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

by Lee Bond

  The whole crew launched into celebration, shouting and tossing their hands up in the air. Mirabelle knew she could’ve done better had she had time to prepare, but mayhap it were better this way. Those who followed her lead should know she weren’t terrible good at making things sound better than they were. That way they’d never have fear she were lying or covering up the truth of things.

  “M…milady, there is no place like that on this world.” Darius stammered the words out, feeling … feeling as if he were on a track and that he had no choice but to say the words tumbling hastily from his lips. “And … and Trinity Itself will not allow any of us to leave. The … shield surrounding our world … it’s impenetrable, and without permission…”

  “I do not speak of leaving this world, Lord Darius.” Mirabelle tipped her head towards the man. “At least not yet.”

  “Then … where?” The question rang through the crowd, diminishing some of the celebration.

  “I only just said, Lord Darius.” Mirabelle turned to the group, momentarily startled to see so many eyes, so many faces, turned her way, waiting, full of emotion she knew not herself. “We return home. To my home. The place where I were born, and from which I were spirited away. ‘tis a green land, now, transformed into that which it had been ‘ere King Barnabas Blake the One and Only did turn it into the most barren of wastelands. There are forests wi’ trees tall as the sky, and lakes wi’ water so clean and clear you can drink for days and feel nowt but pleasure. There be mountains to climb, secret places to discover. Fields full o’ flowers to roam through and well, I cannot say what else there might be left behind for us to find, only that if I know my new King a third as well as I wish, it is to say that there’s more to the land than I can e’er guess. We return, Lord Darius Longfoote Arein, to Arcadia.”

  “Arc … you mean Arcade City?” Darius shook his head sadly, pulled loose for a moment from Mirabelle’s enchanting spell of compliance. “That place is full of Conglomerates, and Historical Adjutants and who knows what else. It’d be better if you chose somew…”

  “Then,” Mirabelle snapped firmly, “t’would be a good time, Lord Darius, for you and yours to see who’s got the most pull with all them folk, hey? For if, when the time comes, you cannot convince them to leave the land of my King, Garth N’Chalez, t’will go poorly for them as remain, for I will call upon the land itself to rise up against those who would do her harm, and ‘gainst those who would keep her rightful, chosen people, from making their home there. The trees shall walk, the mountains shall rumble, rivers will change course and the very earth itself shall rise up and force those invaders off into the poisonous oceans, and all, all will know that the Kingdom has risen again. Are we clear?”

  And so it was that when the people of the Kingdom did cheer this time, they were indeed heard through the whole Stack, all of it, from top to bottom, and all who heard, wondered briefly –even as they prepared for their own inevitable end- at what wonderful thing was happening in the darkest of times.

  Fruiting Bodies, Dusty Words, Dark Offers

  Dom braced himself 'gainst the wind which whipped at him from all corners, clutching the exposed girder with one burly arm. His other hand, which were throbbing from the recent assault 'pon the wall which had only just finished tumbling down into the depths of the Outside, did shield his sole remaining eye from the gusts.

  Alas, there were nowt as could protect his ticky-thumper from the ravages of such a terrible defeat, nor were there anything nearby as could balm the raging heat that e'en still threatened to spill o'er and drive him into the blackest o' moods.

  Defeat. By the mummified deviant, that scar-faced whore, that pasty quim, no less! Had he lost to Agnethea, aye, well, such a loss would sting sure enough, hey, but at least that horrid Golem carried inside her the kinds of skill and knowledge as to allow him the luxury of claiming his loss were nowt but odds and luck and all that.

  Better still to've lost to his old friend and comrade, Chevril Pointillier. To lose to Pointer? The hidden Gearmaster of ancient Lore? No one in the entire Outside or destroyed Inside would e'er dare point and mock him for such a loss, as there weren't none other that were truly Chevy's match in terms of thinkin' 'round corners or -as he'd personally seen, hey- somehow inside corners and all, yet …

  Yet all three of them had fallen 'neath that pasty cunt's indestructible fists. Who would've ever thunk such a thought in their entire lives? That a pasty-faced, mealy-mouthed Golem of no appreciable skill, talent or drive should hold sway over Gearmaster, Bookclub Leader and ancient Queen of Obsidian Golem?

