The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) (5 page)

She marched down the row, glancing at the neat beds in the cubicles to her left, and stopped at a closed curtain. ‘You had
better
be dead, Fifty-Nine.’

She pulled back the curtain and the boy in the bed shifted with a tired groan and pulled the sheet tighter. Furious, she stepped in and pulled back the bedclothes.

‘Morning!’ said Fifty-Nine with a happy yawn.

A hand shot out from beneath the bed and grabbed her ankle; and two silent boys appeared behind her. One slipped an arm around her neck and pulled her head back as the second closed the curtain and stood watch outside.

At the far end of the dormitory, Torbidda stood in the doorway looking back. He paused for a second before continuing out and closing the door firmly behind him. Whatever was about to happen was none of his concern.

A third boy emerged from the wardrobe with a whoop.

‘Please—’ she whimpered, and stopped struggling. When he came closer, she kicked his crotch with her free leg. As he keeled over, Fifty-Nine hopped out of bed and punched her exposed belly. The same moment another hand grabbed her other ankle and she lost her footing. Fifty-Nine and the other boy unceremoniously picked her up and threw her against
the wall above the bed. She fell onto the mattress with a grunt.

‘You’re so smart, how’d you get in this mess, huh?’ Fifty-Nine bared his teeth in a grin. ‘Well? Answer me!’ He hammered his fist into her nose.

‘Cover her face!’ he ordered the freckled boy emerging from beneath the bed. The city boy was shrill and somewhat panicked by the sight of blood, and at how abruptly the girl had stopped flailing. But as well as revenge for his earlier humiliation at the monitor’s hands, he intended to show his peers that he could organise fun and games as well as Four. Tackling a second-year was dangerous – she had a year’s combat training on them – but they’d come in strength. They piled pillows and sheets on top, and two large hands held her wrists while other hands pulled at her robes.

Torbidda knew he shouldn’t be here – he’d seen the boy standing watch and guessed what was going to happen. Now he was trying to walk crouched and quietly along the narrow walkway formed by the top of the wardrobes. The old wood creaked, but the boys were too excited to notice. He could hear them whooping with excitement. He should let them go about their business before they noticed him. She –
she herself
– said it: every Cadet was on their own, and the same rules applied to her.

Yet here he was.

Fifty-Nine was squirming on top, trying to get her legs open and his robe up at the same time. The boy holding her under the bedclothes was concentrating on his job, while the other was staring with something like reverence. The boy behind the curtain glanced in for a moment, then reluctantly returned to sentry duty.

Four would have enforced better discipline, Torbidda thought. Still telling himself this was none of his business,
he dropped onto the nearest boy. He landed feet-first, clumsily, but his weight was enough to knock the boy into the one standing watch, and he pulled the curtain down with him. The boy holding the pillow didn’t wait for orders but abandoned his post to rush Torbidda, and as the girl felt the pressure ease, without even trying to remove the blankets, her fingers shot up, searching and finding Fifty-Nine’s eyes. The pillow boy had pulled Torbidda down and the three of them were kicking and punching him until he curled into a ball. Fifty-Nine’s scream made them turn just in time to see the girl pull her thumbs out of their leader’s face with an audible
pop
. She stood onto the bed and pulled herself up onto the wardrobe.

The boys forgot about Torbidda – he was stupid with the beating anyway – and leapt up on the bed to follow her. She’d get them individually if they let her escape. The three leapt for the walkway together, figuring to rush her. She kicked one in the face and knocked him back onto the floor, and as the other two got to their feet, she backed away carefully. She took the set of keys from around her neck and threw them at Torbidda’s foetal body. ‘Hey, Sixty!’

The jangle as it landed made him open his eyes.

‘Lock the north door behind you,’ she ordered.

Torbidda grabbed the keys and as he started crawling to the door she turned and limped towards the other, then stopped abruptly and turned to face her pursuers.

‘You’re trapped,’ one of the boys shouted, and laughed. ‘We blocked that door.’

‘I guessed you would,’ she said calmly, and raced towards them. She knocked the first boy aside with an elbow as she threw herself bodily at the other. They tumbled off together, but she twisted as she fell so that he took the impact. She smashed his head on the floor, just to be sure, then went to
examine the other three. The one she’d kicked in the face, the first to fall, had broken his neck.

