A City Called Smoke: The Territory 2 (22 page)

“We’ll take my buggy again,” Ernest said. “It’s a bit of a drive to the outpost and then you’ve got to make it through the tunnels. We had best get moving.”

They drove through the streets of Reach and out toward the fence, this time heading in the opposite direction, further east. Squid watched the buggy’s large wheels turn beside him, throwing sand and red dirt in an arc that filled the air like a rooster’s tail. After three hours, perhaps a little longer, they came to a gate in the fence. Like the gate through which they’d entered Reach, it was manned by the white-uniformed Border Patrol, who opened it when they saw Ernest’s buggy approaching. They nodded their heads to him as he waved and drove through. Ernest turned the buggy in the direction of some large hills that were so far away across the almost flat ground that the color seemed to have faded from them. He pressed his foot down on the pedal that Squid had already figured out controlled the buggy’s speed and they accelerated away, faster and faster across the open ground. The body of the buggy sank low, the wheels undulating up and down on their springs as Ernest made little attempt to dodge mounds of dirt, rocks or clumps of grass.

“The outpost is beyond those hills,” Ernest called to Squid as the wind whipped past, trying to steal his words away. “We should reach it with a day of solid driving. You can see the city from there.”

Squid looked toward the hills. If they could almost see the city then Big Smoke was closer to the borders of the Territory than anyone had ever suspected. He willed his eyes to see further, to see some hint of this mythical city beyond, wondering what a city of the Ancestors would really look like, but there was nothing but the sky growing hazy with heat under the white morning sun. He knew it was out there, though. He could almost feel it. Finally, he was nearing his goal, for him, for Lynn, for everybody who lived under the constant threat of the ghouls.

High Priestess Patricia walked gingerly along the side of the road toward the Great Gate. Her hip clicked with each step and there was a pulling sensation right up into her back. She could feel the piercing pain emanating from the top of both legs all the time now. With every step it felt as though something in the joint was tearing, and the pain threatened to make her collapse. She had woken that morning with her fingers so stiff she had been unable to bend them at all, and it had taken her several hours to work some freedom into them. In the end she had endured the agony of leaning against them on her desk and forcing them to move. Much to her disgust, she had begun to feel her knees and elbows beginning to deteriorate as well.

As much as her body screamed for it, she refused to stop and rest. She refused to adjust her gait or to react to the pain in any way. The doctor had given her a pain-killing ointment and a cane, but she refused to use either. She couldn’t display any hint of weakness, at least not yet. She would push the pain down for a while longer. She whispered a prayer, certainly not for the first time, asking Glorious God the Redeemer to hold her body together long enough for her to complete her mission. It filled her with anger that she could bend the entirety of the Central Territory to her will but she could not bend her fingers.

The common folk of Alice bowed and fussed and moved out of her way in fear and respect when they saw her. She would respond if any of them muttered a ‘Praise be to the Pure’, but otherwise she tried to ignore them. Like everything she did, it was a calculated action. The people seemed to remain much warier of her if she barely acknowledged their existence. The only interaction she was known to have with the population was if they were dragged in to stand as a defendant in the Supreme Court, and no one in their right mind would ever want to be there.

Though that was what troubled her more than anything else. The Supreme Court. She looked at the building, roped off from the street. It still stood, but had been severely damaged in the explosion that had rocked it a week ago. Every time she saw the shattered face of that building it reminded her of that failure. The Holy Order had still been unable to turn up any evidence of which terrorist group was responsible for the attack. It was just what she had hoped to avoid. An attack like that, an attack that seemed to have been a success, would give those members of the populace teetering on the edge of rebellion a glimmer of hope that maybe they could overcome her and her regime. They couldn’t, of course, but she could do without further malicious strikes against what she was trying to achieve. It was as if people didn’t appreciate that she was doing this for them, doing all this to ensure their survival.

The fact that the Administrator had disappeared in the confusion following the attack made it all the worse. It was possible he had just taken advantage of the chaos to slip away, but she didn’t think so. The bomb was timed too perfectly. She still believed the whole thing to have been a mask for his rescue. By whom she wasn’t sure, but she had her suspects. Several members of the government had gone into hiding and hadn’t been seen since the Holy Order seized control of the city, Knox Soilwork among them. Instinct told her this was his doing. It had to have been. He was the only one she really feared. Her only mistake in all this had been underestimating him, and she hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite her.

