The Standing Ground E-Book

Jan Fortune

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 210

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In a near-future world without privacy or freedom, life is unravelling for Luke, a teenager whose questions and individuality have no place in surveilled society. A virtual encounter with a girl who claims to live beyond the all-controlling grip of E-Government sets him on a quest not only for answers, but for escape. But is Alys real? Why are there echoes of her world in his father, Nazir Malik's home, especially since Nazir is a celebrity artist trusted by E-Government? And what role can characters from Celtic Arthurian legend possibly play in saving the future? Most urgently, can Luke overcome the threats that surround him and find the Standing Ground? "A wonderful novel… a fresh rendition of the future that draws on technologies that are currently emerging… and on Arthurian legend… akin to Philip Pullman's street-smart, other-worldly creations, complete with convincing, humorous and likeable characters… a gripping read." Anna Kiernan

Leseprobe

Contents

Title page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Dedication

1

Myrddin Emrys

2

Luned

3

Myrddin Emrys

4

Nazir

5

Myrddin Emrys

6

Luned

7

Myrddin Emrys

8

Nazir

9

Myrddin Emrys

10

Luned

11

Myrddin Emrys

12

Nazir

13

Myrddin Emrys

14

Luned

15

Myrddin Emrys

16

Luned

17

Myrddin Emrys and Nazir

18

THE STANDING GROUND

JAN FORTUNE

Published by Cinnamon Press, Office 49019, PO Box 15113, Birmingham, B2 2NJ

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Jan Fortune to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © 2020 Jan Fortune.

Print Edition ISBN 978-1-78864-120-3

Ebook ISBN 978-1-78864-123-4

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset by Cinnamon Press. Cover design by Adam Craig. Sword illustration © Paul Fleet | Dreamstime.com 

Cinnamon Press is represented by Inpress.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Adam Craig for his careful reading and editing of the second edition and for the cover. The first edition of The Standing Ground was published in 2007 and owed much to supportive readers: Jan Mark, who sadly died in January 2006, and Celia Rees, who offered invaluable criticism and suggestions; Shanta Everington, Stella Howden and Wendy Klein; Geraint Lloyd Jones, my patient Welsh teacher, and Ann Drysdale, who meticulously edited the first edition. It also owed a great deal to the many home educated young people, now adults, who continue to be passionate about human rights. Thirteen years later, the fictionalised Brexit that I imagined in the first edition is about to become a reality and, although the use of microchip implants is currently far from mandatory, the rise of surveillance and the erosion of privacy is a constant feature of modern life. But throughout history there are those who, like Myrddin Emrys (aka Merlin), challenge the darkness and stand with the light. This story is a celebration of all such wizards.

THE STANDING GROUND

BOOK ONE OF THE STANDING GROUNG TRILOGY

To Tamsyn & Finn,

with admiration & love

1

Luke turned up the heat of the shower and closed his eyes, eager to wash away all thoughts. Once dry, he scrabbled on the floor for a t-shirt, flicking out the creases so that it looked perfect. Drawers slid out from the wall as he pressed his palm to them. He grabbed fresh white boxers and jeans, pulled them on hastily and reached for the elecrostat-brush; a couple of strokes and the memory style that had cost him a whole month’s allowance sprang into perfect shape, a halo of spiked black hair floating upwards from a flawless side parting. Idiot, he chided himself, much good did it do you.

Luke sank into a chair, closed his eyes and stepped through a virtual door, expecting to find himself in a familiar art site, but the site’s background page had changed, replaced by what looked like an old-fashioned nature photograph. As he peered at the page, a wall of mist reared up to engulf him, so that the stream and mountains disappeared from view. He felt a moment of panic, but the mist cleared quickly, spiralling above him and melting into a blanket of low, brooding cloud. 

Through the clearing mist a girl of about his age stepped. She must be the virtual guide to the site, but there was something strange about her that he. In fact the whole site looked odd, Luke thought. The girl wore something bulky made of a fabric Luke had never seen before and her red-gold hair was unkempt. 

Who would want a virtual persona that looked like something from the Subs? 

She was pretty, though, Luke acknowledged, feeling a stab of regret about today’s debacle with Katie. Despite her odd clothes, he couldn’t help thinking that there was something vaguely familiar about the girl.

‘Croeso,’ The guide said.

