Dropping a hefty club of fallen girder, a grey shape advanced on Rowan from the darkness. Out of the shadows stretched a pale hand, knuckles bloody and darkly glistening, and it clutched the cobbles and dragged the rest out into the light.
A face, streaked with red, slapped with bruises, scowled at her. The breath of the escaped Luxwoman put hot updrafts to her matted hair, and her eyes, sharp and dark as rotten teeth, seemed to lance Rowan from where she lay.
‘How about you?’ she croaked, her chest heaving. She wracked with sobs. ‘You as well? Well, come on…’
Tears streaked down her beaten cheeks.
Rowan cried with her, tried to retreat but the wall blocked her.
‘Please…’ she said.
‘Please what?’ the Luxwoman barked. ‘Didn’t do me much good…’
She dragged herself further across the ground. Ashes blackened the white robe. There was already a tear near the ribs, and it caught on wreckage and ripped to her knee, exposing a thigh blue with bruises. The skin there was as streaked with blood.
‘…Not much good when he did that to me…’
‘No…’ Rowan gasped. ‘Wait…’
‘When he fucked me in chains,’ she spat. She was almost on Rowan now, inches away. With a tortured lunge she grasped her skirt, dirtying the fabric. ‘In chains…!’ she screamed, pulling.
With a hiss and a thud, the Luxwoman spasmed. A silver sword had been driven between her shoulder-blades, and blood rushed out into the stained robes, leapt onto Rowan’s face, and ran into her mouth.
‘My God,’ Caeles said, dropping to his knees in front of her. It had been his wakizashi that had killed the Luxer.
‘Rowan,’ he whispered, eyes wide. He frantically wiped the dead woman’s blood from her cheeks, from her lips, thumbed it out of her eyelashes.
‘Caeles,’ she said, pushing him off.
‘What happened to you?’ he croaked, seeing her new hair, her new clothes. ‘What did he do to you?’
‘Let me stand!’ she said, pushing herself up off the floor, rushing past the body of the Luxwoman.
‘Wait!’ he said, but she was already gone around the corner. He caught up with her in the street. He went to take her hand but she refused, and she looked in horror at the blood that covered his naked chest, painting half his neck and face. He was wet with it.
‘Get away from me,’ she groaned.
‘No,’ he insisted. ‘Rowan, wait, will you? What have you done to your hair? What did Turenn do?’
‘Nothing more,’ she hissed. ‘He’ll do nothing more.’
‘Don’t grieve for him!’
‘Get away,’ she repeated. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Rowan, just look at you! What will Gabel say?’
‘Gabel,’ she snapped, glaring at him before running away, ‘can go and fuck himself.’
Caeles watched her go, speechless. Behind him the still-warm bodies of Turenn and the Luxer prisoner were leaking blood between the cobbles. Caeles eyed the sinking islands of stone, then sheathed his stained sword.
*
Twenty-Two
MEMORIES THROUGH WATER
The young man awoke with a start, pushing himself up in the bed. The poorly-woven blanket slipped from him and crumpled to the floor. He sat like that with his arms barely supporting him as his chest heaved and his eyes, which were wide with shock and confusion, absorbed his surroundings: the bare walls, without paper or paint, and the floors which were a fine but dusty hardwood. There was only one small table in the room. He didn’t notice the chair in the corner, with the monk sitting patiently in it, leg up on one knee, face resting on his fist.
‘Staying awake this time, are you?’ he asked. He leaned forward. ‘Do you know who you are?’
‘Where am I?’
‘The monastery in San Bueto,’ the monk said. ‘You came here a good few weeks ago, remember? You gave one of the acolytes a message for me.’
‘I’ve never heard of San Bueto. Who are you?’
‘I’m Brother Michael,’ he said, and stood, taking a step closer to the bed. He had a shaven head that gleamed in the sunlight, and the tanned olive skin of a Spaniard. The lower half of his face was dark with shaven beard, which still revealed itself despite being cut to the skin every day. He wore a light robe draped over his shoulders, red in colour.
