Saturday 30 June 2012

Billy Came, Chapter 16

16. a, Village of the Damned

I stood on the ivory stairs and, like a tourist taking in the vastness of the ocean from a seafront promenade for the first time, propped one boot upon a baluster, both hands shoulder-width apart firmly on the ivory railing at my hips.

The ingenuity that lay around and beyond the staircase, this Eden and the potential it unwittingly proffered, moved me beyond reason.  The panorama stretched for mile upon impossible mile in every direction beneath the Earth, beyond the knowledge and the reasoning of the surface dwellers.

Closer to hand, not far below, now, was the village spreading out from the foot of the staircase.  Single storey buildings, circular, no more than 20' across with terracotta tiles meeting at a shallow peak over the centre of the building hugged together in clusters.  Dark shadows in the walls suggested glassless windows, also circular.

The huts, as I had began to think of them, were in blocks of eight, two rows of four, offset from each other to form a loose rhombus.  From up here, their layout reminded me of the wheels around which tank tracks rolled.  Picket fences between the huts and around the 'block' almost completed the illusion that a World War I Mark V tank had been overturned and left to rust beneath the silver sky.

Smaller pathways ran lengthways between the blocks, juxtaposed by broader throughfares at their ends.  The whole layout portrayed a relaxed grid, the angles ending each row adding to a sense of fluidity.  One word struck me as I tried to decipher the pattern: purpose.

The further we descended, the greater the scope the 360° spiral of our descent afforded us.  Many blocks, thoroughfares and, at intersections, larger buildings whose purposes were difficult to determine from up here, made up a complete village.  From the staircase with the sun above us at its centre, the effect was both dazzling and dizzying.

Looking even further, beyond the village's outskirts, mesmerising vistas of the whole breath-taking subterrannean world these creatures had created heaped further mystery upon its creation, and creator(s).  Dark, dense woods appeared to support the sky.  Shadowy dells and glistening lakes pocked the landscape that ran with speed towards one all-encompassing horizon, which suddenly truncated the world in every direction you cared to look.  The view made descending this never-ending rotunda feel like riding the world's grandest and most impossible helter-skelter.

To the west, rolling plains ran parallel to and beneath the miles of mist that blossomed from an unidentified source beyond the sun above us to form the low, mercurial sky.  The further towards the horizon the mists stretched, the angrier their countenance turned, blackening into storm clouds in the far, far distance.

Where the land eventually met the sky, a true lesson in perspective, shadowy mountains bordered the plains.  I wondered what, if anything, lay beyond the mountains, which sat around the horizon like the edge of a long-extinct caldera enclosing the land within.  The light from the sun seemed only to offer the landscape's furthest reaches a mere wisp of light, and that only begrudgingly.

Jutting from within the distant gloom, the mountains' lilac and white peaks soared to puncture the distant thunderheads, ripping a pyrotechnic display of lightning from their swollen bellies unrivalled by any electrical storm I'd ever witnessed above ground.

As if to prove the view didn't exist for the sake of aesthetics, a clap of thunder buffeted the air in the distance, renting the sky with a visible shockwave.  The effect the shockwave imparted was as if we had been plunged underwater, that the clouds were undulating on its surface above, rippling, wave after wave.  Then another shock followed, and another. 

The distance, however, was so great that the thunder's echoes were little more than muttered grumbles by the time they reached this safe haven on the staircase.  The light from the artificial sun proved the last and determinate barrier to the soundwaves, the thunder dying with the shush of a lazy tide dragging itself back to the sea as it washed over the vampires in the courtyard below.

Still, it was enough to make them curse and gnash their little 'v's of blackening and rotting teeth, teeth that I suspected had once been fangs to rival those of Perveen's.

Billy's fangs had, of course, gone the same way as those of the industrious vampires below.  I wondered what could cause such degradation, especially given how critical fangs were to vampires' sustenance.  Then, I remembered Billy and his Gibben Axe, the way it slipped through my flesh with ease and he'd let the sliver slip down his throat without chewing the slightest bit.  And then that I'd done the same; another shudder rippled through me, this one seeming to come from my stone dead heart. 

It all begged the question, what weaponry did these villagers—for that's the impression those scrabbling about below gave me in their rustic and somehow ancient setting—possess that kept them safe?  More gruesome still, what was their food?  I just hoped that I wasn't on today's menu!

As I turned my eyes from the settling clouds back down to the scene below, I noticed that more droplets of mist had settled on my forearms.  I felt nothing from them until I saw the little globules tentatively hanging from the hairs, lying in their natural arc close to the skin.

Those droplets ignited a strange sensation, sending shivers along my spine.  Was it an aftershock of the previous invasion, or an instinctive, habitual reaction to 'cold', perhaps?  A bit of both, maybe, but the very mist itself seemed furtive, almost alive.  It genuinely felt as if the moisture wanted to burrow into the waxy, leathery coating that was my new skin.

I hadn't the time to dwell.  A gentle reminder, in the form of a hand at each elbow from behind, worked to break the will of the hypnotist.  Perhaps the hoodies had also felt the need to break that spell.  That sense of sentience subsided once we began moving, continuing our descent.

The further we meandered downwards—forever downwards—the lesser the immediate glare of the artificial sun impeded vision, affording a better view of what I could only assume was to be my new home.  Or at least base camp.  The cloud was also thinning around our ankles until, eventually, we were out of the malleable mist altogether; leaving those clinging, miniscule droplets felt like shedding an old skin, invigorating my repressed psyche for the rest of the descent.

16. b, The Miracle of Subterrannea

We approached what felt like the halfway point, whereupon a commotion broke out on the ground below us.  There had been silence and stillness as the inhabitants had held their salute position.  Then, in an instant, life!, as if a hypnotist had clicked their fingers.  The stupor that had beset the community below ever since the clouds had parted to herald our arrival erupted into action, and how!

