The Shivered Sky

by Matt Dinniman

  Pooljab said, “Your reputation has gone to your head, Charun. You have only won one dance. Pure luck.”

  Several gasps rose in the room. Pooljab shut his mouth quickly, aware of the mistake. Ungeo pounced on it. “Luck? I may be newly converted, but I know what blasphemy is. If you have doubts about my piety then perhaps we should take this to the dancing floor ourselves.”

  Grande-Commander Lothe standing nearby smirked. Pooljab quickly demurred. “No, Charun, I don't believe that will be necessary. I had heard about your conversion, but I didn't believe it myself until just now. Truly you are in Moloch's favor.”

  Ungeo's chest beat with what the others hopefully thought was religious fervor. She was beginning to think that maybe she was in Moloch's grace.

  The prelate smiled. “This is truly a great moment for all of those under His favor. Moloch has brought to us the first of what will be many loyal followers into his benevolent grace. Let us pray.”

  They bowed their heads and recited an incantation Ungeo had read over in the Decretal, but hadn't actually spoken out loud before. She found herself saying the words, however, as if she was a rector herself.

  “That out of the way,” the prelate said to Ungeo, “we would like your opinion on certain matters. It is a rare opportunity we have the ability to seek the counsel of a virtual outsider.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I am at Moloch's will.” The words came easily.

  The prelate nodded. “It has become clear—regardless of the truth relating to the most recent events—that Moloch has become angered with the servitude role his followers are taking in the Dominion. While we have several of His own in high places, including one—possibly two—seats on the council...” The prelate gestured at another Dahhak the same age as Lothe, flanked on both sides by a small army of assistants. Ungeo's beak dropped at that. It was Trukkac, one of the Twelve. “... it is not enough to assert His will upon the infidels. A policy change is required.”

  “I see,” Ungeo said. So all the rumors were correct.

  “We have lessened our choices to two. While we are carefully weighing the benefits and downfalls of either path, we would like a fresh opinion from a non-Dahhak or Nemat position. If you repeat what I'm about to tell you outside of this chamber, you will be killed. This is not a warning, but a simple truth.”

  Ungeo shifted nervously.

  “We are going to remove ourselves from the Dominion. Or we are going to seize control of the council. If we remove ourselves, we will guarantee a pure army, like we were before. This would certainly please Moloch. But, we know once the angel campaign is concluded, we would be set upon.”

  Ungeo couldn't believe she was standing here, listening to this. If any person in this room was a spy, they would all be dead in hours. This went beyond treason.

  The prelate continued. “I don't believe Moloch would require us to have a pure army, at least not immediately. If we gain some valuable partners in our struggle, we can easily overthrow the current council and restructure to more of Moloch's liking. Do you think the Charun would partner themselves with us?”

  The question caught Ungeo off guard. She was no ambassador, and the largely ineffective royal family of Charun was constantly besieged with criticism and scandal. Predicting what they would do was impossible.

  “I think it's a possibility,” she answered truthfully, thinking hard. “But they would only publicly offer an alliance if it was clear your side was stronger.”

  Trukkac the chancellor snorted at that. To Pooljab, he said, “And you insisted she would be untruthful with us. That was the most honest answer I've heard this entire meeting.” No one chuckled.

  Behind the prelate, one of the Nemat shifted his bulk with a wet sloshing sound, shaking the floor. “Your leadership skills are to be tested,” the prelate said. “Hopefully this time you will be more successful. There is a bit of—unpleasantness—that needs to be attended to. As a ward of this temple, we are requesting you deal with it for us. Consider it your tithe.”

  Desperation

  Hitomi and Indigo and the remaining angels from the underground base streaked across the massive field of grass on a desperate mission to finally find more of their kind.

  They flew low, skimming the grass. Hitomi steeled herself against what was to come. Her periscepter never left her hand, and she constantly scanned the sky.

  They were going to attempt to fly only over unoccupied areas, but they didn't know what parts of the city were yet resettled. Before they left, Indigo had asked why they couldn't just fly over the blue stuff, the ether they called it, and Polsh explained their wings didn't work properly over it.

