Broad Plain Darkening

By Clare Rhoden

The safe world of the Pale is under threat.

Inside the policosmos, the new Regent Adaeze strives for dominance over the all-powerful Senior Forecaster, but the Pale’s humachine citizens are unaware that their city is close to collapse.

Outside on Broad Plain, the exiled human Hector undertakes a dangerous trek to find a safe haven for the orphaned twins. 

How can anyone survive as their world shifts underneath them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odyssey Books
• Release date: Oct 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781925652574

Book preview

Spring and Summer

the year 218pC

Chapter One

‘Tell me again why I have to die.’

Jaxon Tangshi, the Senior Forecaster, chanced a swift glance at his regent’s profile. Adaeze was magnificent.

Jaxon approved of the proud eagle’s beak of her nose, her golden brows, the square jut of her chin. Along the coppery skin of her neck, veins as blue as lapis pulsed with energy and her biowires gleamed like polished bronze. Her gold-and-brown hair was braided intricately behind her head, drawing her skin taut across the flawless bones of her face. The high collar of her gilt-broidered tunic protected her nape, and a close-fitting vest of threaded gemstones provided a glittering armour that emphasised the glorious curves of her breast and her slim, flexible waist. He noted tigers eye, citrine, ruby, onyx, and topaz. A wide leather belt, plated with lozenges of amber, provided resting places for both the thin, curved dagger and the heavy sword she favoured. Regent Adaeze looked every inch a beautiful predator, fully armed against the perilous world she had inherited. Jaxon gave a graceful bow as she turned from the window.

‘Well?’

‘My lady,’ answered Jaxon. ‘You must appreciate your position as our regent. You are our talisman against the dark, wrecked world of the Outside.’

Adaeze set her fists on her hips. ‘Yet you insist that I must die. Curious, Senior, don’t you think?’

‘My lady!’ Jaxon shook his head, looking perplexed. ‘It is not my insistence, believe me. My wishes have very little to do with the matter.’ He narrowed his eyes a bit further, gauging her mood. Adaeze was proving an interesting challenge to his powers of management. He sighed loudly, as if the thought of her eventual demise distressed him. Then he turned to look out over the ugly expanse of Broad Plain, which lay like a tattered, discarded cloak at the foot of the perimeter walls, as if reminding himself of where they were. He spoke gently, judging that Adaeze needed to hear his support. ‘I am sure you remember that one of the reasons that the, er, departure of the previous regent was hastened was because Élin had turned her attention away from the daily challenges of the policosmos. She neglected the everyday actions that ensure our survival. Her time arrived early, it is true. Yours, my lady, is many decades off. Many.’

‘Bah!’ Adaeze made a swift cutting motion with the side of her hand, a move that would crush an opponent’s larynx on contact, and came to stand beside him once more. Together they scanned the harsh, dusty horizon. Perhaps Adaeze thought, as Jaxon did, of the time they had compounded together to engineer the former regent’s untimely death. Maybe her fingers still tingled from their contact with Élin’s back, from the moment that Adaeze had pushed her over the edge of the Regent’s Tower. She flexed that hand as she ground her teeth in annoyance. ‘Jaxon, I didn’t ask you when. I asked you why.’

‘Yes! Of course, my lady. Bear with me a moment. I will seek the exact rationale. Everything is set out in our procedures and our records.’

The senior forecaster turned his attention inward, examining every period from the Great Conflagration to the present uncertain post-post-aftershock period. Thousands of data points referenced the regent’s role and significance to the policosmos of the Pale. Thousands more narrated the history of every regent who had ruled the Pale in the two centuries of its existence. After a pause of some seconds, Jaxon blinked into Adaeze’s amber eyes.

‘My lady, your role is clear. You represent the highest possible achievement of our humachine kind in this degraded, post-Conflagration era. You are the recipient of the very best of our software and hardware, and the most excellent and exquisite liveware that the Pale can possibly produce. Every citizen reveres and, I might add, fears you. So they should, as you are so far superior to anything we ordinary folk could ever become.’ Jaxon’s voice caressed each syllable, his demeanour one of complete adoration.

