Fourth Under Sol (Digitesque Book 5)

by Guerric Haché

  Tharrak glanced at her. “More than I would have liked. Whatever his mind had at hand, I think. Memories, and the feelings that went with them. Things I never knew he did, things I had never seen from his eyes.”

  She nodded. “Including his memories of me.”

  Tharrak nodded. He looked oddly at her, then, and gave a grunting laugh. “He was a bit taken with you, you know.”

  She frowned as she parsed the unfamiliar phrasing. “Was he?”

  “Yes. He always had an eye for the brooding type, which never ended well for him.” He stared off at the sky again. “He never would have said anything. He told himself he was growing too old, that he saw how close you were to your friend with the killing hands. He was never one to tell anyone anything, though.”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of that, especially now that the man was dead. She stared into the eyes of the galhak, letting her mind drift. She had liked Tharson in a friendly way, perhaps, but she had been too bound with the chaos to really stop and consider. “Why are you telling me?”

  “Because I know you more through Tharson’s memories than I do myself.” He glanced sideways at her. “It’s an entirely new sort of discomfort. I hope speaking it makes it go away.”

  She chuckled, and so did he. Her hand drifted up to the band of cloth around her neck, and she pulled up the locator stone a little so he could see. “There’s another one like this, out there somewhere, and I intend to find it.” She glanced at him and saw him frown a little. “There’s a woman attached to it, in case that wasn’t clear.”

  “Another one? My poor brother never stood a chance.”

  She grinned. “Maybe in another life. But that’s what I’m doing.” She let it drop back around her neck. “Kill Azure, take his powers, hunt her down, bring her back where she belongs. I’ll keep trying until I find a way. Or until the day I just don’t care anymore.” She glanced at him. “But I still care, for now. Is that just part of being young and stupid? You’ve had two lifetimes to answer that question, now.”

  He gaped at her, and grimly shook his head, though a smile did twitch across his lips. “I will not pass judgement; I still have half of mine ahead of me. But the young aren’t stupid - they just haven’t had the hope beaten out of them yet.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Who does the beating?”

  He leaned back and eyed her oddly. “Normally I would say the gods. But if Tharson was right about you, I rather suspect the gods are due for a beating of their own, and so perhaps that will change.”

  She smiled, hoping he was right.

  “Would you mind if I played?”

  She stumbled over the word for a moment. “What?”

  He was reaching behind himself, an instrument of some kind in his hand - a couple of strings strung from a bulbous body up a long, thin wooden neck. He hefted it as though in question, and she shrugged - she was not opposed to the idea, and in truth she preferred this over having to talk to someone who had re-lived his dying brother’s memories of her.

  As he struck his first note, a single twang, she suddenly feared he would play something mournful and depressing, and sat uncomfortably for the second it took him to actually find a tune. When he did, though, it pattered along like a joyful spring rain, and though he couldn’t know it, it reminded her a little of the moment she had seen with Crimson, the first rains on Mars after the vast ice was cast down from the skies. Not her own memory, but, as she listened, one she hoped she might yet keep.

  Dejah and her god and her people talked for longer than Isavel would have liked. And when they were done, and Dejah stepped before them in the light of the campfire, holding the hexapod out, Isavel thought for a second that the woman’s solitude was a sign everything had gone wrong.

  “This is a terrible idea, Isavel. Rushing over to punch a god to death.” Dejah let go of the little avatar as soon as Isavel had it, and a corner of her red-painted lips twitched. “I can respect a woman with terrible ideas. A demon would be far too cunning. We will fly.”

  She recovered quickly from the brief whiplash and grinned widely, chuckling and stopping herself and then letting herself laugh because, gods, why not? “Should I really be grateful for your help if you chase after terrible ideas?”

  “I’ve been doing it for many years, and I’m still alive.” Dejah grinned broadly, and slapped her hands onto Isavel’s shoulders. “You want to live, don’t you? It’s a serious question. Maybe earthlings want to die.”

  She smirked and shrugged the hands off. “No, I prefer to live.”

  “Tharrak.” Dejah stared at him dramatically as he put away his instrument. “She speaks, but does she ever tell jokes?”

