The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (4 page)

                            So the Tallmen had no such god-like powers as Flax envisaged, they were stranded in space and time with nowhere to go. The inflation of Dubh’s energy field and the opening and sustaining of the Great Gate, the umbilical cord of Dubh,  took  all  the  energy the Machine Halls could produce, the Tallmen were hanging on by the skin of their long teeth to existence, as was the realm of Dubh itself. The creators of this womb of human corruption, could barely keep it sustained and any more drain on the energy supply would herald its demise.

                            Silus Flax knew little of this and cared even less. He only envisaged himself in their position of total god-like power, himself in their shoes, running the it in its entirety and using Dubh as a stepping stone to other worlds, other cities. His ambition had no limits, but to swing the balance here in his favour he needed the means to overpower the Tans first, and then the Tallmen. In his vivid and prophetic dreams he saw such a means .  Flax  had  seen  weapons  of  terrible destruction, weapons which  far surpassed  the archaic musketry  of  the  Tans.  Automatic  rifles,   machine guns, grenades and mortars, in his dreams he saw them all being used and the terrible effect they had on the human form of the enemies of those who possessed them. His High Hats would have them too and sweep aside the Tans bearing these terrible talismans of real power. Cutting down all his enemies before him, he Emperor Silus Flax would lead them to  bloody  victory after bloody victory,  first  here  in  Dubh  and  then  in a thousand other worlds. He dreamed and marked these dreams, they were his future. Even during the day visions came to him, vivid glimpses of a place where his talismans of power lay - a society of order, its technologies warped towards weaponry, but still far in advance of the human technology of Dubh. But this place  was  special,   because it too had begun to bend to the forces greed and

corruption.  They  had  what  he  wanted  and  he  was  an expert in the art of corruption.

                            Once he had taken Dubh then he would return to this fertile bed and sow his seed there too. Dubh was a stepping stone and the world he dreamed of was the next.

                            Silus Flax's prophetic dreams and visions and paranoid schizophrenia drove him remorselessly in pursuit of his goals. His search for a 'door ' into the world he had seen continued twenty-four hours a day, the cost in life and materials never to high, for he knew that somewhere in this city the gateway to his dreams opened and closed with a rhythm that he could feel deep in his dark soul.

                            He stood high on the observation platform and control room of Hall Nine and watched his workers scurrying around the dim workshop floor like ants around the engines which squatted rumbling, demanding attention to their every need. Flax smiled to himself. Yes! it was only a matter of time before he was crowned Emperor of this insignificant realm; then onwards! He would find this 'door', and nothing and no-one would, or could, stand in his way.

Flax turned to the control panels in the halls control room and congratulated himself on another days work in the Hall well done, as the massive banks of dials and gauges in front of him indicated that all lines were performing  at  maximum  output.

                            The control room door swung open and he turned to watch his night deputy, Amadeus Bolster, waddling into the Hall Nine's nerve centre and humming some unintelligible tune. Flax's nostrils flared. With Bolster came the stale odours of whore houses and beer halls. The smell of smoke and scent women's bodies hung around him like an exquisitely embroidered veil, at least it appeared so to Flax, the result of the unusual olfactory attributes he possessed.

                            Bolster had actually bathed twice before coming on duty, scrubbing between the numerous folds of flesh on his body in a vain and useless effort to hide his days activities from his superior. Flax grinned at him.

“I’m surprised that whores would have even you my fat friend, despite the high prices you are said to pay. Is blindness and stupidity a new disease sweeping the whore houses of our city? “he sneered raising an eyebrow quizzically.

                            Bolster giggled nervously, his small beady eyes meeting Flax's briefly, but enough to confirm to him that he was as terrified of his master as the smell of fear, which oozed from every pore of his sweaty body, suggested. And so you should be, thought Flax amusedly. He strolled to the door, turning before he left to brief his obese deputy.

