“Candles are wasteful. And dangerous. They cause fire.”
“Where do we need to go?” I said, interrupting them. I left the Magister’s room, closing the door behind me.
“From what you have told me,” Tacita said, “I think we need to go to the Archivum. Up there.” She pointed up to the second floor.
“I thought you said that you did not know where anything was in here.”
“It is the same. The same as the one in Deva Caster. I did not realise all the Aula were the same.”
“And how do we get up there?” I asked.
“This way,” she said, pushing open the door next to the Magister’s. This opened, not onto another room, but a corridor that led to another set of stairs. As with the office, as we walked along this corridor the lights came on. Unlike the circular main staircase, these stairs went straight up to the first floor. Tacita opened another door on this floor, we followed her along another corridor and then up a further flight of stairs. This seemed an unnecessarily complicated way of doing things to me.
However, when we reached the second floor, Tacita took a half circle before stopping at a door marked, not surprisingly, ‘Archivum’. I pushed the door, half-expecting to enter a huge room filled with filing cabinets or the like. I was wrong.
“There’s nothing in here,” I said, as the light came on. The small square room seemed to be empty.
Tacita laughed. As she pressed a switch just inside the door a low hum started. A minute or two later the wall opposite the door slid back, revealing a large screen. Tacita pressed a further switch beneath this and a small keyboard emerged. When she tapped on one of the keys the screen lit up showing the following: ‘Salopian Caster. Archivum. Secretissimum.’ The last word appeared in red in letters larger than the rest.
Eluned stood against the wall furthest from the screen, shielding her eyes.
“Don’t worry, Eluned,” I said. “It’s not magic. Technology that even I have never seen before. What happens next, Tacita?”
She looked at me. “What did you say your name was? Your Ovidian name, that is.”
“Semele0442,” I replied.
She turned to the keyboard and tapped some keys. My name replaced the words on the screen.
“Hang on,” I said. “Didn’t that say ‘most secret’ before? Isn’t there some sort of security?”
“All screens in the Aula say the same,” Tacita said. “There is no security, as you put it.”
Maybe there was when this system was devised, I thought. Like the buildings made of glass, the unlocked doors, this future world of the Change seemed to be curiously lacking in ideas about security. Was this a false optimism? Presumably the reason why they also have Guards who have nothing to guard. Or so they think.
After a moment or so, my name disappeared from the screen. It was replaced by the single word ‘Mortuum’. This scrolled up and the following appeared beneath it:
‘Semele0442
Birth recorded: April 2042
Last known record: August 2057
Three known relatives: Actaeon03?09; Calliope1129; Latona0545
Presumed dead’
“That’s me,” I said, astonished. “That’s my name. My date of birth. But why does it say, ‘Presumed dead’?”
“Because there is no record after 2057.”
“2057? When I was what? Fifteen years old? That’s when I left with Taid.”
“You did not come back, so the system has to presume that you are dead.”
“And that is all that is recorded about me?” I leaned against the wall next to Eluned. “There isn’t much, is there?”
“If you left the Change when you were fifteen then there is nothing else to record. No record of your completing your education. No record of whether you are deemed a child-bearer or childless. No record of Guard duties or work duties. What did you expect? According to the Archivum you ceased to exist as a scholar aged fifteen.”
Seeing this information on the screen before me reinforced the knowledge that somehow, for me, time had slipped. I had left the Change when I was fifteen and spent, as far as I was aware, seven years in various places starting with Plas Maen Heledd. Now, on returning to the Change, I had discovered that what had once been my world had somehow moved on over two hundred years.
“Wait,” Tacita said, as I sank to the floor. “There are three people named as your relative. Surely you must know these names?”
For the first time I looked at the screen without seeing only ‘Presumed dead’. There were indeed three names. The last one I knew immediately – it was my sister, Ffion. After some thought I recognised the second as my mother. Which meant that the first name in the list must be … “It’s Taid,” I yelled. “That must be Taid’s name! And he didn’t even know it himself.”
Chapter 46
Tacita tapped in some keys. Moments later the screen refreshed and ‘Actaeon03?09’ appeared.
“Why the question mark?” I asked, now standing next to Tacita.
“It means they are not sure of the year in which he was born. They think it was, or should have been, 2209 – I mean 2009. Wow. That really was before the Change. Just like you said.”
While she was speaking the screen refreshed. The word ‘Desolatio’ appeared.
“Oh no,” Tacita said. “I feared as much.”
