Paragaea

by Chris Roberson

  “There,” Balam whispered, and pointed ahead.

  A group of metamen, nearly two dozen strong, were moving together through the tents, making for the center of the encampment. Male and female, they were of every conceivable strain and variety of metaman.

  “Who are they?” Leena whispered, drawing near Hieronymus.

  “A more pertinent question,” Hieronymus answered, “might be, What are they doing?”

  “Let's follow and see, shall we?” Balam said. He glanced to his daughter. “Stay with me, Menchit. Do you understand? I want no harm to come to you.”

  Menchit did not speak, but only nodded, her jaw clenched.

  “Come on,” Leena said, and followed the party of metamen, keeping to the shadows.

  Near the center of the tent city, they found a large excavation under way. Hieronymus found them a place to hide beneath a large pile of excavated dirt and rubble, and they regarded the scene before them.

  Scores of metamen of all races worked together under bright lanterns, with picks, axes, and shovels, unearthing some massive, ancient engine of war. On the far side of the pit, they saw a collection of metamen dressed in finery, standing with what looked to be a withered old human, ancient and hairless, wearing shimmering robes.

  “Gerjis!” Balam cursed spitefully, his eyes on a Sinaa who was standing amongst the dignitaries and had a royal harness crisscrossing his chest.

  Menchit's eyes opened wide, and she leapt to her feet and cried out with joy, “Per!”

  The jaguar man reached up to drag his daughter back out of sight, but it was too late. Menchit broke away from him, and began racing around the perimeter of the pit.

  “Who is that?” Hieronymus hissed.

  “My cousin, and my foul sisters,” Balam replied sharply, jumping to his feet and taking a few long strides after his daughter. “And the old human is the twice-damned Per!”

  “Balam, wait!” Leena said, reaching out to take his arm. “Look!”

  Menchit's joyous cry had drawn the attention of the metamen, and as she raced around the pit's edge to where her aunts, cousin, and spiritual leader stood, Hieronymus, Leena, and Balam were subjected to the angry stares of the workers in the pit, who now advanced on them, hefting pick and axe menacingly.

  The mass of the metamen in the pit drew nearer, their eyes flashing angrily in the lantern light.

  Hieronymus took to his feet, sprinting back the way they'd come, and called back needlessly to Leena and Balam, “Run!”

  Leena made to follow, but glancing back saw that Balam had extended his claws, and was actually moving towards the advancing mob.

  “No!” Leena cried, grabbing the jaguar man's arm and dragging him after her. “Now is not the time.”

  Balam looked across the pit to where his daughter even now was embracing his reviled cousin, and then glanced back at Leena, agony etched on his face.

  “We must go,” Leena said urgently, sparing a glance at the advancing mob, now no more than a dozen meters away.

  Balam bared his fangs, but nodded angrily. Turning his back on the pit, and those who stood beyond it, he turned and raced after Hieronymus, Leena following close behind.

  The trio reached the northern edge of the encampment just ahead of their pursuers. Returning the way they had come, they raced out into the dark night, momentarily losing the metamen in the jutting spars of ancient engines of war to the north.

  “Here,” Hieronymus said in a harsh whisper, pointing to a rusted shell of metal that rose just over a meter from the ground before bending back on itself, leaving a small cavity within accessible by a narrow fissure.

  Leena slid through the fissure, crouching in the cavity beneath the curving shell. Hieronymus followed, his shoulders barely fitting through, and then Balam, who was scored front and back by the ragged edge of the metal, though he bore the pain of it stoically, his thoughts running in tight circles.

  “Damn them!” Balam snarled, pounding a fist into the burned ground. “Damn Gerjis, damn Sakhmet, damn Bastet, and damn me!” His breath caught in his throat, and he sobbed, “My poor, deluded girl.”

  Hieronymus inched over, and laid a hand on the Sinaa's knee. “My friend,” he said, barely above a whisper, “you must calm yourself. Our pursuers still search these wastes for us, and our numbers are too few to fend them off. If you cannot keep silent, they are sure to find us.”

