Sea of Silver Light o-4

by Tad Williams

  He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth again and, without really thinking about it—because if he thought he would know it was hopeless and foolish, that he had searched the whole place from top to bottom a half-dozen times—wandered off to look for that bottle of beer some faceless soldier or technician had stashed away for the long hours of the watch.

  No—wine, he thought. If he was dreaming a hopeless dream, why not make it perfect? A whole bottle of something good, something with kick. Not even opened. He hid it away there, then the orders came and they all had to go. He saluted his anonymous benefactor. You did not know, but you put it away for Joseph Sulaweyo. In his hour of need, like they say.

  His skin prickled. The filing cabinet lay on its side against the wall of the service closet, as wonderful as a treasure chest from a pirate story.

  In a fit of nervous energy brought on by fear and frustration, he had unstacked a pile of folding chairs he had passed many times, working at it with no more hope than when he had once more opened cabinets and drawers already searched a dozen times in the last month—but to his astonishment, he had discovered the tipped cabinet hidden beneath the chairs. Now he hardly dared move for fear it would vanish.

  Probably just full with papers, a small, sensible voice told him. Or spiders. If they are full with anything at all.

  Nevertheless his palms were sweaty and it took him some moments to realize that it wasn't merely his slippery grip on the handles that kept the drawers from opening. Don't work lying down, he realized. Thing needs to be standing up.

  It was a huge, cumbersome cabinet, the kind meant to survive fires and other disasters. As his muscles protested at the strain he was putting on them, he thought for a moment of calling Jeremiah for help, but could imagine no believable excuse for wanting to get the cabinet upright. At last, with much grunting and swearing, he dragged the top end off the ground. He got it as high as his waist before his back would not take any more, then had to squat and let the full weight of the thing rest on his thighs while he prepared himself to heave it the rest of the way. It felt like it was full of rocks. He thought he could feel his ankle bones grinding down into powder from supporting it, but the solid heft of it gave him hope—there had to be something in it.

  Joseph braced himself and lifted again, grimacing as the corners dug into his forearms, pulling it up until he could slide his whole body under the top end and really put his back and shoulders into the job. It tottered for a moment—he had a sour picture of lying underneath it with his back broken while Jeremiah and Del Ray chatted on, unaware, a hundred meters away—before he managed to rise from his crouch and shove it almost upright. It caught the edge of a heating vent screen in the cement wall and stuck. Back quivering and arms trembling, sweat running in his eyes, Joseph shoved until the bolts holding the screen tore loose and it clattered to the ground, allowing the filing cabinet to slide past and thump down square on its bottom.

  Joseph bent from the waist, panting, sweat now dripping straight to the floor. The little room was small and hot, the light dim. The reflexive need for secrecy warred with discomfort. Secrecy lost. Joseph pushed open the door into the main hall, letting in a waft of cooler air, before trying the top drawer.

  It wasn't locked. But his luck ended there.

  Who wasted this cabinet by crowding it all up with files? A dull, helpless sort of rage filled him like a purpling bruise. The cabinet was heavy because it was filled with papers, meaningless papers, personnel records, some nonsense like that, drawer after drawer stuffed to the brim with old-fashioned folders.

  Joseph had only a moment to savor this deep misery before something fell on him from above.

  For a moment, wildly, he thought that part of the roof had given way, as had happened to Del Ray, that the Boer bastard and his henchmen upstairs had drilled through just above him. Then, as the strangely sagging weight pulled him down to the floor and fingers clawed at his face, he thought instead that Jeremiah had come and attacked him, was for some reason trying to hurt him.

  Just looking for a drink, he wanted to shout, but the fingers clamped on his throat, squeezing him silent. In a panic, Joseph rolled hard to the side and banged himself painfully against the standing cabinet but managed to dislodge the choking hands. He scrabbled backward, shaking his head, coughing, and managed to whisper the word, "What. . . ?" before his attacker was on him again.

