by Sarah Rayne
Capture and chain one of them …
It was a cold thought to have to contemplate chaining and binding another human creature. But, “Many are near-monsters,” Amairgen had said. Flynn thought: I must bear it. If I can think of these creatures as simply sick human beings, perhaps I can manage. He remembered an old Lethe belief that the sins of people could be visited on their descendants, perhaps that was the explanation. The sins of those greedy, foolhardy beings who burned the world and called up the Apocalypse were still punishing their descendants. It would explain a good deal; it might even explain why some had been left whole and others had not.
Inside the Gealtacht it was rather dark and there was a dank smell. Rats! thought Flynn, and repressed a shudder, for everyone knew the tales of how rats had run unchecked amidst the rubble of the burning cities, bringing plague and sickness with them. Everyone knew how the rats had eaten the dead bodies, and even of how, in desperate cases, survivors had eaten the rats. Not to be thought of, any of it.
They moved cautiously along a narrow corridor to their left, the clatter of crockery and pots and the hum of conversation coming faintly to them. Amairgen threw out a thought and Flynn picked it up at once. At least they do not trouble to keep any kind of silence, these tenders of monsters. At least we should hear them coming, and have time to hide.
Amairgen moved forward, his head tilted to catch the slightest sound, his eyes searching the shadows. Flynn thought: he is using the Samhailt to its utmost limits; he is trying to pick up the thoughts and the emotions of the people in here.
“But of course I shall not be able to,” said Amairgen, and Flynn grinned despite himself.
“No?”
“The Samhailt can only really exist between people who are in sympathy one with the other,” said Amairgen. “And even then, it is possible to close your thoughts to the other.” He stopped and put out his hand to Flynn, and Flynn stopped as well, because he had felt, just for a brief moment, a ripple of something on the air. Desperation, was it? Certainly a cry for help. He looked at Amairgen, and Amairgen said, “It could not be. Surely no creature in here could possess the Ancient Gift.” But his voice was uncertain.
And then from somewhere at the very top of the house there was a muffled clang; iron against iron — a heavy door closing to. There was a squeal of rage or pain, or both, which died on the air, leaving only the brooding silence once again.
The thread of thought that had seemed, so fleetingly, to come from somewhere inside the Gealtacht, vanished, and Flynn thought that perhaps after all they had imagined it.
They saw the first Mutant as they rounded a corner where two corridors converged. At first, Flynn thought it was just another echoing empty passage; he saw the twists of cable dangling from the ceilings that he had seen in Lethe-built buildings elsewhere, the bloom of condensation on the walls and the puddles of damp on the stone floor — or was it simply damp? There was a pile of clothes at the far end …
But the pile of clothes was moving. Both men stopped; be careful!
Amairgen moved forward, and Flynn thought: he does not hesitate, ever. He does not even have to think about being brave, or summoning courage. He has instinctive courage. He moved to Amairgen’s side.
You do not need to prove anything, Flynn. You will have courage and to spare before we are done, and perhaps at a time when I shall not.
The creature ahead of them made a quick scuttling movement that reminded Flynn of an insect. And then it moved from the shadows, and dismay held both men motionless.
The creature was certainly a girl, for there were breasts and a certain softness of feature. There was an oval body with the head set at one side. But instead of two arms and two legs, three pairs of limbs protruded at regular intervals, jointed and gristly with sinew, neither quite arms nor legs, but a mixture of the two. The fingers at each end were thick and splayed so that the creature could grip and walk.
Flynn and Amairgen froze, and the girl looked at them. Flynn saw comprehension in her eyes and intelligence as well, and the pity of it burst like a fire inside his chest.
“Intruders?” said the girl, moving back and forth, and the two men saw that she used all six limbs to support herself, exactly as a spider, or a beetle, scurrying to and fro does. “Intruders,” she said again, rearing up slightly, her upper limbs waving at them uncertainly.
“We intend you no harm,” said Flynn softly.
“You have come to view us?”
“No. To ask for your help.”
“Are you some kind of lookout?” said Amairgen warily.
“No. But they do not chain me as they chain the others. I am free to come and go as I please. But I keep to the shadows,” said the girl. “You will understand why.”
Flynn said, very gently, “But you have a gentle face —”
“And a repulsive body. The men make use of me when they wish to. I do not really mind.” I do not really mind anything, said her tone, and Flynn felt the pity well up again, like sickness inside him.
“Forgive us, but we must search the house. There will be — one of your kind who will help us.”
Again there was understanding. “Through there,” she said, and moved away from them, dropping back on to her six legs, watching them wordlessly from the dark corner where she had been crouching. As the men moved away, they heard her say softly, “The strongest are chained. But it will be the strongest who will give you most help.”
They moved away towards the intersection of the passages.
Down here?
Yes.
To begin with, it was some kind of instinct that drew them in that direction, but after a few moments, they both became aware of a noise, and as they drew nearer, both wanted to turn and run. Flynn thought it was like the cries of souls in hell, and then he thought that it was souls shut out of hell. His skin prickled and sweat started out on his brow.
