by Alex Leopold
“I didn't mention it?” Ellis responded innocently. “I thought I had.”
That irritated Acadia enough that he released the string on his bow and the arrow buried itself into the earth next to Ellis' ear.
“Hey! That almost struck him.” Cooper objected. Acadia ignored her and yanked Ellis up to his feet.
“Ellis.” The grizzly said mouthing the young man’s name as if he were saying it anew, as if he was realizing something he should've known all along. “Manhattan, the leader of the Skymen had a son called, Ellis. He’d be about your age. That’s not a coincidence, is it?”
“No.” The young man gave a sober nod.
That made Acadia wrinkle his nose with disgust.
“You and I have met before Skyman, do you remember?”
“What?” Both girls said together, Cooper the more shocked of the two.
“I said, do you?” Acadia demanded.
“Yes.” Ellis admitted. “You came to us sixteen years ago, after the fall of Sancisco. You asked my father for protection. He said ‘no’.”
“He said more than ‘no’. He said if he ever saw us again, he'd turn us in to the Directory and collect the reward himself.”
Riley remembered her father showing them this moment from the past when they’d joined him in the connection. Remembered the two babies hiding at his feet as her father begged for the Manhattan’s protection. And remembered Manhattan refusing.
“My father didn't want to get dragged into a war.” Ellis objected.
“He sent us out into the cold when these two girls were no more than a year old. They could have died!”
“I know”, a somber Ellis agreed. “And though it won't make a difference now, it was a decision my father told me was his greatest regret.”
“It doesn't.”
“Then I'm sure you’ll be glad when I remind you, he’s dead.” Ellis snapped, and the cavalier disguise he used to protect himself slipped for a second.
That robbed Acadia of his rage and he lowered Ellis back onto his feet. Had there once been a friendship between her family and the Skymen, Riley wondered? If there had, it had never been spoken of. A reminder of how little she’d known of her father’s life before their time in the Borderlands.
“What happened?” Riley asked.
“The Directory has wanted an army of dragon-riders for years.” He explained. “They gave my father an ultimatum, join them or be destroyed. When he refused, they had draculats invade our city.”
“Draculats?”
“Winged men. Half-man, half-bat.”
“Their lands are the mountains far to the west, thousands of miles away. There are no reports of them ever venturing this far east.” Malthus said.
“That’s what we thought. Somehow, the Directory managed to secretly transport an army of them across the nation without anyone hearing about it. We were only aware the draculats were on the east coast, when they attacked us.”
He looked at Cooper and added. “Took us by complete surprise.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Malthus interrupted. “I have friends in King Kalahar’s court. Three months ago, a Skyman held an audience with the King during which he announced the dragon-riders had formed an alliance with the Directory. And that it was in the King’s best interest to do the same.”
He looked at Ellis critically. “There was no mention of draculats.”
The young man shrugged. “I guess the Directory ordered my men to lie. That’s all I know.”
“Was it just you who got out?” Acadia asked, his tone suspicious.
“Yes. When my father saw we’d lost the battle, he ordered me to leave the city and get help. There were others with me, but I was the only one who got away.”
“How did you escape?”
“There’s a secret tunnel under the city. My men died making sure I got out without the draculats discovering its existence.”
Ellis ripped off his glove and held out his barehand.
“Skin-read me if you don’t believe me! I have nothing to hide.”
Cooper unconsciously reached for him, but Malthus blocked her.
“Don’t bother.” He said. “Your Skyman friend here is a memory-carrier. Which means he has the ability to fabricate his memories to show you anything he wants.
“He could show you a battle among the towers of the City in the Clouds. An audience with the resistance.”
He turned to Ellis “Or he could show you a meeting with his Directory contact. Either way, you wouldn’t know what memory was real or false. Hell, he might not even know.”
That was all very reminiscent of what Mayat had warned them when they’d first met Ellis: “How his mind works, he could be a Squeak and he wouldn’t even know it.”
“Well, then I guess you’re just going to have to trust me then. The same way everyone was asked to trust you.” Ellis argued.
That shut Malthus up.
“I don’t have to trust either of you.” Acadia spoke. “And right now, I’m inclined to do just that.”
Riley watched as both men argued their innocence. She had an overwhelming sense they'd been down this road before and knew where it would take them. Her father had trusted no one, and he was dead because of it.
“If Quill thought me such a threat, why did he send you to me?” She heard Malthus ask.
“Maybe he had no choice. Or, perhaps he knew killing you would cheer me up.” Acadia replied.
The men continued to bicker. Riley looked at her sister and gave a tired shake of her head.
“We’re in deep trouble, aren't we?” Cooper whispered as they watched the scene deteriorate in front of them.
Riley nodded. “Yep.”
“At least we have each other, right?” Cooper asked nervously with an outstretched hand.
“Always!” Riley replied, with almost breathless relief.
“We’ll always have each other.” She added as she pulled Cooper into her embrace.
