The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,58

always, in the back of his mind, Saltrock went on, and Cal went on, and the ruined settlement to the north went on. An empty promise hung on a spiky mesquite tree, flapping in the wind like an old torn scarf, and though it might become more ragged every day, it still clung to the twigs and wound itself around the trunk. It was bloodstained and burned, and it belonged to a dream, and Flick could see it sometimes, on the edge of his vision.

One evening, after the meal had been cleared away, Itzama did not settle himself for more stories, but beckoned for Flick to follow him. ‘You want to see something?’

They went into the inner cave and here crawled on hands and knees through a cramped tunnel. Flick had looked down it before, but hadn’t believed it led anywhere. The weight of the rock pressed down upon him and it was not a comfortable feeling. It would be easy to give into panic and try to back out, only to become wedged between the stones and never move again.

When Flick eventually emerged into lightless open space, he felt disorientated and dizzy. He flailed his arms in the air, feeling as if he was falling, even though he knelt on solid rock. For some moments, he thought Itzama had abandoned him, and that he’d never be able to find his way back to the tunnel in the stone. He called Itzama’s name and heard a scraping sound, but the man said nothing. Then a flare of light blinded him for a moment. When his vision cleared, he saw Itzama standing some distance away, a lit torch of pitch in one hand.

‘Where are we?’ Flick asked. He had to lean against the rock wall for support to stand up.

‘Look,’ Itzama said and swept the torch around in a semi-circle. In the darkness, it left a nebulous trail of light.

It should be impossible to see what lay within the cave chamber, for it was vast. The sky was of rock, high above and its stars were pinpricks of light that may have been luminous cave beetles. Shattered beneath louring overhangs lay the remains of what Flick first thought to be a city. He saw domes of white stone that looked like immense eggshells, with holes punched into their sides. He saw a litter of masonry and the remains of paved roads. ‘Is this where your people lived?’ he asked.

Itzama too was surveying the surroundings. ‘Not mine,’ he said. ‘Earlier folk, from the first time, the first seed. They hid here from their enemies.’

Flick began to scramble over the rubble to reach the nearest building, or what was left of it. Inside, he found rough furniture, mostly made of stone, and an oven with blackened charcoal beneath it. ‘They left quickly,’ he said, for Itzama had followed him. ‘There is still food in the pots.’ He looked inside one of them. ‘Very old though.’

‘They left,’ Itzama said. ‘It is here you will find some of what you seek.’

Flick laughed coldly. ‘I’m not seeking anything. I’m learning to ‘be’, simply that.’

Itzama did not dispute this, but left the dwelling, taking the torch with him, in a train of lurching shadows.

Flick paused for a moment, opened himself up to the atmosphere of the place with reluctance. ‘No,’ he said aloud. ‘Nothing here for me.’

He left the building and found Itzama sitting on a fallen boulder, his hands dangling between his knees. The torch had been stuck into the dark earth nearby. ‘Sometimes, it happens against our will,’ he said.

‘What?’ Flick asked.

‘People touch us in certain ways, and we are marked.’

Flick could not suppress an instinctive shudder. ‘I’m not marked. Why have you brought me here? If you think I’m to learn something, then tell me.’

‘I am a memory, walking in shadow.’

Flick sighed in impatience. ‘You are an actor in a play,’ he said and pulled the torch from the ground. If he was here, he might as well explore.

The ruins tumbled over a wide gentle slope that led up to the rock wall. The white stone glowed in the darkness; there must be another source of light. The air was cold and strangely odourless. Pools of oily water glistened dully as he passed them. The stones of the fallen buildings were gigantic. Perhaps they had been felled by an earth tremor, for Flick could not imagine what else could have caused the devastation. People had lived here, yet little sense of them remained. It