by Joan Lennon
‘Now, now, Blossom,’ he said to the grumbling beast. ‘Don’t you know it isn’t polite to play with your food?’
‘Give over, Onn.’ The desert woman sounded weary and bored. ‘Here…’ and she gave the reluctant Madlen a leg-up.
The man was chuckling to himself as he shunted her into a more central position on the camelion’s neck, but then he stopped paying attention to her at all. As the group headed out into the open desert, the mood shifted in humans and beasts. Stealth, silence, vigilance – the senses stretched and alert, the mind open to those instincts and intuitions that would keep them all alive that little bit longer…
Cam was silent too, its eyes fixed on the camelion’s broad head, its fingers gripped convulsively in the animal’s thick, harsh hair. Once its rider – she was young, not long past emergence – reached her hand over Cam’s shoulder and touched where the tag had rubbed its wrist.
‘What did you do?’ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Cam shook its head.
‘Nothing. I didn’t do anything.’ It paused, and then, ‘What did you do?’ it asked, just as quietly.
‘Same,’ she replied.
Bryn heard their exchange and wished he could give Cam a comforting shove.
After that, nobody spoke, as three Questors rode with their captors towards the dawn.
51
Stranger
It was still dark, but Ivory had barely slept. Anyway, it was a peaceful time to get a few hours’ work done, before the rest of the palace woke up. Serena would be fussing round her as soon as she discovered she was out of bed, but for now…
Without knocking, a stranger entered the room and walked up to her desk. Ivory was too astonished to speak.
‘I haven’t time for our usual mode of communication,’ the stranger said.
She pulled herself together and stood up, frowning, regal.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded. ‘Who are you?’
‘Who am I?! And to think of all the nights we’ve spent together! Madam, I am desolate.’
The colour was draining from her face and the hand she put on the chair-back trembled slightly.
‘A simple manipulation of the Interpretive Programme was well within my abilities, Lady, but I preferred the more, ah, personal touch. You and I have had such pleasant dreams together… In many ways, directing the destiny of Dalrodia has been remarkably easy – the least onerous of all the Worlds. Discrediting the rule of the Holders has been hardly a challenge at all.’
‘Who are you?’ she said again, but he ignored her question.
‘It’s been mostly a matter of faith, hasn’t it. As the drilling went on, and the earthquakes got worse, and your World spun closer and closer to the sun, you – still – had – faith. Such a useful lever. History mentions it again and again. But, of course, if once we start learning from history we might also start running out of mistakes to make, and then where would we be? Now, dear Lady, perhaps we could get to the point? Where are the children?’
‘What children?’
The man clicked his tongue as if she were being naughty.
‘Oh, I could just go to the Tag Master,’ he said. ‘Of course I could. But you know, I’d really rather get the information from you. I’d hate for you not to feel how much a part of it all you’ve been, all the way through. I was almost going to say I couldn’t have done it without you, but of course that wouldn’t be true. But I’m sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much without you.’
He was advancing on her all the time. As she backed away her eyes flicked from side to side, looking for an escape.
‘You realize I’ll kill anyone who comes through that door,’ he said conversationally. ‘Just in case you were thinking of calling for help.’
Ivory stopped. She’d run out of room, backed against the wall. She lifted her chin.
‘I don’t know where they are,’ she said without a quaver.
‘I think you do,’ purred Alpine Cordell. ‘And I think that very soon I’ll know too…’
*
Serena grumbled to herself as she approached her Lady’s office – working already – what kind of a night’s sleep do you call that? – you’ll make yourself ill – when the stranger brushed past her. There was nothing particularly noticeable about him – he looked like another of those London House messengers – but why so early?
For some reason, she broke into a run.
‘Well, Lady –’
Ivory lay beside her overturned chair, curled in on herself and shuddering as the pain continued to wash across her as relentless as a tide. With a great effort, she raised her head and spoke.
‘I didn’t tell him,’ she panted. ‘I didn’t. He just ripped into my mind and took it.’
‘Pigeon. Lady,’ Serena crooned, desperate to comfort but unsure where she could be touched without more damage.
‘I’ve been wrong – I’ve been so wrong – and I betrayed them… us… I’ve betrayed us all…’
Ivory wept.
Alpine Cordell had never visited the Area before in body, but he knew exactly where he was going. It was his job to know. The Worlds had no secrets from him, no seedy corner or shameful surprise he hadn’t already discovered. From any distance, he could smell despair and the misuse of power among the powerless. It drew him like perfume.
The Tag Master did the bulk of his work at night and so was already at his post when the stranger walked in.
‘What can I do for you, Lor…’ The Tag Master’s voice drained away at the sight of Cordell’s face.
‘I want these three… this frequency.’
The Tag Master took the information slip with inexplicably shaking fingers and looked at it.
‘That is not a normal band, Lord,’ he quavered, trying to rally himself, but the stranger simply curled back his lip a little. A smile? The Tag Master was used to entreaty, despair, terror; he was not used to the feel of cold sweat down his own spine. ‘Er, I should… consult the Lady Hol – but maybe not…’
He turned to the machinery and did as he was told.
