Theatre of the Gods (37 page)

The tiny figure approaches Roberto where he stands shivering in the cosmic night, and she says, if his lip-reading is accurate: ‘Hello. I think I am your date. My name is Leno.’ What a strange name for a girl, he thinks. And then he gives her the flowers, and she curtsies. Then he shows her his diamonds, letting her rub a few together in her small, green hands. She seems impressed so far. And then with nothing else to do, and with the rides at the Worlds’ Fair closing for the night, they go down to the marina, and out into the wide, wide universe together, and vanish.

GLORY BE TO HER, OUR QUEEN, FOR SHE WILL LIVE FOR EVER

When the Man in the Shadows stepped into the silver elevator car he heard a song and knew it from his childhood. ‘Glory Be To Her, Our Queen, For She Will Live For Ever’. He had heard the ear-haunting melody as many times as he had pennies – and as you know the Man in the Shadows had many a penny. He knew that this time it was being played by a small, brass orchestra somewhere deep inside the palace. Day through night the four musicians played the song and their notes were channelled through the web of copper pipes to every corner of the grand city. If you arrived at the palace in the morning the song would sound bright and full of energy, but throughout the day, as the band played towards exhaustion, the song would wilt, so that if you rode the car down in the evening you’d hear a hymn full of agony and sadness. And if you happened to be wandering the gloomy palace at midnight, the time when the dirge stopped briefly so that the graveyard band could take its place, the dimly sparkling corridors would be filled, for a few seconds, with the rasping breaths and desperate sobs of the exhausted musicians.

Then the song would start afresh.

When the elevator door opened at the highest floor he saw three rigid shadows.

‘How do, sisters?’

‘Sir.’

‘Please excuse this meeting place, sisters. The Queen, I think, suspects our plot.’

‘Then let her suspect. It makes no difference. Would you care for some cactus julep?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘It is freshly smuggled from the fields of Zapotek. It’s rather tart.’

‘I’m sure. I have my own smugglers. To business.’

The first sister gave a sign and the deaf-mute servant pushed his drinks trolley away.

‘If my intelligence is correct, sisters, Her Majesty does not know the ship survived. But she is suspicious about the Vangardik attack on our fleet. She wonders why they would want to start a long and bloody war. She is not completely slack-brained.’

‘She is ugly and stupid. When we rule she will be flayed, and her octopus, too.’

They walked, and the ancient song walked with them.

‘And what news from beyond? Is the Vengeance yet drained of all her blood? Can we send a pint to our master, Calligulus?’

‘The plot thickens there, I’m afraid. My assassin has turned silent.’

‘Assassin? You said there were six hunters.’

‘Did I not say? All dead but one. Very strange. But I am confident he will kill the girl and erase the file. Meanwhile, our master’s envoy, Lord Bosch, grows impatient. He asks after proof of the green girl’s death. And the wizard’s. I have told him he perished at the crossing. It was a necessary lie. Now we are truly in a corner.’

‘We sigh. Must there always be bad news?’

‘Sisters, do not give in to misgivings. Fortune goes always to the strongest, the most cunning. You do not see the worm striking fear into the heart of the crow. Be patient and we will conquer.’

‘Who would have imagined that a plot to rule the universe could be so complicated?’

‘It only becomes complicated if Calligulus finds out, sisters. He has strictly forbidden us from travelling to foreign dimensions. If he
finds out you signed an order to send the Pope to the next universe he will have you dismembered, then tortured for all eternity. An eternity is a blink for him, but a very long time for the likes of us.’

‘He is vicious.’

‘He has given us much.’

‘Things, sir, he gave us things. It is Final Power we crave. The Wall of Peace taunts us.’

They heard a noise down the corridor.

‘I must bid you farewell, sisters. It is dangerous for me to stay too long. There has been an incident at my Hotel Empyrean which I must attend to.’

‘That old dusty inn? Why bother with it?’

‘We can’t comprehend why you don’t turn it in for scrap. It would be worth more.’

‘You might be surprised, sisters. Not all treasures glitter brightly. That hotel has been in my family for more than a hundred generations. It is the only hotel with a view of the centre of the Sphere. It is a monument to the charms of the old empires, and I am rather fond of it. But now I must rush. All will be fixed soon. Our enemies are about to meet the ungodly power of the Pope.’

The Man in the Shadows left, just as the palace’s clocks struck midnight and the halls were filled with the sound of bloody breaths through ragged throats. He vanished into the darkness.

