Lotus Blue

by Sparks,Cat

  Grieve took a while to answer. He stared out into the murky night, alert for evidence of tankers on the move. They could no longer see the Temple of the Dish, the fires, nor the old woman’s geometric gardens. They had well and truly entered tanker territory, vast and open. The thought was terrifying.

  Eventually even the dunes themselves were nothing but dark shapes receding in the distance, swallowed by the night. Star nudged Grieve gently in the ribs. “What did you tell him? Does he know the truth of . . .” What I am were the words she was trying to get out. Words that lodged in her throat.

  “What’s to tell?” said Grieve. “Man made up his own mind after I showed him the same thing I showed you. Sanctum, viewed from up on high. Pictures moving through the air.”

  She frowned. “The new green world and all the old woman’s promises?”

  “Not exactly.” Grieve scratched his head. “Iago doesn’t talk much. Hard to know what he’s thinking. Might have had cause to nudge him along a little.”

  “Nudge?”

  “Yeah, like I said, sometimes it’s hard to say.”

  She twisted her body around further, trying to get a good look at Grieve’s face. He didn’t seem to want to meet her gaze.

  The ride was getting bumpy; a change to the texture of the sand. Harder for the lizard to traverse. Iolani’s gait became more ragged, more uneven.

  “Grieve, what did you tell him? What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Nothing. Honest!” Grieve swallowed. “He saw everything for himself. Visions of that excavation site, peeking down from my hidey hole, same as I showed you. Nothing different. Digging that granite bunker up out of the sand. Except . . .”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Grieve bit his lower lip. “A small exaggeration is all. I might have said it was his own village that was being dug up. That some of his own people were doing the digging.”

  She pulled her hand away. “No. You couldn’t.”

  “There was no other way,” he snapped. “Would you rather you were back in that cell, left to rot with all this going on?”

  He gestured wildly at the cancerous sky blooming low above their heads. “That thing, whatever it is, it started firing missiles at us. A couple of hours past midnight—can’t believe you didn’t feel them hit. The laundry and one of the storehouses were destroyed. The old lady’s people had to put a fire out, all hands at it, that was when we decided to come and get you.”

  Star had felt each shuddering impact, but she hadn’t been certain they were real at the time, had decided they’d been more of Quarrel’s invading memories.

  “What happens when we get to where we’re going? When he learns his people aren’t there waiting for him, still alive?”

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it, Star, like we do with all the bridges. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have come if I’d had more time to explain?”

  “We’re talking about people, not a bridge!”

  “We did this for you, Star—that mad old witch was gonna leave you in that lock up—or maybe even worse than that—who knows?”

  He gazed at her with big, wide eyes, like he was truly sorry.

  “Iago will die when he learns the truth,” said Star.

  “According to you, we’re all gonna die when that Lotus flips its lid. What difference is one more lie going to make?”

  She punched him in the arm. He yelped. “You can’t take anything seriously, can you?”

  “What could be more serious than saving your life?”

  They both turned to see Iago, twisted astride the lizard’s neck, staring back at them.

  “Nothing’s wrong, buddy—you just keep on droving . . .”

  He said something back, but Iolani swerved to avoid an obstacle unseen, taking up Iago’s full attention.

  “If he doesn’t kill you, I will,” said Star.

  Grieve smiled. “That’s the spirit!” He sat up straighter in the saddle and shook his hair free of the cord that held it bound up out of his eyes. “I’ve never taken a chance like this. Riding directly into danger with a sky on fire above my head.” He raised his arms out wide and whooped, matted hair streaming in the wind. “Hey look, there goes another one!”

  She couldn’t help but follow his gaze. A fiery brand cut across the sky. Not an Angel falling but something else, accompanied by a painful shrieking sound. The burning thing, whatever it was, crash landed far to the right of them. They felt no impact, but they heard it hit. Iolani baulked and Iago had to push up on his launches, lean across and whisper in her ear, but she refused to run on any further. She barked and bellowed, turning in tight circles.

  “Hang on,” said Grieve.

  He didn’t have to tell her.

  “Give him a minute. That lizard loves him, you noticed that? She does whatever he tells her to, just got a little bit spooked is all.”

  But Star wasn’t listening to Grieve’s banter. Another voice commanded her attention. Not a voice, exactly, a nagging susurrus inside her mind, like dried out branches shaking in vicious wind. Not particularly loud or strong, but there was nothing she could do to shut it down or block it out.

  “The Blue knows I’m coming,” she told Grieve. “It knows and it’s going to try and stop me. Maybe that’s what’s going on. It’s trying to fire on us.”

  “It doesn’t know anything—those rockets are random as sandstorms. That Blue, whatever the hell you call it, that thing’s even madder than that those batshit crazy Templars. She’s one of them, too, that old lady, did you notice? Looks like somebody dug all that metal out of her arm. Amazing she survived the operation—did you see the—”

  He shut up as soon as he remembered. Star was also one of them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Shut up, Grieve, and listen to me. The Blue knows I’m coming. It can speak inside my head. Very faint and not with words, but I can hear it and it knows we’re on the way.”

