Cage of Souls, page 51
“It’s moving!” I exclaimed, somewhat disproportionately.
Shon squinted. “Isn’t that the current?”
“Get in.”
“Be quicker to walk,” he muttered but he made the jump and sat behind, sorting through the previous owners’ left luggage.
*
When we got back, at the boat’s infinitesimal pace, Peter had dragged all the bodies away into the jungle, where they might serve as a distraction for predators. Midds was unchanged. Only Kiera’s continued supervision told us he had not died.
I introduced them to Gaki’s boat.
“Is that all it does?” Peter asked me.
“We’re lucky to get that much out of it. The generators are next to useless this far out and the engine’s dead.”
Peter looked at me strangely. “Fix it,” he suggested.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” I said.
“We’ll never be home without transport.”
“I’m no artificer,” I pointed out. “I’m a social historian.”
He shrugged. “Well, we’re not going anywhere with Midds like he is.”
But he had implanted the idea: I did so want to go home. I was owed repatriation, after all I had gone through. I had watched Thelwel and Father Sulplice. I knew what parts of a machine did what, I thought. Surely something as simple as an engine could give me no trouble.
I meandered back to the boat and looked at the abused engine. There was a massive dent and a small hole in the casing where the bullet had struck. That, I diagnosed, was probably the problem. This was the limit of my mechanical understanding. I might have hung around Thelwel and his father, but only because passing tools to someone was easier than work.
I took out the duelling knife and levered the top of the casing off. Inside I saw a rootwork of ducts and tubes and wires, all awash with murky, oily water. I was uncomfortably reminded that Kiera had probably seen something similar whilst attending to Midds.
Some of the metal pipes had been bent and broken. I ripped them out because it was obvious they were of no use any more. Beneath the debris I found another pipe with the bullet embedded in it, and so I reasoned that everything beneath that had to be fine. I prised that pipe out with the point of the dagger, and saw to my dismay that beneath it was the fuel tank. The buckling of the pipe under the shot’s impact had forced it down and cracked the tank, so that the fuel was now a greasy film atop the water half the way back to the Island. No fuel, I guessed, meant no going anywhere with the engine. So much for that.
I had been a few hours at it now, and so I cleaned my hands and went to get something to eat. Kiera had been teaching Shon how to fish with a sharp stick, as the web-children did, and there was a zoologist’s miscellany of aquatic life charring on the fire.
Midds had his eyes open, I saw, and they tracked to follow me as I sat down beside him. I asked him how he was feeling.
“Kiera gabe me sumpin to deal widda pain buddit sops me fom tokkin popperly,” he explained thickly. There was a broad bandage of cloth swathing his entire torso, cut from the unneeded prison greys of our enemies. It was stained with old blood, still wet with new in places. He looked ashen, blue around the lips.
I was about to mutter some pleasantry when an idea struck me and I leapt up. “Thelwel!” I got out, drawing everyone’s attention. I ran back to the half-gutted boat.
Thelwel had taken such pains to tell Red and me that the boats did not rely on their fuel. If they ran out, he said, we could use the sun. The engines ran on the sun. I had no idea how this was accomplished, but it was a hope. It did not matter that all the fuel was gone, that all those pipes had been broken. If the other part, the sun-engine, was still intact then perhaps I could get it working.
I stared into the engine. I had no concept of how it actually worked. I would have to work from first principles.
The fuel tank was broken. I did not need it. I borrowed Midds’ machete and pried at it, eventually managing to snap it free from its bindings so that it fell out of the bottom of the engine and into the river. I could now see clear down into the water.
I reasoned that not only did I not need the fuel tank (and just as well, since I was not getting it back), neither did I need anything attached to it. It must all be part and parcel of the fuel system, rather than this hypothetical sun-system. I ripped all of that out too. By this time there was distressingly little left of the engine at all, and I was surrounded by a graveyard of broken metal.
My logic then told me that what I did need was the propeller part that made the boat go. I would magnanimously leave that in. Now that I had excised all the unnecessary pieces, whatever was left connected to that propeller must be what I needed to fix in order to make the boat go. I was dizzy with the heights of my technical achievement.
There were a lot of wires, and some solid pieces of plastic and metal that looked important. I thought about solar power, and how the sun would get into the engine. Then I followed the wires and found they seemed to link into things inside the hull.
The engine was in a metal case in the dark. For the sun to get into it, it would have to be forced down the wires. The wires were stuck into the main body of the boat, which was out in the light.
I hypothesised a system by which the sun could fall upon the metal boat and be collected by whatever batteries lay within. Then it could be put through to those compact little boxes, whereupon, by whatever magic was involved, it would be turned into motivating power to move the boat.
But the boat would not move. The engine was dead. I should look inside and find out what was damaged, and try to put it back the way it was. Unfortunately, I had done rather a lot of damage myself in removing non-essential parts of the engine, and so I was left with a lot of loose wires.
I started connecting them up, just shoving them at random into sockets or tying them together. Nothing seemed to happen. I got bored after a while, and it was getting dark, so I wandered over to the fire.
