Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  ‘My Queen,’ said Fabrigas, finally, as he emerged and swept the dust from the floor with his beard. ‘Word of your beauty has touched the reaches.’ He stood and took a small step forward and his cloth shoes slipped on the smoothly inclined floor. The Queen’s chamber floor, polished so it shone like an eye, swept down towards her throne – or, to be more precise, it swept down towards a large reservoir where her giant octopus, Leonard, lived. It was a measure to foil assassins. Anyone rushing towards the Queen (perhaps holding a curved dagger or a jar of acid) would find themself skidding off towards Leonard’s salty embrace. When Fabrigas slipped, the assembled magistrates, arrayed behind the Queen in a honeycomb of silver wigs, had gasped. From behind the magistrates’ gallery the chamber swept smoothly back over their heads, funnelling the sound of their collective dismay across a black, dragon-scale ceiling. The sound reached Fabrigas a good few seconds before the rolling waves of their collective breaths. Fabrigas smelled liquor, tobacco, fine cheeses.

  ‘Silence!’ said the Queen. Her voice was as hoarse and leathery as her horsy, leathery face. It is true that Queen Gargoylas had never been beautiful, but now, after so many cosmetic treatments, she wore a look of perpetual fright – as if she’d just stepped from the shower to find a stranger waiting for an autograph. ‘Prisoner. You have been brought here for sentencing on charges requiring the penalty of death. You may remove his bonds.’ A guard stepped forward to unclasp the restraints around the old man’s wrists and they fell to the floor with a frightening clatter, slid down the shiny slope, and stopped just in front of Leonard’s tank. And there he stood, the old master, hung with dirty cobwebs, eyes as wild as his beard, a free man – at least for the next few minutes. The Queen’s fool, Barrio, crouching beside her throne, let out a shrill, snotty laugh, and Carrofax, standing just behind Fabrigas, bowed his head.

  There was utter silence in the Slayer’s Pavilion. Queen Gargoylas sat upon her throne of delicately sculpted iron; her dress of palest purple looked like the desiccated wings of a moth. There were metal pins punched through the fabric of her sleeves attached to wires that vanished into the ceiling. Somewhere in the palace there was a servant whose only job was to work the motors which pulled the wires to make the Queen gesture in a regal manner. When she’d said ‘death’, for example, her right hand had risen, shaking, like the ghost of a small bird, and her bony index finger had floated across her throat.

  Then a page stepped forward to read a proclamation, and the silence in the chamber was deafening.

  ‘M. Francisco Fabrigas. You have been charged and convicted of crimes relating to heretical physics, public madness and prognostication without licence.’ Fabrigas smiled and nodded. It was all true. ‘You have proposed the idea of universes beyond our own, a belief that defies both the position of the Church of the Holy Neon Empire, and that of the royal fam—’

  Fabrigas cleared his throat. ‘My Queen!’ There was a sound from the magistrates like many chairs shifting on a wooden floor. Fabrigas paused. He smelled port, cigars, brandy, denture polish and pickled eggs. The page turned white, his metal legs buckled. The eunuchs beside the throne whirred nervously. No one interrupted a royal proclamation. The Queen’s hands rose slightly, quivered, then dropped into her lap. ‘Great, merciful Queen, you with the ship that launched a thousand faces. There is nothing to say that has not been said at my mercifully brief trial. I have committed heresy of the worst kind by stating that there are universes beyond our own. I’m guilty and I admit to all my crimes. I claimed to have travelled here from another universe, but it was lies, the lies and bluster of a fool.’

  ‘Fool! Fool! Fool!’ cried Barrio as he struck the sides of his head with his clenched fists.

  ‘Indeed. It was,’ continued Fabrigas, ‘a chain of cosmic lies. For does this sphere not contain all that could be hoped for, and all that could be dreamed? Is this not the best of all possible universes?’

  ‘Fool! Fool! Fool!’

  Now a low murmur rose and fell from the assembled magistrates.

  ‘The years I have spent as a guest in your prison have taught me that my thoughts and deeds are not fit for this realm. I am a fool, a trickster, little better than a common wizard, and I ask only that I be put to death so that I can no longer be a poison to this kingdom, and to the young minds which dwell herein, within the bosom of your mercy. That is all.’

