The Atomic Sea: Part Nine

by Jack Conner

  “Then just let us have Lord Uthua,” Risiglon begged. “We’ll pay whatever you ask.”

  Onxcor laughed. “And deprive myself of the pleasure of watching you all trip over yourselves to get him? Oh no. I was rather hoping this whole thing would have you people disemboweling each other.” With a glance to the bloodied room, he added, “But it was supposed to be you lot that took the damage, not my folk.”

  “This won’t be the end,” Avery said. “The ones who did this will strike again, and again. They will never be satisfied until they have the object. They will destroy this dome rather than let you have it.”

  Onxcor’s eyes blazed. “How do you know this?”

  “Because it’s what we would do.”

  Onxcor stared at him for a long moment. “Tomorrow we hold the bid, then I’m done playing host. Whoever did this will be found and exterminated, and I’ll rid myself of the object. Until then, I’m ordering this block-dome under lock-down. The bidding will commence at breakfast. The winner will pay me by sundown. Then you can all go. Until then no one leaves this place under pain of death.”

  Chapter 4

  “Great,” Sheridan said, marching back and forth on their small veranda, smoking one of her thin black cigars. “We’re fucking trapped. Thanks to you.”

  Avery tried to stare past her up through the thin blister of ice that served as a curved window. It was a fantastic sight, all those varicolored domes and towers marching to the lightning-licked sea, and with a genuine aurora rippling overhead against the night, the colors surreal and changing moment by moment. Avery had seen pseudo-auroras over the water of the Atomic Sea from time to time, but they were sinister things, though beautiful, that held all sorts of dangers, not least the possibility of driving the viewer mad. This was the first real aurora he had ever seen, and as it rippled and wavered overhead, outlined by a city of glowing spires and domes, he felt as if he might just be beholding the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  A pity it had to be tonight, when he was locked away in the fortress of a bloody warlord with some inhuman monstrosity on the prowl, and now harangued by his sometimes-lover, more-often-enemy Sheridan.

  “You could have gotten us all killed!” she said, turning to him suddenly, her face clouded with anger. “Who the hell authorized you to tell him the truth?”

  He sipped his drink, trying not to look as perturbed as he felt. “It was the only way, and it accomplished the purpose. We found out that the Codex is here, and that the mystery party doesn’t necessarily know its location ... but that they could find it.”

  She glared at him, then softened. She turned away, and he hoped she was admiring the beauty outside, but she was probably only seeing attack routes and fall-back positions, if she was seeing anything outside at all; more likely she was looking through her mind’s eye instead, perhaps picturing the Codex—provided she knew what it looked like. Avery had no idea, but he doubted she was as clueless.

  “We have to find it first,” she said, partly confirming his suspicions, and her voice wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t sure what it was. There was determination in it, but also weariness. He sympathized. Without Lord Onxcor’s assistance or the ability to follow the mystery party, getting their hands on the Codex was going to be a problem.

  “I think there’s a chance Onxcor will bring out the Codex tomorrow,” Avery said. “I think I convinced him.”

  “And if he doesn’t?

  “We have to free Uthua,” he said. “Maybe he can help us with the Codex if Onxcor doesn’t put it up for sale. Perhaps Uthua can sense it.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “Yes. Yes, that makes sense. Layanna could sense the Key. Uthua may sense the Codex. But how are we going to free him? You ... said you had a plan.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I have one for part of it, Jess. I can get the blood from an infected person, or persons. But as far as getting it to Uthua, through the warriors standing guard under him, I don’t know.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  He sipped on his drink, nodding. With a sigh, she reclined on the deck-chair next to him, and they both lay gazing up at the aurora waving overhead. Avery realized he was doing what he hoped Sheridan hadn’t been—staring through the display to something else, only it wasn’t the Codex he saw in his mind but chunks of bodies lying scattered about a glowing room. He hoped he wasn’t seeing their future.

  * * *

  The next morning Avery and Sheridan arrived at the locker room near what Avery thought of as the business entrance to find it staffed with three bored-looking toughs, two armed with shotguns and one a submachine gun.

