by Jared Ravens
"Sadly, yes," the girl sighed.
"And you knew it?"
"She... Celia could see what was being seen... She had been here before and she knew where it was."
"She saw that Vivian was here," Bern's wife asked.
"Yes."
"And sent Atrios after them."
"Yes."
"Then Fairfax must be dead!" Bern exclaimed, thinking he might go home.
“No!" the girl said angrily. "They didn’t do their job.”
"But if Fairfax was here with Vivian," Berns' wife said after a moment of thought. She immediately saw her mistake but it was too late to pull her words back into her mouth. Ally's face grew red, the white disappearing from all corners, and she called out with a passion they had not heard in all their time together.
"She was not helping him!" she commanded. "Fairfax found her and forced his way in."
Bern's wife apologized profusely, trying to calm the girl down. She steamed as she stomped around the room.
"Maybe Celia can locate Vivian now," Bern said, changing to a more hopeful subject. "She could point us in the right direction."
"Celia can see where she is," the girl explained. "But the vision is not clear. She's somewhere not well known."
"I don't suppose Celia comes out here very often," Bern quipped, picking at a piece of tattered furniture. The girl looked at him slyly, a moment of connection between the two for the first time.
"No," she said firmly.
They slept in the damaged home that night, the first covered structure they had stayed in since they had left Sigma. Bern was grateful for a room, as damaged as this one might be. He woke before light to se his wife was already up and about. Rubbing his eyes he asked where Ally.
"Gone," said his wife matter of factly, trying to boil water over a fire in the damaged fireplace. Half the smoke went up the chimney and the half traveled along the ceiling to the other hole in the roof.
“Such a shame,” he quipped.
The Favorite Daughter
When Ally took off in the night it was an attempt to find Fairfax on her own without putting her companions any more in harms way. She was also tiring of them. Their constant need to pull words out of her was exhausting, and she was glad to have the space.
She had been glad that Vivian had not been at her former desert home. It would have been impossible for her to see her and not caused a scene. She wanted privacy when she spoke to Vivian. She now had a better sense of where Vivian was. The visions she saw were more specific now and it led her to believe that Vivan wanted to be found. Her daughter’s time with Fairfax had come to so vividly and profoundly that she had been upset for days. There was magnetism between the two of them, a cascade of mutual affection that made her physically ill. How could a daughter of hers feel so much for this traitor?
Because, she thought to herself, like any daughter she wanted to do the opposite of what her mother desired.
She walked up the a trail into the foothills, her cape looking from a distance like short brown blanket hovering over the dry landscape. She walked up a steep incline and came to a series of boulders nestled against the side of a mountain. She climbed through the spaces between these before coming out the other side.
There was a thin path between rocks, like a thin hallway, that wound upwards to two boulders leaning against each other. Between them, hidden in the tangle of dried tree limbs, was a hole. Celia had seen this in her head. She walked into it.
There were books along the floor and pieces of clothing strewn about. There was no furniture, just rocks with blankets on them for chairs and a mat on the floor for bed. Vines ran up the walls to meet at the ceiling, decoration for an otherwise hollow home. She was here, by a fire, sitting beside a group of lizards that flicked their tongues out at her as they listened to her hum to them. The animals that turned to Ally first.
When Vivan turned to her Celia could see she was fooled. For moment she didn't know who it was. Then the high cheekbones bent into a pleasant smile and she greeted her mother.
"I haven't had time to clean," she said. "I didn't know I was having such an important guest."
"You were unaware?" Celia asked. "You seemed to be practically yelling for me."
She walked towards the nearest chair, a large rock with an 'L' shape to it and a ratted blanket over it. She sat on the edge of it, not trusting its stability.
"I wasn't sure if you'd come or not,” Vivian replied.
"You thought I would be mad about your new love interest. That I would pout and stomp off to my room."
“Sometimes you do."
"I'm not the one that avoids you, Vivian. It's the opposite."
Vivian sighed and stood up. The remaining lizards scurried into the rocks as she walked to another chair closer to Celia and sat down.
"I wanted to speak to you about Fairfax."
"Your new interest. May he turn out as well as your others."
"I wanted to convince you to let him be."
“I know why you think you love him,” Celia said, turning her pale face directly to her. “It’s understandable. You’re like a mother to him.”
“I am not his mother,” Vivian interjected. “I’m his lover, and I made him for that purpose.”
“So it must be very exciting to have everyone chasing after you as you copulate in the desert. You do like thrills. But he’s dangerous. He’s not just another person."
“I know he’s not just another person,” Vivian replied. “He’s unique. It’s why I’m attracted to him.”
“‘Unique’,” Celia scoffed. “You’re as bad as Genesee. You are not young but you are very, very immature."
"Am I?" Vivian said, standing up. "Are you the lodestone of virtue and wisdom? Why do you need him gone? Is a little shared power so difficult for you to accept."
"When you see your world taken apart piece by piece, as I have, you too will do what it takes to hold it together. It's not this boy's fault, I'll give you that, but you have no idea what they are planning. They will use him against me. Against us, daughter. They just want power. Goetz is resentful of me. He wants someone that can put me in line, to take more power from me. Not even Fairfax understands what that means. He’ll be a tool of those two nimrods and they’ll sideline me as they destroy everything around us. It’s not going to end nicely for him. Let’s put him out of his misery before this gets out of hand."
