Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (21 page)

Nevertheless, everything around them stood testament to his abilities; he had designed and supervised the renovation of every line and beam of the homestead. It had been a quaint old farmhouse when they had found it; now, it was a monument to their mission. Without him, and the continuous pillar of maternal strength Agatha had provided each day, they would have been lost.

“Small favours,” Alexander sometimes said. “The world may lie in ruin, but it’ll be saved by small favours.”

The others were out in the fields and wouldn’t be back until evening, and so they enjoyed a companionable lull, filling their stomachs and resting stiffened legs. Hector helped Norman fill out a page of arithmetic sums, patiently crossing out mistakes—a little too often for James to feel encouraged of any progress. Norman’s face was creased into a fierce frown of misery and confusion.

Finally, Lincoln smacked his lips and pushed his bowl away, steepling his fingers and leaning across the table. “So, Alex, put our minds at ease,” he said.

Alex swallowed and smiled. “Like I said, Malverston’s on board.”

Agatha, sat beside Lincoln, failed to suppress a coy smile. “Sometimes I can’t help but think he imagine us some kind o’ foolish.” She sighed in Lincoln’s direction.

He hummed assent, and their eyes met. “Fools, indeed.”

Agatha turned her gaze upon Alex, then James. “Wha’ did you two have to promise tha’ bag o’ slime to win ‘im over?”

Alex sat quietly, folding his hands before him, chewing slowly and swallowing with an audible
glug
. “We’re going to teach them,” he said.

“Teach them what?”

“Our ways, what we’ve learned about how to start over. We’re going to start a school. Here.”

Everyone jerked as though an electrical current had been passed through the table. James gaped and turned in his seat, staring into Alex’s deadpan expression. “
What?
”

“How could you agree to this without consulting us?” Lincoln hissed.

“Alex, this is …” Agatha looked down at her hands.

Norman watched them all with wary eyes, his pencil poised above unfinished sums. Hector laid a steadying hand on his shoulder, but said nothing, his face taut as he exchanged a troubled glance with Helen.

Alex bore all this as though he were alone in the room. He smiled easily. “We should expect our first students by morning. Honestly, I can’t wait to receive them. Hector, is the classroom ready?”

“It’s ready.” Hector’s brow was so low it almost concealed his eyes from view. His hand had tightened on Norman’s shoulder enough to make the boy wince.

Hector had taken up the role as general caretaker around camp, carefully maintaining the large building they had built specifically for learning—a wide open, high-roofed concrete shell crammed with the wealth of the Old World they had salvaged. They called it the Temple. Alex had mentored James under that roof for many years.

Hector had been trying to get Alex to do the same for Norman for almost a long. His efforts had been in vain.

Instead, Norman had been consigned to learning through the others in an opportunistic fashion, poaching titbits from each of them as they went about their daily lives. He enjoyed reading, but James had taken the liberty of perusing his reading list from time to time, and could only feel sorry for the boy; he made admirable efforts to read widely, but there was no coordination, no direction. The boy was a blind man feeling his way through an endless ocean of words and scripture, with nobody from the Old World to guide him.

He had done his best to guide Norman himself, but he was away too often, and was far from an authority. Agatha and Lincoln did what they could, but to fit in, Norman had to be invested with the zeal for the mission. The only one who could have done the boy justice was the only one who successfully ignored the boy’s very existence.

Alex was too busy for the young man, too swept up in building their network of allies and trading partners. Since James had completed his scholarly training and taken to joining him on expeditions, Alex had made but the most cursory appearances in the classroom.

“Good,” Alex said. “Then we’ll be ready to receive them by morning. I trust you’re all comfortable pitching in with the teaching?”

Helen leaned forward. “Just wait a second, Alex!”

“Why would Malverston ask for this? It’s way out of character,” Lincoln said.

Alex was impassive. “He’s not a fool. He knows that the one who rules the masses is one who learns from history. And if he can build a small army of people who know the Old World, he’ll have everything he needs to lay the foundation of his own government.”

Lincoln grumbled. “He’s looking to stay in power … through education?”

“He underestimates us. He sees it as just a way of shushing the naysayers.”

