by Andy Graham
“But the records and files—”
“Have been altered,” Lenka finished. “Any discrepancies are blamed on the digital degradation problem. I hear you can still find some info on the Light Net, but the authorities are winning the silent fight to take it off line.”
“I’m not even going to try to access that. It’s not worth it.”
“There aren’t many places you can access it anonymously. There never have been.”
“Is there info about the X517 code there?”
A gust of wind sent shivers through the leaves on the trees.
“I told you to forget that.“ Lenka’s voice grew grim. “Do the government still have the same solution to twins?”
“I think so. I’m not sure. It’s not the kind of thing you talk about, or think about, if possible. A colleague of mine made the mistake of mentioning it in the hospital canteen one day. We never saw her again. I daren’t even mention it to my husband.”
“There are very few things that are truly evil in this world. The silent purge of left handers all those years ago was one—” Lenka hawked and spat bloody phlegm into the grass. “Damn my age, I can’t keep my mouth quiet anymore.”
“I already know something of the left handers. An ex told me some bits.”
“Best you forget those bits.” Lenka reached for a hanky and dabbed the blood-flecked spittle off her chin. “That twin ruling is the second evil,” she continued, “I’ve seen first hand the damage it can do to people.”
Stella clutched the lapels of her jacket, pulling it tight against the chill. “I know of that, too. I spent the rest of my rotation as a junior doctor taking on every menial, filthy task I could find. Just in case I had to tell the expectant mothers the same news and the choice they faced. I feel like a coward.”
“Don’t waste your energy. Cowardice is confused with common sense. It’s not always about being courageous at all times, no matter what the cost. Take my situation. I’m expected to be brave in the face of my death. I don’t want to be. I’m scared. I want to kick, scream and shout from the rooftops, go down disgracefully rather than with dignity. I don’t want to make other people feel good about their own mortality when I’m about to have my own stripped away from me”
“I realised that the last time I was here.”
“Yes.” A tinge of pink appeared in Lenka’s cheeks. “I was a trifle out of order, wasn’t I?”
“I think you said you were ‘behaving like a pig’s arse’.”
Lenka’s laugh became a hacking cough. Ben reappeared, the brown smears of chocolate ice-cream around his mouth a very clear explanation as to why he had taken so long. The women sat in silence as he cleaned up the mess at their feet. Stella waited until he had disappeared into the orchard and asked, “Why do they do this to twins?”
“Officially, medical progress. Unofficially, identification and control. But I worry about a vindictive government with such a degree of access to someone’s DNA. The potential of that type of medicine scares me.”
“How do you know all this?”
Lenka stared down at her feet. “Rumours. Nothing more.”
“But—“
Knowledge isn’t always power. It can also be a weakness, depending on who knows what you know. The VP’s words were as clear now as they had been the first time she’d heard them in The Ward. Stella let her question go. If she didn’t ask it, she wouldn’t know the answer. It went against everything she stood for as a researcher, but in this case, ignorance seemed the safer option.
There was a blur of movement as Ben and Wilby sped past them. The boy and puppy disappeared into the orchard. Drak yelped as his back legs gave out. Lenka pulled him up and, once more, he placed his paw in her lap. “Maybe you wouldn’t keep falling over if you lay down or stood on all four legs, you silly thing.”
Stella set her mug down next to the scanner. Waiting any longer wasn’t going to solve anything. “I did some digging. I get enhanced access privileges for my research. There used to be a project training dogs to sniff out diseases, some infections, metabolic diseases, cancer, that kind of thing. There were some trials of other conditions, but they were shelved along with the rest of the disease dogs about ten years ago.”
“Disease dogs?” Lenka’s hand dug into the fur on Drak’s neck.
The scanner hummed as Stella flicked it on. “Most of the animals were destroyed, some were rehomed. Part of an experiment in counter-conditioning, I think. But they were all chipped. Here.” She tapped the back of her own neck and ran the scanner along Drak’s. It beeped and a light flashed green.
