The Modern World (49 page)

‘Most of the Summerday people are here,’ I said. ‘The governor has been fighting.’

‘I know. But some are left in the town, and you must evacuate them.’

‘Why?’

She glanced over to the wall, on the other side of which was the lake. She breathed out the breath she had been holding for a few seconds, and tittered. Then she panted another breath. ‘When the lake drains, their … streets might flood.’

‘Might?’ I had never known her to be so unspecific.

‘Mm. Tell them to get out, immediately. And tell Mist to move the ships he has in the river mouth. I don’t remember who Mist is at the moment; I mean, what his real name is … So many come and go. But if he’s the Sailor, he’ll be able to do it.’

‘I’ll tell them.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Then goodbye, Jant.’

‘See you, Frost.’

I turned to go, but she clenched my hand. ‘Goodbye. Goodbye, Comet.’

Tears rolled unnoticed down her cheeks. She bit on her bottom lip, then smiled at her workers gathered around the hearth. ‘Oi! Shift B! Did I give you five minutes or five hours? Go back down there and
dig faster
!’

I climbed up the wall. As I slipped through the window, one leg in, one leg out, I looked down to see her sitting on the sandbags. She had taken the brown velvet rabbit from her lapel and was holding in both hands, looking at it as if in silent conversation.

Dusk was obscuring the gruesome remains. Larvae were crawling everywhere, covering the uneven ground sickeningly swiftly, and gathering in hordes around any flesh they could find.

I only saw adult Insects in the distance towards Plow – they were already moving on. I wondered why and then I saw larger larvae among the rest – the second moults. They moved nearly as fast as adults, eating their smaller brethren. Maybe the adults were leaving because they feared their own growing spawn turning on them.

I noticed one about to shed its skin and circled low, watching. It suddenly raised its head and froze. I could see through its shell; a slimy bulk was moving inside, pressing uneasily against the surface as if struggling to get out.

Its thorax split down the midline. A pale bulge pushed out through the crack and arched up: the new thorax. The nymph pulled back and withdrew its head from inside the head of the empty carapace. Its chitin was almost white; its legs looked soft as it clasped its empty shell, standing on top. It had a dented, unfilled look but it arched its back and pulled its abdomen free of the casing. As I watched, it began to harden, turning darker brown. The hollows in its abdomen filled out and rounded; its short antennae began to move.

I hastened to the town. The Emperor was sitting in the hall, surrounded by a crowd of people, giving out commands to Eszai and Zascai alike. I pushed through them and gave Frost’s letter to him. He read it, then nodded gravely. ‘Thank you for bringing this, Comet. There is no need for you to visit the dam again. You should have your wounds seen to now.’

I repeated Frost’s words to the Sapper, who received them with his usual glum acceptance. I gave her message to the semaphore operator and watched him begin to pull the levers to move the semaphore arms that would send the order to evacuate, hundreds of kilometres down the valley to the governor’s steward.

I returned to the hospital, where a doctor cleaned and bandaged my bitten foot, though it was so swollen he had to cut the boot off. He checked my wrenched limbs and said I would be all right if I looked after myself. Not a chance. I am growing experienced enough to realise that if you wait, the pain will go. Long life gives you an ability to weather anything.

I told the journalists that no news was to be given out in any form. Then for hours I did the rounds to see if anyone needed the Messenger. Rayne just shooed me away.

Tornado was too humiliated to speak to anyone. Lightning had been the last to leave the field and he was organising archers on the ramparts. That reminded me – what about his daughter? Nobody had taken Cyan any news. From her confinement in the peel tower she would have seen the whole battle taking place.

I missed a gust and had to wait for the next. Go! Now! I took off from the gatehouse and looked back once I had gained height. It was
one a.m. and, through the pitch dark, hails of incendiary missiles poured from the towers. Larvae covered the walls. Men on the walkways were tussling with them. The lamps on the curtain wall only illuminated a few metres of churned mud, the moat and the innermost fallen tents.

