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Betrayals: thirteenby Steve Bowers |
Zero plus ten hours (subjective time = 10^3 normal)
* * *
The mother-of-pearl sky was too bright to stare at for more than a few minutes, which was a problem, because so much trouble came from that direction. The worst things in the daytime, Gusta believed, were the winged serpents- they were quick, and could come at you from directly above like a diving gannet-bird, or they could hop over a hedge like a weasel. Either way they had foot-long jaws and a strategy of ripping out your throat.
There, she could see it- an undulating worm, twenty metres up but half a kilometre away, ridiculous tiny wings flapping far too slowly. People said that it was only the concentrated evil in the serpent's nature that kept it in the tilted sky.
From this far away the wicked creature caused no more than a shiver of gooseflesh…
The night could be full of terrors, and those who could posted night watchers to alert the fitful sleepers. Two nights ago the nightwatch in her hamlet had been overcome by one or more shadewraiths- darker than the night, they were never seen except as a darting shape in the lamplight.
Things had not always been like this, she knew- talking in the low taverns and in the longhouses she found that many of the other Serviles could remember a distant time when the world made sense. She too had a vague feeling that everything had been wonderful, many thousands of years before her earliest memory… so many times now she had been killed by a night terror or a day dragon, or sometimes by a sadistic Ganger or a cynical Warrior.
But every time she would find herself back in the tilted world, lying on a roadside somewhere unknown, and wandering into a Servile hamlet to be either grabbed by the Gangers and accepted into slavery, or killed again by some local group of crazies. Gusta bowed her head, and scuttled back to her own hamlet and into the stable-cot she was sharing with Tommo the ox-driver.
Tommo was hacking at the witch-post with his machete. Recently the strain of Servility had been getting him down, and he was hacking deeper and deeper cuts into the magical wooden post.
"That blasted thing won't be no good against shadewraiths if you keep chopping at it, you dumdog!"
Gusta said.
The witching post was powerful enough to frighten away the shades and vampires of the night, but the flesh and blood Gangers were a different matter. These henchmen came any time of night of the day to give orders to lowly Serviles like Tommo and Gusta; they had whips and swords and were well fed and smug.
"I'll swing for that chief ganger, see if'n I don't."
"Come on, Tom, if you get down to it, you could be a Ganger yourself- if you get killed you just have to start over somewhere else."
They both froze as Jhon, the sadistic head ganger, slowly pushed open the wooden door to their stable-cot. "Don't you go blunting that knife, little Tom, you might need it when the lads come and sort you out."
"Can't you leave him be, Jhonny?" Gusta scowled at the thick-set man, who was dressed in metal-studded leather armour. " All any of us want to do is live here without getting killed and sent off to foreign parts.
That's all you have done, stuck around long enough to get made head ganger. Don't keep killing people just because you can."
"You have to admit, I am right good at it. If'n you want's to be a ganger, boy, you got to suffer a bit. Mebbe you'll make it next time you wake up after a little rest."
"Praps I'm ready now for stepping onto your shoes, eh?" Tommo said, but slowly and deliberately he put the machete on the table.
"Good boy," smiled the overseer. "You might live long enough to make ganger yet. And - well, you tattle-tales must know what they been saying at the trading post."
Gusta was still seething, but she said, "Go on, what. What are they saying now?"
“The Traders are coming to the Tilted World again,” sneered the ill-shaven ganger, “and they are going to take thousands of lives. This here part of the world is overdue for a bit of life trading- and I mean to be one of them as gets taken.”
The Tilted World…
That was what most everybody called this nightmare landscape- all the people gathered together in the small hamlets and trading points, trying to farm and hunt as the muddy rivers carved their way downslope. Most everybody had been living and dying and living again here for thousands of years, and all that time the world had been slowly tipping, and the rivers were carving their way downhill more and more rapidly. The world tipped forever- there was no end to this hillside…
Enterprising gangers and Warriors had built bridges across many of the rivers, but they charged high tolls, so not many Serviles were able to travel. If a Servile developed wanderlust, or just got tired of the cramped life in the hamlets, he or she could have a crack at the heavily armed gangers and warriors. Most likely they would be killed, but as death just meant waking up in a far distant part of the Tilted World, it was just an inconvenience.
These suicidal little rebellions happened so frequently that nothing could ever be lasting in the god-forsaken tilted world, and if any group of bridge-builders and toll takers ever managed to put together a stable and wealthy town, and forgot that they were in fact damned, the winged serpents and shades would muster, and the town would soon be smoking ruins.
