“I can’t see anything.”
“Pull it close.”
Intrigued despite his fear, Nuïy reached out and pulled the abstract form closer, so he could see the images playing across it. He felt the thrill of control, and realised that he might be able to use facilities such as this through the direct access he enjoyed.
“What is this?“ he asked.
“A message to the gestalt entity of the Cemetery beasts.”
Nuïy watched the message. He recognised Zoahnône and Shônsair, but the third figure was unknown to him, until it was introduced as Zahafezhan. The pair spoke of their independent hide and how the Cemetery beasts would never find it, stating at the end that Zahafezhan was out of their reach. Nuïy nodded. This might be what had caused the beasts to return to the earth.
With the clip finished he said, “That is very interesting. The bargain may still be workable, if I could somehow search for the gynoid Zahafezhan.”
“Simply leave and search.”
Nuïy saw an opportunity. “I cannot. My body lies broken in the Cemetery, insects crawling over it. Perhaps I am dead. I am just a mind, now, floating in the networks.”
“Your brain cannot be dead,” said the silvery figure. “More likely you are unconscious, or in a coma.”
“To all intents and purposes I am dead,” Nuïy insisted, raising his voice. “But if I were able to control something, some mannikin perhaps, from where I stand here…”
There was a pause in the coversation and Nuïy got the impression that cogitation was taking place. He waited.
“There are ways,” said the figure, drifting closer.
There was motion at Nuïy’s feet, and he looked down to see silver fabric glittering like a crust of distant diamonds. He picked it up to find in his hand a one-piece garment, breeches and jacket, the lower half booted, the upper half gloved. The top was formed like a balaclava.
“Put this on,” said the figure. “By doing so you will bring the sensory input of a certain Cemetery creature to your person. Do not be shocked. It is just that data is being directed towards you.”
Nuïy sat down and put his legs into the one-piece, settling his feet into the heavily soled boots, then standing up to pull on the tightly fitting garment. He felt cold. Already, his feet felt wet, and there seemed to be things attached to them, hindering his progress. They felt like claws stuck to his skin, or his bone. Then he realised they were claws, and he was sensing them.
He pulled the hood over his head. The Cemetery reality faded into a blurred version of reality. He felt high, as if his new head lay above his real head. He understood that the creature was tall, taller than he. This sense of inhabiting another body made his mind whirl. He pulled down the hood, then pushed the garment down to the waist. His sense of physical self returned. He sighed. It was not pleasant. But he could probably get used to it.
The silvery ghost was floating around him. “Well?” it said.
“I accept,” Nuïy said. “In this I can search. The bargain will be fulfilled.”
Nuïy knew that he would never now return to the real world. He was destined to become a virtual entity. Of course, his body would eventually die, but he had convinced himself that he belonged here, and so the logistics bothered him not at all. Here, he felt a sense of invulnerabilty. He could even indulge himself.
A savage primitivism overcame him. He felt like a boy given a gun. So this was what he was meant for! Power, without responsibility.
And there remained a task for him to undertake. He wanted to locate Zahafezhan.
He had been shown an image clip. Using his perfect memory, he recalled the clip, and was surprised to see it manifest before him, as if he was creating it. He realised that his mind had somehow brought the clip back to life because of his direct access to the Cemetery reality. This manifestation of his power pleased him.
He analysed the clip using the techniques he had learned in the Tech Houses. It was forty three seconds long. He replayed it many times, listening to the quality of the voices, listening also to the background sounds. He recognised many clues, particularly the songs of certain birds found only around the Cemetery, and the character of the insect stridulation, which was muted because of the lateness of the season, but which contained the distinctive whirr of the tomb mantis. So, they had hidden Zahafezhan somewhere around the Cemetery. That in itself was interesting, given the wording of the bargain Nuïy had made.
He then watched the clip with the sound off. In the background he saw trees, indistinguishable from those normally found in Zaïdmouth. Bushes and some flowers could also be seen, but none were characteristic to one particular zone. He needed more accuracy. Again and again he replayed the clip, searching for the clue that would help him locate Zahafezhan.
