London Wild (3 page)

When the doors began to open
, everything seemed as if it was moving in slow motion for Eggshufont as he started to run. It was too late to change his mind now. He was committed. As he ran he tried to free the pistol from where it was still stuck to his body beneath his many layers of clothing.

He was through the gates of the Temple with no problem. No one in the crowd seemed to be trying to follow him or stop him. Even the Compare seemed to have taken cover
behind the plinth, maybe realizing that Eggshufont had murder in his green eyes.

Lowsiobenno looked around as if lost as Eggshufont entered the Temple gardens; maybe she feared that he was after her. She seemed to be frozen to the spot just outside the now wide open marble doors. The longer she remained paralyzed like that
, the better Eggshufont’s chance of getting into the Temple itself.

An alarmed murmur began to find its way around the crowd. If the murmur had any meaning
, though, it was lost to him by the sheer weight of numbers that it was coming from. Nevertheless, this noise, combined with a few shouts from people telling him not to do it, was pretty much the last thing he would ever hear in his life.

Before he had even reached the two gorgeous statues that stood on either side of the short path, a sudden flash of light shot from a small grill at the top of the Temple’s roof
, and a moment later Eggshufont lay dead in the garden.

But that wasn’t the end of it. To those outside the Temple it must have seemed as if the Goddess had gone berserk. She was clearly angered by the attack on her Temple, and it soon became clear that just one death wasn’t going to be enough to sate her temper.

The crowd that had gathered in front of the Temple was still murmuring, but they were also beginning to disperse with the full intention of returning to their homes when the Temple’s roof
-mounted weapons opened fire again and again and again. The crowd began to stampede as, one after another, they were cut down in quick succession. Very few of those in the crowd made it to any sort of cover. They had been the ones lucky enough to be on the very outskirts of the crowd and closest to the neighboring buildings. Everyone else in the crowd, including Lowsiobenno’s two brothers, was lying in the dirt mere seconds after Eggshufont had been killed.

Lowsiobenno survived the carnage. She had watched in shock as the crowd was slaughtered like animals. Then she entered the Temple itself
, but she seemed to do so in a trance.

The Compare also survived. He had taken refuge behind the plinth
, and if anything, the Goddess had avoided shooting at him. He was Herbaht, after all. When the slaughter was over, he climbed slowly to his feet again, shook his head slowly and descended from the plinth. A minute or two later he had retrieved the small television camera from the corpse of the cameraman and was headed for home. He would have his job cut out for him during the next month as he tried to twist what the viewers at home would have seen to make it appear as if the massacre had really been necessary.

Lowsiobenno was greeted just
on the other side of the large marble doors by a male Herbaht who went by the name Mitshutosh. Almost before she could do anything he had injected her with a syringe. He said, ‘It’s a simple sedative; it won’t put you to sleep, but it will help to calm you after what you’ve just seen happen.’

She felt a little dazed for a moment
, and then the events outside the Temple seemed to fade into distant history. She looked at him strangely as he offered her his arm so he could escort her into the main part of the Temple. ‘Are you the Goddess?’ she asked, more than a little bit surprised and more bothered that he was Herbaht than because he was male.

‘No
, no,’ Mitshutosh replied simply. ‘I am simply one of the Goddess’ other servants. I was sent to escort you to the Goddess herself.’

‘But you’re Herbaht,’ Lowsiobenno stated, her voice clear and calm as the drug took effect. ‘Herbaht aren’t included in the lottery.’

‘Herbaht are selected at birth personally by the God or Goddess,’ Mitshutosh responded, ‘and not by a random spin of a wheel. We are given different tasks than the kind you will receive. Although there are four Herbaht servants to the Goddess at any one time, only one of us is ever likely to be in the Temple. Our tasks usually take us outside the Temple walls and sometimes even the Temple grounds. Those gardens don’t maintain themselves, you know.’

‘I guess not,’ Lowsiobenno responded slowly.

‘Well, one of us is trained gardener; one, a cook; and another, myself, happens to be a driver, in case her holiness wishes to leave the Temple herself. Which she would do incognito, you understand; we must maintain the illusion that the Goddess is here at all times.’

‘Is she here now?’ Lowsiobenno asked.

‘Oh yes, she never misses the day of the lottery. None of us do,’ Mitshutosh replied with a smile. ‘She’s waiting for you in the main living quarters of the Temple.’

The main living quarters of the Temple looked like a small palace stateroom. The floor was an exquisite marble
mosaic that unfortunately had gathered a few scuff marks since it was built. There was a comfortable-looking fireplace, a large wooden table and six wooden chairs, all inlaid with gemstones and gold filigree. There were also a couple of side tables with vases of flowers on them and a large glass-fronted display cabinet containing a very ancient-looking, yet heavily polished silver dinner service. On the nearest wall was a large picture frame. It dominated the entire wall top to bottom, yet seemed to be missing its picture.

On the largest of the walls in this room was a series of television screens, showing the viewer the various aspects of the city from any number of small cameras that had been secretly hidden about its streets, its shops and even in some of the newer houses. These seemed to allow the Goddess to keep very close tab
s on her people. In front of this wall of screens sat a female Herbaht. She seemed to be glowering at one of the screens in particular, the one that currently showed the pile of dead bodies just outside the Temple.

The Goddess Mitsiocaler looked young, very young, much younger than Mitshutosh, yet when she spun around in her chair, she gazed at him with irritation and seemed to ignore Lowsiobenno altogether.

‘Did you have to do that?’ she asked with a hiss in her voice.

‘I had to make an example,’ he replied calmly. ‘You know what happened last time
; the history books are filled with the stories of the rebellion. It’s even taught to the throwbacks. I just nipped it in the bud before it got any worse.’

