by Jim Grimsley
Zhengzhou kept a hand on his shoulder.
Pel said, “It’s a bit angry, a bit roughed up. The syms want us to move.”
“That sounds like good advice,” Figg said, a sinking in his stomach.
“Dekkar’s staying behind. He and the creature are trying to encircle each other.” Pel waited behind Keely, watching the top of the boy’s head.
“It’s the finish,” Keely said, finding the direction and becoming still.
The syms formed up in walking ranks, the humans at their center. The Hilda and Zhengzhou led Keely again, Figg and Kitra walking behind him, Pel at the rear of the formation watching the southern sweep of forest.
“It’s like he’s making a fence,” Keely said. “Then the tree-thing tears it down.”
“Do you see where Dekkar is?” Figg asked.
He shook his head. “I see where’s he’s reaching or what he’s doing. Sometimes I hear.”
The country around them turned strange, trees and underbrush planted and trimmed to different heights in a grid pattern that reached as far as Figg could see. Mist mingled with smoke in the damp twilight, one cloud rising and the other hanging low, obscuring all but the lights and sounds. Some of the syms were carrying lanterns in the shape of spheres that lit the fog, made it appear solid.
They were moving toward a new light far ahead over the northern horizon. The road stretched toward it. Beyond the arching Dirijhi branches, beyond the galleries of dumb-trees along the road, beyond the haze and smoke, a white light glowed steady and true.
“Milkly the Blossoms,” said Binam. “It’s the country where we’re headed. Rao made his settlement there.”
“He’s moving toward us,” said one of the syms.
“So we don’t have to find him.” Pel shrugged, throwing away the rest of his sliver of wood for chewing. He carved another with his knife off the chunk of cedar at his belt. “He’ll find us.”
Behind, a new shrieking tore through the twilight, and the syms doubled their pace. A light burned over the forest, shimmering colors, growing brighter. The Hilda scooped Keely into its arms when he threatened to fall behind; at this pace, she was the best choice to carry him.
Why go any farther north when they were only drawing closer to a danger greater than the one that chased them? The thought came to all of them at the same time, once they heard what Pel said and repeated it, one murmuring to another. A moment later the party turned aside into a green pasture, roofed by smoky haze, surrounded by twisted columns of dumb-trees that trailed weeping branches along the border of the meadow. “A willow-wait,” said Binam, turning to Figg. “We leave them for travelers to rest. There’s clean water, a rock hill, and heated stones.”
The grass stood knee-high, mixed with other plants, some flowering, none brightly. A gray ash or soot had fallen over everything, particles fine enough to cling to the leaves. The syms were wandering, touching fingertips to the ash, speaking softly to one another, confused. Figg sat on a group of flat stones, not the heated variety, near the water and the rock shelter, which was big as a hill, as its name suggested. The Hilda set Keely down near Figg and the boy quickly stood, green face glowing in the soft light that filled the willow-wait.
Kitra sat against Figg’s back. He felt grateful that she stayed so close and easy with the warmth to share. He should have damped down those feelings hours ago, but now it was nearly too late. The emotion was for the moment, anyway, and nothing more; it was the excitement; otherwise what would she want with an old man like him? Still, it was nice to feel this comfort. “You think we should wait here?”
“It’s a better place than the road,” Figg said. “I like having the rocks close.”
Pel was kneeling nearby, watching Keely. “We don’t want to get too far ahead of Dekkar and his business.” He was checking the status of a shoulder-mount gun, getting ready to belt it over his deltoid. Behind him, Zhengzhou was arming herself, too, one gun mount already strapped to her shoulder. “That bugger up ahead is the one I’m worried about, now that it’s moving toward us.”
“He has to kill this one he’s already fighting or else he has to fight against two of them at the same time,” Keely said.
“Sensible,” Pel said. “But this new one’s still got me worried.”
Light, and now wind, rushed over them, something near a cyclone at moments; clouds darkened overhead; after a while a smattering of rain began to fall.
