Through the End

by Parker Jaysen

  “Leave the raptor?”

  “For the glory.”

  “Just once around the oasis. It’s almost dawn!” I know my voice has turned shrill, but Dinah laughs and vaults onto the raptor’s back and holds out her gauntleted hand. “Giddyap.”

  We’ve not ridden together since that first day, because now we know how to fix anything that goes wrong with a raptor. And because it’s foolish to abandon a perfectly good ride, especially with a hellhole just kilometers away.

  I climb up and settle behind Dinah, my helmet against her shoulder, arms around her middle.

  Under her breasts.

  By just a little.

  I breathe in. This feels far too much like holding Dinah the way a lover would. And not at all enough.

  “Ready or not!” shouts Dinah, and she slams the raptor into top gear.

  I tighten my grip on Dinah’s stomach; the alternative is to fly right off. “You’re a maniac!” I answer into the helmet comm. Dinah laughs.

  We make three circuits of the pool at a speed that I’m sure exceeds raptor specifications, stopping only because I suspect Dinah is a little dizzy. I certainly am.

  I hold onto Dinah just a moment too long and then take a deep breath and slide out of the saddle. As Dinah dismounts breathlessly, she smacks her ride on the rear haunch. “Thanks, Bruce.”

  I snort.

  She’s made me forget she’s leaving, for a few minutes.

  We’ve pitched tents, and in the last hour of pre-dawn, we’re sitting at the edge of the pool.

  “I love this place,” Dinah says. She gives me this look. My face is suddenly hot. “I’m sure it loves you too,” I say, a bit too quickly. Does she mean this pool? The desert itself?

  Her place by my side?

  “What will I ride in the station, Charlie? A scooter? One of those wheelie things, hauling manure from the goat paddock?”

  “Oh god, you’re going to be a farmer.”

  Dinah laughs and cuffs my shoulder, but now I’m stricken at the idea. Someone like Dinah, she shouldn’t be sidelined to station drudge. Not that retired riders are drudges. But not Dinah. How could that ever be right for someone so alive and unafraid?

  I could ride with her on her wheelie. Arms around her middle. Breathing in the scent that is only Dinah’s.

  “Right,” Dinah says. “I’ll name my scooter. Give it tidbits of – I wonder what scooters eat then?”

  She sounds almost Dinah-normal.

  But now she’s on her feet and scanning the underbrush as if looking for something. “First thing at the oasis – remember? Glory nights, Char. Help me find one?”

  I do remember, and I’d rather not.

  “Uh, Di.”

  She freezes and puts her fist up as if to command quiet, and then leaps forward into some grasses, coming up with a lashing viper. It’s black and orange in the solars, it’s about Dinah’s size, and it is furious at being held.

  “I remember,” I say, “thinking that you hadn’t maybe thought things through.”

  Dinah looks at the hissing creature curiously. “Well.”

  “I’m still not sure you’ve thought this through,” I say. “You’ve had eight years.”

  The trick is for Dinah to release the viper without it flipping back and nabbing her exposed skin – and then hoping it doesn’t hold a grudge. But she needs both her hands just to hold it. So catch and release is not an option – it’s now him or us. This will be a difficult killing blow for me to make, past those three lashing tails.

  “What’s the saying?” she says, grunting with effort. “Blue flu, red dead, orange you hoping I didn’t say orange?”

  “That is not a saying,” I say. But orange is a bad color in vipers.

  “Orange orange, who’s got the orange,” Dinah croons. “Surely that is a saying.”

  Only Dinah could have me laughing while fearing for both our lives. Of course, only Dinah routinely gets us into such situations in the first place.

  “This is just a reenactment, right? For glory?” I say. “What did we use last time?”

  “A dagger? Do you even still carry your dagger? I thought that thing was decorative.”

  Angry orange guy is slowing his lashing a bit, and the muscles in Dinah’s forearms are as taut as stone. She is trying to smother him with her fingers, but it’s said these vipers breathe through their skin. That’s going to take a long time.

  “If you can get it against that rock, I’ll cut its head off.”

