Freewalker

by Dennis Foon

  “I can vouch for him,” says Lumpy. “Roan recently performed for a crowd of man-eating plants. Had them mesmerized.”

  Kamyar laughs. “Excellent preparation for the audiences we’ll be facing.” He leans in on Lumpy. “My friend, you’ll never guess what I have in store for you.”

  “You won’t be putting a Mor-Tick victim on the stage,” Lumpy says with a grimace.

  The Storyteller grins wildly, slapping him on the back. “Yes, I am! It’s brilliant! See, in the play, the muddled cleric is sent to capture a child for the City. But instead, the fool will bring back someone already dying from Mor-Ticks! It’ll save a fortune in make-up.”

  “That’s not much of a joke,” grumbles Lumpy.

  “Oh, but I’m deadly serious, young Lump. You’re leading man material if I ever saw it.”

  THE INQUIRING MIND

  THE MASTERS FIGHT DEMONS EACH DAY,

  IT WOULD SEEM.

  WHAT?

  WAS THAT JUST SOMETHING I HEARD IN A DREAM?

  NO! NO! HOW RIDICULOUS! OF COURSE IT IS TRUE!

  HAVE I SEEN A DEMON? WELL... MAYBE... HAVE YOU?

  —LORE OF THE STORYTELLERS

  THE VISIONS ARE UNRELENTING. The flash of fire, her mother’s wet face against hers. She can even see them with her eyes open.

  Only one way to stop it.

  No, I promised Willum.

  Why do you think he’s not like the others? Can’t you see he’s manipulating you? He’s only using you to climb to the top.

  No, he’s loyal to me. He’s good. It’s Darius and the Masters who’ve been using me.

  What else could Willum want but to be a Master? You said yourself you don’t know who he is.

  “No!”

  Her shout jolts her back into consciousness. Walking to her basin, she splashes water over her face. Why is she assailed by these doubts? Willum is the only one who’s ever helped her. It’s as if—

  She senses a presence outside her room. Who is it? How long have they been there? Stowe puts on her dressing robe and slippers and grimly opens the door. Clerics.

  “Yes?”

  “We are here to serve, Our Stowe. The Archbishop awaits you.”

  “Is he ill?”

  “He has requested your presence.”

  “I will prepare.”

  Gwyneth is summoned but Stowe, her mind whirling with questions, almost overlooks the servant when she arrives, she stands so meekly by the door.

  “The mint gown,” Stowe snaps. Gwyneth obediently enters the room and goes into the huge closet. They must have had strong words with her if she’s afraid to even speak.

  Gwyneth emerges with the pale green dress, and after getting Stowe into it, helps her fasten the dozens of tiny pearl buttons. This is the dress she wore when she was first presented to the public as Our Stowe. Before that day—how long ago was it? Eight months?—she was simply the ward of the Archbishop. Darius oversaw the design of the dress himself, and Stowe recalls how he looked at her when the last fitting was completed: as if she were his creation.

  “Will that be all, My Lady?” asks Gwyneth, backing out the door. With a wave of her hand, Stowe dismisses her, then quickly joins the clerics.

  Footsteps ringing down the hollow corridor, she tries to anticipate the possible reasons for this summons, but her thoughts are a muddle of ridiculous fears.

  What if the transplants didn’t hold? A man of his age, the Eldest, can’t expect to be rebuilt forever, as much as he might will it. There might be some kind of infection. Could Darius be dying? You don’t want him to die on his own, unassisted; you’d be robbed of your revenge.

  Stowe stops at the glass hallway that leads to the medical complex. “Am I not to be taken to Darius?”

  “He is no longer in Renewal,” replies the cleric and motions Stowe to follow.

  He has been transferred.

  Already?

  He is still strong. Why would she think, even for a moment, that he would succumb? It is clear to her now where they are headed.

  The clerics stop outside the Eldest’s office, the claws on the shining brass doorknob forbidding.

  “Stowe, come in!”

