Rune interrupted before Diodorus could answer. His speech was fast, slurring syllables, mutating vowels. He had to repeat himself before Meric understood.
“We must go. Others will come,” he said.
“Rune’s right. We’ll talk on the way,” Diodorus said.
*
Diodorus had been hiding in a tree, watching for Meric’s group. A half dozen others were spread across the lower mountainside with the same goal. Malthenian had sent runners to Ozymand, but the route to the hidden Fog-city was not set in stone, and the runners must’ve missed the group in transit.
Rune had been spying on the legion encamped around Red Oak when a patrol had spotted him. He’d run straight for the nearest entrance to the underworld, where other Bloodrats were waiting. Seeing Rune running past his tree, Diodorus had jumped down to join him. They’d been shocked to find Meric’s group near the same entrance they were fleeing toward.
Rune now led the group through the ancient, damp subterranean tunnels. He carried the lone torch, casting a baleful orange light. Aboveground, the Bloodrats had squinted and shielded their eyes. They were at greater ease in the dark, though not without grief. They’d lost fighters to the Plebians above. With their hooded cloaks, wiry bodies, and shadowed faces, gender was hard to determine, but Meric thought at least some were women.
Why are they helping us?
More specifically, what was the price of their help?
Meric’s escorts walked in a cloud of shock and silence. Azog pulled Gallatius, his feet bound by a short rope. A raspy sob echoed through the tunnel. It was Hestia. Meric was surprised; he’d only ever seen her angry or distant.
“She’s dead,” Hestia whispered, and her voice broke.
“You don’t know that,” Nog said.
“I do. I know she’s dead. I can feel it.”
There was no telling who she meant. Meric felt their collective grief as an almost physical weight. Had he done this to them? Was this too a result of Trajan’s capture? He couldn’t bear the thought. Everywhere he went, disaster followed.
“How did it happen?” Nog whispered. In the darkness, the sound carried.
“We knew an army had left the Fog–but it was three days away when the first fires were lit. We were deceived,” Diodorus said.
“Our scouts–” Nog began.
“Were watching the Fog. Hundreds of soldiers gathered in the clearing north of the city. But while they drilled and prepared in the open, three or four pentas must’ve slipped out to the south. That’s my guess, anyway. Half the People think the soldiers were transported by sorcery. I think they left by the river and stayed submerged until they’d past our scouts. Could’ve used breathing tubes and floated out in the night. Tao found a horde of footprints a few kilometers south of the city. The tracks cut a wide circle around Panchaea. Unfortunately, Tao didn’t reach us until after the attacks. Those that came back beforehand only knew about the main legion. The advance pentas were dressed in recon armor. Very hard to spot, especially moving at night. They were days ahead of the main force, and they were careful. Somehow they knew exactly where they were going.”
“But you knew about the larger force. Weren’t you preparing any defenses?” Meric asked.
Diodorus shook his head.
“When we learned of the main legion, the Priestess Ishka took sacred herbs and foretold our doom. Malthenian and the others agreed: the purpose of this army was to destroy Red Oak Grove. We didn’t have the numbers to face them, nor the tricks for another Jarl’s Ravine. The decision was made to abandon the village. Malthenian knows of a series of hidden caves further north, where he’d hoped to wait out the storm. Food was gathered. Steamcars were loaded. We were almost ready when the first smoke hit the sky.
“A few pentas shouldn’t have been enough to take the village, but they were burning and wreaking havoc before anyone knew they were there. They swarmed into Red Oak. They took the armory. Men were cut down unarmed as they left their houses. Women and children too. The soldiers were at their best–which is to say, their worst. Along with atomblades, they carried old weapons. Guns. They never give those to Plebians. The bullets can’t penetrate fogplate, and the magic to fire them is rare in Panchaea. In the village they fired plenty. That’s when I knew how badly the Plutarchs wanted Red Oak.
“After the initial chaos, we tried to regroup at the steamcars in the grove. The enemy harassed us with bolts and bullets until we were driven into the forest. Many were lost. Finally the Bloodrats helped hide us–can’t pay back a debt if you’re dead, after all. The soldiers burned the outer homes, the fields, the farms, the mud and wood hovels–but not the ancient places. Those they left untouched.”