  “It’s a real dagger? What do you know! I think I gave mine away as a gag.” She’s concentrating on getting the beast where I’ve pointed.

  I have to be careful and accurate. The thing’s fangs are deadly, but so is his blood. It will spray and burn us.

  It’s hissing in a fury, but it’s clear it is tiring.

  So is Dinah. She grits her teeth. “No rush, get a nap first if you like.”

  At first, the dagger is heavy and awkward in my hand – it’s true, we don’t use them on a typical run. But it comes back to me. And for a very strange instant, my memory of that first ride with Dinah also includes a memory of a prior ride, ad infinitum. That is the effect of how synced we are. Everything is always as if we’ve practiced it a hundred times.

  I balance the dagger in my hand now with perfect familiarity, the abrasive edge of the crushed gems worked into its crossguard, its throwing weight, its lines of thrust and parry.

  The viper spits and flares its hood as I approach.

  It is a creature of hell. Its scales aren’t very different from Mouse’s, up close. Chitinous, iridescent in the solar lamps. Perfectly evolved for one thing: beating every ounce of Dinah’s magical strength into submission.

  It doesn’t spatter much, after all.

  Dinah had been jubilant back then, her first demon kill. She isn’t jubilant now. She stares down at the corpse.

  It’s big. Coils of muscle as big around as my thigh, meters of it, slowly slipping into the shallows of the oasis pool.

  She pokes at it, careless of its acidic offal. “Gods.” She pulls her hand back and inspects the angry blister blooming on her knuckle. “I guess that’s fair.” Somehow she reads my mind. “How is this creature not related to Mouse?”

  “It does make one wonder,” I say. I rinse my dagger and wipe it. “But we are definitely not expected to treat the dragon like this.”

  “No, no,” she says. “Mouse is – cute.”

  I watch as she washes and treats her burned hand. “As long as you don’t go all Thea on us and start adopting vipers and naming them Bart and Benjy.”

  “I still know who’s the bad guy out here and who’s the good guy.”

  “Yeah?” I say. “I guess, maybe.” Mouse. Skeletons in tunnels. Thea. The guild.

  Dinah rummages in her pack and pulls out the little red book of kills and injuries. “But the toughest one? That’s always going to be me.” She gives herself a checkmark.

  “Yes, yes. You’re very tough.”

  Dawn – the boundary between cool night with its shadowed mysteries, and the hell of day. It’s part of being a desert rider, this oasis magic after a hard night’s ride. The Milky Way wheels away to the west, the solars dim in the approaching fire, and secrets break loose from hearts that have had to be too strong, for too long.

  Dinah, still weary from the viper fight, lazily shoos the scorpions off of a circle of ancient cement so we can sit at the edge of the pool. Verdins and owl-things scuffle around somewhere above us as night retreats.

  “This would be all right,” Dinah says. She kicks at the water, scattering the reflection of the fingernail moon. “Imagine if I could stay at a place like this instead of a real station.”

  “I could see that,” I say. “Waystation keeper.” Being alone wouldn’t bother Dinah.

  “Lonely though,” Dinah says.

  In the shadows, I feel her glance flicker towards me. “Oh, you’re never alone in the desert.”

  “I’m alone most of the
time,” Dinah murmurs. She gives me a look and stands up to strip to boxers and bra.

  “There could be bitey things,” I say uselessly, as Dinah jumps in and cuts through the water with efficient strokes. Dinah doesn’t care about bitey things.

  She does a neat flip turn and swims back to where I’m sitting. Between the vast sky and the black pool, her eyes glitter with what look like all the stars in the world. “I think you are supposed to be in the water by now, in the glory run,” she says.

  I’m used to trying not to overinterpret Dinah. But surely she’s not talking about that kiss. My heart is in my throat as I slip into the water. God, it’s cold. My skin is reacting to everything. The look in Dinah’s eyes.

  “Did we swim?” I murmur.

  I lean forward, buoyed by both the water and our figments of glory, and kiss Dinah gently. I mean it to be symbolic if that’s what Dinah is looking for, but Dinah sucks in a harsh breath and opens her mouth to me.

