High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (20 page)

“The whole caster. Leaders, workers, child-bearers, childless, scholars. Everyone.”

“They all fit in that building?” I asked, still not convinced.

“Yes. Palladia are built to contain the whole caster. That’s why they are made underground. We are probably standing over what is the main stage.”

It slowly dawned on me what this meant. If everyone was in the Palladium, that meant that there was no one in the administration building, the one we needed. “So that pyramid thing, the ‘Aula’ I think you call it, is empty?”

“Yes. All the childless are in the Palladium.”

A thought struck me. “Do you know how to find information about Taid – my grandfather?”

“It should not be too difficult. But I have never been in the Aula in this caster. I would not know how to enter it, or where to start looking.”

My mind started to race. This was either an opportunity or a disaster. We could possibly get inside the Aula unseen and find the information I needed. Or we could wait until this ‘Festa’ was over, but then the square would be filled with people as they left the Palladium. Tacita might be ignored as just another faceless childless, but the same would not be true of Eluned and myself. We might have the body of a child-bearer but I doubted very much that we were dressed in a similar fashion to those who lived here.

I had to make a decision. There really only was one choice. “Let’s get into that pyramid,” I said, stepping out into the square.

“Wait, you can’t,” Tacita wailed behind me.

“No choice,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Come on, Eluned. There’s work to be done.”

Feeling strangely vulnerable as we crossed the open space, we quickly reached the front of the Aula. When I pushed one of the glass doors it opened silently. I was surprised to find it unlocked. Inside, the opening I had seen from the other side revealed itself to be the top of a winding staircase which descended underground. Without pausing, we headed down, trying not to make too much noise as we did so.

After passing two floors, the stairway ended in the centre of a circular atrium. On every side there were doors, all closed, and it was the same on the two upper floors we had passed on the way down. I dashed across to the door opposite the stairs. There was a small plaque next to it, which read simply ‘Magister’. Clearly, the man who ran this place. I tried the door. It opened, again it was not locked. The room inside was in darkness, but as I stepped over the threshold a dim light came on. I took two more steps and as I did so the light grew stronger. I stepped back and the light dimmed.

Eluned stood watching this from the atrium. “This is some kind of magic, my lady,” she whispered.

“Not magic. Power-saving,” Tacita said, smiling. “All rooms in the Aula are fitted with these lights. They only come on when there is someone present.”

“Is this the case in every building?” I said, prepared to be impressed.

Tacita looked at me, with one of her puzzled expressions. “Not every building. Those around the meeting place. No other building has lights. That would be wasteful.”

“What do you do at night?” Eluned asked.

“At night? We sleep, of course. We have no need for light after dark. Only the Leaders need light.”

“Not even candles?” Eluned sounded dumbfounded.

“Candles are wasteful. And dangerous. They cause fire.”

“Where do we need to go?” I said, interrupting them. I left the Magister’s room, closing the door behind me.

“From what you have told me,” Tacita said, “I think we need to go to the Archivum. Up there.” She pointed up to the second floor.

“I thought you said that you did not know where anything was in here.”

“It is the same. The same as the one in Deva Caster. I did not realise all the Aula were the same.”

“And how do we get up there?” I asked.

“This way,” she said, pushing open the door next to the Magister’s. This opened, not onto another room, but a corridor that led to another set of stairs. As with the office, as we walked along this corridor the lights came on. Unlike the circular main staircase, these stairs went straight up to the first floor. Tacita opened another door on this floor, we followed her along another corridor and then up a further flight of stairs. This seemed an unnecessarily complicated way of doing things to me.

However, when we reached the second floor, Tacita took a half circle before stopping at a door marked, not surprisingly, ‘Archivum’. I pushed the door, half-expecting to enter a huge room filled with filing cabinets or the like. I was wrong.

“There’s nothing in here,” I said, as the light came on. The small square room seemed to be empty.

