Boris leaned back in his seat and exhaled loudly.
“I felt the same,” said Barkus. “I mustered up my courage and threw the devil’s lies back in his face. He showed no anger. He admitted that I’d been lied to and used. He said that it had been necessary in order to find the island’s location... and that I should be proud that I had been used by the gods for such a purpose.”
Boris waved a hand, eyes darting left and right, said, “To move all our people... to a place we know nothing about... to fight blindly against... brother, this is… did you say they had some kind of flying machines?”
Barkus nodded. “I threw that at him too. He said that in the coming days his kind would scout out the island, find out the extent of their strength, and probe for any weak points. He also said we would be given... reinforcements.” Barkus was reluctant to continue, but forced himself to continue. “This devil was like a god, I tell you. He himself will join us for the battle. He and three others like him! He said that we will not go there and knock at the front gates. He said we would sneak in through whatever back doors the devils find and that all of the powerful machines and technological contrivances of this people will count for nothing because we will slit their throats as they sleep. And while the demon counseled me that I was to give no mind to tomorrow, he also said that whatever advanced weapons we find in that place will be ours to bring back here.”
“Now, that is something,” said Boris, leaning forward. “Just imagine having the Smiths come here to lick our boots.”
“Yes,” said Barkus, nodding weakly. “The Smiths and their stranglehold on guns and machines could be undermined, their monopoly finally broken.”
“Lord,” said Heffer, “if we marched back to Pontius with that kind of loot, we could force the Smiths to stop supplying the damned Coil. Then we would be the undisputed masters of Pontius-”
“And we could knock over Filius Bilch in Sunport,” said Boris. “If we had his golden head hanging on the prow of one of our own ships, then the entire coast would belong to us.” He drummed his fingers along his desk, once, signaling the finality of a conclusion met.
Barkus turned green with sickness.
“Lord,” said Heffer, thrusting his fist to his chest, “the Left Arm would be honored to fight this war for you.”
“And,” said Boris, letting his word hang in the air, “so would the Right.”
Barkus’s head fell lamely.
Hand was covered in dark gunk by the time his work was completed. He returned to his corner and stood immobile once more.
“We have much planning to do,” said Boris, patting his bulge roughly. “We’re going to write a new chapter in the story of the Ugly. Anything else, brother?”
Without lifting his head, Barkus said, “When the monster was done talking to me, I was too tired to move, to speak, to think. It made some movement and I could smell cooked meat. It threw the meat before me and I ate. I ate it...”
“Well?” said Boris. “What of it?”
“It was so dark and I was so exhausted I didn’t think to look. But once I had gorged myself I felt around on the thing and I realized... that I had been eating a human arm.”
“Gods, Barkus, did you really have to go into detail like that?”
Chapter Three
Magnum Opus Prosequitur: The Great Work Continues
A figure in a black hooded cloak made his way through the gray avenues of Haven’s Ministerial Sector. Not as modern in appearance as Central Haven and not as colorfully desperate as the Commercial District, the Ministerial Sector held some of the oldest, grandest buildings in Haven. The cloaked figure passed by the fountain statue of Prometheus, who stood proudly along the edge of a slanting rock with broken chains at his feet. Bright red and orange lights shone from the fountain, representing the fire stolen from the gods and given to mankind. A close inspection revealed that the slanting rock covered any view of the lights from any height greater than street level. In Haven, no light was ever carelessly shone upwards.
The Never Pavlov was a wide three-story building full of meeting space for rent, bars, and moderately posh restaurants that Senators and their hangers-on often used to conduct their business. The cloaked figure ignored others gathered about the ornately carved entrance, then stood about awkwardly until he noticed a sign directing him to his destination. He followed a trail of stairs and gray halls interspersed with islands of warm lighting. He entered a large ballroom made of multicolored stone and shining hardwood floors that reflected the brilliant chandeliers overhead. The cloaked figure stopped in the foyer and watched the men in thousand-dollar suits with their wives and trophy wives and prospecting women in lengthy dresses glittering with gold dust. Tastefully attired butlers with benign, blank expressions hovered about clusters of people and distributed drinks.
