The Oldest War (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 2)

by Matt Snee

“What do we have to do?” Jennifer asked.

  “I don't know, I'm not sure. We need time,” he said.

  “That is one thing we don't have,” Jennifer argued. “Jon Jason will not help us. In fact, he may even hinder us.”

  “But, I thought he was your friend.”

  “I thought so too,” she said, sadly.

  Captain glanced around to see if anyone was eavesdropping.

  “What about the Delphiniums?”

  “They want my help to supplant the Dunleavys.”

  “That's crazy!”

  “I'm afraid we have no choice. They say they have a way into the Death Dream, and that's what we need Captain if we have any hope.”

  “I just need a few hours. Can you get that for me? I need time to talk to Plerrxx to see what I have to do.”

  “Okay,” said Jennifer. “We appear safe here for now. But it can't last. We better hurry.”

  * * *

  The Delphiniums provided a quiet room for Captain and Plerrxx. While Jennifer negotiated with the matriarchs, Captain negotiated with his Mmrowwr friend.

  “What do I do?” Captain asked.

  “You must… help… must… inspire my energy….”

  “How so, Plerrxx?”

  “…. take my paws into your hands…”

  Captain did as he was asked. The Mmrowwr's paws were furry, soft, and lifeless.

  “Okay.”

  “…. now… I need you to give…. focus with your mind…. surrender to me…”

  Captain felt a wave of images collapse over his brain. He realized they were Plerrxx's memories, fragments of his life on Mmrowwr and the adventures beyond it. The cat-man's life passed through him to reach his inert corpse. Blue sparks cascaded down Captain's arms, tickling at first, and then burning. It was hard to keep the connection through the scorching pain.

  “…be not afraid…. this is how it works… be calm….”

  Captain felt a warm magical electricity run from his brain down to his feet, through his arms, into Plerrxx's paws. At first it was comforting. Slowly, it began to hurt.

  “Arrrr….” groaned Captain.

  “…yes…. it's working, my friend…. yes…”

  The electricity got hotter and hotter. Bolts flared across Captain's skin, shot out of his eyes. It began to envelop the body of Plerrxx, and Captain could see his friend's fur rising up as it was stirred by the electricity. The magic grew hotter, and hotter. Captain didn't know how much more he could take.

  Suddenly –

  Plerrxx's paw gripped back. It was no longer lifeless. Captain looked down at this friend as the electricity surrounded and crackled around both of them. A grimace formed on Plerrxx's face. His eyes slowly opened shocked by the brightness of his surroundings. Blue electricity shot from Captain's eyes into the Mmrrowr's.

  There was one more burst of color, and then the electricity vanished.

  Captain looked down at Plerrxx.

  Plerrxx smiled back, eyes bright.

  It had worked.

  * * *

  “I will take you to Io,” Tess explained, once Plerrxx had rested. “There we will ride the ejecta into the Death Dream.” Jennifer looked at her skeptically.

  “I have a wind map; I know where to go.” Tess assuages her concerns.

  “This is serious,” Jennifer repeated, thinking of her own wasted adolescence.

  “You have no choice,” the matriarch warned. “So the Night-Mother speaks.”

  “How can we ride the ejecta? What kind of ship will we take?” Jennifer asked. “How can we trust you?”

  “You will ride on the wind; you will take no ship. And you must trust us,” said the matriarch. “Else you will fail. Jupiter has spoken on this matter. The Night-Mother has spoken on this matter. And our queen has spoken on this matter.”

  “Could we talk to the queen?” Captain persisted, on Jennifer's behalf.

  The matriarch sighed. “No, you cannot.”

  “I still don't understand how we can do this,” Jennifer said. “I can't believe you can get us into the Death Dream.”

  “You must believe,” instructed Remiah. “We Delphiniums venture into the Death Dream often. We have gliders built for his winds. You do not need a dream ship.”

  “But how?” Jennifer was frustrated refusing to allow her reality to be bent.

  “You must have faith,” Tess told her, smiling up at Captain.

  Captain said nothing. He could tell by how Jennifer sunk her shoulders they had no choice.

