– We have to get to the Fortress. We have to know what we’re up against.
Bran nodded.
– I’ll get Sharonne. We’re going to need her help if we’re to stand any chance of helping them.
‘It will all depend on where they decide to keep them.’ Sharonne stood next to the fire, staring into the flames as she spoke. ‘There are rooms up in the East Wing that could be turned into cells pretty easily and that would be a problem. Access to the East Wing is across the central courtyard and we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting in unseen. But we might get lucky.’
‘Lucky’ wasn’t a word that I associated with our current situation, but I had to ask. ‘What d’you mean, lucky?’
‘There’s another area of the Fortress that could easily be converted into holding cells. And knowing how they think, it’s a more likely choice.’ She looked at Bran. ‘The basement storage rooms.’
‘Which we might be able to get access to.’ He finished off the thought for her and turned to address me. ‘There’s an escape passage leading from the storage rooms to the north-eastern wall – out of sight of the main Fortress. It’s how we were able to sneak in and out, before Sharonne escaped for good.
‘They won’t be expecting a raid from inside the Fortress itself, so they probably won’t have too many guards on the prisoners. If we can get a small group in and overcome the guards without alerting the rest of the garrison, we might just get the prisoners out to safety before they know what happened.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘first things first. We need to get information. Which means a reconnaissance mission. I’ll take—’
Bran interrupted before I could finish the suggestion. ‘Alek, Reggie and I will go. We know how to blend in. We’ve been doing it all our lives. There’s no point in risking you.’ Sharonne was still standing beside the fire and was, I suspect, about to volunteer herself. ‘Or Sharonne,’ he continued, for her benefit. ‘Not until we know the lie of the land.’
‘But I could—’ Sharonne began.
‘You’d be too easy to recognise,’ he said, touching her hair gently. ‘We’re going to need you when we try to break them out, but until then, we can’t afford to risk you getting taken back. If we leave now, we can be back by morning.’
As it was, it made no difference. By the time we’d formulated a plan, it was too late. Their secret was out and they were already on their way to the Citadel – locked in a cage, chained and secured, with a squad of the Black Guard riding alongside, armed and vigilant. There would be no ambushing this caravan and no freedom for the prisoners they accompanied.
JORDAN’S STORY
For a few days, our ‘act’ had worked for us.
We were the offspring of Zone-Dwellers, those wretched people who lived on the edge of the Dead Zone, where the radiation levels were survivable, but –
In the technophobic world that had evolved after the Fall, as they called the end of the pre-Separation world, no one understood concepts like radiation or mutation. They didn’t know the damage that even low-level radiation can do to the delicate genetic structures that make us who we are.
Zone-Dwellers suffered all kinds of deformities and sicknesses from grotesque cancers, to malformed limbs and strange growths. The lucky ones might simply suffer severe retardation or loss of brain functions. Their life expectancy was short and they were looked down on by ‘ordinary’ people. The advantage, from our point of view, was that they made people uncomfortable and so they were usually left alone.
The Sect members all knew our situation and played along, but to the villagers and the guards, we were creatures to be pitied or reviled – but definitely avoided. Which was exactly Mykal’s plan.
There was one thing we hadn’t reckoned on, however. With the discovery of the Archive, a mystery had been solved. The rumours and the legends of a secret organisation that preserved the Old Ones’ evil Knowledge had existed for centuries, but never had this kind of proof been revealed. And, if there was one Archive, why not two? Or more.
Lessandro Dey was not a man who would ever die wondering. By the evening of the second day, he had convinced Anton de Vries to convert some of the unused storage vaults in the basement of the Fortress to makeshift cells for the Sect members and had ordered the entire contents of the Archive removed there too, until the Council of Families decided on its fate.
A few rooms were converted for the purpose of interrogating the prisoners. If there were other Archives, he would discover them. It was his duty to root out such blasphemies wherever he could and Lessandro Dey never shirked his duty, especially if it involved inflicting pain. It made me appreciate the wisdom of those who set up the Sect all those centuries ago. Nothing he could do to any of the Secters would get him one step closer to learning the location of any of the hidden Archives. No matter what torture his twisted mind could think up, they couldn’t tell him what they didn’t know.
Of course, it didn’t protect the information they did know. And most people will say anything, reveal any secret, if the pain and the fear are strong enough. I don’t know who betrayed us – and I don’t want to know. It’s not their fault and I don’t blame them. Under torture, I might have done the same. I mean, I like to think I’m brave, but how do you know? Really?
Whoever it was, I can imagine the look on Lessandro Dey’s face. The moment of triumph, when he discovered not only that the two untouchables in the cells nearby were the Other-Worlders he had been charged with finding, but that they were Espers as well. If the discovery of the Archive had been a coup, how much better was this?
Within minutes, we were hauled before him: Eliita, white with pain and fear, Mykal stubbornly quiet and watchful, and me –
What impression was I giving?
I hoped it was one of calm assurance, which was what I was aiming for, but I fear I didn’t come over anywhere near as confident as I hoped.
He looked at us for a few seconds, his face a mask of disdain. Then he turned and headed for the door. ‘Bring them,’ he said. And six men in black cloaks grabbed our arms and dragged us from the room.
