by Jack Conner
At the news, Captain Hunried grew silent, but Avery caught him drinking from a flask later on. When the flask ran dry, the captain cursed and flung it away.
Avery used nearly his last note to buy a pint of whiskey. Together, he and the captain stood around a barrel fire and swapped sips.
“I’m sorry,” Avery said. “You must have lost some good friends.”
Hunried’s face was impassive, but his eyes had misted. His voice, when he spoke, was a rasp. “They’re in a better place now.”
“The Hallowed Halls?”
“Oblivion.”
They both took a long sip after that. Winter wind howled around them, and it began to snow. Soft white flakes settled on the pines all around. Hunried glared up at the clouds and cursed.
“I hate winter,” he said.
The next day they reached Maqarl, capital of Ungraessot.
* * *
“What the hell?” asked Hildra, leaning forward in her seat.
They’d passed several checkpoints and were midway through Maqarl. Far from the warzone, the city seemed to be thriving, though it was possible that impression was only the result of the teeming refugees choking the streets, alleys, and even camping on rooftops. Laundry lines strung up in the alleys fluttered in the wind. The refugees looked cold, emaciated from hunger, and miserable. The locals didn’t look much better. Nevertheless, the shopkeepers tended their shops, factories belched smoke, and people dined in streetside cafes. Despite these outward signs, the populace looked skinny, malnourished and haggard.
People packed the temples, doubtless praying for relief. Hordes of Vericans, the God-Emperor’s faithful, flooded a great cathedral to the God-Emperor on a sort of hill. The lords of Ungraessot post-Fall had never required their subjects to worship them, but the Verican cathedral was the grandest temple of them all—and, it seemed, the most heavily attended.
Everywhere loomed the beautiful, graceful architecture of L’oh—soaring minarets, multi-colored tips gleaming, proud, faceted columns lining grand buildings, huge, arching domes that seemed to weigh nothing and must weigh nothing because they defied gravity, colored windows winking like jewels, granite arches and marble stairs bowed in the centers by time. And it had all been adjusted to suit Ungraessotti engineers and conditions. The buildings were sturdier, thicker than they would have been elsewhere, hardy to withstand mountain winds and sieges and sudden ngvandi attacks. Many were pressed flush against the side of mountain walls and the insides would extend into the rock itself, some connecting in secret passages cloaked in intrigue.
Avery, who had been fantasizing about this moment for weeks, stared around him in awe, unable to stop the grin that spread across his face. I’m in L’oh!
Great suspension bridges spanned hazy gaps between mountain slopes, and autos trundled from one to another; Maqarl occupied five full peaks, but the valleys between them were steep and deadly and too dark even for trees to grow. Avery and the others made their way from peak to peak toward the largest, tallest mountaintop, the center of the city, where the palace could be seen glinting from far away.
But none of this is what had caught Hildra’s eyes, Avery knew. Perched forward in her rickety seat, she pointed at the lines of animals being herded through the streets. Avery saw goats, sheep, calves, land-based batkin, giant furred toads being dragged along—their fur matted and muddy, their rear legs hobbled to prevent them hopping away—camouflage crabs being prodded with long staffs though their pincers were tied off, ice frozen in their joints. All animals shambled or scuttled uphill, through the snow, toward the monumental palace that loomed above the city, staring down over its citizens and landmarks, gazing across the misty gulfs that plunged beyond the mountain, out over the other city-lets on their peaks, out over the razored horizon.
Hildra scowled at the lines of animals. “Where are they all fucking going?”
Captain Hunried appeared troubled, but he did not answer.
They passed through another barrage of checkpoints, the most stringent yet, and Captain Hunried’s papers and seal, given to him by General Rossit, were analyzed critically and finally approved. Hunried steered the jeep up the road, past herds of bleating goats, calves and other creatures, so close Avery could smell their musk (the giant valley slugs smelled particularly rank) and made for the palace. Proud granite columns sporting ornamental bulges held up a lofty canopy, and a great oaken door with brass bands centered the immense façade.
