Ian nodded and told Seth to go towards the gangway leading to the glass chandelier. Seth went along the walkway but paused after he’d taken the first few steps.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Ian, watching his friend some fifteen metres above him.
Seth shook his head and continued walking along the narrow gangway until he stopped two metres away from the body suspended by the rope. Very slowly he moved closer to the edge and bent over to examine it. Ian noticed the shock on his friend’s face.
‘Seth? What’s the matter, Seth?’
Visibly agitated, Seth knelt down to untie the rope holding the body, but when he caught hold of it, the rope wound itself round one of his legs and the suspended body plummeted into the void. The rope then gave a violent jolt and started dragging Seth up into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling like a puppet. He struggled to free his leg and cried for help but his body was now being hauled upwards at a frightening pace and soon he disappeared completely.
In the meantime, the corpse that had been hanging overhead had dropped straight into the pool of blood. All Ian could see beneath the shawl wrapped around it were the remains of a skeleton whose bones cracked as they hit the floor, dissolving into dust. The fabric floated down and slowly became soaked in the dark liquid. When Ian examined it he recognised the shawl he’d seen so many times in the orphanage during his sleepless nights, worn across the shoulders of the luminous woman who visited Ben as he slept.
He looked up again, hoping to see some trace of his friend, but the impenetrable darkness had taken Seth and there was no sign of his presence other than the dying echo of his screams.
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Roshan, stopping to listen to the shouts that seemed to be coming from the very bowels of the building.
Michael nodded. The screams gradually faded and soon they were enveloped once again in the sound of the drizzle pattering against the roof of the dome above them. They’d climbed to the top floor of Jheeter’s Gate and were looking down at the amazing sight of the immense station from on high. The platforms and tracks seemed very distant and the elaborate structure of arches and multiple levels could be seen much more clearly from that point.
Michael stopped by the edge of a metal balustrade that jutted out over the void, vertically above the large clock under which they had passed when they entered the station. His artist’s eye appreciated the mesmerising effect created by the hundreds of curved beams issuing from the geometric centre of the dome. They seemed to vanish in an endless arc, never touching the floor. Viewed from that privileged position, the station seemed to rise towards the sky, spiralling into a vault of steel and glass that merged into the clouds above. Roshan joined Michael and took a brief look at the sight that was bewitching his friend.
‘We’re going to get dizzy. Come on, let’s go.’
Michael raised a hand in protest.
‘No, wait. Look down.’
Roshan took a quick peep over the balustrade.
‘If I look again, I’ll fall over.’
A mysterious smile appeared on Michael’s lips. Roshan stared at his friend, wondering what he had discovered.
‘Don’t you realise, Roshan?’
Roshan shook his head. ‘Explain it to me.’
‘This structure,’ Michael said. ‘If you look towards the vanishing point from this position in the dome, you’ll understand.’
Roshan tried to follow Michael’s instructions, but he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to see.
‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘It’s very simple. This station, the whole structure of Jheeter’s Gate, is an immense sphere. We can only see the part that emerges above ground. The clock tower is situated at the very centre of the dome, like a sort of radius.’
Roshan took in Michael’s words.
‘OK, it’s a stupid ball,’ he said. ‘So what?’
‘Do you realise the technical difficulties involved in building a structure like this?’ asked Michael.
Again his friend shook his head.
‘I assume they’d be considerable.’
‘Radical,’ Michael asserted, deploying an adjective he used in only the most extreme cases. ‘Why would anyone design a structure like this one?’
‘I’m not sure I want to know the answer,’ said Roshan. ‘Let’s go down a level. There’s nothing here.’
Michael gave a distracted nod and followed Roshan to the staircase.
Beneath the dome’s observation balcony was a kind of mezzanine level barely a metre and a half high flooded by the rainwater that had been falling over Calcutta since the beginning of May. The floor lay under about twenty centimetres of stagnant water, which gave off a nauseating stench, and was covered by a mass of mud and rubble that had been decomposing for more than a decade due to the continual seepage. After crouching down to enter the mezzanine, Michael and Roshan found themselves wading through the mud, which came up to their ankles.
‘This place is worse than the catacombs,’ said Roshan. ‘Why the hell is this ceiling so hellishly low? People haven’t been this small for centuries.’
‘It was probably a restricted area,’ said Michael. ‘Perhaps it houses part of the counterweight system that supports the dome. Mind you don’t trip over anything. The whole place could collapse.’
‘Is that a joke?’
‘Yes,’ said Michael dryly.
‘Then it’s the third joke I’ve heard from you in six years,’ said Roshan. ‘And it’s the worst.’
Michael didn’t bother to reply and continued to make his way slowly through the swamp. The stench of stagnant water was beginning to fog his brain, and he started to think that perhaps they should turn back and descend one more level. Besides, he doubted that anything or anybody could be hidden in the impregnable quagmire.
‘Michael?’ Roshan’s voice was a few metres behind him.
The boy turned and saw Roshan’s figure bent over a large metal beam.
‘Michael,’ Roshan said again. He sounded bewildered. ‘Is it possible that this beam is moving or is it just my imagination?’
Michael thought his friend had also been inhaling the putrid vapours for too long and was about to abandon the area altogether when he heard a loud crash at the other end of the section. They turned to look at one another. The crash sounded again, only this time the boys felt a movement and then saw something speeding towards them under the mud, raising a wake of rubbish and dirty water. Without wasting a second, Roshan and Michael rushed towards the exit, crouching down as they negotiated their way through the mud and water.
They had only gone a few metres when the submerged object passed them at high speed, then doubled back and headed straight towards them. Roshan and Michael separated, running in opposite directions, trying to distract the attention of whatever was intent on hunting them down. The creature hidden beneath the mud divided into two halves, each half hurling itself after one of the boys.
Gasping for breath, Michael had turned to check if he was still being followed when his foot hit a step concealed under the sludge and he fell headlong into the mud. When he emerged and opened his eyes, which were stinging, a figure of mud was rising in front of him. Michael tried to pull himself up – but his hands skidded, leaving him stretched out in the slush.
The mud figure spread out two long arms, on the end of which were long fingers curved into large metal hooks. Michael watched in horror as the creature took form, a head emerging from the trunk, then a face with large jaws lined with fangs that were as long and sharp as hunting knives. Suddenly the figure solidified, the dry mud letting off a hiss of steam. When Michael stood up, he could hear the mud crackling as dozens of small fissures spread over it. The cracks on the face slowly expanded revealing Jawahal’s fiery eyes. The dry mud fractured into a mosaic of scales that quickly fell away. Jawahal grabbed Michael by the throat and pulled him in close.