The Devil in Green (91 page)

'I've been better.'

'For what it's worth, none of the knights think you deserve this.'

'Thanks. That thought will keep me warm tonight.' Mallory couldn't help the sarcasm and felt bad when he saw how it had stung Miller. 'How's Daniels?'

Miller's eyes fell. 'No one's seen him since they took him away. I can't believe Gardener would—' He caught himself. 'I suppose we all have moments when we lose the path. We shouldn't judge.'

'Why not?' Mallory said harshly.

Miller's bottied emotions finally broke the restraining barrier. 'I can't believe this is happening,' he said tearfully. 'We're barely a year and a half away from society falling apart. How could it go so bad so quickly? All the things we took for granted . . . it's as if they happened generations ago.'

'It just goes to show we're all beasts at heart, doesn't it? Let us out of the cage and we quickly revert to type.'

'That's awful.'

'Desperate men lead desperate lives. And self-preservation wins out over anything.'

'I don't believe that.' There was a long pause while Miller dried his eyes. 'I can't believe it. That makes a mockery of everything God stands for.'

'There you go.'

'You're reading it too simply, Mallory,' he said, with the kind of desperation of someone whose life depended on being proven right. 'It's got to be more complex than that. Maybe we can't see the cause and effect. The whole reason we're here argues against that outlook.'

'Here on this earth, or here in this . . . prison?'

Miller didn't answer. 'I don't want to be disloyal to Stefan—' he began calmly.

'Why not? Because he's got a tide? The pointy hat doesn't make him better than you, Miller. If there's one thing I would give to this world everyone's trying so half-heartedly to remake, it would be the end of all leaders.' He let his chin drop to his chest; his outburst had exhausted him.

'Perhaps you're right.' Miller's voice sounded tiny in the echoing cell 'I believe in what Christ stood for. It's just so right . . . loving one another . . . love as this great power . . . sacrifice . . . redemption. I believe there's hope for all of us, I really do.'

Mallory softened at his words. 'People get in the way, Miller,' he said gently. 'Keep your God in your own heart.'

'But what can I do?' His constant hand-wringing showed his struggle with deep emotions that threatened to unbalance him. 'I don't like what Stefan's doing . . . a lot of people don't. But he's the bishop . . .'His voice trailed away, laced with desperation.

'If you believe in something, stand up for it. Don't let Stefan drag this whole thing down his own mad route.' He added, 'But don't get yourself hurt, Miller. Look after yourself. It won't do any good if you're sitting in the cell next to mine.'

Miller stared at him for a long moment, deciphering his words, and then smiled. 'I'll be careful, Mallory.'

'Before we all start getting too girly in our emotions, tell me what's happened out there. Something's gone wrong, or Stefan wouldn't feel the need to crank up the repression.'

'Oh, it was bad, Mallory. First the travellers refused to help—'

'Hardly surprising after Stefan had some of them slaughtered. What was he thinking? Well, I know what he was thinking - that God was on his side and he could do whatever he wanted.'

'They all scattered into the city. And then the camp lost its protection. We managed to bring in most of the supplies they'd got stored there - and there wasn't that much - but Blaine was overseeing the setting up of an auxiliary camp so that they could secure another route out, when something attacked. It was like
a ...
a griffin ...
or something, they said. Part bird, part something else. It killed five knights and three brothers before the rest of them managed to get back through the tunnel.'

Mallory laughed. 'Stupid bastards. They lost everything through their own arrogance. The land around here gets its power from belief. If the travellers aren't there to worship - if their belief has been shattered - it ends up like any old patch of turf and mud. Stefan snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.'

'Yes, I know, he deserved it all.' Miller gnawed on a knuckle anxiously. 'But what about the rest of us, Mallory? Everyone reckons the travellers' food must have just about gone. We're back to square one, starving and with no way out. What are we going to do?' Something dark squirmed inside Miller; Mallory could see the shadow it cast but not what it was. 'Do you think Stefan can really use the relic like he said?' Miller continued obliquely. 'To dig into people's minds? I can't understand how that can work. I mean, relics . . . even if they've got God's power in them . . .'

He was interrupted by the distant sound of a door opening. Miller hurried to the door before turning. 'I'll come back to see you when I can, Mallory. And I'll do everything I can to get you out of here. Try to get some people on our side . . .'

Several sets of footsteps were approaching.

'Go on,' Mallory said. 'Just stay out of trouble.'

He slipped out. Not long after, a Blue ushered in Stefan and Inquisitor- General Broderick. Stefan looked tired, his face sagging through lack of sleep, but Broderick had the bearing of a predatory insect.

