Theatre of the Gods (23 page)

THREE SISTERS

Midnight in the palace of the Queen.

‘Things have spun out of control, sisters. Our master has asked simple things from us.’ The Man in the Shadows had docked the
Titanrod
near the Royal Palace, and while his guest from the Empyrean was sleeping he had summoned the three sisters. ‘Kill an old man; kill a small girl. One senile fool and a tiny girl alone in a terrible universe.’

‘Oh, but we will crush her,’ a sister spoke, in a voice like sewing needles running over tin. ‘We’ll find that mouse.’

‘We’ll crush her tiny body.’

‘We’ll hang her by the tail.’

‘We’ll put her mousy head upon a spike.’

‘Then eat it like a pickle.’

‘Sister, how very gross.’

‘I do apologise.’

‘The wizard’s fleet is destroyed, sir. We signed the order to give you ships. You loaded the wizard’s boats with exploding booze.’

‘Already people are talking about the Vangardik attack, sir. Our younger sister will be embarrassed into abdicating. Plan UWX is one step closer. The people want blood.’

‘So simple.’

‘So elegant.’

‘Not simple or elegant, sisters. Mattlocke failed. The wizard escaped.
His ship was not destroyed with the others. The
Necronaut
’s flight box was ejected and recovered. It tells us he crossed over.’

‘Foul news.’

‘Indeed. And if he survived he will surely have observed that these were not Vangardik ships, that they were our own ships in disguise.’

‘Sweet merciful wounds.’

‘It gets worse, sisters,’ said the Man.

‘Worse?!’

‘Yes, sisters, and please don’t shout. I would not like to raise Lord Bosch. The wizard is not alone. My sources say that the Vengeance did indeed reach the ship and now travels by his side. They are like a happy family.’

‘Sweet mercies!’

‘The Ministry of Secrets’ Occult Activities Division reports that he painted dark symbols on his ship to attract her. He clearly plans to use her as part of his plot to foil our Master Plan.’

‘Outrageous! Dark plans are our domain!’

‘It gets worse, sisters.’

‘Worse!’

‘How could it get worse?’

‘This is the greatest amount of bad news that could possibly be presented to a group of people on one occasion.’

‘Not so. I mentioned how a file with sensitive information regarding our pact with Calligulus has leaked.’

‘Noooooooooo! Do not say it.’

‘It’s all in the file, sisters: our plot for universal domination; the secrets Calligulus has shared with us.’

‘Stop hurting us!’

‘Our intelligence tells us that the file has materialised aboard the
Necronaut
.’

‘Dear Lord!’

‘The Lord can’t help you, sisters. Not if Calligulus finds out about this file. One of his messengers is sleeping just a few rooms away.’

‘Let us murder him!’

‘Sisters, let’s not lose our heads. As you know I sent a group of bounty hunters to tidy up – six of the best.’

‘This is good.’

‘Bounty hunters are good.’

‘Tell us they are brutal.’

‘They are clean and brutal. But we need more insurance, sisters. We must fire our big guns at this problem.’

‘What do you mean? Send the Black Watch?’

‘Bigger.’

‘… The Armagedix Homing Virus?’

‘Bigger.’

‘Surely we don’t need to involve the Postal Service in this.’

‘Even bigger than them, sisters.’

‘No!’

‘This young duke is right,’ said sister two. ‘Only the Pope can help us now.’

‘Precisely, sisters,’ said the Man in the Shadows. ‘If we can convince the Pope to embark upon a crusade he can kill these traitors, burn the ship, dispose of our spy, destroy the file, there’ll be no evidence, no recriminations, even Calligulus won’t know. We will be quieter than a mouse. Then he will finally give us the tools we need to proceed to end-game. We can smash the Wall, defeat the Vangardiks, crush the Concordat. Even the Xo will not oppose us.’

‘It is too much, sir!’

‘It is like sending the Hammer of the Gods to kill an ant.’

‘A god-hammer is what’s needed here, Sisters of Mercy. Calligulus has declared that his enemy’s daughter must never reach maturity. I have seen what our Dark Lord can do to those who disappoint him. The Pope is the only way. The Fleet of the Nine Churches will crush the Vengeance.’

