The Hogman's Homunculi and the Angelwing Massacre: Chapters Eight and Nine!
It's a double Easter helping this week, full of assassin's guild's Terms of Reference, Dyson Sphere Update errors, and industrial quantities of turnip casserole. Gorge, my lovelies.
Harry the wannabe assassin is convinced the old amnesiac fellow is in fact the legendary hero, Lord Silverbirch, so she puts the matter to the Order of the Dancing Blade.
Meanwhile, Hissaq and Valeria visit barren wastelands, the apparent source of the weird dust found at the massacre site. What they find will change everything. Or contribute to the plot in a fairly substantial way, at least.
By the way I’ve had some nice reviews come in for This Burdened Clay, so I thought I’d blow the old bum trumpet a little.
“This is some of the best writing I've seen in the genre. Get it!”
“The narrative expertly weaves a tapestry of tension, drawing the reader deeper into an intricate web of increasingly terrifying events that leave a lingering sense of dread.”
“Some of it is hilarious, particularly in the first half, but even as events spiral out of control, there are still plenty of funny notes between the horror.”
Chapter Eight: The Order of the Dancing Blade
“Not far now, my lord.”
Harry had convinced herself that the amnesiac was truly Lord Silverbirch, hero of legend. For his part, the man was unsure but admitted to himself that it fit the facts to some degree. The idea was growing on him, in fact, and he sucked his gut in and kept his chin up.
From the outskirts of Hightail she led him down a green lane where overgrown trees formed a tunnel of dappled light. On through an open field with the remains of an ancient fortification to one side—now just a tight knot of dome-like hills—and a forgotten cemetery on the other. The diversity of skewed and fallen grave markers spoke of beliefs rising and falling over centuries, leaving behind only mongrel vestiges of themselves in place names, salutations and customs.
Harry and the man were near exhaustion now, and when she pointed to the grove a few hundred yards off, she raised her arm as if lifting a great weight. “The Order will have food and drink for us, I’m sure of it.”
The grove was otherworldly, comprised of both Earthling trees and giant Lemurian pseudo-cacti. The glassy spines of the latter formed a hectic prismatic canopy, beneath which confused oaks and ash made the best of drunken rainbows. A mulchy sweetness filled the air and the grove was pleasantly cool. A stream ran through it, and statuesque wading quirds watched the water with great intensity, ignoring the man when he bent to fill his flask.
He swigged his water and frowned around. “Are you sure about this, youngling?”
“Of course, my lord. Come on.”
The man shrugged and trudged after her over carpets of colourful moss. Bizarre fungal forms shivered as he passed.
“Remember what I said? Lord Silverbirch will be known by his silver hair, his besting of dangerous enemies and his affinity with wild animals. You’ve achieved all three. All that remains is for your disciples, the Order that is, to recognise you on sight by a mystical instinct.”
“I don’t remember besting no dangerous enemies, my love. You mean the skunt harridan?”
She scowled. “Me, my lord. I am a dangerous foe, and you bested me, remember?”
“Oh, of course.”
Three crumbling walls and a fallen spire were all that remained of an ancient building. The grove had grown around the place, and boughs intruded through empty windows. A knotty old log lay in the scrubby area between the walls, and the man wondered if the tree had crashed through the ancient building when its roots lost their grip on the earth.
Harry approached the log with renewed purpose, leaving him behind. “I’ve searched and searched for the members’ entrance, my lord, but I can’t find it, so we must use this one for now. Until I’m a full member of the Order and you unite the guilds under your stewardship, that is.”
“Entrance? What nonsense ye spouting, girl?”
She grinned over her shoulder. “Watch.”
He sat on a jumble of old stone blocks and drank from his flask. Around his feet were little carvings of strange animals, which he toyed with curiously. Bulky things with hose-like noses, another with spindly legs and an absurd long neck.
Harry yanked on a selection of stumpy old branches jutting from the old log. The man’s eyes widened and the flask stopped halfway to his mouth. The sticks were levers, artfully disguised and attached to the log by hidden hinges. A portion of the log’s surface popped up a few inches, and Harry heaved up the whole upper surface, revealing it to be a lid with a hollow space beneath. The man hurried over and squatted to stare into the space. A tunnel led away and down.
