by Daryl Banner
Then he spits it back out, recoiling. It’s also salty. It’s thick. It’s undrinkable.
Is the water of the world poisoned?
He lifts his eyes, his thoughts racing away from him. Is this …
Is this the ocean?
Rone, astonished, his perception redirected, plops his ass heavily upon the sand with the water lapping and tickling his feet. He kicks off his only shoe so that all his toes can enjoy the sensation. Then he lies back on the sand and stares up at the endless sky, too exhausted to even notice that it has no end, that there’s no Lifted City above him, that there’s nothing familiar about this world at all.
With his eyes closed, for a moment, he almost feels as if he can fall right asleep, just as babies do, just as Wick could do.
If anything, perhaps he will just pretend, exhausted as he is, to drift away with the relaxing noise of salt water crashing and wind thrashing. For all the chaos of the world, it feels so peaceful out here.
I could lie here forever.
The sun sinks somewhere in the distance, and Rone’s world changes again. Stretched across his eyes are a million stars. Not just the ten he used to see from the ninth. Not just the hundred he saw when he stood in that half-collapsed Lifted mansion with Ruena and Erana at night. Right now, he can see no less than a million stars from here to the end of the sky where it kisses the water, and they glitter like diamonds along the rippling surface of the ocean, which has calmed considerably.
He listens to the wind, just a cool breeze in his ears that inspires him now and then to wrap his arms around his body. With the sliver of shirt missing at his navel and his tight pleasure-boy underwear and similarly fitted jeans still damp, he suddenly finds that he’s more exposed to the coolness than he’d like.
It isn’t much longer that Rone lifts himself off the sand to search some more of the beach, carrying his shoe in hand like a brandished weapon. The necklace of Lifted metal lights his way, still glowing as brightly as blue-white torches. His excitement and freedom from the earth and its dark clutch on him soon wears off, and he realizes how very inconveniently famished he is. Nothing at all comes to his aid. No fruitful trees or plants decorate the area. No animals live here to eat, either. He doesn’t even have water he can properly drink.
His wandering takes him so far from the mouth of the cave, he doesn’t see it when he turns to look back. Would he be able to find it again if he needed shelter? He’s been stumbling across the wet sands for so long, he isn’t even sure which direction he’s gone in.
Away from the darkness, he coaches himself. You won’t miss that cave. Through this world you’ll go, and through the next, and the next, until you’re back home, safe in the ninth.
It isn’t long before he collapses, unable to take another step, and this time, he does not get back up. A million stars become his only company as he lies there in the sand. The stars are my friends …
The morning’s sunlight breaks over his face like the yolk of an egg. I was once so sure I would die in the darkness. Now I’m equally as sure I will die in the light.
Then the sun winks at him like a friend as clouds push their way in front of it, and no sooner than he thinks it, his whole world turns grey and heavy, and a ripple of distant thunder fills his ears.
The sky opens over his head.
Rone stretches his mouth open as the rain pours over him. Rain. No drop of water has ever tasted so sweet. A group called Rain caused me to end up here. And now another rain is saving my life.
Gandra, Frey, the leader of fools, the leader of empty promises.
Yellow, the stony-eyed memory stealer.
Juston, the noisemaker who would envy what Rone hears right now, the noise of storms filling his ears.
Tide, the storm pusher, the wind bender, the muscle.
Victra and her eyes—Oh, what her eyes would see right now if she was here by my side in this sand.
Pratganth, the curious. Arrow, the observant. Lionis, the wise.
Cintha, the dead.
Anwick, the dead.
And Rone …
I can’t die. My sister can’t have died for nothing. Anwick would be so disappointed in me. I’ve come so far … I’ve pulled myself out of death, out of darkness, out of earth …
Rone climbs back to his feet and, despite having no strength in his bones, makes himself move, albeit hopping slightly on the one good leg he has left. The rain is life as his skin, his lips, his hair, and his hands drink in every drop.
