Outlier: Reign Of Madness

by Daryl Banner

  “That tree,” says Prat, putting it together. “Mr. Gateward told me he liked using the nuts for his specialty bowls. He’d make pies with them, too.”

  “What a lovely idea.”

  The boys turn to the unexpected sound of Ivy’s voice—all the boys except Arrow, who keeps his eyes trained on the floor, filled with thoughts of so many people who’ve died or been lost to them … and the cruel unfairness of the world to spare the life of one of his sworn enemies. He cares not the sweetness of her voice, or how her face is that much sweeter yet. He still has a gun in his possession, a gun with six bullets. A gun he could have turned upon the person who put an arrow through Victra’s head, had he been able to see him or her. A gun he could have turned upon the person responsible for Juston’s death. The sweetness of her voice only fuels the anger and the hatred in his heart.

  “A lovely idea indeed,” agrees Athan quietly.

  And with a resolute nod of Lionis’s, the boys and Ivy head to the scullery for two spades. Outside, Athan digs one hole while Arrow bothers with the other. His wounded thigh begins to cramp, causing him to wince in pain, so Lionis takes over to finish the work. Wick and Prat stand to the side with Ivy, the three of them watching with a quiet glumness about them. Soon, two shallow pits lie beneath the tree. Lionis and Athan carry Juston’s body through the scullery and out to the first pit where he is gently laid to rest. The six of them stare down at their fallen comrade. No one seems able to say a thing, the nightly breeze dancing between them as it snakes its way down the alley.

  “They used to bury Kings and Queens, long ago,” notes Lionis thoughtfully. “It was a Lifted practice.”

  “It was,” murmurs Athan, who takes a short step forward and crouches by Juston’s side. “King Juston …”

  The others keep quiet, no one even seeming to move a muscle. Each person is buried in their own thoughts, by the look of it. Wick is standing by Prat, the pair of them pensive and their eyes blank. Lionis is leaning on the spade, staring down at the empty pit with his lips pursed and his eyes half-closed, whether by headache or by his own exhaustion, Arrow doesn’t know. Ivy stands on her own, her arms crossed over her belly as if she’s cold. Arrow finds his eyes lingering on her, wondering what sort of thing she could be thinking of right now.

  “King Juston, the King of … Noises …” murmurs Athan.

  No one responds. Athan looks back at the others, his eyebrows lifted. “King Juston, the Static King,” he says, trying to inspire them.

  Prat nods, then returns, “King Juston … King of Surprises.”

  Athan smiles appreciatively. He glances over at Wick, but Wick doesn’t seem able to add anything in.

  “King Juston, the King of Encouragement,” Prat adds. “Juston the Spirited. King Juston, the Blond King.”

  “Blond,” agrees Athan, his eyes shining. “King Juston, the—”

  Suddenly, Prat chokes, tears flooding his eyes. The boys draw quiet as he grips himself tightly, his bottom lip trembling. Arrow realizes that he’s never seen Prat cry, not truly. All the whining of his neck wound after they fled the sixth, that wasn’t true grief, not like now. Prat can’t seem to say anything else, and it is Wick who brings Prat’s head to his chest consolingly, wrapping an arm about him and holding him close.

  Arrow’s gaze drifts to the empty grave. In the soft noise of Prat’s muffled tears, Arrow speaks next. “Queen Victra of the Electric Blue Eyelids.”

  Wick looks up from his consoling of Prat. Athan meets his eyes as well as Lionis, whose attention is pulled at the sound of Arrow’s calm, even voice.

  “Queen Victra,” Arrow goes on. “The …” He takes a deep breath, then finishes. “… the All-Seeing.”

  Prat sniffles loudly, lifting his face off of Wick’s chest. Then he offers his own contribution through a quivering, tear-ridden voice. “Queen V-Victra, the Queen of … of Sights.”

  “Queen Victra, the Uncompromising,” puts in Athan, his tone serious, respectful, his chin lifted proudly.

  “Queen Victra, Queen of Ten Thousand Eyes,” says Lionis.

  Wick speaks up. “Queen Victra, the Lover Queen. King Juston, the Quick Of Wit.”

  “Queen Victra of the Sister’s Vengeance,” adds Prat with a bite.

  “King Juston Markmake … the King who Made his Mark,” says Athan with a smile.

