The Ice House

by Tim Clare

  The eyebrows were thinner and browner, the hair thicker, the ears smaller in proportion to the face, but that look of disapproval was unmistakeable.

  As she opened her mouth, his name turned in her heart like a key.

  ‘Henry?’

  It felt peculiar on her tongue – faintly blasphemous.

  The young man narrowed his eyes. In the dark of the tunnel, ten thousand rats opened their mouths and shrieked.

  He led them to freedom. Through the secret ways, the hidden paths beneath the hill. All the while they felt reverberations from the surface, the muffled concussions of warfare.

  Delphine ran. And when she could not run, when her boots had filled with blood and her legs collapsed beneath her, Butler and Patience and even the rats carried her.

  Colours bled together. Delphine flowed with them, down to the sea.

  Reggie was waiting in the undercity. Gunfire rang through the boardwalks. By the time he was rowing them across the bay, the sun was setting. Stealthily, they cut between the shadows of larger ships, till they reached a twin-masted schooner with its sails furled. Reggie whistled; a rope dropped.

  Once they were aboard, figures emerged from belowdecks. Delphine recognised the teenage girls from the boathouse. And here was Agatha, a pistol at her hip and a heavy red jacket slung about her shoulders, hissing orders.

  Soon, they were slipping out of the bay.

  Fat Maw burned. Fires raged across the high town, columns of smoke rising over the harbour like blood in water. The schooner headed west, out onto the heart-purple ocean.

  Delphine watched from the taffrail as the devastation shrank and compressed, losing detail. The farther they travelled, the easier it was to think of it as history, rather than an event that was still happening, the suffering of people as real as her. Soon it was just a glow on the horizon.

  They crushed Hagar’s bones with a hammer and burned the fragments in a brazier. Butler did not think a peer could regrow from a skeleton alone – and the bones showed no signs of regenerating – but he was not keen to test the proposition. Her pyre sent up a pennant of oily smoke that smutted the mainsail with a yellowy resin. Butler watched the flames, mouthing words under his breath.

  Delphine found Henry down in the hold. Rats scuttled amongst the cargo. He was squatting against a crate, tugging at his beard.

  He was skinnier than she remembered. Far younger, of course. Odd to see him without his hat.

  ‘I brought you a cup of tea,’ she said.

  He did not look up.

  ‘No milk, I’m afraid.’ Algernon had called milk in tea ‘the English perversion’. She stopped a few feet from Henry and set his mug down on the floor. A heavy sadness threatened to swallow her. She took a deep breath. ‘We held a service for Martha. Recited Psalm 23. She would have liked that, I think. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’

  Henry stared off to the side. Rats came and sniffed the mug.

  Well. She was expecting too much. She walked to the other side of the room and sat down on a plastic chest. She blew on her tea, watching it tilt with the movement of the ship.

  When she glanced over a few minutes later, Henry was holding his mug in both hands. She did the same. She felt the sorrow welling up inside her, stronger. Something darker than the night, impossibly vast. She closed her eyes and let the heat from her mug bathe her face.

  Till the next life.

  Night fell. The wind picked up and the sea took on the shifting topography of mountains.

  ‘Hey.’

  Alice appeared by Delphine’s side. She was wearing a waxed cloak with the hood up, and walking with a stick. Her ankle was sprained, rather than broken, though she was badly bruised.

  ‘Hello,’ said Delphine. She shuffled along and Alice joined her, leaning out over the rail. The boat left a frothing wake like a ploughed field in winter. Delphine felt as if she were watching from the window of a train. Glowing shapes bobbed just beneath the surface. Sometimes a fin cut laterally through the spume.

  The ship was taking them west. Perhaps they would make for Gallia, perhaps Albion. Butler said Sarai was breathing, but she would not wake up. He had cleaned and dressed her wounds. He did not know if she would survive the next few days.

  Delphine was beginning to realise she might never see England again. Even if Ms Rao solved the unrest at the camp and reopened the threshold, what would they be going back to? Old age, cancer, dementia. Martha was gone. There was no home to return to.

  And what of Avalonia? The Grand-Duc had ruled for centuries. Butler thought the conflict in Fat Maw was just the beginning. Hilanta might seize the opportunity to invade while the nation was weak. Ms Rao said upheaval brought opportunity. Places to hide. Chances to help. Ways to steer history. Delphine and Alice were welcome to continue their work with SHaRD, she said. With the threshold closed, supply lines were temporarily cut off. But Butler and Patience had contacts in Gallia. Of course, Alice and Delphine were free. Once the ship made land, they could go where they pleased.

  Delphine did not know what she wanted. Or rather, she did. But it was impossible.

  ‘We’re alive,’ said Alice.

