Chapter Twenty-Four

The Ox and the Wolf

Baldrick Chen didn’t wait for the church door to open before he was beating a retreat back down the stoned pathway. His job was done. Like Kira, he vanished back to another life, not inclined to await his successor.

Agloff thought. Ariea. Thawn. Eron. Jask. On Chen’s words, Agloff felt lines of thought converging, played out on the world in front of him. Disparate strands were coming together, entwined.

The door opened.

‘Welcome! Welcome!’

Lore Wenderson stood in the doorway, round of face. His chin spilled over the folds of his collar as his belly did his belt. His body was a cascade of rolls and folds, and Agloff thought even the act of welcoming them strained his joints. He smiled at them with rosed cheeks, nonetheless.

He led them inside, down an aisle dividing rows of wooden pews, and he gestured they sit in the front row. A podium had been pig-handily adjusted to accommodate him seated, which he did. The walls were an offish white, washed in cracks and peeling flakes. The pews, but for the first few, were laden in dust while a visitor book still lay open at the altar for passing signatories. This place betrayed his loneliness.

Agloff wondered how he had come into possession of such a place.

‘You must stay a while,’ Lore said. ‘I’ve heard word of snowfall several miles Edenward. Would be best to wait for it to thaw. Tea!’ he then exclaimed. ‘I’ll fetch us some tea.’ He made for a back room excitedly, his weight winding from foot to foot.

Immediately, Agloff’s stare wandered to a figure glazed in the window behind the altar. He hung limply by his palms from a cross like the one they had seen outside. A destitute man, thought Agloff, naked but for a pair of shorts and a crown of thorns. He wondered why he adorned such a place of pride in the window.

Agloff felt an imposter in this place. Ignorant to all meaning that had come and gone. They had worshipped an old god here.

Merry came to stand alongside him. She stared at the thorned man. ‘It’s going to be okay, Agloff.’ Her quiet conviction lifted his soul. ‘Ariea is going to be okay, because she’s got you. And this Thawn guy, and Jask. You know they have nothing on us.’

A grateful smile touched Agloff’s lips.

Quickly, it faded.

Thawn was a distraction. A distraction fate had beset him with and one Agloff did not need now. Not with Ariea at Eden. He imagined Thawn’s explanations and excuses pass over him, heard but not listened to. What apology could excuse Thawn from this?

Agloff had presumed him long dead, a passing footnote in his mother’s story. As a father, as absent-minded as any. A runaway. Maybe he could have been a drunk, a vagrant butchered by the mob of a minor fort.

But now Agloff saw that he was more. How many lives had Thawn lived before today, until he could finally look his son in the eye? His son who, by all rights, should have been deep under the earth. Agloff thought; did he bring Thawn shame?

Beads of sweat rolled under Agloff’s fists. His head throbbed by his temples, possessed by rage. Thawn deserved no forgiveness.

Why had fate said today?

The soft touch of Merry’s voice pulled Agloff from this line of thought. ‘What do you think he’s doing?’ she said of the thorned man.

‘Dying,’ said Agloff dryly.

‘He looks sad, but also content.’

Agloff’s head sank. ‘Looks like he’s judging me. And this place makes me uncomfortable.’

‘Do you not believe in a god?’

Agloff thought a moment, then shook his head. What need did he have for God? The world was absolute as it was, and cruel in its absoluteness. It turned on underhand favours and chance encounters, the murmurs of vagrants and the mercies of unkind folk. God had no seat at the table.

‘That’s sad,’ Merry said eventually.

‘Why is it sad?’

‘Surely, it’s reassuring that something is watching over us, no?’

‘Reassurance isn’t faith,’ Oxford mused.

Merry looked strong. ‘I don’t need faith. I look at the world and I see that it’s divine.’

‘A fairy-tale then,’ said Oxford.

Again, Lore’s steps trudged heavily, and these thoughts became banished from Agloff’s mind.

‘Tea,’ he said again, and set down a tray of cups. He smiled intensely until each collected one, then returned to the sinking embrace of his chair.

‘I know who you are,’ the Father continued. His slitted eyes pierced them while he took a sip.

‘Who are we?’ Oxford leaned forwards again.

