Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (6 page)

The eyes opened and the head turned, and Jani received another shock. Its eyes were flat and grey, without any whites at all.

Jani found herself saying, “What are you?”

She remained standing before the creature, clutching the bunched medical supplies to her chest.

The thin mouth elongated in a travesty of a smile. “My name,” it said in barely a croak, wincing with pain, “is unimportant.”

He shifted his position against the wall, and Jani took fright and backed away. The creature gestured. “Do not be afraid. I wish you no harm.” He spoke English as if it were not his first language.

“Why...” she began, “why were you imprisoned?”

“Because... because they feared me? I was in the custody of the Russians. They tortured me.” He held up his right hand, which was missing two fingers, the stumps badly amputated and ill-stitched. With the mangled hand he gestured to his bare torso, and Jani made out a herringbone pattern of stitched scars. “I escaped and fled south, only to be found by the British in northern Greece and incarcerated once again.”

She gazed at the creature and found herself stating, “You are not human, sir.”

“Perspicacious.”

“You patronise me.”

“I’m sorry. To date I have dealt with human beings driven by base motives. I must remind myself not to judge all you people so cynically.”

You people,
she thought. “What are you?” she asked again.

“I am an intelligent, sentient being. They call my people the Morn.”

“And your own name? Or do you still refuse to tell me?”

“Very well. My name is Jelch.”

“And where did you come from?” she asked.

He stared at her, his flat, grey eyes somehow penetrating; she felt, then, as if he were looking deep into her being.

“You wouldn’t,” he said, “believe me if I told you.”

“Again, you patronise me, sir.”

“Sir!” the creature laughed again. “You call me ‘sir.’ You are indeed a singular... human.”

She had an inkling, then, of the creature’s origins. She had heard stories of wildmen living far from human habitation in Siberia and Tibet... Could this Jelch be one of these?

The creature winced in pain. Jani said, “I have diamorphine. Painkiller. If you will allow me to...”

“Your painkillers,” he said, “would have no effect on me. But I thank you for your concern.”

Jani watched the creature. “Well,” she said at last, “will you tell me where you come from?”

He took a breath and said, “The less you know, the better. I come from far away, so far away that your mind could not encompass the concept.”

“So you are not going to tell me?”

“Correct,” he said. “You are young. Your mind is... unformed. You have assumptions, cultural, racial, that it would be cruel of me to undermine. Perhaps, in time...” – he stared at her – “perhaps then you might be comfortable with the facts.”

She wondered if these words were the gibberings of a madman, someone driven to the edge of sanity by the ministrations of the Russians.

The creature – Jelch – stiffened and bent his head as if listening. He said, “People approach.”

Her heart leapt. “A rescue party?”

“Or the Russians responsible for this. I cannot tell.”

She stared through a rent in the chamber and looked down the valley. She made out a single track leading through a distant pass. “I see no one,” she said.

“They are ten miles distant, at least, and anyway are coming here in an airship.”

“Ten miles... How can you tell?”

“I can hear it,” he said.

She listened, and heard only the soughing of a warm wind through the chamber and the distant sound of birdsong.

“If they are Russian...” she began, seized by panic.

“Then hide. They will be merciless with survivors.”

“Then you, too, must hide.”

“Or run. I must not be found, by either the Russians or the British. Time is of the essence.”

“Are you fit enough?”

He inclined his head. “I
am
fit enough, and I am touched by your concern.”

“But where will you go?”

“Eventually, to Nepal.”

He coughed, a racking bark that belied his claim of fitness. He placed a hand before his mouth and retched again and again, and, watching him, Jani was reminded of a dog forcing up a bone that had lodged in its throat.

He wiped his hand on his ragged blue trousers, smearing shiny phlegm and mucus. He rose slowly to his full height and Jani backed away in alarm – for, although she had guessed that he was much taller than her, now he towered over her, over six feet tall and perilously thin, with something in the articulation of his legs that put her in mind, once again, of a dog.

“Look among the wreckage for food and water,” he said, “and then secrete yourself.”

“I will do that.” She hesitated, then said, “Tell me, why did the British incarcerate you? Are you... are you our enemy?”

“I am an enemy of no one,” he said. “I came here in peace, to help you, but unfortunately your people chose to disbelieve my motives.”

He reached out to her. She thought he was about to take her hand in an oddly formal shake, but as their fingers touched she felt something warm being transferred to her palm.

Then Jelch turned and in an instant was tearing away across the chamber, dodging debris with an alacrity she had hardly expected from one so seemingly feeble.

He gained the outer wall of the chamber, leapt through a vertical rent in the metal, and was lost to sight.

Jani found herself standing alone in a shaft of sunlight, her heart pounding.

Then she recalled the thing Jelch had given her, and opened her hand.

A coin sat on her palm, a small silver coin, no larger than a farthing and etched with a curious spiral of words in no script Jani had ever seen before.

She slipped the gift into the tiny pocket beneath the waistband of her dress, then hurried across the chamber towards a gaping hole where the elevator shaft had once been. She stepped out into dazzling sunlight and picked her way up the hill through a scree of personal possessions, strewn clothing, books, and a teddy bear.

There was no sound of any vehicle approaching, airship or otherwise, and she wondered if Jelch had been mistaken.

Five minutes later she came upon the concertinaed remains of what had been the restaurant. Sandwiched between the engine-room below, and the cabin deck above, the contents of the restaurant and kitchen had spilled across the ground in a great wave of assorted food, glinting silver cutlery and shattered porcelain. Large birds with colourful plumage danced amongst the accidental feast, taking off in fright as she approached.

