Outlier: Reign Of Madness

by Daryl Banner

Impis draws silent at once, then says, “Nothing … is important to Anwick. Not anymore.”

  “Not anymore?” asks the woman with mock curiosity.

  “No. Not since Metal—” Impis coughs, blood spilling onto his chin. He runs an arm across his mouth, smearing the blood over his pale, powdered cheek and forearm. Then he finishes: “Not since Metal Hand touched his sweet, dreamy face.”

  Rone lifts up his dagger and prepares a word to say to Impis—until his eyes move to his hand brandishing the dagger and finds it completely solid.

  He looks down at the rest of his body. He’s turned solid.

  “Having trouble with your Legacy?” asks the woman. “Are you feeling like the alley cat who’s climbed too high and doesn’t know how to get down?”

  “I want to hear him purr,” sings Impis through his bloodied lips, his eyes unblinking and his mouth curling at the ends.

  The woman lifts an eyebrow at Rone. “Feel like purring for us?”

  Rone sneers and makes to say something taunting to them, but finds himself purring instead. He shuts himself up, baffled, then tries to speak again—and again, he just purrs.

  Impis coughs again. More blood speckles his chin and his eyes start to reel back. He staggers, falls to one knee, then says, “The fuck is happening to me?”

  An overwhelming feeling of comfort rushes over Rone, and he realizes at once that Impis and this woman and this sweaty guy are his only friends in this forsaken, cruel world. “You’ve been injected with a potentially deadly serum,” explains Rone helpfully. “It will put you in a deep nightmare state from which you’ll never return.”

  “Nightmare?” murmurs Impis, more curious than afraid.

  “I wonder if this fellow likes nightmares. He looks so scared, Impy,” sings the woman. “Does he like nightmares?”

  “He does,” says Impis. “What’re you scared of, kitty-cat?”

  “Phasing downward,” Rone confesses to them at once. “I don’t ever want to phase downward. I would fall forever.”

  “Phase?” questions Impis through his blood-dripping mouth, his hand still squeezed against his belly.

  “Explain to us what that means,” murmurs the woman.

  “I can move through walls,” Rone says at once. “I was a member of the rebel group Rain, and I was known for my ability to pass through solid objects. Nothing could contain me.”

  The woman smirks, crosses her arms, then simply stares at Rone with a ghoulish sort of satisfaction.

  Mad King Impis slowly rises back to his feet. “Come here,” he orders, his voice having lost the playfulness it had a second ago.

  Rone, still holding the dagger, closes the distance between them. In the next instant, Impis grabs Rone by the throat and lifts him in the air, fury in his tightened face. Impis’s left eye starts to twitch as he pours all his Madness into Rone who, in this one fateful moment, is closest to the sky than any other person in all of the Last City of Atlas.

  To Rone’s face, the Mad King says, “Allow me to share my little permanent nightmare with you.” He lets out a titter, which sounds uncharacteristically dull for Impis. Then, he recites: “LET. IT. RAIN.”

  A giggle is born in Rone Tinpassage’s throat, and then his whole body begins to tickle with the unprecedented joy of letting go every trace of his composure. A new sort of chemical swims around inside his body, and he feels freer than he’s ever felt before.

  Rone phases through Impis’s hand, then plummets through the glass ceiling of the throne room.

  He falls.

  Then Rone plummets through the floor of the throne room, too, and he laughs and he laughs.

  Every floor of Cloud Tower rushes past him.

  One floor.

  Another floor.

  Yet another and another and another.

  The innards of the Lifted City fly by, and then it’s the underbelly of the Lifted City that he’s staring up at, still falling, falling, falling.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  LET. IT. RAIN.

  When he feels the slums racing toward his back, that’s when the Madness lets go of him, and he suddenly becomes aware of his rapid, air-ripping descent. His joy converts to panic in an instant. He spins in the air, flipping over.

  Now he’s facing his demise as the city rushes toward him. He is phased. He brings up his hands to shield his face, screaming.

  The roof of a building comes at him, and then he’s through it too. Fifteenth floor. Fourteenth.

  Thirteenth.

  Tenth.

