There was a murmur of agreement, even among the tank crew.
Chandar began pointing out the most important jars to salvage. Atkins’ section took off their packs and began filling them.
Reggie and Norman slipped off their coveralls from over their service dress, tied knots in the arms and legs to create makeshift bags and began to load them up under Chandar’s direction.
In their haste, one of the tank crew, Reggie, let an amphora slip from his fingers.
“Dash it!”
It shattered against the earthen floor, its thick oily contents permeating the chamber as its contents splashed into the dirt. A pungent odour rose from the spreading pool.
“Be careful!”
There was a loud clicking from Chandar as it picked over the shards of stoneware jar. It hissed and clicked rapidly as it turned one over, marked with chatt glyphs.
“What is it?” Atkins asked, recognising the sounds of agitation.
“A heretical unguent, prepared from the living bodies of Ones. Used to aid prophecy. The prophecies that arise from it are said to be dire and inescapable. No One has dared use it for spira, beyond counting. Perhaps it is just as well it is gone.” Chandar sank down on its legs.
Gutsy tapped Atkins on the shoulder. “Then again, maybe it hasn’t.” He nodded towards Mathers, who had begun to clutch his stomach in pain and pushed off his splash mask and helmet.
MATHERS JERKED, HIS back arching as though he were having a fit. He took a deep gasping breath, inhaling the vapours that coiled and entwined as they rose from the smashed jar.
In the air around him, expanding with the vapours, an alien world of shape, sound and colour, translated from the scent, began to take shape, drowning out all else.
The soldiers and crew around him faded like ghosts, as he railed against the synesthetic visions that overwhelmed his mind. The pain in his stomach dulled to a vague throb.
A spot burned on his retina. It grew larger, and Mathers realised he was witnessing events long ago.
The world was as it should be. GarSuleth watched over its children from its great sky web, beads of dew glistening on it in the night sky. The Nazarrii, already failing, pleaded for GarSuleth’s intercession to save them.
The spot burned in the sky, bringing with it fear. The horror mounted, as its cursed name spread on the Breath of GarSuleth, from colony to colony. Mathers could taste the acrid tang of the sky usurper’s name on his tongue. It tasted of blood and iron and bile. Croatoan.
The light grew brighter and brighter, outshining all the other dew-bedecked spots that shimmered and shone in the great Sky Web. It grew brighter still, seeking to outshine GarSuleth itself and tear the web asunder.
A mighty struggle ensued and burned across the vault of sky for days and nights, as GarSuleth fought the interloper before making the fatal bite, defeating the usurper and casting it from the sky web.
It took days for the defeated deity to fall. The false god tumbled from the sky web that spanned the heavens. It fell in fire, and as the usurper fell, the Nazarrii took this as a sign from GarSuleth and forsook the edifice, but too late. The sky giant fell not far from ill-fated Nazarr.
The world shook with its impact. The edifice felt the full wrath of the usurper’s death throes as its final breath tore across the land, blasting all that stood in its path, and fire followed fast on its heels.
It was bound and imprisoned by GarSuleth’s brother, Skarra, god of the dead, god of the underworld, to dwell in eternal punishment.
The middle notes told how some were selected to entomb themselves, to protect their most sacred scents against the death throes of the usurper.
As those middle notes died away the full horror of the top note became apparent. Buried alive, the priest chatts, abandoned by their god, harvested and prepared the unguents necessary to make one final horrific prophecy from the very bodies of the worker chatts that remained sealed in with them. And now that cannibalised chrism flooded Mathers’ mind.
He gasped for breath. His voice became a hoarse whisper as he began to prophesy. “As the breath of GarSuleth leaves us, so do these Ones leave this scent of prophecy. Our trail has led to this place at this time. Heed, then, the final inescapable prophecy of the Nazarrii that yours may not. In the spira when the Breath of GarSuleth grows foul, the false dhuyumirrii shall follow its own scent along a trail not travelled, to a place that does not exist. Other Ones will travel with the Breath of GarSuleth, the Kreothe, made, not tamed. Then shall Skarra, with open mandibles, welcome the dark scentirrii. There shall emerge a colony without precedent. The children of GarSuleth will fall. They shall not forsake the sky web. The anchor line breaks.”
The final notes of the scent, hastily distilled from the dead chatt workers, died away, leaving Mathers’ mind entombed with them in the dark. A dark he knew. And feared.
He screamed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MATHERS COLLAPSED AS his mind returned to this world. As he did so, the men about him solidified and the pain in his stomach returned.
Atkins stared at him. “What the hell was all that about?”
“It is a prophecy,” said Napoo, in awe.
Mercy dismissed the idea. “Mumbo jumbo more like. It don’t mean anything. The man funked it a long time back.”
“Oi!” snarled Norman.
Mercy flashed a sheepish smile, and held up his hands apologetically, before turning back to his mates and tapping his temple.
Chandar chattered as the prophecy-inducing liquid soaked into the dry earthen-packed floor where it could do no more harm. “This does not augur well. It would have been better if this liquid had been destroyed than used to make a heretical prophecy. But it is too late, the words have been spoken. The deed is done.”
“You can’t believe that stuff?” said Atkins.
“Things will be as GarSuleth wills them.”
Nellie sank down beside Mathers. “Let me see him?” With reluctance, the tank crew let Nellie minister to their commander, who sat slumped against the chamber wall, saliva dribbling from his mouth, his face an ugly patchwork of livid red lesions. She unbuttoned his collar to find the swellings at his neck had now spread down over his torso. She felt for the pulse at his wrist. It was racing.
She looked up at Reggie. “His condition is worse. I don’t know what to do about it. I certainly can’t do anything here.”
Reggie nodded in agreement. “We got to get him back to the Ivanhoe. It always goes better for him when he’s in it, Miss.”
Nellie frowned. “The fumes, yes. Well, first things first, we must get him out of here.”
Atkins could hear the sound of something below repeatedly ramming roof falls. One of the creatures was attempting to clear its way through the rubble of the collapsed tunnels. “Then, Miss Abbott, you go with them. Hurry.”
“Are you sure, Corporal?”
“Yes. Keep an eye on Lieutenant Mathers. Napoo, go with her.” The urman was reluctant to accompany one he considered possessed, but Atkins had gambled that his loyalty to them would extend to Nellie. The urman nodded.
Atkins resented the fact that they had come all the way for the tankers, and now had to put their lives on the line for them again. However, when he spoke, the tone was matter-of-fact. “We’ll buy you time. Keep going up. If we’re not out in an hour, use the tank to bring this place down and kill these things, then get back to the encampment, toot suite. Go.”
The big boxer, Jack, nodded his thanks and, supporting the semi-conscious Mathers between them, Jack and Frank led off up the passage. Alfie followed, cocked revolver in one hand, torch in the other. Nellie and Napoo fell in behind them. Reggie and Norman carried their makeshift coverall bags, with Cecil and Wally, which tapped and clinked as they walked.