Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (29 page)

Apparently alerted by
the distant clicking and the metallic twang that had accompanied
each of the disks launching into the room, West’s attention snapped
back towards the man who was flanking right, heading towards Ahken.
The man stumbled sideways, narrowly avoiding one of the lethal
projectiles, but now Charlene gasped as she watched a second blade
span out quickly. The man’s body tipped forwards through the air,
his legs arching behind him in a smooth line. Too slow. He hadn’t
anticipated the trajectory of the disk, and as his feet swam
upwards and his hands tipped towards the floor, the blade cut
easily through his wrists, barely missing his head as it traveled
on, severing both of his legs above his knees.

A blood
curdling scream broke the air to Charlene’s left and she realized
that Ahken was now running recklessly towards the fallen man. He
fell forward and slid across the floor, lifting the man’s head in
his hands and cradling his upper body, hugging him tight. West
turned his head; a woman’s hand on his shoulder, another one of
those five who had been with them in the courtyard. The woman’s
other hand rose to her mouth, but her sobs had already erupted into
a scream, and she ran forward, falling to the floor beside the man,
moaning a single word repeatedly through her sobs, body convulsing
as she pressed her arm to the man’s mouth.

Time stopped,
Charlene halting the scene in stunned comprehension. She knew now
why the other three in the courtyard had seemed familiar to her.
Charlene had only seen the man a couple of times before on
television. She hadn’t paid much attention to politics in recent
years as there had seemed very little point. She was sure of it now
though; the man who lay in Ahken’s arms was the new President of
America, Lucas Miller and at his side, pressing her arm to his
mouth was First Lady, Petra Miller. Although she couldn’t remember
his name for the life of her, there in the air, hovering mid-fall
above this bizarre grouping was the man she now recognized to be
the deceased Russian President, Anatoly Vsevolod Abakumov.

Charlene stared
at each one of them, trying to assure herself that she must be
mistaken but the more she stared, the more convinced she was that
she was correct. She allowed the action around her to continue now,
watching mesmerized as the injured man bit hard into the flesh of
Petra Miller’s arm. Now that she had made the connection, Charlene
couldn’t separate these people from what she knew of them and it
was disturbing to think of this bloodthirsty man, with his eyes
rolling back with bloodshot delirium, as the future president of
the United States.

Charlene could
see that the man’s wounds were knitting together and healing
quickly, the leeches taking the energy they needed from the
infusion of new blood as he sucked and lapped at the woman’s arm.
Ahken stood quickly, agitated and unsettled. He steeled himself,
leaning his body forwards as he broke into a sprint and Charlene
watched him running towards Stanwick who was at that moment ducking
low to avoid another disk which spun wildly awry, scattering the
crowds behind them. Stanwick was a couple of feet now from the
source of all this mayhem; a large machine with a wide mechanical
arm which rotated on a metallic base. The clockwork mechanisms
whirred menacingly, but Stanwick managed to slide into a position
out of the range of the machine’s firing radius, lashing out,
kicking at the machine repeatedly, smashing her feet into the
mechanical arm again and again.

Ahken crouched
low, swaying to and fro as the machine reared, slinging another
disk towards him, and even skewed at an angle by one of Stanwick’s
blows, the machine seemed to fire with prescient accuracy. Ahken
threw himself forward and the blade skimmed inches from him,
traveling the length of his body but never making contact. He was
up on his feet quickly and he now joined Stanwick’s efforts,
striking repeated blows to the machine with his fists and feet.
However, it was Stanwick who struck the disabling blow, her foot
connecting perfectly with the metal arm as it swung towards her,
the combined speed making for an impact which sent the machine
toppling backwards, hissing steam and grinding gears as it
went.

