by Daryl Banner
A sick and terrifying reality.
He barely even notices the Court of Elders sitting at the side of the throne room in several raked rows of benches, chatting among themselves, several bored and sitting in place, a few busied with notebooks and small, clunky gadgets upon which they’re typing, writing notes, or studying.
The clear and iron-hard voice of Kael Mirand-Thrin fills the hall, sounding as grand as if she’s already the Queen. “Father Kingship and Council. A word.”
“A word granted, my sweet daughter,” states King Greymyn, his voice like a rusted metal surface rubbing its face on another. “Janlord, attend our lists this night, if there be any. I’m spending this middle-night with my daughter.”
Janlord rises, as grand as a King himself, and gives Greymyn a gracious bow. “Your Kingship,” he says in acknowledgement.
“Come, daughter,” says Greymyn as he rises from his throne, steps down from the stage, and takes her hand. His every effort of speech, polite though his words may be, sound like growls.
Link and Kid step out of the way just as the King and Lady Kael pass by. Janlord assumes the throne, then calls out for “the lists”—whatever that is—to be named by the Court. An old man rises from the front bench, clears his throat, then begins to read from a small gadget in his hand.
Neither Link nor Kid bother to remain for whatever business it relates to, for the pair swiftly follow the King and his daughter out of the long throne room. The King and Lady Kael are perfectly silent as they leave the throne room, walk down the long, curved hall, then descend a number of steps to a different landing, at which they then proceed to a door.
Inside, they find themselves in an enormous bedroom. Upon the nearest wall to the right rests a grand bed that could fit a family of four. To the left wall, a modest desk is bookended by two floor lamps with a unique, chrome design up its shaft, like artwork. Straight ahead is the grandest balcony Link has ever set his eyes upon, two sets of golden silk curtains billowing in the gentle middle-night breeze that dances its way into the room. Beyond, all Link can see are stars.
“Close the door,” says the King as he moves toward the balcony.
Lady Kael turns to close the door at the precise moment Link and Kid slip inside and press their bodies—hands still held tightly—to the wall. The door shuts with a heavy, metal clang, a sound of great finality and doom. Link wonders how any person in the world could possibly enjoy such a sound for their own bedroom door closing.
“I suspect you’ve carried out the deed,” says Greymyn, settling by the balcony and staring off, the night breeze only making a pull at his robe, leaving his long tangles of hair and his monstrous beard entirely untouched.
“Yes, father,” confirms Lady Kael as she strolls across the room and stops some paces behind him.
It’s amusing to Link, to see the stark difference in the proud and nearly arrogant way Lady Kael Mirand-Thrin handled herself earlier in front of Emery and Terrabeth—and how suddenly demure she has become before her father.
“The message has been delivered to all the head doctors? And the members of the research team?” questions the King.
“All Facility operations are suspended.”
“Good.” He peers back at his daughter. “Still afraid of heights?”
Lady Kael bristles, then seems to modify her response several times before finally saying, “The view is not my favorite.”
Greymyn grunts, then turns back to his view of the stars. “You were always the cautious one, you were. Your sister … she was the bold one. Proud. Infuriatingly reckless at times, I’d even say.”
Again, a look between irritation and discomfort crawls over Lady Kael’s face. To his words, she does not respond.
“Yes, indeed,” Greymyn goes on, then makes a curt chuckle that sounds nothing nice in his gravelly throat. “I’m certain you see a lot of June in that spirited girl who lives in your Palace.” He inclines his head, as if tracking a falling star. “And how is my granddaughter?”
Lady Kael glances back at the bed, as if too annoyed suddenly to even look her father’s way. “Ruena is fine,” she makes herself say. “The young woman is up on her studies. She can be … exceedingly … cocky at times. But she is smart.”
“Smart,” agrees Greymyn, nodding slowly, very slowly. “I’d very much like to see Ruena sometime soon. It’s been too long.”
“She doesn’t like Cloud Tower.”
“Hmm?”
“The smell of it. She says it bothers her.”
