The Shoreless Sea

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  A warm breeze blew in off the Atlantic behind him, laden with moisture. Gordon sniffed the air. A storm was brewing. He’d learned the signs from long practice. It would blow in with dirty rain from across the ocean, likely as not.

  The fires had receded for the moment. The air was about as clean as it would get.

  His friend Xavi had gotten caught out in the open by one of the acid storms once, and it had burned the skin off his back. Lilith had paid for skin regeneration, but Xavi had never been the same.

  Gordon made a mental note to be sure he was close to home by the time this new storm arrived.

  The shadows cloaked him in darkness.

  In the middle of the rooftop, something bright awoke, shining a greenish light between the bodies of the figures as they danced around it, chanting a string of syllables in quick repetition: Ahm nam rim semin sim…. Ahm nam rim semin sim….

  One of them glanced in his direction, and her eyes shone with the same greenish glow—or was it just a reflection of the strange fire?

  The object at the center of the circle seemed to twist and turn, as if it were made of fire itself. Maybe it was fire, some kind of fire he’d never seen before. It reached toward the sky, quickly surpassing the height of the figures who surrounded it.

  Gordon gasped.

  At the heart of the flames was a skinny human form, writhing as if in terrible pain as the flames above it climbed higher and higher.

  The circle of figures stopped as one and raised their right hands toward the column of flame.

  The column grew ever upward, wrapping around itself like water, emitting a sound like muffled thunder.

  The thing in the middle let out a thin, reedy scream that chilled Gordy to the bone.

  “Are you ready?” The man with the glowing eyes pulled down his cowl and held his hand out. He was much older than Gordon, maybe in his fifties, his chiseled face etched with fine lines.

  A younger man stepped out of the shadows.

  Gordon gasped and covered his mouth, hoping they hadn’t heard him. It was Crick, one of the runners for the Red Badge.

  Crick had been kind to him once when he’d been out of favor with Lilith for screwing up a blackware delivery.

  “I’m not… I don’t want to go, Bastian.”

  Go where? Was there a way out of this dying place? Gordon edged forward to hear better.

  “She needs you.” The man the boy had called Bastian loomed over him, exuding power.

  “I can’t. I’m too scared. Please don’t make me go. Send someone else instead.”

  Quick as a snake, Bastian’s hand whipped out and touched the boy’s forehead. “You will do as you are told and become a willing foot soldier for the intifada. Do you understand?”

  The young man’s whole body shook, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Green energy enwreathed him from head to toe, and his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  When Crick’s eyes reopened, they were dull.

  Gordon shivered. What the hell had the man done to Crick? And who was inside the flames?

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  The chanting of the others rose again.

  Ahm nam rim semin sim…. Ahm nam rim semin sim….

  The flame rose as well, extending up into the sky.

  There’s a way out. Gordon had to chance it. This opportunity might never come around again. In a few more weeks, the world would loop, and he’d be back where he started all over again.

  He got up and gathered himself, ready to jump.

  Lightning struck out of the clear sky, hitting the rod atop the superscraper, illuminating the whole scene for a fraction of a second with its overexposed glow.

  The wind grew to a howl, drawn by the flame to form a screeching vortex around the building. The column burned brighter and brighter, reaching a fever pitch of intensity.

  Bastian gestured to the column. “Go!”

  Crick hesitated, just for a second, but it was enough.

  Gordon leapt from his hiding place and dove past his friend headfirst into the flames, knocking one of the cloaked figures aside on the way.

  Tendrils of green flame surrounded him, and the figure in the flames howled.

  Then Gordon himself screamed like a banshee as his body dissolved in the fire.

  KIRYN TAUGHT Dax some of the basic signs—yes, no, me, you—and a few curses for good measure.

  Dax was a quick learner. He mostly got the sign on the first try, and when Kiryn quizzed him, he only missed one.

  Kiryn wished he had his mother’s gift to talk directly into someone’s mind. His sister could do it too. It would make this whole thing so much easier. The world gave you different gifts. He wished it would hurry up and show him what those gifts were.

  He loved seeing the joy Dax took in learning the simple signs. He wondered if they were similar to the signs Dax and his sister had made up together.

  For just a moment, Kiryn let himself get carried away with the idea that he might have a life with this one. That Dax would like him despite his deafness.

  Not that he really cared what others thought. Being deaf was as integral to him as the color of his eyes or his eternal sense of optimism. He’d grown a thick skin to deal with those occasional assholes who thought otherwise.

  Still, he wondered what it might be like.

  I can show you the letters next…, he scribbled.

  Dax nodded eagerly. “Show me.”

  He wrote a letter A and made the sign like a closed fist. Signing by spelling was a lot slower, but it was handy when he didn’t know the sign for a word.

  Dax repeated the sign.

  “Good.” Now B….

  Kiryn!

  His sister’s voice echoed through his skull.

  He jumped up and almost fell backward over the railing. Dax grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “What?”

  Kiryn scribbled, My sister. I have to go. He pulled open the access hatch and scrambled down the metal ladder to the ground. Belynn needed him.

