by HP Mallory
“Ya know this ain’t gonna work, Conan. It don’t take too much time fer them ta rejuverate from a knockdown. We’ll only git maybe halfway before we git swept up in the fighting.”
Besom was right behind me and the look on her face told me she was thinking hard. “Why do they always use the bridges for combat?”
I gave her a curious look. “Eh? Ah didnae think ye’d seen—”
“Look, I could barely stomach what I saw down there any better than you could. But one thing I noticed was nobody was wading into the water and that seems… weird.”
The angel’s chuckle sounded anything but merry. “Yeah, that’s because it’s freaking suicide! The water from the Acheron doesn’t just kill ya, Nips. It sweeps ya up like the world’s ugliest eyewash an’ spits ya out in the Asylum… that’s if yer lucky. If not…” The wee angel shuddered.
Lily nodded like she was more certain of her latest idea than before. “So if you knocked out the bridges, the soldiers couldn’t continue to fight until they were rebuilt somehow.”
I hated to put a pin into this promising idea balloon but honesty came first on the battlefield. “Willnae work, Besom… them bridges are made o’ Secundum Materium. It’s nae as tough as Prima Materia but it’d take more than a shell from one o’ them big artillery guns tae put one outta commission.”
“Can’t be the only explosives they have down there… I mean, Dahlia mentioned rockets and grenades were hitting them, right?” Besom asked.
“Great Morrigan, woman! Do ye hae any concept how much explosives it would—”
The assertiveness I saw in me Lily came back with exponential power, a skill that’d do Cailleach, herself, proud. “Look, the undisputed facts are: they will not stay idle for long and none of them are crazy enough to swim the river. So unless you’ve got a better plan, why don’t we grab as much portable boom-boom as we can and at least try to blow up those bridges?”
I couldnae help me smile. I was proud of me lass and I wanted her tae see as much on me face. She held me gaze for a moment and there was lust in her eyes. Lust I felt in me own todger. I wanted her just then… badly. But ‘twould have to wait.
We reached the bottom of the steps, and our feet were subjected to the sheer quantity of red fluid the soil hadnae absorbed yet. I shook me head, there was nae better plan. “Ye know this plan comes from a place o’ madness, aye?”
The smile Besom gave me this time was sweet and full of understanding. “Yeah, I know, Tallis, but it’s the kind of madness that just might see us through to the other side.”
###
Lily
The first thing I noticed about the Blood Plains was the rank smell. The foul odor was heavy enough to detect from up top. But now that I was right in the middle of it, my poor nose threatened to go on strike. It was a putrid combination of all sorts of ugly stuff: blood (of course), cooked, uncooked and spoiled meat, rusty metal, burnt flesh and strange body fluids I didn’t want to identify. I longed for a sudden case of sinus congestion. If this was how every battlefield smelled, I could easily understand Tallis’s revulsion for it.
The worst part was the condition of the bodies. Some were so torn apart that they got mixed up with the other mangled corpses. Other bodies looked like they were just sleeping until you saw the blank stares on their faces and the fatal injuries that no one could survive. A few of them were actually alive, however, moaning in agony and writhing like snakes after being run over by cars. I tried avoiding them when I walked, but some places were so thick with corpses, you could walk several yards without either foot ever touching the ground.
Even though my guts recoiled with nausea, I amazed myself by how well I managed to keep it together.After all the things I’d seen and experienced, I could finally put everything into perspective.
Even so, my heart went out to these poor assholes. Every last one of them was stuck in this horrible place, fighting until they couldn’t anymore, then getting right back up after a break that was anything but peaceful or restful. This was probably the worst I’d seen down here yet. I couldn’t help wondering what crimes these people did to deserve so much torment. I made a note to ask Minos the next time I saw him.
Hopefully there would be a next time.
While a train of cheery thoughts ran through my head, Tallis and I finally reached the artillery guns. We’d sent Bill up ahead to act as a scout, owing to his incredible vision.
