Paragaea

by Chris Roberson

  I answered his further questions, though, my answers as lengthy and circuitous as possible. It seemed that Ikaru, having learned of his origins for the first time, was so distracted that he had not noticed the passage of time, nor the fact that the first light of dawn had already begun to pink the eastern sky. Even the feeble rays of this early gloaming were enough to begin slowly to replenish my long-discharged stores of energy.

  When I had explained the rudiments of our bodies' internal processes, Ikaru held up a hand to silence me, and looked at the gem on my chest contemplatively.

  “I wonder what would eventuate,” he said, “if I removed the personality core from your body and installed it in myself?” He pulled apart his jet-and-crimson robes, revealing the cavity at the center of his chest. “Would I merely gain your memories and knowledge, all that you possess and have learned? Or would my personality be subsumed by the personality of Benu?”

  “I don't know,” I told him, and while I honestly didn't, I had no desire to find out.

  “Perhaps, then,” Ikaru said at length, “I will just keep you imprisoned in the oubliette. Then I could interrogate you at my leisure, to take from you what knowledge I might find of utility. I would very much like to learn more about our original designers, these wizard-kings of Atla, who seem so cavalierly to have discarded their probes into the world.”

  “Ikaru,” I said, looking upon him with genuine sympathy, “if I have learned anything in my long years of wandering this circle of lands, it is that the best use of power seldom ever lies in its exercise. My fear for you is that, having set yourself up as master of this nation of people, you have lost all perspective. I have, in my time, been subject to many of the same temptations which now drive you. I would help you, if you'd let me, avoid the mistakes which I have made, and which I have seen others make, so that you can make the best use of your time on this globe.”

  “Nonsense,” Ikaru replied, dismissing my words with a wave of his hand. “My perspective is my own, thank you, and what lessons I'll learn from you will be of my own choosing, not your soporific platitudes. Power exists to be used. In the potential it is meaningless; only when made actual is it of any utility.”

  “In that case,” I said, “I will not remain your prisoner any longer than I already have. And I have no desire whatsoever to help advance your plans.”

  Before Ikaru could respond, I made my move.

  My strength still at perilously low levels, in a single motion I rose to my feet and launched myself bodily at the nearest window. I sailed out into the sunrise and plunged down dozens of stories, my landing creating a small impact crater. I climbed unsteadily to my feet, and made my way into the twisting streets of Susa, managing to keep a few steps ahead of the presbyter's guards. Within a matter of days, I was on a ship bound for Taured, my strength regained, putting Pentexoire forever behind me.

  I had considered staying on the island, remaining in hiding while locating pockets of dissidents, and helping to mount a resistance to the presbyter's rule. Cleaning up Ikaru's mess. But the historical processes involved were inevitable, and eventually the Pentexoireans would rid themselves of Ikaru on their own. Perhaps not in the present generation, perhaps even not for centuries, but eventually. And when they did, when Ikaru saw that organic cultures will not suffer a dictator interminably, then perhaps my son would learn that he had chosen the wrong path.

  There would always be other cultures, though, increasingly remote, wherein he could perform his “experiments,” so perhaps he would not.

  After more than a full month of riding, they came in sight of the river Pison.

  “Finally,” Balam said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Some variety after all the damned endless grasslands.”

  Leena could not help but agree. “Even so,” she said, “it is perhaps not the most beautiful river I've ever seen.”

  In the distance, still some kilometers before them, the river looked like a murky, brown scar on the land, winding slowly from southeast to northwest.

  “We've wasted enough time,” Hieronymus said, spurring his horse into a gallop. “Let's not waste more in idle chatter.”

  Leena watched Hieronymus ride ahead for a moment, and then glanced over at Balam, but when their eyes met, he just shrugged, shaking his head sadly. The jaguar man seemed to have no better idea of what vexed Hieronymus than she did. Their friend had been in a dark mood for long days, since Benu had related to the company the story of his “son.” Perhaps there was something to Benu's tale that cast a shadow over Hieronymus's thoughts, but what it might be, Leena could not begin to guess.

