The Tropic of Eternity

by Tom Toner

  Lycaste, Perception, Maneker and the crew of the Epsilon India arrive within the Grand-Tile’s enormous wake, where they encounter the Feeders, the motley groupings of Prism ships that follow every Colossus battleship, where Maneker plans to hire as many Prism battalions and mercenaries as he can to aid them in the struggle against Aaron.

  On the volcanic world of Glumatis, Maril and his crew have been freed from their cells by Gramps and are on the run from the Bult cannibals. With every Quetterel dead, they head deep into the forest, only to discover with Gramps’ help the Threshold, one of many ancient portals into the next galaxy. They climb in and are transported instantly to the Hedron Stars—artificial snowflake-shaped worlds—at the Milky Way’s edge.

  Their mercenaries hired, Maneker, Perception and Lycaste at last catch up to the Grand-Tile as it speeds to Gliese, every soul aboard preparing for the greatest battle Mammalian kind has ever faced.

  PROLOGUE

  GULPMOUTH

  There were stories of the lagoon dating back nine thousand years, from the time of Drolgins’ first visitors; tales passed down through the generations, lingering in people’s collective memories until, like the folk who told them, they had twisted into something else entirely.

  Impio was a vast body of chalky water, possessing near its southern tip a murky blue hole lying visible on the sandy bed. The first travellers to reach the place called the hole Saint Anthony’s Mouth, after the soft, glottal sounds that filtered up from its depths. It was thought to be nearly bottomless, a fissure reaching down all the way through the moon’s sulphurous crust—home, the oldest of them said, to giant fish with glowing illicium lures—and into whatever realms lay beneath. It was a place of odd currents and indeterminable effects: those who swam over the hole would suddenly sink like a pebble, and anyone venturing down after them never returned.

  As the ages passed, the hole acquired a new name, having eaten so many hundreds in its time: the Gulp. The voices that bubbled to its surface were spoken to and parroted, the way someone might talk to a pet, but no longer studied. Soon even they were ignored, and the great, venerable moon of Drolgins moved on.

  A small, leaky Vulgar fishing boat bobbed on the tide, dredging for sluppocks and crablings with a ripped net, its occupants dozing off in the midday heat and batting lazily at the flies. Their boat, its anchor rope snapped, had drifted over the course of the morning from the rocks of Milkland and into the cloudy, pale waters surrounding the Gulp. By mid-afternoon they were almost directly over the hole, rocking and creaking in the warm wind, the flies dispersing. In place of the insects’ drone, the dreams of the Vulgar on board were filled with strange voices and faces. The faces asked the crew questions about their lives, and, in their dreams, they answered.

  The boat remained in place, its shadow falling over the small blue mouth until something stirred in the depths, rising in a cloud of sand to investigate the hull. It passed beneath, a blue shadow rocking the little vessel and tinkling its bells, and made its slow, sinuous way towards the harbour.

  Muerto Hichie, Muerto,

  Omer, muerto . . .

  The Vulgar Ogarch Berphio of Gulpmouth sang a little more of the sweet song, a lamentation for dear, young Hichie, as he cracked the top of his giant breakfast egg and dug into it with a spoon.

  “Muerto Hichie, oh, how I loved you!” he breathed, dribbling yolk into his beard and grubbing for his napkin. “Taken away, so soon, too soon. Taken away from meeeee . . .”

  The mayor stopped to listen as he ate, scooping busily around inside the egg. Bells

  He laid down his spoon and looked sharply out of the window.

  “Berf!” It was his brother-in-law, Kippo, calling from down by the estuary.

  Berphio swung open the window and leaned out. “What?”

  “Get down here!”

  He moved through his keep at a fast walk, knotting his cravat, and sat by the door to tie up his boots. One of the Gurlish soldiers at the gate offered to help and he submitted, leaning back and listening to the growing commotion outside.

  “Follow me,” he said to the soldier when he was done. “And get Jem and Lamlo.”

  Outside, the grey drizzle wet his face, carried on a crisp, stench-laden wind that snapped at the ribbons of his cape. Berphio adjusted the chinstrap of his large hat and strode down the steps to the black sand of the estuary’s edge.

  Kippo came running for him along the sand, his clothes billowing about him. A carriage dragged by four excited hounds stood waiting.