As he limped back from the door, Torbidda saw her kneel beside the one she’d elbowed off the walkway. He was clutching his ribs and moaning. She tenderly lifted his head into her lap, then twisted it sharply left. The moaning stopped.

Fifty-Nine was writhing on the bed, streaming blood from the holes in his face. As she carefully rechained the curtain, she looked at Torbidda and said flatly, ‘You’re late for class, Cadet. Leave my keys in the door.’

She didn’t need to say she owed him. It was obvious. Torbidda limped to the door, unlocked it and shut out Fifty-Nine’s smothered screams behind him.

‘Flaccus believes in a mechanistic universe that can be mastered with levers and winches. Be warned. Nature is a far more subtle monster, and one that you must first understand if you are to tame her.’

The class stood in the Alchemistry Hall at the edge of a massive circular sheet, shivering in the frigid air. Five long chains were connected to the sheet. Varro ushered them closer. ‘Get comfy – not that close, Signore Vitale! Step back, Signorina Inzerillo. All right, let’s see …’ He looked at the levers in front of him, feigning confusion.

Torbidda stole a glance at Four and his acolytes and looked away quickly; Four was watching him. Fifty-Nine’s suicidal attempt to establish his independence had allowed Four to consolidate control of the city boys, making life trying for everyone else in general and Torbidda in particular: the girl was too big a target, so by default he had become the focus of Four’s campaign of vengeance. Leto observed that avenging fallen comrades was an excellent cause to unite a group – but Torbidda was less interested in history, than practical suggestions as to
how
he could survive.

Varro pulled one of the dangling chains, the sheet lifted and the children stepped back. The water started only two braccia down, but it looked at least five braccia deep. The pool’s surface was
alive
with writhing limbs, spastic hands and gnashing animal jaws as shapes turned and shifted unstably and cubes and spheres broke the surface and dissolved.

‘Look, children, at the monster our wisdom captured. Beautiful bride, isn’t she? The pseudonaiades are pure water, and water only. We compromised creatures are at once less and more than these elementals.’

‘All right, Torbidda?’ Leto whispered.

‘Fine,’ he said, fighting rising panic as Varro went on.

‘We’re going to get in. Don’t worry, it’s safe. To study pseudonaiades we must come to know it
intimately
. But let’s not get carried away with romance: the water of life is death to Man. First, I shall render it neutral.’

He began to work the crank beside the leavers and blue sparks hopped from the turning spokes. Varro watched the dial as he worked. ‘Spinther, be a good fellow and pull that switch – that one, there.’

As Leto did so, the slowly moving wheel changed direction suddenly and started spinning fast. The water’s surface was flooded with the cranking energy and an acrid metallic smell filled the room. The surface shot up in several agonised arcs and then, just as suddenly, was still.

Varro moved to another wheel and strained against it. There was a clunking noise, followed by sustained sucking, and the level of the water started to sink quickly. When it got past four braccia, the top of a tall rectangular box became visible, a layer of rust covering it like moss. As the water sank a little lower, they saw it was actually two connected boxes. Each had a door of thick greenish glass. The door on the left was open, and they could see an empty seat inside. The water level within the other container had not sunk.

Varro was climbing down even as the last of the water drained. ‘Come on, it’s safe. The monster’s sleeping.’ He jumped down into the quarter-braccia that remained and waded over to the box. ‘Wakey, wakey,’ he sang, tapping the other compartment. He turned to the class. ‘Well, come on! Don’t be scared.’

The children climbed down one by one, and by the time they were all in the hole, Varro was sitting inside the compartment on the right, strapping two domes over his ears. He inclined his head to the partition and the Cadets watched a column of water form, moving tentatively at first, as if testing the bonds of its prison, then it began to flow over the glass walls, searching for cracks. Torbidda took a step backwards, glancing at the ladder.

‘Look,’ said Four, ‘Sixty’s scared of water. It’s so true what they say about Old Towners and washing.’

His crew sniggered, even though the majority of them were from the Depths.

‘Can you hear it?’
Varro’s voice was distorted, each word echoing and overlapping, and there was a shifting vibrato to each syllable.
‘The peak of our Natural Philosophy is the Wave, but it would have been impossible without this device. The Helens had the Delphic Oracle. The Etruscans had the Cumaean Sibyl. We have this! Bernoulli called it the Confession Box. Remember, frame your queries in numerical terms, or you’ll get answers that only a theologian could decipher. Who’s got a question?’

