by CW Tickner
‘Get them out! Pull them back!’
And then the panic washed away. He let it all go, knowing that this was the end. He closed his eyes and focused on the golden-haired woman. Warmth swept through him and he just lay there as the boulders smashed into him. She was here. She was with him.
‘Get away from it!’ a voice screamed from somewhere far away.
The light vanished as the candle finally sputtered out and the only thing around him was the tumbling stone and Chloe’s terrified screams. But then hands fastened on his ankles and hope surged through him.
‘I’ve got him!’ It was Troy’s voice.
Harl lurched free and dragged Chloe along with him as they were pulled out. Troy’s yells rose above the sound of collapsing stone.
‘I’ve got you! I’ve got you!’
His feet slipped out of the tunnel and then his legs and hips. And then a crack, like the booming voice of the One True God, sounded through the rock and it all collapsed on top of him. Rock crumpled around his back and head as the boulder disintegrated and blackness took him.
Chapter 9
I have it! I’ve come up with a plan that will assure my health, but for it to work I must start converting my home. I will order the construction materials directly.
The collapse of the boulder was a disaster the likes of which no one had seen before. It claimed the lives of fifteen fit and healthy men and injured five more. It took three whole light and dark cycles to extract the crushed and maimed bodies. Men and women had worked around the clock to free the lifeless forms from the boulder’s remains.. Afterwards, a meeting of elders was held and it was found that too many bore holes had been made in the process of extracting the ore from within. A simple fracture had spread through the entire thing and caused a cascading collapse that had left nothing but dust, rubble, and death. Rufus called it the god’s retribution; others just called it a nightmare.
Troy limped slow and determined up the grass mound. Fifteen dead men lay side by side on the green sward. It glistened where the rains had caressed it through the dark cycle.
He carried a bow and a quiver of arrows in his bandaged hands and wiped tears away as he peered down at the row of bodies. He knew them all and walked the length of the row until he came to Harl.
His friend.
Harl’s lifeless face had been cleaned of blood, but the cuts still seemed to bleed after death. Troy couldn’t look at him without pain clenching around his heart. It was strong enough to make him cry out each time he saw Harl, but there was nothing he could do, no words he could say. It was all just so pointless now.
Harl was gone.
He’d managed to pull his friend from the hole quickly after the initial collapse, but it had not been fast enough. The rock had crumbled around both of them as he’d dragged Harl free. He had sustained severe injuries to his right leg and arms, but Harl had just slumped on the scaffold before him, lifeless and bloody. When the healers had come they had just shaken their heads and covered Harl with a pale sheet, before carrying Troy away on a stretcher.
Troy knelt down next to Harl.
‘I thought you might like to take these,’ he said, kneeling down and looping the bow and quiver over Harl’s motionless shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, tears falling onto Harl’s ceremonial lifting dress. ‘I wish I’d been quicker when it happened. The elders have exonerated you from any previous convictions and have abandoned using the quarry as a punishment, but it won’t help now.’
He stood once more. Pain – both physical and emotional – crossed his face as he rose. He took a final look at his friend.
‘I hope now you will find the woman of your dreams, Harl’ he said, and then turned and made Sightwards, heading for the Golden Spear.
It was not long before the god came to lift the dead, attracted by the usual hilltop pyre used to signal a death in the world. Before the use of the pyre it would be every gifting cycle that the god lifted the deceased, its hand descending down from No Sight at the back of the world to scoop up the bodies. One time, after several corpses had decomposed over forty whole cycles without being lifted, the Elders decided that getting the bodies lifted before they rotted was a priority. So the pyre was lit and nearly every time after that the lift happened swiftly.
Troy stood at the bottom of memorial hill looking Sightwards. The god was overseeing the world and had spotted the call to lift the dead. It seemed that whenever the One True God looked in, the world froze. The people could not help but be in awe of the size and power before them. But this time it seemed as though the God would reach in right over the land instead of from no-Sight. Troy felt a slight shudder as the world opening lifted and the god peered inside. It then lifted the roof higher and putt its hand into the world.
The hand cast a shadow over Troy as the god reached inside. It hesitated as it neared the fire, and then moved around it as though to avoid the flames. Troy frowned. Why would the god be afraid of the fire? There was no way that the flames could possibly harm it, but had it hesitated? Perhaps it just didn’t want to knock the pyre off the hill?
The hand hovered over the bodies before lining up alongside the row. It slid along the soil, churning the grass and scooping up each of the bodies one by one until they were heaped in the half-closed fist. As the hand rose, he could see Harl’s arms hanging limply over the side. The hand was halfway to the top, heading Sightwards over the town, when Troy saw Harl’s arm rise up and his hand seemed to grasp at thin air.
Horror shot through Troy so sharply that he stood frozen for a heartbeat.
Alive! Harl was still alive!
‘No! Wait! Stop!’ he shouted as loud as his lungs allowed.
Despite the pain in his leg, he ran after the hand, screaming for the god to stop, but his leg gave way and he tumbled to the ground. Despair flooded him. Harl was alive and yet again Troy had failed to save him.
