by Heide Goody
“Looks like King Kong took a dump on the track, ’scuse my French,” said Karl. “Beyond this it’s viaduct – elevated railway – all the way into New Street, but if we can’t shift that…”
Nina picked up Karl’s torch from the console. “Open the door for me and I’ll go check.”
“You sure?” he said, a tremor of concern in his voice.
“No,” she said and shrugged. “But, hey, YOLO.”
He grunted, unconvinced, and opened the cab door for her.
03:54am
Prudence tried to stay out of sight. She went into the Co-op with Steve.
There were two dead people on the floor in one aisle. There were biscuits and crisps in another aisle, and a cabinet full of drinks. She ate a chocolate Penguin, a packet of Hula Hoops and drank from a bottle of Dr Pepper. The Dr Pepper fizzed and made her nose hurt, so she didn’t finish it.
She sat outside on the pavement between a rubbish bin and a parked car and waited. She could see Prester’s twisted body in the road. There was no traffic, no vehicles to swerve around or drive over it. The circle of humans on the grass (who hadn’t even looked round at the sound of gunfire earlier) continued their meaningless, painful worship. Several had collapsed with blackened limb or faces, scorched by their new god. They seemed perfectly happy with that.
Steve pestered her for the grenade, but she was firm and said no. He attempted to threaten her with his pencil spear, so she picked him up and told him firmly this was not okay and he would get the grenade when the time was appropriate. Steve threatened her with untold tortures before running off in a sulk.
A short while later the shop set on fire. Steve claimed he had nothing to do with it, but he was quite sooty and smelled of smoke, and Prudence didn’t believe him. She was forced by the heat to move further along the pavement. She sat next to a lamppost and watched the fire. The rolling swirls of flame brushing the windows and pouring from the doorway were very pretty and impressive. As the heat warmed her face, she decided the fire was the prettiest thing she’d seen in her entire life.
Watching the fire, it took her a few seconds longer to realise there was movement on the street corner. Prudence stood, sure it was going to be her mum, that she had waited long enough.
It was not her mum.
Three August Handmaidens of Prein approached. Prudence had seen them through the vision mediated by Crippen-Ai. She recalled her mum’s encounters with one while Prudence was still in the womb. In the flesh, seen with her own eyes, she was struck by their size, and the noise their scraping plate armour made as it shifted and turned.
Prudence saw two of the Handmaidens carried prisoners in their crab claw forearms. Yang Mammon-Mammonson was held by her shoulder. She occasionally tried to swat or grab at her captor with her other arm, but her muscles seemed not to work and she could only twitch ineffectually. Ayesha was gripped tightly around her waist and hung limply, arms and legs swinging in unison.
There was a tickle at Prudence’s back as Steve wriggled up and squeezed into the waistband of her baggy trouser-shorts. “Shh!” he hissed. “I’m not here!”
She had no time to question him. The lead Handmaiden was upon her, many-jointed legs folding to bring her faceless shell down to Prudence’s level. Prudence didn’t even think to run.
“So, this is her,” said the Handmaiden. Her voice was smooth, almost emotionless, and came from nowhere in particular.
Prudence, despite her alarm, found herself wondering if the Handmaidens of Prein, having no real voices of their own, had stolen their voices from human beings, just as they had stolen the images of tortured children which dotted their shells.
“There,” croaked Yang weakly. “We showed you. Now let us go.”
The Handmaiden holding her squeezed. Yang let out a sound that was more strangled cough than scream.
“We had a deal,” she whispered.
The lead Handmaiden ignored Yang. “You’re Prudence Murray,” she said.
“I’m the kaatbari,” Prudence acknowledged.
“We know your mother.”
“My mum is coming to get me.”
The three Handmaidens shifted, piton feet stamping loudly on the pavement. Was that excitement? Was it fear?
“I am Shara’naak Kye,” said the Handmaiden before her. “I am one of nine sisters. There were once twelve of us.”
