by Mark Jeffrey
Eighteen: Stitch Point
THE ISLAND was a hallucination, a spangle of delirium. Fauna and flowers of the colors Grinlo and Vreen and Nraple were everywhere — as well as other new primary colors that Casey couldn’t place. Their minds had trouble hanging onto these visions; one look away, and a memory of what Vreen actually looked like vanished, evaporated instantly. But then, look again! Sizzling and razor-crisp was the color again, and of course that’s what it looked like, how silly that one could forget? Once might as well not recall the color red.
And the fragrances that drifted on the air —! Sharp, tangy, drenched with new sensations as well. Alive, like a fresh grass cutting, like a forest after a rainfall. But with a rich loamy element, a reverence, like frankincense. An extra dimension that extended beyond smell, something that touched at the soul, the base of the spine, the little indent on the back of your head just above your neck.
All around the geography of the island were ragged spikes of red rock, raw, jagged, straining at the skies like long fangs of stone. Moss of multiple colors slimed their sides, where strange birds like falcons crossed with parrots nested and circled. The whole island seemed to be a rim of these spikes, nestling a dense, wet jungle far below.
The sun and the moon were huge in the sky: impossibly, massively huge and heavy as Jupiter. Ian stared at them in disbelief: their appearance defied everything everyone knew about planetary motion and the solar system. There was simply nowhere on earth he could be to see such a sight. He could see the celestial bodies moving, actively moving, circling in short arcs towards each other and then away.
Soon, there would be an eclipse again. Here eclipses happened every hour, with a sun and moon of the same great, impossible size.
The Stitch Point, Max had called this place. But the stitching of what?
There is another world beneath this one.
The company picked their way along what appeared to be a well-trodden path under broad leaves of Grinlo and green. Max and Marvin Sparkle led the way, followed by Jane Willow. A little ways behind them came Casey, Ian, Sasha, Logan and Cody.
Max’s tale of Johnny Siren still reeled in Casey’s mind. The venom of anger still seethed in her soul. How could Max have done that? He was responsible for Johnny Siren’s madness ‘as surely as the day arises from the sun’ as Marvin Sparkle liked to say. Siren had been right. It was understandable that Siren had become enraged with the enchanted and mysterious boy whom he had found starving on the streets of Cyranus, Italy — and had later spent long centuries hunting him down.
“What?” Ian asked, noticing Casey’s gaze.
“You know what,” Casey whispered back. “He’s going Bondsman on us. Right here, right now.” Her fingers itched to draw her mythic weapons, the Red Roses, irons of the most impeccable design. Already, the flowered designs swirled hungrily on the barrel, even without direct contact from her.
Ian’s gaze flicked nervously at her. But he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to betray his best friend.
“And what do you suggest we do?” Ian asked hotly.
“I don’t know!” Casey fumed, frustrated.
“We can’t take him on. No. Way. All of you and your guns and me and my armor — they’re not enough. You saw what he can do now — you saw what he did to those Sky Chambers. He’s getting stronger by the minute.”
Casey picked her way along the path silently and then said almost sheepishly, “We could ambush him. If we have surprise on our side, it might work. You said he was knocked out when he fought Madworth and the Machine — someone clonked him on the back of the head and he went down. He’s got to be conscious to use his power.”
Ian nodded. “But then we’d have Sparkle to worry about — and Willow.”
“Well, help me think of something then. Unless you want to help him become the Bondsman.”
That stung him. “That’s not fair.”
“Well it’s the truth,” Casey said. “Maybe it’s ugly, maybe, but it’s the truth. I’m telling you, whatever is on this island, it’s not the Bondsman. It’s what turns him into the Bondsman. Then, he goes back in time and puts on the golden mask, the whole shebang. It’s been him all along.”
“If that’s true, then the Bondsman — the one in this world — he’s Max also, and so he knows we’re on this island right now.”
“Of course. And he knows what’s about to happen. But I don’t think we’re in danger from him. I mean, why interfere? It works out just like he wants it.”
