Theatre of the Gods

by M. Suddain

  On the desk he found a letter.

  Dear friends and family,

  By the time you read this I will be dead. As the youngest member of this most royal family I have come increasingly to feel as if I have no place. I feel that my views are never heeded, and I have come to tire of the duties I am expected to perform. For what, I ask, do we do these things? For what purpose are our feeble deeds in such a mad and violent universe? It is such a black and brutal place that I see no longer a point in dwelling on within it.

  Thus have I schemed to pilot my favourite ship into a sun.

  I wish you all well. Weep not for me, for I died long ago.

  Junior

  Fabrigas put down the letter and left the suite. This was as strange a thing as ever he’d witnessed. The privy beside the prince’s suite was unlocked. He pushed open the door, but there was nothing in there that surprised him.

  *

  The door at the end of the corridor. Roberto touched the door and felt the crude latch submit. Even he was astonished by what he saw behind it.

  A BURST OF VERMILION

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  *

  ‘Oh, hello,’ said the man behind the last door. ‘Is it seven already?’ But Roberto couldn’t hear his voice: genteel, boyish. His voice, the voice of someone who does all the talking, did not need to make itself sound interesting. ‘Sugar,’ the man said to the girl Roberto had followed here, ‘get this boy a drink.’ The girl, whose name was Lulabelle, obeyed. Roberto was in a room: soft cushions, a table covered with partly nibbled fruit, sofa seating ripped from the withdrawing room of a ship and thrown in the corners upon which several Marshian youngsters lounged. A wall hung with tapestries, all austere, yet wet with colour, a man in the centre of it all with sparkling eyes. He had full lips, impossibly smooth skin – but for visible sunlight burns on the left side of his face. He was a young man with longish hair and the makings of a fine beard. He wore an expensive leisure suit which showed signs of wear, and his shirt was open to the third button so his chest hair bloomed. He lay back upon a pile of cushions, one hand hanging limp, the other lightly gripping his lapel. He was not at all afraid to let the silence hang. It seemed an age before he took a sip from his glass and said, ‘I have heard a lot about you. I am sure you’ve heard of me.’ Lulabelle brought back a tray with two glasses of burning red liquid on it. The man reached up languidly to exchange his empty glass for a fresh one. He sipped, he savoured. ‘Please, sit.’ He gestured to a blood-red cushion. The boy, interpreting his gesture, shook his shaggy head. ‘No? Will you at least have something to eat? Drink?’ He gestured to a bowl beside him which seemed to be filled to the brim with red worms. They squirmed in the bowl. ‘No? Suit yourself.’ The man lifted a single worm from the bowl and let it dangle on his tongue before he chomped it. He took another sip and licked his upper lip. The Marshian youths were motionless. The red liquid shone. The wind outside was growing stronger, carrying from far away the sound of drums. Lulabelle stood to one side, green with fear. Or perhaps just green. Her skin sparkled. She was blinking madly at him. Roberto could see the tray she held shaking, and the bubbles in the glass dancing. The colonel squinted at Roberto, then turned to Lulabelle and said, ‘Thank you, sugar heart, you have done well. You can leave now.’ She left quickly.

  Roberto couldn’t hear what the man was saying, and his lip-reading abilities were minimal, but Carrofax was there, watching, invisible and helpless from the corner. The master’s teeth moved up and down. Big, icy teeth.

  ‘So.’ The man adjusted his position on the cushions. ‘You are the boy with fire in his fingers. The boy who brings trouble.’ Roberto recognised the last word, ‘bubble’, and he observed the bubbles dancing in the bloodish liquid in the glass the man nursed. Roberto learned lip-reading from a manual which had flown into his mental database, but he wished now that he’d practised more when he’d had the chance. There was something about the way those red lips pulled back across his perfect white teeth that was frightening. The other youths who lay on the sofas and cushions looked stupefied. They were limp-limbed, dead-eyed, the breeze which found its way in through the gaps in the barn-room walls indolently flicked their hair and clothing. Roberto touched a finger to the scalpel hidden in his sock. It was there if he needed it.