Adaeze tilted her head back, her chin lifting toward him like a challenge. He watched as she folded her powerful forearms, sheathed in guards of engraved black tourmaline, across her gem-studded vest. He could see that his explanation meant little to her in her present cantankerous mood.

‘I must die because I am the best that the Pale can produce? What kind of logic is that?’

‘The immutable logic of the first citizens,’ said Jaxon, shaking his head as if in sorrow. ‘Yes. That is indeed the reason,’ he explained further. ‘You see, my lady, every other citizen, from the lowest sanitariat worker to the heads of the service arms, lives a life that is limited by various imperfections. Some of these flaws are minor, it is true. Some are stark enough to completely compromise that citizen’s entire life experience. Our devoted folk suffer these defects because they must. It is necessary because the Pale cannot support all of her inhabitants at the richest of their development. Many of us must live lesser lives so that those at the peak of our society can live fuller ones. However, part of what helps the underclass to bear their disadvantages is the knowledge that even the regent is mortal. That even the best, the most beautiful, the most splendid creature we can birth inside our policosmos has to die. Thus we can all see that our future, our entire existence, is forever compromised by the Great Conflagration. In this way, the highest will shun the Conflagrationists’ ways, and even the lowest will never seek privileges above their station.’

‘Hmm.’ Adaeze turned her back on him, her foremost adviser, and strode toward the stairs that led from her awe-inspiring throne room to her terrace atop the Regent’s Tower, the highest point of the Acrocomplexa.

Jaxon, indicating his reverence with a graceful gesture as she swept past him, followed perforce. He had not been dismissed. The conversation was unfinished. He looked down, hiding his thoughts as he set his feet on the elegant risers of the spiral staircase.

Behind him, a score of servants made the same journey, doing their best not to draw either his notice or that of the regent. Although Adaeze’s temper was not as unpredictable as her predecessor Élin’s, she was not exactly safe to be around. Her outbursts were more rare than Élin’s, but rather more deadly. Jaxon approved the servants’ circumspection. It was always wise to be wary of regents.

Deep within the forested ravine, the canine scout Mashtuk was the last to arrive at the meeting place. He had been standing sentry at the southern entrance for much of the afternoon, and was very glad to change places with Mudiwa. For her part, Mudiwa was also pleased to take over guard duty from him. She had long since passed the age of bearing young and had limited patience with talk of cubs, and very little to add to the topic that the canini wished to discuss: how best to care for the young human babies they had rescued from outside the walls of the Pale.

Mashtuk well knew Mudiwa’s views. While she agreed that the canini should give the humans temporary shelter, she was adamant that they must be handed into someone else’s charge as soon as may be. The tribes, the wild men, the settlers—Mudiwa did not particularly care. Her objection was that the human infants were taking time, attention, and food from the canini. This spring had been a bountiful one, true, yet that only made her more sure that summer would come early and would be harsh. Let the humans look to their own, she advised. Mashtuk recognised the justice of all that she said, but he also knew that Mudiwa had no true appreciation of the bonds that had already been formed between the infants and their canini hosts.

Seated around the small copse that the canini kept cleared for such times as they gathered together, the rest of Hippolyta’s pack lifted their noses and flicked their ears forward in greeting to Mashtuk. He sent a general word of thanks that they had awaited him and squeezed his long body alongside his partner Zélie. Compressing her lips with a twist of humour, Zélie pushed their two noisy cubs toward their father. Not the least discomposed, Mashtuk pulled Rhosyn and Niccolò into his arms and bid them hush; their yaps of welcome were much louder than the voice of Hippolyta, the pack leader. With her own two cubs nestled drowsily before her, Hippolyta paused until Mashtuk had quieted his youngsters. He settled his boisterous pair and then spoke over their heads.