‘Your robe,’ the awakened man croaked. His throat was deathly dry. ‘It’s like…’
‘Blood?’
He nodded.
‘Yes, you might have such thoughts once in a while, Henrique. You were attacked by sanguisuga.’
‘I was?’
‘Yes. I found you on the Transitway, nearly dead. You must have crawled onto it after being attacked, and made it bring you here.’
‘I don’t remember that. I don’t think I’ve … heard of a Transitway.’
‘How’s the light?’ Brother Michael asked.
‘It’s okay.’
‘Doesn’t hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Good, good. Just making sure. We’ve been testing you since I brought you here, but I thought a final check wouldn’t be inappropriate.’
‘What are you talking about?’ The young man tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Michael helped lift him into a sitting position, putting a flat pillow behind him to support his back.
‘Testing you’re not a sanguilac.’
They mix their blood! he remembered hearing … Where had he heard it? In the shaft of light, with the swirling creatures? He’d travelled back with demons. He remembered their shrieks.
‘No, I’m not a sanguilac. Listen … You must tell me, am I cut? Is there blood?’
‘Not at all, Henrique. You’ve been here just under three weeks, and you’ve healed.’
Henrique. Was that his name? It didn’t ring any bells … But other words were coming to him, rising from the depths.
‘I don’t think that my name is Henrique.’
‘Poor boy,’ Michael said, taking a small cloth from one of the folds of his robe and putting it on the young man’s forehead. It was cool and moist. ‘You’ve had a bit of a fever. You kept talking about your mother in your sleep, but you always told me you lived in some abandoned prisoner of war camp with some rogues.’
‘My mother,’ he wheezed, feeling his head swim. ‘I dreamt of her. She was a…’
‘But you don’t have a mother, Henrique.’
‘Stop calling me that,’ he said, sensing the darkness swimming over him again. ‘And don’t call … me boy again, or I’ll … rip out your…’
He fell again into a nightmare sleep, and saw demons and monsters, and a black and winged thing made from smoke.
~
When he came to he was alone again. He spun slowly on the bed, put his bare feet to the ground, and waited a moment before trying to stand.
It was easier than he thought it would be. A slight swimming in his head, a moment of dizziness, and then he was all right. He bent and picked up the blanket, and in doing so noticed his nakedness. Seeing no clothes nearby, he wrapped the blanket around himself and opened the door.
Beyond it was a narrow corridor. There was no-one there, but doors lined the right hand side of it, and there were windows on the left. He looked out over a few willowy trees, and then a small town bustling with people. He saw forest beyond that.
The first door he tried opened into an empty room. The second wasn’t much different, except that there was a monk in blue robes sitting cross-legged on the bed, eyes closed.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured, and the man turned his head slightly, smiled a little smile, and went back to meditating, without opening his eyes.
The third was another bare room, but the fourth led to another corridor, much the same as the first: windows down the left, doors down the right. Outside displayed a rocky cliff about ten feet high. Fifty metres away, a chain of seven or eight monks ran in a large circle on a track of chalk, chanting tunelessly.
He turned back down the
corridor to see the monk in red walk toward him, arms out.
‘Ah!’ said Brother Michael, smile radiant. ‘You’ve reawakened.’
‘Do you have any clothes?’
As if anticipating the question, Brother Michael produced a russet robe from somewhere and handed it over.
‘At least it will match my hair,’ the young man muttered.
Brother Michael looked a weary kind of perplexed. ‘Henrique, perhaps you should look at yourself. You’ve forgotten who you are.’
‘I’m not called that!’ he snapped, raising his fist and letting the blanket fall from around him. ‘I’ve remembered my name. I am William Teague.’
But he didn’t sound fully convinced.
He swapped the towel for the robe, not concerned with his own lack of modesty. If he could face demons and devils naked, he could face a short bald monk.
