by A. Sparrow
None of the rank and file marchers challenged our traverse. As far as I could tell, everyone made it unscathed to the far fringes of the procession. Here, the land slanted up towards the opposite wall of the valley, which was quite a contrast the sister slope that we had just descended.
Here, we faced no dunes but bare stone, as if every mote of dust and grain of sand had been gathered up and piled deep and high on the opposite side of the valley.
Projectiles came whistling through the air—stones the size of a child’s fist. Most flew over our heads but smacked into a volunteer’s armor square and sent shards shattering.
“Take cover!” someone shouted.
The exposed bedrock of the valley wall had shattered and collapsed in some ancient calamity. Rock falls had carved chutes which seemed to have been eroded by flowing water at some point, there was no trace of it now, and no chance it could exist very long as a liquid. This place was drier and colder than Mars had ever been.
Most of the volunteers and swarmed to the nearest defile whose narrowness caused them to bunch up at its entry. Panicked and impatient, I rushed to another crevice further along the heaps of slabs and ledges that had broken off the headwall.
A huge arrow whistled past my ear and cracked into the cliff face barely a foot in front of me. The shaft, as long as my arm, splintered and dropped at my feet.
“Did you see that? She targeted you,” said the man with the deep set eyes, coming up behind me. “She knows.”
“Knows what?” I said, as I inserted myself into the crevice that slanted up the valley wall. I kept low, behind a fin of stone, to avoid the impressively relentless barrage of stones that the Protectors kept flinging our way.
“She knows you’re special. She didn’t go after Lady An. She targeted you.”
“But how?” I said, ducking the stones that kept flying our way. “I’m gray. Like you.”
“Their eyes,” said a woman coming up behind us. “The Hashmallim can see through your cover. You might as well have stayed pink.”
“The Protectors can’t do the same, though. And there’s tons more of them to worry about.”
The gully narrowed and steepened as we rose out of range. Several of the volunteers kept our harassers at bay with modest spells ejected from their scepters. These were not the diverse and powerful blasts I had seen Urszula summon in the Liminality, but little burps of energy, barely visible and hardly enough to stagger a man.
Lady An waited atop the plateau, adding us to her head count as we joined her.
“James. Francesco. Beth makes nineteen. You three are the last but certainly not the least. Now, we took quite the pounding there. Was anyone hit?”
“Aye!” said a man, raising his hand. Brian strode over and examined the shattered scales on his hip.
“Your flesh looks fine. Let’s replenish your armor.”
He reached into a sack and handed over a fistful of dormant scales. The man sang them to life and pressed them against his torso. They clung and slithered into place, inserting themselves into the gaps before setting firm.
“Beth took a nasty hit as well,” said Francesco, the man with the deep set eyes who had accompanied me up the valley wall.
“Just a flesh wound,” said Beth. “Took out a divot. Nothing that can’t be patched.”
The wound looked awful. A chunk of skin had been torn right off. And yet the wound was dry and bloodless. I wondered if I too was like that inside. I imagined so, only because I had yet to feel my heart beat. And I had no hunger, no thirst, no biological needs whatsoever. And come to think of it, I had yet to see anyone take a bite of food in the Deeps, not that there would be anything to eat or drink in a place like this, anyhow.
“Can’t afford to linger,” said Lady An. “This Hashmal will be flashing news of our patrol to every corner of the Deeps.”
She broke into the effortless and graceful stride of a seasoned marathoner. In a blink every volunteer ran after her, leaving me flatfooted. I had to sprint to catch up. And I kept on sprinting until I had caught up to Lady An, who had Brian and Taro at her heels like a pair of loyal dogs.
“That woman who got hit. Beth. She said that this Hashmal knew I was different. That she could see through the gray.”
“Nonsense,” said Lady An. “I though Imelda did an excellent job. Don’t you?”
