Necessary Monsters

by Richard A. Kirk

  "I think you have that part on the left upside down," said Imogene.

  "No, look, this fits here," said Moss, pointing to a blue squiggle that ran across both pieces of paper, before he saw her amused look.

  The map represented territory that had existed years earlier. Since the Purge, the process of ecological succession had subsumed most human traces with relentless efficiency. Small towns, and the roads connecting them, were disintegrating beneath trees and brush. Occasionally, subsidence of the soil or a geometric outcrop would reveal signs of earlier habitation. Tantalizing as they were, these clues proved difficult to reconcile with the tattered map. They knew which direction they needed to go, but they were also aware that days could be wasted placing confidence in the vagaries of the landscape. There had been no sign of Memoria. If she had survived, she would still be formidable, and she would also be traveling to Little Eye. Moss was distracted, thinking of Memoria thrashing in her own blood.

  "Moss?"

  "There's nothing to go by beyond this point." He cleared the hoarseness from his throat. Since the struggle in the carriage, he had fought depression. Finding Memoria alive, and seeing what she had become, had been hard. He often found himself longing for the oblivion of Seaforth's brandy. Imogene knelt beside him.

  "I think we're about here," he said. He circled an area on the map with a stick. "The center of the island is low wetland according to this."

  "The swamp."

  "According to May, that is how we'll find Little Eye." Moss carefully stacked the pieces of the map. "We should get moving."

  Two hours later, they found a hare shredded to ribbons in a gully. Footprints that may or may not have been human surrounded it. The carcass's skin was already a stiff parchment. When Moss flipped it with a stick, the underside was alive with maggots. It was an old kill, but the discovery unsettled them.

  In unspoken assent, they continued with greater urgency. Imogene led. She wore patched army fatigues, pilfered from a cardboard box in the Oak Hall, and a black T-shirt. As she scrambled along a deer trail, her shirt rode up, exposing a goblin within a vortex of flowers in the small of her back. It watched him with hard eyes until she disappeared around a bend in the trail.

  He stopped to adjust his pack. Imogene shouted down from the top of an incline.

  "Moss, I see something."

  The crow that had become Moss's constant companion glided past him, up the trail. Envying the bird its wings, he climbed over tree roots to join. She stood at the foot of a blackened monument. The stone man had been sculpted with a military greatcoat, goggles, and an aviator hat. He stood with one arm cradling a large book and the other lifted to the sky. The hand of his upraised arm was broken off at the wrist. He stood on a base of limestone that bore an epitaph reduced to a meaningless pattern of lines and depressions.

  The crow flew to the top of the statue's head. Imogene looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. Walking had made her lean and strong, returning the vigor she had lost during her ordeal in the snowstorm. She turned toward him, blinking as her eyes adjusted.

  "That bird is trying to tell us something," she said. It hopped in a circle like a broken weathercock.

  "One of us should climb up," said Moss. "It'll give us a better perspective."

  "Are you insane?" asked Imogene. "At least let me go. I'm light. You could lift me up to the top of the base."

  Moss put his shoulder to the cool limestone and made a foothold of his hand. "Be careful," he said.

  "You're not even going to try to talk me out of it?" Imogene stood in front of him.

  "I've learned not to argue with crazy people," said Moss.

  She gripped his shoulders and lifted one booted foot into his hands. "On three." They counted together. Moss heaved her skyward. He endured a succession of kicks to his shoulder, neck and head. She whooped. Moss walked down the steps and turned to observe from a less punishing angle. Imogene was adroitly scaling the giant stone aviator.

  "Hidden skills?" he yelled up.

  "Break and enter training, courtesy of one Mr. Lamb," she shouted.

  "Of course," Moss muttered. The crow left its perch on the aviator's head and flapped, cawing, to a nearby chestnut tree.

  "Wow, it's a much different world up here." Imogene hoisted herself the remainder of the way. Using the book as a platform for her feet, she wrapped an arm around the aviator's neck. "Whooeee!"

