Martyn Vaughan - The Cave of Shadows

Shana screamed. She was the only member of the crowd to do so.

It was not over. The bone pile grew translucent, then transparent and finally blew away in a few curls of bluish vapour. The ground was empty.

The crowd dispersed, its members chattering excitedly to each other as they departed. Only Jon, Shana, the Chairman and Jarz were left. The Chairman lingered for a moment, discussing something with Jarz and then left without a backward glance. Jarz glared at them for a while; looked like he was going to say something but then apparently thought better of it and marched off.

Only Jon and Shana remained, shaken to the core and with their arms around each other as they tried to forget what they had witnessed. But then Shana lifted her head and looked back at the pole. ‘Something wrong,’ Jon heard her murmur before she crossed to where Jon11 had died. He followed her and watched her crouch down on the ground, pressing her palms onto the soil. She looked up.

‘Jon, we felt the heat. We saw what it did. But look – the ground. There’s no trace of any damage. It’s as if nothing has happened. That’s not possible.’

Jon looked down at where she was pointing. She was right – there was not the slightest sign of any disturbance.

She stood up. ‘Let’s get back.’

They returned to the house in total silence, stunned into muteness by the enormity of the recent past. But the silence did not last.

No sooner had they arrived back when the building shook to a great voice, a voice like splintering stone.

‘Jon. Shana. You have displeased me. You did not glory in the overthrow of an enemy. That is weakness and weakness is something I will not tolerate. But as you have not spoken out against me as Jon11 did, I will be merciful. Your punishment will be mild: I will not allow you to enter the Gate of Light with my army. Your days will be spent here, alone, in an empty village where you will have to scrabble for every speck of food, search for every drop of water.

‘And Shana. I know of your movements in the world of the visualiser, which you have entered without my permission. But I will wait to see what transpires. It may be that from what you see and discover, wisdom may come to you in a way that it cannot come to your companion.

‘But beware: I watch you always.’

And with that, silence fell.

‘You must not go back into the visualiser,’ Jon told Shana.

She stared stonily back at him. ‘And why is that?’

‘You know why. Korok knows you’re in there and he doesn’t like it.’

Shana stretched her long limbs where she was lying on the bed. ‘And tell me something he does like – apart from glorying in the death of an enemy, that is. No, he did not forbid me to use it; in fact, he said I might learn wisdom. Perhaps I will.’

‘And do you want Korok’s brand of wisdom?’

‘I want the opportunity to find out more, so I can escape from this madness. Jon, you and I both know that what we’re seeing can’t be all there is. It’s like some kind of puppet show with Korok pulling the strings.’

Jon had not seen a puppet show but he was able to guess her meaning.

‘Maybe what you’ll see will make you like Korok – despising weakness, glorying in suffering.’

She gave a sad smile. ‘Do you know so little of me, Jon? Do you think that I could become like that?’

She got off the bed, came to him and ran warm fingers over his weary face.

‘You and I are swords from the same forge Jon but we do not kill for the love of slaughter – only to defend ourselves from those who have that lust. Trust me.’

He smiled under the touch of her slim fingers. ‘I do. You must do what you think is right. I can’t go with you. You must go in there alone.’

They kissed again; this time with a sad gentleness.

Shana was immersed in the world of the visualiser. But this time there were not the terrible scenes of people hiding, running, dying. When the images stabilised they were of the interior of some large building made of material she did not recognise, a building in which she appeared to be entirely alone. She was in a long corridor between high walls that had many shelves on them. On the shelves were rectangular objects.

She selected the nearest and was surprised to see it fall open, revealing many thin sheets that had marks on them which she recognised as words. On the first page there were many words, with those at the top bigger and blacker than the rest. Shana was not surprised to discover that she could read the words: she had known that she would.

They said: The Conquest of The Degenerates – Vol 1.

She read some pages but found that her understanding was not as great as she had assumed; there were words there that she could not interpret except that they appeared to be referring to various places. Some were a type of village, but much, much bigger than the one she was in. Others referred to entire areas that held many villages. The names were strange; tongue-twistingly strange.

America.

Europe.

In her travels through the savage lands, none of her enemies had spoken of these places. Where could they be?

She read on:

“The so-called civilisation of the Degenerates suffered from many flaws but some in particular proved terminal. The culture placed an inordinate emphasis on tolerance and compassion, both proclivities being inimical to the development of the warrior spirit. In its final days, a culture of competitive compassion developed with groups seeking to outdo the other in their caring for others. A belief that the highest virtue was tolerance instead of the manly spirit of struggle was inculcated without pausing to consider where the unthinking tolerance of the intolerant would lead.”

Shana stared at the words: she had no idea what they meant. The writer appeared to be scornful of the idea of caring for others, somehow believing that it was a fatal flaw in the survival of a society. But what would replace such an attitude? Shana had met many things in her travels that had wished her harm. She for her part had not wished them harm but had been forced to despatch them when their intentions had become plain.

Could there not be a compromise between compassion and self-interest? The writer clearly thought not: but surely nothing truly human could think that!

There was much more in the book, mostly claiming that the Degenerates had destroyed their own world from within by insidious cowardice and had deserved the punishment that had come upon them by those that were strangers to fear. She grew rapidly tired of it and read no more of the books in that section.

She looked around. Now she was used to the visons they seemed entirely real. She was dimly aware of the pressure of the device upon her head but she could see nothing of the room she was in or Jon’s concerned face. The feeling that she was alone in a long corridor could not be distinguished from reality and although she had no physical sensation of her feet touching the floor, she could make herself walk down it.

It was a mysterious, incredible experience – but she was getting used to those now.

She rounded a bend in the corridor and saw that it opened up into a wide room without flanking bookshelves. At the far end, so distant that she could not make out the details, there was what appeared to be a table with a solid front. There were words on that front but they were so small it was hard to interpret them. One word was in larger characters and might have been “FORBIDDEN.” She was about to approach when she saw movement. Her eyes narrowed. At either end of the table stood two short, squat figures. They were only silhouettes but their outline, their movements, reminded her of – Akraz and Zarka!