“Is this the fence?” I asked Catulla, walking alongside her.
“Yes,” she said. “And the gate is not too far from here. There! Look.”
She pointed ahead, where the fence turned and ran down to the river. Where it crossed the path there was a double gate. It was just as high, but did not have the part that leaned out. There did not appear to be anybody guarding the gate, which I had half-expected, given that the Change seemed to fear nothing these days.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“We carry on. That is what you wish, isn’t it?” Tacita said. There was a slight mocking tone to her voice which I had not heard before.
“What about the gate?”
“What about the gate? Ah, you think it will be locked, don’t you? Not likely.” She walked up to the gate and calmly pushed one side open. She turned. “See? Nothing is locked. Is it, Catulla?”
“Why would it be locked?” Catulla asked, astonished at the suggestion.
“Who knows?” I said as we passed through. Behind us, the gate quietly closed.
Chapter 51
Catulla took a few paces inside the gate and stopped. “I did not come as far as this, you understand. When I saw the gate I returned to where the other two were. By the time I reached them they had finished their business.”
As we walked along, I was still pondering why the gates were not locked. And why there was such a high, dangerous-looking fence if that was the case. “Don’t they think those inside the fence would wish to escape?” I asked.
“Why would they wish to escape?” Tacita asked. Again her tone was slightly mocking.
“Well, Desolatio is a punishment, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Wouldn’t those who are condemned to Desolatio wish to escape this punishment if they could?”
“I don’t understand. You keep talking of ‘escape’. If you are punished, it is your duty to accept that punishment. Surely you saw that at the Concilium. Did those women condemned to death try to escape? Of course they didn’t. It was their punishment. They accepted it. For the good of the Change. Nothing is done that is not for the good of the Change.”
“So those men who have presumably been brought here will simply accept the fact. Without question.”
“Without question. To question their punishment would be to question the Change. Who would wish to do that?”
“You,” I said, smiling at her. “Me. Your sister. What are you doing if not ‘questioning’ the Change?”
“We have not been punished. The matter is different. You wanted to know why people would not wish to escape from Desolatio. I have given you the reason. What Catulla and I are doing is a different matter entirely.”
“You think so?” I could not believe what I was hearing.
“Of course I think so. I chose to join you. To give up my duties as a Guard. That is not a crime. It will not help me should I choose to return to my caster, but it is not a crime. Why are you here, Catulla?”
“To be with you,” she said. “I did not know you were with these women. I still do not know why they are here. Or even who they are. But I am with you now. Sisters together.”
“So you see. Neither of us is a criminal. We can return. If we wish. When we wish. We are both childless. No one will notice our absence. No one would record our return. You, on the other hand.” She paused.
“What about me?” I said.
Tacita turned to her sister. “Non claims that she left the Change in 2065. Do you think that is possible?”
“You mean 2265,” Catulla giggled.
“No. She claims to have left in 2065. Over two hundred years ago. Yet, as you see, she is not much older than me. Younger than you.”
“This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? You’re trying to make me look foolish. You always used to do that when we were in Schola.”
“Not at all. She says she is the ‘Expected One’. Eluned calls her ‘my lady’. Did you not hear her say that? She says she doesn’t know what it means to be the ‘Expected One’, but she doesn’t deny it. Do you, Non? Oh Expected One.”
I was becoming increasingly irritated by her attitude, which seemed to have developed after her sister had joined us.
“It was your choice to accompany us, Tacita,” I said. “Yours and yours alone. You said you knew what the consequences would be, yet you came anyway. I have explained what I believe is expected of me – which I assure you I do know, Catulla – although I may not be sure, yet, how I am to achieve my goal. What I have seen since we arrived at Deva Caster, as well as what I saw in Salopian Caster, together with what Catulla has told us of life here, has convinced me that something must be done.”
“She’s going to change the Change,” Tacita laughed. Her sister joined in. “Can you believe it? A two hundred year old mad woman seriously thinks she can make a difference to our lives.”
“She is not two hundred years old,” Catulla said, still laughing. “But I think she’s certainly mad. Perhaps we should leave here in Desolatio. She can make friends with all the other madmen and women who live here.”
“Good idea,” Tacita said. “Come on, let’s you and me go back to the caster. They can stay here and pretend they are the ‘Expected Ones’. Will that be all right, my lady?”