Within the hour, we were locked in the back of a wheeled cage, drawn by two black horses, flanked by a troop of eight mounted Guards and headed out under the huge lintel of the Fortress de Vries’s main gate.
Considering the situation we found ourselves in, you could forgive me for feeling – what – despair? Anger? Fear?
But they’re not the emotions I remember. What I do remember is a grudging admiration for the sheer theatrical flair. Black horses, black cloaks, shining silver swords. What ordinary person would contemplate standing up to such a vision of power and threat? Old Earth might have fallen from the heights of science and sophistication to a primitive fusion of superstition, feudalism and violence, but some people still understood the power of psychology.
As the cage that contained us balked and wobbled in the ruts of the uneven track and the manacles cut into my wrists and ankles, I looked back at the Fortress de Vries, still huge behind us and wondered where we were being taken.
It was a question I might have asked Mykal, if he hadn’t been solely occupied with staring daggers into the back of the leader of the Black Guard. I think he was trying to break through into that hidden mind, to glimpse something of the thought-patterns behind the cruel mask, but it was a waste of time. The necklace he wore was potent. His mind was a blank mystery. To all of us.
30
Basement
‘Fortress de Vries’
Old Bourne
January 8, 3384ad
SHARONNE
When the raiding-party is inside, the door swings shut and there is nothing but the black.
Without the glo-lamp, the darkness is physical and her demons begin whispering at the edges of her mind. Then all around her she sees the silver sparks of the flints, as the ’Koi set about lighting their torches
. First one, then another sputters into life and soon there are nine flames, flickering slightly in the still air of the passage, pushing back the whispering dark and reflecting yellow from the cold walls.
‘Okay,’ Bran whispers for her benefit. ‘Let’s go.’
When Bran, Reggie and Alek had returned with news of the prisoners’ location, a council of war had worked out the details of the raid – as far as anything could be worked out, given the limited intelligence they had been able to glean from the thoughts of off-duty guards and from Salvator the village blacksmith.
The huge man, a long-time secret friend of the ’Koi, had been one of those given the job of attaching bolts and bars onto the doors of the storerooms, which had been converted to holding cells for the captive Secters.
‘They’ve got them two or three to a cell,’ he had confided. ‘About thirty cells, give or take. The doors are bolted from the outside, but there’s no locks.’ He had smiled then. ‘They’re not exactly expecting anyone to raid the most secure part of the Fortress.’
But Salvator had no idea how many guards had been assigned to secure the prisoners. ‘I don’t think they’d put too many on the job, though,’ he suggested. ‘Secters don’t seem to have a whole lot of friends. Not exactly healthy to show them sympathy.’
So, a small raiding-party had been decided on.
‘If we can hit and run,’ Erin said, ‘we’ll do so. If there are too many soldiers, we’ll read them from cover and make our plans accordingly.’
Sharonne watched her, admiring her natural authority. There had been no discussion of leadership – she had just naturally assumed the leader’s role, and Bran, who normally made the running in an emergency, had accepted it as a matter of course.
And now they are inside, making their way swiftly along the passage and Erin is in silent discussion with Bran out ahead of the group.
Not for the first time, Sharonne curses her limitations. What she would give for the kind of ability that seems to come so naturally to them.
When they reach the hidden door, she almost walks past. The flickering torchlight is different from the steady illumination of the glo-lamps, and the shadows are playing tricks on her memory. At the last second, the familiar faint symbol reveals itself and she calls out.
‘We’re here,’ she says, running her hand over the smooth Plascrete and locating the hidden door release.
The door swings open and they pause before attempting to move the shelf.
The others are reading the room beyond, to make certain there will be no surprises awaiting them on entry.
‘Clear.’ Bran speaks the word aloud, pulling the shelf towards himself and holding the release button down with his foot as he does so. The shelf swings smoothly and silently on its track and moments later they are inside.
Salvator’s prediction proves accurate.
Bran turns to Leana. ‘Five guards,’ he whispers. ‘The prisoners are in the east corridor.’
She looks suddenly concerned. She is probing the minds in each of the cells, without success.
– Erin. Her thought-tone is coloured with fear. I can’t find Mykal.
But Erin is already aware of the fact.
– Eliita and Jordan are missing too. She turns to Bran. You don’t think—
– I don’t know, Erin. Let’s get inside and find out.
He turns to Sharonne and speaks in a whisper. ‘Wait here.’
She is about to argue, but he touches his finger to his lips. ‘We can read them,’ he goes on, before she can speak. ‘They can’t take us by surprise. There’s enough of us. Just wait here.’ Then he is pulling the knitted mask over his face and unslinging the bow from his back. Using the masks was Erin’s idea. The guards will probably be members of the household garrison – career soldiers, with families. Hardly the Black Guard.
If possible, they will attempt to disarm them and tie them up, rather than kill them, so the lower the chance they have of being identified later, the better.
Sharonne sits down beside the open door and watches them file out.
BRAN
It is almost too easy.
