The Prince in Waiting (18 page)

“That our ancestors were given powers by Spirits who led them on and then, in the end, destroyed them, casting down their cities and making the earth itself spew flame.”

“It has some truth in it. Our ancestors did have great powers, they built cities in which a thousand Winchesters could be dropped and lost, they had machines in which they could fly through the air—around the world in less than a day—or see things as they happened thousands of miles away. They traveled to the distant moon. Then came the Disaster.

“The strange thing was that many men had expected it, though not in the form in which it happened. Because among the machines were machines of war: by pressing a button a man could destroy from half a world away a city so large that Winchester by comparison is but a hamlet. It was thought that sooner or later these powers of destruction would be unleashed and the world driven back to barbarism if it were not destroyed entirely. Men feared this possibility. Later the anticipation was confused with the reality.”

I asked: “What did happen?”

“The earth itself rebelled. Except that that is a wrong way of putting it: the earth is inanimate, without will or mind. But it has life, of a sort. It can change, and change violently. Men knew that in the past, the incredibly distant past before man himself existed, there had been convulsions of the earth in which vast lands were crumpled like parchment, mountains thrust into the sky, volcanoes belched fire and molten rock. There were still a few volcanoes, now and then an earthquake. Occasionally a town was shattered, a few hundred people killed. These were freaks of nature, unexpected, soon forgotten.

“Then the earth's fires, smoldering for a thousand million years, broke loose again. We do not know why. Some think it was to do with the sun, which just before showed puzzling signs—strange bursts of radiation accompanied by dark spots across its face. At any rate, the earth shook and heaved and everywhere men's cities tumbled and men died in their ruins. The worst of it did not last long, days rather than weeks, but it was enough to destroy the world of cities and machines. Those who survived roamed the shattered countryside and fought one another for what food there was.

“Gradually they came together again. They built houses to protect them from the weather—of wood, not stone, and designed as far as possible to withstand the earthquakes which still continued, though more and more rarely. They returned to their old places, at least to the villages and the small cities. Not to the large ones which were left as rubble. They did as they had done in the past—grew crops, raised cattle, traded and practiced crafts and fought. But they would have no truck with machines, identifying them with their forefathers' ancient pride and the reckoning which had followed. Anyone found dabbling with machines was killed, for fear of bringing down fresh destruction.

“They had many religions in the old days. One was concerned with what were supposed to be the Spirits of the dead and this now spread like wildfire. Seance Halls were built and in them, in the dark, the Spirits were supposed to talk to men, to guide and counsel them.

“But there were a few men, a handful, who were not content with this, who knew that machines were not evil in themselves and in fact could help us back to civilization. They dared not defy the legends—those who did were torn to pieces by the mob—but they could use them. They became Seers and took over the Seance Halls. They preached anathema to machines but preserved the knowledge of them, all the time looking for likely recruits.”

“Martin . . .,” I said.

“Yes, such as Martin. And at certain places, called Sanctuaries and so holy that no one would come near them, they built machines and worked with them. Here, and elsewhere. Do you understand now?”

“Partly,” I said. “But not why I was brought here. To work with the machines?”

Lanark smiled. “We would sooner have brought Martin. For you we have different plans, very different. Do you remember what I told you when we met in Winchester?”

“That the Spirits had a mission for me to perform.”

“There are no Spirits, that we know of, but there is a mission. I said that men recovered from the Disaster but only some men, in a few favored places. These lands are one such. Outside there are deserts and desolation, and monstrous beasts. There are also savages. They multiply fast and hunger drives them against the civilized lands. The winters have grown longer and harder because the sun's rays are weakened by dust thrown into the sky by the volcanoes. The cities themselves are beginning to feel the pinch, with farmers growing poorer crops and raising fewer beasts. Four years ago Taunton fell. Dorchester was besieged all last summer and the barbarians are at the walls again. And when a city falls to those enemies there are no ransoms—only plunder and murder, followed by fire and ruin.

“We have spoken with men in far parts of the world who share our aim of restoring civilization. Not through the pigeons; we have machines that can do this as our ancestors did. At one time there were many voices, but they grew fewer. For a year we have had no answer to our calls.

“Men's loyalties were narrowed by the Disaster. The cities, when they were rebuilt, warred fiercely against one another, each remaining sovereign and separate, violently hostile to the rest. There have been similar times in man's history. But the only hope of resisting the savages is for the cities to join together; individually they have no hope.”

I said: “So when Ezzard told my father the Spirits wished him to keep Petersfield, against all custom . . .”

“It was part of the plan. There had to be one city that would dominate and unite the others. Winchester was best for this. It is well placed, at the center of the civilized lands, and rich; and there is a memory in men's minds that once, hundreds of years ago, a great Prince ruled from there.

“But having chosen the city we needed a Prince. Stephen was no good to us, a timid, unambitious man. His son, Edmund, might have served. If there had not been someone better we should have had to use him. But Ezzard found you and when, against great odds, you won the prize at the Contest, our choice was made certain.”

“But it was only by accident that I was in the Contest at all! If Matthew had not fallen ill with a fever . . .”

“No accident,” Lanark said. “It takes no great art to raise a fever.”

I remembered meeting Ezzard in the High Street and how he had told me to make the most of my skating since it might be my last winter for it. I said:

“And everything after that . . . my father becoming Prince, the two crowns of light at the Seance . . . all these were contrived?”

