Prophet Margin

by Simon Spurrier

  The man's face - as vast as it undoubtedly was - was visible only as a shrewd pair of eyes beneath heavy brows and a hatchet-nose that owed its ancestry to an eagle; every other scrap of pale flesh was buried beneath flame red hair. It hung in braided locks from his scalp, exploded in all directions from his jowls and matted itself so thickly below his chin that, had he been going grey with age, it would have been difficult to gauge where his beard ended and his fur-pelt began.

  Halfway down the pocket-adorned strap between belt and shoulder-guard, a lozenge of red fibreplastic picked out the letters "SD" - telling the barman absolutely everything he needed to know.

  "Sneck," he said, whistling cautiously through his second mouth and wobbled his way back to the bar to hide.

  Wulf Sternhammer was not a happy man. This was unremarkable.

  Raised in a proto-democratic society approximately one thousand, four hundred years earlier, his life had taken more twists and turns within the last decade than any self-respecting Norse chieftain had any right to expect. Being blasted the best part of a millennium-and-a-half into the future had certainly challenged his perceptions of the world.

  Some days, the fjords and the farms of his youth seemed more like a hazy dream than the formative aspects of his life, with the lurid colours of twenty-second century life superimposing themselves with far more vivacity.

  The gods were dead.

  He remembered the slow trickle of realisation (and disappointment, often) as the esoteric elements of his life - a thunderstorm, the changing seasons, the spread of disease, the spinning of lodestones - ceased to find explanations in the machinations of deities and demons and became instead the realm of science and technology. Longboats went through space here. Raiders didn't just steal the gold from the local monastery; here they digitised people's memories, scabbed their credit-wafers and stole their vital organs. Farmers twiddled their thumbs whilst dronebots ploughed their land or, better, left the whole tedious business to self-nutrifying aggriworlds and snecked off to a TotalImmersionTM arcade to get laid.

  Wulf chugged back his mead, pulling a face at the synthetic goop that frothed around his beard. So much for technology.

  Still, somehow this world, this existence, this... well, this bar, for starters, seemed more real. There had been then, with its mists and its voyages and its sagas, and there was now - a solid kaleidoscope of weirdness, violence, ridiculousness and solemnity. And bad mead, but you couldn't ever have it all.

  Wulf felt like he'd missed out on joining the Eternal Feast in Odin's Valhalla, and found the VIP strip-club out the back instead.

  "Isn't meaning," he muttered, vaguely aware he was slurring, "that old ways should be being all..." he struggled for the word "forgotted. No." He waggled a finger at the air, trying to focus. "Mister sailing-in-der-Lungboat and raping-of-der-animals. Huh!"

  The invitation had been no surprise. Since the news spread that a Strontium Dog named Johnny Alpha had returned from a timejob with a Viking, the historical world had been clamouring to enthuse, denounce or vaguely waffle-at-length upon the subject of Wulf Sternhammer. Year after year he'd return to the Doghouse from some lengthy hunt to find a cute invitation awaiting him. Attending PastCon as a "guest of honour" had never really appealed: being prodded by the drunken hordes of academia was not a career move he fancied.

  Well, this year, it couldn't be helped.

  Never in the history of the Search/Destroy agency had times been so lean. It was as if morality had suddenly infected the entire galaxy, leaving scores of hardened bounty hunters kicking back their multijointed knees and twiddling their innumerable telescopic thumbs.

  No serious acts of genocide, no primitive-world slave racketing, no warcrimes, no colourful archvillains, no fiendish plots, no nefarious schemes, nothing. Nada. Nowt.

  Except Grinn, of course.

  At the start of the year the most depraved criminal überintellect in the history of snecked-up bastards escaped from macrojail and set the tongues of bounty hunters everywhere wagging. Wherever Grinn went one could be certain that every sicko, freakage, villain and thug would come crawling out in his wake.

  "Only not being so this time..." Wulf said, the alcoholic oscillations of his brain failing to differentiate internal and external commentary.

