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

by Lee Bond

  Filthy, covered in gore, fresh eye being assigned a place, Chezzik Elteren looked around for a clean napkin, tucked it into the neck of his suit, and reached out to put gore-stained fingers around the nearest bit of food. “Me old mum used to tell me you are wot you eat. Who knew the daft old bat’d be right, four hundred and some years into the future?”

  ***

  The door to poor old Hammic's antiquated and well run bar banged open and closed, but Chezzik didn't bother looking up from his repast. Ever since the ... difficulties ... a short while ago, interested people had been coming and going at a fairly standard pace, choosing to leave of their own accord once the scene was properly ... digested.

  This time, though, the door to Hammic's didn't bang open and shut a second time, signalling the departure of yet another fool suffering from the kind of idle curiosity that not only saw the cat dead, but skinned and boiled alive.

  "Now I know what you might be thinking, squire," Chez commented from his place at the table, daintily tucking in to the meal, "but I assure you, none of this was intentional. As a matter of course following the acquisition of new materials, I need to take in fresh food. The programmable protein chains upon which my system is built requires a commensurate amount of additional energy to link themselves into new tech. Bit of a pain in the arse, really. But beggars cannot be choosers, and without depth perception, I was forced to rely on computer simulation to provide for the same."

  "The entire bar?"

  A Wayfarer. Chez felt all sorts of special. "Well. As I said. There was a bit of over-reaction on their part, and another on mine. Though to be honest, I can't strictly say if what I did was intentional or not. Certainly I could have waited until a more appropriate moment to ingest fuel for the new peeper, but, well, you know how it is. I was impatient. Missing an eye … it's … awkward. Need to maintain that balance, if you know wot I mean."

  "Many lines that should not have been erased this day are now gone, Chezzik Elteren." The Wayfarer's voice, static on the wind, words lapping against the wall like radioactive waves, crested around Chezzik without harm. "A terrible thing, this."

  Chezzik chewed and swallowed the lump of meat in his mouth and ran a diagnostic before bothering to answer the Wayfarer's overt condemnation of his actions; with this last bit, the aforementioned protein chains were even now coding themselves to properly attach themselves to the metalorganic optic receptors of the cybernetic eye. After the initial connections were made, a few alterations here and there to the orb's onboard processes would be made, power would flow, and he'd be whole again.

  "If there is one thing," Chezzik said slowly as he dabbed his lips clean of blood, "that you must know about me, Wayfarer, is that many lines draw to a close around me. It's in my nature."

  "Nature can be changed, Chezzik."

  "Now that," Chez dropped the soiled napkin onto the filthy table and turned to greet his latest visitor, "is precisely the sort of shite you lot fill the air with entirely too frequently for my liking. And who are you when you're at home?"

  As always when encountering one of the world's weirder inhabitants, Chezzik did his utmost to scan the odd entity calling itself Wayfarer by opening all of his senses to the world.

  It wasn't a thing he liked doing all that often because the world of the 25th century was -even if most people would never believe it- noisier and more chaotic than they could possibly ever apprehend. All the channels, all the bands, all of it, just a seething mess of noise and color that made him feel like a dog's bollocks for days afterward.

  Chezzik wondered how the rest of the world lived with such a morass of turbulence spinning around their heads, because even with keeping his head out of that shite, it was terrible.

  All his considerable senses, cybernetic abilities allowing him to delve deep into computers and, under the right circumstances, the occasional person's mind ... failed when turned against the Wayfarer. No surprises there, not really; clad in his -or her, you never really could tell- somber, body-covering robes that revealed nothing but two glints of searing light 'round where the eyes were supposed to be, every Wayfarer's spectral image was akin to beholding the gravitational effect black holes had on their surroundings.

  The Wayfarer shifted slightly, moved the blistering staff comprised of radioactive metals and volcanic glass in front of her body. "Disappointed as always, Chezzik? You can't see what does not exist in the real world."