“I know who you are,” said Prudence. “You don’t like my mum, do you?”
“We have been sent to collect you.”
“You’ve come to take ownership of me, as a trophy, a plaything.”
Shara’naak Kye tilted, a questioning stance.
“That’s what Yoth-Kreylah ap Shallas told me. That’s what’s written in the Bloody Big Book.”
“And are you afraid of us?” said the Handmaiden.
“Do you want me to be?” asked Prudence.
The baby face nearest Prudence rolled away to be replaced by another, this one of gasping and breathless horror. “You’re not important. We want vengeance and our rightful place in the order to come. You are just a token.”
“A trophy,” said Prudence.
A claw came round. Prudence automatically tried to push it away. It made no difference. The two concave halves slipped around her and closed in. The stubby teeth of the claw gripped her stomach, squeezing to the point of pain, but no further. Prudence put her hands on the claw edge. The shell was cold, no sense of life within. Yet there was a sense of restrained power, the notion she could be crushed in an instant.
Shara’naak Kye lifted her off the ground and set off. The other two followed. Yang mewled in pain, half unconscious. The August Handmaidens of Prein moved at a startling pace. Their legs clicked and flowed over road and verges and even vehicles, always keeping their huge bodies balanced and aloft, pale boats on a sea of legs.
04:01am
Nina picked her way along the tracks towards the strange obstruction. The railway was at a point where it ran a considerable height above the surrounding buildings, and it gave a decent view of the city. To the left, the city was flame and ruin. The motorway was a dancing and twisted ribbon of concrete and tarmac. The spinning vortex of fire over Villa Park stadium had shifted and expanded.
To the right of the track several titanic god-things had already gathered close to the city centre. Picked out by the sort-of-but-not-quite purple light in the sky above, she saw an obese mountain of a creature tossing buildings into the air. Several miles away, tornados clustered together like talons driven into the earth. Even further off, an elongated humanoid giant stood, surrounded by its children, all of them so tall their upper portions were lost in the clouds.
Nearer to, down a steep grassy embankment, Nina saw a large compound, surrounded by high metal railings and filled with cargo containers. She realised it was the Dumping Ground: the consular mission’s large scale facility for storing Venislarn substances and by-products. That might explain the strange thing on the track. If a truck-sized turd had come from anywhere, the Dumping Ground was a fair candidate.
“But how did it get out here?” she said to herself.
As she played her torch over its rough, glistening surface it rippled. A row of four eyes opened in its side and rolled around as they sought her out. The thing bellowed from a flabby lipless mouth, trying to stand on feet that were somewhere under the fat wobbling bulk of its body.
“What da bhul is that, man?” Pupfish had appeared behind her. His pistol was drawn but aimed down.
“Herd-beast of Nystar, I think,” said Nina. “Never seen one before. They’re kept as sacrificial offerings to the gods of Leng. No idea what it’s doing out here.”
“Ggh! That’s one ugly mofo, fasho.”
The herd-beast bellowed again. It sounded like a lorry in a tunnel, revving its engine and blasting its horn.
“Do not upset the massive cow thing,” said Nina. She looked down the embankment to the road beside the Dumping Ground.
“We’re in Nechells, v
ery near the city. We could get off here and walk the rest of the way.”
“Donkeys can jump, can they?” Pupfish asked.
Nina considered how high up the doors were when there was no platform. She peered back up the line. “We get Karl to reverse the train so a door lines up with the bridge back there. If we use that yellow ramp, I reckon we can get the donkeys onto the brickwork, and they’ll find a way down the side.”
“I prefer to stay on the train. Ggh! It feels safer.”
She waved a torch at the herd-beast. “We can’t move that. It’ll derail the train if it wants to.”
“Nina man, I don’t like walkin’, I’m a film star now,” he said, but dutifully went back to the train to begin unloading.
* * *
Whole streets aflame. Corpses arranged as art installations or summoning circles. Humans, animals, plant life and buildings fused together in new and startling forms. All these flew past and were gone as soon as Prudence glimpsed them.
