Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

Outside in the Court they could still hear the sound of the battle raging in the Church. But they crossed without incident and cautiously entered the long, cool vaults of the Cellarium. In there it was absolutely quiet and even the sounds of fighting outside seemed distant and disconnected.

Matlock was now leading, the Abbot close behind. He had discarded his gun and was clutching the Adjuster with both hands, whether for reassurance or because his strength was failing, Matlock didn’t know. But he knew he was worried about the Abbot whose will seemed to have suddenly bent, if not broken, under the strain. Matlock wondered again how old he was, who he was, or rather, had been to be given this job.

Perhaps it was these thoughts which distracted him. Certainly he thought later, he should have been aware a couple of steps earlier that they were not alone in the cellar. Even then, he was so keyed up to action that as the two darker patches detached themselves from the wall ahead he was moving sideways.

The beam of light caught his face, he shot at it and heard a hoarse cry. Then something struck the wall about three inches from his head, a sliver of fine stone raced across his brow and he fell.

It felt like hours, but his unconsciousness must have lasted only a couple of seconds. When his eyes opened again, it was to see a strange nightmarish tableau. In the middle of the great stone floor, bathed in torch light, knelt the Abbot. Approaching him with gun in one hand and torch in the other was a young soldier, a boy of about twenty. Matlock could see the pallor of his face in the light reflected back from the silvery metal face of the Adjuster which the Abbot still clutched to his chest.

The Abbot’s face was working as though something lived under the skin. His lips moved, but no words came. Matlock began to feel around carefully for his fallen gun. The boy was standing right over the Abbot now, his face taut with fear — or disgust.

Suddenly the Abbot thrust the Adjuster up at him.

“Take it! Take it!” he screamed. “You can live for ever. For ever. Take it!”

Whether the boy thought the machine was a weapon, or whether he knew what it was and acted in hysterical disgust, Matlock didn’t know. But he jerked back a step, then began to pump bullets through the machine into the Abbot’s body.

The Abbot remained kneeling for a long time. He hissed through his pale lips. “Life, life,” a couple of times, the Adjuster fell apart in his hands, then he collapsed forward.

Matlock rolled over and tried to push himself up. His hand touched the still hot barrel of his gun. Clumsily, noisily, he shifted his grip to the butt. He needn’t have worried — the boy stood stock still over the Abbot’s body and heard nothing. He didn’t even move when Matlock, his head still dizzy with pain, missed with his first shot.

His second tore the boy’s chest open, and the third removed the terrified face.

Staggering to his feet, Matlock made his way over to the Abbot and turned his body over. Amazingly he was not yet dead. Words bubbled redly from his lips.

“… too young to bribe with age, Matt… too young.”

Then he was dead.

Matlock spared a few moments to look at the shattered Adjuster. It was obviously beyond repair. It was five days to his birthday.

He ran his hand over his forehead in perplexity and found it thick with blood. He must have looked very dead.

Bending over the soldier he went swiftly through his small pack till he came across the field dressing he was looking for. He had no time for refinement but drew a smear of antiseptic cream across his brow and wrapped a bandage round twice.

All the while his mind raced on.

Was it worth it? Even if he escaped it meant only a few days of uncomfortable, frightened, waiting freedom. Wouldn’t it be better to go out now with a gun and die fighting the enemy.

What would that do? Kill a few boys like this?

He looked at the faceless youth at his feet.

Better surely to look for someone worthy of death. Perhaps in four days he could find Browning. Perhaps in five days…

Perhaps I’d just rather die in five days than five minutes, he told himself and the admission made him feel almost light-hearted.

He turned and headed back up the Cellarium. The river was still his best bet, he felt, but without the Abbot’s guidance, he decided it would be easier to get out of the Abbey buildings altogether and take his chance in the open.

His first thought was to make his way out of the door through which he had entered the Abbey buildings earlier that night. The thought went through his mind that if he had stopped quietly in bed, Browning’s men could not have been certain he was in the Abbey that night and the attack might not have taken place.

But he found that a small profitable side-effect of his sense of being a pawn in someone else’s game was a dilution of self-reproach, and the thought was pushed completely from his mind when he reached the outer door and peered through.

The Strangers’ House was a roaring inferno around which the black outlines of men scuttled like insects on a burning log. The greensward between the House and the Abbey was as bright as day, if daylight could properly be likened to this red and white fury.

Exit from this door was impossible. Matlock felt the beginnings of despair and suddenly four days seemed a lifetime to lose. He began to make his way back, looking for refuge in the dark shadows of the great building. But now a new and stranger horror began to pursue him. For the darkness around him suddenly brightened, began to redden, to tremble, to dissolve as though it was being burnt away.

He spun round. The great wall behind him seemed to be full of a terrible flame and his mind began to spiral to some safe insanity of terror as he watched. Brighter and brighter it grew. Then as he turned to run, the truth flashed on him, still stimulus to terror but not to madness.

A glance back confirmed his guess. The flame was the glow of the raging bonfire which had been the Strangers’ House. He was seeing it through the wall, more clearly each second.

The wall was made of poro-glass and someone had operated the transparency control. And even as he ran, the implications of what he had seen leapt eagerly into his mind.

The whole reconstruction of the Abbey must have been done in poro-glass, a type so refined that it was possible to create the exact colour of old stone in it. He was trying to escape like a rat running through a glass maze.

As he ran, the walls about and behind him misted greyly then cleared to perfect transparency. Searchlights, flames, even the thin sliver of moon which had edged into the crowded sky, all shone through the clearing roof and walls as though aiming their beams at him. He tried desperately to recollect from those childhood memories of the Abbey ruins which walls had been intact, which walls he could hide behind without fearing that they would turn into a sheet of glass.

For the moment he seemed to have outdistanced the transformation process. He thanked heaven it was based on a slow chain reaction and was therefore gradual not instantaneous. He had lost his bearings in his panic and now he stopped to find out where he was. A little thought told him he was back in the Cloister Passage. Up ahead must be the Infirmary, but that he was certain was part of the reconstruction and must be avoided. He leaned back against the wall and tried to calm his turbulent thoughts.

Without warning he was bathed in hard white light. Turning he saw that the wall on which he was leaning had become transparent, but the other side must have been in utter darkness and he had no warning. Now there was a little group of soldiers there with two or three high-radiancy torches. They stood and stared at him through the wall for a moment, then one of them came so close that his nose touched the glass and for a second he looked like a small boy with his face pressed against a sweetshop window.