from the verandah and he headed there, without thinking. "He can't be!" cried a man. Merc Domenech, Bligh realised, as he came to stand in an archway. Domenech was standing with his feet apart and his hands in the air and his rage was having a devastating effect on the officer of the People's Police who stood before him. "He can't be!" he cried again, his voice breaking slightly over the last syllable. Bligh looked at Wink Hawley, who was standing nearby, and raised his eyebrows. "Pozas Cantera," whispered Wink, moving closer to Bligh so that his voice did not carry. "He's been found." A little, mad smile played around his mouth, and then he added, "He's been found dead, hanging by a rope under a bridge over the River Ana." Bligh was horrified by the news, but at the same time fascinated. One of the Lords was dead! One of the Lords, themselves! How would Merc Domenech explain this, he wondered, as he watched the desperate look on his enemy's face and smiled. How, indeed? |
|
- The Book of the World, ch.86, v.20. |
| Sleep was not easy that night. When he succumbed, he dreamt of madness once again. Only this time, he was not running over his mountain, being watched by a desperate, yearning crowd. This time he was high above it all, watching the pathetic figure of a man bounding from rock to rock, as a huge crowd pressed together to watch him, to touch him. And then he was back at school, showing his mother - not the weary mother of experience, but the gay young thing of the photograph - where he slept and where he worked and then, mischievously, where he kept his illicit supply of sugar sticks. She smiled at this and laughed and, just before she went, she asked him if he could manage to love her, despite all the grief she had caused him. "Of course," he said, wondering why she needed to ask, and he looked into her eyes and realised that they were just like his own. Then he felt the world around him skip and he was looking at Madeleine and she was saying, "Of course, love. I've been unwell for some time, now." He opened his eyes and, for a moment, he wondered where he was - who he was. Then it came back to him and he thought that the time had come to leave this madhouse and try to forget it all, but he knew that was impossible: experience, and guilt, cannot simply be erased at will. He went out, past a secretary who smiled and greeted him as if she had worked in his employ for years. He plunged into the pool, shocking free any last vestiges of sleep. |
| The verandah was crowded this morning. Wink Hawley was there, talking to his birds and his ghosts. Sadiq Phelim and Alderas Aldivine were chuckling over a pipe belching a creamy smoke which smelt of pepper and pervaded the whole atmosphere. Domenech and Minna were standing in the doorway, looking on into the small room where Pozas Cantera lay at rest. And all around were the followers and sycophants. Men and women stood and sat, consulting occasionally with a member of the Council or with each other or one of the many who came in and out of other offices and corridors. "What do you think, Bligh?" said Sadiq, snagging Bligh's sleeve and thrusting the pipe up towards him. Bligh put the pipe to his lips and breathed in deeply. Instantly, he was submerged by a wave of energy, a rushing of sound and colour, a sense of excitement and anticipation. He passed the pipe on to the Fool, who had just come out from one of the offices. "I think of many different things," he said in a patronising tone. "And sometimes I try to think of nothing at all." He felt his senses beginning to settle again. "No, you misunderstand," said Sadiq. "Alderas has an idea. A way of spreading the revolutionary message. I think it's misguided." Alderas Aldivine grinned at Bligh. His eyes were glazed and his lips moist and, for a startling moment, Bligh was reminded of the look on the dead face of Pozas Cantera. Then he spoke. "We should paint the city red and gold. We should imprint it with the mark of the Unification Party of the People. The revolution could not lose, then. Don't you think?" Bligh realised that Aldivine was right on the edge. He wondered what Domenech would do if another member of his Council opted for suicide, or found his end in some other way. He shook his head. A man, who had been sitting with them raised a hand. He was one of Domenech's seers, one of his disciples. "It would be somewhat impractical," he said. "Although the spirit of the suggestion is admirable, if I may say so." "No, no!" said Aldivine. "We would do it in stages, of course." "Of course," Bligh said, and turned away, but Domenech was there, his eyes fixed on Aldivine. "It would be a gesture," he said. Bligh stepped back. This morning, Domenech's air of madness was more powerful than ever before. Bligh recalled his last encounter with him, and the aftershock of fear; it made him feel vulnerable this morning. "It would be symbolic," said Domenech. "Fool!" His voice was suddenly harsh and he looked around the verandah, searching for young Gaspar Sech. "Fool. Come here. Air has a plan. Look into it immediately." Sech came trotting across obediently, but there was a hint of resentment in his expression, Bligh thought. Domenech straightened, looking momentarily lost. Bligh spoke before he had time to wonder if now was the right time to push Domenech further. "What do we do about Pozas Cantera?" he asked, in a conversational voice. "It really is a bit of a drag, isn't it?" Domenech turned on him, but Sech spoke first. "I've been hearing voices," he said. Bligh had to admire him: he never stopped trying. "Voices in my head. Sounds like a big, big voice is booming down at me, trying to tell me something." He smiled, as if he thought he was being clever. "Do you think it might be me?" he asked. "Do you think the Lord of Water has chosen me?" Domenech looked at the boy, and then, in a sudden movement, he slapped him across the cheek with the back of his hand. "You blaspheme!" he snapped. "Enough." He looked at Bligh and continued, "I know what you're doing, but it won't work. There can be no divisions amongst the Six. Not when it matters. Your mischief may amuse you, but it is insignificant." Bligh felt as if Domenech had slapped him too. He touched his cheek and it was throbbing, numb. "Water will return," Domenech continued. His voice was growing calmer as he spoke. He was pulling himself up from the edge of insanity in a process Bligh knew well. "It was always possible that one of those chosen to carry the spirit of one of the Lords Incarnate would prove unworthy. I am surprised it was not you. Events are unfolding already, though. Lord of Water will not be far behind. Last night I established a panel of seers to seek Him out. Any possible candidates will be brought here to the Citadel, so that we may be ready." "And if they should resist?" "The right man will not resist for long - you are evidence of that." He chuckled. "And anyone who tries to interfere with the process will be shot. There is a lot at stake." "Oh yes," said Bligh. "Of course." Domenech started to leave, then paused. "Don't forget," he said. "Tomorrow's first meeting of the Council of Six will proceed as planned. History does not wait on the uncommitted." Bligh had forgotten about Domenech's meeting. He was surprised that it was still to go ahead. Domenech marched away to talk with two of his advisers. Bligh turned to Sadiq and Alderas and beckoned for Wink Hawley to join them. He noticed Domenech watching them curiously and he stopped himself from smiling with satisfaction. "What is it?" said Wink, lowering himself to sit cross-legged on the floor. "What do you want of the old chap, eh?" Bligh looked at each of them in turn. "It's close," he said, after pausing to build their anticipation. "I can feel it growing." He had their attention now. "What do you want us to do?" asked Sadiq, who was studying him closely. "We push," said Bligh. "Let ourselves be submerged. Taken over." He saw the fear on Aldivine's face, the confusion on Wink's, the cynicism on Sadiq's. "Why now?" said Sadiq. "What game are you playing? Why have you changed your attitude?" Bligh met his look and nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "Can't you feel it?" he said. "I don't claim to like any of this." He jerked his head at the people around them, and noted, in that instant, that Domenech was still watching the four closely. "And I don't claim - like some - to know what is coming. But I do know that it must be preferable to whatever Merc Domenech has in mind." Sadiq was still watching him, still cynical. "We should let the Lords decide," Bligh concluded. "And not Merc Domenech." Domenech left, with Minna and his advisers, but not before Bligh had seen the apprehension on his face. He looked at the other three, but they were less affected by what he had said. Sadiq still thought he was playing games, although Bligh felt that he had penetrated his barriers a little. Alderas Aldivine was so intoxicated that he would grasp anything anyone said and believe it with all his heart, but a minute later it would be gone. And Wink Hawley ... Wink was talking to his ghosts again, too lost in his madness to help Bligh undermine what Domenech was trying to create. He stood and headed out across the courtyard. He did not know what he had been trying to do, other than to stir doubts and conflict, but he knew he had failed. He did not know why he was here any more, except that he was unable to leave while Domenech's madness drove him on to ever greater heights of perversity and ... and evil. Bligh lowered his head as he entered a passageway which led from the courtyard out to where the official cars were parked. He did not see Gaspar Sech until he had collided with him and they had sprawled against opposite walls of the passageway. "Uh," grunted Bligh. "Sorry," he said. "I ... " He saw the brief flicker of hostility in Sech's look, followed by the manic, lop-sided grin and shrug. One side of the boy's face was reddened where Domenech had struck him and there was a spot of blood where a jewelled ring had broken the skin. Bligh instinctively put a hand to his own cheek. "He's using you," he said, desperately, to Sech. "Can't you see that he's just using you? Like he used the crowd in Parliament Square at the end of his Six Day March - you're expendable, Gaspar. He doesn't care. When he's bored with you he'll find himself another Fool - Trace is full of them." Gaspar Sech just watched him through slightly narrowed eyes. The idiot grin never left his face. "Don't worry," he finally said. Bligh was startled by the tone of pity in the boy's voice. "Don't worry so much, because Domenech could like you just as well as he does me and Sadiq. You shouldn't be so angry at him all the time - you just have to trust in him." Bligh was left speechless, leaning against the wall of the narrow passage, as the boy nodded at him and then trotted back along to the courtyard, humming one of the little tunes he used to hum in the trenches when everyone else was trying desperately to be quiet. Bligh took an official car to the small guest-house where the others had been staying. He felt awkward, issuing his instructions to the driver, but it was the quickest means of transport. The sense of relief, when he spotted Divitt Carew's motor car in the street was as intense as any feeling he had known. He leapt up the narrow staircase, three steps at a time, but the room was empty. He tugged at a wardrobe door to make sure that their bags were still there. They were. He peered down from the window, but saw no one he wanted to see. He sat on the bed, his head in his hands, and wondered what he could do now. Seconds later, the door burst open and Salas Benjennery stood with soap over half of his face and his razor thrust forwards into the room. He saw Bligh and straightened, self-consciously. "I heard someone," he said. "I thought ... " "I know," said Bligh. "I hoped you were still here. I need your help." "What is it?" said Benjennery, smearing the soap across his chin with the back of his hand and then fumbling in a bag for a shirt to wipe his face clean. "I promised that I would do whatever I could. What is it?" |
| > Before leaving the guest-house, Bligh had asked about Divitt and Madeleine. "They're with Aline," Benjennery had told him. "Madeleine promised to show them an eating house where the two of you had once eaten. By the Ana. Do you know the one?" Bligh had nodded and left Benjennery to his unfinished shave. He tried to think, as he walked back through the edge of the Old Town towards the eating house. He tried to work out if what he was doing could possibly be considered right. Around him, horse-drawn wagons rumbled by, loaded with sacks of flour or crates of dried meat. Men sat on top, with rifles cradled on their laps. The shortages were still severe, for the ordinary people of Anasty. It was easy to forget, in the sheltered confines of the Citadel. He paused on the narrow strip of parkland. He did not know what was right any more. It was too much for him to handle. All he could do was rely on instinct, but even that could be wrong, he supposed. He saw them, seated on the terrace where no one else would sit, back in the time of the Civil War. Only he and Madeleine had dared. Now, people sat about at the stone tables and benches, laughing and gossiping. Old men sat over their cups of anise tea, staring solemnly at those who were now quite open about being able to afford the price of real food at eating house prices. The three sat to one side of the terrace, over steaming cups of tea and a news-sheet which Divitt Carew had folded neatly down the middle. Aline spotted him first, and she lowered her head and spoke to her two companions. Madeleine looked across instantly. Carew took a steady drink from his cup before turning slowly to study him. Bligh stepped over a low wall and sat on the bench opposite. "We've decided to leave Anasty," said Aline, breaking the silence. "Madeleine and I will take the train this afternoon." Bligh looked at Madeleine, but she only stared into her cup. He looked at Divitt Carew instead. "Oh no," said Carew. "I'm staying. My work is here. I'm a journalist. I could come up with an interesting story, you know. A man who threw away everything when he became involved in the scheming of a mad dictator. Sounds familiar?" "I'm not involved," said Bligh. "No? Then will you go back to Dona-Jez with Aline and Madeleine?" asked Carew. "No? I didn't think so. I was wrong about you. No commitments has always been my motto. I should have stuck to it. I don't like being wrong about people." Bligh began to panic. He looked at the three, desperately, separated from them by a stone table and three steaming cups. "Can't you see?" he demanded, trying to think how he could put things, how he could explain himself. He had hoped that Madeleine would have had time to think, overnight, about what he had said, and that she would make things easier now. "Why must you all tell me what to do? Can't I make my own choice this time? Can't I?" Now, Madeleine looked up. "Oh yes," she said. "And so can we." She stood and waited for Carew and Aline to join her and then they walked away from the terrace, away from Bligh. He watched them go, confused and distraught. Had he not explained to them? Did they not understand him, even now? |
| He met Salas Benjennery and his friends from the Landworkers' Alliance as planned the following morning. "They didn't understand me," he said to Salas. "I tried to explain but they wouldn't let me start." Benjennery clasped him by the arms and embraced him cautiously, as if it was an unfamiliar gesture. His caution was not born of embarrassment, though, it was a more primitive reaction than mere social nicety. Salas Benjennery was simply being wary of the wedge of high explosives strapped to the side of Bligh's rib-cage. It was a sensible precaution. "I'll do all the explaining for you," he said. "They will remember you as you are and not as their grief coloured you." "You'll provide for Madeleine ... ?" "Friend." Benjennery smiled. "For what you are about to do the whole world will provide for Madeleine and your child. But yes, I will be their protector. Of course I will do that." He thought, as he left Benjennery in the small basement the LA were using as headquarters, that he could never succeed. He was scared and he kept wondering, Why me? Why me? But as he walked through dusty street after dusty street, and the wagons passed him by and he saw the children playing in and out of their houses, their parents looking on ... as he saw all this, he grew calm, resolved in his purpose. The bomb would explode fifteen minutes after the first meeting of the incomplete Council of Six was due to start. "Use a trigger," Benjennery had urged him. "Something you can control." But Bligh had just shaken his head and said, "I couldn't. I could do it to Domenech, I could do it to myself. Quite easily. But the only time I can guarantee being close to Domenech is at this meeting and there will be others there - Wink and Aldivine, and even young Sech. I'd never be able to release the trigger. This is the only way I can do it." Benjennery had shrugged, and pressed him no more. |
| He entered the Citadel and the guards let him through, as they had been ordered to do. He nodded back at them. He felt calm now. He felt as if everything was over already, and he was simply going through the motions. He hoped that Madeleine, and perhaps Divitt, could be made to understand, but he no longer cared any more. He was blank, a machine. He crossed the courtyard one last time, and there he came across Sadiq, seated on the ground with his hands clenched together and his eyes tipped upwards. Bligh stopped and stared and eventually Sadiq's eyes rolled down and he looked at him. "I'm nearly there," he gasped. "Nearly there. I spent all night in a dream like none I've ever known. I can feel His presence, I can feel His touch!" Bligh shook his head. Sadiq was as mad as any of them. "Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be wrong?" he asked. For a moment, Sadiq looked as if he had been wounded. "You said ... you said we should push, to let the Lords take hold. You said ... " Bligh saw the torment on Sadiq's face. He knew what he was going through, he knew how much it hurt. "Push if you like," he said, and walked away. He waited on the verandah, watching the time drift away on a clock that stood in the room where Pozas Cantera still stared miserably into empty space. Eventually, he made himself stand and head for the chamber where the Six were to meet. He passed Queen Minna in the corridor and something made him stop and nod in greeting. He thought of Hammad Fulke and instantly he felt a kind of sympathy towards her. She had lost so much. She seemed too young to bear such a heavy weight. "What?" she said. "What do you want?" Away from Domenech, she still carried the authority of a born leader. Bligh shook his head. "Stay away," he said. "Just keep away from the meeting." She looked at him strangely and he thought she had understood. Then he glanced along the corridor and saw the Fool, hovering in a doorway, watching the two of them with his lop-sided, boyish grin. Bligh looked away. He felt that things were beginning to slip away from him, but he did not know why. He entered the council chamber and went to stand by a tall, leaded window. Wink Hawley tried to speak to him, but Bligh refused to respond. You cannot get to me like this, he wanted to cry, but instead he stared at a blemish in the glass, moving his head to see how its distorted ripples changed in the light. He sensed the change of atmosphere when Merc Domenech entered the room. He glanced at his watch before turning. It was a few minutes before the meeting was due to start, a few extra minutes for him to endure. Domenech was staring at him, smiling, as Queen Minna passed behind him and made for a chair near to the head of the table. When two soldiers entered the room in Minna's wake, Bligh realised that his plans were in ruins. "It's time for your games to end," said Domenech, and everyone in the room turned to look at Bligh. The soldiers had their rifles trained on Bligh's chest. He looked at them, and at Domenech. "What ... ?" he said, faltering. "What do you mean?" Domenech walked around the table and came to stand before him. He stared into his eyes and it was as if Bligh's blood had been replaced by ice. "What games?" he managed to repeat. Domenech reached out and patted Bligh's arms, his hips, his trouser pockets. Then he moved back up and his hand stopped over Bligh's chest. "What's this then?" he said, and Bligh knew that he no longer had any chances left. But instead of reaching inside Bligh's shirt to examine the pack of explosives, Domenech's hand