by DJ Molles
Stuber was unruffled by the accusation. Some truths hurt. But only when they’re fresh. Old truths have had time to scar over. The nerves don’t feel them as much. “I’ll give you that. I killed because it was my job to kill, and it’s what I’m good at doing. And you belong to a power structure that enabled and glorified purposeless, theocracy-sanctioned mass murder. Couple of bastards we are.”
Mala didn’t react much to that, outside of a huff through her nose. Maybe that was one of her old truths. “Don’t sugar coat it on my account.”
“There’s no other course our lives could have taken. Not really. We’ve done the best with what we were given.”
She scoffed bitterly. “Made your peace with it then?”
“I’ve come to learn I’m pretty shitty at peace.”
“Doesn’t it feel like a bit of a cop out to say you could never have been anything else?”
“Doesn’t it feel like a bit of a cop out to act like feeling guilty will make a damn bit of difference?”
“Guilty?” she frowned. “No, I don’t feel guilty. I feel…wasteful. All of this.” She swept a hand across the scene before them. “Just waste. Wasted lives. My own included. I’ve been on this earth for sixty years, and what have I done with it? I have no people. No home. No faith. No loyalties. Everything I’ve done has gone up in smoke. The path forward used to seem so clear to me.”
“But now you’re lost.”
She nodded once. “Now I’m lost.”
“M-hm.” Stuber rubbed at his scruffy jawline. “Wasteland survival: No one’s coming to rescue you, so there’s no point in staying in one place. And if you don’t know which direction to go, pick one and start walking. You’ll find something eventually.”
She let out an uncertain noise. “Sounds like advice.” A sidelong glance. “But at least it wasn’t braggadocious.”
A low creak of hinges from behind them.
Stuber and Mala both turned to find a blue light descending on them from the gloom of the temple doors. It gradually coalesced into a pair of core processors—one damaged and barely lit, the other perfect and bright. Whimsby, dressed only in trousers, with his chest splayed open like a flaying victim, sauntered casually down the steps to stand behind them.
“I thought I heard voices,” he announced, oddly cheerful, as though this were some bright morning and everyone were well-rested with a promising day ahead of them.
“Don’t be coy,” Mala grumbled. “You heard every word we said.”
“Indeed I did,” Whimsby confirmed, choosing to sit beside Stuber. “But it’s generally considered somewhat alarming when someone enters a scene and says ‘I heard every word you said.’ So I went with a more palatable version.”
Stuber inspected his wide-open chest. “I must say, Whimsby…this new motif of yours kind of creeps me out.”
Whimsby looked down at it. “Yes, I suppose I can understand that. Sagum did a bit of retrofitting with the poor, late Bren’s parts, so that I don’t have to be lashed to his lifeless body in perpetuity. That would have been slightly creepier, don’t you think?”
Stuber nodded. “You have a point.”
“Anything to add?” Mala said, half sarcastic, half serious.
Whimsby leaned back on the step behind him, just as relaxed as could be. “Only that I’ve been on this earth for five hundred years, and I’ve only just figured out how to think and act for myself. Could I have done so sooner? Yes, I believe I could have. But I didn’t until the circumstances dictated it. Seems irrational to harangue myself for previous choices, when I know those choices were the best choices that could have been made under the circumstances that they were made. Now the circumstances are different. And so I make different choices.”
Stuber patted his rifle in a form of applause. “Well said.”
Shuffling from behind them. Heavy breathing.
All three turned to find Sagum bustling down the steps, his face all worried like a harried mother with a missing child. “There you are!”
Stuber assumed he was talking to Whimsby. Whimsby picked up on that too.
“Have no fear, Master Sagum. I would say I was getting some fresh air, but I neither need air, nor is it all that fresh.” Whimsby patted the step by his side. “Come join us, Oh Great Tinkerer. We were just solving the world’s problems.”
