by Alex Leopold
“She's waking up, Cavan!” Another voice spoke up, as squeaky and small as a mouse’s; so tiny in fact you could barely tell if it was a boy or a girl.
“Her eyes are opening.” Another child added in wonderment. Even though she couldn't yet see, Cooper could feel them pressing in from every side to take a closer look.
“Quick, somebody say something.” A young boy whispered urgently.
There was an uncertain pause during which all Cooper could hear was the sound of over a dozen children breathing heavily. Then the young teenage boy spoke again.
“Pepper?”
Lit poorly by a distant electric light, she could barely make out his features beyond the fact that he was definitely no older than fifteen; the face of a boy slowly growing into his adult self. As he watched her, his tongue slid out nervously to wet his bottom lip.
“No.” Cooper replied groggily and, the moment she spoke, she knew her voice was not her own.
“I think it worked.” The boy said to the others immediate delight.
“Ask her what her name is?” The small squeaky voice from before piped up.
“Why don't you ask her what her name is, Lillit?” A boy said.
“My name is Cooper.” She replied getting used to her new voice. “Where… Where am I?”
“That's what we want you to find out.” Lillit said.
“We're running out of time, we're going to lose her.” The girl, Kala, interrupted.
She was on Cooper's left. When Cooper turned to look at her, she found a pretty girl, of fifteen or so, with dark skin and wild hair. She looked back at Cooper with a trusting smile.
Suddenly, there was an outburst of chatter as all the children began whispering loudly until Kala silenced them all.
“We agreed that Cavan would speak for us.” She said.
The teen boy in front of her quickly nodded and looked directly at Cooper.
“My name is Cavan. We don't know who you are, but my father, Tipler, helped you. He trusted you. So, we are trusting you as well and asking you to help us.”
“Help you with what, I don't.”
Kala cut her off. “You've got a matter of seconds, Cavan!”
“Just listen!” He said gripping her wrists. “There are twenty of us down here.”
“We're just kids!” The girl Lillit squeaked.
Cavan nodded. “The Directory took us from our parents, and they're using our abilities to locate something for them.”
“Not something, a weapon!” A boy of Cavan’s age interrupted. It caused some of the younger children to excitedly jump in.
“Tell them about Valaris.”
“And the Mountain.”
More shushing.
Cavan began again. “You can't let the Directory succeed. You have to come find us and rescue us before it's too late.”
Everyone in the room agreed, 'yes, come rescue us' some of the younger children called out.
“We don't know where we are. All we know is that the Directory call this place the Invisible Mountain and it’s run by a man called Valaris.”
“Valaris.” The younger children repeated.
That sounded familiar to Cooper. It sounded like something from Nakano’s notebook.
“She's about to go.” Kala said, then added hurriedly. “Don’t forget about Malthus.”
“Oh, yes.” Cavan replied gratefully. “Your father sent you to a man named, Malthus. He’s in trouble. Someone is going to kill him. Go to the horse barn and stop them. Do you understand?”
“Malthus.” She remembered, even though her mind felt like it was tied up in knots. “The resistance fighter.”
“Help him, then come find us.”
“In the Invisible Mountain.” She managed though her tongue was starting to feel slack in her mouth.
“That’s right. Run by a man called, Valaris. Promise me, you’ll come?” Cavan demanded.
He shook her hand as Cooper felt herself drifting back into the depths of her mind.
“Promise me!” He added with more force.
“I… I promise.” She said as her vision darkened.
“Come find us. So we can give you the weapon.”
65
Malthus was punched in the face and thrown into an empty horse stall. In his dazed state he only had time to confirm that none of his teeth had been knocked loose, before he was dragged out by his boots.
“Go easy on me ladies.” He grunted stiffly after spitting out a loose strand of hay. “We’re still getting to know each other.”
The man with the long grey beard and the scaley ignored him and wrestled him up against a barn wall. Then they began to search Malthus’ clothes, only stopping when they found the string purse hidden in a secret pocket of his coat. It contained his winnings.
“Time to beg for your life.” The man with the long grey beard suggested as he gave a signal to his female ratty companion to finish him off with the pistol in her hand.
Malthus made a flippant face. “I’ve never been one for begging, so you’d better get on with it.”
The ratty found this amusing enough that she smiled, displaying the long sharp incisors at the front of her mouth. Then she cocked her pistol.
“Spark!”
A female voice shouted and a lightning bolt crashed into the ratty woman. Malthus watched as the blue flame drove her into the side of the barn. The girl quickly repeated herself, and twice more the electric bolt appeared. It hit the man with the grey beard and then the scaley.
Next thing Malthus knew, a scared young woman with short dark hair and a bloodied face was standing in front of him.
“Are you Malthus?” She demanded as she stood over the three writhing bodies.
She gripped his coat with both hands and, when he didn’t respond quickly, she shook him aggressively.
“Well?”
She was panting hard. Her eyes were wild. She looked terrified.
“I️ am.” He nodded.
Immediately, she began peppering him with questions.
“Where are the rest of your men? Are we in Hellanta? Is one of your men a doctor? My father is hurt, he needs help right now.”
