HEAVEN AND EARTH
by
Tom Morris
Copyright 2012, Tom Morris
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167
Sschai t'aan, Overthrane of Dranemont, Brood Master of the Aextel, stirred and roused himself from sleep. Rising from his pit, he moved to the open window, wiping crusted mucus from his sensoria. Pale aurora flickered across the sky, pink, azure and citrine, the multi-coloured shadows writhing across the outer ramparts, glinting on the coating of ice. Glaciers on the distant mountains glowed with the reflected light, the snow line reaching down almost to the foothills. He stretched, easing the stiffness from his multiple limbs, flexing his scales and scratching an itch on his under body. Crossing to the wall near the chamber door he took up an ancient bronze mace and struck the gong which hung there. The chamber door opened and a body-drone entered nervously.
'Food, now', he ordered.
The drone skittered away and soon returned dragging a quivering subchild. Sschai t'aan seized the offering with his fore claws and ripped open the body cavity, gorging on the succulent meat inside, slurping up the juices that spilled from the ruptured organs. Finally, satiated he allowed the drone to groom him, polishing his carapace with scented oil until it shone. Today, he thought, today he would hunt, Reserves of the essences within his body were diminished and his sense of well-being proportionately lessened. While not a matter of urgency, replenishment would be welcome and besides, the pleasure of gathering was something which he particularly enjoyed. First however the chore of ensuring that his affairs were in order.
Emerging from his chamber he determined to visit the breeding pens to inspect the females. Making his way down through the echoing stone corridors he descended the long spiral ramp which lead to the lower quarters and entered the cavernous chamber where they were held in their stalls. Three elderchildren hurried to join him. Things seemed to be progressing well with the latest batch of breeders. The eldest was already comatose, the grubblings had hatched and were well advanced on consuming her, one or two of the stronger had already emerged and were starting to pupate.
'When the hatching is complete use them to replenish the meat store,' he ordered. 'Save five females for breeding.'
He inspected the remaining brooders, two were gravid. 'Use those for war drones.' he instructed.
The first elderchild expressed puzzlement. 'So many?' he queried.
Sschai t'aan lashed out with his fore claw. 'Never question me,' he screamed. 'Do you wish to challenge?'
His offspring backed away, crouching low to the ground in submission, hissing an apology. Its siblings cringed and drew away from it in terror.
He calmed himself. Perhaps a degree of initiative was allowable he considered but there again an exemplary punishment might have a salutary effect on the other two? He decided to postpone a decision until later.
'Today I hunt,' he informed them. 'Maintain a close defence, send out patrols but initiate no aggressive acts. If all is satisfactory when I return I may share some degree of the essences with you.'
As they scuttled away Sschai t'aan made his way back to the higher floors and thence to his scriptorium, its walls lined with scrolls and librams gathered over the centuries by his ancestors. Histories of the Aextel, chapter and verse of blood feuds, resolved and unresolved, titles and deeds to land, breeding rights and status. Most importantly of all details of journeys through the oververse, of passages to be taken and avoided, of prime locations and the landmarks by which they could be found. For the time being they were not needed. Sschai t'aan had been engaged in exploring and developing a new area which was proving to be most rewarding. Today he would continue to harvest essences along that particular time stream
He moved to the middle of the room, crouched, clasping his multiple limbs around his body, composed his mind and reached out into the dimensions of the oververse. He folded and compressed the lower three, then unravelled and opened four, five and six. The underworld disappeared and the overreality swirled around him. He stood on a limitless plain of plangent sweetness. Around him yellow flowers screamed silently and died in ecstasy. To his left and to his right the black sun twinkled with a harsh discord. In the distance a purple trapezoid sang with the strong smell of ultraviolet as it squatted on the hot sand. He made his way towards it through a swarm of glittering ellipsoids emitting excited chirrups of stale effluvia. Sschai t'aan rejoiced to be again in his hunting reserve amongst familiar landmarks. As far as he could tell there was no trace of intrusion. Aextelling did not usually encroach on to the preserves of others of their race, the realms of the overreality were ample, but occasionally a youngling, emboldened with the need to gather essence to prove his skill and enhance status might be tempted to trespass. Glebs and Droons, natural denizens of these dimensions were a sporadic problem but by and large could be avoided or driven off. There was also the need to maintain a close watch for intrusions from the ninth and tenth, who on rare occasions trawled the lower realms for sport.
Sschai t'aan followed a familiar path to a favourite spot marked by a crystal outcrop reeking of the noise of decaying acids. He adjusted the fourth and fifth and then cautiously opened the lower three within just a small area before him and peered through. It was just as he remembered. A bright, yellow sun blazed down on a sprawling, stone city. Tall, flat-topped pyramids reared up from the beaten earth floor. The air was sultry with moisture and the smell of vegetation from the surrounding jungle. A large crowd had gathered on the central plaza, mainly naked or with short skirts of woven grass. They were all gazing with anticipation at the top of the central pyramid, its face plain except for an incised stair rising ever upwards to a stone altar set on the edge of the topmost platform, the white stone heavily stained with ominous streaks of a dark red. Around the sacrificial stone a half dozen or so more ornately dressed natives had gathered. They wore cloaks of multicoloured feathers and masks depicting grotesque caricatures of birds and animals. A small procession emerged from a temple building at the rear of the platform, headed by the imposing figure of a priest, his body naked except for a coating of gold dust which shone and twinkled in the bright sunlight. On his head he wore the intricate mask of a winged serpent, its woven tail hanging down his back. Gold snakes entwined both forearms, their ruby eyes glinting with a seeming malevolence as he raised his arms to heaven. Moving to one side he began to chant in a high pitched staccato.
Sschai t'aan exuded a pseudopod bearing sensoria through the portal, carefully maintaining their insubstantiality in the lower dimensions. Through them he adsorbed the ecstasy of the priests and the heightened emotions pouring out from the watching crowd.
Two guards appeared from the temple, gripping the arms of a third figure which they dragged to the altar. The high priest strode to the side of the victim and seizing up an obsidian knife sliced across the exposed abdomen and reaching into the screaming man's stomach thrust his hand up into the rib cage and drew out the still beating heart, held it aloft and then carefully placed it on a nearby brazier where it lay smoking as the flames began to consume it. The guards lifting the still twitching corpse, swung it by the hands and feet and cast it far out over the edge of the platform and watched stoically as it bumped and tumbled down the steps to the screaming crowd waiting below.
Sschai t'aan greedily sucked in the blend of emotions which rose like smoke into the air. Blood lust from the crowd below, religious ecstasy from the priests. The sacrifice was a little disappointing, he had been drugged with mescal and his fear had been blunted.
Another victim was dragged to the altar and the ceremony continued, ag
ain and again, until some fifty corpses littered the ground at the foot of the pyramid and the drain channels either side of the steps ran freely with blood. At last the high priest threw down the knife and began to chant a benediction. Sschai t'aan stored the accumulated essences within himself and reaching out touched his mind, subtly reinforcing the commands which he had insinuated on his previous visit, then withdrawing into the oververse sealed the portal behind him.
Tlamacazqui, Priest-King of the Aztec, felt the touch of his god. 'Quetzalli Cohuatl is appeased,' he screamed,' but only for a while. 'Go; seek out the barbarians to the north who encroach on our borders. Take more slaves, bring more captives, so their blood may atone for your sins and the land will be replenished.'
Sschai t'aan felt a quiet satisfaction. The crop had been adequate but not really as good as might have been expected. He would return and stimulate the priest and his cohorts to greater endeavours. He congratulated himself on finding this particular continuum. At first it had seemed to hold little promise, but he had ventured back along its time steam to the point where the