The cloaked figure glanced at a placard and noted a bit that read, “... to honor the survivor of the Black Valley gauntlet and to honor those who continued the search for the missing…”
Two unarmored Guardians in shining white suits approached. Their short hair was plastered down on their thick faces. The cloaked figure noted the pistols hanging at their sides and stepped back.
“Your cloak, sir,” said one, extending his hand.
Dwarfed by the Guardians, the slight figure whipped his hands up and threw his hood back. His face was clear and pale, round but for his sharp nose and clear green eyes, and his hair was wavy and brown. He twirled his cloak off in one smooth motion, revealing his simple black suit and old-fashioned bowtie, the kind worn by laborers to funerals.
“Ah!” said the other Guardian. “The survivor.”
Wodan nodded once and extended the cloak. While one Guardian took it, another padded his sides, arms, legs, said, “Guess this isn’t really necessary. Just part of the job, you know.”
“I understand,” said Wodan, smiling.
He entered the ballroom. He saw many decorated Guardians mixing with other men who obviously held political power. Just then he saw none other than his favorite professor, Korliss Matri, stalking towards him at great speed. Wodan smiled in recognition, raised his hand, then was distracted by some loud ruckus behind him - and Korliss sped past him and into the foyer.
“Told you I’m here to photograph... this... historic occasion!” said a young man in shabby clothes. He had unruly brown hair, pale skin, was slightly taller than Wodan, and spoke with righteous indignation bordering on contempt. “Lay hands on somebody else, tyrant!” said the youth, pulling his leather bag away from the Guardians.
“I check everything that comes in, sir,” grated one of the Guardians as the other maneuvered behind the youth.
“Like hell!” said the young man. “Ever heard of freedom of the press? No?” There was a pause. “Probably not, right?” It seemed to Wodan that he was stalling.
“This one’s with me,” said Professor Korliss. “He’s okay, let him through.”
The Guardians backed away immediately. The youth glared at the professor, who folded an arm around him. As they left, Wodan heard Korliss hiss at the youth, “The hell are you doing here anyway, Mister Lamsang?”
The incident at the door exacerbated Wodan’s sense of misplacement. He may have been the very reason for the gathering, but no one spoke to him as he strolled from one end of the room to the other. The event did not seem real; he had fought and killed ghouls and raiders to return home, and now these suits only carried on with conversations begun in the Senate earlier that day. He saw a group of reporters, their cameras flashing as they huddled around a young female he could not make out. As she spoke and laughed the reporters laughed, too, and while something about her seemed familiar, Wodan shook his head at the whole thing and continued his lonely circuit.
Wodan came to a group of tall, thickset men with beefy jowls and hair plastered down. Most wore Senatorial pins on their shoulders, and a few wore the crisp white suits of the Guardian elite, complete with numerous medals and stripes over their hearts. All
of them wore small cheap-looking red buttons. Some of the buttons read
GOING BACK HOME WITH PETER REMUS
while other buttons read
GOING BACK HOME
Wodan was intimidated by their masculine posturing, but he reasoned that if he was going to get any news about the plans Haven’s leaders were developing to protect the citizens from the Ugly and demonkind, these would be the men to hear it from. Wodan did not want to force his way into the group and go through a lengthy ritual of introductions, so he slowly walked by the group and listened.
The men definitely seemed to be discussing preparations for an attack, but unfortunately they seemed to think the invasion was coming from the University and the Departments of Science and Research. Instead of discussing luring demons into kill-zones and overwhelming them with air power, they wanted to turn the Haven of 591 FH into the Haven of 291 FH, or perhaps 191 FH, and create a utopia where the clothes, technology, religions, and ideas hearkened back to another era and were, in theory, much more simple.
Sounds fine for a theme park, thought Wodan, but if the Ugly invaded, I’d hate for us to try to fight them without armored gunships or long-distance artillery.