Up ahead, Max and Jane Willow walked in perfect stride together, almost jauntily. “Look at those two,” Casey sneered. Jane Willow plucked an exotic flower from a bush and put it in her hair; Max smiled. “Disgusting. They’re actually enjoying this. They’re acting like this is a picnic.”
The sky dimmed; Ian and Casey looked up. Another eclipse was forming. The midnight disc of moon slipped over the sun. The sky deepened to dark blue tinged with Nraple. The sun and the moon, circles of exact same circumference, locked in a dance, a waltz in the sky between shimmering molten burning — ever burning — and cool, silver ivory, delicious, and throbbing with giddy madness.
“This place is like the Isle of the Dreamtime,” Ian mused. “It feels like it. But why? How? We’re not in a Book.”
“No. We’re not,” Casey agreed. “Somehow, we’re in the world, the real world. That’s the real sun and the real moon up there.”
“But it can’t be,” Ian said, his eyes contradicting his reason. He stubbornly refused to abandon science: “Max steered us though something, some uh, uh, portal. We can’t be on the earth, the real earth. For one thing, that sun is too close: it would cook the whole planet, boil the oceans off into space. That is, if that moon didn’t cause earthquakes and tsunamis bigger than anything anyone’s ever seen first. A moon that close should drag the ocean inland hundreds of miles every time it passed overhead!”
“You heard what he said,” Casey growled. “‘Everywhere is the center and the center is everywhere.’ Somehow he flipped the ship through another dimension or something, how should I know? He was saying no matter where you are on earth, you’re always near this place too. Like being inside a ball, at the very center. Every place on the surface of the ball is exactly the same distance to you. And all you have to do is know what direction to go in, and you can get there.”
“Except it’s not a direction that makes any sense if all you know how to do is travel around on the outside of the ball.”
“Exactly. Another dimension.”
“‘There’s another world beneath this one,’” Ian quoted.
“Oh, don’t you start with that too,” Casey snorted, rolling her eyes.
AT A RAVINE some ways down the winding path came a stone bridge. It spanned a rushing river formed by several waterfalls plummeting down dizzyingly tall spikes nearby. Meanwhile, the eclipse had ended; the sun had re-started its odd, patternless wandering in the sky again. At present, Old Sol drifted behind the spikes as if it were trying to hide from the company, throwing shafts of searing light and blasting rainbows of impossible color through a bubbling froth-mist thrown up by the slap of cold water on razor rock.
Max, Sparkle and Willow crossed the bridge quickly as if all of them were in on a secret — which instantly annoyed Casey.
But before she and Ian could catch up, Jane Willow raised her hands to her mouth and let out a shrill warbling whistle.
The bridge shuddered — and then collapsed into a cloud of sand and pebbles. The river washed every trace of it away in a matter of seconds.
Casey stood agape, her brain not comprehending for a second. The bridge was just … gone! But Ian was already ahead of her; his black iron raiment snapped around his midsection and over his head before Casey’s hands had even reached for her eldritch weapons.
But this was only a matter of sliver-seconds: now her guns were out and pointed at Max, Jane Willow and Marvin Sparkle. “What in the hell is going on?” she demanded, the metallic tas
te of shock on her tongue.
“I’m sorry Casey,” Max said with a wan smile. “I need to do this alone. The Bondsman is my problem. I’m the one who —“
“Don’t you dare make some goddamn speech!” Casey fumed. She fired one of the Red Roses just over his head. He didn’t flinch. “And if you’re doing this alone, then what are Marvin Sparkle and Jane Willow doing with you?”
“That’s different,” Max explained. “I need their help.”
Casey’s head snapped back as if she’d been physically assaulted. “You need —?” Casey’s eyes bugged wide. “Oh. Wow.” She exhaled and bent over, hyperventilating for a second. Ian tried to help her up, but she batted him away. “Okay. I need a second to process this.” She paced, a Red Rose resting on each hip carelessly, as if they were merely her hands and she’d forgotten she actually held weapons. “Let me get this straight. You’re over there with Marvin Sparkle, the guy who once cut you open like a fish. And Jane Willow, who tried to tear you apart with one of those Throne things just days ago. And we’re over here. You chose them. Them, Max! Them, over us? We’re your friends! Us! Casey and Ian and Sasha! Remember?”
