Savage City (26 page)

And now Una wanted to skip ahead to a time when Sulien had been in Nionia for some months, a year or more, picking up the language like another accent, and so much faster than he thought he could. He’d be working, helping people, as he always should have been. He would have friends – so many of them – and he’d tell them what had happened to his sister, and they would comfort him. He had been a slave, he’d so nearly been crucified, and it had seemed to rinse off him almost completely, almost at once. Only little traces, like that way of holding his wrist, had remained with him. He’d been without her for seven years, and however much he’d wanted her back, it hadn’t stopped him being bafflingly happy, then and afterwards. Sometimes it had outraged her that things that had left such rough, wrong, ugly edges on her had been softened or let slip by his kindly, unreliable memory. Now, lying on the metal floor, panic flared in her at the thought that perhaps it had always demanded more effort from him than either of them had realised. But even if this was the worst of all, even if he was so much more tired now, surely she could still trust this wouldn’t cripple or kill him. Given a while, he’d scrape together enough happiness to live on. He would get married, he would have children.

But it was what happened now that mattered most, and she had to see him through it, even if only like this, by willing him to do the things that would save him. She saw him stumbling away from the train in darkness, at the edge of some town, crouched against a wall,
clutching his head and gasping as the dizziness wore off. Now there would be nothing to deflect what had happened. She began to think of what she would have felt and done if it had been her – and no, she couldn’t bear it, she had to leave a small gap. A few minutes then, or however long was safe, until if someone was speaking to him, he’d be able to listen.

If she could, what would she tell him?

He knows what she’d tell him to do. ‘I don’t care what you say,’ he thinks in answer
.

Don’t argue, Sulien, says Una’s voice in his mind
.

Sulien shakes his head, ‘I’m going to get you back. I’m going to. I—’ At this point, he’s bound to be thinking this way
.

Well, I’m not going to watch you do something that stupid. I’m gone, I’m sorry, I tried. We both tried, and it happened anyway. Either you get out of this now or neither of us does
.

And it’s fine, Sulien, really it is. It will be in the end
.

‘
Don’t believe you
.’

Of course he can’t believe it, not yet. But he’s cold and exhausted and hungry, and he must still have enough care for himself to want to look after those things. And beneath that there must be some particle of unrecognised trust that she’s right, that it’s worth guarding himself for a kinder time ahead
.

There’s some food and water in his pack – not much, but it’ll do. He’s got money too, they always carried half each. It might be better if he travelled through the night, didn’t waste the dark sleeping, but he’s probably already at the limit of what he can do without rest. He can’t walk into a guest-house tonight, even if he could find one – every town on a rail line or magnetway will be primed to watch for him, especially if he hasn’t had enough luck to be carried out of Sarmatia. But if he can find any kind of shelter at all – a culvert, a bush, a bit of corrugated iron propped against a wall – his clothes and the sleeping bag will keep him alive, even if he’s reached the snowy forest on the edge of Scythia rather than the deserts of the south. He has what he needs to survive, for now
.

Perhaps after all it’s best if he just goes to sleep. He accepts, at least, that there’s nothing he can do tonight but try and keep himself out of harm’s way. He walks as far he can from the tracks, finds somewhere hidden and lies down. Tomorrow he’ll do whatever he can to change his appearance and hurry on. And by then his sister will be so far out of reach that it will be clear to him which way he has to go
.

‘Please, Sulien,’ murmured Una, once more, before her grip slid from the story and she fell away from it into soft, solitary dark, where she thought
Marcus
, and fell onwards, beyond thinking anything, into sleep.

Sulien staggered across a rutted field, dragging his pack by the strap. He hadn’t made it far from the tracks before he toppled into a shallow ditch and stayed there. His bones still seemed to shake and bang with the motion of the train; his eardrums blared with its noise. He did not realise at first that a sound was emptying itself out of him: a long groan, almost a howl. He swallowed it back as he felt it, in case anyone heard and came looking – he must not allow himself to stop caring for these things. He pressed his face against the ground to stifle any more noise and gagged on the black dust that lined his throat. He heaved and sobbed, almost tearlessly, for only fitful spurts of water would come, loosening the grit in his eyes.

Slowly sound returned and he could hear himself panting and spluttering into the coarse grass. He stopped.

‘Una,’ he said.

The dry wind came scrubbing across the field. There was nothing else, not even a train passing, no one.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

Almost as if she were really speaking to him, he heard Una’s voice answering that, and telling him what to do, sounding more impatient than anything.

‘Shut up,’ he said to her, and tried to get up. And it didn’t work; his limbs, even his height, felt alien and insubstantial; for an instant he was teetering somewhere unnaturally high before the ground and sky rolled horribly and he was down again, clinging on to the grasses as if he could have fallen even from here.

He thought, I wish they’d taken us both.

He did
not
wish that. He hadn’t jammed himself into that hellish space above the train’s wheels for so long to wish himself helpless now. He mumbled aloud, ‘I’m going to get you back. I’m coming.’

First of all he had to know what had happened. Would they have shot her at once, there by the tracks? The fall itself might have killed her.

Tears came more freely at that thought, but he sat up and dragged his pack open, his fingers slow and clumsy, and groped for the bottle of water inside. He stopped himself draining it at the last moment and used what was left to rinse as much of the grime as he could from his face and hands. He slicked his hair back from his forehead with the last
of it, wishing he still had the beard or something more about himself that he could alter. He changed out of the clothes he’d be described as wearing, pulled up his hood.

It occurred to him that the air was not so cold here, and the earth was sandy under the threadbare grass, and there was a surprising salt tang in the air. Until now if he’d given any thought to his location at all, it was only with the despairing conviction that he had no idea where he was. But he couldn’t have come far enough to have reached a true coast. He must be near the Hyrcanian or the Caspian Sea.

