The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (17 page)

Ash smiled.

They fell silent for a while.

After several minutes, Niko broke the silence. “You know,” he said to Ash, “the old woman never would have let you go if she’d known what you really are.”

“What old woman?” Ash asked.

“The old woman, the witch. What’s her name.”

“Mother Marlena?”

Niko nodded. “That’s the one.”

Ash looked closely into Niko’s eyes, curious. “What do you mean? What am I?”

But Niko only shrugged and turned his eyes back to the fire flickering through the grates in the stove.

~

In the morning, the three companions ate the last of the bread and cheese and prepared to head out.

“Where are we going?” Ash asked Niko as he had many times in the brief time they’d known each other.

“We have a camp not far from here, about half a day’s walk, but it will probably take us until dark to get there with the oxhoag in tow.”

“Who’s there?”

“The People of the Conspiring Moons.”

“Who’re they?”

Niko smiled. “I’m one of them. Wolf is another. We believe in an intimate connection with the universe. Did you know people once sailed through the stars and visited other worlds?”

Ash’s brow furrowed, but his eyes widened in wonder. “I’ve heard stories.”

“Did you know there are two moons?”

Ash shook his head. “No. There’s only one.”

“Yeah—sister moons. The second hides behind the one you see every night, and, perhaps once or twice every few generations, peeks from around its twin so you can see it. There are people living on the second moon.”

Ash looked at Niko. “There are?”

Niko nodded. “Yup.”

From behind them Wolf grunted. He nudged them to move and they all three filed through the door and out into the softness of the early cometlight.

~

They retrieved the oxhoag from the barn and set out across the field.

They’d crossed maybe half of the open space when the rifles began to fire on them.

“Down!” Niko screamed, and they all three flung themselves flat against the earth.

The oxhoag groaned and wobbled as bullets tore into its resilient hide. Its eyes bugged and rolled, but it remained standing, its bulk absorbing the punishment.

Wolf began to crawl, heading down the incline into a slight depression. He pulled Niko after him.

“No!” Niko tried to grab the rope they’d tied around the oxhoag’s neck and yank, but the animal wouldn’t budge.

Rifle fire screamed, hideous wails streaking through the air. They were coming from Talosian rifles.

Ash cupped his hands over his head and tried to push his entire body into the earth.

Round after round penetrated the oxhoag’s hide, tore holes that briefly spurted, and then dribbled dark blood. The stupid animal did nothing. It moaned and moaned, its eyes rolled and rolled.

Eventually, the animal’s front legs gave first, and it slumped forward and was still; its moans ceased.

The rifle fire stopped.

Ash lifted his head. Niko and Wolf were waving their hands at him. He crawled through the dirt until they could pull him into the depression.

They waited.

Eventually, Niko said, as quietly as he could, “We have to crawl for the trees. We can make it if we keep our heads down.”

Wolf grunted.

To Ash, the cover of the forest seemed impossibly far.

Wolf and Niko paused at the top of the rise. Niko turned and gave Ash a surprisingly humorous wink. They rushed over and out of sight in a faint cloud of dust.

Ash’s heart was pounding. His entire body was trembling. He crawled to the top of the rise. He was terrified of being left behind.

He looked up and crawled.

~

He expected the rifles to resume firing as soon as he began, but they didn’t. It was quiet. He could hear the wind whistling through the field around him. He saw only the dust kicked up by Wolf and Niko’s boots ahead of him.

He breathed in shallow gasps and crawled.

The Talosians must not be able to see us
, he thought.

He was tempted to lift his head, to get a better look around, but he knew that was a bad idea.

He could feel his blood pumping in his temples.

Somehow, he made it to the forest.

When he reached the edge of the brush, he glanced up, expecting to see Wolf and Niko waiting for him, but he couldn’t see where they’d gone.

He rolled down a small hill, branches clawing and scraping his skin, but he didn’t care. He’d made it. He lifted himself and inhaled deeply. The forest smelled musty and alive.

