by A. Sparrow
“That looks bad,” said Ara. “But I’m afraid, Ren’s wounds were worse.”
***
Baas emerged from the forest near nightfall, walking right past their copse, passing down the slope through the soccer crowd, headed back towards town. Ara and Seor took advantage of his absence to shift to a more strategic hiding place in the center of the meadow, within sight of the spot where the xenolith opening to Gi lay buried beneath the loam.
It left little trace in the meadow of its presence: a swirl of grass that could pass for a deer bed, stray clods of mud from passing boots that stank of the marsh camps, and an otherworldly flower that had no business growing in Vermont.
“When the portal opens, you can return to Gi,” said Ara. “I imagine Baas will be more interested in the other relay, the one opening to Sesei.”
“Would he still go cross, without me?” said Seor. “Without a prisoner to escort?”
Ara shrugged. “Why not? Someone has to tell Cadre Command what happened. Who else lives to bear the news?”
“They still don’t know what we did?”
“I don’t see how,” said Ara.
Seor shook her head. “Gi,” she said, with disgust. “I thought I was done with that place.”
“There are other portals,” said Ara. “I don’t recommend passing the way Baas goes.”
“Obviously not,” said Seor. “But what do I tell them at the assembly camp? I don’t think I can pass for a new recruit.”
“Say you became lost in Ur,” said Ara. “It happens all the time. Or you can pretend you’re a messenger.”
“If I am to be a messenger, I need a message.”
Ara tilted her head and gazed out over the playing fields, towards the river and town. “Tell Ingar he’s been awarded some commendation. He’d believe it.”
“And what is your alibi?” said Seor.
“I don’t need one,” said Ara. “I will stay in Ur.”
“But why?”
“I have burned my bridges,” said Ara.
“What do you mean?” said Seor. “What happened? What was so bad it would drive you to exile yourself?”
“A stupid idea,” said Ara.
“Not a spat … with Canu, perhaps?”
“Spat? What does Canu have to do with this?”
“I’m just grasping … to understand.”
“I stole a militia,” said Ara. “Deceived their captain, used my cadre status to abscond with them and destroy the Mercomar over Maora.”
“Why?”
“The idea was to attack the Mercomar and initiate the counterattack. But we failed … miserably. Didn’t send the proper signal. Sent no signal, actually. So it’s no surprise the First Cadre never responded and the militias remained encamped. I had hoped to rouse them. I knew how desperate they were to be out of that swamp. But they didn’t budge. They’re still there, waiting.”
“So bold,” said Seor. “I would never have had the heart to attempt such a thing.”
“It was stupid.”
“It was not. Desperate, maybe. Necessary. But not stupid.”
“So you see,” said Ara. “I can never show my face again in Gi … or Sesei.”
“Nonsense,” said Seor.
“Men and women died because of my whim,” said Ara. “When they didn’t need to. I wasted them.”
“We are warriors,” said Seor. “They … were warriors. Warriors fight. Warriors die. You were just trying to help your country.”
“Was I?” said Ara. “Or did I do it for me? For my own selfish pride.”
“Stowing that Army in the marshes was a crime,” said Seor. “Why keep them in Gi if they can’t be allowed to complete their mission? Deterrence? They deter nothing. Their absence from Ubabaor only weakens Ubabaor. They were sent to fight the Venep’o in a place where the Venep’o are weak. That was the plan before it got diverted by traitors. You were simply trying to restore the original intent of their deployment.”
“My attempt was poorly coordinated, a pathetic gamble. We never should have attacked. I tried to abort. But in the confusion—”
“But you destroyed the Mercomar?”
“Canu,” said Ara. “He destroyed it, practically on his own.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said Seor. “He is … okay?”
“Last I saw him,” said Ara. “I wasn’t able to send the help I promised. Hopefully, they’re well hid and know enough not to take on the Alar’s forces.”
“How large a militia did you steal?”
“One augmented company,” said Ara. “From Diomet. Green, but stout under fire. A contingent of Nalkies joined us, as well.”
“Really? Nalkies too?”