Shepherds led their various flocks through a side entrance, and Avery frowned to see the stinking animals vanish into the palace.
His consternation was soon forgotten. Royal soldiers wearing the distinctive crimson of the royal family stopped the jeep, helped its occupants out, and one drove the jeep away. It vanished into a cave to the side of the palace, where Avery presumed a garage was located. The palace itself was set against the mountain, surely merging with it on the inside, and rocky bulwarks loomed to either side. Directly above Avery the gold-and-glass dome and the surrounding minarets glinted in the sun. This was it, Avery realized. I’m about to enter a L’ohen palace.
A military man approached, and he and Captain Hunried clapped hands. They talked briefly, Hunried waved farewell to Avery and the others, and the two walked away. Avery supposed he would never see the captain again.
A royal aide wearing the finery of his office stepped forward and introduced himself. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Jynad Elnithin. If you would ...”
He gestured them toward the heavy, banded doors, and Avery walked through them eagerly. He couldn’t stop smiling as he passed down beautifully ornate halls and columns. Curling white stairways vanished behind golden walls. Shimmering crystal chandeliers hung down from high, domed ceilings, some cut with skylights. Shafts of sunshine flooded the chambers, glittering on bejeweled balustrades and monuments that sprouted from the floor like roses.
A statue of some ancient empress, Avery thought it must be Lady Halana, stood in regal poise, her gown fluttering behind her as if caught by a wind. One of her arms was uplifted, as if to a lover—surely the infamous General Morgaster, if Avery’s suspicion about her identity was correct. A circlet crowned her head. Another statue depicted a kneeling young man. An older, one-eyed man wearing the garb of a priest stood before him, placing a circlet on his head. The young man wept as he accepted it, though not in happiness, and Avery, remembering the story, did not wonder why.
Stories. Everywhere about him there were stories, legends. In murals on the ceilings, in frescos on the walls, depicted in stained-glass windows, whirling through the air around him.
Wherever Avery walked he heard his own footsteps echo on the same stone and marble that countless emperors had trod. It was amazing. He could almost feel them, feel the presence of all that history, all that nobility. He almost floated as he walked.
“L’oh,” he whispered. “We’re walking through L’oh ...”
Ahead of him he began to hear noise. Laughing, talking, the sounds of cutlery. It was the sound of a great many people and much activity. Could it really be the Throne Room? Almost there! Paul would have killed to be here.
To Avery’s surprise, the hallway he was traveling along bisected a side-hall, and out of this hall poured the tides of goats and calves and sheep and batkin and more. Avery saw a huge black slug, large enough to ride on, its neck garlanded with flowers and its flanks dabbed in scented oils, be led docilely along, its slime trailing on a priceless mosaic. The animals seemed to be traveling in the same direction Avery’s party was.
“What the hell?” said Hildra.
“It does seem odd,” Avery admitted. “I’m sure the Emperor has a good reason for it.”
Jynad, the royal aide, just looked tired. He led them on down the halls, side-by-side with the bleating, chirruping herds, and the noise ahead grew greater. Avery noted that the shepherds were glum and emaciated. Why did everyone look so starved? There were obviously plenty of herd animals.
At last Jynad led the
m to a high, grand archway, inlaid with golden bas-reliefs. A riot of sound flooded from the chamber beyond.
“This way,” he said.
The Throne Room, Avery thought, almost reverent, and felt his face break out into an idiotic smile. He caught Layanna looking at him, eyebrows raised, but the smile remained.
Jynad led them through the archway.
Instantly, Avery’s smile withered.
Dear gods ...
They were in a huge chamber, what had to be the Throne Room—yes, he saw it there, far in the distance, sitting empty on its dais, the very throne of L’oh!—but the room had become so much more. For one thing, it was huge—hundreds of yards in every direction. But that was just the start of it. Avery’s eyes strained to take it all in. His mind reeled. He heard Janx and Hildra cursing and making sounds of amazement beside him.
