The Last Plutarch

by Tom O'Donnell

  Meric’s thoughts were as thick as syrup. Meliai’s blood was pooling on the floor. Her eyes pleaded with him. He swallowed hard.

  “Your death brings me nothing, but your alliance? Knowledge of the tribes and ties to their leaders, for a start,” Abraxas went on. “Until now the savages could serve only as a common enemy, a source to unite the Plebians–but that’s about to change. The RFI is decaying. We’ve found more active pockets these past ten years than in the previous one hundred. In another decade or two, the world will be livable again. It’s time to expand. We’re going to make Ozymand into a satellite city. A jumping-off point. We can seed it with select savages. Reintegrate them into civilization. But we can only do that with your help.

  “Join me. Help bring strength back to Panchaea. You’ll have a palace in the clouds. Your family will be there. You’ll have a share in governing the city. You’ve earned it. Keep the girl–what do I care? I bear her no anger. She’ll be healed the moment you come to your senses. No harm done. You can look over Plebian policy as well. I dare you to tell me one piece of it is unnecessary; that it does anything but foster preservation of the city. You’ve seen things from below. Now see them from above. Be where you belong. You already know where that is. You’re a Plutarch, for God’s sake.”

  Meric’s head was spinning. His secret wish as a child, the thing he’d wanted most in all the world–to be a Plutarch–was there in the open. It was official, declared by the Consul of the Circle himself. Was Abraxas telling the truth? If not, he was a great actor. Meric wanted to believe him. He wanted to live in a palace. He wanted to save the city and his family and keep ties to the savages.

  They will tempt you with the things you want most.

  Meliai had warned him, but it wasn’t that simple. There was more at stake than personal desires. The tribes wouldn’t be satisfied with the Plutarchs still in power. The Red Eagles wanted a pond-full of cloudborn blood. Balanced against that were even bigger issues. Humanity’s entire future, for one. The crumbs of history, art, culture, technology–everything Panchaea’s founders had managed to save from the old world was preserved in Fog-run memory banks. Could he really trigger the satellites, knowing it would all be lost? And then the issue staring him in the face, smaller to the world but biggest of all to Meric: if he pressed the button, Meliai would die.

  The choice had been made–if choice it could be called. Did a boulder choose to roll when it was pushed downhill? His resistance cracked like ice, drifted away in a river of rationalizations. He stared at Meliai through glazed eyes. His hand drifted infinitesimally further from the button. She knew. She knew what he would do. He could see it reflected in her face. Her grass-green eyes widened in recognition. He could almost hear her…

  Do not forget what waits out here. Do not forget the colors beyond the gray.

  And then she made the choice for him.

  With the agility of a cat, Meliai turned and sprang at Abraxas. She sunk her teeth into his throat. She wrapped her legs around his waist, clinging as tight as a coiled serpent. He staggered back, falling, blood spraying from his neck. She tore at him, a lioness with raw meat, as he turned the beamer toward her.

  Azog charged. Vireo and the others were moving too. The fat Plutarch fell with a girlish scream and a spear in his back before he could reach the double-doors. But all Meric could see was the hole the beamer burned through Meliai’s back; the way she slumped on top of the dying Plutarch, her teeth still buried in his throat.

  He was not aware of his hand slamming the button.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Fog did not die with a bang.

  It died slowly and quietly, like a wilting flower, like melting ice. Slow enough that Meric was able to carry his whole company swiftly to the ground on a floating platform. Slow enough that he had to fight off more Plutarchs who met them as they fled. Fog-duels were still raging when the vast network of microscopic machines began to lose coherence; when the magic of the sorcerers faltered and died.

