Fall and Rising

by Sunny Moraine

  “Lock,” Adam said patiently. “Yeah, I always do this. I’ve always done it. Listen.” He held out his hand, palm up, as if he were holding an invisible pad. “In school, when the other kids would go at their problems all conventionally, step-by-step, the way they’d been told … and I would dive in and feel my way out. I’d use the steps, sure, because that was usually the best way, but when I was in the middle of it, I wouldn’t even be thinking about it. I’d just be … feeling through the problem. The shape of it, the way it could be rearranged to give me the answer I wanted. Equations, proofs, spatial calculations, physics … It all worked the same. I didn’t need to think. Thinking actually got in the way.”

  Lochlan simply shook his head. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt this helpless. The previous few days—if not weeks—had made him feel more and more like there was little he could do but hold on for the ride.

  “I’m going to do this,” Adam said, softer now. He stepped closer and laid a hand against the side of Lochlan’s neck. “I need you. I don’t need you to buy into it, not totally, but I need you with me. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can.”

  Adam nodded. “Good.” And resumed walking.

  They were outside their ex-host’s shack when Lochlan yanked him to a stop again. He wasn’t surprised to see that they were here, had in fact had a growing sense of dread. He had to make one last attempt to stop it. Before it went too far to take back.

  “Adam.” He took a breath. “Chusile. If you try … however you think you can … and you fail, they’re going to hate you. They’re all going to hate you. They might try to kill you.”

  Adam frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Because,” Lochlan said, choosing his words with care. “The worst thing you can do for people like this is sell them hope and then destroy it in front of them.”

  Adam looked at him for a long moment, his face unreadable. “I’m not going to fail,” he murmured. He turned and pushed the sheeting aside, stepping into the dimness of the shack. Fighting a wrench of despair, Lochlan followed.

  The woman was seated on the mat again, her eyes closed in a doze. The children were once more lying curled together, but their eyes were open, and they’d locked onto Adam and Lochlan as they entered. Lochlan tried not to let his trepidation show, but he didn’t think he was all that successful.

  Adam, meanwhile, radiated confidence. It was bizarre. Lochlan wasn’t sure he had ever seen Adam like this before.

  “Hey.” Adam dropped into a crouch beside the mat and touched the woman’s shoulder. She jerked, her eyes snapping open.

  “What the fuck?” She shoved his hand away. “I thought I told you not to come back here.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Adam shifted even closer. “The thing is … I think I might be able to help you.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Help me? How?”

  He has no idea—he’s out of his mind. But Lochlan bit his tongue to keep it still. Even if he couldn’t believe what Adam intended to do, even if his doubts were overwhelming, he couldn’t stop it now.

  “I used to be sick too. I’m not anymore. I was healed.”

  The woman let out a harsh laugh. “Bullshit. That’s not possible. Why would you be, if they can’t do it here already?”

  “I went elsewhere.” Adam glanced back at Lochlan and the woman’s gaze followed his. God, no, Lochlan thought desperately. Leave me the fuck out of this. “I was dying when he found me. I was sure nothing could help me. But he did. His people did. I think I can do the same thing.”

  The woman stared at him. “You mean to tell me,” she said slowly, “you were cured by … by Bideshi magic, and now you’re going to cast the same spell on me, and that’s going to cure me. Just like that.”

  Adam gave her a vaguely wry smile. “I don’t think it’ll happen ‘just like that,’ no. And I don’t think it’s magic. It’s something else. It’s definitely not a spell, either … but that’s basically the idea, yeah.”

  For a long moment, the woman was silent. Lochlan searched her face for some indication of what she was thinking, but could glean nothing. She looked into Adam’s eyes and he looked back, his expression open, a little pleading. Lochlan had the sensation of a nightmare, everything moving sluggishly forward with no way to sidestep or stop any of it.

  At last she shrugged and gave another quick, dry laugh. “Okay. Sure. What the fuck.”

