Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  ‘Yessss.’

  ‘Yessss.’

  ‘Even if the mob come howling in the night.’

  ‘And they will.’

  ‘Yessss.’

  ‘They will.’

  ‘Sleep well, sister. Dream not of that foul wizard tonight. Dream only of our faces.’

  Echoes in the chamber of the Queen. The misty shadows vanish from the room, pulling tight the door behind them, extinguishing all light.

  FIRE DOWN BELOW

  Captain Lambestyo was dreaming that giant black birds were circling as he lay in the sea on a raft made from paper. He felt the coolness of the water soaking through the paper below, the heat from the sun above. He felt the great birds landing on his chest, scratching at his skull with their talons. He woke to see a shadow sweep silently over; the shadow resolved itself into the shape of an old man. He stormed by, hauling one of the ship’s heavy fire hoses with surprising strength, plunging the nozzle down into a hissing hole in the deck of the Necronaut. The flames lit the great man from below so that he looked as though he was battling the very fires of hell. Several others were awake – the larger men upon whom the poison had had less effect. Lambestyo would later learn that the mighty bosun hadn’t slept at all. He appeared now, hauling two hoses, one in each arm, and cursing the heavens he claimed had made him.

  Fabrigas, sensing somehow that his captain was stirring, turned at that moment, enclosed in a swirling pall of smoke and vapour, and roared: ‘What are you waiting for, boy, your cocoa?’

  *

  Artillery bursts had ruptured the hull of the Necronaut in two places, leaving the ship’s skeleton bare and steel beams protruding like stumps of shattered bone. Clouds of smoke were fleeing, like a herd of fat, cheerful sheep, from gashes in the outer hull, and the sails, shredded, had been hauled in and tossed upon the decks like a golden salad. The sailors were showing no bravery. Some were glancing at the life-pods while whispering under their hands. Some were curled up, sobbing. And what good were life-pods anyway when all around them was a sea of emptiness, a grand white void? To where could his cowardly men flee? Into the Hex? Into the terrible abyss between universes?

  The slaveys, meanwhile, did the best they could, slipping and sliding in the frothy slicks of hydraulic fluid that swept across the deck. They smothered flames, stopped air leaks, attended to their injured friends. They were, thought Fabrigas, a tiny crew to be proud of. Little H. Sneevlit. Little K. Remanaskus. Little P. Vershigara. Even if they were all about to die.

  His captain climbed the ladder to the flight deck, his too-big boots ka-thunking on the rungs. ‘So. This is probably the end?’

  ‘Yes. Almost certainly. As predicted.’

  ‘I knew I would not get paid.’ Captain Lambestyo flicked at a fleck of burning ash that was hungrily gnawing a hole in the sleeve of his fine coat.

  ‘No,’ said the old man. ‘I dare say you won’t.’ His beard was smoking in several spots. ‘Is he still staring at me?’

  Lambestyo turned to where Descharge was standing on the deck below. Their commander was leaning on a rail, oblivious to the chaos, glaring up at the old man with eyes like ladles full of molten steel.

  ‘Yes. I think he hates you even more than me now.’

  They both stood staring out beyond the terminal carnage to the peaceful emptiness of the Hex.

  ‘The hallucinations will start soon,’ said Fabrigas, and Lambestyo shrugged.

  ‘They can’t be any worse than the reality.’

  Fabrigas flexed his tired back, then trudged off below decks to check on his passengers.

  *

  In the intestinal maze of tubes below decks the noise and heat was fierce. Smoke and gas roamed freely. Several poor sailors had been pulled out into space through breaches in the hull. Two slaveys came past coiled up in a fire hose. Little K. Persuivus came by bear-hugging an extinguisher much larger than herself. Fritzacopple, ordinarily a plant specialist, crouched in a corridor to tend to a nasty burn on a sailor’s shoulder. ‘It hurts, it hurts!’ yelled the sailor.

  ‘Of course it will hurt if you keep moving,’ said the botanist, who had a streak of purple ash across her brow, and whose hair had been diskempt in a way that suggested some ravishing alien beast.