  Is it unfinished business causing this crazy trembling in my limbs? Dinah’s mouth is exquisite, her fingers just strong enough on my shoulders.

  Or is it Dinah who is trembling?

  Dinah never trembles.

  I meet her kiss and one of us groans, I can’t even tell which.

  “Your taste,” she says. “You taste the same.” Damned if her voice doesn’t hold wonder.

  “It’s still me,” I say.

  “It is.” Dinah’s answering smile is genuine, her gaze still star-filled, and I think I might faint from the pleasure of this moment. Finally, finally, Dinah in my arms, just her, under the heavens.

  Dinah laughs with husky delight and dives backwards and away. It is jubilant, not an escape. I laugh, too. This silly girl, cutting through the water, her boundless energy returned.

  But something is stirred up, something that only I feel, as venom spreads up my calf on a rope of fire.

  The pain reaches my throat, and I’d shriek if I could breathe. Instead I gasp weakly, slip under the water, gasp again, and fall into dark and cold.

  “God fucking dammit someone needs to burn this entire place to the fucking ground,” I hear. The cursing continues in a steady stream.

  There’s a boulder on my leg, or a rhino. Something large and heavy and possibly smelly.

  I try to shake my head against the smell.

  Is there a skunk? There wasn’t a skunk before. There’s a taste like rancid almonds and I can’t feel any of my limbs.

  “So help me, if you die, I’ll fucking kill you myself,” Dinah is saying, and I open my eyes to argue.

  And the strangest thing I have ever seen happens. Dinah bursts into tears.

  “Tortoise bite, is there a page for that?” Dinah leafs through her red log book.

  “It was a tortoise?”

  She opens to a clean page and writes. “Near-death tortoise bite.”

  “I wasn’t near death. I choked on pool water.”

  “I think I know what near death looks like.” She tucks the book away. “This wasn’t on the plan for the glory run,” Dinah says. “Swim. That was the plan.”

  Kiss. That was also the plan.

  My leg is still paralyzed, but not from the bite. Dinah must have given me a huge hit of freeze. That was quite a nerve block.

  “Is a swim still out of the question?” I say.

  Dinah cocks her head.

  “Okay, maybe more of a floating.”

  Dinah reaches out and I see her touch the area around the bite, but I can’t feel the light brush of her fingers. “I see.” She still has her head tilted and she smiles oddly at me. “I panicked. I think I gave you a triple injection.”

  Panicked. Dinah? Impossible.

  “Floating might work, if you really want. I’ll help you in and keep any more whatevers off you.”

  Floating sounds wonderful, I nod. Dinah holding me while I float sounds even better.

  Dinah shines a light around the pool, under the surface. Nothing but nibblers. She puts her arm around my shoulders and helps me into the water.

  I close my eyes and let Dinah hold me. The feel of water on my skin everywhere but my leg is amusing.

  Dinah’s arm around my shoulders is mind-blowing.

  The same arm that held a viper, that nearly killed it.

  She’s made of steel muscle and magic speed, and she is holding me like I’m gossamer.

  I’m surprised to find I dozed. Sometimes the adrenaline of venom keeps you awake for hours. Sometimes your brain will decide to rest for a minute instead.

  When I wake, or half-wake, Dinah is cradling me and looking into my face with such an expression, I wonder what we could have been talking about for her to be so earnest.

  Sweet and earnest, as if she were holding something precious.

  Dinah glances at the eastern sky. “No more lollygagging.” This is pale banter, by Dinah’s usual standards. “Let’s get you into a tent.”

  She helps me up, still with impossibly gentle hands.

  “I should have been more careful,” she says, almost to herself. “Our one last glory swim wasn’t supposed to end like this.”

  Does she regret kissing again? Maybe she regrets both times.

  I think about it for a long while before sinking into a dreamless daysleep.

  ACT III

  The bite is festery when I wake, but there are plenty of antibiotics in the raptor kits. I’ve had worse, frankly.

  So I enjoy waiting, half-dozing, as dusk descends. I can’t get Dinah’s expression out of my mind. I don’t want to.