  "'tis fuckin' impossible, hain't it just?" Dom wanted nowt more than to hawk up a gob of spit to launch downwards, yet he didn't, as the wind would surely send it right back to him. "Hain't quite wrapped me old noggin' 'round that cruel twist o' fate. Mayhap I ne'er ... welladay, wot's this? Just as wot I were lookin' for, hey? Mayhap fate and providence hain't abandoned old Dominic Breton just yet. Well, down I do go."

  Down below, somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred feet or so, there skulked a ship, a dirty, stained, rusty old warthog of a ship. Were one of a few Dom had seen 'ere now, but were the only one as was moving slow enough to take a risk.

  ***

  "What in the absolute and utter crusty fuck was that?" Captain Corrl thumped one of his dilapidated screens with a heavy fist.

  "Dunno." First Mate Splix thumped his screen as well, one scabbed-over eyebrow raising in mystery. "Maybe something from 17 hit us? People could be real desperate to get out of there before Trinity blows the final cores. Maybe they're kicking down the walls and all?"

  "Oh, aye." Dom whispered as he slid quietly into the control room, wincing slightly from the gash across one side of his forehead; he'd only just done and gone cut himself a right proper slice whilst ripping his way into the ship, of all fucking things. "Aye, some of us are indeed in a right proper urge to get ourselves gone from this fucking place, aren't we just?"

  "What?" Corrl didn't hesitate. One grubby hand reached out and closed around the butt of the short-range Big Blaster he kept tucked underneath one of the consoles. Swinging around in his chair just as quick as you please, he brought the heavy gun up to blast right through the intruder, only to find that his arm was suddenly bent the other way. "No, wai…"

  "Sorry, squire, I is truly sorry." Dom pulled the trigger on the gun and watched the poor bastard's head explode like a can of soup. An unbearable, fetid stink flooded the cabin, but he weren't quite done yet, hey?

  Before the other fool could move, Dom spun on a heel, wrenching headless captain's body out of his chair in the process, pulling the trigger a little quicker this time 'round.

  Splix had just about enough time to open his mouth to beg for mercy before half his head and a good part of a shoulder burst apart at the seams.

  Dom dropped the gun toting arm and looked around the now filthy cabin. "Well. I 'ave been in worse places than this, hey, and not to long ago at that. Now. Time to see if I do possess the skills needed to pilot this beast elsewhere, hey?"

  The insane ex-Gearman hauled the second mate's corpse out of the chair, made a half-hearted attempt to clear away some of the goop with a soiled rag, then gave up. All he were succeeding in doing were moving stuff from one side to t'other. Steadying himself for a bit of gruesomeness, he plopped down and started plunking his way through the screens, using skills he'd inherited from good old King Nickels.

  ***

  Markelda stamped his feet, trying vainly to get the blood flowing to his poor old toes. He didn't know what in the hell was wrong with this weird place found so far underneath Zanzibar, but it had some of the worst fucking weather he'd ever seen in his admittedly short years.

  Hell, when you got right down to it, if any of his friends had come up to him with a tale about an ancient-yet-new, completely subterranean city existing so far down beneath the proper skin of the world that it had it's own weather system and a slowly growing government, he would've laughed so fucking h
ard his sides would've split wide open.

  Yet, here he was, standing beneath the roof of some half-assed eatery trying to keep his toes from freezing solid, waiting for a man he'd been promised would show up, wondering if the entire experience hadn't been a fucking hallucination. The kind of drugs he did had a tendency to react violently and weirdly with the booze he preferred, so there was always a very good chance of that as well.

  "Only." He'd been saying that word for the last hour or so.

  Only. His usual hallucinations didn't tell the future. Didn't come from oddly-shaped men who'd smelled of earthy dirt and even fruitier fertilizer. Didn't say 'go to Zanzibar, go to these coordinates, wait one and one half hours on this day at this time, and talk to this man'.

