The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (21 page)

TALOS

EMBLA

The sky was cloudy, giving the City a muted quality, threatening rain. Despite this, the streets remained crowded, the citizens of Talos too restless to remain indoors.

Embla walked quickly. She could feel tension in the air, like a piece of rubber stretched taught, ready to snap. She’d been busy, but she’d still heard the rumors of an altercation on Market Street. She didn’t, however, trust the reports. Such open violence and slaughter simply did not happen in Talos. Surely accounts had been exaggerated. She’d looked once for Paimon, to ask him what was really going on, but Paimon had been otherwise engaged.

There was a commotion in the street ahead of her. People were shouting. She heard a weapon discharge, saw the smoke, and then the crowd around her began to move, stampeding in her direction.

She had no choice. She turned with the crowd, and ran.

To either side of her, people with faces either blank and dull or frozen in panic—depending on how he or she dealt with fear—pushed in around her. She tried to move faster than them, but many of the people were larger than she and jumped ahead. Her mind was blank, having not been given enough time to rule on the nature of her situation.

When she saw an alley, she turned sharply to the left and stood out of the way of the passing horde, breathing heavily.

What the hell just happened out there?

Only then did she become aware of her frantically pounding heart.

When the mob had passed, it was strangely quiet. From where she stood, the street appeared empty. She was very close to her destination:
Corridor M
and the passage that led to the School of the Unseen.

She peeked around the corner. The streets to either side of her were deserted. She stepped out onto the pavement and walked slowly. It was eerie, as if she’d abruptly slipped out of place and now walked in a dimension uncannily different from her own.

She could see it.
Corridor M
. It was unlabeled, of course, but she knew it was the correct alley.

A sudden sound startled her.

Across the street, two people had shattered a shop window and were entering the store. They were talking, but Lena couldn’t hear their words from where she stood. It was a wig shop. They were laughing.

She watched as the two people, a man and a woman, perhaps even a couple, plundered the store, stuffing various wigs of real human and animal hairs into their bags, and then, when their bags were full, snatching up as many as they could carry in their arms. They leapt through the broken window and stood on the street. When they saw Embla watching, they threw their heads back and laughed like loons. They ran down the deserted road.

Embla turned away and moved quickly to the mouth of the alley.

“You,” someone called out to her. “Awan or Awae?”

Several disheveled figures approached. Their leader was a priest in brown robes swinging a smoking censer back and forth, filling the street with a ghostly fog.

“Answer me now!” the priest said.

Embla ducked down the alley and ran.

~

She didn’t stop running until she’d reached the canvas doorway to the School of the Unseen. She stopped to catch her breath and look behind her to make sure she was not being pursued. The courtyard was quiet. The only thing she could hear was her own labored breathing.

She pulled the flap aside and entered. She walked, more quickly this time, down the corridor and into the large hall. She felt safe inside the school, although it remained a curiosity.

Bailey looked up from the book he was reading and watched her approach.

“Still here?” she asked him, standing at the foot of the throne of books.

He gave her a look of condescension. “Yes,
we’re
still here. Where else would we be? We read. Why? Have you found something better to do?”

Embla shrugged. “Sorry. I forgot about your bird.”

Bailey looked irritated now. “Crow is a raven, okay? Just leave me in peace, would you? Maya’s down below.”

Embla found the pull chain and lifted. The door in the floor opened and she descended the stairs.

“Embla!” Maya said, rising from her chair to give Embla a hug, which she returned, shocked by the polarity between Maya’s and Bailey’s welcomes.

Again, that feeling of unreality washed through her.

Maya held Embla’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Have you brought something for me?” She returned to her plush chair.

“Yes,” Embla said, taking a seat and pulling something from her bag.

Maya took the object wrapped in cloth. She placed it on a nearby stool and pulled the stool between them so they both could see. She carefully unwrapped the object and looked at the spoon inside. “Whose is it?” she asked.

“Auron’s. The House of Aesthetics.”

“He used it personally?”

Embla nodded. “Yes.”

“Most excellent.” Maya rewrapped the spoon, bent over, reaching her hand under her chair, and pulled out a wooden box. She placed the spoon in the box, closed it, and slid the box back into place. When she was done, she looked up at Embla. “Good,” she said. “Only five more to go.”

ASH

Ash woke and lifted himself. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he’d opened his eyes or not, the darkness was so complete. His heart raced with fear as he tried to remember where he was and what had happened to him.

“Niko?” he said into the dark.

Someone moved nearby. “Yeah?”

“How long have we been here?”

“I’m not sure,” Niko replied. “Days?”

“Okay.”

He was in prison, still in prison.

He’d been taken by the Talosians, but instead of killing him like he’d thought they were going to, they’d tied his hands and he’d been put into a crowded cage with other prisoners and been taken here to this place. It had been a grueling journey of several days, but he could hardly remember it now. He’d subsisted on a strange gruel given to him in shallow animal shells.

“Is Wolf still here?”

“Yes,” Niko said.

“How are we going to get out of here?”

“I don’t know.”

They fell silent for a time.

“Niko?” Ash said.

“Yes?”

“Why were you and Wolf looking for me?”

He heard Niko sigh. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“We thought if we could get to you first, before the Talosians…”

“I don’t get it.”

“They say you can talk to the dead, their spirits, even bring people back to life. Is it true?”

