The Chronicles of the Pale Books 1-3

Chapter 12

‘And he found?’ asked the Regent, tapping her foot.

‘None of them reacted to the false storm phenomena.’

‘What! Then I do not understand, Annalist, why we are having this conversation.’

‘My lady! Just as he despaired, a true storm approached. His testing cells erupted in cacophony. All of the subjects reacted to the true storm.’

‘Ah. I see.’ The Regent walked to the railing, peered over the edge, and turned back, keeping her distance from the colonnade. ‘If you please, Annalist, what were his conclusions?’

‘My lady, their responses to the approach of a true event were a kind of mass hysteria. He spent the entirety of his allotted time studying this. No false phenomena elicited any reaction, though some of the subjects began to show fear. A true storm would effect a response, but such a response always began in one cell and was then taken up by the others.’

‘One cell?’ snapped the Regent.

‘Yes, but not the same cell, my lady. Different subjects each time—just that one would be the first to react. This remained true over generations of subjects, because of course Giovan lived longer than any of them. All he could conclude was that humans are the slowest to react. Canini are the most reliable, and he tried at one stage to domesticate canini inside his own oikos, but he could not bear the mess, the smell. He had them modified with sanitary hardware, but they no longer reacted to storm phenomena.’

‘I see. So there is no reliable data?’

‘No, my lady. To receive any data, one would need to house and nurture subjects for their entire lives, and keep them under constant surveillance to note any behaviours that accompanied the phenomena of an imminent storm or shock. In any case, the warnings of such creatures are not remarkably in advance of the event’s arrival. A further weakness is that it is difficult to differentiate among the responses of such creatures. They give similar reactions to all unpleasant stimuli: fear, hunger, noise, pain, threat, and sometimes for no reason that Giovan could identify. Perhaps loneliness, or grief, or some other illogical basis.’

‘Hmm. So this researcher concluded that this was not a true phenomenon?’

‘Not at all, my lady. Unreliable is the exact term. He concluded that although it is true in the sense that it can be observed, it is no more use than, and no contribution to, the regular scanning of previous data sets that the forecasters undertake as a matter of course. But, my lady, I learned something else which may be of interest to you.’

‘Indeed?’ Élin raised the diamond feathers of her eyebrows as she flexed her fingers. She was becoming bored.

‘My lady, Giovan, I mean, this researcher, died during an aftershock. He was found crushed in the ward where his subjects’ cells were kept. Yet the walls had not tumbled and the roof was intact. Dozens of cages had fallen on him. His body parts were covered in rips and tears, such as animals might inflict. Not one of his subject animals or humans was present. They all escaped during the chaos of the aftershock.’

‘Yes, that is interesting. The conclusions of the service about this incident?’

‘My lady, he went to ensure their safety during the shock, and the cages had been stacked in an insecure fashion. This caused them to fall upon him when the earth shook. And the subjects had become released during this event, and they had bolted in fear, accidentally tearing the researcher’s flesh as they scrambled from their fallen cages, opened by the disruption to services—the failure of the locks.’

‘Perhaps it was so.’

‘Yes, my lady, but I wonder about that. What if, I mean, perhaps they felt the aftershock approaching. Perhaps they planned to ambush the researcher, knowing he would visit their ward at the first sign of a shock. They may have conspired to keep their foreknowledge from the researcher. They may have done so for generations! That way they hid their ability from us, and used it to kill the researcher and then to escape.’

The Regent frowned. She considered her internal data sets, and checked her own memory. Convinced by her own experiences that forewarning was a true phenomenon, she did not find the annalist’s suppositions as fanciful as they might have seemed to anyone consulting purely logical concepts.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Is this all you have discovered, Annalist?’

Tayyan bobbed his head. ‘Yes, my lady. There are no more data on this subject. No further research has been undertaken since that time. We have only the record of your sire’s experience, and of yours. And of course, the recorded legend of the Patraena bane.’

‘Hmm.’ Élin stood, lost in thought. Then she clapped her hands. Servants rose from the ground about her. She began to issue orders. ‘Send me the Senior Forecaster, and the Chief of the Teshniks. And the Foremost Ingeneer.’ The servants scurried from her presence. The Regent became aware that Tayyan still stood on the terrace. She smiled a little as she pointed her gilded arm at him. ‘You, Annalist,’ she said. ‘Go back to your oikos and your work. I no longer need you.’ As the annalist bowed and crept backwards from her presence, Élin tapped an order into her wristscreen: The annalist Tayyan is to be recycled at the first opportunity, consonant with the needs of the policosmos. Then she smiled again with more real pleasure. It was well to know the names of individuals.

There was a good reason why Mashtuk had not observed any signs of feral activity on the wider reaches of Broad Plain. Not long after the canini had gone their separate ways, a band of ferals had massed to attack on the outcrop where the elders and the vulnerable pack of Eugenie remained. As he slogged through the rain closer towards where he had left them, Mashtuk could have howled to the sky. The ground was strewn with stripped bones and tufts of fur; the waterhole by the outcrop was fouled with blood and body fluids. Only the sense that the ferals had not retreated far kept him quiet. He sensed something alive nearby. Surely they were sated for the moment, and would have split forces after the attack. At the death of their victims, they would have fought among themselves to secure their own share of flesh and fur.

