Theatre of the Gods (9 page)

‘And just who will be mad enough to accompany you on this expedition?’ said the scholars who meet in dingy cafes.

‘No one,’ said Fabrigas. ‘This will be a solo expedition.’

Laughter. Cruel, cruel laughter.

And so the former great explorer set off to chart the Infiniverse in his tiny saucer with its top-secret interdimensional engine. He left his Empire behind, travelled out into the furthest reaches. There, in the remotest corner of the universe, he experienced breathtaking solitude as he passed through regions of space so empty that there was not a breath of light. He had no crewmates to share an exclamation with as he came upon the remains of a galaxy-sized computation
array left behind by a civilisation forgotten by the ages. No one heard his screams as he fell into the furious winds of the Nebula Australis. The winds flung his craft like a discus to almost a third the speed of light. He was knocked unconscious by the gravitational forces. When he awoke, if his testimony is to be believed, he found that he had vanished from his universe, and appeared in a new one.

It was a universe identical to the one he had come from. He was discovered by a team of oil prospectors who agreed to take him and his damaged saucer craft back to the Empire. As he travelled back, astonished, he found the same constellations, the same planetary systems. And when he arrived in the cities (which seemed, to the eye, utterly identical to the cities he had left), he found people identical to the ones he’d said goodbye to. These people claimed to have farewelled him on his voyage to the next universe just a few months before.

Yes, I know what you are thinking. A lesser Omninaut (such as yourself) would have concluded, seeing these same places, these same bemused people, that he had in fact never
left
his universe. But M. Francisco Fabrigas was not a lesser Omninaut. He was a greater one, and this universe, he concluded, was clearly not his. Even when he returned to his old apartment and found it abandoned. Even when his keys fitted the door. Even when he found cards on the table from his few remaining acquaintances, wishing him well on his voyage to the next universe. That was the only difference he could detect in this universe: that he had already left it. ‘So my exact double set off at the same time as I did. How extraordinary!’ Those around him shook their heads in disbelief.

He was disappointed not to meet himself. He wandered around his double’s apartment in a dream, picking up objects and saying, ‘This is not my beautiful lamp. This is not my marble baboon.’ This was not his unconquerable universe. It was an alien universe, and it made him feel even more alone, even more of a stranger than he ever had.

*

It was also the kind of dimension – much like the one he claimed to have left – which did not take to strangers, or their ideas about other universes. Until now.

‘… And then when the giant clam opened you were standing there, dressed only in kelps and weeds of the ocean. And you held in your hand a starfish, and you said, “Take, my Queen, this is for you. I bring you the stars, the stars from the borderless sea.” Oh, what a dream it was!’ The Queen spoke now in the excited voice of a child. ‘Is it not fantastic? My vision has told me that you would be the one to restore this Empire’s greatness, and give the people hope again. So you see how this great Empire needs you, my dear old Fabrigas.’

(
Dear
old Fabrigas. The Queen had once declared that if he spoke again of other universes she would have him fed to omnigators, and then have those fed to wild mountain pigs, and then have those set on fire.)

‘Our people suffer from plague and shortages. Our enemies mass at our borders. They want to destroy us. We need hope again. And that is why we are sending a fleet to the next dimension.’

‘No no no. Oh please, no …’

The Queen was building to a fever pitch, the wires attached to her limbs were fizzing on their pulley wheels. ‘My people need hope. They despair, my people, but when they hear that the Great Fabrigas has decided to help us by leading us to the next universe they will sing again!’

‘My … my Queen,’ said Fabrigas, ‘I
beg
of you not to require of me such a thing … ’ He took a small step, a large slip, the magistrates gasped, in the tank below a single fat tentacle flopped upon the floor with a slap that echoed like a whip-crack.

‘Do not be frightened.’ The Queen’s eyes were wide, her voice a whisper. ‘You will be given the best and fastest vessel, a strong and able crew, as fine a pilot as we can catch, and you will be in the company of the largest and most formidable battle fleet we can
muster. You need not fear. This is not a death sentence. You will be like one of our great young heroes: leading our warriors into the unfathomable depths, facing many trials, returning home to my bosom a conqueror. Your face will be carved in the Hall of the Heroes. You will stand forever with other Immortals: Tristanzi, Gyminastica, Ultravoxus.’

‘My Queen, I am not a young hero any more. I am an old man. For the love of everything, I am more than one thousand years old!’

‘Silence, hero! It is decided. Now I’m thirsty!’ cried the Queen. Both her hands flew into the air and hung there for a second. ‘Thirsty!’ cried Barrio, his crooked mouth slick with spittle. Eunuchs sped into the room carrying silver trays with glasses full of coloured liquids. ‘Red!’ cried the Queen. ‘I want r-r-r-r-r-red!’ The word ‘red’ whirred off her tongue like a propeller. A eunuch held a beaker the colour of day-old blood to the Queen’s face and her awful, greenish lips closed like a sea slug around the tip of the straw. The sucking sound rang through the chamber; it sounded like strips of paper being slowly torn. And Fabrigas’s heart – that too had been torn into even pieces. He gazed down at the iron cuffs which lay nearby. He thought about his comfortable cell with all his books and his nice, comfortable bed. He looked down at the now-still pond in front of the throne. Several would-be assassins had tried to use non-slip shoes to reach the Queen. They now slept with Leonard. He thought for a second how nice and simple it would be to join the giant octopus in his calm, cool world below the surface.

