by Dima Zales
I guess I’ve been dealing with Phoe long enough that she’s conditioned me to do as she says. Spreading my arms palms out, I will the weapons to appear.
Two blades materialize in my hands. They’re lighter than I imagined two long pieces of metal would be, but then again, real-world swords don’t possess the fiery glow these two have, so I’m not operating under the normal laws of physics. The handles feel comfortable in my hands, as if they’re extensions of my arms.
“Tell the Councilors to arm themselves too,” Phoe says.
“Arm yourselves,” I shout at the frightened people below me.
My command arrives too late for one pale, pudgy Councilor, as one of the armed warriors beheads him.
“Gesture for the weapons you chose on your way to this place,” I yell. “Wish for them to appear in your hands.”
Vincent—the thin Councilor—looks up at me and nods. He performs the gesture to call forth his weapon, and an intricate scythe appears in his hands. With it, he looks a lot like the Grim Reaper. As soon as he registers his new acquisition, Vincent swings the giant grass-cutting instrument at his beefy attacker. The winged warrior is caught off-guard. One moment he was chasing an unarmed, pathetic Vincent, and in the next, his target is attacking him. The momentary hesitation quite literally costs the attacker his head, and his decapitated parts disappear in that same pixel-by-pixel manner as the bodies did earlier.
“Good job, Vincent,” I shout. “Wait—look out!”
Vincent’s head is separated from his body, and as he dematerializes, I see Brandon standing there with his giant blade.
“Fighting us is useless,” Brandon says in his drum-like voice. “We’ve trained with these weapons for centuries, while you didn’t know you could possess them—until that one told you.” He looks at me threateningly, his wings preparing for flight.
I try to make my gaze more baleful than his. He’s trying to dominate the environment through psychological warfare, and I won’t fall for it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fiona. She’s approaching Brandon from behind, a rapier in her slim hands. Instead of metal, her weapon looks to be made of pure light.
“Head for the exit,” Phoe orders me at the same time as I think, “We need to help her.”
“No, we don’t,” Phoe says. “Judging by the way Brandon moves, he wasn’t lying about his training. You have no chance against him in a fight. Fiona is already as good as back in Limbo.”
Phoe’s words are like cold water over my brain.
“Can’t you take over my body and do something?” I think in desperation. “You should be faster than—”
Before I can finish my idea, Phoe acts on it. The next few seconds are full of the usual paradoxes that happen when Phoe takes control. It feels like I’m acting on my own, but I know I’m not that much in control of my fear of heights. It must be Phoe who has me pull back my wings and literally swoop down to the ground.
“I thought you wouldn’t consent to my control after my failure in Oasis.” Phoe’s words distract me from the horror of falling, but when the wind resistance hits my face, terror fills me once again.
Fiona raises her rapier.
Though he’s looking at me, some kind of instinct warns Brandon that someone is attacking him from behind. With impossible speed, he spins around, blocking Fiona’s strike with such force that she staggers backward.
I’m halfway down when Brandon takes advantage of Fiona being off balance and swings his giant blade. Fiona parries with her rapier, but she might as well be wielding a toothpick. Brandon’s blade pushes her elegant weapon aside and continues its trajectory toward her lithe neck.
Instead of splattering on the floor like I feared, I open my wings at the last second and slam my right katana down on Brandon’s broadsword, preventing him from decapitating Fiona. Unfortunately, his sword still leaves a gushing wound in her neck.
Instead of red, her blood is luminescent, like the blood of a strange deep-sea creature. She shrieks so loudly that it startles Brandon. I take advantage of his momentary distraction and slice open his left shoulder.
Ignoring the spurting of his blood, Brandon gives me his full attention.
Fiona is clutching at her neck, and I know I’m on my own in this fight.
Brandon thrusts his sword at my chest. I jump away so quickly there’s no doubt Phoe was responsible.
Brandon’s jaw tenses. He must’ve expected everyone in here to be an easy kill. His training holds, however, and instead of dwelling on my surprising spryness, he swipes at my legs.