  Hitomi was terrified of what was to come.

  This fear was unsettlingly familiar to her now, but the anticipation made it worse. As she kept vigil of the sky, her thoughts turned to the last moments of her life.

  Like Mari had said, the perfect suicide was poison. She could take it and beg for forgiveness, but there would be no way to save herself, not when she was alone.

  She tried to learn as much about different poisons as she could, reading stories about suicides in the library and in the paper. She didn't want there to be pain, and she wanted it to be quick. She decided maybe a drug overdose would be better. Technically, it was the same thing. For the past two weeks, she had been collecting all the drugs she could, hoarding them in her bag. Mari's mother had a new jar of liquid codeine for her coughing, and she took that from their bathroom. Her mother's sleeping pills. The antibiotics from her brother's eye infection last month.

  She borrowed even more money from her brother, and she timidly bought four bags of powdery shabu from a taxi driver who patted her on the butt afterwards. “You don't need to lose any weight,” he said. “But when you want more, you come back to me.” The books all said the methamphetamines could kill you if you took too much.

  Hitomi planned the moment precisely. Early morning. Her mother was visiting grandmother, father had left for work, and her brother would be at baseball practice. She hadn't eaten anything for dinner, so her stomach would be empty. It worked quicker that way, they said.

  She prepared her room. The night before, she had written a note to her mother and her brother, and another to Mari. A third to Nigel, expressing her love for him. She placed them neatly on her desk in her room. She made her bed, put all of her laundry away, and arranged several candles around her one picture of Nigel.

  A turn of the dial, and music filled her room. She dragged her chair in front of the door, just in case someone tried to come in and stop her.

  It was time.

  Hitomi lit the candles and poured herself a small cup of sake. It was a man's drink, her father said. But she would show him. She took a quick swallow, and she fought the urge to spit the vile liquid back up. It went down, smooth once it was finally in her stomach, sending shivers through her.

  She was amazed at how calm she was. She had resolved herself to it. Her eyes rested on the picture of sweet Nigel. She wondered what he was doing right now. She wondered how he would feel when he found out what she'd done. Would he cry? Would he grow old, marry and have children with some other woman, but still think of her?

  In a glass of water, Hitomi mixed in the crushed pills, the meth, and a round glob of the cherry-flavored codeine. Her last preparation was something she read about in the library. She took a pair of handcuffs—they were her brother's—and shackled her ankle to the desk. She did not have the key.

  Hitomi sat down. A feeling of ease descended upon her. Even her heart beat slowly.

  It was her last chance to back out. Her long, slender fingers wrapped around the glass. It was cold, and droplets of the deadly concoction beaded on the outside. The water was tinged red.

  Nigel gazed at her.

  He was just a picture now. If she chose to remain alive, it would be an existence without him.

  Hitomi pulled the glass to her lips, careful not to spill, and she drank.

  The grainy liquid thr
eatened to choke her on the way down, but she sucked it all. It landed heavy in her. She tossed the glass away and picked up the codeine bottle, draining the rest of the thick, sweet medicine.

  Already, her head began to swim a little. It was working.

  “Please God,” Hitomi said out loud. “I'm sorry. I know it's a bad thing, but I just didn't want to be alone anymore. Please forgive me.”

  She sat for several minutes, nothing happening other than the heavy feeling in her head. She just watched the picture. She began to worry maybe she hadn't taken enough.

  The first stomach spasm almost knocked her off her chair. Hitomi shrieked, doubling over, her arms wrapped around herself. A jolt of fire shot through her.

  Oh God, it hurt.

  She was going to throw up. She stood, reaching for the small bamboo waste basket, but it was out of reach.

  Her stomach seized again. This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to hurt. It shouldn't have taken so long. Tears began streaming down her face. Her hands shook, and she was weakening.

  She reached for the picture of Nigel. It was so far away.

