City of Dust

by Michelle Kenney

  My ears pricked up.

  ‘The Oceanids’ singing confuses them?’ I asked wonderingly, recalling all the fables I’d read about mermaids enticing sailing ships onto rocks with their seductive singing. Their black, ovoid, lashless eyes gleamed from my hazy memory and a shudder passed through me. They were the most unnatural of all creatures. A curious Gothic hybrid, lurking somewhere between reality and fantasy.

  Unus nodded. ‘Sometimes old tales … hold truth,’ he commented.

  ‘And they live in the tunnels? In the water?’

  I couldn’t imagine a life immersed in the black water of the disused Roman tunnels, a life without light.

  He nodded again. ‘Used to … Then follow river. Swim far. To outside.’

  ‘But then, why haven’t they told the Prolets about the outside? Encouraged them to do the same?’ I protested. ‘If the Oceanids have made it to the sea, that should surely persuade the Prolets to see the outside world is thriving.’

  ‘Oceanids not … Prolets. They loyal only to … Oceanids. Prolets respect Oceanids … but no trust.’

  ‘But they helped us, or you?’ I frowned.

  ‘Oceanids free. Like Outsiders. Oceanids helped you.’

  I stared back. It was there again. That insinuation.

  ‘Just what makes you so special? … With the price Cassius has placed on your head … you’ve become a little legendary.’

  I was so conscious that the tangled web looped and spiralled far more than I ever knew. My quiet life was slipping further from my grasp every second, and it was clear Grandpa intended our halcyon days to be my body armour when it came to protecting Arafel’s legacy.

  I stood up awkwardly, aware of the glimmer of dawn through the window, and that Aelia might miss me soon. Although I hadn’t inspected the wound, I could feel the stair exercise had eased the stiffness in my chest. One of the lanterns towards the end of the passageway guttered, and all at once I knew what I wanted to do.

  I held up my right hand to indicate five minutes before moving swiftly towards the entrance, ignoring Unus’s grunts of disapproval. He must have sensed my need because he didn’t follow. My legs felt stronger with each step down the narrow passageway we’d explored only a few days before. Although it felt more like months now.

  Carefully, I reached up and fetched down one of the small lanterns, but I didn’t need it when I stood at the top of the stone steps. A dawn-fused sky greeted me, and I stumbled down the steps, suddenly desperate to be outside, even if I was standing in the Dead City. And as I made my way through the broken nave, I felt as though the milky balm was reaching right through my raw flesh and easing the anguish there.

  I reached the arched entrance, and turned to look up at the ruined cathedral. Even though half its walls were missing, it still looked regal in its pale silken drape, as though I’d intruded while it was dressing.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I whispered, before stepping carefully up the shelled nave.

  It wasn’t the forest, but this skeletal church had a unique beauty. And as I followed the light dancing across the floor, like a shy moonlit nymph, I filled my lungs with the sweetest air I’d tasted in a long time.

  There had been little breeze underground, which always made me feel half-suffocated, and claustrophobic. But here, despite the fact I’d narrowly escaped death, I felt more alive than I had for a long time, and I wandered through the ruined grandeur savouring the way the fragments of stone and determined grass felt beneath my feet.

  A few moments later, my wandering gaze picked out a fragmented stained-glass window, on the western side of the nave. A faded man in blue looked out, although some of the frame had been claimed by the war, leaving him clinging to this world rather precariously. I made my way up the side aisle, picking over the scattered debris, until I stood opposite him.

  ‘Le-o-fric,’ I picked out with difficulty from the old English lettering at his feet.

  The breeze lifted my hair, and somewhere in the distance there was the faint hiss of a vulture.

  ‘So, what did you do that was so special, it got you immortalized?’ I muttered.

  The vulture hissed again, and this time I could tell the strange birds weren’t that far away. Perhaps on the rooftops across the street. Well, they would have a wait if they expected this body to provide a meal any time soon.

  ‘He took a church and turned it into a cathedral. Isca’s cathedral. He had a vision … for something better.’

