Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (27 page)

Before he could
say another word, it was Stanwick that pulled off from the pack and
started running towards the building with breathtaking speed, the
boy following immediately after her. Charlene knew the name of the
building now as she looked at the dominating architecture, the
ornate detailing of the pillars, the undulating forms of
beautifully hewn stone. She knew, because West knew. This was the
Dannustine Palace, and the courtyard they were standing in was the
place that bore daily witness to the zenith pyres.

She moved after
the two figures, her vision pulling forward in one smooth motion.
She paused to admire the grandiose doorway that Stanwick was about
to pass into, Stanwick’s limbs frozen mid flight. Either side of
the dark tunnel ahead, thick pillars stood proud, perfect
depictions of the musculature of a human calf and shin, veins and
all, with immaculately carved leeches, polished to a sheen,
climbing, and boring into these stone legs. Charlene took a moment
to cast her gaze about the whole courtyard, and she noticed that at
the outskirts, towards the gates of the palace, the pillars were
quite commonplace, carved in a similar style to the spiraling forms
of solomnic pillars, but in succession, as she moved back towards
the entrance to the palace, so the pillars grew more ornate and
grotesque. These carvings continued into the tunnel, the walls
decorated in deep relief sculptures, depicting oddly distorted
bodies, marching towards the dark. There, suspended mid-flight, his
body poised like a Hellenestic sculpture of athleticism, the boy
Ahken, dreamer of the magnificent dream, future President of
America, founder of the Economic Unification Council. She felt
suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, crying inside, perhaps actually
crying beneath the glardium weave veil she wondered, her body
thirty-thousand years away, pressed against the wall of West’s
apartment. Who would this boy become, in the interim, in
parenthesis, in the thirty-thousand year shuffle that would lead to
his assassination in New York.

She looked back
at West, and understanding that she could only really see what he
could see, she felt frustrated that he hadn’t even started to run
after the others. She allowed the scene to move, and Stanwick and
Ahken were quickly lost in the darkness ahead of her until West
reached the entrance of the palace. Light spilled into the scene,
and again, Charlene brought the movement almost to a stop, watching
the slow symphony of muscle and fabric. She moved deeper into the
corridor,where in the half light, two figures moved as one, their
feet falling and arms pumping in synchronized rhythm of form.
Charlene pushed in closer, moving about them as they ran in mime,
their determined faces sinking into the shadows ahead of them. They
were beautiful these two, heartbreakingly perfect, cast by the
leeches in an idealized frame, each of their bodies at the same
time a vehicle, temple, and animal.

In the dark
distance, as West started to catch up, Charlene could see now that
Ahken and Stanwick were about to be met by two more figures, their
pupils glistening, light reflected from some delver woven
estimation of tapetum lucidum. West knew … Dannustine Guards,
Blood-Brood night hunters prowling, their trap set, two pairs of
sparkling deadly emeralds bobbing and weaving. Stanwick leaped
forwards, somersaulting and twisting as she went, closing the gap
between her and the guards quickly. As she neared them, she tucked
her knees up towards her chest, then uncoiled midair, her hands
grabbing one of the men by the head, her feet catching either side
of the other man’s neck, flooring the two easily with the forward
momentum she had gathered. Before the guards had an opportunity to
react, Ahken was on one of them, clawing at him, ducking his head
out of the way as Stanwick untangled herself and pinned the other
one.

For a moment,
Charlene was fascinated by the brutality with which the attack
happened, but when the men stopped shouting, she had to look away.
Ahead there were hundreds of these guards sprinting towards them,
every one of them a hungry and primed predator, body’s twitching in
the strobe light cast through the flailing forms and the sheer mass
of bodies flooding in through the arched entrance behind her. West
broke off from the pack and started running towards the walls,
effortlessly transitioning into crawling, hand over foot, cunning
fingers finding easy purchase on the sculptural decorations,
dragging him in writhing fluidity towards the ceiling. The pack
followed his lead, every one of them climbing the sculpted surface
as easily, faces all ferocity and focus.

