The Brilliant Dark

by S. M. Beiko

  “It is a retreat,” they said. “I spend most of my time in the archives below my mistress’s pyre. All of my books, my stories, are there. Save the one I have been missing.”

  That detail came back to her as she rummaged in the pack for the canteen. “You still haven’t found it, huh?”

  Baskar shook their head in dismay. “It is just as well. It contained the story my lady did not want. The wilderness can have it, I suppose.” Then the mask lifted in something like a smile. “You may stay here as long as you like, though. I have taken care of my mistress before, so I know how to take care of you. You need rest in the way the dead do not.”

  Too much to unpack there, Saskia thought, taking one long pull of her water before stopping herself. She’d have to ration. She glanced at the Rabbit. “Is there somewhere I can get fresh water? Or do you all just, like, not need to eat or drink either?” How Roan and Eli had survived this long was another question she’d add to the list . . .

  Baskar looked from Saskia to the hole of the burrow. “Do you not have rain in the Uplands?”

  “Well I don’t know how any of this works!” She threw up her hands. “There wasn’t exactly a walkthrough available.”

  Baskar snatched the canteen from her before she could stop them, holding it out of the opening in the tree’s trunk. “You will be fine. My mistress and the Owl King used to have needs such as yours, but you’ll find as you are here longer, hunger and thirst fade. Then you will become undying, as they have. Especially with that curious stone of yours. The stones keep you safe.”

  Saskia frowned, fingers tightening around the Fractal in her lap. The Calamity Stones weren’t called the Happy Joy Protecting Stones for a reason. It sounded like Roan and Eli had become myths themselves. Saskia definitely had no intention of staying down here long enough to see if she would turn into one, too.

  She hoped she’d have a choice about that.

  After a while, the canteen was full again, and Baskar handed it back. Saskia slid it back into the bag and put it aside. “This isn’t exactly going the way I planned.”

  Baskar shivered, and their shell-body crackled. “Perhaps if you spoke to my mistress again, you might find a newer, better plan.”

  Saskia huffed. “She was pretty ready to feed me to the birds. I doubt she’s interested in anything I have to say.” She looked outside into the rain. Weather, vegetation, an ecosystem. The sky even appeared darker, like they were coming onto night. This was a real, tangible world. As far as she knew, it hadn’t always been like that. And the things that she once aimed for — all that hero nonsense — seemed empty now, after the confrontation with the “General” and the “Owl King.” Everything was wrong.

  She turned to Baskar. “What happened to them? They’re both so . . .”

  “Omnipotent?” Baskar finished, leaning back, considering the hollowed roof above them. “So much has changed. It only follows that they would, too. They haven’t changed lately. They have been fighting a very long time.”

  “And I don’t have a lot of time to spare, myself.” Baskar seemed as though they knew enough to be helpful. “What was the story, the one that Roan didn’t want to hear? That got you exiled?”

  Baskar went from partially relaxed to all nerves again, stick-bones chattering. “I promised her. I promised I would not tell it again, and I intend to keep my word this time.”

  Okay, Sask, back it up. “Never mind then. Can you tell me your story?”

  Baskar swung towards her, then became still. So still she worried the shade had vacated the shell till they spoke. “My story?”

  “Sure.” She thought of the Deer shade she’d seen when she arrived in this wasteland, put her finger in the dirt and leaves beneath her, and started absently moving them around as she talked. “You were alive once. Do you remember it?”

  Baskar twitched then lifted a lopsided shoulder. “I have been dead a very, very long time. Most dead return to the place they came from, eventually, or change into something else. A spirit is just a sort of energy, after all. That is what the Owl King said, though his word cannot be trusted.

