The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) (13 page)

“Can’t you
remember
anything?” Persephone whispered.

Deborah shook her head despondently. “It could be
anywhere, it could be any shape or form. I just can’t find anything in my head
that looks remotely like a door. Is it possible Lugh could be wrong?”

“It was a long time ago, but Lugh’s as old as
almost anything around here. Your father said the door was here too, didn’t
he?”

“My father said lots of things. You’d have to be
nuts to believe the half of them.”

Persephone grinned. “So, what’s so great about
being sane?”

Deborah frowned, and her eyes became two green slits.
“All right, so this door just got forgotten when the workmen abandoned the
site. How do you forget a door?”

“Why would you remember it? The war took them by
surprise. Who was going to worry about a service door once the bombs started to
fall?” Persephone asked logically.

“It must be more or less invisible,” Deborah mused,
half to herself, “to have been
lost
for so long.”

They stopped, discouraged, and in the deepening
silence, they became aware of movement above their heads—not a sound,
more a vibration, a movement of the air, like a silent fluttering. The
impression thickened, took form, and as they held their breath, a hoarse cry
rent the air, cold and cruel. Dark shadows fell from the Hemisphere above;
darkness reached out to them from every pothole in the decrepit roadway.

In the grip of terror, the two girls turned and ran
with their baggy garments flapping round their legs, stumbling on broken paving
stones, back to the relative comfort of the crumbling, stinking tenement
blocks. Persephone was swifter, saw better in the dark, was accustomed to the
treacherous roads with their cracked and missing paving stones. Deborah
trailed, encumbered by Juno’s heavy clothes and the Ignorant headscarf that
left only a narrow slit to see through.

As they raced down the middle of an empty street by
the crematorium, Persephone way out in front, Deborah caught her foot in a
pothole and fell her length on the rock-strewn street. Persephone stopped and
looked back. At the same time the silence was shattered by the chilling bark of
military orders and the sound of splintering wood as Black Boys broke down
doors and smashed into apartments all over the Ignorant quarter. Persephone
gave a little gasp of fear, took a step towards Deborah and stopped. Mouthing
the words,
I’m sorry,
she turned and
ran towards her home.

Deborah’s head had caught a stone, and she saw
stars when she tried to stand. She sat down again, her hand to her forehead,
but the impression remained, the white light did not diminish, and with a
thrill of excitement, she knew she was having a flash of Memory. The sounds of
shouting and screaming faded as she became absorbed by the past.

Before her in the ground was a rectangular opening
covered by a sliding metal door. The flash grew even brighter, and Deborah saw
every inch of the door, the way it slid back, the mechanism concealed inside.
She saw the ghostly hands of the last workman slide it across, she saw the
lock, she saw the hand move away not locking it, maybe not realising he was to
be the last.

The light grew dimmer as she approached the place,
trembling, Persephone forgotten. The light faded and died. She felt the ground
before her, her fingers scrabbling in the dirt, left then right. She felt the
smoothness, found the button, pressed. She felt the sliding metal beneath her
fingers and let herself down into the pitch darkness of the tunnel below.

At breakfast
time,
Grania and Ezekiel explained to Zachariah that they and Fionnuala’s family
were taking their turn in Overworld so that the families of Ezekiel’s sister
and Grania’s cousin could take their places. If too many families slipped away
into the hidden city, the authorities would start to notice.

“You can’t go back up there with us.” Ezekiel
jerked his thumb upward. “Not for a long time anyway. You could pass for one of
us once the fuss is over, but you would live in fear of having your papers
controlled by the Black Boys.”

As they ate, Ezekiel told Zachariah all he knew
about Underworld. He spoke of huge dumps of waste materials, the underground
protein production plant where rabbits and chickens lived and reproduced in
thousands of metal cages set twenty, fifty high. There were the abattoirs and
water purification plants where hundreds of Dananns worked with just a handful
of higher caste supervisors, the mines where minerals were extracted, and the
sinister energy zone, set in solid, unbroken rock.

Ezekiel’s voice grew harsher as he told Zachariah
of the Dananns’ fears, about the cull, the deformed babies born in secret, the
murder of those born inside the House of Births.

“We suspected something when they doled out an
enormous ration of nutrition. Good stuff too, not the usual sweepings. Said it
was for some feast or other nobody had ever heard of. Some of us wouldn’t touch
it, it was just too good to be true, but you know how it is when people are
hungry—they take a chance. People got sick soon after, wasting
sicknesses. Some went to the hospital. None of them came back. Then the first
babies were born.” Ezekiel’s voice filled with anger. “Some had no limbs, or
they were twisted and broken. Some of them lived. For a while.”

Grania patted his arm and took up the story. “The
women were frightened, and instead of coming down here to the wise women to
have their babies they went to the House of Births, thinking it would be safer.
But they were never given their babies back, not even the healthy ones. They
knew something terrible was happening; they heard some of the nurses crying,
saw their red eyes. They were told the babies were sick, that they’d gone for
treatment at the hospital, but we know what happened.” Grania swallowed back
the catch in her voice. “They were murdered! Every single one of them.”

