The Misrule series Box Set

by Andy Graham

  “Relax, I’m not accusing you of anything.” Drak limped over and sat next to Lenka, placing a paw on her lap.

  Stella gestured. “Where did you get it from?”

  “Him, not it.” Lenka ruffled the dog’s ears. “A family in the next village was getting rid of him. They had a baby a few years back. Drak was all over the child at first, even trying to help clean him when he needed changing.” She laughed at Stella’s questioning look. “The only way a dog can. Look it up if you don’t know. Then Drak got bored and let the kid be. About a year later he suddenly wouldn’t leave the baby alone. The parents were thrilled that the two were friends again. It was all gentle play, but the size and claws made a big difference. Drak near took the boy’s eye out. I’m sure it was an accident. The parents were, too, but didn’t want to risk it happening again, or too many questions being asked. At the time, I had two dogs already, so thought one more wouldn’t matter.” She smiled and refilled their mugs. “It’s a bit like children. How many do you have?”

  “We were one of the lucky ones; we won the lottery allowing us to have more than one.”

  “There seem to have been a lot of winners recently.”

  “I suspect the Pregnancy Directive is proving harder to enforce than the government will admit to.”

  “Really?” Lenka quirked an eyebrow at her. “My suspicions are that the government has finally realised we have a population that needs more prostate checks, menopause pills and walking sticks than it does teething rings and cots, but are too proud to admit their mistake.”

  “Are all people from the Free Towns so cynical?” Stella asked.

  “Only the ones above ground.”

  Stella felt in her pocket. The scanner was still there. Silly, she thought. No reason for it not to be. No point hiding it, either. Stella placed it on the table next to her cup. The older woman gave it a quizzical look but ignored it.

  “My husband wanted four kids,” Stella said. “I thought we could handle two. We compromised and have two.” She grinned. “I had the casting vote. But at times, it feels like two and a half.”

  Lenka’s laugh was cut short by a coughing fit which brought tears to her eyes. “I remember the feeling. One child plus one child is a whole lot more work than two. If it’s any consolation, it gets easier. The third one makes the total something like 2.9.”

  “Never going to happen.”

  “That’s what I said, then I ended up with Ray and—” she stopped, hunching over her drink.

  “Ray and who?”

  Lenka didn’t reply. The skin across the back of her knuckles grew taut and pale.

  Some questions would have to wait. Stella steered the conversation onto safer topics. “What happened to the baby?”

  Lenka’s drink froze halfway to her mouth. “Which baby?”

  “The one Drak scratched.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Lenka’s cup clattered on the table as she put it down. Her hand was trembling. “We have a saying: the devil can’t steal the same soul twice. That poor family did get hit twice. The baby died of White Plague soon after I took Drak in. Back then it was thought to have been eradicated. Then the couple had twins.”

  The hairs stood up on the back of Stella’s neck. Lenka’s gaze probed Stella’s face. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Stella glanced towards the gate. “When I was a junior doctor I was assigned to a consultant,” she whispered. “I watched him telling a young mother she was expecting twins and the choice she faced. The look on the woman’s face still haunts me. I witnessed her sign the non-disclosure forms. The consultant ensured I signed the same.” She shuddered and checked her phone. It was off. The sky was clear of the flashing lights of drones and sun fans. She was getting paranoid. “I don’t understand how so few people outside of a maternity ward know twins are possible,” she said hurriedly.

  “That’s what the younger generation have been taught and the older generation are encouraged to forget.”

  “But the records and files—”

  “Have been altered,” Lenka finished. “Any discrepancies are blamed on the digital degradation problem. I hear you can still find some info on the Light Net, but the authorities are winning the silent fight to take it off line.”

  “I’m not even going to try to access that. It’s not worth it.”

  “There aren’t many places you can access it anonymously. There never have been.”

  “Is there info about the X517 code there?”

  A gust of wind sent shivers through the leaves on the trees.

