by Alex Wells
It was the roots he watched, expanding, uncurling, becoming whole. When that energy was full and right, Coyote released his arm and flung himself back.
It hadn’t been so much blood, but he was already tired. The Bone Collector sank back on the sand and then lay on it, wanting the comfort of that familiar touch, warm as one of Hob’s hands.
Coyote, panting, wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Is this how it will always be?” he asked, despair black in his tone. “I can’t keep doing this.”
The Bone Collector closed his eyes, trying to visualize the futures that branched out before them. It was too tangled and uncertain for him to even offer a small comfort beyond, “All things change.” That was the truest thing he knew.
Coyote laughed humorlessly. “This was already quite a change.”
The Bone Collector opened one hand, sweeping it palm-up over the sand. “You’ve touched the heart of the world in a way even I haven’t, and torn yourself away before you’d fully grown into it. You aren’t one thing or the other, and it is an unstable sort of half-life.” He opened his eyes to see Coyote scrubbing at his face with one hand, the other curled to press against his chest.
“I remember more now. Every time, I remember a little more,” Coyote said. “I remember seeing stars, reflected in the water. Stars that weren’t these stars. Water more real than water can be.” He closed his eyes, struggling with some thought. “It’s the window to another world, isn’t it? Another place.”
The words didn’t quite fit, but humans hadn’t invented the necessary language. This seemed close enough, ideas that the Bone Collector had struggled to describe now simplified and flattened. “Yes. The place from which all change comes. The other side we cannot touch.” He felt it, sometimes, like pressing his hand through thick fabric and taking an impression of what was on the other side. He felt too, sometimes, like he might be able to rend that fabric, like he should be able to, but he lacked the raw strength to do so – and it did not feel right, either, to reorder things to his suiting with force. He was part of the world. He did not want to destroy it.
“Guess I’d better tell the boss,” Coyote said, not sounding terribly happy. “I don’t think it’s going to help her in a practical sense, however.”
“And Hob is nothing if not practical.” With a sigh, the Bone Collector sat up. It would be too easy to fall into deep sleep otherwise. He rolled up to his knees and leaned forward, to place a kiss on Coyote’s forehead.
“What the hell was that, anyway?” Coyote asked.
For a moment, the Bone Collector thought he meant the gesture, but realized instead that he referred to what had happened in the camp that sat like a wound on the world. “I don’t know. But I have little doubt it will happen again.” He might have said more, but he felt something shift, in the distance, a discordant hum in the air. His lips curled back to show his teeth, not unlike Hob had done earlier. He didn’t know the precise arrangement of sound, it was new and disturbing. But he knew what it meant.
“What?” Coyote asked.
“The Eater of Worlds is coming.” This had been inevitable since that monster had climbed down onto the planet; interrupting its dreaming was little more than an annoyance to it, he was sure.
Coyote stiffened and tilted his head, like he was listening for something barely on the edge of perception. His head turned, unerringly, so that he faced that great numb spot that the humans called Newcastle. “That’s certainly a fancy name for a Weatherman.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
22 Days
The desert below rolled and undulated, dark as a sea with no breaking waves. The massive electric engine made a thrum that Shige felt rather than heard, coming through the frame of the military-surplus light attack helicopter. He had done more than one training mission on the genuine article himself; he could tell that Mariposa had sacrificed quite a bit of speed and maneuverability for this much soundproofing – but who would they be trying to outmaneuver in the air, on a planet they wholly owned?
The paling of the sky that promised dawn showed on the horizon, the black of night fading almost imperceptibly to purple-gray. Kiyoder hadn’t wanted the Weatherman overly exposed to the harsh light of day, a precaution she’d assured him and Meetchim had only been necessary with earlier models, but better safe than sorry. They would arrive at the wildcat camp just as the sun began to lumber over the horizon.
