by Jack
‘What is it?’ said Astatine, laying her hands on him. Her forgiveness seemed to ease his pain.
‘K’nacka gave me two finger bones, but I only used one to open the casket. This is the other.’
‘You thrust it into the Great God’s heart.’
‘He could only die by his own hand.’
‘And now you’re dying as well.’
‘Death feels a lot more comfortable than my empty life.’ His eyes closed. ‘Look after my little sister, won’t you, Roget?’
‘I will,’ said Roget, gripping his hand, and Greave died.
* * * *
Fistus was bound and gagged, his staff and magical devices broken, then the gods and demons gathered.
‘There must be a reckoning,’ said K’nacka, his eyes glinting. ‘Behemoth has gone too far this time — seducing our cardinal, corrupting the temple, putting Elyssian, Hightspall and Perdition at risk. He must be curbed, forever.’
‘I can cause you more grief than you can me,’ said Behemoth.
‘Isn’t this how it all started?’ said Roget quietly.
How could they prevent the terrible cycle from beginning again? Astatine had thought of a way, though it required her to sit in judgement on two immortals: the god who had been the mainstay of her wretched life, and the father to whom she owed, if nothing else, daughterly respect.
‘How can one so worthless as I presume to pass sentence on my god?’ she mused. ‘Surely that would put me in the same league of wickedness as Fistus?’
‘When our gods fall short,’ said Roget, ‘we can only rely on our own good sense — for good or ill.’
Astatine’s chest tightened until it was hard to breathe, and she felt her panic rising. A thousand times she had been slapped down as an arrogant, ignorant novice, told that she must not think or question, only obey. But unthinking obedience would serve her no longer; for the sake of Hightspall, and the gods, she must take control. If she did not, Greave’s noble sacrifice would be wasted.
Breathing became a little easier. She had to do this, no matter if it cost her life. Astatine raised her voice. ‘Worshipful K’nacka, beloved Father, would you come with me?’
Neither god nor demon looked pleased at the summons, yet they followed her down the hill and out of sight of the others.
Well, mortal? growled K’nacka, perching his plump buttocks on a pointed rock.
Her heart was galloping now. ‘My lord,’ she said, gulping, ‘Your wickedness led to this disgraceful Covenant, and to the torment of thousands of innocent souls you paid in tribute to Perdition. You are unworthy.’
You blasphemous little slut! cried K’nacka, rising into the air and raising a fist to smite her dead.
Behemoth cleared his throat and K’nacka subsided, muttering.
Her father was grinning. ‘Oh, yes, you’re definitely my daughter.’
‘You’re just as bad, Father! No, worse. How could you do this to me?’
The smile became predatory. ‘Make your petty point.’
‘Even when I was a little girl, I never felt I belonged, not even in my own body. And all my life I’ve believed that I carried corruption inside me — that I was responsible for the despair and wickedness in Hightspall.’ She met their eyes, trying not to flinch. ‘But it came from you, Father — you and him.’
‘So?’ said Behemoth.
Astatine stalled, unable to see the way ahead. She had thought to shame K’nacka and Behemoth by telling the gods and demons about the Covenant, but without proof they would ignore her. Besides, that would break her oath to Hildy. She sought for another way.
‘Lord K’nacka,’ she said, ‘you have debauched Elyssian and shamed the gods. Either you abdicate, or I’ll reveal the Covenant.’ She prayed that he would not call her double bluff.
Abdicate! K’nacka’s cry started an avalanche down the slope. Where to?
‘Perdition.’
Show me the Covenant.
Her bluff had been called, and she had lost. Her father was smiling grimly; no help there. The skin of her belly prickled, the dark specks that were always itchy, and Hildy’s dying words, ‘The stigmata —’ resurfaced.
They struck her like one of the Great God’s thunderbolts — so that’s why she’d always felt that she was corrupting the world. Astatine took a deep breath, praying that her hunch was right, and held out her hand. ‘Father, your enchanted blade.’
He gave it to her. She opened her habit and made a careful scratch across her lower belly with the tip of the knife, then up, across below her breasts and down again.
‘It wasn’t my body I did not belong in, was it, Father?’ she said, feathering up her creamy skin to reveal a dark inner skin beneath. She peeled the pale rectangle off and held it out, displaying the damning words and signatures on the inside.
‘It was my skin! When I was a little girl you covered my dark skin with a second, pale skin onto which you’d copied the Covenant on the inside.’ She took a step towards Behemoth. ‘How could you do this to me? All the ills of the world come from this dreadful Covenant.’
‘Not all the ills,’ said Behemoth, somewhat abashed. ‘I don’t turn good to evil, Daughter. I merely improve on the evil which already flourishes in humanity.’
K’nacka eyed the Covenant, slowly extending his fingers.
‘It’s under my protection,’ hissed Behemoth.
K’nacka drew back, rubbing his chin. To give up Elyssian, he said shrewdly, I need more. What else are you proposing, demon’s daughter?