“Mounted. They saved our butts.”
“Ara, you have nothing to be ashamed of. The more you tell me, the more impressed I am by your audacity.”
“Did you not hear? I accomplished nothing! The expeditionary army’s still stuck in the mud. Your friends … the militia … the Nalkies, all will be crushed by the Alar.”
“Vul is with them?” said Seor.
“And Pari,” said Ara.
“They’re good scouts, both,” said Seor. “A good scout sees what’s coming, weighs the odds and retreats from unwinnable encounters.”
“We can only hope,” said Ara.
“Come with me,” said Seor. “We can make it happen.”
“I told you,” said Ara. “I’m not going back.
***
The rumpling of paper alerted them to Baas’ return from town. They lay in silence in a nest of grass they had plucked to cushion the pebbly soil beneath the laurels. Baas appeared from the trees carried a bulging white bag. The faint odor of fried meat wafted across the field, carrying to the women’s hiding place, causing Ara’s stomach to knot. Baas prowled the meadow in moonlight incrementally brighter than the night before.
Baas shuffled along slowly across the meadow, staring at the ground as he wolfed down the contents of the bag.
“He’s looking for the stone,” said Seor.
“The portal to Gi?” said Ara. “We were wrong, then. But … he’s looking in entirely the wrong place. The fool’s made the passage … how many times?”
Baas paused and looked up. He turned towards the copse. Seor touched her fingers to Ara’s lips to silence her. They lay still until Baas reached into the bag and pulled out another item, discarding its paper wrapping in the grass.
“He doesn’t have to remember,” said Seor, with words formed more from breath than vibration. “He’ll see the signs.”
They kept their heads down, tracking Baas as best they could, their view obscured by shrubs and wafting grass. He began walking transects across the meadow, passing from one side to the next, turning perpendicular for a few paces, doubling back the other way.
“He’ll find us for certain, if he keeps doing that,” said Ara, panicked.
“The convergence,” said Seor, lifting her head slightly. “Is it coming? Can you tell?”
Ara craned her head up and glanced in the general vicinity of the buried xenolith. “Not yet,” she said. She lay back flat. “You said you had a weapon?”
“Not much. A tiny blade. The size of a toenail. What about you?”
“Ingar had me disarmed,” said Ara. “I’m sure that Baas is armed to the teeth.”
“Count on it,” said Seor, forcing slow breaths though her heart demanded panic. Tall grass scraped against his coveralls as he swept by their hiding place. He stopped, only paces away.
“I know you’re out here, Seoresophon!” he shouted. “And I know you’re hungry. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll be lenient, if you show yourself. My fault. I should have secured you better. Surrender and you’ll get fed. You won’t be punished.”
He continued on to the edge of the meadow, turned and came back the other way, this time following a line that would take him directly over the patch of trampled grass that harbored the xenoliths and straight towards her and Ara.
/> The weeds sizzled, dead leaves and twigs crunched underfoot as he approached. Dark limbs swung into view, pausing between paces, stepping just out of reach. If Seor possessed a real weapon, she would have been tempted to take him on, despite her infirmity.
She kept still, modulating her breath, daring not to twitch a finger or a toe. Ara, for her part, lay like a corpse. She wondered if Ara would fight Baas if it came to that, or if she still felt allegiances to her cadre. Might she let Baas take her to spare herself? It was all too confusing. She trusted Ara, but one never truly knew another’s character until it was tested.
She began to tremble from the strain of keeping still. Ara took her hand and clasped it tightly, rubbed it gently to reassure her.
“Come with me!” Baas roared into the meadow. “I’ll take you to Ubabaor. Did you hear me? Tonight you can be in Ubabaor! I’ll make sure they allow you visitations! Your family. You can see your family!”
“Bring me my Dima and we might have something, you bastard!” Seor muttered to herself in a voice so soft, only a grasshopper could hear.
Minutes passed. The moon crept higher. Footsteps resumed, crashing through the brush at the fringe of the copse.
“What’s he doing now?” said Seor. “I can’t see him.”
