Angel Stations (11 page)

Ursu looked up. ‘You did?’

He nodded. ‘Shecumpeh in fact showed me something quite different. But you never told me what Shecumpeh revealed to you. Did he ask you, too, to guard the Great Book?’

Ursu blinked and almost dropped the bowl of half-mashed weed in his hands. ‘Turthe!’ he erupted, briefly forgetting the elderly scholar was by far his superior within the House of Shecumpeh. ‘You know I can’t speak of that! It’s—’

‘One of the sacred bonds between a priest and the god he worships? Piss and excrement, my lad.’ Ursu simply stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘The enemy is at the gates, and we may all be dead within days. We’ve kept them waiting too long, so say rumours from the Council. They may exact revenge on us, as a lesson to others.’

Ursu made to leave. ‘I can’t stay and hear any more of this,’ he said, with an irrational fear that someone might be listening.

‘You really don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ said Turthe. ‘If Shecumpeh has directed you to be my replacement, fine. But otherwise, I think you are being less than honest with me.’

Ursu stared at him. ‘I’m sorry, Master Turthe. I have had so much on my mind. The siege and everything.’

‘Will you be leaving the city?’

He knew! He had to. Otherwise, why would he ask such a question?

‘I – am a loyal citizen, Master Turthe.’

‘But not a soldier, eh? Where’s the use in sticking around for a bloodbath? You’re young, so it’s not right for you to burn with the rest when the time of retribution comes. Besides, I suspect Shecumpeh has something special in store for you.’

Ursu kept silent, waiting to see what would emerge next. He felt how his ears had flattened themselves to his head, the unmistakeable indication of being trapped and cornered.

Turthe came towards him. ‘I think I can trust you,’ he said. ‘For there’s something you should see. But first let me tell you this. You have been the first one called by Shecumpeh in some time. And it is now almost a given that the siege will come to a head within the next few days – if not sooner. If decisions are to be made, there is not much time for them to do it. You’ve been sneaking around with your ears all flat ever since he spoke to you, so it doesn’t take a genius to realize that whatever Shecumpeh said to you, it wasn’t easy listening.’

Turthe drew back and went over to where a slightly tattered curtain screened off part of his workshop. He pulled it to one side and secured it to a hook set in the wall. As Turthe beckoned to him, Ursu stepped forward, slipping between the wall and the broad platform supporting the current Great Book of Shecumpeh. He stepped into a deep, low-ceilinged alcove which he had noticed Turthe use for storing materials.

Ursu lit a candle while Turthe kneeled down by the lowest shelf. For the first time, Ursu noticed a small door in the wall below the shelves. He wondered why he’d never noticed it before, then realized that there had always been a pile of rolled-up manuscripts stacked in front of it.

‘It’s small,’ Turthe muttered, bending low to duck under the lintel of the tiny door, ‘but even I can squeeze through it without too much trouble.’

He watched Turthe scrabble through and, after a few moments’ hesitation, he followed.

The walls beyond were cold, slimy, rough-hewn. The flickering candlelight made the space beyond feel primitive and old, as if it hadn’t been visited for a thousand years. Ursu shivered, the fur on the top of his head brushing against the ceiling. By the dim light of Turthe’s candle, he could see that beyond the door was a long, low tunnel.

‘This one runs near to the lower Temple,’ explained Turthe. ‘Look – see there?’ He stopped and raised his candle, so that Ursu could see steps, falling away into darkness just ahead. Ursu turned to look behind him: a faint, distant glow was the only hint that the tiny door leading into Turthe’s workshop still lay open.

‘Turthe, I don’t understand, where exactly are we?’

The Master Turthe raised a long digit to his wide, broad lips. ‘Voices carry farther than you’d think down here. And, in answer to your question, we are on the threshold of the deep catacombs below this part of the city. There are other caves far below here. Come further.’

Ursu gradually became aware of a distant roaring sound that only barely distinguished itself from a vibration. He had always known caves existed below the city – as did all the citizens – but this was the first time he had ever had cause to venture into one.

Ursu noticed he could see better, in part because of his eyes adjusting to the stygian blackness of the tunnels. But a certain faint luminescence was becoming evident the farther they progressed. Aware of a familiar odour, he stopped. As he reached out to touch the wall, he realized the rock was damp.

