Murtha was the sweetest
little thing. The smallest and plumpest of Shim’s warriors and her eye had
fallen on Noot. Normally her natural instinct to eviscerate any male in the
vicinity had to be kept under control when out and about. But one look at Noot
and the pendulum swung the other way. Now she was hard put not to upend him and
do other things to him. Noot’s shy smile contorted her into all kinds of bashful
shapes. It wasn’t the most appropriate of occasions for romance however. She,
together with Shim and Eric the earthling, had been watching Dutch’s
unsuccessful attempts to rescue Sweet Mary and Righteous when the Counsellor
and his Contrata had barged in and all hell had broken loose. Unfortunately the
fight had been rather one-sided thanks to the Counsellor having a small army at
his beck and call and they’d all been taken prisoner. Garm and Noot were
already prisoners and they were all thrown together in a huddle. Noot had
introduced himself to Murtha, and she had blushed and said “Pleased to meet
thee,” and he had complimented her on her snoot, and she had remarked on his
lovely hands which she then proceeded to hold while casting sly glances up at
him. This put poor Noot in a bit of an uproar, his emotions torn between Murtha
and Righteous, not knowing whether to feel happy or sad. Life always seemed to
be a mixed bag of blessings for him. And while they were busy patting palms
there was a sudden burst of ooh’s and aah’s and they looked up just in time to
see Dutch dive down to the deck level in front of them and come to a
confrontational halt in front of the phalanx of Contrata, her crozier seething
with unrequited destruction.
“Let them go,” she said
to the Counsellor, her flying saucer dipping and swaying like a dog straining
at the leash. Since Dutch’s retreat, the event horizon had withdrawn from the
ceiling and was now some fifty metres shy of the central spire. The clock had
swung all the way back and the Cantave was once more firmly on the ground. The
whole episode seemed like a bad dream to Dutch – but she didn’t have any more time
to contemplate the vagaries of space and time.
“You can’t do anything
to me,” said the Counsellor.
Dutch seared off the
handles of his palanquin and he crashed to the floor.
“Ouch. Ouch. Alright. I
think you’ve broken my back you know.”
Dutch raised the crozier
and it crackled in anticipation.
“Alright, alright. Let
them go, let them go,” he shouted at the Contrata.
And this was the moment
Shim had been waiting for. In an instant she was on the Counsellor’s back with
her knife at his throat.
“Now you’re going to
die,” she hissed in his ear.
“Nooo,” he screamed. “Please
don’t hurt me.” But Shim had a plan. While they were being held prisoner, Garm
had managed to tell her what the Counsellor had said about being the Seesh’s
eater. If that was true then she had a prime hostage in her hands. The
Counsellor screamed in earnest this time as the knife began to slice into his
fat green neck.
Then several things
happened all at once. The atmosphere rippled with intimations of an imminent
arrival. Something very large and deadly with the unmistakable odour of
brimstone was arriving. Flashes of fire nibbled at the oxygen in the air and
everyone started looking around for cover. All except Dutch. Under cover of
the ensuing chaos, Dutch unleashed a coil of energy and unhooked Sweet Mary
from her precarious perch on high. In one deft movement she swung her down and
tucked her up at her feet on the flying saucer. She didn’t have time for any more
though. The air buckled and buffeted and nearly blew them all away as the light
was sucked out of the room and the Seesh breezed into town.
“Evening all. You called?”
he said facetiously. “And really, there’s no need to hurt the little Counsellor.
True, he used to be my food-mate, but after tonight I shall never have to eat
again.” And looking at him they didn’t doubt his words. He was the epitome of a
supernatural being or some mythical Ahram god. He stood as tall as the sky although
he was easy to see at any level. Wherever you turned, there he was. Neither his
size nor power was measurable. He was omnipresent and omnipotent, his black crozier
lighting up the universe with its evil emanations, sucking all that was
wholesome out of the air. Behind him the silver spout of the event horizon spat
and sparkled and continued to grow apace, eating at the edges of the pool and
spreading out across the room.
