Face flushed with outrage, Lanner kicked out viciously at Henry, who landed more punches about his face before two of the adults – Jared and Ula, the one with the snowboard – pulled him off. Lanner, wiping blood from his lip, kicked Henry in the ribs. Henry doubled over in pain, spitting and cursing at his nemesis as his rage swelled to no avail.
He was back at the water’s edge. He considered diving back into the water to escape the adults, but knew, like a seal pup, he’d only have a few places to come up for air (and they would wait for him and haul him up once more), or alternatively club him on sight.
“There, there, boy. Calm your bit. You’re done.” Lanner grinned spitefully. Beside him was Skindred, who held a shot of dark liquid in his hand triumphantly. The glass was made of ice itself, as were many of the things in the Favela. The other salvagers regarded Skindred with loathing and he raised the draught before them and drank it down. Sissel looked like she wanted to murder him, but daren’t do anything in the presence of Ginger Lanner and his comrades. Henry didn’t have the same reservations.
“I’m going to gut you!” he bellowed. Lanner and his friends jeered, unfazed. The Orfins eyeballed each other uneasily, but kept their heads bowed. There was no fight in the rest of them. They feared the adults too much and only watched as Florrie and Q-Tip struggled to get free from their captors: Needol, and the woman Erasmus, the murderess.
Henry noticed his father’s belt buckle hung about Needol’s waist and repeated his threat to the rest of Lanner’s mercenaries. None reacted to it.
“Louco! You ain’t doing no killing this day. Besides, I have your cutter right here. Vejo?” See? Lanner held Henry’s knife in his hand, which Henry had left with the outer layers of clothing he’d removed before diving into the waters in his military suit. Lanner held it to Henry’s cheek and turned the blade slowly. A sharp pain preceded a trickle of blood that met the canvas and spilled into the seawater. Henry thought of sharks catching his scent and wondered if it would carry to the waters lapping the mezzanine where his brother’s body lay. There was no way he would’ve gotten into the water willingly now his blood was in there.
Lanner wiped the blade on his trouser and returned it to the back of his belt; just one more trophy. Henry caught Sissel’s face in the crowd and could see she was opposed to everything that was unfolding. This was Skindred’s doing, and Skindred’s alone, and Henry was angry with himself for leaving his knife with his clothing. It was stupid. He’d trekked for nearly a month to seek his revenge, and the great confrontation he’d rehearsed in his head and imagined over and over had turned into the simplest of victories for Lanner. The reality that Henry might die that very day hit home and he struggled to get free from the arms that held him. Jared sniggered, and Henry was sickened by the stench of the man.
It seemed he would be joining Martin sooner than he’d hoped. No great ending. No victory to take from all that had been. Henry would sprint toward the light and never look back when his own time came, and hoped he would at least get to see his sisters one last time. The world, with its unceasing Ever Winter, really wasn’t worth living in.
“I’m taking you to the king to request to put you down there and then, by mine own grabbers. He already made me General Manager of the World for what I done already. Doing you’ll be fun. Grande resultado! These are the simple things that I take comfort in. Skindred, bem feito!” Well done. “Anything you need, you come to me. I make you a big man!”
“Traitor!” said Q-Tip, before he was slapped down by Erasmus.
“Fight me, you cowards!” Henry yelled at both Skindred and Lanner, only to be met with mirth once more from the grown-ups and the dreadlocked teenage defector.
“Cowards live. Cowards end up with treasure in their pockets.” Lanner wiped blood from his nose and mouth, took a deep sniff, and told his comrades to drag Henry to the Favela.
“Why don’t you just join the adultos, Skindred?” Leaf, one of the young ’uns, spoke up, flouting the risk.
“Maybe I will, pup,” he quipped.
“Maybe he will,” agreed Lanner, then, turning to Sissel, he declared, “I’m disappointed in you, Sissel. Skin said you’ve gone soft. Didn’t kill the boy straight off and didn’t bring him straight to me. Makes me wonder if you’re the right one to lead these little cunks. Makes me want to see what the king thinks about that. Get it in the open. Boa ideia?”
