The Weight of the World

by Tom Toner

  She looked up at last, surely sensing how close I was.

  Help me, Percy. I will make you a Prince of the Firmament such as nobody has ever seen. My prince, my consort.

  A Spirit Prince, I thought, cradling her, conscious despite my naivety that it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.

  The day came for the Emperor’s visit: a strong, cobalt-tinted day of sun, the storms calmed across the Clawed Sea. The year was 10,087, and, according to Abigail, I had just celebrated my sixth birthday.

  Jacob strolled before me, his mood bright as the day, his clothes luminously dyed and jewelled in blues and greens, like the colour of sun through waves.

  My chief councillor has taken an extraordinary interest in you, Spirit, he told me, gazing out at the view of the water. He begs incessantly to be offered an introduction, keeps asking that I bring you with me on a trip to the Old World . . . But I’ve told him it’s impossible. And I couldn’t bear to share you, even if it were.

  He looked up at where he thought I was, even though in reality I perched just beside him, examining his frills and gems. He wants to know why you cannot leave here.

  He smiled slyly then, and I wanted dearly to push him from that window. Instead I grinned back from my invisible world, understanding something, for once, that he did not.

  And I asked myself then, he said, spreading his arms, does the Spirit know? Does it understand why it can’t leave? What Firmamental secrets has Abigail been whispering up here, against my wishes? Would you tell me, Perception? Or have you fallen for her charms like everyone else?

  He laughed then, staring out to sea, unaware that his ship had already left, heading back on a course for Cancri. I’d heard its super-luminal filaments pop as they breached the outer sea to snap away into the Void. But even while it had idled in the gardens it was already too late for Jacob: from the moment he’d set foot through my door he was trapped here, sealed inside my chamber with an Incantation of Abigail’s own devising.

  It didn’t take him long to realise.

  After three hours of enraged screaming, bruised from hurling himself at the great door, he chose the only real route out. The window.

  I watched in slow motion, sensing his trepidation as he smashed the glass with his boot—glass I’d never even been able to scratch—and inched out, the cold, high air ruffling his silks. There was no way down, no handholds in the great blocks of stone that made up my palace.

  Leave his body might, she’d said, but his soul, with your permission, shall stay with you. He’ll feel no pain, I guarantee it.

  I watched the body fall only for a moment, seeing it strike lifelessly against the wall and bounce, finery fluttering in the sea wind, before turning my attention back to the chamber.

  For a moment, you and he will be joined, two souls bound by your own minuscule gravity, and then, perhaps slowly at first, he will simply fade away.

  I waited, perfecting my equivalent of a leonine pace across the floor, understanding slowly that she would not come, that she had used me just as I might have first expected. Her Incantation, so effective at trapping Jacob’s soul, did not fade. I could see how it was made now, this sorcerer’s word on the wind, effected by a trillion floating dots in the air. I felt the Incantation’s renewed power as I pressed myself, bending with the wind, against the smashed-open void of my window. Where briefly it had screamed and wept, no whiff or trace of Jacob’s soul now remained, though down below his bones, slowly picked over by ponderous great blue crabs the colour of his jewels, would surely remain gleaming and bleached as a reminder of my guilt for many years to come.

  I was ready now to die in earnest, to retreat to that deeper part of death that eluded me, to follow the Emperor’s spirit wherever it had gone. If only I knew. Some skin of the universe, its gaps impermeable to a soul such as my own, had allowed him to pass through where I could not.

  I reflected on what Abigail had said to me, imagining my making and undoing, the smoky coils of my soul sinking in the currents of the air to pool like mist upon the ground, trapped forever by my gravity, and slept.

  When I woke, uncounted years had passed and all was darkness. Behind heavy shutters, my window had been replaced with a fresh sheet of pristine glass, inscribed with the crest of a new ruler like a signed work of art. I saw at once that they had taken my books, and understood. Abigail had cast the blame on me.

  In time, I was visited by another Immortal, the keeper of the Incantation, a surly Pre-Perennial named Vincenti clearly sent in penance to keep an eye on me. Over time, through boredom and loneliness, he recounted all that had happened during my long sleep.

