Dark Matter

by Luke Donegan

  Erys looked at him, and back again at the Teacher.

  “Teacher,” said Erys. Then louder. “Teacher! We are with you. Your scions.”

  The Teacher opened her eyes. She looked at open space between them, not seeing either. Light boiled from her chest.

  She let go of Jay’s hand and reached towards her original scion.

  “Erys? Erys?”

  “I am here. I am with you.”

  “Erys,” she breathed. “My boy. I am sorry. I love you, but I must give it all to Jay. Do you hear me? I give it all to Jay. You must bear witness.”

  Erys rocked back as if he had been slapped.

  “I am sorry, my boy. You must bear witness. And promise to help him. Do you understand?”

  Erys shook his head as grief took him.

  “Erys! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Teacher,” he replied. “I understand.”

  “Thank you,” she sighed. Light poured from her chest, flowing outwards to consume her body. She reached for Jay.

  “I am here, Teacher.”

  He gave her his hands. She gripped him with force and pulled him across her chest. His body fell onto the boiling light of her Passage. In a blinding moment her pain became his pain. The world was ripped away.

  “I give it all to you Jay!” she cried. “All to you!”

  Her body melted away and he was consumed in golden light.

  A rush of wind and fire, then darkness. He thought maybe he was in the Science Dome. But he was not.

  Dark Matter surrounded him.

  And he was not alone.

  He felt her presence. Not her body, for that was gone. But a suggestion of mind. A lasting residue. A faint flicker, almost gone.

  He felt her grief, a terrible sadness mixed with regret for things not completed.

  Jay. I am sorry. I did not tell you everything. Not out of distrust, but out of fear. So much depends on the work of Xia and the Taxidermist. The whole world! Restoration! I should have told you, for now it is up to you.

  He reached out to her with his mind.

  They connected. All that was her flowed into him. Her knowledge, her fears, her desires, her love of life, her intimate love for the Builder, her love for the animals in the Nature Dome and all the others. Everything she was became a part of him.

  Tell stories. Help those I am leaving. Care for Erys. He has taken the hardest blow a man can take. He will not understand. And the Builder, my beautiful man.

  And fight, Jay. Fight those who would destroy what we are building. Restore the world to what it was.

  The thread was almost gone. He sensed her receding. He looked into the black night, and saw something, something on the edge of sight, a suggestion of movement.

  He pushed out and followed the Teacher. It was wrong, he knew. Dark Matter boiled thickly around him. The utter emptiness of it was unbearable. But he needed to go further. To see.

  Jay! called a voice. Come back!

  He spread his arms out wide, and they were no longer his arms. Feathers covered his arms, feathers of blue and red and gold, and his arms were wings. Great wings that caught the wind and lifted him up. He saw her in the distance and flapped his wings. Blue flames lit along their span. Smoke bled from between the feathers and the fire grew as he beat his wings harder and pushed out along the passage of the great wind.

  Far in the distance he spied a faint haze of silver dust. It was the universe, galaxies and stars and dust clouds. He saw everything. Billions of planets orbiting the stars. On the surfaces of these planets were the fallen structures of great civilisations, lost and half-buried.

  And he knew suddenly the complete truth of Passage. The changes that had destroyed life on Earth were not restricted to the Earth. They reached across the universe.

  Jay! Come back to me!

  He cried like a seagull and the sound echoed out into the emptiness of space.

  Passage was everywhere. It had destroyed life on countless millions of planets. All gone! All gone! The evil of Dark Matter stretched to unimaginable lengths.

  He searched the planets with far-seeing eyes. The remains of alien species scratching for survival on desert worlds. Not everything was dead. But he saw nothing of the grandeur that had once flourished throughout the universe in a billion colours and forms.

  All gone! All gone!

  In that moment of terrible understanding he let go. The Teacher receded and was gone, her Spirit swallowed up by Dark Matter.

  He was lost. Aberration had spread across the universe, Dark Matter sucking the Spirit of all living things, on countless worlds.

  He cried, lost bird of fire in the dark sky. He buried his head into his feathery chest.

  If not for the determination of his friend, he would not have returned.

  “Jay! Come back!”

  He opened his eyes and immediately the fire springing from his chest diminished and died. His chest was red tissue and blackened flesh. He closed his eyes and almost passed out.

  “No Jay!” cried Rhada, shaking him. “Stay with me. Stay awake.”

  Rhada was above him, shaking his shoulders. She nodded as he saw her.

  “That’s good,” she said. “Stay with me.”

  He tried to sit. The agony in his chest forced him back. He cried out with physical pain and the pain of what he had discovered. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He was adrift on the waves, rising up and down. People bustled about him. He tipped his head to the side. He saw Erys sitting a little way off, forgotten and ignored, rocking back and forth with his head in his hands.

  Jay looked the other way. He saw the Builder shaking with grief, pounding his hands against the boards of the empty stage.

  The Teacher was gone.

  He receded again. Rhada shook his shoulders, bringing him back. The Doctor knelt beside him.

  “He went too far,” said the Doctor. “But he is back. He will survive.”

