High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (24 page)

“No other reason? You were not attempting to rebel against the Change?”

“Rebel? Why should I rebel? Where else would I go?”

Eluned shook her head, sadness written on her face. “It is useless, my lady. They are, as you said, chained to this place. To this way of living. No matter that we find it an abomination. This truly is a place of desolation. We must leave this place.”

“Yes, but how?” I said. I stood up and walked a little way back towards the gate. The incinerated remains that had once been Tacita still lay where they had fallen. The river flowed silently to one side; on the other nothing could be seen in the darkness. The fence stretched away into an invisible distance. “We have no choice but to walk on. Who knows what we might find, but there is no alternative.”

Catulla rose to her feet. “You will take me with you?”

“That’s up to you,” I said.

She released her hand from Eluned’s grip with a sharp pull. “Only because I want to. I am not your prisoner.”

I sighed. “You were never our prisoner. Nor was your sister. You may stay here or come with us. You are free to choose.”

She scowled at Eluned and set off along the path. For a moment I simply watched as her thin, wasted body, clothed in rags, stumbled along. Then with a silent signal to Eluned I followed her. Peering into the semi-darkness I could feel myself shaking. It had been a long time since I had felt the true grip of fear, but I recognised it now. We were walking to somewhere completely unknown. A place where men and women had been condemned to live for committing some act that was contrary to the laws of the Change. The five men we had followed to reach this place – what had they done? There had been no mention of their ‘crimes’. The word ‘Desolatio’ had been uttered before them and now they were inside this terrible fence. If they were truly criminals, what sort of life would they lead inside the compound?
 

Fear stimulated my imagination. I could see only a lawless wasteland where the condemned struggled to exist, hunted down by the ones who were stronger, damned to a life that was little more than a daily round of terror. Life in this world of the Change that I had seen in Salopian Caster and the amphitheatrum of Deva Caster was difficult enough. That poor creature who had thrown herself from the ramparts to avoid a more painful death. The terrifying sight of two women forced to destroy each other in a sword fight. And yet this was the supposedly ‘ordered’ world created by the leaders of the Change. Without even this appalling ‘order’ what could possibly be happening in this place of Desolatio?

The gorge we were in at first soon began to widen. The river became little more than a swift-flowing stream. The cliffs either side still soared into the sky but they moved perceptibly further and further apart. After some time Eluned put out her arm and blocked my way. Catulla was still some way ahead of us, but she had also stopped.

“What is it now?” I asked, becoming more and more frustrated. The fear I had experienced earlier had long evaporated as we struggled along.

“There,” Eluned said, with one of her enigmatic smiles. She was pointing upwards this time. Following her finger I could just make out what appeared to be an opening about half way up the face of the cliff opposite us.

“So?” I said. “What am I supposed to be looking at? A hole in the rock face?”

“It is a cave, my lady. I am sure of it. That one has also seen it. That is why she has stopped.”

Catulla stood, some distance away from us, obviously staring up at the same thing we were.

“Why should a cave be so fascinating?” I said, irritated. “What of it?”

“See below it, my lady.” She was still pointing in the same direction as far as I could see, but I lowered my sight from the cave itself. I was able to make out a figure that seemed to be climbing up towards the cave. From the way it moved it was clear that it was ascending by means of steps that we could not see.

“What is it?” I asked. “Someone climbing up to that cave?”

“So it would appear, my lady.”

The thought struck me that this was perhaps the way those condemned to live here managed to stay safe, finding themselves an isolated and hard-to-reach cave.

“Let’s go,” I said, still irritated. Just as we were about to walk on a fist-sized rock crashed into the path between us and Catulla before rebounding into the river. Stunned, we stopped in our tracks, looking up to our left. A figure stood on an outcrop of rock, close enough for us to see him whirl something above his head. Another rock soared down, this time straight into the river, bouncing along the bed several times. Catulla immediately ran off up the path and I dashed forward in an attempt to go with her.

