Against A Dark Background (34 page)

She supposed they were what people saw as noble beasts, something of their perceived authority evident in the fact they were one of the few species of Miykennsian fauna that had an original name, rather than a Golterian fix-up.

She could feel the others wanting the stom to escape unharmed, as it surely would, but only she, she thought, had seen the tiny greygreen scrap of one monkey-eater fly too close to the head of the stom; she’d had Zefla’s binoculars, and seen the bird skim daringly close to that huge head, and had a fleeting impression of the snapping jaws closing on it, wounding it, winging it as the bird was pulled off course across the air before escaping in a small, brief cloud of grey-green, and starting to fall.

It was falling still.

She could still just see it, naked-eyed now.

It was spiralling quickly down, five hundred metres beneath where it had been savaged, still trying to fly but only managing a half-braked helical dive towards the ground below.

Above it, just behind it, matching its hopeless, graceless, desperate rumble with a more controlled and smooth spiral of its own, another bird was keeping close station, refusing to leave its fellow.

She followed them both. The two dots were soon lost in the groundscape of undulating membrane matting in the distance. When she looked up again, the stom had made it back through the gap in the leaf-membrane a kilometre above. The other monkey-eaters gave up the chase and Miz, Zef and Dlo made appreciative noises and sat down to their meal again.

She sat down too, after a while.

She ate her meal slowly, not joining in the conversation, often glancing at the region where the two birds had disappeared, and only took a drink of her wine when one bird reappeared flying slowly, as though tired, flapping effortfully upwards, towards the columnar colony that was its home, alone.

His Majesty King Tard the Seventeenth, Lord of Despite, Seventyfourth of the Useless Kings, Lord Protector and Master of Pharpech, its Dominions, Citizens, Lower Classes, Animals and Women, Prime Detester of God The Infernal Wizard, Exchequer of the Mean and Guardian of the Imperial Charter, sat on the Stom Throne in the castle’s Great Hall, squinting narrow-eyed at the skinny, suspiciously clever-looking monk kneeling on the throne steps in front of him.

The throne room was a dark and smoky place. It was devoid of windows so that God couldn’t see in and it stank of cloying scents emanating from smoking censers because that kept His unquiet spirit entering. The throne was at one end of the room, and the King’s dozen or so courtiers and secretaries sat on small stools stationed on the steps of the throne’s square dais, their stature and significance expressed by how far up the dais steps and how close to the royal presence they were allowed to sit.

The Stom Throne - carved in the shape of one of the great flying reptiles, its wings forming the sides of the throne, its back the seat and its bowed head functioning as a foot-rest swung gently in the air above the dais, hanging by wires from the incense-blackened barrel-ceiling of the room and held just a few centimetres off the time-dulled and threadbare carpet spread across the top of the dais.

His courtiers said the throne was suspended like this to symbolise his authority and elevation above the common herd, but he just liked the way you could make the throne swing if you rocked back and forward a lot. Two very large, quiet Royal Guardsmen stood on the broad tail of the Stom Throne, armed with laser-carbines disguised as muskets; sometimes he’d get them to join in the swinging. If you got people to kneel close to the throne and then started to swing while they were talking, you could get the big carved beak of the Stom Throne to thump them in the chest or head and make them retreat off the dais, where officially he didn’t have to listen to them. He was thinking about doing that to this monk.

It was unusual for this sort of person to be presented to him; usually his courtiers kept them out. He always got suspicious of his courtiers when they did something out of character. He knew that -naturally - they feared and respected him, but sometimes he thought they wouldn’t be beyond talking behind his back or having little plans of their own.

Anyway, he didn’t like the monk’s face. There was something too narrow and sharp and penetrating about it, and there was a look of amused contempt about his expression that suggested he found the King or his Kingdom ridiculous. He distrusted the monk instantly. People had died for less. A lot less.

One of his courtiers mumbled into his ear about the monk’s mission. The King was mildly surprised by what he was told, but still suspicious.

So,’ he said to the monk,
you are of an Order which also despises the Great Infernal Wizard.’

