Penult

by A. Sparrow

  The dog was sitting tall beside Olivier, head cocked and panting.

  “Luther wants to see you.”

  ***

  The dog escorted me to Luther’s palace, trotting ahead, tossing occasional glances over its shoulder that creeped me out. Luther’s dogs had a look in their eyes that was far too sentient for a canine, and too complex for a robot.

  Luther had the unique ability to instill autonomous intelligences into clumps of woven root, far surpassing what I could do with avatars like Billy. He was god-like that way.

  My canine escort paused at the portal and glanced up at me expectantly. Two other shepherd dogs were already guarding the entrance. This time the aperture responded to my palm and one of the other dogs followed me inside.

  I found Luther sitting in his courtyard alone, the walls displaying scenes of foggy hillsides. Clouds of actual mist drifted across the space. He was dressed all in greys and blacks and he gave me the oddest stare as I approached, as if he were seeing me in a whole new light. I sensed, or at least projected from that look, a mish-mash of awe, jealousy, confusion and respect, maybe even a smidgeon of fear.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from him. The dog laid down by his master’s feet. “What’s up?”

  “Those joints you made. They’re … perfect. As good as or maybe even better than the originals. I expected some modest improvement other our attempts. Some enhancement of the functionality, some insight into the mechanism. An incremental gain. Instead Bernard brings me one dozen perfectly functional angelic engines. How?”

  Voices echoed from the entry chamber. Olivier and Kitt had followed me to the palace.

  “Um … I’m not sure exactly. But I did have this … this … vision.”

  “A vision?”

  “Yeah. The … uh … Singularity … might have given me some help.”

  Luther’s mouth dropped. He turned to Olivier, who took a seat beside us. Kitt remained by the door.

  “Did you hear that? This one communicates with the Singularity on his own without the long sleep and without the need to channel through an Old One.”

  “I’ve been telling you, he’s an old soul,” said Olivier. “He may be young, but he’s no de novo incarnate.”

  Luther sighed. “Now I wish you were not leaving us. With the skills you possess, we could do some amazing things together. But I already promised Zhang you would be coming. Might you … return … some day?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I never wanted to come here in the first place. I have no idea what’s going to happen to me next.”

  “You know … I can help you. It may be I can find Karla’s whereabouts … for you … for us. I still have connections with the family. If Edmund has his hands on her again, I could surely find this out.”

  “That would be … great,” I said, without a trace of enthusiasm. I had already resigned myself to several of the worst case scenarios regarding her disappearance. Even if she was still roaming free, it would not be long before Wendell found her and put her away for good.

  “I worry that your passage may be challenged,” said Luther. “Zhang’s contacts with Penult could not guarantee your safety.”

  “We have a hostage,” said Olivier. “That should help prevent any ambushes.”

  “They are a haughty and righteous bunch, these Seraphim. I would not put it past them to try to take Petros back by force.”

  Olivier shrugged. “Let them try. I’ll be keeping their boy on a short leash. If they raid us, I take him out, send his soul to wherever, and that’s that.”

  “If we travel mainly by dark we would have a better chance of avoiding trouble,” said Kitt. “For whatever reason, they ain’t very active at night.”

  “But now Reapers roam the badlands after nightfall,” said Luther. “There is nothing to keep them in their tunnels anymore.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Olivier. “Have a good core of fighters with us. Bunch of refugee types, too, but with James along, we should be able to handle things.”

  “Thirty-two,” Luther glowered at the floor. “When you all leave, that is what I will be left with. Thirty-two souls plus … whoever we can harvest from the pods. I have to say, there were far more quitters than I ever expected.”

  “They’re not quitters,” said Olivier. “Not everyone wants to live in a cave.”

  “But why expose one’s soul to such risk? And how is a gaggle of cripples and claustrophobes going to help the resistance?”

  “Not everyone needs to be a warrior,” said Olivier. “There are others ways to help the cause.”