  ‘Have you seen where we is?!’ said the sailor.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ replied Fritzacopple languidly. ‘That is to say, I’ve seen where we are, and we are nowhere. So why worry?’

  ‘We have been sucked into a void!’ cried the sailor. ‘It could be heaven; it could be hell! Who can tell?!’

  The old man appeared in the doorway and said, ‘How many dead?’

  ‘Four sailors were taken through a breach. None more, mercifully,’ replied the botanist, ‘though we have some nasty burns. I sealed the critical sections.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I can’t stand the pains!’ cried the sailor.

  ‘Quiet now,’ said the botanist. ‘You don’t see the children crying out.’

  ‘They don’t have the pain what I have!’

  ‘So you did not sleep?’

  ‘I had a herbal solution which kept me awake,’ the botanist replied.

  Fabrigas frowned, but he did not have time right then to argue with her nonsense.

  ‘And where is the surgeon?’ said Fabrigas.

  Huxbear, Shatterhands and the Gentrifaction were in the galley, whispering, and when they saw a shadow at the door they stopped and sat straight. ‘You are eating?’ said Fabrigas.

  Shatterhands nudged his chop with a fork. ‘Sir, this could well be our last meal.’

  ‘Our last! Our laaaaaaaast!’ wailed Gossipibom.

  ‘You should be tending to the hurt; you are the surgeon.’ But the assembled only peered down their noses at the old-beard. Then a sailor appeared to tell them that there was a goat on deck.

  ‘A goat?’

  ‘Yes, a goat.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It is so.’

  He found most of the crew cowering behind the vent-house; a handful of slaveys peered out from behind their legs. Only Lambestyo stood in the open. ‘It’s a goat,’ he said, and flung out his arms. Then Fabrigas ventured his head and saw that, yes, there was a goat on the deck of his ship, a white goat with a fine grey beard, and it was chewing on a bootlace. The crew had begun to wail and moan. ‘Get hold!’ yelled the captain. ‘You aren’t children!’ The children, incidentally, seemed calm. They were sooty, their eyes white, but the fires they had been fighting, miraculously, were almost out.

  ‘This is a completely normal phenomenon when you travel between universes,’ said Fabrigas. ‘Sometimes you see your own mother, sometimes a goat. These visions tell you something about your future.’

  ‘What do we do?’ asked the bosun. ‘About the goat?’

  ‘We will wait him out,’ replied the captain.

  Time passed. Eventually the bosun said, ‘Goat is gone. There’s a man on deck now.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘Yes, a man.’

  ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘No. He says he wants to talk to the blind girl.’

  DEVIL WOMAN

  It was calm on deck. The flames were extinguished, the leaks sealed. The Hex had become a mellow twilight filtered through the yellow veil of smoke.

  And through the smoke Lenore rose up. She came out of her hatch where the one bulb burned, up through the slaveys’ quarters filled with smoke. On deck they heard the screams as she appeared in the corridors lined with injured sailors. She rose up from below through the hatch. The bosun held her tenderly by her shoulders. Roberto followed warily.

  ‘What is it that is?’

  … said the green-skinned girl. Her words, as quiet as the whisper of a mouse, seemed as loud as the winds which blow from the mouth of hell, and the men fell back rigid with terror, for this girl was streaked in ash and dirt like some fearful creature freshly risen from the grave. The men cried, ‘’Tis the Devil Girl!’ and then they cried, ‘Th
e Devil Girl is on our ship? No wonder we are doomed!’ and Lenore gazed upon them with a pair of imperious jewels and said …

  ‘How do?’

  … The men howled and hunched like a pack of terrified dogs.

  ‘Everybody shut up now!’ said the captain then.

  ‘What for all do you need from me?’ asked the girl.

  ‘There is a man over there,’ Lambestyo said. He gestured roughly with his thumb. ‘He says he wants to talk to you. He said his name is Blue Lantern.’

  ‘I do not know any man. Only bats and mice.’

  On the foredeck, near the bow, sat a man in a fine two-button evening suit with a blue pocket square. On the table, beside the tea set, was a small gramophone. The man sat quietly drinking his tea.

  ‘Go and see what he wants,’ said the captain to the girl.

