by S G Dunster
It didn’t matter. He was my first officer.
A bucket.
It formed in my hands, sloshing with cold water.
“No,” he groaned and punched it out of my grip as I brought it to slosh over him, scattering the droplets across the floor, some hissing onto him, boiling immediately with the heat. “No,” he grunted. “No. You are not supposed to change things. It will ruin— “
“I don’t care,” I shouted.
“Logan. Let. Me. Pass. Stop telling me.” The flames had reached the crown of his head now, surrounding his face in a glow so bright it burned haloes in my eyes, but his words had frozen me.
“You made me,” Arapahoe wheezed, “for this. Let me die this death—it’s a well-told death.”
Impulsively I grabbed his arms, yelped and backed away.
He was a pyre, now. Burning. He let out a long, eerie scream—more triumph in it than fear.
“You know,” I said unsteadily. “How?”
“I know what I am. You . . . told us . . . away. You told us back. You tell us, you . . . kill us. I choose this death, Logan.”
“I—” I was choking. Or crying. Smoke poured over me . . . Arapahoe-smoke. His body. Him. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed.
“You and Selah.” His words were roars of pain now, each one crackling with fire. Dying. “When you brought us back, we told our own stories. Some you will never know. Now she’s gone. I wish to pass as well.” His eyes glittered, and I saw something . . . an emotion I didn’t quite want to face. Anger. Rage. “Go on,” he hissed. “Don’t wait for me. I forgive you.”
I reached for him again. He brought my hand to his head and a flood of pain poured through me. I yelled and pulled my arm back.
Water.
Water.
But none came. I couldn’t make it come this time.
I fell down beside him again. “Please,” I said.
He rolled on his side and writhed. “It’s right to die,” he sobbed. “It’s right! It’s right . . . for a maker. For a . . . father.” His words were barely intelligible now. They were more like thoughts in my head.
He went still. The flames took over, burning his clothes, sizzling his flesh.
A coal, burning. Arapahoe. A cinder, a fag of wood. Nothing but burning.
Hot tears flowed down my face.
Something poked my back. I jerked my neck hard, straining it, as I looked—a wraith of tree, with great, icy-blank eyes, and a mouth gaping open for me. I raised my flame thrower, full of rage, and paused on the trigger.
One of the eyes was obscured by something . . . a tag of wood, shaped almost like . . . an eyepatch.
Eap.
It had to be.
It was Eap, right? Not a tree-demon . . . and Lil was here somewhere.
I’d burned Arapahoe.
I wasn’t going to burn Eap.
Slowly, hand shaking, I put the flame thrower away in my chest holster.
It’s Eap, I told myself as its branches spread out toward me.
Eap, I reminded myself as the twigs bit into my shoulders.
I stared at it, hard. “I’m not. I’m not going to kill you. Do whatever you want with me. You can’t make me hurt anyone else. I’m,” I pulled the gun out of the chest harness and hurled it away. It skidded across the floor, far out of reach. “Done. I’m done.”
The pinch of sharp splinter, and the ice of its breath as the mouth opened.
It dissolved. Suddenly, completely, and Eap stared down at me. His breath, fishy and sour, washed over me.
I gagged and wrenched myself away from him. And nearly ran into Lil.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, Lo. It’s okay.”
“No,” I said, and suddenly the tears were in my throat, in my voice. I was shaking, sobbing. “I killed him. I . . . killed him.”
“He died for you,” Eap said. “And he knew what he was.”
“They knew what I did.” Guilt was a fist in my stomach. Eap didn’t know. Neither did Lil. But they both did . . . Selah and Arapahoe. They knew I’d made Selah be with me. Told her into a story that wasn’t her. Forced her.
“Whatever you flay yourself with now,” Eap’s voice dug into my well of grief, “they forgave you, and loved you enough. You were still their captain. To the end.”
I knelt and let it all out—a flood of sickness, of sadness, of anger—at my father, at my Mom. At myself.
Arms closed around me, tight. The sour breath made me sick, but I didn’t shake him off this time—it was a comfort. Real.