  *

  Fabrigas examined the propulsion system and found a perfectly ordinary magnetic engine. So there was no conceivable way the ship could have, as it appeared to have done, drifted calmly through dimensions. There was obviously more to this ship than met the eye. Carrofax appeared beside him and said, ‘Your boy is in trouble. Fetch that starfish and come on.’

  ‘Starfish?’ Fabrigas peered down into the vents. There was an alien object attached to the gears of the engine, down where the vacuum tubes gave way to the clockwork mess of cogs and wheels. ‘A starfish on the inside of a ship?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s a starfish,’ said Carrofax. ‘Just take it and I’ll explain later.’

  Fabrigas peeled the sea creature from the engine. He shone his light on it, trying to make out the strange markings, but he couldn’t. If only he had more light. Then, as if to answer his prayers, the ship’s lights came on.

  ‘So, you have found the colonel’s ship,’ said Skyorax. ‘Ah well, it is nothing that he did not want you to see. All is just as he planned.’

  *

  The beating of the drums was louder now and it filled the air with long, lingering murmurs.

  A wind was rushing through the valley, throaty and threatening, and with it came a low, bubbling moan.

  ‘I’ve become good at spotting bad apples,’ said the man. He slowly shut his eyes and spoke as if he needed to meditate carefully upon every word. ‘You, my boy, are a bad apple. My own master would have picked you out right away, tossed you in the mud.’ He opened his eyes. ‘But the thing about this community is that we recycle everything, even our bruised fruit.’ Roberto wasn’t following any of it. He planned to run, as soon as this crazy man closed his eyes again. But the man seemed to sense this, and he fixed Roberto with a burning glare. ‘Do you understand what is happening here? Do you know how important this project is?’ Roberto had seen his face many times before. He’d seen his photo beside his name and his name attached to orders for terrible things. He knew what he was capable of. ‘They tried to do away with me. But I survived. I’m building my army. Ready to return as conqueror.’ Roberto backed slowly towards the door, just as it opened. He felt a hand upon his shoulder, and he wheeled round to find Fabrigas. The old man was flanked by two Marshians, and behind them lurked the menacing Skyorax. ‘It all went just to plan, Lord,’ he slithered.

  ‘So it seems,’ said Fabrigas. ‘We can’t stay long, Albert. I just came to tell you we were leaving.’

  ‘Oh, but you’ve only just got here,’ said Albert. ‘Surely you can stay for one last meal.’

  *

  In the sleeping barn, the wind was ramming icy spikes through the gaps in the walls. Miss Fritzacopple woke and found Lenore staring out the window. Ghostly. The wife of the sailor lost at sea.

  ‘What are you doing staring out the window? You can’t even see. Go back to bed.’

  ‘Something is happening,’ replied the girl. ‘Can feel it in my airs.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ said the botanist. ‘It’s just the wind making you moody.’ But then she saw Roberto’s empty cot. ‘Well. Perhaps he just got hungry in the night.’ She placed her hand on her own swollen belly.

  ‘Hungry. Yes,’ said Lenore. ‘But for what kind of dish does he hunger?’

  INTO THE SUN

  ‘So. You know who I am. Was.’

  ‘Yes. You are Albert, heir and prince, colonel in the Royal Navy. You went mad and flew your ship into a sun. It seems, however, that you missed your target.’

  ‘Colonel,’ said Skyorax, ‘I have done as you asked, I have lured them here. Give me the fancy
woman – as a treat. Or just give me the boy!’

  ‘Fool!’ cried the colonel, and he flung his glass across the room at the man-troll. It smashed against the wall, leaving a burst of bloody vermilion, and Skyorax cowered in fright. ‘I’m sorry, master, I’m sorry!’

  ‘Get out of my sight, all of you.’

  Skyorax slunk from the room, the guards followed, and the colonel turned his attention back to his prisoners. ‘I apologise. Skyorax is criminally impertinent. I rescued him from the mud, taught him the names for things – in many ways he’s still a savage. But unfortunately he’s all I have since my master, the doctor, passed on.’ He took a sip from his glass. ‘You have deduced some of the facts, old man. I am Albert. I was the prince. But I never tried to take my own life. My ship was sabotaged. Apparently I’ve made some very powerful enemies.’

