CrossTown

by Loren W. Cooper

  Ba’al Sid sprawled on the largest divan, which took his considerable weight grudgingly. “You have a request for me?”

  Having long suspected that the hide covering his chairs came originally from an animal that walked on two legs, I chose to stand. I pulled the tiny corpse of the Wraith’s wild constituent out of the pocket of my great coat and held it out to the demon sage.

  He leaned forward, the long claws of one forelimb closing over it delicately. He held it up before his eyes, opened his mouth slightly, and long whiplashing filaments like multiple serpent tongues churned the air around his claw. Then the filaments withdrew, and his gaze touched mine. “Helbron swarm particle. I’m impressed. They’re rare. But you already know that. Take one too far from the host swarm and it ceases to be a component of the greater whole. This one wouldn’t have been alone.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “But the greater whole no longer exists as such. If a swarm’s cohesion is broken, can it be put back together? If so, how? And how much of the original personality remains?”

  He tilted his massive head. “Is the swarm enclosed? Or are the constituent elements free to roam?”

  I shrugged. “Semi-enclosed. In large rooms.”

  The burning eyes narrowed. “The swarm must be brought close enough together to attain critical mass. I can help you do that. As far as the integrity of the memories and personality of the original composite being, there will be damage. How extensive the damage is depends on the strength of the original personality. It’s possible, depending on the extent of the damage, for the swarm to spontaneously generate an entirely new entity, once critical mass is attained. There’s no way to know without forcing the cohesion to occur. Do you want what it takes?”

  I nodded.

  He reached into the air in front of him. A ripple danced through the air and surrounded his claws. I felt a sensation like Ways folding and possibility molding itself to his will. His claws and eight inches of limb blurred into the haze that still expanded in front of him. When he drew his claws back, he held a great sticky mass like a dark ball of honey, swimming behind a thick, translucent membrane. He set it carefully on a nearby table. The membrane deformed slightly.

  Ba’al Sid stood. “Fruit of the Helbron Cereb bush. Take the fruit to the center of the current mass. Slice the membrane. Drain the core into a large bowl. The swarm will descend to feed. If enough particles are present, they will attain critical mass. The process takes care of itself after that.”

  I walked over to the fruit and touched it. The smooth surface of the membrane felt warm and slick under my hand. I picked it up. The fruit must have weighed close to fifty pounds, and it wanted to ooze out of my grip. Carrying it wouldn’t be fun. I put it back on the table, and nodded to Ba’al Sid. “Thanks.”

  He held up one claw. “Answer me this. Is it the Wraith?”

  I hesitated, searching my memory for enmities between the Wraith and Ba’al Sid. I could remember none. I nodded.

  He studied me for a long moment. “I will send the package to his entryway. Are we square after this?”

  I met his gaze steadily. “It’s your debt. You tell me. How much do you value your existence in this place? And how much do you fear the Knights? That should put a value on the information I gave you.”

  The fire in his eyes dimmed. “Not yet. Closer now, I think.”

  “Much closer. Thank you.”

  He looked up at me from under his brows. “What happened to the Legion?”

  I stiffened. “What?”

  “You walk alone now.” He cocked his head. “Dangerous given the bounty on your head. But then you’ve changed, haven’t you? Do they even know what they hunt?”

  “The bounty is worthless now. The Whitesnakes are gone.”

  “Mmm,” he rumbled thoughtfully. “So. You’ve acted quickly. Now you take the time to aid the Wraith, though Fetch and his mistress still dog your trail.” He held up one massive paw as I started. “Knowledge is my business. You know that. You’re changing, Zethus. Be careful on this road you walk. Don’t follow too closely in your master’s footsteps.”

  “Why not?” I had meant the question sarcastically, but it didn’t come out that way.

  “If the toll of the passage means losing yourself, the price is too high. Be careful what you pay, and who you owe.”

  “What do you know?” I asked sharply. “Can you tell me anything about Corvinus and Titania?”