  The voice was low and familiar, reaching deep inside and jarring the memories buried there. Shaking them, waking them, making them hurt. The world inverted momentarily, and every muscle tightened. Was I feverish again?

  I stared at Leofric, feeling a strange burn eat into my veins, my world tilting. Because it had come from behind me.

  Hadn’t it? Because ghosts didn’t exist.

  The voice had lived nowhere but my subconscious for twelve long months. It had to be some kind of hallucination; and yet some macabre thread was still willing it to be real, willing the voice to be attached to a breathing body. Willing its blood to be as red as my own. Willing it not just to be another nightmare, another trick, another heartache.

  So somehow I turned, and everything stopped.

  He was there. Silhouetted on the ledge of an ancient stone window, like an immortal hero clothed in full Roman military regalia.

  His tall, arresting figure was so familiar, and yet so blurred by my reaction that I couldn’t, really, believe it was him. Was it even possible? Could a feverish mind conjure up such detail, when a sound one had struggled so much these past few months?

  He regarded me as though he’d seen a ghost himself, his swarthy face hard and unsmiling, his once honourable uniform tarnished and unkempt. The air was still, and he was so close I could see his cool breath hanging on the air. And yet I still couldn’t believe it. He was a million miles away from this ivy-clad ruin full of whispered suspicions and broken promises.

  I tried to steady my breathing though words were collecting, like mountains, at the base of my throat. The breeze lifted my hair, and just as I convinced myself he was pure manifestation, his hoarse whisper reached across the empty space.

  ‘For the love of Nero, Tal … say something.’

  Chapter 19

  It was the vultures’ hissing cry that pulled me back. That and his breath on my cheek. Surely visions, even fever-fuelled, didn’t breathe?

  I hadn’t fainted, but my weakened limbs had given in to the sudden bolt of adrenaline, and much to my disgust, I’d buckled.

  And now I could see he wasn’t alone.

  Eight more Knights of the Order of the Aquila, their standard emblazoned on their thick red capes, were standing around the moonlit ruin. Their military armour looked stained and dishevelled, and a new ragged scar ran across August’s left cheekbone. His face was only centimetres away, gazing with the same fiery intent that always burned my bones while giving nothing away.

  And for the tiniest of moments, for the smallest fragment of time that could possibly exist, the impulse to throw myself forward very nearly overpowered me. Nearly. And then his words ran through my head like a delirium.

  ‘The early integration analysis indicates a common stress symptom among the Prolet class, which may be a reaction to the existing vaccine to suppress independent will. Of course, the recent rioting cannot be tolerated.

  ‘Because of this, and the new investigation required, I would recommend a temporary suspension of all new Prolet privileges and reinstatement of the existing Pantheonite system.’

  I shrank back as reality sharpened.

  ‘You’re a traitor and a liar!’ I threw out, despite the energy it cost.

  My anger spilled into the cold air like I was expelling that part of me that had ever been hypnotized. The terrified ringside Prolets ran through my head in tandem with August’s traitorous words.

  His exhausted face creased up into a heavy scowl.

  ‘I don’t know who you are!’ I scathed, ignor
ing the pain fire-balling inside, and clambering to my feet.

  His gorse-bush eyebrows flew together as he also stood up warily.

  ‘You’re hurt!’ he exclaimed after a beat, and a flicker of emotion passed swiftly across his face. Like caring. Not caring. Lying, lying eyes.

  He reached out and I stepped back, conscious I was in no fit state to run even if my fury hadn’t demanded more. Lives had been lost, promises shattered, hopes destroyed – and all that besides twelve months of my life crushed into little more than the ashes, like this godforsaken city.

  ‘How could you?’ I forced out through gritted teeth. ‘You claimed you were a Knight of the Old Order, that you believed in the free world, in Arafel … And I believed you. The same way I believed you hated Octavia, and everything Pantheon stood for, with every cell of your genetically modified body! And yet, as soon as the first opportunity arises to abandon everything and everyone, you skulk away like one of Octavia’s dogs!’

  August’s face grew darker and stormier as he listened to my breathless tirade, a small vein in his neck pulsing swiftly.

