Aun'shi

by Braden Campbell

  Aun’shi

  Braden Campbell

  It was not the sound of the door opening that roused him from his meditative trance. Nor was it the muffled cheers from the stadium below, or the sharp clacking of Cerraine’s stiletto boot heels as she approached his hexcage. It was the rumbling of his stomach. He chastised himself and kept his eyes closed, his back perfectly straight. His hands rested on his knees, palms turned upwards. She had food with her. He could smell it. A stew of some kind. Rich broth. Soft vegetables. A delicious spice he could not place. Greater Good, he was hungry.

  ‘I brought you something special today. Not the usual fare.’ Even through the translator device, her voice was the essence of cordiality.

  No! He would not break down. Not now. He remained perfectly still and focused on his breathing. With each exhalation, he knew, rescue was one second closer. Someone would come for him soon. Then he could eat.

  After some moments, she started tapping her foot. ‘Don’t you think this has gone on quite long enough? I mean, starving yourself in protest – it’s ridiculous.’ She laughed a little.

  He gave no reply, made no movement. At his unresponsiveness, the friendliness in her voice bled away. ‘What does this prove? Who gains? You think this somehow impresses me?’

  Inwardly, he smiled at her frustration. Her true self was showing. His passive resistance was finally having an effect. His hope grew.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t. Hunger pains are quite out of fashion, not fit even for the groundlings. Now eat, Aun’shi.’ He could hear a clattering as she passed the bowl through the bars of the hexcage. ‘You have a matinée performance shortly. You’ll need your strength.’

  At last, he opened his eyes. Certain other species in the galaxy would have described her as coldly beautiful, he supposed. Like all Var Sin’da, she was tall and lithe. Her skin was like alabaster, with high cheek bones, and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Her ears were delicate and pointed. She was elaborately costumed in multiple layers of glossy, bladed armour and silken robes. A belt made of entwined barbed wire hugged her slim hips. Her blonde hair fanned out behind her like the plumage of some fantastic bird and her translator was fashioned as a golden brooch engraved with lascivious silhouettes. Beneath her heavy makeup, her lips were tight. Her eyes burned with anger. All pretences of concern had been dropped. At last, he thought, we have come to a place where we can deal plainly with one another. Demands can be tabled. Negotiations can begin.

  ‘I will no longer kill for the pleasure of your patrons,’ he said. His voice was low and rough from dehydration.

  Cerraine’s painted eyebrows arched. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It is so.’

  ‘Then what will you do?’ she gave a slight smirk. ‘Bait the clawed fiends? Dance like a Solitaire?’

  He refused to be goaded or insulted. ‘I will do nothing,’ he croaked. ‘You will open the door to this cage, and you will release me. You have no other choice.’

  Cerraine looked down and shook her head. It seemed a sympathetic gesture, but he knew better. Sympathy was not to be found in the Var Sin’da.

  ‘Aun’shi,’ she lamented, ‘how little you know me.’

  He gathered saliva and cleared his throat. His voice regained some of its strength. ‘I know you very well,’ he said. ‘I know that before you acquired me, you had no independence: you were in the servitude and shadow of others. I know that you have since become wealthy because of me, and that I am quite popular with your audiences.’

  Cerraine’s jaw tightened. He took it as a sign of agreement.

  ‘I also know,’ he continued, ‘that you dare not kill me, for it would upset said audience members, and in turn, cost you not only your fortunes, but quite possibly your life.’

  A conflux of emotions raged inside of her: anger at his insolence, frustration at her inability to find a hole in his logic, fear at the possibility of losing her celebrity status. ‘I’ll have my beastmasters force-feed you,’ she said with practiced haughtiness.

  Aun’shi shook his head. ‘Such a thing is incompatible with my physiology. I would choke and die.’

  The corners of her ruby-stained lips twitched. ‘Then I’ll hang you from a gibbet, and charge the people to watch you starve.’

  ‘You have already admitted that even the most lowly patrons would consider that to be poor entertainment. ‘Better a good day in Shaa-dom than a bad review in Commorragh’’.