They found shelter in the rocks, pitched some of the tents as awnings to keep the storm off their heads. The syms paid no mind, some of them dancing in the rain, spinning, even in the gloom.
“Remind me why we’re doing this to begin with,” Kitra said, into Figg’s ear. “Heading north to meet the very thing we ought to be running from.”
“Run anywhere you want,” Pel said, sitting down to adjust the calibration of the shoulder mount, to which he had attached a line-sighter. The sighter-targeter moved this way and that. “You won’t get very far.”
“Why isn’t Dekkar thinking about running? Why isn’t he thinking about saving himself, and the rest of us? He told us he can’t kill this Rao thing, he already said so.” She was speaking intently, and Figg drew her closer. Binam knelt next to her, hearing the fear in her voice.
“He came here to get as close to Rao as he could.” Pel took the sighter off one shoulder, hooked it to the other. “To find out what language he uses to make magic. They all use language, you know. Every one of them.”
“That’s all? He knows that, now. He found out from Keely’s math box.”
“He may know the beginnings, but he’ll need more.”
“What, he has to have a sample? What about us? Why do we have to go with him?”
“Where else do you want to be?” Figg asked, looking her in the eye. “On my farm? You were the one who begged to come to Greenwood.”
“That’s right,” Binam said, stroking his sister’s hair.
She blinked as, to the south, one light and then another streaked upward, like rockets taking off. Two towers of light stood side by side, burning in the smoke, pale and colorless; then at the top the lights thinned and twined and the two points hurled themselves apart.
Again, in a different part of the south, the towers of light sprang out of the ground; reeling upward in tight spirals, faster, hurtling apart, vanishing.
In another place, and then another, the towers fountained upward, sparked, and split into arcs.
“He can’t be patient, he has to pick a fight,” Keely said.
A howl and a light like a cold white star shone in the center of the willow stand, and suddenly the wind blew Figg and everyone near him flat, left every person clutching the grass. Figg’s heart pounded and he gripped Kitra’s hand and watched her face, frozen in terror.
Keely was standing, no one else; quick as a blink he hurled the math box at one of the lights. The box arced and was caught. Keely knelt on all fours, watching the dance in the clearing.
Two lights nearby streaked upward, spinning, but this time a soundless glare of light and a booming followed, shaking the ground like a dozen fallen trees.
“He moves so fast,” Keely said. “Look.”
But Figg saw nothing at all, only the cloud of dirt erupting upward, a crater dug up by whatever had fallen.
The sound that followed tore at his ears; he thought about no one else, nothing else, other than the sour music going wrong in his head in every possible way, excruciating sound sliding out of hearing, saw noises and grindings, insane shattered chords, a rhythm that maddened him because at times he almost understood it, had almost heard it before.
Keely was chanting, following the sound, but what Keely said made the other sound easier to take.
“Oh, good lord,” Kitra said.
The tree-thing was bound in some way, trying to get out, a cloud of dust and fire around it, and for a time a whirring of wings like the flocks of shadow birds. It moved more slowly, or had weakened, or in some way that was hidden from Fig
g’s sight was bound. A dark, spindly creature, built like the skeleton of a Hilda, a small head, emitting that noise without the appearance of any sort of lung. Four arms, two legs, but still reminding Figg in some way of the mantises.
“My father made it from a tree,” Keely said.
“He’s not your father,” Figg said.
Keely faced him that time, almost as if he still had eyes. He looked at Kitra then, with the same affect. “I had a sister,” he said. “Her name was Sherry.”
“That’s right,” Figg agreed.
The thing in the clearing was audible again, and they clutched at their ears; Dekkar was invisible to everyone but Keely, who watched quietly, seeing whatever he saw. “The thing is fenced now,” said Keely. “It can’t break out this time.”
“How can you tell?” Kitra asked.
Keely was kneeling, hiding his face.
Figg had a sudden urge to turn away, he could not resist, and he saw Kitra, Binam, everyone, doing the same.
