by Jay Posey
Some called runners bold. Others, reckless. Cass had a new term for them.
Desperate.
She’d managed to keep her pace steady – despite the snow, which had made the terrain even more treacherous. Her lungs ached from the chill air, and her legs were increasingly leaden, but still she pushed herself. The wound on her thigh had seeped through her pant leg. About the only positive to the situation was that the route itself hadn’t been a difficult one to follow.
Cass got the impression that the remains of the city around her had grown more broken and jagged. The snow now enshrouding it covered but did not hide what lay beneath, a white sheet draped over a corpse. Surely this was a deadly place. But she refused the warning thoughts that tried to pry into her mind and force her to slow.
She wasn’t far from the Windspan now, and she felt confident that she could overtake Wren and the others there. If she could reach it. If they had reached it. Cass hadn’t really considered what she’d do if she’d overshot them, if she reached Morningside before they arrived. Wren was masking his location again, and there was no way she’d be able to track him if he didn’t want her to.
A fork led her to a narrow street and as she saw the scene that lay ahead, fear pierced her heart. She slowed and slid to a stop. There was a man lying face down, frosted with a thin layer of white, surrounded by a sludgy pool of deep maroon. Part of her wanted to rush to him, while the other told her to stay away. Cass lingered, panting, afraid of how she might react if she discovered the body was Swoop’s. She glanced around for any signs of combat, but saw none.
After a moment she crept towards the body, keeping her eyes up and watching in case it was some kind of trap. About eight feet away she stopped, and saw enough to know it wasn’t Swoop. The relief was tempered with the anxiety of not knowing what had happened. There was a good chance that Wren had passed this way, but no way to know whether they had encountered the dead man. She considered checking the corpse to see if she could determine how the man had died. It didn’t seem to matter though. He didn’t look like he’d been shot, at least not by Swoop’s weapon. Maybe the poor man had fallen victim to some unseen device.
Cass didn’t like the implications of that thought – that she might be running through a minefield, literally or figuratively. She set off again, doing her best to ignore the anxiety that tried to beset her mind and the fatigue that dragged at her body.
Swoop led the way to the bridge, and Wren could tell from his stride that something was definitely wrong. Usually his stride was aggressive and direct, but now, every so often, his feet seemed to splay to the side.
“Swoop, are you OK?” Wren asked.
“Fine, Governor,” he said.
They were coming up on the bridge now, and the man ahead was still just sitting there. Or maybe he was on his knees. Wren had assumed it was a man, though he supposed it could be a woman. It was hard to know for sure. The person’s hair was long and grey and swirled about his face. If it was a he, his eyes were definitely covered by a blindfold.
Swoop stopped, and Painter and Wren came up next to him.
“When we get close, you boys stay behind me,” Swoop said. “Ten feet or so. Until we know what he’s up to.”
“Can we just guh, go around him?” Painter asked.
Swoop shook his head. “I don’t want him behind us. Not until I’m sure. Maybe even after I’m sure.”
“OK,” Wren said. “Be careful, Swoop.”
“Yep.”
They closed the final distance to the man on the bridge, and Swoop motioned with his hand for the boys to stop while he continued on. Wren and Painter held their place. Swoop advanced towards the man, but stopped about fifteen feet back from him. The man’s head was bowed, and he did not stir as they approached.
“Sir,” Swoop said. “Everything OK here?”
The man didn’t move.
“Sir?” Swoop said again, and then a little smile appeared on the man’s lips.
“All is well,” he said. “Forgive me, it has been long since anyone has called me ‘sir’.”
Swoop swayed on his feet, and Wren saw him widen his stance. Something definitely wasn’t right.
“Tough neighborhood,” Swoop said. “Plannin’ on stayin’ long?”
“Not long.”
For an old man sitting alone in the snow in the middle of dangerous ground, he seemed completely at peace. It frightened Wren terribly.
“You headed across the bridge, or did you come from that way?”
“I had planned to cross. Now, I wait.”
“Waitin’ for…?”
The old man raised his head then, as if he was looking at Swoop. “You.”
Swoop’s head lowered a little, and his shoulders came up, like he was getting ready for something to happen.
“Well,” Swoop said. “Here we are.”
“There are stories in the west,” the old man said. “Stories of a king in a great eastern city, who raises the dead.”
Painter looked at Wren.
“Raises, and enslaves,” the old man continued. “You know this city.”
“I know a city,” Swoop said. “Don’t know any king like you say.”
“Yet you travel with him.”
The old man’s words filled Wren with dread, but there was something curious to them, something in the way he spoke, the way he formed the words, that pricked at Wren’s mind.
“Look, fella, I don’t know where you get your news, but I can tell you it’s bad. And if you’re thinkin’ about makin’ trouble, I got nothin’ for you but worse.”
“The king should be expecting me.”
“Morningside has no king,” Wren called as he came forward. He walked closer, but stopped a couple of steps behind Swoop. “But I am its governor. Or was. But I’ve never made a slave of anyone, and I don’t think I was expecting you.”
“You should be.”
It was a mild correction, the old man reemphasizing what he had already said, as if he had been misunderstood. His face was still turned towards Swoop.