  On the ground, the Plebians weren’t yet aware of any change. The wall was unmonitored, the turrets inoperable. Carrying Meliai’s body, Meric fled the city. The Plutarchs’ lies would die much slower than the Fog, and if the savages were spotted in the streets, they’d be swarmed by legionnaires. Belatedly, Meric realized their exit strategy was woefully lacking. They had no plan at all to deal with the instabilities and logistical issues created by the death of the Fog. He’d hoped to use their leverage to free Trajan and open up Fog-access to Plebians. He hadn’t imagined it would come to actually triggering the satellites. A large part of him had thought their efforts were doomed from the start, rendering an exit plan unnecessary. One mistake had changed everything.

  He carried her body to a secret place in the forest; a wild place thick with flowers, beneath the trees and the blue sky, beside a babbling brook. As much as he’d adopted savage customs, Meric refused to hold a funereal feast. Her body would decay and merge with the earth instead, from which it had never seemed very distant in spirit. It was an appropriate place, but after he’d laid her in the ground, he couldn’t bear to fill in the grave. Her green eyes were closed. Her blonde curls shifted in a gentle breeze. He’d cleaned the blood off her face. She was perfect. And she would be gone forever the moment he pushed in the dirt.

  Grief belongs to the body. The Goddess has no use for it. Nothing worth keeping is lost.

  Maybe she was right. If so, it didn’t help. He sat for many hours beside the open grave. He thought of the first time he’d kissed her, during his escape, and the next, in Ozymand. He thought of the way she’d moved, the way she’d stood, the ferocity in her eyes, the pitch of her voice–all that was perfect about her; all that he loved.

  We may die, Meric. But that must not stop us. It is fear of death that keeps people from the Goddess. We are the trees and the rocks and the river. We are even the Fog. There is nothing we are not. The Goddess is indivisible. Her pattern may shift, but we will always exist within it.

  In his grief, he couldn’t see what she’d seen. There was only the hollow sorrow, the vast and unconquerable pain. Something perfect had been ripped from the world. He couldn’t believe she was gone. It was past midnight when he closed his eyes and forced his body to push the dirt into the grave. Then he lay beside the grave and wept, and dreamt of the girl within.

  *

  “I’m going back into Panchaea,” Meric told Azog the next night. They were camped in a thicket not far outside the clearing, mourning and keeping an eye on the city.

  “We each have the right to choose our own death,” Azog said.

  “I’m not going back to die. I need to get my family out. I need to find Trajan.”

  Azog nodded.

  “Shall I go with you?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll do it alone.”

  “I’m going,” Vireo said, stepping closer. “You promised us the blood of the Fogborn. I will collect it.”

  “Blood you will have–but now is not the time. The Plutarchs are powerless, but the Plebians don’t know that. Raiding the Fog will only unite them and prolong the struggle. We must wait.”

  Vireo made a disgusted sound and turned away. He wouldn’t wait forever.

  Meric crossed the clearing in the dark. He doubted anyone was monitoring the perimeter–and certainly nothing artificial, like the turrets. He cut a hole in the outer wall with an atomblade and slipped through unseen.

  By now the Plebians knew something was dreadfully wrong. At the Temple, no prayers had been answered, no offerings accepted, no goods created. Floating palaces lilted visibly in the sky. Meric had watched from the edge of the clearing as vast silhouettes had sunk like leaky ships. One lopsided behemoth had fallen faster than the others, its mass unbalanced by a great blue-glass tower. The tower had tilted sixty-degrees as it accelerated toward the ground. Even across the clearing, he’d heard the screams of Plebians running from their homes; felt the distant tremor of the tower smashing into the earth, crushing smaller buildings
, emitting shockwaves of dust and debris.

  Fear and chaos filled the Fog. Dead Plutarchs lay in the street. Some had fallen from the sky. Others had committed suicide. One wandered by in a panicked stupor, deaf to the questions of those who called out to him.

  Meric spent hours looking for Trajan. He had no idea where to find the former savage-king, however, and he had to avoid being recognized. When he left again, he was accompanied by his mother, brother, and Swan’s parents–but not Trajan. He’d wanted to bring his cousins, friends, and neighbors too. They would’ve insisted on bringing their own families, unfortunately, and their number would’ve snowballed until he’d be leaving with no less than the whole of Panchaea … which he gladly would’ve done, had everyone been willing. As it was, he’d more likely be mobbed and torn to pieces.

