The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) (15 page)

Dusk was
falling
in the desert wastes that surrounded the Holy City State, and a young man
flicked tousled copper-coloured hair out of his eyes. All his senses alert, he
leaned back against the rock, still warm from the heat of the day, and peered
into the gloom. The evening shadows of the desert smudged and ran together;
they could easily be hiding a lurking danger. Years of nomadic existence had
sharpened his senses, and despite the lack of furtive movement, he was uneasy.

His fire was laid, he held the flints in his hand,
ready to strike a flame, but something restrained him. Something in the quality
of the air made him pause, a thickening, a tingling as if something was
waiting, preparing to move. In a shallow cave at the rock’s base, a dog whined.
He hushed it with a sharp sound and tilted his head, listening. The silence deepened,
throbbed, and was broken by the rush of wings, dozens of pairs of huge,
featherless wings.

 
The
young man cringed back as if to blend with the sandy stone, his eyes narrowed
to catch a glimpse of the demon flight. Even the dogs held their breath. He
turned his head slightly towards a tall jagged rock that the last of the brown
daylight lit an unearthly yellow.

Wreathed in black streamers of winged creatures,
the yellow rock stood gaunt and menacing against the dull sky. As the boy
watched, the rock appeared to throb, and the dark holes, demon burrows, glowed
with a sickly light. Demons and flying worms wheeled and scattered into the
darkening air, trailing their shrill cries as they went a-hunting. The young
man shivered as he peered after them, startled to see where they were heading.
Never had he seen so many of the beasts in one swarm, and he wondered what was
drawing them to Providence.

He leapt to his feet in surprise, a ripple of
excitement replacing the furrowed concentration of building a fire. He dropped
the flints and stood watchfully in the cave’s mouth. Dust billowed; a dog
yelped in consternation. Flipping a wayward lock of hair out of his eyes he
strained to see through the gathering shadows. Someone had called out, in a
strong, clear voice that only he could hear. The sound echoed in all the
chambers of his inner ear and faded into a thought that snuggled down just out
of his hearing. He strained his eyes and ears, but there was nothing
there—only the sinister desert winds rattling the thorn bushes.

He knew the cry for what it was—a call from
another world. He was not afraid, just curious, and the ripple of excitement
reached his finger and toe tips and stayed there. He wanted to shout back that
he heard, and he was on his way, but it didn’t matter. She would know. After
years of waiting, he was ready to go wherever she asked, to meet the one who
needed his help. He knew it must be time.

* * * *

He had been walking for three days when she called again, and this time her
voice was fainter and indistinct. He wondered with a pang if she might be
leaving him. The desert boy let his feet be guided by the pups. He marched
among his pack of dogs, twenty wolf-dog pups, their tracks weaving in and out
of his footsteps. Some danced ahead, some trotted beside him, others scampered
behind—all pricked their ears and listened when she called with a mixture
of curiosity and excitement. The boy bent and stroked the head of the nearest
pup, sharing the electricity that sparked in its fur. The dogs knew; they knew
who was calling. He shivered with pleasure and let himself be submerged by the
warm, panting canine sensations.

They left the deep desert behind, the massive
buttes and mesas, profound canyons and twisting gullies. Night cries followed
the pack and its leader, the sinister sounds of slowly flapping wings and
hissing breath. Scaled and furred creatures, with savage fangs and blind beads
of eyes that never saw the light of day, followed in his tracks or flapped
overhead, hidden in the banks of gloomy cloud.

But the young man was not deterred. He kept a small
fire burning through the night to keep evil things at bay and slept in
snatches. The pups growled and whined at every rustling and scratching of the
thorn bushes, but they too were full of the echoing sound of the call and dozed
through the night hours rather than sinking into exhausted sleep. The boy
dreamed, and in his dreams he was filled with an intense joy. Everywhere was
light and warmth, and he carried the softest, tenderest warmth in his arms.
 

Not until he was within the shadow of the craggy
outer walls of the citadel did he stop and make a proper camp. Beneath the
hated walls, beneath the dull gleam of the crystal Hemisphere, memories of his
childhood returned, flitting just beyond the glow of the campfire, taunting
him. In his ten years of wandering he had avoided the place, avoided even the
sight of the Hemisphere, putting the towering mesas between him and the
gleaming dome. The caller had summoned him here and he had returned, he sensed,
for the last time.

