“Oh, he’s soiled himself. And he stinks,” Helicus said.
“This won’t do,” Issenian said.
Meric’s clothes blew apart in a cloud of mist. He felt them merge with the “fluff” in the air. Issenian pulled him toward a blank wall. It opened as she approached. Helicus paused before the other cylinders, however.
“Now that we’re here, I may have some fun myself,” the Plutarch said.
“Helicus, time is short. What will they think if he’s not back by the time the Circle breaks? Abraxas will be furious,” Issenian said.
“Abraxas is as colorful as a blank canvas. Fortunately, the Circle loves to talk. Why do you think I abjured? We have at least an hour. Maybe two.”
Meric closed his eyes. He concentrated on the chain, the collar, the air around him. Strange. He could only feel a small section of the room’s walls–wasn’t the rest made from the Fog? He gave a mental tug at the middle of his chain. To his amazement, a chunk broke away, blowing outward like sand in the wind. It was as easy as moving a muscle.
Helicus turned, puzzled. He must have felt the change in the Fog. Issenian raised her eyebrows at him. The missing chunk expanded smoothly into a second chain, which wrapped around Meric’s wrists, pulled them behind his back, and snaked up to merge with the first chain.
Did Issenian just cover for me?
Helicus turned back to the isotubes. Issenian leaned close to Meric.
“Lillian sent me,” she whispered. When Helicus glanced back again, Issenian turned the whisper into a nibble, yanking Meric’s head to one side and teasing his ear with her tongue. Meric’s heart hammered.
“You taste bold, Plebian. Speed it up, Helicus. I’m eager to go,” Issenian said.
“Indeed. Just don’t damage him. Abraxas will want him back in one piece. The stuffy old fool would be none too happy to learn I let you down here. Ha! I’m tempted to tell him … Think I’ll try door number two,” Helicus said.
The second of the three cylinders opened. A woman tumbled out on hands and knees, blinking uncertainly, naked as a babe. She turned her head in a daze. Meric’s jaw dropped.
“Swan!” he croaked.
Issenian slapped him.
“What did I say about using my tongue?” she asked.
Meric managed to mumble the appropriate response.
Swan hung her head and wept.
“Wait–I think these two actually know each other,” Helicus said, chuckling. He grabbed Swan by the hair and pointed her toward Meric. She blinked without comprehension, eyes adjusting to the light.
“Well?” Helicus prompted.
“M- M- Meric?” Swan stammered.
Meric’s heart broke. She had always been calm, collected, reserved. She rarely showed any emotional extreme. To see her like this…
“Oh, how marvelous! I told you I have good instincts. This will be fun,” Helicus said. “And you–you were Gallatius’s pet, were you not? How on Earth did you get yourself stuck down here?”
“I … I displeased the Master,” Swan said. She glanced at Meric and flushed, eyes glazed and disbelieving.
What have they done to her?
He held his rage tighter. Helicus produced a collar and a chain for Swan. When she started to rise, he pushed her down.
“No, no. I like you down there. Crawl.”
Helicus raised his eyebrows at Issenian. The Queen of Beauty hesitated, her face unreadable. Then she laughed.
“I won’t have you showing me up. On your knees, dog,” she said.
Meric’s nostrils flared. He could dissolve both their chains–he felt the power clearly now–but he saw a hint of pleading in Issenian’s eyes. Face burning, he got down on all fours.
“What brave defiance in his eyes. He still hasn’t learned, has he? Oh, he’ll need to be punished,” Helicus said.
Meric crawled toward the opening in the wall, staring at the floor in front of him. The shame was unbearable. He who had fought Hadric in the Arena, who had nearly died in battle, who had captured Trajan singlehandedly, forced to endure such humiliation. For a moment he didn’t care who they were or what they were doing. He almost grabbed the Fog to choke them both to death.
Lillian sent her.
But what did that mean? The Plutarchs were not who he thought they were. He could no longer shield himself from the truth. He’d spent his life serving and defending a lie. He couldn’t trust anything or anyone. Everything was collapsing inward.