  “Never mind,” said Luther. “Those who remain behind with me will get to reap the benefits of our work. We will make Luthersburg all it was before and more.” He stuck out his chin defiantly.

  “We’ll refer more souls down to you when we can,” said Olivier. “I’m sure we’ll find some folks who are tired of living up there under siege all the time. At least we can tell them down here, it’s safe.”

  “Alright! We are done here.” Luther waved his hand at the misty images flowing across the walls surrounding the courtyard and they went instantly to black. “Finito! Nightfall approaches. You’d best be on your way before this one fades on you again.”

  Chapter 25: Outside

  Olivier and I made our way across the settlement, wings packed and bundled and slung over our shoulders. I caught a glimpse of Bern’s garden and was pleased to see a patch of perfect zinnias that only an hour ago had been Brussels sprouts. The door to the cabin was open, but I noticed that the tweed suitcases were gone form the porch.

  We found the expedition party waiting for us at the far edge of the bubble, near the portal that Kitt had led me through when I had first come here. Olivier’s assistant, Trent, kept watch over Petros away from the main group, the Seraph hobbled by shackles on his ankles and wrists.

  “Got your wings? Awesome!” said Kitt sharing a high five. “Yo Det! Everyone’s here. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Hang on,” said Detmar. He went up to the wall and pressed his ear against it.

  “What’s he doing?” I whispered to Kitt.

  “Checking for Reapers. They sometimes like to pounce on us right outside the bubble.”

  Bern pushed through the group, rattling the pans and tea kettles that dangled from his pack frame. He presented me with a long bundle wrapped in chamois.

  “My … sword?”

  “We tucked it away for you when you faded.”

  “Thanks!” I said, taking it from him. I had forgotten that I even owned a sword. Somehow the dang thing kept finding me no matter how much I neglected it.

  Bern moved back to be with Lille, who was busy adjusting a young woman’s footwear, fixing a bad weave job.

  “Hey Bern!” I shouted.

  He glanced back at me.

  “Nice zinnias!”

  He tossed me a wink.

  “All clear!” said Detmar, and he slammed his palm against the dark spot in the center of the wall. The roots peeled back, revealing crisscrossed layers increasing in thickness and density out through the outermost shell.

  Detmar and Tyler hopped through and took flanking positions as the rest of us rushed through the aperture.

  “Keep it moving!” said Olivier as we rushed through the tunnel. “No stopping till we reach the surface.”

  Kitt kept at the head of the column. She knew all the routes topside, having made the climb every day since Luther had led his flock back underground.

  We passed through tunnels narrow and wide, took shortcuts through the interstitial spaces and some smaller bubbles some other enterprising residents of root had used as encampments and settlements and subsequently abandoned.

  A hiss and a groan greeted us at a juncture between two tunnels. We had surprised it and it drew back and lunged, arresting its charge when it realized how many of us there were ready to impale it with sharp objects. It backed off, slithering off into a side tunnel to let u
s pass.

  Kitt stuck her tongue out and waggled her fingers at it as we passed.

  “Chicken!”

  Before long, we were charging up a ramp into a space where the fetid emanations of the tunnels mixed with fresh breezes.

  “Nice. It’s already getting dark,” said Kitt. “That should keep the Cherubim off our backs.”

  “Weren’t we guaranteed a safe passage?” asked a woman, pushing a small wheeled cart the size of a wheelbarrow.

  “That was never confirmed, ma’am,” said Kitt. “If so, that’s great, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Rumbles of displeasure passed through the group.

  “Calm down, people,” said Olivier. “We have the means to defend ourselves. You have to trust us.”

  We remained at the bottom of a deep crevasse. Kitt and Tyler climbed it first, securing lines and pulleys for hauling up the group’s baggage. Thus unencumbered, all were able to negotiate the steep wall of shredded root and rubble without much assistance.

