The Atomic Sea

by Jack Conner

  “Like, disrupt their weapons forever?” Hildra asked.

  “For long enough,” Layanna said. “If the Black Sect can build and activate the Device, the Octunggen will no longer be able to use Collossum technology in the war.”

  “But without those weapons, we could beat the fuckers,” Hildra said. She sounded surprised.

  “The Octs are spread thin,” Janx agreed. “Everyone knows it. Only thing keeping ‘em on the warpath is their damned weird tech. Without it they’re meat on a stick. We could drive ‘em back. Crush ‘em.”

  Layanna looked like she needed rest, and soon. “Take me to the presence, and I will be able to make my way to an altar with my friends, where we can transmit the plans—send them to the Black Sect in Lusterqal. There they’ll build it. The Device.”

  “Can’t you just pick up a phone?” Hildra said.

  “Can you transmit the plans for a skyscraper over the phone? And the Device is infinitely more complicated than any skyscraper. I need to reach a functioning altar. Only from there ... can I communicate with the Black Sect on extra-planar levels.”

  “Tell us what we need to do,” Avery said, seeing that she was fading.

  The others leaned forward, eager to hear what she had to say.

  Layanna spoke in Ghenisan, in a soft, ragged whisper. “Take me,” she said, “into the Borghese. Now need some ... rest.” She closed her eyes.

  The water tank rattled as someone took a shower down below. Hildebrand scampered away from it, screeching.

  No one said anything. Then:

  “Fuck.” This came from Byron. He said it in such a way that it sounded profound, expressing the opinion of them all. “The mountains ...”

  The members of the band appeared pained, perhaps ready to quit. No sane person wanted to venture very far into the Borghese.

  Avery made his voice stern. “You swore an oath.”

  “I swore to fight that bitch Sheridan,” Byron said.

  “You swore to stop her,” Avery reminded him. “And her goal is to kill Layanna. Thus the only way to stop Sheridan is to save Layanna—and make sure she accomplishes her mission.”

  Byron looked as though he had swallowed something bitter.

  “Actually,” Hildra said, sounding crafty, “I think we really only swore to help the doc on his mission of stopping Sheridan ...”

  Byron’s eyes lit up. “That’s right! Doc! You’ve gotta quit this fucking ride. Don’t do what that bitch wants. Take us into the Borghese? She’s mad! Just say no, Doc. Maybe we can end all this right here. Turn her in, the cops’ll let us go. Hells, there may even be a reward.”

  Avery stared at him as coldly as he could, and at last Byron dropped his gaze. “I’m going on,” Avery said. “If you can break your oaths with your gods, that’s between you and them. But as for me, I’m holding you to them. I’m going to help end this war if I can—and to hell with anyone that doesn’t follow.”

  Thunder rolled in the distance.

  Hildra looked up. Sudden worry lined her face. “We’ve got more pressing problems, boys,” she said. “It’s a fucking ray.”

  PART THREE:

  IRON AND FIRE

  Chapter 12

  Startled, Avery turned. His breath caught in his throat. Sure enough, a ray arced across the sky—huge, magnificent, and terrible.

  The band rushed to the roof wall and stared out at it, transfixed. Only Avery stayed, unwilling to leave Layanna. His eyes moved across the thing, spellbound and horrified. He’d heard of them, of course. They had originally been bred by the Octunggen on some island, but the Ghenisan Navy had captured the island in the early days of the war—a rare victory—and put the creatures to use. Mostly they patrolled the sea. But not today.

  It was a living thing, an animal, and in aspect it resembled something like a manta ray, if a manta ray could stretch a mile wide, a mile long. A huge delta shape, black and gray by the dawn light creeping over the haze of the horizon, it boasted a great, broad, flat head, with an obscene mouth gaping, seemingly unable to close, fringed at each corner by a tendril. The massive, broad wings trailed away to either side, of one piece with the rest of the creature. And the tail—the long, spiny, razor sharp tail—trailed out behind it for what seemed like miles.

  “Gods below,” breathed Janx. “There’s three of ‘em. I didn’t even know there were three of ‘em near Hissig.”

