Tainted Garden

by Jeff Stanley

  The hallway dumped them into a broad passage of gleaming metal. One end, about thirty feet away, ended in a blank slab of metal. The other opened into a vast space where winds howled and waves of electricity crackled along the metal-lattice walls. A narrow catwalk jutted out from a broad landing and spanned the empty space. Thick, churning fog masked the vault’s ceiling. Below, swirling in a chaos of ripping winds and sizzling bolts of lightning, a maelstrom tore at the walls. In its center hung a globe of depthless black obsidian.

  “Here!” Rian drew up short at the edge of the catwalk. He snatched Erekel’s arm and shoved him ahead. Again Erekel’s skin burned at the contact. A spasm of nausea churned in his stomach. He closed his eyes for a moment, grasping at the railing of the catwalk. A limp weight was pressed against his chest. “Take her. I don’t know who she is to you, but she seems important. By now she should be carrying the contagion, as well. The world-mind, Rodriguez, will have little power to alter her. Or you.”

  “What?” Erekel’s hands pulled Dersi to him, cradling. Her skin was cold and damp.

  Rian smiled, an expression that rendered his thoroughly Gagash features more Bhajong. He seemed kinder, more noble. Less a monster. “No time for that. Go. Find a way out of this place.”

  “What are you going to do?” He knew. He already knew.

  Rian’s smile broadened. “Go on, Erekel. Keep your woman safe.”

  “You can’t. Lhedri tried. You saw what’s left of him back there, steaming.”

  “I’m not Lhedri. Go on, Erekel.” Rian turned his back and stepped toward the arched entrance. A vast shadow flowed over him, and Erekel heard the clanking slither of God’s approach. Trembling, Erekel looked down into the mangled face of Lady Dersi. By the faint rise and fall of her breast he knew she lived. But her grip on life seemed so tenuous. He could not sacrifice that.

  He turned his back on Rian and ran along the catwalk, the slight weight of Lady Dersi barely felt.

  A tremendous shockwave rippled along the catwalk. Erekel fell. Lady Dersi spilled from his arms. Her limp form tumbled along the catwalk. She rolled against the low lip edging the walkway. Her arm hung over empty space and the churning maelstrom below. Lightning danced along the underside of the catwalk as if hungry for her flesh. The catwalk continued to shake.

  Erekel scrambled, but could not seem to get to his feet on the pitching catwalk. He reached for Dersi’s shoulder, his fingers brushing the delicate fabric of her torn robe. Another shockwave rolled along the catwalk, and her body teetered. Her limp weight shifted. A cloud of white, blood-stained hair fanned out, and her head rolled over the edge. Tremors in the metal nudged her torso closer, closer to the edge.

  “Dersi! No!” Erekel crawled toward her, unable to gain his feet. He reached out. Another ripple shot through the catwalk, and Dersi’s body tumbled over the low lip.

  Rian did not have long to wait for Rodriguez. A bulge of ool-flesh, studded with lashing tentacles and dripping with gore from smoking gashes, plumed from the mouth of the corridor. It split like tearing cloth, spitting the monstrous creature Albert Rodriguez had become out upon the landing. Rodriguez towered. His metal hand slammed down into the landing and ripped upward. Like a huge worm, the floor beneath Rian’s feet rolled.

  Rian fell to his side. Caught by a wave of rolling metal grating, he tumbled toward the railing and the void beyond. He reached out. His fingers curled around a length of railing. He grunted as his falling weight jerked on the socket of his arm, straining taut muscles. His feet kicked out over empty space. Jags of lightning flickered beneath him, arcing high. The obsidian orb in the center of the maelstrom spun faster, as if hungering for Rian’s death.

  “You fool! What makes you believe you can oppose me? Foolish pride?! Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor. Bow down to me, worm!” Rodriguez’s voice rose. Its power shook the towering vault. Girders overhead groaned. Fat tentacles snaked out, wrapping around the railing and popping it from its moorings. Kicking, Rian felt himself hauled into the air. He clung to the warped metal railing.

