And just as I caught my balance the lamp flew out of my fingers, clanked off the ceiling
and bounced down into the centre of that awful channel, which swallowed it greedily. There was an instant’s yellowish glow under the scummy surface, and then it went out. I could swear the damn stuff burped.
Darkness descended. I said a word, very loudly. Down there it could have been a comment, a definition, an invocation even or just a sort of general description. As a swearword it didn’t seem
anything like adequate.
In fact, I was stuck for one that did; so I had to calm down and do a bit of thinking instead. No way was I going to go delving around after the lamp. Even if it wasn’t broken, it had probably begun to corrode already – or been digested.
Just creeping
forward, though, seemed harder than ever. OK, I’d seen which way I was going – or thought I did. I’d been had that way
before. But what choice was there? I couldn’t just—
Couldn’t I, though?
I looked down at where I thought my fingernails ought to be. They weren’t; but a few inches over a sort of feeble firefly glimmer registered against nothingness. I thought of Kelley, and suddenly ten ghostly fingers were outlined in writhing fire. It looked spooky as hell, but I concentrated and the glow grew. Slowly the
tunnel outlined itself around me, in starker shadows than before, looking like an antechamber of hell. Only – was that the same entrance, or had I got turned around somehow in all that folk dancing?
Even as the thought formed, the light swelled and swept forward, picking out the painted numbers I’d seen, and the cable trunking. Wild. Was it showing me the right way? Could it show me the way out,
to my own time, or something like it?
A fat spark sizzled in the air. Light speared down the sewer tunnels, stabbing at the distant roof. Somewhere down there? Well, where else had I to go? I plodded on, more carefully now. The bias of the light stayed the same. Excitedly I pressed on, and on. An outflow opened, but the light seemed to avoid it, still pointing further ahead. Well, why not? All
I needed now was Tinkerbell.
Hastily I cancelled
that,
and hurried on. If wishes were horses, beggars would have a hell of a feed bill.
It didn’t seem to be any time at all before the light positively played on something ahead, a yellow steel-caged ladder, with all sorts of little safety symbols all over it – hard hats, protective clothing, that kind of thing, just so you didn’t come down here
in a ball gown and tiara. Signs of the times, if ever I saw them.
I splashed forward
excitedly. Even that God-awful vomit yellow looked so fresh and cheerful after the basic brown décor down here, with snot-green embellishments. I had to fight down an urge to hug it and burst into tears. Instead I climbed, swiftly, feeling as if long, stinking years of history were trickling off my boots. At
the top there was a heavy steel trap, very modern-looking. And locked, but that couldn’t stop me now. A needle of fire spat from one fingernail and the lock dropped away into the depths with a long, nasty splish. Still cautious, though, I levered the trap up gently, and saw paving stones, a big glass shop window full of books. Slowly, savouring the moment, I tipped the trap back with a clang and clambered
stiffly out.
Mild airs blew around me, and probably regretted it. A wide, quiet street under the gentle blanket of a spring evening, a tree-lined boulevard with brightly painted bus shelters, power lines, TV aerials, a couple of parked cars, the odd hoarding—
Still Prague, evidently. The book titles looked like alphabet soup. I didn’t mind that anymore. This would do. This would do nicely, thank
you.
Now to find the cops, and the British Consulate. I had bashed my head enough times to raise a few lumps, and I probably smelt like the vultures’ cage at the zoo. Clearly I was a respectable British tourist who’d been robbed, beaten and thrown down a sewer, was understandably a bit confused, and needed to be flown home and tucked up in a nice hospital with hot and cold running nurses.
I
took a deep
breath. And then all I had to do was get as far as possible from the Spiral, and never, ever even dream of using that power again …
Only I’d used it to get here, hadn’t I? Oops. But only briefly. I’d already known roughly where I was going. They couldn’t have led me here—
Where was everyone?
There was a godawful rumble, a bellowing snarl that echoed between the high buildings. I
know how engines sound, but this one was new, sounding like a kingsize bulldozer over-revving, with a blatting exhaust note. Only bulldozers don’t generally come with shouts and screams attached.
It was like a monster movie the way the crowd came around the corner, running and looking back at the same time. But what came after them wasn’t a giant tarantula or the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it
was a huge dirty green tank.
