I finally managed to lock down the torrent of depression, abandonment, and loneliness that fed my delusions and was the source of my Pyrocast power. The savages were blackened bones rising like razed towers in a sea of ash and molten gold. A roughly circular area of sand had been burned to glass that reflected broken shards of sunlight. The surviving savage, a young girl, was badly burnt along half her body. She might live long enough to be of use but I doubted she’d last much past that.
“I told you to leave one alive,” Pizarr said quietly.
I hung my head in shame. “It has been a difficult voyage, Captain. Without... without someone to talk to my delusions have grown in strength.” I let out a long shaking breath. “Control was difficult.”
Someone to talk to. Not a day went by that I didn’t regret Pizarr tossing that pompous ass Counsellor Reizung overboard. Perhaps with counselling his own advanced state of decomposition might have been slowed or even avoided.
Pizarr nodded at one of his thugs. “Get her on her feet.” He glared at me. “If she dies, I’ll have one of these men strangle you.”
“You’ll—” This was my only friend. White anger abolished thought.
One of the men delivered a crushing blow to my kidneys and I collapsed gasping to the sand. I hadn’t even seen it coming. Pizarr must have worked out some subtle signal system with his four killers. He didn’t trust me.
The Captain crouched and grabbed a fistful of my greasy hair with his working hand. He dragged my head around until we were eye to eye.
“Rise before you have control of your temper and you are dead,” he hissed. He let go and I rolled over onto my back and fought for breath.
At the pinnacle of power, that moment when delusion gains supremacy and control falters, a Pyrocast is a fire-storm of unstoppable destruction. Even one such as King Furimmer could not stand against a Pyrocast losing his last tenuous grasp on reality. But a brutal punch to the kidneys is a brutal punch to the kidneys. I lay wheezing for several minutes, watching Pizarr through watering eyes. Had I been on that teetering edge? Had he just saved my life? Was my betrayal made all the more foul?
Pizarr grabbed the girl’s chin and forced her head up so she was looking into his face. She gagged at the proximity of his rotting flesh and fought weakly to pull away.
“You will take a message to your King Hualpa,” Pizarr told her. “You will tell him new gods are here to replace the old gods. You will tell him we will meet him here, on the shore.” Pulling back his sleeve he showed her his rotting arm. “I am Pizarr, god of death. You will deliver my message or I will have your soul.” She retched dry heaving coughs that tore at her burnt lungs and throat but nodded. I hoped she would live long enough to deliver Pizarr’s message.
I did not want to face this High King Hualpa in the heart of his power. If Hualpa was as powerful a Sociocast as I feared, this was going to be a very short meeting.
Pizarr switched back to our language. “You there,” he pointed at one of the other killers. “Strip her of her gold, and the rest of you dig what gold you can from the sand. We might as well start now.” He watched the man roughly pull away the gold and most of the remains of her burnt clothing as the others scrabbled in the glassy sand.
When the girl was out of sight we returned to the ship. We’d caught the savages unaware but the next meeting, I had no doubt, would be very different. There was a good chance that come tomorrow night we would either be dead or worshipping at the feet of a new king.
I stood mutely at the Captain’s side, afraid to say anything that might shatter our fragile truce.
“Reality is a curse,” he said quietly to me. “One day you are dreaming of death and the next you are fearing for what’s left of your life.”
Neither of us slept that night. From the shadows I watched him as stood at the ship’s prow, picking at the flesh hanging from his arms and tossing it into the sea. Even the fish turned away, disinterested in his decaying meat.
“Soon only the worms will be interested in me,” I heard him say to the fish. “Fitting, is it not?”
I watched as his body shuddered. Was he crying? His eyes, fogged and matte in the reflected moonlight, were dry. I watched as, with one dead arm hanging useless at his side, he tried to hug himself for what little comfort it would have given. My only friend. My heart broke and, crying, I returned to the cramped loneliness of my cabin.
The next morning, when I saw King Hualpa march imperiously up the beach with a retinue of twelve warriors, I knew all was lost. Only a mighty Sociocast, confident in his power, would have brought so few soldiers. Any sane man faced with alien invaders proclaiming themselves gods would have brought the troops in force and wiped out Pizarr’s pitiful crew of malnourished sailors.