Meric wondered why that was, but it didn’t seem the right time to ask. Instead, he said:
“Large-scale campaigns are rare for the Plutarchs. Why start another so soon, especially with Trajan gone? What purpose could they have in destroying Red Oak? Or … was it just anger, because of Gallatius? Because of me?”
Diodorus drew him close as they walked.
“Meric, they may want you dead, but you don’t rate a whole army. They didn’t come for Gallatius either. I’m quite sure of it. I think … I think Trajan let something slip before they finished him. When you were first captured, you were kept in an underground room. Do you remember what was in that room?”
Puzzled, Meric thought back.
“A metal bed. Lights. Some kind of … artifacts.”
“Lights. Not torches. Meric, have you ever seen lights like that outside the Fog?”
Meric frowned. At the time he’d put it down to Trajan’s sorcery. But there was no sorcery, only the power of the ancients, so poorly understood…
“Trajan told you about the satellites, the RFI, what really happened during the Smiting. Now you understand, Meric–that room was a pocket of electrical potential, untouched by the RFI. Like Ozymand, like Panchaea, only smaller. It’s part of an underground military bunker. Those ancient buildings in Red Oak? The American Presidents themselves used them on vacation. The bunker was probably a failsafe. These ‘artifacts’ you mention–a generator and a computer. Some of the last working machines of the ancient world. That’s how Trajan found Ozymand. The computer told him where to look.”
Meric stared at him.
“But that means–”
“The Plutarchs knew about the computer. They must’ve tortured Trajan, or tricked him. He never would’ve told them willingly. That’s why the legion didn’t burn the older buildings. It’s also why a Plutarch arrived with the main force after the fighting was done. Yes, Meric–they sent one of their own. He was carried by an elaborate silver steamcar. The Plutarchs never leave the Fog unless it’s absolutely necessary. Which means this one had a task they couldn’t entrust to anyone else. If all had gone as planned, they’d already have Ozymand’s location.”
A sad little smile curled up from Diodorus’s mouth.
If all had gone as planned?
“You stopped them. How?” Meric asked.
“I destroyed the computer,” Diodorus said, sighing. “When I saw the smoke and the soldiers, I knew they’d tricked us. The village would be taken. So I did what had to be done. I used the last of Trajan’s explosives on what may have been the last machine of its kind. May the ancestors forgive me.”
The Plutarchs wouldn’t have had Trajan without me. They wouldn’t have known about the computer. It is my fault.
“Do you think Trajan gave up Red Oak’s location too?” Meric asked.
“I doubt it. They would’ve needed his cooperation to pinpoint the village on a map. But they found it one way or another. The advance force knew just where to go.”
The tunnel ramped downward. The air was dank. Water trickled through small grates and gushed from ancient pipes, forming a stream along the floor. Meric was reminded of the hill where he’d rendezvoused with Swan; a pipe in the irrigation channel had made similar sounds. These ones had been forged from black metal, i
mpervious to rust. For what purpose had the ancients built such extensive catacombs? So little was known, so much lost.
Behind him, Gallatius fell noisily, tripped by a Bloodrat.
“You’re too kind. I can manage on my own though,” Gallatius said, getting to his feet.
The Bloodrat spit on him. Meric caught Rune’s gaze.
“Trust no silver eyes,” Rune said in his odd, fast-paced accent.
Ahead, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber filled with people. Torches were ensconced along the walls.
“Meric!”
Swan detached from the throng and threw her arms around him. Tears ambushed him. He saw in her his old uncomplicated life, when his biggest problem had been losing a fight in the Arena, and alongside that were the faces of the two Plebians he’d killed, the guilt and shame of all he’d done, the loss of the certainty and optimism which had once suffused his existence. Meric held her tight as the tears spilled down his cheeks.
