by Tom Toner
The shadow lengthened, pooling into the room, and Maril felt every hair on his body stir.
What appeared was something that looked distinctly like Gramps.
The white-muzzled old Bie wandered into the room and reared onto his hind legs, his fat, scaly tail lying on the tiles for balance.
“Hello.”
Maril stared, open-mouthed.
The Bie leaned against the wall, examining them before speaking again. “Sorry about all that,” he announced in exceptional, Amaranthine-grade Unified. His voice was crisp and loud, astonishing the crew into silence. In his claws he held a sparker pistol.
“I can help you, but you must all follow without delay.” He aimed the sparker.
Before Maril could duck, the lock on the bars exploded, fizzing and melting in a flare of blue and red flame. Jospor yelped as Gramps did the same to his cell, and then the next. The Vulgar stood back until the flames had died, then hesitantly poked their heads into the chamber. Maril felt even more exposed, there being nothing separating him now from the wilderness, from the Bult.
He went to Gramps and accepted the offered weapon, still too confused to think of thanking him.
“They’ve got your weapons somewhere in the basements,” Gramps said, barely pausing as another series of shrieks rebounded up the stairs. “Hurry and meet me by the orchard.” He flicked his tail and was gone before Maril could ask anything, a shadow receding down the stairwell.
“Well, bugger me,” Furto said. Veril and Drazlo burst into relieved laughter, Slupe joining in last.
“Good old Gramps,” Jospor breathed, staring at Maril’s new sparker. “Keeping an eye on us all this time.”
Maril still couldn’t find any words. He weighed the sparker in his hand; it was a Zelio-make, cruder than those they’d brought from Fil-gurbirund. He passed it to Timose, their best shot. The bearded Vulgar examined the sights, wrenching open the cylinder to count the remaining sparkies.
“Get up to the highest point you can find and radio back,” Maril said, turning Jospor around and searching inside the neck of his Void-suit. They all checked their comms and the battery cells in their suits, smacking them a few times in the hope they’d dried out enough to work again. Maril, of course, had nothing.
He grouped Jospor with Veril, Furto and Guirm, taking the broom that still leaned against the wall and snapping it in half. He handed the broom end to Jospor.
“Oh dear,” the master-at-arms said, accepting the thing and giving it a twirl. “They wouldn’t like that.”
Maril took Slupe, Ribio and Drazlo down to the next floor, where they’d heard the Quetterel trying his hand at Bult interrogation. As he’d hoped, it contained only one cell, a more robust-looking cage in the centre of a chamber surrounded by wooden benches. Where the other Bult were was anyone’s guess. Maril crept to the window and peered out, glad of the better view.
The lug-train had returned to the hermitage grounds and was waiting at the bottom of the hill like a bloated iron snake, smoke curling from its funnels. He couldn’t see the Zelioceti crew—or anyone else, for that matter. From this new vantage point, there did indeed appear to be a fenced orchard lying parallel to the rutted track that crossed the hermitage grounds, as well as a number of other gloomy towers and keeps topped with boxy communications equipment and what could have been a telescope covered over with awnings.
Out beyond the walls he could see the river plain, its wet fields reflecting the colours of mighty Zeliolopos, and the mucky grey road that had brought them here. Maril ducked back in, directing his men silently to the benches: the half-Wulm Ribio started, yanking as best he could on one of the legs and succeeding in breaking it apart only after much sweating and straining. Maril watched the other two barely work one leg out of its joint together and decided the time had come to make some noise. He hefted a bench and tipped it, cracking the wood. The men collected some of the longer splinters, shattering another bench between them across the floor for more. Maril watched them equip themselves, aware of what a pitiful sight they made as they swung their makeshift weapons around.
“Ready?”
Ribio, Slupe and Drazlo lined up, their splinters raised, looking very small and bedraggled in their tattered suits. Maril clapped a trembling Vulgar salute twice, realising he looked no better. He returned his grip to the broken broom handle, not sure he could delay the inevitable any longer.