‘Sorry?’ Luke’s heart rate increased. Could he have stumbled onto an illegal site from outside? 

‘Dim problem,’ the girl returned. ‘Sorry, I mean “no problem.” I can speak in English. Welcome.’ 

The girl smiled at him, and Luke decided she was more than pretty. Get a grip, idiot, she’s probably the virtual construct of some frumpy middle aged woman from some backward country beyond E-Gov. But when she put her head to one side, she reminded him of Katie. He was sure he could feel the bruising on his ribs and legs more just by thinking about Katie. 

The girl smiled again, no doubt waiting for a response. He pushed the day’s events out of his mind and smiled back at the girl. He tried to get his mind around the idea of a foreign site. ‘Interesting hair,’ she said in English that had an accent. ‘Is that how you really look or is it your persona?’ she asked.

‘The real me.’ Luke grinned, regaining his composure.

‘Croeso is Welsh for welcome. I’m bi-lingual. This is the real me too.’

‘You mean you’re not... sorry I thought you were... Welsh? But that… Isn’t that a banned language?’

‘Not where I live.’ The girl laughed and flicked back a strand of hair.

Luke’s mind crowded with a million questions, but he only said, ‘Cool site.’

‘I think so.’ Not one for false modesty then, Luke thought. ‘It’s taken me ages to superimpose it over some pseudy art site. I’m just squatting here,’ the girl continued.

‘Squatting?’

‘That’s right. I’m Alys by the way. Alys Eluned Selwyn, daughter of Geraint ap Tomas,’ She laughed again.

‘Right, pleased to meet you… er, Alys, I’m Luke. That’s quite a name.’ Luke felt his heart beating faster. The girl had a way of holding eye contact that unnerved him. ‘So you’re saying this is an illegal site? How do you do that? Why is it illegal? What’s it got that’s so subversive?’

‘Slow down, Luke. Any site I put up is illegal. I don’t live under E-Gov. I live in The Standing Ground, Tir I Sefyll. Have you heard of it?’

‘No.’

‘Ha! Well, it’s in Cymru, that’s Wales to you. North Wales to be precise.’

‘Why do you call it The Standing Ground?’

‘Long story, Luke,’ she said, lifting both hands as though she was about to conduct a symphony. Luke noticed a ring on her right hand, a knotted red-gold band set with a red stone. There was something familiar about the ring and Luke opened his mouth to ask Alys about it, but a sensation of the ground shifting beneath his feet made him loose his train of thought. He was on a hill overlooking what must be a battle field. Wrecked bodies in mud-spattered mustard and red tunics were strewn across a plain. Luke was grateful that he wasn’t close enough to see the details. ‘Wales is somewhere that’s been attacked and colonised for centuries, but there are always those who resist.’

The disorienting motion gripped Luke again and he found himself blinking into the murk of some kind of underground cavern. He shivered. Beneath his feet was the same black-grey slate that soared overhead. 

‘When E-Gov came we vanished into the slate workings. There was an old saying. “Dal dy dir” It was revived as a rallying call.’ 

Luke shot Alys a puzzled look. ‘It means “Maintain your land”,’ she explained, ‘but more like “Stand your ground.” 

‘Ah, so The Standing Ground,’ Luke said. ‘So you don’t live under E-Gov? Incredible! How come no-one knows about you? How do you live? Why don’t they wipe you out? Do you learn history?’

‘Slow down, Luke.’ Alys laughed and flicked a strand of red gold hair from her face. Luke decided instantly that Alys was not only vastly prettier than Katie, but perhaps the most beautiful girl he could imagine. Something in the pit of his stomach knotted and leapt.

‘Sorry about all the questions,’ he said, ‘it’s just… Crap!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean you, Alys. My father’s calling me for dinner. I must have been here longer than I realised.’

‘Your father?’ It was Alys’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I thought you lived in… those places with guardians instead of parents… what do you call them…?’

‘Pods. Yeah, we do. But we can visit parents if we want. I’ve got to go. Will you be here later?’

‘The site’ll be here as long as I can manage it, but that might not be for long. Depends how long it takes the owner to evict me. We have to keep moving our sites around anyway, to avoid being found by E-Gov, but even they can’t be everywhere.’

‘So why do you bother?’

‘To let people know it can be different. We drip old knowledge into your world. Sometimes we manage enough maths and magic to sabotage minor E-Gov sites for as long as it takes them to put up defences. One day I’ll crack their encryptions.’ 

