Cage of Souls, page 19
Perhaps there was some kind of shouted warning. I could have missed it in the general row. All I know was that the Angels opened fire as soon as they were close, lancing their bolts of energy, their needle beams of light and balls of blue flame, into the hostile crowd. Perhaps eight or nine people dropped dead on the spot, burned and charred, and the rest fell back in boiling confusion, screaming and shouting fit to wake the dead of ages. I had no wish to get caught in that rout so I slipped into Emil’s place, which the mob had no more interest in. Emil himself was lying unconscious on the floor, but I had no time for him then. The crowd was still roiling outside.
I remember the next thing most clearly of all: the Angels were still loosing off shots into the crowd, and they were close enough for me to see the lack of passion in their eyes. The crowd itself was split, unsure whether to charge or retreat. The driver of the armoured car upped the speed, so that the vehicle began to forge towards the crowd like a crushing ram.
I had not seen Helman disappear from the balcony. Like everyone else I had been far too concerned with other matters. Helman, champion of reason.
He came out of the gaming house, right where his enemies wanted him. He was shouting, actually shouting, not just calling in loud tones. I had never heard him shout, save for that one argument with the Academy Master. He was shouting at the Angels. He was trying to get them not to charge the crowd.
He always did believe, right up to the end, that reasoned argument would solve everything, if only people would just sit down and listen to him. If only.
He went under the tracks of the car, my friend Helman. I think it may even have been slowing down, because it coursed to a halt with its reinforced nose cracking the timbers of the gaming house door, then reversed a step or two to allow access. That was the end of Helman Cartier: genius, philanthropist and my closest friend.
The crowd had backed off now, but it was still massed at two or three alleyways, in sight of the gaming house and its remaining prey. I saw the Angels arrange themselves around their vehicle, which had white wings painted on its dark grey sides to show who it belonged to. The real angels were supposedly flying men and women with powers of judgement. With the loss of any sciences that might make a winged man fly, we had resorted to these cold killers for our own version.
Two of them went inside, through the door that Helman had left unbarred. They had a clipped, aggressive violence in every move of theirs. They must have come for Valentin Miljus in the same businesslike way. Of all the people I have personally known, only the Marshal moved like that.
The crowd was getting restless, buzzing and murmuring angrily amongst itself, and the Angels still outside kept their weapons levelled at all times. I realised then, watching their stance, their quick looks each to each, that they were afraid themselves. Despite their weaponry, their reputation and defences, they were as scared of this monstrous composite beast as I was.
The two inside came out dragging Jon and Rosanna with them, and I remember thinking that at least they would be saved. The Angels would take them off for judgement, like their mythical forebears, but at worst they would be exiled to the Island. That would still be life.
The howl the crowd set up when they saw Rosanna and Jon was indescribable. I recall shrinking back from the broken windows, seeing the energy build between the workers and factory men. The Angels froze and their Commissar fired three shots into the air to put fear into the mob, but there was no room for fear there. They were fighting furious. They had unshakeable faith that we, Helman, Rosanna, Jon and I, were their enemies. At that moment none of them cared why, none of them asked for reasons. The blooding the Angels had given them had cowed them for a moment, but then the great beast had fed on its own wounds and grown stronger. The edge of the crowd began to surge back and forth, edging closer to the Angels and their prisoners, and eventually that cord would break again and they would crash down on their enemies with all the force that human madness and rage could give.
I could see the Angels quite clearly, and my friends as well. I could hear the coins chatter in Jon’s pockets as he pulled at one of the armoured men, demanding sanctuary. Rosanna was quite quiet, staring at the blood on the car tracks, all that remained of Helman. The Angels drew tighter together. It was clear that the next shot they fired would only serve to cue the crowd’s assault.
Then someone cast the first stone. It arced out of the centre of the mob and bounced off the armoured car with a dull sound. A poor first shot of any war. The idea, coined by one wit in the mob, spread like wildfire. I could see everyone in that angry crowd stooping to pick up whatever they had: stones, bottles, chunks of glass, scattered pieces of printing press. The Angels backed up and activated their shields. The wing-like extensions over their shoulders crackled with power to form a shimmering, sightless plane before and behind them to deflect energy and missiles. As usual, about a third of them did not work, perhaps closer to half. The secrets of their maintenance had been lost.
The rain that fell on the Angels was far less kind than the toxic showers that Shadrapar was used to. Stones and bricks bounded from the vehicle and ricocheted from the energy shields. Their momentum was never quite stopped, and a solid strike would make a shielded Angel stagger with the force of it. I saw one Angel struck down to his knees, his shield failing and the generator dented by a well-aimed shot. Another rock gashed poor Jon across the forehead, knocked him into the side of the car. Rosanna went to his aid, trying to shelter him. A bottle smashed across her back. The crowd, still throwing everything that came to hand, advanced further. The Angels began to fire, but it served only to antagonise.