  “All I know is my story as it has changed here. For a very long time, the Deadlands were all separate — the forest of the Warren, the canyon steppes of the Den, all of them had clear boundaries that could not be crossed. Then, all at once, the gods we knew were gone, and the ways back up were closed, and everything was . . . new.” They leaned down, inspecting Saskia’s leaf patterns as if there was a message there. “The Bloodlands, too, and all the damned parts of it, became a part of this new world. The dead were all looking for a purpose again. The General of Ash and Flame provided us with one. Some joined the Owl King instead. They are the new gods.” Baskar pointed to the crown in Saskia’s hands. “The stones are their rights to power. My mistress may have seen yours as a threat, at first, but now she sees an opportunity.”

  “For what?” Saskia dared.

  Baskar put a finger to the place their mouth should be. “Are you sure you’re not a god?”

  Saskia was going to say no immediately, but she glanced down at the Onyx. Filled with the power of death, of Darklings, and maybe of Fia. Part of her was in it, too. It listened to her. She realized a part of her wanted Baskar’s guess to be true.

  “No,” she did say, eventually. “I’m just a regular person. Just me.”

  Baskar nodded. “That’s as may be. There are many stories here. Many missing. But there is room for yours.”

  Missing stories? Saskia sighed. “The only missing thing I’m after is Ancient.”

  The twig hand slapped over her mouth as it had when she’d first met Baskar, as though her low-toned lament could be heard for miles. “Don’t. Do not say that name if you want to survive.”

  The hand drew away slowly, and Saskia was utterly still. “Why?”

  But Baskar was shaking their head again. “Mustn’t say. It is not a story to tell.”

  Saskia was about to let herself have a well-deserved meltdown, when movement in the middle distance outside the burrow caught her eye and she ducked. “Something’s coming!”

  Baskar was quickly pressed into her shoulder, but after a squint, and a pause, their body loosened slightly. “My mistress is come.”

  Saskia pulled herself back into the tree, flattening against the smooth grain, feeling a horrible mix of panic and extremely naïve high hopes. “What does she want with the Onyx?”

  Baskar did not seem intent on leaving the open bole, wanting to be seen by Roan. They were reverent of her. “She saw what your stone can do to the dead, and how it sent the Owl King and his Eyes into retreat. She will feel she owes you a debt. She will try to win you to her side.”

  “And whose side are you on?” Saskia asked quickly. It should have been obvious, but how Baskar spoke about both Roan and Eli, perhaps exile had made them rethink things.

  The way Baskar’s face was made, there was no mouth for them to speak from. Just flat planes and black, ghostly translucence. But the white eyes seemed to smile. “I am on the story’s side, until it is ended.” They shook their head. “But I made a promise to protect my mistress. That is the point of my story.”

  Saskia peeked around the edge. Roan was closer, but she had stopped twenty feet off, rain hissing into mist when it touched her, her spiky hair seeming to spark with each droplet. The scar over her missing eye stood out like a hot coal.

  She pulled the long blade from its sheath at her hip and slammed it into the ground with one even thrust. She did not take her eyes away from the tree.

  “She does not want a fight,” Baskar interpreted. Then, eagerly, they asked, “Will you go to her?”

  Saskia stiffened. “Will she listen to me this time, do you think?” Saskia’s mind rushed, filling with probabilities. “Can I change her back?”

  Baskar placed a hand on Saskia’s shoulder. “My mistress does not need c
hanging. You just need to know her as the dead do.” Then, a slight sniff, a jerk of their head. “You have a touch of death about you as well. Maybe even stronger than hers. It is most becoming.”

  Saskia grimaced. “Uh, where I’m from, that’s not really a good thing.”

  Baskar grabbed Saskia by her jacket, shoving her through the hole. “I won’t let her kill you,” they said.

  “Somehow I don’t think that’ll be enough,” Saskia grunted, sorely tempted to dive back into the hole at her feet.

  Roan was still standing there, hands on her hips, rooted as if she’d sprouted out of the ground. Saskia could hide in Baskar’s tree all day, but what would that do? Much the same as she couldn’t sit in her tech-crowded bedroom while the world went by, while her friends and family were in danger.

