by Sparks,Cat
He was about to stretch back out again when both were started by a blast of sound. Star flinched. “What is that?”
He laughed. “Told you it’d be worth the climb!” He got up, squeezed beside her. “Watch.”
At first she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Jagged movement, seemingly hanging mid-air. Not in the air, but against the far wall, a moving image of an object half-buried in sand, as seen from the sky or a mountain or the eye of a bird. The image changed, getting closer, then receding rapidly. It made her dizzy. She pulled away and flopped down on the bed, dazed.
“Takes a while to get used to,” he told her, “but you’ll get the hang of it.”
“But what is it?”
Grieve looked smug. “I’ve got it figured. The old lady’s pet drones have eyes like ours.” He made broad motions with his arms. “They fly up high and this is what they see.”
Star stood up, and moved the hessian aside to take a longer look, one hand on the shelf to keep her steady.
“Something about that blocky granite structure half stuck in the sand reminds me of the Vulture,” she said after staring for a long time.
“What’s the Vulture?”
“Just a place I used to know. Those people look like they’re digging.”
“Doesn’t look much like a bird to me,” he said.
“And they don’t look like people.”
The birds-eye view took them closer to the ground, swooping past massive reliquaries stabbing at the sand, scooping it and shoving it out of the way. There was a man who raised his shovel in the air and took a swing. A man who was not a man.
“Templars,” she said. “Many of them.”
“Templars and reliquary digging side by side.” He shook his head. “Never seen anything—”
“I need to climb down, get a closer look.” She snatched up one of the candles from the shelf.
“Too dangerous—that’s the old lady’s private space. A strange old bird—wait till you get a look at her.”
Star picked up the tinder box, struck a light, and lit the candle. “If the Lotus Blue is buried in that structure, I need to see it with my own eyes, to see if any of what Quarrel says is true.”
“You can’t trust that mad old soldier—and I’m not gonna help you get yourself killed.” He reached across and snatched the candle from her hands.
Star glanced back down past the hessian curtain. “Those drones are ancient—I’ll bet they can’t fly far from home. That means that excavation site is close—maybe close enough to reach on foot.”
The bank of ancient reliquary was larger than it had appeared from above. Made from separate shiny boxes, some small and blocky, others rectangular and wide, stacked one atop another to form a ramshackle wall. Candles burned in the gaps between the boxes and in spaces where the shiny glass had been broken.
The images they’d been watching were flickering upon shiny surfaces that became blurry the closer she stood. Up close, she could barely make out details, just the dark grey of the excavation site stark against the sand, its figures smudged and indistinct. The picture’s constant movement made her feel ill.
She looked away until the wave of nausea subsided. Glanced back at shadowy patches of dark and stillness, blurred images scrolling across everything: the walls, the curtains, her own clothing, hair, and skin.
She could hear Grieve following close behind her, stopping whenever she stopped, wedging in to crouch beside her in a place where they could see without being seen themselves. The smell of dank and mouldy curtain intensified.
“What’s she doing? Who’s she talking to?” Star whispered.
“That old lady doesn’t stand still for long. She’s all banged up from injuries that didn’t heal so good. Everything hurts so she’s always on the move, which is why we gotta keep our heads down out of sight.”
Without warning, the images changed. There was no longer sun and sky and sand or the massive structure being dug up from the ground. In its place was water flowing, blue and pure. Shivering leaves dappled with sunlight. Delicate flowers: pink and white and lemon yellow. Flowers everywhere, hanging in the air. So real she could taste and touch and smell them.
She raised her hand to try and touch. Grieve pushed it back down. A voice boomed out of the verdant, swirling air:
“Here be shadows large and long;
Here be spaces meet for song;
Grant, O garden-god, that I,
Now that none profane is nigh,—”
The old woman spoke loudly, her voice sharp and clear. Grieve flinched when Star rose up and craned her neck.
“Keep your head down,” he spat, dragging at her arm.
Star wasn’t listening—the wonder of it all was too intense. She crept forward slowly, kicking Grieve’s hand away when he tried again to stop her. She found herself a closer hiding place, with the old woman directly in her line of sight. She ignored Grieve’s frantic whispering; it was impossible to hear what he was saying beneath the old woman’s firm and commanding voice.
“And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the waves’ intenser days,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers . . .”
The skin on the old woman’s arms and face was alive with images of rustling leaves, water droplets, clouds on skies that had never been so welcoming, so blue.
“And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Nails dug into Star’s arm, hard. Grieve was pressed so close she could smell his sweat.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said.
She pushed him away and raised up on her haunches, slowly, making no sudden movements.
“A dark land fringed with flame,
A sky of grey with ochre swirls
Down to the dark land came
No wind, no sound, no man, no bird.”
Birds! Great flocks of them, not the carrion kind, but brightly mottled with reds and greens and blues. Flying across the surfaces of the glass boxes and also through the air, by magic—it had to be magic.