  Indeed, sweeping in from the south, two more rays slowly glided out over the city, their shadows devouring entire blocks. They were things that should not exist, much less fly, and yet there they were, their bodies spanning dimensions (so it was said) as they arced across the sky and blurring the air around them.

  It was not thunder Avery had heard, but the sound of their wings, slowly fanning up, then down. As he watched, the sound came again, battering the air around him, shaking the leaves of the plants in the garden. Upon each ray’s broad back would be an assortment of crack troops, as well as snipers, commanders, and, most deadly of all, the psychics who controlled the creatures. The psychics could use the rays to amplify their abilities, like a man shouting through a bullhorn, and they could wield those magnified abilities to sow terror into the hearts of an enemy host, to confuse and disorient them and make it easier for Ghenisan soldiers to prevail. But if used against an individual ... if three were used against an individual ...

  Avery frowned. He peered down at Layanna.

  “We have to go,” he said, raising his voice over the sound of false thunder.

  Reluctantly, still transfixed by the rays, the others gave him their attention.

  He patted Layanna’s hand. “Our charge here will give off a powerful extradimensional signature. Hildra and I overheard Gaescruhd say as much at Claver’s. The psychics should be able to detect her easily when they get close enough. That’s probably what they’re trying to do.”

  “We’d better set off, then,” Janx agreed. “I’ve got the cash, Doc’s got the girl. Anybody got a plan?”

  “We need to get out of the city,” Avery said. “As soon as possible.”

  The monkey chittered. Hildra bent down and it clambered onto her shoulder. “We really gonna take her into the mountains?”

  “You wanna crap out, that’s your business,” Janx said. “But I don’t think any of us can afford to stay here. The mountains are our best bet out.”

  “He’s right,” Avery said. “They won’t expect us to go there.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” Hildra said.

  “It’s where Layanna needs to go.”

  * * *

  They descended from the heights, quickly and quietly. Janx and Muirblaag left to fetch some basic supplies while Hildra stole a vehicle for them. It was a rusty pickup, mustard yellow paint flaking off it. When Janx and Muirblaag returned, the band piled in, Avery and Layanna and Muirblaag in back. The morning sun caressed their skins and coaxed little beads of sweat from them.

  As they lurched off into the streets, Janx driving, Avery remembered to take his daily pollution pill. He’d thought to bring enough for himself and the others, but he only had a supply for another few days. By then he hoped to be far enough away from the sea that it wouldn’t matter.

  “Wow,” said Muirblaag.

  They’d reached a high place, and he was facing back, toward the city, which was now unobstructed by buildings or smaller peaks. Avery, who’d been drowsing, opened his eyes and felt a touch of awe.

  Silently, in sync with each other, the three massive rays glided through the sky over Hissig, morning sun beating down on their charcoal flesh, on their huge broad wings, on their long, trailing, barb-tipped tails. They swept over towers and domes, parks and apartments, searching, searching. The air crackled and shifted around them. Avery’s eyes hurt, but it was hard to look away.

  “They think we’ve gone to ground somewhere in the city,” Avery said. “That should buy us some time.”

  Muirblaag regarded him levelly. “We’re really going into the Borghese?�
�

  “It’s what she wants.” Avery nodded to Layanna, who slept fitfully, at times stirring or rolling her eyes. Hopefully that meant she would wake soon. “Is that a problem for you?”

  The fish-man looked wary. “You know what I am. You’ve guessed.”

  Avery nodded. When he’d first seen Muirblaag, he’d noticed the mutant’s unusual degree of symmetry and wholeness. Most mutants were either cobbled together variations, or ostensibly human with deformities. Muirblaag looked like a complete specimen of some unknown species.

  “You’re ngvandi,” Avery said. The word meant feral in L’ohen. It was also translated in Ghenisan as monster or barbarian.

  Muirblaag turned his head to stare at the looming peaks. “The Borghese are my home.” Bleakly, he added, “I left them for a reason.”

