He was also an errant.
~
The two messengers shook hands when they met, sat down and talked for a few minutes. Henrique handed him the second scroll, and Johnmal, who hadn’t been expecting anything that day, gave him a surprised “thank you” and a bag of thin, metallic coins.
They both stood, each as happy as the other with the day’s work, and parted.
*
Ten
THE GREAT WALL
An aged military vehicle trundled along the bottom of the dusty canyon. Being this close to the rainforest’s microclimate made the weather unpredictable, but it could be assumed that the canyon’s proximity to the desert plains assured a dry trip. That was lucky, because one more problem and the hunk of crap would probably break down completely.
Tan Cleric touched the lever for the alternate fuel intake, hoping a burst of energy would cease the vehicle’s complaining. The ride became smoother, and the large vehicle continued on as though its master had given it a kiss of rejuvenation. Cleric closed his eyes for as long as he dared, smiling faintly. He was happiest when he was doing his work, and when he was thinking about his protégé, Johnmal.
Johnmal’s great grandfather had once been given a miraculous gift: a man-made mutagen, injected during the embryonic and foetal stages. The man had very special genes, given to him before he was even born by a man who was extraordinarily intelligent, even by Cleric’s high standards. The grandfather’s extraordinary physiological talenrs were so strong they showed in every generation since: Johnmal’s grandmother had them; his father had them; and now Johnmal had them.
Johnma’s ancestors were all dead now. Johnmal had left his father on his deathbed, insane and confused, and hadn’t looked back.
Cleric, who had taken Johnmal away that day and gradually became his new father, had told him the doctors couldn’t help. The incredible power of medicine had been vastly diminished following the Conflict, which had decimated the world’s population. He also said that Johnmal would be his prize helper at a special hidden place in the rainforest by the Great River, where he intended to help as many people as possible. When the seven-year-old Johnmal had asked why, his boss had said: “Together remarkable people can do exceptional deeds. Errant fire makes you remarkable; let us be exceptional together.”
~
Johnmal had been young enough then to comprehend the simple biology lesson; he had even understood why Cleric had taken him away from his relatives. There were always greater goals than one man’s own, and the young Johnmal had believed in his adoptive teacher unquestioningly.
Apart from his unnaturally long lifespan, the only visible feature that belied Tan Cleric’s errant genes was his violent shock of white hair, which had maintained a state of complete unmanageability since he was born. Prior to the war, Cleric had operated as a member of the United States Government Technological Research and Development Sector. His department had focused primarily on breathing new life into twenty-second century technology: the redevelopment of weapons, experimentation within the field of digitized artillery, and the augmentation of military vehicles.
It was his experience with vehicles that currently paid off. On the continent that had taken the brunt of the war’s devastation, travelling had become something of an impediment. Getting from town to town took days; a cross-country excursion was prolonged over a matter of weeks. It wasn’t any wonder that people chose to stagnate in their own little villages, moldering in places like Shianti and São Jantuo with little or no outside contact. Motorised vehicles were a much finer method of travel, saving him time and energy, neither of which Cleric had in large supply.
The resurrected transport was a hummvee, also known as a High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle. The nickname didn’t work for Cleric, but as an all-purpose military truck it was perfect, as adaptable as it was durable. Only its military-grade armour had prevented the internal chassis from rusting away over the years, but it was Cleric’s diligence that had truly saved it. The only real problem in bringing the ancient thing back to life was that it ran on diesel, about as common these days as rooster teeth.
He checked that the box in the rotted passenger seat was okay. Now that the foam and fabric had been eaten away by time, the bio-case could happily sit between the struts of the seat’s metal interior. Inside was one of his prizes, another brick in his currently-incomplete wall. It was a wall that would keep the chaff out, forever.
He’d obtained this prize in the same manner that he always did: with great difficulty. The past couple of weeks had been a tiresome journey to and from the Great Lake. Now that he was returning to base, he could put the vast reservoir out of his mind; the place no longer served any purpose for him.
The shore had been alarmingly still when he’d arrived. It was almost as if he’d stumbled across a sheet of glass instead of the expected lake. Hardly a ripple met his boot as he stood and looked out into the thick mist.
He found the landscape marker that his contact had told him about. It was a tiny bunker of sand, pushed up against a rise of silt and rock. The lake’s tides were so minute that no beach was to be found around its rim, but occasionally a certain kind of sediment was driven outward and collected on the shore. He touched it with his fingers. It was sediment of ground bone and rock.
He took a sample of it and slid the plastiplex phial into the case, being sure to seal its waterproof lid. Then he went about inflating the pouch strapped to his back, filling it by mouth until it was full enough to ensure full buoyancy should the scenario take a turn for the worst. He took the time to swallow a few energy supplements, which he had packed for the long journey.
His clothes were thrown down against the rise behind him, soon to be joined by his boots. He was dressed only in long shorts and his inflatable pouch, with the case securely fastened in the small of his back. After putting aside two minutes for muscle exercises, Cleric waded until he was up to his ribs, put his hands together, and swam.
