Dante

by Guy Haley

  Inside were a number of items, any of which he would have coveted only a week ago. He closed his eyes in thanks when four bottles slipped out and clinked on the ground. They had been sealed with wax from salt ant nests. All were full of water.

  The Emperor alone knew how long the water had been there waiting for him. He offered a silent prayer and opened one, still lying atop the bony corpse.

  Before he drank he scratched up a small handful of gritty salt and put it in his mouth. It burned him, but he must take it first or he would vomit the water back.

  When he poured the blood-warm water into his mouth, it was as if the oceans returned to Baalfora, sluicing over the wasteland his mouth had become and down into his stomach. One small mouthful was a deluge. He forced himself to stop after that, to let his body absorb it slowly.

  Over the course of the next few hours, hidden from the sun by his hood, he drank the rest of the bottle, then slept. He awoke feeling better, and by the time evening came he was well enough to stand again. Thirst gripped him still, but he was no longer dying. His pack was light, he discovered, and he found that he had dropped a good deal of his gear. After some time in decision, he set off down his trail to collect it all, leaving his staff speared into the ground by the corpse as a marker. Fortunately, his supplies had fallen in a line no more than a couple of miles in length, and he recovered everything except one empty bottle.

  He stripped the corpse. It was shrivelled, but male and perhaps not much older than he. Could it have been that this boy was trying what he was, only to die here, miles from Angel’s Fall? There were further spider signs on the body, a double puncture in the leg. The wound was difficult to find in the stone-hard skin of the boy, but clearly seen in the cloth. There had been food in the pack; this was deceptively well preserved. When he tried it, Luis found it tougher than rocks and saltier than the ground, so he discarded it. Luis filled the corpse’s pack with some of the dead boy’s clothes. By then it was night-time. Luis looked away to the north. There was a dark smudge on the horizon that had not been there before. He sagged with relief. That was the line of the ancient shore. If he were careful with this unexpected bounty of water, he might make it to the desert.

  He should start out now.

  He looked back at this unnamed boy who had died so he might live. The Emperor had decreed it to be so, Luis was sure, but to leave him out in the open like that seemed disrespectful.

  Using his staff to make a shallow scrape in the ground, Luis interred the corpse as best he could, then knelt and offered a lengthy prayer to the Lord of Mankind for His infinite mercy. The Emperor protects, the saying went, but sometimes He sacrificed one to save another.

  ‘May the God-Emperor find your soul and guide it to the safety of His eternal light,’ said Luis. His throat was raw, but he would live. ‘I thank you for your sacrifice.’

  He set out while Baal was large on the horizon. Two days later he reached the edge of the Great Salt Waste.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE MOUNTAINS

  OF BAAL SECUNDUS

  456.M40

  Heavenwall Mountains

  Baal Secundus

  Baal System

  Soon after Luis’ world acquired the black line on the horizon, the ground rose from flat salt pan to craggy rocks sculpted into fantastical form. For a day Luis picked his way through stone of fluid shape, coated in sparkling salt, and came to a platform of pocked stone. Cliffs of a different sort rose up ahead, their lower portions weathered into fluid shapes, the upper jagged, and he stepped from sea to land. Though this ancient shore was coated with a fine sift of wind-blown salt, softening the edge of the coast, there was no question that the Great Salt Waste had ended.

  Mountains rose high behind.

  Luis checked his supplies. There was half a bottle of water left. In need of more, he set out into the crags in search of a spring. He’d been in the desert and craglands often enough to know what he was looking for: darker dirt where water seeped up from deep underground. It was always best to check round the bases of cliffs, where there were cracks and faults the water could travel to the surface. Sometimes there were plants marking the spot. The best part of a morning he spent on his search, going deeper into the maze of ravines and gullies leading away from the waste. It was blessedly cool surrounded by stone, although being a native of the wide-open, he felt the first stirrings of claustrophobia.

  Eventually he happened upon a natural bowl cut out of the land. Though it was surrounded by cliffs, they were far enough apart to let the sun shine down. He never thought he would miss the sun, but a day in shadow had him yearning for a clear view of the sky. A stepped channel led up through a gap deeper into the hills. In better times, a waterfall had carved out this hollow. At the bottom of the plunge pool water lingered still. A cluster of water leaves stood invitingly around sand darkened by moisture, their immature leaves held tight to woody stems and thick with cruel thorns. The mature, outer leaves were sacrificial. Thornless and fat with moisture, they had evolved to tempt animals to eat them and spread the seedpods dangling from their tips.

