by Guy Adams
It was Agrat that reacted first, that much would be accurately reported. Indeed, even in the calamity that was to follow, she was impossible to miss.
“Get behind me,” she roared, seeming to grow in size, her dress writhing around her, her eyes burning. If there was one thing the mortals would never forget, she decided, it was that Agrat was not a woman you pointed a weapon towards, not if you wanted to retain your soul.
The rifle shots were only the beginning. Even as their noise continued to echo between the mountains, they were joined by the roar of a crowd of people, Atherton’s devout army, breaking from cover and advancing towards the town.
9.
ATHERTON REACHED INTO his pocket to reload. As accomplished as he was in the art of killing, he was by no means sure that he had administered a lethal wound to either of his targets. Even if he had, there could be no harm in adding a few more corpses to his ever-increasing tally.
He felt a hand grip his wrist and, as he turned, a fist connected under his jaw and his rifle was snatched away from him.
The sun shone in his eyes as he tried to focus on the figure hovering over him. A demon? Here to punish him?
“That’s your lot, British,” said the Geek, squatting down over him. “I promised God I’d help, see? And I’m not a man to say no to the Almighty, my folks brought me up better than that.”
Atherton lifted his knee, meaning to dislodge the Geek, get that foul face and rancid breath away from him so that he could regain the upper hand. He was a fighter, it would take more than this brutish freak to get one over on him.
But the Geek was fast. Atherton may have been a fighter but the Geek was a hunter and he’d spent his whole life subduing his dinner.
“Uh uh,” he said, avoiding Atherton’s leg and dealing another blow to the man’s head. He stepped back, Atherton’s rifle now pointing at its owner.
“Now,” said the Geek, “you’re going to tell the folks down there who you are and who you just shot.”
“Like Hell I am,” Atherton replied, spitting at the Geek. “Who do you think you’re dealing with? I’ve engineered entire revolutions, I’ve squeezed out a final beat from the heart of kings, I’ll die before I say a word.”
The Geek smiled, his metal teeth glinting in the sun. “I kind of hoped you might say something like that,” he replied. “I was looking forward to convincing you.”
10.
OSCAR BURIED HIS head in hands and wished to be anyone but the man he was. Life had become far too hard over the last week. Surrounded by people demanding answers and owning nothing but questions, he had come close to barricading himself in his office and refusing to come out. Realising that, however much he might wish it, this was not possible, he had at least taken to locking himself away for half an hour every day. Shut in with silence and a decent brandy he would try and clear his thoughts of their own unproductive chatter so that he might be able to do something useful once forced back out into the world. He never could, but he did at least have a small portion of the day he could now look forward to.
“This really is a very good brandy,” said a voice from one of his two armchairs. He looked up to see a man sat there, perfectly at home, sipping at some of his liquor. This was impertinent but not his uppermost concern, his uppermost concern was how the devil the man had got in here in the first place. The office had been empty when he’d locked the door and drawn the curtains, refusing the outside world entrance. There was no doubt about that; his office, though spacious, was not so cavernous as to be able to hide people in it.
“I’m glad you approve,” said Oscar. “If it’s not too much to ask, who the devil are you and how did you get in?”
“I’m the person who’s going to help solve the Wormwood problem for you, and I got in by methods that you will scarcely be able to comprehend.”
“I can comprehend a great deal.”
“Very well.” The man placed his brandy on the small table next to his chair and promptly vanished, only to reappear again sat on the corner of Oscar’s desk. “Can we take that part of things as read now? It really would save a great deal of time if you simply accepted I’m working with powers and abilities you can’t begin to imagine.”
“You’ve left your brandy behind,” Oscar nodded towards it, terrified but suitably trained after a life in government not to show it.
“I shouldn’t be drinking anyway,” said the man. “Patrick Irish,” he announced, extending a hand for shaking. “A pleasure to meet you, Oscar.”
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Oscar replied, ignoring the handshake.
“Time will tell on that,” said Irish. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Atherton, the man Admiral Clemence set to keep an eye on the Wormwood situation, has just put you in a very awkward position.”
“Has he now?”
“He has. He’s just shot both the President and the Vice-President of the United States of America. Not only that but he’s managed to get caught and identified himself as an officer of the British Empire.”
As well-trained in appearing casual as Oscar was, this was a step too far and he couldn’t quite conceal his discomfort. “That is an awkward position,” he agreed, reaching for his own brandy.
“Indeed. He has quite possibly placed you at war. A war, I hasten to point out, that you couldn’t possibly win.”
“We can win most wars,” Oscar replied. “Eventually.”
“Not ones like this. You know that America has a new ally. One that no other force in the world could hope to defeat.”
“One hears rumours.”
“One also sees a man appear and disappear in your room, Oscar, I think we can afford to take those rumours as read too, don’t you? We have power and strength that even the British Empire can’t defeat.”
“You sound English yourself.”
