He smiled as he opened his eyes, and he felt a calmness so deep that it was if he had somehow stepped out of his own skin, escaping the heady cocktail of chemicals and hormones. He watched Stanwick’s lips move, and heard her words, but she was slow now, and as David focused his will, increasing the speed at which he sampled reality, so Stanwick slowed.
“Not a bad choice.”
He heard the words stretched into a long drunken slur, and watched her hand moving from her hip, arcing through the air, the fabric of her blouse rippling slowly as she moved. She was going to slap him. He could see that she was going to slap him, and as he moved himself away from the wall, he felt sluggish, as if he was dragging his limbs through a room filled with molasses. He pushed his head forward, feeling the pressure of the air against his face, its drag on his skin, the weight of his arms still dredging through the thick swirls of nothing behind him. As her hand approached his face, David felt the shift in air pressure, and he flinched, the muscles in the back of his neck tightening, the warmth spreading down the cape to his shoulders. Then the hurt came, starting with a sonic boom, like a deep roll of thunder in his left ear, followed by a burning agony spreading in perfect circular waves from the center of his ear, reaching down to his cheek and wrapping around his head. It occurred to David that the experience would be more bearable at normal speed, and as the thought entered his mind, the sound of Stanwick’s laughter pierced through over the ringing in his ear.
Stanwick stooped her head to make eye contact with David, who was wincing and clutching the side of his face, “You know, I was aiming for your cheek right?”
“That really hurt!” David complained, immediately embarrassed by how whiny he sounded.
“A car crash is a car crash David, no matter how slowly you perceive the passage of time. If you’re surrounded by a ton of metal that is buckling at thirty-five miles per hour, you’re not going to be able to do anything about that unless you’re faster.”
“You said I would be fast.” David spoke calmly, deliberately lowering the timbre of his voice.
“You’re fast, I’m fast, it’s all relative.”
“So what? Now I’m stuck with the ability to experience pain more exquisitely than ever before?”
Stanwick laughed, and turned her back, “No David, what you have experienced there is a fairly low level function for the leeches, triggered by the release of chemicals associated with stress and fight or flight responses. You’ll find something that works for you, don’t worry. In the meantime, I suspect we should push on with your history lesson. The fact that you have left Washington will have caused a stir by now, I’m sure.”
CHAPTER NINE
The Void Garden
Brad Cobb squeezed an avocado judiciously, then rolled it off the palm of his hand and into the cart. He had shitty luck with avocados, but this particular berry was destined for a Cobb salad, and a party of one, so it didn’t matter either way. Every salad was a Cobb salad, and Brad would remind himself of that, no matter how much bacon or pulled pork spilled over the sides of his plate. Cobb worked out though. Most days he’d spend upwards of ten hours on the job, three hours in the gym, an hour at the range, and the rest of his time would be divided between eating, sleeping, and gaming. One of his colleagues had asked Cobb if gaming was a guilty pleasure, and Cobb had explained to him that as a lapsed Roman Catholic, everything was a guilty pleasure. It was partly true. Cobb didn’t make a habit of doing anything he didn’t like doing. His job was a testament to that. When the call came, Cobb walked away from his cart and made his way towards the store’s exit whistling, already happily resigned to the fact that something was going down.
At the office, there were stern faces, and bruised egos. Agents McMahon and Carmichael, two agents working the Beach case were MIA, and this fact had not been picked up on by anyone for over twelve hours. Heads would roll. A drive by had revealed that (contrary to what the low-jack would have them believe,) Beach’s Toyota was not parked outside the Beach residence. An attempt had been made to activate David Beach’s cell phone, and this had failed. A warrant was being sought to activate Stephanie Beach’s phone, but this would likely prove pointless.
This was the shit storm that was thrust upon Cobb, and he smiled inwardly. He opened a manila folder and checked the duty log, noting that McMahon had penciled himself and Agent Carmichael for ‘Clean up and asset retrieval,’ which indicated that they had driven to the Beach residence with the intention of wrapping up what they thought was a dead end. He’d not spent much time talking to either of the agents, but their reputation in the D.C office was impeccable. He hadn’t had any involvement in the Beach case either, and up to now, he could have cared less. Now though? With two field agents, and their mark missing in action, it was starting to look like something Cobb could really sink his teeth into.
