The Beauty of Destruction (43 page)

‘Could you say something judgemental but paternal to me about my behaviour?’ she asked. Basil smiled somewhat ruefully.

‘I’m afraid not, Miss Luckwicke, not without extensive reprogramming.’

‘Please don’t call me that, call me Beth,’ the Monk said irritably.

‘Are you sure that would help?’ the AI asked.

‘No, you’re right,’ she admitted. She wanted someone to judge her. She couldn’t work out what she had been thinking? What she had hoped to achieve?
Orgasm?
a voice inside her enquired, and she smiled. ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t a newfound sense of self control.’

‘Miss Luckwicke?’

‘Christ, you’re like a butler.’

‘I could change my response parameters if you wish.’

‘No, look, I’m sorry.’

‘Miss Luckwicke, if you’ll excuse me for saying I think you’re still grieving. There are a number of options available to you, pharmacological, neural editing, immersion counselling …’

‘No!’ Beth snapped. ‘I’m fine,’ she continued more softly.

‘Will you be co-habiting with Mr Scab?’ Basil enquired.

‘No! No, god no. That will never happen again. I’m sorry to have bothered you, please can you leave me alone?’

The AI bowed. ‘Of course, though the other Miss Luckwicke is coming this way.’

The Monk sagged. ‘Let her in.’ Basil disappeared and the door opened just as Talia reached it. The Monk went and sat on the bed and hugged her legs to her chest.

‘If you’ve come to have another screaming match then I’m afraid you won’t find much in the way of opposition.’

‘I don’t care about you and Scab,’ Talia said. It was obviously a lie. What the Monk suspected she meant was that she couldn’t understand why Scab had chosen Beth over her sister, which would, of course, make Talia feel jealous and shitty. Of course the Monk knew the truth, that Scab in fact preferred some perfect, idolised, unobtainable version of her sister, which made Beth feel shitty and jealous.

‘I think the cool boy in school is making us both feel miserable,’ Beth mused. It just made Talia look irritated. If not Scab, then Beth assumed her sister had come to shout at her some more about the Church’s slavery of her cloned consciousness. She had honestly never thought about it that way, but even if Talia was right there was nothing she could do about it now except feel guiltier, and frankly she wasn’t sure she could face the scale of it. To accept Talia’s perspective meant that they were monsters, and had always been. Everything that they had done with the queasy rationale of the ends justifying the means had just been to perpetuate a monstrous crime. She could either try and process it, or get on with what they were trying to do.

Talia pointed towards the back of the ship. Beth guessed that was where she thought the bridge drive was. ‘You know that’s me, don’t you? That’s what I did for her.’

‘Her?’ the Monk asked.

‘The other ship. The Seeder. She didn’t have a name. It wasn’t how we communicated. We just felt things.’

Beth took a deep breath. ‘An apology doesn’t quite seem to cut it,’ the Monk said. She wished she knew more about bridge tech but it had been restricted knowledge. Perhaps that explained why Churchman had mostly used dolphins. They could be deeply unpleasant creatures when they wanted to. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

Eyes surrounded by dark make-up just stared at her.

‘What’s in the immersion you brought on board?’ Talia asked.

‘That bastard!’ the Monk spat.
No, you can’t have that. It
’s mine. Something for me. You take everything! Destroy everything
you touch!
It was millennia-old resentment. She had known it was still there, but had underestimated just how strong the feeling was. ‘Scab told you?’

‘He described, y’know, home before it all went tits up. It sounded like Maude and Uday.’

The Monk could feel it in her chest. She didn’t want to share.
What? Your
pets?
The question sounded harsh in her own head.

‘We downloaded their personalities after you … after the Seeder in the Solent woke up and spored. They were damaged. We tried to save what we could.’ She found herself wondering if the City of Brass still existed. She hoped they were there, whole, cured, happy, cared for by people less selfish than the Luckwicke family.