It roared like a Beast, though, and its treads tore up the tarmac. One of them went over a parked car as it turned and flattened it into a sardine tin in one instant of screaming metal and popping glass. It glanced against a fine tall tree and the trunk bent and snapped explosively. A couple of stragglers stopped to shout and wave their fists. Its machine-gun hammered
the tarmac into a spray, and they ran wildly on.
The crowd whirled past me like a shoal before a shark, some of them plucking at my sleeve and shouting at me to run – you didn’t need to know the word. I just stood there with my face hanging out, full of a sort of dazed unreality. Then I saw the tank’s turret, with its big red star, swivel, the huge gun barrel bounce and sway in my general direction.
That was enough. I turned and bolted with the rest.
Behind me there
was one thunderous bang, an instant’s whirring whistle and the bus shelter ahead erupted in a flare of light. A great warm breath smacked me up and stung me with fragments and smashed me on to the ground. Trees and sky flew by as I rolled, stunned, among a pattering rain of hot fragments. I came to rest, winded and helpless,
my ears ringing, unable to move. The only thing in my mind was jumbled relief I hadn’t been closer. I could see a couple who had, one a youngish-looking woman, not that I could see her face; they sprawled on the street ahead, unmoving, among spreading spatters of darkness. Bitter smoke drifted across the road.
Behind me the roaring grew louder. Wheezing, stunned, I struggled to suck in air, to
force numbed limbs to obey me. Maybe I’d been torn open too, and just couldn’t feel it for shock. All I could manage was to flail myself over on my side, kicking feebly, and that didn’t help a bit. The grey-green bulk seemed to fill the world, creaking, grinding, its still smoking cannon rearing upward as if to shatter the sky and drop it on me. Less than a hundred yards away, the great metal links
whirring down over the wheels to bite and scar the very road that carried them, coming straight for me. Panic let me feel them chew at my skin, feel the appalling weight press down my chest and grow and press and press while the whirling metal ripped my ribs apart—
With my first full breath I screamed. And the tracks slowed suddenly, and stopped, maybe four feet from my face.
I fought to
get
up, at least to drag myself aside. I managed to struggle up on my arms, then slump back. No good. Above me somewhere I heard the clang of a turret, the clatter of boots on metal.
‘So what do we have here?’ enquired a guttural voice. ‘Another enemy of the people, no doubt.’
‘Look at his extravagant clothes,’ said another, female. ‘An agent of imperialism, sent to delude the people into opposition
to the lawful forces of the mutual self-defence agreement.’
Otherwise known as the Warsaw Pact, I reflected dizzily. I’d really picked it this time. Prague, 1968 – still more than ten years before I was born, when Russian and East German tanks smashed even the first faint smile off the Eastern Bloc’s face. Their pretext had been rooting out Western agents and counterrevolutionaries. Which meant
I’d come as a gift. The moment they found I was a Brit they’d start warming up the rubber hoses and crocodile clips in earnest.
‘He might perhaps be persuaded to join the people’s cause, nevertheless,’ said another voice. My ears were clearing, and my head. I almost recognised it. And did even East Germans ever really talk like that, outside the agitprop stuff?
There was a thump as somebody
jumped down off the tank. Boots and combat fatigues filled my vision, and the crude-cut stock of an AK-47 swung around as they hunkered down beside me. A long brown hand stroked my hair, and bits of bus shelter tinkled out.
‘Buon giorno, mio signor Maxie! ’
said the long-haired woman.
I hauled myself
up again, and vomited ceremonially into the road. ‘
Why –
why the hell won’t you leave me alone?’
The two women hauled me up by my armpits, leaning me against the tank. ‘Not us,
señor.
You inflict these torments upon yourself. You need never suffer any such things again.’
My head was beginning to clear, and there didn’t seem to be any major leaks anywhere. ‘Oh yeah!’ I riposted feebly. ‘I wouldn’t bloody well
be
here if it wasn’t for you! Christ, why do you want me so much? I don’t want
you!
There must be a million idiots who’d suit you better. That maniac Kelley’s just slavering for the chance—’
‘Oh, him!’ The Oriental, sitting dangling his legs from the tank’s prow, laughed his buzz-saw laugh. ‘Him we would use up, suck the pith out of in no time. You, now, you are something a little more special.’
