Shadowland: Book III of the Brotherhood of the Conch

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  The leader clapped his hands. “Make a note in his file: Starting tomorrow morning, he’s to work on the Farm until he’s requisitioned. Now put him in lockup and bring in the next one fast—I want to get home in time to catch the late-night hover-wrestling show on the Pod!”

  As Anand was dragged away, he mused on the one piece of information he’d gathered: He was in a city called Coal, a city so terrible that mere exposure to it could cause a person to lose his memory.

  Now Anand stared through the bars of his cell door at the huge, cavernous structure that stretched out around him. As far as he could see in the dim light, there were cells and more cells, each one occupied by a boy, each in the same mud-colored uniform, each eerily silent. Most of the boys—including the one who had earlier tried to communicate with him—were stretched out listlessly on their cots. They all wore masks. Apparently, even indoors the air was poisonous. Though he couldn’t see their faces, Anand could taste the hopelessness that pervaded the entire rehabitational. He wondered what all these boys had done to end up in this dismal place. Its name, Rehabitational 39, indicated that Coal had many other facilities like this one.

  Anand slumped down on his cot. His stomach churned with hunger. He hadn’t had anything to eat since he had arrived in Shadowland. He wondered what kind of food was available here. He wondered how Nisha was doing. He worried about the mirror. Would it be safe? He remembered the movement he’d seen by the abandoned building. What if someone had seen the mirror? What if they took it as soon as the police left? To prevent despair from engulfing him, he closed his eyes and focused on the conch. Had it already arrived in this world? He decided to use a Search arrow to look for it. If the conch were nearby, it would surely respond.

  The next moment, a flash of pain exploded in his head, so severe that he fell to the damp floor, writhing in agony. A force had repelled his search arrow, driving it back into him. Someone in this world knew about magic and was strong enough to block its use.

  Anand was too disheartened to lift himself off the floor even though its chill crept into his bones. Jailed as he was, stripped of his voice and now his magic, how would he fulfill his quest?

  4

  THE FARM

  A long line of boys and girls waited, sullen and silent, for breakfast in the dimly lit dining hall of the rehabitational. From the back of the line, Anand craned his neck anxiously, trying to locate Nisha. But it was impossible. The shapeless uniforms and breathing masks made everyone look alike. When he reached the servers, he was given a bowl of sloppy, gray mush made of a substance he failed to identify. It tasted like glue. Anand wanted to throw it away, but from the eagerness with which the others were tackling their bowls, he guessed that a better option would not appear any time soon. He managed to down a few spoonfuls before he gagged. When he pushed his bowl to the side, the boy next to him—the same one who had signed at him last night—gestured, asking if he could have it. Anand nodded. The boy grabbed the bowl and finished the mush in a few seconds.

  Now Anand stood in another long line, under the watchful eyes of more guards, waiting to board one of the buses that would transport them to the Farm. Climbing on, he looked back one last time, not really hoping to find Nisha. Amazingly, she wasn’t too far behind, her unruly hair falling over her mask as she kicked savagely at a stone. He dared not wave. But their glances met, and it seemed a smile crinkled up her eyes. It was enough to make him feel more hopeful. With luck, she would get on the same bus. Later he would find an opportunity to communicate with her somehow, even if they could not talk.

  From the outside, the bus, squat and rectangular, had looked like the vehicles Anand had seen in Kolkata, but inside it was very different. There were no seats, only rows of metal poles, crowded together. The other boys and girls had found themselves poles to hold on to, so Anand did the same. As soon as the doors of the bus shut with a whoosh, a thick belt snaked out from each pole and tightened itself around each person’s waist, holding him or her effectively captive. Anand squirmed, feeling claustrophobic, but the belt did not yield. The girl standing next to him looked at him pityingly and shook her head to indicate that struggling was useless.