“All lines are running at maximum Bolster. I expect that there will have been no changes when I return at six. Do you understand?" he growled, holding his terrified underling with a hard and threatening stare for a moment, then left with no word of departure, closing the door quietly behind him.

Flax laughed noiselessly to himself as he made his way down to the workshop floor. Sometime tonight number five engine on line six would breakdown temporarily, Flax had arranged it. A simple loosening of a main bearing cap would ensure that engine would seize slowly, but could quickly be remedied.

                            This would give him the opportunity to supply another mechanic to the Tans and shake again the precarious sanity of his deputy who had cursed his luck every night since he had been appointed to the position. Bolster would not be dismissed though, Flax would discipline him personally, this would suffice to punish the fat incompetent and fulfil part of Flax's daily desire to inflict pain. No, he would never dismiss Bolster since the taste of his terror was unusually sweet. Silus Flax may have stopped demanding new victims from the Tans, but it did not mean his desires remained unsatisfied, Silus had found a new and exciting game to play and Bolster was a mere aperitif.

                            Approaching the East Gate of the Upper City, the off-duty Hall Engineer, dressed in the dark clothes in fitting with his intentions amongst the hovels and slums of the Lower City, waved to the guard on the gate. The guard, recognising him as a regular excursionist,  let Flax through without a word. No one challenged the Black  Gaffer.

                            As the gates closed behind him he turned quickly across the wide paved area that gave the gate-guards a wide field of view between the Upper City's walls and the black,   silent   river   which   effectively   cut    off    the two distinctive classes of Upper and Lower Dubh.

                            When Flax neared the bridge, which would allow him to cross the river, a shout rang out and two uniformed men stepped out from the concealment of the shadows. He turned tentatively toward them, his fingers closing tightly around the knife and wickedly sharp hatchet secreted beneath his cloak.

                            Dressed in ankle length, brown leather overcoats and breeches, eyes hidden by wide-brimmed pigskin hats which fended off the City's almost perpetual rain, the two Tans approached Flax levelling muskets. The Tan Captain raised an oily torch that fumed thickly and smiled as Flax's features became visible in the greasy light. He shrugged and shouldered his weapon and winked.

“Sport, pleasure or business tonight Mr.Flax?" he queried. Flax strode by without glancing at the two Tans.

“None of your business Captain, and please address me, at least, as Sir." he spat and turned away from them with a dismissive shrug.

                            As the Tan Captain watched Flax's back disappearing toward the bridge and the obscurity of the Lower City across it, he longingly fingered the trigger of his musket and muttered to himself. But could do nothing. At least not today, but he knew the  Flax's days were rumoured numbered and perhaps he would soon have the pleasure of  dropping  the  arrogant bastard himself when the order came her thought to himself.

                            Silus Flax moved across the crumbling, algae streaked stone bridge toward the Lower City. He felt strangely vulnerable out here in the openas he gazed down at the black stagnant river that had been adopted as the waste disposal area and mortuary by the inhabitants  of  the  Lower and Upper cities.

                            The stench from the river, even to the average sense of smell, was appalling, but for a man of Flax's nasal sensitivity it was almost unbearable. The scented rag he held to his nose barely kept out the smells of death, raw sewerage and decaying flesh.

                            As he looked down a pale, bloated corpse drifted into view. Her wide eye-less sockets searching for hope in a heaven full of stars, but found only the smoggy brown imitation of the night sky produced by the Tallmen to give some measure of time to the world of their construction.

                            The girl's body was bruised, battered and bloodily mutilated, the victim of some insane mind's pursuit of perverted pleasure, now just another putrefying piece of flotsam, a value-less life washed out of existence by the tide of corruption that fed its corporeal leftovers to the not too discerning, and always flourishing, rat population. Flax left the bridge, to his relief, because the stench impaired his scent of what lay ahead and slid stealthily into the dizzy maze of city streets and dark, warren-like dwellings.