  ‘They wanted you dead?’

  ‘Silenced. They drugged me. They left a copy of my suicide note for me to find, just so I would know that I was about to die in disgrace. They are artists, I must give them that.’

  ‘Why kill you?’

  Albert smiled. ‘Because I know a secret. I know a secret greater than any other. I know a secret that would destroy the royal line, bring down the Empire.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You first. Who is this boy, and where did you find him?’

  ‘He found us. He is a Router, an escapee from the pods.’

  ‘You stole a Router? And yet you live.’

  ‘We didn’t steal him. He stowed away aboard our ship.’

  ‘This boy is a classified file. The agencies will have sent their deadliest operatives to track him. If you’re wise you’ll kill and bury him in the swamp, then get as far away as possible.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s possible for us to flee much further than we have. Now you? Who’s trying to kill you?’

  ‘As I said, I’ve made some powerful enemies. Have you heard of the Thorn Table?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘They are a group of businessmen. They are more powerful than any other group in the Empire, more than all the royal lines combined. For now. They create governments, destroy kings and queens. Now they have their sights on universal domination. They want to smash through the Wall, reunite the empires, and rule the Sphere unchallenged. To achieve this they signed an alliance with a powerful entity. This entity will give them the means to win the final war between the empires of the universe. This entity has real power.’

  ‘The Xo?’

  Albert chuckled through his nose. ‘Oh, my dear old man. You clearly have no idea.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘I was approached by the Thorn Table and asked to be their contact inside the royal family. I was told that the group had made contact with a very powerful ruler from “outside” the universe. He has promised to give the Thorn Table power to rule unconditionally, and for all time. No more empires. No more wars. They said our royal line would be made sovereign rulers for life.’

  ‘For a price.’

  ‘For trivial favours. That we bring him the tiny green head of his enemy’s daughter, for example. And yours. He is particularly hungry for yours.’

  ‘Why mine?’

  ‘Because you pretend to be a god. You believe you can circumvent the natural laws of time and space. At first I cooperated, but when I expressed moral doubts I was quickly disposed of.’

  ‘You have morals?’

  Albert smiled brightly. ‘I dabble. Oh, I had no problem with slaughtering you and the girl. It’s when they proposed doing away with my sister, the Queen, that I expressed alarm. I think they mean to abolish the dynasty, create a hyperpower of their own. My three treacherous cousins, I assume, have taken my duties. The Queen is oblivious, a puppet. My ship was sabotaged. When I woke from my wine stupor I was lost in a white foggy atmosphere. When the fog cleared I found myself crashed here. But so it goes. It was a glorious accident that it happened this way, because it has allowed me to build my perfect world. I was rescued by a doctor, the only survivor of a wrecked saucer craft. He had made camp here and begun a series of experiments in biological engineering. When my adoptive father passed away he left me this project and I continued to build on its greatness. I took a small group of frightened creatures huddling in the darkness and I made them great. We built our fortress. We built our defences.’

  ‘You mean the crabs?’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘You strayed into our zone, triggering our automatic defences. When you were able to save yourselves I deemed you worthy and sent a party out to welcome you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have. And the phantom family my crewmates encountered? Were they part of your defences?’

  Albert looked briefly confused. ‘Phantoms? We have no phantoms.’

  ‘And yet some of us experienced phantoms, visual and aural.’

  ‘It was probably swamp gas.’ The old man raised an eyebrow. ‘If you breathe too much swamp gas you start to hallucinate. This is a mysterious place. But you’ll come to love it with time. This is my new kingdom and I am shaping it as I please. It is a paradise.’

  ‘A paradise?’

  ‘Don’t let appearances fool you. Everything we need is here. With you and the boy I can repair my ship and perfect my army. I can finally defeat the Ubuntu. Then I can return to the Empire to tell them all about the world I’ve built, and the plot against them.’