When the Stone Warren men started speaking of their disdain for Didi and how he’d perversely tampered with the genes of an unborn child, Wodan shook his head and walked away. Wodan preferred to wait for Didi’s trial before he passed judgment; unless the facts changed his mind, Wodan still considered Didi a hero and a pioneer.
Wodan saw another group of Senators and hangers-on. These men smiled as they argued, and were more animated than the Stone Warren types. They even had several women joining in the discussion, which seemed a rarity among red pins. The circle that Wodan approached wore blue pins that read
LET’S MOVE FORWARD - NOT FALL BEHIND!
Thinking that this group might be more interested in leading Haven into a new tomorrow with new ideas, Wodan slowed down and eavesdropped once again.
The Running Wind group seemed to be arguing about whether the people of Haven should be uplifted via new laws regarding race relations or economic sanctions against powerful corporations. Wodan knew that hundreds of years ago Haven had been plagued by racial prejudice; out of all the nations in the wasteland, it seemed to be the only one inhabited by a number of different races because it was founded by people from many lands. Soon after the people had pulled together to tame the land and beat the plague that was killing their unborn children, they had enough free time to hate one another based on skin color and fashion. Heroes and villains had fought on all sides. While it was true that no real solution to human difference had ever been found, there were no longer any hate-groups of any real consequence and Havenders seemed content to simply sequester themselves into racially-themed neighborhoods. This was not good enough for the Running Wind.
Wodan became incredibly bored listening to their discussion because he knew that the fastest way to solve the problem of racial prejudice was to stop pretending that the outside world did not exist: If the people of Haven knew that monsters with tentacles and fangs and wings were eating sacrifices of human children, slight variations in skin tone would suddenly seem a lot less alien. His own band of rebels in the desert had been composed of many different pigments, not to mention tribal affiliations that must have seemed important before the Ugly enslaved them all. If he had taken the time to make sure that every member of his band felt completely comfortable about everyone else’s racial identity, they would now be in Sunport with collars around their necks.
Still others in the group argued that economic justice was more important. Wodan listened in on this intently, because it was easy for him to see that it was in the best interest of the large corporations if the people of Haven continued spending their money on frivolous things rather than focus their energies on changing the world. Wodan knew enough about how things worked to know that the people who ran corporations didn’t care about the chances of demonic invasion ten or one hundred years down the road; they only cared about making large numbers become even larger numbers on the next quarterly profit report. As Wodan listened, he heard several of the people mention corporate lobbying, yet there was no talk of ending the practice of government officials receiving bribes from companies in exchange for political influence.
Even these guys can’t be trusted to govern without thinking of their pocketbook first! Wodan thought, leaving the group behind.
Wodan encountered another group of red-pinned Stone Warren men. Unlike the first group, these men seemed animated and passionate about what they were talking about. Obviously anyone who cared about the future of Haven would have to have a pulse, so Wodan listened in.
Immediately one elderly Senator, his face burning red with righteous indignation, shot spit from his quivering mouth as he stammered, “Porno-nog-raphia!” Whether this was the conclusion of his spiel or simply an incredibly concise indictment of modern culture was not clear. Wodan saw the other old men nodding in despair. A few young Senatorial hangers-on nodded, but winked at one another as another old man launched into a passionate speech about the evils of modern culture. Wodan was embarrassed to see that the old man was visibly sexually aroused by his own description of a degenerate culture speeding toward annihilation.
Wodan realized that it was better to wander anonymously than to fall in with any more spouters of dogma. Their discussions existed in a world of shades of gray between the extremes of paternal buffoonery on one side and feel-good idiocy on the other. He realized that the ablest man among them would have to be the man who walked the razor’s edge that divided back-scratching gamefulness and willful blindness, a man who could vomit the right keywords to the right people at the right times. There were no shades of gray in the wasteland. A few weeks ago, the only choices had been between death, survival as a slave, and the terrifying gamble of becoming a free man. He wondered if anyone in Haven could ever understand the world that existed just outside the confines of their pretty little ballroom.
