ONE

We are descending through a thick layer of clouds. I am seated in the cockpit less than a foot away from Darra, my knife still firmly in hand. Despite his presence, the feeling inside me is light. The view through the windows takes my breath away. It’s incredible! Almost spiritual. For as far as I can see along the horizon through the broken whiteness, there is land running in a jagged line. It meanders in and out, and I am truly in awe. A month ago on my trip to Folly in a ship very like this one, I was blindfolded, bound, and gagged—saw nothing from that last moment inside the prison cell on Polit until I scraped the blindfold off my head when I landed in the net on the island shore. Despite the dangers lying ahead, hope rises. Below, my home approaches. Polit’s Black ghetto is down there.

To my left, the vista is broken by Darra’s head, but Skyscrapers are visible, stretching high into the sky just beyond a ribbon of wide roadway. Skirters—I think a few of the vehicles are—race north and south along it. Scads of smaller vehicles move in Polit orderliness in front of and behind them. Here and there a long freight hauler lumbers along at a slower pace.

Darra’s eyes are focused. His fingers push keys on the array of instrument panels. One after another. They light up red, but I have no idea what any of them does. Now he places one hand on the stubby T-handle poking up out of the console between us, pulls it backward a little. I feel a slowing sensation. We begin to slide downward.

He speaks. “Darra. Approaching Port 4. Clear all traffic immediately.”

Port 4? Our destination deep inside Polit? Oh no. We aren’t going there.

“Who are you talking to? Land in Black,” I say.

He doesn’t answer. He must be listening to some private voice coming through the headphone gadget he’s just attached over his head.

“No. Just me. Clear 4.”

He’s ignoring me!

I yank the headphones off him, raise the knife, and put it onto the side of his neck.

“I said Black.”

He turns his head to me. “We can’t land there. This craft requires a pad dedicated…” Matter-of-fact. Emotionless.

“Then you’ll crash land this craft. Get us into Black.”

Darra glares at me, his neatly trimmed silver eyebrows lowering. “You really want to die, don’t you Alana Bendrece?”

No, and I don’t intend to. Not yet, anyway. I turn the blade a tiny bit upward so that it forces the skin of his neck in, ready to break through it. He pulls backward to relieve the pressure, but I follow with the blade.

“Turn this thing. Bring us down in the dump if you have to. There’s enough room there. We’re not landing in the city.”

His gray eyes remain locked on mine. He says nothing, makes no move for longer than I am comfortable with, but finally he looks forward again, taps two keys, and then eases the handle forward. We begin to rise quickly.

“Sant!” I say without taking my eyes off Darra, “come up here.”

The Helicere responds to the controls semi-encircling this leader of Polit. The craft tips left. I see the city, the buildings, the roadways lolling slowly by beneath us through the window. I imagine his cronies down there are staring up, wondering what on earth is going on. The moment they figure it out, Black will be surrounded, and the gates blasted open for an invasion.

Sant arrives. His eyes are red at the corners, and he looks like he’s just been awakened.

“What?”

“We’re somewhere over Polit, headed for my home. How are my parents and Faerborn?”

“Asleep. They were, anyway. Faerborn is still throwing up.”

Poor Faerborn. He crawled into the Helicere frightened to death by the cramped interior, I remember. For Alana, I know he was thinking. If he could somehow squeeze his monstrous body in here and see the ground crawling by thousands of feet below us, I’m sure he’d pass out. Probably after throwing up anything left in his stomach.

Sant places a hand on my shoulder, cranes forward and looks out the window at the city down there crawling by us. “Wow. This is where you came from? It’s...it’s…” His voice trails off.

Darra, in the meantime, has been quietly pulling a harness around his body. It locks him in from the waist up to his shoulders in an intricate criss-cross. I hear the snap of a lock. Is he scared he’ll fall out of his cushiony seat because the ship is leaning so far sideways? That wouldn’t surprise me—they’re all bullies, but underneath everything they’re cowards.

“So many buildings!” Sant exclaims. “Where in that mess did you live? You said Black was walled in. I don’t see anyplace like that.”

