Arcana Page 9

  #

  Jan and Garibald prayed together morning, noon and evening. Garibald seemed to accept that exposure had stolen away Jan’s memory of the liturgy along with the use of his legs. Sometimes Garibald’s incuriosity worried Jan: the hermit had been out of contact for thirty years, but even thirty years ago they had had interplanetary travel. How else would Garibald himself have got here? Jan was afraid to ask, in case he got some mystical account of a journey through endless night.

  Though he was not ready for mysticism, Jan found himself peculiarly interested in Garibald’s faith. For one thing, there was nothing else to do on Sapphuron but contemplate eternity. For another, faith appealed to Jan because it was not susceptible to periodic inspection as his tax affairs were. He loved that his budding faith was wholly private. If he was doing it wrong, let Elph tell him so Itself. Elph remained silent. Jan found this encouraging.

  One night there was a light in the sky.

  ‘Is that a sign from Elph?’ Jan asked.

  Garibald shook his head sadly. ‘You have come a long way, but there is much you do not know. Elph does not speak to us by lights in the sky. He does not speak in signs nor in wonders. He uses words, but they are long and slow. If a man has understood a single word from Elph over the course of a lifetime, he is a literate disciple indeed.’

  Once Garibald was snoring, Jan put on his powered exoskeleton and went outside. He found the projectile, dug it out of the crater it had carved for itself in the snow and read the note from the Assistant Inspector. It informed him that he ought to pull his finger out and complete his mission post-haste. Otherwise the Assistant Inspector would have no option but to reconsider his most generous offer of a full pardon for Jan, and implement measures to have him brought home and executed for his treasonous withholding of funds that were the rightful property of Their Majesties.

  As he trudged back to the hovel, Jan was almost sure the Assistant Inspector was bluffing. Their Majesties were a thrifty pair who rested content in Thatcher Palace on laurels paid for by such taxes as the craven offered up against the threat of execution. Headsmen came cheap: they got paid per head. Lengthy investigations were discouraged. The Assistant Inspector’s war against Garibald was not waged but unwaged: if he had had to pay Jan for his services, the Assistant Inspector would not even have launched this absurd campaign.

  Jan let himself in through the airlock. The great thing about working for cheap was it meant you would only get reprimanded cheaply. The ship that had dropped Jan off much more literally than he was expecting had been on its way to dump some rubbish. Jan supposed it had done that alright.

  Garibald shot him with a taser that shorted out his exoskeleton.

  Jan stood dazed as the sparks stopped flying. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘I want to know what your paymaster had to say.’ There was a wild light in Garibald’s eyes Jan had not seen before and did not like. This was the visage he had fully expected to confront on Sapphuron: the crazily bearded face of a man who has had no contact with his fellows for three decades, and whose social skills are somewhat the worse as a result.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Jan demanded. He had great faith in his own ability to brazen out any situation: when the going got tough, the tough got going.

  The tough got tased again and it hurt.

  ‘Elph has told me everything.’

  ‘That must have taken him a while.’

  ‘Silence, apostate!’ Garibald was as mad as Jan had ever seen him. The hermit was undoing all his good work on Jan, who had been convinced in his own mind he really believed in Elph. But this lunacy was exactly the kind of thing that put people off institutional religion. Institutionalised would be nearer the mark.

  Garibald said, ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘I thought Elph already told you.’

  Garibald tased Jan a third time.

  ‘Whom are you working for?’

  Jan was on the verge of telling him, since all this tasing was tiresome to say the least. Then Garibald went on, ‘Are you the last remnant of the Penguin Cult?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The loathsome Penguin Cult. When I arrived here, the first thing Elph ordered me to do was to stamp out worshippers of the Gentoo.’

  ‘Are you telling me there was intelligent life on this planet when you got here?’

  ‘It may have been intelligent, but it certainly wasn’t holy. It rejected Elph as Lord and Redeemer.’

  Jan realised that if Elph slept at night having rubber-stamped genocide, It was unlikely to feel any pangs over telling Garibald to polish Jan off. That bore thinking about.

  Garibald said, ‘What is your real name?’

  ‘Jan,’ Jan said.

  ‘Liar! Do you accept Elph as your lord?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you deny any allegiance to those Whores of Babylon, Their Majesties?’

  ‘I have already denied them large sums of money, by withholding the purchase tax that fell due.’

  ‘Have you?’ Garibald perked up. ‘Why didn’t you speak of this before?’

  He flung down his taser and set about replacing the fuses in Jan’s exoskeleton. ‘I knew I was right about you all along.’

  ‘If Elph told you to do it, I suppose it’s not really your fault.’

  ‘Decent of you to see it that way.’

  ‘I have considerable experience of being told what to do by a higher power. I can’t say I like it all that much.’

  Garibald stopped working and bear-hugged Jan. Jan was glad the exoskeleton prevented him being crushed.

  When the exoskeleton was operational again, Garibald said, ‘This calls for a celebration.’

  ‘Oh no, that won’t be necessary. No need to kill the fatted calf or anything like that. Let’s just say some prayers and call it a night.’

