High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (11 page)

“Her name. It includes the month and year she was born. Month 06. Year 44. My name is – was – Semele0442. Born in Month 04, Year 42. Two years before her.”

“Your counting is most strange, my lady.”

“For you, no doubt. You have lived for hundreds of my years, yet you look as if you are about the same as me. The same as you were when I first met you. How many years ago was that?”

“I think seven of your years, my lady.”

“Seven years. And I am now twenty-two. So this girl is twenty. Not a girl. Although she looks like one.”

As we spoke, the girl turned her head to follow our conversation. She still said nothing. I looked at her. She fascinated me. Why did she look so much like a child? She had the body of a child. The voice of a child. Still thin and reed-like. She reminded me of Ffion, my sister, whom I had not seen for those seven years.

I walked round and perched on the edge of the table in front of her. She pushed the chair backwards, away from me. “How does this light switch off?” I asked her.

“It does not,” she said in her little voice.

“You mean it’s on all the time? But why?” I lifted the lamp off the table. It was surprisingly heavy. As I did so she reached out with one hand.

“Stop,” she said. “Do not touch it.”

I put it down, not wishing to upset her too much. “So. Are you going to tell us why you are here?”

“My name is Arachne0644,” she said.

“We know that. Answer my question. Why are you here?”

“My name is Arachne0644,” she repeated.

Eluned moved from her position in the doorway and crossed the room to stand behind her. Without warning, she grabbed a clump of her hair and twisted it. The girl screamed.

“Enough, Eluned,” I said. “We don’t want to hurt her.”

Eluned relaxed her grip but did not let go. “Why are you here?” she said.

The girl put her hand up in a feeble attempt to remove Eluned’s hand from her hair. “My name is ...” she began, but screamed again as Eluned twisted her hair. Eluned removed her hand. “The girl is stupid, my lady. We should go. I will dispose of her. We will take the clothes.” She turned the girl so that she was facing her.

“No,” I shouted, fearful that she was about to deliver one of her killing blows to the girl. “You cannot kill her. She does not deserve it.”

Eluned looked at me. She turned back to the girl and said, “Remove your clothes.” Still terrified, the girl slowly started to unbutton her shirt, with one hand, the other desperately clutching her Bible. Eluned pulled the book from her hand and threw it across the room. “Quickly,” she said.

The girl started to cry as she peeled the shirt off and handed it to Eluned. “The rest,” Eluned said. Still sitting, the girl unbuckled the belt on her trousers, unbuttoned them and pushed them down her legs and off. Eluned scooped them up and put them on the table with the shirt. Turning to me, she said, “This?” pointing to the girl’s underwear. I shook my head. Eluned picked up the discarded clothing and gave them to me. “For you, my lady.”

I picked them up and turned to go into the bedroom. “Don’t harm her,” I said. Eluned smiled and followed me out of the room, shutting the door behind her. She took the girl’s other uniform set from the cupboard, discarded her shift and started to put them on. I looked in the cupboard and saw that there was also an overcoat, a raincoat and a shelf with some underwear and socks. I took one set, threw off my shift, and dressed. It felt most peculiar to be wearing underwear and socks again. All the years I had been away I had worn nothing but a shift.

Soon we stood there, both looking very different. The clothes were tight-fitting as they were made for the girl, but they must have been loose on her. In a shirt and trousers Eluned looked most odd, and I suppose I must have looked the same. We both laughed.

“No shoes,” Eluned said, lifting out a single pair of boots from the bottom of the cupboard which were definitely not going to fit either of us. I took off the socks and stuffed them, together with a spare pair and a spare set of underwear, into the pockets of the coat, which I then struggled to put on. Eluned took the raincoat and did the same. This left nothing in the cupboard except the shoes and a single uniform jacket.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s go. Before someone else turns up here.”

Eluned opened the door to the other room. The girl had taken the lamp from the table and was holding it out through an open window, waving it from side to side. With her other hand she was clutching her Bible to her bare chest. In two strides Eluned was beside her. She slammed the open window against her, knocking the lamp and the book from her grasp. Both fell to the ground where the light was extinguished. The room suddenly became much darker.