The walls were speckled with icewort, that same foul-smelling fungus he had been mashing up only minutes before for Turthe’s benefit. Here, in these godless depths below the city, it had transformed itself into something infinitely more beautiful than the grey rot manifested by daylight.

‘You see that, yes?’ said Turthe. ‘That’s how they can make armour sparkle in the night. Now, look ahead of you.’

Turthe waved him forward, where there was just enough light for him to see he was standing on a surface of natural, uncarved rock. The passageway had given way to something like a shore; his feet were now resting on rough slimy pebbles.

Ursu looked up, and saw bare rock curving into a dome above him, also speckled with the same dimly shining icewort. Water gushed in a torrent through a great crack in the far corner of the cavern they were now in, before pouring through another great rent in the floor, and into some unknowable abyss. The darkness gave itself easily to his imagination.

‘What is this?’ Ursu asked.

‘One of the tributaries of the river Teive,’ explained Turthe. ‘It runs down from the Teive peaks, which rise beyond the valley of Nubala.’ Ursu was familiar with the Teive peaks – great rocky giants, blue with haze, at the furthest edge of the horizon; they could be seen from the top of the city walls.

Ursu stared around at the cave, feeling a certain kind of awe that this magical city he had grown up in could still, even after all these years, surprise him. The darkness was misleading; the cave was not, on closer study, so very large. No larger than some of the rooms in the House of Shecumpeh above it. Still, Ursu couldn’t help but wonder how many years, how many lifetimes, it had taken the torrent to carve the deep groove of its passing in the floor of the cave.

‘The river flows fast, and hard, before it re-emerges far from the walls of the city,’ said Turthe from somewhere behind him. ‘It would be a dangerous journey even for someone as young as you.’

‘This is why you brought me down here?’ Ursu turned and stared at the old priest, his features hidden in the thin light. But he was already contemplating the journey ahead, regardless of the obvious dangers. But what chance was there of survival? Slim, certainly – more likely non-existent.

‘I am not suggesting it,’ said Turthe. ‘I am merely saying that there are . . .
alternatives
to be considered, should circumstances here grow much worse.’

‘I don’t understand why Shecumpeh cannot protect us,’ said Ursu. ‘Why he doesn’t repel the invaders.’

‘Some might suggest,’ said Turthe, his voice mild, ‘it’s because we haven’t shown ourselves worthy of Shecumpeh.’

‘No!’ Ursu said. ‘I mean . . . there is no difference between us and any other generation of Nubalans since the beginning of time. We are a good people. We don’t deserve this.’

‘Then consider Xan’s claim to represent the fulfillment of the Prophecy of the Fidhe.’ Turthe’s voice was still calm and reasoning, and Ursu had to strain to hear him over the sound of the rushing water. The thin mist that filled the air all around had left them drenched, their robes heavy with moisture. ‘He does reveal some of the major qualifications,’ Turthe continued. ‘He has, after all, conquered much of the known world. Under such circumstances, it might seem a given that we should yield the god Shecumpeh to him.’

‘You don’t believe that,’ Ursu said, turning to face him. So far beneath the earth, he was sure no one else could hear him, except perhaps Shecumpeh himself. And what Shecumpeh had asked him to do was a heresy against the god itself. It was almost funny, and he felt his ears begin to twitch at the humour of it, but suppressed that reaction quickly when he saw the annoyance on Turthe’s face. ‘There are still questions that have to be asked,’ said Turthe. ‘Outside the rooms occupied by the City Council, this is one of the few places I’d say is safe to discuss them without the risk of anyone overhearing and accusing us of treason.’

‘Would they really? Give Shecumpeh to Xan?’

Turthe’s ears twitched in thought. ‘Perhaps – if it meant the survival of the city. However, I suspect many members of the Council fear what would happen to them if they did so. Some of our more devout citizens’d happily see them torn apart for giving away the beating life and soul of our city to any crass invaders. And if they survived Xan’s army, what would happen if what few crops we manage to grow then failed, or our hunting expeditions brought back no game? Who would be to blame then but the Council, for letting our enemies take our god away from us?’

And what of my own torment?
thought Ursu. Knowing that he might be the one to remove Shecumpeh from Nubala, wouldn’t that mean abandoning his own people to death at the hands of the invader – unprotected now by the god he’d stolen from them?

