Journey - Book II of the Five Worlds Trilogy

by Al Sarrantonio

  “You … do not … under … stand my daughter,” he said. What the High Leader at first took to be a grin was actually a grimace. “For even if you have… her body… she will… still resist you . .

  The High Leader felt his rage rising to new high levels, and yet he was able to bark out a laugh. “I still have you—you old foo—”

  The Screen image of the senator managed to cut the High Leader off, even though his voice was a bare breath. “If I… were to remain… alive, my… daughter would… do your… bidding. However…”

  Now the senator did manage a smile, and now the withered, paper-skinned hand at his side flickered upward, ever so slightly; there was the tiniest glint of something metallic, and then the field around Senator Kris brightened to blindness and then collapsed, leaving the senator’s blackened, charred body in a heap on the garret floor.

  “What—happened?” the High Leader screeched, managing a sound that was something between a gasp and a howl of fury. He turned on Pynthas. “What happened?”

  “He … t-t-terminated himself, High Lead—”

  “How? How could he do this?” Prime Cornelian turned back to the Screen, staring with fascination at the senator’s dead body, its burned head angled back as if on cue to face the camera, the skeletal look of its mouth looking not much different than the painful penultimate grin the senator had managed in life.

  “He… had a…”

  “What?”

  “… button, High Leader, a … metal button, which he… apparently hid in his palm when we put him in the … field. He … apparently was aware that it would… disrupt the phase and…”

  Prime Cornelian said, “Do you mean to tell me that Senator Kris kept that button for three years, knowing that it could end his life at any time—end his pain—and yet he didn’t use it until it was most useful for his daughter?”

  “That would … appear to be the case, High Leader. It was actually easy for him to hold the button, since it was locked against his palm by the field—”

  “That’s not what I mean, you idiot!” Prime Cornelian drew even closer to the Screen, marveling at the senator’s dead body. “Such… dedication. If only the Machine Master could manufacture that for me.”

  “Would you like me to… summon the Machine Master, High Leader?”

  The High Leader turned, as if seeing Pynthas for the first time. “What? No, of course not, you dolt. Just … get out.”

  Pynthas, thankful for release, skittered backward toward the door.

  “And turn out the lights on leaving.”

  “Yes, High Leader!” Pynthas fumbled for the switch, missing it twice before drawing the High Leader’s attention.

  “I said get out! I’ll handle it myself!”

  “Yes, High Leader!”

  Fumbling still at the door, Pynthas Rei fell out into the hallway as the door opened unexpectedly behind him. As it began to close again, the lights were extinguished in the chamber, and the High Leader began to slip once more into a Period of Darkness. But now there was illumination in the room from the still-active Screen, before which Prime Cornelian had prostrated himself, as if hypnotized.

  “A … maz … ing …” the High Leader said languidly, as the door closed tight in Pynthas Rei’s face.

  Chapter 17

  As an actor, Porto enjoyed immensely the Lost Lands.

  Drama! The Lost Lands presented nothing if not drama: each moment was fraught with peril, the fight of mutant species that may have heaved into existence only the week or month before; the battle of twisted life that existed in a world where natural law had been turned upside down.

  Action! The fights themselves—between four-eyed reptiles and three-eyed birds, for instance, provided plenty of that; there were minor skirmishes of a thousand varieties, and the constant, inevitable, age-old contest between hunter and prey. Since his departure from the rebel camp a week before, Porto had beheld tiny creatures with impossibly long limbs devour animals thrice their size by merely squeezing them to death; and then seen the same ten-meter-limb creatures bested by monsters half their size, who then proceeded to feast on both losers. Porto was less intrigued by the innards of these beasts; some seemed to ooze copper-colored sap in place of blood, and where there was blood it was too light in color to provide hope of normal human sustenance. Porto had, naturally, provided his own food for the trip.

  Romance! Well, there wasn’t much of that, except goggly-eyed things courting other goggly-eyed things, during which times Porto amused himself with the scenery.

