by Conner, Jack
Coleel eyed the maps piled on Vursk’s desk. Rising, he rifled through them, selected one and unrolled it. The others looked at each other and, slowly, moved in, hesitant and watchful. Like Avery, they all seemed afraid of what the merchant was about to reveal. Avery could hear movement in the halls, and singing from somewhere downstairs, but it all seemed very distant to him, very remote, as if he and the others were on a different world, a sphere of silence and dread.
Coleel wasted no time in dropping the bomb. His large finger stabbed a point on the map. It was a region of the Crothegra Jungle on the other side of the Soinis Mountains from Ezzez. “That’s the Gomingdon,” he said. “A strange and spooky area of the Crothegra. Lots of weird shit there, and many source elements for alchemical compounds. The ghost flower is one of them. Different merchants have different deals with the villages on the periphery of the Gomingdon, and the villagers gather the source elements in various ways. I have deals with three of the villages. The closest is Sevu, here. If I give you a contract with my seal on it, and I never go anywhere without it, they’ll agree to work with you.”
They stared at him. A long, slow beat passed, during which Avery could only hear the thudding of his heart. Gone were the footsteps outside and the singing below. There was only the thumpthump, thumpthump in his chest.
Typically, Hildra was the first to speak: “You want us to go into the Atomic Jungle?”
“It’s where the flower grows,” Coleel said. “The only way to get more of the nectar is to journey to the villages that extract the substance for me and get them to harvest more for you.”
“A village,” Janx said, and rubbed his jaw. His eyes looked far away. “In the Crothegra …”
“I knew it,” Hildra said. “I just fucking knew it. Well, fuck me, I’m not going in there. Fuck that all to fucking shit.”
Layanna bent closer to study the map. “And you say the flower only grows in this one region, the Gomingdon?”
Coleel nodded. With the coming of day, his tattoos had faded, and he looked like an ordinary man, if rumpled and tired. “The locals won’t go into the Gomingdon but only live on its periphery—they have to if they want the contracts. There are many superstitions about the place.”
Hildra slapped her forehead. “Not only do you want us to go into the Atomic Fucking Jungle, you want us to go to a haunted part of it? Oh, man. Oh, man, this is so fucking fucked. You can all suck my balls.”
Avery felt a bead of sweat burn his eyes. The world spun about him, and, feeling suddenly unsteady, he took a seat.
“You all right, Doc?” Janx said.
Shakily, Avery nodded. He could find nothing to say. This was a complication he hadn’t prepared for, and all of a sudden the task seemed too much for him.
“Shit,” said Vursk, as if something had just occurred to him.
“What is it?” said Hildra. She had stuck a cigarette between her lips and had been about to light it, but now she paused. “Something worse?”
“The roads going into the mountains from this side are completely overgrown and impassable.”
Hildra grinned. “Great! So we can’t go. Oh, well, too bad. I guess we’ll just find a flight home. Well, maybe further inland would be good. Somewhere the Starfish won’t get to for awhile. Maybe Deslik? I hear Crysbundda is nice this time of year.”
“Actually, there is a way through, in theory …”
“Yes?” said Layanna.
Vursk hesitated. “There’s a cable car on the eastern edge of the city. It takes tourists and hikers up into the mountains. It would take you to Goyan, a small town on Mount Veesla. The road going through Goyan and down through the mountains on the other side is still accessible. You could reach Sevu by it, or near enough. It’s not exactly a roadside town, according to this map. I couldn’t send any of my men here with you, but I could dispatch men from Prelo to meet you in Goyan. The fighting’s all but over in Prelu now.”
“But?” Avery said.
The general’s voice was flat. “The part of town the cable car operates out of is still firmly in the grip of Octung.”
Avery studied the others. They all looked as crestfallen as he felt.
It doesn’t have to end here, he thought, for an idea occurred to him. There is a way. But it means we WILL have to go into the Atomic Jungle. It was the last place he wanted to go. Gods knew what waited out there. Something was responsible for the wealth of alchemical source ingredients in the area they would be going toward, and Avery doubted it was a teddy bear. Something unnatural was out there, waiting to be discovered, and they would be going right to it. I might never see Ani again.
