The Abyss Beyond Dreams Read online

  ‘What? You can’t be.’

  ‘I am. True.’

  ‘You mean you’re not really you?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ he chortled. ‘But you know my ego: I’m far too important to actually die, so I sent this me into the Void to do my own dirty work. I never expected to make it back, although I never expected the mission would be like this, either. Kysandra, I never expected to meet you. Strange, the things fate throws at us.’

  She nodded, not trusting herself to say anything.

  ‘We’ll meet again someday, somewhere,’ Nigel said. ‘I promise you that. And it will be the happiest day I’ve had for a thousand years, because I’ll get to see you live as you deserve to. That’s what this is about, that’s why this version of me exists. Let me fulfil my destiny, so I can watch you achieve yours.’

  ‘I don’t want another you. I want this one.’

  ‘The other one is the original, the best. You’ll see. Just don’t ever tell him I said that, okay? Keep it between us.’

  ‘Do you always have to be right?’

  ‘It’s what I am.’

  ‘I want to be right, too, just for once.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  *

  They changed tracks at Fosbury, switching the branch-line train onto the main Southern City Line. Nobody challenged Slvasta’s bodyguard troops as the comrades swarmed into the signal box to pull the big iron levers which moved the points over, even though the revolution hadn’t even been acknowledged this far from Varlan. Bethaneve curled up on one of the long bench seats and fell asleep as the carriage rocked about.

  Javier woke her as dawn was breaking. A pale gold light was streaming in through the windows facing east. The only nebula left in the sky was Uracus itself – a venomous russet mist, twined with topaz fronds as if the interstellar dust storms were two kinds of giant space weed writhing round each other. For some reason, the empty gulf along its centre seemed larger today. Below it, fog lay across the land, meandering through the hollows like a lake of sluggish oil, with trees and the roofs of farm buildings poking through. Hills rumpled the horizon.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked. Every limb ached from the cramped bench as she stretched laboriously. But – thank Giu – the worst of the exhaustion had left her.

  ‘Five hours out from Dios,’ Javier said. ‘Apparently we just passed through a place called Normanton.’

  ‘No idea where that is.’ She massaged the base of her neck, which was badly kinked from being pressed up against the armrest. ‘You know I’ve never been out of the city before?’

  ‘I lived in Sigen for a couple of years, but that’s all.’

  She glanced down the carriage. Most of the bodyguard troops seemed to be sleeping, but those who were awake were vigilant. Slvasta was sitting on a bench at the far end, flanked by Andricea and Yannrith. Bethaneve did her best to keep a scowl from her face.

  ‘She can’t replace you,’ he said softly.

  ‘He probably thinks I’m a . . . Oh, crud, Javier, what in Uracus was Coulan?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shell hardening to veil his emotions. ‘But not a Faller, that’s for sure.’

  She lowered her voice. ‘He said he was a machine. He wasn’t human, not proper human.’

  ‘He cared about us, that’s all I know. Whatever he was doing, it’s bigger than the revolution. A lot bigger.’

  ‘“Take you back into the real universe”, that’s what he said. What in Giu’s name did he mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I guess he must have been talking about the universe outside the Void, the one Captain Cornelius came from.’

  ‘But . . . going back there? That’s crazy.’

  ‘I know. But he certainly wasn’t like you and me, anyway. I’ve been thinking about that. I believe he was a better kind of human. That he came to the Void to help us.’

  ‘You could be right,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He was better.’ She could see how badly he was suffering.

  ‘So, it’s not impossible, is it? Not completely?’

  ‘Maybe not. I wonder if Nigel is a part of whatever they’re planning?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Bethaneve looked down the carriage again, still perturbed to see Captain Philious sitting opposite Slvasta. ‘Did Slvasta sleep?’

  ‘Yes. He woke up a few minutes ago. That’s why I got you up.’

  ‘Good. If he slept, he will have calmed down. We can try and talk some sense into him.’

  ‘He won’t listen to me. Not after yesterday. Coulan and I were together. I can’t be trusted. It’s got to be you.’