  His voice is so vibrant, so sure, that she shudders. In his office. Whole. How could she have come so unprepared to face him? Stowe lets her breath flow to empower each cell, then draws it to her core, feeling the wholeness of her being. As she steps into the room, she silently thanks Willum and his insistence on having meditation exercises in her regimen. She’d never guessed the well of power woven into his every word. Darius rises from his chair, all toothy smiles.

  “What’s wrong, my dear? You’re pale as a ghost.”

  “I thought... I thought...”

  She allows a small portion of her frustration in the shape of a single tear to trickle down her cheek. Darius takes her arm and gently seats her, chuckling. “They told you nothing? Did you think the worst had happened?”

  Stowe allows her lip to quiver. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “I know how concerned you were about me, but you needn’t have worried. I told you the procedure had become much more efficient.”

  His eyes are watery, his entire body plump with pumped-in fluid, his skin smooth and bronzed. It’s astonishing. “You seem reborn, Master, your vitality renewed. It is marvelous. I am incredibly relieved.”

  She is relieved, but why? Only then does she realize that the voice in her head is silent. Quiet, yes, blessedly quiet, but perhaps too much like a crouching cat, preparing to strike. Oh, what does it matter?

  “Come, Stowe, and look at the night lights with me.”

  She joins Darius at the window, where the celestial firmament glitters. It is said that once the City’s brilliance obscured the stars, but the Gunthers have been unable to accomplish the old wonders. They claim the power grid is unstable. Incompetent fools, all of them. Now the City lights are so feeble they cannot even diminish the meanest star in the constellations.

  “Look to the east. Scorpio is rising. This is the same moon phase, the same arrangement of stars, as the night the meteor fell. The sky lit up as if it were day. The impact was so powerful it caused an earthquake that destroyed the City and much of the existing coastline. People were terrified.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “I was frightened enough. But I did not believe it the end of the world as some did. That could not be, not while I lived upon it. Oh, I was full of myself. I had some great part to play, I was sure of it. And when your great-grandfather came to me with the Dirt he had found, I knew I was glimpsing the future. It was amazing. A whole new world to discover. I didn’t hesitate, I took it, and the expansion of awareness I experienced confirmed my path. The voyages we went on, the places we saw.”

  “What kind of person was my great-grandfather?”

  “Ah. If there was one word I could use to describe him, it would be integrity. He was fairly bursting with it. Roan was my best friend, I trusted him completely. No one knew me so well. We rebuilt the foundations of the City together, maintained it through the world wars and the environmental shifts that destroyed so much of civilization. We were the saviors of our people. But we started to change, and the qualities I had so valued in him as a friend became, well... counter-productive at the least. And more than a bit of a burden.”

  “Was it the Dirt that changed you?”

  “In a way. It unleashed remarkable powers in us. Heightened senses, foresight, energy. And in Roan, something more. To this day, I’ve never seen a person so adept. But he began obsessing about the nature of the Dreamfield and all the possible abuses of its power. He found the responsibility too much to bear. In the end it destroyed him. He became paranoiac; he actually began thinking our work together was a threat to the very fabric of the universe. I laughed at first—couldn’t he see what a grandiose notion this was? But he wouldn’t let go of the idea, and it gnawed at him, became a mania. Logic, reason, nothing could dissuade him.”

&
nbsp; “And he led the rebellion against the City.”

  “You can’t imagine the pain I felt at his betrayal. All his doubts were transformed into a bitter hatred, a personal vendetta that nearly destroyed everything we’d worked so hard to accomplish. It was a terrible blow.”

  “But you defeated him, utterly.”

  “Yes, I did. So it all turned out, didn’t it? Except now that I’m thinking on it, it comes to me that you share his bloodline, Stowe. And I can’t help but wonder how much of him is in you.”

  There’s a hard edge to his voice that makes Stowe shiver. “I would hope that I would never prove myself so unworthy of your trust, Eldest.”

  “I too have the same hope.”

  In the silence that follows, the repercussions should she fail him are all too easy for Stowe to imagine. “In preparation for your future as leader, I will share one of my many trials with you. A few years ago, it came to my attention that a new breed of human had begun to make itself known. Children with uncanny powers of perception.”

  “Like myself?”

