The first chapter

O N E

“How many last night?”
“Six.”
“Good. It’s getting less.”
“Yes Sir.”
“And the Foreigner? I don’t suppose . . .”
“No Sir. Sorry Sir.”
“That’s all right. It’s not your fault.”
“Thank you Sir.”
“Anyone of any interest?”
“The usual Sir. There was a young one, younger than usual.”
“Oh?”
“Yes Sir. A girl of about fourteen. She won’t talk.”
“Hmm. Plenty of time for that. Let me think about it. Keep her safe, warm, away from the others.”
“Yes . . .”
“And give her some bread – fresh bread.”
“Yes Sir.”

Charlie turned and left the office. Emyr envied him, his simple life. No doubt he would soon be whispering in the ear of his wife, her body still glowing with warmth after a night’s sleep. Maybe they would make love, then Charlie would fall asleep himself, waking after midday when the city was at its most energetic; plenty of time to enjoy its vibrant vigour, and with enough status and disposable income to feast on its abundant gifts. Later he would return to work as a high-ranking Guardian of the Night.
It had been like that for Emyr once, before they recognised his talents and cajoled him into standing for government and the office of High Ruler.
But enough of that. The mob would arrive soon with their documents and dossiers, reports and complaints. The citizens needed a strong Ruler – they needed a definite direction and someone to guide them through the complexities of life in a city of twenty-million souls.
Emyr yawned, lifted himself from the chair, and walked barefoot across the soft gold carpet to the tall glass wall that separated him from the noises and the smells of the great city. He tapped the join, the glass parted and he stepped outside onto the wide balcony that encircled the building.
The guards occupying the security positions twenty metres either side of the outside of his office pretended, as usual, that they hadn’t seen him. He didn’t mind, he was used to it, it was just a fact of life in his tightly-controlled world. He breathed in deeply and looked down at the still-dark streets, lit by thousands of electric lights glowing softly in the cool October morning.
As High Ruler, he could, if he wanted, reach into that mass of concrete and metal and extract whatever delights would ameliorate the crushing nothingness of his existence. But he did not want that. Emyr did not want anything that the city could offer him. Maybe that was why they chose him for the job; you cannot tempt a man who wants nothing, who has no needs to fill except his time, and that was full enough now.
Another yawn, and another slow deliberate breath, to fill his lungs with damp air, not yet dry enough to be polluted with the odours produced by twenty-million human beings pursuing their pointless scramble towards infinity – then a shake of the shoulders and a turn towards the real business of the day.

***

“How many last night?”
“Six.”
“That’s bad Jake. We can’t afford to lose that many. It’s not like the old days when we had newcomers falling from the sky. Life is just too cushy for them up there.”
“It’s a bugger, but what can we do?”
“You know we can’t do anything. It’s not like that. It doesn’t work if we have to cajole people. They have to realise for themselves.”
“Aye.”
“Anyone in particular get caught?”
“Well, from what I heard, there’s those two brothers, you know, the ones with the identical scars.”
“Oh, them. Ah well, it’s a shame, but . . . “
Jude ran breathlessly into the chamber.
“Did you hear?”
Anwar and Jake waited for Jude to find the words.
“They got Branwen.”
Anwar shook his head sadly. “So young.” He choked the rush of despair and steeled his expression. He couldn’t allow others to sense his reaction.
“And so clever,” Jake said, “doesn’t seem possible.”
“Well there’s less of us now, and more of them.” Anwar sighed and looked pointedly at Jude. “How did you know we were here?”
“It’s not difficult.”
“Maybe we’re getting too complacent.” Jake said.
“Time to accept defeat perhaps?” Anwar would never give up, but he had to give others the choice.
“Never.” said Jake
“Well, we have to do something then. It can’t go on like this. Soon there won’t be anyone left who remembers.”
“What about a Big Moot?” Jude suggested.
“That’s dangerous. Everyone in the same place.” Jake said.
Anwar sighed: “Jude’s right Jake, I don’t think we have a choice. Things have to change. It’s different now. We have to get organised. We crave freedom yet we are imprisoned by our ambitions.”
“They won’t like it.” Jake shook his head.
“No one has to come.”
“Where will the moot take place?” Jude asked.
Anwar sighed again: “It will have to be outside the city. I know a place. Will you allow me to make plans? It will take a night or two.”
Jake and Jude nodded.
Anwar faded into the darkness.

An hour later Anwar arrived at the entrance to one of his havens. He needed time alone; time to grieve for Branwen; time to plan the moot. He eased himself through the narrow opening, wrapped a blanket around his tired body, and communed with his own despair in the darkness. As always, he fell asleep quickly. Sleep scared him, but not as much as wakefulness. When he slept, he left a stark part of his awareness somewhere else, a part that made his waking life a nightmare. When he slept, he became an onlooker, detached and comfortable, despite the hellish visions and half-experienced sensations of pain and fear.
Too soon, he woke screaming. His dreams had been of Branwen and of her mother; Branwen as a baby, her mother, a beautiful young woman, with clean bright eyes full of life and hope. Then the burning, the flesh dripping from her face and Branwen looking up at him from her cot, eyes wide and pleading: “Daddy”. Her arms grasping at the air desperate to be picked up, to be held close to his human warmth and love. Then the Guardians in their dark uniforms. The fight, the blood, the running, the hiding.
He stopped screaming when he realised he was awake, remembering the joy of the reunion with his daughter, except she didn’t know who he was, and now she would never know – she was lost forever again.
Now, it was time to go and visit the Old Man to discuss his plans.

