The Chamber in the Sky

by M. T. Anderson

  The lieutenant sighed, ran her hand across her forehead, and blinked her black, irisless eyes. “Make yourself useful. We’re putting you in charge of feeding the animals.” She gestured to a man who stood at attention. “Private, show them where the feed is kept.”

  They spent the next half an hour going back and forth between feed bins and cages of branfs who squawked with displeasure. Then there were red sheep that had to be fed. Then white cows with red ears.

  Finally, they were given a dish of pellets and told to drop it off in the livestock car at the end of the train.

  The door to the livestock car was guarded by several men with rifles.

  “Watch out,” said one of the guards. “It bites.”

  “What?”

  “The animal.”

  Gregory and Gwynyfer exchanged a look.

  The guards slid the door open.

  Gregory walked cautiously in.

  There was almost no light. There was straw all over the floor.

  And there, in chains, was Brian.

  Gregory and Gwynyfer stared in shock. Brian was streaked with grime. There were tracks in the mud on his face from tears. One of the lenses of his glasses was cracked. He wore no shoes. His T-shirt was stained with sweat and wavering tide lines of salt.

  Gregory was about to ask what had happened. But then he realized that the door was still open. The guards outside would be able to hear him.

  Brian’s face lit up in a smile, which he quickly hid. He assumed his friends were there to save him. He thought that this was his big moment to escape.

  They put down the bowl of food pellets and the bowl of water in front of him.

  They could feel the guards’ eyes on their back.

  Brian’s face fell. They could see him panic.

  They turned and walked out of the car.

  The door slammed shut behind them.

  “Mean little bugger,” said the guard. “They’re trying to soften him up and weaken him so he can be absorbed in Pflundt.”

  “He’s a chubby little affair,” said Gwynyfer. “He could probably house a family of four.”

  The guard smiled. He said, “Well, as the saying goes, girly, it’s not what’s down here” (patting his belly) “it’s what’s up here” (tapping his head). “And he’s a fertile one. A lot of thought-power that’ll be nice for someone to sink their feet into.”

  Gregory was openmouthed and had nothing to say. He wildly spun plans to save Brian, but couldn’t think of anything that would work, since they were surrounded. He was terrified of ending up in the same spot. He and Gwynyfer made their way back along the rattling train cars to their seats. He threw himself down and grabbed his own knees. The other Young Horde kids were sitting on duffel bags, drinking syrup and playing throwing games with ornate knives.

  Gregory wanted to talk with Gwynyfer. Her eyes warned him to keep silent.

  The kids kept throwing their knives closer and closer to Gregory’s shoulder. They didn’t say anything about it. They clearly wanted to see how the new boy reacted. The blades twanged and stuck out of the woodwork. He slid his eyes to the side and saw a throwing knife had barely missed his headrest.

  Facing the other way, Aelfward asked Gwynyfer, “What’s your friend’s name?” He threw his knife. It stuck into the wall opposite them.

  “Brother,” she said.

  Aelfward was irked. He strolled across the compartment like someone with too much leg muscle to move easily and pulled his knife out of the wall. With a sudden jerk, he hurled it back over his shoulder. It stuck in the floor, right between Gregory’s feet.

  Aelfward adjusted his question. “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Ortwine.”

  “Ortwine.” Aelfward snickered. He sat next to Gregory. Gregory could smell the kid’s cologne. Aelfward said, “What are your games, Ortwine?”

  Gregory had no idea what to answer. He knew soccer was probably not the right answer. So he stared straight ahead without speaking.

  A pretty girl called Ianogunde, with full lips, black eyes, and careless hair, leaned back on her elbows and said something that sounded like a line of poetry.

  “He gone deep in Lefling, no torn tarp for him.”

  Aelfward replied, “As kings of Durrenward fathom, no dope can hold the earl with claws.”

  And another boy said, “No sneaky maw, neither. As Fanchrott at piers. (No fathom, but league.)”

  Everyone laughed. It was a game — clearly — a game for which Gregory and Gwynyfer did not know the rules, or the meaning, or any of the references to Thusser history that a Young Horde scout might make.

