It's been how long? Five years? Sorry. I was writing other stuff ... shameless plug such as Breaking Mirrors, with Feem, and Welcome To The Necropolis with Leels. (That will be continuing, only it'll take REALLY long cuz of having to use olde-worlde forms of communication.) And you really really want to read these fics because it will improve the general quality of your life and the first 83 readers get free Glasto tickets! ... -- There's about twenty million other things I'm trying to write... and you never know, if I'm not too busy there might be the occasional Devendra Banhart songfic. Think of that and tremble. And now I'm just spraffing on here instead of typing the bloody fic up! I swear my handwriting gets harder to read every day! Oh, and I really should apologise for my new character's name... it wasn't even my idea. glares at Feem Actually I doubt anyone would have noticed I was being stupid with it. Pretend I never said anything.
Historical Note: This all actually happened. Um no, what I meant to say is that it''s vaguely accurate for the 1700s, by the 1860s neither of the Tolbooths would still be in use, as the jail on Calton Hill was built in blah blah blah olde binmen blah potted life history of George Mackenzie shut up for christ's sake.
The Malice Judgement: Chapter 5 at long fucking last
Edinburgh
The city turns dark with a stinging mix of rain and sleet; rain turning the tenements' roofs into waterfalls, leaving dark brown stripes down the sides of the buildings. Hail grows steadily harder, ice like stones that you can catch in your had, watch them slowly melt, stones that bite you as the wind spits them in your face. The storm makes a dull, rumbling, muffled clatter inside the Tolbooth. It's dark here, and the stone on the wall is damp, edged in thin streaks of green slimy moss. A pile of straw in one corner and scattered half across the floor provides the only comfort. It isn't very comforting by now, off-coloured and smelly, god knows how old it is. There's a tiny barred window high up on the back wall, you can see pale raining sky, the top of the dirty grey skyline. There's another barred window, in the thick wooden door of the cell. This shows an echoey dark corridor, doors of other cells. And sitting, sprawled on the heap of straw, leaning against the wall, is a short, black-haired man. His face is marked with little pits, the marks of the smallpox. His dark eyes dart around the room restlessly, they keep flicking back to Samuel's face, studying his new cellmate. Samuel stares blankly back at him for a couple of seconds, then sits in the furthest corner, his own eyes fixed on the high-up window.
After a few minutes of this silence, the man asks Who are ye?'
Samuel remains silent. Death Emperor replies Samuel Bell.'
Ye cannae fucking talk wi' ma mou'?' Samuel spits bitterly. The other man looks at him in a mix of fear and confusion. With a degree of trepidation, he says Ah'm Davie Marchand, by the way. In here for treason. ... Whit're ye in for yersel'?' He's not sure he wants to know the answer.
Killin' ma bairn,' Death Emperor states matter-of-factly. Samuel punches himself in the face. It seems to him the only way he has to harm the fusion soul. It doesn't seem like it'd succumb easily to any kind of mental thing.
Dinnae feel a thing,' Death Emperor informs him.
How come ye dinnae need tae use ma voice tae say that?'
Death Emperor remains silent. So does Davie.
For now, Death Emperor resides in the part of Samuel's mind set aside for harmonixing. It looks basically the same as Greyfriars Graveyard but the kirk in the centre is a burnt out, black and jagged shell. By a simple thought process, that's all it takes, he can possess Samuel's body, see through his eyes, use him. His own physical body is useless, nonexistent, unless Samuel is fused with him. He exists, for now, as an idea. A collection of his won ideas. A consciousness without a physicality to go home to. Of course, he can always possess Samuel's body and make him fuse. Then he's physical enough.
Death Emperor never did understand the science of it all, he always fancied himself more as a philosopher. But he remained secure in the knowledge that even the scientists couldn't explain fusion. They said it was amazing what the mind can do, how powerful it is. They didn't understand what went on, how a human body could change so suddenly, so completely, into something else. Raging Tiger had been trying to find a theory for it, but Death Emperor hadn't been speaking much to the other fusion souls since he had realised how ridiculous their whole plan was. He'd tried explaining it was madness; but they just refused to see. They called him a traitor. Most of all, he despised Czernobog. He might be more physically powerful than Death Emperor when fused, but that meant absolutely nothing in this world where the mind was all there was. The homeless ideas. Death Emperor knew his ideas were a good deal closer to the truth than theirs. This idea they could make things right again. It's only wishful thinking and they're only going to make it worse. He couldn't believe he'd once been so enthusiastic towards the stupid plot.
