Half way along one of the corridors, her two abductors opened the door to a small cell of a room, one with only a simple chair and a small table. They dragged her inside, gruffly forcing her to sit on the chair.
‘You can wait here, until our king returns; he must decide what we should do with you.’
The bull-man let her arm go as he moved back towards the door.
‘He’s gone to punish your people for failing to offer up the two chosen,’ the eagle-woman gloated as, joining the man, she backed out through the doorway, pulling the door closed behind her. ‘Although in you, perhaps we have greater prize than we had anticipated.’
As the door finally clicked fully into place, there were further sounds of other mechanisms sliding across each other, reminding Lil of bars being slotted into place to secure the heavier wooden doors she was more used to.
She was locked in; a prisoner.
She glanced about the room, thinking it made a strange prison. Even the ‘simple’ chair and table would be regarded as a luxury in any other space but this, the quality of both unrepeatable by any of today’s ‘craftsmen’.
The back of the chair was graced with a narrow line of symbols; no, words – they were words.
Nasebay Community – and then some other word Lil had never come across before, and therefore couldn’t interpret.
Around her there was a short, sharp burst of movement, the memories of so many people who had passed through here so long, long ago: young people mainly, here to learn.
College; the other word was ‘College’, the term for a place of higher learning.
So, was this the place where the Devil taught and indoctrinated his acolytes?
But…there was something else Lil was picking up through these spirits so crowdedly thronging through her cell.
Lil moved closer, took a closer look at the words by tipping the chair forward slightly.
It didn’t say Nasebay after all.
MassBay Community College.
A shortening of Massachusetts Bay.
This wasn’t Naseby; that was, if this Naseby existed at all.
Sis had been wrong.
Sis wasn’t infallible after all.
*
Chapter 21
When the door was finally opened once again, there was a different man and a different woman standing there.
A man who was partially an eagle, a woman who was almost wholly bear.
Treating her every bit as unconcernedly as her pervious escorts, they each grabbed one of Lil’s arms and half dragged her out into the corridor.
She couldn’t have been long in her cell, Lil realised; with nothing to do, it had probably seemed far long than she might have thought if she had been otherwise occupied.
She should have asked for her book back – it would have given her something to read: a chance too, perhaps, to find out why this Milton was of such interest to these bestial men.
The again, it was this interest in him that had precipitated the book being taken from her: so it would hardly be likely that they would have relinquished it so readily.
Once again, Lil was led down the narrow corridors. This time, however, they walked past the stairwell, heading instead towards two double doors that magically slid open as soon as the bear-woman touched a button on the nearby wall. This cell was even barer than the one Lil had just been taken from, being completely empty.
Stranger still, her two escorts accompanied her into the room, staying with her as the doors magically slid shut once more. There was an unnerving series of tremors beneath her feet, a rippling that was replicated in a slight quaking of the walls. Weirder still, her stomach briefly felt heavier than the rest of her body.
When the doors slid open once more only a minute later, they opened up onto a completely different corridor, one wider and far more brightly painted than the one they had just stepped out of.
Only a little farther along, the corridor opened up into an even wider area leading to two large, oak doors. These didn’t open magically, but had to be pushed open by Lil’s two escorts.
It briefly seemed to Lil that they had stepped outside, or at least into a room minus two of its sides, for she could clearly see the overgrown mounds that had once been towering buildings stretching out before her. The walls were made of sheets of glass, which Lil wouldn’t have believed possible if she hadn’t seen it for herself.
Sheets of glass even a fraction of the size of just one of these would be a priceless commodity in any another community, reverently treated and utilised only for the most important tasks, such as promoting the growth of fresh seedlings. Yet the glass here was wasted as walls, which could have been constructed from far less precious materials.
Across most of the ceiling, the light that flooded into the room was transformed into a glittering of miniature rainbows by a multitude of hanging, silvery discs that twirled on the ends of their supporting cords. Beneath this snowstorm of coruscating light there stretched a huge, highly polished walnut table.
And at the end of the table there was a throne of glittering tubular steel, of the darkest, plumpest leather.
And seated on that throne was a king, a king as much lion as man.
*
The king’s crown was made of fragmented pieces of discs similar to those hanging everywhere above them, bathing his head in a shifting cloud of rainbows.
His garments were those of a warrior rather than of a ceremonial king, however.
They were blood splattered, blood that in parts glistened sickly, as if relatively fresh.
As Lil was callously brought before him, he glowered at her intently, curiously: and with a sharply curbed startled widening of the eyes, as if he recognised something about her.
‘I think I can handle a girl on my own,’ he said with a dismissive wave to the escorting beasts.
Even so, despite his air of confidence, as the bestial man and woman backed out of the door he reached for an oddly shaped stick of both wood and iron which he pointed menacingly at Lil.
‘I know you,’ he said with only the slightest hint of uncertainty, his voice surprisingly free of any bestial qualities. ‘You were with that girl – your hair! Let me see your hair!’