West and Stanwick lay
outstretched on the hardwood floor of the apartment, both gazing up
at the ceiling.

“How many times
have you gone over the events of the fall West?”

West noticed a
thin crack in the plaster surface of the ceiling and made a mental
note that he should do something about it, “It’s not really
something I look back on fondly Stan.”

Stanwick turned
her head so that she could see West’s profile as he spoke, “I know
it was necessary; of course it was. I made a lot of mistakes.”

Stanwick
laughed, “Come on, surely you’ve forgiven yourself by now?”

West caught a
glimpse of Stanwick’s smiling face out of the corner of his eye and
he smiled, “I’ve forgiven myself, it doesn’t mean I want to relive
it.”

Stanwick
reached towards him with her hand and nudged his shoulder, “I don’t
believe you.”

He smirked,
“I’ve relived the year I met you and Ahken twice in its entirety in
the last fifty years; I only stopped to eat and sleep
occasionally."

“No shit?”

West nodded
silently, still smiling.

Stanwick gazed
back up at the ceiling, “It’s a shame Charlene has to skim it … I’m
jealous that she’s watching it right now.” She rolled over and
leaned forwards, touching the wall, closing her eyes to the
apartment, “She’s going to be on this all night. She hasn’t even
made it to the bowl yet.”

“Where’s
David?”

Stanwick
snorted, “David is well and truly skimming. He’s almost through the
Mythologue. He’s already witnessed the birth of the destroyer.”

West listened
to the shuffling sounds as Stanwick lay back down beside him, “Do
you still think of him as Ahken?”

Stanwick
stretched her arms over her head, focusing her eyes on a simple
silver ring on her left hand, “You know I almost thought I loved
him West. Would I have been the only girl in Allim who felt that
way?” She knew the question warranted no answer, “Tell me you
haven’t loved him and hated him in equal measure. When has he ever
been anything other than everything he dreamed of. He’ll always be
Ahken, no matter how many incarnations his personality goes
through.”

“I’m sure
you’ve lived through that year so many times you could recite
everything that happened word for word.” West prodded Stanwick as
he cast his mind back to a time when she too was idolized by the
people of Allim.

“You ass!”
Stanwick reached her leg towards him and kicked his ankle
playfully, “I was seventeen, I didn’t know what to make of any of
it; when the things Ahken saw started to come true, everything was
turned on its head. If you hadn’t come onto the scene, do you think
things would have played out the same way?”

West shook his
head, “I’ve already said Stanwick; I made mistakes. Returning to
Allim was a mistake but no one person was responsible for what
followed. You know as well as I do that no one would have survived
those events if it hadn’t been for the war.”

Stanwick raised
herself up on her elbows, watching Charlene’s minuscule muscle
spasms as she experienced the events of the final days of Allim
from the safety of the hopper, “Do you remember the first time you
saw her?”

“Charlene you
mean?”

“I know it’s
her. I’d have recognized her from her mannerisms alone, even if she
wasn’t so fucking perfect.” Harsh words, but there was no
bitterness in her voice.

West felt the
weight of the room closing in about him. He’d listened to his own
lie so many times that he’d almost allowed himself to believe that
their meeting had been serendipitous.

“I tried to
avoid it you know? I thought I’d be able to spare her.”

Stanwick smiled
to herself, remembering the first time she’d seen Charlene, the
hours she’d spent watching her, every facet of her face committed
to memory an eternity ago, always knowing. She contemplated letting
his deceit slide, but she couldn’t stop herself, “Bullshit West.
I’m not judging, but stop lying to yourself. And don’t think for a
second you can lie to me.”

“I had five of
the scourge chasing me, and yes, I knew what was coming, of course
I knew. I could have picked another door.”

“That. Right
there West. Absolute bullshit.” She rolled onto her side and stared
at him, “You were there the same reason I was in London in 73, the
same reason Reiner was in Irkutsk in 86, and the same reason Petra
was in Paraguay in 54” She lay back down, sinking into the memory
of the first time she’d played through the end. Her end.

