Infinite (Incarnate)

by Jodi Meadows

  I chose Phoenix Symphony. Some of the sylph already knew it, and it was one of my favorites.

  The first chords rushed from the speakers like a waterfall, and I let my voice fade beneath the powerful sounds of the piano, violins, and thunderous bass.

  I pushed the volume as high as it would go, so that every sylph heard. They halted just before they reached the line of centaurs, and the incredible heat faded to something more bearable.

  Behind me, the centaur boys scrambled to their feet. One touched my shoulder, and his gaze fell on the SED clutched in my hands. The light from the screen illuminated his face, scratched from our run and his fall to the ground. But he smiled when his hand passed through the SED glow, and he said something I could neither hear clearly over the music, nor understand.

  My SED screen flashed; on the other side of the sylph swarm, Sam had synced his SED with mine. Phoenix Symphony played all around.

  The boys needed to return to their people. The centaurs just wanted them back. That was why they were here. And surely the sylph wouldn’t let the centaurs hurt me, if they tried.

  I put my SED in my pocket, speaker facing up so the music remained loud and clear, then reached up to take each centaur boy’s hand. Together, we walked around the sylph, which sang and danced along with the music, though still watchful, as though waiting for the centaurs to attack again.

  We broke through the line of shadows and found the centaur herd almost motionless. Their eyes narrowed, but that was all.

  One of the centaur women crashed through the herd, her arms wide. The boys leapt out into the thin strip of land between us and bounded to her, and sylph fanned around me, including me in their line as they sang melodies and countermelodies of the first movement of Phoenix Symphony.

  The boys hugged the woman—their mother?—and the lead warriors of the herd seemed to look over my group. Four humans armed with only lasers and music, and dozens of sylph.

  The shadows coiling around me must have been the deciding factor. One of the leaders turned and shouted some kind of order, and the herd began moving away, their hooves like thunder in the ground.

  One of the centaur boys ran back, though. He stopped midway between our groups and called out something as he pointed southeast. Showing me where they were going. Then, in a high and eerily beautiful voice, he sang along with a measure of melody as it flowed from the SED, and from the sylph.

  Only a moment later, he was gone, lost among the other centaurs.

  The music swelled, and I turned back to Sam and the others. Sylph parted, forming a clear path.

  As I headed for Sam at the other end of the dark tunnel, tendrils of shadow snaked out and wrapped around my wrist or touched my hair. But the tendrils were incorporeal. I felt nothing but warmth where they touched me.

  Sylph song surrounded me, layers of harmony in otherworldly wailing and whispering. A few sylph swayed, as though lost in music.

  “Are you okay?” Sam reached for me, and our SEDs were muffled as we hugged.

  “I’m fine.” I pulled back, relieved to be reunited with my friends. “They were just scared children. They were new. Like me.” My smile felt forced as I gazed from Stef to Whit. These were my friends. They’d agreed to come on this incredible and possibly futile journey with me. But they were oldsouls. They’d never truly understand the connection I felt with other newsouls, even if the newsouls were centaurs.

  “We’re just glad you’re safe.” Whit gazed beyond me at the sea of sylph still fluttering with the music, singing along with the parts they knew. “And I see you found the sylph.” His voice was raspy, wary.

  I shook my head and lowered the volume of my SED, but didn’t turn off the music as the second movement began to play. “They found us.”

  “They seem to really like you.” He frowned, and I tried to imagine how strange the whole situation must appear. Centaurs retreating in the background. Sylph curling up around me like shadowy cloaks. “Which one is”—he seemed to struggle with the memory and knowledge—“Cris?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, but I couldn’t tell the sylph apart. They were all just pillars of darkness.

  One sylph moved forward to stand beside me.

  “Cris.”

  He twitched a little, almost like a nod, and a black rose bloomed around him.

  “Oh, Cris.” Stef reached out, and her voice broke.

