Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  ‘And you’ve made him cry like a small girl,’ added the captain.

  ‘Oh, that is nice,’ said Lenore.

  ‘Now let’s get some rest and in the morning we’ll decide what’s to be done.’

  Miss Fritzacopple had Lenore help her take the distraught old man to his cabin. They made him tea and put him up on his bed, though he was inconsolable. ‘It is more than I can bear to have brought such hell upon you all!’

  ‘OK, shut up now. Let’s rest tonight, then in the morning a solution will present itself.’

  The next day when Lenore awoke she searched the ship with her perfect nose, but he was nowhere.

  Dear Friends,

  By the time you read this I will have been horribly killed by a gang of murderous trees.

  It is because of my actions, and only my actions, that you too now find yourselves on the brink of becoming plant food. I only pray that the end for you is quick, for there is no way out of this predicament, except, perhaps, to do what I have done: to walk boldly from the ship, with your human head held high, and to hope for the best – or at least to hope for the least of the worst.

  I leave now to face the only fitting end for a coward such as me: to be eaten by something less than animal. Know that I am truly sorry for what I have put you through. My only aim was to depart the Empire quietly, and to live out my days in peace. For, as I explained, I no longer have the heart, the stomach or the mind to be an explorer.

  The one thing I will say in my favour is that, through my gross misdeeds, I may, though inadvertently, have led you to a swifter death than you might otherwise have suffered.

  All the best!

  M.F.F.

  ON DEADLY GROUND

  When the crew of the Necronaut woke they immediately threw themselves into the mouth of panic. Their ship seemed suddenly very small, and the jaws of the plants – yawning wide and terrible with the rising of the sun – unfathomably huge. And when they discovered the old-beard missing, and found his suicide note, their panic trebled.

  ‘We’re doomed! Without the wizard we are doomed!’

  ‘Be calm!’ said the captain, though he couldn’t help but let his eyes drift up to the glass cells which held the full weight of the jungle upon them, and where all ferocious hell was loose. Even Descharge, who had locked eyes with many fierce enemies, looked slightly alarmed as he drank his tea. At night, asleep, the deadly plants had looked somewhat tranquil. Now, with the dawn, the crew watched, aghast, as teeth snapped and green gums slathered against their ship, and there was a ceaseless screech and squawk of fangs dragging along the glass, leaving deep, silvery gouges. Vines whipped and shot jets of acid which scoured away the ship’s paint, and the sound of the hungry multitude was almost deafening. The Necronaut rocked gently under the fury.

  ‘Geeeeahhhhhhhhrrrggg!’ a sailor suggested.

  ‘It looks like the babies want their breakfast,’ said the botanist as she arrived on deck, still pulling her long lovely hair into a knot.

  ‘We’re safe so long as we’re in here,’ said the captain. ‘The ship is sealed tight. Plus, we still have the GGPTBCE,’ and he threw a look at the machine’s custodian, Bortis, who sighed.

  *

  For just such missions was the GGPTBCE designed. Its eight-inch titanium-impregnated steel skin guarded an advanced weapons system and a pilot cocoon inside triple redundancy life-support systems. Nevertheless, Bortis was less than keen to take it out to recover a depressed senior citizen, and only when Descharge personally intervened did he agree to undertake the recovery mission. First he made Lambestyo agree that he would personally fix all the dents and scratches in the outer shell on its return.

  ‘But I want to take it out,’ said Lambestyo.

  ‘The only way you will ever drive him is over my dead body,’ said Bortis coldly.

  Bortis climbed in and gave a sullen wave before he pulled the hatch closed. They all watched as the cargo bay opened and the mighty war machine stamped out into the jungle. It shone like a silver god in the dawn light; its footsteps made the leaves tremble lightly. There were a few still moments as the iron man stood in the clearing made by the crash-landing; the jungle seemed to lean away from this new beast. Then the fronds of hell rose gently, and all aboard the Necronaut watched as they plucked the robot from the earth and tore off all four limbs as if it were made from gingered bread. The steel beast fired all its weapons at once. Machine-fire splattered through the foliage and pinged off the hull of The Necronaut. Rockets ripped through the canopy and exploded in the sky above in a multicoloured ecstasy, all as the plants tore the chest plate off and hungrily devoured the hapless Bortis in his pod.