“Oh look, he’s weeping. And they said this one was bold,” Helicus said.
“Perhaps he weeps in joy. Is that it, dog? You weep with joy to serve me?”
Meric said nothing. The two isotubes closed behind them, resealed by one of the Plutarchs. They passed through a dark, round room. Bottles of wine lined the walls. Meric’s Fog-sense could detect the bottles but not the liquid within. Similarly, he could detect the shelves but not the walls. For some reason, the building around him was invisible to his Fog-sense.
“This is too slow. Get them up,” Issenian said.
Meric was pulled to his feet. He wanted to look at Swan, but he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. His hands closed into fists. They passed through a hallway, up a long spiral ascent. Helicus spoke to someone beside a door. Finally, they emerged from an enormous white-walled complex into open Fog.
Had he not been clinging to his rage, Meric would’ve been filled with awe. They had entered an alien world. Elaborate manors floated on hazy clouds across a gray abyss. Each was shaped to its owners’ desires–an American McMansion, a medieval round tower, a series of blue spheres connected like a cluster of giant bubbles. Two women floated onto the balcony of an Ottoman palace, dwarfed by its bulbous white domes. In a transparent pyramid, Plutarchs sipped wine over dinner.
The floating palaces. The abodes of the gods.
Most of the palaces were on cloud-like islands, with no visible means of connection. Issenian and Helicus stopped near the edge of the platform they were standing on. A shallow meter-wide stream ran in a groove around the perimeter … but it wasn’t water. Meric could feel it with his phantom limb, his Fog-sense. The “liquid” was taking on distinct shapes, rising from the stream to form flowing statues of figures locked in combat. There was a strange energy in those areas, like the Fog wanted to form shapes.
Programs. It’s running programs.
Meric glanced back … and realized with a start that the complex they’d been housed in was none other than the White Palace. An enormously tall needle-like tower reached upward from the dome at the top of the complex, penetrating the highest reaches of the Fog.
The Lance of God.
When the Fog was thin, the Lance could sometimes be glimpsed at an angle from below, especially from the clearing.
“Your pet has a wandering gaze, Issenian. He’d best pay attention if he doesn’t want to walk into oblivion,” Helicus said.
“Oh, he’ll learn his place. But I’m afraid this is where we must part, Helicus. It’s been a pleasure.”
Helicus frowned.
“Part? Oh, no, no, no. Things are just getting interesting, dear. The fact that these two know each other makes it all the more intriguing. I wouldn’t pass this up for the life of me. Let’s see how far they’ll go. Life’s boundaries must be pushed. They’ll know each other in ways they never dreamed.”
“Helicus, a girl can’t give away all her secrets at once. How else is one to maintain an illusion of respectability? Let this be our … introduction to such matters, with more to come in days ahead.”
Helicus sighed.
“Seventy years has taught me nothing if not patience,” he said. “On the other hand, what else is there to occupy my evening? I suppose my seat on the Circle might provide some entertainment. The talk bores me, but perhaps I can speed things up, saving everyone some time.”
The smile never slipped from Issenian’s face, but a palpable tension arose between the Plutarchs.
“That does sound very droll. Perhaps you shoul
d join me for a bit, if only to observe. But a warning–in this game, I set the rules,” Issenian said.
“Rules were never my strong-suit, dear girl. When one is a visitor, however, one must defer to the host. Shall we proceed?” Helicus asked.
Issenian gave a curt smile, glancing at Meric–was that concern in her eyes? Fog gathered beneath his feet, swooping him up. He stumbled and nearly fell. Issenian rose beside him, an arm’s length away. Swan moaned as she and Helicus followed on clouds of their own. They shot through the Fog, cresting a large, multi-structured platform. A public area. Plutarchs dueled with Fog-knives in a small arena below, never touching the weapons or each other. Children sat before a teacher in a field of plastic grass. Four teens played a game on elliptical aerial boards, throwing balls that split into four and shot toward tiny rings at the far edge of the playing field.
So this is what all our labor goes toward. Entertainment. We give them food and soldiers, sweat and blood. They give us ration tokens. Tokens for food we grow. Tokens for goods they can make without cost or effort.
