by Azalea Ellis
It was a problem, because it meant no one might make it across in time, and thus the slower people wouldn’t have anyone to pull them up when the ink construct disintegrated.
We were about three quarters of the way across when Adam shot a look backward over his shoulder.
—The beginning’s gone.—
-Adam-
He began to form the platform tilting upward, so that as the unconnected piece of ink bridge beneath our feet began to fall, we would run up it and stay at the correct level. It was a good idea, if a desperate one.
Torliam let out a familiar blue glow, then, and the mist reached around, to buoy up the ink. We still sank, but not as fast.
Adam reached the edge first, shooting forward and leaving room for Torliam to cross behind him, then Jacky. I leapt the last bit, the edge of my foot barely reaching the jagged lip of the broken bridge. My momentum carried me forward, though, and I tumbled over the edge, doing my best not to crush Gregor between the pack and my back as I rolled.
I stood immediately and lunged forward to combat the sudden tug I knew would be coming on the rope tied to Blaine, Sam, and Zed. Torliam let me slip by him, grabbing the rope behind my back and pulling on it.
The abrupt yank on the rope knocked my breath out, and almost made me throw up. But my claws dug into the ground, and I kept straining forward.
It took less than a minute to pull up the rest of the team, and though they were a little banged and scraped up from smashing into the slightly jagged edge of the chasm, we were all alive. Blaine probably would have made it across with the help of his salvaged thrusters, except that he had started out behind the most of us, and there hadn’t been enough room on the ink bridge for him to pass anyone. Even so, lifting him while they pushed him upward wasn’t any more difficult than lifting a fat man would have been. Totally doable.
I was just about to let out a sigh of relief when Adam’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.
Chapter 17
I want to touch the fire in the sound.
— Pablo Neruda
Sam, who looked ready to sleep for about a year straight, pronounced that Adam was just extremely exhausted, suffering backlash from Skill-overuse, and low on blood. None of which he could do anything about even if he wasn’t using all his healing on his own wounds, since Adam wasn’t actually injured. Adam would have to recover the old-fashioned way, and would be able to move with the rest of us in the morning, though he would probably be even more grumpy than usual.
When I slid the pack off my back and untied Gregor, he wrapped his little arms around my waist and let out a sobbing breath into the material covering my stomach. He hadn’t made a single sound as he rode on my back all the way across, not even when I’d made that final desperate leap for the edge.
But I realized now that he was shaking, his knees trembling so that he could barely support his own weight. I hesitantly patted his head, petting him a little as if he were an animal. “You’re safe,” I said in a soft voice. “I said you would be, didn’t I?”
He nodded mutely into my stomach, then began to cry. He struggled to stop, no doubt embarrassed to lose his usual adult behavior, but didn’t quite succeed.
I felt a bit inept, but I just petted him some more and stood still so he could hide his face in my bodysuit. He was just a kid, after all. I wasn’t sure how old he was exactly, but a kid that looked like he might be seven shouldn’t have to experience situations like that.
Kris noticed before Blaine did, and came over to join in our impromptu group hug, while their uncle watched them with a pained expression on his face, and took a single step towards us before shaking his head and stilling. He stood there awkwardly, but when Gregor finally let go, Blaine made a comment about how interesting Birch was, and was able to draw both kids into playful speculation about riding the creature when he got bigger, whether or not they would need a saddle, and if it would be uncomfortable. Obviously, he’d been paying attention to their interests.
I smiled at Blaine over their heads, and he smiled back.
We spent the night in the still-intact room of the tower, and ate through a large portion of the supplies we’d brought with us. I didn’t suggest rationing it, because we would surely need all the strength we could get, traveling through the Dark Lands.
Shortly after we left the bridge, sparse, prickly trees began to grow, becoming taller as we walked farther into them. They didn’t affect our line of sight, and were so scraggly they barely impeded the passage of the sunlight. Torliam didn’t say anything, but I was watching carefully as he grew tenser and began to twitch at every sound.
Birch sensed it too, and kept growling low in his throat.
Finally, Torliam stopped us, hand raised silently in the air as he looked around. Something was up ahead, though I couldn’t sense far enough to tell what it was.
He pointed to the side, and we began to circle around in a wide arc, as silently as possible. When had we stopped speaking aloud, resorting to nonverbal cues in fear of being overheard? Probably about the same time Birch stopped growling. After a certain point, you knew when it was time to run and hide rather than stand out.
Eventually the ground sloped upward, and the trees gained some more leaves, beginning to resemble evergreens.
I reached the top of the ridge first, and caught sight of what we were avoiding.
An . . . amalgamation. It was settled in the center of a huge web, which stretched across the valley of scraggly trees, covering the easy path through that we had avoided. Its top half looked like a particularly lumpy-skulled monkey. The bottom was that of a spider, oval-shaped and eight-legged.
I froze unconsciously, sinking down so that I could barely see over the fallen tree trunk in front of me. The others followed suit, crawling up to look out over the edge.
The creature quivered in place, hunched down, and wrapped around on itself. The web shivered outward from the center, shaking a group of much smaller half-and-half creatures that were huddled near the edge of the web, watching the big one.