  “I told you to forget that.“ Lenka’s voice grew grim. “Do the government still have the same solution to twins?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. It’s not the kind of thing you talk about, or think about, if possible. A colleague of mine made the mistake of mentioning it in the hospital canteen one day. We never saw her again. I daren’t even mention it to my husband.”

  “There are very few things that are truly evil in this world. The silent purge of left handers all those years ago was one—” Lenka hawked and spat bloody phlegm into the grass. “Damn my age, I can’t keep my mouth quiet anymore.”

  “I already know something of the left handers. An ex told me some bits.”

  “Best you forget those bits.” Lenka reached for a hanky and dabbed the blood-flecked spittle off her chin. “That twin ruling is the second evil,” she continued, “I’ve seen first hand the damage it can do to people.”

  Stella clutched the lapels of her jacket, pulling it tight against the chill. “I know of that, too. I spent the rest of my rotation as a junior doctor taking on every menial, filthy task I could find. Just in case I had to tell the expectant mothers the same news and the choice they faced. I feel like a coward.”

  “Don’t waste your energy. Cowardice is confused with common sense. It’s not always about being courageous at all times, no matter what the cost. Take my situation. I’m expected to be brave in the face of my death. I don’t want to be. I’m scared. I want to kick, scream and shout from the rooftops, go down disgracefully rather than with dignity. I don’t want to make other people feel good about their own mortality when I’m about to have my own stripped away from me”

  “I realised that the last time I was here.”

  “Yes.” A tinge of pink appeared in Lenka’s cheeks. “I was a trifle out of order, wasn’t I?”

  “I think you said you were ‘behaving like a pig’s arse’.”

  Lenka’s laugh became a hacking cough. Ben reappeared, the brown smears of chocolate ice-cream around his mouth a very clear explanation as to why he had taken so long. The women sat in silence as he cleaned up the mess at their feet. Stella waited until he had disappeared into the orchard and asked, “Why do they do this to twins?”

  “Officially, medical progress. Unofficially, identification and control. But I worry about a vindictive government with such a degree of access to someone’s DNA. The potential of that type of medicine scares me.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Lenka stared down at her feet. “Rumours. Nothing more.”

  “But—“

  Knowledge isn’t always power. It can also be a weakness, depending on who knows what you know. The VP’s words were as clear now as they had been the first time she’d heard them in The Ward. Stella let her question go. If she didn’t ask it, she wouldn’t know the answer. It went against everything she stood for as a researcher, but in this case, ignorance seemed the safer option.

  There was a blur of movement as Ben and Wilby sped past them. The boy and puppy disappeared into the orchard. Drak yelped as his back legs gave out. Lenka pulled him up and, once more, he placed his paw in her lap. “Maybe you wouldn’t keep falling over if you lay down or stood on all four legs, you silly thing.”

  Stella set her mug down next to the scanner. Waiting any longer wasn’t going to solve anything. “I did some digging. I get enhanced access privileges for my research. There used to be a
project training dogs to sniff out diseases, some infections, metabolic diseases, cancer, that kind of thing. There were some trials of other conditions, but they were shelved along with the rest of the disease dogs about ten years ago.”

  “Disease dogs?” Lenka’s hand dug into the fur on Drak’s neck.

  The scanner hummed as Stella flicked it on. “Most of the animals were destroyed, some were rehomed. Part of an experiment in counter-conditioning, I think. But they were all chipped. Here.” She tapped the back of her own neck and ran the scanner along Drak’s. It beeped and a light flashed green.

  Lenka gazed up the pergola roof. “White Plague?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought the lump in Drak’s neck was an old tic bite gone bad. So much for the wisdom and experience of the country crone.”

  “There’s no way you could have known.”

  Lenka wrapped her arms around Drak. “If I’d realised what he was trying to tell me all those months ago, I may have had a chance?”

  Stella nodded.

