Debris of Shadows Book I: The Lies of the Sage

by Tony LaRocca

  “Use me to draw,” he said.

  Alyanna looked at him. He was almost as tall as she, now. His upper lip sported a thin crop of peach fuzz. She moved her arm in an attempt to draw a line. It swooped to the right. She took a deep breath, and tried again, concentrating on every movement. The pencil snapped down at an angle, breaking the tip. She let her arm fall to her side.

  Matthew picked up the broken nub. “Maybe we could—”

  She shushed him, and kissed him on the forehead. “Go on, read your book,” she said. “I need to take a walk.”

  Matthew watched her leave, and put her tablet back in the drawer. He had wanted to ask about his gestating sister, but realized that that was not a good idea. He opened the pocket where he kept his own pad, removed it, and flipped to a blank page.

  He decided to draw a train. He wanted to capture the power that the book had attributed to locomotives, the majesty and cold beauty of an engine that connected one half of the nation to the other. He drew a box frame in perspective from a worms–eye view, as if he were looking up at it.

  He wondered if he should make the engine steam, diesel, or electric. Steam, he decided, was the most classic. He stroked his pencil across the bottom of the page, drawing a wedge–shaped cowcatcher above gravel–filled tracks. He gave it a light in front, and a smokestack on top. He sketched the wheels, joined together by coupling rods, and a window for the stripe–capped engineer to sit behind.

  He chewed on his pencil. It occurred to him that he did not have accurate knowledge of what a locomotive looked like. What he had drawn was a composite he had pieced together from virts and books. The light should probably be sodium–yellow, he thought.

  As if in response, the lamp flickered with a soft, amber glow, casting shadows on the splintered ties.

  A tingling, like an electric charge, worked its way up his spine. He could tap into the Sage’s encyclopedias, if he wished. Just a thought, and he could render the train in charcoal, perfect down to the last rivet—but here was proof of something much more powerful.

  “Move.”

  A plume of smoke belched from the stack. The wheels labored clockwise, dragging the weight of the engine up to speed. “In three–D,” he said, and the penciled animation took depth, the tracks stretching back into the distance.

  “Sound.”

  Faint, from inside the drawing, came the chugga–chugga of the locomotive as its metal wheels clattered on the tracks.

  He held the picture in his hands. Dare he? He placed it on the living room floor against the wall. “Bigger,” he said. The image grew a few inches. “Bigger,” he said again, as the excitement and adrenaline swelled within his chest. It stretched itself to his waist. “Bigger!” he shouted. The sketch grew until it touched the ceiling. Feeling lightheaded and drunk, he touched the paper.

  It did not give.

  He pushed harder, but it still remained a picture. All right, he thought, here stands a three–dimensional virt, complete with surround sound, but it is still just an image, not a door.

  “Be a door.”

  A cool wind caressed his face. He stepped through.

  He stood on a desert plain at night. The train approached, its yellow light cutting through the haze. “Be blue,” he said, and the light changed to sapphire. The engine clacked down the tracks. “Green,” he said, and the light complied.

  The locomotive thundered by, its whistle screaming in the night. He whooped along with it.

  “Fly,” he said.

  The wheels left the tracks, screeching as they skidded off their rails. The monstrous engine shuddered as it arched upward. One by one, the boxcars followed, until the entire train rose twenty feet into the air.

  “Dragon,” he said.

  The steel hull rippled. The boxcars twisted and squirmed, sprouting clawed limbs and glistening wings. In–between their gaps, Matthew could see whirling gears, pumps, bellows, and springs. The caboose unfurled into a muscular, spiked tail, its segments joined by hinges and rivets. The single light in the center of the engine ignited into a flaming, golden eye. The cowcatcher stretched into a barbed iron beak, adorned with rows of glistening teeth. The monster opened its mouth, and screeched a cry that resonated within Matthew’s skull. Scarlet roses of flame erupted across the stars.