‘Come this way. We don’t have mirrors, but you remember the pool, don’t you?’
Michael opened a doorway and ushered him inside. The room was much larger than the others he’d seen, with a lower ceiling. There was a pool about a foot deep in the centre, two metres across. Three monks in different coloured robes were meditating around its circumference, but turned and left when they saw the two newcomers.
‘Is there where you bathe?’
‘No, no. There’s a stream to the east of the monastery that we bathe in. This pool is for meditation. You can see your reflection in it, though.’
The young man took a step toward it, looked back at Brother Michael, who signalled he should continue. He knelt by the edge of the pool and looked into it.
The pool was fashioned of white stone, and was a rough circle. The water in it was still and clear, and on its surface he could see his reflection. Or rather, a stranger’s face looking back up at him.
He was no longer the square-jawed man he remembered himself to be, with the russet hair and strong features he’d inherited from his father and father’s father. No more was he muscular and tall, and no longer did his green eyes try to hide the secrets he held. He was shorter, wiry and blond. He was a boy.
‘What’s this?’ he asked quietly. Michael walked up to him and touched his shoulder so that he would stand.
‘Your reflection, Henrique. You see? Do you remember who you are?’
‘No. This isn’t my body.’
‘We all feel like that sometimes.’
‘No, you idiot,’ he said, grabbing the monk by his shoulders. ‘This isn’t me! I was in Hadentes, I’ve come back.’
‘We’ve all been through it,’ Brother Michael said, trying to placate him. He smiled warmly and led him out of the pool-room and back into the corridor.
They wound their way through another hallway until a door on the left wall appeared, surrounded by windows. There were trees outside, and a small path that led to a stream, in which Brother Michael helped William Teague to wash.
‘You don’t understand,’ he protested, letting himself be cleansed. The monk dipped his hands in the freezing, babbling water, and ran them over Teague’s body in rough strokes. Teague allowed this, even though his muscles quivered in protest at each icy touch, and his teeth chattered. ‘I am called William. Believe me that, will you?’
Brother Michael passed him his robe. ‘Will you want your old possessions?’
‘You have some things of mine?’
‘Some things of Henrique’s. Let me show you.’
Brother Michael took him back to the monastery, where the monks who had been running outside were now passing through to get to the stream. They were mostly middle-aged, in their twenties it seemed. People did not live so long anymore.
Teague was led back to the room he awoke in. On the table was a folded sheet, which Michael signalled to. ‘These are the clothes you were found in, and your things. They’re clean, but a bit ragged.’
Teague unfolded the sheet and looked at the tattered remains of a shirt, tunic and trousers. He’d seen clothes like these, and still on their dead owners, too.
I was a monster, he thought.
He rooted around until his fingers touched something like a cord, and as he pulled it a twine necklace followed, with nothing but a small plastic clasp on the end. In the clasp was a large sunflower seed.
He dropped it back into the bundle of clothes and wrapped them up in the sheet. ‘Throw these away for me, and see if you can find me some suitable clothes.’
‘Is what you are wearing not suitable?’
‘Not for outside. Don’t you have any clothes like these?’
‘Torn and useless?’ Michael joked, and gave him that toothy smile again.
‘Don’t play with me. I’m leaving. Thank you for nursing me, though I’m sure I didn’t need it.’
‘No clothes. Sorry.’ Brother Michael opened the door and shot through it, then called through it once it had closed. ‘No need to leave so soon, William, if you want answers.’
~
Teague began exploring the monastery almost as soon as Brother Michael left. Finding his way through the identical corridors, he arrived at a door that led into the centre of the place, around which the sleeping rooms lay. It was a large hall, accessible only through a short corridor between two of the bedrooms.
Bare and cold, the hall seemed a useless part of the structure. Monks and acolytes sat in various places and positions inside the room, yet Teague was the only one shivering, and many of the people there were bare-chested.
