Dark Foundations

by Chris Walley

  Merral did his best to relax on the Lord’s Day but found it hard; he had so many concerns. The next morning, as he sat at his desk, Merral noticed calls already flooding in from wardens and leaders in the Henelen Archipelago and the Anuzabar Chain. He wondered how soon it would he before he heard from Isabella.

  She called just after nine, her face framed by her perfect hair. Impressive. She has seen the document within an hour of it arriving on Enatus’s desk.

  “Merral,” she said, “these defense guidelines. What’s going on?” Beneath the very polite tone of her voice Merral sensed the faintest ugly note. She seemed to glare at him from the diary screen.

  Merral chose his words carefully. “Well, what do you think?”

  “I know what I think. I want you to tell me.”

  “I want to know what you think, Isabella,” he said firmly, struck by how smartly she was dressed for a day in the office.

  “You want us to be prepared for attack. A powerful ground attack.”

  “True.”

  “But I want to know more. I need to know more. By what? When? What numbers?”

  “If we knew any more, we would have expanded the guidelines.”

  A look of irritation crossed her face. “What can you tell me? Privately. This is your town.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair. I can have no favorites.”

  “But I’m asking you.”

  “It makes no difference.”

  “So it’s like that, is it? This town . . . us . . . nothing of our past counts for anything?”

  “Isabella, it’s not that. But I can’t—and I won’t—bend rules for you or anybody.”

  She glared at him. “Very well, if you won’t help me, then I’ll just have to help myself. Thanks—for nothing!”

  Merral stared at the blank screen for some moments. Then, sighing deeply, he tried to concentrate on other matters.

  11

  The following day Merral was invited to Anya’s office in the Planetary Ecology Center. He found her slumped in her chair with her feet on the table, staring at a diagram.

  “Welcome, Commander Tree Man,” Anya said with a tired voice. “Excuse the mess. Too many hours. Blame the Krallen.”

  Merral looked around, remembering his first visit. The office had seemed full then; it now seemed even more so. In fact, it was much more untidy than it had been then. There were unstable piles of books and datapaks on the desks, dirty mugs on shelves, and a discarded lab coat draped carelessly over the model of the giant sloth. The animal smell common to all biology offices seemed even stronger.

  Anya put the diagram down and rose to meet him. She gave him a formal, almost halfhearted embrace and closed the door behind him. As she did, Merral glimpsed a lock. Here too.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  They sat heavily in opposite chairs and stared at each other in silence for a moment. From the far corner came the chatter of tree hamsters in their cage.

  She looks weary and in need of a break, exercise, and some sunlight. But then we all do. He was struck too by the carelessness in her dress. Her blouse had seen better days and her trousers had a stain on them. Her hair needed combing. How odd. Isabella now dresses up. Anya now dresses down. The changes in our world affect people in different ways.

  “So, what’s new?” he asked, dragging himself to the present.

  “We’re coming to the end of what we can do on the Krallen project. As the only man to get a really good look at the things, I want you to check the reconstructions.”

  She pressed a button on the desk and the blinds closed. She touched her diary and a gray, four-legged, holographic form floated just above the floor.

  “Ugh,” Merral said with a shudder.

  “Good, we got close enough to elicit a response of disgust,” Anya observed drily. “Now look it over and I will adjust the model.”

  Merral took a breath. “Okay. Rotate it around a vertical axis. . . . Stop. It’s too doglike. Make the head a bit bigger.”

  After half an hour of reshaping everything from teeth to tail, Merral was satisfied. He walked round the image one more time. “Close enough. Can you make it move?”

  “Watch.”

  The model Krallen began moving in a slow lope.

  “Good,” Merral said. “A bit more fluid. More flexing at the knee joints. And when I saw them, they moved more on the tips of their toes than on the soles of their feet. They move lightly, not like machines at all.”

  Anya nodded and jotted down some notes. “I’ll work on that. And you say they climb too?”

  “Very agile. Some hung upside down in the ship. They have opposing claws on their feet.”

