Penult (4 page)

***

Early on in my jail term, lying in my
cell, still coming to grips with my incarceration, frustrated over
my inability to just get up and go for a walk any time I wanted,
the roots came hunting for me. Later on, as my release date
approached, these visitations would cease, but a few weeks into my
internment, they still came and took me to the Liminality with some
regularity. At that point, I was still able to wallow deep in the
pit of self-pity.

My mood shifted the instant I sensed
the sun-warmed and resinous breeze that wafted off the scrubby
foothills embracing my favorite hollow. Karla and I had a standing
agreement that this would be our meeting place. But I had to see
her since entering prison. My expectations were high.

The shore of the pond had receded
greatly since the rains had stopped, exposing again the mud flats
and meadows. My old sword stood gleaming and undisturbed right
where I had stuck it in the mud several visitations past. With
peace at hand, I hadn’t needed to touch it.

The waterfall that spilled from the
hanging valley had dwindled to a tiny fraction of the torrent it
had been during the peak of the rains, but remained strong enough
to create a cloud of mist that refracted fleeting fragments of
rainbow.

My willow remained a willow tree
swaying in the wind just like the real thing. It had even grown a
bit. I would have expected for it to have long ago degenerated back
to the roots it was created from.

After what must have been hours of
dawdling, it became clear that I would not be seeing Karla this
time around. I decided to head out to the settlements on the pitted
plains to visit with whatever friends I could conjure. It would
have been a shame to fade back to my prison cell without seeing
anyone.

I considered bringing my sword, but
why would I need it? I left it stuck in the mud like some
battlefield grave marker for a fallen warrior.

Peace had come to the Liminality. The
Frelsians no longer patrolled the plains with their modified
Reapers. They pretty much kept to their massif now that the Dusters
have bolstered their numbers with the influx of new immigrants from
the Deeps.

This rebalancing of power is what kept
things peaceful. It also helped that Luther had somehow managed to
make friends on both sides. He was a regular diplomat, arranging
joint meetings between with Zhang, the new leader of Frelsi, and
Yaqob, the closest thing to chieftain of the more anarchic and
free-spirited Dusters. Luther mediated disputes, negotiated trades
and even arranged symposia for the sharing of weaving-related
skills and spell craft. He became the glue of the surface
world.

The Old Ones we had awakened remained
awake for the most part, although a steady trickle of them was
gradually returning to the long sleep. They were a fixture in the
populations roamed freely among the mesas, the plains and the
massif, observing all that passed but generally keeping their
thoughts to themselves. They would commune in the most random or
places—atop dunes in the great outwash plain, in the meadows that
graced the slopes of the massif.

Luther had arranged for free passage
to Victoria and other recruiters from Frelsi to go into the pits
into Root to free any willing new souls from their pods. Those who
liked a little more structure in their existence generally went to
Frelsi. The more independent and creative types joined Luther in
the Burg. This steady flow of Hemisouls sustained the growth and
population of surface dwellers to grow and allowed its burgeoning
cities to thrive.

The Dusters had expanded from their
cramped mesa tops to recolonize an ancient sister city of Frelsi
that they called New Axum. I knew the place from my time there
alone when I had awakened Mr. O. The location at the head of the
big valley was stunning as Machu Picchu. It was nice to know that
those beautiful ruins were being spruced up.

A giant mantid preened itself atop one
of the bluffs that flanked my hollow. As it had no rider, it was
probably out and about hunting for prey. It was comforting to know
that I was not on the menu.

The Burg came into view well before I
had passed the bluffs. With its many spires and multi-hued pastels
kind of reminded of the Magic Kingdom. Luther’s aesthetic
sensibilities would have made Walt Disney proud.

An amazing amount sprawl had sprouted
around its outskirts, radiating outward like the points of a star
along cobbled avenues. Word of the surface world had spread fast to
all of the rebel communities down below, prompting a mass exodus.
Even many who had been committed to the pods had been convinced
that an existence beyond the tunnels was worth lingering in misery
in the ‘real’ world.

Bern and Lille’s little complex of
cabins and sheds had been overtaken by one of these rays of sprawl,
and they had been joined by a number of like-minded couples and
singles to create a sort of satellite village for those who wanted
a slower place and less craziness. Things could get a little
ridiculous in the Burg with Luther in charge.

I found them out on their porch, Bern
seated on a rocker with Lille standing behind him, adjusting his
hair. She used no scissors. She did it all with twirls and swipes
of her fingers through the air, never touching. Filling in thin
patches, lengthening bits here and there, making entire swaths fall
away with a swoop of her palm.

Bern started to rise when he spotted
me and instantly ruined the symmetry of his hairdo.

“
Well, well. Look who’s
here,” said Bern. “My fellow convicted criminal.”

“
Sit back down!” said
Lille. “You don’t move until I say so. I’m tired of you looking
like a tramp.”

“
Sorry James,” said Bern.
“She’s been hounding me for weeks to get this done.”

“
Look like you could use a
bit of a trim yourself, James.”

“
Thanks. But I’ll
pass.”

“
So how’s the old
incarceration going?”

“
Fine,” I said, leaning
against a post.

“
Fine? Is that all you can
say?”

“
I mean … it’s boring. But
other than that….”

“
Boring is good,” said
Bern. “Boring is what you want, because the
alternative—“

“
It’s not that kind of
prison,” I said.

“
A prison is a prison, is
it not?”

“
Well, no. This one’s
mostly non-violent offenders. It’s clean. The guards are nice. Lots
of outside time. Big fields. And the food’s not quite as horrible
as I was expecting.”

