Penult (Book Four of The Liminality)

  “It worked, didn’t it? I mean, you’re here, aren’t you. And I, for one, am grateful to have you here. Everyone—Frelsians. Dusters. Old Ones—we all respect you. Having you with us has been great for morale. I’m very sorry that you didn’t want to come here, but … now that you did … you just might be the difference between our complete destruction … and our survival.”

  “I think you’re vastly overestimating me. All of you. If Karla wanted to come back here so badly she should have left me out of it and come back on her own.”

  “How? You wanted her to off herself?”

  “No, but … that’s basically what she wanted for us. She wanted us to be Freesouls. Slam the door on life altogether.”

  “Not telling you what to do, kid, but If I were you, I’d cut her some slack. She’s Luther’s grandchild, isn’t she? From what I hear, she had a rough time of it growing up. Can you blame her, being disenchanted with this life thing? I mean, look at us. We’ve all been suicidal. That’s the ticket here, isn’t it?”

  “I got over it. Why couldn’t she? That family stuff was all behind her. We had nothing in our way. We had the whole world to ourselves. Fucking all expenses paid. Why couldn’t she give it a chance?”

  “Listen James. Some of us just never fit in … over … in that other place. Life … if what you want to call it that. Some lives start off fine and go bad near the end. Some turn to shit in the middle. Others of us were never even meant to be born and we realize it young. For those of us who feel that way, the Liminality is good news. Maybe Karla’s one of those. She’s meant for this place. It might be nothing personal. Didn’t mean you had to follow her.”

  “I fucking hate this fucking shithole,” I said through my teeth.

  “But here you are. Go figure.”

  “Once we do this raid. I ain’t ever coming back here again. I am done.”

  “That’s fine,” said Olivier. “If you can get happy and stay happy, the more power to you.”

  Chapter 56: Rendezvous

  Tree crickets wailed and droned in cycles that rose and fell, sometimes meshing, sometimes clashing with the slosh of the waves. Yaqob’s snoring was just as loud but much less predictable. His throat would seize and he would gag as if he were being strangled, before forcing out a raspy rumble like Harley Davidson with a rusted out muffler.

  “Are you sure he’s okay? I mean, he’s not gonna stop breathing on us, is he?”

  “He’s fine,” assured Olivier. “A little sleep apnea never hurt anybody.”

  “Should we … roll him on his side or something?”

  “Yeah right.” Olivier chuckled. “That’ll go over real well. Sometimes, kid, you just gotta let sleeping dogs lie.”

  Yaqob fell silent. The silence dragged on. He had to be turning blue by this point. And then he erupted, expelling all the stale air in his lungs in one huge gasp, before rattling in a fresh load.

  ”I’m sorry, but that just does not sound healthy.”

  “It’s nothing new. He always snores like this,” said Olivier. “My hooch was across the courtyard from his in New Axum. Coming from the Deeps, where breathing is optional, this is music to my ears.

  “Music.”

  Out of the darkness, a hand clamped onto my shoulder. I jerked around and lunged for my sword, grasping it blade-first, lucky that Victoria’s transformation had dulled it.

  “Stop. It is only me, Ubaldo. I am back from watch.”

  My heart was pounding in a panic. He could just as well have been a Cherub coming to slit my throat.

  Ubaldo settled down beside us on the sand, his body a dark pool in the sandy glade, lit only by the subtle glint of star light.

  “You had no problem finding us,” said Olivier.

  “Thanks to Yaqob.”

  “See? Isn’t this a problem?” I said. “Shouldn’t we muzzle him or something?”

  “Why?” said Ubaldo. “Pennies never roam on foot after dark. Though, a falcon did come down the shore after the sun went down. Returning late from patrol, must be.”

  “They spot our camp?” said Olivier.

  “I don’t believe so. They did not deviate from their course. Probably in a hurry to return to their beach head.”

  “We were lucky they came by late,” said Olivier. “Any light and they for sure would have spotted our bugs.”

  “Any sign of our scouts?” I said.

  “No,” said Ubaldo.