  “So?” Berphio asked, wiping drying yolk from his beard.

  “Cethegrande. Beached himself this morning.”

  They climbed into the carriage, the mayor looking out along the milky water’s edge to where the lagoon broadened beyond the harbour.

  “Who?”

  Kippo sucked his flask, the bark of the hounds adding to the frenzy as they bounced along the sand. “Dunno. Don’t recognise him.”

  Berphio leaned out of the window and bellowed at the houndriders. “Faster!”

  They came rattling around the gloomy headland, the hounds barking. Filgurbirund, a stately ball of faded dirty blues and pinks, sat brooding on the horizon.

  Berphio scanned the black beach, spotting stragglers following the large crowd that had already gathered. They seethed like flies at a point near the Lunatic’s castle, obscuring whatever had come ashore.

  “Clear them out of the way,” he instructed, opening the door of the carriage before it had fully stopped and jumping awkwardly out onto the sand. The two soldiers leapt after him and strode ahead, firing their spring pistols into the air.

  The crowd dithered, apparently unimpressed, only moving a little when Berphio himself waddled up and shoved his way through, eyes widening at the sight.

  “Anyone know this fellow?” Kippo asked, breathing hard as he joined Berphio and staring into the ring of Vulgar.

  “It’s not . . . it’s not him, is it?” the mayor whispered.

  “Howlos has a couple of broken incisors,” Kippo said.

  “Howlos was never chained,” replied one of the soldiers, keeping his distance.

  Berphio thought for a bit, placing a hand on his hat to stop it blowing away. “Get on the wire, call up one of Andolp’s men . . .” He exhaled, running his eyes over the apparition that had beached itself on his land. “And send for a Champion, before the good sir wakes himself up.”

  Drolgins, Filgurbirund’s largest moon, was the size of the Old World, home to eleven billion Vulgar and counting. It clung to its vast parent planet like a meaty, half-grown child, dragging seasonal storms across its mother with each languid rotation and blotting out the daylight over some countries for a week at a time. It was a wild world, possessed of a Firmament-renowned sea of horrors: the Lagoon of Impio.

  The six-wheeled vehicle motored along the hill road, smoke rolling from its chimney. Its lights came on as it grumbled down onto the sand, illuminating the black beach with a harsh yellow glare that lit the faces of the watching Vulgar.

  Champion Tomothus climbed out as the Vulgar ran across the shore to him, locking the roller and pocketing the key before leaping down. He stumbled on the sand, unable to decide whether he was still drunk, aware of a fermented stink seeping from his breath and clothes. He hitched up his loose pants, singling out the mayor in his ribbons and hat, and pushed his way through the crowd to him.

  “Where is it?” Tomothus asked without preamble, having not sighted anything on this stretch of the beach during his winding trip through the hills. Across the bay, where the water churned milky against the black rocks, a ramshackle castle brooded. Dark, scrawny trees poked from the waters, their branches thick with squeaking birds.

  The mayor bowed. “This way, Champion.”

  They trudged across the sands, the chill wind whipping sharp little grains into his eyes. Most Drolgins beaches were populated with gaunt shanty dwellers that scraped a living digging worms and salvage out of the shallows, but here the sands were
empty. Rounding the rocks, Tomothus saw them all, milling and drinking and gawking. A fleet of unsound wooden boats bobbed in the grey-blue waves, clustering around the new arrival.

  He studied the markings on the half-submerged tail, waiting for the crowd to part.

  Over the heads of the Vulgar, he could see, running along the crest of the thing’s mottled back, a fringe of wet auburn hair—so wiry that it was often used for rope—and, visible between the crowd, a vestigial clawed hand. Tomothus watched a clump of hair stir in the wind, accompanied by a reflexive ripple of muscle beneath the skin.

  He walked closer. This fellow wasn’t particularly large so he couldn’t be very old, and yet his skin was pocked and criss-crossed with scars, which Tomothus had taken for spots a few moments before. Thick orange links of sea-denuded chain dangled from the mammal’s flanks, crusted with barnacles where they fastened into his skin. Colonies of glistening, finger-sized sluppocks dangled from the puncture holes, and some of the braver gawkers were already scraping them off with poles improvised from the morning’s driftwood.

  “Stop them doing that, would you, Berphio?”

