Angel Stations (15 page)

‘Get up,’ said Uftheyan harshly, and Ursu pushed himself upright. There were four of them, all Masters, including Turthe and Uftheyan. They glared at him with hatred and contempt. ‘To think,’ began Uftheyan, ‘that we welcomed you into our holiest place, we fed you and educated you, so that you could then steal the very soul of our city away from us, you contemptible—’

‘He wasn’t to know.’ Turthe turned to Uftheyan and yelled at him. ‘False visions,’ he said, turning to Ursu, ‘brought about by the armies outside. What you experienced was not true.’

Ursu stared at him. ‘Shecumpeh
spoke
to me. He told me what would happen. Our city will be taken. I have to remove Shecumpeh to safety.’

‘Safety where?’ screamed one of the other Masters, a heavyset figure called Meleter. ‘There is no
where
, you idiot child, only Nubala.’

The fourth Master, Irubus, whose role was to instruct the House acolytes in history and doctrine, nodded vigorously. ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘You should have known better, Ursu. Nubala has stood secure for countless generations, protected by Shecumpeh itself. What do you think will happen to us when it is removed, eh? Didn’t it occur to you that Xan might try and incur false visions in our priests and acolytes, so that they would give him exactly what he wanted, Shecumpeh itself?’

‘Do it now,’ added Meleter. ‘Do it now, while Shecumpeh still has faith in us, in our ability to serve him.’

Do what? Ursu wondered, a sudden chill in his bones. Hands gripped him again, hauling him upright, hands that were stronger than he would have suspected. Fear made him feel weak, as if his legs would give out from beneath him.

‘Perhaps,’ Turthe quavered, ‘perhaps we should consider what the boy said. We were all there when Shecumpeh spoke to him, weren’t we? And even if he were misled—’

‘Turthe, you dolt!’ raged Uftheyan. ‘It’s too late for that now. The enemy has broken through the walls.’

‘He’s right,’ moaned Meleter, his voice heavy with fear. ‘Kill him now – do it. Show Shecumpeh we still have faith in him.’

‘No, listen to me,’ someone spoke, the voice low and mumbled. Then Ursu realized it was his own. ‘He spoke to me, really he did. I’d have known if it were someone else. I—’

Another blow and Ursu sagged, strong hands still holding him at the shoulders, immobilizing him. Ursu stared into the eyes of Uftheyan, which were seething with hatred. Despite himself, Ursu felt ashamed, terribly ashamed, for disappointing him.

But the god had spoken to him. He
had
. Someone grabbed him by the fur on the back of his neck and pulled his head right back, sharply. Ursu felt too numb even to yell in pain.

‘Swim, when you have to,’ said a voice, barely above a whisper. There was a sudden commotion, as Ursu saw Turthe being pushed to the ground.

‘What were you whispering there, you old fool?’ yelled Uftheyan. ‘Maybe we should throw you in as well!’

‘Why, Turthe, have you changed your mind now?’ cried Irubus. ‘I thought we were all agreed. You seemed willing enough the last time!’

The last time? Ursu stood rigid, still held fast by the shoulders. The last time.

Ewenden?

‘You said there had been another,’ Ursu mumbled. ‘I wasn’t the first to hear Shecumpeh tell me to leave the city?’

His ears flattening, Turthe stood, staring at Ursu. As he looked away, shame filling his face, Ursu knew he was right, that he had not been the first. Shecumpeh had asked the girl to carry it out of the city. But when? It must have been not long after the besieging armies had first arrived outside the city gates. It could only have been her; no one else had disappeared so suddenly, so completely. Contempt and anger filled Ursu, and he snarled at them. For the merest moment, he felt the grip on his shoulders loosen the tiniest fraction.

‘It’s only for the good of our city, boy,’ said Uftheyan. ‘Our enemies want Shecumpeh gone from the city, because with Shecumpeh gone, the city is theirs.’

‘The city is already theirs,’ rasped Ursu, his throat sore from his beating. Uftheyan stared at him, and then the elder’s fists started hammering at him.