Around him, the trees were dense. It was dark and it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the shadows beneath the canopy of trees.

He stood and looked around. It was very quiet; he could hear his own ragged breathing and little else. He pulled his rifle from his back and held it.

There was a violent rustling in the trees. He snapped around to face it.

Men in faceless masks emerged with great glimmering weapons held like musical instruments, wearing uniforms of overlapping scales and pointing at him with fingers sharpened like the points of knives.

“Run!” Niko screamed from among them, and Ash fled.

~

Ash ran and ran. He ran until his blood pumped like acid in his veins, until his lungs burst with fire, until his legs weakened beneath him, threatening to spill him to the forest floor with each pounding step, until he could run no more, and he tumbled, rolling, thrashing, leaves in his face and eyes and throat, and dark mud lapped around him, and his dad’s blackened face said “blood,” and the wailing became a screaming and grief enwrapped him like a cocoon.

He ran and ran.

TALOS

TREVOR

“Awa-fuck!”

Trevor gave Tory Umbridge, his best engineer, a slanted smile. “Yes,” he said. “Can you get them working?”

Tory dropped to the floor and slid her body beneath the nearest instrument panel, on her back squinting up. She brought her hands up and fiddled with something. “Damn.” She wiggled out from under and sat up, looking at Trevor, a smudge of black grease on her forehead, grinning. “Who else knows about this shit?”

“I pay you for your discretion.”

Tory held up her hands in surrender. “Don’t worry. I’d never forget what you’ve done for me. I’m just asking.” She stood and walked over to Trevor’s windows, the screens that broadcast various parts of the City. “Can’t believe these still work.” She shook her head and whistled.

Trevor watched her, saying nothing.

Tory had been a low-level mechanic working for the tinkers of the Mechanicus. She’d also had a gambling problem, nothing that put her in debt with any of the cartels, but enough so that she sometimes blew her wages early in the week and went hungry until next she was paid. She enjoyed dice games, particularly Galoo, in which the cubic eggs of the gilly bird were stolen from the nest, hardboiled, and marked with a different number on each side, one through six. Players were then given sixty seconds each to examine the egg dice, looking for imperfections, weight balance, and anything that might skew the standard probabilities of rolling any given number. Bets were placed. And the game began.

When Tory had become pregnant, her heirotimate employer at the Mechanicus had used it as an excuse to terminate her from her position, seeing an opportunity to get rid of a substandard employee who was often late to work. With no support from the father of her child and no money coming in, she had, in desperation, turned to a hierotimate from the House of Aesthetics, a man named Ikit Crue, a member of Exarch Auron’s personal council. Ikit had offered her a large sum of money in exchange for her child, to be used—a practice of growing popularity among the exarchs and the wealthiest of the heirotimates—as a living piece of furniture. The child would be raised as a footstool, or given a light to hold and trained as a lamp. As the child grew, he or she would become a
bearer
, a sort of mobile table, carrying lamps, books, and sometimes weapons, upon which drinks could be held and important documents signed with equal priority.

Tory had given up her child, a daughter she dared not name, taken the money, and attempted to move on with her life.

When Trevor had found her, she had been homeless and living on the streets, having gambled away her fortune and turned to substance abuse to dull her depression. To make money, she’d been scrounging supplies from the dumping grounds—squatting in Excrement Alley, a particularly horrid section of Luto’s Court—making small, wind-up automata. She’d been selling them on Market Street. Trevor had gone to visit her pathetic setup, a threadbare rug thrown over a spot of pavement, her ingenious creations walking and scuttling and chirping about. He’d seen Tory’s potential immediately and had offered to help her.

Trevor had cleaned her up, had her trained, and, with a promise from her to never again gamble or use dangerous substances, found a way to release her daughter from servitude and put her daughter in a proper school.

Although Tory would never raise her daughter, she was allowed visits, and for those and everything Trevor had done for her, she was, as she said, “forever grateful.” She had named her daughter Gilly.