Henry could see Sissel had had enough. Lanner had basically marked her for death, to all in earshot. Henry watched her glance at the pile of relics brought up from the water, most likely to see if any of it could be used as a weapon. Then she looked at Lanner’s troop to see if she could grab a weapon from any of them. Yaxley also understood her ambitions well and he squeezed her wrist, warning her to take no action.
Lanner noticed all this too and bore his sadistic, knowing smile once more. Henry knew he was top of Lanner’s execution list, and he’d come to accept that. But he felt responsible for Sissel being drawn into it all and knew her name would be etched in Lanner’s mind also. If Sissel had reported Henry to the adults immediately, or allowed her crew to end his life at first sight, she would’ve remained in favor. But her own kindness had given Henry precious time with his brother Martin, and Henry could never repay her. He truly hoped she had not sacrificed more than her position, all for a stranger she owed nothing to.
Lanner and his crew left with Henry. Skindred followed, seemingly more comfortable with the senseless grown-ups than in the company of the children he’d betrayed.
The Orfins gathered around Sissel for guidance and reassurance. For once, she could give neither. She didn’t know how to help Henry now he was in the clutches of the king. She had not helped Martin. Now Lanner would come for her anyway.
Yaxley ordered everyone to gather the relics and head back to their digs. There was no more to salvage that day, but plenty had been lost.
Lanner led Henry triumphantly up the hillside trail toward the Favela. Sunken faces emerged from their dwellings to see what was going on and just as quickly withdrew, as if they were never witness. Those that did linger were abused by Lanner’s soldiers. The people Henry caught sight of looked frightened. Many appeared infirm and sickly, or frostbitten. All were filthy and underfed. Some had fewer clothes than others, which Henry ascertained was the main indicator of status in the Favela. With such a large populace, clothing must have been scarce.
The homes were the second indicator of which echelon folk belonged to; closer to the ice, the shelters were primitive igloos exposed to the harsh winds, put together with abandon, some not much more than casket-shaped holes to fit a single person as a sleeping chamber. These were the true slums.
Other shelters were larger and used salvaged materials as supporting walls or roofing; upturned boats, fiberglass and steel car doors, tarpaulin and other plastics for paneling. A few had tried to recreate what a house may have looked like and had fitted windowpanes and impractical doorways from the underwater citadel as best they could. Henry knew these homes would not be as warm as the primitive shelters below. He looked upon the people that lived in those follies as idiots, though he had spoken to none of them. He tried to picture Mother and Father living in the Favela and could not imagine them living in the follies. They must’ve lived near the bottom of the hill, by the ice. They had more sense than to live in something that wasn’t fit for purpose. He had learned that from them. Survival.
They wound through lanes until they neared the crest of the hill, the highest point on which Henry had ever stood, higher still than the deck of the container ship. Henry caught a glimpse of the view behind him and saw the sieve of circles where the salvagers worked in the bay further down to reach the lost citadel. Beyond that was Lantic.
Without warning, Lanner smacked him across the back of the head and ushered him further through the winding lanes. The traitor, Skindred, laughed, walking beside them with his chest puffed out, clearly training to be Lanner’s new pet and completely in awe of the man
. Henry opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. Every step led him closer to his fate and he felt its pull. Run to the light.
Animal skulls, deformed and wolf-like, were the ornaments adorning the Favela. They were placed in the ice here and there to serve as decoration, or perhaps as a warning to anyone climbing the hill.
As the group reached the last of the folly dwellings, they came across the body of an old man who’d been tied to a pole in the middle of the path. He was the oldest Henry had seen yet, with long wisps of hair that barely covered his scalp and a long wiry beard. The man’s face was incised with deep wrinkles and the skin on his body sagged in places, although there was no fat upon the man at all to speak of. Before him, three small ragged children in identical trapper hats, too young even to be salvagers, fought for scraps of the old man’s flesh, which they’d been filleting from his chest with rudimentary tools of bone.