She turned, grasped her sister’s hand and headed back to the gate. Just before she reached it, Catulla slipped free and walked back towards us. “Do you seriously believe...” she started to say.
There was a blinding flash which almost knocked us off our feet. When my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness it was to see something I hope I will never see again. The gate remained closed, but a detached hand clung to it, while an incinerated body lay smoking beneath it. Eluned grabbed Catulla as she started to dash forward.
“No,” I yelled. “You cannot help her. I knew there would be security. I knew it.”
Chapter 52
Catulla yelled and screeched and kicked, thrashing about as Eluned held her fast, until, exhausted, she collapsed like a rag doll. Eluned laid her down on the side of the path, and sat down beside her, still holding one limp hand. I knelt down.
“I did warn your sister,” I said, quietly. “I knew there had to be a reason for the fence and the gates.”
“What does this mean, my lady? Eluned asked.
“It means that you can enter the compound, but you cannot leave. There is no danger to those on the outside, but for those inside, the danger is fatal. I have never seen such a thing before.”
Catulla, still sobbing, sat up, rubbing her thin arms. “So long since we were together,” she said. “And now she is gone. Why? Why?”
“She was too hasty,” I said. “She came all this way with us, willingly. She gave up her duties as a Guard, willingly. Yet in the end she could not free herself from the shackles of the Change.”
She looked up at me. “I don’t understand. What shackles?”
“You, your sister, everyone, is trapped in this world. You may try to escape its hold, but in the end you can’t. It’s as simple as that. It draws you back in, no matter how hard you try. Why did you decide to join us?”
“To be with my sister, of course.”
“No other reason? You were not attempting to rebel against the Change?”
“Rebel? Why should I rebel? Where else would I go?”
Eluned shook her head, sadness written on her face. “It is useless, my lady. They are, as you said, chained to this place. To this way of living. No matter that we find it an abomination. This truly is a place of desolation. We must leave this place.”
“Yes, but how?” I said. I stood up and walked a little way back towards the gate. The incinerated remains that had once been Tacita still lay where they had fallen. The river flowed silently to one side; on the other nothing could be seen in the darkness. The fence stretched away into an invisible distance. “We have no choice but to walk on. Who knows what we might find, but there is no alternative.”
> Catulla rose to her feet. “You will take me with you?”
“That’s up to you,” I said.
She released her hand from Eluned’s grip with a sharp pull. “Only because I want to. I am not your prisoner.”
I sighed. “You were never our prisoner. Nor was your sister. You may stay here or come with us. You are free to choose.”
She scowled at Eluned and set off along the path. For a moment I simply watched as her thin, wasted body, clothed in rags, stumbled along. Then with a silent signal to Eluned I followed her. Peering into the semi-darkness I could feel myself shaking. It had been a long time since I had felt the true grip of fear, but I recognised it now. We were walking to somewhere completely unknown. A place where men and women had been condemned to live for committing some act that was contrary to the laws of the Change. The five men we had followed to reach this place – what had they done? There had been no mention of their ‘crimes’. The word ‘Desolatio’ had been uttered before them and now they were inside this terrible fence. If they were truly criminals, what sort of life would they lead inside the compound?
Fear stimulated my imagination. I could see only a lawless wasteland where the condemned struggled to exist, hunted down by the ones who were stronger, damned to a life that was little more than a daily round of terror. Life in this world of the Change that I had seen in Salopian Caster and the amphitheatrum of Deva Caster was difficult enough. That poor creature who had thrown herself from the ramparts to avoid a more painful death. The terrifying sight of two women forced to destroy each other in a sword fight. And yet this was the supposedly ‘ordered’ world created by the leaders of the Change. Without even this appalling ‘order’ what could possibly be happening in this place of Desolatio?
The gorge we were in at first soon began to widen. The river became little more than a swift-flowing stream. The cliffs either side still soared into the sky but they moved perceptibly further and further apart. After some time Eluned put out her arm and blocked my way. Catulla was still some way ahead of us, but she had also stopped.
“What is it now?” I asked, becoming more and more frustrated. The fear I had experienced earlier had long evaporated as we struggled along.
“There,” Eluned said, with one of her enigmatic smiles. She was pointing upwards this time. Following her finger I could just make out what appeared to be an opening about half way up the face of the cliff opposite us.
“So?” I said. “What am I supposed to be looking at? A hole in the rock face?”
“It is a cave, my lady. I am sure of it. That one has also seen it. That is why she has stopped.”
