Chapter 10: Latticework

LATTICEWORK is a collection of short stories, thus is chapter 10 in fact a full story - Gordon Grey. It's quite lengthy, but do enjoy :)

A latticework creates a mesmerising pattern, to please the eye and draw the onlooker closer. Emotional lattices connect strands to amplify the human experience; our melancholy, our mistakes, and our residual power.

Fourteen lattices by a diverse author makes Latticework an occult treat, worthy of fans who dip into the disturbing and diabolical. This collection of soulful tales embodies the macabre and the metaphysical, with insights so serrated it cuts to the marrow.

 

Lattice 10

  

GORDON GREY

 A man requires diversion.

  

HERE WAS A man who had just lost the woman he loved and he was now either suicidal or hyper aggressive. This man was a king, although uncrowned. This man was a sorcerer, although unwilling in the talent. This man was of another race, although he passed for human with his fair hair and grey eyes.

This man sought distraction. Now.

He went to Lax, that underbelly world of crime and corruption, and the one who nominated himself as this man’s personal guard accompanied him. The companion appeared less human, for his eyes were tawny.

They arrived together in a public square with their swords drawn, for here one had to be ever wary. Twilight fell soon after their appearance, but did not hide the squalor. The place was filthy with rubble lying in uncaring piles, and it stank of piss and dead rats.

Dark blotches on the cracked concrete paving exposed the sites of murder. There were many blotches. Not a building front on the square was whole; every façade showed the jagged teeth of broken glass and splintered doors. Lax had been in decline for generations.

The public area seemed deserted, but stealthy sound revealed they were marked.

“My Lord, why here, this cesspit?”

“Here there is no status between us, and I am therefore not your lord, understood? Say it again in the wrong place and we’re both dead. If anyone asks, your name is Adrian and mine is Timothy. We have no other names, understood? Why here? Challenge.” Timothy lifted his sword to point it. “Four of Lax’s lowlife behind you.”

Adrian swore under his breath and whirled around. There were indeed four scrawny, scruffy men hurtling at him. No doubt they regarded two strangers as easy targets. The first and second went down via dagger - he always has a blade in each boot - and the third had his teeth knocked out before he even looked at his fallen companions. The fourth rushed forward and took a hit in the jaw that laid him out cold.

Adrian, his breathing even, said, “What are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing, and that would be the point. I seek distraction. The only expectation here from anyone is how long one can survive. Black and white. Live or die.” Timothy closed in and clasped his companion’s shoulder. “Let us find the principal criminal in this hole and force upon him a change of heart. This dump requires cleansing. Are you with me?”

A brother in arms to a king? Adrian nodded. He would not miss this for anything.

Timothy grinned and together they set off into the underbelly of Lax.

  

A FEW MONTHS ago a friend went about the taverns of another place, stating that decent folk were ever willing to open up to a healer. Recalling that as he and Adrian ducked into a basement drinking-hole, Timothy reflected that it will be almost impossible to find anyone decent on Lax, and he doubted they knew what a healer was now. Lax had too long been in the grip of crime. Here the intent behind his sword would have to open them up.

The place was disgusting, stinking like an open sewer, and it was crammed with silent patrons. Vacant eyes stared into filthy tankards filled with diluted ale. Ugly whores sat together at a table staring at broken nails; no one paid them any heed and they did not attempt to solicit attentions. It was an eye opener; Laxians clearly possessed little in the way of hope.

“Gods,” Adrian muttered behind him.

Wrong. Here there were no longer gods, other than the god of absolution found in a flat tasteless brew.

“Who do I have to kill to put a smile on your faces, even if just for an hour?” Timothy demanded of the room at large.

Heads swivelled immediately, and hands convulsively gripped tankards as if afraid he would take them away.

Nobody said anything.

Timothy sauntered in and sat at the whores’ table. Passing coin to Adrian, he said, “Get these lovely ladies a decent drink. Ask for whatever is the most expensive.” He studied the women as Adrian moved off. “I have never seen a stranger sight in my life. This is place for fun, not so? Yet here is no movement, no music, no laughter …”

“Shut up, mister,” the woman opposite him hissed. “You’ll get us all killed.”

Timothy leaned back. “Talk costs nothing.”

