Angel Stations (7 page)

Listening to the old man’s story, Elias remembered the twisted, ruined bodies of the God’s Pioneers, and became suddenly obsessed with uncovering the truth behind the legend.

And if there might be someone else like himself.

He began to scour the streets of London, hustling contacts and information, until he found himself standing before the entrance to a service tunnel running under one of the big maglev stations servicing London’s lower levels. The kid who’d shown him the way there led him through a broken vent tucked behind an abandoned access corridor, which only a few people knew about. Down there, the kid had whispered, you could hear people walking about, people from all over the world.

That was when he’d found the name behind all the stories.

Trencher.

Trencher told Elias he remembered what it was like before they excavated the great tunnels that carried the maglev trains between continents, but Elias doubted that. The tunnels had been in place for over a century and Trencher was an old man, but Elias knew he couldn’t be that old. Elias returned to the service tunnel many times, and once Trencher trusted Elias enough, Elias got to see the miracle worker at work. He watched the old man cure a woman of cancer simply by touching her, and again he remembered the miracle out amongst the Rocks.

Whenever Elias asked him about his past, Trencher had been guarded, but it was clear to both of them that they shared a gift, though a gift that was more like a curse. In turn, Elias told Trencher about his life in the military, the terrible things that had happened there. Elias came across Dan Farell who had been in the Rocks with him, and found that Danny had escaped not long after Elias himself, and had since become a priest. Elias became part of
his
world too, and for a while, his life found a meaning and a depth that he had never realized was missing from it. It was from Trencher he first learned about Vaughn and about the Primalists.

‘You mean this guy Vaughn is like a ghost?’

‘Not a ghost.’ Trencher had coughed. They were somewhere high up, near the curve of the Dome, the bleached grey wall of some vertical slum visible through an open window. Rain streamed through a crack in the city’s facade, falling a quarter of a mile or more to the streets far below. ‘He’s human. As human as you or me, at any rate. It’s as if he can be in two places at once, like a kind of astral projection.’

Elias cocked his head to one side. ‘Is it something we can do?’

‘There are only two I know of, Vaughn and one other, who have that ability.’ They drank mint tea out of stainless steel mugs that belonged to an elderly woman Trencher knew, who to all intents and purposes ruled the building Trencher was now sheltered in. ‘Vaughn comes to me sometimes,
like
a ghost, but that’s because really he’s far away. He wants me to go back to the Primalists.’ The old man laughed. ‘Imagine? Did I ever tell you about the Primalists, Elias?’

‘No,’ said Elias, wondering if he should say anything else or wait and see what the old man said next. He’d been trying for months to get some idea of Trencher’s origins, but the other had remained taciturn.

Until now.

‘I’ll tell you, then,’ said Trencher.

The Primalists had started out in Japan a long time ago, before the Stations were found, and centuries before Elias was born. They’d used a different name back then and their philosophy combined elements of eastern mysticism and western millennialism – a real fire-and-brimstone, the-end-is-coming kind of ideology. When the Angel Stations were first discovered, the Primalists decided they were there for the sole purpose of taking a chosen few out to safety amongst the stars, where God would get things right this time.

By this point, they’d grown powerful and influential, spreading outwards from Japan into America and Europe, using the pooled funds and knowledge of their richer members to make investments in high-yield research industries, particularly those reaping rich rewards from inventions linked to the newly discovered alien technologies recovered from other star systems.

It seemed that the Angels – or whatever they’d actually called themselves – had carried out genetic manipulation on an unimaginable scale. This much had been public knowledge for centuries, and had led to the development of Angel-derived technologies such as read/write bioware for recording memories and experiences by biochemical means.

Any of the worlds the Angels had visited, where life existed, they’d altered in some way, travelling between those worlds via great waystations that could carry them across vast interstellar gulfs in the blink of an eye: the Angel Stations. Identical strings of apparently ‘junk’ DNA had been found in species on worlds light years distant from each other.

