The Dreaming Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Edeard pushed his empty plate away and downed the last of his tea. ‘I’d better get to it, then, Master.’

  ‘I also fail anyone who shows disrespect.’

  Edeard pulled a woolly hat on against the chill air, and went out into the Guild compound’s main courtyard. It was unusual in that it had nine sides. Seven were made up from stable blocks, then there was a large barn, and the hatchery. None of them were the same size or height. When he first moved in, Edeard had been impressed. The Eggshaper Guild compound was the largest collection of buildings in the village; to someone who’d been brought up in a small cottage with a leaky thatch roof it was a palatial castle. Back then he’d never noticed the deep cloak of kimoss staining every roof a vivid purple; nor how pervasive and tangled the gurkvine was, covering the dark stone walls of the courtyard with its ragged pale-yellow leaves, while its roots wormed their way into the mortar between the blocks, weakening the structure. This morning he just sighed at the sight, wondering if he’d ever get round to directing the ge-monkeys on a clean-up mission. Now would be a good time. The gurkvine leaves had all fallen to gather in the corners of the courtyard in great mouldering piles, while the moss was soaking up the season’s moisture, turning into great spongy mats which would be easy to peel off. Like everything else in his life, it would have to wait. If only Akeem could find another apprentice, he thought wistfully. We spend our whole lives running to catch up, just one extra person in the Guild would make so much difference.

  It would take a miracle granted by the Lady, he acknowledged grudgingly. The village families were reluctant to allow their children to train at the Eggshaper Guild. They appreciated how dependent they were on genistars, but even so they couldn’t afford to lose able hands. The Guild was just like the rest of Ashwell, struggling to keep going.

  Edeard hurried across the courtyard to the tanks where his new reshaped cats were kept, silently asking the Lady why he bothered to stay in this backward place on the edge of the wilds. To his right were the largest stables, where the defaults shuffled round their stalls. They were simple beasts, unshaped egg-laying genistars, the same size as terrestrial ponies, with six legs supporting a bulbous body. The six upper limbs were vestigial, producing bumps along the creature’s back, while in the female over thirty per cent of the internal organs were ovaries, producing an egg every fifteen days. Males, of which there were three, lumbered round in a big pen at one end, while the females were kept in a row of fifteen separate stalls. For the first time since Akeem had taken him in, the stalls were all occupied; a source of considerable satisfaction to Edeard. Not even a Master as accomplished as Akeem, and despite his age he was a singular talent, could manage fifteen defaults by himself. Shaping an egg took a long time, and Edeard had as many grotesque failures as he had successes. First of all, the timing had to be right. An egg needed to be shaped no earlier than ten hours after fertilization, and no later than twenty-five. How long it took depended on the nature of the genus required.

  Edeard had often spent half the night sitting in a stall’s deep-cushioned shaper chair with his mind focused on the egg. Eggshaping, as Akeem had so often described it, was like sculpting intangible clay with invisible hands. The ability was a gentle combination of farsight and telekinesis. His mind could see inside the egg, and only those who could do that with perfect clarity could become shapers. Not that he liked to boast, but Edeard’s mental vision was the most acute in the village. What he saw within the shell was like a small exemplar of a default genistar made out of grey shadow substance. His telekinesis would reach out and begin to shape it into the form he wanted – but slowly, so frustratingly slowly. There were limits. He couldn’t give a genistar anything extra: seven arms, two heads … What the process did was activate the nascent structures inherent within the default physiology. He could also define size, though that was partially determined by what type of genus he was shaping. Then there were sub-families within each standard genus, chimps as well as monkeys, a multitude of horse types – big, small, powerful, fast, slow. A long list which had to be memorized perfectly. Shaping was inordinately difficult, requiring immense concentration. A shaper had to have a lot more than eldritch vision and manipulation; he or she had to have the feel of what they were doing, to know instinctively if what they were doing was right, to see potential within the embryonic genistar. In the smaller creatures there would be no room for reproductive organs, so they had to be disengaged, other organs too had to be selected where appropriate. But which ones? Small wonder even a Grand Master produced a large percentage of invalid eggs.