  ‘Commander General, Sir!?’ one of his men interrupted, from the east side of the cathedral.

  ‘And the Voynich!’ I continued scathingly, ignoring him. ‘You said you wanted to burn it yourself … stack the pyre high and put Octavia at the top! Weren’t those your exact words? But that was never the truth was it?

  ‘What was the truth? Do you even know yourself? How can anyone who claims to love his people abandon them to a life of slavery and torture; and their children to living like scavenging rats beneath this crumbling wreck of a city!’

  I was shouting now, but didn’t care. My accusations echoed through the shattered building while August regarded me with an unfathomable expression, his hand gripping his empty Diasord belt until the whites of his knuckles gleamed.

  ‘Commander!’ one of the men called again.

  He was standing in the centre of an empty stone window frame, opposite us, a black scowl pinned to his face.

  ‘Silence, Grey!’ August barked. ‘The young ones got away? Where are they? Are they here?’

  He fired the questions rapidly, his voice strained and fatigue etched into every line on his shadowed face. But he wasn’t going to deceive me, not again.

  ‘Give me one good reason why I should tell you!’ I bit back.

  ‘Commander!’ the one called Grey interrupted again, this time much more urgently.

  August spun on his feet in one violent move, his face contorted with fury and raven-black hair dishevelled. I struggled to steady my own raspy breathing as I fumbled with my leather rations bag. I was light-headed, sick and so disorientated, but I still had a few darts. He might have his personal guard, but I had my pride. And my temper.

  ‘The sky! Commander General, Sir!’ Grey said ominously.

  And there was enough in his tone for everyone to understand that there was no time left for waiting. We all swivelled our gazes to stare up through the broken nave and into the endless beyond. It looked innocent enough, with the occasional twinkle through the awakening haze. But then the horizon started to disappear behind the shadow of something archaic, predatory and huge.

  ‘Tal!’ My name broke the sudden intense silence, but the voice didn’t belong to August.

  I shot a look back down the nave of the medieval church, and saw three people staring my way. Even at my distance, I could read their distinct expressions: anxious, disbelieving, accusing.

  ‘August?’ Aelia called, her voice cracking under the strain of her confusion, as Eli broke into a limping run. Strained, abrupt tones filled the air as August strode out to the central aisle.

  ‘Grey, run an ammunition check! Harlo, Dent … cover the rear, the rest of you stay – stay with me. And wait for my command!!’

  ‘Talia! I couldn’t find you! Are you OK? Where did he come from?’ Eli signed frantically as he limped towards me.

  I nodded, searching the church for Max, and scowling when I finally found him, silhouetted beneath in the darkest part of the nave. He’d levelled his crossbow and was advancing purposefully, towards August.

  ‘Don’t waste your time! He’s not worth it, Max!’ I yelled frantically, recalling his threat.

  ‘If he’d kept his promise, we wouldn’t have ended up inside Pantheon, inside that cage! He’s dead as far as I’m concerned, or will be if I ever see him again.’

  Max didn’t even acknowledge me. His eyes were locked on August, his expression thick with grim hatred. And I understood why. He knew what August’s disloyalty had cost – the Prolets, Pan, Arafel … But most of all, he understood the cost to us. In just a few short months, August had forced a wedge between the tightest childhood bond and changed me. Max knew it and understood that he couldn’t undo it, no matter how hard either of us tried. In a parallel universe, my heart would be whole and his. And he cared.

  ‘Max!’ I yelled again, ignoring the pain ratcheting up inside.

  ‘Let him come,’ August snapped, signalling to his loyal men. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Oh yes, let him come. I do so enjoy heroic displays.’

  Everything stopped as the familiar, languorous voice cut through the air like a dirty blade. And as I dragged my gaze around, the hairs on the side of my neck and face prickled with revulsion. Instinctively, I groped for my catapult.

  He couldn’t be. Not here, right now. Could he?

  But it seemed he could. And no matter how much I denied it, the view didn’t change. At the top of the nave, his death-adder eyes boring into mine, was the man responsible for everything.

