Hellsborough Chronicles - Hellsborough and The Dark Peak
The semi-mythical Van Hallam's adventures in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak.
The finished version of Dark Peak: Hellsborough Chronicles Book One, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats from Amazon -- or you can download the first 7 chapters for free in ePub or Kindle mobi format from Hellsborough Library
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Introduction » Chapter 1 » Chapter 2 » Chapter 3 » Chapter 4 » Chapter 5 » Chapter 6 » Chapter 7 »
Then the xaexs, she's gone. Out of the communications cluster, over (or under, maybe through, who knows?) the perimeter, and away. An alarm wasn't raised for another six hours until a change of shift was due and the outgoing nascenti failed to leave. And that's pretty funny, because if exacids had a sense of smell, they'd have noticed much sooner. Maybe they should also get a jellyhead guard or two on staff, since the stench of four dead nascenti after six hours -- even in this temperate climate -- is apparently nothing short of putrid.
At this point the xaexs has already been paid half by the crosslanders for the initial sabotage, and as per their agreement, they owe her the other half because they now have the data. But the xaexs has the passcode for the scambled data, so she can blackmail the nascenti should she wish to, which will effectively render the copy the crosslanders have redundant, since the nascenti will know what it is they have. Of course, the data could be useless intelligence, who knows, but are the crosslanders prepared to take that risk, or do they just pay the other half? The xaexs in the meantime, has decided that it's in her best interests if she just sells the information she holds to the highest bidder.
Ey up pal, didn't see you there, says Van as the xaexs swivels on her pivot, How's it going you sun?
I've never seen a xaexs smile, they don't tend to have what you'd a call smiley face. At least not one that a human like I can discern. But the xaexs seems to be content. She hasn't automatically removed Van's head, that's a good sign. With her right second arm (leg?) the xaexs reaches beneath her -- carapace, her epidermis, like she's reaching into her own gut -- and retrieves a small baggy of shimmering yellow-green goo with those delicate pincers of hers. Standing to her full height, she takes a single stride, handing the baggy to Van.
Much obliged, Dirty Leaves, says Van with a toothy smile, the xaexs chirps something back in her own strange tongue.
What she said, I have no way of deciphering, there was no violence -- quite the opposite. The xaexs does something of a half bow, and then turns back to the clown and returns to her seat where they continue their chitter-chatter.
Took my own chunk right of you and all, didn't I boy -- with that big old knife? And by the time we'd finished scrapping, I was so knackered-out that you could have come and just ripped my throat out, but you didn't, did you boy, you just came and laid down by me as I laid back against that big old oak. There in that Wisewood we both fell asleep, didn't we eh boy? Both exhausted we were Pip. That was all it took to tame him, wasn't it, eh buddy boy?
Of course, that was before you passed, eh boy? Passing ain't so bad though is it, makes no difference at all now, you're probably even fitter now than you was then, you still keep up with old Van, don't you? I think it's me that's the one who needs to be keeping up with you more these days, eh boy? I still has the weight of this old carcass to carry around, you, you're freed of that burden many a year passed.
That Wisewood, we didn't make it through by the time night fell on us, it's a big place that Wisewood. Didn't worry Shad of course, but for me, that was my first real night away from home and the first time I really experienced darkness for what it is. When you wear a psycmask day in and day out, even the sleepy time isn't full on blackness like what I experienced that night. I didn't know darkness until out there in the Wisewood. There is noises in there too that you wouldn't ever expect to hear in a lifetime, no matter a single night. And blackness. Blackness so dark, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
I guess that is what made me what I am. Hey buddy? That first night in that Wisewood forged me into this, the man I am today. Hah, whatever that means. Them demonspawn though, they came for us that night, didn't they boy?
What did she say to you? I asked Van.
She just said, there you go pal, enjoy.
And what did you call her, it sounded like 'dirty leaves'.
Yeh, that's her name.
Dirty Leaves?
Yeh, well that's as near as translation as you ever gonna to get.
Van carefully pours the shimmerating gook onto the table. With no ceremony, he snorts the squirming mass directly up his left nostril. Lolling back in his chair, his eyes roll back, up into their sockets. Twin full moons, if such a thing existed in this world, or the the off.
When you have experienced the things that Van has, I don't think that's unreasonable behaviour. To have developed a massive capacity for drugs and drink in the way that he has, that's normal isn't it? A normal way for the human mind and body to accept trauma? A coping mechanism. I do wonder if it's within the human capability to be able to do what he does though. I can't even come close.
That is the finest crust in all of The Dark Peak, hah, in all the world, says Van with vigour. Then he regains some semblance of normality and realises where he is: Oh, sorry Pip, I didn't save you any. Did you wanna slip a bit?
I really have no idea what he is talking about -- crust? Slip? Nah no, I'm good. I say.
Rockcrust, Pip. Everything is possible, it's subliminal, I fell in love with it many a time past. It only grows here, try it, you can't get it nowhere else. I can get some more, it's fine, you wanna try?
I'll pass for now -- but what is it, this rockcrust?
Sex and malice, Pip. But it is so much more than that, it is moral worth, it is existence, it is the cause and the course, it is the will of Dunlockslyn: Scerm. Listen. Do you hear that? Do you hear the silence?
I have no idea what Van is waffling about.
The fragility Pip, you grok? It's murk immersion. Not just the thick oily ether that you think about when you look out of the window, but the consciousness of it. The livingness, the deathness of it -- the being. It's scerm: The afterlife, the out of body experience that is what we all expect the murk to be, what it is. You feel it, Pip, it's visceral. You sense it, its being, its essence, its dirty stink. It's the murk here, says Van stabbing his index at the table to the top right. This is us, he stabs down to the bottom left. This is the murk where the Dun flows through the Ripperthroats. That's nirvana, where the life given returns to the soil.
That is crust. That's what you get when you slurp the slime Pip.
Later, when I researched it a little more, I found out that the slime, the crust, is rockcrust -- lichen, a form found only in The Dark Peak. But the denizens -- the clowns, the xin, xaexs, the nascenti, maybe the fungal network, synthesise it into this faster moving organism, this embodiment, as Van put it, of the murk. This is not like some drug you get in the off-world, this is not like heroin or cannabis or crack, this is integral, this is more than some powder or pot can ever take you.
A grasshopper lands on the table and Van deftly blats it with the heel of his palm, sending its arse through its brain. He picks off the legs and wings and feeds them to Shad. The remainder of the cadaver he pops into his mouth, biting down hard, crunching loudly.