by Nina D'Aleo
“You saw them – the shadows, minions of the Indemeus X – his heralds and hounds.”
“Who is the Indemeus X?” Croy asked.
“A demon,” Shah-Jahan told her. “Set to drag our universe into his underworld. It’s foretold I can stop him … though how, I can’t see.”
“They made the dead move …” Memories from the Crematorium shook her.
“That’s what they do. The Arequium Mors can’t hurt anyone with their own hands, but they wield high influence. They can’t affect Drays, only those with less complicated minds, like humans.”
“If they can influence humans, why couldn’t they influence me? I felt them trying,” Croy said. “My leg … the pain.”
Shah’s eyes moved over her face and she could feel his hands on her even though they held the decanter in his lap.
“What is it?”
“Do you want to hear the truth or a lie that won’t hurt?” he whispered.
Croy had a feeling like the house was about to collapse in on her.
“Truth,” she said, though she wasn’t completely sure.
“You’re human, but you have an implant of Dray bone in your leg – connected at the knee – all the way down there.” He pointed to her scarred knee. “It’s blocking them.”
Croy’s mind absorbed the shock and rejected his words, “I fell when I was little, between a gridway. They said I wouldn’t walk again but I did, I fought for it. John L told me …”
“John L …” Shah-Jahan repeated. “John Lukashenko?”
“Yes,” Croy said, feeling disquiet rippling all over her skin.
“This man and other human men came to my people with a treaty, offering medicine and advancements in technology. We formed an alliance, believing they were speaking on behalf of all humans, but then we discovered they were using us – harvesting our dead to use in experiments on human children – human women – injecting and splicing blood and bone.”
“I don’t understand,” Croy said, her voice faint.
“At first we thought they were trying to create a weapon against us, but then we discovered they were working for someone else – someone more powerful …”
“But there is only us and you.”
Again she felt his comforting touch through her mind. “This is not the whole world – there are above lands – people, city, desert, sky – suns …”
“Above is hell.” Croy said. “The saints escaped down here from there after demons cast them into the fires for their beliefs.”
Shah-Jahan spoke gently, “They came down looking for a place to start again when in the above land humans started breeding into animal bloodlines to survive. Your forefathers believed against it, so they left and told that story of hell so no one would try to go back up. Their intentions were pure, but fast corrupted by greed and jealousy.”
Croy studied Shah-Jahan’s mouth and dark eyes but she couldn’t see a lie or any maliciousness anywhere there. He was telling the truth. She felt shattered, lost for words and thoughts.
“The twins from the Crematorium … The girl knows about this?” she managed to ask.
The Dray nodded. “The boy has a bone implant in his spine, the girl in her head. They were both done later – you were the first. Their father was one of the men who came to us.”
“You remember their names?”
“We never forget anything,” Shah-Jahan said.
“Who?” she said, bracing herself for the answer. “Who were these men?”
“John Lukashenko, Ezra Quartermaine, Rogan Kisslefish, Zeman Kilner, Van Pritchard …”
Croy swallowed and closed her eyes.
“They had a laboratory somewhere here in your city. We tried to stop them, to talk to them, but they didn’t listen. They cut us off. They killed my captain.” He clenched his teeth with pain.
Victoria Kilner’s dead face appeared for a second in Croy’s mind.
“The corpse the twins stole – was she … one of us?” she whispered.
Shah nodded. “I felt her in the rete before she died. She could hear the Mors, but didn’t understand what they were saying, what they meant. Her father told her she was crazy. It drove her to death.”
“And what were the Morticians doing with her?” Croy said.
“The Mors were trying to influence the death tenders to take the Dray bone from the girl and splice it into themselves so they could find where I was hiding there.”
“But the twins took her first.”
He nodded and shifted with discomfort, and Croy felt a wave of nauseating pain radiating from him. Shah leaned forward in his seat and she stood and examined his back, finding another older but severe injury low down. She lifted the alcohol to swab it.
“Did the Morticians use the body?” she asked.
He understood her meaning and said, “No.”
“The father?”