It lifted its head slowly, as if its muscles were creaky from disuse, and turned toward the huddling group of little ones.
They flinched back, monkey faces grimacing in obvious fear.
It stood, shrieked, and waved its arms, and chased them off the web, stick-like, hairy legs working in tandem to propel its body at an absurd speed. It picked up a gigantic club off the ground, obviously made out of a tree trunk and big enough to match its size, and waved it at them for good measure, still screeching. Was it shooing possible competitors away from its territory?
Its shriek hurt my ears, like nails on chalkboard mixed with a rusty grinding sound. Its body was emaciated and pale compared to the proportions of the little ones, except for the stomach of its monkey part, sitting above the junction of primate and arachnid. The stomach was grossly distended, the fur peeling off and skin stretched taught like a balloon that was one more breath away from popping.
Its legs seemed to lose control then, some of them pushing forward, and some moving back and tangling with the others. The creature crashed to the ground, and flailed around with its club till the trees trembled and even more of their leaves fell off. Then, it was on its feet again and skittering back to the web, which it shot to the top of. A few seconds of calm silence passed, and then it tore into the web with the club in its monkey arms, its spider legs, and even its teeth. Foamy spit slobbered out around those fanged teeth and a lolling, blue-purple, swollen tongue.
Once the web was hanging in tatters, it stopped again, head swiveled towards the still-running little ones. Then it shot off after them.
It fell on a straggler first, the club smashing into the thing’s head and pulping it, instantly killing it.
The big one didn’t hesitate, literally falling onto the smaller corpse, and tearing at it with hands and teeth. It didn’t chew, it just shoved pieces of the little one down its throat and swallowed.
The other small spider-mo
nkeys screamed with all too human voices and expressions of terror when they noticed the fate of the straggler, and ran away even faster. But it was no use, because it left that one behind half-eaten, and did the same to another, and another.
The big one screamed out a continuous keening wail. The sound was muffled every time it stuffed a chunk of flesh down its throat, but never cut off completely.
Torliam laid a hand on my shoulder, making me jump in surprise. “Let us go. Before it is through with them, and turns its attention toward us,” he whispered.
I nodded, and we hurried away, circumventing the whole area without another peep.
Birch jumped atop my shoulders, digging his claws uncomfortably into my arm, so I gently moved his paws and placed my hand on his head reassuringly.
When he judged us far enough away, Torliam stopped. His shoulders slumped a little in apparent exhaustion, and his eyes didn’t quite focus on me, staring bleakly into the mid-distance. “Those were its children.”
“What?”
“That was your first glimpse of the Sickness that infects my world. The creature was driven mad, till it could not recognize the difference between that which it loved and hated. Hunger overruled everything, until it devoured its children for the false hope of extending its own life. The Sickness is a traitor within you, turning you against all that you hold dear.” He walked forward again, and only shook his head when questioned.
That night, while Jacky and Blaine were on lookout, I sparred with Torliam, and we exchanged answers again. “Tell me more about the Sickness,” I said, perhaps slightly more imperiously than he preferred.
His eyes fell to the ground, and then rose again, locking on mine as he savagely pressed the attack. He knew defense was my weakest area. “The origin of the Sickness is unknown, even to me. If ever my people had the knowledge, it has been lost. But all know that it is the most . . . abhorrent thing in existence. It hits the weak and the strong with indifference, and even now, we do not know exactly how it spreads, because we cannot see it, only its effects. It seems to spread more quickly if one is in contact with an infected. Sometimes. And yet, it may also strike a lone hermit, who has not met another mortal for decades. We have found no way to guard against it, even after thousands upon thousands of years. It defies us, and takes all that we love from us, as if mocking our futile struggles to defeat it.”
I made the connection. “It took someone from you,” I said, my voice soft.
“My younger sister.” His eyes grew distant, and the rage that had bubbled up when talking about the Sickness receded. “By the time she was born, my mother had ascended the throne.”
I wanted to interrupt, because I was pretty sure he basically just told me his mom was royalty, which would make him royalty, but I restrained myself.
“My sister was groomed to lead from infancy, and the knowledge that the world loved her burned from her skin almost visibly. Everyone who met her doted on her.”
I remembered the dream I’d had, after solving the Oracle’s first gift. I had been someone else. I felt with a certainty that had been Torliam, and I had witnessed his dream, or his memory, of a beautiful young girl, who he was describing with every reminiscent word.
Then, his expression deadened, and began to speak in a clinically detached tone. “The Sickness affects all of life in different ways. It manifests in us as wasting disease, accompanied by a mental . . . dissociation. I believe that is the word. Hunger increases, a desire for living flesh, particularly that from a strong, intelligent creature. The diseased person’s love and emotional connections putrefy, and everything they once loved or cared for becomes something they wish to consume. To destroy. I once saw a woman bite off the cheek of her partner, in her madness. The spark that makes a person what they are is deadened, and eventually leaves behind a creature that wishes only to destroy, desperate to prolong the life of the flesh husk wasting away around them.