  ‘It’s probably good I did not go out,’ said Lambestyo.

  *

  ‘Well, at least we know what we’re in for.’ The brains trust had moved to one side of the deck.

  ‘I am out of ideas,’ said the captain as he watched the plants pick through the remains of the GGPTBCE. ‘Without the old man we don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘And he’s certainly been eaten by now,’ said Fritzacopple, who still held his letter.

  ‘We must be sure,’ said Descharge. ‘He is vital to us alive, but if not, I want to see his corpse for myself.’

  ‘We could go by night. I could help us to avoid most of the worst traps,’ said the botanist. ‘The main problem is that we wouldn’t even know where to look. Finding his body would be like searching for a needle in a deadly hay field.’

  ‘I know where your noodle is,’ said a small voice.

  *

  By night, when the plants had again drifted off, a small party crept from the Necronaut, and into the jaws of a leafy hell. They were dressed in hazard suits topped with domes of acid-proof glass, and each held a lamp. Descharge went first. Miss Fritzacopple pointed to things as she went, her husky voice crackled in their earpieces: ‘That there is a classic flypaper trap, it uses mucus-secreting glands. Over there is a trapdoor plant. I wouldn’t like to think what’s in there. We must be very gentle. If one of these things wakes, we’re food.’

  ‘He went in that direction,’ said Lenore as she stood beside a mighty orchid. Her small nose tested the air.

  ‘We’ll have to skirt that copse of thorns,’ said the botanist. ‘Each one is tipped with poison. This really is marvellous.’

  ‘I don’t think it is marvellous,’ said the bosun. Being the biggest he was having the hardest time moving forward. Roberto looked perfectly at home, twisting and writhing through the vines like a tousle-headed monkey. The job of convincing him to stay on the ship had proved too difficult – two sailors had been mildly electrocuted – so in the end they’d let him come.

  ‘That over there is a bladder trap,’ said the botanist. ‘There’s a vacuum tube inside. If you touch even one of those hairs the trapdoor will open and you’ll be sucked in. Schwipp.’

  ‘He’d better be alive,’ said the bosun, ‘or I’ll kill him.’

  ‘Shhhhh,’ said Descharge. ‘What is that sound?’

  They all lay quietly for a second and realised that they could hear a low rumble, like the purr of a large cat, or a motor drill being gently smothered by a pillow.

  ‘Do plants snore?’ said the bosun.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Miss Fritzacopple. ‘Plants don’t have lungs. Aside from the lung tree.’

  They struggled on, avoiding, as they went, a grove of paralysing ivy, and soon found themselves lying under a great orange bulb, from which the sounds of snoring were coming.

  ‘He’s inside the guts of that one,’ said the girl. ‘I can smell some biscuits on his breath.’

  ‘Fabrigas!’ Descharge barked. ‘You foolish old man, it’s time to wake and be reborn!’ and with his blade he slit the bulb from top to bottom. A torrent of purplish goo, bones and old man fell upon them, and there was a sound, something like a scream. For a second the whole jungle stirred and shook. The party winced.

  But luckily for them the plants did not wake.
<
br />   Fabrigas lay blinking between them. ‘You came,’ said the old man.

  ‘Of course we did,’ said the bosun. ‘You took all the biscuits.’

  *

  Fabrigas had left in darkness, and when he saw the jungle lightening and felt the first stirrings from the plants he had suddenly begun to reassess his decision to sacrifice himself. A huge set of jaws had begun to yawn, sleepily, before him. Staying still was pointless; running, futile; so in the end he’d done the only thing possible: he’d crawled in through the creature’s mouth, and because it was still dozy he’d been able to slither past the worst of its teeth and into its belly without a chomping. In there he’d found the bones of sailors eaten by the plant. He’d found some more biscuits in the belt of one of the sailors after he’d eaten the last of his own. Then, within the belly of the plant, within the cacophony of ravenous vegetables, he’d slept.

  IN THE HOUSE

  They spent a few minutes cleaning the goo and bones from Fabrigas. ‘We should move fast,’ said the bosun. ‘I can smell the dawn.’

