Parallel U. - Sophomore Year

by Dakota Rusk

  But I wouldn’t give up; whatever slender opportunity, whatever remote chance offered itself, I would seize.

  And as luck would have it, I came across a low overhanging branch extending from a nearby giant tree. It was certainly massive enough to hold me; so if I could leap up and grab it, I could swing forward—gaining the momentum to propel myself farther ahead than my feet would have carried me in the same span of time. It would only earn me a few seconds—but as I’d already seen, that was sometimes all that mattered.

  I dove into the air and stretched out my arms, and reached—reached—I hadn’t jumped high enough—I was going to miss—

  —No! It worked! My hands clasped, just barely, onto the branch, and I kicked my legs forward to initiate my arc.

  But almost as soon as I did this, the branch broke away from the tree—rotten! It was soft and damp and dead—and I found myself hurtling through the air with no control over my direction or speed.

  My greatest fear now was a broken arm or leg. If I was incapacitated—if I couldn’t move—then the dogs would find me—and then the witches with their longbows…

  I let go of the dead branch and drew my knees up to my chest; with my limbs tucked in this way, they’d be more difficult to shatter on impact. Unfortunately, I’d also made myself a smaller and more efficient projectile, and I picked up speed as I sped down to earth.

  I held my breath, anticipating a slam into solid ground; but instead I shot through a mound of dead vegetation, which slowed my fall considerably, and came out beneath it onto the sandy bank of what must once have been a small stream, but which was now dry. Even so, the impact was enough to leave me momentarily dazed; and while I lay there, struggling to catch my breath, I heard voices from above—the hunting party, now in the forest and calling out the locations of the prey they’d spotted.

  I sat up, and found myself covered with the fine dust of all the dead foliage I’d plummeted through. There was a thick carpet of it; it must have been as deep as I was tall.

  The voices were getting closer. But I had cover, and it was likely that my scent was masked by all the rotted vegetation above me. I’d lucked into a spot where I could neither be seen by man, nor sniffed out by hound.

  But I wasn’t the kind of girl who’d ever be satisfied with safety. I was Fabia Terentia; I didn’t hide—I fought. My gift was for confrontation, not concealment.

  I felt more sure of myself than I had in months, as I climbed up the banks of the dried stream and clawed my way through the layers of debris to level ground.

  And as I climbed—holding my breath as much as possible, so as not to breathe in the billions of motes and microbes that flourished in these decaying layers—I found myself recalling a class I’d taken at Parallel U.—Ms. Jalili’s Basics of the Biosphere. Specifically, there was a lecture on the effects of human civilization on forests. In their natural state, forests were renewed by periodic fires, which cleared away old growth and allowed for new germination. Fires thus had a role to play in any woodland’s perpetuation. But human societies viewed forest fires as disasters, and worked to prevent them. It wasn’t until very late in their development that some parallels realized that they’d weakened their forests in the process—forced them into an artificial longevity. And certain ingenious parallels had reintroduced forest fires on a strategic basis—torching certain areas to allow for their subsequent renewal. It was one of those paradoxical concepts—fostering creation through destruction—that only human beings were capable of.

  When I reached level ground again, spitting out the flecks and bits of desiccated flora that had stuck to my lips and tongue, rubbing them from my eyes and shaking them from my hair (and my garland of mistletoe with it), it occurred to me that this forest—the one in which I was now being hunted—had very likely not had a cleansing fire in centuries. The witches would have prevented it, by any means necessary. I looked around me: everywhere I saw trees as tall as mountains, their topmost branches strangling each other; and here on the ground, just rot and decay. No new shoots; no new hope.

  This forest was choking to death.

  Just a few hours earlier, I’d admired how the witches had built a whole society in accord with nature. Now I saw that, just like any human culture, they’d done no such thing; they were killing their environment as surely as if they’d just leveled it to begin with.

  And just like that, I knew how I would fight back.

  And in the process, I’d save not only myself, but the ecosystem around me.I had just come to this decision, and was committing the unpardonable sin of congratulating myself for it, when I became alert to a slight hiss in the air—

  —and I ducked to one side just in time to avoid taking an arrow in my chest.

  Even so, it plunged into my shoulder, its force knocking me onto my back.

  I lay there for a moment, cursing myself for my stupidity; and I heard voices in the middle distance—speaking in Celtic, so that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. But I knew in my bones they were discussing whether or not I’d been killed. There was just that hint of tentativeness and of urgency that made it clear they’d seen me go down, but didn’t know more than that.

  It was just a matter of time—and not much of it—before they came over to see for themselves.

  I felt no pain; not yet—but that would come within moments. So I grabbed the shaft of the arrow and pulled it from my shoulder. Fortunately, I’d seen some of the guards at the pen earlier, with their bows strung and ready for action, and had noticed that the arrowheads were of the needle bodkin variety—meaning they had no barbs that would tear against muscle when they were removed. It came cleanly out; but so did a quantity of blood. I clawed up some damp dirt and leaves and slapped it onto my wound; it was the best I could do, in the moment.