I heard, even above all that, the Commissar of Angels cry out an order to retreat. Almost falling over themselves, Shadrapar’s police force clambered for the vehicle, those with working shields protecting those without. The feared and respected Angels had been put to flight. The armoured car backed up almost comically, smashing chunks out of the buildings behind it in its haste to reverse. I saw Jon trying to get up on it, and one of the Angels – I think it was the Commissar himself – kicked him down. He fell back and lay in the street, the coins rattling from his pockets. Rosanna crouched over him. The mob descended.
I will say no more about that. I am sure that your imagination can furnish the details better than my poor words. For me? I went into hiding. My name was on that book, under Helman’s and above those of Rosanna and Jon. I was on the list.
Harweg would later say, of our project and our work, that “it caused quite a stir at the time”.
*
I paid a ruinous rent out to the Wasted Convent, of all places, to keep me hidden. Just round the corner from all the people who knew me, I dug in and covered my head and wept. I am told I became quickly feverish and was more trouble than I was worth. I had seen my three closest friends die. Who can blame me?
By the time I was ready to leave the Wasted Convent I was out of money, which was a happy coincidence. The Convent Madames threw me out with not a grain of sympathy. Their excuse was that God was in far worse straits than I, but as far as I was concerned they were a pack of closed-minded mercenaries. I went with trepidation into Shadrapar, half-expecting to find a mob waiting silent at the convent’s door.
The first thing I needed to know was what the situation was. Was I being hunted? Was my face on posters all over the city: “Wanted for threatening the livelihood of the working man”? I got hold of a hooded cloak and wore it, which I am sure made me far more conspicuous than anything else, but at least it hid my precise identity.
I had a very great need to discover just how things lay between me and the world and I could trust virtually nobody. Anyone might sell me out to the mob. In fact, I could rely on only one person in the world and that was my fellow survivor, Emil des Shartz.
He had set up in the wreck of his old premises, so it was easy to find him, although the hardest thing I ever did was to actually return to that scene. When I got there he was cranking out posters by hand: one working press, no staff. He was still mottled with bruises, nose crooked, fingers splinted. The crowd had not been gentle with him. When I saw him I was afraid that he would be furious with me. He had lost everything on our project save his life. Even as I approached him I kept one eye on the door, ready to make a run for it. When that wound-ugly face turned on me, though, there was only surprise in it.
“Stefan!” Emil gasped at me. “Since when were you still alive?”
I shrugged. There is really no answering a question like that. I mumbled something ridiculous like, “How are you?”
“Been better,” Emil said. He gestured me closer, urgent. “You’ve been hiding up, yes? So why stop now? You think it’s safe? It’s not safe for you!”
Blood running cold, I huddled beneath my cloak. “I ran out of money. I don’t have a penny to hide behind. Where are they looking for me?”
“All over,” Emil said. “They don’t think you’re dead, though I was sure of it. They come here almost every week, still.”
This seemed a bit organised for a mob. I was sure that I would have noticed organised search parties of factory men tearing up Shadrapar for me. “Someone must be behind them, to keep them moving like this. Otherwise they would have dispersed by now. Who wants me so badly?”
Emil looked at me blankly for a moment and then realisation dawned. “I don’t mean the people, the workmen,” he said. “The Angels are after you, Stefan.”
“What?”
“You’re a wanted man. Provoking civil unrest, sedition, causing an affray, all that kind of stuff. They don’t get riots here very often. The Authority wants someone to blame and you’re the only one left to pin it on.”
I sat down heavily. After killing Helman and failing to protect my other friends, the Angels were now blaming me.
“What can I do?” I whispered. “I’ve got no money. Nobody will hide me. I can’t even disappear amongst the masses. They all hate me too.” Self-pity is an ugly thing in anyone.
There was a long awkward pause as Emil looked at me, and the press clacked and muttered in the background.
“All right,” he said, finally. I looked at him.
“After… after it happened I was pretty much out of pocket myself. I had to take what I could get in the way of work. I had to wake up a few old contacts, do some things I wouldn’t normally touch, take a few risks with the kind of people I would work for, just to keep the creditors away.”
I nodded, generally uninterested.
“Here.” Emil rummaged behind a stack of rubble and old boxes. “Get this.”
It was a poster, roughly drawn out, that said, “WORKERS of Shadrapar, seize the Means of Production! Free Men and Women need NO LEADERS. SMASH the AUTHORITY!” with a picture of working men with linked arms. I thought they were dancing at the time, but now I know they were showing solidarity.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“Ironic, no? Let me give you a little background. Years ago, when I was just starting in this business, fresh out of the Academy and apprenticed, I knew someone. He had been in the Academy above me, then worked in the library. He loved his books, owned a huge collection. His creditors had their eyes on it. He owed almost everyone. He borrowed from everyone to buy his books.”
I nodded again, not really caring or following him.
“Right then. Anyway, this man I knew just disappeared, at about the time I was apprenticed. I thought no more of him. Until I got a message to go meet him. He wanted to get copies of books that we were printing. He was still collecting. He paid me. I don’t know how he got the money. I haven’t seen him for years now. He might be dead.”
“Emil—” I interrupted, but he held up a hand.
“Easy now. This man I knew, he had gone with his books into hiding. Into the Underworld.”
I stared at him. I had heard enough of it in the hard weeks after my father’s death. It was a legend, a place below, of renegades and criminals and… other things. Of course, I was a renegade now, and a criminal. I saw the connection.
