Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires (32 page)

‘Whoa,’ Rhianna said, and for once, Smith could see what she meant.

They walked inside, the lights swelling around them.

‘So,’ Smith said. ‘The resting-place of Grimdall the Rebel.’

Suruk pointed to one of the pictures, in which a M’Lak hero grappled with a human who was probably meant to be Genghis Khan.

Rhianna stared at the picture. ‘This is amazing, Suruk,’ she said. ‘It’s so… vibrant.’

‘Vibrant?’ Carveth pulled a face. ‘Everything in it’s dead. Look at those skulls.’

‘I shall scout ahead,’ Suruk said.

Carveth looked at the shelves. The objects along the walls were set out for display, perhaps even to be picked up, but she had no idea what they did. Along one wall, she found a rank of little holographic pictures. Carveth stood on tiptoe and blew the dust off the display. One picture showed a narrow pass through rocks in what could have been Greece; another seemed to be of a Viking longhouse; a third had a carving of a large person in a mask knocking the heads off several other people, which seemed like the kind of stuff Aztecs would enjoy.

Smith found a rail, from which hung rows of fishnet shirts and heraldic banners. Perhaps it was Grimdall’s spare wardrobe. He pulled out one of the banners and peered at the alien symbols.

‘My comrades travelled to the relics of Grimdall,’ he read, ‘and all I acquired was this puny banner.’

‘Guys,’ Rhianna said, ‘these skulls are plastic.’

Smith stepped over and lifted down one of the skulls. It was very white, and hollow. ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘you’re right.’ He looked at Rhianna, and a thought passed between them.

‘What if...’ she said. ‘No... But what if...’

‘The relics are just a load of old tat?’

Carveth sighed. ‘Well, I’m not impressed. A fake skull and a bunch of holo-postcards. Not much of a hall of relics if you ask me.’

Suruk spoke from the far side of the room. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is because this is not the hall of relics.’

Smith lowered the plastic skull. ‘What is it, then?’

‘The gift shop.’

Carveth stared at him. ‘This Grimdall bloke had his own gift shop? Bloody hell, Suruk. I take it all back about you being vain. That’s on a new level entirely.’

‘Come,’ Suruk said. ‘The reliquary awaits.’

He led the way. An airlock hissed open, and they entered a narrow passage. M’Lak weapons lined the walls.

‘Now,’ the warrior said, ‘
this
is what we seek.’

He pressed his hand against the panel. A light flickered: M’Lak characters appeared in the door lock. It reminded Smith of a broken digital watch.

‘What does it say?’ Rhianna asked.

Suruk said, ‘One who wishes to enter must answer a question. The question is: “What is best in life?”’

‘Tea, obviously,’ Smith replied. ‘And cricket. Curry. Weekends. Model kits.’

‘Booze,’ Carveth said. ‘Chocolate? Sleeping? A bit of the other? Suruk, it’s broken.’

‘Peace, love and harmony between the peoples of the galaxy,’ Rhianna said.

Suruk opened his mandibles and made a soft croaking noise. ‘What is best in life?’ He smiled. ‘To crush the lemming men. To see them driven before you and to hear the squeaky lamentation of their does!’

The door slid open.

‘Lucky guess,’ Suruk said, and he shrugged and stepped inside.

Lights boomed far above him. A soft yellow glow rose behind the high walls. The skeleton of a dragon hung over their heads.

‘That’s a Cassopean skywyrm,’ Rhianna whispered. ‘Aren’t they a protected species?’

‘By fangs and armour,’ Suruk replied. ‘A worthy foe.’

‘I meant protected by law. So you can’t kill them all.’

‘Of course,’ Suruk replied. ‘He who slays must replenish, lest there are no good enemies left to fight. The M’Lak leave planets fallow and raise up great forests for beasts to live. Like any brave, I served my time with the artificial insemination teams. Truly, the skull is not the hardest part of a skywyrm to get your hands on.’ He sighed and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Once, I was halfway through the ritual of bucketing when the beast took flight. Six miles I travelled, gripping its undercarriage like one who has shut his tie in the door of a jumbo jet.’

‘Yes, Suruk,’ Smith began ‘I’m sure the ladies don’t want to know –’

‘How big was its todger?’ Carveth demanded.

Suruk was not listening. ‘Over plains and forests we soared. I wished greatly to release my vice-like grip, and I suspect that it felt the same. The skywyrm looked down, and was most perturbed. Its anger swelled, and other parts... did not. As the beast’s interest in romance fell off, so did I. Rarely have I been happier to plummet from the sky.’

‘Let’s move on, shall we?’ Smith said.

