The Mariner (46 page)

“A girl. We brought the zoo back together. But... she died.”

Irritation crossed the Pope’s face, a moment of uncertainty and frustration alive in a flash, but soon after the creases smoothed and eyes once more softened with supreme confidence. “There’s nothing special about this ‘Grace’,” he dismissed, shaking his head. “And nothing can ever come back.”

42
THE LAST SUPPER

T
HERE IS NO TRUTH.
O
NLY
the Wasp.

There is no truth. Only the Wasp.

He ran into the night, unaware of the direction, just certain he had to get as far as possible from the Pope and his terrible encampment. Behind, in a small illuminated circle, the Pope was at work, sucking the last remains of the Wasp from the cultists’ heads. Soon they would be Mindless, parasite-free beasts, mankind in its natural form, and then they’d come for him.

There is no truth.

Without torch, weapon or coat, he sprinted across the moors. Somewhere in the shadows, a predator stalked, something bestial and heavy, its tread squelching underfoot. A few guttural growls penetrated the darkness, but the Mariner did not slow, he did not turn, he was running from something far more terrible, something far more horrifying than any creature from the Soup beyond.

There is no truth. Only the Wasp.

He realised he was babbling, saying the words over and over again as if it were a chant to banish the dark. Somewhere far behind, carried by the wind, he heard screams of rage. They reminded him of the screams he’d heard long ago, when the Wasp had united every mind for that brief moment of its own difficult birth. But of course these were different. These were the Mindless, sent mad by the loss of their beloved Wasp and eager to tear open another man’s head to try to bring it back.

Sight was gone now, just numbing black. His legs span as he ran, the ground beneath an illusion, imagined resistance in an eternity of space. Ahead, through the darkness, he saw Grace, blood-stained and sad, lip split from repeated strikes of his fist. Tetrazzini grinned from behind, wrapping one burned arm around her torso and pulling her close. The image hovered, conjured by his traumatised, sensory- deprived brain and no matter how fast he ran, it didn’t budge. But it did swirl and change, one minute it was Grace, the next it was Beth relaxing in a bath whilst slicing her arm…

Absinth, dressed in the Oracle’s garb, eyes and nose gnawed to bloody craters..

Heidi, lying back on a bed, calling to him, legs open and inviting…

Isabel, her jaw broken and eyes cold and dead…

And finally his mother, leaning forward with a pillow ready to snuff out the last few breaths in his chest.

The Mariner tumbled, hitting the scrub below, boots sucked by mud and brow torn by bitter heather. Panic stricken, starved and terrified, his consciousness did the only thing it could do in such a situation. Abandon ship.

There is no truth. Only the Wasp.

It did not return for some time.

A wet muzzle probed his neck, quick hot breaths tickling his skin and teasing him awake. An animal was at him, a scavenger trying to eat him whilst he slumbered.

He struggled from sleep, his confused mind already grappling for the word like a light switch.
Gradelding!
But another phrase pushed it aside, mocking all other possible thoughts.

There is no Gradelding. Only the Wasp.

He woke screaming, thrashing like a madman.

About him the chill moor cut his skin. No Gradelding sat at his side, no huge monster about to feast on his flesh. However there
was
a small one, equally fearsome in stature, if not in size.

“Blluuuueeeeeeegghhh!” the Tasmanian devil burped in angry defiance, its whole body shuffling back with the exertion of the scream. Once done, it allowed its haunch to drop to the ground, sitting proudly as if having delivered a world-class speech.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, amazed. The reply came not from the devil, but from another behind him.

“Arf!”

Sitting up he saw Grace’s brood gathered around like a small protective pack. Relief brought the faintest of dehydrated tears.

“You’ve found me! How did you – arrgh!” he yelled as a devil angrily bit him on the leg. It stared up, a scowl on its furry face. “I don’t have any
fucking
food! Look at me!
You’re
supposed to be rescuing
me!
”

“Bluuurrrgh!!”

“Arf!”

“Raaaaggghh!”

He collapsed back into the mud, weak and frustrated. “So you found me. But you’re about as fucking useless as you were before! I could never get you to do anything, the only one who could was-” he paused, suddenly realising that he hadn’t seen the devils since that night with Heidi and Grace. “Oh.”

The devils were watching him closely, and although it could have been a projection of his own guilt, he could swear they looked crestfallen.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Arf!”

“What do you want from me?” he yelled through a hoarse throat. “If you’re not here to help, just let me die!” He swung an arm, hoping to scare them off, but not a single beast moved. Instead they continued their vigil, panting short little breaths. “Don’t you understand? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

As he spoke the Mariner hoisted himself up to get a closer swipe at the stubborn creatures, but the sight before him, and dawning realisation, stopped him in his tracks. The moors stopped just twenty foot or so from where he’d awoken. Beyond them was the brilliant sparkle of an endless ocean.

“How?” he asked, bewildered, looking to the devils, who were appearing increasingly smug.

They didn’t answer. They didn’t need to. A hundred tiny tears in his clothing told the story. They had dragged him to the coast.

The exertion of holding himself up, proved too much to bear and the Mariner collapsed to the ground. For however long he’d been unconscious, there had been no food. No drink. It didn’t take a doctor to diagnose the problem with his emaciated form; he was starving.