  Chez shut down his scanners and other peeking, prying eyes, choosing instead to confront what was in front of him, in the real world. That was the primary problem with Wayfarers. You could not dismiss the fact that they were undeniably one of the most powerful beings to cross the skin of the earth. It was evident to anyone who stood next to one, and for the very oldest of them all, when you mentioned their doings, it was as if they stood next to you in the room.

  But they also carried the grossest of hubrises, buried under their cowls, and in their staves or swords or whatever weapon they chose to wield. It covered them just as surely as they emanated into the realms beyond that which the eye could see.

  And that made them just as human as anyone else.

  Just as killable.

  Chez pouted. "Come now, Wayfarer. You know my name, and I know not yours." He swept his hands to include the dead bodies surrounding him. "Surely you did not come for this. This is a common occurrence wherever I tread. 'tis regrettable, but I have such ill humor and tempers. It seems that the older I get, the worse it becomes. One day, I shall truly be an irascible bastard. Now. Do, play by the courteous rules of discourse, Wayfarer. Tell me your name."

  Shaal-Riya moved her staff again, sweeping it to one side, probing the cyborg before her with all of her considerable senses and came up ... empty. She'd heard rumors, whispers and less than that, even, that there was something different about Chezzik Elteren.

  Chez twitched a finger back and forth, just as old Sister Hannity had done during school when he'd been wont to act a fool. "By the prick pricking of my thumbs, summat evil this way comes. As I am blind to you, so, too, are you blind to me. This is such a wonderful world, and for those of us capable of exceeding our limits with patience and diligence, it truly is a miraculous place. Now. For the third and final time, I shall ask your name. And then, under the guise of civilized behavior, we will discuss why you have come to me."

  "I am Shaal-Riya. Stonestepper and 'loadwalker." Shaal-Riya dipped her head a single time, yet did not move her staff. The assassin was bristling with ill-kept hostility yet was at ease. Such a split of behaviors was a thing she was unwilling to overlook. He could move against her at any time, without her being prepared. Nothing would come of it, of course, but her spontaneous reaction to the attack would certainly prove ill for the rest of DSB.

  Chez bowed gracefully, a full court gesture to a powerful dignitary. "There, now, Shaal-Riya. Was that too difficult? I assure you, even if I could use your name against you, I would not. Wouldn't be fitting. I am Master Assassin of the Planet Earth and Murder King, Chezzik Elteren."

  Shaal-Riya took the room in again, plucking on the fabric of the local space/time to observe, to see if Chezzik Elteren had performed a deed that moved against the wishes of the world, but her sight was obscured. Always obscured. Part of her knew that it shouldn’t be like this, knew that there was something dreadfully wrong with everything and that it’d always been this way, and another part of her wondered how she even knew, or cared.

  The world had always been this way. It would ever thus be this way, and no matter how hard she and the other Wayfarers tried, nothing would ever change.

  “You disapprove this much?” Chez couldn’t blame the Wayfarer for her feelings on the nature of what he’d done in the bar. It wasn’t one of his crowning moments, but it was as he’d said; he wasn’t as in control as he’d like, and the dark tempers that’d crowned him King of Murder were unpredictable. “In your time on the skin of this planet, you have no doubt killed more than this with a single rede. I cannot reca
ll hearing of a single one of your future-telling gambits that didn’t cause death.”

  Shaal dismissed the prodding statement. “I bring a message.”

  That brought Chezzik’s head right into the middle of the game. He rubbed his hands together eagerly, gave his new robotic eye a flick with a finger -tink-, and planted his feet firmly on the rough barroom floor. “This is going to be fun. Another rede? The last one didn’t stick. Tried to get it out, but the words failed him. Never seen an embarrassed Wayfarer ‘ere then, I shan’t waste a moment this time ‘round. Missed the first bit, I was too busy cowering. Not this time, though.”

  Shaal swept the air in front of her with her deadly staff. She felt unclean enough as it was, being ‘tasked’ by the others to be a mere messenger, but it was the unfortunate way of things; this far into the world, there were only a dozen or so of the noble ones left, and they were scattered far and wide, trying desperately to make heads or tails of the invisible red lines that crisscrossed the globe without end. They’d all been doing so, for hundreds of years, never finding the truth, never uncovering their purpose, never learning anything new, and every few decades, they all fell under the illusion that the next time they started up, all would be revealed.