The same woman made a disbelieving sound. “Where you from, idiot? Talk is expensive.”

Ah. They were afraid to say even the most basic things, in case someone had been paid to listen.

“Who pays the most for information?” he asked.

“Why do you want to know?” a thin man at the bar countered.

“I think a change in paymaster is due,” Timothy shrugged.

“You want to take his place?” the man demanded.

A laugh. “Friend, look at my face. See my companion over there. Does it seem likely we’ll remain long in this shithole?”

“I’ve heard of men like you,” the whore muttered. “You come here looking for a badass to kill, to prove you’re not as soft as your clean nails and sweet-smelling skin suggests.” She stared at him. “Most end up deader than the rats in a cooking pot.”

Adrian returned with the drinks, shoving the tray onto the table. “Not sure if one can call this decent. Bottoms up, ladies.”

The whore snorted and looked away. Not one of the women touched the offering.

An old man at the bar cleared his throat once, twice. “Try the Precinct two blocks up. The Grey stronghold. Someone should cut the head off that snake. Maybe we’ll get a breather before the next viper comes along.”

“Shut up!” thin man hissed.

Timothy stood and in a low voice said to Adrian, “Watch the door. Someone’s going to run with this to said snake.” Aloud he said, “I need a name.”

“He said too much already,” the thin man snarled. “You have enough from us. Go away.”

Peripherally, Timothy noted Adrian slipping out after someone. The rat, no doubt. He bowed mockingly. “Thank you for your time.”

Outside dusk was a memory. The dark hid more furtive movements, but he ignored that for Adrian, who had hold of a skinny young man. Scars marked the youth’s face. Someone once played butcher on him.

“What now?” Adrian asked.

“Get a name.”

Adrian stared at him, and hauls the man into deeper darkness. The sound of meaty thuds and terrible groans followed. And then there was the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the ground.

Adrian returned flexing his fingers. “He’ll be out till morning. The name is Gordon Grey.”

“Good. Now to get into this Precinct.”

“This is your definition of distraction? Why are you really doing this?”

“If there’s a real answer to that, I can only tell you after.”

  

TIMOTHY LAUGHED helplessly when he and Adrian were thrown into a windowless room. Both had bloody noses, puffed eyes and cheeks. Both had broken skin over knuckles, results from the brawl for entry. Both had lost all weapons. Neither used sorcery as coercion.

“Gods, I haven’t had to fight like that in a century,” Timothy laughed.

Adrian muttered under his breath.

Timothy laughed harder. “Where’s your sense of fun?”

“Don’t see the point. What now?”

“They’ll let us stew here for a while and then hit us with something more, and then they’ll take us to this Gordon Grey. We accept our punishment. We wait.”

 

GORDON GREY WAS a tall man. Grey indeed, yes, as in hair, but not old. He wore an expensive silk suit, although multiple gold chains around his neck somewhat spoiled the effect. He awaited them inside a glass cube squatting in an empty warehouse.

Bright halogens bathed the whole in absolute light. Timothy and Adrian, after suffering yet another beating, were stripped naked, bundled into sacks with holes for arms and head, and hauled here in chains after days of waiting.

Four guards dragged them into the transparent cell.

“Remove their chains,” Grey commanded.

Two did so and left, taking the restraints with them. There was a whoosh of sound - the cube sealed.

Sitting comfortably with one leg crossed over the other, Gordon Grey impaled them with ice blue eyes. He did not speak and neither did they. A half smile appeared and he lifted a remote control. Wordless, he pressed a button on the device.

The remaining two guards instantly gargled and gripped at their throats, eyes bulging. Timothy and Adrian drowned in otherworldly sounds, and belatedly realised the man had at the command of a finger removed oxygen from the sealed chamber. They proceeded to swiftly mimic the actions behind them.

“Ah, so,” Grey murmured.

He set the control down and watched the two guards die in throes of agony, eyes flicking curiously over his two prisoners, watching them attempt to follow. An eyebrow lifted.

Timothy straightened from an ‘agony’ crouched to tap Adrian’s arm. Together and stoically, they faced the man.

Gordon Grey pressed another button that restored breathable air to the space. “If you are able to withstand lack of air, there is something special about you.”