  “I’m Dr. Avery. I believe Lord Onxcor sent word to allow me to retrieve my medical bag.” He was praying Onxcor had actually done what he’d said he would. It had been late, after all, and it was entirely possible the chief had been distracted by the second round of murders before he had given the order ... or had changed his mind about the whole thing and decided not to let Avery further examine the bodies at all.

  The man with the submachine shrugged. He spoke in Ysstran, the same language Avery had. “Got your key?”

  One of the fellows took it and opened a locker, from which he withdrew the medical bag and tossed it at Avery, who was obliged to fumble for it in the air, nearly dropping it. Fortunately he was saved that embarrassment and caught it at the last moment.

  “Thank you,” he said, sarcastic.

  The man who’d given the bag to him had actually turned his back on Avery, and it was up to the man with the submachine gun to grunt in confirmation. As satisfied with the exchange as he was going to get, Avery departed. Sheridan shot the men a look, then came with him.

  “Let me see that bag,” she said.

  He allowed her to open it up. Her eyes gleamed when they saw a scalpel, and in a flash it was tucked inside one of her pockets. Instantly she looked more at ease.

  “Please, Jess, don’t start killing anyone yet.”

  “We’ll see. Just mind the route. I hope you were paying attention when that madam was giving directions.”

  He had been, and in ten minutes they were at the drug lab. There was some confusion as the “pharmacists” stopped their manufacture of amphetamines or whatever it was and consulted their notes about admitting a visitor. Satisfied, they showed Avery in and gave him the run of a couple of rooms, one of which contained the six bodies. They had no morgue or storage unit, but the whole place was one great big ice box and the bodies were all too fresh.

  And cold. Using some of his alchemical compounds, Avery coaxed fluidity back into the blood one of the bodies, then extracted three syringes full, which would remain in liquid form for approximately thirty hours before he’d have to reapply additional compounds, which he did not have. He, Sheridan and Risiglon would have to pull this off sooner than later. Afterwards he left the pharmacy, Sheridan with him.

  “Will three syringes be enough to revive him?” she said.

  “I believe so. Anyway, it’s all I had, and I doubt I’ll have time to administer more, do you?” He tried to summon some enthusiasm. “Ready for breakfast?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. This is when the bidding starts.”

  “It should be interesting. We don’t even have any money. Gods help us if we win the bid.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t know that. Besides, Onxcor plans to give us till nightfall to pay. We should be able to come up with something by then.”

  The common room banged with noise and activity when they entered, and instantly Avery’s mouth watered at the savory scents of roasting meat and mashed potatoes. The rest of the city might be starving, but not Lord Onxcor’s men. Looking ill, Risiglon met them at a table, and when Avery ordered food from a nearby waiter (or what passed for one; the fellow was just as rough and scarred as the rest) the professor blanched.

  “You were just looking at dead bodies,” Risiglon said. “How can you eat?”

  Avery inhaled, smiling. “How can I not? I’ll give the Xlacan
s one thing: they know how to cook. It may be all fried and fatty, but comfort food is just what the doctor ordered.” He grinned—he was the doctor, obviously—but Risiglon didn’t smile back.

  “I’m still sick from what we saw last night,” the anthropologist said.

  Sheridan ordered, too. For his part, Risiglon sat over his tray of cooling food and stared at Uthua, hanging limply from the far wall with four guards under him as before.

  “We need to help him,” Risiglon said.

  “We will,” Sheridan said. “When we can.”

  Risiglon frowned.

  Looking around, Avery saw a lot of other frowns as his fellow diners glared at each other with bloodshot eyes and clutched their heads—all recovering from a night of debauchery, he had no doubt. Lord Onxcor was very generous to his men, and even more generous to his guests, it seemed. They looked more wretched than the soldiers—that is, the rebels and the rival clan leaders did. The envoys from the Ysstral Empire looked just as cool and composed as they had been last night. Avery wondered if their rooms had been searched, or if Onxcor had called the investigation off after what had happened to his first group of men.

