The Soterion Mission (12 page)

Finally, warned by a cry from Navid, the Constants dashed back to the bank in time to see an entire section of the bridge, flaming and roaring like a gigantic torch, crash hissing into the water. Their cheers of delight carried across the river to the opposite bank. Hearing it, Timur bit his bottom lip with such fury that blood dripped from his chin onto the dirt at his feet.

The days that followed the crossing of the No-Man were the easiest of the entire mission. Freed from the worry of pursuing Grozny, the five Constants hurried in the direction of the noonday sun until, one afternoon, they reached the remains of a Long Dead highway that Roxanne identified from faded signs as number 24. It led, she remembered the Albans saying, all the way to the settlement where the mystical Soterion had been found.

Walking and talking amongst themselves for day after day, the five travellers learned much about each other. On the first morning, they listened fascinated as Roxanne explained where the idea of making protective clothing for Navid had come from. The inspiration, she explained with a laugh, was
Peter Pan
.

It was a really strange volume, she continued, because no one understood what it was for. In the opinion of most Yonne scholars, books were for passing on information, telling the reader things. That’s what the
IKEA Catalogue
and the Third Book did.
Peter Pan
was weirdly different. It was a story about events that she was fairly sure had never happened – it even had a place in it called Neverland.

“You mean a sort of dreaming place?” asked Sammy, looking at Roxanne with a mixture of curiosity and admiration.

“I suppose so. A land where children fly and crocodiles swallow alarm clocks and there is a pirate with a hook where his hand had once been…”

“Hang on! Hang on! You’ve lost me, Roxanne. Kids can’t fly, and what’s an ‘alarm clock’ and a ‘pirate’ and how can a bloke have a hook instead of a hand?”

Roxanne smiled. After she had explained her padding idea, she said, she would tell Sammy the whole story of
Peter Pan
from beginning to end. She then recounted how Tootles, one of the Lost Boys, had shot a girl named Wendy thinking she was a bird. Everyone believed she was dead until it was discovered that the arrow had been prevented from entering her heart by a button she was wearing round her neck. For some reason Roxanne did not quite understand, the button, given to Wendy by the boy Peter, was known as a “kiss”.

It was how the button protected Wendy from Tootles’ arrow that gave Roxanne the idea of doing something similar for Navid.

He gave her a broad grin. “Worked, too. Thanks Peterpan, whoever you are. Bark and leaves instead of a button. Just as good. You should have seen that Zed’s face! Mind you, Roxanne, lucky he didn’t aim at my head.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered if he had,” joked Cyrus. “I’d like to see the arrow that could get through your thick skull!” They all laughed, or rather four of them did. Taja managed only a wry smile.

“And when we gets to this Alba place,” chipped in Sammy, “I reckons we should get you a new dress. One without holes in it. Gets a bit drafty on the inside bits when the wind’s blowing, don’t it?”

“No. Keeps me cool,” said Roxanne, waggling a finger through one of the holes. “So Sammy, want to hear the story of Peter Pan?”

“That’d be great, Roxanne. Thanks. They didn’t like stories back where I come from. It was all chanting and Gova-this and Gova-that. So tell me about this Peter bloke and Neverland and that man what had a hook.”

The story lasted for much of the rest of the day. Roxanne, who could remember the text almost word for word, started by telling it only to Sammy; by the time she had finished, all four of her fellow travellers formed an enchanted audience. None of them had ever heard anything like it. The life of a Constant was hard and practical, with little time for fanciful tales.

When the story was over and Roxanne had done her best to answer the dozens of questions they asked, they made her promise to tell it again the next day. She in turn thanked them. Reciting the tale to complete strangers, she said, to people who knew nothing of the world of the Long Dead and had never heard a work of such magical imagination, she began to understand what
Peter Pan
was for.

Unlike the
IKEA Catalogue
and the Third Book of Yonne, it wasn’t for anything very precise. It didn’t contain information or instructions – at least, not directly – which meant it had only one purpose: it was for entertainment, for enjoyment, for fun! The author wanted his story to bring smiles to people’s faces.

“Worked OK with me,” grinned Sammy. “So, d’you reckon there are more fun stories like that in this Soterion place, Roxanne?”

“I hope so, Sammy,” she replied wistfully. “Yes, I really do hope so.”