  Tonight, he was dressed as a conquering hero with a long black military greatcoat over his Roman regalia, and what appeared to be a battalion of griffin-mounted guards swooping in behind him. And yet there couldn’t be anything less heroic about this man. This hate-fuelled cacodemon of a man.

  Cassius.

  With a new cavalry. The new cold-eyed griffins appeared less creatures of legend, and more sketches of cruelty. Bigger and sleeker, they still had the hindquarter of lion, and the majestic head of an eagle. But unlike the griffin Eli tamed, their bodies were the colour of old blood, and there was a coal-black streak down their gullets. Their wings were free, and there was one pure black, riderless griffin just behind Cassius, cawing its importance to the disappearing stars.

  I scowled. Cassius hadn’t wasted any time in putting Octavia’s laboratories to good use.

  And then I spied him, lurking in the shadows just behind Cassius – the reason for our discovery in the Flavium, for our incarceration in Ludi, and the reason we very nearly lost our lives in the most brutal way possible. He looked bruised, and uneasy, but it was definitely him. My eyes narrowed to slits.

  ‘Rajid!’ Aelia exclaimed in disbelief. ‘What’s happening?’

  He shrugged in discomfort, limping away. He’d clearly experienced his share of Cassius’s temper. But I had no sympathy. A fresh loathing blazed through me as I recalled Max’s slip about the Prolets’ hiding place while we were incarcerated.

  Whether Rajid had started a traitor, he’d certainly ended one.

  I’d stifled my suspicions because of Aelia, because I needed to believe there were some good people in Isca Prolet. Arafel kind of people. But he’d nearly killed Max and me. And now he’d led Cassius straight here. For the young Prolets.

  I closed my hand around my catapult, barely registering as Eli slipped out of the church into the shadows.

  ‘Well, isn’t this delightful? A reunion! The cave-man and the crusader, so maligned and misunderstood,’ Cassius jeered venomously, stepping across the top of the broken stone altar.

  ‘How does it feel, oh great Commander General, to return to a homeland that knows you to be the coward and traitor you truly are? A homeland that scorns you?’

  August turned to face Cassius, every aspect of his proud body exuding contempt.

  ‘I don’t know, Cassius, why don’t you tell me? After all, your br
other very nearly destroyed your reputation when he abandoned you for the outside – didn’t he?’

  A slow, frigid smile grew across August’s face as he spoke, his unexpected words hanging oddly on the dead air. Suddenly it felt as though I was shrinking, that the world around me had grown extraordinarily large, with every sound accentuated. I held my breath, despite the looming silence.

  ‘As we seem to be sharing, why don’t we explore that? The fact that your very own brother didn’t trust you enough to share the most important scientific discovery of the century? That he chose to seek out rank Outsiders, people he’d never met before and forge a brand-new beginning, rather than trust it … with you?’

  Spider fingers scuttled down my spine, and I fought to clear my muddled head, to retain the power of logical thought.

  I glanced around for Eli, for the person who would make it right, explain it even, but all I could see was a white-faced Aelia standing between the back rows of the pews.

  Looking as frozen as I felt.

  ‘And he took the precious research you and Octavia had been slaving away on, and disappeared,’ August jibed, ‘leaving his little brother to pick up all the pieces. Because the truth was … you weren’t nearly as talented as Thomas. Were you?’

  Cassius threw his head back and filled the hollow space with an ugly, scathing laugh that jarred every nerve in my body.

  ‘It’s quite a story, isn’t it? He cracked the Voynich code,’ August went on, ‘but instead of sharing his discovery with you – his only remaining bloodline and official scientific partner – the big brother you looked up to left you with only a psychotic dictator for company. And now her number one protégé is shaping up to be a real black seed, rotten to its pithy core … aren’t you, Cassius? Octavia would be so proud.’

  The cathedral floor suddenly darkened as the large ominous shadow passed slowly overhead once more. Cassius glanced skywards, signalling his guards to form a tight pack around his central altar. They obeyed instantly, while August stalked towards Cassius, like a panther cornering its prey.