  There were faint lights in the sooty-grey sky, specks or radiance that I could not be sure were stars along the smooth, un-cratered blotch of glow that passed for the Liminality’s moon. For all I knew this could be just another larger bubble in the underground and these celestial bodies were just as artificial as those that Luther conjured across his domes.

  The wind swept over the rumpled plains. Reapers roared in the distance. Those of us bearing wings undid their lashings and deployed them.

  Soon Kitt and the boys were hovering over our little caravan as they regathered their gear and began plodding across the dark wastes. I lagged behind, still struggling to get my wings strapped on properly.

  “Yo James. Get your ass up here,” said Kitt, circling back.

  “I’m working on it.”

  She landed beside me and helped get the cage-like harness fitted across my chest.

  “What about Olivier. Where’s his wings?”

  He’s gonna stay grounded for now. Make sure Petros doesn’t try any hanky panky.”

  “Who are we exchanging him for?”

  “Beats me. Some Frelsian, I guess.”

  My wings finally on, I flicked my shoulders and away I went. I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself for being the one who had weaved them. But then again, the credit really belonged to whoever came up with the original design for the device. Compared to them, I was just a mere counterfeiter.

  She came flying at me and I flinched away, thinking she was going to slam into me and we would go tumbling in a mass of membranes and harnesses to the ground below. But she pulled up, nimbly and hovered before me like a hummingbird.

  “Tyler’s flying point to check for ambushes. Detmar and I will watch the flanks. How about you bring up the rear?”

  “Um. Sure!”

  I loved the idea of me being all the way back. I was a coward at heart, and had no interest in being the first among us to encounter trouble if I could avoid it. Of course, trouble could always sneak up behind us, but I tried not to think about that.

  The ‘moon’ shed enough glow to reveal the overall lay of the land while many of the severed roots exposed in the upheaval blinked and flashed faintly, delineating the landscape in millions of tiny sparkles.

  The ground party moved at a pretty decent clip over the rough ground, considering Petros was shackled and Bern was limping. Olivier was great at reading the terrain, even without the benefit of wings. He made sure they always took the path of least resistance, often diverging from our primary heading to favor ease of travel.

  A dark blotch in the sky came hurtling towards me. I flinched away before realizing it was Tyler. Kitt and Detmar came in from the flanks to join us for a little conference in the sky.

  “There’s a formation of Cherubim smack in front of us,” said Tyler. “Three, four hundred. They’re all kneeling on the ground. No Hashmallim or Seraphim about. Didn’t even look up at me when I buzzed them.”

  “That’s how they sleep,” said Kitt. “I don’t think we need to worry about them.”

  “We could really fuck them up if we wanted to. They’re sitting ducks,” said Tyler.

  “Nah. Leave them alone,” said Kitt. “Just because we haven’t seen them fight at night doesn’t mean they can’t.”

  “How about once the ground party gets by them?” said Detmar.

  “I’d rather not,” said Kitt. “I’d rather we kept a low profile. There’s too many of them. Things could get out of control real quick.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll go and warn Olivier,” said Tyler, swooping down to the head of the column below. Olivier had already spotted them, it seemed, and was detouring the band into one of the dry channels of the broad and braided riverbed.

  The relief party was in great spirits, all chatty and ebullient. Everyone seemed relieved to be out of the tunnels again and looking forward to the freedom they would find behind the lines of the resistance.

  We crossed into the remains of the alluvial delta at the mouth of the main river valley. It was gashed with rifts, but some of the lower hills flanking the entrance to the valley remained. The table lands upriver, however, were barely recognizable. Most of the mesas had been leveled, towering pillars of stone reduced to jagged stubs poking through heaps of rubble. Every bluff that had harbored a Duster settlement was gone. The destruction had been systematic, because some of the uninhabited mesas remained.

  When we turned into the valley, we found the river basin littered with the rotted out exoskeletons of ants, dragonflies, mantids, bees and the innumerable bodies of the Dusters who tended them.