  Avery understood. Long ago when the Atomic Sea had widened to encompass the coasts of Urslin, it had spread infection among the countries there, among peoples who had not been prepared for it. Millions had died or been mutated. The rest fled the coasts, and for the three hundred years of the Withdrawal they stayed away, abandoning the cities along the shore to the infected. At last scientists and alchemists devised means of counteracting the poisons, and people returned—the Resettling—only to find mutants occupying the cities.

  The infected had thrived there, in a bloody and savage chaos, worshipping strange gods of the sea and practicing human sacrifice. They refused to relinquish control to the new settlers, and a series of wars began—street to street, house to house—until eventually the mutants that did not surrender were killed or driven off. In Ghenisa, the mutants found sanctuary in the vast and rugged Borghese Mountains, where they lived to this day, the stuff of myth and nightmare, known as the ngvandi.

  “It’s the last place I want to go,” Muirblaag said.

  “Are you full-blooded?”

  “No. They got my mother in a raid on a goat ranch, but most ngvandi half-breeds take after their fishy side. Shit, I can’t believe I’m actually going back.”

  “It won’t be for long,” Avery promised. “We’ll just deliver Layanna to her friends and be on our way. We’ll have to relocate afterwards, of course, find new identities, but in the chaos of the war, and with your sort of contacts, it should be achievable.”

  “You really think it’ll be that simple?”

  Avery’s gaze wandered to Layanna. Please be the right thing to do. He knew that without his leadership and commitment to making them keep their vows, the others would likely quit.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “And you think she can really do what she says—end the war?”

  “If she can truly build this Device of hers and disrupt Octung’s weapons, then yes. We just need to bring her to her friends and they can go on from there by themselves.”

  “But why would her friends be in the Borghese? Trust me, I’m from there, and there’s nothin’ good that way.”

  “It will work,” Avery assured him.

  Carried on the wind, the false thunder of the rays’ wings reached Avery’s ears, and he felt hounded and out of his depth.

  “I need a drink,” he said, half under his breath.

  Muirblaag surprised him. “You mean, like this?” He revealed a flask he’d been hiding, twisted the cap off, and offered it.

  Avery hesitated. Long years of conditioning had instilled in him a fear of contact with infected people. Science, however, had taught him that the disease could only live outside of the body for a few moments.

  He wiped the lip, counted to ten, and knocked back a sip.

  He whistled.

  Muirblaag laughed. “Strong shit, ain’t it?”

  “I’ll say.” Coughing, Avery took another. The liquid burned his throat, but it was divine fire. He handed the flask back. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask. ‘Muirblaag’—is that your real name? It sounds ...”

  “Bullshit?” Muirblaag laughed. “Yeah, it’s a stage name.” The fish-man swigged deeply of the flask, grimacing. “Naw, the bastards that raised me called me Czan. When I broke out and took Mom back to Hissig—she was old and diseased by then and wanted to die at home—I asked her what she’d wanted to name me. She said Frank. I guess that’s my name. But shit, Doc, I’ve been Mu now too long to be anything else. It fits. It’s a self-invented name for a self-invented man. Muirblaag the Monster.” He raised his flask to the sun, a toast. “World, watch out.” And he drank.

  * * *

  The roads ended. Mountainous frontier beckoned.

  “From here on out it gets rocky,” Janx said as they left the truck behind. “’least our leg muscles’ll get a working.”

  “Great,” said Byron. Avery had found some alchemical pills in a first aid kit and administered a couple to Byron; they would aid his recovery given time, but for now he was uncertain on his feet. With Avery and Hildra taking turns helping him, the group set out. Janx and Muirblaag had procured some rudimentary camping and climbing supplies along with the rest, but they weren’t much, and no one besides Avery had any experience hiking anyway.

  It was late afternoon the day after they’d stolen the truck. They’d wound through mountain roads that grew increasingly primitive, and fortified frontier settlements perched among the rocks and pines periodically. The people that lived up here had to hold out against ngvandi, and they tended to be strange, stand-offish and insular.