  Luis cut the seeds away from the leaves and crunched on them. Water leaves were bitter. After a week in the salt with little food and water, they tasted like the nectar the angels supposedly drank.

  Luis dug. Dark sand turned moist, then wet. When he was a foot down, water ran in an eager rivulet to fill the hole. Luis rushed to catch it in his bottle.

  ‘Lookee here, a little salty out of the ocean.’

  Luis whirled around. Standing in the entrance to the bowl were two boys. They were scrawny things, dressed strangely to his eyes. They wore belts hanging with the tools of survival, and upon their backs they carried bulky, square packs. Over their shoulders they had long poles of bleached bone.

  Luis dropped his bottle and came up, his staff held defensively in front of him. The boys were older and bigger than him, the talker especially. The second was patchily bald with alopecia, but he was stocky and looked strong. Luis affected nonchalance to conceal his alarm. ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘What ocean?’ said the second boy.

  The boy made an exaggerated expression of stupidity at Luis, exposing black teeth, and walked into the bowl. ‘Salt waste was an ocean, stupid, before the Long Ago War. All water, see, went with the bombs and the rads and all that.’ He put his pack down. His poles made a musical clatter when he dropped them. He stretched luxuriously, glad to be free of his burden. ‘Only salt now. How do you not know that, Daneill? Even the salty knows that, and he’s not very clever. I can tell.’

  The first boy grinned infectiously. The stockier boy scowled at his companion.

  ‘I am clever. I know how to live out there, for a start. I found this water,’ said Luis.

  ‘Water,’ said the second newcomer. ‘Give.’ He set his pack and poles down, and took out a bottle.

  ‘Help yourself, if you’re thirsty,’ said Luis amicably.

  ‘What you going to do if we took it? Don’t need your permission,’ said the stocky boy. He purposefully knocked Luis with his shoulder as he came past.

  ‘Leave it, eh? Don’t know nothing about him yet,’ said the first boy. He settled himself into a crouch on a rock near Luis, all elbows and knees. ‘No need to threaten him. Where you headed, little salty?’

  Luis evaded his question. ‘We’re salt roamers – we dig at the flats and take what we find to Selltown on the north reaches, or take it to Kemrender. Kemrender was where my clan was headed. I was going to go to Selltown myself – you can get anywhere from Selltown – but decided the straight course was best.’

  ‘Ah, but the straight course where?’ said the elder boy, seizing on Luis’ words. ‘Angel’s Fall?’ he said slyly. ‘Going for the trial?’

  ‘What if I am?’ said Luis.

  ‘Hss!’ said the elder boy, flapping his hand. ‘Listen to you, all full of yourself. Can you fight though? Can you kill? Ain’t no good to the angels if you can’t.’

  Luis’ ea
rs coloured. ‘I killed my first man when I was ten. A band of nomads attacked our caravan when we were heavy with salt – not just the white kind, but heavy chlorides and potassium salts. Lots of it, good money.’ He realised he was babbling and reined his tongue in. Why was it suddenly so important he impress these boys? ‘I was on the spring gun on my da’s roamer. A nomad on a duster is hard to hit, but I got a shot off and zing!’ said Luis. ‘Dead. Got him right in the centre of his chest. Red blood all over the white.’ He didn’t mention the late-night horror that had followed the elation, or the shame he had felt at ending a life.

  ‘Is that so?’ said the elder boy. ‘Well, well,’ he said, crawling over the boulder until he was so close his rotten breath choked Luis. ‘You are so brave. Tell me, how are you going to cross the canyon lands? How you going to get up the Heavenwall?’

  ‘How are you?’ said Luis a little petulantly. He was beyond his clan’s habitual grounds. The canyons were exotic to him. He sensed a trap in the boy’s words. Mockery awaited him.

  ‘I think he’s going to walk,’ said the first boy to the second.

  ‘Gonna walk,’ said Daneill. His laughter was rough and unpleasant. He shook his head over the little pool of brown water.

