by Anna Silver
Kim looked liberated. He was leaving the traditionalist trappings of his Korean family behind. No more rules about who he could date or what he could or couldn’t eat. His parents were eternally terrified that too much of certain foods, like Jell-O, would water down his Korean-ness. Out here, none of that mattered. Purebred or mongrel. The dogs would eat you just the same.
Zen sheltered his stormy eyes beneath a hand. He kept searching woefully along the road for some sign of Avery. But the Ten only returned the same empty gray space again and again. London imagined she could see that grayness infiltrating his eyes and filling him up inside. She didn’t know if Avery ever returned his feelings in private or not. She wasn’t sure it mattered to Zen either way. He was his parents’ second child, something usually unheard of. But Zen’s folks got another baby license after his sister died. You wouldn’t know by looking, but he was a real momma’s boy. He didn’t have the inward steel to get over his first love easily.
London looked away from them. Let her vision swim with the green mess clotting the Houselands to either side. She brought them here. Got every one of them involved in this. The dreams were hers first. They spread like a contagious infection from one person to the next. Now, they were killing them one-by-one. Maybe leaving the city was the right thing whether they found Avery or not, survived or not. A self-imposed quarantine. Out here, there would be fewer they could infect. Still, it seemed all too easy to London, the leaving. She squinted in the sun and imagined she could feel the city fall away behind her, its magnetic pull growing dim at her back. They were at the mercy of the Outroads now.
~
That first night on the Ten was rough.
They’d walked for miles. Even with all the cigarette breaks and rest stops, London’s feet were swollen and blistered inside her heavy boots. Her heels ached like giant bruises, each step reverberating with pain. Her calves were tight with cramping. Her left arm throbbed with every step, but she couldn’t pull up her sleeve to look at it. She didn’t want the others to see the cut. She didn’t want to remind Rye of how pathetic she had been.
As the day progressed, they’d watched the scenery around them devolve from a teeming urban center to a graveyard of human habitation and sheer abandonment. Buildings morphed from the crowded spectacle of City Central, to reclaimed shells that were clawing for the light, to flat slab ruins where the wooden flesh had been eaten alive by encroaching wilderness.
Nature was a dissonant beauty.
At first, London looked on every tile, every shard of glass, every rusting girder as a museum exhibit. Imagining how it might have been once, whole, living. Then picturing the slow destruction of it all as the people receded behind the walls, abandoning more and more of their creation.
Before the migrations began, people were angry. They tried to stand their ground, rioting in the streets, turning on one another like animals. Many left their homes and businesses begrudgingly or not at all. Those who stayed were said to have been locked out to starve or perish at the hands of the Protestors, rioters who, in their outrage, set fires that wiped out large chunks of the Houselands. Only to be vilified in the Tycoons’ smear campaign, used as fear propaganda to draw stragglers deeper into the city walls. Eventually attitudes changed. The Protestors became the enemy. The Tycoons became the heroes, and people fled to the walls instead of from them, believing they were running to safety and away from danger. Some came too late, finding the gates locked, the Tycoon’s mercy and patience run out.
That was ages ago now. Her mother’s mother’s mother had been born inside the walls. They knew that for sure. Everything before that was a mystery.
London considered how ineffective the Interstate Gates really were. Anyone could get in or out if they wanted. The thing was, no one wanted to. Everyone out had come in already, with the exception of crazy Outroader gangs like the one they’d seen in the tunnels. But Outroaders were thought of like ghosts, more myth than reality. And no one in their right mind intended to leave the protection of the city. The Houselands were a terrifying, unpredictable place. The wilderness beyond was a land of madness and chaos. The walls and the gates established order in an uncontrollable world. Their purpose was more psychological than anything. The real barricades had been fortified in the people’s minds. The Tycoons built their walls with propaganda, not concrete.