Tacita laughed. As she pressed a switch just inside the door a low hum started. A minute or two later the wall opposite the door slid back, revealing a large screen. Tacita pressed a further switch beneath this and a small keyboard emerged. When she tapped on one of the keys the screen lit up showing the following: ‘Salopian Caster. Archivum. Secretissimum.’ The last word appeared in red in letters larger than the rest.

Eluned stood against the wall furthest from the screen, shielding her eyes.

“Don’t worry, Eluned,” I said. “It’s not magic. Technology that even I have never seen before. What happens next, Tacita?”

She looked at me. “What did you say your name was? Your Ovidian name, that is.”

“Semele0442,” I replied.

She turned to the keyboard and tapped some keys. My name replaced the words on the screen.

“Hang on,” I said. “Didn’t that say ‘most secret’ before? Isn’t there some sort of security?”

“All screens in the Aula say the same,” Tacita said. “There is no security, as you put it.”

Maybe there was when this system was devised, I thought. Like the buildings made of glass, the unlocked doors, this future world of the Change seemed to be curiously lacking in ideas about security. Was this a false optimism? Presumably the reason why they also have Guards who have nothing to guard. Or so they think.

After a moment or so, my name disappeared from the screen. It was replaced by the single word ‘Mortuum’. This scrolled up and the following appeared beneath it:

‘Semele0442

Birth recorded: April 2042

Last known record: August 2057

Three known relatives: Actaeon03?09; Calliope1129; Latona0545

Presumed dead’

“That’s me,” I said, astonished. “That’s my name. My date of birth. But why does it say, ‘Presumed dead’?”

“Because there is no record after 2057.”

“2057? When I was what? Fifteen years old? That’s when I left with Taid.”

“You did not come back, so the system has to presume that you are dead.”

“And that is all that is recorded about me?” I leaned against the wall next to Eluned. “There isn’t much, is there?”

“If you left the Change when you were fifteen then there is nothing else to record. No record of your completing your education. No record of whether you are deemed a child-bearer or childless. No record of Guard duties or work duties. What did you expect? According to the Archivum you ceased to exist as a scholar aged fifteen.”

Seeing this information on the screen before me reinforced the knowledge that somehow, for me, time had slipped. I had left the Change when I was fifteen and spent, as far as I was aware, seven years in various places starting with Plas Maen Heledd. Now, on returning to the Change, I had discovered that what had once been my world had somehow moved on over two hundred years.

“Wait,” Tacita said, as I sank to the floor. “There are three people named as your relative. Surely you must know these names?”

For the first time I looked at the screen without seeing only ‘Presumed dead’. There were indeed three names. The last one I knew immediately – it was my sister, Ffion. After some thought I recognised the second as my mother. Which meant that the first name in the list must be … “It’s Taid,” I yelled. “That must be Taid’s name! And he didn’t even know it himself.”

Tacita tapped in some keys. Moments later the screen refreshed and ‘Actaeon03?09’ appeared.

“Why the question mark?” I asked, now standing next to Tacita.

“It means they are not sure of the year in which he was born. They think it was, or should have been, 2209 – I mean 2009. Wow. That really was before the Change. Just like you said.”

While she was speaking the screen refreshed. The word ‘Desolatio’ appeared.

“Oh no,” Tacita said. “I feared as much.”

The word scrolled up, as before, and the screen filled up. There was more than had been on my screen, but not much more.

‘Actaeon03?09

Birth not recorded. Presumed March 2009.

Activity post-2020 unknown

Last known record: September 2063 [See below]

Captured in outland August 2063. Convicted leader of known terrorist organisation. Unnamed associates executed September 2063. Sentenced to Desolatio.

Three known relatives: Calliope1129; Semele0442; Latona0545

Desolatio at Deva Caster. No known outcome.’

I stood in silence, staring at the screen. This information was cruel nonsense. Taid had never been the leader of a ‘terrorist’ organisation. Was this what they called the group in Plas Maen Heledd? Was it the Professors who were recorded as ‘unnamed associates’? Had they really been executed? For what? What crime had those eccentric but lovable individuals ever committed? They only wished to be left to their studies of ancient languages and literature. What possible harm could they cause?