‘Father will give you back your —’ Astatine flushed; no virtuous novice would name those body parts. ‘What you’ve lost.’
I lose Elyssian, and all he gives up are the balls he robbed me of with loaded dice, snapped K’nacka. It’s not enough.
‘Father will also abdicate,’ said Astatine, avoiding Behemoth’s furious eye. ‘Perdition must find a new lord.’
Me? breathed K’nacka.
‘Isn’t it better to reign in Perdition than endure eternal mockery in Elyssian?’
‘Damned if I’ll abdicate!’ said Behemoth.
‘Exactly,’ said Astatine, ‘and you will return all the unjustly reaped souls to Elyssian.’
‘Or?’ said her father.
She had not realised how sharp his teeth were, how black his eyes. Astatine swallowed, wavered, but knew she had to go on. ‘Or I’ll tell your fellow demons that you’ve been making deals with the gods.’
‘I could destroy the Covenant.’
It’s under my protection, said K’nacka, raising his fist.
Behemoth turned his way, putting on a patently false smile. ‘K’nacka, my old sparring partner, we don’t have to put up with this. She’s just a slip of a girl. We can take the Covenant off her in a second, and destroy it together.’
Astatine hadn’t thought of that, yet they had diced together; they had just fought side by side, and they both wanted the Covenant destroyed. Of course they would take it.
Do you seriously think I’ll deal with you again after you cheated me? said K’nacka.
‘It was worth a try,’ said Behemoth.
Besides, I can’t bear the tedium of Elyssian any longer.
‘Not even with all those month-brides to comfort you?’ Behemoth said slyly.
They were just for show; what use are brides to a godless god? But it’ll be different in Perdition. I’m looking forward to the challenge of toppling you. I feel quite alive again.
‘So do I, my old enemy,’ said Behemoth, his black eyes gleaming. ‘So do I.’
After K’nacka had returned to the other gods, Behemoth said, ‘You drive a devil of a bargain, Daughter.’
‘I learned from the master. Oh, and when you go, take Fistus with you.’
‘If he enters Perdition alive, he’ll suffer even more cruelly.’
Mercy, vengeance, or retribution? The abbey’s teachings, or Perdition’s? She had broken her vow and no abbey would take her in, but she would always be a demon’s daughter.
Besides, mercy would only give Fistus the chance to begin again. ‘He has to pay his debts. Take him.’
Behemoth nodded, rose, but settled down again, staring at her.
‘What?’ Astatine said, afraid he was going to punish her.
‘Take off that ugly white skin. Let me see my beautiful daughter as she really is.’
She started, then went between the rocks, undressed and took hold of an edge of her white skin. It sloughed off easily, as if Behemoth had broken the bonds that held it in place. Astatine threw the ugly novice’s habit away, put her gown on over the cocoa skin that felt so right, and went back.
Behemoth sighed and, to her astonishment, an adamantine tear appeared in one eye.
‘Come back with me,’ he said. ‘In Perdition you will be a princess. You can have everything you ever wanted.’
Astatine was tempted, but she said, ‘Why would I want to be a princess of tormented souls?’
‘A nun is a slave to live souls.’
‘I can’t be a nun; I’ve broken my vows.’
‘No one need ever know. You can go back, if that’s what you really want.’
‘I would know. Besides, someone has to make up for what you and K’nacka have done to Hightspall. I’m going to help put it right.’
‘You won’t succeed. The world is too far gone.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘It’s mine.’
‘Not any more. I’m going to fight the influence of Perdition all the way.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ he said fondly. ‘But the gods are no better, you know.’
Astatine hesitated, now knowing how imperfect the gods were; how capricious. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed in them any more, as gods. And yet, perhaps they were needed.
‘People have to believe in something, Father. If they can’t, they’ll believe in anything. Besides, I believe that the gods reflect who we are. If we live better lives, they might, too.’
‘Blasphemy!’ he growled. ‘Well, don’t think you’re going to corrupt me into goodness.
‘I’m my father’s daughter,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I’ve already corrupted you.’
* * * *
Afterword
‘Tribute to Hell’ is set in the Elder’ Days of a new fantasy world explored I’ll detail in the trilogy The Tainted Realm, which will be published worldwide by Orbit Books from late 2010. The first book is Vengeance.
— Ian Irvine
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* * * *
John Birmingham’s proudest achievement as a writer was being published in the Long Bay Bay Prison News. After that it was all downhill. Contributing editor for a bunch of porn mags like Playboy and Penthouse, sleeping on the couch at Rolling Stone while he waited for his dole cheques to clear. Raiding the beer at the cricket and footy while writing for Wisden and Inside Sport. No wonder he shifted to indie comedy in He Died With a Felafel in His Hand and genre writing with the Axis of Time series and his current trilogy which kicked off in Without Warning, and continues really, really soon with After America.
