Witch Crag (10 page)

Dusk was falling; soon, it would be too dark to work. “I'm knackered,” murmured Kita. “If we just down tools and stop, d'you think the guards will lay into us?”

“I don't know,” answered Raff. “Better not test it.” The truth was, he didn't want to stop. The horse, which was growing more stunning with every hour that passed, had become his obsession.

The decision was taken from them, however, by Geegaw sweeping in, followed by two more guards, one carrying a tray of food, the other a pile of bedding. Kita's heart sank. Bedding meant they were sleeping here, that there would be no chance to reconnoitre.

Geegaw halted theatrically in front of the sculpture, hands raised. Then he circled it, fluttering his hands in the air, emitting little soft cooing noises. Quainy was right – the horse now looked as though it was running, its new mane flying behind it. Raff had started creating wonderful silver hooves; one was half-attached.

“I need to work on the head, sir,” said Raff, humbly. “I think that will be hardest.”

But anyone could already see that when it was finished, the horse would be beautiful, powerful. Elemental.

At last, Geegaw tore his eyes from the sculpture, and turned to Raff, plait and earring swinging. “Hoop-la, extraordinary, boy sculptor!” he said. “You have done wonders here. The Manager will be pleased. I can paint a good picture for him of how that deformed lump of tin is becoming a real horse.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Raff, like a grateful employee.

Geegaw pointed to the food and bedding. “Now eat, and get some rest. But before I go, I must have some conversation with my little dark-haired friend here.” And he sidled closer to Kita, smiling his skull smile.

Kita backed away a little, trying to smile back.

“It's all righty, all righty,” he murmured. “I'm not going to take you away from your friends. Come, let's sit over there, in that corner.” He cavorted over and sat down on an old steel pipe, patting a place beside him as he nodded at her, still smiling. Kita turned to her friends, shrugged, and went to sit beside him. They were still in eyeshot, though too far away to hear.

“Now, pretty lady,” Geegaw said, “it's admirable that you support the boy sculptor, travelling with him to find work. And how glorious that you've found such rewarding work in the city!”

Kita said nothing.
How people create their own reality
, she thought.

“But you must know you have talents of your own, maybe more valuable even than his. You have the
vision
. I know it, because I too have the vision, and I recognize one of my own. I recognized it as soon as I saw you. It's like a mist, an aura around you – the power of it.”

There was a pause. Then Kita said, “I don't know what you mean.”

“No? Have you never had strange dreams – strange knowings of things?”

She remembered her dream about Nada and the dew lilies. “Maybe,” she said.

Geegaw sat back importantly. “The vision came to certain people after the Great Havoc. It was as though that great wrenching time – when everything was torn out of kilter, out of joint – gave birth to something new. Another sense in human beings, to add to hearing, smelling, sight. And it has lasted – inherited son from father, daughter from mother – or sometimes just appearing with no link. Few in the city have it. Lots of the witches have it, though it seems to make them very angry.”

Kita looked up at him. “The witches?” she breathed.

“Yes, those wild hags who live up on the crag. The bitches won't cooperate with us, though.” He leaned forward, and spat on the ground. Kita flinched back, as though he'd spat at her.

“I've never heard of the vision,” she said.

He patted her knee patronizingly. “You come from ignorant people – sheep people, I guess, from your clothes?” Kita nodded.

“They're too stupid to recognize vision. Or see the boy sculptor's talent. That's why you fled, isn't it? That's why it's so wonderful you've come here, isn't it? Because now you can be
valued
.”

She nodded again, eyes down so he wouldn't see she was lying.

“I can help you develop your vision. And
use
it. The Manager needs people like you. To help we city dwellers come together and work together and survive into the future. We're running out of food. We need to . . . make plans. Plans which will not be liked by others. You can help there, too, with your vision. When it comes to a war.”

Kita hunched forward, her arms round her knees. She felt chilled, fearful. “How will the vision help in a war?” she croaked.

“Oh, in a multitude of ways,” said Geegaw, airily, waving a scrawny hand. “We'll talk about this again. Now, you need to get some sleep.”

Curled up on the rough bedding, covered by their sheepskins, the three whispered in the dark. Kita told them what Geegaw had said about the vision, the new intuitive sense that had been wrenched into life during the turmoil of the Great Havoc. But something, some resentful pride, stopped her telling them that he thought she possessed it. And they didn't ask if she knew why Geegaw had singled her out to talk to.

“He says it's coming to a war,” she said. “So the city can survive.”

“Grim,” muttered Raff. “But I think by war he means the city will increase its efforts to steal what the farmers and sheep people have created by hard work. They're despicable scavengers. It's what they do.”

“You're not tempted to stay here among them, then?” asked Kita, snidely.

“What?” exclaimed Raff. “What are you
talking
about?”

