The Abyss Beyond Dreams

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Kysandra had cried pitifully as her mother fumbled her way into another night of mad narnik-fuelled dreams. Ex-sight showed her Sarara’s comatose form sprawled across the parlour’s settee. Every so often she would jerk about and yell something incoherent as the drug sparked a fresh hallucination in her brain. Then she’d sink back down again to resume a soft snoring and sniffling. The cold empty pipe had fallen onto the bare floorboards beside her.

  Adding to Kysandra’s misery was the hunger. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that had just been some apples and a glass of milk. But she refused to go downstairs to the kitchen. Even though there was no chance of her mother waking before morning now, she was powered by a stubbornness which had governed her whole life.

  ‘Girl, you have an attitude from Uracus,’ her father used to say, half in delight, half in dismay, as she refused to back down or apologize for whatever mischief she’d performed.

  But that was years ago, before her father had gone off with the Adeone county militia to help sweep after a Fall. Eight years. And he’d still not come back.

  Kysandra was still waiting for him, refusing to give up. That had been one of the first massive battles with Sarara, when she found her mother getting rid of Dad’s clothes. It was around the time Sarara had started smoking to cover her own grief and the difficulty of looking after a farm by herself. Those difficulties had just kept getting worse as the fields turned fallow, the mods grew old and the buildings in the compound started to deteriorate.

  After eight years without Dad, they could just about keep the compound’s vegetable garden going, along with maintaining a couple of pigs, an ageing cow for milk and a chicken coop – which the bussalores kept getting into. It was hard to feed themselves some days.

  That was why Kysandra was due to marry Akstan in two days, as soon as she was seventeen and it was legal (with parental permission). Sarara hadn’t simply given permission; she’d eagerly agreed to the whole dowry arrangement with Akstan’s grubby family. It was simple enough. In exchange for Blair Farm (and Kysandra), Sarara would get three rooms of her own above one of the family’s stores which sold cloth to the town. With an easy job behind the counter, she’d finally be rid of her whole nightmare inheritance problem. In her more hurtful moments, she’d screeched at Kysandra that without a brat daughter and a crap farm holding her back, she’d be able to find herself a decent man again. Kysandra had hurled the last remaining china jug at her for that one.

  So there she was that clear night, looking out at the splendid nebulas whose moiré radiance dusted the Void. Their remarkable intricate shapes and glowing colours did nothing for her. She simply stared at them, trying not to think of how Giu had claimed her father’s soul. She alternated that with malicious snarls at the idea of Uracus taking her mother and Akstan, and the rest of his wretched family – including their matriarch, Ma Ulvon, whom Kysandra was secretly rather scared of.

  Tonight Uracus glowed brightly high in the night sky, its malevolent carmine swirls surrounded by tattered amber veils curling back into the empty gash at its centre, like a raw wound across space. An omen, she thought miserably, signalling how crudding bad my life is going to be. Something moved across the evil nebula. A smudge of amber light, racing out of the north-west. And growing brighter.

  Kysandra stared at it. Puzzled to begin with. She’d never seen a nebula like it. And she’d certainly never heard of a nebula moving. The thing began to elongate, a thin perfectly straight line of hazy salmon phosphorescence stretching out behind it.

  That’s not a nebula!

  There were only two things that moved in Bienvenido’s skies. The Skylords gracing the planet with their awesome presence, or—

  ‘F . . . F . . . Faller!’ she yelled in shock.

  An utterly pointless shout. Sarara was deep in her narcotic sleep, and the mod-dwarfs were still curled up under the table.

  Kysandra kept watching the glowing spectre. It was a lot brighter now as it streaked closer, heading almost directly for Blair Farm. A second equally pointless shout of warning died on her lips. Faller eggs dropped straight down, or so she’d always believed. And they were dark. Nothing like this.

  A new kind of Faller?

  Curiosity overcame her initial burst of fear. The glowing object was changing somehow. Its glow diminished as it soared above the valley, yet the orange light expanded as it drew ever closer to the farmhouse. It was big, she realized – far, far bigger than any Faller egg. The weird shimmering tail of luminescent air started to shrink, like smoke wafting away.

