The beast swooped down towards the floor of the arena. I was sure it was going to crash but it gained some lift at the last second and pulled up onto the opposite ramp, its claws skittering on the hard clay.
The thing was skinny for a Reaper and long—at least twice the length of those giant mantids. It had a set of three diamond-shaped wings on each side of its elongated body, each reinforced with ridges and veins.
It sported a sparser, lighter, more skeletal version of the decking that the escort Reapers carried. There were several soldiers on board, apparently training the beast to fly.
A chorus of bleating kicked up behind me. There was a whole flock of the monsters perched on a massive scaffold atop the arena, stretching their wings, getting ready to practice their gliding. I got the heck out of that place before the next one came crashing down on my head.
Once outside, I gazed up at the blue-tinged sun, trying to guess how to make my way back to the main gate.
The best I could figure, I had to circle around the back of the arena. The city opened up here, mainly because a large section of those green towers had been toppled, leaving only broken stubs. Beneath them spread an understory of house-sized bulbous things that looked like puffball mushrooms. Many had been crushed or turned to dust.
The Hemis here seemed to be preparing for war. They transformed bins of squirming roots into harpoons and swords and contraptions that looked like large-bore elephant rifles. Body armor was being distributed from the stacks stored within the stump of a fallen tower. Across a vacant lot, a line of soldiers practiced firing rocket-like projectiles that left corkscrew contrails behind as they flew.
When Victoria had vetted me, she had asked if I would be willing to fight for Frelsi. I had said yes, but I wasn’t so sure about that anymore. War is war, and people had a right to defend themselves, but I had seen nothing so far that made me feel like this place was worth fighting for. This place wasn’t exactly my idea of Heaven. Not even close.
As I rounded the arena, I spotted an opening back into the plaza beyond a huge array of those rectangular depressions they used to stable their Reapers. I made a beeline for it, not crazy about having to go past all those nasty, smelly things, but it was the quickest way out of here.
I was desperate to get back to Bern and Lille’s and sort everything out. Mom’s snubbing still stung.
The Reapers’ powerful stench hung like a curtain before the trenches. I don’t know how people could stand riding these beasts.
Reapers lounged in heaps at the bottom of the depressions, relaxed in their limbless, slug-like, undifferentiated state. They were as placid as cows, chewing their cuds of gristle and bone.
The first trench held a bunch of lunkers, well-suited for decking, but beside them was another, deeper depression holding a herd of smaller, quicker beasts no bigger than a donkey. These somehow scared me more. They were so active and hungry, sending feelers reaching up over the top of the trench and brushing my ankles as I passed.
Keepers were unloading bodies from the back of a carriage and lining them up all in a row, only this time they weren’t mummies. They had grey skin and mottled faces. Many bore wounds that were gaping and grisly. I imagined they were Dusters fallen in battle.
Just beyond them was a roofed-over pen packed with people. I thought at first they might be prisoners of war, but when I got closer I could see that they were just Hemis like me.
They were a pathetic and sullen lot, staring at me blankly. I knew that look well. These were souls that had given up, and it was probably far from the first time they had felt that way. They were well versed in hopelessness.
They had a different sort of marking on their forearms. The usual C of a Hemi was modified by scabs and purplish scars across the open end, making a sort of stenciled D.
One of the keepers brushed by me, dragging a thick coil of braided rope.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But why are all these people locked up in here?”
“They’re Defectives,” he said, tossing me a brief and weary glance.
“Huh? How are they … defective?”
“Whatever,” he shrugged. “Don’t pull their weight. Fade too much. Don’t cooperate with their Mentors.
“So … this is like punishment? How’s this supposed to help?”
“It ain’t punishment, it’s disposal. Reapers gotta eat, no?”
“Jesus Christ!” I said, thoroughly disgusted. “Who don’t they feed to the Reapers around here?”
“Me. If I can help it,” said the keeper, looking up nervously at the platforms of the nearest tower. There was a group of Freesouls gathered, their bright plumage like a flock of tropical birds. Their laughter carried on the breeze.
“Enough screwing around,” said the keeper. Go find yourself a working party unless you want to join these folks.” He staggered off, dragging the rope.
I stood there staring at the idle souls socializing on that platform. It seemed they thought of themselves as little gods, every one of them, even my own mother. And that wasn’t like Darlene at all. She had always been the earthy type, a wanna-be hippie chick. Used to be, she couldn’t pass a homeless person on the street without striking up a conversation. The damned Weavers in this place meddled with far more than flesh.
I marched past the rest of the trenches, looking straight ahead, ignoring the farts and groans and belches that erupted within them. I passed a cluster of puffballs, through a grove of modest towers and arrived back at the plaza.
The traffic there had already reversed. More people and wagons exited the gates than entered. I hesitated, gazing longingly at the tower where mom had retreated. She was up there somewhere, relaxing on a deck or ensconced in some cylindrical chamber.
I wondered if any memories of me had come back to her. I could only hope that her life with me was not entirely wiped away, but filed someplace deep, somewhere recoverable.
I had half a mind to go check on her, but that bodyguard was lingering at the base of her tower. The last thing I needed was another hassle. I was already seething from the accumulation of shocks and insults I had withstood since coming to Frelsi.
