Theatre of the Gods (63 page)

They were most surprised when their opponent shook the stars from his head, and lifted his giant frame to its feet. ‘Now, if we’ve finished play-fighting,’ said the watchmaker’s son, ‘I’ll show you how a real man conducts himself.’

HUNTER

It would be fair to say that the Black Widow had not met many adversaries as worthy as Fabrigas. She had faced a pantheon of great assassins: the Eel, a contortionist who could twist his way down narrow pipes and attack his victims while they sat on the toilet; the Meccanaught, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of every martial art devised, even the silly ones. She’d killed them all. But Fabrigas understood, from his observations of the natural world, that timing was the art of hunting. He had the patience of a super-alligator, the eyes of a night-hawk, the ears of a Sweety. He trod the iron planks, eyes gleaming in the misty gloom. Beside him, the powerful vacuum tubes roared, and his beard rose and sank as he passed each one. By day the catwalks would have been full of stooped figures hurling bails of linen into the tubes.
Swish – Klang!
An iron bar used for poking stubborn bails flashed lazily past the old man’s nose and hit the iron railing; sparks flew. Laughter floated up from below: ‘Careful, she has a pole!’ The Black Widow had ditched her boots so she could move in silence. The old man saw her shadow quiver across the iron rails and he raised the dart tube to his lips, aiming a few yards in front of her. They heard a yelp from the darkness. ‘A singing dart, how
very
dull. If you really want to know where she is I can tell you.’ And from the darkness above, Fabrigas heard the slap of a hand upon a cheek, followed by a thin yelp.

‘Now find her, kill her, make me proud!’

As the dart’s weird toxin took effect they heard her sing, involuntarily, in a high clear voice,

‘
Bridegroom, dear to my heart,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

Lion, dear to my heart
,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.
’

Fabrigas found her in a bay for linen carts; he picked up her song, then her scent: a mix of expensive hand cream, manly shampoo and leather. He saw her wide eyes shining like ponds in the darkness where she cradled her song, and when she sprang for the edge of the platform the old man shot out an arm, caught her hair and dragged her back to the deck. There she lay, quivering like a sparrow, saying, ‘No, my friend, no, no, no. Please, you don’t want to.’ Laughter drifted from the darkness below; the Well Dressed Man rose slowly up on a laundry lift, Dray and his camera beside him. ‘Yes, yes, he does want to. He wants to murder you, O beautiful assistant,’ said the assassin. ‘What good is a magic show without the mortal blow?’ Then in the glare of the cine lamps, within the rolling volleys of fiery light through the windows, the old man took her by the throat and raised her effortlessly to face him.

‘Oh no, friend. You can’t … you don’t …’ She spoke in a strangled voice.

‘You do, old man. Remember how she betrayed you. Remember how you trusted her.’

Outside, the void was a whirlpool of fire and debris.

‘Kill her,’ said the Well Dressed Man. ‘Give the dagger to her heart.’

Fabrigas held the Black Widow in one great hand. She hung like a rat in the talons of a weary old eagle. He had the knife in his left hand. The real knife. Do not think it could be any other way. Don’t
let your mind consider any other possibility. Outside, the battle was coming to a terrible climax. There was a bright flash as a battle station flared and crumbled. The old man’s eyes flared too, and his brow split and twisted like the bark of an old, old tree. And then, as another great ship gave way outside, crumpled like a paper lantern and soaked the features of our fighting figures in terminal light, outshining for a second even the hard glow of cine lamps, he said a word that could not be heard by anyone and plunged the knife into the Black Widow’s chest.

‘Fabrigas!’ The Black Widow sighed as the tears bubbled in the cauldron of her eyes, and were drawn across her cheek by the vacuum force of the laundry tubes, and, ‘Fabrigas,’ she whispered one last time, the word catching like a dry leaf in her throat, and, ‘No,’ she said with her final, trembling breath. The old man, expressionless, withdrew the knife and let it fall to the ground with a ka-sklatter, leaned down towards her, his face dwarfing hers, then he let her fall too. She crumpled upon the iron floor.

Outside, the Fleet of the Nine Churches announced its counterattack with a subsonic blast from its horns so powerful that some of the damaged ships fell clean to pieces; the Diemendääs commanders gasped as the steel parts slowly separated like a handful of leaves dumped upon the black still surface of a pond.

