by A. Sparrow
“No. The real Luther is still alive. So is Mr. Knebel. He modeled his new self after the real Luther. He even took his name.”
Olivier frowned. “Ah … the flesh-weaving. I see. How pathetic. He was just getting into that business when I left on my little adventure.” Untouched, the note crumpled and dropped to the ground.
“So … uh … what did he write?” I asked.
“You mean you haven’t already read it?”
“Can’t say I wasn’t tempted. I figured it was private.”
Olivier blinked at me as if he was puzzled by my restraint or incuriosity
“He wrote for me an apology. But it is not accepted. If you ever see him again, you can tell him so.”
“Apology for what?”
Olivier shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I am here and he is there. But … what is this nonsense about a new village on the surface?”
“It’s true.”
“There is no surface. Not there. Root is Root. The transition between here and life. The smudge spans all, but there is nothing in between.”
“But there really is another place,” I said. “Up top. With ponds and rivers, mountains and canyons. Trees. Flowers. And wildlife—of a sort.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is. I’ve been there. That’s … where I come from.”
“Scheisse!” said Olivier.
Lady An put her hand on my shoulder. “Ask him to come with us,” she whispered.
“What does the woman want?” said Olivier, scrunching up one eye.
“She wants you to join us,” I said.
“Please,” said Lady An. “Your presence here is not sustainable. We can offer you refuge.”
“Unsustainable? Says who? I have outlasted all who have challenged me. Did you not see their bones?”
Lady An smirked. “Yes. You are very brave and very potent indeed. But they have eternity on their side. They will wear you down. They already have, somewhat. There is less of you than there was, isn’t there?”
“I have no need for your charity. In my present condition I am no threat to their interests. They may no longer fear me. But I have their respect. As long as my soul has an anchor, they cannot harm me.”
“But you’re just another adept. They’ve taken adepts down before with little trouble.”
“I am still here, aren’t I? I have taken all they could throw at me and here I still stand.”
“Not quite as tall, I must say,” said Lady An. “We could provide you with a secure chamber. You need not integrate yourself into our community … only if you want to. But your soul … it’s far too valuable to waste.”
“Refuge? You want to lock me away like some relic. Not a chance. I’m not going to sit in some cave. What do you have to offer that I can’t have here?”
“Community,” said Lady An. “A chance to be with other souls … other adepts. With no obligations. Occasional counsel at your discretion. That’s all we ask. You’re far too valuable to be left out here on your own.”
“I’m better off alone … and you … without me,” said Olivier, lowering his gaze “I once had my own community here. A band of disciples. My … skills … made them targets of the Hashmallim. They were guilty by association. One by one, my people were eliminated, until … there was only me. So don’t waste my time. The best thing for us all is for you to leave right now. Look … you are already attracting scavengers. Damned hyenas!” He gazed out over the scarred plateau.
A band of warriors had appeared on the rim of the valley wall from the direction we had come. The Protectors who had harried us appeared to have been augmented by another larger group. High overhead, another bright speck had joined the two that had been circling.
“Scheisse! And now you’ve attracted the vultures as well.”
I squinted up at the specks in the pinkish glow above. “What are those?”
“Seraphim!” said Lady An. “Everyone! Disperse across the structure! Tactical positions … now!”
Chapter 38: Marked
An augmented force of several dozen Protectors and at least two Hashmallim advanced on the hillock, following the exact route we had traced out of the valley. They carried lances of bone and sinew, clubs blunt and spiked, long slings with stones at the ready, loping loosely like eager jackals, confident they could take us, despite their primitive weapons. They outnumbered us two to one. Only spell craft gave us the edge.
Though most of our volunteers had limited skills compared to someone like Urszula, they could strike from a distance with enough force to knock a man down. Working in concert, they might inflict some real damage.
I had yet to see any Hashmallim employ spell craft and I wondered why? Were they simply incapable? Or were they prevented by some sort of edict from the Powers-that-be? Some taboo?
Maybe they held their skills in reserve to show discipline and restraint, or as a trump card, getting foes to underestimate them and then unleashing their magic when it was least expected for maximum effect. Hard to believe the Powers-that-be would send incompetent overseers to police the Deeps.
Perched at the edge of his platform, Olivier propped himself up on his stubs and studied the approaching force like a chess master contemplating a tricky sequence. As we watched, they had split into two groups. Even I could see they aimed to flank or surround us, to divide or disperse our defenses.
“Their numbers worry me,” said Lady An. “Even if we prevail there will be casualties. I suggest we retreat. If we leave now, we can stay well ahead of them.”
“Go, if you want,” said Olivier. “I don’t need you here.”
“We’ll take you with us,” she said. “I doubt they’ll pursue us very far and leave their flock unattended, We can then circle back to Tiamat or … bring you back here ... you wish.”
“I am not going anywhere,” said Olivier. “These fools don’t worry me.”
“I’m not only worried about them,” she said, eyes tracking the bright specks circling like stratospheric gulls high above the hillock.