But I took careful note of the tower’s location. For now, it was enough to know that Mom—or what was left of her—was here, and that she was safe. Our reunion would have to wait.
I knew what had happened to her wasn’t her fault. She had probably thought she was just getting a facelift. By the same reason there might be few Freesouls who could be faulted for their attitudes, if their brains had been unwittingly modified by some Flesh Weaver. Lille’s personality so far seemed intact, but I had to warn her and Bern before it was too late.
A fire had ignited in me that could not be snuffed. I looked at all these dutiful Hemis filing out to their slums and I could not help but look at them as slaves with disposable souls. I couldn’t stop dwelling on that cage of ‘Defectives,’ biding the hours until feeding time.
If I had ever aspired to Frelsi, my little excursion into this Sanctuary had destroyed that ambition. Eternal life or not, I could not forgive what they had done to my mother.
I could no longer look up at Freesouls and the powers who made them as my betters. They had become my enemies.
I knew a Duster girl who needed to be saved from this madness.
Chapter 26: The Crossing
As I crossed the plaza to the gates of the Sanctuary, my stride grew heavy, every step a chore. My senses retreated, erecting a wall between me and my surroundings. Things kept shifting in my head and clicking into place. These changes felt solid and permanent, like continental plates realigning.
This wasn’t depression. I knew depression. This was simply existence shoving its ugly mug into the fore. This was illusion falling like scales from my eyeballs.
According to Lille, Frelsi’s founders were attempting to shape this place into their common vision of Heaven. But if this was their idea of paradise, I sure didn’t want to see their vision of Hell.
There had to
be something better out there. I mean, not all of the afterlife could be this warped. Could it? There had to be something more than the Liminality and the Deeps. A bona fide Heaven must exist, a place without privilege, where every soul could find some rest.
The problem was, no one here seemed to know anything about this other place. But why should they? They didn’t belong. Heaven didn’t want them. The Freesouls may have figured out a way to beat the system here, but that didn’t make them any less ignorant about the real Heaven.
Root was just a way station for suicidal souls—who, as far as I knew, constituted a tiny fraction of the human race. It was some kind of spiritual plumbing, a toilet for flushing those who didn’t deserve the gift of life into the cesspool that was the Deeps.
But where did all the others go, the people who died of more natural causes like murder or calamity or embolisms? People like Dad.
There had to something better, some alternative to the Deeps. I doubt it looked anything like the harp and angel Heaven-in-the-clouds idea of pop culture. But why wouldn’t there be some final resting place for all the well-adjusted, good-hearted souls who make up the majority of our species? And it shouldn’t matter whether or not they followed one faction’s idea of the one true faith. Should it?
I wondered about those ‘Old Ones.’ Maybe it was just some accident of mummified and contracted facial muscle, but every last one I had ever seen looked pretty darned content, even when they lay in the feed trough of a Reaper’s trench. Wherever their souls resided, it couldn’t be too horrible a place, even if it was only inside their own heads.
I reached the end of the queue of Hemis leaving the Sanctuary. Looking at all those hopeful, striving faces, I felt like an atheist at a prayer meeting. How had Frelsi managed to delude all these souls into sacrificing their labors for such a sketchy cause?
Sure they had folks up here who could make you look young and pretty and Weave any object you desired. But did these souls really aspire to spending all of eternity in a gated community of tree houses? Other than the fresh breezes, how was this place any better than Luthersburg?
The sun dipped low, gilding the outer wall and glinting off the roofs of the shanties visible through the gate. Those leaving the Sanctuary with empty packs and carts now outnumbered the crowd waiting to get in. I jostled my way through the weary mob, anxious to leave this nasty place.
My charcoal C had long been reduced to a smudge, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need a ticket to exit the Sanctuary. No one cared who left this place.
Despite Mom being here, I would not be coming back anytime soon. Maybe the place would be bearable with Karla, if we had nowhere else to go. I could probably tolerate the fires of Hell with Karla by my side, if there was a Hell and if it had fire.
But there was no guarantee I would ever see her again. A lot depended on what happened with Edmund on the other side. That, I couldn’t bear to think about.
Once I passed through the gate, I careened down the still busy main thoroughfare and broke past the last line of shanties onto the parade ground. My eyes went directly to the edge of the trench, looking for the tidy, web-wrapped bundle that would be Urszula.
Except, she wasn’t there. My wild goose chase into the Sanctuary had caused me to break my promise. She was gone, probably chomped down by some belching Reaper.
I stood there, stunned. I had blown it. I had failed to protect Urszula.
Disgusted with myself, I went over to Lille’s hut and called inside. No one answered. I pried open the door, which was basically a slab of some bark-like material that scraped against the clay on leather hinges.
There was nobody home. A kettle sat on the hearth, still warm. When did Lille ever let a kettle cool? I wish I could have said goodbye to them, but there was no way I could hang around this place any longer.
I dipped a gourd in Lille’s water cistern, scooped a cup of ambrosia from a small cauldron and stomped out of the hut. The parade ground was devoid of soldiers for a change. I walked along the trench. The Reapers were becoming active, heaving their flesh around and bickering.