  I’d been favoring my other arm, which Olwen had sliced open earlier that day (had it really only been a few hours before? It seemed ages ago); but now, with my opposite shoulder even more seriously injured, I was doubly hobbled. I’d have to act quickly, while adrenaline kept me from feeling too much pain.

  My assailant’s hound reached me first. I hated to harm a guileless animal, but it was a matter of its life or mine. I lay still while it sniffed me, starting at my ankle and moving up, striving to determine whether there was any life in me; and when its head came level with mine, I opened my eyes and plunged the arrowhead into its neck.

  It gave a whimper and fell over; after a few convulsions, it lay still. I withdrew the arrow; again it came cleanly free. Luck was with me—to the extent you can say that about someone who’d been abandoned on a hostile parallel, shot by a longbow, and was still being hunted.

  I got up and moved to the shadow of the nearest tree. A moment later, High Priest Paragon came into view, holding his bow at the ready. A black-clad assistant followed, carrying a small torch to light their way.

  I took one look at that torch, and knew it must be mine.

  When they found the dead hound there was a spate of anguished cries followed by angry conversation. Then Peragon turned and called out, in English, “You have more ingenuity than I expected, agent of Terminus. Your friends seem to have had more; why they left you to face me, while they themselves used their diabolical methods to spirit themselves away, I cannot say; but you owe them no thanks. Perhaps the female tired of having one so similar to her on hand. Perhaps it was jealousy. Perhaps you ought to join us instead.”

  I drew deeper into the shadows, and waited.

  He slowly sketched a circle around the dead hound; his torchbearer followed. “You were the one who spoke of the Everlasting Sun, no? Your beliefs are very much akin to ours. You would be happy among us. And you could help us to bring down our wayward sister Jocasta, with all that you have learned about her. Come out and join us; come out and take your place at our table. With skills like yours, you could be a High Priestess yourself, someday.”

  He was coming very near to me; another few moments and I’d be able to reach out
and touch him.

  “You really have no other option,” he said. “These woods are filled with Diana’s hunters, and they will not rest until we have honored her with a full kill. You have nowhere to run that we will not find you. Even were you somehow to survive this night, where would you turn? You are a creature of Terminus, which is loathed and distrusted here. You have but one way forward that does not lead to death. Come out…join us. Come out…come out…”

  He was directly in front of me now; I held my breath until he passed, still calling for me, entreating me…then, when his torchbearer passed in front of me, I stepped quietly out, grabbed his hair, pulled back his head and slit his throat. As his body slumped to the ground, I took hold of his torch; and as my fingers closed around it, his fingers loosened their grip.

  The High Priest didn’t even notice. The torchbearer’s death rattle…the weight of his body hitting the ground…these were absorbed by the howls of the hounds from farther on, by the screaming and pleading of victims well beyond our sight, and by the hum and hiss of the forest itself, alive at night in ways it wasn’t during the day.

  It was the first time I’d killed a man since freshman year. As then, it was to save my own life; but it still disturbed me, and I took a moment to quell the revulsion I felt at what I’d done before stepping up behind the High Priest and following him.

  I moved so deftly that it never occurred to him I wasn’t the torchbearer he’d started with. But every now and then I paused to lower the torch and touch it to some rotted husk, some pile of dried flora, some sea of crusty brown leaves.

  “Hold it steady, you fool,” he finally said—though the next moment he heard the crackle and spit that now sang so merrily behind him, and turned and saw me, and his eyes widened in horror.

  And well they might. Because I was backed by a lengthening wall of fire—the flames skippering up long dormant branches and darting to their utmost reaches, then leaping into the next tree over, and the next—sweeping across the tinder-laden ground like the waves of an ocean against a beachhead. It was just moments later that the voices and screams from beyond grew even louder, and more desperate; and it was clear why.

  Peragon was too stunned to raise his bow against me; and even if he did, I was too close for him to take aim. I was little more than an arm’s length away—so near, that even over the growing roar of the inferno behind me, he could hear me when I spoke.

  “Your hunt is over,” I said. “Your goddess is pleased. And through me, she gives you an immediate reward: you don’t have to wait for the heat and light of the sun to come back by degrees. Tonight, the goddess and I banish darkness altogether, and leave you to glory in it. Enjoy your gift.”

  Then I sprinted past him; it took him a moment to react—to turn and readjust his bow so that it was aimed in my direction—but by that time I was gone.

  I clung to darkness; but every lightless pocket I passed through, I left with a flicker of light—a flicker that grew and grew as I moved farther and farther away.

  I felt a wild rush—a burning of a different kind; an ecstasy of activity, a feverish will to power. I lost all awareness of who I was, or where I was headed, or what might happen to me; I was just a girl with a torch, setting fire to a world that had crossed me—and saving it in the process.

  The wound in my shoulder finally made itself known; its sharp, deranging pain pulled me down from my euphoric heights, and reduced me from a blazing avenger into a small, helpless animal. I fell to the ground; I dropped the torch, which sputtered out, entirely spent; and I gave in to the comfort of unconsciousness, rather than continue to fight against the searing, blistering hurt.

  The forest, on fire, sang me to sleep.

  22

  “Did I save the forest?” I asked.

  “You gave the forest some benefit,” was the reply; “but you were careless. You put the city at risk.”

