The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (18 page)

The Archon lifted a huge bowl of apple-sized tomatoes and brought it to his lap. He flapped a chubby hand at him to continue, lifted one of the tomatoes and put the entire fruit in his mouth, biting down, pink juices running down his chin.

“There was a riot on Market Street. Two different unapproved preachers were speaking to the public. They were in conflict. Arguing turned to violence.”

“Hm,” the Archon said, devouring another tomato.

“Bergman’s Enforcers handled the situation,” Trevor said.

“What else?” the Archon asked, muffled through half-chewed plant flesh.

“Don’t you want to know what they were fighting about? We need to act so that this does not happen again. I suggest we take the Galens from the approved churches and—”

“Any luck finding the chantiac?”

Trevor repressed his anger at being interrupted, clenching his fists behind his back. “No.”

The Archon scoffed. “I didn’t think so. Your methods are too subtle.”

“Is that why you’ve declared war on Nova?”

The Archon dropped the tomato he’d been lifting to his mouth. It tumbled down his body, bounced off his platform, and struck the floor with a dull splat. He leaned his head forward. “They disgust me. The Novans are a threat to our way of life. They must be exterminated.”

Trevor blinked. “Exterminated?”

The Archon crushed another tomato between his teeth.

“You wouldn’t wipe out an entire territory? The Novans are harmless. The chantiac could be—”

“Killed? So what? My soldiers will kill everyone who gets in their way.”

Trevor’s hands were now limp. He could feel his breath whistling in and out of his lungs. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’ve sent Skin to find him, and she will. She has never failed me before.”

The Archon chuckled. “Yes...Skin. Tell me? What do you do at night with that grotesque creation of yours?”

“You…” But Trevor held his tongue. He could no longer hide his fists, clenched so tightly by his sides his nails dug into his skin. He took a deep breath. “There are riots in the streets. The common people are preparing to rise up against you. If there’s rebellion—”

“I will crush it.”

“The army is small. There has not been a true war in a long time. If the common people take up arms, their numbers...”

“Will fail them,” the Archon completed Trevor’s sentence. “My forces are much larger than you imagine. I have been growing them for years.”

Trevor opened his mouth, but realized he no longer knew what to say. “Years?” he managed feebly.
How?
his mind screamed at him.
How has this happened without my knowledge?

The Archon nodded his head, slowly up and down. “Oh, yes. I knew this day would come.” He caught Trevor in his gaze, held him frozen in place like a stunned animal. “Let me explain something to you, Trevor. I am the Archon. I will no longer play games. I have no use for them. I will be obeyed, without question.” He smiled widely, his jowls shuddering, a gaping and froggy grin.

“I…” Trevor tried to speak, knowing what was coming next. “I have always advised you to the best of my abilities.”

“Your services are no longer required.” He waved his hand. “You are dismissed.”

Trevor was unable to move. He stood there, staring at the Archon.

“Go,” the Archon said. “Away with you.”

Trevor’s mind swirled with panicked questions:
What will I do now? Where will I go? What position will I have?
He turned his back on the Archon and began to walk away.

After a moment, he stopped. His heart hardened, like a cold stone. Without turning, he said, “Tell me, Ferris, my old friend. How long has my counsel fallen on deaf ears?”

“You forget yourself,” the Archon said. “You call me by a name I have not used in a long time. I am the Archon. I have ascended.”

Trevor turned back. “You have,” he admitted. “In position, if not in wisdom. I was instrumental in your ascension, if you remember. You once called me the ‘intelligent one.’ That was why you kept me around. That was our arrangement.”

“It is not your place to question my judgments.”

“Remember,” Trevor said, stepping up to the Archon’s platform so that he was as close to the Archon as possible. “Remember how close we used to be? Remember the things I used to bring you? The woman we shared? The commoners I lured here so you could see what it felt like to slit a person’s throat? You even took Skin that one time, didn’t you? The woman I love. After she lost her memory. I even told you to fuck her, didn’t I? I could not refuse you, so I stood back and watched as you fucked the only woman I have ever loved!”

The Archon blinked, clearly uncomfortable by Trevor’s proximity, but unafraid.