I jump.
He thrusts the point of his broadsword at my right shoulder, and I parry with my left blade. The impact numbs my entire arm, but I don’t let that stop me. Instead, I slice Brandon straight across his bicep.
I hear the sizzle of my fire blade searing his flesh, and he yelps in pain, finally revealing that he can feel these injuries.
His cry gets the attention of his nearest muscle-bound ally, who stops chasing a bleeding Council member in favor of attacking me.
Crap.
My already-frantic heart is trying to escape my ribcage. Even Phoe can’t control my body fast enough to deal with two of these guys.
Then I notice Fiona’s neck. It’s no longer gushing blood. The bloody wound is bad and must hurt like hell, but it’s in better shape than I expected. Healing must work differently in this place. Though I’ve never seen a sword wound back in Oasis, I doubt they stop bleeding that fast.
Fiona is screaming something, but it sounds unintelligible. Then I see that she isn’t looking at me. She must’ve yelled for help, because a knife-wielding Council woman joins her, and they attack Brandon.
Brandon’s ally swings his weapons, a pair of long dagger-like swords with two curved prongs sticking out near the handles, and misses.
“They’re called sais.” Phoe’s whisper jars me, and I pull away, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed by one of the guy’s sais.
He looks surprised that I dodged his hits, and I—or strictly speaking, Phoe—slice down with my sword.
The guy’s arm falls to the floor, and the weapon clatters. The arm doesn’t disappear, however. I guess body parts don’t dematerialize here until their owner is killed.
“I don’t like the term ‘killed,’” Phoe says in my mind. “Why don’t we call it ‘Limbofied,’ since people are sent to Limbo? Regarding the lack of dematerialization, it is indeed interesting. When we stop his heart, I want to examine this Limbofication process closer.”
Before I can berate Phoe for trying to develop my vocabulary in the middle of a sword fight, my body does something I didn’t think it could do. My legs spread sideways, as if I’m an ancient gymnast. When my crotch touches the floor and a sai whooshes by my ear, I swing my sword at my attacker’s legs, chopping them off at the ankles. The goriness would usually make me vomit, but I’m not sure this body is capable of doing that. However, I do gag from the smell of burning flesh. As the man falls screaming, I position my right blade where his heart will be, and his torso impales itself on the blade. His severed limbs and the rest of his body dematerialize like every other Limbofied person’s.
“That’s amazing,” Phoe thinks excitedly. “I was indeed able to analyze the dematerialization process. At the core, it’s a data-compression algorithm, which obviously can be exploited. Quick, let’s Limbofy someone else so I can intercept the whole process.”
As if in answer to Phoe’s wish, Brandon makes Fiona’s knife-wielding helper disappear with a slice of his sword. The ancients had a saying along the lines of “don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,” but I think the wisdom applies to a sword fight as well. What’s really impressive about Brandon’s kill—or in Phoe’s terminology, Limbofication—is that he parried Fiona’s rapier in the same move he used to kill the woman.
“Crap,” Phoe mutters in my head. “I wasn’t ready just then. Though I did learn a bit more about the process.”
“If we don’t do something to help Fiona, you�
��ll get your chance when Brandon turns her into a shish kebab,” I think at Phoe. “Or when he Limbofies her, if you really prefer. In case it’s not obvious, I don’t want that to happen.”
Phoe assists in Fiona’s rescue by forcing my body to perform more gymnastics. I bring my legs under me and roll closer to Brandon. Brandon’s giant sword blocks my strike aimed at his legs, and before I can cut his torso with my left katana, he blocks me in the most unexpected manner—with his wings.
There’s a crunching sound as my sword cuts through the wing bones and the smell of burned feathers is disgustingly palatable, but my attacker is still very much alive. With the wounded wing no longer blocking my sight, I see that Brandon has managed to turn this painful outcome into an advantage. With his wings in my way, I lost sight of what he was doing, and I now watch as his sword swings toward my skull.
“This is it,” I think for Phoe’s benefit. “I’m going to die—again.”