“I’d been beyond the walls of Allim once before. One of the many privileges of being brought up in the science sector.”
“Into the garden thing?” David asked. West raised a quizzical eyebrow, but David didn’t care; he had made a decision early in life that he would rather look stupid and ask questions, than stay stupid and remain silent. He shrugged, “Look I get it okay, I get that this is a big deal.”
West shook his head, “I’m sorry David, I don’t mind the question, but it shouldn’t be necessary. You’ve been tuned out, which is understandable. There’s a lot to take in, absolutely, but I’m sure you’ll find that if you focus for a moment, you will be able to recall the conversation perfectly.”
David closed his eyes and thought through everything that had been said, “So I’m right … The Void Garden.”
West nodded, watching David roll his eyes and sit back into the couch cushion.
“The first time I visited the Void Garden, I was seven years old, and I was with a group of three hundred students from Arctum. A hundred or so yards from the walls of the city, there was a precipice which overlooked some thousand-foot drop into dense forest, and each child was allowed to stand at the precipice for five seconds before they were hustled back to the wall. If you were brave, professor Pirlek Magren would hold the back of your clothes and allow you to lean over the edge.”
“Did you do it?” Stephanie asked, certain that she knew the answer already.
“I did. It was a breathtaking sight, to be sure. Five seconds of absolute wonder, soaring a thousand feet above the edge of the void garden, then that gnarly hag Magren yanked me out of my reverie.
Stanwick laughed, “Magren wasn’t that bad. She could only have been in her thirties when you had her.”
West nodded, “Honestly she might not be as bad as I remember her. The Matriarchs set me up for thinking that every woman beyond the age of twenty were gnarly hags.”
Stanwick gasped, “How have we never had this conversation? They were just normal women, looking after all of the children of Allim.”
“I was schooled there, but I wasn’t brought up in the divinity Stanwick. From the outside, it was all some huge mystery, and yes honestly, whenever I ventured anywhere near the houses of the divinity, I saw a lot of pretty rough looking women.”
Stanwick bit her lip and rolled her hand with a flourish, “Do go on West. Regale us with your tale of daring do and adventure, and make sure you embellish it with as many chauvinistic motifs and ornamentations as you can.”
West rolled his tongue along the backs of his bottom teeth, composing his thoughts, “On the morning of my execution, the commander of the Dannustine guards explained to me that I would need to keep my arms stiff at my sides, my mouth tightly closed, and I would need to walk stiffly. Penitents, those people who were sacrificed daily in the Zenith Pyres would be trammeled, which means their mouths were sown shut, their arms were sown to their sides, and their legs were sown together from their crotch to their knees.” West noticed that Stephanie’s eyes were filling with tears, so he moved ahead quickly, “Later that day, I woke in a tunnel beneath Arctum, my head hanging between the
bodies of two of the Dannustine Guard, the glistening glardium floor reflecting the dim service lights.”
“What’s glardium?” Stephanie asked, a slight quiver in her voice.
“Glardium was the main building material used throughout Allim, an amalgam of glass, granite, and ore. The most important thing about glardium was the silica coating which was applied at the cold end of production. It was almost impossible to scratch glardium, and because of the coating, whenever two glardium surfaces met, an ad-hoc communication network was formed.”
David sat forward quickly, “Whoa there, wait a minute, are you talking about fiber optics?”
West’s nose wrinkled, “Not really. Fiber optic works using the transfer of light. Glardium was a little more advanced than that. Most of the people of Allim didn’t understand how the city worked, and to be honest, even the scientists of Arctum were a little in the dark on the subject.” West sighed, “I’m getting ahead of myself really. I didn’t understand glardium until I left Allim.”
“I’m sorry.” David offered.
“No need to apologize. Where was I?”
“In a tunnel, looking at the glardium floor.” Stephanie piped up, her enthusiasm quickly rebounding.
