by Jack Conner
The jeep stopped among the little rag-tag settlements to purchase food and necessary items when available, though more often it was the refugees that begged aid from the occupants of the jeep. From the vagabonds Avery heard tales of conflict with local ngvandi, as well as stories of refugees banding together into companies of bandits, rapists and highway robbers. The people had become desperate, willing to do anything to survive, even if it meant preying on their own. Captain Hunried and the others wound their way through the mountains with caution after that, trying never to travel by night, when the bandits were at their worst. Then they would park and sleep. And every evening before he drifted off, Avery wondered where Sheridan was. And Uthua.
During the day they passed through and near Ungraessotti cities, and in them Avery saw gaunt, grim people, waiting only for the day when Octung arrived at their doors. Some of the cities were intact, some ruined, some claiming secession from Ungraessot and therefore neutrality in the war. One even boasted a banner that read We worship the Collossum. All hail Octung!
“Fools,” Hunried spat. “That won’t save them. It will only make it easier for the Octs. They can concentrate on subduing the cities that offer resistance and save the rest for later. These lot deserve what they get.”
Despite his harsh words, he waxed on with obvious pride about the grandeur of his country. “One of the oldest nations in Urslin, you know,” he said one day as they were nearing a tunnel. “Existed two thousand years before the coming of L’oh, and some say even before that.”
“We’re more curious about the Soul Door,” Hildra said, surprising Avery, who hadn’t thought she had an interest in such things.
Hunried nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Most people are. It’s not every country that has a portal to the afterlife.”
“That’s why the God-Emperor guards it, eh?” This was Janx.
“His sacred duty,” Hunried said. “And being God-Emperor, when it’s his time to go through the Door, he won’t do it merely in spirit but body as well. When he tires of the mortal plane and wants to join his fathers in the Hallowed Halls, he’ll appoint one of his sons as heir and take the long journey through the dark.”
“Why do they call him the God-Emperor?” Hildra said.
“He’s descended from the gods,” Hunried said, as if it were self-evident. “His Eminence is directly descended from the line of emperors. His branch of the line Ascended during the Fall. When L’oh was breaking up and Emperor Hurn died under mysterious circumstances, his two sons warred for power—you know the story. Lord Mycra and Lord Tallis. Civil war. No? Come now, everyone knows it.”
Avery knew it quite well, of course, but he let Hunried speak on.
“Well, Lord Mycra insisted on worshipping the L’ohen gods,” the captain said, “but Tallis had an epiphany. He was ruler of the Eastern Islands at the time and had learned their gods. The gods of the sea. Story is that they communed with him. Spoke with him. Entered him. Changed him. With their power, he was able to survive the war waged on him by the villainous Mycra, who was forced to flee to Es’hem, while Tallis took over lordship of Ungraessot, greatest L’ohen nation still standing after the Fall. And so his line have led us ever since.”
Avery didn’t comment on the obvious bias in the story. Hunried was only repeating what he’d been taught. But the mention of gods of the sea ...
He turned to Layanna, who sat beside him.
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes,” she said. “We tried other countries before Octung.”
He was stunned. The story of the Fall of L’oh was legend, myth, infused with every aspect of the cultures of Urslin, and it was one he had studied intently.
“That was thousands of years ago,” he said.
She gave a slow nod. “We have been here some time.”
“But the Atomic Sea became the way it is only a thousand years ago.”
“No. It started long before that. It started small and slow, then spread rapidly later, once the process was well under way.”
Suddenly the light dawned. “The Ilaunth Quarter ...” A once-infamous region of the sea where ships were said to sink, or disappear and then return years later, sometimes with crews turned into monsters that then preyed on other ships. A million tales were told of that quarter, though it had faded into legend long ago.