  He didn’t respond. He turned his attention to the Cereb fruit, ignoring me. I had little leverage left and I had no desire to be indebted to him. I owed too many debts as it was. When I navigated the Ways to the Wraith’s place, I found the fruit and a large, shallow bowl made of beaten copper waiting for me in the silent entryway. It pleased me to see that Ba’al Sid had remembered to include a bowl.

  I put the fruit in the bowl, picked the bowl up, dispelled my shadow barrier, and stepped into the Wraith’s rooms. The pieces of his swarm flew around me in a fog of wild motion. Holding my breath, I carried my burden through to the heart of the Wraith’s workshop, into the clear space in the center of the three perfect spheres, and set the bowl down.

  The swarm dwelt most heavily there. I held my hand over my nose and mouth to keep from inhaling hundreds of the tiny animals with every breath. I sliced the membrane with a shaped fragment of darkness, grasped the edge with my free hand, and pulled it around and off. A powerful, spicy, sweet smell rose as the membrane peeled away. The mass of the fruit had the consistency of nearly frozen molasses. It slumped slowly, gravity shaping it to the confines of the bowl.

  The swarm began settling down over the fruit. As I watched, the swarm flowed in and down to the bowl like a time-lapse reel of smoke flowing backwards into a chimney. I stepped back as the cloud thickened and settled ever inward. In a surprisingly short time, the air around the bowl for three feet in any direction had become opaque with minuscule flyers. Outside that radius, the air had become virtually clear of any members of the swarm. The swarm fell slowly in on itself. When the critical mass came, it came with the suddenness of a lightning strike. I felt it before I saw any difference. When the rippling darkness of the swarm rose enough to shape the wavering outline of a humanoid head and nearly featureless face, I knew that some memories were intact, and some essence of the Wraith remained.

  He spoke in a buzzing whisper. “How long?”

  “A few hours at most. Maybe less.”

  His features blurred, reformed, blurred again. Each time they reformed the elements shifted slightly. Each time this happened the shape resembled more closely my memory of the face of the old Wraith. “I know you but I don’t. You brought me back?”

  “Yes.” He seemed to be verbalizing. The body had not yet followed the head into being. I wasn’t sure how well he would do with body language, so I didn’t simply nod.

  “You asked me for something.” His voice became louder.

  “Yes. Do you remember what I asked you to discover?”

  The face trembled, lost cohesion. “No I … I remember …”

  I saw the face slumping back toward formlessness. “You remember what?”

  The head took on a new form, elongating and darkening in color. I took a step back as a ripple passed across the head and the face of Fetch looked up at me before being consumed back into chaos. “I remember pale smoke. I remember white fire.”

  The head slumped into the body of the swarm, which had restlessly bulged outward, before settling back down over the bowl. The head began reforming. I watched it narrowly, breathing a sigh of relief as the Wraith’s features became visible. “I remember pain.”

  The cloud slowly began to boil inward again, increasing the local density of particles. “I could not find the source of the Whitesnake gold,” the Wraith whispered. “I found only rumors. Blood money. Favors given and taken.”

  I swallowed heavily as I thought of the Faerie captives in the Whitesnake sanctuary. How far would Titania go, if she had sold out her own people? Had s
he actually supplied the Whitesnakes the money for the bounty on my head, or simply traded some of her own to the Whitesnakes in return for their assistance in hunting me down? In any event, she had miscalculated, or the hunt had gone on too long, for the Whitesnakes had eventually learned enough of the nature of the heart of stone to want it for themselves. There they had parted ways from Titania. Her fear of the return of the Nephilim must have run through her core. I turned my attention back to the Wraith. “I need to let you heal,” I said. “I have enough of the information I asked you to find.” I turned and began walking toward the door.

  “The attack does confirm the involvement of the Fae.” The voice was cool and familiar. Not the voice of the Wraith. “Be careful in your assumptions. More have joined the game than you believe, and the players in it can be subtle.”

  I froze in my tracks. I turned back slowly. A familiar face stared back at me from the moving swarm of the Wraith. The details had been perfectly executed. The black hair, winged with silver, framed a face only lightly touched by the passage of centuries. He smiled sardonically, his eyes glinting with mischief. He winked before fading back into the swarm.