‘They might not want to see you,’ the Monk said. She gathered her quilt around her miserably.
Because you turned Maude out, made her a porn
star, a prostitute,
she thought viciously, and she really, really wanted to say it out loud. ‘Wait a second, what do you mean he described?’ Scab had been in the immersion. Cold panic spread through her chest.

‘They were friends of mine,’ Talia said. ‘Well less Uday, but Maude.’

You lying bitch.
The Monk was just about to tell her this, but then it occurred to her there was an easier way, because she was sure that the person Talia was telling the biggest lie to was herself. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘If Scab’s left anything.’ And if he had done anything to them this was all over. She would kill him, even with the memory of his touch all over her skin.

‘Look, let me speak to them first, you’re going to come as a bit of a shock to them, all right?’ Beth said as they walked down the tree-lined Campbell Road. She was pleased that it didn’t look like a post-apocalyptic hellscape after Scab’s visit. It was a cold, bleak, late autumn day. The leaves were a damp mulch on the pavement, the sky was devoid of colour, but somehow it didn’t bother her. She adjusted her ponytail and pulled her leather jacket tighter around her. Talia was looking at her. ‘What?’

‘I’d forgotten that you looked like that,’ Talia said. ‘I always really liked your jacket.’

Beth didn’t say anything, she just kept walking. At the gateway to the small, overgrown, front garden Beth told her sister to wait. She bounded up the steps to the old townhouse that had been turned into flats, and put her key in the door. She wasn’t sure why but she turned to look back at Talia. Her sister looked cold, wan, and pale standing by the gate. She looked like a ghost.

‘Okay, come with me, but you need to stay in the hall until I’ve had a chance to have a chat with them. Assuming Scab hasn’t done something awful,’ she muttered. Talia smiled and ran up the steps.

Beth didn’t like it. Normally walking into the flat was the best feeling in the world. Now she was scared and angry. Talia would talk them round, no matter what she’d done. Then Beth would have to share. Then the games would begin. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, she decided.

She heard the omnipresent TV, the ambient soundtrack of a student household. The smell of whatever had been cooked last. She motioned Talia to stay in the hall, and went in. So far there was no trace of Scab having done anything horrific. She could hear Uday and Maude talking to each other. She just hoped they weren’t centipedes with human faces, or larvae of some kind. She steeled herself and walked into the lounge. Everything looked fine. Maude was sitting on the floor surrounded by folders full of coursework. Uday was stretched out on the sofa with a wet towel on his head, looking very dramatic.

‘Hi Beth,’ Maude said. ‘Uday’s had a funny turn.’ She was grinning. Alarm bells were going off in Beth’s head.

‘I did not have a funny turn,’ Uday said waspishly. ‘I saw a ghost!’ Maude was just smiling and shaking her head.

‘Ghost?’ Beth asked. Uday pushed himself up on the sofa.

‘Oh my god, Beth, it was terrifying! I got back in from Uni and he was standing right there.’ He pointed at the middle of the room. ‘It was awful! The most malevolent looking man I have ever seen! He looked like … looked like … He looked like Olivier in
The Entertainer
, if Olivier had hated the world and wanted it to die in a fire.’ Maude stifled a giggle. It was an interesting description of Scab, she conceded. ‘And this little minx won’t believe me!’

‘I believe you,’ Beth said, trying to suppress her own smile. ‘What happened?’

‘What? You mean after I shat my pants?’

‘No, describe that process,’ Beth said. ‘Yes, after that.’

‘Excuse me, I think you’ll find I do the sarcasm around here, both you ladies are too gentle in temperament.’

‘Uday!’ Maude scolded.

‘Well, he turned to look at me
, and right then I knew I was dead. I mean,
my heart stopped, and then he was gone.’

‘Just like
that?’ Beth asked. She was struggling to imagine Uday and
Scab meeting, but mostly she was pleased that he hadn
’t done anything too horrific.

‘Attention seeking,’ Maude said in
a sing-song voice.

