Arcane II (2 page)

***

Pizarr later admitted to me that he didn’t know why he’d alerted the crew. Perhaps his survival instinct had enjoyed one last hurrah before surrendering to the inevitable decay that devoured all desires except that for an end. The other possibility, which I suggested and he liked far less, was that King Furimmer, a powerful Sociocast and master manipulator of people, had imbued Pizarr’s Charter with some manner of coercion. Though Pizarr would be governor of any new lands discovered, ruling as representative of the King, that King was not to be disobeyed.

That night as the crew slept, restless with dreams of women and land, I spied on Pizarr as he stood alone in his cramped quarters. I watched as he undressed, guessing what he’d find but still dreading the reality. He moved carefully as if to avoid causing his rotting body further harm. How did he not lose his nerve for this piecemeal death?

Pizarr removed the stained silk shirt and exposed his torso. Ribs showed through flesh and in places I could see through to his inert organs. His lungs hung like mouldering cheese-cloth sacks. When had he stopped breathing? I watched as he felt his neck with blackened fingers, hunting for a heart beat. He frowned. Gathering his courage he slid a finger between two exposed ribs on his left side and felt around inside. The Captain withdrew dry fingers, collapsed boneless into a chair, and stared unblinking at the wall.

Weren’t Cotardists supposed to die when their putrefaction reached such an advanced state?

Gods, I wished we had someone to talk to.

The next day the fog cleared and the crew was treated to a view of long white beaches, tropical trees, and bronze-skinned men and women glittering gold in the sun. Captain Pizarr joked to me that he hoped the sight of scantily clad young women would push the crew over the edge. He then ordered the men to remain on board. He selected a small crew—myself and four large men well versed in violence with the morals of hold rats—to man the row boat. Even after months at sea I couldn’t remember the names of his four killers.

As the row boat approached the shore, my breath caught in my chest as I realized what I was seeing. I glanced at Pizarr but he seemed distracted, lost in thought.

“Captain, that’s gold. All of it.”

Pizarr squinted. Were his eyes fading as well? What a terrifying thought. Would he someday go blind as he rotted away?

The men and women on the shore were dressed in sheets of red and gold. Bands of gold wrapped their limbs and hung from wrists and ankles. It was even worked into their hair.

“That’s not possible,” said Pizarr. “There isn’t that much gold.”

I wanted to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder but dared not touch him. “It’s... I’m sure it’s gold.” A thought occurred to me. “Captain, are we going to be able to communicate with these people?”

“The King said I would be capable,” answered Pizarr. Furimmer had said much the same to me on that day he asked me to betray my only friend.

“Will that work here?” I asked without thinking.

“I
believe
so.”

I understood immediately and nodded. Where my delusions shaped reality, King Furimmer’s
defined
it. “If the King said it is so, it is so. My question was foolish.”

Pizarr nodded and my transgression was forgiven and forgotten. In truth I don’t think he cared what I thought. My doubts were nothing when held against the convictions of a Sociocast as powerful as the King.

The golden savages had gathered where the boat would soon be coming ashore. I looked them over, searching for weapons and seeing none. They were too scantily clad to be hiding anything larger than knives. Now that they were closer, I could make out more detail. The women were beautiful. Long hair the colour of healthy loam and soft dark eyes that weren’t far from black. The men looked fit, lean and muscled like athletes. At this range there was no mistaking that warm glow. These people wore more gold than existed in all of the King’s treasuries. This must be a gathering of the local royalty. But then where were the soldiers, the protectors of such important people? The apparent lack of weapons did nothing to ease my tension. An unarmed man with the right delusions can destroy cities. Of this I am living proof, for I burned Ausfal.

Captain Pizarr leaned towards me and spoke quietly. “Be wary. If I give you the word, burn them all.”

Oh gods, please, please let me burn. Something of my hunger must have shown in my toothy grin because Pizarr backed away with a nervous look. My only friend shied from me. It was like a kick in the stomach. This small, soft betrayal mirrored my own treachery and fanned the devouring flames within me. All too aware of my pronounced canines, I grinned at him again in an effort to hide the sick loneliness twisting my gut.

Please let me burn.

The boat came to shore gently and Pizarr’s four killers leapt out and dragged it onto the soft sands. When Pizarr and I stepped from the boat we didn’t get our feet wet.