‘Really,’ the Goddess responded, ‘I hope you’re right. I guess we’ll see. In the meantime
, I might have to punish you. Find some task outside of the Temple to perform while I decide whether or not I should have you replaced.’

‘But mother…’ Mitshutosh started.

‘She’s your mother?’ Lowsiobenno interrupted, surprised.

Mitshutosh glanced at Lowsiobenno and then walked away. He left the room out the same door they had entered, leaving Lowsiobenno alone with the Goddess.

‘He’s your son?’ she repeated.

‘He’s my son,’ Mitsiocaler responded with a comforting grin, ignoring the fact that Lowsiobenno had already broken one of the commandments she had been given before entering the Temple. ‘Nearly every Herbaht in the city is either
my son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter or the children of the same or their children and so on.’

‘Please forgive me if I spoke out of turn, Goddess
,’ Lowsiobenno suddenly uttered. ‘I guess I wasn’t ready for what you have told me. Do you have a task for me?’ She looked around herself at the lack of other servants of her race in the room. She loved the look of this room and didn’t really want to leave it, but she was now sure that when she was assigned something she wouldn’t be allowed back here again.

‘I need you to go and assist my daughter, Mitsiobon. She’s the cook. Return the way you came, look for a small door to your left and then follow the smells of cooking. You should be able to find her easily enough. By rights Mitshutosh should take you down there, but as you might have guessed
, he’s currently in disgrace.’

She left the stateroom and followed the Goddess’ instructions down to the Temple’s kitchens
, where she was surprised to find Mitsiobon alone. She had expected the place to be teeming with the servants of her own race; after all, one was ‘selected’ every month.

‘The Goddess sent me down here,’ Lowsiobenno told the cook as she entered the kitchens.

‘Of course she did, of course she did,’ the cook responded gaily. ‘So you are the latest to be ‘selected.’’

‘Chosen today for the honor of serving her holiness.
I have to admit I’m surprised that no one else is here assisting you already. In fact, I’ve not seen another of my race since entering the Temple; where is everyone?’

Mitsiobon seemed to ignore the question
, instead asking one of her own: ‘You are aware that the Goddess is immortal, aren’t you?’

‘I believe so,’ Lowsiobenno responded
. ‘After all, she wouldn’t be a Goddess if she wasn’t.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ Mitsiobon replied
. She picked up a cleaver and started to hack away at some non-descript piece of meat on a table. ‘But she’s not naturally immortal, you know. Every so often someone is chosen from the non-immortal members of the Herbaht race to occupy some new Temple that has been built or to replace a God or Goddess that an accident has befallen. You see, they can live forever, but they can still die from unnatural causes. Anyway, those chosen to be
Gods and Goddesses are given a special elixir, an elixir that can extend life indefinitely.’

‘With you so far,’ Lowsiobenno replied, unsure where this was leading or
, indeed, why she was being told this.

‘You see
, the elixir has a small problem: it’s not perfect by itself. Every month the God or Goddess needs to reinforce the effect of this elixir by ingesting a certain chemical. It works as a sort of booster for the elixir, if you like, and keeps it going for another month. If the deity should miss a month, then the power of the elixir is lost and he or she will age until the next booster is taken. It is said that if they go without the booster for five or more months, then all effect of the elixir is lost for good and they will eventually die of old age, just like the rest of us.’

‘Unless they get the elixir again,’ Lowsiobenno added.

‘Indeed,’ Mitsiobon replied. ‘It’s only a rumor though; I don’t know of anyone that’s actually done it.’

‘And so once a month she sends out for this booster and…’ she stopped, although dazed,
as something about the monthly nature of the booster occurred to her.

‘The chemical in question is found in the mind of all creatures with any sort of brain. The best examples
, though, are those that we might classify as intelligent creatures, those that develop a clear language.’

Lowsiobenno was frozen to the spot for a moment, unable to think properly. ‘I-I
, er, can I…’ She took a deep breath. ‘C-can you remove this chemical without damaging the rest of me?’ She was shaking again; the idea that the door was right behind her and still open was a lost thought.

‘I can,’ the cook replied happily, ‘but that would still kill you
, as you can’t live without the chemical any more than the Goddess could. Besides, she would prefer it if you were served to her as a proper meal.’

‘Cannibalism!’
Lowsiobenno stated in near panic. She was unable to move, and she began to feel as if her mind was actually crystallizing; just what had that drug done to her?

‘Not really,’ the cook responded
. ‘You and she aren’t of the same race. To her you’re nothing more than a herd animal.’ And with that she threw the cleaver with an expertise born of experience, hitting Lowsiobenno directly in the forehead and killing her instantly.

Everything seemed to be going well for the Goddess
.
The Compare had done an excellent job of twisting the facts to match his story. ‘The crowd had been gearing up for an attack on the Temple itself. The Goddess obviously acted in self-defense.’ For most of the population of the city, that was enough, and everything went back to normal as they awaited the next lottery. Maybe the crowds that regularly gathered outside the Temple gates on these days and who were really little more than a nuisance would be a lot fewer in number when the next ‘selected’ was chosen.

In order to make everything work properly, the immediate families of those killed in the crowd that night also paid the ultimate price. Several Herbaht death squads moved about the city and began to visit the relatives of more than a thousand families, cutting them down ruthlessly to pay for the invented crimes of their kin. A few managed to make it into hiding, but they were very few in number
, and the death squads continued to search for them day and night whilst their pictures were broadcast on every channel of the television, asking for people to volunteer their whereabouts.

The Goddess herself wasn’t involved in the orders. She couldn’t have brought herself to have given such orders
, even though she knew they were necessary if the status quo was to be maintained. Instead she blamed Mitshutosh for all the deaths and demanded that he leave her service to head up the death squads personally. She would simply have to find another driver for when she next wanted to leave the confines of the Temple.