Four made a suggestion.

‘Bit morbid,’
Varro remarked, but he pushed the dial, cleared his throat and asked,
‘Water, how many of these children shall survive the year?’

The water column merely continued its swaying. Varro pumped the dial for a few moments then pulled hard on it. The floor of the glass compartment crackled with blue bolts. They vaulted up the walls passing through the pseudonaiad and bending in transit.

‘How many?’
Varro repeated firmly, his voice authoritative.

The sound that came out was like a staccato wail,
Aaaamneeevvvaaa
. Varro fiddled with dials and the dulcimer sound was heard again, distorted and marred by moments of blank silence.

‘laaaamneeed vaaaav—’

‘Anyone know what that means?’

Doubtfully, Torbidda spoke up. ‘It’s the Ebionite High Language, Sir.’

‘Madonna!’ Varro exclaimed. ‘We have a linguist! Very good, what does it mean?’

Torbidda swallowed and said, ‘Thirty-six.’

‘That’s all?’ said Four. ‘But how do we know that’s correct? Ask it how many will die today.’

Varro was preparing to relay the message when an answer came unprompted.

‘Khaaaaaheeeeee—’

‘It means eighteen,’ said Torbidda doubtfully.

‘Eighteen? What, in one day?’ Four exclaimed. ‘This is bunk!’

Suddenly animated, the pseudonaiad reformed as a square pillar, reared back and butted its ‘corner’ on the glass. The Confession Box shook, but Varro only laughed. The pseudonaiad lost cohesion for a few moments after the blow, then sluggishly reformed. Ripples undulated over its surface. Suddenly it struck again, hitting the same place.

‘Settle down now,’
said Varro, once more pumping on the switch.

A crack appeared in the glass, jerkily spreading out, fast and slow, but always getting wider.

‘
… perhaps we should return to this another time.’

Four was first up the ladder, Leto fast behind him.

Varro called, ‘Spinther, wind up that wheel, would you, there’s a good boy. The rest of you, take your time, nice and orderly.’

The pseudonaiad struck the glass again, and the climbers’ pace speeded up.

CraAAAck

‘Let me up! Let me up!’ Varro pushed by Torbidda and pulled
a girl off the ladder. Torbidda helped her up, all the while keeping his eye on the box.

The pseudonaiad again flowed over the glass, studying the crack, judging what it needed. A few drips fell from the crack and wriggled on the floor like worms. It reeled back again.

KRAAK

The glass shattered and the children screamed as the water came rushing through the fracture and hit the ground. It reformed quickly, orientated itself on its human quarries and threw itself at the ladder, narrowly missing a boy who pulled his foot away with a yelp. Torbidda and the girl were stranded in the pit with this monster. Above, Varro checked the control board and shouted ‘Keep turning, Spinther! Needs a little more.’

Varro ran to the side of the pit. The class were watching the pair stranded below with interest. No one offered to help.

‘Shock it!’ cried Torbidda.

‘It’s not charged yet. You!’ Varro pulled Four out the circle. ‘Help Spinther turn it.’ He pushed him towards Leto. He looked back down and shouted, ‘Keep moving, Cadets! Don’t let it corner you.’

‘What are you doing?’ said Leto as Four pulled against him on the wheel, making it impossible to turn.

‘Sixty’s going to get a bath after all!’

The male Fusus twin was circling. Leto didn’t have time to argue – and anyway, it would be pointless. He let the Fuscus boy get behind him, then let go of the wheel, which yanked Four off his feet as it spun wildly in the direction Four had been pulling. Leto elbowed the Fuscus boy in the nose, then reached out with one hand to brace the wheel before turning back to Four, who was still sprawled flat. He stomped hard on Four’s stomach then he returned to the wheel and started winding desperately.

The girl, terrified, clung to Torbidda as the pseudonaiad
reared up. If he did nothing, they would drown together. He needed more time.

He elbowed her in the face and dived aside as the water stampeded, enveloping the stunned girl as Torbidda ran to the other side of the Confession Box. He slammed the door behind him, but there was no lock – why would there be? As he clung onto the handle, the girl dropped lifelessly out of the pillar of water, which collapsed into a wave and crashed against the glass.