  Sixth.

  First.

  Then a basement.

  And then it’s dark.

  Through endless dark he plunges. He can’t even scream, the whole world surrounding him. He sees nothing as he falls.

  He reaches out to grab hold of something, anything, but Rone Tinpassage is made of nothing at the moment, and he phases through what might as well be miles upon miles of dirt and stone and darkness.

  He falls. And he falls.

  And then he falls some more.

  Somewhere in the endless falling, Rone finally comes to peace with his nightmare. It’s not so scary, he decides. I’ve drank heavier amounts of chemical and felt more scared than this.

  He will never see anyone ever again.

  He will be forgotten, forever.

  His body will never be found, a million miles beneath the earth, somewhere in the depths of some hell he only knows about in children’s fairytales.

  His falling seems to slow. Is he floating now? Has his falling become such an overwhelming sensation that now his body thinks it’s merely floating in nothingness?

  I have reached the center of the planet, Rone decides. I am King of the Planet! Rone, the Planet King!

  And then, for the first time in an eternity of falling, Rone feels something grip his hand. He turns his body toward it, perplexed. Is it the dagger I’m feeling? he wonders for one blissful, fleeting second.

  And then he lands.

  0231 Halvesand

  His mother, now officially cleared of all charges, stands next to his bed, a smile on her face. Halves was certain he’d never see her look so happy ever again. Aleks stands next to her, giving her shoulders a rubbing, while Ennebal is at the other side of the bed.

  “I’m a free woman,” says Ellena with a lighthearted sigh. “And so is your father. Once order is restored in the Keep, your father is coming home. That Obert Ranfog, he’s quite a character. There must be something else he knows that he isn’t telling us. I can’t for the life of me figure out how he chose to take my words—at face value—and release me right there based on them. How? It makes no sense.”

  Because his Legacy felt nothing but truth in your words, Halves would dare to say had he a voice. But he lets the elusiveness of Obert and his decision remain so; it’s far more entertaining to observe his mother’s bewildered face and the lightness that has returned to it.

  Aleks gives a knowing look at Halves, then nods at Ennebal, as if signaling something. Halves doesn’t get it, so Aleks starts to talk. “Well, bro? Should we tell mom?”

  Ellena’s eyes flash. “Tell me what?” Her gaze flicks to Ennebal, then down to Halves on the bed, then back at Aleks. “Tell me what?”

  Aleks hides behind her with a teasing, coy expression. Ennebal rolls her eyes, then puts a hand to her own belly and says, “Well, whatever it is, I hope you’re ready for big news, grandma.”

  “Grandma? I’m not a grandma. I’m—OH.” Her eyes are wide. Her hands shoot up to her mouth. “OH! Are you—?? Is she—??” She screams with joy and hops in place three times, all her hair bouncing. “You have a baby in you?? Oh, Sisters, I can’t believe it! Oh …!!”

  “A little boy or girl, right in here,” mutters Ennebal with a smirk and a circle-shaped rub on her belly.

  “This is the best news.” Ellena slaps Aleksand on the shoulder. “I always knew it’d be you who makes me little Lessers first. It was always in my mind that I’d—”


  “No, no,” says Ennebal at once, then gives Halves a gentle pat on his chest. “This one.”

  Ellena gapes and turns back towards the bed. “Oh! Halvesand?” She laughs, finding the mix-up hilarious. Halves can’t quite move anything without hurting, so he just grimaces for a smile. “Maybe I should have gotten a proper introduction to everyone. My head’s been in clouds for days. For weeks. For all these months. Oh, Halves, my baby.” She gives his forehead a kiss, careful to avoid the hooks and knobs of the ugly metal contraption affixed to his neck.

  “I’m Ennebal Flower,” she states with mock courtesy, “and I had illegal Guardian-forbidden sex with your son.”

  Ellena giggles at her crudeness. Halves knew she’d like her; the woman has the sharp tongue of his father and likely the strength of him, too. Halves tries not to find the comparison he just made in his head to be weird.