  I bit my lip. “That movement earlier. It was a nod?”

  He did the same thing.

  “And what means no?”

  The shadow twisted, just the upper half. Like a head shake, only the smoke resettled and he hadn’t twisted back. Unnerving.

  “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. Great, we could ask yes and no questions, but I didn’t want to ask if he was miserable like this, if he hurt, or if he blamed me. I didn’t want to know the answers in case they were yes.

  “These other sylph won’t harm us?” Whit asked.

  Cris shook his head, even as the rest of the swarm circled us, radiating heat to ward off the cold night. They’d stopped singing.

  “Now that we’ve joined with the sylph,” Whit said, gazing around at the ring of darkness, “what do we do?”

  I wasn’t sure. I’d wanted to find them, be able to ask questions. And now I could. But I hadn’t thought about much beyond that. I had goals, but no idea how to complete them. “First thing,” I said, turning to Cris. “We need somewhere safe to hide. Most of the Council has been killed. Deborl is in control of the city. He’s searching for us. Sarit and Armande stayed behind to keep us informed.” My heart ached at the thought of Sarit, but I’d call her later. She’d never believe it when I told her about tonight.

  Cris nodded.

  “Second thing.” I glanced southeast. “We sent a group of about forty people that way, to get them away from Deborl and an eruption. That way they have a chance.”

  Cris nodded again, and the other sylph all leaned in, listening.

  “Can a few of you catch up with them and protect them? We’ll call and make sure they know you’re coming, so they won’t try to trap you. But they don’t have much in the way of protection. A few sylph would help a lot.”

  The sylph hummed and sang among themselves for a minute, and then four broke away and darted southeast. They were frighteningly quick, almost like real shadows when someone turned on a light.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as the sylph closed the circle in tighter, and my friends pressed closer together. “The third thing is this: I need to learn, and I was hoping you would be able to help. We have only a short time, so the sooner I figure out how to read these books and understand what happened five thousand years ago, the sooner I can get started on my plan.”

  The sylph waited, undulating darkly under the moonlight.

  I made my voice strong. “I want to stop Janan from ascending.”

  Night shattered as every sylph cried out in triumph.

  The sylph led us to a cave at the base of a mountain, with a stream running through its center. Wind blew in, and the stone was cold and hard, but when sylph lined up around the perimeter, warmth radiated through the walls and ground.

  With lamps brightening the gloom and our sleeping bags folded up to sit on, the cave wasn’t so bad.

  “I bet the stream floods in the spring,” Stef said, looking up from her SED. “Not that we’ll be here that long. I have an update from Armande, by the way.”

  We all leaned in, and one of the sylph broke away from the others.

  “Cris.” I scooted closer to Sam to make room between Whit and me, and though Whit’s smile was more strained than welcoming, he edged toward Stef and patted the place beside him. “Sit with us,” I said.

  Cris hesitated, seeming to look between the other sylph and us, all gathered around a bright lamp and things we’d brought from Heart. He wasn’t sure what to do. Sit with people who’d hated sylph for five thousand years, or stay with his new people. Suddenly, I felt rotten for asking him to choose
.

  The others were all waiting, too, watching Cris to see what he’d do.

  “Why don’t you all come closer?”

  Stef and Whit cringed, even as they nodded, and Sam went pale. It was hard to accept that while sylph were frightening, they wouldn’t hurt us.

  But what about the sylph that had chased me on my birthday last year? Or burned my hands?

  I’d have to ask Cris later.

  None of the sylph moved to accept my invitation. “Come on,” I said. “We’re allies. We have friends in common. We have goals in common.” At least, it seemed like the sylph wanted me to stop Janan, if their singing earlier was any indication.

  Gradually, the sylph eased toward us, keeping their heat low and their songs quiet. They left a good distance between us, but this was an improvement. I tried to smile at them.

