"MMMMMaster!" he stuttered. “They said you absent and dismissed from your post. I am your faithful servant. I did not take your job. I knew you would return master." he wheezed, unsure of his fate now Flax had returned and controlled the city almost in its entirety.
"My dear Bolster." Flax laughed. "You are a crawling liar of the lowest order. Of course you didn't want me to return you fat, slobbering wretch. I'm sure you enjoyed your new post and its advantages to the full."
Flax moved closer to Bolster and stuck the muzzle of his gun into his left nostril, pushing it hard until the skin nearly split. “But you are right of course. I am your master, so get off your arse and continue your tasks." Flax snarled and kicked Bolster to his feet and toward the control panels.
Bolster scrambled into a chair in front of the banks of trembling dials which were mounted above the glass windows which gave a view of the hall below were a few pale faces peered upwards from their work.
Flax looked down and the faces quickly concentrated on their work. Bolster turned and smiled tensely at Flax, sweat pouring from his pale face.
"The, the Tallmen have ordered us to increase output of all Halls to mmmmaximum." Bolster stuttered again. “Shall I master?”
Flax paced forward and leaned over the trembling controller to study the dials.
"There is little left in terms of output without putting the machines at risk of overheating and seizure, what is the problem over there? Why do they need more power now?" he asked Bolster.
The fat man shrugged.
"We have heard rumours of sabotage and rebellion in their ranks, that they can no longer store energy as they used to." he smiled hoping his meagre information would please his master whose face seemed to be blackening with every moment.
"Rebels?" he whispered. "Rebels and no energy storage?" He sighed deeply. So that was it. That explained it all. "The boy." he hissed though grinding teeth.
He stood upright and slapped Bolster across the head. The Tallmen were in trouble, they needed every watt of energy just to maintain the field walls. It was the boy. Somehow he had got into the city. He hit Bolster again.
"How!" he stared at Bolster who sat with his hands over his head. "It is only rumour master! I know nothing more."
Flax was growing angry. Was it the boy? Was it the Tallmens’ incompetence? He punched Bolster in the back of the neck. "Tell me now!" he screamed to a higher spirit than that of the terrified Bolster, a spirit which had given him enough to motivate and guide him in the past. Visions of the golden gate and the boy flickered into his memory, but no prophecy, no guidance, only laughter that seemed to echo through his own soul.
It tormented him with visions of the boy, the boy who stood before him and his prize. And this talk of rebels. He was not alone. He was destroying the city, ruining his dream before his very own eyes. Flax growled and laughed to himself. He began to fume and his face reddened.
Bolster could hear Flax grinding his teeth together, slowly boiling up a terrible anger. He retreated slowly as Flax's face began to redden and saliva frothed at the corners of his twitching lips. He whimpered quietly to himself, repenting his sins to a forgotten god.
Now his master began to rant and swear unintelligible threats, sweat poured from Flax's brow as he began to pace the control room and hit out at the nearest objects, he no longer seemed aware of his blubbering deputy at all. He was lost in a world of pure rage as he smashed his bony fists into the walls as his fury intensified and blood and scraped skin fell onto Bolster as he waited for Flax's destructive passion to focus on him again.
Flax turned to the shivering mound of flesh in the corner and, to Bolster, his dark, bottomless pits of eyes seemed to ignite into glowing embers. Flax's deputy closed his eyes in silent terror and flattened himself in preparation for his death.
As quickly as Flax's rage had risen it subsided. The fire in his eyes faded and he stood erect, staring in space as blood dripped from his battered knuckles onto the cold tiles of the control room floor.
His emotions under control again, he lifted his bleeding hands and stared at them. He breathed deeply and then spoke softly.
"These 'rebels', what are the Tallmen doing about them?” he asked while he examined the exposed knucklebones of his fists.
Bolster gaped and sobbed. Had he been spared? He felt a dull ache in his chest. He tried to reply, but the words jammed in his larynx. Flax slapped him out of his shocked state and repeated the question. Bolster sobbed and sniffled.
