Ari Goes To War: (The Adventures of Ari #2)

by P. J. Sky

  From her place on her knees, somewhere in the middle of this mass of people, Ari peered backwards up the ridge. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen so many people concentrated in one single place before. Spread along the edge of the ridge were the men in the red robes, spears upright, blank faces scanning the empty space above everyone’s heads.

  The crowd seemed to be facing a sort of built up stage adorned with colourful flowers in reds and yellows and blues. Ari was reminded of the flowers in the hollow eye sockets of the skulls; this marriage of beauty and death.

  Was that what they grew in the fields? Not wheat or corn but flowers?

  Throughout the audience, people had vivid yellow blooms woven into their hair, blood red blossoms tucked behind their ears, or sapphire blue florets laced around their necks in rings. It was as if the people here hoped the sweet fragrances of the flowers might mask the ever-present toxic stench. These flowers were beautiful, yet for reasons Ari couldn’t explain, their beauty seemed out of place. The dry and discarded petals collected around Ari’s knees and fluttered across the audience, mingling with the red dust and the flecks of white ash that trickled down from the sky like a dead rain, and for which people cupped their hands above their heads as if to catch.

  Ari’s fingers found the dry carcass of a dead flower, trodden under foot, its petals split. In a way, a cut flower was already dead, its time alive cut dangerously short. Like the skulls on the spikes, it was this combination of beauty and death that Ari found most alarming. She released the flower and it fell to the ground. The people here seemed like these cut flowers. Dressed and fed but pressed to the earth, as if already preparing for what might naturally follow.

  Behind the stage was what must have been the remains of the mine. A cone of red rock erupted out from the ground, forming a sort of natural chimney. From its top, the thick grey smoke vented into the sky. At its base, where it spewed from the miniature mountaintop, the smoke was almost yellow. Across the whole basin, the noxious vapour was unavoidable. It permeated everything, like an ever-present spectre infusing itself with everyone and everything.

  Hmmmmmmmm…

  The vibrations rippled across the crowd. Some people kept their heads down, hands clasped together, while others had their heads back, palms open to the sky, as if basking in some unseen ray of light, tongues out as if to taste the noxious ash.

  Ari watched a girl, her pale skin blotched with the red welts of sunburn, tip her head from side to side, her eyes closed, her neck craned like a flower towards the column of smoke. Freckles bloomed across the bridge of her nose and her long, blonde hair, almost white, blew in the breeze. Her pale lips parted. The girl opened her eyes and looked at her.

  Ari looked away, heat rising to her cheeks. She’d been seen.

  Dag it Ari, you have to be more careful.

  The crowd fell silent.

  They know, someone saw me.

  Ari resisted the urge to glance again at the girl. Her fingers started to shake and a warm heat rose from her gut.

  Perhaps just one glance, just to be safe.

  She peeked out from under the rim of her hood. The girl was gone. Everyone now looked ahead, towards the stage. Ari followed their gaze and saw that three people had stepped out onto it.

  The first was what looked like a guard in a red robe. He held a long spear upright and had yellow flowers in a loop around his neck. The second was much larger. Draped in black, this dark presence stood in the centre of the stage. His vast, bald head, seemed to be drained of all colour. He held his palms outstretched, like two white claws emerging from his dark robes, held out as if to embrace the entire audience. His dark eyes were like two black holes.

  It took a moment for Ari to drag her eyes from this dark figure, as if he somehow drained the world of everything but himself. When she did, her eyes fell on the third figure; tall, slender, a pale blue robe, a ring of blue flowers strung around her neck and more as a crown, laced through her long, dark hair. Even from this distance, Ari thought she could see those blue eyes twinkle like storm-flecked sapphires.

  The star that twinkles, faintly blue.

  Starla.

  ∆∆∆

  “I am the Morning Star.”

  His deep, smooth voice drenched his audience in the same way water surged around the rocks of a flowing river.

  Ari focused on the girl in the long, blue robe. Starla didn’t look in trouble; she almost looked complicit. Ari had expected to find her locked away, not standing on a stage.