“It appears the Horus has taken a turn,” said Olivier. “Perhaps you are better off sticking around. It is not a good time to be caught out on the flatlands … for an infidel, at least. Some lucky horde will be delirious with joy, I am sure.”
My head swiveled across the other side of the plateau. Olivier’s platform partly obscured it, but the knotty, brown columns of the Horus now loomed twice as large and tall as it has before. I could only assume it was twice as near and closing rapidly.
I freaked. “What the fuck? How—?”
“It knows something is up,” said Olivier. “I have seen it surge like this before. Sometimes … just feints. Sometimes moves of aggression. But don’t worry, it can’t … won’t … touch us within the bounds of these fortifications. I have some special …. repellency … you might say.”
“That mob will reach us long before that thing gets here,” said Lady An. “I suggest we focus our attentions on them.”
Olivier’s eyes drifted heavenward. “Strange to see three Seraphim together like that.” A flicker of worry flashed into his face.
Lady An stared up at the bright dots, which had glided steadily lower since we spotted them.
“You don’t expect they’ll intervene?” she said.
“Hard to say. How often do they see such a concentration of infidels and adepts out in the open? Who knows how they will react? Usually they come to observe, but … they may sense an opportunity for mayhem.”
Personally, I didn’t give a damn about the mob or these angels or whatever they were. That Horus had my full attention. I knew Karla’s column was in the crease of land just over the opposite rim of this plateau, and that storm was hurtling straight for it. Before it reached us, that storm would be plowing right through those folks, sucking their souls up like a vacuum cleaner. I could sense chances of a reunion slipping away with every passing moment.
Ghost tears welled in my dry ducts. It had b
een so long since I’d seen her, I couldn’t even put together in my mind how she looked. I had never taken a photo of her, not that it would do me any good in the afterlands.
What I did recall in vivid detail was the feeling of being in her presence. Snippets came back to me with the power of fever dreams, starting with that glorious moment, waking and finding myself in the back seat of a car with her and her sister, speeding along Loch Ness. Her body pressing against mine. Fingers brushing strands of sweaty hair from my eyes.
And then a cascade of remembrances tumbled forth. The first time I laid eyes on her in real life, walking towards me on that Inverness sidewalk. She took me into that sunken park, impossibly green. It felt like a faerie had taken me into her realm. The triumphant moments after she and Isobel rescued me from that bounty hunter in the train station before I knew she was about to leave me.
That would have sent the tears tumbling had there been any moisture in this strange, husk of a body I inhabited. We never had a chance. Never a fair chance to establish anything together, not since we left Root, not since that almost mythical time cuddling in her cushy chamber at my suicidal depths. It was my fault as well as hers, for not insisting that things be different. For trusting her clouded judgment. For listening, believing words over feelings.
I went to the edge of the tier and stared out at the approaching mob, halfway across the plateau now and still carrying themselves with a righteous swagger. I didn’t give a fuck about these people or their cause. Enlightened or unenlightened. Believer or infidel. Whether they wanted to chase the Horus, the more power to them. I had no dog in this fight. I just wanted to be left alone.
Lady An had Olivier and the volunteers to help fend these guys off. They didn’t need me and my unreliable spell craft. I slyly sidled away from the group. Brian and Taro looked befuddled and nervous. They didn’t even notice me move away.
Olivier rocked back and forth on his platform muttering some incantation. It wasn’t the way most people I knew conjured spells in the afterlands, but it certainly worked for him. A skirt of dust rose around the upper periphery of the hillock, concealing our positions behind a veil of dust. Unfortunately, it also kept us from seeing the attackers.
Before the dust completely obscured our view, I turned to get a fix on the position of the Horus. Some of the volunteers were moving along the tiers, spreading out to cover the backside of the hillock. I followed, pretending to join them. No one gave me a second look.
As the curtain of dust rose and thickened, I climbed down one tier, right to the very edge of the screen and let it envelop me. I felt guilty already, before I even did the deed. Immersed in dust, I kept climbing until I emerged on the back slopes of the hillock itself.
This wasn’t cowardice, I told myself. I wasn’t doing this out of fear or disloyalty or anything like that. It was just me looking out for my best interests, taking advantage of a dwindling opportunity.
I passed through the sheath of dust and burst into the clear. I broke into a dead run, aiming straight for the Horus.
***
I sprinted along one of the bare stone tracks, its bedrock gouged as if by glaciers. This Horus had claws that dragged or perhaps an anchor that kept it connected to the ground.
I kept glancing back over my shoulder to watch the curtain of dust rise and thicken all the way to the topmost tier of Olivier’s pyramid. He kept his platform thinly screened so he could monitor the plateau. I was pretty sure he had already seen me fleeing. That meant Lady An knew I had left, most likely. What passed for a stomach sank in me just like a real one.
Little wisps formed along the basal fringes of the screen. Olivier was conjuring yet another crop of spike-studded dust devils to harry his attackers.
One of the bright specks above had separated from the others and was swooping low the red-tailed hawks in Fort Pierce used to dive over our yard to check out the neighbor’s kitten.