  Abigail had reigned as Firmamental Empress for only twenty years before a Prism assassin found its way into her presence during a trip to the outer Satrapies. My joy at the news was tempered with disappointment that I couldn’t have been the one to do it, and now never would.

  I tried to imagine these Prism things, flexing my imagination, but all I could come up with were hybrids of the creatures I always saw from my windows—men with the heads of birds, Melius with gills and fins. I found myself dearly wishing to see one, hoping that they might invade the Vaulted Land one day and come for an audience at my palace.

  But that was unlikely to happen. Vincenti told me that the war had been won, the Prism subdued. The worlds beyond the limits of the Firmament were to be made into something called an Investiture, subject to regulations and sanctions by the Firmament so that nothing of the sort could ever happen again. I sensed the hatred the Prism must feel and thereafter decided that I was one of them—in spirit, if not in form.

  And so we leave now, and in the most eccentric of company. I look out of the portholes, aquiver with excitement. My life’s—my death’s— ambition has been fulfilled: the Amaranthine have failed, after all, to contain me. And I am never coming back. I owe a debt to the man, Maneker, and I will help him, if I can. But the curiosity! What shall we find when we arrive at our destination? I have an idea. This councillor, this friend of Jacob’s who so desired to meet me, shall perhaps have his wish after all.

  I think on my freedom, replaying Maneker’s words, what he has done for me. It was not gravity that kept me in this place—as I’d believed for centuries—but the Incantation, Abigail’s magic alone. Here in Proximo I am as light as a feather, drifting already on my way, something I’d never thought possible. The Amaranthine visitors who came thousands of years ago had told me of Planettes—solid places like great stones drifting in the vastness of the Void—and I’m reminded once more of my perverse good fortune. Had I died on a Planette I could never be free, Incantation or not. I would have been sunk, weighted to the iron core, for ever. I produce my equivalent of a shudder, suddenly overcome with emotion, and relax myself through the ship like a fog of drifting steam, inspecting it at leisure.

  Our vessel, hollowed by the Pifoon with their own badly made passageways, contains what feels to me like a straight filament super-luminal drive, wildly inefficient now after years of poor repair. In my solitude, I once imagined ways of travelling faster than basic physical assumptions might allow, and I am gratified to see that at least one of my designs has proved workable. The Decadence Amaranthine were spectacular in their wastefulness, squandering all that I might have offered. Their loss, I suppose, the murdering fucks.

  It is thirty-six trillion miles from the heliosheath of Proximo’s system star to the boundaries of the ruling Satrapy; six light-years. I initiate the calculation as I watch a scummed globe of water drip from the scullery sink, arriving at my figure before it has darkened the filthy floor. It will take no less than three weeks.

  I drift into the flight deck, peering among the shelves of cluttered papers, and study the contents of a fat, hundred-and-fifty-year-old Sun Compendium, decoding the antiquated Pifoon by comparing it with a more recent companion volume squirreled beneath. I revise my estimate: a nova some distance out has sent the solar currents into turmoil, bending shipping lanes. Four weeks.


  I feel the vessel, expanding myself like an anaconda replete from a meal (a satisfying reference from one of my old books) to probe the structure of the hull. Within the minute, I have insinuated myself into every cranny and chink in the Epsilon’s armoured hull plating and found it lacking. Like a worn old shoe, the clipper has lost a good deal of protection from various violent encounters; it will need insulating and replating, another few days at a stop somewhere ahead. Only rivets and tension keep the imperfect vessel together, like ropes wound tight. A worrying thought, until one considers that all of life must be made in this way. Even me, I should imagine.

  I think back to everything I’ve memorised from the Compendium, delighted at the new plan of the stars in my head: One of Vaulted Siri-us’s Tethered moons would suffice for repairs, perhaps Port Rubante— computing its wanderings, we’d hardly need to make any course adjustment.

