Chase the Morning

Jyp shrugged. ‘Not for me; I’m here because you took it, three times over. And maybe not for you, neither.’ He laid a hard hand on my shoulder. ‘See, Steve, this side of town you soon learn you can’t see the end of everything, where any deed’s going to lead you. But one thing I’ve noticed, and that’s that a whole lot depends on how you first came to take that step. Old Stryge, he says the same, and he’s a real cunning bastard. With me it was slow, step by step you might say, an old shipmate I helped out from time to time, who showed me the ropes as his only way to repay. And me, I’ve done what I’d call all right – slowly. But you now, you just came barrelling in all in a moment, to help a man you didn’t know and to hell with the risk to yourself. That’s what I’d call a long straight step and a clear one, a good deed you shouldn’t repent of, not till you see how it all pans out in the end. I’d have said you’d do right well for yourself from such a beginning, only …’

He hesitated, stopped walking and began to stare around the street, as if looking for someone or searching out his way. But there was only one possible turn-off, on the far side ahead and to the right, and no living thing in sight except a distant dog, yellowish and skinny, probably a stray, that disappeared into some doorway or other. ‘Only?’ I prompted him. ‘Only what?’ But suddenly he set off across the empty road at a great pace, heading for the corner, and I had to trot after him; breathlessly repeating my question, and nudge him hard before he answered, slow and unwilling.

‘Only … it’s with all this reaching out, reaching into the Core. Can’t help wondering if … well, if maybe the step wasn’t all yours, good though it was. If, somehow you mightn’t have been lured in – sucked in, you might say. And that part of it could be bad.’

We walked on in silence. I could hear Jyp breathing fast, and his brow glistened; we were walking quickly, yet I’d seen him less affected by a running fight. Once or twice he would glance back the way we had come. I looked, too, and saw nothing; but his hand was seldom far from his sword hilt. The street we turned into was wide and open, one I vaguely remembered driving down at some time or other. One side of it was still lined with the old warehouses, but the other had been mostly cleared. After a few yards the old imposing wall ended abruptly and barbed-wire fencing took over. Behind it massive corrugated iron sheds had been erected, looking far dirtier and more desolate hunched beneath that bleak sky; here and there a lot stood vacant, overgrown and rubbish-strewn. It was in front of one of these, lying between two of the larger sheds and ending in a high and ancient brick wall, that Jyp stopped. He glanced quickly around, and I saw his eyes widen momentarily. But when I looked I only glimpsed the hindquarters of a dog disappearing hastily around the corner, the same dog probably, nervous of man’s eye as strays tend to be. Jyp seemed edgier than ever; he muttered something, then with sudden furious energy he flung himself at the barbed-wire and shinned straight up it to the top, agile as a monkey. I tried to follow him, impaled my palm on the first strand and dropped back to earth, swearing. Jyp nodded, set foot to one strand, hand to another, and heaved them so far apart I could easily clamber through.

The lot was like the rest, if anything more neglected. It was heavily overgrown and strewn with rubbish, everything from neat domestic piles tipped straight through the fence and black plastic sacks which all appeared to hold horribly dismembered corpses, to great loose swathes of soiled and shredded refuse, and even chunks of machinery. Rusting and anonymous, they poked up like strange growths among a sea of grasses, fireweed and purple willowherb at least five feet tall and in places higher, concealing the treacherous contours of the rubble beneath. The huge corrugated flanks of the sheds presented an interesting contrast, one in modern pastel shades on a brick foundation, the other in the bare galvanised metal of the fifties, rusting now and heavily patched, apparently decaying from the ground up. It was this one Jyp headed for, still silent I followed, sucking my palm and trying to remember my last tetanus shot. Even in that fresh wind the place stank as we passed through, but there was a worse atmosphere about it, something that Jyp evidently felt as keenly as I did. The grasses whispered like voices in the gathering dark, and looking back I saw one patch ripple against the wind, as if something was moving beneath, following closer and closer on our heels. Jyp saw it too, and I heard his breath hiss between his teeth; but he only plunged silently on.