  “Possibly. I never discovered the extent of their capability because they were stolen by your brother to give to the Eaters. This would have proven disastrous had they not all perished.”

  “My brother died with them?”

  “I cannot say. I do know that they are no longer a force in this world. So now, I search for others. Every new recruit is tested. Recently I went to see one such group and noticed that one of them had a faint trickle of blood coming out of his ear.”

  Stowe, trying not to tremble, fixes on his reflection in the glass. It has an eerie quality, Darius’s face, littered with stars. It is the negative space that fascinates her, as if all the dark matter in the universe were contained in his visage.

  “Did you have a doctor examine them?”

  “I needed no doctor to tell me what I discovered. They had been tampered with. Even Director Kordan had his short-term memory erased. Or so it would seem.”

  “You suspect him?”

  “I consider all possibilities. Director Watuba tells me that other than the victims, there were only two people who’d been in the room. Yourself and Willum.”

  “That can’t be true!” Stowe exclaims, trying desperately not to falter.

  “Are you saying Watuba is lying?”

  “But Willum...?”

  “Willum said he observed nothing unusual. Of course, his powers are so weak, he could never detect such a subtle attack.”

  Willum. Who is this Willum who deceives even the great Master? And if it’s not him, that leaves only you.

  “You suspect me, Father?” Stowe gasps.

  “Master Kordan is certain it could have been no one else. You were in the room. The attack was much like your previous aggression against my clerics. But to enter their minds and remove their memory of the event, why, that is very advanced. Very impressive. I think you brought more back from the Eaters’ Wall than you shared with me.”

  Why didn’t he erase those little mental footprints? He deliberately left clues. This Willum is looking to betray you.

  No! No! Shut up. Can’t you see I have a crisis here? Shut up!

  “Father, I did not bring back anything, not that I’m aware of. I would have told you. I swear I do not have that kind of power.”

  Darius’s eyes pierce hers. It’s fortunate she was telling the truth, for he would most certainly have caught a lie. “Perhaps. Your great-grandfather began to realize that his unconscious desires were being asserted in ways that he could not always control. It was one of the things that terrified him. So there is a possibility that you accomplished a goal of which you were unaware.”

  “You think I could do something like that and not realize it?”

  “I don’t know, darling.”

  “You think I wanted to hurt the children and didn’t know it?”

  “Stowe, you have a very special place in my heart. Please, do not doubt it. I will get to the bottom of this aberration. We shall perform a few more tests. And then... I think we’ll send you back on another voyage.”

  Stowe’s heart lifts. It is exactly what she’s hoped for, to eat Dirt again, and have access to the Wall and the energy it offers. Dirt. Her need for it makes her reel. There is, of course, danger. That dampens the thrill somewhat. Darius’s motivations are not what he says they are. She will be subjected to Dr. Arcanthas again and there is no possible way for her to discover the true nature of the tests he will conduct. She’ll need all her wits about her if she hopes to survive. She will need Willum’s help.

  Willum—

  Shut up!

  “I am forever your obedient daughter, Father.”

  “You need not humble yourself before me, Stowe. I do not require it.”

  Oh no, not at all, Stowe thinks sarcastically as she kisses his cheek. It depresses under her lips like a sodden sponge. “Thank you, Father.”

  “And Stowe—the results on the recruits proved negative. They were sent to recycling,” he says, lightly. “So no real damage done.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  He strokes her hair, holding one of her curls between his fingers. “So lovely,” he says. “So very, very lovely.”

  Hair cannot feel, cannot cringe. Yes, Eldest, stroke it all you want. It senses nothing, reveals nothing.

  THE VALUE OF KNITTING

  KNIT AND PURL FOR PEACE OF MIND

  CABLE IF YOU HAVE THE TIME

  NEEDLES ARE A CUNNING TOOL

  TO PICK A STITCH OR TRICK A FOOL

  —LORE OF THE STORYTELLERS

  “YOU ARE AN AMAZING COOK,” Lumpy mumbles through a mouthful of porridge. And Dobbs, with a satisfied snort, ladles him another serving.

  Lumpy grins in thanks. “I haven’t had such a good breakfast since, since...”

