Dust

by J R Devoe

  Some recoil. Others break straight into retreat, leaving only rustling leaves and shaking branches in their place.

  “I’m not asking you to fight,” I say, wishing I’d chosen my previous words better. “We have enough fighters. I just need your help retrieving them.”

  A few step out into the open.

  Sheffa emerges at the forefront. “I ain’t a coward, Nya. I was at the pyramids when Jexa attacked, and I held my ground for as long as I could. The Watchers and the Aeri…they overrunned us so fast. You can’t expect to beat them.”

  “If Jexa opens the portal at the wrong time, there will be nowhere safe for you to hide.” I proceed to enlighten them on the many manners of destruction Jexa may invite into this world with a misaligned gate opening. “So you see, your only chance is to help me.”

  I hold up a jar of purple sea sparkle. “Come with me to the edge of darkness, and help me find our warrior sparks. Then you may go back to hiding under whatever rock gives you comfort.”

  The gathered Fori exchange wary looks.

  “I cannot do this without you,” I say. “If we do not stand together now, we are all doomed to fall.”

  Sheffa approaches and kneels beside my pile of glowing containers. She picks up a jar of fireflies and watches the floating green orbs absently for a long time.

  Finally, she nods. “We got no idea what’ll happen if we follow you, Nya, but Jexa misaligning the gate will bring us to a worse end.” She stands suddenly, clutching the jar tight to her belly. “I’ll follow ya to the edge of that dark. Just tell me what ya need.”

  • • •

  Word of my folly spreads quickly. Hundreds of Fori gather around Jexa’s black hole to watch. Many are eager to help. They fashion a tether of vine and hemp that stretches for miles, with many flying off to farther woodlands for more material to weave should I require greater range.

  Working among them, swiftly and silently, is Jinny. When our eyes meet and she realizes I’ve spotted her, her cheeks glow red with shame and she whizzes away in search of more material.

  I fasten the tether end around my ankle, securing it with a quadruple knot. Though, standing on the rim of this perfectly round hole, not even a million knots would make me feel secure enough. My heart thunders and feels like it may explode out my belly. I shake a jar of sea sparkle to produce a purple glow.

  Sheffa sets a basket of the remaining light jars at my feet. She must see the fear in my eyes, because she places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We ain’t goin’ anywhere till you get back with all them lost ones.”

  I force a smile. “Well, then, let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

  I slide my spear through the handles that loop across the top of the basket of jars, then tie the spear horizontally across my waist.

  Like jumping into cold water, I waste no time delaying and dive headfirst into darkness. It envelops me before I can allow regret to dissuade me. A layer of blasting heat greets me for the first few seconds, then fades to a still chill.

  My wings flutter instinctively to slow my descent. The jars dangling from my waist clink and come to life with light. They reveal my own body and nothing but impenetrable darkness around me. I drift slowly, falling ever into oblivion…falling…falling…falling…until my tether tightens and jerks me to a stop. I cringe at the clinking jars.

  A distant voice echoes from above, telling me to wait. So distant. When I look up, I see only a faint circle of light the size of my thumbnail.

  I shake a jar of sea sparkle and take comfort in its glow. As I wait for the Fori to weave more line, I feel the darkness below pull on me. Gravity is heavier here, I swear it. Or maybe it’s something else.

  Before I can think more on it I’m falling again. I clutch the jar of glowing algae to my chest and use my wings to control my fall, allowing some slack in the line above me.

  Twice more I jerk to a stop, dangling in darkness, then fall again until something other than a shortage of rope stops me.

  My feet hit solid ground and I scream at the unexpected sensation. The floor is sloped and I struggle to find my footing. It’s useless. I slam onto my butt with a crash, literally, as glass shatters all around me.

  I slap both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream. Why does everything I touch have to break?! My muffled moaning travels out into the dark around me and comes shouting back at me way louder, screaming words I thought I’d only thought!

