Penult

by A. Sparrow

  My heart bounded with the knowledge that she was alive and free and seemingly unharmed. I must have yelled out, because the next thing I knew I was looking up at Bern’s craggy face illuminated by a glowing hunk of root, shaped into a crude lantern.

  “What’s wrong? Having nightmares.”

  “I saw her! I saw Karla.”

  Bern smiled faintly. “Dreams. They are quite vivid down here, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not sure this was a dream.”

  “Of course it was. What else would it be? You were sleeping, weren’t you?”

  “I’m … not sure”

  Bern went back inside and I laid there in the dark, staring into the utter blackness, trying to calm myself down enough to get back into that dream state so I could catch another glimpse of Karla, make sure it was really her and maybe figure out where she was. But getting my head back into that space proved elusive. I felt nothing, saw nothing, dreamed nothing. Nothing ever came easy for me.

  ***

  Morning came. The dome brightened. I still had not faded, much to my chagrin. I heard dishes clunking inside the cabin. Lille came out onto the porch with a steaming mug. She reached over me to nudge the wing joint aside to make room for the mug on the night stand.

  “Careful!”

  Too late. Her hand brushed against the wrong knob and the joint leaped into action. Her arm flailed back and the mug smashed against a corner post. The joint slammed into the cabin and embedded itself deep in the fibers.

  As something clear and hot but smelling of coffee dripped down the wall of the cabin, Lille stood and blinked at me, holding only the handle of the mug.

  “What in bloody hell?” said Bern, bursting out the front door.

  “No worries,” said Lille. “I can weave another mug. Bring you another cuppa.”

  “What is that thing sticking in my wall?”

  Bern came over and squinted at the wing joint.

  “Don’t touch it!”

  “Don’t you worry. I’m not coming any closer than this.”

  “It’s from one of the contraptions the Seraphs use to fly. Olivier help figuring out how to reverse engineer it.”

  “Whatever for? What good are wings in these tunnels?”

  “I guess he just wants to know how they do it.”

  Bern ran his hand along the post, examining the crack that the flying mug had inflicted.”

  “Nothing personal, James, but if you don’t mind, can you do this work somewhere else? I’ve rebuilt this cabin one too many times as it is.”

  “I never should have brought it here. I should have left it in the palace.”

  Bern sighed. “So how do I extract it from my wall without it bashing in my brains?”

  “There is a way of picking it up that’s safe. You just can’t touch that one knob or else it packs a massive kick.”

  “Then you pick it up the safe way, and please get it out of here.”

  Chapter 20: Expedition

  After breakfast, Bern and I carefully extricated the wing joint out of his wall. I took it and wandered off to the far edges of the bubble where the ground was flat and open and devoid of shacks. I wasted the morning sitting cross legged, staring at the gizmo and conjuring faulty replicas. If nothing else, I got in some good meditation.

  The occasional curious person would wander by to see what I was doing. Some were newbies who had never seen the surface. The population of this latest iteration of the Burg was only a fraction of the previous settlements. The crackers had inflicted hundreds of casualties and many of the survivors had stayed up top with the resistance.

  A ripping sound drew my attention to a huge slash that had appeared in the side of the dome. I hopped to my feet, half-expecting a Reaper to come busting through, but instead, it was a party of scavengers. They were a rugged and swarthy bunch, returning from the tunnels with sacks laden with lost things—wallets, keys, reading glasses—little of use in this realm. But Luther made them go out every day to scour the tunnels. There were treasures to be found for sure. That was how I found my sword.

  They were a raucous bunch, recounting to each other a close encounter with a grizzled Reaper. They tossed me glances as they sauntered on by but did not pause to even say hello.

  Alone again, time ticked on. The dome’s glow peaked. I was itching to get back to the living world. I was beginning to wonder if something bad had happened to me on the other side.

