by Neal Asher
‘Come on, I'll need your help,’ he said, then looked up and signalled to Ellery. The American nodded, and Carroll and Julius headed for one of the rooms.
Once the three of them were together in a room, Ellery slumped drunkenly on one of the fold down beds, and Julius leaning against the wall with a cigarette in his mouth, Carroll emptied the contents of the bags on the floor, then put on the clothes he had brought. Ellery lifted himself up onto his elbows and stared at the packets blearily.
‘Mothballs, sugar, bleach, what? You’re re-stocking the bathroom?’
‘No,’ said Carroll, ‘I'm getting out of here.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yes.’ Carroll looked round at Julius. ‘You remember I told you about bombs, well with these ingredients I can make bombs.’
‘Oh shit!’ said Ellery and slumped back on the bed again.
Carroll went on, ‘And with these bombs I intend to convert the Reaper and the General to scrap.’
‘Scrap?’ repeated Julius, his eyes on the packages on the floor.
‘Yes, you see, they are robots... A Clown told me so...’
And then Carroll told them of his dreams, his fight to the centre of the game-board and his last encounter with the enigmatic Clown. As he spoke he finished dressing then seated himself on the floor to mix and crush together powders, pour and stir in liquids, to strain and heat and blend in the manner he had been taught. His proficiency was of a soldier trained to manufacture weapons of sabotage on enemy territory. As he worked he also told them of the soul discs, what they were and how they appeared to the individual. At length he finished his story, and at length he finished his work and had three blocks of a soap-like substance which he carefully wrapped in oiled paper. By that time the sounds of drunken revelry had finished and Ellery had reached a state of tired sobriety. Carroll then went on to
make fuses while Ellery and Julius asked the inevitable questions. Ellery was sceptical.
‘How d'you know this Clown ain't like the Reaper, that he ain't playing games with you as well?’
‘I don't,’ replied Carroll, ‘but how would I get proof that this is not the case, and what other options are there? If we do nothing we will continue to be pieces in a board-game, dying painfully each time it is played, forever, or until the Reaper decides to trade us in for different pieces. I for one am prepared to try and get free of that, prepared to gamble a few minutes of agony against freedom and practical immortality.’
‘If the punishment for such an attempt is only a few minutes of agony, and if this Clown is telling the truth,’ said Julius.
‘I am prepared to believe. I do not want to believe that there is no escape. Our situation here is intolerable,’ said Carroll, then glanced up to see that Julius was edging towards the door. Julius held his hands up to his ears and flapped them then pointed at the door.
‘You want us to help you then,’ said Ellery, seeing what was happening and adding his bit to keep the conversation going.
‘That was the idea, but it's up to you,’ said Carroll as he stood up and moved to the door also, ‘either way the General and the Reaper get blown up and I'm grabbing my disc and running.’ As he spoke his last word Julius yanked the door open.
Kruger was caught completely by surprise, and as the door came open he stumbled into the room.
‘I will not tell’ I will not tell! Let me come with you!’ he shouted as Julius caught him in a headlock and seemed prepared to break his neck.
‘Kill him,’ said Ellery as he stepped off of the bunk.
‘No,’ said Carroll, picking up the three bombs.
‘Why not?’ snarled Ellery, ‘we can't trust him, he'll go straight to the Reaper.’
‘I know,’ said Carroll reasonably, ‘but what happens to him if we kill him?’
‘Resurrected,’ said Julius relaxing his grip on the SS officer’s neck.
Kruger coughed and repeated, ‘Let me come with you.’
Carroll stared at him and he lapsed into silence. Carroll turned to Ellery. ‘Tie him up. You're with me now I think?’
Julius and Ellery nodded in agreement.
‘I'll go get some rope,’ said Ellery and he exited the room.
‘Honestly, I will not tell, I only told before because I could see no other way to freedom.’
Carroll squatted down in front of him and studied him carefully. ‘I do not think you would be prepared to risk punishment, Kruger. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think that you feel you have more to gain by taking sides with the Reaper and the General. I am afraid that I cannot afford to take the risk of trusting you.’ With that he nodded to Julius who forced Kruger face-down onto the floor. Kruger did not struggle, knowing now that nothing worse than being tied up was going to happen to him.
When Ellery returned with rope Carroll cut and attached fuses to the bombs, leaving the other two to deal with Kruger.
‘He won’t be going anywhere,’ said Ellery when he and Julius finally dumped Kruger on the bed.
‘Here,’ said Carroll, passing them a bomb each. He then took out a packet of cigarettes and offered them. ‘After touching a lighted cigarette to the fuse you have approximately three seconds.’ He demonstrated with an unlit cigarette for Julius's benefit, then he said to Ellery alone, ‘Just like a grenade.’
Ellery grunted without humour as they left the room.
It seemed to take forever for them to reach the doors of the building, but when they finally stepped out they came upon a scene that put their hasty plans into disarray. A throne was ascending from the sky, a throne much the same as the Reaper's but containing a being of wholly different appearance. The one seated there had the body of a huge powerful man and the head of a jackal. Anubis had come for a visit.
