Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  "I know, I know, it sounds a bit weird to start, but really, I hain't kiddin'." Dom moved towards the front row of would-be Rapscallions and removed the gag of the man nearest him. This part well and truly did need someone holding their end of the conversation. "Be a good lamb and be polite or I'll pull your tongue out through your earhole and make you bleed from every orifice. I’ll make you beg for the sort o' death that bards used to sing about in pubs, squire, and I'll give it to you, see if I don't."

  Deputy Errance worked his jaw back and forth to work it free of kinks before speaking. When he did, he followed Dom's strict instructions on being polite; none of them had ever seen a man like this ... Dom ... before in their lives. No amount of training could've prepared them for the sheer amount of madness they'd endured.

  "None of us will join you." Errance replied as calmly as he was able when talking to a blood-and-gore soaked demon. "And killing us now would be..."

  "Yes?" Dom demanded gently. "What would that be?"

  "Murder." Errance shifted uncomfortably. Kneeling while bound was painful enough, but the man tying him up had been less than gentle with his bindings. "Of a different kind. The assault on this fortification alone will definitely condemn you to a lifetime of servitude in one of the worst places Trinity maintains. Killing hostages … that's cruelty of a whole different kind."

  Dom laughed. It were funny, it really were, how these Outsiders thought. It were almost like their brains didn't work properly. Like how they were prevented from seeing what were right in front of their faces. "There be a few fings wrong wiv wot you're saying, mate, and I'll spell 'em out for you an' the rest of these 'ere men so they can make a better informed choice than the one you've made. Firstly, you is assumin' that anyone in this Stack is goin' ter be alive to press charges or wotever against us. E'en if there weren't a terrible kerfuffle coming in the next little while that shall cause ... exorbitant amounts of damage to the domain, I got a feelin' in me dunlop as says this Trinity hain't give two small squats about wot 'appens.

  Secondly, even if charges are laid and the appropriate types of enforcement were dispatched and they some'ow managed to bring me down, it wouldn't be for long. I is not the sort of man as could abide being in prison doing scutwork. Prior to alleged arrest, I is guarantee that I would make the cost of my apprehension so high that e'en Trinity might consider it better to leave well enough alone, hey?"

  Errance had a feeling there was a third thing. "That's not all, is there?"

  "'ardly, mate." Dom's left hand jabbed out with the vicious fury of a striking snake. It slammed into the deputy's throat with titanic strength, crushing his trachea and collapsing everything. Dom straightened and looked at the man behind the now dead officer until they made eye contact. "Thirdly, I is not give a fuck if it's cruel or if it's murder or any uvver fucking fing. I will kill everyone in this room who is not a Rapscallion and I shall commence doing so in under five minutes. Those of you who wish to remain breathing long enough to possibly plan my murder at a later ... a murder that will surely fail ... lay down on your faces. I would do you the courtesy of not seeing how those of your friends and colleagues will be done for. It will not be pretty, and some of you lot positively reek of innocence."

  More than half the prisoners dropped forward onto their faces, eliciting stares of disappointment and regret on those who'd chosen to stand on their morals.

  Dom was well pleased at the turn of events. It were nice to see that some lads really could fink properly when it came down to a life or death situation.

  "Right." he rubbed his hands together, a workman about to begin his day. "Let's see wot we can do wiv the rest of you, hey?"

  Clan of the Weeping Eye

  There were more than a thousand of them now, trailing behind the Lady of the Weeping Eye, giving her a wide berth because they’d learned early on that unless you were part of the original core group that’d started with her many levels ago, their weeping, tattered angel was mercurial. She might talk to you in that odd, lilting accent of hers that often left you wondering where she’d come from.

  Or…

  She’d look at you with that damaged face and you could see there, just inside the eye from which that awful liquid seeped, a spiralling ladder of madness. None of them wanted to see what would happen if they tarried too long after that, and they were right to do so.

  Mirabelle the Obsidian Golem, was torn.

