“Morning,” Ludi replied.
“Morn’n,” Brute Hungry rumbled.
Magna poured herself a coffee and stood, as she generally did, and took her first sips at what Ludi thought of as parade-ground attention.41 The older woman was as crisp and composed as always, her overall clean and sharp-creased enough to look as though it had been ironed even though if there was an iron in the TrollCage, it was stacked on a shelf in the warehouse somewhere. All in all, Cara-Magna Áqui managed to appear as though she hadn’t gone to bed but also like she was perfectly well-rested.
“Did anything … come to you?” Ludi asked once the silence had stretched far enough. Magna spared Ludi a disapproving little scowl and flicked her eyes at Hungry, but nodded. “Really?” Ludi leaned forward. “Magna, what? What did you see?”
“I didn’t see anything,” Magna said sternly, “except my computer interface. I spent half the night digging through actual government files and trying to riddle Osrai into telling me which penitentiary was the final recipient of the materials and resource reallocations necessary to house a Dragon. And then the other half of the night following that trail to the actual penitentiary that has been outfitted. The good news is, it’s still in this country.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“All the rest of it is the bad news,” Magna replied, and sipped her coffee again. “Have you ever heard of Warakurna Mine?”
“No,” Ludi said, “but I suppose that’s the point?”
“Pretty much. It’s actually a mine on the books, a decommissioned one that’s used for toxic waste dumping on the off-the-books books that people are meant to be able to find.”
Ludi frowned. “What sort of toxic waste?”
“Does it really matter?” Magna asked. “Since we know it’s not actually being used for that?”
“Please, Magna,” Ludi said. “The story. I need all the information I can get.”
“I can link you to all the information I collected,” Magna offered, then shrugged. “It was biological agents and some leftovers from weapons testing back in the war – the weapons that weren’t Galatine’s,” she added, with a little grimace. “That’s how I got past the cover, using some of Galatine’s old tricks. The way it’s all phrased, though, if anyone reveals the truth and complains about it, they can claim they never said it was anything but a prison for the government’s awkward cases to disappear in.”
“But it’s only off the books it’s a dump-site,” Ludi said. “On the books it’s an abandoned mine?”
“Off the first books you find,” Magna clarified. “That’s basic government bureaucratic practice these days. They could wriggle out of all of it if they needed to.”
“So,” Ludi summarised, still trying to form a cell in her mind that she could start dividing into the embryo of a story, “it’s an underground prison, top secret and heavily guarded?”
Brute Hungry tilted his big shaggy head at this – these were words the Ogre understood – and Magna’s lips tightened. “Yes,” she said, “that’s about it.”
“We don’t have any connections on the inside?” Ludi asked.
“You mean aside from the Drake?”
“Aside from her.”
“No,” Magna said. “No TrollCage employees or associates working at Warakurna.”
“Is it a subsidiary?”
“Not in any traceable legal sense,” Magna said. “Synfoss and Fagin don’t want this one on any of their books. It’s an independent mining and waste management shell. No way in.”
“And it’s right out in the middle of the desert?” Ludi pressed. Magna nodded. “And the inmates have all been manipulated into thinking it’s in space,” Ludi continued, “and there’s a mad telepath wired into the security system so anyone who tries to escape winds up in a delusion where they escaped, only to find–”
“That’s Anvilhead Pen,” Magna accused.
“Yes it’s Anvilhead Pen,” Ludi said in frustration.
“Still not getting anything?”
“Not a damn thing,” Ludi stared moodily into her drink. “Maybe Greyblade was a catalyst,” she said. “A – a lightning rod. Grace of the Pinians. Maybe we’re not going to have any more insights until he’s on his way back,” she paused. “Do you think he might have–?”
“It’s only been a month,” Magna said. “They’re probably not even out of the Corporation yet.”
Ludi sighed. “But what if the sisters aren’t really the lost Godfangs like Gabriel was talking about?” she asked plaintively. “What if they’re something else, ironically right under our noses the whole time?”