“Oh God.” A wave of nausea rippled through me when I realized they were fighting over a corpse. I turned my head, but couldn’t tune out the crunch of bone and squish of flesh.
At the end of the ramp, Old Ones were heaped like a bunch of rag dolls. And yet they looked happy, every last one of them, no matter how undignified their posture.
There was one that stood out from the mossy crowd, its lithe figure all covered in a sticky mesh—Urszula. I rushed over and knelt by her side.
“You alive?” I said, hopefully.
She said nothing. I poked my finger through the mesh and prodded her side. She squirmed and growled like a panther and tried to bite me.
“It’s okay. It’s me. James.”
I undid her hood and yanked it off. She stared through the mesh, unblinking.
“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” I said. “Here, have a drink.” I dribbled a stream of water onto her lips. She sputtered and balked at first, but then lapped at it thirstily with her tongue.
A thin stream of saliva and blood trickled down her cheek. I stuck two fingers of gruel through the mesh and onto her lips. She sucked at it hungrily.
“You poor thing. You must be starved.”
She stared at me as she ate, every muscle in her face as stiff as a bronze statue. I noticed for the first time, the odd flecks of color embedded in her grey eyes, shards of greenish gold, a violet haze. It was really quite mesmerizing … and pretty.
The Reapers below were getting agitated, grunting and snorting like pigs. I dabbed some more porridge on my fingers and brought it to her mouth. This time, she pressed her lips tight and refused it.
“Come on, you hardly had any.”
“Why bother feeding me?” she said. “I will not last one more night.”
“Yeah, you will.”
I saw a wheelbarrow sitting near a pile of empty sacks. I hefted Urszula up and into it. She groaned as her swollen ankle bumped the edge. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching, but though there was a steady stream of foot traffic, every Hemi had their minds on their own business.
I threw some sacks on top to help conceal her and wheeled her away.
“Where are you taking me?” she croaked.
“Out.”
“Out of where?”
“Out of Frelsi. Now shush! Keep still.”
Given this second chance to redeem myself, I was determined not to fail her again. I would not rest until she was free.
***
I wheeled the barrow against the flow of traffic through the unguarded entrance of the outer wall. As we passed through, I spotted a half empty sack of wriggling roots that must have fallen off a cart. A train of them were escaping through a hole in the side and inching across the road. I scooped up a couple handfuls and crammed them in my pocket.
A woman hunched under a massive load of what looked like driftwood stopped and glared at me. “I saw you take those.”
“So what? They’re just roots.”
“Put them back. They don’t belong to you.”
“But they were crawling away. Nobody wants them.”
She peered into the wheelbarrow. “What do you have under there? Is that … a corpse? Where are you taking it?”
“None of your damned business! Get the out of my face, lady!”
I grabbed the handles of the barrow and trundled off. The woman watched me go, her face like a librarian witnessing a patron abscond with a book.
A Freesoul in a maroon shirt came strolling through the gap. The lady bustled over to him, that huge load rattling on her back. I knew that guy! It was Master Felix, out of uniform.
I stepped up my pace, pushing the barrow along as quickly as I could without breaking into a run. The stiff, gourd-like wheel provided no cushion whatsoever over the bumps. Urszula groaned with every pothole and rut.
Just before the road curved out of sight, I looked back
one last time. Two soldiers had joined Master Felix and the woman, all staring after me.
“Things are about to get bumpier,” I said, shoving the wheelbarrow over the large stones that lined the curb.
I traversed onto a sun-parched meadow, heading for a line of large monoliths, the fragmentary remains of an even more ancient fortification. Ducking behind one, I risked a peek back towards the road.
The soldiers came running down the road, their heavy soles thudding against the clay. I ducked back down behind the stone.
“What is happening?” said Urszula.
“No biggie,” I said. “Just some soldiers.”
I grabbed the wheelbarrow and started down the steep hill behind us. It dropped over a ledge and skittered sideways, jostling Urszula. She squealed and moaned in pain.
There was no way I could maintain control of the barrow down a slope so steep and rough. I might dump her off a cliff, if I tried.
“We’re gonna have to do this differently.”
I propped the wagon against a thicket of shrubs and lifted her out, slinging her over one shoulder.
“Sorry if this is a little undignified, but it’s the only way.”
“Just … do not drop me.”
I angled down the slope. We quickly descended out of sight of both the wall and the road. I kept peeking back to see if we were being followed. So far, so good.
My heels kept sliding on patches of loose, flaky talus. It took me every bit of effort I could muster to stay upright and hang onto Urszula.
One top of it all, those dang roots in my pocket were driving me nuts, squirming around, trying to burrow through my jeans, tickling my thigh.
At the head of a gully, I stopped and put her down. I pulled some of the roots out of my pocket and laid them down on a flat stone. Each was about as long and thick as my pinkie finger. I pointed my finger at them and tried to conjure an image of my last sword, the one Master Felix had taken from me.
But nothing happened. The roots lined up behind each other and crawled away.
I emptied the rest out of my pocket and tried again. Same thing. They crawled up to the gully and tumbled over the edge one by one, following each other like lemmings.