‘Here, my Lord. The ones you require are just here, in a place known as the Forgotten City. They eluded us last night during an unexpected power cut, but we know exactly where they’ve gone. Normally the Checkers would have retrieved them and be… returning them by now, but the Lady Holder insisted I do nothing without consulting her, and I hardly liked to disturb her in the night…’
‘She has already been disturbed,’ said the stranger. ‘She knows I am here.’
‘Ah. Well. As you see, this is where they are. See? Just here. Lord?’
He pointed eagerly at the display but the stranger ignored the finger and continued to stare instead into the Tag Master’s face.
‘You will take me to them.’
The Tag Master paled. ‘Transport. A guide. An escort, of course,’ he babbled. ‘I will organize these for you at once, Lord. Of course. At once.’
Again the lip curled.
‘Perhaps I have not made myself clear. You will take me to them.’
‘Me?’ the Tag Master whispered hoarsely.
The stranger nodded.
‘Now,’ he said.
It was never sensible to leave the shelter of the Area after a Storm Warning had been announced. Also, a motorized land vehicle was one of the less reliable forms of transport for the treacherous desert terrain. And travelling without a substantial escort was inviting major trouble from ambush or, at the very least, becoming stuck without enough manpower to get things started again.
‘We are leaving immediately,’ the stranger had stated. ‘I will not be involved with animals of any description. There will be no escort or attendants except you.’
No one pointed out to the stranger that these were not sensible requests. No one had the nerve.
Not long after the crawler had trundled out of sight, the electrics of the border fence flickered. One of the guards stuck out his tongue to taste the air, wrinklin
g his nose at the metallic tang.
‘That’s no ordinary storm,’ he grunted.
His colleague-at-arms nodded.
‘Somebody ought to go after those idiots in the crawler. Somebody ought to warn them,’ said the first guard in a noncommittal voice.
His colleague agreed.
‘Somebody ought to go on out and lay down their life in order to save them. The fact that if they’d had the sense they were born with they would never have gone in the first place isn’t an issue.’
The power juddered again and failed.
The first guard sighed.
‘That maintenance shutdown certainly didn’t do any good, did it?’ he said, reaching for his mug of tea. ‘Oh well, too late to do anything about them now.’
His colleague agreed.
52
The Woman of the Mountain
It was still dark when the troop arrived at the main camp, hidden among the broken rocks and ravines of the foothills. The three children were taken down from the camelions and then, for the moment, ignored.
Madlen leaned closer to Bryn. ‘You OK?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Your hand OK?’
Bryn made a face, but then nodded.
‘It aches – I’m not exactly giving it rest like Serena said, am I – but I don’t think it’s opened up again.’
‘Follow me.’ Dair had come up behind them. ‘It’s time.’
He led them to a large, low tent and, lifting the entrance flap, motioned them inside. In the torchlight they could see the tent was crowded with desert people, silent, cold-eyed and suspicious.
The Questors huddled uncertainly, just inside the opening.
‘Don’t be fooled,’ Dair murmured as he brushed past them. Just because Holder justice says they are thieves and murderers and rapists doesn’t mean some of them aren’t.’
As he watched them work this out, Dair’s grin broadened without reaching his eyes.
‘That’s right,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t know the truth about me either.’
And then he was gone. The crowd parted respectfully for him, until they had formed a sort of corridor leading to the far corner of the tent. There was something there, like a heap of clothes on a rug. Dair leaned down to the heap – and it moved.
‘What’s that?’ whispered Bryn, and was immediately cuffed across the head by a man standing near them.
‘Mind your mouth, high-caste,’ he growled. ‘Show some respect for the Woman of the Mountain.’
They stared at each other with sudden wild hope but, before they could speak, Dair looked back over his shoulder and beckoned them to come. Someone gave them a shove forward and they walked nervously past rows of hostile faces.
Then, as they came closer, the thing on the floor lifted its head. A woman, unbelievably ancient-looking, peered up at them.
Cam bowed. Bryn and Madlen did the same, awkwardly.
‘Lady,’ said Cam at its most formal, ‘we are Questors. We –’
‘I know what you are.’ The woman’s voice was a thin whisper, as if it came from a long way off.
Cam blinked and continued.
‘Then you know what we’re looking for? Can you help us?’
The old woman nodded her head slowly, and the three felt their hearts leap.
‘I have nothing for you,’ she said, and then, bizarrely, she smiled at them. As if she’d given them a great gift. As if she’d given them the answer.
‘No – you don’t understand –’ Cam began, but the old woman had already turned her attention away from them. She beckoned to Dair and the leader crouched down beside her.
‘Well, Ur?’ he said, his voice respectful yet gentle. ‘What do you say?’
The old woman screwed up her face until there was nothing but wrinkles left to see.
‘They’re wrong,’ she whispered. ‘They shouldn’t be here.’
‘You mean… they’re spies?’
The old woman shook her head. Wisps of dry white hair fell across her face. She was becoming agitated.
‘Not spies! Can’t you see for yourselves?! They’re wrong! Too soon… or do I mean too late?’
