I wanted to shield him, he thought. Was that so selfish?
It still felt raw, even after all those years. Aime had come to him after Bowden had stormed out and soothed him as only she could. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the music of her voice, feel her small, strong hands kneading his neck. Soft lips, kissing the crown of his head.
She’d told him it would blow over. She’d always look after him, she’d said.
She was wrong about so many things that day.
Syn’s voice came from the cab, jolting Cale into the present. ‘We’re here.’
* * *
Syn paid cash to an old fisherman for the motorboat. Under the cover of darkness Cale carried his son while Syn helped Derrin to hobble over the shingle to the boat on the edge of the weak surf. The craft was ten metres long, a thin launch with a covered section in the bows, a stern tiller and single outboard motor. Syn left to dispose of the truck; as soon as it had chugged out of sight behind the scrubby dunes Cale waded into the water and pushed the boat out until he was up to his waist. Clear of the beach, the hull bobbed on the waves, held by a land anchor. He clambered aboard. Bowden was unresponsive and Derrin was hunched in silent agony, clutching his wounded abdomen with bloodied fingers.
Marna was still hidden and the night was black. There was a suggestion of old seaweed on the breeze that flapped at the stern cover; the only other sound was the regular bump of the hull on the shallow beach. Cale stood ready in the stern, one hand on the rope that tethered them to the land, watching the darkened dunes. After a while Syn emerged on foot.
‘Salt marsh just over the hill,’ he said, wading into the sea. ‘Left the truck there.’ Cale grabbed him by the arm and hauled him, dripping, over the side.
The old engine gave off a gout of smoke and a roar as it fired. Cale feared they’d have the whole village down on them, but no one came. He revved up and powered them out into the wide bay where the sea was almost pond-flat. Cale looked up and saw the clouds had cleared. The silhouette of the Lattice was etched against the twinkling light clusters set in the surface of the sky, the claw marks of some gigantic wild beast. He found the one he was looking for: the Petty Light – favourite of sailors, always bright in clear skies. He aimed the bows towards it, heading out to sea where the troughs grew deeper and the rollers were capped with spume.
They alternated watches at the tiller. When it was Cale’s turn to rest he lay close to Bowden’s still body to reassure himself there was still breath, a heart still beating. Sleep was impossible, so he listened to Syn humming a wordless tune as he kept them on their course. After a while he rose and took his second watch, waving away Syn’s offer of company. The sea and the pinpricked vault overhead seemed boundless and he felt like its enormity would swamp them in their tiny craft. Not like last time, aboard the giant cargo hulk. That had been different, like being on an island.
A few hours in he realised, with some surprise, that he’d not felt sick once.
* * *
When Ras rose it was muted by clouds that had formed in the pre-dawn sky. The wind began to pick up, frothing the crests around them and rolling the little launch. In the distance, the coastline came into view, indistinct in the murk. A steel-grey strip, dark against the low clouds and the green sea.
Syn emerged from under the cover, sitting on the gunwale and watching the cliffs come closer. ‘Never seen the Fleet Coast before,’ he said. ‘Always assumed people were exaggerating.’
Cale didn’t reply, keeping his eyes on the approaching land. He began to make out details, patches of light and dark amid the uniform grey. He could now see the ash colour of the Walls, the ancient defences of the Seeker’s country that encircled the entire peninsula.
The Walls had kept the monster waves at bay after the Ruin. When those few survivors had emerged, it was easy to see how they might consider themselves a chosen people.
‘Skies,’ said Syn, ‘isn’t that a sight?’
The Walls had been built atop sheer chalk cliffs, but that stone was all but invisible now under a jacket of compacted metal. Embedded into the rock face, piled almost to the height of the Walls’ base, were ships. Thousands of ships. Mouldering iron and broken, jagged steel slabs, left there by the waves that had followed the cataclysm. Centuries of wind and tide had trimmed and rusted the fleet trapped against the stone, pushing uncounted tons of metal into the surface until it blended with the land. The cliffs for a dozen kilometres in each direction were a honeycomb of caves ranging from the size of a doorway to cavernous arches formed by smashed-open hulls of ancient vessels.