Soon, the beach is lost to him as he limps through thicker sand, then dirt, then grass. The day slips away from him as Rone keeps trudging on through the quickly changing terrain. Toward those trees, he tells himself. Into the forest. Perhaps I’ll pop out in the back of the Greens, close to home, close to friends I might know from school.
He has barely given the sight of the ocean itself any thought. There is nowhere in all of Atlas where he could place an ocean. Did I travel a cave that led beneath the very Wall of Atlas? Maybe in some far-off corner of his mind, the idea was waiting to be realized. I can’t possibly be outside the city. There is no way out. And there is nothing outside of the city to experience—certainly nothing like what I’ve seen.
Perhaps the idea of that is so absurd, Rone refuses to entertain it.
The Greens, he decides. These woods are the Greens.
But as the strange trees envelop him, his confidence dithers. The trees are enormous. Some have trunks as wide as Rone is tall. Some leaves are larger than any he’s ever seen, like giant green roofs over vast empires of bugs living on the forest’s floor far beneath them. Branches reach over him like twisted wooden fingers locking together, vines hanging down with thorns twisting out of them like teeth. This is not the Greens, Rone knows, yet somehow cannot allow himself to believe. The forest here is so dense and heavily populated by alien flora, he wonders if it can even be properly called a forest, or if there is some other unknown name for it.
Though the rain persists, the trusty canopy of colossal leaves and interlocked branches above his head protects him as much as a leaky slum roof made of wood and vegetation, and for that, he is thankful. He has a bit of difficulty navigating the terrain beneath his feet, unfortunately, hopping and bracing himself against trees when he can. Broken branches and gnarled roots try to catch on his one remaining shoe, which he has since slipped back on, but he keeps his footing despite all the adversaries he faces, both seen and not.
He spends the next night in these dense woods listening to the rain as it fills his ears and trickles down his face. Even all this time later, the words still press through his mind, though they’ve altered slightly: I will not die out here. I will not die out here. I will not die …
I will not die.
He is a machine of thoughts. His body is not his own.
How it keeps moving, Rone refuses to fathom.
Another day of exploring—under the continued and relentless rain—finds him staring up at a bushel of strange fruit hanging off a branch far out of reach, twice his height over his head.
Oh, what sweet, evil torture …
He doesn’t give up easily. He tries employing his Legacy at first, phasing his hand into the tree and then attempting to solidify it and gain purchase to climb, but it proves fruitless. Fruitless, Rone thinks with sick humor. He pulls out his dagger still stuck in his pocket and tries to use it to help him climb, but then fears he might break the blade by his own weight. He picks up a jagged length of branch off the ground and pitches it upwards hoping to dislodge just one of the fruits, but nothing falls, the tree keeping its gifts greedily.
Rone could really fucking cry right now. His stomach is beyond growling at this point. He feels nothing in his muscles. Nothing in his bones. Nothing in his mind.
“FUUUCK!” he screams out into the rain.
I will not die out here. I will not die out here. I will not—
He collapses against the tree, half hugging it, half pleading with it, uncertain whether the drops
racing down his cheeks are from the rain or from his tears of desperation. He closes his eyes, wondering for the hundredth time since he first opened them in the darkness of a cave deep in the bowels of the planet whether all of this is some elaborate dream or trick of the mind.
Maybe right at the time before one passes from the world of the living into the world of the dead, they experience an endless loop of their soul denying its imminent end, and within that loop, a million possibilities of life beyond life are experienced.
Maybe this is that loop and I am forever alive, forever dead, forever between.
Or maybe Rone Tinpassage is losing his mind, out here in the middle of nowhere, no friends at his side, no food in his belly, no water on his lips but for the rain that falls from the sky over his head like a cruel joke.
Rone soon learns that the cruelest joke is yet to come.
At the sound of a snapping twig, Rone opens his eyes and turns his head with alarm.
What stands not ten paces away from him between two trees is a great, beautiful beast of a kind he’s never before seen. It’s like a cat, yet ten times the size, with purple fur and enormous golden eyes that shimmer like a thousand crystals in the rain.
And those eyes, threatening and cold, are trained on Rone.
