A Covenant of Thieves

by Christian Velguth

  “Sure, ok! Then what?”

  “I don’t know!”

  The higher they climbed, the more the VTOL shook. The world outside darkened, the air thickening with dust, while at the same time growing brighter with the glow of the pillar of fire. Staccato flashes of lighting were almost constant, throwing the tortured slopes into sharp relief and revealing fresh scars. Booker could see straight down into crevices that had opened up. Some were already filling back up with debris, but others were too wide and delved too deep to be clogged by even the largest boulders. Something liquid and bright flowed in the depths of those.

  “Seriously,” Booker said, turning to Estelle. “What’s the plan here?”

  She was chewing her lip, but still looked determined, if frightened. “I just need to get close enough.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever it is I need to do.” She met his eyes. “Do you trust me?”

  “Would I be here if I didn’t?”

  Mofat suddenly spat something in Arabic. By the tone, Booker figured it was a swear. At the same time, golden light flooded the cabin, much brighter than it had been. Squinting, he turned towards the cockpit. Through the windscreen he could see the summit coming into view. More than half of it was now consumed by the pillar of fire, which he could see was actually being emitted slightly off-center from the mountain, from a spot on its northern face. The so-called quarantine dome had collapsed, and the small mosque was gone completely. Only the tiny chapel remained, the tent around it flapping madly. He couldn’t see what was happening inside that blazing light, but it looked violent on a cosmic scale.

  Thick dust and smoke were billowing into the cabin, and water too, running into his eyes and ears and nose, making it hard to breathe and even harder to see. Mofat was clearly struggling to hold them level. “This close enough?” It sounded more like a plea than a question.

  Estelle closed her eyes, and Booker saw that strange change come over her face, as if she were seeing something very distant. “Almost! Just a bit more!”

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep us in the air! This thing is messing with my instruments!”

  But they kept going. Booker and Estelle had to buckle themselves into the seats as the turbulence grew even worse. It felt like the aircraft was a marionette and their puppeteer was throwing a tantrum. What sounded like large chunks of hail began to ding off the hull. Outside, the swirling dust became more like an airborne landslide. Blue-green lightning was scoring the ground, tracing lines of molten rock where it touched down. He could hear the VTOL’s instruments blaring a dozen warnings, and Mofat was keeping up a constant litany in Arabic that might have been a prayer or swears or both.

  Yet Estelle’s eyes remained closed. One hand slowly rose from where it had been clutching her harness, reaching out as if to grab something hovering before her. Her lips were moving, but Booker could no longer hear anything over the roar of the storm that was swallowing them up.

  * * *

  “Careful! Just -- almost there --!”

  “Please hurry,” Rick grunted.

  He stood within the shaft, perched on Kai’s shoulders, with Torv balanced on his. Dr. Okai was huddled uselessly in a corner, but it didn’t matter. Glancing up between his legs, he could see Torv’s fingers scrabbling against the lip of the opening.

  “Almost -- got it!” He laughed a bit madly as he grasped the ledge and began to pull himself up, feet kicking against the wall. The plan was to find something to lower down for the rest of them -- a rope, tarp, anything.

  Rick breathed a sigh of relief. They were going to get out, they’d be --

  His vision suddenly darkened, and the roar of the firestorm fell away. For a moment he could neither see nor hear anything, and he felt himself teetering precariously. Then someone screamed very loudly in his ear.

  “RICK!”

  Stars exploded in his eyes and the world came rushing back. Rick gasped and found himself in the process of falling. Torv swore, losing his grip, and they tumbled to the floor.

  “What the fuck was that?!” he wheezed, apparently not too hurt to berate him. “I had it, I was going to get out --!”

  Rick looked around dazedly, lying on his side. The chamber was now full of golden light, and a thin stream of golden fireflies was issuing from the mouth of the tunnel. The firestorm had progressed steadily up it, consuming nearly half its length in only a few minutes.

  “Something -- something happened,” he managed, struggling to his feet. Kai pulled him up. “I blacked out.”