  ‘We might not even make it back,’ said Fabrigas. ‘You were fools to come for me.’

  ‘You were a fool for leaving us. I only came so I could hang you.’

  ‘Fools could have hiding in the house,’ said Lenore. But everyone ignored her.

  ‘Hang me? I brought you to the next universe, as promised, if not by will then by fate.’

  ‘You harboured a fugitive of the Queen.’

  ‘Or there’s an house for arguing!’ said the fugitive of the Queen.

  ‘I swear I’ll hang you by your … wait, what? A house?’

  ‘What do you mean, a house?’ said Fritzacopple.

  ‘It is a small house. You might say a cottage. It’s there upon the distance.’

  ‘My girl,’ said Fabrigas as he scooped the moss from his glass dome helmet, ‘you never fail to amaze.’

  ‘I never, ever do,’ she agreed.

  *

  It is not uncommon to come upon, in the middle of a dark and gruesome children’s tale, a cottage, and therein find a witch, or a wolf or domestic troll. And yet here it was – in real life: a humble, homely cottage, such as a nice country family might occupy, but rooted in the depths of this green hell. It had been placed with care inside a dome, like a model in a museum, and the glass was caked in moss and filth, much like the hats our friends wore. The dome had a hatch with a latch which was easy for humans to master, but impossible for plants. Inside the dome, Fabrigas peeled up a corner of the lawn and found an iron slab beneath.

  Inside the cottage they found what Miss Fritzacopple instantly recognised to be a botanist’s lair. The shelves were stacked with plant catalogues and thousands of sample jars. It was a simple home with a table, a stove and a single bed, and on that bed was a skeleton. The skeleton held his journal in his hands and grinned with delight.

  ‘Well, this is nice,’ said Descharge. Outside the sky was turning grey.

  CARING FOR YOUR CARNIVOROUS PLANTS

  Fig. 1

  Your plants are your friends, your family, your mistresses and your masters. Give them all the care and caution you can muster. (But mostly caution.)

  Your garden is not the plants, it is the space between the plants. Your plants are like stars and planets: they should be alone, to be appreciated individually, and yet when viewed from afar they should join to create galaxies of colour. Yourplants should have the space to speak, to sing, to wander! (Sometimes literally.)

  The gardener must learn to paint with life: the orange of the viro-carrots, the purple of the tongue of the Venusian man-trap, the blue of the septicflesh-lichen, the ochre of thefloating spores of the haemorrhagic moss.

  Enjoy your garden. Love it. Nurture itfor all your life.

  The Deadly Gardener, Herbert M. Connofeast; translated by R.I.P.Q Volcannon III

  Fig. 2

  Fig. 3

  DAYLIGHT

  Roberto sat on the other side of the room, as far from the corpse as possible.

  ‘He was olden,’ said Lenore. ‘He liked raw meats, and to smoke the pipe. There was the lady too, shortly, but she has not been here for many a time.’

  ‘Neither has he,’ said the bosun. The bare skull rested on a pillow yellowed by the years. ‘He liked the whiskies,’ said Lenore. ‘There’s many bottles up in the cupboard there.’

  ‘Well, praise heavens!’ said the bosun as he flung open the cupboard. He returned to the table with an amber bottle and glasses. Outside they heard the shrubs stirring.

  ‘We are safe in here from getting plant-acid in our eyes,’ said Fabrigas as he took off his glass dome, and as the heat from their bodies quickly caused a fog in the forgotten room they all sat around the table and drank a breakfast toast to a certain death that, so far, they’d managed to avoid. Before long they were merrily oblivious to the snapping and spitting all around them. Even Descharge relaxed a little and stopped telling Fabrigas he was going to hang him.

  ‘They really have taken over the entire moon,’ said Miss Fritzacopple. She had moved away from the table to stand in the larger of the windows. She stood gazing out over the jungle. The cottage was at the top of a steep rise and for the first time they had a view across the endless expanse of ravenous green. The plants were throwing themselves against the glass dome, desperate to get at the tiny treats behind the windows. And this went on all day, the noise and movement and the ceaseless song of fangs on glass. The day seemed to last forever; soon they all felt the first whispers of madness.

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ said the bosun. ‘I’m getting the fear!’