Oh, fuck.
The moment the thought of running passes through his mind, the beast charges at him. In the space of one and a half seconds, its mighty jaw stretches to show off a spread of countless silver-white fangs that, the next instant, close about Rone’s face.
Except they snap upon nothing, Rone phased away in an instant and screaming.
He swallows his scream as he stands there, only the bottoms of his feet solid, the rest of him turned to nothing. The beast, confused, steps back, its great hairy tail twitching with irritation.
The two lock eyes—sapphire and gold. Instantly, Rone feels a connection with the feline beast. We are the same, Rone might say. We are both lost. We are both alone. We are both hungry.
We are kin.
Then the beast lets out a growl so bizarre and loud that it turns Rone’s blood to ice. When it pounces upon him once again, Rone is given a very intimate, up-close view of the beast’s tongue and throat for one split second before the whole creature ends up on the other side of him, passed through.
The lean, furry feline circles him now, clearly not knowing what to do about this tasty morsel of human it apparently cannot have. Rone balances himself on his good leg as he tries to keep his eyes on the giant cat, wary. Its whiskers are so long that they drag along the ground, looking like glassy bristles to two brooms that grow out of the beast’s upper lips. The beast growls and grumbles and groans as it circles him.
Rone slowly crouches and brings out a hand. “Calm …” he says soothingly. It’s the first word he’s uttered out loud in days. “Calm …”
The beast hisses at him, annoyed.
Rone gently takes a step forward, for a moment putting his weight on his bad leg. He winces, then rights himself back onto his good one.
The tiny action makes the beast howl out and charge at him once more—and once more, it passes straight through him, then circles around and snaps its jaws, irritated beyond measure.
“Yes,” Rone agrees, turning about to keep his eyes on the giant cat. “Quite annoying, I do imagine. But I’d very much like not to be your meal this afternoon. On the contrary, I’d like to make a meal of those.” He points up at the fruit hanging from the tree. “Have you had any before? They look rather tasty.”
The beast pays no mind to his words.
Rone wasn’t expecting as much, anyway.
His soothing tone needs a bit of work, perhaps; his voice is dry and gravelly from its lack of use, and he doesn’t imagine it is very pleasing to anyone’s ears, let alone a giant feral cat’s.
“Are you not a fan of fruit?” he asks, speaking with bravery despite his heart racing its way up his throat. He has nothing to vomit, yet feels his stomach could turn inside-out at any moment. “Perhaps you are only a fan of meat? Well, you can’t have mine.”
The beast growls again, though it is considerably subdued.
Maybe the beast is giving up.
“Speaking of, I don’t see any meat between your legs. Are you a female?” He starts circling it slowly. “Can I give you a name? You’re the first living thing I’ve encountered, and it’s rather lonely out here.”
The beast stops moving.
Rone stops, too.
The pair of them are frozen, eyes locked—gold and sapphire.
The beast slowly crouches down, her fierce, hungry gaze never breaking.
Rone, feeling connected and inspired somehow, mimics the big cat’s movements, crouching along with her just as slowly.
The beast freezes in place.
Rone does, too.
Neither of them move. Only once does the cat’s giant tail twitch back and forth with irritation, her eyes still upon Rone like he’s just a playing-hard-to-get lover, except this particular lover is one she wishes to eat.
It is an age old game of cat and mouse, either of them daring the other to move first. Rone being the mouse in this situation, of course.
Except a mouse cannot phase like I can.
The moment Rone takes a step toward the tree, the beast lifts her head, both her ears perking up, even the tiny hairs at the end of them seeming to straighten. Rone keeps moving, unafraid, yet keeping each of his movements slow so as not to startle the beast too much. He turns only his hand solid (in addition to his feet, of course) so as to grasp a longer gnarled branch he was eyeing earlier, broken from its mother tree and resting on the ground.
The beast watches.
Rone lifts the branch up high, making sure to keep the entirety of himself phased—just in the case of any sudden, unseen attacks, as the beast is frightfully swift and far too close for comfort—and aims the stick right at the bushel of fruit.
