Standing Between Earth and Heaven

by Douglas Milewski

  “I will not touch the bottle. I will not give it to you.” Altyn’s voice remained firm and simple.

  “Tinnie, you must take the bottle. You must give it to me. I don’t trust anyone else. If you give it to me, I know that I can trust you. I do not trust these others. There is no negotiating if you don’t do that. Will your friend die at our hands?”

  “I will not do so.”

  “I will go to the Malachite Emperor. I will get the Canyon Bridge opened up. People can leave this city and settle in his country. He has farms that are empty. Just take the bottle, and we can solve your problems.”

  “No.”

  “Is it gold? I know where a paymaster wagon hid its pay box. I’ve seen it in my visions. You can have it. That will solve the Ironmonger woes. Just take that bottle and give it to me.”

  Altyn squeezed Tavan’s arms. “The Red Lady never wanted the secret of steel. All the Red Lady wants is me, and I refuse. She wants me to be her Sybil and I refuse. She wants to reward me with a lifetime of ecstasy and pleasure, and I refuse. I know I may never feel pleasure again, but I know that those who I help do not feel misery. I will not sentence others to misery for my own pleasure.”

  Tavan trembled now. “Altyn, we can be together like we used to. Join me. We will be powerful. We can buy our way back home. We can buy a little place on the stern with a big balcony. We can dine there and watch this mud hole move under us. We will invite friends over for tiles or stories. And when you find a new tryst, I will take long walks and visit my family.”

  Tavan shuddered. Altyn opened her arms wide, allowing Tavan to fold in. Altyn spoke softly. “Stop showing off your discipline and hiding your pain. I know how you feel. You can’t wait for long.”

  “I need it. I need it. Give it to me, Tinnie. Anything. I can’t see. Please. I need it.”

  “I am helping you. I know a place where you can go. They helped me. They saved my life. I can do the same for you. I can save you from this fate.”

  Hope briefly rose in Tavan’s body, like a seed long forgotten in her soul. “I can’t.”

  “You can. I always looked after you. We are sisters. We are a trio. We fought and argued, but we never forgot each other. Let me take you to the Ammelites.”

  Tavan thought, then hesitated, then spoke. “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  Tavan relaxed, resting her taller head onto Altyn’s shoulder. They stood there for a while.

  The twister near the forge lifted from the ground, then dispersed. The heavenly winds ended.

  An “Ahem” came from behind them. Berk pointed his pistol at Zebra. “These negotiations bore me. What would you bargain for his life?” asked Berk.

  “Nothing,” replied Altyn. “Kill him if you will. He is a Schan. What do they care for life? He will only be reborn in fire. You ought to know that.”

  Berk swung his pistol back to Altyn. “We have your idol. Your idol for the secret of steel. I’ll even throw in the wind witch for free.”

  “I think that you misunderstand.”

  “What do I misunderstand?”

  “I already have the idol. Do you think I would put the real idol at risk when it was such a tempting target? Shame on your sloppiness. Berk, you are not who you purport to be. I believe that you are lying to us. You are no Malachite.”

  Berk thought for a long second, then threw down his gun and put his hands up. “I give up. Don’t hurt me. I’m a Farsund, a mutt. Just don’t hurt me.”

  Zebra freed himself of his inescapable bonds, then picked up the gun. He sniffed. “Like a virgin; neither flint nor powder have left traces of their manhood.”

  Berk shrugged. “We only had enough gunpowder for a few shots. Now, am I going to live or die?”

  Nothing in Hand

  The rain announced itself with a downpour. All dashed for refuge in a nearby shed. Their haste spared them the hail, which began slowly, but quickly grew to the size of stones, bringing the storm up to a deafening roar. And behind that roar, a continuous barrage of thunder deafened everyone.

  Each boom went through Maran’s head like a spike. The vines did their best to rip her skull apart. Maran sat down on one wall, holding her head in her hands, desperately picking at the vines, doing her best to dig them out of her skin. Sometimes she looked at what she had pulled out, but only saw her own bloody fingernails.

