City Of Ruin

by Mark Charan Newton

  He glanced at Nanzi, who still sat hunched on the floor, knees drawn up to her chin, utterly silent.

  ‘Do you eat the killings yourself?’ Jeryd asked Voland.

  ‘Oh heavens, no,’ Voland laughed. ‘I’m a strict vegetarian. To me, all meat involves killing.’

  ‘How many citizens have you killed in total?’ Jeryd demanded. ‘All those people who have disappeared off the city streets – are they all down to you?’

  ‘Quite probably,’ Voland replied coolly. ‘Although I’m sure quite a few may have gone missing for other reasons. I couldn’t really put a number on them since we’ve been operating for some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a couple of thousand. It’s been the devil’s own work . . .’

  The doctor seemed totally detached from his activities. In his own head, the man must clearly rationalize the impossible and the immoral, to the point where he considered he was actually doing something commendable.

  ‘You sick, sick bastards,’ Jeryd declared. ‘You don’t regret any of this carnage, do you?’

  ‘Why should I regret it?’ Voland replied. ‘I’ve been keeping people alive and healthy enough to face a war. One must always look at the bigger picture, investigator.’

  In all his decades of working for the Inquisition, Jeryd had never encountered such large-scale horror. Thousands dead and distributed along the food chain: Villiren had unknowingly become a city of cannibals. He might have even eaten such meat himself.

  Jeryd indicated for Bellis to disconnect the intervening light-bars separating the captives. After a tentative movement, as they contemplated the removal of the barrier, the pair of them embraced for all to see in the chilling darkness of the cell.

  Jeryd left the room with Bellis, too depressed to speak to her at first.

  Having made sure the cell door was locked firmly, with as many security measures as possible, they made their way along the corridor heading back to Jeryd’s office. There he lit a fire before the two of them slumped into chairs in contemplative silence.

  Bellis spoke first. ‘Well now, you’ve caught them, at least.’

  Jeryd exhaled deeply. ‘I’m a lousy investigator, and I just have to face the fact.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I took far too long to put all the pieces in place. I’m inept. How could I not consider Nanzi being involved . . .’ Jeryd shook his head. ‘I’m struggling at this job, even though I try hard. I’m too old maybe. I guess reality catches up with you eventually.’

  ‘Nonsense, you miserable sod. The killers are caught, that’s all that matters. So what will you do with that pair of freaks?’

  ‘I’ll have to search their dwellings and see if there’s any further evidence. We’ve already got witnesses to Nanzi’s transformation, and their own confession, so it should be quite a straightforward case that’ll result in their execution according to Empire laws. That’s if we can manage to convince our superiors – they claimed the portreeve is in on this racket, too.’

  Bellis nodded. ‘We don’t know that for certain since we only have their word for it.’

  ‘True,’ Jeryd murmured. ‘And thanks for helping me. It was you who did all this – brought them in so easily, and helped me get over my own fears. You’re a remarkable woman, and I realize there’s very little in this for you . . .’

  ‘Little in it?’ Bellis said. ‘You are silly! I do things because I choose to, helping others because I’m not thinking of myself all the time.’

  ‘That why you’re here in Villiren, to help others?’

  ‘More or less,’ Bellis admitted cryptically.

  ‘You’re never going to tell me, are you?’

  ‘Next time we have drinks, perhaps I’ll tell you then.’ Bellis gave him a distant smile.

  Jeryd realized then that, if anything emerged from all of tonight’s debacle, he had at least made a friend, and that you could never be too old for that sort of thing.

  ‘And what’s the situation with Ramon and Abaris then? Always giving each other funny looks.’

  ‘Oh, those old queens,’ Bellis said lovingly, ‘they’re such wonderful cultists. Never give me a dull moment. Their actual speciality is necromancy believe it or not, but despite that there is more life and wisdom in what they do and say than I get from nearly anyone I’ve met. I don’t like to say too much about them – you know, with the laws and such, primitive as our culture is. But you seem the sort who wouldn’t make an issue of it.’