  The dark presence continued to speak.

  “I am the end of the long, hard night that this world has endured century after century after century.”

  There was something uniquely unsettling in the way he delivered each word. His accent was strange, deliberate, measured, as if this wasn’t the language he normally spoke, and yet he’d mastered it anyway. Ari found herself drawn back to his words and those two, dark eyes that seemed to swallow in all light.

  The dark presence lowered his bare hands. His big, round head, almost skull-like in its pale form, moved back and forth across his audience.

  “For five-hundred years, from deep within my mountain, I have watched each and every one of you. I’ve watched your pain, your suffering, your daily struggle to survive this place. I watched until I could watch no more. I was there when you went hungry, I was there when you went thirsty, I felt your every pain as if it were my own. And like you I was trapped, locked in an eternal darkness, in search of salvation and no more able to effect the course of your lives than I could my own.”

  He shook his head and lowered his eyes. As those black eyes disappeared beneath his eyelids, it was as if the colours of the world returned; the brightness of the flowers, the redness of the cone of rock behind the stage, the deep, porcelain blue of Starla’s eyes. His chest expanded and his voice lowered.

  “I watched when they lied to you. When your parents lied, when your teachers lied, when the very people who’d put themselves…” His voice rose. “Yes, put themselves in charge of your lives, your destinies.”

  He opened his eyes and clenched his fingers into a fist.

  “As if you and I were unworthy of choosing the path of our own destiny.”

  He raised his fist to the audience.

  “They dared to call themselves our leaders and they did it with lie after lie after lie, with the sole intention of keeping us down in the dust and the dark tunnels and out of the light. Those cheats, those liars. And that is what most angered me, that from the day you were born their sole objective was to undermine everything that you might become. But their denial will be their downfall, for who here cannot see the depravity of this world? Who here cannot see the suffering, the death and dying that is all around us every day, and yet those leaders do nothing except take and take and take, and they took from you. They are thieves. And though they even now deny it, it is they who have killed the world.”

  He lowered his fist and on his pale lips formed something that might have been close to a smile.

  “But, my children, you have made it here, to this holy place. The final days of this earth are upon us, this suffering is almost over. They have killed the world, but we shall turn our backs on it. And very soon now, we shall transcend these mortal shells and, like ornamental birds released from our cages, we shall ascend together. We shall cast away the painful memories of all who’ve cheated and lied and wronged us, for they shall burn while we shall take our places for all eternity among the stars.”

  Extending his arm, he pointed a finger towards the audience.

  “The places that each and every one of you has earned with every suffering that you have endured at the hands of those who’ll burn. The day comes soon, when the moon will eat the sun, and we shall ascend.”

  He lowered his arm, curling his fingers back into a fist. He turned his head towards Starla, nodded his head, and turned back to the audience.

  The man in black, thought Ari, he must be the Bone Pointer. I gotta get St
arla away from him somehow.

  She scanned across the basin to where she could see, poking up from behind the ridge, the tower and the gleaming, metal silos.

  There must be buildings there, maybe they’re hiding her there when they’re not putting her up on the stage? In these crowds, I reckon I could go anywhere without being noticed.

  When Ari looked back at the stage the Bone Pointer seemed to be looking directly at her.

  Ari froze. Her heart started to race.

  He can’t see me in this crowd, he could be looking at anyone, couldn’t he?

  But his dark eyes, like two deep pools, felt like they were penetrating her soul. Then he opened his mouth.

  “There is an infidel among us.”

  The audience began to chatter.

  Panic rose in Ari’s gut. Her breathing descended into short, sharp bursts. Those dark eyes seemed to bore into her.

  “She is a non-believer, a turncoat. She is one that would deceive.”

  The chatter grew.

  He raised his arm and pointed one long, pale finger directly at her.

  Ari tore her eyes from the Bone Pointer’s. All around, people were standing and facing her; lowering their hoods, clenching their fists. Men in red robes were moving through the audience.

  “She cannot remain among us.”