“I don’t think… You mean ghosts?” The thought terrified him.

“The Talosians want you to be the next chantiac. They think you’re a saint or something.”

Ash thought about everyone who had been after him: The People of the Conspiring Moons, Skin, Mother Marlena’s effigy. He shivered.

Niko cleared his throat, whispered in the dark, “Is it true you can see the spirits of the dead?”

Ash’s eyes rolled as he looked about, his heart beating in his throat, expecting to see faces moldering and bloody coming forward from the total dark, screaming and gibbering with the insanity of death. He couldn’t breathe. His heart filled with terror.

TREVOR

“The Archon,” Trevor said carefully, “has requested a period of seclusion so that he may contemplate Awa.” He took a deep and silent breath, and continued. “He has bid me—Trevor Rothschilde, Voice of the Archon—to take a more active leadership role, passing final judgment upon certain matters, disturbing him in his chambers only for the gravest of circumstances. To help in this task, he has created a High Council, consisting of members of his express choosing, all of whom you shall meet and hear from in due time.”

He stood carefully on the spot he’d marked on the floor in his private chambers, looking ahead at the faintly glowing yellow light that hung above the lens of the camera, conducting himself carefully, composed, commanding, exactly as if he now stood before an actual crowd of people, just as he’d rehearsed many times.

“I have,” he continued, “enacted a new policy of open communication. Voice boxes have been installed all throughout the city, from which you now may hear my voice and the voice of other important individuals. Additionally, functioning monitors have been put into place in many of the churches and one in Market Street, from which you may witness the face of your leaders.” He stopped and nodded carefully to the camera, revealing only the faintest of smiles, as he’d practiced—to demonstrate to the common people he was on their side.

“And with that,” Trevor said, “I would like to introduce you to the first member appointed to the High Council and the new high priest of the Church of Awa. Please welcome, Abraham.” He stepped away from the camera, leaving no one before it.

A moment later, Abraham stepped into place. “Good evening,” he said. “I am Abraham.” He smiled. He had a long face, elderly and wise, yet with a full head of thick, conservative hair, a davon of course, as were most of the priests, including the exarch for the House of Awa. “The Archon has decided I must oversee the evolution of the Church. I am here to ensure your best interests are upheld.”

He paused for a moment, and then continued. “I know, my children, of the debate that rages within you. Is Awa male or female? Some would ask of me to rule on this difficult question, but I assure you, it is not my place. Only the Archon may make such a ruling, and I promise you, when the Archon emerges, he will have an answer. Until then, I ask you to please maintain the peace. Do not succumb to violence.” He sighed, hanging his head slightly, showing the common people how much their conflict pained him. “That is all for now. Thank you.” He stepped away.

Trevor fumbled to move quickly, came around to the side of the camera, and switched it off. He took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, loud this time. That had gone well, he thought.

He shook the tension from his shoulders and slumped into his chair. He looked at the table, at the various faces arrayed before him, at his masks. He looked at Abraham, oddly grotesque without eyes filling those vacant holes. He looked at the rest of the faces of the High Council, slack and motionless.

The godgame had begun.

<<>>

The GODGAME continues in
THE BLOOD OF TALOS
. Available now!

The territory of Nova is in chaos. The Talosian attack has left hundreds dead, the village of Fallowvane burned, and the Alexander family scattered. While her son is taken prisoner before the ruler of Talos for an insidious purpose, a determined mother emerges as the unlikely commander of the Novan militia.

Here a young girl leaves everything behind in search of a new life; a woman seeks the truth to a dark conspiracy; and a man without knowledge of its cultures and customs will enter the City with warning of a threat far deadlier than the war between Nova and Talos, something that already gnaws at the edges of Meridian, bringing with it the smell of rotting flowers, and death.

Not long ago I acquired a tattered suitcase brimming with old papers, journals, and schematics. Upon closer inspection, I found these papers to contain the wondrous descriptions of a world known as Meridian. I have spent the last couple of years enthralled by the accounts written on these papers, compiling notes, and, through a meticulous process of translation, creating a narrative. This narrative, and any others set in the world of Meridian, is a part of what I am calling the
Meridian Codex
, a portion of which, dear reader, you have just finished reading.

Based on what I have been able to translate so far, I anticipate six total books in
The Godgame
series, although the
Meridian Codex
itself may grow larger as new stories are discovered. Those who have read my novellas
Shadow Animals
and
Marrow’s Pit
have likely already made some connections, and may have noticed a few allusions in some of my other work as well.

I must point out that, although I have done my best, an extent of absolute certainty is lost in any translation. As these papers and journals are written in a language that does not currently exist outside the boundaries of fictional realism, I have been forced to approximate selected terms and ideas. Most notable are units of measure, which in my first draft began as
ticks
, and
circles
and
cycles
, but were soon scrapped for less puzzling terms, translated into the language for which I am personally most comfortable: American English. In some places this has also been done with the names of animals as well as technological devices—using proxies from Earth society—in order to preserve the continuity of the narrative. Where these measurements and terms are used, it is enough to make note of their imprecision.

As of this writing, book two,
The Blood of Talos
, is written, being edited, and soon to be released. The story it tells picks up where book one left off, building to the Battle of Ry Field, as the conflict between the City of Talos and the Territory of Nova comes to a head. I have also begun work on book three, in which Marrow’s story is to be told.

Keith Deininger

July 15
th
, 2015