“He’s going away,” said Ara, sitting up. “He’s entered the forest.”
“To the Ubabaor relay!” said Seor.
***
The feeble glow rising from the xenolith told Seor that this would be a risky passage. The colors were muted, the field’s interior opaque, revealing little of the world with which it connected. She and Ara remained crouched in their hiding place, ready to pounce.
Trees shuddered, branches snapped in the forest. Something heavy-footed, either Baas or a bear was running back to the meadow.
“Come on!” said Ara, urging on the convergence.
“Stronger,” said Seor.
“Seor!” Baas shouted from the edge of the wood. “Show yourself! It doesn’t matter which portal we take. There are cadre at both ends. You stay in Ur, you will die. Your body is still weak. In Ubabaor, you will be in custody, but they will mend you. They will feed you there.” He turned towards the forest. “Seoresophon!” he roared.
“He doesn’t know if you’re here or there,” Ara whispered. “That’s good. Means he’s caught in between.”
The convergence seeped out of the meadow like a brook swelling up behind a beaver dam, its progress tempered by waves that eroded the edges and forced it to ebb.
“Get ready to go,” said Seor. “I don’t know how much stronger it will get.”
“I told you. I’m not going,” said Ara.
“You must come with me,” said Seor. “If you stay, Baas will kill you.”
“Don’t worry about me and Baas,” said Ara. “I can handle him.”
Seor pressed something thin and wrapped in foil into Ara’s palm.
“My blade,” she whispered. She rose and stumbled, falling over the laurel that had harbored them.
“What’s that I hear?” said Baas. “A little bird?” He stormed across the meadow towards the portal.
Chapter 46: Homecoming
Lizbet sprang into Bimji’s arms, knocking him back. He stumbled, bracing his foot against a stoop lest they both collapse in the mud and dust. He was still nowhere near as robust as he had been before his captivity.
The moment felt surreal, considering the undulant path he had taken to reach it: from almost certain death by torture, to a secluded recuperation, to a second brush with death by Crasac, to this homecoming.
He had almost forgotten what it was like to hold Liz, the smell of her skin, the soft pressure of her cheek. Tears spilled from her ducts, but Bimji felt too dazed to weep.
“I thought for sure you were dead,” said Liz, her face dripping with tears. “No one leaves the Alar’s prison alive. How did you—?”
“Nalkies,” said Bimji. “Two died to rescue me. Such a waste. I was ready to die. I was already halfway gone.”
“Don’t say that,” said Liz.
“But it’s true.”
“Your rescuers didn’t know that they would lose their lives.”
“I owe these people,” said Bimji. “Everything since that day is like afterlife to me. Like heaven.”
As he stroked her honey hair, an Urep’o man lurched away through a crowd of refugees and soldiers, flashing to Bimji a masque of anguish and surrender that roiled Bimji’s heart. The man stumbled down the lane and staggered into the oldest, most rickety barn.
“That man,” said Bimji. “Was that your Frank?”
“Yes,” said Liz, the word escaping like a gasp.
“Where does he go? Why he looks sad?”
Liz slumped in Bimji’s grasp.
“Frank … he doesn’t understand,” said Liz. “How things are … here.”
Misty came up the lane with another young Urep’o man. She ran when she saw Bimji. Bimji freed up an arm to wrap around and hug her.
“We are four again?” said Bimji. “Or is it five … with that one?”
“Miles?” said Liz, smirking. “I don’t think so. That boy’s head hasn’t fully arrived in Gi. He still thinks he can hop a bus back to Connecticut.”
“What he says is true, Liz!” said Misty. “I saw his car. His mother called him on his phone.”
“His … mother?” said Liz, scrunching up her eyes.
Liz slid her hand down Bimji’s torso. “Oh my Lord! You’re nothing but a bag of bones. We’ve got to get some food into you.”
“These soldiers looted a Venep’o wagon,” said Misty. “We’ll have enough bread and porridge to last a while.”
“Then come on Misty, let’s feed this man before the wind carries him away.”