Then he saw something. Behind the screen of trees he noticed a shadow that he thought might be a person. He felt a need to have this portion of the clip enlarged, and obligingly the Cemetery reality did as he wanted. In fact, it was not a person, it was an eroded statue. Now he needed to know what that statue was.
A white box appeared at his side. The Cemetery reality was responding to the intensity of his need. He requested data on the statue.
It was one of many in the eastern sector of the Venereal Garden.
He had narrowed the location down sufficiently. Now he could search in the real world.
He pulled on the silver garment, donned the balaclava top, and once again the sensory input of the Cemetery creature was directed to him, so that he felt he was in a slightly blurred hallucination corresponding to the real world. The feel of the body frightened him, with its height, claws, and its unfamiliar muscles. He moved. The beast responded. He almost fell from trying not to walk on his own claws.
After ten minutes of pirouetting and reaching out for gravestones to balance against, the sensorium of the beast was familiar enough for him to make for the nearest wall, and then to a gate. He knew that the Venereal Garden lay to the south of the Cemetery, just across a green lane. He followed this lane to its eastern end. Across a field he saw the Woods. He turned south and pushed through a hedge of hawthorn into the garden.
For an hour he searched, until he found himself in the area in which the multicoloured statues stood. There were hundreds of them, and soon he was lost. Here there were no paths, just arbours, glades, and thousands of trees, between them thickets of undergrowth that even his new beast body found difficult to navigate.
From the corner of his eye he saw a movement. A figure? It had vanished. It had seemed for a moment that a tall man followed him. Perhaps one of the gynoids. For almost half an hour he stood still, waiting. Once more the shadow appeared, now to his left, and its height and cadaverous body seemed familiar. It was no gynoid, nor a woman.
An hour passed. He heard and saw nothing.
Then from between two trees he saw somebody walk. It was the Interpreter.
Shock took him for a few seconds, but then he realised that he was close to his goal, for if the Interpreter was here surely Zahafezhan was too. He hid behind a bush, a thick branch gripped in both hands.
The Interpreter walked past. He rose, then brought the branch down across her neck, and she fell.
He threw away the branch. Success!
The hag was semi-conscious. He could see that she was breathing, but her eyes were closed.
Then a man jumped out from the undergrowth, and Nuïy shrank back. In the gloom it was difficult to make out details, but Nuïy, even through different eyes, recognised Gaddaqueva. He stared.
“Begone, foul beast,” Gaddaqueva said, “this booty is mine.” His manner was so unlike the drugged semi-slumber of earlier times that Nuïy wondered if here stood a double. Yet it seemed the actual man.
Nuïy tried to respond, but his mouth seemed full of glue, with his tongue stuck to his palate. He strove to utter even one recognisable word, but all he heard was grunting, and strangled grunting at that. He realised that this beast could not talk. In frustration he jumped up and down, and struck the ground with his fists.
Gaddaqueva remained unimpressed. “This woman is mine. Leave, or taste your own blood, if you have any.”
Nuïy tried to reply, but failed.
Gaddaqueva lifted the now reviving Interpreter. Nuïy could not bear to lose his prey. He lunged at Gaddaqueva. The cleric dropped the body and whipped out a white pole a foot long, which extended to form a spear. Nuïy closed.
He was struck with the point of the spear; an electric shock flung him back into nearby trees.
Gaddaqueva laughed, then tied the Interpreter’s wrists behind her back, before lifting her to her feet and gagging her. Nuïy watched from his prone position.
“Return to the Cemetery, beast,” Gaddaqueva advised.
The Interpreter tried to run, but Gaddaqueva easily caught the free end of his rope and prodded her in the direction of the eastern hedge. The pair departed. Nuïy got to his feet, knowing he had to follow.
This he did, crouching low, until Gaddaqueva was in fields between the Woods and the Venereal Garden, making south. An awful certainty took Nuïy. They were making for Emeralddis. He could not go there.
