Semper (New Eden)

by Dudley, Peter J

  Lupay fidgets as I hesitate. "Let's go. He's that way." She nods at the door.

  "No," I reply. I spin on my heel and slink back the way we came, watching light rise and fall along the walls. A swinging lantern, coming toward the foyer from one of the other halls.

  I speed up as I reach the end of the hall, and I bound into the foyer like a stone zipped from a sling. I bounce myself off the far wall and come back at the tall figure holding a lantern. The bloody knife in my hand slices the air as I raise it and prepare to hammer it down on whoever is unlucky enough to be in my way.

  But it's not one of Baddock's guards. It's not Tom, or Freda. I fly through the air, twisting at the last instant to avoid him and flinging the knife away. He is quicker than I expected, though, and he hops backward just enough. My bare chest scrapes along his arm as I fly by, and the knife thunks into a thick, oaken beam above us.

  I slam into the far wall and watch the lantern swing in the man's hands but not fall. We've made enough noise already, and the last thing we need is the crash of a burning lantern.

  I crumple to the floor, then spring back up to face him. He's trembling and confused, staring at me without comprehension. It's the tall, grim man with the thick, gray eyebrows, the one that was my father's friend. I stand up straight before him.

  "What are you doing here?" The words leave my lips just as he whispers them himself.

  In this dim light, he does not look quite so tall and imposing as I remember. He looks tired and haggard, worn down. He stoops a little, and his brittle words fall from cracked, dry lips. His face swells blue on one cheek.

  Either Tom and Freda were successful, or this man was never my father's friend.

  I don't wait for his answer, nor do I give him one. Instead, I give him a question. "You were held here, prisoner?"

  He stammers, but no actual words emerge. Is it terror in his face? Confusion? I grab his shirt with both hands and shake, wobbling the lantern and causing fiery shadows to dance around us. "Do you know who I am?" This is not a question. It is a demand.

  A breath carries the simple answer. "You are Linkan."

  "What?"

  "You are Semper."

  He's had too much of something, but I need some answers, now. "Listen. I am Dane. Darius exiled me and Freda. You remember?"

  He shakes he head abruptly and blinks. He squints at me, raising the lantern for a better look.

  "Not Linkan," he mumbles. "Yes. Yes. Dane." His terror is gone, but his tired confusion remains. "How—"

  "No time. Answer me now. Were you prisoner here?"

  "Well, yes."

  "You were released tonight?"

  "Yes, just a little while a—"

  "Two people, dressed in black?"

  "Yes, that's right." He is finding himself with each answer.

  "Where are they now?"

  "They are in the jail."

  My blood goes cold. "What do you mean? They've been captured?"

  He frowns, then blinks surprise. "No! No, no, no. They're tending to some who cannot care for themselves."

  "And the others? Were there many prisoners?"

  The man goes suddenly pale and slowly collapses to his knees, making the sign of the circled heart. He's staring, open-mouthed, at something behind me. I remember my knife is still stuck in a beam behind me.

  "Dane, let's go."

  I turn to see Lupay standing in the flickering orange light, her dark skin looking devilish and her shirt smeared with blood. Leaves and small twigs stick in her wild, black hair, and her eyes glow with a red fierceness. If I did not know her, I would quail before her, too, a terrifying queen of the damned.

  "One moment," I say, and I turn to the tall man again, who has set the lantern on the floor and has his eyes closed, his face pointed toward Heaven.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. "Don't be afraid. She's a friend."

  I realize how shocking this must be. Although this man was no fundamentalist like Darius, to have a mutant from the north walking in the Semper's house with Southshaw blood staining her clothing... he's quivering all over, so hard that his beard trembles.

  "And Baddock's guards?"

  I wait a moment for an answer, but the only words come from Lupay. "He's useless. Come on."

  She's right. I touch the man gently on his forehead, and that seems to calm him somewhat. I wrench the knife from the woodwork, and I sprint after Lupay, who's already at the bedroom door. As I approach, she flings the door open. I rush through, into a dark and silent room that smells of my mother's perfume.

