by Simon Birks
There’s no need to fear us.
“Really? You live secretly inside us? Listening to us? Telling us what to do? Making us believe we’re the ones having the thoughts?”
It has worked up till now.
“Then why the change? Why make yourself known to the girl?”
There is a war coming.
“A war?” Ma Poppun hissed. “Seems to me that there’s been a war going on for a very long time!”
We need you to survive. If we had not found you, we would have died out.
“That’s no excuse.”
You would have done the same.
“Do you… all talk to each other?”
Once we are bound our communication is limited...
“Is that a yes or a no?”
We can communicate with each other.
“Damn you!” Ma Poppun shouted.
Please, try not to draw attention to us.
“Why the hell…”
There was a noise behind her. She turned and saw Hoep in the gap.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
He mustn’t know. Not yet. All in good time, Ma Poppun. All in time.
“Ma Poppun?” Hoep asked when the cook simply looked at him. “Is everything good?”
The cook nodded.
“Yes, everything’s fine. Just been a stressful few days.”
“Hasn’t it just?” Hoep said. “Well, food’s coming soon,” he said with a grin. “Just wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you,” Ma Poppun said.
“Just helping out,” Hoep said, and retreated back to the barn.
Thank you.
“What’s your name?”
We don’t use names.
“Well, you’re going to have one now. You’re not me, so you’re someone else. A name?”
Call me Illek. It means helper in our language.
“Interesting. It means ‘bloody nuisance’ in mine.”
I have always liked your sense of humour, Ma Poppun.
“Nothing you’re saying is making it any easier. Can you hear what I’m thinking?”
Yes. What you think, I think.
“So, I don’t need to keep speaking out loud?”
Not if you want people to take you seriously.
Is that supposed to be funny? Ma Poppun thought.
Sort of.
*
The food arrived, as promised, and they all had enough to keep them going. Ma Poppun ate in silence, next to Visenai. Hossip took his to eat in the stable, so he could keep an eye on the horses. Afterwards, when the coachman spoke to Ma Poppun, the cook told him all was well, and the girl wasn’t going to harm any of them. He was reluctant to accept it at first, but the Ma repeated it, and he seemed to understand.
Pace
Jenza travelled quickly. Whatever had caused the smoke was catching up, and she didn’t want it to reach her before she had the spear. Harrar circled high in the air in front of her, indicating where Aponser was. It wasn’t an unassailable lead, but the old woman was tough.
The Ja admired her, she realised. Perhaps the two women weren’t so different. Perhaps she should let her take the spear, and do what Lacquishan said and head towards the city.
If she was any less stubborn she might have done.
Jenza checked her possessions whilst she walked, making sure they were securely fastened. Then she breathed deeply, calming herself.
If she was to catch up, and even overtake the older lady, there was one thing she had to do; run. She wasn’t sure she was in much of a state to do it, but it was sensible to try, now that the ground was a bit flatter and more predictable.
Jenza looked at the position of Harrar in the air. She would go to the left of him, skirt Aponser and out-flank her. Harrar wouldn’t give her position away, not until she called him back.
If there’d been any other choice, she’d have taken it.
Jenza breathed deeply once more, and began to jog.
An Exorcism
Yeta walked into the abandoned church. Gideon had offered to accompany her, but she wanted him to stay back, in case there were any problems. He had started to protest, but Yeta had raised her hand and that had been that.
The building was very pretty. Even in its current state of disrepair, with little roof to speak of, and gaps in the wall. There were candles tucked into each nook, which bobbed and breathed with the fading daylight. In some areas, nature was well on the way to reclaiming the land, with tall grass and vines pushing up through the floor and twisting around the columns.
As Yeta walked towards the front, Va Tiibi came forward through the gloom.
“I’m glad you came,” she told her.
“What do I have to do?” Yeta said.
She was keen to get it over and done with.
“Please, come and sit down.”
Va Tiibi turned and walked over to the far side of the church, where there was a small wooden seat. A child’s seat.
“You want me to sit on this?” Yeta said.
Va Tiibi nodded. Behind the seat was a long wall, a scar of forest showing through where some of the stones had fallen in. Yeta sat, and breathed in the fumes of the candles. These weren’t normal church candles, she could tell. They were scented, and the scent of them made her feel relaxed.
She sat there for several minutes. The structure somehow gave her peace. The solidity of the stone, the fragility of what little ornaments were left. She had been in churches many times when she had been a young girl, and the memories of those times settled her.
She had almost forgotten why she was there, when the three Vas appeared from the gloom. They stopped a little way front of her, Va Tiibi in the middle.
They kneeled as one, and bent their heads. Yeta looked on, eyes narrowed. The three Vas joined hands. After a moment of peace, Va Tiibi began to speak in low tones. The words all rolled into one, no spaces in-between, and Yeta tensed, expecting something to happen.