‘Sure, dat is true,’ said the blond brigand with the Schwarzenegger accent,
lounging on the turret hatch. A bunch of soldiers clomped by, shepherding a little knot of demonstrators. They darted quick glances at me, full of fear and sympathy. ‘You, you have somet’ing, Maxie. Somet’ing we can use. Dat’s what first called to us ’bout you. Dat is what made us lure you in.’
‘Lure—’
The Spanish woman
laughed gently. ‘Well, let say we did point you i’ the right quarter. To
see your face, good sir, as the pantechnicon swung in front of you—’
‘The truck!’ I half screamed. ‘You did that? You drove me off the road? You dumped me right up to my neck in – that field, and the path, and that bloody inn – you lured me in all the way! And afterwards, at my room—’
The black man giggled. ‘Your fear did the luring, Maxie. All we had to do was, say, chivvy things along just
a tad. See, we seldom come so far into the borderlands of the Spiral. Why should we? But they called us, those two.’
‘And what then?’ sighed the Spanish woman languidly. ‘The closer we came, the more we saw, the less we liked. A stiff old booklouse with too many scruples. A sorry thug and trickster puffed up with his own cleverness. What fun would they be to serve? What excitement? So we cast
our nets as wide as we could, in that twilight hour, to ensnare any better one who might drive by.’
The truth dug its way home, ugly and humiliating like all the truths I’d been told. ‘A poor berk you could dominate! Somebody you and your master, whoever he is, wouldn’t have to obey!’
The women laughed. ‘No, no, Maxie, not so! Do you imagine we could not dominate that imbecile Kelley in an instant?
Whereas you,
caro signor
—’
I tasted the bilious aftertaste of vomit. ‘Beg pardon? I mean, this is me we’re talking about. I know me, remember!’
‘That is just what you do not do,
señor
Maxie. Consider the you that is behind the wheel of a fast automobile – the you that weaves through the lesser citizens in your path, overtaking all, stopping for none. That is your satisfaction,
si, como no?’
‘Yes. OK, I’ve never found—’
‘But that is because you have power over cars, is it not? Cars only. Cars you can take from those who lord it over you. But what if you had such power in all other walks of life?’
I stared.
For the first time they seemed to be talking something almost like sense.
The other woman’s hard fingers traced down my cheek. ‘Let us be your auto,
señor –
and drive us through
your world, as you will. Then no truck will stop you, and no cop catch you, however hard they chase!’
‘That’s the kind we’ll follow!’ laughed the black man.
‘Ar!’ agreed the piratical type. ‘Some’un as knows he’s been born, take my meanin’?’
‘Someone,’ agreed the Oriental smoothly, ‘who has enough wits to take hold of life – however little use they have made of them, until now. Someone through
whom we can live again, as once we did in our turn. Someone who will drain the winecups dry for us once more.’
I stared at him. ‘You’ve changed. You’ve all bloody changed. You sound – more intelligent. More persuasive. As if you know more about me …’ A thought shivered through me. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? You’re getting it from me! The closer you get to me, the weaker I am, the more you can – what?
Read my mind?’
The curly-haired
woman shrugged. ‘
Si, como no?
Is that so bad? That we hold up a mirror to show you are better than you think? We have lived our lives, long, long lives – and there is only so much living any one mind can do, even with the power we have gained. But with that power you can live like a comet, blazing across the years, and us through you. As you can through others,
when your day too has turned to weariness.’
It was tempting as hell. It made an awful kind of sense. I thought of Elina, of Emilia, and the horrible emptiness in her voice, the centuries like an empty, echoing vault around her, every human experience blending into sameness.
‘Like the girl Elina – yes!’ snapped the Spanish type. ‘Why else should we have led you to her? To show you a fate that
need not be yours. You can live as long, longer, but taste life to the full! And then live again!’
‘A thing not all may do,’ nodded the Oriental. ‘Not Kelley, not much. We could ride him for a while, his crude cravings, his petty desires, as if he were a beast of burden. Dee perhaps, but he is old and withered. But you, Maxie … you can. You will! You need surrender nothing but the privacy of
your thoughts – and what is that but the ultimate loneliness of man? You need never be aware of us, unless you wish to; but when you need us, there we shall be. You need never be lonely again.’