“But Beth said that these Hashmals … they have eyes for this sort of thing. They can see right through—”
“If that were true, then why would we have bothered to disguise you? Believe me, they see no better or worse than me or you. Our people wrap them in this aura of invincibility that bears no relation to reality. Apart from their pinkness, they’re just ordinary souls. Reasonably skilled but far from adept. I wish I could put a stop to this kind of thinking but it’s too ingrained from everyone’s time in the hordes. The Seraphim coach their servants to cultivate these impressions through trickery. It breeds fear and respect among the sheep.”
“But she shot an arrow at me. At me! Only at me.”
“Coincidence,” said Lady An. “I guarantee there is no way she could have known who you were.”
I wasn’t convinced, but Lady An exuded such self-assurance, who was I to argue.
We entered an area of gently rolling terrain of mounds and dimples with deep soils, but no actual dunes. I dropped back and jogged alongside Brian and Taro. Like loyal dogs, they kept close to Lady An’s heels.
“Are you guys like her lieutenants … or bodyguards?”
“Gofers, more like it,” said Taro. “She likes to keep us close.”
“She don’t need us to protect her,” said Brian. “That’s for damned sure.”
“I kind of wish she stayed back at the ville,” said Taro, lowering his voice. “Would have been nice be in charge of something for a change.”
“Lady An’s a bit of a micro-manager,” said Taro. “In case you haven’t noticed.”
“That’s why me and Taro like to do our own patrols,” said Brian. “Sometimes a man just needs to get away, if you know what I mean.”
Lady An pulled up abruptly at the edge of a deep gash in the land, where all of the loose soil and stone seemed to have been sucked away. The terrain beyond was gashed and gouged every which way as if by a hundred bulldozers driven by chimps.
Occasional islands of debris remained here and there between the mishmash of intersecting tracks. And in the center of the area of greatest chaos stood an island of utter calm, an untouched hillock with smooth contours and a gently rounded summit.
A ripple of remembrance wobbled through me.
“I … I know this place.”
Chapter 37: Olivier
The hillock rose steeply from the scarred plateau. The heap of sand had steep slopes scalloped by wind. Lanes as wide as air strips, scrubbed clean to bare stone, intersected at its base, separated by the remnant fins and ribs of soil and rubble. The mesh-work of tracks formed a pattern of pentagrams and hexagons that seemed intensely familiar to me, as if I had come here many times before.
I don’t know why I was so startled to see this landscape again. We were headed here, after all. Lady An and I had seen it together via Old Ned’s channel into the Singularity and she had made it her principal destination. Finding Karla was secondary as far as she was concerned. I had no excuse to be standing there all befuddled and tongue-tied.
“I was here … we were here … we came here. This is where we saw that guy.”
“Yes. Of course,” said Lady An. “And there he sits, atop that hillock.”
“Where?” said Brian. “I don’t see nobody. Ain’t nothing there but a pile of sand.”
Lady An gave him a lopsided frown. “Look closely again at that summit. Notice something a little off?”
“Not really,” said Brian.
“Looks … a little hazy,” said Taro.
“Bravo Taro! What we’re seeing at is a mirage. A ruse. Look at all these tracks, the way they crisscross around the hill
. Do you think it is chance alone that the Horus keeps returning here only to avoid that one spot? It’s been toying with him. Or perhaps ... it fears him.”
“You make it sound like that thing’s intelligent,” I said.
This time she shared her impatient look with me.
“Smarter than us, at any rate. At least it wants to be here.”
She clambered down the bank onto one of the scoured tracks.
“Hah! He must see us coming. His veil grows thicker.”
The misty translucence that had topped the hillock now appeared completely solid and opaque.
“On guard, everyone. Keep the formation loose. This man could well be dangerous.”
We fanned out at the base of the hillock and started up the slope. Lady An began to sing. The volunteers joined her. Even I couldn’t help but hum along.
We climbed to a place where tiny spinning dust devils kicked up in the hollows cut into the slope and danced across the hillside. Lady An paused to watch them. Brian continued to climb, but he reached a point where his foot refused to make contact with the ground. It was repulsed like a magnet turned pole to pole.
“Stop right there, Brian,” said Lady An.
I reached and touched the ground with my fingertips and the same thing happened, the sand dimpling inward without me touching it. What appeared to be a solid slop of sand was actually a shell only a few grains thick, suspended in the air.
