Managing Death

by Trent Jamieson

  I don’t feel safe at home.

  The rest of the Christmas party was, well, in a word, awkward. Death is something of a party killer at the best of times. Particularly when I spent a good deal of it staring intently at every staff member, or asking difficult questions that in theory only my people should be able to answer. Yes, there’s going to be a staff meeting about that. Some of the basic pomping facts that these people didn’t know shocked me. I was almost relieved when a truck collision called a good half-dozen of them away. Call me mean-spirited, but I am Australia’s RM and death is my business.

  Lissa had stayed by my side the whole evening, even submitted to my paranoid questions – with curt, often embarrassing, answers. Of course I knew it was her, I’m intimately familiar with her heartbeat. I have to believe that Rillman’s mimicry doesn’t extend that far.

  Lissa’s asleep almost the moment her head hits the pillow. I text Suzanne: Need to talk.

  A few seconds later I have a response: Yes, you do. Usual place. Let’s make it another lesson.

  Yeah, but this time I’ll be directing the questions.

  I shift there. The Deepest Dark whispers around me. I wince, expecting more pain than I actually get.

  Suzanne smiles at me, and she’s in my coat. I’d ask for it back but she seems wounded in some way, a little less confident. It was less than twenty-four hours since we were here last, and I had left her to witness to the fate of one of her agents.

  For the first time I see something – I hesitate to call it human – inside her. A vulnerability that I had never expected to encounter in an RM. It actually stops me for a moment. Reminds me that I’m not the only one capable of feeling pain.

  ‘Your agent?’

  Suzanne shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t good. I don’t want to talk about it. He is no longer in any pain.’

  Above us the great inky mass of the Stirrer god swallows an ever-increasing portion of the sky like some gargantuan and evil lava lamp.

  ‘I was tortured today.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ Suzanne says. ‘Don’t forget I have ten Pomps on your payroll. They’re switched on enough to pick up a phone. I knew you would be in touch soon enough. Your Lissa, she’s sleeping?’

  ‘Yeah, what’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Everything. This is your Lissa. This is all of them.’ Suzanne crouches down, picks up a handful of dust and does whatever it is that she does. It dances around her hand, shining ever brighter. I can see Lissa’s face there, her eyes closed, whispering in her sleep. Then, with a single chopping gesture, the dust drops to the ground. ‘They all need sleep. Not that it is enough in the end. Gravity changes them all. They shift down, they grow heavy in their bones. They lose swift thought and swift action. They decay. That is all they have, a trudging forward into decrepitude and dust. And yet it is so beautiful. So tragic. And far better than it was before. She sleeps, your girl, but it is not enough to hold back the final sleep.’

  I don’t want a lesson in the obvious. I want answers. ‘I know this. I’ve grown up around death,’ I say. ‘I was a Pomp, just as the rest of you were Pomps.’

  Suzanne gives me a patronising pat on the shoulder. ‘You only think you do. You don’t know death the way we know death. That knowledge is coming, but you don’t have it yet. You’re never going to feel gravity again, Steven. It doesn’t apply to you, the death you will find will be fast and violent and centuries hence, if you’re on your game. You will have time to see the beauty and ugliness of life for what it is: fleeting and yet, somehow, eternal.

  ‘And how you come to that knowledge won’t have anything to do with what I say, or Neill. I can guarantee that.’ So she’s on to me, then. I try to not register any surprise. ‘It will come to you in its own way, as everything else has come to you, because that’s how it works.’

  ‘I’m a bloody slow learner.’

  ‘There’s nothing to learn. This is a bone-deep truth, whether you understand it or not. A hundred years from now you will be the same as you are now, and different in ways you can’t even begin to comprehend. You’ve no choice in the matter.’

  ‘But there are choices to be made.’

  ‘As much as any of us can make them. We’re all fighting the same fight. The enemy hasn’t changed. That’s a constant, too.’

  But I feel it has. Morrigan, in his dealings with the Stirrers, has set something in motion. Something I can’t quite articulate. Suzanne watches me trying to get it out, and sees that it obviously isn’t going to come.

  ‘Rillman, what about him? He wants me dead,’ I say, finally.