Stunned again, the girl staggered away from the window, shards of glass in her hair from the pane which had shattered when it struck her. As Eluned approached her she collapsed to the floor, limp, bawling. Eluned grasped her by the neck and lifted her up. I turned away, knowing what would happen next. I heard a sickening thud followed by the sound of a body slumping to the floor. Eluned came out of the room, again closing the door behind her.

“Now we must go, my lady,” she said. “Quickly. I fear she may have alerted others.”

We ran through the house, out of the door, and back the way we had come. We did not stop running until the house was far behind us. At last, out of breath, I stopped. There did not seem to be any sign of someone following us.

A picture of that poor girl, her frail, naked body, her neck broken, haunted my mind.

More than an hour had passed before we finally saw the ruins of Uricon. We were both hot and sweating because of the clothes we were wearing. How much more pleasant it had been to wear a simple shift, which allowed the body to cool naturally. I had soon taken off the coat, but carried it folded over my arm. Eluned had done the same with the raincoat, but in the end she had discarded it altogether. When we crawled back into the Room our shirts were soaked, and the trousers tight around my legs felt most uncomfortable.

Hot, sticky, hungry and tired, I knew that I would have nightmares when I fell asleep, so I tried to stay awake. I failed. I was shaken awake by a vision of the girl holding out her Bible towards me, its pages turning in the wind. She did not have a head. The next vision was of her half-hanging out of the window, two hands smashing her head against the wall. And so it went on. Each time I awoke my shirt was soaked, but cold and clammy to the touch. I must have only had about one hour of dreamless sleep that night.

When I finally awoke, it was to see Eluned crouched over the fireplace. She had removed her shirt at some point in the night and it was now simply draped over her shoulders. For some minutes I watched her. The last few days had revealed a new, darker side to her character. Looking at her now, her blonde hair tied up on top of her head, the blue shirt across her shoulders, she seemed to be the Eluned I had known for these past years. As usual, working away, busy building a fire ready to prepare something to eat. A picture of domesticity.

Yet beneath that outer surface there dwelled another, older, fiercer creature. A female warrior who was capable of terrible brutality. Without the loose-fitting shift that was her normal dress, I could see aspects of her anew. The tops of her arms were muscular, as were her thighs, which bulged through the tight fabric of the trousers she wore. As she twisted and turned about her tasks, she revealed a flat belly with more powerful muscles. The muscles in her neck stood out as she turned her head from side to side.

This was a woman, I now knew, capable of killing. With one blow she had rendered Nefyn incapable. With that same single blow she had knocked out the girl in the Guard house. In both cases she had gone on to kill the individual, Nefyn with a series of brutal hammer blows to the neck and face, the girl I knew not how, but it was clear that one blow had been sufficient. These actions she had carried out with no sign of remorse or even concern. They were necessary, they were done. It was, on reflection, the way she lived her life, the way she had lived her life all the many, many years she had lived, born of a time when brutality and violence were the norm.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked.

As if caught unawares, she turned to face me, the shirt slipping from her shoulders. “I am sorry, my lady. I did not think you were awake.”

The two images I had of her blended into one. The strong physical woman, the muscles of her upper body rippling as she knelt before me. The meek girl who only sought to please me in everything she did. Violence and gentleness combined. She was indeed a companion to be thankful for. And I was. I was. I smiled at her.

She looked at me curiously. “I fear these clothes do not suit us, my lady. Forgive me.” She picked up the shirt and pushed her arms into the sleeves.

“They’re better than what we had,” I said. “After Nefyn had ruined them. As well as the passage of time. We had been wearing those shifts for far too long. But I agree with you. These are not really suitable replacements. They are ill-fitting and uncomfortable.” I unbuttoned and peeled off my shirt, still damp in places. I looked down at my own body. It seemed so similar to Eluned’s, yet for some reason I lacked her strength. My muscles were perhaps less well-defined, but …

“It comes after many years, my lady,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “When you have lived as long as I have, and seen what I have seen, strength becomes your only friend. You are a fine looking woman, I have seen you develop from little more than a child into a strong young woman. Strength will come. Strength of body. Strength of mind.”