“Yes,” she said. “It started there. It took ages for us to develop our processors, get them going at full capacity. Only then did the affected region spread to encompass the first sea—the original Atomic Sea, though they didn’t call it that back then, of course; atomic power hadn’t been dreamt of—and go on to affect the rest of them. Back then they called it the ‘Foul Sea’ or the “Sea of Death’ or the ‘Doomsea’, or what-have-you. But it was always one name, not multiple, and always ‘sea’, even when it spread to encompass one ocean after another. And the Change isn’t done yet. There are still a few bodies of water left unaffected.”
The jeep passed into the tunnel, and the darkness made Avery shiver.
That night they camped with a hungry-looking group of refugees. Huddling in their torn jackets, some shaking in the cold, they grouped around barrel fires and listened to a radio whose static-warped voices filled the night. Avery went hollow when he heard the news.
Azzara had fallen. Azzara, home of the Half-Lord, proud bearer of the Amber Ziggurat, had been wiped out by Octung. Its processors had been destroyed, and the Octunggen had been able to turn the Deathlight on its inhabitants. Avery, who had seen the effects of the Deathlight firsthand, imagined Azzara’s streets strewn with writhing, gasping figures clawing at their boil-covered skin as a strong red light shone from a mountaintop.
At the news, Captain Hunried grew silent, but Avery caught him drinking from a flask later on. When the flask ran dry, the captain cursed and flung it away.
Avery used nearly his last note to buy a pint of whiskey. Together, he and the captain stood around a barrel fire and swapped sips.
“I’m sorry,” Avery said. “You must have lost some good friends.”
Hunried’s face was impassive, but his eyes had misted. His voice, when he spoke, was a rasp. “They’re in a better place now.”
“The Hallowed Halls?”
“Oblivion.”
They both took a long sip after that. Winter wind howled around them, and it began to snow. Soft white flakes settled on the pines all around. Hunried glared up at the clouds and cursed.
“I hate winter,” he said.
The next day they reached Maqarl, capital of Ungraessot.
* * *
“What the hell?” asked Hildra, leaning forward in her seat.
They’d passed several checkpoints and were midway through Maqarl. Far from the warzone, the city seemed to be thriving, though it was possible that impression was only the result of the teeming refugees choking the streets, alleys, and even camping on rooftops. Laundry lines strung up in the alleys fluttered in the wind. The refugees looked cold, emaciated from hunger, and miserable. The locals didn’t look much better. Nevertheless, the shopkeepers tended their shops, factories belched smoke, and people dined in streetside cafes. Despite these outward signs, the populace looked skinny, malnourished and haggard.
People packed the temples, doubtless praying for relief. Hordes of Vericans, the God-Emperor’s faithful, flooded a great cathedral to the God-Emperor on a sort of hill. The lords of Ungraessot post-Fall had never required their subjects to worship them, but the Verican cathedral was the grandest temple of them all—and, it seemed, the most heavily attended.
Everywhere loomed the beautiful, graceful architecture of L’oh—soaring minarets, multi-colored tips gleaming, proud, faceted columns lining grand buildings, huge, arching domes that seemed to weigh nothing and must weigh nothing because they defied gravity, colored windows winking like jewels, granite arches and marble stairs bowed in the centers by time. And it had all been adjusted to suit Ungraessotti engineers and conditions. The buildings were sturdier, thicker than the
y would have been elsewhere, hardy to withstand mountain winds and sieges and sudden ngvandi attacks. Many were pressed flush against the side of mountain walls and the insides would extend into the rock itself, some connecting in secret passages cloaked in intrigue.
Avery, who had been fantasizing about this moment for weeks, stared around him in awe, unable to stop the grin that spread across his face. I’m in L’oh!
Great suspension bridges spanned hazy gaps between mountain slopes, and autos trundled from one to another; Maqarl occupied five full peaks, but the valleys between them were steep and deadly and too dark even for trees to grow. Avery and the others made their way from peak to peak toward the largest, tallest mountaintop, the center of the city, where the palace could be seen glinting from far away.
