The Chamber in the Sky Read online

  He held up, in his hand, the unexploded mannequin grenade. He tossed it lightly up into the air and caught it again.

  “I helped you come here not so that we could all grasp hands and sing ‘Hooray’ and snatch victory hot off the griddle. I came here to destroy that bloody capsule once and for all.”

  “But the Thusser!” Brian protested. “If you destroy the capsule, the Thusser will take over the Great Body and you won’t have anything! Not a city, not an empire, not anything!”

  “On the contrary, young Thatz. As I said: Whenever there’s energy and chaos and change in a system, it’s time for someone clever to profit by it. Someone with a biting wit and a sleek, fashionable head of hair. So …” He held the grenade above his head. “As much as we’ve all become close in the last weeks, and as much as it would be right and good and dandy to do the square thing by my little chimp chums, I’m afraid that what I’m going to do instead — is blow you all to hell.”

  Lord Dainsplint hooked his finger through the pull ring of the grenade. He eyed the jeeps that were swerving up the slope toward the plateau of heads. “I need the Thusser to witness your detonation. I shall want them to recognize my excellent qualities as a friend and ally, hm? So hold that pose, blunderkinder.”

  Gregory looked over the edge of the cliff that was about to be blown apart. It was three or four thousand feet down. Then he looked at the two Norumbegans who stood staring at him a couple bus-lengths away. Suddenly Gregory felt the difference of their species. Their ears seemed more pointed. Their faces seemed even more clever and more uncaring.

  “Gwynyfer?” he mewled. “Are you …?”

  She just smiled at him.

  “She’s one of us,” said Dainsplint. “Not one of you. She does not have enthusiasms like you people have.” He smiled. “Sorry, old thing.”

  Though Gwynyfer sagged and was wounded — though Lord Dainsplint was grubby and covered in sweat — they stood side by side as confident as if they were in some mirrored hall in a fairy palace.

  Then Gwynyfer slammed the Honorable Lord Rafe “Chigger” Dainsplint on the back of the head with her signpost. He didn’t even have time to cry out. He fell face forward. He hit the ground and lay there. The grenade was still clutched lightly in his hand.

  Gwynyfer said, “He isn’t wrong. But a girl can still enjoy the thrilling novelty of knocking someone senseless with a length of metal.” She hobbled toward them. “Next time I might —”

  Whatever joke she was going to make was cut short by jeeps. There were two of them buzzing between the giant heads, kicking up dust and soot.

  The door to the capsule was open. Brian jumped in and Tars flew in after him. Gregory ran out to support Gwynyfer — “Chivalry!” she cheered — and he helped her make the final few steps to the little arched doorway before the bullets began to fly past them.

  They slammed the door shut behind them. They heard the blasts of Thusser rifles.

  They were squeezed in close. There was hardly room for all of them to stand. The little booth was lit by stained-glass windows. The control panels were made of stone. Norumbegan runes scrolled across every surface.

  “There aren’t any buttons or switches or anything!” said Gregory in panic.

  Brian burbled the Cantrip of Activation loudly. Nothing happened. He tried it again. Nothing.

  An amplified Thusser voice from outside demanded, “Leave the capsule. Leave the capsule and you will not be harmed immediately.”

  Gregory muttered, “I don’t suppose they mean, ‘Leave the capsule immediately and you will not be harmed.’”

  Brian glared at the runes. He was dazzled by the jewel-like light of the windows cast across the crammed little letters. The words were unfamiliar to him, scientific, magical. He saw nothing that could be clicked or flicked or turned on.

  They could hear Thusser soldiers running toward them across the gravel.

  “How do we turn it on?” said Gwynyfer. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Brian muttered. “I don’t know ….”

  Outside, two Thusser soldiers hurried over the gravel terrain to the fallen Lord Dainsplint. “You! Hands up!”

  His lordship groaned and writhed. “What?” he said. “Is this a dance routine?”

  “Hands up!”

  They pulled on his hands — “No, not my!” — and the pin flew out of the grenade.

