The Gravity Engine

  ‘Let me know when you’re able to talk.’

  ‘I can talk,’ he said, his words slurred.

  She turned and sat in the chair across from him, and waved towards the back of the plane. ‘Can I get you anything? There’s food and drinks back there. Dad says you’re to be treated like the royalty you are.’

  Michael pulled himself out of the chair and staggered to the back of the plane.

  ‘Let me,’ she said, trying to help him, but he pushed her away.

  He pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge, then went back to his seat, fell into it and had a long drink. He tasted the bitterness and spat the water back into the bottle, but had already consumed most of it.

  ‘You didn’t need to do that,’ he said. ‘I want to see the European Heavens. I won’t try to escape.’ He looked inside himself, studying the way the opium was slowing his nervous system, and tried to reverse the effect, but he had been drugged and bashed too many times to retain the concentration he needed. His eyes closed by themselves. ‘Stop … drugging …’

  His head was still pounding when the loud roar of the jets woke him a long time later. He remained completely still and attempted to contact his father. Nothing.

  Rohan. Nothing. William. Nothing. What the hell?

  ‘Are you awake there, Highness?’ the demon said.

  Michael pulled his sluggish body upright. ‘Do you have anything to drink that isn’t drugged?’

  The demon passed him a bottle of energy drink; probably a good idea to have some sugar after all he’d been through. He popped the top and took a sip; it tasted clean so he drank it quickly, nearly giving himself a brain freeze from the cold. He took a few gasping breaths, drank some more, and rested his head in his hands. ‘You wouldn’t have any Panadol as well, would you?’

  ‘Sorry, things like that don’t work on us,’ the demon said. ‘Just to warn you; touch the wall of the plane.’

  Michael ran his hand over the surface of the wall and then snapped it back; the wall of the plan was so full of anguish and suffering that it hurt. He’d heard about this, but never experienced it in person. The wall had been painted with the ground remains of stone Shen. Intelligent, sentient creatures had died in terror and pain, then been powdered and painted on the walls. The surface echoed with their screams, and fear emanated from it. No wonder there was no communication through that.

  ‘Can’t teleport either,’ the demon said. ‘Nifty, eh? The pilot’s human; if you break out of the plane to escape you’ll kill him.’

  ‘I won’t escape. I want to see the European Heavens,’ Michael said.

  ‘Oh,’ the demon said. ‘Information gathering?’

  ‘Of course.’ Michael studied the wall of the plane. ‘How many stones died to make this?’

  ‘On this plane alone, thirty-three stone Shen,’ the demon said. ‘We’re running out of them.’

  Michael shifted back in his seat and took another drink. Now that he was getting some carbs and rehydrating, his half-Shen metabolism was recovering quickly. He winced as he remembered what had happened. He’d led fifteen of his mortal brothers straight into a trap that had killed all of them. He was a complete failure as Number One Son and as soon as he was home he needed to resign the position. In the meantime he could find out what the demons were up to in Europe, so the sortie wasn’t a complete failure. Nothing would bring his brothers back, though. He wiped his hand over his eyes, then straightened to talk to the demon.

  ‘Can you tell me about the European Heavens?’ he said.

  ‘Wait,’ the demon said. She grinned. ‘The King said I can tell you anything you want to know, and thanks you for your cooperation.’

  ‘Aren’t the European Shen pissed that you are there?’

  ‘There aren’t any. They’re all gone. Fortunately Dad has a way with energy and managed to break into the European Heavens, and everything was right there waiting for us.’

  ‘Where did all the Shen go?’

  The Duke shrugged. ‘Dad will tell you more about it; I’m as confused as you are. You Celestials are completely beyond me sometimes. Waste all your time looking after people who don’t appreciate you when you could be living it up and enjoying yourself.’

  ‘I hear you man,’ Michael said with amusement that he hoped sounded genuine. ‘Managing my father’s palace is a pain in the ass and I wish I’d never taken the job. Absolutely no appreciation whatsoever for the difficult job I do.’