But none of this is what had caught Hildra’s eyes, Avery knew. Perched forward in her rickety seat, she pointed at the lines of animals being herded through the streets. Avery saw goats, sheep, calves, land-based batkin, giant furred toads being dragged along—their fur matted and muddy, their rear legs hobbled to prevent them hopping away—camouflage crabs being prodded with long staffs though their pincers were tied off, ice frozen in their joints. All animals shambled or scuttled uphill, through the snow, toward the monumental palace that loomed above the city, staring down over its citizens and landmarks, gazing across the misty gulfs that plunged beyond the mountain, out over the other city-lets on their peaks, out over the razored horizon.
Hildra scowled at the lines of animals. “Where are they all fucking going?”
Captain Hunried appeared troubled, but he did not answer.
They passed through another barrage of checkpoints, the most stringent yet, and Captain Hunried’s papers and seal, given to him by General Rossit, were analyzed critically and finally approved. Hunried steered the jeep up the road, past herds of bleating goats, calves and other creatures, so close Avery could smell their musk (the giant valley slugs smelled particularly rank) and made for the palace. Proud granite columns sporting ornamental bulges held up a lofty canopy, and a great oaken door with brass bands centered the immense façade.
Shepherds led their various flocks through a side entrance, and Avery frowned to see the stinking animals vanish into the palace.
His consternation was soon forgotten. Royal soldiers wearing the distinctive crimson of the royal family stopped the jeep, helped its occupants out, and one drove the jeep away. It vanished into a cave to the side of the palace, where Avery presumed a garage was located. The palace itself was set against the mountain, surely merging with it on the inside, and rocky bulwarks loomed to either side. Directly above Avery the gold-and-glass dome and the surrounding minarets glinted in the sun. This was it, Avery realized. I’m about to enter a L’ohen palace.
A military man approached, and he and Captain Hunried clapped hands. They talked briefly, Hunried waved farewell to Avery and the others, and the two walked away. Avery supposed he would never see the captain again.
A royal aide wearing the finery of his office stepped forward and introduced himself. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Jynad Elnithin. If you would ...”
He gestured them toward the heavy, banded doors, and Avery walked through them eagerly. He couldn’t stop smiling as he passed down beautifully ornate halls and columns. Curling white stairways vanished behind golden walls. Shimmering crystal chandeliers hung down from high, domed ceilings, some cut with skylights. Shafts of sunshine flooded the chambers, glittering on bejeweled balustrades and monuments that sprouted from the floor like roses.
A statue of some ancient empress, Avery thought it must be Lady Halana, stood in regal poise, her gown fluttering behind her as if caught by a wind. One of her arms was uplifted, as if to a lover—surely the infamous General Morgaster, if Avery’s suspicion about her identity was correct. A circlet crowned her head. Another statue depicted a kneeling young man. An older, one-eyed man wearing the garb of a priest stood before him, placing a circlet on his head. The young man wept as he accepted it, though not in happiness, and Avery, remembering the story, did not wonder why.
Stories. Everywhere about him there were stories, legends. In murals on the ceilings, in frescos on the walls, depicted in stained-glass windows, whirling through the air around him.
Wherever Avery walked he heard his own footsteps echo on the same stone and marble that countless emperors had trod. It was amazing. He could almost feel them, feel the presence of all that history, all that nobility. He almost floated as he walked.
“L’oh,” he whispered. “We’re walking through L’oh ...”
Ahead of him he began to hear noise. Laughing, talking, the sounds of cutlery. It was the sound of a great many people and much activity. Could it really be the Throne Room? Almost there! Paul would have killed to be here.
To Avery’s surprise, the hallway he was traveling along bisected a side-hall, and out of this hall poured the tides of goats and calves and sheep and batkin and more. Avery saw a huge black slug, large enough to ride on, its neck garlanded with flowers and its flanks dabbed in scented oils, be led docilely along, its slime trailing on a priceless mosaic. The animals seemed to be traveling in the same direction Avery’s party was.
“What the hell?” said Hildra.
“It does seem odd,” Avery admitted. “I’m sure the Emperor has a good reason for it.”