Before she fell asleep that night, Roxanne thought again about why Peter Pan might have been written. For amusement, yes, but perhaps it also had a secret message to do with children and adults? Maybe a book with a hero who never grew older meant it was good not to grow up, that children knew things their parents didn’t? How odd! Like many aspects of the Long Dead world, it didn’t make much sense to her at present. But she was sure it would one day, when they reached the Soterion…

Every day, for most of the morning, Cyrus continued with his education. Guided by Roxanne and writing with a lump of chalk on a piece of slate-like stone, he learned the letters of the alphabet and how to join them together into words. His spelling made her laugh. Nevertheless, as the days passed he read accurately more and more of the words she wrote down for him. “Zed” was easy, and he soon got the hang of “Cyrus”, “Sammy” and “Taja”, although he read the latter as “tiger”, which made them both chuckle the first time he tried.

While all this was going on, the Mudir of the West Tower remained as enigmatic as on the day she had invited herself onto the mission. She rarely said much to anyone but Cyrus, choosing to walk alone at the back of the group seemingly lost in her own contemplations. She pulled her weight, shooting game for them to eat and taking her turn to stand watch at night; yet about the purpose of their mission, of finding the hidden vault and unlocking its secrets, she was curiously silent.

Once, falling in beside her as they wound their way up a rocky incline, Cyrus asked her what she thought about all day. She looked up at him with those deep black eyes and allowed herself a rare smile.

“There’s no mystery, Cyrus,” she said quietly. “Nothing’s changed.”

“I understand. But you don’t still think Roxy – Roxanne – is in league with the Zeds, do you?”

She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“But you’ve seen for yourself what’s happened. We all know that it was thanks to her that we got across the river. Why would she do that if she were working for Timur? Be sensible, Taja! Please give her a chance!”

“I am giving her a chance, Cyrus. Just be careful, that’s all. Nothing’s ever quite as it seems, you know. This is not Neverland and you are not Peter Pan! Be careful.”

Cyrus said nothing. He was tempted to ask Roxanne to join them so that they could both explain to Taja, once and for all, that a Z-shaped tattoo did not indicate a Zed heart. The idea might work, he mused, and he was desperate to get the issue settled. But when he thought it through, he decided against it. If it came to a confrontation, someone would end up losing and the atmosphere in the group would be poisonous. Besides, Taja was less difficult now than she had been. Whenever Cyrus looked, he still found her watching with those same unblinking eyes. But she didn’t say anything. When he and Roxanne laughed together and lay side by side at night, she remained silent. Waiting in the dark.

Timur sulked for three days after the destruction of the bridge. With no one daring to go near him, he mooched about on his own, staring into the river and throwing stones at the dozy crocodiles. Without Roxanne, his dream was finished. He would never find that Soterion and be able to unlock its secrets. He would never have all knowledge, as the Long Dead had done. He would never have all power. He would never be a god!

What made it worse, far worse, was that he had only himself to blame. Timur the Terrible, taken in by the flattery of a beautiful woman – how pathetic was that? He had to admit, though, she had been clever. All those fawning lies about how attractive she found him, and how she didn’t need to be tied up because she would never leave him…Pah! It was too humiliating…

“Malik! Malik!” The familiar voice broke into Timur’s thoughts. He turned abruptly ready to strike the fool who dared interrupt his brooding.

Giv had learned to read his master’s capricious mind and stopped to kneel some distance away. “Good news, Great Malik!”

“And if it’s not good, frogface, I’ll cut your lying tongue in half!”

“Prisoner! Grozny capture prisoner!”

Timur’s mood lightened. “Prisoner, Giv? What prisoner?”

“Constant man, Malik. Say he from place of Alba!”

Alba? Timur’s black heart leapt. He had heard the name before, though he hadn’t taken much notice of it at the time. It had come from the mouth of the batbrained woman captured at the same time as Roxanne. She was not only stupid but hysterically lamblivered – the cowardly cow had managed to kill herself before he had time to question her properly. But before she did so, he recalled, she had snivelled some pathetic drivel about her children back home – in Alba.

That was it, the vital clue had been within his grasp all along.

“Bring this Alban vermin in here immediately, Giv. I have a few questions for him.”

As Giv scuttled off, the Malik brushed down his multi-coloured cloak and seated himself on the battered stainless steel chair that his bodyguard carried around for him. As long as his stupid warriors hadn’t rendered the man from Alba speechless when they seized him, this should be very interesting indeed.

