To Rachel Griffiths,
Thanks for taking a chance
on a writer named Janus Pope
‘You can only come to the morning through the shadows.’
– J. R. R. Tolkien
‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’
– Lewis Carroll
‘Persons seeking to find scholarship herein will be sued; persons motivated to discover meaning will be exiled; persons hoping to unearth an allegory will be summarily ordained.’
– The Author
CONTENTS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CAST OF CHARACTERS
VEGA JANE – 14, Finisher at Stacks
JOHN JANE – 11, Vega’s brother
HELEN JANE – Vega’s mother
HECTOR JANE – Vega’s father
VIRGIL JANE – Vega’s grandfather
CALLIOPE JANE – Vega’s grandmother
HARRY TWO – Vega’s canine
DANIEL DELPHIA, ‘DELPH’ – 16, Vega’s best friend
DUF DELPHIA – Delph’s father, beast trainer
Council
THANSIUS – Chief
DUK DODGSON
JURIK KRONE
MORRIGONE
At Stacks
DIS FIDUS – doorkeeper
LADON-TOSH – staircase guard
NEWTON TILT – Cutter
QUENTIN HERMS – Finisher
JULIUS DOMITAR – Vega’s boss
At the Loons
ROMAN PICUS – owner, also bookmaker
CACUS LOON – lodge keeper
HESTIA LOON – Cacus’s wife
CLETUS LOON – Cacus’s son
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a strange and dangerous world you are about to enter, and paying attention to what follows will ensure that you do not run foul of something that could mar the journey ahead . . .
Wormwood is a place full of humans called Wugmorts, or Wugs for short. Wugmorts often have strange terms for certain words, as you will discover.
A canine is, obviously, a dog.
The Care is the place incurably sick Wugs are sent.
The Council is the governing body that runs Wormwood.
Dactyls are the very strong Wugs who work at Stacks banging heated metal into proper shape, like blacksmiths used to do.
An Event is when a Wugmort mysteriously vanishes into thin air for a reason no one knows. Quite exciting!
Finishers are those who work at Stacks, crafting pretty things to sell to others.
The Learning is a building where young Wugs go to school.
Light means various stages of the day, and night means the darkness.
Mendens are what we would call doctors, who attend to the sick in hospital.
A morta is what we could call a gun.
A session equals what we would call a year.
A slep is a horse, albeit with six legs, which is quite a strange beast indeed, and perhaps it once could fly.
A sliver is a short unit of time, like a minute.
Stacks is an old castle of sorts, with many secrets waiting to be discovered.
Steeples is a place for prayer, named after its pointed tower.
Farms abound, and they are worked by Wugs called Tillers.
You must understand that Wormwood is a place with vast, unrealized potential, like a young person waiting to grow up into someone extraordinary . . .
But life is hard and primitive in Wormwood, and only a few live in great luxury, while most exist in starkly poor conditions.
There are no cars or trains or aeroplanes – no computers, credit cards or TVs. Indeed, their world is like ours would have been many years past.
Wugmorts never leave Wormwood, for there is nowhere else they could go. Their entire existence is restricted to their city, for beyond its borders lies only death.
Or so they have always been told . . .
PROLOGUE
Soaring above Wormwood, the birds can see right to the horizon.
In the distance a barren landscape shimmers white, an ominous haze hovering above it.
Below, large chimneys spout sickly smoke into their path, as crowds of tiny figures trudge through winding, crowded streets.
Dense forest surrounds the city, an impenetrable tangle of thick, vine-choked trees, packed so tight together it is hard to see to the ground.
But there is one tree unlike all the rest.
Short wooden boards are nailed to its thick trunk forming a crude ladder, leading up to planks that make a floor. It is a hiding place far above everyone.
Here, a girl tosses and turns in her tortured sleep.
The girl is Vega Jane.
All is not right in her world.
And it is about to get far worse.
For her.
1
A PLACE CALLED WORMWOOD
I was dozing when I heard the scream. It pierced my head like a morta round, sending my mind in confusing circles.
I sat bolt upright, at the top of my tree. At first light, I was almost always there. It was a straight-to-the-sky poplar with a towering canopy. Twenty short boards nailed to the trunk was my passage up. Eight wide, splintered planks formed my floor. And a stretch of waterproof cloth draped over branches represented my roof. It was usually a peaceful time, but not this light.
From the edge of my planks, I looked down to the ground. Fresh screams were now joined by the baying of attack canines.
I scampered down and looked around. It was difficult to tell where the screams and baying were coming from.
Suddenly an attack canine hurtled towards me, its fangs bared.
