Fearsome Dreamer (27 page)

‘It didn't take me long to fall for her after that. We spent every minute we could together. I was shunned by the rest of the group, out of jealousy I suppose, but I didn't care. Areline was all the company I wanted. That was her name. Lasarette Areline. Such a beautiful, old name. One of the oldest aristocratic families in Angle Tar, so I'm told.

‘It wasn't long before I'd noticed that White had started changing towards me. He was moody with me. In class he'd mock me in front of everyone, say things. I tried to ignore it, all the time thinking what I could possibly have done to offend him. I couldn't see it. I was blind, I suppose.'

Rue shifted uncomfortably.

‘That year was strange. Frith was never there. Something was happening that he wouldn't talk about to us, and he kept having to make trips overseas. So things felt weird, anyway. And then … well.

‘Areline and I were out one night together. She was all … quiet and withdrawn, and I couldn't get her to smile. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong, at first. But I kept asking her. And eventually, she said that the night before she and White had been in the communal study together. Once he'd seen that they were alone, he sat down right beside her on the couch. She said he was agitated. He asked her what she was doing with me. She laughed, puzzled, and asked him what he meant. And then White said … '

Wren stopped. His expression was stiff.

‘White said to her, “if I asked you to be with me, would you say yes?”'

‘Areline told him no. She said that she loved me. But he wouldn't accept it. He kept demanding an answer from her. She started getting afraid, and told him to leave. For a moment, she thought that he wouldn't. That he might even attack her. But he did leave.

‘How her words scratched at me. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe he had betrayed me like that. We were supposed to be friends. He knew how much I adored her. And he'd gone to her, like that, frightened her, tried to steal her while I wasn't there, like a coward. Who knows what else he might have done?'

Rue felt a sudden surge of nausea hit her. It wasn't possible. It wasn't. That was not the White she knew.

It couldn't be.

‘We had a Talent class the next day,' Wren continued. ‘I couldn't stop thinking about what he'd done. How he must have been thinking that he'd got away with it. Mussyer Tigh, the tutor, had us practising Jumps in pairs. White and I always paired together, being the strongest two in the class.

‘He and I were practising Jumps easily. We both found the class boring, truth be told. It was my turn. I was getting ready to go, sending myself out, you know. I was looking out into the blackness in between. There's nothing there to help you. You make it through alone, always alone. It's frightening, the first time you have to do that.'

Rue thought of the time, not so long ago, that Wren had pulled her into her first ever Jump without warning, and treated her fear like a childish fancy; but kept silent.

‘So there I was, surrounded by the nothing. And suddenly, I could feel him behind me. He'd followed me into the Jump.

‘He grabbed my neck. He kept saying that I didn't deserve Areline, and that I was a show-off, and that I would never, ever be as Talented as he was.

‘I panicked, and fought him. I knew what he was planning to do. He wanted to leave me out there, in the dark. He wanted to hurt me. Maybe even kill me. I knew it instantly. He hit me in the face, but I still managed to haul us both back to the classroom.

‘It really shocked him. He'd expected to win, you see. He'd expected me to be weak. It was such satisfaction, my dear. Such satisfaction, to see the look on his face when I got us back, and right in front of everyone.'

Wren's face had become alive in a way Rue had never seen before. She had no doubt that he felt every word he said. Every word. She never would have guessed that such smoothness could hide such pain. Such a boiling sea of passionate wrath.

But why now? said a voice inside. Why didn't he tell you this before? Why did he keep these things from you?

She ignored the voice.

‘What happened?' she said.

He laughed bitterly. ‘No one believed me. They hadn't understood what he'd tried to do. All they saw was the two of us disappear. I told them what had happened. I
told
them. But he told them, too. He lied. Said I had done to him what he had tried to do to me.'

‘But what about Areline?'

‘Her family were there before you could blink. They took her off. Out of the university and back to her home city. Back to a life she hated.'

‘No!' said Rue. ‘How could that be? How could they just take her off?'

Wren said nothing.

‘Did you ever see her again?'

‘No,' he said. That was all.

‘But,' said Rue, ‘what did Frith do? He didn't have you sent here, did he?'

She saw a slow smile creep across his face. There it was again, she thought. The smile that didn't mean happiness.

‘Of course he did,' he said. ‘No doubt he hesitated. Not out of affection towards me, but because he must always be looking to the future, when he has his army of Talented spies to do his work for him. But they're great friends, you know, Frith and White. They don't look it, but they are. Angle Tar's premiere Talented, and its most valuable spy. What a powerful pairing that is. So when White pressed Frith to arrest me, it was done in a heartbeat. He was jealous of me, and my Talent. I don't believe he'd ever met anyone with Talent equal to his own before, and he couldn't stand it. And he wanted Areline for himself.'

‘But he isn't
like
that. I'd know if he was like that!'

Wren looked at her finally. ‘Would you, really? And how would you know about what White gets up to? Does he impart his secret life to you? Does he tell you of his women?'

Women? How many was he supposed to have?

She felt her heart shrivel.

‘Rue,' came his voice. She couldn't look at him. ‘Rue, my love, listen to me. I know how you defend him. I know how he must have worked on you. He did me, and he would have for ever if he'd not made such a mistake with Areline and shown his true self.'

Rue shook her head stubbornly. ‘I've never seen a woman near him, 'cept his students.'

‘And yet now you have me to tell you otherwise.'

She was angry and ashamed. There was no point explaining why; he already seemed to know. She couldn't stand the fact that anyone could know about her most secret feelings. That was her secret. If she couldn't protect her secret, how could she protect anything of herself? She hated being shown that she was still as stupid and as easy to lie to as a newborn. She hated being let down in such a fashion, by something as commonplace and boring as someone who appeared to be one thing and was in fact another.

