by Jack Conner
They grumbled to themselves but sent a runner to the colonel, waited for the reply from an aide, which they received off to the side, whispering in a way that Avery didn't like, then told him, "The colonel says that you may use the transmitter now."
Avery waited for the but. It didn't come.
"Excellent," he said cautiously. "Then let's be off."
"Yes, sir."
The soldiers avoided looking at each other. Something was going on. What? Had Sheridan attempted escape and been shot or otherwise harmed? Fear for her rose in him, and he made himself be calm. Whatever the problem was, he would likely find out soon enough. He didn't need to invent trouble. In any case, the soldiers did as he asked. They escorted him around several bends, then a broad corridor, in the direction of the transmitter room.
Before they could reach it, a party of Octunggen soldiers spilled out from a side-hall and leveled guns at Avery. His guards drew back, spinning on him and drawing their own sidearms.
Col. Hurisvecta stepped forward, his epaulettes shining in the light of the purple alchemical lights several soldiers carried on long black iron rods. Avery had wanted to see him just moments ago, but the scowl on the colonel’s face swept those thoughts away like sand before a wave.
“You’re under arrest, Your Highness.”
Avery stepped back, tempted to flee. And be riddled. Stay still, damn you. “What's this all about?”
The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “The Lady Jivini will explain.”
“Is this about the larder?”
“The what?”
“Never mind,” Avery said. He licked his lips. His mouth had gone dry. “Remember, Colonel, I’m a friend to Octung.”
Hurisvecta gripped his machine pistol tightly. Clearly he’d like to murder Avery where he stood. “You’re coming with me.”
For a moment, Avery almost bolted. He forced himself to be still, though, and submitted as the soldiers grabbed him from each side and propelled him roughly down a corridor in the midst of the phalanx. He probed his brain desperately, searching for some way out of this, but nothing presented itself. He didn’t know what this was about, but one thing was for certain.
I’m fucked.
Chapter 7
The soldiers led Avery to the chambers used by Lady Jivini and her priests, through the main room and into the rear wardens, where a small group of priests took over. Apparently soldiers weren’t allowed back here. The priests took him to Lady Jivini, being groomed and anointed with fragrant oils by three priestesses in a small rear chamber. She sat in a chair, naked, while a priestess twined a braid into her hair. She already boasted a white flower poking from behind one ear. Her breasts were small, high and firm, and her nipples stood erect, but anger lurked in her dark eyes as they fastened on Avery.
“You lied to me,” she said.
“Oh? How?”
“I received a messenger bird. From Ri’ithla.” She waited for him to react. When he didn’t, she said, “Isn’t that the town you stayed in upon first arriving in Eberlith?”
“Is it? I don’t remember.” And I never told you, that’s for sure.
She leaned back in her seat, crossing one shapely leg over the knee of the other. “Do you know what the message was?”
“How could I?”
She almost smiled. “It seems a strange Collossum has taken over the town, murdered the Town Father and demanded, and received, numerous sacrifices. The people went in fear of her, but finally one of them found a way to dispatch a messenger bird to me. And do you know who that strange Collossum is?”
There was nothing but to play this out. “Again, how could I?”
“Layanna.” She spoke the word as though firing a gun.
Fear gathered like a lead ball in his gut. “Perhaps I was wrong … about her being dead. It was a … chaotic time. A simple mistake, I’m sure. That’s all it is. There’s a simple explanation for everything.”
“You! Lied!”
He swallowed. In a smaller voice, he said, “What … what do you intend to do?”
“I would like to take you before the Black Bitch, eat you in front of her, slowly, then kill her, but that seems impractical. Instead I’ll just include you in the sacrifice tonight.”
“But … I’m the savior of Octung …” He reeled backward, suddenly weak, and the priests caught him.
“Were the savior of Octung,” she said, not without relish. “Now you’re dinner.”
Avery stared at her in horror. She’s going to eat me!