Ezekiel put his head in his hands. “Have you heard
of Gehenna, boy?”

Zachariah shook his head. The sound of the word was
evil and gave him goose flesh.

“The valley of sacrifices, the eternal fires of
Moloch?” Ezekiel’s voice was barely a whisper. “Gehenna is creeping closer. The
shadows are drawing in.”

Grania held her husband’s hand tightly and picked
up the story. “We’re certain it was the nutrition. There was something wrong
with it, so they said, ‘Let’s give it to the Ignorants.’ Either they poisoned
it on purpose, or what’s more likely, there was an energy leak.”

Zachariah looked bewildered.

“There’s a man up there,” Ezekiel raised his eyes
to the roof, “a good man, Raphael Gabrielson. He knows all about the energy and
how to maintain the reactor. He explained it to us, just the theory, you know?
Seems like it can get out, through cracks in the casing, if the thing isn’t
looked after properly.”

“The energy can get out?” Zachariah murmured
thoughtfully.

Ezekiel nodded. “And this Raphael is the only
scientist left who knows anything about reactors and energy and suchlike. The
Elders have him locked up in the One-Gated House because he won’t work for
them. They say the Protector asked him to create an army of android workers to
do away with us altogether, and he said he would rather see Providence blown
sky high than have any part in preserving their wretched regime. He’s one of
the few High Caste people who respects us Dananns. If only we could get him
out! But he won’t be helped, says the reprisals against us would be terrible.”
Ezekiel sighed and shook his head. “A good man, one of the few.”

“Why don’t the Elders kill him?” Zachariah asked,
intrigued.

Ezekiel gave him a brief glance before going on
with the story. “Two reasons. There’s a story, a rumour, about a woman who
escaped from Providence. A woman the Elders wanted to destroy. Some say she is
the daughter of the daughters of Eve who has inherited the Memory, that she can
rebuild the world as it was and end the dictatorship of the Elders. Others say
she’s the Witch, the Serpent in the Garden, and her reign would be even more
terrible. By a miracle this woman escaped from Providence, ten years ago now,
but her husband and their little daughter were recaptured. The husband is
Raphael Gabrielson.

They sent him to the One-Gated House, but the
Elders daren’t kill him because nobody else knows how to shut down the reactor
safely. The other reason they’re keeping him alive is because he’s useful as a
hostage if ever his wife makes a move against the regime. Same for the little
girl, poor little mite! She was given. No one knows where she is now, except
the Protector.” Ekekiel ground his teeth in anger.

Grania completed the explanation. “We Dananns
believe the woman who escaped, the woman with the Memory, must be the Green
Woman. She’s waiting for something to complete her powers, and then she will
move. Soon, maybe, we’ll be free!”

Grania’s words sent a thrill of excitement through
Zachariah and plunged him back into his dream of the previous night. Then he
began to digest the alarming idea that Providence was a ticking bomb. “If what
this Raphael said about the energy is true, she’d better not wait too long.”

“We hear it humming to itself sometimes, like an
angry beast in a cage,” Ezekiel agreed, “and not long ago it roared, like it
was trying to get out. Raphael warned us that unless it was contained, the
energy would poison us. The nutrition stores are close by the reactor. We
reckon some of the energy must have leaked in and contaminated it. The roaring
happened round about the same time.”

“But if the energy can get through solid rock…”

“And the Elders can’t control it…”

“It could destroy the entire city!”

“Yes, son, that roaring we heard could have been
just a prelude, a little warm-up exercise. Next time, the beast might get out.”

“Ezekiel?”

“Yes, son?”

“Do you believe in the Garden?”

Ezekiel smiled and put his hand on Zachariah’s arm.
“It’s there, it has to be. It’s our favourite story.”

“If I could find it, we could leave this place, and
Providence could blow itself into oblivion where it belongs.”

“If only.” Ezekiel laughed, but Grania’s expression
was serious.

“Some of us would have gone long ago, but we have
too much to lose. If we were caught, Underworld would be discovered, and then
we may just as well roll over and die. The Garden might be just a dream.
Underworld is real and it’s all we have.” Grania looked up sharply. Maeve had
appeared in the doorway.

“Is Zachariah going Outside?” she asked, her blue
eyes shining with excitement. Her parents looked at one another.

“I’m not sure…” Ezekiel began.

“It’s not safe.” Grania’s face took on an
expression of distress. “The last young ones to go poking about in that black
tunnel never came back. Their parents who went looking for them said there was
something in there, something evil. They felt it.”

“That was years ago,” Maeve interrupted. “You said
yourselves the Green Woman is moving. It could all be different out there now.
Somebody ought to go and have a look. I’ll go, if Ruairi or Abraham will come
with me.”