“
What? Sounds more like a
resort,” said Bern.

“
There is nothing wrong
with putting the best light on a bad situation,” said Lille, who
unbeknownst to Bern was experimenting with the hue of his hair,
altering its color of his hair in streaks and blotches. She held
her finger to her lips for me to keep mum.

She had apparently been working on
more than his hair. He looked years younger. The creases beside his
nose had been greatly reduced and the laugh lines in the corner of
his eyes were much more subtle. She had picked up some flesh
weaving skills during her time in Frelsi.

“
Have you guys seen
Karla?”

“
She was here only a couple
days ago,” said Bern. “Asking pretty much the same thing about
you.”

“
Dang! I wish there was
some way we could coordinate our visits.”

“
Just … set a time,” said
Lille. “Synchronize.”

“
Yeah, but … I don’t have
as much control over transitions as her. She seems to be able to
come over anytime she feels like it. Me, I’ve got to be in the
right mood. If only there was a way I could let her know I was here
right now. She could come meet me.”

“
Lille and I never have to
worry about that,” said Bern. “We’re both here more often than not
these days.”

“
You’re not … free … Lille?
I thought—”

“
My execution was botched.
And then your little raid forced us to evacuate glaciers. So no … I
am not yet a Freesoul. I’m still stuck in that horrible nursing
home.”

“
Sorry to hear. I … I
wasn’t sure.”

“
No worries. I’m stable for
now. But if you ever think you might over to Surrey. Let me know.
I’m still looking for someone to pull my plug.”

“
Not any time soon,” I
said. “I was deported.”

“
Oh?”

“
Working without a
permit.”

“
Oh, well that’s a shame.
I’m still working on getting Bern to join me on a trip to the
mountains. The old sod doesn’t seem to have much of a death wish
for someone who is supposed to be suicidal.”

“
Don’t ruin my illusions
dear, or I just might fade.”

“
You? Fade? You’re as close
to a Freesoul as a living man can be.”

“
Prison … a real prison …
has its charms,” said Bern, whose suddenly thick and lush mop made
his head look top-heavy. Lille had overdone it a mite.

“
Will you stay for dinner?”
said Lille.

“
Um … thanks, but no. I
should get back to the hollow in case Karla shows up.”

“
By all means, bring her by
if she does. I can whip up a nice shepherd’s pie in
moments.”

Bern wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s well
worth it, boy. Even if Karla doesn’t show. Lille has the textures
down to a t. Chewy beef. Crunchy carrots.”

“
Will do. Nice seeing you
all.”

***

I wandered back to the hollow avoiding
the bustle of Luther’s metropolis, though I couldn’t help crossing
some of the spokes. He had actually cobbled some of his avenues
with yellow bricks.

Despite its proximity, few from the
Burg seemed to visit my hollow, and that was perfectly fine with
me. The footpath through the scrub was barely discernible.
Residents of the Burg didn’t seem to share my taste for nature and
solitude.

The hanging valley disgorged only a
trickle compared to the torrent and flood that had filled the gorge
while Karla was still stuck in the Deeps. The rainy season in this
place was mercifully brief.

I found no messages scratched in the
mudflat as Karla was wont to do whenever she came by and found me
absent. I felt oddly jealous of her absence. Was she having too
good a time on the other side?

I knew she was traveling, but she
never shared her location with me until she was ready to leave a
place. Her paranoia over being followed was just then beginning to
intensify. She had been starting to notice the same person or
persons loitering in her vicinity in disparate places.

I walked over to the willow where I
had once buried the version of Karla who had been murdered with
Fellstraw. I wondered if her body remained where I had placed it or
if her return from the Deeps had eradicated it out of existence.
But I was not about to dig her up.

A flurry of wings announced the
arrival of a mantid, and not just any mantid. I recognized the
patches on his hind wings. I couldn’t see the rider from below, but
this was clearly Seraf, Urszula’s trusty war bug. Only recently did
I realize that his name was a mocking dig against the Seraphim who
persecuted souls who dared not chase the Horus in the
Deeps.

Urszula leapt off Seraf’s back before
she had even landed in the gravel, charged into me, wrestled me
down and straddled me, pinning me down and holding an obsidian
blade to my throat.

“
What the fuck?”

She was grinning as she pricked me
with her knife. That girl had a funny way of showing
affection.

“
And what are you doing
here? I thought you said you were never coming back. Why aren’t you
with your woman?”

“
We … uh … kinda had a
hitch in our plans. Karla got deported. I went to jail.”

“
You are a bad boy? They
jail you for murder? Because we kill the assassin? The
cartel?”

“
No. It was for something I
did long before that.”

“
You really are a bad
boy.”

“
What about you?” I said.
“What are you doing here? I thought you liked being
alive.”

“
I do … but I find my way
here still. The connection is too strong … the portal too weak to
resist my wants.”

“
Did you miss your
friends?”

“
Well … yes. And there are
new people I know from the Deeps. And you bring them here. I
thought … I would never see them again.”

“
Well, can you … uh …
please get off of me?”

A flight of nine mounted dragonflies
buzzed over us, heading for the plains.

“
Jeez! What are they up to,
I wonder?”

Urszula rolled off and sheathed her
blade. She sat cross-legged in the dirt, studying me.

“
Just scouting. There is
some suspicious activity across the plains, down by the shore. They
are going to investigate.”

“
What kind of … suspicious
activity?”

“
Ships,” said Urszula.
“Yaqob is thinking … maybe the Frelsians now have a
navy.”