Their host arrives to the table late, as is his wont. His outfit is subdued; a suit of shadow with buttons of distant moonlight. His head is bare of hair and hat, a stark white dome, almost perfectly smooth. His smile is broad, fixed in place, and his eyes are unblinking. The guests are silenced by his entrance. He nods at them each in turn and they reciprocate. It would be rude not to do so – it is his home, after all.
He announces that he has a surprise and they continue staring in silent wonder. Towards the end of the table someone spills their drink in a thoughtless movement. The liquid becomes a small black hole and swallows a table corner and a vase of volcanic flowers before petering out. No-one notices. They are hungry for answers, their meals are untouched.
The man in midnight spreads out his arms and smiles. His teeth are glacial, the twinkle in his eye a distant supernova. He gestures towards ornate doors which open silently. Ghosts usher a small shabby boy into the dining hall. There is a collective gasp from the guests. He wears rags and his grubby feet are bare. The boy looks through them with bloodshot eyes as though he cannot see them, then glances at the host and shrugs. The guests are not used to being dismissed out of hand, it is blasphemous. One of them stands with a thunderclap, a lady dressed in seasons with hair of ever-flowing nectar. The host fixes her with a look of silent reprimand and she sits, her head bowed.
The host leads the small beggar boy to a chair at the very head off the table and no sooner is the boy seated he begins to eat. The guests watch enraptured as he devours the nebula in the bowl set before him. He pushes aside the empty vessel and begins on a heap of crystals. They are from deep-space asteroid belts, the remains of a galaxy long dead, he finds them bitter and only manages a few before moving on.
The guests take to murmuring again. They murmur about his ragged clothes, they murmur about his unkempt hair and his ruddy face. The host allows it for a century before intervening. He raises a glass and clinks the side of it with a spoon made of bone. The cacophony rings out across the room and everyone stops, except the boy.
When the host speaks, it is like a pebble hitting the very depths of an empty well. The guests must strain to hear him. He talks at length about the nature of existence. Each word contains the rise and fall of a civilisation. He announces each guest by name and commends their work.
First, he raises his glass to the old man who spilt his drink, naming him as Ruptech of the Lost Laugh and the Faded Light. The old man wears a robe made of blue oceans and a belt of coral. His beard consists entirely of flowers of softest jade. His head is bald but decorated with ornate swirls etched in black chalk.
Secondly, the host raises his glass to a small woman whom he names as Sonia of the Slow Hatred and the Dawn Light. She dresses in very little, her skin shimmers in the red glow of the room, continuously shifting like corn fields in the breeze. She wears a necklace made of animal skulls and a cap of high stalagmites.
Third, the host raises his glass to a thin man whom he calls Rienfig of the Slow Illness and the Dim Hope. The man is dressed in a haze of fog with a tie of flowing water. His cufflinks are wheels of fire and he turns them, first one, then the other. He seems uneasy.
The fourth guest is called Selmalock and the host does not raise his glass to him. There is no love lost between the two. The young man is dressed in blood and animal skins and does not flinch at the host’s piercing gaze. He raises his own goblet and drains it in defiance. He has not been whispering with the others; he is not one for murmuring. The man wears a battle-axe on his back. He is War and Struggle and Suffering.
The fifth guest is the woman with the hair of nectar. Her name is Fellinbria and she is Change and Levity, though her mood is now decidedly sombre. She has been sitting with Selmalock and the host wonders if there is an alliance between the pair. Her hair drips into her flowing dress where the nectar is consumed by the shifting seasons.
The sixth guest is nearest the beggar boy and looks exhausted. The host calls him Rannlore of the Dreams and the Sin. Rannlore wears a simple cut robe of liquid pearl. He looks ashen and tired. If it wasn’t for the beggar boy’s noisome eating, he would have dozed off. Already the boy, bored by the host’s words, has taken Rannlore’s dish.
