Sorrow's Flight

by Helen Allan

  “Well, expect to eat your words. Wait, Earthborn have died?” Sorrow bit her lip, turning to her friend, her eyes full of worry. “Is, is Judgment ok?”

  “Judgement is in prison, where he belongs,” Etienne said, pausing to turn his face and cough.

  “Prison? Why?”

  “Because he is the enemy.”

  “Etienne, what are you talking about?”

  “I had him arrested the moment he returned from your walk without you. But it wasn’t just because I suspected he had murdered you,” Etienne paused to cough again, “I had been doing some investigation, I tried to tell you before you left that day. Calarnise delivered what she thought was your battle suit; she’d had it repaired. But it wasn’t your suit, Sorrow; she had just assumed it was because it was different to all the others.”

  “Different how?” Sorrow frowned, “and what does this have to do with Judgement?”

  “It was red.”

  “Shit.”

  “Oiu.”

  “You think Judgment is actually one of the leaders of the Gharials?”

  “I don’t think, I know,” he said firmly, “he confessed, tried to say he had changed. Although he threatened to kill the entire garrison if I didn’t let him out of jail to come and find you.”

  “But you didn’t….” Sorrow left the last word hanging.

  “No. He is still in jail. The only reason I haven’t ordered his execution is because I know you and he have,” he paused, “a relationship.”

  “You did the right thing,” Sorrow said, letting out the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.

  “I hope so,” he said quietly, looking up as Raphael walked over to join them.

  Striding towards her he ignored Etienne, who carefully disengaged his arm from Sorrow’s and stepped away. He watched, amused, as the birdman wrapped his wings around her and seared her lips with a passionate kiss. Sorrow forgot Etienne was watching and bent into the lean, long body of the man holding her, her own body stirring automatically to his tongue’s sensual exploration of her mouth.

  Feeling her response, he broke the kiss and looked into her eyes intently.

  “To the nest?”

  “No,” she breathed, pulling back and smacking him lightly on the chest, “you idiot.”

  “No harm in trying,” he laughed, offering Etienne his hand, “I’m Raphael.”

  “Etienne.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t have any objections to being flown back to the township, rather than slogging it back on foot?”

  “You guess right,” Etienne smirked, as Raphael’s sister landed, a large contingent of Winged soldiers behind her.

  “My sister, Gabriel,” Raphael nodded as she approached.

  “En chante,” Etienne bowed, turning aside and giving Sorrow a quick wink.

  Sorrow shook her head and snorted as Gabriel giggled, spread out her wings and held out her arms.

  12

  They landed softly in the darkness on the rooftop landing pad of the infirmary and, saying a brief goodbye, Raphael and Gabriel turned immediately and left; Raphael promising to return in three days and wait for her on the roof, to further plan the defence of the gates.

  As they flew she had filled them in on the regeneration tanks. Both had heard the Gods used such things but thought them science fiction. Neither had ever seen a tank one or heard of anyone using one.

  Etienne swayed as Gabriel let him go, and Sorrow immediately pulled his arms around her shoulders and led him towards the stairs.

  “Hang in there, my friend,” she said firmly, leading him clumsily down step by step, “Calarnise will be inside.”

  “And she will cry,” he sighed, “it is all she has done since I first revealed the red growth to her. She says I have a week at most.”

  “Rubbish,” Sorrow said firmly, “I am taking this as a personal challenge – you know how I like puzzles.”

  Etienne snorted.

  “You hate puzzles.”

  Sorrow laughed low and opened the door of the infirmary, leading Etienne straight away to the nearest bed and helping him sit.

  He slumped, head in hands, and gave a dry laugh.

  “Under normal circumstances, a man might insist on staying aloft with a beautiful feathered woman,” he coughed, “but these, alas, are not normal circumstances.”

  “When did this start?” Sorrow asked, ignoring his effort to distract her from the issue at hand and pulling up a chair, leaning forward, her hand on his knee, “tell me, Etienne, what was the first sign you knew you were getting sick?”