“Can it be done?” Trevor asked.

Tory looked up from the tangle of wires she’d revealed beneath a removable panel Trevor had never noticed before. “This shit’s ancient,” she said, “but seems pretty well preserved. How many of these units are there?”

Trevor glanced at the dusty, lifeless heaps of machinery pushed against each other in the murk. “Eighty-three.”

“Galen-be-damned,” Tory swore. “Let me see what I can do.”

Trevor smiled.

~

He could already see the rising smoke from his observation balcony by the time Paimon came to report of the event. Riots had broken out on Market Street.

It had begun with street preachers, one who called Awa
He
, the other who called Awa
She
. Both preachers had started with small followings that had swollen until they had intermingled. Preaching had turned to debate, as each side defended its case. Debate had turned to argument. And then someone had pushed someone else, on purpose or on accident, no one was certain, but the pushed person had pushed back. Someone had thrown a stone. People had begun to fight, throwing fists and spitting in each other’s faces. A young boy had been trampled to death. Someone had stabbed one of the preachers in the back. Chaos had erupted as people had scrambled either to flee or to join the brawl.

“Bergman’s Enforcers were called?” Trevor asked.

Paimon nodded. “Yes. They put down most of them.”

Trevor grimaced, knowing what that meant. “And the preachers?”

“Both dead.”

Trevor sighed. “I wish it had not come to that. We must find the boy.”

“The chantiac? I’ve heard this boy you seek is Novan. Our people will never follow a Novan.”

Trevor whipped around, suddenly angry. “And why not?” He took a step forward and glared at Paimon. “Because he happens to have been born in another territory? Wait until they see what this boy can do. He will change their minds. He will unite them. He—”

“Is the enemy,” Paimon interrupted.

Trevor balled his hands into fists, could feel his fingernails digging into his skin. “That is the Archon’s war, not mine!”

Paimon took a step back. “You speak treason.”

“So what if I do? Whose man are you? Mine or the Archon’s?”

“I…I had thought you and the Archon’s interests were the same.”

Trevor turned away, gripping the balcony with both hands. “We were friends once, the Archon and I. We helped each other rise to power. Never equals, he being born into a wealthy heirotimate family and me from nothing, but friends nonetheless.”

Paimon, standing behind him, remained silent.

Trevor sighed, then spoke more quietly. “How deep is your loyalty, Paimon, my friend?”

Paimon did not answer right away.

Trevor waited.

After a moment that seemed to stretch on and on, Paimon answered.

“Absolute.”

Trevor smiled.

~

He took his usual path through the Garden of Mue, draining the pool and descending the spiraling stairs. He walked slowly down the hallway, thinking, thinking hard about his next move. He had to report the riot on Market Street to the Archon. Then he would advise him to have the representatives of Galen from each church begin preaching on street corners in order to pacify the commoners, at least for a little while longer. This tactic would hopefully provide them more time to find the chantiac. He had to convince the Archon to double his efforts at retrieving the boy.

Assuming, of course, that the boy had not already been killed in the Archon’s ridiculous war. He had seen the propaganda papers pasted all over the City, declaring Nova a threat to “the grandeur of Talos.” The posters claiming that the Novans despised Talos, that they despised its “innovations and its wonders.” They depicted caricatures of primitive-looking people with torches, as if the Novans were an angry mob prepared to set fire to the City.

And where was Skin? He had not heard from her for some time now. There were no telelines in Nova, of course, but mail continued to travel between the villages of Nova and the City of Talos. And there were other methods, if this incarnation of the woman he had loved could remember such things, birds she could send or a messenger toad.

He had no choice but to wait. To be patient. Waiting was his best move. That was how he had climbed as high as he had. Now was not the time to act. He must stall, as usual. He must work with the Archon to keep things in the City from rising to a boil for just long enough for Skin or one of the Archon’s agents to capture the boy. Then, he would train the boy quickly. He had already made arrangements with Galen. The details had already been worked out. Galen—the real Galen and not some representative lookalike—would give his endorsement to the boy. The people of Talos would see that the state approved Church of Awa was still powerful and important, still capable of miracles, and peace would be restored.

