'We still send our tithe of Lamlite Oil and Lichor Crystals to them at the end of every month and we receive nothing in return,' Corretta continued, bitterly, 'it's dangerous work, that close to the edge of the wastes.'
'Then why send it? Duty or fear?'
The bluntness of the question surprised her.
'Both,' she replied, honestly.
The Monk nodded.
'It saddens me to find the world no better than when I left it.'
'Aye, well it pisses me off that I'll be leaving the world only marginally better than when I entered it,' countered Corretta, 'I took over after my drunkard father - rest his soul - wandered waste-wards. Since then this place has run like clockwork! We've had no deaths in years, y'hear? Years! That safety ain't come from the Church! That's come from hard work! That's come from sweat and tears!'
'Have you named a successor?' the Monk asked, seemingly unfazed.
'If I could have my way Nathanial would take over. Of all my kin he's the only one with a head on his shoulders,' admitted Corretta.
'He showed no fear of me,' intoned the machine.
Corretta nodded, proudly, then she scowled, 'he's too young, though, to run a place like this. Ain't got no authority.'
'The Church might appoint a new town leader if you were to contact them,' suggested the Monk.
Corretta scoffed, 'A desert rat doesn't signal to a weaver spider that it's young are undefended.'
The Monk processed this for a moment.
'I must ask you, and I'll know if you're dishonest, do you share the faith of the Church Mechanicus?'
For a second, Corretta looked ready to leap out of bed and fight but instead she only half sat up before slumping back down, shrinking into the bed.
'You've seen the town. We turned the church into a shelter for cattle. You've seen the shrine, ain't no-one praying there today or ever.'
The Monk nodded.
'You'll be returning to the city, won't you? To tell them of us?'
The Monk didn't move.
'You could stop me,' it said.
'After you've spent a lifetime fighting horrors in the wastes? I doubt we could, even if I wanted to order it, which I don't.'
The Monk nodded again.
Silence.
'It has felt like an eternity since I have seen people,' the Monk said, 'and I am keen to see more. This town is rife with heresy by the standards of my programming, though there is no suffering. The Church Mechanicus does nothing to protect it, yet it persists.'
'I protect it!' Corretta snarled, reaching out to the Monk with both hands, 'You hear me! I protect it!'
The Monk carefully plucked her hands away with its cold metal fingers and helped her recline back into the bed. She stared into his blank chrome face and whispered:
'Have faith in the people! You must have faith in the people.'
Then her eyes closed and her breathing lessened, though it didn't stop. She was asleep, a deep sleep.
The Monk stood for a moment over the crone.
'There's heresy in me, too,' it told Haildock's matriarch.
It replaced its hat and walked from the room.
***
Old Corretta died a day later in her sleep, her family gathered once more at her side. No-one knew what had become of the Machine Monk, even Nathanial was uncertain. An answer of sorts came a week later. A supply train arrived from one of the central cities, and though many feared it would be filled with the Church Inquisitors, instead it was filled with grain and ammunition. A single wooden box had Nathanial's name on it, and when he opened it he was surprised to find the metal symbol of the Church Mechanicus, scratched and misshapen - clearly torn from whatever it had once adorned.
The driver of the supply train brought word of rebellion in the cities, of mobs led by a mechanical figure against the Church. He told of other townships joining the revolt, a mass wave of anger made manifest in fire and violence. In the battered metal badge Nathanial saw change, change which might have brought a smile to old Nana Corretta.
Old Oceans
Arthur took a few more steps, his brown loafers sinking slightly into the wet sand. He looked down, barely able to see them by the light of the moon. His feet were already cold, now they were wet too.
He slowly collapsed into a sitting position, cross legged, barely wincing at all as his knees clicked. Almost immediately he felt the wetness seep from the sand through the seat of his pants. It didn't matter, he told himself, they were black; the wet wouldn't show.
The lights of Aberystwyth were far behind him but he could hear the murmur of the town, even now. He closed his eyes and breathed in the crisp air, tried to force an epiphany, but nothing came. He opened them again and sighed, angrily. Then with one hand he tugged at the knot of his tie and pulled it loose. He undid the top button of his shirt.
There, he thought, now I look the part.
'Hey.'
The greeting should have made him jump. On any other day, it would have. On any other day, he wouldn't be here on a freezing beach after midnight.
'Hello,' responded Arthur, automatically.
There was a stranger beside him, which was odd, because he hadn't heard anyone approach. The boy was wearing heavy duty work boots, the type Arthur wore when he worked factory shifts back in the seventies, yet from the look of them, and the look of their owner, these were not worn as work-boots. They were, however, caked with mud though Arthur knew of no mud nearby.
The lad wearing them was of the willowy sort, long limbs and floppy blonde hair, with a narrow face and eyes that might have been piercing if they weren't so bloodshot. A romantic, that's what this lad was. He plopped down besides Arthur without invitation, his long coat piling up below him. He kicked his long legs out as though it was a Summer’s day, not late January.
'Who are you?' Arthur asked.
The youth turned and smiled a lopsided smile.
'I'm the ocean,' he said, with such certainty that Arthur glanced out into the gloom at the lapping waves.
