Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) (2 page)

‘Is it important to the stratagem?’ said the spyle.

‘The Ayakashi? Very.’ 
More than you could possibly realise.

‘Then,’ it said in a chastising parent’s voice, ‘I only hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘Come. The Others would not have sent me otherwise.’

The spyle considered this in silence for a moment, did a full lap about Her, then put its seeing-parts to Her face.

‘I like you like this,’ it said. ‘All anthropoid. Pulpy. Did you choose the appearance yourself?’

I don’t remember. 
‘No,’ She said. 
Perhaps I did. This is how a goddess should look after all; deathly pale, a little scant. Softly softly. 

Exurbia was close enough then to almost fill the entire wall-transparency, the Ayakashi thrashing and wriggling across the northmost continent, laying great waste.

‘Well, it shan’t be long now,’ She said. ‘Not long at all.’

Part I - Miss Butterworth

In which the moralising imp is kissed,

a visitor arrives,

and Jura misses his wife.

1

“…you sprout all your worth and you woof your wings, so if you want to be Phoenixed, come and be parked.”

- James Joyce, Old Erde word artisan

Moxie -

More than that though, more than Her, the tersh is eternal, as you will be too.

The voices came to Moxiana in the night and sometimes in the morning also, distant but always audible. Terrified, she leapt from the leaf bed.

‘Come,’ said the crone from somewhere in the dark. ‘It’s only another bad dream. Pay it no mind.’

‘
Pay it no mind,’
echoed the girl.

‘What did they say this time?’

‘“The tersh is eternal, as you will be too.” And there was a town, Xianxi I think, and the Ayakashi was there and it ate everything.’

The crone sat up, her creased face catching the light of the moons then. ‘Is there more?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Just that. Why?’

‘No visions? Or music?’

‘Nothing. Just that.’

The crone nodded. A long silence, then: ‘Have I done it again?’ said the girl.

‘Don’t say such things. Pay it no mind.’

‘Xianxi is gone. Did I make Xianxi gone?’

‘Pay it no mind
.
’ 

The scallixes were warbling already. Morning wasn’t so distant now.

‘What do you think it means?’ said the girl. ‘It’s different isn’t it, different to what the voices usually say.’

‘It’s different,’ said the crone. ‘And it could mean ten thousand things. Or nothing at all, little one. Nothing at all. Day is near. Be calm.’

They wouldn’t be sleeping any further. That much was obvious now. The crone rose from her leaf bed and made to the utensil tree, taking the tea pot and strainer and going through the breakfast motions.

‘If I’ve done it again…’ said the girl.

‘Just stop it with that nonsense. Everything is well. Come, help an old woman with breakfast.’

‘I will, but there’s something else.’

‘The dream?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well out with it, come on.’

‘I saw a machine come from the sky with a woman in it,’ said the girl.

The crone nodded, standing perfectly still then.

‘Perhaps it was a scene from the past.’

‘No, I know it wasn’t. She helped take the tersh away. And she whispered strange things into a man’s ear.’

‘All right,’ said the crone, nodding. ‘And did you see either of us in the visions?’

‘Yes.’

'And are we both well?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know I can’t stand it when you lie to me,’ said the crone, filling the kettle with water. ‘I’ll ask you again. Are we both well?’

‘No.’

‘That’s better. What does this woman want?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is she ill-meaning?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘All right.’

Strange futures are parking themselves in this girl still. No way to oust them that I know of. 

‘She calls me something,’ said the girl.

‘Who?’

‘The strange woman. She calls me
the Wielder
.’

‘That’s a ghastly title.’ The crone left a strategic pause, letting the girl's thoughts settle, then: ‘Is that the entirety, or is there yet more?’ 

‘Another dream,’ said the girl reluctantly, knitting her fingers. ‘Last week, on the night of the moons.’

‘Well, out with it.’

‘Others will come here.’

‘Who?’

‘Men with weapons.’

‘Then we must leave before that happens.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘They find us here.’ 

The crone knew better than to argue with the visions. They were nothing if not invariable. ‘If that is the case, little one, then we should enjoy breakfast to its fullest and not dwell too much on the days ahead.’

Especially
, thought the crone,
since I have a very limited number of said ahead days, it seems.
 