The young man crouched beneath his shelter of
rusting metal panels picked out from the scattered debris of the ancient
building site, and waited. He tried not to think of what lay within the crystal
dome, tried to remember rather the Dananns’ underground homeland. He had been
happy there, he recalled, snatching moments of wild abandon from the fear and
misery of life in Overworld, with its drudgery in the sanitation plant.

But that was finished with now. He understood that.
He had been called to take part in something huge, something wonderful. He
hugged his knees to his chest as a ripple of excitement ran through him. That
was what he had been waiting for all these years, to find out what it was.

In the tunnel
that still
vibrated with the ringing of the smashed lantern, Zachariah forced his flailing
arms to be still and took deep breaths. It was just dark, that’s all. Nothing
to panic about. When he had calmed, reason told him it must have been a gust of
wind that blew out the lantern flame and threw some dry, furry debris into his
face. He had studied the wind a little in advanced science class: it was
nothing supernatural, not really the breath of the Wise God, just moving air,
and it meant the tunnel ended Outside after all.

Carefully, feeling his way forward with
outstretched hands, he placed one invisible foot in front of the other and
plunged deeper into the tunnel. His hands fluttered before him like a blind
man’s cane, recoiling in fear and disgust whenever he touched something that
was neither earth nor rock. The memory of the dank fur sweeping across his face
returned. As the darkness grew thicker, he imagined it gripping his throat with
unseen fingers, suffocating him. He seemed to hear the howl still echoing in
the further reaches of the tunnel.

He lost all notion of time, had no idea how long he
had been walking, whether it was hours or only a matter of minutes. The
darkness reached into his mind, crushing his ability to reason. It pushed out
all thought of the Garden and his journey into the mountains and replaced it
with pure fear. The darkness opened deep chasms in his path, became gargoyle
faces, fangs dripping with blood. He sensed the presence of furred and scaled
creatures waiting in every hollow in the tunnel wall and hanging from the
tunnel roof. His nostrils filled with the stink of corruption, his ears with
the swish and scratch of rapid, furtive movement.

He turned about wildly. He had to get out of this
place that had never known light, even if it meant abandoning everything and
running back to the tunnel’s mouth. But to his horror, the blackness was as
thick behind him as before. He spun on his heels, and the blackness followed
him. Now he no longer knew in which direction he was facing.

In his terror, alone, adrift in the darkness, the
horrors crowded round him, the images grew more solid, their voices louder. He
imagined the cold reptilian breath of demons, heard the slither of scales on
the rocky floor. He strained so hard he began to hear wordless whisperings,
from mouths with fleshless lips, fluttering inside his ears. Unable to control
his fear any longer, Zachariah crouched down like a terrified foetus with his
arms clasped tight at the back of his neck and his face hidden against his
chest.

When the wild thumping of his heart had calmed, he
took deep breaths until he had mastered his trembling, then he slowly raised
his head and opened his eyes. It seemed as though, a little to his right, there
was a thinning of the blackness. It was either the light of Outside and the end
of the tunnel, or the pale lamplight that marked the beginning of the way he
had just come.

He hesitated. He knew if he once came out of the
tunnel and found himself back in Underworld, beneath the feeble lamplight on
the derelict road back to the Dananns’ Homeland, he would never have the
courage to confront the dark path again. To walk towards or away from the
light, he had to choose. Instinctively, he chose the light.

Soon it grew stronger, and he could make out his
feet and the sandy texture of the floor. He stopped, tasting the air as he drew
it down into his lungs, fearing the sharp, tearing sensation of poison gas. It
was gritty certainly, dry and light, not tepid and oily like the air beneath
the Hemisphere. But not toxic.

He carried on cautiously, sensing he was almost
there, but slightly uneasy that the light was not stronger. What if the worked
road petered out into a fissure in solid rock that only rabbits could scramble
through? He walked quicker, despite his fears and tiredness.

He came upon it suddenly, a rock fall completely
blocking his path. A faint glimmer filtered over the top of the obstruction,
lighting up the roof. He refused to go back, not now. He scrambled up the
scree, setting stones clattering to the bottom. He tore his trousers, broke his
nails in his hurry, slithered and fell, grazing hands and knees. The thought of
the darkness behind pushed him on. He would die rather than face it again.