  “I wonder what they’ll make of that,” says Ellena with a smirk, elbowing Halves’ bed instead of his body. “No fraternization? That’s a big deal here, is it? Even with Sanctum broken apart?”

  “I don’t know anymore,” admits Ennebal with a short sigh. “If I’m blunt, I really don’t care. My world has been broken for too long a time. This baby’s mending it all.”

  The women smile at each other, and it is the most genuine smile that Halves has ever seen on Ennebal’s stoic, hardened face. Has he ever really seen her smile at all?

  Another voice joins theirs as the doctor enters the room for his routine checkup, lightly introducing himself to Ellena and offering a sweet word or two of encouragement about her bedridden, broken son and how strong and persistent he has been in pursuing his own recovery over the past few months, despite only having become his doctor in the past few weeks.

  “And I’ve heard of your Legacy,” the doctor goes on to Halves’ mother, “and must warn you not to use it on your son, as it may not heal him the way you wish. See, it is an unusual circumstance, but his wound is actually containing the poison in his system, which we cannot safely remove. It is too risky, and the poison, too unknown. If you were to take his neck wounds from him, you may inadvertently release a flood of poison into his system, and that would … well, it would not be good.”

  Ellena nods somberly. “I was informed of the … circumstance by my boys. Thank you for clarifying. But …” She gives a doleful glance at Halves. “He has other wounds on his body, apart from the poison in his neck. Surely I could relieve him of those, yes?”

  “Well, I suppose I could leave that to your own discretion. Just stay away from his neck. That’s official doctor’s orders!” he says with a sneer and a silly laugh, then brusquely slaps the end of the bed. “I wish you all the best. Halvesand, I am doing my research and brainstorming with new colleagues that arrive to Eleven Wings on the daily. We will have new techniques to try, new treatments, new options. We’re not giving up on you, my boy. And when Ruena is found and order is restored to Sanctum, we will have their resources to count upon, and you will be healed. I guarantee you that. You’ve a long tunnel ahead of you, but it is a good one. He’s a survivor,” he adds to Ellena with a dimply smile. “Strong sons you’ve made.” And then the doctor sees himself out.

  Ellena descends on Halves at once, hugging him at the waist in silence. Aleks grins happily and meets Ennebal’s eyes. She returns his look with a light one of her own, then turns to Halves. After a significant moment of observing him, she gives him a wink and then offers another of her rare, uncharacteristic smiles.

  And as Halves lies there in bed with his brother at one side, his maybe-lover at the other, and his mother hugging him tight, he finds he doesn’t care whose blood is in that baby. It’s our blood just the same, he decides, and I will love him or her with the whole of my heart that still beats, just inches below the poison that threatens to kill me with every passing day.

  With his mother embracing him with her long, slender arms, he feels a lightness invade his system. Is she working her Legacy on all of his wounds but the one? Maybe she wouldn’t have to take a single ache of his away in order for him to still explode with the emotions that course through his body right now. He deserves to feel precisely the way he feels in this moment—positive, enriched, and surrounded by loved ones. He is ready for better days to come. For once, I have hope. It’s a different kind of poison that floods every inch of his body now, a happy poison that no trace of his Legacy will dare to stop.

  Epilogue

  The magnificently tall, otherworldly trees sway, a million leaf-and-branch handshakes in the air above, a dance of madness.

  Everything is a dance of madness here.

  The blades of grass, tall and wild and out of control, kiss his feet as he moves through the fields of the dead. The wind plays across his naked body. It’s cold as a winter breeze here, yet he is still warm, kissed by the resplendent, golden sun that pours over his skin.

  It’s like the legends of the Ancients, fairytales of wilderness and woods, of oceans and sands, of hills … He becomes playful as he strolls through the ethereal forest, it’s trees so tall that they’re staggering. The beauty strikes him, bringing tears to his eyes. Just like a fairytale. He kicks up a spray of leaves, sending them dancing in the wind.

  Yellows and browns and reds swirl in the air, a waltz of wonder.

  I could get used to this.

  He takes off into a sprint suddenly, laughing. His laughs echo back at him after flitting through the trees. It’s endless, this magical forest. It extends in all directions forever and ever and ever and ever.

