White and Other Tales of Ruin

by Tim Lebbon

  Della smiled, wiping her mouth and burping loudly and resonantly. “There you are, you see. I’ve made you think of him as a man, just by telling you something about him. Before, to you, he was a nobody, a tramp, someone without identity. You never even thought he was human.”

  I realised how right Della was. I imagined Marcus as a young man with a wife, going on family holidays, proud and arrogant in his pilot’s suit, flying helmet under his arm as he posed for the papers. “He’s still out there, and he’s going to freeze,” I said.

  Della scoffed. “Marcus’ll still be alive when you and I are dead and gone. It’s as if he’d adapted for the Ruin before it happened. He’s always been ready. His life has always been a ruin.” She looked at me across the candle-lit room, scratching slowly beneath her chin. A breeze whistled in under the corrugated roof, flickering the candles and making Della shimmer with feigned movement. “What do you think of him now?”

  I sighed. “I suppose ... well, he’s a tramp, but I can appreciate him. He’s human.”

  Della nodded. “Some people aren’t what they seem. Some are much more than you think, or at least better than they like to portray themselves. Some ... a few ... are much worse. Much of the time you’ll never know which, but it’s you that counts, what you think of them. Some people can really pull the wool over your eyes, kiddo.”

  I went to get Della a beer, grabbed one for myself, sat and stared at her for an hour or two. Neither of us talked. Silently, in my own way, I was worshipping her. I wondered who the real Della was, but deep inside I had always known. She was my salvation.

  iii

  “String,” I say, “where are we going? Is it dangerous?” It feels dangerous, the cool air chilling me instead of comforting me this time, the darkness haunting, not hiding. It’s as if the dark here is a presence, not just an absence of light.

  He turns and leans gently towards me, lowering his head and looking at me through wide eyes. They glimmer, reflecting the memory of the strange light in the cavern behind us. “Not dangerous,” he says. “Wonderful!” He walks on, then stops and looks at me again, head to one side, one corner of his mouth raised in a sardonic smile. “But dangerous if you’re on your own. Dangerous, without me.” He moves on.

  For a moment I speculate on what String did before the Ruin, before he took on the mantle of a Lord. But the mere idea of him existing in a normal world seems alien and abstract, and in a way it disturbs me more than the knowledge of his Lordship.

  Around an outcrop of rock the darkness recedes, and suddenly we arrive at another cavern. This one is open to the sky. A great split in the rock, millions of years old, has formed what is effectively a deep pothole, its entrance eroded by weathering until the walls have shallowed out into a gully. It reminds me of a great fossilised throat, and String and I are standing in the stomach. The hairs on my neck perk up and goose bumps prickle my arms and shoulders. I have the sense of being an intruder, like walking in on someone having sex or gate crashing a funeral. But the feeling is more primal. I feel as though have offended a god.

  The gully appears empty, and accessible only from the tunnel we have just emerged from. The floor is uneven and raised at one edge like a ramp to the walls. I can see no reason for my unease, but Della always told me that feelings tell more than sight, and I’m terrified. I assume that String’s words have made me nervous and skittish, but when I glance at him he appears in the same frantic state. That scares me more than anything: the idea that this man is scared of whatever sleeps here.

  “What is it?”

  String does not hear me, or chooses not to. “Can you feel the power? Does it grab your skull, twist your spine? Can you sense the majesty of this place? This is the real god, Gabe, this is the genuine Provider. A god you can feel. A god who will help you, cure you.” He looks at me, his eyes wide and alive, glimmering with emotion. “You’ll be cured. Made better. Just like Jade. Just like all the others outside.”

  I want to go. Suddenly the last place I want to be is here, in this deep gully that encases me like a prison, or a tomb. But String grabs my arm and guides me to the edge of the hole, the place where the ground is ramped against the wall. I start to tremble as we approach it, and I think I can feel String shaking as well.

  He hauls me up the slight incline until we are standing on a small ledge, our heads touching rock where the overhang curves inward.