  Lupay follows me in, but there's no one here. The room is exactly as I left it three—four?—days ago. Our discarded Wifing outfits lie on the floor in messy heaps. The dozens of wedding dresses that Chiliss had brought in for Freda litter the thick bed.

  Without pausing, I rush to the secret panel and push through into a narrow, dark passage. For a moment it almost feels like we're deep under the mountain again, but the dank, dusty smell of old pine and oak surrounds me. In moments, my eyes adjust and I can see our path in the tiny bit of light that filters from the bedroom windows behind us.

  We reach the end, and I pause to listen through the door. There are voices, angry, urgent. Men's voices. I can't tell how many. Lupay puts her ear to the door, too, so our faces are only inches apart. She has a sweet smell of sweat and earth, blood and forest. I close my eyes to keep my concentration on the voices and not on the tantalizing closeness of her lips.

  After a moment, she draws back and I breathe again. She holds up three fingers and then points in and to the left. I nod. It did sound like three different men, and they were away from the door. We have a chance at surprise. She holds up her knife and raises her eyebrows. I nod. Ready.

  I pull the door open a half inch and peek inside. The chapel is dimly lit, and it's dark behind the dais where this door opens. I pull it open farther, happy that unlike the front doors this is silent, and I slip through. Lupay follows and closes it behind us with the slightest click of a latch.

  The voices are heated. Baddock is angry, fuming.

  Another voice, deep and thick, says, "Ain't goin back out there, not for you, not for nothing."

  Baddock's hiss makes my bones tingle. "You will, or I'll skin you alive here and now."

  "Let's wait til morning, hey Baddock?" This is the third voice, timid and nasally. One of the ones who wanted to slit my throat at the ancient house. "Then it'll be light. The ghosts, they don't come out in the daytime."

  "They're not ghosts, you fool," Baddock hisses, punctuated by a sharp crack of hand on skin, followed by a whimper. "I don't know who it is, but it's some of Linkan's friends. I'd bet my life on it," he finishes.

  The deep, thick voice answers. "Then you go right ahead. Me, I'm stayin' in here."

  A pause, then Baddock gives them the sing-songy, patronizing voice he uses when he's humiliated me in a lesson and wants me to feel ashamed. As he speaks, I stifle a laugh. I know what those two men are feeling, but I also know I will never feel it again. No matter what happens tonight. "Stay here, children, and watch a man doing man's work."

  The front door creaks open. After a moment, the nasally voice says, "Close it, Will." The door creaks shut.

  "He won't be coming back, Will."

  "I wouldn't count on that. This is Baddock we're talking about."

  "I know, but the ghosts. Or maybe it's mutants."

  At this, I feel Lupay's hand on my shoulder. She's right. It's time to put Baddock on his own.

  We slip around opposite sides of the dais and creep up on the pair. They stand just inside the front doors, close enough to open them if necessary but far enough for comfort.

  I'd expected some sort of fight, but it's simple. Almost too easy. As the two men slump to the floor, their blood running free from slit throats, I do feel sad. Remorse. As I stand over them, I realize where we are. This is the entrance to our church, our chapel. I have just murdered a man in the place where I am supposed to preach peace and
goodness.

  The pews line the floor below in silent emptiness, facing the dais. The Bomb towers over all, a darker stain in the dimness of the room. A lectern stands on the dais, and I can see Truth open on top of it. Truth. I snort a derisive laugh. So little of it is really true. I look to Lupay, who glances around at the carvings in the oaken timbers, the paintings on the walls.

  I wonder how she sees them. If the images seem as foreign to her as the Subterran murals seemed to me when I first saw them. She runs her fingers along one of the posts, a thick oak pillar carved with an image of a serpent wrapped around a woman. Eve. Across the way, a similar pillar carved in the figure of a man. Adam.

  I put my hand on Lupay's elbow. Her skin is warm and still soft. I want to pluck the leaves and twigs from her hair, want to wipe the blood from her shirt. She looks at me with a curious stare, something like wonder or unanswered questions.

  "Come on," I say. "We still have work to do."

  She nods and crouches next to the smaller of our two victims, the one with the nasally voice. She pats him and prods him, then pulls something from his pocket and slips it into her own.

