Lazar (20 page)

Without a flash or thunderbolt, the walls and
buildings all around them had vanished with a dreadful sudden silence. This was
no ordinary storm. The mob had never witnessed anything like this before. This
was more than just the elements. There was something in the air that night far
greater than the wind and rain and lightning.

Some stood and stared. Some ran away. They all
forgot their captive for a moment. Now was her chance to get away.

But she could not move. Her confusion was far
greater even than that of her panic-stricken captors. Part of her knew,
somehow, that the disappearance of the buildings was not supernatural at all. In
fact, it was only to be expected. None of this was real in any case. It was no
more than some bizarre computer game – a virtual world that could be
switched off in an instant.

But most of her was terrified.

The fists that had been hitting her, the nails
that had been biting into her flesh – they had been real enough. She hurt.
She bled. But more than that, at her very core she did believe that this was
the wrath of God. The storm, the sea, the destruction of the town – it
was all her fault. She had meddled with dark forces that she had not
understood.

And now she was going to have to pay the price.

No
– I won’t
, a defiant voice screamed out from deep
within her.
This storm is not the fault
of anyone. No one’s to blame – there is no price to pay, no need for punishment.

It was as though the storm-torn remnants of the
mob had heard her thoughts and read her intention to escape. It rallied and
turned upon her with even greater fervour than before and leapt toward her like
a Cerberus in rags. She threw herself to one side, and crashed straight into a
wall.

The buildings had returned as silently and as
suddenly as they had disappeared.

“Damn, it hasn’t worked.” Hal stared
disconsolately at his screen. “The virus has returned the map to how it was
before – and by the look of the way the icon’s being knocked about,
they’ve started dragging…”

“If destroying the buildings didn’t work,” Hal’s
Dad interrupted, “how about trying the opposite approach.”

“How do you mean?”

“Put barriers in the way. Insert walls and
buildings on the map and block their passage to the sea.”

“I get you!” Hal acknowledged his father’s
suggestion and immediately pulled up a menu of architectural features on the
screen. Within a second he had dragged and dropped a brick wall across the
virtual street.

Once more the mob was stopped dead in its tracks.
Once more some of its number ran away. But now, those that remained were even
more incensed and convinced of the young woman’s wickedness and supernatural
powers. A girl that could make buildings come and go at her command – she
had to be a witch. There was no doubting it. She had to be punished for her
sins.

As if in response to this hardening of the mob’s
resolve, the wall that had suddenly materialised flickered and then, just as
suddenly, completely disappeared. This was taken by the mob to be a miracle and
fuelled its self-righteous indignation to new heights of zeal. “God be praised.
He wills it so,” it shouted to the heavens as it dragged its dazed and bleeding
victim out of the street and through the square.

“Damn, damn, damn!”
Hal
vented his frustration. “That’s not worked either. Look – they’ve still
got hold of her.”

The icon was moving swiftly up the screen toward
the entrance to a street that was a straight line to the sea.

“Come on, there must be something we can do,”
exclaimed Hal’s father. “Isn’t there anything else you can put up in their
way?”

“What do you suggest?” Hal’s frustration spilled
over into sarcasm. “A bay window, perhaps, or a fitted kitchen – or how
about an en suite shower and toilet?”

“Come on, Hal, there isn’t time to mess about.. Think
logically. What else can we do with the map that would prevent Jan reaching the
sea?”

“I don’t know,” Hal shouted and kicked the wall
beneath his desk. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. Whatever we do would only last
a second. The ‘Margaret’ virus is in total control of the map on my computer
– it’ll override anything we try and do.”

“Don’t be so defeatist. There has to be something…”

“Even if there is, we’re too late.”

Hal pointed at the screen.

His father looked over just in time to see the
icon disappear off the top of the screen.

“That’s it,” Hal sighed, “she’s off the map
– it doesn’t reach the sea. It only seems to go as far as Jan did in
those dreams she had.”

“But it can’t just
stop
. It mustn’t, Hal. Scroll up, scroll up. There must be more,
there has to be.”

The map slid down. The screen was blank.

“I’m sorry, Dad. We’ve lost her.”

“But what about this one-to-one thing between Jan
and her icon? That can’t have stopped.”

“Why not?” Hal shrugged his shoulders, feeling
hollow inside. “There’s no reason why it should have existed in the first
place. And even if the link’s still there, this map’s not got the coordinates
in which to place the icon.”

“What if it’s the other way round?” Hal’s father
was thinking quickly. “What if the coordinates haven’t got a map to place the
icon on? Perhaps this part of the city has been washed away already. The link’s
still there but there’s no map to link it to.

“Isn’t there some other way of seeing what’s
going on? What about that interface you told me you’d developed? The one
between this CAD program and the virtual reality software.”

“Yeah.” Hal’s despondency vanished in an instant.
“I hadn’t thought…”

Before he’d finished speaking, his father had
grabbed the virtual reality helmet with his free hand.

“Quick, take over,” he instructed, nodding toward
the switch. Hal reached forward and slid his forefinger on to the button as his
father tentatively eased his away.

“Have you got it?”

“Yeah.”

Immediately Hal answered the question his father
switched on the helmet and thrust is down over his own head.

“Yes! Yes, I can see something. My God – I
must be looking through her eyes. What on earth…?”

The street down to the sea had not so much come
to an end as disintegrated. The wind was tearing away the thatch and ripping out
the doors of what was left of the buildings. The sea was smashing down the
walls. The road itself had been swallowed up. Each storm-driven wave bit
ravenously into the soft earth upon which the city had been built. Where once
the street had led down to a shallow harbour a boiling sea now raged. The
quayside had been swept away. What little remained could just about be seen
jutting irregularly from the angry sea, twenty metres out from the rapidly receding
shoreline.

The battling captive and her captors proceeded
fitfully, moving forward with precarious haste along the edge of the shallow,
crumbing seafront. As each wave crashed upon the shore they were in fear of
either being swept away or having the ground ripped out from beneath their
feet. So perilous was their situation that the girl momentarily stopped
struggling for fear of sending herself and all her persecutors reeling headlong
into the sea. But then she saw where they were taking her.

Just ahead of them, where the decimated shoreline
met the river in full spate, a narrow sandbank protruded raggedly into the
shredding sea. This strip of land had been slightly higher than its
surroundings and was still holding out against the scouring elements. But not
for much longer. Each voracious wave snatched away a hundred fistfuls of the
rain-drenched, wind-swept soil. It would be less than half an hour before it
lost its battle with the sea. And there, halfway along it, stood a wooden
stake, stark and black against the slate grey, storm-lashed sky.

This was where the mob would submit their
prisoner to the judgement of the sea.

Her captors opened out ahead and pushed the young
girl forward from behind, still holding on to her arms hard and clutching at
her hair. As they stepped aside she saw the stake immediately in front of her.
Men stood to either side preparing lengths of rope to bind her to the drowning
post.

“No! No! I’m not a witch. You can’t do this to
me.”

As if galvanised by her own ear-splitting scream
she began to twist and bite and kick with the ferociousness of a cornered
beast. She clenched her fists and wrenched her arms and fought with every last
remaining ounce of strength and mental energy. But they were too strong, too
numerous. She slipped and stumbled to the ground. Within seconds they had pinned
her down – her face pushed into the mud and sand, a foot upon her neck. Her
spirit broke as rough hands grabbed her wrists and forced her arms behind her
back.