10
Despite my conviction, I don’t die—thanks to Fiona. She thrusts her rapier in the path of Brandon’s sword right as it’s midway to my head. A painful metal-on-metal clang rings out, which is odd, since Fiona’s weapon doesn’t look metallic. Her arm ricochets backward with such violence that I’m sure her shoulder is dislocated. What’s really frustrating is that her move doesn’t even stop Brandon’s assault; it only slows it. However, it’s enough for me to sidestep before his sword can cleave my head in half.
In a shower of sparks, Brandon’s blade strikes the floor next to me.
I jackknife to my feet and perform a ballerina-like feat of dexterity by slicing each sword in opposite trajectories. I bury the right one in Brandon’s gut and plunge the left into his eye socket. Bile rises in my throat at the sight of the gore spilling out of Brandon when I yank the swords in a circular motion. Maybe I can vomit. Large chunks of slightly crispy flesh fall to the ground and then get digitized and disappear.
“Yes!” Phoe screams—and I do mean out loud. “Yep, I have a voice now,” she says in my mind before I can ask. “This is very promising. I got both his memories and a fraction of the resources Haven had allocated to him. This means things are not as bad as I thought, which is all the more reason for you to get out of here. If you go back into Limbo, we’re screwed.”
“I want to help Fiona escape,” I think back. “She saved me.”
“Fine,” Phoe says. “Tell her to follow you.”
“Our only chance is escaping through that door,” I tell Fiona, who’s dazedly staring at the empty spot where Brandon’s body used to be. “Follow me.”
I run for the entrance, hoping Fiona heard me and is on my heels. Around me, pieces of Council members keep dematerializing at an increasing rate, which means there are more armed men free to attack me. Two of the nearest winged assholes turn their sights on me. When they’re twenty feet away, I launch into the air. The pounding of my wings outpaces my heart rate, which itself was trying to set some kind of a record.
I hear the rustling of wings behind me and assume Fiona has followed my lead.
The two big guys attempt to follow, and as soon as they do, Phoe maneuvers my body in a way that would make a hawk proud. I plunge toward the door as though my life depends on it—which it does, Limbofication notwithstanding. I hear Fiona scream behind me as a sword whooshes by my side.
Just as my legs clear the cathedral’s entrance, a terrible pain erupts in my calf.
I glance down at the source of the pain and wish I—or Phoe—hadn’t, because there’s a dagger sticking out of my leg.
Fiona’s situation is worse than mine. Her wings are no longer attached to her body, and she’s falling down the mountain that the cathedral is built upon.
My vision goes white, partly from the pain, but mostly from the very bright illumination that hits my retinas. What’s odd about the bright light is that there isn’t a sun in the sky. The light is coming from all around me.
I try to swoop down to save Fiona, but my body, under Phoe’s control, doesn’t listen. Instead, I let go of my left sword and rip the dagger from my calf. The pain is so sharp it further blinds me. Despite the pain, I’m still torpedoing away from the cathedral.
My left hand gestures with an open palm, and another fiery sword appears in it.
“I’m sorry, Theo,” Phoe says. “I couldn’t let you go after Fiona. Remember, she won’t die. She’ll get written back into the DMZ—into Limbo.”
Unsure how I feel about sacrificing Fiona, I glance back.
She’s gone, but my pursuers aren’t. They’re flying after me like two eagles pursuing a mouse.
Channeling my worry into flapping my wings harder, I fly faster, leaving fiery embers behind me.
For the first time, I take a moment to register my surroundings. I’m flying up toward a dome that looks similar to the Dome in Oasis. What’s different, though, is the scenery beyond it. In the never-ending cloudy blue sky, a dozen domed islands are floating as if held there by magic. Oasis-like habitats are visible from horizon to horizon.
No, not like Oasis—if the view below is anything to go by. Aside from the mountain bearing the cathedral behind us, there’s no greenery at all, just more barren mountain ranges—something we’ve never had in Oasis.
“I’m sorry to distract you from the tour, but I want you to help me make an important decision,” Phoe says. “One that will affect us equally.”
