The little band of humans found themselves balancing
on a small platform high up in the air atop a towering pinnacle of rock, some
hundreds of feet above the desert. Leaning at a crazy angle, the immensely high
finger of rock jutted out over a natural stone amphitheatre directly beneath
them. All around, for as far as the eye could see, was desert. Batasaurs
reeled in the distance, hovering over the lazy sands.
Dutch reckoned they were somewhere deep in the
forbidden zone. Not a good omen. And she was already starting to get vertigo
from these dizzy heights. Added to that, the wormhole still twisted unrelentingly
about them, tunnelling up into the blinding whiteness of the Cantave where the
Seesh stood like a mad
magician, one foot in his home and one foot on the plinth, holding the swirling
vortex open with the power of his crozier. How a thing like that could exist
was beyond imagination. The outer edges of the wormhole seemed to cut straight up
into the blue sky, tearing it apart and breaking off black chunks that
roistered around them like ravens at a murder. The humans clung to the rock as
the swirling air of the cyclone above their heads threatened to rip them off
and hurl them to the desert below.
Dutch took stock of
their situation. Righteous still hung in mid-air like a lifeless puppet, with
Noot helplessly wringing his tiny hands nearby. Nothing she could do there. As
for Sweet Mary, she thankfully wasn’t zoned out, just dumbfounded by the
spectacle. She looked helplessly at Dutch. Angelo wasn’t home right now, that
much was obvious. His mind was off somewhere searching for Rose, so he was more
than useless. How the hell he ever became a policeman was a mystery to her. The
man was a milksop.
She then turned her
attention to the rock upon which they balanced. A tripod of bone stood at the
front edge of the plinth. Hanging from it was a cage attached to a rope. The
other end of the rope ran to the rear of the platform and down a groove in the
back of the slanting needle of rock. Attached to the bottom of the rope was a
stone…way down at the base of the needle. It was a fairly simple counterweight
contraption for lowering people to the ground. When the cage was fully weighted
and released, the stone at the bottom would then be dragged up the back of the
needle as the cage descended.
The release mechanism on
the cage was a simple lever that would withdraw a bone protrusion and set the
cage free to go down. Well, it was obvious who was going to be going down in
the cage. The question was, what awaited them below? And according to Dutch the
cage seemed only big enough for one Ahram, or in this case, two humans. The
Seesh had the same idea.
“Ladies first” he said
with a smile, gesturing to Dutch and Sweet Mary, and giving Righteous a little
jig and a rattle with his stick to remind them that obedience was a prerequisite
to his longevity.
Dutch looked down again
and had to stop herself from being dragged over the edge simply by the vacuum
of empty air below. With nothing better to do she opened the door of the cage
and looked inside. Righteous let out a most terrible scream of anguish as the
Seesh bent his body over backwards until he was nearly double.
“Now would be a good
time to hurry up,” said the Seesh pleasantly to the two women. With no other
option apparent to her, Dutch grabbed Sweet Mary’s hand and dragged her into
the cage. Sweet Mary let herself be guided totally by Dutch. This was way
outside her experience range. Things were happening so fast she hardly had time
to comprehend the import of the situation. She just knew they had to obey the
Seesh or Righteous would die.
“Good girl,” said the
Seesh, relieving some of the pressure on Righteous.
“Now you,” he said to
Angelo. “Pull the lever.”
Angelo stared at him
with uncomprehending eyes. Noot however was not prepared to let Righteous
suffer any more and scooted across the platform to pull the lever. Instantly
the cage began to descend, faster than Dutch thought was absolutely safe, but
at least it wasn’t speeding up. With trepidation the two girls clung to the
bars and watched the approaching sands of the arena rush up towards them. Rags,
still very much attached to Sweet Mary, screeped and grawped in terror.
“Bend your knees,” said
Dutch to Sweet Mary, “and tense your muscles.” Sweet Mary did as she was told.
The cage thumped to the
ground, throwing up a cloud of dust and nearly tilting over. The women picked
themselves up slowly from the floor, checking for broken bones but finding
nothing more than a bruise or two. By a miracle the cage had remained intact.