She looked over at the Wall beside her. It was crisscrossed with wooden scaffolding, and workers appropriated from all across the city moved over it, hoisting stones up or setting them into position. The sounds of shouting, banging, hammering and the smashing of stone echoed from every inch of the Wall every hour of the day. She would ensure that it was repaired and ready to hold the horde back from the city, and it looked to be coming along well. Certainly those who’d been forced to leave their ordinary jobs to work on it, and even more so those whose houses had been demolished for the bricks, stone and building materials necessary for the repairs, had been less than pleased, but as the High Priestess had told them, it was for the greater good. They would be thankful when the ghouls arrived that the Wall was ready to stand again. They would be thankful, or they would be left outside.

High Priestess Patricia spied Clergy-General Provost standing with a group of clergymen some distance away, observing the reinforcements being made to the Great Gate. She took a breath to steel herself against the coming pain in her hips and moved toward him. The general turned and saw her coming. He gave some final instructions to the red-cloaked clergymen before breaking away from the group to greet the High Priestess. His pale face had grown pink from the long hours he had spent out in the sun. For a man so good at his job in this place, his complexion was poorly suited to the conditions.

“Your Holiness,” he said, dropping his head in a bow of respect. “What brings you out here at this hot hour of the day?”

“How are the repairs coming, Provost?” High Priestess Patricia asked. “Will it be ready when the horde arrives?”

The general nodded. “It will,” he said. “The other three major gates have been sealed shut. The Great Gate is being strengthened and the work should be completed within days. The rest of the Wall has a little longer to go, but at this rate the entire thing should be ready within the fortnight.”

The High Priestess nodded. “Good,” she said. “Excellent. Any other news, Provost? No further dissidence from the population?”

“Some,” the general said, “but it is waning remarkably quickly.”

“A strong hand,” the High Priestess said. “A strong hand.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” Clergy-General Provost said. The way he opened his mouth and then closed it betrayed the fact that he wanted to say more.

“What is it, Provost?” she said.

“It’s just,” the General said, “there is one other thing I have been meaning to discuss with you.”

“So discuss it,” the High Priestess said.

Provost turned away from the Great Gate and lowered his voice, not that any of the clergymen or busy workers were near enough to hear what he said. “It’s in relation to the horde defense.”

“Yes,” High Priestess Patricia said, her patience beginning to wear thin. She was not interested in conversations that circled around the point, particularly from someone like Clergy-General Provost. “What is it?”

“Once the horde strikes, those who are left outside the wall will be overwhelmed.”

“Yes,” High Priestess Patricia said, her face becoming stern. Was her most trusted tool beginning to lose his sharp edge? Beginning to become soft? “That is how the impure will be removed from the Territory. It is God’s will.”

“Yes, High Priestess,” Clergy-General Provost said, “but their numbers are swelling as more and more refugees arrive from across the Territory.”

“Precisely. All shall be removed in one powerful cleansing.”

“But, High Priestess, they will all be turned. That will leave an even larger horde to encircle the city.”

“The Wall will hold them while the Holy Order beats the ghouls back,” High Priestess Patricia said.

“I have no doubt the Wall will hold,” Provost said, “but my concern is how long the city will be besieged by ghouls. Will we have the food and fuel to last?”

“God will provide,” High Priestess Patricia said. “God will provide to those of us of faith.”

“I –” Provost started, but then stopped himself. “Yes, Your Holiness,” he said.

High Priestess Patricia lifted her chin and stared into the general’s eyes. “Praise be to the Pure,” she said.

“Praise be to the Pure,” the general replied. He held her stare for a few moments before looking away.

High Priestess Patricia felt a wave of frustration roll through her. Even those she considered to be her strongest allies were weakening as the moment of their glory approached. This was yet another reminder that she could rely on others only so much. It was she, as always, who would be the strength of God on earth, the voice of the Ancestors, she who would carry them through what needed to be done. The Territory would be cleansed. She would see it done.

Cresting the hill, Ernest brought the buggy to a sliding stop.

“There it is,” he said, pointing into the distance, “New Sydney, the Big Smoke.”

Squid used the handle in front of his seat to pull himself up to standing. On the horizon, in the direction Ernest was pointing, was a city. It was unmistakably a city, but it was unlike any city Squid had seen, though he supposed he’d only ever seen one. He could already tell that the place that lay so far away in the distance was nothing like Alice. It was surrounded by walls which looked to be surrounded by trees, more trees than Squid had ever seen in one place. But it was what lay beyond the walls that was the real surprise: there were buildings that were taller by far than the walls. Four or five structures rose straight up like enormous shining fingers, stretching their way out from everything that surrounded them. As the afternoon light struck them the buildings gave off a bright glow, as if each of them were home to a miniature sun of their own.