  Adam blinked. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” The woman smiled crookedly. “It’s bullshit and it won’t work, and you’re crazy, but what exactly do I have to lose? I’m already dead. Can’t hurt.”

  “Thank you.” Adam glanced down at his hands as if he expected to find something changed in them.

  “So what do I do?”

  “Just sit there. I think.” At that, the girl sat up and tugged at the sleeve of her mother’s shirt, shaking her head.

  “No,” she whispered. “Mama. No.”

  “Oh, baby.” The woman pulled the girl into her lap, cradling her head against her breast and rocking her gently. “It’s okay. This nice man wants to try something. I’ll be fine.”

  Adam sat back on his heels, waiting. After a few minutes, the women pressed the girl back onto the mat. The girl was still sniffling, but had otherwise fallen quiet. Lochlan fixed his gaze on them. Children the age he had been when he’d stepped onto Caldor Station and his life had exploded. What would seeing all of this do to them? Assuming they even survived?

  Adam no longer seemed to be aware of them. He was taking the woman’s hands in his, hunching forward. “Just close your eyes,” he said, then added, “I’m not sure how this is going to go. I’ve never done it before.”

  “Oh.” The woman smiled thinly at him. “That’s very comforting.” But she closed her eyes, and then for a moment there was nothing at all. Only her and Adam, sitting hand in hand across from each other, in an attitude of what might have been prayer.

  Then the woman arched with a ragged breath. Her eyes snapped wide open, rolled back in her head so that they seemed pale and sightless.

  Like an Aalim.

  Lochlan almost lunged forward, but something held him back, staring. The children were sitting up and shifting backward, their faces twisted with fear. Adam’s body was as rigid as the woman’s, the muscles standing out in his arms and his fingers clamped so tight around hers that his knuckles were white. He threw his head back, his mouth stretched into a grimace.

  They were both clearly in pain. A lot of it.

  “Adam, no.” But Adam didn’t let her go. Perhaps he couldn’t. The woman’s body bucked and her mouth opened in a silent scream.

  This was worse. It was so much worse than he had feared, than he had even imagined. Because there was power here. It hummed through the air, raising the hair on his arms. He’d thought that nothing would happen. Now the woman was writhing, shaking her head, her breath harsh and shallow. Now her teeth were closing on her tongue, and blood trickled from the corner of Adam’s mouth. The children were screaming, scrambling away from her, and Adam wouldn’t let her go.

  Lochlan reached for the children, and perhaps they were too scared of what Adam was doing to their mother to be afraid of anything else, because they rushed into his arms.

  And then it was over.

  Adam fell back with a rough cry, releasing the woman’s hands. She crumpled as if boneless, her body sprawled, her eyes closed, and her face gone lax.

  “Is she—” Lochlan couldn’t say it. Saying it might make it real. The children were still crying against him, their fists clenched in the dirty fabric of his shirt. Adam pushed himself slowly up, shaking—it seemed as though that simple movement was taking all of his strength.

  He fell forward onto his hands and knees, reached for the woman, and laid a hand on her chest. His head dipped—and every muscle in his body stiffened at once.

  No. Oh, no.

  “Lock.” Adam swallowed hard, and turned stricken eyes on him, blood still
showing at the corners of his mouth. “Lock, she’s … she’s not breathing.”

  “Try to revive her.”

  Lochlan sounded numb, the words mechanical. Adam stared at the woman, her limbs askew, her lips slightly parted and stained with blood. Chest compressions. Of course. He knew how. But it wouldn’t do any good. He was as sure of that as anything, even as he somehow got himself up to his knees, placed his hands on her chest, and pushed.

  Where she had gone, he couldn’t reach her. She would return riding her own strength, or she would not.

  The next few minutes were hazy. He was aware of fragments—the soft weeping of the children, the hot pain in his own body, the overwhelming desire to fall down and sleep. Death in the body under his hands. The nothingness that seemed to surround the shack, pressing in from all sides. A starless void.

  Then the body beneath him convulsed.