There were no tents or bunkers around the guns, just a couple of machine gun nests manned by shooters who were literally dead to the world. We’d have gotten here a lot sooner but traveling over a carpet of corpses made our walking much slower.
The phone in my pocket suddenly crackled to life. “Everything good, Nips?”
Tallis scowled at Bill’s voice on the other line. Then Tallis crouched next to the crate of shells at the base of the right gun. I took my phone off speaker. “Dammit, Bill, what’d we say about staying off the line unless there’s imminent trouble?”
“Well, is there?” Bill asked.
I rubbed the side of my neck while I looked at the smaller crate beside the shells. “Since you’ve got the telescopic advantage, why don’t you tell me?” The smaller crate was unlabeled and filled halfway with the unmistakable shape of pineapple grenades.
Bill sounded a little sheepish. “Well, uh, I’m seein’ the first o’ the corpses pick themselves up. So…”
I silently forgave Bill for his interruption. Tallis was selecting ammunition from another short crate ahead of me. He lifted a short-tubed rocket launcher that could have been used as a club. I put Bill back on speaker and the cellphone back in my pocket. “Any of them close to where we are?”
My angelic sidekick sounded relieved. “Nah, if there were, I’d be yellin’ instead o’ talkin’. Just dunno how long that’s gonna last, so ya better hustle.”
I grabbed the grenade crate and picked it up. It seemed a bit hefty but nothing I couldn’t handle. All my morning pushups were definitely paying off. “That goes both ways, Bill. Get over here.”
“Yeah, yeah, Ms. Bossy Britches, I’m comin’.”
I turned around to see if I could spot him. But I was handicapped by the lack of light—even Bill had the good sense not to spark off his aura around here—that and the distance and my ex-guardian angel’s size made it damn near impossible.
Tallis came over to me, holding five of the rocket tubes under his arm. He peered down into the half-empty grenade box in my hands. “Room fer some more?”
I held up the box and he dumped the tubes into it. That filled it up completely but the tubes were so light, I could barely feel any change in weight. I felt a chill, however, when the corpse in the nearest machine gun nest began to moan and stir.
Tallis knelt down to grab the box of artillery shells while looking at the body. “The stookie angel best hurry… Ah doubt them lads an’ lasses’ll be stayin’ still mooch longer.”
He lifted the crate and managed to get onto his feet. But I could see from the strain in his face that he was barely hanging on. I stared at him in concern. “You sure you can get that thing to the bridges without falling over?”
He could barely talk but the force of his words was unmistakable. “Whit choice have Ah got, Besom?”
By then, all the bodies around the guns were beginning to come back to life and in doing so, were crawling on their hands and knees and some were standing up. Some crawled out from underneath those still “asleep,” and others were tripping over each other. All their lethal wounds were sewing themselves up. Rush hour would commence any second and we were in the worst possible position to encounter it.
As if I needed any reminder, Bill’s voice started shouting through my cell. “You twos gittin’ outta there or what?”
On a whim, I tossed the grenade box on top of the crate, nearly causing Tallis to drop the box on the spot. I grabbed the rope handle just as the crate slipped out of Tallis’s hand. I took the brunt and winced at the immediate crunch of the weigh
t. Christ, why did Tallis think he could carry this all on his own?
My bladesmith’s eyes started darting around the battlefield at all the rising corpses as we struggled to get away from them.
“We’re gonna drop it, Besom!”
I gritted my teeth and pulled my end toward the bridges. “Not if we hang on tight!”
We’d gone only a couple of steps when Bill shouted another report. “Ya gots something comin’ yer way, guys!”
Tallis was trying to shift his grip, but to no avail. “There’s a lot o’ somethings ‘round us right now, stookie angel!”
“Not like this, Tido! Look up!”
When we did, my heart stopped. A perfect blue orb was quickly but gracefully floating down our way, its soft light making the fighters around us fall back just a little. As it got toward the middle of the crate, I saw it change into a human form. For just a moment, I wondered if Jeanne had somehow escaped her prison in the Urn.