The Father poked the air at them. ‘Agloff Ashborne. Yes. Oh, don’t look surprised,’ he said at their gormless stares. ‘It wasn’t a difficult deduction.’

‘You’re well-informed.’

‘Pays to be. Information is the currency of power. I heard tell of a group of teenage VIPs who need passage into Winter on short notice, from out west. And Winter has put word out for five fugitives, including a young girl.’ His stare lowered to Lady. ‘Anonymous, but Jask is offering more than a pretty penny for your heads, alive.’

‘You tempted?’ Oxford said.

The Father merely smiled. ‘Drink your tea, you need not worry. I have little need of money.’

‘How do you plan on getting us into Eden on short notice?’ pressed Memphis.

Lore chuckled. ‘Ahh, that is the question, isn’t it? I run jobs for Abba Yondo, against Winter. I’m used to getting people out of Eden. Occasionally in.’

‘The children?’ Merry turned her head.

‘The children. I have a half-dozen boys in my employ. They get them out. The thing to know about Eden; it’s designed to hurt, to constrict, to confuse. It’s filled with deliberate dead ends and roads that fold back on themselves so only people familiar can navigate it. The streets are designed to be non-distinctive, without landmarks. And there’s only one way in: the main gate.

‘There are all sorts of tunnels, for service or railways, that run out under the city, most unguarded and some lead under the Red Cathedral itself. They’re equally… disorienting,’ and a haunted looked passed over him, ‘Winter trusts a runaway would never get far alone. And few try to break in.’

‘That’s how you get them out?’

Lore nodded. ‘The boys know their way round those tunnels blindfolded now. I daresay better than Winter.’

‘How many kids you take?’ Oxford asked.

‘Two a month, sometimes less.’

‘One or two a month!’

‘More is to arouse suspicion, boy. Children always go missing from Winter, but the system works because we don’t over-exert it. But I would not risk the boys in this case. Winter are expecting you. You will be going in through the front gate.’

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Oxford stood. He growled. ‘Are you out of your goddamn mind!’

The Father smiled politely. ‘Please, sit. I would not put you in harm’s way, of course. Not more than necessary. Winter are expecting you, alive,’ he repeated. ‘Maybe even Jask personally, so you need access to the Red Cathedral. The safest way is above ground through the main gate, in plain view of Winter. To go underground, to subvert their security, Winter would suspect treachery and resist. You want a way in to Jask himself?’

Agloff nodded at him.

‘Then surrender. No tricks.’

‘What about getting out?’

‘The tunnels still have their uses. The Wolf will protect you. He’s had dealings with Jask before.’

The eyes of the room closed on Agloff. His fell to his lap, waited for the moment to pass. Their pointed stares escaped Lore, but he apparently thought better than to ask. And Agloff thought better than to ask Lore about Thawn.

Thawn was a distraction, he repeated through his mind.

‘You think we’d succeed?’ Merry said then. She almost begged.

‘I think the Lord set you on this path for a reason, and I don’t think it was to fail at its end.’

‘I prefer not to take my chances with God,’ Oxford whined.

‘You may choose not to believe, friend, but He has a plan for you, even if you can’t see it yet. There’s a plan for all of us.’

Oxford bowed, chastened. Agloff saw his wounds; the thought that this man placed faith in a God that could take everything from them it could possibly take, then say that had been its intention. It left a taste like ash.

‘Tell us about the Cathedral,’ Agloff said.

‘Ahh, a practical fortress. The walls are fortified with spikes, manned twenty-four hours a day. All the windows are barred. Jask stays at the very top in his quarters. There’s a veranda on his floor where he sometimes comes out for fresh air, but it has a privacy wall eight feet high. And the walls outside are vertical or spiked. No way to climb. You don’t get in, unless he wants you to.’

‘But you mentioned ways into it below.’

Lore sighed dimly. ‘There are service tunnels on the old underground railroad. They lead directly into the infirmary below the Cathedral.’ Lore was caught on his words, stifled a lump in his throat. ‘It’s where he experiments on the children. Those inadequate for servitude. Disobedient, delinquent, weak.’

‘Then we have to get them out!’ Merry looked at Agloff. ‘We’re going for Ariea, I know, but…’ She looked at Agloff. ‘We can’t leave them there.’