  He fell back, shock blasting through him. The woman shook, and the shaking became a cough that wracked her from the deepest part of her chest, her breaths making their way in between gaps in her coughing, rattling and sharp. Her hands twitched weakly.

  The world blurred as tears filled his eyes. It was too much. All of it.

  And then it sucked him down again.

  The sensation of falling wasn’t as deep as before. If anything it felt like an aftershock. Except … He hadn’t done anything except open a door and lead her to it. She had gone through. And like him, she had known what to do once she was there, struggling amidst the grinding tangle of her own roots, battling the sickness that lay at their heart. It was the Plain all over again, and yet it wasn’t—the power that had gripped him there was fainter here. But it was still here. He had been right. It had gone so deep into him that it had left pieces of itself behind.

  Or maybe it had been there all along.

  Maybe it was in everyone.

  Now he stumbled through the dark of himself, groping for anything that would help him find his way back. He was aware of Lochlan’s hands on him, the children still sobbing with fear, the woman coughing as she reclaimed her breath. But all of that was distant. His own weakness was devouring him, the living things in him withering, their dances erratic and stuttering. It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t death eating at him. But so much of him had been drained in only a few seconds, and now it was all he could do to keep his head above the surface.

  He remembered lying on the Plain in Lochlan’s arms, smelling blood and terror. But there he had felt safe, as if Lochlan really could protect him. As if he could bring Adam out of the dark with the simple force of his love.

  Like now.

  He twisted weakly and finally managed to shake himself free, light flooding back into his vision. Lochlan was cradling him, his face bent close, his eyes wide and frightened.

  “I’m all right,” Adam whispered. “I’m—” Then a kinder darkness closed over his head, and he welcomed its coming.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  The woman was holding her children again, though they were still whimpering, pressing themselves into her as if they could crawl beneath her skin and hide themselves. Lochlan looked up, dazed, Adam’s body gone limp in his arms—but he sensed that it wasn’t unconsciousness but the kind of sleep that would heal if it was given time. He met the woman’s gaze, and it was keener and brighter than it had been before. Her brown skin had less of a gray tint and appeared healthier. But the tone was also a little uneven, a hint of mottling. Like Adam. Though her eyes were both still the same color. Perhaps whatever had happened to her—if she had been healed, permanently—was similar to what had happened to Adam.

  How he carried the Plain in his blood.

  He wasn’t sure how else to explain what he had seen. How else it could be possible.

  “He healed you,” Lochlan said dully, and ducked his head. And he almost killed you. Along with himself.

  “How did he do that?” She didn’t sound doubtful. She almost sounded angry, in fact, though there was a quaver in her voice that suggested fear.

  “He did it once before.” Lochlan stroked Adam’s damp hair away from his head, holding him closer. “When he said he used to be sick, he wasn’t lying. It nearly killed him. It was our magic that saved him, if you want to call it that.” He shot her a sardonic smile. “He left my people to try to save your people. I suppose you’re the first.”

  The woman nodded but said nothing else for a moment. She was gazing at Adam with a strange expression, many emotions passing through it in waves. Shock. Wonder. Admiration. Suspicion.

  “Will he be all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Lochlan shook his head. If he had known it would do this, potentially damage Adam in this way … Would he have tried harder to stop it? Would he have argued that it wasn’t worth the risk? He had no idea. “Like I said, he’s never done this with anyone else before. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

  The woman hesitated, then gently shooed her children off the mat, getting up and motioning to the vacated space. “Put him here.”

  “You don’t need to rest?”

  “I feel fine.” The woman gave him a small smile. “Better than fine. My mouth hurts; I think I bit myself, but … It’s okay. Least I can do, maybe.”

  Lochlan nodded. The question had been out of uncharacteristic politeness and little else. Adam was the most important thing in the world. Awkwardly, he lifted Adam’s deadweight onto the mat and arranged him into as comfortable a position as he could. Then he sat back, his hands in his lap, and closed his eyes, though he probably wouldn’t sleep. Aarons needed to be told. Because this changed everything.