  She put her hand on top of his. ‘He fooled everybody.’

  ‘Maybe I wanted to be fooled. He was . . . perfection.’

  ‘I know. I remember. So perfect I wasn’t even jealous when he left me for you. I was just glad he was happy. Can you imagine that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a shaky voice. ‘It just hurts.’

  She squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll go talk to Slvasta.’

  Andricea eyed her warily as she walked down the aisle between the benches. There was clearly a private ’path exchange between her and Slvasta. She got up and gave Bethaneve a neutral smile. ‘I’ll go and see if there’s anything to eat. There’s got to be some tea, at least.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bethaneve looked down expectantly at Slvasta.

  When he returned her gaze he was actually sheepish. ‘Please,’ he said, and half stood.

  She sat beside him, and couldn’t quite bring herself to look at the Captain sitting on the bench opposite.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ he said. ‘I said things I just didn’t mean. Forgive me.’

  She leaned forward and gave him a soft kiss. ‘We were all under a lot of stress, and Ingmar didn’t help.’

  ‘Crudding right!’ He exhaled loudly. ‘I didn’t understand what was happening.’

  ‘And do you now?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So what are we doing?’

  ‘Stopping them. I know where Nigel lives. I’ve been to his nest.’

  ‘Who is them, my love?’

  ‘The Fallers.’

  ‘I’m not sure Coulan was a Faller. He said he was a machine.’

  ‘He controlled us,’ Slvasta said. ‘Humans and other Fallers; the one from Eynsham Square had something odd in its brain, Captain Philious told me. So he controlled us without us even knowing. Controlled us as if we were his mods, all running round doing what he wanted. Thinking it was what we wanted.’

  She stared across at Captain Philious. ‘I still want justice and democracy for everyone. I wanted that before I met him. That will never change.’

  ‘Whereas all he wanted were the quantumbusters from my palace,’ the Captain said.

  ‘I don’t know what they are.’

  ‘A bomb. A bomb my ancestor brought with him to the Void, rightly or wrongly. A bomb powerful enough to blow up Bienvenido itself. How does that bring anyone justice?’

  ‘Do you think he was a Faller?’

  ‘I don’t see what else he could have been. Maybe one of their ruling class. Their equivalent to me.’

  She shook her head. ‘If there are Fallers like that, then we would all have Fallen a thousand years ago. Coulan and Nigel, they’re different.’

  ‘They want to destroy us. How is that different?’

  Bethaneve tipped her head back, resting it on the thin cushioning. It was no use; she knew Slvasta could never be argued round when it came to Fallers. She suspected the Captain was playing him, exploiting his weakness to gain advantage.

  Uracus, am I paranoid? If I protest, if I argue against this now, Slvasta will never trust me again. I have to stay with him, to help him before he is ruined by this. If he Falls, so does the revolution.

  ‘I don’t suppose it is,’ she said. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  *

  It was still dark when the express arrived at the outskirts of Dios, with just a hint of dawn�
��s coronal blaze in the eastern sky. The delicate gossamer nebulas were retreating back into night, shying away from the sunlight. The big engine came to a halt amid bursts of steam and a drawn-out clanking of brakes, ending with the pistons reversing and spinning the wheels backwards. Two hundred metres ahead, the pale orange lights of the main station signal box shone weakly down onto the maze of tracks. Inside the box, the signalman obediently pulled several long levers, changing the points. Madeline removed her carbine’s muzzle from his crotch.

  ‘Branch line is open,’ she ’pathed to the express.

  It began to move forward again, switching across tracks until it was heading down the line to Erond. Once it was clear of the junction, it began to pick up speed again.

  Three and a half hours later, with the sun now well above the horizon, it slipped into the small marshalling yard at the side of Erond’s station. Merchants and wholesalers who were waiting for their morning deliveries watched the unscheduled arrival with interest. They didn’t get too close, though; Russell and others from Ma’s organization were standing round in their long drosilk coats, carbines held prominently, making sure there was plenty of space for the two steam cars to back up to the carriage.

