The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (86 page)

Wil did not own any book, not even the meanest little
volume, and he longed to, desperately. Books were truth. Their stories were the
world. And the Solaces were perfect books – the very soul of Cython, the
matriarchs said. He ached to read one so badly that his whole body trembled and
the breath clotted in his throat.

‘I don’t think any more pages are coming, lad.’ Ady pressed
her finger-tips against the blue triangle tattooed on her brow. ‘I doubt the
thirteenth book will ever be finished.’

‘Then it can’t hurt if I look, can it?’ he cried, sensing
victory.

‘I – I suppose not.’

Ady rose painfully, selected three chymical phials from a
rack and shook them. In the first, watery fluid took on a subtle jade glow. The
contents of the second thickened and bubbled like black porridge and the third
crystallised to a network of needles that radiated pinpricks of sulphur-yellow
light.

A spiral on the basalt door was dotted with phial-sized
holes. Ady inserted the light keys into the day’s pattern and waited for it to
recognise the colours. The lock sighed; the door opened into the Chamber of the
Solaces.

‘Touch nothing,’ she said to the gaping youth, and returned
to her engraving.

Unlike every other part of Cython, this chamber was
uncarved, unpainted stone. It was a small, cubic room, unfurnished save for a
white quartzite table with a closed book on its far end and, on the wall to
Wil’s right, a four-shelf bookcase etched out of solid rock. The third and
fourth shelves were empty.

Tears formed as he gazed upon the mysterious books he had
only ever glimpsed through the doorway. After much practice he could now read a
page or two of a storybook before the pain in his eyes became blinding, but
only the secret books could take him where he wanted to go – to a world
and a life not walled-in in every direction.

‘Who is the Scribe, Ady?’

Wil worshipped the unknown Scribe for the elegance of his
calligraphy and his mastery of book making, but most of all for the stories he
had given Cython. They were the purest truth of all.

He often asked that question but Ady never answered. Maybe
she didn’t know, and it worried him, because Wil feared the Scribe was in
danger. If I could save him, he thought, I’d be the greatest hero of all.

He smiled at that. Wil knew he was utterly insignificant.

The top shelf contained five ancient Solaces, all with worn
brown covers, and each bore the main title,
The
Songs of Survival
. These books, vital though they had once been, were of
least interest to Wil, since the last had been completed one thousand, three
hundred and seventy-seven years ago. Their stories had ended long before. It
was the future that called to him, the unfinished stories.

On the second shelf stood the thick volumes entitled
The Lore of Prosperity
. There were nine
of these and the last five formed a set called Industry.
On Delven
had covers of pale mica with topazes embedded down the
spine,
On Metallix
was written in
white-hot letters on sheets of beaten silver. Wil could not tell what
On Smything
,
On Spagyric
or
On Catalyz
were made from, for his eyes were aching now, his sight blurring.

He covered his eyes for a moment. Nine books. Why were there
nine books on the second shelf? The ninth, unfinished book,
On Catalyz
, should lie on the table,
open at the last new page.

His heart bruised itself on his breastbone as he counted
them again. Five books, plus nine. Could
On
Catalyz
be finished? If it was, this was amazing news, and he would be the
one to tell it. He would be really special then. Yes, the last book on the
shelf definitely said, On Catalyz.

Then what was the book on the table?

A
new
book?

The first new book in three hundred and twelve years?

Magery was anathema to his people and Wil had never asked
how the pages came to write themselves, nor how each new book could appear in a
locked room in Cython, deep underground. Since magery had been forbidden to all
save their long-lost kings, the self-writing pages were proof of instruction
from a higher power. The Solaces were Cython’s comfort in their agonising
exile, the only evidence that they still mattered.

We are not alone.

The cover of the new book was the dark, scaly grey of
freshly cast iron. It was a thin volume, no more than thirty sheet-iron pages.
He could not read the crimson, deeply etched title from this angle, though it
was too long to be
The Lore of Prosperity
.

Wil choked and had to bend double, panting. Not just a new
book, but the first of the
third shelf
,
and no one else in Cython had seen it. His eyes were flooding, his heart
pounding, his mouth full of saliva.