“But …” he said. “Without me, Octung won’t retain autonomy …”
“You think that gives you immunity from any transgression, even betraying a Collossum?” Jivini snorted. “No. Your time is done, Lord Avery. If it gives you any comfort at all, know that you’re the first king I’ve ever eaten. Your death won’t be forgotten. I will keep it, a secret treasure in my breast, for many years to come.” She sighed. “If only this didn’t come at such an inconvenient time. Now I have no choice but to bring a force to Ri’ithla, destroy Layanna and any loyal to her, and resolidify my rule over the Rim.”
“Why bother? That seems a lot of work.”
“Don’t play coy. Soon the failsafe will be fully activated. The people of the Core will fall to infection, and I’ll need the Rimmers to take power while they’re weak and to teach them the worship of the R’loth. The sacrifices tonight, yours included, will give me the strength to kill Layanna without trouble.” To the priests, she said, “Take him away.”
He tried to speak, but no words came out, and then it was too late. The priests dragged him back to the main room and bound him with chains in a corner. Shortly a few men and women in loose robes arrived, and he knew these to be sacrifices. By their easy manner, they were willing. More arrived, and among these several were obviously captives, as they were likewise bound in a corner opposite and leather gags placed round their mouths.
Finally Lady Ista arrived, accompanied by two handmaidens, one bearing a steaming pot of tea, the other cups. Ista went round the sacrifices, talking happily, then demanded that the other captives’ chains be removed, along with their gags. This was done, and she spoke with them animatedly. Soon a few of them even began to relax, perhaps believing her stories about the House of Joy.
Lastly she came to Avery. “I heard about what happened to you, my lord.”
“Word travels fast,” he said. He, at least, had not been gagged, although he was sure the priests wouldn’t hesitate to do that, if warranted.
“It’s a small place, and the soldiers who intercepted the message read it before passing it on,” Ista said. “For what it’s worth, I’m oh so sorry. I suppose we won’t be reuniting in the House of Joy, after all.”
“But I’ll be eaten, too.”
She stroked his cheek. “Those who are punished by being fed to one of the gods do not travel the Holy Road but are taken to a dark place, a place of torment. I promise that when I reach the Plane of Peace that I’ll pray for you to be delivered from there. I’ll pray for you to be granted oblivion.”
He made himself take a breath. “Thank you.”
She smiled, and it was a sad smile, but kind. “I know you were just trying to protect your friend, the Lady Layanna. You know … I’ve heard about you two.”
“You have?”
She nodded, emphatic. “The stories say you two are lovers. A king and a goddess. Is that true?”
Why not? “Yes.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “It’s a romance that the bards will sing of for ages, all the more so that it ends so tragically.”
Avery smiled ironically. “I’ll be remembered twice over, it seems.” He paused, seeing that Ista’s servants were passing out the cups of tea. “Did you use my spices?”
“I wouldn’t let your last gift go to waste, now would I?” She bent forward, kissed him on the forehead, then returned to the other sacrifices. They talked and sipped their teas for some time before priests appeared from the rear warren and pa
ssed out bits of infected seafood to those who had not accepted the Sacrament yet, including Ista. After the sacrifices' bodies had had time to absorb the "blessing", the priests blew trumpet-like instruments. The purple alchemical lamps dimmed. The sacrifices knelt in a semi-circle about the raised stone block Lady Jivini would address them from.
The Collossum herself entered, and all bowed, save Avery and the priests who were serving as guards at the doorways. Naked and gleaming of the oils she’d been anointed with, Jivini mounted the stone block. “Thank you all for coming to me, my dears. I love you all and look forward to bearing you to the lights of the Joyful Sphere. Normally I would speak longer, but my time presses close. I have a deadly enemy to kill, an enemy even now trying to wrest my power for her own use. Are you ready to walk the Road, my children?”
“We are ready,” most responded. Some of the “conscripts”, as Ista had labeled them, were still too nervous to speak, and several were sick from infection. More than one shot glances at the doorways. The priests there raised their spears and guns. The rebellious sacrifices dropped their eyes.