  “King Juston, the King Who Reigned … with Rain,” says Lionis.

  The names come and come, until finally a warm peace falls between them and no more names are uttered. A tiny drop of water touches Arrow’s cheek and he glances up at the sky. Rain. He smiles suddenly, then peers at his friends to see if they’ve noticed. They have. Athan rises, his eyes full of wonder as he looks up, and then his gaze comes down to connect with Wick’s. The two of them come together, even with Prat still in Wick’s clutch, and the three of them peer down at Juston’s peaceful body and the empty grave.

  Lionis taps his spade. “Should I …?”

  Arrow reaches for his thigh and unties the bandage that dressed his wound, pulling it off. He steps over to Victra’s grave, crouches down by it, and takes from his pocket a charm. “The wound that took your life, I also shared.” He wraps the charm in his bandage, tying off the end, like a gift. “Your blood is my blood now, Victra. You will never truly leave us. Your valor and your …” He closes his eyes, seeing that last sight of her again. I’ll never stop seeing her, in that last moment when Victra Kingsword couldn’t see a thing. If he had some other Legacy, if he could do something other than listen, maybe Victra wouldn’t have been left on a street in the sixth. Maybe she would be here in this shallow grave to share the final sleep next to Juston. “Your valor and your … sight,” he finishes at last. “May we always … see … with clarity and focus of mind. And …” He sighs, the words so hard to say. He feels the weight of life and death sitting upon his chest. “May we have the wisdom to always … listen.” He looks down at his gift-wrapped charm, then sets it into the grave. It lands with a short, soft thud. “May we always be connected.”

  The raindrops come more frequently, tapping along the brick and the stone. Arrow rises from the grave and steps back as the rain gently drizzles along his head, tiny droplets running down his face.

  Figuring the rain to be more of a problem and less of a symbolic call from the ghostly plane of the unliving, Lionis begins filling the graves with dirt, one scoop of his spade at a time. Soon, two graves are filled, and the six of them watch as the rain slowly darkens the soil, covering their world in its gentle, soothing noise. For a while, no one seems to know it’s even raining. Their thoughts don’t flood with water from the sky, but with longing thoughts and memories of the two brave friends they’ve lost.

  The six of them pile back into the Noodle Shop for a short reprieve while the rain grows more intense by the second. At the front window next to the tables and booths that once held customers made happy by many a spicy bowl, they watch the city be drowned in rain. And for the whole hour that the rain falls, the six of them feel like one living being, breathing as one, silent as one, listening as one.

  0183 Wick

  The moment the city gives way to the spread-out, broken roads of his neighborhood, sparsely lit by dim, self-sustaining lamplight, Wick’s heart swells. Along the street runs the cramped houses that look like a series of shacks and metal forts sewn together. Some have brick annexes that seem added last-minute, with wooden patches over the missing windows and fallen walls. A dead or dying patch of grass stretches in front of some of the slum houses, dirt and sand in front of others. Some houses look like two stacked atop one another with any sudden wind daring to make them fall.

  People are everywhere. Neighbors that Wick has known and grown up with are on their lawns or porches chatting and sharing stories. Two women from a house down the road, Iranda and Auleen, give a short wave at Wick and his friends as they pass, a baby sleeping against Auleen’s chest in a rough, woolen blanket. Kids chase each other in the broken street, hopping over the c
racks and laughing carelessly. Out here in the boondocks, there is very little Lifted City in the sky. One arm of it runs overhead, only two pylons visible. Wick misses being able to see so much sky out here. It fills his heart instantly with joy, the sights, the smells, the people, the atmosphere. It’s like the madness never happened.

  And it’s at the sight of a very familiar house with a big, stumpy reading tree in the front lawn that Wick takes off running, his red hoodie turning into wings as it blows behind him. He nearly crashes into the door when he opens it. “Mom??” he calls out.

  The air in the darkened house is thick and warm, as if the doors hadn’t been opened for weeks. He doesn’t hear a sound from within.

  Lionis nearly crashes into his back, catching up. “She might not be here,” he says, out of breath. “Remember? She’d gone, I think …”

  The realization is slow to come to Wick. She wasn’t here when he and Athan came to get Lionis and bring him to their hideout in the sixth so long ago. They never learned where she went.