  “We must all have faith,” said a that Jennifer vaguely recalled from an earlier time.

  The Delphiniums parted and revealed a woman dressed in aristocratic finery and a bald head.

  “Sara Sloan!” exclaimed Jennifer. “Sara Sloan Dunleavy!”

  It was Jon Jason's sister, whom they had last seen at the dinner. Jennifer couldn't believe it, Sara Sloan working for her enemy. It dawned on her how the Delphiniums had such accurate intel. They had infiltrated every aspect of the Dunleavy house. This surprise betrayal both invigorated Jennifer and caused her a great deal of sadness, an emotion she had difficulty swallowing.

  Sara Sloan smiled painfully. She knew she must explain.

  “The Delphiniums came to me long ago, and my allegiances… are complicated.”

  “I understand,” said Jennifer, “I… confusion is everywhere.”

  “It is,” said Sara Sloan. Sadness is etched on her face.

  “The Dunleavys are our enemies but also our allies in this,” said the matriarch. “It is only through compromise that the future will survive.”

  Jennifer nodded her head, looking at Captain and Plerrxx, who both appeared stunned by the revelation.

  “Then I suppose, your son…?”

  “Yes,” Sara Sloan said, proudly. “He will be our answer.”

  “Jon Jason – I love him; I really do – but we must all… have faith.”

  Jennifer wondered. If Jon Jason knew what his sister was up to, he would have her hung. They were all in grave danger. Everything hinged on her and Captain. They had come here simply to find the shard of the Triborg, instead they were interlocked with the politics of Ganymede.

  “Tess,” said the matriarch, speaking abruptly to the girl, “I do believe the four of you should head off now…”

  “Yes,” said Tess. Her skin turned a royal orange and she frowned. “Come on, guys. Everything is on us.”

  Captain, who felt like he was being pulled down a powerful river, did his best to be calm and collected. “Jennifer?” he asked. “Are we good?”

  Jennifer grimaced. She was as powerless as he was all of the sudden. “Yeah,” she said. “Let's go.”

  * * *

  After Captain and Jennifer changed into street clothes, the four of them went down the stairs to the basement of the tower.

  “This tunnel will take us to the Spirit Train. We should avoid the streets now. Jon Jason is looking for you.” Tess said.

  “Why?” Jennifer asked. “How do you know?”

  “We know. But we do not know why.”

  Jennifer meditated on it for a moment and then spoke as they all walked.

  “We will take the Spirit Train, then.”

  “The Spirit Train?” Captain queried. “You mentioned that before. What is it exactly?”

  Jennifer started to reply, abruptly cut herself off, thought for a few seconds, and then answered, “You'll just have to see it for yourself. Words can't really do it justice.”

  “Okay,” accepted Captain, though his writer's mind imagined it anyway.

  “Why did they send her?” Plerrxx asked Captain and Jennifer.

  “Why did they send you?” Jennifer asked the girl.

  “Because this is my duty,” Tess said. “It's my responsibility.”

  “Why didn't they send someone older?” Jennifer interrogated the Delphinium.

  “Because I'm the best,” Tess told them. “Nobody can do this better than I.”

  Thinking of his
own place in all this, Captain nodded. Is that what fate is? He wondered. Have we all been chosen? He didn't like the idea that the future was set in stone, it didn't feel like that; from beyond space and time something grasped him, like a rushing river, and he struggled to swim.

  “And you're humble too,” Plerrxx scolded Tess, bringing Captain out of his reverie.

  “Just telling the truth,” Tess boasted. “And I know all about you, cat-man, so just shut it.”

  “I'm sure you know nothing.” Plerrxx's voice was angry in their minds.

  “What makes you so special?” Jennifer asked.

  “First of all—I'm a Silver. I was born a Delphinium. Second of all, I was born in the Death Dream.”

  “What's a Silver?” Captain asked.

  “In the Death Dream?” Jennifer added.

  Tess smiled, pride no longer extinguished. “Silvers are those who can trace their blood back to the Silver Age. I was born a Delphinium, in the Death Dream, and as such I have unique powers and sorcery.”