Sagum looked a little unsure, but with his motherly instincts assuaged, gave it a shrug, and sat down next to Whimsby. “Not sure I have much to add. I’ve had my face in your guts for the last few days. Not even sure I know what the hell’s going on.”
Whimsby leaned forward, motioning to each of them in turn. “Mala feels that her life has been a waste. Stuber feels trapped by his imminent life of domesticity—assuming we live to see it. I feel that I am somehow right where I need to be, though I’m still unsure what all the future will require from me. What about you, Sagum?”
“Oh. Me?” Sagum furrowed his brow. “I…uh…”
There came a long pause. Stuber leaned forward, mushing his face onto an upraised hand, watching the skinny man expectantly. Trying to put some pressure on him, honestly. Because he liked to see Sagum squirm. “Yes?”
Sagum squirmed. Shrugged. “I dunno, Stuber. What do you want me to say? This is all new to me. But is it really new-new? It seems like all of existence is this big wheel that keeps turning, always coming back to the same point as it started, but by then, everyone that lived through it the first time is dead and gone, so everyone that’s living through it now thinks its brand new, never been seen before. But it’s all happened before. One people rises up, comes to power, power corrupts, they abuse those they have power over in order to maintain their power, then something happens and disrupts that system, the power changes hands, and the wheel starts another revolution.” Sagum sighed heavily. “The demigods had power over us, and they abused it. Then we released the Nine and disrupted the system. Now someone new will take the power. It seems like that’s the Nine. And I think we all know how that’s going to go. Will we ever get out from under their thumb? Maybe. It’s possible some strange, unforeseen event could disrupt extremely powerful, invincible beings. It doesn’t seem likely. But then again, nothing about anything I’ve witnessed over the course of throwing my lot in with you people has been likely. So who knows? The question I keep asking myself is, will we humans ever get any better? Will we ever fix the problem? Or are we doomed to just take another spin on the wheel?”
Stuber’s hand slowly slid down off his face. Plopped back onto his rifle. He glowered at the smoking pile of human remains in front of him. Feeling small and foolish. “Godsdammit, Sagum.”
Sagum huffed and looked away. “Well, don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to,” he said, sullenly.
A voice off to their left: “I see you’ve collected some strays.”
They all looked left to find Lux striding through the smoky gloom, a water bladder dangling from one hand, his longstaff held low and dejected in the other.
“You found some water?” Mala asked, reaching out a hand.
Lux nodded and proferred the bladder to her. She ripped the stopper out and took a mouthful. Swished it. Spat it out. Then drank deeply. When she came up for air, she coughed a bit, and passed it to Stuber. “Here. Wash the taste of human ashes out of your mouth.”
Stuber accepted it. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he had the water in his hand. Realized he was mad for a deep drink. Would have liked to chase it with whiskey. Whiskey was always good for washing away the taste of death. He watched Lux carefully over the hump of the bladder as he drank.
Lux motioned to the spot next to Mala. “May I sit? Or are we still disliking each other?”
Mala flicked a hand at the step. “You brought water. You can sit.”
“How kind.”
Stuber finished his drink, started to pass it to Whimsby, then frowned at the mech and reached further to pass it to Sagum.
“Thank you for helping me with the bodies
,” Mala grumbled.
Lux didn’t respond. Stuber glanced over at him to find the paladin’s face hollow and stony. No expression to the eyes. On the lips, just a slight tightness. A downturn of the corners.
“Well,” Teran’s voice snapped from the right. “Either this is a helluva coincidence, or I’ve been excluded.”
“Not so much of a coincidence,” Stuber pointed out. “We’re all friends with Perry.” A glance at Mala and Lux. “Friends-ish. He went and flew off to gods-know where, to do gods-know what, and told us to wait for him. And he’s either going to return with some good news, or he’s going to return with some bad news.”
“Or not return at all,” Sagum pointed out.
“In any case,” Stuber continued. “It’s a recipe for a sleepless night.” He jabbed a thumb at Whimsby. “Though I don’t know what his problem is.”