They neared the shore and made out dark windows peering from beneath birds’ nests, the red curves of hulls bulging out from the surface of the cliffs like giant rusted blisters. At the base of it all was a narrow pebble beach. Cale ran the launch in close and killed the engine in a splutter of smoke, then he and Syn jumped into the shallow water and scraped the old boat up onto the beach.
They set up a makeshift camp under the shelter of an arch formed by the collapsed deck of an ancient freighter. Twenty metres above their heads it had snapped off from the bows embedded in the rock, the remainder of the ship coming to rest on the sea bed. What had once been the main deck of the vessel formed a slanting roof under which they pitched their tents and dug a fire pit. The structure whistled and groaned in the mild breeze.
‘Looks safe enough,’ said Syn, settling Derrin into one of the tents.
Cale considered the overhang. ‘If the tides haven’t shifted it by now, it’ll hold.’
‘It’d be just our fucking luck. Come all this way only to die in a rockfall. Or… ship fall.’ Syn scratched the stubble on his cheek. ‘Either way, shitty way to go.’
Cale checked their position on the old map they’d brought along. The paper was thin and supple from use and marked all over in a dozen different hands.
‘What’s the plan, buck?’
‘You stay here with them,’ said Cale. ‘Get some food on, make sure they’re warm. I’m going to check our position.’
‘Right you are.’
Cale set off across the shingle, aiming for a small headland formed by a mishmash of girders and hulls. After centuries the metal had become so compressed and twisted by the elements that it had taken on an organic quality, like the discarded hive of some huge insect. When he reached the point, he set about clambering over the low spine of metal and rock, avoiding jagged holes that dropped away into darkness. The sea echoed within the structure, dripping and sloshing through caverns formed by ancient cargo holds and wheelhouses. As he reached the spine of the rise he stood and looked out over the cove on the far side.
Roughly a third of the way around Cale saw an oblong protrusion jutting into the sea like a metal tongue. The flat, angular deck of a military carrier vessel; built to last. Unmovable and massive, even against the tides, the ship remained mostly intact and the beach had built up around it, making the cove a rough heart shape.
He remembered this place.
He looked back towards their camp, shielding his eyes as a gust of wind whipped up the spray. There was the overhang and the tiny figure of Syn moving about, though it was hard to see what he was doing; more clouds had come streaming in from the east and the light had dropped. Cale decided to press on before the rain came.
He picked his way down the far side of the metal hill and along the beach towards the old carrier. Redcrumn scuttled out of the way of his boots as he walked, their pearlescent carapaces winking in the light, their tiny foreclaws held up in defiance of this alien invader. Cale heard the growl of thunder and picked up the pace.
The side of the carrier was a cliff of towering red and grey that stretched higher and higher as he approached. The entrance would be here, somewhere near. If they’d stayed, if it was the same after all these years. What if they’d abandoned this place? He would have done, had it been down to him. Too static, too risky. Regardless, he kept walking, hoping to drown out the growing clamour of his doubts.
When he reached the metal wall of the carrier’s side, running at right angles to the beach, he followed it back to where it met the cliff face. There, just where the giant ship merged with the amalgam of other vessels, he spotted a large flat section that lay flush against the cliff: the remains of an elevator used to lift aircraft from the bowels of the carrier to the flight deck. He approached the slab and found the edge, green with moss and creepers; a curtain that hid the cave behind. Pulling the moist vegetation aside, he ducked his head and shouldered his way in.
His hand torch was a lonely spot in the echoing darkness. It picked out a circle of the side of the carrier, shimmering off a dozen tiny rivulets running down the metal wall. There should have been a door there, big enough to fit a fighter craft through, with man-sized access ports all around. That was how they got in and out in the old days, but the weak light from his torch found only smooth metal. He pressed his fingers against the hull, hoping for something: movement, a sound, a trick of the light. There was nothing, only the gentle curve of the hull running down to the pebbles of the beach. His fingers came away damp and gritty with rust.