  “Man, they’re way overdue,” said Olivier. “That’s not a good sign.”

  “So what do we do? Wait here another day?”

  “Nah. We can’t hang around here. Too risky,” said Olivier. “Looks like we cross over blind at first light. We need to run that by Yaqob, of course, but I’m pretty sure he’ll agree.”

  “Looks like will be a one way mission,” said Ubaldo. “No?”

  No one said anything for the longest moment. We yielded the night to the symphony of waves, crickets and snores.

  “You … okay with that?” said Olivier.

  “I am at peace,” said Ubaldo. “If I must return to the Deeps. So be it. At least it is a place I know. Some things … I miss.”

  “Really? Like what?” said Olivier.

  “To exist there requires no care,” said Ubaldo. “No fuss. No pain. Never hungry. Never tired. Never cold.”

  “Not me. I don’t miss any of that crap,” said Olivier. “That cold was damned intense. Sure, we could tune it out, but I was always aware of it.”

  I remembered the cold acutely. It was a marvel that a body could remain flexible in such frigid conditions. It was almost as if souls in the deeps inhabited a different kind of matter, halfway between human and spirit. I took a deep breath, glorying in the cool, salt air seasoned with a blend of resinous, herbal overtones suggestive of seaweed, juniper and sage.

  “You know,” I said. “Here … I feel alive. It’s really not much different … here … from life.”

  Again my companions fell silent, the pause coinciding with yet another disconcertingly long gap of interrupted breathing from Yaqob.

  “Good to know,” said Olivier, finally. “It’s been a while for both Baldo and me. One tends to forget what life was really like. All the more reason to keep on fighting for this place, I suppose. I doubt there’s any other realm as close to life as the Liminality.”

  “True,” I said, though my thoughts had snagged on Ubaldo’s suggestion that none of us raiders heading to Penult would likely ever return intact. That disturbed and agitated me greatly. I pined for Stromness, a place I had visited for less than a day.

  ***

  Normally terse and stoic, Ubaldo turned quite chatty fellow once he got going on something he cared about. That topic turned out to be futbol. A Hemisoul in New Axum had filled him in on the results of the most recent World Cup and so he went on and on about it, lamenting the poor performance of his beloved Azzurri and marveling at the shocking defeat of Brazil by the Germans.

  “How long have you been dead?” said Olivier.

  “Fifteen years,” said Ubaldo. “I didn’t make the grades for university. I stepped in front of a train.”

  “That’s a pretty dumb reason to off yourself.”

  “Yes, well. Too late now. Yes?”

  Olivier somehow managed to maneuver the discussion to hockey and how, in sheer skill and entertainment value, it was a superior sport to football. I could see he was just trolling Ubaldo, and he was effective in getting our Duster friend extremely agitated.

  I couldn’t get my head clear with all their chatter so I dragged myself over to a quieter place behind the shrubs, but close enough that I could still hear them chatter over Yaqob’s snoring, it was much less obtrusive.

  I crawled under a bush, tore off some branches and scraped together some leaf litter to make a sorry bed. I hoped to Heaven that I faded out of this place before the morning.

  But sleep wouldn’t come. I was doomed to lay and listen to the wind and the waves, the drone of the crickets. r />
  The Liminality wasn’t a bad world. It had its charms. The relative ease at which spell craft could be conjured here increased its possibilities. Now that I knew that Weaving was possible in life as well, that was no longer as strong a selling point. Still, I could imagine myself settling here when life no longer was an option.

  The wall of bushes separating me from the little glade rustled. I heard footsteps in the sand.

  “James?” A whisper. It was Karla.

  I kept silent.

  “Are you here? James?”

  I lay still, wondering if I should answer.

  “James?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Who told you where to find me?”

  “Olivier.”

  A foot scuffed sand against my cheek. A twig crunched next to my ear. Soft fingers reached down and brushed the hair from my brow.

  “Oh, there you are. You have made a little nest, I see.”

  “Karla, I don’t think you should—”

  She slipped down onto my nest beside me and snaked an arm over my chest, pulling herself tight against my side. I turned on my side, keeping my back to her, but she wouldn’t let go of me.