  She made a further note, but said nothing.

  “Any bright ideas?” he asked.

  “On how to defeat them?” Anya shook her head in a forlorn way. “They have replaceable tiles of armored skin, are tireless, fast, superbly agile, have claws and teeth, and work in perfectly coordinated packs. They’re the perfect weapon. The best way to defeat them is to nuke them before they land.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  She shrugged. “We are worried about the accounts from those who fought them at Fallambet. Much of the energy of cutter gun blasts seems to have been absorbed by this skin. Some kind of bullet might penetrate the skin, but the engineers suggest that all these angled surfaces may mean that bullets just skim off. But in the absence of real specimens, we just don’t know. ” Anya stared glumly at the holographic model. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, feeling pity—and more—for her.

  “How much time have we got? Twelve, thirteen weeks?”

  “Twelve maximum. Maybe less.”

  Anya shook her head in silence.

  “What’ll you do next?” he asked.

  “Look at pack behavior. There are animal analogues that may throw some light on how they operate. It may give us a clue. Help defenses.”

  Anya gazed unhappily at the holograph and then tabbed the diary. The model of the Krallen vanished. She turned back to Merral. “So, how are you?”

  “Surviving on a diet of meetings and decisions. I worry about both my enemies and my friends. But what about you?”

  There was a moment’s silence. “I still hurt,” she said in a low sad voice and looked away into the corner where the hamsters scuttled noisily around their cage. She looked at Merral, seeming to blink a tear away, and sighed. “But I tell myself that I must forgive.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “If I don’t forgive you, then I suffer. The evil multiplies. And we—I—can’t afford that.”

  “I know. But I appreciate the forgiveness. I really do.”

  She shrugged and looked away again. “It’s the least I can do.”

  He rose, then on impulse, walked over and kissed her gently on the forehead as one might a child. She made no response and as he left the room, he glimpsed her staring blankly at the hamsters.

  On the day before the memorial service after a rehearsal at Isterrane’s Great Congregation Hall, Merral fell into a quiet conversation with Luke Tenerelt, who was now chaplain of the Central Regiment.

  Luke told him that the organization had been problematic. Delastro had managed to get on the organizing committee and had wanted to rewrite Jenat’s speech and other parts of the service, but his counsel had been rejected.

  “How did he want to change it?” Merral asked.

  “He wanted more emphasis on the war we face, on the struggle against evil, and on the need to resist the devil.”

  “All good things, but it’s a memorial service. There will be time enough for that.”

  “I know.”

  “But are you happy with the service now?”

  “I have my reservations,” Luke said, glancing around as if concerned about who might be in earshot.

  “Namely?”

  “It’s too downbeat, Merral. En
ds confidently but quietly. A hushed amen and then, in reflective spirit, we all walk quietly out into the sunlight.”

  “You want something else?”

  Luke gave Merral a vaguely perplexed look. “I don’t know. I think Delastro is wrong, but I feel this format is wrong too. Call it pastor’s intuition.” He shrugged. “But, oh, it may just be me.”

  The morning of the memorial service brought a surprise in the form of a mist that moved inland in the early hours and soon enveloped the city in a dense white cloak.

  The service had been scheduled to start at ten. When Merral arrived at the great plaza in front of the Great Congregation Hall at half past nine, the mist was still thick. Figures moved in and out of the mist trying to find others with calls and cries. Feeling awkward in his dress uniform, Merral made his way to where everyone who had either fought at Fallambet or been part of that venture was assembling. Lloyd followed him.

  Whether Lloyd should act as a bodyguard during the service had been much discussed. The conclusion had been that he could, as long as any weapons he bore remained concealed. Lloyd, who had developed what Merral felt was an unhealthy interest in weapons, had responded by acquiring the prototype of a new pistol-sized cutter gun that he could conceal under a suit jacket.