  ‘I won’t hear of it. In my extreme pride, I have supposed I myself am fit to pronounce what is and what is not the will of Elph. I am truly sorry and beg your forgiveness.’

  ‘Really no need for all this carry-on.’

  But it was too late. Garibald darted into the pantry and rummaged among the salted carcasses which Jan, in his traumatised state, had imagined someone had dropped from orbit. He made a mental note to refuse any further offers of terrine.

  It was not terrine Garibald offered him but marijuana.

  ‘Let’s celebrate. I didn’t think I could trust you. But the whole reason I am so sure Elph is here is because Its sacred plant grows so well hydroponically. I have built greenhouses all over this world, but I am growing old and tired. It is my fond hope that you will reap the crop when I am gone.’

  Jan began to cry.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Garibald said. He had produced rizlas from the deep pockets of his robe.

  ‘I didn’t want this. I wanted there to be something else. Something more. Something I had never experienced before.’

  ‘You’ve never experienced anything this good before. Elph has blessed my crop richly. Wait till you try it.’

  But Jan went outside, the exoskeleton humming like a swarm of cranky bees, and fired off the signal drone that would bring the Assistant Inspector, unless the Assistant Inspector had been dismissed in some fresh round of cutbacks.

  Jan stood looking into zero visibility. Tears rolled down his cheeks faster than his suit could recycle them.

  Higher Ground

  Pryce circled the giant a long time at a safe distance. With giants there was not usually a safe distance, but Pryce had never seen a dead one before.

  It was the prospect of nightfall, and the beast in his belly, that moved Pryce in the end. He took the blade he had hewn himself and cut off a slice of flesh from the giant’s baggy stomach. He was slightly disappointed with his blade’s performance. Granted, he had to go through the tunic to get to the flesh, but even so the work was more like hacking than slicing and it was full dark before he had finished.

  Pryce flung the meat over his shoulder and fled before
whatever got the giant got him too.

  He had been greedy: the steak was too big to go down his tunnel. He flung it to the ground and wasted more time sawing it into smaller pieces in black darkness. It was only the relative inefficiency of his blade that stopped him taking his thumb clean off.

  A fine meal that would have made.

  Home, and the sweet smell of his own excrement because of an inclement wind. He had been meaning to redesign the entire burrow, but time had not permitted and there was always the risk he would have to abandon it altogether. He had been living here for three years, moved twice before that because of too much giant activity. He suspected he was too old now or too set in his ways to move again. He was thirty-eight, an age the incautious never reached.

  He salted what he did not plan to eat of the steak and laid it in his larder. He was running out of salt; the coast was a day’s journey. It was not as if he had anything better to do than stay alive. Besides, he had always loved the seaside.

  He almost gave way to the temptation to light a fire, something he had never ever done after dark.

  Cursing himself for old and slack, he scattered his firewood to the farthest corners of his main chamber, so it would be too much trouble for him to feel his way to it later. He gnawed at the flesh in his hand, found it impossibly tough and went to bed empty.

  The next morning he was up before the sun, but he waited for full day before he dared light a fire and prepare his feast.

  He was about to banquet when he remembered that in his haste to get away from the fallen giant he had not taken any steps to determine what had killed the foul creature.

  He spent most of the day carrying the pieces of flesh far enough away from his chambers that they would not draw attention to his whereabouts. He resolved to return by a different route, but having ruled out all the routes he could remember having taken before, night fell sooner than he had reckoned with. He realised he had no idea where the entrance to his tunnel was. So naturalistically had he hidden it that he might be standing within feet of it right that minute.

  In a rare fit of frustration, he began jumping up and down in the irrational hope of falling into his concealed tunnel. He jumped until he was exhausted, which happened sooner than he would have expected. Then he fell down and could not get up again. He lay and tried to think of circumstances under which his death would not be ironic. He failed and, just as he heard the motion of some creature among the trees, lost consciousness.

  #

  The woman was called Rae and she abandoned her project of nursing Pryce admirably quickly. He made it abundantly clear he would not take any of her food, let alone her proposed medications. All the while he was feigning ignorance of her language, which was nothing but the common tongue of the country. He used it for his own thoughts, and although he had not heard it spoken for many years he knew it for what it was. Yet it seemed advantageous to pretend a somewhat unlikely unfamiliarity. Pryce looked like the native speaker he was, but by refusing to respond or explain he hoped his gaoler would furnish herself with an explanation more telling than any he might dream up. People loved best the ideas they supplied themselves.

  Rae talked constantly, but Pryce did not like any of the ideas she was supplying. Most of them concerned the sort of blind faith he thought had gone from the earth. There was no time for luxuries, none for mistakes.

  At first he thought her extremely gifted, and suitable as a mate. But it became clear very quickly that he was to be disappointed: there were others here. Rae had probably not even cooked the food herself.

  Once he realised the true state of affairs, all he wanted was to get away. That anyone could countenance living together shocked him almost as much as the realisation they had got away with it for any length of time. He wanted no part of their lunatic project: it was only a matter of time before a great foot came crashing down on all their heads.

  As soon as he had recovered his strength, he would be checking out.