“I met some other people through this man I knew. Some of them keep in touch. I did these posters for one, and he’ll be collecting them tonight. He’ll take you, if you ask him.”
“Who is he?” I asked, looking at the poster.
“Not what you expect. A madman, among other things. Still, what choice have you?”
So true. I still wonder at Emil, battered and bruised, having the residual kindness to help me like that. I think he felt some misplaced guilt for Helman and the others. God knows it was not his fault.
I departed for the Underworld that night, in the company of the peculiar Sergei. Thus ends the second part of my history.
PART THE THIRD
MY FURTHER ADVENTURES ON AND OFF THE ISLAND
17
Visitors for the Condemned
On the Island, confronted with Tallan and Harro and prompted by my own ill temper, I acted. I was suffering for it now, of course. I was now sitting in a tiny box waiting to drown or be eaten. At least I had merited the punishment by some bravery of my own, though. My life was so barren of acts of courage that I had to treasure this one. If this sounds ridiculous to you, save your disbelief, for I am about to describe something that even I hardly believe, and I was there.
I suppose I should describe myself again. Some time and much pain has passed since I last did so. I am no taller, perhaps a little bowed, and all folded up in that cell, anyway. My drab prison greys are stained and torn, with a notably large bloodstain where the Marshal stabbed me. Perhaps you see some of that staining on the pages you hold, for some were there with me in the dark and the damp. I am leaner than before – too much work and too little food. I suppose that I am stronger, too, much good it ever did me.
As I crouch in that cell, then, assuming you could see through the darkness, my face is what has changed most. My hair is long, down to my shoulders and infested with wildlife, and that makes my face look even longer. I have the odd small scar. I have lines, more than you would think my face could take. They are lines of hard learning, of growing up. They came from having killed a man, which was new to me; of doing a solid day’s work, which was new to me; of being thankful to someone on a daily basis for not killing me, which was also new to me. My face has aged some several long years in the months that have passed. I am no longer young.
That was the longest night of my life, that first night Below. For all that there was no further move from the swimming predators below us, I was in constant terror waiting for the feel of scuttling little monsters in my cell. I did not sleep at all, although I could tell that everyone else had nodded off as soon as the screaming had stopped. I knew that if I let myself go even slightly from that petrified crouch then I would be smashing at the bars, pleading to be let out and taken far, far away. I would have gone mad, all of a sudden and for good, had I not kept that absolute hold on myself.
On the other hand, perhaps I did sleep, and only dreamed that I spent all night clutched in on myself. Perhaps I imagined it all.
What happened was this: I saw a light. It was not the sun, nor was it the sickly lamps. It was a light in the water. Had it not been pitch dark I would not have seen it: scarcely a suggestion of a gleaming beneath me. I saw it, though, and I saw that it was moving. It swept below me several times, clearly attached to some living thing, and then I saw that it was rising through the waters to meet me.
I moved then: with one twitch I had my back pressed against one wall of my cell to get as far from it as possible. It was heading for the hole the previous monster had made. I am afraid I shut my eyes. I still had that child-part of me that insisted that, if I ignored something, then it would go away. It was a tactic that seldom worked with imaginary horrors, let alone real ones.
I heard the faint slosh of water as it surfaced through the bent floor of the next cell, and then the occasional slap and scrabble as it caught its balance.
I opened my eyes, and for a long time I could see nothing but darkness. I found myself wondering whether this new thing could slide through the slots in the wall to get at me. There were such things. Trethowan had described them.
The faint glimmerings of phosphorescence pieced themselves together one by one, and the illuminated outlines of the creature slowly made themselves known to me. I saw a large, flat head, crescent-shaped with a huge, wide mouth; a frog-like head on a thick, ribbed neck. There were forelimbs just visible, clutching at the edges of the hole in the floor, and the remainder of the creature could be seen only as fugitive gleams deeper in the water. It had swum like a snake, so I assume it was something of that serpentine shape.
I could not see whether it had eyes. There were shadowy spaces that might have housed them, but they had no light of their own. Whether it had eyes or not, it was definitely looking at me.
And then it made a sound. I was so highly strung at that point that I thought it said my name, but that is the sheerest nonsense. It spoke, though. Although I misheard its first words, it was definitely speech. The voice was soft and not of the best diction, scarcely more than a light, throaty whisper in the dark air. It was not formed with the lips – there were no lips and the broad jaws remained slightly open but unmoving. Beneath them, though, the thing’s throat pulsed and wrinkled in and out with the words.
“Sowattay’infor…”
I stared at it. If it had eyes then it stared at me.
“So watta y’in for,” it said again, and the words started to make a little more sense. I continued to stare. The thing shifted slightly in the water.
It repeated itself again: “So watta y’in for.” I could not speak. Those wide jaws opened in a yawn that exposed the chamber of its throat, needle teeth silhouetted against the phosphorescence.
“Marshal’s gonna toastya,” it whispered.
“What?” I demanded, in spite of my horror at the thing.
“Marshal’s gonna toastya,” it said again, and then, “So watta y’in for.”