  They were all in a frenzy this time. The air was beyond electric, the sensations stirring in the guts of the world, worrisome, the movements and motions of the man they all loathed, erratic, confused, dangerous. Bad enough that the redlines were burning with a fury not their own, they had an angst-riddled Samiel in his castle roaring through time, a comet chasing it’s own tail, inclined to destroy everything in pursuit of that mindless goal. The nobles ones knew this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Knew the king in his castle should be quiet and focused in this time, in this place, working towards his inscrutable goals.

  But he wasn't. He was fury and apoplexy, madness and sacrifice. Some of them believed the redlines were driving him mad at last.

  And so. When he’d let it be known that he was looking for Chezzik Elteren, the other nobles and she had agreed. Whosoever was closest would approach the maddened –and dangerous- assassin and pass the word along, all so they could return to the more important task of deciphering what was truly happening.

  A small sacrifice, even though that sacrifice was almost more than Shaal -Riya could possibly bear.

  “No.” Shaal shook her head once. “We know of the failed rede, Chezzik Elteren. And of what happened following. No redes for you.”

  “You cannot blame a fellow.” Chezzik rubbed his hands together. Red and Blue, at hip and chest, cycled up a notch, preparing for mortal combat. Shaal was an older Wayfarer, meaning his most trustworthy of weapons might not do the trick, but he was game either way. He’d been assured by other ‘farers that ‘all was well and good, The Lines were crossed’ and all that hysterical, mystical claptrap they all adhered to and for a good long time, that’d been the case.

  This unexpected arrival of an Elder ‘farer, bearing a message? It could be nothing more than ‘we ‘ave decided you is a prick, we is done wiv you’. A farcical gag like that was just up a Wayfarer’s alley.

  And if it were summat else? If it weren’t a ‘farer come to kill him for past deeds, then it were still summat equally dangerous, weren’t it?

  Shaal-Riya pulled more power to herself through the staff in her hand, drawing down through the unseen fissures that flexed gently between the world and the outside of the world, glinting black power that rattled her veins and shook her atoms. In her hand, the staff’s volcanic glass began to hum, and to ripple with deep black shadows. “We can blame a fellow, and always will blame a fellow, but the fellow is not being brought to task for that today. Why are you hostile and defensive, Chezzik Elteren? This behavior is understood when it is mortal man we stand before, but you, you are greater than that. You are barely human. Why act this way?”

  Chez decided he weren’t going to muck about for much longer. A hand each rest lightly on hilts of Red and Blue, and the weapons sang softly in his ears. He decided Red would go for the arm holding the wicked looking staff –oh aye, you’d be hard-pressed to miss the glass shadows bottled deep inside the hurtful looking weapon- and Blue would go for the heart.

  If it came down to it.

  “Ma’am, I is over four hundred years old. I is, I suspect, impossible enough to kill to make any attempt a serious effort on anyone’s behalf. I remember sunsets on the horizon that didn’t burn with perilous radioactivity. I remember being able to have a simple cup of coffee at a street café whilst updating my status on Facebook. I remember when the first of the shiny black ships arrived in our skies. I remember the savagery of the Invaders. I remember our victory. I was there for it, Shaal-Riya, all shiny and new and full of technology so cutting edge that the edges of me seemed to be forever bleeding. I remember the fall of Mankind shortly thereafter, when we all lost hope e’en though we were the winners, we were the survivors. I remember when the first of your lot crawled out of the Wasteload, burning with energy stolen from the shattering of hope, the evisceration of a dream. Aye,” Chezzik, pulled his blades an inch loose and adjusted his gait, “I may not be nowt more than barely human, I may indeed be nowt more than a madman playing at assassin. I am all this and more, you irradiated slag with pretentions of grandeur, but I am Chezzik fucking Elteren. A fuck like you does not show up on my doorstep with a ‘message’. This hain’t the fuckin’ 21st century, luv. We is not Twittering each other. We is not Instagramming our food together. And Wayfarers don’t fucking pass messages like kids in fucking high school.”