The word scrolled up, as before, and the screen filled up. There was more than had been on my screen, but not much more.
‘Actaeon03?09
Birth not recorded. Presumed March 2009.
Activity post-2020 unknown
Last known record: September 2063 [See below]
Captured in outland August 2063. Convicted leader of known terrorist organisation. Unnamed associates executed September 2063. Sentenced to Desolatio.
Three known relatives: Calliope1129; Semele0442; Latona0545
Desolatio at Deva Caster. No known outcome.’
I stood in silence, staring at the screen. This information was cruel nonsense. Taid had never been the leader of a ‘terrorist’ organisation. Was this what they called the group in Plas Maen Heledd? Was it the Professors who were recorded as ‘unnamed associates’? Had they really been executed? For what? What crime had those eccentric but lovable individuals ever committed? They only wished to be left to their studies of ancient languages and literature. What possible harm could they cause?
“There is nothing else recorded?” I asked Tacita, who, like me, stood staring at the screen.
“This man was your grandfather?” she said, in a small voice.
“Yes,” I replied. “And this is all lies. He was nothing like this.”
“Your grandfather was a terrorist? A leader of terrorists? What have you not told me? I think it is you who have been lying.” She turned to Eluned, still cowering near the door. “Did you know this about her grandfather?” she asked.
Eluned ignored her. “I do not understand, my lady. Where do these words come from? How do they appear as if from nowhere? Why do you think they are about your grandfather?”
“It is Taid’s Ovidian name,” I said. “I did not know it. He didn’t even know it himself, but the Change records everything about us. According to what is recorded here they think he was a terrorist. And they killed the Professors. That is why they destroyed Plas Maen Heledd. They must have thought we were plotting against them.”
Tacita grabbed me by the arm. “What did you say they destroyed? This gets worse. Did your grandfather destroy something? Tell me.” She shook my arm, before I prised myself free.
“He destroyed nothing,” I said, bitterly. “They – the Change – destroyed the house where we were living. We were a group of men and women who spent our time studying old books. That is all. Out in the countryside, miles away from here. There was no possible harm that they could commit.”
“The records do not lie,” Tacita said. “You have lied to me. I trusted you. I thought you intended to do something to help us. Instead you have been plot
ting against us. You are evil. And so is she. The ‘Expected One’? Ha! It’s your code name, isn’t it?”
She ran towards the door. “I’m going to report you,” she yelled, dashing through it.
“Stop her,” I said to Eluned, who was already on her way. “But don’t harm her.”
Moments later Eluned returned, carrying a struggling Tacita, her hand clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet. I closed the door behind them.
“Sit,” I said, as Eluned released Tacita. She was now practically naked, the ragged garment she had been wearing no more than a scrap around one shoulder. She sank down to the floor, trying desperately to cover herself. I knelt beside her, stretching out my arm in an attempt to soothe her. She turned and tried to slap my face, but I grasped her wrist before the blow landed.
“Stop this!” I said, firmly. “Look at you. Look what you have done to yourself. You must not believe everything you are told by the Change. Everything on that screen ...” I turned my head, but the screen was dark. “Everything that was on that screen is wrong. My grandfather was not a terrorist. Nor were his friends. Nor am I. It is my intention to help you. And your people. You should not be as you are. You are twenty years of age, yet look at you.”
She dropped her arms from her chest. Her girlish chest was so thin that her ribs protruded. Her stomach was slightly distended from malnutrition. Her legs and arms were skeletal.
“You think this is how you should look? Does Eluned look like this? You have seen her without clothes. Do I look like this? Of course we don’t. We are young women, who look as young women should look. You are like this because the cruel men who lead your world think that this is how to control you. They reduce women to child-bearers and childless. What gives them the right to decide what should happen to young girls, young women?”
Her hands now flat on the floor, Tacita looked up at me, tears welling up in the dark sockets of her eyes. “Help me, Non,” she whispered. “Please help me.”
I put out my arms and she clung to me, silently sobbing. The silence was suddenly broken by a faint roar in the distance. Tacita pulled her head back at this. “The Festa,” she said. “The Acclamation. It means it will be finishing soon. We must leave before they come out of the Palladium.”
Chapter 47
“I’m going to need your help, Eluned,” I said. Tacita was still clinging to me, and I could not carry her alone, small as she was.
“What shall we do, my lady?” Eluned said, picking up Tacita and carrying her like a child over her shoulder.