  Hallucinations didn't hand out small handheld computers with weirdly composed, grainy images of a man who looked like he'd prefer to eat his meals while they were still screaming and begging for mercy. Moreover -at least in his personal experience- hallucinations also didn't pay passage through a Q-Tunnel, or to arrange for passage through the worldshield.

  But here he was. In a place the residents called Sub_Zero, feet so cold he was certain they were going to fall off at any moment, three solar systems away from home, wondering what in the hell he was doing, waiting for a man who was –by all accounts- as handsome as he was mad, thinking he should …

  “Well I’ll be damned.” Markelda pursed his lips. He wasn’t mad after all. Well, he might be mad, because who in their right mind took a handheld from a stranger and did exactly what he was told without questioning or worrying about what he was doing?

  There, just down the … street, walking beneath a series of interconnected rooftops built out of everything from old ship hull pieces to corrugated metal sheets that could’ve come from anywhere, was the man.

  Dominic Breton. From the looks of things, he was whistling a tune under his breath and having himself a great old time kicking stuff out of his way. Eventually, the man Markelda had been sent to deliver a package to stopped in front of a place with big, handcarved letters atop it, letters that spelled –rather poorly- ‘Ye Olde Pubbe’. Not more than a second later, the blonde-haired fiend pushed his way through the doors. Dirty yellow light and loud sounds spilled briefly into the street, followed by brief strains of tinny music.

  The sights and sounds disappeared as quickly as they’d come.

  Markelda checked his pocket once more. Even though the reassuring weight of the handheld device still pulled one side of his jacket down, the traveler wanted to make certain he had it on him when he went to talk to this Dom Breton person.

  It didn’t take much thought to realize that he’d only have one chance to get the thing out and into the hands of the man it belonged to. Too slow, he’d be dead.

  “I’m a fucking crazy person.” Markelda nodded to himself once, then hurried across the ‘street’ as fast as he could, narrowly missing a small gaggle of people pulling what appeared to be a large cross-section of a fallen ship along behind them. He nearly tripped over the tail end of one of the ropes, but he got across the street with no injuries, so that was nice. He banged his way through into Pubbe.

  ***

  “Give uz a kiss, love?” Dom smiled as handsomely as he ever had at the serving girl bringing him … whatever it were; the handprinted menu –whilst charming in a kind of lowbrow way- suggested that the drink he’d ordered were a beer, but a single look at the pale golden liquid in his cup suggested to the madman that everyone in the place had never in their entire lives had anything close to a real brew.

  Rielda took one look at the blue-eyed, blonde-haired man with the scars on his face and the devil in his heart and shook her head as politely as she could. A fleeting patch of darkness sped across the man’s face, so she cunningly looked over her shoulder at Patches, the awkwardly-balding proprietor of Pubbe and whispered, “I can’t. The boss is watching and I’ll catch hell if I do.”

  “Aw, come on now, love.” Dom leaned back in the wooden chair he was sat upon, listening to the groaning way it protested it’s treatment, and took in the tub of goo sat behind the bar. He were at the moment perched over a piece of Outside tech, poking away at it thoughtfully. “Johnny Fatpants over there is all tied up in wotever ‘e’s got, hey? A quick peck on the cheek as promise for later on tonight and all will be well, hey? Just a sweet one? Right here. I beg of thee.” Dom tapped his cheek and winked.

  “What happens later tonight?” Rielda asked, bemused. She didn’t know where this guy came from and she’d only been down here in Sub_Zero for a few months, but she was equally pleased and saddened to learn that men like this one all worked from the same script, no matter where they were.

  “Why, you is help me christen my bed, of course.” Dom smiled and laughed and e’en nodded at the wry look of humor mingled with distaste –it were really sad the young ‘un before him couldn’t e’en manage to keep her feelings hidden long enough to give him the sweet lie- before he reached out lightning quick to grab hold of her arm, just below the elbow. “Why is you not want to be wi’ me, hey? Is I really all so awful lookin’? I reckon I is a damnsight better-looking, and aye, kinder too, than any of this rotten lot as has tumbled down ‘ere ‘neath where anyone would e’er bother to look. Or is it you as is think you is better than I?”

