Frelsi (Book Two of The Liminality)

by A. Sparrow

  Now that she was here in the Liminality, she almost regretted wishing for it. How was being plopped down in this dark wilderness alone any better than hunting for James in Scottish church basements? At least there, they were guaranteed to find him. He might not even be here in this world.

  “James?” She called out, just in case he might be closeby. It was a long shot, but this was where they had last seen each other. He might have returned to wait for her.

  She recalled him pointing off the deck of that heaving Reaper at a dark dimple in the hillside, a box canyon. That was to be their designated meeting place. She understood the logic of the choice. It was distinctive, easily spotted from afar, even at night. It was off the main Reaper track, but not too far, to allow them to follow the trail of spoor to Frelsi. It held a water source and perhaps the possibility shelter in caves and overhangs.

  Alone, in the deep of night, the place held very little appeal. Its darkness gaped at her like the eye socket of a skull. In contrast, far up the side of a hill there were patches of glow that curved like static wildfire. It could only be Frelsi, and it looked so close. Just a few hours walk and she could be there. The sight of it made her spirit leap with hope.

  But she had to do her due diligence and check for James in the canyon. She got up, shook her nakedness free of grit and walked towards the darkness, her heart cowering, retreating with every step. She was not one to be afraid of the dark. How many nights she had roamed the drizzled gloom of Inverness alone, taking alleyways and garden paths to avoid any chance of being spotted by Papa or his minions?

  But this was different. There were no doors to knock on if she got into a tight spot. No kindly grandmothers with a fondness for waifs. She was on her own here, exposed to whatever lurked in those deep shadows.

  And it wasn’t the known that concerned her. She could deal with Reapers and Dusters and giant insects. What chilled her more were the things she hadn’t considered. Things she did not yet know existed. Because the Liminality had surprised her before with strange, new terrors. And it was a given that it would surprise her again.

  But her stride did not flag as she marched into the darkness, joining up with a lazy creek and follow its bank deep into the hollow, its steep walls flaring out like the jaws of a trap, sheathing the bottom in blackness. The joyful trickle of a slender waterfall provided the only consolation. She couldn’t remember her heart ever beating this fast.

  She reached the edge of the still pond, its surface as inscrutable as a pool of crude oil in the feeble starlight. She called out.

  “James?”

  Her voice echoed faintly against the walls of the box canyon. She shouted louder.

  “James!”

  There came no answer. She stood and waited, clutching her arms against her chest. She wasn’t cold as much as exposed. And she just didn’t have it in herself to attempt to Weave anything here, particularly if it meant crawling into some pit to fetch some roots.

  A breeze kicked up and rippled the pond. The shrubs across the way shivered their leaves. She supposed she could scratch together some sort of shelter of sticks and branches but this place spooked her. She couldn’t stay here, not by herself, not surety of seeing James.

  She would feel better on the move. Mobility would negate the sense that unseen things were sneaking up on her in the night, surrounding her, preparing an ambush. What sorts of things they might be, she had no idea, but she thought she could sense them gathering, and she wasn’t about to wait around for them to introduce themselves.

  Reapers bellowed on the plains. They were probably escort patrols, but there was no way she could be certain. They might just as well be Reapers from the tunnels below emerging to hunt down stray meat.

  And even if they did bear decking and crews, some primal instinct inside her prevented from seeking them out. It just seemed wrong to approach any Reaper voluntarily, against her human nature. She would rather walk to Frelsi by herself.

  She found a flat outcrop, took a rock and blindly scratched a simple message for James. She kissed the stone and laid it down gently, turned her back to the hollow and set out for the plains.

  Chapter 29: Yaqob

  I flopped and dangled in the ant’s mandibles as it raced up a vertical chute. I tried to hang on, my fingers seeking something to grip on its slick and waxy exoskeleton. But the creature wasn’t about to drop me. Tooth-like corrugations in its jaws held me snug. It applied just enough pressure so that it crushed no bones but I did not slip an inch.