With a final effort, he heaved himself to the top
of the mountain of stones, his head at roof-level. He laid his cheek against
the rock and peered sideways across a jumble of rocks that finished in a ribbon
of light so thin it appeared to falter and flicker. Zachariah blinked in
disbelief. There had to be a way through! Carefully he edged his way across the
rocks, until he found a gap large enough to wriggle across.

Slowly and painfully, he dragged himself towards
the faint ribbon of light that blinked at him from the world Outside. His hands
and knees were skinned raw, his forehead and scalp torn and bruised. He could
see now the gaping blackness where the roof had fallen in, leaving a hole full
of impenetrable shadow. He held his breath. Something caught his eye—pale
shapes scattered among the rocks that gleamed dully in the faint light, pale
and dead, bone-white. He shivered.

As he hesitated, he heard a sound, a faint rustling
and scratching in the darkness overhead, like something dry and wizened and
very, very old swinging backwards and forwards against the rock wall.

Zachariah forced his terrified limbs to move. The
hollow blackness above filled him with terror, and the back of his neck
prickled with the cold air stirred by the pendulous horror creaking and swaying
in the shadows. Occasionally he felt a rock shift beneath his weight, and he
held his breath until it settled again. Little by little he was getting there,
away from the ancient, shrivelled thing that hung above his head.

By the time his numbed fingers hooked around the
final rock, he was so exhausted, his nerves so tattered, his body refused to do
anything but crawl. With a final heave he pulled himself into the light and let
his weary, bruised limbs slither down the far side. Whatever was waiting for
him at the end of the tunnel, he had no choice now but to face it.

Whoever it
was
holding Deborah made a clicking sound with his tongue, and a small compact
body covered in warm fur surged past, brushing her legs in its eagerness. Still
holding her firmly, Deborah’s captor leaned out of their hiding place so they
could watch the small creature hurtle towards the monster, swerve at the last
minute to avoid the snapping jaws, bolt out of the cavern and out of sight. The
monster swung its massive body about, the size of a bull and muscled like a tiger,
and bounded away in pursuit, its three heads still baying madly.

“Go on, outta that! Three heads and thick as shit
in a bucket.”

A low chuckle followed, and the rough hand was
removed from Deborah’s mouth. She pulled her head away sharply and wrenched her
arms free of the grip that had suddenly relaxed.

“What the hell was that?”

“Who knows? Some kind of mutant the fall-out from
the bombs created. I call him Cerberus. You can call him whatever you like,
Mandy, Cuddles, Yah Ugly Bastard. He wouldn’t know the difference.”

Deborah could hardly believe the matter-of-fact
tone of the shadowy individual who had just saved her life. She must have
looked incredulous because the voice went on, “He’d have eaten you though, if
you’d stood there. He doesn’t know any better. It’s the way he was brought up.”

The speaker was a boy wearing a collection of rags
and bits of skins, and over his shoulder was slung a bag and a short bow. As
her eyes grew accustomed to the light, Deborah could see he was older than his
wiry frame suggested—a young man, easily old enough to be married. His
skin was creased round the eyes and mouth from living outdoors, and his thick,
coppery hair was tied back out of his eyes by a narrow strip of leather. A
single lock escaped and curled over his left eye. The young man shook his head
like a dog to flick it away, a gesture Deborah guessed had become involuntary.
His face was long and fine, and he carried his head forward as though
constantly sniffing for something. It gave him an animal-like appearance, which
would have been sinister if not for his eyes, which were as green as Deborah’s,
but unlike hers, they sparkled with laughter. He grinned as though they had
just shared an extraordinarily good joke.

Deborah was less than amused. “Was that absolutely
necessary?” she asked stiffly, her pride ruffled. “Couldn’t you have just
tapped me on the shoulder?”

The young man roared with laughter, revealing
gleaming white teeth. “I could! And I could have read you a bedtime story too,
while old Mutt Heads ate the face off you.”