  The demon shot a piercing glance at Michael. Michael grinned in response. The demon smiled and wiggled further down in her seat to watch him under her eyelashes. ‘I’d appreciate you,’ she purred.

  ‘One-woman man, sorry,’ Michael said, his grin growing wry. ‘And your dad destroyed that one woman’s life.’

  The demon sat up straighter and looked out the window. ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said softly.

  They landed at a tiny airfield and the Duke opened the door for Michael. The deserted airstrip was surrounded by fields of low bushes, cold and windswept. He shivered – really cold; they must be in the far northern part of Europe. He didn’t know how long he’d been travelling and had no idea what time zone he was in, but the sun was low in the west.

  The minute he stepped out of the plane he broadcast his presence, hoping someone nearby would pick him up – backup would be handy.

  Nothing.

  ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ the demon said with amusement.

  One? his father said.

  I’m in Europe. They’re taking me to the European Heavens. Send someone to my location —

  Where?

  I have no idea. North. It’s cold and sparsely populated. Can you locate me?

  A van pulled up and they bundled him into the back of it. Once again his transmissions were blocked – the interior was covered in the stone paint as well.

  ‘It’s about an hour to the gateway, then you’ll see how the Europeans did Heaven,’ the Duke said. ‘It’s truly breathtaking, and Dad’s made sure that nobody’s defaced it.’ She smiled wryly. ‘He has an appreciation for the finer things, most cultured King we’ve had in centuries. Sensitive, sophisticated and completely ruthless, we’re all crazy about him. He’s the best.’

  They drove through flat fields of flowers, and the windmills identified the country – it had to be the Netherlands. Michael had never been there before and didn’t recognise any of the landmarks. The houses grew closer together and the buildings became taller as they drove into an urban area with tree-lined wide roads.

  ‘Is this Amsterdam?’ Michael asked the demon as he peered through the window and saw a group of houses that were cubes sitting on pillars – but sitting on their points. ‘Whoa. How do they live in them?’

  ‘No, Rotterdam,’ the demon said. ‘It was razed to the ground, every building destroyed during World War Two. After the war, the city gave the architects free rein to do what they liked. Some very interesting architectural experiments were a result. These cube houses are famous – probably for being as impractical as they are unique.’

  ‘Are the floors sloping at an angle?’

  ‘No, each little house is three storeys with a flat floor and sloping walls. When you go inside it’s not that strange, and they’re quite roomy. One of them is open for tourists to see, maybe one day you’ll be able to bring your family.’

  ‘I don’t have a family,’ Michael said, watching the cubes go past.

  ‘You have a father and many brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Half of them wouldn’t notice if I were to die here, and the other half would cheer,’ Michael said. ‘The only family who really cared for me is dead.’ They travelled a few more kilometres between unremarkable houses and along a canal, until the van pulled into the back of a very old gothic cathedral and parked. ‘I thought you said the city was razed?’

  ‘The gateway was the only building that survived. The locals thought it was a miracle.’

  ‘The church is the gateway?’

&n
bsp; ‘Of course it is – an ancient holy site. You should see the photographs – the entire city flattened and this cathedral still standing.’ The demon opened the van and gestured for Michael to exit. ‘Please don’t cause us any trouble, Prince Michael, and we’ll treat you with honour and respect. Come with us and see the European Heavens.’

  ‘I won’t give you any trouble. I want to see,’ Michael said. I’m in Rotterdam. The gateway is the cathedral. I’m going up to the European Heavens.

  ‘I don’t think anyone will be able to make it here in time to stop us,’ the demon said. ‘Warn them that we’re waiting for them if they try to come?’

  And there’s an ambush waiting here.

  Understood, his father said. Try to keep in touch. I’m sending Three and Four to back you up.

  Acknowledged. Going in now.

  The interior of the cathedral was one huge room, with Gothic pointed arches high above them. The Asian Demon King was sitting in one of the pews at the front, near the elaborate gold-plated altar. The Duke guided Michael to the King, bowed to him, then stood silently at the end of the row.

  ‘Sit, Prince Michael, sit,’ the King said, gesturing.