Squid let his gaze fall back to his immediate surroundings. Below them, a short walk away across ground strewn with large boulders that seemed so out of place in the flat landscape that they might have just dropped from the sky like rain, was a collection of low, gray, semicircular roofed buildings. Even from a distance they looked old, crumbling into dust like ancient unfed ghouls. A fence that had surrounded the buildings lay long abandoned, falling down in places and completely collapsed in others.

“That’s the outpost,” Ernest said. “There’s an entrance to the tunnels inside, and those tunnels will take you all the way into the city. The only problem is that the tunnels are crawling with suckers.”

“They’re Ancestor buildings,” Mr. Stix said.

“Aye, s’pose they are,” Ernest said, looking at Mr. Stix as though he didn’t know whether he was asking a question or stating a fact. “Don’t know whose ancestors you’re talking about, but the outposts are from before the Collapse, if that’s what you mean.”

“The Reckoning is what happened to bring the ghouls to the world, when God brought his punishment down on mankind for the sins of the Ancestors,” Squid said. “Why do you call it the Collapse?”

“Sounds like a bunch of your crazy religious mumbo-jumbo if you ask me,” Ernest said.

“The Nomads don’t believe in the Reckoning either,” Nim said. “We think the ghouls are the spirits of the land, rising up against those who don’t treat our country right, and when we’re ready, the Storm Man will come and wash the ghouls away.”

“Still mumbo-jumbo,” Ernest said, shaking his head. “It’s called the Collapse because that’s what bleeding well happened, isn’t it? Civilization up and collapsed. I don’t really think the why and the how of it is that important, but if you really think you can find something in New Sydney that’s going to fix this rotten mess, then that’s what matters.”

“So you don’t believe in the prophecy either?” Squid asked.

“Don’t much matter what I believe, does it?” Ernest said. “But a prophecy that says you’re some kind of chosen one declared by your religious icon to find a sacred artefact and save the world? No, I don’t rightly believe that.”

Squid felt dejected. “Everyone in the Territory is relying on me,” he said, “and I think the people of Reach are too.”

“Look,” Ernest said, “like I said before, there’s always been stories that say the key to ridding us of the suckers is somewhere in New Sydney, that part I believe, but people have been searching forever, and each of them has left thinking they would be the one to succeed. No one has yet, but people don’t head out on these sorts of quests thinking they’re going to fail, now, do they? But I suppose you’ve got just as much chance as anyone else of finding something. I wish you luck in any case.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe the prophecy wasn’t true and Squid had come all this way, seen people die, gone beyond the boundaries of their world and lost his best friend all for a story, a lie. He tried to push the thoughts away but the doubts had been growing within him for a long time.

“I don’t need luck,” he said, trying to hide his unease from his companions. If he really was their leader he needed to seem confident. Lieutenant Walter and General Connor were the best leaders he had ever known, and they had always seemed confident. Once they made a decision they never let anyone see them have second thoughts. “I’ve got the prophecy and I believe it.”

“Nobody’s saying you can’t believe whatever you want to believe,” Ernest said. “Just don’t expect a story to stop a sucker from latching onto your neck.”

“All right,” Squid said as calmly as he could while the image of a rotting ghoul sinking its brown teeth into his neck played through his mind. “Let’s go.”

It took them only a short time, less than an hour, to reach the outpost. Ernest stopped the buggy directly outside a section of fence that had fallen over so long ago that dirt and sand had long covered most of it, and clumps of spinifex grass grew up through the wire mesh as if it were part of the natural landscape. On the ground, mostly buried beneath red-orange dirt was a faded sign. The writing that was visible read: “Control Monitoring Outpost Seven.”

The buildings were all similar; it seemed they had been purposely built low into the earth, with steps of gray stone leading down to the doorways, but sand and red dirt had piled up against the sides from countless years of exposure to the wind, making them seem even lower. Three of the seven buildings had caved in, leaving nothing but rubble with grass, scrubs and even the occasional small tree fighting to grow up through the stones. Those buildings that still stood were cracked and crumbling where shoots of grass had broken through or twisted brown vines snaked up the walls looking like fingers trying to pull them down into the earth.

Squid wandered among the buildings. Most of the doors were open in those that were still standing, either broken or easily pulled wide. The insides of the buildings were bare; whatever they had once housed had long ago been pillaged or had disintegrated to dust.