  ‘Well, I’m not too stuck in my ways, despite being an old-timer. But I notice Ramon never says anything,’ Jeryd added.

  ‘No. The old fellow received some kind of energy overdose once from a relic. Robbed him of his voice and, oddly, his hair. But Abaris adores him and speaks for him often, since they know each other so well. I’ve seen Ramon only need to look at Abaris in a particular way and Abaris can instantly interpret it.’

  They both looked up at the sound of an explosion outside – somewhere deep in the city. The floor shook just moments before a second explosion.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Jeryd exclaimed.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Exmachina was a city ship, Artemisia had declared proudly, powered by two immense metal plates reacting to the Earth’s hidden forces. Artemisia further described it as a ‘magnetic barge’, although this made things little clearer. Randur had no comprehension of much of what Artemisia explained, or the true functions of the ship.

  He remained simply in awe.

  There were city decks below, situated where would have been the hold and bulkhead of a normal ship, three levels containing streets and eclectic wooden buildings impossibly crammed in. And they were all empty. No people wandering in and out of the darkness, a ghost city of lanterns remaining unlit, passageways crowded by dust. Bold and intricate arches adorned many of the buildings down there, some billeted and others possessing fine interlacing motifs but in designs that were beautiful, completely alien to the new arrivals. Small and ragged rips in the hull permitted sunlight, although these gaps were being repaired at a constant rate by the Hanuman – the term Artemisia used to describe the winged monkeys. For the time being, this warrior woman was living alone on here, she told them, with only the Hanuman for company, moving through the skies in search of the travellers. She spoke philosophically about her lonely quest.

  They were all now seated on the main deck – there were no benches to be found anywhere. There was no mast, no sails rippling tightly, just raised wooden platforms that stretched endlessly, and isolated cabins scattered across the ship’s width seemingly without thought or purpose. There were shrubs and plants and vines sprouting everywhere, and lichen swarmed around the rim of the ship, clinging on the few vertical planes where nothing else could exist. It might just have seemed possible that this vegetation was holding the entire structure together.

  Randur enquired about the ship’s origins.

  ‘It is able to slice through from my own world to any other dimension,’ Artemisia revealed. ‘That is a word you use, is it not? My terminology may well exceed your range.’

  ‘You mean from your world to ours?’ Eir suggested. ‘Then, yes, I suppose that’s still the word we might choose, although it has other uses in our language. Come to mention it, how is it that you can speak our language, if you do not come from our dimension?’

  ‘I speak most known languages, give or take a few dialects. Your own is enforced within your Empire, which certainly makes things easier for me.’

  ‘Artemisia,’ Rika breathed the name as if she felt honoured to be in her company, ‘tell us why you’re here. Are you . . . Jorsalir? Are you even one of the Dawnir? I feel I already know you, perhaps from a description in some text I’ve studied. There was someone in Villjamur who was said to be that ancient, but he looked nothing like you.’

  ‘I know nothing about this fraud you mention. He could have been one of any number of types. Where I come from, there is no shortage of variants.’ Artemisia gave a ma
cabre chuckle, removed her swords and placed them on the deck. She sat down cross-legged next to them, and almost instinctively Rika moved closer to the bulky figure.

  Randur kept wondering why the former Empress was behaving in so strangely intimate a manner.

  The expression on Artemisia’s face suggested what she was about to say was not easy for her. ‘You need to know that my own people have been fighting a war for hundreds of epic cycles. In fact, ever since we were liberated by Frater Mercury.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Randur asked.