  Kai looked down at him with concern. “It couldn’t have waited?” Torv snapped.

  Rick opened his mouth to snap back -- and then it happened again. Everything shrank down to a tiny point of light, and he was left standing in an abyss.

  “Rick! Are you there?”

  He spun on the spot, trying to locate the source of the voice. It sounded familiar. “Where -- who are you?”

  “I can hear you!” She laughed a bit hysterically.

  The voice clicked -- impossibly. “Estelle?”

  He snapped back into the chamber. Kai was holding him steady with one hand on his shoulder, and staring down at him with an entirely different expression. “What’d you say?”

  “I heard --”

  “Yes, it’s me!”

  The chamber didn’t vanish this time. Instead, something like a water stain hovered before him, an oblong shape. It was just barely there, more an impression laid over reality, a pattern emerging from the surrounding stone, than an actual object.

  He shook his head, blinking furiously. “Ok, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Is he ok?” Torv asked.

  “Rick, I need you to listen to me. I need your help -- we can stop this, but we have to do it together.”

  “You died,” he muttered, glancing away from that shape. It followed him wherever he looked, and as she spoke, the stain began to take shape, now looking like a two-dimensional humanoid. There was an impression of familiar curly hair.

  “Right, but the Ark brought me back -- that’s not important right now! I need you to listen to me. We’re connected, to each other and the Ark, because of what it did to us. That means we can control it --”

  “I tried that already. It, uh. It didn’t go well.”

  “Rick,” Kai said firmly. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Estelle. She -- she’s alive.”

  Kai blinked, then took a step back, as if an electric shock had travelled from Rick to him.

  “Your connection isn’t as strong,” Estelle’s voice was saying. She sounded as if she were at the end of a very long corridor, yet her image was becoming ever stronger. He could make out her features now, as if etched in thin glass. “Mine is. But I can’t do it alone, not from here. I need you to guide me, to act as a conduit.”

  “How?”

  “You’re going to have to get close.”

  Rick glanced at the tunnel mouth. The air was being sucked into it in a steady rush, as if a vacuum lay on the other side. “We’re pretty damn close.”

  “It has to be closer, Rick. Like when you made contact before.”

  “I was touching it!”

  “I know.”

  He blinked. Everyone was staring at him, even Dr. Okai from where he had curled up. The chamber was rumbling like a subway tunnel, small bits of dust and debris being pulled into the tunnel. Golden fireflies swirled in spiraling patterns. A sudden suspicion struck him.

  “How do I know this is real? How do I know you’re not -- not a trick or something, projected from the Ark?”

  The translucent image of Estelle standing before him shrugged helplessly. “You don’t, Rick. I just need you to trust me. If we don’t do this, everything will be consumed. Changed. You’ve spoken with her. You know what she wants. What she can do.”

  The ground suddenly lurched. He stumbled to the side as a crack opened up, spreading from the mouth of the tunnel, racing across the floor and up a wall. Dr. O
kai whimpered and rolled over. Torv was staring at the mouth of the tunnel, golden light illuminating the drops of sweat in his beard. Whatever was happening wasn’t going to stop. It was a force of nature now.

  “Rick, please.”

  Kai grabbed him by the arm and spun him around, holding his gaze. His eyes were wide, frantic in a way Rick had never seen them. More than that. Frightened.

  “Rick -- what do you mean she’s alive?”

  “Trust me.”

  He closed his eyes. He could feel his heart pounding, violent pulses travelling through every fiber of his being. He hadn’t made the decision yet, but it knew what was coming and it was rebelling, fighting until the very end.

  “What will happen?” he whispered.

  Estelle didn’t answer right away, but he could feel her there, somehow. “I don’t know. But --”

  “We have to try. Yeah”

  Kai’s hand flexed reflexively on his arm, and he shook him. “Rick, talk to me!”

  Rick opened his eyes and met Kai’s gaze. He took a deep breath. “Hey. I gotta do a thing.”

  “What?”