“Then I will take you now,” Jivini said. To her priests, she said, “Unbind the little king. He goes next. Hopefully he’ll have had enough time to let his fear marinate him.”
Two priests stepped toward Avery and unlocked his chains as Jivini brought forth her other-self, the wind and force of its coming knocking everyone back, even the priests, though they seemed braced for it. Strange lights filled the chamber, orange and pink and white, along with the stench of salt and ammonia and seaweed. Avery’s head swam, and he rocked backward even as he fell free of his chains. The priests caught him. Beautiful, monstrous, the orange amoeba sac of Jivini spread outward, its edges protruding in starfish-like tips or pseudopods, each sprouting tendrils that could melt victims or burst them into flames.
The tendrils caught up the robed sacrifices, one, then two, then all at once, and began shoving them through her amoebic wall. Instantly her otherworldly acids began to eat them up. They writhed and screamed soundlessly while their flesh streamed away, revealing ragged bone that then too began to dissolve. Avery felt something well up inside him when he saw Ista shoved through the sac wall. Her expression of serenity turned to one of shock and agony, and Avery turned away.
At last all the sacrifices had been devoured, and their swirls of flesh and blood were being sucked up by the fuzzy organelles bobbing inside Jivini’s sac. She wore a triumphant, sated expression, her eyes closed, as her human form floated in the middle of it all. Suddenly the triumph vanished. Doubt replaced it, then pain, as if in unconscious echo of Ista’s manner of passing.
Her eyes, which had been closed, snapped open, and stark fear shone from them. Her fear spread throughout the room, borne on psychic waves, and Avery felt it grinding him down, dark and cold and alone. Black veins radiated out from the organelles, spreading and infecting the rest of the sac.
“What’s going on?” one of the priests cried.
“I don’t …” started another. He broke off when Jivini sucked in her other-self, or it collapsed, and her human body tumbled to the floor. She panted and wheezed, trembling and sweating. The black veins that had been spreading throughout her sac had traveled to her human self, too, and now black lines showed on her face, throat, and chest. More crept down her arms, belly and legs.
“No,” she gasped. “What … how …”
“What is it, Your Worship?” said a priest, kneeling beside her.
“It’s like that time … in Ri’ithla …” Her gaze strayed to Avery. She started to speak, perhaps to denounce him, then she fell into convulsions again. The priests at the doorways rushed to her, while some that had been loitering about, unsure what to do, fled into the rear chambers, seeking help there.
One priestess scurried over to Avery, who had been abandoned by the two unbinding him. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” The priestess was an older woman with white hair and crab legs radiating from the sides of her face. The carapaced limbs actually contrived to move. “Well, do something!”
“I’ll need my equipment,” Avery said, counting on the fact that she wouldn’t know he didn’t have any. “From my room. No, it’s no use me telling you where it is. I hid it.”
The priestess glared at him, then seemed to decide it wasn’t worth arguing about. To four of the priests who’d been serving as guards, she said, “Take him to his room, then bring him right back here.”
Clearly glad to be given something to do, they grabbed him up and propelled him down the passages, up a flight of stairs, then down a series of halls that were beginning to look familiar. What now? he thought. Somehow he had to get away from them.
Suddenly, one of the men that gripped him gasped and stopped, jerking Avery to a halt. Avery whipped his head to see a knife sprouting from the priest’s throat. The group slammed to a halt just as gunfire burst out, and the other guard gripping Avery flew backward, blood spurting. The two surviving priests fired their own guns down the side-passage, where the shots had sprung from. The shape that had fired dove behind a crate. She popped back up, squeezed off two more shots, and a third priest reeled back.
The last one leapt behind a wall.
Avery ran forward, toward the shooter. He slipped behind the crate next to Sheridan just as shots rang out behind him and the bullets whined off the stone to the side, showering sparks.
She rose, fired again, then ducked down to reload.
“Thank you,” he panted.
“Let’s go.”