  The small group of men and women and children and blessed babbies as had followed her up to and into the elevator full of carnage, they were welcome, they were expected. They’d been through their own version of hell, they’d seen with their own two eyes precisely what she was. Talking to young Ainsley, learning of the world in which she now resided. Through that beautiful child’s eyes, it felt like playacting now, something you did when you needed to learn important things without tipping your hand.

  Ragar, Grunion. Some of the others. They were welcome to talk with her for a time, to plumb the depths of what she were thinking because when they were doing it, hey, they were doing as she’d done with Ainsley, weren’t they just?

  Looking to find out if she were going to go off the rails again and slaughter everyone as looked at her funny. Hoping to see that she’d come out of the blue funk that trailed behind her like a damnable fog, sapping the will out of any who got too close. Praying she’d –should the time come once more- use her considerable and formidable talents in the art of death and all things death-related to protect those fools who followed.

  Mirabelle could not understand why her ranks were swelling so.

  The levels in this Stacklike world … had this Trinity AI, this thinking machine, purposefully filled these enormous metal coffins with madmen and crazy women, or were it just a by-product of the lives they lived in eternal servitude to summat as weren’t e’en alive in the truest sense?

  Coming from Arcadia … it seemed off.

  Mirabelle knew she weren’t the best one to lay down accusations of sanity ‘gainst the people of the Outside, but … regular Arcadians, ones as weren’t being tortured or tormented by gearheads, Golems or the menagerie o’ beasts dead King Barnabas Blake liked to keep around … they’d been nowt like these here folks. Pleasant-minded, calm-tongued, happy-faced. More than willing to give a lad or lass as were on the road a bit of bread and some soup ‘ere the sun did set, and this were e’en after the King had gone off ‘is nut and turned into a right raging monster all on his ownself.

  They’d been under the thumb of tyranny their lives, from birth to death, for over summat like thirty thousand years, hey, but e’en with the sure knowledge that their lives could be done for in the snap of a mad King’s fingers, well, they’d been pleasant enough.

  But here, on the Outside that were more Inside than anything, the men and women reeked of silent desperation. They carried fear with them in their pockets and on their backs, and when they were all unawares they were being watched, why, their eyes looked like they belonged on animals afeared and riled to the point of madness.

  Had to be that same fear, that same desperation as had these new people tagging along. Had to be, hey? Whatever it was that them behind her were afraid of, it had to be so big and bad yet not quite here that they were more than willing to walk the same footsteps as Mirabelle, the Lady of the Weeping Eye, on her journey down to the lowest levels of Stack 17.

  Mirabelle wished she could open her mouth to them, open it and tell them all what waited. So they could hear her voice with their own ears instead of diligent Ragar’s or gruff Grunion’s; the Arcadian well knew that the old group had done the best they could in keeping new adherents in line, and for hours, shouting and warning them that they had better options, that they shouldn’t join in the struggle, that they were being led to certain death at the hands of things far outside their ken.

  Tried and failed. Blows had been traded on more than one occasion, scuffles threatening to spread into riot.

  Simply stopping in her tracks, turning on a h
eel, and gazing on at the surly crowd got that nonsense sewn up in a bag.

  Desperate enough to follow her into the maws of awaiting insanity apparently did not mean they were stupid enough to try her patience.

  Mirabelle’s ears twitched. Master Ragar, come to give another report on the state of things. It were well and good. Up ahead were another elevator, this one allegedly able to take them all the way down to where they needed; most of them as were following her now had joined up after a brief and intense discussion with the protectors of an elevator three hours away from where they now walked, but not all.

  She would need to know the humor of the following ‘ere they braced what were most likely going to be another conflict requiring her cruel hands.

  ***

  “One thousand three hundred and eight grown adults and more than a hundred babbies.” Mirabelle shook her head, plumb mystified at the number. “And you did tell them what happened?”

  Ragar found that the more time he spent talking with the Lady of the Weeping Eye, the more he began to sound like he’d come from Arcadia himself. There wasn’t any way to tell –short of her saying so herself- whether or not Mirabelle found the condition amusing or insulting and since all efforts at stopping on his own had failed, it’d take a stern word from the woman to get him to bring it to a halt.