slid into the pocket of his jacket. "I thought so," he said. "I thought so." His hand emerged with Madeleine's small pistol cradled in his palm. "Such a small weapon," he said. Bligh was stunned. Did he still have a chance, after all? "But enough," he said, harshly. He stepped forward, and as he had hoped, Domenech shoved him back with a firm push to the chest. As Bligh sprawled against the wall, Domenech turned away, waving the little gun in the air. "Who told you?" said Bligh, his mind desperately working to produce ways of delaying Domenech, keeping him within range. "Was it the Fool? Hmm? Did the Fool tell you?" Domenech looked surprised. "The Fool?" he said. "No, it was Minna, of course. It was very gallant of you to try to warn her, however clumsy your attempt. But Minna - " he glanced at her now, with a tender smile and a flash of the eyes " - Minna has learnt where her loyalties should lie. Some," he added, "still have that lesson to learn." Domenech stepped forward, the pistol still resting in his palm. "As we're talking about the learning of lessons," he continued, "I am not beyond discovery, myself." The madness in his eyes was a pulsing, living madness now. Domenech leaned forward and Bligh saw that his whole body was trembling. He thrust the pistol into the pit of Bligh's stomach so that metal ground against his ribs and he gasped as the air was snatched from his lungs. "Do you want to know what I've discovered, Bligh? Shall I tell you?" He waited, until Bligh had grunted his agreement. "It was Pozas Cantera who taught me my lesson," he continued. "He demonstrated that one who carries the Holy Spirit is still a physical being, with weaknesses and failings. But if the carrier dies, the spirit of his Lord will always endure and come back to walk the Earth in another form, another body. Perhaps the Lord of Stone would be more effective if He was pushed into a different host. What do you think, Bligh? What do you think?" He ground the gun harder into Bligh's stomach and waited. Bligh looked into his eyes. "I think," he said. "I think you're madder than you've ever been. I think you're sick. I think you're a stain on the human race." But Domenech merely smiled at him. "You're unworthy," he said. "I think you should go now." And then there was an almighty crash and for an instant Bligh thought that his bomb had detonated early. Domenech threw his arms up into the air and turned as Gaspar Sech rushed into the room with a rifle in his hands. "Lords!" the Fool cried. "He wants to kill you!" He fired his gun across the room, and Bligh threw himself to the floor. There was a gleeful madness in Sech's eyes. He was saving his master, he must have thought. He was earning his place at the table of the Council of Six, he must have thought. He fired again and then his expression changed to one of surprise as a soldier charged him from behind, knocking him to the floor. Bligh looked around in confusion and then he saw Merc Domenech, lying nearby. Domenech was staring at him, accusingly, and a trail of blood came from his mouth, ending in a small pool on the paved floor. Chaos had descended on the chamber the instant Sech fired his first shot. Now people rushed about, soldiers waving guns and shepherding Minna and Wink and Sadiq out to safety. Bligh closed his eyes in fear as one of them squatted next to him. "You have to get out," the soldier said. "He could still be dangerous." The soldier gestured towards Gaspar Sech, who was writhing on the floor, pinned down by the weight of three more troops. Bligh looked dumbly up at the soldier and then accepted his helping hand. He looked at his watch and then, suddenly he remembered the bomb. He tried to stay calm, as he left the chamber and passed along the corridor, crowded with worried advisers and soldiers, awash with confusion. He hurried his pace as he drew clear of the chaos and finally, as he emerged on the steps at the top of Parliament Square, he broke into a loping, uneven run. He had no time, he was sure he had no time. He looked around and everywhere there were people, pressing close, staring at him. He ran down a side-street but had to dodge heaps of linen and tall baskets and stalls with food and all around him, people turned to watch. He felt like a stone cat on Festival Day up in Comeras. Running like mad, but always there were more people around each corner. He could not get away. As he ran, he worked at the tape beneath his shirt, loosening the binding that held the bomb in place, but still he could find nowhere to dump it, nowhere that was without people to be damaged. At last, he reached the docks, the harbour where the River Ana opened out into a deep bay. He pushed his way through the crowd, more people than he could ever remember seeing here at the docks. He pushed and barged and all the time he worked at the bomb's bindings. Finally, he collided with the railings and ahead of him there was only water. He heaved the bomb from his shirt, arched his aching back and threw the device as far as he could, out over the churning water, past gulls that squawked and yelped, out into the waves of Ana Bay. He crouched, arms wrapped around his head, but nothing happened. He straightened cautiously, always expecting to hear the blast. Eventually, he checked his watch and he saw that the bomb should have detonated more than ten minutes ago. He looked out at the waves and the gulls. He remembered the failure rate of the Traian artillery during the war and he shook his head slowly in disbelief. Was it over now? he wondered. Was it all, really, over? |
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- The Holy Word of Jah'veh, bk. 5, l.184. |
Author's note
If you've reached this far you've either enjoyed Lord of Stone or you're a sucker for punishment. Or maybe you're one of those people who always reads the last page first...
If you have enjoyed the novel, maybe you'd be good enough to make my efforts worthwhile by:
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For private non-commercial use only. Not to be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author's consent.
Careware: if you like this novel, give some money to Oxfam or Greenpeace.
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- The Book of the World, ch.46, v.43. |
| After that one night with Lila, Bligh was always waiting in the square with time to spare. The priests learnt to pick him for the labour gangs - he worked hard, despite his lame leg, and he had his particular talent for finding the dead. "It's the lie of the land," he explained to a curious work-mate. "You understand the form and consistency of the mud. You understand the differences between hitting a bone with your pick and hitting stone." The dreams of bodies came to plague his nights, so that by morning, as he stood in the town square, he felt more exhausted than the night before. Somehow, the dreams were more horrific than the real thing. In the day, it was just bones and flesh, but come the night these remains took on new possibilities. A rotting arm, adrift in the mud, could flex the fingers of its hand, a skull could blink, old boots could stamp mud in your face as you stooped to retrieve them. By the morning of his eighth day on the labour gangs, Bligh realised that he was losing control. He would spend maybe an hour or more at a time with his mind wandering or simply blank, and his body working methodically away. In the afternoon, he recognised that familiar pressure in his head - a dull, throbbing ache that rivalled the one in his leg; the sense that he was being squeezed out of his own skull - and he hesitated, by the crate with body parts and bits of uniforms. He looked at the hand in his hand and for a time was fascinated by its waxy texture. It had once been part of a man, he realised. Someone who had known friends and lovers, someone for whom things had mattered. Bligh hurled the hand into the crate in disgust. It was so simple not to think about what you were doing. Now, he was shocked at how easy he had found it to do just that. He backed away from the crate, away from those hands and torsos and heads, those bones with strips of torn flesh where bald vultures and crows had pecked. He put his hands up to his face, then snatched them away at a memory of the hand he had just discarded. His own hands had smelt of earth and rotten meat, a smell which had become something he took for granted. He took another step backwards and suddenly there was an arm across his shoulder, a hand on his arm. He flinched at the touch and a voice said, "Calm, my son. Calm." Bligh pushed at the priest, who stumbled and for a moment looked at him with anger instead of the customary well-practised compassion. "Calm," he repeated. "It affects us all, you know. I dream of the bodies, and of the violence which spawned such folly. It causes great pain." The softness of his tone irritated Bligh. What did the priest know of the violence? What did he know of the bodies? All he did all day was ride his wagon and supervise the labour gangs from a sanitary distance. The priest reached towards him, but Bligh's vision had darkened and his head was roaring and he swiped the man's hand away with a heavy swing of his fist. This time, the priest did a less good job of covering his anger. The priesthood were not accustomed to being treated with anything but subservience. The Church's sympathy was clearly a rationed commodity. The priest stared at him through narrowed, watering eyes. "You ... " He was panting for breath, so that he had to swallow and start again. "You can set off now," he said. "For a child of violence has no place with the Church. Repent, son, and I will talk to you later. Go! And while you walk, think upon your ways of violence." It was at least six miles back to Abeyat, and with his limp it took Bligh until the early evening before he saw the houses and the ruins rising in the distance. At one point, he was passed by the two wagons, ridden by the priest and another. They both ignored him so he watched the heaped bodies instead, as they rumbled along the track. Later, the wagons passed him heading back out, empty, and later still they returned with the two labour gangs. Bligh walked. His anger simmered constantly in the back of his head and there was nothing he could do to control it. The phrase, a child of violence, kept swimming around in his mind. Was that what he was? He did not really understand what it meant. He thought of his mother and the way she had seemed torn about him: what he had taken for love, but also a hostility which had made him think of her as selfish, uncaring. He thought of his travels, and of why he had really joined the Civil War. Had there been ideals involved? Now, he did not know. Maybe he had always had a self-destructive impulse, a wish to damage anything that threatened to be good in his life, a wish to damage himself. Maybe he was, indeed, a child of violence. He thought he was probably mad. In a sane world he would be locked away for the good of the masses, but Trace was not such a place, as it struggled to recover from its war. He needed help, he realised. If there had been a Jahvean church in Abeyat, he suddenly felt that he would have gone there and pleaded his infirmity with the Brothers. Even old Black Paul could have helped. Or the healer in Passerat, despite his Elementalist perversities. It was dark by the time he entered the town. The familiar sewage odour of the streets was threaded through with the smell of cooking. He recognised the sweet smell of caprolea, the local delicacy made from goat meat, olive oil, mushrooms and honey. The people of Abeyat ate well, with the money from the Church for the body-clearing and from the railway for the coke supplies the town had appropriated during the war. He passed the church, with its porch of burning candles, and for a moment he considered spending the night inside. He walked on. He could not bear the prospect of a priest doing the nightly round of the homeless, trying to achieve a spiritual return for the Church's charity. When he reached the desolation of the shanty town he sensed that something unusual was happening. He hesitated near to the place where he had stopped the week before, and Lila had come to him and shown him around and told him the rules. Instead of taking the well-worn path through the ruins, Bligh scrambled up over the heaped rubble, careful not to dislodge any debris as he went. He reached a wall and climbed up to walk along it for a short distance, before dropping down again, on the far side. He descended a steep incline, fearful that he might miss his footing and fall, to be buried beneath a cascade of rocks. Sheltering behind another wall, he could look out into a clear area where the people of the shanty town were gathered. They sat on rocks and on the floor, a radio playing somewhere in the background. Every person there twitched to the rattly drum beat of the music, as if they were all puppets, played by the same wire. The focus of the gathering was a large fire, walled in with a ring of round stones. Bligh cowered behind the wall and closed his eyes. He could sense the electricity - the magic - in the air, and it made him feel sick, dizzy. They were performing the Prayer of the Body, a calling to the world of the spirits, a calling to the Gods. Bligh looked again. The ceremony was being mediated by the old man from Lila's extended family. Her uncle, he thought. The one who sat through meal-times, unable to hear a word that was spoken, spilling most of his food and always staring at Bligh. Now, he was animated, chanting a rhythmical incantation, holding his skeletal hands in the air with his eyes rolled back so that the whites flickered red with the light of the fire. Bligh lost track of time, just watching the people and the merry dance of the flames. He only came to his senses when a woman took up the old man's chant, adapting the rhythm and the speed to her own pattern, tipping her head back and forth so that it seemed her neck would snap. Bligh recognised, with a horrified fascination, that the woman was Lila. Her eldest daughter was clutching her hand, urging her on, crying, "Mama do it! Mama do it!" Lila was wailing now, a note that reached into Bligh and twisted his barren heart. He hugged himself tightly and closed his eyes as she threw herself to the ground in front of the old man. When he opened them again she was hugging herself, too, and then she began to tear at her hair and her clothes as she writhed in the dirt. Now, he recognised the word she was repeating. "Belahar! Belahar!" she cried, the name of the man she had lost to the war. "Belahar!" One hand was pressing at her crotch now, and the atmosphere had changed and there was a new sexual energy pervading the ritual. "Belahar!" she cried in agony, in ecstasy. "Belahar!" Bligh felt enraged and, at the same time, terribly frightened and alone. He pulled himself away, withdrew, but then he realised that his body was moving, regardless, climbing up over the broken wall which had shielded him, hitting the ground with a painful jolt which stopped him for a moment. "No!" he cried, but his mouth did not move and no sound emerged. He dragged himself on, through the twitching onlookers, stopping before the old man and then lunging, pushing him so that he sprawled in the dirt. He turned and kicked the symmetrical stones into the fire and a great fountain of sparks and smoke rose up. He reached down and caught Lila by the hair and threw her aside. For a moment her eyes held that glazed look of the ritual possession and then it was as if a blind snapped down and she was glowering at him, resenting him. "No!" This time the sound emerged from his mouth. He looked around as his pulse raged in his ears and the fire roared. "No!" The people were staring at him, but no one rose to challenge him. The old ones, staring, rocking gently in an echo of the rhythm now lost. The younger men, fit and wounded, staring. The women, glaring and seething like Lila before him. No one moved. "This is wrong," he bellowed. "You can't do this. It's sick. Do you think that if the Lords were among you they would recognise ... this as anything but a cheap sham? Do you? There's nothing Holy about this charade. Nothing! It's sick ... " He was losing track, suddenly scared and vulnerable and wondering what he could possibly be doing in front of these people. He did not know where the words had come from or what he had meant. All he had was the anger that had overtaken him and now that was receding rapidly. He looked around at the gathering, once again, and he felt painfully sad. These poor, pitiful people were desperate ... for something to believe in, for something to give their empty existences some kind of meaning. Once, there had been the revolution, but now this was all they had. He searched the people's faces and a strange realisation came over him. Some were angry and cursing him - the old man, struggling away, kept glaring back and spitting - but they were not going to rise up and beat him, as he had expected. They would not drive him from town. Lila reached up and pulled at him, gently, her hand hooked into the waistband of his trousers. He looked into her face, her cheeks smeared with tears and filth from the ground. Her daughter was there, too, a seven year old with a jug of wine which she pressed at him, her eyes pleading with him to accept it. He did not understand these people's response. He felt the anger rising again, but this time it was distant and he knew it would not erupt. He snatched the wine and took a long drink. Then he passed it to Lila and she drank a little and then stopped and felt her mouth tenderly. Bligh saw that there was blood on her lip. Had he hit her? He did not think so. People were talking now, and someone had turned up the volume of the radio. Bligh sank to the ground, confused. What was happening to him? The thoughts spinning through his head, uninvited, scared him. He knew, now, that he was mad. Lila pushed a piece of greasy meat towards him and watched as he ate for the first time since morning. "I hear voices," he said quietly. He felt, irrationally, that he had to explain himself. "My head ... I can't keep track of it all. I see bodies, too. All day, all night. They talk to me." He drank some more wine, and felt its heat in his belly. "I'm mad," he said, and Lila rested her hand over his wound and her daughter wiped his brow with the hem of her skirt. "Mad." He drank some more. He thought he had said enough, but then, he decided, he had barely started. The wine tasted good and the sound of the radio was relaxing him, although he had never liked this new, southern music. He felt comfortable for the first time in months, with these warm people and their wine. Especially their wine. |
| In the morning he felt awful. This was the first time he had been so thoroughly drunk since coming to Trace. His head boomed distantly and his vision was blurred. Acid kept rising in his throat and his whole body ached. He remembered Lila's wails of ecstasy, but he did not know if they were from the possession ritual, when he had been a mere onlooker, or if they were from later in the night. He had woken with her lying across his chest. He was still wearing his shirt but his trousers had been lying some distance away in the rubble. His memory did not go much beyond kicking stones into the fire and yelling at everyone. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt as if it was lined with the dry dust of the street. Now, he stood in the square, waiting for the priests, one amongst many hoping for work in the battlefield. He knew that it was unlikely that they would pick him, particularly if it was the priest he had argued with the previous day. But Bligh had always been stubborn. He would not give up without at least trying. He rubbed his eyes and his vision cleared, but that only seemed to make his head hurt more. There were more men today. That would reduce his chance of work, too. There was only so much space on the wagons. He heard voices across the street and he rubbed his eyes again and looked. Two priests approached, talking with two men in the uniforms of the old State Police. Where were the wagons? he wondered. The labour gangs could not do their work without wagons to transport them and to remove the bodies during the day. There was a murmur of interest from the men in the square. Someone complained that they would have to walk to the battlefield today, and another said that at least that meant they would spend less time with the dead. Another hoped that did not mean a cut in pay. The priests and the policemen stopped before the crowd of expectant men and surveyed them, as they did every morning. Then one spoke. "We want a man who goes by the name of Bligh," he said. Bligh did not think he had heard correctly. He noticed that a space had opened up around him and now the four were looking directly at him. "What is it?" he said, although his throat ached when he spoke. "What do you want?" The policemen stepped forward and seized his arms. "What have I done?" he demanded, although memories of his argument with the young priest kept flashing through his mind. "You have been charged with the State crime of Malicious Blasphemy," said one of the policemen. "You are to be detained at Her Majesty's will until such time that a trial can be arranged before a council of the priesthood." "What?" Bligh did not understand. What had this to do with the young priest, he wondered? "What does that mean?" A priest stepped towards him and fixed him with limpid green eyes. "It is Blasphemy to defame the Six, or to misrepresent the Book of the World," he said. "But that is not a State crime. It is Malicious Blasphemy to do so whilst claiming to be one of the Lords, yourself ... " |