Erasmus seemed to find the scene particularly amusing and took a machete to the man’s arm, hacking it until she could pull it free from his body. She threw it on the floor by the children, who looked shocked at first, before proceeding to squabble over the new cut. It was a strange kindness in a world that seemed warped in every way.
“Long pig,” Erasmus said. “String, carve and feast. It’s the old way to do with the louco old ‘uns and feed the wild chooks.”
Meat is meat.
The dwellings near the palace were quite different; they were made entirely of ice and were astounding, sturdy structures that had to have been made by scores of people, given the size of the blocks that had been lifted into place.
The outsides of those buildings had been intricately carved with patterns, logos, emblems and symbols. Some were religious symbols, some memories of corporations and rock bands that had changed the world before the winter came. Others were signs that meant peace, love, man, or woman. There were animals of varying accuracy, as most of the creatures depicted were extinct and had been forgotten, and there were scenes of yot-boats and other vessels arriving to the shores with people finding solace in a volcano that featured predominantly on the many facades. The workmanship was exceptional, and Henry thought of Martin then and wished he had got the chance to see what he now beheld.
One of the buildings was in need of repair. As they passed it, an artisan, with help from her companion, carefully removed a small section of a damaged block of ice, which had melted and cracked from the elements. They replaced it with a new piece, cut from the ice of Lantic below. Henry had no time to observe as he was pushed onward, up the hillside.
The lane opened into a square, where a crowd had gathered outside the grandest of all the ice buildings. It was sublime to look at; every inch of the ice had detail upon it, all of it geometric and thought out with great care.
The building’s wide arch doorway revealed a vast room inside with pews and tables shaped from ice. At the far end of it, in the very center of the back wall, stood a beautiful cage that was also made of ice. It glistened, twelve feet high and half that across. Scores of people were taking drink in the hall and the vicinity outside, most from glasses also made of ice, some from ancient plastic vessels, and one from a hollowed-out animal horn. Men and women cavorted at the tables, some of which were relics salvaged from the citadel, the rest hewn from the same material as everything else.
Vulgarities and merriment rang out from the hall to the square outside, and under it, a song emerged from amongst the ranks of elderly men. Henry thought it might once have been a happy song that they sung, but from what he had seen, he sensed that the ice and the Favela would’ve changed any melody over the years. The key was minor and somber. The words, no longer full of promise, hung heavily in the air, aching with sorrow and melancholy. The song had a certain dark beauty to it, but to Henry, as he was led past the hall toward a fate unknown, the song was unloved by him.
“The Birdcage,” Lanner said with pride, “where we wet our whistles and get laid upon!”
An elder man, almost the age of the long pig being devoured by children down the lane, stumbled into Henry’s path, drunk.
“Have you seen the Canary? I heard her sing. ‘Twas an old ‘un song,” he slurred. Ula booted him from their path. The man disappeared into the crowd without protest and was replaced by a swirl of people falling about and dancing giddily. The ocean of faces had the same effect on Henry as when he’d lain in the corridor beneath the ice in the citadel. He felt entombed and faint, like he’d been swallowed by them all. The aching song whirred about his head and filled his ears. He tried to focus on something other than people. Something still and unthreatening. He looked at the tips of the buildings and the spaces in between. An alleyway ran alongside the pub, and it was then that Henry saw the source of the drinks being served. Blue and green plastic drums were piled in a pyramid. One was open, and a child of five or six was ladling thick red liquid from it into glasses of ice. Next to the boy hung a large seal, twice his size, and its blood was draining into one of the drums whilst its guts were removed and added to a cooking pot by the boy’s father.
Needol rubbed the bristles of his mustache with both hands.