They entered a long, shadowed hall. Spotlights lit up the trophy racks.

On the right, half a dozen fanged, bulbous skulls had been mounted on the wall. They were Procturan black rippers, their heads bulging like evil cucumbers. Above them hung a huge, crested skull, with an extra set of teeth making up for its lack of eyes: a Procturan Matriarch. ‘Blimey,’ said Smith.

Void sharks, Caldathrian Beetle People, Croatoans, Yothians, Aresians, even a small Death Otter – hundreds of the galaxy’s fiercest beings had fallen before Grimdall’s blade.

‘What’s that?’ Rhianna said, peering at a huge biomechanical head. ‘It looks almost fossilised. It’s got a kind of trunk.’ She looked closer. ‘Oh, it’s only a helmet. Hey, that’s lame.’

On the opposite wall, a strange tangle of bones had been erected, twisted as if frozen in the process of taking another form. Two skulls seemed to be merging, or splitting apart. Smith looked at the display card, recognising the M’Lak characters for ‘weird’ and ‘pissed off’.

Suruk pointed down the hall. ‘This way. Looking at dead aliens must get boring for you humans.’

The lights blossomed around him. They walked into a sea of bone.

‘Much more familiar.’ Suruk turned, grinning. ‘Dead humans!’

The room was full of human skulls, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Suits of armour stood on frames at the edges of the room: human weapons lay in glass cases.

A shelving unit was crammed with skulls in bronze helmets with plumes and square cheek-plates, leaving only a T-shape for the eyes and mouth. On the end of the row, a yellowed parchment hung in a glass frame.

‘Ancient Greek,’ Smith said. ‘
Oh Xerxes, Emperor of Persia, behold my invoice for services rendered at the pass of the hot springs. Please find enclosed: Spartan helmet x 300...
’

Carveth said. ‘Look, Vikings!’

An exhibit showed a mock-up of a Viking longboat – for all Smith knew, it could have been the real thing. After all, the Vikings were in no state to object. Their axes hung from hooks in the wall, their horned helmets below them.

‘
I picked these up at Heriot mead-hall.
’ Suruk read. ‘
I was disappointed to learn that the horns were only part of the helmets and not the Vikings themselves. They refused my request for a refund. Still, I had an entertaining time, once my arm had grown back.
’

They walked on. Swords, javelins, battleaxes, assegais, katanas, kukris, even a flintlock pistol: the weapons of a dozen cultures pointed towards the end of the room. A photograph showed four bearded men in Renaissance dress in conversation with four M’Lak warriors. The aliens wore traditional tortoiseshell breastplates.

‘
The four great masters
,’ Smith read. ‘
Leonardo, Donatello –
’

‘This guy really got around,’ Rhianna said.

The trophies became more recent. They passed armour looted from Mongols, mughals and samurai; skulls in berets, pickelhaubers and fur hats; then a heap of what looked like Ghast helmets, shrunken to be worn by humans. Suruk peered at a row of skulls above a six-barrelled rotary gun. ‘These were collected in the Venezuelan jungle,’ he said, studying the notice beside them. ‘And this one here is Dutch.’

‘It’s amazing,’ Rhianna said, ‘even if it is kind of gross. But why aren’t there any British things? I mean, Grimdall rebelled against the British Space Empire, right?’

‘He clearly realised that we were honourable enemies,’ Smith replied. ‘Grimdall must have regarded us with too much respect to put our skulls on display like balloons at Carveth’s birthday party.’

At the far end of the hall, a great pair of doors awaited them. The metal looked like brass, but where the light caught it, it shimmered with a strange, purplish glow, as if reflecting a fire that was not there. Rows of symbols ran down each door, interlaced with embossed carvings depicting a range of decapitations.

‘This looks dangerous,’ Carveth asked. ‘What does it say?’

Suruk pointed to the lintel. ‘
Only warriors of great honour may enter.
’

‘Well, there’s a thing. I’ll have to wait in the gift shop.’

‘
And their underlings,
’ Suruk added.

‘Bum.’

Suruk pressed the button.

‘Ruddy hell,’ Smith whispered.

It looked like Coronation Day in Hell. The Union Jack hung everywhere: tattered campaign banners, some hundreds of years old, covered the ceiling and the walls. Skulls gazed out from niches wearing pith helmets, commando caps, slouch hats, bearskins, tricorns and space helmets. A dozen types of red coat stood in glass cabinets. Sabres and dirks were mounted next to longbows, claymores and laser rifles.

‘He… er… obviously respected the British an awful lot,’ Smith said.

‘Yep, he really respected us alright,’ Carveth replied. ‘He gave us our own separate gloating-room.’