  Sitting amongst a pile of broken glass, I lose control of my breathing as purple streams of glowing bacteria carve a trail in the darkness below. Above me, specks of whirling green light grow smaller in the dark until it swallows them altogether. This can’t be happening. I have to go back!

  I spring to my feet and grab the safety line. I’m about to fly upward when voices echo from the abyss behind me. I squeeze the mended vine to my chest and listen.

  Only my own thundering heart and rapid breathing grace this void. Were those voices in my mind?

  When I bend my knees again to take flight, a shriek almost sends me rocketing upward. But I lock my knees and keep my feet planted on the cool rock.

  Soft purple light glows from behind me, illuminating a perfectly bored hole in the wall ahead, with my silhouette standing in the middle. I turn to see the glowing bacteria has pooled in a dip where another tunnel slopes upward.

  Grabbing a few pieces of broken glass, I rush to scoop the glowing liquid into them. But even the biggest shard can’t hold enough to produce much light, and any movement sends what’s there spilling over the jagged edges.

  Panic rises in me again. There’s no way to harness this light I’ve brought, no way to bring it with me.

  A voice echoes through the dark. It speaks my name. Or does it?

  Yes. It’s Jaleera’s voice, rising from the depths of my memory. “You were the light in my darkness,” she says.

  That’s it!

  Without another thought I’m on my back, rolling in the glowing wetness, shivering as it coats my skin. When I stand, I hold my purple hands before me. I wriggle my glowing fingers and smile.

  I am the light in the darkness.

  I step forward into the black tunnel. Faint purple light pushes back the void ahead, revealing rugged rock walls that form a rounded tunnel. I push on, relieved to see the dark retreat from me. Empowered, even.

  I pick up my pace, trotting fearlessly toward the retreating dark, until I emerge into a grand gallery. The hollowed cavern is about one hundred feet in diameter. In the walls along its circumference are round patches of blackness, each another passageway. Each another way to get lost.

  “Hello!” I shout. My voice echoes down into the dozens of voids. “Ko Tora? Anyone?”

  “HELLO! . . . KO TORA? . . . ANYONE?” are the deafening responses. They blast back so loud I’m forced to cover my ears. Then, nothing.

  Perhaps they split up and lost their way. In the pitch black it would be impossible to find the exit tunnel. It looks identical to the rest. So much so that I’d not know it myself if not for the vine rope attached to my ankle.

  “Hello! It’s Nya! Come to my voice!”

  Again, my own voice responds. This time it is not alone.

  Footsteps patter in the darkness.

  “Shhhhh!”

  At a tunnel entrance to my left, a Fori crouches and looks above warily. As I approach, she recoils back into darkness.

  “Wait!” I say. “Where are you going? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I know,” the Fori whispers.

  When I reach the tunnel mouth, I find her quivering in an alcove. She puts a finger to her lips. “You must be quiet, or it will hear you.”

  “What will hear me?”

  She peeks around me for a look into the gallery. “Couldn’t see, but it was just here. It ran away just before you showed up.” She shoos me away. “Now get away from me, you’re drawing too much attention to us. Find somewhere safe and hope it doesn’t find you.”

  A scratching sou
nd echoes from above. Pebbles fall to the ground in the chamber center.

  My heart pounds and feels like it’s rising into my throat. I grip my mother’s spear tight and aim its tip upward.

  But wait…

  I lower my weapon and turn to my Fori friend. “You said it was just down here, but it left just before I arrived?”

  She hugs herself and nods.

  “Was it moving fast? As if it was running away?”

  She frowns, contemplating.

  I drop my spear and march to the center of the gallery. No doubt many watch me from the tunnels in fear, but I see something they do not. What must a creature that dwells in darkness fear? What it does not know, of course. Light.

  I stop walking at a pile of fallen pebbles and set my wings to work. Gasps arise from all around as I float toward the ceiling. Below, many of my kin emerge from their hiding spots to watch me fly to my death.

  Turning my attention above, I see the rough cavern roof come into view, and from the darkest recess two red eyes watching me.