  Silently I hope Baddock hasn't gone around to the house, like we did. He's only one man against—how many?—but he's still enough to overcome them all. I tell Lupay to go stand behind the Bomb, and then I climb the tight, spiral stairs to the balcony which overshadows the entry.

  We don't wait long. Baddock opens the door with a silence-splitting creak. I know he sees the two dead men on the floor, and he'll be on his guard. After a few seconds, Lupay steps out from behind the Bomb and flings her knife at the door, but it clatters against the wall.

  A twang and hiss are followed by the clank of an arrow on the skin of the Bomb. It's not like Baddock to miss, and he won't miss again.

  "Oh, the mutant, girl, how lovely," he says. "Come back to avenge the death of your lover boy?"

  He still doesn't realize that I'm not dead. As smart as he is, as intent on facts and reality as he is, he still believes that exile is certain death. I smile to myself and grip the knife. I can't see him; I crouch on the rail of the balcony directly above the entryway and wait for him to appear below.

  The door creaks shut, and he runs the heavy wooden bar across it.

  "Now we're alone, little rabbit. Just you and me. Like I'd meant it to be in the forest. Only this time, the little rabbit won't escape." It's the same voice I've heard hundreds of times before. He used to call me rabbit. My job was to find a hiding spot and stay there, like a rabbit, entirely undetectable. He found me every single time. Though once, when I was only six, he had to cheat.

  Lupay has stepped behind the Bomb again. "Come and get me. If you want me."

  He steps out, directly below me. I could not have planned it better. It's unlike him, but I don't hesitate. I fall, putting the knife out in front of me, forcing all my weight on top of him. It's only six feet, but I hit him hard. I hear a crack of bone, curse as I realize my knife has hit his shoulder instead of his neck as I'd intended.

  He roars out in pain and anger, then rolls away from me. He leaps up with an arrow, and my heart stops as he points it at me. Then I see that the crack I heard wasn't bone at all, but the bow's limb snapping at the tip. Without any pause, he rips a tomahawk from his belt and raises it, bloodlust like I've never seen before in his eyes. He roars again and lunges at me.

  I crouch and spring, ramming my shoulder into his ribs before he can strike, just as he'd taught me. His knees come up to counter, but already I'm anticipating it and twisting in the air, rolling over him to ride him to the ground. He twists with my weight and uses my own movement against me, spinning me past my target.

  We collide into the first pew, which screeches from its floor anchors and splinters. The tomahawk clatters away from us, and my hand hits the floor hard. Something has broken there, but I don't have time to think about it. My other hand slips up between Baddock's arms as he tries to wrap his fingers around my throat. I shove up and out, flinging he hands away, then bring my elbow down hard on his nose.

  Blood spatters on my face, and his spit follows. I wriggle out from under him, but I trip over one of the dead bodies and fall backwards. He lunges like a rabid wolf, blood and spit and sweat on his face, his hands coming down onto my raised forearm. He brings his fist down hard, but I knock it away. His weight is on top of me, and I know what he's going to do next, and I can't stop him.

  He grabs my arm and twists it, pain shooting through my shoulder. Then he raises his fist again and I brace for the blow that will split my nose.

  Instead, there's a whish of sound with a metallic zing, and his blow goes wide. He yelps and falls to the side, grabbing his chest. There, I see Lupay's little throwing rabbit-hunting blade sticking out from his ribs. It's too small to have done any real damage, but it gives me the moment I need to topple Baddock onto the floor and stand.

  "Who's the fricking conayho now! Finish him, Dane!"

  I see the tomahawk a few feet away and retrieve it while Baddock pulls Lupay's little blade from his chest. "I'll kill you both, then eat your livers raw," he growls, and for a moment I believe he would.

  It doesn't matter, though, because when he lunges I step back and to the side, marveling at how careless he's become in his rage. He stumbles forward, trying to reach me, but he can do nothing to stop the tomahawk from crashing down directly on the back of his neck. The sharp blade slices through skin, muscle, bone. I drive it as hard as I can, pushing him down onto the ground, and still I drive the blade down until our bodies slide to a stop and the tomahawk's blade grinds on the slate floor.