‘Quiet, harridan,’ Uday said imperiously. ‘Seriously
though, it gave me quite a fright.’

‘Guys, look, I
have something to tell you and I don’t think
…’

Talia came through the front door and all but pushed
past Beth. She cursed herself for not locking it behind
her.

‘Guys, I’m back!’ Talia announced.

Maude curled up, shaking, into a foetal ball and burst into tears. Uday raised a trembling finger and pointed at her. ‘The destroyer,’ he managed. Talia looked between them and then fled. With a thought Beth froze the immersion.

Beth found Talia
curled up in a corner on Fawcett Road, in an
alleyway between a secondhand furniture shop and a takeaway. She
crouched down next to her. Talia flinched when she touched
her arm. She looked up, her face streaked with eyeliner
from the tears.

‘You turned them against me!’ she spat
. Beth didn’t even feel angry now. She was going
to have to go back and edit the encounter out
of Uday and Maude’s minds. It was for their
own good, but it made her feel uncomfortable.

‘The things
you’ve done,’ Beth said. ‘Can you maybe think of
a reason they would be angry with you?’

‘They weren
’t angry. They were terrified,’ Talia said, and started crying
again. Beth just looked at her.

‘You cause damage, Talia
,’ Beth finally said. ‘You always have. You’re like the
social equivalent of Scab. Please stop.’ Talia glared at Beth
.

‘You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you
?’ Talia spat. Beth gave the question some thought.

‘I had
a pretty good idea but I knew that if I
didn’t bring you here I was looking at a
future of screaming, arguments, wheedling, emotional blackmail and tears, wasn
’t I?’

Talia didn’t say anything for a moment
. ‘You know it’s sick, keeping them here like pets
,’ she said coldly. Beth looked away
from her sister and down Fawcett Road at the frozen traffic and pedestrians.

‘Maybe,’ she admitted. Then she turned back to her sister. ‘But I suspect that had that gone better you would have found a way to cope. Besides, do you think I should have erased them?’

Talia’s face crumpled as she started to cry again. ‘You didn’t even know them!’ she wailed.

‘Probably not. Talia, stop crying. I’m sick of it.’ There was no anger in Beth’s voice. Talia looked up at her as if she had been slapped. ‘I mean it.’

‘Have you any idea what I’ve—’

‘Maybe you should try using the words “I” and “me” less often as well. I know this is frightening. I know that all sorts of horrible things have happened to you, and nobody deserves that, regardless of how they behave. But that,’ she pointed back towards Campbell Road, ‘is all on you. As for the rest of it: I am here for you, whatever you do, as always, but you have to stop making it worse for yourself and everyone else.’

Talia stared up at her. Beth turned away and looked up at the blank sky. For the first time probably ever, she didn’t want to be here.

‘We should get back, see what fresh new hell Scab has prepared for us,’ Beth muttered.

‘Beth,’ Talia said. Beth turned around. Her sister was standing up now.

‘Thank you. For everything. I mean it.’

Beth pursed her lips but then nodded. Talia removed herself from the program with a thought.

The Monk opened her eyes and looked at Talia lying next to her on the bed. The branches of the superconducting material she had used for the brain/immersion interface was receding away from her ears and back into the walls. Talia sat up and wiped away the tears and snot with the back of her lace glove. Then she looked at Beth and smiled.

‘Scab’s found something,’ Vic ’faced.

‘About the Ubh Blaosc?’ Beth asked.

‘Maybe,’ Vic replied.

31

Ancient Britain

Bress didn’t think he had ever heard Crom Dhubh laugh before. It was oddly high-pitched. It didn’t sound right. They watched the chariots emerge from the cave and speed towards them.

‘They have nothing to offer us now but sport,’ Crom Dhubh said. Bress felt his heart lurch. He knew she would be there before he saw her black-robed form, her half a head of red hair trailing her, like fire trails a comet. She had come for the rod.

