by Tim Wirkus
A final note before we jump into the narrative itself: We’ll be using Bombal’s version of the Rhadamanthus IX episode, from her Household Tales of Our Sertôrian. I draw from this particular collection not only because it is the oldest one and thus the most historically proximate to the life of Sertôrian but also because it is lesser known to my contemporaries than Wilson’s iconic and ubiquitous Sertôrian’s Travels. I hope the use of a more obscure text will productively defamiliarize the story for those who grew up with the Wilson. For a further justification of this choice, I refer my audience to Gretchen Tidewater’s excellent This Vast Canopy: A Re-Evaluation of Bombal.
And now, to the narrative:
• • •
Inside their rain-pelted tent, the only human refuge in all the vast and muddy Plains of Chubbúhc, Captain Irena Sertôrian lay on her cot contemplating the possibility that her two surviving crew members—Star-Guard Ava Valenti and Technician Seventh Grade Ernst de Bronk—might soon betray her.
She had never worried about mutiny from these two before. As much as they might abuse each other, squabbling like siblings, de Bronk and Valenti each remained intensely loyal to Sertôrian. But earlier this morning, on completing her turn at the watch, she’d reentered the tent to find Valenti and de Bronk in a flat-out brawl, pummeling each other with near-death blows on the canvas floor. In an act of open defiance, they’d ignored her orders to stop fighting immediately, opting instead to continue punching each other until Sertôrian had zapped them both with a specimen stunner from the field bio-kit. Aside from the inherent ugliness of their messy infighting, the insubordination of Valenti and de Bronk had hinted at dangerous emotions in Sertôrian’s two shipmates that could trump their longstanding loyalty to her.
This deterioration was in keeping with the general trajectory of their sojourn here on Rhadamanthus IX, which had so far been a dispiriting parade of failure and humiliation. They’d been forced to land on this hostile planet when the Circe’s temperamental thrust system had caught fire. They’d managed an emergency landing—just barely—but the moment they’d disembarked from the ship, an armed cadre of guards had taken them captive and thrown them into a clammy prison block, where they’d been tortured to no apparent purpose for three long days.
Finally, though, on the evening of the third day, Sertôrian had been brought before the planet’s ruler, a sandy-haired despot who styled himself the Arch-Kaiser Glenn Harrison. He’d told Sertôrian that the situation was a simple one—he would hang on to their ship (effectively preventing them from leaving the planet) until Sertôrian and her shipmates could bring him the Bulgakov Apparatus, which he believed to be hidden somewhere in the unsettled wilds of his planet.
More than a little taken aback by this demand, Sertôrian had asked if he was referring to the Bulgakov Apparatus—that legendary, long-lost piece of technology that was rumored to grant its possessor unimaginable, godlike powers.
“That’s the one,” the Arch-Kaiser had said.
“The same Bulgakov Apparatus that’s been lost for centuries?” Sertôrian had asked. “The same Bulgakov Apparatus that may never have existed in the first place?”
“It exists,” the Arch-Kaiser had said. “And if you and your shipmates ever want to leave this planet alive, you will bring it to me.”
If she hadn’t been tied to a chair, Sertôrian would have walked away at that point. Given her limited range of options, though, she’d agreed to the Arch-Kaiser’s terms. He’d outfitted them with the necessary equipment, and then bestowed upon them the blinking Green Beacon, an ancient artifact he’d claimed to have recovered on a recent archaeological dig.
“If I’ve correctly interpreted the glyphs on the outer casing,” he’d told Sertôrian, “you just need to take the Green Beacon to the lowest point of the Plains of Chubbúhc and wait. And from there, the Beacon will lead the way to”—he’d lowered his voice with an unfailing instinct for melodrama—“the Bulgakov Apparatus.”
Unfortunately, a month into their sojourn on the wet and dreary Plains of Chubbúhc, the Green Beacon had refused to do anything more than blink.
It would be an understatement to say that morale within the little party was grim. Valenti and de Bronk were constantly at each other’s throats, and Sertôrian—currently lying supine on her cot—felt stymied by their situation’s smothering torpor. She had a creeping sense that if she couldn’t turn things around soon, all three of them would die here.