Prudence, grunting as she propped herself up to alleviate the pain of Shara’naak’s grip, pushed aside her windblown hair and looked around, trying to spot stars beyond the rooftops and the trees. The sky was deep purple and grey. There were clouds, but no stars.
The August Handmaidens of Prein slowed on a wide avenue, lined by houses on one side and broad green space on the other. As they came to a halt, Prudence realised the breeze around her was not just from the speed of their travel. Sharp, blustery winds whipped around them. The faceless Handmaidens seemed to be looking ahead. In the dark sky there were flying fragments of tile and brickwork, and a distant groaning of buildings being torn apart.
“Yam Schro dat Kaxeos, feschaq bet mye’kha,” said one of the Handmaidens.
“What’s happening?” said Prudence.
“Chand’a. Ven-se rghn Kaxeos,” said another.
The Handmaidens moved from the road, through a grand gateway which looked as if it belonged in front of a stately home, but on led onto a park area in the shadow of several tower blocks.
Shara’naak Kye dumped Prudence beside a curving, slightly-fish-shaped concrete sculpture. “Stay here.”
“What’s happening?” asked Prudence.
The Handmaiden half turned away, then reconsidered. “The Balti Triangle blocks our route. The Winds of Kaxeos are trying to excavate their buried master. We wait.”
Yang and Ayesha were deposited beside Prudence. Yang was dropped carelessly onto the sculpture. Her face slapped bloodily off the surface and she slid, moaning, to the ground. Ayesha collapsed as she was dropped and lay still.
The August Handmaidens stood in a loose formation around them. As much as Prudence could judge anything, she thought they were watching the sky and the destructive forces of the nearby winds.
Prudence crawled over to Ayesha to check on her. The mammonite girl’s eyes were closed, her hand limp and clammy. Prudence didn’t think she was breathing. She went to Yang who lay equally still. She put a hand to Yang’s cheek and whispered over her shoulder to Steve. “How do you tell if someone’s still alive?”
“Bite it and see if it screams,” Steve whispered back.
“Touch me and I’ll kill you,” murmured Yang.
“Okay,” said Prudence.
There was a large bleeding bruise on Yang’s face, covering one eye and her cheek. Her blazer had been ripped open by a Handmaiden claw. Her school badge flopped down and hung by a single thread. Prudence wished there was something she could do, a dressing she could press to the wound, a pillow she could make, but he had nothing to offer.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said and stroked Yang’s hair.
“I object to the insinuation that I’m not,” said Yang.
“Ayesha—” Prudence glanced at the other girl.
“Is she dead?”
“I think so.”
Yang slowly pushed herself up into a seated position, wincing at a new pain. She prodded Ayesha’s body with her foot. Ayesha rocked but did not stir. “Good.”
“Good?”
“She would have been a threat to me one day.”
The fringes of tornadoes ripped the tops off trees. Violent winds whipped cladding and broke windows in the topmost floors of the tower blocks.
“And why are you hiding?” Prudence whispered to Steve.
“Steve the Destroyer never hides,” he answered. “I’m utilising appropriate camouflage.”
“These are the Prein. I thought they were your people.”
“Were!” he hissed. “We are not … in accord at this time.”
“Did you do something to upset them?”
Steve scrambled around in the space beneath Prudence’s T-shirt. “It’s not something I did. A Skandex paladin, a brother, took objection to my current form. The Prein do not accept weakness, and definitely not squidgy, fluffy, cuddly forms likes this.”
“They’re bullies,” said Prudence.
“They are not! They just punish those who they judge to be lesser than them.”
“I think that’s the same thing.”
Yang shrugged, wincing at the pain it caused. “Bullies are just visionaries with poor PR.”
There was a screeching wrench and a large dark form came bouncing end over end across the grass towards them. The August Handmaidens of Prein adopted defensive stances. Prudence wondered what wild, crazily spinning Venislarn this might be, carried on the powerful winds. A Handmaiden slashed at it, but it bounced up and right over them, wobbling towards the road.