And then they'd started getting the humans involved... Death Emperor hadn't agreed to that, but at the time he'd still been about as misguided as the rest of them, so he didn't argue much. The first was some idealistic young boy, Albert Simon, a student of the famous or possibly infamous Roger Bacon. Death Emperor wished he'd paid more attention to what Bacon was saying at the time. He'd said it couldn't happen, not now and certainly not this way. He even tried to stop it. If anyone had listened back then, Death Emperor realises, right now we wouldn't be here. It wouldn't have got this out of control. But it's too late now... It's not, he reminds himself, it's not too late. He's gone too far in his counter-attack, with this latest harmonixer, for him to give up now.
At the time of joining them, Albert Simon had been young, comparatively uneducated. But he'd been thinking in just the kind of radical- and for radical, Death Emperor thinks, read deluded'- way the fusion souls were looking for. So they'd got to him. this had seemed like just what they needed, someone in the front line of battle. The entire planet Earth. That was their front line of battle. He was not a harmonixer by genetics, but you don't need to be, not to just communicate with a fusion soul. The whole thing is controlled by the fusion souls, really. Doing it by family was an easy way to stop them having to look around new people to use every few years when one of them died. But they could change it whenever they want to. Most humans are pretty much the same anyway, it wouldn't make a difference. Thank fuck for that, thinks Death Emperor. Imagine if the entire human race was made up of people like Albert Simon. There weren't many. In the few hundred years since Albert was recruited, they'd only found one more, recently, a woman named Olga. Death Emperor thought she was a pretty good example of everything this plan had going against it. Not just wrong, but silly, misinformed and disorganised to boot. They refused point blank to accept this, though, and so Albert Simon had turned up, here, in Samuel's mind, trying to persuade Death Emperor that if he couldn't help them he could at least keep the hell out of it.
Appearing in people's heads like this was a simple psychic projection spell that Death Emperor was now deeply regretting having ever taught Albert. He had hoped it wouldn't work if the person you were appearing to was at the time only a thought themself. As the only part of you that went anywhere was your thoughts and your spirit, it has to be going somewhere. It can't go outside on its own, because if it gets lost and floats off into the air, it s going to get overpowered by all those other thoughts out there and it'll never get back into anybody. You'll be dead. While you're doing this mental projection, your body is on autopilot, breathing and heart still beating, but if you're out of your own mind for too long, it'll assume you aren't coming back and stop working. And if your mind tries to get back to your body once it's physically dead, well, things can get very messy indeed. So your mind needs to be in some kind of physical container, to stop it getting lost. This brings the thought to Death Emperor that fusion souls are like the hermit crabs of the mind, moving from shell to shell. Albert couldn't be appearing inside Death Emperor's head right now, because he hasn't even technically got a head. But he's in Samuel's, and, for the moment, there is no escape.
Death Emperor,' Albert says, and it's obvious from his voice that he'd rather not be there either. The fusion soul ignores him completely.
Look,' Albert continues. I suppose I can't make you want to continue with fulfilling the Promise. But it's about two thousand years too late to do anything about it. Nothing you can do will take effect, so please, do us all a favour and stop behaving so ridiculously. You made a commitment and there is no way for you to get out of it, not until the Promise is fulfilled. It'll be over a lot more quickly if-'
This was never about getting it over with quickly! This is about the fact that your plan is never going to work and it will certainly create a lot more problems. You really don't have that much idea what you're doing. Admit it. Not that I'm implying that I do, of course, but wisest is he who knows he does not know, as they say. This is an entire planet you're pissing about with.'
That rather was the point,' sighs Albert, trying not to get drawn into an argument.
Anyway, Albert,' Death Emperor says. What you said about not having any way out of it is not strictly true. I know, due to my own mistake of agreeing to this, I'm going to be passed around from mind to mind until either the Promise is fulfilled or every harmonixer on earth is dead.'
Oh, bloody hell! Death Emperor, you can't seriously believe that'll work! In theory, maybe, but in practice it hasn't got a chance of working!''
Much like this stupid Promise. May as well meet idiocy with idiocy,' Death Emperor murmours, softly sarcastic.
No, but... whatever horrible death you have in mind for your current Harmonixer, it doesn't really matter, because you're going to end up sharing a mind with other fusion souls. You're hardly the best fighter, unless you've spent the past couple of centuries weight training... And that''s another thing. I assume this recent bloodthirsty episode is part of your kill all harmonixers' plan. Given what you're saying about our methods of fulfilling the Promise, it's incredibly hypocritical. It wasn't even particularly efficient. Not that I think you ought to have done this at all, but you could have killed the harmonixer, then the child. You'd have ended up in in her head anyway. Now what have you got yourself into? What use is the harmonixer going to be to anyone if he's locked up? I don't see how you plan to kill him- there's no weapons in here, no knives, nothing...''