‘Shit!’ hissed Carroll and remembered the last time his only comment on events had been thus, just before a bus wheel had crushed his chest. He and his companions halted and watched as the throne howled in to landing, nearly crushing the General who was forced to leap out of the way.
‘Okay, we're spectators. Act like a spectator,’ said Carroll.
Ellery lounged back against the wall with his hand, containing a bomb, tucked into the capacious pocket of his fatigues. Carroll leant back against the wall as well, his bomb tucked into the front of his shirt. All his plans were now coming apart. Should he try to get Anubis as well? Should he wait until Anubis went away, and if so, how long should he wait? How far away would Anubis go? How quickly could he return? Carroll gazed out across the steel plain. There was nowhere to hide out there and if one of the four came after him they would find him with ease.
‘Let's go back inside,’ he said, and the three of them returned inside the building and seated themselves at a table near the door. With sweat sticking his clothing to him Carroll stared out into the twilight.
Between the Reaper and Anubis there seemed to be no verbal exchange and Carroll was at a loss to know what they were doing. Being machines they could surely communicate things to each other in seconds? It was difficult though to draw comparisons between these two the robots and computers he knew. As he watched them, seated there facing each other, the sheer weirdness of the scene became almost overpowering. Here was the jackal-headed death-god of the Egyptians facing a medieval personification of death. Both of them were seated on thrones that moved as if powered by turbines. Both of them had the power they were reputed to have in myth. And both of them were machines older than human history.
Carroll wondered then if the forms they possessed now were the same forms they had possessed all those eons in the past. He wondered if the myths had somehow arisen from them, or they had altered themselves to the shape of myth.
Abruptly, as he took two cards from the cigarette puffing Julius, Carroll's tension cycled to a new level. In the distance, beyond the Reaper and Anubis, two black dots had appeared in the sky, rapidly growing closer.
‘Looks like my timing is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike,’ he said succinctly.
Ellery let out a noise that might have been a bark of laughter or an exclamation of pain and Julius examined them both queryingly. Carroll nodded towards the doors. Outside, another throne, along with a floating dais, were dropping from the sky.
‘What d'you reckon?’ asked Ellery.
Carroll shrugged. ‘We could go out there and watch, but I don’t think we’ll learn very much.’
Ellery nodded and threw his cards in. The three of them stood up and went outside. With them came the Masai and the Cavalier. Then shortly after that came the rest.
The Four faced each other in silence: Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, a woman with greenish skin, six arms, strangely sinuous and erotic yet with eyes that seemed to be enamel; Quetzalcoatl, a huge serpent coiled on its dais, a foot thick and fifteen long with multi-coloured feathers instead of scales, a crest of feathers, huge snake eyes, and a crocodilian mouth full of hooked teeth; Anubis, the man with a black jackal head; And the skeletal Reaper.
No speech was audible from them yet it seemed to Carroll that there must be some harsh debate in progress. It lasted for a good ten minutes and Carroll wondered what sort of language these machines might use that required so long to exchange information. Yet, if what the Clown had told him was true it might well be that this exchange was so long because of the lies being told.
At the end of the ten minutes the Reaper held up one bony hand and clacked its fingers together. Annubis's jackal head snapped back and its mouth opened. Between white teeth a very realistic tongue lolled. It slammed its huge hands down on the scrolled arms of its throne, which lifted from the ground with an abrupt roar, its back-blast knocking the General from his feet.
‘What the hell was that about?’ wondered Ellery, ‘Looks like he went off in a huff.’
‘Perhaps they caught him cheating,’ said Carroll and peered up to where Anubis had brought his throne to a wavering halt. The throne rotated until it was facing out over the game-board, a stuttering flash of red arc-light became visible, then the throne began to settle.
‘Somebody just burnt,’ said Ellery.
‘Yes,’ said Carroll, ‘and I would bet we will see who in a moment.’
As Anubis's throne clumped to the ground the jackal-headed god gestured at the resurrection machine. The door of the machine thumped open and a wizened figure stepped out. The old man was oriental in appearance and had blind white eyes.
‘That the one..?’ asked Ellery.
Carroll nodded as he backed away and tried to make himself appear less visible. He had a bad feeling about this. He reached into his pocket and touched the lump of explosive as if for reassurance. The waxed paper was slimy. Carroll swallowed dryly.
Things were not good, they were not good at all.
‘Be careful,’ he whispered to Ellery, ‘damn bombs are sweating nitro–’ He stopped talking when he saw the Reaper's head swivelling in their direction. Abruptly the General, off to one side, jerked as if someone had tugged his strings, then tucked his swagger stick under one arm and marched over to stand before the men. Carroll returned his attention to the Reaper and started to remove the explosive from his pocket. It would have to be now. They stood no chance, but if the Reaper knew...
‘Jason Carroll,’ said the General lifting his swagger stick, ‘step forwards.’
