Ping glanced at the front door of the manor, making sure it had been closed. “Yes, but we’re not necessarily sharing that information.”
Sam tugged on the reins and made a clicking sound with his tongue. The horse and carriage did not move. He frowned at Ping and tried it again. The horse whinnied and clomped a hoof on the ground.
“Do you know how this is supposed to work?” Ping asked.
“It’s not rocket science. You just click your tongue at Nell, and she’s supposed to mosey down the path. I never had any trouble with her sister,” Sam said.
He handed the reins to Ping and jumped off the side of the carriage and walked alongside the horse, petting her as he made his way to her face. Giving her a scratch on her chin, he said, “What’s the matter, girl?”
The horse jerked its head away and stepped backward, pushing the carriage about a foot in the wrong direction. A mider skittered between its legs, running across the path toward the carriage. Sam reached up and tried to calm the spooked horse.
Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out his receiver pad and tossed it to Ping. “A mider’s coming your way. I think it scared the horse.”
“Maybe it’s going into the house,” Ping said, looking around, not able to locate it.
On the right side of the carriage, the mider scaled the spokes of the wheel and, using its two front legs, leveraged itself on the rim in a pole-vault maneuver that sent it flying onto the bench next to Mara. Startled, she swatted at the tiny machine as its straightened on it legs and leaned toward her.
“God, I hate those things,” Mara said. “Sam, come and get this bug away from me before I stomp on it.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Just use the pad and get the message it has for you. Then we can be on our way.”
Ping handed the pad to her. Without turning her gaze from the mider, Mara took the pad. Swinging the device before her like a shield, she pressed her thumb against the glass screen and extended the pad closer to the mider. The pad’s intake fan whirred and vibrated. Instead of releasing its puff of digisteam, the mider pitched forward, emitted a hiss, like the grinding of tiny gears, and froze in place.
Mara gritted her teeth and prepared to bash the metallic messenger with the pad if it made one wrong move. Then the shell atop its body opened, extended its tiny smokestack and released a tiny puff. The pad inhaled it.
As Sam climbed onto the front bench, he looked back and said, “See? Why do you have to make things so complicated? Just let them do their thing, and they will leave you alone.”
The pad vibrated in Mara’s hands.
Sam noticed it trembling and said, “Why are you shaking? You’re not really that scared of those things are you?”
Mara held it away from her body. “It’s not me. Something’s happening with the pad.”
The top corners of the pad drooped like dog ears, the metal in its frame growing soft like butter. Cracks jagged across the glass screen. As heat singed Mara’s fingers, she tossed the pad, sending it across the front lawn where it exploded in midair, loud enough to make everyone cringe. Nell whinnied and tucked her head.
Once she had her wits about her, Mara swung back to confront the mider. But it was gone, already crawling into the grass and on to its next recipient.
“What was that all about?” Sam asked.
Mara rubbed the warmth from her fingers onto her pants. “A malfunction? A letter bomb?”
“Perhaps we should go inside and ask my counterpart about it,” Ping said.
“No, let’s get going. We can ask him when we get back,” Mara said. “But we’re not stopping to take any more messages. I’ve never had a good feeling about those creepy miders. Maybe I can create something in the lab to replace them, something like steam-based Internet.”
Sam turned around and clicked at the horse. This time Nell responded, and they were on their way down the path. As they exited the manor grounds, Sam looked to the sky and said, “If you could imagine a steam-based Internet, maybe you could store data in the clouds. Get it?”
Mara groaned at the pun but said nothing. You know? That just might work.
They settled into a comfortable silence and allowed themselves to be lulled by the rhythm of the clap-clop of the horse’s hooves on the unpaved road. Other than seeking out the Aphotis, Mara didn’t have a plan of action. It was Ping’s role to cajole her into formulating one, and he had given up the night before. All she knew was something had to be done about the creature before time ran out and she was forced back to the physical realm.
“What are we doing when or if we find the Aphotis?” Sam asked. “At least I thought to bring some rocks.”
Maybe Ping wasn’t the one who always insisted on a plan.
“I’m not sure,” Mara said. “Sitting around in the manor will not resolve anything. We’ll just run out of time that way.”
“And you think confronting it will resolve something?” Ping asked.
“Take a minute to consider when the Aphotis has done the most damage, done the most harm to people,” she said. “Back in our realm, the shedding took hold before we knew it was happening. In Cam’s realm, he experimented and tore their synthetic bodies apart until he concluded giving them bodies of light would help gain his advantage over us.”
“Yeah, so?” Sam asked.
“Whenever we leave him alone, to his own devices, is when he does the most damage,” Mara said. “I’ve also noticed that he—it—runs more often than not when confronted directly. Oh, it’ll fight for a moment or two, but I get the impression it knows it can’t win or, at the very least, thinks that it’s possible to lose.”
“So you believe keeping the Aphotis busy is the best way to prevent it from harming the people in this realm,” Ping said.
“That and interacting with it might lead to a way of defeating it,” she said. “To be honest with you, I’m getting sick of it.”
“Perhaps you should set your sights a little higher,” Ping said. “Instead of planning the next battle, maybe you should prepare for the end of the war.”