Dutch wasn’t in a hurry to open the door though. Everything settled into
silence again and they looked about them in trepidation. The twirl of an
occasional dust devil sprouted up briefly here and there in the dry desert sand
of the arena before dying away into the hot silence. A bleached bone of unknown
origin poked up from the sand close by.
The little cage rested
in the centre of the auditorium, dwarfed by the vast open space around it. At
first the emptiness was pregnant with expectation, but when nothing happened
they relaxed ever so slightly and took a moment to breathe. Sweet Mary felt
strangely calm and composed. She felt rather proud of herself for that and it
gave her even more confidence. Poor rags however was in a terrible state and
had to be comforted continuously. Sweet Mary looked at Dutch out of the corner
of her eye to try and see whether she was still in her strange belligerent
mood. Dutch caught her glance and recognized the look. She grimaced to herself.
“I know I haven’t been
very nice to you,” she said quietly. “But…something happened in there. I didn’t
really…..”
“I know,” said Sweet
Mary, thankful that the old Dutch was back. “You don’t have to explain,” she
said and took Dutch’s hand in hers. It was nice to feel the reassuring warmth.
Dutch gave her a surreptitious little squeeze and everything was alright
between them again.
Dutch cast a look around
and her gaze fell on a dark shadowy hole shimmering in the side of the stone
circle surrounding them. A very large, dark hole.
“Hope it’s not a rat. I
hate rats,” said Dutch, trying to inject some humour into the situation.
“So does Rags,” said
Sweet Mary, “don’t you now my little sweetie pie?” and gave him a stroke
between his eyes. Rags chirruped with pleasure. Attending to poor Rags seemed
to help take Sweet Mary’s mind off her own anxiety too.
The heat of the midday
sun rained down on them. Dutch twisted her eyes upwards to try and see what was
happening up on the pinnacle of rock, but it was too high, and the light too
glaring.
By and by some little
type of scorpion came scuttling across the sand to investigate the intruders, stopping
to sniff at the cage inquisitively. It was its last mistake. In a blink of an
eye Rags had flung himself upon the rude creature and, wrapping it tightly in
his folds, began to squeeze the life out of it. The little beast struggled
desperately for some minutes but eventually succumbed. Rags plopped down into
the sand and proceeded to eat his little treat.
“Poor thing must be
hungry,” cooed Sweet Mary.
For a while everything
was quiet again except for the crunching of tiny bones. Then they heard a new
kind of sound. A scraping noise together with a slight rush of wind caught
their attention and their eyes flew towards the hole. The ground trembled
slightly and both girls sucked in their breath as a gargantuan serpent glided
out of the hole and onto the sand like a boat ploughing into the ocean. Calmly
it sailed around the periphery of its home. It was enormous, its nose almost
catching up with its tail as it circled the auditorium.
It hadn’t noticed the
girls yet, but it knew something was up. It stopped and lifted its head
suspiciously. The girl’s hearts skipped a beat as they watched the massive
forked tongue slip in and out of its mouth, tasting the air for prey. It seemed
that the smell of human beings was interesting to say the least, for the tongue
began flickering faster, left and right, trying to home in on them. Dutch and
Sweet Mary stood stock still, not daring to breathe, hoping against the odds
that it wouldn’t see them. But the snake’s unerring olfactory receptacles
pinpointed them to within a few millimetres. Effortlessly it glided up to the
cage and stopped, towering above them and staring short-sightedly at the
occupants. Dutch was sure the damned thing smiled. Sweet Mary closed her eyes
and began to count to ten to keep herself calm. She refused to let her panic
get out of hand this time.
Its mouth opened in
anticipation and the girls were so overcome by the stench of its foetid breath that
they had to bite down hard to stop from retching. It was a mesmerizing sight; Dutch
couldn’t help but stare into that awful maw with its rotting teeth and dripping
green saliva. Sweet Mary just kept her eyes shut tight and began to chant an old
nursery rhyme she had learnt as a child.
Then a puzzled look came
upon the face of the great snake. It slowly raised its head up from the ground
and stood swaying from side to side, as if to catch hold of some long lost
thought or melody drifting across the sands…the two women completely forgotten.
But it didn’t last long. With a shake and a snort the snake bent low again to
resume its inspection.