  The Greens never knew a forest this thriving and gorgeous.

  He listens for a song of people to touch him. A song of chatter. A song of welcome. There must be others, he knows. They are out here and they are awaiting my arrival.

  He hopes he won’t find Link. You better still be alive, you rebel you! I don’t want to see you here for decades more!

  He sits in the grass. Why not? His bare ass cheeks feel the soft embrace of nature’s palms. Then he lies back and folds his hands behind his head, staring up at the sunshine and the nearly cloudless sky as the trees dance and whisper far above him.

  The whispers sweep one way, sweep the other way. It is so beautiful that he could cry.

  And then he hears the song of people he so craved. Sitting up at once, he listens to the crunching of footsteps in the distant grass.

  “Hello!” he calls out to whoever comes, elated to meet his first companion ghost, or dead person, or spirit … whatever they call themselves here. He will learn the rules. He will cooperate and join in their peaceful, merry ways.

  From the bush comes a boy dressed in leathers from the waist down. His torso, lean and muscled as a panther, is bare but for a beaded choker with teeth on his neck and a work of ink across his left pec. His head is buzzed to the scalp, and each eye has a black, inky-looking substance painted around it. His face looks a lot like …

  “Dran?” he calls out.

  The young man with the black about his eyes gives a smirk. “So you know of me?” he asks dryly.

  He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Of all people to meet first, it would be him. He’s on his feet and approaching Dran. “We haven’t truly met,” he says to Dran, “but my name is Anwick Lesser—you can call me Wick—and I saw your execution on the broadcast. I’m so sorry it went down like that. You were at the Weapon Show and got blamed for a bunch of blue ink that wasn’t yours.”

  Dran appraises him with suspicious eyes. “Mmm.” He tilts his head, giving a glance down at Wick’s crotch, then says, “You’re gonna need some clothes. Did Metal Hand just touch you?”

  For some reason, no matter Wick’s elation, the uttering of Metal Hand’s name deflates him. “Yes,” he says, sobered somewhat.

  “My apologies,” offers Dran. “Sorry that I don’t know you, though I must say, you look quite familiar, and I—” Dran blinks, which is made more dramatic by the black around his eyes. “Wait a second,” he says. “Lesser? Is that what you just
said your name is? Lesser? Do I have that right?”

  “Anwick Lesser, yes, that’s me.” Wick gives a cheesy smile, his lightness returned at once.

  Dran snorts, amused by something. Then he says, “I think we may have some more to talk about later. Some … common ground … so to speak.” He beckons Wick to come. “I’ll show you around.”

  Wick is too eager to comply. He feels no shame walking around naked in the woods, with so much bright sunshine pouring through the trees and setting all the branches and highest leaves on fire—green fire. He’s never been so overwhelmed with stimulus as he is at this moment.

  “This is more beautiful than I imagined,” Wick confesses, his heart light. “I can’t wait to see my brother.”

  Dran lifts an eyebrow. “Oh? You have more than the one?”

  “One??” Wick snorts. “I have four brothers!”

  “Four! Wow. Anyone tell your dad to quit putting it in your mom, or are they so incapable of behaving?”

  Wick finds the jape hysterically funny. Death has made me mad, he decides, then gives Dran a hearty slap on the back. “We’re gonna be great friends, you and I.”

  The boys come upon a clearing in the woods, beyond which Wick sees a gathering of huts and cabins and little dirt streets. There are people—men, women, and children—who populate the streets, going about their day. Wick can’t seem to move his legs as well as he just was, stunned by the scenery.

  And then a pang of remorse fills him. I wish Athan was here to share this experience with me. He has got to be so devastated. I hope he can make a go of his life without me. Wick doesn’t want to imagine Athan with anyone else, but he hates to think of Athan forcing himself to be alone, determined to be loyal to Anwick even in death. You deserve happiness, Athan. You’ve lost everyone.

  “This place is called Gaea,” says Dran with a careless wave of his hand. “I don’t know who named it, but it’s where we live.”

  “It’s beautiful. I love it,” blurts Wick at once.

  “Which ward were you? Ninth, like Link?”