  I couldn’t have been murdered. If I had, being this close to the Core, my soul would have been shunted directly to the Deeps. Only those who died when their souls were beyond the Core’s influence got to stay behind in the Liminality as Freesouls.

  The Frelsians had discovered this loophole. I had to wonder if Karla had gone off to seek that existence without me. It was what she wanted more than life. I wondered what I would say to her if she showed up in this place right now. But not knowing her fate, I didn’t know what to feel. Grief? Betrayal? Anger?

  The wing joint revealed none of its secrets to me no matter how intensely I stared at it, which way I turned it or tried to think through its mechanisms step by step. I was just doing my due diligence for Olivier, going through the motions, not really expecting to get anywhere. I littered the ground around me with my attempts at replication. None came close to doing what the original could do.

  I was about to give up and return to the cabin when Kitt came striding up to me from the settlement, a courier bag slung from her shoulder.

  “Any luck?”

  “Nope.” She nudged the joint with the toe of her boot.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, not if you’re interested in keeping your leg.”

  “Looks like it would be easy, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s just a hinge, right?

  “This is way more than a hinge,” I said. “This thing is an engine. This is what makes those wings go.”

  “Sure would be nice to get me a pair of Seraph wings. I could cover a heck of a lot more ground on patrol.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t hold your breath, unless you want to shoot down another Seraph.”

  She stood there brooding with her lips pursed. “Luther wants to see you again, by the way.”

  “What for?”

  “The usual. Keeping tabs. You know how he is. Ever the micro-manager.”

  “When does he want to see me?”

  “The sooner the better. Now would be good. He’s no fun when he’s anxious.” She turned abruptly and strode off towards the gash whose edges writhed with roots attempted to heal.

  I called after her. “Take care up there. Be safe.” I picked up the joint, clasping it by the sides, one of the safer ways to handle it, I had found.

  I walked back to the settlement to find Bern again struggling with his garden. At least his would-be zinnias were looking a little greener and leafier today.

  Lille was outside working on the exterior of the cabin, fussing with the texture of the faux stucco. She gritted her teeth as she wielded the wooden spoon she used to focus her energy.

  Bern saw me approach. The instant he shifted his attention to me, his zinnias wilted. He threw down his trowel in frustration.

  “Any luck?” he said, staring at the wing joint.

  “Nah,” I said. “But Luther wants to see me again. Mind if I leave this here?”

  I set the wing joint down along the edge of the garden. Bern looked a little worried, but he bent down and picked up his trowel, pointed it at the device, turning the patch of roots surrounding it Day-Glo orange.

  “That should ensure that no one stumbles into the darned thing.”

  “Come back when you’re done and I’ll have some lunch ready.”

  “Sounds great,” I said.

  I crossed the garden to the lane that led to an ever-increasing density of small houses to the village square, whose cobbles were only implied as faint indentations on a plaza of flattened root. Most of the structures flanking the square were crude. Many lacked ceilings and most had walls of unconso
lidated root, still in their natural gray state.

  At the palace, two German shepherds sat on their haunches, flanking the aperture, watching me approach.

  One of them growled while the other ran up to me and sniffed my knee. Satisfied, it ran back and returned to its post.

  I hesitated near the threshold. My palm print again didn’t work. I tried knocking but the walls were soft and my knuckles could conjure only the faintest of thuds.

  I turned to the dogs. “So … can you guys … uh … fetch your master?”

  The dogs stared at me like I was a fool for attempting to converse with dogs. The aperture suddenly widened and Olivier ducked his head out.

  “Hi James! Come join us. We’re sitting out in the courtyard.”

  I followed him out into a roughly hexagonal space nestled among the six connected blobs that formed the chambers of his palace. A patio set up café style looked out on to a wall on which holographic landscapes appeared and dissolved at regular intervals, cycling through alpine scenes, the Italian coast, tropical beaches.

  Luther sat at a round table, nursing what looked like a glass of dirty water. Two burly young men sat on either side of him. One looked sleepy, the other nervous.

