by Daryl Banner
“The ninth? That is rather far away, isn’t it? The other corner of Atlas …” She turns yet another thing over in her mind, a finger tapping her chin. Then, with a curious squint, she looks at him again. “Do you know … a Rone?”
To that, Halves gives a pinch of his fingers: No.
Ruena nods slowly, then glances away. “I suspected as much. It is a large ward, after all.”
Halves crosses his hands at his waist, standing in position.
She seems to note his stiff demeanor. “You are so formal. So … posed. You are in my room, you needn’t be so …” She waves a hand at him. “… whatever it is you’re being.”
He doesn’t relax in the least, nor move a muscle. Perhaps in the back of his mind, he wonders if this is a test of some kind. Guardian should all be formal. Guardian should be strong, in position, and ready for anything. It’s always been a trait that most annoyed Aleks and even a number of his peers, his strictness with rules and formality.
“Very well,” Ruena decides with a flippant shrug. “Be a statue. Be a stiff, posed, totally uncomfortable guardsman. But you can be that guardsman outside my door, for as I’ve told you, I need no personal Bodyguardian.” Ruena turns away from the window to face him fully. “You are dismissed. I care not what my aunt says.”
Halvesand, after a moment of indecision, realizes his role likely isn’t meant to include annoying his Sworn Duty. Who wants a big, armored person standing in their private bedroom all day long? Now with them formally introduced, he gives her a short bow from his waist, then moves back to the door. He feels her eyes upon his back as he slips through the door, then shuts it softly behind him.
And it’s upon that landing that he decides to stand guard. He has a window partway down the stairs visible over the iron railing of the landing, and sound travels so easily up this tall tower that he could likely hear even the chirp of an insect at the foot of the first step.
I’ll stand guard until three hours past sunfall, Halves decides.
Ruena seems plenty protected up here in this hidden tower in the Wall, but the Queen said she needed a Bodyguardian for her niece, and so here he is, and so here he shall be. Protecting Ruena. Guarding Ruena.
From what, he could only guess.
0312 Wick
Some nights, Wick is alright.
The five of them bundle up in a tent they’ve made from leather and wood, fortified against the nightly chill by stone. Puras worries over a pot of spices and herb and vegetables for everyone to eat, cut up with Wick’s dagger, which Wick keeps sheathed in his back pocket. Rychis, who always sets up the tent, sits by its entrance and glares out the slit in the fabric, watching for foes. Chaos usually rests near Puras, at times needing a sip of chemical to aid in his occasional fever flare-ups, which are rather mild lately. The final member of their party, the skinny woman with the bun atop her head named Ferra, has a Legacy that makes her fingertips glow and emit heat—a lot of heat when she concentrates. Under certain circumstances, she can even make fire. While it was a difficult decision for each of them to join Wick on his quest, it was most difficult for her, for she had to leave behind her best friend Nance, who couldn’t bear to leave her safe village of Gaea. Also, she wasn’t sure she trusted Chaos, fearing his ability and unable to dissociate him from the Madness. But most nights, Ferra seems able to put her worries aside, and she keeps the fire warm for Puras to cook, and her fingers—along with Wick’s when he mimics her—bring light to their world when the sun falls.
Some nights, Wick is not alright.
Sandstorms attack them, but only at night. Rychis and Wick both try to shield the party from the onslaught of sand, but even the Elementalist ability of moving earth does nothing to the fast-as-bullets granules of sand that whip past their tent, threatening with every violent gust to throw away their only semblance of shelter. When the sandstorms are at their worst, Puras and Chaos and Ferra get no rest as the three hold down the tent from the inside with their own weight, pinning it down as best they can.
On such nights, it means little to no sleep for Anwick Lesser, the only one who needs it.
During the daylight hours, the party travels slowly across the vast, flat, deadly-hot plain of sand and dust. Only now and then is there is a pocket of small vegetation—a patch of weeds, a dusting of dry grass and rock root and earthen whiskers—but little else lives in the sands. Many times, they have to take detours around some of the most insane anthills Wick has ever before seen in his life. The hills are not so tall, but they are ghastly wide—empires of ants that are furiously red, quick-moving, and uninviting.
