Since he arrived he had been busy indeed. Toiling in the squalor and the horror and the blood which soiled the heart of every human soul. Those living, and those dead ... and the ones trapped between.
He closed his eyes as if to shut out the memories of recent weeks and what he had become. But there was no respite. The hotel took on substance in his mind, walls and floors woven from shadows. People, us and them, glided through it, dopplered laughs and screams ricocheting through the grand corridors and sumptuous rooms. And, always, there, on the other side of the shadows, on the other side of everything: the beyond.
Chittering souls clamouring for existence, silky insidious promises to be his lover, his slave, his acolyte. Anything, anything at all to be brought back.
Edmund Rigby shuddered in revulsion. Please, God, when we hide Norfolk from this universe let it also be hidden from the beyond. Let me have peace, and an end to all this.
Three of his lieutenants—selected from the more stable among the newly possessed—were dragging a captive along the corridor outside to his room.
He stiffened his shoulders, letting the power swell within, giving his new body grandeur and poise, as well as a Napoleonic uniform, and turned to face the door.
They burst in, cheering and jeering, young turks from the worst of the backstreets, believing swagger and noise was an easy substitute for authority. But he grinned welcomingly at them anyway.
Grant Kavanagh was flung on the floor, bleeding from cuts on his face and hands, smeared in dirt, his fine militia uniform torn. Even so, he refused to be cowed. Edmund Rigby respected that, amongst the sadness.
This one, with his conviction in God and self, would be hard to break.
The thought pained him. Why oh why can’t they just give in?
“Present for you, Edmund,” Iqabl Geertz said. He had assumed his ghoul appearance, skin almost grey, cheeks sunken, eyeballs a uniform scarlet; thin frame dressed all in black. “One of the nobs. Got some fight in him. Thought he might be important.”
Don Padwick, in his lion-man state, growled suggestively. Grant Kavanagh twitched as the big yellow beast dropped onto all fours and padded over to him, tail whisking about.
“We captured his troops,” Chen Tambiah informed Edmund quietly. “They were about the last militia roaming free. Inflicted heavy casualties. Eight of us winged back to the beyond.” The dapper oriental, in ancient black and orange silks, cocked his head grudgingly towards Grant Kavanagh. “He’s a good leader.”
“Is that so?” Edmund Rigby asked.
Iqabl Geertz licked his lips with a long yellowed tongue. “It doesn’t make any difference in the end. He’s ours now. To do with as we like. And we know what we like.”
Grant Kavanagh looked up at him, one eye swollen shut. “When this is over, you mincing shit, and the rest of your friends have been shot, I will take a great deal of pleasure in ripping every one of your deviant chromosomes from your body with my own hands.”
“Now there’s a man’s man if ever I saw one,” Iqabl Geertz said, putting on an histrionically effeminate tone.
“Enough,” Edmund Rigby said. “You put up a good fight,” he told Grant, “now it’s over.”
“Like hell! If you think I’m going to let you Fascist scum take over the planet my ancestors sweated blood to build you don’t know me.”
“Nor shall we ever,” Edmund Rigby said. “Not now.”
“That’s right, takes bloody four of you.” Grant Kavanagh grunted in shock as Don Padwick put a paw on his ribs, talons extended.
Edmund Rigby rested his hand on Grant’s head. There was so much resilience and anger in the man. It enervated him, sending the pretentious uniform shimmering back into his ordinary marine fatigues.
The souls of the beyond were clamouring as he began to gather his power, flocking to the beacon of his strength.
“Don’t fight me,” he said, more in hope than in expectation.
Grant snarled. “Screw you!”
Edmund Rigby heard the vile rapturous imploring chorus of the souls beginning. Weariness engulfed him, there had been so much of this since he had returned. So much pain and torment, so willfully inflicted. At first he had laughed, and enjoyed the fear. Now, he simply wished it over.
He hesitated, and the captive soul stirred in the prison he had forged for it within his own mind.
“There are ways,” the other soul said, and showed, obedient as always to his captor. “Ways to make Grant Kavanagh submit quickly, ways no flesh can withstand for long.”
And the desire was there, oozing up out of the prison, corrupt and nauseous.
“But it’s a part of all of us,” the other soul whispered quickly. “We all share the shame of having the serpent beast in our secret heart of hearts. How else could you have accomplished what you have the way you have if you did not let it free?”
Trembling, Edmund Rigby let the desire rise, let it supersede the loathing and revulsion that was his own. Then it was easy. Easy to make Grant hurt. Easy to commit the profanities which quietened his lieutenants. Easy to feed the desire. And go on feeding.
It was good, because it was freedom. Complete and utter freedom. Desire ruled as it should, unrestrained. It nurtured the psyche, these heinous abominations Grant Kavanagh was forced to endure. They were sublime.
Iqabl Geertz and Chen Tambiah were yelling at him to stop. But they were nothing, less than dirt.
The souls were in retreat, fearing what was leaking from him into the beyond.
“Weak, they are all weaker than us. Together we surpass them all.”
Was that his own voice?