“Well bugger my brown-eye,” he said.
Harry straightened her ragged dress and demurely wedged herself into the log. She shuffled along on her back until she was out of sight and called in a muffled voice, “Come on granddad. My lord, I mean.”
The man grimaced and followed, bending his old frame to squeeze inside after. The inside was lined all around with metal sheeting and the man found he could shuffle along on his back towards Harry’s receding voice quite easily.
After a dozen feet of blind shuffling, the tube angled sharply downwards and gravity assumed control. The man’s stomach dropped; he hurtled feet-first through dizzying twists and turns, Harry whooping in delight ahead of him. Then the ride was over, and they were ejected into a wide subterranean space to land on a pile of blankets and furs. Harry rolled nimbly aside, narrowly avoiding the man plummeting after.
They were in an underground room of bare earth walls and the occasional root dangling between supporting timbers. The space was illuminated by the ochre light of paraffin lamps, and a compelling aroma of spicy meat drifted from one of the dark tunnels leading from the chamber. It was orderly, with swords and maces stored neatly on a wooden rack, and various helmets and stacks of paperwork arranged on shelves.
Half a dozen men dressed in black sat around a long table, with pots of finger food spread around. All eyes turned to the newcomers, but only briefly, and a couple of the men treated them to supercilious appraisal before turning away. Their appearance from the ceiling was apparently no great surprise.
Harry gestured to speak but the man at the head of the table silenced her with a wave and spoke to his companions.
“Brothers, let me repeat. The Terms of Reference must cover all bases, in order that roles and responsibilities are clear and the subcommittees are fully accountable to the Senior Leadership Team. Furthermore—”
The chair was interrupted by a fellow who slouched with a cocky ankle propped on his thigh. “We should have never commissioned Hefford’s aye ayes to draw up the Terms, Nazario. Those little squares make us sound like lawyers, not assassins.”
The leader, Nazario, took a breath. “The Terms are what they are, Sergio, and that’s that. If you want to submit amendments for consideration, feel free to draft something for the AGM, alright? Alright.”
A hooded man, his face cast in shadow, left the table briefly to hand the newcomers a couple of bowls of fruits and nuts and a jug of ale. Harry and the old amnesiac sat themselves down on the pile of blankets and tucked in as the meeting drew towards its end.
“The final item of the agenda,” Nazario said, “is a motion brought by me to formally denounce the so-called Real Order of the Dancing Blade. Now, while the RODB includes certain former members of our own organisation, who shall not be named, and has in some quarters been considered an offshoot thereof, the RODB’s utter lack of honour and its problematic ideology, if it can be said to have ideology beyond a sick desire for mayhem,” knowing chuckles around the table, “means that we must, I repeat must, make it utterly plain that it has nothing to do with us. We cannot afford to have our distinguished reputation as trained killers soiled by rank amateurs. In the meantime, we are exploring with the aye ayes whether legal action against the RODB would be worthwhile given their bastardisation of our name. A Cease and Fugg Off letter is being drafted as we speak.”
Knuckles were rapped on the table in approval and the motion passed unanimously. After checking for any other business
—there wasn’t any—Nazario brought the meeting to a close and the ODB senior leadership team visibly relaxed.
Nazario swivelled in his chair to the newcomers. “Here’s our posh little runaway. What’s this you’ve brought us, Harry?”
Harry stood and thrust out her chin. “Brothers, I bring you Lord Silverbirch.”
A moment of silence, then the Senior Leadership Team burst into laughter. Sergio rolled his eyes. Nazario grinned, gestured for silence and bowed sarcastically without leaving his seat. “Well met, my lord, I had not expected thee to so closely resemble a haggard old skunt. Are you truly Lord Silverbirch?”
The man shrugged. “Yon little ‘un would have it so, and she’s bright as a tack, though violent with it. Perhaps it be so.” Being of pragmatic mind, the man figured that leading an assassin’s guild was as good an occupation as any.
“Indeed, sir. Perhaps it be so.” Nazario turned to Harry. “Explain yourself, child.”