“Head back the way we came. We need to leave this caster. And quickly, before they come out of that place.”
We left the Archivum, closing the door behind us, and made our way back down to the central atrium, then up the stairway and out on to the meeting place. The roars from inside the Palladium grew louder and more frequent as we dashed into the street we had come from. As our route was now downhill we covered the ground more quickly, turning at the bottom onto the narrow street on which we should find the hidden route to the doorway near the old bridge.
It was dark again down here, as the buildings were tall and the road so narrow that little light could reach ground level. We slowed to a crawl, hunting for the door which led onto the passageway. As I approached one that looked possible, a hand reached out and gripped my wrist, pulling me into the doorway. A grotesque face leered up at me, one eye missing, a mouth containing only a few shattered fragments of blackened teeth. Terrified, I tried desperately to prise the gnarled fingers off my wrist. As I did so, the creature’s other hand lunged up inside the skirts of my shift, groping at my legs.
“Eluned,” I screamed, unable to pull away.
In the darkness, she had not been able to see what was happening, except that I had stopped for some reason, but when I screamed she deposited Tacita and stepped towards me. Just as suddenly as it had started, the creature’s grip loosened and it seemed to collapse in a heap at my feet. As I stepped back away from it I could see the knife that Eluned had taken from the previous assailant protruding from the back of its neck, blood running down its limp arm.
Tacita, sat in a heap leaning against a wall where Eluned had left her, turned her head. “A Reject,” she said. “We were always warned to be on the lookout for them, but I never really believed they existed. Until now.”
“What is it?” I said, still panting. The creature appeared to have no gender that was apparent.
“It is said that there are girls who refuse to accept that they are chosen to be childless women. Most who do this simply disappear, but there are stories about one or two who manage to escape. They spend their miserable existence like this, lurking in dark doorways, waiting for some unsuspecting childless to pass by. Their minds are twisted. It’s horrible.”
I stared at the miserable heap of what was once humanity that now lay dead before me. I could still feel the thin, bony fingers scrabbling at my legs, and I shivered. “We must go,” I said. “Can you walk now, Tacita?”
“I think so. Eluned could you help me up, please?”
Eluned lifted her up and we walked on. Before long, Eluned pointed at a doorway and said, “Here, my lady.” She pulled open the door and I stepped into the dark passageway beyond. We groped our way along this, bruising ourselves on the walls, until I felt the other door in front of me. I pushed it open to feel a rush of cool air as I stumbled back on to the river bank.
“Your clothes,” I said to Tacita. “They should still be here. We left them on the other side of the bridge. Come on.”
We scrambled up and over the bridge. As I hoped, Tacita’s Guard uniform still lay in a heap where she had dropped them before dressing in the rags of the drowned childless. Slowly, she dressed herself. Eluned and I sat down, grateful to be able to pause, at least for a while, after the madcap hours we had spent in the caster. My right leg felt sore and when I pulled up my skirts I could see that it was covered in scratches up over the knee from the attack by that revolting creature. They were not deep, but tender to the touch, the skin broken enough to cause bleeding in one or two spots.
Sitting down beside me, now dressed, Tacita looked at my leg. “That Reject was exactly like the stories we were told about them. Their faces are broken because the street boys hate them. They throw things at them, or smash them with a door.”
“Why?” I said. “I thought people who live in the shadows like they do would work together.”
“Rejects are neither one thing or the other. They should be childless but they did not receive the injections that make them that way. Instead they become distorted child-bearers. That one was trying to ...” She broke off.
“I think I know what you mean,” I said, and shivered once again. “They’re not poisonous or anything,” I said, looking at the scratches on my leg, which were reddening.
“Just unclean,” Tacita said. “You must wash.” She looked at me and a wide smile spread across her thin, pale face. “You are very brave, Non.”
“No, I’m not. You can thank Eluned for saving me. There was nothing I could do. The creature was holding my wrist so tight that I could not prise it free. It was terrifying. Thankfully, Eluned still had the knife.” I looked at Eluned, who also smiled.
“I am sorry that I doubted you,” Tacita said. “Back there in the Archivum. I still find it difficult to accept that the Change has lied to us. About you. And your grandfather. He was truly not a terrorist, as they say?”
“No, of course he wasn’t. Because he was born and lived before the Change, he could see what was happening, and what was going to happen. The new way of living that we were told by the Apostles would lead us to a better world was nothing but a sham. Two hundred years on and look at where it has brought us. Brought you, especially.”
High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) Page 19