On the platform by the Glory Hole the fighting stopped briefly, and all the people on it raised their eyes to the skies.

‘Oh dear,’ said the Well Dressed Man from the shadows, ‘that sounds like the siren of death for you and your friends. Such a pity.’

Then, from the depths came a response. Initially it seemed to be an echo of the Pope’s siren call bouncing and returning from the planet, but it soon grew much louder, and much,
much
deeper, and when the pressure wave arrived it was a wall of power and fury, popping sails, extinguishing fires, taking the air from lungs, stopping the entire battle in its track.

The galaxies seemed to hold their breath.

‘What … in the Holy Sea … was that?’ said the Pope in his bath, and as if to answer him a curling black shape came from the depths, a tentacle uncoiled from the darkness, passing over the Klaxon fleet, lightly brushing aside the wall of wreckers as it slammed into the battle station from which the papal siren call had come, smashing it apart like a piñata, reducing it in a few seconds to a merrily twinkling cloud of rubble. The explosion was so huge, so bright, that every pilot turned away. Only the Pope kept his eyes wide open and fixed upon the merrily disintegrating castle.

There was a pause of a good minute before the Klaxon commander turned to Descharge, wrinkled his nose and whispered, ‘I think the Sweety might have followed us through.’

I AM, I AM THE TALISMAN

Fabrigas stood enchanted as he watched the vanishing cloud of dust and debris that used to be the battle station. There was a shape emerging from the darkness now, dwarfing the planet, the moon and the assembled fleets. The creature swam towards them, a greenish blob with hazy edges. Its cry shook the heavens.

The Well Dressed Man, too, emerged from the shadows, alarmed to no longer be the most terrifying monster in the universe. ‘Well, there is something I didn’t expect. Time to go, I think. That was certainly quite a show, though.’ The explorer turned to face him and the assassin took a small step back, suddenly alarmed by the way the old explorer towered over him, the calm fire in his eyes. ‘OK. Give me the knife now, handle first, there’s a good man.’ Fabrigas stooped to pick the blade up from the floor. He held it up to the light and the Well Dressed Man squinted. ‘No blood. Well, how on earth could …? Impossible!’

Fabrigas pressed his finger to the tip of the knife and said, ‘Not unpossible, sir, quite possible indeed, in fact.’ There was a mousy squeak as the blade descended. The Well Dressed Man let his disbelieving eyes move slowly from the tip of the knife to the old man’s face. Then he said a single word. It was the worst insult he could possibly have thought to call the old explorer, but this time the ancient face showed no signs of anger.

‘You should not call him a wizard,’ said Fabrigas. ‘My friend the
master does not like it when people say that word to him. Just as Carrofax does not like it when you call him demon. And I do not like it when you call me Little Monster.’

‘You!’ cried the Well Dressed Man.

The old man laughed girlishly, and curtsied. ‘Yes, I have taken this old fool’s mind so I could stop your plan. For I am rather fond of him. You have taught me very well, I think. And for that, I and him are most grateful.’

‘But then where is the real …’ The assassin felt the force of the blade passing between his ribs and gently tickling his heart. He stared into the old man’s eyes with unguarded amazement as the Black Widow appeared behind him, kissed his cheek and said, ‘I have it, Daniel.’

‘I don’t understand how –’

‘Did you really think your parley games would work upon him?’ the old man said. ‘He is Fabrigas. He is my friend. He has the biggest brain the universe has made. Also, these two have the box with my captain in it. And I want him to bring it to me. Now be a sweetie and die.’

It is a truth that when the pale man can turn no paler he turns blue. The Well Dressed Man turned blue, then purple. He walked serenely away and leaned upon the catwalk rail. He looked out through the windows to where the greatest space battle the universe, perhaps any universe, had ever seen was reaching its dramatic climax. He saw a long, lean tentacle reach from the blackness and flick away a battle station as though it was a piece of dust on the arm of a fine coat. He let out a heavy breath.

The beautiful assistant turned to face her magician and said, ‘Is it really you in there, Lenore?’

‘Of course,’ the magician replied. ‘Now I think you have something which belongs to me. I need it very badly.’

‘I’m worried what might happen if I give this to you.’

‘You do not need to think about that. That isn’t your concern. I
need to feel like I have something in the universe. You know how it is.’