Azog and the others greeted friends and relatives–before who was lost and descending into grief. Lucretius had made it out, along with Aureus and two other former Plebians. Most of Club Fogborn had been lost in the fighting. Swan embraced Diodorus next–with real concern. They must have become more familiar during Meric’s stay in Ozymand.
“It was terrible, Meric,” Swan said, releasing Diodorus. “A girl came out of the forest–fourteen, fifteen. From the outskirts of the village. Her face was pale. Her right arm was missing. She was no fighter. Why do that to her? And behind her–a woman with a naked babe. Just a child, Meric. Covered in blood. And then they came, and they fired those weapons, and the woman … and the baby…”
She shook her head, unable to finish.
“Not a proud day for Panchaea,” Lucretius said quietly.
Meric wanted to vomit. He’d fought for Panchaea at the ravine, but these were noncombatants. Attacking women and children? Who could’ve done such a thing? But he knew, of course. It was the same men he’d laughed and dined with in the barracks. The same men he’d prayed with in the Temple; men who worried over their families, who pledged themselves to their holy benefactors, God’s Chosen, the Plutarchs. It didn’t always take a monster to do monstrous things.
The gaija of war was in them.
“We’re safe now,” was all Meric could say.
But were they? Furtive glances were cast toward the Bloodrats. The two tribes didn’t trust each other.
“The Bloodrats haven’t named their price,” Lucretius said in a low voice, glancing at the nearest rat-cloaked tribesman. “But rest assured, they have one. There’s always a price. They helped us get away. Helped hide us. Why? Some of the People are afraid. The Bloodrats are known to take slaves. I hear there’s disagreement among the Eyeless, though what they’re disagreeing about I have no idea.”
“I saw one yesterday,” Diodorus said, shivering briefly.
“An Eyeless? You didn’t tell me that,” Swan said.
“Must’ve forgot,” Diodorus said with a tight smile.
“What did he look like?” Swan asked.
“Couldn’t see much. A black mask covered everything above his mouth. No holes for the eyes. Small horns attached to the forehead. He was down the tunnel, on the edge of the light. A servant was carrying his sigil,” said Diodorus.
“What use is a sigil in the dark?” Meric asked.
“Oh, it’s not a symbol. It’s a smell. A strip of fur soaked in Fog-knows-what.”
“Godsblood,” Meric said.
“Yeah. At least Rune seems to be on our side. Although I wish I knew why.”
Meric found out later that day.
He was called to the far end of the chamber, where an old man sat on a stone stoop. The man’s leathery face was defined more by its wrinkles than what lay between. Remarkably, his hair was full and black, a testament to his unending vitality. A wispy triangle of a beard marked his chin. This was the man who’d let Trajan into the tribe decades earlier. The eldest of the elders: Malthenian.
When Meric was seated beside him, Malthenian lit an ornate white pipe. After a few puffs, he handed it to Meric. Meric inhaled something sweet and gritty. It burned the back of his throat and made him cough. A ringing sound came and went. Things felt thicker. It was some time before Malthenian spoke. The words came slow, at a higher pitch than Meric expected.
“When two men meet as strangers in Red Oak, one may bring a gift of wine and grain, and the other may accept and invite the first to dinner. Then the visitor will come with his first wife and child, and they will sup together and learn one another’s ways. Then the wives and children will retire, and the men will share a pipe. Next the quality of the wine will be sampled. Only then will they discuss their reason for meeting. A loan of seeds, perhaps, or skilled labor, or a proposal of marriage. This is the proper way of doing things.
“Now we meet, as it were, for the first time, and we are strangers, but circumstance prevents us from doing what is proper, so we shall only smoke a little from this pipe, and I will you tell my purpose directly.”
Malthenian inhaled from the pipe again and blew out a slow stream of blue-gray smoke through his nostrils. He handed it to Meric. The cloud curled slowly through the air around them. Sounds of continued grief permeated the underground chamber. After several minutes, Malthenian spoke again.