  Edeard walked past the default stables, his farsight flashing through the building, checking that the ge-monkeys were getting on with their jobs of mucking out and feeding. Several were becoming negligent and disorderly, so he refreshed their instructions with a quick longtalk message. A slightly deeper scan with his farsight showed him the state of the gestating eggs inside the defaults. Of the eleven that had been shaped, three were showing signs that indicated problems were developing. He gave a resigned sigh. Two of them were his.

  After the defaults came the horse stables. There were nine foals currently accommodated, seven of which were growing up into the large sturdy brutes which would pull ploughs and carts out on the surrounding farms. Most of the commissions placed on Ashwell’s Eggshaper Guild were for genistars which could be used in agriculture. The custom of domestic ge-monkeys and chimps was in decline, which Edeard knew was just because people didn’t take the time to learn how to instruct them properly. Not that they were going to come here and take lessons from a fourteen-year-old boy. It annoyed him immensely; he was certain the village economy could be improved fourfold at least if they just listened to him.

  ‘Patience,’ Akeem always counselled, when he raged against the short-sighted fools who made up their neighbours. ‘Often to do what’s right you first have to do what’s wrong. There will come a time when your words will be heeded.’

  Edeard didn’t know when that would be. Even if today was successful he didn’t expect a rush of people to congratulate him and seek out his advice. He was sure he was destined to forever remain the freaky boy who lived alone with batty old Akeem. A well matched pair, everyone said when they thought he couldn’t farsight them.

  The monkey and chimp pen was on the other side of the horses. It only had a couple of infant monkeys inside, curled up in their nest. The rest were all out and about, performing their duties around the Guild compound. They didn’t have any commissions for ge-monkeys on their books; even the smithy who worked five didn’t want any extras. Perhaps I should bring people round the Guild buildings, Edeard thought, show them what the ge-monkeys can do if they’re ordered correctly. Or Akeem could show them, at least. Just something that would break the cycle, make people more adventurous. The freaky boy’s daydream.

  After the monkey pen came the kennels. Ge-dogs remained in high demand, especially the kind used for herding cattle and sheep. Eight pups were nursing from the two milk-bitches which he’d shaped himself. They allowed the defaults to go straight back to egg production without an extended nursing period. It had taken twelve invalid eggs before he’d succeeded in shaping the first. The innovation was one he’d introduced after reading about the milk-bitch in an ancient Guild text, now he was keen to try and extend it across all the genistar types. Akeem had been supportive when the first had hatched, impressed as much by Edeard’s tenacity as his shaping skill.

  The compound’s main gateway was wedged in between the dog kennels and the wolf kennels. There were six of the fierce creatures maturing. Always useful outside the village walls, the wolves were deployed as guards for Ashwell and all its outlying farmhouses; they were also taken on hunts through the forests, helping to clear out Querencia’s native predators as well as the occasional bandit group. Edeard stopped and looked in. The ge-wolves were lean creatures with dark-grey fur that blended in with most landscapes, their long snouts equipped with sharp fangs which could bite clean through a
medium-sized branch, let alone a limb of meat and bone. The large pups mewled excitedly as he hung over the door and patted at them. His hand was licked by hot serpentine tongues. Two of them had a pair of arms, another of his innovations. He wanted to see if they could carry knives or clubs. Something else he’d found in an old text. Another idea the villagers had shaken their heads in despair at.

  Out of the whole courtyard, he liked the aviary best. A squat circular cote with arched openings twenty feet above the ground, just below the eaves. There was a single doorway at the base. Inside, the open space was crisscrossed by broad martoz beams. Over the years the wood had been heavily scarred by talons, so much so that the original square cut was now rounded on top. There was only a single ge-eagle left, as big as Edeard’s torso. The bird had a double wing arrangement, with two limbs supporting the large front wing and giving it remarkable flexibility, while the rear wing was a simple triangle for stability. Its gold and emerald feathers cloaked a streamlined body, with a long slender jaw where the teeth had merged into a single serrated edge very similar to a beak.

