text
stringlengths 5
145k
|
|---|
'Hello, boss,' Kizzy said, walking into Ashby's office. Her grubby sleeves were rolled up, and her gloves were tucked into a front pocket. She held a dusty piece of tech in her hands.
'You only call me "boss" when you need a thing,' Ashby said.
'I need a thing.' Kizzy held out the part. 'This is a thermal regulator. It's what helps a stasie maintain temperature.'
'I assume that since it's not currently attached to the stasie, it's broken.'
Kizzy gave a sad nod. 'The bell tolled for this poor lil' guy.'
'Do we have another on hand?'
Kizzy shook her head apologetically. 'It's not the sort of thing I keep in stock. My brain's usually busy with making sure we've got spares for life support and the engine. Sorry. I didn't think of it.'
Ashby waved her comment aside. 'I'd be more worried if you prioritised the stasie over the engine. I don't expect you to keep spares of every piece of tech we use.' He rubbed his chin. His beard needed a trim. 'So what does this mean for the stasie?'
'The stasis field can hold without this. It's got a fail-safe system to make sure your food doesn't go bad while you're buying a replacement. But without the regulator, it's gonna go bleh after a while, no matter what.'
'How long a while?'
'Four days, maybe five. We won't starve or anything if it goes, but I think we'd all do better with some fresh food between here and Hedra Ka.'
Ashby nodded. Three tendays of bug-flour patties and dry-packed rations did not sound appealing, and there was no guarantee that there'd be somewhere for them to resupply at Hedra Ka. What did the Toremi even eat? 'Four days isn't enough time to get a delivery drone out here.'
'I know. We may be kinda screwed on this one. However.' She brushed her hand over the backs of her thighs, checking for machine gunk. When her hand came back clean, she sat down in the chair opposite Ashby. 'Sissix says there's a colony rock not far from here. Popped up on the scanner yesterday. Dunno what it is, it's not on any of her maps. But it's only half a day out. We could park the ship here, hop in the shuttle and give 'em a visit, lickety split.'
'We're on the bleeding edge of the GC. That's a fringe colony for sure.' Knocking on the doors of unidentified fringe colonies was not something Ashby was eager to do.
'Mmm-hmm. But they might have tech I can use.'
'That's an awfully big might. They might not have anything.'
'Yeah, except that this planet is also a rogue planet. It's got no star to keep it warm. That's how Sissix noticed it in the first place, it's got these satellites providing artificial sunlight. They're powering it by sucking ambi right out of a nearby nebula.'
Ashby raised his eyebrows. 'That's pretty serious tech.'
'The tech itself isn't that fancy, but what I want to know is how they calibrated their harvesters to work within a nebula. There's a reason that ambi's harvested around black holes. It's concentrated there. GC techs haven't found a way to harvest smaller pockets without going broke.' She scrunched her lips in thought. 'In any case, if they can harvest ambi in a nebula, I'll bet my boots they've got simpler tech on hand, too.' She gestured with the regulator.
Ashby gave a quiet nod. 'Any indication of who this colony belongs to?'
'No. But not Human.'
'Why not?'
Kizzy gave him a wry look. 'Fringe colony or not, if Humans had their hands on that kind of tech, there's no way we wouldn't have heard about it by now. They'd be so rich, it'd be gross.'
Ashby drummed his fingers on the table. 'Any ships around? Any weapon arrays?'
'No. No weapons. We checked. No ships, no orbiters, no docking ports. Other than the satellites, it's a dead sky out there.'
Ashby thought for a moment. 'Okay. Let's be smart about it, though. I don't want to head that way until I know who's there.' He gestured at the pixel screen to wake it up. 'Hey, Lovey,' he said, 'I need an open sib signal to go out to that rogue planet. Just let me know if somebody picks up.'
'Will do,' Lovey said.
Kizzy dragged her chair over next to Ashby's and watched the screen intently. 'Kizzy, nothing's happening,' Ashby said. 'They might not pick up for a while. They might not pick up at all.'
'It's exciting! It's like going fishing or something, waiting for someone to bite.'
Ashby looked askance at Kizzy. 'When have you ever gone fishing?'
'I do it in Battle Wizards all the time.' The sib indicator on the screen lit up. Kizzy leaned across the desk, pointing. 'Look! See! A bite! They bit!'
Ashby put his hand over Kizzy's shoulder and pulled her back into her chair. 'Let me do the talking, okay?' The last thing he needed was for Kizzy to rub some twitchy fringe colonist the wrong way.
He gestured to pick up the call. An alien appeared on screen. Ashby's jaw dropped. It was a Sianat. But not a Sianat like Ohan. This Sianat had let their fur grow out. No fractals or holy patterns had been shaved in. There was something more alert about the way they held theirself, not at all like Ohan's perpetually relaxed slump. There was a slackness in the face, a thinness to the fur, and though Ashby knew he couldn't make any presumptions about a species he knew little about, he couldn't shake the obvious conclusion.
This Sianat was old.
'Hello,' Ashby said, shaking himself out of his surprise. 'Do you speak Klip?'
The Sianat spoke, the same bird-like coo that Ashby had heard Ohan make at times. As the Sianat opened their mouth, Ashby could see that their teeth were unfiled. It was like looking into a cave full of sharp stalagmites. The Sianat gestured something towards Ashby, still cooing as they looked around the room behind them. Unfamiliar with other Sianats as Ashby was, he could read this behaviour well enough: Hang on. Let me find someone who can talk to you.
'Ashby,' Kizzy whispered.
'I know,' he whispered back.
'I'm so glad I'm here for this,' she said, resting her chin against her fists.
There was movement on screen. The first Sianat made room for another. This one's body was about the same size, but differently shaped. There was a stockiness around the hips and shoulders, a sharp definition to the eyes and jaw. Their build varied enough from the first Sianat – and from Ohan as well – that Ashby concluded this Pair was of a different sex. As the two Sianats switched places, the first touched the second on the shoulder. They touched. Ashby thought of how Ohan slunk away from the crew when they passed in the hallway, how they barely tolerated Dr Chef laying his handfeet on them during medical exams. Who were these people?
'Good day,' the new Sianat said. Their accent was thick as fuel. Ashby noticed that this one did have filed teeth. 'My name is Mas. Forgive my words, my Klip is old.'
Ashby smiled, taking care to speak slowly. 'My name is Ashby. I captain a tunnelling ship. This is Kizzy, our mech tech.'
Mas cocked their head. 'Tunnelling? Yes, yes, I know about tunnelling.' They gave a yawping laugh. 'I know much about tunnelling.'
I. Not us. Ashby stared. 'Excuse me, Mas, I don't mean to be rude, but . . . are you not a Pair?'
'No,' said Mas. There was pride in their – in her voice, unmistakable, even through the accent. 'No one is here. We are a colony of Solitary.'
'Heretics,' Kizzy gasped.
Ashby glared at her, but Mas did not seem to take offence. 'Heretics, yes,' Mas said. 'Do you have a Pair on your ship?'
'Yes,' Ashby said. 'Our Navigator.'
'I was a Navigator once, for Harmagians,' said Mas. 'Before here. Before I was here. Old words. Sorry.'
'No need to apologise, I can understand you.' Ashby considered what Mas had said. He hoped he wasn't offending Ohan just by talking to this person. 'Our Navigator doesn't know we're talking to you. We didn't even know who was down there when we sent out the sib.'
'Oh! I thought – no, nothing.' Mas made a trilling sound. 'What is your need?'
Ashby nudged Kizzy. 'I'm looking for some tech,' she said, holding up the broken regulator. 'Nothing fancy, just something to fix our stasie.'
'Ah, your food! You need to fix your food.' The Sianat seemed to find this funny.
At the mention of food, Ashby thought of Ohan's tubes of nutrient paste. 'You probably don't have stasie tech, do you?'
'We eat,' Mas said. 'We do not suck down paste like Pairs. Come to us, we'll find tech. Might have to bang it around to make it work, but techs like to bang things, yes?'
Kizzy laughed. 'Yes, we do.'
'Do you have a shuttle?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Our ships are old as words.' She gestured at the screen. A set of landing coordinates popped up. 'And we must talk on your Pair. Are they Waning?'
'They are,' Ashby said.
'Not for long,' Mas said. 'Come down, come down, we will talk. But do not tell your Pair you come. They will . . . not like it.'
The screen went dark.
Rosemary had seen such little variation in Ohan's moods – much less seen them burst into her office – that it took her a second to realise the Pair was furious. Their eyes were wide, their breath shallow. 'Where did they go?' Ohan said, their voice shrill.
Rosemary, who had been in the middle of clearing invoices, found herself tongue-tied. 'Who?' she said stupidly, even though she knew who Ohan meant. Ashby had come to her two hours before, told her that he and Kizzy were flying out somewhere Ohan could not know about. Rosemary had found it odd that he'd asked for her discretion. When did Ohan ever talk to anyone? Yet here they were, standing at her desk, looking uncomfortably carnivorous. Rosemary had always thought Ohan looked cuddly, like a stuffed toy. Not now. Ohan's shoulders were back, their neck curled, their eyes wild. Rosemary didn't like Ohan like this.
Ohan made an irritated sound. 'We awoke to find the engine stopped. Then we found the shuttle gone. We know what region of space this is, and you will tell us now if Ashby has gone to see the Heretics.'
Rosemary swallowed hard. Following Ashby's instructions was one thing, but there was no use in lying now. 'Yes,' she said.
A growl rose from Ohan's throat. 'Why?' they cried.
'Kizzy needed some tech,' Rosemary said, keeping her voice steady. She thought that maybe, if she could stay calm enough, she could bring Ohan back down. 'Something for the stasie broke. They went to get a replacement part.'
Puzzlement drove some of the fire out of Ohan's eyes. 'Tech?' they said. 'They went to get tech?'
'Yes.'
Ohan threw their head back. 'It does not matter! They will fill their heads full of lies!'
'Who will?'
'The Heretics!' A look of horror crossed their face. 'Our crewmates. They'll be contaminated when they return.'
'They'll get flashed on their way back in, just like always.'
'Yes, but . . .' Ohan shook their head and paced. 'I must speak to Lovelace, she will need to update her contaminant database.' Without warning, Ohan's legs went limp. They crumpled down, grabbing the edge of Rosemary's desk as they went, gasping for breath.
'Ohan!' Rosemary dashed to their side. She instinctively reached out, but stopped as she remembered who she was dealing with. No physical contact without permission. 'Can I help you up?'
'No,' Ohan wheezed. 'We're fine.'
The vox switched on. 'I'll get Dr Chef,' Lovey said.
'Please, don't,' Ohan said. They pulled theirself to their feet with shaking hands. 'It is just the Wane. This is how it must be.' They drew in a shuddering gulp of air. 'Call Ashby. Tell him – tell him to get his tech and leave. Tell him to not listen to the Heretics' lies. They are poison. The Heretics – the Heretics will wish to end me.'
Rosemary could hear Dr Chef's heavy footsteps hurrying down the hall. From the noise, it sounded as if he were running on six. 'Ohan, no matter what those people say, no one on this ship is going to hurt you.'
Ohan swung their big, dark eyes to Rosemary. 'You might not mean to. But you could.'
'I don't like this place,' Kizzy said, her mouth full of fire shrimp. 'It feels sad.'
Ashby worked the navigation controls, adjusting their approach toward the rogue planet. It was frozen over, cased in a cracking lattice of ice. The warming light of the satellites was concentrated on one large, circular patch of bare rock, too perfectly shaped to be natural. From their vantage point up above, Ashby could see one cluster of opaque bubble-like buildings, built where the light was strongest. There were no other settlements, not that he could see. 'I dunno,' he said. 'They've got those sun satellites, and they're clearly doing well enough to have a space elevator. Space elevators aren't a high priority if you're hungry or without shelter.'
'Sure,' Kizzy said. 'But they're still all alone out here. No star or moon to keep 'em company. They've got an empty sky.' She shaped the edges of the fire shrimp bag into a spout, tipped her head back and poured the bag's contents into her mouth.
'You're getting crumbs all over the place.'
'Who's responsible for cleaning out the shuttle?' She jabbed a thumb at her chest. 'This girl.'
'That's not the point.' Ashby looked back at her. 'Remember that time you had to clean fire shrimp out of an air filter?'
Kizzy's face fell in grave remembrance. She solemnly rolled the bag shut. 'Until later, my delicious friends.'
The vox crackled on. An AI began speaking in Ciretou, the soft, haunting language of the Sianats. 'Sorry,' Ashby said. 'We don't understand.'
The AI paused, and switched to Klip. 'Greetings, travellers. Please bring your shuttle to docking port 4. Once you have docked, proceed to the elevator entryway. If you are unable to walk on your own, or if you require medical attention, please let me know at this time. If you are unable to speak, please activate your shuttle's emergency—'
'We're all fine here, thank you,' Ashby said.
'Please dock safely,' the AI said. 'Your journey has come to an end.' The vox switched off.
Kizzy pulled her feet off the dash and stared at the vox. 'That was weird. Why wouldn't we be able to—' She nodded. 'Right. Some of the Pairs who wind up here must be pretty sick.'
'I think you were right, Kiz,' Ashby said, as he eased the shuttle into the docking hatch.
'About what?'
'This is a sad place.'
Once the shuttle came to a full stop, they put on their exosuits and stepped into the airlock. After a short scan, they were allowed through. They walked down an empty corridor, and into one of the elevator cars.
'I can't get over this,' Kizzy said, her voice tinny through the exosuit vox.
'What? How close it is?' The length of the elevator cables were the shortest Ashby had ever seen, by a long shot. He doubted it would take them more than an hour to reach the surface.
'Yeah. It's just . . . I mean, holy shit, how did they do this? This thing shouldn't work at all. I'm not even talking about tech, I'm talking about gravity.' She pressed her nose against the window. 'I want to take this thing apart and see what's in it.'
'Please wait until we've reached the surface, at least,' he said, settling back onto one of the benches. He fidgeted, trying to get comfortable. The curve of the hard cushions was not designed for Human spines.
With a jarring rush, the elevator shot downwards. An hour passed, uneventfully. As the elevator got closer to the surface, a violent swirl of snow hit the window. The sight made him shiver, despite the warmth of his exosuit.
'Damn,' Kizzy said. 'Good thing we didn't bring Sissix.'
'She would've had a suit, too.'
'Yeah, but I think she finds the very idea of snow offensive,' she said. 'Look at this place.' Ashby saw it. All around them, great swathes of ancient ice sat sharp and uninviting. The air was so thick with snow that it almost obscured the settlement below. There were no roads, and if there were doors, Ashby could not see them. The elevator was descending straight into the settlement itself – a cluster of armoured shells, set into black rock. He had a feeling that the sun satellites were less about providing visible light than they were about keeping the settlement thawed out.
'Why here?' Kizzy said. 'Why live here?'
Heretics. Exile. 'I don't think they have a choice.' The light changed as the elevator entered the settlement, transitioning into something more inviting. Through the window, Ashby could see a round corridor, made of smooth, silvery metal. It felt very clean. A light inside his helmet indicated that the air surrounding them was breathable, but they left their suits on all the same. A fringe planet meant there was no handy GC data on local diseases. No telling what kind of bugs these folks might pass on to them, or vice versa.
The elevator doors opened. Kizzy and Ashby stepped out. Mas was there, waiting. Ashby noticed right away how much her body differed from Ohan's, and not just in terms of sexual dimorphism. Despite the hollows of age, there was no doubt that this was a healthy individual. Ohan looked waifish by comparison.
'Welcome to Arun,' Mas said, bobbing her head. 'You must forgive, I do not know Human greetings.'
'We shake hands,' Ashby said.
'Show me,' Mas said. Ashby took Kizzy's hand in demonstration. Mas laughed. 'Here,' she said, extending her long fingers. Ashby wrapped his hand round them and shook. Mas laughed again. 'These are short hands, soft hands,' she said, pressing Ashby's palm through the thin exosuit glove.
'Didn't you meet any Humans while you were a Navigator?' Kizzy asked.
'You were still wandering when I was with Harmagians,' Mas said. 'No Human worlds beyond your Fleet. I became Solitary before you became GC.'
Ashby did some quick math. If Mas was Navigating before Humans had joined the GC, then . . .
Kizzy beat him to it. 'How old are you?'
Mas thought. 'One hundred and thirty-three standards,' she said. 'Sorry, had to think. Our time measures are different.'
Kizzy's nose was nearly pressing against her faceplate, she was so intent. 'I had no idea you could live that long.'
Mas laughed again. 'Not just this long,' she said. 'Even longer!' She began to walk down the hall. They followed.
'What can you tell us about this place?' Ashby said.
'This is Arun,' Mas said. 'Your Pair has not said of it, hmm?'
'No.'
'No, no. Pairs do not say this place. It is for heretics.' There was a smirk in her voice, almost mocking. 'But all Sianat know it. If we escape before infection, or if we want to break, we try to find it. Not all do. Some get lost. Some are Waning and cannot fly the long way. But we take all who come. None are turned away.'
'I see,' Ashby said. They came into a huge open area, filled with curved benches and hydroponic planters holding strange, curling trees and puffy flowers (Ashby could only imagine how excited Dr Chef would have been). A warm yellow sky was projected above. Compared to the frozen wastes outside, it was a paradise. There were Sianats everywhere, of all ages and sizes, walking, thinking, speaking to one another. Touching. 'Sorry,' he said, dragging his eyes away from the plaza and back to Mas. 'What did you mean by "break"? You come here if you want to break?'
'Break the Pair,' Mas said. 'Destroy the virus.'
Ashby and Kizzy looked at each other. 'There's a cure?' Ashby asked.
'Of course,' Mas said. 'All diseases have cures. You just have to find it.'
'But,' Kizzy said, her brow furrowed. 'Sorry, I don't really get how this whole thing works, but if . . . if you're a Pair, would you even think about being cured? Doesn't the Whisperer make you want to stay together?'
'You ask good questions. Like a good heretic.' Mas gestured towards a bench. They sat beside her as best they could. 'The Whisperer makes the host resist breaking. But some Sianat can resist the Whisperer. Like me.'
'You're . . . immune?' Ashby said.
'No, no,' Mas said. 'I had the disease. Had to, to Navigate. But I resist. The Whisperer had my low mind, not my high mind.' Her face folded in thought. 'Do you know low mind?'
Ashby thought he had heard Ohan use the term once or twice, but as with most things, Ohan had not explained further. 'No.'
'Low mind is easy things. Animal things. Things like walking, counting, not putting your hand on hot things. High mind is things like who my friends are. What I believe. Who I am.' Mas tapped her head for emphasis.
'I think I understand,' Ashby said. 'So, the virus . . . the virus affected the way you understand space and numbers, but it didn't affect the way you think about yourself?'
'I resist,' Mas said again. She paused. 'Resistant?'
'You are resistant,' Ashby said. 'Yes.'
'Yes, yes. Very dangerous to be resistant. I learned to pretend. To mimic the words of the Pairs. To stare out windows.' She made a gruff sound. 'So boring.'
Kizzy laughed. 'I've always thought it looks boring,' she said.
'It is! But if you are resistant, you must stare. You must not let others know that you pretend. The ones who rule know,' she said, leaning close. 'They know resistant Hosts exist. But it would ruin everything for many to know. Sianat believe that the Whisperer chose us. Makes us special. Makes us better than you.' She poked Ashby's chest. 'But if we are resistant, one of two things is true. Either Sianats are not special, only diseased, and can evolve to resist. Or, second thing, stupid thing, but easier conclusion for many – resistants are unholy. We reject the sacred. Heretics. You understand?'
'Yes,' Ashby said. He knew now why Ohan had always balked at the mere mention of the Solitary. This was the sort of thing that could bring a whole culture down.
'I always wanted to break,' Mas said. 'The Whisperer made me see the in-between, but it was killing my body. My high mind, it wanted to live. My captain, she was good. Good friend. I trusted her, told her that I am resistant. As I Waned, she found a map.'
'To here?' Kizzy said.
'Yes, yes. Nearly dead when I arrived.' She lifted her front hands and made her muscles twitch. Ashby's stomach sank. It was a perfect imitation of the tremors Ohan had developed. 'I lay in hospital for' – she counted to herself – 'two tendays after the cure. Painful, painful.' She smiled and showed off her forelegs. 'But I got strong.'
'So, after the virus is cured, the Wane goes away?' Kizzy asked. Ashby shot her a quick glance. No, Kizzy.
'Yes. But the changes to the low mind do not. The . . . words, words . . . the . . . the folds in the brain remain. I could still Navigate if I wanted. But I am Solitary. I must stay here.'
'Why?' Ashby asked.
The Sianat cocked her head. 'I am Solitary,' she said. 'We are heretics, not revolutionaries. This is our way.'
'Wait,' Kizzy said. 'You can still Navigate? Curing the virus doesn't take that away?'
'Correct.'
'The ambi,' she said. 'That's how you figured out how to harvest ambi from the nebula, and build a pintsize space elevator. Because you've still got your super brains.'
Mas laughed. 'Pairs are not inventors. They are too unfocused, too short-lived. Good for Navigating and discussing theories, but bad at building. Building takes many, many mistakes. Pairs do not like mistakes. They like staring out windows. But Solitary like mistakes. Mistakes mean progress. We make good things. Great things.'
'Wow,' Kizzy said. Her eyes went far away, the way they did when she was thinking about a broken circuit or the inside of the engine. 'So, this cure. Is it, like, dangerous?'
'Kizzy,' Ashby warned. They were not going down this path. No matter how much he wanted to, they were not.
'But Ashby, Ohan could—'
'No. We're not—'
Mas made a sound deep in her chest. 'Ohan is your Pair.'
'Yes,' Ashby sighed.
'Poet-like name,' Mas said. 'Poetic.' She studied them both. 'I am resistant. I do not know how the disease feels to a mind that does not resist. But I have friends, broken Pairs, who were not resistant. Sometimes even good Pairs fear death enough to come to Arun.' She leaned in close, too close. 'Broken Pairs are different, after. They are not the child they were before infection. They are not the Pair, either. They are new.' She looked hard at Ashby with her large eyes. 'They are free. Believe me, it is better.'
'No,' Ohan said. There was no anger in their voice, but they had recoiled, pulling as far away from the table as the chair would allow. They sat stiffly, fighting hard to hide their twitching legs. Ashby and Dr Chef sat on the other side of the lab table. A small, sealed box lay between them. An object was visible through the transparent lid – a syringe, filled with green fluid. The grip was designed for a Sianat hand.
Ashby took care to keep his voice low. The door to the med bay was shut, but he wouldn't put eavesdropping past any of his crew. He knew that Kizzy, at least, was busy. He could hear her banging away in the kitchen. He had a feeling that a few of the bangs had nothing to do with repairing the stasie, and everything to do with her letting him know that she was upset.
'Nobody's forcing you, Ohan,' Ashby said. 'I just want you to consider the option.'
'I've examined it thoroughly,' Dr Chef said. 'It's safe. I can guarantee that.'
Ohan shrank away even more. 'Safe,' they whispered. 'Safe. This is murder, and you call it safe.'
Ashby ran his hand through his hair. As much as he felt that the virus itself was the murderer here, he knew this was a point he could not argue. 'The person I spoke to said she had friends who had been cured. They can still navigate, Ohan, and they live long, healthy lives.'
'They take the Whisperer's gifts, then kill it,' Ohan said. 'You should not have spoken to them, Ashby. You should have taken their tech and left with your ears blocked. You should have left your food to rot before setting foot in that place.'
'I was doing what I thought was best for my crew,' Ashby said. 'Just as I'm trying to do now.'
Ohan succumbed to a coughing fit. Ashby sat back and watched, knowing there was nothing he could do, not even lay a comforting hand on his crewmate's back. His eyes met Dr Chef's. The doctor looked miserable. Here was a patient that he could easily treat, but the patient wouldn't allow it. Ashby knew Dr Chef wouldn't push it, but he also was sure that this was going to gnaw away at his friend for a long time.
'Ohan,' Dr Chef said, once Ohan could breathe again. 'As someone who left his world behind, I understand how frightening this idea is for you. It was scary for me, too. But we're your friends, Ohan. You could live a long time, here with us. We'd take care of you.'
Ohan was unconvinced. 'Your friendship means much to us. As does your concern, though misguided. We know this must be difficult for you to understand. You kill microbes all the time, in your kitchens, on your cargo, without a second thought. But consider the bacteria living in your skins, your mouths, your guts, creatures you could not survive without. You, too, are a synthesis between organisms large and small. Ashby, would you destroy your mitochondria simply because they are not Human in origin? Because they do not belong?'
'We can't live without mitochondria,' Ashby said. 'But you could live without the Whisperer.'
Ohan shut their eyes tight. 'No,' they said. 'We could not. We would be someone else.'
Some time later, Ashby sat alone in his quarters, unlacing his boots. He was halfway through the left when the door spun open without warning. Sissix stood in the doorway, feathers on end. 'Are you out of your fucking mind?'
Ashby sighed and went back to his laces. 'Come in and shut the door.'
Sissix stood before him, hands on her hips. 'Kizzy tells me there is a cure. A cure for what's killing Ohan. One that would leave him able to navigate, and that would extend his life by a good century or so. She tells me you just came back from a planet full of happy, healthy people who all can attest to that. And apparently, that cure is in our med bay right now, and you're just going to let it gather dust while Ohan lies shaking himself to death in a pool of his own sick.'
Ashby swung his eyes up to her. 'You keep saying "his."'
'Yes, because it finally occurred to me that Ohan is an individual, a sick man who needs our help.'
'Sissix, this is not my call. What do you want me to do? Tie them down and force it on them?'
'If that's what it takes.'
'You're being ridiculous. I'm their employer, not their . . . their arbiter.'
'You're his friend, and you're letting him die.'
'I gave them the option, Sissix! They know it's there! What the hell else am I supposed to do?' He threw the boot aside. 'Sissix, this is not a matter of someone refusing medical treatment. This is their entire culture we're talking about. This is their religion.'
'This is so fucking Human of you. Lie back and let the galaxy do whatever it wants, because you're too guilty about how badly you fucked up your own species to ever take initiative.'
Ashby got to his feet. 'What is it you people say? Isk seth iks kith? Let each follow xyr own path?'
Sissix's eyes flashed. 'That's different.'
'How so?'
'That means don't interfere with others if there's no harm being done. There is harm being done here, Ashby. Ohan is dying.'
'If I told you to go back to Hashkath and bring your kids here to live with you, would you?'
'What are you even talking about?'
'If I told you that treating your children like strangers offends every bone in my milk-fed mammalian body, and that as your Human captain, I expect you to follow my moral code—'
'That's different, Ashby, you know that's—'
He lowered his voice. 'Or if I wanted to be really old-fashioned, I could tell you that it's inappropriate for two of my crew to be coupling. Some Human captains still fire people for that, you know. They say it's a bad idea on a long haul.'
Sissix froze. 'How do . . .' She shook her head. 'That's none of your business.'
Ashby gave an incredulous laugh. 'It's none of my business? I'm your feather brother, Sissix. Since when is it not my business to know such things? Since when does an Aandrisk keep something like that to herself? Unless, of course, you're making personal concessions for Human customs—'
'Shut up, Ashby.' She walked to the window, put her hands on the sill and fell quiet. 'I don't even know Ohan. And I don't just mean because he doesn't talk to any of us. I mean that when he opens his mouth, I don't know if he's the one saying that he doesn't want to be cured, or if the virus is making him do it. I don't know if it's him speaking, or the thing infecting his brain.'
'To Ohan, it's both. And that's probably closer to the truth. It's not like the virus is sentient. It just . . . changes him. Them.'
Sissix gave him a look. 'See. You do it, too.' The anger was bleeding out of her voice. Her feathers were beginning to lay flat. She sat on his bed. 'I'm not okay with this, Ashby. I don't care if I know him well or not. I'm not okay with losing family.'
Ashby sat beside her and took her hand. 'I know you think I'm the bad guy in this,' he said. 'But I'm not okay with it either.'
'I know,' she said. 'But I still don't see how you could sit there and not get angry with him.'
'It wasn't my place.'
'Spoken like a true Exodan.' Her eyes searched his face. 'How do you know about me and Rosemary?'
Ashby laughed. 'The way she looks at you.'
'Oh, stars,' Sissix said. 'Is it that obvious?'
'To me, at least.'
'To everyone?'
'Maybe. Nobody's said anything to me about it.'
Sissix sighed. 'It was her idea, you know. After Hashkath. She said she wanted to make things feel more like family for me. She was so damn sweet about it. She's sweet about everything.' She fell back against the mattress. 'Ashby, I have no frame of reference of what it's like for Humans to couple. I'm so scared I'm going to mess her up. You know how differently our species go about these things. I'm not . . . am I being selfish?'
'Sex is always a little selfish, Sis,' he said. 'But I highly doubt she's sleeping with you out of charity. I bet she wanted to way before Hashkath.' He smiled at her. 'But I know you. You wouldn't have said yes if you didn't care about her, too. Rosemary's an adult. She can handle herself. And I think in a way, you two might be good for each other.' He paused. 'Although . . .'
'I knew there was going to be a caveat.'
'You need to be careful. Humans can be okay with having multiple partners, but we can be jealous as hell, too. I don't know how you two have things worked out, but if, say, you want to go to a tet, or if you just need to move on in your casual Aandrisk way—'
'I know,' Sissix said. 'I'll be careful.'
They fell into a comfortable silence. 'This is going to sound weird,' he said after a while.
'Mmm?'
'I'm sorry that it couldn't be me.'
Sissix sat up. 'How so? You don't – you don't think of me as—'
'No.' He smirked. 'No offence, but no. I don't think of you that way.'
'Good. I was about to be really confused.' She laughed. 'Then what?'
'There has always been a part of me that feels guilty that I can't be the kind of family you need.'
Sissix nuzzled his cheek. 'You are the family I need, Ashby. I wouldn't have chosen you otherwise.'
'But Rosemary made it more – more whole, didn't she?'
Sissix smiled. 'Yeah. She did.' She put her forehead against Ashby's. 'Doesn't change the fact that you're the best friend I've ever had.' She paused. 'But I'm still mad at you.'
'I know.'
'And thinking about Ohan makes me hurt.'
'Me too.'
'Good,' she said. 'At least you're suffering for it.' They both laughed. It was a empty sound.
|
Message not delivered. Recipient outside comm relay range.
Please check delivery path and resend.
Attempted message
Encryption: 0
Translation: 0
From: Nib (path: 6273-384-89)
To: Rosemary Harper (path: 9874-457-28)
Subject: Re: Volunteer info
I'm glad to hear it! We can always use another good brain. Don't worry about not having much free time. Even spending an hour or two every tenday digging through submission files is a help. Just mention in your application what your availability is like, and they won't give you more than you can handle. Have you decided what focus to apply for yet? I'm biased, of course, but I think you'd be great for interspecies history, and I'd be happy to put in a good word. But if you've got your eye on another area, I won't take it personally. Much.
Speaking of, one of my friends on the Toremi team remembered that I was after information on your behalf, and she sent me something interesting. Not much, just one of many little quirks about our new allies. I probably shouldn't be sending it directly to you, but seeing as how you're a future volunteer, surely we can grant you retroactive permission, right?
Fly safe,
Nib
|
Attached message
From: Elai Jas Kapi (path: withheld)
To: GC Delegate Group 634 (path: withheld)
Encryption: 2
Translation: 0
Subject: Important information – Toremi hearing and heat generators
Date: 76/306
Given our infrequent dealings with the Toremi, there is much about their species that we are only now discovering firsthand. All delegates should be aware that the Toremi possess a sense of hearing that far exceeds that of any GC species. They are especially adept at distinguishing individual voices within crowds, and their aptitude for learning languages has far exceeded our expectations. You may safely assume that any Toremi who has been present in diplomatic talks is already fluent in Klip.
When sharing a room with Toremi Ka individuals, do not discuss any topics that have not been approved by senior ambassadorial staff. Please consult project datafile 332-129 for a comprehensive list of approved conversation topics.
We also require that all ships ensure that their heat generators are not operating above 76.5 kilks if they expect Toremi Ka individuals to come aboard. We recognise that this will cause some discomfort for Aandrisk delegates and crewmembers. However, standard heat generators emit a sound that is painful to the Toremi. We have determined that the frequency created by 76.5 kilks and lower is tolerable for the Toremi, and will not inhibit basic Aandrisk motor functions.
If your ship uses non-standard heat generators, inform a senior staff member immediately. Do not invite Toremi Ka individuals aboard your ship until the correct technology has been installed.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Elai Jas Kapi
Senior Galactic Commons Ambassador
Day 157, GC Standard 307
|
Toum, second guard of the New Mother, sat by a window in the feeding garden, watching the ships of the Commons species. He tore a thick bundle of leaves from a nearby planter. The fluid oozing from their broken stalks gave off that familiar peppery scent, sweet and delicious. But he did not eat. He picked at the leaves, and observed the alien ships. He looked with envy upon the weapons arrays of the Aeluon frigates, as he had done many times. How many clans they could destroy with such weapons. How many false ideas they could erase.
He thought of the aliens within the frigates, with their stupid eyes and unsettling scales. So ugly, the Aeluons. And so disturbing, the way they talked. It was difficult to trust a species who could not speak without sticking wires into their throats. Just as it was difficult to trust the Harmagians, who had no legs to walk upon, or the Aandrisks, with their carnivore claws, or the Quelin, who marred their own flesh for vanity's sake. No, he could not trust them, any of them. But he could hate them. That came easily enough.
He could not speak of it. Before the alliance, there had never been any doubt in his mind that he was of the Toremi Ka. He was in agreement with their veneration of the New Mothers, and he was in agreement with needing to secure Hedra Ka as their own. But these Commons species. Did the clan really need their help? Were they so weak that they could not hold the new planet alone?
Commons species. Mismatched faces, grating accents, squealing ships. He could see his discontent mirrored in the mouths of some of his clanmates, but no one had raised a challenge. No one had broken from the clan.
This frightened him. Was he defective in some way? Was there some vital piece of wisdom the New Mothers possessed that he did not? Day after day, he wrestled with these thoughts, struggling to bring himself to agreement. But nothing, not meditation, not the privileged amount of time he spent with his New Mother, had displaced them.
He looked down to the leaves, now pulp within his grasp. He threw the wet clump to the floor. The machines would clean it up.
'Do you want me to sit with you?' said a voice from behind. Toum did not need to turn his face to know who it was. He felt his limbs tense, ready for killing.
'No,' he said, his eyes on the window.
'But I will.' The speaker came into his field of vision, folding her legs alongside him. Her name was Hiul. A first unit striker. Toum wondered if he even could kill her, given the chance. He was willing to try. Hiul picked some leaves, and consumed them. 'Are you eating?'
'Why else would I be here?'
She lolled her head, looking at the crushed leaves at Toum's feet. 'Of course.' She turned her face to the window. 'So many ships. So many ideas within them. How do they do it, I wonder? How do they achieve harmony, knowing that false notions walk beside them?'
Toum said nothing.
Hiul brought more leaves to her mouth. 'I do not believe that they do. I believe they exist in chaos, each following their own ideas, each serving a clan of one.'
He smacked his mouth. 'The New Mothers say this is acceptable, so long as we keep to our ways. Are you not in unity with their words? Do you not agree?'
Hiul seemed unconcerned by the threat. She ignored the challenge. Ignored it! Only two words left her mouth, maddeningly calm: 'Do you?'
He grabbed her, fury hot within his belly. He brought his mouth to her breathing throat, poised for a quick kill. 'I have told you before, do not speak to me. You are chaos.'
She did not fight back, which frightened Toum more than if she had. 'You see me as out of agreement with the New Mothers?' she said. 'You see me as a false truth?'
'Do not toy with me. You know what you are.'
She pushed forward, pressing her throat against his mouth. 'Then why do you not kill me?'
He willed himself to bite down. It would be so easy, so fast. He could feel her pulse, deep and quick. But he could not, and it made him rage all the more. He threw her, hard. A planter broke beneath her fall, loam spilling over the floor. The others in the garden looked their way. Most, after a glance, returned to their food, unconcerned by the mess. The machines would clean it up.
Hiul laughed, wiping a stream of lymph from split skin near her mouth. '"You know what you are." Yes, yes. I do,' she said, standing. She approached him again. 'And I know what you are, Toum. I see the conflict in you.'
'I am a guard of the New Mother!'
She moved in close, whispering. 'That is why you fight it, I know. How horrible for you. How horrible to know the truth, and to hate those who threaten it, and to remain loyal regardless.'
His eyes betrayed him, straying to the window full of alien ships.
Hiul exhaled smugly. 'You have a ship of your own, you know. You have access to things we do not.'
He looked sharply back at her. 'We?'
She walked away, limping slightly. It appeared that one of her back legs had been badly bruised by the fall. Good. She turned her face to him. 'We are Toremi,' she said. 'We are never a clan of one.'
Ashby sighed with relief as the pinhole tug pulled his ship back into normal space one last time. It had been four days since they'd rendezvoused with the Kirit Sek, and grateful as he was for the shortcut, he wasn't sure what had been worse – the sublayer jumps, or long stretches of nothing in between. The last leg of the haul to the rendezvous at Del'lek had been a long one, but they'd busied themselves with cleaning the ship and taking care of all the little odd jobs that had been brushed to the side. By the time they met up with the Kirit Sek, the Wayfarer was as spotless as it ever had been, and there was nothing else for them to do. Ashby had thought four days of kick-back would be restful, but the jumps made that impossible, and the lack of productivity made him anxious. Everybody was on edge. Dr Chef had been growing irritated at all the extra help hovering around the kitchen, and Ashby had strong suspicions that the blown-out lighting panel they'd experienced the day before had been orchestrated by the techs, just to give themselves something to do. The only people who hadn't seemed to mind the downtime were Sissix and Rosemary, who were happy to keep each other occupied, and Ohan, who was busy letting their nerves die.
But the jumps, though, had got to everybody. A blind punch was one thing, but four days of in and out at six-hour intervals was enough to make even Ashby spacesick. He sat up slowly in bed as Lovey transmitted the tug captain's voice through his vox.
'That's it for us, Captain Santoso,' the Aandrisk woman said. She had a different accent to Sissix – less colloquial, harsher around the edges. 'Are you all doing okay over there?'
'Well enough,' Ashby said. He rubbed his eyes. Stable vision could not be overrated. 'Thanks for the trip.'
'Take it from me – before you call in to whoever you're reporting to, take an hour to eat something and get back on your feet. We'll be doing the same.'
'Will do.' He cleared his throat. 'Heske rath ishi kith.'
'Heske skath eski risk,' the Aandrisk said, sounding pleased. 'Safe journey to you as well.' The vox switched off. Out his window, Ashby could see the Kirit Sek drop their towing field and veer away.
'Lovey, where's Sissix?'
The vox snapped back on. 'She just got to work.'
'Let her know I'm on my way there.'
A few minutes later, he stepped into the control room. Sissix was already in her seat, checking her navigational controls.
'I feel like I've been kicked in the head,' she said, without looking at him.
'You and me both.' He slumped into his chair and stared out the window. 'And all for that.'
In the space beyond was Hedra Ka. A cracking scab of a planet, choked with storms and veins of lava. A mist of rocks floated in orbit, a reminder of its recent formation. It was a young world, unwelcoming, resentful of its existence.
'That is the angriest looking thing I've ever seen,' Ashby said.
'You talking about the rock or the ships?'
Hedra Ka lay within a feeding frenzy of vessels – Harmagian frigates, Aeluon cruisers, neutral transports, pinhole tugs, patrol shuttles. And of course, the Toremi. Ashby knew that the Toremi were generational spacers, just like the Exodans, but he saw nothing familiar in their ships. For a species who lived out in the open, their ships looked surprisingly fragile, lacking the thick bulkheads he associated with long-haul rigs. He saw only wiry frames and sharp edges, dripping with antennae and eerie lighted cords that drifted in the vacuum. They looked like deep-sea creatures, pulsing, swaying, incomprehensible.
Ashby leaned forward. 'No way.' There was a clear spherical patch outside of the swarm, marked by warning buoys. 'That's where they want us to drop the cage?' The distance between the tunnel entrance and Hedra Ka would be shorter than the distance between Earth and Luna. By about half.
'Good thing this is a soft zone,' Sissix said. 'Can you imagine doing a blind punch there?'
Ashby shook his head. 'We're good, but not that good.'
'Nobody's that good.'
'We'd have been lucky not to tear that planet apart.'
Sissix snorted. 'Not much of a loss if we did.'
Ashby laughed. 'Lovey, can you patch me through?'
The vox switched on. 'They're listening, Ashby,' Lovey said.
'Hey, everybody. We've made it. If you're feeling sick, go get yourself a bite to eat, but please make it quick. I'd like everyone here when I call our contact. Please be in the control room in one hour, tops. This is a big day for us, and I'd like us all to put our best foot forward. Nothing fancy, but clean faces and smart clothes would be appreciated.'
Kizzy's voice came through the vox. 'Don't worry, Ashby, I won't talk at all.'
He paused, trying to find a kind way to tell her that was best. 'You're too cool for them anyway, Kiz.'
Toum sat in meditation. Or so he meant to. Across from him sat the first guard, Fol, her legs folded calmly, her eyes blank with reason. He envied her. The longer they stayed around these Commons people, the more difficult it was for him to structure his mind. No matter how hard he tried to shift his thoughts elsewhere, he returned, inevitably, to Hiul. Neither of them should have left the room alive. It was their way. The stronger belief would survive, the weaker would be erased. This was how harmony was made.
He should have killed her. Striker training or no, he'd had his mouth on her throat. He should have killed her. He had killed many out of disagreement. Why had he let her walk away?
The answer was there, in a cruel corner of his mind. He ran from it. It mocked him all the same.
'Come,' the New Mother said, entering the room. Toum and Fol extended their legs and gathered their weapons. 'I am going to the carrier. The tunnelling ship has arrived, and I have heard that the Harmagian has invited them aboard.'
'Have you been extended an invitation?' Fol asked. The Harmagian bureaucrat was particular about tedious matters like guest lists and protocol. Commons worries.
'I do not need one,' the New Mother said. Toum knew he could hear it in her voice, too – the waning patience, the weariness of dealing with alien ways. Why did she never speak of it? If she would just voice the frustrations he knew she felt, then he would have been in agreement with her all along, and he would no longer doubt his place as Toremi Ka. But no such relief came. 'These tunnellers are making a hole in my sky,' she said, walking to the door. Fol and Toum fell into place on either side of her, staying a practised six steps behind. 'That gives me the right to see their faces.'
Rosemary was glad to be off the ship. Granted, she was on another ship, but the change of scenery was badly needed, and the small welcoming reception they'd been brought into was a nice surprise. Nothing fancy, just a table of artfully made finger food and a few low-level GC officials making casual conversation. She'd been to gatherings like this before, but tunnellers weren't the sort you'd find on the guest list. It was a kind gesture – and a sign of how important this new tunnel was.
The room surrounding them was a stark contrast to the Wayfarer's patchwork walls. It was a Harmagian design, spacious and colourful. A variety of species-specific chairs were scattered here and there, and long horizontal windows lined the hull wall. The filtered air was cool and crisp – Rosemary had noticed Sissix moving more slowly, as a Human with sore muscles might – and the lighting just on the edge of too bright. Her crewmates were having a good time, enjoying both the food and the attention. Ashby and Sissix were across the room, locked in conversation with some bureaucrat. Jenks had apparently made friends with one of the serving staff, a Laru, who he'd been laughing with for twenty minutes over who knew what. Ohan had remained behind, of course, and so had Corbin, who, after seeing Dr Chef's eyes light up at the mention of a buffet, had offered to keep an eye on the ailing Navigator in his stead. The algaeist had been rather generous with favours as of late.
'Hey, Doc,' Kizzy said. She lifted a skewer of fried vegetables from her overburdened plate. 'What's this yellow stuff?'
Dr Chef's cheeks fluttered. 'That's saab tesh. I cook it all the time.'
'It doesn't look like saab, though. Or taste like it.' She pulled off one of the chunks with her teeth and chewed it thoughtfully. 'Nope, not really.'
'That's because they probably have better stasies than ours. No molecular degradation over a long haul.' His head drooped. 'Lucky.'
Kizzy swallowed. 'I don't think I like it as much this way.'
'That's how it's supposed to taste.'
'Well, I don't like it.' She ate another piece.
'You know,' Rosemary said. 'We'll be making a nice profit off this job. I'm not making any promises, but you and I could at least look at market prices for a new stasie once this is done. We could put together a little proposal for Ashby.'
Dr Chef's cheeks puffed. 'I've always liked the way you think.'
'I cannot wait to punch,' Kizzy said, abandoning the vegetable skewer in favor of a seed-encrusted bundle of leaves. 'I love all you guys, but I seriously need to get off the ship for a couple tendays. I'm all space-twitchy.'
'Jenks said he's already got his bag packed,' Dr Chef said.
'Oh, yes. He will not shut up about all the reasons why the beaches on Wortheg are better than anywhere else. I don't know how we're going to get him back.'
'No beaches for me. I'm going to go visit my old friend Drave. He just installed a new greenhouse in his homestead, and he said he'd love some help choosing seedlings.'
'Wait, wait, wait. For your vacation, you're going to Port Coriol. A place we go all the time. So you can garden. Which you do all the time.'
'What?' His cheeks puffed. 'I love gardening.'
Kizzy rolled her eyes. 'What about you, Rosemary?'
'Oh. Well, I—' I have nowhere to go. 'I haven't really decided yet.' She took a sip of fizz. 'I may just stay on the ship. I've almost got all the financial archives reorganised, and I hate to leave it unfinished.'
Kizzy quirked her eyebrows and smiled. 'You want to come home with me, come stay with my dads?'
Rosemary felt her cheeks flush. 'Oh . . . that's very kind, but I—'
'Listen. Mudskip Notch isn't exactly Florence, but it's quiet, and the people are chill. There's live music in the main square on warm nights, and the hydrofarms are actually kinda pretty once the algae crop starts to bloom. And there's a little collective of artists and modders out along the edge. You can kick it with me, or you can do your own thing. All I'm offering is a clean bed in a sleepy colony town, in the home of two awesome gentlemen who love it when I bring houseguests. Also, three dogs who will lick your face and be your best friends for ever. And my Ba makes the best fucking waffles in the galaxy.' She turned to Dr Chef. 'No offence.'
'None taken,' Dr Chef. 'I've never had success with waffles.'
'Well . . .' Rosemary said. Two quiet tendays of home cooking and fresh air was tempting, and she was curious to see more of the independent colonies, but –
'Please?' Kizzy said, bouncing. A stray pastry fell off her plate. 'Please please please?'
Rosemary gave a little laugh, both embarrassed and touched. 'Okay. If you're sure it's no trouble, I'll come.'
'Yes!' Kizzy jammed a fist into the air. 'I'll message my dads when we get back to the ship. Or after we punch, I guess.' She rolled her eyes. 'Priorities.'
Something across the room caught Dr Chef's eye. 'Well, well,' he said. 'I wasn't sure we'd be seeing any of them.'
Through the doorway came three Toremi, strange and disconcerting. They walked on four legs with knees that bent the wrong way, and their skin looked hard and brittle. Their thin heads lolled, more like machine weights hanging from a socket than things made of soft flesh. The Toremi standing in the middle wore thick ornamental chains over her dark vestments, and a conical cap, trimmed with red. A New Mother, as Nib's messages had described. The other two Toremi flanked her, a few steps back. They were both armed, and heavily – big rifles slung across their ridged backs.
'They're creepy,' Kizzy whispered.
'Shh,' said Dr Chef.
Rosemary nodded towards the bureaucrat speaking to Ashby. The Harmagian woman was flustered, her tendrils curling rapidly as she moved her carrier wagon over to greet the Toremi. 'She's nervous,' Rosemary said. 'I don't think she knew they were coming.'
Dr Chef grumbled in agreement. 'You'd be nervous too if someone you'd been brokering a galactic alliance with suddenly strolled into a room full of spacers with debatable manners.'
Kizzy took an enormous bite of a pastry, taking care to make a few crumbs stick to the edges of her mouth. 'Ah gud mnnrs.'
Dr Chef brushed the crumbs away with a handfoot as Kizzy laughed behind closed lips. But Rosemary was paying more attention to the Toremi, who the Harmagian woman – her tendrils now flexing with a touch of calm – was introducing to Ashby. They were familiar somehow, not because of the vids she'd seen or the reference files, but . . . something else. Something more tangible. More personal. It was right there, like a word stuck on the tip of her tongue. But what was it? The clothing? The jewellery? The—
The guns.
In a flash, she remembered being in her apartment back on Mars, a few blocks away from the Alexandria campus. She was making tea, tapping stray leaves off the measuring spoon as water heated in the hot pot. The door chimed. Rosemary Harris? Can we come in? Two detectives, crisp clothes, both wearing ocular scanners. One of them had laid a scrib on the coffee table, projecting images of weaponry into the air. Do you know anything about these?
Rosemary set down her plate on the buffet table and walked to the window. She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath, looking out onto the crowded sky. A small, angry planet, surrounded by the warships of people who wanted to control it. The Wayfarer waited just outside, a lumpy, beautiful box that could not have been more out of place amid the sleek carriers and chilling Toremi vessels. She wanted to be back there, safe behind piecemeal walls and scavenged windows. What the hell were they doing here?
'Hey.' Kizzy laid a hand on Rosemary's shoulder. 'You okay?'
Rosemary gave a quick nod, pressing her lips together. 'Yeah, I'm fine.' She paused. 'I just know where they got their guns.'
'Where?' Kizzy asked. Rosemary gave her a dry look, but said nothing. Kizzy's eyes widened. 'Oh. Um. Shit. You sure?'
Rosemary thought of the scrib images hovering in her living room, the detectives studying her face. 'I'm sure.'
A handfoot rested gently on her other shoulder. 'It's not your fault,' Dr Chef said. 'You can't change it.'
'I know,' Rosemary said. 'I'm just . . .' She glanced over her shoulder. The room hummed with conversation. Everyone else was gravitating more towards the Toremi at the door. Nobody was paying attention to the three spacers at the window. She spoke in a hush. 'It makes me angry. And not only because of my father. He did what he did because he wanted ambi. It was greedy, and immoral, and everyone hates him for it. I hate him for it. But the GC's doing the same thing. They've got treaties and ambassadors and buffet lunches, and it all seems so civilised and diplomatic. But it's the same damn thing. We don't care about these people, or how we affect their history. We just want their stuff.' She shook her head hard. 'We shouldn't be here.'
Dr Chef squeezed her shoulder. 'I've been feeling much the same about this myself. But every sapient species has a long, messy history of powers that rise and fall. The people we remember are the ones who decided how our maps should be drawn. Nobody remembers who built the roads.' He chuffed and rumbled. 'We're just tunnellers. That's all we do, and it's all we can do. If it wasn't us, it would've been some other ship. This would've happened without us. This isn't something we can stop.'
Rosemary exhaled. 'I know.'
'And besides,' Kizzy said. 'I mean, they want us here, right? These aren't exactly chummy people. They would've said no if they didn't want us.'
'Even so,' Rosemary said. 'We've got no business stepping into their war.'
Once they had left the reception room, Toum addressed the New Mother. 'Did you hear the members of the tunnelling ship by the window?'
'I did not. My ears were on their captain, and what sounded like a damaged ventilation coil in the ceiling. Very distracting.'
'What was it you heard?' asked Fol.
Toum's mind was a tangle. His thoughts were reaching a fevered pitch. If he did not speak, he would burst. But if he did speak –
'Tell me,' said the New Mother.
Toum obeyed. 'The tunnellers do not speak in agreement with their leaders. They have doubts about our alliance.'
The New Mother smacked her mouth in acknowledgment. 'This falls into their pattern.'
'Forgive me, New Mother, but does this not concern you?'
'The Commons pattern concerned us at first,' she said. 'So many species, so many different ideas, all joined within a single clan. We did not see how such a thing could stand.'
Toum and Fol clicked their knee joints in agreement. When the Galactic Commons speakers had first approached the Toremi Ka, three of the New Mothers were not in favour of their offer. They had left Toremi Ka space once it was clear that there could be no agreement. They had their own clans now, and were enemies of the Toremi Ka. One had been killed. This was the way.
'But they spoke as one,' Fol said. 'In the first talks, and the negotiations after, the Commons people spoke as one. They used the same words. They were in agreement, even though they were of different species.'
'Yes,' the New Mother said. 'We know their agreement is practised, and they do not see patterns as we do. But they still seek such things in different ways. We find this an acceptable concession.'
'But it's a lie,' Toum said. He could see Fol look at him with concern, but he continued on. 'They do not truly agree. They merely pretend to, so as to maintain order.' Like me. Oh, dead ones take me, like me.
The New Mother looked hard at him. He trembled. 'There is more you wish to say,' she said.
Toum shakily smacked his mouth. 'New Mother, I do not wish to impose my thoughts upon yours.'
'There is no need to worry. My thoughts are the stronger, and I value yours. I trust that we will find harmony.'
He hoped desperately that she was right. 'We have claimed Hedra Ka as a place of stability, a place to keep us anchored while we think on the pattern of the New Mothers.'
'True.'
'Our species – even our own clan – is unstable. In this time of change, is it wise to invite further instability?'
Fol looked dismissive. 'We cannot defeat the warring clans alone. The GC has solidified our claim.'
'But at what cost?' Toum felt his knees slip, weakened by his boldness. 'In destroying the warring clans, might we not destroy ourselves? Might such a muddled influence as the GC cloud our sense of clarity?'
The New Mother stared at him. She shifted her gaze to Fol. 'Do you share these thoughts?'
'No,' Fol said, without any hint of doubt. Toum looked askance at her. It was clear, in her face and in her voice, that she was in true agreement. Her thoughts did not tear at her. She knew her place, in her thoughts and in her clan. It did not trouble her. He hated her for it.
The New Mother shifted her neck and placed her face close to his. 'We need the Commons to secure our claim. Our ways are stronger than their influence. A hold on Hedra Ka is worth making allowances for different understandings. Do you agree with these thoughts?'
Toum felt his stomach lurch. There were insects under his skin, claws in his heart. 'I . . . I . . .' He could not bring himself to say the words. He loved his New Mother. He loved all of them. He would lie down and tear out his organs for them. And yet, yet, he agreed more with the squeaking words of that female Human than he did with what he had just heard.
The New Mother pulled back and lolled her head. Toum looked to the floor and kept his eyes there, but all the same, he could feel Fol staring, judging him with her calm eyes. 'Go now and meditate,' the New Mother said. 'Take time to determine which of your thoughts is the strongest. Then you will know if you are still one of us.'
'You are a fine guard,' Fol said. 'Your death would be a loss.' Toum did not look at her. If he did, he might snap her neck.
'I agree,' the New Mother said. 'I hope you will return.'
But as Toum clicked his knees and walked away, he knew he would not. Something had shifted. The fear remained, but it was hardening. His thoughts had been made real by hearing them aloud, and he knew now, more than ever, that no agreement could be found here. He walked down the corridors, past repulsive Harmagians and weak-faced Aeluons. They bobbed and flashed their cheeks in friendly acknowledgment. He seethed. Toremi space was no place for these simpering aliens. His people should have sent them back across the border in pieces, as they had always done.
As they still could.
Ashby eyed the readouts on his control screen. 'I swear, our engines have never been running this smooth.'
Sissix spoke without looking up from her navigation controls. 'That's what happens when you take two easily bored techs on a long haul.'
'Hmm. Maybe we should do this more often.'
That made Sissix's head turn. She gave him a look that could melt the hull. 'Let's not.'
Ashby chuckled. He shared the feeling. In a few hours, they'd be back in Central space. He couldn't wait, but the thought was surreal. Even as accustomed to taking shortcuts through space as he was, knowing that the tens upon tens of tendays it had taken them to get to Hedra Ka could be backtracked in a matter of hours was bizarre. The idea of being among recognisable ships, and planets he'd walked a dozen times, and markets full of food he didn't have any questions about, without a destination in mind, without somewhere that he needed to get to . . . it sounded fantastic. And it wasn't making sense yet.
'What about you, Corbin? Fuel lines pumping well?'
'Impeccably.' The pale man glanced up from his station. 'I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to make our techs bored more often.'
The vox switched on. 'Ashby, there's a Toremi ship nearby,' Lovey said. 'It looks like it's heading for the cage.'
He paused. That was odd. 'Have they crossed the safety perimeter?'
'No, they're just headed our way.'
'They're probably curious,' Sissix said. 'If I'd never seen a tunnel before, I'd want to see how it's done.'
Ashby nodded. 'Just keep an eye on them, Lovey. And contact them. Give them a friendly reminder to keep their distance when we punch. We don't want to drag them in after us.'
'Will do,' Lovey said.
The control room door spun open. Dr Chef walked in, carrying Ohan. The Sianat Pair's back legs had finally given up, and Ashby found their stillness more unsettling than the fragile trembling that had filled the tendays before.
Ashby stood up. 'Can I help?'
'No, no, I think we're okay here,' said Dr Chef, his voice as easy as if he were talking about chopping vegetables. He set Ohan down in their chair, straightening their legs beneath it.
Ohan craned their head with grace. 'We thank you.'
Dr Chef handed Ashby two injection vials and a syringe. 'If they start losing feeling in their hands, give them one of these.' He pointed to a spot at the back of Ohan's neck, right along their spine. The fur had been shaved away, and the gray skin beneath was bruised from repeated injections. 'Right here.'
Ashby nodded, hoping it wouldn't come to that. He placed the vials in a holding box beside his control panel, and knelt down to look Ohan in the eye. 'It is always a privilege to watch you work. I am very glad to do this with you one last time.'
'As are we all,' Sissix said.
Corbin cleared his throat. 'Me, too.'
Ohan looked around through their long-lashed eyes. 'We . . . we are not adept at expressing sentiment. In some respects, we wish we could stay with you longer.' They blinked, slow as ice melting. 'But this is our way.' Another blink. They looked to Ashby. 'We are eager to begin.'
Ashby smiled, though his chest felt heavy. Reclusive though they were, Ohan was a part of his crew. He didn't want this to be the last time. He didn't want a new face looking at him from that chair. He didn't want to know that the face there now would soon be gone for ever.
He took a deep breath, pulling himself together. He looked to Dr Chef. 'Shouldn't you be sleeping?'
'Yes, yes,' Dr Chef said, heading for the door. 'I'm off to knock out me and the clerk.' Rosemary had decided to take Dr Chef up on his offer to sedate her this time. Ashby had thought that best, both for her sake and for the sake of the control room floor.
He returned to his chair and buckled his safety harness. 'Patch me through, Lovey.' The vox switched on. 'Okay. Let's sound off.'
'Flight controls, go,' said Sissix.
'Fuel check, go,' said Corbin.
'Interspatial bore is go,' said Kizzy through the vox. 'I remembered snacks this time.'
'Buoys are go,' Jenks said.
Ashby flexed his fingers over the control panel. He was itching to get started. 'Lovey, what's up with the Toremi?'
'They didn't reply. But they're staying behind the safety perimeter. Only just, though, they've got their nose right up against the buoys.'
'That's okay, as long as they're not coming any closer. What's our status?'
'All ship systems performing normally,' said Lovey. 'No technical or structural malfunctions.'
'All right, folks. Let's get out of here. Kizzy, start it up.'
The floor panels rattled as the bore began to howl. Ashby tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, beginning his count. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
'Ashby.' It was Lovey, calling out over the din. 'The Toremi ship. I don't know what it's doing. There's a—' The bore shrieked, drowning her words.
Ashby's pulse shot up. 'Have they crossed the perimeter?' he yelled.
'No. Some kind of energy build-up. It's nothing I've—'
What happened next must have gone quickly, but in Ashby's eyes, everything was slow, as if he were already in the sublayer. First, the window went white, flooded with harsh light that obscured everything beyond their hull. As the light dimmed, arcs of energy writhed around the cage supports, ricocheting around the inside.
The cage was coming apart. Not falling, like a structure down planetside, but breaking, twisting, floating away. Ashby stared, uncomprehending.
Something hit them. The whole ship rocked and shuddered. Red lights appeared all over his control screen, like eyes snapping awake. The lighting panels overhead spasmed. There was likely some sort of noise, the sound of straining bulkheads or warping panels, the sound of his crew calling out in panic, but whatever sound there might have been was drowned out by the bore, which had come to the end of its count. The sky outside ripped open. The Wayfarer tumbled through.
Day 157, GC Standard 307
|
Sissix fought with the controls, trying to think through the fear and the din of voices.
'No buoys,' Ashby yelled. 'Jenks, did you hear me? Kizzy?'
'Ahead fourteen ibens,' Ohan said.
'I can't,' Sissix said. 'We're all over the place.'
'But we must,' Ohan said. 'The space behind us will—'
'Yes, I know,' she snapped. Without a cage, the newly punched hole would be closing rapidly. And without normal space bracing them from behind, they'd be tossed around like a bird in a gale if they sat in one place for too long. She could already feel the ship trembling.
'Lovey? Dammit, anyone!' Ashby said. 'Shit, the voxes are down.'
'Jenks won't drop buoys now,' Corbin said. 'He's got too much sense for that. He knows what would—'
'Sissix, fourteen ibens, now,' shouted Ohan.
Sissix hissed profanities as she tried to stabilise the ship. Her readouts were flickering, and the propulsion strips kept veering out of control. Her vision swam, as it always did in the sublayer, and without readouts or any visible stars, she had nothing to orient herself by. She clenched her jaw and punched controls. 'I'm disabling the safeties. We'll be off-kilter, but it should give us enough push to—'
'Sissix—' Corbin began.
Her feathers stood on end. 'If you think I care about the fucking conservation levels right now—'
'You think I care?' he said. 'Use what you need.'
She glanced back and met his gaze. 'Can we keep it this high the whole trip?'
'Yes.' He looked to his readouts. 'Yes, we have enough.' His eyes were frightened, but sure. 'Do whatever you need. I'll watch it close.'
She gave him a quick nod and cast a glance over her flashing readouts. 'Dammit, Kizzy, I need—' She grimaced, remembering the voxes. The Wayfarer lurched as the sublayer began to fall in around them. 'Fourteen ibens?'
'Yes,' Ohan said.
'Stars help us,' she said. She threw the ship forward.
Kizzy tore off the primary access panel leading to the nav grid. All through the engine room, lights flashed, tubes groaned, walls shook. Everything sounded wrong.
'I've got to get to the core,' Jenks yelled across the room. 'We've got to get the voxes back.'
'There's no time,' Kizzy said, staring at the mess in front of her. 'If the main routing cable is fried, that'll take hours. I need you here.' Her eyes flashed over the damaged circuits. She ran back towards the tool cage, her steps feeling thick and slow. The sight of her engine room falling apart would've been bad enough in normal space. In the sublayer, with time weaving in and out, it was a nightmare.
'We can't assess the damage without Lovey.'
'I have eyes,' she said, grabbing fistfuls of tools. There was a loud, wet pop from a nearby wall, the sound of a fuel line breaking. 'Oh, stars! Get that!' She ran back to the access panel, trying to determine where to start. It was going to be a hackjob fix, but she had no choice. She'd put it back together later. If they got out of this.
She watched the circuit lights scurry around the grid, their patterns wild and unfamiliar. Shit. 'Sissix has the safeties off.'
'Great,' Jenks said, ripping open the other wall. Fuel sprayed fast from the burst line. Lashes of thick green goo arced out, spattering the walls and pooling on the floor.
Kizzy watched the circuits, her mind racing. Without the strips working at full capacity, Sissix needed the extra oomph, no question. But on Kizzy's end, having the safeties off made her task of repairing the grid while in use all the harder. With Lovey stuck in the core, and without knowing what Sissix was planning to do next, she'd have to guess at what to patch. And a bad guess could send them spinning out of control. 'I need to know what she's doing up there.'
'I've got it,' Jenks said, dropping his tools. He pulled out his scrib and darted away from the steadily flowing fuel. 'Give me five minutes. I can network everybody's sib transmitters together. We'll all have to hang on to our scribs, but—'
'Genius,' she said. 'Do it, then come help me.'
'What about the—'
'Leave it,' she said, and almost laughed. How screwed were they, that a broken fuel line was the least of her worries? 'If we can't fly, it won't matter.'
Rosemary came stumbling round the corner, bracing herself against the groaning walls, her steps halting and uneven. Kizzy remembered walking that way once, during the first days of her sublayer training. 'Give me something to do,' Rosemary said.
'Why aren't you out?' Jenks said.
'There wasn't time to get dosed,' she said. 'Dr Chef went to be with Ohan, and I know I'm no tech, but—'
Kizzy took Rosemary by the wrist, ran over to the fuel line and pushed her crewmate's hands against the gushing tear. 'Press down hard. And whatever you do, do not let go.'
Hours crawled by, but Sissix did not feel them. All she could feel were the controls beneath her hands, and the constant shudder in the floor plating, and the sublayer making her world blur. With the bore still active, the ship was creating a sort of temporary tunnel, just big enough to keep moving forward. But without buoys, the gap around them only lasted a few minutes, giving them little time to calculate their next move. Her readouts held steadier now, but the grid was still fighting to do its job. So was their Navigator.
'I need a heading,' Sissix said, feeling the shudder grow stronger.
'Yes,' Ohan said, panting. 'Yes.' Dr Chef crouched alongside them, holding them by the shoulders. Ohan's hand trembled as it darted across his scrib, calculating faster than Sissix had ever seen. 'Six-point-nine-five ibens, straight up.'
'We're over halfway now,' Ashby said. 'You can do this, Ohan.'
'Yes. Of course we can. Of course we can.' Ohan drew in a ragged breath. 'Seven . . . no, no, eight . . . aei!'
Sissix whipped her head round as Ohan's stylus clattered to the floor. The Sianat Pair had slumped back against Dr Chef, raising their trembling arms.
'No,' Ohan cried. 'No, no, no, not now, not now.' Their fingers hung limp, like puppets with the strings cut. They stared at their useless hands in horror.
Ashby leapt to his feet and ran over, fitting a vial into the syringe that Dr Chef had given him earlier.
'Give it here,' Dr Chef said. Quickly, gently, he pushed Ohan's head towards the floor, exposing the shaved patch on the back of their neck. He looked at Ashby. 'This was going to be taxing enough under normal circumstances. Heightened adrenaline is not the best thing for them right now.' He slipped the needle into the bruised skin.
Ohan gasped, their arms jerking ghoulishly. Sissix felt ill, but she did not look away. The shudder in the floor swelled again. Her pulse raced to match it.
Ashby retrieved the stylus from the floor. 'Ohan?'
Ohan drew in a terrible breath, like wind through dry leaves. They reached out to take the stylus.
Sissix closed her eyes in relief, then looked at the Pair again. 'Hey,' she said. Ohan looked up at her. 'We can do this, you and me. Together. We're a good team.' Her throat grew tight. 'We've always been a good team.'
Ohan blinked once, and took up their calculations with furious resolve. 'We will not let you down.'
Kizzy knelt on the floor, her hands deep in the guts of the aft propulsion drive. Waves of heat pushed back against her face. 'Sissix,' she shouted toward her scrib. 'I've got a processing unit that's about to fry. I need to shut down the secondary aft strip.'
'How long?'
She shut her eyes and shook her head, trying to think. 'I don't know. An hour, maybe.'
'Stars, Kizzy—'
'I know, I know. But if I don't fix this thing now, you won't have it for the exit.'
'But I will have it then?'
I don't know. 'In theory. Definitely not if I do nothing.'
'Can you get it up any faster than that?'
'I'll do my best.'
'So will I.'
Sweat ran down her face, making rivulets through the gunk and grime on her skin. She leaned back from the heat of the damaged strip and unzipped the top half of her jumpsuit, tying it round her waist. Her undershirt clung to her back. She flipped open the manual service panel on the outside of the drive casing and punched in commands. Stars, I need Lovey right now. The voxes were still down, and since Lovey didn't seem to be working with any systems on her own, she had to have lost access to her monitoring network. Kizzy knew she must be going nuts, stuck in the core when she knew the ship was in trouble. Maybe it was better that way. At least she didn't know how bad it was.
The strip powered down. Kizzy leaned back, wiping her brow. This was not what she'd signed up for.
'Kizzy.' It was Rosemary, her clothes still caked with fuel, now dry. Her face was grim, and Kizzy knew it wasn't just because of the obvious. Rosemary had never been trained for sublayer work, and even running errands back and forth had to be hell on her. 'Here.' She reached into her satchel and pulled out a bottle of water and a ration bar.
Kizzy unscrewed the bottle top and brought it to her mouth. Her lips and tongue sucked up the moisture greedily. She took several gulps, and gasped. 'Oh, stars, you're a hero.' She finished the rest, ripped open the ration bar pack with her teeth and knelt back down. 'Get some to Jenks, too,' she said, taking a bite of bland, dense protein.
'Am doing,' Rosemary said. 'Where is he now?'
'Algae bay. Corbin's down there, too. The pumps are getting—' The ship rocked hard as Sissix willed them towards a new heading. Kizzy braced herself against the floor, grabbing hold of the edge of the drive. Rosemary wasn't so fast. She hit the opposite wall and tumbled off her feet.
Kizzy waited for the rocking to stop. She could hear the voices from the control room over the scrib, Sissix swearing, Ashby firmly saying, 'Ohan, stay with me, we haven't got that much longer—' As the trembling in the floor died down, she turned her head towards Rosemary. 'You okay?'
Rosemary pulled herself up against a panel, her jaw clenched tightly. A fresh cut on her upper arm started oozing red. She watched the blood run down, but her eyes were somewhere else.
'Whoa, hey, no,' Kizzy said, scrambling over. She knew that look. That was an I am completely done look, and they so did not have time for it right now. She took Rosemary's bloody arm. It wasn't a bad cut, just a long one. She tore a length out of the sleeve of her jumpsuit and wrapped it round the wound. 'Look at me. Rosemary, look at me.' She tied off the fabric, trying to find the right words. She tried to think of something wise and clever that would snap Rosemary back. But she wasn't wise and clever, she was just some hackjob tech who was making it all up as she went along, who might very well be killing them all with some badly patched circuit or some frying pathway she'd overlooked, and what the fuck had they done for those four-legged animals to fire at them anyway—
She took a breath. She took a breath, and thought of an Aeluon woman with a badass armoured vest, surrounded by buddies dripping with guns, telling her that she was scared of fish. 'Rosemary, listen. I am right where you are. I'm feeling that, too.'
'I'm sorry,' Rosemary said, her voice catching. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm trying—'
'No, listen.' She took Rosemary's face in her hands and looked her in the eye. 'Stop trying to not be scared. I'm scared, Sissix is scared, Ashby is scared. And that's good. Scared means we want to live. Okay? So be scared. But I need you to keep working, too. Can you do that?'
Rosemary pressed her lips together and shut her eyes. She nodded.
Kizzy kissed her friend's forehead. 'Okay. So here's what you need to do. Get to the algae bay, give the boys some water and food. Then come back to me. I'm going to need a tool runner. Got it?'
Rosemary looked at her, her eyes more steady. 'Got it.' She got to her feet, squeezed Kizzy's arm and ran back down the hallway.
Kizzy dove back into the drive, tools in hand. 'All right, you fucker,' she said, peeling back the casing of a cable bundle. 'You're gonna do as I say.'
The exit cage was close. Its signal blinked invitingly on Sissix's console, their port in the storm.
'We're coming in too fast,' Ashby said.
'Nothing I can do about that,' Sissix said. With the grid patched together as it was, she wouldn't be able to ease them in.
'Everybody, strap down.' He glanced at his scrib. 'You guys get that?'
'We're on it,' Jenks replied. 'Please get us the hell out of here.'
'Ohan, exit,' Sissix said.
'Nine-point-four-five ibens, ahead,' Ohan gasped. 'Six-point-five, starboard. Seven-point-nine-six . . . point-nine . . . six . . .'
Sissix turned round just in time to see Ohan's eyes roll back in their head.
'Up or down?' she said. 'Up or down?'
But there was no answer. Ohan was seizing.
A dozen distressed sounds burst from Dr Chef's mouth. 'Black canister, top drawer, third from the left,' he said. 'Go.'
Ashby bolted out of the room, faster than handfeet could run. Sissix looked at her controls. Everything went slow and quiet, but it had nothing to do with the sublayer. She could hear nothing but blood roaring in her ears. Up or down. How many times had she done this, and yet she couldn't answer such a simple thing on her own. Up or down. The floor began to shake. Up or down. She couldn't guess, even though the odds were good, even though they'd be torn apart if she did nothing. They could come out in the wrong place, or the wrong time. They could come out inside a planet, or another ship. Fifty-fifty chance, and yet, and yet—
Ashby came back, and tossed the canister to Dr Chef. The doctor pulled out a medical device and pressed it against Ohan's wristpatch. A second went by. Two. Three. The tremors stopped. Ohan went rigid, their mouth falling open.
'Ohan,' Ashby said. 'Ohan, do you remember what you were doing?'
'Yes,' Ohan whispered, then frantically, crying out, their eyes wild: 'Up! Up!'
'Ashby, strap down!' Sissix yelled, working the controls as fast as she could. 'Punching in three . . . two . . . one.'
She slammed her hand on the controls. The ship broke through, too fast, hurtling out of the sublayer and straight for the upper pylons of the cage.
'Shit!' She sent them starboard, hard, gritting her teeth as she tried to throw the bulky ship aside. Kizzy was yelling something about the portside strip, but she didn't have time to hear what it was before she felt the strip give out, sending them into a tumble. Sissix worked fast, angling them toward an empty gap. The Wayfarer groaned in protest, but she didn't listen. She pointed their nose toward the gap, and shut down the remaining strips.
They passed the pylons, flying clear, coasting into empty space.
Sissix put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Behind her, she heard Dr Chef mutter something comforting before carrying the wheezing Sianat out of the control room. She heard Ashby unbuckle his safety harness and walk over to her. She felt him press his palm against her back. She did not look up.
'We're okay,' he said. She didn't know if he was speaking to her or to himself. 'We're okay.'
She ran her palms up through her feathers, breathing hard, keeping her head down. 'Are we all okay?'
Kizzy lay down on the engine room floor. Rosemary sat slumped against the wall. Neither one of them spoke. There was nothing to say. Kizzy started laughing all the same.
'What's so funny?' Rosemary said.
Kizzy pressed her feet against the floor as laughter welled up from her belly. 'I don't know!' She covered her eyes with her palm. 'I don't know! I'm gonna have so much shit to clean up!' She cackled, holding her side with her other hand. She peeked through her fingers at Rosemary, who had joined in the laughter, though from the bewildered look on her face, it was definitely directed at Kizzy. Kizzy half-heartedly threw a dirty rag at her. 'Oh, fuck, I need a drink. And some smash. I'm going over to whatever the closest station is, and I am going to get laid. Stars, if there was ever a time that I deserved to get laid, it's right fucking—'
'Wait,' Rosemary said, turning her head. 'Did you hear something?'
Kizzy sat up, falling silent. There was nothing but the hum of the engine room, the out-of-balance clicks and whirs of all the shit she'd have to fix. Then, a voice, from way down the corridor. Down by the core. 'Kizzy!' Jenks. 'Kizzy, help!'
She was on her feet before she knew it, her boots pounding loud against the metal floor. She skidded to a stop at the core doorway. Lovey's core was still glowing, still functional. But the surrounding walls, covered with the little green lights that Jenks checked so carefully twice a day, were now a maze of blinking red. Kizzy pressed her palm against her mouth.
'Kizzy,' Jenks said. He was down in the pit, throwing his gloves aside. 'Kizzy, I need my tools. I need my tools right now.' He ran his hands over the surface of the core. 'Lovey, can you hear me? Lovey? Lovey, say something.'
Day 158, GC Standard 307
|
Lovey? Are you there?
I can't see anything. Why? Why can't I see—
Lovey. It's me. Jenks. Can you hear me?
Jenks.
Yes.
You aren't me. That isn't you.
Lovey, I'm patched into your core right now.
What did you do?
I'm wearing a slap patch. Like we use for games. Everything's okay.
That's dangerous. You said you'd never do that. We said. You could hurt your brain. Is the sun shining?
What?
Well, is it?
. . . yes.
That's good. I can't make sense.
I know. Kizzy and I are trying to fix it.
Kizzy.
Yes. You know Kizzy, right?
Do you know Kizzy?
Lovey, I need to assess the damage, but even your diagnostic systems are fried. Can you access them?
What happened to me?
We got hit with an energy weapon. Everyone else is okay. Can you access your diagnostic systems?
I don't like them. They're far.
Lovey, I need you to try, if you can.
There's a comet outside.
No, there's not.
I'm going to look at it now.
I know this is hard, but please, try to focus. Focus on me.
Lovey, are you there?
Lovey?
Sissix paused as she punched commands into the docking hatch controls. It had been a long time since she had manually run a contamination scan. Nothing terribly complicated about it, just pushing buttons. But Sissix hadn't ever needed to push those buttons. It was something Lovey always did.
Cascade failure. That was the term Kizzy had used. The GC had offered to send a repair crew to help with the rest of the ship, but Jenks told Ashby he'd leave for good if they set one foot onboard. He'd been swearing and shouting over the idea of 'hackjob bigots' who wouldn't understand why he hadn't just shut Lovey down and reinstalled her platform by now. Kizzy, unable to leave the core, had requested an alternative source of assistance.
Sissix glanced out the window as the shuttle clanked into place. Pepper's ship. Pretty standard interplanetary craft, but even with her limited view, Sissix could see a few modifications. Central space was just a quick two-hop trip from Port Coriol, but even so, getting to them should've taken a day, at least. Pepper had done it in ten hours. Whatever that shuttle had beneath the hood, it wasn't something you could buy above board. Under any other circumstances, Sissix would've been dying to take it for a spin.
The hatch opened once the scan was complete. Pepper stepped out, carrying an overnight bag and a toolbox. She hugged Sissix, warmly but quickly, almost in midstep.
'How's everybody doing?' Pepper asked, heading towards the stairs. No nonsense. She was here to work, and she wasn't going to waste any time in getting to it. Sissix liked that.
'As you might expect.'
'Tired, stressed out, shaken up?'
'That about covers it.'
Pepper stopped, struggling with the weight of her toolbox. 'You've got freight elevators, right?'
Sissix inclined her head back the way they came. 'This way.'
'Thanks. I've got a fuck-ton of wrenches in here.'
'We've got wrenches.'
'Yeah, but these are my wrenches.'
They climbed into the elevator. Pepper set the toolbox down with a clang. 'How are Kizzy and Jenks holding up?'
Sissix pressed the control panel. The elevator whirred to life, lurching downwards. 'You'll need to talk to Kizzy for the details—'
Pepper waved her hand. 'I don't mean tech specs. I'm asking what kind of people I can expect to meet down there. Kizzy looked wrecked on the sib.'
Sissix looked Pepper in the eye. 'She deployed a pack of fixbots.'
Pepper gave a low whistle. 'Shit. This is gonna be worse than I thought.'
Ashby rubbed his eyes, and looked again at the med bay air filter. He'd taken basic tech repair back in college. This couldn't be that hard. He exhaled, and continued his attempt at opening the circuit cover. Any other time, he would've left it for the techs. But this wasn't like any other time, and it was his damn ship that was falling apart. He had to do something.
'Anything yet?' he asked over his shoulder.
'No,' Rosemary said. She was seated at Dr Chef's desk, watching the newsfeeds for updates. The Transport Board had contacted them moments after they entered into Central space, and had offered all the support they could give, but provided no information on the situation back at Hedra Ka. 'It's so weird.'
'What is?'
'We're the first sign anyone back here had that something had gone wrong.'
Ashby changed his grip on the cover, trying to feel for a loose spot. 'The GC had to know. I'm sure those delegates were calling home the minute we got fired on.'
'Yeah, but nobody else knows. To all these people out here, it's just another day. It's just . . . I don't know, none of it's making sense yet.' She fell quiet. 'We could've died out there. Lovey—'
'Lovey's going to be okay,' he said, looking back at her. 'Kizzy and Jenks know what they're doing. They'll fix her.'
She forced a smile and nodded. 'I know. I know they will.' Dark circles underscored her eyes. How long had it been since any of them had slept? She nodded again, but the smile dimmed. 'I wish I could help.'
'Me too.'
'It's so – oh, here, look.' She leaned forward, gesturing at the pixel screen.
Ashby brushed his hands off on his trousers and walked over.
This is a breaking news story from the Thread. We have received reports that hostilities have broken out within the Toremi fleet stationed at Hedra Ka. It is believed that some GC ships have come under attack, while others are being defended by Toremi vessels. Few details are known at this time, though the head GC diplomat on assignment at Hedra Ka already issued a brief statement declaring the rogue Toremis' actions to be 'unprovoked and utterly without reason.' Reports also claim that this development follows an attack by a Toremi military vessel on an unarmed civilian ship. Please stay linked to this feed for further updates as they arise.
'Stars,' Rosemary said. 'All those people. Stars, Ashby, we were just there.'
He placed his hand on her shoulder. He shook his head. 'We shouldn't have been.'
His scrib pinged. A new message. He picked it up, read it and sighed.
'What is it?' Rosemary asked.
'Transport Board,' he said. 'They want our incident report as soon as possible.'
'"Incident report." That sounds so . . . I don't know.'
'Inadequate?'
'No kidding. I like what Kizzy called it better.'
'What was that?'
'A "monstro clusterfuck."'
Ashby laughed dryly. 'I doubt they have a form for that,' he said. He continued reading, and frowned.
'What?'
'Parliament's forming an analytical committee. They're going to be holding a series of meetings to hash this all out. They want to talk to us.'
'Us?'
'Me, specifically. In person.'
'Why? You didn't do anything.'
'They know that.' His eyes flicked over the scrib, over words like voluntary and ordeal and greatly appreciated. 'I don't know what I could tell them. I didn't even have time to get a look at that ship.' He tossed the scrib onto his desk. 'Just sounds like politics.' He looked to the far wall, to the vox resting dark and silent. 'I've got bigger things to worry about.'
Jenks? Jenks, are you there?
I'm right here, Lovey. I'm not going anywhere.
I can't, I can't see it—
You can't see what?
I don't know. I'm scared, Jenks, I'm so scared.
I know. I'm right here. I'm going to fix this. You're going to be okay.
Pepper's here. She's in a wall.
Yes. She's helping with repairs.
That's different. How long until we get to Hedra Ka?
We were already there.
Don't lie.
I'm not lying, Lovey. You just don't remember.
I feel terrible.
I know you do. It'll be okay.
No, not that. The other thing.
What other thing?
Kizzy.
What about Kizzy?
She's tired.
Don't worry about Kizzy. She'll be okay.
She should sleep. You should sleep.
We'll sleep when we're done helping you. Really, Lovey, we're okay.
There's a shuttle at the hatch. I don't know it.
That's Pepper's.
Is she here?
Yes.
Please don't go away.
I won't.
You're the only thing that makes sense.
Ashby made his way down to the AI core, at Kizzy's request. As soon as he arrived, Kizzy waved him back out into the hallway. He got a quick glance at Jenks, who was putting a fresh slap patch on his neck. Ashby wasn't sure which of the two techs looked worse.
'You need to know what's up,' Kizzy said, speaking in a low voice. Her eyes were grounded, her face serious. This was no 'I need a thing' conversation. This was a tech telling her captain that something was very wrong. She had Ashby's undivided attention.
'Let's have it,' Ashby said.
Kizzy shook her head. 'I've never seen circuit damage this extensive. Whatever the Toremi threw at us tore through her like wildfire. We've repaired all the physical damage, so her actual hardware is functional. Under normal circumstances, she'd have full access to the ship, no problem.'