  ‘What if I don’t wish to speak? What say you to that?’

  ‘He said it’s important.’

  They all watched, amazed, as the Vengeance huffed and stalked off around the wheel-deck, dragging a small hand along the wall as she went. They saw the girl walk smartly towards the man, who placed his teacup carefully on the saucer and smiled. He bent down to whisper in her ear. He whispered to her for a long time, her head bobbed faintly, and all the while the gramophone played a haunting tune.

  Bridegroom, dear to my heart,

  Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

  The crew gaped, not a person breathed. Then the girl nodded, curtsied, and tottered back to the group.

  ‘Well, what did he say?’

  ‘He is a friend. He said this is how it is, men: we are set for danger, and then for an even bigger one. Danger all around. Danger coming from our ears. The Pope is coming. You know him? Big hats. Also there is another man. He wears nice suits. He speaks in dreams. He can hunt us down and make us do things we don’t like. This nice man over there says if we see the other man we should flee like mice. Find our holes and duck.’

  Lion, dear to my heart,

  Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

  ‘He also says we’ll be eaten … some of us two times.’ She glanced at Fabrigas. ‘We’ll meet the worm. We’ll be eaten by darkness. But we’ll come out with a magnificent treasure if we protect me and listen to my nose. I am, I am the talisman.’

  The captain said, ‘Treasure?’

  ‘Also, he says not to drink the water.’

  Then the music faded away and was replaced by a ferocious silence.

  When they looked out on deck Blue Lantern had vanished.

  *

  Then: birds! Boundless bright and chirruping balls of feathers flitting about the deck and playing in their hair and beards. ‘Get off, damned budgies!’ The old man flung his arms around.

  And bees, too: countless buzzing bees.

  Lenore appeared on deck again. She was lost within a cloud of birds, but a pale arm extended from the cloud, and perched serenely on her finger was a single golden sparrow. ‘We’re coming upon a moon!’ came the girl’s muffled chirrup. Soon the ship was full of birds. No one could move.

  An hour later, at 28.63 Ship’s Time, or thereabouts, or not thereabouts at all, the birds vanished. The forward lookout reported an imperfection on the perfect white of the Hex: a grey smudge which soon resolved itself into a moon.

  ‘Moon ho!’ the scope-man called back.

  Soon the Hex dissolved completely and they could see below them a jungle moon, approaching at a frightening speed.

  ‘That will do,’ said the captain.

  GOD HAMMER

  ‘His Supreme Grace is … less than happy.’

  The Pope had come from the Forbidden City for the Panathenaea, or specifically: for the bloody spectacle of the slaughter of 7,000,000 heathens in a giant arena of death. When he’d learned that there were to be only 6,999,999 heathens slaughtered, he was angry; when he’d learned that the Queen planned to send this last heathen on a great expedition to the next universe, his rage knew no limits. A team of cardinals now spoke on behalf of the Pope, who was sulking in the next room.

  ‘You are no doubt aware of the official position of the Church regarding other universes.’ Cardinal Mothersbaugh, the Pope’s closest adviser, spoke softly. ‘It is that they do not exist.’

  ‘Do not exist!’ a shrill voice came from the next room.

  The senior cardinal politely touched his nose. ‘And so deciding that you were going to send an expedition there was somewhat … heretical.’

  ‘I am aware of your position on other universes.’ The Queen sat beside her three sisters. In another corner, the Man in the Shadows surveyed the conversation with insolent grace.

  ‘We were sad to hear about the destruction of your fleet,’ continued the cardinal, ‘but we are here to let you know that the Fleet of the Nine Churches will blockade any further attempt to reach the next universe. Any ship attempting to achieve an escape velocity upon the winds at the Akropolis nebula will be destroyed. We see the destruction of your last expedition as holy justice.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the Queen.

  ‘Except … of course …’ sister three spoke up in a voice like greasy bones crushed in a fist, ‘that the expedition was not … entirely destroyed.’

  ‘It was not?’

  ‘No. One ship survived and appears to have made it to the next universe.’

  ‘It did?’

  ‘Yes, it was the ship carrying the wizard, the one His Grace denounced as a heathen.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And what’s more, he has stolen for himself the Devil Girl. The one whose execution the Pope has called for. Vociferously.’