  He slipped free of Kai’s grip. “I’m going to stop this, ok? I just -- I’m going to try.”

  He turned to face the tunnel. For once, he would be the one to get them out of the shit, not just into it.

  Kai suddenly bellowed, and Rick knew what was coming. He couldn’t let it happen. He sprinted forward before Kai could grab him, before he could stop himself -- and then it was too late to turn back. As soon as he set foot across the threshold of the tunnel mouth, that magnetic force seized him and began dragging him forward, his feet leaving the ground. Blazing golden light filled his vision, impossibly bright, the air buzzing and crackling around him as he fell down the stone throat.

  Estelle remained beside him. “Please don’t leave,” he said, unable to hear his own voice for the roar.

  “I won’t,” she said, and he heard her quite clearly.

  Streamers of fire laced with blue-green electricity reached out to embrace him.

  Forty-Two

  The Antechamber

  Jabal Musa, Sinai Desert

  Kai was too slow. He’d always been big, always been slower than Rick, but it had never been a problem before. They’d always figured it out, always managed to land on the same page, in the same place, alive. The Crew of Two. Through everything, their tribe had persisted.

  But this time he was too slow.

  Rick disappeared into the burning tunnel, and Kai saw his feet leave the floor as some other force took him. He knew what would happen if he crossed that threshold, that there would likely be no going back for either of them.

  He threw himself into the light.

  And jerked to a halt. Someone cried out behind him. Torv, both arms wrapped around his good one, around the one in the exoframe, teeth bared in a snarl as he held him back. His feet were off the floor and braced to either side of the tunnel opening, and Kai realized he was in the air, floating, pulling against Torv’s grip.

  All this he took in, even as he was reaching with his other arm, screaming against the sharp pain as stitches tore open and pins popped out of place, half-mended bones snapping along countless fracture points, the cast splintering.

  His fingers, bleeding and crooked, closed around the back of Rick’s collar. Feelers of shimmering energy began to crawl up his hand, up his arm, probing with electricity as an endless roar filled his ears.

  Kai watched, screaming, as Rick began to flake away.

  * * *

  “I won’t,” Estelle said. Booker just barely heard her voice, had no idea what it meant, but hoped it was something good.

  The VTOL was shuddering like a can on a paint mixer. He could hear Mofat shouting something, maybe saying this was as far as they could go. Booker had to assume that was it, because they didn’t seem to be moving anymore, the wind holding them in place even as it whipped violently around them.

  Through the cockpit he could see the encroaching wall of fire. Arcs of blue-green energy lanced out from it, one bolt erasing the roof of the chapel in a spray of golden vapor. They blinded him, leaving dark streaks across his vision. Yet all he could do was sit there, strapped into his seat, helpless.

  The hand that Estelle had raised suddenly clenched into a fist.

  * * *

  Fingers of streaming sizzling golden fireflies charged with aquamarine energy and pure intent pierced his flesh and reached into him and --

  It wasn’t the white space, the endless nothing, but a void filled with fire

  It engulfed him, licking at his essence, stripping it away. And in it Rick could hear a scream of rage, of pain, of isolation, of

  ABOMINATION

  It threatened to engulf him, somehow more painful and terrible than the fire itself

  “Reach out,” said Estelle’s voice, distant and small in this burning place.

  There was a blazing center, a core to the fire. That was where he needed to be, but every strand of his essence rebelled at the thought of touching it

  “I’m here,” Estelle said.

  Using some part of him he still couldn’t fully understand, Rick reached out, through the fire, and brushed against that core, through to

  PAIN

  The screaming filled him, became his everything, and he cowered before its rage its power he was nothing

  I DO NOT NEED YOU

  He felt himself being flayed away stripped down losing bits of himself to that horrible light that endless void. It was too much maybe not a god but still far greater than him and it was going to consume him

  I DO NOT NEED ANY OF YOU

  I AM

  POWER

  ORDER

  ABOMINATION

  nonono

  Every scream was a surge of terrible ripping energy. He no longer remembered his name no longer remembered the face of his brother no longer remembered the scent of the world could feel and think of nothing but that pain

  * * *

  Estelle gasped as the candle that was Rick suddenly bloomed exploding into unseen dimensions. She fell through that portal of light out of her dark space and into one of baleful fire of hateful burning and of pain

  He was there, little more than a shred of a shadow blasted away by the magnitude of the thing occupying this space of the thing that was this space. Estelle didn’t know what she could do for him and before she could even try, that pain turned its attention on her a glaring diamond eye focusing on her and barbs of agony surged through her seeking to tear her apart

  And then it recoiled.

