Читать книгу The Sign of One - Eugene Lambert - Страница 7

The Cutting was yesterday. We missed it. Soon as we hit the trail out of our valley, I knew we would. I’ve seen dirtworms slither faster than some of our lot walk. Three boggin’ days it’s taken us to get to Deep Six. On my own I could hike it in one, but that was never going to happen. Out here in the Barrenlands, you go mob-handed and in dayshine or you don’t go at all. Our wildlife’s too nasty and there’s always the chance of running into Reapers. It’s a curse, missing the Cutting, but at least we’ve made it to the Peace Fair in time for tomorrow’s Unwrapping.

‘C’mon, Kyle,’ Nash says to me. ‘You done yet?’

Our men have cleared off to do some catch-up drinking, the women and the girls to check out the merchants’ stalls. Nash and me, we’ve been left behind with the wagons, stuck with setting up camp and finding fodder for our fourhorns. Now we’re supposed to sit tight and look after everything. Don’t think so.

I hammer the last guy rope in. ‘All done.’

We head towards the roars of delight from the nearby fairground. I feel sick with excitement and sweat pours off me. See, this is my first Fair.

‘I’m going to tell them,’ says Nash.

He’s only a year older than me, but he’s been to loads of Fairs already. We both know I could be flogged for not attending sooner. Once you’re ten, the Saviour’s law says you must go, at least once every three years.

‘Give us a break, Nash.’

He sniggers. He’s such a gommer.

It’s Rona’s fault. She won’t say why, but she never attends the Fair. She gets away with it because she’s the only healer in Freshwater. Which is fine, I guess, and none of my business. Except every year she comes up with some excuse why I can’t go neither. Last year, I kicked up. Told her I was going, no matter what. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back with swamp pox, the only dose in the three valleys. Rona denies it, course she does, but I swear she gave it to me deliberate. And you can die easy from the swamp pox. It’s a miracle I wasn’t scarred for life.

Well, she might be my mother, but I’m sixteen now.

At the gate, we hand over credits and flash our ID tags. I worry the gate man will figure out mine is fake, but this is the Barrenlands – he couldn’t care less.

Nash keeps his poisonous little mouth shut, for once.

We hurry through a dark tunnel to emerge blinking back into evenshine, halfway up some stone-built terraces, which curve round to form an immense arena. The size of the crowd rips the breath out of my lungs – I’d no idea there were this many people on Wrath, let alone in the Barrenlands. Stalls and show tents stand out like brightly painted islands in a boiling sea of bodies. It’s fierce loud. A madhouse of hoots and rough laughter and merchants yelling their wares.

‘Are those the idents in the cages?’ I ask.

‘What do you think?’ says Nash.

At the far side of the fairground is a stage, loads of cages stacked like crates around the back of it. Even from here I can see each cage has two child prisoners inside. So it’s true. We get to gawp at them between Cutting and Unwrapping. They can’t mess with their wounds without someone seeing.

Nash dives into the crowd. I follow him to a food stall.

Surprise, I end up paying for both of us. A credit buys a beer each and steaming bogbuck steaks wrapped in purple leaf. While I wolf the meat, I stare at the faces around me. Most are thick-fingered grubbers like us, but I see plenty of hunter and scavenger folk too. The locals are easy to spot, their pale miner faces scrunched up against the sun. Nearly as many women wander around as men, many with straw still plaited into their hair, to celebrate the recent harvest.

‘You don’t eat the leaf, you donk,’ says Nash.

‘Oh,’ I say. It was chewy.

I watch him as he takes a long pull from his beaker. His eyes water, but he doesn’t drop dead or anything, so I sip mine. It’s fierce strong beer and tastes foul, but he’s watching me back. I smack my lips and pretend to like it.

‘Rona’d kill me if she saw me drinking this.’

‘Rona ain’t here.’