  My mouth had become as dry as a bed of desert sand. I had recognized that face, of course. I had spent long years in service to him before I gained enough understanding of the Ways to seek my own path. I had considered that Corvinus might have survived, at least in spirit. Had Corvinus possessed his old friend long enough to contact me?

  I scanned for his spiritual presence, but found nothing.

  The Wraith had known Corvinus far longer than I had. Were his memories powerful enough to invoke such a sending? The appearance of Fetch had apparently been invoked by memory. Could Corvinus’s appearance have been nothing more than the sympathetic reflection of a triggered memory? I didn’t know enough to be sure of anything. I had never seen the Wraith as anything but the Wraith. I had no idea what a Helbron swarm could do, or how the collective mind worked. In spite of that, the incident worried me. The Raven was perfectly capable of playing his own game. That game could easily regard me as a piece to be moved, even sacrificed. The thought that Corvinus had managed to survive didn’t necessarily reassure me. My primary motivation of late had centered on survival, not scoring points for anyone. Not even my old master.

  Vengeance was another thing entirely, of course.

  Though if he had survived, I intended to have words with the old bastard.

  In any event, I could not allow the possibility to blur my focus. I could not afford the distraction. The next step yawned before me. To navigate that abyss I would need all my strength and all my confidence. I didn’t see any alternative now to following the heart of stone back to the beginning of everything. To bring this thing to an end, I would have to seek out the Nephilim.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  I CAME again to stand on the banks of that dark and winding river, under the shadow of the mourning trees. Once again I waited for the Shepherd of the Trees. I listened to the rustling murmurs and whispers of the shepherd’s charges. For the first time in all the occasions I had stood in that place, I felt nothing of the threat in them. I felt a curious peace at having set my course so clearly. For years I had worked through the mysteries of the myriad Ways. I had worked to extend my life but not as an end in itself.

  I had always wanted more—more to see, more to feel, more to experience. I wanted to live, not just exist, and I wanted to grow in the living. Those last few days of furious running, working on the mystery of my attackers and Corvinus’s death, I had been trying to survive. My life had not been my own. Now my fate had once again come into my own hands, and the object of my reach, exceed my grasp as it might, had again become more than simple survival—it had become a mystery worth the risk of reaching. I would follow the heart and use it to unlock the secret of the Nephilim. Perhaps I would die in the attempt. Perhaps I would survive. If I did survive, I would not be unchanged.

  Then again, I was no stranger to change. Not anymore. I no longer was what I had been for so long. I no longer knew what I was becoming.

  The shepherd came to me as he always did: all swift movement and fluid grace. He held out one long hand. He gave me the survival suit and the heart of stone. I tucked the survival suit into my belt. I could feel his alien gaze on my back as I turned from that place and laid my will on the heart.

  At first I found nothing but stone. Nothing lay beneath the surface of the stone but the cold indifference of the inanimate. Then I looked beyond it, and for an instant I caught a glimpse of a burning line of possibility traced like a thread of crimson through all of the warp and woof of probability that composed the Way.

  With that, I understood what I needed to do. I found myself whistling tunelessly through my teeth as I read the Way through the lens of the heart of stone. The crimson thread led me swiftly past lands filled with growing things and into empty places of dry winds and sheer rock faces flecked with brilliant specks of glittering crystal. The chill air there tasted of ice and stone. I did not tarry. The flash of crystal gave way before the paint splashes of mineral rainbows of color, red and umber and yellow and green all running together like leftover daubs from God’s own palette. Then the hills and the colors gave way before a long plain of low marshes and tall grasses, where not even a bird or a cloud broke the azure perfection of the empty sky and the sluggish breezes were heavy with salt and rot. I increased my pace, passing through empty realm after empty realm with all the speed I could manage. Some lands flashed by like the strobe of chance reflection, while I traveled for long hours through others on the backs of Ways more stubborn and unbending.

