Theatre of the Gods (21 page)

Descharge looked slowly up and blinked twice. He spoke in a low and dreamy drawl. ‘What are you talking of, old man? … Then … what ships … they …?’

Fabrigas looked again, just to check the position of the engines, the placement of the vents, the cannon array and the formation of the great black ships. The only alien thing about them was the Vangardik insignia crudely pasted on every vessel.

‘These are
our
ships!’ cried Fabrigas.

*

Mattlocke leaped back in fright as the tiny craft made to fly straight down the barrel of his scope, then broke off at the very last minute to streak away, leaving a rather handsome trail of smoke behind. ‘They’ve broken our line. Now they’re entering the ruins,’ said McMasters. ‘They’re small enough to disappear in there.’

‘Send in the wolf pack! Don’t give up until you have destroyed them!’ cried Mattlocke.

‘And what if we can’t recover them?’ said McMasters.

‘Then we are doomed!’

*

The
Necronaut
was just a blip between the monolithic palisades of Akropolis. Fabrigas let his big, ancient eyes scan the walls. They were many hundreds of miles high and covered in scenes of battles that no one alive in this universe could remember. No one could even remember the people who lived here. Experts thought they might have been half bull, but that was speculation. The
Necronaut
flew through a portal and found itself in a dark and narrow maze, the crumbling walls just a frightening few feet away on either side. Their half-shredded sails skimmed the stone. On deck were people peacefully slumbering, unaware of the bedlam unfolding around them. ‘Doctor,’ said Lambestyo, ‘I’m falling.’

‘I know,’ said the old man as he took the wheel. ‘You did your best, but we can’t outrun these ships.’

Descharge was asleep. Fabrigas, taking in the primordial tunnels, wondered if he too had passed into dreams. ‘Carrofax,’ said Fabrigas, ‘how far to the other side?’

‘The gate is five minutes at this speed. Continue straight ahead. Beyond the gate is open space.’

‘Old man.’ Lambestyo eased back against the wall of the wheelhouse, his eyes fluttering. ‘Why did you betray me?’ Now they flew from the end of the tunnel like a shot from a cannon and found that
they were once more in a wide arcade. Behind them the wolf pack was closing. ‘I thought we were friends. I loaned you my second-best gun.’

‘I didn’t want to betray you, my boy,’ said Fabrigas gently. ‘I wanted to save you.’

‘It wasn’t up to you to save me,’ said Lambestyo. The old man’s soup had thickened his tongue. ‘I’m not for you to save. I’m not …’ he breathed again, ‘I’m not for you or anyone to save.’

‘I know,’ said Fabrigas.

‘We were supposed to take that girl somewhere. We promised.’

‘I never promised that. I simply made you promise. There was a time when I would have craved this mission, and all the mayhem and danger these children bring. I was once a great explorer. But now all I want to do is rest. To rest for ever. You didn’t think I could take you to the next universe, did you?’

‘I … no, I suppose I didn’t. I hoped you could.’

‘I was wrong to trick you. I was wrong to lie to you. Sleep now. This will soon be over.’

Five black ships eased down behind to form a cross. Five black ships each shaped like a bird of prey. Suddenly the boy captain’s eyes caught light again. ‘Why do we not start your magic engine? Why do we not make the jump?! Yes, that is a plan! That’s how we can escape!’ He made to stand, then slumped on poisoned legs. They felt the horrible impact of a missile bursting just behind, its energy gently peeling open their stern, and Fabrigas strained to hold the wheel. ‘My boy, my RIPS engine has never worked as far as I could tell. Plus, I disabled it to make sure,’ said Fabrigas quietly. ‘I disabled it so no one could use it.’

The boy’s eyes fell back into the shadows. ‘So, you tricked me again.’

‘Not again. It was all part of the same grand trick.’

Now they passed through an arch and over an amphitheatre, ancient and tumbling. The seats were etched like the fine markings
on a seashell, and at the sides of the stage were two statues, each miles high, two hooved figures holding starfish beacons which hadn’t been lit for perhaps a hundred thousand years, but as they passed they could see an image of their ship projected in shadow on the ruins by the starlight behind them. ‘Imagine the plays that went on here,’ said the old man with a faint smile. ‘How quickly the ages pass.’ Another terrible crunch as a shot breached their hull. Ahead there was a gate. It was the entrance to this grand city, built near the dawn of civilisation, a circle of stone a thousand miles wide and still hanging intact. They flew towards it.

‘I’ve always wanted to fly through the Akropolis Gate. It has been a dream of mine. We’ll pass through there,’ the old man said calmly, ‘and soon it will be over.’ His captain grunted in his sleep. Descharge was snoring a wheezy metallic snore. ‘Yes. We’ll pass through there. Then we’ll rest. At last, we’ll rest. I’m sorry.’

There was no one awake to hear him. The universe was silent. Another explosion penetrated the hull, and Fabrigas heard a loud pop as the ship, sensing its imminent destruction, ejected its flight box into space. Then the old man heard another sound: a faint whirring like a machine waking up from its sleep. He checked his instruments. Nothing should be waking from its sleep. That should be the opposite of what was happening. Then there was the sound of soft bells, the gentle slip of gears, ten bells followed by ten soft clicks, and then a smell of lemons, and a mellifluous humming as all around them the ruins of the ancient city began to fade like an old photograph.

This shouldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.

‘What is this?’ the old man whispered to the crippled ship.

Then, as the brave
Necronaut
passed through the magnificent gates of Akropolis, the vast stone ring vanished too, like a dream, and they seemed to pass into a fog.

For the first time since he could remember, something was happening for which the old man had no explanation.

*

The pilots of the attack ships behind them were surprised to see their rabbit vanish, their kill shots pass through its dimming shadow and into space.