“A man who experiments on his own child is not a father – or a man.”
“A monster,” Croy uttered. “John …” She closed her eyes. He’d taught her everything she knew. She thought he’d loved her, but she was just an experiment. A heavy weight pressed down on her chest. She felt no anchor holding her to reality, but then the line she’d seen in the depths of her mind tightened and she felt him there – Shah-Jahan – holding her, keeping her and fortifying her.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him.
He spoke. “If the Drays are allowed entrance into city, they can save the humans from the Arequium Mors. If not, the Mors will drive them all to kill each other. That’s what they feed on.”
“After the sinking of the Chimera and the Teriscoria there’s no chance of people accepting that,” Croy said. “They wouldn’t believe. I wouldn’t have believed if I didn’t – feel. I need evidence to convince them. You said they had a laboratory here – where?” She hoped it wasn’t the Crematorium, which had just gone up in flames.
He shook his head. “We were never told.”
Croy’s mind went to Kellor Quartermaine. She would know. Everything she had said, though it had seemed like insane babbling, now made sense.
“The twins are being held in Tower. I’ll go to them and get the information."
“It’s too dangerous. I’ll go with you,” Shah said and tried to rise, but sank back down clutching his side in pain.
“It’s better if you stay here,” she said to him. “If any humans see you, they’ll attack, even without the Mors influencing them.”
“They’ll be hunting you to get to me,” Shah-Jahan said, his voice heavy with weariness.
“Then I’ll have to move fast,” Croy said. “All the rest of the food is in there.” She handed him the bread. “I’ll be back.”
He held out his hand to her and she took it, his warm touch radiating courage and strength through her.
I’m with you, he spoke in her thoughts.
Croy grabbed her Firestorm and left. Everything outside her house looked the same, yet everything inside her had changed.
PART 3
Chapter 32
Diega
Praterius
Murkmire Slough (Forests of Misty)
Diega tumbled out of the cave tunnel and slammed down into boggy black mud. She lay half-stunned, staring up at a brown sky, electricity convulsing inside low-hanging clots of dark green clouds. Masses of tiny, biting insects swarmed through the air, fouled by noxious gases burbling and belching up from the swamp. Her senses retuned and she fought the desperate drag of the mud to sit up. Beside her Shawe struggled, with only one functioning arm, to keep Copernicus’ face clear of the filth. Diega lunged over to help. She slid her hands under Copernicus’ head and he stirred, fighting to open his eyes, but the poison had now spread further and he couldn’t manage it. Diega felt as if her heart were ripping apart, a burning pain radiating across her chest. She cringed, unable to stop her distress from surfacing. Shawe cursed beside her. His arm was a mess, the skin sloughing off around the new stab wound, but his expr
ession was still set into sheer unyielding stubbornness. Diega had always hated that look, but now she knew it meant he was going to race death right to the end, no matter what. And it was coming fast.
She grabbed painkillers and some of Eli’s slowing and healing serums off her belt and prepared to inject them into Copernicus, but he jolted away as she tried, struggling to say something.
“He doesn’t want them,” Shawe interpreted. “He needs the pain to keep him going.”
“I don’t want him to suffer,” she said.
“He loves it,” Shawe said. “All that serious soldier trutt – deprivation and resilience and other such stupidity. He’s always too trutting serious for his own good.” Diega thought she saw a flicker of emotion in Shawe’s dark green eyes.
“Here, then.” She tried to inject the painkiller into the gangster’s arm instead, but the needle broke off, unable to puncture his skin. He laughed roughly.
“Don’t bother with me, sunshine. We don’t have the time.” His eyes met hers and she understood what he meant. Her heartbeats hammered faster. They had to find the healing plants right now.