Teran walked over towards them, but didn’t sit. She stood there, arms crossed, with her friends to her left, and the greasy ashes to the right, staring at the space between them.
“As good an explanation as any,” Teran admitted after a moment of silence. “And you’re right, Stuber: I couldn’t sleep.”
Stuber eyed her. “Where are your friends?”
Teran sniffed. “Back with the skiff. Re-evaluating their life choices, probably.”
“Did you not tell them what they were in for?”
Teran looked at him, seeming too tired to be as sharp with him as she usually was. “I did. I told them they were fighting Guardians. Which would have been hard enough. I consider them brave for volunteering for it. But that’s not the case any more, is it? And what good are any of us in this new fight?” Her eyes trailed away. “If there’s even going to be a fight.”
“Oh, there’ll be a fight,” Mala said, leaning forward and waving for the water bladder to return to her. “Question is whether we’re all gonna die or not.”
“Isn’t that the question with every fight?” Stuber said as he passed the bladder back to Mala.
Teran shook her head. “I dunno. The Outsiders didn’t want to fight. Wanted to hide. I told them they were foolish—that the Guardians would find them. Now I wonder if maybe they were right. Maybe hiding is the best option now. Will the Nine really bother to seek us all out like the Guardians would have?”
Stuber blew a raspberry. “Please. Don’t pretend, Teran. You’re just like the rest of us. If running and hiding were ever really an option for any of us, I don’t think we’d all be sitting here right now.” He gave up a grim smile, staring at the ashes. “This? Right here? The seven of us? This is no coincidence. This is fate.”
Teran tilted her head at him. “I’ve never taken you for the superstitious type.”
Stuber shrugged. “I am when it suits me.”
“Humans,” Whimsby put in with his usual thoughtful manner. “Are always more superstitious when their backs are against the wall. That’s something I’ve noticed in my time watching your kind. When things are going well, humans don’t give superstition a thought. But when they run out of options…that’s when they pray, and look for omens, and believe in luck and fate. Because, at that point, what else is there?”
“True,” Stuber agreed, still smiling. “We are masters of the forlorn hope.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
GIFTS
Perry smelled Karapalida before he saw it.
A whiff of it, high in amongst the clouds. An acrid, smoky stench that only had one source, and anyone who had lived in these times knew it well: The scent of human immolation.
It didn’t take long after that to spot the tiny twinkling of fires, so far below, rapidly approaching out of the charcoal skies to the east. Didn’t take long, because Perry was flying at an entirely unnatural speed.
Well. Flying was pretty unnatural as it was. But this made pulsing with his shield seem an agonizingly slow way to cover ground.
He was in a state entirely alien to himself. He had never existed in the flow of Confluence so completely. It had only ever been an all or nothing thing for him. He was either in it, with the world a hazy mirage, or he was out of it and the world was as it should be. This new ability was somehow both at once—completely submerged in the flow, and yet able to clearly perceive the world around him, down to the minutia of the smell of Karapalida, carried on a high-altitude wind.
Yes, it was wonderful, in a way. But Perry’s mind only experienced the elation of it for a short time. Something that Niva had not given him was an immunity to the rampant doubts that were steadily infiltrating every corner of his brain.
There was something in this Confluence of his—something foreign. Something that he’d not felt until recently. When he’d wanted to slaughter Boomer, rather than show him mercy. When he’d wanted to burn down The Thirsty Ox with Hauten and all of his crew inside of it.
There was a madness there, just off the sides of the narrow path that he walked. A slick and muddy downhill slide into chaos, should he have one misstep.
And what made it all the more dangerous was the fact that, when he was so sunk into the flow of Confluence, he wanted to step over that edge. It called to him, promising some ill-defined sense of release.
Kill them, burn them, disintegrate them.
Annihilation. Oblivion.
He let out a little gasp, drawing back away from that perilous edge.