“We have to leave it for a long time, then when it’s ready, it gives a kick like you wouldn’t fathom in a hundy mill. Strong grog, but bangs the head next daylight like a mother kisser! Nenhuma mentira.” No lie.
A woman vomited beside them to the cheers of others, and the swarm redeployed to another corner of the square where two men were taking it in turns to punch a large man-sized block of ice with their hands, presumably to see who would make the final blow and send it crashing to the floor. Their knuckles were wrapped in pelt, yet blood snaked down their arms to their elbows. Across from them, a man was held down by his friends as one of his compatriots removed one of his rotting teeth with rusting pliers.
This place had always been a myth to Henry; a list of questions, a feeling. But in reality, it was sick and decrepit. Like the morose song, the futile work of the Orfins and the children squabbling over the meat of a corpse, this was the true nature of the Favela. Vile and evil. Cruel and malicious. Henry pitied every soul here, and he thought it possible that the ones that had seen him being escorted toward the palace might’ve pitied him right back.
Twelve
Moonbird
The palace was Moonbird.
Moonbird was a yot-boat wedged on what appeared to be the crescendo of two crashing waves, frozen into a perfect arc around it. It sat just over the crest of the hill, with a narrow ledge of rock bridging it to the rest of the Favela. Only its top deck could be seen from the plateau of the square, but there was too much going on around the Birdcage to ever notice it through the dwellings which led to it. Defiantly, the yot-boat did not face Lantic.
Like MV Greyhound, it must have been there in a past life and sailed across it from lands unknown. Someone had named it Moonbird, in a faraway place for reasons only the namer of the boat could ever know. Henry speculated in silence, whether Moonbird had pointed itself toward the rising and falling scape of a forgotten country as it froze in place on the crest of the hill, or whether a God had just put it there. Did it face the frozen landside, as if suggesting that that was where the threat came from henceforth and the perils of the sea at its stern could be entirely forgotten?
At present, Moonbird was the home of a self-proclaimed king and his followers, who had taken control of the Favela when Father and Mother had still lived there. Henry marveled at the sleek lines of the hull. Unlike the container ship in almost every way, the yacht had once been painted in regal colors intended to accentuate the natural shape and design of it. Moonbird was a celebration of a vessel, absent the serious, functional appearance of MV Greyhound. Moonbird was the biggest folly of them all.
Needol continued his guided tour of the Favela as they neared Moonbird.
“Crew of this yot-boat got to the warm pocket late. There was no shelter for them from the cold and they all died within it. The Great-Greats outed the dead and moved in
when they emerged from the Cano. We reckoned it the ship of a Presi-King, which is why this, Moonbird, is our palace. Our casa.”
Just a single guard was placed upon each deck, each armed with a rifle or handgun as well as a club or knife. The two who were awake were indifferent to Henry’s arrival. The rest snored in harmony, oblivious to the visitors who crossed the gangway.
Henry saw that Skindred looked upon the palace with the same awe as he, and the young salvager tied his dreads back so he could take in every detail of it. Henry assumed that Skindred had never stood upon its deck before and that the ruler of the Favela that stood before them, did not open his home to the populace. (Especially orphans, or those residing at the foot of the hill).
Curved, sliding doors granted them entrance to the interior of the vessel where a grand stairwell awaited, designed to suggest the shape of a conch shell. It was indeed a palace and could have housed many more souls from the Favela than it did under the current rule.
They ascended the stairs, with Lanner taking the lead, eager to deliver his bounty. A roof lantern rained light down upon them as they reached the final doors, where two guards granted them entry. Before them was a grand lounge and bar area, surrounded by a panorama of circular glass that gave them a view out of one side into one of the frozen waves, part of the bustling square through the lanes, then the endless landscape to the other, where snow covered the plains, rises and foothills, rivers and lakes and all that had existed before the winter came; cities and highways. All of it hidden, but somewhere beneath the white, it was all there waiting to be uncovered once more.
Ever Winter Page 12