  The walls of the bus were made of a transparent glassy material. Later Anand would learn that this was to allow passing patrol cars to check on the Illegals, as the youths who were brought to the rehabitational were termed. He stared out, hoping to discover more about this strange, troubling world. But there was nothing to see, as the rehabitational was built in the middle of a barren field where not even weeds grew. The earth here was a dirty yellow. In spite of his mask, Anand could smell the bitter odor of sulfur. He remembered the rich red earth of the fields he had tended in the Silver Valley and felt homesickness tug at his heart.

  Once they started moving, though, there was plenty to observe. The bus, which was old and worn, unlike the sleek vehicles of the policemen, moaned as it climbed onto a raised roadway with many lanes. Down below lay abandoned clumps of buildings left to rot in the brown air: ruined housing complexes, market plazas, or spired structures that may have once been places of worship. But once or twice, Anand could have sworn as he peered at the collapsed roofs and crumbling walls, he saw figures darting surreptitiously from one building to another. In the distance several large spheres containing tall, imposing buildings sparkled through the brown fog. Were these the new neighborhoods and business centers of Coal? Anand wondered what kind of disaster had turned the air brown and the earth barren and driven people to retreat inside domes, but there was no way to find out.

  They traveled for a long while, Anand growing increasingly restless as time passed. The moments were trickling through his hands like water, and he was no closer to finding the conch. Then the bus turned sharply onto a road that split off from the main skyway and led to a large dome. The driver identified himself to the guards at the entrance; the bus was allowed to chug through. As the Illegals descended, the sight that met Anand’s eyes took his breath away.

  Lush and green, the Farm was more colorful than anything he’d hoped to see in this dreary world. On one side, stretching as far as he could see were trees laden with luscious, ripe fruit. On the other lay field after field of crops. Anand could recognize rows of corn and okra. Pristine white cauliflowers of prize-winning proportions peeped through green hoods; sweet peas clambered up trellises around which bees hummed; fat yellow gourds hung from vines. Some of the cold despair left Anand’s heart. The ground was carpeted with soft, dew-sprinkled grass that made him long to kick off his boots and feel the blades between his toes. Why, the people of Shadowland had created a paradise here!

  A breeze carried the smell of ripe mangoes to Anand. His mouth began to water. He hoped he would be sent to the mango orchard to work. He was good at picking mangoes. He had done it often in the valley. There were so many fruits—surely the authorities wouldn’t mind if he ate one or two. He looked around for Nisha, hoping they could work together. There she was, descending from the bus just ahead of the boy who had been in the cell next to Anand’s. Around them, boys and girls milled around. The guards at the Farm seemed less strict than the ones at the rehabitational. Anand made use of this to surreptitiously beckon to Nisha to join him. Then he pushed his way to the front of the line, eager to get started, wondering why the others didn’t seem happier to be in this beautiful place.

  Ahead of them, pairs of green-uniformed guards were helping the youths remove their masks. Ah! Finally he was going to breathe some fresh air. But then Anand noticed that as one of the guards took off the masks, the other fitted a wire contraption that looked like a muzzle over their mouths. It took him a moment to grasp that it was to prevent the youths from eating anything! He exchanged a glance of dismay with Nisha. Whoever was in charge of things in Shadowland didn’t care how these hungry boys and girls felt as they handled all this delicious food that was off limits for them. They thought of them only as cheap labor. How foolish he’d been to compare this place to the Silver Valley!

>   Still, Anand could not help but feel cheered by the profusion of color and smells around him as they were handed baskets and sent off to pick tomatoes. The tomato field was far from the guardhouse, and once they were out of sight, he grasped Nisha’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze. He didn’t dare activate his collar by speaking, but he hoped there would be a chance later to scratch a few sentences into the dirt. He gestured to her to accompany him to the farthest row, where they would have some privacy. Then he noticed his neighbor from last night following them. Was it his imagination, or was the boy staring at them? Anand shot him a discouraging scowl and moved quicker, dodging between rows. He needed to discuss with Nisha what they should do next, and it would ruin his plans if the boy joined them.

