Chapter 9

 

There was little enough to be said in favour of having to wear a steel mask day-in, day-out, but Gloriana had to give it this much: in came in awfully handy if one ever needed to do a spot of welding. Her revolving pistol had, frustratingly, jammed during the last rally, and having stripped it down and adjusted the bearings, she was just on the point of fixing it all back together again, when that wretched man Calderon burst into her workshop and put her completely off the task.

        She watched, glad that the mask gave a calm front to her furious expression, as the unwelcome guest cast his amazed idiot glances over the length and breadth of the chamber. The catacombs beneath, and running several miles beyond Fort Rowan, to be absolutely fair to him, were of an architectural style that merited some awe. Here was none of the crude dry-stone work of the daemons, but high, polished walls, without any sign of brickwork, as if the whole cavernous structure was made of a single piece of pale, faintly luminous jadeite stone. Although the sickly light was by no means good enough for her to work by – hence the lanterns she kept around her work-bench – it allowed a very good view around the full extent of the vault, the walls of which curved inwards to a point some hundred or so feet – although this was no easy judgement to make – above the smooth, level floor. The upward view, however, was not recommended, as the curvature of the walls seemed to obey no accepted principles of regularity: their upper dimensions appeared twisted and distorted, and gave the impression that the whole roof should, by rights, collapse. It was a perplexing, and somewhat hypnotic view, and Calderon himself seemed rather absorbed in trying to fathom it out, when Gloriana sharply addressed him:

        “Can I help you, My Lord?”

        “What in the world is this place?”

        “My private space, for your information. In general terms, just some old crypt. Well, actually a pristine, ten thousand year-old relic of the Faery civilisation, which your people have long dismissed as a mere myth through lack of archaeological evidence. There’s a thing. And it’s not even as if this place was a closely guarded secret, although it has been sadly neglected. Queen Rowan made a point of breeding both stupidity and superstition, and those poor fools of hers wouldn’t even come down here during the siege. I expect they thought the Fata Morgana was waiting in the depths, to swallow their souls, or some such peasant gibberish. Incidentally, how did you find your way down here? Wait, I have it: Lycon told you about it, did he not? My list of friends shrinks daily.”

        “Well he made sure that I wasn’t armed, if that’s any comfort. How in heaven’s name did he know about this place, though?”

        “He followed me down her, being the suspicious old reprobate that he is. However, it all meant nothing to him, so he tolerates my... eccentricities.” She turned back to her welding, pointedly ignoring Calderon. After a few irritating seconds of this, he gathered himself for a more assertive approach:

        “Regarding these eccentricities of yours, Your Highness: I just got this telegram from the Professor of Alchemy at the Lyceum,” he declared, flourishing the document, “and I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t be showing it to Lord Lycon. I think he might well be interested.”

        “Would he, My Lord?” she asked, with an air of complete disinterest.

        “On the matter of cobalt? Would you like me to read it to you?” Gloriana shrugged slightly, and toyed with the parts of her pistol, but all actual work in that department had been suspended. Calderon read aloud:

        “‘To Lord-Delator Calderon, stop. Recent experiments with heavy metals demonstrate cobalt, under certain conditions, becomes deadly source–’ With me so far, Your Highness? A ‘deadly source of invisible toxic influence, stop. Most likely weapons use, an explosive device impregnated with cobalt dust to poison a wide area, stop.’ I suspect Lord Lycon might well be interested in that.”

        “You think that of me?” she replied, a little sadly. “That I would wish to inflict a slow, degenerative death on the inhabitants of your cities? And how have I earned this high opinion, My Lord?”

        “If it comes to that, I never mentioned any cities. So what are your plans for them, then? Or shall I just take my speculations to your admirals?”

        “No, My Lord,” she said, calmly, rising from her bench. “Come with me.” Taking a lantern, she set out towards an archway of alarming irregularity that was, insofar as the appalling geometry of the chamber allowed such expressions, on the opposite side to where Calderon had entered. More than a little reluctantly, he followed, and they passed through into a long corridor. Fashioned out of the same smooth substance as the chamber, it appeared to stretch out into infinity, without a sign of any side doors or junctions. Nevertheless, they had not proceeded far before Gloriana turned aside, into a small doorway that Calderon would have completely missed without guidance, and have wondered on for heaven alone knows how long into the nauseating depths of the morbidly-lit tunnel.