  “I'm not understanding this,” Jennifer told Tess. “How were you born in the Death Dream?”

  “The Delphiniums have ventured into Jupiter's winds for a hundred and fifty years—all without the Dunleavys knowing. They think they're the first to explore Jupiter. They're wrong. Jupiter belongs to the Delphiniums and the Delphiniums belong to Jupiter. It is the habit of the Silver Delphiniums to give birth in the Death Dream.”

  “But that's so dangerous!” Plerrxx was appalled. “What happens to the offspring?”

  “They don't all survive, do they?” Jennifer asked.

  “No,” Tess admitted. “It's a risk. But there's a reward. Those born in the Death Dream are granted special favor and understand the manifest of Jupiter's body and soul. We are the children of Jupiter, as no other father took us.”

  “Plus she has heightened senses and muscle systems,” Plerrxx said, scanning Tess's body with his handheld computer. “She may be young, but she is not quite human. She's been poisoned by the Death Dream.”

  “It's not poison,” Tess protested. “It's love.”

  “You'll die before you are middle-aged,” Plerrxx told her. “The human body can't keep up with powers like that.”

  “There's no escaping the riddle of death,” Tess replied, revealing a momentary sadness. “For now, and forever, with Jupiter contained in my body, I am divine.” She laughed. “You will see!”

  “Welcome to the team, Tess,” Captain said, kindly.

  “Why thank you, sir. You won't be disappointed.” She saluted Captain and turned to Jennifer. “We will meet more Delphiniums on Io. They will have our equipment and gliders. From there we go into the Death Dream.”

  “How long have you had this planned?” Captain asked.

  “Not long,” Tess answered. “We are able to adapt quickly. We must.”

  They continued through the tunnel. Plerrxx communicated to Captain and Jennifer, “So?”

  “It's okay,” Captain thought. “I can feel it.”

  Jennifer turned to him, obviously unsure of his words, but so visibly glad they were together again. She reached out and grabbed his hand, held it for a second, and then let go.

  Plerrxx and Tess watched and smiled.

  * * *

  They soon reached the subterranean train station, which was airy, with thick iron columns supporting the ceilings. Wide train tracks ran both ways down the middle. It reminded Captain of the subway stations back home. There was the slight murmur of the people waiting, the wind coming through the tunnel, and other noises rattling through the tracks.

  “How can you take a train from one moon to another?” Captain asked.

  “Well—it's a little more than a train,” Plerrxx told him.

  “How so?”

  “Oh—you'll see.”

  Jennifer decided to indulge Captain's curiosity. They had time to kill, and she could empathize with his confusion.

  “It's just called a train. It's really kind of a… spirit animal, that can be ridden between the spheres. It's black magic of the worst sort. “

  “Dunleavy magic,” Tess commented.

  “The train can travel from one moon to another, and to Earth.”

  “Earth!” Captain said. “We could take this train to Earth?”

  “Yes?” asked Tess. “I understand you are the resident scap?”

  “It would be a long trip,” Jennifer said. “A month, maybe two, depending on the season, through territory you don't want to see—I promise you. Time would stand still and you would almost go mad.”

  “Wow,” Captain said. “All the way back to Earth? I could go home?”

  “Yes.” Jennifer looked at him, puzzled. “You wouldn't do that though, would you?”

  “No, of course not,” he reassured her. “I just find it fascinating, and maybe a little insane. There must be a wormhole or a tesseract or something that it passes through.”

  “It passes through Hell,” Plerrxx told him. “Do not doubt it.”

  “Have you taken it to Earth, Plerrxx?”

  Plerrxx curled his tails in defense. “I have travelled in that direction, and seen terrestrial worlds, but I have never been to Earth.”

  “The penalty would be death, if the Shadows found him—and they would,” clarified Jennifer.

  Captain was thoughtful. “So that's where this all comes from - from Earth, aboard the train.”

  “That's right,” Jennifer agreed. “Without the Spirit Train there is no Jupiter colony. All things depend on that. The Dunleavys solved the mystery of interplanetary travel with their train… and their evil deeds…”

  A strange sound came out of the tunnel, like an angry hiss, and with it the tracks began to shake and rumble. The noise grew, the shaking got more violent, and finally light raced down the tunnel.