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- The Disciples' Story, The Book of the World, 2nd Addend. |
| Later, when darkness had fallen and they had pulled off the road to eat some bread and dried meat, Carew put a hand on Bligh's arm. "Listen," he said. "You need help. It's no good spilling your guts to an old hack like Divitt Carew. You need someone who knows what they're talking about." Bligh looked at him. warily. He was scared. He had managed to talk to Carew, but it had not been easy. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "You keep saying that. Well I do know. There's a healer I've heard a lot about. He's unconventional: before the war he was tried for blasphemy, for the reason that his healing technique never once invoked the power of the Lords. He won a suspended judgement with the defence that, if the Church believed in its own scriptures then one such as himself could not cure the faithful without the influence of the Lords Elemental. He spoke for two hours and he didn't once admit to any kind of faith himself." Bligh sensed that Carew was missing something out. He waited, and when the journalist said no more, he prompted him, "And?" Divitt Carew glanced at him briefly. "The healer's name is Hammad Fulke." Bligh felt dizzy as a rush of memories bombarded him. His small room in Dona-Jez as Madeleine arrived in the rain and the dark, saying she had to be with him and she did not care what her parents said. The two of them, running hand in hand as snipers fired from Anasty's rooftops. Madeleine, clutching him and gasping, whispering words of love to him as they lay in a heap of sweaty bed-clothes. Bligh had always avoided talking of Madeleine's past. In their time together they could only have mentioned the name of Hammad Fulke three or four times, yet Madeleine had been Fulke's lover for nearly a year. "I don't know," was all he could finally think to say. Would he never escape that man's shadow? "You've been wandering across the country," said Carew. Bligh wondered what he was implying. "I traced your progress - the news stories didn't say where you were being held, so I had to do some detective work. I spoke to priests, I found an old tramp who knew the train timetables by heart - he told me, to the minute, every train you'd travelled on, every town you'd stopped at, but he didn't know anything about where you slept, or where you worked. "You have to understand, Bligh: you were always heading north. It was inevitable that you'd end up in Dona-Jez, whether you knew it or not. Why don't I just make it easy and drive you straight there?" Bligh did not answer, but he climbed into the car when Divitt Carew started it up. "Oh yes," said Carew, when they had been driving for a few minutes. "What do the People's Police want with you?" Bligh looked at him sharply. "When I was talking you out of Abeyat, the priest showed me papers he had received from the UPP in Anasty. I had to pretend I knew all about it and that Embassy custody would save him a lot of paperwork. I only succeeded because the Church instinctively distrusts the revolution." "What did they want?" "They were charge papers," said Carew. "You were wanted for desertion from the UPP militia." Bligh thought for a moment, before producing an explanation. "In Anasty," he said. "I tried to join them, but I changed my mind at the last minute. They'd written up some papers for me, but I never actually joined." Carew was not satisfied. "But what have you done to them, Bligh? If they sent the Police after everyone who could technically be termed a deserter then half of the surviving male population of Trace would be locked up. You must have done something to upset them." Bligh knew the answer. "I think you'd better ask Merc Domenech about that," he said. Just then, he thought madness might be his safest option. |
| Divitt Carew had interviewed Merc Domenech, only a matter of days after the end of his march on the Citadel and the slaughter of Parliament Square. "He remembered me from four years ago," he told Bligh. "He remembers everything. He did something no one has ever done to me before." Carew shook his head as he drove, a single rubber blade sweeping rain from the windscreen. "I was unable to write about him. I sat down that night and went through my notes, but I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what I could say. I've never known the feeling ... "He's risen so quickly," he continued. "Now, the Transitional Government faces a new threat, if they're not careful. Domenech has a popular appeal that could even rival support for the first revolution." "The country's not ready for another war," said Bligh. "That's what Domenech says, and he'll deny that he's doing anything to provoke it. 'The revolution must be completed,' is one of his favourite lines. But all the time, in the background, his propaganda team is raising the temperature. He thinks he's a God, Bligh. He really does, although he denied it when I challenged him." "It is a common madness," said Bligh. "Is that why he wants you, then? He knows there must be six Lords Elemental - he needs you to fulfil his madness, whether you want to cooperate or not. He's dangerous, Bligh." But Bligh did not need to be warned about Merc Domenech. He wondered if Domenech really did believe that he carried the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Soul, or if he was as confused and scared as Bligh. He thought, perhaps, that Domenech might be frightened of him, too, frightened of the alternatives he presented. They entered Dona-Jez in the early hours of the morning. It was too late to find a room, so they stayed in the car, sleeping propped up in their seats and waking stiff and unrested. "Where do we find Hammad Fulke?" asked Bligh, but he knew the most likely person who would know. "I have an old address," said Carew. He grinned. "But this is Trace - it won't be as easy as that." They left the motor car where they had parked it the night before. Dona-Jez was a small town, spreading around a junction on one of the main routes down into the heart of Trace from Feorea. The older buildings were built of solid stone, but filling the gaps, and spreading around the fringe of the town, there were houses built since the railway lines had been laid, wooden framed terraces with plaster laid crudely between thin wooden laths. It was strange to be back in Dona-Jez. Bligh felt that if he tried hard enough he could simply blank out the last year and his biggest worry would be the disapproval of Madeleine's parents. But, at the same time, he felt distanced from the place, as if he had never really lived here, never been happy here, never been in love. He knew his first fantasy, of return to an easy past, was no more than an illusion. The wounds of time had changed everything. He kept expecting to see people he knew, but there were none. Only the streets were familiar. Divitt Carew led him to a road by the school where Madeleine had once taught. Bligh had often admired the old terraced row opposite the school. There was nothing grand about these houses and flats, nothing too showy, but to live here was a sign of success. He had often thought that if he had been the settling type then a street like this would be an inspiring goal. Also, it was close to the school, and so, when they had just been friends, he would dream of seeing Madeleine out of his window, having her calling in after a hard day for a drink and a chat. Later, when they were lovers, it would have been convenient for her work. He had not known that Hammad Fulke had lived here. As Divitt Carew told him that this was the place, Bligh's mind was churning with thoughts of how they must have met: Fulke, spying her on her way to work, planning to meet her by chance in the street and seduce her. Or equally - Madeleine had always set out to get what she wanted - it could have been the other way around. It might even really have been chance, he concluded, as they mounted the stone steps that led to Fulke's door. "What do we do?" he said. He did not want to be here. Suddenly, the prospect of explaining his illness to a stranger was nothing when set against the prospect of meeting the man who had won Madeleine's love. It terrified him. He had never understood what had bound Madeleine to him for so long - love was just a word to cover ignorance, he had always assumed. The thought that she could share such a bond with another disturbed him. He eyed the steps, leading back to the pavement, the street. Divitt Carew put a hand on his arm. "Don't think of it," he said. "You couldn't out-run me, with that leg. And you're a fugitive, remember? I'm going to get you healed, whether you want it or not." He clapped Bligh's arm, and then turned and hammered on the door. He thought she was a girl, when the door slitted open and she peered at them from the shadows. Her eyes were haunting - almost circular, with small pupils and rimmed with short, black lashes. Her hair was black and tied hard at the back of her bony head. She licked her lips nervously, and said, "Yes?" Divitt Carew smiled and nodded. "Please, madam, I wonder if I may take a few moments of your time?" His manner had changed totally. Bligh watched him with interest, almost forgetting the reason for their call. "I'm trying to trace a gentleman with whom I hope to do business. Could we come in, for a moment? Please?" The door edged open another inch. "There's no man here," said the girl. Her eyes never left Divitt Carew. "The previous tenant left in the war." Carew sighed and turned to Bligh. As he did so, the door opened wider and Bligh saw that the girl had the body of a woman. She could have been any age between twelve and perhaps thirty. Carew sensed the relaxation and turned his head sharply back towards the woman. "We're not police," he said, shedding his smooth manner of before. "We don't want to cause Hammad any trouble. We have a friend in common. We need his help." "Then go," she said. "Hammad Fulke is dead." Bligh noticed a grimace flicker across her face as she said those words. Dishonesty? Pain? "In the war. You'll only find trouble if you don't go. Please." Her eyes flicked beyond them, into the street, and Bligh sensed that her fear was not simply the result of being confronted by strangers at her door. He pulled at Carew's jacket and said, "Come on. Let's go." He nodded at the woman and then turned back down the steps. "What are you playing at?" demanded Carew, as they walked away from the house. "She was scared," said Bligh. "Couldn't you feel it? She was hiding something. She meant what she said about trouble." He remembered ignoring Black Paul's warnings of trouble. "Of course she was hiding something! Another minute and we'd have known what." They walked in angry silence for a short time, then Carew said, more calmly, "Just remember, Bligh. I make the decisions - you're the mad one around here, not me." Bligh laughed. "We're all mad," he said. "Just in different ways." "You know who we have to ask now?" said Carew. "If she's still living in Dona-Jez, of course." Bligh looked down at his feet. When he glanced up, Carew was still staring at him. Slowly, Bligh nodded. |
| They waited outside the school until the mid-day break. The playground filled with children, ranging in age from toddlers to early teenagers. Even the previous year, the school had more pupils than this. There was no sign of any teachers, so Carew and Bligh walked in, through the chasing children and the squabbles and the ragged games of football. Carew looked at Bligh and raised his eyebrows, so Bligh nodded to a door and said, "They'll be in there." Carew pushed at the door and led Bligh inside. The classroom held a man and two women, seated on miniature desks as they gestured at a UPP news-sheet and argued politics. Madeleine was not one of them. The three looked up as the door swung shut. Divitt Carew stepped forward to speak, but Bligh beat him to it. "Salas," he said, to the silver-haired man. "You survived." The two women were teachers Bligh had once vaguely known. One of them, he remembered, had tried to dissuade Madeleine from her relationship with him. Salas Benjennery looked at him closely and then stood. "Fresh air," he said, breathing deeply. "I feel the need for some fresh air." He ushered Bligh and Carew out before him and would say no more until they had walked some distance around the perimeter of the playground. "You are a wanted man," he said to Bligh. "Remember Simmen Oate? No? He was in the 16th with us, in Alyk Ammar's Section. He was asking if I had known you well, only yesterday. We were in the same Section together, yes? We were friendly, yes? Had I seen you recently? Maybe we could all get together if you come back to Dona-Jez - share some beer and stories of the war? He's in the Police now. Friendly reunions are not in his plans, I think. What have you done?" "Nothing," said Divitt Carew, quickly. After a short pause, Benjennery said to Bligh, "You limp, Friend." "But I live," said Bligh. "That's enough." "Will you tell me what you've done?" Divitt Carew gave Bligh a warning look, which he chose to ignore. "Divitt thinks I'm part of Merc Domenech's plans to conquer the world," he said, shaking his head. "Ah," said Benjennery. "The Lord of Soul is looking for disciples ... " "No," said Bligh, awkwardly. "Equals, perhaps." Benjennery looked at him with a half smile on his face. "Remember my little obsession?" he said. "My quest for the fantastic? If the propaganda of Domenech's followers is anywhere close to the truth, then I have changed my mind: the death of magic could not come soon enough to please me. If you need help." Carew looked up and started to speak. "We're looking for Hamm - " "Madeleine Palmes," interrupted Bligh. "We're looking for Madeleine." |
| It did not take much for Salas Benjennery to convince them to hide until dark. They took the car out into the hills and waited by a stream through the heat of the afternoon. Warblers made their scratchy proclamations from the hillside scrub and marbled butterflies of orange and brown skipped through the air. It soothed Bligh greatly. As they drove back into town, Divitt Carew insisted they were making a mistake. "He'll have told his friend, Oate," he kept saying. "You've made a date with the People's Police, not Madeleine." "Leave me here," Bligh told him, on the outskirts of the town. "I'll find her on my own. You've risked enough already." They were to meet Madeleine in the grounds of the school, as the bells rang for evening communion. "You can't go on your own, you young fool," snapped Carew, staring bitterly out of his car's split windscreen. "Look what a mess you've made up to now." |
| A single figure stood at the edge of the playground as they pulled up in the street. They left the car and passed through the school gates. Bligh hurried as fast as his damaged leg would allow, but he stopped short as Madeleine turned to face him. He could see that she had been crying already and he swallowed grimly. He remembered his own conviction that their relationship was finished, but now doubt fogged his mind. He looked into her eyes, but was unable to think. He longed for the certainties of the past. He knew he should speak, but he had no idea what to say. He watched Madeleine's tongue flick at her lips, as if she was about to say something, and then she stopped and was looking past him. "Remember me?" said Carew, with a false lightness, as he caught up with Bligh and the three stood awkwardly in the school grounds. Now Madeleine looked from one to the other, remaining silent. Bligh was out of his depth. He turned slightly, towards Carew, who gestured at him and said, "Bligh's not well, Madeleine. We need help." "I know," she said. Her voice twisted his insides. He wanted to flee, yet at the same time he wanted to run to her and hold her as tightly as he could. He stood, rooted to the spot. He swallowed, with difficulty, and - reacting in his own familiar manner - he clamped down on his feelings. "We need to find Hammad Fulke," said Carew. Madeleine shook her head. "He's not here," she said. "Not in Dona-Jez. I don't know where he is." "Do you have any idea how we could find him?" said Carew. Madeleine shrugged. "We could start with his daughter, Aline." |
|
|
| They slipped away from the house of Hammad Fulke by a back entrance. "Can we rely on her?" Bligh had asked, as they passed along an alleyway littered with bins and pieces of wood. "You'll be gone before you have to," said Divitt Carew. "You can leave the risks to the likes of myself. We might not need her, in any case: she's already told us Fulke is at the Citadel." Then, to Madeleine, he said, "Is there somewhere we can stay tonight?" "Come home with me," she replied. "It'll be watched," said Carew. "No one would dare watch my father's house," said Madeleine. "Is this wise?" asked Bligh, as they walked. "They never liked me." Madeleine glared at him, suddenly, and he wished he had remained silent. "They would never betray you against my wish," she said in a steady voice. "No matter what you did." Carew and Bligh waited in the shadows as Madeleine approached the front door. There was no sign of a Police presence, but they would take no chances. "Do you trust her?" said Carew, as they waited. "I have to ask, you understand." "I trust her more than I'd trust myself," said Bligh. When the door opened, they rushed across and suddenly Bligh found himself standing in that wide kitchen, being stared at by Rourigan and Adernis Palmes. Rourigan had once been a man of similar proportions to Bligh, although now he had hunched and wasted with age. He had the face of a fighter, with a crooked nose and glowering blue eyes and a jaw that jutted whenever the situation demanded. Adernis, too, was strongly built, although by comparison with Rourigan she looked almost dainty. Madeleine had inherited her straight, dark hair and her sturdy beauty from her mother, but much in her bearing came directly from her father. Rourigan drummed his fingers and stared at Bligh as his wife cut bread and meat and drew a jug of water for the table. "Thank you," said Bligh, awkwardly, as the two left the room a few minutes later. They were the first words spoken since he had entered the house. Bligh and Divitt Carew ate ravenously. Madeleine sat and watched, sipping occasionally from a cup of water. "Not eating?" said Bligh, eventually. He wished he could think of something better to say. Madeleine shook her head. "I've not been well," she said, staring at her water. "Not for some time." "Maybe we could get Hammad Fulke to heal you," said Carew, over a mouthful of cold ham. Madeleine glanced up with what might have been fear flickering on her face, but she said nothing. Later, she showed them through to a set of stairs, and then up to an attic room she said they could use for the night. She waited, as Carew went down to wash in the kitchen, and then she was alone with Bligh. "You left me," she said, poised in the doorway as if ready to escape. Bligh went over to peer out of the window. He wished she would at least come in and sit down. He turned back to face her. "The war," he said. "We were posted to Huesja." There was always a moment of horror, when you revealed that you had fought at Huesja, but this time there was something else in Madeleine's grimace. Understanding. The posting had been coincidence: he would have abandoned her anyway. "I gave you everything you wanted," she said. He had not wanted that. "I know," he said. "I took it." He felt lost. "Will you come to Anasty?" he asked. He did not want her to say yes. He could not bear the thought of seeing her with Hammad Fulke. He had never met the man, but already he could sense his power, his attraction. The thought of bringing Madeleine and Fulke together again made him feel small and inferior. "Do you want me to?" He did not know what he wanted, but he still nodded. The thought of leaving her here scared him almost as much as the thought of taking her to Fulke. They left as the sun was rising. First, they called on Salas Benjennery, who readily agreed to ride in the car with Divitt Carew. "I offered my services," he said, throwing a few things into a leather satchel. "It will be exciting." It was a short walk from Benjennery's flat to the railway. The four covered the distance in a few minutes and soon Bligh was crouching in the undergrowth, partway up the bank of a steep cutting. Madeleine lingered, as Benjennery and Carew walked away. "Take this," she said, pressing something into Bligh's hand. It was the small pistol she had carried in Comeras. Bligh stared at it as it lay in his big palm. When he looked up she was already striding away and even if the words had come she would not have heard. Later in the morning, Madeleine would report to the Police as usual; then she would call on Aline Fulke and they would travel by passenger train to the capital. Bligh glanced at a watch he had borrowed from Salas Benjennery. A goods train was due in a few minutes. He crouched and waited, but he did not worry as the watch's hands edged onwards. He had learned from Black Paul to trust the timetables. It was twenty minutes before the train appeared around the curve of the track. It would have left the goods yard three minutes earlier, but would not gain much speed until after this curve. The engine edged past him and he saw its driver working at some levers, his mate shovelling coke into the furnace. Once they had passed, Bligh scrambled down the bank and stopped as the wagons rumbled past within inches of his face. Timing his move with well-learned precision, he grabbed a rail and swung himself up. Breathing heavily, he hauled himself onto the little platform at the end of one of the wagons, then settled down for the journey. |
