The Weight of the World

by Tom Toner

  He waited for the Fine Train, wiping the last of the shit smears from his leather boot. The paupers in the hallway hadn’t made it easy for him to leave, but a few threats and a broken wrist had soon seen Ghal-dezuel through. On the Fine platform, walled off from the gabbling, seething crowd, the first snow of the day floated down to disappear at his feet just as the train arrived. Surly comments from the drunken crowd made him turn to look upon them through the gate, his eyes cold, daring someone to speak.

  The train pulled alongside, a fortified red and silver bullet a hundred years old if it was a day but looking for all the world like the most modern thing on this wretched planet. Engines capable of propelling it at ninety miles an hour throbbed through the stone concourse as he made his way aboard, satisfied that his boots wouldn’t get any cleaner. This train was owned by the bank, and he—now a valued customer— was to be treated like every inch the lord.

  The citadel the Fine Station had been built into rolled away, a soot-black outcrop of rock and brick surrounded by a moat of slums glimpsed and then gone from the window. A steward ushered Ghaldezuel quickly to his seat in the dining car, taking his travelling cape and stowing it with a flourish. Ghaldezuel relaxed into the Lacaille finery exposed beneath, a muted suit of mustard and gold, narrow at the sleeves and fluted at the collar. Across the table, another Lacaille traveller, an older gentleman with a jewelled eyepatch and a gaudy Vulgar wife in tow, dipped his head in silent acknowledgment. On the beaten silver plates before them lay twin mountains of Hag Bay crablings, alive and squirming. Ghaldezuel studied the couple for a moment while he removed his long gloves and fixed his cuffs, his gaze shifting to settle on the twenty miles of shanty land that spun past outside. An unwelcome thought came into being as he caught the reflection of his suit in the window: whether, now things were in motion, he owned any of the clothes he would die in.

  As he watched the land slip by, he also wondered what would become of the two sitting opposite, stabbing at their crabs; how unions of their kind would be treated in the ensuing war. It would be a large conflict, likely dividing all the Prism. He expected the Lacaille and his wife would find a way out, if they had any influence, feeling nothing for them but a detached sense of irritation. Outside, the red forest had receded to a murk of blackened chimneys and wooden houses, some clearly built many storeys higher than their foundations could cope with. The Hauberth shanty lands swarmed with Vulgar, jostling among their hovels like an eye socket full of larvae, all motion and struggle. The richest lived in corrugated tin buildings, tapering to wooden floors once they were well away from the street fires; the poorest did not live at all, their white, fish-boned corpses lying prone in the railway’s ditch or festering at the track’s edge. More Gurlish soldiers leaned in doorways to drink, or found what fun there was to be had in the sturdier buildings on the hill. Ghaldezuel watched them all, his shrewd eyes going from one structure to another as they raced past, the miles dissolving. The slums were a labyrinth around the capital, a thorny barrier against any army, but they were also a dry stack of kindling, a place of yearly rebellions. Only the Vulgar’s sheer talent for disorganisation protected Hauberth Under Shiel, or Gurl, or Wiehlish. It was their uselessness that kept the Empire alive.

  In no time at all they were beyond the shanty limits, passing high walls of pitted stone and brick and heading through the commercial districts of the vast city. Ghaldezuel caught glimpses of black statues rising from plinths at almost every junction—heroes from the Vulgar side of the Investiture Wars, like Ignioz of the Lacaille. He spotted the magicians Verillo and Solida, their ugly faces distinctive even as they blurred past, and a queen, though her name escaped him now.

  Ghaldezuel had visited the city before as a young man, but of course its charms—a rare thing out here—were wasted on him then. Returning fully grown to places appeared to neutralise them, made them, he often thought, your equal; you met on mutual terms at last, no longer frightened of getting lost among labyrinthine streets or trampled underfoot in the bustle of thousands. This place, though, this vast foreign capital—this was somewhere it would take a dozen lifetimes to learn. He patted the book of architectural drawings, stowing it as they neared the centre of the capital, and returned his gaze to the buildings, watching them grow in grandeur with each heartbeat.