I was fast, but no one could outrun an attack canine. Even as I ran, I braced for its fangs biting into me. But it flashed past me, soon vanishing from sight.
What could it be after?
I caught a glimpse of something between two trees – a black tunic. Council member. The attack canines must have been unleashed by them. The Council, with one exception, was comprised of males. They passed laws that all Wugs must obey.
Perhaps there had been an escape from Valhall, our prison? But no Wug had ever escaped from Valhall.
I kept runni
ng, following the baying, and soon realized that my path was taking me perilously close to the Quag. The Quag was an impenetrable barrier that circled Wormwood like a noose. No one had ever gone through the Quag because the terrible beasts in there would murder you instantly. My heart was pounding simply from being this close to it.
As I looked to the left, I glimpsed canines and Council members staring into the depths of the Quag. I let out a long breath and caught the movement of someone disappearing into the tangled vines and twisted trees. It was someone I knew well.
I looked to see if any of the Council or canines had seen what I had. It didn’t appear to be the case, so I turned back, but the Wug had gone. I wondered if I had simply imagined it. No Wug would voluntarily venture into that awful place.
When something touched me on the arm, I nearly screamed.
‘Vega? It is Vega Jane, isn’t it?’
I turned to look up into the blunt features of Jurik Krone. He was tall, strong, forty-five sessions old and a fast-rising member of the Council.
‘I’m Vega Jane,’ I managed to say.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, with hostility in his eyes.
‘I heard a scream and saw the canines. I saw Wugs in black tunics running.’
‘Did you see anything else?’ he asked sharply.
‘I saw only the Quag.’
His fingers gripped my shoulder more tightly. ‘Is that all? Nothing else?’
The image of the Wug’s face before he fled into the Quag slammed into me like a spear. ‘That’s all,’ I lied. It seemed a smart thing to do at the time.
Jurik let go of me.
‘What were you chasing?’ I asked.
‘It’s Council business, Vega,’ he replied dismissively. ‘Be on your way. It is not safe to be this close to the Quag. Now.’
He turned and walked off, leaving me breathless and shaking. I took one last look at the Quag and then raced back in the direction of my tree. I climbed it so fast, I felt dizzy. I wasn’t sure I would ever want to come back down.
2
DELPH
‘Wo-wo-wotcha, Ve-Ve-Vega Jane?’
The voice from below belonged to my friend Delph. His full name was Daniel Delphia, but to me he was simply Delph. He always called me Vega Jane, as though both names were my given one. Everyone else called me Vega – when they bothered to call me anything at all.
I said, ‘I’m up here, Delph.’
Delph’s shoulders spread broad, like the leafy cap of my poplar. He was about a session older than me, with a head of thick, black hair that appeared mostly grey-white because of the dust collected there. He worked at the Mill, lifting huge sacks of flour, so he was dusty all the time. He had a wide, shallow forehead, full lips, and eyes that were as dark as his hair.
He did not qualify to work at Stacks, where some creativity is required. I have never seen Delph create anything except confusion. No one knew what had happened to him, but something was not quite right with Delph. It had been so ever since he was six sessions old. And yet sometimes he said things that made me believe there was far more going on in his head than most Wugs gave him credit for. I think it would be fascinating to see what went on in Delph’s mind.
He settled next to me, his legs dangling over the edge of the splintered boards. Delph liked to visit me. He didn’t have many other places to go.
I pushed my long, dark straggly hair out of my eyes and focused on a dirt spot on my thin arm. I didn’t rub it away because I had lots of dirt spots. And like Delph’s mill dust, what would be the point?
‘Delph, did you hear all that?’
‘H-hear wh-what?’
‘The attack canines and the screaming?’
He looked at me like I was mad. ‘Y-you O-OK, Ve-Vega Jane?’
‘The Council was out with attack canines, chasing something.’ I wanted to say chasing someone, but I decided to keep that to myself. ‘They were down near the Quag.’
He shivered at the name, as I knew he would.
‘Qu-Qu-Qu—’ He took a shuddering breath and said simply, ‘Bad.’
I decided to change the subject. ‘Have you eaten?’ I asked. Hunger was like a painful, festering wound for many in Wormwood, including Delph and me. When you felt it, you could think of nothing else.
Delph shook his head.
I pulled out a small tin box, which constituted my portable larder. Inside was a wedge of goat’s cheese and two boiled eggs, a chunk of fried bread and some salt and pepper I kept in small pewter thumbs of my own making. Pepper cured many ills, like the taste of bad meat and spoilt vegetables. There had also been a sweet pickle, but I’d eaten it already. I handed him the box. It was intended for my first meal, but I was not as big as Delph. He needed lots of wood in his fire, as they said around here. I would eat at some point. I was good at pacing myself. Delph did not pace. Delph just did. I considered it one of his most endearing qualities.
