Eclipse, p.16
Eclipse, page 16
CHAPTER 32
LEK
The room I stepped into was not dark, or murky, or ill-defined. It was white. The brightest of white. The walls were white; the ceiling and floor were also white. The fluorescent light from the square panel lights in the ceiling bounced off every surface, reflecting a painful glare.
There was little in the way of furniture. In one corner there was a pile of sacking that looked like it might have been used as a bed, a half-empty water bowl and some large bones, picked clean of any trace of meat and with huge dents and grooves ground into them, presumably by the teeth of the creature I’d seen before.
As my eyes adjusted, I saw scratch marks on the wall and a patch of darkness where the floor had been dug at until it wore away. There was a powerful smell that brought tears to my eyes.
This was certainly where the animal had come from, then, but the environment looked very different from this side of the door. I turned to look again at where I’d come from.
This didn’t seem to be any normal doorway. There was no way this room was part of the Catacombs. In different circumstances, I might have found this stranger than I did at the time, but I was taking on an Acolyte’s Trial. I had been given no indication of what I should expect. Perhaps this kind of thing happened all the time. I wouldn’t have known.
This is, or at least was, not my normal way of thinking. I guess that since this time I have become rather more used to the unexpected and inexplicable happening. Although, of course, since this time I have also got significantly better at expecting and explaining these occurrences. Regardless, I’m impressed at how well my younger self took this turn of events in his stride.
The door looked very different from that angle. It wasn’t made of wood for a start. A hole, of about the same size as the one I’d stepped through, had been torn through the metal. The twisted barbs at the edges of the hole were burned black. It must have taken a considerable amount of power to break through.
I walked back towards the hole and touched the sharp edge, the same curiosity that had burned at me only moments earlier demonstrating conclusively that, sometimes, I never learn. I pulled my hand back, again sticking my finger in my mouth to soothe the wound, tasting blood.
This door didn’t look like it worked the same way, either. There weren’t any hinges or handles, and it seemed like it would just disappear inside the wall to open. I didn’t know what would trigger it. I didn’t think it would open anymore, either. There was no need to open it anymore, to be fair.
Now that I was closer, I could see through the hole and was only a little surprised to see that it wasn’t the dark stone passageway I’d come from. It was hazy, as if shrouded in a thin mist, but it was unmistakeably a corridor. It looked to be part of the same building - the walls were white, although the floor was a grey concrete. Immediately outside the door there was a small section with black and white tiles laid out in a chequered pattern.
I stuck my head out, which was bold in comparison to how tentatively I had come through the other way. I heard a quiet popping and felt my teeth twinge, but was otherwise unaffected.
Physically unaffected, anyway. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Suddenly I was back in the Catacombs. The same stone walls and half-collapsed ceiling, the same smell of damp and dust, with a distant drip-drip-drip the only sound, all present and correct.
No snarling mutant dogs. No long white corridor, no chequerboard flooring. I swung my torch up and down the passage as a last check and then straightened up and pulled my head back into the room.
Fizz.
Buzz.
I was back. The view through the hole reverted to being the unreachable corridor.
This was odd. I could only conclude that this door was some kind of portal through space. I’d crossed through into somewhere else. It seemed to be two-way, but only for me as far as I knew. There was no sign that the dog was currently running through the Catacombs. It seemed to have stayed wherever it was meant to be and disappeared down that corridor, the one I didn’t seem to be able to get to. If that’s where the creature was, then I wasn’t concerned about not being able to get there. I thought it made me rather safer.
These were all perfectly logical, if not especially sensible, conclusions to come to. At least, they were with the knowledge I had at the time. Of course, now I know. The door wasn’t a portal through space. I didn’t travel any further than the distance my legs took me - a few paces into the room, at that point. But I did travel in time. The stone passage in the Catacombs, the long corridor in what I now know to be Research, they were are the same thing.
The building of the giant, underground Research complex didn’t begin until many years later, after Chaguartay took power. It had started small, but grown quickly, and soon ran into the same problems that anything built underground in Trinity encountered. It was part of what had put a stop to the building of the Chaguartay Line almost as soon as it had started. Half of the city of Trinity had, over the years, sunk under the surface. Its compacted form made up the Catacombs and, since it had been there first, it wasn’t getting out of the way for anyone or anything.
Not even Chaguartay, who, if the stories are to be believed, tried to detonate large amounts of explosives in the Citadel's foundation in order to clear the blockage. That, they say, is why its towers lean so dramatically.
Research was a sprawling, unplanned structure. However, an underground railway, to be of any use, needs to go from point A to point B in a reasonably straight line. Research could go around and under what was there before it. It stood to reason that, sometimes, when there was already a passageway running where a corridor needed to be, they just repurposed what was already there. That’s where I’d come from. And this was where I’d ended up. In pretty much the same spot, but about sixty years in the future.
I didn’t know that then, and I don’t know whether I would have done anything differently if I had known. I was curious, and I wanted to explore this strange new place I’d found myself in. I think I would have done the same thing if I’d known it was, in fact, a strange new time.