“Food,” he pleaded to the heavens, hoping for a miracle. What he got was a half-chewed carrot, dropped onto his chest from the gummy jaws of a devil. He looked at the mangled vegetable, drenched in drool, and after a moment of half-felt hesitation, scoffed the lot.

The following days saw the devils bring him whatever they could scrounge, sometimes disappearing for hours only to bring back a few scraggly roots. Each he would greedily devour, never complaining, and with every bite regained some strength.

By night, the devils would close in around him. Sometimes he would hear that great lumbering beast, squelching its way towards him in the dark, but the devils would screech and yowl to such an extent that the Gradelding would slink off, thinking its luck better tried elsewhere.

Eventually, the day came when the devils would look after him no more, and in no uncertain terms, made it clear the time had come to move on.

“Which way?” he shrugged, looking up and down the coastline and seeing no end to the cliffs. As one the devils ran in a direction for a few yards, then stopped and looked back expectantly. He shrugged. Their message was clear. “This way it is.”

The cliff-side trek took days, and just as he’d done when regaining his strength, he spent the night at the mercy of his guardians, trusting their vigilance against the moor’s predators. Each day was the same monotonous staggering, the horizon never changing, until finally one evening the small port town could be seen, its lights twinkling amongst the bleak rocks.

He sped up, eager to escape the open prison, and only paused when he reached the top of the path that cut down through the cliff to the port below, and only then because the devils had ceased to follow.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, but the devils remained silent and still. “We’ve got to get going! I must speak with the Wasp. It may still turn out all right.”

“Arf!” spoke one, looking nervous as if trying to break bad news.

“You’re staying?”

We’re sorry
, their eyes told him.
We’ve come to the end.

“You can’t leave me like this,” he pleaded. “Not after all we’ve been through. Come back to the Neptune. I promise, things will be different from now on.”

No different. You never change.

“You have to forgive me for Grace! I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Yes you did.

“All right, but I don’t remember it! I can’t be held responsible for being so
fucked up
. That’s my wife’s fault! That’s my mother’s fault!”

Isn’t that a bit of a cop-out? To blame your parents?

“But it’s the truth! The
truth
of
me!
”

There is no truth. Only the Wasp.

“Don’t leave!”

But the devils turned and ran, their strong stout legs carrying them easily across the moor. He thought about dashing after them, to beg further, but dismissed the idea. They wanted rid of him. Whatever debt they had held, they’d paid in full. He was alone.

Rejected by the last few friends he had in the world, the Mariner stumbled down the steep decline into town. Faces peered at him through the windows, curious eyes studying his progress through mesh curtains. They had seen many venture up into the moors, but never had one come back down. A true oddity.

A pub sign hung nearby, and despite his eagerness to check on the Neptune (which worryingly he hadn’t seen in his glimpses of the dock) he headed straight for it. He hadn’t tasted alcohol in an age, and even though he had nothing to barter with, he entered. Perhaps the landlord would be foolish enough to ask for payment afterwards? Or exchange a drink for the secret of the moors?

A curious publican greeted him behind a stale and filthy bar.

“Whiskey.”

The man didn’t respond. Not being an idiot, he wanted to see something of value first.

“Perhaps I can get that for you?” a voice from behind asked.

The Mariner tensed. Good-will did not exist. “That’s not necessary,” he protested, turning around to see the fellow who’d made the offer. He found it was not just one, but three.

“Sure it is,” the supposed-Samaritan grinned, holding a pistol that pointed right at the Mariner’s heart. “And it’ll be your last. Arthur Philip, by the orders of Christopher McConnell, you’re under arrest.”

43
THE LAST LIBRARY

T
HE
M
ARINER’S SECOND ARRIVAL ON
Sighisoara, a land he’d sworn never to return, heralded a great deal more fanfare than the first. The ship that carried him was not his own (the Neptune having been stolen by Harris and the rest), instead he’d been bundled onto a trawler and kept tied for the duration. To his captors’ cruel credit, the food he’d been given during this time was even less appetising than what’d been offered by the devils. Word of his terrible crime had travelled well.

“You know wot’s gonna happen once we get to Sighisoara?” his captor had whispered during the first night at sea. “You’re gonna ‘ang. Hang for what you did to that little girl, y’fucking perv!”

“Did you know her?”

“Don’t need t’know her t’know what you did was a fuckin’ disgrace!”

With a kick to the gut, the man left the Mariner alone, seething with hate and shame. Fortunately, violent occurrences such as this were a rarity. For most of the journey he was left alone to reflect on his sins.

Sighisoara had changed since the Mariner’s last visit. In a sense, it had both grown and shrunk at the same time. In a literal sense, the island was smaller; the waves had crept higher, a good couple of yards by his estimation, claiming more crumbling ruins to their depths. The dock however, had swelled. Where once there had been a single wooden promenade, there were now many enormous piers jutting out into the ocean. It seems a great deal of work had been done to accommodate the Beagle’s satellite ships, the great ferry moored further away where the ocean’s floor could not scrape the hull. The Neptune (what a sight for sore eyes!) was anchored beside the main dock, scores of men he’d never seen before strutting about her decking like gulls upon a carcass.