Godolkin pondered this for a moment. "And how might we do that?"
Red grinned. "I'm a Search and Destroy agent, remember? So we'll start with some searching, and then move onto the destroying." She rubbed her hands together, and began to think about changing disguises again. The posters were a little too accurate for comfort.
It felt good to have a plan, even if it wasn't much of one. She could only hope that it would lead her to Harrow, and not to the noose-end of a long rope...
7. UNDER THE EYE
If Judas Harrow hadn't been making sure that Red got away from the soldiers, he would not have been captured. Such was his devotion to her that, even strapped to a torturer's frame in the depths of some nameless dungeon, he still considered it a small price to pay.
He wasn't entirely sure how he had ended up there. The time between the fight with the soldiers and his arrival in the dungeon was somewhat hazy but, given the ferocity of the blow he had received, that was hardly surprising. He was probably lucky to still have all his wits although, as he looked around the chamber, with its stark white walls and tables full of the most horrid instruments of torture, Harrow couldn't quite consider luck to be entirely on his side.
Durham Red had evaded capture. That was the important thing.
Harrow closed his eyes, gingerly resting his head back against the frame. There was a spot at the rear of his skull that ached solidly, throbbing so hard he could almost hear it. That, as far as he could recall, was where the second halberdier's weapon had struck him.
That part of the fight was very clear to him. He remembered battling the first group of soldiers, doing his best to incapacitate them without serious injury. There had been no agreement between him and the others to pull their punches, but he had noticed Red doing so with increasing frequency of late. Of course, she wouldn't hesitate to end a life if her own safety or that of her companions demanded it, but she did tend to be a little more lenient with those who got in her way, these days.
Perhaps, Harrow had come to consider, there could come a point when even Saint Scarlet of Durham grew tired of death.
Things had been going reasonably well, although once the opposition had started to thin out the remainder had begun to take advantage of the extra space. Swords had started to swing more wildly, soldiers had taken to working in pairs rather than the initial crowded mêlée. Harrow was having to alter his fighting style constantly just to keep all of his limbs attached and that was before the three halberdiers and their leader had arrived.
It was very possible that Red didn't even know how close she had come to having her spine severed. When she had made her break for freedom, the extraordinarily balletic way in which she had vaulted over the first halberdier had put the armoured man cleanly onto his back and given her a sizeable momentum with which to start her sprint. It had also left her horribly open to a second white-clad soldier, and he had been leaping forwards with his blade held aloft before Red's boots had touched the ground.
Harrow had seen exactly what was going to happen, and known that he could not allow it. He had left the fray he was involved in, taking a ringing slap across the shoulders with the flat of a sword in the process, and dived at the second halberdier's waist.
He had brought the man down, and Red had been away. Before he could draw breath, the other end of the halberd had swung around and down to the back of his head, and that had been that.
Things became strange after that, events breaking up into jerking fragments of sensation that didn't seem to fit together. There was the feeling of ice-cold stone pressing into the side of his face, for example, and then that faded into the sight of the thin man in white staring hard into his face. After that, the warmth and smell of some large animal, and the feeling of movement.
Lastly, after a parade of similar images, he had gradually come to his senses in the dungeon.
His boots and the peasant's clothes he had faked up from Fury's supply chests had been stripped away, leaving him naked but for his trousers. His wrists had been shackled above his head, his ankles strapped down too. The frame was made of thick spars of oiled wood, with iron fixings, and it hung from the ceiling on heavy chains. He had quickly given up on finding some miraculous weak spot or flaw in the frame's construction. He had been secured most effectively, by people who had done the same kind of thing many times before, and had gotten to be very good at it.
None of which gave Harrow much comfort. He kept his eyes closed, and listened to his head hurting in time with his heartbeat.
Exhaustion and his injury must have had their way with him for a time after that, because the next thing Judas Harrow did was wake up. He jolted back to consciousness with a start that sent spikes of pain through his head.
Somewhere high above him, a bell was tolling. He could feel its vibration through the frame. He tried to count how many times it rang, to gauge how long he had been in the dungeon, but it stopped just as he began, leaving him in silence once more.
The lack of sound disturbed him more than the pain, oddly enough. That might have been a tactic on behalf of his captors, to soften him up before the hooks and the blades, and if so it was a highly effective one. Harrow was starting to focus on irrelevant details, like the sound of his own breathing. That, he knew, was a fatal mistake.
At this stage, it would be best for him to remain alert, and learn as much from his jailers as they intended to learn from him.
He began to move on the frame, angling his limbs in the shackles so that he could see more of his surroundings. The frame had been hung so that he was facing a blank wall, with the tables of implements just within his field of vision. Lanterns glowed all around, providing a reasonable degree of illumination, and the walls themselves had been faced with rough plaster, painted white. The floor was bare stone, and set with drain-holes.
There were no windows that he could see, which made sense. There was a door, but it was far over to his right. He could just about make out one edge of its frame.