‘“The tersh is eternal,”’ said the girl.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s the last thing they said, the voices.
The tersh is eternal.’

‘Tershes die like all of us, eventually,’ said the crone.

‘Not this one.’

‘The current tersh?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We can’t make assumptions. It could mean anything.’ 

The crone began to turn the statement over in her mind. Eternal, of all things.
Gnesha, what wickedness is idling on our horizon, and just what are we to do when it arrives?

2

“Who is the chrysalis? Who is the worm? Who gets eternity? Who gets the urn?”

- Traditional Old Erde Pergrin hymn

Fortmann and the Zdrastian -

Moonless. Fortmann led the way, the Zdrastian keeping in close second and dragging his dog by a tight leash. The dog had tissue paper secured about its paws with elastic bands, the Zdrastian referring to the thing always as Mr. Covert Woof. Fortmann put up a hand to say
wait
and bent to a crouch.

‘What do you see?’ whispered the Zdrastian.

Fortmann shook his head.

The grass was high and wild in places.
Plovda, they could be hiding anywhere.
Fortmann pointed then to Mr. Covert Woof. 

What?
the Zdrastian mouthed. Fortmann pulled the lead from the man’s hand.

‘We let the animal go first,’ he whispered. ‘They probably won’t touch him. He’s just a dog.’

‘They will!’ said the Zdrastian and went to take the lead back. ‘They will! They will!’

‘They’re looking for people, not pets. Let the dog go first. If something happens to him I’ll buy you a new one when we get back.’

Mr. Covert Woof laid down in grass and licked at his paws.

‘He is precious!’ said the Zdrastian. ‘Very precious!’

Fortmann scanned the dark, then leaned in close.

‘Do you know what they are?’ he said. ‘The gungovs?’

The Zdrastian shook his head slowly.

‘Monsters. Now we can walk out there and get torn to pieces by one of those things or we can let the dog lure them out. Or, alternatively, we can go back to the Chapterhouse and tell the entire congregation how you’d much rather endanger two human lives because of a dog.’ 

The Zdrastian cocked his head and eyed Mr. Covert Woof mournfully. They should not be separated in a fashion like this. It had not been part of the plan.

‘I think you’re lying,’ said the Zdrastian. ‘I think the gungovs are no more than machines.’

‘Does it matter? They’ll hack us up just the same.’ 

Fortmann began to uncouple the leash from Mr. Covert Woof’s collar. There was no need to wait for permission, the Zdrastian didn’t try to interfere. The dog climbed to its feet and scrutinised Fortmann’s face in the dark. Fortmann patted it a few times and rubbed its ear.

‘Us or the dog.’

‘You planned this all along,’ said the Zdrastian. It would not do well to contradict the head of the order - a seer, no less - but involving the dog stirred a sudden impertinence in him. Fortmann said nothing and pointed then into the wild grass ahead, into the great w’liaks and the pines, and the dog set off without hesitation. The tail was visible for a few seconds and then that too disappeared, the grass heads jiving occasionally in the animal’s wake. Both of the men remained still. The green tulleys sung from their invisible niches in the trees. The Zdrastian began to mentally recite a prayer his mother had sung him once when he had been heavy with fever as a child:
Though I know the world may be set in its way, and time be too big to hold, alter this day in the most peaceful direction
. 

Two springer spaniel ears emerged suddenly from the thickets, bounding back towards them.
Oh thank you. Oh thank you thank you thank you
.

‘See?’ said Fortmann, speaking at a reasonable volume now. ‘The little thing's fine.’ 

They stood and squinted into the dark ahead, the Zdrastian clipping the dog back onto the lead and ruffling his fur. Fortmann shouldered his apparat pack and took a tentative step forward. The grass cracked under his boot. The night freeze was coming in already.

‘We’ll be quick,’ said the Zdrastian. ‘We’ll be very very quick, won’t we?’

‘Very quick,’ agreed Fortmann and led them both into the dark. 

The tomb was in sight now, a towering stone fortification set centrally between a ring of pines.
I will have myself cremated
, thought the Zdrastian. To think that Governance buried their dead there, all laid out in lines probably, like sleeping soldiers in a barracks tent. To think they relegated the bodies to such a place.
Yes, cremated. That way I need never end up in such a quiet stone box.
Fortmann took a lever bar from his pack and broke the bolt on the main door. It yawned open, more dark inside.