“Then Greyblade is looking in the wrong place,” Magna said.
“If he’s really going Beyond the Walls he could be gone for years,” Ludi dusted off the month-old debate. “I know we have a lot to do, but what if he doesn’t come back? Beyond the Walls is dangerous. How are we supposed to prepare for this plan of his without any insights throwing us the occasional clue?”
Before Magna could answer, or perhaps instead of answering, she paused and looked around. “Speaking of right under our noses,” she said, “where’s Frog?”
FROGSALT
Gabriel had been sporadic in his visits over the past month, and had spent most of them holed up with Galatine. The rest of the time, nobody knew where he was. In the past two weeks, indeed, he hadn’t been back to the warehouse at all.
According to Ludi’s sources, and her own infrequent trips into Dumblertown from the Sacred City, he wasn’t anywhere in Sprawling Adelbairn’s alien quarter. In it or under it – the prevailing opinion was that he was down in the Drake’s nest, guarding things as he’d apparently promised to do, but Ludi didn’t need insight to know that nobody really believed that. The Archangel Gabriel hardly needed to stand vigil in the nest in order to keep his word about guarding it, after all. Bazinard, the only person who might be able to confirm or deny the assumption,42 wasn’t talking.
The last time he’d visited the TrollCage, though, Gabriel had left a friend behind.
The odd little Angel’s name was Mehapmiamariel, although she admitted this was a bit of a mouthful and told them that her friends called her Frogsalt. Gabriel had made it very clear to the TrollCagers that Frogsalt was not one of the Angels permitted by treaty to be present inside the Human Territory Interdict at this time, and that she was not to leave the warehouse.
He’d been less forthcoming on how exactly the humans, or even the Ogres, were supposed to stop her from leaving if she decided to … but the good news was, like the Ogres, Frogsalt seemed perfectly content to swoop and flit around above the shelves and crates,43 and occasionally tell the TrollCagers bizarre and obscure jokes.44
Ludi remained uncertain what the Archangel had brought her to the TrollCage for, but if she was on Earth in violation of the Treaty of Mumbai then she was probably alright.
“I think she’s still out in the warehouse,” she answered Magna’s likely-rhetorical question. “Last night she had one of the big boxes open and was looking at books.”
“TrollCage Storage items are private property and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, is there,” Magna wearily brought her own protest to a conclusion.
“Nope.”
Magna finished her coffee and strode out into the warehouse proper. For lack of anything better to do, Ludi went with her. Brute Hungry remained squatting placidly at the table.
“Frog?” Magna called.
There was a clatter of a wooden crate-lid away in a distant aisle, and then Frogsalt was in front of them with a polite bang of displaced air and a gust of wind that smelled of cardamom.
“Hello,” she smiled widely and rose and fell on the balls of her bare feet.
Frogsalt was tiny, although clearly fully adult – at least as far as you could really judge with Angels. She had deep brown skin, eyes that were almost black, and bleached hair the exact same shade as her wings, that Ludi suspected was an affectation. She had all the otherw
orldly presence, beauty and grace that Angels usually possessed, but coupled it with a wide grin and an irreverent attitude that tended to counteract the tendency of mere mortals to stammer and shuffle their feet and feel dizzy in her presence. If nothing else, it was easy to tell why she associated with Gabriel.
“Good morning, Frogsalt,” Magna said. “Did you find any good books?”
“A few,” Frogsalt said. “Mercurio Dalanté had a very strange idea of which publications would be banned after the declaration of human sovereignty.”
Ludi frowned. “Who?”
“Probably the rightful owner of the box she was rummaging through,” Magna suggested. Angels may have been psychologically overwhelming, but two weeks in the company of one like Frogsalt was plenty of time for the ever-flexible human brain to reject awe like it was a bad organ transplant.
“That’s right,” Frogsalt said. “Most of it was very sexually explicit.”
“Which shelf was this on?” Ludi asked idly.