  “This is awkward,” I said.

  “Awkward? Stop being a baby. I’m here to make up with you.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Oh stop. You act like I killed your puppy.”

  “You forced me to come back here.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  “It’s dangerous here. There was no need—”

  “Inverness is dangerous too. And so is Glasgow. And in this place, we are trying to make less dangerous again.”

  “What was wrong with Brynmawr?”

  “Brynmawr! Give me a break. That is your idea of paradise?”

  “We had a bottomless credit card. We could have gone and lived anywhere in the world. New Zealand. Patagonia. Tokyo. The Galapagos. Anywhere.”

  “But eventually we all die and then what? Become slaves of Penult? You would be happy with this? You see what they do to their Cherub. And most of the souls in Penult are slaves. They are Cherubim. Only the elite get to be Hashmallim, never mind Seraphim. You say you didn’t like Frelsi … but this place is much worse than Frelsi.”

  “How do you know we would even end up in Penult?”

  “Oh? Then where? Heaven? Hell? The Deeps? Are you satisfied with someone else deciding for you or would you rather choose the place you will spend the rest of eternity?”

  “First things first. What about living life?”

  “Life is just a flash.”

  “Maybe so, but we only get one chance at it. Or … two … in some cases. Not that you deserved it. I bring you back and you turn around and can’t wait to throw it all away.”

  “I was scared. I did not want to lose this place. I could not live knowing it was in peril. I just wanted to save the Liminality … for us. But only if you still want there to be an ‘us.’ Do you?”

  I lay still, her arm a dead weight over my torso.

  “Well, do you? Do you still … love me? Do you?”

  When I didn’t respond, she retracted her arm abruptly. And with the loss of her touch, I felt myself slipping over a brink into a dark and empty void. Desperate, I panicked, squirmed around and flailed out my arm. My hand caught her wrist and clasped it tight. I pulled her close.

  Chapter 57: The Scouts Return

  Desperately and without words, Karla and I made love in my nest of twigs and leaves. Engulfed in scents—turpentine, salt spray, the musk of unwashed skin—I lost all sense of self. We may as well have been wafting through the Singularity, our souls all smudged together, blending like smoke.

  Afterwards we lay side by side, my hoodie draped over our bare and dewy skin. A cool breeze lapped at my bare side. Karla nuzzled my neck with her nose and made me shiver.

  This was everything I had wished for and more, yet a weird residue of disappointment and relief lingered. I never should have given in so easily. How would she ever take me seriously going forward?

  But what was done was done. I stared up at the strangely faded stars that wandered the skies of this world. I wondered if they were mere decoration—some sham created for the viewing pleasure of spirits of some higher station. But what if those were real worlds revolving up there, other after-realms for humans or whatever alternative intelligences might exist in this universe? Maybe one of those points of light was Heaven itself. Coming to the Liminality had revealed a few mysteries, only to hint at the existence of a thousand more.

  I had no idea what to do about me and Karla, how we moved on from this reconciliation, if that’s what it was. What had just happened between us had come natural, but it didn’t mean we were back together.

  Things were different now between us. Her leaving had left a taint on our relationship. Our connection would never be as simple and pure as our first days together in Root. It was harder for me now to imagine a future that involved the both of us.

  “There. You happy now?” she asked, as if she were reading my mind. I wasn’t ready to admit to her what I was really thinking.

  “Sure.” The word slipped from my lips like a sigh. It was a white lie.

  “Don’t you fade on me again. We have things left to do. I hope we are not doing this too soon.”

  “What about you? Are you happy?”

  She paused.

  “It takes more than a romp in the sand to improve my mood.”

  “Romp? Is that all this was to you?”

  “Shush! I am just saying. I am joking. You should know better. Happy is not my thing.”

  A blast of wind shook the trees and swirled the bushes. Sand devils danced. Karla snuggled closer. I let my arm slip over her, but it still felt strange holding her, as if she wasn’t really here, but just some figment of a daydream.