First, there were the great, long tables. Countless courtiers occupied the tables, which were heaped with food. Laughing and gorging themselves, the nobles ate, and ate. And drank. Servants ferried flagons and tankards of ale and wine back and forth, and as they scurried the liquids dripped on priceless rugs, furs and ancient marble. More than one of the nobles appeared to be completely naked, and some lounged in various states of undress.
Thus the feast merged seamlessly with the great orgy, or orgies. Swarms of sweaty limbs, flushed faces and writhing bodies tangled the thoroughfares between tables and sprawled across the thick furs that draped the floors. Avery started to see beautiful women being ground under sweaty men and for beautiful young men to be used by old women, and men too. Commoners, he thought, being coerced or paid to participate. Of course, there were many noble-on-noble couplings, judging by the elaborate hair and soft skin of the participants. Grunts and gasps from the sweaty mounds echoed off the far walls, and men slurping wine at the tables shouted colorful comments.
But even this wasn’t all.
Avery stared at the walls, at the long, bloody walls. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of altars had been built flush against them. Avery saw shrines to classic L’ohen gods, the many Star Lords, great Na’thuur, lord of the underworld, M’kanagath, the mountain king, Sylissa, his sister and lover, Kaan, their volcanic progeny, and more, many, many more. There were other altars, too, shrines to pre-L’ohen gods. Altars shaped like flowers, geese, oxen, grinning jackals, and forms more fantastic. Suvaret, the elephant with three faces. S’us, the Great Maw, depicted as simply a gaping mouth lined with fangs. The serene jade face of Rasallas limned in thorns. And others. Countless others.
And at each one of these altars a priest conducted a sacrificial ceremony—sometimes to a small, rudimentary following, sometimes by himself. Speaking loudly as if to compete with the priest next door, he would read from a book while helpers dragged the sacrificial beast—goat, swine, slug or other—forward, and he would with brusque, tired movements slit its throat, if throat it had, or spill its entrails, or crack its head-carapace, or dispatch it in whatever other manner the scriptures prescribed. Mounds of corpses, some of them quite large, heaped before the altars. Servants carved into them, slicing out the best cuts and carrying them into rooms beyond, apparently the kitchens. Other servants carried the results of the culinary labors out to the tables on silver platters, where burping, pawing nobles continued to gorge.
Avery stared. And stared. The smile faded from his face, replaced by something else. A sense of crawling shame welled up through him and he found himself shaking in rage.
“This is obscene!” he said. “What ... what ...” His disappointment and anger were so large he couldn’t find words for them.
Layanna could. In shockingly good Ghenisan, she said to Jynad, “Your people starve and yet your lords waste food appealing to gods that don’t answer.”
Jynad did not seem to notice her accent, such were the distractions of the room. He turned an apologetic gaze on them. “Do not judge His Eminence too harshly. He is above mortal law.” With a sigh, he added, “Come.”
He led the group forward. They bustled through orgies and feasts. Avery had to step lively around naked limbs and torsos. Some of the participants wore masks, some dressed as animals. A beautiful woman gasped in pleasure as an unidentifiable (under its disguise as a bear) lover pleasured her with its tongue; she clutched at Avery’s ankle in her orgasm and he had to pull himself loose. A fat man ate a dripping beef rib while pounding into the rear of a naked young man. Avery smelled a riot of smells—savory meat and spices, spilled beer, sweat and body odor, a woman’s state of arousal, another’s yeast infestation, a man’s farts, belches, the reek of split intestines and death drifting over from the altars. Sloppy sounds of rutting, grunts, groans and laughter swirled around him. Glittering jewelry and flushed faces and bare breasts spun before his eyes. It was too much, too much. He couldn’t breathe.
No no no, he thought. This is all wrong. The lords of L’oh should be locked in debate with the Senate, planning against the invasion of Octung, plotting to win back the cities that had declared independence, appealing to the refugees that had become a menace to innocent people wandering the mountains, putting them to better use ...