“Since when do you ask for my opinion?” I ask out loud, still upset that she didn’t save Fiona.
“We don’t have time for you to be mad at me,” Phoe says. “We need to strategize.”
“Fine. What do you want me to help you decide?” I keep my eyes on the approaching dome rather than on the sharp mountaintops below.
“Okay,” she says. “Before we can form a plan, we need to Limbofy at least one more person. Two would be better. So the choices are: Do we start with our pursuers, which is risky, or escape and look for someone else?”
Out of all the things I expected Phoe to say, “Let’s kill a bunch of people” wasn’t among them.
“You should start by explaining why we need to do that,” I say. “And if you’re ready to explain things, I need you to tell me what the fuck is going on and why you didn’t respond when—”
“No time for twenty questions,” Phoe says. “The reason I need you to Limbofy a few more targets is because I need more knowledge and resources. When someone gets Limbofied, their memories are prepared to be rewritten into the DMZ, similar to what happens in Oasis when someone goes to sleep. I patched into that process when it happened to Brandon and gained a copy of his memories. More importantly, when he left this system, his Haven resources were de-allocated, so I grabbed as much as I could. I only acquired a small chunk, since I didn’t know what I was doing, but I should be able to get more next time. And before you start again with the whys, even those meager resources allowed me to speak to you out loud instead of as a thought and to speed up the healing of your leg.”
As she says that last statement, I realize the pain in my calf is nearly gone.
“Right,” Phoe continues. “So to even begin unraveling this mess, I need more resources and more memories. Ideally, the memories should come from someone who knows more than Brandon did, though I guess hunting for someone knowledgeable is phase two of the plan.”
I fly in silence for a moment. The idea of hunting down random strangers is distasteful to me.
“Yes, but unlike random strangers, our pursuers are dangerous,” Phoe says.
As I think about this, we fly through the dome, which feels like a soap bubble on my wings.
A knife whooshes past my ear, reminding me of my pursuers.
“These assholes are practically asking for it,” I say. “Plus, they killed Fiona and a bunch of other people. We should get your resources from them. It’s only fitting.”
“Okay then,” Phoe says cautiously. “If we’re going to face them, we have to dispatch them quickly, before their comrades fin
ish their grisly task and join them. I have an idea, but you won’t like it. Though I guess if you keep your eyes closed—”
“Just do whatever it is, Phoe,” I say with false confidence. “And I’m not—”
My wings snap shut and I drop.
Below me, my attackers are flying some forty feet away from each other, and the closest one is approximately thirty feet from me. It seems like the smaller one is quicker on his wings.
The fall puts me directly above him. He sees me drop but continues to fly upward. I’m flying down as if he isn’t there.
I’m playing another deadly game of chicken, only I can’t lose my nerve and swerve away because Phoe is in control. If it were me, I would’ve chickened out a millisecond ago.
My opponent raises his weapon—a halberd, I believe. It consists of a wooden stick that ends with an axe that has a long, pointy metal tip at the very top. That pointy end is aimed at me.
I hold my right katana in a strange, spear-like grip. The message I’m sending is clear: if my opponent pierces me, I’ll slice him in return.
The larger pursuer realizes his friend might need help and speeds up.
The tip of the halberd is an inch away from my chest when its owner chickens out and swerves out of my way, to his right. Phoe must’ve anticipated this outcome, because a fraction of a second before the guy makes his move, I launch my right katana at the spot he diverges to.
The fiery sword looks like a comet as it speeds toward him, and the guy screams as loudly as I’d expect from someone who has a burning sword sticking through his thigh.
I spread my wings and angle my body to fly close to him before he can recover. He draws back his halberd, but before he can swing it, I cut it in half.
His partner is a leap away.
I grab my right katana from the man’s thigh and cruelly turn it counterclockwise. He screams even louder, but his scream turns into a gargling hiss when my left blade cuts his throat.
He breaks into those small fragments and disappears like the others, only in this brightly lit outside world, the usual shine from this process is muted.