Courage, said Amairgen silently. Do not lose your sense of proportion, Flynn. These poor creatures are a very tiny section of mankind.
Is that a consolation to them?
Amairgen sent him a quick look of understanding. “But you have a skin short, Flynn,” he said, and took his arm as they saw, ahead of them, a great iron door.
The noise was deafening now. It echoed and reverberated around the old stone mansion, and as they stood before the door, Flynn saw in the dim light, a printed notice fixed to the wall, its surface pitted by fire and time, but readable still.
… and no attempts should be made to touch the Lunaticks, for although the Diet is extraordinary Good and Proper, yet they may be subject to Scurvy and Other Disease … the Lunaticks may not be viewed on Sundays …
Viewed, thought Flynn. Viewed. “You have come to view us,” she had said. What long-ago Lethe put up that notice, beautifully printed by one of their machines, as cold and unfeeling in its wording as the machine that made it. The babble of cries on the other side of the door grew momentarily louder.
Amairgen took a deep breath and reached down to turn the iron handle. The door slid soundlessly open and Flynn and Amairgen stepped inside.
The Mutants were kept in a long windowless chamber, divided into sections by iron bars — like cages! thought Flynn. The walls and floors ran with damp, and there was some kind of fungus on the underside of the far-away roof. Straw was thrown down on the floor and there were troughs of water, and metal buckets containing some kind of coarse-looking meal. The walls had brackets with burning torches thrust roughly into them, so that the light burned continuously, lending an eerie glow to the scene before their eyes.
The Mutants were chained; every one of them had leg manacles attached to long chains embedded deeply in the old walls, which slithered and clanked every time they moved, with a cold, steel-on-wet-stone sound that made Flynn’s nerve endings shudder. The chains were long; the Mutants could move about freely; they could reach the water trough and the meal buckets.
The Mutants were not all as physically deformed as the spider gir
l in the corridor. Some were only twisted or hunched, or were lacking a leg or an arm. Nothing so very terrible. But as Flynn looked, they seemed to become more terrible: nightmarish. There were men with one eye or with three; women with no necks, but heads growing from a shoulder; creatures covered with hair, with warts, with scaly growths. One man had neither neck nor shoulders, but a huge, completely smooth, egg-shaped torso with the facial features crammed into one end of the egg, and tiny useless-looking arms growing halfway down.
In one corner were beings so hideously deformed, that it was impossible to tell if they were one person or several; there were creatures with extra arms growing from their shoulders; creatures with two sets of shoulders and two heads on one trunk; single faces with two separate sets of features squashed into them; bodies that began normally but divided at the waist into two sets of legs, each with perfectly formed genitals between them, one male and one female. There were feet growing from shoulders and from thighs. In another corner was a Mutant with no head at all, just a body with a thick stump-like neck that had a gash for its mouth and great bulbous eyes at the top of the stump that twitched and protruded.
In every terrible face, there was a cunning, an evil, and such a complete absence of humanity, that Flynn was sickened. He thought he could have coped with monsters; he certainly thought he could have coped with ordinary malformed human beings.
But such travesties as these were not people, they were barely human. Both men thought as one: we could not possibly take any of these.
“Dear God,” groaned Amairgen, and at the soft words, the nearest Mutant, a male covered in thick scaly skin and with massive ears, turned and saw them, and let out an animal screech of glee. In a moment, the Mutants had turned and were hurling themselves at Flynn and Amairgen, tearing frantically at their chains, reaching with hands for the two strangers.
Flynn and Amairgen backed away until they found themselves backed up against the great door.
“We cannot possibly — none of these poor things could be taken — they would never understand …” Flynn gasped.
“Nevertheless, we must try,” Amairgen took a step forward. He held up a hand for silence, and the Mutants’ tumult subsided a little, they were watching him slyly, chattering to themselves like animals.
Amairgen said, “Please — we mean you no harm. We want your help.”
There was a silence and Flynn felt the puzzlement in the room. The word itself was alien to them.
“We would ask one of you to come with us,” said Amairgen. “To the Glowing Lands. To help someone in danger.”
Again the silence. The Mutants watched and considered the strangers and then began to move back to their corners.
Flynn said despairingly, “It’s no use. I don’t think they understand.”
“They must … Look at me, damn you!” cried Amairgen. “Look at me, you poor deserted things!” He strode into their midst. “Listen to me.”
The Mutants were on him in an instant, tearing at his clothes, thrusting themselves up against him.
Flynn did not hesitate — “You will have courage and to spare before we are done,” Amairgen had said — he snatched up on iron bar from the floor and laid about the Mutants until he had cleared a path to where Amairgen half sat, half lay, dazed and bruised, one arm raised to shield his face.
“Come on!” shouted Flynn furiously, and dragged his companion back to the door.
They fell through it together, gasping and choking, and pushed it to, breathing heavily, neither able to speak. Behind the iron barrier the Mutants had set up a terrible wailing, dragging their chains backwards and forwards across the stone floor in a frenzy.
