by Eric Brown
He positioned his chair before the curving face of the dome and stared out at the early evening landscape. The sun was setting on the oceanic horizon, laying down orange and scarlet strata. The red dome of the sun reminded him of the coming night. He wondered how he might see it through with no ‘drift to assuage his fevered mind.
He had at one time considered doing without the drug voluntarily, so that he would become cognizant of the terrors of his past that were locked within his subconscious. He was an artist, was he not? Why keep that great storehouse locked - even if its content proved too harrowing to bear? If he was to produce art out of life, which after all should be the tenet of all great artists, then surely all experience was valid?
But over the months his nightmares had grown ever more terrible, and he found himself unable to cope with the ghastly images within his head. He had steadily increased his intake of silverdrift, until a week ago when it began to run low and he had had to ration himself.
Three nights ago, on a quarter of his usual dosage, he had been tortured by a procession of unbearable visions. All featured Aramantha in agony, begging him not to let her die. In the nightmare he had been visited by pangs of guilt almost physical in their agony. He’d awoken screaming, covered in sweat, still haunted by images of Aramantha, their villa on Tartarus, and the rugged Grecian landscape of the island.
Two nights ago he had dreamed that he himself had brought about Aramantha’s death, and a sense of guilt had haunted him all the following day.
Last night he had remained awake, working, determined not to give in to sleep. He wondered now if he could remain awake a second night, or a third? And how soon might it be before his subconscious unburdened its freight of anguish upon his conscious self in the form of hypnagogic hallucinations just as terrible as his nightmares?
A little over two years ago Aramantha had contracted a rare terminal disease, and had spent her final months on the island with Fairman. A week after her death, Fairman had left Tartarus and returned to Earth. Then, not long after his arrival, he had employed the services of a neurosurgeon to edit his memories of Aramantha’s illness. The agony, obviously, had been too much to bear.
The process was illegal - for obvious reasons. Memories could never be comprehensively erased. Sooner or later they re-emerged, warped and deformed, as Fairman’s were doing now.
A part of him was curious to know exactly what had happened during Aramantha’s last months - even though he was aware he would probably regret the knowledge; after all, he had thought it wise to have it edited in the first place. The note he had written to himself had informed him of all he thought he should know: ‘Aramantha died on Tartarus on the 40th of St Jude’s month. You had your memory wiped of this, and her illness, to save your sanity. Let it be.’
As the sun sank from sight and the stars appeared in the night sky one by one, Fairman repeatedly caught himself on the brink of sleep. He awoke for perhaps the fifth time with a start, and was wondering how he might keep himself awake when he became aware of a dark shape against the luminous starfield.
At first he thought it was yet another of the floating cameras, though larger. Then he saw that it had wings. Could it be the latest creation of one of the gene-artisans who lived a hundred kilometres down the coast, a DNA-created replica of a bald eagle or condor, extinct these past thousand years?
Then, as the creature drew closer, his heart began a laboured pounding. He realised that he was sweating. There could be no doubting it - unless this was just another peculiar facet of his dreams: the creature advancing through the air towards his mansion was none other than a Tartarean Messenger. He experienced a quick stab of panic at the sight of the creature, and wondered why? Why?
The delicate Messenger descended to the deck and hovered an inch above the surface, its great wings a blur of shimmering motion. It proceeded in light, tip-toe steps towards the entrance, its long wings coming together behind its back.
It spoke into the receiver, ‘Monsieur Fairman?’ Its voice was light, piping.
Fairman cleared his throat. ‘The same. Your duty?’
‘To relay to you a message.’
He hesitated. ‘From Tartarus?’
The Messenger blinked. It was bald, as pure in facial feature as a child. It wore a silver bodysuit, from the shoulder blades of which its wings sprouted on wrist-thick columns of cartilage. The wings themselves were not feathered, but as diaphanous as fine lace, like those of a dragonfly.
‘Where else?’ the Messenger responded at last. ‘Perhaps, if you let me in, we might talk further?’
Fairman spoke, and the door slid open. The Messenger stepped through, followed by the length of its wings. The creature stood within reach of Fairman before the transparent membranes, fully three metres long, cleared the entrance. This close, he was amazed at how small the creature was - the apex of its shaven pate barely reached his chest.
For all he knew the Messenger to be of human stock, there was something nevertheless alien about it: the pale skin, large eyes and thin-lipped mouth - though, at the same time, it was not without a strange, severe beauty. Fairman detected the slight rise of breasts beneath the bodysuit; it was female, then.
‘I come from Tartarus; generally, from the western continent, specifically from the isle of Lyssia.’
Fairman experienced a second’s disbelief. ‘I lived there,’ he whispered, then quickly, ‘Who sent you?’
‘I was summoned by the ghost of your wife, Monsieur Fairman.’
‘No!’ What cruel joke was being played on him? ‘My wife?’
