by Adam Heine
“Shut up.” Luthiya was already worried about that, but she wouldn’t admit it to her.
They came up behind the closest group of fire wights, the bright, solid ones from the Marrow Chamber. The creatures were too far below, though. None of them looked up. How do I make this thing go down?
As soon as she thought it, the shield fell. It struck the ground hard and Luthiya fell forward. But rather than fall out from under her, the shield leapt up and moved with her, scraping across the field of obsidian until she was able to right herself and stop it.
“Blasted simple numenera,” Ama mumbled.
They’d stopped only a few steps away from the solid wights, just outside their path. The monsters stopped and turned. They towered over her, much larger than any she’d seen before.
She breathed, waiting. After a moment, one of them walked past her. Another followed, and soon all had ignored her, continuing their pursuit of the Shue.
Ama yawned. “Stupid child.”
“It can’t be.” Luthiya couldn’t believe it. They’d always wanted her, ignoring the others.
Except for Khapah, back in the tunnels. Except for Jio.
Gritting her teeth, she leaned and twisted. The shield responded immediately, grinding against the ground. I need to go up a little. The shield responded as she’d hoped it would, rising half a meter off of the ground.
Ama snickered, but Luthiya ignored her. She understood the creatures now, at least some small part of them. They had faces, and something like eyes, that they used to face what interested them. But they didn’t see like she did. She still didn’t know exactly what they saw in her, but in Khapah, in Jio—the wights had attacked when they had risked themselves to protect her.
She maneuvered the shield around the pack of wights until she was directly in their path. Letting go of Ama, she stepped off the shield and stretched her arms out to the sides. “You can’t have them,” she said, even though she was fairly certain the wights couldn’t hear her. “I will make sure they escape.”
Behind her, Ama snorted.
The wights stopped again. They must have been nearly three meters tall. Trios of dark, unfeeling eyes bored into her. Her neck tingled. She glanced around and saw wights around every tower, hovering at every hole and window.
They were all watching her.
“Poor, stupid girl,” Ama said.
Gods, what am I doing? There were hundreds of them. They’d kill her in seconds, growing larger, faster, then chasing after the Shue with renewed strength. They’d catch Khapah for sure. She took a step back toward the shield.
“Now you’re running?” Ama was still frozen in that ridiculous pose, but her face twisted in condescension. “All this trouble, and you just abandon your people yet again?”
“B–but the wights will get them anyway.”
Ama shot out a bitter laugh. “I’m not going to solve this absurd dilemma you’ve created. I offered to spare you.”
Feeling small and stupid, Luthiya took another step back toward the shield. A few of the wights stepped forward as well. I’m a joke. At least when the wights were done with Luthiya, they would take Ama too.
But then why was Ama laughing? The nano should have been encouraging her to get on the shield, to run away.
Unless she knew something Luthiya didn’t.
Luthiya took two more slow, deliberate steps until she was standing on the shield next to Ama. The wights moved forward—just as slowly, but no longer pausing when she paused. They pressed forward. She looked all around her. Fire wights approached from every direction, shrinking the circle around her bit by bit. The temperature of the air changed, rippling between cold and hot. Laughter.
The large ones were only a few steps away. She wrapped an arm around Ama’s waist and thought, Up now!
The shield shot straight up into the air. The wights dove at her, missing her leg by centimeters. Something burned her shin.
The shield stopped. Dozens of wights crowded underneath them, stretching their arms toward her. One of the wights thumped against the bottom of the shield, and Luthiya lost her balance. The shield slid through the air to compensate, gliding fast until it bumped against one of the bone towers. Three fire wights fell out of the tower, directly above her. She screamed, falling back and sliding away again. The wights missed, landing on the ground with the others. The creatures were a sea of fire beneath her.
One jumped two meters into the air and grabbed her arm. She shrieked, the wight’s touch a heated knife slicing to her bone. It held on, dragging them closer to the ground where more wights waited with outstretched arms.
Luthiya screeched, “Up! Up!”
