Selling Out

by Justina Robson

  Against this backdrop a burst of something as frail as a gnat’s wing and as strong as stone dispersed and vanished into the subtle sea. She realised it was what remained of the demon they had used to come here: its spirit traces flying into the aetheric wind, borne away, lost forever.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  Tath agreed with her, grimly, his emerald and spring-green body enclosing hers. He was tense and wary, as if they were in danger. It seemed strange to her. Nothing here could be dangerous, because everything was revealed as part and parcel of one essential movement, one space, time, and wonder.

  “Your parents are not here. Of course, we both would have known it if they had chosen to linger. To find them we can only go back to the last point at which they remained here, and then move into their afterlife time with them. We must use the room to move back in time,” the elf said quietly, his voice in her mind as soft as thistledown. “But I cannot do this myself. I must call one of the undead.” He hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He waited another moment and she felt his tension rise. “I can feel my death calling to me.” His voice was wistful. Tired, guilty, he wanted to answer. But he only allowed himself a second of that and then turned away with an emotional jolt, forcing himself to resist. She was about to speak but he cut her off, opening his mouth and uttering the strangest call she had ever heard; silent to her ears but strong in her heart.

  “You don’t have to . . .” she began, determined to have her say.

  “I do,” he said. “Now be quiet.”

  They listened, still able to hear the small noises of the house, the retorts of the kitchen pans, the murmur of Malachi and Max talking, the scratch of a dog’s foot on the bare boards of the back porch, the engine of a passing car. Then, beneath these gentle sounds, a yet more gentle tread came, vibrating on frequencies that didn’t disturb the physical world of the living but only touched the subtle depths of this peculiar existence. Firm, steady, they came closer and Lila would have shuddered if her body had still responded to her feelings, which, she was surprised to find, it did not. In fact, she couldn’t feel it at all.

  Panic surged up as she realised she had lost her link to her AI, even though she didn’t want it, and there was no contact with anything . . . nothing . . . she wasn’t sure what she was feeling now because she couldn’t . . .

  Stop it, Tath snapped harshly. You’re fine. You’re just not in your body anymore. And to prove it he stood up and she went with him as though she was his puppet. Behind her, her body sat on the couch, eyes shut, pale and apparently motionless. He moved around with the lightness of floating in outer space and she saw herself remain, a punk puppet with the strings cut, her skirt across her legs that looked so human except for the fact that they were brilliant chrome to the hard black tops of her boots.

  She supposed the feeling of disembodiment was no worse than the weeks it had taken to grow sensation into her machine prosthetics. At least, it wasn’t too much worse and she took some odd comfort from the fact that then an elf had been with her too, in a similar role of care-taking: Sarasilien’s nonintrusive but constant presence had saved her from despair. She got a grip and waited for Tath’s instruction.

  The footsteps reached the door. Through the material veil that interrupted it no more than a breeze, it crossed the threshold of the room and stood before them, human in form, its ears rather long, its body clad in nondescript grey clothing. It had no features: its form was blurred and full of movement like the most rough of pastel sketches that had been blocked with the basic colours and was awaiting a lot more work. The edges of it were uncertain. To Lila it seemed as if they simply faded into the space around them. And they shivered all the time, hazing the space around its body with an oil-sheen of flickering rainbow light.

  It was surrounded by an area of influence—that was all Lila could think of to call it—in which everything of that place was under its control. Now she and Tath were included in that sphere and she felt its potential not only surrounding her but interpenetrating every part of her being. There was no need to speak, because all thoughts were understood, all desires known. Nothing could be hidden. She understood implicitly that she and Tath were being judged, though against what standards there was no knowing, and in this place of shared knowledge she realised the fine thread by which their lives clung to existence—this being had the power to sever them from the material world, to strand them here, or banish them far from either kind of reality, or sunder them to nothing. And there was no knowing why, or what it would do but now that they had drawn its attention they must endure its reasons because that was the cover charge for the living in Thanatopia.

  Lila ought to have been more afraid now, she thought, but she wasn’t. When her fate was certainly outside her control, she felt only calm. Tath was resigned. She realised he didn’t expect to survive too many encounters with this place and its natural inhabitants, and that he had no idea why he had managed to become that most unnatural elven thing—a necromancer—when so many others had simply vanished from the face of existence for their presumption.

  The undead being, that was not anything like the undead of story, and not like the living either, moved closer to them and Lila’s vision of the room blurred as if she was moving into water. As though from the inside of a strange little fishbowl she began to see flickers of gold and silver light streak past the outside edge of the undead sphere, then colours moved. Darkness came, went, came, went. She realised she was seeing Time unknit itself around them. “Oh Tath!” she whispered, because they had got their wish.

  His response was cautious, even sad. She didn’t understand.

  The streaking lights stopped and the room cleared. She saw her parents on the couch, as she had seen them in the picture—dead—and there, standing on the table, its foot by the overturned glass where vodka dripped to the floor, was the indigo-coloured necromancer whose room she had blundered into in the Souk. He held a bottle in one hand, was corking it shut. Then he shivered and turned to look behind him, straight at Lila.

