A Latent Dark (36 page)

“The soul eater,” said the man. “That’s up for debate. If you asked some, they would say it’s a god. Others believe it is a machine.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s a little of both, to be honest,” he said.

“Is that why you can’t get to… that building?”

He nodded.

“What’s in there?” she asked, turning to look down over the cliff and across the water. Cold grey clouds swirled over the top of the structure. They were in the shape of footsteps, it seemed to her.

“Eternity,” said the man.

“You mean heaven?” she asked.

He only shrugged.

The earth shook and she turned back toward the crowd, seeing the way they too rippled along with the shockwave. They acted as if they didn’t even notice. A few heads turned and pointed into the distance casually, the way tourists might point at a landmark or a passing airship. As they turned, their shadows fanned out behind them like flared feathers. They were pointing at a giant.

It was as tall as a mountain, its head lost in clouds miles up. Massive birdlike creatures circled it just below the mist, diving and twisting. Skyla calculated that from this distance, the birds might have been as large as buildings or airships.

“That?” she asked.

“No,” the man chuckled, turning back to her. “That’s nothing. So do you think you can stop it?”

“Stop what?”

“The soul eater. We simply can’t get to eternity while it exists. It is consuming everything. Look.” He pointed off beyond the horizon.

Beyond the titan was something she hadn’t noticed before. The horizon was closer in some areas of the landscape, simply falling off into blackness. Except this wasn’t blackness or darkness, it was simply nothing, less than vacuum and night. This was emptiness so vacant it defied adequate description.

The massive golem took another step, its leg moving ponderously over the ground, kicking boulders and decapitating low hills as a shockwave rippled out from where it stepped. She saw trees—full-grown redwoods—not half as tall as its big toe. The wave rolled through the crowd and Skyla felt her stomach lurch as she rose several feet into the air and sank back down again. That one foot would have crushed the entire Industrial Wedge, she realized.

The head and shoulders passed between clouds and a shaft of radiant light revealed details that Skyla had not noticed at first. Thick hairs and moles the size of houses coated the rough shoulders, which were as cracked and irregular as granite. Skyla gasped as the sunlight passed through the clouds, illuminating a section of flaking skin.

Skyla saw people. They were woven together, creating a layer of bodies that coated its hide, giving it texture. It was people she saw, not hairs and flakes of skin. They waved gently in the wind as the titanic creature lumbered across the landscape, slow as a thunderhead.

“Why is it covered in people?” she asked.

“It’s people all the way through,” he said, smiling.

The ground shook again and she saw one of the birds circle away from the massive shoulder. It came towards her, tumbling through the air with massive swipes of its huge wings. As the raven flew over the crowd its shadow eclipsed them sending the world into darkness.

Orrin shouted,
“Run!”

*

She sat upright, panting with no idea where she was. She cringed, expecting to smash her head against rafters that were no longer there. Pulling the goggles up with a click, she squinted, dazed. 

The dry riverbed vanished over the horizon where the ocean sparkled like a million gems. It stretched to infinity in either direction, its glassy blue surface marred only by the small white waves just visible at the edges of the beach. A circular city wall similar to the one surrounding Bollingbrook, cut into the ocean and vanished underneath, giving the city of Rhinewall a crescent shape. It was filled with crisscross patterns of buildings and streets.

Tiny ships sailed into and out of its port, leaving thin wisps of white water that spread out into lazy V shapes. On one wedge rested a copper dome on a hill, its surface a green patina from years of sea spray and fog. Something protruded from the dome like a telescope.

But Skyla was unable to get a good look before a hand covered her mouth.

She never heard the footsteps that crept up behind her. She never heard the door of the carriage slam. Later she would think back and surmise that it was, in fact, the door slamming that woke her. Or maybe it was the footsteps of the soldier that translated to the titan in her dream. Maybe Orrin really had tried to warn her.

As the black-plated hand covered her mouth and muffled her screams, all Skyla could think about was how she wished she had never stopped running.

Chapter 26

The forest gave way to strands of eucalyptus trees which shed their bark along the ground in dried, papery husks. As they parted and the ocean finally appeared, John gave a sigh of relief. He’d honestly wondered if they hadn’t been going in circles.

“There used to be a railway here,” said James. “Ages ago. It connected the city to Bollingbrook.”

“It went through the Wilds?”

James gave him a slight grin and then took a swig of water from his canteen.

“It became unusable even before the Wilds appeared. There was plenty of tension already and when Rhinewall began trading more and more through their ports, it was forgotten. The Wilds just ensured it would never get repaired again. Once the Wilds appeared over a decade ago, the archbishop of Bollingbrook held that it was the result of the Rhinewall Tinkerer’s Guild meddling with things they didn’t understand.”

“That seems counterproductive,” said John.

James shrugged. “Rhinewall does its trading by sea now. They bring in goods from the
Tzarlands
, India, Nippon. They aren’t hurting.”

