The Red Queen (64 page)

‘Besides, remember we carried light in the
graag
and the
rhenlings
did not wake,’ Ana said.

‘Only because they don’t wake unless you touch them, when the sun is up or the moon is full,’ I reminded her, though in fact the sun was shining, albeit not very brightly, masked as it was by its veil of brown, greasy cloud. Even so, when we reached the building Hendon had told Ana about, I commanded the androne to be sure to use its headlight only in a very muted form once we began to descend, for it was now late afternoon and although the
rhenlings
would not wake for some time, their sleep would be growing steadily lighter.

Before we went in, I bade her wait while I tried one last time to reach Gahltha.

This time the probe flew true and located. Gahltha told me at once that Maruman was still missing and now Gavyn and Rasial had vanished as well. They had done so immediately after he had told them about the rest of us. The other horses were with him still, and Darga as well, but Falada wanted to go to Ahmedri and asked for a sending of his whereabouts. I asked Gahltha to wait and to ask Falada to come to me but not yet. I begged him to keep her there for the night, since there was nowhere for her to be safe in Northport. I sent him a vision of the basement we would take refuge in, so that he could show it to her.

‘She can go tomorrow, though it might be better if she waits till darkmoon is over,’ I said.

‘She believes she can gallop there in a day, but there would not be time enough now before dark will come. She hoped to come to you to say farewell.’

‘It may be that we will come to you,’ I said. ‘Let us talk of it later. There is an important thing I must do now. But tell me one last thing. Where is Maruman?’

‘I do not know,’ Gahltha sent bleakly.

I bade the horse be safe and then opened my eyes to find Ana watching me expectantly. ‘Are you ready?’

Swallow had agreed to stay with the wolves at Ana’s request, for he had some healing skill whereas Dragon did not. He had been unexpectedly acquiescent when I had been sure he would insist on going with us, but whatever had happened with Ana, he was suddenly far more willing to do as she asked. She in her turn had begged him to remain with a good deal more grace than she had exerted in her dealings with the gypsy in the past.

As Hendon led us northward through the eroded windswept streets, I noticed the hot wind had grown hotter and stronger and was sending dust and desiccated bits of grass and dried bushes into little hissing spirals in any corner formed by the towering buildings, yet the flat opaque pall of cloud overhead was unaffected by it. It must be very high cloud, if it
was
cloud and not another strange blight left upon the world by the clever, self-destructive Beforetimers.

Ana gazed around with fascination as we walked, and I realised she had not had the chance to see much of Northport yet.

‘I cannot imagine people living here,’ she said after a time. ‘It is so very bare and stark and silent, and then there is the desert on all sides. No trees or grass or flowers, and this endless heat and bright relentless light. And the sound the wind makes, like a woman moaning.’

‘There would have been a lot of different noises if people had ever lived here,’ I murmured. ‘As to green and growing things, you said yourself they were like to have done something about that in time. For all we know there might be gardens growing beneath the earth, as at Oldhaven.’

Ana shook her head decisively. ‘God told me Northport was a long way from being finished when the cataclysm happened. There was some sort of trouble that slowed it down. Actually she said it had something to do with water, so maybe it was connected to the Whelmer.’

Ana broke off to frown at the building beside us, which was exactly like the two before it. ‘Maybe it feels strange here simply because of the fact that no one ever did live here, any more than they did in Midland. Most settlements start out as a cluster of houses that people live in, and then there are more houses and it grows into a village and then, over generations, if there is enough of a living to be had in the area, into a bigger settlement. Settlements grow out of the needs of the people in them and because of that they reflect the differences between people. They grow unevenly and unexpectedly. But all of the settlements of Pellmar Quadrants are built from an
idea
of people’s needs or wants. It is as if Hendon planned a city based on an idea of how those people might live, and then built it to accommodate that.’

‘I see what you mean, but maybe in a way that is exactly what happened,’ I said, finding the theory persuasive. ‘Maybe the idea behind these places had less to do with people and more to do with survival. And maybe the cities were even created by machines. Not just buildings but the look and form of them. After all, if the Beforetimers would give weapons and the control of them to machines, why not the building of their homes?’