He lowered his face into the dirt and sobbed.
Chapter 10
The first is constructed. It will be big enough for them to start with. My fellows have shown interest in the species, but I have yet to show them.
Everything was a dark blur when Harl opened his eyes. His thoughts were muddled in a daze and, when he tried to breathe in, he became aware of a great weight on his chest. He tried to move, but pain lanced through his body and he couldn’t shift whatever was on top of him. Panicking, he shoved against the weight, barely managing to move it. Think, he told himself, but his thoughts eluded him. He tried to focus, but his eyes hurt and he had to shut them tight.
Reaching out, he tried to determine what was pinning him down. He’d expected rock, but it was soft and sticky instead. He ran his hands over it and then screamed when he realised that the sticky strands running through his fingers were hair.
The world came into focus and he found himself staring into the blank, lifeless eyes of a familiar face. Tom? Teddy? He couldn’t remember, but the face was that of the Cutters’ son, mangled and gashed on one side.
He turned his head from the boy’s pale empty gaze to see more bodies, dozens of them, surrounding him and piled up on top of him. He heaved them off in desperation, clawed at them, dragged them aside, and then scrambled free of the limp arms, lifeless heads, and tangled legs. Turning to look back at the mound of death, he fought the acidic taste of bile in his throat.
The bodies were twisted together in death, arms and legs wrapped around each other. Broken. Helpless. Empty. Tom, Jorni, Chloe … All people he knew from childhood or the quarry. They were all there before him. He knelt by the mound of bodies and pulled Chloe close, stroking her hair as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Why was she dead? He couldn’t even remember why she’d been sent to the quarry. What had her crime been? A joke? A simple joke about the gods? And now she was lying there, her sightless eyes empty of everything that had once made them so alive. She was wearing the same as the rest, simple brown ceremonial robes that were reserved for those who pass from the world.
Lett
ing the body slide from his hands, he looked down at himself and found the same robes covering his own aching body. Sudden flashes of an accident ran through his mind. The memory of the dust in his throat, a tunnel collapsing, and Troy’s incessant voice yelling at him to get out. Was he dead? He couldn’t be. The people around him were, that was for certain.
Looking away from the faces he knew, he finally noticed his surroundings. He was in the Sight, actually beyond the barriers of the world and inside the realm of the Gods. The distances that separated everything around him confirmed it. The metallic surface beneath him seemed to be hovering midway in the realm, dropping off to nothing on all sides. Platforms similar to the one he was standing on could be seen dotted around the edges of the enormous open space. But they were different… They looked like... gigantic cupboards?
He shook his head, confused by what he was seeing. If they were cupboards, then was he standing on a table? It was too bizarre to be true.
Never in his life had his view been unobstructed by the black walls. Only the Sight had teased at such freedom and the only time he’d experienced a view like this was when he was pressed up against the Sight looking out. It was like a room, but on a scale his mind struggled to comprehend.
Why was he out here though? The question nagged at him. The only people who were lifted were unbelievers. But he had not been condemned and sent to be lifted; he’d been sent to the quarry. But that just left the dead. They were the only ones taken to the realm of the gods.
But if he was in the Sight then so was the god. As soon as his mind conjured the thought, a deep rumbling sound confirmed it.
Shaking, he twisted around and just stood, dumbstruck, as the god walked towards him. It blocked everything from view, a vast wall of living flesh that was as big as his whole world. He was sure it would see him and swat him like some pesky insect. The vast bulk leaned over him and the rank odour of it was overwhelming. He looked up at the immense face and found it staring back down at him. The god raised its hand and Harl waited for the blow, waited for it to swipe him from existence, but it didn’t come. Instead, the god reached right over him and paid no attention to his still form.
Suddenly, the god straightened up and turned away. Harl spun around and ran. He needed cover, somewhere to hide. Anywhere. He just needed to get away from the god. He wasn’t thinking, he was just stumbling along, desperate to hide. But then he tripped and crashed to his knees. Lights flickered across his vision and he shook his head to clear them, then looked up at what lay before him.
He had expected to see his own world floating out there in the void, but he could hardly take in the view before him.
In the distance a vast wall stretched across to block his line of sight. It was so big that he couldn’t take it all in at once. The bricks were the size of houses and the archway in the centre of it was as big as a god. A bright light streamed out through the archway, forcing him to squint as he tried to see what lay beyond. It looked like another room, but all he could make out was a wall of glowing rectangles. He rubbed his eyes to clear the glare and after a moment patches of green materialised inside the boxes.
The more he focused on what was inside them, the more his mind reeled. The boxes undoubtedly contained hills and landscapes and even though the distance was dizzying he could clearly see a world within. He rubbed his eyes again, and then peered back towards the wall of light.
Each rectangle showed some kind of landscape, like a small, self-contained world. They must have been tiny compared to the god’s perspective, but it was difficult to see because of the distance across the god’s realm. Rivers flowed through them and towns or villages sat comfortably inside.
He doubled over and voided his stomach contents onto the metallic floor. After a few moments he managed to look up again.