“The prophecy is partially fulfilled,” Harry said, undeterred. “Note the silvery hair. He bested me in combat though I caught him unawares, and he tamed a wild croak devil, saving the life of a child. He wanders the world as a vagabond, his memories erased, as the legend says.”
“Is this true, sir?” Nazario said. “Can you really not remember from whence you came?”
“Indeed I cannot sir, found myself wandering out of Gallmore Wood, I did, and can’t remember nowt afore that.”
One of the group, Sergio, made a derisive noise as he shovelled nuts into himself. “Get off with yer, Harry, Silverbirch don’t even exist. There ain’t no prophecies, just stuff you’ve read in kids’ stories. This Herbert,” he flapped a hand at the man, “is a cosplaying myth-cuck you found on your wandering, some Humanity First gamma-tier seat sniffer who spunked open his noggin simping for Big Empire.”
Though not following exactly what this Sergio had just said, the old man got the gist and bristled. “Now listen, good sir. M’lady here—”
“Stuff your m’ladies up your arse and fugg off, fish tits.” Sergio hurled a crapple at the man. The old amnesiac caught it and hurled it back at Sergio at tenfold the speed. It was a crack shot, and snapped ODB member’s head back. Appreciative murmurings around the table.
“Make that two enemies he’s bested,” Harry said smugly.
Sergio sprang from his chair but Nazario stilled him with a wagging finger. “You deserved that, Serge.” He turned to the mysterious hooded man. “What say you, Vitor?”
Vitor allowed a dramatic pause to ripen, then spoke in a growl of distant thunder. Little could be seen of him beneath the hood save a lustrous beard and a full mouth. “The child’s intellect puts many of us to shame, brothers, especially you Sergio. Your lips move when you read stories meant for infants. We all recall the note you left on the corpse of the Sheriff of Canolog. Regerds, Ordure of the Dancing Bald.” Sergio scowled but said nothing.
Vitor continued. “We should not dismiss the child’s claim so readily. The Oracle of the Gizzud Pit indeed foretold that Silverbirch would defeat mighty enemies, but neither Harry nor Sergio could be described as such, alas. I say our mysterious wanderer prove himself, by defeating a worthy adversary.”
The old man considered this and shrugged. “Be there an adversy you’re thinking of?”
A glint of teeth. “Kill Prince Darov.”
Chapter Nine: The Spewpot
Valeria clucked her tongue and kicked her heels in the dry soil, sending up clouds of dust which lingered in the air. “You take me to all the nicest places, gaffer.”
They had landed in what appeared to be an industrial complex of some kind, a processing plant. In the vast lava plains of the Spewpot Wastes, this had been most unexpected. Aside from this place and the walls of the gargantuan crater in the distance, the land was a featureless expanse of burnt copper, identical in hue to the sample identified by the symbiotic freaks of Shelter. Nothing grew here but strange weeds sprouting from glassy, obsidian patches of ground. The horizon shimmered and a dry heat scoured their throats. Spewpot Wastes lived up to its name and was a duchy in name only.
“My pap used to read me stories when I was little, gaffer, about the planet Mars next door to Old Earth. Must’ve looked not dissimilar, I reckon.”
Hissaq smiled. As a teenager working as a pot wash in the kastal kitchens, he had sneaked the same books from Lord Cruzco’s library.
The provenance of the two-hundred-mile-wide crater, the Spewpot itself, was the subject of debate. It was likely a dormant caldera or an impact crater, though the Curator Royal’s pet theory posited that a reckless discharge of a Brodorion mega-weapon had caused the great scar on the planet. Whether the exotic constituents of the soil supported that theory or not, Hissaq couldn’t say.
Ardie bobbed in the air. “Something in the atmosphere is interfering with my radios, Hissaq. I have lost contact with home base.”
“Alright, keep us updated.”
The trimaran sat by a row of long buildings made of cheap concrete blocks and sloping tin roofs. They were surrounded by much larger structures. Chimney stacks belched smoke, chugging conveyor belts carried lumps of stuff from here to there. One area was dedicated to rows of solar panels. Rails disappeared into the vanishing point in the direction of the crater.
