"Dad?" Marqisian asked.
He ruffled his son's hair, but didn't look down at him. Instead, he strode out onto the sky deck. He gripped the rail, and only seemed to recognize the thrum of pouring rain and the ardent aroma that belonged to the marsh. His mind wandered back northwest, and 490 years. The Dufontean Hills, where there was thick fog and drenching, dewy mists by day, and slabs of rain each night, was something he had spent an inconsolably long time away from. And he missed it.
He didn't react at all when Lellayla said his name. Except when she laid her hand on his wrist, as he was gripping the rail and leaning over it like he was nauseous, did he stop and recognize her.
"Sweetness, your face," she said. "You're whiter than death."
"I know," he said. "Lel, I'm homesick." He was on the verge of tears, and he didn't want to blink because that'd cause them to come down, but soon enough, they did anyway.
"Oh, no, no, no." She sat with him on a bench. "Konstaniah is your home, Arlen, you've lived here all your life."
He laughed, nervously. "Arlen is the name I picked for my birth certificate that I had ratified when I was twenty-four. Before then I was just Marqees, kindred of DuShaffte, forty-seventh born to a family of fifty-six, one of many in the clan. We lived in huts deep within the gaping caverns of the fissures in the Dufontean Hills, that's what we got our clan name from: Dufontean Shafteers, DuShaffte. I'm what we call 'Bog Fodder,' Lel.
"The sad thing about it all is that I never understood why my father, my grand father, great grand father, on and on back, for nearly thirteen generations, were exiled, until I got adventurous and found my dad, here, in the city. He called my mother a dead-beat, lecherous trollop, handed me the clan heirloom, and told me to go show it to her and find out why he felt the way he did. When I was thirty, did exactly that. I took six hundred fifty Konstanian Tefh with me, and tried to persuade her — them — that we could live well — better, even — in the city. That was the day I got exiled. I did some things, trying to figure out how to survive here; the city has no use for marshboys.
"When I was at my worst, I ran into Aylariun Konstanche, the very last of his kin — the last man of the clan that founded Konstaniah. And he recognized me as a Swamp Child. He took me under his wing, taught me everything I know about being more than just a Ganton, and then he gave me his position with the final words: 'Complacency is the white man's death sentence.' He returned to his clan's homeland sometime after that, where the swamp killed him.
"I don't think, in all my years since, I ever understood what he meant. Not until now."
Lellayla wove her fingers between his and clutched his hand in both of hers. It didn't sound good, everything that he told her. It was one thing to hear the sad tale of his exile from his previous life, but it was another to contemplate why he told her all this. Finally, she worked up enough courage to ask: "Why are you telling me this?"
Another nervous laugh, small, faint. He was pale as a white stone, and his scleras were bloodshot, stricken by morbid sadness. "Because I want you to remember me, Lel. Aylariun was homesick before he left, said that the swamp was 'calling' him."
"No, no." She snook her head. "No, Arlen, no. You're not going anywhere."
"Of course not, Lel. What am I going to do? Grow wings and jump off the sky deck? No."
A small bit of relief surfaced in her eyes.
"But you do make it sound as if I have a choice."
Livelihood marked the grand level. Inside the smooth, one-piece, all-around window that provided the exceptional view, two hundred eighteen guests, and a little over sixty children, were oblivious to Arlen and Lel's absence. Just as they were unconcerned about the four-hours-late chime of the central elevators, as one opened and a familiar, distraught face and equally high-pitched, upsetting voice nearly stumbled to the floor.
"Where is he!?" Sara pathetically pleaded, grabbing at the ankles of anyone who neared her. "Please!" Her cheeks were marred with the hot flow of salted tears. "You have to help me! H-he's doing something — he's did something — to me." She grabbed the hem of Ashabell's coat.
"Woman, are you daft?" Ashabell said, pushing her off of him with his foot and stepping out of her reach. "Get out of here —"
"No," she gasped. "He's the only one that can help me, please, find him for me, please!"
Arlen kissed Lel's hands.
"Tell me you're not mad," she said. "Tell me, please, that your mind is sound."
He stood up and laid his lips to her forehead. A gesture she knew from their early days, almost a century ago, shortly after they had met, when he began to have affection for her. "As sound as clear rain," he said, and drew his gun from the holster strapped to his thigh.
"Arlen," Lel's tone sharply rose. "Arlen!"
The doors to the sky deck opened, and the sound of her voice was drowned out from his ears. He did not hear her call his name a third time, a fourth time, repeatedly, as he strode, calmly, into the grand level. Neither did he hear the sound of music or the laughter of children playing games. It was the thrum of rain that filled his ears, and his stringy blond hair felt to him like it did back then; oily, wet, and plastered to his face. His stride was controlled, meticulous, as he slid his finger around the trigger, and raised the gun.
"Sara!" He called out.
She had just gotten to her feet, turned, and looked at him, when the hollow bang shattered the amenity of the evening. Guests screamed, scattered, ducked, and he stood over her. All the while Marqisian watched, stepping back, wreathed, in pure astonishment, as his father pushed the fallen, bled-out body of his mother onto her back with his foot.
