Penult

by A. Sparrow

  Unlike my other excursions, this was no fuzzy, ambiguous impression this time. My senses were fully engaged, her presence much more vivid than my feeble dreams would ever allow. It was like I was really there and standing over her.

  This time I had no doubt. I could confirm that it was really her and she was really alive. Relief washed over me, only to be replaced by a backwash of doubt. What was she doing in this warehouse? Had she escaped from her father? Was she on the run? Why hadn’t she gotten word to us? We would have rushed across continents to gather her up and protect her.

  The Singularity was kind enough to let me linger a while to sample Karla’s jumbled dreams and assess her disposition. Asleep, she provided few clues, certainly nothing about her present location. But her heart was calm. She bore no injuries, felt no distress other than a diffuse ennui and mild hunger. She missed me, and that was good. I could confirm that she was not being held against her will, and that too was good. Or was it?

  The Singularity began to nudge at me. My hosts were growing impatient. But I was not done looking at Karla. I missed her so much. I resisted its tug for now but its power was too great. When it wanted me to go it would take me.

  Without warning, Karla cried out and sat upright, heaving the moving blankets off of her.

  She squinted into the dimness. There was nothing there for her to see.

  “James?”

  She sensed my presence.

  Chapter 45: Never

  Karla’s hair was mussed and flecked with bits of sawdust. Stray strands screened her puffy eyes.

  “Is that you, James?”

  I struggled against the Singularity’s pull. It tore at me, ripping off shreds of my consciousness and whisking them away.

  “Where are you?” I said, voicing it to the crowd surrounding Victoria on the main plaza. But Kara heard or understood as well.

  “Where are you? Are you inside my head? How?”

  “The Singularity.”

  Her eyes widened. She stood up and brushed herself off.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re there right now? In the Liminality? Is it over? The war?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you, Karla?”

  She started to speak, but she paused. I could see that she wanted to tell me. “I can’t say.”

  “Come back. We’ll meet you … back in Brynmawr.”

  “I … can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. That will make you … happy.”

  “So why can’t I be happy?”

  “Because we need you … there … in the Liminality. The resistance … they need you. And you get … too happy, when you’re with me. And so you get stuck here. But there’s nothing for me here. I’m done with this place. My future … our future … is in the Liminality. But only if we can stop Penult from ruining everything. Drive them back, James. Get them to stop. I know you can do it. I believe in you.”

  “What if I don’t care? I don’t care if I ever come back here. What if I just want to be with you?”

  She frowned.

  “We can’t be together here … in life. It doesn’t work … for me. I told you. I’m done with this place. I’m just waiting for you … to finish what you’ve started. I’m proud of you, James. You’ve done very well so far.”

  “You’ve been here? In New Axum?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come see me. Find me.”

  “Not now. When you finish. If I see you now, it will make you fade. They need you … present … and focused on the war. And you need to stop doing this. You need to stop using the Singularity to come after me.”

  “But I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. But you need to go, James. Go and do your job.”

  “Where are you? What city? What country?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “I need to know that you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. Surviving. Don’t worry about me right now. Just … do your job.”

  “It’s Wendell. Wendell is helping you.”

  She scrunched her eyes in my direction. “No. I’m doing this on my own.”

  The strength of the Singularity inched up like I had taken a step deeper into the main current of a river.

  “But he said … he threatened … that we would never see each other again. Will I? Will I see you? Ever?”

  “I … I can’t say.”

  “Tell me! I need to know.”

  Her face stilled. Her eyes grew cold and calculating.

  “No,” she said. “Not in this world. Not here. Never.”

  “Karla … what are you talking about?”

  And then whatever leverage I had against the Singularity crumbled and I was at the mercy of the flow. It ripped my consciousness out of that warehouse and a flitted between souls in the night, some wakeful, some sleeping, with a randomness that made sense only to the Singularity.

  For a few short moments I paused in the bedroom of a country house in the middle of a forest. I could smell the evergreens. The man whose mind I shared wanted only death. The roots were coming to take him. But while they did, I had a chance to ruminate on my encounter with Karla, and the despair I shared with this despondent man combined to blow us both through the barrier between the realms, him to a pod deep in the darkest tunnels of Root, and me flitting through souls to the surface, skipping through the hearts of refugees braving the Cherub-infested valleys to the terraces of New Axum.

  My hand slipped off Yaqob’s shoulder and I collapsed onto the cobbles. Olivier lunged and caught me before my head struck the pavers.

  ***

  Zhang had arrived with a detachment of Frelsian warriors who bulled their way through the crowd and took Victoria back into their custody.

  “Yaqob! I warned you to stay away from her.”

  “This had to be done. Someone had to do this.”

  “And what did it get you? Did you manage decipher the cracker?”

  Yaqob looked at me. He knew I had failed. He was in there with me.

  “No. But we had to try.”

  Zhang caressed Victoria’s brow.

  “From now on, you keep your scabby hands off my friend. Understand? Too many of my people are already questioning the wisdom of this alliance. I’m beginning to think they have a point.”

