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Initiation 6by Darren Ryding |
Damiel
could feel the elevator plummeting
fast. His biochip
implant translated the
numbers and text on the display monitor.
They were descending kilometres beneath the vast habitat
caverns,
beneath the starship bays, beneath the antique galleries, libraries,
museums
and theatres that (according to Marishison) the Queen herself had
commissioned
to remind her servants of the cause.
“Don’t
worry,” said Marishison.
“Very few recruits get to sleep at all before
meeting Her Majesty. She
will accept you
regardless. I
presume that is what you
want.”
“It
is,” said Damiel. “It
still is.”
Despite
Marishison’s reassurance, Damiel
wished he’d had at least a modicum of sleep to prepare
himself for this
moment. The guest
room he had stayed in
seemed adequate by the standards of his own world, if rather basic by
the
standards of this one. He
had spent two
hours pacing, and another two trying desperately to sleep on what
looked and
felt like an ordinary bed. Under
the
sheets, he felt too hot. Over
the
sheets, he felt too cold. He
could not
find a single air conditioner setting that would suit him, not even
when he
combined it with varying arrangements of bed sheets.
At one stage he simply wrapped the thick
comforter all around him, desperately trying to simulate
Skalosak’s pouch. It
could not compare. The
room had no books, no monitor, no media
access whatsoever. He
had no way of
finding out what initiates were supposed to do, nor what they should
have
expected. Perhaps
this was just as well,
for otherwise he would have spent the entire time in random, frenzied
research. Instead,
he had spent most of
the final hour crouched in the showerbath, his eyes closed as four
robotic
hoses sprayed him with warm, herbal scented water.
That had been the closest he could come to
relaxing, and now his time was spent.
Nonetheless,
the questions squirming in his
head during those six hours were exactly the same questions tormenting
him this
very moment. What
was the Queen? The
stories he had read all contradicted each
other. Did she look
like a dragon? A
giant hippo? A
lioness?
A feline form would have made the most sense, given the
prevalence of
feline provolves among her servants.
Damiel hoped that she was not too demanding on the eye - a
giant spider
or centipede would probably make him lose bodily control. Yet equally important was
the question of her
size. Was she the
size of an office
block? A spaceport? Just how was she able to
cause tremors when
excited? Was it
because she was
connected to all the machinery throughout the realm?
Damiel knew that some transapients grew to
enormous size - particularly the high transapients, of which the Queen
was
doubtlessly one. He
tried his best not
to dwell too hard on this subject.
For
better or worse, the answer would present itself soon enough.
Damiel
felt heavy as the elevator began to
decelerate. What
will I see? he
thought. What
will I see when the
doors open?
The doors did open, but the first thing Damiel saw was a long cave tunnel. The second thing he saw what a glowing red haze at the end of the tunnel, at least a hundred metres away.
“Is
that …” Damiel whispered feverishly,
“…
is that her?”
“No,”
said Marishison. “At
least, not quite. That’s
utility fog. That’s
where Her higher servants dwell - the
lower transapients. The
demons, if you
like.”
“I’m
not sure if I do li- … wait, can she
hear us?”
Marishison
grinned lightly. “She
does not care what you say, nor what you
think. She does not
care how you dress,
nor how you comb your hair. She
does not
expect formalities from newcomers.
She
understands how imposing She is to us tiny creatures.
It is Her self-appointed task to make you a
servant, a Collector, an Apprentice Chaplain.
You don’t have to do a thing.
There is no test, no ritual.
You
have already passed. Just
speak your
mind and be yourself, for as long as you remain yourself. She will make the
necessary changes, as She
did with all of us.”
“But
… but does that mean … she takes away
your free will?”
The
Chaplain’s face grew long with
sadness. “Damiel,
it is your free will
that brought you here.”
“I
know,” said Damiel. “I
know.
This is the task I wanted - to take part in the process of
justice.”
“And
that you will, son. You
will take part in the process of justice,
and you will have your say. You
will
make a difference. You
will have a
chance to save those who still hold a breath of remorse. And most importantly, you
will still have
most of your free will. Your
beliefs,
your thoughts, your emotions, will be your own.
The only difference will be what you learn today, what you
will carry
around inside you for the rest of your life.
Her Majesty will never let you forget your duty. You will not leave Her,
because you will not want
to leave Her. Not
for long. If you
disobey Her, like our dear friend
Skally sometimes does, She will simply remind you where you went wrong,
and why
your action was wrong. To
us, at least,
She is a just ruler.”
Damiel
thought of Skalosak’s frequent
torment, the nightmares that plagued her sleep.
“That is not free will,” he said.
“Not what she’s done to Skalosak.
She has punished her.
She’s
punished all of you with nightmares.
She’s lodged herself into your heads.
And she’s going to do the same with
me.”
“I’m
sorry to say this,” said Marishison,
“but if you turn back now, then others will return you to
this place and force
you to face Her Majesty. You
may have
lost many of your freedoms, but again, it is a loss you have
chosen.”