  Kids kept saying things about Gilliard’s silly harness and Mudwad weighing bread on scales, and all of it seemed to make fun of Gregory, but in ways he couldn’t understand.

  Aelfward, next to Gregory, leaned close to the boy’s fake ear as if he were about to kiss him. He whispered, “What’s your pain, Ortwine? No tongue to talk?”

  Everyone waited.

  “No one worth talking to,” said Gregory. Then he got up and strode away down the train corridor.

  “Good job,” whispered Gwynyfer when she found him.

  “Good job at what?” Gregory protested. “What are we going to do about Brian?”

  “Nothing, G. This isn’t the moment. We’re surrounded by Thusser.”

  “We have to do something.”

  “We have to blend in. That’s the only way we’ll save Bri-Bri. You’re doing marvelously. I think walking out like that was a success. The cad Aelfward was surprised. That little spud Druce laughed a lot, and I think the girls appreciated your savoir faire.”

  “My what?”

  “You looked like you knew what you were doing. Who you were insulting.”

  “What was that game they were playing?”

  “Who knows? Thusser. It was some game having to do with poetry and rearranging Thusser runes.” She put her arm through his. “You did just the right thing by keeping your yap shut.” He couldn’t believe she was actually praising him. He felt a glow. He said, “You think so? You really think I did a good job?”

  “Aelfward hates you. That’s a marvelous achievement for just one day.” She smiled tenderly at him. And then she leaned forward, closed her black eyes, and kissed him on the cheek.

  He put his hand to the spot. “Aw, shucks,” he said, with his old humor. “You know,” he said, “I forgot how good it feels to put someone down.”

  “It’s a warm feeling down here, isn’t it, G?”

  “That’s right. I’ve forgotten what I’m all about. Jokes. Being a jerk.”

  “G,” said Gwynyfer, “this is a perfect opportunity. I’m glad to be here with you.”

  They watched the landscape go by for a while. Derricks and mine works passed like bony carcasses rotting on the stomach’s bleak plain.

  When Gregory rejoined the other Young Horde troopers later that evening, there was more respect for him since Aelfward clearly hated him. Gregory felt good again. His only wish was that he knew how to work with Thusser poetry or throw knives so he could go on the attack. His cheek still tingled where Gwynyfer had kissed it. He wanted that to happen again.

  The train rolled on through the night. By keeping silent and listening, Gwynyfer and Gregory started to get a sense of what was happening behind Thusser lines.

  The invasion was clearly stretching Thusser resources. Even though there was very little armed resistance to the Horde, they weren’t yet in the Great Body in large numbers. They had to come via Earth. The only portal to Earth was the one Gregory, Brian, and Kalgrash had come through — and it stood in the middle of the slimy swamps of Three-Gut. All the Thusser who came through had to be ferried across that endless wasteland of muck. And then their magic was severely reduced because they didn’t have enough imprisoned minds yet in which to anchor themselves in this world. They felt exposed, being only in their bodies. They were gathering prisoners in Pflundt so they could feed on their psychic energy. Bri
an, clearly, was one of these.

  They were also rounding up submarines. As Brian, Gregory, and Gwynyfer had heard, the Thusser planned on attacking the Dry Heart and New Norumbega within days. They couldn’t do that, however, without subs.

  To make matters more complicated for them, the Great Body was showing signs of life. Several hearts had started beating. This made navigation difficult. The lux effluvium was growing warmer and brighter. There had been quakes in the Esophageal Cantons that suggested something might be on the way down the gullet and into the guts.

  On the other hand, the Thusser found the citizens of Norumbega remarkably easy to conquer — lazy, disorganized, and self-satisfied.

  Gregory had heard the fungal priests of Blavage speculate on why the Great Body was coming back to life: They had believed that strife was thought, and so now that there was warfare in the Great Body, it lived again.

  The Thusser had a different theory. They, like the fungal priests, believed that the Great Body thrived on the thoughts of those who lived within it. But they thought it had lain as if dead for more than a century not because it lacked strife — but because the Norumbegans, who’d made their home in its guts and lungs and hearts, were now too lost, too apathetic, and too stupid to perk it into life. They were its brain, and its brain was apparently empty.

