by Mark Teppo
"Breathe," says Achor. "Your body isn’t real. The hill isn’t hard."
The man stops, cocks his head and stands motionless for a long moment. Satisfied, he nods curtly at them.
"Thanks," he says and starts back up the road.
"The road’s out up ahead," Worth calls after him. "There’s nowhere to go."
The man waves back at him, but whether he hears is unclear. He reaches the end of the road, where it falls away into darkness, and looks up at the Citadel, out of reach. Worth wonders what he wants there.
The man picks a bit of gravel off the road and throws it across the gap toward the Citadel. Worth hears a faint echo as something small strikes the road on the other side.
The dreamer turns on his heel and comes back toward them. He walks around Achor, studying him, and reaches out as if to touch him. Achor flexes a wing in annoyance, brushing him off. The man turns to Worth. The angel shuffles uncomfortably.
"I need your wings."
Achor laughs, a sound so deep and low it can be felt in the rocks.
"Well, how else is it done?" the man asks. "How else can I get across?"
Achor shrugs. "You can’t."
The man just glares at Achor and turns back to Worth.
"Your wings," he says again. "Please."
"I can’t help you," Worth says.
"It’s not as if you’re using them," the man observes.
"Fair point," says Achor.
Worth folds his wings behind himself in embarrassment. "You still can’t have them."
"Fine. I’ll be back," the man says, and walks back the way he came.
Worth follows at a safe distance. The man never looks back. He just trudges back down the road, his head down, as if counting his own footsteps. Soon Worth feels uncomfortable being so far from his post, but he watches the man go. What can he possibly want at the Citadel? It’s a ruined pile of rubble and stone, valuable to no one but Achor, who only takes it apart stone by stone in order to build something new.
Worth wonders if the man really will be back. He finds himself hoping that he will.
When the man returns as promised he pulls a wagon behind him, piled high with lumber and tools as imaginary as the duster on his back. He walks past them without a word; Worth cannot help but feel a little hurt.
He watches the man labor for a while. A sheen of sweat appears on his face when he becomes so involved in the work that he forgets that none of it is real. First he builds a wooden frame, as tall as himself, then two more; a stabilizing base, a platform at the very top, and finally a ladder.
Worth approaches him.
"I really can’t let you do that," he says, ashamed of his own hypocrisy. He already has.
"Why not?" the man asks without looking up from his work.
"You’re not even supposed to be here." The man did not reply. "We’re the stewards of the Citadel."
"You’re not very good ones. Your friend over there is taking the thing apart." He gestures across the gap, where Achor can be seen circling the remains of a fallen tower. "What’s your name?" he asks.
"Worth."
"Worth, I’m Martin." He pauses in his work and extends his hand. Worth takes it uncertainly. "It’s nice to meet you."
"What are you making?"
"A bridge."
"It looks hard."
"It is. But it feels so good!" The man flings his arms out wide, hammer still in hand, as if to embrace Worth, the road, and the peculiar tower, all with one gesture.
Worth sits down on the low wall, and Martin sits beside him, coiling a long piece of rope in his hands.
"How will you get it to the other side?" Worth asks.
"I thought you could take it for me."
"Oh, no," Worth says, "I can’t do that."
The man looks at him quizzically. Worth becomes aware that his right wing is twitching. He folds it tighter against himself.
"If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re afraid of flying," Martin says.
"Not of flying," Worth protests. "Of falling."
Martin laughs.
"Makes sense. There’s a history there, after all." He gestures toward the Citadel. "What is this place? It seems familiar."
"A relic from the Fall," Worth says, reluctant to say more. An awkward moment passes.
"Why didn’t you Fall with the others?" Martin says.
"Because he wasn’t there," Achor answers, alighting beside the wooden structure, his arms full of stone. "Neither was I. We didn’t choose a side. We didn’t Fall because we didn’t fight."
"It wasn’t our place," Worth starts to explain, but Achor interrupts.
"Oh no," he says. "Not our place at all. Not our place to defend the rule of Heaven. So now we’re in our place, aren’t we? Now we’re here, and we can never leave."
