The Stolen Child (51 page)

It almost made her angry, the way the girl could seem so genuinely perplexed.  She could feel the last pieces falling into place, as a cold certainty clenched at her stomach.  Arsha turned to look at her, eyes wide and frightened.
 

“
What does he mean, Rach?”
 

When Rachael spoke, it was almost like she was hearing the words from a far distance.  She felt numb.  Disconnected.  Like a passenger in her own body.
 

“
He means you, Arsh.  It was you all along.”
 

“
But how?”
 

“
That was the question that tore at my mind for many years,” Manindra said smoothly.  “At first I suspected a warding, but no ward could ever have been that effective.  Besides, a warding might have kept you safe from the rest of the Guild, but I knew the truth.  No, he needed something more permanent.”
 

“
He traded your fates,” Justin said, his voice hollow.  “That's what lead me to you, in London.  That's why the Seed called out to you.”
 

Manindra nodded.
 

“
A very old piece of Fatework.  One that I had almost forgotten existed.  He took all of your mother's power from you,
and gave it to your ersatz sister here.  Severed from your legacy, you were of no more use to me, and concealed beyond the Veil the recipient of your power would have been almost impossible to find.  It wasn't until my spies in the Chamber of Foresight picked up word of the Seed that we were able to narrow our search.”
 

“
You mean your daughter told you,” Rachael said, coldly.
 

“
Not wittingly,” Manindra replied, with a sharp gleam in his eye.  For a moment no one spoke, as Manindra turned to look over at Reuben again.
 

“
Ironically,” he continued, “in your attempt to stymie young master Ben Mahir, your blood rite undid your father's hard work, returning to you the Fate which you had been so cruelly denied.”
 

He turned to look back at Rachael, lip twisting cruelly.

“In that, at least,” he said, “your worthless vagabond proved to have some value after all.”

A haunting silence fell across the room.  Rachael could feel her hands clenching at her sides.  Part of her wanted to scream.  Part of her wanted to launch herself at the man, to tear him to pieces with her bare hands.  And yet, she did nothing.  That cold, numb feeling had seeped into every part of her body.  She seemed to no longer be in control.  She felt powerless, immobile.
 

When Reuben spoke, his voice was soft, almost pleading.
 

“Manindra…
Lord Bhandari…  If this is true, if one of the Dreamwalkers still lives, then we must proceed with caution.  That kind of power could be incredibly dangerous.  Please, let me bring this to the Inquisition.  They have resources that could help you.  This is a matter for the entire Guild.”
 

Manindra turned to look at him, and shook his head, sadly.
 

“
But as you pointed out mere moments ago, my boy, I am rather beyond reasoning with the Guild.  For your father's sake I had hoped that you at least might be saved, but I think that has proven a forlorn hope.”
 

He sighed, and turned to his son.
 

“
Rakesh.”
 

“
Sir
,”
Rakesh nodded.
 

“Make it clean.”

“
As you wish,
” Rakesh
replied
.  
At
his
gesture, two of Korban's men stepped forward as
Reuben
began to rise from the chair, a panicked expression on his face.  The men caught him by the shoulders and began to force
him
from
the
bridge
, in spite of his struggling.
 

Manindra turned to Korban and continued to speak, over the sound of Re
uben
's terrified pleading.  “Get everyone back aboard the Jyoti, then scuttle this vessel.  Be thorough.  
N
othing may remain.”

As Re
uben
struggled, one of the guards calmly smashed
the man's
nose in.  A fountain of blood came gushing down
Reuben
's shirt, spilling down onto the floor.  Manindra turned to look with a disapproving glare.  Then they were gone, and Rakesh calmly followed them out.

“
We'll
lay whitefire charges from bow to stern.  She'll burn to
cinders
before she touches
the
ground,” Korban said,
barely seeming to have noticed the interruption
.  
A moment later one of his men spoke up.
 

“
Commander, we just received a message from the Jyoti.  The Triskelion set sail from the Citadel, not long after we did.  Looks like they've been following us.”
 

“Good,” Manindra said.  “I'd hate for young Rishi to miss out on all of this.  Just keep us far enough ahead of them,
Commander
.”

Rachael felt Arsha clutch at her arm unsteadily, looking as if she might be about to throw up again.  Even Justin, despite his outward calm, was clearly uneasy.  She could see it in his eyes.

An awful silence settled over the bridge.  Then Manindra
turned to look them over with an imperious gaze.
 

“Make haste, gentlemen.  London awaits us.”

They were lead out onto the deck.  Drifting close by, matching speed with the The Dawning Light, was a
sleek white vessel with a stripe of crimson across its flank.  The name 'Jyoti' was painted on the prow in letters of gold.
 

A rope bridge connected the decks.  They were lead across, empty sky beneath their feet as the
bridge
swayed and clattered.  
Once inside
they were
shown
to separate rooms.  Rachael was thankful for that.  As the door closed and the lock clicked shut, she fell down on her knees by the narrow bed, pressing her face into the sheets.  The soft linen grew wet with her tears as she screamed until her throat was raw.

Three more days passed.  She did not bother to dress.  She refused showers.  She ate when she was told to.  In the empty hours she sat and stared at the far wall, as everything around her seemed to turn to grey.

After three days, they came for her.  Clothes were pressed into her hands, and she put them on without any thought.  
The
n the
y brought her out onto the deck.  The ship was still, hanging over a familiar landscape.  Manindra stood at the prow with his son at his side.  Justin and Arsha were already
waiting
.  She walked towards the railing,
her movements wooden and lifeless,
and looked out at the city below.