Cyan had put a light in her window to guide me in. I landed on the plank and stepped down into the room. Cyan bolted towards me and threw her arms around me, sobbing into my chest. ‘Oh! Terrible … it was terrible.’

‘It still is,’ I said, trying to disentangle myself.

‘I saw everything.’ She pointed out to the sea of mud. ‘I watched it happen. I felt so powerless. I saw all those people dying – I tried to look away but I just kept watching!’

She thumped my chest. I caught her wrists gently. She looked up at me as if seeing me for the first time. She began to cry in earnest. ‘The Insects … they … They would have killed me, too!’

‘Yes. Hey, shush! Sh-sh, little sister. Crying doesn’t suit you.’

She stepped back, wiped her eyes and glared at me. ‘I’m Lady Peregrine. I can cope with it.’

‘Remains to be seen.’

‘Is Daddy all right?’

‘I think so.’

‘Not that I care, of course.’

‘Oh no. Course not.’

‘What’s happening down there now?’

‘Well, the larvae are growing. The Eszai are picking mandible shards out of each other. The mortals are shrieking and dying.’ I told her what had happened to Wrenn, Tornado and Hurricane, and Frost trapped inside her dam, digging into its rubble core. Cyan grew more and more alarmed. I said, ‘But this is the safest place to be. We’ve lost the canvas city already; the larvae are scaling the town walls. I don’t know if they will crawl all the way up this tower but if they do, look – here’s my axe – you can cut them off the walls as they come up to the window. Don’t let them get close because their jaws pincer out.’

Cyan sat down, on the bedspread smudged with old sleep. ‘Oh, god, Jant … if I had been down there, I …’

I sat beside her and spread my wing around her. ‘You shouldn’t have watched.’

She turned and hugged me, her face pressed to my throat. ‘I don’t need protecting,’ she whispered, and I felt her lips move against my
skin. She looked down at my trousers, ripped and scratched and plastered with mud, Insect and human blood.

‘Oh god. What happened to your foot?’

‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry.’

She kissed my neck and I smelt the hot, comforting scent of her little body. Her hair was so silky it was like putting my hand into a cool stream of water. She began to stroke my feathers. ‘Is it all right now?’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Can’t you regroup and …?’

‘There are too many. We’re totally fucked; I don’t know what the Emperor can do.’

I knew I smelt overpoweringly of fresh sweat. That, or something else, was having a strange effect on her. The ache of my muscles and the stinging of all my little scratches began to feel triumphant. I was so tired I felt light; she started caressing me and her touch loosened the tired muscles in my back. The world closed down to this room; this bed and Cyan. Nothing else existed.

‘Mmm … mmm … I need to do this …’

‘It’s the crisis … Mmm. … think nothing of it … Oh god; touch my wings.’

‘Your body’s so taut. You’re like a racehorse … With too many limbs … Shit. I didn’t mean to say that. Comet …’

‘Most girls call me Jant. It’s useful to have two names.’

I felt my cock straining at my underwear. I shuffled to free it and it pointed straight up inside my trousers. Cyan saw the bulge and said, ‘Oh. I …’

We were both minded how much her father would hate us to do this, and that made us want to do it more. ‘Do you want me?’ I asked.

She wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘Yes … but I’m inexperienced.’

I blinked. I hadn’t expected her to be a virgin. I don’t know why; I suppose because she had seemed so adventurous – she’d always been surrounded by admirers.

‘I’ll be careful …’

‘Yes, OK.’

‘There’s just this, here.’ I guided her hand to my crotch and she felt the stiffness through the cotton. Her fingers moved up my cock as if she was trying to find an end to it. I took off my trousers and briefs and let her take it tentatively in her hands. ‘It’s smooth,’ she said.

‘Yes. Not like that; like this … ah …’

Her bodice lacings had come loose and her undershirt was open.
Her breasts had fallen a little outward, pressing against the stiff panels, caged in by the criss-cross lacings. I could see their curves but their nipples were hidden.

