Spoils Of War Collection

Chapter 1-1

“Welcome to the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge. My name’s Shakbout and I’ll be your guide today.”

I always paused after this introduction to gauge the group of visitors and to get ready for another cycle of the winner’s history recited by one of the losers. My somewhat slim self never stood out in a crowd—not at a height of two metres, pale skin and dark-red hair, sage-green eyes, and extraordinarily ordinary features.

extraordinarilyThe group I was about to lead on a short tour through the carefully edited and constructed narrative that the Centre preferred to broadcast was the usual spread of off-world tourists and local school students. We were all standing in the entrance hall of the CPHK the place where all tours started. It was a beautiful space, a kilometre long and 750 meters wide, paved with off white slabs that were comfortable to walk on with the main entrance at one end and the gift shop at the other. No visitor ever walked the length directly, they were carefully guided, either by visible guides like me or by more subtle means, to take one of the numerous moving spiral stairways up to the exhibition galleries.

The walls rose for two kilometres up to a ceiling that was a wide spiral up for another two kilometres. The distance did not prevent the details of the decoration of the spiral being easily visible from the floor. Magnifying charms were used to make the distance appear much less than it was. The spiral was decorated with an instantly recognisable and understandable map of the systems. Your eye was gently led around the inhabited system up to where Thiegler itself was right at the edge deep of deep space. It looked as if Thiegler might fall into the dark void which was funny since Thiegler had tried very hard to drag the inhabited systems into a different void.

Every tour started from the same point and followed the same route across the hall. After that they could follows different trails depending on the tour. The Standing Committee was very careful to ensure that the historical narrative that was served up matched the profile of the group. The differences were not obvious unless you went on each tour and heard the shifting emphasis and had the interest in comparing them all to see what was being included and excluded. I had followed each tour and recorded them and spent many hours watching and listening. In the event I was ever asked I would have said it was a training exercise for myself to ensure I could be deployed on any tour. The truth was that I was looking for something and the CPHK was as good a place to search for it as anywhere.

Since everyone looked ready, I started by leading the group over to the imposing—in fact, absolutely astounding—image on the west wall of the lobby. The image was huge, over two meters tall and three meters long, hovered close to but not touching the wall, it was 1.5 metered off the ground and as we assembled in front of it, we all looked up at the exactly the angle that the maker of the image had wanted. Standing at that point it appeared that we all stepped into the image and became an active audience for the event taking placing in front of us. We stood in the doorway of a long rectangular room with rows of columns down each side, each viewer saw different patterns on the columns, I saw something different each time I stepped into the room. I sometimes saw flowers and sometimes I saw blood, once I saw bodies trapped in the columns writhing in pain.

Directly in front of us a handsome woman, no one ever described her a beautiful, dressed in a clearly high-ranking military uniform, was driving a double-headed war axe into the skull of a somewhat fishy-looking lifeform standing before her. She did not look upset or furious or murderous, simply determined. This was a woman clearly doing something that needed to be done.

There was no blood which always disturbed me. There should have been blood, oceans of blood spilling out on the floor of the CPHK. Blood should have been gushing over us as we stood in front of the image. Instead we stood safe and clean in front of it. I started my information fog machine and spoke.

“The creator of this image is unknown. No record has ever been found of who created it, when it was created, where it was displayed, or if it was in fact displayed anywhere before its discovery in a submerged warehouse in Lake Zan following restoration work carried out on the outer banks 150 years ago.”

I took the scripted pause before continuing,

“There’s some debate about the subject of this image. The most likely suggestion is that it is a scene from the Ranger Cycle, the stories of the gods first told by Oxlus of the Thakaan System. In the centuries that followed more details and stories have been added. It is estimated that at the present time there a fifteen different Ranger Cycles that cover the actions and deeds of over a thousand gods. As you may imagine there has been considerable debate since this image was first discovered which event from the variety of Ranger Cyclers this is. While there is no firm agreement the current majority opinion is that it shows the triumph of Hardleigh, a god from the Olean Ranger Cycle, over the assassin sent by her jealous cousin”

Gazes were riveted. So far, so good. “The image is woven from trapped light, fractured air, and some unidentified crystal dust with an unknown process. This level of magical mastery has arguably not been demonstrated again. The Standing Committee wishes to preserve this image as a unique viewing experience: it should only be seen and appreciated in its original form.”

onlyI paused, allowing them to study the picture while I waited for the question. This time it came from one of the students.

the “Can I get a copy of the image?” he asked with that acquisitive tone the question always rests on.