He started to walk down through the centre of the room until he was stopped by a young girl in thin cotton robes. ‘You may only walk clockwise around the Hall,’ she whispered, holding out a vertical palm to stop him moving.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t question,’ she said, and then sat down. Teague walked left to the closest wall and moved clockwise along it until he arrived at the second corner, which was empty of people, and sat down with his legs crossed, to think.
He had a lot to think about. He could vaguely recall a time of great pain and uncertainty. There was darkness in his recent past that troubled him, but he couldn’t bring the details into focus. He opened his eyes.
There were several people around him. Some sat crossed legged, others on their knees, and some stood; one leant facing against the wall with his hands pressed against it, muscles quivering. Most had their eyes closed, and many were wearing nothing but loose rags that served as underwear.
Most were men, he saw, but there were about a dozen girls and women. The youngest that Teague could see was about ten years old, a girl with a shaven head. She was completely naked, with her arms held up in front of her skinny body, hands clasping her own wrists. Her nipples were brown and hard, and her ribs exposed through her skin.
The oldest of them looked near death, Teague guessed around fifty years of age. His beard was a good seven inches long and curled into ringlets, as did his greying hair. He sat on his haunches, thighs tight with the strain of the position, and his eyes were rolled back in his head. His lips muttered soundless prayers.
There was peace for Teague in that hall. He considered the gap in his memory. Was it the result of the transition between one body and the other? Attempting to recall his last experience as the true William Teague, he could only bring forth a misty image of dense woodland and a silver pistol. Yes, he had been shot … but there was no pain. Of course, his true body was the one that had been injured, not this one. Still, for some reason he expected agony and was recurrently shocked to find that there was none. Something terrible had happened to him.
Teague sat for twenty minutes before becoming weary of the self-reflection. The urge to simply leave began to take him over and he acted on that urge. Passing the windows in the corridor, he once more saw over the small cliff onto the dusty plateau. The runners that had been circling it were gone now, and there were only two people left, standing together looking up at the sky.
He went outside, following the wall back to the plateau and making his way toward a dusty slope to
the side of the cliff. He was finding the body he inhabited to be much weaker than his own. He had a tough time getting up the steep slope.
He crossed the plateau, arriving behind the two figures that were facing the other way, gazing at the cumulus clouds as they drifted slowly by. The clouds were white, with no sign of rain.
‘It’s hard to believe we’ll be leaving this place,’ one said, not sensing Teague’s presence. She was a girl of about nineteen. ‘It’ll be hard.’
‘Yes,’ said the other, an older male. ‘But we’ll adjust. We don’t have any other choice.’
‘It’s a long trek across the desert to the west.’ The girl peered over in that direction, her willowy arms hanging by the sides of her narrow folded robe. ‘You know some of us won’t make it.’
‘I’m sure we’ll all be fine.’
‘I don’t think so, Brother Paul.’
‘Don’t worry! The Ministrati know what they’re doing. If they’re sending us west, then it’s our obligation to take the most direct route.’
‘But across the Plains?’
‘Verlaine, do you have to question so much? Accept this directive given to us all, like the others do. Don’t bother to question the Ministrati; they won’t tolerate another act of insubordination. You’re already trying their patience. Brother Michael says you risk banishment.’
‘I don’t care. I can’t stand by and let them lead us all through such a dangerous place. Not all of us, not the young ones as well. What good would it do to give us this directive and only have a few dying survivors left to carry it out to the finish? The young and old would be dead after two weeks on the Sinh-ha Plains and you know it, Paul.’
‘Sister Verlaine…’
‘What?’
She turned now, and glared at the man. Teague could now see her face: beautifully oval, soft in features and fair of skin. She had long eyelashes above brown eyes, a thin pair of lips and sun-bleached hair that was hurriedly cut. Her eyes shot daggers at the one named Paul, who was gangly and red-headed.
‘What?’ she said again. ‘Are you going to stop me? Are you going to tell the Ministrati I’m a rogue, like Brother Michael calls me? Tell me!’
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