“Perhaps it’s her electric soul. That part of her becomes … overly stimulated … when she is surrounded by metals.” Greymyn lets out another gruff and croaky chuckle. “Bring the girl by anyway. She must get used to it. She is, after all, your only heir.”
Lady Kael lifts a half-curled hand to her face to inspect her nails. She slowly begins to pick at one as she mildly answers, “I’ll have her visit on the morrow.”
“On the morrow,” agrees Greymyn just as mildly.
A sudden wind chases in through the balcony, flapping one of the curtains so suddenly, Lady Kael takes two steps back, frightened.
Greymyn chuckles once more, coughs, then clears his throat. “Nothing to fear, my sweet daughter. Nothing at all.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You know, Facility was your sister’s idea. June, she organized the whole thing, from its roots to its very operation. Ever since that wicked incident with—”
“I need no reminding of it or my niece’s permanent war wound down the side of her face,” Lady Kael nearly snaps, though each of her words is carefully uttered and forcefully polite.
Nothing is lost on Greymyn, who turns toward her. “You are not fond of her now, sweet daughter, but you will be someday. You will be, because she will be the last left of our blood.”
“I am plenty fond of Ruena Almont-Sunsong Netheris,” states the woman obligatorily. “Are we finished here, father?”
Greymyn studies the side of his daughter’s face, who still stares off at the bed and not at him. He studies it long enough for a stroke of doubt to enter Kael’s face, inspiring her to glance back at him.
“What?” she prompts him tersely.
He only continues to stare at her, long, hard, and stonily.
Kael’s face softens. “What?” she asks, far gentler and quiet.
The King takes a step toward her, closing some of the distance, then lowers his voice so much that Link and Kid both must incline their heads to catch the words. “I have sent the Nether into the slums to find—what I believe to be—the offspring of Subject Dreamer and a Slumborn Human.”
Kael stares at her father’s face a long while, as if not hearing.
“This offspring,” he goes on, his every word careful and chosen, “is a girl of approximately five years of age. Once she is found, she is to be treated as an Outlier, and as such, will be safely subdued—safely, Kael, that is of utmost importance, her safety and her care—and transported to Facility posthaste, unharmed.”
“Do you mean—?” starts Kael.
“At which time, all other studies and experiments will cease—permanently—and full attention will be given to the girl to complete our Mission.”
“You truly believe it?” Her eyes are full of surprise. “That this offspring—that this five-year-old child … this girl …”
“Yes.” Greymyn gives her one slow nod. “A girl kissed by Three Sister. A girl who will lead us beyond Oblivion and back. A girl who is the very key … to immortality.”
“No.” Kael shakes her head. “I don’t for one second believe—”
He clutches his daughter’s hands, shutting her up, her icy eyes upon her father’s in wonder and fear. “This is a secret only your sister and I have ever shared. Not another soul in all the Last City of Atlas can know it. It has passed down from King to King to Queen to Queen to King … from ages past, its source unknown.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard of it. The King’s Knowledge. A fairyta
le told between Lifted children with imaginations. How do you explain the secret being shared between Kings who stole the throne? How did dearest Atricia Sunsong possibly acquire this knowledge, or better yet, feel so inspired to pass it on?” Kael scoffs at him before even allowing the chance for an answer. “It’s fairytales and nonsense. The Sisters do not exist. Humanity has always been the way it is. I don’t even believe in the Ancients. You and June and your imaginations …”
“You and your staunch skepticism.” A smile behind Greymyn’s thick, overgrown beard is evidenced only by a subtle shift in its hair. “It is important you keep questioning the things you do. It is so very vital to being a smart Queen who lets nothing by her eye.”
“Ruena has such an imagination as you both, too,” Kael adds, practically spitting the words. “With her little machines. And her little inventions. And her little hairpieces.”
“To cover her scar,” points out Greymyn.