  Kysandra followed Nigel out of the carriage. The fresh morning air was tainted with the smell of coal smoke and hot oil. She perceived a lot of ex-sight gliding over her and the cars, mainly from all the merchants. But there were no curious sheriffs, no authorities. Nigel had infiltrated the county administration very effectively.

  Marek was in charge of the yard crew and quickly orchestrated everyone to create a strong shell around the carriage carrying the quantumbusters. Inside its protective shroud, the warheads were loaded onto trailers towed by the steam cars. Once they were secured, Marek’s people mounted up on horses, and the cars drove out of the yard.

  Within twenty minutes, the cavalcade had driven through the outskirts and reached the new river road to Adeone. With a screech of fast-moving metal, the steam cars started to accelerate.

  *

  Slvasta’s train pulled in at Dios station just before midday. The station manager himself came out onto the platform to meet the second unscheduled train of the morning. His indignation was exuded as a badge of authority, but it began to falter as his ex-sight picked up the three armed men in the engine’s cab along with the driver and fireman. Strangely, there were no mod-dwarfs to help shovel coal.

  What was left of his bluster vanished altogether as the bodyguard troop began to pile out of the first carriage. Dios knew all about the carbines which the revolutionaries used. Then Slvasta himself came striding down the platform, the self-proclaimed prime minister of the new People’s Interim Congress. Fright began to leak out of the station manager’s mind. If Slvasta was here, Dios was going to suffer as Varlan had. Fear gave way to outright astonishment as he saw Captain Philious walking beside Slvasta.

  Hundreds of local people were absorbing the station manager’s involuntary gifting as Slvasta came up to him. ‘Did the express from Varlan stop here?’

  ‘Uh, no, not really, sir. Sirs! It switched to the Erond line. My signalman was forced to open the points for them. He had to; she held a gun to his head.’

  ‘So nobody got off?’

  ‘No, sir. I don’t think so. It barely stopped.’

  ‘Okay. Now, where is the county regiment headquarters?’

  *

  The Dios county regimental headquarters was a huge four-storey stone building stretching for over two hundred metres along Fothermore Street at the centre of the city. Behind the façade were several acres of grounds dominated by the broad parade ground, then various stables, barracks, officers’ quarters, a shooting range, stores, even a small regimental museum, and of course the armoury, all laid out in a neat grid and surrounded by a three-metre-high wall. Eighteen hundred years ago, Captain Kanthori had decreed that all regiments should fortify their compounds in case their county ever came under siege from Fallers. People would have a refuge until help arrived.

  The Dios regiment had loyally maintained its fortifications for all those centuries. Slvasta was very aware of that as he led his troop along Fothermore Street. There were no pedestrians left on the road; people had been clearing out of the way from the moment he left the train station. News of his arrival had flashed across the city; now ex-sight played over him from behind a thousand locked doors.

  Up ahead, there was a final outbreak of loud knocks and thuds as the big iron-bound shutters were slammed across the windows of the regimental headquarters. The huge solid gates in the archway entrance at the middle of the façade had been shut several minutes earlier.

  As he drew closer, he saw the rifle barrels emerge from narrow slits in the stone, making the building bristle. He looked at Captain Philious beside him. ‘Talk to the brigadier.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Slvasta turned to him in astonishment. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t believe we’ve had the discussion of what happens after.’

  Andricea stepped forward, drawing a wickedly sharp dagger. ‘You little shit.’

  ‘No.’ Slvasta held his hand up. Andricea scowled, but sheathed the dagger again.

  ‘What do you want?’ Slvasta asked.

  ‘What are your plans for my family?’

  ‘Normalization.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You start life again level with the rest of us. Work hard, earn a living.’

  Captain Philious looked at him in contemptuous amusement. ‘Great Giu, you really believe that, don’t you? Just how naive are you?’