‘They are gone, sir,’ said McMasters.

‘Destroyed? Good. The wolf pack did its work. As I knew it would.’

‘Not destroyed, sir … Gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Vanished.’

‘It is so.’

…

‘… Sir? Your order?’

‘My order?’

‘Yes, sir. What is the next course of action?’

‘The next course of action.’

‘Yes.’

‘Go to my quarters and find my diary. Send a message to every friend and family member in it and tell them to flee for their lives. Then bring me my cyanide tablets and my telegraphic forms.’

Oh, let the seas go floatin’ by

(Let the water take me down!)

Look at how the days go by

(A-flowing merrily underground!)

Into the dreamy blue again

(Lord! And all me whisky’s gone!)

Once a-pon a lonely life

(A-flowing underground oi!)

‘Once a-pon a Lifetime’ – traditional shanty

A man called Provius walked through the slums of Carnassus, past the great oily sign, past the drowned men, until he came to the grand gated district. He was an old man whose movements were like those of a young boy. His eyes did not come to judge the forgotten sailors, the desperate crooks; even the rotting corpses and the excrement in heaps seemed to delight this man. He seemed to delight in everything he saw.

He went up into the gated district with its fancy abandoned mansions and mansionettes until he found the one he was looking for. He went up the front steps and found the door with the mark upon it. It stood ajar. He passed through the dark abandoned rooms, their rich furnishings thick with sweaty dust. He went up the stairs to the first level, stepping carefully through the intricate wire-traps left for the unwary. At the bottom of the stairs to the attic were heaps of oily rags, stacks of empty postal boxes.

He went up into the attic and found the householder hard at work at a desk made from an old door and wooden crates.

‘Hello there,’ he said.

‘I told you I did not want to join your Academy,’ replied the boy without looking up.

Provius smiled. ‘You did. And yet you carelessly left the door open for me. Is this where you have been living all this time?’

‘Yes, this is my library. It has everything I need. If I want anything else, I go out.’

Provius observed the room with its table, its single lamp, its rough bed, its piles of books, its boarded-up windows, its one lonely boy.

‘It is a fine enough study. But we have even nicer studies at the Academy. Do you not ever want to leave this place, to see other places?’ asked Provius gently.

‘I do. As I explained, some day I will have saved enough money to hire a ship, then I will discover the moon where my father has fled with my nanny. For now, this room is my ship.’

‘I see. It is a good ship. But don’t you think a great mind should have things to help him become even greater? A proper library? A real desk? Other minds to talk about his discoveries with? Things that delight him, even?’

‘In your books you say that a friar should have the most simple life possible. He should give all of himself to the pursuit of knowledge. I have everything I need to live here. This door does fine as a desk. And I need only one book. Here.’

There was a single book on the desk. It was astonishingly old, and it had a five-pointed star on the cover. Provius picked it up and examined it gravely. ‘Where did you get this, boy?’

‘I found it buried in our yard. Dark hands left it for me to find. There was a letter with it.’

Provius set the book of hexagrams aside. ‘My dear, dear boy. I can tell that you are determined to dedicate your outstanding mind to one problem: how to end your suffering. It is a noble pursuit. Perhaps the ultimate one. But to think is not just to engage a subject with your brain: it is a devotional act, a concentration of the whole of your being in a determination to remain with something until it is understood. It is grounded in the heart as much as the brain, and so it is much closer to the concept of love than thought. A person who sees the universe and accepts everything they see will find the cloud of unknowing lifting; the person who shuts the light of the universe out – no matter how harsh that light has become – will experience only darkness.’

The boy at last looked up from his studies.

‘If you come with me to the Academy at Mnemonys you will be fed, clothed and loved. And you will be allowed to concentrate your attention on whatever problems delight you: whether it is charting the way to a lost moon, or …’ he touched a finger to the only book
on the table, ‘the more esoteric branches of science. We care for our minds. We do not put shackles on them. But if you go out into the universe and say the kinds of things found in books like this, you will be thrown in prison. Or worse. Or much worse. At Mnemonys we can protect you.’

Young Fabrigas considered his visitor’s words. He seemed to gaze out of the attic window – which was robustly boarded over.

‘Can I bring my servant with me?’ said the boy.

‘You have a servant?’ said Provius, surprised.

‘Yes. His name is Carrofax. He lives in that cupboard over there.’

*

The Academy near Mnemonys was the largest known. Oh, the wonders of this place. Its library alone was so vast that the sections had to be reached by horizontal elevators. Some called it ‘The Brain of Humanity’. It took days to reach the reference stacks. Sleeper cars were used, each with a bed, a small desk and a servant. There were grand lecture halls where the monks would give talks on every imaginable subject: the properties of light around young lovers; the structure of the universe revealed in the shape of a drop of moisture on a feather from the wing of a duck.

On the way to the Academy young Fabrigas again changed his mind and tried to escape. Master Provius patiently retrieved him.

Once at the Academy the boy was as happy as he’d ever been. He had to shave his head and work devoutly to serve the friars. He had to clean the elder monks’ robes, to make them meals. He became famous for his soup, and many a monk, working late into the night on a difficult problem, would call for a bowl of it, and upon supping it would find the gloom of frustration vanishing. Fabrigas got used to staggering, blurry-eyed, to the kitchen.

Before he knew it he was an assistant researcher, then a junior friar. He even found that he had set aside his main subject of research:
to find the moon where his father had fled with his nanny.

It was funny to think about it all. He would lie awake at night and ponder the unfathomable constellation of choices that had brought him to be in this universe. And so one day he announced, to universal astonishment, ‘I am leaving to become an explorer!’

And he did.