  Aelfward took up four seats when he slept. No one was going to argue with him. His boots were big and his coat was twisted around him, and it looked like it would be tough to move him.

  Gregory and Gwynyfer were crouching against a wall, trying to drop off. A cold draft trickled along the floor of the train car. “If you were a hero and a gentleman,” said Gwynyfer, “I’d be sleeping on those seats, not him.”

  Gregory looked at her slyly. Then he looked at the sleeping Thusser boy. He got up and stepped carefully across the slumbering bodies of the other Young Horde scouts. He gently shook Aelfward. “Aelfward. Aelfward! Hey, Aelfy.”

  The eyes opened.

  Gregory jerked his thumb at the door. “Lieutenant wants to talk to you.”

  “Kunhild? What for?”

  “She won’t tell me. She says it has to do with your skills.” Gregory crouched down and whispered, “Four cars that way, third door along. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Aelfward got up and fixed his hair in the window’s reflection. He walked along in front of Gregory.

  “What’s your accent?” asked Aelfward. “Where are you from?”

  “Our parents had a place on Earth. The new condos in the City of Gargoyles. Before they erupted.”

  “The condos?”

  “Our parents.”

  Aelfward stopped and looked into Gregory’s black eyes. “How’d they go?”

  “Demon-fire. On a Friday.” He pointed at a door. “Lieutenant’s in there.”

  Aelfward opened the door. It was a feed closet filled with buckets of branf pellets and hay. Gregory shoved him in, slammed the door, and dropped the bolt in place.

  With Aelfward thumping angrily behind him and calling him incomprehensible names through the door, he walked back to the Young Horde car.

  He told Gwynyfer, “My lady, your bench awaits you.” He gestured graciously at the four empty seats. Gwynyfer smiled at him, pulled herself up on his hand, and went to settle herself more comfortably.

  Gregory watched her sleep. Her hands were curled up under her sugar-perfect face. He fell asleep counting the risings and fallings of her breath.

  Gwynyfer woke up with the unpleasant, squat Druce breathing on her hair. When she opened her eyes, his eyes loomed in hers. He snorted deeply, drawing something in his nose back into his throat. Then he swallowed hard. He blinked several times in surprise. He did not expect her to be awake.

  “There’s games,” he said. “Aelfward’s torturing the animal.”

  “What animal?”

  “The human animal. We’re going to watch. You could come with me special.”

  Gwynyfer got up quickly, keeping as far away from Druce as possible. The other kids were gone. Gregory was still sleeping.

  “Ortwine!” Gwynyfer shouted. “Ortwine!” She went over and shook Gregory’s arm. “They’re torturing that awful human thing.”

  Gregory scrambled up and looked around, shocked. He and Gwynyfer ran for the livestock car with Druce creeping along behind them.

  Gregory was terrified. From what they could get out of Druce — who was trying to impress Gwynyfer — Gregory pieced together what had happened: A soldier had found Aelfward in the feed closet. Aelfward was too proud to say that he had been trapped in with the pellets as a prank. Instead, he’d said he was ordered to feed the animals and the door had locked behind him by accident. So then he had to go around feeding the animals.

  When he got to the human animal, he asked the guards if he could play some games.

  They said sure. No blood, no foul.

  Gregory was frantic at what might be happening to Brian. But he was also sick with worry for himself. He knew everyone was watching Gwynyfer and him. He knew that their disguises wouldn’t last forever. At any moment the illusion would fade and — whoomf — they’d have whites in their eyes. Their black coats would be gone. And Gregory’s ears would be stumpy and round.

  Gregory and Gwynyfer ran along the rumbling passage.

  The door to Brian’s cell was open. Inside, the Young Horde scouts were gathered in a circle, grinning.

  Aelfward had hung Brian up by the chains on his wrists. Brian’s arms were stretched straight in the air. His toes barely, barely touched the floor. He swayed from side to side with the juddering of the train. He had to dance on his tiptoes to keep his arms from pulling out of their sockets. He let out sharp, agonized breaths as he veered left and right and fought to keep standing.

  Aelfward reached over and poked Brian in the stomach. Brian’s leg jerked up, his whole weight hit his shoulder, and he screamed in pain.