Lenka gazed up the pergola roof. “White Plague?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought the lump in Drak’s neck was an old tic bite gone bad. So much for the wisdom and experience of the country crone.”
“There’s no way you could have known.”
Lenka wrapped her arms around Drak. “If I’d realised what he was trying to tell me all those months ago, I may have had a chance?”
Stella nodded.
25
Enough
Lukaz launched himself at Orr. Cheers echoed around the giant rock funnel hidden in the mountain. The legionnaire spun away. Dropped into a crouch. Exploded upwards. His shoulder slammed into Lukaz’s hip, arms clamping around his legs, and the slimmer man’s feet left the ground. Orr lifted and twisted to drive his opponent face first into the earth. Lukaz rolled as he fell. He took the impact on his shoulder, half-freeing himself, only for Orr to sprawl on top of him. As the Donian man bucked and kicked, the legionnaire rolled with the pressure. He twisted around Lukaz’s supine body. Orr rolled onto his back, held the other man’s arm and clutched it to his chest. Clamping Lukaz’s elbow deep between his thighs, Orr slammed a leg over the man’s face and rammed his hips up to the sky. With a shout of pain and anger, Lukaz ripped his arm free. They scrambled to a half-crouch. Clouds of dust followed them as they circled round each other. Noise from the Hoyden spiralled up the stone cauldron.
So it continued, seething violence against laid-back aggression. Orr was already breathing hard. His power and technique usually finished things before his lack of stamina became an issue. Ray’s fists were clenched, twitching in time to the movements of the combatants. He had fought Orr in training. He and Brooke were amongst the few who could handle him. Orr’s lazy looking technique was deceptively efficient. It was bolstered by a large collection of dirty tricks he had learnt in what he called his real school – the wrestling caravans that had toured the Towns not so long ago.
Lukaz got under Orr’s centre of gravity. He dropped his shoulder and threw the legionnaire onto the Dawn Rock. Seeing Orr dazed, Lukaz stamped on him. The slap of his foot echoing around the mountain. Orr rolled away. A fresh red patch stained the stone and blood streaked out of an ugly cut along Orr’s eyebrow.
“Does Orr know you can use the rock like that?” asked Ray.
“How have you lived this long?” Brooke replied, tearing her eyes away from the fight. “Of course he knows. He’d be an idiot not to have worked it out. And Orr is not stupid when it comes to violence.”
Murmurs had broken out amongst the Hoyden. The cheers were more muted than before. Lukaz launched himself at Orr’s legs. He threw his hips back and tried to underhook Lukaz’s arms a split second too late. Their bodies tumbled to the floor. Lukaz struck Orr across the face. Orr rode the punch but there was too much power behind it. Red streaked out of his nose. It traced odd patterns across the stubble on his chin. He groaned, struggling to free his arms.
Lukaz straddled him, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. He lifted himself up onto his knees to get power behind his next strike. Orr hammered both feet down into the ground and rammed his hips up into the other man’s body, reversing him, pinning him to the ground. Orr’s hips screwed downwards. Lukaz was trapped. The legionnaire’s feigned pain was lost in a hail of vicious punches. Lukaz’s blood was running into his eyes. One arm lay limply by his side. The other was t
rapped under Orr’s knee. Orr slammed an elbow into the other man’s cheek. Lukaz twisted. Orr oozed off the villager’s body, not giving him any space to escape. His thick arms locked around Lukaz’s neck. Squeezing. Choking. Killing.
A flash of movement caught Ray’s eye. “Watch out.”
“Bastards.” Nascimento.
Someone shouted. Two of the Hoyden ran onto the dirt, closely followed by Brooke. The man kicked Orr in the ribs. A woman grabbed his head and pulled skyward, her knee on his spine. Orr rolled and pulled her off balance, scissoring his legs around hers. She crashed into the ground with a yelp. Brooke launched the man into the Dawn Rock. Ray and Nascimento faced down the Hoyden now circling them. Aalok bellowed a command and the Rivermen closed ranks around Orr.