The world burned red, blue, hot, cold, as I sobbed.
I cried myself gutless, until I had nothing else to pour out on the floor. In Eap’s grasp, I felt a prick of embarrassment, self-loathing. “Crap,” I muttered, wiping snot off my mouth and nose. “Crap. This is really lame.”
“It’s not,” Lil said quietly.
“Shut up.”
We were quiet for a long time after that. Enough so that my face dried, hard and stiff, with salt-water.
“Where are we going. What happens next?” I asked, shoving Eap lightly.
Obliging, he loosened his grip and moved away from me. “I imagine we’re about to find out.” He pointed.
Another opening. This one, in the ceiling, which arched down to meet the floor. Lil could reach it, standing on her toes, and Eap could grip the edge and pull himself up and over.
I gave Lil a boost, which she accepted without snarking to me. I came up last, my arms quivering with the effort. I was completely spent.
Another room.
It was cramped, but with a dim natural light, streaming from what looked to be burnt-out holes, warped into the metal that humped over us.
We were in it, I knew. The bulb of metal at the top of the dome.
The witch’s nest.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim again after the searing glare of fire, I saw that it was, in fact, sort of nest—filthy, the room filled wall to wall with a magpie’s collection of everything you could think of, gathered from the refuse of this place we’d just slogged through. Bones, dead wood, dry vines. Rotting fabric, the long, xylophone-bone skeletons of what looked like snakes or maybe dragons; a pale, round gleam of skull here and there. And wound around and around and around this tangled nest, it, and extending up to the ceiling in rays: spiders’ silk, dotted with dark, shriveled bodies.
They were watching us, the two of them. Witches. Two figures, standing there. Waiting.
We approached them slowly, stepping on and over things I didn’t feel a need to look down at. Lil had a hand on her chest holster. Eap walked with studied casualness, fists shoved in his pockets.
They were slim, lovely, and half-naked. One was white-blonde, with brown doe-eyes, velvet and reverent in her slender face. She wore a gleaming cloak of white swan carcasses. The birds’ necks crossed at her throat. Their eyeless, dead heads fell over her shoulders and down her back. The feathers from the wings covered her shoulders, breasts, and legs, but left open everything in the center of her—all that made her pale, lovely, and feminine. The sight of the dark, triangular patch between her legs shocked me.
Had I done that? Was that from my head?
The second woman had gleaming brown skin. Dark like a shadow, rich like melted chocolate where the light fell on her, and frost-colored eyes that glowed in her dark face. Her brows and cheeks were sharp, her chin like a spade. Her hair waved in black vines over her back, hanging clear to her ankles. Like the pale one, she wore a garment of dead birds—black ones, small, with the scattering of bright beaks to pick out individual bodies strung out over her body. They fell into the curve of her thighs, covering her below the waist, but her breasts—full, round, ripe—were on full display.
I glanced at Eap and Lil, my face warm. They didn’t seem to be worried about the semi-nudity, so I took a deep breath and walked slowly after them.
They stood still, watching us as we approached.
“Careful,” Eap murmured. “These are no wraiths, th
ese two.”
Lil put a hand on my arm and took a step beyond us. She took the pendant from her pocket—the one we’d fashioned together. Commotio cordis, the stopper of hearts. It gleamed bright, caught by a ray of light, as she approached the nest. The thing looked both awful and lovely—a snake catching its tail, eating itself.
Face firm, eyes fierce, Lil held the thing on its chain, stretching her arm out toward them.
The dark one reached over and whipped it from her. She studied it, then handed it to the light one, who touched it to her lips and laughed. The laugh, parting her mouth, showed that instead of regular human teeth, there were fangs—curved yellow incisors, and sharp, pointed teeth like a wolf. It was a woman’s laugh, but I could see all the way back into her throat, which was black like a wolf’s.
“This is trash,” the dark one said, exposing rows of triangular teeth, rows all the way back into her throat. They gleamed like diamonds. Her voice echoed off them, splintering into pieces that boomed and resonated and grated against each other. “It is a lie.”
I glanced at Eap, and saw, with a start of fear, that he looked just as taken aback as I felt.