“So why does he need us? Plenty of people know the Old World.” Helen held Hector’s arm via a tight bunch of sleeve, waving him to keep his tongue. He looked furious. She, meanwhile, kept her voice level, though still she looked troubled, almost hurt. “We want him out of power, not to strengthen his position. All this time, we’ve asked to have our son taught, and we’ve sat quietly while you chased old first editions and dodgy salvagers. And now we’re pulling out all the stops for
him
?”

“It seems we’ve made an impression on the town.” There was no mistaking the note of pride in Alex’s voice. “He’s giving them what they want, but he’s not thinking about how it’ll change them, really wake them up to his filth. In the end, it’ll undermine him. We might not even have to take any action at all, other than teach them all we know.”

James had the urge to hold his head in his hands. He knew Alex had been up to something bound to sit with them poorly, but this was much worse.

None of them were convinced. That much was obvious at a glance.

Alex leaned forward, for the first time showing a hint of concern. “Look, we were always going to start schooling others, sooner or later.”

“Yes, but God, Alex!” Lincoln said.

“Why them, of all people, to start? The most volatile political theatre we’ve encountered.”

“On the contrary, they’re the ideal candidates. They’ve held on to the old ways, mostly, in any case. They’ve just forgotten the value of what they know. It won’t take long for them to remember. It’s the perfect experiment. If it doesn’t work, no harm to us; we’ll have learned what doesn’t work. If it does, Malverston’s own people will dethrone him.”

Hector stood up sharply, tipping his chair over in a fit of rage. His face was bright red and inflamed. He seemed to be struggling for words that were out of reach. He looked around at the others, looking for help, then down at Norman. For a moment it looked as though he would reach across the table for Alex, but then Helen’s hand reached up to his shoulder and held firm. “And Norman?” he said. “He’ll be able to participate in the classes?”

Alex’s face was blank, then creased into an easy smile. “Of course, of course. I’m sure it’ll be a great benefit to him.” It was a skilful ruse, but in that momentary blankness, James had seen the truth: Alex hadn’t given Norman a single thought. He wondered whether Hector had seen it too.

But if Hector sensed anything untoward, he made sure not to compromise his turn of luck. “Good,” he said, his face poker-flat. He left the room in three bounding strides.

The others looked at their hands. Helen looked hurt, her eyes flashing around at the rest of them. Then she set about packing away Norman’s things into a knapsack, deliberate and slow. Norman sat with his head hung and his face pale, eyes wary. Once she was done, she slipped the knot tight and took his arm, standing to face the table.

“It’s not fair,” she said quietly. “You all know that.”

Then she shepherded Norman out the door, nudging him when he turned back, his big eyes wide and confused.

The others stayed for a while, but not long. There was little left to say. Alex explained that they should expect their first batch of students at sunrise the following morning, and that was that. They departed the room slowly, lost in their own thoughts, so that James and Alex were alone.

James clicked his tongue. “I don’t understand why you spurn him like that.”

“What?”

“Norman. You’ve never given him the time of day.”

Alex looked hurt. “I love him. I’d do anything for him, just as much as the rest of you.”

“You know what I mean. You … you spent the first twenty years after the End preparing me for the mission. You gave up sleep and leisure, a wife, a family … You gave everything to make me what I am today because you believed that the future lay in teaching the young all we’d lost.”

“That’s right.”

“Then why would you throw away a chance to teach another? He’s here, right under your roof. He’s a bright boy, and he wants to learn, so why haven’t you done the same with him? Hector would give anything to have you take him into the classroom. Hell, anybody would. You’re
the
Alexander Cain, now—”

“Careful. All that’s for the stage, when we’re out there. I’m just Alex, remember? I want it to stay that way.”

“My point is that you’re the biggest hope we have. You were born to lead people, so lead him. I don’t understand why you’re so keen to abandon him. Hell, you’re bringing people from hundreds of miles away to be taught, but you can’t bring yourself to sit at a table with a kid who has been right under your nose for almost ten years!”