  “Mom?” he calls out anyway. The front door opens between the kitchen and the den, which is basically the same room divided by an island counter with three uneven, mismatched stools at which Wick and Lionis have shared countless meals. Straight ahead is the glass back door that leads into a cramped, overgrown backyard in which Lionis has another of his reading trees, next to which there lies the giant scrap metal disc thing, half dug into the ground where it likely fell from the Lifted City far above. The body of the house mercifully drinks in the light coming from a self-sustaining streetlamp in front of their house as well as one from the street behind them, giving light to the otherwise electricity-deprived dark domicile.

  Lionis pokes his head into the small, windowless room under the stairs, which their parents once used as a bedroom. Wick moves up the narrow stairs to investigate the second floor. The bathroom at the top is empty. His old bedroom—which is really a windowed closet made out of a thin wooden partition wall—is also devoid of anyone, the mattress on its floor dusty and worn. He takes two more steps down the short hall and finds himself in Link’s old room, which makes his hand go up to his chest to clutch the wooden flame trinket hanging there. This room belonged to Halves and Aleks before Link, until Guardian turned them into soldiers. I hope Guardian is treating my brothers better than this sad, cramped room ever did.

  But what of his mother? Is she truly gone, having left without a trace so many months ago? Maybe she’s made a new home for herself in the Greens somewhere, hiding from the world. That has to be it.

  Footsteps come up the narrow stair, and then Lionis is behind him. “I was thinking, maybe she’s hiding in the Greens,” he reasons.

  Wick only nods, not looking at his brother or acknowledging their shared notion. The tension is still taut as a wire between them, and Wick cares not to give it any more attention than is possible. He slips past his brother and moves down the stairs with a huff.

  Outside on his lawn, he finds Prat, Arrow, and Athan caught in a conversation with his neighbors—Iranda and Auleen Penling—who have come across the yard bearing many questions, by the sound of it. Athan turns when he sees Wick at the door.

  Wick comes forth. “Have you two seen my mother?” he asks at once, interrupting their conversation.

  Auleen is gently rocking her baby in her bony arms. Iranda’s mad curls of hair bounce as she shakes her head and answers, “No. Not since months ago when the King came down and had a talk.”

  “It wasn’t the King, honey,” Auleen cuts in. “It was Impis, and he came with his Legacy Tour caravan. It was a big and flashy ordeal,” she adds, giving Wick a look. “Did you do well on your exam?”

  “He’s the King now,” Iranda butts in with a smirk.

  Wick knows all about Impis’s visit and how it scared Lionis and Ellena away from home. It’s the Mad King’s fault that my mother is not here, he thinks bitterly. “Yes,” he replies. “I did. I was summoned to the Lifted City Academy. The, uh … Windstone-something.” He feels a pang in his gut thinking on the weird, glasses-wearing girl Erana and his best friend Rone. “So you haven’t seen her … at all?”

  “No. Lionis?” calls out Iranda. “Didn’t you say something about you and her visiting her sister’s, sweetie?”

  “Yes,” answers Lionis, folding his arms.

  “Hopefully she hasn’t fallen wayward and gotten herself locked up,” moans Auleen, squeezing her baby tighter to her nearly non-existent bosom. “Oh, dear. Don’t you two worry. I don’t for a second believe your father was at fault. Sanctum is a corrupt cesspool of nastiness. I pray the Keep split right open during the madness and let all the innocents out.”

  “Out with the innocents come all the not-so-innocents,” grumbles Iranda. “Careful what you wish for.”

  “Shush, you,” Auleen spits back with a sneer. “Anyhow. Please look after that house. It’s such an eyesore since you all left.”

  “Yes,” agrees Iranda. “I have to stare at that overrun backyard every evening when the stars are out and I just … I get so depressed thinking about all of you as boys, running about in that yard and … and now there’s none of you there at all.”

  “Yes, yes, please stay,” urges Auleen. “The whole street here is pitching in. We’re all helping each other. It’s a communal sort of thing, see. Your food is my food is their food, understand? We’re even trying to grow our own so that we depend less on the Greens, since they’re so stingy with what they take for trade. Bartering is an awful business I do not excel at. If only our soil didn’t kill everything we tried to plant. I hear the next street over is having better luck. Neither of my thumbs are green, I swear it.” She brings the baby boy to her face and tickles his nose with hers. He makes a squeaky, sleepy sound of joy. “All of your friends here should stay. More the merrier. Arial, was that your name? And Pragmatic, here?”