  She bristled upon hearing the old theatrical axiom. Mostly because it was true.

  ‘Therefore, since I refuse to participate in your shows any longer, and to murder me would bring about your downfall, you have no choice. You must set me free.’ His argument concluded, and he settled himself once more to wait for her reply.

  Behind them, the door opened slightly and the pale, heavily-scarred face of Skelban, Cerraine’s stagemaster, peered in. ‘M-M-Mistress,’ he stammered, ‘this is the five m-m-minute call.’

  Cerraine’s eyes never left the tau. ‘We may have to hold,’ she answered over her shoulder. ‘It seems there’s a slight problem with the talent.’

  ‘Hold?’ Skelban gasped. ‘But… But…’

  Cerraine ignored his protestations and pressed up against the bars of Aun’shi’s cage. ‘You know, no one in this city is irreplaceable,’ she growled, ‘and you’re certainly not the last of a dying race. What’s to stop me from simply finding another one like you?’

  ‘M-M-Mistress Cerraine,’ Skelban had now hobbled into the room to stand behind her. The victim of one haemonculi flesh sculptor after another, everything about him was hunched and broken. ‘We can’t hold the show…’

  ‘There are no tau in the Empire who can match my martial prowess,’ Aun’shi replied. ‘My background and training make me unique amongst my people. That’s why the Aun’t’au’retha chose me.’

  Her eyes flicked up. The little blue alien had given her an opening, and with instincts like a panther, she seized on it.

  ‘Chose you for what?’

  ‘M-m-mistress…’

  ‘What were you doing on that frozen, desolate ball they found you on?’ Cerraine pressed.

  Realising that he had let something slip, Aun’shi did not reply, but Cerraine had hit a nerve and she was determined to tear the truth free from him.

  ‘Were you in exile? On a mission of some kind?’

  ‘Mistress!’ Skelban yelled.

  Cerraine turned on him with lightning speed. A knife had appeared in her hand. ‘I said hold the curtain!’

  ‘But, M-M-Mistress,’ Skelban looked pained, ‘Cidik is in the house.’

  Her face became frozen. ‘Master of the Revels, Cidik?’

  ‘Yes! If we don’t begin on time…’

  Cerraine hushed him with a wave of her manicured hand. As important as it was to keep her customers happy, it was doubly so for Cidik. As a minister of Vect, the ruler of all Commorragh, it was his job to superintend each and every gladiatorial game and bloodletting performance. If it were found lacking, say, by starting late, he could close her down with a word.

  ‘A slight change,’ she said to Skelban. ‘Start the show, but have the beastmasters parade the spinebacks around the ring first. That will buy a few minutes for you to bring up the other three from storage.’

  ‘But M-M-Mistress, everyone is expecting to see him.’ Skelban pointed at Aun’shi with a bony, elongated finger.

  ‘And they will,’ she purred. ‘Now go, quickly.’

  Skelban shuffled out with surprising speed. When he was gone, Cerraine withdrew a small device from her cleavage and turned back to face the hexcage.

  ‘Aun,’ she said slyly. ‘In your language it
means “priest”, yes?’

  ‘It has many facets, that word.’

  ‘Priest being one of them?’

  ‘A more accurate translation might be “shepherd”.’

  ‘Shepherd. Even better. You have a responsibility then to protect your flock from harm. You would lay down your life in order to spare theirs.’ She pressed her palm against the bars of his cage, muttered something he couldn’t quite catch, and then stepped back.

  ‘You are free,’ she said.

  Aun’shi remained perfectly still, sensing a trap. ‘I am free to go?’ he asked cautiously.

  Cerraine shrugged. ‘Free to go. Free to stay. The door will automatically release in one minute, and then we shall see.’

  ‘See what?’

  Cerraine smiled with wicked delight. ‘Why, see where your loyalties lie.’