Diega stood, looking for bearings in the swamp, a barren slough that stretched out indefinitely on all sides but one, where a clump of straggly trees led into a forest cloaked in a thick miasma mist. The mud left no trace of prints, and all their navigation equipment was still down – which left them again at the mercy of finding someone to beg for help, except, unlike Rambeldon, this place looked completely deserted. The sky here was even gloomier, overcome by the alien darkness consuming the entire planet. The X. Diega glanced toward Caesar, standing several paces away. He was swiping his muddied hands down his shirt in a compulsive frenzy that bordered on panic. It seemed so completely out of character for the usually unshakable Pride King that it struck instant fear in her. She thought he must have been poisoned, or possessed or whatever the trutt else could go wrong. Shawe saw Diega staring and snorted.
“Kitty doesn’t like getting dirty.”
Caesar’s golden eyes snapped to them, and Diega saw humiliation, overshadowed immediately by cold anger. He released a deep rumbling growl and started to shake, his face distorting alarmingly between human-breed and lion.
“What’s happening to him?” Diega asked, backing away.
“He’s turning,” Shawe said, standing up.
“Into what?”
“The Lion. If he loses control over it, it takes over, then the beast comes forward and the man becomes the shadow.”
“You had to make fun of him, didn’t you!” Diega yelled at Shawe. “Make him stop. We need him to carry Copernicus.”
Shawe shook his head, looking around them. He spotted Caesar’s blade in Diega’s belt and pointed to it. She handed it to him.
“Here, kitty – look at this.”
Shawe threw the blade at him and Caesar snatched it out of midair. He turned it over in his mud-caked hands and the touch of it snapped him out of his turn.
“My father gave me this,” he murmured. “He was the greatest man who ever lived.” Caesar crossed himself three times and kissed the blade.
Shawe gestured for Diega to hand over his weapons and other belongings and when she did, he took a long swig of his flask, “And my father gave me this. He was the biggest drunk who ever lived.”
Caesar eyed him with cold contempt. “Perhaps the second,” he said. “A man who disrespects his father’s name is no man to me.”
Shawe’s stare hardened and he clenched a fist. Diega stepped in fast before everything unraveled again.
“Maybe you had a father who cared if you lived or died,” she said. “I didn’t, neither did Copernicus – in fact, his father tried to kill him. Buried him alive. Should he praise his father for that?”
Caesar looked down at her, his expression unwavering. “Whatever he did, he made him the man he is today.”
“The man he is today is a dead man if we don’t move now.” Diega’s words threatened to overcome her. “You said you owed him, so prove it.”
For a moment Caesar didn’t move and Diega feared she’d lost him, but then he stepped closer to Shawe and with a mutual savage reluctance, they locked hands and crouched down. Diega helped maneuver Copernicus into their grasp and they lifted him. Shawe didn’t even flinch as Copernicus leaned heavily on his injured arm, and Diega had no choice but to stand in awe of the gangster’s strength.
“Which way?” she murmured, more to herself than the others, but Shawe grunted, “The forest.”
It made sense to head toward the one place in the swamp that offered shelter, and therefore a greater chance of inhabitants. For once Caesar made no arguments so they started forward, trudging and squelching, making slow progress in the clinging shin-high mud. Diega’s muscles burned and cramped. With every step, she searched for solid ground and found none, feeling depleted and lightheaded with hunger and thirst. She grabbed a quick-boost hydration satchel off her belt and downed it, then offered one to the gangsters. Both grunted a refusal, neither wanting to look weak in front of the other. So she drank the second one as well, and felt an immediate boost in her energy. In the sky above the light kept dipping, over and over. Each time Caesar’s back twitched and Diega was reminded of what the dragonfly had said – once the land was in darkness, an army of monsters would invade. She forced the fear out of her mind and took the lead, her spare blade clutched in one hand. Shawe started to sing and hum a galley tune about brotherhood and war. He really was completely tone-deaf.
Caesar glared at him until Shawe stopped and said, “Something in my teeth, kitty?”
The Pride King narrowed his eyes in a calculating lion smile. “I see you’ve forgiven Kane’s betrayal?”
Shawe snorted.
“What betrayal?” Diega glanced back at the two gangsters carrying Copernicus. She was sick of the whole trutting story. “He cheated with Copernicus’ girlfriend first and Copernicus reacted.”