  As if in answer to Hieronymus's words, through the fissure they could see a group of metamen approaching from the south, bearing torches. The Canid and Sinaa among their number sniffed the air, but it seemed that the trio's scents did not travel far in the cold night, and they were hidden from view within the sheltering wreckage. The pursuers passed by, and the trio remained undetected.

  Long after the pursuit had gone by, the trio drew close together in a whispered conference, trying to work out what to do next.

  Balam, for his part, was all for storming the encampment and seizing his daughter, and damn the consequences.

  “I'm sorry, Balam,” Leena said reluctantly, “but Menchit did seem to be overjoyed to be reunited with her family.

  “I am her family,” Balam snarled.

  “However,” Hieronymus whispered, “though it pains me to say, she does not accept you. In an ideal situation, perhaps, you might in time force her to recognize you, but in present circumstances, it seems hardly likely. Her heart and mind are turned against you, and now there stands between you and her this massed army of the Black Sun Genesis.”

  “Coming to that,” Leena said, “why is there an army of religionists in these burned wastes, anyway?”

  Hieronymus shrugged. “That's a question we'll have to ponder at a later hour, when we've put more miles between us and that angry mob. For now, I think our only choice is to continue on towards Atla, and leave Menchit for the moment with her people.”

  Balam bared his fangs in an angry sneer, but slowly nodded.

  “Agreed,” the jaguar man said at length.

  “But go quietly,” Leena said as the trio crept on hands and knees out from the sheltering cover of the spar. “The last time I faced a horde of angry metamen it did not go well for me, and I've little desire to repeat the experience.”

  The company edged around the encampment without further incident, moving farther south.

  The next morning found them many kilometers to the south, the encampment of the Per followers only dimly visible on the northern horizon. To the west, east, and south were nothing but the burned steppes, dotted here and there with the rusting promontories that stood as silent memorial to the lives lost in the Genos Wars.

  They stopped to rest and feed themselves. Hieronymus passed around a flask of water, while they munched unenthusiastically on strips of dried meat and salty hunks of hard bread.

  Balam had not spoken since the night before, glowering in silence as they marched to the south, extending and retracting his claws with a fire burning in his amber eyes.

  Finally, the silence was more than Leena could bear. “I had understood the Black Sun Genesis to be a religion of the metamen. Why, then, was there a human among their leaders?”

  Hieronymus said, “Yes, I puzzled over that, too, in the brief moment I had to consider it. You are sure, Balam, that the old human was the spiritual patriarch Per?”

  Balam's eyes flashed, momentarily, but then he sighed, and visibly forced himself to relax. “Yes, I've seen him before, once, when I was a child. That was Per, no question about it.”

  “Who is he?” Leena asked. She was beginning to form a theory, but was reluctant to voice it until she had more evidence. “Where did he come from?”

  “I'm not certain. All I know is that Per appeared first among the metamen decades ago. It was said he could work miracles, and that he held secret wisdom. He taught that the wizard-kings of Atla had created the races of metamen in ancient days, and that the time would come for the metamen to return home, in the final test that Per called the Reckoning. No one knew where he had
come from, though some whispered that he was one of the wizard-kings himself, cursed with immortality and forced to wander the circle of lands until the wizard-kings and their metamen creations were finally brought together.”

  Leena nodded, and rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

  Days later, the trio reached the southern boundary of the burned steppes of Eschar, and saw shimmering on the horizon before them a translucent curtain of green light extending as far as the eye could see to either horizon, seeming to rise up endlessly into the heavens above.

  “The Barrier of Atla,” Hieronymus said wonderingly.

  “It seems to curve away in the distance,” Leena said, looking to one side and the other, and then craning her head back as far as it would go. “Is it a dome of some kind, perhaps, curving back on itself?”

