The Umbral Wake

by Martin Kee

  She waited for him to lose his temper, waited for him to slip up and offer an opportunity. Maybe he would open the cage to beat her and she could fight him on even ground, slip past. But Hetch only laughed, his eyes cold.

  “Well don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, tossing the goggles into the cage with her. “When that bomb goes off, you’ll wish you made a deal with me.”

  He turned, leaving Skyla holding the bars of the cage as the color drained from her face.

  Chapter 29

  Rhinewall

  “CONNOR! STOP BEING a pill!”

  Gil cursed as she crawled through the rafters, gathering splinters and scrapes in her hand. She passed small caches of shiny trinkets, things she thought she had just misplaced: lockets, rings, screws, brackets, a magnifying attachment to her monocle. Connor had been busy.

  We’re all just a bunch of thieves and scavengers now, rooting through the trash, stealing what we can from the wounds of the world.

  “Connor, where are you?” she called out, grunting as she went.

  She could hear him, scraping around along the rafters then taking flight to higher ground. Gil pursued the bird, fantasizing over all the punishments she wanted to dole out to him. Not that she could, but imagining so was the only comfort she had.

  “Connor, you’ve been up here long enough, now come on!”

  “Steal good!” he croaked from the distance.

  “Yes, you steal very well, Connor, now let’s go.”

  “Sky-la!” he croaked.

  “No, Skyla’s not here. You can see her when she get’s back.” Assuming she even comes back…

  “Sky-la! Steal good!” His voice sounded fainter and Gil thought she heard something else as well, voices in the distance.

  After fifteen more minutes she gave up. You win this time.

  Gil scooted down from the rafters and walked over to one of the empty windows, dusting herself off. The mob of people flowed through the streets, shouting for justice, singing, their voices ebbing and flowing like a tide. Some held upside down crosses, a sign of protest she hadn’t seen since the priest hunts a couple years ago. What could be drawing such a crowd at this hour?

  She grabbed a hat and coat from the rack and headed out into the night. The echoes of the mob bounced through the alley. Shadows stretched long and tall across the brick and mortar walls, cast by the torches as the procession moved forward.

  It wasn’t hard to find them with their chanting and their paper effigies. Angry voices chanted as they paraded through the streets toward the Bowl.

  Of course, she thought. It’s the anniversary. All those wounds, still raw, reopened as people held pictures of their loved ones who perished in the Cataclysm.

  She followed the crowd from a distance, along the sidewalk, and out to the giant lake where men stood waiting on a stage. Goodwin, the mayor of Rhinewall, waited behind a black podium, the microphone cable snaking away into a covered box. He was a slim man with parted hair and a crowd-pleasing smile. Behind him, and to Gil’s surprise, stood Lancaster Felton, the owner of the curio shop—the man who hired the gang to knock over his own store. Gil narrowed her eyes. Looming at the very back of the stage stood what might have been a statue, covered in a white sheet. It suggested a vaguely human form, but bulged in places a person shouldn’t.

  Mayor Goodwin waved the crowd to be calm, nodding in sympathy. They quieted, their yells lowering to a simmer as he waited, speaking only when he could be heard above the murmur.

  “The Church would like us to pretend that the wounds have healed,” he said. A hush swept across the courtyard. “They would like us to deny ourselves the pain we have endured, to forget what the cost has been for their version of forgiveness…”

  Gil found a small alcove where she could listen to the speech alone. The dialog was a common one, full of defiant anger, a plea to the people to rise up from their despair.

  “Centuries ago,” he went on, “this city had a very different name, one that will no longer be spoken here. It was the name of a saint. But I didn’t bring you here for a history lesson. This is not the time to be looking back. All any of us has to do is look towards the crater behind me, the wound at the center of this city to be reminded of our past. Our neighbors in the north still flounder beneath the yoke of The Church, even now sending spies into our city for the Pope.”

  There were whispers now as he let this news sink in.

  “They come here daily to report the political climate to their employers, those who would see us tempted by their empty promises of salvation again. Well, I say to them that this city of Rhinewall makes its own salvation. We shall find our own way. We shall show them that on this day, we will no longer be measured by the weight of our sins, but by the value of our freedoms…”

  The speech went on as the applause rose and fell. There were cries to hang more priests, calls to invade Bollingbrook and send a message to the Vatican. People called for blood, for revenge, for protection, all things that the mayor continued to guarantee.

  “I’ll be the first to admit,” the mayor continued, “security has been scarce. Our police have been stretched as thin as they can be, and that leaves no one to protect the city from the outside. I promise you that with these next coming weeks, you will see all that change…”

  He went on about a new and improved security, a militia to rival the Vatican’s. The crowd listened to all of this in silence, absorbing the great plans for the city, a laundry list of promises. And still the hulking figure did not move from beneath the sheet.

  “Where will we get these recruits you speak of?” yelled on lady. “The city can’t even keep the power on since the Cataclysm.”

  “Power at what cost?” yelled another man in her direction. “They took how many of our loved ones from us in the name of unlimited power? I’d rather warm my hands by fire than trust their solutions.”