‘She is with them—’ Bress started. The Dark Man turned to look at him. Any humour was now gone from his obsidian features.

‘No,’ he said, forestalling Bress’s inevitable question. ‘That was an amusement. Nothing more. She no longer wishes life for her, or the unborn child.’ The child was a sickness, Bress knew that, but despite feeling Crom Dhubh’s will crushing his own, he was not sure that he could kill her.

‘I could show you a mercy. Kill her myself. There would be nothing left of her.’ Something strange happened to the air in front of the Dark Man, and he was holding his black sword with the complex hilt, the blade edged with light. Bress lowered his head. Crom Dhubh’s laugh was full of contempt.

‘Should you risk yourself?’ Bress asked, still not looking at his master.

‘There is no risk. I cannot be killed. If anything I should be protecting you. You will be needed when the bridge is opened.’

‘Should we bring the Lochlannach down from …’

‘No, they remain in place.’ Crom Dhubh turned and walked down onto the ice. Other than the children he had transformed as servitors, and the Lochlannach he would take to the Ubh Blaosc, they had no other forces on Oeth itself.

The chariots had formed a long column. It looked like they intended to circle the island. Spiked wheels on the chariots and
studded shoes on the sturdy garrons gave them purchase
on the thick ice.

Bress followed his master. The strange
sound of the hoof beats on ice echoed through the
cavern. The first chariot passed. Bress thought he recognised the
archer in the cart. She had been one of the warriors
that had come here with Britha the last time. Arrows
started to fly as the chariots passed. Many of them
skittered across the ice but Bress had to dodge out
of the way of a few of them. Several hit
Crom Dhubh. The Dark Man plucked them from his body,
their red metal heads still wriggling, trying to grow iron
roots. Black dust fell from the wounds onto the ice
as he cast the arrows aside.

Crom Dhubh pointed at one of the chariots. Something awful and nauseating happened to space. Bress looked away, pain lancing through his head.

Britha heard the sound of tortured horseflesh, human, and animals
screaming, wood and metal splintering. One of the chariots ahead
of her, the fifth in line, was tumbling across the
ice. It looked like it had been picked up, crumpled
together, fusing man, woman, horseflesh, and chariot, and then skimmed
across the frozen lake. It reminded her of what Teardrop
had done to the Corpse People at the gates of
the Crown of Andraste. The other chariots were veering round
it. Her charioteer had to steer the team so sharply
the chariot came up on one wheel. Britha crouched and
held onto the cart.

The warrior riding her chariot’s yoke risked his life by holding on with one hand and throwing a casting spear with the other. It was an incredible throw, one worthy of stories and songs. It arced over the ice and hit the Dark Man dead centre in the chest. He didn’t even try and dodge out of the way. He just reached up and tore it from crumbling flesh. That was when she knew they had lost.

The line broke. Bladud’s order
was easy to follow in the face of the giants
’ attack. It was messy. The front line, the Brigante and
the Iceni, took the worst of it. Warriors and spear
-carriers from all tribes ran. The Lochlannach surged forwards, pushing
deep into the warband, hewing down any who got in
the way. Some, in apparent panic, even ran towards the
giants, mostly the
gwyllion
archers, and the warriors from various tribes carrying longspears but no shields.

Bladud opened his mouth to shout but suddenly his shield was sundered, his arm went numb. He screamed, more angry than in pain. The pommel of his sword slammed down into the corner of one of the Lochlannach’s eyes, hard enough to break the bridge of the demon-possessed warrior’s nose, and fill the eye socket with a red mess. With the same movement he scraped the red iron blade of his sword down across the man’s face, opening it up. He stepped past the man, cutting at the back of his leg. The Lochlannach hit the ground. Bladud ran his sword through the possessed warrior’s chest. The next one was nearly upon him.

‘Murder these bastards!’ Bladud screamed.