Deborah stared at the ground, chewing her lip,
annoyance battling with some other feeling. The sound of laughter, that
particular laugh was familiar. She had heard is so often in her dreams there
could be no mistaking it. But this was not how she had imagined the owner of
the laugh. Her thoughts went back to the haughty, handsome boy in the House of
Correction. This boy, however, dressed like a barbarian and with the wild,
unkempt look of a desert savage was a bad joke! No, she decided, she must have
been mistaken. A laugh is a laugh. Simple coincidence.
 

“If you’re dead set on being a dog’s dinner, I’ll
leave you to it,” he said airily. “The Ugly Bastard’ll be back in a few
minutes.”

“Okay, I get the message,” Deborah snapped. “You want
me to beg? Oh, great and shining hero, help me get out of here.”

“Please?”

“Please!”

The young man took her arm with another broad grin.
“Allow me, your majesty.”

 
Deborah’s first shuffling step trod on something that yelped
and squirmed out of her way, and she let out a shriek. The ground around her
feet was a carpet of furry bodies.

“Mind your great feet! It’s just the pups.”

“Aren’t I big enough for them to see, or what?”
Deborah retorted.

“Most people would step around,” the boy said, his
good humour souring to irritation. “They’re not used to goms trying to barrel
their way through them.”

* * * *

They made their way in a stony silence, broken only by the boy’s clipped
directions. Deborah bent her head and put her feet where she was told,
following the tunnel into another cave, which in turn opened onto a wide vista
of empty desert. Dusk was deepening to night, and she could barely make out the
tumble of loose scree that marked the way down to the plain. The boy moved out
of the shelter of the cave. Deborah hung back.

“Just take my hand and trust me,” he said, his
voice softening as he sensed her reluctance.

After a second’s hesitation, Deborah grasped the
strong, firm hand that was held out to her. As her fingers closed around the
hand, another piece of memory slipped into place. She accepted it finally, and
with the acceptance came a curious feeling of safety. She held the boy’s hand
tightly, and together they picked their way down without setting more than the
odd pebble rolling.

“Now we have to move it,” the boy whispered. “We
can’t risk being caught out in the open. Come on, this way.”

Bending low to the ground, they ran, keeping to the
side of the hill, avoiding the piles of rubble that constantly barred their
path. In the distance they could hear the sound of hounds baying, and closer to
hand, the sinister flapping of scaly wings. Soon, another distinct sound could
be heard beneath the ominous, furtive noises of the desert—the plop of
bursting bubbles. The air was full of a noxious stink, and the ground underfoot
was slippery and treacherous.

“Keep away from the water,” the boy whispered.
“It’s acid.”

Carefully they crept around the muddy pool that
heaved and erupted in a pustulous mass, making for what looked like a cave at
the base of a sheer cliff. The roof was so low they could barely sit beneath it
without bowing their heads. Young wolf-dogs pushed and shoved around them, and
there was the sharp, acrid smell of wild animal. Deborah watched the pups
warily, so many tongues lolling, so many pairs of yellow eyes narrowed to slits
staring back at her in the near darkness, and tucked her feet out of their way.

The young man reached out a hand and scratched the
nearest head. Other heads pushed forward, tongues licked his fingers. He seemed
hardly to notice. He watched Deborah, his eyes steady and unblinking like the
dogs’. The mocking laughter had gone out of them; he was deadly serious now.

“Who are you? How did you get out?”

Deborah frowned. Despite the familiar touch of the
boy’s hand, her father had warned her to trust no one Outside. Even without the
warning, she would have been unlikely to confide in an unwashed individual who
had caught her in a seriously humiliating situation. Not yet, anyway.

“If you’re a spy…”

“Of course I’m not a spy,” Deborah snapped. “Do I
look like a spy? And if I was, what makes you think I’d want to spy on you?”

“No one wanders this desert who is welcome anywhere
else,” the young man replied loftily. “Why are you here?”

“Would you want to live in Providence?”

“I’d rather live up a hyaena’s arse!”

“Well, there you are, then.”

The boy thought about it, and the pups waited,
their eyes fixed on his expression. Then his face broke into a grin. “I could
put you in touch with a reasonably well brought up hyaena, if you’re interested.
Doesn’t suffer too much from flatulence.”

