by Peter Newman
‘My orders are clear but now that we know the First is in Wonderland I wanted to know if we were to seize on this opportunity or if we were to proceed after the traitors.’
‘If They wished us to change course, do you not think I would have told you?’
‘Forgive me, it is just that we have never had the First all in one place before, and never so close to us.’
‘The Seven are aware of the situation. We must, as always, trust Their wisdom.’
He bows his head. ‘Of course.’
‘That said, diligence is all. We will send the Lenses there to observe the infernal, should The Seven wish to know more.’ A slight distortion of her eyebrowless face is the only indication of her frown. ‘I had believed Wonderland to be a ruin.’
‘Perhaps the First hopes to hide there?’
‘Perhaps, but I am not in the habit of idle speculation. We will watch and wait, and continue with our great enterprise.’
The Knight Commander isn’t sure if there is a rebuke in there or not. He knows he should cut his losses but cannot help adding: ‘The sky-ship you sent to Ferrous went dark. Will you require another?’
‘No.’
He suspects there are many hidden depths behind the word but knows better than to ask. ‘I’m scattering our scouts wide. It will slow our advance, but drive more of the tainted towards our destination. As we suspected, they are clumping together.’
‘Lining their heads on the block for us. Good, I am sure this steady, certain approach will please The Seven. Impatience is rarely the way to perfection, as you know, Knight Com-mander.’
This time, the rebuke strikes him square. ‘I will strive to please Them in all things.’
‘As do we all,’ she intones, her image fading from sight.
He whirls on his officers, catching a few of them staring at him before snapping back to their positions of diligence. I am watching you now, he thinks. I am watching all of you.
He circles the command platform, moving slowly, lingering briefly behind a few chairs, long enough to make them sweat. ‘Are our scouts in position?’
‘Yes, sir,’ come the replies, one after the other, each squadron present and accounted for.
‘Good. Tell them to fire at will. Any settlement not flying our flag, any travellers, anything that moves. I repeat: fire at will. It’s time to start closing the trap.’
The meat runners are grateful, full of praise for the Vagrant’s efforts, and keen to return the favour somehow. ‘You can come with us, if you like? Some extra protection is always welcome and we can give you food and shelter.’
‘Where are you going?’ asks Jem.
‘Same place everyone is going: Crucible. Word is they’re going to need our services there.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ he glances at the Vagrant who is nodding, ‘it’s a deal. One more thing, we’d be grateful if we could have a spare travelling robe, the bigger the better.’ One is brought out and Jem nods his thanks. ‘We’ll get ourselves together and catch you up.’
The meat runners agree, making their measured way south. This time, two of the younger members of the group have gone ahead, testing the ground with sticks.
Jem and the Vagrant watch them go, Jem’s expression darkening as they move out of earshot. ‘I know you think you’re some sort of hero, but you’re not.’
The Vagrant blinks.
‘I told you we’d regret coming down. The sky-ship is trashed and we nearly died because of you. You gambled with our lives.’
The Vagrant looks away, his expression pained.
Jem only gets angrier. ‘Clearly you don’t care about us at all. Is it because Reela’s tainted?’
The Vagrant’s head snaps up, mouth open, shocked.
‘I’ll bet if she was perfect, like Vesper, then things would be different. You wouldn’t risk Vesper’s life to save some stranger, but me and Reela? That’s another story.’
The Vagrant just stares.
‘Nothing to say?’ He prods at the Vagrant’s chest, his lip curling. ‘You can’t even bring yourself to say sorry. Oh yes, I know you can speak when it suits you. Why not say something now? Am I not worthy of your breath?’
The Vagrant starts to shake his head. Lips move but no words come. He looks away again.
‘Thought so.’ Jem walks over to the remains of the sky-ship, full of angry thoughts.
Reela has managed to coax Delta from the wreckage. Jem beckons her over, being careful not to make eye contact with the immortal. ‘Are you okay?’
Reela nods.
‘Can you tell me how your head feels?’