  Fabrigas went to step back, slipped, and raised another low gasp. In the tank before the throne the water quivered, a galaxy of bubbles broke upon the surface.

  There was a silence in which the very air seemed to hold its breath.

  ‘Am I to understand,’ said the Queen, her palms falling open on her lap, her fingers rigid as the crooked white bones of a winter hedge, ‘that you wish to be executed?’

  Fabrigas let his eyes roll skyward, to the ribbed arches of the ceiling.

  ‘Oh, my wish, my wish, my wishy wish. My wish,’ said Fabrigas with a flutter of his long dark lashes, ‘is only that justice be done.’

  There was a silence in which the very air seemed to quietly, fearfully put on its coat and leave the room.

  ‘Are you aware,’ said the Queen, ‘that wishing for death is a form of treason which is itself punishable by exile?’

  ‘I was not aware of that!’ cried Fabrigas, beaming. ‘Things are not looking good for me! But death or exile, it makes no difference!’ and he gave a little skip.

  ‘Prisoner!’ barked the Queen, her hands becoming two balled fists. The old man stopped skipping and bowed his head. ‘Prisoner, it is clear that your skull has some powerfully mad meat trapped in it. Granted, there was a time when you would have been executed for claiming to be from another universe.’

  ‘Was?’ laughed Fabrigas nervously.

  ‘This month at Panathenaea there will be another assembly of the Grand Inquiry, in which some seven million witches, warlocks and wizards are to be put to death. You were to be among them.’

  ‘Were to be?’

  ‘But certain things have happened while you were imprisoned that have changed our views on creation.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Fabrigas under his breath.

  ‘Last night I had a dream.’

  ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no.’

  ‘Yes, prisoner. I had a dream as wild and vivid as life. I had a dream that our people rose up and lived the true meaning of our creed: to strive, to seek, to conquer and never to yield. I had a dream that all the peoples of the universe would come together, and I would rule them as Queen for ever. And you were the hero of this dream. The dream told me that you would be the one to take our ships to the next universe, to bring glory to your Empire and Queen. I saw visions of conquest and victory. I saw our hammers bloody, and our crooked highways paved with diamonds. So you are not to be executed, or exiled, today, dear Fabrigas. You are saved. You have received your quantum of punishment and are free to go. We wish only to choose the direction and style of your going.’

  ‘Oh no no no no no no no no no.’

  ONCE IN A LIFETIME

  Oh, I know, I know, I know, this is all hellishly confusing. A man arrives in a space-saucer and claims to have travelled from another universe – a universe identical to this one – except that he has already left to travel to the next universe. He is thrown into prison for cosmic heresy, later freed on a trumped-up exoneration based largely on a dream about a starfish and a giant clam. Ah! It is infinitely confounding. Black is up, left is white, and nothing is as it seems. I would not blame you in the slightest if you went off to read that lovely romance book your husband bought you for your name day: Captain A’Rod’s Crimson Whip.

  If you wish to familiarise yourself with the details of this strange case, you might read The People Versus M. Francisco Fabrigas Versus Time/Space: How One Man Challenged the Laws of Physics … & Lost, by A. W. Frankzetter. But in the meantime, do hang tight. In time it all becomes clearer, I promise.

  *

  Certainly much had changed since Fabrigas survived his o
wn execution at the cannon’s mouth and proposed a theory for exploring alternate realities: when he was young, beardless, cocky and unbridled; when he gambolled with women and had adventures; when he took hallucinogenic cactus on Zapotek and dreamed he was a tortoise. He had thrown in his comfortable position as a researcher to join the Academy’s Exploratory Unit. He could never have imagined then where this decision would lead him as he stood before the esteemed members of the Academy and proposed, ‘… an ocean of infinite possibilities’.

  ‘My near-death experience at the cannon’s eye has shown me the way. If our universe is the sum of what is probable, then the Omniverse is a collection of all that is possible. We are on the cusp of a dramatic new age in exploration, an era which I call “The Dream Age”. This rapid expansion of our consciousness will lead us to dimensions full of strange new treasures. It is likely that we will find examples of universes almost precisely like ours.’