He raised his eyebrows as if he expected a reply,
and Deborah laughed, suddenly immensely relieved. She had not realised how much
of her tension had been caused by finding herself alone with a man, however young
he appeared. In Providence the situation could never have arisen. Though it had
once, in the House of Correction. Angrily she shook the unpleasant memory out
of her head, and concentrated on savouring this completely new and, she had to
admit it, exciting experience.

The boy began to look slightly uncomfortable. “Is
there something wrong? Have I got something nasty in my hair?”

“What d’you mean?”

“You’re staring.”

It was Deborah’s turn to feel uncomfortable. She
had been staring. Of course, she had been brought up to avert her gaze when she
crossed men in the street, but she still noticed what they looked like. Both
boys and men in Providence were pale, like plants grown in a cupboard.
Schoolboys were skinny and lithe. They moved quickly, they snapped and fought,
using a lifetime’s energy in the few years before they became adults. When they
married they slowed and dulled, their flesh looked spongy and it sagged as they
grew older. This man was wiry like a boy, but he was tall and well muscled
without an ounce of extra flesh on him. His eyes looked as though they had
lived a dozen Providence lives.

“It’s just that you look…different.”

“Different to what? A flatulent hyaena?” The young
man flicked his hair out of his eyes, hair that in the harsh desert light was
bright as copper wire.

Deborah shrugged. “Just other men. I couldn’t say
for the hyaena—I’ve never met one.”

The boy’s eyes flashed, and he laughed. She had
never heard anyone laugh like that. Except in her dreams. The last of her
hesitations dissolved and Deborah dropped all her guards. He was wild and
spontaneous and…different, not at all what she had been expecting. But what, in
this turn her life had taken, was? She grinned to herself and launched into her
story.

“They put me in the House of Correction, a sort of
prison. I just wanted to get out, but then I met my father who I hadn’t seen
since I was tiny, and he told me I had to get out right away, to find my
mother.” She stopped. The boy was looking at her, waiting for her to carry on.
Should she tell him about her mother, about the Memory? How else could she
explain how she found the way out? It was a risk, but perhaps he could help
her. “I found the door that was lost, a service door they forgot to block up
when the war began. It led into that cavern where you found me.”

“Rescued you,” the boy corrected.

Deborah ignored him. “So, that’s all. You know the
rest.”

“And where will you go now?” the boy asked.
“Besides up a hyaena’s hole. You won’t last long in the desert.”

Deborah didn’t know about forests and mountains,
didn’t even know the way north, nor how long it would take to get there. The
boy might know. “I want to go north,” she said emphatically. “I want to find
the forest and the mountains. My mother is there.” The boy was silent. “Please.
Do you know how I can get there?”

The boy carried on scratching a pup’s ear and
appeared to be thinking it over. “Who exactly is your mother?”

Deborah took a deep breath. “I don’t really know.
She escaped from Providence when I was only five. The Elders wanted to kill
her. My father says it was because she has the Memory. I think,” Deborah looked
at the boy, pleading with him to believe her, “I think my mother is the one the
Dananns call the Green Woman, the Queen.”

There was a silence, and the boy stared into space
as he carried on scratching the pup’s ear.

“So, I suppose that makes you a Princess?”

“I mean it.”

“Look, Princess—”

“And don’t call me Princess, my name’s Deborah.”

The boy pulled a face and shook his head. “I’m
sorry, but I prefer Princess. There was a woman back there called Deborah, a
government minister’s wife. My mother used to do her laundry. She treated her
like dog dirt. Great fat cow. Vicious too.”

Deborah couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, you win.”

“So you want to find your mother? Have you any idea
where she went?”

“No more than I already told you. Father just said
to go north, beyond the mountains. There’s a green place, whatever that means.
That’s where she’ll be. Only I don’t know how to get there.”

Deborah wasn’t going to beg, and she didn’t know
how to plead. She remembered the laughter in her dreams, the confident touch of
a hand, and she realised she was counting on him. The boy gazed thoughtfully at
her as if debating a particularly tricky question with himself.

“We’ve been hanging around this godforsaken hole
for a week now, me and the pups. Just waiting for something or someone to turn
up.” He gave Deborah another curious look. She held her breath.
 
The boy flicked a lock of hair out of
his eye, and his face broke into a broad grin. “I suppose it was you. All
right, Princess. We’ll take you.”