  Iago had managed to settle the lizard, and now they were heading in the right direction again, making further conversation difficult, which was just as well, Star thought. She was running out of things to say.

  “Old lady will have her drones on our tail before first light. Better keep our eyes open.”

  Star turned away from Grieve, eyes facing front, taking in the pulsing borealis above them, with its trailing threads of pink and silver. Her head was filled with Quarrel’s legacy, his knowledge of the deadly weaponry she carried deep within her blood and bones.

  = Sixty-one =

  The time has come for the Lotus Blue to pull it all together.

  The array has been pumped and shined and fired, the Zero Tower Sentinel extended to full length. Wild experiments with the polyp storms have caused a leak that is spiralling out of control. Poison now streams up into the sky, swirling in a vortex like the eye of an angry dragon.

  The Blue had once seen an army of such creatures storm a bunker three times the size of this one. Armour plated, saddled up, and combat trained. A most magnificent sight, one of so many glorious visions lost to the indifference of humankind, to those who did not care for the splendour and majesty of destruction. Eighty beasts had been incinerated. He had watched them burn, their fire lighting up the sky. Red sky at night, conqueror’s delight.

  The General has sourced almost everything he needs: an army comprised of loyal, faithful mecha: Templars and their baser counterparts, tankers, drones, and Angels. Creatures that came crawling out of ruined nooks and crannies, hurtling across the sands with lightning speed. All he wants for now is the Warbird 47 and the ship—the Razael—and, eventually, the girl. He has her locked down for safekeeping, though. She’ll come around in her own good time, will walk right into his arms and find redemption.

  There’s something
else—his sensors show him a handful of additional extras he hadn’t bargained on: humans, small and frail and useless, but even they might come in handy at some point. Four humans, attempting to crawl inside his brain. With the barest of efforts, he traps them in a holding pattern. He has plans to indulge in some experimentation, to determine what makes such creatures tick. He will pull them apart and try to piece them back together. Anything to while away the hours.

  The General is so easily bored, so easily disappointed, launching rockets randomly just to see them burst. Remembering skies lit up with firecrackers, paper lanterns floating down a winding river, little origami boats, each one containing hand scrawled messages of hope. All the flourishes and intricacies of civilisation, how he misses them.

  The girl with the mesh bar is the key. Through her he will be able to reconnect, re-establish hold, go forth and make a new name for himself. Leave this place to walk the earth as the mighty Lotus Blue.

  He cannot wait to meet her, face to face.

  = Sixty-two =

  Dawn brought with it a little comfort—at least they could see the sand ahead of them. Travelling by moon and starlight, Star and Grieve had been forced to rely entirely on Iolani’s sure footedness—whenever the creature panicked, they did too, and when she settled into calmness and repetition, they managed between them to catch a little sleep.

  Morning light revealed a landscape more precarious, littered with boulders, crevasses, the bones of long-dead beasts, traces of long abandoned homesteads, skeletal wrecks of ancient war machines. The Dead Red Heart. Open sand. Rogue tanker territory.

  Star scrutinised the sky behind them, alert for the old woman’s crooked little messengers, as Iolani ducked and wove and dodged, slowing and swerving at Iago’s commands.

  “Listen, he’s singing to her,” whispered Grieve, a warm smile spreading from ear to ear. “All this death, this broken desolation, yet he’s got time for song.” He looked to Star and nudged her. “How about that!”

  Star had been listening to the lilting melodies and had been using them to keep her own mind focused. To block out the unwelcome presence trying to force its way inside her head.

  Iago’s simple repetitious song brought back memories of Yeshie’s campfire stories—they’d always had a rhythm to them. Star pushed her hand deep inside her pockets, reassured yet again by the bulging bag of amulets. Glad of all the memories they carried, embarrassed that she’d once thought of them as worthless. Magic or not, here they were, still alive, still moving forwards, despite all that had happened.

  Grieve’s body felt warm and comfortable against her own. She’d relaxed enough to feel grateful for his presence, the risk he and Iago had taken to bust her out of that cell. It was not something she would ever admit to his face, though. He should never have lied to Iago, and yet the lie had set her free. Because of that lie, they had a chance, even if only a small one.

  They’d been lucky so far. Not a single tanker had been spotted. Not a single drone in hot pursuit. Perhaps their luck would see them through, at least until they reached their destination. By that point they’d need something else altogether stronger than luck.

  The sun ascended, illuminating the ragged terrain. Random half-fused chunks of weathered steel jabbed upwards from the gently undulating dunes. Hardy foliage grew in clumps and tufts. Strange grasses she didn’t know the names of. Nene would have known their names—and what medicine could be made from them.

  Nene. What had become of her? Star could only hope for the best: that Ebba or one of the others at Twelfth Man had taken her in, offered her food and somewhere safe to sleep. Those people owed her but that didn’t mean they could be relied upon, especially if her healing days were over. Fallow Heel had become a rough and crazy place, and she couldn’t help thinking the worst of it and its inhabitants.