  Stef cleared her throat, and everyone’s attention shifted back to her. “Armande reports the curfew is tighter than ever. Several people have been imprisoned for disobeying. Even more have been imprisoned for skipping morning gatherings around the temple. Deborl insists they make amends for centuries of ignoring Janan. They’ve started building something inside the city, as well, but no one is sure what it is, just that they’re all to contribute. Some people have been sent to mine or refine more materials.”

  “So even regular jobs are suspended?” Whit asked. “For whatever it is they’re building?”

  Stef nodded. “It’s in the industrial quarter. It looks like they’re using the geothermal energy lines for something. And many of the warehouses have been destroyed. There’s a picture.” She turned the SED to share it with the rest of us.

  As she’d said, a large section of the industrial quarter had been seized and razed. Where there had once been warehouses, now only a few odd buildings and skeletal tubes remained. Some of those were water lines or sewer lines, while others were for power generation. Along the far edge of the quarter, the textile mill, pottery workshop, and forgers were still standing. For now.

  Whatever they were building, it wasn’t far along enough for us to guess its purpose. Something wide and flat, though that could simply be the foundation for something bigger, especially if they were gathering more materials.

  “Just because we don’t know what it is,” Sam said, “doesn’t mean we don’t know what it’s for in the end.”

  “Janan.” Stef nodded. “No doubt it’s to benefit him.”

  “There’s so much we still need to know,” Whit said. “Which means we need to get back to those books. Ana?”

  “I’m ready.” I glanced at Cris—or the sylph I thought was Cris. “Did you happen to learn how to read these books when you became a sylph?”

  Cris hummed and trilled, almost like a chuckle as he shook his head. But before I could be disappointed, he twitched, and another sylph came forward.

  I struggled for a pronoun. I’d always thought of sylph as genderless its, but it seemed rude to say that to . . . not their faces, since they didn’t have faces, but . . . Ugh. I addressed the new sylph. “You can help me translate the symbols from the books?”

  The sylph nodded, mostly a vertical rolling of smoke.

  “Great.” It would be a long night if we had to ask yes and no questions about the meanings of words, though. Still, we could start with confirming the words we already had. “Whit?”

  He stood and headed for my bag, where I kept the temple books. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we’re not living in a cave.”

  Sam leaned toward me—and the sylph. “He misses the library.”

  I sighed. “I do, too. All the books. The well-lit reading areas.”

  “The chairs.” Stef swooned dramatically. “I miss chairs. My legs are tired after all this walking.”

  Cris whistled, like bragging he didn’t have sore legs.

  “Ready?” Whit handed everyone books and notebooks, and we all got to work. Sylph floated around as we went through pages, confirming or attempting to correct our translations. It was difficult, trying to understand the sylph, but as the night deepened, I began catching on to their movements more quickly, and their trills and hmms, the moods conveyed by their pitch and the notes they sang.

  When I glanced at Sam to see if he’d begun understanding the sylph, he smiled.

  At the end of the session, when everyone was yawning and curling up in their sleeping bags and most of the sylph had retreated around the cave to keep it warm, I found Cris.

  “Thank you for your help.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you know we were looking for you?”

  Yes.

  “Do the other sylph know what happened five thousand years ago? How they became sylph?”

  Yes. An emphatic yes.

  “Did phoenixes curse them?” Meuric had believed phoenixes were responsible, but Meuric had also been in a lot of pain.

  Yes.

  Phoenixes. They were connected to so much, but no one had seen one in centuries. “Will you be able to tell me what happened? Or the books?”

  Yes, and yes.

  “Were any of these sylph responsible for chasing me last year? Or burning my hands?”

  Cris nodded, hesitantly, and then there was something like an apology, or an excuse. I couldn’t quite understand the way his voice rose and fell, and he cut off whatever he was trying to say with a soft, frustrated keening.

  “It’s okay.” I held out my hand for him and tried to smile. “I know you won’t let them hurt us.”

  He hummed irritably.