  He had been there too long already when one day Rae crossed to the wall and opened what turned out to be shutters, allowing daylight in.

  He sprang out of bed, wrestled her to the floor and shouted into her face: ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.’

  If there was one thing worse than a community, it was a community of fanatics. Pryce let go of Rae’s chest as if he had been electrocuted, jumped to his feet and crossed to the door.

  ‘Eat with us before you go.’

  Pryce’s stomach force him to hesitate.

  ‘Alright. One meal.’

  #

  The food was very good, if a little rich and relentlessly superfluous, almost drowning in gravies and sauces. Over dinner people tried to draw information from Pryce, but he had no intention of revealing anything about his underground shelter. He answered in monosyllables. At least they weren’t talking about God, other than in the prayer before the meal.

  There was at least one skilled woodworker in the community, to judge by the large table and the finely detailed chopsticks. Who in their right mind would take the time to add fine detailing to chopsticks, instead of getting out and killing something useful? After the meal, Pryce pocketed one of his sticks. Perhaps he could whittle it down to an effective point.

  Perhaps he would have to use it in order to leave, if Chas turned out to be some kind of latterday David Koresh. There were far too many people here, all gathered in one place. The giants might extinguish the whole human race by a careless stumble.

  Chas went and stood out on the balcony. Why did they even bother with a balcony? Dangerous liability. When Pryce joined him, Chas didn’t seem to mind, even though his risk of destruction had at least doubled.

  ‘Don’t you think you should come indoors?’ Pryce said.

  Chas was too absorbed in the cloudy sky to respond.

  Pryce looked down, towards the forest where he lived. ‘I know what’s down there. What do you think is up there?’

  Chas turned and gave him the worst sort of smile, the genuine kind that signalled unquestioning belief. That made it worse even than the fake variety Pryce remembered from back when there had been an audience for lies.

  ‘Our destiny,’ Chas said, and Pryce could see that he believed it.

  Pryce darted inside and offered to help Rae with the minimal washing up.

  #

  Pryce was too afraid to sleep, and so he was awake when Rae came into his room. He was only too aware of how much the bed creaked—it was the poorest piece of construction in the whole otherwise solid complex—and an unlikely place for a tryst. Even so, he was quite prepared to indulge and leave immediately afterwards, by force if need be.

  He got out of bed to meet her. She took him by the hand and led him to the door. He tried to pull her towards the bed, but the very idea seemed to frighten her so much that at first he thought he had misunderstood her intentions.

  ‘Not here,’ she whispered, ‘in case we get raptured tonight,’ and led him through the corridors to her own room.

  He was relieved to see there was no compulsory portrait of Chas, the great leader, gazing down on them. The lamp was reassuringly low and the shutters were tight. Still Pryce hesitated. Propped beside the door was a long pole. Pryce seized it and used it to bar the door. In a community, you never knew who might intrude or when.

  Rae was already undressing.

  For a few minutes Pryce knew, if not rapture, then the closest thing in many years to carelessness.

  She wanted him to lie in her arms, but he resisted and rose. Doing so was not easy: her wooden bed was narrow and its sides were high. Above Rae’s head lay a bundle of neatly-folded clothes, and some food—presumably primitive offerings for some anticipated afterlife.

  As he clambered out of the bed, Pryce realised that it was raised up from the ground on trestles.

  That made his mind up for him. He tried not to think about having just made love in a coffin t
o a woman already dead, nor about his near miss with a cult that owed less to the Branch Davidians than to Heaven’s Gate. Had he joined them, he would even now be a party to their suicide pact. If the giants didn’t get them, they would finish each other off and join some disembodied God in a Heaven whose only virtue was that it was far from here.

  Without another word, Pryce unbarred the door and flung the pole to the ground. It clattered, but he was past caring. He went straight to the kitchen and helped himself to a plate and a cup. Then he walked downhill into the forest.

  He had no idea where he was, but if he had been able to spot his concealed entrance straightaway he would have had to abandon it. It ought to be light by now, but the sun was hiding coyly behind clouds. He would give himself until noon. If he had not found his old shelter by then, he would simply have to dig a new one the same way as before: with his own two hands.

  He was back beneath the trees before the rain began.

  The Reckoning

  The dame lit up my cave. I hoped one day I could return the favour.

  She sashayed in from the rain, let her furs slip to the bare rock. I’m not a lucky man: she was wearing a singlet underneath. In my father’s day, women went naked if they went at all. My father died in a climbing accident; if you’d given him the choice, he would have preferred that to living into a time of what it pleased them to call equality. Until the sight of me pouting and posturing could do to a wench the half of what this one was doing to me, there would be no equality.

  She said, ‘Are you Sam Kingson? Private eye?’

  ‘Isn’t that what it says on my shingle?’ To this day, my mother won’t learn to read. She says it’s unladylike and I agree with her, if only to save me the trouble of hiding all my books when she comes to call. ‘You’re not from around here.’

  ‘My tribe is coming to its winter grounds. I got here ahead of the rest. I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘You’ve done that. Now get back to cooking your old man’s catch.’

  ‘My old man is dead. I think it was murder. I think it was Prince Halfbane.’