“We are not human. We possess added biology that allows for breathing of foul air, even vacuum,” Timothy revealed.

“Ah, not human. Intriguing. Explains how you seemed not to mind the lack of water.”

Besides the repeated beatings suffered in the other place, they were left without water and food.

“We minded. We simply hold out longer than humans are able,” Adrian said.

“Interesting. You are perfect for the task I have in mind … but I do wonder what leverage I have to force you to my will.”

Timothy spread his hands. “The truth.”

Gordon Grey fiddled with the chains around his neck. “Explain that.”

“You are not like us and yet lack of air did you no harm. A shield? A witch’s charm? This is knowledge. We would do your bidding for that truth.”

Adrian turned his head to look at Timothy in some surprise. Really?

Grey stared at them, and then selected a button on his device that opened the glass wall, and told the other guards to remove the dead. In silence they did so. Once they left, he resealed the transparent box.

“Sit. Let us deal.”

Potato sacks that ended mid-thigh did not conceal all bits when sitting, but Timothy and Adrian sat as if decently covered on the glass floor, ignoring the cold that travelled instantly from anus to neck.

“One completes the task. One stays. A report of success from one secures the release of the other.”

Timothy shook his head. “No.”

Adrian again looked at Timothy.

Grey realised who the leader was and pointed at Adrian. “He goes.” He shifted the finger to Timothy. “You stay.”

Gordon Grey’s prisoners merely stared at him.

“What is your name, soldier?” he barked.

“Adrian.”

Grey’s attention returned to Timothy. “If he’s the soldier, you’re the captain. What’s your name?”

“Timothy.”

“Single epitaphs?”

“Generally.”

“Why are your eyes different?” Grey asked of Adrian.

“We’re not human.”

“Where are you from? What are you?” Grey demanded of Timothy.

“Another place. Another race.”

“I’ll allow that to pass for now. How did you come here? Few ships now land on Lax and I am aware of every passenger. Why are you here?”

“We transported in and we seek diversion.”

Again Adrian glanced at Timothy. “We?” he mutters. “This is all about you.”

Timothy winked at him.

“Transported,” Gordon meanwhile echoed. “You are sorcerers and that means I have no leverage strong enough to waylay you, do I? Holding one of you as a hostage achieves exactly nothing.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Although it does occur to me that you could be claiming the talent in order to wrong-foot me.”

Timothy and Adrian both shrugged.

“Prove it,” Grey snapped.

Timothy lifted a hand. A moment later he was properly dressed in breeches, tunic and boots. A moment after, Adrian was likewise covered. Adrian sighed his relief.

“Ah, so. Very practical of you. Are you able to kill a man merely by lifting a hand?” Grey challenged.

“We have no need of hand gestures; I employed it only to signify I am the one achieving the manipulation,” Timothy said. “And, yes, killing is as easy as dressing.”

“Prove it.”

There was no movement inside the cube, but outside of it every guard in attendance collapsed. “They are not dead, merely temporarily paralysed,” Timothy said. “I am not a murderer.”

“I am the vulnerable one in this cube right now,” Grey murmured, “and I suspect you allowed yourselves to be captured to get to me. Are you here to kill me?”

“Cut the head off the snake, yes,” Timothy said, without expression. “Lax is a dump. Had I the time, I’d cleanse this entire planet.”

Adrian shook his head. “He has a shield.”

“Hmm. I must therefore alter my strategy,” Gordon Grey said. “I seek to keep my head and I have nothing to offer you as a bribe, except this; I am able to offer a man seeking distraction some serious diversion. It involves my shield.”

An eyelid flickered over a grey eye. “Speak,” Timothy said.

  

BEYOND THE RUINS of the city lay more ruin. It was a stretch of open land between cities, but was as rubble filled. In fact, it was hard to call it ‘land’, as it was almost impossible to tell where the city behind ended and the next one began. Once this was farmland, but those days were over. Crime and every kind of perversity now paid for food brought in from other worlds.

In the midst of shattered masonry and rusted girders, wrecked vehicles and broken toilet bowls, there was a concrete platform Gordon Grey kept cleared of rubbish and the sneaky lowlifes of Lax. This was his private landing place for his small shuttle, an expensive and swift little carrier able to skim the surface. There were no longer traversable roads on Lax. A bunker alongside was guarded every moment of every day and night.

