Lotus Blue

by Sparks,Cat

  He looked around, up at the cluster of rocks that had protected them. There were plenty of handholds. It would be easy to climb, even with his leg in its bloody state.

  He nudged her in the right direction. Mercifully, she didn’t argue. It seemed like all the argument had gone out of her. Like part of her was deep asleep—the part that made her her.

  The rock they scaled was not a natural formation, but the tip of yet another blasted ruin poking out from the sand, Close by, elongated spurs the colour of mildew jutted from the sand like broken ribs. They were in the carcass of an ancient town, its skeleton scrubbed clean by scouring storms.

  Remains of once-great towers had mashed and melted to the ground, creating a twisting mess of mazes, tunnels, and holes. Not all the struts jutted upwards. Some twisted and curled like old men’s hands. What kind of heat could do that to old-world steel?

  The kind of heat that had taken a world of green and blue and shrivelled it into a useless, broken—

  “Star, what are you doing?” He’d turned to find her staring out across the sand, arms outstretched, like she was pleading with something only she could see.

  He pushed her arms down by her sides. “What are you doing?”

  Her eyes were glazed. She couldn’t hear him. Her head was cocked, like she was listening to something faint and very far away.

  Tankersong.

  “Woah, Star, get down off there. You’re not yourself.” In fact, just how far she’d gotten from herself was starting to worry him greatly.

  In her hand, she gripped a spyglass, but she didn’t need it. The pod of tankers were in a distant cloud of dust, still moving in a tight formation.

  He watched, dumfounded, as she stripped the filthy bandage from her arm. The one she used to cover up her mesh.

  “Wait—what are you doing?”

  She raised her left arm high above her head, then angled it as the wind died down, until sunlight glinted off the mesh’s shiny surface.

  Grieve scrambled up to stand beside her, grabbed her arm and tugged it down. “Those damn things are gonna see you!”

  “That’s the idea.”

  She fought him off. He grabbed her shoulders and shook them hard. “Star, I’m scared you’re not in there anymore.”

  “I’m still in here,” she said, “Trust me—just this once. We’ll never make it out of here on foot.”

  He stared at her blankly, like he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “No. You’re even crazier than I thought. That thing will kill us stone cold dead. We won’t get near it. We don’t stand a chance.”

  = Sixty-seven =

  Jakome was not aware of when the walls had started changing. His attention had been focused on the map. Sensing a sharp plunge in temperature, he had looked up to see soft moss where grey cement should have been. The passages had widened, opening into a cave. A wide space filled with impossible wonders.

  Kian and Tallis ran ahead, while Allegra stopped and stared. Jakome kept checking the map, as if it might offer some kind of logical explanation. The four of them were apparently standing in a grotto, complete with a waterfall and a variety of damp, fleshy-leaved plants.

  A change came over Kian and Tallis almost immediately. They seemed infected by the place, and did not once stop to question what they were seeing or what they’d stumbled into. It was irrational, uncharacteristic. Something here was very, very wrong.

  “It can’t be real, not any of this,” he warned Allegra, leaning close so there could be no mistake at what he was saying.

  Allegra was not listening. Her gaze travelled upwards, following the tumbling waterfall, its uppermost part obscured by fine white mist. A scent of mossy dampness permeated the grotto, fine particles of spray against her skin. She reached up, grasping at the moss that clung to the rocks above, just out of reach.

  “Allegra, listen to me—none of this is real! The weapon in the bunker is feeding us illusions.” He tapped the side of his head with two fingers. “It’s messing with our minds.”

  She ignored him. She was definitely the kind of girl accustomed to dismissing people who told her things she didn’t want to hear.

  The waterfall was beautiful. She appeared completely entranced by it. Perhaps she had never seen such a thing before.

  “Allegra!” He had to shout her name several times before she responded.

  “What do you want? Stop shouting in my face. Is this not the most exquisite—”

  She squealed in surprise when he grabbed her hand and dragged her close up to the streaming torrent.

  “What are you doing—let go of my hand—how dare you touch me!”

  “What is a waterfall doing in a bunker underground? How can any of this be truly real?” He gripped her tightly, his lips pressed thin as he forced her hand into the flow. She shrieked, expecting the pressure would be too strong, that her knuckles might scrape against the rocks beneath. But she stopped and stared at her own half-vanished hand when she realized she could feel nothing but mouldy air.

  He yanked her arm free and held it up to her face: her skin was completely dry. “We are being played,” he said, annunciating carefully, making sure she understood. “The others will not listen to me—not my own brother or my cousin, but you . . . you’re not as stupid as you look.”

  She ignored the insult, glancing frantically around her, as if the illusions might suddenly just melt away before her eyes. She could still see water everywhere she looked and Jakome could still feel damp spray misting on his own cheeks.

  He squeezed her arm tighter. “Are you with me?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  He let go and held up the plastic map. Confusing geometric shapes danced above its luminescent surface. A pulsing ruby light hung still amidst the jewel-coloured chaos.

  “I have made a little sense of this. We can use it to navigate back the way we came. You can’t trust your eyes, remember that.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “All of this is false. Some kind of mirage.”