  Dax landed right behind him. He tapped Kiryn’s shoulder and mimed, I’ll go with you.

  Kiryn nodded. He opened the metal door and bounded off through the darkness with Dax at his side.

  BELYNN SIDLED to the edge of the bed, waiting for the first of the figures to come around the other side. She had the advantage of surprise.

  Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my brother’s room?

  She crouched, coiled like a spring.

  As the first foot appeared around the edge of the bed, she jumped up and grabbed the person’s arm, throwing them over her shoulder and onto the floor in one smooth movement.

  The woman was wearing a robe with a cowl. It fell back as she hit the floor with a thud, hopefully knocking the wind out of her for a second. She was older than Belynn, maybe in her forties, with silver hair cropped close to her skull.

  No such luck. She was back on her feet like a cat, hissing at Belynn.

  The other figure, taller, also in a dark robe, hung back.

  The woman’s foot struck out at her, but Belynn was no longer there.

  She ducked under the kick and threw herself at the woman, forcing her back against the wall.

  Why wasn’t her companion attacking too?

  She choked off the woman’s windpipe.

  Her attacker struggled, kicking at her, but Belynn evaded the blows that gradually weakened until she lost consciousness.

  Belynn thanked her mother, Shandra, for the self-defense lessons.

  She turned to face the other intruder.

  He dropped his cowl. He was handsome—light-skinned with dark hair, brown eyes, and high cheekbones. And much younger than the woman. His brown eyes challenged her.

  “Who are you?” Belynn kept an eye on the woman, who was slumped against the wall, moaning lowly.

  Surprisingly, he laughed. “You’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

  She blushed, and then a surge of anger replaced her embarrassment. “Who in the
spin-damned hell are you?”

  “Gordon.” He pulled out a length of rope from a pocket in his cloak. “We should tie her up before she recovers her senses. They’ll be sending more for you two soon.”

  He brushed past her and put his arms under the woman’s.

  “What do you mean, they? Aren’t you… they? Them?” Things were moving too quickly.

  “Grab that chair and bring it over here.” He indicated the chair by Kiryn’s writing desk.

  She pulled it over near the window.

  “Now close the door. We don’t want anyone to see what we’re doing and cause an alarm.” He lifted the woman up and set her on the chair.

  Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him blearily.

  Belynn did as she was told, still uncertain why the intruder, Gordon, was helping her.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Everything okay in there? I heard a noise.” It was Aric from the front desk.

  “Yes. Sorry. I just dropped something.”

  “Belynn?”

  She cracked the door open. “I know, I know… I’m not supposed to be here. I got sick this morning at the seminar and Kiryn let me sleep it off. I’ll be going soon.”

  He nodded. “Kiryn told me. You feeling better?”

  “Yeah. Mostly.”

  There was an awkward pause. “You know it’s past visiting hours.”

  “I know. Sorry. You are such a sweetheart, helping a girl in need.” She leaned out and kissed his cheek. “I’ll go soon. I promise.”

  She closed the door on him.

  “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.” His feet padded away from the door, down the hallway of the dorm. Aric was such an easy mark, but she felt bad for taking advantage of him.

  At least she had a ready target for her frustration.

  She turned on Gordon.

  He was tying the woman tightly to the chair.

  “Who are you?” she asked for the third time. “Who are they?”

  The man knelt to rummage through Kiryn’s chest of drawers, pulled out a white shirt. “This should do.” He made a knot in it and wrapped it around the woman’s head, tying it as a gag with the knot in her mouth. When he’d finished, he stepped back to survey his work.

  Belynn took him by the cloak and pushed him up against the wall, hard. “I don’t enjoy being ignored.”

  “Sorry!” His eyes went wide, and he put his hands out, palms open. He was bigger than her and could have put up a decent fight, but he didn’t.

  “Why didn’t you attack me?”

  “Where I come from, you don’t hit girls. Not until they hit you first.”

  She snorted. Girls could fight just like boys. But it was kinda sweet, in an archaic way. “Who is after me?”

  “The intifada.”

  She let him go, sinking back on the bed in shock.

  The woman had opened her eyes, and she stared at Belynn angrily.

  The intifada. That was the same word Della had used in Belynn’s drunken dream. Except she hadn’t been drunk. Not on alcohol.

  Wasn’t there a church by that name?

  She glanced at him, and then at the woman, and that strange double-face thing happened again, just like it had with Della. She didn’t know what it meant. Maybe she was sick.

  She sorely wanted a drink.

  “Who are you, Gordon? Tell me the truth. Where did you come from?”

  He sat on the bed next to her. “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  What he said next shocked her to silence.

  When the door burst open, she looked up at her brother and his new fling.

  “Belynn, are you—what the hell?” Kiryn’s hands dropped to his sides as he took in the scene.

  “Close the door.” She kept her voice calm. Even.

  Dax closed it behind the two of them.

  Kiryn looked back and forth between her and the man on his bed and the woman tied to his chair. “Belynn, what in fucking Forever is going on?”

  “Kiryn, meet Gordon. From Earth.”