‘Into the water – now!’ a voice cried, and Ursu felt himself lifted. And then a shock beyond pain, a freezing rush, as if all the warmth in the universe had fled, leaving him in a place of unending, cold darkness. Water filled his nose and ears and mouth and he reached up, feeling his hands break through the surface of the water, feeling himself being dragged along by the current.

He thrashed out instinctively, clawing for air, his mind filled with primordial terror, reaching out for life at any cost. He saw them there on the tiny shore, surrounded by the sparkling dim light of the glowing fungus for the tiniest of moments, a frozen tableau of murderers almost certain to be the last thing he would ever see.

And then he was gone, sucked down into rushing blackness. He thrashed, and screamed, but water rushed into his lungs and a heavy darkness spread out from the centre of him, grabbing for his very soul, and in panic and terror he reached out blindly once more, desperate for the slimmest, tiniest chance of a miracle, of a way back to life – not ready to give up, not yet. His hands touched smooth wet rock, the walls of the underground tunnel slipping by him, then miraculously his face felt the air. He gripped onto a roughened protrusion, the water still battering at him, and vomited water. Air, he realized gratefully. Air. His head was still singing with the beatings he had taken, his muscles as if on fire. Then he spotted light: the familiar thin glow of icewort.

He had emerged in a tiny cavity of rock, several feet in height, a natural deformity in the tunnel that narrowed upwards to a paper-thin crack reaching through the stone. He listened to himself whooping, hyperventilating, sucking in as much air as he could manage, gripping on desperately, his feet braced against a rocky outcrop by the side of the tunnel to prevent the icy water from sucking him away. Slowly, gradually, he regained some composure, but the terror still lingered, and it took every ounce of effort to keep himself from slipping into blind panic.

Even if he didn’t drown here, the cold would take him soon enough. And the air would last him only so long; minutes, maybe. Perhaps this was fate’s cruel joke on him, to give him one last taste of life before dragging him away to the merciless underworld where all such enemies of Nubala were doomed to languish.

But perhaps there were other air pockets; and perhaps the tunnel was not so lengthy, after all. But the water spilled out of the hills miles away, and if there were no further air pockets between here and there . . .

No, he mustn’t think of that. Shecumpeh would not have entrusted himself to Ursu if the god had thought him incapable of his task. To think otherwise was to remain here until the air became stale, until he froze to death, until he became weak enough for the current to snatch him away once more.

He remembered those childhood tales, those horrible stories passed around amongst the youngest acolytes, that some had heard a voice calling up from the well outside the House of Shecumpeh, only days after Ewenden had disappeared – had been murdered, in fact, by Turthe and the others, for experiencing the same vision as Ursu had.

How could they have made her disappear so completely? Surely not by bundling her body out of the House . . . and then where would they have disposed of the body? There was nowhere obvious inside the city, and beyond the walls an enemy army was waiting. Then it must have been done the same way: dragging a frightened young girl, guilty only of trying to serve her god, into that underground cave and throwing her into the water to drown her. Perhaps she had also found herself trapped here in this same diminishing bubble of air, only to be swept away eventually.

She must have survived for a brief time. Under the well, of course. Clearly the river ran under the well shaft and replenished it.

The thought of it was even more terrible than that childish ghost story. Perhaps she had indeed been trapped alive at the bottom of the well, too weak after the beating to call out for any length of time. Perhaps some young acolyte had indeed heard her calling out in the night, in the days immediately after her disappearance. Perhaps he would have run to Turthe, or Meleter, or Uftheyan, and told them. As Ursu pictured the scene unfolding, anger began to burn within him, anger strong enough to almost make him forget the terrible cold seeping through into his every bone.

He could feel his strength sapping away with every passing second, but he held on grimly, not willing to return to the rushing blackness until the force of the icy current finally pried his feet and hands loose. But eventually the Teive would claim him, regardless.

He sucked in air several times, filling his lungs, feeling the air grow denser and warmer each time he did so. Then he let go, feeling strangely calm now, yielding himself to the river spirits that gurgled and roared around him, as they snatched him away from the tiny bubble of life that had so briefly given him sanctuary.

Then, suddenly, the river seemed to twist downwards, plummeting. By some miracle Ursu kept his mouth closed and resisted the urge to scream.