They had all
seen glimpses of what was to come, certainly those who would still
be at Ahken’s side when he came into office knew more or less
exactly how their destiny would play out. However, for most of
Allim’s children, the details, the minutia, the finer points all
stopped abruptly at some point in the late 19th century. There was
no mystery. The glardium cube had started to reach capacity, hopper
tuning out everything except the most important details of the
recording. Stanwick was one of the fortunate ones, because she
turned up in the bigger picture, hanging around DC while Ahken was
on the campaign trail, but certainly, there were gaps in her
history. West’s recording crapped out many years earlier, in a
bookstore, in New York, his pupils dilating to soak up every detail
of the darkness, then expanding further in that instant of
recognition. “Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all,
to see life as it is and not as it should be.” Stanwick clenched
her teeth as she remembered the first time she’d heard the words
and watched the smile form on Charlene’s lips. It had come as a
painful life lesson. Avoid spoilers.

David had grasped that
he could speed up or slow down the pace of events, but he had
witnessed everything from West’s perspective, sometimes fighting as
rear guard, protecting Stanwick and Ahken from flanking attacks,
and at other times, crawling about the ceilings of the palace, so
that the world spun nauseatingly, bodies leaping in a topsy-turvy
aerial ballet. Once the battle had spilled outside of the walls of
the city, David had held out some small hope that it would become
easier to deal with the dizziness of it all, but West had a habit
of flinging himself into full on brawls, and therein, being tossed
brutally about the blood strewn fields. So David skipped a lot, so
what? He got the gist. It was a more visceral gist than he had of
any battle he’d learned about in school, or from any of the
historical dramas he’d seen at the cinema over the years.

The first full
on, blood spurting, body twitching, honest to god beheading
happened right in front of him, as West wielded what looked like a
femur which had been flayed and snapped off in jagged line. David
had felt his stomach twist, and he wondered if he vomited in the
hopper, would he actually vomit out in the real world. He managed
to keep himself together though, at least until he watched another
fighter ram the head of what could have been a dog, or perhaps a
wolf onto the still writhing body of a man. Sickeningly, the
wretched animal picked itself up off the ground seconds later,
teeth all pearly white and red all over.

The rolling
hills and forests surrounding the north of the city were filled
with such monstrosities, lurching and ambling half humans, co
joined with whatever beast of the air, land, or water had been
unlucky enough to be close at hand when a body part was lost. Men
and women, sprinting into battle with their torsos melded and woven
into primordial terrors, the likes of which David could never have
feared to be even remotely possible.

Where no tree
limb, body part, or farming implement could be found to be put to
use as a weapon, hands and teeth won out, and David closed his mind
to the sights and sounds of West tearing at the throats of his
enemies. It seemed inadequate to simply fillet or disembowel an
enemy, because such wounds were too easily closed up, wrapped with
care, the victim sent back into action by their delvers.

When he could
bear no more, David willed for the whole thing to stop, and as
abruptly as that, everything vanished from view.

After three laps of
the empty apartment, panic stealing over him a little, it finally
occurred to David that he was still under the thrall of the hopper.
He waved his hand in front of his face, trying to grab hold of the
material which he knew must be covering him, but he couldn’t feel
it.

“Hello? Hey
guys, I’m kind of stuck here.” No response.

He thought
about his body, concentrated on the weight of his limbs, and tried
lifting his hand again, “Seriously, can anyone hear me?” He cursed
himself, sure that there must be some simple knack that he wasn’t
getting. He imagined clicking his heels together, reciting the
incantation to himself, there’s no place like home, there’s no
place like home, no place … Suddenly he was plunged into darkness,
and he felt the soft fabric fall from his face. Through half closed
eyelids, he could make out that Stanwick was standing in front of
him, leaning with one hand against the wall. She shook his shoulder
firmly, “Dorothy. Dorothy, dear, It’s Stanwick. Did you sleep
well?”

Blearily, David
sneered a crooked smile, “No. No I did not. It was a fucking
nightmare. I just watched thousands of people slaughtered
mercilessly, and you were there,” he glanced towards West, “and you
were there.”