Cale began to search for the entrance that he knew must be there, feeling the rough surface, sometimes knocking and listening for the telltale hollow ring of a concealed door. Other than the seams and rivets where one panel met another, there was barely a mark. He tried to still the pounding of his heart and the rising nausea, checking again and again, becoming more desperate with every pass.
After an hour, at the bottom near the shingle, he found something. Hidden by moss and indistinct in the dark was the faint patina of a plasma torch. Effort had been made to hide the marks but not all had been erased. He took a step back and allowed his eye to run over the surface, starting at the blistering and running upwards. He saw it now, invisible from more than a step away and darkened by oxidisation.
An oval hatchway – not only sealed but erased.
Knowing what to look for now he soon found another three portals, all sealed and disguised. Whoever had done this had gone to a lot of trouble, filing down the seams until the hull appeared unmarked.
Cale stepped back, his jaw clenched tight. They were long gone.
A dam in him burst. Fear, held in check for so long, rushed through him, stealing the strength from his legs. He dropped to the floor, the torch falling from nerveless fingers and shattering on stone, swamping him in darkness. The shingle was rough against his hands and the grit scoured his cheek. Somewhere, in a nearby cave, the wind picked up and howled like an animal.
There was no help here.
* * *
Cale stumbled into camp just as the storm hit. The wind whipped across the sea from the west and howled down the coast, making the cliffs moan like a thousand empty mouths.
Syn must have seen the weather coming in because the small camp had been moved back against the face of the cliff, still underneath the broken ship and nestled between two jutting shoulders of rock that formed a sheltered pocket from the crosswinds. Cale heard him shout a greeting but didn’t respond. He tramped up to one of the tents and went inside, pulling it shut behind him.
Bowden was stretched out on a thin foam mat, a drip-bag still attached to his arm. Cale couldn’t look at him, not yet. There was too much now, regrets and failures all screaming at once, and he had no answers. He slumped down on a spare mat and curled up, shutting his eyes as the wind made the side of the tent crack.
He awoke some hours later, a dream still jabbing at his eyes. Every adversary, every person who’d ever spoken against him had formed a single buzzing voice and a single bitter face. His first wife was there. Men he’d killed. Even Bowden, but he’d been pale and cold and silent.
There was a moment of stillness, then he realised that the nightmare was real. He’d brought his son here to die.
Fool, they said, echoing, laughing. We always knew.
His mouth was thick with thirst. Something had woken him, a noise from outside. A shift of gravel, the sound of stone on stone. Syn, on watch, he thought. Holding things together while he wallowed.
Get up, do something. You’re not dead yet, and neither are they.
Get up and try.
Cale pushed the flap of the tent aside and the cold night air on his face drove away the last threads of the dream. The storm had passed, though the waves still crashed heavy on the beach. There was scant light to go by: between him and the other tent he could see the outline of their little launch. Syn must have dragged it all the way up the beach on his own.
He ran a hand over the gunwale of the boat, feeling the rough wood under his palm.
Seaweed and fish and engine oil. A good boat, reliable and simple.
There were other places to look, he told himself. A hundred coves where they might find a sign. And if not, there were other places he could try, all the way to Aspedair if necessary. As long as Bowden was breathing, he had to try.
Another pang of guilt hit him as he remembered Derrin. The wound could kill him in the next few hours, and there was nothing they could do.
I should check on them both, he thought.
As he straightened, Cale felt the hairs on his arms spring up. There was a whooshing sound behind him and without thinking he threw himself to one side and rolled. Behind him, the boat disintegrated in a white-hot explosion. He shielded his eyes and scrambled backwards, trying to put some distance between him and whatever had attacked. His back and neck felt raw, burned. He remembered that sound, that guttural whoosh-thump.
