by H. R. Moore
Alexander gave up for the day; there was nothing more for him here.
CHAPTER 4
Anita entered the Observatory still reeling from her latest encounter with Marcus and still with absolutely no idea what to do. On the upside, her mood had improved considerably and she managed a beaming smile to Bas and Patrick as she reached the top of the stairs. ‘Morning,’ she said happily.
‘Morning,’ Patrick and Bas responded in downbeat tones.
‘What’s up?’ asked Anita, immediately concerned. It was very unlike these two to be so down in the dumps.
‘They’re about to make an announcement. Totally out of the blue and without any preparation,’ Bas replied bitterly.
‘No,’ stammered Anita, ‘she hasn’t. Surely not this soon?’
‘Yep, dead,’ said Patrick gloomily, but with the edge of something else in his voice, excitement maybe. ‘Found in her chamber a couple of days ago, apparently passed away in her sleep.’ Anita knew why Patrick wasn’t entirely unhappy, the world was in the throes of the most significant energy event it had ever seen, and the three of them would have front row seats. Despite this, Anita couldn’t help feeling annoyed with Patrick, surely excitement wasn’t quite the right emotion, trepidation or something similarly uneasy would be more appropriate.
‘Well that would explain why the Descendants disappeared over the last couple of days.’ Although Anita obviously kept to herself that she had seen Marcus. He hadn’t exactly seemed like he was in mourning.
‘They are going to stand on the steps of the Body Temple and make an announcement, and broadcast it over the airwaves so everyone knows. Just like that,’ Patrick said. Bas looked quite pale.
‘Are you alright Bas? You look a bit sick,’ asked Anita, Bas was usually so strong in a crisis.
‘Well aside from the fact that we are about to see an unprecedented fall in energy and we have absolutely no idea what effect that will have on our entire world, I’m peachy, thanks.’
‘Right, I see. Fair point.’ Anita shot a questioning look to Patrick, who shrugged back in a way that said Bas had been like this all morning.
‘They are about to start,’ said Patrick, looking at his watch and walking over to the radio receiver to make sure it was correctly tuned. ‘Here we go,’ he said, almost as though he was announcing the start of some kind of fairground ride, as a brusque yet buttery male voice cut across the room.
‘Citizens of the world. We have come here today to the Temple of the Body to announce a terrible tragedy.’ The voice paused pointedly for dramatic effect. Whoever it was speaking, Anita didn’t like him. ‘It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that Christiana, Descendant of Georgiana and ruler on earth for Tatiana, Goddess of the Body, has moved on from this world. She passed away peacefully in her sleep several nights ago. We have been making preparations for her funeral, which will take place here in Empire, in the Temple of the Body. Her funeral will take place one week from now. Peter, Descendant of Christiana will succeed to the throne to rule on earth for Tatiana, Goddess of the Body. There will be a joint Chase, Crowning and ball for the succession of Alexander, Descendant of Anthony, and Peter, Descendant of Christiana. Christiana was a vibrant, skilful leader of the Temple of the Body, so in her honour we should expect a competitive Chase and a lively ball. I, Austin, Descendant of Tobias, understand that this will be a difficult time, balancing mourning the loss of one great leader with celebrating the rise of two new ones. I would urge everyone, regardless of the Temple to which you belong, to embrace the ethos that Christiana would have wanted. This is a time to celebrate a new beginning. Christiana has gone to join the Gods, and may the Gods look down favourably upon us all.’ That was it. To the point, perfunctory, nothing superfluous to the very base of what was required from him. Nothing that might help reassure the people that there was still hope in the world, that the prophecy was still intact, that of course the Descendants were still battling on behalf of the people to free them from subjugation. Nothing.
In perfect unison with the close of Austin’s speech, every light on every dashboard started to flash. Bas yanked off his headset and threw it violently down on his chair as he stormed out of the room towards the roof.
‘Well I think this is an ‘I told you so moment’ don’t you?’ It always amazed Anita how Patrick could be crass, even in the most dire of circumstances. Anita rolled her eyes at Patrick, perhaps a little more leniently than she would normally, and followed Bas up to the roof. He was sitting on a pipe, staring out over Empire and she walked slowly towards him. She paused for a moment, inches away, looking down to meet his cloudy eyes, before reaching out and pulling him towards her, his head pressing against her torso as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. He relaxed into her and she stroked the back of his head, the other hand on his back, trying to sooth the ridges she found there. The tension was beginning to leave Bas’ energy when he suddenly stood up, putting his hands on her hips to move her backwards before, upright, his hard, strong body inches from hers, reversing the pressure and pulling her back towards him. His hands left her waist, moving to envelop her shoulders, pulling her into him. Anita responded without thinking and wrapped her long, lithe arms around his muscular form, lowering her head lightly into the crook of his neck. They stood there for several minutes, Bas softly caressing her back, Anita not quite sure how this had happened, but noticing that his energy wasn’t soaring in the way she would have expected. They pulled apart, Bas avoiding her eyes, wordlessly moving to the edge of the roof and sitting down, legs dangling over the side, staring out towards the Temples.