  He tried to sleep. Rhada gripped his hand as people lifted him up. His body rocked as they carried him from the stage. With each jostle, pain raced through his body like fire. As they moved him through the crowd a single word was repeated, whisper after whisper, acknowledgement of what he had become.

  One by one the citizens of Pars bowed to the passing boy and paid their respects. The word flowed out like ripples on a pond through the crowd until all those gathered there acknowledged what he had become.

  He did not hear this word until it was whispered by Rhada’s lips beside his ear.

  Teacher!

  Part 2- Dragon

  The dragon was slender in form, its body coated with silver scales that sparkled as it flew. Its sleek, dog-like head had blue eyes and two short horns protruding behind its ear holes. Polished white teeth curved down over its lower jaw to razor points. Fire rolled from its belly and spilled between its teeth as the dragon roared.

  Teacher

  Chapter 9 SCION-TEACHER

  Sian sat on Erys’ bed, watching him as he paced the room. When he returned from the desert, Erys had moved into a basement apartment near the Builder and the workshop children. Erys looked almost predatory. Muscles in his arms and neck were taut, stretched to their limits.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  He turned on her, his eyes flashing. For a moment she thought he might strike her.

  “Let me comfort you.”

  He approached the door to his room.

  “Erys,” she said quietly. “Talk to me.”

  He slammed a fist into the door. Flesh contacted wood as he hit it again and again.

  “Erys!”

  She ran to him and tried to wrestle his arm. He pulled free and punched the door twice more before she could stop him.

  “Erys! Enough!”

  Blood dripped from his knuckles.

  “What are you doing? There are children outside.”

  He swung the door open.

  “Get out!”

  She looked at his icy blue eyes. They were impenetrable,
unreadable.

  “Erys?”

  “Get out!” he cried.

  He wrestled her body by the shoulders and pushed her through the doorway, slamming the door behind her. She fell to the floor. As she crouched there a group of the children gathered around her.

  Felicity, one of the older children shook her shoulder. Sian pulled tear-soaked strands of hair from her eyes.

  “Scion-Curator,” said the girl. “The Builder. He’s hurting himself.”

  “Please come,” begged another child.

  Sian lifted herself from the floor. “Where is he?” she asked, following the children as they led her away from Erys’ room.

  Sparks flew and orange light played over her face. She ran with the children across the workshop. She felt the heat of the furnaces on her skin. Images of Erys played across her mind, Erys boarding the zeppelin that stole him away, Erys kneeling beside the Teacher, and Jay with his chest exploding with the light of Passage. The images merged – Erys and Jay, until one face was indistinguishable from the other.

  The children were gathered outside the Builder’s room.

  “He’s inside,” said Felicity.

  Sian tried the door handle. It was locked. She knocked on the door, waited a moment, then called: “Builder!”

  No reply came.

  She placed an ear to the door. Nothing could be heard.

  “He is in there,” said Felicity. “He took a knife from the workshop, then went to his room.”

  Sian looked at the girl with dismay. She pounded her fist against the door, crying: “Builder! Open the door!”

  The children joined with her, calling: “Builder!”

  Their pleas had no effect. After a few minutes she realised it was futile.

  “Felicity, find the Taxidermist and bring him here,” she ordered. “Go now.”

  The girl nodded and ran down the corridor.

  “Simon. Josiah. Keep knocking on the door and calling him. I will fetch Erys. Okay? Don’t stop. Keep calling him.”

  She left the children to their duty and returned through the workshop to Erys’ room. She could hear the high pitched voices of the children calling for the Builder behind her.

  Erys closed his eyes and butted his forehead against the door.

  The Teacher was gone.

  The boy had taken his place and now her place.

  What remained? There was nothing for him at the Museum.

  He breathed deeply. Hot wind blew against his face. He opened his eyes. There was the desert, hot and wild. Sand hills rippled away to the infinite horizon, fierce, beautiful and desolate. He closed his eyes. The beauty of the desert curled around his heart, and the breath of the hot wind called to him over a thousand miles.

  Yes, this was where he should go. But he did not want to go alone and Sian would never leave the Museum. Her work was here. The Ark! The animals! And without her, how would he survive this lonely and desolate life?

  He wondered if he would ever see Sian again. While his body healed, loneliness ate at him from the inside. He threw the book he had been reading across the room. When he closed his eyes he saw nothing but her face.

  “Come with me,” said Saskareth, appearing in the doorway. “It is time to show you something.”

  The dark man led him upwards through the caves. The climbed twisting and winding stairways, always up. The air dried and warmed. Natural light filtered ahead. Soon it was so bright he had to shield his eyes. They emerged from a rocky stairwell into the coruscating daylight of the central desert.

  After living in semi-darkness for months, it took long minutes for his eyes to acclimatise.

  Hot wind blew against his face. The wind made his eyes weep, and through these tears the desert beyond shuddered and leapt, as if the world was alive and quaking. The horizon curved around him in a great circle. He scanned the featureless horizon - unchanging in all directions. Flat and red, littered by thousands, millions of rust coloured rocks and boulders. It looked like the surface of Mars.

  He stepped away from the cave entrance into the desert. He examined a fist-sized rock, heavy with iron. This land had once been an ancient sea floor. He flipped the stone a few times in his hand, feeling its weight and texture. Saskareth followed behind as he walked further into the desert.

