The rain pummelled their tarpaulin. It sprayed from trees and from ruined houses to either side. Two rivers to the sides of the alley carried slime, debris, and occasionally dead animals down to the sea.
From here, deKray could see the sea; a glowing stretch was visible between the last two houses of a little alley off Cod Row. Somewhere out there floated Reyl and Gishaad-lin, unless they had drowned already.
He looked north. Out there the replica must be inutile, tied to an ancestor pole, for the revellers would have returned had they discovered the pyuton’s true nature.
He looked at Zinina’s blanched face. She had lost too much blood. They had injected her with their last syringe of nano-coagulant, but, though it had stemmed the flow, her skin and her gums were white, and she remained comatose.
Was this what his life had come to? All those books he had collected; all that knowledge he possessed? He could not believe that it would all be lost. And yet it was nothing compared to the greater loss, the loss of humanity’s knowledge, which had lain, for the most part, in electronic media under the Citadel. That tumulus now consisted of black shards hundreds of yards high.
Eight people remaining. Everything else had been washed away by Kray, and by time.
Woof howled without ceasing.
CHAPTER 29
Arrahaquen sat under the tarpaulin, gazing into Zinina’s face. They had endured a foul night after the collapse of Clodhoddle Cottage. It was early afternoon now, but dark as night under a wild sky. Arrahaquen had not slept for three consecutive days and nights.
Torrential rain swept along Cod Row. DeKray and Ky had improvised sheets at two edges of the tarpaulin to protect them from the weather coming in off the sea, but regularly these were torn away by the wind and would need resetting. Everything was soaking wet, except inside Zinina’s blanket roll, which they sealed with polythene and rubber compound from the kit spares.
DeKray sat beside Arrahaquen, pointlessly trying to light a cigarette. The others were playing dice. She turned to him. ‘You’ve told me all you can about what you did inside the Clocktower? You’ve not missed anything out?’
‘With sincere honesty,’ he answered, wringing his hands, ‘I remember few details now. It was a dream for me, a bizarre experience. I handed the copper ovoid over, I watched the surgical operation, I toyed with the pyuter systems. There was nothing else.’
Arrahaquen looked into his eyes. In such dire conditions he must surely be telling the truth. She knew now that the Clocktower was the heart of Kray’s desolation, and she knew that deKray had changed the city by entering and experiencing that awful place. But how? And to what end? As she sat and pondered, the wind whipping through their makeshift tent, she decided that they must go there. They must. And when they were there, she might know what to do.
‘There was food and water in the tower?’ she asked for the third or fourth time.
‘Arrahaquen, believe me,’ he said, taking her by the hand, the intensity of desperation in his voice. ‘Please, please believe me. I am working with you. The place is self-sufficient. It has power. Some comestibles and water. Soap and towels, for goodness’ sake. It is surely better than this ruination.’
‘We must go there. You tell them. I dare not.’
DeKray stood up, and Arrahaquen stood at his side. ‘Holists and priestesses,’ he said. They looked up from their dice game, except Eskhatos, who was somehow managing to sleep. Woof threw him a melancholy glance without moving her muzzle. ‘Holists and priestesses,’ deKray repeated, as if unsure of what to say. He unwrapped a sweet and swallowed it. ‘Some days ago I undertook, on my own behalf, to penetrate the Clocktower.’
‘What?’ They stared at him. ‘What?’ Tashyndy and Maharyny chorused.
‘I entered–’
‘You entered that place?’ They stood and confronted him.
Arrahaquen moved forward. ‘It’s true. I remembered him doing it – before he did it. He went and explored. I believe him. Listen, Ky, Qmoet – wake Eskhatos, for the Goddess’ sake – we have to go there.’
Arrahaquen noticed black lines of cloud, blacker even than those pelting rain over them, that were piling in off the sea. ‘Look!’ she said. ‘We’re being driven out to die. We must go to the Clocktower–’
‘What about the Temple of Balloon Love?’ Ky interrupted.
Arrahaquen answered immediately, confident of her insight. ‘Wrecked. It’s no shelter and it’s too far. If anybody remains there they’ll soon be flooded out. Listen to me. I am a pythoness. We must go into the Clocktower and shelter there. DeKray’s seen abundant water and food inside.’
