The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (11 page)

TALOS

EMBLA

Learn of that which cannot be seen…

Embla pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and, clutching the fabric tight, turned down the dark alley. She moved quickly, the sounds of Market Street fading behind her as she walked, with each step she took deeper and deeper into one of the seedier and more dangerous parts of the City.

Walls of chiseled stone rose several stories high to either side of her, seeming to lean into each other, as if to whisper and conspire high above her, blocking the cometlight, the murky air thickened by damp shadows. The alley seemed to close in, becoming narrower and narrower. She glanced about. She was alone. One of her feet sunk into something soft and wet, warm when it should have been cold, but she never slowed her pace.

“It’s marked as
corridor M
on the City map, but is otherwise nameless,” Paimon had told her. “At the very end, there is a brick wall. Turn left and look for the green pavilion.”

“Pavilion?” she’d asked. “You mean, like a tent? In the City?”

Paimon had smiled that close-mouthed smile of his, his already thin lips disappearing into his face. “Something like that.”

Embla could see the end of the alley, a solid wall of bricks that looked as if they’d been scavenged from construction projects all over the City, a myriad assortment of shapes, styles, and colors, climbing upward several stories, too high to see its termination point through the stifling swirl of fog and smoke that hung in the air above her. She turned left, down an even narrower and darker alley choked with trash cans and splitting bags of refuse, leaving her little more than a six-inch wide track in which to place her feet. She took shallow gasps of air through her mouth and continued.

“Is it in Luto’s Court?” she’d asked Paimon.

He’d shaken his head. “No. But close to it.”

She stepped carefully over a spot where the trash had eroded over the path and found her self in a small courtyard. She stepped into an open area onto what must have once been tiled ground, now so covered in grime as to be almost black. Wiping some of the grime away with the toe of her boot revealed a lapis smudge. The tile, she could see, had once been filled with color, ornate. A distorted pile of moss-covered stones sagged at the center of the courtyard, perhaps once a fountain of some sort, now incomprehensible. Identical doors lurked in the center of each hexagonal wall segment, their iron works bleeding rust, likely sealed and having remained that way for a very long time. On the other side of the courtyard, behind the collapsed fountain, tatters of cloth hung, protruding a few feet from the wall. She could tell the fabric was a green color, but it looked gray in the faded light, forming a wall, rising upward, shivering slightly from a breeze she could not feel, a flap tied shut at its center: the entrance to the pavilion.

...that which cannot be seen...

She crossed the courtyard and stopped, looking at the tied flap of cloth that was the doorway into a world mysterious and strange, of which she had recently heard many things she had dismissed as untrue. She had never, in all her years seeking Marrow’s approval, considered such a course of action. She had never thought she might find value in something that seemed so ethereal, that before she be granted access to wonders of the wider world, she might first seek the wonders of a world much closer to herself.

She reached out her hand, unwound the cord, lifted the heavy flap of fabric, and stepped into the School of the Unseen.

~

She might not have sought such unusual and extreme counsel, but she was troubled. More than her quest to obtain an invitation to join Marrow’s crew had driven her to the School of the Unseen—there was an atmosphere about the Ziggurat, an invisible cloud of trepidation. The animals she tended to in the biopark could feel it too, the avian creatures restless and noisy, the cats and the bears pacing their paddocks, even the marine life jittery, everything hungrier than usual. There was a sense something big was coming, a looming threat of change, and, perhaps, violence.

And then there was Lena’s letter… What would make her sister think Talos would declare war on Nova? That did not make sense. Nova was mostly empty wilderness—dense forest and little else—its villages primitive, without electric lights or running water, consisting mostly of farmers. Talos had its own farms, vast fields of red wheat—plants fertilized by the slurry mined from Naomi’s Pit and pumped over the soil, growing into massive, bloated growths fully capable of feeding the City’s population—and did not require such resources from the Novans. Nor did Nova have the technology to attempt an assault on Talos or any of its lands or properties. For many years now, Talos had considered Nova nothing more than an annoyance, and then only because of the refusal of its people to live by Talosian standards and ideologies. The Novans lived without rules and therefore without comforts. It was the duty of those from Talos to look down their noses at the Novans with disdain, nothing more. And, although Embla did not understand why her sister would choose to live with them, she had never wished them harm.

She had also heard rumors, mostly from Paimon—her best source of insider information—who, although he insisted there was no talk of war, reported general unrest in the City. Strange people had taken to the streets, preaching blasphemy secretly in dark alleyways. A division had grown between some who claimed Awa was, like Galen, a masculine figure—a man strong and wise—and others who claimed Awa was feminine—a woman clever and intelligent. Some were beginning to think Galen was a false prophet, but that was preposterous, Embla thought, wasn’t it?

It was Galen, after all, who had told her to learn of the unseen. She was determined to follow her intuition. Strange emotions stirred within her. She felt a sense of urgency, that she must do something quickly before she lost her chance. But a chance for what? That was what she was going to find out.

She could never, of course, tell her father what she was doing. He despised the study of anything he deemed “intangible,” and, after what had happened with Lena, he despised Marrow. Her father had always told her and Lena not to trust anything they could not see, feel, and touch with their own senses. “You will hear of many things in this world, beautiful and grotesque alike,” their father had said once when both she and Lena had been little girls, standing erect and proud as he was wont to do, “hearsay from people who claim to have heard thus-in-such from this person or that person. It’s all nonsense. Rumors on the wind.” He’d smiled. “Bullshit.” And both her and Lena had opened their mouths and bugged their eyes at their father’s choice of word.