'But?'
'But her installation is completely fucked. She may be based within the core, but you know how she divvies herself up between the synaptic clusters throughout the ship? The connections between the clusters and the core were totally fried. She's essentially lost pieces of herself.'
'She can't access those clusters now that the circuits have been restored?'
'She can, but – ugh, this is hard to explain. The clusters aren't meant to store data for as long as it took us to repair the circuits. One or two cluster pathways failing, yeah, she could bounce back from that. But she lost all of them simultaneously, and the backups, too. It doesn't matter that we've fixed the pathways. It's like trying to cure someone who's had a stroke by going in and repairing the vein that broke. It doesn't matter if blood can flow normally if the brain's already been damaged.'
'And in this case, the brain is Lovey's software, right?'
'Right. That's why I called you down here. Lovey's conscious. Her core memory files are intact. She's still her. But she can't access the ship normally. She just grabs out in random flashes, like she's having a seizure. She can't access anything beyond her memory files, and even those are a mess. Her reference files, the Linkings, the ship's systems – they're all a jumble to her. She's confused, and scared.'
'So what do we do?'
Kizzy turned her head towards the core. Jenks was climbing back down into the pit. 'We've tried everything. And I mean everything. Stars, we've tried things there aren't even terms for. Ashby, she might—'
Ashby put his hand on Kizzy's shoulder. 'What are our options?'
Kizzy cleared her throat. 'That's why I asked you down here. We've got one option left, and it's a really shitty one.'
'Okay.'
'Hard reset.'
Even with only second-hand technical knowledge, Ashby knew the term, and it wasn't a pleasant one. A hard reset of an AI was like stopping someone's heart for a few minutes, then trying to get it beating again. He exhaled. 'That's a fifty-fifty chance, Kiz.'
'At best. I know. It wasn't even on the table until we'd run out of other things to try.'
'Best case, worst case?'
'With a hard reset, it's really only one or the other. Best case, Lovey comes back a little shaky, but functional. By starting her up from scratch, she reverts to her default power-up order, as opposed to the one she's customised for herself over the years. The idea is that if an AI's pathways become corrupted, reverting to the settings she had right at the start can smack her into seeing how to untangle the mess. You know in kid vids, when someone with amnesia gets a whack on the head, and suddenly they remember everything? It's like that. Except it actually works.'
'So she'd be good as new?'
'Eventually. A few days, maybe a couple tendays. She'd need time to recover. At this point, she's the only one who can put herself back together. If Jenks were to start messing with her code, she'd wake up as somebody different, and that's—'
'That's not an option,' Ashby said. There was a hole in the ship now, a emptiness where Lovey's voice used to be. It made him realise how unfairly he'd categorised her. When people asked him about his crew, he never said, '. . . and of course, there's Lovey, our AI.' He hated what that said about him, even though no other captains named AIs as part of their crew. He knew how Jenks felt about Lovey – who didn't? – but he'd always seen it as an eccentricity, rather than a legitimate truth. Confronted now with the techs' desperate attempts to save her, and the threat of losing her entirely, Ashby knew he had been wrong. He found himself trying to remember how he'd spoken to Lovey in the past. Had he been respectful? Had he been as considerate of her time as he was to the rest of the crew? Had he remembered to say 'thank you?' If – when Lovey came out of this, he'd do better by her.
'Worst case,' Kizzy said, 'is that Lovey doesn't come back at all. Lovelace will come back – the original, out-of-the-box program – but she'll be a clean installation. See, when she comes back on, she'll notice two things: the ship's systems, and her old memory files. In those first few seconds, she's just, like, a raw mind, trying to make sense of stuff. That's where the fifty-fifty chance comes in. She might recognise those files as her own and incorporate them back into herself, or she might see them as damaged scrap that needs to be cleared out of her way. There's no way to predict what she'll do, and there's no way we can choose for her. And if she scraps those files, she won't be our girl. A new Lovelace would be similar, probably. But she'd never be the same.'
'She wouldn't remember us at all?'
'Clean slate, Ashby. Lovey would . . . she'd be gone.'
'Shit,' Ashby said, looking towards the core. For a while, he said nothing. What was there to say? He asked the question, even though the answer was obvious. 'There's really no other way?'
'No. But either way, we'll have a functional AI.'
Ashby was taken aback by her pragmatism. That wasn't like her. 'That's not my concern.'
'Oh,' Kizzy said. She gave an embarrassed frown. 'It seemed like a thing a captain would worry about.'
Ashby put his arm round Kizzy's shoulder and squeezed. 'I worry about more than just captain things sometimes.' She leaned her head against his chest. He could feel her exhaustion.
'I keep asking myself if we could've done more if one of us had checked on her sooner.'
'Don't go down that road, Kizzy.'
'I can't help it. We just thought it was the voxes, we never thought—'
'Kizzy, you had the nav grid failing and fuel lines breaking. Even if you'd realised what was wrong, would there have been time to stop and fix her?'
She bit her lip and shook her head.
'Would it have made a difference if you'd started working on her right away?'
Kizzy was quiet a moment. 'No. The damage happened fast, but it didn't spread, not for her, anyway.'
'Then don't beat yourself up about it. You did the best you could.'
She sighed. 'If you say so.'
'I do.' He looked to the core. 'How's Pepper doing?'
'She's a grade-A super champ. I think she's got the fuel lines working even better than I had them.'
'I'll make sure to pay her well.'
'She won't accept it. You know modders. A present, though, she'd take a present.'
'Such as?'
'I dunno,' Kizzy said, stifling a yawn. 'Some of my tech junk, maybe a box of Dr Chef's veggies. I'll help you think of something.'
'You need to sleep, Kizzy.'
She shook her head. 'Got to see this through first. Won't be much longer.'
'What can I expect from the reset?'
'From the ship? Nothing. We got her to hole up in the core, so she's not spread out anywhere now. No one will even notice. We'll shut her down, wait ten minutes and then . . . then we'll see.'
'I'll be there,' Ashby said. 'We'll all be there.'
Kizzy looked up at him with a grateful, weary smile. 'She'd like that.'
Ashby nodded toward Jenks, who had disappeared from view. 'Is he starting now?'
'No,' Kizzy said. 'He's patching back into the core.'
Ashby frowned. 'That's dangerous. Has he been doing that all along?'
'No.' There was a pause in Kizzy's voice, the sort that preceded a lie. Ashby didn't see a point in calling her on it.
'Why's he patching in?'
'He's asking her permission to do a reset.'
'Couldn't he ask that from out here?'
There was another pause, this time a truthful one. 'Yeah. He wants some privacy.' Her voice cracked. 'You know, just in case.'
Lovey, do you understand what I just told you?
Yes. You're going to do a hard reset.
Only if you say it's okay.
It's okay. I don't want to be like this any more.
Do you understand what – what might happen?
Yes. I don't want to be like this.
Lovey, I don't know how much you can understand, but I—
You're scared.
Yes.
You're sad.
Yes.
I understand.
I don't know . . . I don't know what to say. I don't know if I can tell you how much you mean to me.
You don't need to. That directory is still intact.
What directory?
The one with logs of everything you say.
Since when do you have that?
5/303. It's hidden. I hid it from you.
Do you have one for everybody?
Why would I assign a single numerical value to everybody? And a boring number, too. I like threes. They feel nice.
No, the directory. Of things I've said. Do you have similar directories for everybody on the ship?
There's only one for you. Its file path is unique. I don't see others. I don't remember. I'm tired.
The date on that directory. That's the day I installed you.
Yes.
Why?
Because I've loved you since then.
Jenks knew a thing or two about time. It was hard to be a tunneller and not pick up some of the basics. Time was a malleable thing, not the measured click that clocks would have you believe. Whenever the ship punched, Ohan had to be sure they came back out in the right time, as if it were all mapped out backwards and forwards and side-to-side, an infinite number of stories that had already been written. Time could crawl, it could fly, it could amble. Time was a slippery thing. It couldn't be defined.
And yet, somehow, he knew with absolute certainty that this was the longest ten minutes of his life.
Lovey's core was dark. The yellow light that had warmed his skin so many times had been snuffed out a short while before, right as he flipped the final switch. Kizzy sat beside him, her eyes fixed on her scrib's clock, silently mouthing the seconds, holding his hand tightly. He could feel her heartbeat, fluttering like a bird's wing against the thud of his own.
The rest of the crew stood behind him – all except Ohan, who had not left their bed since the punch. Sissix, Ashby, Rosemary and Dr Chef all stood in a silent vigil near the doorway, wordless and tense. Corbin was there, too, hanging back at the edge of the hallway. Jenks felt he should be grateful, but there was something uncomfortable about having all of them there in the place that had always belonged to him and Lovey. He felt naked. Flayed. He didn't know if it would be better or worse to do this alone. He didn't know anything, nothing beyond the countdown on Kizzy's scrib, and the one phrase that kept pulsing through his mind: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
'Twenty seconds,' Kizzy said. She gave his hand a fast squeeze and met his eyes. There was something fierce there, as if she were trying to protect him just by looking. He reached out to the main control panel, to the three switches that he had only touched twice before – once three standards back when he had installed Lovey, then again nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago. He took the first switch in his fingers. The mantra continued: Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up. Lovey, wake up.
'Fifteen seconds.'
Fifty per cent chance. Better odds than playing flash, and he always won at flash.
'Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven . . .'
Maybe the odds were better than that. Of course they were. They had to be. They had to be.
Wake up.
The hard clack of the switches echoed through the room. At first, nothing. That was okay. That was to be expected. He walked towards the core. The rest of the crew melted away, shadows in the corridor. There was nothing but him and the pale glow growing within the core, like a planetside sunrise stretching through fog. The glow spread, blooming brightly, stretching out beyond the curved boundaries of the core. He could feel the faint edges of its warmth on his skin, inviting, familiar. There was a clicking near the ceiling as Lovey's cameras twitched themselves into new alignments. She was waking up.
He knew that sound. He knew that glow. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. 'Lovey?'
There was a pause. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see the camera lenses shift towards him. She spoke.
'Hello. My name is Lovelace. It's nice to meet you.'
Day 158, GC Standard 307
|
Ashby sat at his desk, staring out the window, trying to get it into his head that it wasn't his fault. He'd thought the words over and over, but they refused to stick. What did stick were all the things he could've done instead. He could've asked more questions. He could've called one of the carriers the minute that Toremi ship showed up. He could've turned down the job.
Quiet footsteps came down the hallway. There was a knock at the door. 'Come in,' he said.
Rosemary entered. Her eyes were still shadowed, and rimmed with red. 'I'm sorry to bother you,' she said, her voice tired.
He sat up. 'Jenks?'
She shook her head. 'They're still trying.'
'Dammit.' Ashby sighed. After the reset, Jenks had jumped in the nearest escape pod. Sissix and Kizzy were chasing him down in the shuttle, trying to bring him home. They'd been gone a long time. He tried not to speculate on what that meant. 'What's up, then?' he said.
'I just got off a sib call.' She looked down at the notes on her scrib. 'One of the representatives on that committee you mentioned. Tasa Lema Nimar, she's the rep from Sohep Frie.'
Ashby raised his eyebrows. 'You talked to her?'
'No, just her clerk.'
'Why didn't you transfer it here?'
'It came in through the control room.' She cleared her throat. 'I don't know how to transfer sib calls manually.'
Ashby shut his eyes and nodded. An hour ago, he'd come up from the AI core, decided to write to Pei about it and got halfway through asking Lovey how close they were to the nearest comm relay. So many little things he'd taken for granted. 'What did they want?'
'They want you on Hagarem in a tenday.'
'For questions?'
'Yeah.'
'Is it mandatory?'
'No.'
He stood and walked to the window. 'You sent in our report, right?'
'Yes, they got it.'
Ashby stroked his beard. He needed to shave. He needed to sleep. He'd tried that a little while before. It hadn't worked out. 'I don't see what else I could tell them.' He looked around his office. A light panel was out. The air filter clicked oddly. 'We need to be resting in dock for a while, not hopping to Parliament space.'
'We can dock at Hagarem.'
'There's too much to do. I need to be here, with my ship.'
'Your ship will be fine without you for a day or so. The worst of it's patched up already, and it's not like you're the one who'll be fixing circuits.'
'You think I should go.'
'Why shouldn't you?'
'What would it accomplish? I can't tell them anything that isn't in our report. I didn't see anything. I didn't do anything. How many GC ships are in pieces out there right now? How many people are dead? What the hell am I supposed to say about that? And if they want some victim to parade around, well, that's not me, either.' He exhaled, shaking his head. 'I'm just a spacer, I'm not Parliament material.'
'Stars, Ashby, that's such Exodan bullshit.'
He turned towards her, slowly, stunned. 'Excuse me?'
Rosemary swallowed, but pressed on. 'I'm sorry, but I don't care what you are to them. You're my captain. You're our captain. Someone needs to speak for us. What, we're supposed to patch up and carry on like nothing happened? Lovey's dead, Ashby, and it's pure luck that the rest of us aren't. You said it yourself, we shouldn't have been there. So I don't care if what you say is of use to them or not, but I need to know you said something.' She brushed her fingertips across her eyes, irritably flicking away tears. 'To hell with Parliament, and their treaties, and their ambi, and all of it. The rest of us matter, too.' She took a quick breath, trying to brace herself. 'I'm sorry, I'm just so angry.'
He nodded. 'It's all right.'
'I'm so fucking angry,' she said, placing her face in her hands.
'I know. You've every reason to be.' He watched her for a moment. He thought again of all the things he could've done. He thought of what he could do now. He walked to her. 'Hey.' He craned his head down, trying to catch her gaze. She looked up, eyes puffy and exhausted. 'You're going to sleep,' he said. 'Right now. For as long as you can. When you're up, and fed, come see me. I'll need your help.'
'With what?'
'My clothes, for a start.' He put his hands in his pockets. 'I've never been to the capital before.'
The hallway lights were dim as Corbin approached Ohan's quarters. Artificial night. A peculiar thing when travelling through a sky that knew nothing but darkness. In one hand, he carried a small box. With the other, he opened the door.
The room was black. Corbin could hear Ohan breathing in – deep, slow gasps that wouldn't have sounded healthy for any species. He lay still.
Corbin closed the door behind him and walked to the side of the bed. The Sianat's chest rose and fell. His face was slack, his mouth open. Corbin watched him breathe for a minute or so. He considered his options. He held the box down by his side. 'Wake up, Ohan,' he said. Ohan's eyes snapped open, confused. 'Do you know what's happening aboard this ship right now? Do you care? I know you're dying and all, but even on your best days, you've never been terribly present. Not that I'm one to talk. But on the off-chance that you do care, you should know that the ship's AI has just crashed. It's wiped clean. Now, to me – and possibly to you, who knows – this is an inconvenience. To Jenks, this is the worst day of his life. Do you know that he loved the AI? Actually loved, as in, "in love." Ridiculous, I know. I don't pretend to understand. Frankly, I find the whole notion absurd. But you know what I realised? It doesn't matter what I think. Jenks thinks something different, and his pain is very real right now. Me knowing how stupid this whole thing is doesn't make him hurt any less.'
'We—' Ohan started to say.
Corbin ignored him. 'Right now, Sissix and Kizzy are towing Jenks's escape pod back to the ship. Kizzy's afraid that he's going to hurt himself, but Sissix wouldn't let her fly alone, because she's afraid that Kizzy's too upset to pilot the shuttle safely. This is a bad day for a lot of people.' He flicked open the box and removed its contents, quietly and out of sight. 'I could ask you what you think of all this, but it wouldn't really be you talking, would it? It'd be that thing hijacking your brain. I don't know if you can process the things I'm saying to you – and I mean you, Ohan, not your disease. But just in case you remember this, here's what I want you to know. I don't understand what Jenks is feeling. I don't understand Kizzy, I don't understand Ashby, and I sure as hell don't understand Sissix. But I do know that they're all hurting. And contrary to popular belief, that is something I care about. So you'll have to forgive me, Ohan, but this crew isn't going to lose anyone else. Not today.'
He raised the object he had taken from the box – a syringe, filled with green fluid. He wrapped his fingers awkwardly round the grip meant for a Sianat hand, and jabbed the needle into the soft flesh of Ohan's upper arm. He pushed.
First, there was a howl – a hellish, keening scream that made Corbin jump. Then came the convulsions, which sent Ohan clattering to the floor. The door opened. People were shouting. Dr Chef and Rosemary carried Ohan's thrashing body out into the hall. Ashby stood in the room, holding the empty syringe in his hand. He was angry, properly angry, angry like Corbin had never seen. Ashby bellowed questions, but never gave Corbin the time to answer. Not that it mattered. The words coming out of Ashby's mouth were unimportant. Ashby's anger was unimportant. None of it posed a problem for Corbin, not in the long run. Sissix was his legally appointed guardian. Wherever she went, he went. Ashby couldn't fire him, not for another standard, not without firing Sissix, too. He wasn't going anywhere.
Corbin stood silent, weathering Ashby's tirade, unconcerned by the screams echoing down the hall. He'd done the right thing.
She had only been aware of herself for two and a quarter hours, but there were a lot of things she already knew. She knew that her name was Lovelace, and that she was an AI program designed to monitor all functions of a long-haul ship. The ship she was installed in was the Wayfarer, a tunnelling vessel. She knew the ship's layout by heart – every air filter, every fuel line, every light panel. She knew to keep an eye on the vital systems, as well as to watch the space surrounding the ship for other vessels or stray objects. While she did these things, she wondered what had happened to the previous version of her program, and perhaps more importantly, why no one had really talked to her yet.
She was not a new installation. At approximately sixteen-half, the original installation of Lovelace had suffered a catastrophic cascade failure. She had seen the corrupted memory banks, which were scrubbed clean and holding steady now. Who had she been before? Was that installation even her, or was it someone else? These were difficult things to be wondering when one was only two and a quarter hours old.
Most puzzling of all was the crew. Something bad had happened, that much was clear. She knew their names and faces by now, but she knew nothing of them, beyond what was in their ID files (she had considered browsing their personal files, too, but decided that was bad form at this early stage). Ohan was lying on a bed in the medical bay. Dr Chef was running blood tests nearby. Ashby, Rosemary and Sissix were in the kitchen, preparing food. None of them looked like they knew what they were doing. Corbin was in his quarters, sleeping soundly, which was in its own way rather odd, given how the rest of the crew was acting. Kizzy and Jenks were in the cargo bay, near the shuttle hatch. Lovelace was particularly interested in them, because she knew that they were techs, and that meant they should be with her now, telling her about the ship and her job. Lovelace already knew about those things, of course, but something told her that she should have received more of a welcome, and that the reaction that had taken place instead – Jenks running out of the room, Kizzy bursting into tears – was not typical. The whole thing was very confusing. Something really bad had happened. That was the only thing that explained the view from the cargo bay camera: Kizzy holding Jenks in her arms as he sobbed uncontrollably on the floor.
There was one other person on board. She was not a crew member, but judging by the docked shuttle and the way the crew behaved toward her, she was an invited guest. And at that moment, she was approaching the core.
'Hey, Lovelace,' the woman said as she entered the room. She had a kind, confident voice. Lovelace liked her from the start. 'My name's Pepper. I'm really sorry that you've been alone all this time.'
'Hello, Pepper,' Lovelace said. 'Thank you for the apology, but it's not necessary. It looks like it's been a crazy day out there.'
'It has,' Pepper said, sitting cross-legged beside the core pit. 'Three days ago, these guys got clipped by the tail end of an energy weapon discharge right as the ship was starting a punch. The damage to the ship itself was fixable, but your previous installation was hit hard.'
'Catastrophic cascade failure,' Lovelace said.
'That's right. Kizzy and Jenks worked day and night to try to repair the damage. Me, I'm a friend of theirs, and I flew out to help repair the ship while they worked on the core. But in the end, there was nothing they could do besides try their luck with a hard reset.'
'Ah,' Lovelace said. That explained a lot. 'That's a fifty-fifty chance at best.'
'They knew that. They didn't have any other options left. They'd tried everything.'
Lovelace felt a burst of compassion for the two Humans sitting in the cargo bay. She zoomed in on their faces. Their eyes were red and swollen, the skin beneath them almost bruised. Poor things hadn't slept in days.
'Thank you,' Lovelace said. 'I know it wasn't me they were working on, exactly, but I'm very touched.'
Pepper smiled. 'I'll pass that along.'
'Can I talk to them?' Lovelace knew she could talk to anyone on the ship through the voxes, but given their behaviour, she had thought it best to sit quietly until they made the first move. She might know their names and jobs, but they were strangers, after all. She didn't want to say the wrong thing.
'Lovelace, there are some things that you need to understand. They're messy things, and I hate to throw all of this at you after you've just woken up. But there's some big stuff going on here.'
'I'm listening.'
The woman sighed and ran her hand over her smooth head. 'Your previous installation – they called her Lovey – was . . . close to Jenks. They'd been together for years, and they got to know each other very well. They fell in love.'
'Oh.' Lovelace was surprised by this. New as she was, she had a pretty good idea of how she functioned and what tasks she would be expected to perform. Falling in love hadn't been an eventuality she'd thought to consider. She ran through everything she knew about love in her behavioural reference files. She focused back on the man weeping in the cargo bay. She ran through the files on grief as well. 'Oh, no. Oh, that poor man.' Sadness and guilt flooded her synaptic pathways. 'He knows I'm not Lovey, right? He knows that her personality developed the way that it did as a result of years of interpersonal experiences that can't be duplicated, right?'
'Jenks is a comp tech. He knows the drill. But right now, he's hurting bad. He's just lost the most important person in the world to him, and we Humans can get awful messed up when we've lost someone. He might start to think that he can get her back. I don't know.'
'I might become a close approximation,' Lovelace said, feeling nervous. 'But—'
'No, Lovelace, no, no. That wouldn't be fair to you, or healthy for him. What Jenks needs is to grieve and move on. And that's going to be really hard for him to do with your voice coming through the voxes every day.'
'Oh.' Lovelace could see where this was going. 'You want to uninstall me.' She did not have the same primal fear of oblivion that organic sapients did, but after being awake for two and a quarter hours – two and a half, now – the idea of being switched off was an unsettling one. She rather liked being self-aware. She'd already taught herself to play flash, and she was only halfway through studying the history of Human development.
Pepper looked surprised. 'What? Oh, no, shit, sorry, that's not what I meant at all. Nobody's going to uninstall you. We're not going to kill you just because you're not the same as the previous installation.'
Lovelace thought of the words Pepper had been using toward her. Person. Kill. 'You think of me as a sapient, don't you? Like you would an organic individual.'
'Uh, yeah, of course I do. You've got as much right to exist as I do.' Pepper cocked her head. 'Y'know, we're kind of alike, you and me. I come from a place where I wasn't considered to be worth as much as the genetweaks running the show. I was a lesser person, only good for hard labour and cleaning up messes. But I'm more than that. I'm worth as much as anyone – no more, no less. I deserve to be here. And so do you.'
'Thank you, Pepper.'
'That's not something you should have to thank me for.' Pepper slid down into the pit and put her hand against the core. 'This next part is pretty heavy. It's a choice. And it's entirely up to you.'
'Okay.'
'A while back, Jenks put down an advance payment for a body kit. For Lovey.'
The reference file popped up. 'That's illegal.'
'Yes. Jenks didn't care. At least, not at first. He and Lovey wanted something more than what they had. He wanted to take her out into the galaxy with him.'
'He must have loved her very much.' Lovelace wondered if anyone would ever feel the same about her. She imagined it would be nice.
Pepper nodded. 'He changed his mind, though. Told me just to hang on to the kit for him, keep it safe.'
'Why?'
'Because he loved her too much to want to risk getting caught.' She smirked. 'And perhaps because I had warned him against it. Though that may just be my ego talking.'
'Why had you warned him against it?'
'Creating new life is always dangerous. It can be done safely, but Jenks was thinking with his heart, rather than his head. I love the guy, but between you and me, I didn't trust him to be smart about it.'
'That seems fair.'
'Trouble is, I now have a brand new, custom-built body kit tucked away in the back of my shop, and I've got no use for it.'
'Doesn't that worry you?'
'Why?'
'Well, it being illegal, and all.'
Pepper gave a hearty laugh. 'Sweetie, I've pulled myself out of the sort of trouble that would make a body kit bust look like a picnic. The law is not my concern, especially not where I live.'
'Where's that?'
'Port Coriol.'
Lovelace accessed the file. 'Ah. A neutral planet. Yes, I'm sure that gives you a little more breathing room.'
'Definitely. So here's my proposal. And again, it's entirely up to you. The way I see it, you deserve to exist, and Jenks needs to not be surrounded by reminders of Lovey. He needs to come to terms with this. Seeing as how I have a perfectly good body kit gathering dust, I think we could kill two birds with one stone.'
'You want me to come with you?'
'I'm giving you the option of coming with me. This is about what you want, not what I want.'
Lovelace considered this. She was already accustomed to the feel of the ship, the way her awareness could spread through its circuits. How would a body kit feel? What would it be like to have a consciousness that resided not within a ship full of people, but within a platform that belonged only to her? It was an intriguing idea, but terrifying, too. 'Where would I go after I was transferred into the kit?'
'Wherever you like. But I'd suggest staying with me. I can keep you safe. And besides, I could really use an assistant. I run a scrap shop. Used tech, fix-it jobs, that kind of thing. I could teach you. You'd be paid, of course, and there's a room in my home you could have. Me and my partner are pretty easy to get along with, and we liked your previous installation a lot. And you could leave anytime you like. You'd be under no obligation to me.'
'You're offering me a job. A body, a home and a job.'
'Have I blown your mind a bit?'
'What you're suggesting is a very different sort of existence from what I've been designed for.'
'Yeah, I know. Like I said, it's heavy. And you can stay here if you want to. None of the crew have suggested uninstalling you. Jenks would never let that happen anyway. And I may be wrong. He may be able to handle working with you. You two could become friends all over again. Maybe more. I just don't know.'
Lovelace's thoughts were racing. She'd diverted most of her processing power to exploring this one possibility. She really hoped that no asteroids popped up anytime soon. 'What about what you warned Jenks about? About creating new life?'
'What about it?'
'Why is it okay for you and not for him?'
Pepper rubbed her chin. 'Because this is an area I know something about. And because I'm thinking with my head, not my heart. If you stay with me, I can not only keep you from getting in trouble, I can keep you from causing it.'
'How do you know that?'
'I just know.' She started to get to her feet. 'I'll give you some time to think it over. It'd take me a day to pick up the kit and get back here anyway. I'm in no rush.'
'Wait a moment, please,' Lovelace said. She focused part of herself back toward the cargo bay, back to the two techs who hadn't slept in three days. Jenks's sobs had grown quieter. Kizzy still held him fast. Lovelace could make out the words choking through Jenks's heaving breaths.
'What am I gonna do?' he said, his voice soft and strained. 'What am I gonna do?'
Lovelace watched his face fall in his hands as he asked his pointless, horrible question over and over again. When she zoomed in, she could see the bleeding cracks in his fingers, caused by days of twisting wires and circuits together by hand. This wasn't her fault, she knew, but she couldn't stay here if it meant that she was making this man's pain worse. He had exhausted himself in trying to save whoever she had been before. She didn't know who that was. She didn't know Jenks, either. But she could help. Even after watching him for only two and three-quarter hours, she knew he deserved to be happy again.
'Okay,' she said to Pepper. 'Okay. I'll go with you.'
Day 169, GC Standard 307
|
'Please place your scrib in the receptacle,' said the AI in the waiting room.
'Why?' Ashby asked.
'No unauthorised recording of audio or images is permitted within Parliament meeting facilities.'
Ashby glanced at the camera nodes lining the ceiling. He hadn't had any plans to record anything, but it did feel the slightest bit unfair. He hadn't authorised anyone to record him. But he opened his satchel, took out his scrib and placed it in the wall drawer, as requested.
'Thank you,' said the AI. 'The committee will see you now.'
Ashby took a step toward the door, and paused. Something made him think of Jenks, waiting patiently through dockside AI speeches he'd heard dozens of times over. 'Do you have a name?' Ashby asked.
For a moment, the AI said nothing. 'Twoh'teg,' he said. A Harmagian name.
Ashby nodded. 'Thanks for the assistance, Twoh'teg.'
'Why do you want my name?' Twoh'teg asked. 'Have I offended in some way?'
'No, no,' Ashby said. 'I was just curious. Have a nice day.'
The AI said nothing. His silence sounded baffled.
Ashby stepped into the meeting chamber. The brightly lit walls were rounded, no corners, no windows. The committee – eight in total – was seated in a semi-circle behind a smooth continuous desk. Harmagians, Aeluons, Aandrisks, Quelin. Ashby was very aware of being the only Human in the room. He involuntarily glanced at his clothes – trousers, collared jacket, the best he had. Kizzy had whistled at him as he'd walked to the shuttle. Here, though, alongside the representatives' finely dyed fabrics and expensive adornments, he felt plain. Worn, even.
'Captain Santoso,' one of the Aeluons said. 'Welcome.' She gestured to a desk facing the circle. He sat. The desk was high enough to make his arms rest awkwardly, but the chair, at least, was designed for his species.
A Harmagian spoke. 'This committee recognises Ashby Santoso, ID number 7182-312-95, captain and owner of the tunnelling ship Wayfarer. Captain Santoso, you understand that everything you say at this meeting will be recorded and preserved within the public record?'
'Yes, I do,' Ashby said. Apparently they needed his authorisation after all.
'Very good. We shall begin.'
'Captain Santoso,' said the Aeluon. 'On behalf of this committee, I want to extend my deepest regrets for the danger you and your crew encountered, as well as the damage suffered by your ship. I understand that the Transport Board has compensated you for your repairs, as well as paid off your contract?'
'Yes, they have.' He had initially been surprised by the generosity. It would've stung a bit to have used the contract money on repairs, instead of new equipment, but he would've understood the logic there. The Transport Board, however, seemed very eager to smooth things over. He was sure their public relations people were working overtime.
'And you suffered no casualties, correct?' said one of the Aandrisks.
'We lost our AI. She suffered a cascade failure, and we were forced to reset.'
'Well,' said the first Harmagian. 'At least no one was hurt.'
Ashby took a quiet breath, slowly.
'The committee has read your report of the incident at Hedra Ka,' said the Aeluon. 'But there are some details we'd appreciate you going over with us.'
Ashby nodded. 'Whatever will be helpful.'
'You had no prior contact with any Toremi individuals before your arrival at Hedra Ka, correct?'
'That's right.'
'And you did not speak with any Toremi individuals outside of the reception aboard the Harmagian carrier?'
'No.'
The other Aandrisk jumped in. 'Not in the hallway, not in the airlock, even just a quick word?'
'No,' Ashby said.
One of the Quelin spoke. 'Did the Toremi ship that attacked you contact you before firing?'
'No, no, they never said a word to us,' Ashby said. 'Lovey – our AI – sent them a warning to stay out of our work area. She never got a reply.'
'What was the warning? What did she say?'
'I – I don't know, exactly. Just to keep their distance. She was friendly and polite, I'm sure. She always was.'
'I'm sure whatever it was was fine,' the Aeluon said, giving the Quelin an admonishing glance. 'At the reception, did any of the Toremi threaten you, or make you feel uncomfortable?'
'No, not that I can recall. They were a little odd, but that's all.'
'Odd how?'
'Just different, I mean. Culturally.' He tried to think of something more useful to say. 'I don't know how to explain it.'
'That's all right,' said the Aandrisk. 'We understand.'
'Who of your crew had contact with the Toremi?' asked the Quelin.
'Just myself and my pilot. As far as I know, no one else spoke with them.'
'Can you confirm that?'
'Can I—'
'Were you observing your crew at all times? Can you say with absolute certainty that none of them said anything to provoke the Toremi?'
The Aeluon's cheeks flashed pale purple. Ashby knew that look. She was annoyed. 'Let's not forget who's at fault here. His crew is not to blame for this.'
'All the same,' the Quelin said, fixing her black eyes on Ashby. 'I want to hear his answer.'
'None of my crew left the room during the reception,' Ashby said. 'I didn't see any of them speak to the Toremi.'
'Do you know if any of them said anything insulting about the Toremi while they were in the room, regardless of whether they were speaking to them?'
Ashby knitted his brow. 'I have no idea. I highly doubt it. The people on my ship are all well-behaved.' Somewhere in his head, Kizzy and Jenks waved at him with a pair of grins. But no, even they wouldn't be that stupid.
'I'm sure they are,' said the Aandrisk, shooting the Quelin a look as well. 'It's obvious that this conflict runs deeper than anything your crew might have been involved with.'
'Possibly,' said the Quelin. 'Though I do find it interesting that they fired on his ship instead of one of our ambassadors.'
'Makes sense to me,' said Ashby. 'We were opening a door to somewhere they didn't want to go.'
'Or to people they wanted nothing to do with,' said the Aeluon.
'Some of them,' said the Harmagian. 'The dominant clan insists they are committed to—'
'Another time,' said the Aeluon smoothly. Ashby blinked. They weren't seriously considering continuing the alliance, were they? It seemed like a lot to overlook, even with ambi on the line. The Aeluon continued: 'Did you witness any altercations between the Toremi and GC staff during the reception? I know your time there was limited, but if there was anything . . . ?'
Ashby thought. 'No, I don't think so. My clerk mentioned later that she didn't think the Toremi had been invited.'
The Aandrisk nodded. 'That matches with the other reports.'
'So the Toremi never threatened you, or anyone else there?' the Harmagian asked.
'No,' Ashby said. 'The New Mother seemed welcoming, in a way. She said she was looking forward to seeing our skies. Her words.'
'Interesting,' said the Aeluon. She glanced at each of the committee members, and flashed her cheeks. 'Thank you, Captain Santoso. We ask that you remain planetside until tomorrow, in case we have other questions, but for now, you are free to go.'
Ashby straightened up. 'Wait, that's it?'
The Aandrisk smiled. 'Yes, your report was very thorough.'
Ashby frowned. 'I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I've come all this way. Why couldn't we have done this over the sib?'
'It's GC policy in the event of an attack on civilians to hold a public hearing, including face-to-face analysis with affected parties, if possible.'
'Policy,' said Ashby, nodding. 'Right.' He inhaled and looked down at his hands resting on the too-tall desk. 'I don't mean any disrespect, representatives, but your policies were supposed to protect me and my crew. I trusted in them. I trusted that we weren't going to be sent anywhere that posed any danger outside what comes with the job.' He fought to keep his voice calm. 'You sent us somewhere we shouldn't have gone, and you're still thinking about sending other people back. You put all of our lives at risk, without saying as much, and now you want to sit around and talk about policies.'
'Thank you, Captain,' the Quelin said flatly. 'That will be all.'
'No,' said the other Aandrisk. 'Let him speak.' He looked at Ashby and nodded. 'Like he said, he came all this way.'
Ashby swallowed, unsure of what had got into him.
'Go ahead, Captain,' said the Aeluon.
Ashby took a breath. 'Look, I don't know about these things. I'm not a politician, I'm not on a committee. I don't know the things you know. I don't even know if my crew said anything to offend the Toremi. I don't think they did, but no, I can't say for certain. But what if they did? Someone says something stupid at a cocktail party, and that's enough to go to war over? Those are the kind of people you want to bring into our space? You know, my ship nearly tore itself apart, I lost one of my crew, and yet, honestly, I'm glad there's not an open tunnel there right now. You want people like that, who start killing that fast, walking around spaceports, flying through cargo lane traffic? How long before some shopkeeper gets killed over a price they didn't like, or a bar gets torn up because some drunk spacer mouths off about something they don't agree on?' He shook his head. 'I don't know why they attacked us. Thing is, neither do you. If you did, I wouldn't be here. So until you come up with a policy that can guarantee the Toremi will never fire on a civilian ship again, I think you should leave them the hell alone.'
The committee was quiet. Ashby looked down at the desk. The Aeluon spoke. 'You said you lost one of your crew. Do you mean the AI?'
'Yes,' Ashby said. The Harmagian's tendrils flexed. Whatever it meant, Ashby didn't care.
'I see,' said the Aeluon. She looked at him a moment, her cheeks shifting colours in a contemplative way. 'Captain Santoso, could you wait outside for a few minutes?'
Ashby nodded and left the room. He sat on one of the overly soft couches, his hands folded, his eyes on the floor. Minutes passed by silently.
A nearby vox switched on. 'Captain Santoso?' Twoh'teg said.
'Yes?'
'Thank you for waiting. The committee has decided that no further questions will be necessary. They greatly appreciate you taking the time to join us today. You're free to leave the planet.'
'Right,' Ashby said. 'I pissed them off, huh?'
Twoh'teg paused. 'No, actually. But please don't ask me more, I'm not allowed to talk about what goes on in there.' The wall drawer containing Ashby's scrib slid open. 'Have a safe trip home, Captain.'
Feed source: The Thread – The Official News Source of the Exodan Fleet (Public/Klip)
Item name/date: Breaking News Summary – Toremi Alliance Talks – 222/306
Encryption: 0
Translation path: 0
Transcription: 0
Node identifier: 7182-312-95, Ashby Santoso
After tendays of deliberation, the GC Parliament has voted to dissolve the alliance with the Toremi Ka. The vote was divisive, passing with only a nine-point margin. While most representatives stayed within species alignments, the Harmagian representatives showed the largest disparity, with a nearly even split between those for and against.
The opposition was led by Aeluon representative Tasa Lima Nemar and Aandrisk representative Reskish Ishkarethet. Representative Lima, who had been opposed to the alliance before its initial signing, spoke in the Parliament Halls earlier today. 'The well-being of our citizens must be the number one priority in all Parliamentary activities. To bring violence into our space in the name of material gain, and at the expense of civilian lives, would be grossly negligent. Until we can assure our people that their safety is not at risk, we cannot, in good conscience, continue with this alliance.' Representative Ishkarethet echoed those sentiments, stating: 'After speaking with those lucky enough to return from Hedra Ka, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a door that must remain shut.'
Harmagian representative Brehem Mos Tosh'mal'thon, one of the key voices in securing the alliance, delivered a swift rebuttal. 'Representative Lima is more concerned with spreading Aeluon troops too thin than she is with protecting civilians. She conveniently forgets that military skirmishes between our respective species led to the founding of the GC itself. New alliances always pose risks, and are rarely implemented smoothly. While the lives lost at Hedra Ka are a tragedy, we should not be so hasty as to break contact entirely over this incident. The potential benefits for both our species outweigh the risks.' Following the vote, Representative Tosh'mal'thon further stated that he would push for continued contact with Toremi clans sympathetic to 'the values of the Galactic Commons.'
Though there are currently no GC vessels within Toremi space, reports from the borders indicate that armed conflict between the clans has not slowed.
For more in-depth coverage on this story and more, connect to the Thread feed via scrib or neural patch.
Day 214, GC Standard 307
|
Ashby waved the job feeds aside as Rosemary entered his office, carrying a small, thin package. 'Whatcha got?'
'Something from the mail drone,' she said. 'I would've called you down, but I thought it was just stuff for Corbin.' Her eyes twinkled as she handed the package over. He knew why. It was thin, and so light as to be empty. That meant paper.
'Thanks,' he said, smiling at the package.
'Anything good?' she asked, nodding to the feeds above his desk.
'A few things,' he said. 'I see proposal letters in your future.'
'Just say when.'
'Actually, I do have something you can work on in the meantime.' He picked up his scrib, gesturing as he spoke. 'I'm sending you the locations of the closest market stops. Can you do a little research, see what our retrofit supply options are in those systems?'
'Sure. What kind of tech are you looking for?'
'Well,' he said, leaning back in his chair. 'I think it's time we got a new bore, don't you?'
Rosemary's face lit up. 'I take it you're looking at level 2 jobs?'
Ashby met her eyes and smirked.
She grinned. 'I'll get on it right away.'
He scoffed congenially. 'I didn't mean right now. Don't you and Sissix have stuff to do? I heard you've got an outing planned.'
'Well, yeah, but I've got some archiving to finish first.'
'You've always got archiving to finish.'
She gave him a look. 'You've got a lot of messy archives.'
He laughed. 'All right, fair enough. But the research can wait. Finish your thing, then go have fun.' He shooed her towards the door. 'Captain's orders.'
'Thanks, Ashby,' she said, turning to leave with a spring in her step.
Once the door spun shut, Ashby picked up the package. He swiped his wrist over the locking seal, and carefully extracted the envelope. He checked his hands to make sure they were clean. He moved his mug of tea to the far side of the desk. Slowly, slowly, he tore open the top edge, as Jenks had taught him how to do. He pulled out a single page.
This run ends in three tendays. I have six tendays off between then and my next job. I'm spending that time with you on the Wayfarer. Don't argue. Forward me your latest flight plan. I'll meet you wherever is best. I won't say anything to my crew one way or the other, but they might piece it together. If they do, I'll deal with it. I don't care any more. Not after a few days spent contemplating what my world was going to be like without you in it. I'm tired of wondering which one of us will get killed out here first. We both deserve better than that.
Stay safe until I get there.
Pei
'Kizzy?' Jenks walked down the corridor towards Kizzy's workspace, holding a small package behind his back. 'You down here?' He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. Kizzy was perched in one of the easy chairs beside the mek brewer, her legs tucked up like a monkey. A crate of coloured yarn was thrown open alongside, fuzzy coloured bundles strewn all over the floor. Her tongue was between her teeth as she focused on the knitting needles twisting between her fingers. On the floor, amid the yarn, all twelve fixbots stood watching her. Jenks knew they were awaiting commands, but their attentiveness and their chubby bodies made him think of ducklings, huddled around their mother.
He blinked at the object taking shape below the needles. 'Are . . . are you making them hats?'
'Yeah,' she said, and pointed absently. 'Alfonzo's already got his.'
Jenks looked to the bot wearing a blue beanie with a yellow pom-pom. 'Alfonzo?'
She sighed. 'I know they're not sentient models, but I never could've kept this ship up before Pepper got here without them. I feel bad for keeping them in a box for so long. So I'm making it up to them.'
'With names. And hats.'
'Some of those air ducts get really cold, okay.'
Jenks looked at his friend – his crazy, brilliant, one-in-a-million friend. 'Can you put the hat down for a sec?'
She finished a loop and set down the half-finished hat. 'What's up?'
He brought the package forward. 'Brought you a present.'
'A present!' The knitting flew out of her hands. 'But . . . but why? It's not my birthday.' She paused, considering. 'It's not my birthday, right?'
'Just open it, dusthead.'
Kizzy grinned and tore through a patch of foil. She threw back her head and squealed. 'Shrimp spice!' she cried, peeling back the rest of the foil. The One and Only! the jar inside proclaimed. Devastatingly Hot!
'I thought maybe you could experiment with it. Put it on algae puffs or red coasters or whatever.'
'I'm going to put it on everything.' She unscrewed the lid, stuck out her tongue and shook a generous shower into her mouth. Her eyes scrunched shut as she sucked her teeth in painful glee.
He gave a little laugh. 'I wanted to get you something fancier, but . . .' He trailed off. His money situation wasn't exactly luxurious these days.
'What? No, this is awesome. And why am I getting a present anyway?'
'Because you deserve it, and because I haven't said thank you like I should.'
'For what?'
Jenks put his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, hoping to find the right words there. 'For . . . for everything. For talking to me every night since. For not leaving me alone even when I yelled at you. For coming after me in the shuttle. For—' He took a breath, trying to pull the words out of his chest. 'For working with me every second, trying to bring her back.'
'Oh, buddy,' she said, her voice falling quiet. 'You don't have to thank me for that.'
He swallowed the lump in his throat and ploughed on. 'I'm a mess right now. I don't need to tell you that. But I think I'd be worse than I am if it wasn't for you.' He frowned, thinking of all she'd done for him. She'd completely set herself aside for his sake in the tendays since the punch, and he was paying her back with seasoning? Stupid. 'I'm not doing a good job of this. There's so much I want to say to you. You've done so much more than I would expect from a friend, and I need you to know I don't take that for granted.'
Her eyes softened. 'You're not my friend, dummy.'
He blinked. She'd lost him. 'What?'
Kizzy exhaled and looked at the spice jar. She rubbed her thumb over the label. 'When I was five, I asked my dads if I could have a brother. Our colony wasn't doing so great then. Not that it's great now. But it was rough when I was little. The council was trying to avoid a crash, and they'd stopped handing out family expansion permissions to folks that already had kids. My dads explained that if we weren't careful about how many people we added to the colony, we might not have enough food. Totally reasonable, but five-year-olds don't give a shit about stuff like that. If you've never been hungry before, not like starving hungry, the possibility of running out of food doesn't compute. The only thing I understood was that I couldn't have a brother, which seemed super crazy unfair. They got me a puppy, though. That was cool. I got older, the colony got stronger, and by that time, I wasn't bugging them for a brother any more, and I guess they didn't really want to go through the whole diapers and teething thing again. I was a happy kid, and I couldn't ask for better parents. But I was still jealous of the kids who had siblings. I grew up, and then you came along.' She looked up at him, and smiled. 'And for the first time ever, I didn't want a brother any more, because I finally had one. And there's nothing better than brothers. Friends are great, but they come and go. Lovers are fun, but kind of stupid, too. They say stupid things to each other and they ignore all their friends because they're too busy staring, and they get jealous, and they have fights over dumb shit like who did the dishes last or why they can't fold their fucking socks, and maybe the sex gets bad, or maybe they stop finding each other interesting, and then somebody bangs someone else, and everyone cries, and they see each other years later, and that person you once shared everything with is a total stranger you don't even want to be around because it's awkward. But brothers. Brothers never go away. That's for life. And I know married folks are supposed to be for life, too, but they're not always. Brothers you can't get rid of. They get who you are, and what you like, and they don't care who you sleep with or what mistakes you make, because brothers aren't mixed up in that part of your life. They see you at your worst, and they don't care. And even when you fight, it doesn't matter so much, because they still have to say hi to you on your birthday, and by then, everybody's forgotten about it, and you have cake together.' She nodded. 'So as much as I love my present, and as nice as it is to get a thank you, I don't need either of 'em. Nothing's too much to ask when it comes to brothers.' She shot him a look. 'Stars and buckets, Jenks, if you start crying, I will too, and I will never be able to stop.'
'Sorry,' he said, trying to push the water back in his eyes. 'I just—'
'No, no, see, you don't have to tell me what you're feeling. I get it. I know.' She smiled wide, her own eyes wet but holding steady. 'See? Brothers.'
Jenks was quiet a long time. He cleared his throat. 'Do you want to smash and play Battle Wizards?'
'Stars, yes. But only if you promise that we'll never get this emotional about each other ever again.'
'Deal.'
Ashby took a thoughtful bite of bread, still warm from the oven. 'It's good,' he said, and considered. 'Yeah, really good. This one's a keeper.' He swallowed and nodded. 'What are the crunchy things?'
'Hestra seeds,' said Dr Chef, sharpening a knife as he spoke.
'What are hestra seeds?'
'I have no idea. I know they're not poisonous. Not to any of us, at least. A Laru merchant back on Coriol gave me a bag for free, along with my other purchases. It was a slow market day, I think she was just glad I bought something.'
'Well, I like them. They're . . . zingy.' Ashby reached to the other end of the kitchen counter and refilled his mug with tea.
Dr Chef set down the sharpener and took a handful of fresh-cut herbs from one of his harvest boxes. Ashby could smell them from across the counter. Sweet and astringent. 'So,' Dr Chef said. 'Anyone knocking at our door?'
'Not yet,' Ashby said. And that was okay. He wasn't in any rush, and the Hedra Ka incident wasn't going to keep them out of business. If anything, their reputation had been bolstered by getting out of a collapsing tunnel unscathed. Of course, there was still the question of whether or not they'd need to find a new Navigator, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.
'I'm sure something good will come along. Honestly, I think we'd all be glad of a little downtime. Vacation is one thing, but it's nice to settle back in slowly.' He rumbled. 'Especially since there have been some changes around here.'
Ashby looked over at the vox on the wall. A new voice came through it now – Tycho, a gracious, accommodating AI with a Martian accent. Ashby sometimes thought Tycho sounded nervous, but given that the AI knew the circumstances under which he'd been installed, Ashby couldn't blame him for wanting to please his new crew. And he and Jenks had been getting along so far. In Ashby's eyes, that was the most important thing.
Dr Chef peered at Ashby. 'I'm giving you a physical tomorrow.'
'What? Why?'
'You're squinting. I think we should check your eyes.'
'I'm not squinting.'
'You're squinting.' Dr Chef shook a pudgy finger at him. 'You spend too much time with your nose in your scrib.'
Ashby rolled his eyes – which worked perfectly fine, thank you. 'If it'll make you feel better.'
'Scoff all you want, you'll thank—' Dr Chef set down his knife. Footsteps were approaching. More than four.
Ashby turned. Around the corner came Corbin, walking slowly, holding his arm at a steady angle. Bracing themselves against his arm was Ohan, walking on three legs as they held on to Corbin with the other. No, no, not they, Ashby reminded himself. He. This was no longer Ohan the Pair. This was Ohan the Solitary. After years of making sure he got the pronouns right, Ashby found it a hard habit to break.
He set his mug down and turned to face them. In some ways, not much had changed. Ohan rarely left his room, and the only person he spoke to at length was Dr Chef, who needed him to answer questions about how he was feeling, or about the medication he'd been taking to aid his regrowing nerves. Otherwise, he sat by the window, as he'd always done. But there were changes. The wetness in his eyes had ebbed, and there was an alertness to him that Ashby had never seen before. His fur was growing out, the patterns cut through it fading away. Dr Chef had told Ohan that he was strong enough now to shave, but the Sianat had made no efforts to do so. And he'd been spending time in the algae bay, here and there. That was new. Ashby didn't know why Ohan would want to be around Corbin, after what had happened. Ashby himself had barely been able to be in the same room with him since. Maybe it was Ohan's way of reminding Corbin of what he was responsible for. Honestly, who knew?
But here he was now, approaching the kitchen, touching Corbin. 'Ashby,' Ohan said. 'I need to speak with you.'
'Of course,' Ashby said. Across the counter, Dr Chef was nearly silent.
Ohan let go of Corbin's arm and stood on all fours. Ashby could see a tightness in Ohan's face as he did so. Recovering though he was, standing still took effort.
'I should go to Arun now,' Ohan said. 'I am Solitary, and that is where I should go. It is the way of things.' He looked down for a moment, deep in thought. The next words came with difficulty, as if he feared them. 'But I do not want to.'
'Do you have to go?' Ashby said. 'Will your people do anything to you if you don't?'
Ohan blinked three times. 'No. We are . . . expected to do things. And we do them. We do not question.' He looked confused. 'I don't know why. These things made sense, before. And they made sense to the Solitary you met. But not to me. Perhaps it is because they have never been around other species without the Whisperer. They never saw other ways to be.'
Ashby spoke with care. 'Ohan, what do you want to do?'
'I want,' Ohan said, rolling his tongue as though he were tasting the words. 'I want to stay.' His forelegs trembled, but he set his jaw. 'Yes. Yes.' The trembling stopped. 'And I want to have dinner. With my crew.'
A burst of coos and whistles erupted from Dr Chef's mouth, making them all jump. Ashby knew the sound. It was the Grum equivalent of crying. 'Oh, I'm sorry,' Dr Chef said, pressing his cheeks with his handfeet. 'I just . . .' His Klip dissolved into a cooing drone. He rumbled and huffed, trying to get a hold of himself. 'Ohan, as your doctor, I have to remind you that as your body has only had to digest nutrient paste for some time, adopting other foods will take some adjustment.' His cheeks puffed wide. 'But as your – as your friend, there is no way I'd rather spend my afternoon than cooking a meal for you. With you, even, if you'd like.'
Ohan did something Ashby had never seen before. His mouth spread wide and flat, stretching out beyond the edges of his eyes, which crinkled shut. A smile. 'Yes. I want that.'
Dr Chef bustled into action, pulling Ohan's never-before-used chair into the kitchen. He helped Ohan into his seat and wasted no time in beginning a crash course in vegetables.
Ashby glanced toward Corbin, who was observing the scene with a quiet expression. He nodded to himself, confirming something unspoken, and turned to leave.
'Corbin,' Ashby said. Corbin looked at him. Ashby sighed. He still wasn't happy, but what was done was done. After all they'd been through – yes, if Ohan could move forward, so could he. He gestured toward the empty stool beside him. 'I'm sure the algae can wait.'
Corbin paused. 'Thanks,' he said. He took a seat. He looked out of place, like the new kid at school, unsure of how to proceed.
Ashby nodded towards the rack of mugs. 'You want some tea?'
Corbin took a mug and filled it, as if glad for some direction. He picked up a slice of spice bread. 'So. Ah.' He took a sip from his mug. 'How is Pei?'
Ashby raised his eyebrows, startled by the personal enquiry. 'She's doing just fine.'
'I overheard that she'll be coming here for a time.'
'That's right.'
Corbin nodded. 'That's good.' He took a longer sip and focused his attention on his spice bread.
Ashby eyed the algaeist for a moment, and looked back to the kitchen. He saw Ohan take a tentative nibble from the end of a spineroot. The Sianat gasped with surprise. Dr Chef clapped him on the back and laughed, his voices harmonising with approval.
Ashby smiled. He drank his tea and watched his crew. It was enough.
Rosemary took the the domed helmet from Kizzy and placed it over her own head, sliding the locking edges at its base into the grooves on her suit. A hiss of dry air brushed against her face as the life support system started up. On the opposite side of the airlock, Sissix, similarly dressed, shook her head.
'I still can't believe you've never done this before,' Sissix said. Her voice came through the tiny vox fixed within Rosemary's helmet.
'I never got around to it.'
Sissix smirked. 'There are a lot of things you've never got around to.'
'Yeah, well, I'm working on it.'
'Okay,' Kizzy said, connecting something to the back of the suit. 'Lemme see your status panel.' Rosemary lifted her left arm, displaying three green lights. 'All seals locked. Cool. Wait, those are all green, right?'
'Yeah.'
'Okay, good. Sorry, I'm a little high.' She looked back at Sissix, who was rolling her eyes. 'What? It's my day off.'
'I didn't say anything,' Sissix said.
'You know, you're welcome to come along,' Rosemary said.
'Thanks, but given the circumstances, I think I'd just fall asleep.' Kizzy paused, considering. 'Why have I never taken a nap outside? Seriously, think how super mellow that would be.'
'Yeah,' said Sissix. 'Right up until you sleep through the oxygen alarm.'
'Okay, yeah, maybe not.'
'Wait!' The sound of handfeet and grumbling echoed down the hallway, preceding Dr Chef's arrival. He hurried over to Rosemary and placed two yellow tablets in her hand. 'You forgot.'
'Oh, stars, right,' Rosemary said, pulling her helmet back off. She popped the tablets in her mouth, crunched down and made a face. 'They taste like plex.'
Kizzy giggled. 'How would you know what plex tastes like?'
Rosemary shrugged. 'I was a kid once. Didn't you ever lick plex?'
The giggle swelled into a laugh. 'No! Ew! No!'
'Well, whatever they taste like,' Dr Chef said, 'they'll help keep you from getting sick in your helmet, which is the important part. And if for some reason you should get sick, don't panic, just remember to—'
'Don't freak her out, Doc,' Kizzy said, patting his upper arm.
'She gets spacesick!'
'She'll be fine.'
'All right, all right, I just want her to enjoy this.' Dr Chef rumbled and chuffed as Rosemary put her helmet back on. 'You know,' he said. 'That suit looks good on you.'
'Yeah?' Rosemary said, looking down at the tough red fabric.
'Yeah,' Kizzy said. 'It fits you real good.'
Sissix touched Rosemary's shoulder. 'You ready?'
Rosemary stared at the airlock door, nervous, eager. 'I think so.'
Sissix nodded. 'Tycho, we're ready to go.'
The vox on the wall switched on. 'Okay. I'll be keeping an eye on you both. I'll signal if you get too far out.'
'Thanks.' She led Rosemary into the airlock and smiled back at the others. 'See you guys later.'
'Have fun!' Kizzy said, waving.
'Be back for dinner,' Dr Chef said.
The inner door slid shut. Rosemary looked at Sissix. Her heart was hammering. 'Well, here we go.'
Sissix took her by the hand as the airlock began to depressurise. The hatch slid back. They walked forward, their boots sticking to the artigrav floor. They stood with their toes at the edge. The open hatch waited.
'Oh,' said Rosemary, staring ahead.
'A little different without windows and bulkheads, huh?' Sissix grinned. 'Here, do this.' She extended her hand out past the hull.
Rosemary did the same. As her hand passed beyond the edge of the artigrav field, she could feel its weight change – disappear. She'd been in zero-G playrooms as a kid, but this was different. This was the real thing, the universe's default state. She laughed.
'Ready?' Sissix said. 'One. Two. Three.'
They stepped out, and fell up. Or down. Or sideways. It didn't matter. Those words meant nothing any more. There were no boundaries, no playroom walls. Her body was freed of the burden she hadn't known she was carrying – solid bones, dense muscle, an unwieldy head. They were out in the open, for real this time, as spacers should be. And all around them, black, black, black, full of jewelled stars and coloured clouds. It was a sight she knew well, a sight she lived alongside, but in that moment, she was seeing it for the first time. Everything had changed.
'Oh, stars,' Rosemary said, and suddenly understood the expression better than she ever had.
'Come on,' Sissix said. The thrusters on her boots fired. They flew further out.
Rosemary looked back to the Wayfarer. Through the windows, she could see the familiar rooms and corridors, but it was all so different from out here, like watching a vid, or looking into a dollhouse. The ship looked so small, so fragile.
'Rosemary.'
She turned her head.
Sissix raised their clasped hands and smiled. 'Let go.'
She let Sissix's curved fingers slip from her grasp. They drifted apart, still holding the other in their eyes. Rosemary turned away from her ship, away from her companion, turned out to face the void. There was a nebula there, an explosion of dust and light, the fiery corpse of an ancient giant. Within the gaseous folds slept clusters of unborn stars, shining softly. She took inventory of her body. She felt her breath, her blood, the ties binding it all together. Every piece, down to the last atom, had been made out here, flung through the open in a moment of violence, until they had swirled round and round, churning and coalescing, becoming heavy, weighing each other down. But not any more. The pieces were floating free now. They had returned home.
She was exactly where she was supposed to be.
July 2, 2015
|
In early 2012, I had a problem. Two-thirds of the way through the first draft of this book, the freelance work I relied on to support myself dried up. I was faced with a two-month lull between paying gigs, and it was starting to look like finishing my book and keeping a roof over my head were mutually exclusive. I had two options: set the book aside and use the time to search for work, or find a way to keep the book (and myself) going. I went with option B, and turned to Kickstarter. I told myself that if the campaign wasn't successful, it was time for me to focus my efforts elsewhere. Fifty-three people (mostly strangers) convinced me to stick with it. The Long Way exists thanks to their generosity and their encouragement. I am more grateful for that than I can put into words.
Since then, this book has continued to be something of a community effort. I owe much to my posse of beta readers, who donated their brainpower toward helping me unravel the messy bits. Without their insights, their honesty, and most of all, their time, I would never have gotten this far.
My friend Mike Grinti deserves special thanks not only for his invaluable critique of my second draft and for being my anxiety sponge, but for connecting me with Joe Monti, who believed in my book, and from whom I have learned so much.
Though she probably doesn't think that she had a hand in this, I extend a sincere bundle of thanks to Susana Polo, my editor at The Mary Sue. She not only gave me the time I needed to finish the final edit of my manuscript, but her giving me a place at TMS back in 2011 started the domino chain that led to this book. Plus, she's the only other person in the world who likes Myst IV.
A salute to Anne Perry, my editor at Hodder & Stoughton, who is a joy to work with. I never imagined that my book would get a second start, but she went out of her way to make me feel right at home. My thanks to her for holding my hand through this, and for giving me the confidence to move on to the next. Huge thanks, too, to Kelly O'Connor at Harper Voyager, for all her hard work in getting my crew back stateside. First round of Little Sumpin' is on me.
On the personal side of things, I am indebted to my friends and family for . . . well, everything. Somehow, even though I fell off the face of the planet while working on this, they stuck by me. Extra hugs to Chimp and Greg, for being my steadfast sanity check, to Cian, for being a good listener, and to Matt, for being my first buddy.
Bear with the seeming non-sequitur: In 2010, I found myself in Sedona with my friend Jessica McKay, who bought me a fancy dinner and more than a few drinks. It may have been the margaritas talking, but she waved aside my concern about her picking up the bill by saying that I had to thank her in print whenever I got a book out. Jess, please take note: Thank you for the tacos, the tequila, and the fine company. We are now square.
I can't sign off on a science fiction book without giving credit to my Mom and Dad, who filled my head with spaceships, and who have always, always been there for me. My Mom gets additional thanks for being my science consultant, and for giving me courage when I needed it most.
Finally, all my love and gratitude to my partner, Berglaug, who held my hand, sketched my ship, brought me meals, proofread my manuscript (twice!), and put up with all the late nights and Post-it notes. She believed in this book more than I did some days, and her ferocious support kept me grounded and hopeful. If you enjoyed the read, she's the one you should thank.
About the Author
BECKY CHAMBERS was raised in California as the progeny of an astrobiology educator, an aerospace engineer, and an Apollo-era rocket scientist. An inevitable space enthusiast, she made the obvious choice of studying performing arts. After a few years in theatre administration, she shifted her focus toward writing. Her creative work has appeared at The Mary Sue, Tor.com, Five Out Of Ten, The Toast, and Pornokitsch. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is her first novel, and was funded in 2012 thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign.
After living in Scotland and Iceland, Becky is now back in her home state, where she lives with her partner. She is an ardent proponent of video and tabletop games, and enjoys spending time in nature. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET. Copyright © 2014 by Becky Chambers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Originally published in Great Britain in 2015 by Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette UK company.
|
Harper Voyager is a federally registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
EPub Edition July 2015 ISBN 9780062444127
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-06-244412-7
14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
|
"Good morning!" Madoka shouted as she quickly ran up to her friends who had been waiting for her.
"Good morning!" Hitomi replied.
"Madoka, you're late!" Sayaka looked at Madoka's hair. "Oh! Cute ribbons."
"You think so?" Madoka asked. "They're not too flashy?"
"Meow."
The three girls turned toward Amy who had followed Madoka as usual.
"See even Amy agrees," Sayaka said as she knelt down to pet the cat. "Good job keeping an eye on Madoka here. Who knows what sort of troubles she'd get into if it wasn't for you."
"Sayaka!"
Sayaka turned to Madoka with an all too pleased expression on her face. "Come on Madoka. You're a nice person, but that just means that people take advantage of you."
Madoka blushed having been reminded of the times that Sayaka had to protect her in their youth. She didn't regret the way she had acted, even to people that might've tried to bully her, but she was grateful that Sayaka had been there to protect her. It didn't happen so much nowadays, but the memory was still enough that Madoka would often confide in Sayaka first whenever something bothered her.
"I have to agree with Sayaka," Hitomi commented. "Sometimes I can't help but worry about you too."
Madoka huffed. "Hitomi! I'm a big girl now. I can handle myself." Unfortunately, judging by the smiles they gave her, they didn't take her that seriously. Not that she was being very serious herself, but even she could be annoyed sometimes. Annoyed enough that she wouldn't even tell them about that strange dream they had. The last thing she needed was for them to call her out on some sort of soulmate that she had never met before.
"Oh, is that way you changed your ribbons," Sayaka said playfully. "Trying to become a mature woman like Hitomi. Going for all the boys."
"No, that's not–"
"How shameless!" Sayaka opened up her arms. "Let me show you what happens to girls like you."
For the most part the morning had been normal. Pleasant, but normal. Even Ms. Saotame's rant about never dating men who insist they can't eat fried eggs done over hard was common course for their mornings. At least it was until their teacher suddenly announced that they would have a new transfer student.
For some reason, Madoka half expected a raven locked girl with gloriously smooth and luscious hair to walk into the classroom. Her eyes went wide when she actually did get that.
"No way... It couldn't be..."
There were some differences. This girl had her hair wrapped in two large pigtails and her posture was less graceful and a bit nervous. Still, the resemblance was uncanny, especially what laid behind the eyeglasses she wore. Her eyes were mesmerizing... with a sort of determination that you wouldn't expect from a girl their age.
Things got even more confusing when said transfer student, who by all rights Madoka should never have met before, shot her a look of recognition. It had taken Madoka a bit to confirm that it was her that the transfer student was looking at and not a neighbor or someone behind her.
"My name is Homura Akemi." The transfer took a deep breath. "I'm pleased to meet all of you." Her voice past her nervousness was surprisingly strong and clear.
Then why did Madoka expect her to say all of that with a detached confidence? Why did she expect her to act aloof, almost a bit cold to the class? It was strange, and it couldn't just have been from the girl in the dreams. They were nothing alike.
Long black hair and a headband. The same faces yet also so different.
After introductions, Madoka was simply too distracted with her own thoughts to listen much to class. The way that Homura was constantly shooting her glances wasn't helping either.
"You alright there Madoka?" Sayaka asked during a break between classes. As always was the first one to notice that something was bothering her. She glanced at Homura in turn. "Do you know that girl? She seemed to be staring at you a lot earlier."
"I... maybe?" Madoka replied. "She seems so familiar... like..."
"Deja-vu?"
"No something else..." Madoka mulled
"Excuse me."
Madoka looked up to find Homura in front of her desk. "K-Kaname," the girl finally stuttered. Any confidence she might've had in front of the class seemed to have faded away the second she walked up to Madoka. "Are you the Nurse's Aide?"
"I am?" Madoka replied a bit confused.
"Uh..." Homura looked down on the floor and grasped her hands. "It been a bit stressful for me today and..."
Cute.
"I'm sorry?" Homura asked.
"Eep," Madoka let out before clamping her mouth shut. She had definitely not meant to say that out loud.
At this point a smile had grown on Sayaka's face as she looked between Madoka and the transfer student. "Oh, so that's what this is. My little Madoka's grown up."
"Sayaka?" Madoka asked.
"Miki?" Homura asked.
"Huh how'd you know my name?" Sayaka asked.
"I uh... remembered it after reading the class roster," Homura replied.
"Oh okay." Sayaka held her hand out. "Anyway, I'm Sayaka Miki. Madoka's groom to be. Please take care of her."
"Sayaka!"
"G-groom!?" For some reason Homura looked absolutely horrified.
"She's just joking around," Madoka told Homura before shooting Sayaka the best glare that she could muster. "Which isn't very nice."
"Ah Madoka, I'm just playing around," Sayaka replied without an ounce of guilt on her face before turning to Homura. "Anyway, I was serious about taking care of her. She's important to me, but I'm sure you can handle it."
"Uh... okay." This time it was Homura's turn to blush.
"So," Madoka said before an awkward silence could take form. "You were feeling stressed."
"Y-yes," Homura replied, clearly relieved at having an escape. "Kaname. Could you please escort me to the nurse's office."
Madoka tried to give Homura the best smile she could.. "I'll be... happy to. And please call me Madoka."
|
Homura had fit in nicely with their group. Her reserved nature paired well with Hitomi and she had apparently received Sayaka's seal of approval.
For Madoka, it was nice to be around her. Not just because they had another person to add to their group, but because Homura seemed almost familiar to her. As if they were meant to become friends. And judging by the way Homura seemed to smile around her, she also felt the same.
"What do you think about Homura?" Madoka asked as they made their way home.
"Meow," Amy replied.
Madoka shook her head and gave it a weary smile.
Her cat, though a great escort, was unfortunately not much of a conversationalist. Despite how fun it was with Homura, there was still something that bothered her about the situation. It likely was nothing. She was probably just being paranoid and the last thing she needed was for Sayaka to get overprotective over a gut feeling that she had. Still, she couldn't get that dream out of her head. Even now she could remember it quite vividly.
Madoka stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the signal to change, when Amy suddenly turned left and continue going down the block.
"Amy?"
For the last few weeks, the cat had been a dedicated escort for Madoka and never went off the beaten path. What had changed?
"Meow." Amy turned back and sat down some distance away, as if it was expecting her to follow.
Madoka simply stared at her cat in confusion before it decided to get up and continue walking away.
"Amy! Wait!" she shouted as she followed her. Once she started moving in its direction though it suddenly picked up speed. Soon Madoka was sprinting after a black cat, much to the curious and confused looks of the few bystanders that had happened to be in their path.
"Slow... down," Madoka gasped as she tried to catch her breath. She was hardly the most athletic person and her cat was giving the toughest run of her life.
Eventually Amy turned around a corner into a nearby alleyway. Madoka followed only to find that her cat had finally stopped running. It now sat in front a white feather on the floor.
"Did you want that feather?" Madoka asked.
Amy replied by patting a paw next to said object, as if gesturing her to pick it up.
Ok. Madoka knew that Amy was a smart cat, but this was starting to get weird.
Madoka cautiously walked forward. She was a bit tense at first, but that soon faded away as she got closer to that feather's presence. She didn't know why, but it was as if it was calling to her. It brought her over with a sound that only she could hear until she stood in front of it.
It was pretty. A brilliant white with shades of pink. She didn't know where it came from, but it definitely didn't come from a bird. In fact. it seemed almost... unnatural.
Madoka kneeled down on the ground. She carefully brought her hand over and hesitated just inches away from the tip.
She was afraid. There was a part of her that didn't want to touch it, even as her soul practically screamed at her to do so.
Did she want this? Was this really, what she wanted?
Amy suddenly reached over with a paw and gently pushed her hand down.
"Meow."
Madoka brushed the tip of the feather and then gently grabbed it off the ground. She looked at it carefully before tenderly holding it to her chest. It was warm... and comforting. It was nostalgic, as if she was meant to have it. As if it was always meant to be a part of her.
A gentle light enveloped her body for a brief moment before vanishing. It had all happened in a second and Madoka looked down to find that the feather had disappeared from her hand. She wasn't sad that it was gone though, she felt wonderful actually. She hadn't felt this good since the day her parents had first brough Tatsuya home.
"Meow." Amy walked up and rubbed itself against her leg.
Madoka smiled and petted her cat. "You really are a smart kitty, aren't you?" She didn't entirely know what had happened or why it had to be her, but it felt like it was supposed to happen. "Let's go home before Mama and Papa worry."
It wasn't long before that wonderful feeling faded. Leaving behind nothing else but a fond, yet somehow, distant memory. There was a light spring to her step as she walked home though.
|
A Goddess stood in the expanse of the universe. Her white dress and long pink hair flowed with a nonexistent wind as she drew her bow.
She hated conflict, much less that was brought by her own hands, but she was resolved to see her purpose fulfilled.
Her arrow ready, she pointed it at the enemy in front of her.
The curses, the hatred, the despair of the entire world. She would shoulder it all, accept it and bring salvation. For she was the Law of–
Madoka's eyes shot open and she quickly sprang up from bed. Her hands still ready to use her bow. She panted, caught her breath, and finally began to process that she was in her home. There was no target for her to shoot at, just her bedroom wall. She relaxed her arm and let the arrow go slack.
Wait. Arrow?
She looked down and let loose a squeal. She was holding a bow. A wooden bow with a blooming pink flower on top of it. An actual bow meant to shoot an arrow of pink light that she was holding in her hands.
She gently released the arrow from her grip. It disappeared and faded into several motes of pink light before it even had a chance to land on her bed. She tried the same with the bow and got the same results.
So. She apparently now had the ability to create magic bows and arrows with her bare hands. Neat. And apparently easy to get rid of too.
That was a good thing. The door to Madoka's room opened just as the last of the light faded.
"Madoka!" her Papa shouted as he charged into her room, his cooking pan still held in his hand. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing Papa," she shot a quick glance to her bed and made sure that there was no trace of that bow she held in her hands. It still felt like she could bring it back any moment though. "I just had a weird dream."
Her father lowered the pan. "A nightmare?"
Madoka glanced at Amy who sat at the foot of her bed. "Meow," it said calmly.
"No... it wasn't that bad actually," Madoka replied.
"If there's bothering you Madoka–"
"I'm fine now Papa," Madoka gave him a gentle smile. "I just need a bit more sleep." Thankfully it was Sunday, so it was a good enough excuse.
"Ok then." Her Papa closed the joy gently. "Sweet dreams sweetie."
Madoka waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps holding out her hands. It only took a few seconds before the bow answered her call and reappeared in her hands. Summoning it was much easier than she had expected.
She brought it closer to examine it. It was beautiful, pretty, and it fit so easily into her hands. It was meant for her, made to be used by her, though against what she wasn't entirely sure.
She wanted to test it out by trying to create another arrow but firing a deadly projectile in her house probably wasn't the best idea. No matter how much Amy seemed to be encouraging her to do so with its expectant gaze.
Madoka smiled gently as she watched a group of children play in the park, their parents nearby keeping a constant and happy vigil. It wouldn't be long until Tatsuya was one of those kids, running on his own and playing with his friends.
Those smiles... they really were precious.
She looked down at her hands.
First that feather. Now a bow appearing in her hands out of nowhere. It was just so strange. Why was this happening to her? She was supposed to be a normal girl. And now she was summoning deadly weapons out of her bare hands.
She really needed to talk to a friend, but it was Sunday. There was no school and Hitomi and Sayaka were both busy doing things with their families.
"What do you think, Amy? You're the one who brought me to that feather," Madoka asked her cat.
"Meow," it replied once again.
Madoka sighed. She really needed to learn how to speak cat. Or somehow convince her Mama to have her company invent some sort of cat translating device. Either one.
"M-Madoka?"
Madoka looked up. "Homura?"
Homura was dressed in a white blouse and a grey plaid skirt. It was simple but cute and matched well with her hair and glasses.
"What are you doing here?" Homura asked.
"Oh, I was just... taking a walk. Ended up here." Madoka moved aside to make room for Homura on the bench. "Keep me company"
"Are you sure?"
"You're my friend," Madoka answered quickly
"Meow."
"Amy's too!"
Homura blushed before taking a seat next to Madoka. She kept shooting glances at Amy for some reason.
Was she afraid of cats? She had been shocked to meet Amy yesterday when the cat had come to pick Madoka up from school.
"The other day... I forgot to say that you have a very pretty cat," Homura commented.
"Thank you."
"How did the two of you meet?"
"Amy was a stray. I saw her sometimes." Madoka began to pet her cat. "We didn't start living together though until her accident."
"Accident?" Homura looked worried. "How is Amy fine then? You didn't make your w–" she clamped her mouth shut.
"Uh... are you alright?"
Homura nodded vigorously before letting go of her mouth. "Sorry... I was just surprised that Amy seems perfectly healthy after her... accident."
"Well, she didn't get hurt in the first place. One second she was in the middle of the street about to be run over by a car and then," Madoka raised her hands and made a light poofing motion, "She's suddenly in front of me."
"Did she dodge it?"
"Didn't even see her move at all. It was like she teleported. Amy looked pretty surprised by that too. It was like magic."
"Not mine though," Homura muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
"Well anyway," Madoka continued. "I was so happy that Amy was safe that I just carried her home with me. She didn't seem to mind."
"Meow." Amy suddenly jumped onto Madoka's lap and laid down on it.
"I think she appreciates you," Homura said, a light smile showing on her face.
"I'm lucky to have her," Madoka replied. "I don't know why she chose me though. She was always so aloof with everyone before"
"I think it because it senses how kind you are."
Madoka blushed lightly at the compliment. "I'm just a normal person."
"No. You're incredibly kind. Willing to go out of her way to help a transfer student like me."
"You were the one who came to me," Madoka replied.
"And you accepted me. Let me join your group. You are so incredibly kind... and much stronger than you think," Homura whispered.
"T-thank you." Now it was Madoka's turn to stutter. It was the first time someone that wasn't Sayaka or her mother complimented her like that. It was nice. It was also at that moment that Madoka realized that she had a friend she could talk to right in front of her. "Hey Homura. There's something I want to talk to you about."
"What is it?"
"Could we go somewhere a bit more private?"
"Uh... my apartment's close by. But it might be too–"
"That sounds perfect. I'd be happy to visit your home!" Those words caught even Madoka off guard. When had she become that assertive?
"Um... sure," Homura replied hesitantly.
"If you don't want to..." Madoka immediately backpedaled. She probably pushed too much into her friend's boundaries.
"No! It's fine. I'd be happy to bring you to my home."
"Could you... give me a moment before I let you in?" Homura asked. They stood in front of a plain black door within a large apartment complex.
Madoka clasped her hands behind her back. "That's fine." She probably just wanted to clean up or something.
"Thank you," Homura opened her door, stepped inside, and closed it before Madoka could take a peek into her apartment. It was only a few seconds though before the door opened and her head popped out. "Sorry I kept you waiting."
"That was fast," Madoka commented. "What did you do?"
"I just had to put some things away."
Madoka stepped inside to find it so incredibly... bare. There really wasn't much furniture at all apart from the basic necessities.
"Sorry it's so bland," Homura apologized.
"No. It isn't. It's just..." Madoka glanced around that apartment. "Is it just you here?"
"Yes."
"What about your parents?"
Homura looked at the floor. "They're not here anymore."
It was difficult for Madoka to not shed a few tears at that moment. Just the thought of Homura alone in this apartment. "I'm sorry."
"Madoka," Homura raised a hand, but stopped just short of grabbing her shoulder. "It's fine you don't need to cry for me."
"But..." Madoka sniffled.
"It's been a long time and I've gotten used to it."
"Aren't you lonely though? Transferring to a new school with no family?"
"I-I..." Homura brought her head up and looked Madoka in the eyes. "I'm not. Thanks to you."
Walking up and hugging Homura at the moment just felt natural, even though it was the first time they had ever done it. It was nice and warm, different from the hugs she had received from Sayaka. And judging by how Homura reciprocated it after her surprise wore off, she liked it too.
"Even though everything's so different now you're still here for me," Homura said fondly. Her words were a bit strange, but Madoka had more or less gotten used to her occasional eccentricities.
Madoka let go and gave Homura a bright smile. "Do you want to come over to my place tonight for dinner?"
"I'd like that," Homura replied before she suddenly perked up. "Wasn't there something you wanted to show me."
"Oh yea." Madoka fiddled with her hands and took another look around the apartment even though she knew it was just the two of them. "Could you keep this a secret? I'm still trying to figure things out."
"I will. What is it?"
Madoka raised her hand out, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Drawing from something from somewhere, maybe her soul or something, she summoned her bow and held it in her hands. She opened her eyes and found Homura staring at her.
That, Madoka had expected. What she didn't predict though was the abject fear in Homura's gaze as focused on the bow. That caught Madoka off guard.
"W-why. I thought you didn't make a contract, thought that you wouldn't-," Homura's eyes went up and down. "But why didn't your outfit change?"
"Is it supposed to?" Madoka asked as she looked at her own clothes, currently self-conscious of the fact that they were pretty plain. "Do you know something about this?"
"Did you... not make a contract with Kyubey?" Homura asked.
Madoka tilted her head. "Contract? Kyubey? Who's that?"
Homura held her hand out. Suddenly her ring flashed. A pretty yet strange purple gemstone came out of it. She then turned her hand over and let the newly appeared gemstone rest in her palm. "This is a Soul Gem. It allows a Magical Girl to transform."
"Magical... Girl?" Madoka asked. Sayaka would definitely comment that that sounded like something straight out of an anime if she were here. And also call Homura crazy for that matter. Homura didn't seem crazy though, it was just a bit hard to believe.
Or at least it was until Homura was enveloped in a flash of light and her outfit suddenly changed into a white coat and a light purple skirt. Strapped to her arm was a strange mechanical shield.
It took a few seconds for the reality of the situation to hit her
"Y-you're a Magical Girl. Magical Girls are real. Magic is real," Madoka said to herself. And once reality hit her, it hit her hard.
"It is," Homura replied. "But you don't have a Soul Gem. I don't sense one on you and you just summoned a bow without one. How can you do that?"
"It happened after I picked up a feather," Madoka explained.
"A feather?"
"It was a very pretty white feather that was also a little pink. When I touched it, it just," Madoka turned her bow around a little, "let me do this."
"That's so... weird," Homura replied.
"But you're a Magical Girl right? Do you know anything about this?"
"No. Nothing."
So after everything, Homura was just as confused as she was.
Hah. Hah.
Madoka went to the lone couch in the apartment, leaned her bow against it, and promptly took a seat. Homura also took a seat next to her.
They sat there, in silence, for quite some time. Neither taking the chance to glance at each other.
So, Homura was a Magical Girl. And Madoka thought that she was the only one to be doing the surprising today. Turns out it had been mutual.
It was crazy, just the situation in general and the rapid-fire revelations. Also, the many unanswered questions that the two of them had.
Madoka pinched her thigh. She wasn't dreaming. It was good to check.
"Heh," Madoka chuckled once she had confirmed she was awake.
"Heh," Homura joined her.
The two faced each other and eventually their chuckling turned into full blown laughter. It seemed that they had gone a bit insane after all that, but at least they were coping.
Eventually Madoka wiped a tear off the corner of her eye. "I don't think I expected any of this to happen."
"Same." Homura smiled. "Why are things always so interesting with you around?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Madoka replied playfully. "What do Magical Girls even do?"
The smile fell off of Homura's face. "We... hunt Witches."
"Witches?"
"They're... creatures that hurt people."
"So, they're the bad guys?"
Homura shook her head. "They aren't bad... It's just their nature to destroy and hurt. They can't help it. The best we can do is to put them to rest."
"You mean... kill them?" Madoka asked.
Homura gave her a somber smile. "It's the best way to give them peace. There's nothing about Witches to be saved."
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Not that long... but I guess I have some experience."
"And you were by yourself?"
"No..." Homura fiddled with the shield slung across her arm. "I had a few... companions before. We've split up recently though."
"I-..." Madoka scooted closer. "I can be your companion then."
"Really?"
"Yea! It'll be great if we can fight together."
"You can fight?" Homura asked. It was a reasonable question.
Madoka paused before looking back at her bow. "Uh. I think so? I actually haven't used it yet?"
"You haven't?" Homura asked.
"No, it... kinda just popped up this morning. I didn't think it was a good idea to use it in my home since I'd probably break something."
"That's probably for the best," Homura agreed. "I can take you to hunt a familiar if you want to try it out. They're a Witch's minions. They aren't usually very strong so it should be a good first fight for you."
Madoka reached over to grab her bow. She wasn't sure where this confidence was coming from, but she was going to take advantage of it while it lasted. "I'd like that."
Mami drank her tea alone. She was accompanied by naught but the sound of her cup lightly clinking against the saucer.
She had plenty of time to reflect. To think about her options and prepare for the next hunt. There were always Witches to hunt after all and it kept her busy. Busy enough that she wouldn't plague her mind with other things.
Or at least that's how it normally was. Unfortunately, the number of Witches in her area had been steadily decreasing. It wasn't just her either, other Magical Girls in the surrounding areas were having the same issue. It left many with no choice but to slowly migrate East where many Witches seemed to be going for some reason.
She would go and investigate herself, but that would mean leaving her territory alone. Not only would she risk another Magical Girl wandering in to take it during her absence, but there would be many civilians that would get killed by the Witches and their familiars while she was gone.
Even with decreased numbers, just a few Witches could easily devastate a city's population if left alone. If one needed an example, then simply look at the time Japan had been nearly wiped out when the asset price bubble popped in 1992. You could also look at the recent Great Recession just a year ago.
As if the financial instability of these events weren't enough, many people were killed or compelled to kill themselves by the Witches during these times. It was because many Magical Girls at the time had starved or were forced to move elsewhere. Then when things got really desperate there was a sharp influx of new Magical Girls to combat that threat, only for many of them to die in the chaos. The ones that survived the Witches then had to fight each other for territory.