She yawned. A deep yawn, as if she were filling her whole body up with air. It felt strange, uncomfortable. She felt trapped all of a sudden, and tried to move her head. Her neck was rigid, her muscles locked tight.
Panic set in, then. She was stuck like this, and for all she knew, would be like this forever. What had she let herself in for? She tried to call for help, but the noise lodged in her throat. She tried to move something, anything, tried to topple over, even, but she was completely immobile.
That was then she felt the hands on her back. One hand to start with, placed in the middle of her shoulders. A small hand. A child’s hand. Then another hand, further down. Then another two hands, then four. They were pressing on her back. It was an ache at first, then a pain, then unbearable. The noise of the Vas chanting rose higher and higher.
More hands. Hands on hands. What did they want? Why were they pushing? Yeta thought they wanted to leave, but this felt like they wanted to get in, wanted to break open the skin on her back and possess her.
Something was wrong. She had been fooled, and it felt like she was going to be crushed.
Gideon
Gideon’s eyes had not left his companion since she’d told him to wait in the forest. He had watched her enter the church ruins, stop, and speak to someone who was obstructed from his view by a pillar. Then Yeta had walked to a small chair, turned and sat.
She had looked peaceful, then. Her face, usually twisted in a knot of concern, had relaxed, and in her tranquil state she had become beautiful. Not that she wasn’t beautiful before, but there had never been enough time to notice. Gideon had relaxed too, had slowed his breathing. He had felt momentarily drowsy.
Then she had yawned. Gideon watched and waited. She didn’t move. Something wasn’t right. He felt panic start to rise. At first he put it down to paranoia, but as the seconds ticked by, he knew something was wrong. She was too still.
Then he felt a pressure on his back. It felt like hands, and a shiver went through him. The hands felt like children’s hands, and they
were pushing.
That was when the ground began to shake. Gideon got up, and nearly lost his balance, before steadying himself against a tree. He looked at Yeta. She was shaking, too.
She’s the cause of it.
He ran toward the church, and the hole in the wall. He had to try and help her. He got to within a few feet before he came up against an invisible barrier.
Magic, he thought.
Gideon backed away, headed off to the right, around the front of the church. The vibrations steadily grew worse. He looked in at the windows, trying to glimpse Yeta, but what caught his eye were three bodies, hanging by their necks in the shadows. These were the Vas, and they had killed themselves.
Was this the preparation they had left us for?
Gideon continued moving around the church until he was standing looking at the back of Yeta through the hole in the wall. He tried to go forward, to help her, but the barrier was here too, preventing him from saving her.
*
Yeta felt the children everywhere. Far more children than could ever have been at Broken Song. They were all around her, pressing in. Soon, she would cease to be, and then what? It didn’t matter. She’d be happy to be rid of them.
*
Gideon kneeled a few feet behind his companion. He closed his eyes, bent his head, and slowed his breathing. He could still feel the pressure on his back, but he knew he had to shut it out if he wanted to connect with the woman.
He reached forward with his mind, towards the resistance of the barrier. He could do this. He had done this at the Complex, at Broken Song. He had reached out with his mind to the other children, he had tried to communicate with them.
The first spark appeared in mid-air. Gideon felt it crackle. He reached forward again. More sparks. In his mind he could see nothing. He reached forward again. Now he saw shimmering, like water in the air. This was the barrier. He reached forward.
The sparks went through the barrier, increasing, multiplying, and creating a hole where no hole had been.
He reached forward. He was near to Yeta now. So near. He reached forward.
*
Ka Yeta felt the pressure ease a fraction. In her mind, behind her squeezed-shut eyes, she saw something briefly.
It looked like sparks.
*
Gideon mustered everything he had and pushed into Yeta’s mind. He gasped from the pain she was experiencing.
Get up, he thought to her. Get up now.
I’m stuck, Yeta replied. I’m stuck and they’re going to kill me.
Get up, Gideon thought again calmly. Let me control you.
How? Yeta asked.
*
And then Yeta felt herself standing up. She was not doing it through her own volition, but she could feel her legs stretching, the air brushing past her face.
Turn around, she heard Gideon say. And her body turned.
Open your eyes. And she could see once more. She was illuminated. The air ignited around her in incandescent sparks. She could see the boy kneeling on the floor, and she walked toward him.
*
Behind her the Vas, now little more than phantoms, screamed. This was not right. She needed to die to bring the children back. She had to die like they had died, be sacrificed as they had been sacrificed.
The children were so close to coming back. So close.
*
Gideon stood up and stepped forward. Yeta was nearly at the barrier. He didn’t know if she could get through. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He looked up, and she was staring at him, within a halo of light. They stepped forward together. One more step.
Yeta and Gideon stood opposite one another. The boy reached out his arms, feeling the barrier shifting beneath them. He pushed his hands into it, felt her arm, closed his fist around it, and focused everything he had into that one moment.
There was a noise. An explosion. But Yeta and Gideon were shielded from it. The blast radiated from them, taking the church down in one massive ripple. The barrier shattered into atoms, and Gideon held onto Yeta as she held onto him.