  Lord Dainsplint whined in horror, “Now look what you blinking idiots have —!”

  And then there was an explosion.

  The ledge was blown to bits.

  The capsule flew into the air.

  The giants fell; the capsule fell; boulders large as houses slid down the face of the precipice.

  And inside the capsule, Gwynyfer slammed her hand down on the stone panel.

  The capsule stopped falling. There was no motion whatsoever. The light through one white, clear window cut sharply at an angle, as if they’d paused in midtopple.

  There was no noise outside. Nothing.

  Everything was still.

  “What’d you do?” Gregory asked.

  Gwynyfer said, “The light from the stained-glass window … it’s the buttons. I hit the spot of red above the rune for the Cantrip of Activation.”

  His voice filled with wonder, Brian whispered, “Timeout. A real time-out.”

  “Huh?” said Gregory.

  “Time outside the capsule has stopped or something. Until the Game can be judged by the Umpire.”

  Light slid across the stone. The design on one stained-glass window was shifting. The window now showed two coats of arms.

  A voice said, “You have initiated a time-out. The Capsule of Interruption is a joint venture of the Norumbegan Imperial Synod of Wizards and the Enclave Sorcerous of the Thusser Horde, designed to adjudicate violations of the rules detailed in the Treaty of Pellerine, twelve ninety-seven A.E. You have initiated judgment. The capsule is prepared to call the Rules Keepers, as mutually agreed. False or exaggerated claims will result in forfeiture of one round. Do you wish to continue?”

  The kids looked at each other. Then Gregory called out, “Sure.”

  “Please enter your initiation code for verification.”

  Gregory and Brian looked at Gwynyfer. She shrugged. Tars Tarkas licked his claws, curled up in the vaulting of the ceiling.

  “We don’t have any code,” said Brian. “But the Rules are being broken. Right now. In a big way.”

  The machine said, “We will require verification from one of the two parties involved in the treaty. Do you wish us to contact —”

  “The Honorable Gwynyfer Gwarnmore, daughter of the Duke of the Globular Colon, greets the Umpire Capsule, and demands that —”

  “We will require verification from one of the two parties involved in the treaty. Do you wish us to contact the communications terminals at either the Imperial Court at New Norumbega or the Magister of the Thusser Horde?”

  The kids exchanged glances.

  “Imperial Court,” said Brian. “But I don’t think they pay any attention to their computers. I’m not even sure they know where they are.”

  The machine warned them, “To communicate, we will have to re-enter time.”

  “See,” said Gwynyfer, “right at present, we’re rather falling off something of a cliff. So we wonder whether we could avoid hitting bottom. And the dying.”

  Suddenly, there was sound outside the capsule. Things falling, crashing, wind blowing.

  But the capsule was suspended in midair — a chamber in the sky.

  Gregory peered out a clear pane of glass. He saw the ground hundreds of feet below.

  While Brian and Gwynyfer inspected the control panel, two small wooden panels, painted with the ancient gods of the Thusser and the Norumbegans, swung open. Behind them was a screen.

  On it, runic letters in an old, glowing green font said:

  Connecting with the Communications Center of the Imperial Court in New Norumbega Connecting … Connecting … />
  Then the screen flashed and the following words appeared:

  Hello?

  Hello?

  Testing?

  New Norumbega here. Is there anyone out there?

  “There’s someone on the other end!” Brian exclaimed.

  “What do you want me to type?” asked Gwynyfer. She prepared to touch the runes.

  The conversation went like this:

  Hello. This is the Umpire Capsule. The Hon. Gwynyfer Gwarnmore here with Gregory Stoffle, Brian Thatz, and some kind of grub that’s hanging on the ceiling. Please authorize the interruption of the Game ASAP.

  Hello. Nim Forsythe here, ma’am. Mannequin guard, posted to watch these machines for activity. I don’t know anything about authorization. Please help quickly. The Thusser are drilling through the Dry Heart. We are about to be drowned. Please help.

  “Spiffing,” said Gwynyfer sarcastically.

  Brian said, “Tell him to get someone else! Someone from the Court!”