  A great battle was fought here and lost by the resistance. At first I thought at only Dusters had been involved until we came across the heaped carcasses of Frelsian-modified Reapers. The bodies of armored Frelsian warriors littered the flood plain behind then. Clearly, the Dusters and Frelsians had fought side by side.

  It disconcerted me that I saw absolutely no remains of Cherubim on the battlefield but then it occurred to me that it was only the victors who had the ability to recover their casualties. Apparently they thought so little of their foes that they let them rot where they lay.

  Tyler held us up from time to time and led us around several groups of wild Reapers who had come to feast on the remains of the fallen even though their souls had already passed on. Reapers were just facilitators that way, by no means the sole path to the Deeps.

  As we skirted the edge of one of the few intact mesas, I thought I caught a glimpse of some dragonfly wings glinting against the vegetation dangling off the cliff rim like a bad hairpiece.

  Below the mesa, some dark specks sprang out from the boulder caves and rushed towards the folks on the ground. I leaned into a dive and came screaming down at the head of the column.

  “Attack!” I shouted. “On your right! We’re under attack!”

  Olivier looked stunned, but he quickly got his fighters in position on the flank.

  I hovered just over their heads as the others approached. The attackers were sparse. Olivier send his staff aglow and sent a beam washing in their direction.

  “Friend!” shouted a man as the people rushing at us came into the light. “We are friend!” They were unarmed and raggedly dressed – Hemisouls all, from the looks of them.

  “False alarm,” said Olivier, snuffing the beam.

  “Sorry,” I said, fluttering low.

  “No. You did good, kid. You see anything like that, you tell us.”

  This would not be the last incident. Soon after, another small band of refugees hiding in a depression showed itself and joined our ranks. Every mile we traveled we picked up another handful. It wasn’t long before the ground party had doubled in size from the addition of these stragglers.

  Olivier waved his arms up at us, signaling that they were taking a break. The other flyers converged over the ground crew.

  “You all can land,” said Detmar. “Take a break. I can keep watch this time.”

  “Why thanks, Det,” said K
itt. “I’ll spell you in a few. I don’t think we’ll stay put long.”

  “Not a prob. I can stay up here all night. It’s like … floating.”

  The rest of us descended and unstrapped our wings.

  “How are your shoulders holding up?” said Kitt.

  “Fine,” I said. “It’s like Det said. It’s easier than it looks. Like breathing.”

  “Yeah. As long as you don’t overdo the squeezing. That’s the trick. Just a flick of your shoulder muscles is enough.”

  We found Olivier chatting with a couple of battered-looking Frelsians – more Hemisouls from the looks of them. Only Freesouls got to wear the good armor.

  “We’re making good time,” said Olivier. “Almost halfway there. We won’t reach the lines before daybreak, but that was never the plan. We’ll see how well our little non-aggression pact holds up once the sun is up.”

  Petros sat panting in the dirt, glaring up at us.

  “This one’s not used to walking,” said Olivier, grinning. “He’s getting some good cardio for a change.”

  I noticed Bern hovering at the edge of the group, peeking over shoulders.

  “Hey! How’s the leg holding up?” I said, as I unstrapped my wings.

  “Super,” he said, giving me a thumbs up.

  I squeezed into the huddle and listened in on some war stories.

  Most of these Frelsians had been cut off from the main party of refugees in the chaos of battle. Some were Hemisoul fighters who had faded back to life in the midst of battle only to reappear days later naked and far behind enemy lines.

  Olivier clapped his hands. “Okay people, that’s long enough. Let’s get a move on.”

  Kitt and Tyler were already strapping on their wings when I made my way back to our landing spot.

  ***

  We kept at it until the dawn glow began to brush the edges of the farthest hills. It was my turn to fly watch while the other scouts descended and joined the ground party, which now numbered at least a hundred souls. They had gathered under an overhang where the river had undercut some cliffs. Breakfast was underway from the looks of it. The only channel was no wider than a brook and periodically disappeared and reappeared beneath the sediments.