The Worm King Read online

  Āmiria knew it wasn’t just Tamworth: Dubbo had been even worse, but she was pleased they might be coming along.

  ‘It be the devil,’ said Lord Brown, somewhat ominously. She didn’t even know he’d been listening. Tim gulped, and glanced around the gym but Āmiria realized he must be talking about that blacksmith, from the bus when they were waiting for Ken. She saw a slim chance to regain some manna.

  ‘Lord Brown knows the dude who invented Satan,’ she declared, as though this were the most normal thing imaginable.

  ‘Yeah? Cool.’

  The Hat interjected in a dull monotone: ‘The name of the beast was Keith. Keith the Jew, they called him, and he was one bad mo’far.’

  ‘What?’ said Tim, nervous again.

  Zelda turned on Lord Brown. ‘I was thinking about that, how’d they know he was Jewish again?’

  Āmiria raised her hand. ‘And how did they know he was a blacksmith?’

  ‘Who’s a blacksmith?’ Her father’s conversation with the two strangers had finished, and he stood behind Lord Brown. Brownie shuffled to one side giving him space to sit, which he did. Tamati and Geoff were awake and Hemi and Rangi squeezed in next to David, who nuzzled behind Zelda.

  ‘This fūlla who invented Satan. He was a blacksmith,’ she answered.

  Lord Brown clarified. ‘He was almost certainly a blacksmith, or a man who worked with iron, we know that much. He must’ve been. Those with the ability to forge iron were the rocket scientists of their day. They were the world’s first true industrial artists, in the days when the Gods and Demons we know today were being formed. A blacksmith may not be the most . . . regarded of professions now, but in days of old, it was akin to a man being a brain surgeon, or an astronaut.’

  ‘A man!’ spat Zelda. ‘That’d be right.’

  ‘Of course, there must’ve been occasional lady smithies. I stand corrected.’ Lord Brown bowed slightly.

  ‘What was his name?’ asked her father.

  The Hat stepped in. ‘The blokes name was Keith Goldberg. He got kicked out of the Masons.’ Her dad looked puzzled. ‘Oh, this happened way, way back. Keith was out riding through the forest one day, because he was in training for the Olympics, when he saw this pigeon and he was feeling quite horny, so he—’

  ‘John?’

  ‘Yes, Lord?’

  ‘Our friend Āmiria asked about the Blacksmith, not Keith. I think you’re getting mixed up with that other splinter sect of Masons, who keep the pigeons, you remember?’ The Hat appeared to accept this although she couldn’t tell whether Brownie was simply humoring him, or there really had been someone way back in the dark ages named Keith “Beaky” Goldberg who caused an absolute scandal at the early Olympics.

  The murmur of conversation in the gym had eased, and others sitting nearby were listening too. ‘The Blacksmith who invented Satan was born in the midst of the Iron Age, six hundred years before the time of Christ.’ Lord Brown sat bolt upright and his voice dropped an octave.

  ‘The Iron Age was the most special of times, because it was an overlap of two great ages.’ He paused, gazing at the roof. ‘Today, many believe the internet and television and the telephone and airplanes have delivered a new era, but they’re nothing—nothing!—compared with the innovation of the Iron Age. They’re toys: simply different ways of arranging metal and plastic to make our lives a fraction easier. Look, they’re all gone now, and we’re still alive!’ He lifted his hands as though holding an invisible loaf of long French bread by its ends. ‘Today, more than ever, we need to remember what happened two and a half thousand years ago, in the Iron Age, because the comet we’ve just had has zapped us right back to that point. In the years ahead, there’ll be no more internet, or airplanes or TV’s.’ He lowered his hands, staring at the assembled faces. ‘Why do you think we’ve been spared?’

  No one dared answer. Eventually her father said, ‘So far. It’s not over yet.’

  ‘Yes, we have been spared. We’ve been spared the initial apocalypse; now we must survive the demon who rides in its wake.’ Several glanced uncomfortably at the roof.

  ‘Tell us Lord!’ called the Hat.

  ‘The great ages of man are—’

  Āmiria raised a hand. ‘What about ladies?’