What they needed, what Sertôrian’s leadership thrived on, was a change in the status quo.
That change came as de Bronk, out on watch duty, reentered the tent, his elderly, wrinkled face creased even more than usual in consternation.
Sertôrian sat up in her cot.
“It’s raining maggots out there,” said de Bronk, wiping the mud from his boots on their improvised doormat.
“What?” said Sertôrian.
“Maggots,” said de Bronk, pointing back at the door. “They’re falling from the sky.”
“That’s impossible,” said Valenti, looking up from cleaning her binoculars at the folding camp table.
De Bronk picked up a tin mug from the table, leaned over, and held it outside the tent. A few moments later, he pulled in his arm. With a smirk, he handed the mug to Valenti. She set down her binoculars and peered inside. The freshly gathered rainwater teemed with flailing maggots.
“Well?” said de Bronk.
Rain drummed down on the canvas roof of the tent.
“Valenti?” said Sertôrian.
“They do look like maggots, Captain,” she said with great reluctance.
“Get moving then,” said Sertôrian, springing up from her cot.
The demeanors of Valenti and de Bronk transformed instantly. With an obvious crisis before them, their murderous petulance dissolved into a high-caliber professionalism. The three shipmates gathered in formation at the front of the tent and Sertôrian pulled open the door flap.
They stared in wonder at the scene before them. The surrounding field crawled with maggots, and as the rain fell, the tiny, writhing figures multiplied, creating a soggy carpet of speckled white over the formerly muddy ground.
Sertôrian’s momentary relief at the change in the status quo gave way immediately to the pressing concerns of the moment. So maggots were, in fact, falling from the sky. Never mind the absurdity of it—what dangers might ensue? Although no immediate threat presented itself, Sertôrian began formulating a plan of action.
“We need to establish a perimeter around the tent,” she said. “If the maggots start getting inside—”
“I don’t think they want to come inside,” said Valenti.
And Valenti was right; even though maggots now covered the ground like snowdrifts, not one of them had entered the tent. Looking out over the field, Sertôrian found herself transfixed by the concerted movement of the white masses of larvae. They were, if anything, crawling away from the open door flap. As each maggot hit the ground it moved in concert with its fellows toward a single point—the flashing Green Beacon that the Arch-Kaiser had sent with them.
Barely breathing, Sertôrian and her crew watched the maggots converge on the green flashing light and, clinging to one another, envelop the beacon until it disappeared within an undulating mound of glistening larvae. The mound grew and grew and grew until the surrounding field was devoid of the white drifts of maggots that had formerly covered it. The resulting mass—a living boulder—squirmed within itself, the collective sound of so many tiny movements generating a soft wet sucking noise.
Then, out of the indistinct lump, a shape began to form. The boulder elongated itself into a vertical pillar over two meters tall before sprouting four symmetrical branches.
“A body,” said Valenti. “It’s turning into a body.”
Even as she said it, the figure became more distinct, the branches resolving themselves int
o arms and legs, the top of the pillar forming a head, the writhing, larval surface becoming a horrible simulacrum of muscles, tendons, and sinews. The mass of maggots now resembled an upright cadaver stripped of its skin, its muscles bleached an awful, gleaming white. A faint green glow, the only trace of the Beacon, blinked like a heartbeat from inside the figure’s trunk.
With uncanny fluidity, the maggot creature turned its head to the left and then to the right. It flexed one arm then the other, bent its left leg then its right. Then, after beckoning to the crew with a squirming hand, the figure turned its body toward the distant Rathdrum Mountains and started to walk. Sertôrian, Valenti, and de Bronk stood motionless in the open doorway of the tent.
“What’s the word, Captain?” said de Bronk.
“Break camp,” said Sertôrian. “We follow the maggot man.”
FIVE
It’s at night that I feel most acutely the stark isolation of our convent. I’ve just awoken (from a nightmare, as it happens) and though the night is far from over (several hours remain until the call for lauds will pull my sleeping comrades—fuzzy-eyed and yawning—out of their warm beds, out of their snug quarters and into the perpetually under-heated Chamber of Contemplation), I fear that further sleep will elude me, the sharp terror of my dream having flushed the slumber from my pulsing veins.