  The train roared in. A giant snake on wheels; its forked tongue whipped back and forth with smoke coming out of its nostrils. It seemed to exist both in and out of this dimension. You could see through it as though it was made of light, half-transparent, yet it was still a solid. It was an imperial green with yellow stripes, scaled, undulating, all attached to a base of wheels. It wasn't just in the shape of a snake; it WAS a snake with doors and windows spread across its sides. It pulsed and breathed, shimmered. A living engine with passenger cars up front and cargo cars in the back. It had eyes like two black quasars; Captain had never seen anything so outlandish and frightening.

  Jennifer and the others sighed. They had all ridden on this ghost machine before. The Spirit Train hissed again, spilling clouds of smoke out of its nose and drops of liquid from its tongue; it shivered, banged its wheels against the tracks. It seemed nervous and ill-tempered.

  “Come on,” Jennifer said. They followed her toward one of the entrances to the train. Up close, it looked even more perplexing, phasing in and out of reality, but solid to the touch.

  “This is it,” said Tess. She placed her hand on Captain's shoulder and looked back at Jennifer. “Shall we go, sweetie?”

  “No games right now, child,” Jennifer said to Tess.

  “Fine.” Tess jumped aboard the train. Plerrxx followed.

  “Well?” Jennifer asked Captain.

  He stared at the Spirit Train. It was truly monstrous. If Jennifer wasn't afraid; why should he be?

  “I guess this is our next adventure.” Captain said as he stepped onto the train.

  She smiled widely and looked down at her feet. “Yep.”

  10. Queen Eleanor

  Time is God: ever present, indestructible, utterly female.

  “Song of the Night-Mother” (classical Delphinium poetry)

  Once the train had started and they had found their seats, Captain, Jennifer, and Plerrxx went to sleep, while Tess sat and watched over them. It was strange for the three of them to put their trust in this young girl. There was a certain light that you could see inside her, her true light, and it was good. It wasn't just her youth—though that was part of it. She seemed t
o have a wealth of spirit that she spent without disquiet. She emoted with her skin and hair color, adjusting both like one might use one's eyebrows. It was hard not to look at her. She absorbed this energy around her, enjoying the sensations chance offered her.

  The train rumbled around the sleeping passengers, lighting flashing beneath them like golden tracks. It was terrible magic. Jennifer, on the edge of consciousness wondered how powerful the Dunleavys still were and what else she might not know about them. Fright inched up her arms and legs. Her shoulders shivered. Her fears were not enough to keep her from nodding back to sleep.

  * * *

  Captain awoke as his mind was racked with questions. What was this? Being in the train was like being in the bones of some kind of ancient Chinese serpent. It was hard for him to relax in such a supernatural situation, even after all he had been through on this crazy journey. The seats were clean and comfortable, they were made out of deer skins and leather. The motion was soothing; but the noise of the electric sizzle of the tracks with the angry hissing every few minutes from the snake's nose and throat all interfered with his sense of calm.

  A porter as mysterious as the train itself came to take his ticket. Clearly he was some sort of undead being. He looked like an American Indian and had a dusty smell and almost floated up the aisles.

  Captain sat straight as he could while the porter checked his ticket and handed it back to him. Afterwards, Captain slumped back and sighed. Would the adventures never cease? Slowly, carefully, he drifted off.

  They had all been awake for a long time and had a lot of work ahead of them. Their courage was strong, but their bodies were weakened. The Spirit Train nestled them in, and they all fell into dreams.

  When Captain awoke some time later, he found Plerrxx still asleep and Tess staring out the window at the moon rushing below them. Jennifer was gone. He suddenly felt lost, gravity loosening around him. He clenched his fists and spoke.

  “Tess. Where is Jennifer?”

  Tess turned and shrugged, her color a burnt orange. “I don't know. She was snippy and walk off.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We're over Europa now,” Tess responded. “There are beautiful views of all the factories, if you just look out the windows.”