  ‘We’re alive,’ said Delphine. She ran her palm across the grain of the wood and thought about what to say. She thought of Martha, and a wagon full of oddments, and the sound of rain on leaves. She looked down at their hands next to each other on the rail, fancied she saw the beginning of lines, the rising of veins, a hardening, a tremor.

  She slid her hand over Alice’s. A pulse socked her palm. It felt heavy and good.

  She squeezed.

  EPILOGUE

  I manifest in the pavilion, folding my wings round Gideon. Ice meets fire. Steam rises from us in a column.

  My memory has a hole burnt in it. An hour is missing. Sarai is gone. Ah well. What has happened is what must happen. Gideon is returned to me. All is proceeding as it should.

  Morgellon is on the floor, screaming. Abruptly, he stops. Here we go. I withdraw to a safe distance. I know what’s about to happen, and I want to watch.

  A figure descends the steps from the balcony. She’s beautifully dressed – wrapped in an ankle-length black cloak held fast by a lattice of embroidered punchwork and grey cotton cords, her face obscured by a mask. The mask is featureless white, save for two hollow sockets which appear black in the guttering candlelight.

  She crosses the floor, stepping over shattered bodies. When she reaches Morgellon, she kneels. She pushes up her mask. Of course Grandmama is mesmerising. She wears her pale-daffodil hair fastened with an ebony clasp. Her skin is supple and flushed with colour. You’d never guess she spent decades buried alive, dreaming delirious, grief-filled dreams of her lost love. Madness is a cleansing fire. The Anwen who regards this scene is utterly hollow. Purified. Her hatred for the one who slew Grandpapa has undergone a radical diffusion. She no longer hates just Delphine. She abominates life itself.

  She studies the prone body of her old benefactor. Her betrayer. Lord Jejunus, the Terrestrial Grand-Duc, Gallia’s Endless Sentinel, Guardian of the Free Peoples of the Perpetuum.

  She touches him lightly on the elbow. She lowers her mask and rises.

  ‘Gideon,’ she says. ‘It’s time to go.’

  Gideon nods in mute compliance, and begins to trudge towards the tunnels.

  Anwen sifts through debris until she finds it: a child’s hand, severed at the wrist. Sinew trails strangely from the wrist stump, like new shoots pushing out from a seedling.

  She presses the hand to her chest, glances round a final time, and vanishes into the shadows.

  The chamber shakes. A great stone lintel drops from the spire and bursts against the onyx head of Mitta. The lid of the sarcophagus cracks. The statue tilts. Morgellon lies motionless amongst the debris, his body grey with dust.

  My god is calling me back. With the last of my strength, I drift behind the statue and give it the ge
ntlest of taps. The stone lid gives way. Mitta falls towards his master.

  A boom rings through the pavilion.

  By and by, Grandmama will set sail to find me. Gideon will hear the song of the dreaming deep and guide them. The seedling will find a worthier servant than her former master, and, when they arrive, she will waken my god and reshape the world. Threads that were many and thin are now woven together into a single, unbreakable rope. My god will rise and transform our suffering. It can no longer be stopped.

  An end to the error of death. Paradise on this world and on Earth.

  These are the wonders I believe I am ushering in.

  An end to the error of life. An end to the error. An end.

  I start to fade, returning to my prison beneath the ice. In my innocence, I think we have won. My body unspools. It doesn’t hurt. There is no pain.

  Only love.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This was not an easy book to write, and I’m very grateful to everyone who helped pick me up and carry me when I fell down.

  Firstly, I’d like to thank my dear friends Cleo Madeleine, Kieren McCallum, Beth McKenzie and Rachael Weal, for teaching me the meaning of companionship and adventure, and keeping the spirit of storytelling alive in my heart. I wouldn’t have made it without you.

  Thank you to Iain Ross and Hayley Webster for reading parts of my novel and offering reassurance and feedback when I needed them the most.

  Thank you to the Society of Authors, who gave me a grant that helped me finish the book after life circumstances had made doing so look impossible.

  Thank you to my agent Sophie Lambert, who has been supremely patient, insightful and positive throughout the long process of getting this novel finished. Thank you to my editor, Jo Dingley, for her advice, wisdom and support. I owe both of you such a lot for helping me find the story that needed telling and make it the best it could be.

  Thank you to my parents, who are always there for me, and who have always made me feel very, very loved. I’m also grateful to my mother-in-law, Leena Horton, whose positivity, calm and good humour are a constant inspiration.

  My greatest debt of gratitude goes to my wife, Lisa Horton, who has at various points encouraged, supported, hugged, tolerated and forgiven me while I siphon off the best of myself into an imaginary world. Thank you. I love you.

  Finally, thank you to my daughter Suki, who was born during this book’s creation, and who teaches me so much about love, bravery and joy every day. I would carry you down mountains, through jungles, over oceans, even unto the end of the world. I love you so, Suki. One person really can change everything.

  ‘A darkly compelling read’ Financial Times