  It bounded up a sluice, its head tilted up, holding me high so my legs wouldn’t bash against the rocks. I was never too crazy about heights. I guess there wasn’t much opportunity to familiarize myself growing up in the pancaked landscapes of Ohio and Florida. Even the dinky Ferris wheel at the St. Lucie county fair used to freak me out. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, wishing I could fade so I wouldn’t have to deal with this or what was to come.

  Rocks dislodged by Urszula’s ant came hurtling down, banging off the armored tibia of my ant, not fazing it one bit, though one direct hit with those grapefruit-sized stones would probably crush my skull.

  We crossed a slant of talus and then up another set of vertical, fluted cliffs—columns of basalt that rose like bundles of pencils. We passed through clouds, their mist basting me with tiny droplets.

  The moisture begot greenery. Tree ferns perched on every available ledge. Huge loops of vines dangled down, thickly crusted with lichen and ear-shaped mushrooms.

  We passed over a sharp lip and emerged onto the lumpy top of a huge plateau with bulges of meadow clothed in a blue-tinged elephant grass and wagging yellow blooms. Old Ones studded the landscape, embedded in the turf here and there, sporting their Mona Lisa smiles. Mists propelled by a swirling breeze bathed the landscape in dew.

  There were clumps of tree ferns here and there, and thickets of succulent plants, their leafless green stems and lobes connected at odd angles like a random construction of Tinker Toys. Worker ants bustled over the scaffolding, harvesting nectar from herds of aphids the size of small pigs.

  Beyond the groves rose the ruins of a low and angular city of stone, its towers shattered crumbing, their remains jutting upward like broken teeth. It was protected by a series of concentric walls of massive polygons of a dark and greasy-looking stone, its blocks fitted together tightly without mortar, in the manner of the Incas.

  The city looked like the aftermath of a battle between the kingdoms of the plants and the fungi. Fungi had claimed most of the lower reaches, with bulges of woody mushroom butting together to form chaotic collections of roofs and bowls that reminded me of oyster beds.

  The upper wards, though, were dominated by cloud forest. Ferns and moss covered every surface. Vines like giant anacondas formed free-standing trellises on which the giant mantids sunned themselves. Giant dragonflies patrolled high overhead, their wings sparkling in the sun.

  The ants carried us through a series of zigzagging, stone-lined trenches into an amphitheater-like bowl that had been stripped of all vegetation, depositing us in the center. Truck-sized patches of bubbles were heaped neatly along the periphery, some transparent, some gone cloudy where the sun struck them directly. Only when Dusters began swarming out of the bubble masses did I realize that they were dwellings.

  Their task completed, the ants bounded away and disappeared over the encircling wall. The crowd of Dusters hung back, gazing nervously back to a larger mass of bubbles draped over the terraced wall.

  “Are you fine?” said Urszula, panting.

  “Fine? Yeah. I’m okay. I guess.”

  A small Duster stepped out of the crowd and gawked at us, her eyes alive with curiosity.

  “That’s a girl. A child. How is that possible? Do you people … give birth here?”

  “No,” said Urszula. “She is Fea. She is an error. She should never have been sent to the Deeps. But she was.”

  Fea’s approach emboldened the others and they all gathered around, jabbering an
d bantering in their strange tongue, peppering Urszula with questions and accusations. From their tone alone I could sense that some relayed concern, while some dripped with derision.

  Some leaped forward to prod me with their scepters before springing back. Gobs of spittle came flinging my way, which I mostly dodged. Urszula scolded the spitters and threatened them with her claws, but they just shook their scepters and laughed.

  Urszula struggled to rise to her feet, but collapsed back down. Two women rushed forward and examined her wounds. Her ankle was looking mighty ugly. It had swollen to monstrous proportions and threatened to break out of its wrapping.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd as a pair of huge soldier ants came over the wall besides the largest of the bubble houses.

  “Yaqob is here,” said Urszula. “Let me speak. You stay silent.”

  “Who’s Yaqob?”

  “Here he comes! Silent!”

  A stocky and muscular man with a blocky beard came striding between the ants. Dark patches covered his cheeks and brow like a mask, exaggerating his pale, grey eyes.