“I care not what it covers. Why do you believe in this fairytale? Because of Subject Dreamer? She is an Outlier borne of the slums, just like the worst of them. She is no Goddess. And this child? She’s just another slum rat, and we’re fools to waste our resources finding her. You might as well pluck any child off the street and call her the key to immortality.” Kael scoffs once more. “Nonsense.”
“You will pay witness to her power someday,” Greymyn tells her. “And then you will believe.”
The To-Be-Queen stares down at her father’s hands. Then, after a breeze plays across their faces, causing her eyes to shut, her tone softens to nearly nothing. “It is not the power of the Goddesses I fear, but rather the real ones beneath our feet. Gods and Goddesses alike, father. Outliers.” She opens her eyes. “I think it was a mistake to halt our studies of Outliers. There will come a day when such an Outlier is at your doorstep, and you’ll be powerless to stop them.”
Greymyn draws nearer to her face. “And if I’ve the power of Three Sister on my side,” he whispers in response, half a hiss, half a growl, “I won’t need to.”
Lady Kael gives him a long, hard look. Then she lets slip her hands from his, saunters across the room, and lets herself out. The door shuts, again with a sound of deep and resonant finality.
King Greymyn returns to the balcony and allows the starlight to bathe his weary, wrinkled face. Nothing more is said.
0275 Tide
He slaps the heavy black helmet over his head.
The voice fills his left ear from the device built into his helmet. “Tide. Test, test, test.”
What an annoying voice. Tide clears his throat. “Here.”
“Test me back.”
Tide rolls his eyes. “If you could hear me say ‘here’, obviously it works.”
“True,” admits the voice—a tough-as-an-iron-blade woman who calls herself Ritney. “Or you could stop throwing me the ‘tude and just test communications properly.”
Tide ignores her as he starts fastening the black utility belt to his waist. He checks to make sure he has enough of everything equipped on him. A faint pink-and-orange glow peeks through the cracks in his chest armor from the neon still there. Give it two or three more months and the glow will be gone at long last, he reminds himself. He has no idea what sort of chemical Sanctum must keep to remove the stain of a neon gun, but Tide imagines it must be a very powerful chemical that sears and sizzles when applied.
Ritney sighs through the mic, then mutters, “Shley, come in.”
“Here,” comes another woman’s voice, light and airy, almost as if she was interrupted in the middle of a lovely daydream.
“Good. Arry, come in.”
“Testy, testy, testy,” sings the chipper young man who’s actually physically at Tide’s side, always so full of cheeriness and humor that it grates on Tide’s nerves to no end.
“Perfect. It’s nice to know our Lifted tech isn’t faulty.”
“Oh, the irony,” sings Arry as he shoots Tide a humored look while tying his boots. “Using Lifted tech to infiltrate the Lifted City.”
“That isn’t irony,” Ritney barks back. “It’s folly. And we’re not infiltrating them. We’re invited by the Queen for a meeting.”
“Well.” Arry chuckles nervously, then gives up. “I tried.”
“Don’t try,” suggests Shley in her light, silly voice. “Ritney is not a person to appreciate humors. Or ironies, apparently.”
Tide folds his arms and waits, suited up and ready, ignoring the banter back and forth between the others. He is ever impatient to make way to the Lifted City and face that slum girl Queen at long last. The more and more he thinks of her face on the broadcast, the more bitter he gets. If some dumb girl from the slums can make her way to that throne, I very well can do it, too. Just give me two seconds up there and I’ll change the face of Atlas forever.
Maybe it’s the cramped armory in which he’s currently waiting, watching Arry lace up his boots on the bench, but he finds himself suddenly thinking of that warehouse near the Core where he had confronted Wick and that fool friend of his. It was his last mission with Scorp before he was forced to murder him in front of the Queen of the Abandon for coming up a head short. Even still, Tide feels his guts twist up when he thinks of the fear, the pain, and the trauma he experienced in that one moment before the Queen, that moment when he took his one and only friend’s life.
But there was something else that struck him as quite odd that day. The thing that happened earlier. The warehouse had filled with a powerful wind—and it was a wind that was not his own.
Or was it?
