Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (25 page)

Stanwick
laughed, “I think that upon examination, you’ll find that what I
actually said was, ‘Touch my food and I’ll gut you with your own
mandible.’”

West punched
her shoulder, “Yes! That was it … god you were a vicious piece of
work.”

Stanwick glared
at the other three, “You do not want to come between me and
steak.”

Giggling,
Stephanie ducked behind the couch cushion.

West carried
on, “We talked briefly, and I asked Ahken Tiarsis to deliver a
message to his parents. We shook on it, and as I held his hand, my
path was rewritten. As sure as I’d felt his dream through the walls
of his home, in that second or two of contact, I saw more flashes
of revelation, glimpses in to the storm that was building in the
child’s mind.”

“What I didn’t
realize until I’d found my own place to stay in the agricultural
district, was that a vital piece of technology had changed during
my absence from Allim.”

“Just changed
mind you,” Stanwick reminded him, “in fact the changes were wrought
only days before West’s return to the city.”

West looked
excited, “The bright young minds of Arctum had developed a means of
recording the experiences from the hopper. It had become possible
for another person using the hopper to walk through your dreams and
memories, as if they were their own. It had fast become the most
popular means of entertainment, and few people seemed to care about
the ethical issues that the technology presented. I understood only
too well though. Ahken Tiarsis’ dreams … those glimpses of a future
beyond Allim; they would be the key to Dannum’s downfall. Once they
could see the world as Ahken could see it in his dreams, they would
do everything in their power to bring that vision to fruition.”

“Once I finally
contrived to meet with Reiner and Petra, it was in the fields of
the agricultural district. Convincing them that I was their long
lost friend proved to be difficult enough. Instilling in them a
sense of safety, in face of the obvious peril of acknowledging that
I was alive and well was also no mean feat. It was Petra’s research
group that had gained such amazing ground with the hopper
technology. As soon as I explained my discovery of Silinthalis,
Petra’s understanding leaped ahead of mine. She understood
immediately that Dannum, or Pretchis as she knew him, must have
been able to listen to the entire city, merely by touching the
walls of the Dannustine Palace. Safe in his bedroom, he must be
able to root out those dreamers of dark dreams, those minds bent on
insurrection. They made the decision to help me that night, and we
talked till dawn. We would wake Ahken, and on the hopper, he would
record the dream that I’d witnessed.”

“That’s not
exactly how things played out though.” Stanwick commented as she
walked over to the side table and took a swig from the liquor
bottle, “I had a window seat for the whole spectacle. I’d been
living with Ahken and his parents for the better part of a year, a
formally adopted member of Kith Tiarsis. I slept in a domicile next
to Ahken’s. That morning, I woke before Ahken, watched him throw a
fit when his mother tried to drag him out of bed, and I listened to
them try to explain to him what was expected of him. I went and
joined the adults. I held Ahken’s hand for comfort as he strapped
in to the hopper, told him to relax, felt him nearly crush the
bones in my fingers as his eyes rolled back, and then I watched the
drool pour down his chin as his mouth slumped open. I’ll tell you
what … Really, really shitty way to start your day, from everyone’s
perspective. He was under for twenty minutes, everyone too afraid
to try and pull him out of it, because we were all scientists of
Arctum and we knew the risks. Twenty minutes, and what we couldn’t
know as we watched him writhe and struggle, was that for every
minute he was under, one and a half millennia poured out of him,
filling the glardium crystal cube with the future.”

West leaned
through the window, raising his voice, “What a future though. The
magnificent dream, Somnium Mirificum, the dream of
thirty-thousand-years. We spread the dream throughout every home in
Allim, and the people rose up, not because it was right, or because
they felt any great injustice had been done to them, but because
Ahken’s dream showed them how glorious they would all look in their
uprising. Most of the people chose to become Leechborn, because
they had witnessed for themselves how powerful they would become,
how they would crawl the walls of the Dannustine Palace, and give
chase to the bastard guards who had marched the people they loved
into the zenith pyres. Even the fires of Pompeii pale in comparison
to the wrath and havoc that was unleashed by the hunger of the
newborn Blood-Brood. Ever hungry, the children of the Delvers tore
apart the walls of the city. They were met by Dannum’s brood, his
most loyal guards, who we soon learned had stood by him since the
birth of Allim, feeding on the penitents, and doing his bidding
with ferocity and religious fervor. So the Leechborn Wars
began.”