She shoved him down the passage, then followed, firing wildly behind them. The priest called for help, and troops shouted in response from nearby. Avery and Sheridan hit a side-hall and darted down it, picking up speed.
“What … ?” Avery started. “Where did you … ?”
“Later!”
The snap-snap of running jackboots and the rapid breaths of a dozen men sounded behind them. Octunggen soldiers were after them.
“This way,” Sheridan said, and tugged him down a side-hall.
The sound of the troops grew louder. Sheridan touched a section of the wall and it folded away, revealing a glowing hall. Avery stared, feeling his mouth fall open.
The soldiers rounded the bend. Sheridan raised her pistol. Fired. Shoved Avery into the lambent tunnel and ducked in after him. Bullets whined around her. She touched a wall and the panel closed after them. Bootsteps sounded on the other side, muted but audible, and Sheridan put her finger to her lips. Avery nodded.
On the other side of the wall, a voice snarled, “Where’d they go?” Another said, “I think they went this way.” Gradually, the footsteps moved off.
Avery sagged in relief. He let his eyes rove around him, taking in the walls that seemed to be studded with glowing shards of white crystal, as if he and Sheridan occupied the innards of some fantastic geode. A memory came to him, of Duke Leshillibn showing him an Ysstran ruin on Curluth Point. That ruin had also had walls lined with such crystal.
“Amazing,” he said. “But I don’t …”
She pressed her body against him. Her lips brushed his, once, twice, and he felt her tongue flick against his.
He cupped her face in one hand. “Oh, Jess.”
“Doctor.”
She kissed him, passionately. His heart smashed against his ribs, and the light of the crystals created a dream-like place in the hidden passage.
“But I don’t understand,” he said when, panting, he drew back at last. “This place … it doesn’t fit. I mean, I was just in the tunnel parallel to this one. There’s not enough room for this hall!”
She nodded, her sweaty hair brushing his cheek. “It’s bigger in here than it should be. I’m not even sure we’re still in the same building, not really.”
“Like … some bubble dimension?”
“Maybe.”
“How did you find this place? How did you escape?”
She paled, just subtly. “It was … the spirit.”
“The
Blue Ghost?”
She searched through her clothes, coming up with a pack of thin black cigars and lighting one for herself, then him. He started to refuse, then took it anyway. It tasted foul, but its nicotine invigorated him.
“He came to me,” Sheridan said. “Freed me. Said to help you since you were the Waker’s father. Then he showed me these secret halls and vanished, just slipped through a wall and was gone. I went back, killed a couple of guards and retrieved my belongings.”
Avery coughed, regarding his cigar again. Someone had died for this. She did it for the gun, he thought. Not the smokes. He told himself she wouldn’t have done it simply for the cigars. Would she?
“I suppose it makes sense,” he said, running a finger across a crystal node jutting from the wall. It felt warm, and sort of pulsed beneath his flesh. The contact made him tremble. “Lady Ista told me that these pyramids might predate whatever cataclysm sank the greater island mass. If that’s true, then they wouldn’t have been erected by the dark age culture that followed it, but by the Blue Ghosts—well, before they were ghosts. Call them the proto-Ysstrals.”
“They may not have been so ‘proto’. Some of them had surely spread throughout the world by then, going wherever the Ygrith settled. Obviously one of the main places was Salanth. It’s why they speak a variant of Ysstran.”
He sucked in another hit, let it out slowly. His mind was still spinning, his blood still pumping hard. Part of him wanted to be fleeing, but he didn’t know where to flee to, and the Octunggen were still hunting them. “In any case, once the Cataclysm struck their society down, the proto-Ysstrals here in Eberlith ensconced themselves in alien sarcophagi below the waves, where their dwellings were before the land sank. They may have built these pyramids, but they don’t seem to have lived here. These were just temples, places to make offerings.”
“And the staircases?”
Briefly he described the ceremony he had witnessed on the rooftop.
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding doubtful. “If these proto-Ysstrals really built the pyramids, they wouldn’t have built the staircases for themselves to visit, would they?”