The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (22 page)

                            Somethin' to escape y’troubles or this delightful specimen. The High hat moved closer pushing the girl before him. Her head lolled from side to side, her eyes dark and rolling with the drugs the High Hat's had used to pacify her.

                            Rislo looked at her. Her body was boyish and her muscle structure well defined. The Tallman realised that her life had been one of hard work, each muscle group twitching from years of constant use. She was clearly no High Hat brothel girl.

                            The High Hat raised his eyebrows suggestively, misreading Rislo's close scrutiny for something else.

“Nice eh! “he continued his sales pitch. "Nice and clean this, a bit wiry, but look at the 'air! He grabbed the girl's raven black hair which cascaded down her shoulders into the middle of her back.

"She'll be alright for you, if you prefer 'em firm ‘n’ wild - and don't forget mate we don't need 'em back - do what y'will with it!" the High hat grinned, and prepared to close the sale. "So what’ve y’got to exchange then pal"

                            Rislo stared at the High Hat and smiled, but there was no warmth in his face. These people were not content with the perversion in their own city - they had come to trade it here, infect the Tallmen with their own primitive diseases of body and soul. He could not believe this was happening. It must have been going on for sometime - how had he missed it?

Rislo smiled at the High Hat.

"I've not seen you here before brother. How long have you been trading in the Towers?"

The  High  Hat  shrugged.

" Me? Well, since the  beginin’. On and off for the past couple of years. First we began with your bosses, now your Elder's think it'll  be  a  good  thing  if you lot get some fun too, nice of  'em  eh?  Once  a week t'let you blokes get rid  of  some  tensions,  keep you ‘appy. A city without women’s a strange place" he chuckled amused with himself. He winked at  the Tallman. "Know wot I mean, bruv."

Rislo shook his head, his false smile

disappeared rapidly.

"No I don't actually" he paused. "What do you mean." he shouted angrily as he twisted the shaft of his light orb and pointed it angrily at the slowly retreating High Hat who was now visibly shaken and, for some reason, shocked by the Tallman's response. The giant took menacing pace the High Hat.

“Do you realise what's going to happen if the Tallmen are forever  pre-occupied  with              this."  he  gestured              to the  stupefied  Tallman  who  had  awoken  and  now crawled  groaning toward the raven haired girl who had collapsed at his feet.

The High Hat raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “We only sell to those off duty. That was the agreement." he croaked still retreating slowly. The High hat had been shocked by Rislo's sober appearance. Hadn't he drunk from the City's water supply today? It was obvious he hadn't or he wouldn't have been so unfriendly, the High Hat realised that a straight thinking Tallman might jeopardise there real mission here tonight, especially here at one of the places where they had tapped into the water supply.

Rislo shook his head and began to lower his light orb. Perhaps he had over reacted he thought? And so what! Wasn't he personally going to destroy it all soon. It was absurd to get worked up about things. He had to get on with his plans.

                            The High Hat saw the Tallman lower his weapon and took his chance drawing a short musket from beneath his cloak. The clicking of the hammer alerted Rislo who squeezed the light staff's trigger, sending a beam of energy into the human’s stomach. His musket dropped to the ground and the man swayed for a moment, exploring the hole beneath his ribs. Then, when he realised he could feel his spine, he collapsed on his face.

Rislo stared at the smoking corpse, then at the girl who stared up at him, with her tired blue eyes. The drugged Tallman came closer, now crawling on all fours. His arms reached out for him and he began to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog. Rislo kicked him hard in the throat and sent him tumbling across the polished floor and into a still and silent heap.

                            The girl dropped at his feet by the retreating High Hat watched all of this and the violence of the last few moments seemed to have brought her back to the edge of reality. She stared at the Tallman who stared angrily back at her, her eyes pleaded with him to take her away from this place and the drug induced hell the High hats had placed her in.

                            The Tallman ignored her. He strode off across the chamber and removed something from the smaller room and stuffed it into his pack. He moved purposefully across to the work benches and took several tools and other pieces of equipment and placed these in his pack too. Then he placed his light orb in a socket and recharged it, before taking two more from a rack above and slipped them into his belt.

                            His business here complete, Rislo moved to the entrance of the chamber and peered cautiously up and down the corridor. Rislo could still not fully comprehend the sights which he had witnessed this evening, part of him would not believe it and  this drove him to further investigation of the state the Tallmen had got themselves into. After all this was just one room of thousands and hadn't the High Hat said that they did not sell to those on duty? he thought. But then again what were they really up he thought? He had to find answers his own questions, despite the risks. Quickly Rislo searched the chamber for some form of disguise and found a yellow technician's robe and donned this over his black leathers.

                            With the robe’s hood dropped over his eyes he walked casually out into the corridor, after hiding of the Tallman and the High Hat in the charging room. He walked slowly along the brightly lit corridors and observed the behaviour of his colleagues who were supposed to be on duty.

                            Superficially there seemed to be little wrong, except that many waved and smiled at him in a extraordinarily friendly way. At one point a technician left his tasks and congratulated Rislo on his recovery from illness and gave him a suffocating and emotional embrace. The Tallmen were too friendly, their society was a best strictly formal. Rislo could see that they were all doped.

              As he approached the dormitories he realised from the screaming and shouting that something was seriously amiss, that his fears were about to be confirmed. At the doorway into the dormitories another sneering High Hat greeted him touting his wares of drugs and an offering him a choice from a string of naked men, women and children chained tightly together.

Rislo pushed him aside and entered the dimly lit sleeping quarters where the Tallmen were not sleeping. Most were furiously engaged with their recent and disposable purchases or each other in a hot, sweaty and sex soured atmosphere. Those who were not were rolling around in a state of drug induced frenzy lay stupefied on the floor. He stared in disbelief. All discipline, control over the savage and powerful side of their physical existence and self imposed morality these once proud beings had, all  those  things  which  had  made  them  what  they   the  Tallmen were, had gone. They had fallen and Rislo finally believed what he saw and he had seen enough.