And still the savagery went on. It was impossible to stop. The other soul had gone too far, it had to be seen through now. To the terrible end.
Edmund Rigby rebelled in horror.
“But you did it yourself,” said the captive soul.
“No. It was you.”
“I only showed you how. You wanted it. The desire was yours, the yearning.”
“Never! Not for this.”
“Yes. You gave way to yourself for the first time. The serpent beast is in all of us. Embrace it and be at peace with yourself. Know yourself.”
“I am not that. I am not!”
“But you are. Look. Look!”
“No.” Edmund Rigby shrank from what he had done. Fleeing, hurtling, away, as though speed alone was proof of his innocence. Locking out the world and what he had been a party to, down in that empty vault waiting at the centre of his mind. Where it was quiet, and dark, and tasteless.
Sanctuary without form. It hardened around him.
“And there you will stay; a part of me for ever.”
Quinn Dexter opened his eyes. Before him the three possessed, their exotic appearances bleached off to reveal young men with ashen faces, backed away in consternation; their confidence in their supremacy jarringly fractured. Grant Kavanagh’s decimated body quivered amid the blood and piss curdling on the carpet as the soul it now hosted tried valiantly to repair the colossal tissue damage. Deep inside himself he heard Edmund Rigby’s soul whimpering quietly.
Quinn smiled beatifically at his rapt audience. “I have returned,” he said softly, and raised his hands in invocation. “Out of the half-night; strengthened by the darkness as only a true believer could be. I saw the weakness in my possessor, his fright of his serpent beast. He is in me now, weeping and pleading as he denies form to his true nature. As it should be. God’s Brother showed me the way, showed me the night holds no dread for those who love their real selves as He commands us to do. But so few obey. Do you obey?”
They tried then, Iqabl Geertz, Don Padwick, and Chen Tambiah, combining their energistic strength in a desperate attempt to blast the deranged usurper out of his body and into the beyond. Quinn laughed uproariously, steadfast at the calm centre of a fantastic lightning storm which filled the room. Dazzling whips of raw electricity slashed at the walls and floor and ceiling like the razor claws of a maddened gryphon. None of
them could touch him, he was held inviolate in a cocoon of luminous violet silk mist.
The lightning stopped roaring, ebbing in spits and crackles to disappear behind charred furniture and back into the bodies of the would-be thunder gods. Smoke hazed the blackened room, small flames licking greedily at the cushions and tattered curtains.
Quinn wished for justice.
Their bodies fell, cells performing the refined perversions he dreamed of, turning against themselves. He watched impassively as the terrorized, humiliated souls fled from the glistening deformities he had created, back to the beyond crying in dire warning. Then the second souls, the ones held captive, abandoned the macerated flesh.
Grant Kavanagh’s body groaned at Quinn’s feet, the possessing soul looking up at him in numb trepidation. The worst of the lacerations and fractures had healed, leaving a crisscross scar pattern of delicate pink skin.
“What is your name?” Quinn asked.
“Luca Comar.”
“Did you see what I performed on them, Luca?”
“Yes. Oh God, yes.” He bowed his head, bile rising in his throat.
“They were weak, you see. Unworthy fuck-ups. They had no real faith in themselves. Not like me.” Quinn took a deep breath, calming his euphoric thoughts. His marine fatigues billowed out into a flowing priest’s robe, fabric turning midnight black. “Do you have faith in yourself, Luca?”
“Yes. I do. I have faith. Really I do.”
“Would you like me to tell you of the serpent beast? Would you like me to show you your own heart and set you free?”
“Yes. Please. Please show me.”
“Good. I think that is my role now the portents walk abroad. Now the dead are risen to fight the last battle against the living and the time of the Light Bringer draws near. I have been blessed, Luca, truly blessed with His strength. My belief in Him brought me back, me alone out of all the millions who are possessed. I am the one God’s Brother has chosen as His messiah.”
When the tributary river finally spilled into the Juliffe it was a hundred and thirty metres wide. Villages had claimed both banks, buildings gleaming inside their safe enclave bubbles of white light. By now Chas Paske was used to the striking fantasy images of halcyon hamlets dozing their life away. He had passed eight or nine of them during his slow progress down the river. All of them the same. All of them unreal.
Warned by the twin coronae ahead he had sculled his little boat back into the middle of the river, fighting the thick gunge of melding snowlilies every centimetre of the way. Now he was in a narrow channel of vermilion light which fell between the two pools of native radiance, crouched down as best he could manage.
His body was in a poor way. The nanonic medical packages had been exhausted by the demand of decontaminating his blood some time ago; now it was all they could do to stop the blood vessels they had knitted with from haemorrhaging again. His neural nanonics still maintained their analgesic blocks, delivering him from pain. But that didn’t seem to be enough any more. A cold lethargy was creeping into him through his damaged leg, syphoning his remaining strength away. Any movement was a complicated business now, and muscles responded with geriatric infirmity.
Several times in the last few hours he had been stricken by spasms which vibrated his arms and torso. His neural nanonics seemed incapable of preventing or halting them. So he lay on the bottom of the boat gazing up at the throbbing red cloud waiting for the ignominious spastic twitches to run their course.