  Whoever it was seemed more octopus than man, all arms and legs, grabbing at him, trying to pin him, throttle him. Joseph struggled and tried to shout, but now an arm was across his throat, pressing down until he thought something inside his neck must tear and his head part company with his body. He kicked out wildly. His feet met the cabinet hard; he felt it give and heard it fall back against the wall, then scrape against the concrete and crash to the floor. He got a hand up under the arm that was crushing out his breath and pushed back hard enough to drag a little air into his lungs, but there were still sparkling lights in front of his eyes. Something moved over him, leaning in close, a demon's mask of black and red and whitely-shining clenched teeth. Joseph kicked again but touched nothing and the weight on his neck was now too much to resist. The devil-face began to retreat down a black tunnel, but the grip was growing stronger. He still did not know what had happened, who was killing him.

  And then, just as the light-streaked blackness had become almost complete, the pressure lessened and then was gone—or almost gone, because he could still feel a crimp in his throat. He rolled over onto his stomach, wheezing and choking through a windpipe that felt like it would never open again.

  Someone was shouting and something was thumping like a heavy weight being dragged down stairs. Joseph felt cool concrete against his cheek, felt the even cooler air rushing down his ragged throat like the finest of all wines. He dragged himself toward the wall of the service closet then turned around, lifting his quivering hands in self-defense.

  It was Jeremiah, with a look on his face like nothing Joseph had ever imagined, a look of terrified rage. But what was he doing? What was he hammering on with that stick of his, that steel chair leg, that club he had carried since Joseph's return? And why was he crying?

  Jeremiah seemed to feel Long Joseph's dazed stare. He looked at him with brimming eyes, then down at a dark bundle on the floor. The thing lying there was a man—a white man, although in his whole smoke-blackened, bloodied face only a pink curve of ear gave that away. The back of his head was a ruin, bits of bone showing through the wet red. The end of Jeremiah's chair leg was dripping. Jeremiah looked up from Joseph to the wall overhead and the dark hole there that had been covered by the screen. Now Del Ray appeared in the closet doorway.

  "My God," he said. "What happened?" His eyes widened. "Who's that?"

  Jeremiah Dako held up the bloody chair leg, stared at it as though he had never seen it before. A sickly smile pulled up the edges of his mouth—maybe the worst thing Joseph had seen so far.

  "At least . . . at least we've still . . . got two bullets left," said Jeremiah. He laughed. Then he began to sob again.

  "He's the fifth one," Del Ray said, "I can still see four of them on the monitor. He's the one we thought got killed when the smoke got them."

  "What does that matter?" Jeremiah said listelessly. "That just means there are still as many up there as we thought this morning."

  Joseph could only listen. He felt as though someone had ripped his head off and put it back on in great haste.

  "It means they probably don't know about the vent," Del Ray said. "He probably crawled in there to get away from the smoke—he may have been cut off by what he thought was a fire, trapped on the other side of the building from the others. Then he just kept crawling until he got to that vent and could get air from our part of the building. Maybe he was even stuck there." He looked at the corpse, which they had dragged out into the better light of the open hallway. "So the rest of them aren't going to be coming down the vent on us in our sleep."

  Jeremiah shook his he
ad. He had stopped weeping, but still seemed miserable. "We don't know anything," His voice was almost as raspy as Joseph's.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Look at him!" Jeremiah shoved a finger at the body, although he did not look at it himself. "He's bloody all over. Dried blood. Burns. Scrapes and cuts. There's a good chance he got them getting into the vent in the first place, hurrying to get away from the smoke. He probably left marks of where he got in—maybe even left a screen lying on the ground. When the smoke clears up there, they'll find them. They'll go looking for him."

  "Then we'll . . . I don't know. Weld that, vent in the storage closet closed. Something." Jeremiah and Del Ray had already struggled to hammer the screen back into place, with limited success.

  "They can just poison us—pour poison gas down it, smother us." Jeremiah stared at the floor.

  "Then why haven't they done that already?" Del Ray demanded. "They could probably find our air intake if they wanted to. If they only wanted us dead, surely they could have done that already."

  Jeremiah shook his head. "It's too late."