  I gasp and my wings freeze in fear, dropping me about ten feet. I stop at a hover and keep my eyes locked on the two red dots above. They dart back and forth.

  I know this feeling. I’ve seen it in dwellers of the forest as well, when they feel cornered. Normally I’d leave such a creature alone, but I am not here to calm beasts of the dark.

  I zoom up and snatch it with both hands. The furry creature squirms and squeals in my hold, but it cannot escape, for it is small enough to fit well within my two hands. In my violet glow I see it is a rodent with brown fur and chattering teeth. It’s terrified.

  When I return to the ground with my new pet, hundreds of figures emerge from the caves. Some hang back, but dozens boldly approach as if they’d known all along.

  “It seems the darkness made a monster out of you,” I say to the quivering rodent while stroking its soft fur.

  My Fori cousins watch nervously, so I offer the nearest a closer look. “See, nothing to fear.”

  “Except that we’re lost!” someone says.

  Many huddle close to me for the comfort of my light.

  “You were lost,” I say with a victorious smile. I untie the rope from my ankle and hold it above my head. “This leads all the way to surface, where many of our—”

  The commotion of scrambling feet drowns out my last words. I’m left in the dust of their retreat as they race down the exit tunnel toward the access pit.

  Soon I’m alone with my new friend. I set him down and hurry in pursuit of my kin.

  At surface I’m greeted by a surprising sight. Hundreds of my recovered Fori friends sit along the rim of the pit, their feet dangling over darkness and laughter descending into its depths. Some can’t seem to believe how far they’d been lost. Nor how easy it was to vanquish their fears with just the tiniest bit of light.

  “Didn’t see any Ori down there,” Kassini tells me.

  “Jexa has them moving the Capstone,” I say.

  Over the eastern horizon, red clouds announce the sun’s approach.

  Ko Tora flies overhead. “Back to the pyramids!” she shouts, stifling the celebration. “We can still race Jexa there.”

  I seal my lips tight. Little good will come from telling them that Jexa is already there. We have enough deterrents as it is. If one of us goes, then we must all go together. Or those who go will fail.

  I look north, to the night sky. The portal is not yet open.

  My heart beats with hope. We can delay Jexa from seating the Capstone until a proper alignment, one that will invite the Magister.

  27

  —

  NYA

  WE ARE A RABBLE when we leave Jexa’s pit of darkness. In the crimson light of the rising sun, flying over desert, we form into cohorts. It’s a real mess. Some of the returned need more time to recover their wits. And the brilliant glare from the sun peeking over the horizon doesn’t help. But by the time we reach the forest’s southern border, our force of four thousand manages to at least reorganize into their original squadrons.

  Ko Tora tries ordering the whole lot into an extended line, in which she is the center piece, but the collective Hive has a new queen.

  I try lingering in the rear, but the rear keeps shifting behind to place me in front, so that I find myself at the point of a ragged arrowhead formation. Eventually Ko Tora gives up and falls in at my left wing.

  I can’t resist. I order Kassini, who flies at my right wing, to maintain course alongside Ko Tora while I peel upward to take in the marvelous sight. It does not disappoint. Never in all my lifetimes have I been filled with such awe.

  Sweeping out beneath me for as far left and as far right as I can see in the red sky, a grand arrowhead made up of smaller arrowheads of Fori squadrons fly high over the forest. Here we are, trespassing boldly through Watcher and Aeri domain, far from the safety of the trees below.

  Such a shame, because it is all for naught.

  We stop for a rest and to prepare our weapons in the heart of the forest. The squadrons take care to maintain their positions on the ground, so that all it takes is an order to take flight and we’re back in our massive arrowhead. Our pace picks up with the rising sun. It’s mid-morning when the dreaded moment happens.

  A flash of light in the distance blinds me. A few heartbeats later brings a BOOM, and with it comes a shock wave that blows back my hair.

  My forward flight wanes to a hover. I brave a look ahead to where, over the sacred pyramid grounds, a bulb of white light pulsates in the sky. A stem of translucent energy connects the portal to its power source beneath the pyramids.