  "Okay," said Moss, backing up. "That's far enough." He caught his breath as Imogene jumped and threw one leg over the statue's shoulder. A moment later she sat astride the figure like a child watching a parade. The toes of her boots were wedged into the folds of the coat. With one hand clutching the man's nose, she pointed with the other.

  "I can see the center of the island," she yelled. "I can see Little Eye."

  Her words had a galvanizing effect. Moss felt the depression shift like a slab of marble.

  They slid down a skree-covered decline. It was all that remained of the ancient crater wall. The air at the bottom was dank. They marveled at the profusion of insects despite the late season, and the din of the frogs and birds. Using the sword, Moss whacked a path through dying weeds. As the crater wall at their backs darkened in the fading light, they followed a natural trail into the forest. The shadows lengthened, but Moss and Imogene continued moving. When something crashed invisibly through the underbrush, Imogene stopped.

  "Probably a deer," said Moss, in response to her unasked question. The sound had reminded him of the wolf he had seen on the night his borrowed motorcycle failed on the north road. Ten minutes later, they passed the weathered turrets and barrels of abandoned artillery equipment, bleached like gigantic vertebrae. In places the track skewed into a ravine or dropped into a flooded sinkhole, but it always resumed further on. Eventually they came to the edge of a great swamp. The track vanished gently beneath a plane of sepia-colored water.

  The swamp stretched into a forest of the oldest looking trees either of them had ever seen. Misshapen trunks twisted out of the water on gnarled and blackened roots like an army of monsters supernaturally frozen in the midst of a battle. The labyrinth of forms dissolved in phosphorescent haze and darkness. Somewhere in that darkness lay Little Eye, the island within an island.

  "It's like the entrance to hell," said Moss.

  "With mosquitoes," said Imogene, slapping one from her arm.

  "Well, we can't go any further tonight," said Moss. Imogene was already gathering wood for a fire.

  The crow woke them at dawn with raucous cries. Blearily, they kicked the remains of their fire into the swamp. The sky beyond the tree canopy was yellow and threatening. They searched the shore in the hopes of discovering a raised piece of land that would allow them to make an inroad. After an hour of fruitless wandering, Moss, who had been scanning the canopy, touched Imogene's shoulder and directed her gaze. An interruption in the pattern of branches had caught his eye; short boards lined up side by side. It was a path through the treetops, suspended by twisted boughs and knotted ropes. They visually traced it over the water to a point where the everpresent haze swallowed everything.

  "It looks pretty old," said Imogene. "Do you think it will support our weight?"

  Moss looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "You scurried up our aviator friend."

  "I didn't scurry," she said, punching his shoulder. "I don't scurry."

  Moss rubbed his shoulder. "It's all we have. I think we should give it a try."

  Imogene climbed with the same agility she had shown at the monument. Moss envied her, even as bark rained down on his upturned face. When she reached the dangling footpath she shouted down.

  "Come on, it's an easy climb."

  It was not, but in a few minutes, hands scraped and bleeding, he had joined her. Balanced astride an enormous limb, he shook the weathered ropes skeptically. The slatted path was slung from tree to tree as it disappeared over the swamp. It vanished in a tangle of limbs that became too confusing to differentiate.

&nbs
p; "Suicide," he said.

  "It's stronger than it looks," said Imogene. She stood further along the same limb.

  "I'll go first. If it supports me, you should be fine," he said. Imogene rolled her eyes and appraised him sadly. "Or you could go first," he added.

  She left the relative security of the tree and lowered herself onto the nearest section of boards. Holding tightly to the ropes, she tried her weight. The structure creaked and swayed, but held.

  Imogene looked at him and laughed nervously. "Come on," she said. He waited until she had reached the next tree and then followed. They agreed to maintain twenty feet between them as a precaution. Imogene tested every footstep before committing her entire weight. Several rotten boards dropped into the water below. They rested at each new tree to catch their breath and assess the path ahead. In this way they soon lost sight of firm ground.

  Periodically, the path drooped to within a few feet of the water. In these places they saw lugubrious carp moving through the murk, trailing plumes of silt and tadpoles in their wake. There were also signs of past human presence, crumbling foundations, rusting farm equipment, and the hull of an overturned boat, furred with algae. These artifacts depressed Moss. He was relieved when the path took them into the higher reaches of the trees. The crow flew ahead, its caws absorbed by the relentless background din of amphibians. If Moss and Imogene were forced to slow their progress, it perched and waited for them to catch up.