  Michael sat carefully just out of reach of the King and studied him. He was in his male Chinese human form: fair, almost transparent, skin, shoulder-length maroon hair and maroon jeans and a black polo shirt. His face was classically handsome – he could be a movie star – but the effect was marred by the cruelty in his blood-coloured eyes.

  ‘I have a gift for you in the European Heavens,’ the King said. ‘You have been systematically and ruthlessly lied to by the Celestial bureaucracy for years, and I’m here to set things right.’

  ‘What is it?’

  The King raised one hand slightly where it had been resting on the back of the pew. ‘Better to show you. We’ll take you up immediately, but I have to warn you about the gravity first.’

  ‘The gravity?’

  ‘Within the walls of the city of Murias, the gravity is only two-thirds earth normal. Weirdest damn thing you’ve ever seen. Or felt.’

  Michael hesitated then said, ‘Why?’

  ‘My researchers think it’s for aesthetic reasons.’

  ‘Aesthetic reasons? To make it pretty?’

  ‘Absolutely. You’ll understand when you see. But be warned; tread lightly, because you’ll push yourself higher and faster under the weaker gravity with no effort whatsoever. I know you can fly, and for the first few days it might be better to travel around that way instead.’ The King hoisted himself and gestured towards the altar. ‘If you’ll come with me, Highness, let’s have a reunion.’

  They stepped through the gateway onto a causeway, twenty metres wide and hundreds long, suspended above the brilliantly green forest surrounding the city. Michael’s stomach leaped and lurched, and he felt the lightness – the gravity really was reduced.

  Glass and silver spires soared to the heavens around the causeway, appearing much too slender and tall to stand – and obviously only able to exist in the reduced gravity. The floor of the causeway was tiled, each tile a rich peacock blue and forty centimetres across. The deep blue looked like it was under a thick layer of transparent glass but the surface was somehow non-slip and easy to stand on.

  The spires were also made of glass; panels of different shapes, some frosted and others clear, with the occasional jewel-like coloured piece, and all set into a fine decorative metal framework. The metal had a white patina over it, exactly the same way freshly polished silver did. Michael reached out with his metal connection and saw with wonder that the towers really were silver – a complex amalgam of silver, mercury and a variety of other metals that made them strong and tarnish proof.

  He turned on the spot, seeing the soft sunset of the Celestial sky reflecting through the glass of the towers and the sides of the causeway and mirrored in the tiles beneath his feet. The Demon King gestured for Michael to join him at the edge of the causeway to see the view. Michael took a step and lurched – he’d gone three times further than he intended and landed clumsily. He took a few hesitant, gentle steps. It was reasonably easy to adjust to the reduced gravity and he strode more confidently, moving metres with each step. Eventually he took three big strides and jumped, sailing over the King’s head and off the causeway. He grinned ruefully at how far he’d gone, stopped his fall into the gardens below, and flew back onto the causeway.

  When he was standing at the edge of the causeway next to the King, he looked around at the city below. It spread for kilometres before them, with large halls and multi-storey buildings, again impossibly tall and slender in construction, and decorated with more towers, some joined together with dizzyingly high bridges and walkways. Terraces along the sides of the buildings held gardens and boxes containing healthy green foliage and brightly coloured flowers, mostly blue and white.

  ‘Welcome to Murias, the Silver City,’ the King said.

  ‘Are these floor tiles glass?’ Michael said. ‘How did they keep them in such good condition? There’s not a single scratch on them.’

  ‘Yes, they’re glass. The people of this city were experts in manipulating glass; most of the construction is glass and metal and very little else. No concrete anywhere in this city. There’s tales that some of the European Shen even wore armour of glass.’

  The technology was beyond anything that Michael knew of in the Asian Heavens and he needed to uncover more of the city’s secrets. ‘So where to now?’

  ‘There’s someone you need to see.’ The Demon King turned and gestured back the way they’d come, towards the Celestial analogue of the cathedral on the Earthly Plane.

  The building on the end of the causeway was five times higher than it was wide, and again decorated with the impossibly tall spires. The construction was the silver amalgam and glass, but all the glass was coloured to produce a reflective rainbow that shimmered before them.