***
Bimji propped himself against a stack of cushions in the depths of the main house. He stretched out his stiff legs on the sleeping mats, in the room in which he had spent much of his adult life, weathering storms with his family, collapsing after a hard day of chores, making love, healing.
He had seen the size of the army that the Venep’o were amassing below the cliffs. He knew that his time here would be brief and bittersweet.
Liz seemed stuck in a state of deep denial over what was happening in the valley. The farm was as he had left it, cultivation well underway, chores conducted as if the seasons would come uninterrupted just like before. It would not be easy convincing her to go.
She and Misty brought in a plate of griddle cakes and gravy and they feasted, chastising him good-naturedly over his entanglement with Tarikel and the Nalkies. But with so much unsaid and unsettled, the cakes didn’t sit well in Bimji’s stomach.
When Misty went back to the cook shack, Ellie slipped through the curtains and knelt on the edge of the mattress where Bimji lay next to Lizbet, the way she did every morning since she had taken her first wobbly steps. She was woman-sized now, yet her eyes betrayed the child inside. Her grin stretched so wide that Bimji thought her chin might drop off. He couldn’t bear to spoil the moment with talk of abandoning the farm.
“I told mom you’d be back,” said Ellie. “I was positive. But no, she has to be such a pessimist.”
“Was not easy,” said Bimji. “Even when I got away from Raacevo. They pursued us. Sent raids into the villages that harbored me.”
“Never mind all that,” said Lizbet. “You’re here now and safe with us. That’s all that matters.”
Someone called in from the porch for Liz to come out. Liz sighed, started to rise, but settled back down, clinging all the while to Bimji’s hand. “Ellie. You go see what they want.”
Ellie bounded up and glided through the curtains. Bimji turned to Liz and whispered.
“The young man,” said Bimji. “Miles. Has he taken up with Misty?”
“I doubt it,” said Liz. “I mean, they have things in common. Like his damned phone, that almost got them killed. But there’s nothing romantic going on, I don’t thin
k.”
“Why is not Frank here with us? Is he not family?”
Liz tensed. Her hand slipped away, but Bimji snatched it back.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“It’s … complicated,” she said. “I don’t know why I feel this way … but I do. I made my peace a long time ago. And it was a hard thing. To have someone come, and rip open every one of those scars. It’s hard for me.”
“But it is not just for you. He is human, too. How do you think he feels?”
“I can barely look after myself, Bimji. I can’t worry about him.”
Ellie poked her head through the curtains.
“These men out here insist on speaking with you,” said Ellie.
“You tell them to wait,” said Liz.
Hands appeared through the curtain, gripping Ellie’s shoulder for support and then maneuvering her out of the way. Tom slipped into the room all slumped and wobbly. His eyes lit up at the sight of Bimji.
“Tom!” Liz reared up. “What are you doing up on your feet?”
“Gee mom, I would have flown, but I must have snapped a wing.”
“Smartass!”
“Ellie told me he was back. I just had to see.”
“I would have brought him over to see you,” said Liz, scolding. “We were letting you rest.”
Tom stumbled over to the mat and settled down gingerly next to Bimji, clasping him in a long embrace.
“What happened to you?” said Bimji. “You look in worse shape than me.”
“I’m in better shape than the Crasacs who did this to me,” said Tom. “I can assure you that.”
Liz pulled herself up off the mat with the help of a support post. “I’d better go see what these gentlemen want.”
Ellie held the curtain open for her.
***
Tom reclined next to Bimji, nibbling on a leftover griddle cake. Bimji rose and washed his face and hands in a basin by the one small window high on the wall. He spotted his favorite long coat hanging from a rack and slipped it on, taking pleasure from the smooth fabric and the mere fact that he had access to his favorite possessions again.
He couldn’t get the image of Frank’s desperate face out of his mind. Liz had spoken so warmly of him over the years. Bimji had come to think of him as a spouse-brother. And in fact, that’s exactly what he would be, if he were Giep’o. Bimji thought of the poor man festering away in their worst barn while Bimji enjoyed the love and camaraderie of his family.