  “I just realized,” the woman said quietly from behind him, “I don’t know your names. Any of you.”

  “Right.” Lochlan sighed. “I’m Lochlan. Lock. There’s other names in there, but I guess … I guess they don’t really matter right now. There’s a lot of them.” He gestured toward Adam. “He’s Adam. The handsome fellow with us earlier is Aarons.”

  “All right.” The woman seemed to mull that over, then added, “I’m Rachel. The kids are Becca and Dion.”

  “It’s good to know you, Rachel.” And he realized then that he meant it. Their circumstances were horrible, everything at the moment was horrible, but it was also good. Because for the first time in a long time, it was as if light was pushing through the black, like stars emerging through a dust cloud.

  Maybe there was a chance. Maybe.

  “I want to help you.” Rachel touched his arm, careful and hesitant. “I have no fucking idea how this works, and I don’t even know if I trust you, any of you … But if he’s here to help people … Then I want to help you. Tell me what I need to do.”

  Lochlan glanced back at her, nonplussed. Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that wasn’t one he had considered in the wildest corners of his imagination.

  But it felt right. And that sense of possibility, of hope, was hitting him relentlessly, beating its way inside.

  “Okay.” He took a breath. “He has an idea. A crazy goddamn idea. It’s probably a terrible one, and it’s probably suicide. But if you want to help …”

  He told her. She listened in silence. At some point, around the time he got to the part about the ships, she started to laugh.

  In her dreams Nkiruka ran the corridors and halls and secret places of Ashwina.

  She’d had these dreams before. She suspected everyone on a Bideshi homeship had them sooner or later. The ships folded into themselves, claimed and marked their own. One wandered through them in sleep as well as waking. But in those other dreams—the ones Nkiruka had always had—the ship had been full of life, voices and footsteps and the smell of growing things.

  Now it was dead and her feet left tracks in the dust that coated its floors.

  She wanted to call out. She wanted to find someone else alive on the ship, even one person, because to be alone in something this vast was to draw dangerously close to the night that went on forever. That n
ight cradled them and kept them free and unbound, but it was also so cold, so cruel, and it could be like a devouring mouth. Now it was open to swallow her, the darkness battering against the glass that capped the great halls and the high corridors.

  At length she found herself on the ground of the High Fields. But the grass was dead and dry, the trees in the distance like skeletal hands, the nearby lake nothing but cracked mud. She was standing in one place but it was as though her awareness lifted and flew, everywhere at once. Everywhere she saw the same infertility, the same death. The same deep loss.

  When she focused on the Arched Halls, she opened her mouth to scream—which choked itself in her throat.

  Like everywhere else, they were dry and dead, but the death was of a different kind, because the life there had been of a different kind also. She searched along its paths, touching each trunk, but she sensed nothing. No glowbugs came to greet her. No singing echoed through the branches. The candles had all gone out.

  There were no stars.

  But there was light.

  She watched it draw nearer, red and orange and gold—familiar. It was like a tiny flame. For a few seconds she allowed herself to hope that it was the life returning to the ship, that it had perhaps fled into the night but was now coming back, because Ashwina would draw life back to herself.

  But then she knew the light and she knew it wasn’t so.

  She whirled and ran.

  She could hear its roar now, feel the heat at her back, blistering her skin. Suddenly it was all around her, screaming for her life, more ravenous than any cold night could be. She hurled herself through the Arched Halls and the branches reached out to claw at her, to yank her hair and clutch at her clothes. She beat at them, but she only succeeded in scratching her palms open, and the dead trees sucked greedily at her blood.

  Finally, in an ecstasy of terror and dull rage, she faced the fire. It reared up in front of her like a horse, and she saw faces moving inside it, their features twisted with agony and their mouths wide to make up the massive howl of the flames. Some of the faces, she knew. Many others she didn’t. But she knew they were all Bideshi—not only the ones from Ashwina but all the Bideshi, and she was the last one both free and living.