Daywards (11 page)

She didn't move back into the dark, though. If nothing else, stepping out there would be a small victory over Jaran. She wouldn't be as completely trapped as he'd imagined. At least she'd get to feel the sun on her face.

Quickly, before she gave herself time to change her mind, Dara crouched herself along the narrow tunnel and stepped onto the balcony. At first, her eyes and brain found it difficult to reconcile the sight before her, but when they did, Dara was overcome by the most curious sensation – half terror, half sheer exhilaration.

Below, the ruins were a smear across the landscape, punctuated here and there by the piles of rubble which at ground level seemed as big as mountains but which from up here looked like mere pimples on the earth.

In the far distance, directly ahead, the low hills ran as far as she could see along the eastern horizon in both directions, marking the edge of the great forest, the individual trees combining to paint the entire inland plateau a smoky green until it vanished into the haze of distance. The horizons themselves seemed impossibly far away and that distance was, in itself, enough to leave her awestruck. She didn't dare to look straight down over the edge.

The wind tore at her, whipping her clothing and filling her eyes with tears. The air around her resonated with thrumming power as it met the wholly unexpected spear of plascrete on which she was now perched.

For a brief moment all of it – the dizzying height, the power of the wind – was enough to make her forget the precariousness of her situation and, unable to stop herself, Dara let loose a primal yell – a scream of exhilaration, which poured from her and was whipped away by the quicksilver wind.

Then the moment passed, and Dara nerved herself to lean forward – just a little, not trusting her weight against the centuries-old plascrete railing – and to look directly down into the abyss.

Surprisingly, it didn't bring on nearly the vertiginous effect that she'd expected. So great was the height of the dome, and so blasted and ruined was the landscape below, that there was no frame of reference by which she could gauge her height comparative to the ground.

Dara leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Even with the sun shining directly upon it, the plascrete remained cool, and she could sense the emptiness of it at her back – not a malevolent emptiness, just … nothing.

The heat of the sun on her face was welcome, though, and for a time Dara stood, statue-still against the dead corpse of the skycity, and let the warmth flow into her. It wasn't the same as earthwarmth – it was still too detached, too distant for that – but it was something.

Eventually she tired of standing there, and took a closer look at the balcony.

It was narrow, only a little wider than her body, and ran around the circumference of the dome. What its purpose might have once been, she had no idea, but it seemed solid enough – certainly no more degraded than the rest of the dome, despite its exposure to the elements – and she decided to attempt a circumnavigation.

It wasn't difficult, although the first few steps felt strange. The distant horizons and yawning space below played odd tricks with her peripheral vision, but she quickly adapted and was soon strolling, almost nonchalant, around towards the nightwards side. As she did so, she passed into the shadow of the wall and the day grew cooler, but this discomfort was quickly forgotten as the saltwater, which lay west of the city, revealed itself.

It filled the entire western view – deep, unbroken indigo. There was not a mountain, not a tree. Nothing except silver-streaked water, so far away that the waves seemed little more than wrinkles on the skin of an enormous, living, heaving creature.

She continued her slow path around the dome, until about three-quarters of the way back to the hatch she made a discovery.

She almost missed it, entranced as she was with the view, but her fingers, which she'd been trailing along the wall beside her, caught the strange ridge and drew her attention.

There was a door set into the wall. And it was ajar.

Her first thought was that she'd arrived back at the hatchway, but a quick examination showed that this wasn't the case.

This door was different. It was double the size of the access hatch, its top well above Dara's head. It also had a sign attached – a faded metal plaque, etched and pitted by time, on which Dara could just make out the remnants of barely visible printing:

merge y Mag t S ft Access

CAUTION!

Ccess only wi thorization from Pr lat Div

Dange glift ope io s 24 hour

Below this was a lot of much smaller writing, most of which had been scoured away. Dara hesitated. The warning aspect of the sign was clear, but so was the word ‘Access', which carried with it the tempting possibility that the door might also offer escape.

In any case, she reasoned, it wouldn't hurt to have a look. It wasn't as if she had anything better to do. Like the floor hatch, this door had a round, recessed handle set flush into its face. Dara pulled it tentatively, expecting to find it seized and her escape thwarted. Surprisingly, though, the handle came out with only a little effort, and even turned slightly.

Holding her breath, Dara pulled.

And nothing happened. The handle may have been free, but something somewhere in the door had clearly seized up.

Pulling with all her weight, she managed to open it a few centimetres, but she had to fight for every last one and it was obvious that, unless something changed, the door would defeat her long before she'd managed to pull it all the way open.