And somewhere during the time that came to be known as the Hiatus, when the Oort Angel Station had nearly been destroyed by the scientists studying it, and contact between the scattered fragile colonies around other stars had subsequently been lost for almost two centuries, research into the Angel-altered gene sequences had continued unabated. Paradigm-altering discoveries about human DNA were then made, and it didn’t take long for some of the new theories to be tested out on human beings.
If I’d known more about these things
, thought Elias,
maybe things would have been different
.

It didn’t take long for Elias to realize what the old man was telling him. The Primalists had actually created Trencher, in a breeding programme designed to bring about a new Messiah – but a Messiah that would serve only the needs of the Primalist religion.

Elias had listened appalled to Trencher; appalled at what they had done to him, appalled that they had succeeded in so many ways.

‘I didn’t want any part of it,’ Trencher assured him. ‘And I told them so. They didn’t want to let me go either, but they had made us too powerful. The Primalists were going to kill all of us but one, but we rebelled.
I
rebelled. This was all a long time ago, Elias. A long time ago.’

More than three centuries ago, Elias realized. It was indeed a long time. He wondered if the old man would ever die, or if he’d just keep going. ‘You said ‘‘us’’?’

‘Sure, Elias,
us
. Three of us. Three supermen, and the Primalists couldn’t control any of us.’ The old man sipped again at his mint tea with merry eyes, enjoying the consternation, the confusion in the other man’s face.

‘But they didn’t breed
me
. We were all adults, all soldiers, when we underwent the treatments that made us the way we are.’

‘Dangerous,’ said Trencher. ‘How many of you now left with the power? Just you, you said? Pity. The rest weren’t strong enough to handle it, I suppose, not in the body or the head. Now they’re after you too.’

‘But the Primalists are still looking for you, right?’

‘Sure. They can’t necessarily account for me, and I could screw things up for them.’

‘What are they planning?’

‘Things.’ Trencher looked out to the rain as a bird flew by, navigating the cavernous spaces between the buildings. ‘Look at that, Elias. I swear, must have been years since I saw a bird flying down in here. Not so many of them left outside either. Things’re getting bad.’

‘What are the Primalists planning?’ Elias persisted.

‘You’ll know, Elias. Best you don’t torture yourself till the time comes. We’ve all got a burden to carry, and yours is greater than most.’

Unsettled, Elias put down his mug. ‘You’re talking about the future?’ Trencher’s ability for precognition was extraordinary, while Elias’s own visions were like faded family photographs, bleached images so vague in detail they could represent almost anything. But Trencher saw so much more. The old man had known precisely when to glance out of the window, Elias realized: just at the right moment to see a sparrow fly past, its tiny wings beating furiously in the still dead air.

Trencher had sighed heavily then. ‘I told you there were three of us. Vaughn was one of the others. He’s going to come to you, soon. Don’t listen to him, Elias, whatever he says. He’s powerful, dangerous. He believes in everything the Primalists taught him, and more.’

The old man was silent for a few moments. ‘Something bad’s going to happen, Elias,’ he said at length. ‘I’m going somewhere soon, and I need you to do something for me, okay?’

‘Something bad? How bad?’

‘Let’s just say I’ll be gone for a while. I want you – I want you to do the right thing.’

‘What?’

‘The right thing – when the time comes.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘When the time comes,’ Trencher had repeated patiently, ‘you’ll know what to do.’

That had been one of the last times Elias ever saw Trencher. Elias came by one day, found half the block burning, its ruined apartments gaping open as masonry tumbled downwards.

Elias thought about these events, and after he’d thought about them some more, he went looking for Hollis.

Ursu

It had not been a good morning.

Ursu had woken to the thunderous sound of the army encamped outside the walls, yelling and hooting enough to drive fear into the hearts of all the citizens. Ursu was now a Master-in-Waiting, and in the three days since the god had spoken to him, he’d tried to find some kind of precedent in the Book of Shecumpeh.

He pored through thick, heavy pages rich with ink and platitudes, but discovered nothing that described anything like the situation he now found himself in.