  With her wrist, she knocked over the candle, sending wax splattering over her desk and floor. And flames up the curtain on her window.

  It was amazing how fast the fire spread on her wall. The individual flames were like dancers, twirling and cavorting. It was pretty, at first.

  Another stomach cramp hit, and reality came rushing back. Hitomi didn't want to burn to death. That was the worst way, they said. Black smoke filled the room. In the hallway, the alarm started beeping.

  She frantically leapt for her bed, hoping to break the desk. She just fell to the floor, coughing and vomiting. It tasted like sake and cherry medicine.

  “Help me, please,” she sobbed. “Somebody please help me.”

  The fire was enveloping the room, coming around both sides, like it was bringing her into a deadly hug.

  “Hitomi! Hitomi!” a voice cried over the wail of the alarm and the roar of the fire. The flames marched across the desk. Soon they would be down the side and onto her leg.

  It was her father. He was home.

  “Help! Daddy, I'm trapped!” she cried. She retched again on the floor.

  The door to her room opened slightly, but the chair blocked his way in. “Help me,” she cried again feebly. On the desk, the picture of Nigel melted. The letters she had spent many hours preparing were nothing but fuel for the unquenchable flames.

  He kicked at the door, screaming her name. “Come to the door! Hitomi! Come to the door and let me in!”

  The fire sank its teeth into her leg, and all she knew was pain.

  The flames crawled up her body, like she was being swallowed. But still she would not die. Her father finally kicked the door in. She screamed, but she just couldn't do it loud enough.

  “My daughter!” he cried. Black smoke hung thick, and it was almost impossible to breathe. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled, puzzlement taking over when she wouldn't come. He beat at the flames on her back with his jacket.

  The flames ravaging her body, raping her, were momentarily whiffed away. But the pain wasn't gone. Hitomi couldn't feel her legs at all, but her side felt as if it was glued to the floor. He tugged at her. “Don't leave me, my daughter! Who's done this to you? Who? Who?”

  “I'm sorry, Daddy,” she cried. “Please forgive me.”

  “Hitomichan,” he said. She realized with a detached alarm that he was in danger now, too. He was down on his hands and knees, coughing the words. “Don't leave me. I'm the one who should be sorry. Don't leave me, my child. You are my life.”

  Fire bit at her again, and she screamed.

  She looked into her father's eyes as she succumbed to the excruciating, unimaginable pain and darkness. Other people filled the room now, firefighters with axes, freeing her and picking her and her father up. Her father fought them, screaming for Hitomi. Her eyes met his as she plunged away.

  “No,” she heard him cry. “Stay with us. Stay with me. I'm sorry. Stay with me.”

  But she couldn't. No matter how hard she tried, she could not. This world was no longer meant for her, and she finally found the darkness. The darkness she had so desperately sought.

  * * * *

  Mere seconds passed.

  Hitomi fell. Her body still burned with a fire of white hot flames. Her hair was gone, her skin, her eyes, her nose, her mouth. But she still saw, still breathed, still smelled her body as it disintegrated in the darkness.

  It was like falling through space. She had the sensation of movement, but there were no visual cues, no stars or planets whipping by. But she could see. Her hands were nothing but muscle and bone, her legs swimming in the blue and white flames.

  Still, Hitomi burned. So she screamed. No sound came forth from her lungs, but she screamed all the same for she knew nothing but an infinite agony.

  Burning away. With each moment, she was becoming smaller, less of a physical being. She sensed what was happening. She was going to burn and fall until she turned smaller and smaller, and eventually, she would be no more.

  Daddy, she thought. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

  What had she done? It was a mistake. A horrible error. One that could never be taken back. And now she was paying the price, falling into eternity, a place where the pain wasn't going away.

  This death was no rest, no escape from the pain. The pain devoured her.

  Hitomi was about to die again, a second time. She welcomed this one, too.

  Though it never came to pass. Not yet, at least.

  Powerful, clawed hands grabbed at her from above. She was rising, suddenly. The pain became more intense, a turning up of the volume.