Slowly, he looked up. There’s nothing for it. He pulled in a breath and braced himself. “What if … ?”
“Yes?” Vursk said.
Avery wiped his glasses. His fingers shook only a little. “First, let me ask—the glabren Octung controls—are any of them in the eastern quarter?”
“Quite a few. The Octunggen use them as soldiers against us. Why? You don’t … oh …”
Avery nodded. “That’s right. We have the man that controls them in our power. If we can have the glabren turn on the Octunggen from behind the lines and disrupt their organization, your people could hit them in the confusion. It would be a great opportunity for you to deliver a devastating blow, and it would, hopefully, allow us to reach the cable car.”
“But wouldn’t that get a bunch of glabren killed?” Hildra said. “I can’t believe you’d think of something that cold, bones. Been spending too much time with her.” She indicated Layanna.
Janx rubbed a large hand across his face. “He’s right, doll. They’re bein’ used as fodder against the rebs. Why not turn the tables and use them as fodder against the Octs instead? At least this way they stand a chance of bein’ freed.” He speared Vursk with a look. “And you do plan to free ‘em, right, once this is over? You’ll make that bastard release them?”
Vursk seemed to honestly consider the question. He was obviously tempted to retain control of the glabren, but there was honesty in his voice when he said, “You have my word. When this is over, they’ll be free, however many of them survive to get there.”
Things moved swiftly after that. While Avery and the others rested, Vursk made arrangements, first hauling Virine into his office for a long discussion, at the end of which Virine, in ill humor, was returned to his cell. Avery wondered what would happen to the criminal at the end of all this and decided it couldn’t be anything good. Remembering the glabren slave auction and the poor people Virine had used as furniture and sex slaves, Avery couldn’t think that that was in any way unjust.
Vursk put the operation into effect the next day. He gathered his men, Avery and the others, and set out for the eastern quarter. Coleel remained behind. He was where he wanted to be and would go no further with the band, so Avery and Layanna thanked him and made their goodbyes. As they approached the eastern quarter, Avery found himself sweating and nervous. Battle. He would never get used to it. As things transpired, though, he needn’t have worried. Vursk consulted with Virine, who activated his glabren on the rebels’ behalf. When the smoke and gunfire grew thick enough among the enemy ranks, Vursk’s forces attacked, and Avery’s group was kept well away from the action.
The rebels pushed the Octunggen-controlled forces into retreat, taking back over ten square blocks of the city and securing the cable car station. Its mechanisms were inspected, deemed safe, and Avery’s group bustled into the car, intent on making their escape from the city before the occupiers could launch a counterstrike.
“I’ll have my men meet you in Goyan,” Vursk promised. “They’ll take you to Sevu.”
“Thank you for everything,” Avery said.
“Good luck with the fighting,” Janx said. “Give the Octs hell.”
Vursk pulled the lever himself that activated the car, and it swung upwards on its thick cable, bound for the mountains that loomed over that side of Ezzez. As Avery watched the strange city
of alchemy recede below him, he said a prayer to any god that might be listening for the rebels’ success and for a restoration of peace and order to Ezzez.
“It’s an amazing place, isn’t it?”
This came, surprisingly, from Layanna. She stood next to him, their fingers almost touching.
“Yes.” A lump had formed in his throat. “It is. What’s more, I think we might finally have left a city in better shape than we found it.”
He tried not to think about the journey ahead. Into the Atomic Jungle. It was like a scenario out of his worst nightmares. He made himself think of other things as the cable car rose higher. Clouds swirled around them, and jungle-covered mountains reared ahead. The ride took half a day, but ultimately they reached the small tourist town of Goyan, perched on a scenic jut of the mountain and filled with various touristy inns, not that there were many tourists these days. The town seemed depressed because of this, but at least it had largely been untouched by the fighting, though the locals seemed wary of outsiders, especially foreigners, and they kept their distance.
