Fearsome Dreamer (25 page)

‘He mended it, though. The boy. He made some highly dubious-looking pastes and rubbed them into my hand, while I tried my hardest not to cry with the hurt. He made me want to seem braver than I was, as if I could prove to him that he had no right to laugh at me. Then he sat, my hand resting on his. He closed his eyes and said nothing. I looked at Hammet, who shook his head and told me to stay there for as long as it took and keep quiet. The whole thing was a show, of course. The paste he had applied to my hand made it grow numb after a moment, so that it appeared he was doing it himself. Tingling and stinging at first, and then nothing. It was quite impressive, and so I was affected at the time. Hammet looked as though he'd seen a ghost when he saw me sit upright and regain my colour. I told him the pain had gone and he stood, babbling to the boy his thanks, telling him to bring Zelle Penhallow over in the morning for her payment. Then he pushed me out of there as fast as he dared. On the way home and all that evening I tried to question him on the boy, but he wouldn't talk.

‘The next morning, they came together, the boy and his mistress. The witch herself was a pleasant-looking woman, plump and motherly. I could see why people would trust her with their secrets. I couldn't see why so many people were afraid of her, although I understood that people in a position of power always attract such feeling. She inspected my hand before choosing her hen; I suppose to satisfy herself that the boy had done a good job with it. As she went off to the yard with Mussyer Poltern I hung back, hoping the boy would speak to me. I asked him his name. He said it was Oaker. I made some passing snobbish reference to country families always choosing such simple names, with rarely any deep meaning or finesse. But instead of becoming angry the boy smiled and said that my name sounded very much like I'd inserted my head into my own backside. We instantly became friends.

‘From then on, I wanted to spend every second I had with Oaker. When I wasn't with him I thought of him; each moment I could devote to him I did. He could not bore me, nor turn me away from him. I'd never met someone so fascinating. He spoke to animals as if they were his friends, and they in turn treated him with affection and respect. He commanded the other young of the village simply with his presence. Everyone wanted to be his friend. He was by turns charming or cruel to all of us, randomly doling out his affection as if he thought we weren't worth distinguishing between. Naturally everyone wanted to be the one to capture his special attention, so we spent our time fawning around him like dogs. Anything he asked me to do, I did. Some of those things were not things I'd have liked anyone to know I was responsible for, and I'm sure it was the same for many of his other friends. He had a way of persuasion. There was something about him, something mysterious, like a secret he kept that made him feel superior to everyone around him. He was afraid of nothing, and it intrigued me; I wanted to know why. What was this secret ingredient that made him so sure in every situation? Of course, I found out soon enough.

‘Oaker had been favouring me of late, and we had spent some time together alone. I was in a constant state of nervous happiness, ready to do anything he asked of me. One particularly hot day he suggested we go to the river together for an hour or two. I met him at a secluded spot along the bank, an area I hadn't been before. I could see why it wasn't popular with anyone else. The grass was scrubby and there wasn't a lot of shade.

‘After a time, when we had been swimming and eaten all the food we found, I asked him why he'd wanted to come here, hoping his response would be that it was to guarantee that we'd be alone. He just smiled and said he wanted to show me something. I must have looked wary, because he laughed at my face. After much teasing and playing, the end result was that he told me to sit still and watch him. And at first nothing happened. I watched, then started to grow bored and somewhat irritated by his behaviour. My eyes never left him, not once.

‘He was there. And then he was not there.'

Suddenly, White understood. He understood, finally, how Frith had known about the Talent if he was not himself Talented, a question that had nagged at him ever since they had first met.

Frith had not looked up.

‘It really was extraordinary,' he said, his tone brittle with forced calm. ‘He was there. Then he was not. You're used to it, I suppose. For me, I confess, it still surprises me every time I've seen it. There was no apparent transition. His face was collected, still, as if he concentrated very hard. His bare arms were stiff, I could see the hairs on them raised, gold in the sunlight. He was there. Then he was not. My first reaction was to assume that I'd somehow become confused – that I had hallucinated him, perhaps, or that I had looked away, fallen asleep, lost time, and he'd left me there. I looked about, as if to see him walking away from me, further down the riverbank or back amongst the trees. And then I realised that I had felt the air shift when he had disappeared – I had felt it move into the space he had left behind, I had heard it rush inwards. My confusion turned to wonder, and then to amazement and delight. I waited for him to return – it was an incredible trick. He would explain it to me. He would appear back in front of me, laughing.