  He seemed to wrack not-his memories. “Occasionally, I think.”

  “You think? The silent gods speak, the drinkmaster thinks, and apparently the potato girl sometimes jokes. These truly are the end times.”

  Isavel opened her mouth, but no clever retorts made themselves known to her. She did consider, though, the irony that there was not a joker amongst all her selves.

  Perhaps she should try a little of Dejah’s blood.

  That horrifying thought somehow delighted her, and she laughed, covering her mouth and trying in vain to her her face under control as the two martians suddenly stared at her. She stifled it to a chuckle, stepping back and shaking her head, and when she was able to breathe normally she tried to speak and coughed. “I - sorry - well - you said you’d fly. So are you flying? Who’s coming?”

  “I said we. That means all of us.”

  Isavel’s mirth vanished. “Wait, all of who? The fleet?”

  “The fleet.” She nodded. “Whatever fool refugees want vengeance enough to join us. And their smelly galhak too, no doubt. Give us a few hours, and we will be ready.”

  Isavel nodded, and tentatively reached out to the woman. “Thank you - I know this is -”

  “You threw a god at me, Isavel.” Dejah waved her hand at the avatar clamped on Isavel’s bicep. “The good one. And the acceptable one.” She frowned. “You hear that, Amber? You’re acceptable. I said it. Crack that godshell and I might dab a little yellow on my face.”

  The hexapod briefly pulsed yellow, making her smile, but did not answer, simply returning to red. “We’re not attacking yet. We need as much help as we get - Dejah, we need to go to Deep Tharsis. Can we make it there and to the City Azure quickly?”

  Dejah’s grin melted away and she made some loud, unfamiliar expression of distaste, staring at her angrily. “We can make it easily, but what for, potato girl? The rokh will shit all over the decks and we’ll have to shoot them.”

  “I’m going to talk to the aliy . They will want to know what I’m doing.” She considered objecting further to the increasingly irritating nickname, but held her tongue. At least it wasn’t a title.

  Dejah scoffed. “Hah! You’re a handsome one but you won’t turn any aliy heads, little Isavel.”

  She crossed her arms. “I might if I offer them the chance to leave Mars with me.”

  This particular martian’s mood swings were unlike anything Isavel had seen before; delight rushed across her pale face like wildfire and she was laughing again. “If you can get rid of them I’ll wash your feet myself. That would be a dream come true.”

  She smirked at the strange expression. “Getting rid of the aliy , or washing my feet?”

  Dejah didn’t answer, grinning stupidly and rustling her hand through Isavel’s hair instead. “If you have a ship, give it away, why don’t you? Come with me.”

  Isavel started backwards, trying to arrange her hair comfortably again. There was something fun about the woman, despite the oddness, and Isavel found herself unsurprised Tharrak might have found friendship with her. It almost reminded her of Ada, in some ways. Not in all the ways that counted, but still. She glanced at Tharrak, and found him hefting a pack. “Wait, you’re not a soldier.”

  “I can fire a gun.” He shrugged, trying to seem affable, but she could see more weight tha
n the pack on his pale shoulders.

  “Right. You do owe him a few shots.”

  Dejah burst into laughter, and even Tharrak grinned very slightly, though Isavel couldn’t fathom why. The martian woman simply kept laughing and staggered off, beckoning Isavel after her, and she glanced to Tharrak in confusion.

  “What? What did I say?”

  He opened his mouth, as though to answer, then shook his head. “You made a joke.”

  “But… it wasn’t funny.” Gods, she must have said something embarrassing. “You can claim a lot more vengeance than just a few gunshots.”

  He chuckled a little. “That wasn’t the joke.”

  She frowned and laughed a little, unsure where that left her, and backed off a step. “Well. I need to take care of something at my barge - I - I’ll just come back and find her ship?”

  He gestured broadly at the edge of the mountain. “You remember where it is?”

  She nodded and bade him farewell, secretly hoping he changed his mind. She knew the universe was cruel, and would mourn two brothers no more than one; but it seemed a terrible waste, that Tharson might have died trying to reach his brother, only for his brother to die so soon after.

