Skyfall (42 page)

Walking through the old city she'd been able to feel the skyfire above, pressing down always, like a smothering blanket of force against the ground. But here, in the land of the dead, it's different. It is almost as though the skyfire itself is being held at bay – as though there's a dome here, an invisible one, covering the land of the dead.

A dome of earthwarmth.

Gregor leads them between the rows.

Several times Saria has to stop and throw herself to the ground and just lie there, sucking the earthwarmth. It's been so long since she's felt that familiar tingle, the warming, filling energy of it, that she can't stop herself. When she does this, the other two watch silently.

Her sister, she feels it too, although she doesn't realise it yet. She reminds Saria of herself back in the valley, when she lived with Ma Lee.

Gregor is taking her hand again and leading her once more. Closer … always closer.

SARIA!

It's all around her now. Everywhere and nowhere. The call has drawn her all this way, outwards, upwards, into the sky and then back to the earth like a falling bird.

When Gregor pulls her gently past the final row of stones, Saria is barely aware of anything, only the call…

SARIA!

There is no stone marking this lifedeath. Only long-turned earth.

SARIA!

Even if she wanted to hold this earthwarmth back, she couldn't. Jani surges into her, through her, and Saria reaches back down, into the Earthmother, feeling outwards … downwards …

The city, the dead scar which seems so enormous around them, is little more than a smear against the landscape. She feels it all … out further than ever before.

The land is healing itself, slowly but inevitably.

Out there are streams and rivers, even whole lakes of water, and Saria feels them like blood.

Out there are trees and bush, thicker than anything she's ever seen. She feels them like her own heart.

Out there are people.

Her people.

Dying people …

People walled and trapped. Prisoners of a race which is itself already dead.

And she knows why she's been called here.

Saria knows.

She's been called here so that she can go home again.

The closer they came to Jani's gravesite, the more strange Saria's behaviour became. Gregor watched her closely, leading her when he had to and on a couple of occasions pulling her gently back to her feet. At first he was concerned, but then he remembered Jani. Even right at the very end, while she laboured to push Jem out to his waiting hands, she'd been drawing on something – some energy Gregor had no access to, no knowledge of.

Earthvarmth. Earthmother.
Those were the words she'd managed to gasp out when he'd asked about it. Then finally,
SARIA!
Then, nothing …

When they arrived at the gravesite, Saria pushed his arm away, staggered a couple of steps, then folded to the ground and lay still, pressed to the earth above her mother's final resting place.

‘Is she all right? What's she doing?' Jem, who'd been silent, came up and stood beside her father.

‘I don't understand exactly. Some kind of ritual, I think. Your mother used to do it, too.'

Jem looked around, absorbing the lingering peacefulness of the ancient burial ground.

‘What is this place?'

‘You haven't worked it out?'

‘Something to do with our mother, clearly.'

Gregor gestured to the narrow rectangle of ground upon which Saria lay. ‘That's where I buried her.'

‘Buried?' Jem's forehead creased.

‘After you were born. After she died. I buried her here, just like they used to in the old times.'

‘You never brought me here before.'

‘There never seemed any reason to.'

Father and daughter stood side by side watching Saria. Then Jem said quietly, ‘She's … odd.'

‘You would be too, if you'd had to endure everything she's been through.'

‘I'm not just talking about the DGAP stuff. There's something about her. It's like she's not properly here.'

Gregor took his daughter's hand.

‘She is. Jani was the same. I think there's just something about the earth that makes them … aware.'

‘What happens now?' Jem asked.

‘After this?'

‘Yeah.'

‘After this, the Underground is going to do what you and I designed it for.'

‘And that is?'

‘After this, we start a war.'

Jem digested this. ‘Lari's father said the city is dying.'

‘So I'm led to believe.'

‘Then what's the point of fighting it?'

‘I'm not.'

‘No?' Jem raised an eyebrow.

‘I'm simply accelerating the inevitable.'

‘And killing us all in the process.'

Gregor shook his head. ‘If what Larinan Mann told us is true, then we're already dead, Jem. We just haven't worked it out yet.'

‘But as long as we're still alive …'

‘There's hope. I know the theory. But the fact is that as long as this city is still clinging to the last vestiges of its long, pointless life, then she's in danger.' He inclined his head towards the prostrate Saria. ‘You too, if it comes to that. You'll never escape unless there's nobody to chase you.'

‘Escape? What are you talking about?'

Gregor looked his daughter in the eyes. ‘You have to go, Jem. You and her.'

‘No!'

‘Yes. Even Dernan Mann realises it. Why do you think he was trying to get her out?'

The name suddenly triggered Jem's memory. ‘He sent you a message.'

‘Mann?'

‘Yeah. He said to tell you that you were right.' To her surprise, the message drew a sharp bark of laughter from her father.

‘Took him long enough to admit it.'

‘What did he mean? Right about what?'

‘Just what I was saying a moment ago, Jem. The only hope this city – this race – has for any kind of future is if you and her and Larinan Mann and Kesra Anatale can escape from here before it all comes crashing down around us.'

‘I'm not going anywhere without you.'

‘That's not an option. I can't live outside.'

‘Neither can Lari.'

‘It's different. I'm a creature of the shadows, just like all those cloudheads. My life's work is about to start and it's here in this city. Larinan, though, he's never belonged. He was raised for something different. Just like you.'