| The train kept stopping and starting all the way to Anasty. It was almost like travelling in wartime again. Bligh realised that he was back in the capital when the train slowed to cross the River Ana. The bridge was long and low, its masonry heavily scarred by the fighting. At one point, he looked down between the wagons and saw only track between him and the river. He wondered how much longer this bridge would stand without repair. What, he thought, had become of the rebuilding programme that received so much attention when the fighting had ground to a halt? Bligh jumped the train, tumbling painfully in the dirt, before it came to the goods yard which was its destination. He had learnt, in his time with Black Paul, that goods yards tended to be kept under guard against black marketeers and the hungry. Now was not the time to risk a beating or jail for the common crime of vagrancy. He walked the streets, believing himself to be safest in a crowd even though it made him feel vulnerable and exposed. Whenever anyone glanced at him he searched his memory frantically to see if he recognised them. He knew they only stared because he stared back, but that did not make it any easier. Eventually, he came to the riverside promenade where a strip of parkland bordered the River Ana. This was where they had agreed to meet, but not until sunset. He had most of the afternoon to fill. He glanced across at the eating house and wondered if he would be recognised if he went for a meal. Divitt Carew had given him a few shillings. He decided against it. He could miss a meal without noticing. Instead, he wandered down to the river, lost in memories of the last time he had been in this place. Soldiers from the Cooperatives or the UPP had lounged here, chewing sugar sticks and cleaning their rifles. Occasionally one of their light field guns would send a volley of artillery fire across the river, blowing apart another wall or - just as likely - failing to detonate. He remembered a bullet ricocheting nearby as he had broken sweetbreads with Madeleine. "Tea?" one of them had said, as if this was how they normally ate. He looked up and the face of Merc Domenech was staring at him from a poster, slightly larger than life, with fierce eyes and an incongruous little smirk. OUT OF THE MAYHEM! the poster yelled at him, from where it had been nailed to a peeling plane tree. He had seen other posters like this, urging the people to Win The Stalemate and to be ready to Proclaim A New Leader. Some had been signed by the Fool, one of the fringe characters from the Elementalist prophecies, but others, like this one, went unsigned. Divitt Carew had told Bligh, during the night, of the relentless rise of Merc Domenech. "The Transitional Government would have him killed," he had said. "But you have to understand: they, more than any, know the value of a martyr, whether in jail or in the ground." "Maybe they think they couldn't kill him," said Bligh. "If they believe his myth." Divitt Carew took him seriously. "Some of them, certainly. It's complicated by his involvement with Minna." Bligh remembered hearing Domenech speak on the steps of the Citadel, denouncing the Queen and the fact that foreign influence should keep her alive and involved in the broking of her nation's power. Yet now she had become a supporter of Domenech and he had stopped attacking her. Perhaps he saw her as a symbol of the authority he craved, Bligh decided. Or perhaps he thought he could topple her from within. "Does she believe he is the Lord of Soul?" Bligh had asked. "Hammad Fulke would know about that, from what Aline says. She's obsessed with Domenech, certainly. Maybe they just see exactly the same thing in each other: a route to power." Now, Bligh stared at the poster. "Do you believe it?" he said. "Do I?" Now that he was in Anasty, he felt that he was wasting his time. He had not blacked out or erupted violently since Abeyat. He knew that he still dreamt, because he would wake up in the night, terrified and soaked in sweat, but the images no longer recurred during the day, confusing him and trapping him into saying or doing things he had not intended. He knew he was deluding himself, though. He recognised that pulse, somewhere in the depths of his mind. The pressure, waiting to explode across his senses. Hammad Fulke was exerting his influence already: Bligh's fear of his encounter with Madeleine's old love was tricking him into believing that he might be better, that he did not have to go through with this after all. He shook his head and turned away. A few hundred yards downriver there was a stone bridge. He had noticed earlier that there was a steady flow of people heading across it and into the Old Town. He thought of following them, losing himself in the anonymity of the crowd, but he remembered the last time he had been in that part of the city. He remembered being a part of that mad panicking mass of people at the end of Domenech's march when anonymity had been no protection from the bullets of the Unified Army of the People's Transitional Government. But even as he decided against going with the crowd, he found himself walking towards the bridge. He stopped where it left the river bank and pressed his hand against the stone of its high wall, trying to steady himself. Once, the bridge had been used by wagons and motor vehicles - he could see the tram-lines set into its paved surface - but now it was fit only for pedestrian use. He looked towards the middle, where the wall fell away and for half of its width the bridge, too, had collapsed. At this point of narrowing, the crowd packed together and their progress was slowed. As he watched, a small boy was nearly sent plunging into the grey waters below, but at the last moment a hand shot out and yanked him back into the flow of people. When Bligh reached the bottleneck, he kept as close to the remaining intact wall as he could. If he was Lord of Stone, he thought wryly, he would have nothing to fear from the drop: the Lords' plans would surely not be defeated by the accidental drowning of one of their number. He walked more slowly than those around him, letting them pass by on either side. Like a rock in a stream, he thought with a smile. He shook his head to see if his God would answer him, but it only earned him a startled look from a woman to his left. Fear had become dominant in this post-war Trace, he realised. It was the new orthodoxy of the revolution. He had once thought the Traians to be the most sunny, open people of the entire world. Now, he wondered how he could ever have reached such a conclusion. There were more posters, here in the Old Town. They were plastered in great swathes across the boarded ruins of the quarter. Some had been posted upside down, or sideways, forming letters and words so that their message was writ large across the city. He saw the hand of the Fool in that, and instinctively he knew that young Gaspar Sech must have taken that role in Merc Domenech's insanity: he had seen them together in Comeras, and on the steps of the Citadel. The boy's native cunning would be well suited to mad poster campaigns and whatever other chaos-rousing Domenech thought appropriate. Last night, Carew had mentioned a raid on the Feorean Embassy in which nothing had been taken, nobody hurt. All that had been done was the distribution of severed chickens' heads throughout the building, in a gesture nobody seemed to understand but which Carew said had terrified every member of the embassy staff. One version even claimed that the Ambassador had woken to find a chicken head staring at him from his pillow and he had only known that it was not a dream when his mistress had leapt screaming from their bed. Only Sech, he thought, could have thought up such a plot. A crowd of singing women, dressed in long robes of sack-cloth, caught up with him now. They were singing fervently and smiling with the same expression Bligh had once seen on the face of a man lying in the mud on the plains near Comeras. His body had been blown away from the hips down, but his blood was so full of the Doc's Answer that he thought he must be somewhere close to heaven and that the muddy, exhausted soldiers who would not meet his gaze were angels come to bear him up. Bligh looked away. "What's happening?" he asked a young man at his side. "We're going to see the Six," he said. "Or so they say. I'm not as sure, myself, but my girl here - " he nodded to a heavy-breasted adolescent a short distance ahead " - she believes, so I go along." Bligh thought desperately of breaking away from the flow but he did not. He had guessed earlier that something of this nature must be happening. Confirmation of his fears would not stop him now. How, he wondered, could they be going to see the Six if Bligh was not there with Domenech? He bowed his head and waited as the tail-end of the procession filed in through one of the archways at the base of the old Arena. He could hear the roar of the crowd inside, booming back along the tunnel, mixed in with the pounding of martial music. He had been to an international football match once, between Feorea and Trace. The sound had been similar, although possibly less intense. He pushed and jostled his way along the tunnel. The ceiling was so low that it would scrape his scalp if he stretched. Ahead, light broke across the people's heads and all the time the noise swelled like the roar of the sea. At the threshold of the tunnel, when he could look out across the massed heads and bodies that lined the stadium, he paused and checked his thoughts. The pressure was still there, but he felt secure, in control. He sensed the excitement of the crowd, the air of anticipation, but it did not draw him as he had feared it would. He let the flow of people coax him into the Arena. He stood on a banked terrace, leaning back against one of the stone walls which he supposed had been built to retain the crush of the crowd. Around him, the noise was intense. People talked and laughed, they cheered and screamed for no apparent reason, and it all built, relentlessly, up. The Arena had survived, in one form or another, for close to 2,000 years. It had stood through earthquakes and wars and plague. It was older than Jahveism, half as old as The Book of the World. The Civil War had battered it severely, but it would endure; Bligh felt certain it would endure. The crowd, waiting to see their Lords, packed the circular sweep of terraces. They pressed down into the arena itself, but were held back by a double line of wooden fencing, guarded by UPP soldiers with Feorean guns. Within the line of barricades there was a circular stage, with seats arrayed to the rear and a solitary podium at the front, with a lectern and a microphone. A man in UPP uniform stood there, gesticulating dramatically and talking in a fierce flow, but the noise of the crowd all but drowned him out. They had not come to hear this man, or the music which had preceded him; they had come for the main act, they had come to hear their saviour. The backdrop of the stage was formed by a high canvas screen bearing a vast picture of the face of Merc Domenech. The portrait was stylised, reduced to two simple tones, the highlights picked out in gold, the shadows and background a seething red. His mouth was open, as if speaking, and his eyes burned with the fever of his madness. Bligh could not understand how he appeared to be the only one to see through to the base insanity of the man. Bligh had a side view of the stage, and he could see, behind Domenech's face, the scaffolding holding it in place. When Domenech finally appeared, the crowd had already reached a high pitch of excitement. First, more UPP guards appeared at the mouth of a tunnel, to the rear of the stage. At this distance, they looked like ants, or a child's toy soldiers. The crowd bayed for their hero. Then, when Domenech appeared, the noise somehow intensified. Bligh watched him as he marched stiffly to the stage and seated himself just below the podium. He held his hand up in acknowledgement, then turned back to gesture towards the others who followed in his wake. Bligh spotted Sadiq Phelim immediately. Then a young woman who held up her hands to the crowd, and to Domenech. This must be Queen Minna; Bligh had seen her picture before. Next came the man Bligh recognised as Alderas Aldivine - the Lord of Air, in Domenech's scheme of things. And then came three men, who made Bligh straighten and lean forwards, trying to see that he was not mistaken. The first was a man he was sure he had never seen, although he looked vaguely similar to Pozas Cantera. Next came his old friend Wink Hawley, his hands behind his back, looking around at the crowd and the guards as if he did not believe they existed. Bligh remembered that look: it had fixed on Wink's face as they had gone into battle, a sheer disbelief that the world around him was real. Back at Huesja, Bligh had envied him of that ability. Finally, there came a man who looked tall and awkward. He had dark hair and a heavy frame, spreading at the waist as Bligh had once done. As he watched this final member of Domenech's circle, Bligh saw that the similarities between the man and himself were only tenuous but they were enough that, should he join with Domenech, he could step easily into this impostor's place. Now, as the six followers settled in their seats at the back of the stage, Merc Domenech stepped up to the podium. He gripped the sides of the lectern and leaned forward and his eyes swept slowly across the vast crowd. "Friends," he said, and paused. "Friends ... we have come a long way together." Bligh remembered Domenech's speech on the steps of the Citadel. He shuddered as he remembered the bullets, too. The crowd had gone magically silent, as Domenech spoke his first words. "But, Friends: there is a long way to go. Blood has flowed, in the land of Trace. Blood has flowed in our fields. Blood has flowed in the streets of our villages, our towns, our cities. If you follow me, and my council of six, there can be no guarantee that more blood will not flow. Indeed. It is likely that more blood will flow. We have not yet won the battle for our own country. First, we must win our own stalemate, the stalemate imposed by those who we thought of as leaders of the revolution. But there will be blood in other lands, too, as the underclass rises up in every nation on this planet!" Bligh watched him talking. He watched his grip on the lectern, his gaze sweeping from one side to the other, and always, the giant printed screen behind him. He watched as Domenech stabbed the air with a finger or a fist, to emphasise his words, to stir the crowd. Domenech used everything he could command to drive the crowd wild in his support. He appealed to their class consciousness, whilst ignoring the presence of Queen Minna, her gaze fixed devotedly on the back of his head. He appealed to their national pride with a hand waving behind him to the Queen. He drew references from The Book of the World, but never did he claim, as the Fool's posters did, that he, Merc Domenech, carried the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Soul. He left that to his audience, breaking off, near the end of his speech, with his hands spread humbly wide, as they chanted a line from the Book. "The Lord is come!" they yelled. "The Lord is come!" Bligh looked at the people around him. He saw their mouths, opening and closing in frenzied unison. "The Lord is come!" Their eyes stared, bulging in their sockets, their necks strained forwards so that veins and tendons stood rigid beneath tight skin. Their hands punched the air as they chanted each word. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He felt the pressure building inside his skull. He did not want to be here. He did not want this almighty barrage of sound breaking across his senses, pounding him, pushing him down, down. A man turned to him, his eyes mad, like Domenech's. Others turned, stared. Bligh could not meet their looks. He opened his mouth, croaked, "Is ... come," in time with their opening, snapping mouths. He saw their tongues flopping, their teeth gnashing. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He forced his hands to punch the air, in time with the words. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" He felt sick, he felt scared. He felt as if he had been reduced to nothing and he was being driven by the desire of the crowd, forced into a shape that was not his own. He felt on the verge of defeat, as if he was about to be subsumed. He knew that it was only his paranoia and the exaggerated emotions of this packed Arena, but that made it no easier. "The ... Lord ... is ... come!" Domenech stopped the crowd with his hands held suddenly up in the air, his head bowed. "Enough!" he snapped into his microphone. His single word cut through the chant, so that its returning echoes rung hollowly around the Arena. "Enough," he said, more quietly. "I am, merely, a servant." But there was a smug ring to his voice, something that broke, momentarily, through Bligh's panic. "We are all servants to a higher cause. We must, all of us, remember that if you are with my council of six, then you are preparing the ground for the Lords of the Elements to lead us all to a new plane of existence, a new world of equality and peace. If you are against us, then you are against the Lords Elemental. Friends, it is that simple." He raised his hands one last time. "Friends," he said and his was the only voice in the stadium. "Friends, we are the chosen ones." He stepped down from the podium and his spell was instantly broken. Bligh looked at those around him and they were normal human beings once again. They no longer stared, they no longer chanted and frothed at the mouth. "The ... Lord ... is ... come," he croaked, but now they only looked at him, pitying him or merely embarrassed. "The ... Lord ... is ... come." The crowd filed out, but Bligh could not make his feet move. They had grown into the ground, melded with the stone of the terrace. He looked down at his heavy grey boots, and he could not see where they ended and the ground began. He tried to lift one foot, but it was like trying to raise a mountain, and he was that mountain. He lowered himself and hugged his knees to his chest. He felt completely drained. He tried but he could not stand again. He closed his eyes and began to rock back and forth, as if that would stop his relentless merger with the stone beneath his feet. "The Lord is come," he muttered, but he no longer knew what the words meant. |
|
He sensed people around him and he
opened his eyes warily. In the grey light of dusk, or dawn, he
saw the stone terrace, falling away from where he sat. He moved,
and groaned at the stiffness which had settled across him like
a heavy mantle.