Paimon had told her the hallowgeons had been spotted visiting the Ziggurat. For what purpose, no one could say, but the fact that there had been more than one sighting in such a short period of time was telling. “The guards are saying it was the hallowgeons who killed Holland,” Paimon had said.

“Who’s Holland?”

Paimon had shrugged. “A guard for one of the installations in the House of Aesthetics. He was found in a heap at the bottom of some stairs. Someone had taken his wallet, but not his flask of spirits.”

“That doesn’t sound like the hallowgeons.”

Paimon had smiled. “It wasn’t. The flask was found empty.”

“Do you think I should pay a visit to the School of the Unseen?”

“That’s what Galen said to do, right?”

“In so many words.”

“You should...follow your heart,” Paimon had said, giving her an intense look.

Embla had looked away. “Why do you torture yourself?”

“What’s life without pain?”

“You should talk to my father.”

A grimace had marred Paimon’s face, but that had put a stop to his advances.

Embla knew the only reason Paimon came to see her, willing to share the information he’d collected about Talos and the Ziggurat, was because of how he felt about her. But she also knew his true loyalty was to Trevor, serving in an unofficial capacity as the leader of his personal guard and emissary. Paimon had once been a member of Bergman’s Enforcers, who policed the City of Talos, highly trained in the ways of combat and castrated to ensure discipline. Members of Bergman’s Enforcers were supposed to serve for life and deserters and offenders were executed, but somehow, despite whatever transgression Paimon had committed, Trevor had saved him from such a fate. When Embla had asked what he had done, he had grown cold and refused to tell her. When it came to Trevor, Paimon’s mouth was sealed, his loyalty to his master’s secrets absolute.

Of course, Paimon’s status as an ex-member of Bergman’s Enforcers, even if Embla had been interested, left him without the ability or the need for sexual intimacy. They were both brean, which made them a match, and Paimon was certainly more intelligent than your average enforcer, kind even, but Embla had been blunt. When she’d asked him what he was looking for, Paimon had only shrugged and said, “Closeness.”

Embla understood.

~

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She had stepped from a murky alley into an even dimmer corridor. Although she had the impression she was now inside a solid structure, the walls and roof were canvas. It smelled of spicy incense that could not quite cover the mustier scent of mildew. There seemed to be no other way to go than forward, the corridor stretching into the distance, straight ahead.

She listened as she walked, hoping to hear voices, but she neither heard nor saw anyone. She walked down the corridor until she could see its termination point, another canvas-flap door, tied shut. Flickering light leaked from its edges. She unwound the cord and lifted the flap.

On the other side, she was surprised to discover a vast open room, with a ceiling high above made from ornate drapery. It was almost as large a space as the smallest of Galen’s temples, except there were no columns or statues, only emptiness, and, distant and hazy, more canvas covered walls. As she continued to move forward, something else came into view, a heap of something, and a person perched at its peak.

The floor beneath her remained un-scrubbed tile, but the sounds her boots made with each step were muffled, the canvas walls absorbing each potential echo. The figure looked up at her and froze as she approached. He eyed her suspiciously. He was wrapped in a thick, colorless robe, entirely bald except for frazzled tufts of white hair about his ears. He had a book in his hand, his place saved with a finger, and the heap itself, upon which he sat, was made from more books, stacked perhaps in some semblance of order once, now tumbled into chaos: a small mountain in the middle of this vast and empty hall.

“They’re all approved texts, of course,” the man said. “There’s no need to worry.”

“No,” Embla began. “I…”

The man leapt to his feet, the pile of books shifting, one book tumbling free, flipping end over end, skidding on the grit-covered floor. “You better leave now, before you’re noticed. It’s best not to get involved with these...people.”

“I’m sorry,” Embla said. “This is the School of the Unseen, is it not?”

The man sighed. “Yes, it is.”

“Are you not a member?”

“I… No, no. Shut up. Now’s not the time.” The man swiped his free hand through the air, as if to shoo something away.

Embla watched the man closely. “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” the man said, looking around, distracted. “As you can see, we’re all a little crazy around here. We see things that don’t exist.”

“That’s what they say.”

“So, if you’ll leave me be, I can get back to my reading.”

“You’re a thaumaturge?”

The man gave her an impatient look. He nodded.

“Then maybe you can help me,” Embla persisted.

The man sat down, dropped his book and lifted his arm. He began to stroke whatever he saw perched there, no longer paying her any attention.

“What do you know of Marrow and his crew?”

Without removing his eyes from his invisible familiar, the man said, “A lot. A little. Depends what you’re asking.”

“How does he choose new crew members?”

The man’s hand froze in mid-pet, hovering ridiculously. He turned his head to look at Embla. “Ah, I see. You want to know how to join Marrow’s Crew. You want to sail across the world, visit exotic lands, discover the meaning of life in the most adventurous way possible. You don’t need all that.” He snatched one of the books at random and held it up. “Here’s all the adventure you need! Right here!”

“All approved by the House of Antiquities, of course.” Embla smiled.

The man scowled. “Right. Of course, of course. I already told—” His arm jerked, as if he’d been stung or bitten or clawed, and he flung the book back into the pile. “I’m sorry,” he said to his invisible familiar. “Okay. Shhhh. I’m sorry.” He patted the air above his arm reassuringly.

Embla shook her head. Perhaps she’d been a fool to come here. This place was nothing but an empty, moldy tent. And this man was a joke. Galen must have meant something different. What else did she know that had anything to do with being unseen?

“I’ve spent years here, hoping to unravel the mysteries of the universe,” the man was saying, “and what do I have to show for it?” He raised his arm further and shook it. “This accursed thing. Crow. My companion for life.”