“Could you tell me your name, sir?” Wren asked.
“Today,” the old man answered, “I am Justice.”
It happened so fast, Wren couldn’t really tell who moved first. Swoop knocked Wren backwards and brought his weapon up in a flash, but the old man was a blur. Wren fell. There was a clash of metal, and Swoop was thrown violently backwards. He crashed into the snow and skidded backwards on his back.
Somehow the old man was standing where Swoop had been moments before, as if he’d teleported. He stood sideways with his left shoulder towards Swoop, front leg bent and the other locked straight behind. A sword had materialized in his hands, though Wren had not seen him draw it. This he held vertically, close to his body.
Swoop sat up, momentarily dazed. He held up his weapon, but it was useless now. The old man had sheared the end of it off, just ahead of where Swoop usually gripped the front. It didn’t seem like the old man had cut Swoop at all, though, only knocked him down with his charge. Still, Wren couldn’t believe how far the old man’s attack had thrown Swoop. Swoop was a good eight feet back from where he’d started. Which meant there was now no one between Wren and the old man.
The old man turned his face towards Wren. “You,” the old man said.
But that was his only word before something streaked past Wren from behind. The old man spun just in time to avoid the impact, but the Thing that had pounced at him redirected and was on him in an instant. The two exchanged a lightning fast barrage of blows and then separated for a moment, long enough for Wren to identify the Thing.
Mama.
Wren wanted to call out to her, but fear seized him – fear of fatally distracting her. They stood facing one another, Mama panting for breath, and the old man called Justice still as a stone. The snow swirled gently around and between them, crackling softly as it met the frozen ground.
And then, like hammer and anvil, they clashed.
It was n
early impossible for Wren’s eyes to follow what unfolded before him. The speed was terrifying to behold, almost as if time had been compressed. Time and again the old man’s sword sang, and time and again his mother twisted away, only to snap out a deadly strike of her own. But neither fist nor blade found its target, so quick were they to dodge and counter.
Hands grabbed Wren’s arms and lifted him out of the snow. Swoop was pulling him backwards, away from the fight. Painter was there, watching the fury in shocked silence.
The speed was frightening on its own but it was made all the more mystifying by how precisely the blindfolded man judged Cass’s actions. Cass seemed far faster than the old man, but the old man’s movements were so efficient and fluid he was surprisingly able to match her. His quickness was unhurried.
Though it was too fast to see exactly what happened, for a moment Cass seemed either to grab or strike the old man’s forearms, and in the next instant his sword catapulted from his hands and tumbled into the snow several feet away. Yet the old man wasn’t disrupted. In nearly the same motion, he grabbed Cass with both of his now-empty hands and quickly spun, throwing her over his hip.
Cass flipped headlong, but somehow managed to arch her back enough to get her feet on the ground first. With her body parallel to the ground, she clung to the old man’s arms and launched a kick back over her head. Wren couldn’t tell if she connected or not, but the old man came free and collapsed backwards into the snow. He rolled like a shadow spilling across the ground and in the next instant was back on his feet, blade in hand.
Cass twisted into a low crouch. A moment later, the old man closed the gap between them with a single lunge and attacked with a downward slash, followed instantly by an upward stroke. Cass evaded both, and closed in tight, once again inside the range of the sword.
He fought to trap her hands, but her elbow flashed upwards and snapped his head back. The old man stumbled backwards, skidded in the snow, but as he did his blade flicked out and Cass flinched. For a tense moment they stayed separated by about ten feet. Cass was breathing hard, her hands held up in front of her to guard against the next assault. A thin black line welled from cheekbone to jaw.
The old man’s sword tip was pointed straight at her, steady and calm, like a knife in the hand of a surgeon. He seemed as relaxed as they’d found him, as if the combat had been no strain at all. He straightened slightly and gradually allowed his sword to lower, so low it nearly brushed the ground. And then he turned sideways and shifted his stance so the blade was pointed behind him, away from her. The two held their ground, each seeming to wait for the other to make a move.
And in that moment, something about the old man’s silhouette – the way he stood, the way he held the sword – came together with the way he had spoken, in a flash completing the picture that had been struggling to form in Wren’s mind. Before he’d even had time to process the thought and doubt it, he called out, “Chapel!”
It was impossible. Utterly impossible. And yet his heart was sure. The old man remained completely still, and Cass held her ground. Wren tried to run forward, but Swoop snatched at his coat and stopped him in place.
“Chapel, stop, please, it’s me, it’s me Wren!”
Still neither of them dared move. But the old man spoke.
“Chapel,” he said, as if some distant memory was awakening within him.
“Wren,” Cass said, despite breathing heavily. “What are you saying?”
“It’s him, Mama.” Wren managed to yank free of Swoop’s grip and he raced between the two fighters. He stood right in the middle of them with his hands up and out to his sides, facing the blindfolded man he’d once known as Chapel. Now that Wren could see him up close, even through the blindfold, grime, and wild hair, there was no mistake that it was indeed Chapel. But something was far different about him.
“Chapel, don’t you remember me?”