Timur was right. To begin with, the wretched prisoner said he wouldn’t speak. Pain soon changed his mind. Bleeding, half blinded and with the bones in his left leg broken in two places, he confessed that he was indeed from Alba. After further torture, he admitted that, like two previous Alban missions, he had been on his way to Yonne. The Malik questioned him more intently, using a pair of pliers to inflict a particularly excruciating level of pain on the very tenderest parts of his anatomy. By the time the poor creature finally died, he had given the leader of the Grozny Zeds information that sent his spirits soaring and left him itching for action once more.

9: Outwitted

Timur’s narrow lips stretched between his cheeks like a pair of mating snakes. When he smiled – always at his own delights or the misfortunes of others – the reptiles held their thin bodies in frozen congress and simply raised their heads and tails a fraction. The reason was not solely lack of mirth. The Malik disliked teeth. He avoided showing his own, scowled at the sight of them in others and was thrilled by any opportunity to knock them out. The phobia stemmed from the moment when, as a baby, he had been bitten on the arm by the mad dog that had just killed his mother.

On this occasion, as the Malik’s mind pulsed with anticipated delights, the lip-vipers squirmed with unaccustomed vigour. What excellent news! She would not get away after all. Roxanne, the only woman who had ever managed to bewitch him into lowering his guard, was still within his grasp.

The Alban captive had surrendered a number of key pieces of information. He opened up when he heard Timur promise – on his mother’s grave, no less – that he would end the torture and spare his life. Mother’s grave! What fleece-hearted idiots these Constants were! His mother had no grave – her savaged body had been left in the open to rot. Even if she had been buried, what would the grave of a slave mean to him?

The Alban was half-dead anyway, and there was no way so dedicated a disciple of pain was going to forego the pleasure of finishing him off. Ah, the joy of torture! Arguably more fun than impregnating the breeding slaves, and certainly longer-lasting.

Timur’s victim had been a member of the third Alban mission trying to make contact with a community of literate Constants. There had been four in the party originally, two men and two women. Having lost their way soon after departure, they had wandered through the semi-arid scrub for days looking for the remains of a highway. The two women had died of dysentery and the other man had fallen victim to a snake bite. The survivor had thought himself the fortunate one – until he fell into the hands of Timur.

Many seasons ago, he said, the Albans had found a cave sealed with a steel door dating from the time of the Long Dead. On it were words and a symbol believed to confirm that what lay within was the fabled Soterion: the place where the knowledge of the Long Dead was stored. Unable to read the instructions on how to enter the cave, the Alban Majlis had sent a series of missions to find literate Constants to assist them.

The first mission had vanished without trace, the prisoner declared.

“Not quite without trace,” grimaced Timur. When his victim tried to ask what that meant, he was silenced by a crushing blow to the groin that left him unable to speak for the rest of the morning.

Further questioning revealed that three surviving members of a second, larger mission had returned home when ten of their colleagues were swept to their deaths by a flash flood while trying to cross the upper reaches of the No-Man.

The Alban’s revelations filled the gaps in Timur’s understanding left by Roxanne’s escape. But it was what the man admitted when told his torment would end that had his torturer’s twisted mind writhing with glee. The failure of two missions had produced a bitter rift among the citizens of Alba, he learned. The majority felt they should continue to try to contact literate Constants, even if it meant sending out a hundred missions. Their opponents, led by a woman named Padmar, argued for a different tactic. Since their own missions were ill-suited to the hostile environment between themselves and Yonne, she suggested, couldn’t they employ someone better able to cope with the conditions? Why not get a Zed to do the job? All they had to do was pay a powerful barbarian warrior to locate and capture a literate Constant and bring them back to Alba.

The proposal caused uproar. Chima, the Alban Emir, said it went against every principle they had ever held. She hardly had to remind them that Zeds were despicable savages. If invited to bring in one Constant, they would probably kill fifty in the process. They were not to be trusted, either. It would be sheer folly to jeopardise their impregnable mountain stronghold by inviting a single one of them inside the walls for negotiation. Padmar’s plan was a non-starter, the Emir insisted. The great majority of her fellow officers agreed with her.

But Padmar was an obstinate, forceful woman. When she persevered with her argument, Chima eventually agreed a compromise. A third mission would be sent out. If that too failed, then the subject might be raised again. Until that time, any talk of employing a Zed was forbidden.