  The mayor sent his men, who grabbed the scavengers’ sticks.

  He stepped closer. The Cethegrandes of Drolgins, as these beasts were known, were a relatively disparate, long-lived bunch. A great interest was taken in who sired whom, and, as a Champion of Milkland, Tomothus had seen the rolls. He studied the shape and colours of the thing, still unable to see its head, tucked away somewhere as it slept.

  “It might be Scallywag,” he said.

  The mayor planted his hands on his hips, his hat, now unsupported, in serious danger of blowing away. “A pup, is it?”

  Scaleag: sired of Jumjagh and Nerephanie, grandson of the Formidable Marjumo.

  Tomothus shrugged. The Cethegrande wasn’t old: barely past his first century. His bastardized name was the result of a rather spirited companionship he once maintained with an Investiture-renowned criminal.

  Tomothus looked at Berphio. “Count Andolp holds the land deeds here, does he not?”

  The mayor looked flummoxed for a moment. “He does, but—”

  “You’ll have to send him word. This doesn’t bode well.”

  As the Champion spoke, a pack of tawny hounds approached along the beach, dragging a massive wooden trough on wheels.

  Tomothus pointed at it. “What’s this about?”

  Three great piles were being offloaded from the trough, their smell already reaching the onlookers.

  “Sugar, lard and salt,” Berphio said, gesturing at each in turn. “A breakfast for the good sir when he wakes.”

  “You cannot befriend the Cethegrandes,” Tomothus said. “If he wants to smash your port to smithereens, he shall.” They regarded each other, then the new arrival. “Let me put the boot in him for you.”

  The mayor looked uneasy.

  Tomothus rubbed his gauntlets together and made for the beast’s flank, the Vulgar moving back.

  “Wakey-wakey!” Tomothus shouted, aiming a kick at a soft-looking part. His boot bounced as if connecting with a wall of rubber. He kicked harder, gratified after a few moments to see he’d left a mark. The crowd made an ooh sound.

  “Up you get now, Scallywag!”

  The entire beach fell silent, waiting. Children that had been running and screaming and fighting stopped, punches half-thrown, eyes expectant.

  String music from along the beach drifted merrily through the grey air. The wall of scarred blubber grumbled, rippling.

  “Up now!” Tomothus repeated. “Have your breakfast!”

  Muscles stirred beneath the skin, tensing, contracting.

  “Come on! Have your treats and be off now!”

  The crowd on the far side of the creature stepped back as one, some scampering away along the beach. Tomothus hesitated, his boot raised.

  The beast rose a little on its hands, digging gouges into the black sand, and untucked its meaty head. It yawned, spraying spittle into the wind and revealing man-like incisors, then turned its eyes on him.

  Tomothus gazed back, holding his ground. He could see once again why the Amaranthine called them the cousins of wolves.

  Scallywag’s shrunken ears were those of a hound, tufted with the same gingery hair at their tips and beaded with seawater. Its snout, which it licked as it woke up, was slitted with coiled, expressive nostrils. It swallowed as it regarded him and ran its huge grey tongue across its nostrils again.

  “Breakfast,” he said loudly, gesturing at the piles.

  The Cethegrande swung its saggy head and snorted, eyeing the treats, then looked back at him, its mouth hanging open. A spark of uncertainty hovered in its gaze. Tomothus smiled a little.

  “Berphio,” he called to the distant mayor. “Show him your food’s as good as your word.”

  “What?” the mayor called. A light rain had begun to sweep in off the sea, dampening his voice.

  “Show him you’re not trying to poison him.”

  The mayor made his nervous way to the mounds, adjusting his hat and casting quick glances at the Cethegrande. Its greedy blue eyes followed him, the sheet of increasingly heavy drizzle dampening the beast’s colour so that it was as if a pale apparition watched him through the rain.

  He arrived at the mountain of salt and buried his finger in it.

  “See?” he called, tasting it and grimacing. “Salt.”

  Scallywag remained motionless, though its eyes flicked to Tomothus, then back again.

  Berphio went and dug his hand into the next offering, the sugar. He smiled as he licked his fingers. “Best sweet sugar, from Filgurbirund. Very expensive, this.”

  This time, the Cethegrande’s eyes didn’t leave his.