Though many specters flit at the edge of my consciousness, I’m especially haunted at this midnight hour by an inner vision of the sinister spacecraft that holds our callow executioners in its metal belly, bringing them closer and closer to our convent with each breath I take. Will they arrive on a night like this, I wonder, with my sisters and me at our most vulnerable, already reposing in that semi-death that is sleep? Even as I wonder, I can see it in my mind’s eye: armored troops kicking in the sturdy doors of our private quarters, shooting us down as we groggily rise to the noise, our lives ending before we’ve determined if the sudden commotion is dream or reality.
Troubling as this vision is, though, it was not the subject of my nightmare, at least not directly.
In my dream, I was sitting at an old wooden desk in the convent library reading an oversized leather-bound manuscript whose pages were filled with exquisite symbols, the meanings of which I was entirely unable to decipher. They seemed important, though, so I was giving the book my full attention, searching for any linguistic toehold to give me purchase on the text’s slippery face. To this end, I was flipping from page to page with an increasing sense of urgency when I felt a gentle but distinct tap on my shoulder.
“Just a moment, please,” I said, engrossed as I was by the task at hand.
But my interrupter disregarded the request and tapped me again, more firmly this time. I was about to turn around with a mild rebuke, when a chill ran through my body. I knew suddenly, without quite knowing how, that the person behind me was no person at all, was instead some otherworldly being.
I ignored a third tap on my shoulder and realized with dismay that the library’s only exit, which moments before had been directly in front of me, had vanished.
My fear only increased when a voice behind me, more terrible for its beauty, whispered, “You need to turn around. You need to look at what I hold.”
I did not turn around, and so the figure behind me reached forward, the cool, papery skin of its cheek brushing against my face as it set a book down on the desk before me. Gone was the leather-bound manuscript, and in its place was a small, enchantingly assembled codex, its cover an intricately tooled leaf of platinum, its pages edged with shining black ink.
“Open the book,” said the voice, less gently this time, but still I refused.
Curiously, I found I desperately wanted to open the book, but at the same time I feared its contents. Hands folded in my lap, then, I stared down at the codex, its cover gleaming.
“The book is yours,” said the voice, and then a third time commanded: “Open it.”
And still I refused. Behind me, the figure groaned mightily, and in an unsettling turn, I understood that my refusal, and not this visitor’s command, was the truly monstrous act. Before I could amend my decision, though, a hand shot out from behind me, snatching away the beautiful book. I gave a cry of pain and awoke in my bed, my soul beset by an unsettling blend of horror and regret.
I recognize that in its retelling, this dream loses its ghastly edges. That is, in part, why I’ve just written it down. Though some dread lingers, my terror has largely dissipated, because, as Sertôrian teaches us in an often overlooked passage from the Bellerophon Sermon, “to recount a dream is to render it benign, for our dreams evade even the most basic narrative logic, and by so doing, shuck off the great ordering principles of the universe.” In other words, a dream can’t truly be recounted, only replaced with a tidier, less threatening narrative that only broadly approximates the dream, ultimately undercutting its bizarre formidability.
The boundlessness of dreams and visions is a theme that slithers between the lines of much of Sertôrian’s sibyllic teachings, a preoccupation that raises a pressing question among believers and nonbelievers alike: how to account for Sertôrian’s transformation from the pragmatic, no-nonsense captain of a warship to the mystical figure who, immediately following her trial before the Syndics of Mars, experienced the first of her breathtaking Four Shrouded Visions.
As it happens, three strange dreams lie at the heart of this chapter’s selection from the Rhadamanthus IX narrative, dreams that a handful of pseudo-scholars have touted as marking the essential transitional moment between Sertôrian the ship captain and Sertôrian the sibyl. I must confess, however, that the three dreams you’ll read about in this chapter fail to satisfy me as explanative precursors to the unwieldy and empyrean Four Shrouded Visions. Although some scholars treat the three dreams as if they should disturb or upset the reader, I find them overly neat. Where is their chaos? Where is their splendor? True, they contain spatial and temporal shifts typical of dream states, as well as certain striking images, but on the whole the reading experience is a decidedly straightforward one.