She found three unbroken bottles of spring water, slabs of cheese still in their greaseproof wrappers, and a dozen loaves of bread strewn across the grass. She gathered up what she was able to carry and struggled up the hillside towards the remains of the observation lounge. She would attend to Lady Eddington first, and then attempt to find other survivors.

Lady Eddington was propped upright against a cushion, her head tipped back; she looked for all the world as if she were taking the sun on the Brighton seafront. Her right leg was terribly swollen.

“There you are, girl! I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever return.”

Jani placed her finds on the grass. “I found one other survivor, and...”

“Yes?”

And a creature that I thought wasn’t human...

“What a marvel you are, child, and you’ve found food! My word, but I am famished.”

Jani passed the dowager a loaf of bread and a slab of cheese. “I’m sorry, I forgot knives, forks and plates.” She found herself laughing at her apology.

“Do you hear me complaining, Janisha? This is a feast indeed.”

While Lady Eddington broke off a heel of bread and nibbled at the cheddar, Jani unpacked the medical provisions. She found the diamorphine and a hypodermic and glanced at the old lady.

“This might hurt a little,” she said.

“Not as much, my dear, as the gyp my leg is giving me at the moment. You could say that I fell on my feet when I made your acquaintance.”

Jani smiled as she drew the diamorphine into the chamber of the hypodermic and administered a small dose – 10 milligrams, she thought, would be adequate – to her patient. Lady Eddington winced, then smiled her thanks.

Jani was eating bread and cheese – only then realising how hungry she was – when she heard the sound.

She stopped eating and listened. The regular thumping thrum of an engine sounded faintly in the distance. The creature had been right; someone
was
approaching.

“My word,” Lady Eddington said, “I do believe I feel a little better already. Do you know, I can hardly feel my leg. What is it, child?”

“I can hear an airship.”

Lady Eddington beamed. “Succour at last, and not a second too soon!”

Jani kept her reservations to herself and stared down the valley. She recalled what Jelch had said about the Russians being ‘merciless with survivors...’

She made out a tiny dot in the distance and wondered at the creature’s sense of hearing. He had detected the approach of the airship a good fifteen minutes ago. Oh, please, let it be the British...

The dot grew larger, taking on the shape of a twin-propped airship. The craft came in low, nose down, and as it banked she made out the hammer-and-sickle sigil on its flank. Her stomach flipped.

Lady Eddington was peering hopelessly through her lorgnette. She saw Jani’s expression and said, “What’s wrong, child?”

“I am afraid it isn’t a British craft, Lady Eddington. It’s Russian.”

“Blast their eyes. And what might they want with us?”

“I dread to think,” she murmured.

She looked about her. There were numerous nooks and crannies where she might conceal herself, though moving Lady Eddington, with a broken leg, would prove difficult.

The rhythmic thumping of the airship’s rotor blades became deafening. She watched it land half a mile away down the hillside. At least, she thought, they would have time to hide themselves among the debris.

“I’ve heard bad things about the Russians’ sense of fair-play, girl, but I assume we can presume upon their better natures to lend us a helping hand.”

“With respect, Lady Eddington,” Jani said, “I think that might be a mistake.”

A minute later she heard the first shot. It rang out in the silence and Jani felt the sickening, cold weight of dread in her stomach.

She recalled the woman she had found further down the hillside.

The shot was followed, shortly, by further sharp reports.

She was about to tell Lady Eddington that she would attempt to carry her into the cover of a nearby engine cowling – and hope that the Russians would not investigate too scrupulously – when she saw movement amid the wreckage further down the slope.

Three soldiers, in drab green uniforms and fur-lined hats, were moving methodically through the wreckage. She judged they were a hundred yards away and heading towards where she and Lady Eddington were cowering. Her gaze dropped to the seated form of Mr Gollalli, his limbs stiffened and ridiculous now with rigor mortis.

She whispered urgently to Lady Eddington, “Be very still, and forgive me for what I’m about to do. There is a method in my madness, as my father is fond of saying.”

Before the dowager could question her further, Jani leaned forward, took a handful of the old lady’s dress and ripped it, exposing a sunken expanse of ancient stomach.

“Have you taken leave...?” the dowager began.

“Shh!” Jani hissed.

Dropping to her belly and out of sight of the approaching Russians, she scrabbled across the tussocky ground and grabbed Mr Gollalli’s samples ledger. Opening it at random, she tore out a section of transparencies and scrambled back to the old lady.

The Russians had stopped to light cigarettes. Seconds ago, she thought, they had been killing innocents – and now they were enjoying a leisurely smoke.

She flipped through the transparencies, selected a suitably gory-looking wound, pulled it free and draped it across Lady Eddington’s exposed stomach.

“Now lie still and when they approach, hold your breath!”

“Are you sure...?” Lady Eddington began.

Jani examined her handiwork. The wound appeared fresh and fatal; she only hoped that the Russian soldiers would give it no more than a cursory glance.

The dowager clutched her hand suddenly and squeezed. “I’m frightened, Jani!”

“If it’s any consolation, Lady Eddington, so am I. Now don’t move a muscle!”

She slipped the facsimile of a long gash from the transparencies, concealed the remainder beneath her skirts, and ripped at the chest of her bodice. Peering down, her heart thumping, she spread the wound across her throat and the swelling of her breast, then lay back on the ground and flung out her arms.