‘Four of us won't be able to start a new race. It's not enough.'

‘No. Probably not.'

‘So what's the point of even trying?'

‘Eyna Mann – Larinan's mother – used to have a saying.'

‘You knew her?'

‘I worked with her on a lot of field assignments. We were … friends.'

‘Lovers?'

‘No.' Gregor shook his head. ‘Perhaps if Dernan Mann hadn't come along … but no. We knew each other well, though. It's one of the reasons she chose me to be your father. Eyna used to say that “life likes living”. I always thought it was just one of those things you say – a platitude – but now … She was right.' He looked across at Saria. ‘That's how her lot have survived out there all these years. It's why there's hope, even if it's slim.'

‘Doesn't the same rule apply to the city, then?'

‘That's my point, Jem. You four are the rule in action. We've backed ourselves into a corner. It's taken us a thousand years to do it, but here we are, with all our hope resting on a copygen, a mixie, a shiftie girl and a captured Darklander.'

At their feet, Saria's breathing changed and slowly she rose to her feet.

‘You okay?' Gregor held out a hand to assist her, but the girl refused it.

‘Jaman.'

‘What happened?'

Saria smiled. ‘I felt the Earthmother. She's strong here.'

‘And?'

‘And I gotta go home.'

‘Home?'

‘Daywards. Into the sunrise.'

Gregor had been expecting something like this. ‘You're going to take your sister with you?'

‘Yeah. And anyone else that wants to come.'

Gregor offered a tight smile. ‘I don't expect you'll get too many takers, somehow.'

‘Doesn't matter. There's life out there – lots of it. I could see it all. Plenty for everyone.'

‘Everyone that can survive outside the shadows, in the daylight,' Jem added.

‘As long as there's light, there's shadows,' Saria replied.

‘Come on, then.' Gregor put an arm around each girl's shoulder. ‘Let's get back and find the others.'

‘Then what?' asked Jem.

‘Then we make certain that Jenx and the Prelate have better things to do than chase you when you leave.'

Together, the three walked quickly back between the headstones until they reached the empty corridor that bordered the Land of the Dead.

‘Shi!' Gregor cursed under his breath the moment he saw Lari on his own. ‘Where is she?'

‘She left.'

‘Left for where?'

‘To find her parents. To go home.'

‘Doesn't she know about the entropy scenario?'

‘Of course.'

‘And that didn't stop her?'

‘Only made her more determined.' Lari smiled. ‘You might be her leader in the Underground, but you sure don't know Kes.'

‘She'll never get back up. The moment she jumps a mag, security will be all over her. When did she leave?'

‘A while ago. Pretty much as soon as you three were out of sight.'

‘Shi! She's got at least an hour's start.'

Gregor thought furiously. He hated being put in a position like this, but there just wasn't time. Not now. ‘We'll have to keep moving. There's no point hanging around here looking for her.'

‘What's the hurry?' Lari asked.

‘We've only got a couple of days to get across the city so the three of you can leave. Head east.'

‘Why don't we just use the mags? Jem can use dead I.D.s and reallocate—'

‘Too dangerous. Especially with Saria. Security will be monitoring the system like never before. And besides' – he threw Lari a grim smile – ‘before too much longer, the maglift system is going to become a lot less reliable than it used to be.'

‘Why?'

But Gregor wasn't listening anymore. He ran his fingers across his bare scalp and talked to himself as much as to the other three.

‘If security agents have Kesra, then we'll have to accelerate our actions.'

‘What have you done, Dad?'

Gregor smiled at her. ‘Just what we always planned to do, honey. Tear down the sky. Give the Prelature bigger concerns than the three of you. Now, let's go.'

‘You're going to destroy the city?'

Gregor faced her. ‘The city's dying already, Jem. Larinan can attest to that.'

‘And you're not going to try and stop it happening?'

‘Stop it? Not at all.' Gregor shook his head. ‘This is what I was trying to explain, Jem. This city – all the cities, for that matter – they've had their chance at life and they've squandered it. They've closed themselves off, first from the Earth itself, then from one another, and finally from their own citizens. The cities decided that some people are more expendable than others, that some life is less valuable than other life, and now they're paying for it. The city is dying, Jem, and your best chance of living is if it happens sooner rather than later, so I'm planning to help it along.'

‘That goes against everything the Underground stands for.'

‘No, Jem. I started the Underground to fight for equality, and to provide a little hope for everyone who lives down here in the twilight. Well, thanks to the entropy scenario, it's too late for equality. That dream is as dead as those stones back there. All that leaves us with is hope. That's all the Underground has left to fight for. And that's where you three come in. As long as you're out there, as long as you can get away, then there's hope. I'll die with this city, knowing that there's a chance, just a chance, that my daughter – that humanity – will continue out there. And because you're my daughter, I know that whatever world you build will be better than the one you're leaving behind.'

Gregor turned away and looked out from the top of the embankment. From his raised position, the old city stretched away in every direction. Through the murky air the domestems rose into the night, and here and there ground-level fires, some of which had been burning for a hundred years, threw dancing red shadows onto the smog. He was vaguely aware of the three children climbing up to stand a little behind him.

‘Look at it, kids.' Gregor shook his head. ‘We built ourselves our own little hell. Well, now we're going to destroy it.'

Wordlessly, he set off east along the top of the embankment, the ancient city smouldering and steaming at his feet.