That night was cold and overcast and rainy and there was no telling of stories. All of us wondered whether Midds would still be with us come morning, Midds included. I do not think he slept at all, that night. He just lay there, concentrating on staying alive.
The next morning he was looking paler, and his face was almost thin with the strain, but he lived. Kiera had done all she could by then. Everything else would be between Midds and a God who was perhaps no better off Himself.
I returned to fiddling with my wires. The project was becoming less and less interesting as I failed to provoke any life in the engine. I was beginning to think Thelwel had been making some obscure mechanical joke.
There was a cap towards the top of the engine, a faded red plastic disc that I assumed covered yet another fuel pipe outlet. In desperation I decided to see whether I could pry it off, in case any of my wires would fit beneath. I put my knife to it and scratched away, trying for purchase, but it was reluctant to come free. That this was an unusual trait for a cap did not occur to me. I just thought the machinery was being bloody-minded. I decided to see if I could slide it off, and tried to force it with my thumbs.
It gave abruptly under pressure, sinking in, not popping off. Instantly, something like a metal whip went through me from my hands to my feet and up through the top of my head. My legs kicked spasmodically and I jolted backwards, losing my connection to the engine. Shaking slightly, I lay in the belly of the boat and wondered what had just happened to me.
It had not been a cap, it had been a button. It had been an “ON” button. With all that fuel pump clutter in the way I would never have seen it.
Thelwel had not mentioned an “ON” button. Thelwel had probably assumed that I was intelligent enough to expect one.
The engine was still not going, but the power was being charged out into the metal casing, so I found a stick and prodded the button until it popped out again. Then I connected all the wires together and pressed the button with my stick. Nothing. I turned it off and changed the arrangement of the wires.
On the fifth time around the engine suddenly sparked once, and then the propellor whirred into sullen life. It sounded far less enthusiastic than ours had with the fuel system running, but it lived and I had made it live.
Peter and Kiera came running at the sound, but all they had to say was, “What happened to your hair?” because it was sticking up at all angles from my contact with the electricity.
“I have the boat moving,” I pointed out, somewhat annoyed. “How is Midds?”
Kiera would not meet my gaze, which only confirmed what I already knew.
“So we’re not going anywhere just yet,” Peter said heavily. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, wanting to be able to solve the situation with his hands.
Then Shon was shouting for us, sounding panicked. I shut the boat down and the three of us pelted back to the fire and Midds. Shon had a flintlock in one hand, a knife in the other.
“There is something,” he said, “Out there. In the trees?”
“Something big?” Peter asked him.
“Something small, but more than one. I turned round and there was something not three feet from Midds here, but it bolted and I didn’t get a good look at it.”
Peter swore and unlimbered his sword. Midds had propped himself painfully on one elbow, eyes wide. “Someone get me a gun,” he said urgently. “Don’t want to get eaten by anything without a gun.”
“Wait,” Kiera told us. “Just wait.” She walked a little towards the trees, squinting. I had horrible visions of some huge beast (despite what Shon had said) just smashing through the foliage to snap her up in its toothy jaws. I clutched the duelling dagger and tried to remind myself that I was a dangerous outlaw now, and not just a social historian.
“Come out,” Kiera said, but not to us. “And you lot,” she added, for our benefit, “just put the arsenal away. You won’t need it.”
None of us did, but at least nobody shot anyone when the first web-child stepped from the undergrowth.
It looked as nervous as we were, clutching a spear in one webbed hand. Two more followed, one with a bow, and then another half a dozen, a full hunting party.
“What the hell are those little freaks?” Shon demanded.
“Web-children,” Midds moaned. “Bloody web-children. They eat people. Little cannibal bastards.”
“They do not eat people,” Kiera stated.
“And that’s not what cannibal means,” I slotted in.
“Where do you think I learned the little medicine I used on you?” Kiera asked Midds. “Do you think I just sat out in the swamps and invented it all? They taught me. By that light, they’ve saved your life once already.”
Midds stared at her.
“You were with them?”
Shon was still looking tense, gripping the pistol tight. He did not know Kiera at all, really. I told him softly that Peter and I had been guests of the web-children before.
“You’re a strange man, Stefan,” was all he said, but he lowered the gun.
A voice rang out, clear and sardonic, from within the treeline. “Can I assume that nobody is going to shoot or stab or otherwise assault me, then? If so, I shall make my entrance.”
“It’s your mate,” Peter pointed out unnecessarily. “Tet-wotsit.”
Trethowan strode into the light like a man one-third his age and stared at us as though we had all personally plotted his assassination. I was used to that instinctive glare, though. Beyond the uncontrolled whiskers and the wrinkles, I saw something more human and less hostile. I think a little time with Kiera did him good.
“For those that do not recognise me,” he said grandly. “I am Ignaz Trethowan. I assume you’ve heard the name.”
Midds and Shon exchanged looks of comical blankness. Trethowan’s expression soured distinctly.
“How did you get here?” Peter had never really liked him.