I stood next to Pizarr and we stared at the shore. I doubt he could see that far. “Captain, look at all that gold.”
Hualpa’s warriors wore even more of the precious metal than yesterday’s savages. It was worthless as armour. The only reasonable explanation was that it was purely decorative. This scared me even more than Hualpa’s small retinue. If their armour was decorative it was because they believed they didn’t need it and, if they believed strongly enough, they really didn’t need it.
“They must all be Maniacasts,” whispered Pizarr so only I could hear. “High King Hualpa has come in force.”
“Raise anchor and let’s run for it,” I suggested with little hope.
Pizarr gave me a dark look and bleak smile that came nowhere near his eyes and quickly soured to a pained grimace. “I’d rather fall victim to these savage Maniacasts than return empty-handed to King Furimmer.”
Success or failure, I suspected Pizarr would rather not return at all. The man was a walking corpse.
Pizarr’s good hand gripped the oak rail, the other hung dead and loose at his side. It looked like the kind of desiccated meat even a starving rat would turn its nose from.
“Fetch my four killers,” he commanded. “We’re going ashore.”
***
Hualpa’s retinue stood motionless in two groups, one on each side of the High King. There were no neat lines, no military formations, just a small mob of people. Though Hualpa was definitely in charge it was impossible to delineate any rank amongst his followers. Was this a gathering of Hualpa’s most powerful Maniacasts? It seemed likely. Every man and woman in the retinue leaned casually against what looked like spears. Could they be fashion accoutrements? Symbols of office? Why would a dozen Maniacasts need weapons?
A fat man, covered in bright feathers of red and gold and wearing a bizarre mask that might be a psychotic’s interpretation of a bird, stepped forward and bowed to Captain Pizarr.
The fat man’s voice was low and surprisingly soft. “I bring you greetings from High King Hualpa, Child of the Sun, Lord of all Tawantinsuyu, favoured of all gods, Protector of all people, and firstborn son of Huayna Kapec.”
King Furimmer may have ensured that Pizarr and I could understand the language, but the references were still meaningless. With a start I realized Hualpa and his retinue were waiting for Pizarr to either talk or be introduced. But why had the fat man introduced Hualpa? Why had the man shown us any respect at all? Why hadn’t Hualpa spoken? If the High King were as powerful a Sociocast as I feared, he could have won this confrontation with a few well-chosen words. I watched Hualpa and his retinue fidget. Waiting. Something wasn’t adding up here.
Captain Pizarr spoke calmly. “We are your new gods. You will bow before us and worship at our feet.” He paused to glare at the gathered savages. Pizarr was no Sociocast but as Captain he had learned how effective simple intimidation could be. “Your old gods are dead, defeated.”
Hualpa stepped forward now. The High King’s eyes glittered with dangerous intelligence and a feral hunger I had seen before.
“So you lead this malodorous mob.” Hualpa waved a dismissive hand at us. “You have slain Catequil?” The High King watched Pizarr closely. “Tell me, what did he look like?”<
br />
This was dangerous ground. Pizarr would have to tread carefully.
“Your gods are dead, one and all. I did not say I personally killed each one.”
“I think you are not gods. I think you are men.” The High King glanced sideways at his retinue. “You certainly smell like men.” The retinue laughed dutifully. “You are rough and dirty like men. You walk and leave footprints in the sand like men. You lie like men.”
“And we are gods. Anger me at your peril,” said the Captain.
Hualpa smiled. “Any halfwit can toss a young girl in a bonfire and break her mind with pain. You think me a fool. You think yourselves superior. You are deluded.” The High King examined Pizarr through dark, heavily lidded eyes. “Kill him.”
Two spears lashed from Hualpa’s retinue and impaled Pizarr in the chest and gut. The force of the blows staggered him back several paces. I had to give them credit, they were fast and accurate. I hadn’t even seen who had thrown the spears. Captain Pizarr stood for a moment looking down at the spears. His knees wobbled unsteadily and I thought he was going to collapse. Had they killed the Captain? I was unsure what to feel. Jealousy? Relief? Anger?
