The Thran

by J. Robert King

  “Excuse my appearance,” Dezra said. “My husband said he’d get rid of whoever was at the door.”

  “He tried,” Yawgmoth said, approaching her and kneeling down. “I’m not very easy to get rid of.”

  Healers set down packs of implements.

  Yawgmoth continued, “We’ve come because of reports that you have had symptoms of the phthisis.”

  Dezra smiled daggers at her husband. “And I know who reported me. Caron’s always trying to get rid of me. Thinks I’m too expensive. But then, he can’t bring himself to do it and buys me something else to make up for it. This episode will cost him dearly.”

  Yawgmoth nodded impassively. “He said you were feeling tired and dizzy recently. Is this true?”

  With a hissing sigh, Dezra idly slipped rings onto her fingers. “You would feel tired and dizzy if you spent all day cooped up in this room, waiting for Caron to come home. He doesn’t let me go out alone, only when I can adorn his arm. I’m just another piece of jewelry to him, you see. He’s afraid if I go out on my own, a man like you might snatch me up.”

  “Have you had any other symptoms—swelling, lesions, redness?”

  Something flitted within her sultry gaze, something like fear. “See for yourself.” Dezra drew the robe back from her figure and lay there as all eyes in the room passed over her silken skin. She rolled to one side, allowing a full view.

  “I-I-I see no sign of tissue c-corruption,” Xod stuttered, pretending to mark a checklist he held in his hands.

  “All right, cover up,” Rebbec said. “We’ve seen enough.”

  “You’ve seen what I don’t have and what I do,” she answered, slowly pulling up the robe again.

  Caron strode through the group and covered his wife with a ragged sheet. “All right. You’ve seen. Now go.”

  “Wait,” Yawgmoth said. “A few more questions. Have you ever been in contact with anyone who has the phthisis? Perhaps during the riots?”

  “No. That was one time I was glad to be cooped up,” she said. “Monsters. They attack us, and we heal them? I’ve seen some of those albino skeletons walking about in the city now. I can’t believe you are allowing those monsters among the rest of us!”

  “One of my aids today is from the caves,” Yawgmoth said, gesturing toward a pale-faced woman who had carried the serum pack into the room. “And none of those I have allowed into the city have even a trace of the phthisis.”

  Dezra fixed the pallid woman with a vicious smile. “Sorry, but I think the damned should stay damned. Halcyon’s got enough ugly people in it already.”

  Grinning ruefully, Caron said, “See, she’s got lots wrong with her but not this disease you’re looking for.”

  “That torc around your neck looks familiar,” Rebbec said, eyes narrowing. “May I see it?”

  “Are you healers or jewel thieves?” the husband asked. He laughed nervously.

  “Lean in, girlie,” Dezra said, puffing out her chest. “If you want another eyeful.”

  “Give it to me,” Rebbec responded flatly, extending her hand.

  Yawgmoth intercepted her hand and drew it back. “This interview is over.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I recognize that torc because it’s derived from a design by my husband. He created powerstone matrices that cast dynamic illusions—field effects that respond to changing environmental stimuli.”

  “Which means?”

  “She’s not what she appears.”

  Rebbec pulled free of Yawgmoth’s grip. She lunged past Caron, grabbed the torc, and pulled it from the woman’s neck. Dezra clawed her arm and shrieked. The sheet fell back. Without her torc, Dezra looked very different.

  She was at least seventy years old and morbidly obese. Folds of fat hung above joints nearly fused with arthritis. Worst of all, though, were the lesions. They ran together in great black sores, oozing and tattered. Skin hung in shreds from a thousand spots. Even as she struggled to rise, to recapture the torc, more wounds opened. From that infected figure came a stench that had been almost completely covered by the torc’s illusions.

  Yawgmoth dragged Rebbec back from the horrid figure. He knocked the torc from her hands. The woman’s clawing fingers had shredded Rebbec’s forearms.

  “Spirits, now!” Yawgmoth yelled.