Plasma cannon, heavy bore.
He saw the blue-white flash of the second shot hit the burning wreckage of the boat and smash it to splinters. Somewhere, a voice was shouting and he realised it was Syn who’d appeared at his side. He could see the other man’s lips moving but could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. ‘—ing walker!’
The ground shook, rhythmic thumps that vibrated all through his body. Whatever it was it was big, and it was getting nearer. Cale looked around, trying to spot the attacker, fighting to clear his head. If he could just get Bowden out of the tent, he might make it to the cliffs, hide in one of the caves.
A spotlight hit him, a white-stark flare in front of his eyes. The glare pierced his eyelids and he threw his arms up as a shield. A noise, deafening in volume, blared and his head rang and he felt the beach rise up and hit him in the back.
He tasted blood and there was something wet in his ears. A voice sounded, metallic and harsh.
‘STAY STILL,’ it said.
Then another voice, human.
‘Wait. I know him.’
vii. Complication
The grand foyer of the Tower buzzed with the chatter of hundreds of dignitaries, officers and functionaries from all over the capital, trailing their wives in ever-shifting mandalas of conversation. The space echoed like a cavern, feet shuffling amid colonnades, the crowd hunkered under a bluish cloud of heavy incense and smoke. Other than the gaudy Quincentennial banners – so common in the last weeks as to almost fade from view – the Tower was sparse, brushed stone and marble. Austere, like the man that had (so it was told) built the whole immense structure in just the first year of his benign rule.
At least it’s cooler, Kelbee thought. The power is always on here.
A pair of soldiers in ornate domed helmets at the far end of the hall raised their bugles and blew a discordant blast that cut through the chatter. There was a pause, then the patterns unwound, feet shuffling to take their place. In just a few minutes the length of the room cleared, hedged by two lines of dress uniforms and expectant faces.
The Lance Colonel’s touch on her arm was light as he directed her to their spot. She’d never seen him this nervous.
The hush became a physical thing, anticipation hanging heavier than the incense. Then the huge doors between the buglers yawned open, and from it came a procession. The Lord Factor, head of his office, seemed not to notice the throng as he chatted in a low voice with another man in Teller’s
robes of pure, shimmering gold. Behind them were academics from the Elucidon who looked like they would rather be anywhere else but here, faces down in the puffed collars of their robes. Then came the heads of the military – Fleet and Army – two old men who couldn’t avoid falling into step with each other as they marched down the aisle.
Last, in the centre of attendants that buzzed like flies, the Venerable Guide herself. Tall, bald, her stride easy and proud. Her gaze was sharp and her expression fierce, like she might punch holes in the walls just by staring.
Kelbee’s heart felt like it might escape through her ears. The old man was there again, like a stain on her mind, and next to him the face of a little girl at a dirty window, eyes that were pools of sorrow. She swallowed, hoping her mask hadn’t slipped.
The procession was glacial, stopping to speak to this or that person. The Guide herself spoke to few individuals, seeming more content to observe, acknowledging the odd bow with a raised hand or an inclination of the head. Every gesture was contained, measured, as if eking out a finite supply of movement. When she did speak, it was quick and left the interlocutor looking drained.
Kelbee shifted, longing for the evening to be over already. In the last few days her breasts felt like they’d swollen to twice their normal size and had become so tender that even light clothing was uncomfortable. The heavy material of her gown was raw and awkward, finding new places to irritate every time she moved. She’d left Tani’s recording device at home – with this much security, she couldn’t take the risk.
The Lance Colonel patted her hand. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ he said, though he could have been speaking to himself.
She gave him a dutiful smile. The procession came level with them and Kelbee kept her gaze low, respectful and deferential as was proper. The shuffling throng passed, and she breathed a small sigh of relief.
A long, slender finger touched her under the chin. It lifted her face up until she was staring into striking green eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as the Guide stood before her, her mouth turned up at the corners. Her expression was quizzical, faintly amused.
Ruin's Wake Page 21