Each world was divided from the next by a solid black barrier. There must have been dozens of worlds stacked together, one on top of the other, in a great wall that stretched as far as he could see to either side behind the arch.
He dropped to his knees and lowered his head into his hands. The sight of all those worlds was making him feel giddy. He drew a breath to steady himself, but even that was difficult. He was shaking. What was going on? The possibilities whirled around in his mind. Were they worlds? Were there people inside?
Had he come from one of those rectangles?
He raised his head and was almost sick again when everything spun. He staggered to his feet, but his legs wobbled and collapsed, and he slumped onto the ground. Staring up at a strip of light in the distant ceiling, his breathing became more and more laboured. What was happening to him? He tried to drag a breath into his lungs, but it felt like he was drowning. He choked and gagged as his vision blurred and a dark shadow fell across him.
Looking around he saw that a lesser god had come up unnoticed behind him. He froze as its enormous face stared straight down at him. Its mottled grey skin was pitted with pockmarks and its dark lips curled back to reveal blunted teeth. Staring up into those gigantic yellow eyes, Harl was shocked by the emotion he could read in them. There was no doubt in Harl’s mind that it was focused on him, unlike the last one. Despite the alien look of it, despite the piercing yellow eyes, he could see the look of concern it held.
Everything blurred in and out of focus as if he was suddenly drunk.
The lesser god reached out and grabbed him. Time seemed to slow as the grey hand closed in what might have been a gentle pinch, but its cold fingers almost crushed him. He could feel the strength of the grip pulsing, as though the god was figuring out how firm it should hold him, the same way a child might pick up a bone beetle.
Harl began to choke. His throat tightened like there was no air and he struggled to breathe.
The universe flipped around him as the warm fingers of the hand encased his entire body. Only his face was uncovered and, with a sudden lurch, the god lifted him towards the archway. Distance raced past as the god swept him through the archway towards the wall of worlds.
Harl struggled to see everything as they passed under the arch while the waves of darkness tried to swallow him.
The place was much bigger than he’d thought. It was a blurred wall of light spreading away to either side as far as he could see, rectangle after rectangle, world after world. How many people? How many homes? And they were all just prisons.
His thoughts clouded, but he had just enough sense to hope he was going home. For a moment it looked like he was. Through his daze, he thought he could see his bench and little grove of trees far beneath him beside the dark line separating the worlds. He was alone and scared as if he was back under the market stall, watching his parents being lifted.
The hand swung sharply up to the left of his world. He was not going back. He struggled in terror, but his hands and feet were numb and refused to obey him. The wall of lights faded and he watched in horrified amazement as the god lifted an opening at the top of the world and moved its hand inside. A sharp downwards motion made him feel like he was falling. With a racking choke, the darkness swallowed him.
Harl dreamed of the Sight.
He was standing on the palm of the god’s hand, the huge face level with his own. The god was moving him in front of the worlds, displaying them each one in turn as it bragged about how it had created them all and controlled the fate of those inside.
Scenes merged and shifted. At times he could understand the god, at others it was unknowable. It held him in front of each world and forced him to make decisions about those trapped inside. Would they live or die? Would they receive a gift or be left to starve?
Time would fast forward to show the effects of his choices. Those who Harl chose to get the gift would feast and gorge themselves until dying of gluttony. But when Harl chose not to give the gift, the people would become enraged and throw themselves at the barrier, bloodying the clear wall. As time sped up they would resort to eating each other and the land would become stained with their blood. Plants withered and died. Skel
etal bodies crumbled to dust.
He was forced to choose people to be lifted and once his choice was made the hand would reach in and grab Harl’s victims, pulling them from the box. Each time he picked it would be a stranger but, as the god’s hand came towards him, the stranger’s face formed into that of Troy’s. He would beg Harl for mercy and strain against the god’s hand, but then, with a sudden and violent motion, the god would roar and fling Troy full force into the vast distance of the Sight to disappear as his scream faded away.
Harl screamed his own protest at the god as it looked back at him, and, with a final deafening roar, it propelled Harl directly at the barrier of the nearest world.
Chapter 11
I have gained their trust enough to observe them more directly. I will have to be cautious not to disturb them before the opportune time.
Harl shot up in bed, grateful there was no hard surface or pain. Instead the bed was warm and soft and he sighed with relief as the nightmare faded away. Just as he was about to sink down again, he noticed that the room was unfamiliar and his eyes widened to take it in.
The walls were a solid brick and mortar construction, closer to the look of the Elderman’s meeting hall than the solid logs of his own cabin. The room was decorated with ornate wooden furniture. A chair was at the end of his bed and another by the window in front of a dark wood dresser. Soft cushions rested in the chairs and the blankets covering him were thick and warm.
Faint voices drifted up from somewhere below the polished wood floor boards. Not raised voices as such, but hushed conspiratorial tones. There was a subtle difference in the accent to what he was used to, but he was unable to put it down to anything in particular. There were two voices, a female and a croaky old man’s. The old man spoke knowingly.