All this Timur extracted from the dying prisoner. It was invaluable intelligence. To use it to his advantage, he had to do two things. First, let the Albans know that their third mission had failed. Second, guarantee that the idea of employing a Zed was adopted. To do that, this woman Padmar needed a nice, friendly, civilised Zed to present as evidence that some barbarians might be trusted.

Now, who might that Zed be? Timur wrapped his long arms around his body and hugged himself gleefully. The answer was obvious. In fact, he held it in his very hands.

Timur had to act fast – and in secret. There was no point in blundering over to Alba, assuming he could find the place, with the whole Grozny tribe in tow. That would take too long, and just the sight of his warriors would close the gates of Alba against him for ever. All he needed was a souvenir from the dead prisoner and two bodyguards, Giv and Jamshid. He’d order the rest of the tribe to set up camp beside the No-Man and await his triumphant return. In his absence, command would pass to Kamal, not the brightest of men but cruel enough to keep order.

After careful questioning of those who had captured the Alban, Timur figured out that he had been heading roughly towards the sunset. So to reach Alba, he concluded, the Grozny trio had to journey the opposite way, heading for the point at which the sun first appeared on the horizon. He knew that the settlement was on a mountainside and he had a vague memory of there being hills or mountains of some sort in that region. Once there, he was sure of finding someone he could torture into providing him with more detailed directions.

As it was now dark, Timur went into his tent and lay down. But he was far too excited to sleep. His dream of majesty had been rekindled.

When the Constant slaves responsible for his education had first told him of the legend of the Soterion, he had rejected the idea as superstitious nonsense. Who was interested in the knowledge of the Long Dead, anyway? They had failed. All their building and science had counted for nothing at the time of the Great Death. It hadn’t saved them, had it? They had grown soft and feeble, forgotten that what really counted in this world was power, blood and pain. Nothing else mattered.

Information gleaned from Roxanne and other members of her mission had changed Timur’s mind. He now appreciated how knowledge might help him in his pursuit of glory. It was within his grasp. All he had to do was hoodwink the Albans and get into the Soterion with a literate Constant to interpret for him, and he would have the knowledge of the Long Dead at his disposal, exclusively. What glorious power that would bring!

There was something else, too. Various of Timur’s victims had mentioned another rumour. As the Long Dead were dying out, it ran, they had been seeking a cure for the Great Death. The details of this so-called Salvation Project, developed but never tested, were said to lie in the Soterion. Now, if he got hold of that, he’d keep it just for himself. So when all others died after eighteen winters, he’d live for fifty, sixty or seventy! Perhaps more – perhaps for ever!

He’d be worshipped and adored. Constants and Zeds from all over the world would prostrate themselves and kiss the feet of Timur the Great, Lord of All Things, Lord of All Men. He’d then be what the Long Dead had called a “god”. No, not a god. He would be the God. The Almighty One.

And the key to making this dream come true was that literate and infuriatingly bewitching Constant already making her way towards Alba.

Many thousands of paces away, Roxanne herself was gazing down the long straight road that shimmered and twisted in the merciless late afternoon heat. After crossing the No-Man and turning along Highway 24 in the direction of the rising sun, the mission had tramped across a landscape that became more arid with every day that passed. Tall trees were scarce, replaced by stunted thorns and thick, hostile cactuses. There were no rivers or streams, and Corby’s sharp nose had difficulty sniffing out water holes. Day after day, all they knew was dust and heat and sweat.

Signs of the former civilisation were rare. From time to time they came across the crumbling remains of a small settlement, a few sand-strewn homes and a fuel station beside the cracked road. Some had not been looted and in bedrooms long abandoned even by the flies, the bleached bones of former inhabitants lay undisturbed in the stillness.

On the veranda of one remote farmhouse, a worm-eaten rocking chair, whose mummified occupant had fallen asleep long, long ago, swayed aimlessly back and forth in the breeze. On another occasion, as Cyrus and Roxanne were searching a house for shoes, they came across a pair of skull-grinning skeletons lying together on an iron bed. Their yellow, fleshless bones remained entwined as at the moment they died.

Although they were accustomed to death in its many forms, the travellers had never witnessed a scene quite like this. For a while, lightly holding hands, they stared in silence.