  “No,” Hitomi cried. “Let me go.”

  With a strange sensation of motion, not human at all, she turned to see what was carrying her. In the absolute black, she could only see it slightly, in a way she could not understand. She was seeing, but not really with her eyes. It was more like a knowing.

  A monster. A terrible fiend from a nightmare.

  A vulture demon with a long, thick beak and wings that buzzed. It didn't look at her or acknowledge her. It just pulled her higher and higher, the pain a part of her now.

  Eventually, the view changed. Distant lights, falling like shooting stars, danced all about her. Then, bright tentacles of golden light slithered through the darkness like snakes. The demon avoided them, flying over them.

  The demon dropped her. She plummeted, screaming and crying though she no longer had muscle or sinew or nerves. As she pierced a beam of light, she stopped in mid-fall. Then she rose, slowly and painfully. But she rose and rose, and the fire burned faster and hotter until it suddenly whiffed out.

  And then she was there, on the pyramid, the pain finally gone away from every part of her body except her memory.

  “Stop!” a voice cried. Hitomi looked up from where she had been drifting in Verdan's grasp. “Alight now!”

  It was Tamael. She had cried the words so loud, each of them heard her. Hitomi looked around for a sign of demons, but she saw nothing. They stopped on the grass, nothing in sight except for a few crashed husks and a haze in the sky. The grass was fragrant like it had just received its morning dew. The grass here in the middle of the massive field was softer to the touch than the thick strands she had used to weave the vests. But it also grew much shorter. They were absurdly exposed.

  “It's a message,” Tamael cried, waving her weapon. “From Yehppael!”

  * * * *

  “We're going the wrong way,” Gramm called up to Yehppael, but he was ignored. Gramm looked back, and Ashia and some of the other Principalities had gone down the hole. To safety. He searched for Dave and found him flying under a Power behind and to the left of him. He looked bewildered, too.

  A terrifying realization came. Gramm felt it, strong as his sense of hearing or sight. They were headed the wrong way. He and Dave were supposed to go down that hole with Ashia. They were supposed
to travel this ice path. But not all the way. Just to the Tower. The sensation was just as strong as the instinct to jump away from an onrushing train.

  “We need to go to the Tower,” he yelled at Yehppael. What the hell was happening? Why, after all this did they split at the last moment?

  Yehppael looked down at him but didn't say anything. The angel's mouth curled down into a grimace. They curved upwards, flying at a breakneck speed.

  * * * *

  Frish saw them first. A group of twenty angels, two of them bearing humans—Dave and Gramm—as they came over the wall in an arrowhead formation. Relief flowed through Indigo. More so than she had expected. They seemed to be okay, and they both had periscepters in their hands, which meant they had probably learned to use them.

  “They come!” Frish exclaimed, pointing.

  “Quickly, then,” Tamael said. An explosion rocked the city from within. “Polsh, activate the cloaking drone.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he snapped. A moment later, a shimmering darkness descended around Indigo, like a veil of silk had been draped upon her head.

  “I can't see a damn thing,” Iopol said. “We should've bloody tested this.”

  The drone had created the image of a transport plane, and they were stuck in the middle of it. Anyone looking would just see a common transport. A second drone, in addition to a souped-up radar signature cloak, contained a radio, so if the illusionary transport was hailed, they would have warning. Though they had no idea what the current security codes were. And no one spoke proper demon.

  Their formation shuttled forward toward the onrushing angels. They swallowed them, now a group of almost thirty all enveloped in the illusion. In the murkiness, Indigo caught Gramm's eye and smiled. He beamed back, even as he was dropped from Yehppael's grasp and shoved into the protesting Leefa's arms. Dave was also here, but she couldn't make out his face. He called something out to Hitomi, and she answered back, her voice more full of life than Indigo had ever heard from the younger girl.

  Tamael and Yehppael embraced hard, her wings wrapping around him, their guns clanking as they scraped past each other. He kept them both afloat. In the haze it looked as if they were one.