‘But the Pope does not believe in other universes.’

‘Then we will convince him. More importantly, we’ll have to
convince the Queen to turn the fires of heaven on her beloved wizard.’

‘Sir, you leave that to us.’

MISFORTUNE’S QUEEN

They called her ‘Misfortune’s Queen’. Misfortune for the age she was born into: a time of war, famine, shortages and more war. Misfortune to be born into a profoundly ruthless family whose jealousy and cruelty seemed limitless, whose passion for betrayal and violence was bountiful and brutal. Parents who would brutalise their children for sport; siblings who would throw one another on the fires of hell if it meant being a foot closer to heaven. Oh, Misfortune’s Queen, to be born into such a family, at such an age in history, and with neither brains nor looks to help you.

But Misfortune’s Queen was built of stuff from which few are made. She did what she could with her looks – and by that I mean she declared herself a perpetual virgin: ‘The Impenetrable Princess’. The only man who was ever allowed access to her private quarters was her underwit, Barrio, whom she had rescued from the Slaughter of the Fools when she was five, who had the intellect of a toddler, and who had hardly left her side since.

And in place of a brain she fostered a simple kind of political ruthlessness, the kind employed by young women in school corridors: with cold cunning hidden behind a veil of feigned innocence she was able to play the runt and turn her siblings on each other. She took everything fate threw at her: the shortages, the Great Depression, the threat of UWX. She was Misfortune’s Queen, but she still had her throne. And she had one last friend: Barrio. And she had her ‘sisters’.
She kept her triplet cousins close, knowing that they could never steal her throne. She gently tamed their mercilessness. She let them know her plans, and let them sign executive orders on her behalf. She let them call her ‘sister’, though to hear them say it, in their voices like a warm snake running over ice, terrified her.

‘Sister.’

‘Sister.’

‘Sister.’

Echoes in the chamber of the Queen. Whispering voices, a clacking clock, an envelope of light unfolds across a marble floor. Three figures penetrate the sanctum, the phantoms float through the gloom; three pale faces lean in close.

‘Sister.’

Words a violet
hisssssssss
.

‘Sister. We came when you called.’

‘We always do.’

‘We’re here for you, sister.’

‘We’re always here in the night.’

‘Don’t fear, sister.’

Words a phlegmy rattle. Towards her bed they come, three sisters with black nails on fingers pale and bony, they comb their way through tangled orange loops of hair saying, ‘Sister.’

‘Sister.’

‘Siiiiiiiiister.’

Finding the base of the skull they scratch gently at the brittle skin. They run those delicate bewitching fingers to her cheek and tap lightly with the tip of a nail upon her eyelid.

‘Sister, don’t dream of that foul wizard tonight.’

‘No, don’t dream of him.’

‘Dream of us instead.’

Their voices are like a thousand beetles dying in a marble bath. The Queen’s head lolls upon the royal pillow; she cries out in her sleep, the warble of a forgotten lamb.

‘There, there.’

‘Things always seem bleak before the daylight.’

‘People are talking. Saying black things.’

‘They say you had the Devil Girl and lost her.’

‘They say you sent the wizard to his death.’

‘But he is not dead.’

‘Oh no. We know he is alive. He stole the Vengeance.’

‘Naaaaaoooooohhhhhhhh!’ The Queen rolls and sinks oily teeth into her pillow. The clock’s dread bell springs the hour, its chimes shimmer off the marble.

‘There, there.’

‘Our spy tells all.’

‘We know he betrayed you.’

‘Traitor.’

‘Traitor.’

‘But still they blame you.’

‘They say you let our enemies burn our precious lovely ships.’

‘They say you aren’t the Queen you used to be.’

‘They say, they say, they say.’

The Queen moans, heaves, her pale brow gleams in the half-light, the silvery hands caress her feverish brow.

‘There, there.’

‘We’re here for you.’

‘We won’t abandon you.’

‘We’ll fight to the end for you.’

‘We’ll hide you when they come for you.’