The host notes that very little has been eaten by his guests. Selmalock has attempted his meal, though it is a pitiful effort, barely a scratch in the mountain range he has on his platter. The host knows that his guests aren’t hungry, but he also knows them to be prideful and arrogant. He already knows how they will react to the boy's hunger.
Rannlore finally realises that his meal has gone and begins to wail. He pulls at the food nearest him and gathers it in his arms. The boy looks to the host as though for guidance. The host nods, nearly imperceptibly, and the boy continues. Rannlore is slow where the boy is quick, weak where the boy is strong. There is a struggle, though Rannlore is easily outmatched.
Everyone watches the pitiful sight in mute and morbid fascination but no-one intervenes. Soon there is no more food at the head of the table that the boy can easily reach. He has knocked the bitter crystals over the edge and only smoking craters now tell of their descent. Rannlore sits back in his chair and whimpers, his bottom lip quivering. He looks to his fellow guests imploringly but they can no longer meet his eye.
A deep growl in Selmalock’s throat reverberates around the hall. The boy is eyeing the warrior’s plate with ravenous eyes. Selmalock flashes an accusatory glare at the host and in the distraction the boy pounces. Soon the plate, and its contents, are gone.
The guests have sat in silence for too long; now there is uproar. They rave and shout and curse and shriek and point at the boy who is sitting back at his place at the head of the table. He is looking at the guests with wide eyes as though seeing them for the first time. Selmalock is bellowing. He stands up and reaches for his battle-axe but it is gone. Instead he grips for the chair and hurls it at the host but it turns to vapour before it can strike. The host does not move, instead he laughs. The laugh is ancient and terrible.
When the guests look back to their plates they have all been emptied. The boy is now standing on the table, although no-one ever saw him move, and his eyes are sparkling with a light that eclipses their own. He plucks the chandelier from the ceiling and eats it whole, plunging the room into darkness. The guests begin to scream, first in fear and then in pain.
A lifetime passes. Eventually the host lights a candle and the darkness retreats. The boy is alone at the table; of the original guests, there is nothing left. The boy looks around, as though confused about what he has done. The host walks to him and lays a thin hand on the boy’s shoulder. The rags the boy wears are now made from diamonds and they glisten beautifully in the candlelight.
The host tells him that he has a lot of work to do. He tells the boy that there are other rooms with other children who have also finished their meals. He tells the boy to find them and begin rebuilding.
The boy asks him what he has to rebuild.
‘Everything,’ the host whispers, ‘rebuild… everything.’
Stench
Over the baking sands the silhouette of a vulture races, its vast wings open and splayed. The bird is ancient by the standards of its peers, yet its hunger keeps it on the move. Old habits die hard, and there are few habits more persistent than life. Eventually its beady eyes settle upon a familiar shape - that of a wyldbeast carcass. The wasteland between the mountains of the north and the jungles of the south is a cruel place. Many creatures try the crossing; their failure is the vulture's lifeline.
The wind changes and the smell of blood and slaughter reach it from the north but this is the smell of man, not the wyldbeast below. The vulture has lived a long time, long enough to know that avoiding the butchery of mankind is the safest course. Its old head swings towards the smell, beady eyes glistening, then it stares back down at the easy meal.
It circles the shape, looking away only briefly to see if it has any competition. It is quite alone in the sapphire sky. It des
cends very slowly, almost reluctantly. Perhaps it takes delight in the soothing wind through its feathers and the warm thermal updrafts from the late afternoon desert sand below. Perhaps not.
The vulture reaches the ground just a short distance from the carcass. It folds its wings away and then shakes itself. Its talons dig into the coarse sand as it looks this way and that. A few loping steps take it right up to the body. The beast is a small one. Male, probably, and barely decayed at all. It can't have died more than a few hours ago.
The vulture stops. Something in its small mind doesn't add up. It leans in all the same, stretching out its neck. The beast doesn't smell much of death.