The scars on the Hoyden glistened with sweat. Inch by inch they stalked forwards. They had rocks and knives in hand, oblivious to the shouts from Karaan and the Elders. A blur of movement leapt off the rock, knocking Orr to the ground. Lukaz’s dog stood over Orr, teeth bared. Orr grabbed it by the throat, his fight-weary arms shaking as he struggled to keep the snapping teeth away.
“Enough,” someone yelled.
The villagers moved forwards. The dog’s teeth ripped skin off Orr’s nose.
“Enough!” Lukaz hauled himself to his feet, cradling one arm across his body. The dog pulled away from Orr and trotted back to his master’s side. The Hoyden retreated more slowly. Lukaz shouted something at the Hoyden in their tongue, nodding his battered head towards Orr. The legionnaire muscled his way past his colleagues. Blood streaked down his defiant face. Lukaz repeated whatever he had said and the crowd moved away.
“He wins,” Brooke translated.
The Elders, faces like thunder clouds, stormed away from the rock and into the tunnel.
26
The Northbridge
The narrow path wound its way up the rock face. It was hidden by bushes in some places and tucked behind rocks in others. The noise of the celebrations from the fireside echoed after them, Orr’s voice louder than any other.
“Where are you taking me?” Ray asked. Small clouds of mist formed with each word. Brooke’s reply was to push the pace harder.
The path opened onto a rock balcony, its edges lost in shadows. It was split down the middle by a jagged crack, as if the mountain had been wrenched in two. Spanning the treacherous drop was a bridge formed out of an enormous piece of translucent green-blue stone. Carved into the north side were kings, queens, peasants, children playing, musicians, healers and fighters. Dogs danced alongside cats, great winged beasts and other indecipherable forms. On the south side, sheltered from the sun, were skeletal images. Dressed like the living, they parodied the actions of their warmer counterparts.
Brooke pointed over the bridge, at the path that disappeared into the mountain soaring above them. “You’re at the end of Ailan; over there is Mennai.”
Ray strode to the centre of the bridge. It glittered where he touched it. Sparks crackled around his boots, leaving a fading glow around his footprints. The twisting darkness beneath threatened to pull him into it, swallow him. For a split second, he was hanging off the platform in the Mennai power station again, dizzy and breathless, the old man dangling by his side. Hamid’s death still too fresh to be real.
“My mother told me the Donian mountains were a present for Mennai and Brettia from their father,” Brooke said, joining him. “The effort of creating the mountains was too much, and he died soon afterwards. The twins broke the mountains while arguing over how to divide the mountains.” She gestured to the crevasse in front of them. “Both blamed the other and have never spoken since.”
“And this?” Ray tapped the bridge. Lines of light ran out from under his finger, splitting around the carved images embedded in the crystalline rock.
“We call it the Northbridge. The tribes on the other side of the border call it the same. Doesn’t make sense really. But then they call you folk from Ailan the up-dwellers, even though they live in the mountains, not you. The bridge was here before any of us arrived in the mountains after the Great Flood. No one knows how it got here.”
“Maybe the twins’ mother placed it here just in case they decided to relent and meet on neutral ground,” Ray suggested.
Brooke didn’t seem to have heard. She was looking at the glittering palm print her hand had left on the balustrade. “It’s all rubbish, of course. The clouds of lights in the sky are charged particles, not tears from the sibling’s mother staining the heavens. The crack below us is most likely due to an earthquake, but warring twins are much more exciting than tectonic plate activity.”
“Doesn’t that depend on who’s moving the plates?” Ray asked, corners of his mouth twitching into a smile.
“Don’t say that. You don’t know what lives under these mountains.”
“OK, OK. So why are we here tonight?”
“After the last Donian rebellion, the officer in charge insisted on taking some people back to Ailan. It was to be a privilege, the chosen few were going to be ‘ambassadors’ and would ‘fulfil a diplomatic role of great importance’. You people have always played devious games with language,” she said with a snort. “Interesting that the one person they took was the only daughter from the family that had given them the most trouble. I was eleven. I came here the night before I left and carved my name into the bridge. It was a sacrilegious act of vandalism that could have had me on the spit over our central fire rather than turning it.”