Reela thinks for a minute, shrugs.
Jem tries to contain his frustration. ‘It would help if you spoke to me. Does it hurt?’
She nods, holds up a hand, the index finger and thumb held slightly apart.
‘Just a little? Well, that’s good. If it gets any worse or if you feel sick, you have to come and tell me straight away, do you understand?’
She nods.
‘Reela, if we’re going to take Delta with us, I’m going to need your help.’
She looks up, instantly attentive.
‘You know how sometimes you like to play dressing up at home?’ A grin spreads across her face. ‘Well, we need Delta to play dressup as a meat runner.’ He holds out the robe. ‘Can you get her to put this on? I doubt it will cover her feet but if you can get it over her wings, that would be brilliant. And try to get her to pull up the hood. Do you think you can do that for me? It’s very important.’
Reela nods.
‘Good girl.’
As Reela struts off, a hero on her mission, Jem goes to find Mazar, who is stripping the wreckage.
‘Find anything useful?’
‘Not much. Bits and pieces.’
He checks Reela is nowhere nearby. ‘Are you looking for your soldiers?’
Mazar pauses a moment. ‘I … Yes.’
‘Do you want me to help?’
‘No!’
Jem takes a step back. ‘Easy. It was just an offer.’
‘No. I mean, you can’t help them. They didn’t make it.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
She looks at him for slightly too long. ‘I’m not.’
‘Well … we have to go soon, so if you have anything you need to do, now’s the time.’
He leaves her to it, suddenly at a loss. He sees the Vagrant hasn’t moved since their talk, he sees Reela, but she is standing on a hill of churned earth, battling to get the meat runner’s robe over Delta’s head.
With nothing else to do, he waits, feeling useless, his mind drifting, unhappy.
The suns circle each other, slow, as they make their way across the sky. Clouds are few while flies are everywhere, gathering around dirty puddles and the people trudging through them.
Gauze veils are pulled over faces, the meat runners well protected with fabric and repellent scents. Their beasts are similarly doused, with thick skins and swift tails to keep the bloodsuckers at bay.
Mazar’s armour keeps her safe, as does the Vagrant’s, and no fly dares to approach Delta. Reela is close enough to the immortal to be untroubled.
Jem is not so lucky.
By afternoon, a litany of red marks stand proud on his forearms, cheeks and the soft skin of his neck.
The Vagrant watches for signs of pursuit, sees none. The ground, though sodden, is mercifully stable beneath his feet. There is little conversation on the journey, the meat runners saving their energy during the day, only Mazar and Jem’s voices breaking the sound of squelching boots and hooves. Without immediate threats or distractions, there is plenty of space for reflection. Several times, the Vagrant’s eyes lose focus, watching the horizon but not really seeing it. Lines of sadness appear in his face, old grooves grown deep over the years. He reaches up, touching his cheek, exploring it slowly, mimicking the gesture of another, gone.
Eyes mist and his hand moves, covering his face, but he keeps walking.
&n
bsp; By late afternoon, they break free of the marshes, joining a crumbling road. The mag-rails that once ran through it and the guide wires above stripped away long ago. Now only holes are left, like empty gums, useless.
But any road is better than none and many make use of it. A slow moving train of people shuffle on weary legs, laden with possessions, all going one way, all going south. The wealthy have more to carry and more to lose. Food-heavy transports are eyed jealously by starving neighbours only a few feet away.
The meat runners slot easily into the river of people, an unobtrusive addition. Mazar and the Vagrant receive some odd looks but the rifle on her shoulder and the sword on his stave off any trouble.
In the evening the group comes to a gradual stop and sets up camp. Portable heaters are cranked up, battered elements bashed into life. Small fires are lit and judiciously fed. People huddle together, a mix of refugees from multiple settlements, all driven south by the wrath of The Seven. Grudgingly, they share their space with one another, mutual distrust outweighed by the desire for warmth and comfort.