  25

  Enough

  Lukaz launched himself at Orr. Cheers echoed around the giant rock funnel hidden in the mountain. The legionnaire spun away. Dropped into a crouch. Exploded upwards. His shoulder slammed into Lukaz’s hip, arms clamping around his legs, and the slimmer man’s feet left the ground. Orr lifted and twisted to drive his opponent face first into the earth. Lukaz rolled as he fell. He took the impact on his shoulder, half-freeing himself, only for Orr to sprawl on top of him. As the Donian man bucked and kicked, the legionnaire rolled with the pressure. He twisted around Lukaz’s supine body. Orr rolled onto his back, held the other man’s arm and clutched it to his chest. Clamping Lukaz’s elbow deep between his thighs, Orr slammed a leg over the man’s face and rammed his hips up to the sky. With a shout of pain and anger, Lukaz ripped his arm free. They scrambled to a half-crouch. Clouds of dust followed them as they circled round each other. Noise from the Hoyden spiralled up the stone cauldron.

  So it continued, seething violence against laid-back aggression. Orr was already breathing hard. His power and technique usually finished things before his lack of stamina became an issue. Ray’s fists were clenched, twitching in time to the movements of the combatants. He had fought Orr in training. He and Brooke were amongst the few who could handle him. Orr’s lazy looking technique was deceptively efficient. It was bolstered by a large collection of dirty tricks he had learnt in what he called his real school – the wrestling caravans that had toured the Towns not so long ago.

  Lukaz got under Orr’s centre of gravity. He dropped his shoulder and threw the legionnaire onto the Dawn Rock. Seeing Orr dazed, Lukaz stamped on him. The slap of his foot echoing around the mountain. Orr rolled away. A fresh red patch stained the stone and blood streaked out of an ugly cut along Orr’s eyebrow.

  “Does Orr know you can use the rock like that?” asked Ray.

  “How have you lived this long?” Brooke replied, tearing her eyes away from the fight. “Of course he knows. He’d be an idiot not to have worked it out. And Orr is not stupid when it comes to violence.”

  Murmurs had broken out amongst the Hoyden. The cheers were more muted than before. Lukaz launched himself at Orr’s legs. He threw his hips back and tried to underhook Lukaz’s arms a split second too late. Their bodies tumbled to the floor. Lukaz struck Orr across the face. Orr rode the punch but there was too much power behind it. Red streaked out of his nose. It traced odd patterns across the stubble on his chin. He groaned, struggling to free his arms.

  Lukaz straddled him, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. He lifted himself up onto his knees to get power behind his next strike. Orr hammered both feet down into the ground and rammed his hips up into the other man’s body, reversing him, pinning him to the ground. Orr’s hips screwed downwards. Lukaz was trapped. The legionnaire’s feigned pain was lost in a hail of vicious punches. Lukaz’s blood was running into his eyes. One arm lay limply by his side. The other was trapped under Orr’s knee. Orr slammed an elbow into the other man’s cheek. Lukaz twisted. Orr oozed off the villager’s body, not giving him any space to escape. His thick arms locked around Lukaz’s neck. Squeezing. Choking. Killing.

  A flash of movement caught Ray’s eye. “Watch out.”

  “Bastards.” Nascimento.

  Someone shouted. Two of the Hoyden ran onto the dirt, closely followed by Brooke. The man kicked Orr in the ribs. A woman grabbed his head and pulled skyward, her knee on his spine. Orr rolled and pulled her off balance, scissoring his legs around hers. She crashed into the ground with a yelp. Brooke launched the man into the Dawn Rock. Ray and Nascimento faced down the Hoyden now circling them. Aalok bellowed a command and the Rivermen closed ranks around Orr.

  The scars on the Hoyden glistened with sweat. Inch by inch they stalked forwards. They had rocks and knives in hand, oblivious to the shouts from Karaan and the Elders. A blur of movement leapt off the rock, knocking Orr to the ground. Lukaz’s dog stood over Orr, teeth bared. Orr grabbed it by the throat, his fight-weary arms shaking as he struggled to keep the snapping teeth away.

  “Enough,” someone yelled.

  The villagers moved forwards. The dog’s teeth ripped skin off Orr’s nose.