‘She haunts the western peninsula of the isle. I was traversing the archipelago when she manifested herself and called a summons. Messengers ignore no summons, especially those of a ghost.’
Fairman was shaking his head. The western peninsula? He recalled the amphitheatre, what he and Aramantha had seen and heard there. Could it be? His heart leaped at the thought.
‘Aramantha wishes to talk to you,’ the Messenger said.
He considered Aramantha, her alleged ghost. Then it came to him that on the island neighbouring Lyssia was a forest of silver trees . . .
‘But a ship—?’ he began.
‘Boats leave Diego daily, bound for Tartarus,’ the Messenger said. ‘I have made arrangements.’
‘And you?’
‘I will accompany you, of course. It is my destiny to go with the glory of Tartarus when the sun blows in twenty years.’
Fairman looked across the studio at the six statues. ‘Give me a little time. I have one or two tasks to complete.’
The Messenger inclined her head. She turned, mindful of her wings, and processed herself through the exit.
Fairman approached the sculptures. He would meld them back into the block from which they had come. He did not wish these sub-standard pieces to stand as his last work, should tragedy befall him on Tartarus.
* * * *
The landing on Tartarus suggested that much had changed. In the past the transition from omega-space to planetary atmosphere had been achieved without the passengers’ realisation. This time, the ancient barque bucked and juddered as it entered the orbit of Tartarus, then was rattled almost to the point of disintegration by the planet’s overheated troposphere. The touchdown itself seemed more of a drop from a great height, which jarred Fairman’s bones and left the ship creaking ominously.
An even greater shock was in store when the ramp was lowered and the passengers, with Fairman and the tiny Messenger in their wake, swarmed out. The surrounding hills of Baudelaire, once emerald green, were parched and straw-coloured now.
In the sky, dominating and oppressing the landscape, was the cause. The sun - once the size of an orange held at arm’s length - filled a quarter of the heavens, a blinding white disc.
Fairman selected a flier from the port hire service, hoisted it into the searing, white expanse of the sky and banked away in the direction of the western continent. The Messenger insisted on accompanying him in the fl
ier. The creature claimed it was her duty to take him to she who had summoned him, and though Fairman wished to travel alone - something about the Messenger still troubling him - he was too exhausted to argue after the uncomfortable voyage, too apprehensive as to what he might find on the island. She folded her wings and sat beside him in silence.
They flew over the sluggish sea of Marea, the equatorial ocean that stretched for two thousand kilometres between the densely populated landmass they had just left and the sequestered western continent of Kithira. The heat was such that the sea gave off foul-smelling veils of steam; it seemed that the higher they flew, the hotter the air became, and Fairman chose to keep the flier at low altitude, preferring the reeking discharge to the wilting heat.
Fairman reclined on the comfortable control couch before the bulbous viewscreen, the side-panels open to admit what little breeze their passage generated. He had to fight to keep from falling asleep; repeatedly he awoke with a start and busied himself needlessly with minor adjustments to the controls.
Although sedated for the three day duration of the voyage from Earth, he had managed only a few hours of genuine sleep, and predictably these were haunted by familiar images. Prominent were those of his wife, her handsome Latin features twisted into a mask of agony, her body, once fulsome, reduced now to parlous skin and bone. More terrifying had been the mental anguish that Fairman had experienced: the sense of guilt, of hopelessness and grief that had threatened to take his sanity.
He had emerged from sedation just before transition, and the realisation of where he was, and the promise of the silverdrift, had served to push back the horror and give him hope.
The Messenger perched beside him on the passenger couch, leaning forward, her posture suggesting an attitude of observation, an eagerness to arrive at journey’s end.
They had spoken hardly a word to each other since their communication at his mansion. Fairman had wanted to ask her more about her meeting with Aramantha’s ghost, but had found the creature’s silence, her absorption in a reality that seemed at many removes from his own, a powerful deterrent to enquiry.
Now, as a roundabout way of finding out what he wanted to know, he determined to ask the creature about herself.
‘Why is it that your Guild has vowed to remain on Tartarus?’
The Messenger turned her large dark eyes on him, as if deciding whether she should deign to reply.
‘We were created to communicate,’ she said, ambiguously.
‘Yes, but why?’
‘In the early days we were created to act as liaisons between the many castes of colonists who were forbidden, for reasons of etiquette, to speak to each other. Our wings, our eidetic memories, were designed to aid this function.’
‘And when the castes were no more?’
‘There were always tasks we could perform. Many of my forbears were bards, poets, reciters of the Tartarean sagas.’
‘And then, with the swelling of the sun, you again come into your own.’
‘That is so. And when the sun explodes, we will effect the final communication.’
Fairman stared at the childlike Messenger. ‘How so?’
‘On the day before the apocalypse we will gather at prearranged sites around Tartarus and end our lives of flesh. Then, when the sun blows, our collective consciousness will be fired outwards, our atoms will commingle with the cosmos, communicating with all sentient life in the galaxy, telling of our sacrifice, our elevation.’ The creature fell silent, as if contemplating this hallowed event.