  “Without power, we cannot keep our own streets free of urchins and hooligans,” she shouted back at the man. “At least The Church had a solution for both problems. Now we have neither.”

  Gil could see the look on the mayor’s face as this exchange continued, watching patiently, waiting for the right moment to interject, letting the audience build the momentum for him. He cleared his throat into the microphone.

  “Nobody doubts that this is a trying time,” said the mayor. “I think it’s fair to say that we’ve seen little help from our neighbors up north. They enjoy the same lavish homes and endless food, while we starve and worry about leaving our houses at night.”

  There were nods as he steered the conversation back on track.

  “Allow me this moment to introduce to you, Lancaster Felton. Now some of you may know Mr. Felton as a local shop owner. I’d like to introduce to you a different man: Lancaster Felton the Third, of New Terminus.”

  Gil perked up. Whispers flowed through the crowd as Felton approached the podium. New Terminus was on the other ocean, thousands of miles away, on the other side of the Savage Commonwealth.

  Felton stood at the microphone, smiling at the surprise, his gray sideburns pushing out from beneath his stovepipe hat. He waited for the crowd to calm before he continued.

  “Please forgive me,” he said, his voice friendly, but nervous. “I am a scientist, not a speechwriter.” He was greeted by polite laughter. “I’m happy to be here tonight to humbly offer you a solution. The Church has for too long dictated what technology they deem appropriate. As you can see, those times are gone and the Vatican’s influence over our choices gone with it. Having just accepted my new position as the city council’s science advisor, I want to reassure you that the secrets I have brought with me from the east will transform this city. You have my word.”

  There was more applause as Mayor Goodwin took over the microphone again, announcing the specifics of the post, but only hinting on the changes to come. To Gil it sounded like just another adult making more promises they couldn’t keep. She turned away.

  It was on
ly then that she caught sight of a black shape soaring over the city.

  “Connor, you jerk,” she said up at the sky. “Get back here!”

  She wanted to see what was under the sheet, but catching Connor was more important. Gil went after him, ducking through the debris behind buildings, ducking through alleys, her face looking up into the night, until she found herself at the park east of the Bowl. Connor stopped, waiting just until she was within reach, then soared away.

  “Shinies!”

  Gil stopped and caught her breath. She was far from the rally now, a long walk back home. Fallen leaves glowed along the ground, lit by the pulsing light of gas lamps. Further ahead, the park emptied out into a mall where the government buildings were located. The capitol building stretched fifty stories into the sky, its peaks capped with symbols of atoms, mortar and pestle, a quill etched on top of what had once been a cross.

  This section of town was almost entirely empty this late at night, the legislators and policy makers either attending the rally or in bed, the buildings lit by dim chemical torches, just bright enough to cast a warm glow on the marble columns.

  Next door to the capitol building, a post-rally reception was being prepared, the smell of food and the thrum of music leaking from lit windows. Even through the thick fog Gil could smell the food, and her stomach grumbled in response.

  “Shiny!”

  She looked up to see Connor perched on a ledge, his head tracking movement.

  The sound of footsteps drew her attention to a boy, perhaps no older than ten. He ran through the fog along the sidewalk, a large backpack bouncing against his shoulders, his features obscured by the night haze. He tripped and fell, got up, looked both ways and then rush up the steps of the capitol building. He disappeared behind a column for a moment, reemerged, and sprinted off into the night.

  Silly, she thought. Nobody is going to see that until Monday. It will probably be stolen by then.

  But nobody was around, and Connor was already moving closer to the abandoned package. If that raven was good at anything, it was at finding things to steal. And Gil was in a stealing mood. People were already approaching from the rally. If she moved quickly, she could grab anything interesting from the pack.

  “Shiny!” he croaked again, lighting on her shoulder as she snuck up the stairs through the fog. She giggled; it was too easy. Whoever the courier was, he sure wasn’t very careful—and why not just use the drop box on the side of the building?

  Gil thought all these things as she unbuttoned the main flap, her jaw falling open as she gazed at the complex matrix of glass and wires. There were four vials, each filled with orange liquid, and capped with what looked like rubber stoppers, a pair of wires running from the cap and into the depths of the bag where she could feel a subtle vibration. One of the vials began to bubble like a Champaign bottle.

  Digging her hands to the bottom, Gil held up the final component of the bomb. She stared, eyes wide, at the alarm clock, its hands reaching midnight.

  Chapter 30

  Rhinewall

  SKYLA SAT ON the cold damp metal cage floor as boys snored in their sleeping quarters. She held the broken goggles in her hand, watching the flickering lamplight play along the fractured reflection. It wasn’t as though she could even use them now—assuming they still worked at all. There was too much ambient light, the floor and walls all visible, the shadows dancing dangerously along their surface. It felt to her like sitting on a glass floor as rotating blades slashed beneath.

  And Scribble had a bomb. She understood now. People responded to fear, became receptive to ideas… and nothing made people more afraid than death—that ultimate finality, that one great mystery nobody knew the answer to.

  Well, nobody but her. As far as Skyla knew, she was the only living person in the world who had seen the afterlife. What did she have to be scared of?

  I’m scared for Scribble, she thought, wiping the tears of frustration from her cheek.