'NO!' the youth suddenly shouted, then quieter, 'No. I'm not the ocean. That's not right. The ocean is too deep.'
He tilted his head back, then gracelessly fell back entirely. He pointed upwards with one long, slender arm.
'I'm the sky!' he declared.
Arthur opened his mouth to object but the youth was too quick.
'Wait, that's not right.'
He was scowling now. The expression put Arthur in mind of his wife when she tried one of those Sudoku puzzles.
'What's your name?' Arthur tried again.
The lad shook his head, hair flopping this way and that, as though Arthur had suggested something silly.
'I am,' he said, almost too quiet to hear, 'the stars!'
His eyes were fixed upwards to the night sky. Arthur glanced up. There were streaks of cloud up there, black blurs that broke up the tapestry of lights. They didn't detract from the stars; but made them seem crisper and sharper somehow.
'You're a star?' he asked, willing to play along.
The elation on the boy's face died.
'No.'
'Oh.'
He snapped his fingers.
'I'm the space between the stars.'
Arthur had run out of things to say so he said nothing at all. For a time, they both remained motionless; Arthur sitting like a monk, and the youth sprawled out beside him.
Suddenly the lad was up again and walking towards the ocean. Arthur found some words and dredged them to the surface.
'Where are you going?'
The youth stopped and turned back. There were tears there, along with that strange half-smile. His pupils were dilated.
'The ocean.'
'It's freezing. You'll die.'
The youth shrugged, and then he asked a question Arthur had been asking himself.
'What are you doing here?'
Arthur rose, his limbs screamed a painful protest - when had he gotten so old? He pointed back to the town.
> 'She was in Bronglais Hospital,' Arthur said, 'my wife.'
The boy nodded, 'And you're here.'
It wasn't so much a question or accusation but a statement. A cold observation of fact.
'I'm here,' Arthur agreed, then he added, 'she liked coming down here.'
'My first time on a beach,' said the boy, staring into Arthur's eyes with unnerving detachment.
The tide was coming in.
'I should go back,' said Arthur, without any great conviction, 'we both should.'
'Why?' asked the boy, still staring.
Arthur struggled for an answer. He wasn't good at talking about these things, that had always been her job. Hell, he'd not even rung his daughter yet. His eyes began to sting.
Why should this boy go back? And back to what? Back to age? Back to loss and illness?
'Because you're not the ocean,' Arthur managed, although he wasn't quite sure what it meant or where it had come from.
'I'm the space between stars,' his voice broke slightly as he spoke, his shoulders sagging.
'There's no space in the ocean,' Arthur said, taking the boy gently but firmly by the arm, 'but there's space in you.'
'What if I run out?'
'You don't run out of space, lad,' said Arthur, 'you just build more space.'
'It hurts.'
'Aye, it'll hurt. Hurting means you're alive.'
The boy let himself be led a little way back before walking on his own. He moved slowly, as though against a great wind.
Arthur stopped and watched until the light of the town distorted the boy's shape. He waited for a few moments more, just to see if he'd come back.
'Hurting means you're alive,' Arthur repeated, to the night sky.
The waves were lapping at his heels; dawn was only a few hours away.
Desert Shadows
Firefall. A planet named after the method of its destruction. Deserts stretched out across every mile of its surface. Oceans, mountains, jungles, all replaced by vast dunes of crystal sand. A desolate planet in a deserted system. The planet was abandoned, but perhaps not forgotten.
A flare of light and a trail of amber fire across the northern hemisphere announced a ship making planet fall for the first time in a century. Elegant in design, delicately streamlined with graceful, sweeping wings, and a smooth exterior, almost glistening in the remorseless sun. Its type had once often visited here, but now it was a rarity.
It slowed above the dunes and began to circle. At length it descended. Pincer-like feet unfurled from its underbelly and sank into the sand. A hatch slid open and a gangplank extended. Two figures emerged, one wrapped in flowing blood-red robes, the other in shorter, blue robes. Both wore heavy gloves and boots, their faces hidden within deep hoods.
They walked southwards without pause, caring not at all for the heat. Only when the pair were nearly out of sight of their craft did one pause. The figure in blue robes turned, perhaps a moment of misgiving, and looked back at the ship.
Whatever doubts it had only slowed it for a moment. The figure in blue soon fell back into step with its red robed comrade. Eventually the sun began to dip behind the horizon and the dunes cast long shadows. Still the pair walked, until the figure in blue robes stopped again.
'Here?' it asked, a hint of impatience in its raspy voice.
'Close,' said the figure in red.
Blue pointed back the way they had come.
'Could have flown,' it said.
The other shook its head and waved one gloved hand in the air
'Disruption, old defence protocol. It means survivor. You feel it?'
Blue shook its head.
'You are young. Disruption would stop ship,' red explained, 'Have to walk. Close now.'
The moon was high in the sky and the air was frigid when the red robed figure stopped at last, and produced a device. It tossed it to the sand and then backed away. A moment passed and then the device sprang to life. With a flash and a whir, it began to push away the sands with invisible tides of energy - excavating a hole. At the bottom of this hole, just several feet down, was a layer of polished metal and a broken hatch.