  Joseph was disturbed to see the man so unhappy. Was it because he had killed someone? How could anyone, even a sensitive soul like Jeremiah Dako, regret killing the man who had been trying to kill Joseph?

  "Jeremiah," he said softly. "Jeremiah. Listen to me."

  The other man looked up, eyes red.

  "You save my life. We fight sometimes, you and me, but I never will forget that." He tried to think of something that would make things right. "Thank you. Truly I mean that."

  Jeremiah nodded, but his face was still bleak. "A postponement. That's all it is." He sniffed, almost angrily. "But you're welcome, Joseph. And I truly mean that, too."

  No one spoke for a while.

  "I just thought of something," said Del Ray. "What are we going to do with a dead body down here?"

  "They look like bottom-feeders," Renie said. "If it's more than just appearance, maybe we'll get lucky." She was talking mostly to herself. Her companion the Stone Girl was too frightened to be paying much attention.

  Renie took another look out the window at the church spire made of brambles, achingly near, but still on the far side of several dozen Ticks, creatures so pale they almost seemed to glow in the dying evening. But at the moment it was a forest of vines and creepers that stretched away from the tower like guy-ropes had her attention.

  "Come hold this steady," she said as she climbed cautiously onto the table, which like everything else in this strange little subworld was made entirely from living plants, densely intertwined. It wobbled but held; apparently the furniture was indeed meant to be used, if not for the purpose Renie had in mind. The Stone Girl came forward and did her best to brace it.

  Renie stretched up until she could get her hands into the vegetation of the low ceiling and began digging at the tangled branches, pulling aside that which could not be broken or torn until she had made a hole through which she could see the velvety dark sky, and the faint early stars. Reassured, she quickly began to widen the hole until it was big enough for her shoulders. She pulled herself up, grunting with the effort, and took a quick look around the rooftop. Satisfied that none of the scuttling things were waiting there, she let herself down again.

  "Come on," she told her companion. "I'll lift you up."

  The Stone Girl took some convincing but at last allowed herself to be boosted through the hole.

  "There," Renie said as she lifted herself onto the roof beside the girl. "On the far side, see? Those vines will get us to the house nearest the tower, then we can go up from there."

  The Stone Girl looked down at the Ticks swarming on the ground, then eyed the sagging creepers with mistrust. "What do you mean?"

  "We can climb them—put our feet on the lower ones and hang onto the ones higher up with our hands. It's how they build bridges in the jungle." She did not feel as confident as she sounded—she had never actually crossed such a bridge, in a jungle or anywhere else—but it was surely better than sitting in the little house waiting for the Ticks to notice them.

  The Stone Girl only nodded, overtaken by a sort of weary fatalism.

  Trusting because I'm a grown-up. Like one of those stepmothers. It was an unpleasant burden, but there was no one to share it. Renie sighed and moved to the edge of the roof. She beckoned the Stone Girl and then lifted her up to the thick vine that stretched upward at an angle beside them, not releasing her grip until she was sure it would bear the little girl's weight. "Hang on," she told the child. "I'm climbing up now."

  For a long moment after she swung herself up Renie had to cling with her hands and legs until she could get in position to grab the higher vine and stand. The lower vine swayed alarmingly beneath her bare feet until she got her balance straight. "Go ahead," she told the Stone Girl as she helped her stand and reach the upper vine. "Just go slowly. We'll get off and rest at that roof there—the tall house between us and the tower."

  Going slowly turned out to be their only option. It was hard enough to keep their feet on the slippery vine while stepping over knots of tangling, leafy branches. Although the Ticks did not exactly seem to have noticed them, Renie wondered whether their senses were as limited as the child had suggested: those lurking just below seemed to be growing increasingly agitated. She couldn't help imagining what the creatures' response would be if she and her companion were suddenly to drop down into the brambles, right in their midst.

  It seemed like a good idea to stop looking down.

  The light was now almost completely gone. When they reached the roof of the tall house, halfway to the spire, Renie began to think that resting could be a bad idea—that they might be better off using the last light to help in the difficult climb. The Stone Girl stopped, still several steps short of the roof.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I c–can't go anymore."