Martin looks across the gap toward the ruins. "It seems familiar. Like I’ve seen it in a dream." He laughs. "I guess I’m seeing it in a dream now, aren’t I?" He sets his tools aside and brushes his hands off on his jeans. "Speaking of which, I think I have to get going." Worth starts to gather up his things and put them back in the wagon, but Martin waves him off. "You keep them for me. Feel free to use them, if you’d like."
"I wouldn’t know how," Worth says as Martin starts back down the road. Achor picks a nail off the ground and examines it. "When will you be back?"
"Soon!" Martin waves, and is gone from sight.
Worth’s routine has changed.
The lights, he concludes, don’t really need watching. Martin has shown that even if one of them got here, they still can’t reach the Citadel. There is nothing really to guard. That leaves him free to do—well, to do something.
He sits with his feet dangling off the edge of the road, studying the Citadel. It is empty and derelict, its turrets tumbled into piles of rock at its base. Even from this distance Worth can see gravel choking the stairways. The windows are dark. Nothing moves except Achor, somewhere within.
Worth thinks the distance between his post and the Earth below doesn’t seem so far as that gap in the road.
He looks over his shoulder and stretches a wing slowly. He shuffles in a tight circle, craning his head as far as he can to get a better look at the mechanics of it. When he is satisfied, he picks up Martin’s tools, and gets to work.
The frame is a little uneven, but that shouldn’t matter for so short a distance. The feathers he painstakingly collects stick out at odd angles where he has trouble using the adhesive he found at the bottom of Martin’s wagon. It is still a bit sparse in some places, and he considers plucking a few more of his own to fill the gaps.
He should test it, he decides.
The top of Martin’s platform is as high off the ground as Worth has been in six thousand years. He wobbles and tries not to look down as he fumbles with the ropes. He ties them as best he can, crisscrossed over his chest and around his waist, once around and back again. He looks across the gap at his target, then over his shoulder at his invention. The right side droops a little. He pulls on the rope and sets it right.
He is ready. He extends his arms in a way that feels commanding, pulls his own wings tight against himself, trusting himself to his own handiwork, and springs forward into the Void.
It happens much too fast. He can see the edge of the road ahead, the spot where he wants to land. He arches his back and turns the way he wants to go, expecting to feel the lift of the wings. Instead he hears a crack, and sees feathers fall away beneath him. Beyond them is the Earth, far, far below.
In terror he unfurls his own wings and beats them desperately, hampered by the broken frame which still swings from one of them. He lurches and falters his way back to the ledge, coming down hard on the ground.
"Are you okay?" Martin’s voice comes from above and a hand appears in front of him. He takes it gratefully and picks himself up.
"I think so," he says.
"What is this?" his friend asks, carefully pulling the remains of his creation off of his
shoulders and wing.
"It was for you. I made it."
"You made something?" Martin’s smile is proud as he studies the fractured frame.
"Wings." Worth takes the pieces from him and walks back to the edge. He sighs heavily and lets go. Together they watch the pieces fall away into the night.
"Maybe I can build them again," Worth offers. "I’ll do it better the next time."
"You don’t have to do that, but thank you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. It was very thoughtful of you."
Worth turns to face the planet, hanging like a frozen bubble suspended in a dark sea. "What’s it like down there?"
"It’s nice. I mean, it used to be," Martin says. "It still is for a lot of people."
"But not for you?"
"Not for me." He gets to his feet and jumps into the air without explanation, laughing as he lands hard on the road. "This is nice. I can do things here. I can move, and breathe, and build things with my hands." Something in the way Martin stands glaring at the Earth below makes Worth think better of asking Martin what he means.
It is some time before Martin speaks again.
"Your boss is quite something, you know. Makes all of this, and probably a whole lot of other things I don’t know about. Makes you, and Achor, and me. Then He sticks you at the end of the road for thousands of years for not fighting a battle that had nothing to do with you, and me—I don’t know why He did what He did to me.