Hundreds of people now
coursed past, sure that the way ahead was now safe, quickly filling
the dark expanse. In the distance, far ahead of the crowd, Charlene
could see a lone figure retreating, a long shadow trailing behind
as light broke the darkness in front of it. Stanwick stooped to
pick up one of the metal disks, cradling the serrated teeth in her
fingers and reaching out to drag Ahken into action with her free
hand. She was faster than Ahken, stronger and certainly more aware
of her surroundings, powering quickly through the crowds with Ahken
stumbling behind in her wake as she made for the retreating figure.
Apparently frustrated by Ahken’s cumbersome and clumsy progress,
Stanwick let go of his hand, bounding ahead gracefully, one hand
pulsing back and forth at her side, the other angled outward and
cradling the disk under her arm.

Charlene
couldn’t bear the anticipation, but because West struggled to keep
up with the girl, Charlene could neither see, nor imagine any
greater detail in the scene before her. Gradually though, as West
started to catch up, trailing only a few feet behind Stanwick,
Charlene started to be able to make out her surroundings and she
could see that not far in front of her, the smooth floors and walls
of the vast space gave way to jagged rocks and rubble.

Their prey was
not far ahead now; Charlene could make out the slender form of King
Pretchis, picking his way through the treacherous terrain, a misty
light pouring into the space in front of him. There was now no
suggestion of architecture or design to the space, and it became
obvious that the building had been constructed around a colossal
cave, stalactite forms hanging from the ceiling, boulders and
jagged rocks covering the uneven floor.

The mouth of
the cave was bathed in a green light, the distant daylight diffused
by heavy foliage. The sounds of the army which had been falling
behind anyway, were now drowned out completely by a strange, low
rumbling sound. Stanwick leaned her body sideways, swinging her arm
backwards with the jagged metal disk in hand. Her arm cut through
the air in a blur of motion, flinging the blade in a flawless
trajectory.

Silhouetted in
the hazy opalescent light, the king staggered, the proud profile of
his face almost discernible as he cast his gaze back towards them.
With the coup de gras whistling through the air behind him, his
hands pumping backwards and forwards at his sides, Pretchis’
shadowy form was almost completely lost in the shimmering, emerald
white light. A fine spray of red misted the air; his right hand
severed cleanly, his thigh ripped open in a jagged line, Pretchis
limped on. But now they were close enough to see his planned route
of escape. A great waterfall blanketed the mouth of the cave, and
with three more crooked strides, arms thrown overhead, body arching
into a dive, Pretchis leaped forward, and was carried away in the
thunderous waters.

Blackness
consumed her vision, and Charlene was left to the confines of her
imagination. She opened her eyes, and saw the apartment in front of
her, Stanwick and West both still seated on the hardwood floor
watching her.

Lying next to West on
the floor of the apartment, Stanwick ran a finger across his brow.
She touched her bare foot against the wall beside Charlene,
listening to the cascade of thoughts, “She’s just left the
Dannustine Palace.”

Eyes closed,
West’s brow furrowed, “She’s not exactly rushing through this.”

“Can you blame
her? ”

West conceded
with a gentle raise of his eyebrows, feeling the light pressure of
Stanwick’s fingertips tracing along the curve of his eyelids; left
eye, right eye, then she stroked the bridge of his nose.

“Why have you
been avoiding me?”

He didn’t
answer.

She laughed and
slapped his forehead with her open hand,
“
Don’t pretend
that’s not what’s been going on. We were thick as thieves you and
me, roaming South America together …” she stroked his hair
affectionately, “We took the cure … We had a life. We had fucking
Chile!” she sighed, exasperated with her rose tinted memories, “We
were comfortable.” She watched his face, sure that she saw some
hint of emotion there, "then … poof, you pull a vanishing act.”

Stirring, West
stared into her eyes, unsure if there was any sufficient
explanation.

“Stanwick, I
didn’t know how to find you. I was sick, and I didn’t know how to
get well again.”

Stanwick’s
mouth fell open in shock, “Shut up!”

“No, seriously.
I nearly died in Chile.”

Stanwick
shivered, goosebumps raising the tiny hairs of her arms as the
thought raced through her mind, “What do you mean? What
happened?”

West shrugged,
“I think it was malarial fever,” his voice trailed off and he
muttered, “I’ve never really been sure.”