The shield strained against gravity. The wight’s hand slipped down her arm, scouring muscles and tendons with fire as it went. Frost crystallized where the hand had been. She wrenched her arm free, and the wight dropped to the ground. The shield leapt into the air and Luthiya’s stomach fell like a stone.
When they were level with the summits of the bone towers, the shield slowed. Luthiya crouched, touched her wounded arm. It was cold. It felt like her skin had been sheared off, though her arm was intact. Intact but frozen. She could barely move it. There were frost crystals on her shin as well.
She looked up at Ama. The urlimnion in her hand shone as brightly as the solid wights below. As bright as the noonday sun in Shuenha. Ama wasn’t looking at her—she couldn’t turn her head because of the flute, of course, but her attention was near the horizon. “You are failing,” she said.
Luthiya grabbed Ama’s legs and twisted her feet beneath her. The shield turned with her. What she saw stopped her heart. Khapah and the rest of the Shue were in the distance, coming up on the Charred Pass. Most of the wights were crowded around the spot where she had landed, but she was out of reach now. The wights at the edges trickled away after the Shue.
But the worst part was the dozens of wights in front of the Shue, cascading down the cliffs into the pass.
The Shue were cut off.
“I can’t.” Her breath came back in heaving gasps. “I can’t save them.”
“It’s all right, child.” Ama said it gently, her tone almost motherly. “Let them find peace. You can stay with me.”
No. This wasn’t the peace they wanted, the peace they’d fought for. But what could she do? Yes, every wight had come for her when she’d landed, but they’d nearly killed her. She couldn’t stay alive long enough to save the Shue.
If I can’t, who will? The wights wanted her more than the others. Maybe she could lead them on, stay ahead of them long enough for Khapah to escape.
She had to try.
She pushed the shield forward, willing it to descend until she was just above the heads of the tallest fire wights. None of these were solid, which she took as a good sign, but they weren’t paying attention to her yet.
Her arm began to go numb. It was a relief from the pain, but it worried her. No, my arm doesn’t matter. Only Khapah and the others do.
She maneuvered the shield until she was between the Shue and the bulk of the wights that were pursuing them. The Shue were probably thirty meters behind her, just at the mouth of the pass. Khapah was in the rear, making sure the others escaped onto the fields before him.
Luthiya stepped off the shield as before. The wights stopped, watching her. They were all around her. The ones on the cliffs had stopped too, staring directly at her no matter how far away they were.
Khapah stopped and gawked at her. He was small and distant, staring at her like the wights did. “Makoeh!”
“I’m sorry, Khapah.” She said it too quietly for him to hear. She wished she could tell him—what she planned, how she felt. But there was no time. He would argue, persuade her to go with them. She would probably agree.
She turned and bellowed at the wights. “Come on!” Her voice echoed off the towers and the cliffs. “Come and get me!”
She heard Khapah’s dissent behind her, but it was too late. The wights saw her now. A hundred t
ongues of silent, hungry flame rushed at her. They poured down the cliffs of the Charred Pass, floating past—even through—the Shue as though they weren’t there. Luthiya breathed a silent prayer of thanks, then stepped onto the shield next to Ama and waited.
“It seems idiocy is a racial trait,” Ama said.
Luthiya followed her gaze. Behind them, Khapah had left the rest of the Shue and was running toward her.
“No!” she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes. “Khapah, go back!”
He shook his head. Wights skated past him on either side. Either he didn’t notice or didn’t care.
She willed the shield into the air, at the edge of the wights’ reach. She took off toward Khapah first, so even the wights at the back could see her. Before she got too close to him, she banked to the side, flying between two short bone towers to a river of lava.
She flew until she was over the center of the wide river then paused and spun around. She had to be sure. Thank the gods, Khapah had stopped near the river’s edge. Wights flowed past him as though he were part of the bones.
They wanted her.
Have to keep going. Have to lead the wights away from here. She followed the flow of lava, trying to match their speed so they wouldn’t lose interest.