        The room that they now entered, although built along the same general principles, such as they were, as the antechamber and tunnel, was at least mercifully modest in size. The smooth far wall was interrupted by a low, flat structure, projecting about two feet into the chamber, at waist-height for a man of Calderon’s stature, and seeming to all intents and purposes to be nothing more than a plain bench, although someone had seen fit to position a wooden chair before it. His baffled looks betrayed his thoughts, and Gloriana answered them with obvious amusement:

        “I think, My Lord, you are less than impressed! And I grant you; it is not very much to look at, although there are markings on that slab, for those who have the eyes to see them. I barely have, and you certainly do not. But sit down, My Lord. And place your hands here, and here,” she indicated, pointing out locations on the flat marble-like surface. “There is nothing to fear. In fact, there is everything for s scholar such as yourself to delight in, as you shall discover.”

        The stone, if stone it was, was warm, prickly, and unpleasant to the touch, but it was not long before Calderon had put such facts out of his mind. The first distractions were the voices. They were disagreeably shrill, and spoke words that were meaningless to him, though he felt nevertheless that he grasped some of the meaning: there were plans afoot to build a great city, that would resurrect the very glories of celestial Arcady for the world to marvel at in conscious inferiority, down through the ages. Then he saw the architects: both male and female creatures of striking beauty, vaguely familiar. Certainly, their shining red eyes, their almost ethereally lissom forms, their golden-hued skin (which was, he could hardly avoid noting, completely naked, to no impairment whatsoever of their statuesque grace), and their flawless faces held substantial echoes of the daemons that he had known, but without a trace of their harsh, carnal, and organic nature.

        Speaking of the harsh, the carnal, and the organic, he then saw the builders of the city: uncouth folk, living in a barbaric squalor of skins, hovels, and raw meat for breakfast, dinner, and tea. The beautiful ones, however, took pity (or something along those general lines) on these wretches, and tempted some of them away with great promises, and others with what one might describe for more malign purposes in this day and age as the fine art of brainwashing, and took them into service. Those primitives that lacked the good sense to appreciate their situation, and there were many such ingrates, were changed by careful arts into a new hybrid form – still mainly human, but with enough affinity to their masters, that the latter could easily manipulate them at will. Calderon could hardly avoid noting that their mental powers knocked his mind-reading act into a cocked hat. To those primitives that were willing, obliging, and envious to learn from their new masters, the beautiful ones were generous in their rewards, and the builders picked up many useful and interesting arts which they carried back to their people. Nothing, of course, that would enable them to rival the great city on this side of judgement day, but enough to put an end to their slavery to the order or nature for a good few centuries: it was the turn of the environment to start adapting to their needs, by hook or by crook...

        Calderon started back from the panel, breathing heavily and sweating generously. Gloriana, leaning against the wall and bathed in its putrid glow, observed him in satisfied silence.

        “An archive,” he declared, between breaths. “A telepathic archive, by gods!”

        “Quite so. You like, My Lord?”

        “It’s incredible! Takes it out of you, mind.”

        “Meant for beings of stronger stuff, no doubt. Still, as long as one takes it in small doses, and I should know by now. I found it years ago, and it’s never done me any permanent injuries. Out of interest, which file did you see?”

        “Something about angels building a city, as near as I could make out. And there were other – human people. And the angels, if that’s what they were–”

        “Faery My Lord. The old ‘City of the Gods’ file,” she mused, with a note of derision. “So what do you make of them, then? Do you think they were exiles from the heavenly spheres? Or, as Professor Lingate would doubtless have it, ‘adaptations’ of humanity? Or arrogant, irresponsible fools, by any other name?”

        “Faery... You don’t mean that this is the city, do you?”

        “Oh, goodness no. This place is a mere nothing, My Lord. The city was destroyed. Totally. If you concentrated, you could probably find the file on that, but I really couldn’t recommend it, unless you have as strong a stomach as any ox.”

        “They created your peop... created the daemons, didn’t they?”

        “So it would seem,” she answered, with suspicion, “but why, My Lord, would you believe that I should be ashamed to acknowledge my own people? Let me save you the trouble of answering: doubtless, you know something of my history. Well be a good boy, and I shall try to conceal my indifference. I reconciled myself with this body before you were even alive, and you would do well to bear in mind that any daemon you meet in this day and age was as like as not born to human parents. We are far removed from your ‘angels,’ Lord Robert, and all the better for it!”

        “Why so, Your Highness? They were clearly very powerful.”

        “They were power-obsessed, and passed that infection on to your ancestors before they managed to wipe themselves out with the fruits of their own wretched ingenuity! But when the daemons were freed from their slavery, they renounced the arts and ambitions of their creators, and proved what your people have long denied: the possibility of the simple, pastoral existence, and a total absence of pointless moral ideals, futile philosophies, and self-denying restraints on the impulses of nature, where there is the will for it, My Lord.”

