Penult (Book Four of The Liminality)

by A. Sparrow

  “Not hot cakes again,” said Bern. “This is a special occasion. We have a guest. Why not make something out of roots?”

  “I don’t have to remind to you that our supply of roots is dwindling, Bern. There just aren’t many sources around here. There is plenty back in the valleys where the quakes hit, but if you insist on here staying in the bogs, we’ll just have to get used to subsisting on the local produce … and so will our guests.”

  “It’s just that … hot cakes made of that swamp grit, whatever it is, they taste like warmed up dish rags. Can’t we have something for a change that doesn’t make my mouth feel like it’s packed with mud?”

  My eyelids lifted and I could see them both sitting at the little table right across from my bed.

  Lille touched Bern’s arm. “He’s awake.”

  They both turned to me, eyes warm and welcoming.

  “Oh so sorry, James. Were we speaking too loudly?”

  “No. It’s cool. I should probably get up.”

  “Did you have a nice nap?”

  “Yeah. It was kind of weird … but nice. Nice to wake up to you all. I thought this had to be your place.”

  “Welcome to rustic cabin version nine point one. But don’t get used to it. Lille is lobbying for an upgrade already.”

  “I just want to get out of this bog before the mosquitoes show up.”

  “Mosquitoes? What the fuck?”

  “Rumors, James, just rumors. How could a mosquito survive in a place with no host large enough to feed on? It is simply not possible.”

  “I want to go back to the plains,” said Lille.

  “What plains? There is nothing flat about them now. If you want to call them something, call them badlands.”

  “I want to go back to the badlands. Or anywhere far away from this dreadful swamp.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Oh no? Then why am I seasick every windy day?”

  “It’s all in your mind. These pads are rooted and stable.”

  “I’m going back, I decided.”

  “Oh? Back where?”

  “To my hollow. Last I saw it, it was pretty much intact.”

  “We’re coming with you,” said Lille.

  “You’re more than welcome,” I said. “It’d be nice having you two as neighbors.”

  Lille bore a grave expression.

  “James. Is it true? You are now a Freesoul?”

  “Yup. That seems to be the case.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  To answer them truthfully would have required many more words and much more soul searching than I was willing to invest at the moment.

  “I’m okay with it, I guess. I mean, it is what it is.”

  “We’ll be joining you soon, lad. Now that the hostilities have ended.”

  “You’re both … still Hemisouls?”

  “Yes, but arrangements are underway. We’ve decided to take the plunge. Lille’s not going to be able to stay in that coma forever. And my own health back in the prison isn’t what it used to be.”

  “How did you guys get here?”

  “It wasn’t easy,” said Bern. “Another hard, long slog. When they gave the final order to evacuate New Axum we were with one of the first groups out by ground. The Pennies were about to breach the upper terrace and Master Zhang was still negotiating surrender terms. It had looked like they were going to give no quarter so many thought it prudent to leave.”

  “We were halfway to the bogs when we got word that the final assault had commenced. The talks had failed and the Pennies planned to take it all. But the Old Ones took issue with that. They emptied their crypts of Long Sleepers, staged a massive defense, drove the Pennies off the mountain, harried them deep into the valleys.”

  I sat up in bed and adjusted my sarong-like wrap.

  “Hah! And Olivier thought it was all our little root quake that sent them running.”

  “Root quake?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t you hear?”

  “We heard a few of you went on a little excursion to Penult, but….”

  Little excursion? Was that how they saw our expedition? I smiled but kept my mouth shut. Let the Old Ones have the bulk of the credit. It was probably well deserved.”

  “Well anyhow, the land is full of abandoned Cherubim. They’ve ceased all fighting. They just seem to be wandering like cows, grazing on anything remotely edible. Some, I hear just stand around, withering away with no one to tell them when or how to eat.

  “Too bad there isn’t a way to get their souls back. I wonder if they would be on our side considering all that was done to them?”

  “I say let them stay brainless,” said Bern. We have enough to worry about here.”

  “But they’re people, Bern. Human like us. I’m sure many of them are decent folks, they just haven’t had possession of their own free will.”

  “All the same, I wish they would just go away.”

  Lille shared a knowing glance with me. “Bern doesn’t like nuance or complexity. Unfortunately, that’s not how the universe works.”

  “I just want to have a nice cabin in a place where we can stay put for a change. I’m tired of being on the run.”

  “One more move, Bernard, and I promise you, you’ll have your final resting place. Next time, come hell or high water, we can stay.”

  Bern sighed. “If only I could believe that. Now let’s haul out our root stocks. This boy deserves something with bacon. We’re not actually going to feed him cat-tail pollen, are we?”

  “Tea, James? We’ve been using the real stuff. Actual herbs, harvested from the hills and moors around the bog. I have to say, that part I’ve actually been enjoying about this place, even if the food gives Bern the grumbles.”