‘You may not have to. I understand Jask would give you a personal audience, something he’s given only his closest lieutenant in decades. No one has been better placed to eliminate him than you. Kill Jask, the children have a chance at childhood.’

‘And how would you understand that?’ Oxford said.

Lore reclined, unperturbed by their manner. ‘My boys hear things, as do the children at Eden. I’m well-informed on matters inside the capital. Winter is too dumb to think the children might talk against them. If you kill Jask, the children will follow you.’

Merry sighed. ‘That’s a big if. And I wouldn’t want to take that chance.’ She looked at Lady, who smiled sweetly. ‘We can’t leave them there, not for the world.’

‘Jask brainwashes kids into his cult, enslaves them from the second they are born, from their families, to the day they turn eighteen,’ Oxford cut in.

Lore only erred. ‘Consider that you fail. How might those children be punished for trying to free themselves? Children whose lives are already in pain, surrogates for Jask’s depravity. His playthings. As a minimum, they are fed, watered, clothed, with a roof over their heads. I loathe Winter, I do, as much as anyone. But trust that you do right by the children. If you try to save them, Winter will come for you first, and then it will come for them.’

‘Better than life in an infirmary ward, no?’ said Agloff quietly. Merry looked at him, a smile split across her rosed cheeks. ‘Jask won’t kill me before he has me. I’m their protection. This is the only chance they would ever have to get them out.’

She leaned into hug him. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to,’ she whispered, ‘not with Ariea.’

‘Well, I don’t expect on being allowed to leave either way,’ he said. He admitted it to himself for the first time as he did to her. It was true. He thought he was going to die, if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after that. All avenues in his mind’s eye met their terminus at Eden.

‘Then the Wolf take you below ground, once you are in the city.’ Lore lamented his words. ‘I see your mind is made up. I cannot disagree with you, friends.’ His voice sounded shameful, and the folds of body slid deeper into his chair. ‘Perhaps I have been too cautious. Winter is cruel, even in its kindnesses.’

‘Have you been to Eden?’ Agloff watched wounded thoughts drift through the glint of the Father’s eyes.

He nodded grimly. The edges of his fingers rubbed the ridge of his brow. ‘I was a runaway myself. I spent weeks in those tunnels, learning, memorising, recanting the number of steps from passage to passage. It’s why I’m so familiar.’

Merry looked at Lore. She wore that unfailingly kind look. ‘It’s okay,’ she assured. ‘We’ll be okay. Where exactly are the children? The ones Jask experiments on?’

‘Jask keeps them close. Intensive care is in the main church. The Wolf can still get you in though; he’s tried it before.’

Agloff resisted the temptation to think on this information. He forced it from memory. Ariea and the kids. That was what mattered.

Thawn was just a distraction.

‘You can clear the wards up into the main building. It’ll mainly be infirmary staff there. Two can take the children back through the tunnels, the way you came in. Two can go on up to Jask.’

Merry dipped her chin at Memphis. ‘We can get them out.’

‘If you’re sure. The infirmary only constitutes a fraction of the indentured children at Eden. They come from all over Winterland. Thousands.’

‘These ones need us most. This feels right,’ Merry said. She smiled effusively. ‘Like this is what we’re here for. Why we came all this way.’ Memphis nodded back at her and she then turned to Agloff and Oxford. ‘You better get Ariea.’

Agloff looked at Oxford and dipped his chin. The Operative reciprocated. ‘We’ll be fine,’ Agloff said.

Lore didn’t say anything to that. He strained from his chair. He returned to one of the other rooms of the church and came back a moment later with rolls of papers parcelled away under his arms. Silently, he gestured them each up to the altar, unrolling the sheets.

Agloff saw pencilled drawings of rectangular shapes, the patterned criss-cross of lines and curves, scribbled with illegible labels. Lore spread them out across the altar and Agloff saw that they connected into a bigger whole; each flowed into the next.

‘I said I spent time in the tunnels. I say weeks. It could have been months, when I was half your age.’ He traced a fat finger over the shapes. ‘I committed it all to memory. Every intersection. Service corridor. Staircase. Now, I fear they may never leave me.’