They were circling around the island now. Bress and Crom Dhubh were waiting for the chariots out on the ice. The lead chariot, Tangwen and Calgacus’s, steered clear of them. That had been the whole point of using the chariots. Keep the warriors and archers away from the Dark Man and his destroying sword. Kill him with arrows and casting spears.

Tangwen, and the Iceni scouts, and
gwyllion
archers, were putting arrow after arrow into Crom Dhubh, but he just plucked them out.

Suddenly the Dark Man, his colour such a contrast to the pure white of the ice, darted forwards with incredible speed, the strangeness of his movement reminding her of Goibhniu somehow, and swung the black sword at the lead horse of the chariot two chariots in front of Britha’s.

Everything went white. Something hit her, hard.
The baby!
she thought. Then she was in the air, followed by another hard impact. The cavern’s ceiling was rushing past high above her as she was dragged across the ice. She had lost her spear. Somehow her charioteer was still in the cart. Britha was attached to the chariot by the leather she had used to secure herself to the frame. There was a hole in the ice where the chariot Crom Dhubh had hit had been. The chariot that had been behind the destroyed one, its horses burned and screaming, galloped straight into the rent in the ice. Water coursed over the lake’s frozen surface, and Britha was dragged through it. The charioteer was wrestling with a panicked team, despite the ‘elixir’ the animals had imbibed. Britha managed to reach forward, grab the leather, and inch her way back towards the chariot. Even with the blessings of the chalice she struggled to pull herself back up into the cart once she had reached its frame.

The charioteer managed to control the team as they thundered past Crom Dhubh. He watched them pass. He was staring at her but she looked past him to Bress. He was crouched low, trying to avoid getting hit with arrows. Their eyes met. Britha saw pain. She knew he would see resolve.

‘Take me close to him,’ she told the charioteer, who nodded. The warrior who had ridden on the chariot’s yoke had gone. Britha was looking around for her spear. They circled the other end of the island. Glancing behind she could see Tangwen’s chariot catching up with them, Calgacus on the yoke, holding on for grim life.

Light shone through the ice from beneath them. It was emanating from where Britha had seen what looked like a circle of standing stones and some kind of structure on her previous visits.

She saw her spear. She pointed it out to the charioteer. He manipulated the reins, changing the team’s direction. Britha crouched down, her hands all but skimming the ice; her finger caught the haft and she was armed again.

The timid Pict, the
gwyllion
, damn them, and the Iceni scouts had done their job well. They had counted the enemy. Bladud commanded more spears than they did. Tangwen’s plan had called for the Lochlannach to be let among the warband on purpose.

‘Form shield wall!’ Bladud screamed. Behind him the spear-carriers dropped their spears, daggers were the order of the day. They fell upon the Lochlannach, cutting tendons, carrying them to the ground, stabbing and slashing. It had been a complex plan, too complex in Bladud’s opinion, but it was working, somehow. He could not ever remember being as happy as he was when he saw the shield wall form again.

There was a cheer, followed by a crash that shook the gory, slush-covered ground. The spearmen had done their job. One of the giants had fallen. Tangwen had spoken with the god in the Red Chalice. This Gofannon had forged them spears designed for killing the huge creatures. Tangwen had told him that the giants had people in them. It hadn’t made any sense, even to a trained
dryw
, but when rammed into the giants the spearheads would grow into roots that sought out the people inside the huge creatures. Bladud had suspected they would just slay the creature’s last meal, but it looked like Tangwen had been right. The
gwyllion
archers had gone to cover the spearmen, shooting down any Lochlannach that attempted to aid their giant allies.

Bladud could hear the sound of killing being done behind him. In front of him the remaining Lochlannach were forming up. Someone else in the shield wall pitched forwards face-down into the churned-up red slurry.

‘Let’s charge these cunts!’ Bladud screamed. The ragged, painted, blood-soaked Pretani warriors and spear-carriers screamed and charged the Lochlannach. Bladud slipped and almost went down. He felt feverish, he was growing hotter and hotter, but it felt good.

