Thirteen

by Mark Teppo

  Ossuera nodded.

  "Chemicals still work fine," he continued, "if you can find enough cylinders among this lot that haven’t already cracked their seals. Think you remember enough chem-munition basics? Good. I burned the recipe books last winter."

  An assortment of thin metal phials spread between them. In silence the old man shook, sorted, and arranged his unusual armament. Ossuera attempted to keep pace.

  As they finished, the old man’s eyes lit upon a cluster of bright chartreuse cylinders atop Ossuera’s pile. Wordlessly, Ossuera picked up two of the cylinders and placed them in the old man’s thread-crossed palm.

  After a momentary pause, the old man selected three cylinders marked with a single blue band, and one that showed a pair of yellow dots. He held them out to Ossuera.

  As their fingers met, for a brief moment the threads touched. Both felt the shock and pulled away, and one of the blue-banded cylinders fell against the hard floor. With a ping and a crash, the cap peeled from the end. Gas rushed about their feet and the shell launched down the corridor, to ricochet and spin until it came to rest.

  The two held a long count, and exhaled. "Glad it wasn’t one of the chartreuse ones," said the old man, as they returned to the task.

  When Ossuera awoke, the old man was gone. She knew only that they were limited by the distance each could travel on foot. Whatever benevolence had existed between them was gone.

  A battered sign near the entrance informed her of two dead cities that flanked the location. She was surprised to learn how close the fortress had been to civilization.

  She began to squint, and threads within her eye looped themselves into a semblance of a pinhole lens. The bright sunlight dimmed to a bearable level, and her focus caught smoke on one horizon, where survivors must have congregated after abandoning their skyscrapers.

  Turning a half circle, she also saw smoke in the distance. More smoke. A bigger village.

  No. Billowing smoke.

  Ossuera ran. Her path traversed cornfields, with stalks that exceeded her shoulders, but she did not push them away. She ran, as they sliced her exposed skin.

  The threads stitched and sewed, happily zipping through lacerations to free their ends, then plummeting to anchor themselves. With every step Ossuera was marked as a suited warrior.

  She felt alive.

  Everyone around her was dead. The billowing smoke had played out. A smell of cooked meat permeated the air.

  The pack slowed her pace, and the pressure on her back was a constant reminder that she, too, was a carrier of death. Ossuera dropped a shoulder and grasped the strap, swinging the bundle down to her side. If she left it in one of the still smoldering ruins, with any luck the heat would rupture the cylinders. There was nothing left to kill.

  Ossuera wiped her forehead with the back of a laced hand, the threads greedily absorbing the sweat for later use. The outside of both arms, from her shoulders to the backs of her knuckles, was an almost solid mass of dark woven filaments.

  "The Devil! He was the Devil!" screamed the old woman in the next village. She wept through rage as she clung to the broken body of her daughter.

  The explosion had come from inside the coffee shop, and the coffee shop had been the first sign of pre-war optimism that Ossuera had encountered. Block letters proclaimed their opening to celebrate eleven and a half months of peace, using genuine tempered glass presses that had fortuitously survived the purge.

  Coffee never grew in this climate, reflected Ossuera. She wondered whether she would ever taste strong, dark coffee again.

  Shards of tempered glass littered the cobblestones. The smell of burning coffee bit into Ossuera’s nostrils, and the threads immediately began weaving themselves into a filter.

  "He isn’t a devil. He’s a man," said Ossuera.

  "He is the Devil!" spat the old woman, her eyes alight. "And you are a demon!"

  "My gawd, it’s got scales," exclaimed another man, who appeared to have a broken arm.

  "It’s a suit," said Ossuera.

  A woman peeked from a shattered window, and gasped. Someone else decided he had no reason to go into the street after all, and turned away. But more and more were coming, and the shared impression grew stronger with every body that stepped into their midst.

  "Demon," Ossuera heard them whisper. "Monster." "War-Bringer."