  The lord himself entered, seeming tired and broodful but substantially less hung-over than his warriors. He’d been up much of the night, Avery supposed, dealing with the murders and leading the hunt for the mystery party. Just who were they? What other group could be after the Codex? Avery had thought about it all night (or what little of it he’d had to himself) and could come up with no answers.

  “Good morning all,” Onxcor called, and at the volume of his words many of those gathered winced and massaged their scalps. Risiglon translated almost reluctantly, unhappy about shifting his focus from his god. “I hope you all had a good evening and a pleasant breakfast. Forgive me if I get straight to business. I’ve had a rough night and see no reason to drag this out any longer. On to the bids!”

  His men gave a muted roar of approval, groaning as they did. Avery glanced sideways to Sheridan. Her face remained deadpan.

  Onxcor opened his mouth to continue, but before he could speak a man emerged from down a hall, approached him and whispered in his ear. Surprise registered on the lord’s face, and when he asked something and the man nodded, anger replaced surprise, and his eyes swiveled to Avery, Sheridan and Risiglon. Avery felt suddenly sweaty and was aware of beads of perspiration trickling from his armpits. What now?

  “I have just been informed,” Lord Onxcor said, speaking Ysstran and practically biting off the words, “that the delegation from the Temple has arrived.”

  “Shit,” said Risiglon.

  “Seize them!”

  Fur-clad men surrounded Avery’s party and laid hands on them. Sheridan began to reach for her scalpel, but Avery whispered, “No” and surprisingly she obeyed. Avery’s thought was that there was no shooting or slicing their way out of this, but they still had their tongues. For the moment.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Onxcor demanded, coming closer. “Who are you people?”

  “We’re ...” Avery fumbled for words, seeing the agonized face of a man sheathed in a frosty stalagmite to his left. The man’s lips had been sliced off, revealing chipped teeth in a mocking, eternal grin. “We ...”

  A group of robed men and women entered the cavernous room, and Avery didn’t have to be told that this was the true delegation from the Collossum Temple. He would recognize their purple robes and arrogant postures anywhere. The leader threw back the cowl of his robe, exposing a gray-furred face—one of the local converted, then—and swept the room with a withering look. Seeing Uthua, he put three fingers to his bowed forehead and strode over to the bound god. After hitting the wall of armed men beneath Uthua, the priest barked in Xlacan what had to be something like Get out of my way. Instead, the men repositioned their weapons, pointing them not too subtly toward the Collossumists. Behind them, on his wall, Uthua didn’t even stir, save that his chest rose up, slowly, and, very slowly, down. A puff of breath, visible in the frosty air, escaped his sharp-toothed mouth. His eyes remained closed.

  The head priest turned to Onxcor. “We demand access to the Great One,” he said, according to Risiglon’s hastily whispered translation. “We must pay homage to our god.”

  A slow, hard smile spread across the warlord’s face. “Then I suggest you win the bid.”

  “This is intolerable! We demand—”

  “This is not your place to demand. Forget that and it will be you in the next icicle.”

  For the first time the head priest seemed to see the many bodies encased in ice. His expression barely flickered—he must have heard of the practice; indeed, it must be well-known throughout the city, a signature of the warlord—but he did rock just slightly backward, and when he spoke next it was with less presumption.

  “You have done a grievous wrong, Lord Onxcor. Release the Great One or regret it.”

  Onxcor’s face darkened. “Threats will end the same as demands.”

  The priest glowered but said nothing. He may despise Onxcor, but he was in the warlord’s power, as was his god, and he seemed to realize it.

  “Blue nightingale thirteen,” Sheridan said suddenly in Octunggen, and attention swung to her. Even Avery was surprised.

  The head priest started. Clearing his throat, he said, “This woman and her party are with me.”

  Onxcor’s nostrils flared. “Who is she?”

  “She is with me.”

