Under my feet was a sickly gray carpet that was as thick and soft as a piece of greaseproof paper. The walls were painted a light institutional blue. The ceiling was missing, opening out into a featureless white void. The only decoration on the walls was a sign reading Loincloth QA Department, with a smaller sign underneath reading, Abandon all hope ye who enter!!!
The bulk of the room was taken up by what I at first thought was some kind of labyrinth, but the walls were made of some flimsy fabric-covered material and were only about five feet high.
I was still looking around when we heard a voice, barely audible over the ongoing rattling noise. I couldn’t make out the words, but I recognized the cheerful, high-pitched tone.
“Meryl,” I said.
“We must regroup with our fellow maggot of Creation’s fruit basket,” announced Thaddeus. “She will join our righteous quest for extinction.”
I stood on tip-toe to see over the walls, then inhaled sharply and ducked back down. A huge number of heads, presumably with bodies attached, were scattered throughout the room, poking up from between the walls. I slowly rose up again, expecting to see alerted guards training crossbows at my eyeballs, but the heads hadn’t moved.
“Statues?” I wondered aloud.
“For what purpose would the gods possess graven images?” said Thaddeus.
I spotted two doors on opposite walls of the room. A glowing light was coming from behind one of them, outlining the cracks. The other was slightly ajar, and seemed to be where Meryl’s voice was coming from. I began making my way towards it through the bizarre maze.
As we navigated through the walls, we discovered that they divided the floorspace into a number of square sections. Each contained a chair and a desk, but unlike any I’d ever seen. The furniture makers I knew liked to think of themselves as craftsmen, carving so many swirly patterns and bunches of grapes that there was barely room for the drawers. These desks were just soulless, unadorned steel rectangles.
We turned a corner, and almost ran straight into Captain Scar.
She was pale and motionless, all rambunctious energy gone. She was standing bolt upright in the middle of the floor, feet tightly together, arms held out at her sides, eyes widened in surprise and focussed intently on a section of wall. She looked like a drama student who had been told to be a tree, then never told to stop.
And she wasn’t the only one. As we made our way across the strange room, we saw them everywhere: people standing frozen in place with their arms held out. I saw the woman I’d met at the entrance of Yawnbore, now relieved of her hedge clippers. There was the father from the hotel who had almost slammed a window onto my fingers. All the afflicted townspeople were there, each wearing the same frozen expression of shock. They weren’t laid out with any apparent order or care, but randomly scattered throughout the room, as if they’d just been left where they’d been dumped. It was like a storage room for mannequins.
“Storage room,” I repeated aloud, waving my hand in front of the face of a little girl I’d last seen punching a dog. “This is where they took them. All the people from Yawnbore they needed to get rid of. It’s some kind of prison. Or . . . quarantine.”
“This brings us no closer to our just reward,” said Thaddeus gruffly.
I nodded. We left the prisoners behind and continued towards the door. As we approached, I heard the sound of another voice drift through the crack.
“How about now?” said the new voice. It was flat and expressionless in the classic Syndrome style, but was also incredibly deep, and booming, and loud enough to vibrate the floor beneath our feet. The voice of a bored messiah.
“Nnnno, pretty sure I’m still undead.” Meryl sounded cheerfully apologetic.
I opened the door a little wider and put my eye to the gap. Beyond was a circular chamber, virtually empty but for what looked like a dentist’s chair in the center.
Meryl was seated in it. She seemed quite comfortable, and was beaming happily. She was also missing all of her arms and legs.
“Okay, let’s just run through this from the top,” said the other voice. It seemed to be coming from the same source as an incredibly bright light that was shining down on Meryl from above. “Essentially you’re an undead minion, right? But those are supposed to just be temporary help for necromancer characters. A zombie gets spawned out of the ground and turns to dust after a few attacks. That’s how it works. I’m thinking the guy who raised you used that spell as a basis and did something wacky with it. What do you think?”
“For a god, you’re not very all-knowing,” said Meryl, without malice.