  ‘My boy,’ said Fabrigas with a gentle smile, ‘where exactly do you think you are?’

  Outside they heard the wind regather to carry towards them the low, steady heartbeat of the drums. The master began to rant, his lips were slick with spittle. ‘I’d like to have a ceremony to officially welcome you into our family. Then we can start to move forward. With your brain and this boy’s hands we can do anything. And I haven’t even begun to talk about the girl! What do you say? Shall we toast our new alliance? Will you call me Lord?’

  ‘Lord? From what I’ve heard your people call you the Worm.’

  The Worm smiled even wider, his teeth sparkled, his gums were a burst of vermilion. ‘I do not take it as an insult.’ He reached over for the bowl of worms. He took a handful and shoved them in his mouth. His mighty teeth slashed them to pieces. ‘To be called a worm is a compliment. The worm is the master. The worm is king. All life grows from decay and the worm lives among it. People look to the bear, the lion, the eagle. Does the bear survive when cut in two?’ Bits of worm were stuck to the Worm’s lips, and worm juice trickled down his chin. ‘You don’t think much of these parts. You think they are ugly and deadly. Let me tell you, I have sat on celestial thrones, I have dined with rulers, known pleasures you could never dream of. And yet there is no place I would rather be than here, because here I am king.’

  ‘King of the worms.’

  ‘Precisely. When I return as a conqueror it won’t be under the banner of the dragon, it will be beneath the banner of the mud-snake.’

  ‘Boy,’ said the old man, ‘I think you are two mud-snakes short of a feast.’

  The Worm laughed, long and loud. ‘Two mud-snakes short of a feast! That’s very funny. You have no idea how wrong you are! Well, it’s a shame, it really is. But if that’s your decision.’ He reached for a small bell.

  ‘No!’ cried Lulabelle, running forward from the shadows. ‘He’ll eat you!’

  Fabrigas sighed and muttered, ‘Great, just great.’ Roberto couldn’t have read Lulabelle’s lips, since she didn’t have lips as such. He didn’t hear Prince Albert turn to her and say, ‘So that’s how you repay me for my gifts! Now you’ll be eaten, too!’ or the sound of the bell, and he didn’t hear the guards enter the room again behind them.

  CARNIVAL

  The moon was high and bright, the drums loud, as the old man and the boy were led in vines through the vine huts to a vine cage at the back of the compound and shoved roughly inside. Kandy stood in the gloom, peering at Fabrigas with those huge black eyes. Then s
he spoke three words, but they were shocking, because she spoke, haltingly, but clearly, in their language. She said, ‘I … am … regret.’ Then she walked off quickly, her hands behind her back. Then the traitor Lulabelle was ushered gently in by two distraught-looking guards.

  There was another man in their cage, a humanoid pilot. He wore a ragged military uniform. He had clearly become marooned on this world too, been rescued by the Marshians and then somehow transgressed their laws. He was also as crazy as a boat full of monkeys.

  ‘The moon is full! Our time is done, oh yes, we are certainly done for!’

  The ragged man cowered in the corner of the cage and Fabrigas could see the wide white of his left eye as he peered at the old man through a slit in his fingers.

  ‘Nonsense, crazy man,’ said Fabrigas. ‘There’s no need to mess your flight suit. We will get out of this if we keep our wits, though I fear yours might have fled already. What is the worst that could happen here? We die? So be it.’

  The pilot laughed and dashed his gaunt and battered face against the light. ‘Oh no, no, no!’ he said. ‘Dying is not the worst that could happen. Dying is not the worst that could happen at all!’ He was babbling on. ‘More meat for the larder!’

  Their companions were brought to see them. ‘What did you do?’ said Lambestyo.

  ‘I followed Roberto. Where have you been?’

  ‘Snooping around. Not getting caught. And what did he do?’

  ‘He followed a woman.’

  Lambestyo let his eyes flick over the desolate Lulabelle, then shrugged. ‘Well. There isn’t much I can do right now. They have me under guard,’ and he gestured with his thumb towards a team of Marshians with guns and spears sitting some distance away.