And then, just as suddenly, he encountered air again. Though it felt like an eternity since he’d first been submerged, by a miracle he was still alive. His feet touched a mound of pebbles and loose shale, covering what he realized was the base of the well. Some of the surrounding brickwork had given way, allowing him enough of a handhold to scrabble part of the way up out of the water, before he could be swept away again.

Aware of light coming from above, he looked up and saw a tiny disc of sunlight. Apart from where the walls had occasionally crumbled, the sides of the well were composed of smooth brick offering little to hold onto. But he could see a water bucket hanging down, just out of reach, and maybe . . .?

He yelled out several times, hoping someone could hear him, but no answering call came, no sudden welcome silhouette peering down from far above. He paused and listened intently for a few moments more, hearing sounds that might be screams, and other less recognizable noises. But deep in the well, with the water still surging around his chest, it was impossible to guess what was happening above. He now refused to even think of the girl, Ewenden, trapped down here unheeded until she had died. Instead he negated her from his memory, thinking only of surviving.

The bucket, he realized, was not so far above him. Normally it was reeled up to the top after use, but for some reason it had been left hanging a short distance above his head. Not near enough that he could easily reach it, so he scrabbled frantically for handholds, some way to brace himself against the curved brickwork and then raise himself up. He had to reach that bucket, and then . . .

And then what? He didn’t know. But he was now freezing cold after his immersion, and it was getting steadily harder to move, or even to think. The water swirling around his chest tugged at him constantly like the souls of the dead trying to carry him away to the underworld. He knew his time was limited as his fingers sought out spaces between the bricks where some mortar might have been loosened. One of the bricks came loose all of a sudden. He jerked back in surprise, then put his hand in the gap it had left, finding it made an excellent handhold.

Again his fingers sought among the bricks, looking for a way to loosen more of them.

One seemed to give way the tiniest amount, so he began working at it with his hard, stubby claws, wrenching it from side to side until finally it gave way enough for him to pry around its sides with desperate fingers and slowly tug it loose.

Now he had created two handholds, which would raise him much closer to the bucket. Just close enough so that he might be able to reach upwards. His long clawed feet sliding and slipping desperately against the smooth bricks below, he scrabbled up, and thrust a hand into one of the inviting gaps, then lunged for the other one a short distance above. Now that he had his clawed fingers firmly inserted in these two handholds, he found the bucket was just above his head. Even so, he was not at all sure he had enough strength left to reach it. Then he thought of the water waiting below him, ready to suck him away again, and knew somehow he must find the strength. And it had to be now.

He reached up with one long leg, finding a foothold next to one of his hands in the loosened brickwork, and for a moment hung sideways across the diameter of the well shaft, just above the foaming water. Then he swung the same leg out in a frantic arc, so that it caught the side of the bucket, batting it against the far wall of the well, and watching as it bounced back towards him.

He reached out quickly from his second handhold, and caught the edge of the bucket with one hand, pulling it down just enough so that he could get a firm grip on its rim. His mind sang with joy, but he wasn’t safely there yet.

With fingers still clamped grimly onto the rim of the bucket, he let go of the wall and for a moment hung there precariously by just one hand, before reaching up and grabbing the bucket’s edge with his other. He pulled himself up slowly, the painful effort forcing tears from his eyes.

The bucket suddenly tipped under his weight, and in desperation he scrambled upwards, with what remained of his strength, till he had both hands and both feet securely around the rope. Fortunately the bucket had remained above the treacherous water. By some miracle, by the merciful hand of Shecumpeh, Ursu was still alive.

But for how long now? He couldn’t shimmy up the rope; couldn’t perform the impossible. He would still have to rely on a rescuer. As he rested for a while, his robes felt soggy and damp and uncomfortable around him, drying only slowly. He realized he had every chance of dying first from exposure. As he shivered miserably, he wondered what was happening far above him, as the city his people called Nubala succumbed to the armies of the Emperor Xan.

Time passed.

He had taken the rope he used to tie his robe around himself and knotted one end tightly around the curved iron handle of the bucket, and had tied the remaining length around himself. He then kept his arms wrapped around the handle, his flesh becoming sore where it pressed against the bucket’s wooden rim.