"They say that they have one of them and...." Bolster took in a deep breath that was not deep enough. He began to pant. "They say.....he will lead them....to the others..." he spluttered.
Flax nodded.
"Good." he said and then smiled at Bolster as he left the room.
The faltering and long abused heart of Bolster could take no more. The years of terror at the hands of Flax and the abuse of Bolster himself had taken their toll and, as Flax left, it ground to a halt, leaving its owners lips
to turn slowly blue as he collapsed face first into the blood splattered floor, his nose breaking with a loud crack.
Chapter Thirty
On the rooftops, amongst the great domes of the Engine Halls, Flax's eager army prepared for their sternest test. They darted across the roofs in small groups, clinging to the shadows, aware of the Tallmen and their searchlights and searing weaponry.
But the searchlights remained off and the Towers dim, starved as they were, of the energy they needed to function effectively. It was the same throughout the Tallmens’ city, all non-essential power had been diverted to the field expanders in an effort to sustain the field walls which flickered and flashed threatened to collapse. The Tallmen had observed what had happened in the city and prepared as well as they could, and sat and waited watching the scuttling targets on their infrared screens in the Sentry targets, but knowing that the automatic laser turrets would remain still and useless.
The Tallmen warriors had moved down to ground level to meet the High Hats attack. Their hand weapons were all they had to fight off the human advance. They would be able to, they estimated, manage a dozen or so shots from their weapons before their power cells were discharged, then they would rely on ceremonial swords and shields to attempt in an attempt turn back the insane tide of High Hats burning with the desire to shed their blood for Flax's gold bounty for every severed Tallman head they brought to his feet.
The mirror armoured warriors, feared the worst. They had seen the effectiveness of their enemy’s projectile weapons and knew that they were also outnumbered, but stood silent and still hidden in the shadows of their City preparing for their final hour.
A brooding silence had descended upon the city of Dubh, broken only by the crackle of electrical static from the shifting field walls and the rustling of clothing and rope as the High Hats descended cautiously onto the great paved area surrounding the Sentry Towers . They gathered close to the walls of the Halls of Machines, a hissing murmuring puddle, awaiting a signal from above. Fingers trembled on triggers, knives and machetes slid, singing from oiled sheaths as their eager eyes surveyed the shadows beneath the towers.
The signal came with the dull thud and flash of mortars falling around the Sentry Towers and the clang of smoke and phosphorous grenades upon the hard slabs. The smoke to hide the High Hats advance and the glowing phosphorus to draw the fire of the heat guided laser turrets.
Santiago grinned as the High Hats surged across the open space and the turrets did not reply. It would have been nice to know if his strategy would have worked had they been working, but it didn't matter now, it was as good as over. Without their technology the race of the Tallmen was as good as extinct he figured.
From beyond the billowing clouds of smoke the Tallmen heard the heart stopping banshee wails of the advancing High Hats. Random shots rang out as they came only to be drowned out by the rising roar of a thousand pairs of hobnailed boots pounding on stone.
A palpable terror rose in the Ta
llmen ranks as they as they peered into the smoky gloom for their manic and invisible foe. Then after what seemed an age to them, wave after wave of them appeared, snarling, screaming, eyes widened in hatred and the desire for the gold they would earn for the pleasure of killing.
Lasers flashed and High Hats fell charred, but soon the sea of black cloth and top hats swamped them, guns blazing and blades slashing. In moments of thundering chaos the Tallmen warriors were crushed and cut to pieces by eager bounty hunters.
Flax walked amongst the remains of the Tall warriors who had fell to his army. He had realised that to kill them all was a mistake, he need to know how to work the machinery that lay in the dark buildings at the farthest extent of the realm's field walls. Without Tallmen to operate it, at least briefly and the knowledge of how it was done he would have no empire to rule.
He called off the majority his horde, sending them back to the Upper City to claim their rewards from his paymasters. Now was the time for diplomacy. The soldiers of his enemy had fallen, so under a flag of truce and backed up by a hundred of his personal bodyguard he advanced toward the pyramid shaped building which squatted at the centre of the Tallman city.