  The air was colder here, and thin; Avery felt winded quickly. He scanned the forest around him, alert for ngvandi, and it almost amused him that he was more worried about mutant savages than Octunggen. Octunggen soldiers would be here, too, navigating through the peaks, the ngvandi and the frontier families. They would be in small, dirigible-mounted raiding parties but no less dangerous for that. Octung itself was not overly large and yet it had subdued two entire continents and was not done yet.

  The band passed ruined fortresses overgrown with trees, vines and vegetation. Stone walls piled in moss-covered heaps. Arches sagged and ruptured. Leafy canopies of live oaks and pines thrust through the spaces where ceilings of great halls had given way. Other trees grew from rearing bulwarks of stone, their roots penetrating soil-filled cracks. Avery saw a batkin of unusual size crouching on a broken tower, gnawing something with noisy rips and tears.

  “Amazing,” he muttered. “We’re passing through history.”

  “Fuck history,” Byron said.

  “You should show more interest. I’m something of a student of the past—L’ohen’s, especially, and our own. Ghenisa was forged right here, you know. How many men and women died to win our freedom from the Ysstrals? The War of the Severance lasted for centuries.”

  “They didn’t die for freedom,” Janx said. “The revvies died for that fifty years ago.”

  “So what did they die for?”

  “Independence.”

  Avery nodded judiciously. “So they did.”

  “Whatever,” said Byron. “What does it matter what a bunch of old dead people died for? They’re not even bones anymore.”

  Hildra glanced up at the trees, at the light shining down, and she wore a strange smile. Even her monkey seemed subdued and respectful. “I think it’s romantic,” she said. “All those princes, all those counts and dukes, building hundreds of fortresses, warring against each other over great canyons and high peaks, princesses getting kidnapped, princes becoming heroes. My favorite tale is the one about Prince Cort and Princess Syra.”

  Avery smiled. “I was just reading one account of their adventures before I left. Sadly, I was forced to abandon my books.”

  “It’s a great story.”

  “One of my wife’s favorites, too. Of course, there are so many different versions of the tale, it’s hard to know what really happened. Some scholars don’t even think Prince Cort and Princess Syra existed at all.”

  “Oh, they did.” Hildra sounded certain. “I know it. They say the war never would have ended without them.”

  “That is th
e legend,” Avery agreed.

  “Well, I don’t like the legends,” Muirblaag said. In his arms he held the sleeping Layanna. “They all make my folk out to be savages. Mindless killers.”

  Hildra looked at him apologetically, and they lapsed into silence.

  They walked throughout the day and into the night, shining flashlights before them when needed. Janx had bought several. At last Avery prevailed upon them to quit using the lights for fear of alerting enemies to their presence, and they found the ruin of what looked like an old mill that moldered beside a trickling stream, lichen and moss covering its sides. Huge batkin roosted within and had to be forcefully evicted. As Avery and the band settled in, the batkin wheeled through the sky overhead, chittering angrily.

  “Won’t they ever shut up?” Byron said as he shook out a blanket. The air stank of bat offal and musk.

  “They’ll move on,” Janx said. “Best post a watch. Don’t want anyone sneakin’ up on us.”

  “I’ll take first watch,” Avery said. Staring up at the huge bat-like creatures that swarmed against the stars, he added, “I doubt I’ll sleep anyway.”

  They didn’t retire immediately, though. For a long time the band sat together over a fire that Avery tried to convince them not to light, telling stories of their lost mates, Jaimesyn and Holdren. Then, to Avery’s considerable surprise, and after generous amounts of the cheap liquor they had brought along, Muirblaag revealed some inking equipment. The others seemed to have expected it, and at their request he tattooed stylized versions of Jaimesyn’s and Holdren’s names into their arms, backs or chests. With blood still weeping down his arm, Janx returned the favor for Muirblaag, who grimaced and drank.

  Studying their tattoos, Avery noticed other names mixed in among the pictures of dragons, hellspawn and sea nymphs. In those names he saw a reflection of a shadowy network of friends, allies and accomplices, some dead, some possibly still living, some likely in prison, stretching across years and geography, their friendships forged in blood and danger and lawlessness. For a moment, despite himself, Avery felt jealous. He could only sit and watch as they grieved, as they bonded. Layanna, still unconscious, lay in her blankets.