  On reaching the far row, he purposely ignored Nisha and busied himself with picking tomatoes. In spite of his problems, he couldn’t help noticing how large and juicy they were, how uniformly red, and how numerous. How had the growers managed such abundance? And why, when there was so much food available, had the youths been fed so meagerly this morning? Though he had never particularly liked tomatoes, his mouth watered as he plucked the ripe fruits and placed them in his basket. And yet, even as he fantasized about biting into a succulent tomato and feeling the juice run down his chin, something about these too-perfect fruits made him uneasy.

  When his basket was almost full, Anand moved casually to the end of the row, picking up a stick as he went. Nisha, smart as ever, followed him with careful nonchalance, pausing to pluck a few more tomatoes on the way. The curly-haired boy was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, Anand hunkered down and, as concisely as he could, wrote down what had happened when he tried to use his Search skills.

  I don’t know what else to do to find the conch, he added, looking at Nisha for help. But she, too, seemed at a loss.

  “Why don’t you try again? Maybe here at the Farm you’ll get through. It’s quite far away from the Blocking Towers.”

  Anand whirled around, as astonished at the sound of a human voice as at the words. Crouched behind a tomato plant, the curly-haired boy was peering at them.

  “Don’t worry!” he said when he saw Anand’s fearful expression. “I won’t give you away.”

  “You can talk?” Anand whispered, speaking with difficulty through the wire mesh over his mouth.

  The boy nodded. “We’ve found out that in some parts of the Farm the collars don’t work. We don’t let the guards know this, of course! Maybe it’s because of the filter they’ve put in to keep the radioactive rays away from the food that’s grown in here. It wouldn’t do if the leaders of Coal—they’re the only ones who get to eat this stuff—fell sick from radiation, would it?” He smiled bitterly. “Of course, no one knows what kind of long-term effect the ‘enhanced’ fertilizers they use on the vegetables will have on their bodies.” He spat on the ground. “I hope they all shrivel up and die.”

  Enhanced fertilizers! Now Anand realized why everything that grew here was so oversized, why it seemed a little fake.

  “What’s your name?” Nisha asked. “And why did they put you in jail?”

  “I’m Bas—uh, B-1112,” the boy said. “They imprisoned me because I’m a magician—an apprentice, actually. They caught me while our group was on a mission. I’ll tell you more later. Try your Search power before someone else shows up. You can’t trust all the kids. Some of them are spies for the guards.”

  Without wasting any more time, Anand closed his eyes, focusing on the conch. He recalled how perfectly it fit into the palm of his hand, how it would send warmth and joy billowing through him. He remembered how a blast from it had saved his life when he battled Surabhanu the sorcerer, and how it had forced the evil jinn that threatened the Nawab’s court into the Great Void. Now it was in trouble, and it was Anand’s turn to rescue it.

  If you’ve arrived in this strange world already, he cried in his mind, then give me a sign.

  This time he could sense his Thought energy arcing over the dome like arrows, speeding in different directions. Almost immediately he recognized the conch’s unmistakable voice, though it was very faint. Locked in vault. Suffocating. Come soon. Great danger. Use scientist woman. It faded before Anand could figure out from which direction it had come.

  The boy was watching him, his eyes sharp and intense in his thin face. Could he be trusted? What if he was one of those spies he’d mentioned?

  “You’re a magician, too, aren’t you?” the boy whispered. He made the same gesture again as last night and waited expectantly.

  Anand realized that the boy wanted him to make a complementary gesture, but he did not know the right response.

  “Nisha and I are magicians—or at least we’re apprentices—but from a different world,” he whispered back.

  He hadn’t expected the boy to believe him, but his eyes lit up. “Then the tales my grandfather, Chief Deep—uh, D-91—told me are true! Many parallel worlds exist, and in worlds where magic is stronger, interworld travel is possible. And these worlds still have objects of power.”

  “What do you mean, where magic is stronger?” Nisha demanded. “What’s wrong with magic here? And surely you magicians still have objects of power?”