  “Oh, aye, that I did, Lady.” Ragar nodded up and down, head on a spring. “In grotesque detail. Why, Grunion e’en has pictures of the scene on his handheld, and was –for a time- taking it ‘round and showing some of the older men. Y’know, as they look to be the ones most able to handle such grim offerings.”

  “And?” The fluttering firelights in her head that were Dominic Breton, Chevril Pointillier and Agnethea moved. Dom and Agnethea moved quite slowly, but they were still moving, while Old Master Chevy himself weren’t even proper on the playing board yet. He were still outside, hovering ‘round the edges, doin' who knew what.

  If she knew the old Gearman –and she rather thought she did, now more than ever- it were going to be as always when it came to him; he’d be off doin’ summat disinterestin’ or what have you and you would be well convinced nowt was going on and then suddenly, ‘e’d be right ahead of you, silvery gray hair flashing in the light, a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his seamed old face.

  And then you’d be in it for cert. Why, the few times the two of them'd done the dance, she'd backed off the field, all out o' honor and, aye, mayhap a bit of … loyalty.

  For there were some things 'neath The Dome as had needed to persist, hey, and welladay, old Master Pointer, he were one o' the finest.

  Weren’t he just?

  “Well, that just it, innit?” Ragar fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a seam of sweat from his face. It was getting hotter in the levels now. With most of the power in the backup generators dwindling, one of the first things shut down had to’ve been the fans sucking in fresh air and blowing out the stale. If they didn’t die from dehydration or starvation, they’d be slow-roasted, wouldn’t they just.

  “Do go on.” Mirabelle let Ragar dance around things because of all of them, he were the one most willing to step forward and spend time with her. Ainsley’s death had spurred a particular animal into action and summat in the older man’s life had him understanding all too well why that’d happened.

  It were weird, but Mirabelle were beginning to believe she enjoyed the Outsider’s company.

  “They … they don’t care. Some call the pictures fake. That were what caused the last scuffle, you know … the one as needed you to look at ‘em.” Ragar felt like he should have a hat on, so he could take it off and fiddle with it while talking to Mirabelle. He needed to do something with his hands. When Mirabelle’s posture suggested amusement, he forged on ahead. “The others, they simply look, smile and nod and say summat along The Lines of ‘its fine, it’s okay, we understand’. Only … beggin’ your pardon, Lady, but … they can’t understand. They hain’t seen you in action. You is …”

  “I am an Obsidian Golem, Master Ragar.” The words weren’t nearly as heavy as they’d been upon entering the Outside. Ainsley’s death had proven that she was still a Golem, no matter how hard she tried not to be. “One of the worst things this Universe has ever shone a light on. It is this. There are so many strange and terrible things in this Outside of yours, and so much of it can be seen or learned or read about, that you all begin to believe that you know it. As you can well attest, Master Ragar, there is a difference ‘tween seeing on a Screen and walking into a chamber with a beast in the middle, dripping red. Smelling the copper tang of the blood. The rank stench of vacated bowels, the bright sight of all them insides splayed around. Being so connected to all as is out here…” Mirabelle snapped a hand out, a bone white slash carving the air. “Makes you believe you are the masters of your world, a world that has you secretly terrified.”

  Ragar instinctively looked over his shoulder at the new rank and file. He'd never seen so many people moving in the same direction before in his life and -given the nature of the levels most of them had come from- he would've called such a thing impossible. The further you fell in Stack 17, the less interested you were in community.

  But that was surely what they had now. A roving town of sorts, many of whom had no damned idea what was in store for them. Ragar -and the others who'd originally started following Mirabelle- continued onwards because … they owed it to the Weeping Lady. She'd had a chance to see a bright, better life but that'd been snatched from her.

  They owed it to her.

  But these new people … they had no cause, no reason, no understanding. He wished he could explain it to them in words or phrases that would make their certain destiny clearly understood. Their eventual deaths were beginning to weigh him down.

  "How do you mean, Lady?"