  The Demon King led Michael to the cathedral and they entered, Michael still struggling to keep his walk to a decent pace and not cover the distance in huge steps that unbalanced him. The floor was black glass that reflected the coloured walls and ceiling to give the impression they were walking on water. The interior soared two hundred metres above them in a single vast empty space. There was no religious iconography that Michael could recognise; the building held long benches on either side with a single throne at the far end. A round stained-glass rose window was high on the wall behind the throne, showing a group of noble-looking European people on foot and horseback, wearing robes and gold jewellery.

  ‘Parliament,’ the King said. He gestured with his head. ‘The palace on the other side appears to be the Emperor’s residence, and we’ve put them there.’

  ‘Put who there?’ Michael said, studying the intricate silver filigree between the glass panels high above them. ‘How the hell do they clean the windows up there?’

  ‘This city worked much the same way your Celestial Palace does: there was a single spirit of the city with many servitors that worked for the city itself. The city came complete with fairy servants that could fly, and they maintained everything.’ The King gestured again. ‘This way, Highness.’

  They went through a double doorway three metres wide and five high to a terrace that overlooked more terraces of gardens and fountains with a spired gothic mansion on the other side, glittering in the sun.

  The King led Michael down the stairs between the garden boxes. ‘First: that wasn’t your mother who exploded at her coronation as Empress of the West. It was a copy I’d made, and was too demon to accept the Elixir of Immortality. It killed her.’

  Michael remained silent. The King was obviously lying.

  ‘Five years ago, you agreed to her spending a week with me in exchange for information. I replaced her with a copy all that time ago and I’ve been holding her ever since.’

  ‘My mother passed through the Courts of Hell. Judge Pao told me that she wasn’t found Worthy, and he’s the one who judged her.’
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  ‘They lied to you, they didn’t want you to know that everybody had been fooled by a copy.’ The King stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gazed at the garden. ‘Second: well, you can judge for yourself.’ He gestured towards the blonde woman sitting on a park bench.

  It was his mother, Rhonda. She leaped to her feet when she saw them.

  ‘Michael!’ she shrieked, and ran to him. She pulled him into a huge hug and kissed him on both cheeks, then pulled back to wipe tears from her eyes. ‘It is you. The King promised you’d come and I didn’t believe him, but here you are.’ She embraced him again. ‘Thank you, George, thank you so much.’ She noticed that Michael wasn’t returning her affection and moved back to talk to him. ‘It’s me, Mikey, it really is. I spent a week with the King to prove to everybody that I was confident about marrying your father, and he never let me go. George has been holding me prisoner —’

  ‘I prefer the term “guest”, my Lady,’ the Demon King said.

  ‘Prisoner,’ Rhonda continued. ‘But it was okay once —’

  ‘Michael!’

  Michael’s heart leapt. It was Clarissa. Clarissa, unhurt, undamaged, bursting with life and energy. She ran – almost floated – through the gardens to him and threw herself into his arms and he held her close and kissed her hair. It was her: her fragrance, her feel; the soft sound of her sweet voice. It was her.

  ‘You are breaking my heart, George,’ he said over the top of her head.

  ‘No, Michael, this is your real fiancée. We replaced her ages ago. The copy was in the lab being experimented on and didn’t take it well at all; much too fragile. This is your real mother and your real fiancée and you can take them home with you.’

  ‘We can go home?’ Rhonda said, full of hope.

  ‘Michael needs to do a simple job for me, then you can all go home unharmed.’

  ‘I won’t betray the Celestial. Not for anything,’ Michael said.

  ‘You don’t need to. Spend some time with your mother and girlfriend, and I’ll come back tomorrow and we can talk about the job you need to do. It doesn’t involve any betrayal of the Celestial, violence or killing. We just want the secret of the gravity, and we’re hoping that as a half-European demigod, the spirit of the city will talk to you and explain how it’s done.’ The King linked his hands behind his back. ‘Settle in. Spend time with your family. Enjoy the citadel, and I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss terms for the release of all three of you.’ He turned and headed back towards the parliament building.