  Figures darted into the crowd as numbers swelled their confidence. Ossuera could only catch glimpses of color before the faces shifted, as others pushed their way to the front. Maroon, Ochre, Cream, Olive.

  Something bounced off her shoulder.

  The flung object was the necessary catalyst. A dozen more followed, and Ossuera knew twice that many hands sought other stones, or shards, or anything they could throw. One man held a fireplace poker, rusted and bent, and swung it contemplatively.

  The suit was ample protection, but Ossuera saw no reason to stay. She turned on her heel and began to walk.

  Olive.

  Ossuera turned again to look over her shoulder and saw an arm in an olive drab sleeve, as it flung a silvery object from the edges of the crowd.

  She pivoted on her heel, swinging the other leg out to give momentum as she lowered herself to the ground. She opened her mouth to shout as the blast tore across her back.

  The crowd that had gathered around her was no longer a threat. Nor would they be.

  As she stood, several thousand threads began an ecstatic dance over her rippling flesh. Glass, soot, gravel, brick, and even teeth adorned her flayed skin. The threads embraced them all with equal care.

  At the end of the street, flanked by shards and soot, a small figure swayed. Ossuera looked away.

  "Demon," whimpered the old woman. She clutched a rag-doll corpse.

  It would have been simpler for her to wait at the fortress. Ossuera spent her fourth day in threaded pursuit of the old man, always a mile or two too late to prevent a massacre.

  Ossuera cursed her rash abandonment of the cylinders. She contemplated the ways in which training and experience had prepared her to kill, without weapons. She hoped she was still a good soldier.

  With the suit’s help she could cover a mile in under five minutes. The old man had been wearing suits for a year. The old man moved fast.

  It was evident that the old man had made plans for this war long before finding Ossuera. Even at full sprint, no one could have spaced such volatile mixtures as widely apart as the devastation implied.

  Ossuera wiped the sweat from both eyes with her fingertips as she ran, and then regretted it as the threads began shaping her eyelashes to better direct errant drops.

  Seven to twelve minutes behind. Maybe as much two miles. Once-proud stretches of road had fallen into disrepair, but between villages she stayed upon the crumbling, paved surfaces. Only roads that served to connect larger remnants survived, and for that Ossuera was both sad and grateful.

  As for countermeasures, Ossuera encountered a few halfhearted attempts to waylay her obstinacy, but the old man seemed only to have placed them as tokens of affliction. Any cylinder that could be turned to a lethal purpose was reserved for the villagers themselves, on whom the old man spent his cold fury.

  She should have stayed at the fortress, reflected Ossuera. Waited, prepared, and welcomed the old man home with an orchestrated barrage of explosive devastation and choreographed poisons. A week’s worth of noncombatant casualties would be an insignificant price to pay, to save the rest of the world.

  How far could an old man travel in seven days? Even allowing for all the speed and strength a suit could offer, immolation of the surrounding countryside could only inspire a death toll of a few thousands. If the old man managed to get back before Ossuera, the entire world would be lost.

  Let them die so you can win, Ossuera told herself. Go back while you still can.

  Ossuera ran on. She wasn’t that good a soldier.

  By the time she arrived at the ninth village, Ossuera had resigned herself to cataloging atrocitie
s. Survivors of the old man’s wrath were either too frightened to respond, or too angry to understand that she was not also their enemy.

  He had been thorough. Standing structures were identifiable only by the shapes that projected through curtains of flame.

  Ossuera had become accustomed to the smell of burning flesh.

  What she had not become accustomed to was a plea for help. When she heard voices from within a two-story structure, Ossuera grasped burning timbers, trusting the suit to preserve her own flesh as she entered. It still stung.

  Within, a trio of small heads were visible from the loft. A charred rail hung against the edge, poor evidence of a ladder that had once granted access. The floor—what had once been floor—was a scattered mass of coals. The glowing surface seemed to slither and crawl.

  There was almost no smoke within. Bright tongues danced from every surface, although much of the structure looked pristine beneath the flame. It didn’t matter. The fire would continue to burn until it took purchase, and then consume every surface upon which it lay, as it had already consumed the path to a simple escape.