That notion died as the ball assumed the unmistakable shape of a man. The blue glow around him dimmed but it didn’t fade completely. His face had a dark complexion, eyebrows as thick as his impressive mustache, a bald head, and deep, intense eyes that seemed to radiate with power. Without any preamble, he grabbed the bottom of the box from the middle and lifted it up. His heavily accented voice proved as hypnotic as his eyes. “My apologies for being unable to arrive sooner.”
I had to remind my tongue to speak. “Um, no worries.”
Tallis seemed a lot less enthusiastic. “What’s yer game here, stranger?”
The mustached man nodded towards the box contents. “You intend to use these to destroy the bridges. And I wish to assist you with such a scheme.”
Tallis tugged on his end of the box, bringing us to an abrupt halt. “Ah’ll accept the help o’ nae man who doesnae give me his name.”
The bald man’s stare remained intense but there was no hostility in it. “That is fair. In life, I was known as George Ivanovich Gurdjieff.”
“Wow,” I said as I realized I was now speaking to the very famous Armenian guru and writer. Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher of the first half of the 20th century and without him, we would have surely dropped our heavy load.
TEN
Lily
Bill’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Dammit, can you two even hear me?”
Tallis gave me and Gurdjieff a slight push before answering our wayward angel. “Aye, now we can. Whit have ye been tryin’ ta tell oos?”
“Shit, Conan, I’ve been tryin’ to configurate out what the actual hell that ball o’ light was! Did the cell cut out fer a few seconds or something?”
Seeing that we hadn’t heard Bill since before Gurdjieff arrived, that seemed like the most plausible theory. To mine and Tallis’s surprise, however, our new companion spoke to Bill.
“Do I have the honor of addressing an apprentice member of the Celestial Choir?”
Poor Bill didn’t quite know how to reply to that. “Umm, yeah, that’s me, though nobody’s exactly called me that before.”
“Then allow me to be the first, oh, being of pure light.”
“Hey, I ain’t gonna stop ya, Smooth Talker!”
The rising dead were making our trek to the bridges complicated. Not only did we have to step around the bodies, but the press of the crowd was deliberately slowing us down. For a distraction, I inserted myself into the conversation. “I’m not so sure that Bill could be called ‘pure’.”
“Hey!”
Tallis elbowed his way past one of the fighters who made the mistake of getting in our way. “Ah know yer nae aboot tae call Besom a liar, stookie angel, ‘specially on this soobject.”
Gurdjieff just took it in all in stride. “It is no matter… by his very nature, William can never sleep as well as the humanity he has watched over for centuries.”
Tallis nodded towards the mass of former humans swirling around us. “Would ye call them folk ‘round oos asleep, then?”
“Most assuredly… they are trapped in a place of chaos and darkness that forever blinds them to what they could be.”
I grimaced as I stepped between a few of the people being discussed. “Too bad we’re stuck in the same horrible place with them.”
Gurdjieff’s intense eyes seemed to pierce me straight through my heart. “No… their darkness comes from the spirit, a state in which they labored while alive and now they are condemned to it in death. The same cannot be said of either of you.”
“If’n ye knew what Ah’d done, man, ye would nae be so quick ta say such things,” Tallis said.
The seductive voice of Gurdjieff became surprisingly tender. “We all begin in darkness and ignorance. That is why we are asleep. But through our actions, we strive to reach for the pure light, which is available to all.” Neither Tallis nor I could find words in response. Of course, it didn’t exactly help that we were hauling a heavy cache of explosives through a horde of trigger-happy zombies either.
With a lot of panting, Bill finally emerged from the crowd. He looked up at Gurdjieff and frowned. “So who are ya again? An’ would ya like ta officially be crowned el presidente o’ my fan club?”
###
By the time we reached the nearest bridge, almost everyone on both sides of the river was on their feet. Their eyes were blank slates while their hands reloaded their guns, sharpened their blades or foraged for weapons with which to strike their opponents. Yet not one of them paid us any attention as we shoved our way through them. It probably helped that they were shoving each other out of the way too but we were stealing their stuff. You’d think someone would have noticed.