“That’s for political purposes. It’s a means to an end. And in any case, I don’t see you complaining about how I never had Lucian in the classroom. He’s been around since the End, but he’s never spent a single day with his head in a book.”

“Don’t dodge. Lucian chose his path. But Norman … You’re so keen to abandon him. Why?”

Alex said nothing for a long time. Something not quite anger, but smouldering derision, lurked somewhere amidst his expression; some shadow that set his eyes askance. Eventually, he said, “He’s blind.”

James blinked. “Blind?”

“He only sees the world in front of his face, sees things for what they are.”

“So do most people.”

“Yes, but
you
didn’t. You were a shining beacon in the dark, James, even before you could talk. You saw what might be, not just what you knew. I’d been grappling with the others for so long, trying to get them to act, to do something! I was alone. And then there you were, looking out at all those crumbling ruins, and you imagined, you dreamed. You had destiny! But Norman … he’s just …”

“A boy?”

Alex sighed. He leaned back in his chair, brooding. “The boy has no sense of wonder. No destiny. I wouldn’t know what to do with him.”

“Teach him!” James paused, then he was speaking again before he knew what he was saying. “Or I will.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but now that it was out, he knew he meant it.

How could I teach him? I never saw the Old World, either.

But if Alex wouldn’t, he would try. He wouldn’t leave the boy to devolve into one of the witless savages that eked out a life in the North.

Alex was looking at him strangely. “Is the reason you’re focusing so much on this because you’re afraid I’ll ask you about what happened in the stables?”

James swallowed convulsively. He made to say something fast, desperate to curtail any opportunity to dwell on what happened. Already it was almost possible to pretend that it was all part of the mad blur between leaving Beth in the orchards, and arriving home. “What are you talking about?”

Alex didn’t move, and yet his entire manner shifted. He had gone from companionable partner to cold stranger in an instant. “I know you, James. You saw something.”

“It’s all a joke!” James said. “I’m tired, he was crazy, and I had a dizzy spell. He was waxing lyrical about all kinds of insanity, and I got swept up in it for a second, that’s all.”

“Just tell me. Please.”

James laughed, leaning across the table. “For a moment I thought I saw moorland, and fog, and towns. Old towns. I thought it was Radden. I … I was sure it
was
Radden.” He paused, then shrugged. “But it’s just my imagination. I’ve never even seen the place. Anyway, it’s all nonsense. Seeing other places, having visions, it’s all bumpf.”

Alex was quiet. Somewhere outside, some of the others were arguing. “Anything else?”

James shrugged. “There was a man. Some pale-faced guy with this big hyena grin on his face, and dark marks under his eyes.”

Alex’s face fell slack upon his skull, formless and drooping, like jelly thrown over a spear of rock. The colour drained from his skin until he was paler than the whitewashed wall behind him. But his eyes were the worst: haunted, sunken in his skull. “Dark marks?” he muttered.

James frowned. “That’s right. But it was just heat madness, that’s all.”

Alex wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes. Yes, just madness.”

“It was just my imagination,” James said. “I’ve never seen anywhere north of Manchester. You know that. And so what? I saw some guy, a figment of my imagination. Somebody who looked like they’d misapplied mascara and—”

“—and looked a little like a wolf,” Alex finished.

James stared. “How did you know that?”

Alex’s brow flickered. “What did he say?”

“Alex …”

“What did he say?”

James sighed. “He said he was waiting.”

Alex stood over what seemed an age, meandering his way around the room as though blind, steadying himself with chair-backs and upholstery. James’s skin came out in gooseflesh, seeing him that way. He reached the door and turned around, looking more child-like than James had ever seen him. “And the frost?” he said. “Did you feel that too?”

James’s throat closed down to a pinhole as he remembered the ice crystals that had evaporated off his temples the moment the man’s hands had left his head. “How did you know about that?” he whispered.

Alex hung his head. He cursed under his breath. A long silence passed between them, and then he said, “We have to go.”

“Where?”

“Radden.”

James almost fell off his chair. “We can’t! We just arrived. The students from the Moon will be here by morning. The others are up in arms.” He flung his hands in the air. “And this is crazy! He was just a madman, like you said.”