Just ahead, Hendon had turned into the entrance of a building. Glancing about, it struck me that we were quite close to the field where the wolves had been buried, and to the grave of Jacob and Hannah. My fingers found the token about my neck, and I pressed it as I turned back to see Hendon force open the glass and metal doors with its powerful metal hands. Ana had continued talking, unaware of my wandering thoughts, and it was only as we crossed the foyer of the building that I began to listen again.

‘. . . to authorise any glide to enable it to accept the androne’s cache of instructions and maps.’ She gave me an expectant look.

Not wanting to admit I had not been listening, I nodded vaguely.

Hendon led us past a rank of metal doors and to a smaller door with a lock on it.

‘Break it,’ Ana told it. She looked back at me. ‘I got into the Incidental Storage by breaking a lock at God’s behest,’ she said.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Hendon, is this the only way into the hangar?’

‘There are seventeen elevating chamber entrances at different points and from different buildings, but the computer that operates them cannot be accessed save by Kelver Rhonin, so long as his code key is engaged,’ Hendon said.

‘So this is the only way?’

‘There are other emergency exits such as this one, adjacent to every elevating chamber bank. All are locked, User Seeker,’ Hendon said.

I chewed my lip for a minute, not entirely reassured, but I did not see what else I could ask.

‘Are you worried about the
rhenlings
?’ Ana asked me. Then, ‘Hendon, are you sure there is no way that the flying mutants could get into the hangar?’

‘All exits are registered as closed,’ Hendon said.

‘There,’ Ana said. ‘Go ahead, please, Hendon, and open it for us.’

The androne moved closer to the door and I saw that it was secured by a heavy, complex metal lock that reminded me of the one Ariel had used on his door on Herder Isle. Before I had time to do more than remember
that
lock had been connected to a weapon, the androne had reached out its metal hand and torn the lock off as if it were a chunk of bread.

‘Well, that was easier than when I did it,’ Ana quipped as she heaved open the door to reveal a set of steps going down into darkness. She read my hesitation accurately and said neither
rhenlings
nor any other kind of creature could get to the lower levels since they were sealed, save for the locked fire steps and the elevating chambers. Even so, I bade Hendon supply very low light as we descended, saying I would as soon be careful. The steps were perfectly regular but there were so many of them. I began counting, and long before a hundred, my legs were trembling and I began to worry about how far we had yet to go and how we were going to get back up again if none of the elevating chambers worked.

But soon after we saw that we were coming to a door. The steps went on down and Ana said that they led all the way down to all of the levels below this one. I thought it would have to be a very dire emergency for anyone to come up from those lower levels by the stairs.

‘Thank Lud!’ Ana gasped, reaching the door, pulling the lever and pushing against it. It took both of us to get it open, for it was very thick and heavy. The stench hit us both at once.

‘Faugh!’ I choked, staggering back. I pressed my hand to my nose and blinked.

‘It smells like a cave full of bats,’ Ana said in a baffled, muffled voice.

‘Worse,’ I whispered. I forced myself to step forward and beckoned Ana to do the same so that the androne could come out of the stairwell. Something crunched softly under our feet and the hair stood up on my neck.

The androne came to stand in the doorway but its light was so dim that we could barely see one another, let alone the chamber we had entered. But I had no doubt it was a vast cavern because of the hissing echo of our whispers. I wanted to turn back, knowing by their awful stink that there were
rhenlings
in the chamber and a good many of them judging by the smell, but it was still full daylight outside, which meant they would not wake unless touched, and the thought of having to climb back up the hundred steps we had descended made me think we should explore a little, at least.

Bidding the androne hold the heavy door ajar, for I had noticed there was no handle on the inside, I pinched my nostrils shut and moved forward as quietly as I could. Ana followed silently. The dim illumination offered by the androne’s headlight showed little more than the hard grey stone ground under our feet and a little distance away an enormous ornamented pillar.