  “It was the headaches,” he said quietly, “do you mind?” he indicated the pillow, and she shook her head, moving back so he could lie down. “The headaches began before you left and escalated.”

  “And then?” she prompted, seeing him begin to close his eyes.

  “Ah, itchy, I began to get so very itchy. I blamed the clothes I was wearing. You know I dislike those Earthborn battle suits, so I switched back to my one pair of normal clothes, these, he indicated his blood splattered pants and white shirt. But it made no difference.”

  “And this red growth on your stomach?” she asked, not bothering to add it was now clearly visible up his neck and on his hands.

  “About three weeks ago it started, small at first like a port wine birthmark, but I already knew what it was, Sorrow,” he coughed gently again, “because the first of the Earthborn succumbed a day or two before and Calarnise showed me his body. He had been hiding in his room, perhaps too ill to move, who knew? I don’t keep tabs on them; I doubt anyone has since they arrived, the useless, lazy bastards. But when his body was found, it was as though it had been eaten by a flesh-eating creature – he was nothing but a pulsating red blob. Calarnise said it was the miasma, and I knew then, with surety, ma mie, that I was, to coin your mother’s well-used phrase, fucked.”

  Sorrow nodded.

  “You are not fucked, Etienne,” she smirked, “not by a long shot. You’ve given me some valuable information. I’m sorry to ask, but do you mind if I take a swab of the red stuff?”

  “Not at all, swab away from anywhere you like, it may be your last opportunity to experience my majesty,” he chuckled weakly.

  “Really? Even when you believe you are dying?” Sorrow laughed.

  “Especially then,” he smirked, but his eyes were sombre.

  Sorrow snorted and walked to the laboratory next door, collecting a small sample bottle and a scalpel.

  “This might hurt, I can’t see anything resembling pain killers next door and Calarnise isn’t here for me to ask.”

  “Do what you must.”

  “Stay perfectly still.”

  “I am not moving at all, Sorrow.”

  She frowned, if he was not moving, what was squirming beneath his shirt?

  Frowning in concentration, she raised his shirt to reveal the red growth, pulsating upon his stomach. Taking a deep breath. she used the knife to cut away a section of the writhing mass. Underneath, raw muscle was revealed, red bubbles indicating this too was disintegrating. She held her breath to avoid gasping in shock; his skin was being dissolved by this thing, layer by layer. The mass moved and grew, independent of him.

  “It is almost like it is alive,” she mused, studying it as she put the sample into her vial.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice low, eyes closed, “it feels like it is growing day by day, like a mushroom, it prefers the dark, up until now it has not touched my face or hands.

  “Get some rest.” Sorrow drew down his shirt and patted his hands, watching as he slipped into sleep. She sat there for some time before noticing his sketchbook on a nearby table. Picking it up, she flipped through it, smiling at his drawings. Beautiful pictures of Calarnise and the landscape showed his skill as an artist. His keen eye for detail, picking up beauty in the most mundane of objects. His drawings of the trees were detailed in every way, with separate and individual botanical sketches of the leaves, nuts and flowers. But by far the mo
st common drawings in the book were of her. He had drawn her happy, sad, pensive, angry, worried, in battle, at rest, in training; every drawing so lifelike it could have been a photograph.

  Feeling tears begin to prickle behind her eyes, she put the sketchpad back where she had found it and headed into the laboratory. His mushroom comment had given her an idea.

  “I have no doubt,” she whispered to Calarnise, keen not to wake Etienne who still slept, 24 hours after their return from the mountains, “it is a fungus that lives on flesh.”

  “Such things were considered,” Calarnise nodded, “but you’ve read the infirmary records. So many things were tried to cure it, to prevent it being caught. At one stage Gods forced children to be vaccinated with portions of it to see if their bodies could defeat it, but this just caused more rapid death. The growth was peeled off, a spray was made that could regrow skin and muscle, but always the miasma returned. Vast amounts of time, energy and resources were put into finding a cure. None was found,” her words caught in her throat at this last utterance and Sorrow moved to embrace her.

