The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (6 page)

The sisters were crying. Their quarrel had been going on for years.

A loud crack shook the floor, the sound reverberating through the cavernous space of the warehouse. The sisters, still in each other’s arms, both snapped their heads up, eyes darting about. They did not seem to know their peril lay beneath them.

Trevor held his breath.

The sisters were motionless. Slowly, their heads turned downward to look at the floor. It gave way, wood splintering noisily, abruptly, and the sisters fell out of sight, into darkness, in each other’s arms to the very end.

Trevor laughed to himself and shook his head to clear it of his memories.

“I am sorry. I did not understand what you said.”

He blinked, staring. He’d come down the spiraling stairs of the drained pool and had reached the end of the tunnel where one of the doors to the Archon’s chambers stood.

“Please repeat yourself,” the lock on the door said to him.

Trevor cleared his throat. “Open for—”

“Please repeat yourself.”

Trevor gritted his teeth. One had to speak very clearly to the locks on the doors; they were of limited intelligence, although several of them, spread throughout the Ziggurat, knew a joke or two if one had the patience and inclination to converse with them.

“Open for me,” he said.

“Is that you, Trevor Rothschilde?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“How are you today?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

There was a thud as the bolt drew back on its own, and the door swung slowly open.

“The Archon is in one of his moods, I’m afraid,” the lock said.

Trevor pushed his way through and began to walk down the dimly-lit corridor.

“Have an excellent day!” the lock called after him.

The corridor was straight and very long, lined with tiny orange lights that flickered slightly, as if to simulate candle flames in a light breeze. But there was no breeze, the air still and sour.

After the sisters had fallen to their deaths, he’d gained control of the nova fruit importation business, but only briefly. He had not been interested in such things, unconcerned with the possible financial profits it could have afforded him, and instead sought out greater things. He’d given control of the business to Lloyd Shillinger—a man born of certain privileges, and of limited and easily manipulated intelligence—while he continued to run messages, this time for the heirotimates, sometimes even to the Ziggurat itself.

When he reached the end of the corridor, he stopped for a moment. He cleared his throat again.

Across the arched doorway was drawn a crimson curtain, identical to all of the other tunnels that led to the Archon’s chambers, heat radiating from within, pulsing the fabric rhythmically—the heart of the city.

Trevor pulled the curtain aside. He stepped into the muggy heat, blinking through the hanging steam. For a moment, a sharp thread of irritation rose up to tickle the back of his throat as he thought about what the lock on the door had said. How could that stupid thing possibly know what sort of mood the Archon would be in? It was even more irritating that this particular lock was, more often than not, correct in its admonishments.

The heels of his shoes clapped on the obsidian tile.

“Ah, Trevor, my little bastard. Come forward.”

Trevor pushed his body through the steam.

There was a loud humming sound and the grinding of metal on metal. The Archon’s platform trundled to meet him along its tracks cut into the floor.

“I knew it was you,” the Archon said. “You are the only one who uses that particular door.”

“I prefer to enter with more discretion than most,” Trevor said.

“Of course you do.”

No matter how often he’d been in the Archon’s presence, it still impressed him. It was the practice of the heirotimates to over-eat, to grow large, bellies bulging over their belts, as a sign of their social class. The Archon, however, had taken this practice to the extreme. Over the years, the man’s bulk had grown and grown, flesh that rolled and quivered, until it was forced to fold upon itself. Sweat glistened on his cheeks, protruding from a face that glared from the upper heaps, eyes sunken to black points. His body was so large it was difficult to assess with a single glance, one’s eyes forced to roam over its rises and crannies, exploring, seeking to recognize where one part ended and another began, belly and limbs one indistinguishable mass.