  “You don’t want to wait? Perhaps—”

  “I don’t want to die in here,” he said bluntly. Jakome flicked his gaze ahead, past the impossible waterfall to where his brother stood. “Wait here.”

  She nodded.

  He tucked the map away, cupped his hands around his mouth to call out over the noise of falling water. “Tallis!”

  His brother didn’t answer—perhaps he hadn’t heard.

  Up closer, Jakome could tell immediately that something was wrong. Tallis did not look like Tallis. His eyes shone with a crazy light. He seemed to be half out of his mind, seeing something different to the rest of them. He was glowering like a mad dog, gripping his drawn blade tightly like he intended to make use of it. Jak realised he was frightened of his own half brother, the change that had come over him so sudden and unsettling.

  And Kian? Kian was standing like a statue, seemingly entranced by a vast, blank concrete wall. Staring hard, like the wall was speaking to him.

  “Kian, what are you doing?” Jakome called out, edging away from Tallis and his blade.

  “The city,” Kian answered, still staring, still at nothing. “Look at it, the sea of tiny winking jewels. They have power—vast reserves of it—just like in the caverns of Axa.”

  Jakome gripped Kian’s arm. He didn’t respond. “Kian, you’re staring at a blank wall. There is no city. This place is tainted. Haunted even—it’s some kind of trap.”

  Kian turned to face his cousin with shining eyes. “We will take this beautiful city by force. Their rich lands are ripe for the picking.” He placed his hand on top of Jakome’s, forcing him to also look out across the city that was not a city, the city that was nothing but a wall.

  “I don’t see—”

  “Look harder
!”

  Jakome was accustomed to obeying Kian’s commands, the way it had been since boyhood. He looked. Cool beads of sweat began to form across his temple and down his spine because, when he stared, when he did exactly as Kian bade him, he could begin to see an outline forming: a dark high-crested ridge, below it, a sheer drop and, scattered along its skirting, a hundred thousand golden winking lights. Bridges and walkways, roads and structures, faint and faded, all of it growing stronger the longer and harder he stared.

  Jakome could feel the phantom city pulling him closer, drawing him nearer, the heat, the light, the hum. . .

  “No!”

  Jakome lunged backwards, shaking his head to clear the tainted vision from his eyes. In an instant, the city was gone. In its place, nothing but a plain grey concrete wall.

  “Kian, It’s a trap. Don’t believe what you’re seeing—none of it is real!”

  Kian wasn’t listening. He didn’t even turn his head until Allegra’s cry disturbed the stillness.

  Jakome swung around just in time to see his brother Tallis lunging towards him, swinging his blade. He’d stripped down to the waist. Bare chested, he looked completely crazed, like a Sand Road savage.

  Allegra kept on screaming but he couldn’t hear her words. He jumped clear, dodging the blade’s steel tip, yelling out to Kian, “Watch out—he’s crazy!”

  Kian stood ready with his own weapon drawn, the magical city abandoned as steel clashed loudly against steel. Two men, cousins and long-time friends, fighting each other for no reason, eyes wide and senseless, spittle flying. Jakome lost his footing as the floor and walls began to shake and the close air filled with the grumbling and groaning of rocks breaking loose and falling all around.

  An earthquake.

  “Tallis,” he called out one more time before turning on his heels and bolting back the way they’d originally come, Allegra close beside him, screaming at him to hurry up, to run faster. Whatever was happening, she could see it too: the raining rocks, all very real and deadly.

  They turned their back on the waterfall and ran blindly for their lives.

  “Show me the map,” Allegra screamed as he tugged it free. They paused briefly, panting, trying to stand steady on the shaking ground, trying to make sense of the vibrant, illuminated squiggles and the ruby dot jiggling gently amongst the geometric shapes. “Show me!”

  He snatched it away and stuffed it back inside his Impact suit. “The map cannot be trusted,” he shouted over the sound of falling debris. “Neither can our eyes—we’ll have to think our way out of here!”

  The air was thick with swirling grit and dust. Jakome looked back the way they had come, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. He swallowed drily. “We have to go back for them.”

  “No we don’t,” said Allegra. “We have to get out of here while the walls remain in place.”

  Jakome ignored her and began to retrace his steps. He did not get far—the way was blocked with a mound of dislodged cement chunks. He pushed at them with his bare hands: solid.

  When he turned, Allegra was not where he had left her. He hurried down the corridor—there was nowhere else she could have gone. There was nowhere else for him to go either. As he continued, the dust cleared. He ducked under low hanging branches and he saw the path ahead was strewn with leaf litter. Low hanging branches brushed against his hair. Young leaves rustled in the canopy above, punctuated with whoops and cries of unseen creatures.

  “I can feel the trees and smell the leaves—how can such a thing be possible?” Allegra’s voice echoed somewhere ahead.

  Jakome pushed on until he could see her outline through spaces in the verdant foliage. “Just keep moving and stay where I can see you.”

  The forest that could not possibly exist petered out into murky darkness as they crunched over brittle leaves, these ones brown and dry. Now it seemed they were deep inside another grotto whose walls were covered with luminescent moss. Water was dripping down from the ceiling, splashing on their faces. Allegra jumped in astonishment, slapping at the drops like they were sand-flies.

