by Stewart Ross
“Yes. It means a lot to me, Sammy. More than just saving the laptop.” He gave her a quizzical look. “Ok, if you promise not to mention it yet, I’ll let you into a secret…”
Cyrus had not done it.
The first suggestion of alarm had run through Sakamir the moment Xsani and her bodyguard entered the Ghasar. How stupid she was to have put herself in such a vulnerable position! To gain the Soterion, she had made herself a barbarian: she had accepted the brand of a Zed, murdered Potr and her copemate, and allowed a whole Constant community to be utterly destroyed. It was all justified because now just one human heartbeat stood between her and supreme power.
But as she stared at the Malika – ally and enemy – she knew she had made a dreadful error of judgement. She had assumed that she and Xsani would share control for a few days while Cyrus and other literate Albans were subdued. When the opportunity arose, she would do away with Xsani and…
Do away with Xsani? Yes, there was the rub.
“Tho, here we are,” lisped her rival as her bodyguard noiselessly positioned themselves around her. Xsani’s blue eyes flicked quickly round the hall, checking for danger. Eventually her gaze came to rest on the queen’s bloody dress. “Been butchering?”
Sakamir forced her mouth into a rigid smile. “Yes, it was Yash. As I promised. Welcome to Alba, Malika Xsani. It is ours!”
Arms outstretched, she took a step forward. The bodyguard’s spears closed across her path like scissors. She could advance no further.
Her alarm swelled into panic and she found herself trembling like a fevered child. What sort of idiot trusted a Zed? The cool demeanour she had cultivated for so long was cracking up – and she was powerless to stop it. In a moment of paralysing insight, she saw she no longer controlled her own destiny: in destroying Alba, she had destroyed herself.
“Oh, Xsani!” she blurted. “No need for that! We’re allies. We have an agreement, remember? I opened the gates for you…” She was pleading, and hated herself for it. It was utterly humiliating – and utterly hopeless.
With the sounds of massacre in her ears, she realised the full and horrible futility of what she had done. She opened her mouth, but no words came. They were spoken in her heart instead. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Please…”
The confession was interrupted by Xsani, smooth and sweet and deadly. “Oh Thakamir! I am tho dithapointed! I thought you were clever – but no. I thought you were thtrong – but no. And I thought you would be difficult to dethtroy – but no. Farewell.”
At a wave of their mistress’s hand, four of the bodyguard swung round. Their steel-tipped spears came down as one, levelled at Sakamir’s breast.
The Queen of Alba’s motives for what she did next will never be known. Had she decided that if she couldn’t have the Soterion, no one would? Or was it a desperate attempt to make amends for what she had done, keeping the Soterion out of Zed hands? Whatever prompted her behaviour, the consequences were the same.
Quicker than the spears lunging towards her, Sakamir darted backwards, grabbed the two oil lamps and smashed them together over the stacks of books around her. By the time the spears struck, piercing her to the spine, flaming oil was seeping into the dry papers. There was no water to hand. In vain the bodyguard beat at the fire with their spears before the heat forced them outside. From the books, the flames leaped to the wooden walls and so up to the thatched roof. Soon the whole building was a furious inferno.
The Soterion was no more.
Cyrus saw the blaze as he rounded the children’s dormitory. Standing on open ground, oblivious to danger, he stared at the conflagration in horror. The mission, Roxanne’s sacrifice, the classes, the hope of a better future … all gone. Everything had been pointless.
Similar thoughts ran through the mind of Xsani as, standing twenty paces below Cyrus, she gazed at the blazing Ghasar. The creation of the Timur myth, her alliance with those idiotic dumbmans and the surrender of the Kogon’s secret identity had all been in vain. She had come so close to seizing the means to supreme power … she had seen the books, almost touched them … and now, like her ambition, they were crumbling to ashes.
Overcome with emotions she had never before experienced, she lifted her eyes from the fire to the rising ground behind. There a figure stood, solitary and unmoving. As she looked, he turned his head towards her and their eyes met. She recognised him at once. The commanding physique, firm mouth, eyes wise beyond their time… It had to be him – the only dumbman Sakamir was afraid of – the survivor of the original mission – the one she had planned to tame and force to reveal the secrets of the Soterion. Cyrus.
As she looked, she became aware of the moon behind him. Lower now, and its bright silver dulled to deep yellow, it hung over his head like a glow. She had seen the image before, many, many times. It was painted on the wall of her residence in Filna. Far away from there, amid fire and bloodshed, she was face to face with the pale dumbman in a yellow hat.
