The Oldest War (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 2)

by Matt Snee

  One of the Delphiniums came by and collected their discarded clothes and belongings into a sort of large duffel bag apparently coated with the same material as the dream suits.

  “Ready?” Tom called. Everyone had their suits on now, except for Tess's brother, who stood in the center and spoke.

  “Let me make the introductions here. I'll be quick.” He pointed to the Delphiniums.

  “For the sake of the mission this is Courage. And this one is Trust. And these are Calm and Wisdom. And this is Passion, and this is the Seer.”

  They were of all ages, ranging from Trust, who was perhaps seventeen, to the Seer, who must have been in her seventies. They all looked strong of heart.

  Courage was the same woman who had driven Jennifer away from the Dunleavy mansion. She was tall and thick-looking, muscled, with a severe expression. She was perhaps in her late thirties or early forties.

  Trust was new, but also tall, with strawberry blond hair slipping out of the dream suit and freckles decorating her cheeks. She had an exquisite face, but it was clenched in uncertainty.

  Calm and Wisdom—the sisters—stood next to each other, smiling at Jennifer and Captain. They were in their early fifties and looked quite fit for their age, with brown eyes and sharp jaws, exuding a motherly warmth.

  The Seer was very old and appeared frail. Not a fine candidate for such a dangerous mission. Jennifer wondered, why is she here?

  The last Delphinium was the pregnant girl who had led Jennifer through the Delphinium complex. With a dream suit on she looked like she was about to burst.

  “Wait.” Captain couldn't believe it. “They're going with us too?”

  “That's right,” answered Tess, her skin color going from light blue to a dark maroon.

  “The old woman is one thing,” he continued. “But a pregnant girl? What if she goes into labor?”

  He felt Jennifer standing next to him. “That's the point,” she told him.

  “You mean?”

  “She will give birth in the Death Dream.”

  “It's where we were born,” said Tom, gesturing toward himself and Tess, who smiled lovingly.

  “How could you suggest such a thing? The risks…”

  “We're strong, Sir Captain,” Passion spoke staring at the ground, as though she had been commanded to say nothing.

  “That's right,” said Tess. “You'll see.”

  * * *

  The Delphiniums pulled out a large ream of what looked like synthetic fabric. From it they detached five long rectangles that they laid upon the ground. Then the Delphiniums spoke to each fabric.

  “Glider.”

  As soon as the word was uttered each piece of fabric jumped about five feet into the air. They unfolded into larger, thinner rectangles, and then folded again into what looked like serpentine hang gliders. The gliders hovered above the ground, waiting for their next command.

  Captain stood in awe.

  “We're going to fly into the Death Dream on those?” Plerrxx asked Captain and Jennifer at once.

  “Yes, we are,” Jennifer told him.

  “And the Delphinium with child and the old woman too?”

  “That's right.” Jennifer looked Plerrxx in the eye. “Scared?”

  “Of course I'm scared. You people are insane!”

  “It's out of our control now,” Jennifer said to both of them, trying to convince herself at the same time. “All we can do is move forward.”

  Captain wondered if that was true. What if he decided right now not to go with them? What would happen then? What would he do? He'd like to sleep for twelve hours in a real bed. But could he, knowing that the No-Shape was out there? No, he thought. It's out of my control now too.

  “Okay,” said Tom. The Delphiniums held the gliders to the ground as the wind poked at them.

  “Two people per glider. Everyone goes with a Delphinium. Jennifer, you're with Tess. Captain, you're with Calm. Plerrxx, you're with Wisdom. Passion goes with Courage and the Seer rides with Trust.”

  Captain and Jennifer turned to each other and both frowned and smiled simultaneously. She touched his arm and spoke.

  “I'll see you in the Death Dream. Be careful. I…”

  “I'll be safe,” Captain told her. “We'll be okay.”

  “Yeah,” Jennifer mouthed, but no sound came out.

  They split up. Jennifer joined up with Tess, Plerrxx went over to Wisdom, and Captain approached Calm. “This one's ours.” Calm pointed at the glider.

  Captain exhaled, nervous. “Alright.”