After I finish it, I feel floaty. Can’t stop smiling, even at strangers. It’s like the hoots and yells and laughter get louder too. The crowd’s excitement is more catching than swamp pox. My heart starts pounding.

Why was Rona so worried about me coming here?

We bump into some girls from our valley then – Vijay, Mary and her little sister, Cassie. They tag along, which is no hardship. After a while, we end up near the stage and its wall of cages. Nash and the girls push on to watch jugglers, but I see two pale faces peering from the nearest cage and hang back.

Hairs stand up on the nape of my neck.

Both these girls have exactly the same long red hair, the same blue eyes, the same lips pulled down at the corners. One face two times. Twin sisters. Despite the muggy air, I shiver. I bet even their own mother couldn’t tell them apart.

Identical. But one is a monster.

I make the Sign of One. Our sign against evil.

‘Oh, come on,’ says Nash, back at my elbow. ‘Don’t go all pious on us.’

Mary and Vijay snigger, safe behind him.

I shake my head, feeling stupid. The cage looks solid enough and is covered in wire mesh. Both girls have iron leg shackles. They’re going nowhere.

And the thing is, neither looks evil to me, only scared.

‘Never seen idents before,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’

‘Not even baby ones?’ says Mary. ‘Doesn’t Rona heal them?’

I shrug. ‘She does, but always goes on her own. To spare the families.’

Even back in Freshwater, so tiny compared to this great big mining town, we have five families now cursed with ident babies. Rona’s helped deliver all of them, but won’t do the marking. Says chopping fingers off infants is no job for a healer. Sometimes I’ve heard these babies crying as I passed by, but I’ve never seen any of them. The shame is so great and guys like Nash would throw stones, so the unfortunate families raise them inside, behind bolted doors. Four long years of despair and misery before Slayers take them away to the ident camps.

What must it be like to be their parents? Just cruel.

And yet where would we be without the Saviour’s law to protect us?

‘Hey, see the bandages?’ says Nash, pointing.

Further along, two ident boys stand in their cage, gripping the bars. I see their forearms, bandaged from the Cutting. I see too that both bear the telltale mark of the ident, the little finger hacked from their left hand. Sick but clever that. Word is, back in the early days of the Saviour’s law, desperate parents would hide their ident offspring by splitting them up. No way to hide a missing finger though.

I look back at the redheads, but they see me staring.

Although I’ve paid good money to be here, I have to look away. Okay, so I know these girls are freaks, but it still feels wrong to gawp. Just does.

‘C’mon,’ says Nash, making to head off, ‘I’ll show you something better.’

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Those girls.’

Nash stops and stares, obviously not bothered in the slightest that they can see him looking. ‘Yeah. Cute, but not my type. What about them?’

‘Which do you think is the evil one?’

Nash frowns at me, like I’m some kind of drooling idiot.

‘Well, my money’s on the redhead. Oh wait – they’re both redheads!’ He slaps his forehead, and this sends Vijay and Mary into fits of laughter. ‘Look, we’ll find out tomorrow at the Unwrapping. Now are you coming or what?’

I let him drag me away.

But the look on those girls’ faces, it dents my mood.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still buzzing, but I’m not so dazzled now by everything I see. Maybe that’s why I start noticing faces in the crowd that aren’t red and shiny with having a good time. I nudge Mary and point out one such woman. She’s got a little boy by the hand. To look at her long, grey face, you’d think she was at a funeral, not a fair. Her brat looks fed up to the back teeth too.

‘You can’t please some people,’ I say.

Mary winces, surprising me. ‘The Saviour giveth, the Saviour taketh away,’ she says, quoting Freshwater’s preacher, old Fod. ‘Even idents have families.’

Cassie catches up and grabs my hand. She’s shaking.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ I ask her.

‘I’m glad there’s only one of me,’ she whispers.

‘You wait till you see this thing,’ says Nash, with a weird laugh.

‘Is it scary?’ squeaks Cassie, her brown eyes wide.

