The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

  He fell again as he climbed over the rubble of the ruined wall. A small trickle of blood ran from a cut on his cheek. He stood at the feet of the elaihi, looking up. With an exhausted and gasping but very deliberate movement he pulled his blaster from his belt and pointed it upward.

  There was a peal of laughter and the blaster exploded in his hand. What was left of his body rolled to the bottom of the pile of rubble. Flame shrieked. She too seemed to have been released from Solchaim's control. She rushed to the corpse and frantically searched the body for a non-existent sign of life. Once she knew for certain that Makartur was dead, she had only one task left. She had to kill Solchaim. She stood up and drew her own weapon. She pointed it at the elaihi but seemed unable to fire.

  Solchaim slowly extended his arm. A flash of white electrical fire danced on the palm of his hand. He flicked his wrist and a blazing sheet of the same power splashed over Flame. Phaid had expected her to be burned beyond belief, blown up. He had expected to see her body hurled across the street. Instead, she stood perfectly still, rigid, almost like a statue, as the white radiance danced around her. Then her flesh started to glow, first red and then gold, like metal thrust into the heat of the forge. Flame screamed three times and then she slumped. Her body appeared to fragment and fall into pieces. The. white blaze faded away and all that was left was a pile of ash. The whole town rang with Solchaim's anger. Red fire seemed to consume everything. For a moment, Phaid thought that the buildings were burning, but then the fire snapped off and all was black. It was on again. Red, black, red, black. Solchaim's rage towered over the humans. He was pure wrath, a violent vengeful god, a god of pain and punish­ment and an absolute price that must be paid for disobedi­ence and sin.

  Phaid suspected that this time he might be seeing the real face of the elaihi, a vicious, unforgiving creature with near limitless power, a being filled with hate for those that he knew were his inferiors. He was the most complete enemy that human kind had ever encountered. He was dedicated to their downfall and extinction. He planned to extend his illusionary godhood out from this tiny ice town, clear across the whole world of men. He would enslave and bind them in the most perverted faith that had ever been known. He would use faith to strip men and women of their intelligence, their ingenuity, their native cunning and even their culture. Disease and sterility would follow in his wake. In perhaps two centuries, humanity would be nothing more than a piece of history. The torture that Solchaim seemed to have reserved for Phaid was to retain the shreds of his sanity in order to watch the downfall of his species.

  The tongues of pain whipped through the town. The faithful were scattered and driven before them. A god had an absolute right to chastise and punish his people when they failed him. Solchaim was no god of mercy. His gift to them was swift and terrible retribution. At Phaid's feet, Edelline-Lan squirmed and writhed in some private hell. There were others who howled and clawed at the hard ground, tearing skin and fingernails. A terrible wailing filled the air, the tone was that of pleading and lamenta­tion, but it was in the alien tongue. It was like a scene of tortured souls out of some ancient demon comedy. Phaid felt totally cast adrift, far from any reality he had known. His experience with the elaihim didn't make him immune to the influence. It just set him apart for some special treatment. He wasn't free. He wasn't in a place where he could turn and walk to the elevators, ride up to the surface, get into a flipper and drive away. All that had died. Phaid wasn't quite sure when. He suspected it was when the woman Flame had been destroyed. Phaid couldn't guess what had really happened. The illusion had been staged to reveal the ultimate power of the new deity. He was sure, however, that she was dead. He was just as sure that Makartur was also dead. He suspected that what he had witnessed was very close to what had actually happened. He had been present at the death of Makartur, just as the ancestors had foretold. The prophecy had been fulfilled. Phaid thought bitterly that if Makartur's ances­tors had been a little more precise in their message he would have been saved a great deal of fear, trouble and pain. Once again he hadn't been the cause of anything. He had simply been standing there when it happened. It was the story of his life. Phaid sank to his knees. His despair was total.

  And then the earth moved.

  It was a jolt like an earthquake. Buildings shook, more cracks arched across the roof, there was a terrible creak­ing and ice debris streamed down. For a moment, it seemed as though the whole town was falling down. Phaid gripped the ground and waited fof a second shock. None came. He realised that for as long as the jolt had lasted, he had forgotten about the elaihi. He looked up. Solchaim was a black angular figure. Everything was back to normal. It was hard for him to realise that his mind was free.

  Solchaim staggered sideways. He seemed to be looking at someone or something behind him. Smoke was curling up from a hole in the armour on his chest. Part of his cape was burning. He took a step back almost to the edge of where the floor jutted out from the ruined side of the council building. From inside, there was the blue-white flash of a fuse tube. Solchaim staggered again but he didn't fall. There was another flash. Phaid was blinded by hellfire red. More ice debris fell from the roof. Solchaim's pain and anger was a ball of searing fire. More cracks spread over the roof of the city. There was a final flash of red. Solchaim swayed, holding on to his last few seconds of life. His arms windmilled as he tried to keep his balance on the very edge of the sagging floor. Another flash from the fuse tube smashed into him and he fell like a broken doll. He hit the rubble at the foot of the building and lay still, just a short distance from the body of Makartur and the remains of Flame.