These lovely chaps at the City Chambers are going to kill him for me,' replies Death Emperor breezily. He's going to be hanged soon. And I don't need you here telling me off, Albert. Now could you please just leave, you patronising old twat?'
Albert ignores the last part of the remark and instead says,' You seem to have forgotten that family is only the way we're doing it at the moment. Even if you do kill all the relatives of the harmonixers who are alive at the moment, we can just start using other people. You'd end up having to kill the whole human race- so you may as well just let us do that. We are going to find a way around you, and really, it isn't going to be incredibly difficult.' Then, on an afterthought, he adds,' Is the harmonixer hearing all this? We are in his head, after all.'
Well,' Death Emperor tells him firmly. t's entirely your own fault if he is. My guess is he doesn't understand and probably couldn't care less. But you never know, do you? So why don't you just bugger off before he starts figuring stuff out?'
Albert is steadily getting more and more annoyed. He can't see himself getting anywhere by staying here, but if he leaves now, it'll be a minor victory for Death Emperor. Oh, who cares, he thinks. If Death Emperor is going to be petty about this, let him. And, with a few seconds of concentration, he removes himself from Samuel's mind.
It's a no-man's-land of a grey twilight, not properly daylight but not anywhere near dark either. The light is hard, making sharp shadows on the gravestone carvings. Even the grass is outlined in that clear, too-real way. It's like the graveyard goes on forever, even though Samuel can see the walls. it feels like infinity locked into a few square muddy feet.
Over by the gate in the Flodden Wall, leading through to another part of the graveyard, he sees a movement and he doesn't want to go over, because it will be Death Emperor, again. And there's no point in not going over because if Death Emperor wants something to happen it will happen, somehow.
Slowly, but more quickly than he thinks, he walks over, between the gravestones leaning and blending into each other like growing plants. There is a silence everywhere that you don't quite notice at first. You notice that the atmosphere is strange but you don't know why. Samuel reaches the Flodden Wall, itself studded with headstones. The gate in it that leads to a different, less crowded part of the graveyard is open. And all sleep is any more is a chain of open gates and none of it makes any sense. And Samuel walks through it because there is nothing else for him but this any more.
This part of the graveyard is a long downhill slope, closed with walls on either side. The left wall would normally have separated the graveyard from a boys' school, but in this reimagining, beyond the wall is just more of the city. The right-hand wall, the Flodden Wall, used to be the city boundary a few hundred years ago. but the numbers of the dead swelled and spilled over, and the graveyard crept beyond the city's edge.
This slope is lined with graves, on both sides and in a line down the middle. At the bottom of the slope you can see over the city, down towards the Cowgate and the Grassmarket. This world, the city looks like it used to, like it hasn't looked for centuries. The tenements are much higher, and built not just with the grey-brown stone he's used to seeing, but the upper stories are built with wood. They're layered in a haphazard way, the tops creaking, swaying gently in gusts of wind. The city looks alive, not dead stone like it's always looked to him, breathing out dirty grey smoke. It's rippling, growing, slowly but always, getting taller.
On the right side of the narrow slope, there's a place by the wall, a little grassy area, where some free-standing gravestones have been knocked over, smashed up.
It wasn't Death Emperor, was it, what he saw?
He's even finding it hard to register, hard to find a place inside his own mind, where he can see clearly and understand what's going on. A part of the mind knows and maybe the rest of it doesn't know whether it knows or not. On one of the smashed-up gravestones, the headstone of one Alexander Ross, Annie is sitting, curled up and small. Her old white dress, grey by now, is muddy and stained with something darker too, black. Her hair is tangled over her face, head hanging to one side, not much but still strangely impossible. As she raises her head to look at Samuel her hair falls away.
Her face, that unmistakable look of clay, purple and red mottled patches that look like bruises across the grey of it. Annie opens her eyes and blinks slowly, smoothly, dreamlike. Under the heavy dragging lids her eyes are washed with blood, watery dark red which sweeps up her eyes with the lids, and when she shuts them again it's spilling over the bottom eyelids, slowly running a path over her cold face.
And this is anything but peaceful, anything but asleep. So we live, confused and asleep, then we die and only then do we wake up. Then all these gravestones saying do not weep for I am only sleeping , they're all wrong, they're all the wrong way round. You should weep. Cry your fucking heart out.
Waking up is the worst thing you can do. It's bad enough asleep and none of that even matters. Don't walk into the light. Once you see what you've been sleepwalking through, really you are going to wish you'd never woken up.
And once again, thank you my dear and lovely reviewers. Aegis (this chapter was probably even more confusing than the last one -- There might be actual sense by the end.), Kim and somebody who is more likely to be Leels than the plushy Cthulhu spork monster. It was when? February?! I really have to update this more often.