Dair stroked the hair carefully back from the old woman’s face.
‘We are your children, Ur. You’ll have to help us. Why shouldn’t they be here?’
Ur looked at him with her pale eyes.
‘They don’t belong.’
‘Two of them, certainly, come from other Worlds,’ he agreed. ‘They say so and they look it. But the small one’s pure high-caste, Mother.’
‘Not pure,’ she said at the same moment Cam said, ‘Half.’
Dair looked confused, but then brushed it aside.
‘I’m asking the wrong questions…’ He seemed to think for a moment, absently stroking the old woman’s arm as she rocked back and forth. Then, ‘Mother, listen to me. Where should they be? Not here – but where? We’ll take them there, wherever it is, and you’ll feel better then.’
She had started to shake and her skin had a cold sheen of sweat on it.
‘Storm’s coming,’ someone called softly from the tent’s opening. ‘Could be that.’
The old woman peered round Dair towards the speaker.
‘The Future’s what’s coming,’ she snapped. ‘And I will not have it meet them here!’
‘Don’t worry, Mother – we’ll take them away. But you must tell us – where shall we take them?’
A flare of power gripped her huddled body so that her hair stood out like a corona and her eyes shone out of her wizened face.
‘The Well. The Well of Light. I can see drops of blood spattered… I can see the blood in baskets… I can…’
But the flare was brief and ended almost before it began. The old woman subsided on to her pile of cushions and rugs, and croaked wearily at them, ‘Go away. All of you. Get out.’
There was a rustle of fabric as the mountain people began to file out of the tent. Dair and the children had turned to follow them, when she shot out a clawed hand and grabbed Cam’s clothes.
‘LEAVE NOW,’ she said.
Then she let go and turned away from them all. Cam made as if to speak, but Dair shook his head at it and motioned them away.
At the entrance, the leader stopped beside a woman and looked up at the sky. It was paling towards daybreak.
‘You said storm, Beith,’ he said quietly. ‘How soon?’
She sniffed at the air and then half opened her mouth as if to taste it.
‘Half a day,’ she said. ‘Maybe less. You’ll have time to use the Back Route, if you hurry. Though…’
‘Well?’
‘It would be quicker just to kill them.’
Dair snorted and looked back at Ur squatting on her rugs like a malignant sheep.
‘I’ll chance the storm!’ he said.
The sun was almost at its highest as Alpine Cordell and his sweating, dishevelled companion ground into the Forgotten City. Leaving the crawler, the Tag Master led the way on foot, Tracer in hand, further and further into the ruins. At last, he panted to a halt.
‘They’re there, Lord, beyond that wall. I’ll just wait here, shall I…?’ he whispered hoarsely.
But no chance. The Other-Worlder gave him a look and he forced himself forward in what was meant to be a ferocious lunge but was actually more of a stagger.
‘Right then, Runaways,’ he blared. ‘I’ve got you now-w-w-arghhh!’
Instead of three snivelling children, the Tag Master found himself faced with half a dozen desert men. He swung round in time to see more sliding in behind him.
Eyes bugging, he stared at the circle of silent, ominous, hooded figures, then down at the little heap of wrist tags lying on the sand.
‘Er…’ he said.
‘Cretin.’ The Other-Worlder spat the word as he joined him – and then pushed past the nearest desert man and started to address a rock.
‘There has been… a delay,’ he said to it. ‘I have not yet been able to kill them.’
>
What?! thought the Tag Master. Who’s he talking to?!
The desert people drew back a little, spooked as well.
The Other-Worlder ignored them all.
‘I have had to use normal tracking and transport because of the power flux on this World, Preceptor. Otherwise I would obviously not have chosen to do so.’ A pause. ‘Yes, Preceptor. As you wish. For the duration of the storm. In which case, my work could in fact be done for me, as they may well not be within range of adequate shelter… Till then, Preceptor, I will…’ Before he’d finished speaking, the stranger had faded away. There was no sign of him.
The desert people did not waste time in amazement. As one, they turned to face the Dalrodian.
‘Well, Tag Master, that just leaves you,’ one said.
The Tag Master had turned a grey-green colour.
‘You… k-know me?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes. You are certainly known. Thoroughly known.’
The Tag Master wasn’t even sure which of the hooded figures was speaking.
‘But this isn’t a good place to renew old acquaintances. As the stranger mentioned, a storm is coming. You, of course, have the right to shelter with us. The desert code is adamant on such things. In the time of the storm the stranger is sacred. After the storm, of course, the rules are not quite so clear…’
The Tag Master stood there, gulping, as dust devils started to swirl about his feet.
53
The Well of Light
The sky was cloudless and bleached by the glare of the sunlight, and in the heat the children had ‘sonk-slept’ most of the way. Cam’s comparison of the animals to sofas was, thankfully, proving true. And if the three showed any signs of sliding off, one of the desert people was always there to shove them back on to an even keel again.
It was close on noon when Dair called a halt. They had been travelling along the base of an immensely high cliff for some time now. Madlen and Bryn, blinking and yawning, could see nothing that made this stretch of rock any different from any other, but Cam seemed to know where it was.