  She squeezed her thumb against the side of the small device. The hexcage began to descend through the floor on a lengthening chain. A moment later, Aun’shi found himself high above the darkened arena. The lights were lowered in preparation of the show. Everything was cast in gloom, but Aun’shi was quite familiar with the space by now. He had, after all, spent most of his time here since his capture. It was like being inside a tall barrel. As he had come to understand it, the architecture was considered classical among the Var Sin’da. They called it a playhouse. He knew it to be a killing floor.

  The main fighting area was covered with white, hard-packed sand, the better to show off the spilled blood and viscera of the performers. From experience, he also knew that there were trap doors hidden underneath from which trained monsters and automated killing machines would randomly burst. The walls were filled with recessed seats, stacked in multiple levels; the wealthiest patrons sat up top where they could be seen by everyone in attendance while those with less to spend had to sit closer to the ground. There was a single, large archway cut into the ground level through which slaves or monsters entered and their piecemeal remains could exit. Across from that was the gallery: an open platform decorated with lavish couches and chairs where Cerraine would seat and entertain important guests. Directly above that was a proscenium filled with musicians.

  He was still descending through the darkened air when the cage jerked to a stop. An announcer’s thunderous voice called out his name and lights bathed him. From somewhere out beyond the blinding haze, a crowd cheered. He had not been exaggerating when he had told Cerraine that her audiences loved him. It was true. He was unique, and therefore, he supposed, of great interest to beings who thought they had seen it all. Moreover, he was on a winning streak. They thrilled to see him pitted against ever more difficult foes, and when he survived to fight another day, their fervour grew. They filled the seats to see if this was the day it all came to an end, and if it wasn’t, they were still satiated by the carnage he wrought. Throughout Commorragh he was billed as Ainn tonesh geyse, the ‘fighting blue man’. Each battle was expected to be his last, but time and again he walked away. The Var Sin’da loved him for that in their own sick fashion.

  His eyes adjusted quickly and he looked below to see what they had prepared for him this day. On the sands a trio of hulking beasts clawed at the dirt and howled in blood lust. Their backs were covered with long spines. Their eyes were wide, black saucers. Thick metal collars were fixed around their necks and lengths of barbed chain held them in place. Aun’shi had seen this many times before. The bottom of his cage would vanish momentarily, and the second his feet touched the ground the collars would pop off. After that, it was unscripted, impromptu violence. Either he would die for the audience’s amusement, or kill for their pleasure.

  From the orchestra came a complex drum beat, followed by the shrill bleating of horns. The spotlights twisted around and stabbed their beams down at the large entryway. Its doors had opened, and through it came a flat hovering platform. A large cube of some kind, draped entirely in purple satin, rested atop it. Four beastmasters, nearly naked save a few strategically placed pieces of armour, escorted it into the centre of the arena. Then, with great pageantry, each of them grabbed a corner of the fabric and pulled. The purple cover came away in equal quarters to reveal a large cage underneath.

  Aun’shi started. Inside the cage were three tau.

  They were of the earth caste: shorter than he was and broad across the chest. Their hands were large and their limbs were thick with muscles. Their faces were covered in cuts and bruises, and their eyes were wide as they tried to take in the incomprehensible scene around them. Their clothing had degenerated into rags, but he recognised them all the same.

  They were supposed to have been his rescuers.

  Arthas Moloch.

  The world was cold and bleak: a mottled sphere of grey rocks and white ice fields. Even the sun in the sky had long ago sloughed off its heat and light, until only a brown dwarf remained. Had he not been following in the footsteps of another, he never would have come here. It was a planet that one came to only if one had a specific reason for doing so. Aun’shi’s reason was to better understand Farsight.

  Shas’O Vior’la Shovah Kais Mont’yr, more commonly and simply called Commander Farsight, had been one of the greatest tau military minds to ever live. More than two centuries ago, he had led the effort to repulse gue’la invaders from the Imperium of Man. The last of that resistance was routed here, from Arthas Moloch, and the Tau Empire claimed victory. It was a fantastic moment in history, a triumph of the Greater Good over the uncivilised barbarity of the galaxy. But instead of returning home to bask in well-earned honour and glory, Commander Farsight took a cadre of his closest men and left. He turned his back on everything he had fought to protect, headed out beyond the Damocles Gulf, and established his own enclave peopled entirely by members of the fire caste. He who had so valiantly upheld the tau’va in battle, had in his final act, completely undermined it.