  “What’s done is done. We will trouble her no more. Though, I suggest you be careful about how much you free her. This one is bitter. And her heart remains with Penult.”

  “You let us worry about her,” said Zhang, casting disappointed looks at me and my fellow conspirators Olivier and the Old Ones.

  Olivier hauled me to my feet. He kept a hand on me to steady me. I was still feeling a little wobbly. There was an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that could have accommodated a black hole.

  “You went off on a tangent there, kid.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Nah. That’s cool. Some things you just gotta do. Did you work things out with her?”

  “No. Not really.”

  Olivier gave me a worried look.

  “Come on, let’s get you some food in you. You’re looking kind of frail.”

  ***

  Olivier arranged for some bees to come and share their nectar with us. This nectar was different. It had a purplish tinge and there was something stimulating about it. A couple sips and I was buzzing around like I had drunk a double espresso.

  He led me down into the warren and took me directly to my quarters where a pair of Duster gals were arranging a platter of manna and pollen cakes for us. We sat and chatted a while, before he excused himself.

  “Don’t you fade on us now. We need you here,” he said, as he left my entry.

  I didn’t care if I faded or not. My trip through the Singularity had taken a lot out of me, and that included any shred of motivation for raiding Penult. Karla’s words left me hopeless in both worlds, though I think she was only aiming for one.

  I
dragged myself into the stony nook and collapsed onto the sleeping mats, half wishing that the Singularity would invade my dreams again and give me another glimpse of Karla, another chance to reason with her.

  But there was to be nothing of the sort. I slept the sleep of a stone. And my dreams were merely dreams. Apparently the Singularity had enough of me for one day.

  Still, I could sense its presence hovering all around my consciousness. I was more attuned to its presence now, or at least no longer tuning it out, the way people with tinnitus or who live next to a freeway learn to do to keep from going insane.

  I could never feel truly isolated or alone again knowing that a superhighway of consciousness surged all around me, only a mood swing away.

  ***

  I slept early and I slept long. In the morning, I awoke to a veritable crowd of guests. A honeybee sat on my windowsill eager to share its fresh cargo of purple nectar and yellow pollen. Meanwhile, Olivier and Urszula sat on my stone bench snacking on the bowl of manna chips intended for my breakfast. I salvaged a few before they were gone. They might look like peeled off scabs, but they tasted wonderful, sort of like a cross between fruit leather and beef jerky.

  Urszula had encased herself in full Duster battle gear, with clinging scale-like armor and a peaked helmet. Olivier had washed his thinning hair and put on a neatly-woven Hawaiian shirt, khakis and flip-flops—not exactly the attire of a warrior.

  “Are we … we’re not raiding Penult today are we?”

  “No. Not today,” said Urszula. “Yaqob is not ready. He is still indoctrinating his steward.”

  “Indoctrinating?”

  “Reznak,” said Olivier. “He’s showing him the ropes.”

  “What did you do with your saddle?” said Urszula.

  “My saddle? Um. I must have left it up in that meadow.”

  “What? You need to take care of your things. How am I supposed to teach you how to ride Trigger?”

  “Tigger,” I corrected.

  Urszula’s eyes widened and a rare smile gripped her. She looked like a little girl who had spotted a pony.

  “Your bug, he is listening to me now. I got him to come down. He obeys me but only when I am with Lalibela.”

  “Sorry Urs, but I’ve got first dibs on him today,” said Olivier. “We’re going straight to the grotto. Maybe he can fetch another saddle from the armory and you can give him his flying lesson down on the lower terrace. But not till we get some shit done.”

  “Why are we going to the grotto?” I said.

  “Because … Yaqob insists on you making some cracker columns to bring with us on our raid … when we go … if we ever go.”

  “But you were there with me in Victoria’s head. I have no clue where to start. Do you?”

  “Nah. But the Pennies don’t know that. Yaqob figures if we bring along some fakes … and I mean some convincing replicas … we can better protect the real one. Fake them out with some misdirection while we plant the real one. And who knows? We build something close, maybe we can tweak it and get it to work.”

  I sighed. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Midday,” said Urszula, her eyes admonishing as she clambered up and over a wall. “We have appointment. Clearing outside of armory. You be there.”

  Chapter 46: Replicas

  Dazed and lost in thought, twice Olivier had to ask me to come with him before I dragged myself off my mats. I could not stop thinking about my encounter with Karla in the Singularity and her admission that Wendell had nothing to do with her disappearance. So she had gone off on her own. I had suspected as much. I understood what drove her to do it. But I could not quite get my head around how I was supposed to feel about it.

  I still missed her badly. I wanted and needed to be with her. But I couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed, though that betrayal did not change how I felt one iota. My heart still longed for her. I the only way to hasten our reunion was for me to continue to do my best to help the resistance.

  I took solace in believing that failure was an option. If things didn’t work and New Axum fell and we were all driven back underground, she would know I had given it my best shot. She would have no reason not to come back to me. The only way I would lose her would be to completely give up on this quest. Then Wendell might enter the picture and make sure we stayed apart. But Karla would never forgive me if I didn’t at least try.