I marched across the room, towards a similar door that - now I knew what I was looking for - I spotted opposite the one that had been broken out of. There was still no obvious handle, or access panel, or any other method of opening the door that I wouldn’t have known to look for because I had never needed to conceive of such a thing.
So, instead, I beat on it with my fists and shouted at the top of my voice.
‘Help! Can anyone hear me?’
I paused, put my ear to the panel to hear what was on the other side of it. I could hear nothing except for a low, electrical hum. I resumed my banging.
‘Hello? Help! Help! I’m trapped!’
I hoped that someone on the other side knew what this room was used for, and that they would come to my rescue, confused how someone had become trapped in what was, essentially, a cage for a rabid animal.
There was still no response, though. Either there was no one there, or they didn’t care. I stopped banging, looked around for something else to attract attention with.
‘What are you doing in there?’ came a voice, tinny and buzzing with static.
I looked up, above the intact door, because that was where the voice appeared to be coming from, but I could see nothing.
‘Yes, up here,’ said the voice. ‘I know you can hear me. What are you doing?’
‘I’m trapped!’ I shouted at nothing.
‘No, you’re not,’ said the voice. ‘There’s an enormous hole in the door behind you. You can go out that way. Maybe you can retrieve my Hybrids for me…’
Hybrids? Plural?
I wanted to say that I couldn’t go back out that way because that way wasn’t the way he thought it was. I was keen to explore this new place. I felt certain that the next stage of my Trial, the next set of pages I needed to collect, were somewhere here. I didn’t think I was going to explain that properly, though. I didn’t really understand it myself.
‘I was trying to avoid running into him again,’ I said instead.
Him? Them?
There was a pause, radio silence. Then a crackle and a hum.
‘You’d better come this way, then,’ said the voice.
The door in front of me slid open.
CHAPTER 33
HAEZLE
It was early morning, and the roads throughout the centre of Trinity were jammed. Haezle pulled her scarf around her face, trying to filter the thick air through the dense knit and reduce the volume of particulates she was inhaling. The wool tasted of metal and oil. She suspected it wasn’t doing anything.
Estrel and Onu Lek had disappeared down a staircase into a lower level, taking several bottles of wine with them. Onu Lek had insisted it was an important part of the process. Haezle had found her own way out of the Catacombs, stuffed her robe into a cubby and marched out of the Citadel.
She was done with them. Their motivations were wrong-headed, their actions nonsensical. They seemed to have appointed themselves as some kind of guardians of time.
She’d be worried about it if she thought they were even vaguely capable of achieving any of their objectives. Then, the entire fabric of reality would be at risk. As it was, they were just going to get drunk and lost in some tunnels. She hoped they made it out in one piece, but that was all the luck she wished them.
Haezle crossed the road between the cars. They weren’t moving, so there was no need to wait to find a crossing. The texture of the surface changed with every lane, each one added separately as the TransWay had grown. Haphazard. Unplanned.
That was Trinity. Constantly expanding except, as a walled city, there was nowhere to expand. So everything just got crammed into the same spaces, buildings on top of buildings, roads on top of roads.
She picked up her feet a bit to avoid tripping over the join between the last two lanes, then turned sideways to squeeze between two vehicles that were bumper to bumper. Trinity was a mess. She looked up at the leaning towers of the Citadel. It helped when the buildings that were already there sank down into the ground. It made room for the new stuff.
Onu Lek and Estrel were under there, down in the Catacombs. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if they blew the whole place up. Maybe they could travel back to the start, to the beginnings of Trinity. They could have a quiet word with the Founders, get them to do things differently.
Maybe they could get them to skip building the walls. Maybe they could get them to look after the Tree. See, she thought, as she tripped up on the pavement. I have good ideas. I wouldn’t waste the opportunity to fix things. I’d make a difference.
Haezle paused to let a knot of youths pass, then nipped across the wide walkway ahead of the wave of factory workers that were headed the other way, chattering and bouncing on their way home from a night shift. They seemed energised by each other’s company.
It wasn’t like that in the Citadel. She couldn’t imagine laughing with her fellow Readers. She didn’t even have that kind of relationship with Isaak, who she considered a friend. If she thought about it, she wasn’t sure what he would find funny. She’d never seen evidence of a sense of humour.
When she thought about it like that, it didn’t seem like somewhere she belonged. Given what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, maybe she didn’t anymore. Maybe she needed a new career.
Haezle ducked down a narrow alley, cutting through between the shops on the strip to the yard beyond. Her foot splashed in what she hoped was a puddle, but might have been something altogether more unpleasant. She didn’t look down. It was usually best not to.
About halfway down the alleyway, the overpowering smell of urine began to be overpowered itself, eclipsed by burning herbs, pungent and tacky. Haezle stopped breathing through her mouth, and welcomed the scents of home, spice and vinegar floating in before she stepped into a wave of hot fat, sizzling meat that she could almost taste on the breeze.
The courtyard beyond the alleyway was filled with lean-tos and shelters made from iron and canvas and the occasional brick or concrete block, although those were scarce. Even with the amount of building happening in any part of Trinity at any one time, Administration had every site locked down, and it was hard to salvage anything.