They skirted the southern copses at the edge of the Woods, then headed for the river. Nuïy followed at a distance of fifty yards. Following was now much easier, since no trees obscured his view. The Interpreter periodically tried to run, or dodge into culverts, but every time she was pulled by the rope and prodded in the direction Gaddaqueva wanted. Once she stopped and faced him, shaking her head, eyes wide, but he just slapped her across the face and pushed her on.
They crossed the river by a stone bridge, then began walking south along the riverbank. Soon, Nuïy knew, they would strike the lane leading to the western causeway. He had to do something.
Fear of the electric prod made him indecisive. All he could do was follow.
After twenty minutes he saw through river mist the yellow radiance of two lamps standing a few yards apart, and he knew that here lay the beginning of the causeway. The ground under his feet was getting soft as the marshes encroached.
He hurried along. Gaddaqueva had not heard him. On the paving stones of the causeway his claws clacked. He loped like an ape. Gaddaqueva walked on. Ahead, he saw the first lamps of Emeralddis.
Panic now motivated Nuïy. He ran as best he could.
Gaddaqueva heard him. He was perhaps twenty yards down the causeway. He turned and brought out the electric spear.
Nuïy had one plan. Smash him. He leaped upon Gaddaqueva, heedless of the spear, hoping that the force of the impact would save him. In his haunch he felt a terrible shock, but it was quick, as if from a glancing blow. Gaddaqueva screamed. Nuïy raised himself and saw that the spear had been knocked aside. He roared.
Underneath him, Gaddaqueva twisted, grabbed the handle of the spear and jerked it upward. Nuïy was thrown backwards.
He saw Gaddaqueva retrieve the rope of the Interpreter, who had tried to run away. Then he approached. Nuïy stood, but too late. The electric spear was brought down upon his skull.
“What did I say, beast?” Gaddaqueva said. “Did I not tell you to return to the Cemetery?”
Nuïy again felt the prod smash his skull.
Just in time he realised he was not this creature. He was Nuïy. If he remained inside the silver suit, would he die here with this artificial body?
As Gaddaqueva again and again brought the heavy pole down upon his head, he first pulled off the balaclava top, then, dizzy and nauseous and weak, dragged off the gloves and sleeves. He felt strength return. Falling down onto the soft, dark grass of the Cemetery reality he raised his feet and pulled off the silver suit, which now lay charred and smoking upon the ground.
He lay still. His mind once again received Cemetery data. A kind of dull relaxation spread through him as he realised the nightmare was over. Gaddaqueva was far away, beating an already inoperative beast.
He felt like weeping, but he controlled himself. No point shedding virtual tears.
He stood up. Gloomy and dark, the Cemetery reality lay around him, and he felt a tension within it, as if it now did not like him. The sky above him seemed darker, black as soot, making the green disk contrast against it even more.
He was utterly alone. Dead in body, even the autonomous message gone forever.
Alone at last.
CHAPTER 27
The dungeon in which Manserphine stood manacled was cold and damp. She shivered. She stood chained to an iron post, her dress chilly around her body, exhausted, thirsty and starving. The chamber surrounding her was large, luminous algae falling like hair from nodules at the ceiling, here and there an enclosed lantern throwing light upon a number of rusty metal implements, all of which were clearly instruments of torture.
Manserphine was numb with shock. She understood her peril, but its enormity stunned her. Despite the knives and wrenches and cutters, she could not imagine that she herself would be tortured. Pain was unthinkable to one as sensitive as her. So her terror was nameless.
She seemed to have been left for days. At the top of the opposite wall she saw a single window, just an open square through which cold air dropped. Light had come and gone, and she supposed a day had passed.
She struggled against her chains.
Illogically, she dared not call out, for she did not want to attract the attention of the clerics of the Shrine of the Green Man. Again she struggled.
The night seemed to last forever. She heard thumps and clunks, and the distant chatter of mens’ voices, like gruff birds. They increased at first light, like a human dawn chorus.