“This is the entrance to the tunnels,” Ernest said. He stood outside a building that looked much like the others, though Squid noticed it seemed in better condition than the rest.

“You’ve been looking after this building,” Squid said.

“Aye,” Ernest said. “Not me, but some Runner will come out once or twice a year and clean it up, make sure it’s still standing. We want to keep the entrance to the tunnels open for times like this, for when people like you want to try their luck in the big city. Not that many of them ever come back, though.”

Ernest descended the stairs and pulled a thick steel bar from where it had been inserted into the handle of the door. He unlatched it, heaving his weight against it to push the door inward. It moved slowly with the resistive squeal of seized hinges.

“We keep it locked to keep the suckers out,” he said. “But you’ll still need to be careful. No one knows how many other entrances there are into the tunnels. I think the effort to map them was given up long ago. Suckers have a habit of stumbling down into the tunnels from other places so don’t be surprised to find them staggering around down there. They have a habit of coming at you from the dark.”

Ernest entered the building, ducking through the low-set door. Squid followed first, with Nim, Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes close behind. The interior of the building was dark. The curving roof felt as if it loomed down on top of Squid, so he could only imagine how claustrophobic it must have felt to someone taller, and especially to someone of Mr. Stownes’s height. Ernest lifted an old lamp from where it hung near the inside of the doorway. Squid noticed there was space for ten lamps, though there were only four there. He wondered what had happened to the people who had carried the other six lamps down into the tunnels, though he also thought maybe he didn’t want to know. Ernest flicked a crank handle out from where it was recessed in the base of the lamp. He begun winding the handle, and after a few moments three small globes inside the lamp came to life, glowing with a soft yellow light that grew progressively brighter and more white the longer he turned the handle. Ernest handed the lamp to Squid.

“Keep winding,” he said. “Wind the handle for a minute, and that should give you half an hour to an hour of light.”

Squid wound the handle, watching the light grow within the glass as if he were bringing it to life, as if he were making light from nothing. He knew about electricity, of course, but growing up on a dirt farm meant they were never rich enough to have anything electrical. He didn’t think anyone in Dust had had electricity. He wanted to know how electricity worked, but it wasn’t the same as understanding how the water tower or mechanical things like the cargo cage on the pirate dirigible worked. He couldn’t look at it and see how its parts moved; he couldn’t figure it out. Electricity was invisible. It was the closest thing to magic there was.

“This way,” Ernest said, indicating ahead with his hand. “You’d best bring that lamp up here, Squid.”

Squid kept winding as he walked beside Ernest, holding the lamp in front of him. As he moved forward, letting the light spill out ahead of them, Squid saw that what he’d thought was a dark spot on the floor was actually a set of steps descending down into blackness.

“Down there is the entrance to the tunnels,” Ernest said. “See that blue line on the floor? That’s what will lead you to New Sydney. Follow that and you’ll make it there.”

A thick blue line, faded with time and coated with dust, had been painted on the floor. It ran down the center of the steps and away into the dark.

“We have to go down there?” Nim said. “Sure, that looks safe.”

Squid started heading down the stairs. He had descended three steps before he realized Ernest was no longer beside him.

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Squid asked, turning to look at Ernest.

“Didn’t you hear me in Reach? I wouldn’t go down there for all the water in the world. This is where we part ways, Squid. I wish you luck.”

“We’ll see you on our return,” said Mr. Stix, but he looked at Squid as he finished saying it, making Squid think he wasn’t saying it for Ernest but for Squid’s benefit, maybe trying to encourage him.

“Thanks for your help,” Squid said, trying to force that leader’s confidence back into his voice and pushing down all the fear he felt even as it tried to bubble up into his throat. He looked at the others and then started walking down those steps into the dark before his courage faltered.

The steps continued down for longer than Squid had anticipated. At the base of the stairs a tunnel ran away into the dark. The light from Squid’s lamp stretched a short distance in front of them, illuminating the cracked gray walls of the tunnel and the blue line on the floor before the darkness took hold again. There were long tubes spaced evenly along the roof of the tunnel. Squid guessed they were electric lights of some type that would once have filled the tunnels with light, but they had long ago ceased working. Squid kept walking, holding the lamp at the full reach of his arm as if to push as much light as he could ahead of them. He kept his eyes locked on what he could see, trying to ignore the oppressive thoughts he couldn’t shake off about everything that might lie ahead, hidden in the dark.