  “Yes,” said Matthew, punching the sky. The dragon craned its piston–powered neck with a slow, deliberate motion, taking notice of him. “Oh shit,” he said, his exhilaration turning to fear. The dragon screamed again as it dove, the river of fire exploding towards him.

  He froze. “Shield,” he said at the last second, his hands outstretched. A bubble with a swirling, oily film popped into existence around him. The fire ran off it. Matthew staggered as the force and heat bore down on him. It was like fending off a jet of lava shot from a fire hose with a wine glass. He waited for the dragon to swoop lower, its barbed maw wide and ready to strike.

  “Reins,” he said, and jumped, popping the bubble in his wake.

  He landed on the dragon’s back, leather straps in hand. He could feel the scales beneath his thighs, riveted steel plates rising and falling with the force of the mechanical muscles beneath. He pulled back, and the great monster rose into the night, high above the clouds.

  “Fantastic,” he heard a voice say in his ear. His eyes grew wide as he felt locks of soft, thick hair pressed against his cheek. Thin, graceful hands reached around his stomach and held him. He could feel their warmth through his shirt.

  “Sigma?” he asked, his throat suddenly dry.

  “This is beautiful, Matthew,” she said.

  He leaned forward, relaxing the reins. The dragon dove, skimming inches above the desert. The sand and rocks rushed by below them, while the jeweled band of the Milky Way shone above. He saw a cliff on the horizon, and steered towards it. He knew that he was showing off, but so what? That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  “You’re getting too close,” said Sigma in his ear. His heart jumped from her lips brushing his skin. “Be careful.”

  “Fire,” he said.

  The monster reared its head, and belched a continuous line of flame. It bore into the shale, melting it, rippling it aside for them to pass. Matthew blinked in the raging furnace of glowing rock as they shot through the cliff—

  Without warning, the scorching air whipped about them in a maelstrom. The dragon shrank, and disappeared from between their legs. The jet of flame vanished, and with it, the light. Sigma’s arms fell away as they hit the cavern wall—but it was not made of rock. It was like hitting a wall of Styrofoam peanuts, of thousands upon thousands of tiny, popcorn–like, crumpled wads of paper. They tumbled, and spilled to the ground.

  “Sigma?” he asked in the darkness. He crawled to his feet. Though the cliff had been a red–hot inferno only moments before, the tunnel was now cold. He could hear a faint ticking, as if clocks were buried within the walls.

  He heard a swishing noise. “I’m trying to open a portal,” she said. “It’s not working.”

  Matthew tried as well, with no success. He knelt on the ground, and traced his finger in a foot–wide circle along the rippled sandstone. He willed the center to glow. It flickered for a second, and died.

  “What did you do?” Sigma asked.

  “I tried lighting up the rock.”

  “Rock doesn’t just ignite, you have to give it a reason.”

  He returned to his tracing. He imagined that the circle grew hotter and hotter, that the rock was aflame—a pool of lava. There was a lava pool below, and it bubbled close to the cave floor. Not close enough to harm them, just enough to give them light to see by, if he poked through right… there.

  He punched the center of the circle. It crumbled, falling into the lava. Heat blasted through the gap. Matthew scuttled back, and felt Sigma’s hand on his shoulder.

  A circle of light illuminated the roof of the tunnel with an eerie, scarlet glow. Matthew stretched until his fingers brushed the ceiling. It’s polished, he thought, and
curved, melted into a reflecting mirror from the dragon’s blast. As the rock bent to his will, the light diffused, illuminating the walls.

  “Keep your back to the hole, but be careful,” said Sigma. “It will help your eyes adjust.” She blinked, the amber flecks in her irises glowing in the darkness. “Good job. I can see a bit into the infrared spectrum. This helps immensely.”

  Matthew squinted. He could just make out the wall they had hit. It was constructed of what looked like popcorn. He lifted a kernel, and brought it to the glowing hole.

  It was the withered, constricted husk of a dead insect. Its skin was albino. It felt like paper between his fingers.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sigma.

  He held up the corpse. “Can you tell what this is?” he asked. “It looks like a bug.”