‘I waited there for hours. I waited until the sun had started to turn red in the sky, and the Poltern boy Hammet had been sent all over the village, looking for me. But I had no patience for that. Instead of returning to them and allaying their fears, I got up from where I'd been sitting, unmoving and alone. I walked to the Penhallow house, knocked on the door. Kept knocking until the mistress herself answered it. Instead of looking at me astonished, as I'd expected, she sighed and let me in.

‘‘‘Where is he?” I asked her.

‘‘‘He came by not long ago, but now he's down in the village with his friends,” she said. She saw the incensed look on my face and told me to sit down, but I wouldn't.

‘‘‘Let me guess. He disappeared on you and didn't come back?”' said the witch, a strange, sad sort of smile on her face. My anger deflated and I sat.

‘‘‘He does this trick a lot, then,” I said.

‘‘‘Tis no trick, I'm sorry to say,” said the witch.

‘‘‘Am I supposed to believe that it's magic?”

‘‘‘If the inexplicable is magic, then yes, it is. Others might claim him to be a demon or god of some sort. But he's just a boy, same as you.”

‘‘‘He's
not
the same as me,” I said. “I would not play such a stupid joke on someone simply to make them worship me.”

‘She was looking at me with a depth of knowledge I hadn't felt from anyone in quite some time, and it made me uncomfortable. I wasn't used to being understood, not even then. But I was in a high temper, and when you allow emotions to control you, you lose control of everything else. In her face she showed me that she understood her son exactly, that she understood why I was so angry with him, why I had used the word ‘“worship”.

‘‘‘Don't punish him,” she said to me. “He's not as clever as you.”

‘‘‘Does everyone know about this?”' I said.

‘‘‘Not at all. I take great pains to keep it secret, and he takes great pains to have it out there for all to see, silly cock. Those who do know are in debt to me. I keep their troubles and they keep mine; on such a backbone the life of a village turns. But he's convinced he's special and will have none of this secretive business.”

“‘‘He
is
special,” I said. “Are you trying to tell me that there are many people who can do what he does?”

‘‘‘He's not the only one I've met, if that's what you mean,”' was her obtuse reply. “But he's the only one round here for miles.”

‘And there, you have it – the seed that was planted in my head with her innocuous sentence that would grow over some years into something of a preoccupation of mine. She was very clever, that woman, perhaps one of the cleverest I've met. She could read me and I feared it.

‘She told me that I'd be wise to put it out of my mind and make nothing more of it than what it was – a rarity that meant little. She could see what it could mean, and had done from the beginning of it, I presume. For her own reasons she wished it not to be used in such a way. She also took great pains to play Oaker down. I suppose it was obvious the impression he'd made on me; that he made on everyone young and impressionable. I was angered by her interference, by her accurate assessment of me, and wouldn't listen. She was correct on every point, however.

‘When I found Oaker it was in the square, surrounded by his admirers. He saw me and a smile broke across his face as if we had that afternoon shared the most glorious joke. He called my name and I went to him, but stood my ground in front. He asked me what was wrong in a most patronising tone.

‘‘‘You left me on the riverbank,” I said.

‘‘‘Grad take me, have you been sitting there all this time?” he exclaimed in his knowing fashion. “I thought you cleverer than that, you know it.”

‘I was going to tell everyone what he could do. I was so angry at him. I wanted to ruin his smug little life. He wouldn't see it that way at first. He would celebrate the awe it would inspire, but the awe would eventually turn to fear and mistrust. People would see him for what he really was.

‘People would see the truth of him.

‘I hoped that he might still be able to care about me. But of course everything his mother had said about him was right. He'd done his trick to bask in my heightened adoration, and couldn't understand why I was angry. So to defend himself, he mocked me in front of everyone. Called me names. When I thought of all the things I'd done for him, things that would irreparably damage my reputation, it was as if he could see them on my face and seized on them, speaking them out loud. His friends looked at me with shock, loathing, and pity. The pity scratched at me like a knife, as he knew it would. It was a fight, only with words. He'd scored the first wound, and if I let him, would deliver the killing stroke.

‘So I did it. I said it out loud to all of them. I told them all what he could do, and they laughed at me. But Oaker did what I hoped he would do – he backed me up. And then he went further. In front of all of them, he disappeared again. It was as incredible as it had been the first time. One boy sprang up, burst into tears, and ran straight home to his mother, who he told. It was all over the village by the morning. It took less time than you would think for people to credit it. The son of a witch would of course have such tendencies. There would be questions asked about how he did it, what he used it for, why it had been kept secret. There would be fearful looks, hateful looks, suspicious whisperings. There would be judgement and blaming him for things that went wrong. It would get worse, and worse.