‘Pack leader, pack mates,’ he said aloud. ‘I thank you for waiting. The matter of the human twins is giving me much worry.’

‘You worry much about everything,’ murmured Zélie, but Hippolyta signalled her sympathy with a deliberate nod of her head.

‘I have my own concerns,’ she said. ‘Until the return of our embassy to the tribes, I believe that we are obligated to keep the humans in good health. That is the task we undertook when we collected them from that ghastly place.’ She shook her ears, as if harassed by an insect.

Mashtuk had noticed before that Hippolyta avoided saying the name of the Pale. Nevertheless, everyone knew what she referred to with words like ‘ghastly’. The length and breadth of Broad Plain, damaged, corrugated, barren as it was, did not hold another site of such horror and awe. He quite understood why his leader did not wish to name it. Names had power.

Hippolyta continued. ‘When Enis and Tsendi and Hector return, they will have discovered other options for our adopted orphans, I am sure. At the moment—what is it, Mashtuk?’

‘I am sorry to disturb you, pack leader. I was just asking Zélie where the infants are. I have looked around and I cannot see them.’

‘No need to apologise,’ replied Hippolyta. ‘They are sleeping in my den for a little while. It is closer than yours, and we will hear them should they wake while we are talking. Do not worry, they are quite safe.’

‘Of course!’ Mashtuk was a little embarrassed. ‘Of course they are. Sorry. I am just so accustomed to having them by me.’

‘I think my partner will miss these younglings when we find a human home for them.’ Zélie nudged Mashtuk’s shoulder affectionately.

Old Tanno laughed. ‘Every one of us will miss them, I fear. I never thought to care at all for anything human, but I have changed somewhat. Our visitors have changed me.’

‘Our pack-mate Hector of the Pale in particular,’ said Hippolyta. For long moments, all the canini pondered on the strange advent of the human-humachine into their pack.

At the peak of the Acrocomplexa, the regent’s terrace commanded a three-sixty-degree view over the policosmos of the Pale itself, and further over the Outside, as far as the horizon. It was a view Jaxon knew well.

To the west, ancient hills folded one upon the other, bare and ugly except when winter dusted snow upon them.

To the north nothing could be seen but the parched skeletons of what had once been forested mountains, lifeless and forbidding, their arid flesh stabbed by the tall silvered bones of long-dead trees. North and west were the lifeless quarters, scarcely worthy of any attention.

To the east was the great ravine, created by the post-post-aftershock only two decades ago, and here life was springing anew. As ever, the burgeoning ravine heaved its bulky ramparts toward the hazy sky, a great barricade that hid the rising sun each day. From the depths of the ravine, dense vegetation encroached bit by bit into the desiccated, degraded plain that separated it from the Pale. No doubt many creatures, vermin and the like, prospered there, increasing their numbers and wasting scarce resources. Certainly canini lived in the ravine, and Jaxon for one would love to annihilate them if nothing else. Bothersome creatures, intelligent and interfering.

To the south, the regent and her adviser could see the rudimentary go-way where the Pale’s humachine service staff made their regular patrols around the great walls of the policosmos. Service patrols cleared away the debris of storm damage and feral kills, collecting all organic matter for the biofuel pits and any metal for the stacks.

The ridiculous human Settlement lay to the south too. The Pale was quite content to let them live behind their flimsy wooden palisade. They would never again try to break in to the policosmos, after the swift annihilation of their raiding party two decades before. The Settlement had nothing that the Pale envied.

On this entire post-Conflagration continent, Jaxon knew, nowhere else approached the permanence and civilisation of the Pale. Arriving at the uppermost viewing platform of the Regent’s Tower, he found Adaeze contemplating the southern quarter. She spoke to him over her shoulder. Her thoughts, it seemed, were far from his own appreciation of the perfection of their organised style of living.