  Suddenly I realize I’m alone in the sky. The forest canopy below shakes as everyone takes cover, instinctively hiding inside trees. As if bits of wood will save them from universal annihilation.

  I hold fast in my position in the sky. If that portal opened out of alignment we’d already be dead.

  A few of my followers realize this and rush to join me.

  “Fall into your cohorts!” I shout. It’s my first official command as Rebel Marshal, but those still in the trees rise as if they’d been listening to me all their lives.

  I fly hard ahead and hope my warriors join me. Curiosity moves my wings faster than fear ever could. Clearly there was a method to Jexa’s madness. The chances of aligning a gate by fluke are astronomically small.

  As we draw closer to that translucent ball that had once deposited us all onto this planet, I find myself drifting down toward the treetops. Everyone follows suit until we breach the canopy. We maintain our speed, slowing only to weave around trees, until the very edge of the forest comes into view, where the trees give way to open ground.

  I stop at the outer row of trees and survey the Great Pyramid. The stem—a pulse of energy directed straight up from the Capstone to feed the portal—cannot be seen due to a swirling mass of black dots that circles all three pyramids. More of these black dots fall from the portal above and join the rotating mass that skirts the Anomaly’s border—Watchers from every corner of the Universe, all responding to Jexa’s call to arms.

  Wails of despair rise all around me. They vibrate through my core and shatter my heart into a trillion pieces. The sobs that follow make my hair stand on end. Any hope we had dissipates with these cries of defeat as my followers fall into each other's embraces for comfort. Beside me, Kassini rests her brow on her axehead and sobs away unabashedly.

  But we are not too late. The tornado of black dots before us is only the tip of the spear, the first drops of rain from the coming storm. We can stop this flood before the dam breaks wide open. I can still unseat the Capstone. I just need to reach the upper tier. If I break enough of the right blocks, I can shift the pyramid enough to slide the gate key from its mount.

  I look to my immediate surroundings and see that at least I still have an army. Though, I notice something I didn’t before: a clear division among our ranks.

  Those who had followed Ko Tora down into the abyss gath
er atop the canopy and shun the Fori who helped save them. I hear the whispers. Cowards, they call them. I could call them fools right back, but name-calling never leads to a happy ending. Division must be avoided now more than ever.

  I see the lower Fori, among them Jinny, watching those who’ve faced the darkness. I know the look in their eyes, that feeling of unworthiness. They want to fight, but they’re scared. Their own kind call them cowards and they believe it. They don’t realize it’s only what you think of yourself that matters. The only time someone else’s opinion about you counts is if you let it.

  I slide from my branch and glide down to join them.

  “We’ll be needing your help out there,” I say.

  A few shirk back, some retreating behind tree trunks. They don’t realize there’ll be no trees to hide behind once Jexa rallies her force in full.

  “Up there right now, the returned are worried you won’t join us. They’re worried because they know we can’t do it without you. They’d still be lost in Jexa’s dark if not for you.”

  “So why are they risking ending up in the real Dark?” says Sheffa.

  “Because they learned something down below. When you face something you fear head on, you see it’s just something you didn’t understand. And if it really is dangerous, and you understand how it can hurt you, then you can show that danger the respect it deserves. Then you’re in control of whether it hurts you or not.”

  Jinny drifts closer. “But the real Dar-D-Dark . . . You’re not afraid of it?”

  “The Dark?” I say, playing with the word in my head. Truly analyzing it for the first time in my life. “No, I do not fear it.”

  “Even the darkest dark?” presses Jinny, incredulous.

  “Especially the darkest dark,” I tell her, and she recoils. I see in her eyes she thinks me mad, and rightfully so, so I must explain. “What is darkness but the absence of light? And the darkest dark?” I squeeze her shoulder. “Well, then your spark shall glow all the brighter in that void. And in this world, even a single spark can start a wildfire. Such infernos have wiped clean entire planets. You’ve seen it.”