  "They cannot be entirely ignorant of what I represent." Mirabelle announced. "The few of them as were brave enough to come forward and risk the chance to speak with me. I've seen the dawning of understanding when they see my … my eye. So they know, somewhere inside of them, what I am. I fear they believe on some instinctual level that I am worse than this thing that comes for you, that I might provide them protection. What could this thing be?"

  Ragar pulled at his chin, absorbing Mirabelle's words, toying with the notion she was presenting. He'd never once thought about how connected all their lives were, nor of the true extent such could have on the quality of their lives.

  Beyond that -and ignoring her claims that she was more crafty and cunning than properly intelligent- the Arcadian woman's insights into the secret fear that drove them all were just that: insights. Of impressive clarity.

  "Hm." Ragar bundled up his thoughts. There was only one event, one occurrence, that grew to be a burden for all souls within Trinityspace. "Have you heard of a thing called The Dark Ages, milady?"

  Mirabelle nodded once. "I have. It makes little sense to me. What, precisely, is it?"

  Ragar didn't want to belabor their already aggrieved shepherd any more than she already was with the growth in ranks, so he kept the story as simple as possible, pulling much of what he relayed to her from the lessons they were taught in kindergarten. The Lady of the Weeping Eye said nothing the entire time he spoke, and it seemed to the NorthAMC man that every fiber of her essence strove to comprehend the utter depths of what a Dark Age really meant for those who were forced to suffer them.

  "And these … Dark Ages …" Mirabelle spoke slowly, the alien concepts spoken aloud barely finding root in the sparse garden that was her mind, "they happen all the time, wi'out warning of any kind?"

  "There are small signs, we were told as children, but what they might be, I do not recall." Ragar continued, saying, "And aye, milady, all the time, with neither rhyme nor reason."

  "And all things mechanical or technical, everywhere within Trinity's eyes, they fail?" Such power, this Dark Age, to turn the lights off in a space as vast as this world the Outsiders called their Universe. Fo
r her own understanding, Mirabelle kept an image of a large castle filled with shining lights, suddenly dashed into darkness. "And people, they die by the score. Worlds of them, I suppose, for the machines you Outsiders rely upon are multitudinous, are they not? 'tis a terrible thing, then. And so, some inner knowledge or feeling that I cannot feel myself for I am Arcadian, possesses all of you now, whispers into your ear, warning you that one of these Ages is nigh?"

  "Something like that, aye." Ragar was finding new insight into the condition known as Dark Age malady from the way Mirabelle spoke with absolute dispassion about the schismatic event hovering over their heads.

  "And your Lord and Master, the machine you refer to as Trinity Itself… with all It's might and possessions and all else It can bring to bear 'gainst this Universal threat, It has done nowt to put a stop to 'em?" Mirabelle knew from firsthand experience that King Barnabas Blake the One and Only would rise up from his dusty perch and smite any and all things that were in his domain as shouldn't be.

  Whenever he'd gotten bored fooling around with the gearheads and wardogs and the freakish monsters that plagued Arcade City, their mad old King picked up the task of trying to undo the Obsidian Golems. To his eternal chagrin, he'd always failed, hadn't he, but here in the Outside, this Dark Age did seem to be terribly effective at crushing the Outsiders.

  "Not for a lack of trying, milady." Ragar surprised himself at the intensity in his voice. He was no true adherent to anything Trinity had to say or do about anything, but if there was one thing It had always proved were It's attempts in undoing the Dark Ages before they happened. "There's nowt It or anyone can do, it seems. So the longer we go wi'out one, the more disturbed and concerned we become, always fearing that one morning or night we will look out our windows and see nowt save darkness."

  Mirabelle laughed scornfully, the mocking tone curling away into the semi-darkness. "Does seem to me we be in a Dark Age already, Master Ragar." When her companion laughed nervously at the sudden revelation that aye, they were well and truly in the middle of a Dark Age. "Having learned as much as I can about these Dark Ages and all that has been done to stop them, I have but a single question for you, Master Ragar."