But perhaps more impressive still, was the Archon’s platform, which hissed and pumped, an entropy of tubes and canisters, some transparent, liquids of various colors sloshing and bubbling, all manner of drugs and substances used to prolong the Archon’s life, others to counteract side-effects of the primary drugs, and still others to counteract the side-effects of those. Above the snaking tubes, there were moveable platforms arrayed with various foods, many rare and unusual cuisines, including a multitude of live things wriggling in murky tanks.

“You have news?” the Archon asked, reaching his pudgy hand into one of the tanks, lifting out something that squirmed.

“Yes,” Trevor said, standing, looking up at the Archon, trying not to be distracted by all of the sounds and subtle movements made by the platform. “Good news. If it’s true.”

“What is it? Summarize it for me.”

“The hallowgeons have chosen a replacement for Galen.”

“Yes?” the Archon said, pushing his face out, stuffing the thing into his mouth, chewing.

“A young boy. They say he can—”

“The next chantiac?”

“Yes. He lives in Nova.”

The Archon began to laugh—his mouth full of chewed-up mush—unsettlingly high-pitched, punctuated by bubbling and burping sounds that could have been coming from either the man or the machine that sustained him, if it was still possible to draw a distinction between the two.

Repulsed, Trevor smiled.

NOVA

ASH

His mom and his dad cried, of course. They held each other, his sisters huddled below, their faces growing smaller where they stood, Kya waving, the engine sputtering and groaning by his head, the buggy taking him down the road. It stank, the steam the engine produced. His mom was shouting something to him, but he couldn’t hear her words over the noise.
He was in the back of the buggy with several others from the village he recognized, but didn’t really know. Brent was with him. He and Brent were the youngest.

He turned to look more closely at his new companions. The only one of them he knew by name was Austin, who worked in the general store, son of the man who ran it. The others looked a little rough, their faces grim, stunned, farmers mostly, as were most in the village of Fallowvane.

Brent was crying.

“Don’t worry,” he tried to comfort his friend. “We’ll be okay.”

Brent shook his head. “It’s not that.”

Ash turned quickly, realizing he’d forgotten to wave goodbye to his parents and sisters as he’d meant to, but when he peeked his head up, the buggy had taken them around a corner and out of sight of his home.

He sat back and enjoyed the ride; he’d never been in a motorized buggy before. He liked the bumps and the grinding sound and the kick of the wind in his face, even the stench.

He smiled and grabbed Brent and shook him. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Brent looked up at him, his eyes shining from the heap of his clothing, “Where are we going?” he asked.

~

The road led out of Fallowvane and into the woods. Soon, the trees had closed over them and the forest was shadowy and quiet. The buggy’s motor continued to grind. No one spoke. Brent was quiet, wouldn’t look Ash in the eye.

After a while, feeling bored, Ash stood and moved forward so that he could talk with the soldiers. “How much longer?” he asked the officer sitting in the passenger’s seat.

“Soon,” the bearded officer said. “Don’t worry, son. We’re close.”

“I’m hungry.”

The bearded officer laughed. “We’ve plenty of food at camp.”

“Camp? You mean like tents and stuff?”

“We have a top-secret camp in the woods.”

“Oh. Sounds neat.”

The soldier driving nodded his head.

The bearded officer continued to smile. “I like you, son,” the bearded officer said. “I’m going to put you on patrol.”

“Patrol? What’s that?”

“It’ll be your job to guard and protect the camp.”

Ash didn’t say anything, but he was smiling as he moved back to join the others.

~

It was wet and cold in the middle of the forest, the air thick with moisture so that his jacket hung soggy on his shoulders; his breath puffed visibly in the air, his lungs filling with moldering thickness with each inhaled breath. There were several large canvas tents lined with cots for sleeping and a giant stove in the middle of the camp like a massive stone statue crumbled to rubble and lit from within, glowing orange as the light faded from the sky; a giant pot filled with a perpetually bubbling gray.

Finally, he was given a rifle. It was an old and battered piece, a long barrel of steel on a leather strap and a small pouch of powder and bullets.