  No one spoke as they waited out the downpour. Berk sat down in another corner, waiting for his doom. He obviously expected betrayal.

  Altyn and Tavan entwined their arms about each other, surely as they had when they were schoolgirls. Tavan buried her head in Altyn’s shoulders.

  Zebra made a rude gesture to the clouds.

  Maran stuck her head into her arms and tried to cry? Try as she might, the tears would not come. Somehow, her heart had told her that those innocent people deserved those deaths. How could she think such terrible things? Where had her heart gone?

  Altyn looked to Berk. “Berk, you expect us to kill you. That is an incorrect conclusion. You should know that both Maran and Osei are pacifists. They are no danger to you. Myself, I have lost all love of vengeance.”

  Doubt played across Berk’s eyes. He only frowned.

  Altyn met his gaze. “Berk, tell us how you came to be here.”

  “It was her idea,” Berk said, pointing accusingly. “She’d blown most of our money on that new drug of hers. She got scary. I mean creepy scary. She got this new idea that she could steal the secret of steel, and then we would use that to get us onto Astrea. Once there, we could live comfortably off her parents. No more working. So, she had me hire some Flintlanders and we dressed up like Malachites. That way, after the deed, the Ironmongers would blame the wrong people and we’d get away.”

  “That sounds like a simple plan.”

  “It was, but she kept changing it. Mind you, I’m used to her changing her plans constantly, and everything usually works out, but this time it was worse than normal. I really don’t understand half of what we did. It seemed like nonsense.”

  “I think that we need to know more. How did you meet her?”

  Berk thought for a few moments, considering his options. Apparently, he chose to be truthful. “I was a butcher at a seaside town. One night, just after a storm, she fell out of the sky. She was terribly hurt. She had burns all over, especially on the face. Her eyes were gone. The locals thought her some sort of wounded angel or something, but they couldn’t stand to look at her. Since I was a butcher, and I was used to chopping things up, they had me take her in, so I took care of her and I made friends with her. To be honest, I wasn’t any good at taking care of her. All I could do was dope her up and hope for the best. She slowly got better on her own.

  “Then something funny happened. Folks started showing up to talk to the so-called angel. She would chat with them rather prettily, suggest what they might do in their lives, and they would go away feeling better, even though she often talked nonsense. They left money, too. Pretty soon, we were making more money than I earned as a butcher, so I started working for her.

  “Those were good years. As long as we kept some dope around, she did good. It was laudanum, mostly. Miss Tavan called herself the Gray Angel.”

  “Yes,” commented Altyn, “I heard about her. I always wanted to debunk her, but she never came our way.”

  “She never got any money from dwarves, so she just didn’t bother, and everyone knows that the refugees don’t have any money.

  “One day, some months back, Miss Tavan got ahold of a drug called Red Snake. Its energy counteracted the lethargy from the opium. It seemed like a miracle at first, bouncing her up, but then it slowly stopped working. She figured that she got used to it, so she figured out how to concentrate it. Next thing I know, she’s blowing all our money on Red Snake, concentrating it down, and getting the most mind-blowing visions.

  “That’s where things got scary. She was on that drug all the time. She yelled. She started getting sick a lot. I could see her going
downhill and I couldn’t stop her. It’s only because of potential riches that I even stayed. Once I got some money, I was walking out. I swore to every god that I was walking out.

  “You see, Miss Tavan got this idea that she wanted the secret of steel. With it, we would be able to go to Astrea and she could get her face fixed. I hired some Flintlanders and we disguised ourselves as Malachites, then we came to the city and things just got weird. Everything stopped making sense. First, she sold off lots of Red Snake. We made lots of money, but she didn’t care because the secret of steel was worth so much more. She let our hosts keep every penny, which was insane. Then she heard about you getting interested in our drug, so she had our hosts go kidnap you, except that they died, which she said fit into her plan, so inexplicably we paid for their bodies, stuffed birds into their mouths, and stuffed them under the house. Then she had us shoot randomly into crowds so that the crowd would think that Ironmongers did it, and then rise up and kill lots of Ironmongers. We would nip in and kidnap some steelworkers, but that didn’t work out.