“You stole my thoughts, Eluned,” I said.

“You are unhappy with my actions of late. I know this, my lady. I learned from my father and my brothers, before they passed, that violence must be met with violence that is greater. It is the only way to survive.”

“With Nefyn, I might agree. But not with that poor girl. You had stripped her of her dignity, her clothes, worst of all – and I know this from my previous life – you had cast aside her Bible. People of the Change know only that. It was what I was learning before I left. It is what my people take with them wherever they are. Why did she have to die?”

“She was signalling. She may have looked like a child, but she was wise in her way. She knew she could not defeat us on her own. Two strong, grown women. She knew there was only one way she could survive. By bringing others to assist her.”

“But where could she have been signalling? Who to? That house was in the middle of nowhere.”

“We spotted the light from some distance. It was still when we saw it. Think if the light had been moving, how far it may have been visible then. I do not believe that she was left alone in that house for long. Other Guards may be patrolling.”

I nodded. She was right. Dead, she could not report us. The Guards who eventually arrived would find a dead body. Her clothes were gone. They would not know who had committed this deed. How or why.

“I know it makes you sad, my lady,” Eluned said. “It was necessary.”

Again her words reflected my thoughts – her actions were necessary, they were done. The matter was closed.

“So,” I said. “What are we going to do now?”

There was only one answer to my question, of course – wait until Gwenllian returned. Several times I asked, or wondered aloud, if Eluned knew when that might be, but every time she answered, “No.” As the days passed, I became more and more frustrated. When we had left the Teacher’s castle I had thought that our arrival at Uricon would mark the beginning of my true purpose. Whatever was meant by my being ‘The Expected One’ would be revealed. I would be informed, educated, trained, prepared. Ready to carry out … what?

I had a vague notion that it was something to do with the people of the Change. Now and again I wondered if they thought that I could somehow ‘overthrow’ that system and ‘free’ the people. Why would they want to be ‘freed’? I was perfectly happy with my world before I left it. Not knowing that there were other ways of life, other people, meant that what we had was satisfying enough. Everyone was housed, fed, clothed, kept warm in winter. The children were educated. From my perspective now the education they received was incredibly narrow and, I suppose, pointless, but no one thought that when they were a part of the system. Education guaranteed work. Work guaranteed a satisfying life, with a wife or husband, children.

Besides, I thought, how on earth did they expect me, one woman, to overthrow a whole system, a whole country? The Change system was well protected. The Apostles lived in London, a place that no one was allowed to visit except the leaders. There were very powerful and effective Guards – or so I thought – who kept things outside the casters under control. At least, they did most of the time. I had come across them at work when they blew up Plas Maen Heledd and took Taid and the Professors captive. Yet we had managed to get away. So there were some chinks in the armour. But they were hardly enough to bring down the whole system.

Five days after our encounter with the young Guard, I was returning to Uricon with a heavy bag of wood over my shoulder. I had taken on Nefyn’s tasks, finding wood, capturing small animals and birds, digging up roots. At finding wood I was reasonably successful – it was plentiful just inside the trees. So far I had seen no animals, only one or two birds which flew far too high for me to capture, and I had discovered only one clump of small, white roots. At this rate, I thought, glumly, we are likely to starve to death before Gwenllian returns.

As I reached the tree line I spotted movement to my right. I dropped the bag and crouched down. At first I thought it must have been an animal because the movement had stopped. Just as I was about to stand up I saw two figures emerge from behind one of the larger wall fragments. From where I was, some distance away, it was hard to make out who or what they were. It was certainly not Eluned – she still did not leave the Room.

The two figures headed away from me, in the direction of the Room, although I was confident they would not discover the entrance if they did not know it was there. I extracted the biggest piece of wood from the sack, hid the rest behind the largest tree near me, and, still crouching, set off towards the ruins. I knew my way around these now, having walked amongst them so often, so I was able to creep closer. After a tense few moments, they stopped moving. One of them clambered up on to a wall remnant and started looking about. The other sat on the wall and took something out of his pocket.