‘And you, Jaxon? How many decades do you have in front of you?’

Jaxon took a millisecond to adjust his eyes to the lambent spring morning, and a few more to frame his answer. Fleeting mist rose from the arid sands of the Outside, while a denser cloud hung over the thick trees of the ravine. The rising sun flung the heavy shadow of the ravine’s huge escarpment like a broad handful of darkness toward the feet of the Pale. Jaxon preferred the afternoon view, when the silhouette of the Acrocomplexa ranged back across the broken territory, darkening all of Broad Plain and the ravine as well. Late in the day, the outline of the Regent’s Tower loomed like a vengeful goddess over the whole territory, restating her power. He made a soft sound of appeasement, an apologetic cough.

‘My lady, my existence is so limited that I can barely be said to live. I am here solely to assist the Regent. Solely for you. I cannot truly be said to have my own life, as such. Therefore it follows that what I do not have, I cannot lose.’

Adaeze moved closer to him. He resisted the urge to step back. The regent placed her hand on his upper arm, squeezing the flesh there quite painfully. ‘You seem very much alive, Senior Forecaster.’

Jaxon did not flinch. For over two hundred years, he had kept the exact measure of his life force a secret from each successive regent. He was not about to betray himself to a youngling he had boosted single-handedly to the throne of the Pale. Regents needed to know only what Jaxon thought fit for them.

‘I am so glad that you think so, my lady,’ he responded, his voice as kind as a grandfather’s. ‘It is very gratifying. As you know, I was created by the first citizens to undertake foundational duties. The Pale’s continuing existence relies on stability and order. My role is to provide continuity across the reigns of successive regents, ensuring that the governance of our policosmos is harmonious and predictable. The first citizens decreed this, to eliminate the destructive forces of diversity and dissent. Throughout the ages, our wondrous figurehead, the regent, must be seen to grow, to learn, to serve, and then to pass away, a recurrent example of the highest form of life that a citizen of the policosmos can achieve. The senior forecaster, by contrast, is nothing in the eyes of our citizens. I am, my lady, no more alive, and no more important, than the architecture of the Pale itself. I may as well be a comms pillar, or a strand of trip-trap wire.’

‘You are saying that you are as immortal as the Wereguard?’ Adaeze shook him a little. ‘You will never die?’

Jaxon bowed his head, his gleaming eyes carefully shielded. ‘Never is a very long time, my lady. The Wereguard are charged exclusively with your safety. Thus they do not provide you with advice or conversation.’

‘I should think not,’ said Adaeze ‘That is not their place.’

‘Quite correct, my lady.’ Jaxon looked up. Adaeze stood no taller than he, but her physical presence was by every measure more overwhelming. He took care to relax his stance, presenting himself very much as her inferior while he outlined his relative unimportance. ‘My role, as you know, differs considerably from theirs. It may appear to you that I have more liveware than the Wereguard, but I must tell you that my appearance is merely a convenient seeming. I am the same as the information screen on the wall of your meeting chamber, except that it is more practical for you if I can walk and talk.’

‘I see,’ said Adaeze thoughtfully, releasing her hold on his arm and stepping back. ‘Thank you, Jaxon, for your time.’

‘And, my lady, if I may,’ said Jaxon gently. ‘There is the small matter I came to see you about.’

‘What is it, Jaxon? Something that needs my attention? Something that you yourself are not able to deal with?’ Adaeze folded her arms again, raising her chin at him in what could be read, had he chosen to take it so, as a challenge.

‘My lady, the sanitariat reports that one of the biofuel tanks has cracked. At Epsilon Gate. The defect was noticed only yesterday, but it seems that biofuel has been leaking for a week, maybe longer. The Epsilon tank, my lady, is empty.’

‘And?’

Jaxon stilled his breathing, deliberately remaining calm. ‘My lady, we have only six tanks, one at each gate, you may recall.’ Adaeze lifted her brows. ‘Biofuel is our major foodstuff, my lady.’ Not for the first time in her short reign, the senior forecaster somewhat regretted that the new regent’s education had been curtailed by her early elevation to the throne.