  “Come here, I'll strap you in.” Calm gestured with her hand.

  Captain slipped into the harnesses of the glider, which felt to be made out of a fiber that was extremely lightweight but intensely strong at the same time. He still had his doubts.

  Calm buckled him in. “It's going to be a rough flight, but we should be fine,” she affirmed. “Have you ever flown before?”

  “Not like this.”

  “Well—there's nothing 'like this.' ”

  “You do this all the time?”

  “Sure, it's my job, kiddo.”

  Captain felt a little better. He supposed she knew what she was doing. He didn't know how terrible a Death Dream was, consequently, wasn't as scared as he should have been.

  Captain gasped as they became weightless. “It's okay,” Calm said. The glider rose ten feet into the air, twenty feet, thirty…. The higher they got, the stronger the wind was. When they reached fifty feet, there were strong hot gusts that blew into them, pushing the glider around slightly. The fabric of the glider seemed to react to each individual breath of wind and let air pass through itself when it deemed necessary.

  “I know you're a scap,” Calm told Captain. “You just have to remember that this glider is more high-tech than the fastest computer allowed on Earth. It reacts to the wind. It's all mathematical, but in an organic way. It is tech made by women.”

  “Sure,” Captain responded, looking down at the ground far below. He could feel the heat of the volcano now, and the air was thick with ash and smoke. Below them green lava flowed like marbles down the mountain.

  They rose higher and the wind picked up.

  “You should put on your mask,” Calm said. Captain obliged and put the strange metal contraption over his mouth and nose, wrapping its straps around his neck. Instantly he could breathe better, and he no longer smelled the Sulfur or other gases. He put on the matching goggles provided, most of his face was now hidden, protected.

  “Look!” Calm pointed toward the horizon.

  A herd of wild horses ran across the ashen plain. There were hundreds of them, spread across a good mile. “They can live here?” Captain asked. “How?”

  “We planted grass, which is genetically modified to survive the soil.”

  “It's genetically modified?”

  “Yeah—don't worry, it's okay if you do it safely. Besides, there was no ecosystem here to worry about. The Delphiniums have imported and taken care of the horses on Io for over a hundred years. They're as wild as can be now.”

  “It's amazing,” Captain commented. “Horses—in space.”

  Calm laughed. “It's Jupiter's blessing, not ours.”

  “Is Jupiter real?”

  “Very real. We are about to enter him.”

  “Is he alive? Does he think?”

  “He is not alive. But he does think. Mostly he feels. It's hard for us to know a god.”

  Captain absorbed this information cautiously. They were really high now, probably a thousand feet up. The wind grasps the glider, pushes it up, and abruptly lets it go. The process constantly repeats itself.

  * * *

  On Jennifer's glider, Tess points toward the volcanic ejecta cast into space about them.

  “There's our ride.”

  Jennifer did not know what to say. She was astonished by Tess sometimes. The two of them were so different and had lived such different lives, but now their paths have intertwined.

  “Wh
o goes first?”

  “Trust and the Seer. They lead. The Seer will be guided by Jupiter. We will follow her.”

  “How often do you do this?” It was really scary, even for Jennifer.

  “A couple times a month. I would live there all the time if I didn't have my duties.”

  “Live? In the Death Dream?”

  “It's not so bad. It's my home.” Tess turned a bright orange.

  * * *

  Captain could hear the faint noise of Jennifer speaking to Tess, but could not make out what they were saying. The wind interrupted everything. “Okay,” Calm said. “You ready?”

  He swallowed. “Yeah.” Whether he was or not didn't matter. It was too late for anything now.

  “Here we go!” Calm yelled, just as the g-forces slammed into them and the glider dove suddenly toward the ground. In doing so, it caught the wind and flung itself upwards into the path of the ejecta, where it was then pummeled and thrown back and forth. Finally, the glider steadied and pointed toward Jupiter, which hung above them like an impending bomb.

  Captain tried to turn his head to see Jennifer, but all the gliders were too far apart. They were following their own trajectories of the wind up into the atmosphere. The glider floated up until Captain could feel a chill along the uncovered parts of his face. They were passing out of the moon's atmosphere now, carried by the ejecta into the Death Dream.