Jynad led the group to a certain huge, tangled orgy, perhaps the biggest and loudest of the room, though in truth it was hard to judge. Scores of people drank and fornicated in a sweaty sprawl. Hairy buttocks pumped, a bald head gleamed, a long, feminine leg kicked, and a woman’s rolls of fat jounced while a perfect pair of breasts was fondled by a gravy-stained hand.
“Your Eminence,” called the aide. “Your Eminence, you have visitors.”
The grunting and straining continued.
Jynad sighed, turned to Avery and the others. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”
“Our task is urgent,” Avery said.
The aid nodded vaguely. “His Lordship does not know that.”
They waited. And waited. At last there came a series of groans, and a section of the sweaty tangle bulged, throbbed. The moans grew louder, louder, then climaxed with a primal roar. The bulge subsided, and a few moments later it parted. A strange, stumbling form arose from the chaos. It burped, wiped its mouth, and wove over to the group, though it was not clear whether in response to Jynad’s pleas or not.
Instantly, the aide bowed before it.
“My Lord,” he said.
The figure burped.
Avery blinked.
The Emperor was a mutant.
Chapter 6
Emperor Ga’as Haemlys IV was not wholly mutant like the ngvandi. He bore the tainted, infected look of a normal person come into contact with the Atomic Sea. He was a huge, fat, hairy man, naked save for his many rings and the gold chains that hung down over his chest hair, which was thick enough to weave a blanket from. His erection was beginning to fade, but not fast enough for Avery’s liking. The Emperor’s bushy, curly red-brown beard was slicked with either grease or a woman’s secretions. His blood-shot eyes glared drunkenly. But it was his right arm that seized Avery’s attention. It was the segmented, carapace-covered arm of a lobster, complete with a great snapping pincer on the end. Avery could see where the crustacean shoulder joined the man’s body, the carapace folding over the skin. Old scars showed there, where shell rubbed against flesh.
How is this possible? Avery thought. He stared, trying to make sense of it. Hunried had said the gods of the sea had changed Lord Tallis. At the time, Avery had taken that to mean they had converted him to their worship, but, though that may have been part of it, Hunried had spoken much more literally. And Emperor Tallis had passed his change on to the next generation, and the next. No wonder they thought him a god-emperor. Back then there were no mutants. He was the first one, at least the first one Avery knew of. And it was obviously something no one outside the religion spoke of, at least not explicitly, otherwise Avery would have known to expect it.
Jynad cleared his throat, and Avery looked down to see him kneeling. Reluctantly, Avery followed suit, and so did the others.
The Emperor barely glanc
ed at them as he lurched toward one of the feasting tables. Avery got a look at his hairy buttocks, meaty and flexing as he walked. A piece of grease stuck to the right one, tangled and glistening in the hairs, which were black, not the red-brown of his head and beard.
“My Lord,” Jynad said, rising and scrambling after him. Avery and the others followed. “These are the visitors General Rossit asked us to welcome. Remember, he radioed ahead, before—Azzara—?”
The Emperor only half looked back, idly glancing them over. Even their odd, bedraggled state was not enough to win his attention. They reached one of the long tables, and nobles all around hailed their lord drunkenly and with good humor.
“And who will quench their Lord’s thirst?” bellowed the Emperor.
Several grabbed flagons and shoved them at him. He burped once, grabbed the nearest one with his pincer and drank. As he drank, he broke wind loudly. Nobles around him laughed, and one listed sideways on his seat and farted, to join his lord in rude behavior. More laughter followed, the loudest of all by Haemlys when he lowered his flagon and wiped his mouth.
“Give that man a castle!” he thundered.
Whether he was serious or not Avery couldn’t tell, but after that there followed a series of farts and burps, and the men and their lord laughed so heartily the Emperor had to sit down or fall over from mirth. Avery was less amused.
Gasping, his laughter subsiding, the Emperor turned his gaze back on Jynad, seeking another source of humor. “What’d you want again?” he said. “Sum’ing to do w’ a radio?” There was laughter all around at the absurdity of this.
Avery felt nails dig into the flesh of his palm.