“Trampoline,” said Yang.
Prudence shuffled back against the protective shelter of the sculpture. It had initially appeared fish-like but now, Prudence could not say what it was meant to represent. It was twice as long as she was tall, and twice as high as her when she crouched next to it. The bulbous ‘head’ end of it was a hollow cylinder of concrete, and the eye opening stretched out backwards along the thing’s scoop-shaped ‘tail’.
“I do not like waiting,” said one of the Handmaidens of Prein. “We should kill the humans and move on.”
“We have orders,” replied Shara’naak Kye. “We’re not to kill the kaatbari.”
“Why? What does Morgantus want it for? To be his sport, not ours?”
The third one turned and pointed at the night sky. Three sharp points of light were approaching from afar, moving at speed.
“There are plots,” said the Handmaiden. “Plots within plots.”
* * *
Pupfish led a train of donkeys in a zig-zag down the grassy embankment next to the bridge. The donkeys were surefooted and unhurried. Several paused to nibble the grass en route. Pupfish didn’t seem to mind. He held onto Donk’s bridle for support as much as anything and focussed on not slipping.
While he dealt with the donkeys, Nina stood beside the cab of the train and discussed the situation with Karl.
“You saying we shouldn’t get off here?” he said.
Nina slowly shook her head. “I don’t know what’s for the best,” she said honestly. “The beast of Nystar might move and you could carry on. But the city centre…” She gazed into the night. “It looks as fucked up as everywhere else.”
What could they do? An honest answer might be to seek a swift death. Trying ramming the herd-beast at seventy miles an hour, or setting the train in motion and lying on the tracks. Nina wasn’t in the mood to give out that kind of advice. “Back up the track as far as you can. Find somewhere to hide.”
“For how long?”
“Until it’s all over,” she said.
“And how long will that be, eh?”
Nina had no answer for that. Then she spotted the three lights in the night sky. They weren’t large, but they were clear, and there was something about the speed and the directness in which they were approaching that fixed her attention on them.
“Not long at all,” she whispered.
Nina didn’t feel fear at the sight of the nuclear missiles, but she was torn by a sudden and powerful yearning to be
with her parents, or with Ricky. With anyone.
She grabbed Karl’s hand.
There was light without sound. Sunlight, an all-encompassing sun, exploded across the city.
Carcosa
“Oh, no,” said Rod, seeing what was coming up.
In a smoky alchemist’s laboratory, the haughty but shapely Kathy character was being held against her will by some nebulous spirit. The warrior, Rod, had entered from the wings to rescue her. Rod did not listen to the speechifying dialogue. He knew what was coming and he had zero desire to see it recreated on stage.
“I’m going,” he said, standing.
The King in Crimson gripped his wrist. “No. You do not leave yet. You must wait for your cue.”
“Cue?”
“Sit.”
Rod sat but kept his gaze away from the stage.
“What I did—” he began. “When I had sex with Kathy, that was purely professional. And I don’t take kindly on people snooping on my … bedroom antics and turning them into an all-singing, all-dancing stage production.”
The King in Crimson flinched. “No, I have never been satisfied with this character.”
“Who? Me?”
The ravaged King threw a contemptuous hand at the stage. “This man. Who is he? What is he?”
“Well, it’s me, isn’t it?” said Rod.
“The man is a trained killer, resourceful and experienced—”
“Aye?”
“—and yet socially he is lacking confidence. As bumbling and as innocent as a schoolboy. He is a contradiction, and an unsatisfying one at that.”
“I’m not bumbling,” said Rod. “And I’m definitely not innocent.”
The King waved his comment away. “You’re just trying to make me feel better. This one is no better.”
Rod risked a peek at the stage. The alchemy workshop was gone, along with the embarrassing lovers, and now the Nina character was prancing about the stage with a threadbare hobby horse between her legs.