Three steps led up to a throne set against the far wall. A M’Lak sat on the throne, a white crown on his head. He was almost a skeleton.

In front of the throne, lay an enormous steel beast. Part chameleon, part tiger and part dinosaur, the metal shadar stretched out like a sphinx. It was almost the size of a shire horse.

‘The mechanical maneater,’ Smith said.

‘So, Grimdall,’ Suruk croaked. His voice was hushed, lowered to a menacing purr. ‘This is where you came to die.’ He looked around. ‘There are worse places to expire.’

‘Absolutely,’ Smith replied. ‘It’s got a lot of flags.’

Carveth took a step forward. ‘Isambard, he collected these flags because he didn’t like the space empire. They’re trophies.’

‘Of course,’ Smith said. ‘But nobody else has to know that, do they?’

There was a moment’s pause. Rhianna spoke. ‘Er, what?’

‘Well, no one else need know that. We found Grimdall, he was wrapped in the Union Jack because he’d had a change of heart and decided that he liked the Empire more than he wanted his own planet back, and now everyone can work together and give the lemming men a bloody good thrashing. Super.’

Rhianna shook her head. ‘Isambard, that is wrong, and you know it.’

‘Of course it’s not wrong. It’s for the good of the Space Empire, Rhianna.’

‘No.’ She turned, and there was a hardness in her voice that he had never heard before. She reached up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘Ghasts rewrite history. The Yull lie about all the bad things they’ve done. We’re better than that. We will go back and tell the truth about this place.’

‘But,’ Smith replied, ‘what about – I mean to say – the Empire, for goodness’ sake... oh, bollocks to it, I suppose you’re right.’

‘Please,’ Carveth said, ‘if I could just interrupt the Oxford Union Debating Society for a moment, let’s just grab these relics and get the hell out of here before the Yull show up.’

‘Right.’ Smith took a step towards the throne. ‘So… er… what do we take? We can’t carry this maneater thing, and all the stuff in here is British anyway.’

‘Anything. Nick his hat. Just do it quickly.’

Rhianna frowned. ‘This is Grimdall’s last resting place. Isn’t it disrespectful to take his crown away?’

‘True,’ Suruk said. ‘We should at least take his head as well.’ He stepped up beside the throne. ‘I should be able to twist it off. At least, that is how I would remove it if he was alive…’ He reached out. ‘If I just turn it ninety degrees –’

Grimdall’s head dropped off his shoulders. It landed in his lap, bounced, rolled to the edge of the throne, dropped onto the floor and shattered into pieces.

There was a moment of silence: less in respect of the ancient warrior than in horror at having burst his skull.

‘Oh,’ Suruk said. ‘Unexpected.’

Grimdall’s body fell apart in a cascade of bones.

‘You dropped his head,’ Carveth whispered. ‘Bloody hell, Suruk, you broke his head! We came all the way across space, we fought robots and gangsters and lemming men, we went up a river to kidnap a lunatic, I rescued an entire species on my own, we went on an epic quest to find the greatest warrior in history and now you’ve gone and broken him! Suruk, you absolute knob!’

Shock made Smith’s voice sound slightly distant. ‘This is a bit of a problem, chaps.’

Carveth’s eyes seemed to be growing wider by the second. ‘Problem? Problem? God almighty, what are we going to
do?
“Hello, people of Ravnavar, we found the tomb of your sacred hero but then we smashed him into pieces. Now please give your lives for beloved Mother Earth!” Well, that’s us bollocksed, isn’t it? We’re going to be remembered as the people who dropped the Space Empire on the floor!’

Suruk said, ‘Why don’t I tell people that his head just fell off while I happened to be standing nearby? It worked at the Old Bailey.’

‘Oh God.’ Carveth made a loud heaving noise and began to shake. ‘We broke the Space Empire!’

Smith crossed the room and slapped her across the face. ‘Snap out of it!’ He turned. ‘We need to be reasonable about this.’

‘How?’ she cried. ‘Nobody will ever like us again!’

‘Carveth, we’re British. Nobody likes us anyway. Now, has anyone got any suggestions?’

Suruk raised a hand.

‘Yes?’

‘Can I slap her too?’

Rhianna put her hand up. ‘Guys?’

‘Yes?’

‘Two things. Firstly, let’s just chill out and try not to panic. Let’s visualise positive energy flowing out of us. Secondly, we’ve got some sellotape in the spaceship. Maybe if we collect all the bits of his head…’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Smith replied, ‘but we don’t have time. And I think I’ve just trodden on part of it. Maybe we could swap his skull for one of the ones in the museum.’