As dusk settled, they ducked off the Ten into the remains of an old fueling station, a three wall cinderblock shack with a roof of creeping kudzu vines. The front façade was gone and what remained had no windows. Slab and a few brown tiles were all that lingered of the floor. Strange metal poles stuck up from the ground out front, no longer the proud bearers of whatever they’d once held high. It was a despondent place, but it was better than the open road, where animals could come at any angle during the night.
They built a little fire near a corner and sat around it now, lost in thought, chewing on Zen’s beef jerky. London’s stomach growled, and she tipped back a foil pack of dehydrated stew, piling the powdery flakes on her tongue and swilling a mouthful of water to reconstitute it. She didn’t really have any weight to lose. They needed to find these Outroaders and get Avery before their supplies ran out. The Outroaders would know how to survive on more than beef jerky, Dehydrated Dinner, and bourbon bottles full of water.
London lit a cigarette, her first since a lunch of hot dog buns and canned sausages. “The breathing’s better out here, isn’t it?”
“Seems like it,” Zen agreed.
“It doesn’t reek like City Central,” London added. She noted how the stink of the city grew in her memory beyond what she’d noticed when she was actually there.
“Less people. More trees. My mom always said trees clean the air,” Zen said.
London stared at the silhouette of antiquated fuel pumps outside, their bases surrounded by tall weeds pushing through cracks in the drive. Their hoses and nozzles ripped away by Protestors or Scrappers. “How do the Tycoons get their gas if all these old fueling stations are neglected and useless?”
“Dunno.” Kim scratched his nose. “Maybe they just put it in before they leave.”
“I guess,” she sighed.
“There aren’t any stations inside the city either,” Zen added. “They must be able to store a lot of that stuff.”
“Maybe they don’t use that much. Maybe they don’t have to drive that far,” Kim suggested. He didn’t seem concerned.
London noticed Rye was wandering along the far wall, studying it with an interest bordering on creepy. “What’re you doing over there?” she called.
“You can see where they set them,” Rye said cryptically. He traced his finger along some blurry black marks just visible in the firelight.
“Who? What?” Kim asked.
“The fires,” Rye answered. “These are scorch marks from where the Protestors set the fires.”
“How do you know?” asked London.
“You heard of any Houseland fires around Capital City since the migrations? Where else would these come from?”
London shrugged.
Everyone was quiet for a time before Rye came and sat down, and Zen finally asked what was weighing on all their minds. “You really think Avery came this way? You think she was here?”
They looked at one another across the flames, uncertain.
“I don’t know,” London answered honestly. She knew they were all beginning to doubt the likelihood of it. It was scary on the Outroads. Even on the Ten. The Houselands were overgrown and full of unknowns. Cracked and barren streets disappeared under dark, forested awnings. Car frames disintegrated where they sat; sometimes only their roofs were visible above the foliage, anything could be hiding in there. Peculiar, unrecognizable things were scattered on open pavement. The ones they could identify were even creepier. An overturned child’s metal desk, a shattered plaster bust. The ghosts of a pre-Crisis past were littered all around them. Now London knew why people whispered that the Houselands were haunted.
&nbs
p; The dark brought blindness. It was an Energy Crisis after all, couldn’t feed electricity to a ghost town. The streetlamps that were still standing stood frozen in their disuse. Their lights shattered or fogged over like cataracts. The sky was so crowded with stars, it induced vertigo. The blinking ones were said to be manmade. They could come crashing down at any moment. It was hard to imagine that the same people who could hang stars in the sky couldn’t invent an infinite energy to avert the Crisis.
Then there were the noises. Bangs and clangs echoed from empty buildings through the deserted streets as they passed. London kept telling herself they were just animals. But she imagined the corpses of Protestors rattling in their unhappy graves, ready to drag down anyone who dared disturb their rest. And the insects reached a deafening pitch out here, a symphony of croaks and whirs and buzzes. Once, they heard a yip off in the distance followed by a long cry. That nearly sent them running back for the gates.