But, that’s not enough, she thought.
If she allowed this argument to continue, she knew how it would end. Acadia would send both Malthus and Ellis away, and then they’d be down to five. That wasn’t enough to make it.
They were dead on their feet in a foreign land. To survive, they needed allies, no matter how imperfect. They had two in front of them right now, and couldn’t be sure when they’d have two more.
So she spoke.
“Enough!”
She delivered it with the same authority she'd heard her father use a thousand times before, and was satisfied when everyone fell silent.
“Whatever we are, we all have one thing in common. We all want to destroy the Directory.”
Pulling the notebook out of her pocket, Riley held it up in the air for everyone to see.
“Somewhere within these pages might be the key to doing that. But the only way we’re going to succeed is if we work together. And to do that we have to trust each other.”
She would take the first step she decided as she tossed the book to Malthus.
“You say, you can use what’s inside that to bring down the Archon.” She told him. “I want you to show us how.”
71
The light had started to fade out of the day. She could sense it like a shift in the wind and with it she got to work securing the shutters on the windows and locking the heavy bolts against the doors. Ghostbacks were known to prowl this land during the night and she had to ensure she was safely barricaded inside before they came.
Her name was Weaver and she was a stout woman with short legs and thick arms who’d long ago moved into the years of her life when all the wild hair on her head had turned grey and the skin on her hands and face had wrinkled. Her age was definitely catching up with her. Each year the daily ritual of securing the house took a little longer, the lifting got a little harder, and her bones complained a little louder. Yet, it was all the life she’d ever known and, even after her husband had died, there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
Plus, there was her important work, and without needing to be reminded she kicked over a painted rock by the front door before closing and bolting it. Red at night, dark for the day; a subtle signal to anyone watching that everything was fine.
Now she could relax, light the candles and the fire, and start to prepare dinner. She moved through the house almost like a blind person, knowing instinctively where everything was placed and how the shadows fell about the room. So she didn’t need to see them to know she wasn’t alone.
“You don’t need to hide.” She said with matronly warmth as she stepped into the house’s largest room.
Moving over to the fireplace, she pulled a log out of an old wicker basket and threw it onto the hearth.
“It’s nice to see some new faces after such a long time.”
She stoked the embers till the log began to burn, then slowly she turned to face her two intruders. Standing in the far corner were two women. The short one was felisian, Weaver could see the tips of her pointed ears. The taller one was a young girl with nervous eyes and blonde hair.
Their clothes were torn and stained with dirt and flecks of blood. Their smoke streaked faces were bruised and pale from exhaustion, and they didn’t so much as blink as they watched her down the barrels of their long-rifles.
“You could have knocked.” Weaver added with a motherly smile and a little chuckle.
“We didn’t know who was inside.” The young girl replied.
Weaver let out an insightful smile and asked. “Couldn’t get your mind passed the front door, eh?”
“Please stay out of my head.” The girl said nervously.
Her response caused the felisian to lean into her weapon.
Weaver put up her arms in surrender. “Perhaps you can tell me what you want?”
“Kamran sent us.” She began furtively then swallowed hard with nervous energy.
“He gave us a code. ‘A loving heart’…”
It was the first line of an old resistance code and Weaver couldn’t remember when she’d last heard it. But she knew the response.
“‘Is the truest wisdom’.” She said and offered her hand.
“I’m Weaver.”
“You are with the Torchbearers?” The blonde girl asked not moving to accept it.
Weaver put a finger to her lips and shook her head. “We who still are do not speak its name. We do not even think it.”
She put her hands on her hips and began to tut while she shook her head. “You two look terrible. Look like you’ve been in quite the scrap.”
Then a smile of admiration crept onto her lips.
“Now, the resistance is all abuzz with a rumor that a small group of eight, stormed their way into Harvardtown. Fought one hell of a battle with the Directory then used the gateway to portal away to who knows where. Based on what I see before me, I’d say I think I know where this group went. But I see only two, where are the other six?”
The young girl glanced nervously toward the felisian who hadn’t taken her eyes off Weaver for a second. The vertical slits of her emerald-green pupils seeming to bore into the stout woman’s body like daggers.
Without turning her head, the felisian gave a small nod. The young girl squinted her eyes with concentration and held out her right hand.
“Switch.”
The only light in the room at that time was from the fire, so when the blue capsules appeared, Weaver was forced to blink a few times to clear her vision. When she could properly see again she found the room crowded with people.
Five more had joined them. A grizzly, a houndsman, two men and a dark-haired girl.
“Better.” Weaver said as she looked each of them over. “But I don’t see our Directory contact. A woman, called Nakano. Have you seen her?”
Their faces fell.
“She was with us in the beginning, but she died in Havardtown.” The blonde girl replied.
“But she must’ve given you something. Or, perhaps, told you something before she died.” Weaver’s voice was almost shaking with nerves.