“Hello!” called Lady An. “Mr. Olivier? We mean you no harm. We’ve just come to see how you are.”
Silence.
“We know you … we’ve met … in the Singularity.”
The hillock began to rumble, the vibrations building with a violence that dashed most of our party to the ground, including me and Lady An.
A stentorian voice roared down from the hilltop.
“Flee! Danger! Fuggire! Pericolo! Gefahr! Fliehen! Fuĝi! Danĝero! Flykte! Fare! Fuir! Danger!”
“Oh please! You can dispense with the theatrics,” said Lady An. “We are not … impressed.” She picked herself up off the ground. “Will you please show yourself now?”
A wind kicked up, splattering grit against our faces. The tremors persisted. A whirlwind of gargantuan proportions—a miniature Horus—shape atop the hill, flinging us against each other and onto the ground. It spawned a series of smaller dervishes that came spinning down the slope directly at us. One of them grazed a volunteer before she could dodge it, ripping off her scales and shredding the flesh on her leg.
They howled past us and turned like heat-seeking missiles, coming back at us up the slope.
Lady An issued a blast from her scepter that sent a glob of glutinous energy winging into its core. Strands of goo wrapped around the dust devil and smothered it. The spiked and barbed particles comprising it collapsed into a heap.
The volunteers followed Lady An’s lead and issued forth their own blasts from their staffs and scepters. Their conjurings were far less impressive than hers, even feeble, but collectively proved effective in taking down the dust devils one by one.
The screaming remnants of the last one refused to die, as if it were possessed by something more potent. It spun through our group. Volunteers dove out of its way. And just when it seemed ready to collapse it made one last gathering of its energy and veered straight for me.
“James!” Brian barreled into me as the dervish flew past. A glancing blow ripped the scales of my arm and carved a dashed line down my forearm. I groaned out of habit, There was no pain. I hit the ground and rolled in the dust, winding up on my knees, staring at that bloodless wound with a mixture of fascination and horror. God how dry my body was inside!
Francesco came over and attended to my rips, pressing pins like doubled fishhooks into my skin. They responded to his whispers, contracting like staples, sealing the gaps tight. A couple of the volunteers had gotten nicked up as well, so he moved along to help them.
Lady An stood her ground and glared up at the wall of sand, whirling like some poor man’s version of the Horus.
“Stop this nonsense at once!” she said. She planted her staff firmly and a bubble of calm spread out from it, deflecting the eddies and flurries of dust that kept flinging her way. “We only came to talk!”
The central whirlwind lost its momentum, teetered on its invisible shaft. The sheet of sand shrouding the hilltop collapsed. Dust and grit rained down on us, piling up around our shins, filling our nostrils. We would have choked if our bodies were alive.
The dust cloud contracted and retreated up the slope, leaving behind a lacework fence of human bones—humeri, rib cages, tibia, spines—fastened together with cartilage and sinew. It ringed the hillock. I saw no gate.
Most of the bones were dull and gray, but the occasional cream-colored femur or pelvis stood out among them. Skulls with jaws and without topped many of the longer bones. One in particular caught my eye. It was a pure and brilliant white, standing out even from the beige bones.
There were also appendages in the latticework that did not appear human. They were waxy, tubular and branched. Some retained shreds of a transparent membrane, like the wing of a fly or bee. Did giant insects also inhabit the Deeps? Was that even possible? Was anything impossible in this universe?
Lady An caught me gawking. “Pay it no heed,” she said. “I doubt any of it is real. It’s all for show. “
She leveled her staff at the stockade and sent a mild pulse that made a large section of it crumble like a dried out sand castle.
“See? This man is a liar and a braggart. I can’t wait to meet him.”
We passed through billows of dust through the gap in the fence and up the first tier of a multi-tiered patio, one of four arranged like the levels of a step-pyramid. The structure was unfinished. Part of it remained a quarry with blocks partially cut from the underlying bedrock, others stacked and ready for placement.