‘But before it came to that, I'd written to my mother to send me a carriage home. After that evening in the square I never again sought his company or looked him out. He never approached me for reconciliation or apologies, and I knew, at last and for certain, that he'd never cared for me in the slightest, that my hopes on that score had been ridiculous, founded on my own imaginings, that he'd played on them as he did on everyone's, that he'd known how I felt and used it to his advantage. So I felt nothing for what I'd done, because it was a just punishment.'

Frith stopped, then.

White uncovered his mouth, which he had been gripping with his hand like some imitation of a woman's feigned gesture of horror. Frith seemed quite calm now, his earlier agitation dissipated. He looked up at White, who returned the gaze out of pride, but couldn't hold it.

‘Why did you tell me this?' said White, giving in.

‘The hedgewitch whose apprentice has come to my attention,' said Frith, ‘is the same mother of Oaker I encountered all those years ago. So now you can understand my apprehension. She has no call to help me and may even do something foolish while I'm visiting there. I'm not sure. She's unpredictable.'

‘Do I remind you of that boy?' said White, before he could stop the stupid, stupid words coming out.

Frith only smiled, and said nothing.

‘What happened to him?' said White, while inside his head he shouted at himself to shut up.

‘I don't know. I actively never tried to find out. But I will, I suppose, once I get there. He's never been recruited, even though I have a person in place down there, so I assume he either left the village a few years ago or is dead.'

Dead was such a casual word in Frith's mouth. White felt his skin prickle and willed himself to remain neutral.

The story and the message had been clear enough, though, and White had not forgotten it; no matter how much he had tried. He knew why Frith had told him. Somewhere inside his head, in a box he never opened, he knew.

And now, between them, there was Rue.

‘Wake up.'

Rue ignored the voice. She had been having a very pleasant dream about being able to fly and was fairly certain the voice had nothing to do with it. In any case, it was not time to get up yet.

Or was it? She opened one eye, seized with middle-of-the-night panic that she'd somehow overslept and someone had been sent to see if she was all right.

Her clock was showing twenty past two, and there was no crack of light slicing across the floor from the gap in her curtains, so it was quite definitely the middle of the night. The delicate little filigree numbers on her clock glowed gently in the darkness.

‘You have to get up now, Rue. We don't have much time.'

‘Who's there?' she croaked.

‘Who else would it be?' said the voice. She recognised it, she was sure, but it sounded rougher than she remembered. She turned her head, peering into the gloom.

There he was, a shifting shape at the end of her bed.

‘Get up,' he said. The sharpness in his voice stung. He didn't usually talk like that, not to her.

‘Go away,' she snapped. ‘I'm sleeping.'

His voice became softer. ‘I'm sorry, my sweetheart. But we only have a few hours and this has to be done tonight. It has to.'

Rue sat up, caught. ‘What has to? What's going on?'

The silver-eyed boy would say nothing more. All he did was twirl about the room impatiently while she dressed. As soon as she had pulled on her winter coat, he had her hand.

‘What's going on?' she said again, trying to stall him. He was making another Jump with her, she could tell. And again so quickly, giving her no time to prepare herself. It came easily to him. It was still frightening to her. He didn't seem to understand that.

‘Rue, my love, I'm going to show you something,' said the silver-eyed boy. He was looking straight ahead, grasping her hand so tightly her fingertips were buzzing. ‘Something you must see for yourself. And then I'm going to tell you a story. But you must make up your own mind about what you think of it all.'

Before Rue could make anything of this, she was pulled into the Jump.

When she came through to the other side, she thought it had gone wrong. Her nightmares about being stuck mid-Jump came back to her; trapped in an in-between place with no light, no sound, no heat and no life. A nothing that would go on forever. Lost and alone in the middle of it, on and on, and on. Until she died.

The darkness here was not absolute, though. As her nausea passed and her aching chest eased, the panic faded with it. Gradually, she made out differences in the black all around her; varying shades of shadow. The silver-eyed boy's hand squeezed her own. She was grateful for his comfort.

‘Stay close,' he said in a soft voice. ‘We'll need to walk a little. Don't be alarmed – we are somewhere real.'

They started to walk. The ground was solid and flat as if paved, but seamless, unlike the city cobbles she knew. It was not that dark, once you became accustomed to it. She could see enough now to know that they stood in a tunnel, though they were somewhere in the middle of it, for the light was the same whichever way she looked.

‘Which country are we in?' she whispered. They seemed to be alone, but the air carried sound and their footsteps echoed alarmingly. The ceiling was high, too high to feel unnaturally close.