Four days pass, and the Wall looks no closer than it did the day they left: an impossibly long, thin strip of darkness on the horizon.
And as the sun starts to fall and the tent is erected yet again, Wick looks at that thin strip of nothing in the vast distance, which disappears the more the sun falls, and he feels a deep and merciless chokehold of despair in his chest. We’re never going to get there.
The feeling is not eased when he wakes the next morning to Puras and Ferra rationing out their remaining foodstuffs. “Another week, I’d say,” mumbles Puras. “Unless we ration it out even less. Maybe this can last us two weeks, if we do only two meals a day.”
“Water is most essential,” points out Wick. At the despondent sound of his own voice, he clears his throat and adds a little energy. After all, this dangerous expedition was his idea, and he ought not be the first to lose hope. “Perhaps we can head a bit to the west while we travel. The sands meets the edge of the Wilderwoods at some point, I’m sure. We might encounter more food sources.”
Rychis puts the final fold on the tent with a grunt. “It was idiotic to head straight into the sands as we did.” He peers off at the Wall, stroking his beard. “We’re too eager. We chose the most direct path.”
“And the most direct isn’t always the quickest,” agrees Puras.
“We’ll aim toward the west, then.” Wick slings the satchel of food over his back. “It’ll lengthen the trip, but may help us survive.”
“Are you sure there’s not another reason you’re wanting to lean westward?” asks Ferra quietly, as if meaning only to ask Wick.
Everyone else hears it anyway.
Wick glances between the others’ faces. “No,” he insists. “We’re headed for Atlas in the safest, most practical way we can manage.”
No one wants to ask Wick the real question, not even Rychis, who is always the most confrontational of all.
Besides, they haven’t seen a single sign of Rone along the way. Nor have they seen any indication of Dran’s trail, assuming he even came out this way.
They are both lost to us.
The crew of five change their course, using the distant Wall and the sun as their trusty compasses, and go westward. Heat uncaringly blasts their backsides as they cross the impossible wasteland, and with each step, their backpacks seem to grow heavier.
And the conversation, lighter. Puras goes for a joke, but can’t think of the punchline, feeling lightheaded. Chaos, oddly, seems the least affected by the harsh climate, picking up the pace when it falls, encouraging everyone to keep going—Puras in particular, as close as they’ve grown during his recovery. Ferra and Wick both seem to be the silent, strong ones, trudging along without much to say, but not falling behind, flanking the group on either of its sides. Rychis picks up the rear, which is just as well, because he wears a focused grimace (which looks more like a scowl) the whole way, like he’s angry about something. He should really work on breaking that angry-vengeful-man stereotype of himself. Perhaps he ought to figure out the punchline to Puras’s forgotten joke and deliver it for our amusement.
Two nights later, the patches of grass seem more frequent—if still a bit dead—and they encounter a sole tree here and there, though Puras identifies a few as “desert wood”, which is his way of saying they are far from the wilds, and likely have some long stretches of lowlands still to cross before they can hope to be sur
rounded by the plentiful shade of trees and soft, billowy overgrowth.
It’s upon that same night that Puras realizes he’s made a slight miscalculation.
“What the fuck do you mean we need to ration our water even more?” barks Rychis. “I’m already parched as it is!”
“I’m sorry. I wish my Legacy was in changing facts, but alas.” Puras flinches away when Rychis makes a lift of his fist, then thinks the better and lowers it with a grunt. “We are lower than I expected. Unless we reach the wilds by tomorrow or the next day—”
“Fuck the wilds. Fuck the water. Fuck it all.” Rychis storms out of the tent and into the night.
When Puras rises, Ferra says, “Let him go. He’ll be back once he has let out his shakes.”
It’s a kind way of saying Rychis needs to throw an earthquake or two to get the anger out. No sooner than Wick thinks it, the four of them remaining in the tent feel a subtle rumbling in the ground beneath them, as if some large machine were driving its way toward them, wheels heavy and engine rippling through the air.