  She still held the Onyx, contained in its crown, and for now it was all she had. She slipped it over her forehead, the familiar weight settling. She swallowed a hard pit of discomfort as she straightened, dropped her shoulders, and walked forward.

  Roan appraised her the whole way, and when Saskia stopped short a couple feet off, the General nodded. “Saskia.”

  Her heart sped up, and she fought the urge to swipe her suddenly soaked hair out of her face. “Do you really remember me?”

  An eyebrow tilt. “I have spoken with the archivist after witnessing your . . . performance. I know your name. That is all I know of you.” She folded her armoured arms. “What I do know is that you defied the Owl King. You came here looking for me. I think we are in need of each other.”

  Saskia’s teeth clamped down, and her ears popped. Words were only as good as the intentions of their speaker. Roan’s temper was as hot as the flame flickering inside her. Just as Saskia had made a deal with a Darkling to repair the Onyx, and a promise to Death, she’d have to make another deal if she was going to beat them all at their own game.

  She turned back to the tree where Baskar was clearly watching. They waved at her encouragingly, and it reminded her of Cam’s faraway birthday thumbs-up. Everything was blending.

  “If I go with you,” Saskia said, turning back to Roan, “you have to hear me out. The Moth Queen sent me. Do you remember her?”

  Roan’s smile was tight, but her eyes gleamed with something that looked like hunger. “Oh yes,” she said. “But this place no longer belongs to Death. Or the former gods. I will show you, a fellow stonebearer, why this place is worth saving.”

  Saskia hesitated. Everything was so twisted. If Saskia couldn’t convince Roan to help her, what were Saskia’s chances of going home at all?

  This was the only chance she had. “Okay.” She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Roan plucked the blade free of the ground, lifted her eye to the tree, and whistled. Baskar slunk out and past Saskia, as if she weren’t there at all. Roan afforded Baskar a hmm, before patting them on the head, turning on her heel, and leading the way.

  Saskia wasn’t a sycophant like the Rabbit, but she’d have to pretend to be. All she could do was follow.

  * * *

  The Owl King paced along the Limitless Ledge. “How many were lost?”

  His Eyes looked just as battle-worn as Eli felt. “Many on both sides. That stone . . . it devoured them.”

  “We heard it sing, my lord. We all wanted to go to it. It felt like home —”

  “Enough,” the Owl King flared. “This stone’s presence changes too much of the game, too quickly. Is the Heartwood still secure?”

  The shades turned to one another, then nodded, perfectly in sync. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good.” He dismissed them with a flick of his wing, then pulled it back in tight, dragging a talon through his long, dark beard. Hidden beneath it was something he tried not to think about, the memory of something along the skin of his cheek. Something that wouldn’t fade.

  He cast his mind out past the Roost, into the Emberdom and Cinder Town at its centre. Roan was there, as she often was, and so was the girl. Saskia. His mind cast backward, memory sparked by the girl. He remembered a time, so long ago, when both of them were tucked under his arms as they flew over a wide and endless ocean.

  Then he lifted the book the sentinels had found in a thicket.

  “I’m not ready for this to end,” he said to the empty room. He opened the book and read the story he knew to be true but still couldn’t face.

  The Heartwood

  Mi-ja hadn’t the time to embrace the harshness of her new reality. There was only action, and she was still unsure where her place was in it. You’re in charge now, the chancellor had said before hurtling into oblivion. If that’s where he went. Both Grant and Rathgar had gone into that reactor room and not come out, and they’d left a mess Mi-ja could never hope to clean up. The responsibility had been thrown over her so carelessly, a suffocating plastic body bag, and she’d forgotten how to breathe.

  But there it was. This was her circus now. From lieutenant to aide to . . .

  Chancellor by proxy.

  “Madam?” The door to the office opened to Mi-ja’s aide, Trey, also struggling with his new role. She had already been training him the last few weeks to assist her, ever since the chancellor had come to rely on her for everything. At least before Mi-ja was thrust into this office she’d been its unwitting understudy.