  “He won’t die, Calarnise, I won’t let him.”

  “So small, so fragile,” the acolyte sobbed, “and yet, so full of warmth. I knew it was wrong. Now I am being punished, punished because I loved him so, Sorrow.”

  “Love,” Sorrow said firmly, “he isn’t dead, and you aren’t being punished. Why would a God punish you for loving?”

  “We acolytes are by lore celibate,” she whispered, “I have broken a sacred oath.”

  “Well,” Sorrow frowned, “Now is not the time to get into a discussion about your Gods. Suffice to say a real God ‘not that there is such a thing, but probably best not to land her with that just yet’ wouldn’t punish someone for loving. And celibacy is not natural; you haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Calarnise nodded but continued to sniffle as Sorrow outlined her next plan.

  “I want you to put me in the tank Calarnise, activate it for two days, no longer.”

  “But you are not hurt.”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “I want to listen to the collective memories. I need to see if there is a clue someone missed somewhere to curing this miasma.”

  Calarnise nodded and set to work preparing.

  Sorrow watched the acolyte carefully while she undressed. The last thing she wanted was to get back into the tanks on this world and subject herself to more suffering. But she owed her friend this much, she could think of no other recourse. Nude, she stepped over to the tank Calarnise had prepared and lay down, waiting for the inevitable sense of drowning. She smiled reassuringly at the worried woman as the green liquid began to rise. Forcibly relaxing her muscles, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to fall into the in-between alive and dead state that the tanks engendered, the state that would allow her to receive the collective memories of the Gods as though they were her own.

  He advanced upon her, just as he had on Heaven, swords drawn, eyes intent.

  She lay unable to move, helpless.

  “Anhur,” she whispered, casting her eyes around for a weapon, any weapon. “How did you find me?”

  “I will always find you,” he drawled.

  “I,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, “I haven’t done anything to deserve this, Anhur.”

  He sheathed his swords, his eyes lighting up with promised pain.

  “Deserve what? Oh, death?” he smiled, a sinister smile as he squatted down beside her, studying her face, “no, that is too good for you. You are not going to die, dear wife.”

  “I’m, I’m not?”

  “No. I have much greater plans for you. You see, I have learned you have something here,” he pressed his hand against her stomach firmly, “that I find I want.”

  “Anhur?” she moaned, “Anhur”

  Fear gripped her.

  But even as she shuddered in terror an icy dread gripped her heart as she realised, he was not with her; she was hearing his thoughts. He too, was somewhere in a tank, and he was hearing her thoughts also – and one thing was certain - when he came out, he was coming for her.

  She concentrated again, thought of him, homed in on his body and mind, yes, there he was, he was in a tank, badly hurt, missing arms and a leg. She gasped, and the landscape changed.

  She saw death, hundreds upon hundreds falling down from an illness, young and old they fell to a crawling enemy, a small red fungus; screaming, their skin melting as if dipped in lava.

  “I wish we had left the ground sooner, I wish we had never agreed to stay on this cursed planet,” a young goddess moaned, her vision partly obscured by the red growth now covering one side of her face.

  Her husband stood over her, his face a mask of grief.

  “The regeneration tank will work, my heart; you will be cured when you wake.”

  The woman smiled at him, taking in his blue eyes for the very last time. They both knew well enough the tanks did not cure this illness, had never cured it. What they offered was a painless release – and it was this she welcomed now. The fungus had spread to much of her body, eating her alive, soon she would be nothing but two beating hearts in a skinless shell.

  “We wanted a new world,” she sighed, “but we should have stayed in the old. Still, we have had adventures my darling, thousands of years of travel, so many new planets we have stood upon and marvelled at together.”