“Shut up. You will show respect to the mighty Si-Mon. The mighty Si-Mon’s gonna go have another look through some of your code. If I don’t figure this out by lunchtime I’m just gonna delete you, all right?”
“Fair enough.”
The light faded. Meryl began softly humming to herself. There probably wasn’t going to be a better opportunity. I slowly pushed the door all the way open, dropped into an alert crouch, and crept silently towards the chair.
“Hi Jim!” called Meryl, rendering moot my attempt at stealth. “Hi Thaddeus!”
Thaddeus nodded his head infinitesimally in greeting, while I examined Meryl’s predicament. She wasn’t strapped in, but in her current state she couldn’t do more than wriggle, and anyway, she wasn’t acting like there was anywhere she’d rather be. “What happened to your arm? And your foot?” she asked.
“Er . . . I was actually about to ask you something along the same lines.”
She looked down and clicked her tongue, as if I’d merely drawn her attention to a patch of dead grass on her lawn. “Oh yeah. Deleted, I’m afraid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, it’s going to make it hard to get you out of here.”
She smiled patronizingly. “Jim, just stop it. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to play the hero anymore.”
“I AM NOT PLAYING THE SODDING—”
Thaddeus kicked me sharply in the back of the knee and planted his chin on my shoulder as I stumbled. “Discretion is a most practical virtue,” he hissed.
“Si-Mon’s been holding me here, being weird and saying a lot of things that don’t mean anything,” said Meryl. “I think he’s trying to figure out how our whole undead thing works, but between you and me, I don’t think he has any idea what he’s doing.”
“Truly he is the false God,” muttered Thaddeus, solemnly relieved.
“But he’s going to delete me now,” she continued. She gazed up into the whiteness, smiling wistfully. “Soon it’ll all be over.”
“You don’t need to get deleted!”
Meryl blinked at me. Her eyes were slightly unfocussed and her usual enthusiasm was severely dampened. If she had been human, I’d say she’d been drugged, but I knew that our blood didn’t ooze fast enough for chemicals to have any effect. “I’m glad I got to see you one more time, Jim,” she said, still gazing into the sky. “There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you for some time now.”
“What?”
“I lied. There never was a revolution in Borrigarde.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. It was bloody obvious.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, you were right all along. The spirit of Borrigarde is gone and there’s no room for the pride of our people anymore. That’s why I came back to Yawnbore to find you. So I could join your quest and get myself deleted as well.”
I was suddenly extremely angry, and the more I wondered why, the more angry I became. “For god’s sake, Meryl! You don’t have to!”
“Jim, it’s okay. This is what I want. There’s something else. I’ve learned the Truth.”
“The truth?”
“No, the Truth. The one Barry’s followers were spreading around back in Lolede. The one that makes some people calm and some people crazy. Si-Mon told it to me. And—I just don’t really care anymore.”
“I care!” I hear
d myself say. To my surprise, I meant it.
“Then you’d better run, quick,” she said, jerking her head upwards. “Si-Mon’s coming back.”
Above us, a section of the whiteness was somehow becoming slightly whiter and more brilliant than the mundane whiteness around it.
“We must go,” announced Thaddeus, pointedly kicking me in the shin.
I swiftly went back through the door before Si-Mon could catch me. But when Thaddeus tactfully closed the door after we were through, pulling the handle with his teeth, I didn’t move.
“The great Si-Mon confesses to not being able to get his head around it,” came that booming voice again. “That little freak Dub can’t notify his code to save his life. You got any idea what BaseRegenPM is? Answer your mighty God.”
“Can’t say I do, sir.”
Thaddeus was biting at my arm, trying to pull me away. I shook him off, pushed the door barely ajar, and peered through the crack. Meryl’s body was surrounded by a strange green aura, and a tendril of energy extended from it into the sky.
“Well, whatever,” said Si-Mon. “Was kind of hoping I could figure this bug out, but out of sight, out of mind, I think.”