  Betrayer, Dominus had called him. Others would say the same. And maybe they were right; he’d killed the Fog, after all. When he left Panchaea, he did not look back.

  *

  Two days after the Fog’s deathblow, a small building drifted to Earth. The door’s electronic lock no longer functioned. A man with a long gray beard, disoriented and dying of thirst, exited to drink gratefully from the nearby river. The few Plebians who noticed him didn’t recognize him. They’d been told Trajan had red eyes and horns; this man was a Plutarch.

  Trajan spent a few hours wondering if he was hallucinating. There were broken buildings and debris all around him, yet it was seeing Hephaestus dead on the sidewalk that shocked him into a deeper realization. The Senior Fogsmith appeared to have fallen from a great height. The remains wouldn’t have been recognizable at all, were it not for a distinctive silver tattoo. Trajan realized what must have happened–but if the satellites had been triggered, how had it happened? Who had done it, and where were they now?

  “God has abandoned us!” yelled a man on Divinity Ave, as Fog settled slowly into gray silt around his feet. His bloodshot eyes were crazed, accusing.

  “Repent–the Second Smiting has come!” yelled a woman in Fountain Square, looking skyward as one of the last cloud-born structures sunk like a deflated balloon.

  Gathered at the edge of the city were despairing masses of Plebians. They’d abandoned the inner areas to avoid falling buildings. Rough feet trod the fields, crushing crops underfoot–crops already saturated with settling Fog.

  Winter will go hard.

  Trajan heard rumors as he walked. It was said American Adams had been in the Fog, leading a hundred demons and twice as many savages. In isolation, Trajan had known nothing of Meric’s Triumph. He listened. He asked questions now and then. Some Plebians only gaped at him, astonished at being addressed by a Plutarch. Others answered as though he were testing them. He learned bits and pieces until he had a good idea of what must have occurred. Trajan had wanted to abolish the Plutarch/Plebian divide; for that, he’d written a dangerous program–but never had he intended to destroy Panchaea. It was a tragedy beyond description.

  Most of the Plebians sat or wandered in a thoughtless stupor. Seeing his silver eyes, some reached for him. An old woman grasped his arm, her face in torment, and cried: “Tell us! Tell us, Holiness–what have we done? Why has God Smote Panchaea?”

  Desperate faces turned to him, angry, yearning.

  “It was not you,” Trajan said.

  More Plebians looked up. None of the other Plutarchs had answered. Trajan’s path was clear to him then. The whole of the truth was too big to be absorbed. It would leave the Plebians with nothing but broken psyches. A framework was necessary. A segue of belief from the old worldview to a new one.

  “It was not you,” Trajan said louder. “It was us. God did not abandon the Plutarchs–the Plutarchs abandoned God!”

  As the throng gathered closer, he told them that God had judged American Adams worthy, but the Plutarchs had been too proud to admit a Plebian into their ranks. He named himself Veritas, as “Trajan” was still a demonic savage in their minds. He told them he’d been imprisoned for going against his peers, but the Second Smiting had freed him to help the Plebians. The Great Test was now upon them–they would have to pull together and survive in a world without the Fog.

  Trajan preached daily to the disillusioned masses. As his adherents grew, other Plutarchs rose to oppose him. By the time the legion returned, Panchaea had broken into quarreling factions. The Legate seized a quarter of the city, imposing his own order–only to have a former Legate rise against him with Trajan’s words on his lips. Chaos and violence spread through the Fog. Starvation followed.

  Thousands perished.

  *

  When the snows thawed and the forest clothed itself in greenery, a motley band appeared outside Panchaea. Savages of half a dozen tribes. Plebians thought long dead. And the Foglord of Ozymand.

