by DJ Molles
“I already did. You weren’t listening.”
“I’m trying to take responsibility. Is that what you’re talking about? I was listening. But you’re not listening. These people…I can’t get them to work together!”
She shrugged, looking suddenly tired. Suddenly old. Nothing on her face changed, really. It was still young and vital, her skin without calluses or wrinkles. But the way her eyes hit his in that moment and then flitted up to the stars over their heads…
Yes. He could believe that she was older than she looked. Much older.
“Change the tides of history,” she said, almost a whisper.
Hot and cold clashed in his chest. But he shouldn’t have been surprised by her words. She knew the different names he’d been called—including Percival. Perhaps she knew about the message as well.
“I don’t know how,” Perry answered.
“Ah, but you do.” She drew herself up, her face, her eyes, returning to that youthful glimmer. “And there will come a time when you’re ready to take your place. To accept your destiny. And when that day comes, you know where to find me, and I’ll tell you all you need to know to win.”
“Wait! I—”
But in a rustle of clothes, she burst skyward.
He jerked back, looking up at the night sky, but saw no sign of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CONGREGATION
Teran stared out at a smudge of orange in the darkness to the east.
Something was burning.
It was too far away to perceive what it was, but given the great distance, Teran figured it had to be a city, if she was able to see the light of the burning from so many miles away. Above that ochre blotch, sooty black clouds of smoke rose up, blocking out the stars in the otherwise clear sky.
She stood transfixed by it. She’d gone to this high lookout to get a breath of fresh air, but now the air seemed to be caught in her throat, not fresh at all, but filled with scents of acrid smoke and burning flesh that she knew was imaginary.
Why this horror? Hadn’t she stood atop mountains and looked down at entire battlefields filled with soldiers slaughtering each other? Thousands dead in a single day? The stink of the blood and dirt mixed into a potent, iron-smelling mud. The taste of her own vomit still lingering on her tongue.
Yes, she’d experienced horror. But not like this.
These people—whoever they were—were innocent. They had not wanted or foreseen or marched to their deaths. It had come upon them out of the sky, powers that they had no comprehension of, smiting them with a wrath they could not make sense of.
“You shouldn’t be up here.”
The voice made her jump. She twisted, saw Lucky standing at the mouth of the cave, dimly lit by the lights from deeper back in the tunnel. This clan of Outsiders was not so different from her own, sheltering in a similar warren of caves. The environment so familiar to her, and yet the twisting tunnels and corridors and caverns were alien to her, like her own memories skewed in a dream.
“I needed some fresh air,” she said, her voice a little wan.
Lucky stepped out, but still kept under the overhang of rock. He looked skyward suspiciously, as though the stars themselves were watchful eyes. “Being out in the open endangers everyone.”
Teran sighed and took a step backwards until she was under the overhang, shoulder to shoulder with Lucky. She nodded out into the distance. “What city is that?”
He squinted, peering into the distance. His face screwed up with worry. “Shit. I think that’s Downing. Maybe twenty miles from here? We sent people there, too.”
“Maybe they made it out.”
“Did you see the Guardians come in?”
Teran shook her head. She’d searched the sky when she’d first noticed the glow, wondering if she could spot those machines falling like meteors from the heavens, but all she’d seen was the midnight black of the smoke.
“Maybe they’ve all come down out of the sky already,” Lucky said. “Maybe they’re just searching overland now.”
Teran didn’t reply. They stood in silence for a long moment, staring. Was it her imagination or had the blaze gotten brighter? Was that the shudder of the mountain in the gusts of wind that buffeted it, or was it the tremor of far off explosions that she felt? Was that the keening of wind, or the cries of the dying carried on it?
“Everyone’s assembled,” Lucky said. “They’re waiting on you.”
She took a deep breath. She’d thought that she wanted this. All the way across the wastelands, flying in the skiff, she’d imagined this place as though it were home to her.
Perhaps it was that she’d been out in the open for too long. She’d grown up her entire life in the warrens, venturing out into the world only to get what was needed for the survival of the clan. But then she’d spent so long tracking Perry down, and then had been attached to him throughout everything that had happened…maybe she just wasn’t used to the underground anymore.
The second that she’d stepped into these caves it had felt wrong. Too close. Too crowded. No breeze. The air was too still and the people were too numerous, too watchful of her. Her heart had begun pounding with a sensation of being caught in a strange place, in way over her head.
Where were her friends? These were supposed to be her people, so why did she feel so alone?
At the earliest opportunity, which was about thirty minutes ago, she’d escaped, finding a tunnel that she could smell the fresh air coming in from, and following it to where it wound its gradual way up to this lookout.
Now she was in no better shape than she had been. Worse actually, staring at the destruction being wrought on some hapless people, twenty miles away.
“Teran.”
“Alright.” She turned around, facing the tunnel. “I’m going.”
They made their way back down into the suffocating bowels of the mountain. How could a place like this ever have felt like home to her? Humans were not meant for this. They were meant to see the sky. They were meant to scan the horizon. They were meant to move, godsdammit, not be stuck in a stone tomb, waiting for some day of freedom that would never come, hiding from the rest of the world.