A troop of Kogon warriors, headed by Jinsha, was running up the slope towards Cyrus. Their spears were raised, ready to strike. If he didn’t move fast, Xsani realised, they would kill him.
“Stop!” she commanded. “Leave him!”
Startled by the sudden cry, Cyrus glanced briefly towards her, spun round and vanished like smoke into the shadows.
Later, when Jinsha asked why she had saved that particular dumbman, the Malika was unusually reticent. All she would say was that he was needed.
“So everything’s lost,” said Miouda when Cyrus explained how he reached the Ghasar after the fire had started.
“Suppose so,” he shrugged, struggling to prevent despair getting the better of him. “But we’re still here. We’ll get out, find another group of Constants and start again.”
Aware how lame he sounded, he took Miouda in his arms and held her tight against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She was too upset to reply. Overwhelmed by the utter bleakness of their situation, she broke into uncontrollable sobs.
“Come on, you two,” said Sammy after a short interval. “Yes, it’s horrible, really horrible. And I’ve lost my Corby. But it could be worse, you know.”
Cyrus looked at him. “Oh yes?”
“Yes! Listen, I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
When they were bringing the books and the laptops up from the Soterion cave, he confessed, he had acted a bit deceitfully. He didn’t like the idea of moving absolutely everything to Alba – just in case. When no one was looking, he had hidden something in a corner of the vault.
What? Cyrus asked.
A laptop. And what’s more, it was a laptop with SP written on it, like that in the Ghasar. With a bit of luck, the one in the vault would also hold details of the Salvation Project.
Cyrus sighed. It was all very well, but did Sammy fancy going into Alba and searching for a key among hundreds of murderous Zeds?
The young man put his hand in the leather pouch at his side and brought out the object he had found hidden in the cushion.
“Guess what? It’s the key to the vault! Nicked it from the Emiron when I called in. Sammy’s got it sorted, see? So let’s get out of here before them Zeds come looking for us.”
Miouda turned to take one last look at the settlement that had been her home. “Oh look!” she exclaimed. “The fire! It’s spreading.”
Sparks from the blazing Ghasar had landed on thatched roofs nearby, setting them alight. The flames were spreading fast, carried by the light wind that had sprung up. Before long, the conflagration would engulf the entire settlement.
“Troy,” muttered Cyrus as he gazed upon the dreadful scene. “It’s Troy all over again!”
Cyrus, Miouda and Sammy, the only Constant survivors of the massacre of Alba, headed for the Soterion Gate in silence. The enormity of what they had witnessed and what was still going on around them made conversation impossible. There was so much to say but so little that could be expressed in wor
ds.
Keeping to the shadows, they avoided all contact with Zeds until they reached the gate itself. There they met with a very strange experience. Slipping through the arched doorway, they ran into a posse of four Zeds. Three of the men appeared to be guarding the fourth, a tall young man holding a vertical spear. Stuck on the spike at the top was a round, black object, rather like a giant fungus.
On seeing the Constants, the three Zed guards wanted to attack. The spear-carrier forbade it. “Ratbrains!” he shouted in an unearthly, high-pitched scream. “Would you leave your Over-Malik undefended as he enters the scene of his finest triumph? If you move so much as one batshit toe, vermin, I’ll see you spitted and roasted like the pigs you are!”
The three Zeds trembled and stayed where they were, allowing the Constants to pass by unchallenged. When they looked back, the strange quartet had passed under the archway and was making its way along the street towards the square. “Bow!” the spear-carrier was screaming. “Bow before the Mighty Timur!”
Sammy turned to Cyrus. “Is that what I think it was?”
“Yes. Didn’t look much like him though, did it? But you heard what the man carrying him said. That was Timur alright.”
“And good riddance,” muttered Sammy, turning to the path that led to the Soterion.
The level ground around the entrance to the vault was quiet and peaceful. While Sammy went in to collect the hidden computer, Cyrus stayed outside with Miouda. The pair had hardly spoken to each other since leaving Alba.
She broke the silence. “There is hope, Cyrus,” she said softly, putting her hand in his.
“I suppose so. If we can find some electricity. And if the laptop works.”
“Yes. But there’s more than that. Remember how I didn’t want to jump off the wall?”
“Yes. Why was it?”