They dared not move.
When the ground stopped shaking, and the sparks were no more, they stood apart and wondered at the scene. Everything had been blown flat. Rubble that had been the church lay everywhere, as did the splintered wood that had been the trees.
“How?” Yeta whispered.
“I can’t even begin to tell you,” the boy admitted.
“They’ve gone.”
“The… children?”
Yeta nodded.
“They’re not there anymore.”
“Good.”
They stood for a few moments, catching their breath.
“I think we ought to move on,” Yeta said.
Gideon laughed.
“I think that’s called an understatement.”
Devices
Pinto was awake. He felt better. Better than ever, in fact. Sogal had shifted onto the floor, and was now looking at him with tongue out and tail wagging. It was good to see him happy. The warrior sat up. He laughed, mostly to himself, as the sight of his own muscles.
There was a pipe leading out from high on the wall, and Pinto assumed it was a water box. He went over to it, stripped off, and pulled the cord. Warm water came out of the end, and for a few blissful minutes, the man showered.
“Would you like some clean clothes?” the woman called from the other room.
“If you have some.”
“There are some in the trunk at the foot of the bed.”
When the shower was done, Pinto opened the trunk. These weren’t just any old clothes. These were heavy, tough. Made from a cloth he’d never seen before; dark blue, with small, tight pockets, and strange metal fasteners. There were half a dozen sets of different sizes, the last of which fitted him well.
Pinto walked into the other room.
“What are these clothes?”
“They’re uniforms. For the place your friend is being kept.”
“Fijefel? He’s alive?”
“Yes. We’ll have some food, and then you will go and get him.”
Panic
Fijefel stood in the open air. At least, it was open straight above him. Surrounding the hunter was a high wall, with what looked like sharpened metal spikes running along the top. There were thirty or so other prisoners in there with him, standing around talking in small groups.
He was nervous. Every now and again the other prisoners would look across to him, and then return to their huddles. He wanted to escape. He didn’t understand how he had got here, or why he’d been imprisoned.
One eye left. Better look after that one.
If he thought about it too much, he’d panic.
The guards stood at equal distances around the courtyard, though they paid the prisoners little attention. Instead they looked at their hands almost constantly. Or something in their hands. Yes, there was something they were all holding.
Fijefel stayed where he was, and thought again of the God.
Ghosts
Hoep shut the door of the barn and walked out into the twilight of evening. He wanted to be alone. Sometimes there were just too many people.
He meandered towards the fields, appreciating the warm air on his skin. It felt safe at the barn. Not since before his visit to Broken Song had he felt so safe. Briefly, he wondered what Ja Jenza was doing now. He hoped she’d got out safely and had taken refuge somewhere.
It was unlikely he’d ever see her again. She wouldn’t return to the Telar-Val, and beyond Langeph’s city borders was a wide-open world, stretching so far in so many different directions.
He wished her well.
“Hello, Hoep,” came a voice from within the field.
The crops were high, and Hoep couldn’t see who had spoken.
“Hello? Who’s there? Ma Poppun?”
“Don’t you trust your own ears?” the woman said again.
“Not anymore.”
There was a movement o
ff to the right and Hoep stepped back. The woman emerged from the crops.
“Apologies for the dramatic entrance,” Ka Loy said, “People get nervous if I just appear in front of them.” Ka Loy stood in front of him, smiling like she used to.
“Then I did see you,” Hoep said.
“You did.”
“You should be older.”
“I should,” Ka Loy said. “But I am different, now.”
“Different doesn’t always mean good.”
“I live between times,” she said. “Something happened, and I changed. Now, I am hardly of this world.”
“Why are you here? Do I need more help?”
“No, I was just hoping for a chat with a friendly face.”
“You didn’t say goodbye.”
“I wasn’t able to.”
“But if you travel in time, you could have come back.”
Ka Loy shook her head.
“It’s not how it works,” she said. “There are days, months, years which are nothing but closed doors to me. And with each journey, more doors are closed. Soon, I fear I will have nowhere to go.”
“Then you’ll be like the rest of us,” Hoep said.
“I suppose,” she said, sadly. “Hoep, if you could travel and be anything you wanted, what would you choose?”
Hoep smiled.
“I don’t think you can really know until you do it. I guess time goes in one direction for a reason. So we can make mistakes, and learn to do better. If that’s not how time works for you, then… then you need to be careful. You could end up with a life where you learn nothing, where you make one mistake after another.”
Ka Loy nodded.
“I think you are right,” she said. “I can’t stay much longer. You should get back to the others,” she told him. “They’ll be missing you.”
“If they miss me,” he said. “They know where I am.”
Ka Loy nodded.
“They do.”
And with that she turned and walked back into the crops.
There were the sounds of footsteps behind him.
“Are you spying on me?” he asked.
“No,” Orsa lied. “Just getting some fresh air. Who was that?”