“Chapel,” he said again, more certain this time. “Yes. That was once my name.” He stood straight and relaxed his grip on his sword, but did not sheathe it. “I was at a place of refuge then. You were there for a time.”
“I was,” Wren said. “You saved me. From the Weir. You, and Lil, and Mister Carter.”
“What is going on?” Cass said from behind him.
“I don’t know,” Wren answered. “I don’t understand. They said you were gone. Lil said you’d been taken.”
“Taken, yes,” Chapel said. He stood silent for a moment. And then he sheathed his sword in a fluid motion, and it disappeared within his large shabby coat. “For a time, I did not know myself, and was lost.”
Painter cautiously approached. Swoop wandered over and picked up the missing chunk of his rifle.
“What happened?” Wren asked.
“I strove. And I again became master of myself.”
Wren couldn’t understand what he was saying, how that could possibly be.
“You’re Awakened?” Cass asked.
“I do not know the term.”
“You were once a Weir? And now you’re not?”
“That is true.”
“You were going to kill me,” Wren said.
“If I had determined the stories to be true, yes.” He said it without any hint of remorse.
“But you’re not gonna try that anymore,” Swoop said. He came by Wren’s side and stood just a little in front of him, with controlled menace. There was no doubt that Chapel was a foe far beyond Swoop’s skill, but it didn’t seem like that would keep Swoop from giving it a try anyway.
Chapel made no reply, and didn’t even react to Swoop’s voice.
“We came to find you,” Wren said. “At the village. Everyone thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Chapel said.
“Are you really yourself, Chapel? Now?”
The old man inclined his head towards Wren and paused before responding.
“I am who I am meant to be,” he answered after a moment. “Perhaps no longer who I was.”
“So, are we friends or what?” Swoop said. “Because if we got things to settle, we oughta get it done. We’re losin’ daylight.”
“These Awakened,” Chapel said. “Who are they?”
“They’re like you,” Wren said. “Except they needed help. To get free.”
“And you helped them?”
Wren nodded.
“And then?”
“And then what?”
“What becomes of them?”
“We live our l-l-l-lives,” Painter said. Chapel turned his face towards him for the first time. “As best we can. Wren ssss-saved me. And others.”
“And you are free?”
“As much as anyone,” Painter said.
“We’re going back to Morningside, Chapel,” Wren said. “You could come with us and see for yourself. Or we could tell you where Lil is. She’ll be so happy to know you’re alive.”
“Lil,” he said. “…I had forgotten.”
Wren wondered exactly how much of Chapel was still Chapel. For a moment, he thought back to Jackson, the young man he’d met at the Vault, who had had the trouble. The one whose mind had temporarily left his body, only to return with others. But no, Chapel didn’t feel like that. There was stillness about him, where Jackson had been wild. Chapel was controlled, not full of chaos. Still, it almost seemed like there was a piece of him missing. Or maybe just out of place.
“I will consider,” Chapel said. He bowed his head to them and then walked away towards the bridge and returned to the spot where they’d first found him. There, he knelt.
“We need to move on,” Swoop said. Wren noticed there was a small, dark stain at the top of his pants, where he’d bled from under his vest.
“Not yet,” Cass said. “You’ve got some explaining to do. All of you.” Her breathing was more controlled, but hadn’t fully settled yet. Even so, the anger was evident in her voice.
“Still got a long walk.”
“Then you go ahead,” Cass said. “I’ll deal with you
later.”
Swoop’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t reckon I’m the kind to get dealt with, ma’am.”
“I need a moment with my son,” she answered. “We’ll catch up.”
“We’ll wait on the bridge. Be quick.”
Swoop nodded at Painter, and the two of them moved off to the Windspan, giving Cass and Wren some space. But not too much. Wren hated watching them go, because he knew what was coming.
Cass turned Wren to face her. She crouched and put both her hands on his shoulders. The cut on her cheek was bleeding freely, but she didn’t seem to care.
“What were you thinking? How could you sneak off like that? How could you do that to me, Wren?” Her voice was low but intense. She looked angry, but there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Wren said.
“Sorry? What if something had happened to you? What if I hadn’t gotten here when I did? Did you think about what that would have done to me? Did you even think at all?”
Wren stood silent before her. He’d seen her this upset before, but not often. The last time had been when he’d snuck out of the governor’s compound. The night he’d woken Painter. But this time was different. Different for him. Before, the harshness of her voice had frightened him, and the guilt for having done wrong had brought him to tears.
But this time he didn’t feel sad, or scared, or guilty. Something had changed inside, and he saw her anger was misplaced, and it did not move him. He saw her fear, and he felt sorry for her.
“Why, Wren?” she demanded. “Why did you do this?”
“To protect you, Mama.”
“No, Wren. No. That is not your job. I am your mother. It’s my job to protect you.”
“Not anymore.”
Cass almost looked stunned at his words. She just stared back at him. But even as she did, some of the anger seemed to melt away.
“Asher wants me, Mama. He’s always wanted to get to me. I thought if you were somewhere far away, maybe you’d be safe from him. But I have to try to stop him. I have to go back to Morningside…” He didn’t want to say it at first. But then he realized there was no consequence he feared from her now, and no further pain he could cause her. “I have to go back to the machine.”