  On her way back to the battered barge, she gently patted the hexapod on her arm. “Thank you.”

  No response, except a brief flicker of ruby and gold. That was enough, she decided, as she approached the most alien creature on Mars.

  Sulakaz had abandoned its tree shape, and had settled down in a lumpy mess like an egg splattered and cooked in the same instant. Without a face or indeed a stable shape of body along any axis, it was difficult to tell where its attention was directed, but its tendrils were curling up and down the sides of a barge. What was it doing, when it wasn’t moving or attacking or playing? Was it remembering things? Thinking? Planning?

  “Sulakaz. We have our fleet, we have our gods.” She gestured behind her. “We still need our aliens; we’ll be leaving soon.”

  It hooted and roiled around, not clearly moving in any direction, and she paused to consider it.

  “Are you Ada, somehow, locked away in there? Please say no.”

  Sulakaz echoed the word right back to her, in her voice, pitch-perfect. “No.”

  She jumped, having completely forgotten it could do that. “Gods. Well, okay, good.” She stepped a little closer to it, crouching down and carefully brushing a hand through the air above some of its coils. “I drank human blood, you know. It wasn’t offered. But I would, again, if it could save someone. What does that make me? ” She grimaced. “At least there aren’t many gifts left; and I don’t have the patience to become a coder.”

  Some of the coils reached up towards her hand, and she almost flinched. She still remembered what these wraiths had done on the battlefield. But she also remembered what she had done - to them, to others. So she didn’t pull her hand away, and instead let the coils rise and flicker against her skin.

  Something flashed through her brain at the contact, something unfathomably strange, a blooming latticework of inclinations and channels, dark fires and cherry-flavoured songs and the thunderous rush of a fabric of time twisted and squeezed till dry. Then it was gone, and Isavel stared at Sulakaz as it stared at her, and she knew it no more than before, except that it had shared something. She smiled.

  “Come on, little monster. I’ll be on another ship.”

  She made her way back through the camp, the wraith flitting about in the morning sky above her, and she noticed more and more commotion in the camp this time - especially when people noticed her. Pointing, whispering, calling - she kept her head down and quickened her pace, hoping to get past all whatever this was. Suddenly, being called a potato didn’t seem so bad.

  She found the barge and climbed up a set of widely-spaced rungs on the side of the hull. The deck was incredibly crowded, but it didn’t take long for Tharrak to find his way over to her, clapping her on both shoulders and grinning at her, his eyes a strange mix of sadness and affection and his movements a little stiffer than they should be. “Isavel. I have been thinking. If you kill a god, can I make a song of it?”

  She sighed, resting one hand on his wrist for a moment before taking it off her shoulder. “If you tell them I also make good jokes.”

  He chuckled, and she saw a twinkle of admiration in his eye that might have been welcome in other circumstances. Tharson was not wrong - his brother was a somewhat handsome man, for all the unearthly pallor and elongated frame of his people. But when she looked into those eyes and saw that admiration, she suddenly felt alone again. She bore no titles here - these martians seemed not to use them - but she was someone nonetheless, a figure who appeared from nowhere and upset lives and orders. Someone here to kill a god.

  And that was… acceptable. That was good. She was setting out to kill a god ; she was proud, she realized, to even be considering it, and if she succeeded she would embrace the achievement with open arms. But even in accepting that, she felt a longing for the only other walking cataclysm she knew, that kindred spirit she had held and let slip away far too easily.

  So she stood alone at the prow of the barge’s left hull when it took off in the afternoon, a cargo of galhak chirping and crowing underfoot. The fleet moved loosely as it rose in the warm glow of Sol, but there was a camaraderie to its sloppy formation, one that somehow told her Dejah’s odd manner made her easy friends.

  Sulakaz, perhaps eager to be part of a flock, bobbed ahead of them like a pair of wings oozing smoke and sparks, its coos occasionally sweeping back past her as they sped along. Some of the smaller barges drifted quite far afield as they descended from Olympus, and as Isavel watched one move off into the air she felt the ship’s mistress lean on the railing beside her.