“Good luck with everything,” she said, quickly. Her eyes met mine.
Then he deleted her.
I would have thought it deserved a little more ceremony, but the process was terribly abrupt. Everything inside the green aura simply faded into shadow, then both the shadow and the aura disappeared. Within two seconds, nothing remained of Meryl.
I kept watching from the crack in the door. Even after she’d gone, and after Si-Mon’s glorious light had retreated, I remained frozen, staring at the chair where she had been. Eventually I felt myself topple slowly backwards until I fell onto my backside.
I looked up at Thaddeus. “What was that?” I said.
He thought for a moment. “The righteous judgment of Si-Mon?”
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go!” I yelled, suddenly getting to my feet. “I was supposed to rescue her! She let herself get taken because she thought I’d . . . I’d rescue her, and we’d defeat the villain, run down the mountain as his doom fortress collapses around us . . .”
I stopped when I saw Thaddeus leaning away from me. His arm stumps were twitching and his expression was about two parts fear to one part contempt.
“It just . . . doesn’t make any sense,” I finished, weakly.
“Our sister has found the annihilation our kind deserve,” he said tentatively. “Rejoice in that.”
“But she didn’t want to be deleted!”
“It was her choice. Just as it is our choice.”
“Her choices are stupid! Every choice she makes is stupid!”
Thaddeus looked at me through his eyebrows. “But who are you to decide another’s fate?”
“Yes,” said a new voice. “That’s my job.”
We slowly turned around as if we were mounted on cake stands.
“If you’re going to have a shouting argument while on a heretical mission,” said Barry, “don’t do it right outside God’s door. Are you completely stupid?”
He seemed a little out of his element. His brilliant white aura and constant levitation were a lot more suited to, say, the scene of an epic battle or the summit of a mountaintop in the middle of a thunderstorm, but this place was a little too cramped for the full effect — which is not to say that his sudden appearance didn’t make me come close to wetting myself.
The incredible glare that was Si-Mon’s celestial form was suddenly overhead. “What are you two doing here?” he boomed. “Barry, did you bring them in at last?”
“Si-Mon!” barked Thaddeus, his voice so authoritative that even Barry flinched. “If you are the true LORD, then prove yourself worthy of our faith! Delete us!”
“How dare you test the LORD!” shrieked Barry. “He’s the one who’s supposed to test you!”
“Delete you?” repeated Si-Mon. “Are you serious?”
“Our existence is a blight!” continued Thaddeus. “If you are truly our creator, then un-create us now!”
“Wait. You actually want to be deleted? Both of you?”
I’d tried to keep out of the conversation because it was by far and away the most insane one I’d ever encountered. “Uh,” I stalled. “Yes. Yes, that would be very nice. If you would.”
“Uh, LORD,” Barry broke in, “If it pleases Your Majesty, I would be deeply grateful if You would let me deal with this.”
“What?” Si-Mon was getting more and more confused. “No. Don’t be stupid. I’ll just take care of it right now.”
Thaddeus and I tensed up in anticipation. Nothing happened.
“LORD?” asked Barry, as the silence dragged on.
“Oh shit brub,” said Si-Mon. The light disappeared.
“Brub?” I said, after a moment.
“Si-Mon has spoken,” said Barry, obviously improvising. “Clearly his wish is for me to finish you off.” He cracked his knuckles.
“He could not un-create us,” said Thaddeus grimly. “Do you see now? You are the consort of a false god.” A single drop of black blood squirted menacingly from one of his stumps.
“Oh. Okay. I guess this is going to be a figment of my imagination, then.”
He extended a hand. Somewhere in the distance a heavenly choir burst into song. White energy edged with gold exploded from his palm.
I could feel the heat radiating from all around. The smell of burning carpet assaulted my nose hole. But after a moment’s terror, I realized that my body was very pointedly failing to be boiled away by relentless holy magic.
The spell cleared. A confused Barry was visible again. Thaddeus was standing in front of me, extending one of his bare feet and wiggling his toes. A bubble of semi-transparent golden light surrounded us.