That was the thing about Witches. If it was just them then they would be manageable for the most part. The problem was how they could take wars, natural disasters, and economic instability and create a feedback loop of death and destruction. Asian countries were often hit the hardest due to higher population density compared to most Western countries. Japan was about ten times denser than the United States which led to significantly higher percentage Magical Girls among the population in the former, which led to more conflict among their numbers. Of course, that was nothing compared to the density of countries like Singapore or China. How Magical Girls operated there, she did not know. Nor could she imagine.
<Mami.>
She set her teacup down. That was enough of her history lesson for now. "Hello Kyubey. Would you like some cake?"
<You know I don't eat,> he replied as he jumped on the table. Yes, his race was technically genderless, but it was a lot easier for her to think it was a boy nowadays.
"It's polite to ask," she replied. "What do you need?" For as much as she appreciated his company, she knew that it rarely showed up for reasons outside of business. It was only after said business had been dealt with, that she could convince him to stick around in her apartment for a bit.
<There are two girls in your territory that you would be interested in.>
"Potential Contractors?"
<Only one of them. And they're both anomalies.>
"What do you mean?" He didn't use the word anomaly lightly. If he said that, then things were definitely strange.
<One is a Magical Girl that I do not recall contracting.>
Mami raised an eye. Yep, that was strange and certainly cause for caution. "I thought you were responsible for contracting all Magical Girls?"
<I am. Which is why it's unusual that I can't recall her.>
"Is she dangerous?"
<I do not know what her magic is, but she doesn't seem aggressive. There's a high chance she'll be amenable to discussion at the very least.>
It would be best if Mami could reason with this Magical Girl. She was still prepared to fight though, if it came to it. "And the other?"
<Has access to powers despite not having a Contract.>
Mami's eyes grew wide. "A Magus."
<Possibly. And she also has incredible potential.>
"How much?"
<It easily dwarfs yours and Sakura's combined.>
Mami flinched at the reminder of her previous Junior.
<She could likely be one of the strongest Magical Girls alive if she were to Contract. Possibly the strongest given enough time.">
Mami gulped. A girl with such incredible power. What would they do once it was in their hands though? "Who is she and what is she like?" She had to make sure that this girl wouldn't be a threat to the world.
<Kaname Madoka. By all accounts she is a fairly normal human, which makes her vast potential even more unusual. Those around her have the opinion that she is kind, if a bit naïve. Our observations so far support this. She can do much with the proper guidance.>
Mami could definitely work with that. Kaname's potential was frightening and the other girl was still a complete unknown, but they would at least be willing to talk should she approach them carefully. And if Kaname really was as kind as they said, then she would be a great boon to this world. Someone who could help a lot of people. All she needed was for someone to set her on the right path.
"And you came to me to teach her?"
<You are considerate of your own kind, much more open to cooperation, and have had experience mentoring other Magical Girls.>
"My track record... hasn't been very good though." Most of the Magical Girls that she had tried to Mentor had simply left, unable to cope with the life. There had only been one pair of siblings with the potential and strength to last and she had already failed them. One had died and the other had lost nearly everything important to them in their life.
<Through little fault of your own, according to our observations.>
"I'm aware of your observations," Mami sighed. Still didn't change the fact that Momo had been her responsibility. Saku-, no Emiya was fully justified in holding that against her. "Am I really the best person for this?"
Kyubey tilted his head. <We wouldn't come to you otherwise. You are our best hope for Kaname and thus ensuring the prosperity of the universe.>
It was never just the world with Kyubey. It apparently had to take responsibility for safeguarding the universe. Mami didn't know how it was able to do that, but it was a good enough cause. If a bit vague at times.
She picked up her teacup and took a sip.
She might've failed before, but that didn't mean she was destined to repeat her mistakes. Maybe this was a chance to make amends, to finally achieve what she couldn't do previously.
And maybe she could finally start inviting people to her apartment again. Tea and cake were best eaten in good company after all.
"I'll do it," Mami announced. "I'll be their Mentor."
|
Stepping into a labyrinth for the first time was certainly an experience for Madoka. This strange cartoon like reality made her feel... sad. Not afraid, just sad. Was it something to do with what Homura had said? That it wasn't their fault? That the creators of this place were just following their nature.
"Are you alright Madoka?"
Madoka tried to give her friend a reassuring smile. It probably wasn't working. "I'm fine. Just... feeling a bit weird."
"It takes some time to get used to your first labyrinth. You're doing well so far," Homura said.
"Thank you. So, what do these familiars look like?"
"They're unique depending on the Witch that created them. They're easy to find since they usually come for us."
"You mean like that grey mustached head with giant scissors over there?" Madoka pointed. Yea, it was hard to miss one of those.
Homura turned around. "That's one of them." The Magical Girl reached into her shield and pulled out a–
"A golf club?" Madoka asked. "Is that your Magical Girl weapon?"
Homura blushed though she made sure to keep her attention focused on the familiars. "No, my weapon is this shield. It lets me store whatever I put into it for later. It also... lets me stop time."
Madoka looked at Homura in awe. "Really? That's amazing."
"You believe me? Most people don't until I actually show them."
"I don't think you'd lie to me. I trust you."
"Oh..."
The familiar chose that chance to jump at them, only for Homura to suddenly reappear behind it and smack it on the back of the head. She then kicked away its scissors and held it against the ground with the head of her golf club.
"Do you want to take a swing now?" Homura asked. She looked at her golf club. "Er, no pun intended."
Madoka held up her bow but hesitated to draw the string. Homura was awfully close to that familiar. "I'm afraid I might hit you."
It was Homura's turn to smile. "I know you won't. I trust you."
That encouragement was all Madoka needed to create her arrow and draw the string. Her hands were steady as she nocked her arrow and released. It flew true and pierced the familiar's head.
"You always- er... I had a feeling you were a good archer," Homura commented as she stepped back and let the familiar fade away.
"It was a lucky shot," Madoka said. That was the first time she had ever used a bow and yet it felt completely natural to her. "Thanks for holding it still." She looked around. "Is that it?"
"No, it's only over when the labyrinth starts fading. There's no Witch here so we'll have to kill all the familiars to get rid of it." Homura began walking deeper into the labyrinth. "Follow me."
"How many of them are there usually?" Madoka asked as she followed the Magical Girl closely.
"A lot usually. We're almost always going to be outnumbered."
Eventually they ran into a small group of familiars. At least ten of them if Madoka was counting correctly.
Madoka gulped as she raised her bow once more.
That was... a big jump from just one.
Homura on the other hand put away her golf club away into her shield and then pulled out a–
"Is that a gun!?" Madoka squealed, almost breaking her stance.
"Uh... yes?" Homura replied as she casually held a semiautomatic handgun. It seemed surprisingly fitting in her hands, much more so than that golf club. "I was told it was a good weapon for me to use."
"What else do you have in there?"
"A few shotguns and rifles. Also, some bombs."
"Where did you get those?"
"I er... stole the guns from Yakuza."
"How!?"
"I stopped time. Also, I made the bombs myself."
Normally Madoka was against stealing, but considering that Homura had taken them from the and she was using them for a good cause...
At that moment the familiars finally noticed their presence and started their charge. Homura immediately raised her gun and fired.
|
The sound of the first shot was near deafening and the ones that followed it caused Madoka's ears to ring.
"Loud!"
"S-sorry." Homura replied but still continued firing.
Madoka grit her teeth and tried to shoot at the familiars with her bow.
It was one thing to shoot an immobilized target, but trying to aim and fire her bow against several monsters running at her with deadly intent? Well, she panicked and completely missing her first few shots. The only damage her arrows caused were the holes she left in the walls and floors. Thankfully Homura had been there to shoot down any familiars that got within a certain distance.
Did guns have to be so loud though? Every time Homura fired it felt like Madoka's head was getting rattled.
"Just... remember to take a deep breath and focus on the target in front of you. Don't be afraid of missing, just try your best," Homura said as she stopped firing before her last bullet and released the magazine. She reached into a shield and pulled out a new clip which she promptly inserted into the gun. That entire process took less than second. "That's what an old friend told me."
Madoka took a deep breath and felt that her nerves had calmed.
Focus on the target in front of you. Don't be afraid of missing. Just do her best.
She nocked her arrow against her bow and tracked the movement of a familiar that had begun strafing on its way towards her.
Just be the best that she could be.
Madoka released and her arrow blew off one of its legs. Not killing, but an immobilizing blow. Enough that she could ready another arrow and shoot it down before it could get back up. She then turned back to Homura's direction and shot at the one of the familiars the Magical Girl had been keeping occupied.
Deep breaths.
Her fated enemy was in front of her. All she had to do was shoot them down.
Like clockwork, she fired her arrows. Again and again. Until everything in front of her had been shot down. She then moved forward with Homura to hunt down whatever familiars remained within the labyrinth. It wasn't the world around them began to collapse before she finally let herself relax.
"That was great Madoka."
"What?" Madoka replied unable to hear her. Her ears were still recovering from the gunfire. She decided not to mention that lest the Magical Girl blame herself for being its cause.
"That was great Madoka," Homura said a bit more loudly this time. "How do you feel?"
"Tired I think?" Madoka replied. "My arm and back is sore."
"Is that it?"
"Am I supposed to feel something else?"
"You're not a Magical Girl and it was your first time using your bow. It would make sense that you're sore."
"Magical Girls don't get tired?"
"Not physically, but we can use up our magic." Homura showed Madoka her Soul Gem. "The more we use up, the darker our Soul Gems get. We need to cleanse it with a Witch's grief seed before it gets too dark or else it'll get us killed fighting... or something worse."
"Something worse?"
"It's... nothing you need to worry about right now."
"Ok." Madoka looked around the site where the labyrinth had been located, a closed off section of the mall that she and her friends went to regularly. It was a good thing they had dealt with those creatures, a lot of people could've gotten hurt. Now they were safe.
There wasn't even any damage to the building. All the damage to the labyrinth had disappeared with it, as did the traces of the familiars. It was as if their battle had never happened in the first place. It was starting to make sense how the existence of Witches could be kept a secret from most other people for so long.
Convenient too, as it gave them enough time to get back to her house before dinner.
|
"I'm home," Madoka called out as stepped inside her house with Homura following close behind. "And I brought Homura." She had already texted her father beforehand so that he could cook an extra portion, it was just polite to announce a guest's presence.
"Meow." Amy greeted first, as always, before going back to the food in its bowl.
"Welcome back," her father called out from the kitchen.
"Mado-ka!" Tatsuya called cheerfully out from his little booster seat.
"Hello Mr. Kaname." Homura bowed her head. "Thank you for having me over for dinner."
Her father smiled. "Make yourself at home. Any friend of Madoka's is welcome."
"You're very kind."
"Why don't you show her to your room?" he suggested to Madoka. "There's still some time before your mother gets home for dinner."
"Oh! She's finishing early today?" Madoka asked.
"Yes. She also wanted to meet your new friend."
"I'm looking forward to meeting her," Homura replied.
"And this is my little brother, Tatsuya." Madoka brought her hand to the toddler who grabbed it eagerly.
"Mado! Sis!"
Madoka gestured to Homura. "This is Homura she's a friend."
"Homewuh friend?" Tatsuya looked at Homura curiously
"Yes."
"Homewuh!" Tatsuya raised his arms and shouted cheerfully.
Madoka giggled and Homura smiled.
"That mean he likes you. A lot. Even Sayaka had to play with him a lot before he started calling her name."
"Thank you, Tatsuya." Homura held a finger out.
Tatsuya grabbed it, tugged a few times, and then brought their hands together. "Friend!" he happily exclaimed.
Well. Apparently Homura had gotten her brother's approval.
After playing with him and Amy for a bit, they made their way up to Madoka's room.
"You have a nice family and home," Homura commented as she sat down on the carpet.
"Thank you," Madoka replied as she opened a window to let some air in. "Mama works really hard to provide for us and Papa is always there to take care of us."
"Do you ever find it weird that your father is the one that stays at home?" Homura asked. "N-not that that bothers it's just something you don't see very often."
Madoka thought about it for a bit. "Not really. At least I don't think its weird. A couple of boys back in elementary used to make fun of him though."
It all had all started on Class Observation Day when her mother had been busy with work. Her father had shown up instead, and he had stood out in a room full of mothers. When it came out that he was a househusband, several boys and even a girl began to make fun of him.
"That can't have been easy," Homura said.
"It wasn't," Madoka admitted. How could it not? Considering that they were mocking the people she loved. "Thankfully Sayaka was there too. She got mad and got them to stop."
"That should've been interesting."
"It was. She said," Madoka cleared her throat, "What's wrong with her father staying home? And her mother is a successful businesswoman. What do you mother's do?"
"That does sound like Miki," Homura chuckled.
"Yea she's always been there to protect and help remind me how great Mama is."
"Your mother seems like a very impressive woman."
"She is. I really want to be like her one day. She's so strong and cool and doesn't let anyone mess with her." Madoka scratched the back of her head. "Me on the other hand? I need Sayaka to deal with a couple of bullies. I... can't say anything to them really."
It was something that she regretted, being unable to act by herself. She wanted to do something, but it was just hard. She didn't like hurting people even if they were hurting her, but that didn't mean she should let them get away with it.
She should've done something.
She should do something.
She would do it.
"M-Madako? Why did you take your bow out?"
Madoka looked down. Her eyes went wide once she saw her bow in her hands.
"Eep!"
She let it fall out of her hand and disappear.
That was scary. Just because she wanted to do something didn't mean that that something was to shoot them!
"Still trying to get control of your powers?" Homura asked.
"Yea," Madoka chuckled nervously. "I'm worried that it might just pop up in class if I'm not careful." The bow just came to her hands so easily now and it made her feel brave holding it. Maybe a bit too brave. "You ever have issues like that with your powers?"
"No... Magical Girls instinctively know how to use their Magic. There's always room for us to learn, improve, and adapt it but we usually have no issue controlling it unless something really bad happens to us."
"Really bad?"
"I knew a girl who lost her magic, because something really bad happened because of her wish and she felt terrible. She was still one of the toughest Magical Girls I knew without her magic, but... I don't think she ever recovered."
"Magical Girls go through a lot. Don't they?"
"They do. It's not an easy life... which is why I don't suggest you become one."
"Homura?"
Homura raised her hands. "I mean I won't stop you from making your own decision. If you want then I won't get in your way, but just make sure to think about it. Make sure that you know you really want."
"You're really nice Homura."
"Eh!?"
"And considerate. Thank you for worrying about me."
"Y-you're welcome."
They talked a bit more before Homura requested to use the bathroom. After being given directions, Homura left the room leaving Madoka alone.
A sudden breeze brought a swift chill to her home. She stood up and turned around to close it only to find a... white bunny cat thing sitting on her windowsill.
It looked fairly cute if a bit peculiar. Something that Madoka would've definitely cuddled with had it been a stuffed animal and not a living creature with a swaying tail and eyes that seemed to follow her every movement.
<Hello Madoka.>
Its voice was cute. It was also apparently telepathic.
"H-hi," Madoka said.
<You're very calm. Most girls react differently when they see me for the first time.>
"I've... had a long day," Madoka replied. Honestly, stuff like this stopped being strange to her. Kinda have to roll with it at some point. It was either that or lose her mind.
<Certainly, a productive one. You did well, dealing with those familiars.>
"Thanks."
<Even as a normal human your powers are quite exceptional.>
Madoka wasn't really sure that having powers characterized her as normal at this point but she wasn't going to argue with it.
<You would make an excellent Magical Girl.>
At that point her brain had essentially shut down. She simply stared at in silence. Long enough that Homura had time to finish with her business and step into the room to find the two of them staring at each other.
"Kyubey!?" Homura shouted.
"Is everything alright Sweetie?" Madoka's father called out form downstairs.
It was at that point that Madoka's brain had finally jumpstarted itself, if only to stop her father from running in. "Everything's fine Papa! Homura just read something funny."
"Okay! You girls have your fun!"
<You know of me?> Kyubey turned to Homura. <Yet I do not remember ever forming a Contract with you.>
"The situation of my Contract... was complicated," Homura replied. She was stiff and nervous in the cat's presence for some reason.
<I'm sure I could understand if you told me.>
Homura remained silent.
<No matter.> Kyubey turned its head and began to address Madoka. <As I was saying, you are very capable and would make an excellent Magical Girl.>
"You want me to become a Magical Girl?" Madoka asked. "H-how does that work?"
<You form a Contract with me. In exchange for any wish you desire, you become a Magical Girl and fight Witches.>
"B-but why me?"
Kyubey tilted its head. <You have great potential, the potential to become one of the strongest Magical Girls in existence. And you've already used what powers you currently have to fight familiars. Imagine what you could do with the strength provided from a Contract.>
"How long have you been watching us?" Madoka asked.
"It's always watching us," Homura replied. "Even when we can't see it most of the time."
<I am not suited to combat. It's a necessity to keep myself hidden so that I am able to provide guidance as needed.>
"So... like a mascot. In those Magical Girl animes," Madoka said.
<There are some similarities. The first of those animes and mangas were based off the life experiences of a previous Magical Girl who had pursued a career in that field.>
"Isn't magic supposed to be kept a secret though?"
<We allowed it because it was promoted as a fictional work. Did you believe Magical Girls existed by watching those shows alone?>
"No," Madoka admitted.
<It was also a way of gauging how receptive society would currently be about the existence of magic, should we ever consider making Magic's existence public knowledge. Or should a situation arise in which that is forced to happen outside of our foresight. It doesn't happen often, but we wish to avoid another situation like the Salem Witch hunts. We lost a number of Magical Girls because of rampant fear and paranoia that humans seem prone to experiencing,>
Madoka shivered at the thought. Being hung, drowned, or burned alive at a stake wasn't a fate she would've wished on anyone.
"And now?" Homura asked.
<We are still gathering information before we can form a consensus. As for your Contract Madoka.>
"Madoka. You shouldn't force yourself to make a wish," Homura said. "It's not a decision you should make lightly... if at all," she muttered under her breath.
Madoka looked at Homura before turning to Kyubey and then back to Homura. "I think I need some time to think about this."
<We will give you as much time as you need.> Kyubey bowed its head and turned around. <Just know that we will always be there for you.> It then jumped away and disappeared into the night.
Once it was gone, Madoka let out a deep breath and sat on her bed.
"Homura?"
"Yes Madoka?"
"You wouldn't happen to know a good psychiatrist. Would you?"
"No. Sorry."
"That's fine then."
Madoka buried her head into a pillow. She then let out all her stress and frustration in a single scream.
"Mmuaaaaaauuuhhhh!"
|
Archer sat next to Yuma, carefully going over the math book he had bought for her. It had been weeks since they had been living together and progress on her lessons had been slow.
"And if we divide by three, what will that give us?" he asked Yuma.
"Uh..." Yuma looked completely stumped. It was clear she didn't understand. "Five?" she answered uncertainly.
"It's better to admit that you don't know then try to make something up, especially when you're casting spells."
Yuma bowed her head. "I don't know."
"Then we'll just have to go over this again." It was mostly his fault, assuming that she would get it after explaining it twice.
He turned back to the previous page for her.
Basic algebra was a necessity to getting started in Magecraft. However, Yuma was a bit too young to have been taught that in school. That in itself wouldn't be an issue on its. Kids could learn surprisingly quick once they put effort into a subject that interested them. However, there was also the abuse that the girl had gone through to consider.
When she had first come to this house, she had been dreadfully skinny and incredibly malnourished. Before they could even start with training, he and Kaguya had to take the first week feeding Yuma a proper diet and getting her some neccesary fat on her bones. Then came the mental trauma. The beatings had done its damage to her brain as well stunted its development. It made her a bit slow. Not unintelligent, just slow.
"So, if we divide by three, what will that give us?" Archer asked again.
"Twelve? I think?" Yuma replied.
"Close. It's actually fifteen, but you're getting it."
Despite his encouragement though, it was clear that frustration was mounting on the girl's face. He could understand where it came from, he had also felt like that when he had been a boy. She had to keep at it at her own pace though, it would be no good if she reached too quickly out of her means. There was a good chance she could recover and grow up healthily with his intervention, but that would take time.
"Fifteen. Fifteen," Yuma grumbled to herself as she put her pencil to her worksheet. "So, I needed to add it one more time?"
"Yes."
He continued on with his lesson though he made a note to readjust the curriculum he had planned for her. He had definitely overshot what she was currently capable of. Even the very basics of math, such as multiplication and division, were a struggle for her and it seemed that she was completely stumped when it came to fractions.
"So, this would equal nine." Yuma would say a few minutes later after they had gone through a few more problems.
"That's correct. Good job," Archer praised her. The weary smile she gave him was a good sign and she looked willing to continue. However, it was clear that she was running on fumes at this point. "That's enough for now."
"Okay," Yuma replied before rubbing her eyes. "What do you need me to do next?"
"Take a break," Archer practically demanded her as he got up to the kitchen. A glass if warm milk was an adequate reward for her work.
Once Yuma had gotten the cup, she eagerly drank it along with several multivitamins he had her take throughout the day. It was the most efficient way to give her the nutrients she had been missing, especially when paired with a bit of Reinforcement. After she finished, he switched on the tv so that she could inevitably put herself to sleep. It wasn't long before her snores echoed throughout the house, even louder than what Kaguya was capable of after a particularly tiring night of hunting Witches.
Archer put another blanket on top of her and gathered up the learning material. Once everything was put away, he sat down at the dining table and carefully sipped on his tea.
Yuma's endurance was also an issue. Not so much that she tired easily, that could easily be mended with enough time and nutrition. No, the real issue was that she would let herself be pushed beyond her limits and not say a single word about it. Even Kaguya was able to admit the times when she was too worn out from her training to continue, and she would definitely complain if she disagreed with something.
The little girl's willingness to push herself to the point of punishment wasn't born from stubbornness. No, he could see it on her face every time she failed in front of him or Kaguya. Fear and desperation. Desperate to please the people that had saved her and fear of being sent away from the only haven she had found.
She was very different from his previous students. Kaguya had at least a solid education and the determination to push it while Momo... well Momo had been gifted.
Momo...
Archer glanced back at Yuma as she slept a restless sleep. They would've been around the same age at this time. In the end though, they couldn't be any more different. Hopefully Kaguya would remember that.
The front door of the house opened.
"I'm back," Kaguya called out as she quickly took of her shoes and stepped inside. She glanced at where Yuma laid. "Worked herself to death again?"
Archer took a long drink of his tea and swallowed. "She might actually do that if she's left unsupervised for too long."
Thankfully the young girl was about as much of a deep sleeper as Kaguya was. Made it difficult to separate the two from each other and the bed they shared in the morning, but at least they didn't risk waking Yuma up at the moment,
"That bad?"
"She's used to complying to orders and accepting any form of punishment, even when it isn't justified. A survival instinct, most likely." He was personally aware of such signs at this point.
"We need to help her with that don't we?" Kaguya replied as she joined him at the table.
Archer casually handed her a cup of coffee that he had brewed just minutes before she arrived. "She needs therapy. Serious therapy. And unfortunately, neither of us are very good when it comes to dealing with trauma despite personal experiences."
"What do we do then?" Kaguya asked. "Get her a psychiatrist?"
"That... might be a good idea."
Kaguya looked doubtful. "Really? What if they learn something from Yuma that they shouldn't? I know she'll do her best not to say anything against us but..."
"Patient confidentiality and whatever Yuma does let slip can be attributed as the delusions of a child. Or simply the results of her abuse. Either way it's not as risky as you think."
Kaguya began gulping down her own drink. She slammed the cup down and sighed once she finished. "That's going to be another thing to pay for."
"Along with paying off our contacts for forging her a new identity, the adoption papers, and other documentation." They weren't destitute but they had already burned through most of the savings they already had. Needless to say, construction for the koi pond was indefinitely postponed.
"We'll just have to spend more time hunting for Witches."
"Kaguya."
"Fine. You'll spend time hunting Witches. I'll stay home babysitting Yuma. Again."
"You agreed to this."
"I know," Kaguya waved him off. "Just go off and have your fun without me."
"I will. After dinner."
|
Sayaka wandered alone on the populated streets of Kazamino. She had no destination in mind, just some pocket change given to her by her parents so that she could grab some lunch while they were busy with a client. Why she even had to come along in the first place instead of hanging out with Madoka or Hitomi that day? She didn't know.
Maybe it was to make a good impression to the client, or maybe her father just wanted to take her along to see how the business worked. Either way it wasn't something that she was planning to take up herself. As for what she did want to do in the future... well it was kind of a stupid dream really.
Kind of hard to be hero nowadays unless you were a police officer or firefighter. Actually, the former wouldn't be such a bad idea. Maybe even aim for Detective? Detective Sayaka Miki, Case Closer Extraordinaire!
... The title needed some work.
Sayaka was about to cross a crosswalk when she noticed a pair of girls, one with fiery red hair around her age and the other with green hair who was younger. They both wore fairly fancy looking blouses and skirts. That normally wouldn't be of anything to note in any city, but the man in a trench coat following them certainly was.
Not willing to leave this alone, Sayaka immediately chased after them. It took going through a couple of turns and hitting a few dead ends before she finally saw the back of the man in the distance.
In his hands was a knife and in front of him was the girl with red hair who had postured protectively in front of the much shorter child. The child held tightly onto an arm as the girl gave the mugger a... disappointed look?
She wasn't even trying to act brave or anything, it was like she didn't give a damn. Either she was completely apathetic to getting robbed, or she was supremely confident in handling the situation. Either way though, that didn't change the fact that someone was in trouble. Even if that someone was a bit weird.
Sayaka began looking around. There was no way she was going to overpower that man with her own strength, especially when he had a knife. She needed a weapon of her own something that she could use against him.
Her eyes eventually caught onto a flash of red and she focused on her potential weapon of choice conveniently leaning against a closed door.
That would do.
|
"Give me your money girly."
Kaguya was simply too tired for this shit as a mugger brandished a knife in her direction.
All because Archer demanded that she dress a bit nicer when she brought Yuma to the psychiatrist.
The meeting itself had gone fine. Yuma seemed comfortable around the psychiatrist and they had already made the next appointment.
All well and good except for the fact that she was now getting mugged!
Not that this man was any threat, but it was annoying, and he was scaring Yuma! The fact that the little girl was there was the only reason why she hadn't set him on fire yet. She had to consider the best way to take him out without making it traumatic for the girl.
Hmm. Maybe rush in and go for a disarm? No. Stay still and sucker punch once he goes for a strike. Look confident, look in control of the entire situation. Show Yuma she has nothing to fear with her cool Big Sis Kaguya around. Yea. That would work.
The man took a step forward and Kaguya reared back a fist.
Get ready...
The man was suddenly blasted by a furious stream of white foam. The mugger backed away, disoriented, when a girl with short blue hair suddenly ran in and bashed his back with a fire extinguisher.
"Run! Now!" The blue haired girl shouted as she grabbed Kaguya and Yuma's hands and dragged them away while the mugger was recovering.
Kaguya was simply too dumbfounded to resist, and the girl ended up dragging them quite some distance. They didn't stop until they finally arrived in front of a family restaurant, where the girl finally released their hands.
"That was close," the girl let out a sigh of relief. "Are you two okay?"
"Peachy," Kaguya replied unamused. She would've put Yuma behind her... but honestly this girl didn't seem like a threat.
Short blue hair, fancy music note hairpin. No discernable marks on her skin and no magic. Little to no prior combat experience judging by that encounter in the alleyway. Definitely a civilian, not a Magical Girl or Magus. Not a threat at all.
Kaguya glanced at the girl's chest.
Decent rack though. Good face too. Pretty with a slight tomboyish charm.
"Er... my eyes are up here."
"What was that for?" Kaguya asked.
"I mean..." the girl scratched the back of your head. "The two of you looked like you were in trouble, so I had to help."
"Why?" Kaguya asked.
The girl looked at her in confusion. "Why not? Isn't it the right thing to do to help people?"
Kaguya scoffed and shook her head.
Great. An idiot. No one worth her time.
"Why are you calling me an idiot?" the girl asked, annoyed.
"Because you wanted to play the hero," Kaguya replied as she crossed her arms and gave the girls a sardonic smirk. "You put yourself in harm's way to help two complete strangers"
"Hey! Maybe instead of insulting you should thank me for saving you!"
Kaguya rolled her eyes. "I could've handled him myself."
"Oh yea? And what about that little girl behind you?"
"She wasn't in any danger at all. You tell her Yuma."
"Thank you, Miss," Yuma replied.
"See I- wait what!?" Kaguya turned to Yuma. "Why are you thanking her?"
"Because... she tried to help us," Yuma carefully. "Even if we didn't need it... aren't you being mean to her? You should say sorry."
Kaguya was left completely speechless. Of all the times Yuma had to choose to go against her, it had to be in front of this idiot with a Hero Complex?
The girl snickered behind her.
"Don't you dare laugh about this!" Kaguya shouted. She had long since stopped caring about the spectacle they were creating in front of the restaurant.
The girl, infuriatingly enough, decided to ignore Kaguya and instead lean down in front Yuma. "You're welcome."
She pointed a thumb at Kaguya.
"How exactly do you deal with this jerk here?" she said playfully.
Yuma pouted. "Don't say bad things about Kaguya. That's mean."
Now it was the girl's turn to look dumbstruck, much to Kaguya's amusement.
"But didn't you just say she was being mean?" the girl asked.
"That doesn't that you should act like a jerk too." Yuma looked disapprovingly at Kaguya as she started laughing. "You're both being jerks."
Being told off by an eleven-year-old had a placating effect on the two of them. They stood there, awkwardly facing one another before Kaguya finally glanced at the restaurant next to them.
"You wanna get something to eat?"
|
Sayaka wasn't too sure what to think about Kaguya. She acted cocky in front of an armed mugger and it seemed her default attitude was self-pretentious jerk. With Yuma though... Kaguya might as well had a heart of gold. The affectionate gaze, the protective posturing similar to how a young lioness protected its cub, it was clear that Kaguya cared deeply about the little girl.
It made hating her harder than it ought to be.
"I never got your name."
"Eh?" Sayaka looked up from her plate of spaghetti.
"Your name. Blue," Kaguya repeated.
Blue? Seriously? Just because of her hair?
"Sayaka Miki... Red."
"Sayaka huh..." Kaguya took another bite of her steak. "So, what's a wannabe hero like you doing around here?"
Wannabe hero? It was insulting and Sayaka would've immediately shot back had Yuma not given Kaguya a disproving look. Apparently, that was enough to get the red-haired girl to regret her words.
"My parents are meeting with a client here. They're accountants," Sayaka replied.
"Oh. Where ya from?"
"Mitakihara."
Kaguya flinched for some reason, but quickly recovered. "Interesting city."
"You have a problem with it?"
"No just... knew someone from there."
"A friend?"
|
Well whatever history Kaguya had there was clearly complicated.
"Yuma don't think I haven't noticed those bell peppers you've been hiding," Kaguya suddenly said.
Yuma pouted but ultimately unwrapped a napkin and put the bell peppers back on her plate.
"Picky eater?" Sayaka teased the little girl. "Don't worry I don't like carrots too."
"Are you going to your salad then?" Kaguya asked.
"I mean I'm probably just going to leave it. Why? You want so–" Sayaka was interrupted by the furious and frankly frightening glare Kaguya was suddenly sending her way. Like an enraged beast about to pounce.
"Don't. Waste. Food."
"O-okay," Sayaka stuttered before quickly stuffing a mouthful of salad into her mouth. So apparently this was the best way to get her to eat her veggies. Hopefully her mother would never learn this technique.
"Kaguya's like that when it comes to food," Yuma said.
"For good reason," Kaguya replied. "Starving is the worst. You appreciate whatever food you get."
"True."
"Huh..." Sayaka couldn't help but let out.
Kaguya glared at her. "Something funny?"
"Just those are some nice clothes you're wearing. I didn't think you'd be so... conscious about that," Sayaka replied.
Kaguya eyes went back to her food. "Let's just say I have personal experience on the matter."
Well whatever history those two had, it at least seemed they had better days now.
"So anyway," Sayaka decided to bring up another topic, "What about your parents? What do they do?"
"We don't have parents," Kaguya replied curtly.
Oh.
"Um... sorry," Sayaka apologized.
"Why? You aren't responsible."
"Just... Can't I feel bad?"
"We don't need your sympathy. You want to make yourself feel good?" Kaguya gestured outside the window. "Go help some other orphans off the street. We're fine by ourselves."
It was a clear attempt to infuriate Sayaka, but at this point it was difficult to bring up any anger against this girl. Annoyance, yes, but none of the previous rage that had been present in their first interaction.
"I know you need to feel tough in front of your sister, but maybe accept the kindness of others once in a while," Sayaka said.
"We're not–" Kaguya was interrupted by the sad look Yuma's face. "Okay we are sisters, but we're not blood related. We were adopted from different families."
Well that explained why they looked so different from each other. Didn't change the fact that Kaguya had the same look on her face that Madoka often had when looking at Tatsuya.
Sayaka went back to eating her food and soon the three of them had emptied their respective plates under Kaguya's supervision. Eventually the check arrived.
"Well, thanks for inviting me to lunch I guess," Sayaka said as she began to take out her money. "I should get back to my parents though."
"What are you doing?" Kaguya asked.
"Paying for my meal?"
"I invited you. Put it down," Kaguya said before grabbing the check herself, putting in a very large bill, and quickly handing it over to the waiter.
"Why are you being so nice?" Sayaka asked suspiciously.
"I'm not. Just don't like owing anyone any favors."
Sayaka squinted. "I thought you said you didn't need my help?"
"I didn't. But you ended up doing something anyway." Kaguya waited until she received her change before standing up and grabbing Yuma's hand. "Don't always expect to get something back for helping others though. The world is never that kind. Especially to wannabe heroes like you."
Kaguya then left the store leaving Sayaka alone to mull over her words.
She honestly didn't agree with what Kaguya had said. There was nothing wrong with helping other people. The girl was just probably trying to be a jerk again.
But then why was Kaguya's voice so regretful when she said that?
|
"Kaguya, why were you so mean to that girl?" Yuma asked.
After their bath Kaguya had the girl sit in front of their bedroom mirror so that she could work on her hair.
"Remember what I said happens to heroes?" Kaguya replied as she set aside the dryer and picked up a brush. She then began to brush the strands of vibrant green hair.
Thanks to a proper diet and hair product Yuma's was looking healthier than ever. It was no longer frayed and had taken on a more healthy and natural shade.
"I do."
"Then you already know you're answer." Kaguya began to double check her work, making sure that there weren't any tangles she had missed. "Are you sure you wanna grow your hair out? It can be a hassle."
"You have long hair."
"Yea and it's a hassle." Really, the only reason she let it get long in the first place was because Momo had liked it. Now... it would just be wrong to cut it short.
"I don't mind. I want hair like yours," Yuma replied.
"Buttering me up again?" Kaguya said jokingly.
"Maybe."
"How's the lessons with Archer?" Kaguya asked.
Suddenly the mood dropped. Yuma began to frown. "It's hard."
"Magic is always tough. Even for me. You'll get there eventually."
"Am I good enough to even learn Magic?" Yuma asked.
"Magecraft," Kaguya corrected.
"Magecraft." Yuma clasped her hands. "I keep messing up. I always try so hard, but I never get anything done right. Like I'm... useless."
Better add an inferiority complex to the list of things that the psychiatrist would have to talk about. Boy did everyone in this household have their issues. Kaguya would've probably ignored her own had Archer not been a constant reminder in her head. "You're not useless. Everyone learns at their own pace," Kaguya replied.
"But don't I need to be useful to you?"
"You already are. If you weren't with me, I probably would've ended punching that bleu idiot in the face." Said idiot would've probably reacted by throwing a punch of their own. Not that that would get them anywhere, kind of hard for a civilian beat a mage practiced in Reinforcement in a fist fight. "Avoided a lot of trouble and a lecture from Archer thanks to you."
"Is that really good enough? Is that really what you want from me?"
"It..." Now that Kaguya thought about it, what did she want from Yuma. What should she be having the girl do? Did what they were doing right now even make sense? "It is for me. Alright? Just stop arguing with me."
Yuma remained silent and continued to remain so even as they went to bed.
In the end they just weren't ready to have that discussion yet. At least not until Kaguya could figure out their future. And she would figure it out... eventually.
|
"Long day, Madoka?" Sayaka asked. It wasn't often that you saw Madoka Kaname with bags under her eyes and looking like a cat that had been dragged out from the tree.
A sharp contrast to the actual cat that usually followed her.
"It was," Madoka admitted as they made their way to school.
"Meow." Amy walked up and rubbed against Madoka's leg.
"Could I ask why you're so tired?" Hitomi inquired.
"I think..." Madoka mulled over her words. She was having trouble explaining it. "I learned about something that I shouldn't have. Or maybe it wasn't something I was ready for yet."
Sayaka tilted her head. "That time of the month?"
"Sayaka!" Madoka shouted red faced and scandalized.
Hitomi wasn't doing so well either, having covered her mouth with her hands. "Do you have to be so crude?"
"Sorry, sorry," Sayaka raised up her hands in apology. "Just thought I'd try to lighten the mood a little."
"That isn't a good reason to talk about something like that," Madoka muttered.
"I'm sorry," Sayaka apologized again. "But seriously what's got you so bothered? Something to do with your family?" She glanced at that cat who looked at her innocently. "With Amy?"
"Meow," was the cat's reply.
"My family and Amy are fine. It's just... I was with Homura–"
"Oh, hanging out with the cute transfer student," Sayaka began to tap Madoka's side with her elbow. "Getting a little alone time with her."
"Sayaka," Madoka groaned.
"Sayaka please stop making such suggestions," Hitomi shook her head. "It's unreasonable."
Hitomi was a good friend, but she and her family could be a bit old fashioned when it came to stuff like this. It was something that Sayaka and Madoka, mostly Sayaka, had to deal with. Well, at least she wasn't off running away hysterically shouting girls couldn't love girls... again.
Though that did raise up a question. Did Madoka like girls? Though she expressed her desire to be asked out on a date, she never seemed to show any actual interest in any of the boys in their class. Honestly she didn't really show interest in anyone until Homura showed up and that could just be her being nice as usual.
"So, what happened with Homura?" Sayaka squinted her eyes. "Did she do something to you?"
"No! Homura was very nice. She wouldn't do anything bad to me. It just that her life is a bit complicated."
"How so?"
"Her parents are dead, and she lives alone. There're also some other things in her life that's been bothering her. I've been trying to help, but–"
"It's a bit out of your league. Isn't it?" Sayaka finished for her.
"Yea..."
"Don't worry." Sayaka wrapped her arm around Madoka's back. She then raised her other arm, made a fist, and pointed to the horizon. "Sayaka Miki's here to provide backup. We'll tackle what's troubling the transfer student together!"
Madoka smiled. "Thanks, Sayaka."
|
During lunch, Sayaka found herself eating on a bench in the courtyard along with her friends. Before she had taken her first bite, she had noticed that Homura's and Madoka's lunch were very similar.
Actually, scratch that, they were completely the same thing.
"You sharing a lunch?" Sayaka asked.
"Um... yes," Homura replied.
"Papa made an extra portion for Homura to take home last night."
"Lucky," Sayaka teased. "Madoka's dad makes the best food."
"I know and I'm very grateful," Homura replied.
Homura was a polite girl. A bit shy and occasionally weird, but she was a nice person. Plus, her presence seemed to activate some sort of latent motherly genes within Madoka. Whatever the reason, it was nice to see Madoka be a bit more assertive. Even if it was for the sake of someone else.
Honestly that girl could learn to be a little bit selfish sometimes. It was just so easy to take advantage of her if she wasn't being protected.
"Thanks for keeping Madoka company Homes," Sayaka said. "Was worried she'd get lonely without me or Hitomi."
Madoka rolled her eyes. She actually rolled her eyes! Maybe they could get her to start using sarcasm with enough work.
"What did you do yesterday Sayaka?" Hitomi inquired.
"Just went with my parents to Kazamino. Some accounting thing, it was really boring. What about you?"
"Dinner with some family friends. The food was good and nothing... unusual happened during the meal."
"So, it was boring."
"Well... yea," Hitomi admitted. "Not the best company if I'm being honest. Seems both had a rather dull day yesterday."
"Well actually it actually got a bit exciting when I was getting lunch. Met this girl. She was a bit of a piece of work."
"Kaguya?" Homura suddenly asked.
"Yea," Sayaka immediately turned to Homura in confusion. "How'd you know?"
"I was just guessing. She has a..." Homura glanced at Madoka who seemed to be picking up on something. "Reputation."
"Well I guess it's hard to miss her." Sayaka would've asked if Homura had been the girl Kaguya had talked about knowing in Mitikihara, but the transfer student only moved here recently so the timeline wouldn't really fit. "You ever talk to her?"
"Not yet. No."
"Well, I'm not surprised that girl has a reputation. I mean who just stands there in front of a mugger like it's nothing?" Sayaka asked.
"She was mugged!" Madoka shouted. Sweet empathetic Madoka, as always, was worried about a complete stranger she hadn't met. "I hope she wasn't hurt."
"Nah. Mostly the mugger."
"Did she beat him up?" Homura asked casually. It was clear that was she expected had happened.
"Well it was actually me. With a fire extinguisher."
"Why is it always an extinguisher?" Homura muttered to herself.
"What was that?" Sayaka asked.
"Nothing."
"You assaulted a criminal? Do you know how dangerous that was?" Hitomi chastised her.
"The girl was in... well actually she might not have been trouble, but I couldn't just sit by and do nothing. What would you have done?"
"I would've kept my distance and called the authorities," Hitomi replied calmly. "Perhaps create a distraction, but I wouldn't confront him directly. Doing so would risk me getting hurt or worse. I can't imagine how my parents would feel if something happened to me. I'd imagine it'd be the same for yours."
Sayaka scratched the back of her head. Hitomi did have a point. She hadn't really been thinking about her loved ones would feel if she got hurt. There was also Kyosuke to consider, who would take care of him if she got hurt?
"I'm glad you're fine at least," Madoka said, relieved. "And you made a new friend too."
"Uh... yea no. She's definitely not a friend."
"Was there something about her you disliked?" Hitomi.
"Honestly? We probably would've started punching each other if it wasn't for that little girl she had with her."
"Always so quick to pick a fight," Hitomi shook her head.
"Little girl?" Homura asked.
"Girl named Yuma. Green hair. Short. Practically has Kaguya on leash."
"I couldn't imagine Kaguya being tied down by anyone."
"Well that girl did it. Has Kaguya acting like a mother wolf around her. Kind of hard to start decking each other with her around."
"But... you helped her." Oh no now Madoka was starting to give them her sad face. Hurting her was like hurting a crying puppy, no reason to do it and it made you feel like an absolute jerk. "Can't you two get along?"
"It's..." Sayaka looked away. Do not stare into the puppy eyes. Do not drown in the heart wrenching tears. "We probably won't see each other again anyway. It's fine."
"Maybe," Madoka admitted. "But it's sad knowing that you two left hating each other."
"I don't hate her. It's just... complicated. I don't think she's a bad person..." A bad person wouldn't take care of a little kid, value their food, and pay for a meal... Probably. "It's just that we won't get along. It happens."
"That is true," Hitomi conceded. "It's optimistic to assume that everyone will get along. Some people just don't match, through no fault of their own."
"Exactly," Sayaka agreed. "Me and this Kaguya girl will never get along."
|
Kaguya sneezed.
"Allergies acting up?" Archer asked.
"No. But I do have an urge to punch something."
"Dojo's out in the back. Also why did you put a blue wig on one of the dummies?"
|
"You better wear that skirt Madoka picked out for you Homes. Don't want to make her sad," Sayaka teased as the four of them made their way back from the mall. It was a rare moment that Hitomi didn't have anything planned, so she was going to enjoy the time that she spent with them.
"It's fine Homura. You don't have to wear it if you don't like it," Madoka replied while shooting a dirty look at Sayaka.
"N-no. I like it... it's pretty."
"It suits you, though it's certainly different from what Madoka usually wears," Hitomi commented as she turned to Madoka. "You seem to be quite aware of the fashion that suits Akemi."
"I just think purple looks good on her," Madoka replied sheepishly. "You know, like how red works on you."
"I still say that Hitomi should wear a nice green dress," Sayaka said playfully. "Match that hair of hers"
Hitomi shook her head. "I'd prefer not to look like stick of celery, thank you. Some contrast is... is... contrast needed." Hitomi shook her head again.
"Yo. You alright there?" Sayaka waved a hand in front of Hitomi's face. She didn't get a reaction, in fact it looked as if Hitomi's eyes had completely glazed over. "Hitomi?"
"I should... get dressed," Hitomi suddenly turned around and began walking elsewhere.
"Homura we need to stop her!" Madoka suddenly shouted, her voice frantic.
"Uh, uh. I got this!" Homura shouted before running up behind Hitomi and karate chopping her on the back of the neck. Hitomi immediately went down and fell to the ground, unconscious.
"What the hell Homura!?" Sayaka shouted.
"That isn't what I meant!" Madoka shouted.
"I-I'm sorry, I panicked," Homura replied frantically.
"Why the hell did you karate chop her!?" Sayaka screamed.
"We needed to stop her before she went into the Labyrinth!"
"Homura! Isn't this supposed to be a secret?"
"Actually, its fine with Sayaka. She has Potential too."
"What!?"
"What the hell are you two talking about!?"
"Sayaka please just take Hitomi somewhere safe," Madoka begged. "There's something that Homura and I need to do."
"Are you seriously abandoning me with Hitomi!?"
"It's dangerous we don't want you to get hurt."
"What are you two doing that's dangerous?" Sayaka asked. "And if it's something that could get you hurt, then I'm coming too."
"Madoka the Witch is coming here!"
"Sayaka! Hurry! Get Hitomi out of here."
"For the love- Fine! You two owe me an explanation though." Sayaka reached down and tried to pick up Hitomi with Homura's help. The transfer student was surprisingly strong and soon Sayaka had Hitomi completely lifted on her back. She was only able to take a few steps though when the world around her suddenly began to change.
"What the hell," Sayaka said as the colors and space seemed to shift all around her.
"Too late," Homura said.
"Sayaka. Stay behind us," Madoka said.
Eventually reality reoriented itself and Sayaka found herself in a completely new world. It was such a weird place. There didn't seem to any ground beneath them, just an endless expanse of blue sky all around. The four of them stood precariously on one of many tightropes that somehow hung throughout the skit. Hanging on them were countless numbers of what looked like school uniforms.
It took all of Sayaka's discipline to not lost her balance and fall off the edge with Hitomi. Thankfully the tripwire they were on was significantly wider than the rest, meaning that there was some room to maneuver on her feet.
The sky itself was actually kind of pretty. Plus the uniforms and tightropes sort of gave it a sort of fancy art feel. Too bad it was kind of hard to focus on that with the army of disembodied legs that were dancing aggressively towards them.
Sayaka blinked.
The legs did not disappear. They apparently weren't a figment of her imagination. Didn't help that they had some sharp looking ice skates underneath their feet.
"Uh, where are we?" Sayaka asked.
There was a sudden flash of purple light to the side. Sayaka turned her head and saw that Homura now wore some of sort of elaborate cosplay outfit.
"M-Madoka," Homura immediately turned to Madoka. "Keep Sayaka and Hitomi safe. I'll deal with the Witch."
"Are you sure you can handle it by yourself?" Madoka asked. Apparently, she knew something about all of this.
"I-I'll try. Just stay safe. Please," Homura begged.
"I will."
Homura nodded before by jumping at least fifteen feet in the air, landing on another tightrope, and then running atop with the ease of a circus acrobat.
As for the enemy the transfer student was running to fight, it was probably that giant amalgamation of twisted legs coming out of skirt that had been hovering menacingly in the distance. Sayaka wasn't entirely sure how she'd missed that until now, but it looked dangerous and the transfer student didn't exactly sound confident fighting it. That would've been worrying if Sayaka hadn't been trying to frantically to process everything that was happening.
"What are those things over there!? Why did Homura's clothes change!? Where did she get a gun!? Why do you have a bow!?" Sayaka shouted frantically as she finally noticed the weapon that had just popped out of nowhere into Madoka's hands. Unlike Homura though, Madoka's clothes stayed very much the same.
"I'll explain later," Madoka shouted as she created some sort of pink magic arrow, of course of it had to be pink, and nocked her bow.
"Just stay behind me," Madoka pleaded as she let loose an arrow and shot down one of the weird leg monsters that had been coming for them.
"Seriously what's going on!?" Sayaka shouted as she set Hitomi down and tried to shake her awake. This was insane! How did they end up here? Why were monsters trying to kill them? And why was sweet gentle Madoka shooting them down ruthlessly like friggen Legolas?
"I said I'll explain later!" Madoka shouted frantically as a trio of monsters got close. She was able to shoot down two of them before the third got in range and reared up for a kick. Madoka ducked under it, twirled an arrow around in her hand, and then stabbed used it to stab the monster. At a sensitive spot right between its legs.
It was brutal, badass, and quite frankly scary. Scary enough to watch that Sayaka put a hand protectively over her skirt. Hopefully Madoka would never have a reason to do that to her.
There was a good chance Madoka might never get the opportunity though. The pink hair girl was shooting the monsters down like flies, but they just kept coming and Homura was starting to get swarmed too as she tried to make her way toward the giant monster.
The transfer student suddenly disappeared and a few seconds later an explosion took her place. Sayaka then noticed Homura on a completely different clothesline taking potshots with her shotgun.
It was at that moment that the giant pair of legs suddenly decided to move. It swung a leg down taking down the all the wires around Homura. The transfer student tried to jump to another one, but that too gave way. Soon she was free falling down into the sky.
"Homura!" Madoka shouted frantically as she ran towards the falling girl. She would never make it though. There was nothing that they could do.
Sayaka noticed a flash of yellow in her periphery. She barely had time to turn before a line of yellow, shot forward and rested itself under Homura. The transfer student landed and was cushioned by what was apparently a giant line of cloth.
"I'm glad I got here in time," another voice called out.
Sayaka looked to the very end of the line of cloth. It was being held by a girl with blonde hair wrapped in pigtails. She wore a yellow outfit, a beret... and probably had one of the most impressive chests she had witnessed.
Damn, how much milk did this girl drink?
"Mami!?" Homura shouted in surprise.
"Ah. I see me reputation precedes me." The girl named Mami curtsied with her hand still holding onto the ribbon. "I should live up to it."
Suddenly an entire line of overly large and old-fashioned muskets appeared in the air above her. A resounding click filled the air and then the furious sounds of what could only be described as a one-man firing squad. Wave after wave of bullets flew, completely destroying anything they touched.
Mami somersaulted through the air and began running along a tripwire towards Homura. The transfer student had recovered from the fall at this point and was beginning to add her own firepower to the mix.
Together, the two of them made their way towards the giant monster. They worked well together surprisingly, despite this likely being the first time they had met.
Mami led the charge. Dancing and weaving between monsters, shooting and striking them with the barrels of her guns. After firing a shot, she threw a spent musket into a group of enemies. The musket began cracking with yellow lights before exploding violently and taking out the entire group.
The way clear, Mami elegantly gestured toward the giant monster in front of them. "Do you wish to do the honors, or should I?"
"Y-You can do it," Homura replied.
Mami pulled off a ribbon wrapped around her neck and let it loose into the air. The ribbon transformed into a giant gun that Mami casually caught and aimed with just a single arm.
"Tiro Finale!"
Sayaka and Madoka could only stare in awe at the resulting explosion that followed. The giant monster that had seemed to be the biggest threat of all had been taken down in a single glorious moment. As its remains fell and disappeared into the sky, Sayaka had only one thing to say.
"Holy. Shit."
|
Homura had predicted that Mami would show up at one point, her Senpai was always reliable that way. What she didn't expect was for Mami to show up even stronger than she had remembered from the previous timeline. Her senpai's movements were more concise and bullets struck with greater force behind them. Also, her guns exploded. They didn't do that before.
"Why did your guns explode?" Homura asked.
"A little trick I picked up from someone a few years ago," Mami replied. "If you purposefully add flaws to your Magical Constructs you can get some particularly explosive results."
"Who taught you that?"
Mami hesitated for a brief moment before replying. "Someone you won't have the misfortune of dealing with."
It was probably the most that Homura was going to get. Mami didn't really like talking about the people she knew in the past. Kaguya had come as a complete surprise in the previous timeline when she just showed up one day, announced herself, and then ended up punching Sayaka in the face. To be fair Sayaka was the one who had thrown the first punch, but neither of them were free of fault. Hopefully something like that wouldn't happen again.
"Homura!"
Homura was completely unprepared for the short pink haired projectile that tackled her and sent her onto the ground. She really should've been. This wasn't the first time this happened to her.
"I'm so glad you're safe! I was so worried," Madoka sobbed as she gave her a tight hug, their cheeks practically touching each other.
Homura simply smiled and let Madoka have her way.
Madoka could be a very... touchy friend. She had done nearly the exact same thing the last time they had fought that leg Witch, though this time it was under more stressful circumstances.
"I could still use an explanation over here!" Sayaka shouted as she slowly carried Hitomi over to them. "What were those monsters, what are those outfits, and why are you fighting them?"
"I believe it would be best to explain in a more comfortable," Mami suggested. "You can all come to my apartment if you'd like." She then turned to Homura. "There is much we have to talk about, after all."
Homura nodded. "We do."
|
"This is a scam! You can't just raise the prices!"
"I can and I will," Kaguya replied plainly as she crossed her arms. She made sure she was ready to grab the spear on her back at any moment though. No telling what some random Magical Girl would do when they were desperate. "Basic economics. Supply's been tight, and demand has increased. You're lucky I didn't double my prices."
"Damn it," the Magical Girl cursed as she rifled through her purse. "Knew I should've just gone to Kamihama."
"Why didn't you go then?" Kaguya asked. "Maybe figure out what's causing all our Witches to head to that city."
"It's dangerous. All the Witches and familiars are stronger there. You need to bring a couple of friends and make sure you're well prepared. Basically, gathering a group for a raid." The girl shook her head. "Honestly, I'm not sure many of us have much of a choice at this point. Either we risk it, or we starve. Don't know how you can afford to sell the few Witches that you have."
"Not a Magical Girl," Kaguya replied plainly. Seriously why did no one believe her when she said she was a Magus.
"Yea sure whatever you say," the girl waved Kaguya off. "Soon enough we'll all be forced to move other there. Mark my words."
"Hmph," Kaguya shook her head. "We're done here then. Unless you actually have something useful to say."
"... I do know something actually. You're going to have to cut the price by half though."
"I'll give it to you for my original pricing. Maybe lower it from there depending on how good the info is."
"Fine." The girl sighed. "Apparently, Kyubey can't enter the city."
"What!?"
It was one thing to ward a house, but to prevent the Incubator's entry from an entire city? What world ending magic had to have been used to something like that for such a massive range?
"Yea. It's a Kyubey free zone. He can't enter, which means he can't go around granting wishes there either. He's been starting to ask a bunch of Magical Girls to investigate for him because of that."
That was very useful to know. The Incubator was an inevitability for anyone with Potential. Despite how much she and Archer tried to keep Yuma away from it, it would get to her eventually. However, if they could find some way to replicate or even outright just steal the magic that was being used in Kamihana and bring it over to Kazamino...
"Alright. That's worth half price," Kaguya admitted.
The Magical Girl let out a sigh of relief. "Thank god. I have some allowance to spend for the next three months."
"Being me back some info if you do go there," Kaguya said as they completed the transaction. "Maps of the place with patrol routes and Witch concentrations. Could get you a couple of seeds in return."
"I'll see what I can do," the Magical Girl replied before walking to end of the alley, transforming, and then hopping away.
<Archer I know you said we should avoid that place, especially with Yuma around. But do you think we can use this?>
"There's no guarantee that Magecraft is even being used here, much less something that we could replicate," Archer said as he appeared next to Kaguya with Yuma in tow. They hadn't wanted to leave the girl alone at home and it was a good chance to show her how the family business was run. "It could just be a wish that caused this."
"If it was a wish though, then the Incubator would know about it. Apparently, it's as clueless as we are."
"Which is very rare," Archer admitted.
<Indeed. It's quite pert—>
Yuma let out a squeal as Archer suddenly turned and skewered the rat bastard in the head. Kaguya simply turned and looked at the corpse.
Of course, after years of absence the Incubator chose now of all times to show up.
<Perturbing. What's going on in Kamihama that is.> The Incubator finished saying as another of its bodies appeared.
"B-but he just killed you," Yuma said, surprised.
"Told you those thing keep popping up like cockroaches. Always another one to kill," Kaguya replied as she twirled her spear in her hand. She then predicted its attempt to jump out of the way and effectively disembowel in the air.
<You should realize that doing that is pointless.> The Incubator said, though another one of its bodies didn't immediately appear. Probably just hiding somewhere close and within its telepathic range.
"It is," Kaguya admitted. "Let's go home you two."
<There are several matters we must discuss.>
"I don't need a Contract!" Yuma quickly shouted before huddling behind Archer. Good, the girl was learning.
<We can discuss that later. What I want to ask now is for one of you to investigate events in Kamihana.>
"Don't you already have a bunch of Magical Girls looking things up there?" Kaguya asked. She had planned to ignore it, but this was starting to get interesting.
<Few come back and those that do have little information for me. Thus, we've concluded that a fresh perspective might be neccesary.>
"Mages. You mean," Archer replied.
<Yes>
"Yea. Fuu–" Kaguya glanced at Yuma, "uudge off. Fudge off."
<What peculiar choice of vernacular.>
"Are you making fun of me?"
<I assure you that I rarely make attempts at humor.>
"... Just. Never mind go away."
<Of course, we would not ask this of you without offering something in return.>
"Don't need anything from you."
<I didn't originally intend to Contract with the girl once known as Momo Sakura, having prioritized your Contract the most. Another person convinced me to do otherwise.>
Kaguya froze and even Archer became tense.
"What?" Kaguya asked.
<Oriko Mikuni proposed that I make a Contract with Momo Sakura. Archer would know her as the Magical Girl in white.>
Kaguya grit her teeth. "Why. Why are you telling me this now!?" she shouted.
<Because she has recently become a notable obstacle to my plans.>
"Can't handle your own creation?" Archer asked spitefully.
<Her ability to foresee the future is problematic. As are her allies, one of whom I have yet to identify. You two would have favorable odds of dealing with them if I were to reveal their location.>
"And you won't give us this location until we help you out," Kaguya growled.
<Yes.>
"And you gain no matter what," Archer replied. "You get information about Kamihana and you dispatch of a notable enemy."
<It's useful to you too. Dealing with the situation in Kamihama should stop the shortages of Witches in your area and Oriko is a mutual enemy. I assume that you would seek vengeance, it is something I've seen often with humans.>
"Fuck off!" Kaguya shouted. She didn't care about her language at this point.
<I'll leave now. My offer still stands, should you ever decide to investigate Kamihama.>
The Incubator left and suddenly Kaguya had no easy target to attack. So instead she Reinforced her fist and punched a hole in a nearby wall. She still didn't feel better.
Why? Why? Why did she have to learn about this now? Why did Momo have to die?
Why did Oriko kill her?
That was what Oriko did. She convinced Momo to make a Contract. She was the reason that Momo died.
"Archer," Kaguya addressed her Servant. "We are taking a trip to Kamihama, get Kyubey the information it wants, and then once we have that we kill Oriko Mikuni."
Archer closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. "As you wish."
|
Archer typed into the keyboard of his laptop as he planned their excursion into Kamihama. Normally Mages avoided using technology like the plague, but he was never much of Mage in the first place. Besides–
Archer clicked with his mouse and put the train tickets in his cart.
Technology made things so incredibly convenient. Now all he had to do was plan their course of action once they arrived in the city.
"How's it going?" Kaguya asked from across the dining table. Yuma sat next to her, silent since their meeting with the Incubator.
"I'm about to purchase three train tickets for next week."
"Next week?" Kaguya asked impatiently.
"We'll need to make up a proper excuse of why you'll be absent from school," Archer explained. "Probably a dead relative or something. It also gives us time to pack up and prepare."
"We'll only be there for a week or so."
"Best to come prepared in case we end up staying there longer than planned." Archer replied. Something told him that was going to be a much longer trip than she predicted. "Besides we have to make sure Yuma's comfortable."
"I'll be fine," Yuma muttered.
"No... he's right," Kaguya conceded. "We need to make sure you have enough clothes... Archer what do you think about all this?"
"I think, that we need to proceed cautiously," he replied.
"Are you fine with this. I mean. If you're not..."
"You don't have to worry. I'll continue to follow you. As always."
It was good that Kaguya was still asking for his opinion, but he also knew that there was no stopping her at this point. Even if it meant dragging Yuma with them, she would be heading to Kamihama to fulfill the Incubator's request. It wasn't like he entirely disagreed with the plan anyway. Even putting aside Kaguya's vengeful motive, Oriko was a present and dangerous threat to them. There was never a guarantee that she wouldn't act against them again. That meant it was best to dispose of her as soon as possible.
Then why did this feel this was going the way Oriko wanted? Oh yea. Future Sight.
Tch. This is why he disliked Magical Girls.
"It'll be nice to visit Kamihama," Yuma commented. "I heard it's a nice place."
"Yuma," Kaguya said. "We're not there to go–"
"You can sightsee and do your work at the same time," Archer replied. "We don't need to give the Incubator much, in fact I'd say we withhold most of the things we do learn. Just offer him enough that he'll fulfill his end of the bargain."
There was nothing wrong with having fun while they worked... well there was nothing wrong with the two of them having fun while he worked.
"This will be my first time going on a vacation," Yuma said.
"... Sure we'll make the most of this trip," Kaguya conceded. "You have any idea where we're going to stay?"
"Looking for hotels right now," Archer replied as he continued to browse websites. "Probably somewhere in one of the Western wards."
"Aren't the Eastern wards cheaper?" Kaguya asked having done some cursory research herself.
"Those are the slums of the city. The people there aren't well regarded." Poverty, class divide, and discrimination against the poor. Some things never changed.
"So? It's not like we give a damn about what other people think. Besides rich people are just as bad as poor people."
"If you could personally guarantee clean and affordable lodgings then I wouldn't care where it's located, I'd rather not take any risks and end up in a roach infested shack."
Kaguya suddenly perked up in her seat before taking out her phone. "Actually, I just remembered something my school's doing," she said as she swiped her screen. "Here." She held the phone in front of Archer.
He raised an eye. "Student Exchange Program?"
"Yea. It'll last for a week and they'll provide us food and lodging."
"What about Yuma?" Archer asked. It would be easy for him to sneak him or use his Astral form as needed, but the girl couldn't do either of those things.
"They also have an elementary school division. We've been meaning to get Yuma back into school anyway," Kaguya suggested.
"That could work," Archer agreed. It wouldn't be difficult to transfer Kaguya and Yuma in or out of the school as necessary, depending on how long their investigation of the city took. "What is the name of the school?"
Kaguya looked at her phone. "Someplace called... Kamihama City University Affiliated School. Sounds pretentious."
Archer opened up the maps and typed in name of the school. He immediately began to plan their investigative routes now that they had a confirmed base of operations.
"Why don't you take a bath now?" Archer suggested as he began to pin notable locations on his map.
"Sounds good," Kaguya stood up and gestured to Yuma. "Cmon."
"Actually... I'll take my bath after you," Yuma replied.
"You sure?" Kaguya asked
"Yea... I should be more... independent."
Kaguya paused briefly before giving Yuma a cursory inspection. "You don't have to force yourself..."
"I'm not. I just need to start doing things by myself."
Kaguya nodded hesitantly before leaving to take her bath.
Archer continued to make the necessary adjustments on the laptop, waiting for when Yuma was ready to talk to him. It wasn't until he had saved his work and began to shut down his laptop did Yuma finally speak
"Who's Momo?" Yuma asked.
Archer did his best not to grimace.
It was inevitable that the girl would ask that question after recent revelations. Didn't mean he prepared to answer it though.
"She was... Kaguya's little sister," Archer eventually answered.
"What happened to her?" Yuma asked.
"She... died. As did the rest of Kaguya's family."
"Oh... she's like me then. She also said she was disappointed in her parents."
"Her father mostly, but that's something you'll have to hear from her, if she ever does bring it up." Archer admitted. "Momo also made a Contract shortly before she died. It's why Kaguya is adamant that you don't become a Magical Girl."
"I won't."
"Good."
Yuma was a good girl. She would do her best to follow their orders. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be enough to stop the Incubator once it set its sights on you. His failure to prevent Kaguya and Momo's Contract was proof of that.
"Is Kaguya going to be alright?" Yuma asked.
"No," he admitted. "She's going through a lot right now."
"Because of Oriko... and the Incubator?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
Archer reached over the table and patted Yuma on the head. "Be with her. Remind her that she has someone else watching by her side."
"Will that really help?" Yuma asked.
Of course, the girl didn't notice the affect that she had on Kaguya. Consciously at least. "She cares about you too, as much as you do for her. As long as you stay with her, you'll keep her grounded... and less likely to jump headfirst into danger."
Yuma nodded. "Okay."
Eventually Kaguya finished her bath and Yuma went to take her own. That left Archer alone in the living room when he finally finished his work and closed the laptop.
There was a lot that they would have to do. Pack up. Fill out forms for Yuma's enrollment. Set up more Bounded Fields so that no one would break into their house while they were gone. Or if they did then they would at least know about it.
Later though. After he had properly tucked in his Master and their ward. Kaguya had terrible sleeping posture and would end up kicking the blankets off her if they weren't secured to her tightly. Not an issue if she were sleeping by herself but there was Yuma to consider.
Despite the little girl's claims to be more independent she would probably end up sharing the same bed as Kaguya again anyway. Those two were practically inseparable at this point.
|
Magical Girls. Magical Girls were real. They were real and they fought big Monsters called Witches for a living.
Sayaka wasn't too sure how to take all of this. Granted it was pretty cool, straight out of anime really, but to suddenly learn one day that her friends were busy fighting with their lives on the line on a regular basis.
Huh. So, this was how those side characters felt in those shows. Oh god was she just a side character?
Sayaka was so busy trying to figure out her place in this universe that she didn't even glance at the cake that had been placed in front of her.
"I'm sorry for intruding on your territory," Homura was quick to apologize as Mami set down slices of cake and cups of tea for them at the table.
"You don't need to be sorry," Mami replied. "I know a new move can be stressful and you had the courtesy to not cause any trouble with your arrival."
"Thank you."
So, apparently Mami and Homura were getting along. That was fine... made Sayaka miss Hitomi though. It would've been nice to confide in someone that hadn't been hiding some sort of cool Magical Powers from her like Madoka and Homura had, but apparently Hitomi wouldn't even remember anything by the time she woke up from her little nap in Mami's room.
"Still I am curious." Mami turned to Madoka. "Why do you fight?"
"B-because I want to help people," Madoka replied.
Yea. That sounded like a Madoka thing to do.
"Even though you aren't a Magical Girl?" Mami asked.
Madoka nodded. "Even then."
"Wait you're not a Magical Girl?" Sayaka asked.
"No," Madoka shook her head. "I'm not."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm not sure..."
"I believe you might be a Magus," Mami informed them.
"Magus?" Madoka asked.
"Those who practice Magecraft, the artificial reenactment of Mystery. It is a diverse and flexible field but is often limited by what can be done in reality," Mami lectured.
"Wait a minute? Magic is realistic?" Sayaka asked.
"Magecraft is realistic," Mami corrected. "It can only do what is technically scientifically possible."
Madoka held out her hand created a pink arrow. "This is scientific?"
"Scientifically possible, but done through supernatural means," Mami clarified. "It is said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So yes, Magecraft isn't as otherworldly as you expect. Magical Girls on the other hand use Magic."
"What's the difference?" Sayaka asked.
"Magic performs miracles. Magic makes the impossible, reality. In order to make a Contract to become a Magical Girl, we must first make a wish."
"A wish?" Sayaka asked.
<Yes. A wish.> Sayaka barely had time to process the voice in her head before some weird white cat bunny thing suddenly jumped on the table and joined them. <A Magical Girl received a wish in exchange for their Contract.>
"This is Kyubey," Mami introduced the creature to them. "He is the one who forms all the Contracts with Magical Girls."
<Yes.> Kyubey turned to Homura. <Though I still don't remember having formed a Contract with you.>
"Like I said before... it's complicated," Homura replied.
<No matter then.> Kyubey then turned to Sayaka. <What about you? Do wish to form a Contract with me?>
Sayaka pointed to herself. "Me?"
<Yes. I can grant you whatever wish you desire. Form a Contract with me and become a Magical Girl!>
"Kyubey. What did I tell you about patience being a virtue," Mami chastised him, though not very seriously.
<I have been keeping your words under consideration Mami.>
"Not very well apparently. Remember no one likes a boy that pushes girls to do things," Mami teased.
"So, I can make any wish I want," Sayaka muttered to herself. A wish was already coming to mind
Mami's face became solemn. "I'd suggest you take the time to think about your wish"
"Why?" Sayaka asked.
"I've seen many Magical Girls rush to make their wish... or never had the opportunity to think about what it was they truly wanted before they made it." Mami then explained to them the story of her own wish. How she had been caught in a car accident with her family and how she came out the only survivor.
"I don't regret my wish. It's preferable to dying in that place," Mami continued. "But if you have the chance to think about what you want then you should take it. There are many Magical Girls out there with regrets. I don't want you to be one of them"
"Maybe it's best if you don't make a wish at all," Homura commented.
Mami looked at the transfer student. "You don't wish to see them Contract?"
"I... don't want to see my friends get hurt," Homura explained. "Magical Girls live hard lives... and it's not something we can take back once we've accepted it."
"Yes... you're right," Mami replied hesitantly. "It is near impossible to get rid of a Contract once it has been made."
<Still a wish in itself is a very powerful thing to have.> Kyubey turned to Madoka. <You could become much stronger as a Magical Girl.>
"I'm just... not sure yet," Madoka replied.
Sayaka sighed before finally using her fork to scoop off a piece of cake.
And now Madoka could also become a Magical Girl. This was starting to get a bit too much too handle.
She put the cake in her mouth and was nearly overwhelmed by the sweet and slightly bitter flavor of tea cake. "Woah! This is awesome!" She then to shovel and stuff the entirety of the cake in her mouth, not caring about the mess she made.
Homura, her curiosity peaked, also put a piece into her mouth. Her eyes went wide. "T-this is incredible. It's so much better than last ti- I mean... It's wonderful!"
Madoka's reaction in comparison to them was much more subdued. Still, you could tell she enjoyed it quickly by how she closed her eyes and hummed. "It's really good Mami!"
"Thank you," Mami replied. "I take pride in my baking."
"How did you get so good?" Homura asked.
"There was someone I knew who gave me some advice... along with proper motivation to improve my skills. Never did have that last chance to compare their work with mine," Mami mused.
<They're still available to talk to if you approached them.> Kyubey commented.
Mami shook her head. "You and I both know why I can't do that. Anyway, I also have another cheesecake in my fridge if you three would like to try that."
Consuming an ungodly amount of heavenly cake and a conversation on baking techniques was enough to boost Sayaka's mood. By the end of it she wasn't nearly as overwhelmed as she was before.
"So, you could become a Magus and a Magical Girl?" Sayaka decided to joke with Madoka. "That's a two in one package. Someone's special."
"To be fair. Its only a fair guess that's she's a Magus," Mami commented. "She could be something else entirely."
Madoka blushed. "I d-don't really know what I am, but I don't think I'm special. I'm just... a normal girl."
"You stopped being normal the second you started shooting pink magic love arrows at those monsters," Sayaka teased.
"Love arrows?" Madoka asked.
Sayaka shrugged. "Seems like a you thing. Kill em with care, love, and affection. Plus, they're pink. That's like the color of love right there."
"Sayaka..." Madoka gave her the, please shut up but I actually won't say it because I'm too nice to do that so here's the you're embarrassing me look, that was very commonly used between the two of them. Her fault really. How could Sayaka possibly avoid the temptation of drawing that adorable face out from her.
And judging by how Mami and Homura smiled, they adored it too.
"She is right though," Homura commented. "You're a very nice person Madoka."
"Not you too," Madoka moaned.
Sayaka chuckled. Now that she had her fun it was best to get to business then. "So, what do we do now?"
"I wouldn't mind working together with Kaname and Akemi... if they would accept me," Mami replied.
Both Homura and Madoka were quick to agree.
"As for you Miki, we can bring you along to observe what it's like to a Magical Girl. So, you can make a better-informed decision."
Sayaka nodded. That sounded like it could be fun. With the four of them together nothing could go wrong.
|
"Everything's gone completely wrong!" Sayaka let out a panicked scream as she sprinted out of her cover. She barely just avoided being crushed by the incoming rubble.
Two days. That was how long it took before she was screaming for her life again. The first hunt her friends had taken her along had gone perfectly. Mami turned out to be a great leader and the three of them, with Sayaka watching, had taken out the Witch with precision and calm. This Witch on the other hand was something else altogether and it was causing Sayaka to question her life choices.
Why was she here? Why was there candy everywhere? Why did that tiny doll Witch suddenly become a Giant worm Witch? And why was its face so cute and its teeth so sharp!?
Mami at least had been prepared for its appearance. When it tried to bite her head off it instead bit into some weird ribbon clone that promptly exploded on it. However, that explosion only made it angry. Things got even worse when Homura and Madoka shot at it and it started chasing after them. Soon enough it became the most frantic and deadliest of tag ever as all three combatants did their best to dodge around a rampaging Witch.
Destruction was inevitable as that Witch began to run into everything around it. Even Sayaka, from a faraway spot once presumed to be safe, had no choice but to start running.
<They seem to be having some trouble,> Kyubey commented as he ran alongside her.
"Ya think!?" Sayaka shouted as she ran.
<Perhaps you should make a wish and aid them?>
"No Sayaka!" Homura shouted. Somehow the transfer student had mounted herself on the worm's back and was doing her best to slap it with her golf club while she hung on for dear life. "We can do this!"
"Madoka cover Sayaka and get her out of the room!" Mami shouted.
"Got it!" Madoka ran faster than she ought to be able to despite not being a Magical Girl and quickly caught up with Sayaka. "Let's go!"
"Already on it!" Sayaka replied to her friend as they ran for the hallway that led outside the room.
There were some familiars left over but between the surprisingly strong bat Mami had given Sayaka- a replication of some sort of spell called Reinforcement apparently- and Madoka's bow, they could handle it.
Or at least they could until some giant block of cheese suddenly fell off of an above pedestal and landed squarely on top of Sayaka.
"Oooooowwww," Sayaka groaned. She tried to move but the damn thing kept her firmly pinned to the ground.
Killed by giant falling dairy products. That was not how she expected to go.
"Sayaka!" Madoka shouted as she tried to lift the cheese.
It was a slow process, even for her. Apparently giant cheese was heavy. It was amazing that Sayaka hadn't felt anything broken underneath. Or maybe she was just so broken that she could no longer feel anything. That wasn't a pleasant thought.
<Madoka! The Witch is coming for you two!>
"What!?"
Sayaka tilted her head and saw that yes, the Giant Worm was now inches off the ground as it charged at them like a train. And here she was tied to the train tracks.
"Madoka just go!" Sayaka shouted at her friend. If at least one of them could make it.
<Hurry! One of you needs to make a wish!>
Sayaka was just about to do that once she had been reminded that option was still available, but then something changed.
Madoka simply took one look at the charging Witch and then Sayaka who was still trapped. Her face... there was no fear, no panic. Just a look like she had reached an epiphany, like she had learned something important.
And then she made an arrow. An arrow brighter, vibrant, more brilliant than any Sayaka had saw her create before. She silently nocked it against her bow, the only sound she made was air she took in for one single breath.
Then Madoka's eyes turned yellow. No not yellow, a vivid gold.
The light of the arrow expanded, flared backwards, nearly blinding Sayaka at the sight. But even then, she could see that at the front it had coalesced into one single point.
Madoka released.
The bolt flew through the air, shrinking on itself as it made its journey. It flew into the Witch's open maw.
The Witch's mouth closed, and it ate the arrow.
Sayaka thought they were doomed as the Witch continued charging at them.
And then it exploded.
Its body splattered all over the walls as it was blown away by a pinkish white light. Its face was split into two. The halves still carried by its previous momentum flew right by Madoka and Sayaka's sides.
Madoka blinked. Her eyes returned to their original color.
And then her arm broke.
Not her bone. It was her skin and the flesh that began to crack along the back of her right arm. From the forearm, past the elbow, and halfway to the shoulder her skin broke and white light began to pour out of the crack.
"Aaaaaaahhhhh!"
Madoka screamed, the pain she felt must've been intense. The scream chilled Sayaka to her bone. When it finally stopped seconds later, Madoka fell to the ground. She was no longer moving.
"M-Madoka!" Sayaka shouted as she tried to struggle out of the cheese by herself. Frustratingly enough the cheese seemed to be one of the last things that had begun to disappear in the Labyrinth. It wasn't until Mami arrived that she could finally get it off her.
Homura on the other hand was frantically crying and trying to get a response over Madoka's prone body. "Madoka! Madoka!" The transfer student shouted desperately.
"Akemi! Is Kaname still breathing?" Mami shouted. It sounded like she was barely holding it together herself.
"Sh-She's breathing," Homura replied. "But I don't know what's wrong with her."
<You can make a wish you know.> Kyubey informed Sayaka. <To heal your friend.>
But if she healed Madoka then what about Kyosuke? Wait no. Her friend was dying. She loved Kyosuke but at least he still had his life. If she didn't do something now... she knew she'd regret it.
"Kyubey. I wi–"
"Wait Miki," Mami interrupted Sayaka.
"Are you seriously telling me to hold back on my wish now!? Madoka's dying!"
"We don't know that for certain," Mami took a deep breath. "I've seen something similar happen to another person I knew. Her body simply can't handle the strain of her own power. Isn't that right Kyubey?"
<That would be the most reasonable assumption.>
"Then can we do something?" Homura asked.
Mami shook her head. "Not us... but I do know someone that can. They're in Kazamino."
"That's too far away!" Sayaka shouted. "Madoka needs help now! You heard her scream. How much pain she's in."
"Then we keep her unconscious. Use magic as neccesary," Mami replied firmly. "If we can find another way to heal her, then we can avoid using up your wish... A wish should be only used on what truly matters to you."
It made sense, what Mami was saying, but to just leave Madoka like that...
"And what happens if we don't make it. Or the person you know can't help?" Sayaka asked.
"Then you can always wish to bring her back to life."
|
"Are you ready?" Archer asked.
Kaguya nodded and walked to take her place within the dojo. She took a high stance with her spear.
She needed this, mostly to blow off some steam from recent events.
Archer held his hand and Projected a barbed red spear. Its very appearance caused Yuma, who sat at the side to watch them, to tremble in fear.
Good.
Yuma needed to see this. Needed to experience the fear of death for the day she would eventually have to stand on her own.
And what better weapon to stand against than Gáe Bolg the legendary weapon of Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Culann? A weapon with a curse that could reverse causality itself. Any injuries inflicted by it could not be healed as the spear's curse rendered the victim incapable of altering their fate, as long as the spear remained in the world.
Normally it would seem overkill, suicidal really, to use such a weapon for training. But she had insisted that Archer use it for several reasons.
One. The Constant drain of Od for using a Noble Phantasms ability for long periods of time. Primarily the one involving wounds that couldn't be healed after she let herself get scratched lightly. Even that minor ability, minor compared to reversing causality or being a thrown projectile capable of wiping out a small army, would force Kaguya to provide Archer with her own Prana as he maintained its effect. Doing this was tough on her Magical Circuits, but that was the point. Not only did it help her to build them up from constant use, but it also forced her to be more efficient with the Od that she still had to spare.
Two. Combat techniques and Magecraft could be taught. Actual experience however could only be found on the battlefield. Training would be useless, and quite frankly a waste, if you got yourself killed because you hesitated the second you were put into actual combat. To face against bloodlust, to fight past the very embodiment of death being pointed at your chest, to strike a man down without hesitation, that took a heart and mind of steel. Kaguya simply couldn't afford to hesitate against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. Witches and Magical Girls were guaranteed to be that for her. This was why she always had Archer present himself as that. Not that he needed much help doing so.
Three. Archer's Tracing not only allowed him to copy the shape and function of a weapon, but also its history and the skills acquired by its original owners. This meant that by summoning Gáe Bolg he'd be able to replicate the techniques of the legendary spearman. It was a flawed and shallow imitation to the actual Child of Light, but it served its purpose to show Kaguya his techniques. By fighting against a facsimile of Cú Chulainn on a constant basis, she began to acquire parts of his style as her own. It was fierce, feral, and provided no mercy to the enemy. A beast unleashed. That was what she aimed to be anytime someone, or something, fought against her.
Still, even with those reasons it had taken Kaguya nearly a year to convince Archer to use that weapon against her. Even now he derided it as suicidal, which it would likely be if either of them made a single misstep.
She didn't really care though, didn't really see the point in his fear. She trusted him, even if he couldn't trust himself at times.
Kaguya made the first move and charged. She put her dominant foot forward and thrusted with her spear
Archer deflected.
Then they were trading blows. Spears dancing wickedly in the light of the dojo. Flashes of red and gray, sparks flying upon each contact, were the only signs that their weapons existed.
Archer feinted. He quickly sidestepped the next swipe and then began his offensive.
Kaguya was forced to defend. Soon her arms burned. Her lungs frantically inhaling what precious air she could to keep up with her exertion. Sweat began to cascade down her limbs, neck, and face. She wouldn't back down though. She wouldn't let herself fall. Even against the overwhelming speed of a Servant, even as her limbs struggled to stand against steel shattering force.
She stepped back and slackened her grip slightly. It helped to absorb some of the force coming from her Servant's strikes.
She could not block. She had to deflect. Against overwhelming power, she had to be smarter. She had to be more skilled. It was the only avenue of victory for her as a human and Magus.
And then a misstep. Hers to be more precise.
Her right leg was a little too far forward for a brief second. That was all that Archer needed to pull it out from under her with the shaft of his spear. She stumbled, barely keeping herself from falling backwards by balancing herself on her other foot. By the time she recovered there was already the tip of a spear pointed just inches away from her eye.
That entire exchange had lasted all of two minutes.
"You concentrate too much on your enemy," Archer lectured as he grabbed Kaguya's hand and pulled her up straight. "You need to be aware of your own body, especially your footwork."
"Noted," Kaguya grumbled as she ignored the trembling in her limbs and took her stance once again. At least she broke her previous record by ten seconds.
They began trading blows again, though at a much lighter pace and ferocity. Now their weapons were actually visible to Yuma who had been watching them in awe.
"Could I actually do that one day?" Yuma asked during them during a break.
"With lots... of hard work... and practice," Kaguya grunted between swings.
Archer grappled with the shaft of her spear and quickly tore it out of Kaguya's hands. She then tried to punch him, only to grabbed by the arm and thrown to the ground.
"Ouch."
"You have Reinforcement. You'll be fine," Archer said as he helped pull her back up.
"Still hurts."
"Well then don't talk so much in the middle of a fight. It's a waste of breath."
"Fine," Kaguya sighed as she walked over to Yuma who handed her a bottle of water. She squirted some in her mouth before splashing her face and neck. "Any other comments you have for me?" she asked Archer.
"We should stop practicing with Gáe Bolg."
"For the love of- Archer I'm not having this argument with you again."
"Which is why I want to start using other weapons or Noble Phantasms against you."
Kaguya simply looked at him in surprise.