  Scenery! And what scenery it was! Worthy of any nightmare stage. At night in the Lost Lands thunder may or may not be accompanied by lightning or clouds; clouds themselves, never a fluffy white, often a rancid yellow or brown, may or may not produce acid rain. Lightning, in fact, found its way to the ground without benefit of storm—by benefit, in fact, of the skewed atmosphere, whose ionization layer had picked up enough charged electrons to produce lightning whenever it liked. The sky itself was a constant slate gray and produced the not-infrequent tornado funnel that tore through the blasted landscape, driving infertile blue-black soil into the air, along with the rusted roots of dead plants and mutant mix-hires of plant and animal life: dun-leaved ferns with lionine features bulging from their stems, uprooted things walking with zombie gaits, daisies that screamed with the coming of each sickly dawn.

  And the stage itself!

  The stage!

  Porto felt himself a man at home. Though he had had a few close calls, most of his days had been spent in happy contemplation at this thespian’s paradise he found himself in. Not since his boyhood days, while acting for food in Cairo’s slums, had he felt so free to improvise; his morning might be spent in happy soliloquy to a shivering (literally) oak tree; during an afternoon break from his northeastward trek, he might stop to serenade three leathery monsters in the process of devouring a chum, holding them in thrall with his juggling wizardry. Swamp globs, who thrived on acid rain, he discovered, were partial to jokes; so, too, were two-headed cranes biased in favor of the historical Shakespeare. Julius Caesar being Porto’s specialty, he escaped more than one close call by rattling off the death scene: “Et tu, Brutus!”

  And always, Porto was startled by something new. He discovered, for instance, that the reports of recent years had been true: that parts of the Lost Lands were not lost anymore. Here and there amid the supposed ruins were spots of new fecundity; where a few years earlier might have stood a stand of rotting elms, now these elms had found reason to thrive again, and flower green as ever their ancestors. Where a fetid swamp, filled with pestilence and drinkable death, had lain, now flowed a stream-fed pool of real water (a good thing, since at one point Porto’s own water supply had been depleted during an unfortunate flight from ungrateful patrons who thought him food instead of food for thought). Here and there, a patch of real blue shone overhead—even if the shining be fleeting; and, once, a cloud of, yes, fluffy white made its appearance at undewy dawn—only to be devoured by acidic brothers later in the morning, naturally, but the appearance was duly noted, and applauded.

  What did Porto make of it? Nothing, for that was not his job; but he made note nevertheless.

  There were way stations: pseudo-principalities of human mutants and outcasts and, occasionally, other, smaller rebel camps. Through half of what had once been Africa, Porto was never without promise of aid for long, and often met with more deference than he was used to. One outer fiefdom feted him as if he were visiting royalty—though the dishes, which included among other delicacies six-toed monkey, were not to his liking, the attention was pleasing. Not a few dinners ended with impromptu performances by the traveling ambassador; his Cyrano, especially, was enjoyed on this occasion. Another camp provided a ride in a rickety contraption that mimicked the flight of an airplane; Porto enjoyed the shortening of the trip, if not the method.

  And then, suddenly, he was on the edge of the World again. The sky cleared; the grass was green, the Lost Lands lef
t behind. Now his situation became more official. There were officials to kowtow to, ceremonies to partake in. Here his acting served him more than well. When he left these borderline states behind, the goodwill he had engendered did nothing to endanger the recent alliances the rebels had made. For this, Porto was thankful.

  And then, he was among the unfriendly.

  It was an abrupt change; a borderline between governorships distinct perhaps on a map but not beneath Porto’s feet. From friendly territory he passed, one beautiful morning, into unfriendly territory, and found himself surrounded by Imperial soldiers.

  “Hello?” he said, seeking to keep the conversation light.

  But these were serious fellows, the most serious of which held a bayoneted raser to his throat.

  “You are?” the man said, with anything but friendliness.

  “I am Porto, on an official mission to see Prime Minister Acron.”