The pair jumped down into the newly dug hole, their boots clanging on the uncovered metal surface.
'Old,' said the figure in blue.
'Very old,' agreed red, 'long buried.'
The hatchway was warped. Something had torn it open, long ago. Now the corridor beyond was swamped with sand. They pulled glowing orbs from their robes, casting away a darkness that had long held dominion.
The insides of the ship were in a bad state. Panels were bent and broken, revealing wires and pipes all misshapen and degraded with time.
'This way,' said the figure in red, 'follow.'
For a time they simply drifted from room to room, from deck to deck, searching without urgency. What few things the ship still held, old empty storage boxes and strange ornaments, did not interest the pair.
'Maybe there?' asked the figure in blue, upon spying a corridor lined with small doors.
'Escape pods,' said the figure in red, 'maybe.'
All but one of the escape pods had been launched; the small portholes in the doors were filled with sand. Upon looking through the small window to the only un-launched pod the figure in red gave a yelp of excitement.
'Here!' it cried.
The door was fused shut but at the urging of his companion the blue robed figure produced a cutting device and painstakingly began to cut through the heavy door. Time ticked by but soon the door fell inwards. Inside was a figure. They shined their lights upon it and seemed undisturbed by what they saw.
There lay a form, naked and skeletal. The structure of the thing initially suggested that its flesh had decayed, but on closer inspection this wasn't the case. Whilst thin and delicate, the being was nonetheless complete. Skeletal yes, but with no skeleton showing. Its clothes had decayed, but its body, not so much. It's head was round, but with a narrow jaw and large eyes. The eyes were dark, glassy.
The pair fell into a reverent silence.
'Dead,' sighed the figure in blue.
'Long dead,' agreed the figure in red, 'but not a waste.'
It knelt by the morbid thing and lifted up one lifeless arm. On one long, slender finger was a ring. It was gold and adorned with a black jewel. The figure in blue made an excited rumbling noise.
'For me?' it asked.
'No,' the figure in red shook its head, 'for me.'
It twisted the ring; a sucking, mechanical "pop" noise announced its removal from the hand of its former owner. Even after the figure in red pulled it away thread-like wires still trailed from it to the dead body. With the utmost of care the figure in red separated these strands one by one.
The figure in blue sighed.
'You had last one,' it said, a hint of anger, once its companion was finished.
The figure in red didn't answer; instead it reached behind the skull of the pod occupant and pulled something loose. A distant thrumming so consistent so as to only be noticed by its absence, abruptly stopped.
'Field gone,' it said, 'call ship.'
The figure in blue grudgingly complied.
***
Their own craft was already waiting for them when they climbed back out of the broken hatch. They quickly boarded and in the belly of their ship the figure in red held the ring up to a light.
'This one very old. Full of smarts,' it said, knowledgeably.
'I want smarts!' said the figure in blue.
At this the figure in red pulled off its gloves. Upon its long blackened fingers were a dozen rings. Some similar to the one they had recently acquired, some quite different.
The figure in blue wrenched off its own gloves to reveal similar hands with only half the amount of decoration.
'You have more!' it cried, exasperated.
'Exactly!' said the figure in red, 'I get smarter, stronger. More smarts and more strong means we find more rings. Then you get some.'
The figure in
blue looked ready to argue. It pulled back its hood revealing no face, but a sunken skeletal husk, almost identical to what they'd found in the escape pods. Unlike the remains in the pod its eyes were alive and bright, a rainbow of flickering colours.
'It only had one ring!' snarled blue, 'Why? When we need many just to live?'
Red slid the new ring onto its index finger, were there was still some room. Thin trails of silky wires rose up, out of its skin, to meet it, and once it was placed the jewel began to softly glow, like all the others. Red drew back its hood revealing a face similar to its companion, but with eyes that now faded slowly from colour to colour.
'Long ago we all only needed one ring each,' it said with a new, more educated tone, 'things changed. That's why the war started. We got weaker; we had to fight for what was left.'
Blue punched the wall.
'Not fair!' it wailed.
Red reached out, putting a consolatory hand on blue's shoulder.
'I know. It's not fair. But come, there are signals on seven other planets. I will let you have those, okay? We will rebuild our intelligence together - we'll work out what really happened.'
Blue brightened.
'You promise?' it asked, hopefully.
'I promise,' said red.
'Just us?'
'It's only us left,' red said, softly.
The figure in blue nodded happily at this and left, its anger already forgotten. The figure in red, as its mind broadened, began to feel the creeping hand of misery.
'Just us,' it said to the empty room, 'Just us.'
The Decadent Beggar
The table stands at fifty thousand feet tall. It took the destruction of every forest in the universe to build it and it sags under the weight of delicacies most would consider inedible. There are guests around the table, one might hazard to call them human, but such terminology is too limited. Their eyes sparkle with more light than the chandelier; an old star collapsing from a red giant into a red dwarf, frozen in time. These are beings that make it their business to know the happenings of reality – but they don’t know why they have been invited here and it excites them. They whisper to each other in voices of gold and silver.
Death Echo - Volume 1 Page 4