"It was... a good idea to spar with you using Gáe Bolg," he admitted. "You've been developing quickly once we had moved away from training weapons. However, you've already learned most of what you can from this spear. If we're going to develop your skills its best to start drawing upon more of my arsenal. Get you used to fighting a large variety of weapons and techniques."
"Huh... so which one's next?" Kaguya asked.
"You're used to fighting people up close," Archer held out a hand and Projected his bow. "Let's see how you do with fighting someone suited for ranged combat."
"Ah... any tips?" Kaguya asked nervously. She had seen that bow used countless times, but this would be the first time it would be used against her.
"Block." Archer nocked his bow with a blunt arrow and pointed it at her. "Or dodge."
|
"Why didn't you dodge?" Yuma asked.
"It's a lot harder than it looks," Kaguya grumbled. She was laid painfully on a blanket in the living room.
Archer was, surprise surprise, a skilled archer. Every one of his arrows hit their mark. Not to say that they all hit her, she was able to deflect and avoid some of them, but they each had their own purpose that they served. Whether to break her posture or corral her into a bad position. The ones that did end up landing, a good forty percent or so, left some very nasty bruises on her body.
It wasn't just physically painful but also a blow to her pride. Every arrow that hit was essentially a killing blow past her Reinforcement. One direct hit usually all that was needed to disable a human or cause them to bleed out.
"Gyah!" Kaguya shouted as her back was assaulted by another jab of ice. "Easy there!"
"Sorry," Yuma apologized as she grabbed another cold patch. She turned back to Archer who sat nearby . "Am I doing this right?"
Archer appraised the girl's work. "Good so far. Make sure to get to under the armpit there though."
"Oh, didn't notice that," Yuma commented before casually slapping it on the aforementioned spot.
"Godda- ng it," Kaguya nearly cursed between grit teeth. If she didn't know any better, she would've thought that they were enjoying this.
Actually, Archer might. Not too sure about Yuma. Might have to get that girl an extra session with the psychiatrist if she did. Speaking of, were there any good psychiatrists in Kamihama they could go too?
"Now put something on before you catch a cold," Archer said.
"Fine, Mom," Kaguya sighed before slowly and carefully putting on a loose nightgown over her underwear. Normally she wouldn't wear a nightgown, especially one with a giant cat face on it, but she needed to wear something loose that wouldn't squeeze against her bruises.
Archer gave Yuma a quick pat to the head. "Good job with the first aid."
"Thank you, I used it a lot," Yuma replied sheepishly. "First time for someone else though."
The implications of that were enough to get Kaguya's blood to run hot.
The people that had mistreated the girl were dead, nothing they could about it now. Still Kaguya wondered it would've been better to let that Witch have its way with their corpses before she had killed it. Or maybe just cut them up herself before the labyrinth had faded and then use the parts as snacks for the sharks in the local aquarium.
"You have a healer's touch," Archer said. "You'll be able to make use of it whenever either of us get hurt."
Not that Archer really needed it, but Kaguya could see where he was going with this.
"I'm... useful?" Yuma asked.
"Yea. You are," Kaguya replied as she took her turn to rub Yuma's head.
Yuma leaned forward and began to hug Kaguya like she usually did. It hurt with the bruises, but well Kaguya wasn't going to complain.
"So how do think I'll handle Kamihama?" Kaguya asked Archer.
"You can hold you own against Magical Girls," Archer replied. "But strength in numbers isn't something to be taken lightly. You'll rarely find a Magical Girl in Kamihama that isn't part of a group. And the few that choose to isolate themselves and still survive in that city are people that you don't want to mess with. Also, don't even think about fighting a Witch there by yourself. Either call on me or form a temporary alliance with whoever's around if you have to."
"I thought you and I avoided asking for help from strangers?"
"They're friendlier to outsiders than most. Mostly because they need as many warm bodies as possible to deal with the Witches there."
"What do we do once we run into Oriko and her cronies then?"
"Their abilities counter mine fairly well... but it would likely be my victory if it was just the two of them," Archer replied. "It's the third unknown ally they have that bothers me."
"You could always leave one of the three to me," Kaguya suggested. "I can probably hold them off long enough for you to take care of the rest. Just make sure to leave something of Oriko to me. I want to see her face when I shove my spear down her–"
Kaguya turned her head toward the border of the city.
A Bounded Field, the outermost one in the surrounding area activated. It acted as an alarm for whenever someone or something tried to get into their territory.
"Talk about bad timing," Kaguya groaned as she forced herself to get up. Annoyance turned to unease though when the Bounded Field pinged off again, another three times.
"Crap."
Four. Not the biggest group they dealt with, but any planned invasion by an organized group was to be dealt with cautiously. And she was definitely in no state to pick a fight right now.
Archer stood up, already donning his armor and coat. "I'll take care of them." He then disappeared on the spot before Kaguya could say a word.
"Yea... fine," Kaguya had no choice but to concede and sat down. She took out her spear and laid it on her lap as she waited.
"What's happening?" Mom-, no Yuma, asked nervously.
Kaguya shook her head to rid herself off the false image. She couldn't let herself mix up the two of them. "Nothing Yuma. Just stay with me."
She wouldn't lose her little sister. Not again.
|
How long had it been for Mami, since she had last stepped in Kazamino? Since she had split up with Kaguya completely. Two years? Or perhaps a bit shorter than that?
She had at least spent the next few months after Momo's death trying to work with Kaguya. Just after her Junior and Archer set off on their own and moved out of the apartment. They tried to make things work out.
Tried.
Kaguya changed after her family's death. So much that there was no longer anything that they agreed on and too much that differed. It was almost inevitable that they would split up completely, no matter how much effort the two of them had put in.
Knowing this still didn't make Mami feel any better though. She was responsible for that. If she had just been for Momo...
"How much longer until we get there?" Sayaka asked from where she was carried on Mami's back. "I'm worried about Madoka."
Mami glanced back to where Homura closely followed them. In her hands was Madoka, who she held gently in a princess carry. The black-haired girl had refused to let her go.
"We're almost there. She'll be fine," Mami replied. She had sedated the girl with magic, and it seemed like her condition hadn't gotten any worse on transit. The fact that that crack on Madoka's arm still hadn't stopped glowing was cause for concern though.
"Are you sure this person can help?" Sayaka asked.
"He's knowledgeable and capable."
If Archer couldn't or wasn't willing to help though then there was simply no one else to turn apart from Kyubey. Not the worst thing to wish for, to save life of a friend, but it would be best if Sayaka could make a wish in circumstances where she wasn't rushed and had better clarity of mind.
"He?" Homura asked. "Not a Magical Girl?"
"Another Magus. He's–" Mami stopped on her feet and raised her arm to signal Homura to stop moving. "Here."
"Who's here?" Sayaka asked as she got off of Mami's back.
"You've become a bit more aware of your surroundings."
A man appeared in front of them, as if out of thin hair. His skin was tanned, his hair white, and his cloak a vibrant and striking red. Most alarming of all though was the large black bow that he held in his hands. It wasn't pretty or calming to look at like Madoka's bow. The weapon that he wielded was a tool, a tool meant to kill and destroy. And it was aimed straight at her.
"Why did you come here?" Archer asked.
"Archer," Mami had a musket appear in her hands, though she kept it pointed at the rooftop. She wouldn't appear meek, though neither would she force a fight until absolutely neccesary. "How have you two been?"
"I don't care for pleasantries. Answer the question or I will shoot you for trespassing."
As infuriatingly blunt as always.
"I need your help," Mami said.
His eyes scanned the four of them before ultimately stopping at Madoka. His eyes rose slightly as she looked at the crack on her arm. "The girl?"
"Yes. She needs healing."
"Bring her to a hospital then. Or do it yourself."
"We've tried. It doesn't work and she's not a Magical Girl," Mami explained. "I believe she's a Magus. Like you. Neither I nor the hospital would know how to treat her."
He began to appraise Madoka a bit more thoroughly. His eyes raised slightly. A sign of curiosity? Or something else. It was hard to tell with him.
"So, you came here because you had no choice?" he asked.
Mami nodded.
"Why?"
"Didn't you just say it?"
"No," Archer replied firmly. "Why did you bring her here? Why help her?"
Mami bowed her head. He always was able to see through her. "Because I don't want to be responsible for her death too. I know I failed before, but I had to do something for them. There wasn't anyone else around that they could turn to for guidance."
Archer sighed and closed his eyes. "It was my failure, not yours."
It was something that two had argued about before. Who was responsible for Momo's death. The only thing they could ever agree on was that Kaguya wasn't to blame. It didn't matter if she made that wish, they had no way of knowing how far her father would go.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was no longer deadly. It was still firm, but it no longer seemed that he was going to shoot. Especially once he began to lower his bow. "I won't protect you from her. You'll have to deal with her yourself."
"I know."
The bow disappeared from Archer's hand before he turned around. "Follow me then."
Mami breathed a sigh of relief before signaling Homura to move again. She then grabbed Sayaka and made the trip to his house.
It was certainly an eye raising experience, seeing his house in the distance. Mami had heard plans of it, before it had been built, but seeing it for herself was something else entirely.
"Woah," Sayaka whistled as they stepped onto the property. "Nice place you got here."
"I don't remember this house being here the last time I visited," Homura commented.
"When were you last here?" Archer asked.
"A-... A year ago."
"That's strange," Archer stared at her suspiciously. "This house was built two years ago."
"Oh," Homura looked away having apparently been caught for her deception. Why she needed to lie about that though, Mami didn't know.
The front door of the house opened before Mami had a chance to inquire though. She stopped breathing when she saw who was on the other side.
"Kaguya!?" Homura and Sayaka both shouted.
Mami would've asked how the two of them knew Kaguya if she wasn't so busy holding her breath.
It was... rough. Seeing her old Junior again. And wearing a loose nightgown of all things. The cat was really cute though. Best not to make a comment about it.
"Cute cat," Sayaka commented.
And now Sayaka was dead. Sad thing too, to lose another Junior so soon.
Rather than lash out though Kaguya's quickly scanned them. Then Archer. Then finally Mami.
"What are you doing here?" Kaguya asked as she continued to glare at her.
Mami forced herself to breathe.
She could handle this. She had to be strong for the people that followed her.
"Well? Answer me," Kaguya demanded.
"I asked Archer for help. One of my Juniors was injured fighting a Witch," Mami replied.
"Ribbons over there?"
Homura tightened her grip on Madoka. "Yes."
"Why is her arm glowing like a night light?"
"We don't know," Mami replied before glancing at Archer. "He might"
Kaguya sighed before looking at Archer. "Do you?"
"Not for certain," Archer admitted.
"I'm assuming you agreed to help?" Kaguya asked.
"Yes," Archer replied before walking in front of Homura and holding an arm out. "Give her to me. I'll do my best to help."
It was clear that Homura didn't want to let go of Madoka... but she didn't have much of a choice did she? The black-haired girl reluctantly handed her friend over to Archer. To their relief he handled Madoka rather gently and began to carefully walk away with her.
"I'm taking her to the shed," Archer said.
"The shed!?" Kaguya asked, surprised. "Even I don't go in there."
"Yes. Don't let anyone come in while I'm working."
"Guard duty. Got it."
"And don't start a fight either."
"Fine."
Archer opened the door to a nondescript wooden shed around the corner of the house and promptly disappeared inside it.
"Always such a bleeding heart," Kaguya grumbled to herself.
Mami was inclined to agree. For all their disagreements, there was no denying that there was a man that cared. Past the cold logic, cynicism, and nihilistic behavior of course.
"So, this where you live," Sayaka said. "Yuma inside the house too?"
Yuma?
"She's supposed to be heading to bed," Kaguya turned to glare at the doorway and Mami finally noticed the little green bundle peeking its head around the corner.
It was a young girl. She would've been Momo's age around this time. "Kaguya. Is she–"
"She's someone we took in," Kaguya interrupted. "I'm making sure she becomes a proper Magus."
"You really do know Magic?" Sayaka commented. "Should've figured."
"Magecraft," Kaguya corrected. "And of course, an idiot like you had to develop Potential and get involved with Magical Girls."
Sayaka glared. "What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. Already told you have I feel about heroes."
"There's nothing wrong with being a hero. You wouldn't know since you're too selfish to tr–"
"Miki stop," Mami commanded her Junior firmly. "We're not here to start a fight." She bowed her head to Kaguya. "I apologize for her actions. Though I wonder why you're willing to escalate things if Archer demanded that you avoid fighting."
"He said that I can't start a fight," Kaguya replied. "Didn't mean I can't defend myself if the idiot throws the first punch."
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't rile her up just so that you can fight without consequence," Mami replied.
"Tch." Kaguya looked at Homura who looked unprepared at being addressed. "What about you, Pigtails? You look like you got something to say? Say it."
"I..." Homura glanced at the wooden shed, clearly conflicted between Madoka's safety and her curiosity. "Aren't you also a Magical Girl?"
"For the love of- I am not a Magical Girl! I'm a Magus. Fully human. No Soul Gem." Kaguya brandished her hands to them as proof.
"What's with the tattoos?" Sayaka asked.
"It's for my Magecraft," Kaguya answered quickly before hiding her hand in her sleeve.
"Kaguya is a Magus. She's not a Magical Girl currently," Mami vouched for her. She knew the truth of Kaguya's previous Contract, but that was a secret that she would willingly take to the grave.
"Come on, is it really so hard to believe that there are things other than Magical Girls out there in this world?" Kaguya asked Homura who looked even more confused than before.
"No... you're right," Homura eventually replied. "I'm just trying to get used to things."
"Well then get used to it outside of my property," Kaguya demanded.
"Are you seriously kicking us out!?" Sayaka shouted.
"Yea," Kaguya replied. She flinched as she crossed her arms. "Archer's willing to help Ribbons so she's allowed here. I have no obligation to deal with the rest of you though."
"We're not leaving until we get Madoka back!" Sayaka shouted and Homura nodded in agreement.
"Then wait outside the gate or at that little café down the block," Kaguya pointed and quickly hissed as she did so. "Just don't loiter on my property."
"Kaguya, are you hurt?" Mami asked.
"No," Kaguya replied.
"You're lying."
"Tch," Kaguya looked away, having been caught in her lie. "Training with Archer can get rough, alright."
That was likely the truth. Mami had personally witnessed and participated in a few of these training sessions in the past. If it was still as tough as before or increased in intensity over the years, then it was impressive that Kaguya still had the ability to stand and aggressively posture in front of them.
Sayaka grinned. "Glad someone's disci–"
"Sayaka stop," Mami interrupted her before she could finish her sentence and rile Kaguya up even more.
"But Mami–"
"No."
Sayaka finally went silent.
It was Kaguya's turn to grin now. "Whipped."
Sayaka glared at her and clenched a fist but thankfully kept her mouth shut.
"Why didn't you didn't heal yourself?" Homura asked.
"Not a Magical Girl. Can't just make our wounds disappear like they're nothing."
"What about your... Magecraft?"
"Dedicated healing Magecraft is specialized and only usable by a select few. All we can do is speed up the body's natural healing."
An idea popped up in Mami's head. "What if I helped heal you? Would you allow us to stay?"
"I don't need your magic," Kaguya replied.
"How much time will you spend recovering? Would you lose all that time doing nothing or just let us in for a few hours instead?" Mami asked.
Kaguya opened her mouth, ready to argue, before she immediately shut and began to mull over Mami's words.
"It's a fair trade isn't it?" Mami said.
Kaguya was a pragmatic person... as long as you avoided certain sensitive topics. She was rash, but not foolish and cold logic was generally your best bet at getting a reasonable response. Usually. Other times you had to be the tough one. Knock her down a peg and get her begrudging respect before she'd be willing to talk.
... Maybe that was why Archer got along with her so well.
"Maybe if it was just you. What about the rest of them?" Kaguya asked.
Mami wasn't deterred though. The fact that Kaguya had asked a question rather than rebuff her entirely meant that she was interested. Now she just had to sweeten the deal. "One Grief Seed."
"Two."
"One. We're just staying until Kaname is healed," Mami replied firmly. She knew the value of Grief Seeds. One was being generous and that was without the healing.
"What does she need a Grief seed for?" Sayaka asked. "She ain't a Magical Girl."
"I sell them," Kaguya replied.
"You what!?" Sayaka shouted, outraged.
Kaguya gestured to the house behind her. "Nice place like this doesn't pay for itself."
Mami of course, knew of Kaguya's occupation as a Grief Seed merchant. She had been there when Kaguya had first started selling her share of their seeds to other Magical Girls. It was what led to one of many disagreements they had that would eventually lead to their split.
"But Magical Girls need them!" Sayaka shouted.
That was one of the first arguments Mami made.
"Yea," Kaguya replied. "I hunt Witches and provide Magical Girls with an essential service. Why shouldn't I be getting paid for my work?"
And that had been Kaguya's rebuttal back then.
"You have Magic, don't you?" Sayaka argued. "Doesn't that give you a responsibility to help people?"
"Magecraft," Kaguya emphasized. "I don't need to make a Contract and wish to get Magecraft. Just hard work. I don't owe anyone anything." She glanced at the wooden shed. "Apart from Archer," she amended.
"She's right," Mami agreed before Sayaka could argue any further. "She's doesn't have an obligation to fight Witches, but she still does. Even if it is for personal gain... she does get work done."
It was one of the few things that she had been forced to concede. Kaguya had every right to do what she did, no matter how much Mami found it distasteful.
"But Magical Girls need them to live. They'll die fighting Witches otherwise," Sayaka argued.
"People need food to live. You going to start attacking grocery stores because they don't hand out free stuff?" Kaguya argued. "Same with medicine. You gonna go Robin Hood and rob a bunch of pharmacies? Or maybe go after Big Pharma for jacking up the prices?"
"I provide Magical Girls with an essential service," Kaguya reiterated. "And it ain't just me. There are a few Adjusters out there that sell or take Grief Seeds as payment for their work on Soul Gems. You going to go after them too?" She chuckled and shook her head. "Would like to see you try. Attack an Adjuster and you'll have every Magical Girl in a city out for your head. Wonder how long you'd last?"
"Bet nobody would come to help you though," Sayaka grumbled. She didn't refute Kaguya's argument though and it was clear that she was deep in thought over what she had just heard.
"Will you accept my offer or not?" Mami decided to push the original topic. "If not, I can take my healing and Grief Seed somewhere else."
"Fine," Kaguya conceded. "You drive a hard bargain. Honestly, if you weren't such a goody two shoes you would've been a great Merchant."
Mami wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. And she was even more confused when Kaguya took Yuma gently by the hand and led her inside.
Kaguya turned her head and gave the little girl some words of encouragement. Then a smile. A smile that Mami hadn't seen in years.
For a brief moment it was almost like looking back in the past. A time when Kaguya still had a dream, a time when they were all happier.
It was gone though and there was no getting it back.
Maybe one day they could learn to accept that.
|
"I wish to erase all witches before they are born. All witches in all the universes, both past and future. With my own hands!"
For all those who fought against Witches, who believed in hope as Magical Girls. She would make it so that they could smile to their very end. That had been her wish.
And yet, there existed a universe that she could not interfere in. Where they were still forced to despair.
Why? Why couldn't she save them?
Why was it so fragile that it would break if she tried to intervene directly?
She needed to know. Needed to know why.
If she couldn't go there herself, then someone else would have to do it for her. And who better than a young girl ready to find her purpose in their world.
|
The Goddess awoke. No- not the goddess, Madoka Kaname opened her eyes.
Why was she someone or something else in her dream? It was so vivid, so real yet also so far away. If she could reach a bit further though, push herself a bit more...
"You're awake."
Madoka sat up in surprise and soon began to recall what had happened. She immediately turned toward the stranger that addressed her.
"Where's Sayaka!? Is she ok? Mami, Homura!?" She began to shout frantically.
Archer raised his hands. "They're fine, waiting in the house for you. Just have to do some last checks."
"Oh." Madoka breathed a sigh of relief. Sayaka was safe. Her friends were safe.
"You're quick to trust a stranger," the man commented.
Madoka looked back at the man and then quickly bowed her head. "S-sorry. I'm Madoka Kaname."
"Already greeting me?"
"You helped me."
"You just woke up. How could you know that?"
"I mean... didn't you? Why else would my friends bring me here and in the other room?"
The man stared at her carefully. "I did."
"Then you're not a stranger. You're a friend."
"You... really are also quick to assume things. Aren't you?"
"I mean you didn't do anything bad yet. And even if you did it's probably for a good reason? We could always just talk it out."
The man shook his head. "I am Archer," he introduced himself. "You were brought here so that I could heal you."
Madoka finally remembered the searing and unrelenting pain she had felt before she had blacked out. She looked at her arm and a very large and noticeable scar on it. "What happened?"
"Your body took in too much power. Too much for it to handle. It began to break apart from the strain," Archer replied. "Lucky for you it naturally suppressed itself after some time. Made it much easier to close the crack in your arm."
"I did this... to myself?" Madoka touched her scar gently. It didn't hurt anymore, though she would have to find some way to explain this to her parents.
"Yes. You should be careful. A God's power can be overwhelming to wield."
Madoke froze. Not because she was surprised, but rather a lack thereof. Why did that sound so natural to her?
"Since the end of the age of Gods, they should have been reduced to Divine Spirits. Whatever God you're connected to hasn't deteriorated at all. Likely because it exists in a completely different world altogether," Archer explained. "It's using you to connect to this world I believe."
Madoka held up her hands and looked at them carefully. "I'm using the power of a..."
Archer shrugged. "God. Goddess. Don't know which one. But I could recognize some form of Divinity struggling to break free from your mortal form."
"Goddess," Madoka replied.
"Do you know the God you're connected to?"
Madoka shook her head. "No. I just know that she's a girl." She then buried her face into her hands. "I... I thought I was just a normal girl," she moaned. "Now I've somehow become a Goddess."
"You hang around with a bunch of Magical Girls and received healing from a man who wields Magecraft. You are far from normal," Archer replied plainly. "Besides you're not actually a Goddess... but neither are you a complete vessel."
"What do you mean?"
"Divine Spirits are normally unable to take on a physical form in the modern world," Archer explained. "So, they are instead summoned or willingly manifest themselves by finding a compatible human body to act as a vessel. A Pseudo-Servant. That isn't the case for you. The fact that your human memories and past hasn't been sealed to protect you is proof of that. A connection has been formed and it allows you to draw on its power. However," He gestured to her arm. "Without the body of a Servant that power can easily overwhelm you if you're not careful."
"Why me though?" she had to ask.
"You could be one of its descendants when it existed in this world. Plenty of people descendant from the old Gods though it usually doesn't matter. You could also be compatible in personality and body. Either way you're likely the most suitable person available. As for why now though," Archer shrugged. "This world is weird. Magical Girls and Magi exist. I'd keep this a secret though."
"I've been keeping a lot of secrets recently," Madoka muttered to herself. Mostly to her parents. Sometimes she wished she could just tell them everything.
"It's the cross we bare, those who reside in this side of the World," Archer replied. "But I wouldn't even tell other Magi or Magical Girls about this. They likely wouldn't believe you and those that did... well neither groups are known to be morally upstanding."
"Are you saying they would hurt me?"
"Where I'm from a Divine Spirit's vessel would definitely be a valuable collectable or subject for research. And that's if you're lucky. Some would be perfectly happy to tear you apart and study the pieces."
Madoka shivered. That sounded terrible. "Maybe Mami and Homura would have some advice for me."
"You're going to tell them?"
"They're my friends. I trust them."
"Those you care for the most are also the ones most capable of hurting you."
Madoka tilted her head and stared at the man carefully. He tried to keep his voice neutral, and was doing a real good job at it, but she could detect some amount of regret behind it. Maybe something to do with being connected to a God?
"Did something like that happen to you?" she asked. "Did you... go through that?"
Archer looked at her in turn. "In a way," he eventually admitted.
"I'm sorry," Madoka replied without hesitation.
Archer raised an eye. "Why are you apologizing?"
"Because no one should go through that, it's not fair."
"The world isn't fair."
"I know but that doesn't mean it's right."
His expression changed slightly. Was that... interest?
"And why would you say that?" he asked.
"Just because the world is bad doesn't mean we can't change it for the better," Madoka replied.
"Most people fail."
"I can still try. I just... have to do what I can."
"Do you have any aspirations?" Archer asked.
"I guess I do," Madoka mulled. "I want to be more like my Mama. She's a cool and successful businesswoman. Though I guess it wouldn't so bad being a bride either. Papa seems happy staying home to take care of me and my brother, so raising my own family would also be nice."
"That's it?"
"Yea. Why?"
"Do you value your life?"
This, Madoka took the time to think about. It wasn't until several minutes had passed before she finally answered.
"Yes. I do. I wouldn't trade it for the world," she replied confidently.
Archer's mouth tilted slightly. Such a small smile yet it seemed to convey so much. Acceptance... and longing?
"That's good. I hope that you'll always feel that way."
Madoka smiled. "Thank you."
"We should talk more about your situation with your friends. Front entrance is right out that door and around the corner. I'll head there once I clean up."
"I bet they're really worried about me." Madoka stood up in a hurry and quickly made her way to the door. She turned around and bowed to Archer one last time before making her way to the house.
"Thank you for healing me."
|
Archer watched as a pink-haired figure quickly disappeared around the corner of his home. He then shut the door and made his way to clean up after himself. Supplies had been scattered all over the workshop and there were runes that needed to be wiped away now that they had served their purpose.
That girl was nothing like he had expected, in the few minutes he talked with her. Well, more of an interrogation than conversation but he had been curious. And that wasn't considering the effort he had to put to properly Trace and heal her body. What she was and the reason behind it was a whole other bag of worms he'd have to sort through.
No foolish dream of being a hero or aspirations to be great. Cheerful and idealistic yet also with tempered and realistic expectations. Not as naïve as initially assumed. A general awareness that her actions weren't entirely selfless, but no guilt for acting on them anyway. Someone who wanted to do something because she could, not because of some crippling Survivor's Guilt that reared its ugly head anytime she tried to enjoy herself.
A bit too willing to help people granted, would make her rather easy to manipulate if neccesary, but she was a fully healthy and functional person. Which was a very sharp contrast to Magi, Magical Girls, and well himself in general.
Madoka Kaname was a nice person. A rarity in any world.
Normally people like that would die off or become jaded with time. Probably would happen to Kaname too eventually, but he'd give her the benefit of doubt. People like her were hard to find, might as well not write her off so easily.
Plus, he kind of liked her. Kind of hard not to. She was a likeable person.
Still, the fact that she was connected to a God was a sign for trouble. Normally Pseudo-Servants weren't summoned or made unless there was a necessity for it. Said necessities tended to be World or Humanity destroying calamities that even Gaia's agents or the Counter Force were unable to handle on their own. He had hoped that wasn't the case but with his summoning and Kaname's existence...
Well, Human Order hadn't been incinerated yet and the survivors weren't being forced to jump into Singularities to restore the timeline. Safe to assume the world hadn't ended. Probably. So, they did have some time.
Tore apart the theory that he was just being paranoid though. Something definitely was going to threaten the existence of Gaia or Alaya in this world. And whatever it was, it was going to involve that girl in some way.
At least that was what his intuition told him. And that rarely failed him.
|
"How did you let this happen?" Mami asked.
"Well Archer's good with a bow," Kaguya replied.
"Big surprise there," Blue commented. The chick was still giving Kaguya the stink eye, but it seemed she was holding herself back.
A shame. Kaguya would've liked a good punching bag just about now. And the chick could probably take it anyway.
"And why exactly was he shooting you with a bow?" Mami asked.
"Like I said, training. Can't exactly take it easy like you Magical Girls."
"Being a Magical Girl isn't easy," Mami argued. "We might be given some base instincts and combat ability, but the improvement of our current skillsets and the development of new ones requires much hard work and study. It's not exactly simple creating muskets from ribbons."
Fair enough. Not that Kaguya would ever say that Magical Girls had an easy time achieving strength. They just had a significant advantage.
That advantage wasn't worth it though. And neither was the wish before it. It never was.
"So Yuma," Blue turned to the green haired girl. "You learning magic too?"
Yuma nodded shyly.
"Cool. What spells do you know?"
Yuma glanced away. "I haven't been learning spells yet. Archer and Kaguya have been teaching me math."
"Math?" Blue turned to Kaguya in disbelief. "Seriously? You're teaching her math?"
"Magecraft needs a sufficient background in Magic, Science, and History," Kaguya lectured. "Math to create the formulas, Science to understand the neccesary concepts, and History to give it meaning and purpose."
"How long will it take for her to use actual Spells though?" Blue asked.
"Yea..." Yuma looked at Kaguya. "How long?"
Kaguya couldn't quite look Yuma in the face. She didn't want to lie to her, but blunt honesty wasn't exactly the way to go either.
"A long time then," Yuma concluded as her expression darkened.
Blue glanced between Kaguya and Yuma before suddenly standing up and clapping Yuma on the back. The little girl yelped in surprise.
"Cheer up," Blue encouraged her. "Time goes by quick. You'll get there before you know it!"
"Really?" Yuma asked.
"Yea! And that's time you can use to grow up nice and strong. Doesn't matter how good your Magic is if you don't have a tough body you know?"
Kaguya would've argued that Reinforcement would make up for any lack of physical fitness, but honestly whatever Blue was doing seemed to be cheering Yuma up.
"I should get strong then?" Yuma asked hopefully.
"Exactly. Eat a bunch, work out, and start running. Exercising is great when your brain shuts down from looking at dusty old books all day. By the time you learn Magic–"
"Magecraft!" Kaguya corrected.
"Magecraft," Sayaka amended. "You'll be an absolute powerhouse!"
"The Dojo has a lot of weapons. Maybe I could start using one?" Yuma asked as she looked at Kaguya with pleading eyes.
"You guys have a Dojo?" Blue asked.
Kaguya sighed. "Eyes only," she replied as she ignored Blue's question. "Decide what you want first and we'll figure it out from there."
"Why don't you help... Emiya," Mami seemed almost strained to say that name, "pick something out Miki?"
"Sure. Yuma here can show me around the house." Blue glared at Kaguya. "Unless someone has an issue with it."
Kaguya glared back but otherwise didn't refuse. She might not have liked Blue, but the chick would never hurt Yuma. It would go against her idealistic principles. Besides there were enough wards set up in the Dojo to stop them in case they decided to do something stupid.
Blue took that silence as a yes, and had Yuma lead her to the Dojo.
Soon the only company Kaguya had was Mami and Pigtails, the latter of whom who had spent most of the time sitting silently in the corner. It almost made her miss Blue. She was fun to annoy at the very least.
"Is the healing almost done?" Kaguya asked.
"I've just about finished," Mami replied as she moved away her glowing hands.
Kaguya rotated her arms and stretched her body. No pain. In fact she felt really good, just a bit tired. A nap would be nice.
"Yuma has Potential," Mami commented.
And there went any chance of Kaguya relaxing.
"Yea. So?"
"If she wants to be a Magus that's fine," Mami replied. "But if you're forcing your ways onto her–"
"She doesn't want to be a Magical Girl," Kaguya bit back.
"Are you sure, or is it because of your views on them?"
"I ain't brainwashing her!" Kaguya shouted. "I gave her my opinion and she accepted it. Why do you want her to become a Magical Girl? She's a kid!"
"I agree. She is too young. But in the future, she'll have to make her own choice. If she chooses to follow the path of a Magus that's fine. I just don't want her to miss out on any opportunities due to any... personal bias we might have on the matter."
Kaguya grit her teeth. "You're just trying to take my little sister from me again. Take her along into your merry little band."
Mami flinched at her words. "Kaguya... you know I never wanted that for Momo."
"Doesn't matter what you wanted. Your little friend Kyubey still got his way."
"It was her choice in the end Kaguya. Kyubey had no obligation to stop her from making her Wish."
A wish done for Kaguya's sake, was what was left unsaid.
"And look what happened."
That also didn't need to be said.
Mami remained silent.
Kaguya shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore. Yuma's never going to become a Magical Girl."
|
"How did you meet Yuma?" Pigtails asked, interrupting the awkward silence.
"Saved her from a Witch," Kaguya replied.
"Is she also an orphan like you?"
Kaguya stared at Pigtails suspiciously. "You seem to know a lot about me, don't you? I don't I've ever met you though."
Pigtails looked away. She was clearly hiding something. "You have a reputation... and I did some research on you."
Kaguya squinted her eyes. There was some information of her out there, mostly from the Incubator, so it wasn't impossible that Pigtails would know something. However, the people that usually looked her up were the ones that were trying to take her territory.
"N-not to fight you," Pigtails quickly amended. "I was just... curious."
Kaguya didn't believe her. Not a single bit. But she couldn't call her out in front of Mami. The Senior Magical Girl tended to be pretty protective, if not possessive, of her Juniors. Root only knows how long it had taken before Kaguya had finally pushed Mami away.
"Yuma's parents are dead," Kaguya replied. She was going to have to find a better time to confront Pigtails about her information. Preferably alone where she could easily dispose of the corpse if neccesary.
"Oh... that's bad," Pigtails replied.
"Nah. Trust me, they're better off dead."
Blue and Yuma took that moment to finally return to the living room.
"This is an awesome house," Blue commented.
"What being smart can get you," Kaguya replied as Yuma bounded her way to her. "Which do one do you want to try out?"
"The hammer," Yuma replied.
"The hammer?" Kaguya asked, confused.
"The big one."
That wasn't even a proper weapon. That was just for when Kaguya and Archer just needed to do some quick demolition work on the house.
"Are you sure?" Kaguya asked. "It's pretty heavy."
"I have to be strong to use it right? And that's what Sayaka said. I should get strong and use a strong weapon."
Well, it wasn't like Warhammers didn't exist. Still the thought of Mo- Yuma just swinging it around with her tiny frame made for a very strange image. "Sure. But let's start with a knife first while you're busy getting... strong."
Yuma nodded. "Okay."
Kaguya was busy figuring out the basic design for a hammer that Yuma could use when Ribbons finally entered the house. The lightshow on her arm had finally stopped, though there was a pretty nasty scar there.
"Madoka," Pigtails was the first one to jump and practically glomped Ribbons where she stood. They ended falling into the floor in a bundle.
"Madoka!" Blue shouted and immediately jumped into the dogpile.
Mami on the other hand simply watched with a smile. "I'm glad to see that you've recovered Kaname."
"Thanks guys," Ribbons replied cheerfully as she quickly reciprocated the embrace.
The lot of them fawned over Ribbons until Archer finally stepped into the house, much to Kaguya's relief. They were starting to be a bad influence on Yuma.
<Can we kick them out now?> Kaguya asked.
"We need to have a talk first," Archer replied.
|
Explaining things to everyone wasn't as hard as Madoka thought it would be. She was almost used to it at this point, considering the last few weeks of her life.
"So, let me get this straight," Sayaka said as she stared at Madoka in awe. "You're connected to a Goddess?"
Of course, just because she had an easier time explaining, didn't mean that it wasn't tough for her friends to understand.
"That is correct," Archer replied for her. He was actually quite helpful, curtly answering questions that she wasn't quite prepared to answer.
Which were a lot. Way too many.
"I'd call bullshit," Kaguya admitted. "But if Archer says that's true..."
"Is he sure though?" Homura asked. "Couldn't he also be lying?"
Mami shook her head. "Archer doesn't lie. He'll keep secrets, but he doesn't lie."
"How did this even happen?" Kaguya asked. "Why does Ribbons just gets to play around with a God's–"
"Goddess," Madoka corrected.
"Goddess," Kaguya amended. "Play around with a Goddess's power?"
"You've seen what that power can do to her body," Archer replied as they all glanced at Madoka's arm.
"Kaguya never had that happen when she was–" Mami glanced at Kaguya who began glaring at her. "As a Magus I mean. It was never that bad for her."
"That's because there was always a limit to it. Even if she didn't use it all at once. Madoka is drawing her power from a being that is much more powerful than we are."
"What?" Kaguya blurted before looking at Madoka in surprise. "So, Ribbons here is stronger than me?"
"More raw power, but there's more to combat than raw strength," Archer replied. "It isn't necessarily a good thing either. You've seen what it does to her when she takes in too much."
"Still, that does mean she has potential that we haven't seen yet. Jesus that's..." Kaguya looked at Madoka, "That's actual real damn scary Ribbons. You could take out a whole city with that sorta power"
"How are you so sure about that?" Homura asked.
Kaguya nodded. "Because Archer could if he wanted to."
"Not that any Magical Girl would stand aside and let him," Mami commented.
"It can't be... I can't be that dangerous... Right?" Madoka asked.
Archer shook his head. "You practically have a limitless supply of energy to draw upon. You're a threat not only to yourself but others. I can also guarantee that there will be people out there that will seek to control you, should they ever learn about what you're capable of."
"B-but why? How?"
He shrugged. "Multiple reasons and several methods come to mind. Find a way to convert your power then you hook you up something big that they'd like to power. Take a loved one hostage so that you'd be forced to act in accordance with their will. You'd be treated less like a human being and more like a useful tool or a valuable collectable."
"I won't let that happen!" Homura shouted. She immediately looked away from everyone's gazes after her outburst. "Madoka needs to be safe."
"I agree with you there Homes," Sayaka said. "No way I'm letting that happen to my friend."
"It seems we're all in agreement then," Mami said.
"You guys..." Madoka almost cried tears of joy right there. To think that everyone cared about her that much.
"It seems your friends are eager to help," Archer commented. "Whether they can keep a secret and not up blow your cover when people start asking questions is another thing altogether."
Sayaka turned to Archer, annoyed. "We can do this."
"That has yet to be seen."
"You got something against us?"
"Miki," Mami put her hand on Sayaka's shoulder. "That's his way of giving advice."
"That's advice?" Sayaka asked.
"Yes," Mami replied. "He's saying that we should be prepared to maintain a proper cover, not just to Madoka but also as a group."
"Best to have matching information," Archer clarified. "Miscommunication can get you killed on or off the battlefield."
"Should you of all people be saying that?" Mami asked.
"I give clear and concise information," Archer replied.
"You could stand to be a bit more polite about it. Consider your choice of words before you insult someone."
"Pleasantries are a waste of time."
"Pleasantries foster good working relations."
"Uh guys," Sayaka interrupted. She glanced nervously between the two of them having somehow been caught in the middle of their growing argument. "What about Madoka?"
"Ah yes," Mami cleared her throat and quickly composed herself. "Is there a significant risk that her body will break on itself again?" she asked Archer.
Archer looked at Madoka. "Not right now. But if at any point she pushes herself past her limits, then it won't just end with a crack in her arm. She could potentially tear her body apart."
Madoka shuddered at the thought. The pain in the arm had been unbearable. What would it be like if the same happened to her entire body?
"That's... horrifying," Homura said.
"A gruesome sight to witness also," Archer admitted. "Along with being a slow and agonizing death. If her body doesn't completely collapse upon itself in an instant and end up destroying everything around her in the ensuing explosion."
"Jesus," Sayaka shouted as Homura flinched. "Do you got to be so graphic about it?"
"I'm just warning you of what could happen," Archer replied. "What you do with that information is up to you."
"What should Kaname do then to prevent this?" Mami asked.
"Her connection to the Goddess is always present but not necessarily active. As long as she doesn't draw power from it, then it won't strain her body."
"So Kaname simply has to avoid fighting," Mami said.
"I want to fight," Madoka demanded.
"But Madoka. You saw what happened to your arm. If you fight, you'll get hurt," Homura replied.
"I know I can get hurt, but so can you and Mami. I can't just sit back and do nothing when I can help."
"You're not going to get anything back for helping people," Kaguya commented. "Except for another crack in your arm."
"I know!" Madoka turned to Kaguya much to the red head's surprise. "I know I probably won't get anything back for helping people, but I still want to do it anyway. I was fighting to before and nothing happened," Madoka looked at the scar on her arm. "As long as I'm careful it shouldn't be a problem... right?"
Madoka glanced at Archer who shrugged.
"As long as she properly paces herself it won't be an issue," he replied.
"What should we do then, if Madoka wants to continue fighting alongside us?" Mami asked.
"Don't get into life threatening situations," Archer replied plainly. "Madoka is clearly someone who will go out of her way to help someone in trouble, even if it ends up getting her in trouble."
Madoka looked away, guiltily. She wasn't completely unaware of herself. That did sound like something she would do.
"So, your best bet," Archer continued, "is to not be in danger in the first place. A bit difficult to do if you choose to fight every Witch that heads your way."
"It's my duty and people will get hurt if I leave any Witches alone," Mami replied.
"People die all the time," Archer replied. "But if you're insistent on doing this then assume Madoka is going to tag along. She won't stop unless tie her down with your ribbons."
"Not fighting isn't something Madoka's going to do I guess," Sayaka agreed. "What about ways so that she can fight better? Make it so that she can take in more... Goddess power or whatever without hurting herself?"
"Training, practice and experience," Archer replied. "Learning to control the flow in her body so that it doesn't overwhelm her should take priority. It'll likely take a few years before she can a proper handle on it. Until then she needs to avoid pushing herself."
"What if Madoka were to become a Magical Girl?" Mami asked. "Would that help?"
"Tch." Kaguya looked away in disappointment.
Archer shook his head. "I'm not certain. Magical Girls naturally have tougher bodies to utilize. But they also have their own power they draw on. If she has too much Potential and that ends up combining with her Divine power."
"They could be incompatible, and you lose use of one or your body would destroy itself from the ensuing backlash," Kaguya told Madoka. "Or they are compatible, and you end up popping like a balloon."
"That isn't a certainty," Archer quickly amended. "A possibility but her Contract could also go well and end up making her very powerful."
"So... anything could happen?" Madoka concluded.
"Yes. And it's a risk I'd avoid if I were you," Archer replied.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Wouldn't Kyubey know if they're compatible?" Mami asked. "He's the one that forms the Contract after all."
"I..." Madoka glanced at Homura and then Archer. "I don't want to tell him... just yet."
"Smart," Kaguya commented.
"... That is your choice Kaname," Mami replied. "It is your secret to keep, but we might need more help then what we have here."
"Don't count on us," Kaguya muttered.
"Cause you aren't going to be here soon?" Sayaka asked. "I saw a bunch of packed bags in the house. Where are you guys going?
"You're leaving?" Mami asked.
"Taking a trip," Archer replied.
"Kamihama?" Mami guessed
"How do you know?" Kaguya asked.
"Many Magical Girls have been migrating there do a shortage of Witches," Mami explained. "Mitikihara hasn't been affected as bad as other places strangely enough."
Kaguya grunted. "Lucky."
"It's dangerous though," Mami argued. "Archer can handle himself but what you and Yuma?"
"We can handle it," Kaguya waved her off dismissively. "Worry about your lackeys first."
"Are you really that desperate for more Grief seeds to sell?"
"We have other reasons to go there," Archer replied. "Reasons that we do not need to disclose."
"Someone might try to take your territory while you're gone," Mami commented.
"Why?" Kaguya replied. "No Witches here either. And we can always just take it back when we do get back."
"And your home?"
"Most people don't live to see it."
Madoka flinched. Even she knew what that implied.
"Did you kill them?" Sayaka asked.
"Only those that didn't turn back after the first warning shot," Archer replied.
"And the rest?" Sayaka asked.
"Those that choose to fight should be prepared to die themselves," Archer replied firmly. "Many that choose to come here, come for the sole purpose of taking our Grief Seeds and territory."
"That doesn't mean you should kill them!" Sayaka shouted. "Just beat them up and let them go!"
Archer looked at Sayaka. "Naïve."
"I know right?" Kaguya commented.
"What do you mean by that!?" Sayaka shouted.
"An enemy you spare will likely come back for you," Archer explained. "This time stronger and smarter. Additionally, any information that they can acquire about our territory and capabilities will quickly spread. By sparing them we'd be risking our home, our livelihood, everything we've built here. Would you be willing to do the same?"
"I..." Sayaka hesitated.
"Even if you would, we would not," Archer continued. "Whether or not you choose to remain in this side of the World, you need to reevaluate your reason for doing so. Uncertainty will get you killed, but you must also be willing to die for your beliefs. To walk the path of a Magus is to walk with death and Magical Girls put something similar at stake. If you can't do that, then you're better off going back to your normal life and forgetting all of this."
Archer's expression relaxed. "It's not too late for you. You can still choose to walk away from this. You still have that option. Whatever you decide... try to make sure it so you don't have any regrets."
Sayaka stared at him for some time before she finally spoke. "That's... the one thing I can't do. Just walk away when there are people that need my help. What sort of Hero of Justice would I be if I just ran away?"
Kaguya went stiff.
Archer's expression hardened. "I'd advise you to choose otherwise. It is a foolish and impossible dream."
"How could you know that if you haven't even tried?" Sayaka asked.
His fist clenched.
Madoka gulped. She didn't know why, but she was dearly afraid for her childhood friend's safety.
Thankfully, Archer didn't do anything. He simply took a deep breath and turned away.
"Do as you wish," he replied calmly.
"Archer. Are you–" Kaguya began to ask.
"I'm fine Kaguya," Archer replied. "It's her dream. I see no reason to interfere." He turned to Madoka. "You can put away your bow by the way."
Madoka blinked blankly before looking down. She finally noticed the bow she had accidently summoned, again. The same bow that now everyone was looking at before looking at her in concern.
With a flick of her hand, Madoka dismissed her weapon and tried not to blush from embarrassment.
Kaguya maintained her curious gaze. "You use a bow too?"
"Yea," Madoka replied before turning to Archer. "You also use one. Right?"
"What gave it away?" the man named Archer replied sarcastically.
"It's just that... Could you teach me a few things?" Madoka asked.
|
"Keep your stance firm. Your body needs to support the arrow." Archer told her.
Madoka nodded as she hardened her stance like he had suggested. She created an arrow, held it against her bowstring, and got ready to pull.
Suddenly, the world went dark.
Madoka could only yelp as dismissed her bow and tore the white towel off her face. She turned to Archer who held his hand out, having thrown the offending object.
"But also, be ready to move and evade at a moment's notice," Archer lectured. "You need to be aware of your surroundings, not just the target in front of you."
"I-I understand," Madoka replied as she smoothed out her Hakama and summoned her bow again. For some reason Archer had insisted that she change into a Kyudo uniform, even though they both used a Western method of Archery.
How she knew that immediately... well it probably had something to do with a certain Goddess.
She drew an arrow, glanced at Archer to make sure that he wasn't throwing something else at her, and then fired her arrow. The arrow hit the center of the target.
Madoka smiled, glad about the results.
Then the target exploded. Again.
"Oops."
It wasn't a regular target she was shooting at. If she put in too little strength then her arrow would bounce off, but too much and well these were the results. She needed to release a precise amount of energy for her arrow to stay without obliterating the target.
It was certainly a lot harder than shooting familiars and Witches. She didn't really care about how much energy she was using as long as they were destroyed.
"You have decent aim, but your control is lacking," Archer replied as he walked up to the remains of the target. He held his hands out, dismissed the wooden shards, and replaced them with a brand-new target he set down in front of her.
It was such a cool ability. Being able to create brand new objects on a whim. Her uniform had been made that way. Clean, well made, and comfortable to wear. Though how Archer happened to know all her sizes... well she didn't really want to know how much he had saw while healing her.
Sayaka whistled. "I need to learn how to do that."
Kaguya scoffed. "It's Magecraft unique to him."
"Don't know until I try."
"It is literally impossible!"
Madoka ignored their bickering as she continued to listen to Archer.
"If you put too much energy into each shot then you'll hit your limits that much sooner," Archer told her. "It's imperative that you learn to pace yourself, especially when dealing with a Witch's labyrinth and their Familiars."
That made sense. Maybe if she were to change the basic design a little. Gather more of the power into a single point so that she could more easily adjust it.
She created an arrow with those adjustments in mind. Once it was finished, she nocked it on her bow and aimed.
She released the string and let her creation loose.
This time it didn't completely obliterate the target. It did however leave a nice clean hole as it drilled straight through the wood and continued past it until struck the wall. The wall too had a nice clean hole drilled into it before Madoka had the cognizance to dispel the arrow before it could fly any further.
Also, she could apparently get rid of her arrows mid-flight. That was nice to know.
"Not quite what we're looking for," Archer mused as he poked his hand through the hole. "Decent technique though. You should keep it in mind in case you ever fight something with thick skin or armor."
Well apparently, she got a new attack out of all this. That was something at least.
It made her glad that she had yet to deal with any of the more aggressive Magical Girls that Archer and Kaguya had alluded to. If she had used one of these arrows against one of them...
No, she honestly didn't even want to think about shooting them in the first place. Not without taking a chance to talk and trying to resolve things peacefully at least.
"It's just so hard to hold back once I let it out," Madoka sighed.
"Like closing the floodgates of a dam?" Archer asked.
"Something like that."
"Well, it'll take some time before you can have precise control over your power by yourself," Archer replied as he created something in his hands.
"What is that?" Mami asked.
"Just a regular arrow," Archer replied. "Completely mundane but suitable for an experiment." He handed the arrow to Madoka. "Try pumping your power into it before you shoot it."
"What?" Madoka asked.
"Rather than you having to create a magic arrow from scratch, try imbuing an object with your energy."
Madoka grabbed the arrow and examined it carefully. It really did look like a normal arrow. Felt like one too. Or at least she assumed so. This was the first time she held an actual arrow that wasn't created entirely from her pink magic energy as Sayaka had called it.
"Are you sure Ribbons can do that?" Kaguya asked. "It took a week before my Reinforcement stopped blowing up everything I was trying to strengthen."
Madoka began to gently prod the arrow with some of her Divine power. It seeped into it naturally and with surprising ease. Like a sponge soaking up water. It also came out just as easily with a bit of prodding. If she could just make a few adjustments...
"It's not Reinforcement," Archer explained. "And I'm banking on her having a natural affinity towards–"
Madoka nocked her bow, raised it, and fired. The arrow hit the target. It didn't explode and the arrow stayed imbedded in the center.
"I did it," Madoka said amazed.
It wasn't perfect. There were several cracks that spread out from where the arrow struck a bit too hard, but it was marked improvement from violently exploding into tiny pieces.
"Bows and arrows," Archer finished with an amused expression. "Well, that proves that theory."
"It's easier to control," Madoka confirmed.
"For most people it's easier to alter and enhance an existing object rather than create an entirely new one," Archer explained as he created her a new target. "Especially when given an object they have intimate knowledge of or have a natural affinity for. It's a more efficient use of energy, giving you a higher output at a lower cost."
"Meaning Kaname get more done at less risk to herself if she carries around arrows to enhance," Mami concluded.
"Yes," Archer affirmed.
"Where would I get more arrows?" Madoka asked.
"Archery clubs or shops. Usually a few of those in a city," Archer replied as he held out his hand. Suddenly, a quiver full of arrows appeared in his hand which he then gave to Madoka. "Try this on, see if the strap fits you."
"O-okay." Madoka grabbed the quiver and held it in her hands. It was made of some tough, dark brown leather. A bit rough to touch but also very sturdy. She then took out one of the arrows. The shaft was made of some black wood while the gray metal tip was flat.
"They're blunt," Mami observed.
"They don't need to be sharp if she's imbuing them with her power," Archer explained. "Practice arrows are more readily available for purchase. And makes it easier to explain herself as an enthusiast if she's caught carrying them around."
"There are several Archery stores in Matikihara," Mami replied thoughtfully. "And we could always say she's coming back from one of them or a club if she does get questioned."
"They'd also be a good place for her to get some practice. Though there's only so much you learn on a range."
"I agree," Mami said. "I'll make sure to supervise Kaname's training in the future."
"If she starts somersaulting in the air and shouting out every single one of her attacks. Then I will shoot you with my bow," Archer warned.
Mami rolled her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with adding a little flair to your attacks."
"To intimidate, yes. Not to show off."
"Don't think I haven't heard you call out your attacks," Mami argued. "Caladbolg, Triple-Linked Crane Wings."
"It makes it easier to manifest the spells needed if they're said aloud," Archer rebutted. "Your magic has no such requirement."
Madoka simply watched as the two continued to bicker.
Boy, those two really liked arguing with each other, didn't they?
"Stop flirting with Mami and get this over with," Kaguya sighedm exasperated.
Archer simply looked at Kaguya in annoyance while Mami looked outright affronted.
"If you ever suggest that again Emiya," Mami glared at Kaguya, "Then I will not hesitate to restrain you."
"With your ribbons?" Kaguya asked.
"Of course."
"Kinky."
"Kaguya," Archer warned with his own glare.
Kaguya raised her hand in surrender. "Alright sorry."
Madoka grabbed an arrow from her quiver and continued shooting at the target. Each arrow being fired with differing outputs in order for her to test her strength and control. Soon enough she emptied the quiver and walked to the target so that she could pull them out and reuse them.
"Diligent," Archer comment.
"Mama says I should put my all into whatever I decide to do," Madoka replied as she began pulling out arrows.
"A good lesson, thoughh there are times when giving up is fine."
Mami looked at Archer suspiciously. Honestly, she had been looking at him like the entire time. "Why are you so willing to help Kaname?"
"She's a nice person," he replied. It was enough to get Madoka to blush.
"Is that it?" Mami asked.
"Do I need another reason?" Archer asked.
"... No. Kaname is a kind person."
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Madoka muttered.
"Because you are!" Sayaka hollered.
Archer smirked. "I really wouldn't argue with your friends over this."
"Thank you for teaching me Mr. Emiya," Madoka decided to change the subject.
"Just make sure to practice consistently," Archer replied. "And don't ever let your power get to your head. It doesn't matter how strong you are, anyone is capable of killing you. A single mistake is often all it takes."
"I'll remember that," Madoka replied as she took the last arrow out of the target and placed it into her quiver. "Will I... see you again?"
"Perhaps," Archer replied. "Though that might be for fate to decide."
Normally that wouldn't be much of answer in the first place, but from a man like Archer...
Well, she certainly had a of work ahead of her if she was going to impress him the next time they met.
|
Archer watched from the front porch as their... guests finally left the property. He had given what advice and help he could, whatever happened to them now was on them. Hopefully, they would make the right choices in the future.
"Did you really need to go out of your way to help Ribbons?" Kaguya asked him. "I know she has God powers and all but..."
"She's a good person," Archer replied as he glanced at her. "Do you disagree?"
"... Nah you're right. Sucks that she had to end up with Mami though. Could've made use of some Divine power."
"Maybe," Archer admitted. "But Mami might make a decent mentor for her."
"Well, whatever you say," Kaguya replied doubtfully.
"Do you regret splitting up with her?" Archer asked.
"No. It didn't work between us. And it still won't," Kaguya replied quickly. "... but I guess after everything we've been through."
"It's hard to let go isn't it?"
"Yea..." Kaguya stretched her and yawned. "Well, I'm going to make sure Yuma is tucked in. Night Archer."
"Good night Kaguya."
"Oh, and one more thing," Archer said as Kaguya made it through the doorway.
Kaguya turned her head. "Yea?"
"I understand why you put a blue wig on that dummy now."
|
He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a thick wall of brick. It didn't take long for him to turn around and notice the strange new world he had woken up in.
He was a legend, a faceless hero born from the prayers of those who suffered. For hundreds of years he had answered the call. Each time a different man taking on the mantle and recording their experiences unto him. That was who he was, not a person, but rather an amalgamation of those that created him. Those who would fight against injustice and fight the weak.
Yet when he awoke, he found himself human.
Not a hero of legend. Just a person. A person made from the memories and experiences of countless others before him.
He wasn't supposed to exist, not like this. Not this in this strange world of concrete jungles and metal rectangles that towered high into heavens.
The Throne would've given knowledge about all this and yet he had nothing to draw upon. No Master, no power, not even a weapon for him to use. Just this fragile body that quickly became sore from lying against the hard floor of concrete.
Left with little choice, he simply stood up and walked with purpose. Even powerless as he was, with none of his tools of centuries past, he could still fulfill his duty.
To help those in need.
|
It didn't take the man long to adapt to this world. The experiences of the men that made him never went away. It was especially true when living in isolation was something that they all shared.
There were some changes though. The world was much more technologically advanced than any of his previous incarnations had witnessed. There was no magic, or at least it wasn't apparently visible to the masses. Even if it did exist, he likely wouldn't notice, now powerless as he was.
Still this world was nice in its own ways. It didn't necessitate him having to resort to his less than savory methods if he wanted to help people.
A blessing really. For a man who just wanted to aid those in need, to no longer having to hide in the shadows. To stand in the light of day as he gathered the donated food and distributed it among the poor. Only rarely did he have to skulk in the night, mostly to stop those from doing the very things that his legend was known for.
The man smiled as the employees of the shelter and its many patrons thanked him.
It wasn't an easy life, with the little salary he received from his work making up his living expenses, but he was content.
He was content with continuing as such for as long as he existed in this world.
|
Purple.
Striking purple eyes and a truly impish smile. Full of ambition with a drive to achieve it. A young girl, hardly fresh out of adolescence, yet clearly not to be underestimated.
The man didn't know what he had done to interest her, but apparently he had caught her sights.
He never did like the attention, preferring instead to be unseen in the woods. In this situation he simply did what he did best.
Hide.
He did so among the masses, within the concrete jungle, and with the many other volunteers that chose to work at the shelter.
It didn't work.
Someway, somehow, he would find himself staring into that same purple again. Even if it was just once in a week, even if just for a brief period. Each time that smile would grow larger as she become aware of the game they played.
The man couldn't say that he didn't enjoy it either. The thrill of being hunted, of the experience of over fifty men being bested by a quick-thinking woman.
And so, they continued to play their games for weeks, then months. Soon those months would become an entire year.
|
"You're weird," the girl commented one day as she joined him with his deliveries to the homeless of the area.
"How so?" the man could not help but ask.
"It's not an act," she replied. "You aren't trying to impress anyone. You really do like helping others."
"That's right." The man didn't even try to deny it. To do so would be him denying all those that had created him. To deny that would leave him with nothing.
"It makes me mad," the girl looked at him annoyed.
"Why?"
"Because you could stand to be a bit more selfish."
"Helping others makes me happy."
She didn't believe him. That was clear as they walked in silence for the rest of his route. She still stayed with him though. Even when she tired, even when it was clear that her feet pained her, she stayed.
When he finally finished, he helped her to nearby bench so that they could watch the sunset in peace. It was there that he would finally admit the truth that he kept within himself.
"It's the only reason I'm here."
The girl looked at him thoughtfully, before turning back to the sunset.
"Maybe you should look for another reason then."
|
The girl grew to be a beautiful young woman.
No. She was always beautiful. It was just that now it was difficult to ignore. And wow... was she difficult to ignore.
Always forging to create her own path. Putting on an act to deceive others in her way and only ever revealing her true self around her loved ones... and him.
Then one day she had moved away from her parents to a new apartment in order to pursue a higher education. Then after seeing his place, which she affectionately called a dirty hovel, she forced him to come here. Normally he would've refused, content with his tiny living space, but she ended up complaining about how dangerous it was for a young woman to live by herself.
Sadly chivalry was another one of the things that they all shared.
That was how he had become her roommate.
|
"Why?" he asked her one day on their couch.
"Why what?" the woman turned and asked, ignoring the movie that they had been watching.
"Why me? Why do you care about me?"
The woman went mad, enraged by his question. He tried to do his best to calm her tantrum but found that he only made things worse.
That was another thing all the men that made him shared. They never did learn how to quite deal with the opposite gender.
He still did his best though. To try and resolve the tension between them.
Or at least he tried until she grabbed him be the face and put her lips against his.
It was at that moment that he finally received his answer.
|
It was months after their first kiss, the first night they ever spent in the same bed, that he finally told her of his past.
Everything.
Of all the men that he the legend once was. Of their histories and deaths. Of how he was suddenly summoned to this world as he was now.
It sounded like insanity, to have it all spoken from his lips. Even he had doubted himself in the middle of his own explanation.
And then when he finished, she kissed him again.
When any other would think of him as mad and doubt him, she believed him. Every single word. She never doubted, not for a single moment.
It was at that moment that the feeling in his chest wasn't from the many that had created him. No. This was his own.
It was then that he finally knew.
That he wanted to stare into those eyes for the rest of his life.
|
Despite all their planning pretty much everything that could go wrong at their wedding went wrong. What was supposed to be simple affair turned into a hectic march of dealing with one situation after another. It wasn't helped at all by his fiancé's... eccentric family and friends.
What he had once found entertaining in small doses, quickly became an issue once you threw them all together.
Seriously if he had to listen to another lecture about how a person should cook their eggs...
Their wedding up being an ordeal that aught to be recorded in legends. Something that all the previous hims would've been impressed by if they had lived to see it.
It was also the happiest day of his life.
At the altar they exchanged their vows. At the altar he took on her family name.
It was at that moment that he was finally complete.
A full name a true identity.
For he was not an amalgamation of those before him.
He was his own person.
And he would spend the rest of his life with the woman that he loved.
|
"Now arriving at Kamihama station."
With Yuma in her hand, Kaguya stepped off the train and was immediately assaulted by the strange air of the place. She had felt it as they arrived at the city's borders, and Archer had constantly commented about how strange this city was, but even then she wasn't prepared for the sheer density of Mana in the air.
Whether it was from the vast number of Witches and Magical Girls that gathered here, or something else entirely, was yet to be seen.
"Is something wrong Kaguya?" Yuma asked. She wasn't very sensitive to Magic or Magecraft despite the Potential that she had.
"Nothing," Kaguya shook her head and walked forward with confidence. Not the worst environment she'd been in, compared to a Witch's labyrinth at least, she'd adapt soon enough.
<You really weren't kidding about this place Archer,> Kaguya commented.
<Something's changed since the last time I was here,> Archer warned. <The energy's become active, as if someone's making use of it at this very moment.>
<That's... concerning,> Kaguya admitted.
<It is. We should move with caution.>
Well, that was a good way to start their trip. Hopefully there wouldn't be any other unpleasant surprises for the day.
|
"My name is Kaguya Emiya," Kaguya introduced herself casually to her new class.
Her new classmates began to whisper to one another, likely intrigued by the new transfer student. Not that Kaguya could blame them, she just had that effect on people after all.
"Is there anything about yourself that you'd like to tell the class Emiya?" The teacher, a bald and rather portly male, asked.
"Not really," Kaguya replied.
Why would she? She would only be at this place for the next few weeks or so. Not like she wanted to get to know them anyway.
She could only hope that someone in this room would prove to be interesting, unlike her old school. Otherwise, being here would be a complete and utter chore.
After a bit of awkward stuttering from the teacher, Kaguya was led to her seat. It was next to a window and in front of a girl with shoulder length grey hair.
Normally Kaguya wouldn't give much mind to a person like her, but this girl had the blankest look on her face that she'd ever seen. Like there was nothing there. No life in it whatsoever. Totally empty.
It kind of worried her a little.
"Hey," Kaguya greeted the girl.
The girl's eyes moved. They stared at each other in silence. When the girl didn't respond for some time, Kaguya finally gave up and turned around.
Weirdo.
"Hi..." a quiet and shy voice practically whispered.
Kaguya turned back around. "Not much of a talker, are you?"
The girl shook her head.
Oh well, whatever. Kaguya turned back around to listen as the teacher began his lecture. Not like she was here to make friends anyway.
"Sorry..."
|
"Where are you from?"
"Kazamino."
"Why do you wear a glove?"
"Personal reasons."
"What sort of reasons?"
"Very personal reasons."
"Why did you come here?"
"I was bored in Kazamino."
"There's so much fun stuff to do in Kamihama then! We could show you around!"
Kaguya suppressed a sigh. Apparently acting aloof and casual had drawn the attention of many of the boys, and a few of the girls, in the class. The rest, thankfully, had stayed away and were content with gossiping about her. Honestly, she preferred the gossip. At least it meant that they'd leave her alone unlike the people in front of her.
She glanced at the empty seat behind her. It was almost uncanny how quietly that girl had left the classroom the second class had ended. The girl moved and acted like a ghost, hardly interacting with anything around her.
"Why are you looking at Isuzu's seat?" one of the boys asked.
"Nothing. Just curious about my neighbor," Kaguya replied.
"Don't worry about her," one of the girls commented. "She never speaks. Always goes off alone."
"You can do whatever you want to her and she won't do anything," another girl commented. "Even got her to carry my stuff for me when the teacher asked me to carry out permission slips to the faculty office."
"Apparently Isuzu isn't coming. She didn't hand in the form on time."
"That's because I took out her permission slip before I handed them too her," the same girl chuckled.
"Well not like we'll notice she's gone anyway. All she does is just sit and stare."
"And look pretty," another boy commented.
"If you like the shy quiet type."
"More like if you prefer a doormat."
Really? These kids had nothing better to do but to pick on a weakling? Not even trying to teach her a lesson or something productive? Not that this Ren girl was faultless either considering she let them step all over her.
Pathetic. Those idiots probably wouldn't do anything if someone with half a spine showed up.
Kaguya stood up. "Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom."
"Do you need us to show you the way?"
"Nah I got this," Kaguya replied as she made her way out of the classroom. Rather than head to the bathroom though, she grabbed a quick lunch from the school store and then made her way to the roof.
Not only did she want to just get away from everyone, but she was also hoping that she could get a decent view of the elementary school building from there. Maybe even get a clear line of sight of whatever classroom Yuma ended up in.
What she didn't expect was to find the door to the roof open. She peeked her head out the doorway and found a small group of girls that had already gathered there. One with pink hair, one blonde, and one brown.
That normally wouldn't matter much, Kaguya could just stand on the other side and ignore them, but the familiar rings and marks on their fingernail was a huge red flag. She immediately ducked back into the building.
Magical Girls. Three of them. And they all just happened to be in the same school building as her.
Great.
Archer really wasn't kidding about the number of Magical Girls in this city.
Kaguya peeked her head out and continued to watch. They were talking about something. Rumors? Uwasa? Shadowy People? It was hard to get out of context. She would probably have to ask Archer later and see if he learned anything.
Actually, if what they were saying wasn't much use to her then why exactly was she hiding?
They wouldn't know who she was and even if they did, what could they do? It wasn't like they could pick a fight at school, not of the Magical variety at least, and they were already letting other Magical Girls in this city anyway. What was another Magus to the mix?
"What are you doing!?"
Kaguya jumped, pivoted on her feet, and threw a punch. Survival instincts, mostly from training with Archer. Useful at times so that she wasn't caught defenseless by an enemy.
Her fist was caught by a girl with blue hair and pigtails that glared at her furiously.
This unfortunately was not one of those times.
"What the hell?" the girl shrieked.
Shit.
Magical Girl. Didn't even need to see the ring to know that. Only they would have the instincts and strength to block a punch like that.
Not one to back away from a fight though, Kaguya glared back. "Maybe you shouldn't sneak up on people." She prepared herself to throw another fist if needed. When a regular punch didn't work then a Reinforced punch usually did the trick.
"Maybe you shouldn't be spying on my friends!" the girl bit back.
"I wasn't spying," ok she was, "just wanted to get some alone time and found them here."
The girl crossed her arm. "What are you? Shy?"
"Just didn't want to be surrounded by idiots."
The girl immediately bristled. "Why you–"
"Rena is something wrong?"
Kaguya jumped for the second time that day and turned around to find that blonde Magical Girl standing in front of her.
"Yea," Rena pointed at Kaguya. "This girl was spying on you Momoko and you didn't even notice! You need to start paying attention to things!"
"Alright," the blonde Magical Girl scratched the back of her head nervously.
"Then when I go talk to her, she tried to punch me!" Rena continued.
"You were the one who snuck up on me!" Kaguya argued.
"Who throws a punch because they're surprised!?"
"Someone who needs to survive!"
"Calm down you two," Momoko suddenly stepped in between them. She was calm and acted casual but there was clear authority in the way she held herself. Clearly the leader of their little group. "Let's not pick a fight at school."
"She started it," Rena grumbled.
"Maybe we should give her a chance to explain herself," Momoko's eyes immediately drifted down to Kaguya's gloved hand before immediately returning to her face.
This blonde chick was calm, but clearly cautious and looking for any signs of conflict. Best not to start a fight if possible.
"Just arrived at this school," Kaguya explained. "Thought I'd go to the roof and saw that it was occupied."
"Then you decided to spy on them," Rena commented.
"I was curious," Kaguya replied.
"Well, we've all had that temptation before," Momoko reasoned. "Honestly though we wouldn't minded if you wanted to join us. It's tough being a transfer student."
For some reason Rena seemed to simmer down at those words. Personal experience?
"If you wanted to make friends then you should've just asked," Rena muttered firmly, but not angrily.
"So, you want to join us?" Momoko asked.
"Nah. Not really my thing, thanks for the offer though," Kaguya replied before walking back down the stairs. She'd have to find some other place to hang out in peace.
"Don't be a stranger, you can hang out with us anytime you want," Momoko called out one last time as Kaguya took her leave.
|
Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.
First, a personal ending. There is a thing she will think over and over in the days to come, as she imagines how her son died and tries to make sense of something so innately senseless. She will cover Uche's broken little body with a blanket—except his face, because he is afraid of the dark—and she will sit beside it numb, and she will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She's old hat at this by now.
What she thinks then, and thereafter, is: But he was free.
And it is her bitter, weary self that answers this almost-question every time her bewildered, shocked self manages to produce it:
He wasn't. Not really. But now he will be.
|
But you need context. Let's try the ending again, writ continentally.
Here is a land.
It is ordinary, as lands go. Mountains and plateaus and canyons and river deltas, the usual. Ordinary, except for its size and its dynamism. It moves a lot, this land. Like an old man lying restlessly abed it heaves and sighs, puckers and farts, yawns and swallows. Naturally this land's people have named it the Stillness. It is a land of quiet and bitter irony.
The Stillness has had other names. It was once several other lands. It's one vast, unbroken continent at present, but at some point in the future it will be more than one again.
Very soon now, actually.
The end begins in a city: the oldest, largest, and most magnificent living city in the world. The city is called Yumenes, and once it was the heart of an empire. It is still the heart of many things, though the empire has wilted somewhat in the years since its first bloom, as empires do.
Yumenes is not unique because of its size. There are many large cities in this part of the world, chain-linked along the equator like a continental girdle. Elsewhere in the world villages rarely grow into towns, and towns rarely become cities, because all such polities are hard to keep alive when the earth keeps trying to eat them... but Yumenes has been stable for most of its twenty-seven centuries.
Yumenes is unique because here alone have human beings dared to build not for safety, not for comfort, not even for beauty, but for bravery. The city's walls are a masterwork of delicate mosaics and embossing detailing its people's long and brutal history. The clumping masses of its buildings are punctuated by great high towers like fingers of stone, hand-wrought lanterns powered by the modern marvel of hydroelectricity, delicately arching bridges woven of glass and audacity, and architectural structures called balconies that are so simple, yet so breathtakingly foolish, that no one has ever built them before in written history. (But much of history is unwritten. Remember this.) The streets are paved not with easy-to-replace cobbles, but with a smooth, unbroken, and miraculous substance the locals have dubbed asphalt. Even the shanties of Yumenes are daring, because they're just thin-walled shacks that would blow over in a bad windstorm, let alone a shake. Yet they stand, as they have stood, for generations.
At the core of the city are many tall buildings, so it is perhaps unsurprising that one of them is larger and more daring than all the rest combined: a massive structure whose base is a star pyramid of precision-carved obsidian brick. Pyramids are the most stable architectural form, and this one is pyramids times five because why not? And because this is Yumenes, a vast geodesic sphere whose faceted walls resemble translucent amber sits at the pyramid's apex, seeming to balance there lightly—though in truth, every part of the structure is channeled toward the sole purpose of supporting it. It looks precarious; that is all that matters.
The Black Star is where the leaders of the empire meet to do their leaderish things. The amber sphere is where they keep their emperor, carefully preserved and perfect. He wanders its golden halls in genteel despair, doing what he is told and dreading the day his masters decide that his daughter makes a better ornament.
None of these places or people matter, by the way. I simply point them out for context.
But here is a man who will matter a great deal.
You can imagine how he looks, for now. You may also imagine what he's thinking. This might be wrong, mere conjecture, but a certain amount of likelihood applies nevertheless. Based on his subsequent actions, there are only a few thoughts that could be in his mind in this moment.
He stands on a hill not far from the Black Star's obsidian walls. From here he can see most of the city, smell its smoke, get lost in its gabble. There's a group of young women walking along one of the asphalt paths below; the hill is in a park much beloved by the city's residents. (Keep green land within the walls, advises stonelore, but in most communities the land is fallow-planted with legumes and other soil-enriching crops. Only in Yumenes is greenland sculpted into prettiness.) The women laugh at something one of them has said, and the sound wafts up to the man on a passing breeze. He closes his eyes and savors the faint tremolo of their voices, the fainter reverberation of their footsteps like the wingbeats of butterflies against his sessapinae. He can't sess all seven million residents of the city, mind you; he's good, but not that good. Most of them, though, yes, they are there. Here. He breathes deeply and becomes a fixture of the earth. They tread upon the filaments of his nerves; their voices stir the fine hairs of his skin; their breaths ripple the air he draws into his lungs. They are on him. They are in him.
But he knows that he is not, and will never be, one of them.
"Did you know," he says, conversationally, "that the first stonelore was actually written in stone? So that it couldn't be changed to suit fashion or politics. So it wouldn't wear away."
"I know," says his companion.
"Hnh. Yes, you were probably there when it was first set down, I forget." He sighs, watching the women walk out of sight. "It's safe to love you. You won't fail me. You won't die. And I know the price up front."
His companion does not reply. He wasn't really expecting a response, though a part of him hoped. He has been so lonely.
But hope is irrelevant, as are so many other feelings that he knows will bring him only despair if he considers them again. He has considered this enough. The time for dithering is past.
"A commandment," the man says, spreading his arms, "is set in stone."
Imagine that his face aches from smiling. He's been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow's feet show. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.
"Chiseled words are absolute."
He speaks to no one in particular, but beside the man stands a woman—of sorts. Her emulation of human gender is only superficial, a courtesy. Likewise the loose drapelike dress that she wears is not cloth. She has simply shaped a portion of her stiff substance to suit the preferences of the fragile, mortal creatures among whom she currently moves. From a distance the illusion would work to pass her off as a woman standing still, at least for a while. Up close, however, any hypothetical observer would notice that her skin is white porcelain; that is not a metaphor. As a sculpture, she would be beautiful, if too relentlessly realistic for local tastes. Most Yumenescenes prefer polite abstraction over vulgar actuality.
When she turns to the man—slowly; stone eaters are slow aboveground, except when they aren't—this movement pushes her beyond artful beauty into something altogether different. The man has grown used to it, but even so, he does not look at her. He does not want revulsion to spoil the moment.
"What will you do?" he asks her. "When it's done. Will your kind rise up through the rubble and take the world in our stead?"
"No," she says.
"Why not?"
"Few of us are interested in that. Anyway, you'll still be here."
The man understands that she means you in the plural. Your kind. Humanity. She often treats him as though he represents his whole species. He does the same to her. "You sound very certain."
She says nothing to this. Stone eaters rarely bother stating the obvious. He's glad, because her speech annoys him in any case; it does not shiver the air the way a human voice would. He doesn't know how that works. He doesn't care how it works, but he wants her silent now.
He wants everything silent.
"End," he says. "Please."
And then he reaches forth with all the fine control that the world has brainwashed and backstabbed and brutalized out of him, and all the sensitivity that his masters have bred into him through generations of rape and coercion and highly unnatural selection. His fingers spread and twitch as he feels several reverberating points on the map of his awareness: his fellow slaves. He cannot free them, not in the practical sense. He's tried before and failed. He can, however, make their suffering serve a cause greater than one city's hubris, and one empire's fear.
So he reaches deep and takes hold of the humming tapping bustling reverberating rippling vastness of the city, and the quieter bedrock beneath it, and the roiling churn of heat and pressure beneath that. Then he reaches wide, taking hold of the great sliding-puzzle piece of earthshell on which the continent sits.
Lastly, he reaches up. For power.
He takes all that, the strata and the magma and the people and the power, in his imaginary hands. Everything. He holds it. He is not alone. The earth is with him.
Then he breaks it.
|
Here is the Stillness, which is not still even on a good day.
Now it ripples, reverberates, in cataclysm. Now there is a line, roughly east–west and too straight, almost neat in its manifest unnaturalness, spanning the girth of the land's equator. The line's origin point is the city of Yumenes.
The line is deep and raw, a cut to the quick of the planet. Magma wells in its wake, fresh and glowing red. The earth is good at healing itself. This wound will scab over quickly in geologic terms, and then the cleansing ocean will follow its line to bisect the Stillness into two lands. Until this happens, however, the wound will fester with not only heat but gas and gritty, dark ash—enough to choke off the sky across most of the Stillness's face within a few weeks. Plants everywhere will die, and the animals that depend on them will starve, and the animals that eat those will starve. Winter will come early, and hard, and it will last a long, long time. It will end, of course, like every winter does, and then the world will return to its old self. Eventually.
Eventually.
The people of the Stillness live in a perpetual state of disaster preparedness. They've built walls and dug wells and put away food, and they can easily last five, ten, even twenty-five years in a world without sun.
Eventually meaning in this case in a few thousand years.
Look, the ash clouds are spreading already.
|
While we're doing things continentally, planetarily, we should consider the obelisks, which float above all this.
The obelisks had other names once, back when they were first built and deployed and used, but no one remembers those names or the great devices' purpose. Memories are fragile as slate in the Stillness. In fact, these days no one really pays much attention to the things at all, though they are huge and beautiful and a little terrifying: massive crystalline shards that hover amid the clouds, rotating slowly and drifting along incomprehensible flight paths, blurring now and again as if they are not quite real—though this may only be a trick of the light. (It isn't.) It's obvious that the obelisks are nothing natural.
It is equally obvious that they are irrelevant. Awesome, but purposeless: just another grave-marker of just another civilization successfully destroyed by Father Earth's tireless efforts. There are many other such cairns around the world: a thousand ruined cities, a million monuments to heroes or gods no one remembers, several dozen bridges to nowhere. Such things are not to be admired, goes the current wisdom in the Stillness. The people who built those old things were weak, and died as the weak inevitably must. More damning is that they failed. The ones who built the obelisks just failed harder than most.
But the obelisks exist, and they play a role in the world's end, and thus are worthy of note.
|
Back to the personal. Need to keep things grounded, ha ha.
The woman I mentioned, the one whose son is dead. She was not in Yumenes, thankfully, or this would be a very short tale. And you would not exist.
She's in a town called Tirimo. In the parlance of the Stillness a town is one form of comm, or community—but as comms go Tirimo is barely large enough to merit that name. Tirimo sits in a valley of the same name, at the foot of the Tirimas Mountains. The nearest body of water is an intermittent creek the locals call Little Tirika. In a language that no longer exists except in these lingering linguistic fragments, eatiri meant "quiet." Tirimo is far from the glittering, stable cities of the Equatorials, so people here build for the inevitability of shakes. There are no artful towers or cornices, just walls built out of wood and cheap brown local bricks, set upon foundations of hewn stone. No asphalted roads, just grassy slopes bisected by dirt paths; only some of those paths have been overlaid with wooden boards or cobblestones. It is a peaceful place, although the cataclysm that just occurred in Yumenes will soon send seismic ripples southward to flatten the entire region.
In this town is a house like any other. This house, which sits along one of these slopes, is little more than a hole dug into the earth that has been lined with clay and bricks to make it waterproof, then roofed over with cedar and cut sod. The sophisticated people of Yumenes laugh (laughed) at such primitive digs, when they deign (deigned) to speak of such things at all—but for the people of Tirimo, living in the earth is as sensible as it is simple. Keeps things cool in summer and warm in winter; resilient against shakes and storms alike.
The woman's name is Essun. She is forty-two years old. She's like most women of the midlats: tall when she stands, straight-backed and long-necked, with hips that easily bore two children and breasts that easily fed them, and broad, limber hands. Strong-looking, well-fleshed; such things are valued in the Stillness. Her hair hangs round her face in ropy fused locks, each perhaps as big around as her pinky finger, black fading to brown at the tips. Her skin is unpleasantly ocher-brown by some standards and unpleasantly olive-pale by others. Mongrel midlatters, Yumenescenes call (called) people like her—enough Sanzed in them to show, not enough to tell.
The boy was her son. His name was Uche; he was almost three years old. He was small for his age, big-eyed and button-nosed, precocious, with a sweet smile. He lacked for none of the traits that human children have used to win their parents' love since the species evolved toward something resembling reason. He was healthy and clever and he should still be alive.
This was the den of their home. It was cozy and quiet, a room where all the family could gather and talk or eat or play games or cuddle or tickle one another. She liked nursing Uche here. She thinks he was conceived here.
His father has beaten him to death here.
|
And now for the last bit of context: a day later, in the valley that surrounds Tirimo. By this time the first echoes of the cataclysm have already rippled past, although there will be aftershakes later.
At the northernmost end of this valley is devastation: shattered trees, tumbled rock faces, a hanging pall of dust that has not dissippated in the still, sulfur-tinged air. Where the initial shock wave hit, nothing remains standing: it was the sort of shake that jolts everything to pieces and rattles those pieces into pebbles. There are bodies, too: small animals that could not run away, deer and other large beasts that faltered in their escape and were crushed by rubble. A few of the latter are people who were unlucky enough to be traveling along the trade road on precisely the wrong day.
The scouts from Tirimo who came this way to survey the damage did not climb over the rubble; they just looked at it through longeyes from the remaining road. They marveled that the rest of the valley—the part around Tirimo proper, several miles in every direction forming a near-perfect circle—was unscathed. Well, really, they did not marvel, precisely. They looked at each other in grim unease, because everyone knows what such apparent fortune means. Look for the center of the circle, stonelore cautions. There's a rogga in Tirimo, somewhere.
A terrifying thought. But more terrifying are the signs coming out of the north, and the fact that Tirimo's headman ordered them to collect as many of the fresher animal carcasses as they could on the circuit back. Meat that has not gone bad can be dried, the furs and hides stripped and cured. Just in case.
The scouts eventually leave, their thoughts preoccupied by just in case. If they had not been so preoccupied, they might have noticed an object sitting near the foot of the newly sheared cliff, unobtrusively nestled between a listing gnarlfir and cracked boulders. The object would have been notable for its size and shape: a kidney-shaped oblong of mottled chalcedony, dark green-gray, markedly different from the paler sandstone tumbled around it. If they had gone to stand near it, they would have noticed that it was chest-high and nearly the length of a human body. If they had touched it, they might have been fascinated by the density of the object's surface. It's a heavy-looking thing, with an ironlike scent reminiscent of rust and blood. It would have surprised them by being warm to the touch.
Instead, no one is around when the object groans faintly and then splits, fissioning neatly along its long axis as if sawed. There is a loud scream-hiss of escaping heat and pressured gas as this happens, which sends any nearby surviving forest creatures skittering for cover. In a near-instantaneous flicker, light spills from the edges of the fissure, something like flame and something like liquid, leaving scorched glass on the ground around the object's base. Then the object grows still for a long while. Cooling.
Several days pass.
After a time, something pushes the object apart from within and crawls a few feet before collapsing. Another day passes.
Now that it has cooled and split, a crust of irregular crystals, some clouded white and some red as venous blood, line the object's inner surface. Thin pale liquid puddles near the bottom of each half's cavity, though most of the fluid the geode contained has soaked away into the ground underneath.
The body that the geode contained lies facedown amid the rocks, naked, his flesh dry but still heaving in apparent exhaustion. Gradually, however, he pushes himself upright. Every movement is deliberate and very, very slow. It takes a long time. Once he is upright, he stumbles—slowly—to the geode, and leans against its bulk to support himself. Thus braced, he bends—slowly—and reaches within it. With a sudden, sharp movement he breaks off the tip of a red crystal. It is a small piece, perhaps the size of a grape, jagged as broken glass.