Oddly enough, the one comfort London had out here was her Otherborn. Memories of shadows and smells and noises that weren’t so different from these had haunted her dreams for the last year. For Si’dah, wilderness was home.
But Avery was nothing like Si’dah, and who knew what kind of Otherborn memories she had. London wondered if she would really set out among all this alone? If she did, Avery had probably died of fright by now or been carried off by dogs.
“We haven’t seen any evidence of her,” Kim finally said. “Nothing to indicate she came this way.”
Zen looked sullen. He’d expected more. They all did. “She wouldn’t do this, leave without telling anyone, not even a note,” he finally said. “That’s just not like her.”
“Then that means…” Rye started, the horror of the inevitable hanging between them all.
London groaned. She had to keep their spirits up even if it was for nothing. “Well, we haven’t seen evidence of the Outroaders either, but we know they’re out here somewhere,” she said with determination.
“Do we?” Rye asked, but no one answered.
Another yip, like the one they heard earlier, split the silence. It wasn’t close, but it wasn’t far enough for London’s taste. It was followed by a second then a third. Eventually, a chorus of yips sprung up in the dark, broken only by the low, mournful wails that followed.
“Dogs,” Kim mouthed.
“A hunting party,” Zen whispered. “Too far to scent us, I think.”
“How would you know?” London asked, full of fear.
“Avery. She knew a lot about dogs. She was convinced Maltese was the descendant of some pre-Crisis breed she’d read about.”
The yowls grew faint then loud again, as though the animals were weaving farther then nearer, farther then nearer, through the ruin of the Houselands.
“What are they doing?” Kim asked. “Why make all that noise?”
“It’s how they communicate,” Zen said. “They hunt as a pack.”
The four of them didn’t talk anymore after that. They fell asleep listening to the sound of dogs hunting in the night.
NINE
The Midplane
Si’dah pushed herself to rise from the mat and face the darkness. It was an effort only because her will was weakened by fear, a feeling she had not known for a long time. She rubbed the soft pads of her fingers against her obsidian eyes and blinked. There may not be much time. She needed to hurry.
As always, the darkness was all encompassing in the beginning. Every step could be your last, but she’d traveled this canal with confidence for many ages. She trusted in the sureness of her slender feet as they grasped at the moist, invisible earth beneath them. A Traveler never stumbles. These were the words her mentor had pounded into her again and again since childhood, when her name was still Anya.
She could recall with perfect clarity the trembling, ancient voice of her mentor, the Si’dah who came before her, as she clicked her tongue and chastised, “Trust your eyes, silly girl! Only a Traveler has eyes for the darkness. Do not be afraid. Trust your eyes.”
But that was many lifetimes ago. That Si’dah passed with the wind and rested now upon the Highplane, where Anya had not been for quite some time. Traveling was never easy, but the highest plane was very far and difficult to reach. It exhausted her to try. So it was a task she reserved only for the most important matters, when the counsel of her mentor alone would do.
She’d not required this since the Circle had asked the Great Sacrifice of her.
Si’dah relaxed a little as the point of light appeared in the distance. She knew, as she knew her eyes were black and her heart was pure, that point would grow as it always did, lighting the way.
Her breathing slowed, but her pace remained. If she pushed through the light, she might be able to hold off the fear. She could not afford to fail again. It was hard to master both wills at once, so much harder than she’d realized it would be. Within each was planted the seed of the Other.
The light reached almost to her feet now, and she could see the soft, rippling walls rise around her where they met over her head. She put out a hand and allowed her fingers to trace three lines there in the glowing earth, one for each plane.
The warmth penetrated her thoughts and swelled in the canal around her like liquid. The sensation was a comfort, at first, one a Traveler learned to love. It would grow disconcerting before she pushed through, but never painful.
Each step drew them together, Si’dah and the light. It was hard to say which was approaching which. As a child, she’d always thought she ran to the light, and she’d told her mentor this very fact.
“Don’t be so sure, Anya,” her mentor would chide. “How do you know the light is not running to you?”