He swallowed painfully. Even from here, the book had a
peculiar smell, oily-sweet then bitter underneath, yet strangely appealing. He
took a deep sniff. The inside of his nose burnt, his head spun and he felt an
instant’s bliss, then tendrils webbed across his inner eye. He shook his head,
they disappeared and he sniffed again, wanting that bliss to take him away from
his life of drudgery. But he wanted the iron book more. What story did it tell?
Could it be the Scribe’s own?

He turned to call Ady, then hesitated. She would shoo him
off and the three matriarchs would closet themselves with the new book for
weeks. Afterwards they would meet with the leaders of the four levels of
Cython, the master chymister, the heads of the other guilds and the overseer of
the Pale slaves. Then the new book would be locked away and Wil would go back
to scraping muck out of the effluxors for the rest of his life.

But his second shillilar had said the Scribe was in danger;
Wil had to read his story. He glanced through the doorway. Ady’s old head was
bent over her engraving but she would soon remember and order him back to work.

Shaking all over, Wil took a step towards the marble table,
and the ache in his eyes came howling back. He closed his worst eye, the left,
and when the throbbing eased he took another step. For the only time in his
life, he did feel special. He slid a foot forwards, then another. Each movement
sent a spear through his temples but he would have endured a lifetime of pain
for one page of the story.

Finally he was standing over the book. From straight on, the
etched writing was thickly crimson and ebbed in and out of focus. He sounded
out the letters of the title.

The Consolation of
Vengeance
.

‘Vengeance?’ Wil breathed. But whose? The Scribe’s?

Even a nobody like himself could tell that this book was
going to turn their world upside-down. The other Solaces set out stories about
living underground: growing crops and farming fish, healing, teaching, mining,
smything, chymie, arts and crafts, order and disorder, defence. They described
an existence that allowed no dissent and had scarcely changed in centuries.

But their enemy did not live underground – they
occupied the Cythonians’ ancestral land of Cythe, which they called Hightspall.
To exact vengeance, Cython’s armies would have to venture up to the surface,
and even an awkward, cross-eyed youth could dream of marching with them.

Wil knew not to touch the Solaces. He had been warned a
hundred times, but, oh, the temptation to be first was irresistible. The book
was perfection itself; he could have contemplated it for hours. He bent over
it, pressing his lips to the cover. The iron was only blood-warm, yet his tears
fizzed and steamed as they fell on the rough metal. He wanted to bawl. Wanted
to slip the book inside his shirt, hug it to his skin and never let it go.

He shook off the fantasy. He was lowly Wil the Sump and he
only had a minute. His trembling hand took hold of the cover. It was heavy, and
as he heaved it open it shed scabrous grey flakes onto the white table.

The writing on the iron pages was the same sluggishly oozing
crimson as on the cover, but his straining eye could not bring it into focus.
Was it protected, like the other Solaces, against unauthorised use?
On Metallix
had to be heated to the
right temperature before it could be read, while each completed chapter of
On Catalyz
required the light of a
different chymical flame.

A mud-brain like himself would never decipher the
protection. Frustrated, Wil flapped the front cover and a jagged edge tore his
forefinger.

‘Ow!’ He shook his hand.

Half a dozen spots of blood spattered across the first page,
where they set like flakes of rust. Then, as he stared, the glyphs snapped into
words he could read. Such perfect calligraphy! It was the greatest book of all.
Wil read the first page and his eyes did not hurt at all. He turned the page,
flicked blood onto the book and read on.

‘I can see.’ His voice soared out of his small, skinny body,
to freedom. ‘
I can se
e.’

Ady let out a hoarse cry. ‘Wil, get out of there.’

He heard her shuffling across to the basalt door but Wil did
not move. Though the crimson letters brightened until they hurt his eyes, he
had to keep reading. ‘Ady, it’s a
new
book
.’

‘What does it say?’ she panted from the doorway.