Valeria idly traced a finger through the dust on the strut of a pylon and the metal beneath was pristine. “The fences are a joke aren’t they, gaffer? Who’d be looking to break in? No one lives for miles around and what they gonna steal anyways?” The fences surrounded the entire complex and were topped with barbed wire.
Before Hissaq could venture an answer, a man in plain coveralls hobbled from one of the long buildings and called out to them. “Ho there.” His left arm terminated in a deformed miniature hand with stumpy little fingers, and a crude wooden splint was tied to one of his legs with orange twine. His face and hair were plastered with orange dust, and shovels were propped under each armpit as crutches. He left strange hieroglyphics in the dirt as he made painful progress towards them.
“Hoydy-doodee,” he said. “Visitors, what a treat. Most folks are mucking in up at the smelters this time of day, but lucky old me, I got me a day off what with the leg n’all. Name’s Falcao.”
Valeria cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to it?”
“The leg? A cart fell off an upper rail. Should heal in a jiffy though. The hand’s coming on nicely.” He gave a gap-toothed grin and waggled the small digits of his unusual hand. “It got caugfht in a cabbage thresher. Hang on a sec.”
He disappeared round the corner for a moment and returned shuffling a couple of long wooden crates through the dirt by an awkward combo of kicks and shovel prods. He positioned them in the shade of the building and lowered himself on one with a grunt. Hissaq and Valeria joined him in the blessed coolness.
“What brings you to our little corner of the galaxy, noble travellers?”
“We are conducting an investigation by order of Her Majesty,” Hissaq said, enunciating carefully. “My name is Hissaq, this is Valeria.”
Falcao nodded, and pointed at Ardie hovering nearby. “Ardie Mark Three, classic model. Haven’t seen one in years. Used to program them back in the day before the shit hit the fan.”
Hissaq failed to decode the metaphor. He had never seen a powered fan in his life, neither the desktop, portable nor ceiling-mounted type. For him, a fan was an artfully employed piece of paper, waved manually before one’s sweaty visage.
He let it go. “What’s your role here, Falcao?”
“I’m a slave, sir. Well, indentured worker technically. Call it what you will, I’m not leaving any time soon either way.”
“Why is that?”
“I work to pay off a debt, in theory, but given that said debt is a smidgen under eighteen point four quadrillion Trapmarks, I’m not keeping a close eye on the running total.”
Valeria spluttered a laugh but composed herself at a glare from Hissaq. “How, pray,” she said, “does one run up a debt that size? You’re talking planetary economies.”
“I was a systems admin for the Energy Council orbiting Trappist-C and made a mess of a software update to the local Dyson sphere. Several mining moons were a little bit vaporised. As was the sphere itself.” He chuckled good naturedly. “The decimal points were only a couple of places off, big deal.”
“Why don’t you run away?” Valeria said.
“Run away? And how does one run away from a lifeless mining moon, pray tell? Jump really high and flap my arms? Or are you taking me with you?”
Hissaq’s mouth dropped open. Where exactly did this Falcao believe himself to be, right now?
Falcao mistook his visitors’ silence for acknowledgement of his point. “Didn’t think so,” he said without rancour.
Hissaq let it go. “What is this place, what’s happening here?”
Falcao shrugged. “Beats me. I pick turnips from the hydroponics shed, chuck ‘em in a big hopper and plate up the casserole that comes out the other end. All day, every day. It ain’t much but it’s honest work. Less stress than coding, to be honest.”
As if it objected to its mention in the conversation, a turnip hurtled through the air and struck Falcao on the ear. He yelped and rubbed the injured part. “That’ll be the team leader.”
A stocky man strode over and barked, “You’re meant to be recuperating. If you’re not ready for work in the morning you’re in the shit. Be off.”
Falcao gave them a what can do? shrug and a sloppy salute and hobbled off.
The new man looked them up and down. He was similarly plastered in dust but his clobber was blue instead of orange. “What’s all this?”
Hissaq instinctively disliked the man. He decided on a firm approach and brandished his royal warrant. “We’ll ask the questions. What is this place?”
The team leader squinted at the warrant. “You’re from Lemuria? I didn’t know that backward shit hole had space travel. Why’d the Royal House of Winwick be sending inspectors up to a mining moon anyway?” Like Falcao, the man appeared to believe he was at this present moment on some remote mining moon. “No one tells me nothing, alright? I’m just the Omega Team Human Resources Overseer.”