‘We are going to run out of food, is that what you’re saying?’

Jaxon shook his head very gently. ‘Oh no, my lady. There is always a small safety surfeit. We always have more than we need for the number of citizens alive at any one time. In this case, some of the lesser folk may go rather hungry for a little while. Some weeks it may be, no more. That is nothing, in the larger scheme. What I wished to tell you was that the teshniks and the ingeneers see no way of repairing the cracked tank.’

Adaeze lifted her brows. ‘We have five others, yes?’

Jaxon nodded. ‘Indeed. However, our usual safety surfeit is no longer possible, unless we reduce our complement of citizens.’

‘Do you think that necessary?’

‘My lady, it is not my decision. It is for you to say how best we should deal with this matter. My role is to tell you the options.’ And then, he could have gone on, if the regent made a suitable choice, he would see that decision implemented. A truly stupid decision, naturally, he would ensure was never enacted.

‘Oh.’ Adaeze turned away from him and walked to the edge of the platform. For a moment she looked down at the base of the walls, at the very spot where her predecessor Élin had fallen to her death. ‘But what would you advise? That is your role, is it not?’ she asked, turning back to him.

‘There are a number of options, if we wish to maintain a safety surfeit. We could reduce rations for all by a small amount. However, the service personnel and the Wereguard, and ourselves of course, must be kept in peak condition for the safety of all. We could curtail the number of eggs being progressed, and very gradually lessen the overall number of citizens. Or we could recycle some citizens a little earlier than their allotted time. For these options, however, we would have to decide which citizen type we could most do without. The number of each was decreed by the first citizens as comprising the ideal ratio of each type. The regent’s servants, the sanitariat, service, teshniks, ingeneers and so on.’

Adaeze flipped her hand at him. ‘I don’t need any more howevers! A safety surfeit, you say. We are quite safe inside our walls, Jaxon. We do not need to fear want. We are the Pale! Why don’t we just do without the safety surfeit, and keep our numbers as they always have been?’

‘If that is your desire, my lady, I will see to it.’

‘Thank you. If there is nothing else?’

Jaxon hesitated. The final part of his report, the one that would have been of most interest to Élin, was probably nothing to worry this young ruler with. Once more, he found himself somewhat regretting having saddled the Pale with such an immature sovereign. He shook his head and stated, ‘Simply that the sanitariat believe that the biofuel—you recall, my lady, from the tankful that leaked Outside—may have been eaten by scavengers. The service patrols report unusually active groups of animals around the walls. Pantheras coming much closer than previously, night vultures and so on. Many vulpini, in particular.’

‘The orange things with furry tails? That scream at sunset?’

‘The same, my lady. They appear to have attained an unusual size and colour, and to be acting more ferociously.’

Adaeze shrugged. ‘Then let us make sure there are no more leaks. If that is all? Thank you.’

The senior forecaster took this dismissal gracefully, but his mouth was set in a grim line as he turned to the stairs. Young Adaeze, amenable as she had always been when she was just a paramount vying for the throne, was proving more difficult to handle than he had expected. Her scanty education was to blame, of course; she was not sufficiently inculcated into the knowledge systems of the Pale. Something would need to be done about this grievous lack. Jaxon resisted the urge to rub the aching muscles of his upper arm, and contemplated possibilities.

