Vengeance

The cover of the new book was the dark, scaly grey of freshly cast iron. It was a thin volume, no more than thirty sheet-iron pages. He could not read the crimson, deeply etched title from this angle, though it was too long to be The Lore of Prosperity.

Wil choked and had to bend double, panting. Not just a new book, but the first of the third shelf, and no one else in Cython had seen it. His eyes were flooding, his heart pounding, his mouth full of saliva.

He swallowed painfully. Even from here, the book had a peculiar smell, oily-sweet then bitter underneath, yet strangely appealing. He took a deep sniff. The inside of his nose burnt, his head spun and he felt an instant’s bliss, then tendrils webbed across his inner eye. He shook his head, they disappeared and he sniffed again, wanting that bliss to take him away from his life of drudgery. But he wanted the iron book more. What story did it tell? Could it be the Scribe’s own?

He turned to call Ady, then hesitated. She would shoo him off and the three matriarchs would closet themselves with the new book for weeks. Afterwards they would meet with the leaders of the four levels of Cython, the master chymister, the heads of the other guilds and the overseer of the Pale slaves. Then the new book would be locked away and Wil would go back to scraping muck out of the effluxors for the rest of his life.

But his second shillilar had said the Scribe was in danger; Wil had to read his story. He glanced through the doorway. Ady’s old head was bent over her engraving but she would soon remember and order him back to work.

Shaking all over, Wil took a step towards the marble table, and the ache in his eyes came howling back. He closed his worst eye, the left, and when the throbbing eased he took another step. For the only time in his life, he did feel special. He slid a foot forwards, then another. Each movement sent a spear through his temples but he would have endured a lifetime of pain for one page of the story.

Finally he was standing over the book. From straight on, the etched writing was thickly crimson and ebbed in and out of focus. He sounded out the letters of the title.

The Consolation of Vengeance.

‘Vengeance?’ Wil breathed. But whose? The Scribe’s?

Even a nobody like himself could tell that this book was going to turn their world upside-down. The other Solaces set out stories about living underground: growing crops and farming fish, healing, teaching, mining, smything, chymie, arts and crafts, order and disorder, defence. They described an existence that allowed no dissent and had scarcely changed in centuries.

But their enemy did not live underground — they occupied the Cythonians’ ancestral land of Cythe, which they called Hightspall. To exact vengeance, Cython’s armies would have to venture up to the surface, and even an awkward, cross-eyed youth could dream of marching with them.

Wil knew not to touch the Solaces. He had been warned a hundred times, but, oh, the temptation to be first was irresistible. The book was perfection itself; he could have contemplated it for hours. He bent over it, pressing his lips to the cover. The iron was only blood-warm, yet his tears fizzed and steamed as they fell on the rough metal. He wanted to bawl. Wanted to slip the book inside his shirt, hug it to his skin and never let it go.

He shook off the fantasy. He was lowly Wil the Sump and he only had a minute. His trembling hand took hold of the cover. It was heavy, and as he heaved it open it shed scabrous grey flakes onto the white table.

The writing on the iron pages was the same sluggishly oozing crimson as on the cover, but his straining eye could not bring it into focus. Was it protected, like the other Solaces, against unauthorised use?On Metallix had to be heated to the right temperature before it could be read, while each completed chapter of On Catalyz required the light of a different chymical flame.

A mud-brain like himself would never decipher the protection. Frustrated, Wil flapped the front cover and a jagged edge tore his forefinger.

‘Ow!’ He shook his hand.

Half a dozen spots of blood spattered across the first page, where they set like flakes of rust. Then, as he stared, the glyphs snapped into words he could read. Such perfect calligraphy! It was the greatest book of all. Wil read the first page and his eyes did not hurt at all. He turned the page, flicked blood onto the book and read on.

‘I can see.’ His voice soared out of his small, skinny body, to freedom. ‘I can see.’

Ady let out a hoarse cry. ‘Wil, get out of there.’

He heard her shuffling across to the basalt door but Wil did not move. Though the crimson letters brightened until they hurt his eyes, he had to keep reading. ‘Ady, it’s a new book.’

‘What does it say?’ she panted from the doorway.

‘We’re leaving Cython.’ He put his nose on the page, inhaling the tantalising odour he could not get enough of. It was ecstasy. He turned the page. The rest of the book was blank, yet that did not matter — in his inner eye the future was unrolling all by itself. ‘It’s a new story,’ Wil whispered. ‘The story of tomorrow.’

‘Are you in shillilar?’ Her voice was desperate with longing. ‘Where are the Solaces taking us? Are we finally going home?’

‘We’re going — ’ In an instant the world turned crimson. ‘It’s the one!’ Wil gasped, horror overwhelming him. ‘Stop her.’

Ady stumbled across and took him by the arm. ‘What are you seeing? Is it about me?’

Wil let out a cracked laugh. ‘She’s changing the story — bringing the Scribe to the brink — ’

‘Who are you seeing?’ cried Ady. ‘Speak, lad!’

How could the one change the story written by the Scribe Wil worshipped? Surely she couldn’t, unless … unless the Scribe was fallible. No! That could not be. But if the one was going to challenge him, she must have free will. It was a shocking, heretical thought. Could the one be as worthy as the Scribe? Ah, what a story their contest would make. And the story was everything — he had to see how it ended.

Ady struck him so hard that his head went sideways. ‘Answer me!’

‘It’s … it’s the one.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense, boy. What one?’

‘A Pale slave, but — ’

‘A slave is changing our future?’ Ady choked. ‘Who?’

‘A girl.’ Wil tore his gaze away from the book for a second and gasped, ‘She’s still a child.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I … don’t know.’

Wild-eyed and frantic, Ady shook him. ‘When does this happen?’

‘Not for years and years.’

‘When, boy? How long have we got to find her?’

Wil turned back to the last written page, tore open his finger on the rough edge and dribbled blood across the page. The story was terrible but he had to know who won. ‘Until … until she comes of age — ’

‘What are we to do?’ said Ady, and he heard her hobbling around the table. ‘We don’t know how to contact the Scribe. We must obey The Consolation of Vengeance.’

The letters brightened until his eyes began to sting, to steam. Wil began to scream, but even as his vision blurred and his eyes bubbled and boiled into jelly that oozed out of his sockets, he could not tear his gaze away. He had longed to be special, and now he was.

She tottered back to him, wiped his face, and he heard her weeping. ‘Why didn’t you listen to me?’

He took another sniff and the pain was gone. ‘Stupid old woman,’ sneered Wil. ‘Wil can see so much more clearly now. Wil free!’

‘Wil, what does she look like?’

‘She Pale. She the one.’

‘Tell me!’ she cried, shaking him. ‘How am I to find this slave child among eighty-five thousand Pale — and see her dead.’