  “They’re going to ask the village people if they want to join us at Deep Tharsis.” Dejah seemed to smirk. “Likely most won’t, but it’s worth every gun arm we get. Nobody likes Azure.”

  Isavel raised an eyebrow. “So why does he have a city of people living under him?”

  Dejah laughed. “They’re afraid of the smell of their own piss.”

  “Er.” She tried to give the martian her most confused look. “What?”

  “Azure doesn’t cleanse his own followers, Isavel. So if you’re living in constant fear of the blue death and can’t stomach it, and you don’t mind living in a city where you can’t have children, it might make sense to throw yourself at his mercy.”

  “Why hasn’t everyone done it, then?”

  Dejah’s eyes grew wide. “Gods, earthling, some of us have self-respect. You’d think we were rats, the way you talk.”

  She blushed away. “I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not.” The woman combed a strand of whipping, knotted silver hair from her face and thrust something at Isavel. “Drink?”

  “What?” Isavel sniffed at the bottle. To her surprise, it did not smell like alcohol. There was a slight citrus undertone to it, but nothing intoxicating. “What is this?”

  “Imagine being hit in the face with a rock and loving it.”

  She gaped a little and shook her head. “Dejah, how surprised should I be that you’re still standing?”

  Dejah took a sip and her face scrunched up, her neck stiffening. Then the martian gasped and grinned, though she also looked like she was starting to sweat. “I’m not always, you know. Just a sip?”

  The bottle was there, and Isavel couldn’t help but be curious. She also couldn’t help but wonder if this was the font of Dejah’s personality. Still, curiosity was dangerous for a reason; she caved and took the tiniest sip she could manage.

  It was viciously, brutally sour . Isavel had eaten lemons and limes and sour woodland berries and other strange fruit in her life, and nothing compared to the implosive face-sucking power of that single sip. She felt every muscle in her body tense and cringe as the drink overpowered her, and barely registered Dejah snatching the bottle from her trembling hand.

  When the feeling passed, leav
ing only a vague aftertaste of citrus, she scowled at the martian, wincing around her mouth. “Why in all the worlds would you drink that?”

  Dejah laughed and shook her head. “After enough of it you start to taste the natural sweetness beneath the agony. It’s really quite something.”

  “I’m never letting you feed me anything again.”

  “Suit yourself, potato girl.”

  Isavel coughed. “Call me potato girl again and I will hit you in the face with a rock.”

  Dejah grinned and shook her head, gesturing at the landscape ahead. “We’ll be over Deep Tharsis soon enough. You think those overgrown foxcats will care?”

  Isavel leaned forward again, giving Dejah a sideways glance. “I don’t think I’ve ever had someone wash my feet.”

  Dejah snorted and patted her on the back, shoving her way through the crowded deck somewhere else and leaving Isavel alone. She stood there, trying to enjoy the wind, but when she was sure nobody was looking she sucked the saliva from her mouth and spit into the breeze in a vain attempt to get rid of the aftertaste. The only other idea she had was to eat some tough purple leaves they’d gathered somewhere along the way, but the effect wasn’t much better. She considered asking Crimson for advice, but she doubted the little hexapod could do anything for her, and in any case gods probably didn’t spend much time thinking about bad aftertastes.

  When they came upon Deep Tharsis the sun was just starting to blue, and so she saw the old city from the sky for the first time. For all that it was distant, the sight of it almost took her breath away. She already understood the city had once been under a dome, but from up here, at this angle, she could see the echo of that dome with her own eyes - arches broken but unmistakably destined to meet, wounded streets where regularly spaced geometries of support struts collapsed into the city, a gentle sprinkling of icy twinkles that set the ruins apart from the surrounding countryside. The ancient glass may have been worn by time, but it still reflected the lustre of the stars that forged it.

  She couldn’t help but imagine Ada standing next to her, looking out on the same scene in the light of day. She would have loved it, Isavel knew. She would have been so filled with questions and ideas, and the enthusiasm she imagined on that beautiful face warmed her heart a little. It could still happen. If Azure and his Arbiter didn’t kill her, and if nothing out beyond the stars hurt Ada, they could find each other again and visit this place together. Just a few ifs, really.