Temper that power of yours. Chole’s advice echoes in his mind. A finger of your own madness. A funnel of wind.
It was no funnel that day. It was not under his control.
Something had happened. Something very strange. Something that Tide still cannot quite puzzle out. I was just angry, he decides, yet again pushing away any other possibility. Wick got into my head. He knew things. He knew about my pink glow.
He somehow doubts Wick could actually smell the glow.
Wick knew other things, too. He knew things he shouldn’t.
Why can’t I fucking remember?
“Chole here,” comes the Slum King’s voice suddenly through Tide’s earpiece, startling him. “The four of you ready?”
“Ready as ever, my King,” recites Arry proudly. “Ready,” states Ritney, sounding ten shades sweeter than ever. “Ready!” sings Shley.
A moment of stillness—and Arry staring curiously at him—then Tide finally joins the others: “Ready.”
I’ve been ready to face off with Lifted fuckers my whole life.
The team meet at the First Gate, which is a giant set of wooden doors that interrupts a great wall they’ve constructed at the outskirts of the first, second, third, and fourth wards over the past four months. Only three gates exist: First Gate out of the first ward, Second Gate out of the second ward, and Third Gate out of the third. The wall at the end of the fourth ward is incomplete, as Chole soon means to claim the fifth ward—his original home—as the final piece of his Coalition. ‘Only five wards we need,’ he had claimed just the other day in a meeting, the Marshals nodding in agreement. ‘Then, we will have enough power to withstand anything the False Sanctum throws our way.’
There is something rather satisfying about the fact that Tide was asked to partake on this mission with King Chole, and not any of his own Marshals.
Who cares. Fuck the other Marshals.
The five of them walk down the streets outside the ward, their goal to cut through the Core to the far end of ninth, right at the edge of the smithing district beneath a jagged lip of the Lifted City. From what Tide was told, Chole has a resourceful idea of how to enter the City from there, an idea he has not yet properly divulged.
“But we have permission, right?” asks Arry quietly to Shley. “I mean, we’re not actually breaking into the Lifted City, are we? They know we’re coming?”
“I said it was an arranged meeting, did I
not?” cuts in Ritney in her bossy tone.
Arry glances over at Shley. “Yes, indeed, but we have so many different codenames for things, I sort of assumed that maybe—”
“She’ll be expecting us,” Shley assures him with a bright smile.
Arry returns her smile with a shy one of his own.
Young love.
Tide smirks derisively and grips his gun tighter.
The sun is at such an angle that the shadow of the City above falls on them like a mountain. One of the Pylons is close enough that Tide feels like they could reach its base within a five-minute jog. This part of the ninth gets very little sun on account of that fat monster in the sky, which makes Tide wonder why (or how) the hell the folk here hold their Lunar Festivals. How can they see the damn moon?
“Should’ve stopped for a bite before heading out,” gripes Arry.
His comment goes ignored.
Hunger couldn’t be farther from Tide’s mind. He feels so much power pumping in his blood, he’s ready to face on anyone from the Lifted City, empty stomach or not.
“Quiet,” whispers Chole ahead of them, slowing his pace.
When they enter the square, a ghostly hush befalls them, which reminds Tide too much of the Abandon. The square is a wasteland of concrete, dirt, and small tangles of plants and vines, both living and dead. As they advance farther into the square, the dried up roots crunch beneath Tide’s heavy feet. The unmistakably thick reek of soggy, decaying foliage fills his nostrils, making him wrinkle up his nose, even despite the helmet. The deeper they creep into the square, the more humid the air grows until Tide feels the cold trickle of sweat draw lines down the center of his wide, muscled backside.
“Here, my friends, halt,” says Chole, somehow making even the command sound polite.
The five of them stop and stare up.
The Lifted City looms over them. It feels to Tide like standing at the foot of a great metal monster about to take its next step. One of its mighty fingers has broken off, long ago fallen and crumbled on the ground beneath it. The finger was a garden—Lord’s Garden—and many slum lives were lost beneath its fiery, heavy fall.