“Yes, so I’m dragged to the end of the tunnel, and the guards tell me that my stuff should be on the other side of the door. One of them pressed their hand against a plate, the corridor filled with light, and I was tossed out into the void. Fourteen years old, with nothing but a few changes of clothes and a couple of day’s worth of food.”
“And the sticks.” Stanwick added, pointing at West with an extended arm, “Boom!” she blew on the tip of her finger.
“I was getting to that.” West glared at her jestingly, “It took two days to climb down the precipice, and when I reached the bottom, I hadn’t walked forty paces into the dense forest, when I was greeted by the site of the Dannustine crest, flapping in the breeze, clearly marking the site of a camp.”
“The camp?” Stephanie asked, “Crackling’s camp?” She hid her mouth behind her hand to mask her mischievous grin.
West nodded, “Stracklin Tiarsis’ camp, yes. I suppose if I’d set off in any other direction, it might have taken me months to find Stracklin’s camp, but there it was, overgrown, fetid, picked over by wildlife, but more or less intact. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I found the camp. Everything about the landscape bent my will towards that clearing, and I’m sure that the path I took must have been the same route that Stracklin Tiarsis followed on his return to Allim.”
“I spent a few hours rummaging through crates and containers, growing more and more disappointed. There was nothing amongst these artifacts that wasn’t already documented in the archives of Arctum. The great invention was born of Stracklin’s discovery that the glardium rills were facilitated by the presence of microscopic organisms in the water supply which ran under the tech district where the glardium was produced. Fascinating, but nothing I hadn’t already learned. Then, finally, I opened a chest which bore the runes which represented Stracklin’s initials, and in that chest, was a journal. Now mind, there were many of Stracklin’s journals in the archives. I’d read them front to back, numerous times, so I knew as soon as I opened this book that it was unlike the others. Filled with illustrations of hideous creatures here, technical diagrams there, and in the middle, a map, marking the path of the River Dannum, it’s course throughout the void Garden, and through tunnels beneath Allim.”
Stephanie kicked the base of the sofa, and West looked up, “Yes?”
Stephanie shook her head, her eyes wide, “Go on …"
West pointed at his hand, “There, on the map, was a single rune, our word, ‘silinthalis,’ which could alternatively be read as birthright, or origin. I read through the pages slowly, and quickly learned that the illustrations, these abominations of nature all seemed to stem from this point on the Dannum, this silinthalis. It was clear to me that I need to find this point on the river Dannum; the origin of his discovery.”
“The sticks West!” Stanwick reminded him.
“Oh yes, sorry. The other thing I discovered at Stracklin’s base camp, was also directly related to the information I’d been skimming. Two sticks, both fairly bland to look at, but each of their own distinct shape. I’d seen illustrations of them, read references to them, and anecdotal accounts of their existence, and here they were. Two sticks, both of them inscribed with our runes for ice, fire and wind. Weapons.”
“It didn’t take long to figure the sticks out. Depending on how they were held, one of the sticks would emit a fine focused spray of fire, wind, or ice cold wind, and the other would send out a much broader wave. I honestly don’t think I could have survived in the wilds without them, and at the time I wasn’t sure whether or not Pretchis had known that I’d find them, or if he was banking on me dying.”
David drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. He would be the first to admit that he was no scientist, but he was certain that these ‘sticks’ were beyond the realms of physics, “I’m sorry but what powered these weapons?”
West leaned over the arm of his seat and poured himself another drink, “David, the sticks were almost completely smooth, and there was no obvious way to open them up. I wasn’t about to try to dismantle them.”
“Oh … Okay.” David responded dubiously.
“However, like I said, I’d read about them extensively. For one thing, when it came to harnessing solar power, the scientists of Allim had made significantly greater advances in efficiency and storage. The weapons benefited from a similar coating to the one used in the manufacture of glardium, and that substance was sufficiently energy efficient to power Allim. If you look at solar cells today, you’ll find that they are pretty pathetic. The glardium rills combined elements of photosynthesis and macro kinesis. The sticks couldn’t sustain a constant stream for more than a few seconds at a time, but for most things you encounter in the wild, let’s be clear, a few seconds of fire is sufficient to make light work of them.”