  The train began to slow. A bend of the River Frush rolled by beneath, stained with the colours of Hauberth’s hotchpotch industry: greens and reds and yellows, churning like the coloured skin of a Melius. Ghaldezuel smiled at the window, realising at last with whom he would be meeting. Vehicles of all shapes trundled and lumbered across the bridges that spanned the river, the furthest of them nothing but hints in the fog of pollution, while Filgur-bears from some kind of travelling zoo slinked past, roped behind their keeper. Ghaldezuel knew he’d be able to smell the place, thick and potent, had the window been open or the train badly insulated. Music, however, was making its way through the thick plastic as the train slowed to walking pace. The thump of it pulsed through Ghaldezuel’s thigh where it leaned against the inside wall.

  He looked down at his clothing as everything outside went dark, a tunnel swallowing them, and straightened his cuffs once more. Weak light swept by in bars, lit subterranean doorways, until they entered a chamber of bright white light, cuboid and perfect in its minimalism; the vaults beneath the Bank of Hauberth. Ghaldezuel sat up, peering curiously through the window. The place was almost Amaranthine in its artful simplicity—he half-expected to see an Immortal stalking the underlit floor towards the train as it stopped. It would not have surprised him in the slightest; these vaults were built with Firmamental money, after all, not a drop of it earned honestly.

  The train stilled at last, the rustle of its passengers reaching for their cases signalling that it would terminate here, beneath the Grand Bank. Ghaldezuel was pleased and yet disappointed not to have had an opportunity to walk the streets. There might not be much time after the meeting. He stretched, collecting his folded travel cape with its multitude of pockets, and made his way quickly to the unsealing doors and out into the bright concourse. He squinted beside the humming train—it really was like being in a vast room made of fluorescence—seeing a squat person striding towards him, bold against the white.

  “Sire,” the young, immaculately dressed Vulgar said, addressing Ghaldezuel almost as if he were Amaranthine. “This way. Your friend awaits you in Vault Seventeen.”

  Together they made their way to a wide square arch. Armoursuited guards flanked the hallway further inside, the light now low and muted.

  Ghaldezuel’s face tensed, a smile just beneath the surface. Here he was, an interstellar terrorist, stepping lightly and calmly into the wealthiest bank on Filgurbirund. Now he was a welcomed guest, escorted and simpered at—in a day’s time, well, who knew? Such colossal things could happen in a day. The Lacaille had rearmed four to one and were about to violate a peace hard won by millions of lives. The attack on Nilmuth tomorrow might not go at all to plan, a victim of something crucially unforeseen, but he thought not.

  Wondering that nobody had asked him to surrender his pistol, he paced behind the scuttling Vulgar, the great bolted vault doors passing to either side until they reached Seventeen, an especially large chamber cloistered beneath a high arched ceiling. At once, he saw the magnitude of what they were doing, his stride faltering at the view of twenty heaped pyramids of glimmering Vulgar Filgurees. Standing sentinel between them glowered the huge form of Pauncefoot, the Firmamental Melius, even more sumptuously dressed than at their first meeting in a gown of shimmering black silk, his puffed sleeves weighted with milky-white stones.

  The giant bowed, his spread hands indicating the pyramids of coins around him. Ghaldezuel formed the impression that the Melius had gained weight in the half-year since he’d seen him last.

  “Well then, Ghaldezuel, a pleasure to see you again,”Pauncefoot growled, dismissing the clerk with a smart nod of his huge head. “What do you think?”

 
Ghaldezuel walked between the huge piles of Filgurees to take the Melius’s hand. “This would appear sufficient.”

  Pauncefoot threw his head back in a laugh, clapping Ghaldezuel lightly on the shoulder, his good humour clearly buoyed by his own personal cut of the pyramids around him. “Sufficient! I remember that dry wit from Atholcualan.” He indicated an ornamental chair off to one side, placed between the seven-foot-high stacks of currency. “Please, sit.”

  Ghaldezuel took his seat, eyes running over the coin mountains at his side. They had been arranged meticulously, as was the way of the Hauberth Bank—much as one might find a napkin artfully folded at the dinner table. He would remain, however, to see them packed, just to make sure.