"That first time I came here—do you remember? —it was an accident. But I’m pretty good at directing my dreams now. I sleep most of the time anyway. Here I feel like myself again.
"There are a lot of terrible things that happen down there. People don’t treat each other the way they should. It’s easy to believe that most of the horrors down there are caused by us. But not all of them."
Worth does not know what to say. He remembers the Man and the Woman, and their fate. He remembers how unfair it had seemed.
He remembers the sound of swords against shields, and the streaks of fire left by the Fallen.
"How would it work?" he asks after a time. "Even if I could give them to you, they’re a part of me, not you."
"Haven’t you noticed?" Martin asks. "There’s a plasticity to this place. It’s a place of dreams. You two made me realize it when we first met.
"Look," he says, and sweeps some dust from the ground into the palm of his hand. He spits into it and mixes it with his finger until it becomes a pasty lump of mud. He molds it into a crude animal shape, four pinched legs and a rounded protrusion like a head, and holds it up for Worth to see.
"I admit that when I first asked for them I was just being stubborn," Martin says. He cups his hands around the little mud figure and blows into them gently. "Besides, it was a dream, and people do and say strange things in dreams. I didn’t really know that I could use them. But I’ve learned some things since then."
He sets the little mud creature on the ground and nudges it with a fingertip. It stretches a misshapen leg and tests the ground. Satisfied, it shuffles unevenly away. Worth and Martin watch it go.
"I am pretty sure I can use your wings, if you’ll let me." Martin tosses a pebble over the edge, and they both lean forward to watch it until it disappears. "It’s a long way down."
"Yes," says Worth.
"Ever wondered how far it really is?" Martin stands and takes two careful steps toward the edge.
"No."
"You’re not a very curious creature, are you Worth?"
"Not until recently."
Martin stretches his arms wide, and turns to face Worth with a smile. "I’ll let you know," he says, and falls backward off the edge of the road.
Worth cries out and lunges for him, but he is gone.
Achor emerges from behind a broken wall on the other side of the gap and takes to the air, a stone block tucked under each arm.
"I thought I heard you shout," Achor says.
"Martin," Worth says. "He Fell."
"Huh."
"I had grown to like him."
Achor says nothing.
"Can I help you with that?" Worth asks and reaches to take the stone from Achor.
"Get your own," Achor says, and pulls away.
Flex. Stretch. Try the air—not air, really, not like the thin blue shell of atmosphere around the Earth below, but the Void beneath his wings. Worth beats them against the vast Nothing, and his feet leave the road.
He is terrified. He heaves and jerks his way into space, rising a few feet before he falls clumsily to the ground. Achor flies past him and disappears around the side of the ruins. If he has witnessed Worth’s humiliation, he pretends not to.
A familiar hand reaches down to help him up, and Worth looks up into the face of his friend.
"You’re all right!" Worth says. "I thought—" He gets to his feet. "You can have them." Martin studies his face for clues. "My wings. You can have them. You’ll need to come back with a knife."
Worth had thought that Martin would be happy now that he’s getting what he wanted, but to his surprise his friend looks worried and sad.
Achor doesn’t like Worth’s plan.
"You don’t know what will happen," he insists. "It’s too risky."
They argue, but Worth will not change his mind. Achor flies off to the highest tower of the Citadel, and there he stays.
Martin approaches more slowly than usual. There is a heaviness in his step, and a wariness in the way he carries himself. He comes to a stop a few yards away. Worth closes the distance and embraces him.
"Did you bring it?"
Martin wordlessly shows him the knife. It glints in a friendly way. "Will it hurt you?"
"It isn’t real," Worth says. "It won’t be hard." He smiles at the old refrain, and Martin looks relieved.
It is hard, and it does hurt. When Martin is finished, with the memory of exertion making his forehead shine, Worth’s wings lay on the ground. They look foreign to him. Impossible that they had been a part of him all this time.
"Now you. Turn around." Martin looks a little gray, squeamish perhaps, but he insists that he has been through worse Down There.
Worth is careful to place them just right. The flesh around Martin’s shoulder blades melts up and around the edges of the severed wings. Martin cries out softly in pain, but after a moment is able to move each one gingerly.