Three of the guards are asleep, heads lolling, minds drifting through the fragmented surrealist imagery of dream-state.
The other two are intent on a game of dice, kneeling beside the corridor wall, heads down, watching the tiny cubes spinning on the hard floor.
‘Good evening, gentlemen.’
The two guards look up from the spinning dice and freeze, as they come face to face with eight drawn longbows, the deadly arrow points aimed directly at them.
‘Stand up slowly and turn around. Hands against the wall. Now!’
The guards comply and a few seconds later, the five men are tied up in one of the empty storerooms and Bran is sliding the bolt closed.
– Bran!
Reggie’s sudden mind-scream jolts him and he spins around. Then he freezes.
A lone man has her by the hair, dragging her head back, and exposing her neck. In his left hand, he holds a hunting knife, with its point against her throat. It has pierced the skin and a thin trickle of blood is snaking down her neck.
How? The thought half forms, then disappears, as he notes the black hooded cloak and the reflection from the thin snake of copper that encircles the man’s neck. ‘Black Guard,’ he says out loud. ‘I should have guessed.’
The man smiles – little more than a humourless grimace. ‘You didn’t think we’d leave them in the hands of this rabble without some supervision, did you?’ He pulls a little harder on Reggie’s hair and she whimpers. ‘Now, put down your weapons, or—’
He twists the knife slightly and Reggie screams.
Bran keeps his bow raised. ‘Kill her and you won’t last two seconds.’ He is trying to sound calm, but failing. He can see the feral excitement in the Black Guard’s eyes.
‘Don’t know much about the Guard, do you, boy?’ The Guard manages to turn the word into an insult.
‘What’s to know? Vicious, soulless, merciless.’
‘You forgot “Not afraid to die”. It’s in the training, Esper. Whatever you might do to me, won’t compare with what my superiors would do to me, if I let any of you get away.’ He smiles again. ‘Believe me, death would be a welcome relief. So, what will it be? Put your weapons down, or—’ another painful twist of the knife-point, ‘not?’
Bran hesitates. Behind him, he feels the confusion of the others. And the fear. Though he cannot read the man’s thoughts, he knows enough of the Guard and its ways to know that he is speaking the truth.
For a second more, he holds the man’s gaze, then the tip of the arrow dips.
The triumph in the Black Guard’s eyes is short-lived. Before he can issue the order that is on his lips, Bran catches a movement at the edge of his field of vision. A black blur that cuts through the silence of the passage with an audible swish and strikes the man’s right temple with a sickening thud.
His head snaps to the left and the knife flies away, striking the Plascrete and rebounding; skittering across the hard floor of the passage, to come to rest against the opposite wall.
By the time it has completed its short journey, the man has pitched sideways, dropping like a felled tree. He bounces once, and then lies still.
Stepping into view from the adjoining passage, Sharonne drops her weapon – the shaft of one of the extinguished torches.
She looks down at the man’s unmoving body. ‘Is he—’
Bran can sense the revulsion she is feeling. He shakes his head and approximates a smile. ‘No. But he’ll know about it in the morning.’
He reaches down to remove the necklace from around the man’s neck, fumbling with the clasp before it parts.
– Bran. Alek sends the thought. He’s as dead as a post. I felt his chi flicker out before he even hit the floor.
> – I know, Al. But look at her. She doesn’t need the guilt. What she doesn’t know—
– Got ya, boss.
‘Come on!’ Erin has assumed control again. ‘Let’s open these doors and get them out of here before anyone else arrives.’
Minutes later, with the cells emptied and all signs of their presence erased, Bran pulls the secret door closed and follows the others down the passage to freedom.
31
Armin
Black Guard Caravan
Six Days’ Journey North of the Fortress
January 11, 3384ad
MYKAL
Midday. The sun is hot, beating down from a cloudless sky through the wide-spaced bars that form the roof of the cage.
Mykal, Jordan and Eliita shelter under a makeshift tent of cloaks and blankets, trying to escape the worst of the punishing rays, drained of energy and almost bereft of will.
‘Comfortable, Espers?’ Lessandro Dey has spurred his horse up level with the cart, his cold eyes an ironic contrast to the murderous midday heat. ‘Make the most of it. When the Interrogators get to you in the dungeons of the Citadel, you’ll be begging for a moment in the sun. Or maybe you’ll just be begging.’
He laughs and kicks his horse ahead.
Mykal crawls out from under the shade and stands, holding onto the bars, his legs bent slightly to counter the pitch and roll of the wagon’s progress over the rough road. He studies the eight riders in turn, searching for an edge; useful intelligence – factors to distinguish each from the others. For almost a week he has observed them from his cage, eavesdropping on conversations, probing for weaknesses.
Closest to him, the one they call Trent holds the reins in his left hand. His right is sheathed in a black glove to cover the dressing on a wound he sustained fending off a Feral spear-thrust, during the fight for the Archives.
Beneath the glove, the wound festers and a man with inferior training might whimper with the pain, but a Guard shows no weakness. Mykal watches him clench his jaw as he fights to ignore the burning in his hand – but even a Black Guard cannot control the sweat of pain that sits in beads on the skin of his forehead.
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