“I think it’s that way,” I say pointing over Darra’s head. South, far away, I guess. And suddenly it hits me. Darra is playing for time. More gunships are probably taking off right now to escort us down to Port 4. Or slaughter us if we land inside Black…but how could they know we’re even on board? Did I go groggy in the past hours and let him send Polit a message? I don’t remember him talking at all over the past hours.

“You’d better be heading for Black…” I begin to raise the blade again to his throat, the sneaky louse. He reacts by pitching himself sideways as far as the harness will allow, as though he’s trying to get away from the razor-sharp edge. And then the ship tumbles in the same direction. My body slams into Sant’s. Both of us hit the low ceiling, then bang into the side windows. The back of my seat. Into Darra. Back to the ceiling. The ship is rolling over and over on itself!

I hear the deep, rumbling wail of Faerborn back in the cargo hold. The sound of Mother’s pained voice breaking into Faerborn’s. Sant is trying to find something to hold onto as we spin. I feel blood trickling down from my forehead. What did I hit?

I’ve lost the knife. I think I see Darra grinning, reaching behind him for something, but nothing is clear.

TWO

 He has it. Darra found the knife! He has brought the craft upright once again, and I think we’ve banked right, heading back in the direction we were headed a moment ago. I am sprawled out on my back behind the seat, half of Sant beneath me. I think he’s out cold. He's not moving, anyway.

Darra is struggling to get free of the harness while still maintaining control of the knife. Talking out loud into the tiny dot of a microphone attached to the headset he somehow managed to get back on as we spun. More shouts and cries from the hold. It takes every drop of effort I can squeeze to get to my feet so that I can wrestle the knife from Darra. I’d use my palms, but the image of him and the sidewall of the cabin blowing out make me stuff that thought.

He sees me ratcheting myself up, and responds by using the hand not on the control things to jab it outward at me, the blade catching a glint of sunlight.

Oh Sant, wake up! Help me! 

He doesn’t move.

Now Darra is looking back and forth frantically from the instrument keypads stretched out on the cluster in front of him, over to me, using five fingers of his left hand to hurriedly type something on one of them whenever his eyes and head flash to it.

“Sit down, Benedrece, or I swear I’ll put the ship into a nosedive,” Darra says.

I hesitate. Wonder if I should leap across the space dividing us onto him and…what? Take the knife into my stomach? But no. He’s bluffing. He doesn’t have the courage to commit suicide, and neither do I. Somehow I have to think of another way to stop him. Think. Think.

Act!

I lurch forward and slam my hands onto the keys of the instrument panel. In an instant a dozen red lights pop to life. The ship once again begins to rock and spin. Darra screams a curse.

“You IDIOT!”

He instinctively lets loose of the knife. Uses all ten fingers to try to undo the damage I’ve done. I’m hanging onto his neck with both arms for all I’m worth, trying to keep hold of the anchor that will prevent me from banging into the ceiling and everything else in here.

We’re headed straight down. Only for a matter of seconds, though. Darra’s fingers race across the keys desperately. Now he yanks the T-handle and pushes it forward. The Helicere responds. It stabilizes. We begin to climb once again. My chance.

The knife has landed in his lap, miraculously, and before he can react, I let go of his neck, grab hold of it, and wrench it up onto his jugular.

“One more time. Black.” I am shaking. My words sound anemic to me. I am tired of killing, but I want to relieve my fear and tension by slitting his throat.

Not an option.

Faerborn has come to life again back there. A constant roar of confusion and fear. I wish I could rip the knife sideways. I wish I could leave for just a minute and go to him. But I know he can’t be hurt. For the sake of the gods, he fell out of a tree on Folly from thirty feet up, and then just shook his head clear and stood up!

I glance over my shoulder. Sant has landed, this time back against the wall, almost in a sitting position, and his eyes are open!

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Whaaa?”

I keep the knife firmly on Darra’s throat, the fingers of my other hand buried in his hair, pulling his head backward.

“Try to get into the chair. Put the harness on. Darra’s going to get us to Black,” I say. “Aren’t you, Darra.”

“Go to the demons, you little bitch. Your sisters are dead.”

“Then so are you.” I slide the knife sideways an inch; enjoy the feel of it breaking skin.