  “You talk as if we will never meet again,” he said smiling sadly, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  He looked over to where his own tank waited; he would soon also find his rest, he would not wait for the disease to take over his whole body; already it ate into his stomach. He did not wish to continue the fight without his wife. Thousands of years they had been together, losing her was like losing his arms and legs. Better he too, take the natron escape.

  “I go now,” she said quietly, gently squeezing his hand before pressing the button for the glass top to roll over. She knew if she did not do it herself, he might stand for more hours, postponing the inevitable. “Goodbye my love,” she whispered as the dome closed over and the natron filled up her lungs for the last time.

  Sorrow frowned. She was missing something, but what. She opened her mind, drew in more memories, hundreds of painful memories; Gods dying in agony, fleeting thoughts and bitter regrets.

  “I don’t want to leave my child; she is only five. So beautiful, even with the wings, so beautiful. Don’t cast her out, husband, don’t lose the last bit you have of me.”

  ‘She will no doubt join you at seven,” he groaned his eyes spilling tears, “don’t they always. Don’t they always.”

  Sorrow gasped. The wings. It had something to do with the wings. Did the children fly when they were small? Did they stay off the ground and not catch the miasma? No, it was more than that, they were not permitted to fly, it had to be something more than that. She concentrated on listening to more memories, old, young, female, male, they all succumbed – except some didn’t – fraught with worry, overwrought with grief, many of the children were left uncared for, their feathers unwaxed, to their dying parents they seemed healthy.

  ‘The feathers.’

  Sorrow woke with a start and opened her eyes, the regeneration tank draining automatically as she did so and the lid sliding open. She choked and spat out the Natron that filled her lungs and breathed a deep gulp of air. Rising, still naked, she ran on slippery feet over to the infirmary bed near the wall where Etienne lay, deep in sleep. Frowning she pulled back the blanket and considered his body – could it be that the growth had slowed? In some sections, it looked more black than red. She leaned in and, using the edge of her fingernail, lifted some of the black, it rose like a large scab and fell off his skin, the red edge where it had joined pulsated bright scarlet for a second, before settling back to a dull, blood red.

  Carrying the scab gingerly between her forefinger and thumb, Sorrow turned to the laboratory door and walked through to where she had previously used
equipment to study the disease. Placing it on the microscope, she zoomed in and studied the surface, gasping when she saw it was covered in the fine dust the Winged and Angels left from their wings. A slow smile spread as she finally understood the answer to the puzzle. The ground might hold this fungus, but it was the dust on the feathers of those that originally inhabited this planet that kept them immune. The dust that was present on the half-God children when they had feathers but disappeared when they turned six and had their feathers removed – the dust that was not present on Humans or Gods or Earthborn.

  Leaning back in her chair she closed her eyes and smiled; she had the answer; it had been before her all along.

  Hearing the whoosh of the electric doors of the infirmary she rose and rushed out to tell Calarnise the good news, only to run headlong into Lokan. Slipping on the hard, metal floor, she came to a halt as the God stared at her, anger and consternation written all over his face.

  “How is it you are here?” he asked, his eyes boring into hers.

  “I’ve found a cure to the miasma, but it relies on the Angels.”

  Sorrow watched as the blood ran from his face, his large eyes holding, what? Horror?

  “It cannot be,” he whispered. Hearing a cough, he turned to where Etienne lay, his chest exposed. “Get it out of here,” he whispered, “get it out.”

  “No,” Sorrow said, straightening her shoulders, “I will cure him to show it can be done, and then you will stop the hunt for the Winged and the Angels. When the hunts stop, I will share the cure with the Gods. All of you can spend time on the ground again, enjoy this planet, but only if you live in harmony with the indigenous of this world – in fact, without them, there is no cure.”

  Lokan turned from Etienne to face Sorrow and burst out laughing. His humourless, dark laughter, incongruous with the still of the infirmary, boomed out filling every corner, making Sorrow cringe.