Contrast that with the experience of reading Sertôrian’s reports of the Four Shrouded Visions. Though she insisted these accounts failed to capture even a fraction of the visions’ resplendence, Sertôrian’s radical yet lucid deployment of language manages to convey at least some of the destabilizing grandeur of her sibylline dream-voyage through the realm of the Infinite Eremites. Her accounts simultaneously invite us to learn from the Infinite Eremites and to understand that the Infinite Eremites will always evade our understanding, that they can only be seen, as it were, from the corner of the eye.
I must tell you, though—and this is something I’m loath to reveal to my sisters of the Order—reading Sertôrian’s accounts of the Four Shrouded Visions never fails to unsettle me. And yes, I understand that that’s their purpose, but if I’m being completely honest with myself (and with you), I must acknowledge that I’m of two minds regarding the tendency of visions and dreams to destabilize and upset.
For example, when I’m sitting at my favorite desk with the sun slanting in through the convent windows, and my life is following its relatively happy and stable course, I am fascinated, even delighted, by the disruptive power of dreams. If my surroundings are not so bright, though, if my head is not so clear, if I’m sitting up in bed in my dark room as I am right now with a tightness in my chest and the long fingers of a nightmare still troubling the pools of my mind, I say dreams are brutish, nasty things. Sleep offers us the illusion of escape from the cares of the waking world. How cruel, then, when those cares follow us into our repose, their teeth growing ever sharper as they do so.
But if narrative can defang a dream, the rigors of scholarship might put a bullet between its greedy, yellow eyes. And so while I wait for sleep—or armed Delegarchic forces—to arrive, we’ll turn our attention back to the Rhadamanthus IX narrative, rejoining Sertôrian, Valenti, and de Bronk as they
follow the maggot man into the shadowy groves of the Declo Forest.
• • •
Sertôrian woke just before dawn in the middle of the Declo Forest, her blanket-top wet with dew, her body sore from sleeping across a gnarled tree root. The night before, she’d been so tired that she hadn’t bothered to find a comfortable patch of ground; she’d lain down right where she’d stood and fallen asleep immediately. Now, after what passed for a night’s rest these days, she propped herself up on her elbows to take stock of the situation. Valenti and de Bronk lay on either side of her, still sleeping. A few yards in front of them, the maggot creature stood perfectly still, waiting for the sunrise.
This had been the routine for the past three days: While the planet’s sun shone, the maggot man led them on a relentless march deeper and deeper into the wilderness of Rhadamanthus IX. As soon as the sun went down, though, the maggot man froze in place, granting Sertôrian, Valenti, and de Bronk a much-needed respite until the sun rose again the next morning.
All this walking, Sertôrian supposed, was not entirely a bad thing. If nothing else, it left Valenti and de Bronk with very little energy for bickering or mutiny. Although if that was the silver lining to this situation, then this cloud was a dark one indeed.
During the years they’d spent stuck here in the Minoan System searching for a way back home, Sertôrian and her crew had experienced scores of misadventures, ranging from the inconvenient (the time they’d accidentally ingested a lenticular sleeping draught and slumbered away a week of their lives on chilly Sarpedon IV) to the deadly (the time a Gracchan potentate had locked Sertôrian and each member of her crew inside a separate hanging razor casket and left them all to die). Somehow, though, none of those episodes had felt as dire as this one.
In the past she’d been driven not only by a need to survive but also by a sense of possibility, a sense that if they could just make it out of whatever scrape they currently found themselves in, then better, happier times lay waiting beyond the horizon. But the recent bruising months—in which three-fourths of her crew had died in mishap after grisly mishap—had put an end to that optimism. This mission to find the Bulgakov Apparatus felt like the end of the line, like Sertôrian’s last chance, although to do what, she couldn’t quite say. To make it back home with some semblance of a crew still remaining? To acquit herself of her recent leadership blunders? To simply not die? Who could say? All she knew was that she woke up each morning now with the acid tang of failure at the back of her throat.