  Kysandra could barely turn her neck fast enough as the glimmering thing shot overhead with a roar almost as loud as a thunderclap. She managed to catch a swift glimpse of its shape: the body of a giant egg, with stiff curving triangular wings. It was as if a shipwright had tried to build a boat that flew. For the last eight years Kysandra had been steadily reading her way through her father’s huge library of books (another bone of contention with her mother), and she couldn’t recall anything remotely like this in any of the manuals and accounts published by the Faller Research Institute.

  The impossible thing shot away over the river, sinking swiftly out of the sky. Its glow vanished as it reached the treetops. Only the writhing streamers of iridescent air were left, ghostly indicators of its path. They ripped away to nothing just as the noise reached the farmhouse – a cacophony of crashing and snapping as trees were smashed apart from the impact.

  Then everything was still. The night sky was clear, the nebulas shimmering exuberantly as normal. Nothing moved.

  Kysandra stared at the woodland on the other side of the river. But the trees were an impenetrable tangle, webbed with tenacious vines. Her ex-sight certainly couldn’t reach that far.

  What do I do? Should I run?

  It had to be some kind of Faller. A huge one. That boat-bird shape had been as big as the farmhouse. She couldn’t imagine the horror it would unleash upon the county. Worse than being married to Akstan, even.

  She didn’t dare go outside and walk down to the river to see what had crashed into the trees, nor did she have the courage to make a break for the town, for she’d have to leave her mother, which she realized she couldn’t actually do. Getting the mod-dwarfs to help haul her narnik-saturated mother out to the buggy and then harnessing their one remaining mod-horse to it would take forever. The new Fallers would be able to overwhelm them before they even started racing down the road.

  By law, each farm was supposed to have a Faller fire beacon, a pile of wood ready to light at a moment’s notice, sending a warning blaze shooting up, visible for miles around should they catch sight of an egg Falling. Her father had built one just outside the compound – a marvellous pyramid of branches standing over four metres high at the apex, built in a clever lattice allowing air to be sucked though and help accelerate the flames.

  That had been before he left, and the wood had been exposed to many years of rainfall since. Mildew and fungus had gnawed at the sturdy branches, reducing them to crumbling fibres swamped by vines.

  It would never catch light now, anyway, she thought.

  Kysandra stared at the dark mass of the wood beyond the water. Still nothing moved. She used her ’path to order the mod-dwarfs to fetch her the shotgun from its place in the cabinet downstairs. While she was at it, she added an instruction to bring the remainder of the bread from the kitchen. And some milk.

  With her stomach mollified slightly, and the weight of the cold metal gun resting reassuringly against her side, she settled down to begin her vigil.

  *

  ‘Wake up, you idle girl!’

  Kysandra’s body jolted painfully. She opened her eyes to see her mother framed by her bedroom door, holding the shotgun with a wary expression marring her thin, lined face. It was daylight outside, well into the morning if she was any judge.

  ‘What were you going to do with this, then?’ Sarara demanded, her grip tightening on the shotgun as she held it up. ‘Shoot me in my sleep?’
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br />   ‘I saw something,’ Kysandra said defensively. She turned to stare out of the window. The wood on the other side of the river was almost as dark in the morning sun as it was at midnight. There was no hint of anything awry, no dread invading army of Faller creatures marching out of the trees. No massive shape taking flight.

  ‘What?’ her mother sneered.

  It was that tone, the one which always made Kysandra’s shoulders hunch in reflex, annoyance and contempt contracting her muscles. ‘I don’t know.’ She thought about how to explain what she’d seen.

  ‘Get yourself ready. Julias is here.’

  ‘What?’ Kysandra hated Julias. He was one of Akstan’s brothers, an even bigger slob than her intended groom. Ma Ulvon had him running one of the abattoirs in Adeone, yet another of the family businesses over which she ruled with supreme authority. ‘Why is he here?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘I must have dropped you on your head more than once when you were a baby. You’re to be married tomorrow, remember? All our lives are going to get better then.’

  ‘I’m not getting married!’ Kysandra snarled. ‘Not to him.’