“You can just pipe down,” Ezekiel said sharply.
“The Council will decide if it’s time to send another expedition and who goes
on it. And I can tell you, it won’t be children of fifteen either!”

“I’ll go. I have nothing to lose.” Zachariah’s
voice broke into the discussion that had suddenly become tense and fearful. “I
want my mother out of here, that’s all. There’s nothing else in Providence
worth saving.”

* * * *

Zachariah took a last look at Underworld, at the caves and grottos, the
crystals, like solid water droplets in the low roof, shining fire-bright in the
flickering light thrown by the candles. Pipes and gutterings snaked their
sinuous way above his head, leading to the Outside. Maeve, his guide through
the rocky labyrinth, walked silently at his side until they reached a smooth
section of rock covered with images.

“We Dananns know the stories about the time before,
and we have the pictures too. She took Zachariah over to the painted rocks.
“The first Dananns made images of what they remembered from before the war, the
things that have disappeared from Providence.” She pointed out a small running
figure with four legs and a lolling tongue. “This is a dog.” She pointed at a
sinuous pattern of brown and green. “And these are trees. The Dananns who are
good at it still come here to work. They make the colours from minerals in the rock,
repeating the old images to make complicated pictures.” Maeve showed Zachariah
a long frieze depicting a voyage across curling waves, where monsters and giant
beasts swam. “This is the story of Bran,” she said. “I’ll tell you it as we
walk along.”

“It’s beautiful,” Zachariah whispered. “And an
Ignorant, a Danann made it?”

Maeve gave him a strange look. “Who else? None of
you people remember anything of the past.”

* * * *

They had been walking for almost an hour when Maeve pointed out the first
small holes in weak points between the rocks. “See? Rabbits. That’s where they
get in. It’s what I keep telling them. It must be different Outside, now that
the Green Woman has begun her work.”

“We have always been told that Outside the air is
unbreathable, nothing but poisonous gases.” Zachariah’s voice was uneasy.

Maeve shrugged. “Probably just lies. Rabbits live
there, so it can’t be poisonous, can it?”

Zachariah bit his lip so as not to snap back. It
was all right for Maeve; she wasn’t going Outside, was she?

“Zachariah,” Maeve took his arm. Her voice grew
serious, “what I said about the Green Woman working her magic Outside, I
believe it, truly. But there are other things out there too, you know. We see
them at night from the tenements. Demons. And things nobody else can see.” She
lowered her voice. “Remember, when you find it, that evil walks in the Garden.
But evil can be defeated. You have to believe that. It’s in the stories.”

Zachariah knew he should feel daunted by the
enormity of his task, but looking down into Maeve’s frank blue eyes, he
suddenly felt capable of moving mountains. Drawing himself up to his full
height, he threw out his chest and smiled down at her, reassuringly. “If the
Garden’s there, I’ll find it.”

“Even if it doesn’t look like a garden?” Maeve
sounded doubtful.

“Even if it looks like an overflowing cesspit.” He
grinned.

* * * *

“Nobody ever comes this far from the Homeland,” Maeve said. “Not even the
hunters after rabbits. There isn’t enough light to hunt by—too many of
the lamps have gone out.”

Maeve had explained that long ago, when it had
still been the intention to create a huge second city below ground, the
ancestors had carved out great thoroughfares and traced the outline of others.
The work was lit by globes that once shone white and powerful, but they were
never maintained. Rabbits and rock falls snapped cables, and the current had
grown feeble. At the limits of the worked areas, the lamps were widely
scattered and many of them had gone out. The rocks were slippery now with dampness
and glowed faintly in the weak lamplight. Not far ahead, the last lamp cast its
feeble light along a rough-hewn wall of stone and earth.
 
In the wall, black and sinister, was a
hole. The tunnel.

The stories said the tunnel led Outside. Stories!
Zachariah peered at the deep, impenetrable shadow of the entrance and goose
flesh prickled over his arms and neck. For once he wished the Dananns didn’t
have quite so many stories. Or rather that they also had something a bit more
definite.

Maeve handed him a homemade lantern, lit it and
passed Zachariah the lighter. “If there’s any poison gas the flame will go out.
Probably.” She smiled unconvincingly.

“Or the flame will cause an explosion, and I won’t
have to worry about being poisoned,” Zachariah said with an equally thin smile.
There was a slight hesitation as he plucked up the courage to take Maeve’s
hand. “Thank you,” he said, hoping his voice sounded firmer than he felt. “I
won’t forget you.”

Maeve looked steadily into his dark eyes that shone
even in the dingy light of the lamp. “Find the woman with the Memory. Find the
Garden for us. The old stories say it’s in the mountains to the north. And
don’t forget to come back to show us the way.”

“I’ll do my best.” Zachariah grinned weakly. He
glanced back the way they had come, at the pale line of the road that
disappeared among the rock walls and passages. “But will you find your way home
all right?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just find the Garden.” Maeve
squeezed his hand encouragingly before he stepped into the darkness.