Harrow let his head hang forwards. He wondered if the techniques of resistance he had been taught by the Tenebrae adepts would be any good at all to him here.
At that point, there was a new sound, a harsh metallic rattling. Harrow turned as far as he could, and saw the door swinging open.
Four people filed into the chamber. Leading them was the thin man he had seen in the square, still clad in his plain white robes. Behind him came two of the armoured halberdiers, although they carried more compact bladed staffs. Lastly, a tall woman, powerfully-built and dressed in what Harrow could only describe as a cross between a nun's habit and a butcher's apron, and carrying a heavy canvas bag. Judging by the musculature of her bare arms, and the stains adorning her outfit, her role in the coming events was obvious.
The thin man wasted no time on theatrics. He walked quickly around to stand in front of Harrow, while the soldiers took position on either side. The woman closed the door, and Harrow heard the clatter of its lock.
"My name," said the thin man in a calm, reasonable voice, "is Lord Willem Makeblise."
He was younger than Harrow had first thought him to be, his face smooth and unlined. His scalp was shaved, which added to the illusion of greater years. The robe he wore was very plain, in a simple cut of clean white linen, and his only adornment was a metal symbol slung on a chain around his neck.
When Harrow looked more carefully at that, he saw it was an eye.
Makeblise spoke again. "Will you tell me your name? It would make things easier."
"You'll understand if I prefer not to."
"Of course." The man put his hands together, fingertips lightly touching. "I should not have expected otherwise. You are no fool, stranger, I can see that."
Harrow glanced up at his own wrists, and tugged ineffectually at the shackles. "That's debateable."
"That was not foolishness, stranger, that was loyalty to your companions. I saw how you saved the woman at the cost of your own freedom, and I cannot condemn that. Loyalty i
s the utmost of all virtues. It is to be prized, and nurtured."
He moved forwards a step, looking deep into Harrow's eyes. "I also have loyalties, as you will discover."
"Who to?"
"To the city. It must be protected, stranger, at any cost." He turned away, and walked over to one of the tables, picking up one of the items that lay there. It glittered darkly as he held it to the light. "You see this?"
"I do."
"It is called, I believe, a devil's claw. Used by someone skilled in the art, it can rend flesh in a most particular manner. I've heard that it can be used to strip the muscles from a man's body one at a time." He put the claw down and picked up a long hook. "This is used to draw out a man's innards, so they can be burned before his eyes and this..." A saw-edged hammer gleamed beneath the lanterns. "Honestly, stranger, I have no idea what this is for."
Harrow knew, but he wasn't about to venture the information. He kept his silence as Makeblise moved away from the table to join the woman.
She lifted the canvas bag, and opened it up. Makeblise peered into it, and a slight flicker of distaste played over his face. He reached in, gingerly, and when his hand withdrew, his long fingers were wrapped tightly around something small and dark.
He stepped back in front of Harrow and held it out to him. It was his comm-linker.
"You were carrying this when my people stripped you, stranger. What is it?"
Harrow shrugged, or did the best he could while shackled. "A trinket. A keepsake from my mother."
"I see." Makeblise reached down into the bag again, and took out Harrow's light-drill. "This?"
"A tinder-box."
"And this?"
Harrow tried not to draw back. Makeblise was clutching a plasma derringer, and his finger was very close to the trigger. "Ah, that's a bottle of breath-freshener. Please be careful, it is rather expensive."
"I see." Makeblise took the three items over to the table and set them down. "I've not seen their like before."
"Have you not? They are common enough where I come from."
"And where, would you tell me, is that?"
"Not far. Perhaps a part of the city that you don't frequent."
Makeblise turned to Harrow again, fixing him with a sad, liquid gaze. "Very well. Stranger, once again I commend your loyalty, if not your honesty."
He snatched up the derringer, brought it up sure and fast and snapped off a single shot at the far wall.
The noise was deafening; Harrow flinched as the bolt snarled across the chamber, blasting a head-sized chunk of plaster into dust and flame. The lantern Makeblise had aimed at was instantly turned to vapour, and a few scraps of iron went hissing through the air on tracks of grey smoke.
Makeblise turned the weapon over in his hand. "My, that would freshen the breath, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps you're not using it right."
"Stranger, I've already told you that you are no fool. Understand that I'm not one, either." He pointed at the light-drill. "This is a portable cutting tool, and this 'trinket' is a communications device. They do not come from this city, or indeed from anywhere on this planet."
Harrow said nothing. His ears were ringing from the closeness of the plasma shot.
"So," Makeblise continued, placing the derringer carefully back on the tabletop. "My question is this, off-worlder. What are you doing in my city?"
"Tourism," said Harrow brightly. "I heard the dungheaps were especially attractive at this time of year."
Makeblise's smooth face creased in a slight frown. "Ridicule me again, stranger, and you will discover the functions of some of my devices. I assure you they are just as effective as yours, in their own way."
"I've no doubts about that, believe me."
"Well?"
"An accident. Our vehicle crashed."