  She tried to grab him just on instinct, but with a grimace of fear he had winked away, into nothing.

  Tath said he had taken the spirits and gone. Their undead guide agreed—they were already following; at least Lila thought so, for they were moving again but this time they left the room and shifted in ways she could not understand. Only through Tath’s mind did she perceive them moving through space and time together within the secure shield. As they went Lila was filled with a kind of relief that there was no more to this than demon vengeance; it was not part of a greater and more mysterious plot. It was not the fault of the agency. But it was a small relief, soon gone.

  You realise what this demon has? Tath asked her as they travelled.

  Lila waited, guessing that “my parents’ spirits” was not the answer.

  Power over you, he supplied. Like the people who made your machine body and mind. And those people have the other part of the power; the bodies. Soon there will come a moment when you must decide how much those lives, and in what form . . . how much they mean to you. What will you sacrifice for them? What gamble will you make?

  “My plan was to take them back and restore them without any deals,” she said, but for the first time she felt uncertain. These few minutes had already revealed exactly how little influence she really had on the matter, at least in this place.

  Tath’s words came from his heart. She understood that he had already taken this choice, a long time ago. She didn’t want to ask about it because his sad heart was enough to know that it had not worked out as he had wanted.

  As long as you have strength and influence, people will always try to control you, Tath said wearily, accepting the fact he couldn’t conceal anything from her. How much is your choice.

  “They don’t . . .” Lila began, but she already knew it was a lie. They did. In death alone would she be free of her body. She didn’t need a textbook on master espionage to realise t
hat the components that Incon had rebuilt her with would surely have some kind of external access control. The question was how much. She’d never let it bother her before. Denial was such a comfortable place. But of course, of course it was there: you only had to remember the horrible episodes of the faulty Battle Standard program to realise she was easy to take over and work remotely, a person whose conscious mind could be bypassed whenever some system decided the time was right. And now this. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder how, if ever, she could escape.

  It was nice, to be innocent once, wasn’t it? Tath whispered.

  For a time she felt too miserable to respond, but from the depths of her being she found a grim voice that said suddenly, “Those days are gone and good riddance to them. You can’t fight what you can’t see. I’d rather buy the truth at whatever it costs . . .” but she faltered at the end because in her mind’s eye images of her parents and her life, of her friends, of Sarasilien and Jolene and Zal and even Malachi, Dar, and Tath were playing and she wanted them all to be good, and on her side, and true. She wanted it so badly it seemed that it must be. And she saw herself pushing that image across a smooth countertop towards the demon with the indigo skin. His bloody fingers grasped it eagerly and slid it away. He was laughing and his blood splattered all over her and she was handing gold coins over to him, pouring them out of her pockets, from her hands, like water until he was buried in them, still laughing while from her head the happy pictures drained away like grains of sugar through an hourglass.

  The interest rates are crippling, the elf murmured in agreement, privy to her vision.

  It was the first time she had heard him make a joke like that. In spite of everything, she found herself smiling.

  Their pursuit ended. With the softness of evaporation the undead who had carried them melted away and they were left standing on a grassy headland overlooking a sparkling sea. A few metres away the demon crouched, several bottles in its hands, its tail lightly lashing the green grass and flowers around it. Its grimace of agitation was out of place with the idyllic place. Behind it Lila could see many more of the undead—egg-shaped blurs of light—gathered on the shoreline below where ships of strange design were taking on passengers in steady lines: human, elf, fey, demon, animal . . . she saw many things. The ocean shone to the horizon, unbroken.

  No spirit with a living body anywhere can cross this sea, Tath told her. But they may travel on the ships if the undead permit it. His tone told her he had never been there.

  Aboard the ships yet more light forms guided the passengers to various places. The more closely she looked at them the more the shapes broke up until she wasn’t sure she was looking at ships, or people, or animals, or ocean anymore. But if she looked away and glanced from the corner of her eye their storybook technicolour and clean lines returned.

  The demon hissed. “To what pleasure do I owe your pursuit, elf? It’s rare any of your kind would be bothered to learn the true arts of spiritual power. Come are you after some lesson, pup? Without the help of the Bright Ones you are surely no match for me. Their favour inclines me to mercy. Speak.”

  Tath sat down in the grass and ran his fingers through it gently. The demon was quite right. “I am after the bottle you hold which contains the stolen spirits of Lila Black’s parents.”

  “Are you indeed? And why would that be? They are merely some personal trinket with which I amuse myself.”

  Tath’s reply was delivered with the withering dryness Lila had only encountered coming from his lips, as though it was he and not the demon who held all the power. “Your knowledge of the family in question is sadly misinformed if you believe her loyal brothers extend no further than that. She is the beloved of Zal Ahriman and comes under his protection. Further, she is connected to his family in Alfheim, of which I am one cousin. So you and I have family business to dispose of via game or combat. I challenge you in this spot. Go no further before we are resolved.”