‘An old one,' said the silver-eyed boy. ‘This is one of a vast series of tunnels and halls built underneath a great city. They seem to go on forever, though they don't. They were built a long time ago as a place of protection for the people above ground, in times of war.'

‘We're underground?'

‘Yes. Don't worry. There's more light the further in we go, and I have light with me.'

‘Put it on, then,' said Rue, attempting to be casual.

‘Not yet. These tunnels were built by very clever men in great secrecy. There was a time when this country was threatened by everyone around it. It was small, insignificant. Its neighbouring countries had built weapons, Rue, weapons that with one blast could destroy an entire city, kill everyone in it, and burn it to the ground.'

His voice had become stronger and echoed forcefully, expanding out from them in invisible clouds of sound. Rue was silent. Such a weapon was so ridiculous, she couldn't even conceive of it. He had shown her things she could accept, even as she marvelled at their existence. This she could not. Who would build such a thing? Someone who could destroy whole cities would be a god. They would also be the most reviled and feared person who ever lived. Why?

‘These tunnels,' came his voice again, ‘were built so that should such a threat occur, the people of the city could escape the horror above and live here in relative safety until the danger had passed. As they had no real defences of their own against such weapons, it was the only way they could think of to survive.'

‘They would stay here? In the dark?'

‘Well, and so the tunnels all used to be lit. But after such a long time, the lights don't work very well any more. The core generators are no longer powerful enough. Closer to the centre, most basic systems are still running, though.'

Rue ignored this. Sometimes the silver-eyed boy forgot himself and spoke to her as if she were his equal, using words and concepts she had no grasp on how to begin understanding. She tried not to resent it. She should be grateful that he could sometimes mistake her for being as clever as that.

‘But you see, Rue, though this place is big, it's designed to comfortably accommodate a small number of people. They had supplies, systems, medicines, comforts enough for only five thousand.'

‘But what about the rest of the city?'

His voice sounded triumphant. ‘So glad you asked. The five thousand chosen few were carefully selected on the basis of wealth, class and usefulness. These people were secretly tattooed with a special symbol on their heads, underneath their hair. If you had such a tattoo, when the threat came, you'd go to a specially designated entrance to the tunnels and show the gatekeepers your tattoo. Then, and only then, you'd be allowed to reach safety.'

She already knew the answer, but felt compelled to ask. ‘What about everyone else?'

‘If they knew of the tunnels' existence and managed to find one of the gates, they would not be allowed entry. If they pressed the issue, they'd be killed.'

Rue shook her head. ‘That's ridiculous. Everyone else would die.'

‘Of course. And there were a lot more people living in the city than there are now.'

‘But why wouldn't they let them in?'

‘Well, the richest automatically gained entrance. After all, their money had helped pay for the tunnels' creation in the first place. It was only fair, in their eyes. After that, it was a matter of those with the best genes. Those who came from the most aristocratic families, the purest of blood.'

‘But why? That doesn't make sense.'

‘It did to them. If they were going to lose the vast majority of the city population, it made sense they would save only the best, to create future generations of only the best.'

‘Why are we here?' said Rue. This country sounded awful. It was nothing like any of the incredible places he had taken her to see so far. Why show her this?

‘You should know all sides of life, Rue. You should be shown what is kept from you.'

Rue struggled to keep up with all of this. They had been walking throughout the conversation. It was late. She was tired. Her mood was turning incredibly sour.

‘Near enough,' said the silver-eyed boy suddenly. She looked around, surprised. The light was much brighter now, but it had been growing so gradually she hadn't noticed. ‘Let's see how far we can get.'

He took something from his pocket that she couldn't see. There was a short pause. Then an explosion of fierce, painful light. She screwed her eyes shut and fell. Her back scraped the floor.

When she opened her eyes, they burned and she had to squeeze them into slits. She could just make out the silver-eyed boy standing straight with light spilling from his hand like water. It moved quickly, sluicing along the floor and crawling up the tunnel walls. Whatever surface it touched glowed brightly after it had left. The whole thing was over in seconds.

Now she could see everything. The walls were neatly constructed from something like stone, but there were no lines where there would be with brick. She could see how big the tunnel really was. She could see a groove halfway up the walls, like a deep cut. It ran as far as the light reached, and beyond. And she could see that they were not alone, and had perhaps never been since they first stepped foot in this place.

There were people, as startled by the light as she had been; some of them were on the ground. The rest were shielding their eyes, tears streaming down their faces.