She had, however, moved it enough to reveal a long, dark slit, against which she placed her eye, but all she could see inside was a tiny wedge of plascrete wall and a whole lot more darkness.

There was no way she'd open the door under her own steam, but it occurred to her that with a suitable lever it might be possible to pry the door open a little further.

Energised now, she made her way back around to the accessway and plunged into the gloomy interior, half-expecting to find Jaran waiting there for her, but not at all surprised when this wasn't the case.

It took only a few minutes to uncover a piece of metal piping, long enough to give her good leverage but small enough that she could carry it easily. On her way back to the hatchway she detoured to the fallen equipment rack and filled her pockets with as many prosup sachets as she could cram in. She considered the water containers, but discounted them as too heavy and inconvenient. If this actually led her anywhere, she'd just have to find more water back on the ground.

She did, however, take a long drink, and almost gagged. The water was warm and odd-tasting, as though it had been in the container for a very long time.

Back out on the balcony, she carefully inserted the pipe into the narrow slit, and transferred her weight onto it until slowly the door began to yield. As it did, she was able to get more and more purchase until, with a screeching protest born of years of neglect, the door creaked sideways into the cavity of the dome wall.

A wave of pungent, heavy air rolled out from the dark space and washed over her, the smell instantly familiar: the stale, oily scent of the air inside the central shaft. Dara dropped the metal pipe onto the balcony beside her and peered in.

The space inside didn't extend straight back into the dome as she'd expected, but rather she found herself staring down a long staircase, running at perhaps 45 degrees to the floor of the balcony, back towards the domestem.

It seemed impossible. The balcony ran around the outer edge of the dome, and there was no way a stairwell could exist at that angle and direction without running into thin air. Then Dara remembered the three support arms they'd passed during the climb up and understood immediately that she was, in fact, staring down the middle of one of these.

The stairs were narrow, formed into the plascrete of the floor, and beside them was a long, smooth ramp that descended sharply away into the dark. The ramp took up the majority of the space inside the shaft, and had clearly been designed as an access slide for large items of equipment. Set into the wall was a row of long-dead powerlamps.

Dara stepped aside slightly, allowing light in through the hole, but even then she was only able to see perhaps twenty-five metres downshaft. At that point the angle of the staircase increased sharply as it descended around the curve of the support strut.

Chewing her lip, Dara debated the wisdom of entering.

If she had any chance of escaping, this was it. The only alternative was to sit around for sky knew how long and wait for Jaran – or whoever turned up – to come and collect her. But contemplating the yawning darkness and tasting the oily air inside, she also knew her chances were slim. Even if she managed to descend as far as the main domestem, she'd be operating in pitch darkness. The thought made her palms slick with fear.

She picked up the pipe, hefted it as though it was a hunting spear and then hurled it down the shaft. For a brief second it caught the light – a blurred silvery streak against the swallowing darkness – and then it was gone. Dara listened intently as it struck the stairs or ramp somewhere below – a metallic clatter that resounded off the hard surfaces of the accessway – and then again a moment later as the pipe went cartwheeling downwards. She counted the impacts and tried to imagine it spiralling inexorably towards the abyssal depth of the main domestem. One … two … three … then, nothing.

She was about to turn away, when one last crash echoed up to her, a final ringing clatter, similar but at the same time somewhat different from the previous three. It might have been her imagination, but that final collision between steel and plascrete sounded less like the pipe ricocheting off into the darkness again and more like it coming to rest on something.

She strained her eyes against the dark, trying to see just a bit further downshaft, but to no avail.

Could she have imagined it? That was the most likely possibility. She recalled the chunk of debris that Jaran had dropped down into the shaft the previous afternoon, and the deadening silence into which it had fallen.

But that last impact … If there was something down there, a platform or a ladder or something …

Turning her back to the accessway, Dara stared out towards the limitless horizons and breathed deeply several times.

Then, before she had time to change her mind, she carefully stepped over the hatch coaming in the floor and onto the first step, surrendering to the darkness.

Though the air tasted oily, Dara was relieved to discover the steps themselves quite dry and solid. Ahead, her shadow reached down into the dim confines of the accessway.

Her footsteps, which she kept deliberately light, little more than dry shuffles on the cold plascrete, nevertheless echoed, and when she stopped, listened and clicked her tongue the sound took some time to come back. Drawing a ragged breath, she continued, taking care to avoid the slick ramp beside the stairway; there was no safety rail or barrier to prevent her from stepping sideways onto it, and if she accidently did so she'd plummet to her death.

Instead she kept close to the opposite wall, one hand on it at all times, ignoring the pervading cold that seemed to emanate from it.