  Rian released the railing and fell toward the heaving platform. Clawed appendages fountained from the pulsating wall of flesh behind Rodriguez. They snatched at him. Rian twisted, avoiding the rending clack of a monstrous claw. Another snapped shut around his wrist, then jerked away as drawn blood gushed out and covered its chitinous surface. The chitin burned, hissing streamers of smoke rising from chaotic ruin. Rian landed on the balls of his feet, pitching to the side as the landing heaved. Another claw slashed toward his head. He ducked, rolling toward Rodriguez. Razor-edged, articulated arms thrust for him. Serrations dug into his torso, biting deep. He screamed as fibers blossomed along the hard chitin of the claws and whipped at his face, his chest, his arms and legs, leaving deep gashes.

  Rodriguez’s metal arm shot out, seizing Rian’s face. Razor-edged fingers tore his flesh to the bone. “You’ve lost, worm! Your contagion ends here. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall!”

  Rodriguez gestured, and rods popped up from the landing, rising like serpents. The metal bands slapped at Rian, crashing into arms, legs, ribs. He felt bones snap beneath the terrible force of the blows, and his blood flowed freely, dripping through the gaps in the grating to fall into the maelstrom below. Desperate, Rian rolled closer to Rodriguez, reaching for the mottled, torturous creature. Rodriguez laughed, stepping back, and the metal whipcords slashed down at Rian. A rod struck him across the back of his head with unbelievable power. He sprawled on his face.

  The metal rods shot out and wrapped around Rian’s arms and legs. They heaved upward, jerking him taut, tearing the muscles from his bones. He screamed in agony.

  Rodriguez smiled and looked at Rian. “No witticisms, pawn? No sarcastic rejoinders? I’m disappointed.”

  Rian kept his mouth shut, straining against the metal bonds.

  Bear it. It’s almost completed. Your task is almost completed. The voice soothed, demonstrating it still held vast power over him.

  Rodriguez laughed, mocking. “Ah, no. This will not do. This will not do, at all.” He waved his mechanical arm, and the rods twisted, contorting until Rian hung his head downward. “Much better. The way a traitor should be crucified.

  “Time to die, Santiago-spawn. Regretfully, I’ve no time to make this long and painful. Pressing matters take priority, I’m afraid.” Rodriguez stepped forward, raising his metal arm. The fingers pinched closed, merged, and formed a broad, needle-sharp harpoon. With a smile on his hybrid face, Rodriguez drove the spear into Rian’s chest.

  With the agonizing touch of Rodriguez’s body, Rian’s inner voice screamed in triumph. YES!

  Chapter 44

  Erekel’s fingers tickled across Dersi’s shoulder. Fabric ripped. Her body rolled, tumbling into space. Her arm whipped past his face. Desperate, he grabbed at the flailing limb, his fingers scrambling for purchase. He caught her wrist, scuttling forward on his belly. The dead weight of her body swung downward. His arm scraped across the lip edging the catwalk. Flesh peeled back like the skin of a fruit, and slick blood splattered across the grating. His shoulder screamed in protest as Dersi jerked to a halt. Below her, the maelstrom churned. A scream born of agony ripped from his throat.

  He felt his fingers slipping, slipping. Her cold skin was damp, slick. Crying out, Erekel wormed toward the edge of the catwalk. He reached out with his other hand for Dersi’s arm. His fingers caught on a bit of her nightgown. It slid across her shoulder. Through the gaps in the grating he could see her blood-splattered face, expressionless, drool trickling from the corners of her mouth. He felt himself sliding toward the edge, drawn by her weight.

  “No!” he screamed, straining. She slipped. Fresh agony ripped through his tortured shoulder as he struggled to firm his grip on her wrist. His other hand twisted around her nightgown, bunching to gain a grip. “Dersi, please! I don’t . . . know how . . . long I can . . . hold you. Please!”

  He slid another few inches a
cross the grating. His head and shoulders now hung over the maelstrom. Desperately he dug the toes of his shoes through the gaps in the grating. The metal dug through his shoes and into his toes. He could feel blood pooling in his shoes. His arms trembled. Dersi’s sweat-soaked skin slid inexorably through his fingers. His clasp on her wrist weakened, slipped.

  Behind him Erekel could hear the sounds of Rian’s clash with God. But he could spare no concern for them. He focused all of himself on the still, gently twisting form of Dersi, an arm’s length below him, her toes pointed down toward the horrifying black ball in the center of the maelstrom. Churning winds whipped her gown like a banner, revealing bits of soft, creamy flesh. Her hair writhed like thousands of tiny worms, a white-and-red halo surrounding her face.