  “Each of eight hundred thousand?” he asked, tempted to pull a coin from the base of the nearest pyramid, just to see what would happen. “Equivalent to five and three Truppins apiece?”

  “Don’t worry, you may stay to supervise the shipping,”Pauncefoot said, arranging his gown so that he could sit on the tiled floor. “The Amaranthine have no need for thrift.”

  Ghaldezuel nodded, folding his arms expectantly. There was more to this meeting; he felt it, saw it in the look on the Firmamental’s hideous face. “How have you listed this?”

  “Firmamental auction. Obscure as they come.”

  They stared at each other a moment, the silence of Vault Seventeen filling the space.

  “Your team are ready?”Pauncefoot asked. “Hungry?”

  “Starved,” Ghaldezuel confirmed.

  “Well,” Pauncefoot continued, choosing his words. “Tell them they mustn’t overfeed.”

  Ghaldezuel sighed, his suspicions confirmed at last. “Out with it.”

  The silence returned. One might never have guessed that above them raged the largest city on Filgurbirund. Ghaldezuel usually liked stillness, but not now.

  “Out with it, Pauncefoot. How does the Firmament expect to use me next?”

  “Not you, Ghaldezuel. We only need your team.”

  We. He was deluded. Ghaldezuel waited for more, his body very still, his face expressionless.

  “You alone,” Pauncefoot continued slowly, “of all the hundreds of Op-Zlan, command a few of the Bult to some degree. Why? Why will they follow you, and no others? The Firmament can find no trace of a pact similar to this in all the Investiture.” He studied Ghaldezuel, great eyes shrewd. “What is your secret?”

  Ghaldezuel smiled icily. “Your fortune for it, Pauncefoot. Fair trade?”

  The Firmamental Melius’s stare persisted. “Very nearly.”

  Ghaldezuel looked to the money again, evaluating it. “I would not part with them, if that is your command.”

  “But for a few days? On condition of their return?”

  He stirred in his seat, leaning forward. “Speak, Pauncefoot.”

  The giant blinked at him for a breath more, finally nodding to himself. He shifted on the floor until he was comfortable.

  “What do you know of the ex-Satrapy of Tau Ceti? The Zelio-worlds?”

  Ghaldezuel hesitated, surprised. “Zelioceti kingdoms. Martially useful in that they lie on the outskirts of Cancri, though—”

  “You have been there?”

  Ghaldezuel shook his head, trying to work out what the Melius was getting at. “No. Few have. Prism who travel there seldom return.” He sat back.

  Pauncefoot raised a finger, a clawed twig bunched with rings. “But the Bult are feared by all. Only they would be equal to the task.”

  “And what task is that?”

  Pauncefoot nodded, smiling. “My Firmamental betters have information that there is something of great value there, in one of the Zelioceti Kingdoms. Possibly more valuable than the Shell itself.”

  Ghaldezuel snorted. “Can they not contain their greed for a moment?”

  The Melius held up his finger again. “Your team would merely locate it for us, perhaps guard it until a later date.”

  Ghaldezuel laced his fingers together, waiting, determined that he would say no more until something concrete was admitted.

  “A treasure hunter, commissioned some time ago to find this thing, reported that he had narrowed his search to the moons surrounding Zeliolopos, a gas giant planet in the system. Before his last message was sent, he indicated that his suspicions lay chiefly in three moons—AntiZelio-Slaathis, Glumatis and Coriopil.” Pauncefoot paused. “He has not been heard from now for many months, likely another victim of the place.”

  Ghaldezuel motioned for him to go on.

  “The object,” Pauncefoot continued, “is, I will admit, something barely understood even by the Firmament, but my benefactor insists upon its provenance.”

  “Your benefactor is often privy to wisdom to which the Firmament is not?”

  Pauncefoot laughed. “Of course!”

  Ghaldezuel sighed. “What is it?”

  The giant hesitated, appraising the great heap of Filgurees at his side. Deftly he plucked one of the coins free from the base, followed by two more. The pyramid did not waver, Ghaldezuel saw.

  “I cannot tell you because I do not rightly know myself. All I understand is the sum they have offered.” He tucked the coins untidily back into the pyramid, and Ghaldezuel felt an abrupt urge to push the entire heap over on top of the Melius.

