Ade Grant - The Mariner

“Mavis is retired. Decisions run through me now. And McConnell does the steering.”

“What?” he exclaimed, astonished arrangements could change so quickly. But hadn’t he suspected such a coup d’état possible? “You killed her?”

Disgust crossed his captor’s face. “We’re not like you! We’re not killers or perverts, thieves or Anomenemies! She retired out of choice, through debate! Rational discourse! The Beagle’s got a new purpose now, a proper course at last, and the last thing we need is a child-killer spreading ridiculous stories about wasps, cocoons and popes, just to save his own filthy hide. You’re going to be hanged, Arthur.”

The words, coming from someone he’d sailed with, someone he’d saved from the sea, hammered the point home with brutal force. He was going to hang. The concept hadn’t seemed real before, but now, locked in a cell on Sighisoara, it did.

The Mariner rose to his knees, holding out his bound hands. “I know I deserve to die,” he pleaded. “But not yet. Please not yet.” I’m afraid , he wanted to scream, but knew those words would find little sympathy. “Whatever you’re trying here, it won’t work. Please, it can still turn out right. But only I know how to save us!”

A familiar voice, one that used to contain warmth but now only offered the firm chill of morning stone, penetrated the cell.

“You ‘know’? You ‘know’? ” McConnell’s cold voice bounded about the room as he entered. “I thought I knew based on silly superstitions I half remembered. Diana thought she knew by some nonsense she made up to control the desperate. Mavis thought she knew by assumptions made about the old world. Lots of people think they know .”

“What’s going on, McConnell?” the Mariner asked. “Why are these people answering to you?”

“What’s the problem with our world?” McConnell spoke rhetorically, squatting next to the Mariner, whilst Harris stood guard. “No-one is thinking. No-one is remembering. It’s as if the thoughts are just flying out of our heads like butterflies, delicate and erratic. What we’re doing here is protecting those thoughts, nurturing them, making them strong.”

“McConnell, our thoughts are leaving because of the Wasp. I know now, I remember.”

“I don’t want to hear about this fucking Wasp!” McConnell screamed, rising to his feet. The Mariner was taken aback at the sudden display of rage, and fell away, afraid the reverend might strike out. “All we ever got from you was bullshit! Manipulations just so you could get near that poor girl. Well I’ve had enough. You’re going to die for what you’ve done!”

“Please,” he whispered, trying to calm his old friend. “Please Christopher, don’t kill me. I’m scared. I’m sorry. Don’t do this. I’ll help you in whatever it is you’re doing here, just don’t kill me.”

A strange smile of amusement struck McConnell’s lips. “What we’re doing is building a library, the last library in existence. It will act as a school for mankind, and in a way, a hospital too. A hospital for thought. If we can restore the knowledge, we can restore the world. That’s what my father did with Sighisoara. That’s what Grace did with her zoo.”

“No,” the Mariner argued. “That’s not quite it. I brought back the zoo. I’m not sure how, I need time to work it all out, but I did.”

The reverend’s fist struck the Mariner sending him to the floor, cold stone against his cheek. “Don’t you take that away from her! You took everything else, don’t you take that!”

The Mariner decided not to argue; instead he stayed prone on the ground.

“This is the end of us, Arthur Philip,” McConnell spat. “I shall look on you no more. And from tomorrow morning, after the rope has choked existence from your cursed body, no-one will ever again.”

HE SLEPT ON THE FLOOR of his cell, and against all expectations, remained dream-free the whole night. Perhaps this was one last dig at him by his twisted psyche? That the one night he hoped to last forever passed in mere moments, greeting him with brilliant sunlight seemingly as soon as he closed his lids.

The slit in the stonework betrayed the bright sky beyond, and the Mariner watched it intently, waiting for the inevitable bird to land on the ledge, mocking him with its freedom. The bird never arrived, but he resented it nonetheless, imagined or not.

He knew he should hang. There was no doubt about that. Even if the Pope had been lying about the cause of the Shattering, what he’d done since was beyond recompense. Terms such as ‘sorry’ were meaningless in the scale of such pain. What use was sorry to Grace? To Isabel? And how many countless others beyond the reach of his memory? Apologies are impotent if the past cannot be changed.

Everything had been a lie. Since the day he’d awoken on the Neptune, he’d been following a degraded ideology, idea’s picked together from fragments. What had been inside his head was a rotten philosophy, putrid in its decay.

But hadn’t that always been the case? Every glimpse into the man he’d once been had shown a retched, self-obsessed individual, someone who had allowed his paranoia, lust and insecurities to blend together until they quite literally destroyed everything. What redeemable features could be found in a man like that? He’d blamed his wife when he’d spoken with the devils, but that was a lie, and there was no more time left to cling to lies. That fault had been his not hers.

There was a rattle of keys, and the cell door opened. He hoped it would be McConnell, breaking his word to give the Mariner one last chance to repent, but it was no familiar face. The rope around his wrists were checked, and without a word he began the long walk to the gallows.

Despite the bright light that had shone into his cell, the Mariner was blinded leaving the clock-tower, out into the grassy courtyard, a space he’d once awoken a long time ago. That morning he’d been responsible for the burning of an inn. This time, so much more.

But if he’d tried to see the spot where he’d once slept, he would have found it nigh impossible. The courtyard was packed with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, more than he could ever have imagined existed. Except… no, it was possible, but only if he remembered sitting in the Pope’s office, looking out across the streets of London. Were these all fellow Londoners? Their minds allowed by the Wasp to remain, distrusting their proximity to his?

“Follow me.”

Dumbfounded, the Mariner was surprised to see Heidi standing before him. He cried her name in hope of eliciting some warmth from the women he’d briefly connected with, but there was nothing but ice in her stare. She turned and led him through the crowd. Guards formed a close circle, holding back the townspeople who brayed for his blood. Hundreds of voices hurled insults and demands for his head.

“Heidi,” he called to her. “Why do they hate me? They can’t all hate me.”

“They’ve heard of you,” Her voice was low as if afraid to be seen conversing with him. “They know what you’ve done.”

“But even so? What are my crimes to them?”

“Justice hasn’t been done in a long time.” She stopped and looked him in the eye, and in that moment he wanted to scream and flee, such was the cold certainty of his fate. “To move forward, someone must pay what’s due.” As she moved away he saw the gallows, constructed just for him. They stood, stark against the blue sky above, perfect and bold like the crafting of a child.