  They saw Little Eye for the first time in a sifting rain. The main monastery house, a towering edifice rising out of a mass of lesser buildings and wreathed in ivy, dominated the small island. The surrounding structures tilted against each other like blocks left by a retreating flood. Moss and Imogene crouched side by side, sheltering in the trees. She put her hand on his shoulder, for balance. On impulse, he pressed his lips to her fingers. Leaves rustled against the masonry as a few birds hopped through the knotted stems, but there was no movement to suggest habitation.

  "This feels like a trap," Moss said.

  Imogene dropped back on her heels and faced him. "Why are you here?" Moss stared at her. "I know why I'm here. Why are you here? Because if you go in there, you have to be sure it's what you want."

  Moss was thoughtful for a moment. "I don't think it was an accident that Irridis came into my life when he did—he saved my life. He asked me to return the ocellus to Little Eye. Of course, he'll never know now, if I did it or not. You see, I owe it to him to do this, but not because he asked me to. I'm doing it because he can't do it himself."

  They crept along the path toward the edge of the island. The boards were slippery and cracked in places. In spite of the danger Moss was looking forward to having earth beneath his feet again. The suspended path ended in a tangle of ropes at a platform in a large willow. Moss dropped to the ground to observe the monastery. Imogene landed behind him with a thud. They followed the shore to get away from the tree path—always fearful they were being followed—ducking behind cattails. Imogene put her finger to her lips and pointed toward the ground. The footprints of a large dog had churned up the mud.

  "Let's see if we can find an unlocked door," he said. At that moment, the ocellus began to glow.

  THE TADPOLE

  "God, what a place," said Imogene. "You can taste the bitterness in the air." With Moss leading, they climbed a sloping path where marsh marigolds gave way to lady slippers and ferns. The ocellus punctuated the air above his head. The rain had eased, leaving the sound of dripping vegetation and the enervating trill of frogs. Moss scanned for any sign of Memoria or her dog. Little Eye was the heart of her world. She would not have left it vulnerable. Jansson's gun rested in Moss's peacoat pocket.

  Little Eye felt timeless, its season out of synch with the rest of the world. Overhead, the sky was filled with breaking clouds. It gave Moss the impression of looking up from the bottom of a deep well, a sensation familiar from the exercise yard in Brickscold Prison. At the top of the path, the crow balanced on a post, watching their progress, its feathers glistening with dew.

  "It's the fungus," said Moss. "Don't brush against it. Try not to breathe it in." Moss sensed that the plants were a first line of defense, intended to confuse and deter visitors. It was simple enough to spot and avoid the commonplace species of poisonous plants and fungi. It was the unfamiliar organisms that disturbed him most, a thread-like moss with minute bulbs the color of blood, the reeking orange slime running down a rock wall.

  Imogene stepped over lichen that undulated on a rock like crests of fine lace in a breeze.

  "Moss, I hear a dog panting," she said.

  Moss turned around and coaxed her forward. "There's no dog, Imogene. It's a hallucinogenic effect of the plants. I feel it too. Keep walking. Don't stop for anything."

  Moss probed the path with a stick, not fully trusting his eyes. Imogene trailed, distracted by the plants that moved on either side of her in rhythm with her breathing. Beneath an umbrella of spiny leaves, something caught her eye.

  "Lamb?" she said. "Why are you here?" In the shadow of the leaves, Lamb's head, wrapped in a filthy blindfold, bit into the earth, grinding the soil in his stained teeth. She wanted to warn Moss, but when she looked again the head was gone. Moss took her hand. Without realizing it, she had stepped off the path.

  "He's not here," said Moss. "Don't let go of my hand."

  She looked at the dark ocellus suspended above Moss's head. It struck her as malevolent, of this world, not hers. She nodded to reassure Moss that she understood, but she was unable to formulate a reply.