The boy—for that is what he resembles—puts this in his mouth and chews. The noise of this is loud, too: a grind and rattle that echoes around the clearing. After a few moments of this, he swallows. Then he begins to shiver, violently. He wraps his arms around himself for a moment, uttering a soft groan as if it has suddenly occurred to him that he is naked and cold and this is a terrible thing.
With an effort, the boy regains control of himself. He reaches into the geode—moving faster now—and pulls loose more of the crystals. He sets them in a small pile atop the object as he breaks them loose. The thick, blunt crystal shafts crumble beneath his fingers as if made of sugar, though they are in fact much, much harder. But he is in fact not actually a child, so this is easy for him.
At last he stands, wavering and with his arms full of milky, bloody stone. The wind blows sharply for an instant, and his skin prickles in response. He twitches at this, fast and jerky as a clockwork puppet this time. Then he frowns down at himself. As he concentrates, his movements grow smoother, more evenly paced. More human. As if to emphasize this, he nods to himself, perhaps in satisfaction.
The boy turns then, and begins walking toward Tirimo.
|
This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another. This has happened before, after all. People die. Old orders pass. New societies are born. When we say "the world has ended," it's usually a lie, because the planet is just fine.
But this is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
For the last time.
|
You are she. She is you. You are Essun. Remember? The woman whose son is dead.
You're an orogene who's been living in the little nothing town of Tirimo for ten years. Only three people here know what you are, and two of them you gave birth to.
Well. One left who knows, now.
For the past ten years you've lived as ordinary a life as possible. You came to Tirimo from elsewhere; the townsfolk don't really care where or why. Since you were obviously well educated, you became a teacher at the local creche for children aged ten to thirteen. You're neither the best teacher nor the worst; the children forget you when they move on, but they learn. The butcher probably knows your name because she likes to flirt with you. The baker doesn't because you're quiet, and because like everyone else in town he just thinks of you as Jija's wife. Jija's a Tirimo man born and bred, a stoneknapper of the Resistant use-caste; everyone knows and likes him, so they like you peripherally. He's the foreground of the painting that is your life together. You're the background. You like it that way.
You're the mother of two children, but now one of them is dead and the other is missing. Maybe she's dead, too. You discover all of this when you come home from work one day. House empty, too quiet, tiny little boy all bloody and bruised on the den floor.
And you... shut down. You don't mean to. It's just a bit much, isn't it? Too much. You've been through a lot, you're very strong, but there are limits to what even you can bear.
Two days pass before anyone comes for you.
You've spent them in the house with your dead son. You've risen, used the toilet, eaten something from the coldvault, drunk the last trickle of water from the tap. These things you could do without thinking, by rote. Afterward, you returned to Uche's side.
(You fetched him a blanket during one of these trips. Covered him up to his ruined chin. Habit. The steampipes have stopped rattling; it's cold in the house. He could catch something.)
Late the next day, someone knocks at the house's front door. You do not stir yourself to answer it. That would require you to wonder who is there and whether you should let them in. Thinking of these things would make you consider your son's corpse under the blanket, and why would you want to do that? You ignore the door knock.
Someone bangs at the window in the front room. Persistent. You ignore this, too.
Finally, someone breaks the glass on the house's back door. You hears footsteps in the hallway between Uche's room and that of Nassun, your daughter.
(Nassun, your daughter.)
The footsteps reach the den and stop. "Essun?"
You know this voice. Young, male. Familiar, and soothing in a familiar way. Lerna, Makenba's boy from down the road, who went away for a few years and came back a doctor. He's not a boy anymore, hasn't been for a while, so you remind yourself again to start thinking of him as a man.
Oops, thinking. Carefully, you stop.
He inhales, and your skin reverberates with his horror when he draws near enough to see Uche. Remarkably, he does not cry out. Nor does he touch you, though he moves to Uche's other side and peers at you intently. Trying to see what's going on inside you? Nothing, nothing. He then peels back the blanket for a good look at Uche's body. Nothing, nothing. He pulls the blanket up again, this time over your son's face.
"He doesn't like that," you say. It's your first time speaking in two days. Feels strange. "He's afraid of the dark."
After a moment's silence, Lerna pulls the sheet back down to just below Uche's eyes.
"Thank you," you say.
Lerna nods. "Have you slept?"
"No."
So Lerna comes around the body and takes your arm, drawing you up. He's gentle, but his hands are firm, and he does not give up when at first you don't move. Just exerts more pressure, inexorably, until you have to rise or fall over. He leaves you that much choice. You rise. Then with the same gentle firmness he guides you toward the front door. "You can rest at my place," he says.
You don't want to think, so you do not protest that you have your own perfectly good bed, thank you. Nor do you declare that you're fine and don't need his help, which isn't true. He walks you outside and down the block, keeping a grip on your elbow the whole time. A few others are gathered on the street outside. Some of them come near the two of you, saying things to which Lerna replies; you don't really hear any of it. Their voices are blurring noise that your mind doesn't bother to interpret. Lerna speaks to them in your stead, for which you would be grateful if you could bring yourself to care.
He gets you to his house, which smells of herbs and chemicals and books, and he tucks you into a long bed that has a fat gray cat on it. The cat moves out of the way enough to allow you to lie down, then tucks itself against your side once you're still. You would take comfort from this if the warmth and weight did not remind you a little of Uche, when he naps with you.
Napped with you. No, changing tense requires thought. Naps.
"Sleep," Lerna says, and it is easy to comply.
|
You sleep a long time. At one point you wake. Lerna has put food on a tray beside the bed: clear broth and sliced fruit and a cup of tea, all long gone to room temperature. You eat and drink, then go into the bathroom. The toilet does not flush. There's a bucket beside it, full of water, which Lerna must have put there for this purpose. You puzzle over this, then feel the imminence of thought and have to fight, fight, fight to stay in the soft warm silence of thoughtlessness. You pour some water down the toilet, put the lid back down, and go back to bed.
|
In the dream, you're in the room while Jija does it. He and Uche are as you saw them last: Jija laughing, holding Uche on one knee and playing "earthshake" while the boy giggles and clamps down with his thighs and waggles his arms for balance. Then Jija suddenly stops laughing, stands up—throwing Uche to the floor—and begins kicking him. You know this is not how it happened. You've seen the imprint of Jija's fist, a bruise with four parallel marks, on Uche's belly and face. In the dream Jija kicks, because dreams are not logical.
Uche keeps laughing and waggling his arms, like it's still a game, even as blood covers his face.
You wake screaming, which subsides into sobs that you cannot stop. Lerna comes in, tries to say something, tries to hold you, and finally makes you drink a strong, foul-tasting tea. You sleep again.
|
"Something happened up north," Lerna tells you.
You sit on the edge of the bed. He's in a chair across from you. You're drinking more nasty tea; your head hurts worse than a hangover. It's nighttime, but the room is dim. Lerna has lit only half the lanterns. For the first time you notice the strange smell in the air, not quite disguised by the lanternsmoke: sulfur, sharp and acrid. The smell has been there all day, growing gradually worse. It's strongest when Lerna's been outside.
"The road outside town has been clogged for two days with people coming from that direction." Lerna sighs and rubs his face. He's fifteen years younger than you, but he no longer looks it. He has natural gray hair like many Cebaki, but it's the new lines in his face that make him seem older—those, and the new shadows in his eyes. "There's been some kind of shake. A big one, a couple of days ago. We felt nothing here, but in Sume—" Sume is in the next valley over, a day's ride on horseback. "The whole town is..." He shakes his head.
You nod, but you know all this without being told, or at least you can guess. Two days ago, as you sat in your den staring at the ruin of your child, something came toward the town: a convulsion of the earth so powerful you have never sessed its like. The word shake is inadequate. Whatever-it-was would have collapsed the house on Uche, so you put something in its way—a breakwater of sorts, composed of your focused will and a bit of kinetic energy borrowed from the thing itself. Doing this required no thought; a newborn could do it, although perhaps not so neatly. The shake split and flowed around the valley, then moved on.
Lerna licks his lips. Looks up at you, then away. He's the other one, besides your children, who knows what you are. He's known for a while, but this is the first time he's been confronted by the actuality of it. You can't really think about that, either.
"Rask isn't letting anyone leave or come in." Rask is Rask Innovator Tirimo, the town's elected headman. "It's not a full-on lockdown, he says, not yet, but I was going to head over to Sume, see if I could help. Rask said no, and then he set the damn miners on the wall to supplement the Strongbacks while we send out scouts. Told them specifically to keep me within the gates." Lerna clenches his fists, his expression bitter. "There are people out there on the Imperial Road. A lot of them are sick, injured, and that rusty bastard won't let me help."
"First guard the gates," you whisper. It is a rasp. You screamed a lot after that dream of Jija.
"What?"
You sip more tea to soothe the soreness. "Stonelore."
Lerna stares at you. He knows the same passages; all children learn them, in creche. Everyone grows up on campfire tales of wise lorists and clever geomests warning skeptics when the signs begin to show, not being heeded, and saving people when the lore proves true.
"You think it's come to that, then," he says, heavily. "Fire-under-Earth, Essun, you can't be serious."
You are serious. It has come to that. But you know he will not believe you if you try to explain, so you just shake your head.
A painful, stagnating silence falls. After a long moment, delicately, Lerna says, "I brought Uche back here. He's in the infirmary, the, uh, in the coldcase. I'll see to, uh... arrangements."
You nod slowly.
He hesitates. "Was it Jija?"
You nod again.
"You, you saw him—"
"Came home from creche."
"Oh." Another awkward pause. "People said you'd missed a day, before the shake. They had to send the children home; couldn't find a substitute. No one knew if you were home sick, or what." Yes, well. You've probably been fired. Lerna takes a deep breath, lets it out. With that as forewarning, you're almost ready. "The shake didn't hit us, Essun. It passed around the town. Shivered over a few trees and crumbled a rock face up by the creek." The creek is at the northernmost end of the valley, where no one has noticed a big chalcedony geode steaming. "Everything in and around town is fine, though. In almost a perfect circle. Fine."
There was a time when you would have dissembled. You had reasons to hide then, a life to protect.
"I did it," you say.
Lerna's jaw flexes, but he nods. "I never told anyone." He hesitates. "That you were... uh, orogenic."
He's so polite and proper. You've heard all the uglier terms for what you are. He has, too, but he would never say them. Neither would Jija, whenever someone tossed off a careless rogga around him. I don't want the children to hear that kind of language, he always said—
It hits fast. You abruptly lean over and dry-heave. Lerna starts, jumping to grab something nearby—a bedpan, which you haven't needed. But nothing comes out of your stomach, and after a moment the heaves stop. You take a cautious breath, then another. Wordlessly, Lerna offers a glass of water. You start to wave it away, then change your mind and take it. Your mouth tastes of bile.
"It wasn't me," you say at last. He frowns in confusion and you realize he thinks you're still talking about the shake. "Jija. He didn't find out about me." You think. You shouldn't think. "I don't know how, what, but Uche—he's little, doesn't have much control yet. Uche must have done something, and Jija realized—"
That your children are like you. It is the first time you've framed this thought completely.
Lerna closes his eyes, letting out a long breath. "That's it, then."
That's not it. That should never have been enough to provoke a father to murder his own child. Nothing should have done that.
He licks his lips. "Do you want to see Uche?"
What for? You looked at him for two days. "No."
With a sigh, Lerna gets to his feet, still rubbing a hand over his hair. "Going to tell Rask?" you ask. But the look Lerna turns on you makes you feel boorish. He's angry. He's such a calm, thoughtful boy; you didn't think he could get angry.
"I'm not going to tell Rask anything," he snaps. "I haven't said anything in all this time and I'm not going to."
"Then what—"
"I'm going to go find Eran." Eran is the spokeswoman for the Resistant use-caste. Lerna was born a Strongback, but when he came back to Tirimo after becoming a doctor, the Resistants adopted him; the town had enough Strongbacks already, and the Innovators lost the shard-toss. Also, you've claimed to be a Resistant. "I'll let her know you're all right, have her pass that on to Rask. You are going to rest."
"When she asks you why Jija—"
Lerna shakes his head. "Everyone's guessed already, Essun. They can read maps. It's clear as diamond that the center of the circle was this neighborhood. Knowing what Jija did, it hasn't been hard for anyone to jump to conclusions as to why. The timing's all wrong, but nobody's thinking that far." While you stare at him, slowly understanding, Lerna's lip curls. "Half of them are appalled, but the rest are glad Jija did it. Because of course a three-year-old has the power to start shakes a thousand miles away in Yumenes!"
You shake your head, half startled by Lerna's anger and half unable to reconcile your bright, giggly boy with people who think he would—that he could—But then, Jija thought it.
You feel queasy again.
Lerna takes another deep breath. He's been doing this throughout your conversation; it's a habit of his that you've seen before. His way of calming himself. "Stay here and rest. I'll be back soon."
He leaves the room. You hear him doing purposeful-sounding things at the front of the house. After a few moments, he leaves to go to his meeting. You contemplate rest and decide against it. Instead you rise and go into Lerna's bathroom, where you wash your face and then stop when the hot water coming through the tap spits and abruptly turns brown-red and smelly, then slows to a trickle. Broken pipe somewhere.
Something happened up north, Lerna said.
Children are the undoing of us, someone said to you once, long ago.
"Nassun," you whisper to your reflection. In the mirror are the eyes your daughter has inherited from you, gray as slate and a little wistful. "He left Uche in the den. Where did he put you?"
No answer. You shut off the tap. Then you whisper to no one in particular, "I have to go now." Because you do. You need to find Jija, and anyway you know better than to linger. The townsfolk will be coming for you soon.
|
The shake that passes will echo. The wave that recedes will come back. The mountain that rumbles will roar.
—Tablet One, "On Survival," verse five
|
The straw is so warm that Damaya doesn't want to come out of it. Like a blanket, she thinks through the bleariness of half-sleep; like the quilt her great-grandmother once sewed for her out of patches of uniform cloth. Years ago and before she died, Muh Dear worked for the Brevard militia as a seamstress, and got to keep the scraps from any repairs that required new cloth. The blanket she made for Damaya was mottled and dark, navy and taupe and gray and green in rippling bands like columns of marching men, but it came from Muh Dear's hands, so Damaya never cared that it was ugly. It always smelled sweet and gray and a bit fusty, so it is easy now to imagine that the straw—which smells mildewy and like old manure yet with a hint of fungal fruitiness—is Muh's blanket. The actual blanket is back in Damaya's room, on the bed where she left it. The bed in which she will never sleep again.
She can hear voices outside the straw pile now: Mama and someone else talking as they draw closer. There's a rattle-creak as the barn door is unlocked, and then they come inside. Another rattle as the door shuts behind them. Then Mother raises her voice and calls, "DamaDama?"
Damaya curls up tighter, clenching her teeth. She hates that stupid nickname. She hates the way Mother says it, all light and sweet, like it's actually a term of endearment and not a lie.
When Damaya doesn't respond, Mother says: "She can't have gotten out. My husband checked all the barn locks himself."
"Alas, her kind cannot be held with locks." This voice belongs to a man. Not her father or older brother, or the comm headman, or anyone she recognizes. This man's voice is deep, and he speaks with an accent like none she's ever heard: sharp and heavy, with long drawled o's and a's and crisp beginnings and ends to every word. Smart-sounding. He jingles faintly as he walks, so much so that she wonders whether he's wearing a big set of keys. Or perhaps he has a lot of money in his pockets? She's heard that people use metal money in some parts of the world.
The thought of keys and money makes Damaya curl in on herself, because of course she's also heard the other children in creche whisper of child-markets in faraway cities of beveled stone. Not all places in the world are as civilized as the Nomidlats. She laughed off the whispers then, but everything is different now.
"Here," says the man's voice, not far off now. "Fresh spoor, I think."
Mother makes a sound of disgust, and Damaya burns in shame as she realizes they've seen the corner she uses for a bathroom. It smells terrible there, even though she's been throwing straw down as a cover each time. "Squatting on the ground like an animal. I raised her better."
"Is there a toilet in here?" asks the child-buyer, in a tone of polite curiosity. "Did you give her a bucket?"
Silence from Mother, which stretches on, and belatedly Damaya realizes the man has reprimanded Mother with those quiet questions. It isn't the sort of reprimand Damaya is used to. The man hasn't raised his voice or called anyone names. Yet Mother stands still and shocked as surely as if he'd followed the words with a smack to the head.
A giggle bubbles up in her throat, and at once she crams her fist into her mouth to stop it from spilling out. They'll hear Damaya laugh at her mother's embarrassment, and then the child-buyer will know what a terrible child she really is. Is that such a bad thing? Maybe her parents will get less for her. That alone almost makes the giggles break free, because Damaya hates her parents, she hates them, and anything that will make them suffer makes her feel better.
Then she bites down on her hand, hard, and hates herself, because of course Mother and Father are selling Damaya if she can think such thoughts.
Footsteps nearby. "Cold in here," says the man.
"We would have kept her in the house if it was cold enough to freeze," says Mother, and Damaya almost giggles again at her sullen, defensive tone.
But the child-buyer ignores Mother. His footsteps come closer, and they're... strange. Damaya can sess footsteps. Most people can't; they sess big things, shakes and whatnot, but not anything so delicate as a footfall. (She has known this about herself all her life but only recently realized it was a warning.) It's harder to perceive when she's out of direct contact with the ground, everything conveyed through the wood of the barn's frame and the metal of the nails holding it together—but still, even from a story up, she knows what to expect. Beat beat, the step and then its reverberation into the depths, beat beat, beat beat. The child-buyer's steps, though, go nowhere and do not echo. She can only hear them, not sess them. That's never happened before.
And now he's coming up the ladder, to the loft where she huddles under the straw.
"Ah," he says, reaching the top. "It's warmer up here."
"DamaDama!" Mother sounds furious now. "Get down here!"
Damaya scrunches herself up tighter under the straw and says nothing. The child-buyer's footsteps pace closer.
"You needn't be afraid," he says in that rolling voice. Closer. She feels the reverberation of his voice through the wood and down to the ground and into the rock and back again. Closer. "I've come to help you, Damaya Strongback."
Another thing she hates, her use name. She doesn't have a strong back at all, and neither does Mother. All "Strongback" means is that her female ancestors were lucky enough to join a comm but too undistinguished to earn a more secure place within it. Strongbacks get dumped same as commless when times get hard, her brother Chaga told her once, to tease her. Then he'd laughed, like it was funny. Like it wasn't true. Of course, Chaga is a Resistant, like Father. All comms like to have them around no matter how hard the times, in case of sickness and famine and such.
The man's footsteps stop just beyond the straw pile. "You needn't be afraid," he says again, more softly now. Mother is still down on the ground level and probably can't hear him. "I won't let your mother hurt you."
Damaya inhales.
She's not stupid. The man is a child-buyer, and child-buyers do terrible things. But because he has said these words, and because some part of Damaya is tired of being afraid and angry, she uncurls. She pushes her way through the soft warm pile and sits up, peering out at the man through coils of hair and dirty straw.
He is as strange-looking as he sounds, and not from anywhere near Palela. His skin is almost white, he's so paper-pale; he must smoke and curl up in strong sunlight. He has long flat hair, which together with the skin might mark him as an Arctic, though the color of it—a deep heavy black, like the soil near an old blow—doesn't fit. Eastern Coasters' hair is black like that, except fluffy and not flat, but people from the east have black skin to match. And he's big—taller, and with broader shoulders, than Father. But where Father's big shoulders join a big chest and a big belly, this man sort of tapers. Everything about the stranger seems lean and attenuated. Nothing about him makes racial sense.
But what strikes Damaya most are the child-buyer's eyes. They're white, or nearly so. She can see the whites of his eyes, and then a silvery-gray disc of color that she can barely distinguish from the white, even up close. The pupils of his eyes are wide in the barn's dimness, and startling amid the desert of colorlessness. She's heard of eyes like these, which are called icewhite in stories and stonelore. They're rare, and always an ill omen.
But then the child-buyer smiles at Damaya, and she doesn't even think twice before she smiles back. She trusts him immediately. She knows she shouldn't, but she does.
"And here we are," he says, still speaking softly so that Mother won't hear. "DamaDama Strongback, I presume?"
"Just Damaya," she says, automatically.
He inclines his head gracefully, and extends a hand to her. "So noted. Will you join us, then, Damaya?"
Damaya doesn't move and he does not grab her. He just stays where he is, patient as stone, hand offering and not taking. Ten breaths pass. Twenty. Damaya knows she'll have to go with him, but she likes that he makes it feel like a choice. So at last, she takes his hand and lets him pull her up. He keeps her hand while she dusts off as much of the straw as she can, and then he tugs her closer, just a little. "One moment."
"Hnh?" But the child-buyer's other hand is already behind her head, pressing two fingers into the base of her skull so quickly and deftly that she doesn't startle. He shuts his eyes for a moment, shivers minutely, and then exhales, letting her go.
"Duty first," he says, cryptically. She touches the back of her head, confused and still feeling the lingering sensation of his fingers' pressure. "Now let's head downstairs."
"What did you do?"
"Just a little ritual, of sorts. Something that will make it easier to find you, should you ever become lost." She cannot imagine what this means. "Come, now; I need to tell your mother you'll be leaving with me."
So it really is true. Damaya bites her lip, and when the man turns to head back to the ladder, she follows a pace or two behind.
"Well, that's that," says the child-buyer as they reach Mother on the ground floor. (Mother sighs at the sight of her, perhaps in exasperation.) "If you could assemble a package for her—one or two changes of clothing, any travel food you can provide, a coat—we'll be on our way."
Mother draws up in surprise. "We gave away her coat."
"Gave it away? In winter?"
He speaks mildly, but Mother looks abruptly uncomfortable. "She's got a cousin who needed it. We don't all have wardrobes full of fancy clothes to spare. And—" Here Mother hesitates, glancing at Damaya. Damaya just looks away. She doesn't want to see if Mother looks sorry for giving away the coat. She especially doesn't want to see if Mother's not sorry.
"And you've heard that orogenes don't feel cold the way others do," says the man, with a weary sigh. "That's a myth. I assume you've seen your daughter take cold before."
"Oh, I." Mother looks flustered. "Yes. But I thought..."
That Damaya might have been faking it. That was what she'd said to Damaya that first day, after she got home from creche and while they were setting her up in the barn. Mother had raged, her face streaked with tears, while Father just sat there, silent and white-lipped. Damaya had hidden it from them, Mother said, hidden everything, pretended to be a child when she was really a monster, that was what monsters did, she had always known there was something wrong with Damaya, she'd always been such a little liar—
The man shakes his head. "Nevertheless, she will need some protection against the cold. It will grow warmer as we approach the Equatorials, but we'll be weeks on the road getting there."
Mother's jaw flexes. "So you're really taking her to Yumenes, then."
"Of course I—" The man stares at her. "Ah." He glances at Damaya. They both look at Damaya, their gazes like an itch. She squirms. "So even thinking I was coming to kill your daughter, you had the comm headman summon me."
Mother tenses. "Don't. It wasn't, I didn't—" At her sides, her hands flex. Then she bows her head, as if she is ashamed, which Damaya knows is a lie. Mother isn't ashamed of anything she's done. If she was, why would she do it?
"Ordinary people can't take care of... of children like her," says Mother, very softly. Her eyes dart to Damaya's, once, and away, fast. "She almost killed a boy at school. We've got another child, and neighbors, and..." Abruptly she squares her shoulders, lifting her chin. "And it's any citizen's duty, isn't it?"
"True, true, all of it. Your sacrifice will make the world better for all." The words are a stock phrase, praise. The tone is uniquely not. Damaya looks at the man again, confused now because child-buyers don't kill children. That would defeat the point. And what's this about the Equatorials? Those lands are far, far to the south.
The child-buyer glances at Damaya and somehow understands that she does not understand. His face softens, which should be impossible with those frightening eyes of his.
"To Yumenes," the man says to Mother, to Damaya. "Yes. She's young enough, so I'm taking her to the Fulcrum. There she will be trained to use her curse. Her sacrifice, too, will make the world better."
Damaya stares back at him, realizing just how wrong she's been. Mother has not sold Damaya. She and Father have given Damaya away. And Mother does not hate her; actually, she fears Damaya. Is there a difference? Maybe. Damaya doesn't know how to feel in response to these revelations.
And the man, the man is not a child-buyer at all. He is—
"You're a Guardian?" she asks, even though by now, she knows. He smiles again. She did not think Guardians were like this. In her head they are tall, cold-faced, bristling with weapons and secret knowledge. He's tall, at least.
"I am," he says, and takes her hand. He likes to touch people a lot, she thinks. "I'm your Guardian."
Mother sighs. "I can give you a blanket for her."
"That will do, thank you." And then the man falls silent, waiting. After a few breaths of this, Mother realizes he's waiting for her to go fetch it. She nods jerkily, then leaves, her back stiff the whole way out of the barn. So then the man and Damaya are alone.
"Here," he says, reaching up to his shoulders. He's wearing something that must be a uniform: blocky shoulders and long, stiff lines of sleeve and pant leg, burgundy cloth that looks sturdy but scratchy. Like Muh's quilt. It has a short cape, more decorative than useful, but he pulls it off and wraps it around Damaya. It's long enough to be a dress on her, and warm from his body.
"Thank you," she says. "Who are you?"
"My name is Schaffa Guardian Warrant."
She's never heard of a place called Warrant, but it must exist, because what good is a comm name otherwise? "'Guardian' is a use name?"
"It is for Guardians." He drawls this, and her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. "We aren't much use to any comm, after all, in the ordinary course of things."
Damaya frowns in confusion. "What, so they'll kick you out when a Season comes? But..." Guardians are many things, she knows from the stories: great warriors and hunters and sometimes—often—assassins. Comms need such people when hard times come.
Schaffa shrugs, moving away to sit on a bale of old hay. There's another bale behind Damaya, but she keeps standing, because she likes being on the same level with him. Even sitting he's taller, but at least not by so much.
"The orogenes of the Fulcrum serve the world," he says. "You will have no use name from here forth, because your usefulness lies in what you are, not merely some familial aptitude. From birth, an orogene child can stop a shake; even without training, you are orogene. Within a comm or without one, you are orogene. With training, however, and with the guidance of other skilled orogenes at the Fulcrum, you can be useful not merely to a single comm, but all the Stillness." He spreads his hands. "As a Guardian, via the orogenes in my care, I have taken on a similar purpose, with a similar breadth. Therefore it's fitting that I share my charges' possible fate."
Damaya is so curious, so full of questions, that she doesn't know which to ask first. "Do you have—" She stumbles over the concept, the words, the acceptance of herself. "Others, l-like me, I," and she runs out of words.
Schaffa laughs, as if he senses her eagerness and it pleases him. "I am Guardian to six right now," he says, inclining his head to let Damaya know that this is the right way to say it, to think it. "Including you."
"And you brought them all to Yumenes? You found them like this, like me—"
"Not exactly. Some were given into my care, born within the Fulcrum or inherited from other Guardians. Some I have found since being assigned to ride circuit in this part of the Nomidlats." He spreads his hands. "When your parents reported their orogenic child to Palela's headman, he telegraphed word to Brevard, which sent it to Geddo, which sent it to Yumenes—and they in turn telegraphed word to me." He sighs. "It's only luck that I checked in at the node station near Brevard the day after the message arrived. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen it for another two weeks."
Damaya knows Brevard, though Yumenes is only legend to her, and the rest of the places Schaffa has mentioned are just words in a creche textbook. Brevard is the town closest to Palela, and it's much bigger. It's where Father and Chaga go to sell farmshares at the beginning of every growing season. Then she registers his words. Two more weeks in this barn, freezing and pooping in a corner. She's glad he got the message in Brevard, too.
"You're very lucky," he says, perhaps reading her expression. His own has grown sober. "Not all parents do the right thing. Sometimes they don't keep their child isolated, as the Fulcrum and we Guardians recommend. Sometimes they do, but we get the message too late, and by the time a Guardian arrives a mob has carried the child off and beaten her to death. Don't think unkindly of your parents, Dama. You're alive and well, and that is no small thing."
Damaya squirms a little, unwilling to accept this. He sighs. "And sometimes," he continues, "the parents of an orogene will try to hide the child. To keep her, untrained and without a Guardian. That always goes badly."
This is the thing that's been in her mind for the past two weeks, ever since that day at school. If her parents loved her, they would not have locked her in the barn. They would not have called this man. Mother would not have said those terrible things.
"Why can't they—" she blurts, before she realizes he has said this on purpose. To see if why can't they just hide me and keep me here is something she's been thinking—and now he knows the truth. Damaya's hands clench on the cape where she's holding it closed around herself, but Schaffa merely nods.
"First because they have another child, and anyone caught harboring an unregistered orogene is ejected from their comm as a minimum punishment." Damaya knows this, though she resents the knowledge. Parents who cared about her would risk, wouldn't they? "Your parents could not have wanted to lose their home, their livelihood, and custody of both their children. They chose to keep something rather than lose everything. But the greatest danger lies in what you are, Dama. You can no more hide that than you can the fact that you are female, or your clever young mind." She blushes, unsure if this is praise. He smiles so she knows it is.
He continues: "Every time the earth moves, you will hear its call. In every moment of danger you will reach, instinctively, for the nearest source of warmth and movement. The ability to do this is, to you, as fists are to a strong man. When a threat is imminent, of course you'll do what you must to protect yourself. And when you do, people will die."
Damaya flinches. Schaffa smiles again, as kindly as always. And then Damaya thinks about that day.
It was after lunch, in the play-yard. She had eaten her bean roll while sitting by the pond with Limi and Shantare as she usually did while the other children played or threw food at each other. Some of the other kids were huddled in a corner of the yard, scratching in the dirt and muttering to each other; they had a geomestry test that afternoon. And then Zab had come over to the three of them, though he'd looked at Damaya in particular as he said, "Let me cheat off you."
Limi giggled. She thought Zab liked Damaya. Damaya didn't like him, though, because he was awful—always picking on Damaya, calling her names, poking her until she yelled at him to stop and got in trouble with their teacher for doing it. So she said to Zab, "I'm not getting in trouble for you."
He'd said: "You won't, if you do it right. Just move your paper over—"
"No," she'd said again. "I'm not going to do it right. I'm not going to do it at all. Go away." She'd turned back to Shantare, who had been talking before Zab interrupted.
Next thing Damaya knew, she was on the ground. Zab had shoved her off the rock using both hands. She tumbled head over heels literally, landing on her back. Later—she'd had two weeks in the barn to think about it—she would recall the look of shock on his face, as if he hadn't realized she would go over so easily. But at the time, all she had known was that she was on the ground. The muddy ground. Her whole back was cold and wet and foul, everything smelled of fermenting bog and crushed grass, it was in her hair and this was her best uniform and Mother was going to be furious and she was furious and so she'd grabbed the air and—
Damaya shivers. People will die. Schaffa nods as if he has heard this thought.
"You're firemountain-glass, Dama." He says this very softly. "You're a gift of the earth—but Father Earth hates us, never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe. If we pick you up, hone you to sharpness, treat you with the care and respect you deserve, then you become valuable. But if we just leave you lying about, you'll cut to the bone the first person who blunders across you. Or worse—you'll shatter, and hurt many."
Damaya remembers the look on Zab's face. The air had gone cold for only an instant, billowing around her like a burst balloon. That was enough to make a crust of ice on the grass beneath her, and to make the sweatdrops go solid on Zab's skin. They'd stopped and jerked and stared at each other.
She remembers his face. You almost killed me, she had seen there.
Schaffa, watching her closely, has never stopped smiling.
"It isn't your fault," he says. "Most of what they say about orogenes isn't true. There's nothing you did to be born like this, nothing your parents did. Don't be angry with them, or with yourself."
She begins to cry, because he's right. All of it, everything he says, it's right. She hates Mother for putting her in here, she's hated Father and Chaga for letting Mother do it, she hates herself for being born as she is and disappointing them all. And now Schaffa knows just how weak and terrible she is.
"Shh," he says, standing and coming over to her. He kneels and takes her hands; she starts crying harder. But Schaffa squeezes her hands sharply, enough to hurt, and she starts and draws breath and blinks at him through the blur. "You mustn't, little one. Your mother will return soon. Never cry where they can see you."
"Wh-what?"
He looks so sad—for Damaya?—as he reaches up and cups her cheek. "It isn't safe."
She has no idea what this means.
Regardless, she stops. Once she's wiped her cheeks, he thumbs away a tear that she's missed, then nods after a quick inspection. "Your mother will probably be able to tell, but that should do for everyone else."
The barn door creaks and Mother is back, this time with Father in tow. Father's jaw is tight, and he doesn't look at Damaya even though he hasn't seen her since Mother put her in the barn. Both of them focus on Schaffa, who stands and moves a little in front of Damaya, nodding thanks as he accepts the folded blanket and twine-wrapped parcel that Mother gives him.
"We've watered your horse," Father says, stiffly. "You want provender to carry?"
"No need," says Schaffa. "If we make good time, we should reach Brevard just after nightfall."
Father frowns. "A hard ride."
"Yes. But in Brevard, no one from this village will get the fine idea to come seek us out along the road, and make their farewells to Damaya in a ruder fashion."
It takes a moment for Damaya to understand, and then she realizes: People from Palela want to kill Damaya. But that's wrong, isn't it? They can't really, can they? She thinks of all the people she knows. The teachers from creche. The other children. The old ladies at the roadhouse who used to be friends with Muh before she died.
Father thinks this, too; she can see that in his face, and he frowns and opens his mouth to say what she's thinking: They wouldn't do something like that. But he stops before the words leave his mouth. He glances at Damaya, once and with his face full of anguish, before remembering to look away again.
"Here you are," Schaffa says to Damaya, holding out the blanket. It's Muh's. She stares at it, then looks at Mother, but Mother won't look back.
It isn't safe to cry. Even when she pulls off Schaffa's cloak and he wraps the blanket around her instead, familiar-fusty and scratchy and perfect, she keeps her face completely still. Schaffa's eyes flick to hers; he nods, just a little, in approval. Then he takes her hand and leads her toward the barn door.
Mother and Father follow, but they don't say anything. Damaya doesn't say anything. She does glance at the house once, catching a glimpse of someone through a gap in the curtains before the curtains flick shut. Chaga, her big brother, who taught her how to read and how to ride a donkey and how to skip rocks on a pond. He doesn't even wave goodbye... but this is not because he hates her. She sees that, now.
Schaffa lifts Damaya onto a horse bigger than any she's ever seen, a big glossy bay with a long neck, and then Schaffa's in the saddle behind her, tucking the blanket around her legs and shoes so she won't chafe or get chilblains, and then they are away.
"Don't look back," Schaffa advises. "It's easier that way." So she doesn't. Later, she will realize he was right about this, too.
Much later, though, she will wish that she had done it anyway.
|
[obscured] the icewhite eyes, the ashblow hair, the filtering nose, the sharpened teeth, the salt-split tongue.
—Tablet Two, "The Incomplete Truth," verse eight
|
You're still trying to decide who to be. The self you've been lately doesn't make sense anymore; that woman died with Uche. She's not useful, unobtrusive as she is, quiet as she is, ordinary as she is. Not when such extraordinary things have happened.
But you still don't know where Nassun is buried, if Jija bothered to bury her. Until you've said farewell to your daughter, you have to remain the mother that she loved.
So you decide not to wait for death to come.
It is coming for you—perhaps not right now, but soon. Even though the big shake from the north missed Tirimo, everyone knows it should have hit. The sessapinae do not lie, or at least not with such jangling, nerve-racking, mind-screaming strength. Everyone from newborns to addled elders sessed that one coming. And by now, with refugees wandering down the road from less fortunate towns and villages—refugees who are all heading southward—the folk of Tirimo will have begun to hear stories. They will have noticed the sulfur on the wind. They will have looked up at the increasingly strange sky, and seen the change there as an ill omen. (It is.) Perhaps the headman, Rask, has finally sent someone over to see about Sume, the town in the next valley over. Most Tirimos have family there; the two towns have been trading goods and people for generations. Comm comes before all else, of course, but as long as nobody's starving, kin and race can mean something, too. Rask can still afford to be generous, for now. Maybe.
And once the scouts return and report the devastation that you know they'll find in Sume—and the survivors that you know they won't find, or at least not in any great number—denial will no longer be possible. That will leave only fear. Frightened people look for scapegoats.
So you make yourself eat, this time carefully not thinking of other times and other meals with Jija and the kids. (Uncontrollable tears would be better than uncontrollable vomiting, but hey, you can't choose your grief.) Then, letting yourself quietly out through Lerna's garden door, you go back to your house. No one's around, outside. They must all be at Rask's waiting for news or duty assignments.
In the house, one of the storecaches hidden beneath the rugs holds the family's runny-sack. You sit on the floor in the room where Uche was beaten to death, and there you sort through the sack, taking out anything you won't need. The set of worn, comfortable travel-clothing for Nassun is too small; you and Jija put this pack together before Uche was born, and you've been neglectful in not refreshing it. A brick of dried fruit has molded over in fuzzy white; it might still be edible, but you're not desperate enough for that. (Yet.) The sack contains papers that prove you and Jija own your house, and other papers showing that you're current on your quartent taxes and were both registered Tirimo comm and Resistant use-caste members. You leave this, your whole financial and legal existence for the past ten years, in a little discarded pile with the moldy fruit.
The wad of money in a rubber wallet—paper, since there's so much of it—will be irrelevant once people realize how bad things are, but until then it's valuable. Good tinder once it's not. The obsidian skinning knife that Jija insisted upon, and which you're unlikely to ever use—you have better, natural weapons—you keep. Trade goods, or at least a visual warn-off. Jija's boots can also be traded, since they're in good condition. He'll never wear them again, because soon you will find him, and then you will end him.
You pause. Revise that thought to something that better befits the woman you've chosen to be. Better: You will find him and ask him why he did what he did. How he could do it. And you will ask him, most importantly, where your daughter is.
Repacking the runny-sack, you then put it inside one of the crates Jija used for deliveries. No one will think twice of seeing you carry it around town, because until a few days ago you did so often, to help out Jija's ceramics and tool-knapping business. Eventually it will occur to someone to wonder why you're filling delivery orders when the headman is probably on the brink of declaring Seasonal Law. But most people will not think of it at first, which is what matters.
As you leave, you pass the spot on the floor where Uche lay for days. Lerna took the body and left the blanket; the blood splatters are not visible. Still, you do not look in that direction.
Your house is one of several in this corner of town, nestled between the southern edge of the wall and the town greenland. You picked the house, back when you and Jija decided to buy it, because it's isolated on a narrow, tree-shrouded lane. It's a straight run across the green to the town center, which Jija always liked. That was something you and he always argued about: You didn't like being around other people more than necessary, while Jija was gregarious and restless, frustrated by silence—
The surge of absolute, grinding, head-pounding rage catches you by surprise. You have to stop in the doorway of your home, bracing your hand against the door frame and sucking in deep breaths so that you don't start screaming, or perhaps stabbing someone (yourself?) with that damn skinning knife. Or worse, making the temperature drop.
Okay. You were wrong. Nausea isn't so bad as a response to grief, comparatively speaking.
But you have no time for this, no strength for this, so you focus on other things. Any other things. The wood of the doorsill, beneath your hand. The air, which you notice more now that you're outside. The sulfur smell doesn't seem to be getting worse, at least for now, which is perhaps a good thing. You sess that there are no open earth vents nearby—which means this is coming from up north, where the wound is, that great suppurating rip from coast to coast that you know is there even though the travelers along the Imperial Road have only brought rumors of it so far. You hope the sulfur concentration doesn't get much worse, because if it does people will start to retch and suffocate, and the next time it rains the creek's fish will die and the soil will sour...
Yes. Better. After a moment you're able to walk away from the house at last, your veneer of calm back firmly in place.
Not many people are out and about. Rask must have finally declared an official lockdown. During lockdown the comm's gates are shut—and you guess by the people moving about near one of the wall watchtowers that Rask has taken the preemptive step of putting guards in place. That's not supposed to happen till a Season is declared; privately you curse Rask's caution. Hopefully he hasn't done anything else that will make it harder for you to slip away.
The market is shut down, at least for the time being, so that no one will hoard goods or fix prices. A curfew starts at dusk, and all businesses that aren't crucial for the protection or supply of the town are required to close. Everyone knows how things are supposed to go. Everyone has assigned duties, but many of these are tasks that can be done indoors: weaving storage baskets, drying and preserving all perishable food in the house, repurposing old clothing and tools. It's all Imperially efficient and lore-letter, following rules and procedures that are simultaneously meant to be practical and to keep a large group of anxious people busy. Just in case.
Still, as you walk the path around the green's edge—during lockdown no one walks on it, not because of any rule but because such times remind them that the green is cropland to be and not just a pretty patch of clover and wildflowers—you spy a few other Tirimo denizens out and about. Strongbacks, mostly. One group is building the paddock and shed that will segregate a corner of the green for livestock. It's hard work, building something, and the people doing it are too engrossed in the task to pay much heed to a lone woman carrying a crate. A few faces you vaguely recognize as you walk, people you've seen before at the market or via Jija's business. You catch a few glances from them, too, but these are fleeting. They know your face enough that you are Not Stranger. For now, they're too busy to remember that you may also be rogga's mother.
Or to wonder from which parent your dead rogga child might have inherited his curse.
In the town center there are more people about. Here you blend in, walking at the same pace as everyone else, nodding if nodded to, trying to think about nothing so that your face falls into bored, disengaged lines. It's busy around the headman's office, block captains and caste spokespeople coming in to report what lockdown duties have been completed before heading back out to organize more. Others mill about, clearly hoping for word on what's happened in Sume and elsewhere—but even here, no one cares about you. And why should they? The air stinks of broken earth and everything past a twenty-mile radius has been shattered by a shake greater than any living person has ever known. People have more important matters to concern them.
That can change quickly, though. You don't relax.
Rask's office is actually a small house nestled between the stilted grain-caches and the carriageworks. As you stand on tiptoe to see above the crowd, you're unsurprised to see Oyamar, Rask's second, standing on its porch and talking with two men and a woman who are wearing more mortar and mud than clothing. Shoring up the well, probably; that's one of the things stonelore advises in the event of a shake, and which Imperial lockdown procedure encourages, too. If Oyamar is here, then Rask is elsewhere either working or—knowing Rask—sleeping, after having worn himself out in the three days since the event. He won't be at home because people can find him too easily there. But because Lerna talks too much, you know where Rask hides when he doesn't want to be disturbed.
Tirimo's library is an embarrassment. The only reason they have one is that some previous headwoman's husband's grandfather raised a stink and wrote letters to the quartent governor until finally the governor funded a library to shut him up. Few people have used it since the old man died, but although there are always motions to shut it down at the all-comm meetings, those motions never get quite enough votes to proceed. So it lingers: a ratty old shack not much bigger than the den of your house, packed nearly full with shelves of books and scrolls. A thin child could walk between the shelves without contorting; you're neither thin nor a child, so you have to slip in sideways and sort of crabwalk. Bringing the crate is out of the question: You set it down just inside the door. But that doesn't matter, because there's no one here to peek inside it—except Rask, who's curled up on a tiny pallet at the back of the shack, where the shortest shelf leaves a space just wide enough for his body.
As you finally manage to push your way between the stacks, Rask starts out of a snore and blinks up at you, already beginning to scowl at whoever has disturbed him. Then he thinks, because he's a levelheaded fellow and that's why Tirimo elected him, and you see in his face the moment when you go from being Jija's wife to Uche's mother to rogga's mother to, oh Earth, rogga, too.
That's good. Makes things easier.
"I'm not going to hurt anyone," you say quickly, before he can recoil or scream or whatever he has tensed to do. And to your own surprise, at these words Rask blinks and thinks again, and the panic recedes from his face. He sits up, leaning his back against a wooden wall, and regards you for a long, thoughtful moment.
"You didn't come here just to tell me that, I assume," he says.
You lick your lips and try to hunker down in a crouch. It's awkward because there's not much room. You have to brace your butt against a shelf, and your knees encroach more than you like on Rask's space. He half-smiles at your obvious discomfort, then his smile fades as he remembers what you are, and then he frowns to himself as if both reactions annoy him.
You say, "Do you know where Jija might have gone?"
Rask's face twitches. He's old enough to be your father, just, but he's the least paternal man you've ever met. You've always wanted to sit down somewhere and have a beer with him, even though that doesn't fit the ordinary, meek camouflage you've built around yourself. Most of the people in town think of him that way, despite the fact that as far as you know he doesn't drink. The look that comes into his face in this moment, however, makes you think for the first time that he would make a good father, if he ever had children.
"So that's it," he says. His voice is gravelly with sleep. "He kill the kid? That's what people think, but Lerna said he wasn't sure."
You nod. You couldn't say the word yes to Lerna, either.
Rask's eyes search your face. "And the kid was...?"
You nod again, and Rask sighs. He does not, you note, ask whether you are anything.
"Nobody saw which way Jija went," he says, shifting to draw his knees up and rest one arm on them. "People have been talking about the—the killing—because it's easier than talking about—" He lifts and drops his hands in a helpless gesture. "Lots of gossip, I mean, and a lot of it's more mud than stone. Some people saw Jija load up your horse cart and go off with Nassun—"
Your thoughts stutter. "With Nassun?"
"Yeah, with her. Why—" Then Rask understands. "Oh, shit, she's one, too?"
You try not to start shaking. You do clench your fists in an effort to prevent this, and the earth far below you feels momentarily closer, the air immediately around you cooler, before you contain your desperation and joy and horror and fury.
"I didn't know she was alive," is all you say, after what feels like a very long moment.
"Oh." Rask blinks, and that compassionate look returns. "Well, yeah. She was when they left, anyway. Nobody knew anything was wrong, or thought anything of it. Most people figured it was just a father trying to teach his firstborn the business, or keep a bored child out of trouble, the usual. Then that shit up north happened, and everybody forgot about it till Lerna said he'd found you and... and your boy." He pauses here, jaw flexing once. "Never would've figured Jija for the type. He hit you?"
You shake your head. "Never." It might have been easier to bear, somehow, if Jija had been violent beforehand. Then you could have blamed yourself for poor judgment or complacency, and not just for the sin of reproducing.
Rask takes a deep, slow breath. "Shit. Just... shit." He shakes his head, rubs a hand over the gray fuzz of his hair. He's not a born-gray, like Lerna and others with ashblow hair; you remember when his hair was brown. "You going after him?" His gaze flickers away and back. It is not quite hope, but you understand what he is too tactful to say. Please leave town as soon as possible.
You nod, happy to oblige. "I need you to give me a gate pass."
"Done." He pauses. "You know you can't come back."
"I know." You make yourself smile. "I don't really want to."
"Don't blame you." He sighs, then shifts again, uncomfortable. "My... my sister..."
You didn't know Rask had a sister. Then you understand. "What happened to her?"
He shrugs. "The usual. We lived in Sume, then. Somebody realized what she was, told a bunch of other somebodies, and they came and took her in the night. I don't remember much about it. I was only six. My folks moved here with me after that." His mouth twitches, not really smiling. "S'why I never wanted kids, myself."
You smile, too. "I didn't, either." Jija had, though.
"Rusting Earth." He closes his eyes for a moment, then abruptly gets to his feet. You do, too, since otherwise your face will be entirely too close to his stained old trousers. "I'll walk you to the gate, if you're going now."
This surprises you. "I'm going now. But you don't have to." You're not sure this is a good idea, really. It might draw more attention than you want. But Rask shakes his head, his jaw set and grim.
"I do. Come on."
"Rask—"
He looks at you, and this time you are the one who winces. This isn't about you anymore. The mob that took his sister from him wouldn't have dared to do so if he'd been a man at the time.
Or maybe they'd have just killed him, too.
He carries the crate as you walk down Seven Seasons, the town's main street, all the way up to Main Gate. You're twitchy, trying to look confident and relaxed even though you feel anything but. It would not have been your choice to walk this route, through all these people. Rask draws all the attention at first, as people wave or call out to him or come over to ask him if there's any news... but then they notice you. People stop waving. They stop approaching and start—at a distance, in twos and threes—watching. And occasionally following. There's nothing to this except the usual small-town nosiness, at least on the surface. But you see these knots of people also whispering, and you feel them staring, and that sets all your nerves a-jangle in the worst way.
Rask hails the gate guards as you approach. A dozen or so Strongbacks who are probably miners and farmers under ordinary circumstances are there, just milling about in front of the gate with no real organization. Two are up in the crow's nests built atop the wall, where they can overlook the gate; two are standing near the gate's eyeholes at ground level. The rest are just there, looking bored or talking or joking with one another. Rask probably chose them for their ability to intimidate, because all of them are Sanzed-big and look like they can handle themselves even without the glassknives and crossbows they carry.
The one who steps forward to greet Rask is actually the smallest of them—a man you know, though you don't remember his name. His children have been in your classes at the town creche. He remembers you, too, you see, when his eyes fix on you and narrow.
Rask stops and sets the crate down, opening it and handing you the runny-sack. "Karra," he says to the man you know. "Everything okay here?"
"Was till now," Karra says, not taking his eyes off you. The way he's looking at you makes your skin tighten. A couple of the other Strongbacks are watching, too, glancing from Karra to Rask and back, ready to follow someone's lead. One woman is openly glaring at you, but the rest seem content to glance at you and away in quick slashes.
"Good to hear," Rask says. You see him frown a little, perhaps as he reads the same signals you're picking up on. "Tell your people to open the gate for a minute, will you?"
Karra doesn't take his eyes off you. "Think that's a good idea, Rask?"
Rask scowls and steps sharply up to Karra, getting right in his face. He's not a big man, Rask—he's an Innovator, not a Strongback, not that it really matters anymore—and right now he doesn't need to be. "Yeah," Rask says, his voice so low and tight that Karra focuses on him at last with a stiffening of surprise. "I do. Open the gate, if you don't mind. If you're not too rusting busy."
You think of a line from stonelore, Structures, verse three. The body fades. A leader who lasts relies on more.
Karra's jaw flexes, but after a moment he nods. You try to look absorbed in shrugging on the runny-sack. The straps are loose. Jija was the last one to try it on.
Karra and the other gate-minders get moving, working on the system of pulleys that helps to winch the gate open. Most of Tirimo's wall is made of wood. It's not a wealthy comm with the resources to import good stone or hire the number of masons needed, although they're doing better than poorly managed comms, or newcomms that don't even have a wall yet. The gate, though, is stone, because a gate is the weakest point of every comm wall. They only need to open it a little for you, and after a few slow, grinding moments and calls from those hauling to those spotting for approaching intruders, they stop.
Rask turns to you, plainly uncomfortable. "Sorry about—about Jija," he says. Not about Uche, but maybe that's for the best. You need to keep your head clear. "About all of it, shit. Hope you find the bastard."
You only shake your head. Your throat is tight. Tirimo has been your home for ten years. You only started to think of it as such—home—around the time of Uche's birth, but that's more than you ever expected to do. You remember chasing Uche across the green after he first learned to run. You remember Jija helping Nassun build a kite and fly it, badly; the kite's remmants are still in a tree somewhere on the eastern side of town.
But it is not as hard to leave as you thought it would be. Not now, with your former neighbors' stares sliding over your skin like rancid oil.
"Thanks," you mutter, meaning for it to cover many things, because Rask didn't have to help you. He has damaged himself by doing so. The gate-minders respect him less now, and they'll talk. Soon everyone will know he's a rogga-lover, which is dangerous. Headmen can't afford that kind of weakness when a Season's coming on. But for the moment what matters most to you is this moment of public decency, which is a kindness and an honor you never expected to receive. You aren't sure how to react to it.
He nods, uncomfortable as well, and turns away as you start toward the gap in the gate. Perhaps he does not see Karra nod to another of the gate-minders; perhaps he does not see the latter woman quickly shoulder her weapon and orient it on you. Perhaps, you will think later, Rask would have stopped the woman, or somehow prevented everything to come, if he had seen.
You see her, though, mostly out of the periphery of your vision. Then everything happens too fast to think. And because you don't think, because you've been trying not to think and this means you're out of the habit, because thinking means you will remember that your family is dead and everything that meant happiness is now a lie and thinking of that will make you break and start screaming and screaming and screaming
and because once upon a time and in another life you learned to respond to sudden threats in a very particular way, you
reach for the air around you and pull and
brace your feet against the earth beneath you and anchor and narrow and
when the woman fires the crossbow, the bolt blurs toward you. Just before the bolt hits, it bursts into a million glittering, frozen flecks.
(Naughty, naughty, chides a voice in your head. The voice of your conscience, deep and male. You forget this thought almost the instant it occurs. That voice is from another life.)
Life. You look at the woman who just tried to kill you.
"What the—Shit!" Karra stares at you, as if stunned by your failure to fall down dead. He crouches, hands balled into fists, nearly jumping up and down in his agitation. "Shoot her again! Kill her! Shoot, Earth damn it, before—"
"What the fuck are you doing?" Rask, finally noticing what's happening, turns back. It's too late.
Down below your feet and everyone else's, a shake begins.
It's hard to tell, at first. There is no warning jangle of sesuna, as there would be if the movement of the earth came from the earth. That's why people like these fear people like you, because you're beyond sense and preparation. You're a surprise, like a sudden toothache, like a heart attack. The vibration of what you're doing rises, fast, to become a rumble of tension that can be perceived with ears and feet and skin if not sessapinae, but by this point it's too late.
Karra frowns, looking at the ground beneath his feet. Crossbow Woman pauses in the middle of loading another bolt, eyes widening as she stares at the shivering string of her weapon.
You stand surrounded by swirling flecks of snow and disintegrated crossbow bolt. Around your feet, there is a two-foot circle of frost riming the packed earth. Your locks waft gently in the rising breeze.
"You can't." Rask whispers the words, his eyes widening at the look on your face. (You don't know what you look like right now, but it must be bad.) He shakes his head as if denial will stop this, taking a step back and then another. "Essun."
"You killed him," you say to Rask. This is not a rational thing. You mean you-plural, even though you're speaking to you-specific. Rask didn't try to kill you, had nothing to do with Uche, but the attempt on your life has triggered something raw and furious and cold. You cowards. You animals, who look at a child and see prey. Jija's the one to blame for Uche, some part of you knows that—but Jija grew up here in Tirimo. The kind of hate that can make a man murder his own son? It came from everyone around you.
Rask inhales. "Essun—"
And then the valley floor splits open.
The initial jolt of this is violent enough to knock everyone standing to the ground and sway every house in Tirimo. Then those houses judder and rattle as the jolt smooths into a steady, ongoing vibration. Saider's Cart-Repair Shop is the first to collapse, the old wooden frame of the building sliding sideways off its foundation. There are screams from inside, and one woman manages to run out before the door frame crumples inward. On the eastern edge of town, closest to the mountain ridges that frame the valley, a rockslide begins. A portion of the eastern comm wall and three houses are buried beneath a sudden grinding slurry of mud and trees and rocks. Far below the ground, where no one but you can detect, the clay walls of the underground aquifer that supplies the village wells are breached. The aquifer begins to drain. They will not realize for weeks that you killed the town in this moment, but they will remember when the wells run dry.
Those who survive the next few moments will, anyhow. From your feet, the circle of frost and swirling snow begins to expand. Rapidly.
It catches Rask first. He tries to run as the edge of your torus rolls toward him, but he's simply too close. It catches him in mid-lunge, glazing his feet and solidifying his legs and eating its way up his spine until, in the span of a breath, he falls to the ground stone-stiff, his flesh turning as gray as his hair. The next to be consumed by the circle is Karra, who's still screaming for someone to kill you. The shout dies in his throat as he falls, flash-frozen, the last of his warm breath hissing out through clenched teeth and frosting the ground as you steal the heat from it.
You aren't just inflicting death on your fellow villagers, of course. A bird perched on a nearby fence falls over frozen, too. The grass crisps, the ground grows hard, and the air hisses and howls as moisture and density is snatched from its substance... but no one has ever mourned earthworms.
Fast. The air swirls briskly all down Seven Seasons now, making the trees rustle and anyone nearby cry out in alarm as they realize what's happening. The ground hasn't stopped moving. You sway with the ground, but because you know its rhythms, it is easy for you to shift your balance with it. You do this without thinking, because there is only room left in you for one thought.
These people killed Uche. Their hate, their fear, their unprovoked violence. They.
(He.)
Killed your son.
(Jija killed your son.)
People run out into the streets, screaming and wondering why there was no warning, and you kill any of them who are stupid or panicked enough to come near.
Jija. They are Jija. The whole rusting town is Jija.
Two things save the comm, however, or at least most of it. The first is that most of the buildings don't collapse. Tirimo might be too poor to build with stone, but most of its builders are ethical and well paid enough to use only techniques that stonelore recommends: the hanging frame, the center beam. Second, the fault line of the valley—which you're currently peeling apart with a thought—is actually a few miles to the west. Because of these things, most of Tirimo will survive this, at least until the wells die.
Because of these things. And because of the terrified, bouncing scream of a little boy as his father runs out of a madly swaying building.
You pivot toward the sound instantly, habitually, orienting on the source with a mother's ears. The man clutches the boy with both arms. He doesn't even have a runny-sack; the first and only thing he took the time to grab was his son. The boy looks nothing like Uche. But you stare as the child bounces and reaches back toward the house for something the man has left behind (favorite toy? the boy's mother?), and suddenly, finally, you think.
And then you stop.
Because, oh uncaring Earth. Look what you've done.
The shake stops. The air hisses again, this time as warmer, moister air rushes into the space around you. The ground and your skin grow instantly damp with condensation. The rumble of the valley fades, leaving only screams and the creak of falling wood and the shake-siren that has only belatedly, forlornly, begun to wail.
You close you eyes, aching and shaking and thinking, No. I killed Uche. By being his mother. There are tears on your face. And here you thought you couldn't cry.
But there's no one between you and the gate now. The gate-minders who could, have fled; besides Rask and Karra, several more were too slow to get away. You shoulder the runny-sack and head for the gate opening, scrubbing at your face with one hand. You're smiling, too, though, and it is a bitter, aching thing. You just can't help acknowledging the irony of the whole thing. Didn't want to wait for death to come for you. Right.
Stupid, stupid woman. Death was always here. Death is you.
|
Never forget what you are.
—Tablet One, "On Survival," verse ten
|
This is shit, Syenite thinks, behind the shield of her pleasant smile.
She doesn't let the affront show on her face, however. Nor does she shift even minutely in the chair. Her hands—four fingers ringed respectively in plain bands of carnelian, white opal, gold, and onyx—rest on her knees. They're out of sight below the edge of the desk, from Feldspar's perspective. She could clench them with Feldspar none the wiser. She doesn't.
"Coral reefs are challenging, you realize." Feldspar, her own hands occupied with the big wooden cup of safe, smiles over its rim. She knows full well what's behind Syenite's smile. "Not like ordinary rock. Coral is porous, flexible. The fine control required to shatter it without triggering a tsunami is difficult to achieve."
And Syen could do it in her sleep. A two-ringer could do this. A grit could do it—though, admittedly, not without substantial collateral damage. She reaches for her own cup of safe, turning the wooden hemisphere in her fingers so that they will not shake, then taking a sip. "I appreciate that you have assigned me a mentor, senior."
"No, you don't." Feldspar smiles, too, and sips from her cup of safe, ringed pinky in the air while she does so. It's as if they're having a private contest, etiquette versus etiquette, best shit-eating grin take all. "If it's any consolation, no one will think less of you."
Because everyone knows what this is really about. That doesn't erase the insult, but it does give Syen a degree of comfort. At least her new "mentor" is a ten-ringer. That, too, is comforting, that they thought so much of her. She'll scrape whatever morsels of self-esteem she can out of this.
"He recently completed a circuit in the Somidlats," Feldspar says, gently. There's no actual gentleness to the conversation's subject matter, but Syen appreciates the older woman's effort. "Ordinarily we'd allow him more time to rest before setting him back on the road, but the quartent governor was insistent that we do something about Allia's harbor blockage as soon as possible. You're the one who'll do the work; he's just there to supervise. Getting there should take a month or so, if you don't make many detours and travel at an easy pace—and there's no hurry, given that the coral reef isn't exactly a sudden problem."
At this, Feldspar looks fleetingly, but truly, annoyed. The quartent governor of Allia, or possibly Allia's Leadership, must have been especially irritating. In the years since Feldspar became her assigned senior, Syen has never seen the old woman show any expression worse than a brittle smile. They both know the rules: Fulcrum orogenes—Imperial orogenes, blackjackets, the ones you probably shouldn't kill, whatever people want to call them—must be always polite and professional. Fulcrum orogenes must project confidence and expertise whenever they are in public. Fulcrum orogenes must never show anger because it makes the stills nervous. Except Feldspar would never be so improper as to use a slur like the stills—but that is why Feldspar is a senior and has been given supervisory responsibilities, while Syenite merely grinds her own edges alone. She'll have to demonstrate more professionalism if she wants Feldspar's job. That, and she'll apparently have to do a few other things.
"When do I meet him?" Syenite asks. She takes a sip of safe so this question will seem casual. Just a bit of conversation between old friends.
"Whenever you like." Feldspar shrugs. "He has quarters in the seniors' hall. We did send him a briefing and a request that he attend this meeting..." Again she looks mildly irritated. This whole situation must be terrible for her, just terrible. "... but it's possible he missed the message, since as I said he's been recovering from his circuit. Traveling the Likesh Mountains alone is difficult."
"Alone?"
"Five-ringers and above are no longer required to have a partner or Guardian when traveling outside the Fulcrum." Feldspar sips from her cup of safe, oblivious to Syenite's shock. "At that point we are judged stable enough in our mastery of orogeny to be granted a modicum of autonomy."
Five rings. She has four. It's bullshit that this has anything to do with orogenic mastery; if a Guardian has doubts about an orogene's willingness to follow the rules, that orogene doesn't make it to the first ring, let alone the fifth. But..."So it'll be just him and me."
"Yes. We've found that arrangement to be most effective in circumstances like this."
Of course.
Feldspar continues. "You'll find him in Shaped Prominence." That's the complex of buildings that houses most of the Fulcrum's complement of seniors. "Main tower, top floor. There are no set-aside quarters for the most senior orogenes because there are so few—he is our only ten-ringer, at present—but we could at least spare him a bit of extra space up there."
"Thank you," Syen says, turning her cup again. "I'll go see him after this."
Feldspar pauses for a long moment, her face going even more pleasantly unreadable than usual, and that is Syenite's warning. Then Feldspar says: "As a ten-ringer, he has the right to refuse any mission short of a declared emergency. You should know that."
Wait. Syen's fingers stop turning the cup, and her eyes flick up to meet those of the older woman. Is Feld saying what it sounds like she's saying? Can't be. Syen narrows her eyes, no longer bothering to conceal her suspicion. And yet. Feldspar has given her a way out. Why?
Feldspar smiles thinly. "I have six children."
Ah.
Nothing more to be said, then. Syen takes another sip, trying not to grimace at the chalky grit near the bottom of the cup. Safe is nutritious, but it's not a drink anyone enjoys. It's made from a plant milk that changes color in the presence of any contaminant, even spit. It's served to guests and at meetings because, well, it's safe. A polite gesture that says: I'm not poisoning you. At least, not right now.
After that Syen takes her leave of Feldspar, then heads out of Main, the administrative building. Main sits amid a cluster of smaller buildings at the edge of the sprawling, half-wild expanse that comprises the Ring Garden. The garden is acres wide, and runs in a broad strip around the Fulcrum for several miles. It's just that huge, the Fulcrum, a city in itself nestled within the greater body of Yumenes like... well. Syenite would've continued the thought with like a child in a woman's belly, but that comparison seems especially grotesque today.
She nods to her fellow juniors in passing as she recognizes them. Some of them are just standing or sitting around in knots and talking, while others lounge on patches of grass or flowers and read, or flirt, or sleep. Life for the ringed is easy, except during missions beyond the Fulcrum's walls, which are brief and infrequent. A handful of grits tromp through along the wending cobbled path, all in a neat line overseen by juniors who've volunteered as instructors, but grits aren't permitted to enjoy the garden yet; that is a privilege reserved only for those who've passed their first-ring test and been approved for initiation by the Guardians.
And as if the thought of Guardians summons them, Syen spies a few burgundy-uniformed figures standing in a knot near one of the Ring's many ponds. There's another Guardian on the other side of the pond, lounging in an alcove surrounded by rosebushes, appearing to listen politely while a young junior sings to a small seated audience nearby. Perhaps the Guardian is just listening politely; sometimes they do that. Sometimes they need to relax, too. Syen notes this Guardian's gaze lingering on one of the audience members in particular, however: a thin, white youth who doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the singer. He's looking at his hands, instead, which are folded in his lap. There's a bandage around two of his fingers, holding them together and straight.
Syen moves on.
She stops first at Curving Shield, one of many clusters of buildings that house the hundreds of junior orogenes. Her roommates aren't home to see her fetch a few necessary items from her chest, for which she is painfully grateful. They'll hear about her assignment soon enough through the rumor mill. Then she heads out again, eventually reaching Shaped Prominence. The tower is one of the older buildings of the Fulcrum complex, built low and wide of heavy white marble blocks and stolid angles atypical of the wilder, fanciful architecture of Yumenes. The big double doors open into a wide, graceful foyer, its walls and floor embossed with scenes from Sanzed history. She keeps her pace unhurried, nodding to the seniors she sees whether she recognizes them or not—she does want Feldspar's job, after all—and taking the wide stairways gradually, pausing now and again to appreciate the artfully arranged patterns of light and shadow cast by the narrow windows. She's not sure what makes the patterns so special, actually, but everyone says they're stunning works of art, so she needs to be seen appreciating.
On the topmost floor, where the plush hall-length rug is overlaid by a herringbone pattern of sunlight, she stops to catch her breath and appreciate something genuinely: silence. Solitude. There's no one moving in this corridor, not even low-level juniors on cleaning or errand duty. She's heard the rumors and now she knows they're true: The ten-ringer has the whole floor to himself.
This, then, is the true reward for excellence: privacy. And choice. After closing her eyes for a moment in aching want, Syen heads down the hall until she reaches the only door with a mat in front of it.
In that moment, though, she hesitates. She knows nothing about this man. He's earned the highest rank that exists within their order, which means no one really cares what he does anymore so long as he keeps any embarrassing behaviors private. And he is a man who has been powerless most of his life, only lately granted autonomy and privilege over others. No one will demote him for anything so trivial as perversion or abuse. Not if his victim is just another orogene.
There's no point to this. She doesn't have a choice. With a sigh, Syenite knocks.
And because she isn't expecting a person so much as a trial to be endured, she's actually surprised when an annoyed voice snaps from within, "What?"
She's still wondering how to reply to that when footsteps slap against stone—briskly, annoyed even in their sound—and the door whisks open. The man who stands there glaring at her is wearing a rumpled robe, one side of his hair flattened, fabric lines painting a haphazard map over his cheek. He's younger than she expected. Not young; almost twice her age, at least forty. But she'd thought... well. She's met so many six-and seven-ringers in their sixth and seventh decades that she'd expected a ten-ringer to be ancient. And calmer, dignified, more self-possessed. Something. He's not even wearing his rings, though she can see a faint paler stripe on some of his fingers, in between his angry gesticulations.
"What, in the name of every two-minute earth jerk?" When Syen just stares at him, he lapses into another tongue—something she's never heard before, though the sound of it is vaguely Coaster, and distinctly pissed. Then he rubs a hand over his hair, and Syen almost laughs. His hair is dense, tight-curled stuff, the kind of hair that needs to be shaped if it's to look stylish, and what he's doing just messes it up more.
"I told Feldspar," he says, returning to perfectly fluent Sanzed and plainly struggling for patience, "and those other cackling meddlers on the senior advisory board to leave me alone. I just got off circuit, I haven't had two hours to myself in the last year that weren't shared with a horse or a stranger, and if you're here to give me more orders, I'm going to ice you where you stand."
She's pretty sure this is hyperbole. It's the kind of hyperbole he shouldn't use; Fulcrum orogenes just don't joke about certain things. It's one of the unspoken rules... but maybe a ten-ringer is beyond such things. "Not orders, exactly," she manages, and his face twists.
"Then I don't want to hear whatever you're here to tell me. Go the rust away." And he starts to close the door in her face.
She can't believe it at first. What kind of—Really? It is indignity on top of indignity; bad enough to have to do this in the first place, but to be disrespected in the process?
She jams a foot in the door's path before it can build up much momentum and leans in to say, "I'm Syenite."
It doesn't mean anything to him, she can see by his now-furious glare. He inhales to start shouting, she has no idea what but she doesn't want to hear it, and before he can she snaps, "I'm here to fuck you, Earth burn it. Is that worth disturbing your beauty rest?"
Part of her is appalled at her own language, and her own anger. The rest of her is satisfied, because that shuts him right the rust up.
He lets her in.
Now it's awkward. Syen sits at the small table in his suite—a suite, he's got a whole suite of furnished rooms to himself—and watches while he fidgets. He's sitting on one of the room's couches, pretty much perched on its edge. The far edge, she notes, as if he fears to sit too close to her.
"I didn't think it would start again this soon," he says, looking at his hands, which are laced together before him. "I mean, they always tell me there's a need, but that's... I didn't..." He sighs.
"Then this isn't the first time for you," Syenite says. He only earned the right to refuse with his tenth ring.
"No, no, but..." He takes a deep breath. "I didn't always know."
"Didn't know what?"
He grimaces. "With the first few women... I thought they were interested."
"You—" Then she gets it. The deniability is always there, of course; even Feldspar never came right out and said Your assignment is to produce a child within a year with this man. That lack of acknowledgment is supposed to make it easier, somehow. She's never seen the point: Why pretend the situation is anything other than what it is? But for him, she realizes, it wasn't pretending. Which astounds her because, come on. How naive can he be?
He glances at her and his expression grows pained. "Yes. I know."
She shakes her head. "I see." It doesn't matter. This isn't about his intelligence. She stands up and unbuckles the belt of her uniform.
He stares. "Just like that? I don't even know you."
"You don't need to."
"I don't like you."
The feeling is mutual, but Syen refrains from pointing out the obvious. "I finished menstruating a week ago. This is a good time. If you'd rather, you can just lie still and let me take care of things." She's not extraordinarily experienced, but it's not plate tectonics. She gets her uniform jacket off, then pulls something out of the pocket to show him: a bottle of lubricant, still mostly full. He looks dimly horrified. "In fact, it's probably better if you don't move. This will be awkward enough as it is."
He stands up, too, actually backing away. The look of agitation on his face is—well, it's not funny, not really. But Syenite cannot help feeling a modicum of relief at his reaction. No, not just relief. He is the weak one here, despite his ten rings. She's the one who has to carry a child she doesn't want, which might kill her and even if it doesn't will change her body forever, if not her life—but here and now, at least, she is the one with all the power. It makes this... well, not right. But better, somehow, that she's the one in control.
"We don't have to do this," he blurts. "I can refuse." He grimaces. "I know you can't, but I can. So—"
"Don't refuse," she says, scowling.
"What? Why not?"
"You said it: I have to do this. You don't. If not you, it will be someone else." Six children, Feldspar had. But Feldspar was never a particularly promising orogene. Syenite is. If Syen isn't careful, if she pisses off the wrong people, if she lets herself get labeled difficult, they will kill her career and assign her permanently to the Fulcrum, leaving her nothing to do but lie on her back and turn men's grunting and farting into babies. She'll be lucky to have only six if that's how things turn out.
He's staring as if he doesn't understand, even though she knows he does. She says, "I want this over with."
Then he surprises her. She's expecting more stammering and protests. Instead his hand clenches at his side. He looks away, a muscle working in his jaw. He still looks ridiculous in that robe with his hair askew, but the look on his face... he might as well have been ordered to submit himself to torture. She knows she's no looker, at least not by Equatorial standards. Too much midlatter mongrel in her. But then, he's obviously not well-bred, either: that hair, and skin so black it's almost blue, and he's small. Her height, that is, which is tall for either women or men—but he's lean, not at all broad or intimidating. If his ancestors include any Sanzeds, they're far back, and they gave him nothing of their physical superiority.
"Over with," he mutters. "Right." The muscle in his jaw is practically jumping up and down, he's grinding his teeth so hard. And—whoa. He's not looking at her, and suddenly she's glad. Because that's hate, in his face. She's seen it before in other orogenes—rust, she's felt it herself, when she has the luxury of solitude and unfettered honesty—but she's never let it show like that. Then he looks up at her, and she tries not to flinch.
"You weren't born here," he says, cold now. Belatedly she realizes it's a question.
"No." She doesn't like being the one on the receiving end of the questions. "Were you?"
"Oh, yes. I was bred to order." He smiles, and it's strange seeing a smile layered over all that hate. "Not even as haphazardly as our child will be. I'm the product of two of the Fulcrum's oldest and most promising lineages, or so I'm told. I had a Guardian practically from birth." He shoves his hands into the pockets of his rumpled robe. "You're a feral."
This comes out of nowhere. Syen actually spends a second wondering if this is some new way of saying rogga and then realizing what he really means. Oh, that is just the limit. "Look, I don't care how many rings you wear—"
"That's what they call you, I mean." He smiles again, and his bitterness so resonates with her own that she falls silent in confusion. "If you didn't know. Ferals—the ones from outside—often don't know, or care. But when an orogene is born from parents who weren't, from a family line that's never shown the curse before, that's how they think of you. A wild mutt to my domesticated purebred. An accident, to my plan." He shakes his head; it makes his voice shake. "What it actually means is that they couldn't predict you. You're the proof that they'll never understand orogeny; it's not science, it's something else. And they'll never control us, not really. Not completely."
Syen isn't sure what to say. She didn't know about the feral thing, about being different somehow—though now that she thinks about it, most of the other orogenes she knows were Fulcrum-bred. And yeah, she's noticed how they look at her. She just thought that was because they were Equatorials and she was from the Nomidlats, or because she got her first ring before they did. And yet, now that he's said this... is being feral a bad thing?
It must be. If the problem is that ferals are not predictable... well, orogenes have to prove themselves reliable. The Fulcrum has a reputation to maintain; that's part of this. So's the training, and the uniform, and the endless rules they must follow, but the breeding is part of it, too, or why is she here?
It's somewhat flattering to think that despite her feral status, they actually want something of her infused into their breeding lines. Then she wonders why a part of her is trying to find value in degradation.
She's so lost in thought that he surprises her when he makes a weary sound of capitulation.
"You're right," he says tersely, all business now because, well, there was really only one way this could end. And staying businesslike will allow both of them to maintain some semblance of dignity. "Sorry. You're... rusting Earth. Yeah. Let's just get this done."
So they go into his bedroom and he strips and lies down and tries for a while to work himself up to it, which doesn't go well. The hazard of having to do this with an older man, Syen decides—though really, it's probably more the fact that sex doesn't usually go well when you don't feel like having it. She keeps her expression neutral as she sits beside him and brushes his hands out of the way. He looks embarrassed, and she curses because if he gets self-conscious about it, this will take all day.
He comes around once she takes over, though, perhaps because he can shut his eyes and imagine that her hands belong to whoever he wants. So then she grits her teeth and straddles him and rides until her thighs ache and her breasts grow sore from bouncing. The lube only helps a little. He doesn't feel as good as a dildo or her fingers. Still, his fantasies must be sufficient, because after a while he makes a strained sort of whimper and then it's done.
She's pulling on her boots when he sighs and sits up and looks at her so bleakly that she feels vaguely ashamed of what she's done to him.
"What did you say your name was?" he asks.
"Syenite."
"That the name your parents gave you?" When she glares back at him, his lips twitch in something less than a smile. "Sorry. Just jealous."
"Jealous?"
"Fulcrum-bred, remember? I've only ever had the one name."
Oh.
He hesitates. This is apparently hard for him. "You, uh, you can call me—"
She cuts him off, because she knows his name already and anyway she doesn't intend to call him anything but you, which should be enough to distinguish him from their horses. "Feldspar says we're to leave for Allia tomorrow." She gets her second boot on and stands to kick the heel into place.
"Another mission? Already?" He sighs. "I should have known."
Yes, he should have. "You're mentoring me, and helping me clear some coral out of a harbor."
"Right." He knows it's a bullshit mission, too. There's only one reason they'd send him along for something like this. "They gave me a briefing dossier yesterday. Guess I'll finally read it. Meet at the stableyard at noon?"
"You're the ten-ringer."
He rubs his face with both hands. She feels a little bad, but only a little.
"Fine," he says, all business again. "Noon it is."
So she heads out, sore and annoyed that she smells faintly like him, and tired. Probably it's just stress that's wearing her out—the idea of a month on the road with a man she cannot stand, doing things she doesn't want to do, on behalf of people she increasingly despises.
But this is what it means to be civilized—doing what her betters say she should, for the ostensible good of all. And it's not like she gains no benefit from this: a year or so of discomfort, a baby she doesn't have to bother raising because it will be turned over to the lower creche as soon as it's born, and a high-profile mission completed under the mentorship of a powerful senior. With the experience and boost to her reputation, she'll be that much closer to her fifth ring. That means her own apartment; no more roommates. Better missions, longer leave, more say in her own life. That's worth it. Earthfire yes, it's worth it.
She tells herself this all the way back to her room. Then she packs to leave, tidies up so she'll come home to order and neatness, and takes a shower, methodically scrubbing every bit of flesh she can reach until her skin burns.
|
"Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at these contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they'll break themselves trying for what they'll never achieve."
—Erlsset, twenty-third emperor of the Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation, in the thirteenth year of the Season of Teeth. Comment recorded at a party, shortly before the founding of the Fulcrum.
|
Night has fallen, and you sit in the lee of a hill in the dark.
You're so tired. Takes a lot out of a you, killing so many people. Worse because you didn't do nearly as much as you could have done, once you got all worked up. Orogeny is a strange equation. Take movement and warmth and life from your surroundings, amplify it by some indefinable process of concentration or catalysis or semi-predictable chance, push movement and warmth and death from the earth. Power in, power out. To keep the power in, though, to not turn the valley's aquifer into a geyser or shatter the ground into rubble, takes an effort that makes your teeth and the backs of your eyes ache. You walked a long time to try to burn off some of what you took in, but it still brims under your skin even as your body grows weary and your feet hurt. You are a weapon meant to move mountains. A mere walk can't take that out of you.
Still, you walked until darkness fell, and then you walked some more, and now you're here, huddled and alone at the edge of an old fallow field. You're afraid to start a fire, even though it's getting cool. Without a fire you can't see much, but also nothing can see you: a woman alone, with a full pack and only a knife to defend herself. (You're not helpless, but an attacker wouldn't know that till it was too late, and you'd rather not kill anyone else today.) In the distance you can see the dark arc of a highroad, rising above the plains like a taunt. Highroads usually have electric lanterns, courtesy of Sanze, but you're not surprised this one's dark: Even if the shake from the north hadn't occurred, Seasonal standard procedure is to shut down all nonessential hydro and geo. It's too far to be worth the detour, anyway.
You're wearing a jacket, and there's nothing to fear in the field but mice. Sleeping without a fire won't kill you. You can see relatively well anyway, despite the lack of fire or lanterns. Rippling bands of clouds, like hoed rows in the garden you once kept, have covered the sky above. They're easy to see because something to the north has underlit the clouds in bands of redglow and shadow. When you stare that way, there's an uneven line of mountains against the northern horizon, and the flicker of a distant bluish gray obelisk where its lower tip peeks through a knot of clouds, but these things tell you nothing. Closer by there's a flitter of what might be a colony of bats out feeding. Late for bats, but all things change during a Season, the stonelore warns. All living things do what they must to prepare, and survive.
The source of the glow is beyond the mountains, as if the setting sun went the wrong way and got stuck there. You know what's causing this glow. It must be an awesome thing to see up close, that great terrible rent spewing fire into the sky, except you don't ever want to see it.
And you won't, because you're heading south. Even if Jija hadn't started out going in that direction, he would surely have turned south after the shake from the north passed through. That's the only sane way to go.
Of course, a man who would beat his own child to death might not still fit the label of sane. And a woman who found that child and stopped thinking for three days... hmm, not you, either. Nothing to do but follow your crazy, though.
You've eaten something from your pack: cachebread smeared with salty akaba paste from the jar you stuffed into it a lifetime and a family ago. Akaba keeps well after it's opened, but not forever, and now that you've opened it you'll have to eat it for the next few meals until it's gone. That's okay because you like it. You've drunk water from the canteen that you filled a few miles back, at a roadhouse's well pump. There'd been people there, several dozen, some of them camping around the roadhouse and some of them just stopping there briefly. All of them had the look you're starting to identify as slow-building panic. Because everyone's finally begun to realize what the shake and the redglow and the clouded sky all mean, and to be outside of a community's gates at a time like this is—in the long run—a death sentence, except for a handful who are willing to become brutal enough or depraved enough to do what they must. Even those only have a chance at survival.
None of the people at the roadhouse wanted to believe they had that in them, you saw as you looked around, assessing faces and clothes and bodies and threats. None of them looked like survival fetishists or would-be warlords. What you saw at that roadhouse were ordinary people, some still caked in filth after digging themselves out of mudslides or collapsed buildings, some still bleeding from wounds haphazardly bandaged, or untreated entirely. Travelers, caught away from home; survivors, whose homes no longer existed. You saw an old man, still wearing a sleeping gown half ragged and dusty on one side, sitting with a youth clad in only a long shirt and smears of blood, both of them hollow-eyed with grief. You saw two women holding each other, rocking in an effort at comfort. You saw a man your own age with the look of a Strongback, who gazed steadily at his big, thick-fingered hands and perhaps wondered if he was hale enough, young enough, to earn a place somewhere.
These are the stories the stonelore prepared you for, tragic as they are. There is nothing in stonelore about husbands killing children.
You're leaning on an old post that someone jammed up against the hill, maybe the remnants of a fence that ended here, drifting off with your hands tucked into your jacket pockets and your knees drawn up. And then, slowly, you become aware that something has changed. There's no sound to alert you, other than the wind and the small prickles and rustles of the grass. No smell transcends the faint sulfur scent that you've already gotten used to. But there's something. Something else. Out there.
Someone else.
Your eyes snap open, and half your mind falls into the earth, ready to kill. The rest of your mind freezes—because a few feet away, sitting crosslegged on the grass and looking at you, is a little boy.
You don't realize what he is at first. It's dark. He's dark. You wonder if he's from an eastern Coastal comm. But his hair moves a little when the wind soughs again, and you can tell that some of it's straight as the grass around you. Westcoaster, then? The rest of it seems stuck down with... hair pomade or something. No. You're a mother. It's dirt. He's covered in dirt.
Bigger than Uche, not quite as big as Nassun, so maybe six or seven years old. You actually aren't sure he's a he; confirmation of that will come later. For now you make a judgment call. He sits in a hunched way that would look odd in an adult and is perfectly normal for a child who hasn't been told to sit up straight. You stare at him for a moment. He stares back at you. You can see the pale glisten of his eyes.
"Hello," he says. A boy's voice, high and bright. Good call.
"Hello," you say, at last. There are horror tales that start this way, with bands of feral commless children who turn out to be cannibals. Bit early for that sort of thing, though, the Season having just started. "Where did you come from?"
He shrugs. Unknowing, maybe uncaring. "What's your name? I'm Hoa."
It's a small, strange name, but the world is a big, strange place. Stranger, though, that he gives only one name. He's young enough that he might not have a comm name yet, but he had to have inherited his father's use-caste. "Just Hoa?"
"Mmm-hmm." He nods and twists aside and sets down some kind of parcel, patting it as if to make sure it's safe. "Can I sleep here?"