“No, my lady!” Eluned screamed as another rock smashed into the path just in front of me. She grabbed my arm and we plunged into the river, wading across and up the scree on the far side, our feet sliding wildly on the loose stones. I thought I heard the splash of one or two more rocks behind us, but did not dare stop to look.

We eventually managed to reach a small ledge where we lay flat, panting and exhausted. I looked up but could see no sign of the attacker – or Catulla. She had gone. If it had not been for Eluned’s quick thinking, realising that the attackers’ rocks had a limited range, we could have been struck by one of them.

“I thought this might be happening in this place. It may be the only way to survive,” Eluned said.

“We can’t go on,” I said, sitting up. “If that is how they exist, there must be more than the one we saw. Humans turned to animals. Hunting for food wherever they can find it.”

“No, my lady.” I turned. Tears streamed down Eluned’s face. Seeing them unleashed my own.

For the next hour or so we sat morosely on the ledge. I thought about the two sisters, both of them products of the Change in its sinister attempt to level and order society. Increasingly, it struck me, this was an anti-female society. Girls and women had been reduced to child-bearers and childless, neither of any real importance, readily discarded for any breach of an absurd set of laws. The childless, in particular, struck me as perverse. What sort of society would physically distort more than half of its females in this way? Merely to create a horde of slave-like creatures with no will or desire to live.

Though we said little, I could sense that Eluned’s thoughts were similar to mine. She had lived through countless societies since the dim and distant past, yet I was sure that she had never previously encountered one as brutal and inhumane as this. What had happened to the Change that had been embraced so eagerly when I was a child growing up within it? We thought that the world had changed for the better. Perhaps we children had struggled to understand the purpose of the education we received, but what child does understand? We grumble and groan but in our hearts we assume that the adults know best.

As for my supposed task as the Expected One – that seemed to have disappeared forever. Eluned and I were trapped inside this place that was indeed desolate. We were too afraid to carry on along the path we had been following, yet we could not retrace our steps for there was no way past the fence that surrounded this place. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into a state of despair. Eluned, as always, roused me from these thoughts.

“The cave, my lady,” she said, suddenly standing up. “The cave,” she repeated.

I looked up at her, half inclined to believe that she had lost her mind.

“We must seek out the cave. I am sure it offers protection.”

“Protection?” I laughed. “We saw someone going up to it. He – or she for all I know – is probably just as bad as that lot. We climb all the way up there just to be … just to be ...” I broke off.

“No, my lady. You are mistaken.” She was insistent.

I had nothing to lose. There was no way forward from where we were. And no way back. Reluctantly, I rose to my feet. “Which way then?”

Eagerly, Eluned set off up the loose scree above the ledge. I followed her. Incredibly, after just a short climb we came on another path. This had been cut out of the lower face of the cliff and to our right it clearly headed up. I was a little more enthusiastic as we set off. Slowly, the path wound its way up the side of the cliff.

The air grew cooler as we ascended and the sun began to decline. Fortunately, its rays shone on the cliff face as it descended, so the path remained well lit. I soon became reluctant to look down, as our distance from the ground increased. Then the path gave way to steps that were just wide enough for one person. I held myself tight against the face of the cliff as we ascended, my eyes fixed on a tiny square on the back of Eluned’s shift.

Suddenly I heard a slight whistling sound. At the same moment Eluned stopped and I piled into her. Fortunately I was close enough behind her not to disturb her, but I felt my heart begin to race.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

“It was him,” Eluned replied. “He has seen us.”

I didn’t dare move my eyes to look. “Who?” I said, still whispering.

“You have heard that sound before, my lady.”

“The whistling sound? Have I?” I remembered. “It can’t be.”

“What is it?”

“The sound of an arrow? But it can’t be. It can’t be.”

But it was. “Are you going to stand there all night?” His voice boomed out over the gorge, echoing.

Clutching Eluned’s back, I shivered. “That voice,” I said. “It’s ...”

She started moving again. Slowly. I followed, still clutching her shift. When she stopped again I lifted my head.

“What took you so long?” the voice said. This time I recognised it. “Gwyr a aeth Gatraeth oedd fraeth eu llu,” he said.