No, just an angry Elementalist, Wick thinks dryly.
When Ferra is outside scoping the stars, Wick closes his eyes to drift away for the night. Though they are far from home, and joy is the last thing to be flooding his thoughts, he can’t escape a burning, deep-down thrill that there is even a sliver of a possibility that he can be home in a matter of days. Yes, maybe weeks. But even weeks are just a matter of days, too.
An immeasurable amount of time later, Anwick Lesser opens up his dry eyes, and Athan Broadmore is cuddled up by his side. There are no words between them, because somehow, Anwick realizes he never left the ninth to make any sort of deal with the Mad King. His brother Lionis is still alive, somewhere outside the tent. Athan lies there by his side, muscly and soft and warm. Come here, his eyes say, and Athan hears him perfectly. When the two come together, Wick’s insides come apart like clay. There is something like laughter deep within him that makes tears fall from his eyes as they kiss. Athan’s strong arms wrap around his body, pulling their bodies tightly into one another’s. He feels Athan’s cock swelling in his pants below, flexing against his thigh. It is warm between our legs. We could kindle a fire between our bodies. Wick’s legs wrap around Athan’s waist, and the two ridiculous, horny animals start going at it right there with all their clothes on, humping each other’s meat and driving each other’s mouths forward, almost angry, hard, desperate and insatiable.
No amount of Athan Broadmore will ever be enough to fill him up. Anwick Lesser is hungry, and his heart is empty, and if he does nothing to fill it soon, he won’t have one anymore.
Then Wick opens his eyes—his real eyes. The sun is still down.
But something else is up.
Very “up”.
When Wick hears a snicker from across the tent, his eyes lift to find Puras and Chaos cuddled by one another, staring at Wick and his erection through his pants. “Would you … like a little help with that?” asks Puras innocently, to which Chaos can’t help but break a smile and look away, his face going red.
Wick doesn’t answer, but turns over, hiding his erection, his weight pressing on the sheathed dagger in his back pocket—Rone’s last gift to him—and closes his eyes again, desperate to return to that horny moment with his Athan Broadmore. But dreams are fickle creatures, and when Wick finally drifts off, all he sees is a great and terrible Wall standing in front of him, the height of the sky, the width of forever, and the color of doom, doom, doom.
0313 Athan
At the edge of the Core, the three of them happen on a street that, according to Athan’s map, ought to lead directly into the first.
What they encounter, instead, is a giant wooden gate with two men at its top, watching the street below.
Locke has a hand on Athan’s shoulder, holding him back. Nickel and Edrick stand behind them, watching, silent. The guards atop the gate pay them no mind, glancing left and right, scratching their arms and stretching their necks, bored.
Locke is cloaking us, Athan realizes. The guards can’t see us.
“Are we sneaking in?” asks Edrick under his breath.
“Someone will come in or out of the gate,” Locke whispers back with a nod. “We’ll slip through at the first sight.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” asks Edrick. “This is supposed to be a peaceful ward. This stupid Slum King guy should receive us peacefully. Why are we springing upon him a surprise meeting?”
“Edrick has a point,” Athan admits, not caring to whisper with the pair of them, “and I’m not one for shadows and mysteries.” He takes a step forward.
“Athan!” hisses Locke.
But Athan has moved forward toward the gate, uncaring. Is it his strange instinct that drives him, or just pure overconfidence? The gate is dauntingly tall, nearly five stories in its height. It might make one wonder how the hell one acquires such wood to make the gates. Trees simply do not grow that tall in the Greens.
Locke’s Legacy must have a far reach, for the guards don’t take notice of Athan until he shouts up at them.
“Excuse me, fine sirs,” calls out Athan, like an ant hollering up at the sky. “Good day, my friends.”
When one of them calls down, he is altogether polite, despite his blunt words. “Who are you? How did you get there?”
Athan beams a broad smile up at them. “I’m a small person, and am often overlooked even by my friends. I will make my purpose plain. I come with three others behind me from the eighth and the ninth, envoys of Interim Warden Arrow of the ninth, and I would like to request a most urgent, peaceful audience with the King of the Coalition, if he is so available.”
