The Machine (An Ethan Stone Thriller)

by Aston, Tom

  Celandine put her hand in her pinafore pocket, withdrew the crumpled note that Father Aldiss Barbegris had given her and read it again.

  1230. 3 Rectors. Bayan St Station from Junction. Bring to Dv Azerro’s ASAP.

  There was no sign of the men yet. Barbegris had given Celandine five rouples to pay for a motorcab for the journey back to the church. Celandine had already spent one of them on the Sula Soda. The waiter had given her change in Idixian cents. The worthless coins clinked as she stuffed the note back into her pocket.

  The waiter came by her table for the third time in ten minutes and tutted openly when he saw that she still had not finished her drink.

  “You can’t sit there forever,” he remarked.

  Celandine took a tiny sip of her drink to show that she was at least drinking it and gave the waiter a dirty look.

  “What’s that thing?” said the waiter, nodding at the oneirium statuette.

  Despite his smart uniform and carefully waxed hair, the waiter was probably no more than a year or two older than Celandine, eighteen at most.

  “Do you talk to all your customers like that?” she said, raising her head so that he could clearly see the blue tilak powder on her forehead, the tilak mark of a Cleric.

  “Just asking,” replied the waiter tartly. He wore no tilak mark, had not been to church recently, but he was probably a member of the esclave class, a merciant at best. “So what is it?” he said.

  “He’s called Ardilla,” she replied. “And he’s mine before you ask.”

  She held her hand out flat and the stone squirrel twitched into life, coming down onto all fours and crawling across the table top and into Celandine’s palm.

  The waiter pulled a face and shuddered.

  “You’re a gatemaker?”

  “Apprenticed to one. Can’t actually make gateways yet myself but…”

  Celandine concentrated and Ardilla ran up her arm, down onto her lap and snuggled into the folds of her dress. The waiter was torn between amazement and revulsion. He raised his chin haughtily.

  “Well, gatemakers aren’t so popular around here anymore,” he said and he strode swiftly away to rearranged the cruet sets on the other tables and stare at Celandine from a distance.

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “You’d know all about popularity.”

  Eventually, unhurriedly, the train pulled out of the station once more. The carriages were filled far beyond capacity. Other people sat on the roofs, hung on the outside of doors and even balanced precariously on the buffers between carriages. There were tears and howls amongst those left behind as hopes were dashed and families were neatly ripped apart.

  Some stumbled after the train but were very quickly left far behind. Ultimately, those left at the platform or standing bewildered on the tracks had nowhere to go but back into the crumbling and dusty city of Casario. The crowd slowly dispersed. Many items of luggage had been left behind by those lucky few on the train. A few opportunists scavenged for valuables amongst the baggage, hoping to recoup some small amount from the disappointing day. But even they departed eventually.

  Celandine looked at the clock on the café wall. It was two minutes after half past twelve. She finished her soda and went out onto the platform.

  Three men stood around a fourth fallen figure at the end of the platform. A third of a mile beyond them was the gateway to Junction. The gateway was a tall, pointed arch of black oneirium through which the gatemakers had punched a hole between this world and the next. It was nighttime in Junction and through the gateway, Celandine could just make out the blue and orange twinkle of electric street lighting.

  As Celandine walked down towards the gathered men, she could see the gatemakers in Junction swiftly closing the gateway to Idix for good. The aperture of the gateway gradually folded in on itself, the streetlights going out one by one. Then the arch itself caved in too, shrinking down, losing its shape until finally the last of the oneirium was pulled back into Junction and the gateway had vanished completely, the only evidence that it had ever existed being a set of railway lines that now came to an abrupt end in front of the twisted sticks of a dried up mangrove swamp. It hadn’t been the last gateway in Idix. The last was now the gateway to Scylla, a seagate beyond the harbour wall of Muchmiel and over three hundred miles away.