She turned over and her arms flopped, limp. A gaping hole decorated the center of her chest, where parts of both her hearts were missing; smoking, jellied, jiggling wads of black-silver and darkened, coagulating crimson, shoved against the brushed steel of the elevator doors.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Arlen said, breaking the delicate silence. "My sincerest apologies that this shindig has come to a close sooner than planned. But if I may direct your attention to the east stairs, know that everyone will arrive safely at their designated vehicle in the parking garage." He popped out his gun's cylinder and checked the eight chambers. Seven hollow-point bullets, thick as a quarter is round, almost sung to him with their graphite-like sheen.
His ears were deaf to the outraged comments of parents and the distressed cries of children. There wasn't a word that passed the ringing in his ears. Not even Lel's, who was on her knees, clutching Marqisian. Then he looked at her; her reddened, panicky face. She was hysterical, screaming at the top of her lungs. He focused on her lips:
What have you done!?
What are you doing!?
He pushed the cylinder in place, and drew the hammer back. She defensively got between him and Marqisian, hovering over the boy, sobbing, her back to Arlen.
"Simple," he said. "I'm going to kill that bastard she's been with." He flipped his phone out of his rear pants pocket and tossed it to her. "You know what to do, Lel; no matter what, don't come after me."
The main power went out.
Even in the pitch black of Konstaniah's night, Lellayla could read the message on his face: the eerie grin, that said he had no plans to return. She kept screeching his name, but he was simply unable to respond. Then she tried something different:
"Marqees!"
'Marrr-qeeessss.~' He heard the distinct, rolling hiss of his mother's voice.
'Have you any idea what you have done? THIS was never meant for you, Marrr-qees.' He froze in her presence. Her beauty was timeless, even 484 years later, dressed tightly in the skins of ufidens tamed and bred to protect the clan; tall and slender, her long, golden locks an unkempt mess draping over her shoulders.
His eldest brother shoved the gun into his hands. And with a long, narrow, outstretched finger, his mother designated southeast. 'Go,' she seethed, 'and don't you ever —'
"— come back to me, hear?" Lel cried. "Marqees, Arlen, whoever y
ou are, come back, please. Don't do this — you don't have to do this."
He canted his head and narrowed his eyes, furrowed his brows. Now he couldn't say anything, not a word to comfort her. Because, really, she wouldn't understand.
The gears weren't locked, and he easily pulled the elevator shaft doors open.
"Marqees," she cried.
He glanced up-shaft, then down. The cabin was below him, and he dropped down into the shaft.
Of what good was calling security, she didn't know. Lellayla clutched Arlen's cell, her mind blank, just like Marqisian who stood there — wait, Marqisian.
"Marqi, Marqi." She rubbed his pale, shocked and awed face.
He blinked, and his gaze gradually began to focus on her.
"Are you okay?"
He shook his head. "What's with Dad…?"
"I — I'm not sure. Marqi, we need to get out of here."
"But…" He glanced past her at the open shaft doors. "But Dad."
"Marqi, you have to come with me."
"No, I'm not leaving him!" He started to push past her.
She cut him off, holding him in place, her hands on his shoulders. "Marqisian Aylariun DuShaffte, you listen to me!" She jolted him to attention. "Right now, your father is out of his mind. And I, being his wife and having known him since before you were born, know damn well, that he would want us to be safe. So, Marqi, I know you love your dad, but now is not the time to go chasing after his shadow. Let's go."
The emergency generators came on, and some of the lights flickered and whirred to life. Something disturbing caught her attention:
There was a black-silver blot that stained the carpet. Where was the body? Where was Sara?
The dimly lit corridors were unnaturally eerie. Even the up-tunnels, the walkway bridges encased in glass that connected one building to another, were foreboding. On a usual night one could look and see throngs of throngs of people using them as shortcuts from work, to the mall, to home, to whatever destination was next. But tonight the whole city seemed asleep.
Lellayla grabbed Marqisian's hand. She kept him close behind her, and he stared intently at the floor. Until she pulled him against the up-tunnel dockage wall, behind the door frame. He poked his head around her skirt as she peered into the hall.
The unmistakable brown locks of Sara's hair were up ahead. She hovered over a thrashing sentry. It was strange to watch, how he pushed, being bigger and stronger than her, and yet, despite his might, she was like a lead slab on top of him. Something pearly white jerked out of the hole in her chest.
He flailed, but couldn't throw the dead woman off. Even as his strength waned, he struggled. The pearl streams dribbled down onto his stomach and crept towards his face. He screamed.
Sara clasped her hand over his mouth. "It only takes a moment," she said, sweetly, as the streams lurched forth and bore into his eyes. After he went stiff, she crawled off of him and started down the hall.
Lellayla lunged at the sentry. She wrenched his gun from its holster on his hip, cocked it, and aimed it at the back of Sara's head. "That's a neat trick, getting your chest blown out and walking away from it."
Sara's eyes were solid magenta, except for her pupils, that appeared little more than holes leading into an eerie emptiness. She grinned and scoffed. "Your hands are shaking."
Lel couldn't steady her arms. "So?"