"Are you all right?" said
a man's voice.
Bligh looked to his side and a pair
of UPP soldiers were peering at him, their rifles held warily
at the ready.
"Did you get crushed in the
crowd? Is that it, hmm?"
Bligh shook his head, grunted. "Okay,"
he said, eventually, when he had recovered the use of speech.
"I'm okay."
"Here, don't I know you?"
Bligh shrank back into himself as
one of the soldiers loomed closer out of the shadows, his teeth
startlingly white.
"You look familiar. Here, Roddy,
doesn't he look familiar to you?"
"I don't know you," said
Bligh.
"He's just got one of those
faces," said the second soldier. "You know, one of those
faces that looks like you should know him, only you never have."
"One of those faces,"
repeated the first, as if it was a magical phrase. "I suppose
so. Only ... "
"What time is it?" said
Bligh. He needed to know, although he was unsure of the reason.
"Ask the time! You're wearing
a watch, for the sakes of the Lords."
Bligh looked at his wrist and saw
an unfamiliar timepiece. "Evening? Morning?" he asked.
"Evening, for the sakes of
... " The soldier stopped and looked at his friend. "This
one's had too much of the heat, or the crowd. Maybe we should
lock him in a cell to cool off. What do you think, hmm? What do
you think?"
Hands gripped him, pulled at his
arms. "No, Roddy," said the soldier pulling at him.
His breath smelt of drink. "Lets just get him out into the
street. He'll have a home, or some friends who'll be looking for
him."
"Friends," said Bligh,
clutching at the word. He let the soldiers haul him to his feet
and then he stood dizzily, until the world settled around him.
"I'm okay," he said, stepping down the terrace.
"This way," said a soldier,
guiding him towards the tunnel.
They left him outside the Arena.
Which way? he wondered. He took one step and then another. He
decided to follow the direction his feet had found. It was now
quite dark and he felt that he must be late, although he did not
know for what.
He found a street he thought looked
familiar, but by its end he was lost again. He smelt spices on
the air, and the scent of old cabbage and pod beans. He turned
back.
Eventually, he found himself sitting
on the broken bridge, his feet dangling over the water of the
River Ana. He knew he had returned to familiar territory, but
he was certain that he had missed his friends, whoever they were.
It was late in the evening now, a time when most people would
be in their beds.
He could see the strip of parkland
from here, a murky area of trees and deep shadows. He pulled himself
to his feet and began to walk. So close, he felt that he must
complete his task. He should reach the park, at least.
He left the road and walked through
dew-laden grass. His crumbling boots were soaked through within
seconds.
A man sat hunched on the wall which
fronted the river. His feet were over the water, as Bligh's had
been up on the bridge. He flinched, as Bligh approached, and turned
to stare at him. "Bligh?" he said, uncertainly. "Is
that you?"
"It's me: Bligh," he said,
the first time he had spoken since the soldiers had evicted him
from the empty terrace of the Arena.
Divitt Carew, the man was Divitt
Carew.
Bligh felt relieved.
"Come on," said Carew.
"The others have been waiting since sunset. We didn't even
know if you'd reached Anasty. What happened? You have to understand
that we're risking a lot for you."
"I went to the Arena,"
said Bligh, following Carew, climbing into his little motor car.
"There was a rally. Domenech."
"You shouldn't have done that,"
said Carew, harshly. Then, when he had managed to fire the engine,
he added, "You okay, Bligh?"
Bligh said nothing. They drove off,
through streets that held only a few pedestrians and soldiers.
"We were stopped," said Carew, after a time. "Leaving
Comeras. Salas insisted that he had been travelling with me all
along, but I don't know if they believed us. They'd clearly had
reports that you were travelling with a companion in a blue car.
The priests at Abeyat must have swallowed their pride and reported
to the UPP, when they realised that I'd fooled them."
Later, he said, "I spoke with
Madeleine this evening. She's not well, Bligh. You should talk
to her."
Bligh emerged from the semi-conscious
state he had adopted since entering Carew's car. Madeleine? Not
well? He remembered her pale face, he remembered eating while
she sipped awkwardly at a cup of water. "I've not been well,"
he remembered her saying. "Not for some time."
"Is it serious?" he asked,
his eyes fixed on Divitt Carew.
Carew refused to look at him. He
stared at the road ahead. "Serious?" he said. "Oh
yes, it's certainly serious."
They stopped at a small guest house
on the fringe of the city centre. Bligh followed Carew in through
the front door and up two uneven flights of stairs. The journalist
unlocked a door and waved Bligh through. Inside, Madeleine and
Aline Fulke were asleep in their clothes on a huge bed, and Salas
Benjennery was curled up on the floor.
Bligh watched Divitt Carew move
a chair and then kick off his shoes and sit with his legs stretched,
his feet on the bed by Aline's knees.
Bligh eyed the floor, but there
was no room for his bulky frame. He squeezed onto the bed and
Madeleine stirred in her sleep. He held himself self-consciously
for a moment and then rested his head, tentatively, on her lap.
He could hear the sounds of her digestion, feel her body moving
beneath his head as she slept. He wondered what had happened to
them, why he had allowed a gap to open up between them. He wondered
if it was possible to heal such a wound. And then, finally, they
were together in their sleep. |
|
'Open the door and here are the people.' - Nursery Rhyme. Salas Benjennery found them at the docks shortly after midday. "Tonight," he said, staring at Bligh. "Tonight, Hammad Fulke will heal you." Bligh thought he should feel something, but instead he just stared down at the froth and flotsam of the harbour and said nothing. The docks were a part of the Old Town, although most of the existing buildings had been erected since the railway had come at the turn of the century. The River Ana opened out abruptly here, so that the opposite bank was half a mile distant. Gulls squawked and yelped over the boats and from their rooftop nesting sites. Terns skipped along on the breeze, pausing to hover over the shallows and occasionally to dive, emerging sometimes with a silver flash of sand eel in their beaks. "Tonight," Bligh repeated, finally. "Tonight." "Where's Aline?" asked Madeleine. It was curious, her relationship with Aline. In age they were only separated by a few years, and there was often a jealous, sibling rivalry between them; but also, at times, Madeleine showed an almost maternal sense of responsibility toward Hammad Fulke's daughter. "She chose to stay with her father," said Benjennery. "When we arrived, the guards held us until Hammad sent word that he would see us." He shook his head. "They greeted each other like parted lovers. I felt that I should not be present. Then he turned to me with that embracing smile of his - " here, Benjennery glanced at Madeleine " - and said, 'I've just come from the Queen, Salas. I think I have met a challenge worthy of my skills and experience. She is obsessed with Domenech. She is drawn to his danger, his sense of threat, and also to his copious charisma.' Then he smiled and said, 'I think it is the sex, myself, but how can one heal such an illness of the mind? Do you know, Salas?' He says the Queen realises he tries to heal her, and she knows he loves her, but she sees his attentions as a game, a diversion while Domenech is busy elsewhere." "Where do we go?" said Carew. "To meet him?" "Hmm? Oh, Hammad Fulke has rooms in an old Government building off Al-Santen Square." "Is it safe?" said Madeleine. Suddenly, Bligh sensed a trap. Surely the healer would be watched, he thought, even if Fulke, himself, could be trusted. "We've come this far," said Divitt Carew quietly. "If Fulke thinks it is safe, then we can only rely on his judgement." |
| They approached the building through a service alley to the rear. "Pappy told me," said Aline. "Police watch his house from the front. He thinks it amusing." It was dark, now, and Bligh had trouble seeing where he was going. The alley was littered with refuse and rubble, which only added to his difficulties. He kept thinking that this must be wrong, but he did not know why. They entered a small yard and he peered at Madeleine, to his side, but he could not see her expression. He felt sick. They entered the building through a heavy door for which Aline produced a key. They passed along a corridor, up a flight of stairs and then they came to a door with light edging where it rested in its frame. Aline knocked, then entered, saying, "Pappy, we've come." Divitt Carew entered with Salas Benjennery, followed by Bligh and Madeleine. Aline was hugging a grey-haired man of stocky build and kissing him ferociously on the cheeks. "Pappy," she said, "these are my friends." The two separated and Hammad Fulke turned towards his visitors, barely glancing at Carew and Benjennery, nodding briefly at Madeleine, then turning his look upon Bligh. "You want me," he said simply. He fixed Bligh's eyes for a long time and then he snapped his head away and turned to lean his forearms on the mantelpiece of an unlit fire. "I don't know," he muttered. "It's a risk." Madeleine stepped forward and put a hand on Bligh's arm. "Is he too much of a challenge?" she asked. Fulke looked at her. "No," he said evenly. "But do you want him damaged?" "He already is." They spoke of him as if he was a toy, or a household appliance. "I need your help," Bligh said, shrugging his arm free. He stood uncertainly and waited. When Hammad Fulke finally nodded, Bligh did not know what to feel. "We'd better sit," Fulke said, waving at some leather-covered chairs and then sliding into one himself. "Aline and Salas have told me about you. I want to know what you think I can do." Now that he had decided to help, his manner had subtly changed. Bligh looked at the healer, and now his aggression had gone. He wanted to cooperate, to make things easier for Fulke. He glanced at Madeleine, who was watching them both closely. He felt a flicker of his earlier jealousy, but it was quickly banished. "I've been told that I carry the reincarnated spirit of the Lord of Stone," he said. Somehow, the words did not sound as irrational as they had before, circling around in his head. They were better spoken. "I dream like I never have before. I black out and find myself doing things for which I can find no reason. My mouth speaks words which do not come from my brain ... it feels as if they've been relayed from somewhere distant, like ... like a radio set doesn't speak, it's the presenter miles away in his studio. People stare at me, as if they're waiting for something." "And Merc Domenech believes you are Lord of Stone, too," finished Fulke. "It is a madness which has convinced others," he mused. "Have you thought ... ?" He raised his eyebrows and paused, a little smirk twisting his mouth. "Are you suggesting that it might be true?" said Benjennery, in disbelief. Hammad Fulke shook his head. "I am suggesting nothing," he said. "Am I mad, or am I possessed?" said Bligh, coldly. "Madness is a matter of degree," said Fulke. "And before tonight is done, you will be possessed. It is the healing process." "Excuse me," said Divitt Carew. "But I've read of your trial, before the war. How can you heal without belief? You are not a doctor of medicine: you are a faith healer, aren't you?" "The Gods have no monopoly on faith," said Fulke. "The human psyche has deep resources for the healer to excavate. It is my function to open paths that have been closed to the user, to clear the detritus of an injured brain. Like a doctor who re-breaks a leg to set it straight, I re-open the wounds of the spirit so that they can heal in a stronger way." "What's happening to me?" asked Bligh. He did not understand. He felt the calming influence of Hammad Fulke beginning to dissipate, and the pressure in his head rising up. "Why me?" "It depends on your view of the world," said Hammad Fulke, after pausing to consider his words. "Language is merely analogy to the processes of the world, or the processes of the mind. Words are far from perfect, but they are the tool we use to communicate, and so I must try. "Let me start with the paradox of my own beliefs: I do not believe in the Gods, but I do not doubt that the Gods exist. They are, I believe, the product of a deeply embedded psychological need. A desire, if you like. These reincarnation myths which haunt you so mercilessly, they are the physical projection of the collective will. If people need magic, if they need the Gods to walk amongst them again - and if their will is strong enough - then the Gods walk. Such Gods are as real as any which could be explained in more conventional theological terms." "I am God," said Bligh, testing the phrase on his lips. Looking at those around him. "You are what the people want to be God, perhaps. A vulnerable man, with tremendous potential. You are not possessed by some Holy Spirit, Bligh: you are possessed by the needs of the people, stirred by the collective trauma of this awful war." "Why Bligh?" said Divitt Carew. "Why anybody? Fortune, chance, psychological vulnerability ... " "But myth is dying," said Salas Benjennery. "Magic has died with this generation. We are moving into a secular world. There has been an upwelling of religious longing, since the failure of the war, but if you look closely enough you can see that it is desperation. People fear returning to what they rose from. They fear the return of oppression. Look around you: people hope, but they don't believe. They focus on figureheads, instead, as a substitute for their own inadequacy. But magic is dead." "And so, perhaps," said Hammad Fulke, "the Lords Elemental can be defeated." |
| "The masses call it the Prayer of the Body," explained Hammad Fulke. "You may have encountered it." Bligh nodded but said nothing. "Stripped of its mysticism it could be considered a crude form of regression therapy. It is a means of opening up the basic persona to the desires of those around, or to the desires of the spirit world, depending on your view. We must open you up, Bligh. We must expose you to the desires of the masses so that we may examine the extent of your affliction. It could be dangerous for you, although my skills and experience should counter your weakness and lack of fight." Bligh stared at his hands, clasped tightly in front of him. Such a peculiar arrangement of bones and skin. He ignored Fulke's cynicism and his bragging. All he could think of was that he must get through this awful evening and get away from this place, this city. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready." Hammad Fulke came and squatted before him. Bligh met his look and refused to blink or look away. He thought that Fulke could be hypnotising him, or reading his thoughts, but still he refused to turn away. Eventually, Fulke nodded and then placed his cool, dry hands on Bligh's head. "Hmm," he said. "Aline. Come here. Feel his conflict, his heat." Another cold pair of hands settled on his scalp. He felt foolish, but he did not move. He would endure this for Madeleine, he thought. A mark of repentance. His head began to sweat, but he did not move. After an interval of what seemed like several minutes, first Hammad and then Aline withdrew their hands. They exchanged a glance but said nothing. Bligh felt excluded, but still he did not allow himself to speak. Hammad Fulke stood and went to a tall cupboard, from which he produced a number of items. "Ignore the religious connotations," he said. "The symbolism appeals to something far more basic in the human thought process." He placed a black iron bowl in the middle of the floor and filled it with kindling and coals. Lighting it with a match he said, "The Fire is our passion and our anger. It has a special affinity toward stone: it produces it, in the depths of the Earth, but also it can be retained by a ring of stones. It is your closest ally." He threw a few small gemstones into the flames, and said, "Stone gives us our solidity and bears the fertility of the soil, but also it can move and break when the ground quakes." Bligh thought Fulke was taunting him. He did not know how much of his explanation to believe and how much was disguise for what was really happening. He remembered Divitt Carew telling them that all they could do was trust Fulke. He would try. "The Air is more tenuous," Hammad Fulke continued. "It is all around us. It gives us life, yet we cannot grasp its essence." He threw a handful of herbs into the flames and their scent burst across Bligh's senses, as the gemstones glittered and glowed with the heat and light. "For our purposes we are reminded of its presence by scent and smoke." Returning from his cupboard another time, he bore a tray with bottles and fine glasses. "Aline," he said, and she rose to pour liqueurs for everyone. Glass in hand, Hammad Fulke surveyed the gathering. "There are more appealing liquids than water," he said, and then drank from his glass. "And more functional ones, but water is basic to us all, as much so as the air we breathe. It is the symbolism that counts. "More difficult in such a small, forced congregation," he continued, "is the sense of revelry, of high spirits. The element of wisdom and charisma, but also of depression and insecurity. The Soul of the party. The mood. The tension." Bligh remembered the times he had been present for the Prayer of the Body. All these elements had been there, but it was the atmosphere which had finally taken over and driven the course of events. The soul. "What do we do?" said Madeleine. She was looking at Fulke, leaning forward with her eyes alive and glowing. Bligh could feel the tension rising. Hammad Fulke moved towards her so that their faces were inches apart. Bligh wanted to leap to his feet. He wanted to tear them apart. He wanted to cry. "Laugh!" yelled