Читать книгу The Memory - Gerrard Cowan - Страница 11

‘Death is coming.’

Drayn opened her eyes. Jandell and Jaco were at her side. She knew, somehow, in her bones, that these were the real Jandell and Jaco. There was something in the way they held themselves, something in the way she felt when she looked at them, that told her they were flesh and blood. But it was instantly clear that everything else in this place was a memory. Does that make it any less real?

A man sat at a desk before them. He was fairly young, perhaps in his late thirties, with neat black hair and smooth pale skin. He had an air of precision, of order. But there was something harried in his expression, something wan and fearful. The table was covered in papers, which the man sifted through with his fingers.

This was a younger version of Jaco. Drayn glanced from the old man at her side to his counterpart in the memory. There was a strange look in the old man’s eye: a kind of affectionate disdain.

There came a great lurch, and Drayn almost tumbled to the floor. This was a ship like Jandell’s, the one that had carried her into the East. But it was very different. On Jandell’s vessel she had sensed his power, carrying them across the waves. There was none of that here. There was only the peril of the real.

At the doorway stood another man, who must have been the speaker. He was a short, stocky type, who seemed to have sprung from the ship itself, a thing of seasalt and cold winds, his unblinking eyes making Drayn think of some animal of the depths. His head had been shaved with such severity that only the barest hint of stubble could be discerned on the gleaming pate.

‘Who, Teel?’ asked the memory Jaco.

The man called Teel entered the captain’s cabin. He glanced at the floor and lifted a torn black cloak.

‘Harra,’ Teel said. He tossed the cloak to Jaco. ‘She’s above deck, my lord. It is cold.’

The younger Jaco stood and tossed the cloak aside. ‘Let’s go.’

They found themselves on the deck at night, staring at a dead woman.

Her corpse was positioned against a mast. A handful of other crewmembers were spread around the deck. Some watched Jaco, as he knelt down by the body of the woman called Harra. Others stared out to sea, to impenetrable blackness.

Drayn looked to the real Jaco. If he was surprised to find himself in a memory, he did not look it. Instead, he stared ahead with a dark gravity. Jandell seemed lost in thought as he watched the unfolding scene.

‘How did you bring us here?’ he asked Drayn, emerging from his reverie. ‘Do you remember how you did it?’

‘No.’

‘And can you … what do you feel?’

‘Nothing,’ Drayn said. But perhaps that was not true. Perhaps she was once more deploying her tricks, as if to ward off the Voice, that thing that had watched her in the Choosing. It’s gone, now. Isn’t it?

She could feel something: the edge of the memory. There was something there: a whisper of power …

‘What killed her?’ asked the Jaco of the memory.

Teel crouched down beside the captain. ‘It’s the same thing that gets them all,’ he said. ‘Whatever it is. The Blight. She was fine this morning, or as fine as you can be, out here. And then …’ He shrugged.

The young Jaco nodded. ‘The Blight,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ He lifted Harra’s arm, turning it over to study the underside. ‘When I was a boy, I used to hear of terrible scourges. They came from the swamps in the South, folks used to say, from the festering waters. People would come out in blotches, and that would be the end of them. You never got rid of it, when it arrived in a town. You had to keep the people inside, until they were all … gone.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t be touching her, my lord.’

‘That’s just it, Teel – there are no marks on her.’

Jaco brushed a strand of thin black hair away from Harra’s forehead.

‘If it is the same thing, we’re all dead already,’ said Jaco. ‘But I don’t think so. I think it’s something else. It’s as if the spirit falls out of them, somehow.’

‘It’s a curse,’ Teel spat. ‘We are being punished.’

Jaco squinted. ‘What do you mean?’

Teel clenched his fists together. ‘We’ve gone too far from home, my lord, and we’re being punished for it.’

Jaco smiled.

‘The Machinery,’ he said.

Teel nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. We’re from the Overland. We’re a part of the Machinery. It felt us leave it behind, and it’s punishing us. That’s why we’re lost, out here. We lost ourselves, when we left, and now we’re lost at sea.’

There was a sound, in the dark – the screech of a bird. The crewmembers on the deck muttered to one another in hushed voices.

‘Second,’ Jaco said, ‘the Operator has sanctioned our voyages. He would not have done so—’

‘No, sir, no.’

Jaco’s eyes widened. He seemed unaccustomed to being interrupted. He was so like Drayn’s mother. He’s higher than the rest of these folk, and it’s nothing to do with a title.

‘I’m sorry, my lord, truly.’ Teel bowed his head. ‘But the Operator is not the Machinery. They are not the same thing.’

Jaco looked back to Harra.

‘Do you think it sees us here, Teel?’

Teel nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. The Machinery knows all.’

They were back in the cabin.

‘My lord.’