‘This is it,’ thought Dutch,
putting her arms around Sweet Mary. They clung to each other ferociously, so that
if they were to be eaten, the snake would eat them both at the same time and
not leave one to watch while the other died. They wanted to go together.
The snake slid past the
cage and began to circle around it, slithering through the sand with a soft shushing
sound. The smooth, shiny scales, each the size of a gladiators shield, rippled
in rows down the length of its body as it twined round and round the cage, coiling
closer and closer to the twosome in their final embrace. Sweet Mary and Dutch
looked at each other and realized that this was the end. There was no time for
regrets or apologies. There was no time for thank you’s or even goodbyes. Their
hearts were far too full with the moment.
“I love you,” said Sweet
Mary, and gently kissed Dutch on the lips. Then the gigantic coils lovingly
embraced the cage until it groaned and creaked and finally cracked open like a
nut…and the women tumbled out onto the dirt.
Dutch was on her feet in
a moment, turning to face the snake when a coruscating beam of white lightning
seared past them and slammed into the snake’s body armour causing it to uncoil
from its victims in alarm. Overhead an egg-shaped object unleashed another blinding
thunderbolt at the snake. The blasts did little enough damage to its thick skin
but the electric charge was just a little bit more than uncomfortable. Lashing
its tail in frustration and anger, the snake turned to bite at the stings and
seek out its tormentor only to be burned again and yet again. Recoiling in
pain, the snake finally retreated towards its hole, all the time hissing its
frustration and striking blindly at this little gadfly zooming about its head.
The bewildered women watched as a barrage of thunderbolts forced the serpent to
slither off into its lair.
But their reprieve was
short lived. The heavens darkened and their world turned upside down as a bolt
of black brilliance burst upon them and sent the egg tumbling end over end, bouncing
dangerously close to the rocks at the edge of the arena. The egg survived only
because it hadn’t been directly hit, but the sand in the arena at the point of
impact was slagged to glass. Now, from the top of the pinnacle of rock, the
Seesh began to express his displeasure at this turn of events by hurling
bristling bombs of black molten magma down into the arena and scorching the
earth and air until all was sizzling with energy. The egg tried to return fire
but it was no match for the Seesh. The Seesh hurled another black bolt that
rocked the remains of the cage near where the two women stood, fairly scorching
the hair off their bodies.
“Time to run,” said
Dutch and grabbed Sweet Mary’s hand. Sweet Mary dug her toes into the sand and
sprinted out across the arena after Dutch, revelling in the feeling of having
an outlet for her pent up adrenaline which took the pressure off her Null-wave
limit.
The egg-shaped flying
ship was dodging the detonations as best it could and winding its way down to intercept
the two women. It was touch and go whether they would make it through. Amidst a
cloud of dust Dutch looked up as the star-bright vehicle slowed to a stop in
front of them, blocking their path. For a moment Dutch was not quite sure what
to do next, but then the egg settled in the sand at their feet and a door in
the side opened. Without hesitation the two girls threw themselves into the
craft and collapsed on the floor. The door closed before the girls even
realized what was happening, and they sank into the cool, soft, luxurious
embrace of the ship as it whisked them off into the sky.
Up above the Seesh was
incandescent with rage. Yet he had to contain himself. One of the reasons he
hadn’t fried them all to a crispy brown and blasted the lot to smithereens, was
his fear of destroying the very tower on which he stood. Added to that, the
more power he used to hurl energy at them, the less he had to maintain the
wormhole; and once he lost the wormhole, he’d be stuck out here on this plinth
with the rest of them. He’d even had to cut Righteous loose, much to Noot’s
joy. Noot had immediately gone to his friend and tried to resuscitate him. Bitter
bile clogged the Seesh’s throat as he watched the egg-craft rise from the sand
and begin to make its escape with his prisoners on board.
But even then it wasn’t
over.
The sands of the arena
suddenly split apart as the serpent surged up out of a jagged hole in the
ground and thrust itself up into the sky, lunging and snapping at the departing
ship with its bared fangs and missing the egg by a hairs breadth. Rocks and
clods of soil and sand rained down as the snake stood upright, a full four hundred
metres above the ground, its tongue licking longingly after the departing craft
which was soon out of sight.