‘We’ll hide you and we’ll say, “We know not where!”’

‘We won’t let them do to you the things they did to poor old Beatrix.’

‘Come now.’

‘All is fine.’

‘All is fixed and fair and fine.’

With their voice like scalding gusts of steam.

With their voices like dry sticks burning in a kettle.

With their voices like a silk shroud dragging over bushes.

‘Our fleet will crush the Vangardiks and take their lands.’

‘Our Pope will put to death the heathen girl and all her traitor friends.’

‘Your people will say you’re a good, good Queen.’

‘Not a sickly wet and weary fish-hag.’

‘Not a weak and feeble Queen.’

‘… My little Blackberry. Why did she leave me?’

‘There, there.’

‘It is not the time for tears and regret.’

‘Now is not the time for weakness.’

‘Now is the time for blood and action.’

‘Now is the time to punish traitors.’

‘No mercy.’

‘No mercy.’

‘We’ll always protect you.’

‘Yessss.’

‘Yessss.’

‘Even if the mob come howling in the night.’

‘And they will.’

‘Yessss.’

‘They will.’

‘Sleep well, sister. Dream not of that foul wizard tonight. Dream only of our faces.’

Echoes in the chamber of the Queen. The misty shadows vanish from the room, pulling tight the door behind them, extinguishing all light.

FIRE DOWN BELOW

Captain Lambestyo was dreaming that giant black birds were circling as he lay in the sea on a raft made from paper. He felt the coolness of the water soaking through the paper below, the heat from the sun above. He felt the great birds landing on his chest, scratching at his skull with their talons. He woke to see a shadow sweep silently over; the shadow resolved itself into the shape of an old man. He stormed by, hauling one of the ship’s heavy fire hoses with surprising strength, plunging the nozzle down into a hissing hole in the deck of the
Necronaut
. The flames lit the great man from below so that he looked as though he was battling the very fires of hell. Several others were awake – the larger men upon whom the poison had had less effect. Lambestyo would later learn that the mighty bosun hadn’t slept at all. He appeared now, hauling two hoses, one in each arm, and cursing the heavens he claimed had made him.

Fabrigas, sensing somehow that his captain was stirring, turned at that moment, enclosed in a swirling pall of smoke and vapour, and roared: ‘What are you waiting for, boy, your cocoa?’

*

Artillery bursts had ruptured the hull of the
Necronaut
in two places, leaving the ship’s skeleton bare and steel beams protruding like stumps of shattered bone. Clouds of smoke were fleeing, like a herd of fat,
cheerful sheep, from gashes in the outer hull, and the sails, shredded, had been hauled in and tossed upon the decks like a golden salad. The sailors were showing no bravery. Some were glancing at the life-pods while whispering under their hands. Some were curled up, sobbing. And what good were life-pods anyway when all around them was a sea of emptiness, a grand white void? To where could his cowardly men flee? Into the Hex? Into the terrible abyss between universes?

The slaveys, meanwhile, did the best they could, slipping and sliding in the frothy slicks of hydraulic fluid that swept across the deck. They smothered flames, stopped air leaks, attended to their injured friends. They were, thought Fabrigas, a tiny crew to be proud of. Little H. Sneevlit. Little K. Remanaskus. Little P. Vershigara. Even if they were all about to die.

His captain climbed the ladder to the flight deck, his too-big boots ka-thunking on the rungs. ‘So. This is probably the end?’

‘Yes. Almost certainly. As predicted.’

‘I knew I would not get paid.’ Captain Lambestyo flicked at a fleck of burning ash that was hungrily gnawing a hole in the sleeve of his fine coat.

‘No,’ said the old man. ‘I dare say you won’t.’ His beard was smoking in several spots. ‘Is he still staring at me?’

Lambestyo turned to where Descharge was standing on the deck below. Their commander was leaning on a rail, oblivious to the chaos, glaring up at the old man with eyes like ladles full of molten steel.

‘Yes. I think he hates you even more than me now.’

They both stood staring out beyond the terminal carnage to the peaceful emptiness of the Hex.