  Aelfward reached out a wiggly finger toward Brian’s underarm. In a high baby voice, he sang, “Chuck the chick, chuck the chick, chuck the chick under the chin.” He started to tickle Brian. The boy flinched, made a noise, could barely breathe.

  Gregory charged into the circle.

  “Hey!” said Gregory. “Stop!”

  Aelfward did stop. He stared at Gregory. The others stared, too.

  Gregory stood unsteadily. The train rocked beneath him. He had no idea what to say now. No Thusser he’d ever met would have protected Brian. If Gregory wasn’t careful, he’d be up in chains, too. With Gwynyfer hanging by his side.

  “What’s your game?” asked Aelfward. He was clearly still miffed about being shoved into the feed closet. He stepped forward and pushed Gregory back by the collar. “Why’re you sour, Ortwine?” Aelfward looked from the one human to the other. “Not a friend of yours, is he?”

  Gregory could feel everyone staring.

  He had no plan. He just had to get Brian down from there. The train hit a curve in the tracks, and Brian was racked in agony. He danced on tiptoes like the Sugar Plum Fairy in razor-blade slippers. He hissed with pain en pointe.

  Gregory said, “There are other games the animal can play.”

  Aelfward glared.

  Gregory went over and tried to pull the chains off the hook high on the wall. He couldn’t reach. He was several inches shorter than Aelfward.

  “The proud orphan needs help,” said Aelfward, reaching up and unhooking Brian.

  The dark-haired human boy collapsed against the wall, sobbing with deep breaths. He rubbed his shoulders and his red, bleeding wrists. He clearly didn’t want everyone staring at him. He turned away and hid his face.

  “The animal seems to believe the games are over,” said Aelfward. “Up your sleeve is …?”

  Gregory froze. He didn’t have any ideas. Anything had to be better, though, than Brian having his arms slowly torn out of their sockets.

  “Dancing,” he said. “We’ll dance.”

  He took Gwynyfer by the hand and led her to Brian as
if offering her at a fancy ball. “Music!” he said.

  Two of the Young Horde began to thump out a rhythm against the train on the wall of the car. A girl began to sing an old Thusser waltz.

  “Dance, fatty!” crowed Gregory, as evilly as he could. He pushed Brian and Gwynyfer together. “Dance, human filth!”

  Brian, unbelieving, looked at Gregory.

  Gregory couldn’t wink at him. He couldn’t give him any sign. The other scouts and the guards were all watching him. He couldn’t explain to Brian that he had to be cruel to save all three of them.

  Brian began to stagger in Gwynyfer’s arms.

  “Dance, you little vermin!” Gregory called. He saw Brian’s white, horrified face float by. Gwynyfer threw back her head and howled with laughter.

  Gregory hoped she was just putting on a show.

  This was fine, Gregory thought. Humiliating, but not dangerous. Brian will thank me. Brian and Gwynyfer moved in dizzy circles.

  And then someone threw the first knife.

  Gregory swore to himself. He should have thought of that. Of course that’s what they thought he meant by dancing. They were throwing knives at Brian’s feet.

  The human boy’s feet were bare and covered in mud. They were still marked by red slices from an attack a few weeks before in the Imperial palace. Despite spells, the scars weren’t fully healed.

  Now a blade struck right next to the foot. Another thwapped into the wood of the floor.

  Gwynyfer pushed Brian away in surprise. She didn’t want her feet hurt.

  Druce snuck forward and plucked up the knives, returned them to their owners.

  The kids took turns throwing as Brian scampered as if drunken. He tried to keep his feet in the air as much as possible. He was exhausted. He bounced against the wall.

  The train jolted on the tracks.

  A woman’s voice rang out. “What’s the pleasure here?” Lieutenant Kunhild stood in the door, watching them play.

  One of the boys reported, “Tormenting the animal, ma’am.”

  Gregory never thought he’d be relieved to hear the lieutenant’s voice, but now he welcomed the interruption. The dance stopped. The singing stopped. One boy was still banging out a rhythm on the wall, but otherwise, everyone just stood and waited. The train rattled.