Frogsalt beamed and extended a hand. “I’ll take you there–”
“Can we maybe not,” Magna said in a pained tone.
“Okay,” Frogsalt smiled again. “Are you going to go to Warakurna Mine? I can look after the boys if you all want to go. It’ll be fun.”
Magna and Ludi exchanged a glance.
“You heard about that, then?” Magna asked.
“I didn’t mean to,” Frogsalt said, “but Angels have very good hearing. I only mentioned it because it’s fine, it sounds like a very good idea. I understand why you’d want to keep quiet about it but there’s no need. It’s not the same as all the other sounds you all make, that I don’t comment on,” she paused, and smiled again. “Except to say I won’t comment on them,” she added. “I was alive once too, you know.”
One of the upsides of an Angel’s transcendence, Ludi reflected, was that it was very difficult to be embarrassed by the fact that it knew things about you. It was a bit like being naked in front of a pet, except in the opposite direction in terms of disparity of sentience.
“We weren’t sure if it was something … various others might disapprove of,” Ludi told her.
“Oh, probably,” Frogsalt waved a tiny, slender hand. “But what do various others know? I think you should rescue your friend. What’s the point of waiting? She’s got a nice cave she can disappear back into, that the so-called authorities don’t know anything about. And it’s not good for a Dragon to be locked up.”
Ludi was of the opinion that it had not been particularly good for the Drake to be stuck in her underground nest for her entire life either, and that the point of waiting – if there was a point – was to hold out for a change in circumstances that might allow her to live freely on the surface and maybe even fly without being shot at. But that seemed very unlikely to happen, and a return to her nest and her trove was the best realistic alternative. Much better than Warakurna Mine, anyway.
“Before we start, we need to be sure we have all the information we can get,” Ludi said.
“We’ve got all the information I could find,” Magna replied. “Short of going out there and casing the place…”
“Maybe that should be our next step,” Ludi suggested. “Where’s the mine?”
“Out near the Old Meganesia soulpit,” Magna said. “Actually past it, but closer to the soulpit than here. It’s inside the exclusion zone around the sinkhole. Twelve, thirteen hundred kilometres or so. Middle of the desert.”
Ludi whistled. “That’s a few days of driving,” she said, “each way.”
“I can help,” Frogsalt said. “I could carry you out there in a few hours using my superpowers, which will also prove invaluable during the mission itself.”
“You want to help?” Ludi asked.
“With a jailbreak? Of course! I mean, if you really need me to stay and look after the boys, I can do that. And of course we’ll need to make sure there is some sanctified ground nearby during daylight. And maybe some shade for you, I know humans and the desert generally don’t get along. But I can always shade you with my wings if it comes to that. And you’d be surprised at the little pockets of holy ground you find. Especially around the sinkholes. They were installed by corporate priests you know, and they needed places of worship out near the sites. Even if the temples were prefab temporary things, the ground will still be sanctified. I’d be happy to help. And like I say, I have superpowers.”
“She does have superpowers,” Ludi said to Magna in a low voice.
“I know she has superpowers,” Magna hissed. “Gabriel won’t like it. Putting ourselves at risk like this wasn’t the plan,” she looked down at Frogsalt. “And you going outside the warehouse was specifically something he didn’t want to happen.”
“Oh, he’ll be downstairs for another two or three months at least,” Frogsalt said with another wave of her hand. “It will be fine. What?” she blinked her huge inky-black eyes at their expressions. “It will be fine. We’ll be back before he even knows we’re going.”
“Did you say ‘downstairs’?” Magna asked.
“Did he not tell you? Huh,” Frogsalt blinked again, taking the unexpected information onboard in an almost unbearably cute way. Then she looked up. “Oh, have you heard this one? A husband comes home from the doctor and tells his wife, ‘I have good news and bad news, which do you want first?’ ‘Give me the good news first,’ she says. ‘Well, the good news is it’s not a very virulent form of syphilis,’ he tells her. ‘Honestly, who asks for the good news first?’,” she grinned.