The mist swirled around Luke again so that he felt dizzy. Strings of formulae formed in the mist. Through the haze he could hear Alys laughing and speaking words he couldn’t understand; a musical torrent of hypnotic sounds.  The mists cleared and he was with Alys by a mountain stream, looking down on a tree-circled lake.

‘I hope you’ll come back, Luke. I’m not implanted like you, so I’m not always online, but you can wander though my pages. Visit King Arthur when you come back.’ 

‘King who?’

‘Come back and find out.’

‘Right, yeah, as soon as I can. Oh and… can I ask?’ Luke began to frame a question about the knotted gold ring, but felt suddenly awkward and changed direction. ‘Er… What’s that top you’re wearing?’

Alys laughed, ‘It’s a jumper, Luke. We don’t have fabrics with memory or heat retaining properties.’

‘What about antibiotic properties?’

‘Not artificial ones, but this is wool. It’s antibacterial all by itself. We get it from sheep and, no, we don’t smell.’

‘Amazing!’ Luke felt like a wide-eyed five-year old, ‘I mean it sounds really cool.’

Luke could hear Nazir calling more loudly from the kitchen. ‘I’ve really got to go, but it’s been great. I hope I’ll see you again.’

Myrddin Emrys

Druids learn by heart and slowly. Above all, we learn the strength of the human spirit. Tyrants come and go. They use the same weapons: fear, repression, lies, even death, but when we refuse to be afraid, when our souls are not destroyed, they wane. Druids are strong because we know that the human spirit is indomitable. 

Where do I come from? From the mists of myth and history. From magic. From Carmarthen: the child without a father or the child whose father was called the Devil. From the wild woods, a prophet drunk on grief from all the violence I witnessed. I am all of this and none of it. Ambiguity has always been my fate.

I am not the king, but I am seer to kings: To all of them: Vortigern, the fool and the fox; Aurelius Ambrosius, who held back the darkness for a little while; Wthyr, his brother, whose lust was as violent as his sword, but who served his purpose; Artu, who like me, returns again and again, a light shining in the darkness.

They all used my magic and now it will be used again and in new forms to let the tyrants know that our spirits cannot be quenched.

2

After dinner, Nazir took Luke to his studio. Connected to the house by an enormous greenhouse, the lush plants that grew in there always made Luke think of his mother. 

‘Her joyous garden,’ Nazir remarked as he did every time.

Luke nodded. He remembered picking oranges with his mother to make juice on the mornings when he’d been allowed overnight stays from the pod. 

Nazir stopped by the fountain. The screen at the fountain’s centre projected what looked like a statue; the image of a woman seated in a coracle, a long sword balanced across her knees. It was an image of his mother, Vivian. Luke dangled his fingers in the cold water until they began to burn with iciness.

‘It never goes, Luke, the pain of it, but we’re here to keep on living.’

Luke nodded and flicked the icy drops from his fingers. It was virtually unheard of for the babies of the elite to die at birth and even rarer for a mother of Vivian Raven’s status to die in childbirth, but both had happened. Luke remembered picking oranges and figs with Vivian on the morning his mother had gone into labour with Innogen, the sister he had never known.

On every visit to Nazir’s home, Luke looked out for signs of a woman’s presence, but he had never noticed anything. If Nazir had girl-friends then at least he was discreet about it, no small items left in his house, no reports in the newspapers that were always bursting with celebrity gossip. Luke liked to think that if his mother had lived she would still be with Nazir. It wasn’t something he would ever say out loud, of course. Life unions were not banned, but they were sufficiently frowned on to have withered to a minority occupation for eccentrics. This hankering for old-fashioned families was just one more thing that made Luke strange, the kind of thing that would convince people like Tutor Simons that he should be medicated and re-formed.

They walked on to the studio, a large perspex and metal geo-dome at the end of the greenhouse. 

‘So, let me show you what my glass tower is hiding today,’ Nazir said, smiling. 

The dome was taller than two storeys so that Nazir’s towering art installations could be constructed and taken out by crane through the roof panels, all of which slid open and downwards. When the panels were set to clear the light flooded in, but they could also be be made opaque from the inside. From the outside, all the panels were opaque so that the geo-dome looked like an edifice of black glass, important for keeping at bay the prying lenses of the art paparazzi.