Eskhatos was now awake. ‘The Clocktower?’ she said.
It was essential that Eskhatos be converted; if Eskhatos refused to go there, Ky, and probably Qmoet, would refuse too. Arrahaquen knew that she must exert all her powers to lead these three people. Deep down, because of their hopelessness, they needed to be led... they could be led, if she was convincing enough. She alone possessed the vision.
‘Eskhatos,’ she said, ‘it’s our only chance. Where else can we go?’
‘You mean...’ Eskhatos began, and Arrahaquen had to strain to hear her faint speech above the din of the storm, ‘you mean that boy’s been in there? How?’
Arrahaquen ignored her words, saying, ‘We’re going now, Eskhatos. It’s safe and warm inside.’
‘Safe? But it’s the Clocktower. Nobody goes in there.’
‘We are.’ Arrahaquen stood, and told Ky, ‘Get the jacqana ready. DeKray, stow these boxes on them. Qmoet, you and I will carry Eskhatos. We’re going.’
They hesitated. Arrahaquen moved to pick up two poles that could be used to raise Eskhatos’ chair.
‘We can’t go inside the Clocktower,’ Ky said.
‘Why not?’
Ky fretted. Her glasses had long since been lost, and she peered myopically at Arrahaquen. ‘It’s haunted.’
‘Do you believe in superstitious stories? You, the holistic synthesist? What will it do, eat you? It’s a tower, for the Goddess’ sake.’
‘I’m not going,’ Ky said.
‘Come along Ky,’ Eskhatos said, managing to shout loud enough.
‘No.’ Ky stood firm.
‘I’m going,’ Qmoet said, choking either with emotion or from the rain slapping across her face.
‘We’ll follow you, Arrahaquen,’ said Tashyndy, taking Maharyny’s hand in hers.
Ky refused to budge. ‘Then we’ll leave you,’ Arrahaquen shouted, letting her anger burst out, ‘and you’ll rot forever in this dead alley! Come on, Qmoet, lift.’ They lifted Eskhatos’ chair and began to move up the alley. DeKray lifted Zinina. Woof lolloped and the jacqana skittered behind them.
Arrahaquen knew Ky would follow, but as they reached the top end of Cod Row and forged through the knee-high rapids pouring off its surface, Ky ran up to them and cursed in some foreign tongue. ‘This will never work,’ she told Arrahaquen. ‘How can we survive? It’s madness!’
Ky was close to tears, her face screwed up and red as a tomato. Arrahaquen said, in the bluntest tones she could muster, ‘Follow us or die. And if you must die, at least do it without bothering us.’
Ky said nothing, but helped deKray carry Zinina, and Arrahaquen knew she had for now overcome their fear of the Clocktower.
‘DeKray,’ she called, wiping the rain from her mouth. ‘DeKray, we’ll have to go around the Citadel, then up Malmsey Street. To pick up Graaff-lin.’
‘Very well,’ he shouted back. ‘And then up Ash Lane to the Clocktower?’
‘Yes.’
They struggled on. The rain beat down upon them with a ferocity Arrahaquen had never known. It was almost too dark to see, but only deKray and Ky possessed working torches. Fighting branches that whipped against them, slipping constantly in the slime and because of the torrents pouring down Mandrake Street, they moved north, until the remnants of Judico Street lay before them. To their left they could just make out the last remaining vertical pro
montories of the tumulus.
‘Left turn,’ Arrahaquen called.
Judico Street presented them with further obstacles. Out of the tumulus ruin acidic streams flowed, yellow rivulets laced with black, that made their boots steam. They had to follow a line of thorny bushes to the side of the street, slipping in mud and stamping down the occasional poison iris, and then climb over destroyed houses at the end of the street. The Citadel Wall stood firm in places, pincers and tentacle optics writhing, but here and there it crumbled under acid attack. The stench made Arrahaquen’s throat ache and everybody else cough.
By the time they had struggled around the tumulus and reached Malmsey Street they were exhausted. ‘Let’s rest awhile,’ Arrahaquen said. They stood under a dwarf oak, reducing a little the amount of rain that fell upon them; but the noise of thunder and rain against leaves made it difficult to converse.
‘We’ll start walking up Malmsey Street,’ Arrahaquen told them, ‘then turn into Onion Street. At Ash Lane, deKray and I are going to fetch Graaff-lin. Would you come with us, Qmoet?’