  Onxcor stroked his mustache for a moment, frowning at Sheridan and Avery, then let out a long sigh. To the men who had surrounded the three, he said, “Let them go. If nothing else, they are friends of the Temple, then. They didn’t lie about that.”

  If asked beforehand, Avery never would have believed that he could feel relief to be turned over to the custody of Collossumist priests, but it was with a sense of lightness and gratitude that he joined the robed party, mentally congratulating Sheridan on her expert timing and her ability to recall the passphrase she was to have identified herself to the cultists by under such pressure. Avery could barely remember his name.

  “You are well met,” the head priest told Sheridan under his breath. “We’ve been looking for you since last night. One of our militias—”

  “Never mind,” Sheridan said.

  “What of the others? I was told there were a good number of soldiers.”

  “They didn’t make it.”

  Avery saw Onxcor giving the group dark looks and mentally prodded Sheridan and the priest on their way; the less conspiring they were seen to do the better.

  Seeming to sense this, the priest turned back to the warlord. “Lord Onxcor, we’re ready to give our bid.”

  Onxcor grunted. “You’ll have to wait your turn.” He gestured to a mostly empty table. “Sit. Drink. Eat, if you would. You’re in my house, and I will set the schedule.”

  Avery and the others took positions at the table, which quickly emptied. The warriors of the clan didn’t want to be seen associating with the likes of them, or perhaps they were genuinely afraid of the priests. Avery didn’t blame them. He wondered how many human sacrifices these clergymen had presided over; they may have come from one just now.

  Onxcor mounted his throne. Brows lowered, eyes hard, he said, “There has been a new development. Many of you have heard about some murders that happened here last night. I had my men attempt to search the room of one of the bidding parties—the group that would not give their names—and my men were promptly and terribly slain. The mystery party killed others, as well, men thought to have access to a certain object recovered when the god was collected.” Contemptuously, he indicated Uthua. “I’d planned to study the object and make some use of it, but I now see that it would be too costly. I’m having it moved to this room and will include it with the purchase of the god.”

  “You did it,” Sheridan told Avery. “You really fucking did it.”

  He tried to resist a smile.

  Onxcor went on: “Whoever buys him also
buys it—whatever it is. There won’t be two bids, one on each. I don’t have the patience to sit here for that. Besides, I have a feeling there’s only one or two groups in this room that even know what it’s for.” His eyes speared Avery’s party, then the Ysstral ambassadors. Raising his voice, he said, “Bring it in!”

  Two of his men hauled the Codex in on a litter, and for the first time Avery was able to get a look at it. In appearance it resembled a glass pyramid, but with too many sides, and upside-down, so that it stood on its tip, which did not quite touch the surface it “rested” on. It spun, moving steadily in a rotation that may have been going on for thousands of years, emitting a faint hum as it did so. It stood about two feet high and hovered, barely, above a circular surface that seemed part and parcel of the whole even if they did not touch. Composed of what looked like metal covered in fantastic runes, the disc-shaped platform for the Codex must have been retrieved along with it from the ruins of the ice-encased Ygrithan city Uthua had ventured to. What other marvels had he found there? The whole thing rested on a man-made (and recently fashioned) framework with two sets of handles, and the warriors set it down not far away from the throne.

  “So: to business,” Onxcor said, and gestured toward the party from the rival clan. “Let me hear your bid first.”

  The indicated barbarian—Avery remembered his name was Gaxilg—stood, gazing distractedly at the Codex. Clearly he longed to know what it was for and what the intrigue surrounding it meant. He paused, as if hoping someone would volunteer the information, then said, “My lord has authorized me to bid four hundred thousand xavs for the god.” A mutter of awe rippled around the room; apparently that was an astounding figure. “If I could, I’d like to contact him and ask him what’s to be done about this ... object.”

  Onxcor shook his head. “No one leaves this place or sends any messages out until this matter is resolved. I’m not risking my enemies plotting and planning—it’s one reason I’d wanted to keep the ... thing ... secret in the first place. Four hundred thousand xavs is a worthy bid, though, especially at a time when most people are starving. Is that number final?”