Max winced and looked pained. “I know this is hard to understand, Case. I know what it looks like. You think —“
“That you’re going to Bondsman-up?” Casey finished. Their eyes met. “Yeah, I just said that. And yes, I do.”
Max laughed softly. “Yeah. I knew you thought that. And I don’t blame you. I thought that for awhile too. But that’s not it, I swear, Case.”
Casey shook her head. “Max. Think about it. Your head is all whacked. You just got thousands of years — thousands! — Of memories back. You had all these other lives, these personalities, these other versions of you that you didn’t know about. That’s enough to mess up anybody!”
“And I —“
“I’m not finished!” Casey shouted. “The plan of the Bondsman is to get you to hate. To get you to be like him. So that you — resonate with him, or something. So you resonate with evil. You know this. You told me what you did with the Machine. You made this mistake once already. Are you just going to go and make it again?”
“This is different,” Max said, almost quietly. “There are things I know now that I didn’t know before. I know what I’m doing, Casey. You just have to trust me.”
“I don’t,” Casey said with tears in her eyes. “That’s it, Max. I just don’t trust you any more. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Then you’re going to have to shoot me,” Max said. And with that, he turned his back. He didn’t raise his star power; he was completely unprotected.
But Jane Willow cast Casey an intense gaze: it was clear she was not going to allow any harm to come to Max. It was only when Casey slowly returned the Red Roses to their holsters that Jane took her eyes off her.
Then the threesome slipped into the foliage and vanished.
AFTER SEVERAL HOURS of cursing Max and walking through dense growth and a maze of spiked rocks, Casey, Cody, Logan, Ian, Sasha and Maurice emerged onto a large open plain at the center of the island. Just as in Max’s tale about Johnny Siren, a giant volcano belched black smoke in the distance.
But there were also nine pyramids here, crouching on the plain in an entirely different direction opposite the volcano. The structures formed a complex of monuments connected by zig-zagging roadways of stone. Each pyramid was covered in polished white sandstone that blazed brilliantly wherever sunlight hit it. Casey had to squint and shield her eyes as she looked at them
The last fifth of each structure near the base was covered in dark red granite — a band of crimson. And the top of each pyramid, the apex, the capstone of each was coated in electrum — an alloy: a blend of gold and silver, white gold. This, too, shone brilliantly like a beacon blasting fire into the heavens.
Large statues of half-men, half animal creatures were positioned at various points around the complex like silent guardians. Some had the bird-head of the ibis on a man’s body; others were human heads affixed to seated stone lions.
But one pyramid in particular stood out. It was massive — far larger than the other eight flanking it. And its capstone shone like a blazing sun — with a dark circle inscribed at the center, giving the apex of the pyramid the appearance of being partially eclipsed.
Involuntarily, grimly, Sasha looked down at her hand. Inscribed on her skin was the Sunbolt tattoo — a black sun, wreathed with lightning bolts. “It’s supposed to look like this,” Sasha said to Casey, holding up her hand. “That’s what they made that to look like.”
Casey nodded and their eyes met: she knew Sasha carried deep emotional scars associated with that symbol. It was burned into more than just her hand.
“There’s Max,” Ian said, pointing. “And Marvin Sparkle.” Two small figures made their way across the plain. They were headed for the large pyramid. “Where’s Jane Willow? I don’t see her with them …?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Casey said. “C’mon. Let’s try to catch up.”
But Ian was dubious. Max and Marvin Sparkle were very, very far away. He could whoosh there in his suit … but the rest of the company would be left behind. And even that was assuming Max and Sparkle allowed him to approach. And Ian wasn’t altogether certain that Max was doing the wrong thing — at least not nearly as certain as Casey seemed to be.
