Here the colours were more muted – rich umbers and ambers and faded reds – and the noise and frenetic movement of the shopping district were replaced by the barely audible purr of enormously tasteful, supremely confident wealth. As the rain continued to pour down, it only served to make the buildings seem more sleek, and the viewers, rapidly becoming soggy in their out-of-place little boat, feel less worthy. Singay and Pema exchanged nervous grins.
They passed palace after palace, turning from time to time.
But getting closer to the Sea? thought Pema. Surely we’re getting closer to the Sea.
‘Can you hear them?’ he whispered to Rose. ‘Can you hear the other Drivers yet?’
Rose just shook his head and huddled in on himself.
Pema looked across anxiously at Singay, but before she could say anything, the boat bumped up against a pier.
‘This is it.’ Za sounded odd. Zamin hurriedly tied their mooring rope to a rusty ring and jumped out.
‘Come on, get out,’ she said. ‘We’re here.’
‘Are you sure?’ Pema looked around doubtfully.
The residence they had come to was as large and imposing as any they’d seen that day, but it was also long deserted. The walls were cracked. The colourful paint was flaking away. Dirt from some higher-than-usual tide smeared the marble paving. At various times, repair jobs had been started on the mosaics or the window frames or the decorative metalwork, but nothing was finished, and now it would take a lot more than piecemeal patching to turn back the decay.
Singay frowned. ‘This doesn’t look like a place where they’d have any help to spare for us.’
‘Yes, well, looks can be deceptive,’ chirped Za. Zamin clipped him across the head.
‘I’m going to knock on the door,’ she said. And she trotted off, Za in tow.
The others stood up to follow them, but then Singay put a restraining hand on Pema’s arm. ‘This feels . . . I don’t know, does this feel all right to you?’
Something snapped inside him. ‘Feel all right? Of course it doesn’t feel all right! It feels all wrong! So what do you suggest we do – go home?’ Then he sighed and rubbed his face with his hand. ‘Sorry, sorry. I just . . . sorry.’
‘So close,’ murmured Rose. ‘We mustn’t quarrel now.’
‘Of course not,’ said Singay, trying to smile reassuringly at the wan little man. ‘Let’s go.’
So it was as a soggy party of five that they stood before the great door. Its wood was dried and splitting, and the metalwork was so rusted it was starting to come away. Zamin thumped on the door with her fist, hard, three times. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then . . .
‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘Somebody called. Somebody said, “Come in.”’
And, with a grunt of effort, Zamin shoved the door open a crack.
‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Pema, but the little girl was sliding inside.
‘Wait! I didn’t hear anything!’ Singay could feel panic rising in her chest, but the others were already following Zamin’s lead, sidling into the dimness beyond the door as if they had no will of their own.
She gave in. At least we’ll be out of the rain. She made herself shove in after them.
It was true, there was no rain inside, but there was about all she could say for it. What had once been an impressive grand hall was now an echoing, derelict space, edged by shadows. All the beautiful furnishings it must have held were gone, and the smells of damp and despair were all that remained.
Surely no one lives here . . .
‘Excellent,’ said a voice. ‘You’ve come.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Mighty Fallen
I know that voice, thought Pema.
‘It can’t be,’ murmured Singay.
But it was.
The charismatic holy man they’d last seen all those leagues back in the Square in Cliffton, spiriting the money of the crowd into his pockets, was standing before them, here and now.
‘Father Impeccable?’
‘Father?’ he said. ‘Oh no, no, I’m done with all that. Purely secular now, I assure you. You may call me The Impeccable. And do you know why you may call me The Impeccable?’ While he was speaking he was also edging round them, so that they had to turn to keep him in sight. When he was between them and the door, he paused and his teeth glinted like pearls in the dimness.
‘Can’t you guess?’ He waited. ‘Give up?’ No one seemed able to speak or move or escape from his horrible game. ‘Well then, I’ll tell you! You can call me The Impeccable because that’s who I am! The one and only, last remaining son of the House of Impeccable, late unlamented of this City.’
There was a blank pause. He tutted. ‘At this point in the conversation your eyes are supposed to go wide and I should be seeing lots of round little O’s where your mouths are. Instead, you act as if you’d never even heard of me. Most disappointing.’
Then, unexpectedly, he turned to the twins.
‘Though obviously you two dear little rascals have heard of me.’ He grinned at them. ‘By the way, you must remind me what I owe you. I’m sure you wouldn’t like me to forget my end of our bargain!’
Slowly, Pema and Singay turned to look at the two Flatters. Rose sank down in a heap on the dank floor and covered his face with his hands.
‘What does he mean?’ Singay asked the twins, her voice dangerously quiet.
Zamin shrugged. ‘He paid us. To keep our eyes open for three that looked like you, carrying a Priority disc with his crest on it. We were to tell him as soon as we saw you and he’d pay us more. Bring you to him direct, more again.’ She paused. ‘It was business.’
‘We were good at it, too,’ put in Za. ‘Nobody suspects a couple of kids hanging about.’
‘We certainly didn’t,’ said Pema, and a fleeting twinge of discomfort crossed the twins’ faces.