  “Perhaps.” Balam stood in place, regarding the energetic barrier with an unreadable expression on his face. “I've heard stories of this since I was a cub, but never expected to see it.”

  “And none have passed through this barrier since it was erected?” Leena asked.

  “So Benu said,” Hieronymus answered. “Or if any have passed through, then they have not returned to tell the tale.”

  “And how is this”—Leena held aloft the scarlet Carneol, which she'd drawn from her pack—“going to grant us passage?”

  In the gray light of the late afternoon, the red gem seemed to glow faintly with an inner light.

  “I suppose we'll just have to see, won't we?” Hieronymus said with a smile, and continued marching to the south.

  It was near sunset when they reached the base of the barrier and, in the fading light, the green curtain seemed to shimmer and dance like the Aurora Borealis, casting off a faint green glow. What little they could see of the terrain beyond the barrier was hazy and indistinct.

  “Regard the gemstone,” Hieronymus said, awestruck.

  Leena looked at the Carneol, still held in her hands, and saw that it was now indeed glowing with an inner light, bright as a lantern, that strobed and pulsated as she watched.

  “Look!” Balam pointed at the barrier before them.

  A section of the curtain directly in front of them, a roughly circular patch approximately three meters in diameter, had changed from shimmering pale green to a rich, vibrant crimson.

  “It resonates somehow with the gem,” Hieronymus said. He turned to Leena. “Draw nearer the barrier, little sister.”

  Leena took a few steps closer, and the Carneol glowed even brighter. The scarlet circle became a fissure in the barrier, opening slowly like a hand parting the curtain, just broad enough for the three of them to pass through.

  “Hurry,” Leena said, frozen in place. “I've no idea how to control this thing, and I don't much care to see what happens if we should be standing in the aperture when this thing chooses to close.”

  After exchanging a brief, nervous glance, Balam and Hieronymus slipped through the opening, and Leena followed close behind.

  As soon as the Carneol had passed through to the other side, the barrier immediately sealed shut behind them, becoming once more a uniform, shimmering green.

  “There,” Hieronymus said, pointing to the south.

  Atla was still a full day's journey before them, but already they could spy Mount Ignis looming on the near horizon, the red diamond of the citadel city dimly visible at its peak.

  Beyond the Barrier, the terrain and climate changed markedly. The landscape through which they now moved was a barren waste of ice and snow, the air so cruelly frigid that it stung their lungs to breathe deeply. Leena and Hieronymus swaddled themselves in multiple layers of clothing, shirts, trousers, and jackets, but still felt the bite of the cold wind as it blew over the frigid plain. Balam, who never wore anything but his loincloth and harness, shivered as snowflakes matted his black fur, hugging himself to try to keep warm.

  Their day's journey became two, the passage through the frozen wasteland so hampered by the thick snowbanks and the refusal of their own muscles to work at normal speeds. They slogged through the first night and most of the following day without stopping, finally forced to make camp near nightfall. They found a sheltering outcropping of rock, meager protection against the fierce winds, and huddled together around a small fire, trying to conserve their warmth.

  After they'd finished a simple meal of hot broth and hard bread, warmed over the fire, they sat in a sullen silence, trying to keep their teeth from chattering.

  “I believe,” Leena said at length, shivering in the cold, her voice quavering, “that I know whence this Per comes.”

  Hieronymus merely raised an eyebrow, his hands tucked beneath his arms for warmth, but Balam turned to her and said, through chattering teeth, “What?”

  “I believe he is Ikaru, the ‘offspring' about whom Benu told us.”

  Hieronymus nodded, licking chapped lips. “That would account for his reportedly long life.”

  “That was my thinking, too,” Leena said. “And I think I even saw a hint of opalescence to his eye color.”

  “But why,” Hieronymus asked, “would this Ikaru want to start a religion among the metamen, spend decades building its following, and then mass the faithful at the gates of Atla?”

  “Perhaps,” Balam said, “Per, whatever his real name, may have darker motives than his followers suspect.”