‘I believe,’ said the first sister, ‘that we were in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the second, in a voice like the echo of the ghost of a raven. ‘The first one to find the child who was late with our supper gets to smother him.’

DINNER BELL

‘When the night becomes hungry we must give him food.’

These simple words were spoken as an explanation to the prisoners who stood on the platform at the edge of the compound, and it addressed the issue of why they were about to be eaten. The wooden stage backed onto the jungle. It was walled in on the sides and roof by batteries of sharpened bamboo spikes, and at the back by a huge carved face whose mouth was an entrance to a wooden slide wide enough for several people to pass through – and several soon would. The slide led down to a clearing before a dark jungle cave. The whole set-up looked like a fun-ride at a family-friendly amusement park. It was not. Our friends from the
Necronaut
were gathered in the centre of the platform. When given the choice of throwing in their lot with the Marshians, or joining Lulabelle and the old man for what seemed to be a fairly standard sacrificial death ritual, the other travellers – Bosun Quickhatch, Lenore, Lambestyo and Miss Fritzacopple – had chosen to die with their friends. So a round of slow applause for them.

‘Well, this is a thing,’ said the captain.

‘Some sort of ritual sacrifice?’ said Fabrigas, and his servant grinned.

‘Some sort, my old friend,’ he said, and a female voice in Fabrigas’s left ear said, ‘I told you. I tried to warn you. You should have destroyed my journal sooner. There’s still time. Help is coming. Survive the
slaughter for as long as you can. And don’t go down the slide. Oh lord!’

On the unwalled end of the platform, opposite the idol’s grimacing face, stood a group of Marshians dressed in ceremonial masks of leaves and feathers. They lingered near sacrificial tables upon which were laid out a selection of frightening tools. One Marshian beat a drum, another played a crude trumpet. Birds flitted around the diners, attracted by the plumage they wore, and the birds enjoyed the bugs in the air, and the whole spectacle was merry, even in the grismal half-light. (Grey and dismal: ‘grismal’ – it’s a word, consult your dictionary!)

On a smaller balcony above the platform the Worm sat cross-legged, surrounded by some of his young acolytes. Skyorax lurked behind him like a foul shadow. The Worm wore Fabrigas’s cloak, and the rest of the group’s possessions, recovered from the sleeping barn, were laid out on a low table nearby. Fabrigas had been given a crudely made cloak which more than ever made him look like a wizard.

‘Friends,’ said Skyorax, ‘when the moon comes we gather in the sacred place to offer sacrifice, and to consume the meat … of power!’

‘That’s us, I think,’ said the captain. ‘Well, they’re in a for a treat because after years in space my skin is dry and far too salty.’

‘Bring forth … the seasoning!’

Two young girls brought out an urn which looked like a giant salt shaker. Lulabelle was sobbing quietly, and the humanoid pilot who shared the stage with them was laughing, laughing! ‘Now we’re done! Now we’re meat! They’ll eat our hands! They’ll eat our feet!’

‘Quiet, fool!’ said Miss Fritzacopple.

‘Here comes the storm again,’ said the captain. Yes, the wind came strongly now, sweeping and singing through the jungle. His mad fellow pilot moaned, ‘I can feel the knife already. I can feel it sawing on my very bones!’

‘Be brave, young lady,’ said Fabrigas to Lulabelle, ‘we won’t let them eat you,’ but the girl was somewhere else.

‘You have a plan?’ asked the captain.

‘Of sorts,’ said Fabrigas. ‘I’m wandering upon it. And you?’

‘I will make them regret trying to eat me.’

Finally, the Worm raised his hand, the drums ceased. It was a mad pretentious affair. ‘Friends,’ said the Worm, ‘I have such great news. You are all to be released. You are free to go. You have a choice. You can go down the slide into the jungles, to commune with the Beast. Or you can stay here and enjoy our hospitality.’ The Marshians by the tables each armed themselves with a cruel instrument of human gastronomy: some took long blades, some cleavers, some saws, some rib-cutters. They stood waiting.

‘A fine set of choices,’ said Fabrigas. ‘We choose to leave.’

‘Very well. Let the games begin!’ The Worm picked up a hammer and hit a small gong. The sound shimmered through the night. Then, from the idol’s maw, they heard the roar of a great beast. ‘He always comes when we ring the dinner bell. You are free to change your minds at any point. Do you still wish to leave, or will you stay with us for dinner?’