He leapt up with all the abruptness and grace of lion, a semi paw-like hand grasping Lil aggressively by the hair. He pulled on it violently, as if expecting it at any moment to grow, to whirl about the room and cause destruction.
Sis!
It instantly dawned on Lil that he could only be referring to Sis.
If this was the man they had seen killing the eagle-man, he might also have spotted them.
Just how good were the eyes of a lion?
Or, rather, of a lion-man?
And yet – if he also knew how she could wield her hair as a weapon, then he must have seen her again: and fighting, in action, too!
‘You’ve seen her?’ she blurted out, eager to hear anything about Sis that could lead to them meeting up once more.
He nodded, pointing the cold iron of the stick directly beneath her chin, making her lift her head up.
‘She’s dead,’ he said bluntly, adding proudly, ‘I killed her!’
*
Chapter 22
‘That’s not possible!’ Lil protested, holding back the tears even though she found it hard to believe that Sis could be dead, that this lion-man had achieved what so many other men had failed to accomplish. ‘She’s immortal!’
The man stared down at Lil quizzically for a moment (he towered over her).
‘I don’t think you are like her, are you?’
He let go of Lil’s hair, drew pack the strange stick.
‘Otherwise, why would you be here? How could you have been captured so easily?’
‘Yes…yes,’ Lil stammered uneasily, trembling as if abruptly remarkably cold. ‘No…no one’s like…like my friend.’
‘A pity,’ the king added. ‘I regretted having to kill her; she could have been useful to us.’
‘Then…then she really is dead?’
Lil still found it impossible to believe that Sis could be dead; she had seemed indestructible.
She was the one who did the destroying.
The king nodded. He sat back down on his cushioned throne, his look stern and unforgiving as Lil broke down, weeping at the loss of her friend.
‘No tears girl!’ he growled, reaching towards a small shelf lying beneath the table, retrieving the book remnants and sliding them across the table towards Lil. ‘Tell me about this!’
The loss of Sis caused Lil to suffer a complete flood of conflicting emotions, emotions she felt she had little control over; yet then she found – knowing that she had to control them – that there was a vast rage of other emotions lying inside her that rushed to her aid.
‘A book?’ Lil said dismissively, responding to the king’s question with a tone implying that she believed the book was little more than an ancient artefact of no real significance. ‘Surely you’ve come across books as you’ve dug deep into the levels of the Golden Age?’
It took Lil a little by surprise that the king nodded in agreement. She hadn’t really thought there could be that many books to discover, even when you were undertaking an operation of this size.
‘More than we know what to do with,’ the king said matter-of-factly. ‘Most we sell on; we keep only those from which we can learn: those telling us of our history, of science.’
‘Then why your interest in this scrap?’ Lil asked, her tone more dismissive than ever.
‘Milton,’ the king said, tapping on the name with a mix of finger and claw. ‘We have never come across a book by this Milton!’
Lil was still puzzled: how would the author make a fragmentary book so much more important than all the other books they appeared to have found during their excavations?
Moreover, why did he seem so uninterested in how Sis had come by her incredible powers?
Surely that should be the focus of any interrogation of her?
‘But…wasn’t he just a poet?’ Lil asked hesitantly. ‘Doesn’t that place his book amongst those you simply prefer to sell on?’
‘You can read?’ the king demanded.
Lil briefly wondered if she should lie – but then, what would be the lie, and what the truth?
She couldn’t really read.
She shook her head.
The king moaned in frustration.
He irately picked up the book, waving its fluttering, ragged pages close up by her face.
‘Then all this is meaningless to you?’
‘It’s an artefact of the Golden Age; so it must be worth something!’ Lil answered with a deliberate air of naiveté.
‘And your friend?’ the king continued. ‘Could she read?’
Lil nodded, the tears returning.
The king ignored her distress.
‘Did she know what it referred to? Was it her book?’
‘Yes, to both your questions,’ Lil replied honestly, not wishing to tell any more lies about Sis than she had to. ‘She thought it would lead her here: to MassBay.’
The king sank back into the luxurious padding of his throne with a long sigh of satisfaction.
‘Of course,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Off course!’
*
‘Do you know what she hoped to find here?’
The king posed it as a question, yet going by his knowing smile, Lil presumed that he must be the one who knew the answer.
She shook her head.
She didn’t want to tell a lie: but to admit that Sis had hoped to find the Devil here might be too dangerous for her.
‘I think she thought she might be able to find the person here who could end all this suffering,’ she said, thinking it quite apt that she had answered him with a hybrid of fact and lie.
The king nodded in elated satisfaction.
‘Yes, yes! That is indeed what she would have discovered here!’
He excitedly leapt up from his seat and, even more bizarrely, grasped Lil’s hand in what passed for his own hand.
‘Come, come with me,’ he demanded not unkindly. ‘You must see this, if only so that you can see for yourself that your friend was right: and if she had made it here, she couldn’t have arrived at a more apt moment than this!’