A blocky-faced man peered down from the edge of the uppermost tier. I took him for a dwarf at first because he was so short, but then I realized he had only stubs for limbs. Both arms and legs had been amputated above his elbows and knees.
Lady An climbed to the penultimate tier and stopped. Only Brian, Taro and I joined her. The other volunteers lingered below, all nervous and anxious.
“Visitors?” said Olivier, in a voice lightly accented and reduced in timbre and volume to more human proportions. “It is not often I get friendly visitors. Assuming ….”
“Is it any wonder?” said Lady An. “The way you welcome people leaves something to be desired.”
“I must beg your pardon. Those who come here usually aim to exterminate me. But you ….” He squinted down at us. “I know you, don’t I? You come from the settlement across the ravine. We are practically neighbors.”
“Tiamat,” said Lady An. “Our patrols have passed this direction many times. Why have you have never shown yourself to them?”
“Consider it a favor. Those who associate with me tend to meet their doom. My enemies are legion in this domain. Do you blame me for not wishing to be sociable?”
“But … we share the same enemy. We too do not pursue the Horus. We have that in common at least.”
“On the contrary. I am eager to meet the Horus. Whenever it comes near, I shed my shroud and invite it to come and take me. But it never takes the bait. It always veers away. Curious, don’t you think? Almost as if it fears me.”
Lady An crumpled her brow. “But why would you want to? Someone like you … should know better.”
“The same reason as most of the souls in those hordes,” said Olivier. “Boredom. Fatigue. This place … this existence ... is tiresome. Change for the sake of change can be attractive … for better or worse … no matter how worse.”
“Something tells me there is more to your motivations,” said Lady An. “You don’t strike me as desperate. You’re after something.”
“And what about you? What do you want? From me? How did you even manage to find me? I must be slipping.”
>
“We’ve met,” said Lady An, striding up a ramp of carefully fitted stone block, with mortar-less seams so tight they would have made an Inca stone mason envious. “Don’t you remember?”
“Ah. Of course! You are one of the channelers who visited me from the smudge.”
“Smudge?”
“Singularity, if you prefer. It is just a smudge of humanity. A smearing together of souls.”
“That’s not a very kind way to put it.”
“There was another with you … in the smudge. A young man.”
“That was me,” I said, stepping around Brian. “I … uh … I’ve got something for you. I held out Luther’s note, badly crumpled and frayed at the edges.
Olivier reacted as if I had leveled a bazooka at him. He flung himself back on his stubs, out of view.
“But it’s just a note!”
The scary voice returned. “Be advised. Any act of aggression will be met with deadly force!”
“It’s … just a note.”
Olivier peered over the cornice that skirted the uppermost platform, his eyes wide.
“I don’t care. You put that thing down! Don’t you dare point it at me or I’ll flay every shred of skin off your—”
“Now, now, Mr. Olivier. You are clearly over-reacting,” said Lady An.
I brought the note down to my side and held it in both hands.
“A note, did you say?”
I nodded. “From a friend of yours … in the Liminality.”
“A … friend?” He said the word as if it were something preposterous, like a pink platypus.
He gestured with one stub of an arm. I think he was attempting a wave. “Come forward!” he said.
I took a step towards the next tier, a wall of huge rectangular blocks that topped out a good meter over my head.
“Close enough! Stop! Now put it down on the ground.”
I laid the note down at my feet. A tiny whirl of dust came spinning down from the platform, capturing the note in its vortex, carrying it upward. The ribbon pulled loose. The note unfurled and hovered, inches before Olivier’s blocky face.
“Who sends this?” He crinkled his brow. “Luther? I don’t know any Luthers.”
“He said he knew you before you came here … in the Liminality … in Root. His real name is Arthur. Arthur Knebel.”
“Arthur?” Olivier’s face filled with knowing. “Oh Lord. Is he still there? I do know him. Knew him. But … friend? Rival, maybe. Annoyance, for sure.” His gaze lifted to the sky where a pair of bright specks glided high above the plateau. “I remember now. Luther was the young doctor Arthur was so infatuated with … in life. Is he dead?”