And then, after that, he might consider his next move.

He could only hope the hallowgeons knew patience as he did.

~

He steps out onto the balcony, as he often does, simply to inhale the evening air and look out over the City. He smiles to himself. He has spent the day examining the various machines and devices he has collected, reviewing Tory’s report on the condition and functionality of each. It has been exhilarating knowing of the potential power he has collected without being challenged by a single heirotimate, even though the original purposes of the machines remain, even to Tory, largely a mystery.

He does not notice what already lurks above him, not right away, an abrupt shadow cast over his world.

When he sees it, an intricate mass of geometric angles, hovering silently above his head as if it has always been there, his heart fills with terror. He knows what it is, of course, even though he’s never seen it, even though he’s never seen
them
. He’s heard stories, and read of notorious encounters. There have been appearances in which the hallowgeons collected forks from people in the middle of meals—leaving them staring at their food, mystified. And other appearances in which internal organ were stolen—removing livers, spleens, and bladders—leaving their unfortunate victims to bleed to death on the street among throngs of screaming people, or alone, gurgling on their kitchen floors.

There is little he can do. He tries to control his breathing and waits.

Movement catches his eyes from the shadows against the wall. They emerge, three of them: the hallowgeons.

They are terrible to behold, despite the masks and the gray robes they wear, scuttling toward him, their eyes, too large for their blank faces, staring at him with an unnerving intensity, some glowing and wriggling, others blacker than shadow, an absence somehow more appalling than the others.

“We are well met, Trevor,” the one with milky, wriggling eyes says.

They all stand several feet taller than he, looming.

“I am Cadoc,” says the one with veined, yellow eyes in a strangely hollow voice.

“I am Siriac,” says the one with black, voided eyes.

“I am Mithra,” says the first one. “We have come to inform you of your purpose.”

Trevor is shaking, his body numb, unable to speak. He stands frozen, staring at the hallowgeons, waiting to see what they will do.

“We have things to show you. Worlds within worlds,” Siriac says.

“What do you have to say?” Cadoc says, eyes flaring.

Trevor swallows. He forces himself to speak. “What will you show me?”

“Where we come from, there are intelligent spheres of gas,” Cadoc says, “tentacled scavengers, drifting parasites, spores, slimes, gases, supernovas, and stars.”

Trevor blinks and shakes his head. “I do not understand…”

“We have chosen you,” Siriac says.

His heart beats so furiously he thinks he is going to pass out. “For what?”

“You will be the ambassador, the sole individual to which we shall speak. It is our task to guide humanity, to ensure your actions continue to serve the greater universal balance.”

Trevor nods.

“Good,” Siriac says, and the three hallowgeons move oddly beneath their robes and their eyes roll and they are making strange sounds and Trevor sees they have needles and blades.

And then he must finally lose consciousness, because he can’t remember the rest.

~

It was impossible to muffle the clacking of his shoes on the obsidian-tiled floor, his murky reflection wavering beneath him as if trapped and jealous of his freedom. He moved through the steam, muggy and hot.

“Trevor?” the Archon said. “Is that you? Come forward.”

He could hear the grinding hum of the Archon’s platform coming in his direction. He stepped up to his usual spot, orienting himself by the rail tracks cut into the floor.

The Archon’s glistening face appeared smiling. His platform carried his bulbous body, roll upon quivering roll, hissing and pumping, milky fluids sputtering through tubes. His sparkling eyes peered at Trevor through crevasses of soft flesh like dough.

“What news, my bastard friend?” the Archon asked. “What news from below?”

Trevor looked about the room. It was large and open, devoid of furnishings, lit artificially, the steam billowing up from the vents making it difficult to see from one wall to the next. They were alone. “Unrest, I’m afraid,” he said.