The thin man closed his eyes for a moment. "The falling star," he breathed. "You brought your companions, and the infernal devices they carry. What else?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The beast, stranger. The dragon."
Harrow shook his head. "I know of no dragon, Makeblise. What are you talking about?"
"No matter." Makeblise opened his eyes. "Rumour and conjecture, nothing more. Guards?"
The two halberdiers stepped forwards. Makeblise pointed up at Harrow. "Release him."
Makeblise sent the torturer away. Harrow took this as a good sign, although the two guards stayed in close proximity as he was led from the dungeon. Neither was he completely released from his bonds: the shackles stayed around his wrists, locking them firmly together.
He was taken out into a narrow stone corridor, with doors along its length that spoke of a fair number of dungeons similar to that he had been held in. Sounds issued from some of them as he was led past, but none that he could identify. The heavy wood of the doors muffled all but the most piercing cries.
"You present me with a singular problem, stranger," Makeblise told him, as they rounded a corner and stepped into a long, vaulted hallway. "Legends tell us that the God obliterated all worlds but ours, in his anger. You appear to give lie to that."
"Sorry."
"No need to apologise. We are not so set in our beliefs that they cannot be re-evaluated. You must understand, however, that these things take time. The longer your companions evade our marshals, the more chance there is of their affecting the status quo."
"I must warn you, Makeblise, if they wish to remain hidden they'll do so and don't expect them to come after me - I'm nothing to them."
"Really? Your actions towards the woman would indicate otherwise."
"Loyalty does not always flow two ways."
"Ah." Makeblise raised his wedded hands, touching his fingertips to his lips in contemplation. "This is true for us both, I fear, and therein lies our greatest problem."
"Let me guess, not every citizen shares your enthusiasm for the status quo."
"You see much, stranger."
They had reached the end of the hall. There were broad doors at the end of it, topped with an eye-symbol fully two metres across. Harrow looked up at it as they neared the doors, and Makeblise noted this as he stopped. "The Eye of God looks down on us all, stranger."
"I'm sure it does."
Harrow was expecting the man to open the great doors, but instead he moved to one side of them. He put his hands to the stone wall, and pressed in a certain way. There was a faint sound, of some hidden mechanism, and a far smaller door swung inwards.
The wood of the door had been faced and painted to resemble stone, and the area kept deliberately shadowed. "Ingenious," Harrow said, rather impressed.
"We have our moments." Makeblise ducked through the hidden door, and Harrow followed. He was rather pleased to notice that the two guards stayed outside, and closed the door behind him.
The passageway beyond the door was wider than Harrow might have expected, and it sloped downwards at a shallow angle. Makeblise stepped to one side, motioning Harrow to go past him. As he did, he saw that the thin man now held the plasma derringer.
"There is a reason that God's tears fell on Purity, stranger, and why even Igantia was scoured. Certain documents remain from before that day, and they tell us many things."
"Is that what you're taking me to see?"
"No. To view them is death. However, there are certain summaries which adepts of the Endura may, under strict controls, take instruction from."
"What do they tell you?"
"That our world was once like yours, corrupt and livid with the stink of technology."
It was getting cold in the passageway. Harrow, who had not been given any of his other clothes back, was starting to feel the chill. "And you believe that God destroyed the other cities because of their corruption?"
"This is no idle conjecture, stranger. Igantia had already begun to reject the way of technology, to seek the piety of earlier times. It was this that saved us."
"Igantia was damaged."
"The others were remove
d, utterly obliterated for their vanity; a fact that seems to have escaped certain members of our population. There are those who, despite the very presence of the Eye, would overturn all that we have worked for and bring the bitter tears of destruction back down upon our heads!"
Makeblise was as animated as Harrow had ever seen him, and little wonder. Finally, Harrow had been given a glimpse of what was really going on.
Brite Red had attacked Gerizim and ripped free all the settlements that were of use to her. Igantia, for whatever reason, had already started to shun technology, so she just levelled it out of spite. The survivors, terrified of the machine's return, and completely unaware of its real nature, had rebuilt their lives without any of the technological trappings that had caused the attack.
They had been right. That was the amazing thing. In this welter of fear and superstition, the mad assumption they had constructed this medieval lifestyle around was actually right. Technology had been their downfall, and its lack their salvation.
There was no way they could know that the Manticore was gone.
Harrow had reached the end of the passageway. It terminated in a heavy wooden door, braced with iron. It was closed, but Harrow knew better than to try opening it himself. "Is that why you set the marshals on us? You thought our technology would bring down God's fury again?"
"Not directly but you may have played into the hands of Daedalus had you not been apprehended."
"Who?"
"A group that does not see the truth as we do. Step aside, stranger." Makeblise waited until Harrow had moved out of the way, and then leaned forwards to rap sharply on the door with his free hand. As soon as he did so a panel in the door's inner section snapped upwards. Harrow saw darkness beyond, and the glint of steel.
"It is I," Makeblise called, "and a prisoner."
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