Nash leads us out of the crowd, towards an alcove set deep into the stone wall of the arena. As we get closer, I see wrist-thick iron bars sealing this space off and turning it into another cage. A torn canvas awning flaps above it, filling the alcove with scuttling shadows. Off to one side, a sun-scorched old man sits cross-legged on a mat, watching us. Sharp-eyed kids are hanging about.

‘Is it some wild animal?’ I ask Nash.

‘Wait and see.’

One brat is slow clearing out of our way. Nash shoves her aside. I expect screeching and swearing, but the girl hardly notices. She just keeps staring at the cage, her grubby face a muddle of fright and teeth-bared anticipation.

Weird. All I can see is a heap of rags and bones.

Until the rags and bones move.

The rags are rags, but those bones still have skin on them. As my eyes adjust, I see a mottled hand clutching the rags around a filthy wasted body.

A skull-like head slowly lifts to regard us.

‘Oh – my – Saviour!’ I make the Sign of One again.

I’ve never seen a real-live twist before and my guts tie themselves into cold knots. Idents I expected to see, wanted to see. But this monster with twisted blood – this I’m not ready for. I take several steps back despite myself.

Cassie pulls free, turns and runs. Don’t blame her.

Nash sneers, but I’m not fooled. He can act tough, but he’s eyeing those bars same as me, gauging their strength. He’s scared too. Who wouldn’t be?

The bane of Wrath, a devil in human form.

Those iron bars are the only reason we still have throats.

I force myself forward. A breeze shifts the awning and shadows scatter. I see the mad hatred in the creature’s bloodshot eyes as it watches me. I’m so close now its stink shoves up my nose. The twist’s skin is covered in muck and a rash of angry red scars, its waist-length hair filthy and matted. I thought I was a bit skinny, but this thing’s nothing but skin and bone. Male or female? Impossible to say. It hisses at me like a rock viper and shows me its teeth, all filed to sharp points.

Nash elbows me, scaring the crap out of me. ‘They always have one here.’

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

Behave – or the twist will come in the night and get you!

It’s what grumpy old folk like to growl at naughty little children to scare them. Seeing this disgusting monster is like having my worst nightmares made flesh. It’s horrible to think one of those redhead ident girls will end up like this.

But that’s why we have the Cutting and Unwrapping.

‘You scared, boy?’ asks the twist’s keeper, the old bloke.

‘Not me,’ I say, grimacing.

‘Y’ought to be.’ He cackles, pulls a leather cosh from his belt and rasps it along the cage.

The twist lets out this blood-curdling scream, bounds to its feet and hurls itself at him. Its skeletal arm shoots out between the bars, bony fingers clawing for the man’s throat. Only just in time, he steps back out of range.

It happens so fast – inhumanly fast.

Behind me, I hear children’s delighted shrieks.

‘See what I mean?’ says the man. He spits into the dust at my feet, then looks at me, unblinking and seemingly uncaring, as the twist thrashes to reach him. ‘Some folks, they don’t believe in evil; they gotta see for themselves.’

Mary tugs my sleeve. ‘You got a credit?’

The man elbows her out of the way. His breath stinks as bad as the twist. ‘A credit and you can make it dance.’

‘Do what?’ I say.

‘Just pay the man,’ says Nash, shoving me.

They’re all sneering at me now, so I toss the man a credit.

He makes a big show of biting the coin, then fetches this long pole with an insulated grip at one end. A thick cable snakes away from it through the dirt, towards an ancient power pack. On the grip is a crude trigger.

‘Done this before?’

I’ve no idea what he’s on about and shake my head.

The twist sees the pole; it howls and flings itself to the back of the alcove. The man presses the trigger and I hear an electric whine. Casually, he touches the pole’s tip against one of the bars. BANG! There’s a blinding flash. Showers of yellow sparks make us all duck and I smell the familiar hot stench of arc welding.

The iron bar glows red where the tip touched it.

Oh my Saviour. The twist’s skin, all those wounds. I know why now.