The guards, standing at opposite ends of the gate, look at each other, then look back down at him.
Perhaps due to their outing by Athan, Locke and the two others come forth from their shadows and stand by Athan, peering up and awaiting an answer from the guards.
After one of them presses two fingers to his ear for a while—an earpiece, perhaps, like the ones Arrow gives them—he leans over the edge of the gate. “State your names,” he order of them, again in a tone that is oddly polite.
Athan is certain this guard is Lifted, if for anything but his soft and slightly rigid manners, but makes no thing of it. “My name is Athan. To my left is Locke of the ninth. To my right is Nickel and Edrick, both of the eighth.”
“You mentioned not what you are,” the guard points out, his voice echoing down from the sky and bouncing and reverberating off the sides of the nearby buildings. “Athan of the ninth, as well?”
The guard is wondering the same thing of me. “I am Athan of the ninth for the past eight months. Formerly, I was Athan Broadmore of the Glassen.”
“Broadmore!” The guard loses all sense of who he is, and even across the distance, his excitement is plain. “Oh, I can’t believe it! Oh, I knew it when I saw your face! I know your brother! Yes, I do!”
Athan’s throat tightens. “Did you?” he asks back lightly.
The guard doesn’t catch Athan’s use of the past tense. “Yes! Oh, Radley is such a delight. He was Janlord’s favorite, I can tell you that. Oh, Janlord had such a soft place for him in his eyes, he did. I saw it every time we all would work together in the King’s Research. What a joy to invite you into our prestigious Coalition. I’ll call for the King right away, yes I will. Oh, what an honor it is. What an honor!” With that, the guard disappears, followed soon by the other, who only watches Athan with squinted, skeptical eyes.
A second later, Locke turns to Athan. “Lifted privileges?” There lives a spark of amusement in his tone.
Athan gives the mysterious Locke a shrug.
Edrick is less amused. “You’re too damn trusting, all you Lifted.” He scoffs and crosses his thin arms. “You trust him too quickly, and he gave in to you too quickly. So many of you Lifted, you are naïve of the hungry nature of humankind. You just … you just assume the world is yours to bend, consequence free.”
&
nbsp; To that, Athan gives him a squeeze of his shoulder. “This world is just as much yours to bend as it is mine, my friend.”
Edrick rolls his eyes. “Naïve.”
Nickel watches the exchange between them with a pinched look on his small, pouty face. He hasn’t said a word since they left their little warehouse camping site, keeping only to himself and offering nothing to them, even in the way of opinions, comments, or advice.
It was your choice to leave the eighth, he’d tell that Nickel. I never said my heart, my body, or my friendship would be offered in the deal.
It does nothing to make him feel less guilty for the way he’s treated the orange-haired boy.
At once, a great snapping sound cracks across the sky, and then the gate slowly opens. It only needs to open a tiny bit to let the four of them through.
“A pleasure! Welcome!” greets the guard, now on the ground.
“Thank you,” returns Athan with a short bow.
“This way, please. King Chole has agreed to see you. I will bring you to him at once. Your friends as well.”
The four of them follow the guard, who is taller up-close than he seemed high up at the top of the gate. He’s slender and broad-shouldered but with a narrow waist and skinny legs. The armor he wears is a heavy off-white fabric with modest plates of iron here and there, and a leathery skirt of sorts around his midsection. Athan and the guard carry on with a bit of Lifted small talk, all of which is in an ear and out the other, as Athan is too distracted observing the rather different atmosphere of the first ward.
The buildings here are very short, nearly all of them one or two stories, giving a generous view of the Wall no matter where one stands. There also isn’t much of the Lifted City over this part of the slums, meaning that more of the bright midday sky is visible. They walk a web of narrow streets that cut between the short buildings and homes, all free of lawns and curbs. Overhead, cables and lines cross over the streets, hanging between the buildings with lamps and ornaments and clothes pinched to their wires. Each window they pass, they see friendly faces, families, and happy mealtimes, just like in the ninth.