  I look more carefully at the outer shielding, discovering the inverted frozen torso of a Lacaille soldier wedged into one of the cistern chutes, the remains of the last hostile boarding party. Its snarling face has been bent into a lopsided smile. I smile happily back, examining its frosted innards before slimming myself down to my core and investigating the narrow spaces beneath the hull. Six broadside battery chambers equipped with Golanite bolt shells, complemented by twin lumen cannons at the muzzle. A heat-shielded, five-thousand-round Light Charger extends from a Robinet at the flattened nose. Buried deep within the forward guns lies the intolerably hot and oppressive flight deck, a broom cupboard of wooden seats partly buried beneath scattered rubbish and sheaves of star charts. The air here is smoked and highly carcinogenic, a froth of heady compounds rising from poorly sealed mechanisms: I can see why these small people live such short lives. A bank of felt-lined listening trumpets crowd the space, their pipes running about the whole vessel. I follow all twenty, fascinated, to their origins, understanding from the wave antennas how the old Pifoon crew must have flown virtually blind and reliant on sound. A small hatchway above the seats lets in the light of the Vaulted Land, some yellow cloud slipping past, but it is little more than a break in the armour, an unshielded viewing hatch no bigger than poor young Lycaste himself.

  I return my thoughts to the ship’s crew, my bedfellows. What a chaotic grouping of distantly related breeds—a zoo of curiosities amassed for my pleasure. I wander, looking at them all as they scurry to and fro, preparing this hotchpotch of tubes and metal for entry into the Void. At last, I find the Melius sitting quietly in his closet, resignation crumpling his huge face. I saw his mind and now I search his knapsack, finding the directions to his home, the Old World, written beautifully on a scrap of crinkled paper.

  The Old World. I say it to myself, searching my memory. The Old World. The very place Jacob, a voice lost now to the millennia, had wished to make hollow.

  GRAND-TILE

  Forwarded:

  Quozar Township, Harp-Zalnir/

  Niemwood, Burrow Lumm/

  MESSELEMIE, Firmament’s End

  My Dear Ghaldezuel,

  The team relayed their last location some time ago, having just entered the Investiture at the Zelio gateway in Firmament’s End. Even accounting for the long delay, we ought to have received word by now. I can only assume that their approach to the Zelio planets went eventfully. Anticipating your reply, I have paid and dispatched the tracking team. They took advantage of the short notice to be thoroughly exorbitant, but I had no other option.

  To business. Sensitive to the Firmament’s lax new approach to taxation, I have moved 351,000 Vulgar Filgurees (the balance from our last two reprisal missions) to the accounts held in the Grand Bank at Goldenwheal. What remains in the vault at Hauberth is ready to be sent away to your partners at Port Echo, via secured convoy, within a day’s notice. Filgurbirund will most assuredly remain stable until well beyond Firmamental Midsummer, so there shouldn’t be any hurry. In fact, I believe the ease with which we move currency will only improve over time, depending on where the new Lacaille-held territory eventually joins up.

  Since your departure, the Lacaille have won significant lands in the Ninth Realm of the Investiture, pushing back a Vulgar fleet at Port Cys and opening up the corridor towards Cancri. I remain hopeful that we can secure the entirety of the Ninth Realm before Filgurbirund wakes up to the danger, thereby removing the Vulgar’s last chance of counter-attack. Once this happens, there will exist a path of no impediment to your movements from the Never-Never all the way in to Firmament’s End.

  I remind you that there is no need to reply, and that all is in hand here. I look forward to meeting again as arranged. Good luck, my friend.

  Yours in faithful service,

  Vibor

  The Colossus moaned as it fell.

  Within the antennaed pinnacle of an outward turret on the vast, rust-pitted bulk of the battleship’s forecastle, Ghaldezuel sat at the table of his generous room, Vibor’s letter before him atop a jewelled, well-worn book of drawings. Absently, he tucked it back into its hiding place in a concealed pocket of the book, so that it lay squeezed like a pressed flower. His eyes, not long lifted from Vibor’s words, were fixed on the flickers of light beyond his porthole.