An hour later she heard footsteps, and then the door to her dungeon opened.
Three men walked in. One she knew as the man who had captured her after the attack from the Cemetery beast.
One, fatter than the rest, introduced himself. “I’m Sargyshyva, the First Cleric of Our Lord In Green. This is Gaddaqueva, Second Cleric. This is Zehosaïtra, Third Cleric.”
He paused, as if awaiting a response. Manserphine gave none.
“We’re the most senior earthly representatives of Our Lord In Green. We know who you are. You’re the Interpreter of the Garden.”
A second pause. Manserphine remained silent.
“If you don’t talk,” Sargyshyva said, “we’ll make you talk by using pieces of metal.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Manserphine replied.
Sargyshyva approached and sat on a barrel, while his lieutentants stood behind him. He continued, “That’s understandable. But we require knowledge. We’ve got a plan. You’ve got the knowledge we require. If you don’t impart it, Gaddaqueva will rend yer weak and womanly flesh.”
“I will,” Gaddaqueva confirmed.
“But we aren’t monsters,” Sargyshyva said. “If you comply, we won’t use pieces of metal.”
“You hate women,” Manserphine said, “so why should I believe you?”
Sargyshyva nodded. “It’s true we loath yer kind. But we accept yer existence. In every marsh there must be slugs and snails. Without them, strong, handsome birds couldn’t exist.”
Manserphine said nothing. A horror of these men settled upon her, and she was sure they would mistreat, torture and kill her. With quavering voice, she said, “I’ll try to help you, if that’s what you want. I am reasonable.”
“For an un-man,” Gaddaqueva sniggered.
Manserphine stared from one to the other. Now that they were here, talking to her, the nameless horror had changed to sharp fear. They were men. They could do anything. She was less than nothing to them, a human being with whom they could never have any sort of connection. She was an animal, or worse, an object. Lacking emotional connection, no moral principle could exist in their ugly minds that might stop the torture. They would just do what they wanted.
“I promise to help you,” she repeated. She tried to keep the fear from her voice, but it wavered, and she knew they gloated over it.
“That’s a fair start,” Sargyshyva said, “but we want more.” He looked over his shoulder, and gruffly said, “Third Cleric, break open the wine. And the cheese.”
Before Manserphine’s astonished eyes they set a picnic upon the barrel, wine and cheeses and biscuits, talking between themselves in low voices, using a rough cant she could hardly follow. She caught an occasional phrase that sounded like Blissis talk, but not enough to work out what they were discussing. The odour of the wine and cheese made her salivate.
After fifteen minutes, they cleared the barrel and Sargyshyva approached her. The other two sat nearby, Gaddaqueva reading a scroll, Zehosaïtra examining his clothes, his nails, then polishing his spectacles, as if he was bored.
Sargyshyva began, “So, first I must relate what we know. I must do this so you understand the power we wield. We know that somewhere in Zaïdmouth lies an android born of Alquazonan. By what name is it called?"
“Zahafezhan.”
“We know Zahafezhan is part of a plot t’alter the networks. Such an alteration would be inimical t’the culture of Our Lord In Green. We desire a culture of masculine honour. It’ll be bright and bold. Perhaps primitive. We hold dear the value of the brain. We despise soft womanly emotions. It’s transpired that the existence of Zahafezhan, and more like it, would bring about such a soft culture. Naturally, we oppose that. D’you understand so far?”
Manserphine nodded.
“Excellent. Now, we need t’find Zahafezhan.”
He stopped talking. Here Manserphine knew he expected his first answer. For some seconds she wrestled with her conscience, wondering what she could possibly say. She sighed.
Sargyshyva glanced at Gaddaqueva, and said, “The nail clippers.”
“No!” Manserphine shouted. “I know where she is. In the Venereal Garden.”
“Where exactly?”
Manserphine looked from Sargyshyva to Gaddaqueva, who stood by what seemed to be a pair of shears. “I don’t have any choice, do I? In the eastern part. There’s a thick grove of rhododendrons and trees.”