  I look down. There is a large stone slab on the top of the raised area, edges blurred by time. I try to convince myself that its surface is not decorated with crude letters and drawings, but they are there, and they will not be denied. The pictures show mere remnants of what must once have been a magnificent tableau: half a reptilian head; the face of a god in the sun; a trail of bones, skulls crushed under wagon wheels. The words are similarly weathered, and I can not decipher any of them. But for that, I am pleased. They look so alien — so unlike anything I have ever seen, in life or history — that I can barely imagine how old they are.

  “I think it’s a tomb,” String says. “And whoever is buried here must have been someone ... special. This is where the power comes from.”

  I can feel it, an implied vibration that enters my holed shoes and seems to shiver my bones, fingering its way through my marrow and cooling everything it touches. I want to shout, but something prevents me. It feels like a hand over my mouth, but I can still breathe. I want to run, but I am restrained. Something holds me where I am, though String is standing several steps away.

  Then I can go, and I do. I turn, shout incoherently, and run. String tries to hold me, but grabs only my attention.

  “Not that way,” he hisses. I realise that I had been heading towards the blank, strange wall of the cave. I spin, throw his hand from my arm and sprint into the tunnel. The darkness seems more welcoming than the polluted light of that place.

  It takes me several minutes to find my way out. Emerging from the cave is like a re-birth. The daylight is wonderful. I keep running until I am far from the ravine, almost at the moat of broken glass, and there I collapse into the dust and stare up at the sky, eyes closed, while the sun slowly burns my face.

  iv

  “Did you see it all?” Jade says. There is an unfamiliar weakness in her tone. I open my eyes. She is standing over me and moves forward to block out the sun.

  “Christ Jade, is there any more? Anything else you’re waiting for me to find out on my own?” I can feel the coolness of tears on my face, soothing the sunburn that stretches my skin across my skull. I’d been crying a lot recently. It was not unusual, lately, not only for me but also for the world in general. If tears could heal we’d all be a damn sight better than we were before the Ruin. But tears could only hurt and haunt, and remind us of our eventual, inevitable weakness.

  “You saw the library? And the...” She cannot say it. I feel a sudden burst of anger.

  “The what? The library and the what?” Perhaps she thinks I really had not seen it, but I’m sure she can see way past my anger. I’m sure she knows all there is to know about me. I feel transparent, the same way I am with Della. Only with Della, I like the feeling. She comforts, she does not confuse.

  “The tomb,” she mutters.

  I nod, anger draining with my sweat and tears. “Yes, I saw the library, and the tomb. Or whatever it is. I hated it.”

  “It’s not bad, it’s —”

  “How the fuck do you know what it is? How do you know it’s not bad?”

  Jade recoils from my outburst and I revel in a momentary glee at the brief panic in her eyes. “String healed me, Gabe. I told you, I showed you.” She put her hand to her chest, as if to hold in the goodness that had replaced her Sickness.

  I sit up. “With the aid of whatever lies in there?”

  Jade nods. “It’s something old and powerful. We can’t pretend to understand it, just as Christians don’t presume to understand God. He frightens them, maybe, but they can’t ever hope to explain Him. It’s like that with this place. It has somet
hing wonderful, and there’s nothing wrong with using it. String has found out how to do that. He’s doing some good in the world. You know as well as I do, there’s precious little of that going on anywhere else.”

  I begin to laugh. I stand up, feeling the fear being cooked away by the sun. Or if not removed altogether, then diluted somewhat. Fear is a strange thing when you’re dying — sometimes, it seems so pointless.

  “I’ve come this far.” Jade and I walk slowly back to the large tent in the middle of the settlement, a great sweeping structure held up by steel stanchions and sheltered from the outside by two layers of light, soft material. Suddenly something clicks into place. The colour of the tent raises an uncomfortable sensation in my guts.

  “This is a Lord Ship,” I say. “What’s left of the ship he crashed in.”

  “He used it to build the whole settlement,” Jade says.

  “Always thought the Lords were an evil bunch of bastards, in it all for their own gain.” Della’s words echo: The worst thing, kiddo, is that they’re going to be gods.

  Jade shrugs. “What you were meant to think, I suppose.”