“Your leader dies,” announced Hualpa imperiously. “Whom shall I converse with next?”
Pizarr looked up and met Hualpa’s eyes. He shrugged off his stained Captain’s jacket and it hung heavily from the spears protruding from his back. He opened the shirt, tearing it where the spears had it trapped. The shirt, once expensive, was now little more than mouldy tatters and came away easily. He stood, torso exposed. In the stress of the last few days the rot had spread quickly.
“Gehirn, pull these from me, if you please.”
I dragged the spears through and drew them out Pizarr’s back. They were smeared with festering innards and clinging shreds of rotten meat. A choked gagging noise escaped my clenched teeth and I felt ill. I’d been hiding from myself just how far along his Cotardist tendencies had progressed.
My mind still worried at the question: Why hadn’t Hualpa simply conscripted Pizarr’s crew, taking their minds with his overpowering belief in himself? The High King certainly spoke well enough. Glib and charming, he displayed all the usual Sociocast traits.
Then I remembered. I leaned forward and whispered in the Captain’s ear. “Hualpa called us deluded.”
Where belief defines reality, delusion is power. Captain Pizarr saw it immediately.
The Captain addressed Hualpa in a quiet voice. “I am the god of death. This,” he waved me forward, “is the god of fire.” My heart sung like the ringing of the ship’s bell. “Burn them all. Leave the king.”
***
As the months crept past, Captain Pizarr’s control of the crew sloughed away like the dead skin on his torso. Minds weakened by months of near-starvation faltered and snapped. The knowledge that the natives were virtually defenceless in the face of rampant delusion only fanned the flames. Those who had nursed petty delusions in the shadows of men such as myself and the Captain learned to embrace their deficiencies. Sociopaths, Phobics, Kleptocasts, Delusionists, Somatoparaphrenicasts, Dysmorphics, and Intermetamorphosists were suddenly appearing where sane men had once stood. Sanity is a thin and flimsy barrier when standing between a man and the wealth and fame he craves.
I fought to maintain some semblance of the order King Furimmer would expect from his representatives. I turned men I had once shared meals with into cinders. But embracing one’s delusions strengthens them. Each man I burned weakened my own already tenuous grasp on reality. Knowing it was happening was no defence. The crew, who had learned to fear me, soon came to hate me as well. Outcast from my master’s court and now a pariah amongst the crew, I retreated deeper into my depression.
Each night I burned myself on the the small fires I dared, charring patches of my own flesh in self-flagellation. But punishing oneself never brings lasting relief and afterwards you hate yourself all the more.
It was all I deserved.
Captain Pizarr was straying from the scope of King Furimmer’s orders and eventually I would be forced to act, forced to betray my only friend. Furimmer’s compulsion would allow no less.
The lonelier I felt, the more powerful I became and the more the men feared me.
The Captain became increasingly distant—lost, I suppose, in his own decaying hell. I soon grew to hate him for bringing me to this beautiful land of fabulous wealth. He had abandoned me to the accusing eyes of the crew. In darker moments I saw Pizarr’s betrayal as simply the latest in a lifetime plagued with perfidy. Pizarr’s. Furimmer’s. But my own burned the deepest.
What had I done that so displeased King Furimmer? Why was I even here? I suspected fear was the answer. I was a Pyrocast approaching my pinnacle of power, that moment when delusion would overpower the remaining shreds of my sanity. If only I had someone I could talk to, someone I could trust. Just one friend. My loneliness made me angry and my anger ensured I’d remain alone. No one befriends an angry Pyrocast.
The men began hailing Pizarr as a hero. They lauded his previously much maligned decision to kill the Ship’s Councillor as an act of great bravery and foresight. Councillor Reizung would never have allowed this mad deterioration to have occurred. Though Pizarr showed little sign of being aware of the crew’s opinions, I noticed with some jealousy that the Captain was beginning to display Sociocast tendencies. Worship brings out the worst in people.