‘If I must,’ she replied.
Arrahaquen thanked the Goddess in the privacy of her mind that Qmoet was a realist. She could have been stubborn, like Ky, but perhaps experience made her more flexible. Arrahaquen turned and examined the gentle rise of Malmsey Street up ahead. Trees flailed in the wind; she could see no clear route. They would have to fight their way through. But it did not feel impossible.
‘What shall I do?’ Ky asked.
‘Keep the jacqana together and make sure nothing falls out of their baskets. Help Maharyny with Eskhatos.’
Tashyndy seemed to sense Ky’s tension. ‘We’ll do what you say,’ she said, making sure no words were lost in the thunder.
Arrahaquen felt pleased. The priestesses were her superiors in every way. Their acquiescence to her gave her confidence, and she began to believe – really believe – that they might yet reach the Clocktower, despite the violence of the storm opposing them. She looked out into the maelstrom of rain. Kray was making a final effort to kill them. It was eight human beings against the Earth.
She turned to Ky, who was gulping alcohol from a hip flask. Now her face was as pale as a moonflower. ‘My ability as a prophet is young,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know what’s to become of us. But Ky, I am the pythoness.’
With that, Arrahaquen led on, a tired Qmoet at her side. She looked back to see that deKray and Tashyndy had improvised a stretcher from a piece of door that had floated past them. DeKray was explaining that Zinina must not be jolted, because of her wound, and in response Tashyndy produced a tiny bottle, no larger than her thumb, and managed to administer most of its contents, stroking Zinina’s throat to induce the swallowing reflex. This brief act seemed to make Zinina’s survival more secure in Arrahaquen’s mind.
Slashing the serrated tops off bladderblades, they moved on. Nothing could be seen of the street’s sandstone, though a few ruins stood to either side, hidden for the most part by screens of hawthorn, wild palm and scarlet thistle. From the street itself grew strangling ivy and thorn-buckets.
Something rumbled up ahead.
‘Was that thunder?’ Qmoet said, halting. Arrahaquen listened. Another rumble.
‘Probably,’ she replied, pulling her hood away from her ears in an effort to reduce rain noise.
‘Look out!’
Ahead, a wave of water bore down, taller than any of them, surging down the street. Arrahaquen turned to yell a warning. DeKray and Tashyndy managed to pull Zinina to a tree, but Ky and Maharyny were left exposed.
The wall of water knocked Arrahaquen off her feet. She screamed and clutched at the trunk of a sapling.
Green water poured over her. She caught glimpses of black, grey, green.
Something heavy hit her, swept down by the wave, but she managed to hold on. She heard voices.
The wave subsided. Spluttering, Arrahaquen tried to stand, but managed only to crouch on her knees. She saw Eskhatos’ chair on its side, Ky and Maharyny beside it staring down the street. Eskhatos had been washed away.
There was no time for a search. A river knee-high still swirled downhill. Some temporary dam uphill, probably a building, must have burst. Eskhatos would already be out of reach.
‘Come on!’ Arrahaquen yelled back to them, as they stood rooted to the spot with horror. ‘Come on! She’s dead.’
Pulling Qmoet out of the surging flood, she gesticulated to the side of the street, where, knee-deep in rapids, they were able to clamber uphill. Leaving the white water behind them, they waded through the brown rivers of upper Malmsey Street. It was then that they noticed one of the jacqana was missing – also washed away. Woof had survived however, her loose skin soaked black, her doleful face flecked with foam.
Arrahaquen blanked the shock of losing Eskhatos from her mind and tried to focus on events ahead, but it was hopeless. The struggle simply to survive took all her concentration. They fought on. Behind her, Maharyny and Ky took cases from the jacqana so that their journey was made easier.
They reached the junction with Onion Street. It was a pit of hawthorn and briar that they had no option but to climb around, balancing precariously on old walls and the remains of houses, until they stood gathered in the channel of ferns and ivy that constituted Onion Street.
Something exploded. Arrahaquen shut her eyes and grimaced automatically, then looked. One of the jacqana had blown up, red sparks flying everywhere. The effort had been too much. ‘Maybe water got into its brain,’ she said.
‘We must rest here,’ Tashyndy said.