Avery’s group waited five hours for the promised soldiers to arrive and were beginning to think they wouldn’t show up when the armed convoy finally rolled into town, commanded by a Lieutenant Haq Mailos. Mailos, a taciturn young man with a white scar down the side of his face, had evidently seen a great deal of action in Prelu and was none too pleased to be babysitting foreign civilians. Still, he treated them well enough, and after his troops had eaten and his vehicles had been refueled, he loaded the band into a jeep and had the convoy set out on their mission, bound for Sevu.
They journeyed for several days, passing down from the mountains and then into the dreaded Atomic Jungle itself. Avery and the others watched the awful, alien surroundings with wide eyes, not eased by the superstitious and fearful reactions of the soldiers. They too hated and feared this place. The people of the convoy, Avery and the others included, slept in local villages when they could or the roadside when they couldn’t, and each day they drew deeper and deeper into the jungle, which grew ever more strange about them. Avery’s dreams terrified him, and he woke up sweating every night only to find himself still in a nightmare.
On the fifth day they saw Sevu on the horizon.
Smoke rose from it.
Chapter 6
“What now?” said Hildra.
They had been descending into lowlands and the smoke rose from a point some miles ahead. Lt. Mailos drew the convoy to a halt and the occupants of the jeep climbed onto the top of the vehicle to get a better look. Soldiers crouched on the roofs of other jeeps and transports up and down the line for the same reason. The string of military vehicles were on a high point looking across a broad swath of lowlands that fell away from the area of the mountains, since they were still descending even after several days. A few minutes ago Avery had been nodding off in the jeep, lulled by its hum and bounce, but he was wide awake now.
Lt. Mailos, who had also been traveling with them in the jeep, studied the smoke through his binoculars, then passed the instrument on. “It’s a tribal village. Looks to be under attack.”
“And it’s Sevu?” Janx said. “You’re sure?”
“It’s where the map says it is.”
Avery waited impatiently for the binoculars to be passed his way, then peered through them to see that a settlement walled in timber logs and surrounded by a blackened clearing that separated it from the thick, unnatural jungle all around had come under assault. What caused Avery to inhale sharply was the sight of the attackers: eight foot high and feathered blood-red, they fired flaming arrows into the palisade wall. The defenders appeared to be human, dark-skinned like Mailos and many Kuskians, and they fired back from atop the wall with arrows and a few single-shot rifles. Flames licked up the wall, driving the humans back.
“Are those Nisaar?” Avery said, meaning the attackers.
“They must be,” Layanna said. “They look different here than they did in the city, though. Bigger. A different breed, perhaps. In my readings on the various pre-human races, I came on one account that said they had mutated from birds.”
“You don’t mean Atomic influence. This must have happened millions of years ago.”
“This is an unusual region,” Lt. Mailos said, and Avery heard the apprehension, but also the strange note of pride, in his voice. “Prone to many phenomena that you outsiders would consider bizarre—and I don’t mean the Atomic infection. I mean something else. Something … older. Anyway. I can’t say if this fighting is some sort of response to the recent worsening of infection or not. The tribes have been warring amongst themselves, I don’t know why.”
“Wait.” Avery squinted through the binoculars again. “Guns.” Urgently, he passed the binoculars back to the lieutenant. “More Nisaar just came out of the jungle, carrying what look like submachine guns.”
Mailos appeared shocked. “They should have nothing of the sort.”
From here the distant firing of the weapons sounded like the popping of cap-guns, but along the palisade wall men were falling, Avery could see it with his naked eyes.
“Where’d they get those things?” Janx said. “We need to do something. We’ve got scoped rifles. We can pick the gunners off.”
“Involve ourselves in local trouble?” Mailos said.
“The victims are human,” Avery said.
“Perhaps the humans started it. Either way, it’s no business of ours.”
“It’s Sevu,” said Hildra.
“If we go a few more days we might find another village that—”
“Janx is right,” Avery said. “We can’t let the Nisaar massacre an entire town, no matter who started it—and I have a hard time believing the humans started it if they knew they were up against a people, if I can call them that, so armed. Besides, we don’t have another few days to waste.”
