by Paul Lucas
Tears streamed down my cheeks. "You think this is easy for me?" I half shouted. "You think this is so easy? My son is innocent! But as long as he is trapped in this world, in that body, he will be a monster and a killer. Let me free him!"
But I could feel my resolve wavering. I knew if I hesitated even a few more heartbeats I could never go through with it. How had my life come to this impossible choice?
I pulled the rifle up from Sunset's midriff to his head, well over Lerner. The creature lunged forward, unheedful of his father between us. I was already pulling the trigger when our bodies all crashed into each other. The force hit me like a hammer, sending me sprawling to the hard metal floor. The rifle discharged again. Claws raked metal, narrowly missing my eyes.
Then most of the weight on me was gone, and I could hear claws scrabble on metal down the outer corridor, quickly retreating. Lerner rolled off me, and I fought hard to pull myself to my feet again. "Lerner! are you all right? We have to..."
I suddenly realized most of my midriff was wet and warm. I looked down, and saw my lower body awash in blood. I could tell instantly by the scent that none of it was mine.
"Lerner!" I shouted. He lay face down, not moving. I knelt down next to him, panic rising in me anew. Was he unconscious? I saw only a few claw scratches on him, and knew those were nothing serious.
Then I turned him over, and saw the wide gaping bullet wound just below his chest. And his eyes, staring up at me, past me, past all earthly concerns.
My husband's spirit was now flying past the Shards.
And I had killed him.
FORTY-ONE
Cloud found us not too long afterward. I had done everything I could for Lerner. Everything. Bound his wounds, kept him warm, cast healing spirits, talked to him, prayed fervently. One thing I could not do was move him. He was too big for my slight frame, and moving him would only make his injury worse.
I had no idea if I had helped him or not. He had not been quite dead, as I first thought. But his breathing was still barely a hiss. His skin had turned pallid and chill.
Lerner’s body lay on my lap, his blood slowly congealing on me and the floor.
“Gossamyr!” Cloud shouted, rushing up to me. Other hunters poked their heads in the door. “Spirits, what happened?”
“I killed him,” I said very quietly.
“What?”
I looked up at the Chief Hunter, my tears making him a blurry phantom. “I was shooting at the monster. At Sunset. He--he got in the way. Lerner....”
“Spirits,” Cloud whispered.
The Chief Hunter was quiet for few moments, regarding me. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he walked around and kneeled beside me. The other hunters at the doorway entered, and one darted away to get Windrider. “Gossamyr, please.” Cloud gently encircled my arm to pull me up. “You can’t stay here...”
I clutched tighter at Lerner, snarling. “I will not leave him!”
Cloud’s expression was pained. “But it is very dangerous for you, for anyone, to be alone in the Tower right now. We need to get you to safety, to get help for Lerner.”
I do not know where it came from, but his words sparked incandescent rage. I was instantly on my feet and lunged at the Chief Hunter, clawing wildly at him with my tool-fingers. “I said I am not leaving him!” I screamed. “I hate you, Cloud! Always saying stupid things! Are you still trying to take me away from Lerner, is that it? I bet you are glad he is dead!”
I stopped short, realizing what I just said. This could not be happening!
Cloud had not lifted a single tool-finger to stop my attacking on him. He just stood there and took it. Now he bent down and inspected Lerner awkwardly. "Lerner may join the spirits very soon, Gossamyr" he said very quietly. "I would rather not have you join him as well because I left you here alone with a killer running loose. But I will not force you to leave with me if you do not want to."
He took the other hunters out into the corridor, and they talked low and hurriedly so I could not hear.
I went back to Lerner without thinking, kneeling and hugging him close. But now, the shock of what had happened was beginning to wear off, and I was suddenly reminded that our son, or whatever he had become, was still out there. I eyed where I had dropped the gun, but I made no move to touch that accursed weapon again.
Once, I thought I heard the scraping of claws on metal far-off, but it was faint even for my hearing and I could not be sure if it was simply my imagination.
Cloud came back into the room, much sooner than I anticipated. The hunter who had run for help had not gone back down all the way to the community, but rather simply moved to an open ledge and radioed for help from the helistat. Jacqueline happened to be on board, and moved immediately to send help up to us. Cloud said they would be here as soon as they could. All I could do was nod.
Within an hour we were back down in the community, my husband carried as gently as possible on a sturdy travois. Lerner was taken directly to Windrider's quarters. Immediately she changed the soaked-through dressings on his wound, applied healing poultices, and prayed. I was at his side the whole time, aware of every minute change in his condition, but finally too numb and tired to do anything but pray beside our Shaman for his spirit.
I slept next to him on his mat. I remember waking at times, just staring at the silver-black metal ceiling for long, interminable periods of time. Windrider and Flier slept on their own mats, nearby. I slept as close to Lerner as I dared, touching him to lend him comfort, to lend him strength, anything that I could offer. I tried not to think or feel anything, or else I might crumble to nothing. I thought of my parents. Mercifully, I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I woke suddenly, light from the day outside filtering in through the series of discrete mirrors the Tower possessed. The sleeping mat beside me was empty. Flier stood, watching over me protectively, with pain-filled eyes.