Cheated of its prey it swivelled
round maliciously, looking for something to vent its fury on. For a moment it
stared up at the rocky platform above its head, but that was way out of its
reach. Reluctantly it slid to the ground and sailed off into its hole.
The Seesh was in a
similar situation. He too, with his bruised ego, was forced to retreat into his
wormhole that had begun to destabilize from having such an erratic supply of
power. He took one final look behind him, at the unconscious black man and his Ahram
friend, at the shell shocked Angelo still standing with a dazed expression on
his face, and then he stepped into the vortex and disappeared back into the crack
between the worlds.
The wormhole closed behind
him with a sizzle and suddenly everything was dead quiet. Far in the distance a
Batasaur screeched for a mate, but then all was still and the heat baked down
on the three dazed occupants of the plinth.
Angelo’s return to
reality came about by Noot tugging continuously at his hand for about ten
minutes or more. But he looked about him without interest. Again Noot pulled on
his arm.
“Noot,” he said, but
Angelo didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. The only thing he was
really interested in was Rose. He felt a pain stab at his heart as he
remembered her and then withdrew into himself again. Noot went back to
Righteous and tried to revive him. But neither man was responding. Then he sat
down carefully by Righteous’ side and composed himself. He closed his eyes and
tuned into Righteous’ breathing, synchronizing his own with him, and trying to
feel inside him, find him, wherever he was.
Righteous had gone into
the Cantave stoked with the intention of destroying the Seesh and had simply succeeded
in slashing himself to pieces. Every stroke he had given had returned tenfold and
cut him to the quick. Every virulent curse poured upon the head of the Seesh had
drenched him and left him crippled and crawling like a diseased leper. And
still he had persisted. Summoning all the rage he could muster he had thrown
himself again and again at the Seesh. But the Seesh was no mere mortal. The
Seesh was, in essence, a receptacle of power. There was no bastion for
Righteous’ blows to fall upon. There was no substance to the Seesh. He was merely
a conduit for higher forces, a mere will ‘o the wisp, a momentary shadow in the
corner of your eye, a reflection in the Medusa’s shield.
Righteous had summoned
up his wrath and the Seesh had ripped out his soul and set it down aside of
him, like a tortoise without its shell, naked and vulnerable to every new
offence – his deeds and doings visible for all to see, and to avert their eyes
in kindly compassion. But none would come near him, for who has such a delicate
hand as is needed here – to be a friend to shame stripped bare and glared upon
by God in search of an explanation – ‘Who told you you were naked?’
And there before his bold
blind eyes he saw his parents hung upon the puppeteers wrack, perfumed and
posed, ready for their posthumous performance.
First his father was set
upon the stage – full of buff and bother, dragging on some bottle or the other,
quick to burn and fit to bust he blustered away his hour full of winds and
discontent, seeking here and there some solace in a sleek and comely embrace,
only to fall afoul of his manners and drive all before him with his stench,
like flotsam on a wave.
A harmless old rat –
toothless and alone, sitting on some worn and polished stone where he waited
for the penny to drop, dozing out his days, more in need of love and care than
censure and spit. A sorry sight to wet the eye, and so did bleed Righteous’
heart for the man he was wont to call a fiend.
Then it was his mother’s
chance, a maiden with an eye turning cartwheels in her head to track down her
foe. Inside and out she scrubbed and scoured till all was bare, and set down
there a chair, to sit and watch who did what, and why, and was it them who made
her happiness fly?
The finger of her gaze
fell upon her only son, the mole and murk of her issue – a misfit born without
a rudder - the victim of her frequent spite, her blows raining down upon his
blind head and received as troths of love. So little did he need. So little did
she give. And then, with her mad man mate did she conspire to have him sold at
some grim gate, and this loathsome slug was cast under the wheel of fate.
At the close of this Righteous
fell into a blackness so complete, sans light, sans air, sans tears. Noot shook
him on the shoulder and coughed in preparation of speaking.
“Thou art in danger of
believing,” he began. “The Seesh plays with people’s minds until thou knowest
not what thought is thine and which his. That is how he destroys thee. He
doesn’t lie, but he exaggerates and twists the truth. Thou dared to confront
him and that is why he is punishing thee. But thou art alive and dear to us.