If such a concept as share existed among ferals, thought Mashtuk. He hoped they were now scattered to the plain’s edge. He hoped they choked on canini bones.

He crept closer. Everything was quiet. Rainwater cascaded among the rocks and pooled at the base of the outcrop. Here, too, some green things were showing signs of growth.

Too late for the canini.

Keeping a cautious distance, Mashtuk quartered the area. He saw nothing moving. Locating an open space where he could see any approach, he sat in the mud and stretched up his head in a long howl of grief and tribute.

‘My people,’ he sang, ‘my people are dead. They were worthy and beloved. They made a great sacrifice for the packs. The land mourns them.’

Then he leapt to his feet as an answering howl resounded. ‘They were worthy and beloved and they fought hard for each other.’

‘Granddam?’ Mashtuk sprinted towards the outcrop. He clambered over rocks until he found her, wedged between two upright stones, her strong teeth and sharp clawed hands ready to attack. ‘Granddam! What happened?’

Tinashe grinned at him. ‘We fought well,’ she said. ‘They came in waves. Not until we were weaker. It’s all right. The little cubs were already dead, sung to sleep in our arms. Orfeo fought like a giant. He hadn’t eaten for some days.’ Her head c****d to one side. ‘He did not live to see the worst of it. All is well.’ Then she focused on Mashtuk, and reached out a hand to grasp the thick fur around his neck. ‘Cubling? It is you! It is! I have dreamt this so often, I can hardly believe you are here.’

‘I am here indeed,’ growled Mashtuk. ‘Too late! Too late! I am sorry.’

‘Tush! You had a worthy task. Tell me, how fares the pack of Fennec?’

‘Our journey prospered. I believe they will prosper too, in the new site. All is well with them. Both cubs are thriving now.’

‘Excellent.’ Tinashe settled her weight down. Now that he was close to her, Mashtuk could see how diminished she was, a mere stretch of ragged fur over fleshless bones. There were great hollows in her cheeks and every breath was laboured in her scrawny body. As she rolled onto one elbow, he saw she was not alone. Behind her in the tiny cramped space formed by the slanting upright boulders were two more canini. One, a young female he did not recognise, blinked at him. The other was Eugenie herself, her distinctive dark ears laid flat against the bloodied fur of her skull. She did not open her eyes, but he could see her chest rise and fall.

‘Granddam, is this all your pack? Three of you?’

‘We did well to save so many,’ said Tinashe.

Mashtuk hung his head. ‘There has been much death here.’

‘Ah, cubling, it is what we expected, indeed. Though it is true, I hoped that Eugenie would leave us elders to take our own path to death, after the little pups failed.’ Tinashe sighed. ‘And then the young mothers died. Eugenie would not leave. None of them would leave us to die alone. And so the feral pack grew and grew until they felt bold enough to strike.’

‘Granddam, will you come with me now? I travel north, to find our pack, Hippolyta’s pack. I go towards the Pale. Will you come? Can you walk so far?’

‘No, my dear. I am done. I hoped for you; I sang for you in the dark hours. I like to think you heard me. There is no other reason for you to come this way.’

‘I always intended to pass this way. I wanted to pay reverence at this site.’

Tinashe nodded. ‘That sounds like you, indeed. A wasteful and foolish journey.’ She nosed him. ‘A journey full of love.’

Mashtuk lay before her, and pushed his own nose under her splayed claws. ‘Granddam, you cannot stay here. The ferals will come again.’

‘Yes, when they hunger. For the moment they are sated. Now is the time to move.’

Mashtuk jumped to his feet. ‘You’ll come with me?’ His mindvoice was sharp with excitement.

‘No, no, cubling, I am truly done.’ She turned her head back over her left shoulder, giving Mashtuk a view of her twisted hindquarters; some blow had broken her back. He marvelled at how she had crawled into this space, keeping the others safe behind her. But it was in truth no marvel. It was, simply, Tinashe.

She faced him again, with a lop-sided grin halfway between grief and triumph. ‘I will happily lay my head down now, as soon as you lead these two north. Eugenie is wounded, but with care she may mend. Zélie is alone but for Eugenie. They are the last of Orfeo’s proud line, and they are now pack with us. Take them to Hippolyta. You can keep them safe on the way, I know you can.’

Mashtuk glanced away from her and shook himself, as he always did when faced with something inescapable that he didn’t like, then he reached a paw to scratch behind his ear. A ragged thumbnail distracted him and he took a moment to chew at it. He looked about the plain. It was early afternoon, and steady rain fell. They would do well to move now, off the plain and into any shelter they could find. He knew a place, some four hours trot to the north. He hoped Eugenie and Zélie could manage that. Then he laid his hand on the old one’s head.