The Sigian Bracelet

by George Tome

  Maybe Gill’s desire to meet the architects was a ridiculous and worthless idea. Maybe in Ropolis, only Ugo mattered. Ugo, the one who controlled a whole drugged army through the eyes of the metal licants and portable holophones, from a virtual simulation of the mining capital! The jure of the architects’ world! Gill couldn’t stop asking himself what strange circumstances threw him here in such a place, at such a moment, and in the path of such a creature. Perhaps a coincidence, but it was one that bore the seal of the decantation of strangeness, as if such seemingly meaningless, chaotic happenings became stuck in time’s web, and all of them gathered in the same knot through which he was stubbornly trying to pass.

  Gill closed his eyes for a moment and recalled in his olfactory memory the nine primordial Guk aromas in the focusing harmonics. It had become more important than ever to make sure he didn’t allow haste to blind him and leave essential details un-smelled, details offered too easily… Did the jure underestimate him like Baila, or had things gone as he wished? Gill was more and more convinced that he was exactly where Ugo wanted him to be. And immediately, he had another revelation: Urdun, with all the cover of surprise he played so skillfully, was part of the jure’s plan.

  Ugo could have locked him alone in a cave—much safer and more convenient. But no, he had to bring Urdun into his path… Suddenly, driven by a premonition, he recalled the details of his meeting with Ugo. On Zhan’s eye! He didn’t have to search much because he immediately remembered a weird detail: before the seemingly enraged architect had cut the holoflux, he had stared at Urdun, luring him to notice the old Antyran and ask the proper questions that would bring him into the virtual world! The subtlety with which the architect planted the seed of connection betrayed a capacity to predict possible futures far beyond anything he could have imagined… Gill felt he had very few advantages—the most important being, of course, that he smelled the trap into which he had fallen.

  He deeply inhaled the virtual air, filling his chest, while his kyi feverishly explored the few possibilities he had in search of a saving crack. Returning to Urdun, could he be sure that the old Antyran was knowingly helping the jure? Well, why would Ugo leave an Antyran who was not under his control, even if a prisoner, alone with Gill? In extraordinary circumstances, no help may prove to be what it seems, he told himself, remembering Alala, who made him believe she wanted to mate with him, although it should have been obvious that Antyran females don’t think of mating when the world is ending…

  He wasn’t going to take the bait for the second time. Yes, the old haggard was playing very convincingly, but Gill’s nostrils had smelled the stink of the trap laid by the mirages of the semantics. Threat. Friendship. Promises. Threat. The four-step cycle would close, and then the attack would follow…

  Could it be that the jure believed him so naïve as to miss that Urdun was his Antyran? Perhaps yes; Ugo had no way of knowing about Gill’s passion for the legendary Guk caste, the most coveted discipline for the smell-kyi of the ancients, declared heretical at Zhan’s arrival and altogether wiped out in the days of the godly invasion. He had no way of knowing this because Guk had disappeared from the collective memory of the Antyrans. For twelve hundred years, dust and oblivion fell on the ancient scrolls, yellowed and eaten by weather and time, but in the last century, scholars had found the remains and hosted them in the tower’s storage rooms. It took decades for the restoration experts to painstakingly piece together the crumbles until the archivists finally had access to some of the most hidden secrets in their vaults, like the books for smell and logic written by the legendary aromary Laixan—true masterpieces of the ancient world.

  After all, Gill had no idea how many archivists had read them and truly understood their meaning, how many had a passion for the logic algorithms like he did. As far as he could figure, some important archivists—Antumar among them—used to scorn Guk as one of the many ridiculous castes of antiquity. That was the reason why they didn’t try to go beyond the dusty covers eaten by rukkus. And the ones who did had no intention of being ridiculed by their peers, so they kept it secret.

  At first, he didn’t realize its efficiency, either—certainly he didn’t dream about the depth of the world he had stepped into. But he started to study it with the naïve impetus that by becoming a Guk disciple, he would become the keeper of a code that would give voice to the hunger for heresy inside him… that he would start a fight with something deeper than death, a fight with the forgetfulness of the hidden universe smelled by the legendary aromaries of antiquity.