The Book of Shecumpeh was kept in a vault below the stables, attended by an elderly amanuensis named Turthe. Ursu was aware that Turthe was seeking someone to learn the arts necessary for making new copies of the Book and, perhaps, eventually take his place. For in many civil matters decisions made were based on sayings found in the Book of Shecumpeh.

Ursu knew that there were other communities, beyond the valley and still further away, which also revered their own city gods, each as jealously guarded as Shecumpeh was in Nubala, and that many of those cities also kept their own great books. But there was only one Book of Shecumpeh, much as there was only one city of Nubala. All the Masters-in-Waiting were required to learn the words of the book by rote, but it was Turthe’s task to repair and maintain the current copy.

The pages were heavy, the covers made from fine beaten leather. The paper had been handmade, sheet by sheet, by Turthe himself. Mostly, its text consisted of stories of all the leaders of Nubala since the city had been founded at the beginning of the Great Cold, when the ice came. But also within it were stories of the great heroes of Nubala, and the battles they had fought. Fables, legends and prophecies filled these pages.

Ursu’s mind drifted constantly back to the deeply certain knowledge he’d been given by the god; in those strange half-images that seemed to suggest words, there had been absolutely no confusion, no doubt of what was being asked of him.

Which left the question of when he should do it. It wasn’t like he could just tumble down those stone steps, snatch the thing up, and vault to freedom over the city walls. Lack of opportunity combined with his own fear, and Ursu could not help but dither on a heroic scale, waiting always for some sign he could not be sure would ever come.

So he waited, and the longer he waited, the harder the waiting became. But despite all this, he could still reason, use his rationality. Shecumpeh had shown him the world fallen to fire and death, if he failed. Therefore failure simply was not, could not be, an option. Ursu planned his move, although he greatly doubted his own ability to carry out such an impossible task.

Over the yells and hoots of the enemy, the sound of screaming closer to home became apparent. Ursu felt the fur across his back prickle, and across the tip of his snout. He raced down the cold stone steps, only to find turmoil in the Great Hall. Its doors were wide open, and he witnessed Masters and acolytes alike shouting and running about outside. The well just beyond the entrance seemed to be the centre of activity, as they drew buckets of water up and ran off with them somewhere, as if attempting to put out flames. Ursu began to step forward hesitantly, to help. He still remembered that story the older acolytes once told, about the ghost of the girl, Ewenden, who still haunted the well, and dragged the unwary down after her.

‘Just put that fire out!’ screamed one of the Masters, and Ursu stared around as gibbering acolytes ran past him. It was then he spotted the buildings across the way with their wooden roofs ablaze.

No matter how fast the acolytes hauled their buckets from the well, it was clear they would never have enough to douse the flames before the stricken buildings burned to the ground.

Nubala had been built in the time of the Ice Giants, and had been well prepared for siege. But since then, the ice had retreated, and in its place a great river flowed down the valley, deep enough for conquering armies to float their supplies dangerously close.

When Xan’s army had first approached, the city council had had some forewarning, and therefore time to build up stocks of vital supplies. But these great catapults that hurled flaming missiles over the city walls were an innovation that Nubala’s original architects could never have predicted.

‘Sometimes I think we should just give them what they want, and fuck tradition,’ muttered a voice near Ursu. He glanced to one side, and recognized the long, sad face of Nepuneh, until recently a fellow acolyte. Ursu stared at him, and Nepuneh looked guilty.

‘I – sorry. I didn’t mean that,’ he said hastily, his fear evident from the way his ears flattened themselves against his skull. He ran off quickly, and Ursu watched him go.

Give them what they want
, he reflected. Why had it taken so long for him to understand Shecumpeh’s true purpose?

Xan wanted one thing, and one thing only: the living, beating heart of Nubala. And the essence of the city, the one thing whose removal would mean the end of the city, was Shecumpeh itself.

‘Hmm.’ Turthe smacked his long lips and lifted, one after the other, several huge pages of the Book, looking for the most recently inscribed passages. ‘Here we are. Xan’s armies arrived peacefully enough – well, as peacefully as any potential invasion force can.’ Turthe looked up at Ursu and slid his black, unsheathed claws through the fur that coated his lengthy skull.