Nothing stirred until he reached the stone structure's door. He was close enough to touch it when it slid noiselessly open, permitting a dull light to send a weak, yellow shaft into the smog around the city.
Flanked by two tall warriors who bore only ceremonial spears, an ancient, white bearded Tallman studied the grinning human who stood at the doorway. The two leaders stood silently surveying one another for a while before the wizened giant spoke. "Who are you?" he spat.
Flax smiled at him, his yellow teeth glistening in the gloom.
"Why I am Silus Flax of course, new Emperor of this realm, Master of the Two Cities and Master of...." he paused for a while and chuckled. "… and Master of the Tallmen." There was silence and then the old man laughed back. "HA! Master of Nothing." he sneered back impassively at Flax.
"If I choose, this place will become less than nothing in seconds; I only have to say the word!"
Flax folded his arms and stared at the Tallman leader and shook his head.
"But you have not, have you? You could have destroyed all this before we got this far, as soon as your soldiers were defeated. Yet you did not. We are still here! I ask myself ... why?" Flax's eyes narrowed. A poor bluff he thought! He moved closer to the Tallman Elder and stared up into his eyes. “What you should have asked me, was "what you want"? Not who are you. Do you understand me old man?" Flax sauntered inside. The guards lowered their lances, but the Tallman Elder waved them away. "You will not destroy this place while there is still hope. Suicide is for the weak and martyrdom the stupid." Flax put his hand on the Elders shoulder. "You are neither weak or a martyr."
The Elder narrowed his eyes. The human was right of course. Had the other Elders met to debate this issue, they would have ended Dubh's existence, they would not fall to a lower race. IF they had met, but now they lay dead in their chairs around that debating table. He alone had the strongest desire for self preservation; he had only one principle - survival.
The Tallmen still had knowledge this human needed, while they had it, they had power. This Silus Flax,
this self proclaimed emperor, would bargain. That was why was here, unarmed and vulnerable. Both of them would negotiate and both knew it. The Elder smiled at Flax and Flax smiled back at him. They both began to laugh loudly. Then the Elder stretched out a hand and shook Flax's.
"Come in Silus Flax, we have much to discuss." he said and then bowed theatrically as Flax entered and signalled his bodyguard to follow.
Chapter Thirty One
In the darkened, smog wreathed alleyways and streets of Dubh, in its hovels and crowded tenements, the shaken population began to recover from the violence which had sent them running from their lives. They emerged from their dark warrens into a world of smoke and shadow, into a twilight world illuminated only by the lanterns they bore or from the flames burning out of control in buildings shattered by Silus Flax's maniacal army.
There was now almost no illumination from the field wall above them now only feeble, flickering and crackling bursts of energy that marked the dimension's increasing instability. Holes in the field walls had begun to appear and for instants, beams of light seared Dubh from dimensions beyond, blazing in a short lived existence before the Tallmen compensated for the irregularity.
Ragged tears in the dimension walls above Dubh, occasionally poured material instead of sunlight from above. Sea water, earth, pebbles and leaves rained down periodically, to those who dared to emerge onto the streets. Their attention was not focused on the freak showers for long though, soon it was turned toward the corpses that littered the rubble strewn streets. They offered booty, food and other less clearly defined uses. Corpses were stripped, robbed or dragged off to the lower levels, whose scavenging inhabitants now ventured to the surface where the increasing darkness offered better cover for their acutely depraved activities.
In the dimmed light of Dubh, dark puddles of shadow seemed to swirl and flow as the absence of light had released them from bondage. Murky tar pools of lightlessness began to form where shadows could not truly exist, fed by rivulets of pure night that seemed to drain from rooftops or flow upwards from the portals that led to Dubh's underworld. They increased in size rapidly and began to cover the cobbles and paving stones thoroughfares completely. The long dead lived in these malevolent reservoirs, the malign spirit of Dubh wallowed there now, strengthened by the terror and destruction fostered in the souls of Dubhians by Flax's horde.