“I’m afraid not, but there’s a range of very attractive items available in the gift shop, which we’ll visit at the end of the tour.” I waited for the regulation two seconds, turned and headed for the stairs; confident the group would follow.

My shadow stayed behind, staring at the image. My shadow was a dangerous mental necessity for me to survive intact in the job. It provided an alternative script, saying words I longed to say but dared not—they had to be voiced somehow or the pressure inside would become so great, I might do something extremely stupid.

My shadow turned to address his group, the shadows of everyone I had every guided through the maze of “almost information” during my time at the Centre. “It’s true that the creator of that extraordinary work is unknown, but there’s no question as to what this image is—this image of Empress Ingea driving an axe into the unsuspecting head the leader of the Wrexen Federation who had arrived to sign a trade agreement. This action marked the start of the longest, most devastating conflict in the history of the systems. It was the signal to the Imperial Fleet to launch a overwhelming attack on the Wrexen Federation. The Wrexen Federation is better known today as the Sickle Quadrant. When you look at the Empress, you have to admire her—the creator demands it—she’s confidently and calmly taking decisive action. A leader in fact, as well as name. The Wrexen Chief has a subtly malicious air about him; clearly, he intended to harm the Empress and she responded with decisive action. That one of the most extraordinary creations in history celebrates one of the most stupidly malicious events in history has to be one of the effective jokes ever played. Best of all the unknown maker makes us all complicit in this action, we are the approving audience for the action.” My shadow surveyed the crowd, and all stared back dumbly.

My shadow swallowed a bittersweet smile. “The Standing Committee had a collective s**t fit upon discovery. It clearly celebrates the moment as a triumph; the image is woven with the most explicit sense of justified pride at the Empress’ decisive strength and wisdom. Thiegler was Ingea’s home planet, the location for the action. Despite a genuine regret at the unimageable misery and destruction caused by the bottomless greed of the Empress, there is an unavoidable and sneaking pride at the scale of her achievement.”

shit fitDramatic pause. My shadow, incidentally, was a total ham when it came to public performances. “The Sickle Quadrant is holding with who knows what creatures—brewed in Ingea’s own farms as a last-ditch effort to defeat the Quill Alliance forces—creatures which are still a threat to all lifeforms in the systems to this day. Displaying the image is a dangerously balanced risk, only achievable by the mystery that surrounds it. Allowing the image wider circulation would be a reminder of things best left undisturbed. Ambiguity is a good tactic as it creates breathing space, which allows for utterly breath-taking artistry to emerge and overshadow content.” My shadow didn’t take questions.

I led the tour group into the Hall of the First Instance. In the short tour this was the first stop, a look at the most development of the most important industry in the combined systems. There was no way to avoid this place on any tour, it was one of the most significant reasons that visitors came to the CPHK. It was also one of the most truthful exhibits in the centre. I led the group to the first exhibit, a large cabinet containing models of strange looking creatures. Some were cut in half to display internal arrangements, others appeared to be wrapped or bound in an assortment of cages. I could feel the prickles of curiosity among the crowd, each one was a barbed needle stabbed into my gut.

“This exhibit is a unique Cabinet of Curiosities, the result of the work of a dedicated collector who, over the course of his lifetime, sought to gather specimens of original Pre-Shoshone artefacts. What you see are ornamental versions of functional artefacts; they survived as they were designed simply for display purposes. There’s also evidence that they were used as teaching aids. On the top row, three in from the left, you can see that the StoneBeater has been carefully arranged to show internal lines of energy, and each highlighted in a different colour. This energy is sometimes referred to as magic due to the complete lack of convincing alternative explanations for the source and nature of the energy and its properties. There are some lifeforms here which have never been identified, they became extinct and no records have been found to identify them. It has been suggested that these lifeforms were used exclusively for the production of Ornamentals and as such fell out of mainstream production and have been lost to history. “

My shadow had slunk into the room while I’d been talking and was hovering by the first exhibit. It took a minute for the crowd to join him. He spoke without facing them, staring at the contents of the exhibit.

“Someone realized that some of the small native Thiegler lifeforms were capable of manipulating their surroundings sub-atomically to support themselves in an extremely hostile environment. Someone else realized that if a human picked up one of these lifeforms, they could channel and focus that process quite usefully. Due to the completely mysterious nature of this power, it was called magic and that essential mystery is the only thing that has stayed the same since the start. Of course, magic is a horribly unscientific word, so it was quickly replaced with the much more suitable energy.