***

Branwen flung herself against the shower cubicle, why wouldn’t it break, disintegrate into a thousand shards of glass? She was too weak; too weak from a lack of good nutrition, too weak from the daily grind of life in the Underlands. Too tired to run any more, she had made it easy for them to catch her. She needed time to get strong again. Let them lock her up in this cosy cell, let them feed her bread and slake her thirst with clean cold water.
She had a plan. She could beat them; beat the system. What did she care anyway? She was no one. They couldn’t deal with that. She didn’t want their symbols of success. She didn’t need their puny rewards. They could keep their warm apartments, their full larders, and their security. What use had she of security? She was Branwen, Princess of Light. She was from a place they would never understand.
A gentle knock on the door preceded the entrance of an attendant. He was in his twenties, a tall, slim man with soft blonde hair that cascaded over his bare shoulders like a river of silk.
“Good morning madam.”
Branwen looked him up and down with disdain.
“Is there anything a man can do for you?”
Branwen ignored him.
The man placed a basket of fresh bread and a plastic bottle of water on the table next to the television.
“If you need anything, just pick up the telephone. It will immediately contact me, wherever I am. Thank you madam.”
The blond man left the room. The door clicked behind him. Branwen tried the handle anyway, even though she knew it was futile. They could be as polite as they liked but she knew she was trapped – a prisoner. Still, she had fresh bread and water; it was a start.
She ate the bread quickly, a habit acquired after years of living on the scrounge, picking up whatever measly scraps escaped or was liberated from the city’s super-efficient refuse system. Eat and run, at the same time if necessary. If you survived there was still a chance of change. Sure, she could have just given in, joined their clan, accepted the comfortable life they offered to loyal citizens. All she had to do was to conform to their rules.
Most would say that they were entirely benevolent and reasonable. You could dress as you liked, paint, write, travel between the cities, work in one of their mind-numbing jobs or not, it was up to you; but she knew different. Behind their liberal pretence there was a set of hard rules – break them and you would be taken aside and reprogrammed with soft caresses until you cracked and became a drone, just like the rest of the moronic, self-satisfied bastards.
But why should she behave like the rest of them? She was a true Princess, she had the power in her. She could be who she wanted, go where she wanted, do what she wanted, or not, it was up to her.
But, for now, she needed nourishment of the physical kind. She would accept the bread and water and no doubt the richer provisions they would bring her in the later stages of her incarceration – then, when the time was right and she felt strong enough, she would slip away from them again as easily as she had done so many times before.
After gorging herself on the salty bread she lay on the bed and fell into a warm secure sleep. She dreamed of sun and trees and running barefoot on a sandy beach. She dreamed of walking hand-in-hand with a beautiful, kind-eyed woman, of being cuddled by the strong arms of a benevolent man. Somewhere there was love and freedom, she knew it, it was her birthright.

Emyr dismissed the meeting. He’d had enough of meetings for one day. It was already five o’clock and he hadn’t had time to visit the girl yet. Still, what else had he to do? He decided to eat before he went to see her. He had to eat, he knew that, even though there was no natural urge to seek sustenance in his character. It was that time anyway; Jan would be waiting in his inner office, with her trays and cartons, selected from the best produce the city had to offer. There would be curries from the Asian sector, delicious combinations of spices, cooked and presented to perfection; potatoes, fried in the best olive oil with crisp skins and melt-in-the-mouth fluffy insides. There would be Chinese noodles and Japanese Sushi, Indonesian rice and Italian pizza. But it would all be wasted on him, as usual. He would probably nibble at a nan bread and drink a bowl of miso soup, eat two or there bananas and finish it off with a pint of English beer.
Jan would encourage him to try some of the other delights, knowing that he would not. Then she would sigh with the exasperation of a mother frustrated at her child’s peccadilloes before clearing the food away and reminding him to get an early night.
Just as the last official went out of the door of the outer office, his phone bleeped.
“Yes?”
“Sorry sir.” The voice was that of Charlie, his senior Guardian of the Night.
“Charlie? What are you doing? You are not supposed to be active yet. Is there a problem?”
“Yes sir, it’s the girl. The one we brought in last night. She’s had an accident sir. I was called in, seeing as she’s so fresh.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in the medical room sir, unconscious. Seems she smashed the shower cubicle in her room and cut herself. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
The food would have to wait. Emyr knew instinctively that the girl was important. This was something that needed his personal attention.