Indeed, your gracious Majesty,’ the monk said, looking down modestly at the carpet. His voice sounded respectful.
Our Belief -perhaps not so dissimilar from your own, more venerable and more widely followed creed - is that God is a Mad Scientist and we His experimental subjects, doomed forever to run the Maze of Life through apparently random and unjust punishments for meaningless and paltry rewards and no discernible good reason save His evil pleasure.’

The King stared at the skinny monk. The man’s accent was off-putting and his language complicated, but he had the odd impression that the monk had actually been complimentary just there. He leaned forward in the gently swinging throne.

`D’you hate God too?’ he said, wrinkling his nose and frowning.

The skinny monk, clad in a black cassock embellished only with a small metal box tied on a thong round his neck, smiled in an odd way and said, `Yes, your Majesty. We do, with a vengeance.’

`Good,’ the King said. He sat back and studied the skinny monk. The monk glanced at the courtier who’d briefed the King, but the courtier kept shaking his head. One did not speak to the King until one was spoken to.

The King prided himself on being something of a statesman; he knew the value of having allies, even though the Kingdom itself was quite self-sufficient and under no immediate external threat. There were bandits and rebels in the deep country, as ever, and the usual closet reformers in the Kingdom and even the court, but the King knew how to deal with them; you asked a courtier and got them to check how they’d been dealt with in the past. Still, times changed on the outside even if they didn’t change here, and it never did any harm to have people in the world beyond who sympathised with Pharpech, and it had always annoyed the King that so few people out there seemed to have heard of his realm.

He’d quiz this monk. `How many of there are you?’

`Here in your realm, your Majesty? Only myself, of our Order-’

He shook his head. `No, everywhere. How many of you altogether?’

The skinny monk looked sad.
Vile number only a few thousand at the moment, your Majesty,’ he admitted.
Though many of us are in positions of some power where we must, of course, keep our beliefs secret.’

‘Hmm,’ said the King. `Who’s your leader?’

`Majesty,’ the monk said, looking troubled,
we have no leader. We have a parliament, a gathering of equals in which each man is his own high priest, and in that lies our problem.’ The skinny monk looked up and smiled with more warmth.
You see, your Majesty, I have come humbly, on behalf of all my fellows, to petition you to become our spiritual leader.’

Petitions petitions petitions. The King was heartily sick of petitions. But at least this one was from outside the Kingdom, from people who didn’t owe him everything anyway and so had a damn cheek petitioning him for anything . . . No, this came from people who were doing it because of their respect for him and what he represented. He rather liked the idea.

`Spiritual leader?’ he said, trying not to sound too taken with the title.

Yes, your Majesty,’ said the skinny monk. ‘We seek your approval of our humble creed because you are the head of a like-minded faith which has survived for many centuries, and so gives us hope. We wish to ask for your blessing, and - if you would be so kind as to grant it - for the ultimate blessing of your becoming head of our church. We would undertake to do nothing to disgrace your name, and to do everything to help honour the name of yourself and the Kingdom of Pharpech.’ The monk looked touchingly modest.
Majesty, please believe we do not wish to impose upon your renowned good nature and generosity, but such is our heart-felt respect for you, and so great is our desire to gain your approval - undeserving wretches though we may be - that we felt we would be derelict in our duties to our faith if we did not approach you.’

The King looked confused. He didn’t want to give his blessing to people who were undeserving wretches. He had enough of those already.

What?’ he said.
You’re saying you’re undeserving wretches?’

The skinny monk looked uncertain for a second, then bowed his head. `Only compared to you, your Majesty. Compared to the unbelievers, we are the deserving and enlightened. As the saying has it; modesty is most effective when it is uncalled for.’ The skinny monk smiled up at him again. His eyes looked moist.

The King didn’t quite understand that last remark - probably due to the skinny monk’s odd accent - but he knew the little fellow thought he’d said something mildly witty, and so made a little polite laughing noise and looked round his courtiers, nodding at them, so that they laughed and nodded at each other too. The King prided himself on being able to put people at their ease in this manner.