  ‘And yet you are most obviously not.’

  ‘Tell me how I can find him.’

  Suzanne looks away from me, towards the city of Devour. ‘If I knew a way, believe me, I would have pursued him a long time ago.’

  An idea strikes me then, an unpleasant one. ‘Are you using me as bait?’

  Suzanne shakes her head. ‘You’ve drawn Rillman out. Before, he was all secrecy – back-door plans and sneaking in and out of Hell. You would make excellent bait, but I fear that the moment we used you as such Rillman would go underground again. I want you on my side,’ Suzanne says. ‘Neill’s bloc is growing too powerful.’

  I peer over at her, surprised. ‘I thought he was your bloc.’

  ‘We may help each other from time to time but we are not in agreement on much. We know how to put up a unified front when we need to. But he worries me now.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘When you have centuries, it makes all the difference in the worlds. Believe me, you will learn that.’

  ‘What are your plans for me? The All-Death –’

  Suzanne grimaces. ‘What did that meddlesome thing say?’

  ‘That I will be alone. That I will fall.’

  Suzanne looks almost relieved, as though I’ve merely reaffirmed something. ‘We’re all alone,’ she says. ‘Rillman. You. Lissa. You will learn this, Steven, if you’re half as smart as I think you are. The longer you live, the more alone you are.’

  I turn from her, and consider the darkness of the Stirrer god above. I remember with utter clarity the immensity of its eye in that vision granted to me by Stirrer rage or my newborn power. I’d stared it down. Of course, I’d been too stupid to do anything different. Me there in that darkness, hurling its worshippers back away from the land of the living. I’d felt the strength of Orcus unity, a strength that had extended all the way down to my hundreds of Avian Pomps.

  Absolutely meaningless. I knew that if it came down to it, I’d be fighting that dark alone and it scared the shit out of me.

  ‘I don’t think we have centuries anymore. Maybe my presence is what the Orcus needs, someone to add a little urgency to the proceedings to draw your attention back to that approaching hunger filling the sky.’

  The look that Suzanne gives me is not nearly as patronising, though I still feel as though she considers me as little more than a dog that has just learnt to fetch.

  ‘We know it’s there. Its presence is undeniable and we are doing something about it,’ Suzanne says. ‘You have to believe me.’

  ‘I really wish I could.’

  Suzanne nods. ‘This morning, I will send Faber to you. He will show you our latest work.’

  ‘Seven am,’ I say. ‘And make sure he isn’t late this time.’

  Suzanne flashes me a vicious smile, and shifts out of there. I stand looking up at the dark. Wal drags free of my arm.

  ‘I really hate how she does that,’ he sighs. ‘Keeping me stuck to your arm; it’s very rude.’

  ‘I don’t think she likes you,’ I say.

  ‘What’s not to like, eh? Eh?’

  I don’t even know where to begin.

  The next morning I shift to the office, leaving Lissa to sleep under the protection of my Avian Pomps. Oscar is already there waiting outside my office. He nods at me, lets me pass through the door.

  Downstairs someone is disma
ntling the broom cupboard’s door. I can feel it coming undone even from here, and I’m pleased.

  It’s one place Rillman, or anyone else who might want to lock me away, can’t use.

  I feel Cerbo’s arrival a few minutes later. Oscar knocks on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ I say.

  Oscar swings open the door. ‘He says you are expecting him.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Cerbo nods at me. Today he’s wearing a green bowler that most people could only ever get away with on St Patrick’s Day, and only a certain few of those. He carries it off with a quiet dignity.

  He turns to Oscar. ‘It’s quite all right,’ he says. ‘I have no intention of killing your boss. Couldn’t if I tried.’

  Oscar lingers at the door a moment longer.

  ‘This isn’t Rillman,’ I say. ‘He’s not going to be able to pull that one on me again.’

  The door shuts. Cerbo raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Quite the hired goon.’

  I let it slide. ‘Suzanne said you would show me what you know about the Stirrer god?’

  Cerbo smiles. ‘And that is why I am here, Mr de Selby.’ He gestures at me. ‘Now, if you would stand up, and come towards me.’

  ‘I was kind of expecting a PowerPoint presentation.’