  ‘It will be night soon, and then we can go back to our ship,’ said Descharge.

  *

  ‘And just when is the night arriving?’ said Miss Fritzacopple lazily. She had an arm slung back over the chair and one leather boot resting on the table. It was a good point she made, too. It had now been at least forty naval hours since night had last fallen.

  ‘I expect it will be along presently,’ said the old-beard. ‘My calculations prove it!’ Though it was clear he’d taken no measurements recently, except regarding how much whisky was in his glass. ‘We must make a toast!’ he said. ‘From now on, we must stick together. No more fighting,’ and he threw a glance at Descharge. ‘From now on we are one family!’ and everyone raised their glasses, even Descharge, reluctantly. ‘I will agree to a temporary truce while we find a way out of this mess.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ cried the bosun, who had drunk a bottle to himself.

  Hours later, night was still absent and the atmosphere was becoming tense again.

  ‘So, does anyone have any grand plans?’

  ‘Why don’t we ask the old man?’ said Descharge. ‘His plans always work. Why don’t you make us some soup!’

  ‘My soup plan might have worked if we hadn’t been attacked by our own ships.’

  ‘Why would our own ships attack us? It was clearly an enemy fleet, and when I get you back to our universe and into a stockade I can prove it to you.’

  ‘Are we even in another universe?’ said the botanist. ‘You said in your letter your engine didn’t even work.’

  ‘It didn’t. It was never supposed to. I just wanted to prove a point. The most likely conclusion is that I never did come from another universe.’

  ‘But you tried to convince the whole universe you did.’

  ‘I decided to take on the difficult task of convincing the universe before attempting the relatively easy task of convincing myself.’

  No one quite knew what to say about that.

  ‘So assuming we have somehow crossed over,’ said the bosun, ‘how do we cross back?’

  ‘I really do not know,’ admitted Fabrigas. ‘Akropolis provided ideal conditions for a jump. We would have to find somewhere at least as good.’

  ‘You could always ask your imaginary friend.’ The botanist was slurring slightly.

  ‘Imaginary friend?’

  ‘Yes, the one I hear
you ranting at on the observation deck. “Carrofax! Stop meddling in my experiments!” And so forth.’

  ‘He is not imaginary, just invisible.’

  ‘You have an invisible friend?’ said the bosun.

  ‘A friend who happens to be invisible to you, yes. What of it?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said the botanist. ‘It’s just strange to see a grown man with an imaginary friend.’

  ‘As I said, he is invisible, not imaginary. There is a difference.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Well, you tell me,’ the old man said and gestured to a talisman around the botanist’s slender neck. ‘You should not be the one to talk about invisible chums.’

  ‘And where is your friend now? Is he sitting on your lap?’

  ‘Carrofax is not here. He is no doubt seeking information about the nature of the universe we’re in.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he is what, a ghost?’

  ‘He is … a phenomenal being.’

  ‘A demon?’

  ‘I would not say that word around him.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in magic.’

  ‘I believe only what I can test, and I have tested him thoroughly.’

  ‘And how did you two lovebirds meet?’

  ‘That is a long story.’

  ‘It seems as if we have all the time we need.’

  CARROFAX

  Among the many books which came to his mansion in those long, lonely years was a particularly interesting volume on geometry: A Book of Symbols: Progressive Geometry and the Structure of the Universe, by a man called Vangetz. Young Fabrigas absorbed the book like no other, reading it dozens of times, recreating a number of Vangetz’s experiments involving the transformative symbols contained within. He revived dead plants with these dark symbols, he transmuted matter, he trapped mice within invisible cages painted in shapes upon the floor. He painted a large symbol on the outer wall of his compound which allowed him to magnify the sound of approaching people, no matter how quietly they stalked. He sent messages out into the heavens to a race of people Vangetz referred to as the ‘Immortals’. He begged them for deliverance. He put aside all his other studies to concentrate on this one book. In short, he ignored Vangetz’s preface which stated: ‘This work is for your interest, not your practice. No amateur will be able to recreate these experiments, and indeed should not.’ If he was wrong about ‘will be able to’, he was dreadfully right about ‘should not’. It did not take the boy long to go too far.