  He heard laughter from the dimness of the auditorium. But the young explorer was undeterred. ‘It might be possible to find dimensions at different points in time/space. To travel to them would be to travel forwards and backwards through history, to stop wars before they begin, to share knowledge of the future, to save great men and women from horrible ends, to become immortal, to know the mind of the gods.’

  A galaxy of wide unblinking eyes. What heresy was this?

  ‘It might be that in an adjoining reality there is a man identical to me giving this exact same speech – only he is even more handsome. Imagine sending diplomatic missions to our own Empire! It might be possible to do this, but it will take more than intellectual effort from us. It will take an explorer’s heart. It will take balls!’

  More laughter from the darkness.

  ‘And no ordinary balls, either. We’ll need balls the size of spheres to do this. But more than this, for the Dream Age to succeed, humanity will need to set aside its differences and come together as one great species.’

  The most laughter yet from the darkness.

  ‘What does he mean, exactly?’ said the scholars who lean on bars. ‘That there is another universe where the Wall vanishes and the Vangardiks become our brothers?’

  ‘What is he saying?’ said the ladies who meet for tea. ‘That there is a dimension where moons are cheese? Ridiculous.’

  ‘Are you proposing,’ said his arch-rival, Helbosch, ‘that somewhere there is a universe exactly like this except that I am stark naked?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied Fabrigas, ‘though that is certainly not a universe which I would like to be in.’ Everyone had giggled royally, yet his proposal had won few supporters. The scientific journals sagged beneath the weight of condemnation. His reputation crumbled, as did his mind. He was seen wandering the corridors of the Academy in a dishevelled state, muttering under his breath. He let his beard grow long. As he ate alone in the dining arcade, he could hear people murmuring, ‘I wonder if there is another universe where Fabrigas brushes the crumbs from his beard.’

  ‘Well, at least he has his balls for company.’

  *

  Things came to a terrifying head on a beautiful summer’s day on a tiny planet called New Hermes. Fabrigas had taken a plot of land in the wilderness there so that he could carry out some field experiments that would prove some very important things about the nature of space and gravity. Most of these, alarmingly, involved blowing things up, or firing cannons at them, or both. ‘In the heart of an explosion lies the secrets to the universe!’ said Fabrigas. On the seventh day, in a field full of charred craters littered with empty WD40-X canisters, Fabrigas announced to his shell-shocked audience that he was going to prove the fundamental constant of gravity by firing his master into the sky with a cannon. ‘If my calculations are correct,’ the young man said, ‘then he will join the orbit of this planet for a single arc before floating gently down on his life chute.’ No one had any reason to doubt his calculations, he was the second-best scientist in the universe. Dr Provius looked calm as he climbed into the cannon, he even smiled and waved to the crowd. He trusted his star pupil. The cannon leaped and Provius disappeared over the trees, punched through the fluffy white clouds, touched the outer atmosphere, and kept going. History does not record the reaction of the former first-best physicist in the universe on being fired into space, only the reaction of the former second-best, now first-best, yet inconsolable. He tried to follow his master, but was restrained.

  *

  In just a few months Fabrigas had gone from galactic celebrity to cosmic outcast. He could not be tried for the murder of his master, since Provius had willingly climbed into the cannon, but everyone knew where the fault lay. His already crumbling reputation was ground to a fine dust. He was disgraced, stripped of his Academy position and his renown as one of the great minds in his Empire.

  Then, on the eve of his thirty-third birthday, M. Francisco Fabrigas made his most shocking declaration. To universal astonishment, he announced that he was leaving his universe to travel beyond the borders of reality. ‘I am undertaking a voyage to the next dimension, using an engine of my own design. I am an explorer, and I will prove the existence of other realities the only way I can: by travelling there and returning.’

  ‘And just who will be mad enough to accompany you on this expedition?’ said the scholars who meet in dingy cafes.

  ‘No one,’ said Fabrigas. ‘This will be a solo expedition.’