Carroll found he could do nothing but obey. The bomb dropped back into his pocket. By this time the old oriental had reached Anubis's throne Carroll realized there was something different about him. He seemed slower, more careful, more like someone who was blind. The General lowered his swagger stick as Carroll came to stand before him.
‘You will fight this man of Anubis's. Should you beat him your rewards could be great.’
‘I already fought him once. He beat me,’ said Carroll. He did not need this now. He did not need this at all.
The General was silent for a moment, glassy eyed, seemingly staring through him. Then he said, ‘The one you fought was not this one.’
Carroll nodded, so, Anubis had been caught cheating. ‘What weapons do we use?’ Again the General was silent for a time before replying, as if everything he said was coming directly from the Reaper.
‘There will be no weapons, as there is some doubt as to the weapons present when you fought originally.’
Great, though Carroll, one up for Anubis there.
‘May I have a moment to prepare?’ asked Carroll.
‘You may,’ replied the General after a glassy-eyed silence.
Carroll turned and headed back to Ellery and Julius. ‘Here,’ he handed his explosive to Ellery, ‘our plans have been put back, but not altered.’ He sat down and began to take off his boots.
‘Do you think you can win against this man?’ asked Julius.
‘I have a chance, now that he is only a man,’ said Carroll, and once his boots were off he went immediately into some vigorous stretching exercises. He did not know how long he had. As he dropped down into box splits he gazed across at his opponent. The old oriental was squatting like a casual gargoyle. Carroll did not like the look of him at all.
‘Luck to you, Jason Carroll.’
Carroll glanced around and saw the Masai and the Cavalier standing behind him.
‘I will need it I think,’ he said, and stood up. When he scanned around he noted that all the fighters were glancing between him and the oriental. He wondered if any bets were being made, and if so what the odds were. With his feet bare he got into a fighting stance and bounced back and forth. The surface was good, better than some of the dojos he had trained in. He hoped he would do his instructors proud. He stepped out towards his opponent.
‘Are you now ready to begin?’ asked the General.
‘Ready enough,’ said Carroll, and as he said it the oriental’s head snapped round in his direction and he rose to his feet.
The General said, ‘There are no rules, no time limit. This is a fight to the death. You may begin.’
Carroll and the oriental approached each other and circled, the oriental with his head tilted to one side as if listening, yet, observing him, Carroll reckoned he was not wholly blind. It occurred to him that he must not assume blindness at all, Anubis being a known cheat. He closed, carefully.
Throwing two body punches and two head punches in rapid succession showed Carroll that the oriental was fast but not infallible. He dodged the first three with unnatural speed, but the last connected. Yet even that was only a glancing blow to the cheekbone, and Carroll had to step back as hooked fingers stabbed at his eyes then a foot like a gnarled club tried to take his head off. No rules. He had to remember that.
Blind…
Carroll moved close and brought his hands together for a ringing clap. For a moment the oriental seemed confused and in that moment Carroll brought the edge of his foot down on the kneecap of his opponent’s leading leg. Something cracked and the oriental seemed to fall backwards. Carroll tried to follow through, but the man's other leg came up blindingly fast and the foot slammed into Carroll's chest like an iron bar. With his breath leaving him, Carroll stumbled back. The oriental did not follow through though. His damaged leg gave way and he stumbled, giving Carroll a moment to recover before they closed again.
They exchanged blows at a speed that made it evident why karate matches require three referees. None connected tellingly until the oriental stumbled on his bad leg and Carroll caught him on the side of his head with the edge of his hand. Then it was over in seconds. Carroll's next twisting karate punch took the oriental in the windpipe. He dropped to his knees choking. Carroll's next punch came down on the base of his skull like a hammer and the man fell bonelessly on his face. Gasping Carroll stepped back.
A silence ensued, shortly broken by Ellery's cheer, then Julius's, then the cheers of the others.
‘He is not dead,’ said the General, and the cheering slowly died away. Carroll glared with distaste at the General before returning his attention to his felled opponent. He stepped up close, squatted dow
n, took hold of the oriental's head and in one violent movement snapped his neck.
‘Satisfied now?’ he asked the General as he stood up.
‘He is dead now,’ said the General.
Carroll looked round at the Four, whereupon Anubis's throne roared and shot into the air. As the jackal-headed god receded out of sight the oriental burst into greasy flame. Carroll turned away and headed back towards Ellery and Julius, reaching them as Kali's throne then Quetzalcoatl's dais followed Anubis's into the twilight.
♠♠♠
Once he was back with Julius and Ellery Carroll said, ‘He would not have dodged the knife, but that is not important.’
Carefully he sat down and put on his socks and boots. ‘What is important is how and when we act.’ At that point the Masai, the Cavalier, and the British Redcoat approached.
‘We have come to congratulate you for a fine –’ began the Redcoat.
‘Yes, great, wonderful,’ said Carroll, and turned away to enter the building. Julius and Ellery quickly followed. Soon they were seated at one of the tables again while Carroll wrapped an elasticated bandage round his ribs.
‘When do we do it?’ asked Ellery.
Carroll held out his hand and after a moment Ellery handed him his bomb.