A FREE BIRD

Word busted from the chamber with the purposeful fury of a team of elephants. In the First Chamber the dice-men turned, gaped, and were trampled. In minutes word had stormed the palace: ‘He is free! The wizard is released! He is redeemed! The Queen says there are other universes!’ and then it broke into the Empire, and it was no longer like elephants, it was like a plague-fall: invisible, invasive, leaping from skin to lip and ship to ship, the speed at which it tripped across the starry-mist was frightening. Men swooned. Women raised their fists and cheered. The Ethernet lit up, all systems overloaded, there were several major burnouts in the hubs. In days it spread across the Empire. ‘Fabrigas has been released from prison! Fabrigas will lead an expedition to the next universe! All is forgiven! He will not let us down!’

The enemy empires picked up the news through their delicate spy networks. The Vangardiks, faced for the first time with the genuine threat of a trans-dimensional attack, upgraded their threat level to ‘Burnt umber’. Then, having flown merrily across the known universe, the word returned to the old man’s cell, slipped under the door, and found his face stricken with a breathtaking sadness. The word came back on the banner of the
Gazette and Sentinel
: ‘DREAM OF A QUEEN: THE WIZARD OUR SAVIOUR?’

He heard it whispered by the guards who passed his door: the hope, the tragic optimism. ‘This will show those Vangardik beggars!
This will teach them for stealing our ice girl!’ He saw it in the eyes of the girl who brought him his toast. It was the worst look she could possibly have given him: it was a look of hope.

‘Is sir not yet packed to leave?’ said Carrofax tenderly. ‘Her Majesty has made you a free bird.’

‘Yes. Free,’ said the free bird.

The free bird left his toast and his newspaper unpecked. He left the corner of his bed, the books in piles, the papers, and went over to the small window. There were no bars on the window. Why should there be when outside is an ocean of emptiness?

Me babe we had a sweedy love,

Those feelings cannot change.

(Oi!)

So please don’t take it badly,

’Cause the lord knows I’m to blame.

(Oi!)

But, ifI stayed here with you,

Things could never be the same.

’Cause I’m free upon the ocean,

And this bird ye cannot tame.

(Oi!)

(This bird ye cannot tame,

This bird ye cannot tame.)

I’m free upon the ocean,

And this bird ye cannot tame.

   
(Oi!)

‘Sea Bird’ – traditional shanty

Modern Times

By M. F. Fabrigas, aged 6 & ¾

In the future we will have invented many things that do not exist today. Some of these things will be time ships, time viewers (masks you can wear so you can see back in time to before you were born), portable phonographs (for travelling), sleeping tonics (that let a person sleep for only one hour and wake refreshed), and a way to communicate with creatures and other species who have different languages from ours. We will find new energy sources besides steam and oil which will mean that we can build smaller engines for travelling on land, sea and space. I would like to have a ship that can travel under the water. I think that some people have already invented this, such as armies, but they keep it a secret from us. I would like to invent a ship that was the size of a carriage so that families would be able to travel in space without having to go on big uncomfortable ships that sink. I think we could have a small ship that runs on compressed gas and that has comfortable seats and a table for cards and perhaps even a small phonograph or magic lantern for entertainments on a long voyage. In the future I think we could travel a long way by putting people to sleep for the whole voyage and then waking them when we arrive. That is all that I think about the future.

M.F.F. (x.x.x.)

HE WHO SAW THE DEPTHS

‘Keep a good ship,’ his father had always said, and by that he meant that you should run your company, and your family, as if it was a mighty ship of war. His father, the book baron, had made his fortune printing cheap copies of the great books of the universe. They kept a big house in a wealthy gated district of Carnassus, walled off from the supernumerary horrors of the city. They had a servant, and young Fabrigas a nanny, called Danni, whom he loved. He worked hard at study, helped his mother at home and became so engrossed in subjects that his father often had to come to his room and say, ‘Stop now. Sleep. Tomorrow, greatness!’ His tutor went mad when Fabrigas learned his whole year’s work in a week. He quit and went to live on a moon.

After that came events well documented. Fabrigas solved a difficult problem posted on a public board and was given the place of junior monk at the Dark Friars’ Academy. Then he shocked the Academy by leaving to become an explorer.

‘Great scientists should not read; they should go, and see!’

His master was cautiously supportive. ‘Keep a good ship,’ Provius had always said, and by that he meant that an explorer should keep his body – the vessel in which he lived and breathed – in rugged good health. Eat well, sleep well, exercise your body and your mind. ‘For what good is a sturdy ship if you yourself are sick?’ He had always been wise, much wiser than his pupil. How Fabrigas missed him. He
missed him so much that some days he could hardly stand the knot of pain in his chest. He would lie, often for days, in his bed, his hand clutched to his chest, while Carrofax sat mercifully, patiently by.

‘Carrofax,’ he would cry, ‘I am not much longer for this stormy sea of life!’

‘Oh,’ his loyal servant would say, ‘if only I could tell you that was true, sir, but you are still a long way from the shore.’

And it had always been a long and difficult journey. In the years of isolation his vessel had sagged low in stagnant waters. This universe was dark and full of death and misery. He despised this universe, and he despised himself for coming here. And now another mission full of pain and suffering! How strange, how awful. Since the death of his master, Fabrigas had made nine attempts on his own life. He had failed nine times. Ten, if you count today’s attempt to have the Queen execute him. Even in self-murder he was a failure. It was always when Carrofax was away on important business. As his despair had deepened his efforts had become more concerted, more elaborate, but every time he tried something would go wrong: a rope would break, a gun would jam, the toxin from the thorn of the lover’s rose would leave him sick for days, but not end him, the poisonous bats would for some reason refuse to bite his neck. Soon all dangerous objects had been removed from his cell. ‘Prince Albert, now, he had the right idea. Steer your ship into the sun! Feel the terrible burning fury of this great universe and know that you are nothing! That is the way to go.’