“Geegaw thinks we're delighted to be here. Where your sculpting talent is appreciated. We'd be welcome to stay. And you love doing that horse.”

“Kita, you're crazy,” said Raff, bewildered. “Of course I don't want to stay.”

“We don't know what's waiting for us at Witch Crag. This may be better.”

“Kita, we all
agreed
,” said Quainy, fervently. “We're going to Witch Crag. This place is a cesspit. Full of horror and cheap death. Even the horsemen's fort is preferable. But we're trapped in this room, and outside it's a concrete labyrinth. Even if we can get past the guards I'm scared we'll get totally lost, circling round and round. . .”

“And the sky's shut out,” said Kita. “So we can't navigate by the sun.”

“Did you manage to get anything helpful out of that guard, Kita?” asked Raff. “I saw you chatting to him.”

“Only a few new words and bad news. He only knows the main gate, the one we came in through. It seems all the citizens keep to their own little patch, and straying out of it is death. The Manager only heads up a part of the city, though he's expanding his territory. There's all kinds of gang leaders, some of them sound really horrific. Someone called. . . Dreg? He's a serious cannibal. With a liking for kidneys.”

“Brilliant,” muttered Quainy. “So we circle round and round until we're eaten.”

“Well, I think we just focus on making a break for it, out of this room,” Raff said. “I'm not thinking about what comes next.”

“Because you think death will come next,” whispered Quainy.

She sounded so forlorn that Kita spontaneously shunted close to her and put her arm round her, exactly as if they were back in the old sleeping hut on the hill fort again. “Don't say that,” she murmured. “Have some faith, ay, Quainy? We've got this far. Trust me, dearling. We're going to get out of the city.”

Quainy was silent, but she nestled into the warmth of Kita's arm.

They were woken next morning by a tray of breakfast, and a pail of water to wash in. Then the guards withdrew back to the lopsided metal gate, leaving them to eat and wash at their leisure.

Raff was the first to set to work; he was busily perfecting the horse's silver hooves. The three friends had little to say to one another. Kita found herself wondering how long this state of things would go on –
could
go on – if no chance to escape presented itself. Weeks, months? As they got fat on tinned food and forgot what the outside world looked like and gradually lost the will to escape? She kept looking up at the gash at the ceiling, watching the light change, but she couldn't see the sky through it. The day passed with more food, more water – then darkness and rest. Geegaw didn't make an appearance. The great door remained shut.

That night, Kita dreamt about Nada again. She was unsmiling as she told Kita to leave the old city. With or without her friends, she had to leave.

Kita was snivelling, a little girl again. “I don't know how to,” she sobbed, in her dream. “Can't you show me how to?”

“No,” said Nada, firmly. “I can't. But you'll know, when the chance comes. You'll
see
. Just be ready.” And then she walked off, and Kita cried after her, but she didn't turn round.

The dream clung to Kita like cobwebs the next day. She felt unsettled, tearful. Raff, on the other hand, was buoyant. He finished the hooves, and made a start on the head. There was little for the girls to do; it was small, intricate work. They rested, and that and the canned food and water nourished them, would make them ready, Kita told herself anxiously, for what was to come. At each meal she squirrelled away in her wool bag an apple, a carrot, a handful of nuts, and she stole another plastic bottle, and gradually filled both of them with water.

Late that afternoon, Geegaw paid them a second visit. He pranced around the horse, grinning, then – weirdly – ran out without saying a word. The three friends looked at one another, shrugging. “Quainy, next time the door opens, jump up, rub at the horse's legs or something, make it look like we're working,” said Kita. “We don't want to be taken away from Raff.”

“No,” said Quainy, fervently.

“And we must be
ready
,” Kita went on. “If we see a chance to bolt – like if he takes us off to see the Manager again – we must seize it, yes?”

“We must all act together,” said Raff, and he clambered back up on to the horse's neck again, absorbed in shaping its nostrils.

A little later, a strange, rhythmic noise broke into the half-silence of the junkyard. It was a beat of metal on metal, with voices chanting low, and the wailing subtext of a flute. The friends all looked up, scared by what this could mean, and waited; then the great metal door rasped as it was lifted back.

A grotesque cavalcade filled the doorway. Twelve thin black-clad men carried a gold-swathed bier on their shoulders, their faces grim with strain. Lolling on the bier was the vast bulk of the Manager, undulating in purple silk, a gold turban coiled on his head. Geegaw skipped in front, playing on a bent flute; then he halted, crying, “Hoop-la, great honour, my young friends! Great honour to you! Hearing my description of the horse, my Manager insisted he would see it now!
Now!
” Then he blew on the flute again, and waved the cavalcade forward.

Kita froze. Something like a dozen tiny lightning bolts zipped up her spine and filled her head with hot, white light. She stared, dazed. Then, as if she'd darted forward in time, she saw the open doorway blocked by the fallen bier, the Manager sprawling, chaos, shouting – and the three of them running, running away. . .

