by Simon Morden
He pressed them down, wiped his hands on his thighs, and acknowledged that he hadn’t done a bad job, considering that it was his first attempt.
But if burying someone who hated him and wanted to kill him had been hard, how much more difficult would it be for a friend, who he’d shared meals and journeys and captivity and escape with?
As he tramped back to the beach, his new-old boots unfamiliar on his feet, he thought again about cremation. The sheer amount of wood they’d need pretty much ruled it out for Luiza: the one he’d witnessed in India had had a bier of densely stacked cut logs almost as tall as he was, that extended out both lengthways and widthways beyond the body laid neatly on top. Anything less wouldn’t be sufficient to make ashes – and the memory of the thick black smoke spiralling away into the sky had stayed with him for weeks. He didn’t think that Elena was ready for that.
Then there was also the matter of a ceremony. Luiza was a Christian of some sort, while he most certainly wasn’t. Mama was, but he didn’t know what type. And he didn’t know how seriously Luiza had taken her religion. Not that she was necessarily going to care, because her soul had returned to the cycle of rebirth that included all of humanity. Or there was Heaven and Hell, neither of which he believed in.
He’d leave it to Mama. That seemed safest.
Dalip climbed back up the shoreward-most dune and stared out to sea. There was no sign of either Mary or Crows’ boat. He checked the sun, and was surprised to see it had slid around to the south-west. Hours had passed. He scanned the horizon again, from side to side, but there was nothing.
He ignored the ice-water feeling in his stomach, and slipped down the face of the dune to where Luiza was lying. Mama was with Elena down on the strand line, Mama’s arm over Elena’s shoulder, and looking determinedly away from the land.
He really didn’t want to have to do this, and yet there was no one else.
Was this what defined adulthood, then? Doing what was necessary? His own father was so mild and inoffensive, intent on passing through life with barely making a ripple, he couldn’t imagine the man doing what he was doing now. His grandfather – yes, he knew that he had, in those numerous jungle engagements conducted at almost point-blank range, where the enemy dead were hurriedly hidden in shallow scrapes in the ground.
He slid his hands under Luiza’s armpits and straightened his back. She was stiffening, and her head wasn’t sure whether to fall forward, or roll back. Her skin was cold and inelastic, but her hair still fluttered with the breeze. He could see where the blond strands faded into dark roots.
She wore no jewellery but a little gold stud in each earlobe. No rings, no necklace, nothing to pass to Elena with his condolences. He still didn’t know how he was going to offer those.
He dragged her to the top of the dune, down the other side, and stopped where the boat had been born. Here? Further along? Would burying her near where the boat had grown cause problems with the fruiting of another one?
What would Down think of the intrusion? Would it notice? Would it mind one way or the other? And if he was already having thoughts about Down being alive, and having a personality, why not go all the way and behave like it was true? Because it made as much sense as anything else – more sense than treating this world the same as he had his old one.
If he was sad, how could he communicate that to Down? By burying someone he had cared about on one of its lines of power.
He excavated the hollow made by the boat, enlarging it downwards and into the dune. The sand was slippery and soft, the grains trickling down to fill the hole almost as quickly as he dug. But slowly, the sides began to keep their shape, and it was more or less noon by the time he’d done what he thought others would consider enough.
He lifted Luiza into the hole, arranged her with her arms folded across her stomach, closed her eyes with tentative brushes of his fingers. She looked, if not at peace, at least at a slightly perturbed rest. Her hands partially covered the rent in her overalls and the ugly dark stain. Flowers and reeds from the waterlogged slack over the next dune would hide the rest.
He went to collect a posy, checking over his shoulder as he climbed, expecting to see Mary swoop in at every moment. She’d been gone now for hours: five, maybe six. He didn’t know if Crows could hide the boat like he could hide himself. Maybe he could, and that was what was delaying her. Instead of searching for the single boat in an open sea, she’d be searching for an ephemeral wake amongst the wind-blown waves.
How long could she stay aloft, looking? Even when they’d been searching for him before, she’d taken rests. At sea, there were no convenient perches, so where was she? Either she’d found him, or she hadn’t. Either way, she should be back with them by now.
He stood on top of the dune and looked for her. What if she’d lost her bearings, ended up on a different part of the coast and was struggling to find them? They’d relied on Crows and Mary for both fire and food. They’d burned driftwood and eaten fish while waiting for the boat to grow. He was already tired, hungry and thirsty, and tonight, he’d be cold.
What if she didn’t come back? She’d gone alone, impulsive and angry, to challenge Crows. He could have killed her. Incapacitated her enough to bring her down. She’d be left miles from dry land. She couldn’t swim well. She’d drown.
He swallowed hard. Such thoughts were unworthy of both him and her. She knew how much was at stake. She wouldn’t take stupid risks.
He started to pray for her return in order to stave off his growing despair.