He turned back into the comfortable, if still cramped, passenger compartment of the helicopter. There were several seats that were rather plush at the middle of the compartment, one of which was occupied by the spidery form of Mr Yellow. The Weatherman leaned to press his hands and face against the window nearest him. All of the security guards had crowded out of his way, a few of them standing rather than risking the seats nearest to him.
And because of that soundproofing, Shige heard Mr Yellow humming, though not any of the songs he’d come to recognize from the Weatherman. He sounded… cheerful. “That’s a new sort of tune,” he offered.
He saw, from the corner of his eye, Mr Yellow turning toward him. “We like flying. Like space.”
“It is a bit, isn’t it. Do you miss being in space?”
“We like to fly,” Mr Yellow said, and went back to humming as the pitch of the engines changed, the forward momentum slowing in preparation to land. Out of habit, Shige put on his seatbelt. He’d been in some rough landings before.
“We will not fall,” Mr Yellow remarked. “We would know.”
“How?” Shige asked.
“We see the branches,” Mr Yellow said, as the descent began. “We see everything.”
There was a strange smell in the air; Shige caught it as soon as the main door was opened. Electricity and ozone, something else metallic that he couldn’t put his finger on. That already had him quietly on edge as he took the folding stairs from the helicopter to the ground. The camp itself had him more alarmed.
He’d expected some sort of ragged receiving line, at the most. The three helicopters that made his little convoy must have been visible from some distance, and about twelve hours earlier, a messenger had been sent with news that they would be coming. But the camp was in disarray, the miners huddled together on one end away from the tents, with green-uniformed guards standing over them, rifles in hand. Every light in the camp was on, another unusual thing when energy drain for the short-term batteries was always a concern. He recognized, as well, equipment like that which had been in Kiyoder’s office, ringing the campsite.
And, Shige realized, the temporary drive chain was silent. He’d been to enough mining sites to always expect that clank and creak, like the mine breathing.
He spotted the lead guard from his helicopter, already in intense conversation with an unfamiliar woman in Mariposa green. Shige insinuated himself into that conversation expertly, not speaking quite yet.
“–fucking raid,” the camp guard finished saying. “Bandits, I guess. Pack of ’em, on motorcycles.”
Shige’s focus took on a razor edge. Of course, that mad Ravani woman wasn’t the only one on the planet with a set of cobbled-together motorcycles. But they were the most proficient he’d encountered. “Was anyone hurt?”
The camp guard looked at him, and then her eyes widened as she took in his suit. “I lost six of my men,” she said, voice harsh. “Fucking sniper.”
“Sergeant…” the Corporate guard began.
“Begging your pardon, sir. It’s been a bad night.”
Shige nodded. “I’m certain it has been, and I’ll immediately have reinforcements sent to you. How did you thwart the attack?”
She waved at the ring of cables and transmitters that surrounded the site. “Steimez remembered the instructions that we should trip the experimental system if we came under attack. Quick thinking on his part, and I want him commended.”
“Of course,” Shige said. “I’ll make a note of it.”
“Anyway, he triggered the system, and the next thing we knew, thr
ee of the bandits had dropped. The others rushed in to grab them and then ran away. Damndest thing. I still don’t know what this stuff is supposed to do, but it saved our asses.”
“Did you get a look at the ones the system stopped?” Shige asked.
“I was a little busy,” the camp guard said. “But a couple of the guys have been saying that one of them was a really pale guy, in a gray coat. For what that’s worth.”
It wasn’t enough of a description for Shige to make a positive identification. “Who saw…”
The camp guard pointed past him. “Is that…?”
Shige turned to see Mr Yellow stepping slowly onto the sand, like he expected it to swallow up his foot. “Yes, it is.” The guards shouldn’t have let him off the helicopter before they were certain the area was secure, he thought grumpily. He left the conversation to join Mr Yellow, and instead found himself following the Weatherman, who walked unerringly toward the entrance of the mine.
For a dizzying moment, Shige entertained the mental image of Mr Yellow diving into the shaft and vanishing. He hurried forward, reaching out to catch the tail of Mr Yellow’s coat. And then he found himself pulled along, which didn’t help his worry at all. “Mr Yellow!”