                            Here he felt confident, and as the adrenalin began to flow he felt vibrant  as  he  stepped  out  onto the shining, oily cobbles washed by the misty rain, the venue for his new game. The alleyways in this part of the Lower City were relatively deserted at this hour  of the  night,  only   a   few   drunken   souls   staggered from the crowded main thoroughfares, toward their lodgings. Tomorrow the shift-bells would ring, summoning them back to the whip-labour beyond the Great Gate.

                            Failure to return to work would  result  in hideous punishments. When, and if,  tracked  down  by the  Tans,  absentees  being  subjected  to  public torture, branding, castration, amputation of  limbs, anything but death,  everything  of  pain,  but  no merciful  escape  from  T3a7ns  conscription.

                            Most of those in the city tonight would sleep where they had collapsed, in the morning to  be collected, collared and loaded onto  wagons  and shipped, still unconscious, back to the Great Gate.

Others though, returned to homes with children and wives. After all the Tans would always need future new blood and thus invested in some social stability for the rearing of new generations. So childbearing women and children under ten years received some degree of protection.

Although the great bulk of the population laboured for the Tans, there were a few who offered valuable services to the working population. Shopkeepers selling all manner of goods were considered vital to the city, small engineering workshops proliferated, manufacturing and supplying simple tools and equipment essential to the Tans operations beyond the Great Gate. The freedoms of such entrepreneurs were tolerated.

There were other groups who managed to avoid the Tan conscription. Those who were so physically unfit, diseased or disabled and were of  no  use  to  their Tan overlords, so scraped a living as beggars  and petty thieves. Deep in the lower levels, the monstrous excuses for humanity Jonathon had seen  on  his journey to the surface were never  bothered  by  the Tan press gangs, rather the Tans themselves, when they dared to venture into the seething pits of  darkness  and  corruption  in the bowels of Dubh, became victims  of  the  beasts that lurked there.

Almost as bad as the underworld were the mazes of dark alleyways and shadowy streets on the periphery of the city, where pursuit of those who escaped conscription was impracticable and unprofitable for those who were not familiar with the area's labyrinth like geography.

                            It was these streets and these alleyways that Silus Flax now stalked, seeking a victim for his blood lust. These places excited him, for here was a challenge. In these grim thoroughfares he himself was at risk from attack, vulnerable to the highly alert and cunning beings who had adapted to survival here. A thrill of excitement rushed through Flax as he padded deeper into danger, causing his body to tingle with anticipation.

It was too easy taking his victims from straight from the Tans. It was too easy choosing his victims from the doped and drunken hordes from the crowds of the city centre - they were too easily caught and the killing was of little pleasure. No, Silus had found the  thrill  of  the hunt here, the sense of threat to his own existence, exhilarated him. Pitting his wits against the those beings who lurked in the darkness here and slid from shadow to shadow was a new pleasure he had discovered.

                            As he climbed up into the maze of cobbled streets toward the outskirts of the city he sniffed the air like a hungry wolf. Keeping to the deep pools of shadow, his whole body alert to his surroundings, Flax the hunter tasted the air for the scent of potential prey. Then, from out of sight and ahead of him, the mingling scent of two people exploded upon his nose's sensitive receptors.

                            One was a young boy, the unusual and somewhat unique sweet scent of innocence and fear about him, the other was an older female, although not much older, confident and determined, herself seeking to satisfy her own animal pleasures, the strength of her sexual odours arousing Flax even from this distance. He crept stealthily through the darkness until he had them both in his sight.

                            The boy was flattened against a wall; the  older woman pressed herself hard against him. Naked from the waist upwards she massaged her rain lacquered torso tantalisingly against the boy's body. Her breasts, small and firm, were thrust into his face as she caressed him with her long, lean and claw-like fingers, which moved inside his clothing with a practised skill. Yet the youth resisted. She whispered in a soft, strained voice, her rising animal passions shaping her vowels.