  The flashes, he knew, were not stars but the most stately fixtures of the Void: impossibly distant galaxies. The Grand-Tile had been equipped with ancient Amaranthine superluminal filaments and now travelled faster than nearly anything in existence, straight and true as a torch beam in a vacuum. The quicker one travelled, the larger the light sources had to be to reach your eyes, or so they said. Ghaldezuel, who would freely admit he possessed no great aptitude for the natural sciences, supposed it must be so. He stared between the shimmering points of light, thoughtful, morose. No stops or resupply points were scheduled, this being a Long Course, as Lacaille Voidnauts called such dementia-inducing journeys across the greater Firmament, and no accompanying vessel could hope to travel fast enough to provide an escort. They were on their own.

  The smudged galaxies flickered, the closest points of light strobing on and off and sometimes even disappearing entirely for seconds at a time as the battleship steadily accelerated. It was like plummeting to the bottom of the sea, darkness glowering over you as the depths grew colder, denser. Their progress was rapid enough for an accumulating soup of rolling atmosphere to have caught and clung, streaming milk-ily among the battleship’s turrets like vapour from a rising jet’s wings. Swept aside by such light-bending speeds, a spiralling vortex of micro-meteorites stretched for miles behind in the wake of the fastest ships. This trailing jetsam usually included a horde of distantly following Prism ships, the Feeders, their caravanserai winding off for a million miles into the silver as they struggled to catch up.

  If they slammed any faster, those galaxies would also disappear from view, leaving the Grand-Tile in absolute nothingness, a blank darkness rushing too fast for any light to catch. Ghaldezuel didn’t think that would happen—there were limits even to the Amaranthines’ past glories—but the thought unnerved him nevertheless. Like a game of Dare Me, his mind was drawn to imagine the worst: a section of bulkhead shearing away and spilling him out into that black ocean, infinity in every direction, his body still travelling untrammelled to pass like a bullet of the gods out of the galaxy and on into oblivion. His head swam at the thought, a nausea he hadn’t felt in years rising within him, but he wasn’t ashamed of his fears. No planetary creature was made to be where he was now without experiencing an instinctive, testicle-shrivelling terror at the idea. There were just some places mortals weren’t supposed to go.

  He closed the book, listening to the moaning siren song of the battleship like a leviathan calling to its progeny in the deep. On Drol-gins, the Vulgar moon, there were sea mammals easily as large as the Grand-Tile whose names had grown legendary over the centuries. The youngest of them, the Malevolent Howlos, had even been persuaded by the three kings of Filgurbirund to lay waste to the port of Bulmouth during the Battle of Hangland. When the beasts died, they fed c
ountries and reinvigorated whole economies, their blubber firing Prism industry for years at a time. Sometimes their teeth were dipped in molten metals to adorn the great Vulgar Behemoths, the only Prism battleships that could take on a Lacaille Colossus in the open Void. Part of Ghaldezuel’s dismay over the peace treaty signed the previous year was the knowledge that he would not see another battle between the gargantuan craft of the Void. Now, with his sole help, they would fight again, lighting up the Investiture for all to see.

  He loosened the buckles on his thrombosis suit, suddenly finding it overly constricting, and thought of the creatures in the Lacaille seas: smaller, more voracious. He wouldn’t swim in the Sea of Veops for all the Truppins it could hold.

  He supposed the Long-Life knew his fears, understanding him at a glance the way he appeared to understand and shame others. It wouldn’t have surprised Ghaldezuel in the least to discover that he’d been given an outer cabin on the great fortress’s forecastle just to test his nerve, as some kind of simple experiment. He loosened the buckle on his suit further. But he only thinks he knows. The Long-Life thought Ghaldezuel served him out of simple greed, as if he were nothing but a paper figure, a caricature drawn on the page inside his book here. Aaron would be summoning him now to tell him he must renege on their deal, that he would not get what he’d been promised. Ghaldezuel didn’t care. Enough had been achieved already, just enough. He’d been paid handsomely for his work in delivering the Long-Life’s precious Shell, more than a third of it now sent away through his contacts in the Filgurbirund and Zalnir banks. The Lacaille were winning the war, slowly retaking territories they hadn’t set foot in for centuries; the Vulgar’s every operation was now devoted to hoarding and defending what little they had left. Yes, that would be enough for now.

  He left the porthole shutter open as he walked out, the white fossil light of dead worlds flickering in.