* * * *
A Captain of the Gate
John Birmingham
Then out spake brave Horatius,
the Captain of the Gate,
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods?’
Thomas Babington, first Baron Macauley.
* * * *
Acknowledgments
Books like this bear the name of only one author, which is a grave disservice to the many people who bring them into being. My US editor, Betsy Mitchell, and my Australian boss lady, Cate Paterson are both owed a debt I can never hope to repay. So too my agent Russ Galen who first proposed this idea while I was in the US on a Fulbright scholarship in 1998. To them, and to all of the production staff at Random House and Pan MacMillan, I offer thanks.
A number of people from various libraries, universities, research foundations and public and private archives were also embarrassingly generous with their time on this project. I am grateful beyond words to the trustees of the McKinnon Foundation for the unfettered access and unstinting support they provided throughout the research and writing process. The US Library of Congress, the Department of Defense in Washington, the Office of Strategic Services (Archives and Records), the Imperial War Museum in London, the Australian Colonial Office and the Southeast Asian section of the International Criminal Court (War Crimes and Human Rights Division) were all enormously important and supportive of this project.
Finally I must acknowledge the love and counsel of my wife and children who put up with six years of obsessive, irascible, distant and downright unacceptable behavior from me while I brought this book to print.
* * * *
Prologue
Branch McKinnon exhaled, and with the hot, stale breath, went some of the tension cramping his arms and shoulders. Not that he relaxed. That would have been impossible. But as he saw the end coming, with no chance of escape or redemption, he accepted it for the first time, and some of the fear and the strain of the last few weeks ebbed away.
He waited. The muzzle of his Thompson gun tracked the small group of North Koreans as they cautiously rounded the huge mound of burning rubble at the end of the street. It had been a seafood warehouse, and the stench of burned and rotting fish guts was vile enough to blot out the smells of the harbour city as it died around him. Spoiled meat, slumping piles of garbage alive with carpets of black flies, the unwashed bodies of his platoon, napalm smoke and festering wounds; the evil stink of the warehouse blotted them all out.
Pusan was dying. The little port city that had held out for so long would be overrun, probably in the next few hours, and his small band of brothers was sure to die with her. He was aware, without turning to look at them, of his men in the firing pit next to him. Nate Lundquist was hunkered down over the platoon’s thirty cal. Jimbo Jamieson held a belt of shiny cartridges off the rubble and ash. He had another two boxes of ammo and, most precious of all, a spare barrel ready to go. Never taking his eyes off the enemy as they crept closer, he could still sense the rest of the guys. A patch of red hair peeking out beneath the curve of a helmet. The unnaturally straight line of a bayonet. A muted cough in the next foxhole, barely audible under the freight train scream of sixteen-inch shells arcing overhead. As long as they’d had the Navy at their backs McKinnon had felt there might be a small chance of surviving. But even the brightest optimist couldn’t ignore how thin the cover from the big guns had grown.
Word was, two of the battlewagons had been sunk in the last six hours. McKinnon had heard more than a dozen different rumours as to how, but he paid none of them a scrap of notice. All that mattered was the stone cold reality of those Koreans, or maybe Chinese, down the end of the street. Even yesterday they’d have been blown to pieces miles away from the edge of town. Now they were right in the heart of it. The docks, where the promised evac had descended into an unholy clusterfuck, were only two miles away. Thousands of people were trapped down there — - Americans, Koreans, soldiers and civilians — none of them willing to wait anymore. When the captain had detailed Branch and his men as a rearguard he’d given it to them straight. Everything had gone to shit. Friendlies had turned their guns on each other. ROK forces had shot down women and children to clear a path to the barges for themselves. Marines, our marines, had poured fire on them in turn. It was, said the captain, an unmitigated horror. But what choice did they have? As long as they held the docks, they at least had to try and get some people away. They had to try.
McKinnon found himself shrugging again as he recalled the conversation. The captain hadn’t bothered to insult him by pretending any of his boys were going to get away.
And then Lieutenant Branch McKinnon was flying. Turning slowly, impossibly through the air, like a Baltimore Oriole. His mind, detached from the
dead, stringless puppet of his body pulled free with a discernible tug. He watched himself falling back to earth with bricks and clods of dirt, with the disembodied arms and legs of his friends and enemies, with clattering pieces of steel and burning splinters of wood. Lieutenant Branch McKinnon of Macon, Georgia, twisted oh so slowly through clear air, up so high he imagined could see the entire city below him. The savage close-quarter battle that still raged around the spot where he had been blown clear out of his hole. The burning, ruined block he had been tasked with defending. The hundreds of communist soldiers running towards his position. And beyond that. He could see the Nakdong River curling its way around the mountains within which the city nestled. The beaches, on which thousands of people had gathered like dumb migrating animals, waiting to step off into the water. The port at which thousands more clawed at each other with hands and teeth for a spot on the handful of barges pulling away to sea. He could see the surviving ships of the US fleet as they poured on speed to escape the ignominious end.