“Are we back to talking about the metaphysical battle to define the nature of existence? Because something tells me the Aphotis isn’t really fighting that war.”
“What about the oral history of the people from his realm? They predicted the rise of the darkling wraith and the Aphotis. Their whole funerary practice was built around those beliefs. They even told us about the book from the future, the Chronicle of Continuity that Hannah brought back to us. Even writings from my realm talk about a metaphysical battle to define the nature of Reality. It all fits,” Ping said. “Doesn’t it?”
“All of those pieces fit. A little too neatly for my taste. But the one thing that doesn’t fit is the Aphotis himself.”
“Go on.”
“The same legends you reference about the coming of the Aphotis predicted that the darkling wraith would be joined with the progenitor, not her friend from high school who happened to be in the neighborhood. Remember how Hannah prompted me, giving me the ability to expel Prado from my body. So the legend still works with a backup plan? I don’t think so.”
Sam pulled on the reins of the horse, and the carriage came to a stop at an intersection. “Which way you guys want to go? Straight ahead will take us to the center of town. Right goes toward the river where we can take another road north into town. Left goes ... I don’t know where left goes.”
“Which road did you guys take when you were with Dad?” Mara asked.
“The road ahead.”
“Let’s take the river route then,” she said. To Ping, she asked, “That okay with you?”
He nodded. Once they were underway again, he said, “In effect, you are saying the Aphotis failed from the beginning—didn’t fulfill the prophecy—when it lost its hold on you. That’s your rationale?”
“That and things he has done since. Like when I encountered my counterpart inside the Chronicle of Creation—the one who rearranged Sam’s pixels to look like me?”
Sam interjected, “Yeah, so not an improvement.”
Ping nodded. “I recall you telling me.”
“She talked about the viable realm, implying that our realm—my realm—was possibly it.”
“Yes, we discussed the concept.”
“Nothing the Aphotis has done could remotely be conceived of as laying the groundwork for a realm that would be viable. Everything he had done has led to disaster, and I cannot see any larger purpose in it other than him—Prado—serving his own needs.”
“And what needs are those?” Ping asked.
“He’s a dead guy who wants to keep living. He doesn’t care about controlling the outcome of Reality. That’s just a smoke screen. Somehow I can feel it.”
“You might be on to something. He might be creating a diversion to hide his real intentions. But you should consider this—if his motivation is to continue living, fulfilling the prophecy—possessing you might be his only option to survive.”
“I hate when you tie a knot in my logic just as I’ve gotten it untangled,” she said. “You say I need to look beyond the battle and end the war. How?”
“Consider your enemy. What is his nature and how can he be defeated? You’ve already concluded that technically he’s not the fully realized Aphotis since he failed to maintain his hold on you.”
“What is his nature? What do you mean?” she asked.
Over his shoulder, Sam said, “You just said it a minute ago. He’s a dead guy.”
“Right. But he’s a dead guy from another realm.”
“So how do you deal with a dead guy from another realm?” he asked.
“Good question.” She got lost in it for a moment.
“Ah, I think we’ve got a problem up ahead,” Sam said.
“What?” Mara leaned sideways to see around him.
“Miders. Lots of them, like a herd. No, a plague,” he said. He pulled on the reins, and the carriage stopped. “What do you want to do?”
Fifty yards ahead, the road writhed and rippled like a blanket in the wind. Thousands of miders scrambled toward them, their legs and bodies bumping and clicking against each other, pushing and shoving like insects swarming toward a carcass. They surged forward and spread to the dirt road’s shoulders, filling the path ahead, like fluid flowing toward the carriage.
The horse flapped her lips and clomped in place, getting nervous about the strangeness ahead and the tick-tick-tick that grew louder, echoing in the air like the drone of cicadas.
A shiver ran down Mara’s spine. “Turn around and head back to the manor. Hurry,” she said.
The mider onslaught was less than ten yards behind them by the time the carriage made the U-turn. Sam encouraged the horse to speed up but waving the reins and yelling yaw didn’t have an effect.
Mara looked behind them and couldn’t believe it. The wave of miders had gained on them. “Sam, get that horse to go faster. They have almost caught up.”
Ping pointed into the canopy of trees above them and said, “The miders behind us might not be our most immediate problem.”
Overhead, more miders leapt and swung from limb to limb, their spindly legs navigating through the branches like a web of their own. The tree-bound spiders moved faster than that phalanx on the ground.
One leapt from the trees, arched over the carriage, extending a leg toward the edge of Mara’s seat. It hooked the seatback, but its momentum carried its body and other seven legs forward, flailing in the air as it executed a somersault. Mara cringed as it flopped over the side of the carriage, its one leg still attached to the seat. Several legs reached back over the edge and hoisted its body into view.
Mara kicked at it and yelled, “Get out of here.” The mider froze for a second and then exploded into a puff of steam. Smoggy blue steam. Mara’s eyes widened as she watched it, suspended in the air, falling away as the carriage continued forward.
“It’s the Aphotis. He’s inside the miders,” she said, yelling at Ping louder than she needed to, but that ticking noise filled her brain. “Sam, get us out of here. We’ll be overrun any minute.”