  ‘What I have is much better than any computer-based simulation. Now, up, up! Get your rear out of that chair!’ He seems to enjoy shouting at an RM.

  I get out of my throne and walk around the desk.

  ‘Hold my hand,’ Cerbo says reaching out towards me.

  I hesitate, and he grimaces. ‘Oh, for goodness sake. You’re not even my type!’

  That’s not why I’m hesitating, but his words push me hard enough into action.

  Cerbo’s hand is warm, and he grips mine hard. ‘This is something new. A technique Suzanne has been developing. It’s based on the subset of skills required to shift.’

  I groan.

  Cerbo squeezes my hand. ‘No, it is not shifting per se. For one, it is more … well … cinematic, Mr de Selby. And two, it demands a little more. You’ll see what I mean.’ He closes his eyes. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let go. This is no pixie-dust journey we’re going on, and I’m not Superman.’

  I’m trying to imagine Superman in a green bowler as Cerbo reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out his knife.

  I have to fight the reflex to pull away. ‘What the fuck are you doing with that?’

  Cerbo’s eyes flick open. He regards me disdainfully. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not for you. I’ve been Ankou for nearly two decades to an RM who is centuries old. You pick up a few things, but I have yet to uncover a really easy way to kill an RM without first killing their Pomps. Even Morrigan couldn’t do that. This knife is for me.’ He takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and then runs the blade over the back of the hand holding mine. Blood flows quickly. ‘Remember, don’t let go.’

  Between heartbeats, this happens: we are in the office, and then it is just a space distant beyond my imagining below us. We’re vast and tiny at once, and shooting along a tunnel brighter than any glaring sun. I have to cover my eyes. Cerbo squeezes my hand even tighter. For a moment I am reminded of the All-Death’s implacable grip.

  Then we’re in a space I’ve only seen once before. I remember it a little differently but at the time I was fighting to save Tim and Lissa’s lives. First I am surprised by my weightlessness here. The only force binding me, giving me any sense of up or down, is Cerbo’s hand. We’re quite close, our hands by our hips, gripping each other as children do. Awkwardly and tight.

  ‘Welcome to the ether. The void beyond the Deepest Dark, where the souls find flight and through which the Stirrer god approaches.’

  ‘Cool,’ I say.

  ‘Indeed.’

  We’re not flying so much as being propelled, and the source of that force is generated by Cerbo’s bleeding fist. Around us souls drift, but we are moving faster than them. Occasionally I have to flick my body to one side to avoid striking one.

  ‘Careful,’ Cerbo says. ‘You’ll lose your grip.’

  I strike a soul then. Feel it shatter around my head. It burns, then chills on contact like ice. I swing my head back, and see it re-form behind us. After that, I don’t bother avoiding them. It’s like travelling on the flat bed of a ute in a snowstorm. I almost start to enjoy myself. The speed of it, the freedom. Is this how souls feel, once they are dead?

  I ask Cerbo, and he shrugs.

  ‘We cannot go far, just a few steps into the infinite. Blood is no substitute for death. But it is far enough.’ A great eye gazes down at us, and we race towards it, cold air roaring in my ears.

  We’re a long time getting close to that eye. But I can’t help staring at it, as I’ve stared at it before, though it was much further distant then, and I was on the ground, not in this weightless place; and granted a vision, not this whistling wind-bound actuality.

  ‘It sees us, doesn’t it?’ I ask, having to shout above the gale.

  ‘I think so,’ Cerbo says. ‘But we are nothing to it. I’ve done this a dozen times over the past three months, and every time I am much faster getting here.’

  ‘Three months?’

  ‘That’s when we first noticed it. Well, Suzanne did. A change in the ether, a sudden rise in Stirrer activity.’

  ‘Do you think Morrigan knew about this?’

  ‘Well, he was dealing with Stirrers. He may have known about it for some time. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that he started his Schism when he did. Do you believe in coincidence, Mr de Selby?’ Cerbo jabs his free hand towards it. ‘It’s impressive. Very godlike, wouldn’t you say?’