  A small, broken window over the loft had allowed her to hear the cry. It also served to prevent suffocation, and sustain the process of combustion.

  Ossuera waded into the section beneath the loft’s edge as she made these observations. The threads playfully swatted sparks about her legs, as she brushed the surface of each cinder. She stood still as the smallest of the three children slowly descended with the aid of two older siblings, each grasping a wrist to lower her small frame to the waiting soldier.

  "Hold close," she instructed, as she cradled the girl with one arm and raised the other for the second child. The older sister hung over the edge to lower her brother, but the boy squeezed his eyes tight and pushed away from the threads even as Ossuera carried the pair a safe distance outside the inferno.

  "Stay," she said, setting them down. The young boy began to sob, but his sister watched silently as Ossuera stepped back inside the remains of their home.

  A fourth head was visible over the edge of the loft. The remaining girl had helped an older woman to sit, and the woman’s shoulder looked as though it had been crushed. Ossuera wondered how they managed the climb, if the woman had been below when the siege began.

  A golden shape glittered against the woman’s breast, and Ossuera wished silently that its presence might provide comfort. Given the woman’s ragged breath Ossuera doubted she would survive long.

  "Help mama first," said the girl, tears streaming from her eyes. Ossuera stepped closer.

  "No," said the woman. "You go with her."

  Ossuera saw the look in the girl’s eyes as she lowered herself over the edge. There was a long hesitation before the child dropped, and Ossuera knew she would not comfort herself with rescue. Part of her already wanted to be swallowed up by those burning coals, and Ossuera felt the child’s revulsion as a rolling wave equal to the shimmering heat.

  "Thank you," sighed the woman, as Ossuera stepped away.

  Ossuera did not respond, but took careful steps through the spreading sea of flame.

  When Ossuera set the girl down with her siblings, the youngest met her eyes and asked, "Will you save mama now?"

  "Yes," answered Ossuera. She suspected the woman was already dead.

  Returning to the flame, she saw that she had guessed incorrectly. The mother was alive, and massive coughs racked her frame as she pulled herself up against the edge.

  "Wait," said Ossuera. "I’ll come up to get you."

  "No," said the woman again. A smile was on her face. "Just carry me to them. Please."

  She rolled over the edge, and fell against Ossuera with all of her weight. A sharp pain shot through the soldier’s chest as they fell into the mass that had been floor. Threads gleefully shot in and out of Ossuera’s scalp, eager to replace the hair that quickly burst into flame.

  Bracing her own palm upon a bed of coals, Ossuera held the woman close with her other arm, and stood. She swung the burned hand behind the woman’s knees to steady the load, pulled close to shield the woman’s face, and ignored the threads as they swiftly explored their new burden.

  "Never thought . . . never thought I’d be glad to feel threads again." The woman slurred her words as the sound trailed off. She stopped breathing.

  Stepping into sunlight, Ossuera paused to steady her load, then trudged forward. The children stood in a row, awaiting her approach.

  She bent to lay the woman upon the grass, and discovered the golden pendant had lodged itself within the suit. Or, more accurately, within Ossuera’s chest; the threads had embraced those edges as enthusiastically as they had shards and coals. Only a sharp, glittering portion projected. Whatever significance it held could only have been inferred by someone who recognized the shape.

  "I’m sorry," said Ossuera, as she grasped the pendant and bent. With a sharp twist the gold separated, but only a ragged fragment remained with the woman’s simple necklace.

  "You couldn’t help her," said the boy, accusation filling his eyes. "You lied."

  "I tried," responded Ossuera. Two children wept. The youngest stroked her mother’s hair. The dead woman continued to smile.

  "You saved her," said the smallest girl. "Thank you."

  The young child sat to cradle her mother’s head, as she sang a soft lullaby. It was a familiar tune, although Ossuera did not recognize the words.