“Must have gone at the same time,” said Cyrus eventually.

“Fortunate,” said Roxanne after another pause. “And beautiful. Like looking in a mirror that sees through time.”

Cyrus wondered if this was the moment to mention something that had been on his mind since they first met. “It is several moons since we left Della Tallis, Roxy…”

“No need to go on, Cy.” She drew closer to him. “Yes, my time is near – but let’s not talk about it.”

He held her lovely, sad face between his hands and gently kissed the tear that ran down her cheek. “Don’t be sad, Roxy. We are still here, together, and what we are doing will change things, I’m sure. One day,” he went on, looking at the bones on the bed, “because of this mission, all Constants will have a chance to live as they lived.”

She nodded. “Yes. But there’ll still be death at the end of it, won’t there? We’re not gods.”

“You said being morbid wasn’t allowed.”

“You’re right.” She glanced down. “I want to give people a chance not to die suddenly and cruelly, as they must have done. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Family’s the dream that drives me on, Cy. I want men and women to be able to grow old slowly, like they did before the Great Death, to have children, watch over them and guide them.”

Her face suddenly brightened. “Do you know, Cleopatra made her son Caesarion joint ruler with her? Mother and son working together, isn’t that a beautiful idea?”

“Beautiful, yes.”

Roxanne had already told Cyrus about the Third Book of Yonne, a short biography of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt. With its talk of gods and goddesses, cruelty and passionate love, campaigns and battles, the story sat uneasily alongside the
IKEA Catalogue
and
Peter Pan
. Not surprisingly, generations of Yonne scholars had struggled to understand the bitter-sweet world of the Long Dead in all its mysterious and changing forms. A queen orders her own sister to be executed, children fight a hook-handed pirate, householders buy kitchens to make their lives easier…

“Such a strange mixture,” Roxanne had often said when discussing the Three Books.

Cyrus had suggested the Long Dead remains looked more like the
IKEA
world, not Cleopatra’s. And wasn’t
Peter Pan
full of kindness and warmth and love? “Seems pretty certain to me,” he had concluded, “they managed to make life better. Learned more, lived more. That’s what we want back, isn’t it?”

The conversation ran through their minds again as they gazed wistfully at the skeleton lovers. When the moment had passed, she took his arm and they went out together into the merciless glare of the desert.

The mission no longer avoided the roads for fear of being spotted. Out here the only other human beings were dead. No Constant settlement could have survived where food and water were so scarce, and not even the Grozny Zeds were able to scavenge a living from this desolate and infertile land.

Food was a problem. They caught and cooked small desert animals – rats, snakes, lizards and the occasional wild dog – and every now and again they came across Long Dead food that was still edible.

The contents of the few cans that had not exploded or leaked were generally putrid. Rats and mice had gnawed their way into most other containers. Once, though, after the mission had been on the road for thirty-five days, Taja had found a large, tightly-sealed glass jar full of rice. Unsure what it was, they nibbled a grain or two and found it pleasant. Roxanne said it looked like the substance she had seen being cooked in a
Catalogue
illustration, so they boiled it in muddy water drawn from an old well.

Roasted lizard spiced with wild herbs and served on a mound of pilau rice was the best meal they had eaten for many days.

The heat forced them to change their pattern of travel. They set out at dawn and walked until the blazing sun drove them into whatever shade they could find. Here they rested till it was cool enough to continue to nightfall. The ceaseless walking took its toll on their bodies. The sun blistered their skin, and when the soles of their shoes wore away they were forced to discard them and continue barefoot.

Sammy suffered most. Life in the Gova settlement had been narrow and regimented, and he was unaccustomed to long periods of physical exercise in the open air. His wooden shoes had dried out and cracked after only a few days. Limping along on bleeding feet, he had no energy to swat away the flies that swarmed over his young face. As a result, his eyes became swollen and red with infection. If they did not find clean water in which to wash regularly, they knew their new friend would soon go blind.

By the time the moon had waxed and waned and begun to wax large again, they scarcely had the energy to speak. When they did, their voices were so harsh and cracked as to be almost unrecognisable. Navid and Cyrus took it in turns to hold Sammy’s hand and lead him. Taja brought up the rear, always there, always watching. Ahead, Roxanne drew them onward, ever onward. Heads bowed against the glare, they lurched after her, step after heavy step down that endless, scorching road.