I think… Oh… Heh… I think I may be in love.
In any case, I keep silent, pretend to ignore her back, but she doesn’t move away when I edge a little closer.
And so we walk together.
Our reunion is both joyful and painful.
There are so few of us left.
Sarai is looking better, even standing. But I know Fatima is dead (still, I’d hoped it was a mistake, but I don’t see her), as are so many others that I have known all my life. My family.
We all embrace in turn. Even Ambassador Murphy, even the Ghaddar, embrace everyone in their turn. Even the strange Unmaker is greeted like an old friend, as soon as Abbas introduces her and sings her praises.
And Terina: she’s vigorously thanked for bringing us back, and allows us to touch her for the first time, at least to grasp forearms. (Again, I catch her looking at me when I’m turned away.)
There’s a lot of laughter and smiles and tears all around. And stories, told breathlessly. (What is not told is the revelation that Yod remade our world all those years ago, remade our grandparents with new memories and new lives. I lock eyes with my father enough to understand: We must never speak of that.)
After a shared meal, we visit the still-fresh graves of our fallen family, reverently dug into the slopes of this far away mountain, surrounded by green life.
My father leads us in Salat, something we’ve been neglecting because of our adventures. We all bow facing west, facing home, and pray to the true God, submit to His will.
But in that ritual of faith my mind is invaded by Kuf, a flash of blasphemy: Should I be praying to God, or Yod? No. I shove the idea out of my mind, freshly angry. Yod is not God, only a manufactured approximation, another attempt by proud men to be more than what they are. No amount of power will change that.
I touch my forehead to the dirt and re-affirm my faith. Submit to His will.
After a brief shared meal, we must move. The day’s already getting late, the evening winds beginning to blow at our backs like a good omen, pushing us east.
Erickson Carter:
My brother has wandered off. Again.
This keeps me worried for him, for his safety as well as his mental health. He stills seems very detached from the world. Or, perhaps, just alternately attached to it.
In some ways he acts as if he’s still traumatized by what Yod showed him (what he apparently had already figured out on his own—Yod only confirmed his fears). Dazed. In shock. Crushed by the revelation of an intelligent force capable of literally unmaking and re-making the world, including us. But in other ways he seems almost reborn, like he’s looking at the world for the first time with new eyes, appreciating every detail of the physical environment.
Does the knowledge—whatever Yod showed him—somehow make it all more precious, because it could be undone again at any time? I can only see it as terrifying, and have no reason at all to trust Yod’s assurances that he won’t just do it again at a whim.
Either I’m managing to keep going because I’m in some form of denial, or on some level I realize I have no other good choice. Reality is as real and as constant as I’ve always known it, and the people who live in this world are apparently real people (however manipulated their lives may have been). And they need help. And I can help, maybe now better than I could before.
Besides, Yod isn’t the only threat that could end this world, and he might well be the most benign. So I need to deal with the malignant first: Asmodeus. And Earth.
Where did Elias go?
We’ve been walking west through the valley between the Pax mountain and the Spine. Dee says he’d come across devastated Pax settlements in the area, many killed and wounded, others likely hiding, unable to get to the relative safety of their Hold. I only hope we can do more for the living than the dead.
Besides my brother’s behavioral symptoms, my only other outer distraction is the way Lux has been looking at me, made worse by a distinct scent in the air of female sex.
“Ignore it,” Paul Stilson tells me discreetly, apparently understanding my distress from experience. “I’ve almost got her convinced we’re all asexual.”
And now I’m quite sure I’m blushing (much to Lux’s visible delight).
“Are you going to contact your father?” I distract myself with more practical concerns. “Tell him he was right?”
Stilson shrugs. “I haven’t decided. I don’t know whether the confirmation will allow our people to move forward again, or drive them into further shutdown. And I admit: I’m still more than a little frustrated with my father’s complete refusal to share his reasons for what he ordered, even though I think I understand it more.”
“I’m…” I try to put what I’ve been thinking into words. “I’m not sure it would make any difference if they knew. We’re still stuck with the same world, the same threats.”
“And one we can’t do anything about,” he focuses on the revelation, “a being that could remake the world out from under us.”
“Including us,” I go ahead and say, sharing that dread. It actually gets a chuckle out of him. “What?”
“I’ve been trying to understand Ram and the others, what it must be like for them: unable to trust who and what they are, knowing they’ve been manipulated by some scheming and untouchably powerful entity.”
“And now that applies to all of us,” I follow.
His mouth twists into a bitter smile.
There is so much I want to say to this man, have been wanting to say to him for a long time. But I walk with him in silence, sure I’ll sound like a blubbering sycophant as soon as I start singing his praises. I can only be happy that he seems to be accepting me into his company, as if he sees me as an equal, or at least worthy to be a part of his team of eccentric super humans. So I don’t ruin the moment with words.
Where is Elias?