        “Is that in the archive, or, respectfully, are you just spouting folk history?”

        “To your first question, no. And if by ‘folk history’ you mean recorded by my people, as best they were able, then I suppose I am. I’m sorry that I cannot quote you any authoritative or professional liars and propaganda merchants, but we had to wait upon your interference before we bred any of that species. But of course, your wondrous great empires of antiquity decided they could hardly tolerate our innocent happiness, when they had to rationalise the drudgery of their thousands of impoverished peasants, so they conspired to wipe us out, and so we were forced into aping your ways after all. Then, to our shame, we too had a ‘great empire’ to uphold. But no longer, thank the heavens. Those wretched old delusions of god-hood can finally be purged, and we may work on rebuilding our golden age, as it was. Which only leaves us with one problem: your people. Do not start so, My Lord. Have the courtesy to hear me out, at least, and put your hands back on the slab. But this time, I want you to concentrate on a particular object. Think of a silver egg, only flattened: that is, wider by about three times than it is tall, and the point facing down. Suppose it about two hundred feet in diameter. If your imagination is up to that simple task, then the archive will do all the rest.”

        Feeling rather foolish, Calderon followed her instructions, and the vague image was barely in his mind before it resolved into the absolute clarity of a new vision: a silver object like the one he had imagined, careering on a dead straight course through dawn-lit skies like a shot out of some heavenly cannon. In its course lay the great city of the faery, sprawling for miles across a vast plain, and all its titanic structures – of various shapes, which Calderon found disconcerting and marginally horrible – brilliantly lit with the native hue of their substance: the same of which the long-degraded cavern had been constructed. The disc swooped low, barely avoiding the tips of some of the tallest and most implausibly grotesque structures, leaving in its wake a trail of red vapour. The vapour dispersed in the wind, and settled across the city. The perspective changed, entering the city streets...

        Calderon tore himself away from the slab, hyperventilating anew, and from more than the purely physical strain. Having seen their golden skin burning and suppurating in the corrosive atmosphere, he could no longer think of the beautiful ones as angels, but even ten thousand years after the event, he felt the urge to take up their cause: a sentiment he expressed in turning upon Gloriana with the words, “You murdering bitch! I’ll kill you before–”

        “Dropped your diplomacy, My Lord? But as I have said, I mean your people no harm. Quite the contrary, indeed. I know what you saw, but try to concentrate on the facts. The people who built that vessel were only interested in death, but credit me with a little more vision. Poison-clouds I can do without, but there are other substances that one might equally disperse, and they are blessings. I don’t suppose you know anything of organic chemistry, My Lord? I knew little enough, but I have studied the arts of our dead ‘angels’ extensively. The creation of the daemons, for example: a simple blood infection, so it seems, containing a crucial piece of information. The ‘faery factor,’ if you like. The germ itself is virtually immortal – all daemons carry it – and thus we are still able to convey our blessings, on occasion.”

        “And that is your great strategy? To change the entire population of the Union into daemons?”

        “Oh, excellent. Fine uptake. You’re nearly there, My Lord, but I regret that the spread will not be quite so efficient as all that. Granted, by the best of my calculations, about ninety-five percent of the populations of your major cities will pick up the blessing – at least in dormant form – barely minutes after distribution. And even if they don’t, it should settle nicely into the water table, for future use. Even those very rare cases with natural immunity for themselves should still start producing daemon children in the fullness of time, unless you decree a national state of celibacy when you get back to Lexigrad.”

        “I shall be ready to decree a full state of plague-precautions! You may be sure of that!”

        “Very commendable of you. It won’t do any good, but I like to see responsibility in a public servant. Why should you want to stop this, My Lord? You have already confessed the appalling treatment of the daemons in your cities. Do you suppose this will be the case when the unblessed are in the minority? And that is only the beginning. My people are impulsive, passionate, and intolerant of restraint. Your populations will revolt against their lifestyles: the worthless mores and manners they observe, the back-breaking labour they are subjected to, even the elaborately tasteless clothes that they wear. Their hateful institutions rejected, in time they shall look to me for guidance, and it will be forthcoming.”

        “And do the words ‘anarchy,’ ‘madness,’ ‘despair,’ ‘riots,’ ‘starvation,’ and ‘suicide’ feature at no point in your plans? If not, you may well be grievously disappointed! This is not reform by any stretch of the imagination! This is merely burning down the entire social structure to build on the ashes!”