  It was past midday on the second day past the Barrier that they reached the foot of Mount Ignis. Since passing through the shimmering green curtain, they had seen no sign of life, and nothing to indicate that the southern peninsula was anything but a lifeless, frozen tomb.

  It was at the base of the mountain that they saw the first indication that there had ever been any civilization here at all, discounting the incomprehensible energy barrier.

  “What is it?” Leena said, in her awe forgetting the unforgiving cold.

  Running straight up the side of the mountain was a narrow channel, ribbed with steps.

  “The fabled Stair of Ignis,” Balam said admiringly.

  They drew nearer, and approached the first step of the stair.

  “Look,” Hieronymus said, pointing to the edge of the channel.

  The stair was some four meters across, the steps themselves no deeper or taller than one would find in any human household. What was remarkable about the stair, though, were the sides of the channel. These railings were cut into the rock of the mountain itself, with delicate curves and intricate bas-relief throughout. Leena took a few short strides nearer the railing to the right, and saw intricately carved representations of men, animals, and machines crowding the channel's sides.

  “Well, I don't see any reason to delay,” Leena said, hiking her pack higher on her back and mounting the first step.

  Hieronymus paused for a moment, his fingertips brushing against the shapes of the figures carved in the railings, and then reluctantly turned to follow Leena up the stair. Balam hung back for a moment, looking up the steep pitch of the steps to the summit of the mountain, high overhead, before finally placing a foot on the first step.

  Hours later, having climbed hundreds of meters, the company stopped to rest. The winds were fierce, battering into the side of the mountain, but strangely the higher they climbed, the warmer the air seemed. Warmth began to bleed back into their extremities, and Leena could not say that it was only the exertion of the climb that was responsible.

  The trio passed a water flask from hand to hand, and munched what remained of their dried meat and hard bread. After they had eaten, they paused for a few moments longer, collecting their strength and wits about them.

  “I simply cannot move my thoughts past contemplation of these railings,” Hieronymus said. He sat on the far side of the step, his nose just centimeters from the carved relief. “I don't know how closely you two have been able to look at them during our climb, but they are simply remarkable.” He reached out, and followed the shape of strange machines, carved in relief, with his fingertips. “These railings are not just functio
nal, nor even just decorative, but must have originally been intended to likewise serve an instructive purpose. Every square foot of them is covered in these minute carvings showing the history of the Black Sun Empire. And the closer one looks, the more detail is revealed.”

  “Fascinating,” Leena said without feeling, rubbing her aching calves.

  “I know,” Hieronymus said without a hint of irony. “It is surely a sign of the age and power of the Black Sun Empire in former days that they would expend so much effort on the back steps.”

  “Be that as it may,” Balam said, drawing a knife and sighting down its blade, “I find myself a little more concerned not with what was, but with what is. Namely, what is waiting for us at the top of this stair.”

  With the knife's point, Balam pointed up the stairs, to the summit of the mountain above, where the red diamond of the citadel city could just be glimpsed.

  Hundreds of meters, blending into kilometers, Hieronymus, Leena, and Balam followed the stair as it ran straight up the mountainside.

  They reached the top, swords and pistols drawn.

  Leena was not sure whether to be surprised or not when, mounting the final steps, they found no one and nothing there to bar their way. Only plants, and mechanized gardeners, and the walls of the citadel city.

  The stair ended at a wide, open plaza above which the many-faceted walls of Atla rose. The air in the plaza was surprisingly warm and still, and in the wide open space beneath the cantilevered city walls spread a well-tended garden, close-trimmed grass beneath manicured trees, flowers and bushes arranged with geometric precision, spelling out strange sigils and formulas in their dazzling hues. Small machines scuttled to and fro, looking like wide-bodied spiders of metal and crystal, tending to the grass, clearing away fallen leaves from beneath the manicured trees, and sweeping away drifts of dirt, keeping the plaza looking fresh-minted and new.