“Where’s my uniform?” he asked the soldier handing out the rifles, but the soldier only shook his head and kept handing out the weapons down the line of new recruits.

Standing next to him, Brent took his rifle without enthusiasm, listlessly holding it by his side.

Ash and Brent walked a little ways away from the others, stopping to sit on a fallen log, watching the activity in the camp.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Ash asked his friend.

Brent didn’t move, staring straight ahead.

An oxhoag lumbered through the middle of the camp. Someone had painted ‘
Eat me before the Talosians do’
on the large animal’s side.

Examining his rifle, he said, “Mine’s stained. It has dark stuff all over it that won’t wipe off.”

Brent began to laugh.

~

It was almost too dark to see the ground; the moon’s light caught and held high above on the boughs of the trees so that very little reached Ash where he sat with his back against a tree, staring into the landscape of black and featureless columns. He held his rifle, pointing it into the dark. He’d at first been frightened of every sound, whipping the barrel from side to side, but now he’d settled down. They were in the wilderness; there were animals. Not every sound he heard was a crawling Talosian, a knife clamped in his grinning teeth.

He was very tired, his eyes heavy, but he was too scared to fall asleep. His dreams had been strange, too real, and he had a job to do. The bearded officer was counting on him to protect the camp.

Shoot anyone who doesn’t give the password. No exceptions!

A branch snapped. He jolted to attention, acid dumping in his chest, his heart suddenly alive. He pointed the rifle toward the noise. He could almost see someone moving in the shadows.

“Hello?” he said. He didn’t like how weak his voice sounded.

“Hey!” he tried again.

There was a light bobbing in the woods. It swung, coming closer.

“Password,” he said. “What’s the password?”

The light came closer, flitting about like a will-o-the-wisp; it was hanging from a pole, a makeshift lamp of coals inside of a steel can. Its glow illuminated a face, a young face.

“Password,” he said again.

“Ash, it’s me.”

“Brent? What are you doing? What’s the password?” He pointed his rifle at his friend.

Brent’s face seemed to float in the murk. “I don’t know it.”

Ash swallowed a dry lump of something. He set the stock against his shoulder. “What’s the password?”

“I don’t know it.”

“No exceptions,” Ash said, gritting his teeth, his heart beating in his throat.

Brent looked at him with a blank expression. “Again?” he whispered.

Slowly, Ash dropped the rifle. He couldn’t speak.

“Goodbye, Ash,” Brent said, his light bobbing onward.

Ash watched the light grow smaller, flitting between the trees, as his friend walked in the dark, moving away from the camp.

~

Ash groaned. Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes and it was a man he’d never seen before, with an ugly scratch on his oily nose. “Come on,” the man said. “It’s time for breakfast. Then the captain has something to say. We’re about to move.”

“Move?” Ash said, but the man was gone.

He looked over at the cot next to him, but it was empty. Brent was gone too.

Ash jumped to his feet, grabbing his jacket and throwing it over his shoulders as he burst into the early morning. Everywhere, there were men moving about, preparing. He inhaled deeply. He felt good.

He ran to join the crowd congregating around the large fire, hundreds of hands raising mess tins to be filled with the gruel from the pot.

“What’s for breakfast,” someone said.

“New breakfast same as the old breakfast,” soldiers chanted.

There were grumbles of laughter, rising and falling through the crowd.

Ash smiled. Luckily, he’d strapped his mess tin through his belt like someone had told him to and had it ready when he got to the front of the line.

His breakfast plopped heavy and steaming into his tin and he grinned. “What’s for dinner?”

The man with the ladle let out a dramatic sigh of sour air.

“New dinner same as the old dinner,” the crowd chanted.

Ash hurried through the crowd and found a place to sit in the grass. As he wolfed down his stew, a skinny man appeared holding a strange-looking camera with gears spinning slowly at its side. The man raised the camera, and snapped his picture.

Ash laughed.

“What’s so funny?” the man asked him.