  The mayor swallowed and went to the last pile, a creamy, peaked lump, shiny in the rain. The stink of putrefaction hung around it. Berphio slid a finger into the cold jelly and examined what came out. “Fat,” he called out through the drizzle. “Best fat.”

  He licked his finger and swallowed with difficulty.

  “There now,” Champion Tomothus said, spreading his arms and looking at Scallywag. “What do you think of that?”

  The crowd on the beach held its collective breath while Scallywag considered the offer. The Cethegrandes were technically beholden to the Vulgar kings, vassals bound by ancient agreement, and every now and then they’d even been commanded in war. That said, boats on their long crossings of the lagoon were never entirely safe from being swallowed, and Tomothus sensed in this one an especially anarchistic streak, something that would make his job here difficult.

  Scallywag’s muscles rippled, and with a heave of effort the Cethegrande slithered forwards on its belly, pushing towards the offerings. Berphio scampered back, yanking his hat down. Tomothus held his ground as best he could, allowing the beast to pass him by in a blast of pungent air. The crowd began to whistle and he took a trembling bow.

  *

  Five minutes later, it had laid waste to the piles, rolling to sun its belly as the weather cleared and smacking its lips. The mayor sidled up to Tomothus, clutching his hat.

  “Now he’s on his back, shouldn’t we—?”

  Berphio gestured over at the Cethegrande’s great swollen belly. A tendon of pinkish flesh ran between its vestigial legs, crested with another ridge of ginger hair. “They buy it by the bucket in Napp now— for breeding, for the war.”

  Tomothus looked. Scallywag’s pendulous white testicles must have weighed half a ton each.

  “How much?”

  Berphio pursed his lips. “Eight, nine hundred a barrel.”

  Tomothus glanced back. The Cethegrande’s penis was invisible, likely shrunk up inside the scrotum in this cold wind, though it wasn’t impossible that some rival had bitten it off during a fight. Nevertheless, you didn’t get chances like these every day.

  He turned to Berphio. “Better get to work, then, while he’s sleepy.”

  Tomothus returned from his roller, having completed the s
emi-successful task of radioing the fortress at Blackburrow. Millennia of accumulated orbital debris around Filgurbirund and its moon had made communications perpetually choppy, and it had been impossible to determine whether the squeaky person he’d spoken to would pass on the message, but he’d done his best.

  The bravest of the beachcombers were almost done. They crouched, sleeves rolled up, crowded around the Cethegrande’s swollen member. Tomothus took a moment to savour the absurdity of the situation while his hangover abated. Finally Scallywag bucked, squirming, and gave them what they wanted, hurling off all but the bucket man, who had clung onto the creature’s sparse mane. The bucket itself nearly toppled over when he made his way down, and Tomothus breathed a sigh of relief when the precious load was laid before him on the sand.

  “Right then,” he said, knotting his scarves against the wind and approaching Scallywag from the side, so that its lethargic blue eye could roll over and see him. The beachcombers beat a hasty retreat to the edge of the waves.

  “You’ve had a nice time, Scallywag; you’ve had your breakfast, filled our bucket. The lord of these lands wants you gone now.”

  Silence but for the patter of rain, the shuddering moan of the wind in his eardrums.

  Berphio would later say that he saw it coming, but in truth the Cethegrande gave no sign. Scallywag rolled onto his side and turned back to the rainy sea, great belly jiggling as he ploughed through the sand. Even Tomothus looked surprised.

  But then Scallywag paused, and everyone on the beach knew that he’d changed his mind.

  Everyone but Tomothus. The fool stood his ground. Berphio had smelled the drink on him; saw how it had given him courage. By the time the Champion realised, Scallywag had already begun to lunge.

  With a snap, he had Tomothus’s leg between his teeth, hauling him into the air. There were gasps and even whistles from the crowd on the beach, the Champion’s pleading screams lost to their roar. Once he had Tomothus in his jaws, however, Scallywag didn’t appear to know what to do with him. Berphio stared, transfixed, as Scallywag let him dangle there, wriggling like a worm from a cat’s mouth. The Cethegrande surveyed the crowd for a moment, Tomothus’s screams growing hoarse, and turned again for the water, stubby feet pushing off against the sand until it had launched itself with a massive surge of spray back into the sea.