‘Though I know the world may be set in its way,
’ 
the Zdrastian mumbled.

‘No,’ said Fortmann. ‘There’s no call for prayers.’

He threw a caprigobe out into the black. It sparked a few times and ignited, suspended a few feet from the ground and dusting the inner walls of the tomb with a gentle cerulean blue. Mr. Covert Woof marvelled at the light for a moment then nibbled at a paw.

‘Dr. Kliment now, yes?’ said the Zdrastian.

‘Quite right,’ said Fortmann. ‘The map said the non-militaries are kept in a side chamber.’

Kept,
thought the Zdrastian.
You keep the peace. Or kestrels, or jam, or quiet. You don’t keep the dead. They serve no purpose.

The capriglobe illuminated the crevices now as it moved with them, niches cut into the walls where nondescript caskets lay. Fortmann took a right at an intersection and the Zdrastian followed with the dog. The hall gave way to an opening, the back wall way beyond the light of the capriglobe.

‘Dr. Kliment,’ said the Zdrastian again. A few of the caskets bore labels now, the names preceded with official titles, Deputy Supervisor, Quarter Tersh, Agglutinator.

‘Dr. Kliment,’ said Fortmann then, pointing to a casket isolated from the others. ‘Would you care to?’ He proffered the lever bar. ‘For training purposes?’

‘You said
you
would! We agreed!’

Fortmann nodded stoically and grabbed at one end of the casket, dragging it out onto the ledge towards them. The lid came off with minimal pressure. The Zdrastian swallowed and took a step forward.
Alter this day in the most peaceful direction
. Fortmann reached in without ceremony, lines in his brow now, illuminated baby blue by the capriglobe.

‘The raviner,’ he said. The Zdrastian took the tool from the apparat pack and handed it across. He saw them both from the outside, he could not help it; watching as a child might from behind a sofa. Two adjacent figures garbed in military black, working in the dark and a dog watching impartially from a laying position.
Ideology puts humans in rather queer situations.
The Zdrastian took another step towards the casket. The corpse's nose was visible now, protruding from the box like a pink shark fin.
Dr. Kliment. Dead and
kept
here.

Fortmann plunged the raviner into Kliment's forehead and began to drag the levers apart. The skull gave way reluctantly, opening with a muffle that reverberated all about the chamber. The Zdrastian thought of a cat he had owned once in his adolescence, the cat that had brought in mice every day and insisted on eating them by the fire. Muted crunches from the animal's mouth as it chewed the bones, not unlike the noises the raviner made now. Fortmann reached an ungloved hand into the orifice. The dog was interested.
Perhaps
, thought the Zdrastian,
it is the smell.

‘Behind the medulla oblongata,’ said the Zdrastian.

‘Quite right.’

Fortmann’s elbows disappeared into the casket along with his arms, alternating up and down as though kneading dough. He paused, squinted in the capriglobe light, and pulled with a sudden explosive motion.

‘You have it, yes?’ said the Zdrastian. ‘Yes?’

Fortmann nodded. He raised a hand triumphantly, the fingertips glazed in red and solid patches of something not unlike gelatine. Set between the thumb and index finger was a grey mass the size of a sugar cube, electrode wires dangling like inert shrimp whiskers. He patted the Zdrastian’s shoulder with the unbloodied hand and smirked. Then he raised the cube to the light of the capriglobe. It shone like an opal.

‘For the Ix,’ Fortmann said.

‘For the Ix,’ intoned the Zdrastian and held Fortmann’s gaze.

‘May it come in our lifetime.’

‘That we may know the Up,’ said the Zdrastian, the chant so old in him that he merely opened his mouth and let it fall out.

‘Here,’ Fortmann said and offered the cube. The Zdrastian looked it over. This was some kind of bravery test, undoubtedly; the chapter seemed full of these small moments, evaluating one’s loyalty. The Zdrastian shook his head. The blood was too much, the pulp also.
It has come right out of a man’s head, for Gnesha’s sake
. He had expected more somehow, the way they’d all talked about it back at the Chapterhouse. Something elaborate with spirals and markings perhaps. ‘Is that all of it?’ he said.