Impeccable laughed.
‘Why are we here?’ asked Rose quietly, lifting his head.
‘I’ll be happy to tell you, but first let us go up to my private chambers. It’s a little vulgar to talk business in the hall, don’t you think? After you.’
Why don’t we run away? thought Singay. He couldn’t stop us all. Why don’t we just run away? But there was something about Impeccable, some horrible mesmeric power . . . They let him herd them up the grand staircase, and on, deeper into the heart of the ruin.
‘I’d mind that step – the rot’s got into it. And along this corridor it’s best to stay to the left.’
Mildewed walls, rotted tapestries, glimpses of the weeping sky where the roof had collapsed . . . it was a wonder the building still managed to stand up at all. But Impeccable moved through the devastation as if he were completely at home.
‘Welcome to my suite,’ he said and, with a grand gesture, he ushered them through a set of doors and into a large, shuttered room.
Like the entrance hall, it must once have been beautiful, an elegantly proportioned, light, lovely space. But not anymore. Damp stains showed everywhere. The parquet floor had warped and splintered. In the dim light they could see it was bizarrely furnished with broken bits and mismatched pieces, the rejects of a wrecker’s yard.
It was the saddest room they’d ever seen.
‘Sit down. Sit down,’ said their host, as if oblivious to their dismay. ‘You’ll forgive me if I secure the door.’ Unlike everything else in the room, the locking system was in excellent condition. No one would get into Impeccable’s inner sanctum without an invitation. No one would get out, either.
They sat on a collection of mismatched chairs and stools. When Impeccable was satisfied with the door, he joined them, placing himself so that he was the focus of their attention – and suddenly it was the Square at Cliffton all over again. His voice took on the warm, chocolatey tones of the orator once more.
‘I can see you are wondering what place this is, but I’ll tell what it was. It was the House of Impeccable.
’
His words echoed and died and rose again.
‘Let me tell you about us. The Impeccables were among the first of the Houses to strike it rich, out in the oilfields, among the first to discover what lay beneath the waves. All that buried treasure. Being among the first, our prestige was without limit. Unfortunately, our oil claims weren’t. Oh, they supported several generations of Impeccables, but then we began to hit the bottom of the barrel. When the fields started to yield less each year, my father could have taken heed. He could have funnelled our wealth into buying new sites, building new rigs. Instead he funnelled it into pretending nothing was wrong. When there was no longer enough for that, he borrowed. By the time my father finally did the decent thing and died, we were inescapably in debt to the House of Grandiloquent. They owned us, down to the last tapestry and teaspoon. The first moment they could, they dismantled our rigs and did all the things my father should have done.
‘Of course, they couldn’t touch me. If I’d suddenly died it would have been extremely embarrassing for them. So they just took away everything of value that could be sold, let the servants go and left me with the shell of a building I couldn’t afford to keep up.
‘I remember the day their steward came – they didn’t even bother to send a member of the family! I remember my nanny crying – oh yes, I was just a child! – I remember her crying, “Let me stay, at least. What will become of him?” And he said, “What will become of him? Why, he’s free to become anything he likes!” And he was right. I was completely free. Free to starve. Free to hide in corners, all alone, when the noises of the night in this empty house shook me with terror the way a dugg shakes a rat. Free to plot and plan my revenge. Free to miss . . .’
They watched as his words trailed off into memories. When Impeccable spoke again, his voice had changed. It had a mad quaver to it.
‘She was nothing to him – just one more extraneous crone! But I loved my nanny. She was always there, always on my side. Presumably he sent her back to the Flats, but he might as well have sent her to the moon. Of course, he may not have known I cared specially about her. It may have been no more than a simple economy on the part of the family. They’ll pay for it, nevertheless. Oh yes. Not long now.’
He gave himself a shake, and became brisk again. ‘Which is, of course, where you come in. Allow me to introduce the setting of my grand plan.’ He walked over to the shuttered windows and flung them open.
‘There they are,’ said Impeccable, a curious note of longing and pride in his voice. ‘The oilfields.’
As far as the eye could reach, a greasy sea slurped and swayed around the legs of hundreds of enormous grey structures, metal skeletons that had somehow taken root in the salty water and twisted up towards the sky. Huge metal heads nodded hypnotically. Gouts of flame shot out of the tips of the towers, and died, and shot out again, adding yellowy-black smoke to the low-lying smudge of cloud. The air on the incoming breeze tasted tinny and wrong.
‘Oh no,’ murmured Rose.
They could hardly look away. All this horror had been hidden from sight behind Elysia’s proud palaces and fine municipal buildings. It was like a festering disease behind the City’s fair face.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ murmured Impeccable.
‘All that metal – that must be why Rose hasn’t been able to hear the others,’ Pema whispered urgently to Singay.
Singay nodded. ‘We’ve got to get away from here,’ she whispered back. ‘We’ve got to!’
Impeccable was pointing. ‘You can’t actually see the Grandiloquent oilfields from here – I do hope that won’t be a problem?’ And he turned his mad eyes suddenly on Rose.
The little man shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then I’ll explain. I was asking whether having a clear line of sight was necessary. For the little job I want you to do for me.’