  YOU

  YOU

  YOU ARE

  WE

  “Yes,” Estelle managed, speaking/not speaking through a barrier of agony that would drown her if she let it. “We’ve been together before. I’ve seen your life. We’ve shared each other’s pain.”

  YOU HAVE

  YOU DO NOT HAVE THE WORD

  YOU DO NOT KNOW

  I AM

  WE ARE

  PAIN

  ISOLATION

  DESTRUCTION

  DESPAIR

  LOSS

  ABOMINATION

  And below it all, behind and beneath, a smaller voice, quiet and frightened as a child

  nononoibrokeitimsorryishouldnthavenono

  “No,” Estelle gasped. “We don’t have to be any of that. You don’t have to let it consume you. You don’t have to do any of this --”

  YESYESYESYES

  I WILL UNMAKE THIS WORLD

  I WILL REMAKE THIS WORLD

  BETTER

  NOT ALONENEVER ALONE

  YOU WILL NOT STOP

  I DO NOT NEED YOUR WORD

  YOU ARE NOT ME

  I WILL NOT FAIL

  I AM

  Beneath the screams of rage, something quiet, something soft as a fluttering moth and something far more painful -- weeping mewling a pitiful lonely lost sense of despair

  imsorryimsorrydontleavemepleaseimnot

 
; ABOMINATION

  “It’s alright to be afraid, to --”

  I AM NOT AFRAID

  I AM FEAR

  I AM NOT WEEPING

  I AM LAMENTATION

  I AM ABOMINATION

  A million splintering barbs penetrated Estelle pulling every inch of her in opposite directions, yet in every direction lay the terrible Mind threatening to subsume her

  YOU ARE NOTHING

  * * *

  “I have to pull us back,” Mofat shouted.

  “No!” Booker was crouched over Estelle, one hand clutching the netting of her harness, the other gripping her by the shoulder. She had begun to spasm violently. “She needs more time, you can’t --”

  “Buddy, I don’t even know what she’s doing! But if we stay here we’re dead, I can barely keep us in the air!”

  He felt the attitude of the VTOL shift, but they didn’t seem to move. If Moffat was trying to pull them back from the mountain, something didn’t want them to go. The same something that was hurting Estelle.

  A blinding flash filled the cabin, and Booker felt his hair sizzle, the air suddenly sharp with burnt metal. At the same time the VTOL lurched, and he fell back, nearly thrown out the open door. Only the hand clutching the harness kept him from falling to his death.

  He blinked, vision restoring, and saw that a swath of the hull had been blasted away overhead, nearly cleaving the VTOL in two. The ragged edges glowed a molten gold, tiny shimmering flecks still streaming off the wound like blood.

  For a moment they seemed to hang in space, the world waiting to react to what had just happened.

  And then the VTOL began to plummet, tumbling, rolling through the air. Booker was tossed from side to side -- he slammed hard into something equally hard, again and again -- he lost his grip on the harness -- he reached out and felt a hand --

  And then he was surrounded by the storm, fire and stone and water, the glare of a thousand suns, and he was falling.

  * * *

  Streamers of golden fire curled up Kai’s shattered wrist, past his elbow. Waving fronds of crackling energy brushed against his face, and from the thinning remains of his hand he could feel something essential being pulled out of him into that terrible light.

  He didn’t let go. He could barely see Rick, wasn’t even sure anything was left, anything to hold on to, but he still didn’t let go. He wouldn’t, not until the end.