“You used to depend on me. When there was an important decision to be made, you came to me. Me! It’s because of me, you sit here now!”

The Archon looked down his nose at him. “I
was
going to offer you a position. An overseer of some kind, whatever Bergman suggested, but I think your treasonous attitude has removed you from consideration.”

“Bergman?” Trevor gripped the side of the Archon’s platform. “It’s Bergman you’ve been listening to?”

“Please step back, Trevor. Before I call the Praetorian Guard.”

Trevor pushed off the platform and took a step back, but only one, remaining close enough to take one of the hoses that ran from the platform into the Archon’s flesh in his hand. “What would happen,” Trevor said with a smile, “if I were to pull this loose?”

The Archon shook his head, still unafraid. “The alarms would sound, my Praetorian Guards would come rushing in, and you would lose your head beneath the Gallows Tree.”

“
Your
Praetorian Guard? Tell me, what are their names?”

The Archon only stared at him.

“You don’t know them, do you? Let’s see, currently on duty… Wagner, Corris, and Leek, I believe. Paimon brought them all before me personally when they were hired. There’s Fina, and Barker… Ah, any you’d like to add?”

“What point,” the Archon said, “are you trying to make?”

Trevor smiled, and ripped the tube free from the Archon’s platform. Thick mucus sputtered and splattered from its open end. He flung it aside.

“Stop,” the Archon said, pushing buttons and pulling levers that were supposed to bring help to his side—fear, finally, creeping into his voice.

“Most of this stuff here,” Trevor said, “doesn’t do much.” He waved his hands over the workings of the apparatus, flicked a pumping piston dismissively. “But a couple of these,” he said, reaching for another tube, “are vital to your continued survival.”

“Where are they?” The Archon was shouting now, thrashing his body about ineffectually, pounding his fists. “Where the fuck are my Praetorian Guards?”

Trevor continued to talk. “I had Tory examine your platform once. She explained to me one very simple thing I could do, if the opportunity should ever present itself.”

“Who’s Tory? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“This tube,” Trevor said, holding it up with one hand, “pumps vital fluids into your body. And this one,” he held up the other tube with the other hand, “pumps waste from it.” Trevor grinned. “When you switch them…” He crossed the tubes and jammed them both into place. He wiped his hands together and held them up, to show he was done, letting his last statement speak for itself.

“The alarms! I don’t understand,” the Archon said, his pallor already beginning to darken, a thick pool of pus and blood spraying from something that had burst beneath the platform. “Why don’t I hear the alarms?”

“Oh, I deactivated those before I came,” Trevor said, so low it was unlikely the Archon heard him.

Trevor stood back and watched.

NOVA

KYA

She woke to darkness, and snoring. For a brief moment, her lips parted, her tongue touched the roof of her mouth, and she was about to call out for her dad, but then she remembered. She swallowed. She was cold and numb.

Moonlight leaked into the tent and, turning on her side, she was able to see the others, wrapped in bedrolls and cloaks. Most of them were on the floor, crammed into every available space, but there were also several cots like the one she was in. The woman who had brought her here—Helen—was nowhere to be seen. 

Slowly, she stepped over the sleeping bodies, and crept across the tent, placing her feet between the shadowy bundles. She slipped beneath the tent flap and into the open air of the night.

She had to get back to Fallowvane. She had to find her family. She’d made a mistake leaving. She still had her supplies, her bag and her sword—she’d refused to give them up when they’d tried to take them from her.

She stopped in the middle of the dirt track that cut through the camp, tents of various shapes and sizes fluttering lightly in the gentle breeze. She knew which way to go, her village was to the south and she had her compass, but if what Helen and the other man had said was true, she was twenty, maybe thirty miles away.

She scanned the row of tents. Together, they made their own small village and if each one was as crowded as the one in which she’d woken, there were a lot of people here. She would have to be very quiet.

Holding her pack in place with one hand so that it didn’t bounce on her hip, she dashed along the track. At the edge of the tent village, she spotted several horses tied to a rail secured between two trees. She smiled to herself. Even though she’d only been on a horse a couple of times, her dad had taught her how to ride.