‘Have fun,’ says the man, handing me the pole. ‘You got one minute. And don’t get too close. If the twist tags you, that’s your problem not mine.’

I think I’m going to puke, but Nash’s face is a mask, stretched taut with anticipation. He licks his lips and pushes me forward.

‘You heard him – make it dance.’

‘I don’t want to,’ I moan. ‘Somebody else do it.’

This is sick. In my head I see Rona’s I told you so face.

‘You big, soft gom,’ growls Nash. ‘The thing’s not human. Doesn’t matter how bad you burn it, it’ll be okay tomorrow. These monsters heal so fast.’

Not human. But it was once, wasn’t it?

I stare in horror at the twist as it grovels and whimpers at the back of its cage. Okay, so maybe it is a monster now, like they keep telling us. What do I know? I’m a nobody from the arse end of the Barrens. But it sounds human.

‘Come on,’ says Vijay. ‘Don’t be a wimp.’

I look at Mary, but her lip curls.

‘Stop wetting yourself. Get stuck in!’ shouts Nash.

The old man wants the business too. He thrusts his face real close.

‘Y’ain’t no stinking twist-lover, are ya?’

Faces in the crowd are staring now. My skin crawls, but what can I do? Nothing. I know – we all know – what happens to twist-lovers, those fools who preach the heresy that twists aren’t evil, just another human species. They end up hanging from trees, their eyes pecked out. I grit my teeth, step up to the bars.

Only for my legs to be kicked out from under me.

The ground leaps up and smashes into my back. For several seconds all I can do is lie there groaning, struggling to catch my breath. Too late I remember the pole I’m holding is a weapon, before a booted foot grinds that hand into the soil. I look up to see my attacker standing over me – a little guy with white dreads, shabby leather overalls, eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses. In each lens, I see my shocked face, gob open, gasping for air. Two me’s, like I’m an ident too.

He pushes the shades up into his dreads and he . . . is a girl.

A girl with death in her dark green eyes.

‘So you like torturing twists, do you?’ she hisses.

‘Drop dead,’ I say, wheezing.

Big mistake. I see now what she’s pointing at me – a snub-nosed flamer, a weapon so lethal it’s banned even on dump worlds.

She leans down and presses the flamer’s barrel into my forehead.

‘Wrong answer.’

The gun’s a blur, so I focus on the girl’s face. Pale, tough-looking, about my age. Black thumb-thick bars painted across her cheekbones. Teardrop tattoo dripping from her left eye. Those long, greasy dreads, bleached white.

And she looks mad as hell.

‘No, wait!’ I say. ‘I –’

A bald guy in matching leathers and face paint hauls the girl off me. He’s massive, double ugly and looks even meaner than she is. I like him already.

‘What the hell are you doing, Sky?’

He wrenches the flamer from the girl’s hand and shoves her away. She glares at him like she’ll argue, but settles for making a gun shape with her hand and pretend-shooting me.

She stalks off then, limping badly.

Baldy waves her flamer at us. ‘Anybody see what happened?’

Nobody wants to die so nobody answers.

The man grunts with obvious satisfaction. ‘Good. You keep it that way.’

He pockets the gun and follows the girl towards the exit. Our stunned silence is broken by a slow, leathery slapping sound. The twist is sitting up at the back of its cage now and it’s clapping.

Slowly, miserably, I pick myself up.

‘Wow, Kyle,’ says Nash, poking me with his finger. ‘You just got your head kicked in by some gimp windjammer girl.’

‘That right?’ I say.

He opens his mouth to make another smart-arse comment.

I don’t give him the chance.

All my life I’ve been scared of thugs like Nash, but it’s like I’m suddenly possessed by rage. Or maybe it’s shame. I snap his head back with a punch. He staggers and goes down. When he gets back up, he’s clutching his mouth and cursing me, blood dribbling thick and red between his fingers.

‘You so had that coming, Nash,’ I say.