How could you ever live in peace in this world if you couldn’t see farther than five feet on all sides? How the hell could you even see a threat coming until it was right on top of you?
It wasn’t natural. She’d grown up thinking it was natural, but if it really was, then why had it only taken a handful of months to completely undo? If it truly was natural to her, then it should have felt like coming home, like she’d thought that it would.
Now she couldn’t imagine staying here longer than absolutely necessary.
And therein lay her big dilemma.
These were her people. They were the reason she’d done everything that she’d done, right? She’d argued and gotten mad and defensive with Perry and the others, seeking some sense of righteousness in her cause. Was she now going to throw all of that away because the caves gave her the heebie-jeebies?
It was, she knew, exactly what they expected of her. She saw it written all over the faces of the people that she’d met. Oh, this is Teran, she’s an Outsider, just like us. But they’d looked at her like they could smell the stink of the rest of the world on her, and it was clear as all the daylight they’d never see, that they didn’t think she was one of them anymore.
Fancy girl, all full of herself, gone out to have adventures in the world, forgot about her own people. Who the hell does she think she is?
But, as Perry had so often pointed out, Teran was stubborn. She’d latched onto this idea of hers, and she wasn’t about to let go.
So she lied to herself, as stubborn people will often do. And when the tunnel opened up into the main cavern, and she saw all of those people with their doubtful, suspicious attention fixed on her as though she were an alien in their midst, she forced herself to think, These are my people.
Evidence to the contrary be damned.
; She descended into the main chamber, hot with people’s bodies and a fire burning under a natural chimney in the rock. Gods, but why did they want it so hot all the time? Stifling and stinking from the breath of hundreds in the enclosed space.
She scanned the faces to see if she could recognize any of the people from her own clan.
Lucky, his mission to retrieve her complete, moved around her and sat down with someone she recognized. It didn’t escape her that he did so quickly, as though he didn’t want to be seen standing with her for too long. And the person she recognized, a woman who had always hung around with Lucky, avoided her gaze.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” a gravelly voice called out.
She looked to the front of the crowd, and saw the leader of this clan, a man named Sage, standing and beckoning her forward with an irritable twitch of his hands. His eyes were dubious little slits, and his mouth was pressed into an ugly line, as though her presence were something to be endured, like the lancing of a boil.
“Thank you, Sage,” Teran said, trying to sound friendly in spite of everything.
He grunted as she stopped before him. “What took you so long? Can’t handle the underground anymore?”
She chose to deflect. “There’s a city burning to the east of here.”
She hadn’t said it loudly, but she’d been heard nonetheless. A ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd. Some concern evident in the tone. Even Sage managed to look anxious.
“Must be Downing,” he commented.
“You sent people there for supplies?”
A nod.
“I’m assuming they haven’t returned yet.”
He gave her a sharp look of consternation, then retreated a few steps to a wooden box, which he sat upon with a huff. He glanced around at the people gathered, then back at Teran, and gave her a get on with it gesture.
Teran took a deep breath and squared herself to the gathering. “If this clan is anything like mine, then I’m sure the rumors have been flying about me, and you’ve already heard everything I told Sage when I got here.”
A demur chuckle. A slightly humorous admission of guilt. But only from a few. Most of them just glared at her.
“Downing is burning. The town of Oksidado was completely wiped out. Karapalida was hit as well—Lucky was there when it happened, and you can see the injuries he sustained. The things that did this are machines, left by the All-Kind, to exterminate all the life on this planet.”
Sage cleared his throat, cutting off another rumble of murmurs. “And why now, Teran?” His eyes glinted in the firelight. He already knew the answer. He just wanted her to say it. He wanted her to impugn herself right at the get-go.
She held his gaze, defiantly. “Because the Nine Sons of Primus were held captive in a place called the East Ruins. And they’ve been released.”
A woman right at the front, sitting cross-legged, jutted a finger out at Teran. “I heard you released them.”
Teran glared at her. “Well, you heard wrong.”
“Did she?” Sage called out. “Because that’s pretty much what you said when you told me about it. So either you lied to me, or you’re lying to them now. Which one is it?”
Teran pasted on a brittle smile. “Sage. You’ve been the leader of this group for a long time, haven’t you?”
Sage puffed out his chest. “Thirty-six years.”
“Congratulations. How old are you now?”
“Sixty-five, though I don’t see why that matters.”
Teran shrugged. “It’s normal for a man of your age to begin losing his hearing. You shouldn’t feel bad about it. But you either didn’t hear what I told you, or you’re lying to the people right now to try and fuck me over. So which one is it?”
Sage’s face bloomed red. “You said—!”
“I said I was there when it happened,” Teran snapped. “I didn’t say that I did it. We were there because we were following clues, trying to sort out the truth from the lies of the Ortus Deorum.” She looked back at the crowd. “And most of it is lies. But, to be honest, that’s neither here nor there. We’re Outsiders. We never accepted the law that the demigods handed down to us. We never accepted this war in the first place. So it should come as no shock that it’s all been bullshit from the start.