  ‘Now you listen, and you listen good, you ungrateful little bitch. We owe Ma Ulvon a lot of money. How do you think I’ve supported us for the last few years? This farm isn’t worth crud without someone working it. And I couldn’t do that, not with you running round like a wild bussalore all day.’

  Kysandra’s anger drained away into shock. ‘We owe Ma Ulvon?’ She couldn’t believe it. You had to be crazy to take a loan from Ma Ulvon – everybody knew that. Interest payments never ended, and Ma’s sons and grandsons and nephews were punctual and forceful when it came to collection time. ‘Why?’ she demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘What did you buy? We’ve grown enough food for ourselves. Always have.’

  ‘The farm needs plenty of things that don’t grow on trees, and your father spent every coin we earned on those stupid books when he should have invested it properly. Now, pack your bag and get ready. Julias and I will drag you out of here if we have to, make no mistake about that.’

  ‘Narnik!’ Kysandra cried in horror. ‘You’ve been buying your narnik from her, haven’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you judge me,’ Sarara shouted back. ‘You don’t know how I’ve suffered, not since your father left.’

  ‘He’s coming back.’

  ‘He was fucking eaten by a Faller, you stupid girl. When will you ever get that into your dopey cloud-filled head? He’s dead! He’s not coming back. Not ever. His soul wasn’t even strong enough to come visit us after. So he didn’t love you that much, after all. Did he?’

  Kysandra screamed incoherently at her diabolical tormentor. Her teekay lifted the empty milk bottle and shoved it forward through the air, aimed directly at her mother’s head. Sarara swung the shotgun round and pulled the trigger – completely missing the bottle.

  The shotgun blasted a hole in the ceiling. Long splinters exploded out of the planks. Kysandra’s shell was barely strong enough to ward them off. She twisted round, diving for cover. Two slivers of sharp wood cut through her dress along her ribs, slashing hotly at her skin.

  There was no pain, not immediately. Kysandra stared down at the slim rents in the fabric. Blood began to stain the cloth.

  Sarara had a nasty red graze on her forehead where the bottle had struck her. She dabbed at it while she peered in dismay at Kysandra’s wounds, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The two of them looked at each other wordlessly for a long moment.

  ‘Wash and dress those cuts,’ Sarara said flatly. ‘Don’t let them get infected. I’ll get our things into the cart.’ She turned on her heel and rushed out. Kysandra heard her sobbing as she stumbled down the stairs.

  And there was nothing else left to be done.

  *

  Normally Kysandra enjoyed visiting Adeone. The town with its big solid buildings and busy docks and bustling streets was always a welcome break from the farm, and the Shanty outside was small enough not to worry her. But this time when the cart rolled in, she wished it dead and ruined. She cursed its people. Everyone who saw the cart (and they all quickly looked away again) knew she was being brought to the town hall as payment to Ma Ulvon. None of them protested. They didn’t even dare offer her any sympathy.

  Once they were in the centre where the roads were paved, the ride became a lot smoother. She’d spent most of the time wincing at every jolt. But the pain from the splinter cuts was nothing to the one in her head. They crossed a junction. The road on one side led to the central square, where the town hall with its bright red brick walls and white stone-outlined windows stood two storeys higher than all the rest of the buildings. The place where they’d take her tomorrow and sign her up for a life of suffering – if they had their way. She knew damn well the county registrar wouldn’t help her. The ceremony would go ahead, no matter how many times she said no.

  ‘You’ve turned me into a whore,’ she told her mother stonily. ‘Are you proud?’

  ‘You know,’ Julias said from the front of the cart where he was directing the mod-horse with ’path instructions, ‘it seems to me you should show some respect when you talk to your mother. Some gratitude to Ma would be welcome, too. She’s doing you a favour.’

  Kysandra glared at the back of the obese oaf, seeing the way the seams on his red and black checked shirt strained to contain his great rolls of flesh. She allowed all the hatred to shine through her shell. ‘You’re going to die,’ she told him triumphantly. ‘You’re going to die pissing your pants while your soul screams as it’s consumed by Uracus. And I want you to know, here and now, that I played my part in making that happen.’ She was never going to tell them about the huge new Faller in the forest beyond the farm. Not now. Never going to warn the town and all its passive compliant people. The arseholes deserved to be eaten for what they’d allowed to take control of them. Ma’s family was worse than any Faller nest.