***

Deep in the Underlands, Anwar waited for the Old Man to respond. He’d given the signal, tapping the correct pattern on the correct pipe, the Old Man would show himself when he was ready.
Anwar sat on a spur of cold damp concrete and went over the plan in his mind. The details evaded him, but he wasn’t bothered, he was not a meticulous planner, knowing instinctively and from experience that forces greater than him defined the path of his life and the path of the lives of every other living thing anyway. There would be a Big Moot; he knew that. People would gather and some direction would emerge. Whether it would lead to any major change or not was not relevant, the gods would decide, they always did. All he knew was that he must play his part. The simple certainties of a comfortable life were not for him.
Images of Branwen came to his mind. He let them linger, taking in the large lively dark eyes, the unruly black curls and the gauche limbs as she danced the story of her escape from a small troupe of trainee Guardians. He laughed with the others and with her as she told them of how she had escaped from the city after being caught foraging in the basement kitchens of the City Palace. He knew he couldn’t stop her taking those unnecessary risks, the more he nagged, the more she would defy him. If only . . .
“Anwar, my son.”
The Old Man, as usual, appeared without preamble. He seemed to live on a different plane, and be able to materialize at will. Anwar was not surprised. Since their first encounter some twelve years earlier, when Anwar had first found himself in the Underlands as a seventeen-year-old fugitive from an unjust legal system, he’d become used to the Old Man’s mystical behaviour.
Anwar stood and bowed his head instinctively. The Old Man looked exactly the same as he always had; long grey-streaked hair, tied back with a thin red scarf, unkempt grey beard and the same huge black coat that enveloped his shape, tied loosely at the waist with a length of red-coated electrical cable. At his side, was his constant companion, Chex the dog.
Chex nuzzled his hand and Anwar patted him on the top of his head.
“What’s the buzz man?” The Old Man asked.
“Same old stuff.” replied Anwar. “The Guardians are diminishing our numbers, now there are not many left. We have a need to do something, to make change happen.”
“And the girl?”
Anwar pushed back the sadness. “She is gone.”
The Old Man nodded.
“So, what have you got in mind?”
“A Big Moot. I believe it’s the only way.”
“Why?”
“The end is coming, soon there will only be them left.” Anwar lifted his head upwards and looked pointedly at the ceiling of the cavern above his head.
The Old Man laughed. “There will never be only them. There is always hope.”
“But, our numbers are shrinking as time goes on, and there are very few new people reaching the Underlands. It’s not as if we breed at a great rate either. There is a desperate need to do something radical. We need to act.”
The tone of Anwar’s voice belied the urgency of his words. He didn’t really believe there was any chance of success now. The system was too big and too strong. They were just a minor irritation, like mosquitoes at dusk, easily kept at bay with a strong light or a scented candle.
The Old Man smiled in the gloom of the caverns. “Close your eyes and follow me.”
Anwar closed his eyes and grabbed the cord around the Old Man’s waist. He took a step forward in response to his guide’s movement.
“Now, open your eyes, we are here.”
Anwar opened his eyes slowly. They were in a brightly lit chamber but he could not detect the source of the light. The cavern was furnished with two long red sofas that faced each other across a long low table of dark wood. On the centre of the table was a small ball the size and colour of a tomato.
The Old Man sat on one of the sofas and gestured for Anwar to sit on the other. Chex curled up under the table and closed his eyes.
“Look,” the old Man said, passing his hand over the ball and sitting back. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Anwar sat back. The light in the room dimmed and the tomato-ball began to pulsate and emit a glow of light that grew around it until it filled the centre of the table. Slowly the light began to take form and holographic images appeared. A street scene, a city street filled with people moving around each other, entering and exiting buildings, avoiding lumbering smoke-emitting vehicles, and the noise of voices chattering. Anwar leaned forward fascinated.
“Before the Fall.” The Old Man explained.
“I never imagined it like that.” Anwar said. “Were you . . .”
“Yes Anwar, I was alive then, a young man, at least I thought I was young, but I was older than you are now. I was successful, a politician, a businessman. I had a family, a wife, children. It was a happy time. A time of innocence. A time when we thought we could tame the stars.”
“What happened? What really happened? Why did things change so much?”
“It was unsustainable. We lived in a bubble, protected from the realities of what we were doing to the planet. There were other people who wanted what we had. We tried to help them at first, but they wanted more, they wanted the same.”
The Old Man passed his hand through the holograph. The scene changed. The streets were deserted. Dilapidated vehicles rotted in their emptiness. But it was the silence that marked the biggest change.
“Where are all the people?” Anwar asked.
“The people left the cities and scattered into the countryside. They dug tunnels and formed groups that fought each other for the meagre produce the land provided. We had to do something. We thought we had to do something. We found a way, we found the secrets. We dug beneath the city and hid, formulating our plans until we were ready. We created the Underlands and then when the time was right, we emerged and unleashed our power.”
Again the Old Man passed his hand through the light. Anwar recognised the scene then. The familiar ordered city he knew. People moved amongst each other, entering and exiting identical buildings and the sleek cabs cut through them with silent speed.
The Old Man sighed and sat back on the sofa.
“I never knew,” Anwar said, “perhaps if I had, then I would never have . . .”
“No Anwar. There was a terrible price to pay. We fiddled with the fundamentals, and because of that the human race is doomed.”