“I’ve never seen a camera before. Why are you taking pictures?”

“I’m keeping a record of everyone in this camp.”

“What for?”

The skinny man gave him a funny look. “So the world knows we’re here. We exist.”

~

After breakfast, Ash had patrol duty again. He stood leaning against the same tree as the night before. He yawned. His dreams had been vivid, but now he couldn’t remember them. He was left only with strange emotions knotted in his gut. Gray sand and shifting trees.

He looked out through the trees. It was different during the daytime, a different life. With streams of cometlight beaming through the trees filled with scattered dust, the forest felt peaceful, almost idyllic.

He wondered when he was going to start his combat training. No one had told him when or where the shooting lessons took place. He got excited just thinking about it. He wondered if they’d have targets to shoot at, or just cans setup on a fence. Maybe they’d have those cutouts of Talosians that popped up in the woods and…

A branch snapped.

Ash jolted to attention. He lifted his rifle, pointing it out into the woods.

Something moved among the brush. Was it an animal? It darted from tree to tree.

He caught glimpses of white flashing in the light of the comet. It was a person, a girl. She giggled as she darted to the next tree.

“Password,” Ash said.

The girl walked into the clearing, approaching him. She had long, straight hair, falling nearly to her waist, almost white, and her eyes were light and alive.

“Password!”

The girl looked at him; she smiled a little. She was a little older than he, a couple of years maybe. She walked closer.

“I’ll shoot,” Ash said. “No exceptions. Give me the password.”

The girl came up to him until she was standing only a few feet away. She stood, her eyes meeting his.

Ash swallowed dryly. He brought the barrel of his rifle down so that it was level with the girl’s chest. He put his finger on the trigger.

“Password?”

He could feel the trigger depressing, spring-loaded pressure preparing to burst, a deafening crash that would disturb the peace of the forest.

The girl darted away.

“Wait,” he said. He threw the rifle strap over his shoulder and ran after the girl.

The girl screamed and ran faster.

Ash charged after her, avoiding fallen branches and plants that threatened to trip him up, jumping and dodging.

The girl was nimble, seemed to move easily through the forest.

They burst into a small clearing. Ash dived, and tackled the girl to the ground. He fought with her, his rifle bouncing on his back, jabbing him. The girl screamed. He forced her onto her back, straddling her, holding her arms down.

She was still making screaming sounds, but she stopped struggling.

When he looked at her, he realized she was laughing. It was all a game to her. She smiled at him. “Here I am,” she said.

Startled by her response, Ash loosened his grip and she rolled him easily. He tumbled into the grass.

“Here I am,” she said again. “You caught me.”

They sat, looking at each other.

“What’s your name?” Ash asked.

“I’m Pera,” the girl said. “You’re Ash.”

“How’d you know my name?”

“Your friend told me.”

“Who? Brent?”

Pera nodded her head.

“You know where he is?”

She nodded her head again.

“Can you take me there?”

Pera stood, swept up his hand in hers, and dragged him deeper into the forest.

~

There was a small structure built into the side of the hill, sheltered among the trees. It was an easy spot to miss, the forest giving no indication of its presence, except for a tail of smoke parting the air above the forest and the glow of firelight within.

“In there?”

“Yeah,” Pera said.

Pera let go of his hand and skipped up to the door. She pushed it open with some effort, the door sliding inward.

“Pera?” a familiar voice said from within.

“It’s me,” Pera said. “Look who I brought.”

Brent came forward into the light. “Oh,” he said. “He shouldn’t be here. He’s not like us.”

“Nice to see you too,” Ash said.

“Whatever. Come in.”

Ash followed Pera into a small room. There was a table made from a piece of wood laid over a couple of sawed-off stumps, and more stumps for places to sit. A fire crackled comfortably in a fireplace set into one of the walls. At the very back, leading deeper into the hill, there was another half-door, large enough to crawl through.