Ama, who was facing behind them now opened her eyes wide. “Oh no! They’ve got him.”
Luthiya gasped and spun around. But Khapah was a tiny figure in the distance running back to the others at the pass. All the wights were in the lava flow now.
Suddenly, a golden hand scraped her thigh. Her leg blazed with pain. She shrieked and willed the shield into the air, leaning and twisting until the wight fell away.
She fell to her knees. Her leg bore the same frost as her shin and her arm. It couldn’t bear her weight, so she sat on the shield.
Ama whistled. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?”
“Why?! Why do this to us?”
Ama snorted. “I told you, child. There are more important things than a dozen doomed fugitives. You would ruin a lifetime of work just because—”
She was cut off when Luthiya shrieked. A wight flew through the air toward them. Luthiya pushed against Ama’s legs, leaning sharply to one side. The wight missed and floated down toward the river below.
The fire wights were rising through the air somehow. Clusters of the creatures built pillars and platforms out of the lava. They worked so fast! A hundred of them formed an enormous arch where a few seconds ago there had been nothing. The more solid among the wights congregated at the foundation, driving massive amounts of magma into the structures, more than Luthiya had ever seen them use before. Others blazed a path along the top and threw themselves into the air at her. She leaned back, skimming away from them, until the shield slammed into a wall of solid rock.
More wights climbed the rock next to her. She threw herself forward, forcing the shield as fast as it would go toward empty sky. In moments, the wights were there too, a pillar of black stone rising in front of her, wights clustered around it like glowing ants.
With a thought, she sent the shield higher. The black stone rose into the air as well—pillars beneath her, arches flying toward her, and all around her more and more walls.
It was a trap. They’d surrounded her.
She made for a gap where the wall was still low, leaning left and right to avoid the structures the wights had built and the wights that leapt off of them. The creatures must have figured out what she was doing, because more of them massed around the low wall and the structure shot up into the sky.
Up! Up! Up! At the mental command, the shield rose into the air, but the wights were raising the obsidian wall faster than she could ascend. She pushed forward anyway, willing the shield to rise as fast as it could. She was a few meters from the wall when she realized she wouldn’t make it, and that she was moving too fast to stop.
The wights on the wall reached out for her. Suddenly her insides fell into her feet. She fell flat against the shield as it lurched up, faster than it ever had. She and Ama soared safely over the wall, and continued to ascend, until the lava flow was a thin red line far below her.
The wights massed beneath her, golden flesh writhing on top of the twisted stone creations they had created. She looked west, to where the last of the Shue disappeared into the Charred Pass. “I did it,” she breathed. “They’re safe.”
Ama sighed deeply. “I’ll have to stop them myself.” She waved her hand, and the shield shot forward at tremendous speed toward the Shue.
“Your hand!” The effects of the flute had worn off. Of course. That’s how they’d gotten over the wall. Ama had done it.
Ama turned her head down toward Luthiya. “You can be quiet.” Most of her body remained rigid, but her hand drew a delicate figure in the air. A fiery light illuminated her fingertips.
Luthiya pushed up on her good leg and grabbed Ama’s wrist before the esotery could finish. The shield bucked and slid underneath them, struggling to keep balance. With her wounded arm, Luthiya reached for the flute, fingering it out of her pocket. Suddenly a blaze of pain shot up her arm, into her chest. Her fingers seized up. The flute slipped through them, falling to the ground far below.
Ama struggled against Luthiya’s grip. The shield continued forward at a frightening speed. It veered left and right as the two of them fought for control.
Luthiya gripped Ama’s wrist with every drop of strength she had, but it wasn’t enough. She was weak, and Ama was growing stronger as the effects of the flute wore off. They were almost at the Charred Pass. If Ama reached the Shue, there was no telling what she’d do. She wouldn’t have to do much, just enough to give the wights time to catch them before they got out of the fields.