A little food is shared, a little drink. Those with drugs take them, synthetic smiles indistinguishable from natural ones and far more common. In the dark, it is easier to talk. Strangers become less so, swopping names and stories, old jokes and new fears.
The Vagrant stays quiet, listening.
‘And I heard,’ says a voice, it could be anyone’s, identities interchangeable in the dark, ‘that she’s built a new city for us all to live in. It’s like Wonderland used to be, only bigger.’
‘Well,’ says another, ‘I don’t trust that Bearer, what’s her name? Viper? Veeper? Don’t trust no one giving away something for nothing. There’ll be a catch, you wait and see. She’ll wait till our bits are well truly in her hands and then … boom!’
‘You watch your mouth,’ retorts the first speaker. ‘She closed the Breach, so she did. They say she can fly.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘It’s true! And she can talk to the animals.’
‘I can talk to animals, don’t mean they understand me.’
‘But she isn’t like you and me. She’s Gamma, reborn.’
‘If she’s Gamma reborn,’ asks a third person, ‘then how come The Seven are coming after her?’
‘They’re not. They’re coming after us. It’s punishment for our crimes.’ There are an assortment of grunts and disagreements but everyone feels the guilt hanging in the air. ‘I used a little Necrotech in the early days. Everyone did. Most of my friends are dead now because of it. And how many of us gave in to the taint? If we’d been loyal, our bodies would have stayed normal. Soon as I find a decent surgeon I’m going to have them cut off my studs. Going to get me purged. There’s nothing to fear if you get purged.’
They chew this over for a while, the occasional fly twanging into the heater, sizzling, popping.
‘Sounds like you heard a lot of stuff,’ says the second speaker. ‘But did you hear about her lover?’
There are some muttered assents and several admissions of ignorance. Sensing the gossip, all lean closer. ‘Heard he’s hideous ugly. I heard that what people think is a goat is actually him!’
There is some laughter at that. The Vagrant smiles to him-self.
Another voice whispers into the night, young sounding, anxious. ‘I thought the First was her lover and they have half-breed babies. Lots and lots of them.’
The Vagrant stops smiling and there is a round of derision and a thwack of a palm against the side of a head.
Something like thunder rumbles in the distance, something like lightning flashing on the northern horizon. Conversation fades away as faces turn towards it. Sporadic but regular it comes and goes. People hunker down, pulling blankets tighter round their shoulders.
‘What is that?’ asks one.
‘That’s why we’re on the road,’ says another. ‘Looks like they’re going to do to us what they did to the colonies.’
Nobody needs to ask any more details. They do not need to see the flames to understand that there is fire, do not need to hear the screams to know that those left behind are dead.
Nobody sleeps well that night, kept awake by consciences, fears and the buzzing of hungry flies.
In the morning, the group set off early, making the most of the pre-dawn light. Worried glances are cast back over shoulders but there are no lights in the sky, no sign of fires or fighting.
The group parts company with the road, following a recently made path through fields less sodden than the ones before.
Delta’s sword shifts in the Vagrant’s grasp, agitated. He frowns, looking around for trouble. He sees nothing at first, then hears it, a quiet hissing in the background all around him.
Unaware of any strangeness the group continue on.
The Vagrant readies the sword, regularly checks his sur-roundings. Picking up on his unease, Mazar begins checking her rifle.
As the first rays of the red sun begin to ink in the fields around them, they see buds breaking the earth. An hour ago there was nothing but now the fields are unmistakably full of tiny shoots.
Oversized birds flop down from the sky, seed hunting, worm catching. They do not yet have the courage to attack the travellers, content with the other bounties offered close by.
Another hour and the shoots have reached ankle height, the hissing finally understandable as the sound of thousands of stalks sliding against the skin of the earth.
Delta is appalled.
Reela is delighted. She runs about, Jem and the Vagrant chasing after, touching every plant she can. Plucking a leaf, she sniffs it, goes to taste it.
‘No!’ exclaims Jem. ‘It’s dangerous.’
Reela pouts and gives a sly look at a nearby plant. Before she can reach for it, she is lifted into the air, feet kicking in surprise before landing on the Vagrant’s shoulders.