“What species of tree?”
“Oh, beech I think.”
Gaddaqueva moved to pull the shears off their wall hook.
“Definitely beech,” Manserphine said. Gaddaqueva did not return the shears to their hook. Appalled, Manserphine realised that every mistake she made would bring him nearer. Cumulative errors would compound, and when he reached her the torture would begin.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “They
are
beech. The rhododendrons are red and orange.” She glanced over to Gaddaqueva, hoping he would retreat, or return the shears to their hook with this piece of extra information, but he remained still, holding them firm.
“So,” Sargyshyva said. “You’re getting t’understand the process of questioning. Does Zahafezhan have a particular location?”
“Inside a ruined house.”
“Where is this house?”
“Inside the grove.”
Sargyshyva paused. “So. The house definitely lies inside the grove?”
“Yes.”
“Is it defended?”
Manserphine paused. She could not put her friends into peril. She thought of Kirifaïfra. Gaddaqueva walked forward a couple of paces and she said in a tumble of words, “Yes, yes, people live there. They’ll defend themselves if they’re attacked.”
“Who are they?”
The slightest hesitation before Manserphine’s answer made Gaddaqueva take another pace. He was perhaps twenty yards away.
She said, “Two gynoids. And a man. There were two men at first.”
“What are their names?”
“Shônsair and Zoahnône and Vishilkaïr.”
Gaddaqueva began to walk forwards, the shears raised.
“That’s all I can say!” Manserphine cried.
“You said four,” Sargyshyva pointed out.
“Kirifaïfra of the Determinate Inn,” Manserphine immediately said. “Please don’t hurt me. I’m telling you everything.”
“You’re not doing as well as you might be,” Sargyshyva said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid the Second Cleric is rather impulsive.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Manserphine said. Her fear was making her squirm in the embrace of the chains.
“Let’s hope you do. We want our answers before you become incapable of telling us them.”
“Oh, please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
“Very well. Gaddaqueva, stop inching forward. Now, Interpreter. What is Zahafezhan? Does it have special defensive abilities?”
Manserphine stared. He had asked the question she could not answer. Gaddaqueva moved forward, until he stood at her side, the shears horizonal, blades exposed.
“We need an answer,” Sargyshyva reminded her.
Manserphine spoke in a jumble of words. “She’s a manifestation of the networks. I mean, a being, a part of the networks. She represents all that is good.”
“Any defences?”
Pressing herself back into the iron post, Manserphine stuttered, “She’s not really alive yet.” She wanted to tell them that she did not know what the final deed was, but she knew she could not. They would construe it as hiding, or lying.
“I see,” Sargyshyva remarked. “So. A strange state of affairs.”
“Yes, it is,” Manserphine agreed.
“And what will she become?”
Manserphine looked from Sargyshyva to Gaddaqueva, and back. Her mind went blank. No plausible answer came to her.
Sargyshyva gripped the neck of her dress and tore the entire garment away. With face twisted in disgust he looked at her stomach, then told Gaddaqueva, “There lies the most repellant part of the un-man. The belly.”
“Yes, the belly,” Gaddaqueva said, lowering the shears so the blades were a foot away from Manserphine’s skin.
“It’s not like a man’s,” Sargyshyva said. He turned, to say, “Zehosaïtra, come here, if you would.”
Zehosaïtra approached.
Sargyshyva said, “Be so good as t’show the un-man yer belly.”
Zehosaïtra undid his shirt to expose a muscled stomach. Sargyshyva struck it with the back of his hand, then said, “Now that, un-man, is what a belly should be like. Flat. Hard. Yours protrudes, and it’s soft. Our Lord In Green thinks that’s wrong.”
Manserphine, petrified, could not answer.
Gaddaqueva tested the shears.
Manserphine felt her knees giving way. She shrank back. In her mind something called out, and she whispered, “Sweet Kiri, save me!”