The clouds above us began to reform, filtering the glare to a more amenable luminosity.  Of everything that had struck me as amazing in such a short space of time, the artificial sun was the most sensational.  Had it not changed my attitude the moment I espied it?

For an interminable time, I had marched along that murky, medieval corridor, my mood as dreary as the grey stone walls, floor and ceiling that coccooned us in the clattering echoes of our footsteps.  But after only a short time out on the other side of that dingy rat run, my dark mood had dropped away.  In its place, curiosity; nw that I could begin to see more clearly, hope.

Whoever my 'new' ancestors were, they must have been possessed of any number of singular geniuses between them.

That was assuming two things: that they, my forebears, did, in fact, create the sun and the world that had sprung up around it.  And two, that they were, in fact, dead.  For all I knew, they may be living still, like ancient gods in the equivalent of the Olympian temple, but one of their own making.

On the other hand, they may well have inherited this land as part of a tryst dating back centuries; to the Crusades, perhaps?  Or, and neither beyond the realms of possibility, they could have taken this land by force from a far more technologically advanced, albeit passive and at one with nature, species than we.

For whatever reason, the latter rang truest; I know not why.  This theory contradicted my earlier line of thinking about The Ark, but (what now passed for) my gut rumbed both inkling and warning in equal measures.

No matter how it came to be, this place was miraculous.  If any scientist from the mortal world above could cast their eyes over this technological marvel, they would happily die here.  As I discovered later, many had done just that.  Technically.  They had sacrificed their mortal human existence in order to wile away eternity in this ever-evolving melting pot of sciences, learning and postulating for eternity.

One thing (amongst many others) did strike me as odd.  In all my research, the vampire community wasn't.  A community, I mean.  Individuals they were, by all accounts, not communal beasts.  Arrogance and self-import leant itself to a life of isolation and seclusion, almost always making the typical undead creature a lone predator.

Broods and covens did exist, of course.  In each of those, the strongest or eldest vampire most often held sway, self-appointing themselves as the figurehead or deity of the sect.  But whenever gathered many personalities who thought themselves great, greatest, all-powerful, there was friction.  And for a race, a genus that had to pick new members oh, so carefully, the threat of challenge from within to members with much to teach was surely a trait to avoid.

But as we neared sub terra, the controversial evidence was plain.  Working side by side, almost in a familial sense, were vampires of all ages, all colours.  There was harmony and it sang up the stairs to greet us as we're neared the ground.

I turned around to seek further direction from the hoodies, but they'd disappeared.  Again.  I stared back up the stairs, but that turned out to be an inadvisable idea.  Even though mist was still floating across the sun, its glare blazed off the galaxy of stars trapped within the twisting ivory, refracting light in a kaleidoscope of colours and angles.

The hoodies could have retraced their steps twenty steps further back towards the sun at the top of the stairs or two hundred.  Even with my keen eyesight, it was impossible to determine anything with certainty looking back up the staircase, the sun seeming to cascade downwards, caught in every twinkle, every glint.

Assuming that the hoodies had not escorted me here just to take in the view, I determined that there was only one direction for me to go.

16. c, Making an entrance

At last, I alighted the staircase and set out across the courtyard, with the sole intention of making contact with those I'd seen working close to the foot of the stairs.  After all, I assumed they would be my new neighbours and compatriots.  But I'll be jiggered; I hadn't taken two steps onto the cobbles when several vampires surged towards, carrying weaved baskets under their arms.  Before I could flinch, they began throwing petals ahead of every step I took.

Panic averted, I tried to engage them in conversation, but they hunkered down to their task, ignoring me.  It wasn't as if they couldn't understand me; they were talking to each other in English, but none proferred an answer to my questions.

The petals were actually from black roses, which looked and felt like midnight velvet; they were laying them before me in huge handfuls.  So beautiful, each individual petal, that I tried to avoid stepping on them, but there were so many it was impossible.  And when I didn't quite know which direction I was supposed to take at a fork in the path or an intersection in this new world, I had only to follow the newly-laid path of petals as the lowly vampires rushed ahead with basket after basket of gorgeous decadence.

Giving up trying to dodge the petals, I took the opportunity to study the creatures.  With the exception of a young boy with the look of a Dickensian urchin, none were yet to meet my eye.  Then, from seemingly nowhere, a question popped into my head: where did Perveen fit in this hierarchy?

The thought took me so by surprise that I had no choice but to stand stock still and ponder it.  So, what did I actually know thus far?

Clearly, Perveen held a position of prominence within this community; I had seen the evidence of that myself.  Her court had hung on her every word upon our arrival; even Billy had bowed in supplication unto her.  Any lingering doubt about this particular supposition disappeared when I compared how she carried herself to the humble villagers about me.  But had Perveen been undead long enough to make it to the top, slender branches of the Subterranea family tree?  Or even just up into its boughs?

It was obvious she had, but how had she achieved such prominence in a relatively short space of time?  Fifteen years or so was the absolute longest she could have been here.  And whilst that was a lot longer than I'd been a vampire, compared to others like Billy and The Master, she was a mere infant, and me an embryo.

I was in the midst of pondering this when, to a vampire, everyone in the vicinity hunkered down onto one knee.  Floating somehwere near the top of my conscious mind I realised I'd heard a sound like a thunderclap and, at first, wondered if they were ducking for cover (and if I should follow suit).

But the sky showed no after effect or shockwave as I'd witnessed earlier from on the staircase.  But what I did notice was that, since I'd been stood still off in my own little world, the pathway of petals now stretched all the way across a small square.  It looked amazing, but it was what—or who—was waiting at the end of the path of petals that quite literally blew me away.


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