“My men?” He asked confused.
“Yes, the resistance. Where are they? How many men do you have? We need your help, and then we need to find these children in a mountain. But first the doctor. Where is your best doctor?”
“Doctor?”
Malthus could barely keep up. The last few minutes had been a blur to him that had ended only when he was attacked by the two men now at his feet.
“Yes, a doctor! A bloody medicine man!” She said with impatient incredulity. “Do you have one?”
It was beyond his comprehension at that moment to even guess at what this girl was talking to him about. He couldn’t even explain how one second he’d been playing cards in the carriage-house, the next he was trapped in a rolling wall of water that swept him out into the night.
“Why would I have a doctor?” He asked baffled.
It made the girl look at him in astonished disbelief.
“You are Malthus, right?” She sounded like she thought he was playing a practical joke on her.
“Yes, but … Am I supposed to know you?”
“No, but you know my father. His name is, Quill. You were in the Army of the Torchbearers together. Do you remember him?”
Of course he did. And with the mention of Quills’ name, Malthus suddenly remembered what happened in the carriage-house.
“You made a promise.” Quill had tapped as he’d entered Malthus’ head through the connection and tied the two of them together. “I’ve returned so you can honor it.”
“Answer me!” She shouted impatiently, as if he weren’t aware of her urgency.
“You’re his daughter, aren't you?” Was all he could manage as he suddenly saw the reflection of Kitt in her face.
“Cooper?” A husky female voice called from the barn’s entrance, and the girl’s head jerked around to me
et it.
Malthus was startled to find a Sekhem illuminated by a gas lamp hanging from a hook above her head. Like the girl, she was bloodied and her clothes covered in smoke. Yet, her cat-like face was neutral.
“I️ need you to go back to the carriage-house, the others are looking for you.” She said pointing to the larger building across a gravel path.
Her tone was neutral, but Malthus detected an element of foreboding in her voice. The girl – Cooper – heard it too, and her features turned grave.
“Is it father?” She asked.
“Please, go now.” Was all the Sekhem would say.
Before Cooper took off into the night, she quickly whispered something into the feline-blend’s ear.
“Don’t kill him.” She said aloud after taking a final look at Malthus, then left him alone with the assassin.
“That’s good advice.” He said, almost gulping.
To be left alone with a Sekhem was not something to be taken lightly, especially when their fighting staff was telescoped.
“The girl says, her father sent us to you.” She said, and her large circular eyes didn’t so much as blink as she watched him intently.
“I️ know. “ He said hurriedly. “Quill used the connection to portal you to me.”
Not knowing what else to do, he held up the hand Quill had reached for in order to complete the bridge.
“Felt like he made me pull a whole damn mountain here.” He added with a chuckle, trying to diffuse the tension.
Her expression didn’t change.
“I am responsible for protecting the lives of a good man’s daughters. And something about you gives me pause. So let me ask you, are you a good man?”
“Not as good a man as Quill.” He replied honestly. “But, he trusted me enough to bring you to me. Probably because I️ told him once, if he ever needed my help he only had to ask. And I meant it.”
Malthus shrugged. “Hopefully that’s enough for you.”
The Sekhem didn’t move as she judged his answer, then she said.
“Follow me.”
It wasn’t a request.
66
“Do something!” Malthus heard the girl whine as the Sekhem led him back into the carriage-house.
“There’s nothing to be done, Cooper. He’s gone.”
“But he promised! He said, he’d never leave me.”
She was talking to a large ursinian who Malthus instantly recognized. It was Acadia; a little older, a lot grayer, but it was him. It made sense the grizzly would be with Kitt’s daughters. He’d been the Elder’s guard and her shadow during the days of the Torchbearers.
“I'm so sorry.” Acadia mumbled, apologizing to the girl, named Cooper. Then he tried to reach for her, but she smacked his hand away.
“Not good enough!” She snapped at him before burying her head in the chest of a man who was lying flat on the countertop of the bar.
The man’s body was stripped down to the waist. His torso was pale in color, almost ghoulishly grey. Where the skin wasn’t covered in painful burns it looked almost pruned, as if it had been unnaturally aged; sucked dry by time. It made Malthus think of the stories he’d heard about how the bodies of the Archon’s victims looked after he’d hacked them. Nothing but husks of their former selves.
This man had died in a cruel fashion, of that Malthus had no doubt, and just from his profile he knew it was Quill.
He’s dead, Malthus thought. His old friend was gone.
While Cooper sobbed into her father’s chest, the Sekhem took her place behind Acadia and whispered in his ear. There was an intimacy to it that suggested the relationship between the two of them was beyond platonic.
She’d spoken but two words when Acadia’s eyes shot up to meet his, and Malthus suddenly felt the bullet-shaped scar in his back pinch. For a brief moment, he feared the ursinian had a mind to cross the floor and tear him into two pieces. Then Cooper was speaking again.
“You said this was going to work.” She said sharply, her venom now directed toward a dirty-faced, blonde-haired girl standing nearby. Malthus had heard a rumor Kitt had been pregnant with twins, now he could see it was true. Aside from their hair, they were identical.