Stroke after stroke carried him further into the mist. On the uneven surface of the still-shallow waterbed he occasionally caught his knee, bruising himself whenever he passed above a sudden sandbank.
After ten minutes’ strong swimming he caught sight of faint ripples spreading outward from a nearby source. With these ever-expanding rings as his guide, he soon found the miniature island he was looking for.
He dragged himself close enough to the rock to prop himself up with his elbows. Beneath the water, his bare toes grasped at the outcrop’s wider base, which rooted itself into the earth at least thirty feet down. He was far out of reach of any other sandbanks, the water being much too deep here. With a great effort, he heaved himself out of the water and crouched shivering for a moment, rubbing his skin with the rough palms of his hands. He barely had enough room to sit.
He granted himself a moment’s respite, and waited for his lungs to settle. Around him was an impenetrable wall of fog, the kind one would find far out to sea – though Cleric had only swum a fraction of the lake’s full diameter. Once his heart rate settled, he began to work.
The case strapped to the small of his back came away with a few clicks of some clasps, and he immediately went about repositioning the plastiplex phials inside. He took an empty one between his fingers and drew it out, then held it in his teeth as he removed a small tool from his pocket. He fastened it to the rock with putty and set it going; the device’s strong perpetual motion mechanism kicked in, and it began chipping away at the slime and guano plastered over the island’s surface.
All the while, Cleric sang a quiet song under his breath:
Later as the wind blows,
Steady as the sea goes,
Darwin sails to shore;
Galapagos found him,
Had a lot to show him,
‘Guanas, finches, more.
Chap-chap-chap went the little device, collecting the sample Cleric so fiercely desired. This would go with all the other prizes, stored away in the cool underground
chambers of the rainforest facility, as good as refrigerated: rare errant DNA.
The beings that had so thoughtfully left behind their genetic codes were much farther out, directly in the centre of the great lake. Sometimes they would swim toward shore for a little while, and were occasionally even seen by one or two of the São Jantuans. Usually, though, they stayed out of sight, away from misunderstanding eyes. Even then, the flotsam and jetsam of their waste and shed scales drifted toward Cleric’s little rock, and collected against its coarse sides. Cleric breathed a prayer of thanks that he would never have to meet those creatures first-hand. Only fools sailed into the mists of the Lual.
With the gene sample safely stored away for later use, Cleric began the second objective of his journey. This was the most important stage, the completion of which would confirm something for the scientist, something particularly significant.
He pulled on the adhesive tape that secured a thin leather necklace to his chest. Fastened to the thong was an object of uncertain origin that could have been a shell, an eroded stone, a ceramic screw, some beast’s horn…
Cleric packed the chipping mechanism away and scraped his fingernail into the tiny groove it had made. Picking away at layers of scale and encrusted bird droppings, he fashioned as deep a furrow as he could and inserted the screw-lined horn into it.
The bio-case hissed as its vacuum seal was broken once again, this time in order to remove a tiny electric generator. Wires fastened to metal crocodile clips were carefully pinched into place at the horn’s blunt end. The generator was activated with the flick of a switch. As it hummed, the man took a phial of blood from the case. It had been drawn from a living sanguilac, one of the ones he controlled when he could. It was thick and partially coagulated, but it was charged with arcane properties. He drew his magic circles and esoteric phrases around the horn, and then watched as the markings omitted a faint glow. He sprinkled them with ashen powder from the burnt corpse of an errant theriope.
Cleric was naturally reluctant to believe in magicks, but there was a lot a person could witness during a world-enveloping war. A man of science had to be open to other possibilities, however conflicting they may be with his chosen profession. Besides, there were creatures and forces at work beyond the atmosphere of this little planet, in the frozen reaches of space. Things went on behind dimensional walls that only the most sensitive bodies were privy to. He didn’t believe in gods or devils, but knew damned well that they existed, or at least beings that had been attributed those phoney religious titles. He knew with scientific surety that there were pseudo-spiritual beings able to grant great, great power.
For half an hour, the man now known as Cleric sat back as a humanly imperceptible electric current washed through the horn and into the still waters of the Great Lake Lual. Its unnatural properties were saturated into the reservoir’s plant life, its clams and hermit crabs, the errant beings that barely subsisted in its very centre. Things were changing off the coast of São Jantuo-on-Lual.
The man known as Cleric sang.
Darling do the fit live?
What does Mother Nature give?
Do the best rise up?
Spare some more attention
To natural selection,
Darling, change my blood.
Darling, change my blood.
*
Eleven
HADENTES LEFT
As the darkness outside transposed to paler skies, Rowan opened her eyes to the dingy room on the second floor of the inn. She could just hear the sound of the lakeside, the lapping of the waves blown by the weak winds from across the Lual.
She rolled over in bed and put her face in her hands. The thought of crossing that great expanse of water made her nervous. She had never been on a boat or ship, had never seen so much water pooled in one place.