Was he missing something? Was there some nobler purpose?
No. This was the world of the Plutarchs. This meaningless, carefree existence for a select few. Perhaps one in a hundred lived it, and not because they had earned it through hard work or smart work, through determination or contribution, but because they’d inherited the legacy of wealthy, power-hungry ancestors–and along with it, a plutocratic structure that was virtually unassailable. They could lead wasteful, belligerent, criminal lives–without relevant consequence. There would be no punishment. They would remain in power.
Here was the end-goal of all the lies, the subtly manipulative rules, the rationalizations. Meric had shown them undying loyalty. He had defended them, nearly died for them, and this … this is what his whole life had been spent reinforcing. His face was terrible to behold. The place where he’d stored all his faith was being hollowed out, and into the emptiness poured a seething red river of rage.
They would lock me up. They would kill me. They who I loved best.
“Oh, this one will be fun to break. Look at him. So angry. He’ll need more than a whipping,” Helicus said.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Issenian said, but the concern on her face was clearer now.
They came down in a field of silver flowers. Meric’s Fog-sense revealed the lie: nothing grew here. Issenian’s palace was a conglomeration of towering white crystals, like the inside of a giant geode. Ebony statues of Greco-Roman nudes lined a cobblestone path leading to a set of silver doors.
Issenian led the way inside. Thick white carpet met their feet. Past the entrance chamber, an expansive inner hall was lit by a thousand drifting specks of softly glowing snow. Water flowed from the ceiling down walls of ice, disappearing into the carpet. Free-floating steps led to a second-floor landing.
“No more jungle theme?” Helicus asked.
“Oh no, that was done months ago. Winter can be cold but also beautiful. Do you fancy some wine?”
“Of course, my dear. I prefer a good blackberry vintage.”
Meric’s jaw clenched.
“I’ll fetch some. Come along, dog,” Issenian said, tugging Meric’s chain.
“Don’t be too long. That one must be returned. This one, however…”
Helicus had conjured a couch to sit on. He pulled Swan to her knees in front of him. Metal bands appeared, binding her thighs to her calves. Bands encircled her wrists as well, dragging them behind her back. Helicus yanked her hair back and ran a finger lazily from her lips down to her left nipple. Swan shuddered and closed her eyes.
Meric went as still as a rock. Issenian pulled at his chain again.
“What are you doing? Come with me,” she whispered.
She tugged, but all he saw was Swan.
Meric seized the Fog. It was a part of him. He was a part of it. He twisted his chain hard from inside. It burst in a puff of mist and silver splinters, glittering like moonlight on a river. Issenian stifled a gasp. Helicus was too busy teasing Swan to notice.
“Don’t. Not here. You can’t,” Issenian hissed.
Meric started toward Helicus. Swan’s restraints broke and flew across the room.
“What on Earth…” Helicus began.
He drew back, frowning, palms spreading in surprise and confusion. He looked around–and met Meric’s approach with utter bemusement. Craning his neck, he looked past the Plebian.
“Issenian? What are you–”
The Fog closed on him like a giant fist, a mass of gray coalescing, transforming from mist to liquid to mud to stone. Swan scrambled away, terrified. Issenian screamed. Helicus reacted: the Fog burst outward in a miniature tornado, swirling away. The couch disappeared. The Plutarch leapt to his feet, his arms out. Meric never paused. Clumsy jagged spikes materialized in midair and flew at Helicus. Helicus dissolved them a meter from his face. A cloud-like haze congealed, lifting him off the floor. Outraged, he turned a glare on Issenian. That Meric could be the aggressor hadn’t even entered his mind. The Queen of Beauty gaped, her hands at her face like frozen claws.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Helicus yelled, hovering two meters off the floor.
To Meric’s Fog-sense, the cloud supporting the Plutarch was a dense, sticky mass. He pulled it apart like cotton. Helicus dropped to the floor. Meric seized all the Fog he could. The air thickened and closed on the Plutarch. The “water” was drawn from the walls and ceiling. The silver steps melted and flew. And as the mass condensed, a long blade formed in Meric’s hand, almost before he was aware he’d summoned it. Bold steps carried him toward the Plutarch.