  “Are they ready?” she asked, straightening her jacket, the badges against the breast heavier than she’d imagined. She’d thrown the question at Trey, but it had been meant for herself.

  Trey nodded, his bobbing turban the same grey as his flawless uniform. “It will be live to all networks. Strike forces are also mobilizing, but they are on standby, awaiting your word.”

  Mi-ja came around the desk and followed him out. It seemed like she was walking in a haze. “One thing at a time,” she heard herself say. She wasn’t about to bomb Winnipeg. Just to help those that would, a voice inside gnawed.

  She took her seat behind another desk in a room that was lit so brightly it made her teeth hurt. There were many cameras, and nervous people operating them, and government and Task Guard officials. A backdrop of flags. She had already debriefed the prime minister, who was standing in this very room now and had already said his piece. How Mi-ja wished they could just handle it without her. How she wished so many things could reverse, and she could get off this freight train.

  The light on the cameras flickered, the teleprompter loading with the speech she had written only a few hours ago, and she spoke. “Citizens of Canada, and these united nations. My name is Song Mi-ja, direct aide to Chancellor Lochlan Grant, coming to you from the Elemental Task Guard headquarters in Winnipeg. As Prime Minister Orison said only moments ago, we must be vigilant and unified in this time of crisis. We feel your fear and we recognize it, but this government, and the Elemental Task Guard, will not bend to it.”

  Mi-ja had penned the speech by imagining all of Grant’s gravitas in the language, but it sounded so jagged in her voice. She’d have to become someone else, then, just for this moment, to convince everyone, including herself.

  “Chancellor Lochlan Grant, shortly after his internal meetings at the United Nations, returned to Winnipeg as his Project Crossover reached a breakthrough.” She had edited out Saskia Allen Das’s part in that, for surely it had been pivotal, and Solomon Rathgar’s presumed end, because his key had been found, but he, along with the chancellor, had not. “The chancellor saw his work complete and has passed into the place known as the Realms of Ancient in the hopes that what he finds there will put an end to the Darkling Moon that Denizen-kind unleashed upon us all seven years ago.”

  The security footage was burned into her eyes. She’d watched it so much it was trapped there, and always would be, which made destroying the footage futile though necessary. Saskia jumping. Grant lunging after her. A cloud of electricity bursting, and they were gone. Both of them. Maybe forever. Mi-ja had to believe otherwise. She n
eeded the promise of an out to get through this.

  She cleared her throat, took a drink of water from the glass at her wrist, and willed herself not to spill a drop. She continued. “We are confident that the chancellor will return —” No we aren’t. “— and when he does, the Denizen agenda will be put to rest, as will the differences between us.” Not if they are rising up now, ready to strike. “To those Denizens out there in the world — we implore you to move forward peacefully and in unity with the Elemental Task Guard. In this crucial time, we do not wish any further casualties, Denizen or human. Despite our good intentions, there were those Denizens who saw an opportunity as the chancellor went ahead with his noble work, Denizens who attacked our headquarters here in Winnipeg, hoping to stop us. We withdrew, but we will not hesitate to strike back should they test us again. We stand on guard for this country, for this world, for those who cannot defend themselves, and will do so until the Darkling Moon has left our skies at last, and we can rebuild this planet to the glory that it once was.”

  The speech went on, the fervour rising. Mi-ja went elsewhere, separate from it all as the words came out of her with a passion she’d never had for this regime or any of what it stood for. But now rules and authority made her feel safe.

  She was not in control, though. None of them were. She announced herself as the chancellor by proxy, but it was just another made-up title. They were all kids playing at war.

  At one point, the words stopped, and so did the cameras, and her desk was swarmed, and she smiled up at the prime minister and the people who grasped her, congratulating her, telling her they stood with her. She smiled and smiled and smiled.

  She should have run out onto Broadway when the Denizens had attacked and lost herself in the horde that had blasted their way through the gate.

  It was going to be a long war.

  * * *