        “Then may I suggest, My Lord, that you withdraw your army from their silly stand at the Arriman borders, and get them to assist with the emergency efforts? You need have no fear that the Confederacy forces will take advantage of the situation. Not after I’ve dealt with them, too. The serum I have prepared is highly concentrated, and there should be more than enough to take out Sarribad, Deldecca, and all the major ports, along with Lexigrad, Tardale, Enlightenment, and so forth. It shouldn’t take more than forty-eight hours, all told. Not a stone left unturned.”

        “And when, pray, are you planning to commit this atrocity?”

        “You think that a fair description of what shall certainly resolve into a new society, without any stupid illusions to compromise their pleasures, or meaningless prejudices to fuel their hatred and self-hatred? When we shall demand no more of the world or of each other than our innocent contentment?”

        “I would question whether such a desirable arrangement could ever produce anything truly great, of art, beauty, science–”

        “Flesh-eating mist? ‘Great cities’? That kind of thing? You prefer to strive with the ‘angels,’ do you?”

        “By your argument, we should all just climb back into the trees, and have done with it!”

        “Pardon me. You argue that society should carry on augmenting itself – until it blows apart under its own sordid pressures. I argue that we should settle at a moderate, pleasant state, and pass the world on to our descendants in the same condition as we found it, and you think I am the unreasonable one? Don’t twist my words, and we shall get on all the better.”

        “After a virtual declaration of war, I sincerely doubt it.”

        “This is no such thing, My Lord. I brought you here because I need your help. Well, perhaps not need, but it would be a great asset. There is time enough for you to take the blessing yourself. Just a quick cut, a drop, and a swab, and an hour or so later my lovely courtiers will be helping you to acclimatise, in their inimitable way. And when you are settled, and the plan is complete, we shall escort you in all honour to your city, and thus you shall be excellently prepared to guide your people through their transition. Come to think of it, it’s virtually your civic duty.”

        “We are inclined to differ, I’m afraid. I’m surprised you got the Albinor to go along with this.”

        “Actually, they know nothing about it. I doubt they’d credit it if you told them, but feel free. I suspect Lord Lycon would share your pessimistic predictions, and rejoice in them if it adds up to greater safety for Albinor. Lord Corin might not take to the idea. Not the sort of war he was working himself up to, by any means. Though I really think you’ll have your work cut out convincing that pig-headed savage.”

        “I can’t get to see him. I tried, but I was reliably informed that he was not at home to... ‘spying foreign scum,’ I think, or words to that effect.”

        “Likely enough, I fear. Don’t worry about it, My Lord. There’s nothing they could possibly do. Apart from killing me, of course. But that would achieve nothing. Come to that, I’m not even sure how I’d go about stopping the operation, if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

        “Well, why not? Where is this wretched machine of yours, anyway?”

        “Still in dry-dock, My Lord. In the New World: Neo Arcady, as you people have so prettily named it. I learned about it while I was rummaging through the archive, quite accidentally. Or providentially. By the way: its holding-place is nowhere near your wretched little colonies, just in case you thought you had a straw to clutch at. My men are searching for it as we speak, but I’ve really no idea when the launch will be. If you should change your mind about the blessing, try to make it soon.”

        “I want to help your people, Your Highness, and I can think of better ways of doing it than creating anarchy! There are many reforms we are considering–”

        “I know the sort: trifling concessions, labour laws, and integration policies that occasionally get passed, resented, and overlooked by all and sundry. Besides which, I’m not sure we want to integrate with your corrupted steam-driven culture. Still, if you want an alternative, My Lord, I suppose you could always marry me. Just as a point of legality, and sign over to me about half of your legislative powers. I might consider trying to stop the launch – though heaven knows how – if you agree to that.”

        “I am an appointed executive, madam, and I’m up for review in a week.”

        “Oh dear. Then, My Lord, I’m afraid we shall just have to do this my way. If you don’t want the blessing, I suppose you’d better get to the nearest Arriman consulate, post-haste, and argue out the troop withdrawal. Be obliging – and vague. I’d tell them it’s a plague, if I were you, and avoid the specifics. They’ll find out the truth in good time.”

        “I shall do as I see fit,” hissed Calderon, not very effectively, in the full knowledge that he was going to have to follow her detested advice for the present. “You’ll hear from me again. Don’t doubt it; and it won’t be to humbly request your guidance, either.”

        “Threaten away, My Lord, but be sure you take a right turn on your way out of here. I’m not certain that anyone who ever went on down that tunnel ever came out again. Perhaps the Morgana does live down there, or maybe this place was just constructed to entrap weak-willed trespassers. Do tread quietly.”

        As Calderon stormed out of the room, trailing the shreds of his dignity, Gloriana sat back in the chair and laid her hands reverently upon the panel, fixing her thoughts upon the image of a great city in ruins.