“D’you want to meet our new ringer? She’s a right god-botherer, this un.”
Jhonny chuckled.
“Poor little bastard crazy-” Tommo shook his head. “They do say it’s bad luck to hurt a ringer - I hope you been behaving yourselves.”
“She’s fine, don’t you fret now. But you want to hear her talk - makes your hair stand up on your neck, it do.”
The Ringer was asleep at the big mealtable in the longhouse, head resting uncomfortably on her arms. As they came in, the ganger noisily slamming the heavy wooden door, she woke up with a start and looked at them.
“A woman- thank Binah- I thought it was all men here.”
Gusta glared at the ganger, who grinned disgustingly. “Have they hurt you, love? You can tell me.”
“Don’t – no – well, no, actually, they haven’t touched me, but they are disgusting brutes – I can’t tell you some of the things they have said they want to do, but they haven’t really –er - done any of them. And the food is disgusting.”
Picking up the lump of bread on the plate in front of the woman, Gusta thought it was pretty standard fare. “Well, I’m afraid that’s the sort of bread we are used to these days. What was the food like where you’re from, love?”
“The food? Compiled or handmade?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” said Gusta, but it was right what
Jhonny had said about the hairs on her neck, they were bristling up. “Well, tell me about the hand made food, cause I don’t know what the other one is.”
“Crap-piled,” said Jhonny, and Tommo laughed cruelly.
“My partner, Benita, makes wonderful ciabatta with lampdried tomatoes and edible nightshade. Sometimes I can manage a good chapatti or nan myself, if the hotplate can understand my instructions properly- but you know dedicated systems, they have a mind of their own. Hermm. You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Do you?” laughed the ganger.
“What did you say this place was called? I am lost without my positioning implant.”
“This is Reakman’s Tye, half a league leftwards from the Torrent river bridge.” Gusta said.
“Yes, but what world?”
This question worried and scared Gusta even more.
She could remember dreams about different worlds- mostly rings, and sometimes huge worlds like balls or little ones like tubes- all floating in a black sky filled with tiny lights. But those dreams were fading, and she only remembered them whenever she met a Ringer. Everybody else in the Tilted World was the same, she guessed – that was why the men laughed at these Ringers- something about what they said brought up deep, strange memories.
In the real world, the Tilted world, the sky was never black- even at night it glowed with faint, changing, hazy colours. If you looked down the tilt of the world, the sky went down past the horizon, and just kept going down till it met the downwards slope beneath. There was nothing in that sky except demons and serpents.
“This world, the only world, the Tilted world, of course,” said Tommo, sharply. ”Where do you come from – the shadow world or somewhat?”
“My world is the Ring Habitat of Anse. It’s in the Beta Sagittarius System. You must have heard of Arkab? No? I’m sorry - without my implants, I must be a little stupid - I’m sure I’ve never heard of the tilted world- sounds a little odd to me. Are you Prims or something?”
“There, you are- I told you – a Ringer!” Jhonny was triumphant, and spat three times, making the ‘avaunt’ sign with his hand.
“What is your name, love?” Gusta was worried about the panic she could see rising in the woman’s eyes once again.
“My name is Mimula ger-Alnasl, and my general cognomen is Mimi. So you can call me –you can – call me …”
“It’s alright… Shush, now, don’t cry… “ Gusta held the woman as she sobbed. “While you are still a ringer you won’t be hurt, the menfolk are scared of your sort. Believe me.”
“I only went for a routine snapshot- a backup- what the Chaos happened?”
“Soon you’ll forget all these dreams, love… I used to have them long ago- but I reckon it has been more than a hundred thousand days and nights since I myself was a Ringer like you, and no-one can remember things for such a span.”
“Forget - -? Hey, I know what this is… it’s a cybercosm of some sort- you guys don’t even know it… you think this is the only world, don’t you?”
“The only world-? Well, no – there is the spiritworld, love, that is where you have come from…” Gusta had to blink away the dancing specks she could see before her eyes.
Stars. People called them stars.
You could see them when a sadistic ganger slapped you round the face. They had something to do with the spiritworld, but she didn’t really know what.
“You travel through the spiritworld every time you die, but forget everything about it. Excepting for you poor Ringers, that is… you can’t remember nothing but.” Gusta looked straight into Mimi’s face, ignoring the menfolk laughing and spitting behind her. “You won’t remember the spirit world for long, Mimi. Nobody does.”