‘We still want to leave,’ said Lambestyo, as he snapped off a bamboo stake like it was a stick of hard candy and brandished it. ‘But I think we’ll leave by the front door.’

‘Very well!’ The Worm gave a small gesture to a Marshian who stood beside an inconspicuous-looking wooden lever. The man pushed the lever forward and suddenly the entire lower platform tilted like a see-saw, sending the prisoners tumbling, all except Lambestyo, who merely shifted his balance, and the botanist, who rolled gracefully backwards and onto her feet again. ‘I used to be a dancer,’ she said to Lambestyo, who simply shrugged.

‘Here we go! Here we go!’ said the mad pilot as he fell towards the idol’s mouth. ‘Meat for the oven! A feast fit for a beast!’ and he cried out in terrified joy as he slid down into the beast’s domain.

CANNIBAL CULTS

Blood! Flesh! Sacrifice! You won’t be surprised at all to know that there are many cannibal cults around. The Bones Simple, of the planet Little China, are big trouble. They are a secret society of movie stars who believe that eating the spleens of ordinary people will keep them young for ever. The Cannibotes of Pii believe the only way to keep the spirits of their slain enemies from seeking revenge is to eat every part of them. As you can imagine, the task becomes a nightmare after significant massacres, and sometimes, as in the case of the Battle of New Hebros, when nine Cannibotes defeated an enemy force of seven thousand soldiers, basically impossible. The Triste de Coeur steal hearts in the night and use them in fine-dining recipes for wealthy patrons. The Tremenon del Diablo are a sustainable cannibal cult from the jungle world near Bonidune. They take non-vital organs from their anaesthetised victims before returning the patients to their families. The Uvons travel their universe in spaceships shaped like saucers. They abduct their victims, remove their brains and replace them with those from monkeys.

There are many more.

The Burger Time burger chain operates in seven million locations around the universe and is best avoided.

THE BEAST WITHIN

Oh, the other one I forgot to mention was the Minionites, sometimes called Marshians because of their love of swamp-life: a small subgroup of an ordinarily non-cannibalistic tribe under the power of a charismatic human ex-prince which once every full moon gives sacrifice to a great beast in return for its protection, and draws power (or so they believe) from the consumption of human flesh.

When the stage tipped, Lenore and Lulabelle went tumbling back towards the idol’s mouth, and the bosun, with a cry, rolled after them. The giant was not a dancer like Miss Fritzacopple, and the children slipped beyond his grasp and down the throat of the idol. As they vanished a great roar smashed the darkness. The beast’s cry floated up through the mouth, and was so dreadful that every heart upon the platform stopped drumming, briefly, before hammering on faster than ever. But the call of the beast was nothing compared to the shrill, shredding screech of the green-skinned ladyling who had fallen into its lair. ‘I’m coming!’ cried the bosun as he threw himself down the idol-mouth.

Skyorax cried, ‘Oh great one! For your protection we offer you the flesh of these mortal souls! But please don’t take the beauty! Please leave her pretty flesh for me!’

‘Quiet, fool!’ cried the Worm.

Captain Lambestyo met the viciously armed Marshians who inched their way down the platform, hungry for people-flesh, and, armed
only with a shard of bamboo, he began to make them regret their poor dietary choices. Miss Fritzacopple, unarmed, ducked around the swinging blades like an expert contortionist. In the flimsy gravity she darted, tumbling over the heads of the frustrated locals. ‘Exactly what kind of dancing did you do?’ said the captain.

‘Modern!’ she replied as she arched her back below a flying cleaver, which split a bamboo stake in two.

The battle continued. The Worm was enjoying it greatly from his perch, though it was hard to tell. He smiled, bemused, at the impending slaughter. His mouth watered. The botanist would be a tender morsel, true, though the old man was probably only good for stew. He nodded, impressed, as two of his best men cornered the hooded old man and moved in for the kill. He was rather surprised when, at that moment, he glanced to his left and saw Fabrigas sitting cross-legged beside him. ‘Hello,’ the old man said. ‘Impressive set-up you have here.’ Albert was dumbstruck. ‘Oh, you thought you saw your butchers cleaver me to death?’ said Fabrigas. ‘Just a parlour trick. I also do a fine turn with trick knives. They’re in my beloved cloak there, which I’ll now be taking, along with those things belonging to my crew.’