  The three men stood at the platform end were identically dressed, shining black boots, dark frock coats with twin rows of polished gold buttons worn open on account of the heat. Celandine saw the sabres and pistols that hung at each of their belts. The man lying unconscious on the ground was a local. He had a deep gash in his forehead and one of his arms hung awkwardly over the platform edge. His shirt was ripped open and one of his shoes was missing.

  “Fell from the train as it set off,” said one of the uniformed men.

  “And then someone stole his wallet, sir,” said a second, a swarthy man with a poorly shaved, bristle covered chin and teeth the colour of ripe Idixian bananas.

  “And one shoe,” said the first, finally turning to face Celandine. She immediately noted the tattoo on the back of his hand, a shield design executed in Rector red and depicting a serpent impaled upon a lance. He was a slim man, maybe thirty-something, maybe forty-something but with the white skin and milk blonde hair of a child. Intelligent looking and quite handsome, Celandine decided.

  “You’re Barbegris’ lackey?” he asked.

  “I was sent to fetch you,” she conceded. “And I’m a disciple cleric, not a lackey.”

  “My apologies, madam cleric,” he said sarcastically.

  The third man, the tallest of the three, giggled at this, his ice blue eyes dancing with laughter.

  “Shouldn’t we do something for him?” said Celandine, indicating the comatose man.

  “With pleasure,” said the third man, drawing his pistol and aiming it at the fallen man’s head, his hips thrust forward in an aggressively brash stance.

  “Wait!” cried Celandine. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Didn’t you?” said the tattooed man. “Then I’m not sure what else we can do for him.”

  “Perhaps we should just go.”

  Tattoo indulged in a self-satisfied smile.

  “Indeed. Do lead on.”

  They did not tell her their names. They did not talk to her. Sitting in the back of the wagon they spoke freely to one another, mostly to make disparaging remarks about what had become of the once green and fertile world of Idix but they did not talk to Celandine.

  Divine Azerro’s church was some miles from Casario, in an abandoned town on the other side of the Largesse. They crossed over via the Marquez Bridge. In the middle of the wide, dry riverbed beneath them sat the beached paddle steamer Missy Lou, its hull and paddles buried deeply into the rock hard earth like the foundations of a small wooden castle. It was currently home to dozens of displaced plantation workers and their families. Children played on its upper deck. Men dismantled its railings to sell for scrap. Women hung washing on lines that ran from the ship’s prow up to its single smokestack.

  On the far side of the river, the roads were uneven and potholed and the wagon shook fiercely as it rolled along. Celandine wished she had been able to locate a better vehicle for Barbegris’ guests, something with an engine at least, but the best she could find was an open top wagon, pulled by a tired old nag and driven by a young esclave boy in a straw hat and no shoes. The boy, who was more accustomed to transporting bananas than people, had demanded six rouples for his services but Celandine had bullied him down to three.

  The journey lasted more than an hour and took them out into the newly formed desert. The sun beat down on them from an utterly blue sky. The wagon was uncovered and there was not the slightest shade for the travellers. Nonetheless, there were no grumbles from the men and when they reached their destination, they climbed down carefully, stretching aching limbs, brushing dust and creases from their uniforms and surveyed the place they had been brought to.

  “Where the divinities are we?
” said the yellow-toothed one.

  “A ghost town,” replied Tattoo.

  The place had been deserted for some time. The main street, which had never been overly prosperous or charming, was now reduced to a series of smashed windows, rotting timbers and fallen shop signs. Wind, dust and time had faded everything to the same earthy colour as the surrounding desert, as though the town through sheer embarrassment was attempting to become invisible.

  After the river dried up and the crops failed, the town’s population had, in the space of a year, dwindled from over a thousand to zero, a level at which it had remained until three months ago when it rose sharply again to two.

  “You live here?” said the tall one, Blue Eyes.

  “Just about,” Celandine replied. “Over this way.”

  Celandine led them through the town towards the church as the boy turned his wagon round and set off back towards Casario.

  “There’d better be something to drink,” said Yellow Teeth, hawking up phlegm from the back of his throat.

  “Altar wine,” chuckled Blue Eyes to himself.