  Xod snatched up a bottle, pulled the cork, and ladled it across the wounds. Rebbec nearly collapsed from the searing pain. She slumped against Yawgmoth, burying her screaming face in his side.

  “Neutralize!” Yawgmoth ordered.

  The young Untouchable flung a sedative dart across the room. It struck the woman, who groped among her jewels for more illusion magic. The dart injected a powerful sedative into her. She slumped across her powerstone collection, rolled against the mirror, shattered it, and was pelted by descending shards of glass.

  “Dezra! Oh, Dezra,” Caron wept, falling to his knees and plucking the bits of mirror from her. “What have you done? What have you done to her?”

  “Pull him off. Administer three doses of the serum. Clear away the glass. Stabilize her, but take every precaution.” Yawgmoth ordered.

  “Dezra! Dezra!”

  Yanking a clean sheet from his pack, Xod threw it over the man’s head and hauled him back from his wife. He held the man’s arms at his sides and withdrew toward the wall. The other healers converged on the trembling woman.

  “What have you done to her?” Caron cried.

  “You did it to her,” Yawgmoth growled. “You who wanted a showpiece instead of a wife. You who bought her the gems that ravaged her. Administer the test.”

  The young Untouchable had just finished injecting Dezra and strode purposefully toward Caron. She produced a knife from her belt and cut the sheet over the man’s head. She pulled it back far enough to expose the right half of his face. Then, drawing up a needle-bladder, she stuck the needle into his temple and squeezed slowly. When Caron began to scream, she stuffed a bunch of the sheet into his mouth.

  “It’s only a test serum,” Yawgmoth explained. “If you carry the phthisis, your temple will turn black. If it remains its normal shade, you are healthy.”

  “No sign of change,” the Untouchable said, pulling the needle away and rubbing the man’s temple. “Test is negative.”

  “Congratulations,” Yawgmoth said raggedly. “You must be immune, but we will have to take your wife to the cave quarantine. She is a hazard to the health of the whole city.”

  Caron’s eyes were mad in his head. “I’ll go with her. I don’t care. I’ll go with her.”

  “She won’t have her jewels. She won’t have her beauty,” Yawgmoth said.

  “I don’t care. If they infected her—if I infected her—I’ll not abandon her.”

  “Let him go,” Yawgmoth ordered. “Let him gather whatever he will carry down into the caves. Xod, go fetch a team of bearers. She won’t be able to walk. That’s why she’s stayed cooped up in here.”

  Xod released the man, who dropped to his knees, still wrapped in the sheet.

  Caron crumpled over. “If I can’t take the jewels, what will happen to them? Will they be here when we come back?”

  “No. The dwelling must be sterilized. Nothing will remain. The state will hold any items of value, such as these stones, for your eventual return. In your absence, this room will be provided to folk elevated from the caves—a starting point for their new lives.”

  “What? You can’t simply take away one man’s home and grant it to another!”

  “I can, and I do. You have no need of it, and you owe the city recompense for placing so many lives in jeopardy,” Yawgmoth said. “Now be quick. The bearers will be here soon. You descend to the caves within the hour.”

  Still clinging to him, Rebbec looked up into Yawgmoth’s stern features. She held out her ragged arm.

  “I hope—I hope I’m imm
une, like you think.”

  Yawgmoth wrapped her in a powerful arm. “You’ll get the best treatment possible, second only to Glacian’s own.”

  Blinking, Rebbec drew a ragged breath. “Thank you, Yawgmoth, for all you’ve done. And thank you for not sending Glacian to the caves. I know he is too sick to remain in the city, but if you sent him to the caves, I’d have to go with him.”

  The steely look in Yawgmoth’s eyes was indecipherable. “I know. I know.”

  Yawgmoth’s lift system was installed into the Caves of the Damned. Mining automatons worked ceaselessly for months, boring a new shaft straight down. A series of cables and pulleys conveyed a huge platform through the shaft. No graceful invention of Glacian’s, this ugly rig had been designed by Dungas, the same artificer who had invented the powerstone commode called by the same name. Elevator and dungas served the same function, hurling the refuse of Halcyon below.