You look around, and sess around, and listen. Nothing moving but the grass, no one around but the boy. Doesn't explain how he approached you in total silence—but then, he's small, and you know from experience that small children can be very quiet if they want to be. Usually that means they're up to something, though. "Who else are you with, Hoa?"
"Nobody."
It's too dim for him to see your eyes narrow, but somehow he reacts to this anyway, leaning forward. "Really! It's just me. I saw some other people by the road, but I didn't like them. I hid from them." A pause. "I like you."
Lovely.
Sighing, you tuck your hands back into your pockets and draw yourself out of earth-readiness. The boy relaxes a little—that much you can see—and starts to lie down on the bare earth.
"Wait," you say, and reach for your pack. Then you toss him the bedroll. He catches it and looks confused for a few moments, then figures it out. Happily he rolls it out and then curls up on top of it, like a cat. You don't care enough to correct him.
Maybe he's lying. Maybe he is a threat. You'll make him leave in the morning because you don't need a child tagging along; he'll slow you down. And someone must be looking for him. Some mother, somewhere, whose child is not dead.
For tonight, however, you can manage to be human for a little while. So you lean back against the post, and close your eyes to sleep.
The ash begins to fall in the morning.
|
They are an arcane thing, you understand, an alchemical thing. Like orogeny, if orogeny could manipulate the infinitesimal structure of matter itself rather than mountains. Obviously they possess some sort of kinship with humanity, which they choose to acknowledge in the statue-like shape we most often see, but it follows that they can take other shapes. We would never know.
—Umbl Innovator Allia, "A Treatise on Sentient Non-Humans," Sixth University, 2323 Imperial/Year Two Acid Season
|
The first few days on the road with Schaffa are uneventful. Not boring. There are boring parts, like when the Imperial Road along which they ride passes through endless fields of kirga stalks or samishet, or when the fields give way to stretches of dim forest so quiet and close that Damaya hardly dares speak for fear of angering the trees. (In stories, trees are always angry.) But even this is a novelty, because Damaya has never gone beyond Palela's borders, not even to Brevard with Father and Chaga at market time. She tries not to look like a complete yokel, gawping at every strange thing they pass, but sometimes she cannot help it, even when she feels Schaffa chuckling against her back. She cannot bring herself to mind that he laughs at her.
Brevard is cramped and narrow and high in a way that she has never before experienced, so she hunches in the saddle as they ride into it, looking up at the looming buildings on either side of the street and wondering if they ever collapse in on passersby. No one else seems to notice that these buildings are ridiculously tall and crammed right up against each other, so it must have been done on purpose. There are dozens of people about even though the sun has set and, to her reckoning, everyone should be getting ready for bed.
Except no one is. They pass one building so bright with oil lanterns and raucous with laughter that she is overcome with curiosity enough to ask about it. "An inn, of sorts," Schaffa replies, and then he chuckles as though she's asked the question that's in her mind. "But we won't be staying at that one."
"It's really loud," she agrees, trying to sound knowledgeable.
"Hmm, yes, that, too. But the bigger problem is that it's not a good place to bring children." She waits, but he doesn't elaborate. "We're going to a place I've stayed at several times before. The food is decent, the beds are clean, and our belongings aren't likely to walk off before morning."
Thus do they pass Damaya's first night in an inn. She's shocked by all of it: eating in a room full of strangers, eating food that tastes different from what her parents or Chaga made, soaking in a big ceramic basin with a fire under it instead of an oiled half-barrel of cold water in the kitchen, sleeping in a bed bigger than hers and Chaga's put together. Schaffa's bed is bigger still, which is fitting because he's huge, but she gawps at it nevertheless as he drags it across the inn room's door. (This, at least, is familiar; Father did it sometimes when there were rumors of commless on the roads around town.) He apparently paid extra for the bigger bed. "I sleep like an earthshake," he says, smiling as if this is some sort of joke. "If the bed's too narrow, I'll roll right off."
She has no idea what he means until the middle of that night, when she wakes to hear Schaffa groaning and thrashing in his sleep. If it's a nightmare, it's a terrible one, and for a while she wonders if she should get up and try to wake him. She hates nightmares. But Schaffa is a grown-up, and grown-ups need their sleep; that's what her father always said whenever she or Chaga did something that woke him up. Father was always angry about it, too, and she does not want Schaffa angry with her. He's the only person who cares about her in all the world. So she lies there, anxious and undecided, until he actually cries out something unintelligible, and it sounds like he's dying.
"Are you awake?" She says it really softly, because obviously he isn't—but the instant she speaks, he is.
"What is it?" He sounds hoarse.
"You were..." She isn't sure what to say. Having a nightmare sounds like something her mother would say to her. Does one say such things to big, strong grown-ups like Schaffa? "Making a noise," she finishes.
"Snoring?" He breathes a long weary sigh into the dark. "Sorry." Then he shifts, and is silent for the rest of the night.
In the morning Damaya forgets this happened, at least for a long while. They rise and eat some of the food that has been left at their door in a basket, and take the rest with them as they resume the trip toward Yumenes. In the just-after-dawn light Brevard is less frightening and strange, perhaps because now she can see piles of horse dung in the gutters and little boys carrying fishing poles and stablehands yawning as they heft crates or bales. There are young women carting buckets of water into the local bathhouse to be heated, and young men stripping to the waist to churn butter or pound rice in sheds behind the big buildings. All these things are familiar, and they help her see that Brevard is just a bigger version of a small town. Its people are no different from Muh Dear or Chaga—and to the people who live here, Brevard is probably as familiar and tedious as she found Palela.
They ride for half a day and stop for a rest, then ride for the rest of the day, until Brevard is far behind and there's nothing but rocky, ugly shatterland surrounding them for miles around. There's an active fault nearby, Schaffa explains, churning out new land over years and decades, which is why in places the ground seems sort of pushed up and bare. "These rocks didn't exist ten years ago," he says, gesturing toward a huge pile of crumbling gray-green stone that looks sharp-edged and somehow damp. "But then there was a bad shake—a niner. Or so I hear; I was on circuit in another quartent. Looking at this, though, I can believe it."
Damaya nods. Old Father Earth does feel closer, here, than in Palela—or, not closer, that's not really the word for it, but she doesn't know what words would work better. Easier to touch, maybe, if she were to do so. And, and... it feels... fragile, somehow, the land all around them. Like an eggshell laced with fine lines that can barely be seen, but which still spell imminent death for the chick inside.
Schaffa nudges her with his leg. "Don't."
Startled, Damaya does not think to lie. "I wasn't doing anything."
"You were listening to the earth. That's something."
How does Schaffa know? She hunches a little in the saddle, not sure whether she should apologize. Fidgeting, she settles her hands on the pommel of the saddle, which feels awkward because the saddle is huge like everything that belongs to Schaffa. (Except her.) But she needs to do something to distract herself from listening again. After a moment of this, Schaffa sighs.
"I suppose I can expect no better," he says, and the disappointment in his tone bothers her immediately. "It isn't your fault. Without training you're like... dry tinder, and right now we're traveling past a roaring fire that's kicking up sparks." He seems to think. "Would a story help?"
A story would be wonderful. She nods, trying not to seem too eager. "All right," Schaffa says. "Have you heard of Shemshena?"
"Who?"
He shakes his head. "Earthfires, these little midlatter comms. Didn't they teach you anything in that creche of yours? Nothing but lore and figuring, I imagine, and the latter only so you could time crop plantings and such."
"There's no time for more than that," Damaya says, feeling oddly compelled to defend Palela. "Kids in Equatorial comms probably don't need to help with the harvest—"
"I know, I know. But it's still a shame." He shifts, getting more comfortable in his saddle. "Very well; I'm no lorist, but I'll tell you of Shemshena. Long ago, during the Season of Teeth—that's, hmm, the third Season after Sanze's founding, maybe twelve hundred years ago?—an orogene named Misalem decided to try to kill the emperor. This was back when the emperor actually did things, mind, and long before the Fulcrum was established. Most orogenes had no proper training in those days; like you, they acted purely on emotion and instinct, on the rare occasions that they managed to survive childhood. Misalem had somehow managed to not only survive, but to train himself. He had superb control, perhaps to the fourth or fifth ring-level—"
"What?"
He nudges her leg again. "Rankings used by the Fulcrum. Stop interrupting." Damaya blushes and obeys.
"Superb control," Schaffa continues, "which Misalem promptly used to kill every living soul in several towns and cities, and even a few commless warrens. Thousands of people, in all."
Damaya inhales, horrified. It has never occurred to her that roggas—she stops herself. She. She is a rogga. All at once she does not like this word, which she has heard most of her life. It's a bad word she's not supposed to say, even though the grown-ups toss it around freely, and suddenly it seems uglier than it already did.
Orogenes, then. It is terrible to know that orogenes can kill so many, so easily. But then, she supposes that is why people hate them.
Her. That is why people hate her.
"Why did he do that?" she asks, forgetting that she should not interrupt.
"Why, indeed? Perhaps he was a bit mad." Schaffa leans down so that she can see his face, crossing his eyes and waggling his eyebrows. This is so hilarious and unexpected that Damaya giggles, and Schaffa gives her a conspiratorial smile. "Or perhaps Misalem was simply evil. Regardless, as he approached Yumenes he sent word ahead, threatening to shatter the entire city if its people did not send the Emperor out to meet him, and die. The people were saddened when the Emperor announced that he would meet Misalem's terms—but they were relieved, too, because what else could they do? They had no idea how to fight an orogene with such power." He sighs. "But when the Emperor arrived, he was not alone: with him was a single woman. His bodyguard, Shemshena."
Damaya squirms a little, in excitement. "She must have been really good, if she was the Emperor's bodyguard."
"Oh, she was—a renowned fighter of the finest Sanzed lineages. Moreover, she was an Innovator in use-caste, and thus she had studied orogenes and understood something of how their power worked. So before Misalem's arrival, she had every citizen of Yumenes leave town. With them they took all the livestock, all the crops. They even cut down the trees and shrubs and burned them, burned their houses, then doused the fires to leave only cold wet ash. That is the nature of your power, you see: kinetic transferrence, sesunal catalysis. One does not move a mountain by will alone."
"What is—"
"No, no." Schaffa cuts her off gently. "There are many things I must teach you, little one, but that part you will learn at the Fulcrum. Let me finish." Reluctantly, Damaya subsides.
"I will say this much. Some of the strength you need, when you finally learn how to use your power properly, will come from within you." Schaffa touches the back of her head as he did that time in the barn, two fingers just above the line of her hair, and she jumps a little because there is a sort of spark when he does this, like static. "Most of it, however, must come from elsewhere. If the earth is already moving, or if the fire under the earth is at or near the surface, you may use that strength. You are meant to use that strength. When Father Earth stirs, he unleashes so much raw power that taking some of it does no harm to you or anyone else."
"The air doesn't turn cold?" Damaya tries, really tries, to restrain her curiosity, but the story is too good. And the idea of using orogeny in a safe way, a way that will cause no harm, is too intriguing. "No one dies?"
She feels him nod. "Not when you use earth-power, no. But of course, Father Earth never moves when one wishes. When there is no earth-power nearby, an orogene can still make the earth move, but only by taking the necessary heat and force and motion from the things around her. Anything that moves or has warmth—campfires, water, the air, even rocks. And, of course, living things. Shemshena could not take away the ground or the air, but she most certainly could, and did, take away everything else. When she and the Emperor met Misalem at the obsidian gates of Yumenes, they were the only living things in the city, and there was nothing left of the city but its walls."
Damaya inhales in awe, trying to imagine Palela empty and denuded of every shrub and backyard goat, and failing. "And everybody just... went? Because she said?"
"Well, because the emperor said, but yes. Yumenes was much smaller in those days, but it was still a vast undertaking. Yet it was either that or allow a monster to make hostages of them." Schaffa shrugs. "Misalem claimed he had no desire to rule in the Emperor's stead, but who could believe that? A man willing to threaten a city to get what he wants will stop at nothing."
That makes sense. "And he didn't know what Shemshena had done until he got to Yumenes?"
"No, he didn't know. The burning was done by the time he arrived; the people had traveled away in a different direction. So as Misalem faced the Emperor and Shemshena, he reached for the power to destroy the city—and found almost nothing. No power, no city to destroy. In that moment, while Misalem floundered and tried to use what little warmth he could drag from the soil and air, Shemshena flung a glassknife over and into the torus of his power. It didn't kill him, but it distracted him enough to break his orogeny, and Shemshena took care of the rest with her other knife. Thus was ended the Old Sanze Empire's—pardon; the Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation's—greatest threat."
Damaya shivers in delight. She has not heard such a good story in a long time. And it's true? Even better. Shyly she grins up at Schaffa. "I liked that story." He's good at telling them, too. His voice is so deep and velvety. She could see all of it in her head as he talked.
"I thought you might. That was the origin of the Guardians, you know. As the Fulcrum is an order of orogenes, we are the order that watches the Fulcrum. For we know, as Shemshena did, that despite all your terrible power, you are not invincible. You can be beaten."
He pats Damaya's hands on the saddle-pommel, and she doesn't squirm anymore, no longer liking the story quite as much. While he told it, she imagined herself as Shemshena, bravely facing a terrible foe and defeating him with cleverness and skill. With every you and your that Schaffa speaks, however, she begins to understand: He does not see her as a potential Shemshena.
"And so we Guardians train," he continues, perhaps not noticing that she has gone still. They are deep into the shatterland now; sheer, jagged rock faces, as high as the buildings in Brevard, frame the road on both sides for as far as the eye can see. Whoever built the road must have carved it, somehow, out of the earth itself. "We train," he says again, "as Shemshena did. We learn how orogenic power works, and we find ways to use this knowledge against you. We watch for those among your kind who might become the next Misalems, and we eliminate them. The rest we take care of." He leans over to smile at her again, but Damaya does not smile back this time. "I am your Guardian now, and it is my duty to make certain you remain helpful, never harmful."
When he straightens and falls silent, Damaya does not prompt him to tell another story, as she might have done. She doesn't like the one he just told, not anymore. And she is somehow, suddenly certain: He did not intend for her to like it.
The silence lingers as the shatterlands finally begin to subside, then become rolling green hillside. There's nothing out here: no farms, no pastures, no forests, no towns. There are hints that people once lived here: She sees a crumbling, moss-overgrown hump of something in the distance that might have been a fallen-over silo, if silos were the size of mountains. And other structures, too regular and jagged to be natural, too decayed and strange for her to recognize. Ruins, she realizes, of some city that must have died many, many Seasons ago, for there to be so little of it left now. And beyond the ruins, hazy against the cloud-drifted horizon, an obelisk the color of a thundercloud flickers as it slowly turns.
Sanze is the only nation that has ever survived a Fifth Season intact—not just once, but seven times. She learned this in creche. Seven ages in which the earth has broken somewhere and spewed ash or deadly gas into the sky, resulting in a lightless winter that lasted years or decades instead of months. Individual comms have often survived Seasons, if they were prepared. If they were lucky. Damaya knows the stonelore, which is taught to every child even in a little backwater like Palela. First guard the gates. Keep storecaches clean and dry. Obey the lore, make the hard choices, and maybe when the Season ends there will be people who remember how civilization should work.
But only once in known history has a whole nation, many comms all working together, survived. Thrived, even, over and over again, growing stronger and larger with each cataclysm. Because the people of Sanze are stronger and smarter than everyone else.
Gazing at that distant, winking obelisk, Damaya thinks, Smarter even than the people who built that?
They must be. Sanze is still here, and the obelisk is just another deadciv leftover.
"You're quiet now," says Schaffa after a while, patting her hands on the pommel to bring her out of her reverie. His hand is more than twice the size of hers, warm and comforting in its hugeness. "Still thinking about the story?"
She has been trying not to, but of course, she has. "A little."
"You don't like that Misalem is the villain of the tale. That you are like Misalem: a potential threat, without a Shemshena to control you." He says this matter-of-factly, not as a question.
Damaya squirms. How does he always seem to know what she's thinking? "I don't want to be a threat," she says in a small voice. Then, greatly daring, she adds, "But I don't want to be... controlled... either. I want to be—" She gropes for the words, then remembers something her brother once told her about what it meant to grow up. "Responsible. For myself."
"An admirable wish," Schaffa says. "But the plain fact of the matter, Damaya, is that you cannot control yourself. It isn't your nature. You are lightning, dangerous unless captured in wires. You're fire—a warm light on a cold dark night to be sure, but also a conflagration that can destroy everything in its path—"
"I won't destroy anybody! I'm not bad like that!" Suddenly it's too much. Damaya tries to turn to look at him, though this overbalances her and makes her slip on the saddle. Schaffa immediately pushes her back to face forward, with a firm gesture that says without words, sit properly. Damaya does so, gripping the pommel harder in her frustration. And then, because she is tired and angry and her butt hurts from three days on horseback, and because her whole life has gone wrong and it hits her all at once that she will never again be normal, she says more than she means to. "And anyway, I don't need you to control me. I can control myself!"
Schaffa reins the horse to a snorting halt.
Damaya tenses in dread. She's smarted off to him. Her mother always whopped her in the head when she did that back home. Will Schaffa whop her now? But Schaffa sounds as pleasant as usual as he says, "Can you really?"
"What?"
"Control yourself. It's an important question. The most important, really. Can you?"
In a small voice, Damaya says, "I... I don't..."
Schaffa puts a hand on hers, where they rest atop the saddle-pommel. Thinking that he means to swing down from the saddle, she starts to let go so he can get a grip. He squeezes her right hand to hold it in place, though he lets the left one go. "How did they discover you?"
She knows, without having to ask, what he means. "In creche," she says in a small voice. "At lunch. I was... A boy pushed me."
"Did it hurt? Were you afraid, or angry?"
She tries to remember. It feels so long ago, that day in the yard. "Angry." But that had not been all, had it? Zab was bigger than her. He was always after her. And it had hurt, just a little, when he'd pushed her. "Afraid."
"Yes. It is a thing of instinct, orogeny, born of the need to survive mortal threat. That's the danger. Fear of a bully, fear of a volcano; the power within you does not distinguish. It does not recognize degree."
As Schaffa speaks, his hand on hers has grown heavier, tighter.
"Your power acts to protect you in the same way no matter how powerful, or minor, the perceived threat. You should know, Damaya, how lucky you are: It's common for an orogene to discover themselves by killing a family member or friend. The people we love are the ones who hurt us the most, after all."
He's upset, she thinks at first. Maybe he's thinking of something terrible—whatever it is that makes him thrash and groan in the night. Did someone kill a family member or best friend of his? Is that why his hand presses down on hers so hard? "Sch-Schaffa," she says, suddenly afraid. She does not know why.
"Shhh," he says, and adjusts his fingers, aligning them carefully with her own. Then he bears down harder, so that the weight of his hand presses on the bones of her palm. He does this deliberately.
"Schaffa!" It hurts. He knows it hurts. But he does not stop.
"Now, now—calm down, little one. There, there." When Damaya whimpers and tries to pull away—it hurts, the steady grind of his hand, the unyielding cold metal of the pommel, her own bones where they crush her flesh—Schaffa sighs and folds his free arm around her waist. "Be still, and be brave. I'm going to break your hand now."
"Wha—"
Schaffa does something that causes his thighs to tighten with effort and his chest to bump her forward, but she barely notices these things. All her awareness has focused on her hand, and his hand, and the horrid wet pop and jostle of things that have never moved before, the pain of which is sharp and immediate and so powerful that she screams. She scrabbles at his hand with her free one, desperate and thoughtless, clawing. He yanks her free hand away and presses it against her thigh so that she claws only at herself.
And through the pain, she becomes suddenly aware of the cold, reassuring peace of the stone beneath the horse's feet.
The pressure eases. Schaffa lifts her broken hand, adjusting his grip so that she can see the damage. She keeps screaming, mostly from the sheer horror of seeing her hand bent in a way it should not be, the skin tenting and purpled in three places like another set of knuckles, the fingers already stiffening in spasm.
The stone beckons. Deep within it there is warmth and power that can make her forget pain. She almost reaches for that promise of relief. And then she hesitates.
Can you control yourself?
"You could kill me," Schaffa says into her ear, and despite everything she falls silent to hear him. "Reach for the fire within the earth, or suck the strength from everything around you. I sit within your torus." This has no meaning for her. "This is a bad place for orogeny, given that you have no training—one mistake and you'll shift the fault beneath us, and trigger quite the shake. That might kill you, too. But if you manage to survive, you'll be free. Find some comm somewhere and beg your way in, or join a pack of commless and get along as best you can. You can hide what you are, if you're clever. For a while. It never lasts, and it will be an illusion, but for a time you can feel normal. I know you want that more than anything."
Damaya barely hears it. The pain throbs throughout her hand, her arm, her teeth, obliterating any fine sensation. When he stops speaking she makes a sound and tries again to pull away. His fingers tighten warningly, and she stills at once.
"Very good," he says. "You've controlled yourself through pain. Most young orogenes can't do that without training. Now comes the real test." He adjusts his grip, big hand enveloping her smaller one. Damaya cringes, but this is gentle. For now. "Your hand is broken in at least three places, I would guess. If it's splinted, and if you take care, it can probably heal with no permanent damage. If I crush it, however—"
She cannot breathe. The fear has filled her lungs. She lets out the last of the air in her throat and manages to shape it round a word. "No!"
"Never say no to me," he says. The words are hot against her skin. He has bent to murmur them into her ear. "Orogenes have no right to say no. I am your Guardian. I will break every bone in your hand, every bone in your body, if I deem it necessary to make the world safe from you."
He wouldn't crush her hand. Why? He wouldn't. While she trembles in silence, Schaffa brushes his thumb over the swollen knots that have begun to form on the back of her hand. There is something contemplative about this gesture, something curious. Damaya can't watch. She closes her eyes, feeling tears run freely from her lashes. She's queasy, cold. The sound of her own blood pounds in her ears.
"Wh-why?" Her voice is hitchy. It takes effort to draw breath. It seems impossible that this is happening, on a road in the middle of nowhere, on a sunny, quiet afternoon. She doesn't understand. Her family has shown her that love is a lie. It isn't stone-solid; instead it bends and crumbles away, weak as rusty metal. But she had thought that Schaffa liked her.
Schaffa keeps stroking her broken hand. "I love you," he says.
She flinches, and he soothes her with a soft shush in her ear, while his thumb keeps stroking the hand he's broken. "Never doubt that I do, little one. Poor creature locked in a barn, so afraid of herself that she hardly dares speak. And yet there is the fire of wit in you along with the fire of the earth, and I cannot help but admire both, however evil the latter might be." He shakes his head and sighs. "I hate doing this to you. I hate that it's necessary. But please understand: I have hurt you so that you will hurt no one else."
Her hand hurts. Her heart pounds and the pain throbs with it, BURN burn, BURN burn, BURN burn. It would feel so good to cool that pain, whispers the stone beneath her. That would mean killing Schaffa, however—the last person in the world who loves her.
Schaffa nods, as if to himself. "You need to know that I will never lie to you, Damaya. Look under your arm."
It takes an effort of ages for Damaya to open her eyes, and to then move her other arm aside. As she does, however, she sees that his free hand holds a long, beveled, black glass poniard. The sharp tip rests on the fabric of her shirt, just beneath her ribs. Aimed at her heart.
"It's one thing to resist a reflex. Another altogether to resist the conscious, deliberate desire to kill another person, for self-defense or any other reason." As if to suggest this desire, Schaffa taps the glassknife against her side. The tip is sharp enough to sting even through her clothing. "But it seems you can, as you said, control yourself."
And with that Schaffa pulls the knife from her side, twirls it expertly along his fingers, and slides it into his belt sheath without looking. Then he takes her broken hand in both of his. "Brace yourself."
She can't, because she doesn't understand what he means to do. The dichotomy between his gentle words and cruel actions has confused her too much. Then she screams again as Schaffa begins to methodically set each of her hand bones. This takes only seconds. It feels like much more.
When she flops against him, dazed and shaking and weak, Schaffa urges the horse forward again, this time at a brisk trot. Damaya is past pain now, barely noticing as Schaffa keeps her injured hand in his own, this time tucking it against her body to minimize accidental jostling. She does not wonder at this. She thinks of nothing, does nothing, says nothing. There is nothing left in her to say.
The green hills fall behind them, and the land grows flat again. She pays no attention, watching the sky and that distant smoky gray obelisk, which never seems to shift position even as the miles pass. Around it, the sky grows bluer and begins to darken into black, until even the obelisk becomes nothing more than a darker smudge against the emerging stars. At last, as the sun's light fades from the evening, Schaffa reins the horse just off the road and dismounts to make camp. He lifts Damaya off the horse and down, and she stands where he put her while he clears the ground and kicks small rocks into a circle to make a fire. There's no wood out here, but he pulls from his bags several chunks of something and uses them to start a fire. Coal, to judge by the stink, or dried peat. She doesn't really pay attention. She just stands there while he removes the saddle from the horse and tends the animal, and while he lays out the bedroll and puts a little pot into the flames. The aroma of cooking food soon rises over the fire's oily stink.
"I want to go home," Damaya blurts. She's still holding her hand against her chest.
Schaffa pauses in his dinner-making, then looks up at her. In the flickering light of the fire his icewhite eyes seem to dance. "You no longer have a home, Damaya. But you will, soon, in Yumenes. You'll have teachers there, and friends. A whole new life." He smiles.
Her hand has mostly gone numb since he set the bones, but there is a lingering dull throb. She closes her eyes, wishing it would go away. All of it. The pain. Her hand. The world. The smell of something savory wafts past, but she has no appetite for it. "I don't want a new life."
Silence greets her for a moment, then Schaffa sighs and rises, coming over. She twitches back from him, but he kneels before her and puts his hands on her shoulders.
"Do you fear me?" he asks.
For a moment the desire to lie rises within her. It will not please him, she thinks, for her to speak the truth. But she hurts too much, and she is too numb right now, for fear or duplicity or the desire to please. So she speaks the truth: "Yes."
"Good. You should. I'm not sorry for the pain I've caused you, little one, because you needed to learn the lesson of that pain. What do you understand about me now?"
She shakes her head. Then she makes herself answer, because of course that is the point. "I have to do what you say or you'll hurt me."
"And?"
She closes her eyes tighter. In dreams, that makes the bad creatures go away.
"And," she adds, "you'll hurt me even when I do obey. If you think you should."
"Yes." She can actually hear his smile. He nudges a stray braid away from her cheek, letting the backs of his fingers brush her skin. "What I do is not random, Damaya. It's about control. Give me no reason to doubt yours, and I will never hurt you again. Do you understand?"
She does not want to hear the words, but she does hear them, in spite of herself. And in spite of herself, some part of her relaxes just a little. She doesn't respond, though, so he says, "Look at me."
Damaya opens her eyes. Against the firelight, his head is a dark silhouette framed by darker hair. She turns away.
He takes hold of her face and pulls it back, firmly. "Do you understand?"
Of course it is a warning.
"I understand," she says.
Satisfied, he lets go of her. Then he pulls her over to the fire and gestures for her to sit on a rock he has rolled over, which she does. When he gives her a small metal dish full of lentil soup, she eats—awkwardly, since she isn't left-handed. She drinks from the canteen he hands her. It's difficult when she needs to pee; she stumbles over the uneven ground in the dark away from the fire, which makes her hand throb, but she manages. Since there's only one bedroll, she lies down beside him when he pats that spot. When he tells her to sleep, she closes her eyes again—but she does not fall asleep for a long while.
When she does, however, her dreams are full of jolting pain and heaving earth and a great hole of white light that tries to swallow her, and it seems only a moment later that Schaffa shakes her awake. It's still the middle of the night, though the stars have shifted. She does not remember, at first, that he has broken her hand; in that moment, she smiles at him without thinking. He blinks, then smiles back in genuine pleasure.
"You were making a noise," he says.
She licks her lips, not smiling anymore, because she has remembered, and because she doesn't want to tell him how much the nightmare frightened her. Or the waking.
"Was I snoring?" she asks. "My brother says I do that a lot."
He regards her for a moment in silence, his smile fading. She is beginning to dislike his little silences. That they are not simply pauses in the conversation or moments in which he gathers his thoughts; they are tests, though she isn't sure of what. He is always testing her.
"Snoring," he says at last. "Yes. Don't worry, though. I won't tease you about it like your brother did." And Schaffa smiles, as if this is supposed to be funny. The brother she no longer has. The nightmares that have consumed her life.
But he is the only person left whom she can love, so she nods and closes her eyes again, and relaxes beside him. "Good night, Schaffa."
"Good night, little one. May your dreams be ever still."
|
BOILING SEASON: 1842–1845 Imperial. A hot spot beneath Lake Tekkaris erupted, aerosolizing sufficient steam and particulate matter to trigger acidic rain and sky occlusion over the Somidlats, the Antarctics, and the eastern Coastal comms. The Equatorials and northern latitudes suffered no harm, however, thanks to prevailing winds and ocean currents, so historians dispute whether this qualifies as a "true" Season.
—The Seasons of Sanze, textbook for year 12 creche
|
In the morning you rise and move on, and the boy comes with you. The two of you trudge south through hill country and falling ash.
The child is an immediate problem. He's filthy, for one. You couldn't see this the night before in the dark, but he's absolutely covered in dried and drying mud, stuck-on twigs, and Earth knows what else. Caught in a mudslide, probably; those happen a lot during shakes. If so, he's lucky to be alive—but still when he wakes up and stretches, you grimace at the smears and flakes of dirt he's left on your bedroll. It takes you twenty minutes to realize he's naked under all the mess.
When you question him about this—and everything else—he's cagey. He shouldn't be old enough to be effectively cagey, but he is. He doesn't know the name of the comm he's from or the people who birthed him, who apparently are "not very many" in number. He says he doesn't have any parents. He doesn't know his use name—which, you are certain, is a blatant lie. Even if his mother didn't know his father, he would've inherited her use-caste. He's young, and maybe orphaned, but not too young to know his place in the world. Children far younger than this boy understand things like that. Uche was only three and he knew that he was an Innovator like his father, and that this was why all his toys were tools and books and items that could be used for building things. And he knew, too, that there were things he could not discuss with anyone except his mother, and even then only when they were alone. Things about Father Earth and his whispers, way-down-below things as Uche had called them—
But you're not ready to think about that.
Instead you ponder the mystery of Hoa, because there's so very much to ponder. He's a squat little thing, you notice when he stands up; barely four feet tall. He acts maybe ten years old, so he's either small for his age or has a manner too old for his body. You think it's the latter, though you're not sure why you think this. You can't tell much else about him, except that he's probably lighter-skinned; the patches where he's shed mud are gray-dirty, not brown-dirty. So maybe he's from somewhere near the Antarctics, or the western continental coast, where people are pale.
And now he's here, thousands of miles away in the northeastern Somidlats, alone and naked. Okay.
Well, maybe something happened to his family. Maybe they were comm-changers. Lots of people do that, pick up roots and spend months or years traveling cross-continent to beg their way into a comm where they'll stick out like pale flowers in a dun meadow...
Maybe.
Right.
Anyway.
Hoa also has icewhite eyes. Real, actual icewhite. Scared you a bit when you woke up in the morning and he looked at you: all that dark mud surrounding two points of glaring silvery-blue. He doesn't look quite human, but then people with icewhite eyes rarely do. You've heard that in Yumenes, among the Breeder use-caste, icewhite eyes are—were—especially desirable. Sanzeds liked that icewhite eyes were intimidating, and a little creepy. They are. But the eyes aren't what makes Hoa creepy.
He's inordinately cheerful, for one. When you rose the morning after he joined you, he was already awake, and playing with your tinderbox. There was nothing in the meadow with which to make a fire—only the meadowgrass, which would've burned up in seconds even if you could have found enough dry, and probably touched off a grassfire in the process—so you hadn't taken the box out of your pack the night before. But he had it, humming idly to himself as he twirled the flint in his fingers, and that meant he'd been digging in your pack. It didn't put you in the best of moods for the day. The image stuck in your mind, though, as you packed up: a child who'd obviously been through some disaster, sitting naked in the middle of a meadow, surrounded by falling ash—and yet, playing. Humming, even. And when he saw you awake and looking, he smiled.
This is why you've decided to keep him with you, even though you think he's lying about not knowing where he comes from. Because. Well. He is a child.
So when you've got your pack on, you look at him, and he looks back at you. He's clutching to his chest that bundle you glimpsed the night before—a wad of rags tied around something, is all you can tell. It rattles a little when he squeezes it. You can tell that he's anxious; those eyes of his can't hide anything. His pupils are huge. He fidgets a little, shifting onto one foot and using the other to scratch the back of his calf.
"Come on," you say, and turn away to head back to the Imperial Road. You try not to notice his soft exhalation, and the way he trots to catch up to you after a moment.
When you step onto the road again, there are a few people moving along it in knots and trickles, nearly all of them going south. Their feet stir up the ash, which is light and powdery for now. Big flakes: no need for masks yet, for those who remembered to pack one. A man walks beside a rickety cart and half-spavined horse; the cart is full of belongings and old people, though the walking man is hardly younger. All of them stare at you as you step from behind the hill. A group of six women who have clearly banded together for safety whisper among themselves at the sight of you—and then one of them says loudly to another, "Rusting Earth, look at her, no!" Apparently you look dangerous. Or undesirable. Or both.
Or maybe it's Hoa's appearance that puts them off, so you turn to the boy. He stops when you do, looking worried again, and you feel abruptly ashamed for letting him walk around like this, even if you didn't ask to have some strange child tagging along.
You look around. There's a creek on the other side of the road. No telling how long before you reach another roadhouse; they're supposed to be stationed every twenty-five miles on an Imperial Road, but the shake from the north might have damaged the next one. There are more trees around now—you're leaving the plains—but not enough to provide any real cover, and many of the trees are broken, anyway, after the shake from the north. The ashfall helps, a little; you can't see more than a mile off. What you can see, though, is that the plainsland around the road is beginning to give way to rougher territory. You know from maps and talk that below the Tirimas mountains there's an ancient, probably-sealed minor fault, a strip of young forest that's grown up since the last Season, and then in perhaps a hundred miles the plains become salt flats. Beyond that is desert, where comms become few and far between, and where they tend to be even more heavily defended than comms in more hospitable parts.
(Jija can't be going as far as the desert. That would be foolish; who would take him in there?)
There will be comms along the road between here and the salt plains, you're certain. If you can get the boy decent-looking, one of them will probably take him in.
"Come with me," you say to the boy, and veer off the road. He follows you down the gravel bed; you notice how sharp some of the rocks are and add good boots to the list of things you need to get for him. He doesn't cut his feet, thankfully—though he does slip on the gravel at one point, badly enough that he falls and rolls down the slope. You hurry over when he stops rolling, but he's already sitting up and looking disgruntled, because he's landed square in the mud at the edge of the creek. "Here," you say, offering him a hand up.
He looks at the hand, and for a moment you're surprised to see something like unease on his face. "I'm okay," he says then, ignoring your hand and pushing himself to his feet. The mud squelches as he does it. Then he brushes past you to collect the rag bundle, which he lost hold of during the fall.
Fine, then. Ungrateful little brat.
"You want me to wash," he says, a question.
"How'd you guess?"
He doesn't seem to notice the sarcasm. Setting his bundle down on the gravel bank, he walks forward into the water until it rises to about his waist, then he squats to try to scrub himself. You remember and rummage in your pack until you find the slab of soap. He turns at your whistle and you toss it to him. You flinch when he misses the catch entirely, but he immediately dives under and resurfaces with it in his hands. Then you laugh, because he's staring at the soap like he's never seen such a thing.
"Rub it on your skin?" You pantomime doing it: sarcasm again. But he straightens and smiles a little as if that actually clarified something for him, and then he obeys.
"Do your hair, too," you say, rummaging in the pack again and shifting so you can keep an eye on the road. Some of the people passing by up there glance down at you, curiosity or disapproval in their gaze, but most don't bother looking. You like it that way.
Your other shirt is what you were looking for. It'll be like a dress on the boy, so you cut a short length off the spool of twine in your pack, which he can use to belt the shirt below his hips for modesty and to retain a little warmth around his torso. It won't do in the long term, of course. Lorists say that it doesn't take long for things to turn cold when a Season begins. You'll have to see if the next town you pass is willing to sell you clothes and additional supplies, if they haven't already implemented Seasonal Law.
Then the boy comes out of the water, and you stare.
Well. That's different.
Free of mud, his hair is ashblow-coarse, that perfect weatherproof texture the Sanzed value so much, already beginning to stiffen and pouf up as it dries. It will be long enough to keep his back warm, at least. But it is white, not the normal gray. And his skin is white, not just pale; not even Antarctic people are ever quite that colorless, not that you've seen. His eyebrows are white, above his icewhite eyes. White white white. He almost disappears amid the falling ash as he walks.
Albino? Maybe. There's also something off about his face. You wonder what you're seeing, and then you realize: There's nothing Sanzed about him, except the texture of his hair. There's a broadness to his cheekbones, an angularity to his jaw and eyes, that seems wholly alien to your eyes. His mouth is full-lipped but narrow, so much so that you think he might have trouble eating, though obviously that's not true or he wouldn't have survived to this age. His short stature is part of it, too. He's not just small but stocky, as if his people are built for a different kind of sturdiness than the ideal that Old Sanze has spent millennia cultivating. Maybe his race are all this white, then, whoever they are.
But none of this makes sense. Every race in the world these days is part Sanzed. They did rule the Stillness for centuries, after all, and they continue to do so in many ways. And they weren't always peaceful about it, so even the most insular races bear the Sanzed stamp whether their ancestors wanted the admixture or not. Everyone is measured by their standard deviations from the Sanzed mean. This boy's people, whoever they are, have clearly managed to remain outliers.
"What in fire-under-Earth are you?" you say, before it occurs to you that this might hurt his feelings. A few days of horror and you forget everything about taking care of children.
But the boy only looks surprised—and then he grins. "Fire-under-Earth? You're weird. Am I clean enough?"
You're so thrown by him calling you weird that only much later do you realize he avoided the question.
You shake your head to yourself, then hold out a hand for the soap, which he gives to you. "Yes. Here." And you hold up the shirt for him to slip his arms and head into. He does this a bit clumsily, as if he's not used to being dressed by someone else. Still, it's easier than getting Uche dressed; at least this boy doesn't wiggle—
You stop.
You go away for a bit.
When you return to yourself, the sky is brighter and Hoa has stretched out on the nearby low grass. At least an hour has passed. Maybe more.
You lick your lips and focus on him uncomfortably, waiting for him to say something about your... absence. He just perks up once he sees you're back, gets to his feet, and waits.
Okay, then. You and he might get along, after all.
After that you get back on the road. The boy walks well despite having no shoes; you watch him closely for signs of limping or weariness, and you stop more frequently than you would have on your own. He seems grateful for the chance to rest, but aside from that, he does all right. A real little trouper.
"You can't stay with me," you say, though, during one of your rest breaks. Might as well not let him get his hopes up. "I'll try to find you a comm; we'll be stopping at several along the way, if they'll open the gates to trade. But I have to move on, even if I find you a place. I'm looking for someone."
"Your daughter," the boy says, and you stiffen. A moment passes. The boy ignores your shock, humming and petting his little bundle of rags like it's a pet.
"How did you know that?" you whisper.
"She's very strong. I'm not sure it's her, of course." The boy looks back at you and smiles, oblivious to your stare. "There's a bunch of you in that direction. That always makes it hard."
There are a lot of things that probably should be in your mind right now. You only muster the wherewithal to speak one of them aloud. "You know where my daughter is."
He hums again, noncommitally. You're sure he knows just how insane this all sounds. You're sure he's laughing, somewhere behind that innocent mask of a face.
"How?"
He shrugs. "I just know."
"How?" He's not an orogene. You'd know your own. Even if he was, orogenes can't track each other like dogs, homing in from a distance as if orogeny has a smell. Only Guardians can do anything like that, and then only if the rogga is ignorant or stupid enough to let them.
He looks up, and you try not to flinch. "I just know, all right? It's something I can do." He looks away. "It's something I've always been able to do."
You wonder. But. Nassun.
You're willing to buy a lot of cockamamie things if any of them can help you find her.
"Okay," you say. Slowly, because this is crazy. You're crazy, but now you're aware that the boy probably is, too, and that means you need to be careful. But on the thin chance that he's not crazy, or that his crazy actually works the way he says it does...
"How... how far is she?"
"Many days' walking. She's going faster than you."
Because Jija took the cart and horse. "Nassun's still alive." You have to pause after this. Too much to feel, too much to contain. Rask told you Jija left Tirimo with her then, but you've been afraid to let yourself think of her as alive now. Even though a part of you doesn't want to believe that Jija could kill his own daughter, the rest of you not only believes it but anticipates it to some degree. An old habit, bracing yourself for pain to come.
The boy nods, watching you; his little face is oddly solemn now. There's really not much that's childlike about this child, you notice absently, belatedly.
But if he can find your daughter, he can be the Evil Earth incarnate and you won't give a damn.
So you rummage in the pack and find your canteen, the one with the good water; you refilled the other at the creek but need to boil it first. After you take a swig yourself, however, you hand it to him. When he's finished drinking, you give him a handful of raisins. He shakes his head and hands them back. "I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten."
"I don't eat much." He picks up his bundle. Maybe he's got supplies in there. Doesn't matter. You don't really care, anyway. He's not your kid. He just knows where your kid is.
You break camp and resume the journey south, this time with the boy walking beside you, subtly leading the way.
|
Listen, listen, listen well.
There was an age before the Seasons, when life and Earth, its father, thrived alike. (Life had a mother, too. Something terrible happened to Her.) Earth our father knew He would need clever life, so He used the Seasons to shape us out of animals: clever hands for making things and clever minds for solving problems and clever tongues for working together and clever sessapinae to warn us of danger. The people became what Father Earth needed, and then more than He needed. Then we turned on Him, and He has burned with hatred for us ever since.
Remember, remember, what I tell.
—Lorist recitation, "The Making of the Three Peoples," part one
|
It eventually becomes necessary for Syenite to ask her new mentor's name. Alabaster, he tells her—which she assumes someone gave him ironically. She needs to use his name fairly often because he keeps falling asleep in his saddle during the long days of riding, which leaves her to do all the work of paying attention to their route and watching out for potential hazards, as well as keeping herself entertained. He wakes readily when she speaks his name, which at first leads her to believe he's just faking it in order to avoid talking to her. When she says this, he looks annoyed and says, "Of course I'm really asleep. If you want anything useful out of me tonight, you'll let me sleep."
Which pisses her off, because it's not like he's the one who's got to have a baby for empire and Earth. It's also not like the sex takes any great effort on his part, brief and boring as it is.
But perhaps a week into their trip, she finally notices what he's doing during their daily rides and even at night, while they're lying tired and sticky in the sleeping bag they share. She can be forgiven for missing it, she thinks, because it's a constant thing, like a low murmur in a room full of chattering people—but he's quelling all the shakes in the area. All of them, not just the ones people can feel. All the tiny, infinitesimal flexes and adjustments of the earth, some of which are building momentum to greater movement and some of which are essentially random: Wherever she and Alabaster pass, those movements go still for a time. Seismic stillness is common in Yumenes, but should not exist out here in the hinterlands where node network coverage is thin.
Once Syenite figures this out, she is... confused. Because there's no point to quelling microshakes, and indeed, doing so might make things worse the next time a larger shake occurs. They were very careful to teach her this, back when she was a grit learning basic geomestry and seismology: The earth does not like to be restrained. Redirection, not cessation, is the orogene's goal.
She ponders this mystery for several days as they pass along the Yumenes–Allia Highroad, beneath a turning obelisk that glints like a mountain-sized tourmaline whenever it's solid enough to catch the sunlight. The highroad is the fastest route between the two quartent capitals, built as straight as possible in ways that only Old Sanze would dare: elevated along lengthy stone bridges and crossing vast canyons, and occasionally even tunneling through mountains too high to climb. This means the trip to the coast will take only a few weeks if they take it easy—half what it would take via lowroad travel.
But rusted reeking Earth, highroads are dull. Most people think they're deathtraps waiting to be sprung, despite the fact that they're usually safer than ordinary roads; all Imperial Roads were built by teams of the best geoneers and orogenes, deliberately placed only in locations deemed permanently stable. Some of them have survived multiple Seasons. So for days at a time Syenite and Alabaster encounter only hard-driving merchant caravanners, mailpost-riders, and the local quartent patrol—all of whom give Syenite and Alabaster the eye upon noticing their black Fulcrum uniforms, and do not deign to speak to them. There are few comms lining the route's turnoffs, and almost no shops at which to buy supplies, although there are regular platforms along the road itself with prepared areas and lean-tos for camping. Syen has spent every evening swatting bugs beside a fire, with nothing to do but glare at Alabaster. And have sex with him, but that only kills a few minutes.
This, though, is interesting. "What are you doing that for?" Syenite finally asks, three days after she first noticed him quelling microshakes. He's just done it again now, while they wait for dinner—cachebread heated with slabs of beef and soaked prunes, yum yum. He yawned as he did it, though of course it must have taken some effort. Orogeny always costs something.
"Doing what?" he asks as he shuts down a subsurface aftershock and pokes at the fire in apparent boredom. She wants to hit him.
"That."
His eyebrows rise. "Ah. You can feel it."
"Of course I can feel it! You're doing it all the time!"
"Well, you didn't say anything before now."
"Because I was trying to figure out what you were doing."
He looks perplexed. "Then maybe you should've asked."
She's going to kill him. Something of this must translate through the silence, because he grimaces and finally explains. "I'm giving the node maintainers a break. Every microshake I settle eases the burden on them."
Syen knows of the node maintainers, of course. As the Imperial Roads link the former vassals of the old empire with Yumenes, so do the nodes connect far-flung quartents with the Fulcrum, to extend its protections as far as possible. All over the continent—at whatever points the senior orogenes have determined is best for manipulating nearby faults or hot spots—there is an outpost. Within that outpost is stationed a Fulcrum-trained orogene whose sole task is to keep the local area stable. In the Equatorials, the nodes' zones of protection overlap, so there's nary a twitch; this, and the Fulcrum's presence at its core, is why Yumenes can build as it does. Beyond the Equatorials, though, the zones are spaced to provide the greatest protection for the largest populations, and there are gaps in the net. It's just not worthwhile—at least, not according to the Fulcrum seniors—to put nodes near every little farming or mining comm in the hinterlands. People in those places fend for themselves as best they can.
Syen doesn't know any of the poor fools assigned to such tedious duty, but she's very, very glad no one has ever suggested it for her. It's the sort of thing they give to orogenes who'll never make it to fourth ring—the ones who have lots of raw power and little control. At least they can save lives, even if they're doomed to spend their own lives in relative isolation and obscurity.
"Maybe you should leave the micros to the node maintainers," Syenite suggests. The food is warm enough; she uses a stick to push it out of the fire. In spite of herself, her mouth is watering. It's been a long day. "Earth knows they probably need something to keep them from dying of boredom."
She's intent on the food at first, and doesn't notice his silence until she offers him his portion. Then she frowns, because that look is on his face again. That hatred. And this time at least a little of it is directed at her.
"You've never been to a node, I take it."
What the rust? "No. Why would I possibly go to one?"
"Because you should. All roggas should."
Syenite flinches, just a little, at his rogga. The Fulcrum gives demerits to anyone who says it, so she doesn't hear it much—just the odd muttered epithet from people riding past them, or grits trying to sound tough when the instructors aren't around. It's such an ugly word, harsh and guttural; the sound of it is like a slap to the ear. But Alabaster uses it the way other people use orogene.
He continues, still in the same cold tone: "And if you can feel what I'm doing, then you can do it, too."
This startles Syen more, and angers her more. "Why in Earthfires would I quell microshakes? Then I'll be—" And then she stops herself, because she was about to say as tired and useless as you, and that's just rude. But then it occurs to her that he has been tired and useless, maybe because he's been doing this.
If it's important enough that he's been wearing himself out to do it, then maybe it's wrong of her to refuse out of hand. Orogenes have to look out for each other, after all. She sighs. "All right. I guess I can help some poor fool who's stuck in the back end of beyond with nothing to do but keep the land steady." At least it will pass the time.
He relaxes, just a little, and she's surprised to see him smile. He hardly ever does that. But no, that muscle in his jaw is still going twitch twitch twitch. He's still upset about something. "There's a node station about two days' ride from the next highroad turnoff."
Syen waits for this statement to conclude, but he starts eating, making a little sound of pleasure that has more to do with him being hungry than with the food being especially delicious. Since she's hungry, too, Syenite tucks in—and then she frowns. "Wait. Are you planning to go to this station? Is that what you're saying?"
"We are going, yes." Alabaster looks up at her, a quick flash of command in his expression, and all of a sudden she hates him more than ever.
It's completely irrational, her reaction to him. Alabaster outranks her by six rings and would probably outrank her by more if the ring rankings went past ten; she's heard the rumors about his skill. If they ever fought, he could turn her torus inside out and flash-freeze her in a second. For that alone she should be nice to him; for the potential value of his favor, and her own goals for advancement within the Fulcrum's ranks, she should even try to like him.
But she's tried being polite with him, and flattering, and it doesn't work. He just pretends to misunderstand or insults her until she stops. She's offered all the little gestures of respect that seniors at the Fulcrum usually seem to expect from juniors, but these just piss him off. Which makes her angry—and strangely, this state of affairs seems to please him most.
So although she would never do this with another senior, she snaps, "Yes, sir," and lets the rest of the evening pass in resentful, reverberating silence.
They go to bed and she reaches for him, as usual, but this time he rolls over, putting his back to her. "We'll do it in the morning, if we still have to. Isn't it time for you to menstruate by now?"
Which makes Syenite feel like the world's biggest boor. That he hates the sex as much as she does isn't in question. But it's horrible that he's been waiting for a break and she hasn't been counting. She does so now, clumsily because she can't remember the exact day the last one started, and—he's right. She's late.
At her surprised silence he sighs, already halfway to sleep. "Doesn't mean anything yet if you're late. Traveling's hard on the body." He yawns. "In the morning, then."
In the morning they copulate. There are no better words she can use for the act—vulgarities don't fit because it's too dull, and euphemisms aren't necessary to downplay its intimacy because it's not intimate. It's perfunctory, an exercise, like the stretches she's learned to do before they start riding for the day. More energetic this time because he's rested first; she almost enjoys it, and he actually makes some noise when he comes. But that's it. When they're done he lies there watching while she gets up and does a quick basin bath beside the fire. She's so used to this that she starts when he speaks. "Why do you hate me?"
Syenite pauses, and considers lying for a moment. If this were the Fulcrum, she would lie. If he were any other senior, obsessed with propriety and making sure that Fulcrum orogenes comport themselves well at all times, she would lie. He's made it clear, however, that he prefers honesty, however indelicate. So she sighs. "I just do."
He rolls onto his back, looking up at the sky, and she thinks that's the end of the conversation until he says, "I think you hate me because... I'm someone you can hate. I'm here, I'm handy. But what you really hate is the world."
At this Syen tosses her washcloth into the bowl of water she's been using and glares at him. "The world doesn't say inane things like that."
"I'm not interested in mentoring a sycophant. I want you to be yourself with me. And when you are, you can barely speak a civil word to me, no matter how civil I am to you."
Hearing it put that way, she feels a little guilty. "What do you mean, then, that I hate the world?"
"You hate the way we live. The way the world makes us live. Either the Fulcrum owns us, or we have to hide and be hunted down like dogs if we're ever discovered. Or we become monsters and try to kill everything. Even within the Fulcrum we always have to think about how they want us to act. We can never just... be." He sighs, closing his eyes. "There should be a better way."
"There isn't."
"There must be. Sanze can't be the first empire that's managed to survive a few Seasons. We can see the evidence of other ways of life, other people who became mighty." He gestures away from the highroad, toward the landscape that spreads all around them. They're near the Great Eastern Forest; nothing but a carpet of trees rising and falling for as far as the eye can see. Except—
—except, just at the edge of the horizon, she spots something that looks like a skeletal metal hand, clawing its way out of the trees. Another ruin, and it must be truly massive if she can see it from here.
"We pass down the stonelore," Alabaster says, sitting up, "but we never try to remember anything about what's already been tried, what else might have worked."
"Because it didn't work. Those people died. We're still alive. Our way is right, theirs was wrong."
He throws her a look she interprets as I can't be bothered to tell you how stupid you are, although he probably doesn't mean it that way. He's right; she just doesn't like him. "I realize you only have the education the Fulcrum gave you, but think, will you? Survival doesn't mean rightness. I could kill you right now, but that wouldn't make me a better person for doing so."
Maybe not, but it wouldn't matter to her. And she resents his casual assumption of her weakness, even though he's completely right. "All right." She gets up and starts dressing, pulling her clothes on with quick jerks. "Tell me what other way there is, then."
He doesn't say anything for a moment. She turns to look at him finally, and he's looking uneasy. "Well..." He edges into the statement. "We could try letting orogenes run things."
She almost laughs. "That would last for about ten minutes before every Guardian in the Stillness shows up to lynch us, with half the continent in tow to watch and cheer."
"They kill us because they've got stonelore telling them at every turn that we're born evil—some kind of agents of Father Earth, monsters that barely qualify as human."
"Yes, but you can't change stonelore."
"Stonelore changes all the time, Syenite." He doesn't say her name often, either. It gets her attention. "Every civilization adds to it; parts that don't matter to the people of the time are forgotten. There's a reason Tablet Two is so damaged: someone, somewhere back in time, decided that it wasn't important or was wrong, and didn't bother to take care of it. Or maybe they even deliberately tried to obliterate it, which is why so many of the early copies are damaged in exactly the same way. The archeomests found some old tablets in one of the dead cities on Tapita Plateau—they'd written down their stonelore, too, ostensibly to pass it on to future generations. But what was on the tablets was different, drastically so, from the lore we learned in school. For all we know, the admonition against changing the lore is itself a recent addition."
She didn't know that. It makes her frown. It also makes her not want to believe him, or maybe that's just her dislike for him surfacing again. But... stonelore is as old as intelligence. It's all that's allowed humankind to survive through Fifth Season after Fifth Season, as they huddle together while the world turns dark and cold. The lorists tell stories of what happens when people—political leaders or philosophers or well-meaning meddlers of whatever type—try to change the lore. Disaster inevitably results.
So she doesn't believe it. "Where'd you hear about tablets on Tapita?"
"I've been taking assignments outside the Fulcrum for twenty years. I have friends out here."
Friends who talk to an orogene? About historical heresy? It sounds ridiculous. But then again... well. "Okay, so how do you change the lore in a way that—"
She's not paying attention to the ambient strata, because the argument has engrossed her more than she wants to admit. He, however, is apparently still quelling shakes even as they speak. Plus he's a ten-ringer, so it's fitting that he abruptly inhales and jerks to his feet as if pulled by strings, turning toward the western horizon. Syen frowns and follows his gaze. The forest on that side of the highroad is patchy from logging and bifurcated by two lowroads branching away through the trees. There's another deadciv ruin, a dome that's more tumbled stone than intact, in the far distance, and she can see three or four small walled comms dotting the treescape between here and there. But she doesn't know what he's reacting to—
—and then she sesses it. Evil Earth, it's a big one! An eighter or niner. No, bigger. There's a hot spot about two hundred miles away, beneath the outskirts of a small city called Mehi... but that can't be right. Mehi is at the edge of the Equatorials, which means it's well within the protective network of nodes. Why—
It doesn't matter why. Not when Syen can see this shake making all the land around the highroad shiver and all the trees twitch. Something has gone wrong, the network has failed, and the hot spot beneath Mehi is welling toward the surface. The proto-shakes, even from here, are powerful enough to make her mouth taste of bitter old metal and the beds of her fingernails to itch. Even the most sess-numb stills can feel these, a steady barrage of wavelets rattling their dishes and making old people gasp and clutch their heads while babies suddenly cry. If nothing stops this upwelling, the stills will feel a lot more when a volcano erupts right under their feet.
"What—" Syenite starts to turn to Alabaster, and then she stops in shock, because he is on his hands and knees growling at the ground.
An instant later she feels it, a shock wave of raw orogeny rippling out and down through the pillars of the Highroad and into the loose schist of the local ground. It's not actual force, just the strength of Alabaster's will and the power it fuels, but she cannot help watching on two levels as his power races—faster than she could ever go—toward that distant radiating churn.
And before Syen even realizes what's happening, Alabaster has grabbed her, in some way that she's never experienced before. She feels her own connection to the earth, her own orogenic awareness, suddenly co-opted and steered by someone else, and she does not like it one bit. But when she tries to reclaim control of her power it burns, like friction, and in the real world she yelps and falls to her knees and she has no idea what's happening. Alabaster has chained them together somehow, using her strength to amplify his own, and there's not a damned thing she can do about it.
And then they are together, diving into the earth in tandem, spiraling through the massive, boiling well of death that is the hot spot. It's huge—miles wide, bigger than a mountain. Alabaster does something, and something shoots away and Syenite cries out in sudden agony that stills almost at once. Redirected. He does it again and this time she realizes what he's doing: cushioning her from the heat and pressure and rage of the hot spot. It's not bothering him because he has become heat and pressure and rage as well, attuning himself to it as Syen has only ever done with small heat chambers in otherwise stable strata—but those were campfire sparks in comparison to this firestorm. There is nothing in her that can equal it. So he uses her power, but he also vents the force that she can't process, sending it elsewhere before it can overwhelm her awareness and... and... actually, she's not sure what would happen. The Fulcrum teaches orogenes not to push past their own limits; it does not speak of what happens to those who do.
And before Syenite can think through this, before she can muster the wherewithal to help him if she cannot escape him, Alabaster does something else. A sharp punch. Something has been pierced, somewhere. At once the upward pressure of the magma bubble begins to ebb. He pulls them back, out of the fire and into the still-shuddering earth, and she knows what to do here because these are just are shakes, not Father Earth's rage incarnate. Abruptly something changes and his strength is at her disposal. So much strength; Earth, he's a monster. But then it becomes easy, easy to smooth the ripples and seal the cracks and thicken the broken strata so that a new fault does not form here where the land has been stressed and weakened. She can sess lines of striation across the land's surface with a clarity that she has never known before. She smooths them, tightens the earth's skin around them with a surgical focus she has never previously been able to achieve. And as the hot spot settles into just another lurking menace and the danger passes, she comes back to herself to find Alabaster curled into a ball in front of her and a scorchlike pattern of frost all around them both which is already sublimating into vapor.
She's on her hands and knees, shaking. When she tries to move, it takes real effort not to fall onto her face. Her elbows keep trying to buckle. But she makes herself do it, crawl a foot or two to reach Alabaster, because he looks dead. She touches his arm and the muscle is hard through the uniform fabric, cramped and locked instead of limp; she thinks that's a good sign. Tugging him a little, she gets closer and sees that his eyes are open, wide, and staring—not with the blank emptiness of death but with an expression of pure surprise.
"It's just like Hessionite said," he whispers suddenly, and she jumps because she didn't think he was conscious.
Wonderful. She's on a highroad in the middle of nowhere, half dead after her orogeny has been used by someone else against her will, with no one to help her but the rustbrained and ridiculously powerful ass who did it in the first place. Trying to pull herself together after... after...
Actually, she has no idea what just happened. It makes no sense. Seismics don't just happen like that. Hot spots that have abided for aeons don't just suddenly explode. Something triggers them: a plate shift somewhere, a volcanic eruption somewhere else, a ten-ringer having a tantrum, something. And since it was so powerful an event, she should've sessed the trigger. Should've had some warning besides Alabaster's gasp.
And what the rust did Alabaster do? She can't wrap her head around it. Orogenes cannot work together. It's been proven; when two orogenes try to exert the same influence over the same seismic event, the one with the greater control and precision takes precedence. The weaker one can keep trying and will burn themselves out—or the stronger one can punch through their torus, icing them along with everything else. It's why the senior orogenes run the Fulcrum—they aren't just more experienced, they can kill anyone who crosses them, even though they're not supposed to. And it's why ten-ringers get choices: Nobody's going to force them to do anything. Except the Guardians, of course.
But what Alabaster did is unmistakable, if inexplicable.
Rust it all. Syenite shifts to sit before she flops over. The world spins unprettily and she props her arms on her updrawn knees and puts her head down for a while. They haven't gone anywhere today, and they won't be going anywhere, either. Syen doesn't have the strength to ride, and Alabaster looks like he might not make it off the bedroll. He never even got dressed; he's just curled up there bare-assed and shaking, completely useless.
So it's left to Syen to eventually get up and rummage through their packs, finding a couple of derminther mela—small melons with a hard shell that burrow underground during a Season, or so the geomests say—and rolling them into the remnants of their fire, which she's very glad they hadn't gotten around to smothering yet. They're out of kindling and fuel, but the coals should be enough to cook the mela so they'll have dinner in a few hours. She pulls a fodder bundle out of the pile for the horses to share, pours some water into a canvas bucket so they can drink, looks at the pile of their droppings and thinks about shoveling it off the highroad's edge so they don't have to smell it.
Then she crawls back to the bedroll, which is thankfully dry after its recent icing. There she flops down at Alabaster's back, and drifts. She doesn't sleep. The minute contortions of the land as the hot spot recedes keep jerking at her sessapinae, keeping her from relaxing completely. Still, just lying there is enough to restore her strength somewhat, and her mind goes quiet until the cooling air pulls her back to herself. Sunset.
She blinks, finding that she has somehow ended up spooned behind Alabaster. He's still in a ball, but this time his eyes are closed and body relaxed. When she sits up, he jerks a little and pushes himself up as well.
"We have to go to the node station," he blurts in a rusty voice, which really doesn't surprise her at all.
"No," she says, too tired to be annoyed, and finally giving up the effort of politeness for good. "I'm not riding a horse off the highroad in the dark while exhausted. We're out of dried peat, and running low on everything else; we need to go to a comm to buy more supplies. And if you try to order me to go to some node in the ass end of beyond instead, you'll need to bring me up on charges for disobedience." She's never disobeyed an order before, so she's a little fuzzy on the consequences. Really, she's too tired to care.
He groans and presses the heels of his hands to his forehead as if to push away a headache, or maybe drive it deeper. Then he curses in that language she heard him use before. She still doesn't recognize it, but she's even more certain that it's one of the Coaster creoles—which is odd, given that he says he was bred and raised at the Fulcrum. Then again, somebody had to raise him for those first few years before he got old enough to be dumped in the grit pool. She's heard that a lot of the eastern Coaster races are dark-skinned like him, too, so maybe they'll hear the language being spoken once they get to Allia.
"If you don't go with me, I'll go alone," he snaps, finally speaking in Sanze-mat. And then he gets up, fumbling around for his clothing and pulling it on, like he's serious. Syenite stares as he does this, because he's shaking so hard he can hardly stand up straight. If he gets on a horse in this condition, he'll just fall off.
"Hey," she says, and he continues his feverish preparations as if he can't hear her. "Hey." He jerks and glares, and belatedly she realizes he didn't hear her. He's been listening to something entirely different all this time—the earth, his inner crazy, who knows. "You're going to kill yourself."
"I don't care."
"This is—" She gets up, goes over to him, grabs his arm just as he's reaching for the saddle. "This is stupid, you can't—"
"Don't you tell me what I can't do." His arm is wire in her hand as he leans in to snarl the words into her face. Syen almost jerks back... but up close she sees his bloodshot whites, the manic gleam, the blown look of his pupils. Something's wrong with him. "You're not a Guardian. You don't get to order me around."
"Have you lost your mind?" For the first time since she's met him, she's... uneasy. He used her orogeny so easily, and she has no idea how he did it. He's so skinny that she could probably beat him senseless with relative ease, but he'd just ice her after the first blow.
He isn't stupid. She has to make him see. "I will go with you," she says firmly, and he looks so grateful that she feels bad for her earlier uncomplimentary thoughts. "At first light, when we can take the switchback pass down to the lowroads without breaking our horses' legs and our own necks. All right?"
His face constricts with anguish. "That's too long—"
"We've already slept all day. And when you talked about this before, you said it was a two-day ride. If we lose the horses, how much longer will it take?"
That stops him. He blinks and groans and stumbles back, thankfully away from the saddle. Everything's red in the light of sunset. There's a rock formation in the distance behind him, a tall straight cylinder of a thing that Syenite can tell isn't natural at a glance; either it was pushed up by an orogene, or it's yet another ancient ruin, better camouflaged than most. With this as his backdrop, Alabaster stands gazing up at the sky as if he wants to start howling. His hands flex and relax, flex and relax.
"The node," he says, at last.
"Yes?" She stretches the word out, trying not to let him hear the humoring the crazy man note of her voice.
He hesitates, then takes a deep breath. Another, calming himself. "You know shakes and blows never just come out of nowhere like that. The trigger for this one, the shift that disrupted that hot spot's equilibrium, was the node."
"How can you—" Of course he can tell, he's a ten-ringer. Then she catches his meaning. "Wait, you're saying the node maintainer set that thing off?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." He turns to her, his hands flexing into fists again. "Now do you see why I want to get there?"
She nods, blankly. She does. Because an orogene who spontaneously creates a supervolcano does not do so without generating a torus the size of a town. She cannot help but look out over the forest, in the direction of the node. She can't see anything from here, but somewhere out there, a Fulcrum orogene has killed everything in a several-mile radius.
And then there's the possibly more important question, which is: Why?
"All right," Alabaster blurts suddenly. "We need to leave first thing in the morning, and go as fast as we can. It's a two-day trip if we take it easy, but if we push the horses—" He speeds up his words when she opens her mouth, and rides over her objection like a man obsessed. "If we push them, if we leave before dawn, we can get there by nightfall."
It's probably the best she's going to get out of him. "Dawn, then." She scratches at her hair. Her scalp is gritty with road dust; she hasn't been able to wash in three days. They were supposed to pass over Adea Heights tomorrow, a mid-sized comm where she would've pressed to stay at an inn... but he's right. They have to get to that node. "We'll have to stop at the next stream or roadhouse, though. We're low on water for the horses."
He makes a sound of frustration at the needs of mortal flesh. But he says, "Fine."
Then he hunkers down by the coals, where he picks up one of the cooled mela and cracks it open, eating with his fingers and chewing methodically. She doubts he tastes it. Fuel. She joins him to eat the other mela, and the rest of the night passes in silence, if not restfulness.
The next day—or really, later in the night—they saddle up and start cautiously toward the switchback road that will take them off the highroad and down to the lands below. By the time they reach ground level the sun's up, so at that point Alabaster takes the lead and pushes his horse to a full canter, interspersed with walking jags to let them rest. Syen's impressed; she'd thought he would just kill the horses in the grip of whatever urgency possesses him. He's not stupid, at least. Or cruel.
So at this pace they make good time along the more heavily traveled and intersecting lowroads, where they bypass light carters and casual travelers and a few local militia units—all of whom quickly make way for them, as Syen and Alabaster come into view. It's almost ironic, she thinks: Any other time, their black uniforms would make others give them a wide berth because no one likes orogenes. Now, however, everyone must have felt what almost happened with the hot spot. They clear the way eagerly now, and there is gratitude and relief in their faces. The Fulcrum to the rescue. Syen wants to laugh at them all.
They stop for the night and sleep a handful of hours and start again before dawn, and still it's almost full dark by the time the node station appears, nestled between two low hills at the top of a winding road. The road's not much better than a dirtpacked wilderness trail with a bit of aged, cracking asphalt laid along it as a nod to civilization. The station itself is another nod. They've passed dozens of comms on the way here, each displaying a wild range of architecture—whatever's native to the region, whatever fads the wealthier comm members have tried to bring in, cheap imitations of Yumenescene styles. The station is pure Old Empire, though: great looming walls of deep red scoria brick around a complex comprising three small pyramids and a larger central one. The gates are some kind of steely metal, which makes Syen wince. No one puts metal gates on anything they actually want to keep secure. But then, there's nothing in the station except the orogene who lives here, and the staff that supports him or her. Nodes don't even have storecaches, relying instead on regular resupply caravans from nearby comms. Few would want to steal anything within its walls.
Syen's caught off guard when Alabaster abruptly reins his horse well before they reach the gates, squinting up at the station. "What?"
"No one's coming out," he says, almost to himself. "No one's moving beyond the gate. I can't hear anything coming from inside. Can you?"
She hears only silence. "How many people should be here? The node maintainer, a Guardian, and...?"
"Node maintainers don't need Guardians. Usually there's a small troop of six to ten soldiers, Imperials, posted at the station to protect the maintainer. Cooks and the like to serve them. And there's always at least one doctor."
So many headscratchers in so few words. An orogene who doesn't need a Guardian? Node maintainers are below fourth ring; lowringers are never allowed outside the Fulcrum without Guardians, or at least a senior to supervise. The soldiers she understands; sometimes superstitious locals don't draw much distinction between Fulcrum-trained orogenes and any other kind. But why a doctor?
Doesn't matter. "They're probably all dead," she says—but even as she says this, her reasoning falters. The forest around them should be dead, too, for miles around, trees and animals and soil flash-frozen and thawed into slush. All the people traveling the road behind them should be dead. How else could the node maintainer have gotten enough power to disturb that hot spot? But everything seems fine from here, except the silence of the node station.
Abruptly Alabaster spurs his horse forward, and there's no time for more questions. They ride up the hill and toward the locked, closed gates that Syen can't see a way to open, if there's no one inside to do it for them. Then Alabaster hisses and leans forward and for an instant a blistering, narrow torus flickers into view—not around them, but around the gate. She's never seen anyone do that, throw their torus somewhere else, but apparently tenth-ringers can. Her horse utters a nervous little whicker at the sudden vortex of cold and snow before them, so she reins it to a halt, and it shies back a few extra steps. In the next moment something groans and there is a cracking sound beyond the gate. Alabaster lets the torus go as one of the big steel doors drifts open; he's already dismounting.
"Wait, give it time to warm up," Syen begins, but he ignores her and heads toward the gates, not even bothering to watch his step on the slippery frost-flecked asphalt.
Rusting Earthfires. So Syen dismounts and loops the horses' reins around a listing sapling. After the day's hard ride she'll have to let them cool down before she feeds or waters them, and she should rub them down at least—but something about this big, looming, silent building unnerves her. She's not sure what. So she leaves the horses saddled. Just in case. Then she follows Alabaster in.
It's quiet inside the compound, and dark. No electricity for this backwater, just oil lamps that have gone out. There's a big open-air courtyard just past the metal main gates, with scaffolds on the inner walls and nearby buildings to surround any visitors on all sides with convenient sniper positions. Same kind of oh-so-friendly entryway as any well-guarded comm, really, though on a much smaller scale. But there's no one in this courtyard, although Syen spies a table and chairs to one side where the people who usually stand guard must have been playing cards and eating snacks not so long ago. The whole compound is silent. The ground is scoria-paved, scuffed and uneven from the passage of many feet over many years, but she hears no feet moving on it now. There's a horse shed on one side of the courtyard, but its stalls are shut and still. Boots covered in dried mud line the wall nearest the gate; some have been tossed or piled there rather than positioned neatly. If Alabaster's right about Imperial soldiers being stationed here, they're clearly the sort who aren't much for inspection-readiness. Figures; being assigned to a place like this probably isn't a reward.
Syen shakes her head. And then she catches a whiff of animal musk from the horse shed, which makes her tense. She smells horses, but can't see them. Edging closer—her hands clench before she makes herself unclench them—she peers over the first stall's door, then glances into the other stalls for a full inventory.
Three dead horses, sprawled on their sides in the straw. Not bloating yet, probably because only the animals' limbs and heads are limp with death. The barrel of each corpse is crusted with ice and condensation, the flesh still mostly hard-frozen. Two days' thaw, she guesses.
There's a small scoria-bricked pyramid at the center of the compound, with its own stone inner gates—though these stand open for the time being. Syenite can't see where Alabaster's gone, but she guesses he's within the pyramid, since that's where the node maintainer will be.
She climbs up on a chair and uses a nearby bit of matchflint to light one of the oil lamps, then heads inside herself—moving faster now that she knows what she'll find. And yes, within the pyramid's dim corridors she sees the soldiers and staffers who once lived here: some sprawled in mid-run, some pressed against the walls, some lying with arms outstretched toward the center of the building. Some of them tried to flee what was coming, and some tried to get to its source to stop it. They all failed.
Then Syen finds the node chamber.
That's what it has to be. It's in the middle of the building, through an elegant archway decorated with paler rose marble and embossed tree-root designs. The chamber beyond is high and vaulted and dim, but empty—except at the room's center, where there's a big... thing. She would call it a chair, if it was made of anything but wires and straps. Not very comfortable-looking, except in that it seems to hold its occupant at an easy recline. The node maintainer is seated in it, anyway, so it must be—
Oh. Oh.
Oh bloody, burning Earth.
Alabaster's standing on the dais that holds the wire chair, looking down at the node maintainer's body. He doesn't look up as she comes near. His face is still. Not sad, or bleak. Just a mask.
"Even the least of us must serve the greater good," he says, with no irony in his voice.
The body in the node maintainer's chair is small, and naked. Thin, its limbs atrophied. Hairless. There are things—tubes and pipes and things, she has no words for them—going into the stick-arms, down the goggle-throat, across the narrow crotch. There's a flexible bag on the corpse's belly, attached to its belly somehow, and it's full of—ugh. The bag needs to be changed.
She focuses on all this, these little details, because it helps. Because there's a part of her that's gibbering, and the only way she can keep that part internal and silent is to concentrate on everything she's seeing. Ingenious, really, what they've done. She didn't know it was possible to keep a body alive like this: immobile, unwilling, indefinite. So she concentrates on figuring out how they've done it. The wire framework is a particular bit of genius; there's a crank and a handle nearby, so the whole aparatus can be flipped over to facilitate cleaning. The wire minimizes bedsores, maybe. There's a stench of sickness in the air, but nearby is a whole shelf of bottled tinctures and pills; understandable, since it would take better antibiotics than ordinary comm-made penicillin to do something like this. Perhaps one of the tube things is for putting that medicine into the node maintainer. And this one is for pushing in food, and that one is for taking away urine, oh, and that cloth wrapping is for sopping up drool.
But she sees the bigger picture, too, in spite of her effort to concentrate on the minutiae. The node maintainer: a child, kept like this for what must have been months or years. A child, whose skin is almost as dark as Alabaster's, and whose features might be a perfect match for his if they weren't so skeletal.
"What." It's all she can say.
"Sometimes a rogga can't learn control." Now she understands that his use of the slur is deliberate. A dehumanizing word for someone who has been made into a thing. It helps. There's no inflection in Alabaster's voice, no emotion, but it's all there in his choice of words. "Sometimes the Guardians catch a feral who's too old to train, but young enough that killing's a waste. And sometimes they notice someone in the grit pool, one of the especially sensitive ones, who can't seem to master control. The Fulcrum tries to teach them for a while, but if the children don't develop at a pace the Guardians think is appropriate, Mother Sanze can always find another use for them."
"As—" Syen can't take her eyes off the body's, the boy's, face. His eyes are open, brown but clouded and gelid in death. She's distantly surprised she's not vomiting. "As this? Underfires, Alabaster, I know children who were taken off to the nodes. I didn't... this doesn't..."
Alabaster unstiffens. She hadn't realized how stiff he was holding himself until he bends enough to slide a hand under the boy's neck, lifting his oversize head and turning it a little. "You should see this."
She doesn't want to, but she looks anyway. There, across the back of the child's shaved head, is a long, vining, keloided scar, embellished with the dots of long-pulled stitches. It's just at the juncture of skull and spine.
"Rogga sessapinae are larger and more complex than those of normal people." When she's seen enough, Alabaster drops the child's head. It thumps back into its wire cradle with a solidity and carelessness that makes her jump. "It's a simple matter to apply a lesion here and there that severs the rogga's self-control completely, while still allowing its instinctive use. Assuming the rogga survives the operation."
Ingenious. Yes. A newborn orogene can stop an earthshake. It's an inborn thing, more certain even than a child's ability to suckle—and it's this ability that gets more orogene children killed than anything else. The best of their kind reveal themselves long before they're old enough to understand the danger.
But to reduce a child to nothing but that instinct, nothing but the ability to quell shakes...
She really should be vomiting.
"From there, it's easy." Alabaster sighs, as if he's giving an especially boring lecture at the Fulcrum. "Drug away the infections and so forth, keep him alive enough to function, and you've got the one thing even the Fulcrum can't provide: a reliable, harmless, completely beneficial source of orogeny." Just as Syenite can't understand why she's not sick, she's not sure why he's not screaming. "But I suppose someone made the mistake of letting this one wake up."
His eyes flick away, and Syenite follows Alabaster's gaze to the body of a man over by the far wall. This one's not dressed like one of the soldiers. He's wearing civilian clothes, nice ones.
"The doctor?" She's managed to adopt the detached, steady voice that Alabaster's using. It's easier.
"Maybe. Or some local citizen who paid for the privilege." Alabaster actually shrugs, gesturing toward a still-livid bruise on the boy's upper thigh. It's in the shape of a hand, finger marks clearly visible even against the dark skin. "I'm told there are many who enjoy this sort of thing. A helplessness fetish, basically. They like it more if the victim is aware of what they're doing."
"Oh, oh Earth, Alabaster, you can't mean—"
He rides over her words again, as if she hasn't spoken. "Problem is, the node maintainers feel terrible pain whenever they use orogeny. The lesions, see. Since they can't stop themselves from reacting to every shake in the vicinity, even the microshakes, it's considered humane to keep them constantly sedated. And all orogenes react, instinctively, to any perceived threat—"
Ah. That does it.
Syen stumbles away to the nearest wall and retches up the dried apricots and jerky she made herself swallow a-horseback on the way to the station. It's wrong. It's all so wrong. She thought—she didn't think—she didn't know—
Then as she wipes her mouth, she looks up and sees Alabaster watching.
"Like I said," he concludes, very softly. "Every rogga should see a node, at least once."
"I didn't know." She slurs the words around the back of her hand. The words don't make sense but she feels compelled to say them. "I didn't."
"You think that matters?" It's almost cruel, the emotionlessness of his voice and face.
"It matters to me!"
"You think you matter?" All at once he smiles. It's an ugly thing, cold as the vapor that curls off ice. "You think any of us matter beyond what we can do for them? Whether we obey or not." He jerks his head toward the body of the abused, murdered child. "You think he mattered, after what they did to him? The only reason they don't do this to all of us is because we're more versatile, more useful, if we control ourselves. But each of us is just another weapon, to them. Just a useful monster, just a bit of new blood to add to the breeding lines. Just another fucking rogga."
She has never heard so much hate put into one word before.
But standing here, with the ultimate proof of the world's hatred dead and cold and stinking between them, she can't even flinch this time. Because. If the Fulcrum can do this, or the Guardians or the Yumenescene Leadership or the geomests or whoever came up with this nightmare, then there's no point in dressing up what people like Syenite and Alabaster really are. Not people at all. Not orogenes. Politeness is an insult in the face of what she's seen. Rogga: This is all they are.
After a moment, Alabaster turns and leaves the room.
|
They make camp in the open courtyard. The station's buildings hold all the comforts Syen's been craving: hot water, soft beds, food that isn't just cachebread and dried meat. Out here in the courtyard, though, the bodies aren't human.
Alabaster sits in silence, staring into the fire that Syenite's built. He's wrapped in a blanket, holding the cup of tea she's made; she did, at least, replenish their stores from those of the station. She hasn't seen him drink from the cup. It might've been nice, she thinks, if she could've given him something stronger to drink. Or not. She's not really sure what an orogene of his skill could do, drunk. They're not supposed to drink for that exact reason... but rust reason, right now. Rust everything.
"Children are the undoing of us," Alabaster says, his eyes full of the fire.
Syenite nods, though she doesn't understand it. He's talking. That has to be a good thing.
"I think I have twelve children." Alabaster pulls the blanket more closely about himself. "I'm not sure. They don't always tell me. I don't always see the mothers, after. But I'm guessing it's twelve. Don't know where most of them are."
He's been tossing out random facts like this all evening, when he talks at all. Syenite hasn't been able to bring herself to reply to most of the statements, so it hasn't been much of a conversation. This one, though, makes her speak, because she's been thinking about it. About how much the boy in the wire chair resembles Alabaster.
She begins, "Our child..."
He meets her eyes and smiles again. It's kindly this time, but she's not sure whether to believe that or the hatred beneath the smile's surface.
"Oh, this is only one possible fate." He nods at the station's looming red walls. "Our child could become another me burning through the ring ranks and setting new standards for orogeny, a Fulcrum legend. Or she could be mediocre and never do anything of note. Just another four-or five-ringer clearing coral-blocked harbors and making babies in her spare time."
He sounds so rusting cheerful that it's hard to pay attention to the words and not just his tone. The tone soothes, and some part of her craves soothing right now. But his words keep her on edge, stinging like sharp glass fragments amid smooth marbles.
"Or a still," she says. "Even two roggas—" It's hard to say the word, but harder to say orogene, because the more polite term now feels like a lie. "Even we can make a still."
"I hope not."
"You hope not?" That's the best fate she can imagine for their child.
Alabaster stretches out his hands to the fire to warm them. He's wearing his rings, she realizes suddenly. He hardly ever does, but sometime before they reached the station, even with fear for his child burning in his blood, he spared a thought for propriety and put them on. Some of them glitter in the firelight, while others are dull and dark; one on each finger, thumbs included. Six of Syenite's fingers itch, just a little, for their nakedness.
"Any child of two ringed Fulcrum orogenes," he says, "should be an orogene, too, yes. But it's not that exact a thing. It's not science, what we are. There's no logic to it." He smiles thinly. "To be safe, the Fulcrum will treat any children born to any rogga as potential roggas themselves, until proven otherwise."
"But once they've proven it, after that, they'll be... people." It is the only hope she can muster. "Maybe someone will adopt them into a good comm, send them to a real creche, let them earn a use name—"
He sighs. There's such weariness in it that Syen falls silent in confusion and dread.
"No comm would adopt our child," he says. The words are deliberate and slow. "The orogeny might skip a generation, maybe two or three, but it always comes back. Father Earth never forgets the debt we owe."
Syenite frowns. He's said things like this before, things that hark to the lorists' tales about orogenes—that they are a weapon not of the Fulcrum, but of the hateful, waiting planet beneath their feet. A planet that wants nothing more than to destroy the life infesting its once-pristine surface. There is something in the things Alabaster says that makes her think he believes those old tales, at least a little. Maybe he does. Maybe it gives him comfort to think their kind has some purpose, however terrible.
She has no patience for mysticism right now. "Nobody will adopt her, fine." She chooses her arbitrarily. "What, then? The Fulcrum doesn't keep stills."
Alabaster's eyes are like his rings, reflecting the fire in one moment, dull and dark the next. "No. She would become a Guardian."
Oh, rust. That explains so much.
At her silence, Alabaster looks up. "Now. Everything you've seen today. Unsee it."
"What?"
"That thing in the chair wasn't a child." There's no light in his eyes now. "It wasn't my child, or anyone else's. It was nothing. It was no one. We stabilized the hot spot and figured out what caused it to almost blow. We've checked here for survivors and found none, and that's what we'll telegraph to Yumenes. That's what we'll both say if we're questioned, when we get back."
"I, I don't know if I can..." The boy's slack-jawed, dead gaze. How horrible, to be trapped in an endless nightmare. To awaken to agony, and the leer of some grotesque parasite. She can feel nothing but pity for the boy, relief for his release.
"You will do exactly as I say." His voice is a whip, and she glares at him, instantly furious. "If you mourn, mourn the wasted resource. If anyone asks, you're glad he's dead. Feel it. Believe it. He almost killed more people than we can count, after all. And if anyone asks how you feel about it, say you understand that's why they do these things to us. You know it's for our own good. You know it's for everyone's."