  “Cheap grog, if I know Aldiss,” said Tattoo.

  Dv Azerro’s church was a small sandstone building that squatted like a toad at the edge of the town square. It was an unexceptional church with a dome that rose no more than forty feet above street level. The three soldiers had to duck down to get through the doorway as they followed Celandine into the porch and then had to wait some time for their eyes to adjust to the dim candlelit interior.

  “Oi! Father,” Celandine called out. “Your guests are here.”

  There was a mumble and clatter from behind the screen and Father Aldiss Barbegris Venerable Cleric of the Course of Divine Liminis emerged. Celandine had faintly hoped that he would have made an effort to tidy the place before his guests arrived but, of course, he hadn’t. The floor was still strewn with the scrolls, church records and smashed reliquary chests that he had been rummaging aimlessly amongst for the past week or more. His one concession to his visitors was to clear a table and put four chairs, all different, around it. Celandine saw that he had unwisely decided to use a mouldy, moth-eaten drape as a tablecloth.

  At least she had assumed he would make himself look presentable for his visitors but he had done nothing of the sort. He was still wearing the same brown robes he had worn all summer. His grey beard was still untrimmed and, on close inspection, seen to be dotted with crumbs of food. The band of his ragged eyepatch still cut awkwardly across the top of his head, making half of his hair stand upright like a hedgehog’s spines. And, naturally, his manner had improved none since that morning.

  “What took you so long?” he demanded, hobbling forward, a pot of red tilak in his hand.

  Tattoo smiled.

  “Father,” he said, touching his head in obeisance but twisting the word to make it an insult rather than an honorific. “How pleasant to see you.”

  Barbegris gave each man the briefest, most cursory blessing and anointed each of their foreheads with the red powder. Tattoo raised his eyes to inspect the building. He was understandably unimpressed.

  “And what a fine hole you’ve hidden yourself in this time.”

  “Homph,” Barbegris grunted graciously, either failing to spot the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “I was stationed in this town when we built the rivergate from here to Agrium.”

  “Mmmm,” Tattoo nodded. “Yes, we saw the wonders your gateway had wrought on our way here. You must be very proud.”

  “Homph. Haven’t you heard? This in the end of days, when worlds fail. You thirsty?”

  “Parched.”

  “Drinks then.”

  Barbegris, wiped the red tilak from his hands onto his robes, clicked his fingers at Celandine and gestured to the balcony above. Celandine dutifully climbed the stairs and set about finding food and drink that she would not be embarrassed to serve to others.

  The wide upper level balcony ran around the entire wall of the church building. In the days when it was a functioning church, the balcony was used to house any members of the congregation who could find no space below. Now, it was Celandine and Barbegris’ living space. Barbegris had built himself a bed out of pew seats with a mattress formed from hundreds of hymn books, topped with an altar cloth blanket. Celandine slept on a pile of old cleric vestments round the other side, far from Barbegris’ snores. Between the two sleeping spaces was their meagre store of provisions and what Barbegris laughably referred to as the kitchen.

  There, Celandine picked out the four cleanest cups, filled a tin coffee pot with water and granules, put it on their portable stove to boil and listened idly to the conversation that drifted up from below though there was much of it she did not understand.

  Barbegris had explained earlier that the men were coming to buy something from him. He wouldn’t be drawn on what he was going to sell them, possibly one of the church ‘relics’ he had palmed off on the unwary in half a dozen worlds but he had hinted that, if the sale went through, all their money worries would be over. Celandine knew better than to pry further and was content to listen and let the truth be revealed in its own time.

  “The last set of purges took us to Maykland,” Tattoo was saying.

  “A bloody breeding ground for wretched Edenists,” said Yellow Teeth.

  “They even say John-a-Weeping has been seen there,” Blue Eyes added.

  “Homph. He seems to be everywhere.”

  “Maybe he is,” said Tattoo darkly. “He has become… numerous.”

  Celandine, wondered what that last remark could possibly mean but the conversation had descended into hushed whispers and so she sat back on an old orange crate (now filled with salted pork) and gazed up at the church dome.