  “Come on, Benu,” Leena said, goading her horse to speed while calling back over her shoulder to the artificial man. “I'm tired of this damned saddle, and I'm looking forward to our brief respite.”

  The plains gave way to scrub brush, which gave way to a stretch of gravel leading down to the shores of the river. But the river was edged not by sand or by rocks, but by an ancient and pitted quay that ran along the river's shores for as far as the eye could see, up-and downriver. The whole river was paved with some sort of concrete, as though it had once been a massive spillway.

  A short ride downriver, they found the ferry station. The city-state of Bacharia was another day's journey south, following the river's course, but considerable traffic took this more northern route, avoiding the city and its Polity's strictures altogether.

  The ferry station was little more than a ramshackle building, long and low, that housed both the offices and residence of the ferry owner, as well as a rough canteen providing food and drink for ferry customers waiting for passage. There were stables and pens set up out back, with a half-dozen horses and an equal number of domesticated animals milling about aimlessly. The ferry owner was a heavyset woman of advanced years who seemed to have started life as human but consumed such enormous quantities of food in the succeeding decades that she had evolved into a species of her own. She seemed to weigh as much as the four of them combined, lumbering with surprising grace out of the offices as they arrived.

  “You needing to cross, I take it?” she said, without preamble or preface.

  “Yes, indeed,” Balam said, bowing in the saddle. “Now, as to your fees…”

  “It'll cost you,” the owner said, cutting him off. She took a step forward, crossing her massive arms over her prodigious chest, her forearms barely touching. “Now,” she said, a hungry look in her eyes, “what have you got that's worth a tinker's damn?”

  The toll was steep, and they had little currency with which to pay. And the ferry owner was not interested in trading secrets or knowledge, as the Roamish had been. So the company traded six of the horses for their passage, leaving each of them one to ride, with two packhorses to carry their remaining supplies. It was a steep price to pay, little more than bald-faced extortion, but they would reach their destination in a matter of days anyway, after which the horses would no longer be of any use to them. They'd sell the rest once they reached Masjid Empor, to fund their passage on a southbound ship.

  “You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the ferry to arrive,” the owner explained as a small brown-skinned girl appeared from within the residence to lead the six horses around the building to the stables. “The journey t'other side takes most of a day, and it's a two-day round trip.”

  She pointed a finger the size of a sausage at the far end of the ramshackle building.

  “Your cost of passage includes a meal at the canteen. There ain't no rooms, as such, but you can bunk along the wall at no extra cost, providing you don't bother any of the other passengers with snoring, excessive flatulence, or noisy bundling.”

  “We shall endeavor not to offend,” Hieronymus said, a dark edge to his words.

  That night, they sat in the canteen, their feet propped on the rough-hewn table, relaxing as best they were able. Having eaten the meager fare available on the board, they now busied themselves drinking the marginally passable spirits available to passengers at a small upcha
rge, some manner of oily liquor served in clay jars. They were alone in the canteen, the owner and her minion—the small, brown-skinned girl—coming in on occasion to ensure their needs were met, at least as well as they could be.

  When the company had worked their way through several rounds of clay jars, even Benu making an effort to metabolize the sour stuff, in an effort better to fit in, two newcomers appeared at the door.

  It was a pair of humans. They entered the canteen, giving the company a wide berth while staring at the four of them openly, expressions of disgust on their faces. The pair crossed to the far side of the room and, when the brown-skinned girl had filled their orders, sat huddled together, whispering and casting fierce glances at the company.

  “What ails those men?” Leena said, her brows knitted in annoyance. She had little liking for the scorn with which the two men regarded their quartet.

  “They are Bacharian, I would guess, as evidenced by their clothes and manner,” Benu said.

  “What is that to me?” Leena asked. “I understand their laws make travel to their city inadvisable, but why should they look upon us with such scorn, who have not darkened their door?”