"You can't fire that gun." Sara stepped towards her.
Lel stepped back. "Don't think I won't."
Sara came closer.
Lel fired. Bits of brain and coagulated blood splattered on the walls, and Sara went tumbling onto the floor. Ten rounds, she counted, square between Sara's eyes. She sighed, shivered, and lowered the firearm.
Every door down the hall closed and hissed, sealed shut.
And somehow, she wasn't dead. Ten holes in Sara's intelligence-matter, and she laughed; bits of skull and jellied blood decorated the hall, and she rose stomach-first from the floor and got onto her feet, limber as a ragdoll.
Again, Lel raised the gun and pulled the trigger. It clicked, and the barrel smoked.
Sara's tongue snaked forth. "You just don't get it, do you? I am beyond guns," she sneered. "Maybe you should try swords, you know, hack me to pieces. I'd like something kinky like that. Or perhaps a tomahawk! I sometimes think my hair would look fine on you; I can barely resist a good scalping, you know."
"What are you, a zombie!?" Lel blurted.
Sara stopped and tapped her finger to her chin. "The Golden Rule of the Undead is that if you shoot one in the brain, it stays Dead-dead."
They stared at one another.
"So after ten bullets to my head, we can conclude that I'm not exactly undead." She glanced down at Marqisian. He stood firm, not clinging to or cowering behind Lellayla. In fact he looked upset, like he could punch Sara in the throat if she got down to where he could reach her.
"I wonder what all this is doing to Marqi's ten-year-old brain," Sara said, as she knelt down and ran her fingers through his auburn hair.
He balled his fists. "My dad is going to beam your head off."
"But of course he is," she giggled. "It's a shame you and I weren't closer. But it doesn't matter now. Yonathael wants you."
A sole door opened down the corridor, and within it a light came to life, spilling its luminance on the floor.
"Best not keep him waiting." She smiled.
Marqisian shoved her hand off of him and strode past her.
"Oh, and Lel," Sara said, as the Gantoness moved by. "You can thank him for your borrowed time."
"You snarky —" She turned around, and Sara was nowhere to be seen.
The boy stopped inside the lighted passageway. "Is this the part where you go 'no, this is a bad idea'?" Marqisian asked.
"Yes, Marqi, it is. But…"
The memory of Arlen's voice resounded throughout her mind:'But you do make it sound as if I have a choice.' It was another thing she didn't want to think about, how he sounded as if he was going to meet his fate. Her stomach sank, and her trunk went cold. Sara was merely the distraction. If that was even 'Sara' anymore. Her instincts were to look for a different way. But at the dockage, there was none. Not with every door being locked tight, and the consoles dead because of the power being out.
"But?" Marqisian asked.
She stepped into the light. "Never mind."
The door closed behind her. She didn't take hold of Marqisian as they continued in mirrored paces. Simply, they went on through each door that opened, and after each light that assured their way.
The electric hum of turbines drowned out his footfalls. Even so, Arlen stepped into the lighted gaze of those piercing golden irises; Yonathael was rigid, statuesque, indifferent, and eerily smug.
"I should've let you rot in that lizard's gullet," Arlen said. His hand instinctively moved to the holster on his thigh.
"Bit late for that." Yonathael ran his fingers through his hair. "Anything else you want to say to me before this is ended?"
"Why us," he asked, "what hatred do you have against all of us that you just show up and start wrecking everything?"
"It's nothing personal, you're just a means to an end." The furrowed-browed confusion on Arlen's face made Yonathael smile, as he watched Arlen's ire irrupt into his eyes.
In that moment he didn't bother to think where, Arlen just knew that there were seven bullets, and all of them were subsequently hurtling at Yonathael.
Except that at the twirl of Yonathael's staff, the bullets pinged, each one as it screamed towards him. He literally smacked them away, save for the last one. The air around the final bullet wobbled and distorted, as it came to a sluggish halt. It hovered, and Yonathael pursed his lips as he plucked it from its place. "One for the woman, seven for me. That makes eight rounds. So what are you to do now, hm? Resort to fisticuffs?"
Arlen gave Yonathael a sarcastic, arched-browed look, and held the trigger back. At half-pull, the gun's cylinder locked into place, and in the dark
of the gun's barrel there was a glow like hot coals. Finally, he pulled the trigger, and without so much as a click and a bang, a beam of unbridled energy violently burst forth from the mouth of the hand canon.
A half-second wasn't enough time to react. Yonathael screamed, although he ducked behind a generator, cradling his arm where his remaining flesh was smoldering; a chunk of him was seared clean off. Neither did he have time to sit and gather his senses. The faintest whirr betrayed that the gun was charged, and when that whirr heightened its pitch, the thing was spewing energy.
He clutched his staff and vaulted right. A half-second to react, three and a half seconds to recharge.
And Arlen didn't rightly care if every generator in the wing turned into volatile gasses. When Yonathael ducked right, he fired ahead of him, then behind him, trapping him in the middle. He kept the barrel of his gun dead center, level with the floor, as he strode, preeminently, towards what remained of a large transistor. The way he envisioned it was simple and purely satisfying:
An Elegy of Fate Page 11