“Many years ago, our ancestors had an odd practice. Their healers would take little pieces of a sickness and give it to those who were healthy. The spirit of the sickness, whose name was Ontibodi, would make each new body its home. Then that body would not suffer ill effects, and Ontibodi would not let other spirits in. Thus, a small infestation prevented a larger one. Now my people have suffered a terrible loss, and there is a sickness upon the land, and you are a small piece of that sickness. You, I think, must become our Ontibodi.”
Meric thought about this and shook his head slowly, heavily.
“I’ve brought only disaster to Red Oak. I’ve ruined you. How can you even speak to me? Trajan would still be here if it weren’t for me, and maybe the legion would never have come.”
Malthenian took the pipe back and inhaled slowly before speaking.
“If that is true, then the fault is mine too, for I set us on this path long ago. I encouraged the Treeborn to let Trajan in. He was a sorcerer. He knew things the world had forgotten. I thought his sorcery could benefit us. When he journeyed to Ozymand, the tribe was overjoyed. Such splendid goods. This pipe–this very pipe–was made by Trajan.”
Malthenian contemplated the pipe before handing it to Meric.
“As the years passed, I told myself all was well. But always I knew there was a hidden falseness in the goods he brought back. Their gaija was wrong. The wood was not wood. The metal was not metal. No hand had carved them. The tools were effective, but at what price? The more he made, the more the People wanted. Jealousy and theft arose among men with no former qualms. Treasures were guarded more closely than children. And Trajan himself was ever looking toward the Fog. I saw that it had infected him, in the same way it had infected our ancestors. His status among the People grew, and at times the People took his aims as their own. For this reason, we fought the fogborn when they left the city–whereas, in the past, we had avoided them, and they’d rarely troubled us. Why would they? We had nothing they wanted. But now, at last, they have found some purpose in our destruction–which, ultimately, without knowing, I invited. Through Trajan.”
Meric inhaled again and managed not to cough. He didn’t agree with the old man. Malthenian couldn’t have foreseen the end result of accepting Trajan. Could anyone ever foresee the long-term consequences of any single decision? Meric still should’ve known his own choice would lead to disaster though–would have known, if he hadn’t put so much faith in the Plutarchs. They sat in silence for several minutes.
“I will tell you now a thing Trajan never full realized,” Malthenian said. “He, like all born in Panchaea, saw the destruction of the old Fog as the end of civilization
–the end of all that was worth saving. Panchaea was, to him, like the last flicker of a sacred fire. He came among us, he saw something of worth in the trees and the rivers, yet still he thought it was the Fog that should be saved. How blind he was. There may or may not be some value in the Fog, but the trees and rivers are the lifeblood of the world. What our ancestors created was a wondrous blight. A cancer, spreading unchecked across the land. What they saw as the end was, by contrast, the recovery of our world. Nature was curing the sickness we had inflicted upon Her.”
“Forgive me for saying so, but it wasn’t nature that built the machines that killed the Fog,” Meric said. “It was humankind. First the Fog, then the RFI–they triggered their own destruction.”
“And you think man is separate from Nature? You think we can escape it, transcend it? All we do is twist its parts into new patterns. Nature works through us, as it works through all things. The Fog is powerful–but it’s a power we, as a species, were never ready to take responsibility for. The world is in greater health now than it has been in many centuries. All that’s left are a few patches of the old blight. Nature will cure those too in time–through us or otherwise. It will wipe them from the face of the Earth.”
Meric shook his head.
“The Plutarchs have lasted this long. They won’t disappear on their own,” he said. “Trajan told me the effects of the machines in the sky would decay one day. When that happens, the Fog will be free to spread again, and the Plutarchs will be the only ones left to rule it. They will inherit the world.”
“If so, they will only destroy themselves a second time. Nature is irrepressible in the end, and our lives are but brief, like lightning in the dark … Enough with speculation though. We must deal with the here and now. When we learned the soldiers were coming, I planned to take my people north until the fogborn had returned to Panchaea. Yet now I see we can never return to Red Oak Grove, and the caves to the north will not see us through the winter. They are too remote, and we have lost too many supplies. Then there are the Bloodrats, who will expect something for their help. In the end, there is only one place we can go.”
The Last Plutarch Page 25