She looked out across the hall again. The place was emptier, but there were still swathes of people milling around. Had he really lived here?

‘So he had you arrested but they told you to escape,' she said.

‘Not quite. A friend warned me about the arrest, so I managed to leave before they found me, and I came here. I'd known about this place for a few weeks. Rumours, you understand. The children of rich families often know, and like to tell others. So before I could be caught, I'd packed anything valuable and left. The tunnel gates aren't guarded any more. They haven't been for decades. If you know where to look and how to open one, you can find your way here easily enough. It's not as bad as it looks, to an outsider. When you've nowhere to go and the rain is falling horizontally, and you feel you may never be warm again, it can seem like a gift from the gods.

‘You need to learn how it works, though. It's just like any other place where humans are packed together. People flock to groups for safety. You must belong to one of the major groups here or you'll get everything stolen. Some of the more colourful residents take a kind of pleasure in physical violence, and loners are their targets. If you hurt a group member, you're likely to expect similar retaliation from that group, so you join a group for the protection.

‘I was part of the Fourexgee. This is their hall. The groups tend to be named according to the location sequence on the doors. I tried to explore as much as possible during my time here, but it's hard to get very far – you stray into other groups' territories and they, well they find ways to encourage you not to.'

Rue tried to imagine the life she would have here. Sleeping in one of the rows of cots that lined the walls. Lining up to suck down thin soup and hard bread crusts. Sitting, staring. Talking to prostitutes and criminals.

‘Where do they get food?'

‘Upside. That's what they call Capital; Upside, or the “overground city”. They go out in small gangs and forage.'

‘But that means they're in the city. I've never seen 'em. I've never seen anyone like this walking the streets.'

‘Of course you haven't, Rue. As a university student you're encouraged to roam only the safest, richest, most beautiful areas of Capital. I'm sure you aren't even aware of the other areas. They make sure you aren't, because it's dangerous to go there, even with a chaperone. And when they raid the rich areas they do it now, when most people are asleep. You'll never see them upside, Rue. You're not supposed to.

‘You have no idea what a horrible mess this country's in. Thousands of people starve because the rich are in charge and keep everything for themselves. Children die on the streets. Do you know how many babies die in the city, because their mothers can't feed them? One in five. One in five! No wonder people turn to crime. They're desperate. But no one cares. No one cares.'

Rue listened to this in horror. How could she not have known about any of this? Why didn't they tell people? Why didn't they try to help everyone, instead of ignoring it? It wasn't fair that she got to sleep in a bed and eat as much food as she wanted. It wasn't fair that she got money every month to buy herself things that she didn't need. It wasn't fair that Lufe had so much money he had to invent more and more ways to spend it all, when they were surrounded by people who didn't even have enough to survive.

She thought about the White and the Frith that Wren presented. She had been blinded by the flattery of Talent, of being told she was gifted and special. She hadn't seen what those two men stood for. She knew that Frith was not all he said he was, but everyone knew that. She knew that White was not an affectionate person, but she had hoped it was a front to hide his true emotional depths. Now she saw she had been deluding herself.

Wren shifted beside her. She felt the warm weight of his arm drop gently onto her back. For a moment, she wanted to push him away. He had ruined everything.

But she knew it wasn't his fault. She knew she should be grateful for the truth he had given her. The illusions he had shattered, just like that.

‘This was a great nation, you know,' said Wren. ‘A long time ago. The fact that makes me laugh the most is that it was famed for its tolerance. It would welcome people from any nation across its borders, any religion, any anything. So much so that it couldn't cope with the amount of people coming here, begging to be let in. You've never seen such a colourful place. So many cultures. Not always harmonious, but interesting.' He snapped his fingers.

‘And so? It isn't any more,' said Rue tiredly.

‘You should be proud of our history, Rue. They don't teach it any more because they don't want anyone going back to the old ways. Progression! Forward thinking!' he barked.

Rue said nothing. He could be curiously light in the midst of serious situations, and it irked her.

‘Angle Tar was a great empire. The most important country in the world. But it made mistakes, and now it's nothing. It's backward and alone. In World, everyone is together, everything is shared. It's impossible to be hungry or lonely in World. You've seen. That's the way people should live.'

Actually, Rue hadn't yet seen. The box he had shown her all those weeks ago remained unopened, though he had demonstrated something called a food unit to her, on one of their dream visits. If everyone really did have a machine like that in World as Wren claimed, then that really was incredible, and right, and how everything should be, with no one lacking or hurting ever again.

The things Wren had shown her in World were impossible, and beautiful because they were impossible. She wondered what would it be like to be surrounded by that every day.

That magic.

Why didn't they have those machines in Angle Tar? Why wouldn't they want to eradicate poverty and misery? What kind of a nation would do that to its own people?

‘Why do they lie to us?' she said. ‘What's the point of it?'

‘To make you stay. Imagine how Angle Tar would be if everyone knew of World, of the incredible way of life they could have, of the technology that exists. Imagine if you said to an Angle Tarain that he could talk to someone hundreds of miles away as if they stood in front of him. Or tell him he would never be hungry again, and give him a credit chip and a food unit. What would happen to this country, then? There'd be no one in it!'

‘Why won't Angle Tar join World, then, if it's so much better?'

‘Many reasons. Pride. Stubbornness. I don't know. Offers have been made but always turned down.'

‘Where is she now, Areline? Did you ever try and find her?'

‘Rue, how could I? Do you understand how difficult it is to get back into Angle Tar once you've left? Only Talented can do it. There's no other way. All borders are closed; the only transport that reaches this island are trading cargo ships from World. They'll let you believe that Angle Tar has nothing to do with World, by the way, but they'll happily trade with them. They're not even half as self-sufficient as they'd like everyone to think.'