Chapter Two

‘Your report, service patrol.’ Laylene’s voice was crisp, but the scratchy static of the comms pillar gave it a husky tone, as if she was whispering at them. Service junior Milo, who was in his first year of duty, had never heard any better feed from the pillars. His patrol mate, elderly Hallen, shook his head at the sound. Milo raised his brows. The old fellow was always complaining that everything worked better before the aftershock. The PPA, the post-post-aftershock, that had happened over two decades ago, before Milo had even been an egg, was the one Hallen referred to, as if Milo could possibly care. He was tired of hearing about it. He was tired of Hallen saying how bad all the comms were now, and bored with Hallen’s annoyingly formal language. He only wished that he had enough seniority to lead the patrol. Then he would be making this report and giving it the drama it deserved, instead of standing to attention beside a pathetic old comms pillar while his creaky old patrol leader droned on as if they found dead ferals by the dozen every time they went Outside. Milo suppressed a groan. One day, he’d take control and then, then there’d be more action. For now, though, Hallen was in charge.

‘Supervisor Laylene, ma’am,’ said Hallen. ‘Hallen and Milo, ma’am, returning from clean-up patrol Outside.’

‘I know who you are and what you’ve been doing,’ said Laylene. ‘Give me the report, Hallen.’

Was it Milo’s imagination, or was Laylene’s voice a little brisker than usual? He had heard some rumours about trouble at Epsilon Gate, but he didn’t know enough about it. Some matter of leaking biofuel, and vulpini eating it and growing to monstrous proportions, terrifying any patrols who saw them. Not that Milo knew anything, really, except what he overheard of others’ conversations. Nobody talked with him much. Partly because he was the kind of man who enjoyed his own company more than that of others, but mostly because he’d been catapulted into the service fully grown. All the rest of the service staff were progressed as eggs—grown, fitted, and equipped inside the service oikos. There they did their training and met their patrol pairs, and worked in teams for a number of years before they began patrols in earnest, before they ever walked around the Pale itself. That’s what boring old Hallen would have done, his partner who was currently making nothing of an interesting discovery.

‘Thank you, ma’am, yes, the report. We cleaned from Beta Gate to Gamma, all along the north-eastern walls, ma’am. Walls are in good shape, this side. Not as many carcasses as we expected this time of year, ma’am.’

‘Oh? Tell me more, serviceman.’

Hallen, without a trace of excitement, went on. ‘Most of what we found was ferals, ma’am, dead ferals. Plenty of them. Three score and counting. Mostly the engine type. We collected what flesh we could and dragged the metal to the stacks.’

There was a pause, while the comms pillar crackled and coughed. Milo chewed his lip to prevent clicking his tongue with annoyance. No doubt, creaky pillar or not, Laylene would be bound to hear his impatience if he let it show in any way, or she would see it if she cared to call up the nearby camera on her screen. He was quite good at hiding his boredom, but he was finding his life a daily—no, hourly—frustration. It was because he had once been a paramount, he supposed. One of the regent’s family, he had been, in line for the succession, before the former regent had chosen Adaeze to follow her.

The pillar suddenly came to life again, Laylene’s voice as loud as Hallen’s next to him. ‘Do you hear me, serviceman? Answer me! Had the ferals been fighting one another? How had they died in such numbers?’

‘Not clear, ma’am. Looked like many of them had just stopped. Like they just ran out of life. Many of them just standing, ma’am, but dead.’

‘I see,’ crackled the pillar. ‘Thank you, serviceman, that is all. Return to your quarters.’

Hallen tapped Milo on the shoulder, releasing him to stand down. They walked side by side where the go-way was wide enough, but Milo was content to drop behind through the narrow sections. As he re-entered the service oikos and headed for the refectory, he returned the greetings of his fellows, reminded again by their perfunctory nature that he was not really one of them. No matter; that was something he knew, and rather liked. He was a former paramount, not a lowly service staffer.

Milo was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to remember anything about that. After Élin had chosen her successor, he had been refitted and sent to the service. The recyclers were supposed to strip out his Patraena legacy before he got there. He remembered that process, and as far as he was concerned, nothing had happened. Oh, his gilded skin had become silver, that he knew, and he was a little heavier than he had been, stacked with bulging muscles where he had once been slender and lithe. The narrow data band around his left wrist had been replaced with a bulky service model, complete