Though the natives were well muscled, they were dwarfed by the four monstrous men. They babbled in their native tongue and Pizarr stood, unblinking, staring at them. I think it took him a moment to realize he understood what they were saying. The Captain shrugged and stepped forward raising his hands to show his empty palms. He’d left his sword back in his cabin. He was useless with it anyway.

“I bring you greetings from King Furimmer of Grauchloss.” Pizarr spoke carefully and clearly in their language.

The savages, silent and rigid, stared at us. The eldest marshalled his distaste at our appearance and stepped forward. He bowed low.

“Welcome to our shores. High King Hualpa rules here.” The savage, staring out at our massive ship anchored a few hundred feet from the shore, looked uncertain. “Are you... are you gods?”

I could clearly see he was very much hoping we were not. It was, however, too much of an opportunity for Pizarr to pass up.

“Yes,” said the Captain. “We are gods from distant lands, vassals of King Furimmer, first amongst gods.”

For the first time I wished Pizarr was a better liar. Counsellor Reizung would have been useful now. Ah well, no use crying over spilled blood.

“You look like men. You smell like men.” The other savages laughed.

Pizarr turned to me. “Burn them all,” he said in our language. “Leave one alive.” He glanced at the chuckling savages. “Not the old man.”

Release.

A high-pitched keening like that of an over-excited dog escaped my clenched teeth. Then the savages were screaming. I was only barely aware of Pizarr watching with detached disinterest as their flesh turned angry red and then boiled away from their bones. The screaming choked off as suddenly as it began and the savages were twitching in the sand as their eyes slagged and ran like hot mud. The smell of cooked meat must have reached even Pizarr’s attenuated senses because he wrinkled his nose and backed away another step. More distance between us. Another small betrayal.

I finally managed to lock down the torrent of depression, abandonment, and loneliness that fed my delusions and was the source of my Pyrocast power. The savages were blackened bones rising like razed towers in a sea of ash and molten gold. A roughly circular area of sand had been burned to glass that reflected broken shards of sunlight. The surviving savage, a young girl, was badly burnt along half her body. She might live long enough to be of use but I doubted she’d last much past that.

“I told you to leave one alive,” Pizarr said quietly.

I hung my head in shame. “It has been a difficult voyage, Captain. Without... without someone to talk to my delusions have grown in strength.” I let out a long shaking breath. “Control was difficult.”

Someone to talk to. Not a day went by that I didn’t regret Pizarr tossing that pompous ass Counsellor Reizung overboard. Perhaps with counselling his own advanced state of decomposition might have been slowed or even avoided.

Pizarr nodded at one of his thugs. “Get her on her feet.” He glared at me. “If she dies, I’ll have one of these men strangle you.”

“You’ll—” This was my only friend. White anger abolished thought.

One of the men delivered a crushing blow to my kidneys and I collapsed gasping to the sand. I hadn’t even seen it coming. Pizarr must have worked out some subtle signal system with his four killers. He didn’t trust me.

The Captain crouched and grabbed a fistful of my greasy hair with his working hand. He dragged my head around until we were eye to eye.

“Rise before you have control of your temper and you are dead,” he hissed. He let go and I rolled over onto my back and fought for breath.

At the pinnacle of power, that moment when delusion gains supremacy and control falters, a Pyrocast is a fire-storm of unstoppable destruction. Even one such as King Furimmer could not stand against a Pyrocast losing his last tenuous grasp on reality. But a brutal punch to the kidneys is a brutal punch to the kidneys. I lay wheezing for several minutes, watching Pizarr through watering eyes. Had I been on that teetering edge? Had he just saved my life? Was my betrayal made all the more foul?

Pizarr grabbed the girl’s chin and forced her head up so she was looking into his face. She gagged at the proximity of his rotting flesh and fought weakly to pull away.

“You will take a message to your King Hualpa,” Pizarr told her. “You will tell him new gods are here to replace the old gods. You will tell him we will meet him here, on the shore.” Pulling back his sleeve he showed her his rotting arm. “I am Pizarr, god of death. You will deliver my message or I will have your soul.” She retched dry heaving coughs that tore at her burnt lungs and throat but nodded. I hoped she would live long enough to deliver Pizarr’s message.