  My heart jumps when I hear Dinah stirring in her own tent, and then there’s a sudden curse, tent material rips, and Dinah is yanking my tent open. I jolt up. My leg is perfectly capable of sensation this morning, unfortunately. I wince.

  “You fucking scared me to death,” Dinah says. “You’re always up first.”

  “Well, the terrible leg bite,” I say.

  Dinah flings the tent closed and stomps around muttering. “Your canteen is ready,” she says grumpily.

  “Isn’t this a hell of a thing.” Dinah has helped me onto my raptor, but we can tell it isn’t going to work. The leg will either be screaming with pain or numb from a gel pack, and either way it’s making me so dizzy with echoes of that vile skunk taste that I can’t stay upright unassisted.

  So with many wry chuckles we combine supplies in one raptor, and our last glory run is back on after all.

  We’ll notify the guild when we can, someone will collect my raptor. Or it can stand guard there at Maura Pool forever. I’m not sure we aren’t past caring at this point.

  When Dinah helps me up, and then hops up herself and settles in front of me, I don’t hesitate to put my arms around her.

  “How’s the leg,” she asks gruffly.

  “Oh, I can’t even feel it,” I say.

  “You’re hilarious.” Dinah slaps the raptor and we rocket forward.

  Dinah stays solicitous half the ride back to Thea and Lucy, until it’s clear that I’m moving better and the venom effects are fading.

  I’m not sure which Dinah is more appealing: worried Dinah, with gentle hands, or hilarious Dinah making the raptor take running leaps over gullies, pretending they’re filled with vipers.

  Both, I decide. I like both.

  A lot.

  As we come into the little encampment, it feels as if we’ve been gone more than four nights. Mouse, already larger again, peers down on us from a ledge.

  Mouse is a predator. She’s large enough to tear any of us apart.

  “Mouse!” Dinah shouts. The creature’s head lifts and swivels towards us. I’d swear it looks delighted, and it glides down to land right in front of our raptor.

  Which it is now larger than. How is that possible?

  Dinah skritches the top of Mouse’s head before leaping to the ground.

  The dragon sniffs the air and then huffs at my leg.

  “Yeah, Charlie got a good chunk taken out of her, you’re right,” Dinah says. “S
uch a smart girl you are.”

  Thea laughs. “She is that.” She calls the dragon back so I can slide off the raptor.

  “What happened to your ride?” Lucy asks.

  Dinah and I exchange a look that makes my pulse trip. “Well,” Dinah finally says. “The terrible leg bite. The raptor’s fine. This is fine.”

  “Ah,” Thea says.

  Over a meal, we make a full report of our attempt to establish a tunnel route, and display the gems and machine parts recovered from the ancient lab.

  For their part, Thea and Lucy report that guild comms are still jammed with hellhole static – but the hellhole itself has retreated, or shrunken, and their ley sense suggests the way will be clear soon.

  The looks are repeated when I start setting up solo tents for daysleep.

  No, we’re not sleeping together. I knock a tent peg into a crevice. And we won’t, so everyone can stop giving each other looks and we can deliver our cargo and be done.

  I curse when the peg snaps.

  “She’s still tired from the bite,” Dinah explains helpfully.

  “I’m fine,” I snap, and plunge into my tent.

  Alone. Again.

  I wake to low laughter from the double tent.

  My leg hurts and I’m thirsty, so I stumble out to get a drink and then pee. It’s late afternoon, and our tents are in the lee of a rock, creating a shield against the rads. Even so, the heat is bearable for only a minute, and I hurry back under a reflector.

  Dinah is outside her tent, on her way back in with a canteen herself. “How’s the leg?” she whispers.

  “Oh come in,” I say irritably.

  It’s a single tent with no room for us to both stand at once.

  “Lay down so I can check it,” Dinah says.

  There’s no leadership structure on this mission anymore. Maybe the damned dragon is in charge now.

  I lie down obediently.

  “Did you give yourself the antibiotic?” She is frowning at the wound.

  My brain is a bit muddy. “I think so.”

  “Hold on.” Dinah ducks out of the tent and rummages in the raptor outside.