Resolution by John Meaney Read Free Book Online

hints that it was Zhongguo Ren secret societies who transported the stuff in clandestine fashion. And no society was better at technical matters than the Strontium Dragons, to whom Zhao-ji belonged.
     
    Strostiv said: ‘I’ll leave you two to reminisce.’
     
    ‘No, please.’ Perhaps Tom had judged Strostiv too harshly. ‘You’re welcome to stay with us.’
     
    ‘I think Zhao-ji wants to give you the full tour—’
     
    ‘Definitely. I’m ready to go now.’
     
    ‘—and I’m afraid I can’t follow.’
     
    ‘Why not?’ said Tom.
     
    Zhao-ji wouldn‘t lead me into danger...
     
    Yet things had changed since their days in the Ragged School; Zhao-ji’s allegiance was to the Strontium Dragons now.
     
    ‘Come on.’ Zhao-ji took hold of Tom’s arm. ‘You’re going to be impressed, I tell you.’ And, to Strostiv: ‘See you later, old chum.’
     
    It was not the most respectful way to address an Altus Magister.
     

     
    A few minutes later, Tom learned why Strostiv had left them. Zhao-ji led the way through a glistening membrane into a vertical shaft. As magnetic gel surrounded them and whisked them upwards, Tom shouted: ‘Are we going where I think we‘re going?’
     
    His words echoed faintly through the thick gel. The shaft wall appeared to slide downwards, but it was relative motion: they were ascending, and fast.
     
    ‘To the surface, yes!’
     
    So Zhao-ji had undergone agoraphobia-desensitization. It was in character: Tom remembered his first days at the Ragged School, seeing the slight figure of Zhao-ji launch himself at three much bigger praefecti, hands and feet swinging in hopeless bravery. Tom had never known him to back down from a challenge.
     
    Just for a moment, as they ascended, he caught a glimpse of glowing sapphire at Zhao-ji’s wrist. Then Zhao-ji tugged his sleeve down arid looked upwards, towards their destination.
     
    Their ascent began to slow.
     
    The gel-flow twisted, spilling them onto a white ceramic floor, then curled back inside the shaft proper. Tom and Zhao-ji were crouched in a low chamber; before them, a metal door was opening. Grass and dirt spilled outside: they were in a hollow hillock, hidden in the landscape.
     
    ‘ “Madmen lead, fools follow.” ‘ Zhao-ji went first through the opening, then looked back at Tom and grinned. ‘So which one are you?’
     
    ‘Grow up, why don’t you?’
     
    But Tom was smiling as he passed through the doorway, and stepped out onto the open ground. He took in a deep breath of cool, sweet air.
     
    ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘I love this place.’
     
    Now even Zhao-ji was looking doubtful. ‘Fate, Tom. I can put up with the surface. That doesn’t mean I love it. What’s wrong with you?’
     
    ‘Madmen lead…’
     
    ‘Right.’
     
    They walked out onto grassy heathland.
     

     
    The sky was warm yellow, blotted with chocolate-brown clouds. The long grasses held a silvery sheen. It would have been perfect, but Tom had not figured their exact position: as they crossed a ridgetop and looked down at a glittering expanse, he suddenly realized that the Lake of Glass lay below.
     
    Why did you bring me here?
     
    The glass had once formed a vast ornate structure reaching up above the surface. Within it, a quarter of a million subsumed men, women and children had melded into the greater Blight, attempting to beam its cry for help across the light-years to the parent Anomaly. Tom had played his part in destroying the Blight and saving the world, but the price ...
     
    Encapsulated in the glass, mouths open and eyes bulging, swirling hair forever frozen, were the two hundred and fifty thousand people who had perished in a single moment, when the Blight vanished from existence.
     
    Zhao-ji placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
     
    ‘Look,’ he said. ‘No. Look up.’
     
    Something was descending from the sky.
     
    A white shuttle moved between a gap in the clouds, disappeared for a moment, then slid back