  ‘It was he who gave us our freedom – our whole existence is thanks to him. But we abuse such freedoms through long millennia of violence. Only now have our internal wars infringed upon your dimension. The last ten cycles have seen our enemy find methods of entering other dimensions, although they have not yet set foot in this one. How may I put this simply: they wish to repopulate this primitive world with inhabitants from their own, and carve out a new society. All of our races wish to come here, in fact, because our own dimension is scheduled to end long before this one will. The temperatures for us are very hostile, the sun something we have no experience of. The invasion has already come to your lands to the west of this archipelago, while in the east, beyond your cartographical awareness, cities greater than Villjamur are already burning, with millions being slaughtered in their own homes. Cities are being systematically cleared in preparation. You have a word called “genocide”, I believe?’

  Randur took a deep breath, trying to absorb this staggering information.

  ‘I had hoped to find you in Villjamur, Jamur Rika, to make my discussions with you somewhat simpler, but you went on the run instead.’

  No one said anything for a while. A melancholic atmosphere took over the group as they attempted to comprehend just what this warrior woman was telling them. Randur simply didn’t know what to make of it. He had thought he knew a lot about the world, but clearly not. In a few sentences their entire existence had been so casually undermined – if this being was to be believed.

  Artemisia continued. ‘I have therefore had to track you down – not a simple task given your current weather patterns – which has meanwhile allowed their brood to not only wipe out an island but also move to assault one of your major urban settlements. Personally, I care not about dead humans, however my superiors, what you call the Dawnir, feel somewhat indebted to their creators.’

  Eir suddenly then realized. ‘We created them, the Dawnir? We created the gods?’

  Randur thought he had never heard anything so ridiculous, but stole a glance at Rika, who had devoted so many years to worshipping Astrid, the female embodiment of the Dawnir that humans had now apparently created. Still, they only had the word of this murderess to go on. ‘How can we trust anything you say on this?’ he snarled.

  A thunderous sigh from Artemisia. ‘I guarded you, even when you didn’t know it. I watched those Empire warriors closing in on you – I had located you by the time you had departed that rural abode, but I already knew the old one had sent signals for those men to intercept you. You, Randur, even saw one of the Hanuman while you were dozing by the fire – they were watching over you. You were all quite safe, even when Jamur Eir was snatched and taken into the caves by Ancients of your own world. They were harmless creatures and their construct would not have significantly harmed you.’

  Randur felt shame at having been spied upon without his knowledge, but shrugged it off. As if hearing their name mentioned, one of the Hanuman darted overhead, followed by another. Artemisia barked something at them in an unnatural tongue, before the creatures calmed down, descending in a flutter to settle at the far end of the deck.

  ‘I simply do not believe this assertion that we created our own gods,’ Eir said suddenly.

  Artemisia sighed. ‘Time is vast. The Truwisans – people of Truwisa, or Dawnir as your culture corrupted the name – are crafted from your ancient technologies. We were made from your imagination. This was all before you diminished yourselves to this primitive way of living after the wars of your culture, your rebellion against such change. One human guided our creation – Frater Mercury – and our liberation was with the guidance of him, too. He is now a god to us. So we ancient creatures – my ancestors, I mean – had been cultured to perfection, before they took over your world. Then they were forced to abandon it.’

  ‘What, just like that?’

  ‘There were . . . complications. Technology had become so intimidating, so it is said, and much of your kind rebelled against Frater Mercury and his creations. Given the bloodshed, it became prudent for us to sidestep into another realm of existence – and we departed from the very location where Villjamur now sits. So now I have come here seeking to bargain with the most powerful leader in these islands, and the fact that you are no longer the ruler of this Empire, Jamur Rika, causes me a predicament. You are the one my superiors instructed me to find. It is by your permission that landscapes can be altered. It was with you alone that we were supposed to form an alliance, so that we could move ourselves from our world in a well-ordered and peaceful manner.’

  ‘Peaceful?’ Randur snapped. ‘You didn’t seem particularly peace-loving just a while ago.’

  ‘In my superiors’ eyes, I am considered violent,’ Artemisia admitted. ‘Why else do you think they keep me away from my homeworld as often as possible?’

  ‘Why not just negotiate with Urtica?’ Randur sneered. ‘He’s the one in power now, so you should be talking to him.’