  “Meanwhile, she got sick again and again. All her words turned to nonsense. After a few days, the sickness went away and she had a new plan. She wanted us to ambush a wagon and capture you. She just wasn’t making any sense. We did all these pointless things.”

  Maran had expected a more adventurous story from Berk. Yet, it now made sense. The featherheads had no good plan. The Flintlanders had no good plan. Tavan had no good plan. The only thing with a plan was the Red Lady, and her plan made no sense to Maran either. What was she missing?

  “Ma’am,” said Maran, “I thought that these Red Sybils were supposed to be extremely dangerous.”

  “They are, if you understand the Red Lady,” answered Altyn. “Tavan was always a poor choice for the Red Sybil, but she’s the tile that the Red Lady drew from the board. Her one and only job has been to find a new Red Sybil. She was nearly successful. Everything else that she did were just opportunities that showed up.”

  The rain had slowed now. The thunder now moved down the river. The worst of the storm had passed.

  Altyn leaned outside a bit to feel the rain, all the while still holding Tavan’s hand. She called down to the docks, “Osei, come here. We need to take your boat out onto the water. We need to make a safe place for Maran.”

  “Why?” asked Maran, not understanding Altyn at all.

  Altyn spoke. “There are two people beholden to the Red Lady. You need to free them.”

  “Who is the second person? You?”

  “No, Zarander, you are the other one. You have been since the moment you freed yourself. That was the Red Lady staging your freedom. You were there to tempt me, but failing that, you were to be her next sybil. You would make a powerful sybil, I think. You could tolerate the high drug doses far better than most humans and live far longer. Your cooking skills would be useful in making her drugs.”

  Anger welled up in Maran again. “You did me no favors!”

  Maran’s headache spiked noticeably worse. Deep pain filled her head now. She placed her hands over her eyes. The vines itched terribly. Her hands trembled as the vines fought her. All she could do was sway with the withdrawal.

  Altyn motioned with her arms. “Everyone, out to the boat. Osei, grab Maran. After you push us out onto the river, take Maran into your tent. I think she’s in a perception loop. Get her to look into a pan or something. You know how to do that. We’ll sit outside.”

  Osei helped Maran stand while the others walked to the boat. They stepped through the debris that now littered the docks. By the time that Maran stumbled aboard, Zebra had brought out a set of tiles and was busy clearing debris from the deck.

  “You’re going to be busy, Zarander,” said Altyn. “You need to free both yourself and Tavan. I expect that you will take a while. The Red Lady might still have operatives about, so I want to keep visitors to a minimum. I don’t know what would happen if someone disturbed you as you dreamed.”

  Osei freed the boat, letting it drift back into the foul river, now filled with all the runoff from the city. Wood drifted everywhere. A few corpses, or parts of corpses, floated there as well.

  “Come with me, Maran,” Osei said, opening his tent flap. Maran stood there for several moments, not quite sure if she should go inside. Once inside, Osei could easily kill her. He could take the boat down the river and sell her to pirates. Berk could sell her to the Malachites who would torture her. Going into that tent felt quite foolish.

  “Maran!” shouted Altyn. “Go into that tent right now!”

  Altyn’s yell startled Maran. Not quite sure what she had just been thinking about, Maran nodded, then walked inside. Osei followed and brought Altyn’s glass stick, setting it before a bowl of water. He gently touched Maran’s back. “Sit. Concentrate, my friend. Ignore the pain. You can do this. I know it is hard, but you can do this. Gaze into the water and free yourself.”

  “What will happen? Last time, we went to Endhaven.”

  “I don’t know that will happen. You should wind up somewhere else. Other than that, I do not know.”

  Still unsure of herself, Maran leaned over the bowl. She saw nothing in particular. Her head throbbed. Osei seemed to hover, hiding some sort of knife. Across the waters, Maran thought she heard a woman being raped and beaten.

  “Concentrate,” said Osei. “You are drifting. You must center yourself.”