  Vero suddenly emerged from the mist, and walked over to Merral. He wore the same gray suit with the sentinel’s badge of a gold encircled tower against a blue sky that he had worn at Nativity, an event that now seemed centuries ago.

  They exchanged muted greetings as Lloyd drifted tactfully to one side.

  “I don’t like this,” Vero said, looking around. “It makes everything seem so gloomy. Depresses me.”

  “Me too. It’s most unexpected. It should have burned itself off by now. Beware the weather—”

  “—in the Made Worlds? Yes. But I find it odd. Almost sinister.” Vero frowned, then slipped away.

  As other people arrived, Merral considered the weather. It was strange. The mist was heavy and clammy, giving a weird, drab light that cast no shadows and seemed to give everything an oddly drained quality. How suitable for when we commemorate the dead.

  Still thinking about losses and endings, Merral allowed himself to be shepherded by the marshals to the front of the long line of men and women. He would lead the procession into the hall with the veterans following behind in pairs alphabetically. A gap would be left to represent a man who perished.

  Merral glimpsed Delastro, looking severe in a black suit and a strange angular cap, taking his place. He carried a bronze-tipped black staff.

  “Everyone ready? A minute to go,” said the marshal.

  Merral suddenly shivered.

  Luke, who stood behind, leaned forward. “You okay?” he whispered.

  “No, not really Luke,” Merral whispered back. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

  Another sheet of mist drifted in front of them. Above, the great bells began their slow tolling, the sound pulsating through the heavy air.

  Merral began to walk forward, his pace as measured as the tolling of the bells, the long line of men following him. As he entered under the great archway, the drums thudded out a muffled beat, the sound echoing and reechoing in the vast space so that the whole building quivered with their solemn throb.

  Only vaguely aware of the thousands on either side of the aisle, Merral walked on until, at the very end of the strangely dark hall, an usher guided him to his place in the front row. As the others filed into their seats beside and behind him, Merral numbly bowed and committed himself to the Lord. Thoughts of death and loss seemed to fill his mind. What had the ancients called something similar? A requiem, that was it—a service of mourning and loss.

  He looked around, seeing to his left the bank of choir and orchestra half hidden by their score screens. Not far away from them, Lloyd moved his head around in a slow, careful scrutiny of the congregation.

  Merral looked to his right, seeing Delastro, seated on a slightly elevated chair. His hands were clasped together and the way he leaned forward made Merral think of an eagle perched on a crag. Ahead, President Jenat and Representative Corradon took their seats on the platform.

  Merral glanced behind, seeing the vast columns, the splendid archways, the high balconies, and the ribbons and flowers. He was struck by how dark the hall seemed. The lighting was on, but somehow the gloom seemed to overpower it.

  Suddenly, the bells and drums stopped, the reverberations dying into an intense hush. President Jenat, a slight, elderly figure with wispy white hair, rose, stepped to the reading stand, and in a frail, silvery voice, intoned, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

  Ahead, the vast screen, three storys high, displayed the face of Lee Allane and the dates AD 13830 to 13852. A single great bell tolled.

  “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The screen changed, revealing another smiling, youthful—too youthful—face. Twenty-two more names to go.

  As the verses, the images, and the tolling bell continued, Merral found himself slowly crushed into the depths. The words that should have had so much meaning brought him little comfort.

  It’s a requiem, he thought miserably. For them, for us, for Farholme.

  The twenty-third name was that of Lorrin Venn.

  Tears sprang to Merral’s eyes. He was an only child.

  The last face vanished off the screen and the service moved on through hymns and readings. Yet as it did, Merral stayed mired in his dark mood, feeling as if he watched everything through thick glass.

  As Jenat began his sermon, Merral, seeing for a moment beyond his own preoccupations, noticed that the light, already dull, was fading further. Pale mist crept into the hall along the floor. Merral shivered again and received a concerned glance from Luke next to him.

  “We mourn, but we are not broken,” Jenat said. “We are not alone. We have hope.”

  Do we? Do I have hope?