  “Do you have any idea what we’re getting into, going to Penult?”

  “No,” she said. “But I am not worried. Not if we have you with us.”

  I sighed. “People expect too much of me sometimes.”

  “All I expect is for you to try. Amazing things happen when you do. I have seen them. In every realm.”

  “Sometimes … I fail.”

  “We all fail. You are only human. You do what you can. That’s all you can do. All we can expect.”

  “What if I do nothing? What if I don’t go to Penult. Would you stop having anything to do with me?”

  “Don’t play games with me,” said Karla. “I know you are committed. You have eyes. You have seen what Penult is doing. I have faith you will do the right thing.”

  “And if I do, you will come back … for good? Stay with me on the other side? No matter what?”

  “Maybe. That is possible. Is that what you wish?”

  I stared at the stars. “I’m not sure anymore.”

  “We fix things here. Make them stop. Maybe then there can be room for some life. We do this first and then we see. Yes?”

  I took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay.” I closed my eyes and shut out the stars.

  ***

  The early morning rays sent the insects preening and sunning themselves high on their perches. A flight of bees came buzzing in to share their nectar with us.

  The word shuttled swiftly through the camp. Yaqob had given his assent. We had waited long enough for the scouts. We would make the crossing without them.

  A work party went off to a spring at the base of a hillock to refill all our flasks and skins with cool, fresh water. Other volunteers made the rounds to saddle their mounts, unpacking various foul smelling slurries and pastes that the Dusters had tucked away in each saddlebag—supplements to boost their energy for the long crossing.

  Karla pecked my cheek and went off to attend to her robber fly. It came zipping down out of the canopy like a faithful dog when she called it. I had to wander the forest a good twenty minutes before I located Tigger high atop a fig tree. He had my spare wings strapped to his side, but my saddle re
mained on the ground, stacked against a tree with several others.

  I tried coaxing him down with a sheet of pemmican I peeled out of a saddle bag. No matter how much I shrieked and whistled and waved the leathery flap at him, he ignored me, preferring instead to gorge on the turkey-sized aphids crowding the tender, outer branches. I tore off a chunk of pemmican to try myself. It looked much better than it tasted. Sour and putrid, like dried-up vomit, I had to spit it out.

  A damselfly with indigo wings and a purple metallic fuselage came skimming over the treetops bearing a lone rider. It was coming from the wrong direction to be one of the scouts. I recognized the rider. It was the young man from the bog—the nymph whisperer who had summoned Tigger from the depths.

  Olivier came dragging his saddle. “Who the fuck is this?”

  Viktor landed damselfly in the glade and dismounted.

  “Hello! Am I too late to volunteer?”

  “Never,” said Yaqob, who came strolling out of the shrubs, his chest and arms bristling with freshly applied armored scales. “You are welcome.”

  “I am afraid I bear some bad news,” said Viktor. “The second valley has fallen. New Axum is now surrounded on all sides. Zhang is negotiating terms with the Lords of Penult. They have begun evacuations by air.”

  Yaqob looked vexed. “We agreed they should wait for the outcome of the raid. Did we not?”

  “Master Zhang says they have no choice. Reznak dissents. The Old Ones are withholding their judgment for now. Every insect in the bog is being sent to the mountain, but we have not nearly enough wings to bring every refugee to the bog lands by air.”

  “Reznak will set things straight,” said Yaqob.

  Viktor noticed Tigger flitting about the treetops, He beamed.

  “How’s your young mount shaping up?”

  “He’s … uh … got a mind of his own.”

  “My robber fly is extremely well behaved,” said Karla. “Just … not very fast.”

  “Oh, but those robber flies maneuver well in tight quarters,” said Viktor. “They can take a hit too, and keep on flying.” He pulled a fistful of pale, chalky flakes from a sack. “Frog jerky, anyone?”

  Karla accepted a piece, but I decided to stick with the manna for now. Ubaldo climbed atop a dune and stared out across the across the bay. I went up and joined him. There was some action in the sky out over some distant shoals. From this distance, they just looked like a bunch of specks.