I did not want to face this High King Hualpa in the heart of his power. If Hualpa was as powerful a Sociocast as I feared, this was going to be a very short meeting.

Pizarr switched back to our language. “You there,” he pointed at one of the other killers. “Strip her of her gold, and the rest of you dig what gold you can from the sand. We might as well start now.” He watched the man roughly pull away the gold and most of the remains of her burnt clothing as the others scrabbled in the glassy sand.

When the girl was out of sight we returned to the ship. We’d caught the savages unaware but the next meeting, I had no doubt, would be very different. There was a good chance that come tomorrow night we would either be dead or worshipping at the feet of a new king.

I stood mutely at the Captain’s side, afraid to say anything that might shatter our fragile truce.

“Reality is a curse,” he said quietly to me. “One day you are dreaming of death and the next you are fearing for what’s left of your life.”

Neither of us slept that night. From the shadows I watched him as stood at the ship’s prow, picking at the flesh hanging from his arms and tossing it into the sea. Even the fish turned away, disinterested in his decaying meat.

“Soon only the worms will be interested in me,” I heard him say to the fish. “Fitting, is it not?”

I watched as his body shuddered. Was he crying? His eyes, fogged and matte in the reflected moonlight, were dry. I watched as, with one dead arm hanging useless at his side, he tried to hug himself for what little comfort it would have given. My only friend. My heart broke and, crying, I returned to the cramped loneliness of my cabin.

The next morning, when I saw King Hualpa march imperiously up the beach with a retinue of twelve warriors, I knew all was lost. Only a mighty Sociocast, confident in his power, would have brought so few soldiers. Any sane man faced with alien invaders proclaiming themselves gods would have brought the troops in force and wiped out Pizarr’s pitiful crew of malnourished sailors.

I stood next to Pizarr and we stared at the shore. I doubt he could see that far. “Captain, look at all that gold.”

Hualpa’s warriors wore even more of the precious metal than yesterday’s savages. It was worthless as armour. The only reasonable explanation was that it was purely decorative. This scared me even more than Hualpa’s small retinue. If their armour was decorative it was because they believed they didn’t need it and, if they believed strongly enough, they really
didn’t
need it.

“They must all be Maniacasts,” whispered Pizarr so only I could hear. “High King Hualpa has come in force.”

“Raise anchor and let’s run for it,” I suggested with little hope.

Pizarr gave me a dark look and bleak smile that came nowhere near his eyes and quickly soured to a pained grimace. “I’d rather fall victim to these savage Maniacasts than return empty-handed to King Furimmer.”

Success or failure, I suspected Pizarr would rather not return at all. The man was a walking corpse.

Pizarr’s good hand gripped the oak rail, the other hung dead and loose at his side. It looked like the kind of desiccated meat even a starving rat would turn its nose from.

“Fetch my four killers,” he commanded. “We’re going ashore.”

***

Hualpa’s retinue stood motionless in two groups, one on each side of the High King. There were no neat lines, no military formations, just a small mob of people. Though Hualpa was definitely in charge it was impossible to delineate any rank amongst his followers. Was this a gathering of Hualpa’s most powerful Maniacasts? It seemed likely. Every man and woman in the retinue leaned casually against what looked like spears. Could they be fashion accoutrements? Symbols of office? Why would a dozen Maniacasts need weapons?

A fat man, covered in bright feathers of red and gold and wearing a bizarre mask that might be a psychotic’s interpretation of a bird, stepped forward and bowed to Captain Pizarr.

The fat man’s voice was low and surprisingly soft. “I bring you greetings from High King Hualpa, Child of the Sun, Lord of all Tawantinsuyu, favoured of all gods, Protector of all people, and firstborn son of Huayna Kapec.”

King Furimmer may have ensured that Pizarr and I could understand the language, but the references were still meaningless. With a start I realized Hualpa and his retinue were waiting for Pizarr to either talk or be introduced. But why had the fat man introduced Hualpa? Why had the man shown us any respect at all? Why hadn’t Hualpa spoken? If the High King were as powerful a Sociocast as I feared, he could have won this confrontation with a few well-chosen words. I watched Hualpa and his retinue fidget. Waiting. Something wasn’t adding up here.