Pizarr struggled to run the rapidly crumbling remnants of Hualpa’s kingdom with little or no understanding of what motivated its people. They clung desperately to their flawed world view. The masses refused to worship us as gods but saw us as both more and less than men. Intrigued by the natives, he began studying their religion; a bizarre concoction of inbred children, sun gods, and colourful birds. He would tell me about it on those rare days he deigned to see his closest friend. I think he found some comfort in their unshakable belief in an Afterdeath where redemption was always a possibility.
“Surely,” he said, “if the uncounted millions of natives believed strongly enough, such an Afterdeath must exist.”
I remained unconvinced.
Hualpa continued to act as if he were still High King and not a powerless puppet-king. It was a delusion he didn’t have the lack of sanity to enforce. Noting our insatiable lust for precious metals, the High King offered to fill his prison with gold and silver if Pizarr promised to free him and leave Tawantinsuyu. Captain Pizarr, at this point little more than bone and dried sinew, promptly agreed. The gold was delivered and then shipped to King Furimmer who in turn officially recognised Pizarr as Steward of the New Lands. High King Hualpa muttered something about the wisdom of making deals with predatory cats, and remained our prisoner.
Three months later, fearing revolt from the Tawantinsuyu people who vastly outnumbered our small and deranged crew, the Captain ordered Hualpa’s death. I was called forward to burn the High King. Upon hearing of this, High King Hualpa begged Captain Pizarr for another death. Fearing to anger Haulpa’s subjects, Captain Pizarr had the deposed monarch strangled as an act of mercy. I was sent away unsatisfied.
It was too much.
That evening I found Pizarr alone in his single-story abode, a clay brick home faded a warm amber by the sun. The Captain wore nought but a thin robe. The yellowing bones of his ribcage were clearly visible through the sheer material. His left arm hung at his side, bones wrapped tight in sinews blackened by the sun and heat. Several of the fingers of his left hand had fallen away at some point.
“Captain, you look well.” Tears leaked from my eyes. Either he couldn’t see them or chose to ignore my distress. I grinned, showing my clenched canines, and my jaw hurt.
“I’m dying.” Pizarr laughed humourlessly. “Actually, I’ve been dead for some time. Perhaps months.” He peeled a long strip of sun-dried flesh from his abdomen and tossed it to the floor at my feet. “But I’ve lost my fear. I now welcome the end.”
“Just as well,” I said. He didn’t hear the qui
et threat. Or he ignored it. He looked dry, like tinder.
“I’ve come to believe as the Tawantinsuyu people believe,” he said. “There is an Afterdeath. A chance at redemption.” He squinted at me with filmed eyes from which all colour had bled. “Redemption,” he whispered.
I snorted with disgust. “The Tawantinsuyu are powerless. They’re sane, each and every one of them. Their beliefs count for nothing.”
Pizarr’s smile didn’t reach his dead eyes. His expression was that of a corpse. “But there are millions of them and they all believe. The delusions of men such as you and I pale before the faith of the masses. It’s what keeps this world from utter chaos. You know this to be true. There is an Afterdeath.”
I suddenly understood. “You’re leaving. You’re going to this Afterdeath. You’re abandoning me and you’re betraying King Furimmer.” I was to be abandoned by the one person in this gods-forsaken land who would even talk to me. I had one thought: betrayal. I tasted hot bile and my eyes stung with rage. I felt hot and flushed. Was this Furimmer’s compulsion working upon me? “You can’t leave,” I said flatly, struggling to control myself. Maybe I could reason with the Captain. “King Furimmer—”
“To the hells with Furimmer,” Pizarr snapped. My guts twisted. “He’s not here and he’s not rotting in his own body. This is my chance to change everything.” Pizarr, foul gums black with rot, his skull a death’s head, grinned lifelessly. “I’ve been watching you, Gehirn. You’re starting to crumble. You’re losing control. You should be thinking about the Afterdeath too.”
“You’re insane!” Pizarr’s answering laughter fuelled my rage. “You believe as the Tawantinsuyu believe?”
Something in my voice sobered Pizarr and stopped his laughter dead. He nodded. “Yes.”
I grinned, sick with the taste of betrayal. I told myself I didn’t want this. It was a lie. “They believe that if their bodies burn, their souls won’t make it to the Afterdeath.”
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