  “Not real,” he reminded her.

  “It all feels real,” she said miserably.

  “I know. You have to be strong.”

  The map felt warm inside his suit against his skin. Suddenly it made him angry. He pulled it out and tried to crumple and crush it with his hands, to no avail; the thing was indestructible. He swore and was about to throw it to the ground when Allegra stopped him.

  “Don’t. That map is valuable. We may still need it.”

  “It can no longer be trusted.”

  She gripped his wrist and held it tightly, a cold look in her eyes that reminded him so strongly of Kian, it almost hurt.

  “This way.”

  He followed her, edging around a shiny wall of polished marble. Beyond it was something unexpected even given everything they’d witnessed so far: a writhing wall of flame not twenty paces ahead of them, the air permeated with the scent of burning meat.

  Both turned and fled at the sight of those flames, the waves of heat pushing at their backs. Retreated past the marble wall, back to the grotto and its bed of fallen leaves.

  “There’s no way out of here,” said Allegra, her voice rising with panic.

  “Wait.” Jakome closed his eyes and listened to the sound of dripping water. When he opened them, blue and orange winged butterflies were flitting through the forest clearing.

  “The map. We have no choice—”

  “Forget the map,” he said. He nodded to the marble beyond. “That’s the only way out of this place.”

  “Through the heat! Are you crazy?”

  “Way past the point,” he muttered under his breath. He took her arm and led the way, despite her protestations.

  Beyond the marble, the wall of fire seemed even fiercer than before.

  Allegra stopped, stared in horror, then hugged her arms and shook her head. “I can’t.”

  He whispered gently, “You must. Where better to hide an exit than behind a wall of flame?”

  She pushed him away. “But I can feel it burning. I can smell something sweet and sickly and wrong—”

  He hooked his arm through hers. “Shut your eyes and pray to your gods—we’re going through.” He pushed her forwards, straight into the flames, no time to think about all the options they didn’t have.

  Allegra screamed in pure, blind terror.

  Before he followed, he threw one last glance back over his shoulder, hoping to see his brother’s face. But neither Tallis nor Kian had made it past the rock fall.

  Allegra was still screaming when they made it out the other side. “How dare you push—”

  The flames were gone—they had never existed. Jakome and Allegra found themselves standing in a corridor fashioned from featureless grey cement. Weak light bled from small slits cut high, evenly spaced. Daylight.

  They ran together, side by side, towards the place up ahead where the slits were wider and deeper. No further argument was necessary.

  = Sixty-eight =

  Muscular clouds of churned-up sand and dust roiled across the landscape, stretching far into the distance, bold and dramatic under the green-tinged sky.

  “That’s the one.” Star pointed.

  Grieve baulked. “What, the tanker that’s been trying to run us down?”

  She considered the lone pod rumbling in the distance. All but one single tanker had turned into the wind at the same time. All but the one that had been running rogue behind them. “That one’s not hooked up to the others. What if it wasn’t chasing us down? What if its been trying to communicate with us all along?”

  “That thing’s not speaking any language I need to hear,” said Grieve.

  Star ignored him. She closed
her eyes and tried to reach out to the rogue tanker with her mind, trying to forge a connection—even a small one. But the only connection she could make was with the Blue. It lashed out immediately, reacting eagerly and violently in response to her tentative efforts. She gasped and staggered, almost losing balance.

  “What’s happening—are you alright?” Grieve reached out to offer a helping hand.

  She opened her eyes and steadied her gaze, her focus on the rogue tanker as it began circling the rock in a wide and clumsy arc. “We’ll have to run to catch it. I can’t make it stop.”

  “Course you can’t make it stop—even if you could, we’d get crushed under its wheels—check out the size of them!”

  They watched the tanker meander like a drunken man, zig-zagging, stop-starting, revving forward then slamming to a slow. “It’s hurt,” she realized. “Something’s the matter with its brain.”

  “Doesn’t need its brain to kill us—those wheels will do the job.” He pointed to her mesh, his hand stopping, hovering above it like he was afraid to touch it. “Can you talk to it with that thing?”

  “I don’t think so. I already tried.”

  “Then we walk to the Lotus bunker,” he said. “Those other tankers won’t bother us—they don’t even know we’re here.” He wiped his hands on his trousers and bent forward to check his injured leg. Dried blood was hardening to form a scab. He straightened up just in time to catch Star leaping down from the safety of the rocks. “Hey, what the—”

  “There’s no time,” she called back as she landed on the soft sand in a crouch. She started running towards the rogue mechabeast, Grieve shouting loud and wild behind her, but she couldn’t wait for him. The Lotus Blue would wait for none of them.

  She sprinted towards the tanker’s path, her muffled boot strides slapping the sand, hearing a mighty whoop right up close beside her as Grieve had almost caught up. Then a coil of rope was looping through the air, the maddest look she’d ever seen on Grieve’s face. His leg was bleeding again but he didn’t seem to care.

  The tanker emitted a sonic blast, all screech and grate and singsong whine, and then it slowed and slammed hard on its brakes, sending sand spraying high and wide.