I turned to Lil, and she had that eyebrow-tilt that meant she was puzzled.
“What?” I said. “This isn’t enough? It’s a powerful . . . ancient . . . thing.”
The dark one laughed and she leaned over the nest, swinging her torso. “You like
them?” She hissed. “Loooooogan? These pieces of flesh on me? You like them?”
I took a step back, feeling a chill of fear. I turned to Eap.
His good eye was gaping. He reached over toward Lil without looking at her,
keeping his eyes locked on the nest and its occupants. The pendant dangled from the dark one’s hand, glinting in the strange light that radiated around the two of them and their nest. “It’s valuable,” Eap said, pointing at it. “It can— “
“I know what you’ve made it to do,” the white one lilted. Her voice was like music—she spoke in cadences, like a chant or a limerick, in spite of the snarl of teeth.
“It is a lie,” the dark one repeated. She snapped the fingers of her other hand and the pendant was gone.
Slowly, mincing, the two of them came together and stared us down, their eyes hungry, swimming, watching us.
Eap looked at me, then Lil, then back to them. “We have no other token to give you.”
“You do,” the dark one hissed.
“You have flesh,” the white one said.
Eap took a step back, pulling his hand back. “Flesh,” he said, his voice dead-calm. He wasn’t calm. His knees were trembling. “And what,” he continued in the same conversational tone, “would you do with flesh? Flesh rots. Flesh is gone nearly as soon as it’s delivered. What . . . what do the pair of you,” he pointed at them, “know of flesh?”
The dark one grinned all the way back into her throat. “You’ve made us. We have no real flesh. Give us some.”
Eap shook his head emphatically. “We are not giving you blood and flesh. You are made by us, yes. But you are here for a purpose— “
“You made us,” the white one hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits. “To be evil. Evil is not obedient.” She snapped her fingers, and the walls shook. The floor cracked open in front of us.
“I do not give my flesh to figments,” Eap said.
The dark one pointed at Eap’s patch. “You have given an eye already. Give us the other.”
“No,” Lil said.
The pale one turned to her, dark, melting eyes narrowing slightly. “Then give us your tongue.” She tittered. “I shall give you what you want. I will speak a spell to heal your,” she swayed her hips, displaying her bareness in a way much more suggestive than I’d ever imagine, “friend? In return for a spoken spell, a tongue is most appropriate. The old man will have his heart back.”
“No,” Lil repeated. She took the knife from her belt.
“No, Lil,” Eap said harshly. “Do not give them any of your— “
“Don’t hurt them,” I said at the same time. “They aren’t— “
Lil ignored both of us. She stepped forward and reached around her back. I thought she was reaching for a weapon, but she held up her braids—gold, suddenly blinding-bright, lit by a stray ray, streaming down from one of the holes in the ceiling. She held them up over her head and brought her knife up in a vicious arc, hacking them off in one stroke.
Eap and I watched, jaws unhinged, as she tossed them into the nest. The gleam of golden hair caught in the light ray for a moment before it settled in the mess of trash, bones, and dead wood.
The two stared at her, dark eyes and ghostly eyes riveted, and seemed to drink her in.
Finally, the pale one nodded. She reached down and picked up the severed braids, displaying her bare back ridged with spine. “It is enough.”
She tossed one of the plaits to her sister and held the other braid up over her face, her eyes following the sway of the tufted end. She opened her mouth and dropped it in. She choked, hacked, gnawed, chewed, and gulped down the mass of hair, saliva streaming down both sides of her mouth. She swallowed with a satisfied sigh. She smiled. “Come, lover,” she purred at me. “I’m real enough now, aren’t I?”
She did, somehow, look more . . . something.
Less perfect? Less air-brushed? More detailed? There was a mole on her shoulder, a fuzz of down on her pale cheek.
She was still lovely. And deadly.
I took another step back. The pale witch smiled at me, her eyes deceptively mild.
The dark one was still ingesting her braid, swallowing it whole, scraping the hair off her rows of teeth where it caught, and stuffing it down her challis of an open throat.