Mr Yellow stopped, so abruptly that Shige ran into his back. The Weatherman was rock solid, strangely so, and something about touching him even through his clothing left Shige disoriented. He stepped back, fighting the urge to scrub his hands against the front of his own coat. “Mr Yellow?”
The Weatherman held his hands out in front of him, palms down toward the ground. His fingers curled, grasping, a tension coiling through his arms and furling down his spine. And then he drew his hands back, like he pulled on a physical object rather than thin air.
The ground beneath them cracked. Something blue and sparkling in the harsh floodlights began to flow up to the surface.
Mr Yellow relaxed and bent to sink his fingers into it, like it was soft as cake. He pulled up a handful, a strange smile on his lips. First he tilted his head, as if listening to it, then he bent, wet red tongue coming out to lick.
“Mr Yellow…” It struck Shige that he really ought not to let the Weatherman put strange things in his mouth.
Mr Yellow dragged his tongue slowly over the blue handful and then stopped, that red flesh still lolling beneath his lips. The blue mineral dribbled away between his fingers like sand, turning black as ash when it hit the ground and blowing away in the wind.
Then Mr Yellow let out a long scream, not human enough for Shige to place any real emotion in it. He clutched at his head with his hands and collapsed, with just as little warning.
Shige lunged forward and grabbed his coat again, saving him from hitting his head on the rocks. Grunting with the effort, he lowered Mr Yellow down to the ground.
The security guards pounded up behind him. “What the hell was that?” the Corporate man demanded.
Shige glanced back at him and saw an echo of his own horror: had they just unwittingly killed the Weatherman? Feeling disoriented, he rolled Mr Yellow over, resting his hands on the Weatherman’s chest. Mr Yellow’s eyes were open just a slit, nothing but black showing between the lids. But he felt the rise and fall of the Weatherman’s chest, the thump of a strong heartbeat.
He sagged with relief, and didn’t care if he showed it. It was only natural for someone in his position. “I don’t know, but he’s alive. He’s still alive.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
22 Days
No one had to tell Hob when the Bone Collector and Coyote arrived, just as the sky was starting to go light for dawn. She hadn’t moved away from the window of her office since she’d gotten home and left her motorcycle, rescued from the dunes by the mining camp, to be dealt with by Hati. Her ashtray, a twisted piece of metal that had once served the same function for Old Nick, had come with her and was half-full of white-gray ash and the bent butts of black cigarettes. No matter how much she smoked, her goddamn headache still wouldn’t go away.
The first thing she felt, seeing the pale, ghostly shape that was the Bone Collector and the shorter shadow that was Coyote, was relief. Then she reminded herself that she was pissed as all hell at the Bone Collector. He’d made the entire op into a giant fuckup, and maybe it was technically her fault for calling him in the first place, but it wasn’t like she’d known he’d do something that ass-and-tits-up stupid.
She clamped her lips around her half-finished cigarette and headed down into the yard to meet them. She was surprised when the Bone Collector still stood there, a hand against one wall. If he’d had any goddamn sense, he should have run for it. She stopped in front of the two men, hands braced on her hips.
“You don’t have to wait up when we’re out late, you know,” Coyote said.
She glared at him. “You all right?”
“Of course.”
That was an argument to have at a later time. “Then get. Bala’s probably worried sick about you.”
Coyote looked at the Bone Collector, and shrugged. “It was nice knowing you.”
A bare bit of red-orange sunrise light caught the wall in front of her, just at the top. That marked a whole night without sleep, which just pissed her off more. She was through worrying that much about anyone who didn’t collect their paycheck from her. Hob turned her attention back to the Bone Collector.
The man looked… worn out. No. She wasn’t going to think anything even that nice about him. If he hadn’t wanted to get worn out, maybe he should have thought for three fucking seconds before waltzing into a goddamn mining camp like it was a dance hall. She crossed her arms. “And what the fuck was that?”