  ‘You ain’t going to make it on foot, stupid salty. The deserts all round here are hot with old rads. Where they ain’t the lands are full of scorpions bigger than clan tents, and no water but the thirsty kind. Need something with a little zip to get over.’ He patted the bundle on his back. ‘Angel’s wings, salty. If you want to get to Angel’s Fall from here, you got to fly!’

  ‘Yeah, fly,’ said the other boy. He laughed again as he screwed the cap back onto his bottle.

  ‘You don’t know much, don’t know about the wings,’ said the boy with black teeth. ‘You’re not a good candidate. Don’t know why you bother.’

  ‘I got this far,’ said Luis. ‘I can get there.’

  ‘Not without wings,’ said the boy.

  ‘Maybe we should kill him now,’ said Daneill with sudden menace. ‘Save ourselves the competition.’

  The posture of the boys changed. They looked at Luis with calculating eyes. Luis’ heart froze. This was what he had feared. He gripped his staff more tightly.

  They stared at one another, weighing their capabilities against each other’s. Luis tensed. Then the first boy burst out laughing, his stocky companion joining in. ‘Had you going there. Thinks we were going to kill him, eh, eh?’ said the boy.

  Luis watched them cackle. He did not relax. Had he appeared a little weaker they would have killed him. He was sure of it. They might still.

  ‘The name’s Florian,’ said the black-toothed elder, patting his chest. ‘This stumpy patch-hair is Daneill.’

  Daneill gave him a filthy look accompanied by a nod that might have been an attempt at friendliness.

  Pretty names for ugly souls, thought Luis.

  ‘Don’t say much, do you?’ said Florian.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Tell us your name,’ he said.

  ‘Luis.’

  This information brought more howls of laughter from the boys.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ said Luis.

  ‘Luis? What kind of stupid name is that? That’s a child’s name!’ said Florian. Daneill hooted with laughter. ‘Don’t you get angel names in your clan?’

  ‘We do. We just don’t use them in public, that’s all. It’s private, for family,’ said Luis.

  ‘Kresking funny salties, ain’t you?’ mocked Florian. ‘Are you going to tell us what it is then? You’ll have to use your angel name if you’re gonna be an angel.’

  ‘No,’ said Luis. ‘I won’t.’

  Florian’s smile became dangerously fixed. ‘Suit yourself.’ Florian looked to Daneill. ‘What do you reckon, let him travel with us awhile?’

  ‘Don’t see why,’ said Daneill. ‘He’s not gonna be able to fly, is he? He ain’t got no wings.’

  ‘Three sets of eyes is better than one, that’s why,’ said Florian. ‘So what if he can’t fly? We get to Angel’s Leap, we can just leave him to find his own way.’

  Daneill shrugged, already losing interest in the conversation.

  ‘You can come with us to Angel’s Leap by the Wind River,’ said Florian. ‘Then we’re going to jump off and fly all the way to Angel’s Fall. After that, you’re on your own. What do you say? We can watch each other’s backs. Not everyone out here is so friendly as us.’

  Luis considered the offer. If he accepted, they might kill him in his sleep. If he refused, they could chase him down. They knew these lands better than he did. If they were true, they could get him to Angel’s Fall faster, wings or not. That was attractive, but in the end he said yes because he was tired of being alone.

  ‘All right then. You have a deal. We work together, we have a better chance.’

  They grasped hands. Daneill laughed. ‘Scrawny salty like you, you haven’t got a chance no matter what.’

  Florian frowned and threw a pebble at his friend’s head. ‘Shut it, Daneill. He’s with us now. Brothers, just like the angels,’ he said to Luis, holding his hand tighter.

  ‘Brothers,’ said Luis warily.

  The way to the Wind River took them high into the mountains of Baalfora. Florian led the way confidently; Daneill brought up the rear. Having the stocky boy behind made Luis uncomfortable. Every time he looked back, Daneill was staring at him balefully.