“I am Marianthe and this is my Temple. My home. Who goes there? What do you want from me?”
Star froze, until the birds-that-were-not-really-there hung above her head.
“Show me your face. I cannot trust a man I cannot see.”
A man? What man? The old woman had not even noticed Star, she realized. She was staring up into the air above the magic wings of the soundless birds.
“Many others have made claims even more grandiose than that one. Whom do you think you’re speaking to? Some young and foolish girl with a heart fashioned from spun sugar, rose petals, and dew? I am a veteran of Crysse Plain, and we are not so easily enchanted.”
“She’s talking to herself, the mad old coot,” whispered Grieve, tugging Star back down into a crouch.
“No she isn’t. Somebody—or something is answering.”
The old woman jerked suddenly, raised her hands in exasperation. “And what use would I have for trinkets such as these? Offer a lady something precious if you want to turn her head. Show me something I haven’t . . . ahhh.”
The old woman froze, her fingers splayed, wide eyes looking at something only she could see. The birds vanished, replaced by a flood of new images, one after the other, flowing like a bubbling brook, only it didn’t look like water, something else, too quick to see.
The old woman wailed and clutched at her own arms. “My Benjamin—Benjamin, is it you? Could you ever, could you possibly be?”
“I’m telling you, she’s batshit—”
“Shhh.”
&nbs
p; The spill of images slowed, revealing streams and leaves and green fields. The landscape disappeared. In its place, the face of a young man, square jawed and rugged handsome, appeared simultaneously on all the boxes, even the biggest.
“Benjamin?” The woman stood completely still, staring at the largest of the faces. Slowly, uncertainly, she shook her head. “No. No, not you, your eyes were never such an insipid shade of brown, nor your hair so thin, so easily . . .”
The image then changed, as if in response, the hue of the young man’s eyes becoming rich and deep, the colour of fertile soil. His hair thickened and grew a little longer. The old woman stared at the new improving face in silence. Peered closer. “But it can’t be you. I searched for you through the aftermath of Crysse, heart deep in blood and bones,” she said bitterly.
“And I for you,” said the giant face, still changing. Still adjusting. Now he was a man in uniform, his fine features streaked with mud and grime. Behind him was the smoke and haze of battle.
“Benjamin?”
Star felt a gentle tingling in her mesh, like she’d experienced when she ran through the Sentinel’s protective field, accompanied by a sense of foreboding. Another mecha was close by, that was what it meant.
“I can’t believe she’s falling for it!” said Grieve. “Hey, wait—where are you going?”
Star stood up and walked right out into the open, arms raised high to show she held no weapons.
“Stop right now—don’t listen to him,” she called out. “That man is not who he says he is. He’s not even a man—that’s a war machine and he’s messing with your memories. You can’t trust it. You’ve got to stop listening—”
Startled by the intrusion, the old woman spun around so fast she almost toppled over. “What is this? Who are you?”
“Don’t listen to it,” Star repeated. She tried not to look at the face on the screen, even though there was something compulsively mesmerising about its gaze. The way the eyes seemed to pierce her flesh and hold her captive. Like it could see inside her mind.
Sharp movement buzzed around Star’s face—real this time, not magical pictures. Drones. She swatted at them with bare hands. “That face is a liar,” she shouted over the confusion. “It’s a Lotus Blue, a killing machine, left over from the wars that burnt the world!”
The old woman’s eyes widened, like a predator preparing to strike. She lunged. Cold, bony fingers pinched at Star’s flesh, angling to touch her arm.
Star fought back. Up close, mere inches from Star’s own, the old woman’s face appeared like the carved masks the Knartooth used for ceremonies, all beak-like nose and exaggerated lips. Pierced lobes hung heavy with ornaments and wards.
But when the old woman pulled away, she appeared human once more. “I’ve not seen your face before,” she said. “You’re so young—how could you possibly know about such things?”
Star didn’t know what to tell her. The drones whirled around her. The close air smelled like compost after rain. The giant face of a handsome soldier still hung there above them both looking so smug, so self satisfied.
“You’re wrong,” said the old woman. “The Lotus Generals are all extinct, the last of their kind faded from the world centuries past. That there is my Benjamin, I’d know him anywhere.”
In an instant, the screens filled up with images of green, of lakes and streams and oceans wide, hills and flowers, animals and rain. Sweet rain falling down in sheets.
The old woman closed her eyes. “Ah, but you never saw the world the way it was. The way it can be again—but I did. I remember. I have enough memories to sustain us all through barren years.”
The light changed colour. The old woman’s face became infused with mottled green, a pattern of trembling leaves across her garments, her skin as bright fronds splashed across the shiny boxes behind.
A deep, creaking issued from behind them. Candle flames danced and flickered as Star turned to see silhouettes against a shaft of muddy light. A flood of people were pushing through the door, gasps of wonder uttered by the old woman’s’s flock, invading Sanctum, no longer frightened, not wanting to miss the promises unfolding.