  “Entry into the Firmament, Ghaldezuel. True Amaranthine life, for you and me.” He looked levelly at Ghaldezuel in the way that people convinced of the power of their own words are wont to do. “Not a soul among the Prism has ever been offered this before.”

  All these promises, all these incentives. At this rate they’d be offering him the Immortal Throne itself in a matter of days. Ghaldezuel gazed at the coins. The Filguree was a better-made thing than a Lacaille Truppin. Its weight never varied.

  “I know what I want, Pauncefoot,” he said firmly, “and it’s very simple. I want to see the Vulgar suffer, and I want assurances that the Bult I lend you will have no further troubles in our new Investiture.”

  Pauncefoot beamed. “Then I wish you the very best of luck for tomorrow.”

  WARNINGS

  Amaranthine woke quickly, the line separating their dreams from reality almost too thin to notice. Hugo sat up in bed, gazing out at pretty Vaulted Ectries to the brooding storm clouds, his fingers twined in the sheets. His gaze shifted to the clacking motions of the clock at the end of the hall. A long sleep: more than two weeks.

  There had been a man present, accompanying him during all that time; a kind presence who walked beside him. He didn’t sleep again for some time, some part of him—some watchful, higher instinct—not wanting to see that man again.

  But not even Amaranthine could stay awake forever. Sleep found him, submerging him instantly into memories ten thousand years old, their reality viewed like quicksilver reflections from beneath the waves, and there, weightless beneath the meniscus of light, they met each other again.

  There are hundreds of them, childlike primates with beady little eyes, busying themselves under white lights.

  They are polishing.

  Hugo walks among them, losing himself in the rows of little people. They mumble and mutter to one another, and yet the whole vast place, a white cave full of gargantuan machinery, is still and without echoes.

  He crouches, settling himself on the floor to observe their work. In their long nails they clutch rags that look older than he is, and wipe and buff and blow on their treasures. He takes a piece from someone’s oblivious hand, turning it in his own.

  A silvery connector the size of a small beetle, machined to Amaranthine perfection. He puts it down and looks among the creatures. Combined, they hold in their hands something extremely complex: a system, afunctioning assortment of parts that once meant vastly more than their sum. A device built, only to be dismantled again that same day. He searches for the word.

  A collection.

  The Collection.

  Perception’s mortal remains.

  What were you dreaming, Hugo?
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br />   He woke, on another, more ancient world. “I saw what you’re going to do.”

  Maneker opened his useless eyes to the throbbing darkness of the Hasziom!s night. Voices floated from the mess beneath him.

  I’ve been looking through your adventure books, Huerepo, said Perception. They’re rather good, actually.

  The Vulgar sniffed, putting down his spoon. He looked at Lycaste as he spoke. “It might be nice if you asked permission, once in a while, before rootling around in things that aren’t yours, Perception.”

  How is it that you can read? Perception continued, oblivious. From what you tell us, you lead a menial life.

  Huerepo glared into the darkness of the Hasziom’s mess. They ate alone, barring the odd interruption of Smallbone as he fussed up and down the ladder. Maneker—having taken the captain’s old chamber-was keeping determinedly to himself, and Poltor was busy fiddling with all the equipment aboard their new Lacaille ship. The Oxel rattled about the place, whistling signal and distance checks, their scampering footfalls trembling through the upper level like comforting, pattering rain.

  “I keep them more for the pictures,” Huerepo said eventually, getting back to work on his dinner, a baked egg mixture provided by whatever the tiny caged birds could produce.

  But you don’t have schools, as such, Perception said, its voice circling.

  Huerepo cleared his throat. “You’d have to go to Filgurbirund for that sort of thing, but it’s a lot of money just to sit and look at some hand-me-down Amaranthine books.”

  And the children must work.

  Huerepo nodded. “Of course.”

  Lycaste shovelled a mouthful, reminded of his own indolent childhood.

  “Most Vulgar—nearly all of them—don’t make it far once they’re out of the belly, anyway,” Huerepo said. “You have to smack them until they breathe, and then there’s the Gripes and the Runnies to finish ‘em off, not to mention Wood-Knockers.”