“There is nothing else recorded?” I asked Tacita, who, like me, stood staring at the screen.

“This man was your grandfather?” she said, in a small voice.

“Yes,” I replied. “And this is all lies. He was nothing like this.”

“Your grandfather was a terrorist? A leader of terrorists? What have you not told me? I think it is you who have been lying.” She turned to Eluned, still cowering near the door. “Did you know this about her grandfather?” she asked.

Eluned ignored her. “I do not understand, my lady. Where do these words come from? How do they appear as if from nowhere? Why do you think they are about your grandfather?”

“It is Taid’s Ovidian name,” I said. “I did not know it. He didn’t even know it himself, but the Change records everything about us. According to what is recorded here they think he was a terrorist. And they killed the Professors. That is why they destroyed Plas Maen Heledd. They must have thought we were plotting against them.”

Tacita grabbed me by the arm. “What did you say they destroyed? This gets worse. Did your grandfather destroy something? Tell me.” She shook my arm, before I prised myself free.

“He destroyed nothing,” I said, bitterly. “They – the Change – destroyed the house where we were living. We were a group of men and women who spent our time studying old books. That is all. Out in the countryside, miles away from here. There was no possible harm that they could commit.”

“The records do not lie,” Tacita said. “You have lied to me. I trusted you. I thought you intended to do something to help us. Instead you have been plotting against us. You are evil. And so is she. The ‘Expected One’? Ha! It’s your code name, isn’t it?”

She ran towards the door. “I’m going to report you,” she yelled, dashing through it.

“Stop her,” I said to Eluned, who was already on her way. “But don’t harm her.”

Moments later Eluned returned, carrying a struggling Tacita, her hand clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet. I closed the door behind them.

“Sit,” I said, as Eluned released Tacita. She was now practically naked, the ragged garment she had been wearing no more than a scrap around one shoulder. She sank down to the floor, trying desperately to cover herself. I knelt beside her, stretching out my arm in an attempt to soothe her. She turned and tried to slap my face, but I grasped her wrist before the blow landed.

“Stop this!” I said, firmly. “Look at you. Look what you have done to yourself. You must not believe everything you are told by the Change. Everything on that screen ...” I turned my head, but the screen was dark. “Everything that was on that screen is wrong. My grandfather was not a terrorist. Nor were his friends. Nor am I. It is my intention to help you. And your people. You should not be as you are. You are twenty years of age, yet look at you.”

She dropped her arms from her chest. Her girlish chest was so thin that her ribs protruded. Her stomach was slightly distended from malnutrition. Her legs and arms were skeletal.

“You think this is how you should look? Does Eluned look like this? You have seen her without clothes. Do I look like this? Of course we don’t. We are young women, who look as young women should look. You are like this because the cruel men who lead your world think that this is how to control you. They reduce women to child-bearers and childless. What gives them the right to decide what should happen to young girls, young women?”

Her hands now flat on the floor, Tacita looked up at me, tears welling up in the dark sockets of her eyes. “Help me, Non,” she whispered. “Please help me.”

I put out my arms and she clung to me, silently sobbing. The silence was suddenly broken by a faint roar in the distance. Tacita pulled her head back at this. “The Festa,” she said. “The Acclamation. It means it will be finishing soon. We must leave before they come out of the Palladium.”

“I’m going to need your help, Eluned,” I said. Tacita was still clinging to me, and I could not carry her alone, small as she was.

“What shall we do, my lady?” Eluned said, picking up Tacita and carrying her like a child over her shoulder.

“Head back the way we came. We need to leave this caster. And quickly, before they come out of that place.”

We left the Archivum, closing the door behind us, and made our way back down to the central atrium, then up the stairway and out on to the meeting place. The roars from inside the Palladium grew louder and more frequent as we dashed into the street we had come from. As our route was now downhill we covered the ground more quickly, turning at the bottom onto the narrow street on which we should find the hidden route to the doorway near the old bridge.