  ‘He suffers from some kind of . . . instability, so it is believed. It is clear that he is not one for us to debate with. He would not understand our ways, which makes our task substantially more complex, and, furthermore, he is not a man with a peaceful nature. As I said, the repopulation must be conducted harmoniously. Besides, my instructions were to find you, Jamur Rika.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just come back at any point in time and repopulate?’

  ‘You say that as if there was any room for debate in the matter. There are a handful of time-paths available. This is the path of least resistance – because you are still so primitive, and the land remains reasonably hospitable. Remember, we come not to fight.’ She turned to the two women. ‘Jamur Rika, I feel, has a more pacifist nature than other leaders. To introduce our alien culture into yours successfully, it is essential that the process is holistic and integrated. Otherwise, this entire world of yours collapses too.’

  ‘Can’t you put a stop to any of this endless violence, in both our worlds?’ Rika interrupted.

  Randur realized then that Rika was ready to believe everything this death-machine was saying to them.

  ‘On these islands,’ Rika continued, ‘across my Empire, peace would always be preferable, then your lives would not be wasted.’

  Artemisia laughed bitterly, then simply shook her head. Randur imagined he saw the distant millennia reflected in her oddly glowing eyes. Here was a woman absolutely tired of what she was. ‘You say peace as if it were an offering of wine.’

  Rika took hold of her gaze for a moment.

  *

  Artemisia left them alone for a while, and the three sat in ontemplative silence. Dusk approached, and the two moons progressed alongside each other, skimming the blood-coloured cloud-base.

  ‘It might all be lies,’ Randur said eventually. It irritated him, this sudden revelatory burst of new knowledge.

  No one responded to him at first.

  Eir said, ‘Unlikely though, isn’t it? I mean, just look around you. And don’t stare at me like that. Whenever you don’t understand something, you simply become irate. It’s perfectly all right to not understand this.’

  Calming himself, Randur glanced up to watch the Hanuman flapping about eccentrically as silhouettes. Artemisia rejoined them eventually, carrying what he took to be a telescope. For a moment she focused on the horizon.

  ‘The two moons look beautiful from here,’ Rika offered.

  ‘You think both of them are moons?’ Arte
misia seemed surprised, and pocketed the device. ‘That does amuse me.’

  Not more crap. Randur was now feeling overwhelmed by unwanted information. His entire concept of the world had been shattered by these conversations. He almost didn’t want to know the truth, preferring the sanctuary of innocence or ignorance.

  They talked of nothing significant for the rest of the evening, instead taking shelter below deck. Artemisia remained intimidating, but she conducted herself with grace, and saw that they were well looked after. Food had been left for them on a large platter, fruits and vegetables he’d never seen, olives and figs, and there was also bread and watered wine.

  They huddled together in a small cabin panelled with dark wood, on a bed covered in opulent cushions. Around the edge of the room were placed long chests whose flat lids were painted with various scenes presumably from this other culture. A tripod stood next to the bed, and coloured lanterns hung from the roof. Gemstones were set into the wood furniture – lapis lazuli and jasper and quartz.

  The three of them ate on the bed in silence. Randur kept thinking about the things that Artemisia had saying, about their world not being how they had thought it to be.

  *

  After night had fallen, Eir and Randur took a walk above deck. Ias surprisingly warm, as if the ship was emitting its own heat froithin. Initially, the smell of smoke prompted thoughts of wood fires, but they couldn’t see any. Eventually Eir pointed out that all the Hanuman were smoking roll-ups, similar to those used back in Villjamur.

  Randur thought it absurd.

  ‘Little addicts, are they not?’ Artemisia had appeared silently behind them, her hands clasped behind her back. She approached alongside. Even without factoring in her size, Artemisia would have seemed intimidating, yet dignified – a killer yes, but a regal one. Now wearing a simple black tunic, her pale-blue flesh was exposed and her muscles frighteningly well-defined.

  ‘How come they all smoke?’ Eir asked.