  I don’t know what I was going to tell the ladies of Brynmawr whenever, if ever I got back to Glasgow. How would they take the news that Karla need not be found anymore? They were having such a blast on this missing persons hunt. It would be such a letdown for them to be sent back to Brynmawr without finding her.

  And maybe I held out the slightest hope that they would succeed, that we would find Karla somewhere in Scotland, and that would trump her scheme to keep me in the Liminality. If only we could see each other in person I knew I could make her see the hopelessness of ever defeating Penult. Maybe then some gears would shift in head and she would accept the possibility of life with me in the living world.

  Olivier led me through the warren with the surety of someone who had lived here all his life. Some people just had a knack for navigation. Me, I could get lost wandering a mall, and I had, frequently, back when my mom used to take me shopping in Orlando.

  The Old Ones manning the cliff top were just as silent and oblivious to our presence as the night before. I could only hope that they would respond a little differently if some cherubs happened by.

  Sounds of battle echoed across the cloud forest on the rim of the lower terrace.

  “Just a skirmish,” said Olivier, continuing down the stairs. “No worries. We still hold the high ground.” Three mantids came diving over the cliff edge, their spiked forelimbs ready for action. “Not to mention air superiority.”

  As we made our way down, Urszula came swooping across the cliff face on Lalibela’s back. Tigger trailed close on their tail like a fledgling duck.

  “I don’t know why she’s fussing about lessons,” said Olivier. “It’s not like she’s teaching you how to pilot a Piper Cub. These dragonflies pretty much fly by themselves. Even the babies. It’s probably easier than riding a horse.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’ve never ridden a horse.”

  “Honestly? Not even a pony ride? Such a deprived child.”

  We reached the bottom to find the entrance to the grotto well-guarded, including a new pair of bunkers flanking each side. There was a gouge in the floor where they had pried Victoria free of the stone. It was studded with bits of hardened root, traces of her woody cocoon.

  “Zhang’s not really gonna set Victoria free, is he?”

  “Jeez, I hope not,” said Olivier. “He still thinks she can be rehabilitated. Personally, I think she’s a lost cause.”

  The saw horses that had held the cracker column were empty but there were still pieces of damaged columns strewn about the armory, some cleanly broken off at the segment, others crushed or torn apart.

  I went up to one of the larger chunk and studied it, intimidated as always by the sheer complexity of its internal structure. Bundles of unmodified root writhed in sacks beside it.

  “How many of these things does he want us to make?”

  “I don’t know,” said Olivier. “It would be nice to have a couple replicas, at least. Then we could do a little three card monte with them.

  My eyes traced the intricate patterns of ridges and bumps, the practically seamless junctures between segments, the perfectly inlaid rings of spikes that unfolded when the device was deployed, like so many crowns of thorns.

  “I … I don’t where to start.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re making replicas, remember? We just gotta make them look good. Realistic.”

  Olivier crouched and tried to lift a cracker fragment off the mat. He raised it easily, without having to strain.

  “Holy Christ! It feels li
ke Styrofoam. Like a movie prop.”

  “Yeah. They’re basically hollow with lots of space in their internal structure. Billions of tubes, one molecule thick. That much I could see.”

  “Tubes, huh?”

  “And they’re wrapped around each other in spirals and helices.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re getting it.”

  “Not really. That’s about as far as I can go in describing them.”

  “Don’t overthink it. It’s probably something simple. Like those wing joints turned out to be.”

  “This is still about making replicas. Right?”

  “Yeah, sure. I mean … whatever. Make them look real and that’s fantastic. If we luck out and get one that actually works, well then, that’s … gravy. But don’t think about what you can’t do, think about what you can. Otherwise you just psych yourself out.”

  “I thought weapons were your specialty?”

  “Me?” Olivier shrugged. “I know me a few tricks. I can raise a dust cloud that never settles. I can make will bombs. But that’s about it.”

  Something crashed into the trees ringing the clearing below us. As Olivier pulled aside the curtain to see what was going on, another projectile came hurtling over the lower rim. Both guards ducked inside but Olivier stood calmly as it struck the cliff wall somewhere above us, sending a shower of rubble cascading down over the entrance. When the avalanche ceased Olivier stepped outside to peruse the cliff face.

  “Oh shit! That hit just took out the up staircase. No worries, though. The other set looks okay.”

  “Do we need to clear out?”

  “Nah. You keep at it, kid. Our forces have firm control of the lower rim. I’ll let you know if things get out of hand. Besides, Urszula’s out here. We can always evacuate by bug.”

  The fighting kept me uneasy, but I tried my best to ignore it. I unstrapped one of the many bundles of extremely lively, unconsolidated roots that apparently had been gathered somewhere in the lowlands. Most roots up here in the heights fixed and ossified into structures that were difficult to undo. In fact, after what Victoria had done to me, I was pretty sure that most in not all of the stone we saw was nothing more than transformed root.