Coldly, she fixed her mind on the ultimate aim.
‘To conclude,’ Andrew said. ‘I see no reason for us to delay our departure if the experiment succeeds. We will be on our way home tonight.’ He turned to Merlin and nodded regally.
As if he’s a king, she sneered inwardly. But she turned obediently to face the computer and a silence fell around her as the hand of her mind reached out, and she poured herself into the cursor.
It did not take long to do what she had to.
There was an excited hum as the blue glowing corona surrounding the ship winked out. For a moment no one moved. Then Andrew stepped forward eagerly, the first to walk within the circle of protection in hundreds of years. His face was flushed with triumph as he turned to face the others.
‘At last!’ he shouted.
Then the other Citizens came forward, hesitantly crossing over the line, as if they feared the blue mantle would suddenly reappear and incinerate them. But nothing happened. The spell was broken, the sleeper awakened.
‘How does the ship open?’ an old man asked Andrew tremulously. His face filled with awe, as if Andrew were truly a god.
‘I will show you,’ he said.
‘What about her?’ Sedgewick reminded him.
Andrew looked down as if from a great height. ‘As promised, I will set her outside the dome.’
‘But . . .’ the boy began.
‘But first, her reward,’ Andrew said. He smiled and made a gesture. Merlin turned to see Sedgewick lift his hand, grinning maliciously.
There was a click as the collar around her throat activated, and then there was nothing.
17
Merlin woke with a sour taste in her mouth, her limbs sore and heavy. She felt disorientated. The last thing she remembered was Andrew signalling Sedgewick to activate the collar. And now she was chained, hands to collar, but where was she?
It was pitch dark and she was on the ground. It was hard and cold and so was the wall her shoulders rested against. The metal walls and floor told her she was still inside the dome. Andrew had lied when he promised to free her. Perhaps his revenge would be to leave her to rot in a room inside the dome when he and the Citizens flew away. But she would not rot, nor die of starvation. It would be quicker than that and for this she was bleakly grateful.
She moved experimentally, trying to ease her numb hands, and found her legs were also chained. A faint hiss told her the room was air-conditioned. Even so, above the metallic scented air of the dome, there was another smell. She sniffed, trying to decide what it was.
Abruptly, she wondered why the collar had stopped working.
There was a sliding noise and she froze, terror like a cold knife between her shoulder blades.
‘Is anyone else there?’ a voice asked.
Merlin almost fainted. She recognised the voice. It was Danna, the boy she had met briefly in the temple. That was something she had not expected.
‘Danna?’ quavered another voice. A chorus of voices followed and Merlin’s heart sank.
‘Is this hell?’ a girl asked in a quavering voice.
‘Stupid, there’s no such thing,’ said another. Beta, Merlin thought. ‘We are inside the forbidden city.’
There was a hiss of indrawn breaths.
‘Why have they chained us?’ someone asked.
No one had an answer to that question. Finally Danna answered and Merlin thought how odd that leaders arose, regardless of age or personality, in times of stress.
‘We are not dead, and we are not Void. There is hope in that,’ he said.
‘Blasphemy,’ someone hissed, sounding on the verge of hysteria. ‘They’re probably testing our faith and you have doomed us all with that foul word.’
There was an aghast pause while this was absorbed.
‘I don’t believe we are being tested.’ Again Danna.
‘The Citizen gods do not lie! Beg forgiveness or you will be the cause of killing us. Quickly.’
Someone began to sob.
‘Danna, beg for forgiveness,’ pleaded a girl. Someone else moaned in fear.
Merlin bit her lip. She had not spoken only because she could think of nothing to say that would help the children. They were doomed and so was she. But now it looked as if Danna would be murdered if she stayed silent.
‘There is no one listening and there is no forgiveness,’ Merlin said, her voice sounding flat and loud in the room. A shocked silence greeted her words.
‘It is the voice of Citizen gods,’ breathed a girl. ‘We must pray.’
’No,’ Danna whispered. ‘Didn’t you hear what she said?’ There was a pause. ‘Besides it came from in here. Who are you?’
‘I was in the temple with you for a short while. I am Merlin.’
‘Merlin. Yes. They said you had thrown yourself down the well. But you escaped with that scatterling boy,’ Danna said.
‘Are you a ghost?’ someone asked.
‘Of course not,’ Merlin said. ‘Danna told you, I escaped.’
Then why are you here?’ someone else enquired.
‘I came here for the same reason I went to the Valley of Conclave: because I have lost my memory. To find answers to who I am.’
‘Did you find answers?’ Danna asked.
Merlin hesitated, knowing they would not understand all that had happened because they did not understand what the Citizens were.
‘I found that the Citizens are evil demons, not gods, and their magic is black.’
‘They lied?’ someone asked. ‘But what will happen to us?’
‘They will eat us,’ someone squealed. ‘That is what demons do.’
Several people began to weep hysterically at this.
‘Stop it,’ Danna said firmly. ‘There’s no point in screaming and wailing. Besides, they gave us back the bodies of the ones who were Offered so they couldn’t have eaten them.’
‘They ate their souls,’ a girl whispered. Merlin shivered because it was close to the truth.