  All at once, like a pack of raving dogs, hands piled onto her; clenching, grasping, pulling, scratching. She was dragged to the ground, her neck stretched back, face pressed into the dust.

  She cried out.

  Hot bodies pressed against her and Ari choked on the stench of sweat and raw meat and the perfumed flowers and sandalwood. Bare feet kicked at the red dust and the dry petals. Her cheek ground against the dirt and her jaw pressed against the inside of her mouth until she tasted iron.

  With her left hand, she tried to reach the blade in its sheath by her ankle. Her canteen pressed painfully into her gut. Fingers clenched like irons around her wrists.

  An elbow pressed between Ari’s shoulder-blades. She felt the air being squeezed from her lungs, unable to breathe. Her eyes blurred with tears.

  “Stop,” cried the Bone Pointer. “Bring her to me.”

  The elbow disappeared. In the hot, sweaty atmosphere Ari gasped for breath. She choked and looked up at the angry faces, their eyes wide and manic. She could see a guard in a red robe pushing his way through the crowds. From behind, someone pulled back her hood and she felt a hand over her shaven head, pulling her face towards the sky. Another took her elbows, pulling her arms back. As robed followers scrambled out of her way, she was propelled through the audience towards the stage.

  Her feet stumbled in the dust and the dead flowers. She tumbled onto her knees on a patch of ground directly in front of the stage.

  The vast, dark figure looked down on her with those two huge, dark eyes, like two dark pools, two vast black pupils and nothing more, and yet somehow they glowed with their own phosphorescent hue as if, deep down inside them, something irresistible glowed.

  Beyond the eyes, the great round head was so pale it was almost white, the skin slick and shiny, almost like that of a newborn joey, and so thin you could practically see through it to the bulbous skull beneath. The man flared his wide, upturned nostrils like a camel. Beneath his black robes, his great chest heaved. He opened his mouth, exposing a line of razor teeth, and it was almost as if he was smiling.

  “I’ve sensed this of course,” he said. “The sister.”

  Chapter 23

  Ari winced as the guard, a black eye patch over his left eye, hurled the icy contents of a second bucket of water at her. On the cold floor of the cave, she shivered and spat from her mouth a wad of phlegm and blood. She choked and pushed herself into the wall of the cave. She heard a girl’s voice; prim, clipped.

  “No, stop that.”

  Ari peeled open her swollen eyelids. The guard retreated through the barred door of her cell. He swung it closed and Ari heard the clank of the key in the lock. From beneath his red hood, his single eye glinted. Beside him, in the gloom, she could just make out the outline of Starla’s face. Starla approached the bars and, in the single shaft of natural light, her wide eyes shimmered, deep and blue. Her robe was much like the white ones the followers all wore, like the one Ari had before it was taken from her by the guards, only Starla’s was a pale blue like the Maker Star. In her fingers, Starla held a blue flower by its stem.

  The bucket swung from the hand of the guard. “He said to wake ‘er.”

  “Well, not like that, if nothing else it’s such a waste. Besides, she’s awake now.”

  The guard shrugged. “Well, I’ll leave ya to it then.”

  The guard lumbered into the gloom. Starla knelt down by the bars. “Ari, you came.”

  Ari coughed and pulled herself up to a sitting position. She leant against the cold, jagged wall and wiped her nose. Her lip was swollen and she tasted blood.

  “They shouldn’t have hit you like that,” continued Starla. “He didn’t want them to, you must know that, but they get so… overenthusiastic. Everyone does here.”

  Ari squinted. Starla’s bright blue eyes sparkled as brightly as they ever had before. In fact, if it were possible, they now shone even brighter, though deep purple rings had formed beneath them. Her skin was smooth and pale, with just a flush of red in her cheeks. And… she was smiling. She was actually smiling, and more widely than Ari ever remembered her doing before. Starla never smiled before.

  “I told him, you know…” said Starla.

  Maybe it was the bruises, or maybe it was Starla’s manic expression, but Starla already seemed just as annoying as Ari remembered her. She moved her swollen lips. “Told ‘im wha’?”