“Nice catch Dutch. You
really are someone to keep their eye on, aren’t you? Anyway. I see you’ve had a
sneaky peek into your future,” he smiled at her. “Did you enjoy the pyrotechnics?
But don’t worry. Soon we’ll all be doing the journey for real.” He sniffed the
air, and for a moment he looked uncannily like the giant dog that had chased
them through the mangroves. “And no. You can’t have Righteous back. I’m looking
forward to swapping stories with him a little later on. At the moment he’s
dealing with some…personal issues. Like failure, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. But we had
a little heart to heart and he has seen the error of his ways.”
With that the Seesh
increased his height to the level of where Righteous still rotated about the
waterspout.
“Hello Boy,” he said
with a Southern twang, “How you holding up? Ha, ha. I have a little present for
you. Open your eyes.”
Righteous thought The
Seesh was just mocking him, but then, miracle of miracles, he saw an actual reflection
of himself. At first the image was just a blurry shadow, but it sharpened and
took on more definition.
When a baby opens its
eyes for the first time it cannot see perspective. The world is two dimensional
and there is no depth. It sees colours and shapes all mingled up in front of
its eyes, all equidistant from it. Mother’s face and the lamp stand and wall
behind her are all one image. It takes many months before the baby begins to
separate the different objects from each other. It cannot distinguish one image
from the other. For him/her the whole world is its mother - the chair, the cup,
the mother, an auntie – all together.
So too would Righteous
have seen, had he had eyes that were opening for the first time. But Righteous’
eyes would never open. What he saw was merely what the Seesh put in his head. A big black man stared back at him. The words
‘black’ and ‘man’ were now accorded meaning for the first time. ‘Black on the
inside and black on the outside’ he thought. He was wonderstruck. He knew it
was an image of himself even though he had never seen before. Sure, he had seen
images in his mind, but these had been more in the form of pressure-colours and
flashes of light…shape-shifting flowings-about in his brain rather than a
picture he could see with his eyes. Now he saw an incredibly detailed…he didn’t
know what to call it…universe is a word that came to mind; ‘picture’ was far
too limiting. Instinctively his hand reached out towards the image.
“There. Now don’t say I
never do anything for you.”
Then, before he knew
what was happening, there followed a succession of images, all of whom he somehow
recognized instantly. Angelo – Dutch – Sweet Mary – Rose – Noot. How beautiful
they all were. Then last but not least, came Belle, and Righteous’ eyes clouded
over with tears and he could see no more. Everything went dark again.
“Here’s the deal,” said
the Seesh after giving Righteous enough time to pull himself together.
“I will let them live,
if you give me…well, you know how your folks - and it’s mainly your mother we
are speaking about here - used to sacrifice a chicken or a goat when brewing up
one of their evil spells? Well I need a little something…a little something like
you…to smooth the way with the forces that be, to ensure that my plan goes off
without a hitch. Call me superstitious but there you go. We all have our little
idiosyncrasies. I don’t need your blood. I need your darkness. Anyway, I’m
proposing a simple agreement between gentlemen. You give up your life for
theirs. No need for anything distasteful, like violence.” His voice rang in the
blackness that was Righteous Alchemy.
“You know this is what
you came here for. You also know it is more than useless to oppose me. This is
your destiny and it would be well to embrace it with honour and dignity. You
don’t want to be dragged out kicking and screaming do you? So unseemly.”
And still Righteous said
nothing, for there was nothing to say. The Seesh was right. All he had to do
was say the word and the deal would be done.
“Tell you what, I’ll
throw in the Earth as a gesture of goodwill. Part of the deal. I will let the
Earth and all its people survive. Your friends even get to choose where they
want to live. Here or there. What do you say?” He paused and waited for Righteous’
answer. “I need an answer here. Yes or no? Times ‘a wasting boy.”
And so it was. The
silver spout, grown to gargantuan proportions, looked almost obscene as it rose
up ever closer to the roof. Below them the Cantave was disappearing bit by bit
as the event horizon tore itself into the bedrock of the valley of bones and
ate its way into the heart of the planet, like the roots of a malign tree,
ripping up the rocks and exposing a great magma chamber far below. Truly they
were now all perched on the lip of hell.