  The wind howled. Captain could see the curve of the moon's circumference. They were in raw space now, being blown from Io to Jupiter on volcanic winds. Looking up, he could no longer make out Jupiter exactly. All he could see were brown clouds swirling above them.

  Some kind of liquid smacked into them. Rain?

  “Ammonia droplets,” Calm said. “We'll be okay in our suits.”

  * * *

  Jennifer also felt the ammonia rain. She flinched, and Tess laughed.

  “Don't worry. It's like sleet. It will freeze to your suit but not the glider. We'll be okay!”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. She felt ridiculous being assured by this young girl. She relaxed and trusted what Tess had said.

  The wind's laments grew louder and louder. It was like being inside a jet engine. Both hot and cold winds barreled into them, flipping the gliders around and shooting them upwards and upwards.

  The Death Dream waited.

  13. The Death Dream

  Liphardus set the goblet of mulled wine down next to the waning candle and picked up his quill pen. He opened his parchment journal to a new page and wrote, “Strange places have I frequented; stranger beings have I encountered; yet nothing to me seems as strange as the changes in myself these experiences have begot.” He reposed the pen in its ink well and retook his goblet. With the hot, intoxicating beverage to his lips, and the smells of ginger, cardamom, and nutmeg filling his nostrils, he reflected on the words he had just written. At that same moment, a clock somewhere in town struck midnight. It wasn't the portal clock, but it was a clock nonetheless, and in the flickering “Halbschatten” of the nearly extinguished candle, Liphardus felt an otherworldly shiver clamber up his spine, and for a moment he wondered if he was indeed back at home—or, if he ever truly would be again.

  –Lewis Darby, “Constants of the Planetique”

  Fizzing sparks of green and yellow Sulfur fell away behind them like fading fireworks as the group was propelled headlong toward Jupiter's massive grinding storm gears. As Io shrunk into the distance, Captain looked back and could see a good old chunk of black infinite starry space behind them; it was reassuring, somehow.

  As they broke into Jupiter's upper atmosphere, they were suddenly able to steer again. They reoriented their course toward a white friendly-looking cloud band that rolled over itself gently like a lazy stream. The winds here were less treacherous. The Death Dream appeared in repose.

  Without warning, a flock of improbable color rose up before them. Tumbling nebulae splashed in chromatic disarray that stung the retina like abrasive liquid. It was as if they were peering through a horizon of kaleidoscopes.

  “The chromophore clouds are going to hit us in a second,” Calm told Captain.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means reality is going out the window!”

  The glider swooped into the alien nimbus. The wind no longer howled. It shrieked, bloodthirsty and unforgiving. Its invisible forms were clawed, thorny, furious banshees that slashed savagely at their dream suits and goggles.

  Captain kicked and punched and snarled in reply.

  “It's okay!” Calm said, touching Captain's wrist. “They can't get us.”

  “How can you tell where we're going? I can't see anything.”

  “We're going the only place we can go! Otherwise we would be torn to shreds! Compasses don't work in the Death Dream. Up is not up, down is not down, north is not north, and south is not south. Everything is haywire. It's a vertical swamp of displacing divinity.”

  * * *

  Tess struggled with the stirrups of her glider, trying to maintain control of the wind. Doubt flapped beneath Jennifer's skin.

  “Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

  “Sure!” said Tess. “It's just extra windy today.”

  “How long until the vacuum jump?” Tess had told Jennifer about the process while they had been taking off.

  Tess laughed. “Not long…”

  * * *

  Calm was having an easier time with her glider. Captain was a bit rattled, but everything seemed okay so far. Calm laughed too. “You ready for a wild ride, Sir Captain?”

  “No.” He was honest.

  “In about twenty seconds we're going to jump; that means we'll be leaving Io's gravity and entering Jupiter's. We'll flip, and then we'll dive at high speeds for the next six hours.”

  “Twenty seconds?”

  “Five, four, three, two, one…”

  Like she had said, they flipped. Captain grunted as the new gravity hit him and the glider dashed, accelerating beyond what he thought it should be capable of. Their speed increased. They must have been flying at seventy or eighty miles an hour!