  In time, as he studied and practiced the ancient aromas, he discovered that Guk was in fact a science concealed as a caste; it was the logic of words handled with mathematical algorithms—it was a learned habit of estimating reality through mathematical algorithms triggered by the harmonics of the routine aromas. Thus, he found out how the smell-kyi could lead to the logic of semantics, to what the Antyrans called ikkla—the smell instinct that sniffed the hidden meaning “behind the words.” And the logic of semantics was precisely the tool that wouldn’t let him overlook the cascade of realities revealed by the few words dropped by Urdun.

  After reaching the elementary conclusion that a jure—especially of Ropolis—wouldn’t let the smallest detail around Gill happen “at random,” he finally understood that he had entered into an even more dangerous fight than the one against the prophet. His only chance of escape was to smell the exit hole in the web of mirages spread around him.

  “I’ll find a way to get out of here,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

  “Why don’t you calm down?” Urdun chided him in a friendly tone. “If you have a bit of patience, you’ll be contacted…”

  “Maybe beyond the ravine…”

  He walked toward one of the ravines bordering the meadow. As he approached, he realized that a constant rumble came from its bottom. It took him a while to get used to the darkness, and then he spotted the thorny spheres… An eternal river of giant siclides was flowing through the valley! Totally absurd! But very effective.

  That’s how they keep us isolated, he thought. The walls were almost vertical and couldn’t be descended. But even if he jumped, with the risk of breaking something—if you could break something in a virtual world—the siclides would have been an impenetrable barrier; they didn’t look anything like the ones around Alixxor. They were much larger and studded with three-inch-long thorns, promising a traumatic disconnection for any mad Antyran trying to cross their path. Yes, he became convinced, he wouldn’t pass through there. Maybe the creek…

  “You can’t cross the creek,” shouted Urdun, guessing his plan. “The water is acid—better not try. Understand it: you can’t leave the meadow; it’s your prison. You have water to drink under this tree if you’re thirsty. You can eat flowers or chew grass if you’re hungry. The grass is edible and never ends. Provided, of course, you have a feeding tube inserted in your shell,” he said, smiling briefly.

  Shell… the word was occasionally used as a metaphor, but this time it surprised him. For these Antyrans, the shell meant more than a metaphor—they used shell to refer the physical body left on Ropolis. For them, the virtual world was more important than the real one; they had fallen into its slavery, slaves of a drug that dispelled all other aromas…

  He was stuck there, too, so the wisest thing would be to disconnect, jump back into his “shell,” and defend the Sigian artifact from nasty surprises. However, he was sure that Urdun had the mission to keep him in the virtual realm so that Ugo could confront him on familiar ground, a ground so alien to Gill.

  “Urdun, you told me you invented the licants. Are you an architect?”

  The glimmer in the old Antyran’s eyes told him his deduction was right.

  “You’re a prisoner like me?” Gill asked, deciding to press him further.

  His companion lowered his eyes.

  “I was an architect and helped with this… they had… I was supposed to get on the council, but they involved me in—” />
  “If you’re an architect, it means you know how to contact the others,” Gill said, cutting into his garbled rambles rather abruptly. “Tell me how to do it!”

  “Gill, have patience; they’re going to contact you.”

  “Ugo. Ugo’s going to contact me. And I’ve nothing to say to him,” he snapped angrily. “I’m going to disconnect; there’s no point in staying here any longer,” he exclaimed, grabbing the suckers connected to his head spikes. He supposed that if he pulled them off in the virtual world, he would cut the contact; otherwise, why would they exist here, too? “There’s a holophone in the dome. Maybe someone’s calling me, and I’m wasting my time here with you!”

  “Wait!” Urdun shouted in a hurry. “The counselors never talk on the real holophone!”