9
She was taking the biggest risk of her life. She could forget about the petty thieving, the breaking and entering, the clambering over unsafe roofs, the uninhibited experimental drug taking, the excessive drinking and the dangerous sex. Convincing Crows that he’d persuaded her – slowly, reluctantly, and harbouring the gravest doubts – to join him rather than starting a fight that would risk the precious maps? That had been the easy part. He used all his sugared words. She didn’t trust him, told him so to his face, and they’d reached a stalemate, him down the back end of the boat, her at the front, with what felt like only a few feet of boards between them.
The thing was, Crows was easy to believe: he said everything right even while doing everything wrong. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d so infuriated someone that they’d tried to carve their name on his belly. He was a liar and a cheat of the worst kind, and that had been back in London. Down had made him truly, epically, devilish. She’d be surprised if he could lie straight in bed.
And, like the Devil, he was charming, self-assured, and so very believable.
Mary thought she might have left it too long. She had weakened, rallied, and softened again. Had she judged it right, folding at the very last moment, agreeing to his impassioned pleas about greatness and mastering Down? Did he now doubt her conversion, and was secretly planning to do away with her?
Was he planning to do that anyway?
No less than she was. But the maps were safe: she had her eye on them, even if she couldn’t claim ownership yet. And Dalip – he’d find a way, wouldn’t he? All roads led to the White City, wherever the fuck it was, and he’d only have to wait a few days for another boat to grow: he’d be able to sail it, with Elena and Mama, and catch up with them eventually. They’d overpower Crows, seize the maps, and everything would be right again. Apart from Luiza, of course. Nothing would bring her back.
Crows had cried real tears when she’d told him what the Wolfman had done. He said he couldn’t have foreseen it, that it was the Wolfman’s unreasoning hate, not his betrayal, that had led to Luiza’s murder. But just because he was sorry didn’t mean he lost any of the responsibility.
It was the maps. Everything came down to the maps. If they were at the bottom of the sea, everything would be so much simpler. Without them, though, what chance was there of ever reuniting Mama with her babies, or Dalip with his family? E
lena could make her own choice, though Mary suspected she’d leave Down in a heartbeat. So rather than destroy them, she was kneeling at the prow, staring ahead, while her friends slipped slowly further astern.
She still didn’t know what she was going to do.
It was easier to look forward than back, in every sense. Behind her was her past, but also Crows, hands folded lightly in his lap. The boat was moving on its own, sliding on the downslope of the ever-present wave that followed them. She had to learn how to do that – Crows would need to rest, and she didn’t want to be reliant on him. If he wanted to becalm her, he could. She might be able to fly, but not with the maps. Well, maybe with the maps, if they weren’t in a heavy, awkward wooden crate, and she had hands rather than claws.
She thought back to the idea of a bag, a big duffel bag with a drawstring top. That would work.
If she had enough cloth, a length of thin rope, and something sharp, she could make one for herself. Then wait for Crows to be distracted long enough to decant all the maps, transform and fly off with them.
He, naturally, wasn’t going to let the maps out of his sight. He wasn’t stupid. There might be a chance later, though – much later, when he’d grown used to her presence and thought her no threat.
The boat moved on, its bow cutting through the water with rhythmic splashes as the oncoming waves slapped up against the boards. Apart from the island coming up on their left, the view was otherwise empty. What she thought had been the whole of the island was only a headland, hiding more behind it. The wedge-shaped mountain rose from one side – around it were lower, flatter lands which angled gently into the sea.
It was no good. At some point, she had to talk to Crows about something normal. It may as well be now.
‘You been there?’ For a sea serpent, the distance between the island and the mainland wasn’t far.
Crows, distracted, let their driving wave fall away for a moment. The boat, no longer moving forward, rocked with unfamiliar motion, and she put her hands on the rails to steady herself.
‘The island?’
‘Yes, the island.’
‘No. There is nothing there.’
‘Oh,’ she said. Of course he knew it was empty, despite never having set foot on it. ‘So why can I see smoke?’
Until she’d said it, she’d been convinced she was imagining it. It was no more than a smudge, a slight thickening of the already blue haze that distance lent the scene.
‘It is no concern of ours.’
‘It is if it’s the White City.’
She saw his expression flicker from serene to annoyed and back. Perhaps he’d been playing a triple bluff, and had known exactly where the White City was all along. He’d used his first lie to get them to the coast, his second to leave them and make a deal with the Wolfman, and now couldn’t reveal his third. He’d have to pretend that it might be, or give himself away.
‘It is not likely to be there, on that island.’
‘Why not?’ she asked innocently. ‘It’s as likely as anywhere else. If you point us that way, when we’re close enough I can fly over it and see.’
She could see with her own eyes, because trusting what Crows said about anything was pointless. He might be right, but trusting that could be the end of her.
He faltered for the briefest instant before regaining his smile. ‘You might be right. And while we are here, it cannot hurt for you to explore.’
There was a lever sticking out into the boat from the stern. She hadn’t paid it much attention before, but Crows pushed it horizontally away from him and the front of the boat started to turn. The island turned too, until it was more central.
‘It will not take us too far out of our way.’ He shrugged. ‘We will not even have to stop.’