The projected pattern of leaves changed, then changed again, from grass to sky to brown tilled soil. Flowers and children, animals and streams. No evidence of dead red sand, rogue polyp storms, or heat blasted wasteland.
“The world the way it was,” the old woman said. “The way it can be made again. The way we would have it be.”
“It’s not real,” said Star.
“Rebirth,” she continued. “Don’t you understand?” The images began to melt into one another. Star felt lightheaded, like she had drunk too much toddy, smoked skunk, and been spun in circles all at once. Light exploded behind her eyes. Fire seared through her belly.
Throughout whirlpools of swirling forest, she watched the old woman moving like she belonged there, like the forest had always been her home.
The green enveloped everything. Star’s own flesh was crawling with it. She shook, trying to slough it off her skin.
Discordant recitations swelled and intensified, increasing her sense of nausea. The old woman repeated the same words over and over. Words that made no sense. Useless words drowned out by enthusiastic song, the space filled up with farmers singing their lungs out, their attention on the mad old woman like she was the queen of everything.
A silhouette moved into the doorway, Quarrel shoving his way through the crowd. As they noticed him, the old woman’s followers stopped singing and pulled away. He stank of sweat and blood and anger.
“How dare you invade this sacred space!” the old woman screamed, reeling back in horror and disgust.
Nobody moved. Nobody but Star. She ran to Quarrel just as a sequence of brutal seizures took hold of his body. The Templar slammed hard to the temple floor, eyes frozen wide with terror, wrists crossed above his chest as if they were bound.
Star knelt over him. “What’s happening to you?”
His eyes met hers, his expression one of pity more than anything, something she’d never seen on his face before.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted and then lunged, grabbing hold of her mesh arm, clutching it steady, pressing his own broken mesh hard up against it.
Something sharp and hot stabbed into her mesh. Pain washed over her, intense, blinding pain, then vanished abruptly. Star blinked rapidly—the only part of her that wasn’t frozen. The rest of her felt like it was carved from wood. She couldn’t feel her other arm, her legs, her fingers, or her toes. Only her mesh, a fierce heat draining out of it.
“Backup plan,” grunted Quarrel, struggling to force the words out. He let go of her and howled, a sound like an animal in the throes of death and torment.
A hush fell over everything. There was nothing but the ringing in Star’s ears, her own ragged breathing, thunks and tickings emitted by the boxes and the drones.
Nothing human had ever made a sound like that, a guttural grinding of searing pain and shriek. Quarrel’s body convulsed and then lay still. He was spent, useless as a heap of broken machinery. He had emptied himself inside her mesh and now there was nothing left. The spark had gone out of him, the force, the drive, the life.
The old woman stood over the both of them, wide eyed and curious. Waves of sickness kept Star immobile, lying on her back. Nausea from what Quarrel had done to her, terror at what she was expected to do with what had been forced upon her. What would be done to her. Knowing there was no way of stopping it.
The old woman raised her arms, a signal to her people. Star watched helplessly as diaphanous layers of blue cloth fell away, exposing bare skin patterned with projected leaves and streams and sky—and something else. Horrible scars, like something had been cut out of her flesh. Wounds that had long since puckered and healed. Memories seared per
manently in place.
Star understood what she was looking at: the place where mesh had once been embedded. The old woman was the same as Quarrel. The same as her. A Templar. A soldier, only someone had hacked the embedded metal out of her.
Quarrel’s left leg spasmed and a jolt went through the crowd, followed by murmurs of unease as gradually movement returned to his other limbs.
Star sucked in her breath and held it. The Templar moaned and she exhaled, relieved to see that he was still alive.
He sat up, clambered shakily to his feet. Star forced herself to roll onto her side and push herself to standing.
“Quarrel!”
The Templar didn’t answer. Didn’t look at Star or any of them. He was headed towards the light of the entranceway, shoving people out of his way, elbowing a man who tried to stop him in the gut.
“Quarrel!”
He did not respond.
When Star tried to follow she was blocked by the old woman’s followers. They might have been afraid of him but they were not afraid of her. She did not fight back. Her head was full, and splitting with memories that did not belong in there. Every movement created a bright flare of images she could barely comprehend. Visions of her fighting, dirty, up close and personal. The rush of adrenalin as she thrust a blade between the plates of damaged body armour. Slow motion explosions, air raining with blood and shrapnel. These were things she had never seen, never done, and yet her head was filled with them to the point of bursting. Quarrel’s memories. What else could they have been?
“Lock her up!”
The old woman was afraid of her, she was calling to her followers for help. People emerged from the shadows. They were frightened too, but they did as they had been commanded, grabbing Star’s arms and pinning them to her sides.
“Quarrel!”
The Templar passed through the entranceway, ignoring her—and everybody else—completely.
“Leave him!”
The old woman’s followers scurried out of his way. Star was the one who mattered now. She’d been weakened by the memory transfer, they could tell. She’d be able to be contained if they acted quickly.