  Her hand slipped through his, and she dropped another foot. His other hand, bunched in her nightgown, prevented her tumble through the void. The gown slid across damp, pale skin, and now Dersi lay below him, hanging by a tenuous scrap of torn cloth, her arms and legs dangling below her. Her still form rotated, and Erekel screamed again, in frustration and rage and no little pain.

  A length of twisted railing lay humped on the catwalk near him, almost within reach of his outstretched leg. Squeezing shut his eyes as if to summon strength from some hidden reservoir, Erekel scraped his body along the catwalk, toward the twisted refuse. Every inch brought new pain, in his arms and along his stomach, as fresh wounds tore open on the ruined metal of the catwalk. He heard a sound, a terrible, undeniable sound, and stared down at the dangling girl below him. Cloth ripped, a jagged seam opening in the nightgown. Dersi’s limp form dipped an inch or two closer to the maelstrom. He dug his hands in her gown, gathering more to him, moving her body closer.

  A pole, jagged-edged and thrust from the twisted wreckage near him, slid across his stomach. He felt its ragged edge gouge into his stomach, digging a furrow through his skin. He clamped his teeth shut, choking back a scream that he knew would find him releasing Dersi. Dersi, his daughter. He slid farther into the wreckage, and the pole dug deeper into his stomach. Something burst within him. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  He hooked a leg through a length of crooked railing, locking it in place in the hollow of his other knee. His position firmer, he ignored the agony in his gut and slid over the edge of the catwalk. His hair stood on end, lifted by the static charge of the dancing lightning. The catwalk pitched and rolled, and he nearly lost his grip on Dersi’s shift. He scrambled for purchase, screaming again. Finally, his hands twisted in the cloth and he tugged on it, drawing Dersi nearer.

  The gown ripped, a sound of infinite finality. Erekel could see the rip in the fabric, a spreading tear that snaked along the seams. How much longer? How much longer could the frail garment support her weight? Erekel closed his eyes and pulled, drawing her up hand over hand, bunching his fists in the cloth.

  She moved. Her head, lolling to one side and hanging down with her hair fanning out below, shifted. Her lids fluttered. She gasped, a quick intake of startled breath.

  “Dersi, no. Don’t . . . move!” Erekel’s voice filled with anguish and anxiety. The pipe embedded in his guts tore at his insides, and he felt a horrid weakness steal over his limbs. Please. Please, don’t move.

  She opened her eyes. They grew wide and round. Her lips drew back in terror. She twitched. The gown ripped. Erekel desperately hauled it in, heedless of the tearing of his entrails. She raised her head. Her hands jerked. Her eyes locked onto Erekel’s.

  “Erekel!”

  “Hold still!”

  She did not. Her hands shot up, clawing at his. She seized his arms, her legs kicking desperately in the void. Erekel felt himself slipping. The pressure on his legs, tangled in the wreckage, sent flares of new pain through him, warring with the agony of his guts. “No.”

  The catwalk pitched. The mass of wreckage shifted, groaning as it slid across the grating. Erekel felt himself shoved toward the void, his legs now hopelessly caught in the tangle. He hung over the maelstrom, looking down into its heart, Dersi dangling from his tenuous grip. Her eyes pleaded silently with Erekel, who could do nothing but hold on, hold on to her, hold on for his life, and for hers. The pipe in his gut slid free, and his blood gushed out, bathing him in rich scarlet.

  “Erekel!” Desperation rang through her voice. She dangled well beyond the verge of panic. “Help. Help me!”

  “C-climb. Climb, Dersi. I . . . can do . . . no more.” He felt his grip on life fading, like water through a cupped hand. Blood bubbled from his lips and dripped down into the maelstrom. A few drops splattered on the spinning obsidian orb. It seemed to suck the droplets in and hunger for more.

  Dersi reached up and grabbed Erekel’s shoulders. Her lips drawn back in a snarl of panic, she climbed. Her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood. Blood pumped from his wound, showering the black orb. The breath gushed from his lungs. With his vision rapidly fading, he watched as Dersi climbed over his body. He felt the relief of her weight as she reached the tangled wreckage and climbed onto it. “Dersi,” he said, breath coming with a wet hitch. He closed his eyes . . . and floated into darkness.