  She poured me a cup. One sip and it tasted like a summer evening in Ohio with honeysuckle on the wind, the grass freshly mown and mom slicing a watermelon on the deck. It was just like home in a cup.

  ***

  And so we moved. I arranged transport for the two of them by robber fly and I managed to get Tigger to land next to me long enough to fix a saddle on his back. Imagine that?

  The pitted plains were becoming pitted again. Luther and his minions had clearly been hard at work, sealing rifts, corralling Reapers below ground and putting the first touches on the surface habitations that I’m sure would eventually become the next iteration of Luthersburg, at least as grandiose as every iteration that came before it.

  My friends went to work immediately, just outside my hollow building yet another iteration of their favored cabin/cottage, this time including a root cellar as well as a small wing containing a guest bedroom. I helped them with the weaving, but Lille was very painstaking about the details and we had to let her do the final textures and such.

  In these heights of the dry season, I needed no roof and slept many nights out in the open along the banks of my little pond in the hollow. The land here, in many places, had already healed itself. Yes, the plains were much more rumpled than they had been with the collapse of so many sinkholes, but it was taking on more and more of a natural look as time went on, and even the mountains were looking more like mountains and less like slag heaps with each passing day.

  There wasn’t enough left of Frelsi or the mesas to restore, so a new settlement was established in a deep and verdant valley tucked among the least ravaged hills. Much to his surprise and chagrin, Ubaldo was elected unified leader of this community, his popularity no doubt influenced by our exploits in Penult. Reznak came to speak for the Dusters in the coalition while a quiet woman named Jill became the primary advocate for surface dwellers who had never gone through the Deeps. Nobody called themselves a Frelsian anymore. Hemisoul. Freesoul. None of that mattered. We were all just ‘Surfies’ now.

  Olivier had retreated back underground to hang with his old friend Luther and serve as our emissary to the underworld, which once again began to provide a steady flow of recruits for the surface communities.

  U
rszula and Mikal never returned from Penult. Ubaldo thinks they were taken prisoner. Olivier doesn’t think they would be executed, just turned into curiosities in some Lord’s menagerie, used for entertainment and propaganda to sate and sway the masses languishing in that semi-pseudo-Heaven of theirs.

  I’m pretty damned sure that Urszula would rather be sent off to the Deeps or worse than subject herself to that kind of indignity. I’m also pretty sure that if there was any possibility of breaking out and getting back to the mainland, she would figure out a way. I pitied the poor Hashmallim who had the task of keeping her confined.

  So far Karla hasn’t come by since she faded. Either she’s so damned happy about being re-united with her sister that the roots don’t dare touch her, or she’s keeping her distance from me on purpose.

  Whatever I feel happy for her. I really do. I don’t blame her for what she did. She thought getting free would be the best for the both of us. Turns out she didn’t know me very well. Not as well as I understood her.

  I only wished I could be by her side when she went up the drive of Mrs. Ambrose’s place and Izzie came dashing past the rose bushes and into her sister’s arms. They probably had a lot of catching up to do.

  She would make it back here someday. Happiness is always ephemeral in the real world, especially for dour and pessimistic souls like us. The powers-that-be in this universe find us expendable. That’s why they attempt to terminate our lives prematurely and stash us deep in the pods of Root for the Reapers to harvest and dispose of our souls.

  And when she came back, Karla knew where to find me. A place untouched by war and root quake. A place that had never failed to provide solace and sanctuary whenever I needed it most.

  ***

  Across the pond, a willow dances for me, branches twisting and swaying despite the absence of any breeze. The water’s stillness and sterility annoy me. Surface un-creased, depths devoid of fish or worms or even plankton, it may as well have been a pool of mercury.

  I toss a pebble. Ripples expand and rebound off the shore, distorting the mirrored sky, cloudless yet grey. I toss another stone before the ripples can fade.

  On a throne carved into the muddy bank, I wait, hopeful and calm, stable at my core. How much I’ve changed in the few years I’ve been coming here, as if all the neurons in my brain have been ripped apart and reconfigured. I’m only twenty-one, but I feel incredibly ancient.

  A familiar shape appears in the air high over the plains—a dragonfly and rider coming my way. One wing tip is truncated, another tattered, old patches flapping as it corkscrews through the sky like an unbalanced arrow, the damaged wing dipping low. Clearly, this was Lalibela and Urszula!

  I rise, befuddled, questioning my eyes. My all but vanquished hopes rally to flood me with relief. No more grieving.

  I clap my hands and whistle for my bug. Tigger erupts from the ledge where he had been sunning himself. Wings pumping, he rockets right over me and keeps on going, heading for the open spaces of the remodeled plains, off to intercept the intruders like he always does. And always without me, of course. Why should this time be any different?

  So I leap from my throne of mud and sprint towards the gap in the hollow, bare feet pounding the gravel. I make for the open lands where she can spot me more easily, my heart bounding, bursting with incredulity and joy.

  *****

  THE END

  The Liminality, Book Five:

  Loom

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