‘Stop that hissing and moaning,’ Danna snapped. ‘You’re frightening everyone and it does no good.’
‘What do you suggest we do?’ a boy snarled. ‘Sing praise?’
‘Do any of you know how long we’ve been here?’ Merlin interrupted. It was possible the ship had gone already. If so, there was little time left to sing or wail.
’They collared us,’ Danna said. ‘Then we were here. That’s all. I just woke up.’
‘I’m hungry so we must have been here a while,’ said one of the older boys.
Merlin felt a slow anger at the realisation that the Citizens had left them all to die a slow horrible death of starvation or suffocation, trapped like rats. She wondered if there was any way of getting into the computer so that she could free them, but was forced to recognise that she had to be able to see a screen to access it.
A mechanical sound filled the air and everyone was silent, listening. Merlin’s heart began to thump. Has it begun? she wondered.
Then a light went on: a pinkish glow, dimly illuminating the group of dirty, huddled clan children. The room they were locked in was little more than a cupboard. Holding the wavering light was William.
‘Merlin?’ he whispered, peering around.
‘It’s a ghost . . .’ whimpered a small boy.
William ignored the whispers, scanning the group until he spotted Merlin. He stepped over the others and came to kneel beside her. Amidst all the gold-skinned clanpeople, he did look ghostly pale.
‘Must be quick,’ William said, his breathing shallow.
‘Who are you?’ Danna asked.
William looked around and smiled. ‘I don’t think there’s much time for introductions, but I’m William.’
‘How long have I been here?’ Merlin asked.
‘Only a night,’ William said, rummaging in a pouch bag over his shoulder. He pulled out a key with a grunt of satisfaction. ‘Ah.’ He bent to unchain Merlin’s hands and feet, then he threw the key to Danna.
‘U
nlock the others.’
’Thank you, William. I am Danna,’ the clan boy offered. William solemnly shook his proffered hand.
‘Are you a demon?’ a little girl asked.
William turned to smile ironically at Merlin. ‘That’s as good a name as any for us.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The ship had to be stocked. In all the excitement, no one had thought of that so the launch was delayed a day. We’re going any time now.’
‘Can you get us out of the dome?’ Merlin asked eagerly.
In answer, William stood and aimed a familiar plastic square at Danna.
‘No!’ the clan boy cried, hands rising to the collar at his throat.
There was a loud click and Danna slumped back, silent. Merlin gaped incredulously as William aimed the device in turn at each of the clan children, until all were vacant-eyed and silent.
Then he turned to Merlin.
‘What have you done?’ she asked, horrified.
‘I had to free them all to free you. Andrew sent me,’ William said, taking the key from nerveless fingers. ‘You’re all to be released, but with activated collars.’
Merlin touched her own collar. ‘But that means we’ll be Voids.’
‘As good as, since the collar can’t be removed or altered. That’s Andrew’s revenge. It pleases him to think of you walking amongst them, mindless.’
Merlin stared at the Citizen boy in horror. ‘I would rather be dead!’
‘That won’t be necessary. You’ll have this,’ William said with wry humour, his bones seeming to press out against his scant flesh. He reached out and pressed the deactivating slide into her hands, then he bent and unlocked the chains on the remaining children.
Merlin blinked, closing her fingers around the device.
‘That will deactivate the collars,’ William said over his shoulder. ‘Of course, it would be no good to you if your collar were activated, since you wouldn’t have the wit to use it. That’s why you’re going to have to pretend.’
‘If Andrew finds out . . .’ Merlin began.
William’s face was grim. ‘You would be killed, and probably so would I. But we have to take the chance. There is no other way.’
Merlin opened her mouth, but was prevented from speaking by the wail of an ear-splitting siren. ‘What is it?’
‘Launch mode,’ William said. He turned to the clan children and ordered them to stand.
He looked at Merlin. ‘Don’t fail me, Merlin. You’re their only hope. Remember, you have no mind. You can’t think, and barely feel. Do you understand?’
Merlin nodded, swallowing dryly. Her heart galloped in her chest as she schooled her face to blankness, clearing her mind of all thoughts.
William reached in his pocket and brought out a collar. ‘Put this on instead of that one. This is the old broken collar. Even if someone tries, it can’t be activated. Just in case.’
He helped her remove the collar she wore and replaced it with the old one.
‘Thank you,’ Merlin said.
William smiled sadly. ‘You know, I wish I could have stayed here, even for the time I’ve got left, but if I asked, it would make Andrew suspicious.’
Merlin felt tears come into her eyes. She blinked hard, willing them away as William reached out and touched her cheek. His fingers were longer than hers, but thin and cold like sticks of ice.
‘My sleeping princess,’ he murmured. ‘I always imagined I was the prince who would waken you with a kiss. Perhaps death is not the real end, and only a different kind of sleeping. If so, I will dream of waking to the kiss of a princess.’ He leaned close, his shallow breath fanning her hair, and pressed his cold lips to hers.
William’s eyes were closed. Merlin stared at his long dark lashes curled against the pale curve of his cheek and thought that was how he would look when he died. She shivered and instantly he moved away. ‘A salute from the old world to the new,’ he said, his ironic tone giving lie to the unspoken words in the kiss.