  ‘You go girl!’ Zelda clapped.

  ‘The great ages of man, and women, are stone, copper, bronze and iron in that order. We must know what happened in these times, and how they developed, so we can now move forwards. Those who move the fastest, they will be the ones spared the demon.’ Āmiria wondered if his demons were in any way related to the amount of Windowleen he drank. ‘The Stone Age, well of course that speaks for itself. When things are so basic you’ve only got hunks of rock to bang together, you haven’t really got a lot.’

  ‘Hang on,’ interrupted Geoff. ‘The Flintstones had stone cars and stuff? I mean, maybe not the cars, but the other things and some a that’s gotta be true, surely.’ Tamati and Rangi sniggered. Even Āmiria knew the Flintstones almost certainly weren’t real.

  ‘What the fuck you talking about Fred?’ someone shouted from further back, and general laughter erupted.

  ‘Indeed. Of course, like the dinosaurs, the ancient tribe that the Flintstones belonged to has long since perished.’ The laughter became a confused murmur. ‘The Stone Age went right up to 4500BC. After that people began to use copper, and a whole new world opened.’

  ‘I had to replace some copper pipe in my kitchen and bathroom two years back. All that opened for me was my wallet,’ complained Zelda. ‘Big time. You’d think they’d only just invented it, given what they were charging.’

  ‘No, it’s been around a fair while.’ Lord Brown shook his grizzled head. ‘They’ve been using copper longer than . . . well, anything, apart from hunks of rock, I suppose.’ He paused, reflecting. ‘You’re on the right track though; copper probably started out being used in kitchens. So when you think about it, we haven’t come very far.’ Other faces gazed around the grim, fetid gym nodding in agreement.

  ‘The first smelterers of copper began in 4500BC, in the mountainous areas where you find a lot of the ore. Maybe the Hindu Kush, or the Elburz Mountains in Persia. The oldest copper furnace found thus far was built in southern Israel, in 4200BC. The ore has this delightful blueish color, and you can find it lying near the surface. The biggest trick is to get the temperature up to 1100 degrees Celsius to melt the copper, so it would’ve needed a reasonably sophisticated cooking oven. He smiled at Zelda, and it dawned on Āmiria this must be where her kitchen bit came in. ‘Someone would’ve painted the blue ore on a cooking pot for decoration, then noticed when the furnace got verily hot, the ore changed to a thick, runny liquid which ended up extremely hard when cooled. Once you worked out how to make a rough cast, you could create metal spear points, and these were a lot more effective than pointy rocks.

  ‘So they trundled forwards, content with this technology for more than a thousand years, until 3000BC. Then some bright spark discovered that if you add a wee dram of tin to the copper, you make bronze, and this was a tremendous breakthrough. Bronze is stronger and more fluid when melted than copper, so it’s much more suitable for casting. They could make sword edges, whereas copper is only really good for pointies. The Bronze Age was the age of the sword. It became easier to construct helmets, and all the other whatnots for war too. And because there was hugely more tin in Europe and the Middle East, than in Asia or Africa, this is why the Middle East and Europe leapt from this date.

  ‘Then in 1500BC came the Age of the Pirate, when a chronic shortage of tin occurred. Unfortunately you never find tin on the surface, like copper. You always have to dig, dig, dig down for it. They even went to the massive effort of carting it in from Afghanistan, across the horrifically dangerous Khyber Pass.

  ‘Pirates scourged the shores of the Mediterranean, raiding towns specifically to steal bronze along with all the rape and the plunder. From 1500BC, tin supplies couldn’t keep pace with demand, and we find
evidence many bronze bowls and ornaments and bric and brac were being re-melted into weapons. From this emerged the Iron Age: the shortage of bronze forced men, and women, to try something different. The smelting of iron may’ve been smallish leap in terms of technology, but the implications were infinitely greater. Than with copper or bronze, that is.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked her father. Āmiria wasn’t surprised at his interest: he often reminisced about his old job at the iron mine in the Pilbara.