  Urdun’s breath exhaled an undeniable smell of fear… fear that Gill would leave the imaginary world! The empathy that Urdun played could prove to be a sarpan with two heads, making him vulnerable to sensitive nostrils, trained in Guk’s canons. I’ll make something you won’t like. Let’s see what happens then.

  “You have to tell me who these counselors are.”

  “Twenty-seven architects, the parhontes of Ropolis. They rule both worlds, hidden behind the wall of fire.”

  “What are you talking about?” he burst out incredulously.

  “Why do you wonder? They had built one here to avoid being disturbed. Go to the edge of the meadow and see for yourself. The island with sharp mountains floating a bit higher than ours,” he said, pointing the direction.

  Gill walked around a bush and immediately saw the island. It was even larger than the ice world and had several lofty mountain ranges with sharp crests covered in eternal snowcaps, surrounded by forests of indescribable beauty, even greener than the land under his feet. One mountain range ran perpendicular to the general outline of the rocky cliffs; between two of its tallest peaks, the deep valley was blocked by a shining wall of fire. Judging by its appearance, it was part of a huge dome of flames that seemed to have fallen from the heavens, right behind the mountain peaks.

  “Do you see it? You can’t pass through the firewall unless you have a direct tunnel. They’re so busy… but if there’s an emergency, you can ask for a meeting at the passerby’s tower in Hriballa, the underground city in Borelia’s ice canyon. Or make a complaint from your portal sphere, and if you’re lucky, in several days, an architect will contact you. Anyway, you need a sphere. And you don’t have one.”

  It became clear that he wasn’t going to meet them there. The walls around him appeared impenetrable—mainly due to his ignorance. He felt like a feeble creature, a licant caught in a fragrance trap, unable to find the exit just a few steps away. The prospect of his physical escape through the skylight seemed to be the only chance to upset Ugo’s plans.

  “Where can I find the council in the real Ropolis?” he snapped, throwing Urdun an angry look.

  “They don’t gather that way. The counselors are artificially fed, and most of them never disconnect, so you can find them only here. Their shells are scattered through the catacombs—nobody knows where, not even how they look or what their real ages and sexes are. I’ve chosen a face to look like the real me, but few others did so.”

  His companion’s voice remained warm, soothing, and conciliatory, as if he wasn’t affected at all by the sharp words probing his reactions. The semantic rapport deviated substantially from the “standard Guk percentile” for Gill to still have any doubts about the old Antyran’s role. Now he could smell Urdun like a box of seeds impregnated with the easy smell of evening. Any Antyran would have been enraged or at least betrayed the slightest trace of annoyance in his voice, but the old haggard couldn’t afford the luxury. He was conditioned with the purpose dictated by the jure, by the need to ensure Gill’s presence here, thus betraying his deceit. Obviously, he wanted something from Gill. What does he want from me? Or better to say, what does he think he wants?

  Gill was hoping he had pushed his companion far enough to unbalance his tenuous control on events, to bring Urdun to the point when the revelations-for-the-sake-of-time would become increasingly damaging for him and he wouldn’t be able to judge their importance anymore. Therefore, he decided to rob him of the very thing that Urdun was trying to keep at all costs: his presence in the virtual realm.

  “When you meet him, tell Ugo that he can’t keep me prisoner in here, and neither in the real world!” he shouted mockingly and grabbed the interface to pull it off.

  “Wait!”

  The almost-comical despair on his companion’s face told him that his deduction was correct.

  “How do I get to the architects?” he said, pinning him with his eyes.

  “I can’t get you there. If I’m caught helping you… it’s going to be my last stupidity in this world!”

  “So you can leave the meadow!” he said, grinning, satisfied by Urdun’s disclosure.

  Urdun didn’t reply, but he looked around as if he was afraid of something or waiting for someone to come.

  “Please, don’t leave!” the old Antyran implored him.

  “Will you help me?” he asked menacingly, convinced that he had discovered the way to control Urdun.