Lt. Mailos frowned, and Avery could practically guess his thoughts. The lieutenant, a man of the city who disdained the tribal nature of the jungle-folk, as Avery had heard him call them, human or other, was more than a bit loathe to dip his toes into inter-tribal conflicts.
“We must help,” Avery repeated. “Besides, there may not be another village that processes the nectar nearby. Not with this fighting.”
“Fine. You people paid for this mission, you call the shots. But if this backfires, it’s on your heads.”
Mailos called in some of his men and women from the trucks, who arrayed themselves along various vehicles—no one was mad enough to venture into the jungle to climb a tree—took aim through their scoped rifles, and, at the lieutenant’s command, fired.
“Well?” Avery asked Layanna, currently in possession of the binoculars.
“The Nisaar with the guns are dropping. Falling back. The others are looking in this direction. Now the whole mass is turning back ... disappearing into the jungle.” She lowered the binoculars. “The attack’s over.”
“The Nisaar better not be coming in our direction,” Mailos said. His soldiers had stopped firing, and he directed them to get the convoy ready to move once more. Several minutes later Avery, Layanna, Hildra and Janx were back inside the jeep and driving away, military trucks to the fore and rear.
The riotous vegetation, and the fauna that lived within it, continued to stun Avery as he passed through. The claw-tipped limbs of great trees with thick, aged carapaces scraped against each others’ armor. A golden-scaled creature popped a head out of a squirming anemone bush, whose white-violet tentacles stirred as if in the grip of invisible currents and against all perceivable gravity. The creature’s fish-like maw gaped, its tendrils quivering, but its hooves and antlers indicated it had not always been fish-like, or at least its parents hadn’t. A mammalian creature about the size of a bear climbed the trunk of a carapaced tree overhead, the animal changing colors as it went, having received an octopus’s camouflage ability, and chomping on something with its beak. Pink and blue corals mounted on all sides.
Perhaps most impressive an
d fearsome were the great, glistening, semi-translucent jellyfish trees. Huge and drooping, their long slimy tentacle-branches swaying and heaving in the smallest wind, the awesome trees, which could tower a hundred feet or more, dripped venom from every limb and spattered it with every gust; just being near them could choke a person, such was the poisonous air they gave off. Avery had seen the gear the troops carried in the eventuality of some emergency that would force them into the jungle: metallic body armor that looked like something a medieval knight would wear, but with a tank of air and respirator to breathe with and long poles to hold venomous limbs away, armor or not.
“The Atomic Jungle,” Avery breathed, watching it squirm and wriggle past.
“Amazing, ain’t it?” said Janx. “Haven’t been here in years. Can’t believe how much it’s changed.” When he saw the others looking at him, he said, “Came here to hide out a few years ago. Someone said I owed ‘em somethin’—can you imagine?—and I had to lay low for a while. Got involved with some stuff while I was here—gods! There was this warlord, and he’d found a way to …”
“Another time,” said Hildra.
“Anyway, it’s much worse now—the Atomicness, I mean. I heard it used to be real bad, hundreds of years ago, but after they found ways to fight the infection in the rivers the Atomicness faded, at least partly. Now it’s all comin’ back. In a few years won’t be a single green tree left.”
“It won’t go that far,” Avery assured him. “The war is over. Octung may have some influence in the area still, but that will go away. They will go away, and the locals can devote their time to treating the infection instead of fighting.”
“You hope,” Layanna said. “The Nisaar obtained their guns from someone, remember.”
“You think the Octs … ?” Hildra said, then swore.
Avery nodded. “Yes, I can see it. Arming the locals to buy friends. But, if we’re successful, the Octunggen will go away. If we’re not ... well, it will be as Janx says, I imagine. Eventually the whole world will be, to use Janx’s parlance, Atomic-ized. If we fail, if the R’loth win, the whole planet will be like this jungle, but magnified exponentially. In a few decades it will be an alien world. An Atomic World.”