                            The Tallman,  who  now thought  himself  the  last, retreated from the dormitory and made his way back the way he had come. He closed his ears to the sound of screaming and psychotic laughter and ran quickly to the chamber and the well shaft. As he approached the doorway he stopped abruptly when he heard the sound of voices from within. Rislo peered around the door to see two Tallmen warriors in full mirror armour standing over the bodies of the technician and the High Hat. Neither were drugged or disoriented. They were armed and their glowing red laser staffs had been primed to kill. Rislo considered his position, and then lunged into the chamber shouting at the top of his voice.

"Guards! Guards! Where have you been! I tried to contact you! The High Hat at the dormitory he did this! he gasped. Immediately the mirror armoured men whirled around and approached him. Rislo stared at his own face in the smooth full-face visor of the Captain.

                            For a moment the Captain of the Guard seemed to observe Rislo intently, although nothing could be seen of his expression behind mirror. Rislo the runaway shivered. "Which level dormitory brother?" the Captain eventually asked.

"Three! Be quick!" he replied. The two guards stormed out and the              rebel              Tallman              leapt              toward              the              well-shaft. Checking that the discharged Power Reservoir was tucked safely in his pack, he began to lower himself into the dark pit. When he was halfway over the well wall, a small hand gripped his ankle and thwarted his progress.

                            Her grip was like a vice. He struggled but could not shake her off him. He raised his hand to beat her but merely growled and screamed at her . The raven haired girl looked up at him through her blurry  blue  eyes,  which  were  now  bright  and clearand  pleaded with a silent stare. Then with great effort she managed to speak.

“Take me with you please" she begged. Rislo was growing angry. He considered his options .He could get her off his leg. He could kill her or take her with him. The first was never an option and so Rislo lifted her onto his shoulders. She had not done any harm. She was, he presumed, just another victim of the High Hats.

                            With another curse Rislo struggled into the well- shaft and closed the cap behind him, pausing for a moment to weld it shut with his light orb. The girl's additional weight made little difference to Rislo's decent into the abyss and he soon found himself at the bottom and stepped  over the already rat  mutilated corpse  of  the  human woman that had been thrown here previously.

                            A swarm of blind rats fled from the light of his orb back toward he pool where the unseen horror still lurked and that he would have to face again. Rislo watched the rats as they ran and noticed that they retreated parallel to the pool with no intention of leaping into its cold sinister waters.

Rislo  followed,  watching  intently  until  the  rats apparently walked on water and crossed to the  other side.  Examining the  place  closely  he  found  that they  had scrambled across at a place where a submerged pillar lay just beneath the surface. With a stifled shout of triumph, the Tallman bounded across and sprinted through the rest of the shallow pools back to the subterranean streets.

                            He did not stop running until he reached the house where he had found the new dimension door. Once there he dumped his pack and the girl unceremoniously on the floor and himself collapsed exhausted, physically and nervously on the floor.

              The  girl  did  not  move  from  the  position              he had  dropped  her  but,  from  the  slight  rising  and  falling of  her  chest,  he  judged  that  she  had  fallen  into  a deep sleep. Rislo covered her naked form with the cloak he had used as a disguise in the city of the Tallman, then took out the spoils of his foray and smiled to himself.

                            The extra light staffs glowed brightly as he planted them in the  cracked  concrete  floor  to  create  a  circle of protective light around  them.  The  egg  shaded Power Reservoir, in comparison, was a pit of darkness. No light escaped it and there was not even  a  reflection on it surface. It was a darkness into which he could now  drain  all  the  energy  of  the  city  when  placed  in position in his own device.

                            He smiled in triumph. Now he could  repay  his debt to Cornelius and Jonathon and escape the horrors of this foul place for good. He glanced at the huddled form that lay  beside  him  and  he  hoped  that  Jonathon

had been successful in his own quest. Then they could all leave. Rislo hoped that Jonathon had been  as  lucky  as  he had been. It was true he  had  been  terrified  at  times, but now the worst was over, they were nearly at their goal. Rislo was close to ecstatic.

                            He closed his eyes and began to dream. A mixture of the past memories and future expectations came   drifting  toward  him.  Images  of

and the new world the new life that lay only yards through the dimension door he sat next too. It seemed so easy now, a few hours at the most and they would be gone from here. He smiled broadly as he slipped deeper into sleep, unaware that his friend was finding things far from easy in his own quest and of the old  human  proverb  that  you  should  ‘not  count  your

chickens before they are hatched’.

                            After  a  few  hours  the  girl,  who  Rislo   had been forced to rescue, awoke in a cold sweat, the effects of the drugs she had been forced to take, worn off. She was now bright and alert. Her head hurt and  the past day was a kaleidoscope memory of colour and emotion. She  knew  that  she  had  been  abducted  by  the High Hats, she remembered the fire on the Castle of Lepers and the killings. She sniffed back the tears, now was not the time. She accepted that they had gone and there was nothing she could do to bring them back to her. But Jonathon was still out there, he was alive and

this was a time for the living. She would find him. Quietly, she got to her feet and wrapped the cloak tightly around her, tearing off strips and binding the material into the one piece padded suit she was  used  to.  She  looked  at the  sleeping  giant.  He   had   been   reluctant   to take  her,  she  remembered, but she owed her life to him. Milly examined her surroundings and prepared to leave. A great rainbow whirlpool dominated the rear of the building. She gazed at it in awe for a few moments before stepping nimbly over the snoring Tallman and moving towards the door and out of the protection of the light.