At length, Amairgen straightened up and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. “We dare not stay here,” he said. “The attendants will come running at any minute. The noise those creatures are making — ”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Then go and do it in that corner as quietly as you can manage.”
Flynn moved blindly and leaned over, retching for several minutes, feeling his insides scoured by the cold sourness of the place, his eyes streaming with sickness and pity.
Amairgen silently handed him the flask of damson wine and Flynn gulped several mouthfuls gratefully.
“I didn’t know you had a squeamish stomach,” said Amairgen.
“I haven’t,” said Flynn, and dredged up a smile. “Where now?”
“I think the upper floors.”
“Are there other floors?” But of course there must be, the Gealtacht could not rear up against the night sky unless there were higher floors than this. And the Letheans had built high towering places, everyone knew that.
“There are several,” said Amairgen. “The Letheans’ class system operates here. What we saw in there were the poor creatures whose families have entirely abandoned them. The paupers,” said Amairgen, using a word unfamiliar to Flynn.
“And the upper floors?”
“Will house the elite. The Mutants whose families do not mind paying for extra comforts, and for a degree of privacy.”
Even so, there was little in the way of comfort to be found in the dank narrow cells under the Gealtacht’s roof.
“Of course there is not,” said Amairgen sadly. “The attendants pocket the money and feed these Mutants exactly as they feed the wretches downstairs.”
“Can they? I mean can they do so without being discovered?”
“It’s an old custom,” said Amairgen. “And who comes here to check?”
The upper floor was bisected by yet another soulless passage, which they reached by means of a wide shallow-treaded staircase. Flynn touched the wooden balustrades: when the Letheans built, they built well. The balustrade was a strong solid oak; it was dull and scarred by neglect, but the grain was still beautiful; the delicately carved fir cones and oak leaves that decorated the hand rail were still lovely.
These cells opened off the corridor; each had a tiny grille and a name written on a card outside it. Each cell was firmly locked.
The cries were louder up here; they were of the same quality as those in the paupers’ chamber, they conveyed the same unmistakable madness. But Flynn thought there was a terrible desolation about them now; an immense and aching loneliness. At least the Mutants downstairs had company. The Mutants up here had nothing.
Locked away in tiny windowless cells, without light, without warmth, barely knowing the comfort of another human being’s presence … These were indeed the damned, the ones shut out of hell, thought Flynn. I don’t think I can bear this. But they have to bear it, said his mind. There is no running away for them. This is all their life consists of, and this is all it will ever consist of. What did they do, our ancestors, when they unleashed the beast Apocalypse on the world? He wanted to fling wide the doors of this great gloomy Lethe mansion, and see sunlight pour in and hear voices raised cheerfully, and feel warmth and friendship soak through the stone walls. He could do none of it. He could not even unlock the cell doors.
Apprehensive and fearful Flynn and Amairgen peered into the cells. “We have glimpsed worlds we did not suspect existed,” said Flynn afterwards.
“I suspected,” Amairgen replied sadly. “But I hoped I was wrong.”
In the cell at the far end of the corridor a girl crouched in one corner, her knees drawn up, her feet wide apart. Between her thighs, lay the almost unrecognisable remains of a baby. Flynn looked and then turned away at once, but not before he had seen the girl reach down with absorption into the bloodied mess and lift up a portion of skin and flesh. In the jellied lump, he thought he saw a tiny hand, five fingered but webbed.
Flynn snapped the grille shut and leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.
“What was it?”
Flynn said, “She was eating — a dead child. I think she had just given birth …”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the afterbirth,” said Flynn, who had helped deliver calves and
foals ever since he could remember, and who thought he had seen some odd things, but had never seen anything quite like this. He opened his eyes and looked at Amairgen. “Animals sometimes do it,” he said. “If the offspring is deformed. They eat it …”
Amairgen said slowly “Eating the children,” and frowned.
“Inhuman.”
“No,” said Amairgen, “it was not that. Just for a moment, I thought there was something familiar …” He shook himself. “It does not matter. We must go back, Flynn. There is nothing here that can help us.”
They returned cautiously to the lower floors, both of them conscious of having failed, each conscious of a great anger and an aching grief.
The spider girl was still sitting in her corner, staring at nothing with the patience of a sick animal.
Flynn stopped; his hand came out to Amairgen’s, and again a thought was shared.
Why not this one? She is not the strongest, and it is the strongest who will most easily draw aside the Time Curtain. But she is a Mutant; she may have some power. And she is not mad like the others; they have not chained her or locked her away.
They started forward.
*
“You would take me out of here?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You would do that?”
“Yes. But you must come quietly and you must come now.”
“I would do anything …” The girl touched Flynn’s hand. “I would serve you both, anything you asked, I would do. To be out of here …” She looked from one to the other. “And I am agile. I can climb to places you could not reach. I could be of help in all kinds of ways. Oh, take me with you.”
Flynn and Amairgen straightened up; they looked at each other, and Amairgen gave a tiny nod.
“Come then. Have you things you wish to bring?”
“My cloak. It is here. I have nothing more.”
“Quickly then. They will be searching for us now. They must have heard the Mutants screech.”