  “Or they wouldn’t anyway.”

  He nodded.

  “I know you’re here to help.”

  Cris surged forward, shadowy tendrils winding around my forearms as he tried so hard to express something. I could almost catch it. Almost.

  -We are your army.-

  12

  CHOICE

  THERE WEREN’T WORDS, really. It more like a melody, a song with lyrics half-remembered. It was the notion of words, the way music tugged inside me and made ideas bubble up from a deep and forgotten place.

  A spiral of shock kept me from responding. Sylph could speak. They loved music. They had language. How, in thousands of years of people running from the sylph, had no one ever noticed the sylph communicated?

  Cris shifted, and his song sounded like a question. Like, -Do you understand me?-

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I think so.”

  Cris wringed himself into tight coils of shadow, then zipped from the cave faster than my eyes could follow.

  “Wait.” But he was already gone. Everyone else was fast asleep. I almost left the cave to follow the sylph, but after the roc, the centaurs and troll, and the sylph’s arrival, I wanted to sleep for a week.

  The lamps were all low, and Sam had chosen a dark corner to put our sleeping bags, where we were sort of alone.

  I peeled off my shoes and coat, then crawled into my sleeping bag, edging closer to Sam, who was passed out, his dark hair fallen over his face. He looked so relaxed, all the lines of stressed erased as he dreamed. And when I caressed his cheek, my fingers pale over his tanned skin, he sighed and pulled into my touch.

  With a heavy yawn, I pulled out my SED and took it inside my sleeping bag to hide the glow under the layers of wool and silk. I sent a message to Orrin, letting him know we were all safe here.

  Have the sylph we sent arrived?

  He was either up very late, or very early, because my SED buzzed with a reply.

  Yes. Everyone was afraid, but the sylph just float around the camp perimeter.

  They’ll keep you warm, too, if you let them.

  That’s probably too much to ask most of us.

  A few minutes later, he said he had to go, so I put in my earpieces and listened to music while playing around with maps of the land around Range, wondering what to do next. We couldn’t go back to Menehem’s lab until we had a plan. We wouldn’t have a good plan until we’d learned everything we could from the books—and the sylph.
>
  We had sylph.

  We had the poison.

  We had four people who wouldn’t give up.

  There had to be a way to stop Janan from ascending.

  I drifted to sleep, walking dreams of fire from the earth and sky, and shadows flooding the world. I dreamt of birth and death and rebirth, and the overwhelming sorrow of one fleeting life.

  My body felt sluggish when I awoke, but the scent of searing meat drew me out of my sleeping bag to find Stef on the other side of the cave, teaching a sylph how to cook.

  “All right,” I said, mostly to myself as I ran my fingers through my hair, all wild with sleep. Sam and Whit were gone. “How soon for breakfast?”

  “Not much longer.” She adjusted her baking sheet on a rock. There was no fire under it, just a sylph coiled around the metal, which glowed red. “And you mean late lunch. Everyone slept most of the day. The others went outside to catch a few more meals before the snow hits. Would you mind fetching them?”

  I dragged on my boots and hauled our lanterns and solar batteries outside to charge while there was still light.

  Clouds blanketed the sky and the cold air prickled against my face, but it didn’t look like the storm would be bad. A light snowfall. It would cover our tracks.

  Instead of wandering the woods to find Sam and Whit, I sent a SED message and waited by a stream, absorbing what sunlight I could, too. The last couple of days had ruined my sleeping schedule. All this being awake in the middle of the night.

  After the others returned and we all ate, I took Sam outside and brought my flute and a lantern. It wasn’t dark yet, but under the forest canopy, the animal paths were dim and difficult to see.

  “The cold weather will just make you sharp.” He glanced at the woods. “And the sound may frighten lunch away from our snares.”

  “Then let’s go this way.” I led him in the opposite direction he’d come from earlier. “I wanted to ask you something. About the sylph.”