Some sort of commotion and weapons fire from the floors above pricked Maril’s ears. Somewhere very distant, a person screamed shrilly, like a baby, and fell silent. After a moment’s pause, a hopeless wail rose as it fell past outside. The captain dashed back to the window; Timose lay pumping blood on the tiles of the courtyard, his sparker pouring smoke. The weapon exploded, engulfing the body and the side of the wall in pink flame, scaring a flock of roosting monkbats from the eaves and slapping a blast of heat into Maril’s face. He pulled himself back in, sweat prickling all over him as the gun platform on the lug-train opened fire on the hermitage, discharging a scintillating burst of silver lumen bolts that blew a portion of one keep into tumbling bricks.
They ran down the steps, boots pounding, breath gasping, wooden spears brandished. Screams and the rattle of fire drifted through the walls. Another great blast that must have come from the train vibrated the stone beneath their feet, a new draught following them through the sunny passages.
In a shuttered room, a black shape they’d all thought was a shadow rose to block their path and they screamed as one, spearing it, roaring oaths and shoving it across to the far door. It thrashed, spurting blood and tumbling to the floor. Maril poked the thing with his boot as they came to it. A young Quetterel that must have been hiding or on the run, just like them. They pulled their splinters out of the boy, wiping them on his black rags.
Little Slupe dropped his, shaken. “I’m going back. To the cells. I’d rather be a captive than meet a—” He clapped furiously, turning and dashing back the way they’d come.
“Slupe!” Maril hissed. “Get back here!”
Drazlo looked uncertainly at the dead Quetterel boy. “I’m with Slupe, Captain. Bugger this.”
Ribio the half-breed pilot watched them go, clearly undecided. Maril glared at him. “Captain,” Ribio said, and followed him past the body.
They were approaching the dark entranceways to what must have been the building’s basements, having somehow missed the ground floor entirely. Maril swore as they stopped short, trying to decide on a route. He ought to have gone after the other two.
A snarl and the sound of something shattering filtered from the floor below. Ribio froze. Maril glanced at him, urging the pilot on, seeing in his eyes that he would go no further.
“We’re almost free,” he urged. “Ribio, we’re almost there.”
The pilot shook his head. “Nosir. We’ll be dying in here.”
Maril straightened, taking his crewman’s piece of wood. “Go, then.”
Maril didn’t stop when he arrived at the top of the spiral stairs. They needed what was down there; he knew if he stopped he’d stay glued to the spot, paralyzed.
Dim light sparkled from reflective things, their shapes a mystery as his eyes adjusted. Maril crept forward, ears open. He stopped still as he took in his surroundings: there was cleaning equipment everywhere, mops and brooms and dusting staffs pushed like umbrellas into fat, Vulgar-high urns. Spread out on the floor were folds of cloth. Glimmering pots and kettles crowded the tables. The walls of the dungeon looked very far away, lost in the murky light, and yet Maril had the sense that this was not a large place. He thought about this as he crept along in shadow, his fingers dragging along the tiles.
He stopped.
A pale pair of eyes—nothing more than the curved reflection in an iris some feet away across the room—opened sluggishly and glanced in his direction. Maril held his breath, sure he couldn’t be seen in such low light. The Bult were not Threen; they weren’t nocturnal, as far as he knew.
The eyes s
wung to their left, gazing intently down at something on their own side of the room for a while, and then returned directly to him.
It sees me. How can it see me?
Maril prepared his body to move against the fear. He had two options. Keep it in sight and push on, or turn his back on the thing and chance a run for the door on the far side of the room. One of those options would lead to his death, he felt sure of it.
Almost without debate, his body moved onwards, deeper into the chamber. At the very same moment, the eyes disappeared.
Maril stopped, staring, his own eyes attempting feebly to gather as much light as they could.
Where . . . ?
He took a step back, wondering if perhaps it had realised he could see it and closed its eyes in response, trying to hide.
The eyes reappeared, once again staring intently down at something beside it.
Maril paused only for a second before retracing his steps forward again.
And they were gone.