“I know Goetz wants to use him,” Vivian replied. “But the boy has a mind of his own. They can’t control him like they think they can.”
“Is that suppose to comfort me?” she sighed, looking into the fire.
“He can be useful. I’ve always thought every being had a purpose. He understands humans because he is one of them, and he can be their representative.”
“So naive,” Celia replied. “No one just accepts power and lives in a vacuum. He’ll have to chose a side, and it won’t be the ‘people’s’ side. As if we need a third side in this power struggle.”
“Maybe we do.”
Celia glared up at her daughter, her real eyes penetrating through the mask of flesh covering her face.
“You think we do such a bad job? That we messed up the world? I’d like to see you go through what I had to go through and see where you end up. Goetz and Genesee talk about a plan. There is no plan, there never has been. The plan is to do what they say and not question them. If you do, you’re punished. The little freedom we have is because I push back. The shelter I provide is what allows you to go out on your dalliances.
“So what do you do? You make me an enemy that stands against me and then you tell me that it’s all right. You tell me that he means no harm. Let me tell you this: Anyone that gets power has to take it from somewhere. Where do you think his will come from? Where do you think the ‘people’ will get theres? It's a fight, a bloody fight, always, and I do not give an inch because once it's gone no one gives it back easily.
“You started this. You have a crush on this man, thi
s thing, and you want to justify him still living so you can enjoy him. I understand that but I’m not going to agree with that. I can see the bigger picture that you chose not to.”
“I do see a bigger picture, mother,” Vivian replied. “It’s not going to end well if you keep chasing him. If you don’t make a sensible compromise."
“You’re right, it won’t end well for him. It may take a while for me to find him. I can hear him. I can't see him but I hear him, constantly. He echoes constantly in my head, his asinine thoughts and feelings. Is he in here? Hidden behind some rock? Do you keep him in a closet and pleasure him at night so that he can't ever be seen?"
“I’ve only seen him for one short night," Vivian replied.
"But someone is with him," Celia said, standing up. "Am I right?"
Vivian straightened her back, her jawline tensed.
“He’s protected,” she said. “He’s safe. And I will keep him safe through whatever means I need to. I share a lot of traits with you, and I fight as hard as you. I think it would surprise you what I can do.”
“I think I know you well enough. Your talents do not surprise me.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Celia nodded slighting and motioned her head to the ground. A book lay there, haphazardly dropped onto the ground among another set of books. This one glowed, the pages pulsing, asking to be opened.
"I hope you time with your new man doesn't displace your old hobby."
"I had plenty of time for both," Vivian replied.
“It drives Genesee crazy. It’s wonderful. He can’t stop people from hearing the truth.”
“I’m enjoying it,” Vivian said. “Your version of the truth is very colorful.”
"Dear," Celia replied, smiling, “there is only one version of the truth: The winners.”
“Is that why you brought Bern with you?”
“You noticed! The truth teller in the flesh. Yes, and when I’m done I’ll be taking those translations with me to give to him personally. I won’t need an intermediary.”
“You’re very confident.”
“Its a zero sum game,” Celia replied. “There’s no alternative to winning. Once I get Fairfax out of the way they’ll know who is in charge. Again.”
She picked up the journal and walked towards the entrance to the cave, Vivian following closely behind.
“You’re putting Bern and his wife in danger,” Vivian said.
“Only a little. I just need them for a short time. All they need to do is stay back and they will be fine. And don’t I reward those that help me?”
“For a lot of people, being left alone would be a reward in itself,” Vivian replied.
At the entrance they stopped. Celia looked out over the desert valley, a contemplative look on her face. She saw the dots, moving distantly on the horizon, an unwieldy group of dozens growing into hundreds of black specs. Vivian squinted her eyes to see what was happening.
"What do you want me to be, Vivian? A lonely old woman sitting in a cabin? Someone that used to be powerful and now I just watch other people fuck up everything around me? Do you know what it's like to just appear and be given all the responsibility just at once? Do you know what was here before I got here? Do you know what it was like to have nothing and then make it something? To live with that all day, every day?"
"I'm sure it causes some challenges," Vivan said. “I know our I have not had to face the same things you have, but I see a better world. I think there is a better way forward. I see the harmony in nature and I wonder why we can’t imitate that. I see a way that we can, if we stop with the old ways.”
“‘A better way’," Celia scoffed. "I'll love you and I’ll protect you until the end of time and you don't have to do anything to earn that. But if I decide to end time once and for all, it might be because you and all of my so called family are determined to be obstinate. Good work, my daughter. When even you rebel against me then it just might be the time to pull the plug.”
“Be careful," Vivian replied. “I’m a lot more like you than you think.”
Celia gave her a swift glance before turning her eyes to the path.
"Looks like Theo is on his way," she sighed, walking down the trail. "He'll certain need a lot of guidance from me. And I don't want to leave Bern or his wife for long. They might lose their way, and we have to get moving. Fairfax is probably just rising to a new day!"