  Bethaneve stepped up. ‘All right, here’s the deal. Amnesty for everyone involved in the revolution, no matter what their crime. Your family are released from our custody, and you keep one third of all your estates and shares, crud like that. You devolve true power to a democratically elected parliament with a written bill of rights guaranteeing civil liberties for all citizens.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Slvasta demanded. ‘You’d let him keep his money? That gives him power.’

  ‘Take away their constitutional position, and they’re just another bunch of useless hedonistic aristos. We’ve destroyed Trevene’s organization, my people made sure of that. Nobody’s going to follow him if he mounts a counter-revolution. In fact, let him try. It’ll use up his money even more quickly.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Half of my estates,’ Captain Philious said.

  ‘Done.’

  ‘I said no,’ Slvasta snapped. He glared at the Captain. ‘Talk to the brigadier or your whole family will be executed.’

  Captain Philious regarded him coolly. ‘One ’path from me and everyone on this street dies from those guns, myself included. Actually, no ’path from me will probably have the same result pretty soon; the regiment is getting a bit nervous, in case you hadn’t perceived. The three of you are all that’s left of the revolution’s leadership. It dies with you. The countryside will rise up under my relatives and march on Varlan. I expect the bloodshed will last for years.’

  ‘The Fallers!’ Slvasta yelled in an agony of anger. ‘They have the quantumbusters. They will kill us all!’

  ‘Then you have three choices. Keep me alive with a decent estate to maintain my lifestyle while you elect your genuinely democratic parliament, and the Dios regiment marching on Nigel’s nest. Death in the next couple of minutes. Or the Fallers victorious.’

  ‘That is not a choice.’

  ‘You swore an oath, Captain Slvasta, an oath to defend Bienvenido – all of Bienvenido – against the Fallers. The same Fallers who manipulated you and your friends into overthrowing my government, leaving this world in political chaos, all so they could snatch the greatest weapon of all. Your revolution was a fraud from start to finish. Now is your chance to put things right.’

  Slvasta wanted to throw himself at the Captain, tear him apart. His rage sent blood pounding in his head under tremendous pressure, threatening to burst his temple open. All he saw was the undead
corpse of Coulan, sprawled on Balcome’s station platform, the Faller’s terrible, calm confidence as he spoke of their impending liberation. Then the Faller-Ingmar sneered victoriously up at him from the pit, reaching right out of the nightmare that never ended.

  ‘We will burn you from our world,’ he told the filthy memory loud and clear. ‘I swear it. No matter what the cost.’

  ‘Is that your answer?’ The Captain’s voice was so calm it was mockery.

  ‘Slvasta.’ Bethaneve was holding his arm, her face and mind alight with concern. ‘We will have eliminated the Captaincy. Maybe not how we thought, but there will be change now. People will have a voice; they will have justice.’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’ Captain Philious asked.

  ‘Yes!’ Bethaneve said, incensed. ‘We will march on Nigel’s nest. Together.’

  ‘For a moment there, you had me worried.’

  ‘And you will remain in our custody until this is over and we are back in Varlan, where the agreement will be signed.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Captain Philious turned to the daunting wall of the regimental headquarters, with dozens of rifles following his smallest move. ‘Brigadier Doyle,’ he ’pathed, ‘could you step out here for a moment, please?’

  *

  Two hundred regiment troops came with them, led by Brigadier Doyle herself. The Dios station manager hurriedly organized two trains, one to carry the horses in long open trucks. Terrestrial horses only, Slvasta insisted. Within an hour, both trains were steaming fast for Erond.

  *

  They came to the first bridge twenty minutes after leaving Erond – an old stone spandrel arch over a modest, but fast-flowing river. There was a three-metre gap in the middle where explosives had blasted the stones apart. Most had fallen into the water, while others were embedded in the muddy banks.

  When the regiment came galloping down the road, there were dozens of people milling round trying to decide what to do. The road on either side was clogged with horses and carts. Slvasta rode his horse to the start of the bridge, forcing people out of the way. He stared at the gap for a long minute. Behind him the regiment came to a halt, ex-sight straining forward to find out what the problem was, their horses whinnying, stomping about anxiously.