  Laughter. Cruel, cruel laughter.

  And so the former great explorer set off to chart the Infiniverse in his tiny saucer with its top-secret interdimensional engine. He left his Empire behind, travelled out into the furthest reaches. There, in the remotest corner of the universe, he experienced breathtaking solitude as he passed through regions of space so empty that there was not a breath of light. He had no crewmates to share an exclamation with as he came upon the remains of a galaxy-sized computation array left behind by a civilisation forgotten by the ages. No one heard his screams as he fell into the furious winds of the Nebula Australis. The winds flung his craft like a discus to almost a third the speed of light. He was knocked unconscious by the gravitational forces. When he awoke, if his testimony is to be believed, he found that he had vanished from his universe, and appeared in a new one.

  It was a universe identical to the one he had come from. He was discovered by a team of oil prospectors who agreed to take him and his damaged saucer craft back to the Empire. As he travelled back, astonished, he found the same constellations, the same planetary systems. And when he arrived in the cities (which seemed, to the eye, utterly identical to the cities he had left), he found people identical to the ones he’d said goodbye to. These people claimed to have farewelled him on his voyage to the next universe just a few months before.

  Yes, I know what you are thinking. A lesser Omninaut (such as yourself) would have concluded, seeing these same places, these same bemused people, that he had in fact never left his universe. But M. Francisco Fabrigas was not a lesser Omninaut. He was a greater one, and this universe, he concluded, was clearly not his. Even when he returned to his old apartment and found it abandoned. Even when his keys fitted the door. Even when he found cards on the table from his few remaining acquaintances, wishing him well on his voyage to the next universe. That was the only difference he could detect in this universe: that he had already left it. ‘So my exact double set off at the same time as I did. How extraordinary!’ Those around him shook their heads in disbelief.

  He was disappointed not to meet himself. He wandered around his double’s apartment in a dream, picking up objects and saying, ‘This is not my beautiful lamp. This is not my marble baboon.’ This was not his unconquerable universe. It was an alien universe, and it made him feel even more alone, even more of a stranger than he ever had.

  *

  It was also the kind of dimension – much like the one he claimed to have left – which did not take to strangers, or their ideas about other universes. Until now.

  ‘… And then when the gi
ant clam opened you were standing there, dressed only in kelps and weeds of the ocean. And you held in your hand a starfish, and you said, “Take, my Queen, this is for you. I bring you the stars, the stars from the borderless sea.” Oh, what a dream it was!’ The Queen spoke now in the excited voice of a child. ‘Is it not fantastic? My vision has told me that you would be the one to restore this Empire’s greatness, and give the people hope again. So you see how this great Empire needs you, my dear old Fabrigas.’

  (Dear old Fabrigas. The Queen had once declared that if he spoke again of other universes she would have him fed to omnigators, and then have those fed to wild mountain pigs, and then have those set on fire.)

  ‘Our people suffer from plague and shortages. Our enemies mass at our borders. They want to destroy us. We need hope again. And that is why we are sending a fleet to the next dimension.’

  ‘No no no. Oh please, no …’

  The Queen was building to a fever pitch, the wires attached to her limbs were fizzing on their pulley wheels. ‘My people need hope. They despair, my people, but when they hear that the Great Fabrigas has decided to help us by leading us to the next universe they will sing again!’

  ‘My … my Queen,’ said Fabrigas, ‘I beg of you not to require of me such a thing … ’ He took a small step, a large slip, the magistrates gasped, in the tank below a single fat tentacle flopped upon the floor with a slap that echoed like a whip-crack.

  ‘Do not be frightened.’ The Queen’s eyes were wide, her voice a whisper. ‘You will be given the best and fastest vessel, a strong and able crew, as fine a pilot as we can catch, and you will be in the company of the largest and most formidable battle fleet we can muster. You need not fear. This is not a death sentence. You will be like one of our great young heroes: leading our warriors into the unfathomable depths, facing many trials, returning home to my bosom a conqueror. Your face will be carved in the Hall of the Heroes. You will stand forever with other Immortals: Tristanzi, Gyminastica, Ultravoxus.’