  Trisegment eyes blinked down at Edeard as he smiled up. He so envied the ge-eagle, how it could soar free and clear of the village with all its earthbound drudgery and irrelevance. It had an unusually strong telepathic ability, allowing Edeard to experience wings spread wide and the wind slipping past. Often, whole afternoons would pass with an enthralled Edeard twinned with the ge-eagle’s mind as it swooped and glided over the forests and valleys outside, providing an intoxicating taste of the freedom that existed beyond the village.

  It rustled its wings, enthused by Edeard’s appearance and the prospect of flight. Not yet, Edeard had to tell it reluctantly. Its beak was shaken in disgust and the eyes shut, returning it to an aloof posture.

  The hatchery came between the aviary and the cattery. It was a low circular building, like a half-size aviary. Its broad iron-bound wooden door was closed and bolted. The one place in the compound that ge-monkeys weren’t permitted to go. Edeard had the task of keeping it clean and tidy. A sheltered stone shelf to the right of the door had nine thick candles alight, traditionally one for each egg inside. He swept his farsight across them all, happy to confirm the embryos were growing satisfactorily. After they’d been laid, the eggs took about ten days to hatch, cosseted in cradles that in winter months were warmed by slow-smouldering charcoal in a massive iron stove. He’d need to rake out the ashes and add some more lumps before midday. One of the eggs was due to hatch tomorrow, he judged, another horse.

  Finally, he went into the cattery, the smallest of the buildings walling the courtyard. Standard genistar cats were small semi-aquatic creatures, with dark oily fur and broad webbed feet, devoid of upper limbs. Guild convention had them as one of the seven standard genera, though nobody outside the capital Makkathran ever found much use for them. It was the gondoliers who kept a couple on each boat, using them to keep the city’s canals clean of weed and rodents.

  The cattery was a rectangular room taken up by big knee-high stone tables. Light came in through windows set into the roof. As a testament to how prolific the kimoss had become, Edeard now always supplemented his ordinary sight with farsight as he shuffled along the narrow aisles between the tables. From inside, the windows had been reduced to narrow slits that provided a meagre amethyst radiance.

  Glass tanks sat along the tables. They were ancient, basins the size of bulky coffins, dating back to when the whole compound had been built. Half of them had cracked sides, and dried and dead algae stained the glass, while the bottoms were filled with gravel and desiccated flakes of mud. Edeard had refurbished five to hold his reshaped cats, with another three modified to act as crude reservoirs. The pipes he used to test their ability were strewn across the floor in a tangled mess. All five reshaped cats lay on the gravel bed of the tanks, with just a few inches of water rippling sluggishly round them. They resembled fat lozenges of glistening ebony flesh, half the size of a human. There were no limbs of any kind, just a row of six circular gills along their flanks dangling loose tubes of thick skin. The head was so small it looked completely undeveloped to the point of being misshapen; there were no eyes or ears. It was all Edeard’s farsight could do to detect any sparkle of thought at all within the tiny brain.

  He grinned down cheerily at the unmoving lumps, searching through them for any sign of malady. When he was satisfied their health was as good as possible, he stood perfectly still, taking calm measured breaths the way Akeem had taught him, and focused his telekinesis on the first cat, the third hand as most villagers called it. He could feel the black flesh within his incorporeal grip, and lifted it off the bed of mucky gravel.

  Half an hour later, when Barakka the village cartwright drove his wagon into the courtyard he found Edeard and Akeem standing beside five tarpaulins with the reshaped cats lying on them. He wrinkled his face up in disgust at the bizarre creatures, and shot the old Guild Master a questioning look.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked as he swung himself off the bench. The cartwright was a squat man, made even broader by eight decades of hard physical labour. He had a thick, unruly ginger beard that served to make his grey eyes seem even more sunken. His hand scratched at his buried chin as he surveyed the ge-cats, doubt swirling openly in his mind, free for Edeard to see. Barakka didn’t care much for the feelings of young apprentices.

  ‘If they work they will bring a large benefit to Ashwell,’ Akeem said smoothly. ‘Surely it’s worth a try?’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Barakka conceded. He gave Edeard a sly grin. ‘Are you aiming to be our Mayor, boy? If this works you’ll get my blessing. I’ve been washing in horse muck these last three months. Course, old Geepalt will have his nose right out of joint.’