“She gave us this.” The girl said pulling something from her coat pocket.
The moment Weaver’s eyes fell on the notebook her whole body seemed to shudder with relief.
“It’s a vision of the future.” The girl said and Weaver nodded eagerly in agreement as if she already knew. “But…”
The young girl pressed her teeth into her lower lip as she tried to bite back some kind of grief. She couldn’t make it stop though and started to softly cry. It took the black man in their group to finish her sentence.
“The vision was tied to the fate of a man known as the Great Inventor, the father of these two women.”
Weaver continued to nod her head as as if she’d expected something like this.
“Unfortunately, he also lost his life during the battle in Harvardtown.”
In response to this, Weaver placed her hands square on her hips, pumped out her chest in defiance and pouted her lips.
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose.” She replied and started nodding to herself as if she’d already agreed upon a plan. “We must get you to the resistance as soon as possible. So that you can meet with the Quiet Lady.”
“Who is she?” The other girl with the black hair asked, mystified.
Weaver’s lips extended into a broad smile as she enjoyed letting the suspense build.
“The Quiet Lady has the ability to find those who are no longer among us, and brings them back.”
72
The room descended into a frenzy after Weaver's revelation and introductions could barely be finished before a flood of questions were asked from nearly every corner of the room. The only one Weaver would listen to however, was from the grey parrot on Redtail's shoulder.
“When do we eat?” Goose asked in a voice not unlike his houndsman companion.
Weaver agreed, food first, answers later.
Cooper wasn't sure when it happened, but not long after greedily eating a bowl of Weaver's stew and a fist of her warm baked bread, she’d let her head lean back in her chair. Bathed in the warmth of the fire, she’d closed her eyes for a second and was asleep in an instant.
Her dreams were a medley of the last few days. She relived the warehouse, the escape over the bridge, meeting Nakano at the ranch and the fight through Harvardtown. Finally, she once again was forced to watch her father die in the gateway’s tank, the dream magnifying every horrible detail.
The water in the tank was stained a deeper red from her father’s wound. His moans of pain were louder. And, his body didn’t shimmer with heat as he turned himself into pure energy, it was consumed by a raging fire.
Then she was through the portal and she found herself lying on a couch in a large dimly lit room. It was the carriage-house she realized. Her boots splashed in pooled water as she stepped over broken furniture to make her way to where her father's body lay on the bar.
“Did you hear that?”
Cooper turned to find Riley standing behind her, a finger held up in the air for silence. Then she heard it herself, the merest whisper of a tap.
“I'm still here.”
“Do you think ...” Riley let her question trail-off as the two women cautiously took the final steps to stand by their father.
His face had more color in it than Cooper remembered. His skin more pinkish than the ghostly-white corpse she’d said her final goodbye to I. Yet, he did not move.
He’s really gone, she thought.
Then his eyes snapped open.
“I'll never leave you.”
Cooper came awake with a jolt and immediately sat up in bed. She was disoriented, especially as she wasn’t where she’d fallen asleep. Instead, she was in a room she didn’t recognize, her sister in a nearby cot.
“Was that you? Were you the carriage-house, too?” A wide-eyed Riley asked as her fingers reached for the comfort of her mother’s necklace that was no longer there.
She didn't need to elaborate.
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br /> “Did you see him open his eyes?” Cooper asked.
Riley nodded.
“What do you think it means?”
Riley shook her head. “I don't know. I can’t make sense of anything that's happened to us over the last few days, can you?”
Cooper shrugged. “I gave up trying a long time ago.”
“We need to get to the resistance.” Riley said. “They’ll have answers for us.”
Cooper agreed.
"What time is it?"
From the angle of the sunlight pouring in through a curtained window Cooper estimated it had to be passed midday. They’d slept for close to sixteen hours.
“We should get downstairs.” She said then winced loudly as her stiffened muscles screamed from the sudden movement.
“Feel like an old woman.” Riley gasped as she hobbled over to where her weapons had been left.
“And I look like one.” Cooper replied after catching her reflection in an old mirror.
Popping the latch of the bedroom door, she was forced back a step as the door sprung open and Ellis fell backward into the room. He must’ve fallen asleep with his back against the door.
“Good morning.” He offered through a sheepish yawn.
“What were you doing?” Cooper asked as she stood over him.
“Guarding the room.”
“No wonder I felt so safe.” Riley said mockingly and shot Cooper a look that implied, ‘I don't understand what you see in this fool’. Cooper didn't either, but she was the happier for seeing him.
“Where’s everyone else?” She asked after letting out an amused sigh and helping him to his feet.
“They’re downstairs.” He said leading the way. At the top of the landing she stopped him.
“Did Weaver try and find out about you while we were sleeping?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I told her, I was ranch hand of your fathers.”
“Did she believe you?”
He held up his hands. They weren’t the hands of a man who’d been toiling away in the fields all his life.