  Renie cursed silently. "Just get to the roof, then we'll rest. We're almost there."

  "No! I can't go anymore! It's too high."

  Renie looked down, confused. It was less than half a dozen meters to the ground. She was a little girl, of course. Renie couldn't afford to forget that, but still. . . . "Can you just make it a little bit farther? When we get to the roof, you won't have to see the ground anymore."

  "No, stupid!" She was almost crying with anger and frustration. "The vine is too high!"

  The Ticks seemed to be gathering beneath them. Distracted by their churning, it took Renie a moment to see that the child was right. The higher of the two vines they were using for their bridge had been rising more steeply than the lower. The Stone Girl had stretched her arms almost to their capacity just to keep a grip on it, but another few paces and it would be beyond her reach.

  "Jesus Mercy, I'm sorry! I am stupid, you're right." Renie struggled against panic. The Ticks were now swarming over each other just below them like worms in a bucket. "Let me get closer and I'll help you." She inched forward until she could take one arm off the upper vine and wrap it around the little girl. "Can you hold onto my leg? Maybe even stand on my foot?"

  The Stone Girl, who had clearly been keeping a worried silence for some time, now burst into tears. With help, she managed to wrap herself around Renie's thigh and grip Renie's ankle with her feet—it was an awkward and undignified position, but Renie found that if she was careful she could inch upward. Still, by the time they toppled off onto the cushiony safety of the roof perhaps another quarter of an hour had passed and the last daylight was gone.

  "Where's the moon?" Renie asked when she had finally caught her breath.

  The Stone Girl shook her head sadly. "I don't think they have a moon in More Very Bush anymore."

  "Then we'll have to make do with starlight." Sounds like a song title, Renie decided, a bit giddy with exhaustion and the very temporary respite from climbing over the Ticks. She sat up. The light was minimal, but it was enough to see the silhouette of the tower and even a glow from the belfry. Her heart leaped. Could it be
!Xabbu? She longed to shout out to him, but was much less certain now about the deafness of Ticks.

  "We have to go," she said. "If I wait any longer my muscles will cramp up. Come on."

  "But I can't reach!" The Stone Girl was on the verge of weeping again.

  A brief instant of irritation dissolved quickly. My God, what I've put this child through! The poor little thing. "I'll carry you on my back. You're small."

  "I'm the biggest kid in my house," she said with a shadow of indignant pride.

  "Yes, and you're very brave." Renie crouched. "Climb up."

  The Stone Girl struggled up onto Renie's back, and from there was boosted onto her shoulders so that her cool, solid little legs lay on either side of Renie's neck. Renie stood and swayed a bit, but found the girl's weight manageable.

  "Now the last part," Renie said. "Hang on tight. I'll tell my friends how much you helped me."

  "I did," the Stone Girl said quietly as they moved out onto the vines again. In a rare stroke of good luck, the bottom vine hung a little lower than the rooftop, so that Renie could step down instead of having to climb up with the child clinging to her back. "I did help you. Remember the Jinnear? I helped you hide, didn't I?"

  "You certainly did."

  The last part of the climb was the hardest, and not just because of the added weight and clumsiness caused by her burden. Renie's muscles had been worked too hard for too long, with too little rest, and her tendons all seemed to be pulled tight as piano wires. If not for the nagging fear that time was running out, that any moment now the Other might stop fighting and the very world might evaporate under her, Renie might have crawled back down to the roof to sleep, even with her friends only a stone's throw away.

  Each step an agony, the angle of the vines growing steeper as the tall tower grew nearer, she did her best to distract herself.

  What the hell are Ticks anyway? Why should a machine be afraid of bugs? And Jinnears? What are they?

  And Jinnears. The phrase stuck in her mind, an indigestible lump. And Jinnears. . . ! Startled, she almost lost her grip. The Stone Girl gave a squeak of alarm and Renie tightened her aching fist on the vine. The Ticks swarmed in agitation below. And Jinnears—engineers! Who works with machines? Engineers and . . . and techs. Jinnears and Ticks.