“I’ve emigrated. The point is this, I can assure you that war will not happen unless you take steps to instigate it. The forces that lie behind Wormwood have no urge to fight. They are content to co-exist peacefully. If you don’t threaten them, they will not threaten you. They will leave the Empire to its business.”
“And you have the authority to promise that, do you?”
“I do.”
“Bully for you I do not.”
“But you have enough authority to convince those who do, not to sharpen their sabres, Oscar. And you need to do so. Quickly. Because this is an offer you need to accept now, I can’t promise how long it will be extended to you.”
“The British government does not respond well to threats.”
“I’m not offering one. Right now myself and several other important spokesmen for the powers behind Wormwood are working hard to ensure this situation doesn’t escalate. We want this awkward situation to end before it becomes an even bigger problem. It’s in your own best interests to do the same. Work with this new power, Oscar, don’t fight it. Because, right now, the only act of aggression that matters is one undertaken by your man. If you issue an immediate and unequivocal statement clarifying that he acted under his own aegis and was not carrying out his government’s orders we can nip this in the bud right now before anyone else is hurt.”
Oscar thought about it for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good enough, I shall take you at your word. It’s the right decision, old chap, I promise you that. I’m acting just as much in your interests as I am anyone else’s.”
Irish stood up. “Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a dead President to deal with.”
With that he vanished.
11.
KANE THOUGHT HE saw movement in the mist ahead. Finally, a sign of life in this insubstantial barrier that lay between them and the real world.
“I see it!” he cried, eager to be the voice that brought his people home. “We’re here!”
He stepped through the mist and found himself facing a large chasm that stretched to either side of them. Stood on the chasm’s edge was the man he had seen Hicks talking
to back in Sepulchre Heights.
“Wormwood?” he asked, an awful feeling spreading through him, the earliest sense that all was not as he had hoped and imagined.
“No,” admitted Patrick Irish as the procession gathered around Kane, staring out over the chasm into the whiteness beyond. “Not Wormwood. Somewhere better.”
The man closed his eyes and suddenly the air was filled with glowing lights, orb after orb descending as it chose a member of the procession to call its own.
“You goddamned cheat!” shouted Hicks. “You gave me the wrong directions!”
“You could look at it like that,” Irish admitted, “or you could accept that I brought you where you needed to be. There’s nothing in Wormwood for you, nothing in the mortal world. That’s done, it’s behind you. Ahead is somewhere better, ahead is what you all deserve.”
He looked at Kane and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Even you.” Several orbs clustered around the fat man. “Though you may need a bit more support than most.”
He raised his voice so that they could all hear him. “Two wonderful people left this paradise to come and rescue you. You repaid their kindness by turning your back on them. By deciding you knew better, by choosing to follow anger rather than love.” He shrugged. “But that’s fine. They would have forgiven you and so do I. Take hold of the orbs, get a firm grip.”
The orbs moved behind Kane and pressed against him, forcing him to topple back onto them, bouncing on their support.
One by one the members of the procession rode into the air. Marrousia, the woman who had hung by her feet for years; Josiah, the hollow boy; Rachel Watson, her eyes held out in front of her as she floated over the chasm; even George Oskirk, who had once taken the skin from another to protect himself in the Draining Desert. They all drifted on, towards the Dominion of Clouds and a better future.
Even Hicks, draped across an orb, sailed upwards, a wary look in his eye as Irish watched him go. “One way ticket to paradise, eh?” he shouted. “I guess I can go along with that. Especially if there’s an eager woman at the end of it!”
Irish watched him go. “You’re half right, I suppose,” he said as the orb suddenly shifted direction and Hicks began to sail back the way he had come, his orb rising higher and higher as it raced away from the chasm, back through the mist and on and on towards a destination of its very own.
Irish looked up into the air, the light of the orbs receding now that their charges were almost at the other side. “If God were here,” he said, “maybe He’d be better. But He’s not, and I’m only human.”
12.
AS ATHERTON’S ARMY charged, a roar to match their own emerged from Wormwood as the Forset Land Carriage burst through the barrier and charged forth towards them.
On its roof, a solitary figure, Lucifer, the wind whipping his jacket around him.
Mere moments after the crowds had acknowledged his arrival, the large wooden bench that Agrat and Forset had been sitting on while they waited for the President creaked and expanded, rearing up to cries of panic. But those gathered had nothing to fear from Branches of Regret, his mission was not one of destruction. This had been explained to him by the curious Englishman who had visited him—and several others—a few hours earlier. His job was incarceration. He expanded wider and wider, branches forming branches forming branches as he towered over Atherton’s army, who cowered together, their advance halted by the sight of this mobile forest that seemed intent on attacking them. He did not attack. He simply dropped forward, encasing every single one of them in a cage made of his own body.