  At the top of the slope, they pushed through a copse of silver maple and ash to find the buildings of the monastery in front of them. Trees grew from under paving stones and out of gutters. Sour light glinted off veins of metal in the old stones. The crow flew past them toward the highest point of the Little Eye monastery, swooping over the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Imogene felt no desire to see what lay behind the walls.

  The effects of the plants dissipated. Sitting on a slab of rock, they shared a bottle of water from Imogene's pack and discussed where to go next. Irridis had not told him the location of Aurel's grave. They could search for days and be no closer to finding it. Although the island was not large, no more than a couple of acres, the architecture of Little Eye was interlocked and dense, a puzzle of crumbling masonry, alleys and staircases. Seeing it before him in its entirety, Moss felt dread. What if, coming this far, he was unable to fulfill his promise to Irridis? What would they do with the ocellus? The mute buildings of the monastery offered no ready answer.

  He struggled to imagine how an ordinary life could ever have been lived here. These stones, and the ground beneath them, embodied an awful history of unimaginable crimes that seemed the very denial of life. He tried to see Memoria, the little girl he had known in the City of Steps, surviving on God only knew what, among these ruins after the massacre of her people. He tried to see Irridis, sleeping for years like a hibernating animal, in a shallow hollow. The water ate at his stomach like a lump of salt. The crow screamed from the top of the monastery, deciding their direction.

  They passed under an arch, chosen because it was wider than the others, and wordlessly climbed to the top of a narrow staircase. Moss was acutely aware that they could be trapped if someone came up behind them. The stairs opened onto a courtyard bounded by windowless walls covered in marks, systematic but indecipherable. Moss commented that whoever had made them would have had to work from a high ladder.

  "What is that?" asked Imogene, stepping into the courtyard after Moss. Moss picked an object from a wire stand. It was a fetal form made of green glass. In his mind he saw the glass pupae, picked from the remains of Echo, tumbling in the cold water of the river. It moved in his hands like a waking baby. Moss cried out and instinctively flung it away. The thing landed on the wet flagstones and exploded in a cloud of granules.

  "What the fucking fuck," said Imogene, jumping back.

  "This place," Moss said, "it's like somethi
ng malign inhabits every molecule, and is desperate to be released."

  "I'd like to be released," said Imogene. "When I was in the carriage, I had dreams. Dreams that went on forever, level after level, and they felt like this place. If you weren't here, I swear I'd think I was still dreaming."

  Moss turned to look at her, but she was craning her head at the charcoal symbols covering every inch of the walls.

  "Let's go," he said. He walked toward another staircase, past unfinished assemblages of glass, rusted metal, bones and dried seedpods. "We shouldn't linger." Imogene followed, skirting the same objects. They climbed the second set of stairs to a flat rooftop. From there they could see the swamp surrounding Little Eye and the crater wall in the hazy distance. A path ran along the spine of the roof, leading to a set of carved wood doors set into an uninviting portico. They had found an entrance to the central building of the monastery.

  Imogene leaned against the parapet looking toward the crater wall. Moss placed his hands on her shoulders and she turned to face him. Her features were faded in the morning light, her lips and eyelids nearly colorless.

  "Turn around for a second," she said. He did as she asked, and felt her tugging something from his pack. When he turned back, she was holding Memoria's sword. He shrugged off the pack and leaned it against the parapet. He walked toward the doors, but Imogene hung back. Moss turned to see her still standing by the parapet, the forest behind her. The grip of the sword was settled in her right hand. Its tip rested against the ground.

  He walked back. "What's the matter? Aren't you coming?" She met him halfway with an embrace, pressing her cheek to his chest. She pushed him away. Her face was serious. Moss started to speak, but she cut him off.

  "I'm waiting here. I've had enough of dark places." She swept her hair over her head, and drew a deep breath. "Don't make me or I'll have to stab you." She smirked. He felt the sword dig painfully into the toe of his boot. He pressed his forehead to hers. She pushed him away with the tip of the sword. "Stop it. I'm going to keep watch out here. You saw the dog's footprints. We both know Memoria is in this monastery, either in there, or out here. We have to be prepared for either possibility. I'd rather die in the daylight, thank you very much."