Jaco turned towards Teel, who stood at the door again. ‘Death is coming,’ said the captain. ‘Who is it this time?’

But Teel shook his gleaming head. ‘No. That’s not it. Come.’

They all followed Teel through the memory ship, back up to the deck.

‘It’s land,’ said Teel.

Jaco grunted, and stared out into the ocean, which glowed in the light of the dawn. Drayn saw it, then – a grey mass.

‘Have we come home?’ Jaco asked. ‘Or back to the South?’

Teel silenced Jaco with a shake of his head.

‘This is not the Overland, or the southern lands, my lord. We have not found our way by accident.’ Teel squinted out into the greyness. ‘I don’t know where we are.’

Jaco nodded. ‘Have we seen any other ships?’

‘No. There’s no sign of life here at all. But the coast … I cannot be certain, my lord, but to my eye, this is the edge of a wide land. It is no outcrop. If it’s large, then it could be inhabited. And we don’t know who they are, the people that live there.’

Jaco sighed. ‘We have no choice. We must go there.’

The memory took them somewhere else: an expanse of pale-green grass and black, broken stone, at the side of a forest. The wind howled at them.

There were about a dozen crewmembers left untouched by the Blight. They had carved out a small camp at the side of the woods, in the shadow of three great boulders. They had food, and a supply of firewood: a hog was burning on a spit.

‘Why’s it stopped?’ said a voice.

Drayn turned her head, and saw Teel and Jaco, sitting on one of the boulders. Teel seemed healthier than before: his skin was pinker, his flesh thicker, and there was even a thin layer of stubble on his scalp.

‘The Blight?’

Teel nodded.

Jaco shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the climate.’

Teel grunted. ‘It’s like we were being poisoned by someone, and now they’ve decided to … stop poisoning us.’

Jaco did not argue.

‘If someone was doing that to us,’ he said, ‘I wonder why they’ve stopped?’

Teel glanced at the captain. ‘Maybe they’ve got us where they want us.’ He gestured to the other crewmembers, below the rocks. They were spread around in little groups, talking to one another and eating. ‘Everyone’s taken their mind off their work,’ Teel said. ‘Do you know what I mean, my lord?’

Jaco nodded. ‘I do.’

‘It’s just that … I feel something here, my lord. That’s all.’

Jaco stared at their surroundings.

‘Then what should we do, Teel?’

Teel jammed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘We should get back to the ship, my lord.’

Jaco glanced behind him, down to the shore beyond. Drayn could not see it, but she imagined the ship was there, tied to some rocks.

‘We should get back to it, and take our chances on the waves,’ Teel said. ‘Death is coming here, as well. I can feel it.’

The memory shunted forward, into the night. The crew were asleep around their little camp, all except Jaco, who sat at the edge of a rock, staring out into the woods. Drayn glanced quickly around. She saw Jandell and the older Jaco, watching this memory with the same fascination as her.

A noise came from the woods, one that could not be ignored. It was the cry of a newborn baby.

Teel was awake and on his feet, staring out into the trees, tightly grasping a blade. Jaco scrambled down from the rock to Teel’s side. The cry came again, closer than before. This time there were other sounds: the shifting of undergrowth, the crackle of sticks and twigs breaking underfoot.

‘We should get away from here,’ Teel said, in a quiet voice. ‘Nothing good is coming from those woods.’

The memory Jaco shook his head. ‘We don’t have time. And we don’t run away from crying babies.’

Teel grunted. ‘It’s not the baby I’m worried about. It’s whoever’s carrying it.’

The sounds came closer, almost as if the wanderers were at the very edge of the treeline, before they stopped altogether. Even the baby ceased crying. Perhaps a hand has been placed across its mouth.

‘They’ve seen us,’ Teel whispered. There was a tremor in his voice that was oddly unsettling. ‘They’re watching us.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ Jaco whispered back. ‘If you were carrying a baby through the woods, and you stumbled across a group of strangers, would you run out into the middle of them?’ He glanced at Teel’s blade. ‘When they’re armed?’

The rest of the crew were awake now, too, on their feet and staring out into the woods. The only light came from the moon and the dying glow of the fire. ‘Light a torch,’ Jaco ordered a woman to his right.

He walked forward as the torchlight flickered around the camp. Teel grabbed him by the shoulder, but the captain shook him off. He approached the trees as quietly as he could, raising his hands in the air.

‘I don’t know if you understand me,’ he said, in what Drayn took as an attempt at a friendly voice. ‘We are from another land. We came here by accident, and we only wish to go home.’

There came a noise from the woods. It was not the cry of a baby, but a hushed whisper.

Another moment passed.

‘Please, come out to us,’ Jaco said.

There was silence. Nothing happened.

‘Please,’ Jaco said again. ‘I swear, we mean you no harm.’

And then she came.