  “No,” I say. “No, it’s something I was told.” I feel an incredible sense of disquiet as I realise that my future — my life, my soul, my continued existence and well-being — now relies upon Della being both right and wrong. I hope the Lords were not all as selfish as she made out; and, in whatever strange way it may be possible, I hope that String is a god.

  I wonder whether she knew that String was a Lord when she told me of him.

  v

  String is in the large tent, sitting at a table in the corner. The space beneath the main canopy is divided by swaying curtains of the same material. I touch it, rub it between my fingers, surprised at how light it is. It feels almost oily to the touch, yet I can see through it.

  “It’s extremely strong,” String says. “It’s all that survived the crash. Apart from me, of course.”

  “What about the motors, engines? Weapons?”

  String shakes his head. “The mechanics of the Ship burned when the pile melted down. I got away before it went up. The fire didn’t touch this lot, thankfully. It was built to endure. As for the weapons, that was a fallacy. The Lord Ships never carried weapons. We were a mobile, self-sufficient government, not an army.” He stands, gestures us towards him. Tiarnan is already there, along with several other men and women. There is food on the table, glasses, bottles of wine and, in the centre of the table — as if honoured for its very existence — a large bottle of Metaxa.

  “Please sit down.” String waits until Jade and I have taken our places before he sits. He turns to me, his expression slipping into seriousness for a moment.

  “Tomorrow morning, I will cure you.”

  “How?”

  “A potion. Simple. Rubbed into your chest, your temples, your stomach, it acts quickly. By tomorrow evening the growths will have hardened and dropped off. They will not recur.” String hands me a glass of wine. His blasé statement stuns me with its simplicity. He is talking about my life or death, yet he promises everything with a confidence that makes it difficult not to believe.

  I turn to Jade, who is staring ravenously at the food arrayed across the table. “This is how he did you?”

  She nods, but does not look at me. I can hardly blame her. There is more food here — in both variety and quantity — than I have seen in months. Lamb, roasted whole; a piglet, apple stuck in its mouth like a swollen tongue; fresh fruit; duckling, sliced and presented with pancakes and sauces; crispy vegetables, steaming as if to gain our attention.

  “Why not now?”

  String shakes his head. “Tomorrow. The power of the place is at its greatest around dawn. You’ll feel it when you wake up. You will be fresher, stronger from the food. Tomorrow, Gabe.”

  I am too tired to argue, and I have come too far to risk upsetting him now. I wish Della was here with me, ready with an apposite phrase or two, but at the same time I’m glad she is not. At least at a distance I can adore her fully. If she were here, it would be too obvious.

  We eat. We drink. The evening passes gloriously slowly, and I surprise myself by enjoying most of it. Dusk falls, but the heat remains, trapped within the tent by the folds of strange material hung out like drying hides. String is a polite host, accommodating and generous with his precious food and drink. I satisfy my hunger ten-fold, feeling guilty when I think of what Della may be eating tonight, but also aware that if she knew she would be selflessly happy for me.

  We emerge into the night with the stars and the alcohol flows ever-more freely. String makes his excuses and disappears. Couples pair off and begin to make love shamelessly under the heavens. I see the occasional light scar on chests or abdomens, but no signs of the fully-fledged Sickness. It is like a new world. I see a flash across the horizon and Jade points it out. “Shooting star,” she says.

  Soon, the revelry dies down and is replaced by the soft moaning of lovers, the slow movement of shadows close to the ground. Jade and I walk to the banks of the dried stream and sit amongst the fruit bushes and rows of tomatoes. The smells tempt our taste buds, even though we are still full from the meal. I pluck a tomato and bite in, closing my eyes as the warm juices dribble down my chin. I see small shadows skipping between plants, scratching on the dry ground; a lizard, as long as my foot and with glittering eyes, runs up the slight bank towards us. We sit as still as we can, waiting for it to scamper away. It waits, frozen by starlight, staring at us before turning and walking casually back into the stream of plants.

  Jade giggles. It is a sound I have not heard from her, and I like it. She reaches for my shirt but I push her away.