  Grinn had vanished. The authorities tracked him to a pilgrim world deep in the Narheel Nebula where the trail abruptly went cold. The thugs and crims stayed at home, the Strontium Dogs sat and played increasingly desperate games of stabber3 with each others few remaining funds, and Wulf returned from some half-cred hunt to find another nibbly-bordered invitation with a new and unexpected addition.

  3. Like poker, but more so.

  The cheque had a lot of zeroes.

  In the bar, he pulled a crumpled sheet of plaspaper from a pocket of his bandolier, squinting at the immaculate script that changed colour - tacky autopigmented ink - as his eye roved across it.

  Dear Mister Sternhammer, (it said)

  Please find attached a cheque for C.15,000 as the opening payment in an exclusive contract I hope you will sign. It has come to my attention that for the past few years the organisers of a certain academic soirée have attempted without any success to secure your attendance. Clearly these poor beasts are devoid of conviction or imagination. I have decided to make amends.

  It is my understanding that you are currently enjoying employment with the Search/Destroy agency in the geostationary orbitplatform known as the "Doghouse". How fascinatingly coarse! As an Enforcement Freelancer, if you will, it seems obvious you are acquainted with the concept of monetary persuasion. Thus the cheque.

  I should be delighted if you would accept my invitation to attend this year's forum - not as a sideshow but as the Personal Guest of I, Marteh Gumption, the galaxy's foremost authority on Tribal Culture and the producer of this decade's most enduring filmic recreations of historical society.

  I await your affirmation with copious anticipation,

  Yours,

  Marteh Gumption,

  Prod/Dir. "HOW: A Red-Skinned Epic"

  Prod/Dir. "Wee Three Kings: The Lives of Trivalvic MiniCommunities"

  Prod/Dir. "A Tribe of One: Split-Personalities of a Kratchian G'Bong".

  Wulf scowled and pocketed the letter. Its dainty language continued to perplex him, and he remembered showing it to Nathaniel "BigThink" Oddboy - the Doghouse's resident two-brained mutant - for a more down-to-earth translation.

  Being paid for, as Oddboy had put it "just showin' yer ugly sneckin' mug" seemed like too good a deal to pass up. Wulf had, of course, discussed the offer with Johnny - half hoping his partner would talk him out of it. Alas, Alpha's pragmatism was as infamous as his unfeasibly bulbous helmet, and he'd fully endorsed the plan to earn extra cash.

  "We could do with some new electronux," he'd said, "and they're advertising number five cartridges in this month's Blasters 'n Lazcells."

  Wulf had not been reassured. Johnny grinned.

  "Hey, you'll do fine, big fellah. Shake some hands, tell some tales, go home with the readies. No sweat."

  Back in the bar on Sebraxus, Wulf picked up his empty tankard. "No sweat," he mumbled, "only lots of der bullsneck..."

  Half a galaxy and a four-day journey from the Doghouse, he'd arrived at the Kentucky Fried Holiday Inn halfway through his host's opening speech, just in time for the details of his founding culture to be mauled in public. "Nose of der sphinx... pah!"

  He was not a happy man.

  "More mead!"

  Abruptly, the bar began to fill.

  The low-level mussitation of sombre drinkers was punctured by the shrieks, warbles and ozone-discharges of too many aliens in too small a space. Clearly the lecturehall had closed for the day.

  Amongst the mêlée of discordant sounds Wulf caught the name "Marteh Gumption" with depressing regularity. He scowled - a countenance perfect for scuppering attempts by groups of fainthearted palaeontologists at sharing his table.

  Given how f
ew people were prepared to occupy the personal space of a drunken Viking, Wulf was amazed when a dull little figure in a hood approached with a pair of drinks, slipping onto the seat opposite. He was about to unleash a scathing barrage of razor wit upon the hooded fool - or at the very least to threaten to smash his head unless he went away - when he noticed that one of the drinks in the man's hands looked an awful lot like mead.

  "You must be Wulf," the man said, passing over the tankard.

  "Don't have to be if I don't want to be," he mumbled, caught off his guard.

  A human hand extended across the table. Wulf stared at it. "Pleased to meet you," the hood said.