“Can’t you guess?” She took his hand and placed it over her stomach. “I’m expecting a baby, Cyrus. Our baby.”
A thousand emotions swept through him. “Oh Miouda! The best of times comes at the worst of times!”
She’s right, he thought. There is always hope. There must be. And her pregnancy was a sign. Despite all the terrible suffering, cruelty and barbarity, they had to go on.
He heard the click of the lock as Sammy shut the Soterion door behind him. “Got it!” he called quietly as he hurried over to them. “Look!” He held out the laptop. “Untouched.”
“The Long Dead would have called you a genius,” Cyrus smiled. Keeping one hand round Miouda’s waist, he put the other on Sammy’s shoulder. “Do you realise you have the past and future of humanity in your hands?”
“Not just in my hands, Cyrus. There’s a little bit inside Miouda, too.”
“You know?”
“She told me while you were down at the Ghasar. You’d still be with her, she said, even though you might not come back.” He paused. “Anyway, I had an idea when she didn’t want to jump off that wall.”
“You’re incorrigible, Sammy!” Cyrus said, still with his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get as much distance as we can between us and those Zeds.”
Thus – half in hope, half in fear – the three survivors set off into the wilderness. Like figures in a dance of the Long Dead, they walked abreast. The taller man in the middle had his arms affectionately round the shoulders of the other two, a young woman on his right and a young man on his left. Behind them, the sky blazed like a furnace. By sunhigh, when they finally lay down to rest, the place they had left was no more than blackened stones over which the ashes of the Soterion flickered like butterflies in the warm morning breeze.
Glossary
Alba Constant settlement where the Soterion was found.
bodyburn Constant term for cremation.
breeding slave Male Zed term for a woman kept to produce children.
Captain Male Zed officer under the rank of Malik.
Constants Those trying to maintain the civilisation that collapsed following the Great Death of 2018-19.
copemate Alban name for a partner of either sex.
Death Month 28-day period during a person’s 19th year when they age and die.
Della Tallis Constant settlement where Cyrus was born and raised.
dumbman Female Zed term for a male.
Emir Elected leader of a Constant settlement.
Emiron Emir’s residence in Alba.
Eyes Kogon lookouts and spies.
Filna Abandoned Long Dead town inhabited by the Kogon.
flabtoad Grozny term for a female.
Ghasar Meeting place of Alba’s Majlis.
Gova Constant term for a mysterious power (electricity) worshipped by the Children of Gova.
Great Death Period (2018–19) when all those over 19 suddenly aged and died.
Grozny Tribe of vicious Zeds once led by Timur.
Gurkov Zed tribe led by Ogg.
halfmoon Constant term for a fortnight.
handshow Constant term for a vote.
Kogon Tribe of female Zeds.
Konnel Alban officer.
kumfort Kogon term for a partner, female.
Long Dead Those whose civilisation died out during the Great Death.
Majlis Constant council advising the Emir.
Malik Male Zed tribal leader.
Malika Female Zed tribal leader.
moon Constant term for a month.
Over-Malik Title given to Timur after his death.
spitfest Grozny feast of spit-roasted meat, sometimes human.
sunhigh Constant term for noon and South.
Tallin Constant from Della Tallis.
wedun Tallin term for a partner of either sex.
winter Constant term for a year.
Zeds Barbarians who reject the civilisation that collapsed during the Great Death.
Zektiv Officer of the Kogon Zeds.
About the author
Prizewinning author Stewart Ross taught at all levels in the UK, the USA, the Middle East and Sri Lanka before becoming a full-time writer. He has published many works, including novels for adults and for children. He has also written plays, lyrics and poetry, and his books have been translated into several languages. As a change from the large garden hut in which he works, Stewart ventures forth to schools, colleges and universities in the UK, France and elsewhere to talk about writing and pass on his passion for words.
The Soterion Mission
It is the year 2016 and all the adults are dead.
A horrific mutation in human DNA has resulted in a world of children and adolescents, struggling to survive with no science, art or learning of any kind. Each has only nineteen years to live: nineteen years in which to be born, grow up, grow old and die.
Legend has it that the mysterious Soterion holds the key to centuries of lost knowledge. The loyal Constants Roxanne and Cyrus lead a mission to find the Soterion. On the way, they must do battle with wild Zeds and outwit the false god of the Children of Gova. But suspicion and jealousy threaten to tear the mission apart. Will they learn to trust each other before their time runs out?
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