This was it
. This was the chance that Nada had spoken of. This was when they could escape, and she would lead them.

The cavalcade moved through the doorway, the twelve men inching slowly and painfully on, stepping in time. Kita backed towards the wall where the bedding was heaped and, with her foot, drew her food bag towards her. Then she stooped swiftly, and picked it up.

She turned to Raff and Quainy, standing huddled together, and willed them to look at her. She felt as though the hot white light was leaving her eyes, striking them – they looked up, startled. She nodded down towards the bag, looked back at them – and knew they'd understood.

“Behold the horse, my Manager!” Geegaw proclaimed, his plait and earring trembling visibly. “A horse such as the farmers ride – only more godly. More wild. More better!”

“Closer!” rumbled the Manager. “Take me closer!”

Then, as the thin men quickened their creeping march, Kita bounded forward. Straight at the bier she ran, then she jumped, like a fox – leapt up off the ground and landed on top of the great purple mound of the Manager. She shrieked all-out into his blubbery startled face while with both hands she seized his monstrous arm – and dug all ten nails in, hard.

The scream he uttered was high pitched and hideous, and as he screamed, he bucked and rolled, and the bier lurched sickeningly, tipping, falling, the bearers collapsing as they tried to steady it. Kita and the Manager fell with it. She threw herself sideways as the Manager hit the floor with a reverberating thud; then, with a crack, the bier landed half on top of him.

For a full two seconds there was a vacuum of pure silence as though the world had ended. Then the bearers and Geegaw and the guards all wailed, panic-stricken, and surrounded the Manager and seized the bier, lifting it, and Kita shrieked, “NOW!” and darted out of the open doorway.

And
ran
.

She heard feet running behind her but she didn't dare look round, she just had to hope it was her friends. She pelted down a derelict alleyway, then straight across a rubbish-strewn wasteland and into a reeking slum, where ragged people slunk out to stare. Then she heard Raff calling, “We're behind you, Kita! Keep going!” and in relief she quickened her pace, darting, ducking, weaving, knowing that speed alone would keep them safe. On she ran into the rotting city, scanning doorways, corners, checking for danger, trying to sense which way to go. Swerving, doubling back, hoping she was heading more or less in one direction, a line that must, surely it must, eventually take them to a wall, to the boundaries . . . to the outside.

Darkness was coming. The stale light that leached in through the cracks and splits was lessening. Maybe that would help keep them safe – but the gloom added to the fear. They had to keep running – no point hiding. With every minute that passed the news of the outrage committed on the sacred body of the Manager would spread further throughout the city. There'd be a big price on their heads.

Then, suddenly, straight ahead of them, a long, high wall. Kita's heart leapt in hope and, for the first time since she'd sprung on to the bier, she stopped running. The wall stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see, and had been shored up where it had disintegrated.

“Do you think we can go over?” gasped Quainy. The wall was rough with poor repairs, giving lots of footholds. The girls scrambled up and peered over the top.

And looked down on lines and lines of large, ancient, metal boxes, at least a hundred of them, every size, all colours, and all facing the same way. Terrified, Quainy uttered a low wail and dropped down again. “Those . . .
things
,” she said, to Raff, “that we saw just before we got chased into the city – that you said men used to travel in—”

“They can't hurt you,” Raff said, putting his arms round her.

Kita dropped down from the wall. “They're called
cars
,” she announced. “The guard told me. He was very keen on them. He said if he played his cards right with the Manager he'd get a job doing them up.”

Raff frowned. “Why would the Manager want to do up cars?”

“Who knows. Who cares. What matters is, we can't go through there. I saw three guards in there, roving about. Come on. This way.” And she darted off to her left, racing alongside the wall because there was nowhere else to go, hoping it wouldn't take them too far back into the city. Before long, the wall bent sharply to the right, and Kita ran alongside it, then off into a dismal slum where you could hear breathing and whimpering but see no one, and out the other side.

“Kita,” panted Raff, from behind, “is this. . .?”

The narrow alley they were speeding through was changing – opening out. Walls looked as though they'd been knocked down deliberately – the rubble had been piled to the side. And then, abruptly, they were out in a huge space. No roof – the dusk rushed in, damp and fresh and invigorating. Underfoot, cracked concrete – and the ground was clear, no rubbish or rubble on its surface. There were broken, ruined walls to either side, facing each other, and you could just see more walls at the far end, too – all of them a long way apart across the vast concrete field.

“What d'you think?” she breathed. “Straight across the middle?”

“I'd feel safer by the walls,” muttered Quainy.

“But we don't know what's crouching behind them.
Come on!
” And Kita started running, racing across the wide long space to the other side, so fast she'd almost reached the end of it by the time they were surrounded.