  “And who’s that?”

  Go get the Earl of Munderplast, the Empress, and Kalgrash the troll. Tell them it’s urgent.

  And the guard wrote back:

  Going. Please wait.

  Please help.

  Kalgrash sat down in front of the computer terminal. He could hear beeping and static from the modem that communicated to the capsule. He wriggled his fingers in the air above the keys. “First time typing,” he said.

  hey there htis is kalgrash. i just learned to read so dont kick my typing.

  Kalgrash this is Brian, Gwynyfer, and Gregory.

  Sweat to heer from you!

  We need you to get the Earl of Munderplast or the Empress or someone to enter a verification code to activate the capsule.

  earl of m and empress e on their way. let me go look for them.

  Kalgrash ducked out of the tent that contained the transplanted computers. He looked around.

  Total chaos. Screaming, people throwing bricks, crowds surging through the streets.

  He ran up the fire escape of a nearby building. The whole city rocked yet again. The whole heart. The whole Great Body. It flinched.

  Far out over the shrugging walls, over the broken roofs, out in the desert, there was a plume of green. It grew like a stalk of grass.

  Kalgrash swore.

  It was a geyser. It was getting bigger.

  The Thusser had broken through.

  And now a second one appeared, off toward the Autumn Ventricles. A huge jet of alien blood.

  The first fountain still spewed. At its foot was a growing lake of flux.

  The end was here.

  Kalgrash looked down. Now he saw the Empress and the Earl of Munderplast trying to make their way through the streets toward him.

  The troll clambered down the fire escape, his armor clanking on the metal. He ran toward them, hustling people out of the way. “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” he cried.

  Angry noblemen were screaming at the Empress, “Shame! Shame!” — “What can you say, Your Highness?” — “You let this happen!”

  As she tromped forward, she yelled back at them, “Oh, dry up! You’re the ones who wanted nothing but tea dances! I am protector of my people, and I —”

  “Shame!” citizens screamed at her. “Shame!” — “We’re trapped now! What do you say to that?” — “Yes, what’s your plan, ma’am?” — “Shame! Shame!” — “My kids!” someone sobbed. — “We’re all going to die!” — “Curse on you, ma’am! A curse!” — “Shame on the mother of the Emperor bomb!” — and they began hurling pebbles at her.

  “You know, my people,” said the Empress, shielding her head with an imperious hand, “you’re becoming somewhat of a thorn in the side.”

  Kalgrash jumped in front of her, swinging around his battle-ax. “Back!” he shouted. “Or I smite!” He didn’t like her, but everyone needed her to get to that computer console.

  “Oh, you,” said the Empress. “Thought I’d had you magnetized.”

  The crowd shouted horrible names at her. They threw pieces of metal.

  Kalgrash shielded her — the woman who’d tried to have him killed — and walked with her and the earl toward the tent where the computer waited for them.

  Out in the desert, the flesh of the Dry Heart was tearing. The whole plain rattled. Another heartbeat, somewhere else — and the flux swelled up from the ground, the lake of it stretching across the dunes, washing through villages and over tombs.

  Kalgrash, the Empress, and the earl stumbled into the communications tent. The crowd screamed for blood outside.

  Soon they would get it.

  Kalgrash said to the guard, “Nim, go out and keep people away.”

  The man nodded and darted outside, shouting, “Please be orderly! Please!”

  The equipment glowed on the desk.

  “Oh, one of those,” said the Empress, looking at the computer. “Frightful sort of time to play Pong.”

  “The code!” Kalgrash shouted. He couldn’t control his anger anymore. He took the Empress of the Innards by her shoulders and shook her. “Your Highness! The code! To release the Rules Keepers!”

  (A tide swept across the desert. Houses and towers tumbled in its waters.)

  The Empress said, “Munders, do you recall the Treaty of Pellerine? Some centuries ago?”

  The Earl nodded. “Oh, in the old labyrinth of memory, where so many ancient and noble things be wrought, there, in some neglected corner do I recall —”

  Kalgrash dragged the man to the folding chair. “START TYPING!” he said. “START TYPING THE CODE!”