  I took one break, stopping at a little charitable place I knew that fed travelers for a small donation. I made sure the detour led me through a land emptied by plague and war in the distant past. That realm lay not far off the empty routes marked by the crimson thread of the heart of stone. The rutted dirt road wound around a gnarled tree. The bare branches of the tree stretched out like a skeletal hand over a buried sack fat with gold coins. I dug in the soft earth for a brief time, thrust my fingers through the rotten cloth of the sack and drew out three coins. I covered over the bulging sack, and pushed on. A pity that it had never been so easy to dig up revenue in CrossTown, but CrossTown rested securely on the foundation of a true service economy, jealously guarded by the Bank of Hours.

  The thick adobe walls surrounding the little church guarded a courtyard nearly empty of guests. A homey smell of dust and turned earth and cooking filled the sanctuary. I took thick slabs of hot bread and a healthy stew from a plump little priest in clean brown robes. The bread had the heavy consistency of multiple grains and the stew dripped with fat. As I left, I gave the priest my donation. His eyes bulged in comical disbelief when I dropped two of the gold coins into his hand. I smiled and tipped my hat.

  On the Road again, I fought unease. The meal had sated my physical hunger, but sharpened the shadow hunger, honing it to a fine edge. That hunger gnawing at the back of my mind, I took up the crimson thread and pushed deeper into the wastelands.

  The air thinned and I decided that the time had come to don the environment suit. I had used nanotech environment suits before. The nanofabric was advanced enough to wear over my clothes. I removed the brick, placed it on my chest and held it there with one hand while I pulled the tab with the other. The brick grew soft and smaller, warming up and dripping through my fingers. I let it go. It slid away from my hand. Where it touched my chest, a layer of gray crawled out over my clothes, down past my belly, and up around my throat. I closed my eyes and held my breath though I’d been through the process before. The nanites felt like a thin spread of oil where they crawled over bare skin, like the lightest touch of plastic stiffening my clothes, but I forced myself to think of open fields and clean fresh air to take my mind off that crawling layer of protective, living slime.

  My revulsion toward the suit was reflex and a bit unfair, really. The nanites were smart enough to cover my body completely
and at the same time stay out of unwelcome places, flexible enough not to impede my movement and tough enough to protect me from all but the most extreme ranges of temperature and radiation. The suit would feed me air when there was only hard vacuum to breathe and filter poisons out of atmospheres inimical to my physiology. The suit couldn’t keep me alive indefinitely, but it could keep me going for days in places where I wouldn’t last minutes without it. I opened my eyes. Only ghostly reflections of the rock walls stretching up around me betrayed the transparent layer of nanites masking my face.

  I might not be in love with the culture of TechTown, but I have great respect for its products.

  Shortly after I donned the suit I passed through a vast, open plain colored white and pale blue, the surface undulating in long swells like a frozen sea. Stars shone down over a scene unfiltered by atmosphere, their light as sharp and steady and impersonal as fate. I kept on through dancing bands of darkness, wandering among shattered ivory towers that gleamed like the broken bones of vast, ancient gods, the hand of gravity pressing down on my shoulders, slowing my step as if with the weight of enforced grief. I bowed my back under the pressure and walked on. Later, from dark to light, the Way led me along the edge of a scarlet cliff so high that only distant, yellow mists could be seen curling out around the base. Rainbow bands of color swallowed me, flashing like a Van Gogh aurora borealis. After I broke out of the bright riot of color, I made my way down a crooked stair that gleamed like diamond in the light of a white sun, the steps of the stair shallower than steps built for a human stride.

  I paused at a turning of the stair, watching my reflection shatter in the facets of the cliff wall behind the stairway. I couldn’t remember ever having felt the loneliness others spoke of when walking the Ways. These dead realms kindled an ache of loneliness in me, but I knew that I had been feeling it for some time—since the Legion had left.

  My own face, slightly distorted by the mask of the environment suit, stared back at me from a thousand broken reflections. I thought of the Legion, and fought a sense of cold solitude. Looking back on my time in CrossTown, I could name many acquaintances, one master, and a few who owed me. My master was dead. I knew no one else closely. I had never felt an absence of companions until I came to lose the Legion. I wondered about them in that moment, hoping they had found the freedom I had denied them for so long.