“It should’ve. I don’t …” The blonde-haired girl’s face was creased with sadness. “I don't know what happened.”
“What happened was you got it wrong!” Cooper raged as hot tears burnt her cheeks.
“The prophecy, Nakano’s visions”, her head made a flippant gesture toward the other dead body laid out on the bar. “You thought they spoke to you, that you understood them. But you never did.”
The girl with blonde-hair nodded at this. She admitted to her guilt. “I thought I did, it’s just…”
“It’s just your ‘boyfriend’ turned out to be a god-damn Myrmidon!” Cooper erupted, her face red with rage as she shouted down the bar.
“I never should have kept your secret.” She added bitterly. “If I’d told father about Varick, he’d still be alive.”
The revelation caught everyone by surprise and they turned to face the blonde-haired girl.
“What is she talking about, Riley?” Acadia asked, trying to keep his voice quiet and even through his confusion.
She didn’t answer. She just stood there looking mortified, her body shrinking into itself under their gaze.
“Oh that’s right, you don’t know.” Cooper said tartly with a conceited snort. “Remember when Riley told you she’d seen a vision of our escape? Well, there was another part to it she kept to herself. It was of a boy named, Varick. She thought he was with the resistance. That he was going to magically appear to help us.”
Malthus watched as Riley’s tear filled eyes met with Cooper’s and silently pleaded with her to stop. She didn’t.
“Turns out this ‘Varick’ was the Myrmidon who shot father.” Cooper seethed and Malthus watched as her sister crumbled in front of them.
“Your whole plan was wrong.” Cooper added accusingly.
“That’s enough.” The ursinian finally said glowering at her.
“Don't you see, she caused this!” A hysterical Cooper argued, not hiding her disgust even as the grizzly again told her to stop.
“No, you caused this.” Riley snapped back. “You were the one who ran.”
“What?” Her sister replied.
“Everything that happened after the warehouse, happened because you disobeyed father and ran.”
Unlike her sister, Riley did not shout. Yet, within her hushed tone there was a menace far more deadly than anything Cooper could invoke.
“You created this mess”, she said continuing. “We were just trying to clean it up. Like we always have to do.”
“I wasn’t the one who said we should go to Harvardtown.” Cooper shot back.
“No, you said we should stand and fight the Myrmidons. Which means we’d all be dead by now.” Riley argued.
“At least I didn't lie, at least…”
The sound of glass crashing to the floor interrupted her train of thought. Cooper’s piercing stare shifted from her sister to where Malthus was seated.
“You don't have time for this little squabble, but please continue.” Malthus said frankly as he poured what remained in an abandoned bottle of strong white spirit into a broken glass.
When the bottle was empty, he tossed it over his shoulder and gulped down the liquid.
“My god, the stuff in this joint is terrible.” He said coughing into his hand. “You should try it.”
“Who’s this comedian?” Asked the young man standing next to Cooper.
Malthus noted he was half-dressed in a Irenic’s uniform.
“This is Malthus.” A cold Acadia replied matter-of-factly, as if the answer had been obvious. Then he motioned to the dead woman on the bar.
“She says you’re with the resistance.” The grizzly said, addressing Malthus. “That’s why we’re here, why we came to you.”
“I’ve never met her in my life.” M
althus replied with a shrug.
That made the grizzly snort with derision. “Of course you haven’t, she’s a predictor.”
“Ah.”
Now it all made sense, and Malthus nodded his head to himself as the pieces began to fit together. This was all the work of a predictor. A powerful one at that, he mused as he looked at the dead woman. Immediately, questions of what it was she’d seen formed in his mind, but he knew he’d have to wait.
“So are you?” Acadia demanded.
“Am I what?”
“With the resistance?”
He could see how much they wanted the predictor’s prophecy to be true. He almost wanted to lie.
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s not possible.” The blonde-haired girl, Riley, whispered as her sister let out a wry laugh.
“That’s just perfect.” Cooper continued to chuckle.
Yet, Malthus was good at reading people, and he could tell the news had devastated her.
“Looks like, we came here for nothing, Lee. Congratulations.”
Cooper clearly wanted to return to the argument he’d interrupted. He couldn’t let that happen.
“If you want to continue this fight, then be my guest.”
As he spoke he rested his boots on an open chair and crossed his fingers behind his head.
“Before you do, you should know that you’re in King Kalahar’s territory now. Soon, word will reach him that a bunch of crinks just portalled into his city. He’s going to send men to come looking for you.
“You have maybe an hour.” He added.
“We should go. What’s our move?” The young-man with dark-hair asked as he quickly climbed out of his Irenic’s suit.
“Nakano’s other resistance contact.” Acadia said, addressing the Sekhem by his side. “She lives near a mountain of stone, do you know where that is?”
“A day’s journey to the north.”
“I know it too.” Malthus confirmed. “Though I hadn’t heard the resistance were operating so close to Hellanta.”
“Not something you would’ve cared much about even if you had heard, I’m sure.” Acadia replied curtly as he placed a skull-sized metallic object in his satchel and slung it over his shoulders.