Because the them in those thoughts wasn’t just The Nine, or his enemies…It seemed to be everyone. Everything. Down in the darkness where that madness promised to take him, there was no control. There was only rage, and release.
Control. He needed to control this flow. The current of it was so strong now that it was hard to figure out how exactly he was going to exert his willpower over it. He still wasn’t sure. And that lack of certainty was the seed of doubt that grew rapant in his mind.
The fact was, he wouldn’t know if he could control it until he was in the thick of it. And Primus help them all if he couldn’t.
Unfortunately, that was only one of his problems. The other problem was that, from the very second he’d left Snaggle-Tooth Mountain, he’d been able to feel them. The Nine. A strange sensation—if his consciousness had a physical body, it would be the prickle of discomfort on the nape of his neck.
He could feel the Nine, and with every passing second, he was growing more certain that they could feel him, too. The sense that he had of them was not just the feeling of them being out there, but the feeling of their attention on him. His newfound powers were like a beacon to them. A spotlight shining down on him.
In fact, when he concentrated past the roar of the wind in his ears, he thought he could hear that incessant hum—distant, but steadily growing stronger.
They were going to come for him. Were coming for him right at that moment, he was almost positive.
He pulled up rapidly from his headlong flight, all his insides feeling as though they were rearranging themselves at the sudden deceleration. He hovered for a short moment, directly over Karapalida, and he looked down past his feet, shaking away the wooziness of his sudden stop, and seeing the temple square far below.
It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. A great, black stain, with dim tongues of flame flickering throughout it, streams of stinking smoke lifting into the air in choking gouts.
Ashes, he realized. That’s where they burned the bodies.
He descended by simply letting himself drop. Through the smoke. All the world a whirlwind in his ears. The ground rushing up at him, his heart in his throat, which was a pleasant change from it being stamped down into the bottom of his guts with worry.
He landed gently—no need to stumble or time a pulse or balance himself expertly. Simply a tug from one of those infinite strands of energy that crisscrossed reality, almost visible to him through some vestigial part of his brain.
And then his feet were on the ground.
He turned towards the temple, still lost in his thoughts, trying to dream up what the hell he would say
to convince the others to join him in a suicide mission with no real, articulable chance of success, his heart starting to beat harder as he realized that he was now right on the doorstep of having to converse with them and he still didn’t know what to say.
He pulled up short, his worry turning to a near panic as he realized he was a lot closer to his friends than he thought. In fact, he had no time at all to think about what to say: They were all right there in front of him.
Stuber. Mala. Lux. Whimsby. Teran. Sagum. All lined up on the steps.
He stood there dumbly for a moment, scrambling for something to say. The way that they just stared at him, like they weren’t quite sure if it was him that had just dropped out of the sky, and were obviously waiting for him to speak, but he was empty in the brain at that moment.
“Oh,” he choked out. “Hey guys. Didn’t think you’d be…right here.”
Mala was the first to shoot to her feet, cutting away the distance between them in three rapid strides, her eyes coursing over him as though searching for contraband. “How’d you do that? I don’t see your shield. Where’s your longstaff?”
Teran was hot on Mala’s heels. “Did you find the person you were looking for? This All-Kind? Were they an All-Kind?”
And then Sagum: “Did you find anything out? Please tell me you have some idea of what we’re supposed to do, because we are completely lost.”
“Took you long enough,” Stuber griped, taking up the rear with Lux and Whimsby. “Did you actually go somewhere or were you just trying to get out of having to clean this place up?”
Perry could do nothing with the onslaught of questions except to raise his hands. “I…uh…well…” He cringed at his own lack of words. Had to avert his eyes painfully away from them. “Shit.”
“Godsdammit,” Teran muttered. “You didn’t find the All-Kind, did you?”
“No, I did,” Perry managed.
“You did?” From hopelessness to eagerness in one swoop. “So…?”
Mala rudely patted at his pockets. “No longstaff. No clasp for the shield. How’d you fly?”