She fell. She jerked backwards at the roaring in her right ear. Mist hissed across the room like steam from a vent. The men jumped back, staring at her.
The metal braid fell from her hair. It twisted like a serpent, expanding, jetting steam and fluids, now three feet long, now six feet. In just ten seconds it was an upright, four-legged serpent, polished silver, with one red eye and one green, thrashing its tail, snapping serrated jaws.
The men scattered. Sargyshyva was not quick enough, and he fell, one leg in the beast’s mouth. Manserphine screamed. The beast pulled him, shook him, then closed its jaws, tearing Sargyshyva’s throat with a single bite. Blood spurted across the floor as Sargyshyva writhed.
The creature leaped to its feet and followed the other two men. Gaddaqueva was at the door, fumbling the keys to the lock. Zehosaïtra was shouting. The beast lunged at him as Gaddaqueva slipped through the door and slammed it shut. Again Zehosaïtra screamed. His throat was bitten out in one. He fell to the floor, twisting, spraying blood.
The creature returned to Manserphine. Thinking it would kill her, she screamed and tried to hide behind the post, but all it did was clamp its jaws over the chains, and bite. They fell apart.
Manserphine understood that it really was here to save her.
It leaped across the dungeon to stand below the window. Stretching, it made a stair of its knobbly back for Manserphine to climb, which she did, reaching the window and squeezing out. She stood on the edge of muddy water, the sky ten feet above her. She seemed to be inside an empty moat.
The beast roared and followed her, squeezing with difficulty through the window. Again it stretched to allow her to climb up to the light.
Manserphine found herself on paved ground, crouching beside the Inner Sanctum. A group of men twenty yards away stood staring.
The beast returned to its original shape and roared at them. It began loping towards the nearest exit, which lay some yards off amidst orchard trees. Manserphine followed.
“There they are!” came a cry.
Manserphine turned to see Gaddaqueva and a group of archers standing on the Inner Sanctum roof.
“Fire!” he yelled. “Kill them both!”
The beast grabbed Manserphine in its upper arms and leaped forward. Two arrows hit, and it shuddered.
Five men stood waiting at the nearest gate, scimitars at the ready.
The beast stopped. Its steaming breath was coming hoarse, and Manserphine quailed, realising that it was not invincible.
Suddenly it shivered. They rose.
She looked around to see wings.
Air rushed past her ears as with considerable exertion the beast flew, ten feet above the ground, now ten yards as its wingbeats came stronger and it crossed the outer wall. Arrows still whipped past, and a third hit it in the neck. Eyes shut, Manserphine gripped tight.
They flew north. The heaving body of the beast was difficult to grip. More than once Manserphine slipped but hung on by squeezing with her legs.
She dared to open her eyes. Buildings lay below her. The beast was flying slowly, descending, clearly exhausted. The marshes lay nearby.
They flew on. Minutes passed and their progress became slower. Now the edge of Emeralddis lay close. She glanced back to see Gaddaqueva following on a great black autodog, his hair flowing free, a weapon in his hand, his fierce face upturned and grinning.
Suddenly the beast shuddered. Manserphine smelled burning. The marshes lay directly below them.
They began losing height. Manserphine screamed, and again implored the beast to save her, but to no avail. Gaddaqueva was riding close, hurtling along the causeway, perhaps twenty feet below.
The beast swerved in the air and turned, making towards Gaddaqueva. He pulled back his mount. Just a few feet above the ground the beast stalled and shivered, throwing Manserphine into the marsh at the edge of the causeway. She screamed as she fell.
She lay uninjured. Soft algae and stinking weeds cushioned her fall. A few yards away the beast plummeted, crushing both Gaddaqueva and his autodog to the ground.
Manserphine knew this was her one chance to escape. Doubtless the beast had deliberately sacrificed itself.
She clambered onto the causeway and ran, stumbling in her weakness, looking back to see a pile of twisting flesh, silver, black, red, as the autodog, Gaddaqueva and the beast struggled.