  The first batch of quarantine patients to ride the lift arrived atop a load of lumber. Six men, three women, and a boy huddled among the straining cables that lowered the elevator. It was a precarious perch. Once when the contraption lurched, a man fell between the elevator and the shaft. He was minced by the oblivious machine. His remains tumbled away into darkness. At the bottom, he was only a warm pulp on the floor.

  Gix and his crew stood just beyond that pulp.

  The elevator squealed and shuddered. Splinters fluttered down amid a fine rain of wood dust and stone grit. With a final few jolts, the lift struck ground. Lumber slumped sideways. Its bindings broke. Boards and refugees spilled from the elevator into the muck.

  “Clear away this lumber! Get them out!” Gix shouted.

  He yanked up planks and threw them aside, clawing his way to hands and faces. Two of the men were unconscious, and their heels dragged tracks behind them as they were pulled free. One woman had a broken ankle. Two others walked away unscathed. The boy survived, and the three other men, who limped from the wreck.

  Gix found one other item among the blood-soaked planks—a note:

  From Health Councilor Yawgmoth

  To His Trusted Associate Gix,

  Greetings.

  Make these ten folk as comfortable as possible among the other patients in the quarantine cave. They present a serious hazard to the public health. The load of lumber is to be used to build beds. Nails and tools will arrive in a subsequent shipment. The city will also provide shipments of mattresses, sheets, pillows, food, and clothing, to care for the infirm. Use these supplies to reward those who assist you and assure compliance from the rest.

  In compensation to the cave community for this added burden, I request that you liberate the following ten persons from the caves. I have selected each personally for the contribution he or she can make to the city. Let them know housing is ready for them, and they will be put to use in my own personal health corps. Congratulate them for me.

  Expect another set of refugees tomorrow and a similar list of folk to liberate. The supplies that accompany the new arrivals should enrich their lives and eventually the lives of all those in the caves, and in Halcyon.

  Thank you for your continued faithful service. I will provide more serum at the end of the week.

  Yawgmoth.

  Gix lowered the note and stared, disbelieving, at the bloodstained pile of splinters before him.

  Beneath his breath, he said, “Yawgmoth has provided us lovely beds. Lovely beds.”

  * * *

  —

  Six months ago, it had been only idle speculation. Now it was a fully developed mathematical proof that would transform Halcyon—again. He had proved it—powerstones contained not only vast energies but also vast spaces. A powerful enough stone could even contain a whole world.

  “I am the genius of Halcyon.”

  Glacian paused, looking feverishly at hundreds of sheets of calculations. They lay in piles across the lap board he had fitted to his wheeled chair. Columns of numbers marched up each page, laced together with logical proofs and sketched diagrams. He had worked these theories out in lucid moments between spasms of pain and the unconsciousness that frequently followed. Some lines of reasoning continued boldly onward though the hand that scribed them grew steadily enervated. Some sketches were only half formed when Glacian slumped across them. Poring over his work, he often encountered brilliant turns of logic and rigorous argumentation that he couldn’t remember developing. It was as though another Glacian collaborated with him. Despite amnesia and physical degeneration, Glacian had developed his most brilliant theory yet.

  In this model, the physical and temporal dimensions of reality are warped by energetic bombardment. When reality becomes deeply convoluted, it traps energy so that it travels in circles instead of straight lines. Thus, the warping of reality by energy slows and solidifies that same energy. Eventually, energy and dimensional reality are compacted enough to form matter. Conversely, to change matter back into energy—as happens in the charging of powerstones—is to unfold the dimensions of reality, to create space. The charging of powerstones unleashes vast stores of energy by unfolding vast tracts of space. Originally, Glacian believed the introduction of any matter into that space would only cause it to collapse again. Now he knew that any new matter introduced would bring its own compacted space with it. Therefore, a large powerstone contains a huge empty space into which items and persons could be introduced. Whole new worlds could be created inside powerstones.