“Does no one actually know what the hell they’re doing in this place?” Hissaq said.
“We’re all indentured mate, and before you ask I ended up here because I was drunk on the job at Greta Station Dock Control and a few people died, including my family. It was this or rotting away in the mines of Styx.”
“Answer the question.”
He sighed. “Your commiseration is appreciated. No, none of us knows why we’re here. Our employers slash owners have been remiss in communicating their vision, it’s fair to say. Far as I know there’s something in the crater which the powers that be think is worth going to a lot of bother for. We get it out and process it. Ships come, we load the stuff, ships go.”
Valeria spoke up. “Seen any graphomorphs?”
“Grapho-what?”
“Skinny humanoids with head crests and beaks. Very good at camouflage.”
He laughed sourly. “Have I seen the creatures that are very good at camouflage, she asks. Hmm, let me think.”
Valeria shot him a dark look. Something about him overcame their natural sympathy for his plight.
“Relax, I’m just farting in your helmet. Yeah, I’ve seen those things popping up here and there. You catch a glimpse of one out the corner of your eye, but when you turn around they’re gone. Sometimes you stare for a while and suddenly see them and wonder how you missed ‘em. Not seen any lately though. Good job too, they’ve been spooking some of the workers. Dumb bastards thought they were ghosts. The bosses told us this moon was uninhabited. What do they know?”
Hissaq and Valeria looked at each other and reached a silent agreement. They bid the team leader an abrupt good day and left him gawping after them. They retreated to the trimaran lounge to confer about what to do next. Hissaq’s head was abuzz.
“You look ready shit a brick, gaffer,” Valeria said. “Sit yourself down, it’s Ardie’s turn to make the tea.” This was now a running joke; it was always Ardie’s turn to make the tea. Soon enough, two steaming cups sat on the table between them. Valeria laced her fingers around hers as if she was chilly.
“Fencing the place off, keeping the workers in the dark. Nora’s eyes, they don’t even know what planet they’re on.[1] Deeply sus is what it is, gaffer.”
Hissaq stared down at the table, feeling morose and overwhelmed. “How easy it is to fool people,” he murmured. “Makes you wonder.”
He slipped into silence and Valeria frowned. “Let’s check out the Spewpot, eh? See what’s what.”
“I don’t know, Val.”
She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him jerk back. “Stepan, get it together. You’re the boss. Right or wrong, you gotta make a decision.”
Hissaq nodded and realised he had slumped so far down on the couch that his lower back was aching. He pulled himself up, met her eye and herded his thoughts. “Sorry Val. I don’t think going to the Spewpot will tell us anything. We’d just see more weird machines we don’t understand and workers who don’t know anything.” A thought occurred as he adjusted the temp control a fraction on his tea. “Remember Captain Kallog?”
Valeria scratched her head in exaggerated fashion. “Kallog, Kallog…no, can’t say I do.” She slapped her forehead. “Ohhh, you mean the chap with the horrifying blue parasite living in his mouth who buried his face in the tentacled monster living in his nephew’s arse? Yeah, I remember him now, silly me.”
“Funny. He said something though which I thought nothing of at the time.”
“Not surprising, given the circs. What’d he say?”
“He said something like ‘the graphomorphs don’t surface very often.’ And the chap just now said something similar.”
“The cripple?”
“The team leader. He said he’d seen the graphomorphs ‘popping up.’” Hissaq thumped his cup down a little harder than intended. “We need to get back to Angelwing Forest. We’ve missed something.”
***
Hours after the trimaran set off for Angelwing, Hissaq was awoken by harsh electronic beeping. Ardie’s disembodied voice was a breathy whisper, disconcertingly intimate. “Sorry to rouse you, Hissaq.”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bunk. “Are we there?”
“Not yet. I’ve picked up an all points broadcast from the kastal. High alert, but delayed due to the atmospheric interference earlier. My apologies.”
“Not your fault. What’s the alert?”
“Suspected coup in progress, it says. Prince Josep beheaded. Darov on the run.”