Finished, they stood together, hands on their hips, and regarded us. “You will regret this choice,” the dark one said to Lil. “And bless it as well,” the pale one added.
I was still trying to figure out the change, what it was. It was like there was a sudden gravity to them that attracted me slightly, the way I accidentally sometimes stumbled into people while walking next to them on sidewalks. I could feel their solidity. It assaulted me, where I didn’t notice I was missing it before.
And in realizing it I became aware, suddenly, of Lil’s solidity, and Eap’s. And my own.
“Your prize,” they said in unison. They each reached into their mouths and drew back out a hair—shimmering with spit, golden. They coiled them in their palms, pressed them together, and when they drew them apart, the pale one held something in her hand—white, faintly luminescent. A wad of silk.
It looked, to me, like an insect egg sac. Only when she handed it over to Lil, I could see it was solid—crystalized. The size of a pea.
“Give this to your maiden-man,” she fluted, and the dark one laughed like a bass drum. “Free him from his cage. Leave, now, before our lust for flesh comes back. We can take it from you, now, you know.” Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head as if playfully.
“That you can,” Eap agreed, limping back nimbly. “We’ll be off.” He gave them a courtly bow, pressing his hand to his mess of dark curls like he was touching his hat, then turned and ran for the door. We followed him, trying not to stumble over debris.
“I think the time’s come to make something up,” I gasped, looking around at the solid metal dome just above us. The heat had reached this floor now. I could feel it through my shoes.
“We’ll climb out, fast as our own little legs can carry us,” Eap contradicted. “Come.”
We made our way carefully through the next room. I kept my eye away from Arapahoe’s charred remains, but I couldn’t. I looked. There he was: a black skeleton now. My first mate.
My friend.
“Pit,” Lil hissed, as we passed into the next room. “Go slow.”
“We know we can hug the wall now, at least,” I fired back at her, skittering along the edge, touching the metal, which was becoming almost too hot to brush against.
W
e ran through the corridor, which was cherry-red with heat. I was sweating, steaming. We came out into the great cavern of metal, swirling with dragbats. They were shrieking, wheeling.
Even in this gaping open space, it was hot.
“Set it all afire,” Eap called, scurrying for the door which would lead back out to glass, to trees and the gaping open space of the globe’s core. “Now.”
“No,” Lil snapped. “They can’t help being what they are. It’s our fault. We made them.”
Eap growled, but didn’t argue. We tore through, aiming blasts at anything that came close to us.
Inferno, as we came to the huge staircase. Hell. Flames leaping hundreds of feet up, currents licking along the ceiling.
We ran past the stairs to the huge, glassy curve of the side of the dome. “Your glass-knife.” Eap held his hand out, hair flying all directions. “You two cover me. And call your moth, girl.”
Lil took both her guns from their pockets. I did the same. No bat-corpses had followed us. I saw no wild men. Nothing.
It was the flames we watched, the current growing, the wave licking along the ceiling edging toward us. Steam guns and poison darts were useless against fire.
“Now.” Eap’s voice was strained. “Got it!”
A rush of icy air blew in.
“Mr. Smiley!” Lil screamed, sticking her head and torso through the hole. “Come!!”
Eap bashed recklessly at the edges of the hole he’d made with the end of his own gun—a revolver as long as my forearm, which he hadn’t, as yet, drawn.
“Careful of the edges,” he said, gasping as he levered himself up against the hole.
The deafening buzz of wings outside was the best sound I’d heard in a while. Even the horrible, gleaming, furry fat body and feathery antennae, as the beast swelled in our vision and headed for us, weren’t enough to put me off following Lil and Eap. I covered my hands with the rubber of my suit, so the glass cut into it instead of my skin, and pulled myself through, leaping out onto the bulbous beast’s enormous back fast as I could. I grabbed on tight to hair that smelled of fruit and metal. I even put my face to its leather-hard back, breathing in the scent like sweet manna from heaven.
We arced, rolled, glided in wild sweeps up to the dot in the sky—the tear-shaped Whippoorwill with its whirlwind of paddles and great, patched balloon.