David flushed a little, folding his hands together in his lap, he offered an apology, but West cut him off, “David, really, you need to stop apologizing. We were advanced. We were sufficiently advanced that some of what we achieved would look like magic to you. There was no magic. Science was our God, our jailer, and our prison. Science peered into the minds of the citizens, and discovered our darkest secrets. Science powered the zenith pyres that engulfed the bodies of the penitents.”
“You know, I saw just last week, there was a show talking about something that looked a lot like those sticks,” Charlene offered, “Was it on the History Chanel, or Discovery? I can’t rightly remember, but there was some famous professor talking about how the Egyptians used something like that to move the stones to build the pyramids. He was talking about how they were helped by aliens, which I’ll be honest, I thought was a touch far-fetched …" she trailed off, hoping that someone else might have caught the show she was talking about.
Stanwick responded with apparently genuine concern, “Charlene, the Egyptians were incredible engineers. The methods used to build the pyramids are well established. Aliens didn’t assist the Egyptians, and neither did they assist the people of Allim.”
Charlene laughed, “I’m not simple child, that’s not what I was suggesting.”
“Oh, you mean …” Stanwick looked at West, then her gaze returned to Charlene, “Us? You’re asking if the Leechborn intervened in human history?” She didn’t wait for Charlene’s answer, “Not in Egypt, no. Hell, we intervened, certainly, but you’ll understand in due course why such intervention was necessary.”
West held up the bottle of Drambuie, “Would anyone like a top up?” he looked at Stephanie who was still sat on the floor near his feet, “Can I get you a drink? Some food?”
Stephanie nodded, “Hot dogs, pizza, squid, spaghetti, burgers, steak.” She checked off on her hand, glaring at her dad lest he attempt to rain on her parade.
West laughed
, “Stephanie, you are truly a girl after my own heart.” He glanced around the room, “Can we put this on hold for five minutes? There’s a guy not half a block from here, does the best all beef hot dogs.”
Stanwick pushed herself up off the floor, “I can make a run, there’s no need for you to stop everything.”
West shrugged, “Sure, just make sure you get like 10 with sauerkraut and 10 with everything.” Stanwick licked her lips and closed her eyes “Mmm, sounds good West, but what will everyone else eat?”
West leaned forward, checking out David’s appearance, and noting that he looked slightly emaciated, “David, not even joking here, how many do you think you could put away?”
David hadn’t thought any more about food since the meat and cheese, but now that the question had been tabled for debate, he became aware that he was actually ravenously hungry again, “I mean, I’m sure I could eat five, but that would be gluttonous.”
West shook his head, “There is a risk of glutting the leeches, but you are nowhere near that territory.” He pulled a roll of cash from his pocket and tossed it to Stanwick, “Just surprise us.”
Stephanie paced herself, taking her time to savor her hot dog, enjoying the nuanced mix of flavors. Every bite was a challenge, but she did her best to unhinge her jaw, hoping to get a perfect blend of hot dog, bun, chili, cheese, sauerkraut, jalapeno and onion in each mouthful. She had spilled a little, but when she looked at the adults, she felt proud that she had made less of a mess than any of them. If she thought about it too much, it was a touch disturbing watching the adults eating. Her dad was possibly the worst, trying his darnedest to fit an entire half pound hot dog into his mouth in one go. She had wretched a couple of times, forcing her eyes down to her lap so that she didn’t have to witness the full spectacle, but even the sounds they were making bothered her. Quarter of the way through, she started to hum, closing her eyes, rocking backwards and forwards, unsure if any of the adults were aware of how hideously they were behaving. She had grabbed a can of diet soda from the refrigerator, and she fumbled about in the air in front of her, hoping to find the can, too grossed out to look up. When a dollop of chili dropped on her wrist, she didn’t bother to check where it had come from, she simply wrapped her dog in its tinfoil, and turned around, shuffling behind West’s couch.
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 16