At these times he thought he could see himself, a tiny shrivelled black figure, spreadeagled on the bottom of a rowing dinghy (like the one he thought he had been stealing), being borne along a sticky white river that stretched out to a terrible length. There was nothing around the river, no banks or trees, it just wound through a red sky all by itself, a silk ribbon waving in the breeze, while far, far ahead a speck of starlight twinkled with elusive, enticing coyness. Skittering voices on the brink of audibility circled round him. He was sure they talked about him even though he could never quite make out whole words. The tone was there all right, dismissive and scornful.
Not quite a dream.
He remembered, as he sailed on gently, his past missions, past colleagues, old battles, victories and routs. Half the time never knowing who he was really fighting for or what he was fighting against. For the right side or the wrong side? And how was he supposed to know which was which anyway? Him, a mercenary, a whore of violence and destruction and death. He fought for the ones with the most money, for companies and plutocrats, and sometimes maybe even governments. There was no right and wrong in his life. In that respect he had it easy, none of the big decisions.
So the river carried him on, that white band flowing through the red sky, ever onwards. The voyage was his life. He could see where he had come from, and he could see where he was going. Destination and departure were no different. And there was no way to get off. Except to jump, to drown in the vast guileful sky.
That will come anyway, he thought, no need to hurry. The old resolve was still there, among the superficial self-pity and growing concern over his physical state, still holding together. He was glad of that. Right to the bitter end, that’s where he was heading. The star glinted strongly, virtually a heliograph. It seemed nearer.
No, not quite a dream.
Chas jerked up with a start, rocking the boat hazardously. The twin villages guarding the tributary mouth were behind him now. He was out on the Juliffe itself. There was no sign of the Hultain Marsh which made up the northern side. The river could have been an ocean for all he could tell. An ocean paved with snowlilies as far as his enhanced eyes could see. This was their meridian, the end of their continental crusade. They were packed four or five deep, crumpled up against each other; decaying now, but wadded so tight they formed a serried quilt. It was a perfect reflector for the carmine light falling from the cloud, turning his world to a dimensionless red nebula.
The flimsy boat creaked and shivered as the current forced it deeper into the floating pulp. Chas gripped the gunwale in reflex. He had a nasty moment when something popped and splintered up at the prow, but the hull was so shallow it was squeezed up rather than in. He was sure it was riding on a patina of rotting leaves rather than actual water.
For all their stupendous mass, the snowlilies had no effect on the river’s unflagging current. The boat began to pick up speed, moving further out from the southern bank with its near-continual chain of villages and towns.
Now he was sure he wasn’t going to capsize, Chas relaxed his grip, and eased himself down again, breathing hard at the simple exertion of lifting himself. Up ahead the massive ceiling of red cloud became a bright tangerine cyclone with a concave heart, its apex hidden by distance. He could see the gravid billows of stratus being torn out of their constricted alignment, sucked over the lip to spiral upwards in a leisurely procession. It must have been twenty kilometres across at the base: an inverted whirlpool which drained away into the other side of the sky.
He realized its sharp living tangerine hue came from a fierce light shining down out of its secret pinnacle. Below it, the city of Durringham gleamed in empyrean glory.
Gaura floated through the floor hatch into the Lady Macbeth’s bridge. He took care not to move his neck suddenly, or his arms come to that; his whole body was one giant ache. He had been lucky not to break anything in that last agonizing burst of deceleration. Even watching the starships attacking the station he hadn’t felt as utterly helpless as he had then, lying flat on the groaning decking of the lounge feeling his ribs bowing in, while blackness tightened its grip on his vision. Three times he had heard bone splintering, accompanied by a mental howl—it was impossible to make any sound. Together the Edenists had toughed it out, their minds embraced, sharing and mitigating the pain.
When it was over he hadn’t been alone in wiping tears from his eyes.
Aethra had followed their entire heart-stopping plummet into the ring, showing it to them. He had thought the end h
ad surely come, for the second time in an hour. But the Adamist starship’s exhaust had obliterated the ring particles as it crashed below the surface, eliminating any danger of collision; and the captain had matched velocities perfectly (for the second time in an hour), slotting them neatly into a circular orbit buried right in the middle of the ring. The swarm of pursuing combat wasps and their submunitions had impacted seconds behind them, kinetic explosions tossing out a ragged sheet of fire. None had penetrated more than a hundred metres below the surface.
It had been an astounding piece of flying. Gaura was very curious to meet the person who had such sublime control over a starship. It rivalled the union between a voidhawk and its captain.
There were three people standing on a stikpad around one of the consoles, two men and a woman, talking in low tones. It didn’t help Gaura’s composure to see that it was the youngest, a man with a flat-featured face, who had the captain’s star on his ship-suit shoulder. He had been expecting someone ... different.
> Tiya admonished sternly. Most of the Edenists were using his senses to observe the scene. >
> Gaura objected mildly. He swam past the ring of acceleration couches to touch his toes to a stikpad on the decking. “Captain Calvert?”