His thoughts were interrupted. He saw Korliss slouching in a chair, sour-faced and twirling an empty glass. His long black hair was clasped in a bun. Immediately cheered, Wodan marched up and plopped down in the chair beside him. “Professor Matri!” he shouted, smiling.
Korliss blinked, then focused on him and smiled. “Mister Kyner! Late to class, as usual.”
“Ha! And just what the hell are they teaching here?”
“How to talk about an alternate reality. And how to pretend that it’s important, that it’s the only thing of any importance.”
“I kind of picked that up already...”
“And the only way to pass the exam,” said Korliss, baring his teeth, “is to copy from someone else’s exam.”
“Alright, I’m kind of tired of this analogy,” said Wodan, “but I did get here on time. You walked right past me when I came in, sir!”
“Hm,” said Korliss, frowning. “Sorry, Mister Kyner, but I had to defuse a ticking time bomb.”
“Alright, sir,” said Wodan, “I’m feeling out of touch right now and I’m not so sure that it’s only because I’ve been gone for a month. I didn’t come here tonight because I thought that Haven’s elite would be talking about me, I’m not that naive. However, I did think some things of importance would be discussed. For example, what’s this about Didi being arrested for tampering with the unborn? And did Sevrik really arrest him?”
Korliss nodded slowly.
“From what I’ve heard,” said Wodan, “you three were like a unit. I always thought of you three as the center of Haven. The prime movers, in a way!”
“We were,” said Korliss. “We still are.”
“So why aren’t you and Sevrik together right now? And why isn’t anyone talking about the fact that Haven’s brightest men are breaking apart? And, sir, I haven’t heard one single word, here or in the news, about the fact that Guardians, or men dressed like them, were the ones who took us away in the first place!”
�
�You’re the son of laborers, Mister Kyner. Yes?”
Wodan nodded, once.
“It’s like this. You come from a world where work must be done, where the ablest man is found for the job, where good work is rewarded with good pay, where endurance counts and where anything faulty does not pay. And while you were intelligent enough to get into the University, some of that prior environment is still in you.”
Korliss stared into the crowd. “I’m listening,” said Wodan.
“Mister Kyner, I know you looked up to Didi and Sevrik and I. But... this is the world that we built. These people,” said Korliss, waving his hand, “are speaking a language I taught them to speak.”
“That’s not what you taught me,” said Wodan.
“We knew that we had something in us that could change Haven, could change the world, even, but we needed power to make it happen! What kind of power? Political sway, Mister Kyner. We needed money and special privileges, and you can’t get that from a bunch of isolated politicians who are bickering amongst one another. You can’t form alliances with shifting groups who form today and fall apart tomorrow. You can’t get anything done - and that, I know you understand.”
“But how does the way things are now help anybody? All these blue and red pins, these ridiculous debates...”
“We taught the politicians to cooperate. We taught them that a group, with clear goals, could outvote any individual worried only about his piddling little constituency. Specifically, I helped form the first semi-stable political party. Didi profited greatly, in terms of funding for his research and his access to manpower. Even Sevrik was able to ride the gravy train, to get the things he needed to increase what he felt the Guardians needed.”
Wodan tried to interrupt, but Korliss continued.
“Then a rival political party was cobbled together, made up of the enfeebled individual Senators and discontent members of the party I helped form. Over the years, the two parties refined the points that defined them - by using their rivals as an example of what they were not. The parties developed their own languages, their own ways of thinking. Individuals no longer had any sway in the Senate; if a Senator wanted to do anything for his constituency, he had to be of one party or the other. Now, the Running Wind and the Stone Warren no longer consider reality when discussing their politics. They don’t have to. They consider what their teammates and rivals will think about a certain thing... then they all move one way... then they all move another way...”
Demonworld Book 2: The Pig Devils Page 4