‘Five minutes,’ Arrahaquen replied, ‘no more. This city is doing its best to kill us by attrition. The longer we wait, the more danger we’ll face.’
DeKray came close. Into her ear he said, ‘Do you think we’ll make it?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘How are you bearing up?’
‘I shall survive. The Clocktower is our goal, it must be.’
Arrahaquen nodded, patting Woof on the head as the hound trotted past. ‘You’re the only man,’ she said. ‘We need you.’
He actually laughed. ‘A fertile man in Kray. It is almost an impossible thing, is it not? Am I meant to be here?’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in destiny and all that nonsense?’
He shrugged. ‘In times like this we are reduced to our most basic selves.’
Arrahaquen chose not to answer. The others were ready to continue. They strode out into Onion Street, deKray taking over Qmoet’s hacking duties. Arrahaquen studied the black clouds overhead. Was it her imagination or was it becoming chilly?
It was hard to avoid the feeling that they were the last people alive on Earth. Arrahaquen knew that somewhere, perhaps in the Cemetery, perhaps in the remains of the Felis temple, or at the reveller encampment around the Infirmary, people might still survive. But they had no hope. Nobody unprotected could survive this. Only she, the plans of the Holists shed like superfluous skin, could find a way out.
She turned her thoughts to deKray. He was a man, perhaps the only one remaining. He was fertile. If there was any hope, perhaps it lay with him. It was he who had dared to enter the Clocktower.
She turned her thoughts to the priestesses. They represented a life she had longed for, yet had been denied. She was glad they had not decided to fight their battle inside the temple.
By the time they had completed most of the struggle to Ash Lane, a further problem presented itself. The Old Quarter – they were traversing its southerly sector – consisted around here of narrow lanes without side-alleys, many leading down from Kray’s most ancient Market Square, and these now acted as channels for mud. Ahead, Ash Lane was hidden under turbid lakes.
‘We’ll have to climb around those,’ Arrahaquen said.
‘Ash Lane may be impassable,’ Qmoet warned.
Arrahaquen ignored this point, although she suspected it to be true. ‘Qmoet, ready your kit. DeKray, you’re coming with us.’ She instructed Ky and the p
riestesses. ‘Stay here and don’t move, whatever happens. We’ll never find you if you do. We’ll be no more than two hours. If we’re not back by then, Tashyndy and Maharyny, you come and look for us around Pine Street. If you can’t find us, go on to the Clocktower.’
‘We expect you to return,’ Tashyndy said. She handed over to Arrahaquen a cotton pouch with something heavy inside.
‘What is it?’ Arrahaquen asked.
‘A sensory adapter. If you need help in communication, put those on, like headphones.’
‘I possess a night-optic,’ deKray added, pulling from his kit a battered old monocular.
Arrahaquen nodded, bade them goodbye, then led Qmoet and deKray along the fern-choked alley that she hoped would take them into Pine Street. It presented no danger, being merely slippery and causing them falls, but at its end it was flooded and cut off by a single, grossly distended claw-bladder, which they had to puncture from a distance with a dagger on the end of a pole. The thorny skin they managed to climb around.
Pine Street, blocked on all sides, was deep in flood. ‘We’ll have to swim across,’ Arrahaquen said, ‘then take a passage off Hog Street down to Graaff-lin’s place. Ready?’
Tightening the clips of her kit and repositioning the elastics over her boot-tops, Arrahaquen waded into the water. Although the current was strong, the street was narrow and she was able to swim across to the far side. Gripping the head of a submerged statue, she turned to see that deKray was already across and Qmoet just behind. ‘Swim down here,’ she shouted, the din of rain against the choppy water almost drowning her out. ‘There’s a blocked alley. Come on!’
Arrahaquen climbed on to the pile of bricks, refuse and leaf debris that blocked off the alley, grabbing deKray as he floated past and dragging him up. The alley behind was only knee-deep in water, though it looked infested with grubs and stinging pods. DeKray caught Qmoet by her hood ties.
Attaching a point to the end of her kit’s telescopic pole, Arrahaquen first tested the alley floor, then jumped down. With deKray similarly armed at her side, they burst pods and smacked aside grubs and anaconda-leeches, until they stood on almost firm ground at the junction with Graaff-lin’s alley.
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