Sweat fell from
Righteous’ brow, ticking off the precious seconds. ‘Not with a bang but a whimper,’
he thought.
“The longer you wait…”
Time had run out for Righteous. From the moment he had been catapulted from
the flying saucer in the crush at the gate and somehow found himself in the
Seesh’s inner chamber, the final countdown had begun.
The clash had been a
battle of minds, quiet and quick, being composed not of a series of words and arguments
unfolding in time, but a compound instant where all was decided at once. In the
grand scheme of things, Righteous found that it would have been easy to defeat
the Seesh simply because Righteous had long since resigned himself to his fate
and was no longer afraid to die. This made him invincible. More importantly, he
was no longer vulnerable to the Seesh’s machinations. The Seesh had already
played on his guilt and self-pity, and Righteous had become immune to these
emotional manipulations. The Seesh had no real way of hurting him now. He was also more
powerful than the Seesh for the simple reason that he was more corporeal than
the Seesh. Living flesh could house so much more power than an ectoplasmic
apparition like the Seesh, whose only real weapon was fear. If he couldn’t get
you to self-destruct through fear or self-hatred or anger, then he was pretty
much out of tricks. If you weren’t afraid of dying, there was nothing he could
do to you. There was only one problem though…as Righteous had found out in
their epic battle. To beat him, he had to equal him. He had to become like him.
To conquer him he had to take control of the Seesh, absorb his energy, and in
the process, lose so much of his own identity as to be no longer Righteous. He
would have become like the Seesh…with all that entailed. To fight evil, he would
have had to become evil. So either way he was going to lose. If he fought or if
he surrendered, the result would be the same. At least if he surrendered he
could save some lives.
With a resigned sigh he
nodded his head, and in that instance he felt all his essence flow from him as
his mind closed down and his body simply stopped. There was an unholy silence
in the hall as the Seesh reached out and took the lifeless husk of Righteous’
body by the scruff of the neck and held him up to the stars. The deed was done.
But still the Seesh wasn’t finished. He hadn’t finished saying what he wanted
to say…and he wasn’t going to be cheated of his five minutes fame….especially
if his audience was now, as the saying goes, a captive one. He had something to
crow about and he wasn’t going to be denied.
“What gullible fools you
puny mortals are,” he addressed the corpse in his hand. “What possessed you to
think I was going to keep my word? Why in the world do you think I was going to
spare any of you? True, I was never going to invade the Earth per se. It was
just a ploy. What would I want with your polluted planet anyway? It’s a
shithouse full of garbage and lunatics.
“And do I look like some
penny-ante dictator to you? That’s a thankless task if ever there was one. No. I’m
actually not looking to conquer any piddling planet, I have greater plans. I’m
looking to conquer God. I want it all you see. To sit on his throne….just Me
and My. Then there’ll be some fun and games, hey Pip? What larks,” he laughed
and nearly choked on the upsurge of excitement that the thought brought forth.
“I shall rearrange
everything to my own taste. Maybe even start again; get rid of all you vermin
and try something new,” he mused. “Who’d have thought that in this mad race for
ultimate power a lizard would get to the prize first. Arrogant humans. F.Y.I.
What I said before was the truth. This isn’t a space ship. It’s far too big. It’s
merely here to house the event horizon and..." Here he paused for a
dramatic effect, "...and generate enough power for me to make
– and here I use the vernacular – the mother of all Black Holes. Once it gets
big enough I’m going to pull the plug on this misbegotten universe and build me
another one – something a bit more spacious…with all the mod cons. Something…...nice.”
And then he stopped
speaking and a slightly puzzled look came upon his face as somewhere deep
inside a small voice spoke.
“Hello big boy,” said
Belle. “How you doing?”
The Seesh turned his
head and angled his chin down, trying to look into his chest where the sound had
come from. Down in the darkness of his being, an infinitesimal part of what
used to be Righteous Alchemy began to stir.
“I need you to come and
fetch me, lover boy,” she said.
