“Have to,” she muttered through her gritted teeth, a fragment escaping from a hidden whole.
She sank further into the darkened depths, running her hand along the decrepit stone wall as she went.
“This place...”
The constant beating thumping throb below piled up and dragged her down.
“Corrupted...”
Her steps slowed; the beats pushed stronger, deeper, faster into her breath.
“Weak...”
Her head shook in a furious twitch —
“Today...”
— and the burn of her eyes intensified; she stopped, turned and struck the stone wall with her bare fist.
“Enough!”
Ancient paint flaked off around her bloodied hand into a cloud of dust, lit up for a moment by her eyes like a nebula. Her teeth still clenched, a pearl of white formed in the corner of her eye, swelled and tore and slid down her cheek in a line of illuminated despair, and dimming, dropped from her chin through the drifting dust and disappeared into the shadows.
Suddenly, the raucous beat roared into the corridor with garish, flashing lights from the bar below — a man stumbled out the door and up the stairs toward her. She looked away and wiped her face immediately, then continued down the stairs.
“Ahhh, just the gir...woman I was looking for,” slurred the man, wiping his mouth clean, as he came closer to Nira, “I got a great deal for you that...”
“You have three words,” said Nira coldly, without halting her descent.
“What?”
“That’s one. Two left.”
The man slowly comprehended, then, with a deliberate breath as Nira passed him, he stood up straight and offered, “Religious exoti...”
Nira clicked her tongue before he could finish: “Lost me on two already.”
“But...but...they’re selling out!” said the man in desperation.
“I bet they are!” said Nira without looking back.
The man stood in silence, trying hard to think of more convincing words, as Nira disappeared through the door into her bar — The Outsider.
The incessant beat of the music pounded through her; the swirl and flicker of the garish purple and green pulsed over her; a myriad of beings small and tall and elegant and awkward, danced and shook and twirled around her as she made her way across the floor holding her hurt hand, cutting a channel through the sea of bodies as they moved aside to let her through without question. As she passed the counter, she nodded at the bartender, who grabbed a cloth from behind him with one of his tentacles, threw it to another limb, and then cast it carefully to Nira. She wrapped it over her chafed knuckles.
“They did this,” she muttered to herself through an outward pretence of gratitude to the bartender. The bartender lifted another tentacle offering a pistol, and grinned. Nira smiled, now genuine, but shook her head and walked on.
On the far side of the room, four musicians stood in a ring facing each other’s backs, upon which they swiped and prodded and pulled with countless stubby fingers, inexplicably filling the room with a heady, pulsing blend. About them four gold-robed dancers spun round and round in circular trances, their arms outstretched, their robes flaring out around them as they hovered over the floor. Nira passed through the pulsating space; she smiled her smiles, she nodded her nods, she winked her gleaming winks, but inside the pulse was gone, the tone was mute — her mind was on the day. Gaudy-coloured holographic images filled the spaces between and above the revellers. Nira’s shining diamond eyes absorbed them. She shook her head again.
“The only way...colourless existence...”
Along the walls, behind the throng of dancers, dealers and drunks, stood ranks of Truth Warriors, young and old — tall, silent, still. Threads of colour flicked over their dutiful eyes. Some looked around, quietly anxious.
“They’ll not lose their voice,” muttered Nira beneath the pounding music, “Their colour.”
She reached the far wall, where two warriors, identical twins, stood solemn guard by a door. They nodded reverently, and opened for her.
She entered a round stone chamber and the door closed behind her, muffling the beats and shouts. In the centre of the room hovered a collection of holograms, all in glimmering motion — a galaxy, a temporal branch map, a plan of the circular city, and a representation of the temple at the centre of the forum above them. Nira stepped sternly up to them, and looked straight into the temple — the golden dome did not end where it reached the plane of the forum, but continued downwards, curving in towards a mirrored dome below, forming a perfect sphere. From the withering husk of the Tree of Light in the centre of the temple, a complex plexus of roots and veins stretched down and out — a subterranean labyrinth of passageways. Along these branches, at certain points, tiny red lights blinked in anticipation. Nira bowed her head.
“I’d rather die,” she murmured.
“Nira?” came a voice from the far side of the room.
Nira snapped her head up at once, eyes blazing. Through the shimmer of the holograms she saw a Truth Warrior with dark, grey hair standing tall and grave by another door.
“Jhor. Good,” said Nira, in immediate control, “Call them.”
Jhor darkened further in acknowledgement and nodded.
“It’s time,” breathed Nira, “Time for your truth.”
Next chapter — Cacophony
Sunday 21 November 2010
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