Oblivious now to where I was, I stood upright and said, “Glasfedd eu hancwyn a gwenwyn fu.”

There, in the mouth of the cave which loomed above us, a stone-tipped arrow notched in his bow, stood none other than the Teacher. A broad smile lit up his face.

“What took you so long?” he repeated as I literally fell into the cave.

I suppose I should have known that he would not say very much – he never had. The whole time I had been with him in Red Castle, I don’t think we had more than two or three ‘conversations’ and it would be stretching things to call them that, really.
 
Stood just far enough inside the cave entrance to ensure that I did not plunge back down the cliff face, he waited in silence until I had clambered to my feet. He looked me up and down as Eluned helped me.

“How?” I started, but he turned on his heel and headed into the cave. “I presume he wants us to follow him,” I said to Eluned. We set off into the darkness of the cave interior, the Teacher’s footsteps echoing ahead of us. At first it was difficult to see anything and I did wonder why he was taking us into this bleak, dark place. But before too long, a dim light came into view. As we approached it grew brighter until it became clear that it was a lantern, a candle burning inside a small wood and glass holder. This hung over a brick-built archway in the middle of what was the back wall of the cave.

The archway led into a tunnel. A tunnel that was clearly man-made. Since the Teacher’s footsteps rang out from within this tunnel, we had no choice but to follow him in. It was only wide enough for one person to pass at a time, but was high enough for us to walk upright. As the light from the entrance lantern faded, another came into view, some distance ahead. Now with the sound of three pairs of feet ringing along the tunnel, we soon reached this new lantern, which hung from an iron hook on one wall. We carried on past it at the brisk pace needed to keep up.

As we reached what I guessed was the fifth of these wall-hung lanterns I stopped. The silence that followed was uncanny. The sound of footsteps had been strangely comforting as we passed along this semi-dark tunnel. Now I could no longer hear those of the Teacher.

“Where’s he gone?” I whispered to Eluned who was following close behind me.

“I know not, my lady,” she whispered.

“What should we do? Carry on?” I was hesitant now, unsure what lay ahead.

“There seems to be another lantern ahead. Let us go forward.”

We set off again, this time more slowly. As the light from the lantern faded, it soon became clear that the light ahead of us was not coming from another one. It was daylight. We were nearing the end of the tunnel. I quickened my pace, eager to escape from its confines. Fortunately, Eluned was a little less eager than I was, for when we did reach the end of the tunnel she quickly grabbed my arm as I nearly plunged out into the nothingness that lay beyond.

I ended up leaning, breathless, against the brickwork of this new entry or exit, whichever it was. Now that I had paused to look, I could see a flight of wooden steps running down to the left. They ended in a platform at the mouth of the tunnel, but there was no railing or guard around this to stop anyone who was not taking sufficient care. As I recovered my composure I looked out over this platform. What I saw was truly astonishing.

I’m not sure even today what I had expected to see at the other end of the tunnel that first time I ventured down it. All I knew was that I was following the Teacher and I presumed that he knew where he was going – and why. I suppose if anything I had half-expected to find a landscape similar to the one we had just left. If that is what I thought then I could not have been more wrong. Before me, in a wide valley mostly filled with trees, I saw, in a clearing, a huge walled enclosure. The walls were partly ruined, but still at least three times the height of a tall man. At regular intervals along these walls, which formed an almost perfect square, there were semi-circular towers, some topped with wooden fences, others covered with straw roofs. On each of the fenced towers I could see two or three men carrying what looked like weapons of some sort.

Inside the enclosure, at its centre, was another enclosed area, this time surrounded with a wooden fence built on top of a bank inside a ditch. Inside this there were three buildings, all made of wood and some other material, roofed with straw. These were laid out with the two smaller ones almost joining the ends of the middle, largest one. Together, they formed a sort of courtyard within them. Elsewhere in the main enclosure there were three or four smaller buildings, but the ground was mostly set out as small fields, some of which contained crops, others contained animals like cows and sheep.