  Afterwards, when the Fallers had devoured everyone, the regiments would finally come and burn the whole stinking place to the ground. When that happened there wouldn’t even be a grave to bury the mounds of broken bones in.

  Good!

  ‘Uracus, she’s got a mouth on her,’ Julias grunted.

  ‘You need to know not to speak to your husband like that,’ Sarara said. ‘Wives don’t.’

  ‘I’m not to be his wife; I’m to be his whore. Thanks to you, Mother.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Sarara shouted.

  They drew up in front of the Hevlin Hotel on Lubal Street. Low, dark clouds were scudding across the sky. Kysandra knew that weather; the rain that was coming would last the better part of a day. She looked up in loathing at the hotel. It was a sprawling white-painted building with a wide three-storey frontage obscuring a labyrinth of ill-matched extensions at the back; it had even merged with another couple of dwellings behind. This was where Ma Ulvon lived, and ran her collection of legitimate businesses alongside a wider network of altogether darker activities.

  ‘Come on,’ Julias said. His teekay tipped her bag off the back of the cart.

  Kysandra thought about refusing, but she could perceive several of Ma’s people in the lobby. Bulky men who didn’t give a crud that she was just a girl; they’d spill out onto the street and drag her inside, no matter how much she yelled and fought. None of Adeone’s fine residents would lift a finger to help her. So she gave Julias an evil grin. ‘Screaming as you die,’ she said victoriously as she climbed down. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘You are one screwed-up girl,’ he muttered sullenly, and ’pathed the mod-horse to walk on.

  Kysandra watched the cart roll past. Her mother didn’t look round as she was taken away to her promised new life above the cloth store.

  ‘Welcome,’ a voice said.

  Kysandra jumped. The woman had been well fuzzed, so much so she hadn’t noticed her in the lobby nor coming out of the hotel entrance. Ma Ulvon was big, over a head taller than Kysandra, but without the weight her sons
were notorious for. She wore a classy cream-coloured linen business suit and shiny black shoes. A strange quilted cloak was wrapped round her broad shoulders, held in place with a gold chain; the kind of garment Kysandra imagined the fancy aristocratic women of the capital would wear. Auburn hair was trimmed in a neat style that gave the appearance of a forty-year-old – though everyone knew Ma was closer to seventy. Jewellery was minimal, just a few rings and a slim diamond necklace. Kysandra glowered resentfully at her, tucking some dirty strands of hair behind her ear, and very conscious of her threadbare dress. Ma Ulvon was so elegant in comparison, the most sophisticated woman in Adeone.

  ‘I won’t do it,’ she snapped.

  Ma Ulvon raised a plucked eyebrow. ‘Do what, my dear?’ Even the voice, so smooth and cold, was intimidating.

  ‘Marry Akstan. You can have the farm, I don’t care, but I won’t do that.’

  ‘Really?’ Ma gestured at the lobby. ‘Shall we go in, or do I need to have you carried in?’ She turned and started up the short stone steps to the glossy doors.

  Kysandra considered simply running, but again doubted she’d get very far. She walked after the daunting woman.

  ‘Don’t forget your bag,’ Ma said.

  The lobby was dark after the street outside. A rich burgundy and gold wallpaper seemed to shimmer in the yellow light of the oil lamps. Settees and chairs were all upholstered in lush velvet. Its assault on the senses announced that the Hevlin had aspirations way beyond Adeone’s provincial status.

  Ma was waiting beside another woman. This one was dressed in extravagant colourful clothes, with a great deal of black lace frill. Her bodice was open halfway to her navel, showing off a lot of cleavage. Kysandra tried not to stare, but it was pretty obvious what her profession was.

  ‘This is Madeline,’ Ma said. ‘She’s the Hevlin’s madam.’

  ‘Hiya, kiddo,’ Madeline said with a wink.