  Chrystiana-Nex appeared in the shattered hole in the council chamber wall. She was white faced and crying, and she held a smoking fuse tube loosely by her side. Her trembling voice was very clear in the terrible silence that followed the elaihi's fall.

  'He forgot me. He was giving my dreams to everybody. He was sharing my beautiful golden dreams with the common people. I couldn't let him do that. The dreams were ours, they weren't something that could be shared. I had to kill him.'

  Phaid slowly stood up, marvelling at how a forgotten human pet, little more than a puppet or plaything, could have caused the downfall of a would-be god. Almost immediately there was a roar like thunder. More debris cascaded down, and Phaid could see daylight through one of the cracks. Snow swirled in as a huge section of the roof started to slide and fall. Phaid raced towards the nearest building in the hope of shelter but that too began to topple and he darted back into the middle of the street. Huge chunks of ice were falling all around him. He was stand­ing, undecided, when everything went black.

  Chapter 32

  The first thing that Phaid knew was that he was very, very cold. He seemed to be laying in a pool of freezing water and he hurt all over. He was stretched out, near one of the big black troop transports. He seemed to be inside a huge, clear, temporary protection balloon. Large num­bers of priests' militant milled efficiently. There appeared to be some sort of rescue operation going on. The balloon kept out the worst of the surface cold, but it was far from comfortable. His teeth were chattering, he sat up and hugged his arms around himself. To his distaste, he saw that he had been lying quite close to the fused body of Solchaim. In death, the elaihi looked strangely fragile and delicate.

  Phaid started to feel a little uneasy so near to the corpse and he climbed painfully to his feet. The town of Windlee was a ruin. It was little more than a deep crater in the permafrost. Phaid could see gangs of townspeople, in full cold suits, battling the wind in order to rig a temporary roof over the least damaged parts.

  He limped slowly towards the transparent wall of the balloon to take a better look at the repair efforts. He'd only gone a couple of paces when a priest' militant, standing nearby, gestured with his blaster. 'Where do you think you're going?'

  Phaid put on a chilled, who-me expression. 'I was going to take a look at the work that's going on.'

  'You better stay right where you are. There'
s an Under Pastor wants to have a talk with you.'

  Phaid grimaced.

  'Just an Under Pastor? What happened to his Emi­nence?'

  The militant looked at him out of the corner of his eye. 'He's off back to the Holy City by the fastest route. He most likely figures that this little lot will drop him right in the manure. Of course, don't tell anyone that I told you.'

  Phaid shook his head, glad to have found a militant who was prepared to unbend a little.

  'I won't say a word. When is the Under Pastor going to show up?'

  The militant shrugged.

  'When he gets around to it. There's quite a mess here.' While Phaid waited he took stock of himself. He too was a mess. His clothes were torn and dirty. He badly needed a bath and a shave, and he was starving. He would have to promote some assistance out of the priests or once again, he would be in serious trouble. He started with the militant, and his most urgent need for food. 'Do you people have a cookhouse set up?'

  The militant shook his head. 'We're getting by on hard rations.'

  'Is there anyway that I could get something to eat?'

  The militant shrugged again. Clearly unbending did not stretch all that far.

  'I wouldn't know. My job's to watch you and the corpse. I wasn't told anything about feeding. You're going to have to ask the Under Pastor.'

  'When he gets around to me.'

  'Now you're getting the idea.'

  'Am I a prisoner or what?'

  'Nobody told me, but you won't be going anywhere until the Under Pastor shows up.'

  It took over two hours for the Under Pastor to get around to Phaid. By the time he did, Phaid was feeling about as wretched as he had ever felt in his life. His spirits were far from lifted when he discovered that the officer was a short, squat, self important little man who was obviously of the opinion that he deserved a more elevated rank and who was hoping the Windlee situation was the chance to improve himself.

  'So, Phaid the Gambler, you've been involved in a great deal of trouble, haven't you.' Phaid shivered.

  'So have a lot of other people.'

  'But you've been involved a bit more closely than most.'

  'I was a prisoner to the elaihi.'

  'You specialise in getting into trouble?'

  'Not if I can help it.'

  'So why now?'

  'Apart from being a prisoner of the elaihi, I was under orders from an agent of the priesthood.'

  'Dreen.'

  That's right, Dreen.'

  'He's dead.'

  'I know he's dead.'

  'In fact, you killed Spiritual Brother Dreen in the hotel at Bluehaven. Am I right?'

  'It was self defence.'

  'That's what the witnesses say, otherwise you wouldn't be standing here now. You'd be inside one of my trans­ports, in irons.'

  Phaid muttered under his breath.

  'Maybe it would be warmer in irons.'

  'What?'

  'Nothing.'

  The Under Pastor walked over and looked at the body of the elaihi.

  'Are you another one who claims that this thing was responsible for the whole incident?'

  'He was.'

  'He doesn't look like much.'

  'He was planning to make himself a god and lead the human race into extinction.'

  That's rubbish, and also heresy.'

  'You don't believe it?'

  'I am a priest. I know about these things. Nobody can make himself a god.'

  'No human, maybe.'

  'These elaihim don't amount to much. We've had them investigated. They pose no threat.'