  Rielda looked around for one of the bouncers, but they were all off doing their thing. She was on her own. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been asked to handle a riled-up customer on her own, but … there was something different about this man.

  He … he felt as mad as they came. She’d been told about guys like this from some of the older waitresses; a few of them had come from Ground Zero, had warned her that the further it was they wound up going into the actual, physical earth of the planet to get away from what was happening up top, the stranger, darker, and more … more some people became.

  They spent too long wandering the darkened wastelands, with nothing but the light they carried with them to show them the way. The things they uncovered, the things they disturbed as they passed from one place to another … it changed them.

  Most people who’d fallen so low they found their way to Sub_Zero were generally nice enough. You had the occasional thief or criminal or rapist, and they got dealt with in the usual manner.

  The man holding onto her arm so tightly –and without apparent effort, because now he was drinking some of his beer and looking around the room, toes tapping along with the music- she’d have bruises to the bone was different again.

  As she was staring at the man, trying desperately to find some way out of this mess she’d stumbled into, someone else approached, instantly snatching his attention; his hand let go of her wrist and without pause, Rielda scurried off to the bar, her lips pressed against Patches’ ear as soon as she could manage.

  “And welladay and what now?” Dom demanded pleasantly, taste buds singing in literal joy at the taste of the brew passing down his gullet. He were going to have to make an apology to the barkeep ‘ere he were done wi’ the intrusion; the beer ‘e’d ordered might not look similar to a fine Arcadian Lager, mind, but it weren’t half-bad after all that it’s origins were no doubt more dubious than a gearhead’s claims ‘e’d seen God.

  Then after that? He were going to have another polite conversation with his serving wench. You simply didn’t leave the exchange unfinished, no you didn’t. You played the part, you acted out the words, you completed the transaction. It were all meaningless parroting and prancing to some, but to a man who felt like he were clinging to the last roots o’ humanity, it were all the more important, weren’t it just?

  “Are you …” Markelda licked his lips nervously, a bilious surge of bile mingled with chemical residue turning his insides into a riotous chemical factory as he took in the crusty wound around one eye and the rank scars and scabs rolling down one arm all the way to the tips of the man's dirty nails. “Are you … Dominic Breton, late of Arcadia?”

  The music faded
into a slow, soft whisper. The carousing sounds of drunkards disappeared altogether. The other people in the bar ceased to exist. All that remained was Dominic Breton and the stranger who knew his name.

  “And where,” Dom asked gently, preparing himself for whatever needed to be done, brain already calculating precisely what were going to happen ‘ere this deluded lad with the odd face answered him incorrectly, “did you ‘ear that name, squire? Be quick about it and offer me no tall tales nor lies, laddie, else before you can move half an inch, these here walls will have themselves a fresh coat of bright red paint. We’ll change the name of the bar to Copper Penny.”

  Markelda reached towards the pocket where the handheld was, hand trembling so much he could barely get them fucking inside, let alone close fingers around the slender metal implement. While he was doing this, he spoke as earnestly and as sincerely as he ever had in his entire life. “I … I … met … a man … well, not really a man but some kind of Offworlder, I think … he … he knew everything about me, my name … where I grew up … where I was … where I thought I was … was going to go later that night … and … he said …”

  “For the love of Pete and all things fucking expedient, squire, if you is not speak a whole fuckin’ sentence wi’out stammering like you is got a fuckin’ malfunctionin’ engine inside you, I is pull your fuckin’ throat out through your earhole ‘ere we get much further in.” Dom’d already seen where the lad’s hand were reaching, had already copped to the fact that what he were intendin’ on pullin’ out weren’t neither a weapon nor his meat and two veg, so all that combined wi’ the man’s utter, bollockin’ terror, he knew he weren’t in trouble at all, so his mood had dropped back down to casual interest.