Their feet stirred the dust and debris that had fallen from the chamber roof. The once smooth walls were now home to invasive creepers that poured in round the opening. A shaft of sunlight falling inside the main door cast a suffuse reflective glow across the rest of the chamber. Here and there, they saw the brittle, dried up husks of long dead chatt bodies, their outlines softened by decades of drifting dust, as if overcome by some long-forgotten catastrophe.
Atkins pushed on into the gloom beyond the penumbra of sunlight, at least knowing that the end of this mission was in sight. All they had to do was kill the creature that had gone to ground here and they could return to the encampment. They had rifles, Mills bombs; they even had a couple of flares. If that lot failed, they had the tank. They could blow this entire ruin sky high if they had to. Either way, it ended today. After that, Mathers was Lieutenant Everson’s problem.
There were several tunnels leading off the antechamber. Napoo knelt and examined the dust on the floor, while Nellie held the torch for him. It was easy to spot the footprints left by the tank crew. “This way,” he said, leading them across the dusty floor. The party fell in behind him, bayonets at the ready. Atkins looked back at the bright entrance, the hard outlines softened by translucent hanging fronds and back-lit by the sun, and turned back to face the dark. He shuddered. He hated these places.
The tunnel they entered sloped up perceptibly. Roots and creepers had slithered on in advance of them long ago, affixing themselves to the floor and walls, and they had to watch their footing. Eventually the tunnel began to level out. Their torch flames guttered in a soft breeze.
In places, the luminescent lichen, that Chandar told them used to sit in niches lighting the passages, had grown wild and unkempt, giving an opalescent glow to the tunnels.
Here though, the trail was lost. Something had swept along these tunnels so frequently there was no dust trail left to follow. It must be the creature, Atkins realised. There was a hardened black sheen to the walls here, as if the oily residue it left behind had dried. There was no way of telling which of the branching passages the tank crew had taken.
They moved cautiously along a passage. The further they went without incident, the more anxious Atkins became.
Openings yawned in the passage walls. They all had to be checked out. Some were adjoining tunnels, others chambers, empty and bare.
Porgy thrust his torch into another room as they passed, while Chalky lunged forwards in an “on guard” stance with his bayonet. Holding the torch high, lighting the gloom with a flickering orange glow, Porgy cast a glance around the small chamber. There was another passage exiting on the far side. He edged across the room and along the short passage beyond, holding out his torch to illuminate a second chamber.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Only, you’d better come and take a look at this!”
THE TANK CREW had no idea where they were, but they followed Mathers, who seemed to know which way he was going. They didn’t need torches. They could see well enough, thanks to the synesthetic petrol fruit fumes that now flooded their bloodstreams. Their footsteps produced colours and flavours that rippled down the chatt-made circular tunnels.
Mathers led them deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels of the ruin, taking switches and junctions without a second’s pause until, deep in the ruined edifice, they came to an empty chamber. Alfie could not see anything remarkable about the chamber, there was nothing to indicate why they might have stopped here.
“This will do,” said Mathers. “We don’t want any interruptions.”
The crew turned to Alfie. Their looks were not pleasant.
Alfie edged back towards the chamber entrance, but the others surrounded him. “What’s all this in aid of?” he croaked. “I thought we were going to kill this evil spirit, this devil.”
“We are, but first we have some business to attend to,” said Mathers. “You.”
“Me, sir?”
Alfie felt a surge of fear drive into his limbs, ready for flight. Too late. Frank and Norman seized him by the arms and held them out at his sides, as if he were being crucified. He struggled but they held him fast.
“Sorry, old bean,” said Reggie, with a weak, apologetic smile. “It’s for the best.”
“I don’t understand, sir. What have I done? What have I done to any of you? I’ve followed your orders, sir. I’ve helped keep the tank running. I’ve kept your secrets.”
Mathers shook his head in disappointment. His voice was calm. “True. You are with us, as you have been since Elveden. Your mind, however, is… elsewhere.”
Without effort, Alfie’s thoughts turned to Nellie. Was that it? Was that what all this was about?
Mathers stepped towards him. Bruise-coloured auras rose from his mates on the convection currents of their own body heat, and collected gently in the dome of the chamber above their heads.
He looked up at Mathers, who now stood over him in his rain cape, the leather and chainmail mask inscrutable. “Sir, what’re you doing?”
Mathers nodded. Frank and Norman forced Alfie to his knees, still holding his arms out straight at his sides. “I’m offering you a chance to recant, Perkins, a chance to rejoin the fold, as it were.”
“But I never left, sir.”
“You’re forgetting, Perkins. I can see you. You’re confused, afraid. You have to let go.”
Mathers nodded at Wally.
The cockney stood behind Alfie and pulled his head back with a hand on his forehead.
Alfie continue to struggle, but to no avail. “No! Whatever you’re doing, sir… don’t!”
Mathers reached under his rain cape and retrieved his hip flask. He took the top off. Alfie felt Wally’s calloused fingers on his nose and briefly smelled the cigarette-stained tips before they pinched his nostrils shut. Alfie struggled, refusing to open his mouth. Mathers stood and waited patiently. The moment Alfie opened his mouth to gasp for air he poured the petrol fruit down his throat.
“Receive the Sacrament of Skarra,” he said, in reverent tones.
Alfie coughed and spluttered, but Wally clamped his hand over his mouth until he swallowed. He felt the spirit burn down the back of his throat, bringing tears to his eyes.
Then his world exploded.
Frank and Norman let go of Alfie, and the gearsman slumped back on his heels. Briefly, the world was afire, all his senses screaming. The chamber was a shifting kaleidoscope of unnameable colours, bringing vertigo and nausea. Unfathomable shapes of sound danced at the periphery of his vision. He paused, dry-retching. He took deep breaths, one hand braced against the floor, until the vertigo passed. Like a newly struck Lucifer, the initial flare of sensation died down and the world settled, more or less, but brighter and keener than before, as the undiluted petrol fruit coursed through his system.
“You see the world the way I do,” he heard Mathers say, or was that smell? “Transubstantiated by the grace of Skarra.”
He looked towards the taste of Mathers’ voice as he stood over him holding out a hand. Alfie reached out, took it, and found himself hauled to his feet through a dizzying wave of vertigo. It took a moment for his new world to reorient itself.
Alfie looked round and saw Mathers. And he saw the things within Mathers. The Lieutenant put a finger to his chainmail, where his lips were. The meaning was clear. Shhh.
WITHOUT A TORCH, Atkins edged cautiously down the dark passage, towards Porgy’s light, emerging into another, larger chamber.