*
Chapter 23
As the king and Lil burst through the room’s double doors, the two beasts who had taken up positions as guards in the corridor stared at them in bewilderment.
It must seem odd, Lil thought, to see their king being so suddenly and bizarrely familiar with her.
Why was that? she wondered: why was he treating her so incredibly well?
There was his obvious admiration of Sis, of course. Yet it was surely more than just admiration: from what Lil had deduced from their conversation, it appeared that the king regarded Sis as a being in many ways similar to himself. In that case, it may will be that he also regarded her witnessing of his final combat and elevation to the kingship as a fortuitous – perhaps even a god sent – confirmation of his right to rule.
They took the moving room once more, this time as a means of dropping them off on what Lil presumed must be a lower floor, going by the sensations that had struck her stomach. They next headed outside, but through different doors to the ones Lil had entered the building by, for they came out into an area where the atmosphere was one of jollity and ceremony rather than one of arduous tasks to be completed.
It differed, too, in that it was generally a simpler mix of beasts: of lions, bulls, bears and eagles. There were other creatures, but all of them were in servile roles, distributing drinks and food to their obvious superiors, who were undoubtedly here only to enjoy themselves.
The strangest thing about it all, however, was that a large number of unaltered humans were also mingling amongst this excited crowd, elatedly joining in the celebratory mood. Perhaps more remarkably still, they too were being offered food and drink by the more subservient ‘servants of the gods’.
They could only be the leaders of the surrounding communities, Lil surmised.
Invited here in the same way that Frenda had explained, no doubt to witness some proof of the god’s ultimate pre-eminence.
Quickly glancing about the jubilant throng, Lil couldn’t see any sign of either Frenda or anyone else she might recognise from amongst Frenda’s community.
Was Frenda still alive?
Was anyone in her community still alive?
If the king and his warriors had killed Sis, had Frenda’s community also taken the brunt of his fury?
She was abruptly aware that the air of festivity about her had being almost instantly stilled, replaced by a nervous shuffling, even a low, frightened moaning.
Everyone was facing her way, everyone was bowing low.
No; not bowing for her, of course.
Bowing at the presence of their king.
There was surprise on the faces of everyone there, as if they hadn’t expected the king to suddenly appear amongst them unannounced. Maybe, in his excitement to bring Lil down here, he had either forgone or even forgotten the usual protocols that had to be taken.
Lil bowed before the king, recognising that it would appear discourteous not to do so.
With an airy wave of a hand, the king dismissed his people’s need to show their submissiveness. They rose to their feet once more, continuing their conversations, their feasting.
Some moved as if to greet or congratulate the king, but he once again dismissed their attention with yet another airy wave of a hand.
‘What do you know of your friend?’ he asked at last, turning towards Lil. ‘Anything: anything you know – even things you might believe to be unimportant – you must tell me!’
Lil shrugged; what was there to say? She hadn’t learnt as much about Sis as she would have liked to.
It was strange, this incredible interest the king had developed for Sis. The book, by comparison, had been left behind in his offic
e, as if no longer of any interest to him.
‘She was different: completely different to anyone I’ve ever known, or I’m ever likely to know,’ Lil admitted. ‘She believed she had to come here,’ she added, realising that this was what he wanted to continue to hear; recognising, too, that it was this idea of Sis’s quest, together with Lil’s connection to Sis, that was keeping her alive, or at least ensuring that she wasn’t yet being carted off to work in the mines.
Moreover, it was also allowing her to find out more about these ‘servants of the gods’, for she felt sure she was being privileged with information denied the vast majority of people.
The king nodded in satisfaction as he took in Lil’s comment that Sis’s quest to find this ‘MassBay’ had indeed been an important task for her.
‘Yes, yes: belief is the right word!’ he declared elatedly. ‘It’s such a great shame that she didn’t announce herself to me! Instead of killing her, I would have taken great pleasure in welcoming her here to see all this!’
He indicated the surrounding ceremonies with a gleefully expressive wave of an arm; then, abruptly, he whirled on Lil, staring at her quizzically, hopefully.
‘You said she believed she would find the person here who could alleviate all our suffering?’
Lil nodded in agreement.
‘And this suffering; do you know why it was all inflicted upon us in the first place?’
‘It was the storms, the earthquakes – or so the legends tell us.’
The king smiled with satisfaction.
‘Legends, yes; that’s all they are! For do they tell us how pointed – how incisively directed – those storms, those so-called naturally destructive elements, were?’
‘They struck cities, laid everything to waste – there were so many of them, very little of the Golden Age was left intact. Whatever was left was soon covered in dust and soil blown by further storms. And then the jungle of forests began to spread all over it once more.’
‘But, don’t you see; it wasn’t just indeterminate, as these ridiculous legends tell us! The disasters hit only those areas populated by man! And hit those same areas again and again.’
Lil frowned quizzically at the king
‘How could you possibly know this?’
The king beamed