  “It is not merely their laws that are unpleasant,” Balam said. “Their cultural character in general leaves much to be desired.”

  “The Bacharian Polity holds that the various races and species should not intermingle, and the sight of humans and a metaman traveling together—in addition to whatever type of creature they take Benu to be—must seem anathema to them. What Bacharians would be doing beyond their city walls is unclear, but I would lay odds that they are agents of the Polity sent out on scouting missions into the wider world.”

  Leena wondered whether they should fear that the pair might mean some mischief, but before she could voice her concerns one of the Bacharians answered the question for her.

  “Hey,” the taller of the two said, lifting his chin imperiously and calling out to them in heavily accented Sakrian. “You.” He pointed at Hieronymus, whom they evidently took to be the leader of the company, as he was both human and male. “We in Bacharia have had trouble with the mongrel metamen in recent years, prowling around our borders. In particular those zealots who adhere to the calling of the Black Sun Genesis. Is your…jaguar”—he spat the word, an insult—“such a one?”

  “I can answer for myself, thank you,” Balam growled. He stood, taking a few steps forward, towering over the seated Bacharians. “I have no more love for the followers of Per than I have for the mewling humans found in Bacharia. Both cultures, exclusionary and pig-ignorant, represent the worst tendencies of Paragaean history.”

  The Bacharians jumped to their feet, eyes flashing, and reached for bulky pneumatic blunderbusses hanging at their belts. Cumbersome firearms, they were inaccurate and low-yield over a distance, but dangerous in close quarters.

  Leena and Hieronymus were just as quick to jump to their feet, but even quicker to draw their pistols.

  “Might everyone relax for a moment,” Benu said calmly, still in his seat, “before matters escalate out of control?”

  The five of them stood frozen in a tableau, pistols and blunderbusses aimed and cocked, but not yet fired—the two Bacharians on one side, Balam in the middle, and Hieronymus and Leena on the other.

  “Don't point those things at me, Bacharian.” Balam bared his fangs, his claws extending.

  Leena saw the two Bacharians' eyes flick to her Makarov and Hieronymus's Mauser.

  “You have not seen firearms like these before, I'd wager,” Hieronymus said, his tone level and cool.

  The Bacharians did not answer, but their aims drifted slightly, so that their barrels were pointed at Leena and Hieronymus, and not at Balam between them.

  “We'll not breathe the same air as you mongrel trash,” the shorter of the two Bacharians said.

  “We can arrange that,” Balam growled, rising up on the balls of his feet.

  Leena glanced to her right at Hieronymus, who nodded silently without taking his eyes off the two Bacharians.

  “Now!” Hieronymus shouted.

  In the crowded moment that followed, three things happened:

  Balam lunged forward, claws slashing at either side;

  Leena ducked to the left, and Hieronymus dove to the right, each firing a single round at one of the Bacharians;

  And the Bacharians, finally, emptied their blunderbusses, their buckshot of compressed carbon pellets sailing through the empty space Leena and Hieronymus had occupied the second before.

  In the next moment, it was over. The two Bacharians tottered for an instant, their spent blunderbusses dropping to the floor, each of them gored on one side by the passage of the enraged Sinaa, each with a single gunshot wound in his chest. They blinked, and looked at one another confusedly before finally collapsing in a heap on the floor.

  “You're cleaning that mess up,” the owner said from the door, pointing one of her sausage-fingers at the two bodies on the floor, “or I'm charging you extra for my trouble.”

  Leena climbed to her feet, holstering her Makarov. She glanced at Benu, still sitting calmly in his seat. “Were you planning on helping?” she asked.

  “You three seemed to have things well in hand,” he said, smiling slightly. “And besides, I thought it might have seemed disrespectful to the Bacharians' beliefs, if they were to be dispatched by an artificial being. As it eventuated, it was likely the bullets which proved fatal, as much as I must admire the artistry of the Sinaa's attack, and so these two humans go to their maker—if they believe in such—having been felled by one of their own kind, which one hopes would serve as some endorsement.”