‘We’re leaving Cython.’ He put his nose on the page,
inhaling the tantalising odour he could not get enough of. It was ecstasy. He
turned the page. The rest of the book was blank, yet that did not matter
– in his inner eye the future was unrolling all by itself. ‘It’s a new
story,’ Wil whispered. ‘The story of tomorrow.’

‘Are you in shillilar?’ Her voice was desperate with
longing. ‘Where are the Solaces taking us? Are we finally going home?’

‘We’re going –’ In an instant the world turned
crimson. ‘It’s
the one
!’ Wil gasped,
horror overwhelming him. ‘
Stop her
.’

Ady stumbled across and took him by the arm. ‘What are you
seeing? Is it about me?’

Wil let out a cracked laugh. ‘She’s changing the story
– bringing the Scribe to the brink –’

‘Who are you seeing?’ cried Ady. ‘Speak, lad!’

How could
the one
change the story written by the Scribe Wil worshipped? Surely she couldn’t,
unless … unless the Scribe was fallible. No! That could not be. But if
the one
was going to challenge him, she
must have free will. It was a shocking, heretical thought. Could
the one
be as worthy as the Scribe? Ah,
what a story their contest would make. And the story was everything – he
had to see how it ended.

Ady struck him so hard that his head went sideways. ‘Answer
me!’

‘It’s … it’s
the one
.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense, boy. What one?’

‘A Pale slave, but –’

‘A
slave
is
changing our future?’ Ady choked. ‘Who?’

‘A girl.’ Wil tore his gaze away from the book for a second
and gasped, ‘She’s still a child.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I … don’t know.’

Wild-eyed and frantic, Ady shook him. ‘When does this
happen?’

‘Not for years and years.’

‘When, boy? How long have we got to find her?’

Wil turned back to the last written page, tore open his
finger on the rough edge and dribbled blood across the page. The story was
terrible but he had to know who won. ‘Until … until she comes of age –’

‘What are we to do?’ said Ady, and he heard her hobbling
around the table. ‘We don’t know how to contact the Scribe. We must obey
The Consolation of Vengeance
.’

The letters brightened until his eyes began to sting, to
steam. Wil began to scream, but even as his vision blurred and his eyes bubbled
and boiled into jelly that oozed out of his sockets, he could not tear his gaze
away. He had longed to be special, and now he was.

She tottered back to him, wiped his face, and he heard her
weeping. ‘Why didn’t you listen to me?’

He took another sniff and the pain was gone. ‘Stupid old
woman,’ sneered Wil. ‘Wil can see so much more clearly now.
Wil free!
’

‘Wil, what does she look like?’

‘She Pale. She
the one
.’

‘Tell me!’ she cried, shaking him. ‘How am I to find this
slave child among eighty-five thousand Pale –
and see her dead
.’

 
TWO

Whenever Mama wasn’t watching, the huge man that Tali
called Tinyhead poked his white tongue out at her. Black spots on it were like
crawling blowflies and Tali had to turn away before she sicked up her
breakfast.

She did not like Tinyhead, but he was helping them to
escape. In a thousand years, no Pale had ever escaped from Cython, and Mama had
tears in her eyes whenever she talked about going home. Not wanting to upset
her again, Tali clutched Mama’s hand and kept her worries to herself.

The further Tinyhead led them, the more alarming the tunnel
art became, as if warning: try to escape and you’ll die. For an hour of their
journey the walls they passed were carved into the skeletons of burnt trees
surrounded by ash like black snow. Then they walked along a dried-up river with
water buffalo trapped in grey mud. Finally, as the passage became an endless
desert where spiny lizards picked salt crystals off sharp rocks, Tinyhead
heaved open a stone door and stood to one side so they could go through.

They had crossed into another world, one that was cold and
dank and slimy underfoot, a vast oval cellar where mist hung in the stagnant
air. It looked like the inside of a mouldy old skull and the stink of poisoned,
decaying rats made Tali gag.

‘Here you are.’ Tinyhead flopped out his tongue. ‘All your
troubles are over, Pale.’

Mama whirled, reaching up to him, but he slammed the door in
her face. She let out a whimper.