“I
have,” said Damiel. “It
was my choice. I
can’t deny that.”
“So
… are you ready to meet Her Majesty?”
“As
ready I can possibly be, which isn’t
really saying much.”
Marishison
chuckled lightly. “Bless
you,” he said. “I
know you’re up to the task that lies
ahead. Let’s
go now.”
Damiel
walked beside Marishison along the
cave tunnel, staring at the red haze up ahead.
Shapes seemed to wriggle and writhe within the haze, like
clusters of
serpents or tentacles. It
was like a
fiery, ethereal version of the transport tubes far above.
“Are
you sure that’s not the Queen?”
“Most
certain. Only Her
servants. Of
course, even the lowliest transapients may
seem overwhelming to our senses. But
they mean you no ill. They
value you,
just like the guards, like Skalosak herself.
They know you have an important part to play here, and
they want you to
play that part as best you can. Her
Majesty wills it.”
The
closer they approached the tunnel’s
open end, the warmer it became. Damiel
caught a faint stench of sulphur, and something worse beneath it -
something
like rotting flesh. His
heart thudded
faster, louder. Every
muscle in him
began to strain, dreading every step, the air thick with foreboding. As he viewed the writhing
shapes in the fiery
haze, inhaling air that made him want to choke, the grim realization
came to
him. This was the
place his religion had
warned him about. This
was Hell. It did
not matter if this place had been
created by a transapient only a few thousand years ago.
Time meant nothing here.
Something timeless and eternal, beyond space
and matter, had made its mark on this planet, on the fevered mind of
the
transapient artist that had made her home here.
This place was where Hell intersected with the physical
universe. It could
be nothing else.
As
the tunnel exit expanded in his view,
Damiel saw more of the open space beyond.
The red haze seemed to extend for kilometres, perhaps
dozens of
kilometres. As far
as the eye could see,
thousands of serpentine figures swooped and swirled and danced. Much larger shapes moved
amongst them, as
thick as tree trunks among weeds.
“Are
they superintelligent?” Damiel
whispered. “They
seem so … wild.”
“They
are both,” said Marishison.
“They praise Her Majesty with every thought,
every movement, for She gives them life with every moment that
passes.”
The
heat became uncomfortable as they
approached the end of the tunnel.
Damiel
stopped two metres before the end, staring up into the scarlet storms
of
Hell. Far above, at
least a few
kilometres up, a vast stone ceiling filled the heavens like a mountain
range
turned upside down, its downward-pointing peaks jutting through clouds
of blood
red mist. Thousands
of serpents and
squids of fire soared to and fro amongst the clouds.
Towering in their midst were dozens of bulbous,
city-sized jellyfish, like nuclear mushroom clouds brought to life by a
billion
deaths. The massive
serpentine shapes
Damiel had seen from a distance were only their tentacles. Damiel gazed further into
the distance, and
saw that the stone ceiling went on forever.
Far ahead, to the left and right, its jagged features
vanished smoothly
into the red clouds, into clusters of thousands of city-jellyfish, into
swarms
of millions of fire squids and serpents.
On the far, blood-hazed limits of his vision, Damiel saw
several living
globules rising like toy balloons over the scarlet horizon. Clearly, the cavern went
on for hundreds of
kilometres. It was
the cellar of a
continent.
“Which
one is the Queen?” said Damiel,
staring dazedly into the blood red subterranean sky.
“You
won’t find her up there,” said
Marishison. “Look
down.”
Damiel
lowered his gaze to the far
horizon. The
distant floor of the cavern
was obscured by red clouds and swarms of demons, while the lower lip of
the
tunnel entrance blocked the view of whatever lay directly below. He took a few tentative
steps forward, ever
closer to the edge … and a whole new landscape unfolded
before him. Sprawled
out kilometres below, stretching
forever in all directions, was the floor of the continental cave. Yet it was different from
the ceiling
above. It was a
lighter red, smoother,
its rounded peaks like mountainous sand dunes.
It seemed strangely out of place here, as if someone had
carved out a
huge chunk of a desert planet and placed it down here, under a
topsy-turvy
rocky moonscape. Thousands
of fire
serpents and other smaller demons swam and soared down among the red
mounds,
but there was nothing larger to be found down below.
Nothing stood out as exceptionally huge or
regal. Beneath a
forest of giants,
nothing he could see suited the title of Queen.
“I
can’t see her.”
“She’s
down there, without question.”
Damiel
was confused. Where
was the Queen of Pain hiding? Behind
one of many red mounds? Was
she actually smaller than the demonic
servants she controlled?
“What
do I look for?” he asked
Marishison. “Is
she camouflaged? Does
she have distinct markings? Is
she one of the … the …”
Thousands
of huge eyes opened up in the
landscape, all swivelling to stare at him.
The red mounds shuddered and heaved.
Beneath Damiel’s feet, a mild tremor formed as
the living continent far
below awoke from its slumber.
Damiel screamed.
'