  “Arrow. Pratganth. And Ivy,” says Athan on their behalf with a nod at each one, indicating. “Thanks so much for your hospitality.”

  “You look familiar,” says Iranda, leaning in and squinting with her curls of hair tilting along with her head. “Doesn’t he look damn familiar?”

  “Nope, never seen him,” grunts Auleen.

  Athan smiles at the two women. “I, ah … I wasn’t allowed out of the house at the time due to an unfortunate, unique circumstance, but I was, in fact, staying at this very house the day you gave birth to that baby boy,” Athan points out, nodding at the little one in Auleen’s arms. “Wick’s mom delivered, I believe, with Lionis’s help.”

  The two women stare at him in disbelief. “You’re the Lifted Boy! You’re the one Forgie-Forgie was arrested for harboring!” exclaims Iranda. “Damn it, I knew he was falsely arrested! Corrupt Sanctum scum! You were here all on your own, weren’t you? I knew it!”

  Athan laughs, shooting an apologetic glance at Wick for stirring up such a scene between the women. “We tried many things to get Forge freed from the Keep, or to have his sentence reduced to a matter of years, but … well, it came down to waiting upon Queen Ruena’s inheriting of the throne as our last resort.”

  “Aye, and so much for that fleeting hope,” says Iranda, giving a rueful shake of her head. “No matter, we’re happy to have you. Oh, and you are all going to need to participate tonight, because we are going to celebrate. News will go around like fire, my dears, and everyone will be so thrilled with the return of the Lessers on our street! Even if there’s just two of you. Give us an hour, we’ll have the party partyin’.”

  Celebrate? “Really, there’s no need,” Wick cuts in, a light laugh coming from his lips. “We just—”

  “Stop right there,” she blurts back, pressing a finger to his lip. “Allow me to rephrase. Our neighborhood needs a reason to party. And we are peaceful—and free—out here. We are ungoverned by any form of Sanctum. The Red Lightning doesn’t even reach—”

  “We don’t know that,” hisses Auleen, holding her baby away as if he might understand her words.

/>   “Whatever. We’re partying tonight in the streets, and everyone is invited. Each and every one of you. We’ll have food and sweets and … for you naughty ones … a bit of liquids to make your heads dizzy.” She gives a wink. “I’ll let you boys get cleaned up. The water runs out here, it does. Not warm water, but still it runs. We’re on the Greens’ water grid now, see? Hey, why’s that one limping? Arial, you have a broken foot?”

  Arrow winces politely. “Wounded thigh,” he explains.

  “Come here with us! Don’t you know we have friends down the street who used to work at the hospital in the ninth before it fell? Yes, they pilfered it of supplies long before it did. Wick, I want to see you and your friends in the street in an hour’s time.”

  The women give waves and return to their house with Arrow limping between them. Wick is left in the yard with his eyes drifting over all of his neighbors’ houses. He sees several waving hands of familiar faces who’ve spotted him, giving them a short wave back.

  When he turns back to Athan, he’s smiling, his spirit revived. Athan interrupts that smile by planting a kiss right in the middle of it. “Welcome home, Anwick of the ninth,” Athan murmurs.

  Soon, the boys and Ivy enter the house. Lionis takes Prat into the kitchen, distracting him by making him go through the cabinets with him to check what they have and take a quick inventory. “Old, all of that,” gripes Lionis, rummaging through an old vegetable bin. “Spoiled. Ugh. Throw half this out. Check the pantry. We have cans, if I didn’t go through them all.” Prat keeps up with him, taking notes on a slip of paper he fetches off the counter.

  Ivy curls up in the big chair in the corner of the den, curiously peering about. It’s the chair Link always glowered in, brooding in some cloud full of young, teenage darkness that Wick could no longer understand. He can’t stand the ache he feels in his chest when he thinks of his younger brother. He used to feel so protective over him. Wick clutches the flame at his neck, squeezing it so tight that he swears he feels the warmth of it as if it was real. Then he considers his proximity to Lionis and worries he’s just using his Legacy again.