Hammad Fulke, and immediately he tipped his head back and gave a mighty, booming laugh. "Yell! Cry!" he said. "Create the mood!" He laughed again, and, tentatively, Aline made herself begin to chuckle. The noise sounded wrong coming from her, forced as it was. Bligh had never heard her laugh before. Divitt Carew and Salas Benjennery joined in, Benjennery imitating Fulke in a coarse guffaw, Carew looking uncomfortable, his laugh metronomic and false. Bligh looked at Madeleine, saw tears on her face. She smiled and shrugged and then, "Hm," she said. "Hm, hm." It was the best she could manage. Bligh wondered if he was to try, too. He looked around, uncertain. He folded his arms hard across his chest. The sound was beating at him, but he did not feel that he could add to it. He felt himself withdrawing and then Hammad Fulke caught his eye and held his look. "And finally," said Fulke, an island in this room of madness. "The sixth element must be added. Flux, the source of all change and vigour." "How?" hissed Bligh, through the laughter, and the shouting. Hammad Fulke smiled. "Flux is present at the climax. He is change, he is the element of transformation. Of possession." Bligh felt sick again. He realised that everything was in place and it all depended on him. He did not know what he should do, whether he should try to focus his mind, try to open it, to relax or to centre on the tension of his friends. He looked helplessly at Madeleine, her tear-streaked face, her hair hanging forward as she rocked back and forth. But she only laughed at him, a manic cackle that stirred some primitive fear in him and made him turn away. "It's wasted," he said, helplessly, to Hammad Fulke. "It isn't working." Fulke looked at him, skewering him. He shook his head, slowly. "No," he said. "No, Bligh, it is not wasted." He swept a hand sharply through the air. Suddenly Bligh was falling, tumbling away through the layers of his mind. He was on the mountain, running, naked. Cold stone pounded at his feet, but still he ran. He was on the torn plains of Huesja, Domenech ahead of him in a hail of shrapnel and bullets. Their eyes met and Bligh knew that they were bound together. He stood upright, like Domenech, and then blackness descended as a bullet plunged into his thigh. "Who are you?" A voice boomed through his barriers, broke across his mind. He ignored it. He was back at school and Brother Benjahmine was giving him The Lecture. "Your duty is to God, Son of God," he said. "Your vow is one of abstinence and virtue. Your punishment is the Lord's gift to make you strong." The birch cane whipped painfully across his bare buttocks for the sixth time. "Your duty is to God, Son of God. Your vow is one of abstinence and virtue." He had been caught selling sugar sticks to his friends, breaking the Order's Codes of Commerce, and Indulgence. "Your punishment is the Lord's gift to make you strong." The cane struck him for the seventh time. Later, he watched from the dormitory window as his mother walked away across the school yard, having been informed of the reason he had been forbidden to see her. It was the first time she had come to him since the previous year. He could not believe this sad, drooping figure was the same gay young thing from his one photograph. He never saw her again. "Who are you?" He did not know what to say. And then, he felt it rising, the presence that he suddenly knew was so familiar to him. It was a form, or a shape, something that spread out to occupy larger and larger volumes of his mental space, pushing him aside. He tasted the temptation of surrender. He wanted to sink back and give up struggling. It would be so easy. "Who are you?" He felt the muscles of his mouth, his neck, working, but he did not know what they said. Images seeped into his awareness and he knew that his eyes were open. He was standing precariously by the dead hearth. Madeleine stared at him, her mouth open a little. Salas Benjennery watched, fascinated, appalled. Even Divitt Carew looked shaken. Nobody was laughing any more. He looked across to where Aline and Hammad Fulke stood, clutching each other, little smiles playing across their features. Those smiles. He felt angry. He felt it rising, more powerfully than anything he had known before. Those smiles. What game were they playing? Whose side were they on? What were they doing to him? He forced a sound out: what started as an infernal bellow emerged as a whimper. He swung a hand and knocked china ornaments from the mantelpiece. He swung again and a picture flew from the wall. The Fulkes were cowering now, but the others had not moved. He kicked at the black bowl of fire and gemstones and herbs in the middle of the room. Hot coals flew, settling on furniture and carpet. One must have hit Aline Fulke, because she screamed and clutched at her bare leg. He made a sound and this time it was a roar, as people scurried about, trying to smother the fires he had started. "Who are you?" demanded the voice. "Bligh!" he cried back. "I'm Bligh." "Who are you?" "Bligh." "Who are you?" shouted Hammad Fulke. "Bligh," he said, more quietly now, subsiding onto a leather-covered seat, exhausted. Fulke had deceived him, he realised. The healer had brought out his madness and offered it freedom. If he had told him this would happen, Bligh would never have agreed. "He had already gone a long way toward curing himself," said Hammad Fulke to his daughter, analysing his case history already. Bligh did not feel healed, but then, he conceded, he no longer felt as vulnerable. He had won, he realised. He had offered his madness freedom and then he had risen and knocked it back down. "I can control it," he said, still gasping for breath. "You could always do that," said Hammad Fulke. "You just needed convincing. As I said, it was merely a matter of - " The healer stopped and tipped his head to one side. "Visitors," he said, after a pause. "Quickly." He tugged at Bligh's arm with an unforeseen strength. Bligh stood and allowed himself to be pushed towards the door. The others were there already, filing through, as voices rose from the bottom of the stairs. Divitt Carew looked down the stair-well and came running back. "Police," he said. "Peresh will delay them," said Hammad Fulke, but just as he finished speaking a single pistol shot made him flinch and then feet thudded on the stairs. They hurried along the corridor, through a storeroom and down another flight of stairs. Bligh felt so disorientated that he wanted to stop, but now he knew that he must not. He pushed Hammad and Aline ahead of him down the stairs, so that he was the last to descend. The voices were getting closer behind them, as the Police closed on their quarry. "Out here," hissed Hammad Fulke, pushing at a floor-length window, then cursing when it would not open. He barged it with his shoulder but it still refused to move. Salas Benjennery dragged him aside and then threw a chair through the glass. It shattered and suddenly there was a voice from the doorway. "Don't move!" Bligh dived at the policeman, knocking him back into his colleagues in the cramped corridor. He struggled clear and turned back into the room. "Go!" he yelled. "Go!" He saw Madeleine staggering into the darkness of the back yard, Aline Fulke clutching at her hand. Salas Benjennery made it into the shadows, waited until Divitt Carew had joined him, then moved out of sight. But Hammad Fulke stood, hesitating, in the frame of his broken window. If he fled, he would be a fugitive, Bligh realised, and he would never see Queen Minna again. But if he stayed ... Fulke took a step into the darkness and then there was an explosion and he stumbled, fell to his knees. The gun fired again and the old healer slumped forward onto his face. Bligh stopped, horrified. A hand grabbed his hair and jerked his head back. A knee or a foot slammed into the small of his back and his feet went from under him. "This is him," said one of the policemen. "This is the one." Someone fired off another couple of rounds into the darkness, but no one went in pursuit of the others. Bligh lay amongst the broken glass and looked at the still body of Hammad Fulke. "What now?" he said, but nobody answered. "What happens now?" |
|
- The Book of the World, ch.31, v.60. |
| Bligh had only seen the Citadel from the outside before: the low stone facade which made up one side of Parliament Square. Sadiq explained, as they passed through its entrance and into a series of wrecked courtyards, that it spread back five times as deep as it was wide. "Here, there are the offices of Parliament," he said, "with ministerial residences and administrative quarters." If anything, the architecture was more grand here than seen from the Square. The fine buildings had clearly been ransacked during the war, yet somehow the smashed windows, the toppled and broken statues, the fountains that were dry or sprayed askew, all added dignity to the spectacle. Sadiq waved a hand vaguely and continued, "The Palace is over there, a wing once occupied by royalty but now home to the leaders of the People's Transitional Government. The Queen lives in the Council section, now, with the rest of us." Bligh saw how it was possible that, despite his opposition to the new Government, Domenech had been able to establish himself in part of the Citadel. Its scale allowed space for such rivalries, but also, his presence must lead the Government to feel that they retained some influence over his actions. It was a precarious arrangement. They found Domenech in a long office in the heart of his headquarters. Bligh sensed his presence immediately, like a storm cloud just beyond the horizon. He tried to shrug the resulting sense of doom aside, but it was difficult. For the first time since Fulke had cured him, he sensed the presence lurking inside his head. "Ah," said Domenech, rising from a seat and spreading his hands wide as if to embrace Bligh. Their eyes met and, briefly, locked and Bligh felt an answering surge of pressure inside his skull. "At last," said Domenech. His curly black hair was longer than when Bligh had last seen him, and waxed ringlets cascaded over his forehead and cheeks. He had the same, thin moustache, the same arrogant manner. The same glimmer of madness in his eyes. "Bligh," he continued. "Welcome to the Council of Six." Bligh nodded warily, and said, "Domenech." He kept his tone neutral. He did not know what was to happen, but was ready for any kind of trap to be sprung. At that moment a side door opened and a young woman entered the room, fracturing the heavy atmosphere. She smiled at Sadiq and at Domenech, and then her gaze flickered curiously towards Bligh. "Minna, dear," said Domenech. "This is our friend, Bligh. We found him in the night." So this was Queen Minna. She was dressed in a simple cotton dress, which swept to the floor, and a jacket of some light, drifting material which Bligh did not recognise. Her hair was an undistinguished brown, pinned in a loose bun at the back of her head, and her skin was an un-Traian paper-white. Her manner was dignified but unshowy, more that of a gentleman's wife than of royalty. She seemed insignificant, somehow, unworthy of the war which had so recently been fought over her. "I am pleased that you have come," she said. It was only in her tone that her true status exhibited itself. Bligh nodded and turned back to Domenech. "Would you mind explaining ... ?" he said, and settled back on the soft couch Domenech had indicated. A servant came in with a tray of savoury pastries and drinks and Bligh helped himself. "I wanted you here," said Domenech. "We thought it was best." "Who?" "The Council, and my advisers. You're not the only one with followers, Bligh. While your disciples are journalists and blaspheming healers mine are seers and political strategists. Oh, and of course, my Fool. Look around you, Bligh. Couldn't you settle to this? Wouldn't you find it easier to promote the revolution with all these facilities to hand?" "Is that the Lord of Soul speaking?" asked Bligh, holding his sweet liqueur poised at his lips. "I have never once claimed to be the Lord of Soul," said Domenech, adopting a well-practised expression of innocence. He smiled, briefly, and Bligh felt a sudden tightness in his chest. "I am a tool of the revolution, that is enough for me. "The war created people like you and me, Bligh. Either it triggered something within or it just allowed us to prosper and come together. Either way, we are here, with our potential to assume the lead in this revolution." "You're using it, aren't you? You're exploiting the desperation of the people." Bligh looked at Minna and Sadiq, but they were not touched by his accusation. "Political power, religious power ... what difference is there?" said Domenech. "It is the change you instigate which finally matters. It's not only Trace: we can lead the whole world into a new state of being, a new political and religious order. We have converts in the Wederian Congress and Presidium. Yesterday a rally closed down the centre of Euardice, delaying the special recall of the Feorean Legislature. We have the power. It is only a matter of time, now." "Why me?" "Why any of us? You, because my seers say you are a chosen one, a member of the Six. They have been right so far - I would not contradict them. If they say you are Lord of Stone, then why should I argue? I suggested alternatives but they were adamant. The Council of Six will be unstoppable." Suddenly Bligh saw the pit that Domenech had dug for himself. He was abusing the prophecies and myths of The Book of the World. He was using them to haul himself to the top, to a position of supreme power. But at some level, Bligh was sure, Elementalism still had a hold on his superstitions and he still believed. Domenech was suffering the madness Bligh had suffered and he was scared that it was true. He was bound by his cynicism and simultaneously by his superstition. He had no choice but to woo Bligh, because somewhere in his mind he was scared to go against the advice of his seers, and the teachings of his infancy. Bligh had been through all that. He had been ill, but he had been cured. He held a tactical advantage in his disbelief. He looked into Domenech's eyes, pleading through a facade of arrogance. He smiled. "What if I'm the real thing," he said, "and you are not?" The flash of fear across Domenech's face was proof enough of Bligh's assessment. He settled back in his seat and ate another pastry. He could enjoy this, at last. "There is no question," said Domenech, recovering his composure immediately. Bligh glanced at Queen Minna, then asked Domenech, "Why did you have Hammad Fulke killed?" "What?" gasped Minna, before Domenech could reply. She turned on him, and said, "Is this true? What happened?" Domenech put his hands out and pushed her, gently, back into her seat. "These things happen," he said. "He struggled with an armed policeman and a gun went off. No! Sit down. We'll talk later." Minna slumped in her chair and said no more. "You're the fifth," said Domenech, calmly, to Bligh. "And the most troublesome yet. I expect to hold the first full meeting of the Council of Six before the week is out." "You've found Pozas?" said Sadiq, eagerly. Domenech shook his head. "We're close. It won't be long." "And what will you charge Pozas with?" said Bligh. "Desertion? Breathing without divine approval?" Domenech looked at him coldly. "Don't be bitter, Stone," he said. "You betray your potential. You are worthy of far better." |