I realized I had left that note with Olivier. I had no sword, not even a stick, nothing to help focus my will. Any conjuring I did was going to have to be unassisted by aids.
Some voices ahead made me pause. They couldn’t have been part of the mob of Protectors we had seen from the hillock. They were coming from the wrong direction.
I climbed up onto one of the fins of debris to see who was coming. And then that bright thing, no longer a speck but an object, a weird fluttery assemblage, like some kind of six-winged bug, hovered directly above me, about a hundred feet up, marking my exact location.
“Crap.”
Another mob of Protectors, only a handful compared to the other group, approached down a parallel track. They spotted me immediately, cue no doubt by the Seraph or whatever it was, hovering overhead. A pair of them scurried over the dirt ridge to flank me.
There was no point in evading them. They were between me and where I wanted to go. I held my hands loose at my sides so they could see I carried no weapons.
For their part, they stayed calm and made no attempt to threaten me with their clubs and maces and shit. Just like the other guys, the stuff was fashioned from lengths and shards and chunks of human bone, seemingly glued or fused together.
They almost seemed more concerned about the Seraph hovering above me. All those floppy and fluttering translucent wings made it seem like some mutant butterfly. Gaps revealed the man-shaped form carried within in only the briefest glimpses. A bubble of haze or diffraction seemed to spread around it, as if it carried a bit of his own world embedded into this one.
A tall, wiry man stepped out from the gaggle before me. He carried a huge long bow slung on his back along with a quiver stuffed with extra-long arrows.
He was lighter-skinned than the other Hashmallim I had seen, almost albino, and devoid of all facial hair. It made his face seem boyish, almost feminine, contrasting with his rugged, well-muscled physique.
“Why do you pass here alone? Where is your congregation?”
“Just ahead. Down below the rim. I … uh … got separated.”
“Preposterous. We come from there. I never saw you before. Who is your Hashmal?”
“I’m new here.”
“You are not an infidel?”
“No,” I said. “Duh. I’m heading for the Horus, aren’t I?”
“But you were with them … the infidels?”
“They found me. Tried to convert me. But I escaped.”
“Then why does this Seraph want you marked?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him. Or her. Whatever it is.”
That prompted a nervous glance up at the fluttery creature watching over us.
The Hashmal looked confused. “You have … the mana.”
“The what?”
He reached over and smeared his thumb against my cheek. It came away coated in gray dust. “Why have you not Ascended?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Our home. Nidus. The domain of Lar.”
“Listen, man. I got no clue what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m James.” And I strode ahead, right up alongside him and kept on walking by.
I stepped right through his little gang of gray-faced folk. They parted readily. No one attempted to stop me.
A screech not unlike a hawk’s emanated from that tangle of wings overhead. Shouts from the base of the hillock indicated that the battle had been joined. Olivier’s dust devils spun through the mob as they charged the hillock.
“Stay,” said the Hashmal.
“Can’t,” I said. “I’ve got places to go, people to meet.”
“I said, stay!”
“I told you. I can’t.” I kept on walking, climbing back down into the wide lane of grooved bedrock. It was easier walking there than on the loose dirt. Almost like a sidewalk. A very wide one.
The butterfly man—I couldn’t bring myself to think of it as an angel just yet—shrieked in an unearthly pitch, almost beyond hearing.
/> I was only a dozen paces away when one of the Protectors wound up and threw his club at me. It tumbled end over end. I saw it come with an uncanny clarity, as if I were able to slow everything down. It was big and blocky, like the hammer of Thor, but forged of stone and bone.
I reacted instinctively and defensively, throwing up my hands to ward it off. Some force loosely connected to my core broke free as effortlessly as sneezing. It struck the hammer in mid-flight and shattered it. Fragments rained down, marking a line on the bedrock in the direction I fled.
I sprinted away, heading for a moraine wall that would put some cover between me and the little gang. I had almost reached it when the Seraph shrieked again.
I turned to look over my shoulder barely in time to spot something linear flexing through the air, a living sin wave, a flying snake
Before I even had time to flinch, the arrow pierced my back, slipping through my flesh and bone like a stick through a rotten pumpkin. The point emerged just to the left of my sternum.
The Hashmal lingered just long enough to make sure I had been hit and then continued onward with his crew to Olivier’s hill, where myriad pops and shouts and explosions indicated that a full-fledged battle was underway.
I stared down at the sharp point studding my chest. Not a drop of blood beaded around the arrowhead, which was the most elegant weapon I had ever seen, every facet fluted and converging to a translucent razor’s edge. It was carved from a waxy stone much different from the chalky stuff that seemed to make up much of the Deeps. It was the kind of thing I would have been thrilled to find in one of those caches you find in Florida near old Seminole encampments.
Too bad I couldn’t hang around to admire it. My consciousness blinked out as swiftly as a thumb and forefinger pinching a candle wick.
Chapter 39: Meg
I thought I was a goner, committed to some other even lower realm I had yet to experience and would have to learn about the hard way. I never expected to return to life. But return, I did, to that press box on the Dartmouth campus, screaming with all the volume I could muster.