“I’m trying, but Nell isn’t a racehorse, you know.”
Up front, a mider fell from the trees and landed on Nell’s back. It scampered along her spine, eliciting a loud snort and a kick from the horse, sending the mechanical messenger into the air and the carriage rocketing forward.
“All right, that’s more like it,” Sam said. He handed the reins to Ping and said, “Take these. I need to crawl in the back and help Mara slow them down.”
Ping looked at him absently and said, “I don’t know how to control this animal.”
Pointing at the cloud of dust through which they were hurtling, he said, “Do you think I’m controlling her now? I just hope Nell isn’t too freaked out to find her way home.”
The carriage slid sideways, its wheels skipping across the road as the horse took a left turn. Sam, who was standing up to get into the back, lost his balance and began to pitch over the side. Ping grabbed his belt and yanked him back, holding fast until Sam had regained his balance.
“Thanks. I think she knows the way home. That was the turn we took,” Sam said. “Just hang on to the reins. It will help her calm down once she’s got some distance from the miders.”
As Sam clamored to the backseat, he pulled rocks from his pocket.
“What are you doing with those?” Mara asked. She rocked back and forth as the carriage careened down the rough road.
A mider popped up on the large wooden wheel to her left, riding it up from the ground and jumping onto the ledge of the carriage before the wheel’s rotation returned it to the road. Sam tossed a rock at it, which bounced off its body, but hit with enough force to dislodge it from the carriage, sending it flying into the road.
“That’s why you brought a pocket of rocks? On the off chance we might get mobbed by a bunch of miders?” Mara asked.
“No, that didn’t occur to me,” he said.
He glanced around and spotted another one, swinging from a branch they were about to pass under. Like a baseball pitcher winding up, he reared back and threw a rock. As it gained speed and altitude, it erupted in flames. The tiny meteor struck the dangling mider in the center of its brass body and exploded, sending metallic legs flying in every direction.
“Cool,” Mara said. “But let’s not cause a forest fire.”
The canopy of tree branches hanging over the road thinned out, but they could still see several miders jumping from nearby foliage, skittering alongside the road, attempting to keep the pace of the carriage. Mara pointed and said, “Keep your eyes on those.”
Looking back the way they had come, she estimated that they had put at least a mile between them and the bulk of the little messengers. She wondered if that was enough distance for them to lose track of the carriage or their interest in catching them. Somehow she doubted it.
With the manor now in sight less than a half mile away, the horse slowed to a steady trot. Mara slipped into Sam’s seat up front, leaving him to act as sentry.
Ping held up the reins, looking helpless. “I think none of us were ever in the driver’s seat. Nell’s in control.”
“I’m just glad she took charge and got us away from there,” Mara said.
“I didn’t get the impression it was happenstance we ran into that sea of miders,” he said. “We’re not out of danger yet. They appeared to be on their way here, to the manor.”
CHAPTER 37
“That’s preposterous,” the other Ping said. They had found him at the kitchen table, reading a book when they returned from their shortened carriage ride. “I know you have felt uncomfortable with the miders, but they are not amassing, preparing to attack the manor. Even if that were the case, what would be the point?”
Mara put one hand on the table, the other on the back of his chair and leaned into him, putting her face just inches from his. “It’s the Aphotis. He doesn’t need to have a point. He’s a dead guy who doesn’t want to stay
dead.”
“How could he be in control of thousands of miders all at the same time? If he’s capable of possessing machinery, wouldn’t he have to pick one?” the other Ping asked.
“He simultaneously possessed dozens of people in my realm. I’m sure it was a piece of cake to take over a few mechanical bugs here,” she said.
“Please forgive me, but I’m having trouble conceiving of a bunch of harmless messengers posing much of a threat,” he said.
Mara took him by the arm and said, “Okay. If you won’t take me seriously, then we’ll just go out front and wait for them. I’m sure they’ll be here shortly.”
She pulled him from the chair and pushed past Ping and Sam on her way to the hall leading to the front of the house. Without pausing, she strong-armed the other Ping to the front door and opened it. Ping and Sam followed.
Outside, they stared across the rolling front lawn that sloped up to the road leading into town, a field of waving grass split in half by the path that led away from the manor. Other than a light breeze, there was no sign, no sound of activity.
The other Ping surveyed the scene and, without looking at Mara, asked, “When you said wait for them, I presume you meant miders. Is that correct?”
“Shut up and wait. And listen,” she said.
He turned to his counterpart and said, “We all might have benefitted more if you’d taught her manners instead of metaphysics.”
“Hush,” she said. She cupped a hand to her ear. “Hear that?”
Tick-tick-tick. Rustle, rustle, rustle.
Grass along the road shifted, being disturbed from below. A mider stood up on extended legs, lifting its body above the grass.
The other Ping pointed and said, “It’s just one mider.”
The peeking mider disappeared, lowering itself below the grass line. A ripple ran through the field like someone had dropped a stone into a pond, the waves moving from the periphery of the lawn toward the path that bisected it. When the first ripple reached the path, miders poured on to the road—from both sides—flowing toward the manor as if guided by a funnel.
Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) Page 21