  Rian should be dead. He knew that. The wounds, the terrible wounds. Too much blood lost. He opened blood-crusted eyes, blinked, and again. So much pain. His head pounded.

  Knowledge.

  Rian knew.

  Yes. It is nearly finished, Rian. Nearly finished. So long have I waited, so long have I plotted. So many times have I tried to destroy him and failed. You have succeeded. You have given our species back its hope.

  I am sorry, truly sorry. I don’t understand.

  I could not destroy what I could not approach. I could only dream, and plot. But you . . . You, Rian, with your taint of the landskin contagion, with your mutations and your exposure to a creation of Rodriguez’s . . . you have gained me access. Access to destroy him and all his works.

  Rian sensed humor, dark and full of self-loathing.

  Ah, the irony of it all! To have spent centuries trying to destroy you all, to rid our line of your taint, only to have you, a descendant of a Hatchling, provide me with the means to triumph.

  He felt a calming come over him, a white blanket of comfort. The pain eased, taken away, removed to some other place by the voice in his head. The voice he knew was, somehow, Santiago.

  Rest well, Rian. You have done well. You’ve delivered the virus to Rodriguez. The rest will take care of itself. Rest.

  He watched the blood dripping from his body and onto the landing. Most drizzled into the gaps in the grating, raining down into the maelstrom. A portion ran along the metal rods, trickling slowly toward the bulge of flesh that blocked the doorway. Enough? Coupled with that already shed and infiltrating, was it enough? Could it be enough?

  It is enough.

  I am sorry. I can do no more.

  Rian smiled, a slow blossoming, the irony of his fate not lost on him. Possessed of the total of human experience and existence, it was an old, old story. Unenviable.

  His blood: life, change.

  He died uncertain, content.

  Chapter 45

  Lhedri jerked awake, drawing his legs back and frantically seeking his sword with his blood-drenched hand. A quick glance around him showed the machine-chamber to be empty. Long, convoluted tentacles hung from the dark ceiling, spewing thick white foam over the raging fires, quenching them. Touching his face and finding it coated with the foam, he decided that was what had awakened him.

  His fingers found his sword and he drew it to him. He crouched, watching the hovering tentacles, wondering if they would take note of him. They did not. They continued spewing their foam, heedless of his presence.

  What? He shook his head, trying to remember what had happened to him. His body ached. Blood, his own and someone—something—else’s, drenched every inch of him. Cuts and bruises riddled his body, the deepest a long gash in his abdomen that seeped yellowish fluid.

  When he had charged God, intent on buying time for E
rekel to get Lady Dersi away to safety, he had known he would die. He hoped only to stall the creature. He leaped toward the towering figure, thrusting with his sword for the conjoining of metal and flesh. God laughed at him. Laughed at him! And batted him aside as if he were nothing. He still felt the power of the blow along his left side. Bones ground against one another when he moved.

  He had been dazed for only an instant, he thought. He had shaken his head, his vision swimming, and focused on the heaving back of God as the creature swelled up before the exit. Without thought, Lhedri had leaped toward the figure. His sword sank deep within flesh. Blood and disgusting fluid fountained. God screamed, a thunderous sound that shook the machine-chamber anew. Lhedri drew back to attack again.

  Then other creatures materialized through the smoke, red-haired like the ones from the spherical room. Two of them, a male and a female, the latter obviously swollen with child. In the clouds of smoke they collided with him, sent him sprawling at God’s feet. The fall saved his life. God’s metallic arm swept through the space Lhedri had occupied only moments before, crushing the male redhead into pulp. Chunks of flesh and a hot wash of blood showered Lhedri. The female screamed, retreating into the smoke. God bellowed. He seized the ruined sphincter and ripped the hard, resinous planes of flesh from the doorway, tossing them aside.

  Yes. That was what had happened. Climbing dizzily to his feet, Lhedri had not seen the huge chunk of sphincter flying toward him until it was too late. He ducked, too slowly. The edge of the plane caught him a grazing blow on the side of his head. He spun around and crashed into the wall, unconscious.

  Now he touched his head. The swelling had receded, though touching the gash sent a wave of nausea through him, forcing him to his knees. How much time had passed?