  “We do, Chezzik Elteren, when it serves the purposes of the world. And my being here, standing before you, stomach revolted and senses urging for your obliteration, even at the cost of the DSB and all who still remain inside, serves many purposes. A greater number than your death.” Shaal-Riya had had enough. Yes, there were formats that needed to be adhered to when you were a Wayfarer, literal scriptures burned into their essence that demanded following when treating with mortals. Chezzik wasn’t like that, though. Rules could be broken. “And the message I carry for you is from Baron Samiel.”

  That was quite the revelation. So much so that Chez actually took a step backward in surprise. “Well now. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a few years. Thought he might’ve pulled back out of the game.”

  “Samiel is regrettably eternal.” Shaal couldn’t keep the disdain from her voice.

  Of all the things the world did not like, it didn’t like the man calling himself Baron Samiel the most. The hatred the world owned for the man who controlled time itself, for the man who strode roughshod through all The Lines as if they were his to pluck and to pull, was a visceral thing. Whenever she found herself thinking of Samiel and his temporal antics, Shaal-Riya could barely contain the ire that raced through her transformed body.

  “And the game is his. He would not back away from it. Not now, not ever.”

  Chez issued a long, thoughtful look Shaal-Riya’s way, then slowly, surely, removed his hands from Red and Blue. He let out a long breath when the ‘farer’s suppurating staff appeared to drain itself of most of the shadow power it’d pulled from … somewhere. “I am assuming, then,” the assassin said slowly, “that the man has a job for me. Isn’t that interesting? Who or what can’t he kill or dismantle on his own? With the legions he has at his command? This is fascinating!”

  Shaal-Riya stamped her staff into the ground once, firmly, and the heavens echoed with a ricochet. Coordinates sprang to life, green-rimmed numbers that shivered in the air like a mirage. “Be here. Does not matter when, not for him, but for you, I think sooner is better than later.”

  Chez let onboard computers locate the spot on Earth where Samiel wanted to meet, and nodded, pleased. “Amazon Basin. Hain’t been there in a while. Wonder if Overlord Riconda is still the bossman in charge of Platwereld…”

  “My duty is discharged. Make your way in the world, Chezzik, and cross no lines that should not be crossed.” S
haal-Riya dipped her head once more and started off towards the door, pleased to be done and eager to return to something she considered a little more important than messing about in the affairs of Baron Samiel and Chezzik Elteren.

  “Oh aye, Miz Wayfarer, I shall do just that, just that indeed. Though, if I might have one more second of your time, great Wasteload wanderer.” Chezzik planted a pleasant smile on his mug and waited for the rarified creature to turn her head.

  When she did, when the pitiless star-seeds that were the woman’s' eyes turned his way and burned at him with the fury of captured suns, he spoke. He spoke in all earnestness, and all sincerity.

  “If any of your kind comes my way again, Wayfarer, bearing messages or stories or tales or even the hint of a rede, we will all see if it’s true, hey? The only unfinished rede in the world, I am, luv, the only one. What was it Too-lo-Ton said to me?” Chezzik tapped his chin mockingly. “Hmm … oh yes. All lines cross on you, all lines fold on you…. Then he sort of made this urking noise as I accidentally chopped ‘is head off, but the words of the rede were already transcribed into the world, right? Hain’t that how it works? I’m down there in the unbreakable lines of History now, with the rest of you, with Samiel, who stole his spot. Sent a young’un to do an oldun’s job and you all got fucked on account of it. You think your lines won’t come to an end, but I’m willing to test the theory. Are you?”

  Shaal-Riya dipped her head once, then pushed out of the door.

  Chezzik waited a good, solid half an hour to make certain that the Wayfarer was long gone. He hadn’t been lying, not about his willingness to stand toe to toe with a full-fledged Wayfarer, but if he was going to be honest with himself, he was terribly, terribly excited to find out who it was that the mighty puppeteer himself, Baron Samiel, wanted dead that he couldn’t make dead on his own.