  They plunged faster. Wind tore at them as ammonia rain slashed at them. They continued to accelerate. A hundred miles an hour, a hundred-twenty. Faster. Faster. It was so loud now that speaking was useless. Captain just held on as hard as he could.

  Two hundred miles an hour. Two-fifty. Here their speed leveled off and Captain's stomach settled back into his belly. He could see the Seer's glider below them, leading the way down the zonal jet. He wondered if Jennifer and Plerrxx were doing okay.

  The noise of the wind seemed to be a universal constant. Captain could feel the wind bruising his skin through the dream suit, resistant as it was.

  Strangely enough, Captain eventually fell asleep. Or, more accurately, he was knocked unconscious.

  * * *

  The sunlight dimmed and turned murky. When Captain awoke he found the wailing had stopped, and the wind was now gentle. They floated on soft currents. When he looked down he saw nothing but tangles of mad lightning for thousands of miles in every direction.

  “Those are the Briars,” Calm said to him, noticing he was conscious again. “Mega-lightning. Impossible to bypass like this. We'd be fried in a second.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  Calm pointed toward the opposite horizon, where he could see quite distant, but still hulking black shapes floating among the clouds. “Storm lords.”

  They flew closer, following Trust and the Seer. The black forms became clearer. They were shaped and colored like pine cones, oozing through the wind like gunk. Captain watched as Trust navigated her glider toward the storm lords and dangerously landed on one's back. They were animals the size of aircraft carriers. As they neared, Captain could hear them breathing in the wind.

  The other Delphiniums followed Trust, landing their gliders on the same storm lord. At last, Calm and Captain landed. He was elated to be standing again, even if it was on the back of some sky
whale. The storm lord's outer skin was bumpy, hard, and slick with a sort of sweat.

  “Unstrap!” It was Tess's voice.

  “Unstrap,” Calm repeated to Captain. He unbuckled himself from the glider and Calm followed. Calm spoke one word, “Collapse!” The glider quietly folded itself into a shape the size of a child's kite, which she slung over her back.

  A bite of wind struck Captain and he knelt, placing one hand on the ground in front of him. He did not feel safe here.

  “Come on!” It was Tess again. She waved her hand for them to follow her. She dug into a small bag she carried and pulled out what looked like a rather large knife. Kneeling onto the storm lord's skin, she clicked the knife on. A blue flame enveloped the blade, transforming it into an awesome sword that crackled with white sparks. She bent and cut through the storm lord's hide. Purple fluid sprayed into the air along with chips of fat.

  No one said anything. They all watched Tess. She cut a large square the size of a door and then nodded to the Delphiniums, who came over and peeled the strip of skin off, revealing gobs of flesh and an interior cavity like a wet cave.

  “Go on,” Tess said. The Delphiniums filed into the cavity. “You too,” Tess said to Captain and Jennifer, who lingered outside with Plerrxx.

  “Where are we going?” asked Plerrxx. It was the first time he had thought directly to Tess; around strangers he tended to be quiet.

  “Nowhere. We're going to hide inside this storm lord as it passes through the Briars. It's the only way.”

  “When will it do that?”

  “When we tell it to. The Seer can control it. Come on.”

  They followed each other into the cavernous hole. Calm and Wisdom erected the skin they had cut back over the entranceway.

  “The storm lord's exterior is immune to the lightning,” Tess explained simply. “If we are inside it, we are safe.”

  It smelled bad, even worse than their dream suits. Captain smiled weakly at Jennifer.

  The storm lord rocked back and forth as it floated in the winds. It felt to Captain like they were on a boat. He could still hear the sky whale breathe, and the tight tension of its muscles beneath his feet. He watched Courage and Passion place candles in a circle on the ground, lighting them with matches they extinguished and saved. Trust guided the Seer to the center, and Captain realized the Seer was not only old, but blind as well. She's the one that leads us? he wondered as she knelt and took some sort of prayer rope into her hands. She started speaking to herself, and Captain imagined she was praying to Jupiter.