Catulla stood, some distance away from us, obviously staring up at the same thing we were.
“Why should a cave be so fascinating?” I said, irritated. “What of it?”
“See below it, my lady.” She was still pointing in the same direction as far as I could see, but I lowered my sight from the cave itself. I was able to make out a figure that seemed to be climbing up towards the cave. From the way it moved it was clear that it was ascending by means of steps that we could not see.
“What is it?” I asked. “Someone climbing up to that cave?”
“So it would appear, my lady.”
The thought struck me that this was perhaps the way those condemned to live here managed to stay safe, finding themselves an isolated and hard-to-reach cave.
“Let’s go,” I said, still irritated. Just as we were about to walk on a fist-sized rock crashed into the path between us and Catulla before rebounding into the river. Stunned, we stopped in our tracks, looking up to our left. A figure stood on an outcrop of rock, close enough for us to see him whirl something above his head. Another rock soared down, this time straight into the river, bouncing along the bed several times. Catulla immediately ran off up the path and I dashed forward in an attempt to go with her.
“No, my lady!” Eluned screamed as another rock smashed into the path just in front of me. She grabbed my arm and we plunged into the river, wading across and up the scree on the far side, our feet sliding wildly on the loose stones. I thought I heard the splash of one or two more rocks behind us, but did not dare stop to look.
We eventually managed to reach a small ledge where we lay flat, panting and exhausted. I looked up but could see no sign of the attacker – or Catulla. She had gone. If it had not been for Eluned’s quick thinking, realising that the attackers’ rocks had a limited range, we could have been struck by one of them.
“I thought this might be happening in this place. It may be the only way to survive,” Eluned said.
“We can’t go on,” I said, sitting up. “If that is how they exist, there must be more than the one we saw. Humans turned to animals. Hunting for food wherever they can find it.”
“No, my lady.” I turned. Tears streamed down Eluned’s face. Seeing them unleashed my own.
Chapter 53
For the next hour or so we sat morosely on the ledge. I thought about the two sisters, both of them products of the Change in its sinister attempt to level and order society. Increasingly, it struck me, this was an anti-female society. Girls and women had been reduced to child-bearers and childless, neither of any real importance, readily discarded for any breach of an absurd set of laws. The childless, in particular, struck me as perverse. What sort of society would physically distort more than half of its females in this way? Merely to create a horde of slave-like creatures with no will or desire to live.
Though we said little, I could sense that Eluned’s thoughts were similar to mine. She had lived through countless societies since the dim and distant past, yet I was sure that she had never previously encountered one as brutal and inhumane as this. What had happened to the Change that had been embraced so eagerly when I was a child growing up within it? We thought that the world had changed for the better. Perhaps we children had struggled to understand the purpose of the education we received, but what child does understand? We grumble and groan but in our hearts we assume that the adults know best.
As for my supposed task as the Expected One – that seemed to have disappeared forever. Eluned and I were trapped inside this place that was indeed desolate. We were too afraid to carry on along the path we had been following, yet we could not retrace our steps for there was no way past the fence that surrounded this place. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into a state of despair. Eluned, as always, roused me from these thoughts.
“The cave, my lady,” she said, suddenly standing up. “The cave,” she repeated.
I looked up at her, half inclined to believe that she had lost her mind.
“We must seek out the cave. I am sure it offers protection.”
“Protection?” I laughed. “We saw someone going up to it. He – or she for all I know – is probably just as bad as that lot. We climb all the way up there just to be … just to be ...” I broke off.
“No, my lady. You are mistaken.” She was insistent.
I had nothing to lose. There was no way forward from where we were. And no way back. Reluctantly, I rose to my feet. “Which way then?”
Eagerly, Eluned set off up the loose scree above the ledge. I followed her. Incredibly, after just a short climb we came on another path. This had been cut out of the lower face of the cliff and to our right it clearly headed up. I was a little more enthusiastic as we set off. Slowly, the path wound its way up the side of the cliff.
The air grew cooler as we ascended and the sun began to decline. Fortunately, its rays shone on the cliff face as it descended, so the path remained well lit. I soon became reluctant to look down, as our distance from the ground increased. Then the path gave way to steps that were just wide enough for one person. I held myself tight against the face of the cliff as we ascended, my eyes fixed on a tiny square on the back of Eluned’s shift.
High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) Page 22