London was not the same.  Somehow, she had held in her mind the idea that this one thing would not betray her.  The streets that she had known so well could not possibly be reinvented like this.

What she saw was a kind of elegant, impossible chaos.  The entire skyline had been overwhelmed by a forest of rust red towers that stretched into the sky like frail and gnarled fingers, desperately reaching for the clouds above.

One needle of twisted metal towered above all the others, a slender spike of iron that seemed to pierce the sky.  It was impossibly tall, the highest towers of Southbank seeming like dots beside it.  
It took her a moment to recognise a shape in the water, at the tower's base.  The twisted remains of Tower Bridge, half sunken in the Thames.  The tower had grown from the spot where the Shard once stood.  Nothing of that fine sliver of glass remained.
 

“Did we do all this?”
s
he said
, looking over at Justin
.  
Immediately she wished she hadn't spoken.  In the shock of it all,
she had forgotten that he wasn't hers anymore.
 

She was surprised to see him turn to her and nod.
 

“God... It's horrible,”
she said.
 

“No.  It's beautiful,”
h
e said,
his
eyes shining with earnest intensity.  “We've changed the world.  Everywhere, everyone will know about this.  They can't hide, they can't forget about it.  It's too big, too strange.  It's... Impossible.”

“Why would you want that?”
s
he said.

“
Think about it Rachael.  No one will ever suffer the way we did.  They'll finally understand.  They'll see the world as it is.
”

She said nothing.  She had nothing to say.  She just stared at her city, so monstrously transformed, not sure if she was astonished or appalled.

She noticed the sound of the ships engines
rising
in pitch.  They were were descending, the
prow
beginning to gently incline towards the tallest of the spires.  Towards the
Seed
.

They were loaded onto one of the slim white skiffs, like the one they had used in their flight from Manindra's estate, and Rakesh took the controls.  Two guards went with them, but Korban remained aboard the Jyoti.  Rachael was grateful for that much at least.  She was less happy to see Justin setting himself down across from where she and Arsha sat.

The little skiff lifted off from the side of the larger vessel, and they began to descend towards the tower.  She wondered if anything of the Shard remained.  Far below, she could see that the tower of rusted iron seemed to have pushed the buildings aside, pushed up through the ground itself.  It was like something that had grown.  Whatever stood there before, it must have been completely destroyed.  She wondered if this was the Seed they all talked about.  Or maybe it was what grew from the seed.  It was all so confus
ing
.

Perhaps two-thirds of the way towards the top
of the tower she saw vast archways that lead within.  The mouth of each archway
was
easily large enough to accommodate their tiny vessel, but further in the passageway narrowed sharply.  Rakesh set them down on the platform
below
and they disembarked.  Manindra took the lead, as the guards flanked them on either side.  Somehow Justin ended up between herself and Arsha, as Rakesh brought up the rear.

The narrow passageway ended in a round chamber, maybe twenty feet across, with no apparent exits.  The only other opening was
above them, the chamber stretching upwards into the distance, the ceiling so high that she couldn't even make it out at all.
 

She wondered what the point of this place was.  It seemed to be nothing more than a large and empty alcove.  Then she noticed the tracks running up both sides of the chamber, their insides line with teeth, like gears.  A moment later she felt the room shudder, and the ground shifted slightly.  Then, with the sound of heavy machinery lurching into motion, they began to rise.

As
the platform gained speed,
she felt Justin move closer to her.

“I'm sorry,”
h
e said, his voice
kept low enough that only she would hear it over the clattering of the gears
.  “If I'd known, Rachael... I would have told you, I swear.  But I'm going to get you out of this.  That's the deal I made with Manindra.  We help him, he lets you go.”

“And Arsha?”
s
he
said
, her voice
a
sharp
hiss
.

“She goes with him.  To her mother.  She'll be safe, I promise.”

“If you gave a damn about either of us, you wouldn't
have
let none of this happen,”
s
he
said
.

“Rachael, there's nothing else I can do.  The Guild men... They put a binding on me.  I can't change.  There's nothing I can do to help.  Look, just... Just do as he says.  
You'll be OK.
  We'll all be OK.”

Rachael said nothing.  Moments later, the platform rattled to a halt.  A corridor seemed to encircle the tower in either direction, light streaming in through tall windows that lined
every inch of the outer wall.  Ahead of them stood a grand archway and a darkened tunnel that she imagined lead toward the centre of the tower.  Inevitably, it seemed, that was where they would be going.
 

Manindra lead them into the darkness, their footsteps echoing off the walls as they proceeded together.  The way was only barely lit by the lantern that Rakesh carried.  Finally, the tunnel came to an end.  
The chamber
they entered
was vast, an open circular space that
was wide enough to hold a cathedral,
and rose up into a high domed ceiling formed from curved spars of iron.  Between the ribs of the dome it was filled with a smoky black glass that barely let any light in, save for where it had chipped and cracked away, allowing shafts of brilliant sunlight to punch through into the dark of the chamber.  The floor was hard sheet iron.  
Everything was covered in a fine patina of rust.
 

At the centre of the room lay a vast pit that seemed to
descend
into the depths of the tower.  In the middle of the pit stood a pillar, connected to the chamber by a single footbridge without railings or handholds.  No guardrails lined the pit either.  
J
ust a sharp edge and a sheer drop.  The pillar rose up in its centre to form a plinth, as if a statue might stand there.  
However t
he plinth was empty.  
There was o
nly a shimmering in the air above it, like a heat haze.

“Is that it?”  She said, unable to keep the question to herself.

“That's the gateway,” Justin affirmed.  “
But it's not open yet
.  It doesn't have a destination.”

“So where does it go?”
s
he said.