In time, she’d come to see that the truth was likely a little bit of both. Experience brought all to the balance.
Now, the light wrapped its glowing tentacles around her in an embrace of molten energy. Si’dah desired this embrace over that of any man, as had her mentor before her, and the one before that, and so on. Among her people, the Travelers were always women. They gave away their right to love or mother as surely as they gave away the light eyes of their race. Instead, they were gifted with the black eyes of one born to move between worlds, to see in the deepest dark and the brightest light and everything in between. It was a small price to pay for the privilege of guiding their people and holding the balance. Because of it, black was considered the holiest color among their kind.
When the light consumed her utterly, washing away the dark earth of the canal, pulsing through every pore in her skin and filling up her insides like a wineskin, Si’dah knew the moment had come. This was where many Travelers faltered. This was where they failed to push through. The darkness was always the hardest at first, but in the end, the light often succeeded where the darkness failed. In the space between, there was comfort, security, peace, understanding. There was sight. The intensity of the farthest points on the spectrum brought confusion, fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Most of all, they brought blindness. Si’dah had to learn to overcome this, by holding the space between within herself. By trusting in her eyes.
At once, Si’dah and the light collided, enmeshed, became one then separated again. As quickly as it had come, it passed. She looked down to see her slender, bare feet resting squarely on the green earth of the Midplane.
She’d made it.
Pleased to the point of near exuberance, she strode confidently forward. This had been a hard journey. The familiar sites and sensations of the Midplane were an abundant reward to her. She missed this place. Had nearly forgotten how much. It felt good to be back.
The grove waited on the horizon. It seemed a very great distance, but Si’dah was not concerned. The Midplane played tricks with space and time. Si’dah had come to see these like a game, a cheeky interplay between herself and the Astral. She, like most Travelers, knew that the Astral was more person than place, more being than thing. It was alive and it breathed life into those who knew it, loved it as she di
d. The games, the tricks, were an affectionate gesture. As though the Astral were saying, Welcome back!
Si’dah smiled in spite of herself, in spite of the weight of her errand. I’ve missed you, too, she replied, not needing to speak the words aloud to know the Astral heard.
In that moment, the grove appeared suddenly before her, the horizon a vacant line that, in reality, didn’t exist. A ring of nine trees rose proudly from the green Midplane, their tops vanishing into the mist that separated this plane from the one where mentors, like her own, went to rest. Si’dah stepped between the trees with a pounding heart. The fear was back despite the victory of coming this far. It clouded her mind and eyes, and she could not remember what she would see inside the grove so long as the fear hung over her. But she would not give up. Too much of her held strong here, and the Midplane rose up to support her. The Other was fighting, but she had not won yet.
The stillness she had known outside the grove was replaced with the humming of many voices speaking at a low volume inside. Her vision cleared a little, and she looked around to see a gathering of beings, who were talking amongst themselves, some with the aid of their mouths, some without. One needn’t speak to be heard here.
A circle of nine stones were positioned in the center of the grove. Upon four of these sat four people, side-by-side, who Si’dah only vaguely remembered. Members of the Circle. Everyone else stood milling around the outside. The person seated farthest to the right looked up and met Si’dah’s gaze. It was the one her Other knew to be Degan.
“London, we’re glad to see you’ve returned.” He spoke with his mouth, and, at once, all around them fell silent and turned to look at her.
London. Si’dah knew this to be the name of her Other. Her name as the Other. She bowed her head respectfully.
When she raised it, Degan was looking to her right, where another figure had stepped through two of the trees. At first, Si’dah had trouble making the figure out. Her heart continued to pound and fear was clouding her sight. Her Other was very afraid. In a few moments though, her vision cleared, and she saw now that the figure was quite tall, like herself, only not as lean. He towered on two strong, bent legs beneath a thin, hooded cloak of luminescent blue. He looked at her, and Si’dah saw his face for the first time—only, it wasn’t the first time, was it?