  She peered at his fingertips. “There’s nothing there,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “There’s a whole pile over there. We crashed into them.”

  She looked at the mound of bodies, and cocked her head. “It’s just rock, Matthew.”

  He uncurled her fingers, and placed the insect on her palm. “Can’t you feel that?” he asked.

  She looked at her hand, and closed it. When she opened it again, the pulverized remains fell to the floor.

  “Stop playing games,” she said. She slashed the air with her hand. Nothing happened. “When you wrote this sector, why did you block access?”

  “I don’t know how I made it, or how to block anything,” he said. “Oh God, what if Mom walks in here?”

  “If we can’t get out, then no one can get in,” she said. She put her hand under his chin, and stared into his eyes. “You need to focus, and you need to tell me everything. This is very serious.”

  Matthew swallowed. “Understood.”

  “Why did you choose pre–war WesMec?”

  Matthew’s mind raced. “I didn’t,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t really think about it. It was in a book I read, about trains racing across Colorado, and I just drew a train. I didn’t draw the sand, or cliffs, or mountains, or dead bugs, or anything else.”

  “Stop obsessing about imaginary insects,” she said, her voice like a whip. “This isn’t a game.”

  His chest shuddered, making it hard to speak. “I’m not making it up,” he said. “What makes you think I am?”

  Sigma closed her eyes, and took deep breaths. “I don’t like confined spaces,” she said. “I don’t like being trapped.”

  “But we’re not,” he said. “We can walk back through the tunnel.”

  “What tunnel?”

  Matthew blinked. He swallowed. “Sigma,” he said. “I’m starting to get scared. You don’t remember the dragon?”

  “First insects, then a tunnel, and now a dragon,” she said. “Stop making up lies, it’s very annoying.”

  Matthew wrapped his arms around himself. “How did we get here, then?” he asked in a small voice.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  He peered into the tunnel, but could not see far. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  He took small, sure steps, guiding himself along the polished shale. It was cold and smooth, like glass. The ticking noise rose and fell. He peered into the darkness. They had only bored about half a mile into the cliff. He could just make out a few stars through a hole that looked about the size of a dime. He ran, his sneakers pounding against the rock. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said over his shoulder.

  There was no reply.

  He stopped, and looked back. She stood, facing the mound, her back illuminated by the circle of lava. He gazed down the tunnel. Maybe there was just something about this cliff that prevented them from exiting, perhaps it was stored in a corrupt sector. “Sigma,” he said, “come on, we can get out this way.”

  She said nothing. He took a deep breath, and ran back to her.

  “Hey,” he said. “I won’t leave you, but we have to go.”

  “No.”

  He walked to the mound. He touched the wall of shriveled, mummified insects. He jerked his hand back, sending them cascading about his legs. He squatted, and traced another circle in the floor. He punched through again, making another window to the lava. He scooped his hand into the mound, and poured the insects down in an avalanche. They tumbled through into the boiling rock, but after five minutes of digging, he did not even make a dent.

  “Don’t make too many holes,” Sigma said. Her voice was a few semitones higher than usual, and had a singsong lilt. “If you disrupt the integrity, the entire floor will collapse.”

  “Sigma, please come with me,” he said, pointing over her silhouetted shoulder. She looked at him with glowing eyes. “What’s the last thing you remember, before being here with me? Do you remember how we got here?”

  “We’re here because they want to take away our freedom to worship.”

  He swallowed. “Who?” he asked.

  “NorMec,” she said, slurring the name. He took her hand, and turned her towards the crimson light.

  Her features were smooth and waxen, like the plastic of a doll. The strands of her hair had thickened and merged, like rubbery string. The clockwork ticking was louder now, a sharp staccato. Something crawled over her shoulder, and across the neck of her uniform. He dropped her hand. An insect peeked its metallic head from her sleeve, and darted back under cover. Matthew smacked it, and heard a crunching noise, like tiny gears grinding together. Sigma slapped him, sending a jolt of electricity through his face. He fell to the ground, his muscles numb.