Grey led Timothy and Adrian across the small concourse and into the secure shelter.

They were airborne soon after.

An hour later they landed in the hills to the south. The slopes on both sides of the landing pad teemed with movement.

As they alighted, Grey said, “They dig for diamonds. Soon these hills will be flattened and manmade piles of rock and soil will take their place.” He shrugged. “This is not why we’re here. Come with me.”

Leading the way, he strode towards a bunker similar in every way to the one they left from.

Inside were shelves laden with small jagged rocks.

“Possible diamonds,” he said, waving airily over the array.

In back was a strong room, but it was for something other than a collection of crystals confirmed as valuable.

“There.” Gordon Grey remained at the door as if afraid of entering.

Timothy shifted past him to an oblong cabinet. Adrian joined him and together they studied the contraption. It appeared much like a coffin standing on its foot.

“Apparently the material is onyx and the trims are of platinum,” Grey murmured behind them.

“A master craftsman made this,” Adrian said.

“A long, long time ago,” Timothy added. He glanced over his shoulder. “All you did was touch it, you say, and after you noticed how usually fatal situations no longer affected you?”

A nod from the doorway.

“You attempted to open it?” Adrian asked.

“Of course. Nothing works.”

Timothy turned. “Why are you afraid of this, Grey? It’s probably no more than a long sealed coffin.”

“It’s unnatural. While I like that I am invincible right now, I’m afraid that when the effects desert me I’ll be left a husk. I am also wary of something able to achieve this much by virtue of touch alone. Open it. Negate its power. And if you cannot, please take it away. We have discovered it will not move either.”

“How did it get here? Where did you find it?” Timothy asked.

“It was buried in the hill back there and we were able to lift it easily, but once we set it down here, it would not again budge. I’ve had experts in, a costly exercise, but it remains a mystery.”

Timothy laid a hand upon the stone.

“Now you are invincible,” Grey murmured.

Adrian snorted. “He is already that, idiot.”

Timothy placed an ear against the coffin. He took a step back a moment later and grasped the handle set to the right. If it looked like a door, open it, not so? He pulled.

“My Lord!” Adrian blurted.

The thing opened.

Gordon Grey slumped to the cold concrete floor, a graceless thump.

Dust billowed from a dark interior. The smell of antiquity wafted out also.

“Here is an answer for you, Adrian,” Timothy said, staring into the empty blackness. “I rely too much on my power and status, and others rely on me being there for them with these talents at my fingertips. This is a multiple pedestal I must one day topple from. The woman I love threw me off hers, and I shall crawl on my knees to secure her regard once more. You begin to notice how yours for me is constructed of clay rather than stone. I am a man also, after all. The man just opened this door.”

“My Lord?” Adrian was at a loss.

“Anyone can expose this, if of the will to do so. Mister Grey over there didn’t really seek the truth bared and thus it resisted him. Reality has now paralysed him.”

“What is the truth?” Adrian whispered.

Timothy smiled over his shoulder. “The truth is that we are all of created of mistakes and experience and the people who move through our lives. Some teach us new ways, others remove from us our energy.” He returned to his study of the empty coffin. “The truth is that fear is not real. It is a construct of the mind.”

Timothy reached out and closed the onyx door. He murmured inaudibly.

It vanished. Gordon Grey had his wish granted. Negate it or vanish it - both granted.

“It is time now to leave this place,” Timothy said.

Adrian gestured at the senseless Grey. “What about him?”

“When he awakes he will believe his ‘shield’ removed and he will proceed with caution for some while. For a time he will desire to know who this ‘lord’ is, the one a soldier inadvertently revealed to him just now, but soon he must face the truth of his vulnerability in a crime-ridden society. Perhaps that truth will drive him off planet or the belief of weakness will see him dead within days. It’s up to him.”

“We’re just leaving him? You wanted to …”

“What I wanted to achieve in the name of diversion is no longer relevant. We’re leaving him, yes, for his fate is his to decide. We are each of us responsible for a path taken.”

“And Lax?”

Timothy smiled; a cold grimace. “Lax will be dealt with, in time, once our priorities change. Let’s go home, my friend. I have amends to make.”