The beast hisses.
Rone stops and glances over his shoulder at her, curious. “Does this fruit belong to you?” he asks. “Am I stealing from you before your very eyes, sweet girl? Oh, I could call you that. Sweet Girl.” He reconsiders. “No, not so nice off the tongue.” He reaches again.
And the beast hisses again.
The stick is long enough to touch the lowest-hanging fruit. A surge of hope scurries through Rone’s body. He pokes at it. The fruit wiggles, but doesn’t come loose. The branch is getting ever heavier by the second, so deprived of strength as Rone’s arms are to wield the bulky, awkwardly long thing. He grunts as he thrusts it upward, stretching his body, and pokes at the bushel again, desperate.
As suddenly as rain, several fruit drop from the tree’s purchase.
Rone, whether out of surprise or merely by accident, turns solid just in time for the first fruit to crash against his chest. The reddish purple thing is a lot softer than anticipated, and it explodes down his shirt in a spread of purple juice. Some of the fruit that falls to the ground burst apart similarly.
The beast is on her feet, but she stays right where she is and bares her teeth threateningly.
Rone turns to her, astonished. Perhaps a fruit or two has fallen from a tree and startled her. With her bizarre behavior justified in his head, Rone wastes no time in grabbing a chunk of fruit off his chest and bringing it to his lips.
He doesn’t even notice the beast hissing at him as he does so.
Flavors burst in his mouth. It’s something like a citrus fruit, but far sweeter and tangier than any he has ever tasted. He feels instant joy as he chews desperately, savoring every bit in his mouth, then happily swallowing it. He literally feels it in his throat and his belly, its nourishment crashing through him in waves.
When he opens his eyes, the dizziness hits him instantly. “Wow. This fruit sure goes …” He laughs suddenly, then zeros his eyes onto the beast, who is frozen in place, her great, golden eyes watching him warily. “Goes straight to … to your …” He squints, puzzled by the way the wor
ld seems to be tilting to the side.
No. That’s Rone losing his balance.
“Fuck,” he mumbles on his way down.
Darkness steals away everything. For a fleeting moment, he realizes he’s stone solid, lying there on the forest floor, defenseless and robbed of his senses. He feels sick. He feels jittery and anxious.
He feels the tickle of tiny raindrops on his cheek.
Was it poison …? That’s Rone Tinpassage’s last thought before he knows nothing at all.
He finds himself in a half-collapsed mansion in the sky. Two beautiful women, Erana of the black hair and glasses, Ruena of the white hair and scars, sit on either side of him in a shallow, crystalline pool overlooking the slums below. A kiss comes from one. A kiss comes from the other. Then a gentle hand finds his cock beneath the water, and Rone tilts his head back in delight.
He’s on the silken sheets of a pleasure boy’s back room. The top of Edrick’s head bobs up and down at Rone’s crotch, barely out of sight. Something between laughter and a cry escapes Rone’s lips as cool tears run down his face.
He is in a frozen cellar somewhere between the Lifted City and the slums, a scary, abandoned building that swells with the stink and chill of death. He touches Cintha’s frozen hand. A tear is frozen to his sister’s cheek. He tries to touch it.
Then a syringe is in his hand, a syringe full of nightmare serum.
The treasure beneath the floor …
The weapon in our arsenal …
Rone is stabbing Impis in the neck all over again with the serum and injecting every drop of nightmare into that Mad King. He feels a potent bolt of victory in his heart.
Then Rone stands at the basement door of the Noodle Shop.
The treasure beneath the floor …
The weapon in our arsenal …
Rone is staring down a short flight of stairs leading to the cold cellar of the Noodle Shop.
The cold cellar where a certain boy named Kendil is chained up.
The treasure beneath the floor … The weapon in our arsenal …
The Weapon of Sanctum.
Rone flinches at the touch of hot breath upon his face. He parts his lips and sucks in air, then blinks several times. His cheek releases from the kiss of grass blades as he slowly lifts it off the ground.