  I rise to kneel over him and release a roar of my own. It starts deep down in my guts and rises through waves into the night. Lupay watches me in my barbaric triumph, and in a deep part of my heart that I've closed off for the moment, I am glad that Freda is not here to see this.

  The tall man with the bushy eyebrows appears at Lupay's side, his face ashen and his eyes darting around, taking in the carnage and destruction. He stammers, then again he falls to his knees to make the sign of the circled heart.

  Lupay grabs him by the collar and lifts him until he's standing again. She leans with a jaunty confidence against the Bomb and tells the man, "Go help him." For a moment he looks like he might object, but then he hurries to me.

  I let him help me up, feeling pains of all kinds in my shoulder and ribs. There's a lump forming on one of my shins, and my broken hand is already throbbing with the pain of swelling. The man looks me over for a moment.

  "Let's get you cleaned up," he mumbles, and he takes my hand.

  "Ow."

  "Oh, is it hurt?" He squints at it then says, "This will have to come off."

  "What?" I look around to make sure he doesn't have the tomahawk. "What do you mean?"

  "The ring. Your wedding ring. If you keep it on, you may lose your finger to swelling."

  I look to Lupay, who seems to wear a kind of wry smile.

  "I'd prefer to keep it on," I say, but I let him slip it off my throbbing finger anyway.

  "You'd prefer to keep your finger," he says. Then he takes my other hand and leads me past Lupay to the secret passage.

  He pauses at the door, turns back to her. "You should come, too, miss."

  CHAPTER 22

  I watch the sunrise's warm glow turn the gray trees golden green on the western hills. Light streams in through the window as the door to my bedroom opens. Chiliss bustles in, her arms filled with clothing.

  "Dear me, Dane, but your new friend is finicky."

  I smile, and Freda laughs nearby as she runs a brush through my mother's hair. "I doubt she'll find much to her liking here," she says. "Give me a few hours, and I'll make her something special."

  "Oh, no, miss—I mean, madam. Your father's already set-to, even though I keep telling him I've got plenty in here she'll adore, if only she'll try them."

  The tall man—Gregory, I've learned his name is—follows her in. "We've cleaned up the chape
l, Dane. We found the others you told us of and are already giving them their funerals now. What do you want us to do with the other two?"

  I'd nearly forgotten that Tom had captured the only other two of Baddock's guards that were left in the village. "They're locked up in the jail, right?"

  "That's right."

  "Keep them there for now. I'll see them later today."

  He nods thoughtfully. "You've got friends, Dane. Darius doesn't know how many allies Linkan had in the eastern ruins. It'll be a chore to round them up, but they'll come to you in the end."

  All I really want right now is a little bit of a break, I want to say. But the burdens of Semper are heavy.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Freda says, "Aren't you lucky, dear?" I catch her stifled grin in the mirror as the brush descends my mother's long, brittle hair again.

  Lupay bursts through the door, tugging at an ugly, pale green dress that is too tight on her. It's threatening to tear right open in the hips and spill her out of the top. I try not to laugh as she stomps to stand before me.

  She points at Chiliss. "Make her stop, if you want her to live."

  I laugh out loud now, just as Tom rushes through the door. "Dane, I'm sorry, I tried to stop her."

  "You didn't have much trouble down in Subterra," I said.

  "You think it's so easy, you stop her then," he gasps. His alabaster skin and bald head are startlingly strange amid all this normalcy. He's abandoned his black sweater and pants for something that Freda's father already had on hand. I guess they are roughly the same size, and the workman's clothes highlight Tom's stark handsomeness.

  "Dane." Lupay has every right to want to throttle Chiliss. How the poor nursemaid got her to try on even one of these dresses is unfathomable.

  "Chiliss, let her be. She's not a house girl. She's a hunter."

  "That's right. And tonight, after this introduction thing, I hunt again." She storms back out, trailed by Tom and a red-faced, short-breathed Chiliss. I still don't understand how I convinced her to stay long enough for me to introduce her to the small council of friends being assembled by Freda's father. Her testimony to them this evening will make all the difference. Then she and Tom will take our two fastest horses and ride north.