  There was an audible silence from the next room.

  ‘We suspect the wizard plans to elope with the Devil Girl and marry her in some dark and despicable ritual. Then, when she has reached maturity, she will bear him an antilord who will conquer our universe and keep us all in fiery bondage.’

  ‘This is your intelligence?’

  ‘From the highest source.’

  ‘This is most concerning.’

  ‘It is, Cardinal,’ said the Queen. ‘You can see the need for us to act with haste and maximum agression.’

  ‘Certainly, Highness, but Devil Girl or not, it still does not change our basic position: that we are fundamentally opposed to the idea of other universes, and of making any attempts to travel there.’

  ‘So why have you come? What does His Most Supreme Holiness want?’

  ‘His Holiness only wants what he has been requesting for decades: another Holy Crusade. One bigger and bloodier than ever before. Every great pope must have his crusade. It is tradition.’

  ‘Crusade!’ came the shrill voice from the other room.

  ‘Oh, we couldn’t agree more,’ said the Man in the Shadows, speaking up at last. The cardinal angled his body towards him.

  ‘You couldn’t?’

  ‘Oh no, we need a crusade, most certainly.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘I am an adviser from the corporate sphere. When the expedition to the next universe was in financial difficulty I arranged a sponsor for them. And now that they have run into more difficulties I have again offered my expert assistance.’

  ‘So you believe there should be a crusade.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then we are in agreement?’ The cardinal looked astonished.

  ‘Of course. And what better holy quest than a crusade against the Devil Girl, and the wizard, and the heathen lands they come from? She has made a fool of the Queen, and you. What greater crusade than to follow her to her own dimension and wreak heaven among her kind?’

  ‘… But, as I explained, His Holiness does not believe in other universes.’

  ‘All the better. He will not be corrupted by what he sees there,’ said sister two, in a voice like a small bag full of surgical instruments.

  ‘… But there is no “there” there.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘… Sisters … Your Ro
yal Highness … we are very … confused!’

  ‘It is simple, Cardinal,’ said the Man in the Shadows. ‘We are giving you licence to undertake a crusade to the next universe. And you will not need to declare your crusade to the people, since the conquered lands, as you have said, do not exist. And you get to keep all the treasure you find there, since that too is imaginary. And since everything you will see there is just an illusion created by devils and demons to tempt you, you may act entirely without conscience. Additionally, Her Majesty would like to formally reinstate your right to extract your own taxes from the people. Is that not correct?’

  The Queen nodded.

  The cardinal was leaning forward in his chair, his bottom lip was wet with saliva. ‘But, sisters, sir, we haven’t been allowed to do that for ten thousand years.’

  ‘Precisely. It is our gift to you. All we ask is that when you see a vision of this Devil Girl, you capture it and throw it into the nearest black hole. And eradicate all witnesses.’

  ‘And the wizard?’

  ‘He too.’

  ‘Crusade!’ came the voice from the next room. The Pope was no longer sulking.

  ‘My sisters here will sign the Executive Order for you authorising your crusade. I’m afraid I am rather too busy.’

  ‘Oh, we will?’ said sister one. ‘What an honour.’

  ‘You flatter us, sister,’ said sister two. The Queen nodded.

  ‘But how would we procure the wizard’s magical engine?’ said the cardinal. ‘He has vanished into the beyond.’

  ‘You leave that to me,’ said the Man in the Shadows.

  PRISONER 92357890

  For many years the following had been happening:

  An old, old prisoner had risen every morning in his tiny cell. The cell was dark and had no windows. The man was feeble and had no hope. He had once been strong and leanly muscular, with terrifying black eyes. Now those eyes were always terrified. Decades in this cell had made the muscles melt from his bones, made his frame stooped and bent. His eyes and features were all but lost inside his beard. His cell was hardly big enough to hold him, let alone function as a makeshift workshop. There was a bunk, a bowl for pissing in, and a workbench cluttered with scraps and tools. No one could have imagined from looking at him, and his workbench, that this man was struggling to perfect a device that would change the destiny of the entire universe.