  Geepalt, the village carpenter, was in charge of the existing well’s pump, and by rights should have built a new pump for the freshly dug well. He was chief naysayer on allowing Edeard to try his innovation – it didn’t help that Obron was his apprentice.

  ‘There are worse things in life than an annoyed Geepalt,’ Akeem said. ‘Besides, when this works he’ll have more time for profitable commissions.’

  Barakka laughed. ‘You old rogue! It is your tongue not your mind which shapes words against their true meaning.’

  Akeem gave a small, pleased bow. ‘Thank you. Shall we begin loading?’

  ‘If Melzar’s team is ready,’ Barakka said.

  Edeard’s farsight flashed out, surveying the new well, with the crowd gathering around it. ‘They are. Wedard has called the ge-monkey digging team out.’

  Barakka gave him a calculating stare. The new well was being dug on the other side of the village from the Eggshaper Guild compound. His own farsight couldn’t reach that far. ‘Very well, we’ll put them on the wagon. Can you manage a third of the weight, boy?’

  Edeard was very pleased that he managed to stop any irony from showing amid his surface thoughts. ‘I think so, sir.’ He caught Akeem’s small private smile; the Master’s mind remained calm and demure.

  Barakka gave the reshaped cats another doubting look, and scratched his beard once more. ‘All right then. On my call. Three. Two. One.’

  Edeard exerted his third hand, careful not to boost more than he was supposed to. With the three of them lifting, the reshaped cat rose smoothly into the air and floated into the back of the open wagon.

  ‘They’re not small, are they?’ Barakka said. His smile was somewhat forced. ‘Good job you’re helping, Akeem.’

  Edeard didn’t know if he should protest or laugh.

  ‘We all play our part,’ Akeem said. He was giving Edeard a warning stare.

  ‘Second one, then,’ Barakka said.

  Ten minutes later they were rolling through the village, Barakka and Akeem sitting on the wagon’s bench, while Edeard made do with the rear, one arm resting protectively over a cat. Ashwell was a clutter of buildings in the lee of a modest stone cliff that had sheered out of the side of a gentle slope. Almost impossible t
o climb, the cliff formed a good defence, with a semicircular walled rampart of earth and stone completing their protection from any malign forces that might ride in from the wild lands to the northeast. Most of the buildings were simple stone cottages with thatch roofs and slatted shutters. Some larger buildings had windows with glass panes that had been brought in from the western towns. Only the broad main street running parallel to the cliff was cobbled, the lanes running off it were little more than muddy ruts worn down to the stone by wheels and feet. Although the Eggshaper compound was the biggest collection of buildings, the tallest was the church of the Empyrean Lady, with its conical spire rising out of the north side of the low dome. Once upon a time the stone church had been a uniform white, but many seasons of neglect had seen the lightest sections moulder down to a drab grey, with kimoss pullulating in the slim gaps between the big blocks.

  The road down to the village gate branched off midway along main street. Edeard looked along it, seeing the short brick-lined tunnel which cut through the sloping rampart; at the far end the massive doors were open to the outside world. On the top of the wall, twin watchtowers stood on either side of the door, with big iron bells on top. They would be rung by the guards at any sign of trouble approaching. Edeard had never heard them. Some of the older villagers claimed to remember their sound when bandit gangs had been spotted crossing the farmlands bordering the village.

  As Edeard looked at the top of the rampart wall with its uneven line and many different materials he wondered how hard it actually would be to overcome their fortifications. There were places where crumbling gaps had been plugged by thick timbers, which themselves were now rotting beneath swathes of kimoss; and even if every man and woman in the village carried arms they couldn’t stretch along more than a third of the length. In reality, then, their safety depended on the illusion of strength.

  A sharp prick of pain on his left shin made him wince. It was a telekinetic pinch, which he warded off with a strong shield over his flesh. Obron and two of his cronies were flanking the wagon, mingling with the other villagers who were heading up to the new well. There was a sense of carnival in the air as the wagon made its slow procession through Ashwell, with people abandoning their normal work to tag along and see the innovation.