  When Trajan led a delegation of grateful Plebians from the Fog, Meric met him in stunned disbelief. The Fog was considerably reduced in height. Much had settled to earth, pushing outward in the process, pancaking. Billions of tiny machines had drained into the river with the melting snow, but a vast gray smear remained in the clearing, as though Panchaea had been a beast with ash for blood.

  Winter had brought its own troubles for the Ozymand-alliance–particularly where the Red Eagles were concerned. Still, it had been nothing compared to the chaos and devastation which had gripped Panchaea. Meric had wanted to free the Plebians from their illusions. He’d wanted justice, recognition, revenge. But the price had been too high. He could never have abandoned his family and friends to the lies of the Plutarchs–anymore than Meliai could’ve left her father a captive–but afterwards, he wished only to go back and flee into the forest with the woman he loved.

  The Plebians greeted Meric with hope and amazement. They were ready for change, eager to put the horrors of the winter behind them. But when he talked of abandoning Panchaea, their enthusiasm was stunted. Many still weren’t ready. They settled on a plan to plant crops in the clearing, shoveling away the dead Fog, tilling the soil. Much of the violence abated with the labor. The bones of a temple were laid at the northern edge of the Fog. When Meric’s group again left for the Wildlands, thousands left with them.

  The valley above Ozymand was flooded with the seeds of a new society. Crops were planted, homes built, rapid progress made … yet upon returning, the Foglord was rarely seen. People spoke of him in an increasingly distant way, as if he were more spirit than man. No one was allowed into the Fog itself. The entrance was guarded day and night.

  As the months passed, former Plebians placed offerings around the hollow hill. Flowers were planted. Men and women came to pray for blessings. Some said the Foglord brooded forever in the underworld. Others claimed to have glimpsed him in the wild places, pondering the trees, staring into the streams, kneeling at a secret grave.

  Months became years, and crops and homes grew numerous. Tribal leaders squabbled and fought and made up and fought again. Formal agreements were made. The village in the valley grew vast and prosperous. Then a rumor spread that Ozymand was empty, that the Foglord had gone west. Stories were told of the Fog and of the Plutarchs, and to the young they were but fairy tales.

  The last mists of Panchaea were blown south by a passing storm. Trillions of unseen machines settled into the grass and mud. New rains carried them into the streams and rivers, which bore them into the ocean, until finally they settled into the black depths, as indifferent to their new home as they’d been to their last.

  EPILOGUE

  The boy had a way of getting into places. He was small and crafty like his mother, with the dark eyes and serene composure of his grandmother. He was also a keen observer. After he and his sister burned the incense in the temple that morning, he noticed a strange man sitting on a shadowed bench near the rear wall. The man’s clothing was unusual, from no tribe the boy knew. A cowl hid his face. An ornate blade was sheathed at his side. The boy was curious, but there was something forbidding about the man, and he’d been taught it was rude to question strangers.
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  After he and his sister had left, the boy recruited a friend who lived close to the temple. The friend’s interest made it inevitable he would investigate further. Later, however, when the boy returned, the friend was cross.

  “Very funny, Pym. You play too many tricks.”

  The boy was taken aback.

  “What do you mean?” Pym asked.

  “Weren’t no stranger in the temple. Just the Keeper.”

  “You dummy, you waited too long! He must’ve left.”

  “You’re the dummy. I went over there right after I talked to you.”

  If that was true, if the stranger really hadn’t come out…

  Pym had always wondered about the Hollow Hill. The temple had been built around it, and the Keeper guarded the entrance day and night. No more grass grew on the hill. The dirt covering the artificial supports had been sculpted into tiered shelves. The shelves held candles, incense, personal offerings. It was said the Hollow Hill was the entrance to the underworld. That was why the Keepers guarded it–not only to stop people from going in, but to stop demons from coming out. Pym’s grandmother said that was nonsense, but more than that she wouldn’t say, and it was one of the only times her expression grew dark.