'Well done,
Bishop
,' Mallory said sarcastically. 'Your contempt for basic humanity has managed to destroy everything.'

Stefan visibly flinched. 'Quiet,' he snapped. Then, a little more calmly, 'This isn't over yet. We have right on our side.'

'You talk about doing good works, Stefan, but
you've
turned this into the Devil's house. Ends never justify means, especially in religion. If you can't stay true to your beliefs, they're not worth very much.'

'You never understood us here, Mallory. I doubt you ever had any true feeling for our religion.' Stefan massaged the bridge of his nose, distracted. 'There was no way I could leave you loose in the community - you were an accident waiting to happen. I couldn't have you breaking the morale of others. I implied as much at our meeting when I requested your services. You've got insurrection in your blood, Mallory. You're a danger to any establishment. An anarchist. I bear you no ill will. In other times I would have simply set you free from this place to go about your unpleasant business elsewhere. As it is, you must stay here, in this cell, until . . .' He shrugged. '. . . the worst has blown over.'

Mallory couldn't tell if he was trying to deceive the others, or if he truly believed there was hope for them. He nodded towards Broderick. 'So, you're going to let your torturer loose on me now?'

'No, no, there would be no point.' He waved the notion away with his hand. 'Mr Broderick is here for the witch. She has information that may be important to us.'

Mallory grew cold. 'Don't you touch her.'

'The Bible says we should have no feelings for her kind. It says in uncompromising terms that they are a danger to everything we hold dear. Spare her no compassion - she chose her path in life.' His eyes gleamed. 'Unless there is another reason for your protection of her. Is fornication another of your sins?'

'She doesn't know anything.'

'She knows how to protect her land, and other things, too, I would guess.'

'She won't tell you anything.'

Stefan smiled. 'Oh, I think she will.'

He turned and led the others out. Mallory yelled and screamed until his throat was raw, but all that came back were insipid echoes.

Through the long hours of the day and the burning pain in his limbs, he listened intently, dreading what would happen when he did hear something. But there was nothing. Either the walls were too thick or Sophie had so far resisted the
encouragement
of the inquisitor.

The raw cold eventually turned on its head to become a warm cocoon, lulling him quietly. Though he attempted to fight it, he found himself drifting in and out of a delirious half-sleep where strange ghostly shapes roamed and nothing made any kind of sense. The hallucinatory landscape was suddenly shattered by an electric burst that imprinted Sophie's screaming face on his mind. It was there and gone in an instant, but he couldn't escape the animal-like emotions he saw; he was sure they would haunt him for the rest of his days.

But then, not long after, the mists parted and Sophie was there as he remembered her in the pub that first night he saw her. 'Don't worry for me,' she said with a smile. 'All this is passing.' There was another flash like interference on a TV set. 'I'm not without abilities, or resilience,' she continued. Another flash of interference, only this time she didn't return, but her voice floated through the mists to him. 'Be strong.'

He could no longer tell what were dreams, what were visions and what was really happening around him, or whether, indeed, all three were one and the same. He saw himself as Adam and Sophie as Eve, two lovers from opposite sides of the tracks in a garden of stone. And the Serpent was there, tempting them with great alchemical knowledge: of who they were and of where they came from and why there was some secret reason for their time upon the earth; the only knowledge worth knowing, and the most jealously guarded.

No random conglomeration of chemicals only pretending to be,
it said.
No simple Darwinian drive of survival, of establishment of the species. That's men finding easy answers to complex questions, as men always will.

'The Devil is the Prince of Lies,' Mallory pointed out.

The Serpent laughed, said
One man's Devil,
before becoming two and mutating into the double helix, twin
DNA
snakes coiling around each other, promising the only knowledge worth knowing for those who would listen.

And then it changed again, becoming a Fabulous Beast, glimmering with the condensed wonder of Existence, forcing its way into his arteries, into his cells, then into the earth itself, leaving behind it a trail that was bright blue with all the hope of every man and woman denied by those who said they had access to the only knowledge worth knowing.

Mallory woke with the strange belief that Sophie was holding his hand. He knew instantly he was not alone, though he could see no one in the cell with him.

'Who's there?' he muttered through cold, parched lips.

He was answered by the wind soughing through the corridor without. Instinctively, he sensed it was night, though there was nothing in his environment to mark the passing of time. The wind died away but the sighing continued, in the cell with him, not far from his left ear. It sounded like a whispered secret that no one wanted to hear.