‘Bastard!’ Britha screamed and swung her spear, blade-first, at Bress. He leapt the blade. An arrow hit him in the shoulder in mid-air but glanced off his armour and they were past him. Another arrow shot past Britha as Tangwen, now behind her, loosed on Crom. Britha had to let go of her spear with one hand and grab the frame of the cart as it slewed violently to one side to avoid Crom Dhubh.

The near deafening sound of the ice breaking echoed through the cavern. At the tip of the island closest to where the light beneath the frozen lake was, a giant had just burst through the frozen surface of the lake underneath one of the chariots. The creature flung the team and cart up into the cavern’s ceiling, bouncing it off tooth-like rocks. Britha stared in horror. It grabbed another chariot and dragged it, screaming horse team and all, into the hole it had made in the ice. The archer and the charioteer jumped clear but the yoke-riding warrior was caught in the huge creature’s fingers. The archer fired arrow after arrow into the massive creature as it pulled itself out of the lake and onto the ice.

At first Britha had thought they were some kind of hunting creatures running from the island across the ice, but then she recognised the transformed children. The charioteer drew her sword, and the Iceni archer in her lynx headdress turned to loose arrows on them, but they were swarmed and pulled, screaming, down onto the ice, teeth and nails finding flesh.

Britha saw Tangwen’s chariot veer towards Bress. Calgacus, standing unsteadily, put one foot on the back of a galloping horse and threw himself shield-first at Bress. This surprised even Bress. Calgacus’s shield, with the Cait
mormaer
’s weight behind it, caught Bress in the face and chest. He went down hard, both of them sliding across the ice.

‘You fool,’ Britha said under her breath. ‘Turn around! Get me to Bress, now!’ she screamed at the charioteer. It was a question of whether or not the chariot could get there before Calgacus was killed.

They had ground the Lochlannach’s numbers down at great cost to themselves. Soulless and unfeeling the demon-possessed warriors may have been, but they hadn’t been expecting the charge. They probably hadn’t been expecting them to fight the giants toe-to-toe either. Now it was a simple expedient of break their enemy up, and fight them two to one. Bladud knew they had to kill every single one of them.

Garim at his side, the Witch King stalked through the m
ê
l
é
e looking for a victim. Frankly he was glad of a moment to catch his breath, the magics of the chalice coursing through his body notwithstanding. It was eerie the way the Lochlannach didn’t scream as they were borne to the ground and stabbed, slashed, or bludgeoned to death.

The spearmen were working together, attacking the giants from all sides. The
gwyllion
who had been supporting them had cast aside their bows. They ran between the giants’ legs, even in the cold they fought nearly naked, throwing themselves high at the Lochlannach without regard for their safety, or they rolled under sword slashes to attack the demon-possessed warriors from behind. The
gwyllion
fought together, reminding Bladud of a wolf pack. They harried their foe, brought them down and killed them. He watched as a giant crushed one of the
gwyllion
, and then flung the broken body at their lines.

Bladud saw Germelqart sit down, the snow still white underneath him, surrounded by a group of painted
gwyllion
warriors. He was holding the Red Chalice in his hands, his eyes closed, concentrating.

Bladud saw Ysgawyn fighting two of the Lochlannach, his blade flicking out. The blade of a sickle penetrated the helmet of one of the demon-possessed warriors; the man shook and then collapsed to his knees. Guidgen was standing behind the Lochlannach. Ysgawyn darted forwards and finished the other enemy warrior, before bowing to the
gwyll
dryw
. Even from as far away as he was Bladud could make out the mockery of the gesture. Ysgawyn turned and moved away from Guidgen, obscuring Bladud’s view of the old
dryw
. Suddenly the
rhi
of the Corpse People stopped and went rigid. The Witch King stared as a sickle blade circled Ysgawyn’s neck and then harvested his throat. The
rhi
fell into the red slurry. Guidgen was standing over him. The bloody red sickle in his left hand.