Jynad, the royal aide, just looked tired. He led them on down the halls, side-by-side with the bleating, chirruping herds, and the noise ahead grew greater. Avery noted that the shepherds were glum and emaciated. Why did everyone look so starved? There were obviously plenty of herd animals.
At last Jynad led them to a high, grand archway, inlaid with golden bas-reliefs. A riot of sound flooded from the chamber beyond.
“This way,” he said.
The Throne Room, Avery thought, almost reverent, and felt his face break out into an idiotic smile. He caught Layanna looking at him, eyebrows raised, but the smile remained.
Jynad led them through the archway.
Instantly, Avery’s smile withered.
Dear gods ...
They were in a huge chamber, what had to be the Throne Room—yes, he saw it there, far in the distance, sitting empty on its dais, the very throne of L’oh!—but the room had become so much more. For one thing, it was huge—hundreds of yards in every direction. But that was just the start of it. Avery’s eyes strained to take it all in. His mind reeled. He heard Janx and Hildra cursing and making sounds of amazement beside him.
First, there were the great, long tables. Countless courtiers occupied the tables, which were heaped with food. Laughing and gorging themselves, the nobles ate, and ate. And drank. Servants ferried flagons and tankards of ale and wine back and forth, and as they scurried the liquids dripped on priceless rugs, furs and ancient marble. More than one of the nobles appeared to be completely naked, and some lounged in various states of undress.
Thus the feast merged seamlessly with the great orgy, or orgies. Swarms of sweaty limbs, flushed faces and writhing bodies tangled the thoroughfares between tables and sprawled across the thick furs that draped the floors. Avery started to see beautiful women being ground under sweaty men and for beautiful young men to be used by old women, and men too. Commoners, he thought, being coerced or paid to participate. Of course, there were many noble-on-noble couplings, judging by the elaborate hair and soft skin of the participants. Grunts and gasps from the sweaty mounds echoed off the far walls, and men slurping wine at the tables shouted colorful comments.
But even this wasn’t all.
Avery stared at the walls, at the long, bloody walls. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of altars had been built flush against them. Avery saw shrines to classic L’ohen gods, the many Star Lords, great Na’thuur, lord of the underworld, M’kanagath, the mountain king, Sylissa, his sister and lover, Kaan, their volcanic progeny, and more, many, many more. There were other altars, too, shrines to pre-L’ohen gods. Altars shaped like flowers, geese, oxen, grinning
jackals, and forms more fantastic. Suvaret, the elephant with three faces. S’us, the Great Maw, depicted as simply a gaping mouth lined with fangs. The serene jade face of Rasallas limned in thorns. And others. Countless others.
And at each one of these altars a priest conducted a sacrificial ceremony—sometimes to a small, rudimentary following, sometimes by himself. Speaking loudly as if to compete with the priest next door, he would read from a book while helpers dragged the sacrificial beast—goat, swine, slug or other—forward, and he would with brusque, tired movements slit its throat, if throat it had, or spill its entrails, or crack its head-carapace, or dispatch it in whatever other manner the scriptures prescribed. Mounds of corpses, some of them quite large, heaped before the altars. Servants carved into them, slicing out the best cuts and carrying them into rooms beyond, apparently the kitchens. Other servants carried the results of the culinary labors out to the tables on silver platters, where burping, pawing nobles continued to gorge.
Avery stared. And stared. The smile faded from his face, replaced by something else. A sense of crawling shame welled up through him and he found himself shaking in rage.
“This is obscene!” he said. “What ... what ...” His disappointment and anger were so large he couldn’t find words for them.
Layanna could. In shockingly good Ghenisan, she said to Jynad, “Your people starve and yet your lords waste food appealing to gods that don’t answer.”
Jynad did not seem to notice her accent, such were the distractions of the room. He turned an apologetic gaze on them. “Do not judge His Eminence too harshly. He is above mortal law.” With a sigh, he added, “Come.”