I knew at that moment. Our chieftain did not have to say anything. I knew what had happened to Lerner while I slept.
The world blurred as tears came again, unbidden, in torrents. I did not know I could have so many in me. Somewhere, far off, came a scream of unbridled despair and agony. It took me several heartbeats to realize that scream was my own.
Flier knelt down beside me on the sleeping mat, taking me in his arms. "Your husband died shortly before dawn, so quietly none of us noticed. Windrider said he simply lost too much blood, nothing could be done. At least he died here, in comfort, with those he loved."
FORTY-TWO
The radio hissed in my ear. Amethyst’s voice, very weak despite the booster I had dropped a hundred meters back to enable communications with the rest of the hunting party around the UTSite corner. “Gossamyr, this isn't working. The creature could be anywhere. It might not even in the Tower any more.”
I proceeded down the darkened corridor of the upper Tower alone, my only way of navigating through the eternal blackness was a pair of human strap-on helmet lights hastily jury-rigged with a generous amount of duct tape to fit my Myotan head. I clutched the human rifle tight in my hands “No,” I hissed into the radio link, keeping my voice as low as possible. “The Others want that crystal no matter what. It will not leave until it gets it. And the only way into the Underworld is through the Lab.”
“At least let me send someone to join you.”
“No,” I repeated. “That will ruin the plan. I’m bait, remember? A lone, isolated female. We've fortified the storerooms and living quarters; it now has no other source of food except ourselves.”
“It could just forage out in the forest...”
"But by the time it returns it would find all the entrances fortified as well. The Others know that. Dumas thinks its rapid growth and high metabolic rate will force it to eat voraciously at frequent intervals."
"But you're its mother."
I snarled. "Amethyst, if you cannot offer anything useful, stay quiet!" She grumbled some reply, concern and anger in her voice. I ignored her.
; I had spent the last two days in Flier's and Windrider's quarters. Recovering, sleeping. I found I could not go back to my own quarters. There were too many reminders there. Windrider had taken me there the morning after Lerner's spirit flew free, and just two steps in I froze up, trembling, and could not stop. Paralyzed by scents and sights that brought back too many memories. Windrider took me back to her own apartments after that.
I had tried as much as I could not to think of what had happened. Windrider took care of Lerner's body, preserving his skin tattoos for his Remembrance Ceremony that had to be delayed until after the creature was caught.
What I ended up thinking about a lot was the Others. The many broken things inside of me ground together and ignited into a conflagration of hatred. Their betrayals, their lies, their manipulations.
That morning I awoke, and something snapped in my mind. I was no longer content to just lie around and weep. I dressed, grabbed some equipment and a weapon, and went and joined the search parties. A few told me that perhaps it was best for me to return to the residential area, but after I snarled at them and threatened to call a fire spirit on their most sensitive areas, they backed away.
The remaining KN marines had adamantly refused my help to hunt down Sunset, citing both my distraught emotional state and lack of military experience. Both good points, I supposed, which I promptly ignored. Amethyst seemed to be the only one who understood and let me join her party of Myotan hunters, but even she was becoming testy.
My people had not been idle while I was stifled with grief. They had been doing systematic sweeps of the Tower. Unfortunately, the structure was too huge and we were too few. The creature kept evading them. They did wound it once or twice as it tried to approach the Laboratory, but gunshots seemed to do little more than slow it down.
I worked with the search parties, growing more assertive and demanding by the hour. What was taking so long? I hated even a moment of being idle. Every time I closed my eyes, even to blink, I saw Lerner under me, crimson gushing from his abdomen. I could still smell the coppery scent of his cooked blood. As I hold him I can feel his heart falter every few beats as it tried to pump less and less blood harder and harder. Did he realize in his last fleeting conscious moment that his life was over?
Or that it was his own wife who had pulled the trigger that ended everything for him in this world?
I would have thought that any gun in my hand would weigh heavy. But the rifle in my hands felt surprisingly light. After I set Sunset's spirit free, I would reserve one final bullet for Lerner’s true murderer.
Before I had left in the morning, I asked Windrider to retrieve some things for me from the apartment. She returned with a pouch of tokens to give me strength. The picture of myself looking up at the Tower, which Lerner had taken so long ago. A few scraps of hay from our sleeping cot, which still had his scent. My favorite tattooing needles, which had pierced my husband’s skin with all the skill I could muster. Another photo, this time of me with Lerner’s family in the KN. Guns and knives and spells were weapons of the world. These were my weapons of the spirit.
“A pouch of Remembrance,” Windrider observed as she watched me prepare to join the search parties.
I nodded, tying the pouch tightly to my belt, before tying on a knife sheath and hefting my rifle.
“You are not planning on coming back from this hunt, are you?” she asked.
“This will be resolved one way or another, Windrider.” I pulled aside the curtain to the apartment and walked out.
The Shaman caught my arm before I had taken more than three steps. She looked stricken, eyes pleading. “Remember your promise, Gossamyr. Return to us, if you can. Even--” Her words faltered, tears brimming her eyes. It was the first time I could ever remember her crying. “Even if it is only as a spirit.”