Any trace of sleep evaporated as adrenaline surged through his veins like lava. His lungs neglected their duties leaving him gaping. “Good Gods,” he managed. He kicked off his covers and grabbed the clothes folded neatly on the bedside unit. “Return to RLC immediately Ardie, and—”
“Apologies, Hissaq. Stand by please…update received.” The disembodied voice sighed. “False alarm. Repeat: false alarm. All is well.”
Hissaq paused with a foot halfway into a trouser leg. “False alarm. You’re sure?”
“Yes, Hissaq. Should I wake Valeria?”
He pushed a corner of his moustache into the corner of his mouth and chewed. “No. No, let her sleep.”
“Amend destination? We’re ninety minutes away from the massacre site in the Angelwing Forest. Ten hours from RLC.”
“Maintain course for Angelwing.”
“Very good.”
Hissaq stood, pulled his trousers up and secured the belt, knowing he would be getting no further sleep. What by Elon’s Basin is going on at home? To speculate was pointless, but he had to wonder what the hell Darov had been up to. Parsons was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble.
***
“Ground Penetrating Radar sweep is complete, Hissaq,” Ardie announced as the trimaran finished a final circuit over the eastern wing of the forest. “Your hypothesis is correct. An extensive cave network exists directly beneath the massacre site and beyond.”
Hissaq felt a grim satisfaction; human instinct still had a place in this changing world of wonders.
A ghostly display screen materialised before them in the trimaran lounge, making Valeria jump. It displayed a three-D render of the topography below, and of what lay beneath. A brief glance was enough to confirm the caverns were multilayered, complex and artificial. As the grainy image zoomed and rotated they made out wide open spaces, dwellings, monuments. It was a town, the graphomorphs’ home.
Hissaq squeezed the last dregs of an energy gel pack into his mouth. The stuff was foul but it was the only thing keeping him awake. “Can we get in there, Ardie? Have a look around?”
“I think so, Hissaq. From a plateau approximately one mile from the massacre site, cave openings lead directly to the underground network.”
“Alright. Set us down as near as you can. Suit up, Val.”
Forty minutes later, Hissaq and Valeria sat on a scrubby escarpment, watching the sun set over a green sea of forest canopy. They wore ill-fitting Shackleton Mark Two Explorer suits which pinched Hissaq’s armpits, but the lightweight helmets sat unused on the dry rock near their feet. They were drinking yet more tea.
A sweet smell came from the caves, not entirely unpleasant but incongruous, to mingle with the fresh scent of the spring evening. Detecting the trace well before them, Ardie had commanded them with uncharacteristic authority to wait while he scouted ahead. He re-emerged from a cave now and floated in their direction, keeping his distance.
“Valeria, Hissaq. I detected high levels of organophosphorus gas and thiophosphonates in the tunnel, increasing in density the farther I ventured.”
Valeria belched softly. “Whassat mean?”
“Nerve toxins. I will need to undergo UV decontamination back on the trimaran.”
“That’s bad, right?” Valeria said.
“Yes Valeria, that’s bad. The Shackleton suits are not certified for nerve toxin resistance. If you ventured inside the caves you would suffer respiratory distress, seizures, vomiting, runaway hypersecretions, diarrhoea, exsanguination, hallucinations, organ failure, death.”
Valeria looked at her mug of tea and placed it down carefully. “Bloody hell. These nerve agents would have been fatal to the graphomorphs too, I take it?”
“Almost certainly.”
As if on cue, acid reflux burned up Hissaq’s throat. He grimaced and swallowed. “They flushed them out like gassing an insect nest. Finished off the ones who fled into the forest. Probably had squads waiting for them.”
Full and partial solar eclipses were not uncommon on this world, and the glimpse of sun which sank below the horizon was a curved blade of silent fire.
Valeria pulled her feet toward herself and hugged her knees, sending small rocks tumbling down the escarpment. Her eyes shone. “Why?”
Hissaq shook his head. Learning more about this extermination, the efficiency of it, was somehow more upsetting than being down in the forest among the dead. “Advise, Ardie.”
“I suggest I lead the SADOs on a full scan of the caverns.”
“SADOs?”