  I recognized him. He was the leader of the group that nabbed me and tossed me into the pit when I had attempted to go up the canyons.

  The women attending to Urszula stripped off the splint and wrappings from her bruised and purple ankle and forearm, replacing them with a pink and brown slime one of the woman squeezed from a pouch made of folded palm fronds.

  Urszula threw her head back and groaned as the slime frothed and swirled over her wounds, penetrating her flesh like acid.

  This Yaqob bore a scepter bigger than any I had seen. It had a flared and knobbed end, like a Polynesian war club. He climbed onto a pearly platform of overlapping fans of fungus just outside the center of the bow, claiming it as if it were his throne. It seemed molded perfectly to his proportions.

  The soldier ants took up positions to either side of him. They were much bulkier and longer of limb than the workers that had borne Urszula and me up the side of the mesa. Their mandibles bore wicked, foot-long spikes that would have impaled a soft-bodied creature like me had they tried to carry me. The angular flanges and thick wedges of their armor looked sufficient to deflect bullets. They stared inscrutably at me with compound eyes, their antennae continually waving and sampling the chemistry of the air.

  A woman came rushing over to Yaqob bearing a huge, lidded mug that looked like a caveman’s beer stein, handing it to him with a deep bow. He seized it from her, opened the lid and took a large gulp of some frothy, yellow liquid. Bits of foam clung to his dark beard.

  He rested the mug on his knee, took a deep breath and looked down on us with disdain. He started muttering to Urszula in a low squawk. She squawked back, breathless and wincing as the brown ooze went to work on her wounds. Yaqob’s lips peeled back and he grimaced at me like a chimp, exposing a set of perfect, taupe and pointed fangs.

  The girl—Fea—ran up to me and touched my hair with one finger and ran back into the crowd. Yaqob bellowed at her. He stood up and tucked his scepter against his forearm and extended it towards me. The other Dusters did the same.

  Urszula shrieked and crawled over to shield me with her body.

  “They want to obliterate you.”

  “Why? Coming here wasn’t my idea. Those fucking ants.” From all the vicious, skulking looks that Urszula’s friends were giving me, I was already girding myself to meet the Deeps.

  Yaqob came off his throne and loomed over me, jabbered in my face.

  “He knows not what you say you fool,” said Urszula. “He is speaking only English.”

  “Stupid spy? He expects to return to Frelsi?”

  “He is no spy,” said Urszula. “He wants no part of Frelsi. He is on his own.”

  “And what would a Hemisoul seek in Neueden?”

  “He seeks nothing. He was helping me return home.”

  “Why? What did you promise him?”

  “Nothing. He is just helping, because that is what he wants.”

  “You coerced him?”

  “I did not. I was at their mercy, at the brink of a feeding trough. He rescued me from the Reapers on his own volition. He asks for nothing in return.”

  This prompted a ruckus of confused deliberation.

  “Cheater. What is he doing out of the pits?” said another Duster, an unusually tall man with a black bar running up the center of his face.

  “He found his way out. Like all of us. Can you blame him?”

  “We all paid our dues in the Deeps. This one is a Cheater.”

  “Send him to the Deeps!” screamed a woman in the back of the crowd.

  “No! This one is not like the others,” said Urszula. “He does not aspire to Frelsi. He has refused their mark. Look at his arm.”

  Several came forward. A woman grabbed his arm and twisted it, roughly.

  “And not only this,” said Urszula. “He has the Craft in him. He is not just a Weaver. Show them, James. Show them your scepter.”

  “My what?”

  And then I realized she was talking about that twisty little smooth-barked twig I had in my back pocket. I pulled it out and held it up. The crowd shrank back defensively. Some drew their own scepters that ranged in size from walking canes to shepherd’s crooks. My twig was less than a foot and a half long and only a half inch across at its thickest point.

  Yaqob started to croak rhythmically like an overheated frog. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing. And then the rest of them put away their scepters and roared. Those that knelt beside him toppled and rolled in the dirt, consumed with paroxysms of laughter.