  Darkness bunches around the mass, part storm-cloud, part slug. To one side souls coruscate, and seek to flee its bulk, but even as we watch, a black tentacle extrudes from it, snaps out and drags some of those souls back into its side. A thousand, two thousand, perhaps. Screams ring through my head.

  ‘Already it is wreaking untold damage,’ Cerbo says. ‘And the closer it gets, the harder it is for souls to escape. God knows what this is doing to the psychic balance of the universe.’

  We swing past the great eye. ‘Remember, here it is just psychic mass. When it strikes the Underworld, and through it, earth, that mass will manifest.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We don’t know but – I’m sorry, I think but we better get out of here.’ Cerbo’s eyes are wide. I swing my head in the direction of his gaze; feel my heart catch.

  A tentacle rushes towards us. As it draws nearer I can see fringes of what look like blades. They ripple and flex. That merest filament of that limb would cut us to pieces. The ether has suddenly lost its appeal. What the hell is wrong with PowerPoint?

  ‘Hold on,’ Cerbo says. ‘Hold on.’

  He pulls out his knife, brings it back down against his hand and we’re suddenly reversing, flipping back, moving away, faster and faster.

  And then my grip loosens. Or Cerbo releases his.

  I’m left, spinning. Losing speed. Floating in that dark, Cerbo already a diminishing shape in front of me.

  17

  Here I am, alone in the darkness, about to be sliced into pieces or snatched into the maw of the enemy. The limb of the Stirrer god belts down towards me through the ether. It’s so big I really can’t comprehend it. I’m less than an ant to it, but the god will have me none the less. I feel Wal tear free of my arm. He scrambles out from my sleeve, takes one look at where we are, at what’s coming, and shoots back under my shirt.

  I try and shift. Nothing. Here I don’t seem to have any purchase on reality. There’s nothing to shift from. This isn’t my normal state. It is neither the Underworld nor the land of the living. Desperate, I try again. I’ve virtually stopped moving. I’m just spinning a slow circle. Fuck.

  Where’s Cerbo? Surely he’ll come back for me.

  But would I, if that thing was approaching?

  I imagine him telling Suzanne, ‘He was the one who let go, the fool. He d
eserved it.’

  Maybe this was their plan after all. If that’s the case it’s worked. I’m a dead man.

  Ah, but I’ve been dead before. A calm, pricked with some sort of madness, envelops me. I grin, a wide and mocking grin. Fuck it all. That rage and joy which fills my dreams flares up and out. I’m not afraid of death, I am Death. No matter that this space beyond space is not my realm.

  I reach into my jacket, my hand steady, calm as though this was any stir. My fingers close around my knife – the knife every Pomp has, to draw blood to stall a stir. The thing approaching is a Stirrer god. And I know how to deal with Stirrers. I slash my knife down hard, deeper than usual. Blood boils from my skin, arcs around me. The potent blood of an RM. And suddenly I’m bound in light, a ball of it. Purer and brighter than any star.

  The tentacle flinches for a moment. Pauses. I see it illuminated in that hard blood-forged light. The blades are motionless, though each seems to pulse, and I realise that for all their sharp edges they are more like flagella than anything else. The flesh beneath is not black so much as grey, the colour of ash. Beyond it the eye is watching me, and its wide pupil narrows. I can’t help myself. I wink.

  The universe draws a breath and then I’m racing backwards. Smashing through the cold, dark air heading home. But it may not be enough.

  The tentacle’s pause is momentary.

  Whatever I did only stunned the Stirrer god, or surprised it; less than a flea bite. I can hear the god giving chase, a great whistling roar, louder than the wind, and above that noise the scraping of its knife fringes sounds remarkably like the groaning limbs of the One Tree.

  It’s gaining. It’s gaining.

  Its shadow descends over me like a wave, but a sword-gnashing wave, all cutting edges and hunger. I cringe, fold my hands over my neck.

  I drop into my office. Hit the floor hard, knocking the breath from me, and almost slamming into Cerbo, which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, I’m thinking. My breath comes quick and, with it, rage. Cerbo’s on his arse pale and panting, he slides away from me, gripping his green bowler absurdly in both hands. The whole building shakes as something strikes us above. Whether it’s metaphysical or not, it hits hard. I throw my arms over my head, but the ceiling holds.