  The bayonet flicked, and the man blinked.

  “Keep him here,” the soldier said, leaving Porto surrounded by merely five men with weapons, instead of six, while the soldier went off to check Porto’s story.

  He was back soon enough.

  “Come with me,” he ordered, and when Porto bowed in a theatrical fashion, he found the point of a bayonet in his derriere.

  “Just follow,” he was ordered, and thenceforth did as he was told.

  There followed numerous trips in numerous forms of transport, mostly with blackened windows, at the end of which Porto found himself face-to-face with Acron himself, in the man’s capacious office.

  The man was drunk—a state which Porto wished himself to be in. He had already been roughed up, and knew that more of the same was on the way.

  “So you were stupid enough to come, eh?” Acron said, poking at Porto with what looked like a sharpened metallic stick—but which proved to have a nasty electrical shock associated with its touch.

  Porto flinched back, but Acron followed him closely with a parry, poking the weapon into the actor’s belly.

  “I was sent on a diplomatic mission—” Porto began in a dignified voice.

  “Diplomatic?” Acron laughed, the sound breaking into a drunken cough. “Look at you! You don’t look like a diplomat to me! From what I hear you’re nothing but a second fiddle of an actor!”

  Porto smiled, until the pig-eyed prime minister’s stick once again found his midsection, imparting a nasty shock.

  “I have been sent—” Porto said.

  “You’ve been sent as a lamb to slaughter, you simpleton! Did you think I would truly negotiate with your band of cutthroats?”

  “There was mention of a truce—”

  “Ha! Bait! That’s all it was—and look what it’s caught!”

  The prime minister jabbed the electric stick viciously at Porto, who nearly blacked out with its effect. When his eyes cleared, he was on the floor with fat Acron astride him, his bloodshot eyes full of malevolence.

  “You’re here, and you’re mine,” the prime minister growled. “I’ve murdered greater men than you with my bare hands. And once you tell me where your vermin compatriots are, I’ll wipe them from the face of the Lost Lands as if they were toilet droppings.”

  In spite of his pain, Porto could not help his amusement. “What a colorful phrase—may I appropriate it?”

  With another drunken growl the prime minister jabbed at Porto again, and this time Acron did not remove the stick for a long time, until Porto no longer felt the pain in consciousness.

  He was tortured by experts. He had endured torture of a minor sort before, but these were sophisticated men. At first he had been able to act his way through the proceedings—but in the end, they had stripped him of all of his performance trappings until only the truth was left. And then they pulled the raw leavings of truth from him, leaving him weak, and drained, and feeling traitorous. When they finally left him alone he tried to hang himself, but was denied this exit and left weaponless and alone in his cell.

  Acron did come to see him, after the fact. And though the fat prime minister was even drunker than when they had first met, he was smirking now, as he shouted through the bars of Porto’s cell.

  “You see, vermin? I told you this was how it would go! And now I will give you the privilege of living to see what your information will do to your friends! Now, when the High Leader drops his bombs on the Lost Lands, I will take you there afterward and make you lick the dead bones of your brothers!”

  Chapter 18

  “Where is she?” Wrath-Pei demanded.

  For the first time in a long time, something like a smile of pleasure found its way onto Kamath Clan’s face. The Wrath-Pei she beheld on the Screen before her was one she had never before witnessed. The calm, chilling coldness was stripped away, revealing the animal within; and his eyes—if only she were close enough now to see into his seething eyes—close enough to claw them out with her bare fingers—

  “She is somewhere you cannot get at her. On her way back to Mars.”

  “So it’s true!” Wrath-Pei fumed. “You’ve actually smuggled her off Titan!”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Queen Clan said. Even through her pain, she could not help showing her satisfaction.

  “Are you mad? Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve given Cornelian every reason to attack without worry now! He’ll destroy Titan!”

  “He’ll destroy you. And we’ve made a pact.”

  “A pact? You are mad! Treaties mean nothing to that creature! He’ll annihilate all of us!”