Not dead, it thinks, as a hand reaches out from the body of the beast. Not dead, it thinks, as small fingers wrap around its neck. Not dead, it thinks, as with surprising strength the hand cleanly breaks its neck.
The small boy drags the dead bird into the ramshackle tent. Made of dusty old hide and bleached bone it is hardly comfortable living, but the boy is small and takes up very little room. He is swaddled in rags, and the gold paint on his face marks him as one from the jungle tribes.
He is alone, and very far north. On the horizon, there is a green smudge - a suggestion of the closely packed forests which dominate the northern mountain's lower reaches. Until last night his tribe had set up along that luscious tree line. Now he is all that is left.
The jungle tribes often told horror stories about the men from the north. They are not stories any more, for he has seen them up close. He saw them come through the trees before daybreak, their metal helmets and their cruel blades shining. He saw them butcher the warriors of his tribe whilst they slept. He heard the screams of his family as he fled back into the desert.
He eyes the dead vulture. He should eat but he cannot summon the will to build a fire - nor does he want to give away his location.
I shall eat afterwards, he tells himself.
Night comes, and with it the cold. The green smudge now glows orange with the fires of the northern men, celebrating their victory. The boy shivers and watches, refusing to succumb to the weariness which paws at him.
Hours pass and long into the night the fires begin to die down. The butchers have had a long day, after all. They will be drunk from stolen flower wine and success. They will sleep deeply, the boy knows this. Under cover of night he crawls from his hiding place and sets off towards the orange glow, towards the smell of death.
High above, younger vultures - less wary of the erratic actions of man - circle overhead. Instinct tells them that there is more blood, yet unshed.
Dearheart
It was a warm day at ground level, though for Emily, over one thousand metres up in the air, it was bitterly cold. It could have been the height of Summer but as her father used to say: wind is wind, the higher you get the colder it gets.
'What are we doing?'
The man beside her has already asked that question but she can't find the words to answer. Instead she looks out across the landscape. The view offered from the Teletran Bridge is beautiful. The red sands of Nevada spread out in all directions like an endless ocean, only occasionally punctuated by giant rocky plateaus. They almost look like tree stumps from this distance.
Despite looking like the Space Needle’s older brother, the Teletran is actually the marvel of the twenty-second century. It holds the record for being the tallest human made structure on earth; a record it won from the Grand Pike of London and before that the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It looks impossible, even more so when you’re clinging to the outside of it.
What are we doing?
The question bounces around in Emily's mind like an accusation. The security personnel would certainly like to know. She can see them on the ground, scurrying around like ants from a recently disturbed ant hill. Heads will roll for this breach of security but she can't bring herself to feel pity for those with their heads on the block. What she's doing is more important.
What are we doing?
Something selfish, horribly selfish. She doesn't try to hide from that fact. If her mother could see what she was doing right now she'd turn in her grave. A door below creaks open and a head pops out. A face with dark glasses looks up at her then shouts something to someone inside, though what is said is snatched away by the wind. Eventually they'll stop pussy-footing around and climb up after them.
‘We’re jumping,’ Emily finally replies, forcing herself to smile.
He is her father, Roger Dearheart. A pioneer in extreme sports back in the day. The first man to use a Slip-Kite in a full atmosphere drop whilst Emily was still in nappies. The same feat had claimed the lives of several others but he'd made it look easy. That was a long time ago. Every year is etched plain to see on his face.
She's under no illusions. He wasn’t always the best father, especially not during the divorce. Since the illness, Emily had noted a softening to his nature. His forgetfulness made him nicer, somehow. All those years of arguing and bitterness had faded into something else. It wasn't quite love, not the love Emily might have wanted, but it was more than what they'd had before. Soon he’d be bedridden, the quacks had been quite clear about that, but in the meantime his condition had taken the edge off his usual violent bluster.
‘This is the Teletran Bridge, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘It is.’
‘I always wanted to do a slip-jump off here but they wouldn’t let me, did I ever tell you that?’
A hundred times.