He wolfed it all down in two swallows.
‘Better?’ I asked.
‘B-better,’ he mumbled contentedly. ‘Thanks, Ve-Vega Jane.’
I rubbed sleep from my eyes. I had been told that my eyes were the colour of the sky. But at other times, when the clouds covered the heavens, they could look quite silver, as though they were absorbing the colours from above.
‘Go-going t-t-to see your mum and dad l-later?’ asked Delph.
‘Yes.’
‘Ca-can I c-come t-too?’
‘Of course, Delph. We can meet you there after I pick up John from Learning.’
He nodded, mumbled the word Mill, rose and scrambled back down to the ground.
I followed him, heading on to Stacks, where I worked to help make hand-crafted items. Now, I didn’t know much. But in Wormwood, I did know that it was a good idea to keep moving.
And so I did.
But I did so with the image of someone running into the Quag, when that was impossible because it meant death. And so I convinced myself that I had not seen what I thought I had.
Yet not many slivers of time would pass before I realized that my eyesight had been perfect. And that my life in Wormwood would never be the same again.
3
STACKS
As I walked along the now quiet forest path, I calmed, and certain things I had been told long ago entered my head. I have found that these sorts of thoughts come to me at the oddest moments.
The first one was the most unusual, at least for me.
The most bitterly awful place of all is one that Wugmorts don’t know is as wrong as wrong can possibly be.
That’s what my grandfather told me before he suffered his Event and was gone forever. I was very young when my grandfather said those words, and I have to admit I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at the time. I’m not exactly sure now.
My grandfather had also talked to me about shooting stars.
He said, Every time you glimpse one making its haphazard way across the sky, a change is coming for some Wugmort.
It was a strange idea for a place like Wormwood, which never seemed to change.
I turned the corner on the path, and there was Stacks. We called it that because it had so many chimney stacks. Brick piled on top of brick far into the sky. I had no idea what Stacks’ original use was. It was an unfathomably large and extremely ugly building, but for some reason, I liked it.
A shrivelled Wug stood at the immense double doors with his little ink stamp. His name was Dis Fidus. I wasn’t sure how old Dis Fidus was, but he must have been close to a hundred.
I walked up to him and held out my hand. The top of it was discoloured by the accumulated blue ink of two sessions labouring here. I could only imagin
e what it would look like in ten or twenty sessions’ time.
Fidus gripped my hand with his skeletal one and then stamped my skin. I had no idea why he did this when my hand was already covered in ink. And things that make no sense trouble me no end. Because, I suspected strongly, it made sense to someone.
I walked into Stacks.
‘I like my charges to be here earlier than three slivers before second light, Vega,’ said a voice.
Julius Domitar was big and puffy like a plump frog, and his skin possessed a similarly pasty green hue. He was the most self-important Wug in Wormwood – and the competition for that title was a keen one. When he said he liked his ‘charges’ to be here earlier than three slivers, he really meant me. I was still the only female at Stacks.
He stood there in his little office, at his little tilt-top desk, holding his long ink stick and scowling. His desk was covered with bottles of inks and rolls of scrolls.
‘Three slivers early is still early,’ I said and kept walking.
‘There are many worse off than your lot, Vega,’ he replied. ‘Don’t forget that.’
I hurried on to the main work floor of Stacks. The kilns had long since been fired up. The huge furnaces set in one corner were never turned off. They gave the room a warm, humid feel, even on the coldest lights. The muscle-bound Dactyls pounded away on their metals with hammer and tongs, producing a sound like Steeples’ bells. The Cutters sliced through wood and metal while the Mixers ran their enormous tubs of congesting ingredients.
The Wugs here were just like me: ordinary and hardworking – simply trying to get by. And we would be doing this exact same work for the rest of our lives.
I went to my locker and put on my work clothes – trousers, a heavy leather apron, gloves and goggles – then headed to my workstation.
Some of my work was dangerous. Many who worked here had missing fingers, eyes, teeth and even limbs. I would rather not join their lot. I liked the parts I had just fine. They were just the right number and matched in the main.
I passed by the broad stone stairs with their marble balustrades leading to the upper floor of Stacks. They were quite elegant for this place, which made me think, not for the first time, that Stacks hadn’t always been a factory. I smiled weakly at the Wugmort who stood guard there.