I guess it was true what they said about zombies—they were dumb.
The crowd gradually thinned out enough for us to make quicker progress to the bridge. With our target in sight, I popped my nagging question to Gurdjieff. “What you said before about these… people being lost… is that why they haven’t bothered us?”
Gurdjieff said nothing, but arched an eyebrow at Tallis. My favorite Scotsman obliged him. “Ye gotta actually attack ‘em or gits betwixt them an’ their quarry ‘fore they give ye any direct trouble, Besom. Mind, when the fightin’ starts oop agin, they willnae care who they lash out at, so we might git hit anyway.” Then he turned a suspicious eye on our new friend. “Ah know near every soul that ever came tae the Oonderground City. Boot this marks the first Ah ever saw the likes o’ ye.”
Gurdjieff nodded gravely, the bridge only a few feet away. “And that would be because I do not belong here.”
Bill chimed in with, “We heard somebody mention ya. They said ya got caught up in that Y2K crapola AE’s been dealin’ with.”
“Then your source of information told you only part of the truth, my friend. While I was among those other unfortunate souls who were sent below, I have come here of my own will and choice.”
Tallis stared at him in disbelief as he ground to a halt at the start of the bridge. “Why, fer Bran’s sake? Ah git ye’re wishin’ tae do good but—”
Gurdjieff subtly pushed the crate forward, which encouraged us to move again. “The others needed my help. I do whatever I can to provide that help for them whenever possible. One such charge of mine lies beyond these plains.”
Something wasn’t adding up. And I could only shake my head. “Look, let’s say we believe you. It still doesn’t explain why this is the first time we’ve seen you in the Underground City.”
The odd man shrugged again. “This place is quite vast. I am merely one spirit among many. I can only will myself into a physical form for a limited period. I have taken great pains to avoid the eye of this city’s current master.” He paused and offered me a small smile. “All of these are possible answers to your question. I leave it to you to decide which is most probable.”
Bill looked nervously over his shoulder at the zombie army horde behind us. “Yeah, well, while yer busy choosing, can we figure out a game plan here? Sayin’ those bridges gots ta come down an’ makin
’ it happen are two separational things.”
From far away, the bridge looked like pictures I’d seen of ancient bridges in Paris and Italy. But now that we were actually walking right up to it, I realized I was only looking at the front part of the bridge. Where the rest of it should have continued, there was nothing but a major gap. Bill ran right up to the fragment, squatted down and rapped his knuckles on it.
Tallis practically dropped his end of the box as his jaw fell. Somehow, both of them managed to miss his foot. “Hol’ on now… how’d that bridge—”
Bill looked up over his shoulder at Tallis. “An’ it’s Secundum Materium too, Tido. Yeezus, what coulda knocked this out?”
I frowned while Gurdjieff and I set down the explosives as gently as possible. “Maybe that isn’t what it’s made out of on top?” I asked with a shrug.
I took a second to confirm that the armed horde behind us was still preoccupied with the prep stage of battle. Then I ran over to the right side of the bridge to see what was underneath it. A bit of sheen glimmered on the walkable parts of the bridge, but the supports looked a lot duller… and more familiar.
Gurdjieff joined me and arched an eyebrow. I pointed down to the underlying structure. “For a bridge that was made of Secundum Materium, that looks an awful lot like concrete and steel right there.”
After looking for himself, Gurdjieff nodded while tossing me a tight smile. “That would be because it is concrete and steel, my friend. Going by the available evidence, I would surmise that some great explosion tore through these fragile supports.”
Tallis gave the upper part of the bridge a critical eye, pointing at a scorch mark that stretched from the side railing all the way to the top and bottom. “Ah’d say an artillery shell—maybe a mess o’ ‘em… that’s what dropped that bridge down inta the water.”
“Nice cost cutting, Alaire,” I said.