  “Enough!” Lukaz hauled himself to his feet, cradling one arm across his body. The dog pulled away from Orr and trotted back to his master’s side. The Hoyden retreated more slowly. Lukaz shouted something at the Hoyden in their tongue, nodding his battered head towards Orr. The legionnaire muscled his way past his colleagues. Blood streaked down his defiant face. Lukaz repeated whatever he had said and the crowd moved away.

  “He wins,” Brooke translated.

  The Elders, faces like thunder clouds, stormed away from the rock and into the tunnel.

  26

  The Northbridge

  The narrow path wound its way up the rock face. It was hidden by bushes in some places and tucked behind rocks in others. The noise of the celebrations from the fireside echoed after them, Orr’s voice louder than any other.

  “Where are you taking me?” Ray asked. Small clouds of mist formed with each word. Brooke’s reply was to push the pace harder.

  The path opened onto a rock balcony, its edges lost in shadows. It was split down the middle by a jagged crack, as if the mountain had been wrenched in two. Spanning the treacherous drop was a bridge formed out of an enormous piece of translucent green-blue stone. Carved into the north side were kings, queens, peasants, children playing, musicians, healers and fighters. Dogs danced alongside cats, great winged beasts and other indecipherable forms. On the south side, sheltered from the sun, were skeletal images. Dressed like the living, they parodied the actions of their warmer counterparts.

  Brooke pointed over the bridge, at the path that disappeared into the mountain soaring above them. “You’re at the end of Ailan; over there is Mennai.”

  Ray strode to the centre of the bridge. It glittered where he touched it. Sparks crackled around his boots, leaving a fading glow around his footprints. The twisting darkness beneath threatened to pull him into it, swallow him. For a split second, he was hanging off the platform in the Mennai power station again, dizzy and breathless, the old man dangling by his side. Hamid’s death still too fresh to be real.

  “My mother told me the Donian mountains were a present for Mennai and Brettia from their father,” Brooke said, joining him. “The effort of creating the mountains was too much, and he died soon afterwards. The twins broke the mountains while arguing over how to divide the mountains.” She gestured to the crevasse in front of them. “Both blamed the other and have never spoken since.”

  “And this?” Ray tapped the bridge. Lines of light ran out from under his finger, splitting around the carved images embedded in the crystalline rock.

  “We call it the Northbridge. The tribes on the other side of the border call it the same. Doesn’t make sense really. But then they call you folk from Ailan the up-dwellers, even though they live in the mountains,
not you. The bridge was here before any of us arrived in the mountains after the Great Flood. No one knows how it got here.”

  “Maybe the twins’ mother placed it here just in case they decided to relent and meet on neutral ground,” Ray suggested.

  Brooke didn’t seem to have heard. She was looking at the glittering palm print her hand had left on the balustrade. “It’s all rubbish, of course. The clouds of lights in the sky are charged particles, not tears from the sibling’s mother staining the heavens. The crack below us is most likely due to an earthquake, but warring twins are much more exciting than tectonic plate activity.”

  “Doesn’t that depend on who’s moving the plates?” Ray asked, corners of his mouth twitching into a smile.

  “Don’t say that. You don’t know what lives under these mountains.”

  “OK, OK. So why are we here tonight?”

  “After the last Donian rebellion, the officer in charge insisted on taking some people back to Ailan. It was to be a privilege, the chosen few were going to be ‘ambassadors’ and would ‘fulfil a diplomatic role of great importance’. You people have always played devious games with language,” she said with a snort. “Interesting that the one person they took was the only daughter from the family that had given them the most trouble. I was eleven. I came here the night before I left and carved my name into the bridge. It was a sacrilegious act of vandalism that could have had me on the spit over our central fire rather than turning it.”

  “The Elders wouldn’t have allowed that,” Ray said.

  “Worse has happened. A long-dead tribal leader, a young upstart who wanted to rule these mountains, once made a beaten enemy choose which of his children to roast on the spit. He lined a bunch of those kids up. The grown ones defiant and battered, the young ones snotty and tearful, mewling for their dead mother. The victor said it was a punishment direct from the Gods and could not be disobeyed. Lying bastard.”