  “Oasis,” Roan finishes for him. “But I don’t think we saw you, Dobbs, when we were there.”

  “Don’t expect that you did. Can’t bear those caves. I’m more the open-air type. So I just stay long enough to take advantage of the library and then I’m off again.”

  “Do you use Dirt?” Roan warily asks.

  “Nay, nope, no, I like my feet on the ground. No fancy aerial maneuvers for me. Besides, you can’t eat in the Dreamfield,” says the big man, patting his ample stomach. “Where’s the pleasure in that?”

  “There’s more than enough that needs doing in this world, that’s what I think. No need to go flitting around in the next,” adds Talia.

  “I took Dirt once,” admits Mejan. “Got me nothing but a headache. If I could do what Mabatan does, though, I’d try a walk or two. Unfortunately, I haven’t got the stamina for the fifteen years or so of training it takes to learn the technique.”

  “You must be a quick study,” says Roan, looking admiringly at Mabatan.

  “No, same as everyone, but my father started my practice when I was three.”

  Lumpy goggles at her. “You’re eighteen?”

  “I am.”

  “You don’t... look that old,” Lumpy stammers.

  Mabatan smiles. “I do not feel that young.”

  Banging his spoon on his empty bowl, Kamyar announces, “Well, now that we’ve had a good night’s sleep, a satisfying meal, have registered our surprise at Mabatan’s remarkable appearance, and decided that we all hate Dirt, let’s run that new scene before heading off.”

  “Always the taskmaster,” sighs Dobbs.

  Lumpy gulps. “You mean... my scene?”

  “None other. Did you have a chance to look at your lines?”

  “Well, I looked but I’m just learning to read, you know, and your handwriting was impossible to make out.”

  Kamyar laughs. “Then you’ll just have to improvise.”

  “But there’s no stage, where are we supposed to rehearse?” asks Lumpy, hoping for a reprieve.

  “The world’s our stage, young Lump. That stump will do just fine. Ready, Talia?”

  “Always,” says Talia.


  Head bowed, Lumpy steps up on the stump. He does not move.

  “Come now, give it some oomph.” Kamyar gestures inquiringly at Talia. “What is his action, Talia dear?”

  “He’s begging for his life!”

  “Come on then, young Lump, beg!” orders Kamyar.

  “Please, please, no...” Lumpy mumbles.

  With one hand over his face, Kamyar groans, then with an appraising eye on Lumpy, he sighs. Deeply. “You can do much, much better than that. On your knees. That’s right. Lift up your head. Good. Now, look that cleric in the eye.”

  Lumpy does everything as instructed, but Talia crosses her eyes just enough to make him explode with laughter.

  “Could you manage not to be so terribly funny, Talia dearest?”

  “It’s not Talia’s fault,” Lumpy manages between guffaws.

  “It isn’t, is it? Then if you wouldn’t mind, can we resume the begging, Master Lump? Come now, a bit of zeal, if you please: BEG FOR YOUR LIFE!”

  Somewhat humbled by Kamyar’s booming command, Lumpy attempts to take the whole thing more seriously and actually manages to speak the line with conviction. “Please, please, no, don’t send me to the City.”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s it. With gusto!”

  When Lumpy and Talia have completed their scene, Kamyar circles them, muttering. “Not bad, not bad. Needs business, though. Talia, teach Lumpy some business!” Then he lifts an eyebrow at Roan. “Now that you’ve come to a firm decision about Dirt, how do you feel about those who eat it?”

  “Can’t be trusted, can they?”

  Kamyar shouts out, “Faster!” as Talia chases Lumpy around the stump.

  “You know, Roan, not all the Dirt Eaters believe the same things. When the time comes, they won’t all end up on the same side.”

  “Do you know Alandra?”

  Kamyar laughs. “She was such a sad, sweet little waif when I first met her. My god, the sacrifices they had her make. Committing her to that demented Fairview, where she had to help with the exportation of their children. It’s a wonder she didn’t go stark-raving mad.”

  “She claims it was a struggle,” Roan agrees. “But she’s Dirt Eater through and through.”