Merlin could think of nothing to say.
‘Don’t forget me,’ he said gravely. ‘That’s a kind of immortality too.’
Merlin nodded, slipping the precious plastic square into her pocket.
‘Come on, we’d better hurry or Andrew will start wondering what is taking me so long,’ William said briskly, ushering the collared Offering children before him.
‘Line up,’ he commanded. Merlin stood third in line. ‘Walk,’ William instructed. They walked out of the cell and into another adjoining cell, and then into another. Merlin gasped aloud as she saw that the final cell was also occupied – by Aran and Bramble! Her mind reeled as she tried to understand what possible course of events could have brought them to the forbidden city.
‘What is it?’ William asked anxiously.
‘We have to take these two. We can’t leave them.’
William shook his head firmly. ‘Impossible. Andrew said only you and the children.’
‘I’m not leaving them,’ Merlin said.
William stared at her in exasperation, then laughed in defeat. ‘Well, I gave you the will, and now you use it to defy me. So it goes.’ He knelt to unlock the chains that held them to the floor. Merlin wondered fleetingly why they bothered with chains when they had the collars.
‘I want to release the woman,’ Merlin said determinedly.
‘There’s no time!’ William protested.
‘Please,’ Merlin insisted.
After a pause, William sighed. ‘This is probably our undoing, you know that. I’ll have to make Andrew think I got his instructions muddled and hope he won’t bother making me bring them back.’
Merlin took out the deactivating switch and pointed it at Bramble.
The Amazon rebel shook her head groggily, and reached instantly for a non-existent knife. Then she recognised Merlin.
‘What . . .’
‘There is no time to explain anything, Bramble. Are you two the only ones here?’
Bramble pushed back her waist-length mop of curls and glanced at the still-collared Aran. ‘The guardians surprised us. Delpha brought them. Meer and Helf were killed. And a lot of others. I killed Delpha but they managed to stun me. Aran and I were the only ones who survived. They chained us up and handed us over to the Citizen gods with the Offered kids . . .’ Her eyes flickered to the collared children. ‘Them!’ she said.
‘Yes?’ Merlin prompted.
Bramble tore her eyes from the children, her fingers pulling at her own collar. ‘Apparently the Lord wardens were frightened out of their wits at the thought of the visiondraught being stopped. They had Delpha watching Aran ever since the night of the judging. They were frantic over your disappearance. They sent us here because they thought that’s what the Citizen gods would want. How . . .?’
Merlin shook her head. ‘Ranulf?’
Bramble’s eyes darkened with pain. ‘I cut his throat,’ she said in a harsh voice. ‘He did not want them to drug him again. When he knew we were caught, he asked it. This time I could not deny him. It was for this that I killed Delpha the snake.’
Merlin reached out and touched the rebel woman’s muscular arm. ‘I am sorry. But, Bramble, for now you have to forget that and everything. I need your help to get us out of here. We can talk later, if we get out of all this alive.’ She looked at William. ‘I want her to be awake too, in case something goes wrong. She can fight if we are exposed and if something happens to me, she can deactivate the collars on the others.’
‘All right,’ William said with obvious reluctance. ‘But it increases the danger.’ He looked at the rebel leader seriously. ‘Bramble, if that is your name, I hope you are a good actor because our lives depend on you being able to convince anyone we run across that you’re a Void.’
‘I will not fail you,’ said Bramble with a soldier’s quick grasp of the essential. Merlin knew she must have a thousand questions about how she had got into the city and how it was that a Citizen god was helping them, but she kept them to herself.
W
illiam nodded. ‘Let’s go, then.
He led them single file along a number of passages and down steps, gradually working his way round the edge of the dome to the airlock. She prayed they would not run across Andrew, but almost as if he had been summoned up by her fears, he stepped out from a doorway in front of them.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded.
18
William instructed the sluggish walkers to stop. ‘What do you mean? I’m doing what you told me.’ His voice had the faintest suggestion of a whine.
‘You have brought all of the outsiders from the cells.’
‘You told me to bring all of them!’ William protested indignantly.
‘All of the outsiders in the last cell, you dolt!’ Andrew snarled.
‘I’ll take the others back, then,’ William said sulkily. Merlin hoped he wasn’t overdoing it and her heart beat hard. She felt as if Andrew would hear it or see it thundering in her breast.
‘No, don’t bother about that now. I suppose it’s just as well to put them out,’ he said irritably, running his eyes along the line. Merlin forced herself to stare ahead, her eyes unfocused as his eyes stopped on her. Andrew came along the line and ordered her to face him. The rest of the line turned with her in unison. Fortunately, Andrew was too busy to note that Bramble’s reaction was a split second slower than the rest.
‘So, your little creation,’ Andrew sneered.
He was close enough for Merlin to see the tiny broken blood vessels which gave his cheeks their ruddy, unnatural colour. The satisfied smile faded abruptly and he frowned.
Merlin had a sudden dizzyingly vivid memory of Andrew slapping her violently across the face. She wondered when that had happened, then realised it had never happened. It was going to happen. She had Remembered it. She steeled herself.
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