She moved, her head down, shoulders hunched. She came up to one of the smaller horses, brushed his neck with her hand. “Shh, shh. There we go.” She untied her new horse, led him out into the road. Her horse was already saddled and ready to go, as if someone thought he might need his horse in a hurry, which she was grateful for, because without the saddle she never would have been able to climb up onto the horse’s back.

She took the reins in her hands and gently squeezed the horse’s sides with her legs. The horse began to move and she was riding.

~

“There you go, Alfred,” she said, “get some water.”

She left her horse to drink from the small stream. She sat on a fallen log to eat the last biscuit from her bag. When she was done, she was still hungry.

It had been daytime for a couple of hours now. She’d watched the light creep into the sky, slowly filtering through the trees.
They must have noticed I’m missing by now
, she thought.
I wonder if they’ll come after me. They’ll be mad I stole a horse.

But she didn’t care. She was making good time. She dug her compass out of her bag and held it up. South. Just keep going south.

She drank some water from the stream, jumped, grabbed a hold of the saddle, and pulled herself awkwardly up until she could throw one of her legs over Alfred’s back, and was on her way.

~

Alfred was one of her favorite characters in some of her dad’s stories. He was a lot more interesting than the princesses and ridiculous talking animals her sister’s liked. He was a treasure hunter, exploring ancient ruins and caves in search of relics from long-lost civilizations. He was also funny, always tripping over things and falling into water troughs and spilling food on himself. When he ran into traps during his subterranean explorations, he’d accidentally stumble on a tree root or step in mud and the poison dart or falling knife would narrowly miss him. And then, when he finally did find whatever it was he was looking for—an ancient book or golden tablet—his arch rival, Dr. Moor, would be waiting for him and steal it.

“He’s not very good at all this, is he, Dad?” she’d asked once.

Her dad had smiled. “No, but he never gives up, does he?”

Kya thought she finally knew what her dad was getting at when he said that.

She named her horse Alfred and continued her journey.

~

It was mid-afternoon when she began to smell the smoke, stinging her nose, making her eyes water.

She’d travelled through the forest without incident, without ever coming across signs that anyone had been through these woods but herself. She slowed Alfred to a trot and approached her village.

At the edge of the trees, she could already see that there was nothing left. Charred husks, some with blackened beams still standing like crisped bones, were all that remained of the houses. Smoke still rose from embers buried deep within the rubble. Something must have caught fire, and with no one to stop it, her village had burned.

As she led Alfred into what remained of Fallowvane, she could feel her heart rising into her throat, threatening her with panic. She could hardly see through her watering eyes, and Alfred didn’t like the smoke either, stamping his feet, obeying her commands only reluctantly.

She nearly passed right by her house, unable to tell the charred remains of her house from the one next to it. She stared at it for a moment, blinking, coughing at the smoke.

She moved on.

The weathervane statue at the center of town remained standing, but had also been burned. The vane continued, as it always had, to point south.

South.

When she came to the town hall, the largest building in town, she saw them, piled up against the side of the wall, blackened bones in a heap, jutting ribs and screaming skulls.

She stared for a very long time, and then she turned her head away, and kicked Alfred into motion.

Blackened earth was all that remained of the fields where the crops had grown.

She kicked Alfred harder and he was galloping beneath her.

She passed the sand pits and plunged into the grasslands, surrounded suddenly by the open landscape.

She galloped away. Away. Kicking her horse, faster and faster.

~

She didn’t know how exhausted she was until she stopped to catch her breath and nearly fell from Alfred’s back. She caught herself and eased her body to the ground. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky, panting.
So blue
, she thought.
So blue and empty
.

She was thirsty. She didn’t have any water and she didn’t know when she’d reach the next stream or lake. She’d never been this way, never further than the sand pits.

South. Away from the Talosians. Away from the pain. Going south.

Despite herself, she felt her eyes close. She slept.

~

When she woke, it was dark again. She sat up. She jumped to her feet. The flatlands stretched in every direction, the wavering grass silver beneath the moon’s light. She squinted, turning in every direction. She was alone.