Fairman shook his head, but remained silent. He wanted to point out to the fey being just what would happen, come the day of destruction. First, the breathable atmosphere of the planet would be burned up by the intensifying heat of the sun, the seas would boil and evaporate and all organic matter would ignite in a world-wide conflagration; then the photon sleet of the exploding sun would blast all that remained from the planet’s surface.
But he kept silent. The Messenger believed, and who was he to gainsay such faith with his cynical rationalisations?
If such things as ghosts did, indeed, exist . . .
Quite suddenly the mist lifted, and ahead Fairman made out the rocky bastion of Kithira’s coastline. Inland, a spectacular range of mountains rose against the great white orb of the sun. Fairman set the flier on a course parallel to the shore, heading towards the southern seas where the continent stuttered to an end in a diminishing chain of archipelagic islets.
He cleared his throat. ‘You said you were summoned by the ghost of Aramantha? How did this happen?’
The creature spread her delicate fingers. ‘In ages past, long before humans came to Tartarus, long before even the Slarque walked the planet, others lived here, aliens from another star - the Tharseans. They did not die as we do, but lived on as ghosts - or rather as what we call ghosts. The phantoms of this alien race still live here, and occasionally they are joined by human ghosts, chosen by the legion of the Tharseans. Aramantha Fairman is one such.’
‘And this . . . this ghost - it summoned you?’
‘She summoned me, said that she wished to speak with you. That is all I know.’ The Messenger fell silent.
Fairman sat back in his couch and contemplated what she had said. He considered Aramantha, and what they had witnessed, more than once, on the island where they had made their home.
Almost every evening, after a long day’s work, they would take bread and cheese, fruit and wine, and leave the villa. They would walk until they reached a suitable location, and eat and drink and enjoy the view, talk about their work and what they hoped to produce.
A favourite place, to which they returned again and again, w as the amphitheatre on the western peninsula, a fan-shaped banking of marble-like tiers overlooking the perfo rmance area beside the sea. The amphitheatre pre-dated the Slarque, and was said to be the work of the aliens who had made Tartarus their home aeons ago.
The mystique of the place was emphasised by the fact, or so Aramantha had claimed, that it was haunted. On perhaps a dozen occasions during their forty years on the island they had heard strange sounds issue from the performance area of the amphitheatre - the occasional cry, of pain or joy they could not tell, a string of what might have been words in an unknown language, lofty and declarative, and once, briefly, the sound of someone or something weeping. At least, Aramantha had anthropomorphised them so. Although Fairman had heard them too, he had rationalised the sounds, ascribed them to freak effects of the wind, or the amplification of an animal noise by the excellent acoustics of the ruin. And anyway, the incidents had been so infrequent, and then so brief, that Fairman had tended to pay them little attention beside the all-consuming passion for his wife and his work.
Harder to explain away, however, were the visual manifestations witnessed by Aramantha and himself. On two occasions - and these twenty years apart - they had both become aware of a fleet, shifting form in the warm night air. The first time, while drinking wine in the upper tiers of the amphitheatre, they had turned as one, just in time to see a rapid blur vanish from sight down in the performance area. Fairman had managed to convince himself that what he had seen was nothing more than either the movement of a wild animal, or a dust-devil created by the warm night winds that came in off the sea.
The second incident had been more difficult to dismiss. They had approached the amphitheatre from the beach, a little drunk with wine, and stopped dead before they reached the performance area. To their right had appeared briefly - for perhaps five seconds, no more - a flickering, humanoid form, an arm raised in a gesture of valediction. Then it vanished, and Fairman and Aramantha had stared at each other as if to corroborate what each had seen.
‘The wine,’ he had muttered to himself.
And down the years, while Fairman had tended to minimise the import of the apparition - citing scientific rationalisations like hallucinations or sympathetic mental imagery - Aramantha convinced herself that the amphitheatre was indeed haunted. She had even produced
a performance piece entitled, ‘The Phantom of the Isle’.
And now, if the Messenger was to be believed, she herself had returned as a phantom.
* * * *
They sped south, on a course parallel with the coast. The inland mountains gave way to broad plains, once green but burned ochre now by the ministrations of the sun. The gentle sea lapped at isolated coves and beaches, incessant activity that had gone on from time immemorial, and which few human eyes had seen - and which, in twenty years, would be no more. Such beauty, Fairman thought, such innocent beauty destroyed by unimaginably vast forces.
The sun was a great, nebulous orb balanced on the horizon. It was setting, though the process would take hours, and in its wake would not come night as such but a bloody and baleful twilight. Fairman felt himself nodding off, but fought the urge.
Hours later, the flier on automatic, he did finally doze, only to be awoken after what seemed like minutes by a frightful nightmare image. He thrust a dagger into Aramantha’s heart, and then stood back in horror, while all around him in the amphitheatre spectators denounced him as a traitor.