“The Elders wouldn’t have allowed that,” Ray said.
“Worse has happened. A long-dead tribal leader, a young upstart who wanted to rule these mountains, once made a beaten enemy choose which of his children to roast on the spit. He lined a bunch of those kids up. The grown ones defiant and battered, the young ones snotty and tearful, mewling for their dead mother. The victor said it was a punishment direct from the Gods and could not be disobeyed. Lying bastard.”
“That’s vile.”
“Has a good ending, though.” She shuffled close enough for Ray to feel the heat coming off her body. “The winner had no idea he was the bastard son of his older rival. Guess which child got chosen to fulfil the Gods’ unbreakable wishes?”
“Clever. Still vile.”
“Guess my fate was mild, really.” Brooke wrote her name on the bridge with a finger. The letters fizzed through the stone like gunpowder trails. “But back then I felt my people had deserted me. I was determined they wouldn’t forget me. That’s why I took a knife to the Northbridge. I took the shards of rock with me, so I wouldn’t forget what had happened, either.”
The sound of her breathing was loud in the night. She seemed to be waiting for something. Advice? Reassurance? What would Lenka say in this situation? Ray’s attempt at counselling Nascimento in the Kickshaw had failed. He went for the easy option. “It was a long time ago, Brooke.”
She sighed and ran her hand over the parapet. The surface of the bridge was as flawless as the rest of it. Light swirled in the stone like clouds in a breeze. “Not long enough for the bridge to weather itself smooth. I came here the night we first arrived and couldn’t find the rock scar. I wanted another pair of eyes to double-check and you seemed the obvious choice. Reliable Ray, remember?”
He chuckled. “I haven’t heard that for a long time. I always preferred that to Fervent Franklin or Nascimento’s other nicknames.” He reeled off a list. Brooke pointed out that the latest, more colourful one had been Orr’s idea.
“When I was clearing out my quarters after passing the EBT for the 10th, I found the shards stuffed under a false drawer in my personals. I’d been too full of hate and revenge to think about anything else for a long time.”
“What did you do with them?” Ray asked. Above them, twisting eddies of colour were forming in the sky, shades of greens and blues which mirrored the Northbridge.
“Gave them to the guy working at Sci-Corps, Eddie Shaw.”
“What was it with you two?”
“Nothing. He was just a civilian who took me under his wing. Maybe he felt as out of place in the military as I did amongst the people of Ailan. He was a good man.” She took a long breath and forced the words out in a jumble. “I wonder whether you got the better deal than me by not knowing your dad. My father and I put up with each other rather than got on with each other. He was a fossil, came from the old-school approach that saw his role as fucking and fighting. The archetype that is incapable of any kind of interest or commitment if there’s any kind of emotional responsibility attached. I never got it, and didn’t understand why my mother put up with that selfish approach: I’ve done my bit, you do yours.”
“Because she loved you?”
“What does that say about him? Why should she give up her life for her kids and a man? She wanted to go out and work, to talk to someone about something else other than the consistency of baby shit, but it wouldn’t fly.”
“My mother did sacrifice her kid, me, for a cause. I’m not sure that was the right solution either.”
“Or kids.”
“Or kids. I’m not sure what to do about that, about Rhys.” Brooke’s warm fingers slid into his palm.
“We’ll find a way.”
A pulsating line of white light crackled through the middle of the shifting winds of colour above them. Like a rip in a sail in a storm, it curved and twisted around itself, falling endlessly through the air.
“Shaw, the civilian from Sci-Corps, showed me there was another way. Not all men were there for me to slap down and dominate. Then I met Hamid.”
“I thought you two didn’t—”
She pulled her hand free and punched Ray on his arm, where the nerve was most exposed. Pain exploded in his hand.
“We’ve had this conversation, Franklin.”
“Did he find anything, the guy from Sci-Corps?” he asked, rubbing his arm.