‘Use your lightstick,’ I whispered as we approached a pillar. ‘I will save mine and I want to see what we are getting into. Make it as dim as it will let you.’

She obeyed, and the lightstick showed a pale greenish hue, little brighter than the light a candle would have cast. Indeed she held it like it was a long candlestick. The pillar seemed to writhe, and I thought I had imagined it until I realised with a shudder of loathing that the column was seething with
rhenlings
. Ana gazed at the creatures in fascinated revulsion.

‘The light isn’t waking them,’ she breathed.

‘Fortunately,’ I said, dry mouthed, wondering if it would be the same later in the day when the
rhenlings
’ sleep was less profound. I made a gesture and Ana increased the light and played the shaft of it obediently up to where the pillar joined the roof. It was not anywhere near high enough to warrant the hundreds of steps we had descended, which meant there must be a great lot of earth between the surface and the roof of the hangar. The roof moved and I realised with horror that it, too, was thickly blanketed in
rhenlings
. In some places they were so tightly clustered that they had to cling one to the other, and hung down in living, mottled stalactites.

I glanced back at the androne, still standing by the door. I was relieved, for it was so tall that its head would have barely cleared the
rhenlings
, though I wondered if its lifeless touch would rouse them as living flesh was said to do.

‘Come,’ Ana said, and heedless as any teknoguilder, she moved past me and angled her lightstick so that it shone out into the darkness. ‘We ought to try to find something to prop the door open so Hendon can come with us.’

‘He might be better staying where he is for the moment, given his height,’ I said. ‘Shine the light down; I want to see what we are walking on.’

‘Droppings,’ Ana said, and showed me.

I grimaced. ‘Better than bones.’

I wanted nothing more than to return to the bright day above, but I let her draw me deeper into the chamber. We passed pillar after pillar covered with
rhenlings
, and occasional bunches of them hanging down from the roof. Their collective stench was appalling and my eyes and Ana’s were streaming by the time the light revealed a wall. Like every other surface but the one underfoot, it was covered in
rhenlings
, and I had a sudden vision of a flying machine covered with them too. ‘Ana . . .’ I began.

‘Just a little further, please.’ She moved quickly ahead of me. I looked back and realised uneasily that we were out of sight of the androne, though I could make out the dim glow of its headlight. This is madness, I thought, and was about to say so aloud when Ana gave a soft huff. She seemed to be gazing at a
rhenling
-covered wall until I hurried to her side to see that she was staring into an enormous alcove. Ana made a gesture further along the wall and I saw there were more of the chambers. We moved along the wall for a time, Ana fearlessly playing the light into each chamber, but they were all empty.

‘This must be where the glides were kept,’ she whispered.

‘If so, they would have been too small,’ I said, and felt a vast relief at the discovery that I would not need to trust myself to a Beforetime flier after all. ‘Let’s go back.’

She nodded, looking disappointed and resigned. But as we turned she pointed the lightstick out into the vast darkness and we both drew in a sharp breath, for the beam fleetingly illuminated something huge. My heart started to pound at the memory of Swallow telling us that Ahmedri had said many different sorts of creatures inhabited the white plain, all of them dangerous, but when Ana moved the light beam back and forth in ever-smaller arcs, it finally illuminated three structures partly obscured by the
rhenling
-covered pillars between us and them. Moving carefully closer, we found ourselves looking up at three enormous identical flat-topped ovals each standing on three thick, angled legs. Each had jointed protrusions on top and dark shining rectangles around the sides, which might be windows, but it was hard to tell because they were too high to peer through. Underneath were many smooth indentations and mysterious devices and protrusions barely visible beneath a great thick cluster of
rhenlings
.

‘They must be glides,’ Ana murmured. ‘How odd that none of the
rhenlings
are on top of them, though they are thick on every other surface. But how do they hold on?’

I was too repelled for any curiosity, though I, too, had noticed there were no
rhenlings
on top of the glides, if glides they truly were.