The beautiful assistant nodded. She took the small black box from her top and handed it to him.

‘Thank you. I forgive you for kissing his face.’

The Black Widow looked at her Lasiotek Magnesium Chronograph wristwatch. ‘I only have a few minutes left,’ she said. ‘Please tell this old fool that I’ll miss him. And I’m sorry I said his stories were boring.’

‘I will.’

The Black Widow nodded once, then threw herself into the black hole of the nearest laundry tube. The vacuum force took her flying away.

The old man woke from his dream to see the Well Dressed Man leaning on the rail, staring out at the battle. A red blossom had been left for him on the back of the Well Dressed Man’s well-pressed shirt. He looked down at the discarded knives on the floor, furiously trying to piece together the past few minutes.

‘Yes, she is a wonder,’ said the Well Dressed Man. ‘She pulled a veil over my eyes. Made me think I’d thrown away the fake knife when I’d really thrown away … well, who knows what it was.’

‘It was a silver spoon,’ said Dray from the shadows.

‘Ah yes. You know, I was only doing the thing I love, the thing I was born to do. Some make shoes, some bake pies, I control minds. Could I do any different?’

‘No,’ said Fabrigas as he turned the black box over in his hands. ‘We all do what we’re made to do.’

Outside the windows and far away the tiny girl was still enveloped in a bubble of blue light. The Well Dressed Man turned and smiled. ‘Old man,’ he said, ‘despite what I’ve been compelled to do, I have to say, it was the highest privilege to meet you.’ Then he turned back to the fire. There could have been a glass of brandy in his hand. His pale face was caught perfectly in the flames of the burning warships. ‘Do get her home, won’t you?’

‘I’ll do my best.’

And with that the immaculately dressed assassin fell gently over the rail, his buttons clinking on the iron. Fabrigas never heard his body hit the flattened steel.
Kissssssss-Shoooommmmm!

Dray stepped from the shadows. ‘Well, I don’t know about “biggest brain in the universe”,’ he said, ‘but well done anyway. How did you do it? Special earplugs? Foil hat?’

‘To be perfectly honest,’ said Fabrigas, ‘I’m not entirely sure. I think I might have been temporarily possessed.’

‘Typical,’ muttered Dray. ‘Anyway, old cock, I should probably get back down to the city and find my wife. Nice to meet you. Mind how you go.’

And off he wandered into the mist.

‘Yes, I must head off too,’ said Fabrigas as he looked over the rail to the steam press below. ‘I’m rather … pressed … for time.’ And he was sad that there was no one there to hear him.

*

‘Get them! Kill them!’ screamed the Pope. He screamed those words towards the closing doors of the command centre as he was led quickly, by Cardinal Mothersbaugh, towards his evacuation ship.

‘I want them all dead, and their monster too!’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Mothersbaugh, ‘but we really must get you to your escape ship, Holiness, before the monster strikes again.’

Outside, the Sweety
had
struck again. He’d sent another tentacle smashing through the heart of a planet-sized storage ship. Now the papal fleet had turned all its guns upon the furious beast, but the blows were as mosquito bites upon the haunch of an elephant. Meanwhile, the Klaxon fleet continued to surge like blood through the gaping holes in the Pope’s defences, and the Diemendääs fleet received the order to fall back to safety – wherever that was. The eternal night of space was lit so brightly now that it seemed as if a
new sun had been born, and every brave soul in the battle could look upon the Sweety, in his glory, a creature beyond the size of a gas-giant, his jaws wide and handsome, his long, elegant arms reaching out on every side to shred and smash, his belly white and pulsing with the fire from the Pope’s guns as they rained holy hell upon him. Fabrigas the younger was doing his best to take the
Necronaut
within range of the platform, but the terrible forces of the vortex meant he couldn’t get nearly close enough. The Fleet of the Nine Churches, locked in a tender embrace with the many long arms of the Sweety, was losing its own battle with the abyss.

From the far end of the execution platform the judge’s voice could be heard as he tried to get back into the command palace. ‘Can’t quite get the door open here! Seems to be locked from the inside!’ Roberto still had his palm against the maintenance panel, but he was struggling to divert enough power to the palace’s engines, while still keeping a protective bubble around him and Lenore. The bosun had each of his hands around a priest’s throat while another man-giant was on his back with his arm around his huge neck.