What thou thinkest thou art, thou art not. It is but an illusion. His way is to
instil self-hatred and self-pity into his enemies and then let them defeat
themselves. That way he remains without blemish. If thou believest what thou
hast seen, then he has won. Thou must find some thought of merit in thy soul
and cling to it. It only taketh one.”
Because Righteous was
still groggy from the battle he did not resist Noot’s words but let them all
fall on the virgin soil of his will. Noot’s last suggestion he followed without
thinking and lighted on a piece of driftwood floating on the gentle tide. To
this he clung with happy heart and let it carry him far and wide. Soon a
seashore came in sight, and cheery sand delivered him from his watery plight.
Sun warmed and dry, he woke and sat upright.
He felt his head clear
for the first time since he’d been on this planet. He felt light and energized
– almost revitalized, as if he’d had a long restful sleep. He had no idea how
he’d gotten here. The doom had disappeared – but the voices were still silent.
His head was quiet, merely filled with the sounds of nature: the slight sifting
of the wind across the rock face, a Batasaur’s cry, Noot moving close to him,
fussing over him and stroking his arm.
“I am fine Noot. In fact
I have never felt better.”
“I was concerned for
thee, but now I am glad thou art returned to me.”
Righteous patted his arm
reassuringly.
“What happened? And
where are we? I know we’re not in the Cantave anymore….”
Noot gave him an abbreviated
version of events up to and including the girls’ rescue by the strange egg
craft, but left out the part where the Seesh made Righteous dance like a demon
in mid-air.
“We are stranded up on a
high rock and I fear thy friend Angelo is of little use.”
“What is the matter with
him?”
“I…he has been disabled
by the disappearance of Rose. He has not coped well. His fear for her safety
leaves him unable to act.”
Since Rose’s
disappearance Angelo had become an observer. Like a kid sitting in the window
watching the world go by on a warm suburban afternoon. Things happened but they
were beyond his reach; he was safe behind the glass. The world kept on turning,
unmolested by him and his thoughts. And if anything did happen out there it
meant very little to him because he was a child, with no real power to
intervene. Grown-up affairs were for grown-ups – the anxious ones with their
eyes always on the lookout for something: trouble, or a bargain, or the neighbour’s
wife, or cat, or car, or the postman bearing news – good or bad - or the bus
that was late again. To him all these things were merely scenery. And so too
did he view Noot, and Righteous, and the rock. He wasn’t interested in going
anywhere, nor did he concern himself with the danger they were in; everything
simply was as it was.
So he stood there with a
blank face, until there came a mighty crack and the glass window through which
he gazed shattered and broke and he was pitched forward into the heart of the
action. The tower of rock juddered in the aftershock of the quake. Now
completely awake, it took him but a moment to orientate himself as his police
training kicked in and he took stock of the situation. He took in Righteous and
Noot at a glance. They looked alright. He looked around and saw the rope
hanging limply from the pulley at the top of the tripod, still attached to a
piece of bone from the wrecked cage. When the cage had been smashed and the
women’s weight removed, the rock counterweight had plummeted downwards and the
rope had snaked up, thankfully not going through the pulley and therefore
following the rock to the ground, leaving them stranded. Still, it was going to
be a tricky business lowering them all safely to the ground.
“The rope” he shouted to
Righteous, “Grab the rope.” He rushed to help but Righteous was already on his
feet and being guided towards it by Noot.
“And hold onto Noot,” he
shouted. “His hands aren’t strong enough to hold his own weight. I can look
after myself. Here, grab this bone.”
The ground shifted again
and there came an awful grinding noise that set their nerves a-jangling.
Righteous felt for the bone with one hand and grasped Noot with the other. As Angelo
reached out for the rope there came an ominous cracking sound and the ground
beneath them moved and shuddered like a jellyfish. The snake must have cracked
the bedrock upon which the tower stood and disturbed a very delicate balance,
because the tower, slowly but surely, was beginning to topple.
Without further ceremony
Angelo shoved them off into thin air and prayed for a safe landing.