Alfred was gone.

~

She walked. It was hot. The cometlight beat down on her. Her feet hurt. There was nothing in the grasslands. She couldn’t eat the grass. She looked up at the clear sky often, longing for rain. She’d never felt like this before, this aching, this numbness. She’d always been comfortable, she realized. She’d always been happy.

She stopped, the comet directly above her head, to rest, to catch her breath. She didn’t know how much further she could go. She plunged her hand into her bag and felt around for her compass. She brought it out and looked at the needle. She didn’t know why she felt she had to go south, but she’d come this far and she was determined to keep going.

~

She passed easily into an exhaustion filled with wretched darkness, and when she woke to the dawn of a new day, she was so weak she could hardly lift herself. She blinked through the crust around her eyes and slowly rolled over. She groaned.

She noticed first something very strange laying a couple of feet away. She crawled and found several colorful glass marbles mired in the dirt. She rose to a sitting position and looked around.

She found several bite-sized biscuits and, right there before her, a clear puddle of water filling a small depression in the earth. She plunged her face into the puddle and drank greedily. She didn’t care that the water was becoming muddy as she disturbed it. She drank and drank, retched, nearly threw it all up, then drank the rest of the pool until all she could taste was mud on her teeth.

She rolled over and lay still for a while, breathing heavily.

After a while, she got to her hands and knees and crawled around collecting the little biscuits, like mushroom caps sprouting from the earth, and devoured each one.

Before she got to her feet and continued her trudge south, she found a small picture: a portrait of her dad smiling. She blinked and looked at the picture again, but the man in the portrait was not her dad after all.

~

Again, she could smell it before she saw it, but this time it was different, brighter, saltier, a smell she could identify, although she’d never seen its source: the ocean.

She came over the rise of a small hill and, below her, she could see the town of Farrenhold. She knew of it only from her geography lessons in school. She could see its dot on the map. Farrenhold was a coastal fishing town and the preferred trading port for one of the islands, although she couldn’t remember which one.

~

She wandered through the bustling streets in shock, unsure where to look, everywhere people and signs, noisy chaos. She didn’t know where to go, what to do, or whom to talk to. She knew she should go into one of the shops or inns and ask someone for help, but she was overwhelmed.

Instead, she followed the streets toward the ocean. She wanted to see the water, to gaze upon the crashing waves, which she could hear, even now. She wanted to see the source of that strange, salty smell.

When she reached the docks, she could see it, a vast body of water crowded with ships. She walked down until she found an open dock. She walked all the way to the end, thrilled when the land ceased and the ocean began beneath her feet though the wooden platform, and stood staring at the immensity of it.

She stared for a long time, her lips parted, and let the brisk winds tug at her ragged clothes and her tangled hair.

“Excuse me? Girl? What are you doing?”

Kya turned and there was a man standing on the dock, blocking her path between herself and the land. He wore large boots and a billowing cloak. Upon his head, a strange hat was jammed all the way to his eyes.

“What are you doing out here?” the man asked again.

Kya looked at the man, and then at the impressive ship she’d hardly glanced at as she’d walked, too intent on the ocean to notice. “Is that your ship?” she asked.

The man nodded.

“Are you the captain?”

The man nodded again.

“What’s your name?”

“Captain Emerson.”

“Do you need help? Can I have a job? I’m hungry.”

The man looked her up and down. “Where’s your family?”

“They’re all dead.”

The man shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I would. I’ve taken other orphaned children into my crew before, but not this time. Not on this voyage.”

Kya looked at the man, thinking about that word: orphan. Was that what she was now? “Okay,” she said. “Is it okay if I stand here for a while? I’ve never seen the ocean before.”

The man hesitated, and then nodded his head once again. He turned and Kya could hear the captain’s boots clomping on the wooden slats of the jetty.

Kya turned back to the ocean.

~

That night, she curled up under the jetty and waited. She watched the light glowing in the cabin of Captain Emerson’s ship. When finally it went out and all was dark, she moved stealthily, climbing a rope that hung down the side of the ship, up onto the deck, and looked for a place to hide.