There was only one option left. Luthiya hooked her arms around Ama’s frozen one. Then she jumped off the shield, tugging Ama with all her weight. Unable to compensate, the shield flew out from under Ama’s feet, and they were alone in the air.
They plummeted toward the Earth. Luthiya shut her eyes, letting the super–heated air wash over her. The last thing she heard was Ama shouting, “The urlimnion!”
Then her body smashed into the ground.
Chapter 11
“Asinine, idiot girl.”
Luthiya opened her eyes. Her head swam. The air shifted around her.
She looked down. Was it down? Yes, Ama was on the ground, staring directly up at her. Fire wights were all around them, glowing, feeding on something, kicking up dust with their solid feet. They weren’t feeding on Ama yet, but they would. Luthiya should’ve been horrified by that, but she felt at peace. Not because something terrible was about to happen to Ama, but because it didn’t matter. Life came and went, didn’t it? That was the way of things.
She tried to ask Ama what had happened, but nothing came out of her mouth. Instead, a barely visible shockwave radiated out from her. The wights shivered, but that was all.
“You stole it from me,” Ama said. Except it wasn’t Ama. Something else spoke from within her. Something old. Something powerful, and yet alone.
“What are you?” Luthiya tried to say. It came out as streamers of light: red, teal, and gold.
Ama laid her head back down. “Stole it. I have to start all over.”
She said nothing more. The wights finally came for her, though before they touched her, a ball of blue flame fled her body. Ama—or whatever had been within her—was gone.
As the wights shifted, Luthiya saw the body they had consumed before Ama. It was a young Shue girl. It was me. Her quiet laugh came out as the scent of rain on a dirt road. It made sense now: she was dead.
No, not dead. Ama had spoken to her, even looked at her, while Ama was still alive. And where was the urlimnion? Luthiya hunted around and finally found it inside her body—not the corpse on the ground, but herself. Her chest was translucent, and the urlimnion spun within her, too fast to see the oscillations anymore. It glowed bright as the sun, though Luthiya had no problem looking directly at it.
/> She felt a tug within her. The urlimnion was urging her upward. She consented, floating up toward the sky.
Wights swarmed below her, scuttling over the shells that had once been Luthiya and Ama. The urlimnion was there too, dimmed and lying on the ground. She looked inside herself again to be sure. The urlimnion was there also, alive and glowing. The device on the ground was just another shell.
Khapah! She whirled to face the Charred Pass. There wasn’t a single fire wight near it, nor were there any Shue. Khapah, where are you?
Whether it was her will or the urlimnion, the world shifted, and she floated above a crowd of people. Her people, or they used to be. She called out to them, and though the rocks around her changed color, none of the Shue seemed to notice.
The world shifted again so she was closer to Khapah, floating right next to him as he led the Shue out of the fields of Ossiphagan. He was sad. She reached out and touched his cheek with one translucent hand, but he didn’t react.
The urlimnion tugged her upward again. She sighed, accidentally misting Khapah with rainwater. He wiped his face and looked around, confused, but he didn’t see her. It didn’t bother her, exactly, but there was something she wanted to say, something she wanted him to know. She couldn’t think of it. Words held less and less meaning for her.
She let herself be pulled upwards. Her hand left Khapah’s cheek. There was a mark on his face where her hand had been—a small black circle with fine lines shooting off at right angles. Yes. Surely that was what she had wanted to say.
The Shue grew smaller as she rose into the air. The black smoke enveloped her, and they were gone. She didn’t know where the urlimnion was taking her, but she knew it was good. It was right.
Suddenly, the turmoil of the volcanoes ceased, and the sky burst into light around her. Blue and cool. Wisps of cloud hung in the air. Yellow sunlight infused her translucent body.
It was the day. She had forgotten.
About the Author
Adam Heine is a foster father of ten, a sci–fi/fantasy author, and the Design Lead for Torment: Tides of Numenera. His work can be found in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Best of BCS Year Two, and (occasionally) on his website at adamheine.com. Adam and his wife live in Thailand, where they take care of kids who have nowhere else to go.