Resting her
hand on his chest, Stanwick asked, “Why didn’t you just leech
straight away?”

He looked
scared as his eyes met with hers again, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know
what was going on. I was losing my mind.”

“How do you
mean?”

“When we got
separated, I was frantic; I was having dizzy spells, crippling
pains and when I slept I had fevered dreams of Allim. I started to
wonder if all of my memories were caused by these fevers. I started
to forget things; small things at first, names of people, places,
that kind of stuff, but it got a lot worse, and suddenly there were
vast tracts of history I couldn’t remember. I spent a few nights in
a small village in the Chacabuco province and by the time I was
well enough to really move around, I had no idea where I’d even
seen you last.”

Stanwick was
dumbfounded. She had waited for him, of course, but eventually she
had began to harbor a petty suspicion that after so many years he’d
finally grown sick of the sight of her. She thought she was doing
the right thing by allowing him some space, thinking that he would
come running to her after a few days. It shook her now to think
that West had been seriously ill and she’d just left him to
suffer.

“The worst of
it was, some of the locals seemed to be convinced that I’d always
been there. They knew me by name, told me stories about how I’d
worked with some of them, fishing and hunting … Me Stanwick,
fishing! Can you imagine? When I finally went out with a couple of
them on a boat, it turned out I wasn’t too bad at it and their
story started to make more sense than any of my memories. So I
spent two years working a skiff, pretty much certain that all of my
memories of Allim were psychotic fantasies.”

Stanwick
blinked hard, shaking her head, trying to dislodge the mental image
of West working as a fisherman, “So how did you recover?”

West closed his
eyes and rested his head on the floor, “I kept having these vivid
flashbacks of the house in Villarrica. I didn’t know if it was real
or not, but the images were so vivid that it reached a point where
that house was all I could think about. I bid my farewell to my
fishing companions and made my way to Paraguay.”

Stanwick shook
her head, “Hold on … I was there West. I stayed at the Palacio for
at least a year hoping you would show up.”

West looked up
at her smiling, remembering the house they had shared together in
Paraguay, their elderly housekeeper who had always managed to make
an ordinary mansion feel like a palace.

“When I
arrived, Fabiana told me you’d not long since left.”

Stanwick
sighed, “You know Fabiana died three days after her ninetieth
birthday?”

The corners of
West’s mouth turned downward slightly, “We should have made her.
She put up with so much crap.”

Stanwick lay
her head down on the floor and took hold of West’s hand, “I offered
it to her. She told me she’d spent too long looking forward to
seeing Eliseo in Heaven. She was polite about it though.”

West chuckled
gently, “She probably thought you were mad.”

“She would have
had a point.” Stanwick leaned her head forwards and glanced at
Charlene, watching the muscles of her legs twitch as her mind
walked her through West’s memories

Charlene followed
West’s army; fearsome and organized as they marched through the
collapsed and ruined walls of the city, out into the unknown world
beyond. She counted a week of sunrises, and the whole time, the
army ran almost ceaselessly, heading towards the mountains in the
North. When they reached the foothills of the mountain they camped
down, and several hundred of them wandered off scouting, returning
later in the evening carrying the bodies of slain animals on which
the army feasted.

As the sun rose
on the eighth day, West led the army in formation, marching in
tightly knit lines as they headed up the slopes of the mountain
until eventually West called for them to halt. On a ridge forty or
fifty yards ahead of the front line, there stood a herd of several
hundred horses, all in a clean line with their heads bowed down.
There appeared to be no one guarding the horses, no riders, which
suggested that they couldn’t pose much of a threat; however, as
they started to shuffle slowly forwards from the prow of the ridge,
Charlene sensed something off about their gait, the way they swayed
as they moved, something peculiar about their stride. She moved as
close as West’s memory would allow without her vision blurring and
she was able to see that each of the horses bent low on their front
legs, pushing their hooves through the rubble and scrubby
vegetation, rather than lifting their legs as they walked.