| "You'll be staying here in the Citadel, of course," said Sadiq. "The facilities are beyond compare. Far better than that decaying little guest-house your friends are using." Sadiq smiled, clearly enjoying revealing the extent of his knowledge. "Why didn't your thugs take me when I was there, then?" asked Bligh. They had left Domenech and Minna in the office and were now ambling along an airy corridor. Bligh hoped the two were now arguing about the death of Hammad Fulke. He would like to have stayed to listen, if that had been possible. "Ah," said Sadiq. "I will admit that you were still a step ahead of us, until last night when you were observed near Fulke's residence. A suite is ready for you. We can prepare rooms for your followers, too. You might like some company at night, no? I remember your Madeleine well." "Is there a suite for Pozas, too?" Bligh was determined not to let Sadiq get the better of him. "Of course. Here. We can provide anything else that you should feel necessary." It was more like a small house than a suite. The lower floor held a living room, with a bar and a small swimming pool and furnishings far finer than any Bligh had seen before. It was lit with a beautiful, dreamy light that filtered in through tall windows with curtains of feathered silk. Upstairs, there were bedrooms, an office with two smiling secretaries and a ringing telephone, and a bathroom that was full of sophisticated equipment and fittings. "I'd like some fresh clothes," said Bligh, his mind racing. Sadiq stepped into one of the bedrooms, past the wide, circular bed, and flung open a set of double doors. "Shirts," he said, flicking through the contents. "Jackets. Trousers." He eyed Bligh's crumbling LA boots and added, "Footwear," with a light chuckle. Thumbing through the wardrobe, Bligh selected a plain shirt, some corduroy trousers, a pair of comfortable-looking shoes. He stripped, before Sadiq, and said, "I'm going to wash." Sadiq watched him through the bathroom doorway, an amused expression on his face. Suddenly Bligh registered what he had said about inviting his friends to stay here. "I can leave?" he asked, surprised. "I'm not a captive?" Sadiq shook his head, then came in to show him how the controls for the pressure shower worked. "No," he said. "Of course you are free. There can be none freer than the Six. You have seen us here - your fears have been dispelled. You have no reason to flee any more." Bligh gasped as hot rods of water pounded his tired body. He realised that what Sadiq said was true: he would not run away from this. He was no longer scared of Domenech's traps. He was a free, healthy man and he had learned, finally, how good that felt. Sadiq left him at some point and he dressed alone. The fine clothes felt strange against his skin but, he had to admit, they did not feel wrong. He looked at his dirty old clothes and went through their pockets before dumping them on the landing. He followed the sound of voices along a corridor and across an open, paved courtyard into the relative shelter of a vine-festooned verandah. "Stone's here! Stone's here!" sang the Fool, Gaspar Sech. He looked older now, a patchy tan obscuring some of his acne scars. Bligh smiled at the boy. "Responsibility suits you, Gaspar. That is, if being a grown man's toy is a form of responsibility." Sech just laughed at him and said, "He's still scared of us, hah hah!" Also seated in this area, with the acolytes and servants who seemed to litter the headquarters of the Council of Six, were Alderas Aldivine and Wink Hawley. Wink was seated on a low wall, with his back to a pillar; a small orange and yellow bird sat twittering on his hand. He noticed Bligh, after a few minutes and smiled. "I thought you were running with the cats," he said. "But they always catch them in the end, isn't that the case?" "Not always," said Bligh, surprised at how pleased he was to be with his old friend. Wink blew a kiss at his bird, and said, "Will you ask them why I'm here? Do you know, perhaps? They only prevaricate and obfuscate where I am concerned. Perhaps if I had run, for a bit, they would have taken more trouble with me." "Does the Lord of Fire have to ask?" said Bligh, settling close to Wink. He looked at the bird now ... and then had to look again, startled by its features: on one side an eye that could have been human, but for its size; and on the other, a mass of pink scar tissue. Wink shook his head. "That's what Domenech says. I tell him he has the wrong man, but he won't believe me." "Do you believe you're the wrong man? Aren't you mad, like the rest of us?" The bird. Bligh had to keep looking at it until, now, it paused in its song to look back and then its human eye winked. "Me?" Wink Hawley grinned. "I've never been saner. Here - ask King Elleo." He clapped his hands and the bird flew away, startled, to perch amongst the vines. "No, not the bird, idiot. The King - here." He gestured at the thin air in front of him. "He talks to me all the time, you see. Can't you see? Oh dear, perhaps you are mad then, after all." For a moment, Bligh thought Wink was teasing him, but as he looked at him he became unsure. Up in the hills, Wink's ghosts had seemed a clear mark of insanity, but now they just seemed sad. Bligh glanced at the bird as it perched in the vines. Just an ordinary songbird. He shook his head and left his friend with his ghost of King Elleo. Alderas Aldivine was seated on the floor, surrounded by young men and women, all taking it in turns to sniff from a small gold dish they were passing around. Bligh returned Aldivine's nod, but refused the bowl when it was held up to him. He wondered it the narcotic fumes had pervaded the air all around, affecting his senses, and his mood. Talking to Wink had deflated some of his good feelings and now he returned across the courtyard. It was late in the afternoon when he emerged on the steps that led down to Parliament Square. He set out through the Old Town, hoping that he could still find Madeleine and the others. He realised that he could have taken an official motor car, with a driver who would probably know exactly where his friends would be found. He was clearly new to this life; ordering people around was something he had never had to do before. He climbed onto a tram and people looked at him. He realised it was his clothing that drew their attention, not so much its quality as the fact that it was all clean and new. He tossed a coin to the driver as he left, several streets before his stop. Perhaps walking would be better for him, after all. He felt strangely nervous, mounting the steps inside the small guesthouse they had used as their base. He had spotted Divitt Carew's car, tucked away around the corner, so he knew that they had not yet left. He heard voices coming from the room, and he paused outside the closed door. He licked his dry lips. It seemed wrong to knock at the door of his own room, so instead he bumped against it and opened it noisily so that he did not startle his friends too greatly. Three faces stared at him as he stood in the doorway. Aline Fulke sat on the bed, wearing her usual impenetrable expression, and Divitt Carew stood by the window, his mouth open as if he had been cut off in mid-speech. Madeleine sat at the foot of the bed eyeing Bligh suspiciously. "They caught me," he said, struggling to think clearly. "I was in prison." Carew looked at his clean clothes in disbelief and said, "And?" "And then I was taken to Domenech." What more could he say, he wondered? "Hammad is dead," said Carew, bluntly. "I went back with Aline at dawn. I thought you would be too, by now." Bligh saw Madeleine shudder and he felt a tremendous sense of relief that she had finally shown some kind of reaction. "I know," he said. He looked at Aline, and continued, "I never had the chance to thank him." She turned her near-circular eyes on him, now, and he felt mesmerised, as if she was a snake about to strike. "How much more damage must you cause?" she said in a low, quavering voice. He resisted the temptation to look away. "How much will it take?" he said, instantly regretting the brutal tone he had adopted. "Where's Salas?" he said, turning back to Divitt Carew, breaking the eye contact with Aline. "If he was captured I'll have him freed." There was an expression on Carew's face that made Bligh uncomfortable. It was a knowing look, one of resignation. "He's with some old friends from the Landworkers' Alliance." "That's illegal," said Bligh quickly. What he had meant to say was that such a meeting would be risky, with the Police surveillance they were almost certainly under, but it came out too quickly and it only served to deepen Carew's sad expression. "I'm leaving," said Carew. "You don't need us any more." "Don't," said Bligh. "Don't abandon me now." For a moment, he felt vulnerable again and he saw Carew study him closely and then nod once. "Come along, Aline," said the journalist. "I'll show you the docks." In a short time their steps had receded and Bligh and Madeleine were alone. "You've changed," said Madeleine, from the far side of the bed. Bligh looked down at his clothes. They were already dusty from the streets. She meant more than that, though, he knew. "I'm cured," he said. "My wounds have healed over. I'm a better man now." "What did Domenech say to you?" "Nothing that I didn't know already. He helped me understand things a little better, that's all. What about you, Madeleine? Have you changed?" She smiled a little and he wondered what she was thinking. "What's wrong with you, Madeleine? Can you tell me?" She shook her head, chewing at her lower lip and it was then that he realised. He looked at her, suddenly, as if for the first time: her red eyes, her puffy cheeks which he had put down to stress, the way her loose dress hung across her torso. "You're pregnant," he said, scared by the sound of the word. He had never considered that possibility before; he had avoided thinking about it, assumed that Madeleine knew what to do. There were means of preventing it, he knew, but he had thought them a woman's preserve until now. She looked at him unhappily, confirming his suspicions. "When?" he asked. "I have five months to go," she said. Her voice was firmer, now that it was in the open. Bligh thought she looked better already. He swallowed. He did not know how to begin thinking about something like this. "What do we do?" he asked, not knowing why he did so. "What do you want?" "Do you love me?" She had never put it like this before. A simple question, but still one that he had difficulty grasping. It was an issue he had never learnt to understand, one he had cynically dismissed or, more often, avoided altogether. "I don't know," he said, finally. He had to put it into words, whether it hurt her or not. He could not avoid it. "I don't know words for what I feel. I don't understand it." He could see that was not enough. "I can try," he added, and wondered if that would be enough. "I can try." |
| He walked through the corridors of the Citadel in a daze. He thought he had somehow said the right thing. Madeleine appeared to understand that he was attempting to be honest. Expressing his feelings had never been easy for Bligh, at least partly because usually he did not know what they were. And then he had said he was returning to the Citadel. "You're not going back to that place, surely?" said Madeleine. "You can't!" But he had to. "Isn't that what you want?" he said. He had never understood how such an intelligent person could cling to the ancient Elementalist superstitions, but he at least thought that she would understand the part he was to play. For several seconds they had simply stared at each other, confused and angry, and then Bligh had left. For a short time, back in the hotel room, he had thought things were working out, but now he had even less idea of where he stood with Madeleine than he had before. He heard raised voices coming from the verandah and he headed there, without thinking. "He can't be!" cried a man. Merc Domenech, Bligh realised, as he came to stand in an archway. Domenech was standing with his feet apart and his hands in the air and his rage was having a devastating effect on the officer of the People's Police who stood before him. "He can't be!" he cried again, his voice breaking slightly over the last syllable. Bligh looked at Wink Hawley, who was standing nearby, and raised his eyebrows. "Pozas Cantera," whispered Wink, moving closer to Bligh so that his voice did not carry. "He's been found." A little, mad smile played around his mouth, and then he added, "He's been found dead, hanging by a rope under a bridge over the River Ana." Bligh was horrified by the news, but at the same time fascinated. One of the Lords was dead! One of the Lords, themselves! How would Merc Domenech explain this, he wondered, as he watched the desperate look on his enemy's face and smiled. How, indeed? |
|
- The Book of the World, ch.86, v.20. |
| Sleep was not easy that night. When he succumbed, he dreamt of madness once again. Only this time, he was not running over his mountain, being watched by a desperate, yearning crowd. This time he was high above it all, watching the pathetic figure of a man bounding from rock to rock, as a huge crowd pressed together to watch him, to touch him. And then he was back at school, showing his mother - not the weary mother of experience, but the gay young thing of the photograph - where he slept and where he worked and then, mischievously, where he kept his illicit supply of sugar sticks. She smiled at this and laughed and, just before she went, she asked him if he could manage to love her, despite all the grief she had caused him. "Of course," he said, wondering why she needed to ask, and he looked into her eyes and realised that they were just like his own. Then he felt the world around him skip and he was looking at Madeleine and she was saying, "Of course, love. I've been unwell for some time, now." He opened his eyes and, for a moment, he wondered where he was - who he was. Then it came back to him and he thought that the time had come to leave this madhouse and try to forget it all, but he knew that was impossible: experience, and guilt, cannot simply be erased at will. He went out, past a secretary who smiled and greeted him as if she had worked in his employ for years. He plunged into the pool, shocking free any last vestiges of sleep. |
| The verandah was crowded this morning. Wink Hawley was there, talking to his birds and his ghosts. Sadiq Phelim and Alderas Aldivine were chuckling over a pipe belching a creamy smoke which smelt of pepper and pervaded the whole atmosphere. Domenech and Minna were standing in the doorway, looking on into the small room where Pozas Cantera lay at rest. And all around were the followers and sycophants. Men and women stood and sat, consulting occasionally with a member of the Council or with each other or one of the many who came in and out of other offices and corridors. "What do you think, Bligh?" said Sadiq, snagging Bligh's sleeve and thrusting the pipe up towards him. Bligh put the pipe to his lips and breathed in deeply. Instantly, he was submerged by a wave of energy, a rushing of sound and colour, a sense of excitement and anticipation. He passed the pipe on to the Fool, who had just come out from one of the offices. "I think of many different things," he said in a patronising tone. "And sometimes I try to think of nothing at all." He felt his senses beginning to settle again. "No, you misunderstand," said Sadiq. "Alderas has an idea. A way of spreading the revolutionary message. I think it's misguided." Alderas Aldivine grinned at Bligh. His eyes were glazed and his lips moist and, for a startling moment, Bligh was reminded of the look on the dead face of Pozas Cantera. Then he spoke. "We should paint the city red and gold. We should imprint it with the mark of the Unification Party of the People. The revolution could not lose, then. Don't you think?" Bligh realised that Aldivine was right on the edge. He wondered what Domenech would do if another member of his Council opted for suicide, or found his end in some other way. He shook his head. A man, who had been sitting with them raised a hand. He was one of Domenech's seers, one of his disciples. "It would be somewhat impractical," he said. "Although the spirit of the suggestion is admirable, if I may say so." "No, no!" said Aldivine. "We would do it in stages, of course." "Of course," Bligh said, and turned away, but Domenech was there, his eyes fixed on Aldivine. "It would be a gesture," he said. Bligh stepped back. This morning, Domenech's air of madness was more powerful than ever before. Bligh recalled his last encounter with him, and the aftershock of fear; it made him feel vulnerable this morning. "It would be symbolic," said Domenech. "Fool!" His voice was suddenly harsh and he looked around the verandah, searching for young Gaspar Sech. "Fool. Come here. Air has a plan. Look into it immediately." Sech came trotting across obediently, but there was a hint of resentment in his expression, Bligh thought. Domenech straightened, looking momentarily lost. Bligh spoke before he had time to wonder if now was the right time to push Domenech further. "What do we do about Pozas Cantera?" he asked, in a conversational voice. "It really is a bit of a drag, isn't it?" Domenech turned on him, but Sech spoke first. "I've been hearing voices," he said. Bligh had to admire him: he never stopped trying. "Voices in my head. Sounds like a big, big voice is booming down at me, trying to tell me something." He smiled, as if he thought he was being clever. "Do you think it might be me?" he asked. "Do you think the Lord of Water has chosen me?" Domenech looked at the boy, and then, in a sudden movement, he slapped him across the cheek with the back of his hand. "You blaspheme!" he snapped. "Enough." He looked at Bligh and continued, "I know what you're doing, but it won't work. There can be no divisions amongst the Six. Not when it matters. Your mischief may amuse you, but it is insignificant." Bligh felt as if Domenech had slapped him too. He touched his cheek and it was throbbing, numb. "Water will return," Domenech continued. His voice was growing calmer as he spoke. He was pulling himself up from the edge of insanity in a process Bligh knew well. "It was always possible that one of those chosen to carry the spirit of one of the Lords Incarnate would prove unworthy. I am surprised it was not you. Events are unfolding already, though. Lord of Water will not be far behind. Last night I established a panel of seers to seek Him out. Any possible candidates will be brought here to the Citadel, so that we may be ready." "And if they should resist?" "The right man will not resist for long - you are evidence of that." He chuckled. "And anyone who tries to interfere with the process will be shot. There is a lot at stake." "Oh yes," said Bligh. "Of course." Domenech started to leave, then paused. "Don't forget," he said. "Tomorrow's first meeting of the Council of Six will proceed as planned. History does not wait on the uncommitted." Bligh had forgotten about Domenech's meeting. He was surprised that it was still to go ahead. Domenech marched away to talk with two of his advisers. Bligh turned to Sadiq and Alderas and beckoned for Wink Hawley to join them. He noticed Domenech watching them curiously and he stopped himself from smiling with satisfaction. "What is it?" said Wink, lowering himself to sit cross-legged on the floor. "What do you want of the old chap, eh?" Bligh looked at each of them in turn. "It's close," he said, after pausing to build their anticipation. "I can feel it growing." He had their attention now. "What do you want us to do?" asked Sadiq, who was studying him closely. "We push," said Bligh. "Let ourselves be submerged. Taken over." He saw the fear on Aldivine's face, the confusion on Wink's, the cynicism on Sadiq's. "Why now?" said Sadiq. "What game are you playing? Why have you changed your attitude?" Bligh met his look and nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "Can't you feel it?" he said. "I don't claim to like any of this." He jerked his head at the people around them, and noted, in that instant, that Domenech was still watching the four closely. "And I don't claim - like some - to know what is coming. But I do know that it must be preferable to whatever Merc Domenech has in mind." Sadiq was still watching him, still cynical. "We should let the Lords decide," Bligh concluded. "And not Merc Domenech." Domenech left, with Minna and his advisers, but not before Bligh had seen