  “Magicians in our world have been getting weaker and weaker ever since the Great Divide, when they had a huge falling out with the scientists. Before that, our people were rich and powerful. But one day the scientists turned on us and took over the council that ruled the city. They raided our houses and took away our objects of power and destroyed our academies. They captured many of our leaders and executed them as traitors to Coal. The surviving magicians were forced to go underground. Now we live hidden among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Co—”

  “Wait!” Anand interrupted. “You said scientists! That’s what the conch mentioned, too.” Quickly he explained to the boy what the conch was, what had happened to it, and why he and Nisha were here. “The conch said I had to use a woman scientist to get to the vault, where it’s locked up—”

  The boy wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t know who it could be. There are several important women scientists in Coal. But I’d bet anything that the vault is located in the lab inside Futuredome. That’s where they run all the big experiments. No one can get in there, though, unless they have special clearance. There are guards everywhere—and they’re a hundred times worse than the guards at the rehabitational! I know—they’re the ones that caught us when we were on our mission.”

  “What kind of mission?” Nisha asked.

  “We were trying to destroy their converters, machines they use to create enough energy to run the Blocking Towers. The towers—you felt their effect when you tried the Search inside the rehabitational—prevent magicians from using our mind power, which is about the only weapon we have left. We got into the dome, and then inside the lab, and made it as far as their most powerful machine, the X-Converter. But someone must have tipped them off, because a whole battalion of guards arrived before we could explode the converter. We damaged it, but not enough. We fought the guards, but their tubeguns were too strong for our homemade weapons.” Despair and anger darkened B’s face at the memory. “They killed some of the men, and put the rest into the adult prisons. The boys and girls ended up in the rehabitationals. I’ve been here for almost a month, providing them with slave labor. I don’t know if they’ll ever let us go.” He looked down, scuffing the ground with his toe. “My grandfather—he was sick when I left. And my mother—I know how much she must be worrying about me.” His voice broke, and he turned away from them.

  “Don’t lose heart,” Nisha said. “Maybe we can figure out a way to escape.”

  B shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anyone escaping from a rehabitational.”

  “But we have to get out!” Anand cried. “We have only a few days to rescue the conch. If we fail, everyone in the Silver Valley is doomed.”

  “The two of you may get lucky because you don’t have any criminal records,” B said. “The rehab
itational authorities will try to rent you out to one of their wealthy patrons—maybe as early as tomorrow. People are always coming to them looking for servants. And youths without records are in high demand because they’re inexperienced and don’t cause trouble for their employers—unlike the rest of us.” Here he gave a fierce grin.

  “I see a guard coming,” Nisha interrupted.

  B ducked back under the tomatoes. “I’d better go. If they see me with you, it’ll cause problems for all of us. If you do get hired, run away from your employer as soon as you can. The private homes don’t have as much security as the prisons.”

  “If we get out, I’ll try to bring you help,” Anand said.

  B’s voice came to him faintly from the other side. “Thank you. But that’s too dangerous. You have your own mission to accomplish. Just destroy as many of the scientists’ machines as you can. They’re the root of all our problems. And if you need help after you escape, look for a shop in the old part of the city—it’s called the House of Fine Spirits.”

  Anand wanted to ask what he would find there, but there was no more time for questions. He could hear the heavy tread of the guards’ boots and their shouts as they ordered the youths to take their baskets to the cleaning shed. In the distance, he saw a guard cuffing one of the boys who hadn’t managed to fill his basket. He hurried to gather more tomatoes before he met the same fate.

  The rest of the day, he was kept busy picking more vegetables—bright purple brinjals with thorns that had to be handled gingerly, and pearly white onions that had to be coaxed from the ground with their stalks intact. Anand’s head whirled with all the disturbing things he had learned from B-1112. He realized that that was not the boy’s real name, which he had chosen to keep secret. Anand understood that impulse. One of the first things that apprentices were taught in the Silver Valley was to keep their true names secret from all except the most trusted friends. A person’s true name was connected to his or her deepest being. Merely by knowing it, an enemy could gain power over the person.