  “So be it. The House of Clan will survive, as will the Sect of Faran Clan. Even if I don’t survive.”

  “You won’t! And your religion means nothing to Cornelian either! He’ll honor nothing!”

  “Perhaps.”

  With a renewed measure of control, Wrath-Pei said, “Let me show you something, Queen Clan.”

  “As you wish.”

  Wrath-Pei held up a thin amber vial. “What if I told you I had succeeded in my… experiments?”

  “I would say that it meant nothing to me now. Those times have passed; I no longer require what Quog provided. I have found … other things to dwell on.”

  “Other things? What other things could there be?” For a moment Wrath-Pei regained his old confidence and oily charm. “Not religion, I hope?”

  Queen Clan returned silence for a moment before saying, “As I said, I have moved on to other things. Good-bye, Wrath-Pei.”

  “You fool!”

  But the transmission went dead.

  And, in his gyro chair, Wrath-Pei screamed and clutched at his snips, pulling them closed, and opened, and closed again.

  On Jo, Queen Kamath Clan turned from her own Screen and said, “Are you sure Wrath-Pei could not detect the relay?”

  Jon-Ten, Minister of Faith, one of only two men on all of Titan whom the Queen knew she could trust implicitly, nodded his bald head. “I’m sure he thinks you are still on Titan.”

  “And he will proceed there?”

  “With all due speed, no doubt.”

  “And you still believe General Pron-Kel can handle a Martian attack, if it comes?”

  With a trace of smile, the priest said, “For a Martian, he is very much of Titan.”

  “Indeed.”

  Her gaze drifted from the secular priest for a moment; but when Jon-Ten cleared his throat politely, she gave him her attention once more.

  “I have kept that much of my bargain with Prime Cornelian, at least,” the Queen said. “How much time does this really give us, Jon-Ten?”

  The priest puffed his cheeks full of air and let it out slowly while he pondered. “Perhaps a week; perhaps more. We both know how porous the royal ranks have become, my queen. I’m certain we escaped without detection. But sooner or later…” The man shrugged.

  “Yes. Sooner or later …”

  Again, Kamath Clan’s gaze drifted away.

  “My queen, are you… well?”

  “I allowed myself to think for a moment of
what Wrath-Pei claimed.”

  “That he had removed Quog’s essence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unlikely. And even so…”

  The queen’s gaze slowly returned from its dreaming place and resumed its old air of resolve and aloofness; there was, however, a difference now, another kind of depth that softened the deep lines in her face that withdrawal from Quog had etched, and the pronounced stoop that her symptoms had forced on her already unwieldy frame; she had always been ugly, but now her ugliness had marked itself in new ways—she had, with an irony that she did not comprehend, attained some of Quog’s own deformities concurrent with his withdrawal from her body.

  “And the girl?” Queen Clan asked simply.

  “She continues to sleep, I wager.”

  “My own potions are still powerful. And useful.”

  “It is only a shame that in Jamal’s case…”

  Again the queen’s gaze slipped elsewhere. “For his sake only, I would think further on Wrath-Pei’s claim.”

  “My queen!” Jon-Ten said, alarmed.

  “But that would be foolish. So we are where we are.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  “Prepare the ceremony, then.”

  “It will take a day, at least.”

  “Proceed, then,” Kamath Clan ordered.

  The Cleansing Ritual was as old as the philosophy of Moral Guidance itself. Faran Clan had, it was told, come up with the ceremony after the most rigorous of his self-inflicted tests. It was said with some certainty that Moral Guidance was born only after Faran Clan had absorbed every teaching of every religion and philosophy, from the ancients to his own time, digested and distilled them all down to their essence. At the time, during the Religious Wars in the middle of the twenty-second century, he was being held in an Earth prison for sedition and other crimes, and it was during this period of the famous Ninety-four Days, when he went, it was claimed, with neither water nor food to sustain him—only these teachings of morality handed down from the dawn of man—that the teachings of Moral Guidance were fully formulated.