He continued on another couple of steps. The eyes returned, this time swivelled to their right, apparently no longer interested in him. What was it doing? He craned his head forward, trying to make out the other side of the room, his mind working.
It’s like a reflec—
Mirrors. They were mirrors placed along the far wall.
Behind. It was right behind him. Close enough to touch. Instead of turning, Maril took another step, his body dripping with sweat. The reflected pupils blinked slowly.
He launched himself across the room, rolling and dashing for the far exit. Pounding feet rushed him from behind. Reaching the door, he threw it closed behind him, jamming a chair and then a table against it while the wood rattled, slammed from the other side. Without stopping for breath, he followed some steps up towards the sunlight. It wouldn’t take the Bult long to make it past his makeshift barricade. Every door he came to he slammed behind him, bolting them when he could, hoping that he wasn’t dooming the men he’d left. At a final turn, Maril glimpsed the grounds through a partly opened window. He lifted a bucket and smashed the thick glass, running it around the edges of the frame, then hurled it through and vaulted out.
“Maril!”
Gramps was there, rounding up his Bie, along with Jospor and Veril.
Maril hurried down the steps to the courtyard, his boots slipping and sliding on the ash-caked mosaic tiles to where the cluster of Bie were anxiously inspecting the fallen Quetterel monk. He waved them aside, looking at the messy remains of the Prism’s face. The monk was rolling and groaning, trying to stem its own bleeding by ineffectually pawing at its wounds. Dust and ash caked the bite marks, sticking in grey stripes to its gore-slathered robe; Maril didn’t think he’d ever seen such a hopeless, pitiable sight. He glanced behind to see Furto and Drazlo sprinting back though the courtyard carrying sacks of weapons over their shoulders, and held out his hand for his spring pistol.
Drazlo threw it to him while the other three took what they needed. Maril caught the weapon clumsily and turned to the monk. Its feverish eyes never had time to look up and register its fate. He unloaded the remainder of the bolt clip into its thick skull, spattering the watching Bie.
“We’re out of time,” Gramps said beside him, apparently unaffected by what he’d just seen. He pointed a hooked black claw in the direction of the orchard. “Trust me, Maril.”
Maril didn’t know how to reply. “You’ve been here before?”
“Sometimes.” The old Bie looked urgently at him. “No more time for talk. Have your men follow me . . . or stay.” He glanced among the Bie, some of which had relaxed again onto the tiles to sunbathe. “Ari-eehhh Inouul!” he cried out in their speech, and Maril observed them jump immediately to their feet, hounds called by their master.
Maril turned to look for the remainder of his men, spotting Slupe and Guirm appear from the hermitage and take up defensive positions along the trackway, their reclaimed weapons drawn. There was no sign of Ribio. “No time!” Maril shouted. “Come on!”
Further up the track, Veril was laying a mine, their last. He brushed ash carefully over it with his hands and followed Maril as he and the others ran for the orchard. Furto had gone on ahead, his little bony shape skipping between the trees as he took point, and Maril felt the first stirrings of a colossal pride. These were his crew. His force of fighting Vulgar. His family.
Shots and screams echoed from the outer buildings of the hermitage as they climbed the simple wooden fence into the orchard, muffled as they passed between the slim yellow trees. Ash churned in the sun between the branches, sparkling in the late afternoon, while black Zeliobirds chirruped at their passing. The Bie lolled their tongues, trying to copy the birds’ sounds. Above the line of the trees, through the mist of sun-warmed ash, Maril could occasionally make out the volcanic hills and the vast faded green bands of Zeliolopos, a landscape in the sky.
They caught up with Furto. He’d hung back, waiting for them, having chosen a particularly weighty lumen rifle from the haul. He sighted it on a small mammal that had gone bounding off through the orchard.
Maril turned to Gramps. “How much further? What do you have, a ship or something?”
“Not quite,” Gramps said, pushing on, and Maril felt his flying hopes begin to sink again.
“What, then?” he whispered harshly, jogging after the Bie.