‘Me? A job?’
‘Oh, do keep up. Why else would I have arranged your dramatic jailbreak back in dear old Cliffton? Why else would I have given you the Priority disc and paid our little friends here to be on the lookout?’
‘You got us out of jail?’ exclaimed Pema, but Impeccable didn’t answer him. He was focused intently on the Driver. There might have been no one else in the room.
‘What job?’ Rose’s voice was low, each word like a stone dropping into water.
‘I saw what you did at Cliffton. You can control rocks. You know what they’re about to do, and you can make them do what you want them to do. Which means . . .’ His eyes glinted with greedy excitement. ‘Which means you can make them do what I want them to do.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I’ll tell you. What I want is for the rock over my enemy’s oilfields to crack and let the Sea flood in. You see the beauty of it, I’m sure. They’ll be ruined, utterly, and with a threat or two, or ten, of doing the same to the other Houses, I’m pretty certain I can be as wealthy a man as even I could wish to be. The House of Impeccable will rise again!’
There was a long silence in the desolate room.
‘That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in the whole of my very long life,’ said Rose quietly.
‘Says you!’ retorted Impeccable, suddenly sounding like a rude little boy.
Rose stared at him. ‘You must understand – the oil is contained in rocky chambers, honeycombing the seabed across this whole area.’
‘Well, yes. We’d figured out that much by ourselves,’ said Impeccable, examining his nails.
‘Then you should also be able to understand that now that you’ve emptied the chambers, they are weaker and more likely to collapse. And the collapse of one chamber could lead to a cascade of similar collapses throughout the oilfields.’ Rose pointed out of the window. ‘The whole thing could cave in on itself. Then the seabed across this entire section of coast would drop and the water would rush in. An earthquake or even a series of earthquakes would be more than likely, along with a giant, destructive wave crashing into the shore.’
‘Could. Maybe. Might.’ Impeccable wagged a finger at the Driver. ‘I can tell you’re bluffing. Embroidering. You’re powerful, oh yes, but not as powerful as that. Not so powerful you can make earthquakes and the end of the world.’ Then he snapped his fingers. ‘Or maybe you are that powerful. In which case, you can use that power to make sure none of that happens! There! Got you coming and going!’
‘You’re mad,’ said Rose.
‘And you’re lying,’ replied Impeccable. ‘I saw the way you controlled the stones of my oh-so-lucrative Tower – you let them down as easy as a feather. You’re just trying to raise the price. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that, though. I do! And believe me when I say, you will be well paid.’
‘You don’t understand!’ cried Pema and Singay in chorus.
‘What don’t I understand?’ snarled Impeccable, swinging his mad focus abruptly to them. They stepped back involuntarily.
‘Rose can’t do what you’re asking him to do because it’ll kill him,’ said Pema, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.
‘Controlling rocks uses him up,’ said Singay urgently. ‘Can’t you see how much worse he looks now than when you saw him before in Cliffton?’
‘You think he looks worse?’ said Impeccable in a carefree tone. ‘Really? He looks fine to me.’
‘He’s not fine. It was saving all those people back in Cliffton – including you! – that made him as ill as he is. And now you want him to kill himself for you? Why should he?’
‘That’s right. Why should I?’
Everybody turned and stared.
There was an expression on Rose’s face that Pema and Singay had never seen before. His cheeks were drawn and there were hard lines marking his forehead and mouth. But most unsettling of all was the look in his eyes: it was alien and angry, a look utterly at odds with the person they thought they knew.
Singay took a tentative step towards him. ‘Rose?’ she said, but it was as if he could
n’t hear her anymore.
‘Why should I?’ he snarled again, not at anyone in the room, but over their shoulders, at something or someone they couldn’t see. ‘Why shouldn’t I do what he’s asking and then let it all go wrong at its own sweet pace? I’m dying – why should I care who else dies too? All because of a mistake, so long ago. That’s all it was. It was just a mistake. When do I get to stop paying, that’s what I want to know. I’ve paid and paid for all these years, and for what? So that things like him’ – suddenly his eyes focused on Impeccable with a cold clarity – ‘can flourish? Horrible, tiny-minded, evil-spirited creatures like him, like Klepsang and Ma and the Protectors and the people at Cliffton and all the others like them – so they can grow fat and prosper? And produce hells like the one we just left, like the one we’ve just seen?’ His body was shuddering violently now. ‘Is this the world I’ve lost all those years for? Is this the world I’m supposed to die for?’
‘Works for me,’ said Impeccable cheerfully. ‘Now do what I’m telling you.’
‘No,’ said Rose.
Impeccable shrugged. Then, quick as a snake, he grabbed Singay by her hair and twisted so hard she screamed. A vicious-looking knife blossomed in his hand and he held it against her throat.
‘Wrong answer,’ he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Into the Fields
It was as if Impeccable had thrust his knife into the Driver. With a wail, Rose collapsed onto the floor. ‘I’ll do it I’ll do it I’ll do it,’ he babbled tearfully. ‘But not from here. I can’t from here – it’s too far. I’ll need to be closer. Directly over the chamber.’
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