  “I told him why you came.”

  “An’ why’s tha’?”

  “Well, in pilgrimage of course. I mean, he says otherwise, but why else would you come?”

  Ari shrugged. “Guess ya right.” Water ran down Ari’s cheeks. With her tongue, she explored her split lip. “So tell me, sister, wha’ ya doin’ ‘ere? Ya don’t look like no hostage.”

  Starla’s fingers toyed with the flower stem. “Well, no.” She looked down and her smile faltered. “The armies of the snake shot down my craft but he rescued me and brought me here”

  “Who did?”

  “He did. The Morning Star. He saved me, Ari. And he showed me things; he showed me the truth. When you meet him you’ll see. And he… well, I’ll let him tell you. I’ve told him there’s no need for these bars. Soon you’ll understand.”

  Ari sucked her bottom lip. What’s wrong with her? She ain’t talking right, and her eyes are so wide.

  Ari thought of the people in Bo who’d spend all their time drinking the grog until their speech slurred and their cheeks went red and they’d collapse in street corners or doze in gutters. Or the people who chewed the putty leaves until they got the deep plains stare like they looked right past you and didn’t even see you, but this was different. She watched Starla’s fingers move quickly along the flower stem; pulling, twisting, the blue petals falling away…

  “Is ‘e the Bone Pointer?

  Starla looked up. “He doesn’t like that name. Not now he’s risen. Now we call him the Morning Star.”

  …Bending, prising, and then the stem broke.

  Starla stopped. Her fingers trembled. The blue nail varnish was chipped; the lacquer peeling off in strips. “He’s here.”

  Starla stood, her head dipped, and stepped away from the bars.

  A vast, dark figure stepped through the doorway. His pale skin, drawn tight over that big, round skull, glowed in the darkness. He moved towards the bars. His bulbous black eyes penetrated into Ari’s cell; two deep, glassy pools. She felt herself drawn to them. They were like looking into a deep well; one cold and dark and menacing and fascinating. And, deep down, like the dying embers of a cold fire, in the darkness something burnt.

  “My child.” That voice, so smooth and deliberate. “My dear Starla tells
me you come in peace?”

  Ari shivered. She looked to Starla who was retreating back into the shadows. Her eyes returned to the dark figure.

  “I see, I thought it so.” He pursed his lips. “You, my child, have come to dethrone me. You don’t know it yet, but that’s why they sent you. They told you a lie, of course they did, it’s all they can do, but I know the truth.”

  “I…” Ari tried to speak, but something stopped her swollen lips. As she stared into those deep, glassy eyes, the world around her seemed to evaporate. And she was back in the hut, out in the wasteland, and the eyes she stared at were those of her mother, grey and yellow and empty, drained of life and colour, the skin around them thin and crinkled like paper.

  Ari began to shudder. Fresh tears came to her swollen eyes.

  I should have gone with my Dad into town and made sure he got the medicine. There should have been medicine in the hut.

  This was the day I left the hut forever, she thought. With her death, there was nothing to keep me here.

  “I have seen it, child…” the man continued in that steady, flowing voice. “Come, my child, let us have no secrets. You could not have saved her; the illness was too great. It was only ever a matter of time. And besides, there is someone else to blame.”

  Ari saw her father, standing by the hut door. That afternoon, the very last time she’d seen him, there was such concern in his eyes. With each passing day of her mother’s growing illness, a fresh fold had spread across his forehead. Each day his hair had grown a little greyer, as if each night he gave her mother a little bit more of his precious lifeblood, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. And once he was gone, there seemed nothing to keep her mother’s life from sinking back into the earth. In this, Ari could not help, she simply wasn’t enough…

  “I remember your father,” the man said. “I see you think of him now. Such a hard worker; so eager to do the right thing. It took him a very long time to forget you, Ari. Even after he’d forgotten his own name, he still spoke yours. All that time he toiled deep in the tunnels of this very mine, and on the day he died it was your name that hung on his lips.”