“Shhh,” Gramps hissed, stopping in the long yellow grass. Insects whined around them. He nodded into the trees. “What do you see?”
Maril checked his men were behind him and glanced at where Gramps was looking. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, just a thicket of slim trunks and branches coloured by the dappled, warm light. Some gourd-shaped fruits like large pears dangled from the mature trees. One of the trees had an ornate wrought-iron fence staked around its trunk.
“Get down to my level. Crouch.”
“What? Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Maril shook his head, glancing between the trees in the direction of the hermitage. The commotion from the buildings was getting louder. “You don’t have a ship, do you? What the hell are we doing in here?” Maril looked at his men, stood waiting behind. “That Pifoon clipper, we should’ve followed the road back to it—”
Before he knew what was happening, the Bie had grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him to the grass. He barely had time to put out a hand.
“What—”
“Look.”
Maril turned his head, eyes drawn immediately to the tree protected by the iron fence. From the shadows of its branches, a grizzled yellow fruit larger than a Jalan Melius dangled from a thin stem. He crouched, holding a hand out behind him to silence the others’ questions. The size of the thing had suddenly diminished as he’d raised his eyes, like a fantastical magic trick.
“Perspective,” Gramps said beside him. “The Thresholds are hidden that way.”
“But—” he began, standing and moving to one side of the tree. “Where?” The fruit—some relative of a Firmamental orange, he thought—had shrunk to normal size before him. He circled the tree, inspecting it, waiting to see the answer, but the fruit never grew any larger. Finally, he reached to take it in his hand and experienced a sudden extraordinary vertigo as he touched something solid and invisible, the range of his eyes unable to shift and focus on it at all.
He looked back at Gramps, who was starting to urge his Bie forward. The crew stood together, all but poor Ribio accounted for: a motley collection of warriors and mechanics and pilots, all dressed in shoddy Voidsuits of varying make, bound as one by the light dusting of white ash that clung to their clothes and gear.
“Threshold?” he asked Gramps.
“Ancient things. This one will carry us far away from here, though not necessarily to any place of greater safety. Will you come?”
Maril looked back at the fruit and crouched in the grass again. It swelled in his vision, spilling across the orchard towards them. Gramps felt along its rough undersurface and beg
an scrabbling at the flesh around the stamen, raking his long nails across a scarred patch that looked as if it had been cut and healed hundreds of times. The section of skin ripped wetly open, exposing a dark, hollow chamber within.
Guilt consumed him; guilt that he should be here instead of more of his men, guilt that he was leaving their bodies behind on these wild moons of Lopos—Ribio missing, Timose scattered and roasted down the path, the others soon to be countless bleached bones among the driftwood of that volcanic island. Perhaps some were wandering that lonely place, lost, calling his name. Maril shuddered inwardly at the thought, pushing it from his mind.
Pride. He would choose to feel that instead. Pride that he had led his remaining men to safety, and that they had done so very, very well. These people here, not those phantoms of Coriopil, were his family, and he would see them safe.
He looked at Jospor, then into his men’s eyes, nodding with them. “Yes.”
JOURNEY
“Take these.”
Maril directed Jospor’s torch at whatever Gramps had passed him. It was a smooth coin of dull metal, a little smaller than a Lacaille Trup-pin. In the darkness within the Threshold, they stood together, sweating, the air filled with Vulgar musk and the burned stink of Glumatis ash brought in on their boots.
“Swallow,” Gramps said. Furto and Slupe looked dubiously at their own coins. Drazlo had already posted his into his mouth and grimaced. Maril touched it delicately to his tongue, immediately tasting the bitterness that leached from its surface. He took a breath and popped it in, crunching it up as he fought the gag. The Bie gulped theirs, retching.
Gramps looked between them in the yellowish, flickering light of Jospor’s and Furto’s sodium torches. The crude chemical batteries in their suits were already running low. Apparently satisfied, he smiled, revealing little crooked white teeth like fish hooks quite different from the blunt molars of the other Bie.
“So how long—?” Maril began to ask, before Gramps interrupted him.