“I got here by the paths of the web-children, which are more direct than the curve of the river. As for why…” He screwed his face into an impenetrable scowl. “My people here grew very fond of the girl while she was with us. They like her, although I’m damned if I know why. They insisted on making sure she was all right. They even insisted that I came with them, which for a man my age is as close to suicide as I care to go. After all this pointless effort, all I can say is that I hope you’re all happy.”
I was watching his eyes, though, and I felt that there had been less insisting than he was making out, and that Trethowan, too, had grown fond of Kiera. She was very good, after all, at making people like her.
“Drachmar,” Trethowan greeted Peter. “I see you’ve made a royal cock-up of the whole situation, of course.”
“You really came here just to have a go, didn’t you, you spiteful bugger?” Peter said.
“How well you know me,” Trethowan replied.
I introduced Midds and Shon.
“You finally decided to get out of that hell hole, then,” Trethowan remarked. “Not so stupid after all, Drachmar. Following in my footsteps. Although why you’re heading back to that stinking hive…” His harsh words trailed off uncharacteristically. “Well,” he contented himself with. “Well.”
Kiera had been talking to some of the web-children, and now she came and crouched beside Midds. “Look,” she told him. “I’ve got an idea you won’t like.”
“Oh joy,” he grumbled. “And spare me it, because I know what it is. So these little guys taught you all that doctor stuff. So you think they can do more for me than you, right?”
She nodded, and he clutched at her arm. “Kiera, I don’t know what the hell they are, but nothing anyone’s said about them until now has been any good and they creep me out. And who’s the old man?”
“Trethowan was a prisoner. He’s lived with them for decades,” Kiera told him. “And I’ve lived with them, and I’d like to say that they’re just people, only they don’t fuck each other over quite as much as people do. Midds, I think they’re the only ones who can help you.”
“I know, I know,” he muttered. “Get Peter over here.” When Peter had been brought (which brought the rest of us, too) he announced, “Right. I guess I’m going with the midgets. I hurt like hell and I feel worse now than I did when I got stabbed, and I know that’s not good. If they can do anything for me, then I want it done. Right?”
“We are not some kind of charitable organisation,” Trethowan objected sharply. “We have no intention of doing anything for your fat friend—” but he was overruled by web-children who were adamant they would do what they could for him, because Kiera had asked them.
“Well, just him, then. Not the rest of you. You go off to that damned place downriver and leave us alone,” Trethowan declared. “Except for Kiera, who can come and visit if she wants, since everyone seems so bloody fond of her.”
“We’ll go downriver, all right,” Peter promised. “We’re going to catch that skinny bald bastard Gaki and cut him up.”
“You have got to be joking,” I objected.
“Never been more serious,” Peter said. “We’ll come back for you, Midds. We’ll get you to Shadrapar yet.”
Midds nodded weakly. I think he would have liked some company to stay with him, but my life was bound to Peter’s. Despite my reservations, if he went hunting Gaki, I would back him up with my useless education. Shon was bound to me, somehow, and even more strongly to Shadrapar. And Kiera…
“I have to go with Peter and Stefan,” she said carefully. “I want to see this out.”
“I thought you would,” Trethowan said sourly. “Will you wait until the morning, at least? My people here want to get some food for you, for some reason. It’s not as though they don’t need it themselves.”
“It’s near dark now,” Peter agreed. “We’ll go at first light.”
43
The Cage of Souls
Late that evening, as Shon, Peter and Midds shared the fire uneasily with a gaggle of web-children, Trethowan strolled down to the water’s edge and beckoned Kiera and me to follow.
He had been oddly quiet, for a man only too keen on making his opinions known. Whilst the web-children chattered at each other, Trethowan had brooded like a gaunt and bearded spectre. Now he was staring over the river, listening to the slap of water and the splash of its denizens.
“I had not thought to have my mind turn to Shadrapar again,” he said slowly. “I thought I was rid of it. I have lived amongst my people for long enough, and never looked back. For ten years now I have not so much as dreamed of that city. Now, though, a journey of only a few days closer has filled my head with it.”
“Do you want to come with us?” Kiera asked him, and he shook his head violently.
“No! Never! Just because I think of the place doesn’t mean I like it. I hate that damned city and everyone in it. If not for them, my children would roam their swamps without fear, instead of hiding away. If not for them, this world might have some grain of hope. You’re welcome to the place. Go, and forget all of this and pick up your lives as politicians and sociologists and whatever the hell your friends are. Go forget.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Kiera assured him.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said. “Will you even remember, yourself? No, your minds contract so that nothing but that awful city is in it. You will forget that there are other ways of living. Even Stefan here, who writes brave words about how to save the world, never dreamed of living outside Shadrapar. If the city can be saved, he thinks, then save it. If it cannot then he’d rather go down with it than find another way. I despair of the lot of you.”
“That’s unfair,” I complained.
He fixed me with a steely look and said, “Is it?” and I was not so sure. His bony shoulders slumped a little and he seemed to grow older there and then. “After all this time it still hurts, you know,” he whispered. “Shadrapar, that exiled me to the stinking Island. Shadrapar, blind and deaf by its own hand, ruthless to those who tell it the truth. Shadrapar. Home, damn the place, and damn the lot of you for making me remember it.”