The body begins to die from the inside. Blood in the stool. Darkening veins. The limbs thin, while often the stomach bloats out grotesquely. The rate of degeneration increases more rapidly as time goes on, while in the beginning the infected may not show signs for some time. The Sickness is both the horror and the shame of our people, and our world.”
He was silent for a while, and I considered what it would be like to watch Zed go through what his sister must have.
His arms dropped, and he released his fighting stance, turning away from me and walking toward the edge of camp.
I watched him as he walked away, wishing I could reach out my hand and stop him, tell him I had seen his beautiful young sister and I was sorry. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I stayed silent, and he left.
We traveled for a few more days before anything else eventful happened. Sam regained his strength, the wound on his stomach leaving nothing but a scar. We had a few small skirmishes with the local flora and fauna, but nothing too exciting. We’d almost run out of food by that time, and it had been growing colder the farther north we went, so we jogged for the added benefits of faster travel, training, and the warmth it generated internally.
We were constantly on guard, though, and the tension was almost as draining as the physical exertion. Our packs were light with the lack of food, and we’d been hunting the local wildlife when we could, and foraging what few plants Torliam knew to be edible. I was just about to suggest we stop and see if we could find something for a midday meal when a whistle tore through the air, followed almost instantly by an arrow.
We scattered, some dropping to the ground and rolling, some slipping behind nearby trees. I jerked Zed and Chanelle behind a tree, and Jacky went up a tree, hiding herself in the foliage and literally dragging Kris and Gregor with her. I cursed myself for not keeping my awareness constantly extended. I’d been doing a quick scan to the limit of my reach every hour or so, so whoever was attacking us must have come upon us quickly.
Chanelle let out a small sound of unhappiness, but I ignored her. Sam and Blaine had been slowly re-introducing Seeds into her system, and there seemed to be a response. She wasn’t close to being normal, but she wasn’t quite so catatonic, either. However, in situations like this, that wasn’t helpful.
I sensed outward, and saw that our opponents already surrounded us on three sides, and were circling around behind us. They shone with power, kind of like Torliam did in that extra sense Wraith provided me with.
—We’re surrounded. Eight of them. Stronger than us.—
-Eve-
Adam grimaced and threw up shields twice his height around us in a wide circle, roughly defending the group’s location, though it also stopped us from being able to cleanly attack.
Torliam, the only one who hadn’t scattered immediately at the warning shot, shouted something out in his language, loud and imperious. Our attackers slowed, as if startled.
After a few seconds, someone shouted back, and Torliam lifted his arms and started to glow, that light blue luminescence wafting off him like thick smoke.
There was another shout, and Torliam turned to Adam. “Lower one of your shields. They are from a small village near here. I will talk with them, there is no need to engage in combat.”
Adam looked to me for approval before complying, but Torliam waited patiently.
An Estreyan moved forward from between the trees, riding atop an ostrich-like creature. He stopped just outside the gap Adam had created in the shield line.
Torliam said something, puffing out his chest and somehow managing to look down on the man, despite his lower position on the ground.
The man scowled, but seemed unsure.
Torliam waved to us and spoke some more, seeming even more irritated.
One of the bird-rider’s companions joined him, and they spoke in murmurs that I could hear clearly but couldn’t understand a word of. Then the first guy nodded, and said something.
“They will escort us to the village,” Torliam said. “Lower the shields.”
Adam shook his head. “How
do I know they won’t attack us when I do?”
“My people believe in honor,” Torliam said, the inflection carrying an obvious insult.
I considered for a bit, then released Zed and Chanelle, and stepped out behind the tree to stand next to Adam. “Go ahead,” I said. “They might be helpful, if they’re friendly. And if they decide to attack right now, I wouldn’t bet on our odds.”
Adam grimaced, and I could see his hair lifting from the tension-driven static electricity in his body, but he complied.
The Estreyans, probably a patrol group, closed in around us, eyeing us with some distaste. We all looked a little ragged.
One of them motioned to the tree, and with a bit of rustling, Jacky and the kids fell out of it with a startled yelp.
The Estreyan who had waved his hand smirked at them, but I noticed that they all kept their mounts a safe distance away, as if worried they might get dirty from touching us. As we began to move, I kept my awareness spread out, and noticed the looks the Estreyans shot each other when they thought we weren’t looking. They were afraid.
It took about an hour to reach the village at our jogging pace, though the riders could no doubt have gone much faster on their own. I’d tried to ask Torliam what was going on, but he refused to be drawn into conversation, just shaking his head silently. The trees thinned, allowing the huge, flat-topped village wall to be visible from far away. It towered above everything, and seemed to be made of whole, huge tree trunks stacked flush against each other. Cleared land circled the village, probably for farming or livestock grazing. And for visibility for the sentinel towers spaced into the wall at intervals.
The sentinels noticed us, and by the time we passed through the guarded gate into the village, others had gathered along the edge of the street, or were peeking through their windows. Visually, the place reminded me of a mix between old-timey log cabins and Asian architecture. Wood seemed to be the primary building material, but the buildings had peaked roofs that swooped down, and the aesthetics were all about simplistic beauty.