  That tornado welled up from her memories. What if the Red Lady dropped another tornado? The image of that tornado dwelled in Maran’s eye. She could see every screaming victim rising up through the funnel, then being flung outward.

  “Breathe slowly,” said Osei.

  What had that strange woman said about breathing? Maran breathed in through her nose, felt her breath go through her belly, then out her mouth. She breathed this way again and again, feeling her insides grow hotter and hotter. Her trembling lessened. The headache receded a little. The vines withered from her. With the vines gone, she could now concentrate, and so the heat in her increased, driving back more vines. She breathed deeper and more fully from her belly, making herself hotter and hotter.

  Osei touched Maran, then pulled away his hand in surprise. Maran looked down at herself and saw her dress steaming from the heat that she generated.

  Maran now felt ready. She felt in control of herself again. Her mind felt freed.

  “I have not been myself,” Maran said. “I am sorry. I am here now. I am ready. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not coming back until it’s all done. I know that you will protect me and watch over me. You all will. There is no safer place for me than right here, right now. I now see that Altyn is wrong. We three are all wrapped up in this. We are three in all ways, and in all ways three. We are all sisters now, and I will make us all free. Wish me luck.”

  Osei smiled at her. “That is the Maran that I know.”

  Maran leaned over the bowl, letting herself drift free.

  Black Locust

  Inexplicably, Maran found herself looking at the box with the moving images. The screen now showed a complex pattern, in the middle of which was a man’s head wearing a feathered hat. All around him were black and white bars moving in each direction.

  The screen did not fascinate her any more. It was just a glowing screen.

  Looking around, Maran saw the mechanical man. It stood motionless now, leaning over, its arms dangling down. The lights inside it were dark now. Behind it, the only light came from the open ice box. An open pot sat in that ice box with a fan blowing across it. That pot seemed familiar, but Maran could not place it. Whatever was in it, Maran was sure that she never, ever wanted it.

  Unsure of who else was here, Maran peered out of the kitchen, but saw no goddess. The Red Lady was long gone. Part of the wall was gone as well. The stars shone down through the roof. Beyond the walls she saw the Steel City aglow, massive sections of it burning. No flames rose as high as her building, but they tried. Behind the flames, great lights shone upward,
illuminating circles across the sky.

  Where should she go now? Where could she find Tavan and free her? She would need help. She needed her dog.

  “Kepi!” she yelled, but her dog did not show up. She sat down in the oversized chair and waited, hoping that he dog would come.

  Kepi arrived with a jingle, pushing her face into Maran’s skirts. Maran responded by petting and kissing her favorite dog.

  “We have some work to do,” said Maran. “Let’s find the stairs.”

  After many flights of stairs down, Maran walked out into the Steel City. She was greeted by streetlights and starlight and the smell of burning buildings.

  Where to go? Tavan was out there, and she was guarded by featherheads. Maran needed help.

  “Kepi, can you find Justice?” Kepi jumped a bit, then dashed ahead, then came back several times.

  “I guess that you can. Go on. Lead.”

  Kepi guided Maran through the Steel City. As they walked, Maran viewed the battle’s damage first hand. Many blocks were simply destroyed, nothing left but empty foundations and bent pipes. It was as if some massive child had come through and stomped its toys into the ground so that no one else could play with them.

  In this destruction, while some people worked to rescue victims from the rubble, others looted. Riding about on two-wheeled vehicles, they smashed their way into buildings, carrying out what they wanted. Maran saw one woman hurl a brick through a glass window, then dash in. She emerged victoriously carrying a yellow jacket in one hand and a black and white striped dress in the other. Her compatriots hooted and hollered.

  A whoop-whoop sound warned the looters of oncoming trouble. As their enemies came near, they all hopped back onto their two-wheeled vehicles, whooped and hollered at the top of their lungs, then rode off down the street, like foxes before the hounds. Seconds later, with lights flashing on top, another vehicle slid around a corner, blaring its whoop-whoop noise from a strange horn on top of it. It roared down the street after the miscreants.