After a few minutes the angle of the staircase increased as it followed the curve of the arm down towards the domestem. She looked back up to where the sky was already a distant rectangle. The light pooled on the stairway in black puddles and already the curve of the tunnel was apparent, only the top half of the doorway still visible.

‘Bloody Jaran!' she muttered, not for the first time, and as usual her words floated away unanswered.

She continued. Her feet were already sunk in shadow and she slowed further, straining her eyes to locate each step before carefully placing her foot on it.

Surprisingly, a small amount of light continued reflecting off the pale plascrete ceiling long after the doorway itself had disappeared. It wasn't much, but the wan glow at least helped Dara to hold back from complete panic and push herself further into the bowels of the dome, one cautious step at a time.

She'd been descending for perhaps ten minutes, by which time the stairs were more like a ladder, and it was easier to turn towards them and lower herself carefully. The light reflecting along the curve was all but gone, and when she stopped again, to catch her nerves, she realised something odd.

There was light. Not from above, but from below.

It wasn't much – just an indistinct glimmer, its source hidden. But it was enough to throw a dull glow upwards and, enough to allow her to see her hands and feet. For the first time since entering the accessway, Dara entertained a tiny bit of hope.

The ladder was fully vertical when, reaching down with her left foot for the next step, she was startled to find level floor beneath it. Still firmly holding the stairway, she found herself on a narrow, curved platform which extended a couple of metres to either side of her, built onto the inside wall of the main domestem.

Like the stairs, the platform was plascrete, formed as part of the wall itself and still stable. Around the edge, though, the remains of a steel safety rail had all but rusted away to nothing. Beyond that was the shaft. The yawning chasm dropped from the edge of the platform, dark and threatening, a lake of inky, uncompromising nothing.

A metre from the stairway a small, filthy porthole of clearcrete, set at head height into the outer wall of the stem, admitted a puddle of light, most of which was swallowed by the enormous vertical tunnel of the shaft. The light didn't reach the opposite wall of the domestem, which remained hidden.

Moving her feet, she felt something against her toes and looked down to discover the steel pipe she'd thrown wedged between the edge of the platform and the rusted remains of one of the handrail stanchions. Carefully, Dara dislodged it and allowed it to tumble over the edge and this time it fell into silence.

Then she spotted the ladder.

It started at the end of the platform, just a couple of steps away, and disappeared straight down into the shaft. At some point the plascrete rungs had clearly been surrounded by a metal safety cage, but, like the rail around the platform, this had rusted away.

The rungs, though, were still there. A ladder down.

But to where? Dara edged a little away from the stairwell, past the clearcrete porthole to the top rungs from where she could, carefully, lean out and peer directly over the edge.

At first it was like staring into the darkest, most starless night. But then a series of indistinct glimmers appeared – pinpricks no brighter than distant stars, running in a downwards spiral away from her.

In the darkness, with her sense of perspective foreshortened, it seemed to Dara that the lights – presumably portholes like the one beside her – were three or four hundred metres apart and each most likely marked a platform similar to the one on which she stood.

Ignoring the trembling in her legs, Dara tightened her grip on the topmost rung and carefully swung her weight onto the ladder.

In her biceps and shoulders a familiar, dull ache formed. Dara hesitated, knowing that if she continued this mad descent there'd be no going back. There was no way she would have the strength.

But then, imagining all the things she was going to say and do to her brother when she caught him, Dara began climbing down.

She quickly lost all sense of momentum. Unlike her ascent of the tower, when she'd had the dome itself by which to gauge her progress, the climb down inside the shaft was in darkness, which left her feeling as though she was climbing through space, going nowhere.

Even the platforms that regularly emerged from the deep gloom below provided little context. It became an effort simply to keep her mind on what she was doing – to keep her attention focused on placing the next foot one step further down, gripping the next rung firmly. Even though the consequences of a fall were too hideous to contemplate, Dara caught herself drifting off on a couple of occasions into a strange, disjointed reverie.

After twenty or thirty platforms had passed – she'd long since lost count of how many – she stopped and eased herself down so that she was seated on a platform with her legs and feet dangling out over the edge. A wave of fatigue swept over her, the ache in her back threatening to cramp, so she quickly hooked one arm through the rung beside her. Then, using her free arm, she retrieved one of the prosup sachets, tore the top off using her teeth, and sucked hard at it. The bland muck actually tasted good.

The food had a reviving effect and in no time she felt stronger. Briefly, she closed her eyes, comparing the difference between having them shut and having them open. It wasn't much.