  'They will end up as the dominant species.'

  'You're talking nonsense. It's obvious you have nothing to contribute. His Eminence had the idea that you might be valuable. His Eminence had a lot of ideas. I imagine that the truth will come out when he is investigated.'

  'You hoping to step into his shoes, maybe, after the investigation?'

  The Under Pastor ignored the crack.

  'You are free to go, gambler. I don't think you know anything and I will report accordingly.'

  Phaid couldn't believe what he was hearing.

  'Wait just a minute . . .'

  'Oh, by the way. A message was left for you.'

  The Under Pastor held out a folded piece of paper. Phaid read the words with growing impatience.

  'My dearest Phaid,

  By the time you read this, we will be on our way to the Holy City. Chrystiana-Nex has not been well since she killed Solchaim and she is now convinced that the priests are the only ones who will care for her and protect her. I'm not sure if she is doing the right thing but I have gone with her anyway. I hope you're not angry that we've left. In a way I feel I'm deserting you, particularly after all you went through on our account. I don't know when or where, but I'm sure we will meet again. Until then, please remember me kindly.

  Your friend,

  Edelline-Lan.'

  Phaid crumpled the paper and faced the Under Pastor.

  'So you've got Chrystiana-Nex?'

  'His Eminence sees her as his only hope of coming out of this examination with an absolution.'

  'What about the reward that Dreen promised me?'

  The Under Pastor looked at Phaid as though he was quite mad.

  'Dreen promised you a reward if you delivered Chrystiana-Nex to us. The way I see it, she came to us of her own accord. I really don't think that we are obliged to give you anything.'

  'But I brought her all this way.'

  That is your problem.'

  'I get nothing?'

  'Nothing.'

  Phaid was desperate. He started to wheedle.

  'If you could just help me out, I mean, I'm stranded here. I've got no money and even the clothes on my back won't keep out the cold.'

  The Under Pastor looked bored.

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Just some food and a ride to civilisation?'

  'There's nothing I can do. We're a religious order, not a charity.'

  He turned and marched away. Phaid slumped down on a block of ice, trying to think of a way out of the mess into which he had once again fallen. No answers came and self pity started to take over. He didn't even notice at first when the unnatural silence fell over the balloon. Finally, he realised that every­one had stopped moving. He looked up to see four elaihim in pale grey robes walking towards him. Nobody interfered with them or tried to stop them. The priests' militant seemed to have become rooted to the spot. Phaid found that he couldn't get up from his block of ice. The elaihim weren't interfering with anyone's thoughts, they had simply immobilised everybody present.

  They walked past Phaid and solemnly up to the body of Solchaim. One of them produced a flat folded bundle. It opened out into a decorated, ceremonial silk shroud. They wrapped it around the body and lifted it on to their shoulders. Before they moved off, one of them looked directly at Phaid.

  'He was tainted by contact with your kind, but he was still one of us.'

  With solemn dignity they bore away their fallen cousin. Phaid saw that, as they passed, a number of the nearby priests' militant all made a similar, small, secretive hand signal with thumb and index finger. With a sense of dull shock, Phaid realised that Solchaim might have left something implanted in the minds that he had occupied down in the ice town. A legend seemed to be being born and, in that case, Solchaim's plan might not have been a complete failure.

  The elaihim vanished as though they had never been. The inside of the balloon crashed back to normal. Phaid suspected that heads would roll, possibly the Under Pastor's, when the priesthood discovered that the body had gone. It was a thought that brought him a moment of amused consolation but it didn't stop him sinking back into his dismal reflections. He kept trying to make some sense out of what had happened. He kept trying for a reason, an explanation, any explanation, for the way that fate kept pushing him into bizarre and dangerous situations. He wanted to find some pattern in the sequence of events that he had been through
but all he kept coming back to was a Tharmier proverb that said 'A cork that bobs on a fast flowing river doesn't know the geography of the country. It doesn't need to.'

  Phaid had gone down so low that once again he had become oblivious to what was going on around him. The voice beside him was something of a shock.

  'You want a ride out?'

  The speaker was a middle-aged man with a beer gut and a grizzled beard. He wore the beaded leathers favoured by the few humans who competed with the androids in handling the big cargo transport beds. Phaid looked up with a startled expression.

  'What?'

  'I'm driving into the warm, I asked you if you wanted a ride.'

  Phaid was instantly suspicious.

  'Why me?'

  'You look pretty damn miserable sitting there.'

  'I don't have any money.'

  'That don't matter. I'm hauling into Tharmier country. I just need someone to talk to and to make sure I don't fall asleep at the controls. You want the ride or not, ace?'

  Phaid realised that he was being stupid. He stood up.

  'Yeah, I want a ride.'

  'I ain't going to Losaw, just a little place out on the coast, but at least it will be warm.'

  Phaid grinned.

  'I'd give a lot to be warm.'

  'Let's go then.'

  'Yeah, let's go.'

  Chapter 33

  'This is where you get off, ace. I make my turn here. You'll have to walk the rest of the way into town.'

  Phaid grinned.

  'Hell, I've been sitting down so long it'll be a pleasure to stretch my legs.'