I try something: I put my hand on my sword hilt, reach out with my mind. Making physical contact with the sword still only results in a vague feeling of warmth, and perhaps a subtle vibration through my glove. But then I feel Elias: to our right, maybe a hundred meters away, and up…
Through a gap in the trees, I see him. He’s climbing up the mountain, steadily but casually heading for the crest, diagonally so that he doesn’t fall too far behind. Stilson sees him, too, so needs no explanation when I peel off and start up-slope.
I think I know what he’s doing: Going for elevation, up out of the green, he can see over the valley, see all the way to the point in the Divide that seperates the North and Central Blades, below which is our White Station. But he’s still heading upwards, toward the crest, like he wants the best view, or maybe wants to see over the other side.
By the time I get up to the top, Elias has been there for a few minutes, and found himself a place to sit on a relatively flat rock. He does have a view from here all around, including across the valley to the north. It’s huge and beautiful—I can see the extent of the green, spreading from the south out into the main valley, where it thins to scrub again in the so-called Hot Zone.
Except it isn’t a radioactive waste. There’s a lake there. We just can’t see it. I try. I can’t. The distant Barrow and the hills of the Peninsula are bare and uninviting (and probably what read as the most toxic spots). Even the sky looks normal, no telltale disturbances in the dust haze drifting east, no clouds, nothing of that other world.
Elias looks my way just long enough to acknowledge my arrival, then goes back to staring into the illusion. There’s a slight smile on his lips, almost like he can see through it, see the hand of Yod. I pick a reasonably flat rock and sit down beside him—I have to shift my sword scabbard as I do. I settle awkwardly.
“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” I try, sharing the view.
“It was,” he agrees lazily. “Still is.”
“It’s still there,” I assume we’re talking about the same thing. “Just really well hidden. Can’t risk us mucking up paradise…”
He does
n’t respond, just keeps gazing across the valley with that vague grin. So we sit together, side-by-side.
“This is the first time I’ve been outside,” he mutters after a few minutes.
I nod. Then feel like I need to add:
“Hell of a first trip.”
He gives me a chuckle.
Carefully, I draw my sword, lay the blade across my knees, balanced in my palms. The pattern in the metal swirls almost imperceptibly slowly, the effect soothing, almost hypnotic. I feel nothing in particular, no urge, no rage, only vaguely hungry. Still.
I realize I’m not desiccating the sparse plant life I’m in contact with. I heft the blade and listen. If anything, I think I hear the word “ready” whispering in the back of my brain. But then perhaps I do feel something: a sense of contented otherness, hovering like a ghost behind that word “ready”.
“Everything seems to be under control,” I decide, though I’m really not sure.
“They really are very pretty things,” my brother assesses, looking at the sword.
“I think that’s the point.”
I turn, look back over my shoulder, back down the hill the way I came, and spot the rest of our odd party. They’ve stopped to wait for us. (Courtesy? Or still not confident that our swords are under control?)
“We should go,” I prod, getting uncomfortable, feeling like I’m holding them up from something important. I put my sword away (still without complaint), get to my feet, dust off my legs. Then I prompt my brother playfully: “You’re supposed to be keeping me out of trouble.”
He stands up somewhat reluctantly, like he doesn’t want to leave the view. He reaches absently into the satchel of supplies that Jane and Cal gave us, pulls out a piece of fruit, an apple, and hands it to me. Then he pulls out another for himself, and takes a bite from it like it’s the most delicious, perfect thing he’s ever tasted.
He savors it for a long moment, then he gives me a gentle slap on the shoulder plate with his free hand, and starts walking down hill, eating his apple with gusto.
“Let’s go see if we can find you some trouble.”
I take a bite out of my own apple as I follow him.
“Huh…”
It’s very sweet.
Jak Straker:
Rounding the eastern tip of the Spine takes us out of the evening winds. We’re in the shadow of the mountain, but Terina assures us we’ll make it before dark, before we need to shelter.
The massive box canyon that Katar sits in effectively bifurcates the eastern tip of the Spine, turning it into a two-pronged fork. It’s nearly five klicks deep into the range, though the side walls are lopsided, with the south wall being a few klicks longer than the north. Crest-to-crest, it’s about three and a half klicks wide, but only a klick wide down in the bottom, which slopes gently upwards until it hits the steeper slopes of its terminus, at which point it climbs sharply up to the main crest of the range. Most of either side wall is as high as the crest of the range, only descending to the valley floor very close to their end-points. So the Spine Range could just as well be called The Fork, assuming we’re talking about a fork with two long and somewhat curved prongs. A fork inside a fork.
Inside, it’s rich with greenery that climbs up nearly half the height of the steep rocky walls, thick and tall enough in the bowl to effectively hide a settlement in. This means there’s also plenty of food, but I don’t see obvious signs of foraging. In fact, except for our path in being somewhat packed down, I see no real sign of habitation, especially not by a sizable population. Assuming their only competitors—the Pax and Forge—know full well where they live, I have to wonder who they’re hiding from. (Unless they’re worried that their trails and any over-gathering would be detectable from orbit?)