‘So here we have it,’ Nazir announced with a mock flourish as he shepherded his son into the dome. 

Luke gasped. The installation was the largest he had ever seen.  ‘It works like the fountains,’ Nazir explained. ‘Each tube is made of screen material. When it’s turned on you don’t see the screens, just the projections inside them, but this piece has a twist. One that I think you might appreciate, Luke.’ Nazir put his palms together slowly, and then made a mock bow. ‘Watch this.’

Luke moved closer. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘Keep looking,’ Nazir said quietly.

‘Amazing! Who…?’ 

Nazir smiled and held up a hand like a magician at a children’s party, ‘All in good time, Luke.’

‘Some of them look…’ Luke searched for the words.

‘As though they are not from our time?’

‘Yeah! Can you do that, Dad? I mean this is going in a public space, in the middle of Victoria Square. Won’t it cause trouble for you?’

‘It’s the fact that people won’t know what they’re looking at that makes it possible, ironic as that may seem. It’s a kind of double bluff. Only the elite can access history so anyone who can recognise historical figures must already have access. Anyone who wonders what they are looking at won’t find out simply by looking. Ergo no harm done as far as the authorities are concerned.’

‘I’d give anything to have your kind of access to history,’ Luke said.

‘Ah well,’ Nazir had a familiar pensive smile that Luke recognised as his father was being deliberately enigmatic. ‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t find access to a great deal of this even if you had the codes to the length and breadth of E-Gov.’

‘So where…?’

Nazir tapped the side of his aristocratic nose and winked. Luke knew there was no use pursuing the subject. He suspected that Nazir must have access to foreign sites, but he couldn’t imagine how Nazir managed to go outside E-Gov with the kind of surveillance he must be under. His father may be a celebrity, even one who travelled to other countries to have his work paraded as the pinnacle of E-Gov art, but they never let him too far out of their sight and hearing.

‘But won’t it make people ask questions they shouldn’t be asking? They’re not going to take kindly to that, Dad.’

‘People already realise that they only have access to whatever their information quotients allow, Luke. They know it, but they live with it. I don’t suppose most people will notice or care what they are seeing but, in any case, I hardly think some petty Local E-Gov official can prove I intended to subvert the masses. I’m an artist. This is just what I do.’ Nazir flexed his fingers and chuckled lightly.

‘It’s brilliant, Dad. That guy with the sword...’

‘Ah, yes. That one’s as much myth as history. King Arthur.’

‘King Arthur? That’s the second time I’ve heard that name today.’ Luke bit his tongue too late. Nazir Malik might be the most subversive person Luke knew, but he was still trusted by E-Gov.

‘How on earth did you come across King Arthur?’ Nazir looked more concerned than angry, Luke thought. ‘I don’t imagine he’s someone our friend Tutor Simons told you about?’

‘There’s nothing to tell really. I went to this art site after I had a shower and the er… guide mentioned that name, that’s all.’

‘An art site?’ Nazir looked unconvinced, but there was an amused turn to his mouth.

‘Well, I thought it was an art site. That’s what’s usually at that location.’

‘You stumbled on an illegal site?’

‘I think so. I didn’t know they existed. Not like that, anyway. Me and Kyle have found the odd retro site with old films or music, but this was really different.’

‘Oh yes, Luke, they certainly exist and I think we’re going to be seeing more of them. And this er… guide?’ Nazir was smiling broadly now.

‘She said she was real.’

‘And did she say where she was from?’

Luke felt a sudden chill. Would his father collect information to hunt down people like Alys? There was more than one way to play at double bluffing. Surely not, he told himself. Luke could feel Nazir watching him.

‘I’m not going to betray you, Luke, if that’s what you think,’ Nazir said softly. 

Luke bit his lip. After the day he’d had at school he needed Nazir as an ally. His father’s influence might be all that stood between him and a recommendation for assessment and behaviour modification. He had to be able to trust Nazir, but even so he answered evasively, ‘She wasn’t very precise about where she was from and a lot of it didn’t make much sense.’

‘Well, there are various possibilities. Some of the Trekkers are pretty computer savvy now, though many of them remain dogged technophobes. And there are a few people in the Subs who are getting pretty clever at hacking and dodging, despite the constant threat of Regulator Raids. Or of course, she might just be from The Standing Ground.’

‘You know about The Standing Ground?’ Luke blurted.