Soon the group are having to weave around the young stalks that grow fast and thick all around them. The second sun is well into the sky now, baking shoulders and tops of heads.
By midday the foliage is swollen, greenish skin stretched full of fluid, leaves sprouting like sails, a patchwork canopy. Birds sit heavy on the branches or waddle about on the ground, too full to fly, walking oranges with feather crowns, not long for the world.
By late afternoon the group leaves the forest behind. When the suns begin to set the first of the new plants bursts open, spreading seeds and mulch in all directions. Another follows, then another, as if some unseen signal has been given. Smaller pops, equally messy, come from a series of avian explosions.
Fluids drain quickly into the fields, absorbed for the next day’s cycle.
The group neither see nor care, their attention firmly ahead. The worst of the tainted fields have been crossed and beyond the field they now walk is a valley, topped with man-made walls and squatting bunkers. A multitude of flags fly from poles, dizzying in number, and there are tents and makeshift houses everywhere, a city of scraps and offcuts.
Crucible.
Genner makes his way along the line of new arrivals. The most useful have already been identified for him: glass cutters, meat runners and one or two traders with rare machine parts. Normally his people would handle this for him but there are some things that must be seen firsthand.
He moves quickly along the line, taking little interest in the thin, desperate faces.
As he nears the back he sees them and his face falls. Being of the Lenses, Genner quickly collects it again, coming to a stop in front of the Vagrant and giving a smart salute.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he says.
The Vagrant’s eyes narrow a fraction as he nods.
Genner’s chip has already identified Mazar. One of the military elite, with near perfect performance scores, it does not surprise him that they wanted to make a squire of her, is curious as to why they didn’t. He notes she is believed to have been killed in action.
It also identifies Jem. Though he already knows the inform
ation, Genner reviews it on instinct: a survivor of New Horizon, he was held by an infernal known as the Demagogue for more than a decade before joining Vesper and becoming her lover. Low levels of taint suspected. Pur-ging required.
‘And you must be Reela,’ he says, crouching down to come level with her scowling face. At the same time he prepares to update her entry. ‘I’m Genner. I’m helping your mother here. Would you like to see her?’
Her scowl breaks and she nods several times.
‘Good, I’ll take you to her,’ he says while adding: Taint manifesting through skin discolouration and patterning. Condition worsening rather than improving. Suspect mutation is already underway.
He is about to add more when he spots the silver shins on the other side of her shoulder. For a moment his eyes track up, peering into the dark of a hood, then words fly from his mind and he goes to one knee, lowering his head.
Fear thuds through every heartbeat, rapid, as he tries to understand. Why is Delta here? What does it mean and what will she think of his actions? Will he be judged and if so, will he be elevated or cast down?
But Delta does not deign to look, much less to see. It is as if she is not truly there, a ghost in her form, drifting in the background.
He feels a tap on his shoulder, masks his irritation and looks up.
‘Can we go now?’ Jem says. ‘We’re getting a lot of attention out here.’
‘At once,’ Genner replies. He leads them past the other hopefuls queuing for entry, all too aware of Delta at their backs. His attention returns to the Vagrant and the sword he carries. Her sword. Questions form in his mind that he has no answers to. Unlike many in the Empire of the Winged Eye, the Lenses are trained to question and investigate, to consider facts from multiple angles. He wonders if Delta is here against her will or whether she supports Vesper’s work, or if she is simply curious. He keeps such thoughts to himself, observing quietly, collecting data.
They are waved through the outer walls, coming into Crucible’s chaotic innards. Temporary structures are all around, some colourful, some faded, all with purpose. Desperate people flit from stall to stall, looking for ways to make their savings stretch. All around them, deals are done, labour exchanged for trinkets. He knows that less savoury markets have already sprung up, a sudden revival in Necrotech. He has not moved against the traders yet, wanting to learn why anyone would want the redundant interfaces now that the art of animating dead tissue is lost.