The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (23 page)

The Machine
, he thought. This cathedral was so much larger, so much grander than Father Bodum’s in sector one, but its design was similar enough he couldn’t help but to think of the Machine.

He walked, his worn, standard-issue, Machine-built work boots clomping loudly on the tiled floor. Most of the people he passed, he noticed, wore clothes not too dissimilar to his own: browns and grays. They were all going the other way.

When he reached the end of the hallway, a priest in plain robes lifted his hand and shook his head. The door behind the priest was shut.

“Father Galen?” Eli asked.

The priest shook his head. “I’m sorry, my child. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Do you know where I can find Marrow? I have to find Marrow.”

The priest never made eye contact. “Tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, Eli turned back.

~

Outside, the sky had become a dull purple shade. The comet was no longer visible.

Eli stood at the top of the steps to the cathedral. It was becoming night. In the Machine, night and day were determined by cycles of artificial lights. Out here, in this world, Eli was astonished to realize, it was determined by cycles of the comet.

His knees suddenly buckled and he fell. He sat, trying to catch his breath, weak and thirsty and tired. He had eaten the last of his Machine-made energy cubes hours ago and hadn’t had anything to drink for most of the day.

He descended the steps and reentered the crowds, although already they were beginning to thin as people headed for their homes.

Eli walked and walked, unsure what to do, until his feet were sore and he was too tired, even if Marrow himself were to appear before him, to remember his purpose. When he found a puddle in the street, he knelt and drank.

He turned down a random alley that appeared to be empty and staggered until the sounds of people had faded somewhat behind him. He collapsed against a wall, hungry, cold and alone.

He sat with this back against unyielding stone, among the sour smells of garbage that hung suspended in the air like a damp mist, seething lightly in the breeze.

Finally, something broke within him. It was all so overwhelming. The things he’d seen… The strangeness of it all. A grotesquerie of images spinning through his mind. He closed his eyes and tried not to think.

His wife and daughter were dead. They had been drowned during the flooding of the subterranean corridors in the Machine. Nora…and Pia, his daughter, so bright and intelligent, so…

He hung his head between his knees and cried.

~

Later, as he clutched his shivering body and passed in and out of fitful sleep, he was woken by a man’s voice.

“The streets of Talos are like veins.”

Eli jerked awake and peered into the darkness, his heart pounding in his chest, but he could see nothing.

“People are the City’s blood, flowing, dripping,” the voice said.

“Hello?” Eli squinted, trying to see. “Who are you? What’s Talos?”

The voice chuckled, and answered. “The City.”

“Who’s there?”

Then, again, “The City.”

“Hello?”

But the voice was silent and did not speak again. After a while, despite his fear, he slept.

~

The next morning, lifting his aching body, he felt his spirits, despite himself, rising once again. He moved through the alley until he was back on the main street. He closed his eyes and turned his face to the cometlight. It was warm and soothing. In the light, his situation did not feel as hopeless as it had felt the night before. Today was a new day.

The street was already busy. People were setting up their booths, claiming the best spots, already chatting, already building a buzz of commotion in the air, a palpable energy.

Eli stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and then began to walk in the direction of the temple.

He ascended the steps again, just as the doors were being opened. He walked inside. The grand hall was very quiet, empty of the people who had been there the day before. The sounds his boots made echoed between the columns.

The same priest guarded the door, but this time waved him through.

The next hall was even larger and grander than the one before it, the ceiling so high its gabled arches had a misty and indistinct quality, fogged by distance.

Strangely, Eli found he was no longer impressed. He was too tired and too hungry to care. He had, in a very short time, been assaulted by sights his mind could not even begin to catalogue, like the rooms of this cathedral, each new wonder grander than the last. It had all become so...muddled. Indistinct. Unimportant.

His belly gurgled and rumbled, almost painfully. He dropped one hand to his gut and rubbed absently. He sighed and approached the man who sat on a throne, raised high upon an ornate pedestal. Below the throne, there was another chair, empty and quite regular, made from wood and twine. Several priests stood to either side of the pedestal like guards.

Galen lifted his head and smiled warmly down at Eli. He brushed a few stray strands of long, golden hair from his brow and said, “Welcome, my child, to the Church of Awa. What would you ask of me?”

Eli looked up and met the bright and sparkling eyes of Galen, this holy man. “I…” He faltered. His belly rumbled and his mind drew a blank. “I’m hungry,” he said.

“Of course.” Galen clapped his hands and one of the priests lifted something from a table behind the pedestal and moved to offer it to Eli.

Eli stared at the object. It was disgusting, whatever it was—some sort of smooth-bodied creature, roasted to a crisp and dry state. A blank and sunken eye socket stared back at him, but he dared not turn down what Galen had offered. With trembling hands, he took the roasted creature and held it, but averted his eyes kept his gaze on Galen.

Galen nodded to him, then turned his head up and said, “Next.”

The priests were waving for him to go.

“Wait…” Eli said. “I need to ask…”

Annoyance flashed across Galen’s face. “Next!” he said again.

“Marrow,” Eli managed. “Where’s Marrow?”

The priests were moving forward to hurry him along.

“Do you know where Marrow is? I need to find Marrow. I have a message for him.”

Galen sighed and raised his hand. The priests halted where they were. “Seek out that which cannot be seen,” he said.

Eli blinked. “What?”

Galen lowered his hand and the priests moved forward and dragged him from the cathedral.

~

Outside, on the steps, he was dizzy. He sat.

Seek out that which cannot be seen.

What did that mean?

All around him people were moving up and down the stairs, ignoring him.

He still had the roasted animal in his hands. His fingers, he discovered, had left impressions in its skin, greasy and uncomfortable. His stomach rumbled. He sniffed his fingers and grimaced, but his mouth began to salivate.

Tentatively, he lifted the animal and brought it to his mouth. He nibbled at its side with his teeth. A piece flaked away. He chewed. It was a strange consistency, greasy and sticky, very unlike the crumbly energy cubes he had eaten all his life.

He swallowed, and then took another bite, this one much larger than the first. It was sweet, juicy.

What do I do now?
he wondered.
Who can tell me what Galen’s words mean?

He devoured the roasted animal, ravenous, right there at the top of the cathedral steps, unmindful of the grease running down his chin and the strange people all around.

<<>>

The GODGAME continues in
THE BLOOD OF TALOS
. Available now!

The territory of Nova is in chaos. The Talosian attack has left hundreds dead, the village of Fallowvane burned, and the Alexander family scattered. While her son is taken prisoner before the ruler of Talos for an insidious purpose, a determined mother emerges as the unlikely commander of the Novan militia.

Here a young girl leaves everything behind in search of a new life; a woman seeks the truth to a dark conspiracy; and a man without knowledge of its cultures and customs will enter the City with warning of a threat far deadlier than the war between Nova and Talos, something that already gnaws at the edges of Meridian, bringing with it the smell of rotting flowers, and death.

Table of Contents

~ ONE ~

~ TWO ~

~ THREE ~

~ FOUR ~

~ FIVE ~

~ SIX ~

~ SEVEN ~

~ EIGHT ~

~ NINE ~

~ TEN ~

~ ELEVEN ~

~ TWELVE ~

~ THIRTEEN ~

AFTERWARD

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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