At the edge of the field a dusty road ran parallel to the tracks, towards a faint yellowish glow in the dark sky. Sulien found some longer grass and hid his pack so he wouldn’t look like someone who had come far. He was grateful not to have to carry the weight as he made his way towards the light.

It took him about half an hour to reach the centre of a fishing town on the shore of the inland sea. It seemed a prosperous place, even jaunty, compared with the disappointed towns in the north, but it was still quiet, and shut down for the night. Sulien passed through a little forum crowded with empty frames of market stalls and found the small public longvision was either turned off or broken. He swung a hand hard against the edge of one of the stalls and thought for an instant of Una’s arms filled with flakes of glass as the metal chimed out, dangerously loud. But though he retreated at once from the sound, a minute or two later he had forgotten why his hand hurt. He did nothing about it.

He saw a pair of vigile vans standing near the gates of the town’s station and shied away.

He found another longvision a little way beyond that, in a square where there were still some shops open. Sulien lurked at a corner. A few other people coming out of the shop glanced up at the screen as they passed, but there was no sound and Sulien had to wait through a long sequence of advertisements, during which he could feel whatever noise it was he’d made alone in the field building behind his ribs again. At last the news came on, and the jubilant tone of it was obvious, even in silence.

He had been working so hard, all through that walk in the dark, to believe that she was still alive. Without thinking about it, he had expected at least a temporary relief if it were true. But he looked at the satisfied faces of the two state newscasters and he only felt sick.

There were no pictures of Una. He’d thought he was hoping for a sight of her, but instead he found he was thankful for that much; he
didn’t want to see her captured. There was some wobbling footage of a volucer, rising into the grey air, and a caption rolled across the screen saying they would have Una back in Rome by the following day, but there was nothing of what they were going to do to her, or when, or what was happening to her now. Perhaps if there had been sound . . .

Then there was a parade of pictures, photographs and drawings, of his own face, shaven and bearded, and he began hurrying back the way he’d come, trembling a little. He did not look like the few coppery-skinned, broad-cheekboned people he’d seen here. This wasn’t a large town where faces would be more varied, or where travellers from the west might be commonplace; he wouldn’t last a morning here. He had to get away at once, though he didn’t think he was capable of another journey like the one that was still resounding through his body. He was tired enough to feel a black froth of dreams breaking against his eyelids whenever he blinked. He wouldn’t be able to hold himself in place; he’d be shaken out of consciousness, smashed across the tracks. And even apart from that, and even if he could be sure of dodging the vigiles again, it wasn’t enough now to scramble aboard a train which could be heading almost anywhere.

He passed the station again, on the far side of the street, and a fare-car stopped, dropping someone off. It lingered for a moment then moved on slowly, looking for another customer, the insignia of its provincial livery glinting dimly in the streetlight. Sulien eyed it, and an ugly spark of possibility fired in his mind. Without really believing he could be going to act on it, he started walking towards the car and tentatively, as if it were a gesture that might mean nothing, he lifted his hand.

The car stopped beside him and the driver looked out at him, tired, innocent. He asked, ‘Where to?’

Sulien stared at him for a second. ‘I think I got off my train at the wrong place,’ he said, hearing his own voice as toneless and unnatural. ‘What’s the next stop?’

‘Do you mean Socanda or Saramanna?’

‘Yes, Saramanna. That’s it,’ said Sulien woodenly, and climbed into the car beside him.

The warmth of the car and the support of the seat were almost enough to put him to sleep at once, even while electricity prickled through his nerves, jolted open his eyes whenever they slipped closed. Back in Rome neither he nor Varius had known how to steal a car. Now he could see a way.

‘Not from round here?’ asked the man, with mild, amiable curiosity.

‘Venedia.’ Sulien glanced guardedly around the cab, taking in the
identity documents lying on the car’s console, the cap on the man’s head. He had nothing he could use a weapon and there was little space to make a swing. Once they were outside the town he’d have to grab the man’s head and try and slam it against the window, do it again if the first blow didn’t stun him. If he struck too hard, he’d break the man’s skull.

I can’t, he thought, his breath beginning to come faster and deeper. Sickness tightened in his stomach. He’d once had to knock someone out before, and it had shaken him then. But this man hadn’t done anything wrong, had only let someone into his car who might be about to murder him. And Sulien had committed himself as soon as he climbed inside – he couldn’t let himself be deposited at whatever town they were heading for, off his course and miles away from his belongings.

But I don’t want to do it; it’s not fair, he pleaded inwardly. Not fair, when if he could have jumped a second earlier up onto that train— If he could have kept hold—

And what were they doing to her? How much were they going to hurt her before they were finished with her?

‘Are you feeling all right?’ inquired the driver, beginning to tense a little, glancing between Sulien and the road.

Sulien nodded, jerkily. He could guess how his voice would come out if he tried to speak. The car slid down towards the beach, past the rows of fishing boats and out of the town into the dark desert beyond. Sulien tried to slow his accelerating breath and failed completely. Stalling, perhaps, he began thinking about what would have to happen in the man’s brain, where the blood flow would have to be interrupted. He felt himself plummet helplessly into the detail of it, everything outside of that scattering.

Now, come on, do it now
. Sulien turned towards the man, saw his hand reach, slow and distant, as if controlled by a languid stranger with a remote control. Then for a moment he couldn’t see past the fizz of the world dissolving and bubbling away, like limestone in acid, taking him with it.

Then it cleared and the car was swerving; the man sagging sideways against him. Sulien clutched for the controls without understanding what had happened. He didn’t remember the blow, couldn’t feel the after-impact of it in his muscles, but of course he’d done it—