  ‘Well, smelting iron only needed a hotter and bigger furnace. You had to get it up to 1500 degrees, which is 400 degrees hotter than you need for copper. But the beauty of iron is there’s an awful lot more of it around than copper or tin, so once they worked out how to do it, they were away laughing. It enabled mass production. The cast iron they made was actually a touch softer than the bronze, but you could add a teaspoon of carbon to it, and make steel. Making steel was borderline tricky with the tools available at the time, but it was achievable, and you didn’t need much because you could take a little strip of steel, and forge weld it selectively into spots like sword edges. Then they were able to make fearsomely sharp weapons, and plenty of them.

  ‘The Iron Age in the Middle East went from 1200BC to 300BC. They generally say it ended when the Romans came on the scene, and the Romans were the first true masters of mass production. You only have to look at the way they organized their Legions. They could’ve only done that with a more-or-less endless supply of decent military hardware, and this wasn’t achievable with bronze because there just wasn’t enough tin.’

  ‘So where does Satan fit it? Āmiria asked, thinking the old man might be drifting off track.

  ‘Of course. Well, remember the Axial Age we mentioned during the Happy Stories game? That’s the period from 750BC to 350BC, when Satan and all the Gods and Demons were born. It’s no mere coincidence that the Axial Age overlaps so neatly with the second half of the Iron Age. You could say the Axial Age refers to what people thought at the time, whereas the Iron Age describes how they lived. The link between the two is as clear as the nose on your face: the development of iron led to official religion. Mass production enabled people to sit around a lot more, and theorize about ghosts, and religion. They developed all the ideas we have today on Gods and Devils.’

  ‘Devils?’ said Tim. Āmiria thought he might be thinking about the faces on the classroom wall.

  ‘What would’ve happened, is that if you’ve got plenty of time on your hands, and plenty of weapons, what you inevitably end up saying, especially after a few drinks, is: “Those blokes over there across the border are Devils. Let us takeith all their stuff.” And to justify this, all you need to do is legislate in one special, unprovable decree: “Our God is the only true God. Their god is just makeith-up.” This in effect defines monotheism, which early Jewish politicians and entertainers were the first to use in any meaningful way.’

  ‘Right!’ exclaimed the Hat. ‘So that’s how they know a Jew in Babylon invented Satan.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Lord Brown smiled at Zelda. ‘That’s no disrespecting the good people of Israel, of course. If you’re a small country surrounded by extremely powerful enemies—Babylon on one side and the Egyptians on the other—it’s a natural political tool you’d come up with to maintain independence. Just smart politics, really.’

  ‘Right,’ repeated the Hat. ‘Ipso dipto, and so was born Keith.’

  ‘Exactly. Although I doubt Keith was his actual name. And I’m fairly certain he wasn’t a pigeon fancier in the way you specified earlier, either.

  ‘But to go back to my first point, about why we’ve been spared. Think about this: Australia has metals in abundance; the sophistication of the world’s technology has in a flash gone back to the Iron Age; and Australia has always had more iron per capita than anywhere else on the globe by a country mile.’ Her father nodded in agreement. ‘That’s why we’ve been spared. We are the seed.’

  ‘Did you cover all this in lectures?’ asked the Hat.

  Zelda shook her head in amazement. ‘I gather you would’ve been fired from the University?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m Professor of Anthropology and Statistics. On semi-permanent fieldwork these days, of course.’

  Āmiria watched the line of sullen faces file away from the wooden table. Breakfast time in the zoo: one piece of canned fruit and a dollop of porridge in one mug, and a slop of water in the second mug. A man with two small kids held up the queue because he’d lost one of his mugs and the Mason’s helper, who was dishing it out, wanted to dump his porridge and drink in the same mug. Āmiria tipped the last of her water into the well-scraped porridge mug and gave it a swirl before tilting it up and draining the dregs. What was he whinging about? They tasted fine together. The Mason spoke to the man for several minutes, then the queue inched forward. Obviously the whinger had seen the error of his ways because it didn’t look like he was carting any extra mugs. He was a mug! She laughed to herself, then stopped abruptly, wishing there’d been someone to share her near-brilliant joke with. Tim had left with his father an hour ago, and no one else was in much of a jokey mood.