He was right: she could take off from the boat, fly over the island, and land again, confident of finding him.
The coast slowly resolved out of the haze. Wide beaches, tall headlands, but not many trees – rolling green grass covered most of what she could see. It all looked like a picture postcard, with the rising mountain peak behind waving a flag of cloud into the blue sky. But as they closed, and Crows turned the rudder again to run them parallel to the coast, she could make out shapes planted on the beaches, where a boat might want to land.
‘What,’ she asked, ‘are those?’
Crows strained forward, shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘I cannot tell. But neither can I go closer. There is a reef between us and the shore, and the tide is beginning to run.’
Mary scanned the surface of the water, and there was a line of white waves standing off from the coast, but she didn’t know what that meant. If Crows had been this way before, he would know anyway, without interpreting the sea state.
She stood up, trying to keep her balance against the movement of the boat underneath her. She really couldn’t see, but she felt she ought. The motion of the sea made it harder than it should be, and there was nothing for it but to transform and take a better look.
‘You’re not going to go anywhere, are you?’
‘Even if I was, where could I hide from you? Your eyes are the keenest in all of Down, and your swift flight would overtake me in minutes.’
He was right, and she left it at that. He couldn’t escape her, and she couldn’t leave him. She crouched down, steadied herself for a moment, aware that launching herself up and over the sea without the expectation of belly-flopping into the churning sea was just ridiculous. And yet, when she straightened her legs and stretched her arms out wide, it was only her wingtips that caught the tops of the waves.
She flapped hard, gained height, and circled the boat. She could see it small against the sea, and Crows’ upturned face looking back at her. She noted the landmarks – the long finger of land stretching out, the tall cliffs with their bases white with foam, the long sandy beach, and the mountain rising tall towards the back of the island – and flew down.
So this wasn’t a good sign. Anywhere in the world, a cross with a bleached white skull hanging on top of the upright meant only one thing, and that was a heartfelt ‘fuck off now’. She turned and piloted a course parallel to the beach, where she found two more crosses with two more skulls. None of them looked particularly new, though that they were all still standing made her think someone was making sure the posts kept upright and the skulls were grinning.
She banked inland, passing over the grasslands, not seeing anyone, but that ragged pillar of dark smoke told her that people were living there. The ground rose and fell, with more rising than falling as she came closer to the mountain. The grasses waved at her, uncut, ungrazed, green with new growth and purple with flowers.
The smoke was three ridges away, then two, then it was the next. She rose higher and saw its source – a dirty black scar like a bomb crater – before she recognised anything else. There were little clusters of wooden buildings arranged in four lines like streets, radiating from a central stone pavement that pressed itself up against the steep side of the valley. Most were falling apart, like the ones she’d seen in the forest on the way to Bell’s castle. She knew, then, that they were Down-made, fading through lack of inhabitants.
Yet there were people in that little village. She could see two of them swinging a bundle on to the fitful fire, which was placed at the end of one of the rows of houses. As she flew through the smoke, she smelled burning wood and burning flesh.
Something she’d smelled before, in the dark tunnels under London. She focused on the fire, and saw that the pathetic smouldering rags contained a pale corpse.
She couldn’t make sense of it. If the fire was for burning the dead, and the fire was always burning – the only wood she’d seen was in the houses – then where did all the dead come from? The island seemed beautiful – idyllic even, like a holiday brochure, with its wide beaches and soft hills – but it had this stain at its heart.
> As she dropped lower, she was spotted. One of the men, little more than rags himself, pointed up at her, and the pair of them watched open-mouthed as she passed overhead. They moved to keep her in sight, even as she spiralled downwards, looking for a place to land.
The obvious place was on the circular stone pavement, which she now realised had been built into the side of the hill. The escarpment was walled with more stone, and in that wall was a door, leading underground. She was intrigued and, with a final series of flaps, settled on top of the wall, on the grassy bank that extended upwards.
The two men appeared at a run between two of the dilapidated buildings, and she could see now just how gaunt and grizzled they were. Their clothes were grey and ragged, much like their sanity. They stopped on the opposite side of the pavement to her and the first man dipped down to pick up a loose stone the size of his fist.
‘Throw it, Nathaniel. Drive it away.’
The stone, when it came, landed well short. The man called Nathaniel simply didn’t have the strength, let alone the accuracy, to hit her. It clattered across the pavement, and Mary looked down at it as it spun and clacked against the base of the wall.
He seized another while his companion uncertainly raised his arms and tried to shoo her. ‘Go! Fly, beast, fly!’
She was, in bird form, more than twice their size, and it didn’t seem credible that they would try and take her on, but here they were, two men dressed like tramps, trying to scare her away when for all they knew she was planning to have them for lunch. The second stone struck the wall just below her clawed feet, and she decided she’d had enough rock-throwing and nowhere near enough explanation. She changed, and they stared at her for a moment.
Then they ran, back the way they’d come, as fast as they could, disappearing behind the line of houses.