She rose and dressed. Her fingers found knots in her hair, her skin felt dry, and her nails, cut short because she didn’t know any other way, had dirt under them. None of this bothered her, as it was how she had lived for the previous two years. She put on her shoes, already falling apart, and left the confines of the room, where the magus still slumbered on a separate bed. No-one was in the bar downstairs except the innkeeper, who smiled at her as she left.
She found Gabel by the shore of the lake, just under the ridge where she had sat with Caeles the night before. She had dreamed of pits of fire and hordes of snarling theroipes, and the memory of them chilled her even now as she walked best she could over the uneven rocky ground.
Stopping on the ridge, she looked down at the factotum. He was bent over and wearing his shirt and trousers, which were dark with moisture. He must have washed himself in the waters of the lake.
He heard her come clumsily down the ridge and stood to greet her, trying to dry his hands on his damp trousers.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘I tried to. And you?’
He looked away, into the water. ‘I dreamt I was hunting a wolf.’
‘Did you catch it?’
‘I was still hunting when I awoke. I wonder what it means?’
‘Does it have to mean anything?’ She paused, trying to pierce the heavy fog with her eyes. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you before we went to sleep. I couldn’t find you.’
‘I was out looking around the town. I purchased some warmer clothes for us. They weren’t expensive, but they’ll keep out the cold. And I got you some boots.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t bring better footwear, I wasn’t thinking when we left…’
‘You needn’t worry about it, Rowan. What time is it?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘We might be leaving soon,’ he said, and looked at her briefly before turning back to the lake. ‘Have you spoken to Caeles or the magus this morning?’
‘No.’
‘Caeles wasn’t at the inn when I got back. He’d better be here by the time the boat’s ready to set sail, or else I’ll leave him.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Of course I would. For all I know, he has no major role to play on this journey. All I need is for us to get to Shianti unharmed and find a cure for you.’ He paused. ‘How are you feeling?’
She turned away so that he couldn’t see her face. He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
‘Rowan, we’ll find out what’s wrong with you. I asked around last night and there’s a doctor of sorts in Goya, where the boat takes us. He may be able to help.’
She nodded, but the weight of his hands on her shoulders was a heavy one, his breath hot on her neck.
~
Snow had fallen during the night, leaving a powdered carpet over the ground that froze solid. Marko Kinneas’ heavy boots crunched as he walked and his shoulders, covered to protect his dark skin from the cold, brushed snow from the branches of the trees as he passed.
He stood still and rubbed his hands together. It had been a while since there’d been a morning as bitter as this. And with the boat sailing as well … The travellers would be cold that night. He would be surprised if the water didn’t freeze itself solid around them. Slowly he looked around, watching his breath in the air. He turned fully when a voice called to him from somewhere through the trees.
‘Marko.’
The woman approached him. She wore the same clothes she’d worn the night she left: the armoured vest, thin yet durable, underneath her snugly-fitted brown jacket, which she had made herself from the hide of a horse that died a few winters back. It was laced around the neck with thick white ermine fur she bought from a trader on the coast, the cuffs rimmed with the same. It was held shut by toggles she’d cannibalised from another garment, which glinted silver in the morning light that drifted down through the branches. Her boots and fingerless gloves were made of sanguisuga hide, yet they matched perfectly, and were adorned with the same white ermine fur. Kinneas shuddered to remember their encounter with sanguisuga. Savage, bloodthirtsty monsters.
The wind ruffled her red hair, which had a streak of grey and cut short – for efficiency, not for looks. Her neck would have been cold were it not for the fur collar. Over her chest was the heavy leather strap that held the broadsword to her back. No-one from São Jantuo trusted pre-war firearms; only blades were reliable.
‘Commander in Chief,’ Kinneas said. He stood to attention.
‘Marko,’ she repeated. Her eyes, it was said, could be as soft or hard as she liked. Today Kinneas thought they were hard. Hard, but always beautiful.
‘Sorry tae keep ye waitin,’ she said, in her Goyan accent. It was unlike her to apologise.
‘Think nothing of it, Commander in Chief. I was early.’
‘Kem on, let’s get outtae here. Ah’ve been frozen half tae death these last few nights.’
They walked side by side toward the town.
‘How did it go?’ Kinneas asked.
‘Fine. The man at the gate didnae know who ah whus, had tae get his seniors involved. Pain in the arse.’
He stood in front of her. They halted, the snow falling around them.
‘Marisa,’ he said, ‘the Regent has given us new orders.’
‘An whit might they be?’ Kinneas watched the freckles move over her face as she gave a thin-lipped smile.
‘The messenger Henrique Unger has been making copies of messages. We’re to catch him when he leaves the Transitway, and kill him.’
‘He’s comin’ back frem another delivery?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘Why did the Regent give him a message tae deliver if he knew he whus a spy?’
‘He said it would serve his purposes. But we’re now to kill him, on his way back. It’s to be a surprise.’
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