  Wulf shrugged - an almost tectonic event - and gripped the hand, immersing its manicured fingers in a hamlike clench. "So," he said, not letting go, "who are you, man-with-der-girly-hands-who-buys-strangers-drinks?"

  The spare girly hand twitched aside the edge of the hood, flashing a bright glare from a set of perfect teeth and a face so plastic it might easily have melted in the heat.

  "Name's Gumption," he said, grinning blindingly. "Marteh Gumption. Chap who invited you. Terribly sorry for all this, ahaha, cloak and dagger nonsense. It's so blasted tedious being famous." The man sighed with the air of one who had decided his life was quite the most miserable in existence.

  Wulf's eyes, the newcomer couldn't help noticing, had narrowed.

  "Um..." Gumption said, coughing politely. "I-I wonder whether I might... ow... I might have my, ahah, hand back... It's just that you have quite a strong grip and-"

  "Why do you not tell me," said Wulf, all trace of a slur miraculously gone, "about these... How did you call them? 'Horrific and savage' peoples?"

  "Ah..."

  Something popped lightly in the man's hand.

  "Aaah... ahah... You s-saw my speech, then? Good, ow, good. Y-yes, you see I'm plan-"

  "Also, why do you not be telling me about how der Atlantis was lost? I am very very interested in that."

  "Yes, well... you see, what I'm planning is-"

  "You mind if I am asking you der question, mister history man?"

  "Ow God no, ahah, ask away... Just do give me back that hand, eh, there's a g-"

  "What sort of der helmet were der Vikings being wearing?"

  "W-what? Ow, ow, ow--" The hand crackled like bubblewrap.

  "Helmets. What did they look like?"

  "W-well, ahaha, as any fool knows, they w-were round..."

  "Yes..."

  "A-and hard..."

  "Good so far."

  "And they had an enormous pair of horns sticking up from their oh sweet sneck my hand god no aaaaaaaa-"

  Wulf let go, raising his tankard in a contemptuous glug, ignoring the whimpers from across the table.

  "You," he said, synthetic mead dribbling from his whiskers, "are not being der real historian."

  At which point Marteh Gumption, lip wobbling like cellulite in an earthquake, burst into tears.

  The reason that Wulf knew that Gumption was a fraud was ridiculously simple: helmets with horns poking from either side are a really, really bad idea. Simple adjustments can cause serious damage, an innocent sneeze can turn the unfastened helmet into a deadly missile, doorways become impassable and, quite apart from anything else, they look completely and utterly stupid.

  Vikings did not wear horned helmets.

  In actual fact, despite their impracticality and historical inaccuracy, Wulf's tribe had for a short time been in possession of not only a selection of spiky headguards but, even worse, a range of iron helmets with stupid little metal wings poking above the ears.

  In Wulf's defence the period in question had coincided with a serious temporal incursion into the ninth century by a gang of mutant criminals hellbent upon screwing with history and a few spontaneously generating helmets had been the last of his worries. Tanks, helicopters, goblins - all manner of bizarre and inexplicable items had popped into existence, most of them being ludicrously rationalised as evidence of the gods' anger. The strangest apparition of all - a brightly painted demon with glowing eyes and a firestick at its hip - had turned out to be a Mister John Alpha Esq, which just went to show that not everything in ninth century life could be easily explained as a product of "magic".

  It was during the episode with the weird-eyed-demon, the helicopters and, yes, the pointy-snecking-helmets, that Wulf was accidentally transported fourteen hundred years forwards in time. As you do.

  Since then he'd learned that vehicular engineering was based upon solid mechanical principles, that freakish demons were called "mutants", that firesticks were called "guns", and that no self respecting Viking would be seen dead in a horny helmet unless the laws of time and space were so snecked that he had no idea what he was doing.

  To put it another way, the subject of helmets with horns had always been something of a sore-point for Wulf Sternhammer.

  It took Marteh Gumption a while to calm down. Wulf watched the entire show of snivelling and tear-blotting with disgust that punched through the pity barrier and out the other side.

  "Y-you're absolutely right..." the man said, when his voice had settled. "It's all fake. I-I made it all up."

  "All of what?"