“Apologies, Hissaq. I should limit the use of jargon wherever possible. SADOs are Semi-Autonomous Data Orbs.” A hatch opened on Ardie’s underside and a fleet of spheres floated out, each the size of a thumbnail. They arranged themselves in a neat X-shaped formation in the air, like conjoined flocks of migrating birds.
“Huh,” Valeria said, “didn’t know you had kids, Ardie.”
“A good quip, Valeria. The SADOs and I could survey the entire cavern system within three to four hours, so I suggest you both relax on the ship until we reconvene. Did you know a range of entertainments is available onboard? The well-appointed games room has traditional tabletop games like Soil Yourself! and Fuggaroo! as well as the latest full-body VR blasters. The high-definition music streamer has access to over two point six billion tracks, from Gurglian funeral chants to—”
“Enough, Ardie,” Hissaq barked. “Get it done.”
Ardie gave a wordless chirrup and swung off towards the caves, the SADOs trailing behind like baby gorts following their mother.
Via a steep overgrown path overgrown by purple ferns, they returned to the trimaran up above the caves on a bare patch of ground. In his cabin, Hissaq stripped to his underwear and collapsed on his bunk, feeling so heavy and sluggish the cot mattress seemed to pull him down like quicksand. He dozed off to the sound of a mournful acapella from Valeria’s cabin next door, and he couldn’t tell if it was her singing or a recording.
In his nightmare he chased miniature versions of himself around the kastal as they scampered around looking for some hidden treasure and causing havoc. They giggled at his clumsy attempts to herd them and he grew enraged. When he stumbled and fell, they turned mean and swarmed over him. Dozens of tiny hands dragged him up the narrow twisting staircase of Darov’s tower and up to the roof. The pulled him to the roof’s edge and heaved him back and forth, preparing to hurl him over. He cried out in fear. Back and forth they rocked him, dragging the moment out, dragging out his fear, back and forth, back and forth…
Valeria shook him awake and he squeaked in fear. She grinned in the darkness. “Ardie’s back, gaffer. I let you sleep as long as I could, but you need to see this. Ardie’s brewing the tea.”
For a moment he thought the big news was that Ardie had brewed some tea, until his mind caught up and reprocessed what she had said. He coughed and his mouth tasted like mouldy soil. “Give me a minute.”
He dressed, brushed his teeth and joined her in the lounge where Ardie had set up another of his ethereal floating screens. Hissaq had no choice but to walk straight through it to reach the couch where Valeria waited for him, and he gritted his teeth unconsciously as he did so, as if expecting to be electrocuted. He passed through unimpeded, of course, and joined Valeria on the couch. She pushed a cup of tea and a plate of toast spread with bloodhoney towards him. He nodded his thanks.
“Welcome Hissaq, thank you for joining us,” Ardie’s voice said. “I hope you were able to get some rest. My survey of the caverns is complete. I have a lot of information to share with you, so I’ve compiled a visual report which I will talk you through.”
When Ardie finished the report, Hissaq sat staring at nothing, dimly aware of Valeria looking at him expectantly. His toast was barely touched.
He should surrender, hand over what he knew to the authorities and step away, for he could not stand against a duke of Cartreffi. He imagined himself running over deep sand with a great weight strapped about his waist. But the image was replaced by the face of his son, and that of the mother who had let him down. Let them both down. For the first time in many years he acknowledged that fact, the pain of that loss. But only until his thoughts evaporated into psychic white noise.
Valeria gave up waiting for him to speak. “We’ll go the kastal, gaffer. Someone will help us, someone we can convince.”
He met her eye but spoke to himself as much as her. “Alright. We’ll find the prince.”
[1] While very few true theocracies exist in Cartreffi, the supernatural beliefs which do endure are manifold. These exist largely as loose, overlapping collections of beliefs, rather than coherent ideological belief systems. Nora’s eyes refers to Nora Batty, a goddess of love, known for her grace and physical beauty. She is often portrayed with a cute bobble hat or hair curlers. Whether a real Nora Batty ever existed is unknown, a mystery lost in the mists of time. It should be said that many vestiges of the traditional organised religions of Old Earth do endure as vestiges in legal systems, customs, language and the like.