“The reason I’m here is far more serious than a jumble of myths that the demigods forced down humanity’s throat. I’m talking about the extinction of our species. The wholesale slaughter of every human being on this planet. And it’s happening, right now. Right as we speak.” She thrust her hand in the general direction of east. “It’s happening right outside, twenty miles away in Downing.”
“These machines,” a man said, shooting to his feet and speaking to the crowd, rather than to Teran. “They’re the judgement of the gods! Not the demigods that have enslaved us, but the gods that they themselves were born from. The machines are here to punish humanity for their involvement in the demigods’ forever war.” Now he finally looked at Teran. “But that’s not our problem. We were never a part of that war. So what reason could the machines have to kill us?”
Teran was so surprised at the randomness of this theory, and the fact that it seemed a lot of the people shared it, that she couldn’t speak for a second or two. She realized her shock might be interpreted as being “caught” and quickly covered it up with a look of abject confusion.
“And where the hell did you come up with that idea?” she demanded. “Did you just pull it out of your ass to make yourself feel better? Is that what we’re dealing with right now? Are we just rationalizing away the truth because we don’t want to admit that we’re on the menu too?”
The man glowered at her. “You keep saying ‘we’ like you’re one of us. But you’re not.”
There it is.
“Oh I’m not, huh?” Teran’s fists balled at her side. She stepped forward, and saw a glimmer of fear in the man’s eyes, which emboldened her to continue on, pushing her way through the seated and standing people until she was face to face with him. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or where you came from. But I was born in a cave just like this one. I spent my life playing in its tunnels, and taking the underground river with my father to secure supplies from cities. And then I went out—yes, I did. I left my home behind, not because I wanted to be free of it, but because I wanted to save the people in it.”
The man quirked his head, a vicious smile edging onto his mouth. “And how’d that work out for your clan?”
Teran went blank. The next thing she knew, she had his roughspun shirt balled in one fist, and her knife to his throat.
Maybe not the most diplomatic thing to do.
“You ever say shit about my clan again, I’ll cut you a new smile to go with your rotten one, you dickless fuck!”
She had perceived the uproar around her, but didn’t pay it much mind until she felt a smattering of hands seize her by the arms and drag her backwards.
“That’s enough of that!” Sage was yelling. “Everyone sit down!” he was right behind her—one of the sets of hands dragging her backwards. “Everyone sit the fuck down! This is not how we conduct ourselves!”
Teran allowed herself to be removed from the center of the crowd and thrust somewhat forcefully back to her original spot, her fingers aching from having the shirt ripped out of her grasp, the knife trembling in her other hand.
Sage had an iron hand on her shoulder, and with the other he pointed at the man that had challenged her. “Gully, you know better than to speak of the dead.” He twisted and looked at her. “And you, if you really claim to be an Outsider, know better than to draw a weapon during a congregation.”
A few shouts of assent at that.
And what could Teran say? He was right. She did know better. The only thing that saved her in that moment was the general consensus that you had the right to kill a man who insulted your honor.
Teran shook Sage’s hand from her shoulder, then made a deliberate show of sheathing her knife again
.
The man named Gully bowed his head in a mockery of an apology. “Perhaps I spoke a bit out of turn. My passion for the subject matter got the best of me. So let me try in a more correct manner: Who was it that killed your clan?”
“It was a paladin named Selos,” she said through gritted teeth. “And several squads of his praetorians.”
“And yet…” Gully spread his arms wide, his eyebrows arching in feigned shock. “You want us to go make peace with these people?”
“Paladin Selos is dead,” Teran growled back. “I watched him die with my own eyes, along with most of his praetorians. That debt has been paid.”
Gully seemed unwilling to believe it. “And who managed to kill a demigod?”
“A man named Perry. A halfbreed—demigod and human. The very same man who needs your help right now.”
An older woman stood now, just a few paces from Gully. She swept a curtain of white hair out of her face and eyed Gully with evident disdain. “Our fellow clansman has spoken true—his passion for this subject has gotten the better of him. Perhaps you should have a seat and regroup, Gully.”
Teran felt immense satisfaction at watching Gully try to stare down the old woman, which didn’t last very long. With a grumble, he sat his ass down again. So it seemed this woman had some respect here, and Teran was grateful to have her on her side.
That gratefulness didn’t last very long.
The old woman looked at Teran with a searching gaze. “The paladins kill the Outsiders. They’ve hunted us down for centuries. That is nothing new. But has anyone heard of one of these machines attacking a clan?”
A chorus of eager negative responses—no, of course not, no one had heard of such a thing.
Teran bristled. “Ma’am, you clearly are a woman of importance in this clan. I’ll simply remind you that this has only been going on for a handful of days. If the machines had attacked a clan of Outsiders, we wouldn’t know about it for some time.”
The woman smiled, very kindly. “We operate on the evidence we are given, Teran. As of yet, all I see are cities burning. So please, if you can, explain to me why I should trade the safety of my home—for which we have no evidence to believe it has become unsafe—for the obvious and proven dangers of the outside world—dangers you yourself have witnessed.”