  “I’m ugly,” I say. “This is a good place. I can’t show my ugliness to it.” I wonder if the Metaxa or wine was drugged, because I cannot help but feel fine.

  “You’re not ugly. It’s the Sickness that’s ugly, the world, the people in it. Not you.” She shuffles next to me and begins unbuttoning my shirt. This time I let her. “Tomorrow, all the ugliness will be gone.”

  “Is there anything else, Jade? Anything you haven’t told me? Is this it, is this all?” But she is taking her own clothes off now and she does not answer me. I think I see tears, but it could just be other worlds reflected in her eyes.

  vi

  I may be dreaming.

  The ground feels solid beneath me as I sit up, the sky looks as wide and intimidating as I have ever known it. I see a dart of light streak from east to west, and wonder whether it is a shooting star or another satellite destroying itself in despair.

  I hear a sound that is familiar, but out of reach. My head is light, and it feels as though I am spinning around the world. A dream, maybe, or too much wine and Metaxa?

  I stand, careful not to wake Jade where she sleeps beside me. She is still naked, and her skin looks grey and dead in the moonlight. I reach out and touch her just to ensure she’s still there. She is warm, and my touch imbues her skin with life.

  I hear the noise again. Jade stirs, turns, mumbles something. I cannot distinguish most of the words, but I think I hear my name, and an apology.

  There is movement from the other side of the stream bed. The noise quietens, and as it fades recognition dawns: the crunching, tinkling sounds of the huge boat crossing the moat of glass. Something has come into the camp. I wonder if I should wake someone, tell them, but then realise that whatever is happening is a part of the camp’s life — they would surely have guards out there day and night. Instead, I slither down the bank and push my way into the mass of vegetation.

  Voices reach me, quiet and muted, issuing orders. Then the sound of wheels on the dusty ground, like a fingernail on sandpaper. I push through the plants, breathing heavily to draw in the smell of growing, living things. Dark shapes dart away from me, one of them scampering across my feet with a panicked patter of claws. I walk into what can only be a spider’s web, the soft silk wrapping around my face and neck, and rub frantically to clear it a
way. After a time I begin to think I am lost, walking in circles between the ranks of plants, but then I reach the opposite bank. I’m surprised at how wide the stream bed is. It looked a lot narrower in the daylight.

  A voice mutters nearby. I’m sure it is Tiarnan, the guard who brought us in. His tone is quiet but firm, confident but casual, as if he’s well used to what he’s doing. I crawl slowly up the bank until I can see over the gentle ridge.

  The sound of wheels begins again as I catch my first glimpse of the wagon. It is about the size of a car, a flat-bedded trailer moving roughly on four bare wheels. There are three men pushing it. In the darkness, at first, I can barely make out what they are transporting. But as it nears me on its obvious journey into the ravine, sudden realisation strikes. It looks like a cargo of clothes, but why three men to push it?

  Bodies. Piled high on the cart, limbs protruding here and there, moving with a rhythmic thump thump that could so easily be the sound of a head jerking up and down against the wood.

  I gasp, duck down, a scream screeching for release. But I contain it. Somehow, I hold in my terror and let it manifest itself only inside; a rush of blood pulses to the growths in my chest and bursts one, and I have the sudden certainty that I am about to die, here, now, within sight of a strange crime and an expanse of lush plants. My breath comes in ragged gasps, as if someone else is controlling my respiration. I try to calm down, but my heart will not listen to me. I want to double up in agony, the pain from my chest sending tendrils of poison into my veins, spreading it slowly but surely throughout my body.

  That’s the poison from the Sickness, I tell myself, it’s leaking into me and soon I’ll die. And then maybe they’ll add me to the cart and wheel me away, to wherever they’re taking the hundreds of other meaningless corpses. I take another look over the bank and see Tiarnan standing down by the glass moat, exposed in starlight. He and three other men are lifting bodies from the moat-boat onto a second cart. As I watch, Tiarnan’s partner fumbles and there is a sickening clout as the body hits the ground head first. He bends to pick it up, and I hear something which makes it all seem so much worse, if that is possible — a quiet laugh.