There’s a sense of elation from everyone around me, the end of a long journey (and a costly, brutal one, if I can judge by their current numbers as compared to what they tell me they started with). Katar may be their salvation. But there’s also a healthy helping of apprehension. What if Terina isn’t as trustworthy as she appears? Or if she doesn’t have as much pull with her people as she thinks she does? Things may have changed since she left on her delegation to the Forge, given all the bot attacks, and the fact that she’s returning with exactly none of whatever party she left with, only and odd and rough-looking mix of strangers (and armed strangers at that).
Me, I’m thinking this would be a perfect place for an ambush. If we faced even a relatively small number of fighters with a terrain advantage here, I’m not sure any of these people would make it out of the canyon. (I would, I assume, given my new gifts. But would I bother to? Would I just give in to my sword, let it feed, perhaps slaughter an entire people to avenge my very recent friends?) (And what would Ram do to me if I did?)
Looking around, making eye contact with my new fellows as we walk, I realize I’m not the only one carrying such dark expectations. The Ghaddar. Ambassador Murphy. Rashid. Even young Ishmael (who’s clearly got a hook in him from the exotic creature who conspicuously walks so close to him).
If Abbas is wary, he’s good at not showing it, putting on the brave face for his people.
I find I’ve come to like them very quickly. I would absolutely fight for them, bleed for them (though that may not mean as much as it used to now).
But that only reminds me of the plight of my own people: Hundreds of them, at the mercy of Upworld, completely unaware of the new violence perpetrated against our brothers and sisters who are still hanging on to either the “hope” of Syan Chang or simply to home. (How many have died? Not knowing—being so far away—weighs on me with every step.)
What is it I’m hoping for? Ram’s bigger play, uniting the peoples of Mars against their mutual enemies, that we may face Earth with the strength of unity… Will that help the holdouts at Industry and Pioneer? Or will they all be dead in the ruins of our homes by the time we manage to rise, to defeat Asmodeus and give Upworld our terms from a position where we’re able to enforce them?
In this big valley I feel very small, just one sword against two worlds. (I expect I know what it feels like to be Mike Ram.)
“Katar…” Terina breaks the silence, and breaks away from Ishmael (though I see her hand give his a quick tug to follow her). She runs to the front of our group, making herself hopefully the first one seen as we step out of the taller-than-head-high growth and into a relative clearing. The clearing stretches to the base-slopes on either side, and is a good fifty meters across. In front of us is a steep rise of terraces, stacking up a few dozen meters, which I quickly realize is more than just a natural feature. It’s a defensive wall, a lot like the one protecting the Pax Hold Keep, except the only visible gap through it is very narrow (less than ten meters) and not straight—it appears to wind through the “wall” at angles. From here, it’s impossible to tell how long the passage is—we could just as well be looking at a plateau that stretches all the way back to the canyon terminus, which is still at least half a klick beyond.
Terina gestures for us to stay put, and steps further out in front of us. The thought flashes in my head that she may just be getting herself out of the firing line. That doubt gets reinforced and suddenly the terraces of the “wall” sprout well over a hundred archers, warriors in plate and scale armor painted with patterns of rust red and yellow ochre and green. Either they post forces like this on their perimeter habitually, have started doing so with the arrival of Asmodeus, or (very likely) saw us coming from well before we entered their valley. (Even seeing Terina with us, they may have assumed that she was our prisoner.)
Terina makes a series of broad hand gestures, then stands as if waiting for a reply. The archers don’t budge. But after the better part of a tense minute, there’s movement from the gap of the “gate”. And it’s very weird.
It’s a man, slim like she is and wearing the painted armor, carrying a weapon that looks like a curved sword on a pole, but he’s riding on something tall, something with four skinny legs. It’s
also covered in painted armor, but it isn’t until it gets closer that I realize it’s wearing it, not made of it. Where there isn’t metal, I see skin covered in fine short black hair. It’s alive. Another animal, taller than a man at the top of its long narrow head and slightly longer than that from nose to rear. The man is in some kind of seat strapped to the creature’s back, and the creature appears to tolerate the situation easily. As it stops in front of Terina, the creature makes a loud snorting sound through broad nostrils, and shakes it’s armored head as if in some kind of greeting. The warrior sitting on it doesn’t move, just looks us over with deep, dark eyes. He has the same red-dyed skin as Terina, with sharp lines and black hair and beard frosted gray under his helmet.
“Friends, father,” she greets him. “Brave warriors from the far west. They saved my life, saved me when the Black Clothes killed my party and took me prisoner. They seek shelter, a new home, because the Unmakers have come back, and have poisoned and attacked theirs. They are also enemies of the Black Clothes, and know how to fight their machines. They have made allies of the Pax and the Steel, and would ally with us…”
The warrior listens but doesn’t seem to react. But then he climbs down off his ride, steps past his daughter to face us. Abbas steps forward to greet him, flanked by Murphy and the Ghaddar. (I decide the better part of discretion is to hang back, given my metallic eyes and the Unmaker uniform.)
Abbas tells him who we are, what we want, what we offer. I see the warrior eye the swords they carry, the gifts of the Forge. Terina draws one of her gift daggers and hands it to him hilt-first. He looks it over, but doesn’t take it.
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 42