  Dv Azerro’s church was less than grand but the amateur artist who had painted the ceiling had created a work of awe and wonder. The dome was supported by seventy-seven pillars, as the worlds were supported by the souls of the seventy-seven divinities. The edges of the dome were illustrated with the Hell of Fire on one side and the Hell of Ice on the other and, in between, the Waters of Heaven. Here, the artist had chosen to depict scenes from the war between the divinities and titans. She was able recognise some of the divinities – Dv Magortam with his keys of office, Dv Kinneal with his tear-streaked face, Dv Bunuel with her doctor’s staff – but most of them were unknown to her. She knew the names of all the divinities - she had learnt her scripture well – but that did not mean she could put names to faces. Perhaps that was as well; it reflected the holy truth that the living incarnations of the divinities, who walked the worlds, life after life, usually went entirely unrecognised.

  Far more fascinating was the artist’s portrayal of the enormous titans, the children of the dark god, Entropy. They were a fearsome blend of crab, spider and reptile with spindly legs of bone, curved black teeth and bulging, glistening shells. At the altar end of the dome, the fate of the titans was shown, as one of the divinities (that would be Dv Javester, the warrior) hacked apart one of the vile monsters and, from its oneirium body, another divinity (Dv Liminis no doubt) formed the very first gateway: a light filled doorway to Seelie.

  The coffee pot rattled to a boil. Celandine set the pot and the cups on a tray and carried them downstairs.

  “So how much do you want?” the Rector soldier was saying.

  “Make it a round number,” said the cleric gatemaker. “A million rouples.”

  Tattoo laughed. Blue Eyes and Yellow Teeth loyally joined in. “I don’t know how much you think the Order pays its soldiers but we don’t have that kind of money.”

  Barbegris spread his hands wide, the epitome of reasonableness.

  “I’m sure your master could conjure a million rouples without even blinking.”

  “But he’s not here and even he wouldn’t pay such a ludicrous price for what, all told, is merely a piece of information.”

  Celandine frowned. So, it wasn’t a relic offered for sale here. She slid the tray onto the table and be
gan to pour.

  “Not just a piece of information,” said Barbegris. “There’s a key you need to unlock this treasure. I’m prepared to lend it to you.”

  “What key?” said Tattoo.

  “The girl.”

  “The girl. What girl?”

  Barbegris nodded towards Celandine.

  “What?” she exclaimed, spilling coffee on the floor.

  “Why? Who is she anyway?” asked Tattoo.

  “My apprentice,” Barbegris replied.

  Tattoo laughed.

  “And, leaving aside the question of why she’s so important, why would the Sacred Guild give an apprentice to a thief and a scoundrel like you?”

  “Who said the Sacred Guild sent her to me?”

  “Oh, you found her, did you?”

  “I found her,” Barbegris agreed. “She’s Maria Brey’s daughter.”

  Five sets of eyes were suddenly and firmly fastened on Celandine. Blue Eyes breathed an oath of disbelief.

  “What are you gawping at?” she said, unnerved by the sudden attention, and thoroughly bewildered by the turn of conversation. She put the coffee pot down and stood back.

  Tattoo laughed and turned back to Barbegris.

  “Maria Brey’s daughter,” he said sarcastically. “Of course she is.”

  “Can you afford not to believe?” said Barbegris.

  Tattoo fell silent and was no longer smiling.

  “Make your offer, then,” said Barbegris.

  Tattoo puffed out his cheeks as he decided on a figure.

  “A hundred thousand.”

  “Homph. I wouldn’t even tell you the name of my mother for that much. I’ll meet you half way; eight hundred thousand.”

  “Your arithmetic is worse than your manners, father,” retorted Tattoo. “Two hundred thousand.”

  “Five hundred thousand then. That’s less than half what I wanted and a cheap price for the greatest find in centuries.”

  “True. But it was Maria Brey’s find, not yours. I would have paid her five hundred thousand gladly but you… you I will pay two and a half.”