  Ossuera wondered whether the girl understood that her mother would never wake up.

  She stepped toward the path that would carry her to the next village. Sharp edges of a golden relic burned in her chest. Something else burned her eyes.

  "I will pray for you," called the youngest child, as Ossuera retreated.

  Ossuera did not answer. She did not like the idea of praying for demons.

  On the morning of the seventh day Ossuera came within sight of the old man.

  Ossuera could not remember all the dead. She could no longer even smell their cooked flesh, and her eyes no longer watered.

  She felt numb, inside and out. She carried nothing, and she had nothing left. The suit had become Ossuera’s second skin, her only weapon, an extension that served her need and simultaneously drove her on.

  The pair continued to run, cutting soldier-shaped swaths across decimated fields as they returned to their fortress. Periodically the old man would look behind, and if the span between the two allowed an indulgence, he would laugh and then pause.

  The uniform hung oddly across the old man’s wiry frame, and shook energetically with his laughter. Dark threads had become so plentiful that they danced freely about his hands, his face, and from every edge of the uniform. In some places they had interwoven, so that olive drab fabric took on the appearance of ink-stained motley.

  "You don’t have to go on," gasped Ossuera. "Let it go."

  "Can’t do that, soldier," barked the old man, from atop a small mound. "Chase me or die, but once I’ve finished this war you’ll have plenty of time to rest."

  Ossuera slowed her pace, and stopped to bend her knees. She was badly dehydrated. The threads used every opportunity to wick sweat, and even moisture from the air, but her vision had begun to narrow. She could focus on the pursuit, or on herself, but not both.

  The old man waited until Ossuera had drawn a half-dozen ragged breaths. "Looks like I won’t be needing these anymore," he cackled, then raised his fists with a double-handful of cylinders and flung them to either side. "You’re slow, soldier. Soft. If you had kept going ‘stead of taking a breather, I might have even stood my ground for you."

  Ossuera started to run again.

  The old man held firm for a moment longer as the distance between them closed, then shot a fist into the air. It was a grim salute. Then he turned and began a sprint, casting measured glances over his shoulder to gauge his pursuer’s approach.

  As Ossuera approached the rise from which the old man had taunted her, she saw cylinders littering the ground. Multicolore
d stripes and spots of blue, yellow, red, and green. Two cylinders were solid mauve. The last one was bright chartreuse.

  She stopped, as the old man turned to watch. Ossuera bent and picked up the single chartreuse cylinder. She held it aloft, so that he would see.

  "Do you even know what that is?" he shouted.

  "No," said Ossuera.

  The old man’s laughter rang clear and sharp through the air. He began to run again.

  Ossuera watched him go. With a deep sigh she also began to run, the small cylinder still gripped in her tightly threaded palm.

  Once again, she had fallen behind.

  Ossuera watched him approach the concealed entrance of their fortress, and then saw him slow to a walk. The old man thumbed his nose as he ducked through the low opening, an antiquated child taunting the disciplinarian.

  Ossuera felt drained. She wondered how much energy the old man had left, whether the suit still concealed enough fortitude to carry out his stated purpose.

  "Don’t get lost," he called, voice echoing down long, darkened corridors. "I don’t have time to fool around."

  Ossuera ran on. Sparsely placed glass-shaft windows granted an illusion of luminance, but the threads in her eyes could no longer see with any clarity. She was not certain where the core was, although the corridors appeared to run both deeper into the hill and slope further below the surface.

  The question of how the old man could overcome so much ruined circuitry hovered ominously at the back of Ossuera’s mind.

  "Oh, the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty," sang the old man. He had once had a fine strong voice, the tones of which had signaled authority to any of several generations. Now his voice was leathery, and raw.

  Ossuera wondered why threads had not infested his vocal cords. Or perhaps they had, and this was the result.

  "It won’t be long," taunted the old man, in the same rasping singsong. As his figure slid down the corridor he flung an arm out to catch the leading edge of a doorframe, and slung himself around to grin at his pursuer.