THE WORLDS ON THE ROOF
The Four Realms were, from a certain perspective, an odd little place for a Firstmade religion to have its seat of power.
Technically, the Pinian side of the Brotherhood owned property in The Centre which was far more impressive, if not in terms of size then in terms of its proximity to the utmost centre of the urverse. There were benefits, after all, to essentially arriving first and building a house there before anyone else existed.
Only the three Disciples generally used the property, though, as it was dedicated to the ‘business’ side of the Firstmades’ operation. What exactly that meant was anyone’s guess, but it was something to do with chronicling every event, species, and possibly even individual in the Corporation. It was a long-term task that didn’t have to be finished until Judgement Day, which left plenty of time for parties. The Pinians chronicled the parties, and everyone agreed that this meant they were basically doing their jobs.
But the Pinians’ office in Capital Mind didn’t really come into it, as far as the faith was concerned. The Pinian Church was centred on Heaven, in the Void. And Heaven was tiny.
It was a suitable enough world, of course, with plenty of space for everyone and lots of room for temples and palaces and monuments and statues that sprayed water45 from body-parts one might not expect.46 It was just that, in the scheme of things, it wasn’t a big world. It was very important, but not that big.
Even with Earth underneath it, and Hell underneath Earth and Cursèd underneath Hell, it was an almost comically tiny collection of realms to call a Firstmade dominion. Obviously, the Pinian faith – like all the Firstmade religions – spanned the Corporation and even existed in pockets Beyond the Walls. Furthermore, according to the Revised Corporate handbook and both the Firstmade and the Elder Accords, the Pinians owned the entirety of the stellar vault as well.47 But they didn’t do much with that – indeed, Cursèd’s Playground was little more than a dumping ground – and … well, it was the look of the thing.
The Four Realms existed in a narrow region between two vast – indeed, technically infinite – volumes of Void Dimension space. Above, stellar vault filled with billions upon billions of galaxies like Cursèd’s Playground, any one of which boasted millions of times the habitable area of the Four Realms. Below, Castle Void.
Castle Void, home of the Adversary and the Darking Disciples of the Brotherhood’s opposing half, was – objectively – an example of a Firstmade se
at of power done right. Taking advantage of the ambient physical law in that half of the Void Dimension, the Castle was impossibly vast. Tens of billions of light-years of chambers and passageways, it was a sprawling labyrinth-warren the size of your average observable universe and crawling with nightmarish abominations. It was classic Firstmade excess, built in one of the few places in Corporate reality where it even could be built.
Castle Void extended to the limit of so-called Castle space, where one region of physics ended and the other began. Across the bottom of this plane, then, the Rooftop extended like a starlit grey wasteland. Directly above the Rooftop, the Face of the Deep occupied a few million kilometres of intermingled physical law, finally bleeding into space proper. It was in the Face, perched on the Rooftop like a little stack of tea saucers,48 that the Four Realms floated.
Above the flatworld of Heaven, the Cursèd’s Playground galaxy spun slowly. Beneath the flatworld of Cursèd, the Rooftop and Castle Void filled the universe.
It was a constant puzzle to outsiders why the Darkings didn’t simply open the Rooftop and swallow the Four Realms whole. But things were never that simple, with the Firstmades.
Through the Four Realms, starting at Heaven and descending through Earth at Amazônia Capital, through Hell at Fallenstar, and through Cursèd at Material Depot #1,49 the Eden Road connected the flatworlds. The massive staircase, with its own little populations and oddities, extended on downwards from Cursèd, albeit on a smaller scale and with a traditional standing guard-legion that had been generations in residence, down to the Rooftop itself where it terminated50 at Cobler’s Farm.
Technically, travel down the Eden Road to Castle Void was permitted – free, even. Denizens of the Four Realms could go into the Darkings’ domain, and denizens of the Castle could ascend to the Four Realms. In practice, the history and cultures of Pinian and Darking civilisation alike – to say nothing of their armies – had been geared towards never letting this happen.
Nobody went down.
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