the apprehension on his face. He looked at the other three, but they were less affected by what he had said. Sadiq still thought he was playing games, although Bligh felt that he had penetrated his barriers a little. Alderas Aldivine was so intoxicated that he would grasp anything anyone said and believe it with all his heart, but a minute later it would be gone. And Wink Hawley ... Wink was talking to his ghosts again, too lost in his madness to help Bligh undermine what Domenech was trying to create. He stood and headed out across the courtyard. He did not know what he had been trying to do, other than to stir doubts and conflict, but he knew he had failed. He did not know why he was here any more, except that he was unable to leave while Domenech's madness drove him on to ever greater heights of perversity and ... and evil. Bligh lowered his head as he entered a passageway which led from the courtyard out to where the official cars were parked. He did not see Gaspar Sech until he had collided with him and they had sprawled against opposite walls of the passageway. "Uh," grunted Bligh. "Sorry," he said. "I ... " He saw the brief flicker of hostility in Sech's look, followed by the manic, lop-sided grin and shrug. One side of the boy's face was reddened where Domenech had struck him and there was a spot of blood where a jewelled ring had broken the skin. Bligh instinctively put a hand to his own cheek. "He's using you," he said, desperately, to Sech. "Can't you see that he's just using you? Like he used the crowd in Parliament Square at the end of his Six Day March - you're expendable, Gaspar. He doesn't care. When he's bored with you he'll find himself another Fool - Trace is full of them." Gaspar Sech just watched him through slightly narrowed eyes. The idiot grin never left his face. "Don't worry," he finally said. Bligh was startled by the tone of pity in the boy's voice. "Don't worry so much, because Domenech could like you just as well as he does me and Sadiq. You shouldn't be so angry at him all the time - you just have to trust in him." Bligh was left speechless, leaning against the wall of the narrow passage, as the boy nodded at him and then trotted back along to the courtyard, humming one of the little tunes he used to hum in the trenches when everyone else was trying desperately to be quiet. Bligh took an official car to the small guest-house where the others had been staying. He felt awkward, issuing his instructions to the driver, but it was the quickest means of transport. The sense of relief, when he spotted Divitt Carew's motor car in the street was as intense as any feeling he had known. He leapt up the narrow staircase, three steps at a time, but the room was empty. He tugged at a wardrobe door to make sure that their bags were still there. They were. He peered down from the window, but saw no one he wanted to see. He sat on the bed, his head in his hands, and wondered what he could do now. Seconds later, the door burst open and Salas Benjennery stood with soap over half of his face and his razor thrust forwards into the room. He saw Bligh and straightened, self-consciously. "I heard someone," he said. "I thought ... " "I know," said Bligh. "I hoped you were still here. I need your help." "What is it?" said Benjennery, smearing the soap across his chin with the back of his hand and then fumbling in a bag for a shirt to wipe his face clean. "I promised that I would do whatever I could. What is it?" |
| > Before leaving the guest-house, Bligh had asked about Divitt and Madeleine. "They're with Aline," Benjennery had told him. "Madeleine promised to show them an eating house where the two of you had once eaten. By the Ana. Do you know the one?" Bligh had nodded and left Benjennery to his unfinished shave. He tried to think, as he walked back through the edge of the Old Town towards the eating house. He tried to work out if what he was doing could possibly be considered right. Around him, horse-drawn wagons rumbled by, loaded with sacks of flour or crates of dried meat. Men sat on top, with rifles cradled on their laps. The shortages were still severe, for the ordinary people of Anasty. It was easy to forget, in the sheltered confines of the Citadel. He paused on the narrow strip of parkland. He did not know what was right any more. It was too much for him to handle. All he could do was rely on instinct, but even that could be wrong, he supposed. He saw them, seated on the terrace where no one else would sit, back in the time of the Civil War. Only he and Madeleine had dared. Now, people sat about at the stone tables and benches, laughing and gossiping. Old men sat over their cups of anise tea, staring solemnly at those who were now quite open about being able to afford the price of real food at eating house prices. The three sat to one side of the terrace, over steaming cups of tea and a news-sheet which Divitt Carew had folded neatly down the middle. Aline spotted him first, and she lowered her head and spoke to her two companions. Madeleine looked across instantly. Carew took a steady drink from his cup before turning slowly to study him. Bligh stepped over a low wall and sat on the bench opposite. "We've decided to leave Anasty," said Aline, breaking the silence. "Madeleine and I will take the train this afternoon." Bligh looked at Madeleine, but she only stared into her cup. He looked at Divitt Carew instead. "Oh no," said Carew. "I'm staying. My work is here. I'm a journalist. I could come up with an interesting story, you know. A man who threw away everything when he became involved in the scheming of a mad dictator. Sounds familiar?" "I'm not involved," said Bligh. "No? Then will you go back to Dona-Jez with Aline and Madeleine?" asked Carew. "No? I didn't think so. I was wrong about you. No commitments has always been my motto. I should have stuck to it. I don't like being wrong about people." Bligh began to panic. He looked at the three, desperately, separated from them by a stone table and three steaming cups. "Can't you see?" he demanded, trying to think how he could put things, how he could explain himself. He had hoped that Madeleine would have had time to think, overnight, about what he had said, and that she would make things easier now. "Why must you all tell me what to do? Can't I make my own choice this time? Can't I?" Now, Madeleine looked up. "Oh yes," she said. "And so can we." She stood and waited for Carew and Aline to join her and then they walked away from the terrace, away from Bligh. He watched them go, confused and distraught. Had he not explained to them? Did they not understand him, even now? |
| He met Salas Benjennery and his friends from the Landworkers' Alliance as planned the following morning. "They didn't understand me," he said to Salas. "I tried to explain but they wouldn't let me start." Benjennery clasped him by the arms and embraced him cautiously, as if it was an unfamiliar gesture. His caution was not born of embarrassment, though, it was a more primitive reaction than mere social nicety. Salas Benjennery was simply being wary of the wedge of high explosives strapped to the side of Bligh's rib-cage. It was a sensible precaution. "I'll do all the explaining for you," he said. "They will remember you as you are and not as their grief coloured you." "You'll provide for Madeleine ... ?" "Friend." Benjennery smiled. "For what you are about to do the whole world will provide for Madeleine and your child. But yes, I will be their protector. Of course I will do that." He thought, as he left Benjennery in the small basement the LA were using as headquarters, that he could never succeed. He was scared and he kept wondering, Why me? Why me? But as he walked through dusty street after dusty street, and the wagons passed him by and he saw the children playing in and out of their houses, their parents looking on ... as he saw all this, he grew calm, resolved in his purpose. The bomb would explode fifteen minutes after the first meeting of the incomplete Council of Six was due to start. "Use a trigger," Benjennery had urged him. "Something you can control." But Bligh had just shaken his head and said, "I couldn't. I could do it to Domenech, I could do it to myself. Quite easily. But the only time I can guarantee being close to Domenech is at this meeting and there will be others there - Wink and Aldivine, and even young Sech. I'd never be able to release the trigger. This is the only way I can do it." Benjennery had shrugged, and pressed him no more. |
| He entered the Citadel and the guards let him through, as they had been ordered to do. He nodded back at them. He felt calm now. He felt as if everything was over already, and he was simply going through the motions. He hoped that Madeleine, and perhaps Divitt, could be made to understand, but he no longer cared any more. He was blank, a machine. He crossed the courtyard one last time, and there he came across Sadiq, seated on the ground with his hands clenched together and his eyes tipped upwards. Bligh stopped and stared and eventually Sadiq's eyes rolled down and he looked at him. "I'm nearly there," he gasped. "Nearly there. I spent all night in a dream like none I've ever known. I can feel His presence, I can feel His touch!" Bligh shook his head. Sadiq was as mad as any of them. "Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be wrong?" he asked. For a moment, Sadiq looked as if he had been wounded. "You said ... you said we should push, to let the Lords take hold. You said ... " Bligh saw the torment on Sadiq's face. He knew what he was going through, he knew how much it hurt. "Push if you like," he said, and walked away. He waited on the verandah, watching the time drift away on a clock that stood in the room where Pozas Cantera still stared miserably into empty space. Eventually, he made himself stand and head for the chamber where the Six were to meet. He passed Queen Minna in the corridor and something made him stop and nod in greeting. He thought of Hammad Fulke and instantly he felt a kind of sympathy towards her. She had lost so much. She seemed too young to bear such a heavy weight. "What?" she said. "What do you want?" Away from Domenech, she still carried the authority of a born leader. Bligh shook his head. "Stay away," he said. "Just keep away from the meeting." She looked at him strangely and he thought she had understood. Then he glanced along the corridor and saw the Fool, hovering in a doorway, watching the two of them with his lop-sided, boyish grin. Bligh looked away. He felt that things were beginning to slip away from him, but he did not know why. He entered the council chamber and went to stand by a tall, leaded window. Wink Hawley tried to speak to him, but Bligh refused to respond. You cannot get to me like this, he wanted to cry, but instead he stared at a blemish in the glass, moving his head to see how its distorted ripples changed in the light. He sensed the change of atmosphere when Merc Domenech entered the room. He glanced at his watch before turning. It was a few minutes before the meeting was due to start, a few extra minutes for him to endure. Domenech was staring at him, smiling, as Queen Minna passed behind him and made for a chair near to the head of the table. When two soldiers entered the room in Minna's wake, Bligh realised that his plans were in ruins. "It's time for your games to end," said Domenech, and everyone in the room turned to look at Bligh. The soldiers had their rifles trained on Bligh's chest. He looked at them, and at Domenech. "What ... ?" he said, faltering. "What do you mean?" Domenech walked around the table and came to stand before him. He stared into his eyes and it was as if Bligh's blood had been replaced by ice. "What games?" he managed to repeat. Domenech reached out and patted Bligh's arms, his hips, his trouser pockets. Then he moved back up and his hand stopped over Bligh's chest. "What's this then?" he said, and Bligh knew that he no longer had any chances left. But instead of reaching inside Bligh's shirt to examine the pack of explosives, Domenech's hand slid into the pocket of his jacket. "I thought so," he said. "I thought so." His hand emerged with Madeleine's small pistol cradled in his palm. "Such a small weapon," he said. Bligh was stunned. Did he still have a chance, after all? "But enough," he said, harshly. He stepped forward, and as he had hoped, Domenech shoved him back with a firm push to the chest. As Bligh sprawled against the wall, Domenech turned away, waving the little gun in the air. "Who told you?" said Bligh, his mind desperately working to produce ways of delaying Domenech, keeping him within range. "Was it the Fool? Hmm? Did the Fool tell you?" Domenech looked surprised. "The Fool?" he said. "No, it was Minna, of course. It was very gallant of you to try to warn her, however clumsy your attempt. But Minna - " he glanced at her now, with a tender smile and a flash of the eyes " - Minna has learnt where her loyalties should lie. Some," he added, "still have that lesson to learn." Domenech stepped forward, the pistol still resting in his palm. "As we're talking about the learning of lessons," he continued, "I am not beyond discovery, myself." The madness in his eyes was a pulsing, living madness now. Domenech leaned forward and Bligh saw that his whole body was trembling. He thrust the pistol into the pit of Bligh's stomach so that metal ground against his ribs and he gasped as the air was snatched from his lungs. "Do you want to know what I've discovered, Bligh? Shall I tell you?" He waited, until Bligh had grunted his agreement. "It was Pozas Cantera who taught me my lesson," he continued. "He demonstrated that one who carries the Holy Spirit is still a physical being, with weaknesses and failings. But if the carrier dies, the spirit of his Lord will always endure and come back to walk the Earth in another form, another body. Perhaps the Lord of Stone would be more effective if He was pushed into a different host. What do you think, Bligh? What do you think?" He ground the gun harder into Bligh's stomach and waited. Bligh looked into his eyes. "I think," he said. "I think you're madder than you've ever been. I think you're sick. I think you're a stain on the human race." But Domenech merely smiled at him. "You're unworthy," he said. "I think you should go now." And then there was an almighty crash and for an instant Bligh thought that his bomb had detonated early. Domenech threw his arms up into the air and turned as Gaspar Sech rushed into the room with a rifle in his hands. "Lords!" the Fool cried. "He wants to kill you!" He fired his gun across the room, and Bligh threw himself to the floor. There was a gleeful madness in Sech's eyes. He was saving his master, he must have thought. He was earning his place at the table of the Council of Six, he must have thought. He fired again and then his expression changed to one of surprise as a soldier charged him from behind, knocking him to the floor. Bligh looked around in confusion and then he saw Merc Domenech, lying nearby. Domenech was staring at him, accusingly, and a trail of blood came from his mouth, ending in a small pool on the paved floor. Chaos had descended on the chamber the instant Sech fired his first shot. Now people rushed about, soldiers waving guns and shepherding Minna and Wink and Sadiq out to safety. Bligh closed his eyes in fear as one of them squatted next to him. "You have to get out," the soldier said. "He could still be dangerous." The soldier gestured towards Gaspar Sech, who was writhing on the floor, pinned down by the weight of three more troops. Bligh looked dumbly up at the soldier and then accepted his helping hand. He looked at his watch and then, suddenly he remembered the bomb. He tried to stay calm, as he left the chamber and passed along the corridor, crowded with worried advisers and soldiers, awash with confusion. He hurried his pace as he drew clear of the chaos and finally, as he emerged on the steps at the top of Parliament Square, he broke into a loping, uneven run. He had no time, he was sure he had no time. He looked around and everywhere there were people, pressing close, staring at him. He ran down a side-street but had to dodge heaps of linen and tall baskets and stalls with food and all around him, people turned to watch. He felt like a stone cat on Festival Day up in Comeras. Running like mad, but always there were more people around each corner. He could not get away. As he ran, he worked at the tape beneath his shirt, loosening the binding that held the bomb in place, but still he could find nowhere to dump it, nowhere that was without people to be damaged. At last, he reached the docks, the harbour where the River Ana opened out into a deep bay. He pushed his way through the crowd, more people than he could ever remember seeing here at the docks. He pushed and barged and all the time he worked at the bomb's bindings. Finally, he collided with the railings and ahead of him there was only water. He heaved the bomb from his shirt, arched his aching back and threw the device as far as he could, out over the churning water, past gulls that squawked and yelped, out into the waves of Ana Bay. He crouched, arms wrapped around his head, but nothing happened. He straightened cautiously, always expecting to hear the blast. Eventually, he checked his watch and he saw that the bomb should have detonated more than ten minutes ago. He looked out at the waves and the gulls. He remembered the failure rate of the Traian artillery during the war and he shook his head slowly in disbelief. Was it over now? he wondered. Was it all, really, over? |
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- The Holy Word of Jah'veh, bk. 5, l.184. |
Author's note
If you've reached this far you've either enjoyed Lord of Stone or you're a sucker for punishment. Or maybe you're one of those people who always reads the last page first...
If you have enjoyed the novel, maybe you'd be good enough to make my efforts worthwhile by:
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