David ran his
fingers through Stephanie’s hair, and watched as she pulled away
from him, desperate to show that she was still awake, “You must be
shattered hon. You think you’ve heard enough for tonight?”

“Dad, is this a
school night?”

David raised
his eyebrows, “Sweetie, you need some sleep, school night or
not.”

Stephanie
looked imploringly at Stanwick, “Tell him I don’t need to sleep.
He’ll listen to you for sure.”

Stanwick
laughed, “Spiff, you really should get some sleep. I’ll make sure
we wake you up really early, and we will have pizza, or steak, or
lobster for breakfast.”

“For real?”

“Absolutely.”

Stephanie
jumped off the couch and planted her feet loudly on the hardwood
floor, making a meal of every step as she walked towards the
bedrooms. She spun suddenly, “How about all three?”

Stanwick
shrugged, “If you’re asleep within the next ten minutes, I’ll throw
in a rack of ribs.”

Stephanie
clasped her hands together, spun on the ball of her foot, and ran
into the nearest bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Charlene
pointed a finger at Stanwick accusingly, “You’re going to be a bad
influence on that child.”

David turned to
face Charlene, “Right? I mean, between the steak for breakfast, and
the destruction of a civilization, what hope does Stephanie
have?”

“And you,”
Charlene pointed at David now as she turned to face him “you need
to get your head together. I’ve seen you, squirming and fidgeting
through the whole story, wondering whether you’ve been cursed or
blessed.”

David looked a
little taken aback, “Hey now, I didn’t see you contributing.”

“I was
listening to what you all were saying. I have questions. I’ve got a
lot of questions, but they’re technicalities. I’m not sitting here
wondering what the hell it all means.”

Stanwick walked
around the front of the couch and sat between the two of them,
“What kind of questions Charlene?”

Charlene leaned
her back against the arm of the couch, “Have you been back?”

“To Allim?”

Charlene
nodded.

“The fall of
Allim wasn’t a mere political collapse, or the breakdown of our
society. Allim is gone.”

“Oh!” Charlene
nodded slowly, “What happened to your brother?”

“Please
Charlene, don’t refer to him as my brother. If you’re talking
technicalities, sure, I was adopted by Ahken’s family, and Petra
has always treat with me as her own, but I am Stanwick Kith Thrass.
I discovered my parentage after the fall, when the doors of the
archives were thrown open.”

Charlene
nodded, “Okay, gotcha … So what happened to Ahken?”

There was an
exchange of looks between Stanwick and West, and some unspoken
decision seemed to have been reached.

“Stephanie sweetie.”
David cracked the bedroom door slowly, talking softly.

“I’m not
asleep.

Stephanie
flicked a switch beside the headboard, and revealed that she had
been sitting on top of the covers in the dark.

“What are you
doing?”

Pouting,
Stephanie folded her arms sullenly, “I want steak for breakfast,
but I couldn’t get to sleep.”

David chuckled
softly, and sat on the edge of the bed, “I’m glad you’re awake. We
all need to head up to West’s apartment. It’s just upstairs.”

Stephanie
grinned, “Does this mean I get to stay up longer?”

David rolled
his eyes dramatically, “No it does not. West has a spare room that
you can sleep in while we talk. I know you’re excited. I am
too.”

Stephanie
didn’t say anything more on the matter. She jumped off the bed and
ran into the den, eager to join the adults again.

David felt immediately
at ease in West’s apartment. It was similar to the downstairs
apartment in many respects, with a long entrance hall, doors
leading to rooms on either side, the hall fed into an open plan
living area. There were more homely flourishes though, or perhaps
it simply felt more lived in. Stephanie had jumped with gleeful
abandon onto West’s eighteenth century Chinese bed, staring up at
the gold inlaid carvings, “It’s so pretty.”

West nodded, “I
spent an entire year watching a man carve those little relief
sculptures into the cherry panels.” An entire year in his company,
and West couldn’t recall the man’s face.