  As he spoke Lila was staring at the bottles, wondering which was the one . . . They all looked disconcertingly the same. Was one of them the demon’s own life? And the spare? They seemed like nothing more than crystal vials in various hues of purple, glassy and ordinary.

  The demon’s long, crocodilian lips curled and Lila thought she saw disappointment. “Indeed I did not think she was so connected . . .” It paused for thought and winced, shivering all across its skin. “Though I owe her a painful death or two, you understand. Perhaps I might consider some leniency. You are a cousin, you say? I was of the understanding that Zal’s elven family,” it paused to spit with contempt, “had abandoned him for his heresies.”

  “That is so, but not all of us are so untrue,” Tath replied smoothly. “And you do well to hesitate when you consider we are prepared to defend our own as you defend yourselves.”

  “I find it hard to imagine much threat from elves,” the necromancer said, but something was clearly bothering it deeply about the situation.

  Lila took over Tath’s mouth. “Then figure out what an international incident is going to cost you when the Otopian forces come to figure out how to get your sticky fingers out of their business.”

  The demon jumped at the sound of her voice and peered more closely at them.

  “Why, I did not see you there, Ms. Black. Truly you are more intimate with the elves than ever I believed possible . . .” There was a kind of wondering respect in its voice.

  Lila sensed her chance. “If you will stop your duelling with me we could enjoy a more favourable relationship. Much better than the constant annoyance of trying to outwit one another this way.”

  “I am not sure.” The demon considered its bottles and turned them over, switching them easily in the patterns of an illusionist shifting pieces around in the three-cup trick. “This duel has more challenge to it than any I have engaged in before. What cooperation could repay me with such interest or artistry?”

  “Then let’s fight.”

  “We are fighting,” the demon replied with a shrug. “But the kind of fighting that few can manage for long periods of time.” It held up one bottle to the light and squinted into it. “Attrition. Cruelty. The breaking of hearts and souls. Scattered wherever any leverage lies. Nothing left unturned. No place too low to stoop to. No trick too scurvy to discard.”

  “What were you planning to do with my parents?”

  “I thought I might make a few more bottles, mix them all up, hide them away where you would have to look for them.” It opened the one it held and shook it upside down . . . nothing happened. “Look, that one’s empty. Now, your friend there will tell you that as time passes the chances of resurrection get very unfavourable, but as long as they are in my bottle the spirits of your dear departed won’t go anywhere, won’t age, can’t decay. See.” It picked up another of the vials. “You could keep them safe forever. No journey on the ships for them. Always with you. And if they don’t rebel, you can let them out to talk with you here, in this place, at the edge of the world.” It looked up at her through the vessel, one eye huge through the violet glass.

  Lila listened to this, and the previous speech, and perceived with a conviction that she felt was new to her—not the demon’s words but its intent, as though here only intents mattered and had any power. Not even actions were significant. Only the determination and vision of the individual, their concentration, their focus. The demon had no interest in giving her a quick or easy way out, for any price. She felt its contented commitment to lifelong struggle and pain, the way it was enjoying her powerlessness, her rage and grief. The more she tried to contend with it, the more powerful, in this plane, it would become and the weaker she would become. She might throw all her energy into its traps and feints, slaughter it a hundred, a thousand times . . . she wouldn’t find its hidden life. And suppose she did, by some luck, regain the spirits of her parents—then what would she do? Defy Tath’s knowledge and return them to a living hell? Let them wake up in some laboratory with the knowledge of what
had happened and try to fit that into their ordinary lives as she showed herself to be this creation of technology returned to haunt them with her longing to go back to times that were already over? Even if, in the best of scenes, they loved her and used the experience to remake their lives in better ways . . . what was to stop this creature doing it all over again, whenever it wanted to? Or worse? She knew the ways of demons.

  What happens if they are in the bottle, but can’t go back? What if the bottle gets opened then?

  Then they will take the ships, Tath said.

  The ships are just some kind of metaphor, right? I mean, they’re not really ships are they?

  No. They are the undead shepherding the dead in forms that are easier to understand than the true spirit. As they cross the ocean they will change and the dead will take on the same forms, and then the dead will be free to return to Akasha as components, no longer conscious, no longer the individuals they were. Like biological death, they will be the basic matter of energy once again.

  So, that’s it. No afterlife?

  What is done is let go, the elf said hopefully.

  Then let’s go, she said to Tath, silently. Now she knew why he had been sorry to get her wish answered.

  “Leaving so soon?” the necromancer said with mock politeness as they stood up. Beneath them ships were pulling slowly out of port and setting sail. At the edges of vision other ships were taking shape in the shallows, like dreams forming on the brink of night.

  “You win,” she said, the words coming calm and steady from her. “I’m going home. I think that any court will recognise your grievances as repaid. It’s over. Congratulations.”

  The demon stood up. “You can’t get out of it as easily as that . . .” But it sounded uncertain.