Light like a small sun filled the willow-wait, lit the whole sky far up into the roils of smoke and ash. A concussion sounded, loud, and Figg covered his ears and curled tight into a ball. A queasy wave of nausea passed through him, and in the midst of the terror, he felt as if some hand were shading him from the worst. The flash of horrific light burst quickly into utter darkness, and then there was only the plain light of day, which looked dim enough after the sudden burst of fire.
“She’s dead,” Keely said. “She’s gone.”
Figg decided to stand. He was looking into Kitra’s eyes, smiling. They were alive. He got to his knees, then to his feet, and saw, across the green, Dekkar, perplexed at something on the ground. Figg was happy, he was alive, looking at Keely, at Kitra. Nothing else moved in the clearing. Dekkar was about to rise. He looked as if he had been hurt, clutching his side, and Figg took a step toward him but for some reason looked down again, at Kitra, who was about to say something, about to scream at him.
Figg heard the whirring of wings, louder. The first bird sliced through him almost in slow motion, so fast it was a blur, a thud that set him back a step, the slice keenly through his abdomen so neat he had yet to feel it when the second, the third, the first dozen birds zipped through him.
He was falling into slices through the air; his body slid into pieces and he was astonished and still alive for a moment or two, hearing the cries, the beginnings of cries, before he blacked out and waited in darkness a few more moments, even pain absent in the last moments. He had wanted to look at Kitra for longer, he liked the sweetness of her face now that she had found her brother, and he wondered what would happen to Keely, and it looked to him as if Dekkar was nearly dead, too, so that would soon be a problem for everybody. But it was too late to think about any of that now, he had this turn he was making, he was about to find out about dying, you know, and that had to be the most important thing, uppermost in his mind.
These were the final newsbursts queued for his attention. He managed only three before he died.
387 Keely File’s ninth birthday party was held at the Marmigon in high security and complete secrecy as the investigation of Fineas Figg on charges of illegal child procurement is completed. No charges are expected to be filed. It is known that Fineas Figg, when known under his Orminy moniker Finian Bemona-Kakenet, was prosecuted for illegal child procurement when he was a teenager…An item nearly two years old, this had remained in his queue only because of the mention of Keely; the reference to his early-life troubles took him aback at this last second of life. Had he atoned at all?
388 The Mage Malin is known to have read and enjoyed the young people’s story series Oaney Oakley and the Magic Temple, says a source close to her consort’s inner circle. The Mage Consort is known to be an avid reader of many kinds of literature and does all she can to promote literacy among the children of the Reeks. Queued here because he, like everyone, enjoyed odd tidbits that humanized the Mage and the Consort, and because of the reference to the Reeks; the item was years old. No one read Oaney Oakley anymore.
389 Hanson declares it possible that the Common Fund may eliminate the overpopulation of the Reeks to the point that the Ministries will be required to provide incentives to draw settlers to the unused space beneath Senal. The Common Fund may eliminate poverty as it has been defined for centuries. A newer item queued low because it was praise of the Common Fund, which was never a priority for Figg. The last thing he appreciated before he died was this item, precisely the last, a microsecond of attention, and then he was done with the news.
3. Keely
He had been glad to have no eyes when Uncle Figg fell to pieces in front of him; it was enough to know what had happened, to feel the sudden approach of the bird-things, and then to know afterward that there was no hope of any mending. They carried Keely away as if that would keep him from knowing. Dekkar stopped the bird-things but the effort brought him to his knees and he was hurt himself, sliced along the arms and face, bleeding red blood like anybody. He was tired, clearly, after the hard fight.
In Keely’s head Uncle Figg was still following next to Kitra, and then the next second Keely would remember it wasn’t true. Kitra was holding him close. Zhengzhou was staring back in terror. The syms had fled in panic but returned. Penelope had vanished altogether.
The bird-things had destroyed the Hilda, too. Her leg chassis was still standing, the skirt hanging off, the torso crashed over, cut to ribbons. Nobody was thinking about the Hilda.
“Will those bug things eat him?” Keely asked.