‘Well at least the view’s still good,’ said Anita, immediately wishing she hadn’t. She really needed to stop spending time with Patrick. Bas didn’t say a word and Anita dropped down beside him, sitting close so that their shoulders were touching. They sat there in silence for an hour before he said anything.
‘My family has run this Observatory for five generations,’ he started quietly, guardedly. ‘You would think they might have learned to listen to us by now.’ Anita was going to respond, but thought better of it and waited for Bas to continue. ‘My father told them what would happen if they just came out with it, but Austin wouldn’t listen, and obviously he’s the only Descendant with any legitimate power at the moment.’ Bas paused again, struggling. Anita felt useless, desperately wanting to help, but with no idea how to. ‘We told him that we would see this. A sudden, dangerous drop and then who knows what, but it’s unlikely to bounce back like it did with Philip. People think it’s over. They think we’ll never be free from the Gods now, that we’ll be slaves forever. We’ve never seen anything like this and we still don’t really understand the way the energy works. We could start to see any number of things happen.’ He paused, Anita sensing that they were about to get to the crux of Bas’ rambling. ‘We failed to stop it.’
The words hit Anita like a train and her reaction was immediate. ‘What?’ she said with such force it surprised even her, but Bas smirked and looked away. Anita shuffled round so she could see more of his face and put her hand on his arm. ‘You can’t be serious?’ she said gently. ‘You did everything you could. You stood up to Austin, and he doesn’t exactly sound like a bundle of joy, and we can still find a way to bring the energy back up.’
‘How exactly are we going to do that?’ said Bas, as though Anita was a naïve child. ‘All gather round and politely ask the Gods if they would mind very much leaving us alone, so we can all live happily ever after?’
Anita was more than a little shocked. She had never seen Bas like this, and he had certainly never spoken to her like that. She dropped her hand back to her lap and turned back to face Empire, until finally a logical argument popped into her head. ‘So, the energy didn’t actually start to fall until the announcement?’ Anita questioned.
‘Yep, it exactly coincided with the speech. You saw the dashboards,’ he said pithily, taking a deep, loud breath like he was humouring her, but she had better get to
the point soon.
‘But Christiana died several days ago, Austin said so himself, in which case it wasn’t Christiana’s actual death that sent the energy plummeting, but peoples’ reaction to the news.’ She was getting excited now. ‘Which means that there is at least a chance we could find a way to bring the energy levels back up. If we could find a way to make people believe that we can still get rid of the Gods, then we might not yet be heading for destruction.’ Bas wasn’t biting. ‘Come on Bas, you know I’m right. As you’ve suspected for some time, it’s not the actual events that cause energy fluctuations, but peoples’ emotional responses. It’s people that control the energy, which means there is still a chance that we can turn this around.’
‘Even if you’re right, you think Austin is going to let us interfere? He’s dead against any kind of intervention. He thinks we just need to accept the inevitable and get on with our lives.’
‘I didn’t say it would be easy,’ Anita replied, her tone reflecting the irritation she was starting to feel at Bas’ uncharacteristic negativity, ‘but I’m yet to find a challenge that I want to turn down and I’m afraid this one is not going to be first on that list. So you can either help me, which would make my life a lot easier, seeing as you’re the energy expert, or wallow in your depression and help to pull the energy down further.’
Bas knew she was right. The more people that gave up the worse it would be. He inhaled again, this time resigned. ‘Alright. Count me in,’ he said rolling his eyes, but his energy was starting to betray him and Anita threw him a victor’s smile. ‘You can be really annoying sometimes you know,’ he said petulantly, hiding and fighting the involuntary upward turn of his lips.
‘Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment,’ she grinned.
*****
Bas sat outside the chamber in the centre of the Temples. He was staring into the mid-distance and thinking about what exactly he was going to say to the Grand Council (preparation had never really been his strongest suit), when his father came out and put a heavy hand on his shoulder.
‘We’re ready for you,’ said Alistair, Bas’ mid-height, grey haired father, who looked almost lanky next to Bas, although his shoulders were really quite broad, ‘are you ready?’ His kind, perceptive eyes searched Bas’, trying to tease out his inner feelings, not that his son’s feelings usually needed much teasing, he was generally pretty up front about his emotions.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Bas replied, giving his father a knowing look. As Bas and Alistair walked into the chamber, every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at them, but Bas ignored every single one. He was always fascinated by the layout of this room. The Councillors from the three Temples sat along three of the walls at the edges of the hexagonal room, with the Descendant for each Temple sitting in the middle of their wall of Councillors. On the floor in the middle of the room was a circle that nobody was allowed to walk over, the area directly above whatever sacred thing it was that lay below the Temple points. Opposite the middle wall of Councillors was a lectern, to which guests such as himself were summoned to give presentations and updates to the Grand Council.
Bas made his way purposefully to the lectern. The last thing he wanted to do was let them intimidate him, so he didn’t rush, he tried instead to move across the room as though this was where he was born to be. He wasn’t sure whether he succeeded or not, but was extremely glad to reach the safety of the lectern, where he could bring up the illustrations of his results and encourage everyone to focus on those, instead of him.