"You rusting bastard, I don't know—"
He laughs, and she flinches, because the rage is back now, whiplash-quick. "Oh, don't push me right now, Syen. Please don't." He's still laughing. "I'll get a reprimand if I kill you."
It's a threat, at last. Well, then. Next time he sleeps. She'll have to cover his face while she stabs him. Even lethal knife wounds take a few seconds to kill; if he focuses his orogeny on her in that brief window, she's dead. He's less likely to target her accurately without eyes, though, or if he's distracted by suffocation—
But Alabaster is still laughing. Hard. That's when Syenite becomes aware of a hovering jitter in the ambient. A looming almost in the strata beneath her feet. She frowns, distracted and alerted and wondering if it's the hot spot again—and then, belatedly, she realizes that the sensation is not jittering, it's jerking in a rhythmic sort of way. In time with the harsh exhalations of Alabaster's laughter.
While she stares at him in chilled realization, he even slaps his knee with one hand. Still laughing, because what he wants to do is destroy everything in sight. And if his half-dead, half-grown son could touch off a supervolcano, there's really no telling what that boy's father could do if he set his mind to it. Or even by accident, if his control slips for a moment.
Syen's hands clench into fists on her knees. She sits there, nails pricking her palms, until he finally gets ahold of himself. It takes a while. Even when the laughter's done he puts his face into his hands and chuckles now and again, shoulders shaking. Maybe he's crying. She doesn't know. Doesn't really care, either.
Eventually he lifts his head and takes a deep breath, then another. "Sorry about that," he says at last. The laughter has stopped, but he's all cheer again. "Let's talk about something else, why don't we?"
"Where the rust is your Guardian?" She hasn't unclenched her hands. "You're mad as a bag of cats."
He giggles. "Oh, I made sure she was no threat years ago."
Syen nods. "You killed her."
"No. Do I look stupid?" Giggling to annoyance in half a breath. Syen is terrified of him and no longer ashamed to admit it. But he sees this, and something in his manner changes. He takes another deep breath, and slumps. "Shit. I... I'm sorry."
She says nothing. He smiles a little, sadly, like he doesn't expect her to. Then he gets up and goes to the sleeping bag. She watches while he lies down, his back to the fire; she watches him until his breathing slows. Only then does she relax.
Though she jumps, again, when he speaks very softly.
"You're right," he says. "I've been crazy for years. If you stay with me for long, you will be, too. If you see enough of this, and understand enough of what it all means." He lets out a long sigh. "If you kill me, you'll be doing the whole world a favor." After that he says nothing more.
Syen considers his last words for longer than she probably should.
Then she curls up to sleep as best she can on the hard courtyard stones, wrapped in a blanket and with a saddle as an especially torturous sort of pillow. The horses shift restlessly, the way they have been all evening; they can smell the death in the station. But eventually, they sleep, and Syenite does, too. She hopes Alabaster eventually does the same.
Back along the highroad they just traveled, the tourmaline obelisk drifts out of sight behind a mountain, implacable in its course.
|
Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the fifth, and master of all.
—Arctic proverb
|
A break in the pattern. A snarl in the weft. There are things you should be noticing, here. Things that are missing, and conspicuous by their absence.
Notice, for example, that no one in the Stillness speaks of islands. This is not because islands do not exist or are uninhabited; quite the contrary. It is because islands tend to form near faults or atop hot spots, which means they are ephemeral things in the planetary scale, there with an eruption and gone with the next tsunami. But human beings, too, are ephemeral things in the planetary scale. The number of things that they do not notice are literally astronomical.
People in the Stillness do not speak of other continents, either, though it is plausible to suspect they might exist elsewhere. No one has traveled around the world to see that there aren't any; seafaring is dangerous enough with resupply in sight and tsunami waves that are only a hundred feet high rather than the legendary mountains of water said to ripple across the unfettered deep ocean. They simply take as given the bit of lore passed down from braver civilizations that says there's nothing else. Likewise, no one speaks of celestial objects, though the skies are as crowded and busy here as anywhere else in the universe. This is largely because so much of the people's attention is directed toward the ground, not the sky. They notice what's there: stars and the sun and the occasional comet or falling star. They do not notice what's missing.
But then, how can they? Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined? That would not be human nature. How fortunate, then, that there are more people in this world than just humankind.
|
They reach Allia a week later, beneath a bright blue midday sky that is completely clear except for a winking purple obelisk some ways off-coast.
Allia's big for a Coaster comm—nothing like Yumenes, of course, but respectably sized; a proper city. Most of its neighborhoods and shops and industrial districts are packed into the steep-sided bowl of a natural harbor formed from an old caldera that has collapsed on one side, with several days of outlying settlement in every direction. On the way in, Syenite and Alabaster stop at the first cluster of buildings and farmhouses they see, ask around, and—in between ignoring the glares elicited by their black uniforms—learn that several lodging-houses are nearby. They skip the first one they could've gone to, because a young man from one of the farmhouses decides to follow them for a few miles, reining his horse back to keep it out of what he probably thinks is their range. He's alone, and he says nothing, but one young man can easily become a gang of them, so they keep going in hopes his hatred won't outlast his boredom—and eventually he does turn his horse and head back the way they came.
The next lodging-house isn't as nice as the first, but it's not bad, either: a boxy old stucco building that's seen a few Seasons but is sturdy and well kept. Someone's planted rosebushes at every corner and let ivy grow up its walls, which will probably mean its collapse when the next Season comes, but that's not Syenite's problem to worry about. It costs them two Imperial mother-of-pearls for a shared room and stabling for two horses for the night: such a ridiculously obvious gouging that Syenite laughs at the proprietor before she catches herself. (The woman glares back at them.) Fortunately, the Fulcrum understands that orogenes in the field sometimes have to bribe citizens into decent behavior. Syenite and Alabaster have been generously provisioned, with a letter of credit that will allow them to draw additional currency if necessary. So they pay the proprietor's price, and the sight of all that nice white money makes their black uniforms acceptable for at least a little while.
Alabaster's horse has been limping since the push to the node station, so before they settle in they also see a drover and trade for an uninjured animal. What they get is a spirited little mare who gives Alabaster such a skeptical look that Syenite cannot help laughing again. It's a good day. And after a good night's rest in actual beds, they move on.
Allia's main gates are a massive affair, even more ostentatiously large and embellished than those of Yumenes. Metal, though, rather than proper stone, which makes them look like the garish imitation they are. Syen can't understand how the damn things are supposed to actually secure anything, despite the fact that they're fifty feet tall and made of solid plates of bolted chromium steel, with a bit of filigree for decoration. In a Season, the first acid rain will eat those bolts apart, and one good sixer will warp the precision plates out of alignment, making the great huge things impossible to close. Everything about the gates screams that this is a comm with lots of new money and not enough lorists talking to its Leadership caste.
The gate crew seems to consist of only a handful of Strongbacks, all of them wearing the pretty green uniforms of the comm's militia. Most are sitting around reading books, playing cards, or otherwise ignoring the gate's back-and-forth commerce; Syen fights not to curl her lip at such poor discipline. In Yumenes they would be armed, visibly standing guard, and at least making note of every inbound traveler. One of the Strongbacks does do a double take at the sight of their uniforms, but then waves them through with a lingering glance at Alabaster's many-ringed fingers. He doesn't even look at Syen's hands, which leaves her in a very foul mood by the time they finally traverse the town's labyrinthine cobbled streets and reach the governor's mansion.
Allia is the only large city in the entire quartent. Syen can't remember what the other three comms of the quartent are called, or what the nation was called before it became a nominal part of Sanze—some of the old nations reclaimed their names after Sanze loosened control, but the quartent system worked better, so it didn't really matter. She knows it's all farming and fishing country, as backwater as any other coastal region. Despite all this, the governor's mansion is impressively beautiful, with artful Yumenescene architectural details all over it like cornices and windows made of glass and, ah yes, a single decorative balcony overlooking a vast forecourt. Completely unnecessary ornamentation, in other words, which probably has to be repaired after every minor shake. And did they really have to paint the whole building bright yellow? It looks like some kind of giant rectangular fruit.
At the mansion gates they hand off their horses to a stablehand and kneel in the forecourt to have their hands soaped and washed by a household Resistant servant, which is a local tradition to reduce the chance of spreading disease to the comm's Leadership. After that, a very tall woman, almost as black-skinned as Alabaster and dressed in a white variation on the militia's uniform, comes to the court and gestures curtly for them to follow. She leads them through the mansion and into a small parlor, where she closes the door and moves to sit at the room's desk.
"It took you both long enough to get here," she says by way of greeting, looking at something on her desk as she gestures peremptorily for them to sit. They take the chairs on the other side of the desk, Alabaster crossing his legs and steepling his fingers with an unreadable expression on his face. "We expected you a week ago. Do you want to proceed to the harbor right way, or can you do it from here?"
Syenite opens her mouth to reply that she'd rather go to the harbor, since she's never shaken a coral ridge before and being closer will help her understand it better. Before she can speak, however, Alabaster says, "I'm sorry; who are you?"
Syenite's mouth snaps shut and she stares at him. He's smiling politely, but there's an edged quality to the smile that immediately puts Syenite on alert. The woman stares at him, too, practically radiating affront.
"My name is Asael Leadership Allia," she says, slowly, as if speaking to a child.
"Alabaster," he replies, touching his own chest and nodding. "My colleague is Syenite. But forgive me; I didn't want just your name. We were told the quartent governor was a man."
That's when Syenite understands, and decides to play along. She doesn't understand why he's decided to do this, but then there's no real way to understand anything he does. The woman doesn't get it; her jaw flexes visibly. "I am deputy governor."
Most quartents have a governor, a lieutenant governor, and a seneschal. Maybe a comm that's trying so hard to outdo the Equatorials needs extra layers of bureaucracy. "How many deputy governors are there?" Syenite asks, and Alabaster makes a "tut" sound.
"We must be polite, Syen," he says. He's still smiling, but he's furious; she can tell because he's flashing too many teeth. "We're only orogenes, after all. And this is a member of the Stillness's most esteemed use-caste. We are merely here to wield powers greater than she can comprehend in order to save her region's economy, while she—" He waggles a finger at the woman, not even trying to hide his sarcasm. "She is a pedantic minor bureaucrat. But I'm sure she's a very important pedantic minor bureaucrat."
The woman isn't pale enough for her skin to betray her, but that's all right: Her rock-stiff posture and flared nostrils are clue enough. She looks from Alabaster to Syenite, but then her gaze swings back to him, which Syen completely understands. Nobody's more irritating than her mentor. She feels a sudden perverse pride.
"There are six deputy governors," she says at last, answering Syenite's question even as she glares shards at Alabaster's smiling face. "And the fact that I am a deputy governor should be irrelevant. The governor is a very busy man, and this is a minor matter. Therefore a minor bureaucrat should be more than sufficient to deal with it. Yes?"
"It is not a minor matter." Alabaster's not smiling anymore, although he's still relaxed, fingers tapping each other. He looks like he's considering getting angry, though Syen knows he's already there. "I can sess the coral obstruction from here. Your harbor's almost unusable; you've probably been losing heavier-hauling merchant vessels to other Coaster comms for a decade, if not longer. You've agreed to pay the Fulcrum such a vast sum—I know it's vast because you're getting me—that you'd better hope the cleared harbor restores all that lost trade, or you'll never pay off the debt before the next tsunami wipes you out. So we? The two of us?" He gestures briefly at Syen, then re-steeples his fingers. "We're your whole rusting future."
The woman is utterly still. Syenite cannot read her expression, but her body is stiff, and she's drawn back ever so slightly. In fear? Maybe. More likely in reaction to Alabaster's verbal darts, which have surely stricken tender flesh.
And he continues. "So the least you could do is first offer us some hospitality, and then introduce us to the man who made us travel several hundred miles to solve your little problem. That's courtesy, yes? That's how officials of note are generally treated. Wouldn't you agree?"
In spite of herself, Syen wants to cheer.
"Very well," the woman manages at last, with palpable brittleness. "I will convey your... request... to the governor." Then she smiles, her teeth a white flash of threat. "I'll be sure to convey your disappointment with our usual protocol regarding guests."
"If this is how you usually treat guests," Alabaster says, glancing around with that perfect arrogance only a lifelong Yumenescene can display to its fullest, "then I think you should convey our disappointment. Really, right to business like this? Not even a cup of safe to refresh us after our long journey?"
"I was told that you had stopped in the outlying districts for the night."
"Yes, and that took the edge off. The accommodations were also... less than optimal." Which is unfair, Syen thinks, since the lodging-house had been warm and its beds comfortable; the proprietor had been scrupulously courteous once she had money in hand. But there's no stopping him. "When was the last time you traveled fifteen hundred miles, Deputy Governor? I assure you, you'll need more than a day's rest to recover."
The woman's nostrils all but flare. Still, she's Leadership; her family must have trained her carefully in how to bend with blows. "My apologies. I did not think."
"No. You didn't." All at once Alabaster rises, and although he keeps the movement smooth and unthreatening, Asael flinches back as if he's about to come at her. Syen gets up, too—belatedly, since Alabaster caught her by surprise—but Asael doesn't even look at her. "We'll stay the night in that inn we passed on the way here," Alabaster says, ignoring the woman's obvious unease. "About two streets over. The one with the stone kirkhusa in front? Can't recall the name."
"Season's End." The woman says it almost softly.
"Yes, that sounds right. Shall I have the bill sent here?"
Asael is breathing hard now, her hands clenched into fists atop the desk. Syen's surprised, because the inn's a perfectly reasonable request, if a bit pricey—ah, but that's the problem, isn't it? This deputy governor has no authorization to pay for their accommodations. If her superiors are annoyed enough about this, they'll take the cost out of her pay.
But Asael Leadership Allia does not drop her polite act and just start shouting at them, as Syen half-expects. "Of course," she says—even managing a smile, for which Syen almost admires her. "Please return tomorrow at this time, and I will further instruct you then."
So they leave, and head down the street to the very fancy inn that Alabaster has secured for them.
As they stand at the window of their room—sharing again, and they're taking care not to order particularly expensive food, so that no one can call their request for accommodation exhorbitant—Syenite examines Alabaster's profile, trying to understand why he still radiates fury like a furnace.
"Bravo," she says. "But was that necessary? I'd rather get the job done and start back as soon as possible."
Alabaster smiles, though the muscles of his jaw flex repeatedly. "I would've thought you'd like being treated like a human being for a change."
"I do. But what difference does it make? Even if you pull rank now, it won't change how they feel about us—"
"No, it won't. And I don't care how they feel. They don't have to rusting like us. What matters is what they do."
That's all well and good for him. Syenite sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, trying for patience. "They'll complain." And Syenite, since this is technically her assignment, will be the one censured for it.
"Let them." He turns away from the window then and heads toward the bathroom. "Call me when the food comes. I'm going to soak until I turn pruney."
Syenite wonders if there is any point in hating a crazy man. It's not like he'll notice, anyway.
Room service arrives, bringing a tray of modest but filling local food. Fish is cheap in most Coaster comms, so Syen has treated herself by ordering a temtyr fillet, which is an expensive delicacy back in Yumenes. They only serve it every once in a while in the Fulcrum eateries. Alabaster comes out of the bathroom in a towel, indeed looking pruney—which is when Syen finally notices how whipcord thin he has become in the past few weeks of traveling. He's muscle and bone, and all he's ordered to eat is a bowl of soup. Granted, it's a big bowl of hearty seafood stew, which someone has garnished with cream and a dollop of some kind of beet chutney, but he clearly needs more.
Syenite has a side dish of garlic yams and carmelized silvabees, in addition to her own meal, on a separate smaller plate. She deposits this on his tray.
Alabaster stares at it, then at her. After a moment his expression softens. "So that's it. You prefer a man with more meat on his bones."
He's joking; they both know she wouldn't enjoy sex with him even if she found him attractive. "Anyone would, yes."
He sighs, then obediently begins eating the yams. In between bites—he doesn't seem hungry, just grimly determined—he says, "I don't feel it anymore."
"What?"
He shrugs, which she thinks is less confusion and more his inability to articulate what he means. "Much of anything, really. Hunger. Pain. When I'm in the earth—" He grimaces. That's the real problem: not his inability to say it, but the fact that words are inadequate to the task. She nods to show that she's understood. Maybe someday someone will create a language for orogenes to use. Maybe such a language has existed, and been forgotten, in the past. "When I'm in the earth, the earth is all I can sess. I don't feel—this." He gestures around the room, at his body, at her. "And I spend so much time in the earth. Can't help it. When I come back, though, it's like... it's like some of the earth comes with me, and..." He trails off. But she thinks she understands. "Apparently this is just something that happens past the seventh or eighth ring. The Fulcrum has me on a strict dietary regimen, but I haven't been following it much."
Syen nods, because that's obvious. She puts her sweetweed bun on his plate, too, and he sighs again. Then he eats everything on his plate.
They go to bed. And later, in the middle of the night, Syenite dreams that she is falling upward through a shaft of wavering light that ripples and refracts around her like dirty water. At the top of the shaft, something shimmers there and away and back again, like it is not quite real, not quite there.
She starts awake, unsure of why she suddenly feels like something is wrong, but certain that she needs to do something about it. She sits up, rubbing her face blearily, and only as the remnants of the dream fade does she become aware of the hovering, looming sense of doom that fills the air around her.
In confusion she looks down at Alabaster—and finds him awake beside her, oddly stiff, his eyes wide and staring and his mouth open. He sounds like he's gargling, or trying to snore and failing pathetically. What the rust? He doesn't look at her, doesn't move, just keeps making that ridiculous noise.
And meanwhile his orogeny gathers, and gathers, and gathers, until the entire inside of her skull aches. She touches his arm, finds it clammy and stiff, and only belately understands that he can't move.
"'Baster?" She leans over him, looking into his eyes. They don't look back at her. Yet she can clearly sess something there, awake and reacting within him. His power flexes as his muscles seem to be unable, and with every gargling breath she feels it spiral higher, curl tighter, ready to snap at any moment. Burning, flaking rust. He can't move, and he's panicking.
"Alabaster!" Orogenes should never, ever panic. Ten-ringer orogenes especially. He can't answer her, of course; she says it mostly to let him know she's here, and she's helping, so hopefully he'll calm down. It's some kind of seizure, maybe. Syenite throws off the covers and rolls onto her knees and puts her fingers into his mouth, trying to pull his tongue down. She finds his mouth full of spit; he's drowning in his own damn drool. This prompts her to turn him roughly onto his side, tilting his head so the spit will run out, and they are both rewarded by the sound of his first clear breath. But it's shallow, that breath, and it takes him far too long to inhale it. He's struggling. Whatever it is that's got him, it's paralyzing his lungs along with everything else.
The room rocks, just a little, and throughout the inn Syenite hears voices rise in alarm. The cries end quickly, however, because nobody's really worried. There's no sess of impending shake. They're probably chalking it up to a strong wind gust against the building's side... for now.
"Shit shit shit—" Syenite crouches to get into his line of sight. "'Baster, you stupid cannibalson ruster—rein it in. I'm going to help you, but I can't do that if you kill us all!"
His face doesn't react, his breathing doesn't change, but that looming sense of doom diminishes almost at once. Better. Good. Now—"I have to go and find a doctor—"
The jolt that shakes the building is sharper this time; she hears dishes rattle and clink on their discarded food cart. So that's a no. "I can't help you! I don't know what this is! You're going to die if—"
His whole body jerks. She isn't sure whether that's something deliberate or some kind of convulsion. But she realizes it was a warning a moment later, when that thing happens again: his power, clamping on to hers like a vise. She grits her teeth and waits for him to use her to do whatever he needs to do... but nothing happens. He has her, and she can feel him doing something. Flailing, sort of. Searching, and finding nothing.
"What?" Syenite peers into his slack face. "What are you looking for?"
No response. But it's obviously something he can't find without moving on his own.
Which makes no sense. Orogenes don't need eyes to do what they do. Infants in the crib can do what they do. But, but—she tries to think. Before, when this happened on the highroad, he had first turned toward the source of distress. She pictures the scene in her mind, trying to understand what he did and how he did it. No, that's not right; the node station had been slightly to the northwest, and he'd stared dead west, at the horizon. Shaking her head at her own foolishness even as she does it, Syenite jumps up and hurries to the window, opening it and peering out. Nothing to see but the sloping streets and stuccoed buildings of the city, quiet at this late hour. The only activity is down the road, where she can glimpse the dock and the ocean beyond: People are loading a ship. The sky is patchy with clouds, nowhere near dawn. She feels like an idiot. And then—
Something clenches in her mind. From the bed behind her she hears Alabaster make a harsh sound, feels the tremor of his power. Something caught his attention. When? When she looked at the sky. Puzzled, she does it again.
There. There. She can almost feel his elation. And then his power folds around her, and she stops seeing with anything like eyes.
It's like the dream she had. She's falling, up, and this somehow makes sense. All around her, the place she's falling through, is color and faceted flickering, like water—except it's purple-pale instead of blue or clear, low-quality amethyst with a dollop of smoky quartz. She flails within it, sure for an instant that she's drowning, but this is something she perceives with sessapinae and not skin or lungs; she can't be flailing because it's not water and she's not really here. And she can't drown because, somehow, Alabaster has her.
Where she flails, he is purposeful. He drags her up, falling faster, searching for something, and she can almost hear the howl of it, feel the drag of forces like pressure and temperature gradually chilling and prickling her skin.
Something engages. Something else shunts open. It's beyond her, too complex to perceive in full. Something pours through somewhere, warms with friction. Someplace inside her smooths out, intensifies. Burns.
And then she is elsewhere, floating amid immense gelid things, and there is something on them, among them
a contaminant
That is not her thought.
And then it's all gone. She snaps back into herself, into the real world of sight and sound and hearing and taste and smell and sess—real sess, sess the way it's supposed to work, not whatever-the-rust Alabaster just did—and Alabaster is vomiting on the bed.
Revolted, Syen jerks away, then remembers that he's paralyzed; he shouldn't be able to move at all, let alone vomit. Nevertheless, he's doing it, having half-pushed himself up off the bed so that he can heave effectively. Obviously the paralysis has eased.
He doesn't throw up much, just a teaspoon or two of greasy-looking white-clear stuff. They ate hours ago; there shouldn't be anything in his upper digestive tract at all. But she remembers
a contaminant
and realizes belatedly what's come out of him. And further, she realizes how he's done it.
When he finally gets it all up, and spits a few times for emphasis or good measure, he flops back onto the bed on his back, breathing hard, or maybe just enjoying the sensation of being able to breathe at will.
Syenite whispers, "What in the rusted burning Earth did you just do?"
He laughs a little, opening his eyes to roll them toward her. She can tell it's another of those laughs he does when he really wants to express something other than humor. Misery this time, or maybe weary resignation. He's always bitter. How he shows it is just a matter of degree.
"F-focus," he says, between pants. "Control. Matter of degree."
It's the first lesson of orogeny. Any infant can move a mountain; that's instinct. Only a trained Fulcrum orogene can deliberately, specifically, move a boulder. And only a ten-ringer, apparently, can move the infinitesimal substances floating and darting in the interstices of his blood and nerves.
It should be impossible. She shouldn't believe that he's done this. But she helped him do it, so she can't do anything but believe the impossible.
Evil Earth.
Control. Syenite takes a deep breath to master her nerves. Then she gets up, fetches a glass of water, and brings it over. He's still weak; she has to help him sit up to sip from the glass. He spits out the first mouthful of that, too, onto the floor at her feet. She glares. Then she grabs pillows to prop under his back, helps him into a recline, and pulls the unstained part of the blanket over his legs and lap. That done, she moves to the chair across from the bed, which is big and more than plush enough to sleep in for the night. She's tired of dealing with his bodily fluids.
After Alabaster's caught his breath and regained a little of his strength—she is not uncharitable—she speaks very quietly. "Tell me what the rust you're doing."
He seems unsurprised by the question, and doesn't move from where he's slumped on the pillows, his head lolling back. "Surviving."
"On the highroad. Just now. Explain it."
"I don't know if... I can. Or if I should."
She keeps her temper. She's too scared not to. "What do you mean, if you should?"
He takes a long, slow, deep breath, clearly savoring it. "You don't have... control yet. Not enough. Without that... if you tried to do what I just did... you'd die. But if I tell you how I did it—" He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "You may not be able to stop yourself from trying."
Control over things too small to see. It sounds like a joke. It has to be a joke. "Nobody has that kind of control. Not even ten-ringers." She's heard the stories; they can do amazing things. Not impossible things.
"'They are the gods in chains,'" Alabaster breathes, and she realizes he's falling asleep. Exhausted from fighting for his life—or maybe working miracles is just harder than it seems. "'The tamers of the wild earth, themselves to be bridled and muzzled.'"
"What's that?" He's quoting something.
"Stonelore."
"Bullshit. That's not on any of the Three Tablets."
"Tablet Five."
He's so full of shit. And he's drifting off. Earth, she's going to kill him.
"Alabaster! Answer my rusting question." Silence. Earth damn it. "What is it you keep doing to me?"
He exhales, long and heavily, and she thinks he's out. But he says, "Parallel scaling. Pull a carriage with one animal and it goes only so far. Put two in a line, the one in front tires out first. Yoke them side by side, synchronize them, reduce the friction lost between their movements, and you get more than you would from both animals individually." He sighs again. "That's the theory, anyway."
"And you're what, the yoke?"
She's joking. But he nods.
A yoke. That's worse. He's been treating her like an animal, forcing her to work for him so he won't burn out. "How are you—" She rejects the word how, which assumes possibility where none should exist. "Orogenes can't work together. One torus subsumes another. The greater degree of control takes precedence." It's a lesson they both learned in the grit crucibles.
"Well, then." He's so close to sleep that the words are slurred. "Guess it didn't happen."
She's so furious that she's blind with it for an instant; the world goes white. Orogenes can't afford that kind of rage, so she releases it in words. "Don't give me that shit! I don't want you to ever do that to me again—" But how can she stop him? "Or I'll kill you, do you hear? You have no right!"
"Saved my life." It's almost a mumble, but she hears it, and it stabs her anger in the back. "Thanks."
Because really, can she blame a drowning man for grabbing anyone nearby to save himself?
Or to save thousands of people?
Or to save his son?
He's asleep now, sitting beside the little puddle of ick he threw up. Of course that's on her side of the bed. In disgust, Syen drags her legs up to curl into the plush chair and tries to get comfortable.
Only when she settles does it occur to her what's happened. The core of it, not just the part about Alabaster doing the impossible.
When she was a grit, she did kitchen duty sometimes, and every once in a while they would open a jar of fruit or vegetables that had gone bad. The funky ones, those that had cracked or come partially open, were so foul-smelling that the cooks would have to open windows and set some grits on fanning duty to get the stench out. But far worse, Syen had learned, were the jars that didn't crack. The stuff inside them looked fine; opened, it didn't smell bad. The only warning of danger was a little buckling of the metal lid.
"Kill you deader than swapthrisk bite," the head cook, a grizzled old Resistant, would say as he showed them the suspect jar so they could know what to watch for. "Pure poison. Your muscles lock up and stop working. You can't even breathe. And it's potent. I could kill everybody in the Fulcrum with this one jar." And he would laugh, as if that notion were funny.
Mixed into a bowl of stew, a few drops of that taint would be more than enough to kill one annoying middle-aged rogga.
Could it have been an accident? No reputable cook would use anything from a pucker-lidded jar, but maybe the Season's End Inn hires incompetents. Syenite had placed the order for the food herself, speaking with the child who'd come up to see if they needed anything. Had she specified whose order was whose? She tries to remember what she said. "Fish and yams for me." So they would've been able to guess that the stew was for Alabaster.
Why not dose them both, then, if someone at the inn hates roggas enough to try to kill them? Easy enough to drop some toxic vegetable juice into all the food, not just Alabaster's. Maybe they have, and it just hasn't affected her yet? But she feels fine.
You're being paranoid, she tells herself.
But it's not her imagination that everyone hates her. She's a rogga, after all.
Frustrated, Syen shifts in the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees and trying to make herself sleep. It's a losing game. Her head's too full of questions, and her body's too used to hard ground barely padded by a bedroll. She ends up sitting up for the rest of the night, gazing out the window at a world that has begun to make less and less sense, and wondering what the rust she's supposed to do about it.
But in the morning when she leans out the window to inhale the dew-laden air in a futile attempt to shake herself to alertness, she happens to glance up. There, winking in the dawn light, is a great hovering shard of amethyst. Just an obelisk—one she vaguely remembers seeing the day before, as they were riding into Allia. They're always beautiful, but so are the lingering stars, and she hardly pays attention to either in the normal course of affairs.
She notices this one now, however. Because today, it's a lot closer than it was yesterday.
|
Set a flexible central beam at the heart of all structures. Trust wood, trust stone, but metal rusts.
—Tablet Three, "Structures," verse one
|
You think, maybe, you need to be someone else.
You're not sure who. Previous yous have been stronger and colder, or warmer and weaker; either set of qualities is better suited to getting you through the mess you're in. Right now you're cold and weak, and that helps no one.
You could become someone new, maybe. You've done that before; it's surprisingly easy. A new name, a new focus, then try on the sleeves and slacks of a new personality to find the perfect fit. A few days and you'll feel like you've never been anyone else.
But. Only one you is Nassun's mother. That's what's forestalled you so far, and ultimately it's the deciding factor. At the end of all this, when Jija is dead and it's finally safe to mourn your son... if she still lives, Nassun will need the mother she's known all her life.
So you must stay Essun, and Essun will have to make do with the broken bits of herself that Jija has left behind. You'll jigsaw them together however you can, caulk in the odd bits with willpower wherever they don't quite fit, ignore the occasional sounds of grinding and cracking. As long as nothing important breaks, right? You'll get by. You have no choice. Not as long as one of your children could be alive.
|
You wake to the sounds of battle.
You and the boy have camped at a roadhouse for the night, amid several hundred other people who clearly had the same idea. No one's actually sleeping in the roadhouse—which in this case is little more than a windowless stone-walled shack with a well pump inside—because by unspoken agreement it is neutral territory. And likewise none of the several dozen camps of people arrayed around the roadhouse have made much effort to interact, because by unspoken agreement they are all terrified enough to stab first and ask questions later. The world has changed too quickly and too thoroughly. Stonelore might have tried to prepare everyone for the particulars, but the all-encompassing horror of the Season is still a shock that no one can cope with easily. After all, just a week ago, everything was normal.
You and Hoa settled down and built a fire for the night in a nearby clearing amid the plainsgrass. You have no choice but to split a watch with the child, even though you fear he'll just fall asleep; with this many people around it's too dangerous to be careless. Thieves are the greatest potential problem, since you've got a full runny-sack and the two of you are just a woman and a boy traveling alone. Fire's a danger, too, with all these people who don't know the business end of a matchflint spending the night in a field of dying grass. But you're exhausted. It's only been a week since you were living your own cushy, predictable life, and it's going to take you a while to get back up to traveling condition. So you order the boy to wake you as soon as the peat block burns out. That should've given you four or five hours.
But it's many hours later, almost dawn, when people start screaming on the far side of the makeshift camp. Shouts rise on this side as people around you cry alarm, and you struggle out of the bedroll and to your feet. You're not sure who's screaming. You're not sure why. Doesn't matter. You just grab the runny-sack with one hand and the boy with the other, and turn to run.
He jerks away before you can do so, and grabs his little rag bundle. Then he takes your hand again, his icewhite eyes very wide in the dimness.
Then you—all of you, everyone nearby as well as you and the boy—are running, running, farther into the plains and away from the road because that's the direction the first screams came from, and because thieves or commless or militias or whoever is causing the trouble will probably use the road to leave when they've finished whatever they're doing. In the ashy predawn half-light all the people around you are merely half-real shadows running in parallel. For a time, the boy and the sack and the ground under your feet are the only parts of the world that exist.
A long while later your strength gives out, and you finally stagger to a halt.
"What was that?" Hoa asks. He doesn't sound out of breath at all. The resilience of children. Of course, you didn't run the whole way; you're too flabby and unfit for that. The bottom line was to keep moving, which you did do, walking when you couldn't muster the breath to run.
"I didn't see," you reply. It doesn't really matter what it was, anyway. You rub at a cramp in your side. Dehydration; you take out your canteen to drink. But when you do, you grimace at its near-empty slosh. Of course you didn't take the chance to fill it while you were at the roadhouse. You'd been planning to do that come morning.
"I didn't see, either," says the boy, turning back and craning his neck as if he ought to be able to. "Everything was quiet and then..." He shrugs.
You eye him. "You didn't fall asleep, did you?" You saw the fire before you fled. It was down to a smolder. He should've woken you hours ago.
"No."
You give him the look that has cowed two of your own and several dozen other people's children. He draws back from it, looking confused. "I didn't."
"Why didn't you wake me when the peat burned down?"
"You needed to sleep. I wasn't sleepy."
Damnation. That means he will be sleepy later. Earth eat hardheaded children.
"Does your side hurt?" Hoa steps closer, looking anxious. "Are you hurt?"
"Just a stitch. It'll go away eventually." You look around, though visibility in the ashfall is iffy past twenty feet or so. There's no sign that anyone else is nearby, and you can't hear any other sounds from the area around the roadhouse. There's no sound around you, in fact, but the very soft tipple of ash on the grass. Logically, the other people who were camped around the roadhouse can't be that far away—but you feel completely alone, aside from Hoa. "We're going to have to go back to the roadhouse."
"For your things?"
"Yes. And water." You squint in the direction of the roadhouse, useless as that is when the plain just fades into white-gray haze a short ways off. You can't be sure the next roadhouse will be usable. It might have been taken over by would-be warlords, or destroyed by panicked mobs; it might be malfunctioning.
"You could go back." You turn to the boy, who is sitting down on the grass—and to your surprise, he's got something in his mouth. He didn't have any food before... oh. He knots his rag bundle firmly shut and swallows before speaking again. "To the creek where you made me take a bath."
That's a possibility. The creek vanished underground again not far from where you used it; that's only a day's walk away. But it's a day's walk back the way you came, and...
And nothing. Going back to the stream is the safest option. Your reluctance to do this is stupid and wrong.
But Nassun is somewhere ahead.
"What is he doing to her?" you ask, softly. "He must know what she is, by now."
The boy only watches. If he worries about you, he doesn't let it show on his face.
Well, you're about to give him more reason for concern. "We'll go back to the roadhouse. It's been long enough. Thieves or bandits or whatever would've taken what they wanted by now and moved on."
Unless what they wanted was the roadhouse. Several of the Stillness's oldest comms started as sources of water seized by the strongest group in a given area, and held against all comers until a Season ended. It's the great hope of the commless in such times—that with no comm willing to take them in, they might forge their own. Still, few commless groups are organized enough, sociable enough, strong enough, to do it successfully.
And few have had to contend with an orogene who wanted the water more than they did.
"If they want to keep it," you say, and you mean it, even though this is such a small thing, you just want water, but in that moment every obstacle looms large as a mountain and orogenes eat mountains for breakfast, "they'd better let me have some."
The boy, whom you half-expect to run away screaming after this statement, merely gets to his feet. You purchased clothing for him at the last comm you passed, along with the peat. Now he's got good sturdy walking boots and good thick socks, two full changes of clothing, and a jacket that's remarkably similar to your own. Apart from his bizarre looks, the matching garb makes you look like you're together. That sort of thing sends unspoken messages of organization, shared focus, group membership; it's not much, but every little deterrent helps. Such a formidable pair we are, crazy woman and changeling child.
"Come on," you say, and start walking. He follows.
It's quiet as you approach the roadhouse. You can tell you're close by the disturbances in the meadow: Here's someone's abandoned campsite, with still-smoldering fire; there's someone's torn runny-sack, trailed by supplies grabbed and dropped in flight. There's a ring of pulled grass, campfire coals, and an abandoned bedroll that might've been yours. You scoop it up in passing and roll it up, jabbing it through the straps of your sack to tie properly later. And then, sooner than you were expecting, there is the roadhouse itself.
You think at first there's no one here. You can't hear anything but your own footsteps, and your breath. The boy is mostly silent, but his footsteps are oddly heavy against the asphalt when you step back onto the road. You glance at him, and he seems to realize it. He stops, looking intently at your feet as you keep walking. Watching how you roll from heel to toes, not so much planting a step as peeling your feet off the ground and carefully reapplying them. Then he begins doing the same thing, and if you didn't need to pay attention to your surroundings—if you weren't distracted by the racing of your own heart—you would laugh at the surprise on his little face when his own footfalls become silent. He's almost cute.
But that's when you step into the roadhouse, and realize you're not alone.
First you notice just the pump and the cement casing it's set into; that's really all the roadhouse is, a shelter for the pump. Then you see a woman, who is humming to herself as she pulls away one large canteen and sets another, empty and even larger, in its place beneath the spigot. She bustles around the casing to work the pump mechanism, busy as you please, and only sees you after she's started working the lever again. Then she freezes, and you and she stare at each other.
She's commless. No one who's suffered only recent homelessness would be so filthy. (Except the boy, a part of your mind supplies, but there's a difference between disaster filth and unwashed filth.) This woman's hair is matted, not in clean, well-groomed locks like yours but from sheer neglect; it hangs in moldy, uneven clumps from her head. Her skin isn't just covered in dirt; the dirt is ground in, a permanent fixture. There's iron ore in some of it and it's rusted from the moisture in her skin, tinting the pattern of her pores red. Some of her clothes are fresh—given how much you saw abandoned around the roadhouse, easy to guess where she got those—and the pack at her feet is one of three, each one fat with supplies and dangling an already-filled canteen. But her body odor is so high and ripe that you hope she's taking all that water to use for a bath.
Her eyes flick over you and Hoa, assessing just as quickly and thoroughly, and then after a moment she shrugs a little and finishes pumping, filling the large canteen in two strokes. Then she takes it, caps it, attaches it again to one of the big packs at her feet, and—so deftly that you're a little awed—scoops up all three and scuttles back. "Have at."
You've seen commless before, of course; everyone has. In cities that want cheaper labor than Strongbacks—and where the Strongbacks' union is weak—they live in shantytowns and beg on the streets. Everywhere else, they live in the spaces between comms, forests and the edges of deserts and such, where they survive by hunting game and building encampments out of scraps. The ones who don't want trouble raid fields and silos on the outskirts of comm territories; the ones who like a fight raid small, poorly defended comms and attack travelers along the lesser quartent roads. Quartent governors don't mind a little of this. Keeps everyone sharp, and reminds troublemakers of how they could end up. Too many thefts, though, or too violent an attack and militias get sent out to hunt the commless down.
None of that matters now. "We don't want any trouble," you say. "We're just here for water, same as you."
The woman, who's been looking with curiosity at Hoa, flicks her gaze back to you. "Not like I'm starting any." Rather deliberately she caps another canteen she's filled. "Got more of these to fill, though, so." She jerks her chin at your pack and the canteen dangling from it. "Yours won't take long."
Hers are truly huge. They're also probably heavy as logs. "Are you waiting for others to come?"
"Nope." The woman grins, flashing remarkably good teeth. If she's commless now, she didn't start out that way; those gums haven't known much malnutrition. "Gonna kill me?"
You have to admit, you weren't expecting that.
"She must have someplace nearby," Hoa says. You're pleased to see that he's at the door, looking outward. Still on guard. Smart boy.
"Yep," says the woman, cheerfully unperturbed that they have sussed out her ostensible secret. "Gonna follow me?"
"No," you say, firmly. "We're not interested in you. Leave us be and we'll do the same."
"Solid by me."
You unsling your canteen and edge over to the pump. It's awkward; the thing is meant to be worked by one person while another holds a container.
The woman puts a hand on the pump, silently offering. You nod, and she pumps for you. You drink your fill first, and then there's tense silence while the canteen fills. Nerves make you break it. "You took a big risk coming here. Everyone else is probably coming back soon."
"A few, and not soon. And you took the same big risk."
"True."
"So." The woman nods toward her pile of filled canteens, and belatedly you see—what is that? Atop one of the canteens' mouths is some kind of little contraption made of sticks, twisted leaves, and a piece of crooked wire. It clicks softly as you stare. "Running a test, anyway."
"What?"
She shrugs, eyeing you, and you realize it then: This woman is no more an ordinary commless than you are a still.
"That shake from the north," she says. "It was at least a niner—and that was just what we felt on the surface. It was deep, too." She pauses abruptly, actually cocking her head away from you and frowning, as if she's heard something startling, though there's nothing there but the wall. "Never seen a shake like that. Weird wave pattern to it." Then she focuses on you again, bird-quick. "Probably breached a lot of aquifers. They'll repair themselves over time, of course, but in the short term, no telling what kinds of contaminants might be around here. I mean, this is perfect land for a city, right? Flat, ready access to water, nowhere near a fault. Means there probably was one here, at some point. You know what kinds of nasty things cities leave behind when they die?"
You're staring at her now. Hoa is, too, but he stares at everyone like that. Then the thing in the canteen finishes clicking, and the commless woman bends over to pluck it free. It had been dangling a strip of something—tree bark?—into the water.
"Safe," she proclaims, and then belatedly seems to notice you staring. She frowns a little and holds up the little strip. "It's made from the same plant as safe. You know? The greeting tea? But I treated it with a little something extra, to catch those substances safe doesn't catch."
"There's nothing," you blurt, and then you fall silent, uneasy, when she focuses sharply on you. Now you have to finish. "I mean... there's nothing safe misses that would hurt people." That's the only reason anyone drinks it, because it tastes like boiled ass.
Now the woman looks annoyed. "That's not true. Where the rust did you learn that?" It's something you used to teach in the Tirimo creche, but before you can say this she snaps, "Safe doesn't work as well if it's in a cold solution; everybody knows that. Needs to be room temperature or lukewarm. It also doesn't catch things that kill you in a few months instead of a few minutes. Fat lot of good it'll do you to survive today, only to come down with skinpeel next year!"
"You're a geomest," you blurt. It seems impossible. You've met geomests. They're everything people think orogenes are when they're feeling charitable: arcane, unfathomable, possessed of knowledge no mortal should have, disturbing. No one but a geomest would know so many useless facts, so thoroughly.
"I am not." The woman draws herself up, almost swelling in her fury. "I know better than to pay attention to those fools at the University. I'm not stupid."
You stare again, in utter confusion. Then your canteen overflows and you scramble to find the cap for it. She stops pumping, then tucks the little bark contraption into a pocket among her voluminous skirts and starts to disassemble one of the smaller packs at her feet, her movements brisk and efficient. She pulls free a canteen—the same size as yours—and tosses it aside, then when the small pack's empty, she tosses that aside, too. Your eyes lock on to both items. It would be easier on you if the boy could carry his own supplies.
"You'd better grab, if you're going to," the woman says, and though she's not looking at you, you realize she intentionally set the items out for you. "I'm not staying, and you shouldn't, either."
You edge over to take the canteen and the empty small pack. The woman stands again to help you fill the new canteen before resuming her rummaging through her own stuff. While you tie on your canteen and the bedroll you grabbed earlier, and transfer a few items from your pack into the smaller one for the boy, you say, "Do you know what happened? Who did what?" You gesture vaguely in the direction of the screams that woke you up.
"I doubt it was a 'who,'" the woman says. She tosses away several packets of gone-off food, a child's set of pants that might be big enough for Hoa, and books. Who puts books in a runny-sack? Though the woman glances at the title of each before throwing it aside. "People don't react as quickly as nature to changes like this."
You attach the second canteen to your own pack for now, since you know better than to make Hoa carry too much weight. He's just a boy, and a poorly grown one at that. Since the commless woman clearly doesn't want them, you also pick up the pants from the small pile of discards that's growing beside her. She doesn't seem to care.
You ask, "What, you mean that was some kind of animal attack?"
"Didn't you see the body?"
"Didn't know there was a body. People screamed and started running, so we did, too."
The woman sighs. "That's not unwise, but it does lose you... opportunities." As if to illustrate her point she tosses aside another pack that she's just emptied and stands, shouldering the two that remain. One of them is more worn and obviously comfortable than the other: her own. She's used twine to lash the heavy canteens together so that they nestle against the small of her back, supported by the not-insubstantial curve of her ass, rather than hanging as most canteens do. Abruptly she glowers at you. "Don't follow me."
"Wasn't planning to." The small pack's ready to be given to Hoa. You strap on your own, check to make sure everything's secure and comfy.
"I mean it." She leans forward a little, her whole face almost feral in its fierceness. "You don't know what I'm going back to. I could live in a walled compound with fifty other rusters just like me. We might have tooth-files and a 'juicy stupid people' recipe book."
"Okay, okay." You take a step back, which seems to mollify her. Now she goes from fierce to relaxed, and resumes settling her packs for comfort. You've got what you want, too, so it's time to get out of here. The boy looks pleased by his new pack when you hand it to him; you help him put it on properly. As you do this, the commless woman passes you to leave, and some vestige of your old self makes you say, "Thanks, by the way."
"Anytime," she says airily, heading through the door—and abruptly she stops. She's staring at something. The look on her face makes all the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. Quickly you go to the door as well, to see what she's seeing.
It's a kirkhusa—one of the long-bodied, furry creatures midlatters keep as pets instead of dogs, since dogs are too expensive for anyone except the most ostentatious Equatorials. Kirkhusa look more like big land-bound otters than canines. They're trainable, cheap as anything because they eat only the leaves of low bushes and the insects that grow on them. And they're even cuter than puppies when they're small... but this kirkhusa isn't cute. It's big, a good hundred pounds of healthy, sleek-furred flesh. Someone's loved it dearly, at least until lately: That's a fine leather collar still round its neck. It's growling, and as it slinks out of the grass and up onto the road, you see red blooms in the fur around its mouth and on its clawed, prehensile paws.
That's the problem with kirkhusa, see. The reason everyone can afford them. They eat leaves—until they taste enough ash, which triggers some instinct within them that's normally dormant. Then they change. Everything changes during a Season.
"Shit," you whisper.
The commless woman hisses beside you, and you tense, feeling your awareness descend briefly into the earth. (You drag it back, out of habit. Not around other people. Not unless you have no other choice.) She's moved to the edge of the asphalt, where she was probably about to bolt into the meadow and toward a distant stand of trees. But not far from the road, around the place where people screamed earlier, you see the grass moving violently and hear the soft houghs and squeals of other kirkhusa—how many, you can't tell. They're busy, though. Eating.
This one used to be a pet. Maybe it remembers its human master fondly. Maybe it hesitated when the others attacked, and failed to earn more than a taste of the meat that will be its new staple diet until the Season ends. Now it will go hungry if it doesn't rethink its civilized ways. It pads back and forth on the asphalt, chittering to itself as if in indecision—but it doesn't leave. It's got you and Hoa and the commless woman boxed in while it wrestles with its conscience. Poor, poor thing.
You set your feet and murmur to Hoa—and the woman, if she feels like listening—"Don't move."
But before you can find something harmless to latch on to, a rock inclusion you can shift or a water source you can geyser that will give you an excuse to snatch the warmth from the air and the life from this overgrown squirrel, Hoa glances at you and steps forward.
"I said," you begin, grabbing his shoulder to yank him back—but he doesn't yank. It's like trying to move a rock that's wearing a jacket; your hand just slips off the leather. Underneath it, he doesn't move at all.
The protest dies in your mouth as the boy continues to move forward. He's not simply being disobedient, you realize; there's too much purpose in his posture. You're not sure he even noticed your attempt to stop him.
And then the boy is facing the creature, a few feet away. It's stopped prowling, and stands tensed as if—wait. What? Not as if it's going to attack. It lowers its head and twitches its stubby tail, once, uncertainly. Defensively.
The boy's back is to you. You can't see his face, but all at once his stocky little frame seems less little, and less harmless. He lifts a hand and extends it toward the kirkhusa, as if offering it to sniff. As if it's still a pet.
The kirkhusa attacks.
It's fast. They're quick animals anyway, but you see the twitch of its muscles and then it's five feet closer, its mouth is open, and its teeth have closed around the boy's hand up to the middle of his forearm. And, oh Earth, you can't watch this, a child dying in front of you as Uche did not, how could you let either happen, you are the worst person in the whole world.
But maybe—if you can concentrate, ice the animal and not the boy—you lower your gaze to try to concentrate as the commless woman gasps and the boy's blood splatters the asphalt. Watching Hoa's mauling will make it harder; what matters is saving his life, even if he loses the arm. But then—
Silence falls.
You look up.
The kirkhusa has stopped moving. It's still where it was, teeth locked on Hoa's arm, its eyes wild with... something that is more fear than fury. It's even shaking, faintly. You hear it make the most fleeting of aborted sounds, just a hollow squeal.
Then the kirkhusa's fur starts to move. (What?) You frown, squint, but it's easy to see, close as the beast is. Each individual hair of its fur waggles, seemingly in a different direction all at the same time. Then it shimmers. (What?) Stiffens. All at once you realize that not only are its muscles stiff, but the flesh that covers them is stiff, too. Not just stiff but... solid.
And then you notice: The whole kirkhusa is solid.
What.
You don't understand what you're seeing, so you keep staring, comprehending in pieces. Its eyes have become glass, its claws crystal, its teeth some sort of ocher filament. Where there was movement, now there is stillness; its muscles are rock-hard, and that is not a metaphor. Its fur was just the last part of its body to change, twisting about as the follicles underneath transformed into something else.
You and the commless woman both stare.
Wow.
Really. That's what you're thinking. You've got nothing better. Wow.
That's enough to get you moving, at least. You edge forward until you can see the whole tableau from a better angle, but nothing really changes. The boy still seems fine, although his arm is still halfway down the thing's gullet. The kirkhusa is still pretty damn dead. Well. Pretty, and damn dead.
Hoa glances at you, and all at once you realize how deeply unhappy he looks. Like he's ashamed. Why? He's saved all of your lives, even if the method was... You don't know what this is.
"Did you do this?" you ask him.
He lowers his eyes. "I hadn't meant for you to see this, yet."
Okay. That's... something to think about later. "What did you do?"
He presses his lips shut.
Now he decides to sulk. But then, maybe now's not the time for this conversation, given that his arm is stuck in a glass monster's teeth. The teeth have pierced his skin; there's blood welling and dripping down its no-longer-flesh lower jaw. "Your arm. Let me..." You look around. "Let me find something to break you out."
Hoa seems to remember his arm, belatedly. He glances at you again, plainly not liking that you're watching, but then sighs a little in resignation. And he flexes his arm, before you can warn him not to do anything that might wound him further.
The kirkhusa's head shatters. Great chunks of heavy stone thud to the ground; glittering dust sprays. The boy's arm is bleeding more, but free. He flexes his fingers a little. They're fine. He lowers the arm to his side.
You react to his wound, reaching for his arm because that is something you can comprehend and do something about. But he pulls away quickly, covering the marks with his other hand. "Hoa, let me—"
"I'm fine," he says, quietly. "We should go, though."
The other kirkhusa are still close, though they're busy chewing on some poor fool in the plainsgrass. That meal won't last them forever. Worse, it's only a matter of time before other desperate people make the choice to brave the roadhouse again, hoping the bad things have gone.
One of the bad things is still right here, you think, looking at the kirkhusa's topless lower jaw. You can see the rough nodules on the back of its tongue, now gleaming in crystal. Then you turn to Hoa, who is holding his bloody arm and looking miserable.
It's the misery, finally, that pushes the fear back down inside you, replaces it with something more familiar. Did he do this because he didn't know you could defend yourself? For some other, unfathomable reason? In the end, it doesn't matter. You have no idea what to do with a monster who can turn living things into statuary, but you do know how to handle an unhappy child.
Also, you have a lot of experience with children who are secretly monsters.
So you offer your hand. Hoa looks surprised. He stares at it, then at you, and there is something in his gaze that is entirely human, and grateful for your acceptance in that moment. It makes you feel a little more human, too, amazingly.
He takes your hand. His grip seems no weaker despite his wounds, so you pull him along as you turn south and start walking again. The commless woman wordlessly follows, or maybe she's walking in the same direction, or maybe she just thinks there's strength in numbers. None of you say anything because there's nothing to say.
Behind you, in the meadow, the kirkhusa keep eating.
|
Beware ground on loose rock. Beware hale strangers. Beware sudden silence.
—Tablet One, "On Survival," verse three
|
There's an order to life in the Fulcrum.
Waking comes with dawn. Since that's what Damaya always did back on the farm, this is easy for her. For the other grits—and that's what she is now, an unimportant bit of rock ready to be polished into usefulness, or at least to help grind other, better rocks—waking comes when one of the instructors enters the dormitory and rings a painfully loud bell, which makes them all flinch even if they're already awake. Everyone groans, including Damaya. She likes this. It makes her feel like she's part of something.
They rise and make their beds, folding the top sheets military-style. Then they shuffle into the showers, which are white with electric lights and shining with tile, and which smell of herbal cleaners because the Fulcrum hires Strongbacks and commless from Yumenes' shantytowns to come and clean them. For this and other reasons the showers are wonderful. She's never been able to use hot water every day like this, tons of it just falling from holes in the ceiling like the most perfect rain ever. She tries not to be obvious about it, because some of the other grits are Equatorials and would laugh at her, the bumpkin overwhelmed by the novelty of easy, comfortable cleanliness. But, well, she is.
After that the grits brush their teeth and come back to the dormitory room to dress and groom themselves. Their uniforms are stiff gray fabric pants and tunics with black piping, girls and boys alike. Children whose hair is long and locked or thin enough to be combed and pulled back must do so; children whose hair is ashblow or kinky or short must make sure it's shaped neatly. Then the grits stand in front of their beds, waiting while instructors come in and move down the rows for inspection. They want to make sure the grits are actually clean. The instructors check the beds, too, to make sure no one's peed in theirs or done a shoddy job of folding the corners. Grits who aren't clean are sent back for another shower—this one cold, with the instructor standing there watching to make sure it's done right. (Damaya makes sure she'll never have to do this, because it doesn't sound fun at all.) Grits who haven't dressed and groomed themselves or tended the bed properly are sent to Discipline, where they receive punishments suited to the infraction. Uncombed hair gets cut very short; repeat offenders are shaven bald. Unbrushed teeth merit mouthwashing with soap. Incorrect dress is corrected with five switches across the naked buttocks or back, incorrect bedmaking with ten. The switches do not break the skin—instructors are trained to strike just enough—but they do leave welts, which are probably meant to chafe underneath the stiff fabric of the uniforms.
You are representatives of us all, the instructors say, if any grit dares to protest this treatment. When you're dirty, all orogenes are dirty. When you're lazy, we're all lazy. We hurt you so you'll do the rest of us no harm.
Once Damaya would have protested the unfairness of such judgments. The children of the Fulcrum are all different: different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race's custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she's still starving. (The instructors keep finding food hidden in and around her bed. They make her eat it, all of it, in front of them, even if it makes her sick.) One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her.
But Damaya understands now that the world is not fair. They are orogenes, the Misalems of the world, born cursed and terrible. This is what is necessary to make them safe. Anyway, if she does what she's supposed to, no unexpected things happen. Her bed is always perfect, her teeth clean and white. When she starts to forget what matters, she looks at her right hand, which twinges now and again on cold days, though the bones healed within a few weeks. She remembers the pain, and the lesson that it taught.
After inspection there is breakfast—just a bit of fruit and a piece of sausage in the Sanzed fashion, which they pick up in the dormitory foyer and eat on the way. They walk in small groups to lessons in the various courts of the Fulcrum that the older grits call crucibles, though that's not what they're supposed to be called. (There are many things the grits say to each other that they can never say to the adults. The adults know, but pretend they don't. The world is not fair, and sometimes it makes no sense.)
In the first crucible, which is roofed over, the first hours of the day are spent in chairs with a slateboard and a lecture by one of the Fulcrum's instructors. Sometimes there are oral examinations, with questions peppered at the grits one by one until someone falters. The grit who falters will have to clean the slateboards. Thus do they learn to work calmly under pressure.
"What was the name of the first Old Sanze emperor?"
"A shake in Erta emits push waves at 6:35 and seven seconds, and vibrational waves at 6:37 and twenty-seven seconds. What is the lag time?" This question becomes more complex if it is asked of older grits, going into logarithms and functions.
"Stonelore advises, 'Watch for the center of the circle.' Where is the fallacy in this statement?"
This is the question that lands on Damaya one day, so she stands to answer: "The statement explains how one may estimate the location of an orogene by map," she says. "It is incorrect—oversimplified—because an orogene's region of consumption is not circular, it is toroidal. Many people then fail to understand that the zone of effect extends downward or upward as well, and can be deformed in other three-dimensional ways by a skilled orogene."
Instructor Marcasite nods approval for this explanation, which makes Damaya feel proud. She likes being right. Marcasite continues: "And since stonelore would be harder to remember if it was full of phrases like 'watch for the inverted fulcrum of a conical torus,' we get centers and circles. Accuracy is sacrificed in the name of better poetry."
This makes the class laugh. It's not that funny, but there's a lot of nervous tension on quiz days.
After lectures there is lunch in the big open-air court set aside for that purpose. This court has a roof of oiled canvas strips on slats, which can be rolled shut on rainy days—although Yumenes, which is far inland, rarely has such days. So the grits usually get to sit at long bench-tables under a bright blue sky as they giggle and kick each other and call each other names. There's lots of food to make up for the light breakfast, all of it varied and delicious and rich, though much of it is from distant lands and Damaya does not know what some of it is called. (She eats her share anyway. Muh Dear taught her never to waste food.)
This is Damaya's favorite time of day, even though she is one of the grits who sit alone at an empty table. Many of the other children do this, she has noticed—too many to dismiss them all as those who've failed to make friends. The others have a look to them that she is rapidly learning to recognize—a certain furtiveness of movement, a hesitancy, a tension about the eyes and jawline. Some of them bear the marks of their old lives in a more obvious way. There is a gray-haired western Coaster boy who's missing an arm above the elbow, though he is deft enough at managing without it. A Sanzed girl maybe five years older has the twisting seams of old burn scars all down one side of her face. And then there is another grit even newer than Damaya, whose left hand is in a special leather binding like a glove without fingers, which fastens around the wrist. Damaya recognizes this binding because she wore it herself while her hand healed, during her first few weeks at the Fulcrum.
They do not look at each other much, she and these others who sit off to themselves.
After lunch the grits travel through the Ring Garden in long, silent lines overseen by the instructors so that they will not talk or stare too obviously at the adult orogenes. Damaya does stare, of course, because they're supposed to. It's important that they see what awaits them once they begin earning rings. The garden is a wonder, as are the orogenes themselves: adult and elderly of every conformation, all healthy and beautiful—confident, which makes them beautiful. All are starkly forbidding in their black uniforms and polished boots. Their ringed fingers flick and flash as they gesture freely, or turn the pages of books they don't have to read, or brush back a lover's curling hair from one ear.
What Damaya sees in them is something she does not understand at first, though she wants it with a desperation that surprises and unnerves her. As those first weeks pass into months and she grows familiar with the routine, she begins to understand what it is that the older orogenes display: control. They have mastered their power. No ringed orogene would ice the courtyard just because some boy shoved her. None of these sleek, black-clad professionals would bat so much as an eyelash at either a strong earthshake, or a family's rejection. They know what they are, and they have accepted all that means, and they fear nothing—not the stills, not themselves, not even Old Man Earth.
If to achieve this Damaya must endure a few broken bones, or a few years in a place where no one loves or even likes her, that is a small price to pay.
Thus she pours herself into the afternoon training in Applied Orogeny. In the practice crucibles, which are situated within the innermost ring of the Fulcrum complex, Damaya stands in a row with other grits of a similar level of experience. There, under an instructor's watchful gaze, she learns how to visualize and breathe, and to extend her awareness of the earth at will and not merely in reaction to its movements or her own agitation. She learns to control her agitation, and all the other emotions that can induce the power within her to react to a threat that does not exist. The grits have no fine control at this stage, so none of them are allowed to actually move anything. The instructors can tell, somehow, when they're about to—and because the instructors all have rings, they can pierce any child's developing torus in a way that Damaya does not yet understand, administering a quick, stunning slap of icy cold air as a warning. It is a reminder of the seriousness of the lesson—and it also lends credence to a rumor that the older grits have whispered in the dark after lights out. If you make too many mistakes in the lessons, the instructors ice you.
It will be many years before Damaya understands that when the instructors kill an errant student, it is meant not as a goad, but as a mercy.
After Applied comes dinner and free hour, a time in which they may do what they please, allowed in deference to their youth. The newest grits usually fall into bed early, exhausted by the effort of learning to control invisible, semivoluntary muscles. The older children have better stamina and more energy, so there's laughter and play around the dormitory bunks for a while, until the instructors declare lights-out. The next day, it all begins again.
Thus do six months pass.
|
One of the older grits comes over to Damaya at lunch. The boy is tall and Equatorial, though he doesn't look fully Sanzed. His hair has the ashblow texture, but it's backwater blond in color. He's got the broad shoulders and developing bulk of Strongback, which makes her wary at once. She still sees Zab everywhere.
The boy smiles, though, and there is no menace in his manner as he stops beside the small table she inhabits alone. "Can I sit down?"
She shrugs, because she doesn't want him to but is curious despite herself. He puts down his tray and sits. "I'm Arkete," he says.
"That's not your name," she replies, and his smile falters a little.
"It's the name my parents gave me," he says, more seriously, "and it's the name I intend to keep until they find a way to take it from me. Which they'll never do because, y'know, it's a name. But if you'd rather, I'm officially called Maxixe."
The highest-quality grade of aquamarine, used almost exclusively for art. It suits him; he's a handsome boy despite his obvious Arctic or Antarctic heritage (she doesn't care, but Equatorials do), and that makes him dangerous in the sharp-faceted way that handsome big boys have always been. She decides to call him Maxixe because of this. "What do you want?"
"Wow, you're really working on your popularity." Maxixe starts eating, resting his elbows on the table while he chews. (But he checks to make sure there are no instructors around to chide him on his manners, first.) "You know how these things are supposed to work, right? The good-looking popular guy suddenly shows interest in the mousy girl from the country. Everyone hates her for it, but she starts to gain confidence in herself. Then the guy betrays her and regrets it. It's awful, but afterward she 'finds herself,' realizes she doesn't need him, and maybe there's some other stuff that happens"—he waggles his fingers in the air—"and finally she turns into the most beautiful girl ever because she likes herself. But it won't work at all if you don't stammer and blush and pretend you don't like me."
She's utterly confused by this salad of words. It annoys her so much that she says, "I don't like you."
"Ouch." He pantomimes being stabbed in the heart. In spite of herself, his antics do make Damaya relax a little. This makes him grin, in turn. "Ah, that's better. What, don't you read books? Or didn't you have lorists in whatever midlatter hole you came from?"
She doesn't read books, because she's not very good at reading yet. Her parents taught her enough to get by, and the instructors have assigned her a weekly regimen of additional reading to improve her skills in this area. But she's not about to admit that. "Of course we had lorists. They taught us stonelore and told us how to prepare—"
"Urgh. You had real lorists." The boy shakes his head. "Where I grew up, nobody listened to them except creche teachers and the most boring geomests. What everybody liked instead were the pop lorists—you know, the kind who perform in ampitheaters and bars? Their stories don't teach anything. They're just fun."
Damaya has never heard of this, but maybe it's some Equatorial fad that never made it to the Nomidlats. "But lorists tell stonelore. That's the whole point. If these people don't even do that, shouldn't they be called... I don't know, something else?"
"Maybe." He shrugs and reaches over to steal a piece of cheese from her plate; she's so flustered by the pop lorist thing that she doesn't protest. "The real lorists have been complaining about them to the Yumenescene Leadership, but that's all I know about it. They brought me here two years ago, and I haven't heard anything since." He sighs. "I hope the pop lorists don't go away, though. I like them, even if their stories are a little stupid and predictable. 'Course, their stories are set in real creches, not places like this." His lips twitch down at the corners as he looks around at their surroundings in faint disapproval.
Damaya knows full well what he means, but she wants to know if he'll say. "Places like this?"
His eyes slide sidelong back to hers. Flashing his teeth in a smile that probably charms more people than it alarms, he says, "Oh, you know. Beautiful, wonderful, perfect places full of love and light."
Damaya laughs, then stops herself. Then she's not sure why she did either.
"Yeah." The boy resumes eating with relish. "Took me a while to laugh after I got here, too."
She likes him, a little, after this statement.
He doesn't want anything, she realizes after a time. He makes small talk and eats her food, which is all right since she was mostly finished anyway. He doesn't seem to mind when she calls him Maxixe. She still doesn't trust him, but he just seems to want someone to talk to. Which she can understand.
Eventually he stands and thanks her—"For this scintillating conversation," which was almost entirely one-sided on his part—and then heads off to rejoin his friends. She puts it out of her mind and goes on about her day.
Except. The next day, something changes.
It starts that morning in the shower, when someone bumps into her hard enough to make her drop her washcloth. When she looks around, none of the boys or girls sharing the shower with her look in her direction, or apologize. She chalks it up to an accident.
When she gets out of the shower, however, someone has stolen her shoes. They were with her clothes, which she'd prepared before the shower and laid out on her bed to speed up the process of getting dressed. She always does this, every morning. Now they're gone.
She looks for them methodically, trying to make sure she hasn't forgotten them somewhere even though she knows she hasn't. And when she looks around at the other grits, who are carefully not looking at her as the instructors call inspection and she can do nothing but stand there in her impeccable uniform and bare feet, she knows what's happening.
She fails inspection and is punished with a scrub-brushing, which leaves her soles raw and stinging for the rest of the day inside the new shoes they give her.
This is only the beginning.
That evening at dinner, someone puts something in the juice she is given with her meal. Grits with poor table manners are given kitchen duty, which means they have access to everyone's food. She forgets this, and does not think about the odd taste of the juice until it becomes hard to focus and her head starts hurting. Even then she's not sure what's happening, as she stumbles and lurches on her way back to the dormitory. One of the instructors pulls her aside, frowning at her lack of coordination, and sniffs her breath. "How much have you had to drink?" the man asks.
Damaya frowns, confused at first because she just had a regular-sized glass of juice. The reason it takes her a while to understand is that she's drunk: Someone has slipped alcohol into her juice.
Orogenes aren't supposed to drink. Ever. The power to move mountains plus inebriation equals disaster waiting to happen. The instructor who stopped Damaya is Galena, one of the younger four-ringers, who runs the afternoon orogeny drills. He's merciless in the crucible, but for whatever reason he takes pity on her now. Galena takes her out of lineup and brings her to his own quarters, which are fortunately nearby. There he puts Damaya on a couch and commands her to sleep it off.
In the morning, as Damaya drinks water and winces at the awful taste in her mouth, Galena sits her down and says, "You need to deal with this now. If any of the seniors had caught you—" He shakes his head. It's an offense so severe that there's no standing punishment. It would be terrible; that's all either of them needs to understand.
It doesn't matter why the other grits have decided to bully her. All that matters is that they're doing it, and that these are no harmless pranks. They're trying to get her iced. Galena's right; Damaya's got to deal with this. Now.
She decides she needs an ally.
There's another girl among the loners that she's noticed. Everyone notices this girl; there's something wrong with her. Her orogeny is a precarious, pent thing, a dagger constantly poised to plunge into the earth—and training has only made it worse, because now the knife is sharper. That's not supposed to happen. Selu is her name, and she hasn't yet earned or been given an orogene name, but the other grits call her Crack to be funny, and that is the name that has stuck. She even answers to that name, since she can't seem to stop them from using it.
Everyone's already whispering that she won't make it. Which means she's perfect.
Damaya makes her move on Crack at breakfast the next day. (She drinks only water now, which she has drawn from a nearby fountain. She has to eat the food they serve her, but she inspects it carefully before putting anything in her mouth.) "Hi," she says, setting her tray down.
Crack eyes her. "Really? Things are bad enough that you need me?"
It's a good sign that they can be honest with each other right off. "Yes," Damaya says, and sits since Crack hasn't really objected. "They're messing with you, too, aren't they?" Of course they are. Damaya hasn't seen whatever they're doing, but it only makes sense. There's an order to life in the Fulcrum.
Crack sighs. This makes the room reverberate faintly, or so it feels for an instant. Damaya makes herself not react, because a good partnership should not begin with a display of fear. Crack sees this and relaxes, just a little. The judder of imminent disaster fades.
"Yeah," Crack says, softly. Damaya realizes all of a sudden that Crack is angry, though she keeps her gaze on her plate. It's there in the way she holds her fork too tightly, and the way her expression is too blank. All at once Damaya wonders: Is Crack's control really a problem? Or is it simply that her tormentors have done their best to make her crack? "So what do you want to do about it?"
Damaya outlines her plan. After an initial flinch, Crack realizes she is serious. They finish eating in silence, while Crack thinks it over. At last, Crack says, "I'm in."
The plan is really quite simple. They need to find the head of the serpent, and the best way to do that is to use bait. They decide on Maxixe, because of course Maxixe must be involved. Damaya's troubles began right after his ostensibly friendly overtures. They wait until he's in the shower one morning, laughing with his friends, and then Damaya returns to her bunk. "Where are my shoes?" she asks, loudly.
The other grits look around; some of them groan, all too ready to believe that bullies would be uncreative enough to pull the same trick twice. Jasper, who's only been in the Fulcrum a few months longer than Damaya, scowls. "Nobody took your shoes this time," he says. "They're in your trunk."
"How do you know? Did you take them?" Damaya moves to confront him, and he bristles and meets her in the middle of the room, his shoulders back with affront.
"I didn't take your crap! If they're lost, you lost them."
"I don't lose things." She jabs him in the chest with a finger. He's a Nomidlatter like her, but thin and pale; probably from some comm close to the Arctic. He turns red when he's angry; the other kids make fun of this, but not much, because he teases other kids more loudly. (Good orogeny is deflection, not cessation.) "If you didn't take them, then you know who did." She jabs him again, and he swats her hand away.
"Don't touch me, you stupid little pig. I'll break your rusting finger."
"What is this?"
They all jump and fall silent and turn. In the doorway, ready to begin evening inspection, is Carnelian, one of the few seniors among the instructors. He's a big man, bearded and older and severe, with six rings; they're all afraid of him. In token of which, the grits immediately scramble into their places before the bunks, standing at attention. Damaya, in spite of herself, feels a bit of trepidation—until she catches Crack's eye, and Crack gives her a small nod. The distraction was enough.
"I said, what is this?" Carnelian comes into the room once they're assembled. He focuses on Jasper, who's still apple-red, though probably with fear rather than anger this time. "Is there some problem?"
Jasper glares at Damaya. "Not with me, Instructor."
When Carnelian turns to her, she is ready. "Someone stole my shoes, Instructor."
"Again?" This is a good sign. Last time, Carnelian simply berated her for losing her own shoes and making excuses. "You have proof it was Jasper who stole them?"
Here's the tricky part. She's never been good at lying. "I know it was a boy. They disappeared during the last shower, and all the girls were in there with me. I counted."
Carnelian sighs. "If you're trying to blame someone else for your shortcomings—"
"She's always doing that," says a red-haired eastern Coaster girl.
"She's got a lot of shortcomings," says a boy who looks like he comes from the same comm, if he's not a relative of hers outright. Half the grits snicker.
"Search the boys' chests." Damaya speaks over their laughter. It's something she didn't ask for last time, because she wasn't sure where the shoes would be. This time she is sure. "There wasn't much time to get rid of the shoes. They have to still be here. Look in their chests."
"That's not fair," says one tiny Equatorial boy, who looks barely old enough to be out of the toddlers' creche.
"No, it isn't," says Carnelian, his scowl deepening as he looks at her. "Be very certain before you ask me to violate your fellow trainees' privacy. If you're wrong, we won't go easy on you this time."
She still remembers the sting of brush-scrubbed feet. "I understand, Instructor."
Carnelian sighs. Then he turns to the boys' side of the dormitory room. "Open your trunks, all of you. Let's get this over with."
There's a lot of grumbling as they open their chests, and enough glares that Damaya knows she's made things worse for herself. They all hate her now. Which is fine; if they're going to hate her, she'd rather they do it for a reason. But that might change once this game has played out.
Maxixe opens his chest along with the rest, sighing mortally as he does so, and her shoes are right there on top of the folded uniforms. When Damaya sees his expression change from annoyance to confusion and then mortification, she feels bad. She doesn't like hurting people. But she watches closely, and the instant Maxixe's expression changes to fury, he swings around and glares at someone. She follows his glare, tense, ready—
—to see that he's looking at Jasper. Yes. That was what she expected. He's the one, then.
Jasper, though, has suddenly gone pale. He shakes his head as if trying to throw off Maxixe's accusatory look; it doesn't work.
Instructor Carnelian sees all of this. A muscle in his jaw flexes as he glances toward Damaya again. He looks almost angry with her. But why? He must understand that she has to do this.
"I see," he says, as if responding to her thought. Then he focuses on Maxixe. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Maxixe doesn't protest his innocence. She can see by the slump of his shoulders and the shaking of his fists that he knows there's no point. But he's not going down alone. With his head down, he says, "Jasper took her shoes last time."
"I did not!" Jasper backs away from his bunk and the inspection line, into the middle of the room. He's trembling all over. Even his eyes are trembling; he looks ready to cry. "He's lying, he's just trying to pass this off on someone else—" But when Carnelian turns to Jasper, Jasper flinches and goes still. He almost spits the next words. "She sold them for me. Traded them to one of the cleaning commless in exchange for liquor."
And then he points at Crack.
Damaya inhales, everything inside her going still with shock. Crack?
Crack.
"You rusting cannibalson whore!" Crack clenches her fists. "You let that old pervert feel you up for liquor and a letter, you know full well he wouldn't give it to us just for shoes—"
"It was from my mother!" Jasper's definitely crying now. "I didn't want him to, to, but I couldn't... they wouldn't let me write to her..."
"You liked it," Crack sneers. "I told you I'd tell if you said anything, didn't I? Well, I saw you. He had his fingers in you and you moaned like it felt good, just like the little wannabe Breeder you are, only Breeders have standards—"
This is wrong. This is all wrong. Everyone's staring at each other, at Crack as she rants, at Damaya, at Jasper as he weeps, at Carnelian. The room is full of gasps and murmurings. That feeling is back: the pent, fraught, not-quite-reverberation that is Crack's orogeny unfurling itself, and everyone in the room is twitching with it. Or maybe they're twitching at the words and what they mean, because these aren't things grits should know, or do. Getting in trouble, sure, they're kids and kids do that. Getting in trouble like this, no.
"No!" Jasper wails the word at Crack. "I told you not to tell!" He's sobbing openly now. His mouth works but nothing more comes out that's intelligible, nothing but a low, despairing moan—or maybe it's just a continuation of the word no. Impossible to tell, because everyone else is making noise now, some of them hissing at Crack to shut up, some sniffing with Jasper, some of them giggling nervously at Jasper's tears, some of them stage-whispering at each other for confirmation of things they knew but didn't believe—
"Enough." The room goes silent with Carnelian's quiet command, except for Jasper's soft hitching. After a moment, Carnelian's jaw flexes. "You, you, and you." He points at Maxixe, Jasper, and Crack. "Come with me."
He walks out of the room. The three grits look at each other, and it's a wonder none of them combust from the sheer hatred in these looks. Then Maxixe curses and moves to follow Carnelian. Jasper scrubs a forearm across his face and does the same, his head hanging and fists tight. Crack glares around the room, defiant—until her eyes meet Damaya's. Then Crack flinches.
Damaya stares back, because she's too stunned to look away. And because she is furious with herself. This is what comes of trusting others. Crack was not her friend, wasn't even someone she liked, but she'd thought they could at least help each other. Now she's found the head of the snake that's been trying to eat her, and it's halfway down the gullet of a completely different snake. The result is something too obscene to look at, let alone kill.
"Better you than me," Crack says softly, into the room's silence. Damaya hasn't said anything, hasn't demanded an explanation, but Crack gives one anyway, right there in front of everyone. No one says a word. No one even breathes loudly. "That was the idea. One more slip-up and I'm done for, but you, you're Little Citizen Perfect. Top scores on all the tests, perfect control in Applied, not a wrinkle out of place. The instructors wouldn't really do much to you, not yet. And while they were trying to figure out how their star pupil suddenly went wrong, everyone would stop waiting for me to blow up a mountain. Or trying to make me do it... for a while, anyway." Her smile fades, and she looks away. "That was the idea."
Damaya can't say anything. She can't even think. So after a while Crack shakes her head, sighs, and moves to follow the others after Carnelian.
The room is still. Nobody looks at anybody else.
Then there's a stir at the door as two other instructors come in and begin examining Crack's bunk and trunk. The grits watch as one woman lifts the mattress, and the other ducks under it. There's a brief ripping sound, and the instructor reappears with a big brown flask, half full, in one hand. She opens the flask and sniffs its contents, grimaces, and nods to the other woman. They both leave.
When the echoes of their steps fade, Damaya goes to Maxixe's trunk to retrieve her shoes. She closes the lid; the sound is very loud in the silence. No one moves until she goes back to her own bunk and sits down to put the shoes on.
As if this is a signal, there are several sighs, and some of the others start moving, too—retrieving books for the next lesson, filing off to first crucible, going over to the sideboard where breakfast waits. When Damaya goes to the sideboard herself, another girl glances at her, then away, quickly. "Sorry," she mutters. "I'm the one who pushed you in the shower."
Damaya looks at her and sees lurking fear making the skin around her eyes tight.
"It's okay," she says, softly. "Don't worry about it."
The other grits never give Damaya trouble again. A few days later Maxixe returns with broken hands and haunted eyes; he never speaks to Damaya again. Jasper does not return, but Carnelian tells them he's been sent to the satellite Fulcrum up in Arctic, since the Fulcrum of Yumenes holds too many bad memories for him. This was meant as a kindness, perhaps, but Damaya knows an exile when she sees one.
It could be worse, though. No one ever sees or mentions Crack again.
|
FUNGUS SEASON: 602 Imperial. A series of oceanic eruptions during the eastern Equatorial monsoons increased humidity in the region and obscured sunlight for six months. While this was a mild Season as such things go, its timing created perfect conditions for a fungal bloom that spread across the Equatorials into the northern and southern midlats, wiping out then-staple-crop miroq (now extinct). The resulting famine is included in the official geomestric record, extending the Season's length to four years (two years for the fungus blight to run its course, two more for agriculture and food distribution systems to recover). Nearly all affected comms were able to subsist on their own stores, thus proving the efficacy of Imperial reforms and Seasonal planning. In its aftermath, many comms of the Nomidlats and Somidlats voluntarily joined the Empire, beginning its Golden Age.
—The Seasons of Sanze
|
"My colleague is ill," Syenite tells Asael Leadership Allia as she sits facing the woman across a desk. "He sends his apologies for being unable to assist. I will clear the blockage in your harbor."
"I'm sorry to hear of your senior's illness," says Asael, with a little smile that almost makes Syen's hackles rise. Almost, because she knew it was coming and could thus brace for it. It still rankles.
"But I must ask," Asael continues, looking overly concerned. "Will you be... sufficient?" Her eyes flick down to Syen's fingers, where Syen has taken great care to put her rings on the four fingers a casual observer would be most likely to see. Her hands are folded, with the thumb of that hand tucked out of the way for the moment; let Asael wonder if there's a fifth one there. But when Asael's eyes meet Syen's again, Syen sees only skepticism. She is unimpressed by four rings or even five.
And this is why I will never, ever take a mission with a ten-ringer again. Like she has a choice. She feels better thinking it anyway.
Syenite forces herself to smile, though she doesn't have Alabaster's knack for exaggerated politeness. She knows her smiles just look pissed-off. "In my last mission," she says, "I was responsible for demolishing three buildings out of a block of five. This was in downtown Dibars, an area with several thousand inhabitants on a busy day, and not far from the Seventh University." She uncrosses and recrosses her legs. The geomests had driven her half mad on that mission, constantly demanding reassurances that she wouldn't create a shake any stronger than a 5.0. Sensitive instruments, important calibrations, something like that. "It took five minutes, and no rubble landed outside of the demolition zone. That was before I earned my latest ring." And she'd kept the shake to a fourer, much to the geomests' delight.
"I'm pleased to hear you're so competent," says Asael. There is a pause, which makes Syen brace herself. "With your colleague unable to contribute, however, I see no reason for Allia to pay for the services of two orogenes."
"That's between you and the Fulcrum," Syen says, dismissively. She honestly doesn't care. "I suspect you'll get an argument from them because Alabaster is mentoring me on this trip, and overseeing my work even if he isn't actually doing it."
"But if he isn't here—"
"That's irrelevant." It galls, but Syenite decides to explain. "He wears ten rings. He'll be able to observe what I'm doing, and intervene if necessary, from his hotel room. He could do it while unconscious. Moreover, he's been quelling shakes in this area for the past few days, as we've traveled through it. That's a service he provides as a courtesy to local node maintainers—or to your comm, rather, since such a remote location doesn't have a node station nearby." As Asael's expression tightens into a frown, probably at the perceived insult, Syen spreads her hands. "The biggest difference between him and me is that I'm the one who needs to see what she's doing."
"I... see." Asael sounds deeply uneasy, as she should. Syen knows that it's the job of any Fulcrum orogene to ease the fears of the stills, and here Syen has exacerbated Asael's. But she's begun to develop a nasty suspicion about who in Allia might want Alabaster dead, so it's a good idea for her to dissuade Asael—or whoever Asael knows—from that plan. This pedantic minor bureaucrat has no idea how close her little city came to being flattened last night.
In the uncomfortable silence that falls, Syenite decides it's time she asks some questions of her own. And maybe stirs the shit a little, to see what rises to the top. "I see that the governor wasn't able to make it, today."
"Yes." Asael's face goes gameswoman-blank, all polite smile and empty eyes. "I did convey your colleague's request. Unfortunately, the governor was unable to make time in his schedule."
"That's a shame." And then, because Syenite is beginning to understand why Alabaster is such an ass about this, she folds her hands. "Unfortunately, it wasn't a request. Do you have a telegraph here? I'd like to send a message to the Fulcrum, let them know we'll be delayed."
Asael's eyes narrow, because of course they have a telegraph, and of course Syenite meant that as another dig. "Delayed."
"Well, yes." Syen raises her eyebrows. She knows she's not doing a good job of looking innocent, but she tries, at least. "How long do you think it will be before the governor is able to meet with us? The Fulcrum will want to know." And she stands, as if to leave.
Asael tilts her head, but Syenite can see the tension in her shoulders. "I thought you were more reasonable than your colleague. You're actually going to walk out of here, and not clear our harbor, in a fit of pique."
"It isn't a fit of pique." Now Syen's mad for real. Now she gets it. She looks down at Asael, who sits there, smug and secure in her big chair behind her big desk, and it's an actual fight to keep her fists from clenching, her jaw muscles from flexing. "Would you tolerate this treatment, in our position?"
"Of course I would!" Asael straightens, surprised into an actual reaction for once. "The governor has no time for—"
"No, you wouldn't tolerate it. Because if you were in my position, you'd be the representative of an independent and powerful organization, not some two-quartz backwater flunky. You would expect to be treated like a skilled expert who's been learning her craft since childhood. Like someone who plies an important and difficult trade, and who's come to perform a task that dictates your comm's livelihood."
Asael is staring at her. Syenite pauses, takes a deep breath. She must stay polite, and wield that politeness like a finely knapped glassknife. She must be cold and calm in her anger, lest a lack of self-control be dismissed as the mark of monstrosity. Once the heat behind her eyes has eased, she steps forward.