Stephanie
wrapped the blanket around herself and started snoring loudly,
“Okay, I’m ready for my beauty sleep, you are dismissed.”

Laughing, West
dimmed the light in the room, “Sleep well Princess, we’ll wake you
early, and you won’t miss anything, I promise.”

“Yes, yes,”
Stephanie yawned, “I take my steak medium rare.”

Closing the
bedroom door behind him, West patted David’s back, “Stephanie’s a
trip. You must be proud of her.”

“She never
fails to amaze me really.”

“What will you
have?” West walked towards the kitchen, and threw open the doors of
a well-stocked liquor cabinet. David’s eyes roamed, recognizing
many of the more familiar drinks by the shape of their bottles, but
scrutinizing the less familiar bottles more closely, “Frangelico if
you don’t mind.”

“Charlene, what
can I get for you?” West called out to her, and not missing a beat
she replied, “Irish cream and Sambuca if you’ve got it.”

Stanwick
chuckled filthily in recognition of Charlene’s selection.

West reached
into the back of the cabinet and pulled out a dark clay jar,
tossing it to Stanwick.

Stanwick looked
at the bottle and nodded appreciatively, “You’re a beautiful man
West.”

Charlene leaned
in close to Stanwick trying to make out what West had given her,
“What is it?”

“Blood of
course!”

Charlene
gasped, stepping backwards quickly, but Stanwick reached out and
grabbed her wrist, laughing, “I’m just fucking with you Charlene,
sorry. This is, if my eyes do not deceive me, eighteenth century
Chilean pisco.”

“Peruvian.”
West corrected her as he poured Charlene’s drink.

Stanwick traced
her fingers along the words which were engraved into the clay.

“What’s pisco?”
David asked, taking a sip from his drink.

Stanwick walked
into the kitchen and started to rummage through West’s drawers in
search of a knife, “Well, if Kipling was to be believed, it is a
drink compounded of cherubs’ wings, the glory of a tropical dawn,
the red clouds of sunset, and fragments of lost epics by dead
masters.” She pushed the knife edge up under the wax seal, easing
the cork out slowly. Realizing that both David and Charlene were
now staring at her, she explained, “It’s brandy.”

Charlene picked
her cocktail up from the kitchen counter, “You all drink a
lot.”

West sighed
heavily, “Do you feel even slightly tipsy?”

Charlene
thought about it for a moment, “Not really, just warm and
relaxed.”

West raised his
glass and stared at the Kahlua he’d poured himself, “We metabolize
alcohol differently. The leeches are perhaps overprotective when it
comes to chemicals impacting on higher brain functionality. You
will literally leak alcohol before you come close to being black
out drunk, and believe me when I say, sweating liquor is not
pleasant.”

Stanwick raised
her pisco jar, “You can get drunk, if that’s what you want, but you
really have to want it, and it won’t last long. Here’s to trying
though.” She touched her jar against Charlene’s cocktail glass,
then tipped her head back and drunk deeply.

West pulled an
oak chest away from the wall in the corner of the living room. He
pressed his hand against a small framed print of Joos van
Craesbeeck’s
Temptation of St. Anthony,
then he waited as
the whole far wall of the apartment slid into a hidden recess.
There, the surface which had been hidden behind the wall appeared
as if it was a giant television screen, dark and glossy, displaying
a shimmering animation of the night’s sky. West thumped the screen
with a closed fist, “This is glardium.”

David and
Charlene stepped closer, both of them transfixed by the moving
luminescent patterns, the sudden pinpoints of brightness on the
near black surface drawing the pair closer. A fluorescing cloud of
amber, pink and cream flecks would swirl into murky darkness
creating an illusion of almost infinite depth, then another arcing
spray would erupt on another part of the wall, and spill into
intricate dew covered cobwebs.

West traced his
fingers along the trail of what looked like a shooting star, “The
rills, arteries and tributaries of a once living city. At night,
the buildings of Allim put the night’s sky to shame, the walls
breathing every word of every thought, the stars carrying your
nightmares away, to the somber reaches of the Dannustine Palace,
and the aphotic, cancerous sprawl of Pretchis’ mind.”