  (The tide smashed against the walls. And another wave. And another, throwing up bursts of garbage. Broken concrete plates slid backward as the waves retreated. Electrical poles were engulfed as new waves hit, splattering green spray.)

  Concentrating mightily, the Earl of Munderplast — who was not a typer — began pressing buttons one finger at a time. His old, wizened finger picked out one rune after another. Slowly. Slowly.

  Another earthquake hit.

  This time, half the tent collapsed. Chunks of building thudded into the ground.

  The whole Great Body writhed in pain.

  The flux broke through the walls. It poured down in great bursts. It sloshed through the streets. People struggled to climb higher, but everything had collapsed.

  In the sagging communications tent, plaster dust hung everywhere. Kalgrash saw the old man still hunched over the computer. “Keep typing!” he screamed.

  The guard, Nim Forsythe, called in, “Ma’am! Sirs! The flux is in the streets! It’s rising!” The Empress gathered her robes in one hand to prepare for the inundation.

  “Done!” said the Earl of Munderplast. He hit ENTER. “And sent!”

  “Yeah!” said Kalgrash. He felt incredible relief. Help was coming. That’s what mattered.

  He looked at the screen.

  Signal lost. Please re-enter.

  Then he realized what had happened. Part of some roof, falling onto the other half of the tent, had cut off the antenna. The computer hadn’t sent the code off to the capsule.

  “Nim!” he shouted. “Get in here! We have to fix this!”

  The guard charged back in.

  Kalgrash pointed at the end of the antenna wire that poked out of the rubble and the torn green cloth of the tent. He pointed at the other end of the wire, coming out of the back of the computer. It was clear where the falling debris had cut the wire.

  “We have to join those two ends together,” said Kalgrash. “Don’t touch the wire itself — just the insulation. There’s like a million volts going through there. Until the flux wipes out the generators.”

  They each grabbed an end and pulled them toward each other. A few pieces of concrete shifted. The two automatons yanked.

  There was no way the severed pieces of wire were going to touch anymore. Three feet of antenna were missing.

  “Lackaday, lackaday,” groaned the Earl of Munderplast. “We all shall d
ie most dismally.”

  Then Nim Forsythe, mannequin guard, looked at Kalgrash and at the Empress of the Innards. They heard the tide of flux thundering into the city. They heard the screaming of the people. Nim Forsythe climbed on top of the desk.

  And he reached down and grabbed the other wire from Kalgrash’s hand.

  He touched the two ends of the exposed wire with his bare thumbs.

  Immediately, he jolted. The current was running through him. He had become part of the antenna. His mannequin brain scrambled — blew.

  “Hit return again!” yelled Kalgrash to the old man at the keyboard. “Send again! We only have a second until —”

  The medieval Earl of Munderplast pressed ENTER. The code was sent.

  And Nim Forsythe, who had given his life to save the empire, collapsed, all memory blanked, all energy sapped, all workings fused.

  General Herla, commander of the Thusser Horde in the Great Body, smiled as he watched the drills bore into the Dry Heart. He stood on a submarine observation deck surrounded by officers and by the idiot corpses of Norumbegans who’d half sunk into the walls.

  “They’re finished,” said one of the officers. “I’m sure most of the Norumbegans in the Dry Heart are already dead.”

  General Herla said, “Give it another few minutes. Then we can pull the drills out and send a sub in to explore the wreckage.”

  Without thinking, he leaned on the face of an old, dreaming Norumbegan man who’d been absorbed into the pipes and wires of the sub. With his elbow on the man’s gaping mouth and broken jaw, he stared out at the hole in the heart.

  As the signal code from the communications tent flew through organs and between worlds, the tide of flux swept almost as quickly over houses and tombs and towers. Families on rooftops screamed. People at the base of the new city walls splashed toward steps. Kalgrash stomped toward a high mound of rubble with the Earl of Munderplast over his shoulder. He let forth a long warrior’s yell, but there was no one to smite and no one to hear.