  “I know an architect for those new worlds.”

  Glacian had even mapped the organizational principles of spaces within various stones. If a stone is spherical, the space within would be organized in concentric spheres—nested stacks of matter with the locus of energy at the precise center. Elaborate sketches showed the sort of nested spheres that could be built within even a small powerstone. They would be floating neighborhoods in which hundreds of people could live in bright beauty and safety. Rebbec could build another whole city within the powerstones of her temple. At last, those who ascended need never descend again.

  Only one task remained—to discover a pathway into those vast spaces. Glacian had been working that insoluble problem for the last month. Thrice he had almost taken his discovery to Rebbec, but he wanted the revelation to be complete.

  “—energy warps space and time, so drawing it off would flatten it, provide a momentary pathway past crystalline matter…no, the resultant explosion would destroy crystal and traveler and world, all—” Glacian muttered, wrinkling the much-marked sheet before him. He held it up in a shaking fist. “—How to get into that crumple of space and mass? How to open the gateway? How to win back the city from Yawgmoth? How to win back Rebbec…?”

  He awoke some time later, leaning back in his wheeled chair. Beyond the window, the sky was inky with night. Someone had neatly stacked his sheaves of proofs on a nearby table. Someone had removed his lap board, emptied the tubes that drained his urine, placed pillows behind his head, and set a blanket over his shoulders.

  “Who the hell did this?” Glacian growled.

  The young healer Xod strode out from behind a shelf laden with serum jars. “You said you were done working tonight.”

  “I said no such thing!” Glacian hissed. “I was near to a breakthrough. I just nodded off a moment.”

  Xod’s brow knitted, and he set down the scalpel he held. “No. You asked me to take you to see your wife, and then you said you were done working and wanted to sleep.”

  “What are you talking about?” Glacian growled. “Where’s my wife?”

  “Don’t you remember? I just took—”

  “I don’t care what you just did. Take me to see her. Where’s my wife?”

  Xod snorted, “She’s in the next room, eating her supper.”

  “Take me to her!”

  “Let me wash my hands. I’ve been dissecting a cat—”

  “Take me!�
�

  A tight smile crossed Xod’s face. “Of course, I will take you.” He circled around behind Glacian, arrayed the various tubes and bags on the back of the chair, and wheeled him toward the door.

  En route, Glacian snatched up the piled manuscript and set it on his lap. As they continued down the hall, he talked with conspiratorial excitement.

  “I have something to show her.”

  “Yes, I know,” Xod replied flatly. “You did last time too.”

  “Last time?”

  “I should warn you, she’s not dining alone.”

  The smooth sweep of the infirmary walls tucked the diners out of sight, but their shadows showed in glowing motion, and their conversation sifted to Glacian.

  A man’s voice “—that woman we found those months ago, the one with the torc. Some would say you and Glacian have done the same thing to the city—taken an old, fat lady and dressed her up in the illusions of youth and health, while everything turns to plague beneath.”

  “Who says such things?” Rebbec’s voice.

  “In fact, what is the Thran Temple but a huge torc, casting a glamour over the city?”

  “Pardon the intrusion…again,” Xod said as he wheeled Glacian into the room, “but your husband asked that I bring him down here.”

  Rebbec sat on one side of a well-spread lab table. Tureens and platters gave up their last steam in the light of half-burned candles. Rolls turned cold in their basket. On the other side of the table sat Yawgmoth. Behind him, a needless fire burned in an incinerator, hearkening back to romantic hearths.

  Glacian had caught them in flagrante delicto.

  The two broke off mid-conversation and turned toward him, quizzical and impatiently polite. Rebbec raised her eyebrows.

  “Hello, Glacian,” she said with a voice that sounded weary. “You wanted to see me?”

  “What are you doing, having a candlelight dinner with—with—?”