"How do they feel?"
"Heavy." He flexes one slowly until it stretches above his head. "But good."
"What will you do now that you have them?"
Martin looks up toward the Citadel. "I’m going to restore it."
"Achor won’t like that."
"Achor doesn’t seem to like much," Martin says. "He likes to build things, though. I think I can talk him into rebuilding the Citadel." He looks at Worth, who rolls his shoulders back in a slow circle. "What about you? What’s going to happen to you now?"
"I don’t know," Worth admits. "But it’s not really the point."
"So what now?"
"Now I think we say goodbye." He lifts a hand. "Take care of Achor. And Martin—thank you. You’re a good friend."
Worth looks up at the ruined Citadel. He remembers a time when he took flight like the others, and he remembers a time when he should have flown with them, but didn’t.
There are no scents in Heaven.
The choking stench of smoke and the animal reek of fear are unfamiliar, and they overwhelm his mind as he struggles up the crater wall. His shoulders burn where his wings once were. Somewhere above him are his only friends; he misses them. He does not expect to find friends in this place.
On Earth, there is no silence.
On the deepest, darkest night, in the most remote and desolate spot in God’s creation, there is life, and with it, sound. Small animals skitter and chatter their alarm. The hum of insects, the whisper of reptiles in the sand, the screech of a night bird on the hunt assails him. The crater behind him plinks and crackles as it cools.
Beneath
the confusing cacophony of life there is another sound: distant voices, from every direction.
Welcome, they say. You made the right choice.
He is six thousand years late. His name is Worth, and he is the last to Fall.
Slow Shift
— Rik Hoskin
My handwriting’s getting worse, Jayne Irwin concluded as she scrawled notes about the patient she had been treating six hours ago.
It was 2:15 on a dismal Thursday afternoon, and the Emergency Room was—blessedly—quiet. Jayne knew it wouldn’t last. Roll on four o’clock, and the place would start filling up again with accidents caused by impatient mothers on the school run. After that, rush hour and its related disasters would take a stranglehold on the city, and then the bars would start flinging their early problems out on the streets as precursor to the steady flow of nighttime car crashes, food poisonings, mugging victims, allergic reactions, and women giving birth on the fly. Best to soak up the silence while she could—unlikely to get a chance to catch up on her patient notes again on this shift.
Jayne tapped her pen against her teeth as she tried to recall whether the construction worker’s wound had still been oozing when she had first examined him. It had been immediately after the choking case when she’d just started her shift, and she had been distracted since the choker had been a DOA. Beside her feet, tucked beneath the reception desk, the regulator whirred and hummed its ceaseless electronic song as it scanned the potentialities. Irritation and resentment flooded over her as she felt its faint vibration against her foot when she unconsciously tapped it. There had certainly been a lot of blood when she had lifted the makeshift bandage that the construction worker’s colleague had wrapped around his leg, but she wasn’t sure whether it was still pouring blood once the nurse had cleaned up the wound. She’d have to ask Mi-sun, the primary nurse who had been assisting her at the time.
She looked up from the desk she’d snagged behind the reception counter, trying to see if Mi-sun was nearby. Her heart sank as she spied Rob Fordham striding through the open elevator doors, jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled like he meant business. "Busy, Doctor Irwin?" he asked as he approached her at the counter.
"Just catching up on my case histories, Robert," she told him, shifting her gaze back to the sheet of notes before her, hoping he would go annoy someone else. Of course, she considered, since he had joined the hospital management team three months ago, Rob Fordham had made a concerted effort to ensure that there wouldn’t be anyone else to talk to within the ER. He had culled the staff of doctors from twelve down to seven in his first few weeks, and had drawn up the rota to ensure no more than three doctors were on shift at any one time. The nursing staff had suffered similar cutbacks, going from a dependable minimum of fifteen to an emaciated eight per shift. The next time she asked for a ten blade in the middle of emergency surgery, Jayne thought, she wouldn’t be surprised if one of the janitors had drawn the short straw to assist her.