Now it strengthened in the gathering darkness and called out to those who had survived the bloody massacres on the streets commanding them to continue the violence and depravity upon which it fed. Sporadic violence began to erupt in the Lower City, without the rule of the presence of the Tans, with out subjugation to their social order, the population began to consume itself in a violent, anarchic frenzy of hedonism.
Despite, or perhaps in spite, of their uncertain futures, the inhabitants of Dubh pursued the lust for physical pleasure with a renewed vigour, never had such an intensity of depravity existed even in this fouls world. The people of Dubh lost control completely. The possessed darkness oozed from the cracks in the pavement or rained from the walls and rooftops had taken control of their functions, squeezing out reason and furthering its goals of destruction. Thanatos, the driver of self destruction that lurks latent in us all, rose within them and around hem, the ultimate pleasure was now death, the plunge into the imagined and paradoxical ecstasy of non being. Silus Flax had conquered a city, but lost its people. The forces of evil which resided in Dubh’s depths and channelled their energy through him, aided and cajoled him, marched behind him sweeping up the dark spoils of war for itself, consuming souls, dining upon despair. Flax was one of its puppets, a means to an end and a catalyst
for a world's destruction. He was a key to a door. While he strode in search of his empires, darkness gathered behind him, preparing for the day when Flax would enable its migration to worlds beyond this dying realm, to fertile fields ripe for the disease of despair, a womb in which the seed of corruption could grow.
From the widening pools of pure and distilled corruption came insane gurgles of laughter that echoed around the grim gorges that were the streets of malignant Dubh and reverberated along the lower and deeper lanes of depravity, as an ominous thunder. The people heard it and they laughed with it as they murdered and violated one another.
Such was evil's lightless intensity now and its anticipation of consummate rule so strong, that when a bright, shining star of purity and untouchable innocence emerged into the very midst of its being, the darkness upon the streets began to howl in puerile indignation. The whole city began to shake with its rage and its own despair.
In the City of the Tallmen Flax heard it howl, outside and inside his head and echo within the vast emptiness of his soul.
Chapter Thirty
Two
As the army of howling High Hats advanced toward the river, sweeping the bewildered Tans before them, the Turkanschoner crouched low in a second storey window observing the slaughter taking place in the streets below. He had ventured up from the underworld scavenging for food, leaving Milly safe and secure hidden in the derelict building opposite the one which housed the dimension door.
He had decided to move to the opposite side of the subterranean street because he feared that the house might be visited from the High Hat chamber he had glimpsed on his journey through the dimension door with
Jonathan. Better away from that portal he deduced.
The new refuge was now sealed and accessible only through the front door which, unlike many others still swung on its hinges. It also offered the occupants a clear view of the building opposite and any arrivals could be viewed from a position of relative safety.
The Turkanschoner had shown the machine he had retrieved from the Tallmen to Milly, and explained, the best he could, its importance in Jonathan's plans. She understood and he had left her attempting to reassemble it from its component parts. She had partly succeeded, easily interpreting the colour coding the technician had added to most of the glass tubes and small globes, so that he might reassemble the device more easily when he returned to the Elders.
The beast had left her pondering over the positions of the remaining parts which had no clues to their place in the construction, while he made a short foray for food while they awaited the reappearance of Jonathan.
Moving rapidly through the darkness aided by his acute sense of smell and ignored only by the most persistent of rats, he soon found his way to the surface streets of Dubh and the battle which raged there.
Once on the streets he moved cautiously in the dim light, made worse by the smoke from the combat, and avoided the fighting around him. Now, from his vantage point on a blasted window ledge, he watched a Tan platoon fleeing down the street beneath him. Even though in superior numbers to their pursuers, they were picked off at will by the High Hats. When they reached a point almost directly below him they took refuge behind a makeshift barricade and prepared for a desperate last stand.
The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption Page 29