`Good monk,’ he said, sitting back in the Stom Throne and adjusting his day-robe around him as the great throne swung gently,
I am minded to accept your humble request.’ The King smiled.
We shall talk further, I think.’ He put on his wise expression, and the skinny monk looked almost pathetically pleased. He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

How touching! the King thought.

He waved one hand graciously to the side, making a curl in the thick incense smoke. He indicated a couple of clerks standing to one side, holding cushions on which sat large flattish objects: ornate metal boxes. `Now, I understand you have brought Us some presents . . .’

Indeed, your Majesty,’ the skinny monk said, glancing round as the clerks came shuffling forward. They stood in a line at his side. He took the box from the first of the clerks and held it up to the King. It looked like a larger version of the little box on the thong round his neck.
It is a book, your Majesty.’ He fiddled with the lock on the metallic box.

A book?’ the King said. He sat forward in the throne, gripping the edges of the Stom’s wings. He hated books.
A book?’ he roared. His courtiers knew he hated books! How could they let this simpering cur come before him if they knew he’d come bearing books? He looked furiously at the. nearest courtiers. Their expressions changed instantly from smirking satisfaction to shocked outrage.

`But it is God’s book, your Majesty!’ the skinny monk whined, jaw trembling as his thin hands struggled to open the book’s jewelled metal casing.

God’s book?’ the King bellowed, standing up in the Stom Throne. This was . . . what was it called? Sacrilege! The great throne swung to and fro while the King glared down at the hapless monk.
Did you say God’s book?’ he shouted. He raised his hand, to order the heretical . . . heretic be taken away.

Yes, your Majesty,’ the monk said, suddenly pulling the book apart, pages riffling.
Because it is blank!’

He held the book up before him like a shield, face turned away from the King’s wrath, while the flittering white pages fell fanning apart.

The King glanced round at his courtiers. They looked surprised and angry. He was aware that he was standing up in the swinging throne, in a position that might make a lesser man look a fool.

He thought quickly. Then he realised that it was quite funny. He started to laugh. He sat down in his throne, laughing, and looked round his courtiers, until they started to laugh too.

`What, good monk? Are they all blank?’

`Yes, your Majesty!’ the skinny monk said, gulping, laying the first book down and taking up the next from the second clerk.
See!’ He put that one down, lifted the next and the next and the last.
See, your Majesty! See, see; all blank! And look; the pages themselves are too slick and shiny to be written upon; no ink-pen will write, and even lasers will simply reflect. They cannot even be used as blank notebooks. They are truly Useless books!’

What?’ shouted the King. He put his head back and roared with laughter.
Useless!’ he shouted, lying back in the Stom Throne and laughing so much that his sides ached. ‘Useless!’

He laughed until he started to cough. He waved away a courtier holding a glass of wine and sat forward in the throne, smiling kindly down at the monk.

`You are a good fellow, little monk, and a credit to your Order. You may stay as Our guest, and we shall have more to say to each other.’ Intensely pleased at having successfully completed such an elegant speech, the King snapped his fingers at a secretary, who scurried forward, pen and pad at the ready, his head bowed.
See Our little monk is made welcome,’ the King told him.
Find good apartments for him.’

`Yes, your Majesty.’

The secretary led the relieved monk away. The King inspected the shiny-paged books. He chuckled, and ordered them to be put with the smaller Useless items in the castle’s trophy gallery.

`Shit,’ said Cenuij, sitting on the bed in Miz and Dloan’s room, staring at the little stick-on screen Miz had unrolled onto the covers. It showed a ghostly view of a glass display-cabinet containing a collection of old-fashioned electrical goods.

`Looks like a shop-window display from a historical drama,’ Miz said. He rotated the nightsight view the fake jewel on the cover of the book was seeing, but all it showed was more useless kitchen hardware.

`Safe to broadcast this?’ Dloan said, peering at the screen.

Miz shrugged. `It’s pseudo-directional after the initiating squirt and the transmitter’s freq-hopping. I doubt they have stuff to pick this up, even if they’re not quite as lo-tech as they pretend to be.’