  “James, this is Tyler and Detmar,” said Olivier. “Lieutenants of the watch.”

  The young guys burst to their feet and bustled over to shake my hand, the sleepy one suddenly alert. I was a little taken aback by their eagerness.

  “They will be accompanying you on the expedition.”

  “What expedition?”

  “To the resistance front, of course.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “You and Olivier are to lead a relief party, to bolster the resistance and perhaps deliver Petros into the custody of Master Zhang. We are still working out the details.”

  “Wait a minute. Who says I’m going anywhere?”

  “You are here at Master Zhang’s request, are you not?”

  “I’m here against my will,” I said. “I never wanted to come back. But … Karla—”

  “Go ahead. Blame it on my grand-daughter. The fact is you are now here and the resistance needs you … more than we do. We’ve put together a contingent of eager volunteers and are attempting to arrange for your safe passage. It all depends on whether there is to be a prisoner exchange.”

  “What if I don’t want to go?”

  “Don’t be silly, James. It’s a waste of your talents to dawdle down here in the underground.”

  “What about you? Why don’t you go?”

  “My people need me. They’ve chosen this existence … and we have much work to do to make this place achieve its potential. The underground has always been my salvation. It is meant to be. It was a mistake to leave.”

  I felt lost. I had no appetite for the surface, but I didn’t want to stay down here either. I didn’t want to go anywhere but home. To life. But until I faded, what else was I to do?

  “So … the resistance … how are we supposed to get there?”

  “We walk,” said Olivier. “Unless you can whip up a couple dozen pair of wings for us by tomorrow.”

  “How goes the engineering?” said Luther.

  I shrugged. “No progress. I have no clue what makes the thing work.”

  “A shame,” said Luther. “I tried getting Petros to help. Tried everything. Kindness. Torture. Everything in between.”

  “Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it can’t be understood,” said Olivier. “Maybe some of it is beyond our ken at the moment. Doesn’t mean it’s unfathomable.”

  “Have you tried to make one?”

  Olivier shrugged. “I’m more of a tinkerer. Someone makes it, I can tweak it. This stuff is beyond me.”

  “No worries,” said Luther. “You’ve both done your due diligence for the cause. Not that we need wings down here anyhow.”

  “Tyler and Detmar both have military experience,” said Olivier. “One of our scouts, the one you met. Kitt. She’ll be joining us as well. It’s not much of an army we’re sending. A token, really. A show of solidarity with the resistance.”

  I just smiled and nodded, playing along for now.

  “We’ll see how long I stick around. I’m way overdue for a fade.”

  “Yes, we know. You said that yesterday,” said Luther. “Until you do, we shall go ahead as planned. And if you do, we simply await your return. You are worth waiting for, James.”

  I stared back at him, my stomach gone all topsy-turvy. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it seemed that my destiny had fallen into the hands of others. I felt like I had tumbled into a river and been swept away by a current. I wished to God to fade and never come back.

  ***

  I did not fade that afternoon. Evening came and still I was stuck in the Liminality. I sat with Bern and Lille on their porch, awash in the faint glow of some activated root clumps. Bern pulled brought out a deck of cards and they tried teaching me how to play canasta, but my heart just wasn’t into it.

  “A meld in this game is three naturals or two naturals and a wild card,” said Lille.

  “Guys. I really don’t feel playing right now.”

  “If we had a fourth we could play Spades,” said Bern. “Personally, I find it more exciting with all the bidding and the setbacks.”

  “We could ask John to come over,” said Lille.

  “Guys. Please. Not tonight. I really don’t feel like playing cards. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s wrong, James?”

  “What’s going on with me? I should have faded. Is it possible … I’m dead?”

  “Doubtful,” said Bern. “You might be in a catatonic state over there but these bouts of visitation are self-limiting. If you get too dehydrated or undernourished and your body will pull you back over. Sometimes I go a week between returning. I often find myself in the infirmary on intravenous.”