  She loomed over him. In the near–darkness, he could make out what looked like a gleaming, steel grasshopper perched on her ear. It scuttled over her cheek, and into her open mouth.

  Her hands clenched into fists. She stood at attention, took a deep breath, and sang in a proud, triumphant voice:

  “God save the West, God save the West,

  Her deserts and plains, God save the West!

  From those who would deny, the will of our Lord on high,

  Let Satan’s scholars know God’s on our side.

  Let Satan’s scholars know God’s on our side.

  War to the hilt, theirs be the guilt,

  Dry the dim eyes that now follow our path.

  Up then, and undismayed, sheathe not the battle blade,

  ‘Till the last abomination is laid low in the grave!

  ‘Till the last abomination is laid low in the grave!”

  The shimmering insect ran across her teeth. Matthew did not give himself the luxury of thinking. He dug his fingers into his pixelated shoulder, and tore.

  Time immediately slowed. The ticking of clockworks, as fast as rain, became the measured beating of a snare drum. He shoved his hand into her mouth, pinched the insect, and ripped it from her tongue. It resisted as it came; its pincers must have dug in deep. He held it to his eyes.

  Its body had five segments, its abdomen broken into three distinct joints. Each of its six legs was fashioned from twisted wire, jointed by pins and flywheels. Its face had the elongated mandibles of a grasshopper, but it also looked human, sporting the withered features of a gaunt, ancient man.

  It opened its jaws, and sang.

  A sandstorm erupted around them, shredding the tunnel into silvery dust. The scouring revealed a myriad of spinning, three–dimensional shapes. Each had a segment removed. Matthew floated amongst them as the gravity of the cavern vanished.

  “Sigma,” he said, “it’s a cipher, like the one at the arsenal.”

  She ignored him as she drifted towards the center. She spun with the agility of an acrobat, and one by one, unlocked the polyhedra. There was no question that she knew the correct sequence.

  Matthew cringed, biting the inside of his cheek as electric jolts seared a path from his shoulder through his spine. He did not know how much longer he could keep up the separation. He swam to her.

  “What are you doing?”
he asked. “What is this for?”

  “And the second angel poured his cup into the ocean,” she said, her back to him. Her voice was high and soft, like that of a girl. “And the waters of the earth rotted, like the blood of the dead.”

  “Sigma?” he asked, placing his hand on her arm.

  She spun around. Her face was smooth and featureless, save for smoking holes where her eyes had been. Her mouth was a gummy maw of rubber. “And,” she continued in her listless, singsong voice, “every living thing therein perished.”

  The snare drum grew louder. Over her shoulder, Matthew could see the clockwork insect. It had grown to a height of four feet. Its wings unfurled into a glistening cape. Its bottom legs moved so quickly that even in Matthew’s accelerated state, he could only see them as a blur. They drew from her skin in rubbery, gossamer strands, and knitted them into its body. The creature built upon its existing gears, strengthening its shell, and fortifying its limbs.

  “Leave her alone,” said Matthew, “you’re killing her.” He dug deeper into his shoulder, slowing time further. He dove for the creature, and poked the fingers of his left hand into its exposed clockworks. They clamped around him, crushing his knuckles. He cried out, and yanked. He tried to pry the meshing gears apart, but they would not budge.

  A warm, smooth arm wrapped around his face. It felt like melting rubber.

  “For the Lord your God is an all–consuming fire,” Sigma sang in his ear as she smothered him. “He is a jealous God. He is the father of children, and children’s children, and you have acted with corruption. You are evil in the sight of your Lord, and have provoked him to anger.”

  Matthew gasped for breath. He could not take his right hand away from the cleft in his shoulder, nor could he move the crushed fingers of his left hand. The world grew dark around the edges of his vision. He knew he would die—that Sigma would die—unless he broke free.

  He closed his eyes. Concentrate, he thought. Remember when your arm was the snake? You can become the worm, if you want. You can become liquid, become viscous. You drew the train, and recreated it as a dragon. You redrew the rock as lava.