  “You are a strange being, Benu,” Balam said, cleaning his claws on the shirtfront of one of the fallen Bacharians.

  “For this observation, I thank you,” the artificial man said with a gallows smile.

  The next morning, the ferry, having arrived in the night, was ready to depart. The company and their reduced number of horses were waiting on the quay to board.

  The ferry was an ancient craft of burled wood, with chrome fittings dulled to the color of ash by age and lack of attention. This had been a pleasure barge at some point in the distant past, though its provenance was now difficult to determine, given its decayed state.

  “It was likely constructed during the interregnum between the fall of the Black Sun and the rise of the Metamankind Empires,” Benu lectured at Leena, while she tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, “when human cultures were allowed briefly to flourish on the north shore of Parousia. These mayfly societies were brief-lived, going through the inevitable stages of historical development quickly, reaching a decadent, hedonistic stage within only a few generations. Their pleasure craft plied the waters of the Inner Sea, the lords and ladies carrying on opulent parties that lasted for weeks and months at a time. Obsessed with pleasures of the flesh, and prurient license, they had no interest in preserving their own history, or in the pursuit of knowledge, or exploration. When the metamen expanded their respective spheres of influence from the south and east, these mayfly cultures were extinguished almost overnight.”

  Leena, for her part, was more interested in the ship's design and locomotion than in the fate of the decadent culture that had constructed it. At one time, evidently, the barge had been propelled by some variety of internal combustion, using some explosive material as fuel. The gears and pistons, though, had long since rusted solid, and now the ferry was propelled across the river by sheer strength of arms. A long cable ran from one shore to the other, woven fibers as big around as a man's waist secured at either shore and threaded through a clamp on the port side of the barge. The deckhands' sole responsibility in transit, having either loaded or unloaded cargo and vehicles at either end, was to haul on this massive cable, advancing the barge by centimeters. But since the cable was not stretched taut, but had to be allowed to trail a few meters underwater so as not to ensnare any vessels sailing up or downriver, the weight of the cable wa
s trebled or more by the brackish river water, and the cable itself was slick and black with algae.

  The barge hands were a motley mix of all races and species: humans of all stripes, from those like Leena and Hieronymus to the half-sized Sheeog, from the barrel-chested, thick-nosed Kobolt to the towering Rephaim; and metamen of all varieties—Sinaa, Struthio, Canid, Arcas, and Tapiri.

  The ferry's captain, a slight, frail-looking man with a fringe of dirty-gray hair that ringed his head, his skin a deep walnut brown, was introduced to them as the owner's husband. The mind boggled at the two of them in any kind of congress, but when it was revealed that the small brown-skinned girl was their daughter, it was almost too much to believe.

  Frail as he looked, though, he drove the deckhands with an iron will, shouting at them to be about their duties, his voice alarmingly loud and booming.

  “Pull, you dogs! Pull, or I'll lash the life from you!”

  The barge slowly crossed the murky, slow-moving river, through waters sluggish and brown.

  It took the better part of a day to cross to the other shore, and then the company was once more on its way.

  Unable to change horses at midday, their progress was not as swift as it had been on the earlier leg of the journey, but they were still able to travel for eight or nine hours a day, covering more than thirty kilometers at a stretch. East of the Pison, the terrain was much different than that through which they'd been riding. The scrub brush lowlands that abutted the eastern shore of the Pison quickly gave way to arid stretches, dry and grassless, with the only trees small, twisted husks that rose like gnarled claws from the bone-dry ground. When the winds blew, sand and dust gritted in their eyes, noses, and mouths; and with the exception of Benu, who was not perturbed by such things, the company took to wrapping stretches of cloth around their heads, covering their mouths, ears, and noses, leaving only thin slits through which they could see. The sun beat down on them mercilessly, and after the second day they took to traveling by moonlight, and sleeping as best they could under the shade of their makeshift tents during the brightest hours of daylight. When Leena was informed that they had entered the edge of the Eastern Desert, she was hardly surprised.