Emily smiled again and he smiled back; she tried to ignore the lack of recognition behind his eyes and instead focused on his expression. He was still there in that smile.
She reached over and flipped a switch on the wrist mounted controls which dominated his left arm. Emily was wearing an identical model. For the first time, he seemed to notice the advanced Slip-Kite gear around his wrists and ankles, hidden under his shirt sleeves and slacks. He laughed out loud as it lit up, its tiny motors whirring. When he laughed he looked decades younger. Emily could almost imagine what it might have been like to be friends with him back then.
'You remind me of someone,' he said, still smiling.
It was all Emily could do not to cry.
'Who?'
'My daughter, but she's just a child.'
'Is she?'
He didn't answer; instead he threw her a salute and dived forwards, just like he did in the old holo-vids, over the edge, cackling as he went.
In the sky, Roger Dearheart found himself.
His only child followed him, her Slip-Kite quickly catching the wind with a crackle.
Was it worth the risk? They’d ask her a month later at the trial hearing.
God, yes, she'd reply, God, yes.
Eidol and Visitant
Burnt red after centuries of proximity to its sun, the planet hung alone, its moon long gone. It had been this way for countless years, though to be fair no-one had really tried to count them. This System had been abandoned for millennia.
It is strange, therefore, that on a solar rotation just like any other, a portal opened up over the red planet. From this came a spectre - it had no physical form, instead appearing like an orb of light, ever shifting and changing. This was a creature quite unlike anything that had ever walked the planet below. This was a being beyond physicality or mortal foible. For a long time the spectre followed the planet in its rotation, maintaining its distance with unnatural precision.
It appeared dormant, following and observing but with no suggestion of active interest in the charred remains. After a time it was joined by another of its kind, blossoming outwards into reality from its own portal. They hung side by side, following the little red globe together. Then, roughly a year later by the planet's own orbit, they began talking. Not in a manner easy to comprehend. Oceans of communication flowed from one to other in spectrums of light, dazzling and beautiful.
'I thought I would find you here, Eidol,' said the second to arrive.
This was communicated through p
atterns of energy depicting their current location in the universe, a silvery trail tracing Eidol's movements over the last millennia, ending here. The notion of curiosity pulsed through the visualization.
'Then you thought correctly, Visitant,' replied the first.
'I have noticed, over the past few cycles, that you have become detached,' said Visitant, with a glow that might be perceived as distress.
'Define detachment,' responded Eidol.
'You drift into the oldest galaxies in this universe and wallow in their memories; I have seen you.'
'You did not have to watch.'
'I had to know what it was you were looking for.'
'My detachment fascinates you?' asked Eidol, perhaps a little surprised.
'It worries me,' answered Visitant.
'It should not concern you,' assured Eidol, 'I am simply looking at what has come before.'
'What do you mean?'
'Galaxies fade all the time, they vanish. Yet they often contain so much life, and we know nothing of it.'
'I don't understand,' Visitant's glow of concern was now that of confusion.
'Take this planet, for example,' said Eidol, reaching out tendrils of light to the planet they followed.
'This had all manner of carbon based life. All fighting and writhing for dominance. Life sprung up here with such virulence and force that eventually it left the planet behind.'
'How can you tell?' asked Visitant, casting worried pillars of light towards its comrade.
'You just have to look closely. Everything leaves an echo.'
Visitant tilted on its axis, a sure sign that its patience was wearing thin. In frustration Eidol reached out its tendrils towards Visitant who reluctantly accepted them. Through these manifestations of light and energy Eidol shared what it had discovered of the planet and its inhabitancy. It told it of water, of single-celled life, of the build up of oxygen within the water. It showed how photosynthesis would create oxygen as a waste product, which would in turn create an atmosphere and then the oxygenic crisis which followed. It demonstrated how eukaryote organisms would evolve and how these aerobic organisms and their tendency to consume oxygen would bring about equilibrium and end the crisis.
Death Echo - Volume 1 Page 5