Red and White
They waited until the next morning before making a decision. Ally still had not returned and while both of them were hopeful she was gone for good they also did not want to offend any of their over lookers. Shayne made the most compelling argument, that they would need more food and water before long so it made sense to look for a town. Bern insisted that Shayne stay in the hole that Vivian once occupied in case Ally returned. It was the most sensible course of action, though leaving her in a ditch in the desert was not his idea of safety.
"I'll have this," Shayne said, motioning to the large silver axe that lay on the door of the former living area. It was almost twice as big as her body. She could lay under it to hide.
"I'll be back in three days with food, if not sooner," he told her. He gathered his things and began to walk. The trails seemed too dangerous to bring a wagon along and he felt that Fairfax or a town could not be far away.
Marcus had delivered Bern's last letter to Fairfax via Gim. In return he received a package. It had come on their second say as they travelled through the empty wasteland. They must have been an obvious black splotch on the yellow canvas for Marcus to find. Inside the box was a short letter and a shirt. The bottom half of the shirt had been bleached white by intense sunlight and the the top then painted red with substances that he preferred not to know. He did as the letter said and put on the shirt. The garnet was stiff and large, puffing out on Bern as if his head was sticking out fo the top of a tent. The base of it almost went to his knees.
He walked like this, as conspicuous as could be, up a trail in the direction that that the letter told him. At night he made a small fire (Shayne had been better at this than he and he was glad to even have been able to start one) and curled up inside the big shirt. He slept little, jerking at every distant sound. He had heard the stories of the edge of the world. They told these things to young people to fascinate them about the far off lands. But throughout his early years he had not had the opportunity to speak to a single person from this area. The stories became fictions in his mind, like any other story you would tell a child to keep them asleep.
Then he, once he began his publishing career, he interviewed a wizened traveller about his adventures. It was for a book and the man, then well past his glory days, needed all the help he could get to sort his stories out. He recounted guarding merchants as they passed through these parts. It seemed obvious to Bern he was protecting them from thieves but when this point came up the man looked at him as if he was an idiot.
"Its the beast, you know!" he mumbled. Then he went on to describe things of nightmares. He thought of the man's words now. All the exotic goods and jewelry that came from these parts he had rationalized as trinkets made from rocks. The furs had come from slow walking animals, he had thought. What the man spoke of had proved his ignorance about all things outside of Sigma. He was an elitist, he thought, shamefully. And now, laying on the rock hard ground, eyeing the blackness circling him, he hoped that if nothing else came from this he could disabuse himself of his scholarly cocoon and respect the mortal danger of living outside the city.
He was alert in the morning despite his lack of sleep. He walked slowly up the trail. There was a sketch in the letter that showed a space between two mountains and a trail in the foreground. He reached the area that looked like it matched drawing and he waited, patiently, his heart pounding at each shifting of rocks.
The trail forked here, with one side continuing straight between two canyon walls and the other curing into a path along the side of a mountain. He heard a tapping from
the other side of this curve. He though it must have been a walking stick and he became excited that some person must be walking this way.
And then his heart dropped.
Two small antenna bent around the curve, green and black, feeling for something. Bern sat cross legged, frozen, exposed. He slowly went for his knife as a black and red mouth snuck around the rock wall. It startled him so much that he gripped the wrong end of the knife and his hand jerked. He managed not to yell but the thing, however it saw, noticed his flinch. Its whole body emerged around the corner, not five lengths of his body away. It was almost as tall as him, a mass of dozens of thin antenna and a wiggly black mouth without exposed teeth. It was seated on the top of the legs, a vortex of limbs swung between it, propelling it forward.
Bern uncrossed his legs and pulled the knife helplessly in front of him. If he could stab it directly in the black mouth without hitting the anneana he might wound it. Then again, it might suck his arm down its throat, he thought. He backed away, slinking down the wall of a rock with the knife in front of it. it moved closer, a whisper of continuous breath flowing from its mouth.
There was a thump that caused Bern to blink, and when he opened them there was blood dribbling out from a stick jutting from the top of the things head. It breathed louder and flailed its arms. Another thump came down from above and the creature collapsed on the ground. Two thick sticks pinned its body into the lopse dirt in a demented 'V' above its open mouth.
Bern looked up. Straight above him, perched at the top of a long rock, a head with wild hair peaked down at him. It disappeared and then feet grew out from the top of the rock. Slowly the person made his way down the sheer face of the rock using sharp edges stuck to the side of their feet. Bern noticed something and looked up the trail. The path that led through the canyon suddenly had several people on it They stood at attention, curious, but far enough away that he could only make out their rough linens and weapons hanging from their sides.
When the hunter reached the bottom it took Bern a moment to adjust to what he was seeing. It was a woman, but with hair so wild and untamed and a face so dusty and worn that it could have been mistaken as either gender or many different animals. Bern thanked her, telling her she came in the knick of time and she responded with a gruff voice that Bern could barely understand. After a moment of decoding he realized that she had been up there for some time, watching him. She held up a piece of reflective metal as her companions came down the trail, suspicion in their faces.