John felt the rough fabric of his shirt, made in Bollingbrook. He followed James down the slope, slipping on the loose ground as rocks and dirt raced him to the beach below. He landed on his ass next to James, who stood staring at the ocean.

“It’s something isn’t it?” said James.

“It is.” John wiped dirt from his hands and looked at the man.

James faced the vast expanse of water with the determination of a man confronting an old foe, his body tense, his hands balled into fists. The muscles in his jaw were taut and flexing. After a minute of silence, with nothing but the roar of crashing waves, James took a step forward. Stopped.

“Are you alright?” John asked.

James hesitated then nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the water. He lifted his arm and pointed up the coast. There John saw the wall of the city, a vast vertical slab rising a hundred feet or more from the water. Sharp spikes and clusters of pipes and rods lined the outside. The city ended a few hundred feet into the ocean where it sank dramatically, its walls standing guard against any entrance by land.

“Looks like about ten or fifteen miles,” said James. “But they’ll never allow anyone in who just wandered in from the beach. That or we’ll be confused as refugees from Lassimir if any of them made it this far. I’d rather not end up in a prison camp.”

“They’d do that?”

James nodded. “Rhinewall isn’t the place it once was. It’s been twenty years since I’ve even been this close.”

“But they’re part of the Catholic Diocese,” said John. “I’m sure I could talk to someone. I’d just need to get in to see—”

James was already shaking his head. “You’ll be arrested if you are caught loitering around the wall. It’s too dangerous.”

“So how do we get in?”

He saw then that James was looking the opposite direction, at what John had mistaken for a pile of driftwood piled against the cliff. It was a lean-to, complete with a fish drying rack and the remains of a cooking pit. Most of the camp was covered with sand and kelp, which twisted around and over the wooden structures. Tethered to the post was a small vessel, sun-bleached and worn, the remains of white paint flaking along its side.

“A boat! James, it’s a fishing boat!”

He ran a few steps ahead of the hermit and then stopped. He turned and saw the man paralyzed behind him. After a few moments, James closed his eyes, took a breath and then, quite unexpectedly, smiled. When he opened them, he gave John a small nod and walked up ahead.

The boat was old but intact, its owner long gone.
Or arrested,
John thought. It had oars and once they cleared it of sand (and a colony of crabs living within) the vessel seemed seaworthy.

“Have you ever ridden in a boat?” asked John.

James was staring at the craft. He nodded once, then cleared his throat. “Let’s see if it’s watertight.”

They pushed it out into a small lagoon, formed by the estuary of the Lassimir River. It drifted out into the placid pool, then rested there. They sat on the beach, watching the craft for any signs of leakage.

“It seems safe,” John said, his voice hopeful, but when he looked at James, he saw the man’s face was a shade of green. “It’s the water isn’t it?”

James let out a small, humorless laugh. “It’s more than that,” he said. “I had a sister once…”

He told John about Anne, about the way she loved the beach and the waves. Even as he confessed to the priest, James could see her clearly in his mind, her dark hair whipping around as she danced along the shore.

At ten, he had been a studious boy, burying himself in books. Anne wanted to stay and swim out to the rock where they sometimes lay in the sun. James chose to read instead. It was one of the few times he had ever defied his older sister and as the adult told this story on the beach, the younger James—Jimmy, she had called him—could still remember the disappointment on her face as if it were yesterday.

“You’re such a chicken, Jimmy. Go read your books. I’ll be in for dinner.”

It wasn’t until his parents came home and found young James on the couch, that they grew worried. And it wasn’t until he heard his mother scream that he even looked up from his books, a cold chill running through his veins.

James saw his sister now, as clear as he had twenty years ago, her face blue, her thigh and neck streaked with long, red, raised bumps. The transparent sac of the jellyfish still clung to her even as his father pounded on her chest, breathed into her lungs.

He remembered now, the look his parents gave him then, the same sad, disappointed look he ran away from. They never had to say a word; their accusing glances were enough.

John looked out at the boat and started to see the connection in his mind. He nodded sympathetically. “I think I understand.”

“It’s not just that,” said James. “I’ve come to terms with it. I blamed myself for years… still do a little. But it’s more than that, I think.”

He paused and John looked back out at the craft in the water, watching it bob lazily.
He’s more worried that the boat will work. That would mean he’ll have to ride in it.

“Remember when we met?” James continued. “And I told you about the… I want to call it a hallucination, but I know that isn’t it. But you remember the shadows. You know what I mean.”

John nodded. “The exorcism—”

“It wasn’t an exorcism!” James snapped and John found himself flinching. James closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Father, but it wasn’t an exorcism. There were no rituals, no candles, no holy words being spoken. The girl was just there, staring at me, staring at
it
. And if that was a demon, it didn’t speak in tongues or vanish at the sign of a cross. It was just me and the girl and whatever that was—Anne, maybe. Or a sea creature—just the three of us in that room, forced to confront one another.”