This was a messy, chaotic settlement. To Haezle, it was home. To a significant proportion of the politicians in the Dome, it was an eyesore that needed eradicating. They described their homes as shacks, the courtyard as a shanty town. The residents of the courtyard called them tents, and the courtyard was the Commons. It was a way of life, one that they had no choice about, but one that they embraced, anyway.
Haezle tiptoed across the central Commons. It was early, and she didn’t want to wake anyone who didn’t want to be woken. The carefully stacked pots and pans, and the benches and fire pits that filled the centre, were a trip hazard. One that, if triggered, would make a noise that would raise the dead.
On the far side of the Commons, there was a door set into the wall. Negotiating her way across without incident, Haezle approached it and tapped lightly at the small window in the middle of it.
A face appeared in the glass, indistinct through the grime and grease on one side and the grey pollution coating the other. She didn’t need to recognise it, though. She knew who it was, and it seemed the face knew her too, because the door opened and she slipped inside.
Konoroz was dressed in singed whites, a blue apron around his waist, the long ties of which were wrapped multiple times around his ample waist, tied too tight so that they looked like they were going to cut him in half. He turned back to the grill, inspecting some patties, tipping them up with his slice, letting them fall back with a slap and a sizzle. The last one he flipped, satisfied that it was sufficiently well done on the underside.
Haezle breathed in the aroma of Konoroz’s grill. The foul odours of the street were gone. In here was only warmth and nourishment.
‘You’re up early?’ asked Konoroz.
‘Up late.’ Haezle stifled a giveaway yawn and took a seat on top of a box.
Konoroz nodded, giving her a sideways smile.
‘Not like that! I was at work.’
‘They’re working you too hard, those monks.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure if I have a job anymore.’
‘Something went wrong?’
Konoroz reached into a box underneath the grill, which wasn’t much more than a metal sheet attached to a gas burner, and produced a flatbread, which he dropped onto the hot plate, moving it around to pick up fat and flavour before leaving it to crisp.
‘I don’t know if there’s anything left for me to do, if I’m honest. There’s a problem with my book.’
‘So? Read another book. I know you’re fond of your old monk but…’
Konoroz waved the tongs in his other hand in the air to signify something that Haezle couldn’t necessarily identify, but completely understood.
‘I don’t know. It doesn’t usually work that way,’ she sighed. ‘And I haven’t exactly parted with Onu Lek on the best terms.’
‘Hmm?’
Haezle took a deep breath.
‘I might have told him he was a selfish idiot with a god complex, who was more interesting in puzzles to solve than the people whose lives represented said puzzles. Not in so many words, but I think he got the hint.’
‘Is that true?’ asked Konoroz, turning his attention away from the grill and raising an eyebrow. ‘It sounds like it might be true?’
‘Oh, definitely true. I effectively accused him of being a man.’
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Haezle felt suddenly awkward.
‘I mean… not you, of course. I mean, you’re a man, but not…’
She realised that Konoroz’s shoulders were shaking with the effort of not laughing.
‘Whatever.’
Haezle folded her arms. She could hear the shouts of children from outside the galley, running footsteps hammering past the door. The Commons were coming to life.
‘People are waking up, they’ll be wanting their breakfast soon,’ said Konoroz. ‘Pass me that cooler.’
Haezle looked around, but couldn’t see the cooler he was referring to.
‘You’re sitting on it.’ Konoroz gestured to her seat with his tongs.
Haezle flushed with stupid embarrassment.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, standing up and heaving the cooler up by its plastic handle. It was much heavier than she was expecting. ‘What’s in here?’
‘Heavy fish,’ said Konoroz.
Haezle wasn’t certain if that was just an adjective, or actually the name of the fish. She would have asked, but the effort of carrying the chunky box all of three feet left her gasping and breathless.
‘You’re not kidding,’ she spluttered as she straightened up.
Konoroz bent and pulled the lid off the cooler, tossing it into the far corner. A cloud of air escaped, surrounding Haezle with a gust of wet fish, rotten eggs and cheese left out in the sun. She gagged, then choked a little, bringing her hand to cover her mouth and nose. It was rather too late.
‘Is that stuff OK?’ she croaked from behind her hand. ‘It smells rank.’
Konoroz grinned, removing whole fish from the box with his tongs and slapping them onto the grill.
‘Old fish is the best fish. Tastes like experience.’
To be fair to Konoroz, the moment they hit the grill the evil stench was burned away, and Haezle got a tantalising hint of crispy skin and succulent flesh underneath. To be fair to Haezle, no one was supposed to experience this particular Ashuanan delicacy in its raw form.
‘I have something more suited to your delicate constitution,’ said Konoroz, sliding one of the meat patties onto the golden flatbread. He grabbed a squeezy bottle from beside the grill and liberally squirted its contents on top, before wrapping the bread around the meat and using that to pick it up and hand it to her.
Haezle sank her teeth in eagerly. She hadn’t eaten since the previous evening, and she hadn’t stopped moving since then. She hadn’t realised quite how hungry she was, although, to be fair, the questionable fish had suppressed her appetite for a moment. Now it was back with a vengeance and she devoured the food, barely pausing for breath, not even noticing the burn from either the hot meat or the hot sauce.