  They were so consumed in mirth that I probably could have gotten away right them. The only thing that dissuaded me was that thousand foot drop off the edge of the mesa.

  “Show me what he can do,” said Yaqob.

  “Show him,” said Urszula.

  “Show him what?”

  “What you can do.”

  “With that swizzle stick?” said Yaqob. “That’s barely adequate to stir my drink.”

  He took another gulp and clomped down his massive mug back down on his knee.

  A weird, little tickle traveled down my spine. I never did react well to belittling. I took my swizzle stick and pointed it at his drink.

  A bolus of energy erupted in my nerves. Like a squirrel frantic to get free, it shot down my arm, through the twig and out the tip in a blob of whirling plasma.

  It struck his mug square on, pulverizing all but the handle. The contents sloshed onto his lap.

  The mood in the amphitheatre turned murderous. A dozen scepters pointed at my head, but Urszula continued to shield me.

  “You asked for a demonstration. He provided it. Now back off.”

  “What do we do with him? We can’t just release him.”

  “Why not?” said Urszula, panting, her eyes clenched tight. Steam began to rise from the brown foam slathered on her wounded limbs.

  “Mantis prey,” said a woman.

  “To dust with him!”

  “Stop!” said Urszula, bolting up, eyes glaring. “He is mine. I brought him here.”

  “Since when do we keep slaves … or pets?” said Yaqob.

  “I found him. I claim him.”

  “This is not right,” said Yaqob. “His soul is committed to the Deeps.”

  “How will the Deeps improve him?”

  “It is the penance of doom,” said the Duster who towered over the others. He must have been close to seven feet tall. “We all have paid the price.”

  “James saved me from the Reapers, Kyrim,” said Urszula. “I would not be here if not for him.”

  “You can’t keep him here,” said Yaqob. “He’s not one of us.”

  “I will deal with him, once I heal.”

  “He can’t stay.”

  “He won’t! I said I would deal with him.”

  “It had better be soon. His presence soils us all.”

  “Is it wise to reject potential alliances? Our numbers only
dwindle.”

  “Alliances? With the Hemisouls that Frelsi rejects? Please. I want him gone before the sun falls. I don’t care how he goes. Just make him gone.”

  He rose from his throne and strode off without looking back. The soldier ants followed behind him.

  Urszula swiped a glob of the brown foam from her wrist and flicked it on the ground, defiantly. Her chest heaved. She flexed her mended hand. Some of the strain had left her face. I could tell that her pain had eased.

  “Come,” she said. “I need more time to heal. But then I will take you.”

  “Take me where?”

  “Wherever you want to go.”

  Yaqob disappeared into his own regal mass of froth, while his ant guardians took up stations on the vine-covered wall above.

  A blob of mist came pulsing over the wall and swept across the amphitheater like a ghost. Most of the Dusters had dispersed but several lingered, staring and glaring at me, rolling their scepters in their fingers.

  Urszula snapped at them and they snarled back. She rose slowly and tested her mended leg, and this time, it held her weight. She took one step and then another, limping heavily, but it amazed me that she could walk at all, considering her ankle only minutes earlier had been a mass of swollen flesh.

  “Come. We need to get you out of sight. Without Yaqob here, someone might be tempted to mess you up. I have no scepter to defend you.”

  Sneering at those who looked on, she clamped her hand around mine and led me out of the amphitheater.

  ***

  We passed through a network of zigzagging walled passages down into sunken courtyards and up over elevated plazas. There were living mummies scattered everywhere, some seated, some prone, some with vines snaking around their limbs.

  “These poor things,” I said. “Are they like … paralyzed?”

  “They do not feel connected to this world. Their bodies are merely receptacles. Their minds are their universe.”

  “How did they get this way?”

  “I think their souls are sated,” said Urszula. “One can only hold so many experiences and memories from an existence. And when a soul fills, it turns inward and moves on. But where do they go? Nobody knows. We can’t ask the Old Ones. None have ever returned to this existence.”