  ‘Hey kiddo. S’happnin?’ The Hat slid down beside her. She considered sharing the mug story with him but already it didn’t seem that funny anymore.

  ‘Naff all.’

  He pointed his spoon at the Mason. ‘You reckon I can get him with this from here?’

  He would too! ‘No chance,’ she egged.

  A moment later the spoon curved up in a high graceful arc, hitting the wall behind the wooden table and missing the Mason by a country mile. Āmiria looked down immediately, stifling a snigger, and the Hat wisely did the same. After a healthy four-second pause, they raised their heads: the Mason glared around angrily, no idea where the missile sprang from. He only had a few left to serve and they were taking an interest too, obviously concerned, and hoping this wasn’t the start of something, while those filing away from the table (who must’ve heard the spoon clatter against the wall too) didn’t give a toss because they already had their breakfast.

  ‘How you going to get it back?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ he admitted. She couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Chin up tiger. We’ll be okay.’ Then he scuttled off on hands and knees, weaving his way like a lanky cat towards his next assignment, whatever that may be.

  After breakfast was the designated cleaning hour, which in actual fact only went for ten minutes, if that. The Mason stood on his swimming tower, shouting instructions on what to clean, but hardly anyone participated which he looked grumpy about, although there didn’t appear much he could do.

  Another sluggish hour dragged by. The Mason made a circuit, calling out for the Andersons from Gunnedah. ‘The Andersons? The Andersons? From Gunnedah. Are the Andersons here?’

  People coming, people going. Everyone gripped by a lethargy which gave the impression of a lot less movement in the gym than there actually was. Āmiria felt listless, and kept drifting into a funk. Only her father and the Hat remained full of beans: moving around, giving instructions here, and there. Āmiria wasn’t surprised, she knew Wiremu Ruarangi was used to giving orders and being obeyed. Without warning, Murawai beach materialized like an evil wind, cutting her to the bone. ‘Close the back,’ he’d yelled. She saw again the spray shooting over the edge of the rock, drenching her father, and almost reaching the Subaru where she stood. ‘And get back in the car!’ The thunder of wave on rock was deafening.

  ‘Alright Dad,’ not even sure if she’d been heard. You don’t forget a storm like that. She’d stretched on tippy-toes to pull the boot cover back down, slamming it against the rear with a whump which nearly caught her fingers. Then she’d pushed her way against the wind to the passenger door, and before getting in, took one last peek—just a little one—to check he was alright. Man and sack were poised on the edge and lightening flashed over black heaving water. A second before he gave it a final shove, it’d occurred to Āmiria
the sack was exactly the same size and shape a person would be, if their arms and legs were all folded into their tummy and they were stuffed in a bag.

  The Mason tapped his stick on the floor as he went. ‘From Gunnedah? The Andersons? Anyone know where the Andersons are?’

  At frequent intervals Wiremu went out to check the light. She was allowed out twice, and the rest of the time Geoff or Tamati or Hemi or Rangi went with him, or Lord Brown occasionally. They returned with a more sombre expression after each check. By midday, when the sun ought to have been at its zenith, it remained more-or-less pitch dark. Windy too, and Lord Brown told everyone there’s probably a heavy cloud cover overhead, as well as the dense layer of particulates in the upper atmosphere, but no one knew how he worked that out.

  The Mason never found the Andersons. He brought a new group of three men in, squeezing them into a space not far from Āmiria’s bedroll.

  The three new men wore blue military uniforms.

  WEATHER BADGE DIARY

  We are glad to be in the same room as Astrid and her friend Francesco, who is a laugh. He is teaching Krystal and me to play poker. He tore a big piece of wallpaper off and ripped it up into pieces as money and we are having betting games with it. Krystal nearly always wins.

  Mr Snow said we can’t leave the room because of the high security and there are looters all around the hotel, which is why the door has to be locked because they keep trying to sneak in. And also because of the acid rain.

  Acid rain is cloud droplets containing oxides of sulphur and nitrogen and they are really acidic, Mr Snow said.