‘Who you?' said one boldly. He had moved forwards while everyone else had stumbled back. ‘Who you, aye? You foreign. That why you down here?'

‘I'm just a visitor,' the silver-eyed boy replied. His voice was pleasant, as if he were having a conversation with a friend.

‘Visitor? What you say? No one visits.'

‘Oh, your little place here is famous; in certain circles anyway. I wanted to show it to my friend.'

The man transferred his gaze to Rue, who looked away immediately, her cheeks burning. He was gaunt and his skin was a dirty yellow. His clothes were old-looking. She'd never seen the style before. He looked ill.

‘We don't want visitors,' he said to her. ‘If you not come to help or bring stuff, get out.'

‘Rest assured, I have “stuff”, as you put it,' said the silver-eyed boy. ‘It's this pen I hold. I will give you the pen, which will make the light you just saw whenever you want it. It will also dispense a supply of medicines that will keep your family going for a very long time. But please don't think of trying to take it from me. You'll never understand how it operates, and you know it. If I don't authorise it, the technology will shut down and become useless to you. I am willing to authorise it after our visit is over, and if I feel that we've been treated well.'

The man had listened to this in silence. His face twisted in a sneer. ‘You fucken hoity types. You fucken well bred. Worse, even, you are. You're a foreigner dog. How do I know you tellen truth bout your pen thing? Don't know, do I. You fucken putan. You conn.'

This was all that Rue could understand. The man reeled off a string of words she couldn't begin to recognise, but guessed their meaning well enough. She looked at the silver-eyed boy in alarm, but he seemed calm. He waited until the litany had died down. He had put the pen away, but the light in the tunnel remained.

‘Well?' he said. ‘Do we have a deal?'

The man spat. Rue watched this in horror. Then he turned around and walked off. The others followed him. The few behind Rue and the silver-eyed boy lingered, waiting for them to move. She got up from the ground, her back flashing with pain.

‘Stay close,' he said to her in a low voice. ‘Don't worry. He wants the pen too badly.'

‘Maybe we should go,' said Rue, praying her voice sounded steady. ‘I don't want to upset anyone.'

‘Don't be silly. I'll protect you. And I haven't told you the story I promised I would.'

‘Did you tell him the truth? About the pen?'

‘Of course. I never lie. The truth is always more interesting.'

They started to walk.

‘These people living down here are outcasts,' he said, in a low tone. ‘Somehow they're different, broke the law, rebelled in some way, or generally made someone important angry. A lot of them are basically just poor, facing charges for unpaid debts, or homeless. Instead of prison or banishment, they choose to run. Some of them eventually find their way down here. They aren't exactly welcomed with open arms, but it's shelter, and protection, of a sort.'

Rue pressed close to him. Criminals. It made sense. It didn't make much sense why she had to visit them, though, instead of simply being told about them.

‘Hello, dear,' he was saying. At first Rue thought he was talking to her, but then she realised he had turned his head and was addressing a woman behind them. ‘Come up and walk beside me.'

She did, to Rue's everlasting horror. She was a scrawny thing, her lank hair twisted into rat-tails. She looked at Rue with the kind of gaze that would be considered rude anywhere else.

‘Why are you down here?' the silver-eyed boy asked her.

‘Prostitute. Law caught me. Said I could stay and be executed or leave and find somewhere else to live. Left, dint I?'

‘Bravo. A logical choice. Who here is an atheist?'

Silence as they trudged along. Eventually, grudgingly, one man spoke from the rear. ‘Me. What you gonna say about it?'

‘Nothing at all,' said the silver-eyed boy cheerfully. ‘Where I live, atheists are commonplace. It's the religious that's in the minority.'

Rue couldn't help herself. She turned around to look at the man who had spoken. He glared at her. She'd been hoping to see something of Fernie in him, the only other atheist she had ever met. But he was nothing like her.

‘I know an atheist,' she said. ‘She said gods were pointless and no one should believe in 'em. It's not spoken of, as such, but there's nothing wrong with it, I don't think. People should believe what they want.'

There was a sardonic amusement in the atheist's voice. ‘She ever get stones thrown at her in the street? Ever get her door kicked in and her stuff broken? Her family threatened?'

‘No,' said Rue, feeling ashamed. ‘It's better, where I'm from.'

‘Where you're from?' he said with a sneer. ‘You Angle Tar, ain't you?'

Rue swelled with pride. ‘Yes, I am,' she said. ‘You know it?'

Someone walking just behind her laughed, and she flinched. The atheist sounded even more disdainful, if it was possible, than before.