Helicus intercepted the incoming Fog, swept it sideways and spun it into a rotating spherical mass, a hollow shield-wall enclosing him. The sphere’s surface was growing thinner and harder, solidifying into an unbreakable mass … even as Meric sprinted the last few meters and thrust the blade through its center.
The rotation stopped.
The sphere finished solidifying. Meric’s arm was caught up to the shoulder. He felt a tug on the other end of the blade. The sphere broke into ten thousand marble-sized pebbles. They clattered against each other and fell mutely onto the thick white carpet. Behind the stone curtain, Helicus had collapsed. His hands shook feebly over the inky-red stain spreading outward from his chest, where Meric’s blade had pierced his heart. Spurts from the wound spattered the carpet in a shocking mess of color. His head slumped to the floor as a final rattling breath was pushed from his lungs.
CHAPTER 15
Issenian’s jaw worked soundlessly. Her hands came down slowly from her face, spreading outward, a slow-motion version of the “settle down” gesture Meric’s mother–his Plebian mother–used to make when he and Reed played too rough.
“What did you do?” she hissed.
I thought that much was obvious, said a detached voice in Meric’s head, looking down at Helicus’s body. A Plutarch’s body.
I killed a Plutarch.
Things were moving too fast. Though his faith in the Plutarchs had been shattered, the old rotting structures in Meric’s mind still held them up as sacred beings. Killing one was inconceivable. The rage was dissipating. A piece of him was trying to retreat, to block everything out. Issenian was talking. He watched her lips without comprehension.
Swan came toward him, one hand over her mouth, the other reaching. Meric looked at her dumbly. She put her head against his chest. Issenian grabbed his arms and shook him. The words penetrated.
“I was helping you escape! All you had to do was follow,” she said.
“And leave Swan to that … that …”
Meric gestured toward Helicus.
“She would have survived. What do you think will happen now?” Issenian shouted.
“It doesn’t matter,” Meric said, because it didn’t. It was all meaningless.
Issenian made a frustrated sound and began pacing, tucking her hands under her arms to keep them from shaking. Swan looked up at Meric.
“You did all that? With the Fog? But how could … You can’t…”
Meric shook his head. It was too much to explain. Swan grasped for answers. Coming up short, she breathed deeply, shook her head, and kissed Meric’s cheek.
“I don’t care how you did it. I’m just glad it’s over,” Swan said.
“Oh, it’s far from over. Gods, Lillian, what have you got me into?” Issenian muttered.
“Lillian said someone would come for me in a few hours. What took so long?” Meric asked.
“Have you lost your mind? I did come for you. It’s only been a few hours,” Issenian said.
Could that be true? It had seemed like days…
“Was using us as slaves part of this brilliant plan?” Meric asked.
“Insolent bastard! Who do you think you are? Do you know what I’ve risked for you? Godsblood.”
She paced again, stopped, gathered herself.
“Helicus was my only way into the White Palace. I only meant to get you far enough outside to descend through the Fog, but he wouldn’t leave, and I needed an excuse to take you. Sexual intrigue was always his weakness. Now he’s paid the price for it. No one will be surprised about that much. She wasn’t part of the plan at all. Gah! I’ll have to get you both out now. And by out, I mean out. There’s nowhere in Panchaea they won’t find you.”
Meric and Swan stared at her.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Issenian asked.
“We have to leave the city,” Meric said.
Swan moaned. Like most Plebians, she’d never been outside the perimeter-wall.
Issenian contemplated Helicus’s body, calming herself, calculating.
“Abraxas can’t know you’ve used the Fog. With luck he won’t know the extent of what Lillian has done. You must not be caught, or it will all unravel. Your sister’s life may depend on it. Gods, I warned her not to do it. She thought an implant was the only way. Oh Helicus, you great fool.”
Meric was trying to form clothes for Swan and himself. He couldn’t get the texture or flexibility right.
The Last Plutarch Page 18