  She thought she might try the goggles, pull them on, find the darkest place she could and simply try to leave. Hetch certainly wasn’t going to let her out now. She even considered just putting them on, and running headlong into the bars to see if she could pass through enough shadow to escape. But before she could act on this, movement caught her eye.

  The boy reminded her of Gripper, from Lassimir, in a way. He sulked in the shadows, afraid to approach. Every now and then he would stop, look her way and keep moving. He approached her with slow, shuffling steps, and for a while he just stared, his eyes appraising.

  “What?” she snapped.

  The boy stepped back, then wiped his hands on his shirt.

  “Look,” Skyla said. “I don’t know what Hetch told you, but I’m not a pet. Either say something or go away.”

  The boy cleared his throat, then whispered, “You know Scribble?”

  “So what if I do?”

  The boy looked to the side, then the other side. When he faced her again, he seemed concerned. “You do, don’t you? I seen your picture.”

  Narrowed her eyes, lowered her voice. “Yes, I know him. Why?”

  “I’m Gary,” Gary said. “I’m… Scribble is my friend, too.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “He’s…” He looked around, not meeting her eyes. “He’s taking something… a package. I think he might be in trouble. Emil’s been goin’ after him more these days and… I just think he’s in trouble.”

  “More than you know,” she said.

  The boy huffed, peering down at her. “What do you know? Stupid girl. At least I gave him a coin for luck. You didn’t give him anything.”

  “That coin was mine.” She hissed through the gate, trying not to scream at him. “And he’s not coming back, you idiot. He’s carrying a bomb. And if you don’t get me out of here he might die. A lot of people might die.”

  “He is not!”

  “Hetch told me himself!” she said through the bars. “God, are you all that stupid? Has Hetch kept you all in the dark for his long?”

  “Hetch takes care of us! You don’t know nothing.”

  “I know that he is only taking care of you for as long as it benefits him.” She sighed. “Gary, if you care about Scribble, let me help him. You know Hetch wouldn’t do the same.”

  Gary looked around again, his foot tapping nervously. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  “You’re in trouble just from talking to me,” she said. “And if you’re worried about that, just wait until that bomb goes off and our friend is dead.”

  “Bomb…” He seemed confused. “But Hetch said there were changes coming. That we were going to rule the city.”

  “The only change that’s coming with that bomb is more fear,” she said. “And if you somehow think your little gang of bottom feeders is going to benefit from that, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “Hetch wouldn’t lie.”

  “Listen to me, Gary. I know you miss your folks. And I know that Scribble is your only real friend here. If you don’t help me get to him, you won’t have anyone. Everyone you know will be gone.”

  The boy scowled. “You don’t know me.”

  “Scribble told me all about you, Gary,” she lied, using his shadow as a map to his soul. “Your father died in the explosion. Your mother killed herself shortly after out of grief. She went mad, Gary. I understand. My mother went mad, too.”

  “Scrib-scribble told you that?”

  “Yes!” she said in a stage whisper. “He said you and he were friends. Scribble and I were friends… or about to be.”

  Gary screwed up his face, then nodded. “Hold on,” he whispered.

  She waited as he walked across the floor to the throne. He reached behind it and held up a key, then approached her cage. But he paused before inserting it in the keyhole.

  “How is letting you out going to help him? You don’t even know where he’s taking it.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  Gary shook his h
ead. “No.”

  “Listen to me Gary,” she said. “I… I can get to him faster than anyone. Maybe I can stop it. I can also find him faster than you can on foot.”

  “How?”

  She tried hard not to sigh. “Look Gary, I don’t have time to explain. I guess that coin you gave Scribble really is lucky. Now, do you want an explanation or do you want me to save your friend?”

  He paused, nodded, stuck the key into the hole, and turned. Gary nearly fell on his ass as she shoved the cage door, sending it creaking open, and froze. Low voices, alarmed whispers, and feet on dirt.

  She turned to Gary. “Whatever happens, Gary, don’t get caught.”

  Gary nodded as she searched out the darkest corner of the chamber and ran at it. More voices raised in alarm as figured emerged from corridors and behind crates.

  She made it about half way before a dirty hand grabbed her by the arm hard enough to bruise. She bit it and heard a scream. She spun, dancing out of the way as another boy appeared, lunging at her. She regained her balance, pulled the lenses down, and ran into the wall.

  The world went away, replaced by a fractured darkness.

  She was in-between, but could tell immediately that something wasn’t right. It was a confusing jumble, a double image, a sharp-edged kaleidoscope of knives. It wasn’t until she closed one eye that she found her footing. She looked over her shoulder a moment, staring through a dim membrane of green-gray glass at the confused gang boys. They stood facing the wall, peering into the shadows, convinced she was simply hiding. Pressure squeezed her from all angles as sharp thorns tore at her legs and face as though she were running through a thick hedge.

  As she looked out into the physical world, she turned to the first familiar object.

  Three years ago, when she had escaped the lab, she had used the coin as a beacon, a familiar shape that glowed in the darkness. It was possibly the only reason she could have made it out at all. And now she saw it again, that coin bounding along in the streets, carried in Scribble’s pocket.