  “The city was at least a mile away.”

  “A mile is the work of an instant, to a fire. You forgot Ms. Jalili’s chief lesson: that of a controlled burn. You had no control over yours.”

  I felt a flurry of panic. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Only a few. The High Priest summoned a deluge that quenched the flames.”

  “He can do that? Magic is real?”

  “ ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Arthur C. Clarke.”

  “Who is Arthur C. Clarke?”

  “A writer common to many parallels.”

  “Is that what you call what they do on Parallel 17? ‘Sufficiently advanced technology’?”

  “It’s not what I call it; but then I don’t matter.”

  An obvious question occurred to me. “Who are you?”

  “You’ll know when the time is right.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Long, long ago.”

  I struggled to focus my senses, but I seemed unable to locate them. “Where am I?”

  “There is a world between moments.”

  I waited. “And…that’s where I am?”

  “Sometimes.” There was a pause, as if for laughter; apparently this was very droll.

  “Why am I here?” I writhed against—something; I couldn’t say what.

  “You were injured. But you must never speak of this. It’s forbidden, this interference.” A pause. “And yet…I remembered it. And so how could I do otherwise? I was bound by fate.”

  I tried to examine my shoulder, but couldn’t quite pinpoint where it was. “I’m healed now?”

  “Yes; though there will be a scar.”

  It was true, I didn’t feel any more discomfort; but I wasn’t sure if I could feel anything in this place. “I think the pain is what drove me a little crazy at the end.”

  “As it would anyone.”

  “You’re very understanding.”

  “You have no idea.” Pause. “But then again, of course you do.” And yet another silence that seemed best filled by laughter.

  I was feeling a little dizzy from this sense of dislocation…of being unmoored. “What now?” I asked.

  “Your heart’s desire.”

  “You don’t know my heart’s desire.”

  “None knows it better.”

  “Right. Prove it.”

  “Sol Invictus dinner. With your family.”

  I was startled. “It can’t still be Sol Invictus! Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “There are worlds between moments. I told you.”

  “But…my family’s dead. Worse, never existed. The Terminus Engine…”

  “Your extended family, then.” A hint of impatience.

  “How do I get to them? I can’t just pierce the Veil on my own.”

  “You speak of ‘piercing’ the Veil, or ‘crossing’ the Veil, or some other metaphor that has no analog in reality. But what if you were to treat the metaphor as literal—to do as you have always done, when you wished to see what was concealed; what if you simply…drew back the Veil?”

  A hand hoved into view; I wasn’t certain where from—but there it was—a very human hand as well, though marked by a large scar that extended from its knuckles up to its wrist…a scar in the shape of a star.

  Its first two fingers gently hooked into a crease in the—in the—I don’t actually know what; but then they moved aside, and carried whatever it was with it, so that shapes and colors and textures came into view——and I was seated at my mother’s table.

  No; not my mother’s—the other Fabia’s. I was, in that sense, an intruder here; an impostor. And yet, I felt such a sense of belonging—of being where I should be, where I was meant to be—and everything around me seemed so heartbreakingly familiar: the dining room table set with traditional decorations—holly, candles, festive paper hats, noisemakers—and just beyond, the fir tree, garlanded with silver and topped by a stylized model of the Everlasting Sun.

  And before us was spread the traditional feast: a winter roast, yams and root vegetables—ou
t of place here in steamy Indium, but welcome all the same for its intoxi-cating aroma of the crisped flesh studded with garlic and rosemary. And then there were the spices in the wine and the perfume of the candles—

  —and the sight of all those around me: my mother—and yes, for tonight, she would be my mother, I would allow myself that much, especially as it seemed I was helpless to alter it—and seated to her left, her friend Uriel Sapir; and to her right my sisters, dressed conservatively for once—

  —and at the head of the table, the reason for my sisters’ more modest appearance: the august senator himself, my uncle, Cleopatros Innius, come all the way from the capital to join us; a spectacular honor.

  And next to my uncle, a woman I didn’t recognize—very dignified, looking to be in her late thirties, and with the kind of chiseled features people like to call “patrician.” I was just wondering who she might be when my uncle exchanged a glance with her, and a smile, then looked across the table to my mother and cleared his throat.

  Everyone fell still.

  “I beg your pardon, Hermione,” he said, “it’s unforgivable of me to interrupt our family meal in so theatrical a manner. But in fact my motives for being with you tonight are twofold. The first, as I announced when I arrived, was the more personal.” He reached over and clasped the woman’s hand; and she, for her part, closed her fingers around his. “That of course was the news that my offer of marriage had been accepted by this unparalleled and most generous.”

  My mother smiled. “And this news bears repeating, brother; for now I bear a cup, and can therefore toast you both as you deserve. To Cleopatros Innius and Paulina Prisca. Long life!”

  “To Cleopatros Innius and Paulina Prisca!” Uriel echoed, and all lifted their glasses—myself included; I did it without thinking, as though I had been part of this party since the beginning. But…I had; as I now found I could remember Uncle Cleopatros arriving and introducing us to his betrothed. But…surely that was impossible; for hadn’t I been somewhere else?