Dekkar knelt beside him. His face was stained with sweat. “You want me to burn him? And we can say goodbye to his ashes?”
Keely nodded after a moment. Dekkar gave the order to pile up the dead. Someone carried the Hilda to the pile at the last second.
No one asked why Dekkar lit the fire. Around them the shadows of the mantises were moving in the trees, closer now that Dekkar was weaker. That was why the bird-shades had reached as close as Uncle Figg in the first place.
Everyone stayed at the fire till it was strong, till it was clear it would burn the bodies. The wind tore away most of the smell. Nothing could eat Uncle Figg this way, burned to ash.
Now the southern sky was dark. The northern light, though, was closer.
“He’ll send more flocks,” Dekkar said.
“You’ll hold them off.” Pel spoke intently, and Keely listened.
“I don’t know how long. She nearly wrecked me.”
“You don’t have any choice,” Pel said.
“I do.” He wiped his face. “I can fail.”
Pel’s face flushed. He was about to say something. Dekkar undercut him. “Don’t say it, friend. You see that light’s coming closer, don’t you? It’s Rao.”
“What does it matter?”
“Creatures like us only come close when—” he took a long breath. “He’s out of my league.”
“Don’t say this.”
“You have to know it. He’s out of my league. It’s Keely he wants.”
“Why?”
“To become embodied. To bring himself into focus here. Strong as he is now, he’ll be even stronger after that. The bodies he’s tried so far have failed. Keely’s close, so he has to try again. He won’t wait. It’s what he came for.”
“You think that’s why he’s moving now?”
“Why else would he come to us? He knows I have to find him one way or the other, he could have waited for me.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Kitra asked. “What do you think we can do?”
“Stay close to Keely. See what happens.”
“Wait here?” Pel asked.
“It won’t matter where.”
“But it won’t hurt, either.”
“Then you should move to the rocks,” Dekkar said. “The bugs are going to come out of the woods in a few minutes. I can’t hold them back.”
“Fine.” Pel ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll move to the rocks.”
&n
bsp; “But he’ll come to you there. I’m telling you. It’s Keely he wants now. He knows I’m beaten.”
“Then why did we come here?” Kitra asked, voice broken. “What was this for?”
“Either help will come and find you or it won’t,” Dekkar said. “If it doesn’t, it won’t much matter where you are.”
Keely was numb. He could feel the frightened bodies, could place them, outline their contours. The river of numbers had merged with his thinking but had not overwhelmed him; he was himself, could still think for himself, both in words and in not-words. “You’re going to fight my father?” he asked.
Dekkar faced him directly. His hair was damp and limp and he cradled his bleeding arm against his side. “Yes.”
“You have to burn yourself up.”
He smiled, close to exhaustion. “That’s right. It’s what I was made for.”
“I think it’s going to be all right,” Keely said, fixed for an instant on something in front of him, a shape he had never seen before, which formed and vanished as quickly as he recognized it. “But not for a while.”
Dekkar was watching him, touching him in some way. He pressed the math box into Keely’s hand. “I think you’re telling the truth,” he said, kneeling. “Keep the box with you from now on. All right?”
Keely reached, slid his arm around Dekkar’s warm neck. He lay his face against Dekkar’s for a moment.
A moment later someone else was holding Keely’s hand—Kitra—and he could feel Dekkar wheeling away, hidden again, to face the mantises.
“Back to the rocks,” Pel said. “Orderly, now.”
At first they moved toward shelter with the syms formed up neatly. But they had only gotten as far as the pool of water when the black-armored creatures emerged from the dumb-trees at the edge of the clearing. They ran then, a scrambling mass. Keely moved surefooted as a cat and climbed the rocks with his heart pounding, Kitra following, the syms all scrambling up. Dekkar stayed below, near the front, with Pel and Zhengzhou, whose shoulder guns hummed and purred. Keely could hardly breathe, a hand squeezing his chest so tight. He ought to be able to do something to help, he thought, but the numbers would not move for him, the sounds clogged in his throat.