“You both talk way too much,” Shawe muttered with annoyance.
Caesar clicked his tongue in the gangster way and said, “One of my girlfriends, too.”
Diega shot Shawe a look of disgust. “What’s wrong with you? There’s not enough women in the city without having to break up other people’s relationships?”
“Can I help it if women find me irresistible?” he demanded. “Besides, if K-Ruz and Kane weren’t so pathetic in bed, the girls would never have come to me.”
Caesar and Diega both made dismissive sounds – having a moment of bonding over finding Shawe ridiculous and foul.
“Seriously – how could you do that to your best friend?” Diega asked him, expecting his usual weak blaming. Instead he took her by complete surprise with a flash of sincerity.
“It’s the only regret I have.” He glanced up at Copernicus slumped between them. “He already knows.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” Caesar said.
“Everything happens because of alcohol,” Shawe countered.
“Then stop drinking,” Diega told him.
“Sure, sunshine. I’ll quit right after you quit. How about that?”
He had her there. It was easier said than done – so much easier. She decided to keep her mouth shut.
Finally they breached the first line of trees, thin leafless shapes with rambling branches and twisted trunks covered in warty knots and nodules. The wafting, cloud-like mist became thicker the further in they went, until they could only see shadows through the haze. Birdsong echoed in the quiet – jootoos, whipping whistles and tee tee tees. Outlines of larger bison-like creatures moved through the mist, seeming to be part of it, maybe made of it. The animal activity gave Diega hope there would be people here who would help them, but the further they trekked into the slough without encountering anyone, the more her hope faded. The mud became thicker and deeper, the sky darker, and Copernicus’ head sank low, his grip on Shawe’s shoulder loosening. Diega watched him, her spirits lagging, sinking into a despair more deadly than the
mud. Even Caesar looked like he was struggling. Only Shawe kept pushing strongly, until finally he spoke, his voice bellowing in the silence.
“I hear something.”
Caesar lifted his head, his eyes sharpening. “I hear it too.”
“To the left,” Shawe urged, and they started toward the sound with renewed strength.
They pushed through the consuming mist, but balked as a desperate scream pierced the air. They scrambled for cover behind a clump of gnarled tree trunks. Diega peered out. In a clearing some distance from their hiding place, a green figure that looked like a Vidris Slimer, an algae-blood plant-breed, was struggling and gurgling, trapped in a pond of sinking death mud. A cluster of giant toads had circled the drowning creature, lashing out sticky whip tongues, trying to snag it for their next meal before it sank out of sight. Diega immediately thought of Eli. He would see this creature and run to save it out of the goodness of his heart, but the goodness in hers was negligible. What she saw was someone who might know where the Eti River was – and there was nothing like saving someone’s life to induce gratitude. She spoke her thoughts to the others.
“What other trutting choice is there?” Shawe muttered. “You distract them while me and kitty get the Slimer.”
The insult furrowed Caesar’s forehead and fury glowed in his eyes. Diega elbowed Shawe and gave him a warning look. He shrugged. “Get going, sunshine.”
Diega gritted her teeth and slipped out from behind the tree line. She kept low, running up behind the toads. The monsters were swelling, releasing deep, barking croaks while the Vidris continued to scream. When Diega was close enough, she yelled out, “Hey!”
The toads’ eyes swiveled toward the sound, and she must have looked like a much better food option than the stringy Slimer because they all started to turn toward her in their plodding way. Diega was already backing up, ready in case they started jumping. As they edged forward, she caught sight of the poison glands beneath their eyes starting to expand. She leaped for cover behind a crooked stump as toxic blood spurted her way. By the sound, the toads were now moving fast. Diega lunged out from her hiding place and took off, running and stumbling through the mud. She drew her blade, preparing to fight for her life, but before she could turn to face the toads, something seized her from behind, sinking three daggers in her and lifting her off the ground. A giant, sucking mouth cavity latched onto her back and she felt a surge of weakness as a massive leech began to drain her. Blackness closed in from all corners of her mind. She couldn’t get the blade around, her arm flailing uselessly.