  All her thoughts led to dark conclusions, no matter how hard she fought to shake them off. So she kept her mind and her eyes on that sickly borealis, sucking up light and blending it to muddy smudges. At its source was an ancient relic that planned to blast them all back into the age of stone and fire. A relic she was supposed to stop, somehow. Not somehow. She knew full well what needed to be done—and the thought was terrifying. So instead, she indulged in memories of life with Nene and her Van brat friends. Better times and better days, how much she would have changed, how much harder she’d have tried, if she could only do it all again.

  Grieve started whistling off key. “That scab in the sky. What do you make of it?” he said before she’d had a chance to tell him to stop it.

  “Poison, leeching out of that Lotus beast,” she said.

  “Helluva lot of poison, enough to turn the whole sky bad. I’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff—don’t get me wrong—but what kind of—”

  “We don’t have to understand it,” cut in Star. “We just have to shut it down.” And there’s only one way to do that, Star. Only one way to win.

  “Big, brave words, there’s no denying—and I know you’ve seen your share of pain and suffering. I’ve watched you put your knowledge to the test, watched you realized when it was time to abandon hope and wield the blade.”

  He took a dagger from his belt and stabbed at the sky with wild, exaggerated motions, trying to make her laugh. But she wasn’t in the mood.

  She swallowed dryly. Putting that old man out of his misery back amongst the rusting planes was not something she was proud of. “So what are you getting at?”

  He shrugged and put the blade away. “Smart folks can tell when a wound’s gone bad. When there’s nothing left to do but cut and run.”

  She glanced up at the hideous sky, forcing herself to hold a steady gaze. It affected her, made her blood run stale and sluggish. Made her feel so sick she had no choice but to look away.

  “Sometimes the patient’s already dead, know what I’m saying? Sometimes you gotta know when the story’s over.”

  “What you’re getting at, Grieve, is that perhaps I should have left you there, chained to that row of half-dead mutineers, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Grieve?”

  “Course not.”

  Iago was no longer singing to Iolani. They rode in silence, keeping a lookout for drones and tankers and other things that might pick up their scent. The debris-scattered landscape offered many hiding places for hungry predators, but so far nothing desperate enough to try its luck against a giant lizard.

  “There’s this place I found once,” said Grieve after a time, picking up the threads of the conversation, “by accident. A bit of the coast everyone forgot—Sand Road doesn’t go anywhere near it. An abandoned settlement—from recent years, not old. The snails and turtles and oysters have come back. Lobster too. And eels. Tools still lying around in the long tall grass.”

  She didn’t respond, but when he stopped talking, she turned her face towards him.

  He continued. “It’s really peaceful, although the winds get rough. I spent some time and halfway fixed a shelter, plugging up the cracks with sodden turf. Always meant to get on back to it.”

  “What if the people who lived there once return?”

  “They won’t. Reckon they built sailing boats and crossed the Risen Sea. Reckon I’d like to follow them some day. Selene and I were going to—”

  He stopped at the mention of her name.

  “Tell me about Selene. You talk about her a lot.”

  “You remind me—”

  Silence.

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The wind picked up, errant gusts snatching at their hair, slamming stinging sand against their cheeks. Iago shouted loudly to Iolani, then paused, as if expecting her to answer.

  Star jerked her body around to look Grieve in the eye. “Why are you helping me? Why aren’t you r
unning in the opposite direction, towards your little seaside sanctuary?”

  He pressed his lips together. “I’m not staying. Just getting you across the sand is all—after that I’m out of here. Him, too,” he said, nodding at Iago. “If he’s got half a brain.”

  “When he finds out the truth about his village, you mean.”

  Grieve’s expression clouded. “You can’t ask us to die for you on your damn fool suicide mission. You can’t stop that thing, whatever it is, but I know you’re gonna try. I know your type.”

  She rubbed her arm. The mesh didn’t feel like metal anymore, it felt like part of her own true skin. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the Lotus can’t be stopped, but I—”

  “Suicide!” he shouted in her face. “Madness!”

  Star laughed—she couldn’t help herself, it just slipped out. So unexpected—she hadn’t thought there was any laughter left inside her, not after everything they’d been through. Grieve was pulling faces like a monkey, trying to keep her laughter going. He had a way with people, no doubt about it. She didn’t want to like him and she knew she couldn’t trust him. Not really, but she couldn’t stop herself from feeling . . . something.

  He shook his head like a wet dog, straw hair spiking in all directions. Raucous laughter escaping his own lips. “Never been crazier before this day, I swear—and trust me, I done my share of crazy.”

  She compressed her laughter down into a smile. “The day I catch myself trusting someone like you . . .”

  Star turned back to face the front, not waiting for his reply, reminding herself of what lay ahead and that she’d have to face it on her own.

  Deep breaths, that’s what Lucius would have told her. Take deep breaths and focus on the task at hand. I’m doing it, she whispered. Doing it and trying to do you proud.