  The loss of so beloved a figurehead, and the unanswered mystery of why he had turned renegade, whittled away at tau society in the years that followed. Many wondered whose example was to be followed: the ethereals who taught that individuality pales in comparison to the needs of the greater whole, or Farsight, whose final message to the Empire was that its people should seek their own paths? At last, the situation had become untenable. Farsight’s influence was more widespread than ever, despite his absence. And so, the tau leadership decided to repatriate this wayward general: to bring him back into the fold and by doing so, unite a fractured and divided people. Someone would have to travel out beyond the security of the Empire, find Commander Farsight, and extend the hand of brotherhood. That person was Aun’shi.

  Aun’shi had spent his life in an obsessive struggle to understand others. He had immersed himself in the specialities of the tau castes. He had studied in depth every alien species the Empire had come into contact with. Now, he had to understand Farsight. Aun’shi was determined to go where he had gone, to experience what he had experienced. Only then could they deal plainly with one another. So, he had come to Arthas Moloch.

  The tau leadership had forced upon Aun’shi everything they thought he might need. He left the Empire with a starship full of weapons, diplomats, and equipment, a bodyguard of highly decorated fire warriors, and even a young ethereal to act as his adjutant. The moment his shuttle touched down on the planet’s surface however, he told them all to go home. This, he said, was a journey for himself alone. Even though they were aghast, everyone complied, save for his bodyguards, who claimed that their oath to protect him couldn’t be broken under any circumstances. He nodded, instructed them to guard his ship, and left them standing ankle-deep in the snow.

  He walked a short distance to Colony 23, a town established by the earth, water, and air caste members Farsight had left behind two hundred and thirty-two years previous. This was a town on the very edge of tau space, far removed from the regimented, civilized heart of the Empire. Everything had a makeshift, frontier feel to it
. The space port, as such it could be called, was nothing more than a large field with a single control tower and communications dish. The streets were wide but unpaved. The buildings were low and round and obviously prefabricated. Aun’shi liked the place immediately.

  The Hall of Records, when he found it, turned out to be the cargo container from an interstellar transport. It had been converted into a three story building. The exterior still bore the markings of Farsight’s final expedition, faded to near illegibility. Inside, a trio of water caste tau, older even than he, were more than happy to regale him with tales of the past. The Commander had gone west, they said, a day’s journey or so to a nearby ice field. There, at the bottom of a canyon, he found a cluster of ancient alien ruins. Exactly what happened next wasn’t recorded, but the aftermath certainly was. Farsight returned from the ruins, gathered up only the fire caste, boarded the vessel that had brought everyone here and left.

  ‘Alien ruins,’ Aun’shi mused as he sipped a cup of warm fish juice offered him by one of the scholars. ‘Of what origin?’

  ‘That is difficult to say,’ came the reply. ‘Arthas Moloch is covered with many such sites, and not all of them built at the same time or by the same species. The ones in the northern reaches, for example, are frighteningly huge in scale, square, blocky, and many millions of years old. Others are twisted and crumbling heaps of stone. A few are smooth and aesthetically pleasing, and so pristine they might as well have been built yesterday. There are even structures on the moon. Arthas Moloch has apparently been something of a galactic crossroads for many untold ages.’

  ‘If that is where Farsight went,’ Aun’shi told them, ‘then that is where I must go next.’

  One of the archivists laughed lightly. ‘That will make Gue’run happy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, who?’

  ‘Fio’vre Gue’run.’

  ‘Overseer of alien buildings?’ Aun’shi repeated. It was a title he’d never once come across.

  ‘A name he gave himself,’ another of the record keepers said. ‘Gue’run is of the earth caste. He fancies himself a master of xenothropology and a student of alien architecture. He spends nearly all of his time camped out at one site or another.’