  "Everything! I'm just a..." his voice lowered "a screenwriter."

  Wulf stared. Gumption had the air of a man describing a bad habit that marked him out as deviant. "I... I had a string of flops," he muttered, gazing at the tabletop. "It was the special effects, that's what did it... S-so I thought, well... they can't argue if it's all based on true stories, can they?"

  "I think I am seeing where this is going." Wulf pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting a headache. Just when you thought the twenty-second century couldn't get any weirder.

  "S-so I had a little reformative surgery and came back as... as Marteh Gumption, expert on Native American society."

  "Ah. Skraelings. Met some, one time."

  "Well, I mean, it seemed perfect. There aren't any of the buggers left, you see - not since the SkinWars fragged all their, ah," (he mimed a pair of quotation marks in the air) "'rosavayshuns'. Anyway, I paid some people to engage the last expert or two back on earth in... in... conversation, and-"

  "You had der real ones killed?"

  "No! No! I just had their brains wiped."

  Wulf shook his head, draining the last of his mead. "Go on."

  "W-well, that's it, really. Choose a subject that's going to... to gratify an audience. Loads of violence and primitive cultures doing, hur hur, primitive things - then make sure there's no one around to contradict you. Bang. Instant movie success!"

  Wulf sighed. The headache was getting stronger.

  "And now you are wanting to make movie with der Viking, as cool as der cucumber?"

  "Yes!"

  "With der pointy hats und der raping und der pillaging?"

  "Yes!"

  "Und you are thinking you can be buying the silence of Wulf Sternhammer with your lots-of-credit-moneys?"

  "No!"

  "Und y... No?"

  "No."

  "What then?"

  Gumption's twitching eyes looked down into Wulf's empty tankard.

  "I... I just wanted to buy you a drink," he said.

  Wulf frowned, a wave of suspicion fighting the throbbing of his head. With almost glacial slowness it occurred to him that he couldn't remember ever suffering from anything as fundamentally wimpish as a headache. He tried to grab for his Happy Stick - the double ended warhammer propped nearby - and was bewildered to find it suddenly weighed far, far more than he could lift.

  "Sneck," he said, toppling forwards into the heavily drugged dregs of his mead.

  FOUR

  On the eastern crust of the dungworld Shtzuth - an orb of ammonia-rich excrement left in a life-supporting orbit by the giganism YELR millennia ago - there was a farm.

  Amongst the mouldfields and fleshgrub paddocks there was a patch of land where nothing grew, where the mouldcrops couldn't spread, where the grubs couldn't dig int
o the hard soil, and where even the temptation to raise buildings had been scuppered by the difficulty of digging foundations. The residents of Shtzuth called such spots of land Nutlumps, reasoning that some stellar matter had proved indigestible even to the gravitational intestines of the giganism.

  In the centre of this irregular Nutlump, lying on his back with his eyes fixed firmly on the methane clouds and flocks of shitgulls above, was a boy.

  His name was Roolán, he was seventeen, somewhat scrawny, and if he'd been in the habit of talking - which he was not - he might at that precise moment have opined that of all the many things in creation, two of the very worst were farms and shit.

  He was staring at the sky because, ten kilometres above him, a pair of thrusters on a mind-breakingly enormous construction robot were flaring softly through the clouds.

  In fact, from horizon to horizon the heavens were alive with rocket trails and signal lights, pilot beacons and drone codes. An omniamp flickered spectral green somewhere to the west: onboard one of the roadiecraft a technician was clearly fiddling with his lightboard.

  Chryz Widdiso was coming to Shtzuth.

  Never before had the world's farming communities been so united. Given the rarity of the faecal planetoid's fertile surfaces, most farm owners regarded each other with open hostility. No longer. In face of the hordes of music lovers, merchandisers, sideshows and supporting acts whose arrival was imminent - and in the instinctive human spirit of earning an obese profit - the farmers had gathered to properly plan exactly how to exploit the situation.

  Widdiso performed once every thirty years. Spending the vast majority of his life sealed within a cryoclam, he remained ever young, ever handsome, and ever lucrative. He had, put simply, the greatest voice in the galaxy.