The woman was young to look at, somewhere in her twenties or early thirties. But there was an air of something old in the way she carried herself, and in the glances of her eyes. And what eyes they were: green as grass, green as emeralds, green as a snake. Almost as green as the dress she wore, a long gown that wrapped itself around her narrow frame, like it too was alive: a spirit of the forest. She wore her red hair long, the curls cascading past her shoulders, and her skin was a white so unblemished that it could almost have been porcelain.

Drayn heard a gasp: she turned and saw that Jandell had fallen to his knees, his head in his hands. The real Jaco simply watched, his face a slab of stone.

The baby was in the woman’s arms, wrapped in grey rags.

‘Can you understand me, my lady?’ the memory Jaco asked.

The woman stopped walking. She was perhaps ten paces from their camp.

‘Yes, oh yes,’ she said, nodding vigorously. ‘I am from your land, my lord, I know your words well, oh yes.’

The memory Jaco sucked in a breath.

‘How did you get here?’ he asked. ‘We thought we were the first from the Plateau to come to this place – wherever we are.’

‘Oh, it is a terrible place, a terrible place!’ the woman cried. Her voice had a strange, sing-song quality. ‘It is full of terrible people, my lord! They took me, you see, they sailed to our lands in their terrible ships, and they took me away!’

Jaco glanced at the trees.

‘Is that your baby?’

‘Yes, yes, my little girl!’

The woman began to move. The crewmembers tensed up, and Teel raised his blade, but Jaco quietened them with a flick of a finger.

The woman brought the baby to him, and Jaco looked down at the squalling child within the rags. Drayn hurried forward, to catch a glimpse of this infant. She had a thick thatch of black hair, and her wide eyes were the same colour. Strange, but she was not dissimilar to Jaco himself.

‘They want to make her a slave too, my lord!’ the woman cried. ‘But I will not let them! I will throw her into the sea before I allow that!’ She looked at the ground. ‘They used me most cruelly, my lord,’ she said in a quiet voice, gesturing at her child. ‘But I am not sorry to have her, oh no. I will not allow them to take her!’

‘Captain.’

Jaco turned to Teel, who was pointing into the forest.

‘There are lights in the forest, captain.’

The captain squinted into the darkness. Drayn saw it too: a flickering line of torches, coming closer. Drayn could just about make out the sound of voices, shouting and calling, the words muffled by distance.

‘It is them!’ the woman cried. ‘They are coming!’ She grasped Jaco’s arm. ‘They will kill us all if you stay! Take my baby, and leave this place, oh yes, you must leave.’

Jaco seemed to thrum with a restless energy.

‘Very well,’ he said. He turned to Teel. ‘We can launch the ship quickly.’

Teel nodded. ‘Yes. But the instruments—’

‘Oh your little tools and your maps, your little toys, they will work now!’ the woman cried. ‘This place sucks people in with its terrible tricks, but it cannot stop you leaving, oh no!’

Jaco nodded. He did not truly appear to understand, though he knew they had to leave: of that, Drayn was certain.

‘Come with us,’ he said to the woman.

‘No, my lord, no. They will chase you if they see your ship. I will stay here, and I will distract them, oh yes, I am so good at distracting!’ She thrust the child into Jaco’s arms. ‘Take her! Run!’

Jaco seemed to think this over for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said.

The woman nodded, and turned towards the lights.

‘What is your name?’ Jaco asked.

The woman glanced back at him. ‘I have many names, my lord, but none of them matter here.’

‘What of the girl?’

The woman began to walk away. ‘Call her what you will.’

They were back on board the ship, now, in Jaco’s room. The captain sat at his desk with the child, wrapped in a woollen blanket. She was older than Drayn had first thought: perhaps seven or eight months old.

Teel came to the door.

‘We will tell no one of this,’ Jaco said, ‘apart from my wife. I will keep the child in Paprissi House, until it is time to reveal her. My wife never leaves the house anyway. They will believe she is ours. As for our journey, we went to the South as usual.’

Teel shrugged. ‘That is your concern, my lord.’

Jaco nodded. ‘Yes. It is.’

‘What will you call her?’ Teel asked.

Jaco looked down at the baby.

‘Strange,’ he whispered. ‘When I look at these eyes, sometimes I think I see the slightest hint of purple.’

Teel chuckled. ‘That’s love, playing tricks on you, sir. Makes you see funny things.’

Jaco’s head snapped up. ‘Love?’ He looked down at the baby once more. ‘She looks like one of us, doesn’t she? A Paprissi.’

‘Yes, sir. Pale skinned, my lord. A little Paprissi lady already, just by another name.’

Jaco smiled. ‘She looks like my own grandmother. So there we are – that’s what I’ll name her.’

‘Grandmother?’

Jaco laughed. ‘No.’ He touched the baby’s nose. ‘Katrina.’