  The idea seemed an empty joke. Merral looked around again, aware now that the light through the great windows had become even more dimmed. Indeed, it was almost as though the mist was a sort of negative force, something that sucked away both light and hope.

  Jenat’s words seemed distant. What was the man saying? Did it even matter?

  A new tongue of mist crept round the corner of the seats as if heading for his feet. Almost like an animal.

  The darkness in his mind was deeper now. It’s not just a funeral for Farholme but for the entire Assembly. The remembrance of a cold and alien voice came back to him. We will win. We are your inheritors. The uniting of the realms will take place. The end of the Assembly has come.

  It’s a lie! Merral felt shaken at his remembrance of the steersman’s words, but in the next breath, he wondered if it really was a lie.

  Beyond the depths of his own concerns, Merral soon realized Luke’s restlessness. His tall frame twisted in his seat as he looked this way and that. Finally, Luke tilted his head to Merral. “This is more than a mist,” he whispered, an urgent tremor of alarm in his voice.

  Shaking himself free from his introspection, Merral glanced sharply around. Luke was right. There was something purposeful in the gray mist, something that was not of pure physics or meteorology. As he watched, a strand seemed to move across the aisle, heading with an extraordinary deliberateness toward Jenat.

  Merral sensed a growing restlessness among the congregation; he heard other whispers, glimpsed others looking around. He exchanged a look with Lloyd, reading alarm there.

  Yes, he too has sensed it.

  He stared at the mist, seeing in it shapes solidifying out of the vapor, sensing as much as seeing heads, bodies, and tails. Just beyond his feet strands of mist seemed to coalesce so that they formed a face from whose depths a pair of dark red eyes peered out. Like Krallen. He blinked in alarm and the staring eyes vanished.

  Suddenly, Jenat’s voice faltered in midsentence. The old man looked around, shook his head, blinked, and began again.

  “Pr
ay!” Luke hissed.

  He’s right. Merral closed his eyes. “Father of lights, lighten our darkness,” he whispered. “Lift the darkness that has come upon us and our hearts. For Jesus’ sake.”

  Like a candle blown out by a gale, the words seemed to vanish into the darkness. Merral opened his eyes to see that the mist like rising floodwater was up to his ankles and he could no longer see his feet. He glanced to the right, seeing Delastro muttering and waving his staff at the sea of turbulent, hostile fog that swirled around his feet. Something like a snake of vapor seemed to coil up the staff and then slither off.

  All of a sudden, there were noises to Merral’s left. He turned to see that the score screens in front of the orchestra and singers had flickered into pale light. There were looks of perplexity across the faces of the musicians.

  “Something’s going on,” Luke muttered in a puzzled whisper.

  Jenat hesitated again, looked around in utter consternation, tried to start, and then stopped dead, frozen at the reading stand.

  Lloyd was sitting bolt upright, his eyes scanning the congregation, his right hand sliding under his suit jacket. Suddenly, his head swung up, as he seemed to focus on something high up on the right side of the hall.

  Merral followed the direction of his gaze. Deep in the shadows of an access balcony, a tall, black-clad, and hatted figure stood, his hand raised.

  Suddenly, Merral knew with a strange certainty what was going to happen. He suddenly felt like smiling. “Luke, take over. It’s all right. We’re all going to sing like we’ve never sung before. Go!”

  “Take over?” Luke gazed at Merral, then opened and closed his mouth. He rose and strode rapidly through the knee-deep lake of mist to the platform.

  How like the Steersman chamber. Merral realized the similarity was no accident.

  To his left, the choir rose. He was aware of fevered action in the orchestra as trumpeters unscrewed mutes, the organist pressed buttons, and the percussionists changed drumsticks.

  Like the preparations for battle. The image was fitting.

  Luke bounded onto the platform and walked round an aide who helped the dumbstruck Jenat away. “So,” he said, his voice slightly quavering, “in conclusion, we all need faithful endurance. And now there is a change in the program. We shall all rise to sing . . .” He gestured behind him.