But it was Shecumpeh himself who had commanded Ursu to carry the god’s effigy beyond the confines of the city, and whatever Shecumpeh directed, any acolyte or Master-in-Waiting hurried to undertake. Or so Ursu had always been brought up to believe. Now, he wasn’t quite so sure.

And Turthe – what drove him to bring Ursu here now, to this place? Ursu’s mind was filled with a horror that somehow the old man knew what Shecumpeh had asked of him. Yet . . . Turthe was showing him a safe way out.

‘But what of Shecumpeh?’ Ursu said carefully. ‘Shecumpeh must have spoken of this, must have seen this coming?’

Turthe had been staring deep into the churning water; now he turned back to Ursu, looking suddenly weary. ‘Yes, I think he must have realized in some way. I think he might have spoken to someone.’

Ursu found himself trembling, only partly from the cold and damp. ‘Do you think so?’

Turthe studied him carefully. ‘Whenever there has been a crisis in our history, the god has spoken to someone – whereupon Shecumpeh’s word is carried out.’

‘Because that is the way things always have been, Master Turthe?’

‘Yes, Ursu, always.’

Five

Kim

Kim studied the tiny vial of Books in her hand. She knew she’d taken up Bill’s offer without really thinking it through, and only because he’d hinted how he might be able to help her if she did. The Books were an unknown quantity, possibly even dangerous. Maybe I’m in over my head, she thought. Maybe I should take them back.

The guilt was starting to return – and with the guilt came the reason for her guilt. And with that reason for her overwhelming, almost unbearable guilt came everything else – a tidal wave of dark memories and sorrow that might well suck her under. She stopped her progress, found her way into a convenient toilet which was thankfully deserted, and leaned her head against a wall.

‘My name is Kim Amoto,’ she whispered. She pressed her hands against the cool surface of the bulkhead and studied her wrists, turning them so as to study the healed-over slash marks that had created narrow white strips of insensate flesh. There had been a reason for her not having surgery to hide these marks, but that reason had been lost in some other life. That other life – that other person – was gone now, dead and buried forever, along with all the things she had achieved, as well as all the guilt and pain and terror that same person had been forced to carry and that, even as she struggled against them, were threatening to overwhelm Kim all over again, for the first time in so many months.

No
. She brought her arms down, pulling at the long sleeves of her jerkin until the scars were well hidden again. Most of her fellow rock hermits had their own, far worse, secrets to hide.

She headed back into the Hub, but now the noise and movement all around her acted like an intolerable pressure on her, like too much information was being thrust towards her and she was drowning in sensations. She felt a constriction in her chest, like some invisible giant had wrapped one enormous hand around her chest and was beginning, ever so gently, to squeeze her. As panic rose in her, she thought perhaps she’d been out here in the middle of nowhere for too long, forgetting what it could be like with other people around. And here she was surrounded by hundreds of them, pushing and jostling, drinking and dancing and hanging out all at once. She thought about stumbling back out of the Hub, but where was there to go, where the oppressive thoughts and memories wouldn’t follow her?

So she found her way to a bar and ordered a tequila. And then another one. She tried to think. Bill couldn’t be the only one in this place who could give her what she wanted. But she’d left it almost too late. She ordered another tequila, a double this time. After that, the room began comfortably swaying. Better, she thought: the anxiety had dropped, she was feeling calmer. But still the pressure of all the bodies and noise around her was hard to take.

She pushed away from the bar, thinking there had to be somewhere better to go. A brief image came to her of somehow opening one of the triple-security airlocks scattered around the Station and throwing herself into the naked vacuum, but she pushed it away.

There were better ways than that – less painful ways.

Elias

Two days later, Elias was on his way out of London forever.

He’d taken Hollis’s car deeper into the Camden Maze, a horizontal and vertical mishmash of building units and crumbling megatowers, filled with low-rent residences and makeshift shops, built on top of the Old Camden. There were so many access points between the Maze and the relatively unpopulated lower levels, it was one of the easiest places to disappear in at very short notice. Elias had been telling the truth when he’d told Hollis he had friends. Not only through favours owed – of which there were many – but through payments that had been made to Elias, all saved up towards that inevitable day when he knew he would have had to make a break for it.