Oxford’s eyes paced the sheets, nodded. ‘This is good. This is enough to work with that we don’t go in blind.’

‘As far as I am aware,’ Lore continued. He spread his fingertips across the altar. ‘I’ve mapped more of Eden than anyone except Winter. The routes beneath, perhaps more so, it’s why Kira trusted me to get you in.’ He let out a gruff sigh. ‘I’ll teach you the routes, like I do the boys. You.’ He pointed at Merry and Memphis. ‘Follow me. I’ll show you.’

Oxford stepped across the altar. ‘Shouldn’t we all know?’

‘You will,’ Lore said. ‘Did you not hear when I said the tunnels were designed to overwhelm. It’s important for your own sakes you only know your own routes, otherwise you will get lost. Go, finish your tea.’

Agloff sensed Oxford’s disquiet, but he obeyed. They trotted back to their pews, a healthy separation between them. As the others filtered into the back room, Agloff stared at the man with the crown of thorns.

All his strength resolved to think of nothing.

But he couldn’t.

His chest elevated; a sharp heat filled his body. Future scenes played through his mind. Each one he batted away hopelessly. Every avenue the future occupied was lain before him. Too many to count, they ran in every and all directions. He saw the Red Cathedral: crimson brick punctuated by lateral spikes that jutted over the joyless city below. Jask’s tower was suspended in a belt of black cloud from where Ariea’s voice called his name.

The scene played through his mind irrepressibly.

‘Agloff!’

It was Oxford. Agloff jerked awake, noting the sun had slackened into dusk through the coloured windows as Merry, Lady and Memphis filtered in from the back of the church. Their faces were glazed red and gold in the spectrum of glass. Lore was waving he and Oxford over with a piggy hand.

They walked into an angled room. The walls tilted inward, blending into an arch above them. Scribbles lined the wall one side, above a workbench fitted with a lamp Lore had wired up to a battery. Agloff traced the cables to a generator in the corner that filled the room with a patterned hum. Power like that was rare in these sorts of places, he knew. On the other side, a slitted window bathed them in the grey light of evening.

Immediately, Lore shut the door and pointed for them to sit at a pair of stools. On the bench, he had copied out two identical sets of instructions and handed one to each of them. He begged their focus and began to recite their trail into Winter, while a finger followed along one of the maps.

Left at Access Point 4.7.7.16 off Cooper Station…Third right into the north corner staircase…thirty-eight paces straight then stop at the door marked Eight-Seven.

The words passed through Agloff. It was no different from the rigours of the schooling room at Backwater Factory. The cane compelled Agloff to learn by repetition then. The route’s meaning was lost on him as he incanted strings of numbers and letters. Lore made them repeat it, over and over, until they could do it first without notes, then backwards. Oxford was much better at it than he was. By the time Agloff had committed them to memory, dusk had waned into night.

Their reward was supper. Lore returned in his nightgown with plates of thick-cut bread, laced in butter. Notes of warm dough perforated the air and Agloff felt his cheeks wetten. Lore then ordered they quiz each other by candlelight, dishing out clutches of blankets, and bundled sacks for pillows to each of them. Agloff and Oxford vanished to one corner of the church while Merry and Memphis did the same. He supposed it was a welcome distraction from what was to come. He felt closer to Oxford for it too. Talking to him about anything was reassuring, even if it were nonsense.

Yawning, Agloff parted from Oxford into his own corner and pressed himself up against the chill of the bricks, a blanket draped over him like a shawl. Agloff’s mind was abuzz with names and numbers. He muttered them over to himself until he could no longer think straight, then sank into the warmth of his bedding.

He would have no trouble sleeping tonight for once. He was too tired for anything else.

When morning struck, a hand shook Agloff’s shoulder and his head jerked to attention. Acute banging cut through his head like shots of pain. Oxford Blue was dragging Agloff to his feet with feral eyes, white within tired rings of black and blue. He looked anxious. Then Agloff realised the banging was in fact twenty feet away. He turned and saw the church door rattling on its hinges where Merry, Memphis and Lady were already lined in fresh clothes, a tremor of fear woven through their faces.

Knocking, he realised.

Agloff then turned back to Oxford as Lore watched them distantly.

‘He’s here,’ he said.