  They rested halfway through the morning, having already ascended a few thousand feet. Luis was fit from a life of hardship, but such slopes were new to him, and his feet and legs ached, pains the other two did not seem to be suffering. Daneill pointedly sat away from Luis when they rested, and Florian joined him. The two shared a meal and a muttered conversation. Luis didn’t catch the content, but from the dark looks Daneill cast his way and the angry tone of Florian’s remarks it was evident to him that Daneill was not happy with Luis’ inclusion in their party. Luis did not wish to provoke him and so watched from the corner of his eye while he worked on a strip of biltong and pretended to be absorbed by the view. The colour of the salt seemed much purer from the mountainside, shockingly white, barely tinted by the red sun, and dead flat. The whiteness stretched as far as he could see. He tried to imagine it covered in water, but failed. The most water he had ever seen had been a small pool. He had no internal reference for oceans, coloured by the sky as the stories told, and found the idea hard to believe.

  Florian stood from his crouch and came over. Luis tensed a little. Florian saw.

  ‘Hey, I ain’t come to stick you, salty.’ He squatted by Luis. Florian never sat, but crouched with his skinny arms draped over his legs.

  ‘Why you going then, to the trial?’ said Florian. He didn’t wait for an answer. Having accepted Luis, he had revealed a certain volubility. ‘Daneill there, he wants to be a warrior and fight for the God-Emperor. Never thinks on nothing but fighting, that one. I gotta go.’ He pulled aside the neck of his dirty shirt, revealing an ulcerated mass near his armpit. ‘This flesh eater is gonna kill me soon. Better I chance it going to the angels than dying in three passes of Baal. So, you a fighter like Daneill, or a selfish kreck like me?’

  Luis looked up at the sky where Baal floated, diaphanously in the full light of the sun. ‘I want to do something with my life. Not just fight… I mean, obviously we’ll have to fight. But I want to help people – that’s what the angels do. I want to protect them. I don’t know.’ He dropped his head, finding it hard to express himself. He expected Florian to mock him, but was surprised.

  ‘I get that, I do. It’s hard to watch people die, all cancered by the sun and the rad, or dying from thirst, killed in a feud… Baalfora’s got fifty ways to kill you before breakfast – she’s a bitch. It’d be a fine thing to be able to do something about that. First though, I gotta not die from skin rot.’ He gave a dark chuckle and grasped Luis’ shoulder. ‘Hey,’ he said, looking at his bag. ‘You got a ticker in there?’

  ‘Yeah
, I have.’ Luis followed Florian’s gaze to his open backpack. The dull iron corner of his rad counter stuck out from the bag.

  Florian pulled it out. It was a simple thing, a metal box with a round circle of holes punched in one end, an unshielded needle and an unsteady arc painted in thick white and red. There were no numbers on the gauge.

  ‘Now that is a stroke of luck!’ said Florian. ‘We couldn’t get one before we left. Patches of these mountains are hot with old rad. We were thinking we’d have to climb all the way to Angel’s Leap in our suits, and that would be nasty work.’ He slapped Luis on the shoulder. ‘Hey! Daneill! He’s got a ticker!’

  Daneill gave a sour look and grunted.

  ‘Ah, he’s a miserable kreck!’ said Florian. ‘I’m beginning to like you, Luis. You’re a good find.’

  Not long after, Luis’ ticker began a tentative tock-tock-tocking that increased in urgency and volume. He took it out of his bag, and released the needle from the catch. Within one hundred yards of first sounding it was buzzing hard, and the needle twitched up towards the red portion of its range.

  ‘We need to put our rad suits on,’ said Luis, holding up the ticker to the others.

  ‘Well then,’ said Florian. He dropped his poles and pack, and fished about for his rad suit. ‘Fifty weeks’ worth of work in these,’ he said. ‘Had to steal them, didn’t we? Our clan don’t give out the suits to challenge hopefuls to lose in the desert.’ He shook his head. ‘Good job I’m sneaky.’

  Daneill produced a similar outfit of heavy rubberised canvas, gloves and boot coverings. A tight hood went over his head, his eyes protected by meshed cages of fine lead wire. They were remarkably similar to Luis’ own, traded from the manufacturers of Selltown. The tech clans there exacted a heavy price for the garments, knowing full well no man could survive on Baal Secundus without them.

  All their suits were heavily patched. Luis hated the feel and the chemical stink of the treated cloth. His field of vision was reduced to nothing, and he began to sweat.