The Land Carriage turned and slowed, drawing to a halt a few yards away. Its doors opened and one by one, its passengers alighted. Billy and Elisabeth; Elwyn and Meridiana; Biter, the excitement of his situation making him howl, his face lifted up to the sky; William, Abernathy, even Knee-High, the latter couple slightly the worse for drink though they covered it well as they dropped to the ground and stood next to their fellows; several residents from Wormwood, the human and the grotesque, stepping down in front of the eyes of the world. Even Fenella and her children were there, the excitable young things clambering around the outside of the carriage, jumping to either side of Lucifer who stood firm at the centre.
Above them a figure soared in the air, the bird-like creature Atherton had first noticed on his arrival at Wormwood. It flew past them all, on towards the mountains.
“No more!” Lucifer shouted, his voice carrying over the plain as slowly, but surely everyone grew quiet. “There will be no more blood spilled here today. Your enemy is not in front of you. If you want the assassin look to your own people, not mine.”
Agrat, her face still terrifying enough to live forever in the nightmares of the first few rows of spectators, lowered her hands.
Forset, down on his haunches, holding the President in his arms, called for help. “He’s still alive!” he shouted. “I need medical help!”
Captain Corker was shouting at his men, ordering them to hold fire. As terrified as they all were, the man was right, the shooter was in the mountains behind them, not the town. He shaded his eyes with his hand and stared up into the rocks, looking for a sign of their attacker.
A field medic rushed forward, giving the Vice-President a cursory glance—more than enough to show him that Mr Morton had passed beyond his help—and dropped down next to the President.
“Head wound,” he said, examining Harrison’s scalp, which peeled away in his hand. “Not a chance.”
Forset stood up, looking down at the dying man and the crowds that pushed forward to see his final breath. Leonard Oliver was at his side. “Presidential aide,” he said. “We should...” His words failed him. The man he was responsible for was expiring and with him, Oliver’s sense of purpose.
“We need to get him inside the tent,” Forset said. “If all we can give him is privacy then that is what he deserves.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Fenella’s children were surrounding him, swarming around both Harrison and Morton before carefully lifting them and carrying them into the tent that had been constructed for their talks. It was an image that would be remembered, the children of Wormwood and the care and respect they showed the elders of the mortal world. The field medic simply stared, Forset grabbing him by the arm and pushing him towards the tent. “Come on man, now’s not the time, just do what you can.”
“These men came to me in peace,” said Lucifer, addressing the crowd, “and were struck down by one of their own. You’re afraid, I understand, and perhaps we are worthy of your fear. But we come to you under the same promise of peace offered by your government. Would you reject that? We don’t come as enemies, we come as friends. That town behind me is the doorway to other worlds and places, and it can never be closed. So why not take comfort from it? Instead of fearing what you do not know, why not embrace it? We are with you now, and we’re staying. I have offered the people of the Dominions my protection, and I offer that same protection to you. To all of you. Please take it, it is freely given.”
There was the call of the flying creature again as it descended into the open ground between the crowds and Lucifer’s party. In its hands it held Atherton, who stumbled free and walked towards the reporters.
“My name is Richard Atherton,” he said, “and I came here under orders of the British government. I’m the man who killed your President.”
He dropped to his knees, his energy spent, and those gathered couldn’t fail to notice his right arm was torn apart up to the elbow. The reports that followed would choose to ignore the fact, because nobody quite knew how to explain the wounds. The skin was ragged and appeared to have been bitten by some wild animal. Besides, the man’s own government claimed him soon after. While they disowned his actions, they accepted his provenance. Nobody was inclined to question.
The silence that had fallen in the wake of Lucifer’s appearance broke again as the crowd began to talk. The plain was awash with shouting, tears and questions. Lucifer lo
wered himself from the train and stood with his companions.
“This is the turning point,” he told them, “as I’m reliably informed by an influential observer.”
Irish appeared amongst them, his face solemn. “Thank you,” he said, “for all playing your parts. We have offered a show of strength today but the only blood to be spilled is not our responsibility.”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “That rather depends on who told Atherton to shoot, doesn’t it? Was it really his government’s orders?”
Irish shrugged. “According to them he was acting on his own and that’s how it will be left. But the world has seen you all, standing together. They have seen you come in peace. The entire future now hangs in the balance, and there is one more card that must be dealt in order to ensure things pan out for the best.” He looked at Lucifer who, after a reluctant sigh, nodded.
13.
HICKS’ ORB BEGAN to descend, his wiry little fingers digging into its skin as he screamed curse after curse at it.
Below him, he saw the signs of building, foundations being laid, concrete being poured, great crowds of people milling around as they set to the art of building the biggest, most awe-inspiring tower the Dominion had ever seen. Lower and lower he dropped, the people growing larger, their faces distinct. He saw what he would have taken to be nothing but a small child were it not for the fact that her eyes were empty holes, opening onto a limitless darkness. She smiled as he floated past, giving him a wave.
Finally, the orb came to rest, hovering over the pit at the heart of Chatter’s Munch, Hicks forced to grip as tightly as ever in case he should fall into it. On the brim of the pit he saw two people he knew only too well.