His eyebrows went up, graceful curves that she found herself itching to punch. “I fetched Coyote for you.”
Was it possible for a human being to be this dense, even one that spent most of his time being a rock? She snarled, “Before that.”
He opened his mouth, and so help him, it better have been to say something not stupid. But then Hob felt the world shift, impossibly, because they weren’t anywhere near one of the damn camps. There shouldn’t have been anything to make the air around them vibrate, prickling at her skin like a thousand needles. It was like what had happened before, but only a little. Like this hum ended not in some bone-deep harmony, but in an agonized scream.
Yes, someone was screaming. Hob found herself on her knees for the second goddamn time today, but her teeth were clenched. It wasn’t her. That hoarse, terrible sound was the Bone Collector, bent with his forehead pressed against the dusty ground. His hands clutched at his hair and… those were words. A single word. Just “No!” endlessly.
If it was hitting her and the Bone Collector… Hob turned her head, and the motion felt strange, detached. Like she was moving through something thicker than air, because all things were wrong. There was Coyote, also on his knees, but thank any god if one existed because he wasn’t losing his shit this time. He looked scared and confused, but he was still resident in his own eyes.
And then as quickly as it had come, the sensation went away. It had only, Hob realized as she glanced up at the little line of sunlight on the wall above, been a few seconds. Not even a minute, measured by how the sun moved so fast in the morning. It had felt like a damned eternity.
The Bone Collector had gone silent. She tried to stand and thought better of it, with her bones still feeling like they’d been melted. She crawled to the Bone Collector and pushed him onto his back. All anger forgotten, she sagged with relief to see him breathing.
“What the hell was that?” Coyote whispered hoarsely.
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Hob said. “And I’m getting goddamn sick of not knowin’.”
The unholy racket the Bone Collector had raised dragged nearly everyone out of their bed – except for Lobo, because he slept like the dead, and Hob thought he was starting to go a little deaf besides. Freki and Geri, bless the both of them, took one look at Hob and went to pick up the Bone Collector. Geri took his feet, Freki t
ook his arms, and he hung limp as a sack of meal packs as they carried him off toward the infirmary.
Hob waved off Maheegan and Akela when they tried to steady her. “I ain’t dead or even hurt.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you just come in off a bender,” Akela remarked. He rasped at the gray stubble on his round chin with his fingers. “The hell was that?”
“Witchy stuff, I reckon,” Maheegan said laconically, like he was just observing the sky was blue. His wide mouth curved in a faint smile.
She glanced toward Coyote. He was up on his feet now, one of Dambala’s enormous hands steady on his shoulder. Most everyone was still giving him a wide berth – fuck, but that pissed her off – but as she watched, Raff came up, arms crossed awkwardly, and asked: “You gonna be all right?”
“Right as a dust storm,” Coyote said lightly.
“That don’t sound so right.”
“Best I can come up with in a place where it doesn’t rain.” He smiled tiredly as Raff laughed.
“Maheegan, you go tell Lobo to send my breakfast up to the infirmary, and Coyote’s too, and somethin’ for our guest,” Hob said. She could take a nap there just as easy as in her office or in her room.
“Will do,” Maheegan said. He made an approximately salute-like gesture toward his short, wavy black hair that seemed a matter of habit for him – no one else in the outfit had ever saluted except for Coyote, and he did that just to be an asshole – and sloped off to the kitchen.
“You sure–” Akela started.
“Do I look that fuckin’ bad?” Hob snapped.
Akela sucked at his teeth; he was missing more than a few. “You sure don’t look good.”
Hob scrubbed her face with her hands. “Don’t recall you assholes ever gettin’ this concerned about Nick.”
Akela grinned. “I like you more’n I liked Old Nick.”
That stunned her into silence as he turned and headed back toward the garage. All she could do then was shake her head and walk, her legs still frustratingly weak, to the infirmary. Coyote patted Dambala’s hand and fell in behind her. “Breakfast?” he asked.