‘As do you, Luke,’ Nazir noted with a wry smile, ‘And I hope you also know how dangerous it is to know.’

‘Yes.’ Luke felt stupid, but told himself Nazir had to be on his side.

‘In particular don’t say anything to Kyle. He doesn’t have your level of protection, Luke.’

‘I know.’ Luke nodded gravely. It was a pity, he’d enjoy boasting to his friend about the cool girl he’d met online, but his father was right.

‘So what did your Welsh girl tell you about King Arthur?’

‘Nothing. You called me down for dinner.’

‘Ha! So that’s what took you so long. Come on. Let’s get a drink and you can tell me all about the mists of Cymru and the other thing that is on your mind, too.’

‘What? How do you know? Did you get a mind-call from school or from Claudia?’

Nazir shook his head and steered Luke towards the house. In the garden the projection on the fountain had shifted to a new image. Luke froze.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, Luke,’ Nazir said quietly over his shoulder.

Luke shook his head. The girl in the fountain was dressed in sweeping red and gold robes, not a bulky sweater, and she held a small bowl from which light seemed to spill, but it was obvious now why Alys had seemed so familiar to him, right down to the knotted gold band on the middle finger of her right hand. Luke took a deep breath and shook his head, ‘I’m fine,’ he said uncertainly.

In Nazir’s sumptuous living room, Luke stood in front of the long wall that was taken up with a seamless screen. The picture, he realised, was of the same mountainside that he’d seen on Alys’ home page.

‘That picture,’ Luke began, sitting opposite the wall, ‘It looks just like The Standing Ground.’

Nazir put his palms together, raised his finger tips to his lips briefly and flexed his hands. It was a gesture that usually came before Nazir deflected some question he had no intention of answering. 

‘Quite a co-incidence,’ Nazir said. ‘So tell me about your day.’

Luke would have to try to draw Nazir out another time. He began to tell his father about asking Katie Lomax if he could take her to Kyle’s party. He galloped through the events quickly, not wanting to dwell on any of it.

‘So after this boy, Bradley, told you that Katie does not go out with “Darky Messers” you swung a punch?’

Luke nodded.  

‘And naturally it was our friend Tutor Simons that broke it up and then initiated a flag of concern.’ 

Luke nodded again.  

‘Hmm. Well, don’t worry too much. I’ll have a word with your Connexions counsellor. I’m sure we can sort it out amicably.’

Luned

I arose from ancient myth. I am who I seem to be and I am not who I seem to be. I am Luned, mistress of the moon, who serves the lady of the lake. I am Creirwy, daughter of Ceridwen of the White Song, goddess of poetry who dwells under Lake Bala. I am the shapeshifter who can guide the lost through the otherworld, Annwn and the priestess who carries the vessel to bring healing and light.

3

Alys woke, as usual, at 7 a.m. She stretched under her duvet, aware of how cold the room was beyond her bed. She could taste the snow in the air, a thin, metallic bite. She turned over and remembered the boy she had met online yesterday. No doubt Luke slept under a thin cover that regulated its own temperature like the one Emrys had acquired on one of his forays into E-Gov. Alys tried to imagine what Luke’s podroom might look like, as pristine as some virtual environment on the web, no doubt. Poor Luke. All that luxury and he didn’t even know who King Arthur was.  

‘History is always the first casualty of a government that wants absolute control.’ Tomas Selwyn liked to remind his family. ‘If people don’t know where they come from they’re less likely to object to where they’re being taken.’ 

The thought of her grandfather roused Alys to move. No doubt he would already be out in the poly-tunnel, busy with his latest seedlings. Alys gingerly edged out of bed. At least the floorboards weren’t as cold as the slate floor in the kitchen. She wondered what the floor was like in Luke’s house. No, not a house, she corrected herself. Alys shivered. She pulled on thick woollen socks, grabbed a thick woven dressing gown from the foot of the bed and made for the bathroom, flicking a switch on the small electric wall heater as she left her room. By the time she’d showered at least her bedroom would be warm enough to get dressed in.

‘Morning, cariad.’ Alys’s mother, Gwen, was a thin, busy woman with the same red-gold hair as Alys, though Gwen’s hair was beginning to turn a yellow-grey at her temples.

‘Morning, Mam. Is Dad out already?’ Alys dipped into a bowl of oranges.