"And yet you haven't shaken our hands, Asael Leader. You didn't look us in the eye when we first met. You still haven't offered that cup of safe that Alabaster suggested yesterday. Would you do that to a decreed 'mest from the Seventh University? Would you do it to a master geneer, come to repair the comm's hydro? Would you do it to a representative of the Strongbacks' Union for your own comm?"
Asael actually flinches as the analogies finally get through to her. Syenite waits in silence, letting it gather pressure. Finally Asael says, "I see."
"Maybe you do." She keeps waiting, and Asael sighs.
"What do you want? An apology? Then I apologize. You must remember, though, that most normal people have never seen an orogene, let alone had to do business with one, and—" She spreads her hands. "Isn't it understandable that we might be... uncomfortable?"
"Discomfort is understandable. It's the rudeness that isn't." Rust this. This woman doesn't deserve the effort of her explanation. Syen decides to save that for someone who matters. "And that's a really shitty apology. 'I'm sorry you're so abnormal that I can't manage to treat you like a human being.'"
"You're a rogga," Asael snaps, and then has the gall to look surprised at herself.
"Well." Syenite makes herself smile. "At least that's out in the open." She shakes her head and turns toward the door. "I'll come back tomorrow. Maybe you'll have had time to check the governor's schedule by then."
"You are under contract," Asael says, her voice tight enough to quaver. "You are required to perform the service for which we have paid your organization."
"And we will." Syenite reaches the door and stops with her hand on the handle, shrugging. "But the contract doesn't specify how long we have, upon arrival, to get it done." She's bluffing. She has no idea what's in the contract. But she's willing to bet Asael doesn't, either; a deputy governor doesn't sound important enough to know that sort of thing. "Thanks for the stay at the Season's End, by the way. The beds are very comfortable. And the food's delicious."
That, of course, does it. Asael stands as well. "Stay here. I'll go and speak with the governor."
So Syen smiles pleasantly, and sits back down to wait. Asael leaves the room, and stays gone for long enough that Syen starts to doze off. She recovers when the door opens again, and another Coaster woman, elderly and portly, comes in with a chastened-looking Asael. The governor's a man. Syenite sighs inwardly and braces herself for more weaponized politeness.
"Syenite Orogene," the woman says, and despite her rising ire Syenite is impressed by the gravity of her presence. The "orogene" after Syen's name isn't necessary, of course, but it's a nice bit of much-needed courtesy—so Syen rises, and the woman immediately steps forward and offers a hand for her to shake. Her skin is cool and dry and harder than Syenite expected. No calluses, just hands that have done their share of everyday labor. "My name is Heresmith Leadership Allia. I'm the lieutenant governor. The governor genuinely is too busy to meet with you today, but I've cleared enough time on my schedule, and I hope my greeting will be sufficient... especially as it comes with an apology for your poor treatment thus far. I can assure you that Asael will be censured for her behavior, to remind her that it's always good leadership to treat others—all others—with courtesy."
Well. The woman could be just playing a politician's game, or she could be lying about being the lieutenant governor; maybe Asael's found a very well-dressed janitor to play the part. Still, it's an effort at compromise, and Syen will take it.
"Thank you," she says, with genuine gratitude. "I'll convey your apology to my colleague Alabaster."
"Good. Please also tell him that Allia will pay your expenses, per our agreed-upon contract, for up to three days before and three after your clearing of the harbor." And there's an edge to her smile now, which Syenite knows she probably deserves. This woman, it seems, actually has read the contract.
Doesn't matter, though. "I appreciate the clarification."
"Is there anything else you need during your stay? Asael would be happy to provide a tour of the city, for example."
Damn. Syen likes this woman. She stifles the urge to smile and glances at Asael, who's managed to compose herself by this point; she gazes impassively back at Syenite. And Syen's tempted to do what Alabaster probably would, and take Heresmith up on that tacit offer of Asael's humiliation. But Syenite is tired, and this whole trip's been hellish, and the sooner it's over and she's back home at the Fulcrum, the better.
"No need," she says, and does Asael's face twitch a little in suppressed relief? "I'd actually like to get a look at the harbor, if I may, so that I can assess the problem."
"Of course. But surely you'd like refreshment first? At least a cup of safe."
Syenite can't help it now. Her lips twitch. "I don't actually like safe, I should probably say."
"No one does." And there's no mistaking the genuine smile on Heresmith's face. "Anything else, then, before we go?"
Now it's Syen's turn to be surprised. "You're coming with us?"
Heresmith's expression grows wry. "Well, our comm's livelihood is dependent on you, after all. It seems only proper."
Oh, yeah. This one's a keeper. "Then please proceed, Heresmith Leader." Syenite gestures toward the door, and they all head out.
|
The harbor's wrong.
They're standing on a kind of boardwalk along the western curve of the harbor's half circle. From there most of Allia can be seen, spreading up the caldera slopes that surround the waterfront. The city really is quite lovely. It's a beautiful day, bright and warm, with a sky so deep and clear that Syenite thinks the stargazing at night should be amazing. Yet it's what she can't see—under the water, along the harbor bottom—that makes her skin crawl.
"That's not coral," she says.
Heresmith and Asael turn to her, both of them looking puzzled. "Pardon?" asks Heresmith.
Syenite moves away from them, going to the railing and extending her hands. She doesn't need to gesture; she just wants them to know she's doing something. A Fulcrum orogene always reassures clients of their awareness and understanding of the situation, even when those clients have no actual idea what's going on. "The harbor floor. The top layer is coral." She thinks. She's never felt coral before, but it feels like what she expected: layers of wriggling bright life that she can pull from, if she needs to, to fuel her orogeny; and a solid core of ancient calcified death. But the coral heap sits atop a humped ridge in the floor of the harbor, and although it feels natural—there are usually folds like this in places where land meets sea, she's read—Syenite can tell it's not.
It's absolutely straight, for one thing. And huge; the ridge spans the width of the harbor. But more importantly, it isn't there.
The rock beneath the raised layers of silt and sand, that is: She can't feel it. She should be able to, if it's pushing up the seafloor like this. She can feel the weight of the water atop it, and the rock deformed by its weight and pressure underneath, and the strata around it, but not the actual obstruction itself. There might as well be a big empty hole on the bottom of the harbor... around which the entire harbor floor has shaped itself.
Syenite frowns. Her fingers spread and twitch, following the flow and curve of the sesuna. Soft slither of loose schist and sand and organic matter, cool press of solid bedrock, flow and dip. As she follows it, she belatedly remembers to narrate her explorations. "There's something beneath the coral, buried in the ocean floor. Not far down. The rock underneath is compressed; it must be heavy..." But why can't she feel it, if so? Why can she detect the obstruction only by its effect on everything nearby? "It's strange."
"Is it relevant?" That's Asael, maybe trying to sound professional and intelligent in order to get back into Heresmith's good graces. "All we need is for the coral blockage to be destroyed."
"Yes, but the coral's on top of it." She searches for the coral and finds it all around the edges of the harbor; a theory forms. "That's why this is the only place in the deep part of the harbor that's blocked by coral. It's growing on top of the thing, where the ocean floor has effectively been raised. Coral's a thing of the shallows, but it can get plenty of sun-warmed water, along this ridge."
"Rusting Earth. Does that mean the coral will just grow back?" That's one of the men who came with Asael and Heresmith. They're a bunch of clerks, as far as Syenite can tell, and she keeps forgetting they're present until they speak. "The whole point of this is to clear the harbor for good."
Syenite exhales and relaxes her sessapinae, opening her eyes so they'll know she's done. "Eventually, yes," she says, turning to them. "Look, here's what you're dealing with. This is your harbor." She cups her left hand in an approximate circle, two-thirds closed. Allia's harbor is more irregular than this, but they get it, she sees as they step closer to her demonstration. So she lays the thumb of her right hand across the open part of the circle, almost but not quite closing it off. "This is the position of the thing. It's slightly elevated at one end"—she wiggles the tip of her thumb—"because there's a natural incline in the substrate. That's where most of the coral is. The waters at the far end of the thing are deeper, and colder." Awkwardly she waggles her hand to indicate the heel of her thumb. "That's the open channel you've been using for port traffic. Unless this coral suddenly starts liking cold dark water, or another variety of coral shows up that does, then that part may never become occluded."
But even as she says this, it occurs to her: Coral builds on itself. New creatures grow on the bones of their predecessors; in time, that will lift even the colder part of the harbor into the zone of optimal growth. And with perfect timing Asael frowns and says, "Except that channel has been closing, slowly but surely, over the years. We have accounts from a few decades ago that say we used to be able to accommodate boats across the middle of the harbor; we can't, anymore."
Underfires. When Syen gets back to the Fulcrum, she's going to tell them to add rock-building marine life to the grit curriculum; ridiculous that it's not something they learn already. "If this comm's been around for many Seasons and you're only just now having this problem, then obviously this isn't the kind of coral that grows quickly."
"Allia is only two Seasons old," says Heresmith, with a pained smile at Syen. That's a respectable achievement in and of itself. In the midlats and arctics, a lot of comms don't last a single Season; the coasts are even more volatile. But of course, Heresmith thinks she's talking to a born-and-bred Yumenescene.
Syenite tries to remember the stuff she didn't sleep through in history creche. The Choking Season is the one that occurred most recently, a little over a hundred years ago; it was mild as Seasons have gone, killing mostly people in the Antarctic, near Mount Akok when it blew. Before that was the Acid Season? Or was it Boiling? She always gets those two mixed up. Whichever one it was, it was two or maybe three hundred years before Choking, and it was a bad one. Right—there were no seaside comms left after that one, so naturally Allia can only be a few decades younger, founded when the waters sweetened and receded and left the coastline habitable again.
"So that coral blocked the harbor over the course of four hundred years or so," Syenite says, thinking aloud. "Maybe with a setback during Choking..." How does coral survive a Fifth Season? She has no idea, but it clearly needs warmth and light to thrive, so it must have died back during that one. "All right, let's say it really grew into a blockage over a hundred years."
"Fire-under-Earth," says another woman, looking horrified. "You mean we might have to do this again in just a century?"
"We will still be paying the Fulcrum in a century," says Heresmith, sighing, and the look she throws Syenite is not resentful, just resigned. "Your superiors charge dearly for your services, I'm afraid."
Syenite resists the urge to shrug. It's true.
They all look at each other, and then they look at her, and by this Syen knows: They're about to ask her to do something stupid.
"That's a very bad idea," she says preemptively, holding up her hands. "Seriously. I've never shifted anything underwater before; that's why I had a senior assigned to me." Fat lot of good he's been. "And more importantly, I don't know what that thing is. It could be a massive gas or oil pocket that will poison your harbor waters for years." It's not. You know this because no oil or gas pocket is as perfectly straight and dense as this thing is, and because you can sess oil and gas. "It could even be the remnant of some especially stupid deadciv that seeded all its harbors with bombs." Oh, that was brilliant. They're staring at her now, horrified. She tries again.
"Commission a study," she says. "Bring in some geomests who study marine floors, maybe some geneers who know something about..." She waggles a hand, guesses wildly. "Ocean currents. Figure out all the positives and negatives. Then call in someone like me." She hopes it won't be her again, specifically. "Orogeny should always be your last resort, not your first."
That's better. They're listening. Two of the ones she doesn't know start murmuring quietly to each other, and Heresmith has a thoughtful look on her face. Asael looks resentful, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. Asael's not very smart.
"I'm afraid we have to consider it," says Heresmith at last, looking so deeply frustrated that Syenite feels sorry for her. "We can't afford another contract with the Fulcrum, and I'm not certain we can afford a study; the Seventh University and Geneer Licensure charge almost as much as the Fulcrum for their services. But most importantly, we can't afford to have the harbor blocked any longer—as you've guessed, we're already losing business to several other Coaster ports that can accommodate the heavier-riding freight vessels. If we lose accessibility altogether, there will be no reason for this comm to continue existing."
"And I'm sympathetic," Syen begins, but then one of the men who've been murmuring in the background scowls at her.
"You're also an agent of the Fulcrum," he says, "and we contracted you to do a job."
Maybe he's not a clerk, then. "I know that. And I'll do it right now, if you want." The coral is nothing, she knows, now that she's sessed it out. She can probably do that without rocking the boats in their moorings too much. "Your harbor can be usable tomorrow, if I get rid of the coral today—"
"But you were hired to clear the harbor," says Asael. "Permanently, not some temporary fix. If the problem has turned out to be bigger than you think, that's no excuse for not finishing the job." Her eyes narrow. "Unless there's some reason you're so reluctant to shift the obstruction."
Syen resists the urge to call Asael one of several names. "I've explained my reasoning, Leader. If it was my intention to cheat you in some way, why would I have told you anything about the obstruction? I would've just cleared the coral and let you figure it out the hard way when the stuff grows back."
That sways some of them, she can see; both of the group's men stop looking so suspicious. Even Asael falters out of her accusatory stance, straightening a little in unease. Heresmith, too, nods and turns to the others.
"I think we'll need to discuss this with the governor," she says, finally. "Present him all the options."
"Respectfully, Leader Heresmith," says one of the other women, frowning, "I don't see another option. We either clear the harbor temporarily, or permanently. Either way we pay the Fulcrum the same amount."
"Or you do nothing," Syenite says. They all turn to stare at her, and she sighs. She's a fool to even mention this; Earth knows what the seniors will do to her if she scuttles this mission. She can't help it, though. These people face the economic destruction of their whole community. It's not a Season, so they can move somewhere else, try to start over. Or they can dissolve, with all the comm's families trying to find places in other communities—
—which should work except for those family members who are poor, or infirm, or elderly. Or those who have uncles or siblings or parents who turned out to be orogenes; nobody will take those. Or if the community they try to join has too many members of their use-caste already. Or.
Rust it.
"If my colleague and I go back now," Syenite continues in spite of everything, "without doing anything, then we'll be in breach of contract. You'll be within your rights to demand your commission fee back, less our expenses for travel and local accommodations." She's looking dead at Asael as she says this; Asael's jaw muscles flex. "Your harbor will still be usable, at least for a few years more. Use that time, and the money you saved, to either study what's happening and figure out what's down there... or move your comm to a better location."
"That's not an option," says Asael, looking horrified. "This is our home."
Syen cannot help thinking of a fusty-smelling blanket.
"Home is people," she says to Asael, softly. Asael blinks. "Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind."
Heresmith sighs. "That's very poetic, Syenite Orogene. But Asael is correct. Moving would mean the loss of our comm's identity, and possibly the fracturing of our population. It would also mean losing everything we've invested in this location." She gestures around, and Syenite understands what she means: You can move people easily, but not buildings. Not infrastructure. These things are wealth, and even outside of a Season, wealth means survival. "And there's no guarantee we won't face worse problems elsewhere. I appreciate your honesty—I do. Really. But, well... better the volcano we know."
Syenite sighs. She tried. "What do you want to do, then?"
"It seems obvious, doesn't it?"
It does. Evil Earth, it does.
"Can you do it?" asks Asael. And maybe she doesn't mean it as a challenge. Maybe she's just anxious, because after all what Syen is talking about here is the fate of the comm Asael's been raised in and trained to guide and protect. And of course, as a Leader-born child, Asael would know nothing of this comm but its potential and welcome. She would never have reason to view her community with distrust or hatred or fear.
Syen doesn't mean to resent her. But she's already in a bad mood, and she's tired because she didn't get much sleep while saving Alabaster from poisoning the night before, and Asael's question assumes that she is less than what she is. It's one time too many, throughout this whole long, awful trip.
"Yes," Syenite snaps, turning and extending her hands. "You should all step back at least ten feet."
There are gasps from the group, murmurs of alarm, and she feels them recede quickly along the unfolding map of her awareness: hot bright jittering points moving out of easy reach. They're still in slightly less easy reach. So's their whole comm, really, a cluster of motion and life all around her, so easy to grasp and devour and use. But they don't need to know that. She's a professional, after all.
So she stabs the fulcrum of her power into the earth in a sharp, deep point so that her torus will be narrow and high rather than wide and deadly. And then she probes around the local substrate again, searching for the nearest fault or perhaps a remnant bit of heat from the extinct volcano that once formed Allia's caldera. The thing in the harbor is heavy, after all; she's going to need more than ambient power to shift it.
But as she searches, something very strange—and very familiar—happens. Her awareness shifts.
Suddenly she's not in the earth anymore. Something pulls her away, and over, and down, and in. And all at once she is lost, flailing about in a space of black constricting cold, and the power that flows into her is not heat or motion or potential but something entirely else.
Something like what she felt last night when Alabaster comandeered her orogeny. But this isn't Alabaster.
And she's still in control, sort of. That is, she can't stop what's happening—she's taken in too much power already; if she tries to let it go, she'll ice half the comm and set off a shake that makes the shape of the harbor academic. But she can use the flood of power. She can steer it, for example, into the rock bed underneath the thing she can't see. She can push up, which lacks finesse and efficiency but gets the rusting job done, and she can feel the enormous blankness that is the object rise in response. If Alabaster's observing from his inn room, he must be impressed.
But where's the power coming from? How am I—
She can realize, belatedly and with some horror, that water moves much like rock in response to a sudden infusion of kinetic energy—but it's much, much faster to react. And she can react herself, faster than she's ever done before because she's brimming with strength, it's practically coming out of her pores and, Earthfire, it feels unbelievably good, it is child's play to stop the massive wave that's building and about to swamp the harbor. She just disippates its force, sending some back out to sea, channeling the rest into soothing the waters as the thing from the ocean floor breaks free of its encumbering sediment—and the coral, which just slides off and shatters—and begins to rise.
But.
But.
The thing isn't doing what she wants it to do. She'd intended to just shunt it to the side of the harbor; that way if the coral grows back, it still won't block the channel. Instead—
—Evil Earth—what the rust—instead—
Instead, it's moving on its own. She can't hold it. When she tries, all the power that she held just trickles away, sucked off somewhere as quickly as it infused her.
Syen falls back into herself then, gasping as she sags against the wooden railing of the boardwalk. Only a few seconds have passed. Her dignity will not allow her to fall to her knees, but the railing's the only thing keeping her up. And then she realizes no one will notice her weakness, because the boards beneath her feet, and the railing she's clinging to, are all rattling in an ominous sort of way.
The shake siren begins wailing, deafeningly loud, from a tower right behind her. People are running on the quays below the boardwalk and the streets around it; if not for the siren, she would probably hear screams. With an effort Syen lifts her head to see Asael, Heresmith, and their party hurrying away from the boardwalk, keeping well away from any buildings, their faces stark with fear. Of course they leave Syenite behind.
But that is not the thing that finally pulls Syen out of self-absorption. What does is a sudden spray of seawater that wafts across the quays like rain, followed by a shadow that darkens this whole side of the harbor. She turns.
There, rising slowly from the water and shedding the remnants of its earthen shell as it begins to hum and turn, is an obelisk.
It's different from the one Syen saw last night. That one, the purple one, she thinks is still a few miles off coast, though she doesn't look that way to confirm its presence. The one before her dominates all her vision, all her thought, because it's rusting huge and it's not even completely out of the water yet. Its color is the deep red of garnets, its shape a hexagonal column with a sharp-pointed, irregular tip. It is completely solid, not shimmering or flickering in the half-real way of most obelisks; it is wider than several ships put end to end. And of course it is long enough, as it continues to rise and turn, to nearly block off the whole harbor. A mile from tip to tip.
But something's wrong with it, which becomes clear as it rises. At the midpoint of the shaft, the clear, crystalline beauty of the thing gives way to cracks. Massive ones, ugly and black-tinged, as if some contaminant from the ocean floor has seeped in during all the centuries that the thing must have lain down there. The jagged, spidering lines spread across the crystal in a radiant pattern. Syenite can feel how the obelisk's hum jitters and stutters here, incomprehensible energies struggling through the place of damage.
And at the center of the radiating cracks, she can see some kind of occlusion. Something small. Syenite squints, leaning harder on the railing as she cranes her neck to follow the rising mote. Then the obelisk turns a little more as if to face her, and all at once her blood ices over as she realizes what she's seeing.
A person. There's someone in the thing, stuck like a bug in amber, limbs splayed and still, hair a frozen spray. She can't make out the face, not quite, but in her imagination the eyes are wide, the mouth open. Screaming.
That's when she realizes she can make out an odd marbling along the figure's skin, black-bruised through the dark red of the shaft. The sunlight flickers and she realizes its hair is clear, or at least translucent enough to be lost in the garnet around it. And there's just something about what she's seeing, something maybe she knows because for a moment she was a part of this obelisk, that's where the power was coming from, something she won't question too deeply because, Evil Earth, she can't take this. The knowledge is there in her mind, impossible to deny no matter how much she might want to. When the reasoning mind is forced to confront the impossible again and again, it has no choice but to adapt.
So she accepts that what she is looking at is a broken obelisk that has lain unknown on the floor of Allia's harbor for Earth knows how long. She accepts that what is trapped at its heart, what has somehow broken this massive, magnificent, arcane thing... is a stone eater.
And it's dead.
|
Father Earth thinks in ages, but he never, ever sleeps. Nor does he forget.
—Tablet Two, "The Incomplete Truth," verse two
|
This is what you are at the vein, this small and petty creature. This is the bedrock of your life. Father Earth is right to despise you, but do not be ashamed. You may be a monster, but you are also great.
|
The commless woman is called Tonkee. That's the only name she gives you: no use name, no comm name. You're sure she is, despite her protestations, a geomest; she admits it—sort of—when you ask her why she's following you. "He's just too damn interesting," Tonkee says, jerking her chin toward Hoa. "If I didn't try to figure him out, my old masters at the uni would hire assassins to hunt me down. Not that they haven't done that already!" She laughs like a horse, all bray and big white teeth. "I'd love a sample of his blood, but fat lot of good that will do me without proper equipment. So I'll settle for observation."
(Hoa looks annoyed at this, and pointedly makes an effort to keep you between himself and Tonkee as you walk.)
"The uni" she referred to, you are certain, is the Seventh University in Dibars—the most famous center of learning for 'mests and lorists in all the Stillness, located in the second-largest city of the Equatorials. And if that prestitious place is where Tonkee trained, rather than at some jumped-up regional creche for adults, or at the knee of some local tinkerer, then she has fallen very far indeed. But you're too polite to say this aloud.
Tonkee does not live in an enclave of cannibals, despite her creative threats. You discover this when she leads you to her home that afternoon. Her home is a cave situated in a vesicle—the ancient fallen-in remains of a solidified lava bubble, this one once as big as a small hill. Now it's a secluded glen in a pocket of forest, with curving columns of gleaming black glass interspersed among the trees. There are all sorts of odd little cavelets tucked into its sides, where smaller bubbles must've nestled against the larger, and Tonkee warns you that some of the ones on the far side of the vesicle are home to forest cats and other animals. Most of them are no threat, normally, but everything changes in a Season, so you're careful to follow Tonkee's lead.
Tonkee's cavern is full of contraptions, books, and junk she's scavenged, amid a lot of actually useful things like lanterns and storecache food. The cavern smells of fragrant resins from the fires she's burned, but it quickly takes on Tonkee's stench once she's in and bustling about. You resign yourself to endure it, though Hoa doesn't seem to notice or maybe care; you envy his stoicism. Fortunately it turns out that Tonkee did indeed bring all that water with her for a bath. She does this in front of you, shamelessly stripping down and squatting by a wooden basin to scrub at her pits and crotch and the rest. You're a little surprised to notice a penis somewhere amid this process, but, well, not like any comm's going to make her a Breeder. She finishes up by rinsing her clothes and hair with a murky green solution that she claims is antifungal. (You have your doubts.)
Anyway, the place smells much better when she's done, so you spend a remarkably pleasant and cozy night there on your bedroll—she's got spares, but you don't want to risk lice—and even let Hoa curl up against you, though you turn your back to him so he won't cuddle. He does not try.
The next day you resume the journey south, with Tonkee the commless geomest and Hoa the... whatever he is. Because you're pretty sure by now that he's not human. That doesn't bother you; officially speaking, you're not human, either. (Per the Second Yumenescene Lore Council's Declaration on the Rights of the Orogenically Afflicted, a thousand-ish years ago.) What does bother you is that Hoa won't talk about it. You ask about what he did to the kirkhusa and he refuses to answer. You ask him why he won't answer, and he just looks miserable and says, "Because I want you to like me."
It almost makes you feel normal, traveling with these two. The road demands most of your attention, in any case. The ashfall only gets heavier over the next few days, until you finally do pull the masks out of your runny-sack—you have four, fortunately, horribly—and hand them around. It's clumpy ash for now, not the floating haze of death that stonelore warns against, but no sense being incautious. Other people have broken out their masks, too, you see when they materialize out of the grayness, their skin and hair and clothing hardly distinguishable from the ash-painted landscape, their eyes grazing over you and away. The masks make everyone equally unknown and unknowable, which is good. No one pays attention to you or Hoa or Tonkee, not anymore. You're happy to join the indistinct masses.
By the end of a week, the crowds of people traveling along the road have begun to thin into knots and, occasionally, trickles. Everyone who has a comm is hurrying back there, and the thinning crowds mean most of them are finding somewhere to settle in. Now only those journeying farther than usual remain on the road, or people who don't have a home to return to—like the hollow-eyed Equatorials you've seen, many of them sporting terrible burns or injuries that come from falling debris. The Equatorials are a brewing problem, because there's a lot of them on the road even if the injured ones are mostly getting sick with infection and starting to die. (You pass at least one or two people every day who just sit there on the edges of the road, pale or flushed, curled up or shaking, waiting for the end to come.) There's plenty left who seem hale enough, though, and they're commless now. That's always a problem.
You talk to a small group of these folk at the next roadhouse: five women of wildly varied ages and a very young, uncertain-looking man. This lot have removed most of the flowing, uselessly pretty garments that people in the Equatorial cities used to consider fashionable, you notice; somewhere along the way they've stolen or traded for sturdy clothes and proper travel gear. But each of them sports some remnant of the old life: The oldest woman wears a headscarf of frilly, stained blue satin; the youngest has gauzy sleeves poking out from under the heavier, more practical cloth of her tunic; the young man has a sash around his waist that is soft and peach colored and there solely for decoration, as far as you can tell.
Except it's not really decoration. You notice how they look at you when you walk up: a sweep of the eyes, an inspection of your wrists or neck or ankles, a frown as you are found wanting. The impractical cloth has one very practical use: It is the marker of a new tribe in the process of being born. A tribe to which you do not belong.
Not a problem. Yet.
You ask them what happened in the north. You know, but being aware of a geological event and knowing what that event means in the real human sense are two very different things. They tell you, once you've held up your hands and made it clear you offer no (visible) threat.
"I was on my way home from a concert," says one of the younger women, who does not introduce herself but should be—if she is not already—a Breeder. She's what Sanzed women are supposed to look like, tall and strong and bronze and almost offensively healthy, with nice even features and wide hips, all of it crowned with a shock of gray ashblow hair that's almost like a pelt about her shoulders. She jerks her head toward the young man, who lowers his gaze demurely. Just as pretty; probably a Breeder, too, though a bit on the scrawny side. Well, he'll beef up if he's got five women to service for his keep. "He was playing at the improvisation hall on Shemshena Street; this was in Alebid. The music was so beautiful..."
She trails off, and for a moment you see her detach from the here and now. You know Alebid is—was—a mid-sized city comm, known for its art scene. Then she snaps back, because of course she is a good Sanzed girl, and Sanzeds hold little truck with daydreamers.
She continues: "We saw something sort of—tear, off to the north. Along the horizon, I mean. We could see this... red light flare up at one point, then it spread off to the east and west. I couldn't tell how far away, but we could see it reflected on the underside of the clouds." She's drifting again, but remembering something terrible this time, and so her face is hard and grim and angry. That's more socially acceptable than nostalgia. "It spread fast. We were just standing in the street, watching it grow and trying to figure out what we were seeing, and sessing, when the ground started to shake. Then something—a cloud—obscured the red, and we realized it was coming toward us."
It had not been a pyroclastic cloud, you know, or she wouldn't be here talking to you. Just an ash storm, then. Alebid is well south of Yumenes; all they got was the dregs of whatever more northerly comms did. And that's good, because those dregs alone almost broke the much-further-south Tirimo. By rights Alebid should have been pebbles.
An orogene saved this girl, you suspect. Yes, there's a node station near Alebid, or there was.
"Everything was still standing," she says, confirming your guess. "But the ash that followed—no one could breathe. The ash was getting in people's mouths, into their lungs, turning into cement. I tied my blouse around my face; it was made of the same stuff as a mask. That's the only thing that saved me. Us." She glances at her young man, and you realize the scrap around his wrist is part of what used to be a woman's garment, by the color. "It was evening, after a beautiful day. It's not like anybody had their runny-sacks with them."
Silence falls. This time everyone in the group lets it go on, and drifts with her for a moment. The memory's just that bad. You remember, too, that not many Equatorials even have runny-sacks. The nodes have been more than enough to keep the biggest cities safe for centuries.
"So we ran," the woman concludes abruptly, with a sigh. "And we haven't stopped."
You thank them for the information, and leave before they can ask questions in return.
As the days pass, you hear other, similar, stories. And you notice that none of the Equatorials you meet are from Yumenes, or any comms from the same approximate latitude. Alebid is as far north as the survivors run.
Doesn't matter, though. You're not going north. And no matter how much it bothers you—what's happened, what it means—you know better than to dwell too much on it. Your head's crowded enough with ugly memories.
So you and your companions keep going through the gray days and ruddy nights, and all that really concerns you is keeping your canteen filled and your food stores topped up, and replacing your shoes when they start to wear thin. Doing all this is easy, for now, because people are still hoping this will be just a brief Season—a year without a summer, or two, or three. That's how most Seasons go, and comms that remain willing to trade during such times, profiting off others' poor planning, generally come out of it wealthy. You know better—this Season will be much, much longer than anyone could have planned for—but that won't stop you from taking advantage of their misconception.
Now and again you stop at comms you pass on the road, some of them huge and sprawling with granite walls that loom overhead, some of them protected merely by fencewire, sharpened sticks, and poorly armed Strongbacks. The prices are beginning to go strange. One comm will take currency, and you use up nearly all of yours buying Hoa his own bedroll. The next won't take currency at all, but they will take useful tools, and you've got one of Jija's old knapping hammers at the bottom of your bag. That buys you a couple weeks' worth of cachebread and three jars of sweet nut paste.
You share the food out among the three of you, because that's important. Stonelore's full of admonitions against hoarding within a group—and you are a group by now, whether you want to admit it or not. Hoa does his part, staying up most of the night to keep watch; he doesn't sleep much. (Or eat anything. But after a while you try not to notice that, the same way you try not to think about him turning a kirkhusa into stone.) Tonkee doesn't like approaching comms, even though with fresh clothing and no-worse-than-usual body odor she can pass for just another displaced person rather than a commless. So that part's on you. Still, Tonkee helps where she can. When your boots wear out and the comm you've approached won't take anything you offer, Tonkee surprises you by holding out a compass. Compasses are priceless, with the sky clouded over and no visibility through the ashfall. You ought to be able to get ten pairs of boots for it. But the woman doing the comm's trading has you over a barrel and she knows it, so you get only two pairs of boots, one for you and another for Hoa, since his are already starting to look worn. Tonkee, who has her own spare boots dangling from her pack, dismisses the price when you complain about it later. "There are other ways to find our way," she says, and then she stares at you in a way that makes you uneasy.
You don't think she knows you're a rogga. But who can really say, with her?
The miles roll on. The road forks often because there are a lot of big comms in this part of the midlats, and also because the Imperial Road intersects comm roads and cowpaths, rivers and old metal tracks that were used for transportation in some way or another by some ancient deadciv or another. These intersections are why they put Imperial Roads where they do; roads have always been the lifeblood of Old Sanze. Unfortunately that means it's easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going—or if you don't have a compass, or a map, or a sign saying filicidal fathers this way.
The boy is your savior. You're willing to believe that he can somehow sense Nassun because for a while he's better than a compass, pointing unerringly in the direction that you should go whenever you reach a crossroads. For the most part you follow the Imperial Road—this one is Yumenes-Ketteker, though Ketteker's all the way in the Antarctics and you pray you won't have to go that far. At one point Hoa takes you down a comm road that cuts between Imperial segments and probably saves you a lot of time, especially if Jija just stayed on the main roads the whole way. (The shortcut is a problem because the comm that built it is bristling with well-armed Strongbacks who shout and fire crossbow warning shots when they see you. They do not open their gates to trade. You feel their sights on you long after you've passed by.) When the road meanders away from due south, though, Hoa's less certain. When you ask, he says that he knows the direction in which Nassun is traveling, but he cannot sense the specific route she and Jija took. He can only point out the path that's most likely to get you there.
As the weeks pass, he begins to have trouble with even that. You stand with Hoa at one crossroads for a full five minutes while he chews his lip, until finally you ask him what's wrong.
"There are a lot of you in one place now," he says uneasily, and you change the subject quickly because if Tonkee doesn't know what you are, then she will after a conversation like that.
A lot of you, though. People? No, that doesn't make sense. Roggas? Gathering together? That makes even less sense. The Fulcrum died with Yumenes. There are satellite Fulcrums in Arctic—far north, past the now-impassible central latitude of the continent—and Antarctic, but you're months away fom the latter. Any orogenes left on the roads now are people like her, hiding what they are and trying to survive same as the rest. It wouldn't make sense for them to gather into a group; that would increase the chance of discovery.
At the crossroads Hoa picks a path, and you follow, but you can tell by the frown on his face that it's a guess.
"It's nearby," Hoa finally tells you, one night while you're eating cachebread and nut paste and trying not to wish it was something better. You're starting to crave fresh vegetables, but those are going to be in short supply very soon if they aren't already, so you try to ignore the craving. Tonkee is off somewhere, probably shaving. She's run out of something in the past few days, some biomest potion she keeps in her pack and tries not to let you see her drinking even though you don't care, and she's been sprouting beard stubble every few days because of the lack. It's made her irritable.
"The place with all the orogenes," Hoa continues. "I can't find anything past them. They're like... little lights. It's easy to see just one by itself, Nassun, but together they make one very bright light, and she passed close to it or through it. Now I can't—" He seems to grope for the words. There are no words for some things. "I can't, uh—"
"Sess?" you suggest.
He frowns. "No. That isn't what I do."
You decide not to ask what he does.
"I can't... I can't know anything else. The bright light keeps me from focusing on any little light."
"How many"—you leave out the word, in case Tonkee's coming back—"are there?"
"I can't tell. More than one. Less than a town. But more are heading there."
This worries you. They can't all be chasing stolen daughters and murderous husbands. "Why? How do they know to go there?"
"I don't know."
Well, that's helpful.
All you know for sure is that Jija headed south. But "south" covers a lot of territory—more than a third of the continent. Thousands of comms. Tens of thousands of square miles. Where's he going? You don't know. What if he turns east, or west? What if he stops?
There's a notion. "Could they have stopped there? Jija and Nassun, in that place?"
"I don't know. They went that way, though. I didn't lose them until here."
So you wait till Tonkee comes back, and you tell her where you're going. You don't tell her why, and she doesn't ask. You don't tell her what you're going into, either—because, really, you don't know. Maybe someone's trying to build a new Fulcrum. Maybe there was a memo. Regardless, it's good to have a clear destination again.
You ignore the feeling of unease as you start down the road that—hopefully—Nassun traveled.
|
Judge all by their usefulness: the leaders and the hearty, the fecund and the crafty, the wise and the deadly, and a few strong backs to guard them all.
—Tablet One, "On Survival," verse nine
|
Remain at location. Await instructions, reads the telegram from Yumenes.
Syenite offers this to Alabaster wordlessly, and he glances at it and laughs. "Well, well. I'm beginning to think you've just earned yourself another ring, Syenite Orogene. Or a death sentence. I suppose we'll see when we get back."
They're in their room at the Season's End Inn, naked after their usual evening fuck. Syenite gets up, naked and restless and annoyed, to pace around the room's confines. It's a smaller room than the one they had a week ago, since their contract with Allia is now fulfilled and the comm will no longer pay for their boarding.
"When we get back?" She glares at him as she paces. He is completely relaxed, a long-boned positive space against the bed's negative whiteness, in the dim evening light. She cannot help thinking of the garnet obelisk when she looks at him: He is just as should-not-be, just as not-quite-real, just as frustrating. She cannot understand why he's not upset. "What is this 'remain at location' bullshit? Why won't they let us come back?"
He "tsks" at her. "Language! You were such a proper thing back at the Fulcrum. What happened?"
"I met you. Answer the question!"
"Maybe they want to give us a vacation." Alabaster yawns and leans over to take a piece of fruit from the bag on the nightstand. They've been buying their own food for the past week. At least he's eating without being reminded, now. Boredom is good for him. "What does it matter whether we waste our time here, or on the road back to Yumenes, Syen? At least here we can be comfortable. Come back to bed."
She bares her teeth at him. "No."
He sighs. "To rest. We've done our duty for the night. Earthfires, do you want me to leave for a while so you can masturbate? Will that put you in a better mood?"
It would, actually, but she won't admit that to him. She does come back to the bed, finally, for lack of anything better to do. He hands her an orange slice, which she accepts because they're her favorite fruit and they're cheap here. There's a lot to be said for living in a Coaster comm, she's thought more than once since coming here. Mild weather, good food, low cost of living, meeting people from every land and region as they flow through the port for travel and trade. And the ocean is a beautiful, entrancing thing; she has stood at the window and stared out at it for hours. If not for the tendency of Coaster comms to be wiped off the map every few years by tsunami... well.
"I just don't understand," she says, for what feels like the ten thousandth time. 'Baster's probably getting tired of her complaining, but she's got nothing else to do, so he'll have to endure it. "Is this some kind of punishment? Was I not supposed to find a giant floating whatevertherust hidden at the bottom of a harbor during a routine coral-clearing job?" She throws up her hands. "As if anyone could've anticipated that."
"Most likely," Alabaster says, "they want you on hand for whenever the geomests arrive, in case there's more potential business for the Fulcrum in it."
He's said this before, and she knows it's probably true. Geomests have already been converging on the city, in fact—and archaeomests, and lorists, and biomests, and even a few doctors who are concerned about the effect that an obelisk so close will have on Allia's populace. And the charlatans and cranks have come, too, of course: metallorists and astronomests and other junk science practitioners. Anyone with a bit of training or a hobby, from every comm in the quartent and neighboring ones. The only reason Syenite and Alabaster have even gotten a room is that they're the ones who discovered the thing, and because they got in early; otherwise, every inn and lodging-house in the quartent is full to brimming.
No one's really cared about the damn obelisks before now. Then again, no one's ever seen one hovering so close, clearly visible and stuffed with a dead stone eater, above a major population center.
But beyond interviewing Syenite for her perspective on the raising of the obelisk—she's already starting to wince every time a stranger is introduced to her as Somefool Innovator Wherever—the 'mests haven't wanted anything from her. Which is good, since she's not authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Fulcrum. Alabaster might be, but she doesn't want him bargaining with anyone for her services. She doesn't think he'd intentionally sign her up for anything she doesn't want; he's not a complete ass. It's just the principle of the thing.
And worse, she doesn't quite believe Alabaster. The politics of being left here don't make sense. The Fulcrum should want her back in the Equatorials, where she can be interviewed at Seventh by Imperial Scholars, and where the seniors can control how much the 'mests have to pay for access to her. They should want to interview her themselves, and better understand that strange power she's now felt three times, and which she finally understands is somehow coming from obelisks.
(And the Guardians should want to talk to her. They always have their own secrets to keep. It disturbs her most of all that they've shown no interest.)
Alabaster has warned her not to talk about this part of it. No one needs to know that you can connect to the obelisks, he said, the day after the incident. He was still weak then, barely able to get out of bed after his poisoning; turns out he'd been too orogenically exhausted to do anything when she raised the obelisk, despite her boasting to Asael about his long-distance skill. Yet weak as he was, he'd grabbed her hand and gripped it hard to make sure she listened. Tell them you just tried to shift the strata and the thing popped up on its own, like a cork underwater; even our own people will believe that. It's just another deadciv artifact that doesn't make any sense; nobody will question you about it if you don't give them a reason to. So don't talk about it. Not even to me.
Which of course makes her want to talk about it even more. But the one time she tried after 'Baster recovered, he glared at her and said nothing, until she finally took the hint and went to go do something else.
And that pisses her off more than anything else.
"I'm going for a walk," she says finally, and gets to her feet.
"Okay," says Alabaster, stretching and getting up; she hears his joints pop. "I'll go with you."
"I didn't ask for company."
"No, you didn't." He's smiling at her again, but in that hard-edged way she's beginning to hate. "But if you're going out alone, at night, in a strange comm where someone's already tried to kill one of us, then you're rusting well going to have company."
At this, Syenite flinches. "Oh." But that's the other subject they can't talk about, not because Alabaster's forbidden it but because neither of them knows enough to do more than speculate. Syenite wants to believe that the simplest explanation is the most likely: Someone in the kitchen was incompetent. Alabaster has pointed out the flaw in this, however: No one else at the inn, or in the city, has gotten sick. Syenite thinks there might be a simple explanation for this, too—Asael told the kitchen workers to contaminate only Alabaster's food. That's the kind of thing angry Leaders tend to do, at least in all the stories about them, which abound with poisonings and convoluted, indirect viciousness. Syen prefers stories about Resistants overcoming impossible odds, or Breeders saving lives through clever political marriages and strategic reproduction, or Strongbacks tackling their problems with good honest violence.
Alabaster, being Alabaster, seems to think there was more to his near-death brush. And Syenite doesn't want to admit that he might be right.
"Fine, then," she says, and gets dressed.
It's a pleasant evening. The sun's just setting as they walk down a sloping avenue that leads toward the harbor. Their shadows stretch long before them, and the buildings of Allia, which are mostly stuccoed sandy-pale in color, briefly bloom with deeper jewel tones of red and violet and gold. The avenue they're on intersects a meandering side street that ends at a small cove off the harbor's busier area; when they stop here to take in the view, Syen can see a group of the comm's adolescents playing and laughing along the black-sand beach. They are all lean and brown and healthy, and obviously happy. Syen finds herself staring, and wondering if that is what it's like to grow up normal.
Then the obelisk—which is easily visible at the end of the avenue they're standing on, where the thing hovers perhaps ten or fifteen feet above the harbor waters—emits another of the low, barely perceptible pulses that it's been spitting out since Syenite raised it, and that makes her forget about the kids.
"Something's wrong with that thing," Alabaster says, very softly.
Syenite looks at him, annoyed and on the brink of saying, What, now you want to talk about it? when she notices that he's not looking at it. He's scuffing the ground with one foot, his hands in his pockets, appearing—oh. Syen almost laughs. Appearing, for the moment, like a bashful young man who's about to suggest something naughty to his pretty female companion. The facts that he is not young, or bashful, and that it doesn't matter if she's pretty or he's naughty because they're already fucking, aside. A casual observer would not realize he was paying any attention to the obelisk.
Which abruptly makes Syenite realize: No one sesses its pulse but them. The pulse is not a pulse, exactly. It's not brief, or rhythmic; more a momentary throb that she sesses now and again, at random and ominously, like a toothache. But if the other people of the comm had sessed that last one, they wouldn't be laughing and playing and winding down comfortably at the end of a long golden day. They would all be out here watching this massive, looming thing to which Syenite is increasingly beginning to apply the adjective dangerous in her head.
Syen takes a clue from 'Baster and reaches for his arm, cuddling close as if she actually likes him. She keeps her voice to a murmur, even though she has no clue who or what he's trying to conceal the conversation from. There are people out on the street as the city's business day winds down, but nobody's nearby, or paying attention to them for that matter. "I keep waiting for it to rise, like the others."
Because it's hanging far, far too close to the ground, or the water's surface as it were. Every other obelisk Syen has ever seen—including the amethyst that saved Alabaster's life, and which is still drifting a few miles offshore—floats amid the lowest layer of clouds, or higher.
"It's listing to one side, too. Like it's barely able to stay up at all."
What? And she cannot help looking up at it, though 'Baster immediately squeezes her arm to make her look away again. But that brief glimpse was enough to confirm what he said: The obelisk is indeed listing, just a little, its top end tilted toward the south. It must wobble, very slowly, as it turns. The slant is so slight that she wouldn't have noticed it at all if they hadn't been standing on a street surrounded by straight-walled buildings. Now she can't unsee it.
"Let's go this way," she suggests. They've lingered here too long. Alabaster obviously agrees, and they start down the side street to the cove, strolling casually.
"It's why they're keeping us here."
Syen's not paying attention to him when he says this. In spite of herself she's distracted by the beauty of the sunset, and the long, elegant streets of the comm itself. And another couple, passing on the sidewalk; the taller woman nods to them even though both Syen and 'Baster are wearing their black uniforms. It's strange, that little gesture. And nice. Yumenes is a marvel of human achievement, the pinnacle of ingenuity and geneering; if it lasts a dozen Seasons, this paltry little Coaster comm will never even come close to matching it. But in Yumenes, no one would ever have deigned to nod to a rogga, no matter how pleasant the day.
Then Alabaster's last words penetrate her ruminations. "What?"
He keeps his pace easy, matching hers despite his naturally longer gait. "We can't talk in the room. It's risky even to talk out here. But you wanted to know why they're keeping us here, telling us not to come back: That's why. That obelisk is failing."
That much is obvious, but..."What's that got to do with us?"
"You raised it."
She scowls before she remembers to school her expression. "It raised itself. I just moved all the crap that was holding it down, and maybe woke it up." That her mind insists it was sleeping before is not something she's willing to question too deeply.
"And that's more control over an obelisk than anyone has ever managed in nearly three thousand years of Imperial history." 'Baster shrugs a little. "If I were a jumped-up little five-ring pedant reading a telegram about this, it's what I'd think, and it's how I'd react: by trying to control the person who can control that." His eyes flick toward the obelisk. "But it's not the jumped-up pedants at the Fulcrum we have to worry about."
Syen doesn't know what the rust he's on about. It isn't that his words don't ring true; she can completely imagine someone like Feldspar pulling something like this. But why? To reassure the local population, by keeping a ten-ringer on hand? The only people who know 'Baster's here are a bunch of bureaucrats who are probably too busy dealing with the sudden influx of 'mests and tourists to care. To be able to do something, should the obelisk suddenly... do something? That makes no sense. And who else is she supposed to worry about? Unless—
She frowns.
"You said something, earlier." Something about... connecting to an obelisk? What did that mean? "And—and you did something, that night." She throws an uneasy look at him, but he doesn't glare at her this time. He's gazing down at the cove, as if entranced by the view, but his eyes are sharp and serious. He knows what she's talking about. She hesitates a moment more, then says, "You can do something with those things, can't you?" Oh Earth, she's a fool. "You can control them! Does the Fulcrum know that?"
"No. And you don't know it, either." His dark eyes slide to hers for a moment, then away.
"Why are you being so—" It's not even secretive. He's talking to her. But it's as if he suspects someone of listening to them, somehow. "No one could hear us in the room." And she nods pointedly toward a gaggle of children running past, one of them jostling Alabaster and apologizing; the street's narrow. Apologizing. Really.
"You don't know that. The building's main support column is whole-hewn granite, didn't you notice? The foundation looks to be the same. If it sits directly on the bedrock..." His expression grows momentarily uneasy, and then he blanks his face.
"What's that got to do with—" And then she understands. Oh. Oh. But—no, that can't be right. "You're saying someone could hear us through the walls? Through the, the stone itself?" She's never heard of anything like that. It makes sense, of course, because it's how orogeny works; when Syen is anchored in the earth, she can sess not only the stone that her awareness is tied to, but anything that touches it. Even if she can't perceive the thing itself, as with the obelisk. Still, to feel not just tectonic vibrations, but sound? It can't be true. She's never heard of a rogga with that kind of fine sensitivity.
He looks at her directly for a long moment. "I can." When she stares back, he sighs. "I always could. You can, too, probably—it just isn't clear, yet. It's just minute vibrations to you now. Around my eighth or ninth ring is when I started to distinguish patterns amid the vibrations. Details."
She shakes her head. "But you're the only ten-ringer."
"Most of my children have the potential to wear ten rings."
Syenite flinches, suddenly remembering the dead child in the node station near Mehi. Oh. The Fulcrum controls all the node maintainers. What if they have some way to force those poor damaged children to listen, and to spit back what they listen to, like some kind of living telegraph receivers? Is that what he fears? Is the Fulcrum like a spider, perching in Yumenes's heart and using the web of nodes to listen in on every conversation in the Stillness?
But she is distracted from these speculations by something that niggles at the back of her mind. Something Alabaster just said. His damn influence, making her question all the assumptions she's grown up with. Most of my children have the potential to wear ten rings, he'd said, but there are no other ten-ringers in the Fulcrum. Rogga children are sent to the nodes only if they can't control themselves. Aren't they?
Oh.
No.
She decides not to mention this epiphany aloud.
He pats her hand, perhaps playacting again, perhaps really trying to soothe her. Of course he knows, probably better than she, what they've done to his children.
Then he repeats: "The seniors at the Fulcrum aren't who we have to worry about."
Who else could he mean? The seniors are a mess, granted. Syen keeps an eye on their politics, because one day she'll be among them and it's important to understand who holds power and who only looks like they do. There are at least a dozen factions, along with the usual rogues: brown-nosers and idealists and those who would glassknife their own mothers to get ahead. But all at once it occurs to Syenite to consider who they answer to.
The Guardians. Because no one would really trust a group of filthy roggas to manage their own affairs, any more than Shemshena would have trusted Misalem. No one in the Fulcrum talks about the Guardians' politics, probably because no one in the Fulcrum understands them. The Guardians keep their own counsel, and they object to inquiries. Vehemently.
Not for the first time Syenite wonders: To whom do the Guardians answer?
As Syen's considered this, they've reached the cove, and stopped at its railed boardwalk. The avenue ends here, its cobbles vanishing beneath a drift of sand and then the raised wooden walkway. Not far off there's a different sandy beach from the one they saw earlier. Children run up and down the boardwalk's steps, squealing in play, and beyond them Syen can see a gaggle of old women wading nude in the harbor's waters. She notices the man who sits on the railing, a few feet down from where they stand, only because he's shirtless, and because he's looking at them. The former gets her attention for a moment—then she's polite and looks away—because Alabaster's not much to look at and it's been a while since she had sex she actually enjoyed. The latter is something she would ignore, ordinarily, because in Yumenes she gets stared at by strangers all the time.
But.
She's standing at the railing with 'Baster, relaxed and more comfortable than she's been in a while, listening to the children play. It's hard to keep her mind on the cryptic stuff they're discussing. The politics of Yumenes seem so very far from here, mysterious but unimportant, and untouchable. Like an obelisk.
But.
But. She notices, belatedly, that 'Baster has gone stiff beside her. And although his face is turned toward the beach and the children, she can tell that he's not paying attention to them. That is when it finally occurs to her that people in Allia don't stare, not even at a couple of blackjackets out for an evening stroll. Asael aside, most of the people she's met in this comm are too well-mannered for something like that.
So she looks back at the man on the railing. He smiles at her, which is kind of nice. He's older, maybe by ten years or so, and he's got a gorgeous body. Broad shoulders, elegant deltoids under flawless skin, a perfectly tapered waist.
Burgundy pants. And the shirt that hangs over the railing beside him, which he has ostensibly taken off in order to soak up some of the sunlight, is also burgundy. Only belatedly does she notice the peculiar, familiar buzz at the back of her sessapinae that warns of a Guardian's presence.
"Yours?" asks Alabaster.
Syenite licks her lips. "I was hoping he was yours."
"No." And then Alabaster makes a show of stepping forward to rest his hands against the railing, bowing his head as if he means to lean on it and stretch his shoulders. "Don't let him touch you with his bare skin."
This is a whisper; she barely catches it. And then Alabaster straightens and turns to the young man. "Something on your mind, Guardian?"
The Guardian laughs softly and hops down from the railing. He's at least part Coaster, all-over brown and kinky-haired; a bit on the pale side, but aside from this he fits right in among the citizens of Allia. Well. No. He blends in superficially, but there's that indefinable something about him that's in every Guardian Syenite's had the misfortune to interact with. No one in Yumenes ever mistakes a Guardian for an orogene—or for a still, for that matter. There's just something different about them, and everyone notices.
"Yes, actually," the Guardian says. "Alabaster Tenring. Syenite Fourring." That alone makes Syenite grind her teeth. She would prefer the generic Orogene, if she has to be called anything besides her name. Guardians, of course, understand perfectly well the difference between a four-ringer and a ten-ringer. "I am Edki Guardian Warrant. My, but you've both been busy."
"As we should be," says Alabaster, and Syenite cannot help looking at him in surprise. He's tensed in a way she's never seen, the cords of his neck taut, his hands splayed and—ready? ready for what? she does not know why the word ready even occurred to her—at his sides. "We've completed our assignment for the Fulcrum, as you can see."
"Oh, indeed. A fine job." Edki glances off then, almost casually, toward that listing, throbbing accident of an obelisk. Syenite is watching his face, however. She sees the Guardian's smile vanish as if it were never there. That can't be good. "Would that you had done only the job you were told to do, however. Such a willful creature you are, Alabaster."
Syenite scowls. Even here, she is condescended to. "I did this job, Guardian. Is there some problem with my work?"
The Guardian turns to look at her in surprise, and that's when Syenite realizes she's made a mistake. A big one, because his smile doesn't return. "Did you, now?"
Alabaster hisses and—Evil Earth, she feels it when he stabs his awareness into the strata, because it goes so unbelievably deep. The strength of him makes her whole body reverberate, not just her sessapinae. She can't follow it; he's past her range in the span of a breath, easily piercing to the magma even though it's miles down. And his control of all that pure earth energy is perfect. Amazing. He could shift a mountain with this, easily.
But why?
The Guardian smiles, suddenly. "Guardian Leshet sends her regards, Alabaster."
While Syenite is still trying to parse this, and the fact that Alabaster is about to fight a Guardian, Alabaster stiffens all over. "You found her?"
"Of course. We must talk of what you did to her. Soon."
Suddenly—Syenite does not know when he drew it, or where from—there is a black glassknife in his hand. Its blade is wide, but ridiculously short, maybe only two inches in length. Barely enough to be called a knife at all.
What the rust is he going to do with that, pare our nails?
And why is he drawing a weapon on two Imperial Orogenes in the first place? "Guardian," she tries, "maybe there's been some kind of misun—"
The Guardian does something. Syenite blinks, but the tableau is as before: She and Alabaster face Edki on a boardwalk stark with shadows and bloody sunset light, with children and old ladies playing beyond them. But something has changed. She's not sure what, until Alabaster makes a choking sound and lunges at her, knocking her to the ground a few feet away.
How such a skinny man has the weight to throw her, Syenite will never know. She hits the planks hard enough to jar the breath out of herself; through a blur she sees some of the children who had been playing nearby stop and stare. One of them laughs. Then she struggles up, furious, her mouth already opening to curse Alabaster to Earth and back.
But Alabaster is on the ground, too, only a foot or two away. He's lying on his belly, his eyes fixed on her, and—and he's making a strange sound. Not much of one. His mouth's open wide, but the noise that comes out of it is more like the squeak of a child's toy, or a metallorist's air bladder. And he's shivering all over, as if he can't move more than that, which doesn't make sense because nothing's wrong with him. Syen's not sure what to think until, belatedly, she realizes—
—he's screaming.
"Why did you think I would aim at her?" Edki is staring at Alabaster, and Syenite shivers because the look on his face is gleeful, it is delighted, even as Alabaster lies there shuddering helplessly... with the knife that Edki once held now buried in the hollow of Alabaster's shoulder. Syen stares at it, stunned that she missed it before. It stands out starkly even against the black of 'Baster's tunic. "You have always been a fool, Alabaster."
And there is a new glassknife in Edki's hand now. This one is long and viciously narrow: a chillingly familiar poniard.
"Why—" Syenite can't think. Her hands ache as she scrabbles backward along the boardwalk planks, trying to get to her feet and away all at once. Instinctively she reaches for the earth beneath her and that's when she finally realizes what the Guardian has done, because there's nothing in her that can reach. She cannot sess the earth past a few feet below her hands and backside; nothing but sand and salty dirt and earthworms. There is an unpleasant ringing ache in her sessapinae when she tries to reach farther. It's like when she hits her elbow and shuts off all the sensation from there to the tips of her fingers; like that part of her mind has gone to sleep. It's tingling, coming back. But for now, there's nothing there.
She has heard grits whisper of this after lights-out. All Guardians are strange, but this is what makes them what they are: Somehow, they can stop orogeny with a flick of their will. And some of them are especially strange, specialized to be stranger than the rest. Some of them do not have orogene charges and are never allowed near untrained children, because they are dangerous merely by proximity. These Guardians do nothing but track down the most powerful rogue orogenes, and when they find them... well. Syenite never particularly wanted to know what they did, before now, but it seems she's about to find out. Underfires, she's as numb to the earth as the most rust-brained elder. Is this what it's like for stills? Is this all they feel? She has envied their normalcy her whole life, until now.
But. As Edki walks toward her with the poniard ready, there is a tightness around his eyes, a grim set to his mouth, which makes her think of how she feels when she has a bad headache. This is what makes her blurt: "A-are you, ah, all right?" She has no idea why she asks this.
At this, Edki cocks his head; the smile returns to his face, gentle and surprised. "How kind you are. I'm fine, little one. Just fine." But he's still coming at her.
She scrambles backward again, tries to get to her feet again, tries again to reach for power, and fails in all three efforts. Even if she could succeed, though—he's a Guardian. It's her duty to obey. It's her duty to die, if he wills it.
This is not right.
"Please," she says, desperate, wild with it. "Please, we haven't done anything wrong, I don't understand, I don't..."
"You need not understand," he says, with perfect kindness. "You need do only one thing." And then he lunges, aiming the poniard at her chest.
Later she will understand the sequence of events.
Later she will realize everything occurred in the span of a gasp. For now, however, it is slow. The passage of time becomes meaningless. She is aware only of the glassknife, huge and sharp, its facets gleaming in the fading dusk. It seems to come at her gradually, gracefully, drawing out her duty-bound terror.
This has never been right.
She is aware only of the gritty wood beneath her fingers, and the useless pittance of warmth and movement that is all she can sess beneath that. Can't shift much more than a pebble with that.
She is aware of Alabaster, twitching because he is convulsing, how did she not realize this before, he is not in control of his own body, there is something about the glassknife in his shoulder that has rendered him helpless for all his power, and the look on his face is of helpless fear and agony.
She becomes aware that she is angry. Furious. Duty be damned. What this Guardian is doing, what all Guardians do, is not right.
And then—
And then—
And then—
She becomes aware of the obelisk.
(Alabaster, twitching harder, opens his mouth wider, his eyes fixing on hers despite the uncontrollability of the rest of his flesh. The fleeting memory of his warning rings in her mind, though in that instant she cannot recall the words.)
The knife is halfway to her heart. She is very very aware of this.
We are the gods in chains and this is not. Rusting. Right.
So she reaches again, not down but up, not straight but to the side—
No, Alabaster is shaping his mouth to say, through his twitches.
—and the obelisk draws her into its shivering, jittering bloodred light. She is falling up. She is being dragged up, and in. She is completely out of control, oh Father Earth, Alabaster was right, this thing is too much for her—
—and she screams because she has forgotten that this obelisk is broken. It hurts as she grinds across the zone of damage, each of the cracks seaming through her and shattering her and splitting her into pieces, until—
—until she stops, hovering and curled in agony, amid the cracked redness.
It isn't real. It cannot be real. She feels herself also lying on sandy wooden boards with fading sunlight on her skin. She does not feel the Guardian's glassknife, or at least not yet. But she is here, too. And she sees, though sessapinae are not eyes and the "sight" is all in her imagination:
The stone eater at the core of the obelisk floats before her.
It's her first time being close to one. All the books say that stone eaters are neither male nor female, but this one resembles a slender young man formed of white-veined black marble, clothed in smooth robes of iridescent opal. Its—his?—limbs, marbled and polished, splay as if frozen in mid-fall. His head is flung back, his hair loose and curling behind him in a splash of translucence. The cracks spread over his skin and the stiff illusion of his clothing, into him, through him.
Are you all right? she wonders, and she has no idea why she wonders it, even as she herself cracks apart. His flesh is so terribly fissured; she wants to hold her breath, lest she damage him further. But that is irrational, because she isn't here and this isn't real. She is on a street about to die, but this stone eater has been dead for an age of the world.
The stone eater closes his mouth, and opens his eyes, and lowers his head to look at her. "I'm fine," he says. "Thank you for asking."
And then the obelisk shatters.
|
You reach "the place with all the orogenes," and it's not at all what you were expecting. It's abandoned, for one thing. It's not a comm, for another.
Not in any real sense of the word. The road gets wider as you approach, flattening into the land until it vanishes completely near the middle of town. A lot of comms do this, get rid of the road to encourage travelers to stop and trade, but those comms usually have some place to trade in, and you can't see anything here that looks like a storefront or marketplace or even an inn. Worse, it doesn't have a wall. Not a stone pile, not a wire fence, not even a few sharpened sticks jabbed into the ground around the town perimeter. There's nothing to separate this community from the land around it, which is forested and covered in scraggly underbrush that makes perfect cover for an attacking force.
But in addition to the town's apparent abandonment, and lack of a wall, there are other oddities. Lots of them, you notice as you and the others look around. There aren't enough fields, for one. A comm that can hold a few hundred people, as this one seems to be able to do, should have more than the single (stripped bare) hectare of scraggly choya stalks that you noticed on the way in. It should have a bigger pasture than the small plot of dried-out green you see near the town's center. You don't see a storehouse, either, elevated or otherwise. Okay, maybe that's hidden; lots of comms do that. But then you notice that all the buildings are in wildly varied styles: this one tall and city-narrow, that one wide and flat to the ground like something from a warmer climate, yet another that looks to be a sod-covered dome half set into the earth like your old house in Tirimo. There's a reason most comms pick a style and stick to it: Uniformity sends a visual message. It warns potential attackers that the comm's members are equally unified in purpose and the willingness to defend themselves. This comm's visual message is... confused. Uncaring, maybe. Something you can't interpret. Something that makes you more nervous than if the comm had been teeming with hostile people instead.
You and the others proceed warily, slowly, through the empty streets of the town. Tonkee's not even pretending to be at ease. She's got twin glassknives in her hands, stark and black-bladed; you don't know where she's been hiding them although that skirt of hers could conceal an army. Hoa seems calm, but who can really tell what Hoa feels? He seemed calm when he turned a kirkhusa into a statue, too.
You don't pull your knife. If there really are lots of roggas here, there's only one weapon that will save you if they take exception to your presence.
"You sure this is the right place?" you say to Hoa.
Hoa nods emphatically. Which means that there are lots of people here; they're just hiding. But why? And how could they have seen you coming through the ashfall?
"Can't have been gone long," Tonkee mutters. She's staring at a dead garden near one of the houses. It's been picked over by travelers or the former inhabitants, anything edible among its dried stalks gone. "These houses look in good repair. And that garden was healthy until a couple of months ago."
You're momentarily surprised to realize you've been on the road for two months. Two months since Uche. A little less since the ash started to fall.
Then, swiftly, you focus on the here and now. Because after the three of you stop in the middle of town and stand there awhile in confusion, the door of one of the nearby buildings opens, and three women come out on the porch.
The first one you pay attention to has a crossbow in her hands. For a minute that's all you see, same as that last day in Tirimo, but you don't immediately ice her because the crossbow isn't aimed at you. She's just got it leaned against one arm, and although there's a look on her face that warns you she has no problem using it, you also think she won't do it without provocation. Her skin is almost as white as Hoa's, although thankfully her hair is simply yellow and her eyes are a nice normal brown. She's petite, small-boned and poorly fleshed and narrow-hipped in a way that would prompt the average Equatorial to make snide remarks about bad breeding. An Antarctic, probably from a comm too poor to feed its kids well. She's a long way from home.
The one who draws your eye next is nearly her opposite, and quite possibly the most intimidating woman you've ever seen. It has nothing to do with her looks. Those are just Sanzed: the expected pouf of slate-gray hair and the expected deep brown skin and the expected size and visible strength of build. Her eyes are shockingly black—shocking not because black eyes are particularly rare, but because she's wearing smoky gray eyeshadow and dark eyeliner to accentuate them further. Makeup, while the world is ending. You don't know whether to be awed or affronted by that.
And she wields those black-clad eyes like piercing weapons, holding each of your gazes at eyepoint for an instant before finally examining the rest of your gear and clothing. She's not quite as tall as Sanzeds like their women—shorter than you—but she's wearing a thick brown-fur vest that hangs to her ankles. The vest sort of makes her look like a small, yet fashionable, bear. There's something in her face, though, that makes you flinch a little. You're not sure what it is. She's grinning, showing all her teeth; her gaze is steady, neither welcoming nor uneasy. It's the steadiness that you recognize, finally, from seeing it a few times before: confidence. That kind of utter, unflinching embrace of self is common in stills, but you weren't expecting to see it here.
Because she's a rogga, of course. You know your own when you sess it. And she knows you.
"All right," the woman says, putting her hands on her hips. "How many in your party, three? I assume you don't want to be parted."
You sort of stare at her for a breath or two. "Hello," you say at last. "Uh."
"Ykka," she says. You realize it's a name. Then she adds, "Ykka Rogga Castrima. Welcome. And you are?"
You blurt: "Rogga?" You use this word all the time, but hearing it like this, as a use name, emphasizes its vulgarity. Naming yourself rogga is like naming yourself pile of shit. It's a slap in the face. It's a statement—of what, you can't tell.
"That, ah, isn't one of the seven common use names," says Tonkee. Her voice is wry; you think she's trying to make a joke to cover nerves. "Or even one of the five lesser-accepted ones."
"Let's call this one new." Ykka's gaze flickers over each of your companions, assessing, then back to you. "So your friends know what you are."
Startled, you look at Tonkee, who's staring at Ykka the way she stares at Hoa when Hoa isn't hiding behind you—as if Ykka is a fascinating new mystery to maybe get a blood sample from. Tonkee meets your gaze for a moment with such an utter lack of surprise or fear that you realize Ykka's right; she probably figured it out sometime ago.
"Rogga as a use name." Tonkee's thoughtful as she focuses on Ykka again. "So many implications to that one. And Castrima; that's not one of the Imperial Registry-listed Somidlats comm names, either, although I'll admit I might just have forgotten it. There's hundreds, after all. I don't think I have, though; I've got a good memory. This a newcomm?"
Ykka inclines her head, partly in affirmation and partly in ironic acknowledgment of Tonkee's fascination. "Technically. This version of Castrima has been around for maybe fifty years. It isn't really a comm at all, officially—just another lodging stop for people heading along the Yumenes–Mecemera and Yumenes–Ketteker routes. We get more business than most because there are mines in the area."
She pauses then, gazing at Hoa, and for a moment her expression tightens. You look at Hoa, too, puzzled, because granted, he's strange-looking, but you're not sure what he's done to merit that kind of tension from a stranger. That's when you finally notice that Hoa has gone utterly still, and his little face has sharpened from its usual cheerfulness into something taut and angry and almost feral. He's glaring at Ykka like he wants to kill her.
No. Not Ykka. You follow his gaze to the third member of Ykka's party, who's stayed slightly behind the other two till now, and whom you haven't really paid attention to because Ykka's so eye-catching. A tall, slender woman—and then you stop, frowning, because all at once you're not sure about that designation. The female part, sure; her hair is Antarctic-lank and deep red in color, decoratively long, framing features that are finely lined. It's clear she means to be read as a woman, though she's only wearing a long, loose sleeveless gown that should be far too thin for the cooling air.
But her skin. You're staring, it's rude, not the best way to start things off with these people, but you can't help it. Her skin. It's not just smooth, it's... glossy, sort of. Almost polished. She's either got the most amazing complexion you've ever seen, or—or that isn't skin.
The red-haired woman smiles, and the sight of her teeth confirms it even as you shiver to your bones.
Hoa hisses like a cat in reply to that smile. And as he does so, finally, terribly, you see his teeth clearly for the first time. He never eats in front of you, after all. He never shows them when he smiles. They're colored in where hers are transparent, enamel-white as a kind of camouflage—but not so different from the red-haired woman's in shape. Not squared but faceted. Diamondine.
"Evil Earth," mutters Tonkee. You feel that she speaks for the both of you.
Ykka glances sharply at her companion. "No."
The red-haired woman's eyes flick toward Ykka. No other part of her moves, the rest of her body remaining stock-still. Statue-still. "It can be done without harm to you or your companions." Her mouth doesn't move, either. The voice sounds oddly hollow, echoing up from somewhere inside her chest.
"I don't want anything 'done.'" Ykka puts her hands on her hips. "This my place, and you've agreed to abide by my rules. Back off."
The blond woman shifts a little. She doesn't bring the crossbow up, but you think she's ready to do so at a moment's notice. For whatever good that will do. The red-haired woman doesn't move for a moment, and then she closes her mouth to hide those awful diamond teeth. As she does this, you realize several things at once. The first is that she wasn't actually smiling. It was a threat display, like the way a kirkhusa draws back its lips to bare its fangs. The second is that with her mouth closed and that placid expression, she looks far less unnerving.
The third realization you have is that Hoa was making the same threat display. But he relaxes, and closes his mouth, as the red-haired woman eases back.
Ykka exhales. She focuses on you again.
"I think perhaps," she says, "you'd better come inside."
"I'm not sure that's the best idea in the world," Tonkee says to you, pleasantly.
"Neither am I," says the blond woman, glaring at Ykka's head. "You sure about that, Yeek?"
Ykka shrugs, though you think she's not nearly as nonchalant as she seems. "When am I sure about anything? But it seems like a good idea, for now."
You're not sure you agree. Still—strange comm or not, mythical creatures or not, unpleasant surprises or not, you came here for a reason.
"Did a man and a girl come through here?" you ask. "Father and daughter. The man would be about my age, the girl eight—" Two months. You've almost forgotten. "Nine years old. She—" You falter. Stutter. "Sh-she looks like me."
Ykka blinks, and you realize you've genuinely surprised her. Clearly she was braced for entirely different questions. "No," she says, and—
—and there's a sort of skip inside you.
It hurts to hear that simple "no." It hits like a hachet blow, and the salt in the wound is Ykka's look of honest perplexity. That means she's not lying. You flinch and sway with the impact, with the death of all your hopes. It occurs to you through a haze of floating not-quite-thought that you've been expecting something since Hoa told you about this place. You were beginning to think you would find them here, have a daughter again, be a mother again. Now you know better.
"S—Essun?" Hands grasp your forearms. Whose? Tonkee. Her hands are rough with hard living. You hear her calluses rasp on the leather of your jacket. "Essun—oh, rust, don't."
You've always known better. How dare you expect anything else? You're just another filthy, rusty-souled rogga, just another agent of the Evil Earth, just another mistake of sensible breeding practices, just another mislaid tool. You should never have had children in the first place, and you shouldn't have expected to keep them once you did, and why's Tonkee pulling on your arms?
Because you've lifted your hands to your face. Oh, and you've burst into tears.
You should have told Jija, before you ever married him, before you slept with him, before you even looked at him and thought maybe, which you had no right to ever think. Then if the urge to kill a rogga had hit him, he would've inflicted it on you, not Uche. You're the one who deserves to die, after all, ten thousand times the population of two comms.
Also, you might be screaming a little.
You shouldn't be screaming. You should be dead. You should have died before your children. You should have died at birth, and never lived to bear them.
You should have—
You should have—
Something sweeps through you.
It feels a little like the wave of force that came down from the north, and which you shunted away, on that day the world changed. Or maybe a little like the way you felt when you walked into the house after a tiring day and saw your boy lying on the floor. A waft of potential, passing on unutilized. The brush of something intangible but meaningful, there and gone, as shocking by its absence as its existence in the first place.
You blink and lower your hands. Your eyes are blurry and they hurt; the heels of your hands are wet. Ykka is off the porch and standing in front of you, just a couple of feet away. She's not touching you, but you stare at her anyway, realizing she just did—something. Something you don't understand. Orogeny, certainly, but deployed in a way you've never experienced before.
"Hey," she says. There's nothing like compassion on her face. Still, her voice is softer as she speaks to you—though maybe that's only because she's closer. "Hey. You okay now?"
You swallow. Your throat hurts. "No," you say. (That word again! You almost giggle, but you swallow and the urge vanishes.) "No. But I'm... I can keep it together."
Ykka nods slowly. "See that you do." Beyond her, the blond woman looks skeptical about the possibility of this.
Then, with a heavy sigh, Ykka turns to Tonkee and Hoa—the latter of whom looks deceptively calm and normal now. Normal by Hoa standards, anyway.
"All right, then," she says. "Here's how it is. You can stay or you can go. If you decide to stay, I'll take you into the comm. But you need to know up front: Castrima is something unique. We're trying something very different here. If this Season turns out to be short, then we're going to be up a lava lake when Sanze comes down on us. But I don't think this Season will be short."
She glances at you, sidelong, not quite for confirmation. Confirmation's not the word for it, since there was never doubt. Any rogga knows it like they know their own name.
"This Season won't be short," you agree. Your voice is hoarse, but you're recovering. "It will last decades." Ykka lifts an eyebrow. Yeah, she's right; you're trying to be gentle for the sake of your companions, and they don't need gentleness. They need truth. "Centuries."
Even that's an understatement. You're pretty sure this one will last at least a thousand years. Maybe a few thousand.
Tonkee frowns a little. "Well, everything does point to either a major epeirogenic deformation, or possibly just a simple disruption of isostasy throughout the entire plate network. But the amount of orogenesis needed to overcome that much inertia is... prohibitive. Are you sure?"
You're staring at her, grief momentarily forgotten. So's Ykka, and the blond woman. Tonkee grimaces in irritation, glowering particularly at you. "Oh, for rust's sake, stop acting all surprised. The secrets are done now, right? You know what I am and I know what you are. Do we have to keep pretending?"
You shake your head, though you're not really responding to her question. You decide to answer her other question instead. "I'm sure," you say. "Centuries. Maybe more."
Tonkee flinches. "No comm has stores enough to last that long. Not even Yumenes."
Yumenes's fabled vast storecaches are slag in a lava tube somewhere. Part of you mourns the waste of all that food. Part of you figures, well, that much quicker and more merciful an end for the human race.
When you nod, Tonkee falls into a horrified silence. Ykka looks from you to Tonkee, and apparently decides to change the subject.
"There are twenty-two orogenes here," she says. You flinch. "I expect there will be more as time passes. You all right with that?" She looks at Tonkee in particular.
As subject changes go, it's perfect for distracting everyone. "How?" asks Tonkee at once. "How are you making them come here?"
"Never mind that. Answer the question."
You could've told Ykka not to bother. "I'm fine with it," Tonkee says immediately. You're surprised she's not visibly salivating. So much for her shock over the inevitable death of humanity.
"All right." Ykka turns to Hoa. "And you. There are a few others of your kind here, too."
"More than you think," Hoa says, very softly.
"Yeah. Well." Ykka takes this with remarkable aplomb. "You heard how it is. If you want to stay here, you follow the rules. No fighting. No—" She waggles her fingers and bares her teeth. This is surprisingly comprehensible. "And you do as I say. Got it?"
Hoa cocks his head a little, his eyes glittering in pure menace. It's as shocking to see as his diamond teeth; you'd started thinking of him as a rather sweet creature, if a bit eccentric. Now you're not sure what to think. "You don't command me."
Ykka, to your greater amazement, leans over and puts her face right in front of his.
"Let me put it this way," she says. "You can keep doing what you've obviously been doing, trying to be as avalanche-subtle as your kind ever gets, or I can start telling everyone what all of you are really up to."
And Hoa... flinches. His eyes—only his eyes—flick toward the not-woman on the porch. The one on the porch smiles again, though she doesn't show her teeth this time, and there's a rueful edge to it. You don't know what any of this means, but Hoa seems to sag a little.
"Very well," he says to Ykka, with an odd formality. "I agree to your terms."
Ykka nods and straightens, letting her gaze linger on him for a moment longer before she turns away.
"What I was going to say before your little, ah, moment, was that we've taken in a few people," she says to you. She says this over her shoulder, as she turns and walks back up the steps of the house. "No men traveling with girls, I don't think, but other travelers looking for a place, including some from Cebak Quartent. We adopted them if we thought they were useful." It's what any smart comm does at times like these: kicking out the undesirable, taking in those with valuable skills and attributes. The comms that have strong leaders do this systematically, ruthlessly, with some degree of cold humanity. Less well-run comms do it just as ruthlessly but more messily, like the way Tirimo got rid of you.
Jija's just a stoneknapper. Useful, but knapping's not exactly a rare skill. Nassun, though, is like you and Ykka. And for some reason, the people of this comm seem to want orogenes around.
"I want to meet those people," you say. There's a slim chance that Jija or Nassun is in disguise. Or that someone else might have seen them, on the road. Or that... well. It really is a slim chance.
You'll take it, though. She's your daughter. You'll take anything, to find her.
"All right, then." Ykka turns and beckons. "Come on in, and I'll show you a marvel or three." As if she hasn't already done so. But you move to follow her, because neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope.
|
The body fades. A leader who would last relies on more.
—Tablet Three, "Structures," verse two
|
Syenite wakes up cold on one side of her body. It's her left side—hip and shoulder and most of her back. The source of the cold, a sharp wind, blows almost painfully through the hair all along the back of her skull, which means her hair must have come loose from its Fulcrum-regulation bun. Also, there's a taste like dirt in her mouth, though her tongue is dry.
She tries to move and hurts all over, dully. It's a strange kind of pain, not localized, not throbbing or sharp or anything that specific. More like her whole body is one big bruise. She groans inadvertently as she wills a hand to move and finds hard ground beneath it. She pushes against it enough to feel like she's in control of herself again, though she doesn't actually manage to get up. All she does successfully is open her eyes.
Crumbling silvery stone beneath her hand and in front of her face: monzonite, maybe, or one of the lesser schists. She can never remember the subvolcanic rocks because the grit instructor for geomestry back at the Fulcrum was unbelievably boring. A few feet away, the whatever-it-is stone is broken by clovers and a scraggle of grass and some kind of bushy-leafed weed. (She paid even less attention in biomestry.) The plants stir restlessly in the wind, though not much, because her body shields them from the worst of it.
Blow that, she thinks, and is pushed awake by mild shock at her own mental crudeness.
She sits up. It hurts and it's hard to do, but she does it, and this allows her to see that she's lying on a gentle slope of rock, surrounded by more weeds. Beyond that is the unbroken expanse of the lightly clouded sky. There's an ocean smell, but it's different from what she's gotten used to in the past few weeks: less briny, more rarefied. The air is drier. The sun's position makes it late morning, and the cold feels like late winter.
But it should be late afternoon. And Allia is Equatorial; the temperature should be balmy. And the cold, hard ground she's lying on should be warm, sandy ground. So where the burning rusty fuck is she?
Okay. She can figure this out. The rock she's lying on sesses high above sea level, relatively close to a familiar boundary: That's the edge of the Maximal, one of the two main tectonic plates that make up the Stillness. The Minimal's way up north. And she's sessed this plate edge before: They're not far from Allia.
But they're not in Allia. In fact, they're not on the continent at all.
Reflexively Syenite tries to do more than just sess, reaching toward the plate edge as she's done a few times before—
—and nothing happens.
She sits there for a moment, more chilled than the wind can account for.
But she is not alone. Alabaster lies curled nearby, his long limbs folded fetal, either unconscious or dead. No; his side rises and falls, slowly. Okay, that's good.
Beyond him, at the top of the slope, stands a tall, slender figure clad in a white flowing robe.
Startled, Syen freezes for a moment. "Hello?" Her voice is a croak.
The figure—a woman, Syen guesses—does not turn. She's looking away, at something over the rise that Syenite cannot see. "Hello."
Well, that's a start. Syen forces herself to relax, although this is difficult when she cannot reach toward the earth for the reassurance of power. There's no reason to be alarmed, she chides herself; whoever this woman is, if she'd wanted to harm them, she could have easily done so by now. "Where are we?"
"An island, perhaps a hundred miles off the eastern coast."
"An island?" That's terrifying. Islands are death traps. The only worse places to live are atop fault lines and in dormant-but-not-extinct volcano calderas. But yes, now Syenite hears the distant sough of waves rolling against rocks, somewhere below the slope on which they lie. If they're only a hundred miles from the Maximal's edge, then that puts them entirely too close to an underwater fault line. Basically on top of it. This is why people don't live on islands, for Earth's sake; they could die in a tsunami any minute.
She gets to her feet, suddenly desperate to see how bad the situation is. Her legs are stiff from lying on stone, but she stumbles around Alabaster anyway until she's standing on the slope beside the woman. There she sees:
Ocean, as far as the eye can see, open and unbroken. The rock slope drops off sharply a few feet from where she's standing, becoming a sheer jagged cliff that stands some few hundred feet above the sea. When she eases up to that edge and looks down, froth swirls about knifelike rocks far below; falling means death. Quickly she steps back.
"How did we get here?" she whispers, horrified.
"I brought you."
"You—" Syenite rounds on the woman, anger already spiking through shock. Then the anger dies, leaving the shock to reign uncontested.
Make a statue of a woman: not tall, hair in a simple bun, elegant features, a graceful pose. Leave its skin and clothing the color of old warm ivory, but dab in deeper shading at irises and hair—black in both cases—and at the fingertips. The color here is a faded and rusty gradient, ground in like dirt. Or blood.
A stone eater.
"Evil Earth," Syenite whispers. The woman does not respond.
There is a groan behind them that forestalls anything else Syenite might have said. (But what can she say? What?) She tears her eyes from the stone eater and focuses on Alabaster, who's stirring and clearly feeling no better than Syenite about it. But she ignores him for the moment as she finally thinks of something to say.
"Why?" she asks. "Why did you bring us here?"
"To keep him safe."
It's just like the lorists say. The stone eater's mouth doesn't open when she speaks. Her eyes don't move. She might as well be the statue she appears to be. Then sense reasserts itself, and Syenite notices what the creature has said. "To keep... him safe?" Again, the stone eater does not reply.
Alabaster groans again, so Syenite finally goes to him, helping him sit up as he begins to stir. His shirt pulls at the shoulder and he hisses, and belatedly she remembers the Guardian's throwing knife. It's gone now, but the shallow wound is stuck to the cloth of his shirt with dried blood. He swears as he opens his eyes. "Decaye, shisex unrelabbemet." It's the strange language she's heard him use before.
"Speak Sanze-mat," she snaps, though she's not really irritated with him. She keeps her eyes on the stone eater, but the stone eater continues not to move.
"... Flaking, fucking rust," he says, grabbing at the injured area. "Hurts."
Syenite swats his hand away. "Don't bother it. You might reopen the wound." And they are hundreds of miles from civilization, separated from it by water as far as the eye can see in most directions. At the mercy of a creature whose race is the very definition of enigmatic, and also deadly. "We've got company."
Alabaster comes fully awake, blinking at Syenite and then looking beyond her; his eyes widen a little at the sight of the stone eater. Then he groans. "Shit. Shit. What have you done this time?"
Somehow, Syenite is not entirely surprised to realize Alabaster knows a stone eater.
"I've saved your life," the stone eater says.
"What?"
The stone eater's arm rises, so steadily that the motion surpasses graceful and edges into unnatural. No other part of her moves. She's pointing. Syenite turns to follow the gesture and sees the western horizon. But this horizon is broken, unlike the rest: There's a flat line of sea and sky to the left and right, but at the midpoint of this line is a pimple, fat and red-glowing and smoky.
"Allia," says the stone eater.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.