  “No. But you can’t leave right now,” Urdun replied, looking at him strangely.

  Suddenly, he felt an icy breeze sliding along his tail. He shivered and rubbed his hands together to warm them. Just when he thought it was over, the cold breeze came back behind him. He turned to figure out where was the frost coming from, but he couldn’t see anything. As he was about to resume his little chat with Urdun, the frosty wind caught him again.

  He turned back, but he saw no one.

  “Anyone here?” he exclaimed.

  The coldness sensation caught him harder, squeezing his dorsal ganglions in a vice, and then it released them.

  “Urdun, I feel something on my back. There’s something here with us!”

  “Who do you think it could be?” he muttered, seemingly unconcerned. “There’s just you and me.”

  No, it wasn’t just an impression. Something or someone was there, stalking him. For a brief moment, he thought he saw a ghost as the frosty air began to tremble with a different density than the one in the glade. Everything lasted for a mere fraction of a second, but Gill was sure they had some company.

  “What’s there?” he barked at the old haggard.

  Urdun avoided his eyes as if… as if he knew all too well what was happening!

  The frosty claw caught the nape of his neck and began to run along his spine, paralyzing his muscles as it went, dizzying him completely. He felt several long fingers opening inside his skull like the petals of a poisonous flower.

  “Help me,” he rattled, falling on his knees, his whole body trembling.

  Urdun looked at him condescendingly.

  “First times are always like that; bixan is giving you a weird out-of-body feeling like someone is controlling your muscles. Tarmon’s islands get numbed, and you lose the ‘inside’ balance. Just a side effect of the drug, really!”

  “I have… to… get rid of…” he mumbled, barely moving his lips, while the spasms became unbearable. His muscles were so contracted, he couldn’t breathe at all.

  “It’ll end quickly,” Urdun reassured him.

  The fingers started to ransack his memory thoroughly. Flames of all colors crackled in his head, and the pain was harder and harder to bear. Something or someone was trying to break his kyi, to torture every cell, seemingly with the only concern of causing him suffering. Surely another one of the jure’s machinations!

  He could barely lift his arm to grab the interface.

  “Stop! Do you want to die?” Urdun exclaimed.

  He stopped for a moment.

  “Your nerve bundles are controlled by the interface. If you pull it out, the shock will be too much for your ganglions; a river of calcium will flood in and stop your hearts!”

  “How… do I… disconnect?” he babbled, pierce
d by the invisible sarpans.

  “Have a little patience, will you?”

  Gill tried again to disconnect, unconvinced by Urdun’s words.

  “Fine, if you don’t believe me, go ahead,” Urdun chided him, turning his back.

  For a split second he almost believed him, but then he saw Urdun’s gills: they were scarlet and pulsed frantically in an effort to hide his panic.

  “You’re lying,” Gill muttered.

  “I’ll help you leave the glade if that’s what you want! We’re going to meet the counselors!” his companion said, making another attempt to buy time.

  One by one, his tortured muscles stopped trembling, paralyzed by the claws inside his skull. Their purpose seemed clear now: they were trying to take control of his body to prevent him from pulling the interface off. With every second, they inched closer and closer to their goal.

  On the other tail, Gill was equally determined to escape. He began fighting the numbness, but he quickly found that he couldn’t raise his arms high enough to remove the interface. Had he lost already?

  His feet still listened to him—the paralysis was traveling much slower downward, being focused on his head and the upper part of his body. Without wasting more time, he stumbled toward the ravine that bordered the meadow. For a moment, he glimpsed the river of deadly mutant siclides, and then he jumped into it.

  A whirling vortex of sensations swallowed him in an instant. It was so powerful that it sucked away even the last crumble of air still inside his chest. Was… Urdun telling the truth? The horrible suspicion speared his kyi. But in the next instant, the twister threw him into his nest in the real Ropolis. The bixan hadn’t finished its effect—he was still feeling dizzy and confused. But the evil presence was gone, and he could finally fill his chest with plenty of stinky air.