  “There’s an advantage to being comatose,” said Lille. “I’m not even aware of when I return. It’s just like being asleep.”

  “So … uh … this expedition of yours … when does it kick off?” said Bern, as he collected and pocketed the cards.

  “Not sure. They said they’d send word when they’re ready.”

  Bern seemed agitated. “Honestly, Lille, are you committed to staying down here? I’ve been thinking, maybe we should join this little expedition of theirs.”

  “Join the resistance? You can’t be serious darling. What would they want with the likes of us?”

  Bern shrugged. “Will and Dorothy have signed up to go. They’re not exactly warrior types. I’m sure they would find some use for us.”

  Lille took in a deep breath. “I have to admit, the idea being out in the open air again appeals to me.”

  Bern looked at me with longing. “Would you put in a good word for us, James? Let them know that we’d be good to have along. I’m handy with small repairs, as you know. And Lille … Heaven knows the magic she can do with a bit of root and conjured spice.”

  On our plates were the remnants of our meal—several heaps of slightly tenderized root—a masterpiece of culinary magic. It didn’t look like much. One pile was purplish, another sort of pink, the third grayish green. And the mouth feel was akin to biting into a soggy mop. But the flavors were amazing, complex and artfully blended. To top it off, the clear liquid in my mug tasted exactly like freshly squeezed and briskly tart apple cider.

  “If you guys want to come along, then go for it. My understanding is that no one is going to stop you. They’re taking any and all volunteers.”

  Lille and Bern looked at each other. The smiles on their lips grew broader.

  “What do you say Lille? Up for a little adventure? Could we handle yet another move? Another cottage to be built from scratch? What will this be? Number nine?”

  “I must say, once you’ve been up top, the underground just isn’t the same. I don’t think it’s even a question, dear. It’s time to start packing.”

&n
bsp; “So how soon did you say we are leaving?” asked Bern.

  “I didn’t. Like I said, they’re waiting to get the all clear from Zhang. They’re trying to arrange us safe passage because we’ll have a hostage with us.”

  “Safe passage? This is sounding better all the time.”

  “It’s not guaranteed,” I said. “They’re still negotiating.”

  “Regardless. We had better be ready to go. Come Lille. Let’s pack our things.”

  “Are you okay to travel on that bum leg?”

  “It’s never stopped me before,” said Bern, grabbing his cane and lurching away from the table.

  Lille bustled into the cabin and slid a tweed-covered suitcase out from under the kitchen table that doubled as their bed.

  “Worse comes to worse, we travel at night,” said Bern. “You see, the Cherubim go dormant after sunset.” He gathered his tools the pegs that held them along the back wall of the porch. “Have you ever seen a Cherub up close, James? Ghastly creatures. Did you know they incubate them from regular folk?”

  “Incubate?”

  “Cherubs are made, not born,” said Lille. “Their flesh is broken down and reshaped in cocoons. The Dusters found some of their chrysalides washed up on the beaches. The Seraphs press into service whomever they need from the citizenry of Penult, modifying them into walking, breathing weapons.”

  “No soul. A minimal brain,” said Bern, as he stuffed a sack full of implements and lashed it to a pack frame. “Only the basics they need for following orders.”

  “Sound like anyone we know?” Lille winked at me. Bern whacked her gently with the butt end of his cane and kept on packing.

  Chapter 21: Breakthrough

  I had nothing to pack and I was only getting in Lille and Bern’s way on their small porch, so I grabbed a glass of what I thought was cider, made a cold torch from a swatch of glowing roots and wandered out in the garden to twiddle around some more with that blasted wing joint.

  The cider turned out not to be cider. It was some kind of wine, red and rich, undoubtedly reconstructed from some memorable bottle from Lille’s past. It hit the spot and affected me just like real wine, perhaps because it was real wine, only clear.