She wondered what was going on back at the escarpment. With all that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours, Dara hadn't given the rest of the clan a thought. She wondered what Eyna was doing – if she was out hunting as normal, or if things had changed with her and Jaran's disappearance.

Jaran. Again Dara tried to come up with some conceivable excuse for her brother having put her in this situation, and again she came up with nothing.

She turned her attention back to the shaft. The dull porthole lights she'd passed on the way down now formed an almost complete spiral – she'd done a full circumnavigation of the inside wall. Looking down, she still had three more circuits to complete, and even then there was no knowing what she'd find. Hopefully there was something there. If the ladder simply stopped, she knew she was dead.

Ignoring the protests from every muscle in her body, Dara forced herself back to her feet and reached across for the next section of ladder.

It was about an hour later when she stepped on to a platform different from the previous ones. It ran a full circle, all the way around the inner wall. It also jutted right out into the shaft, narrowing the circular aperture of the enormous tube by about a third.

Evenly spaced around the inner circumference, four giant black cabinets, each five or six times her height, were set against the platform edge. Each was connected to the wall by thick cables, which ran across the floor and then vanished up the walls towards the dome above.

Dara lay down in the shadow of the nearest cabinet. Even though this platform was so much wider, she still pressed her back hard against the outer wall of the shaft and lay facing inwards, using the bulk of the cabinet as a wall to prevent her from slipping over.

The domestem creaked slightly, the sound echoing up and down the long shaft. She could hear the steady drip of water, but the hard walls reflected the noise so effectively that it could have been coming from anywhere and there seemed little point risking a search.

At some point, quietly and without realising it, she slipped into sleep and dreamed. Strange, disconcerting dreams.

She was walking alone, across a plain of impossible size and whiteness. Every step took her no closer to the featureless horizon ahead and no further from the one behind. Occasionally she'd stop and look around, but there was nothing to see. Overhead, no sky, no sun. Only white.

Below her feet, no earth. Only white.

And yet, despite the emptiness, despite the isolation, she couldn't fight the notion that something was there with her. Watching. Waiting. Hunting. Some intent malevolence lurking in the corners of her vision, sliding up behind her with no more substance than breath against the skin of her neck. Whenever she turned, though, whirling to catch whoever – or whatever – it was, there was only white.

Sometimes she'd reach – or try to. Opening her mind and pulling at the hard whiteness below her feet, attempting to draw up even the tiniest skerrick of earthwarmth to take her beyond that horizon, but each time she tried, all the reward she received for her efforts was a searing bolt of white pain across the back of her eyes.

Sometimes there were voices, as indistinct and directionless as the presence hunting her.

Sometimes something brushed against her – a whisper kiss against the exposed flesh of her arm, or a crawling trickle of sensation against her thigh. But when she clawed and scratched and slapped at it, there was never anything there.

Sometimes there were ghosts. She could feel them walking with her, looking over her shoulder, looking ahead, or back, or to the side, but never up or down.

Finally, a dark smear of substance appeared against the white distance. So far away as to be indistinguishable.

At her back, the hunting energy – the thing – tried to turn her steps aside, to veer her away from that distant speck, but Dara wouldn't allow it. She fought, kept tracking herself, one footfall after another, until the dark shape slowly began to resolve itself into a person – into a woman.

She was ancient. The dark skin of her face creased heavily below a tight shock of brilliant white hair. Her naked breasts drooped long to her belly and her bare feet sank slightly into the whiteness, as though it was unable to fully support her, even though she was stick-thin, her every rib clearly visible.

She stood, patient, waiting, as though carved from wood, smiling as Dara struggled towards her, even though Dara could feel the pressure of the white; hard, cold and relentless, trying to push her aside and keep her walking into the emptiness.

Finally Dara stopped before the woman, trembling and sweat-heavy from the exertion of her will.

The old woman smiled.

‘Good girl,' she said, in a voice that came from somewhere inside Dara.

Then, even though Dara hadn't noticed it before, the old woman was holding a snake in her hands – a long, sinuous black snake with a dark red diamond pattern along its back. Slowly, the coldblood curled up the old woman's bare arms, wound around her neck and then flowed downwards, across her breasts, down the wrinkled thighs, around her bare ankles, and onto – no, into – the white ground. Dara watched it disappear into that seemingly impervious surface, sending a series of shallow, concentric ripples out in all directions.

When she looked up again the old woman was gone and in her place stood an ancient gnarled and twisted tree, adorned with just a couple of dusty, pale green leaves that trembled in an invisible breeze.

Then Dara woke in darkness so complete that she screamed.