“Your father's election needed skill. The crowns of light were a simple trick.”

“But the machine that burst and burst the walls of Petersfield—you could not have known that would happen!”

Lanark smiled. “Could we not? When one understands something of gunpowder it is not too difficult to make a cannon blow up. The Seer of Petersfield saw to it.”

Disbelief still lingered; and disappointment. I had thought I accepted the loss of a destiny predicted by the Spirits, but a part of me still balked. I said:

“At the Seance of the Crowns . . . there was a farmer who complained that he had paid gold to the Seer to protect his lambs but lost them all the same. And the Spirit of his grandfather's father charged him with breaking the laws by rearing polybeasts. He could not deny it. So surely it was a Spirit that spoke, and spoke truth?”

Ezzard answered: “There is not a farmer in the land who has not been guilty of the same sin. Who is to tell how many horns a cow had when it is carcass meat? I was on safe ground in condemning him.”

“And my father—he told me he obeyed your orders because it was through you he heard my mother's voice after she was dead. Was this a trick also?”

“In part, but he heard her voice. Through another machine of our ancestors. Words are trapped on something like a ribbon, which can be cut and put together again so that the words make a message that one chooses.”

A new and terrible thought came. “My mother's death . . .”

Lanark shook his head. “That was not our doing. We cannot control everything as was shown by Jeremy's capture of the city. We made use of it to help bind your father to us. But it was a blow all the same, a bitter blow. It turned your half brother against you. Because of that Ezzard had to flee with you and bring you here.”

“Your plan had failed already when Jeremy took the city.”

“Not failed. We could have worked on him. He would have let you be Prince in your father's place, thinking you a boy and powerless.”

I said angrily: “Do you think I would have taken it from his bloody hands?”

“If Ezzard had shown you a hope of revenge at the end, you would. You are a good hater.”

I knew it was true. I said:

“But it was all for nothing. Peter has the city and I am here in exile. So you have failed after all.”

Lanark shook his head. “We have lost one battle, but there will be more. While you live you are still the Prince in Waiting.”

“An empty promise,” I said, “from Spirits that do not exist.”

“Not just that,” Lanark said. “A hope also, the hope of living men.”

•  •  •

In the weeks that followed I learned many things. About polymufs, for instance. The word came from an older one, meaning of many shapes. Such freaks of nature had increased after the Disaster and it was thought they were caused by strange radiations from the sun, probably the same which were believed to have reawakened the earth's deep fires. Some, like the dwarfs, bred true, but most did not. In civilized lands men had done their best to extirpate all the freaks among animals, but mothers would not let their babies be killed. So they were allowed to live, the dwarfs as a race apart, the polymufs as servants to normal men. In the savage countries, beyond the Burning Lands, there was no control and misshapenness ran riot.

I learned about the Seers. This was not the only nor the most important Sanctuary. There was another in the ruins of the great-city which had been called London. They told me it had stretched over more than six hundred square miles and eight million people had lived in it: figures so great that one could not imagine the reality. The Seers had found a place, under the rubble, where the wisdom of the ancients was stored in books, and they quarried there for knowledge.

I learned something of that knowledge myself: not much, for my mind was not equipped to grasp it. My purpose, as they told me, was different: to help create the conditions in which knowledge could be brought from hiding and the cities made safe against the sea of barbarism which lapped all round and otherwise must rise and drown them.

And I saw the machines which could do things more marvelous than anything that had been supposed to be done by the Spirits. Machines for seeing and listening at a distance, machines that could propel a carriage ten times faster than a team of horses could pull it, machines that could detect metal under the earth, that could chill meat and keep its sweetness without salting throughout a summer, that could show strange beasts living inside the smallest drop of water . . . a score and more of wonders.

And one day burly Murphy showed me something called an induction furnace. He explained how it worked, through this power that was called electricity. He said:

“It case-hardens steel. You get a hard surface such as no ordinary forge could produce.”

I nodded, partly understanding him. He said:

“You left the jeweled sword you won at the Contest behind you, Luke. But do you remember that one day I promised you a sword of the Spirits? Even though there are no Spirits, you will have the sword: we shall make it here and I promise you no sword made by dwarfs will notch it. It will shatter anything that comes against it, if your right hand is strong enough.”

“When?” I asked. “When will you make the sword?”

“When it is time.”

“But how long will that be? I am tired of living underground, with no wind, no sunlight, no day or night except what we make ourselves.”

“We are all tired of it,” Murphy said, “but we must wait. There is a moment for striking: too soon or too late and we fail. And if we fail, all hope is gone. You must learn patience, Luke.”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder and I nodded unwilling assent. I itched to be on a horse riding through the meadows beneath St. Catherine's Hill, to see the walls of Winchester looming high before me. But he was right, and impatience was at least more easily borne than despair. The time might be long delayed, but the time would come.

Read on for a peek at the next book in the series!

T
HE SANCTUARY ITSELF LAY IN
empty downland; ordinary men did not dare approach such a holy place. The nearest habitation was at Amesbury in the Avon Valley, three miles to the east, and it was there that the white horses were kept, on which the High Seers, when they had reason to travel abroad, would ride forth. The horses were housed in the stables of the Seer of Amesbury, who at the proper time gave orders to the grooms to have them saddled and made ready for the journey.