“Uh,” began Barry.
“Only a false god would leave a lickspittle such as thee to fight his battles on his behalf,” intoned Thaddeus as the shield faded.
Barry bared his teeth. “I am NOT a LICKSPITTLE!” He extended his hand for another bolt. Thaddeus responded by nimbly hopping onto his other foot and rattling off a stream of lightning-fast holy words. A glowing white Level 47 Cunning Argument exploded against Barry, slamming him against a partition wall.
The vicar’s levitation spell fizzled out, and he fell back onto his arse, clutching his arm as smoke rose from the folds in his sleeve. A very worried frown broke out on his face as he remembered what vulnerability felt like. “Who the hell ARE you?”
“I am Father Thaddeus Praise-His-Name Godbotherer III,” said Thaddeus, drawing himself up and giving Barry the full flare of his nostrils. “High Priest of the Seventh Day Advent Hedge Devolutionists. Keeper of the Incantations and Steward of the Sunday Coffee Mornings.”
“Holy balls,” said Barry unpiously. “I did my thesis on you!”
“We are in the employ of Dub-us, the true God,” continued Thaddeus. “Surrender now, aid us in the downfall of Si-Mon, and your soul may not yet be damned.”
Barry glanced between Thaddeus and me. A drop of sweat ran down his nose. “Well,” he said slowly, carefully moving his hands behind his back. “That’s a kind offer. Dub-us . . . certainly sounds like a . . . benevolent God . . . but you’re forgetting about . . . hang on . . . you’re forgetting about this.”
I saw the finger waggling but couldn’t warn Thaddeus in time. Barry thrust out both his hands for one big push and gave it everything he had. Raw power blasted out of him like a high-pressure hose, pinning Thaddeus to the wall. I saw Thaddeus, only just visible amid the light, backed up against the wall and holding up both his feet, putting every ounce of power into his shield. Ten seconds of joint-quivering effort passed. Then twenty. Then thirty. It was becoming an excruciating spectacle. The paint on the wall behind Thaddeus was blackened, and the carpet had melted under his feet.
Finally, the shield gave way, its layers peeling apart like an onion. Thaddeus was engulfed in the se
aring white glow, and his body disappeared from sight.
“Right then, one down,” said Barry, when the effect faded. He leaned against the burnt wall, gasping for breath. Then he started with realization, and began looking around urgently. “Where’d the other one go?”
The conflict had distracted him long enough for me to duck out of sight. Now, I was desperately creeping on all fours—or as close as I could come, with a missing foot and a paralyzed arm—toward the glowing door on the other side of the room.
I heard a burst of choral singing and the clatter of furniture being violently rearranged. I cautiously poked my head over the divide and saw Barry with his back to me, shoulders hunched in fury, telekinetically picking through a newly-created pile of ruined desks, partitions and prisoners. I swiftly ducked back down and got back to creeping before he realized I was somewhere else.
“I really think you’re being irrational about this,” he said, doing some kind of breathing exercise they probably teach you in anger management class. “Maybe you should stop and consider for a moment. I’m the most powerful holy magic user in the world, and if you somehow get past me you’ll be up against God. And you—you’re nothing but a dried out husk held together with string. I’d say you’re out of your depth but I think you already realize you hit the sea bed a long time ago.”
I kept crawling, moving as carefully as I could so that the exposed bone in my leg stump didn’t thump on the thin carpet. If I just let him keep talking, maybe he’d smug himself to death.
I heard another holy bolt and another crunch of broken wood and bones. Closer, this time. “You want to be deleted, right?” said Barry, levitating in the center of the room and rotating like a searchlight. “So why are you even hiding? I can do the same thing to you that I did to your friend. That’s as good as deletion, isn’t it?”
No, I replied, privately. Because there would still be a body to come back to, even if it was little more than an angry cloud of dust gradually settling into the carpet to spend eternity counting the fibers.
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