‘Good morning Descendants, Councillors. It is a great honour to be here today to present to you,’ Bas noticed as he said this that the chairs for both the Body Descendant and the Spirit Descendant were empty. Alexander and Peter were each sitting to the side of the chair that in a few days would be theirs, presumably, Bas thought, because Austin had insisted that they could not sit in the Descendants’ chairs until after their Crownings. He wants to make sure everyone knows he is the only one with any real power here today, thought Bas, as though anyone had any question in their mind. ‘As you can see,’ Bas continued briskly, using an energy wave to bring up a projection of a graph in mid-air, ‘the world experienced a significant and instantaneous negative response to the news of Christiana’s death. The moment Austin’s speech concluded, the energy plummeted to unprecedented levels and it continued to drop for three consecutive days, finally slowing and levelling out last night to where it is currently, here,’ he paused letting everyone take in the dramatic drop, pointing to a place on the graph as he said this. ‘To put it bluntly, we have no idea the effect this drop in energy will have on our world, however it is likely to have a profound impact on our agriculture, fish stocks, weather, and most importantly on the mood of our people. This last point is the most important, as this is something over which we can exercise at least a modicum of control. Three days ago, before Austin gave his speech on the steps of the Temple of the Body, Christiana had been dead for several days already, however there was no impact at all on the energy as a direct result of her death. As soon as Austin told the world that Christiana was no longer with us, there was an instant and dramatic decline. This obviously indicates that it is our perception of events and the state of the world, and not actual events and the real state of the world that have the most profound effect, indeed any effect, on the energy. This means that if we can find a way to positively influence the general populous, if we could give them hope and make them feel like there may yet be a way to free the world from the Gods, then we could stand a chance of bringing the energy back up to more normal levels, to save our world from what frankly could be destruction. If we don’t do this, there is a chance that the mood will get worse as a result of the negative effects, which will in turn drag the energy down further, in a vicious and destructive spiral.’
At this point, Austin, who looked like Bas had just casually sauntered over to his chair, slapped him in the face before taking a bow, and then strutted back to the lectern, took to the floor. He looked down at Marcus, who was sitting to his right, before theatrically addressing the Grand Council. ‘Councillors,’ he said in the same buttery tone that he had used for the radio broadcast, but coming across as a great deal more pompous in real life than he had over the energy waves, ‘let me start by expressing my gratitude to Bas for coming and speaking to us today.’ He declined to address the other Descendants directly, self-righteous idiot thought Bas. ‘I’m sure it is a daunting task for one so…young,’ he drawled in a way so condescending that Bas had to fight quite hard the urge to punch him. Instead, he looked over to his father who gave him a ‘we knew this would happen’ kind of look, before turning his head back towards Austin.
‘Now, it would be easy for us all to jump to conclusions at a difficult time like this, when we are all still grieving the loss of one so great as Christiana, however, we simply cannot try to keep alive the hope of freeing the world from the Gods,’ he paused for dramatic effect, ‘when that hope is now gone.’ He said each word in staccato to emphasise his message and as the words left his mouth a cold silence rippled across the chamber, every person holding their breath. ‘We have seen energy dips before,’ he continued, seemingly oblivious to the effect he had just had, ‘and it has always bounced back when people have come to terms with the events that caused it. In a few days we have the Chase. This is a high-spirited event that is known to boost the energy, and after that we have a double Crowning and ball. These I am sure will lift the energy and I am confident there will be no…,’ Austin looked pointedly at Bas, ‘…destruction for us to worry about.’ The way Austin lingered over the word destruction made it sound like a challenge, something along the lines of ‘prove me wrong if you dare’. There was nobody in the room who had the power to challenge Austin. Even if Peter and Alexander had been crowned already, it was unlikely they would want to take on Austin this publically so early on in their Descendancy; so everyone remained silent, stunned at what they had just heard. Bas nodded towards Austin,
his time clearly up, and retreated towards the door. One of the Councillors’ aides opened it for him as he got there and he walked out into the sunshine, weather which didn’t exactly reflect his mood.
Well that went just as expected, Bas thought to himself as he waited for his father to come out of the Temple after him. The energy update had been the last topic of the day, so they would walk home together.
Alistair came out of the chamber with a collection of other Councillors and he said his goodbyes as they reached where Bas was standing. They walked a short distance in silence before Bas spat, ‘well that was a complete waste of time, and to top it all off Austin made me look like a total idiot.’
‘You can believe that if you want Bas, but you know as well as I do that most people in that room knew you were talking sense.’ Alistair’s soft, reasonable, yet authoritative voice had its usual calming effect. ‘Austin knew you were talking sense too. The question is why he is so set against trying to drum up a little positive energy,’ said Alistair, musing as they walked. ‘Anyway, we will continue to monitor the energy and provide reports to the Grand Council. If crops start to fail, as they inevitably will sooner or later, he will have to do something, unless he wants to deal with an uprising.’