On impulse, my veneer of anger crumbling for just a few brief heartbeats, I leaned close to her, touching her brow to mine. “My spirit will always heed your calls, Windrider, no matter where above the Shards I fly.”
I almost broke, then. I could feel the wave of horror and grief churning up within me again. If I had let it loose, the storm would have been irresistible.
But with no small effort, I choked it down, turned, and left to join the hunters.
Back in the present, a shadow, deeper than the others, loomed at just the edge of my vision down the corridor, shattering my reverie. Adrenaline made my fur stand on end for just a second until I realized it was shaped square and regular. A doorway, like so many others in the Tower.
But a creeping suspicion gnawed at the back of my mind. I approached it cautiously, flipping on my receiver again. "Amethyst."
"Gossamyr! Don't go out of communications again. We were about to send people after you."
"Amethyst, do you have the map of this level handy?"
"What?" I heard shuffling. "Yeah, I have it here on my wrist comp. Why?"
"Where is the nearest open doorway on this level?"
"About ten meters behind the squad here."
"Well, there's open one ahead of me, about twelve, fifteen wingspans ahead."
"What? According to my map, that’s a door that's never been opened."
"Its open now."
"Damn. Okay, sit tight. We're coming up to you for a closer look."
I acknowledged the message but proceeded ahead anyway. I opened my ears and nostrils as much as I could. I could just barely smell the creature as I got closer, but the spoor was old and weak. He had been here within the last hour or so, but had left soon afterward.
I peered around the doorway, looking into the room. It was small and square, not more than a wingspan on a side. Its only occupants were a few small scraps of ancient metal scattered over the floor.
The Orc and the hunters caught up to me, also peering into the room and confirming the creature had recently been there.
"But what does it mean?" Amethyst said.
"It can open doors we've never had access to," I said. "Maybe even all the doors in the Tower."
"But why open this room? There's nothing in it."
"It is searching, I think."
"Gossamyr?"
My lips drew a grim line. "Its looking for another way into the Underworld."
FORTY-THREE
Threat Assessment Report: X12 Myotan community contact with unknown distant intelligence
Date: 9 December 547
Re: Attack by unknown creature
The whole operation has turned into a shitstorm clusterfuck. Can't be helped. We've only got three soldiers on the ground, a small helistat crew, and three hundred scared and angry locals, facing some unknown menace lurking in the shadows. Its like that monster movie you laugh at with your friends but secretly pray you never become part of.
--Filer: First Sergeant Neil Milthrai, Borelean Special Forces
* * *
“No one’s seriously wounded,” the human marine sergeant said. “It came out of nowhere, somehow evading our thermal imagers. It beelined straight for us but your friend Graystorm got in the way. Its objective was pretty clear.”
My eyes narrowed. “It was coming after you humans?”
He nodded grimly. “Yeah. It locked eyes right on me and swatted the others aside like flies. I think it was trying to take out the most substantial threats first. No offense. But that damn thing isn't just pure instinct. Its intelligent enough to have at least some grasp of basic tactics.”
The marine spat. “But it going through the others gave me time to bring my rifle on it. As soon as the others were clear I laid into it on full auto. It must have taken at least a dozen hits. Blew it back on its ass nearly three meters. I stopped firing, thinking it was dead or close to it--what wouldn’t be, after that?--but then it scrambled to its feet and shot back into the shadows before anyone of us had a chance to do anything. That thing was fast!”
I scowled. “Why didn’t you go after it?”
He gestured at the hurt Myotans around him, being tended by those
who had escaped the creature’s wrath. “We tried to, but it lost us pretty quickly. Besides, we had wounded. They took first priority.”
“That’s no excuse! We have to stop him!”
Amethyst’s brows furled. “Gossamyr, do not fault a leader for looking after his men. You do the memory of your husband proud, hunting his killer so relentlessly. But you must give it time.”
“My husband is not a memory!” I snarled.
She gave me an odd look, then continued. “You are too irrational and that monster is far too dangerous for you to go after it half-cocked. Calm down. One stupid mistake and the creature will make you a victim like your husband.”
“Will you stop talking about Lerner like that!” My voice rose higher than I meant it to. Everyone turned and looked at me. “Lerner is...is not...the monster didn’t kill...” I angrily turned away, stalking down the corridor where Amethyst said the creature retreated into.
Behind me, I heard Cloud’s voice. “I will go with her.”
Sergeant Milthrai, quietly to the Chief Hunter: “Just be careful. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. She's as dangerous as that creature right now.”
A few minutes later Cloud jogged up to me. We walked silently as such for a long time, him only a few steps behind me. I did my best to pretend he was not there.
I stopped every few minute to examine the blood trail the creature left behind. “It is getting thinner,” I said after a long interval.
Cloud nodded. “Good. The creature must be bleeding out. It will be easier prey.”
I snapped my wings. “I do not think so. Look at the blood trail. If the monster was weakening, it would sway this way and that, as the creature lurched and stumbled along. Or maybe it would be near the wall, where it would try to support itself. But neither shows. It is a straight, steady line through all the corridors and ramps we passed.”