‘I’m good at giving pleasure. I’ll make you feel amazing. You’ll feel like you’re floating.’

‘Oh.’ She remembered. ‘It’s not safe.’

‘You’re safe with me.’

I pushed her gently down until she was lying on her back. I put my head under her skirt, into the darkness between her thighs and kissed their soft skin. I licked the silk of her panties. I poked my tongue around them and started licking her. She gasped and flinched but I calmed her with whispers. I soon found out that she was on her period, a little string sticking out of her. That explained why her scent was so beguiling. Women are most sensual when it’s their time of the month.

I pushed her skirt up, her panties down and kept licking. She wasn’t used to it; she wriggled and whined and kept looking down at me, one arm across her face, biting her shirt sleeve. I must be giving her so much pleasure … and soon it will be my turn.

The muscles in her legs tensed. Her thighs became more and more rigid, until they were like steel. She grunted and her body stiffened. She clamped her thighs around my head so tightly I nearly suffocated. Then she cried out and all her tension released at once.

I looked up, bedraggled with her juices. Cyan gasped, with an expression of wonder, pure bliss, and started laughing. Her face was open and unguarded for the first time; it was so wonderful I started laughing too. At that moment the chessboard beside the bed slid off its table with an almighty crash.

The chess pieces rolled all over the floor. The floor began to shake. No, the whole building was shaking; I could feel the vibrations. ‘What’s that?’ Cyan shrieked.

The lamp on the window ledge flickered. ‘What’s happening?’ She sat up and drew the blanket round her.

She said something else, but I wasn’t listening. I was backing into the doorway of the staircase leading to the roof – the spiral steps wound up into their turret behind me. It’s happening again. This is nineteen twenty-five all over again, and the ground’s giving way. It was that night when –

I woke, and lay in my camp bed in the dark tent, listening
.

‘Jant!’ Cyan was yelling at me. ‘Jant! Don’t go crazy! What are you doing?’ Her voice took on a hysterical edge. ‘Snap out of it!’

I snapped. I dashed across to the window and grabbed the lamp. If the earth really was falling in and we were locked in the tower I couldn’t see how we could survive.

We both looked round as one of the vixen guardswomen appeared in the doorway. She threw something I couldn’t see. It bounced off my foot and by the time I had located it on the floor she had disappeared. It was a key.

The crashing roar grew and grew. It was composed of hundreds of other noises: a gravelly sliding crunch. A landslide … I knew this had to be a landslide … There was the din of rock cracking, thuds as individual stones tore loose and fell. The long hiss of earth shifting; the tremendous roar of water.

Through it we heard the bell on the top of the winch tower clanging; madly, unevenly.
Dang … dong. Dang! Dong!
No one was ringing it – it was tolling of its own accord.

We strained to see. From far out in the darkness came a sense of motion, commotion; gigantic shapes moving. It was like listening to a ship in distress, beyond the mudflats, sinking in the dead of night.

The lights on the tower seemed to tilt, rush forward and down; then they vanished. The deafening roar of a mighty, mighty wave thundered towards us. We could see nothing.

The roar swept past us, obliterating all other noise. The churning of foam and swoosh of falling water resounded on every side.

‘The dam!’ I yelled. I felt crushed and hopeless – a sensation I recognised – the Circle was breaking. Frost – what is she
going through
out there? It started slowly creeping up – came on in a rush.

I felt the Circle go dead. Frost’s link had gone and I was loose again. We were aging. I felt separate and lonely without the other Eszai to back me up. Mortals must feel like that all the time … I had forgotten what it was like to feel mortal.

The Circle reformed, gently. I could almost feel the Emperor soothe it back into existence. Why had he left us falling apart into nothingness for so long, like beads slipping off a string? Had he been asleep? Was he deliberately reminding us of mortality?

I was kneeling on the floor. The shock had dropped me to my hands and knees and I was looking at a patch of floorboards covered in dried herbs. Their crispy leaves were sticking to my palms.