  After a few hundred yards Erys stopped and surveyed the landscape. His companion moved up beside him.

  “That way is east,” pointed Saskareth. “Sydon is two thousand miles that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “Pars is that way, one thousand miles. You could walk it, but not without help. To the north are the Islands of Death, and beyond the land of Ch’in. No communities live there. But there is a community, to the south.”

  Erys looked at him. “Another group of people?”

  Saskareth tilted his head. “Not like you. More like us. The Pellpenar, the penguin people. They live across the ocean in a land called Tarc.”

  “I know of that land. There are people there?”

  “Envoys pass between our lands, every few years.”

  Erys turned to face his companion.

  “Not people,” contemplated Erys. “What are you, Saskareth? Are you animist?”

  Saskareth stood on the red desert. His robes flapped in the hot wind. An uncharacteristic grin crept slowly over his face.

  “But animists are beings of myth.”

  Saskareth’s eyes were like black oil.

  “Gob, gob, gob,” he said. His head bobbed up and down with the sepulchral sound.

  And with this motion his features transformed. Skin creaked and drew back. Blue feathers, small and fine like fur, sprung from his cheeks and neck. His hair braids became large feathers on the top and back of the head. His lips hardened and curved out to form a tapered black beak. His body was unchanged, but dark eyes gazed at Erys from the face of a long extinct, flightless bird.

  Erys felt exhilaration rather than fear. He gently touched the creature’s beak. The beak was smooth and hard. He touched the face feathers which were soft like powder. The black eyes watched him as he explored its face.

  “Is it still you, Saskareth?” he asked.

  “Gob, gob, gob,” said the creature.

  “You are animist. You are real. And there are others like you? The emu people and the penguin people?”

  “Gob, gob, gob!”

  “I should have locked the door,” he said as she entered his room.

  “Come with me,” said Sian, impatiently. “The Builder’s in trouble.”

  She dragged him from the room and led him through the workshop. “The Builder has locked himself in his room and won’t answer to anyone.”

  “He’s grieving,” said Erys. “The Teacher is gone.”

  “He has a knife. I think he’s hurting himself.”

  Felicity waited with the other children at the Builder’s door.

  “I could not find the Taxidermist,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” assured Sian. “Erys is here.”

  “Give me some room.” Erys pounded heavily on the door. Blood from his damaged knuckles stained the wood. “Builder,” he called. There was no response. He put his ear to the door. He heard a muffled gasp inside. “Builder!” he called again.

  “Move back.” He hefted his shoulder against the door. Once, twice, he threw his weight. The door was solid and refused to budge.

  He looked around, thinking, then returned to the workshop.

  He searched for something heavy and decided on a sheet hammer. He hefted the hammer back to the Builder’s door.

  “With me now,” said Sian, moving the children down the corridor.

  One swing smashed the door’s lock. A second snapped its inner latch and the door swung inwards. He dropped the hammer and entered. Sian and the children moved up behind him.

  The Builder sat on his bed. He looked up at Erys. The knife lay on the floor before him, blood on its blade. The man was shirtless. His chest was covered with a deep cut where he had drawn the blade acro
ss his skin. Blood flowed down his chest to his belly, soaking into his pants and the bed linen.

  Blank, desolate eyes met Erys and Sian.

  Children wept in the doorway. The sight paralysed Erys.

  Sian pushed past him into the room. She took in the scene, saw the blood. She lifted the bloodied knife and placed it on the bedside table. “Look after him,” she said to Erys as she gathered the children and led them away.

  “Builder?”

  The man buried his shaking head in his hands.

  “I need to take you to the Doctor.”

  The Builder shook his head. “It came early for her,” he whispered. “She was only twenty eight. We should have had two more years.”

  The sight of this strong man, despairing, unnerved Erys. He knew the Builder loved the Teacher. Her premature death had broken him.

  “Builder. You are hurt. I need to take you ...”

  “We tried for many years,” said the Builder. “No-one knew but me. Not even you, Erys. Her scion. Ariel wanted a child. She wanted to bring life into this sorry world.”

  The Builder winced and clutched his chest. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

  “We thought it would never happen. But it did. She was pregnant.”

  The Builder covered his eyes with his blood-soaked hand, shaking his head back and forth.

  Erys sat on the bed. Like a torrent, the big man’s grief poured over him, swamping his own. Ariel was gone and this man lost. What could life offer him now that so much had been taken away?

  Erys put his arms under the Builder’s shoulders and helped him rise to his feet.

  The Builder was yet to appoint a scion. As he healed it was left to Erys to run the Museum’s workshops. Erys worked day and night, smelting iron, repairing the hydraulic systems beneath the History Dome, maintaining the hover platforms in the Science Dome. He organised the children, providing daily duties and schedules. He kept them busy so they had little time to worry about the Builder.

  Erys found succor in the hard work and the duties of management. And he discovered he had natural ability working with his hands. He would have made a good Builder.

  Sian did not visit him. Perhaps it is better this way, he rationalised. I will have to leave soon. There is nothing for me here.