Yet he didn’t have to make this decision, for just as he was pondering it, a small army of men appeared from between two nearby spikes, headed up by Fell Simon.
When Simon saw Casey, he stopped in surprise. But he recognized her at once from the Rally and snarled.
Cody drew before anyone and began firing. Simon and his men started blasting back. Everyone ducked for cover behind the rude shouts of stone that surrounded them. Ian covered himself in bloodmetal.
Cursing as she cast a furtive sidelong glance at Max and Marvin — who by now had receded to a mere two pinpricks in the distance — Casey began returning Fell Simon’s fire alongside Cody, Sasha and Logan.
Maurice had no weapon — and he was greatly agitated by this. But he wasn’t cowering or particularly afraid. He had fought in Vietnam, after all: he knew what it was to be in a firefight. Nonetheless he was frustrated that all he seemed to be able to do was keep his head down.
Fell Simon and his men had a different problem: they had just been emerging from a thin cavern of rock spike, much like the one the company had just left behind. As such, only a few of them could fit though the narrow opening at the same time. Most of their army was forced to hang back as well, having no position to fire from.
“What the hell are they doing walking?” Sasha yelled in between blasts. “Why don’t they just Sky Chamber over to those pyramids or something?”
“Maybe they are not going to the pyramids,” Logan White-Cloud answered between cracks of his own weapons.
That was true, Casey thought. This might be a patrol.
It was awful large for a patrol, though. And why on foot, even then? Surely a Sky Chamber would have made a better perch to patrol from.
But she had no time to pursue the thought further. Fell Simon’s men were fanning out now. One by one, they dared the breach, advancing to a rock or tree to hide behind while the others lay down cover fire. And some of the men in the back had begun scaling the rock spikes around them. Now several of them had gained purchases are were firing over the heads of their compatriots.
The company was filled with crack shots, and many of Simon’s men were cut down quickly. But each time, two or more men took the place of the one that had fallen. They number of gunshots now headed at the company was multiplying at a vicious rate.
The company was forced to fall back from their position to the outcropping of rocks behind them.
The danger was that Fell Simon’s men would manage to outflank them on all sides. Then it would be a turkey shoot, with the company in the middle. At first Casey had thought it would be a simple thing to hold them at the pas
s, to hit them two or three at a time as they came through. But Fell Simon was a ruthless taskmaster — and these men were clearly under the spell of the Bondsman, like the attendees of the Bondsman rally. They had no regard for their personal safety whatsoever. Death in the glorious service of the Bondsman would provide the very meaning of their lives.
They were losing. That was clear now.
Already, several men had gained the peaks of the spikes. They now effectively had sniper towers and could rain bullets down on the company from above.
Logan was the first to spot the snipers, and he gunned one down immediately, just as he was lining up a shot on Cody. Cody nodded a quick thanks to the grizzled Indian — and then started as a bullet whizzed very close to his cheek. Logan made a cluck of annoyance at Cody letting down his guard like that — and Cody took it to heart. Concentrating fully now, he blasted his irons into the melee even more ferociously, cutting four down in a single volley.
But those snipers —!
Suddenly one of them cried out in alarm, and the company saw his body tumble from the peak. It landed on the heads of the men still stuck in the pass. Then another was seemingly flung down as well.
Casey snapped her gaze up — Maurice was up there! He wrestled now with the last sniper, and then shifted his weight, allowing his attacker to overcome him. He fell intentionally — and tumbled the sniper over him and off the precipice.
Rising now — and armed with his former opponents’ weapons — Maurice shot down into Fell Simon’s army, slaying several dozen in the first few moments. Fell Simon screamed in alarm: now they had a sniper behind and above them: his army could not fight a front facing battle and this at the same time. He called out orders, and his men retreated from their attack on the main company back into the pass.
Then Maurice started backpedalling: the entire army was concentrating on him now, on eliminating the unacceptable threat he represented tactically. But by retreating to the center of the spike, he was able to foil their line of fire; they simply could not hit him.