  Chapter Four: Gordon

  GORDON RODE the column of green fire as it tore him to bits, reaching inside his body and mind and splitting him into a hundred, a thousand, a million pieces. He screamed, but no sound came out as each of those parts of him caught fire and burned white-hot before it all flamed into nothing.

  Later—it might have been just five minutes or an eternity—he awoke to more pain. But it was less than before, not a searing heat but a dull ache.

  All of his muscles hurt.

  He whimpered, trying to stretch his arms to get some relief, but they were restrained.

  Where am I? Had it all been some kind of weird dream?

  A cool hand touched his cheek. He opened his eyes.

  “He’s awake.” A woman looked down at him, dark hair framing her face, ice-blue eyes boring into his. “Welcome to the other side, Cricket.”

  He opened his mouth to say he wasn’t Crick, that this was all a big mistake, but she hushed him.

  “I know, it’s confusing when you wake up in someone else’s body. It’s also very painful at first…. Sorry, we can’t do much about that. This plane’s medicine is less advanced than our own.” She gestured to someone outside his field of vision, and Gordon felt his shackles being loosened. “Your mind is trying to make sense of its new home, that’s all. The aching will subside in a few hours.”

  New home? Gordon decided he’d best keep his mouth shut, at least until he knew more about this place and these people.

  He sat up slowly, grimacing as his new body protested. It was big, much bigger than his own fifteen-year-old frame, and strong too.

  His arms and legs were covered in a layer of fine dark hair, and between his legs….

  He gulped.

  He was naked in front of these people. That had never bothered him back home, in front of Jacky and his other friends. But these were strangers.

  Four others watched him, two men and two women, all dressed in dark cloaks like the ones the strange coven had worn on the rooftop. It was like some kind of cult.

  They stared at one another, and he had the weird sense that they were communicating in some way he couldn’t see.

  “Nastra, get Crick some robes and something to eat. Then I want you to take him out into the city. Show him what this world is like.” She cupped his chin with her hand. “We have great work to do here to save our people. The intifada has begun.”

  Gordon suppressed a shiver. What did I get myself into?

  He remembered what Bastian had done to Crick, forcing him into some strange kind of submission. He had to act compliant. “Yes, ma’am.” He wondered where this place was that he’d awakened into, and if Bastian had a way to communicate with this woman. Sooner or later, they would find out he was an imposter.

  He had to find a way out of this mess before that happened.

  “Come with me.” Nastra was older than he was, although it was hard to know her true age, since she was in someone else’s body too. He figured she was, at least.

  He didn’t recognize the name. She was likely a stranger back home.

  He got up off the bed and had his first real look around the room.

  It was framed with log walls, like some once-upon-a-time fairy-tale cabin, a far cry from the glass and steel buildings of New York. Still, it looked new, and that alone filled him with hope.

  There were no decorations—very little furniture, no art hung on the walls, and no plants or flowers at all.

  Nastra led him down the hallway, and through a half-open doorway, he saw the woman who had spoken to him when he had awakened. She was shuffling papers at a wooden desk.

  Papers.

  By habit, he tapped his forehead to activate his loop. Nothing happened. Couldn’t feel it beneath the skin of his temple.

  Nastra noticed and shook her head. “The technology here is much more primitive than back at home.” Her voice was no-nonsense. “You’
ll get used to it.”

  They entered a small room at the far end of the hall, a storage closet, apparently.

  She handed him a black shirt. “Put this on.”

  He took it, and it fit him well. He wondered if this… body had worn it before.

  “This should fit you.” She held up some pants to his lanky frame.

  What, no underwear? “What was his name?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “We don’t ask those questions.” She pulled her robes off and pulled on some black pants and a tight black shirt.

  He looked away and ducked his head to indicate submission. “Sorry.”

  She pulled his chin up. “Sorry, Sister.”

  “Sorry, Sister.”

  “That’s better. I don’t know why she wanted to bring men into this. We were doing fine without the likes of you.” Nastra rummaged through a shelf of shoes. “What size are you?”

  “I… I have no idea.”

  Nastra snorted. “Of course you don’t. Here. Try these on.”

  Gordon examined the boots she handed him. They were beautiful, hand-sewn from a rich brown leather with a green fire design up the sides.

  He wondered who the boots had belonged to. Better not to ask.

  She had good instincts—they fit him perfectly.

  “I expect you’ll be hungry.”

  Gordon nodded. “Yes, Sister.”

  “Come with me. I’ll show you a bit of this world.” She led him out of the closet and down the hall to a stairwell.

  The place had no windows. That’s odd.

  They went down the wooden stair to the ground floor, which was made of some kind of poured material. Then she opened the door.

  He gasped.

  “Well, come on. It won’t bite.”

  He stepped outside onto the porch and looked around at the strange fantasy world he found himself in.

  He was in the middle of a small town where none of the buildings were taller than two or three stories, and most were made of wood like the one he’d just left.

  But that wasn’t the strangest thing.

  The plants around him—the trees, the grass, the bushes, even the flowers—all glowed. Golden light poured from several of the trees nearby, and the lawns gave off a greenish-tinged light.