“All right, all right! Damn you!”

And I thought Marcus was scum.

 

                                    ***

 

Sant has crawled into the other padded seat and locked himself in. We seem to be heading away from the city toward Black, but I can’t be absolutely sure. We’re cruising pretty much level. That’s a relief anyway. I try to orient our direction by the sun. Yes, I think south. Through the windows I see two Heliceres rise slowly up beside us on our right. Two more on our left. We’re going to have company when we land.

I hand the knife to Sant.

“Keep an eye on this snake. If he does anything other than fly straight forward, stick him.”

Don’t kill him, though. Just hurt him.

I need to go back and find out how badly Mother and Father have been injured. More important—forgive me gods—see how rattled dear Faerborn is. I can only imagine.

It smells terrible. Faerborn is sitting against one wall, his head drooping onto his furry knees, his mighty arms clasping them. He’s whimpering. There is vomit all over him and everything else. He looks kind of like a huge rug that has been blown from one end of the earth to the other through piles of gooey poop, and then come to rest in a clump. How could one creature throw up so much?

Across the metal floor of the hold, five or six feet back, Mother is sprawled one way, Father another. Out cold, or...no, no, no...dead. I rush to them.

They’re both breathing, and from the positions of their bodies, I think—hope—no broken bones. More bruises, but no worse than what what they were when we carried them out of the prison cell back on Folly.

Faerborn.

He’s conscious. He is indestructible. He’s a worse mess. I go to him, wanting to pinch my nose. I throw my arms around him—as much of him as they’re able to grasp anyway. He lifts his head slowly.

“Oh Faerborn, I know this has been hard for you to endure. We’re almost at my home, though. It will all be over very soon, darling.”

I don’t mean that last word the way it must sound to him. His huge lips quiver, but his bloodshot eyes light up.

“Faerborn not like this place.”

“Yes, I know. I know. Just hang on for a little while longer.”

“Faerborn hang on Alana.”

He means that literally.

His legs go straight out suddenly, his feet slamming into the far wall. My body falls as though the cliff I’ve been gripping with my fingernails just gave way. I’m hanging onto his shoulders, and before I can take a breath, his powerful arms have me locked to his chest. My feet barely reach his thighs.

It smells in here, this forest of vomit-splattered, tangled fur.

“No, no, Faerborn. I came back to check on you. You have to let me go so that I can go back. Darra is the one who made you sick. I’ll take care of him. Let go, now…darling.”

That moves him. His grasp loosens, I push backward, and plant my bare feet on his wooly thighs.

“Not let ship crash?” he asks.

“Of course not. That’s why I must go back, Faerborn.”

The sound of a groan from Mother interrupts. Glancing over my shoulder, I see her trying to sit up, her hair disheveled, wild strands covering the left side of her face.

“See to my parents, please, Faerborn. If you can. Help them—but be gentle. We’re nearly home. I’ll be back, I promise.”

He moans, but this mutated son of two normal, human cave-dwellers—who I’m still not certain didn’t abandon him after I was thrown out of their rock chambers deep below the surface, and he followed—has a childish, but iron constitution. He can be a little rough, because he has no idea of his strength; he might crush Mother to death. But on the other hand, since his Alana has asked him, he’ll do it…as gently as he is able.

My dear giant isn’t particularly fond of Sant. I understand, and so does Sant. The rival for affections thing on Faerborn’s end. Still, he is loyal, with a heart ten times the size of his burly chest, especially when it comes to anything Alana. Oh how I wish there was someone as soul-beautiful as he. Some terribly ugly female, shunned and lonely. Some mutant just waiting for his entry into her life. Not likely we’ll find someone made by the cruel gods just for him, though. Such a pity. So unfair.

 

Sant is crouched forward a little with his hands on the panel in front of his seat, staring through the window. A few feet away, Darra sits placidly, guiding the Helicere down. We have descended several hundred feet, maybe more. I see the mish-mash of ratty hovels, the dirt roads winding to and fro among them, and one section of the tall stone wall that wraps around Black like a huge snake. Women with raggedly-clothed children at their sides stand, staring up, as though a god or a demon is swooping down upon them. One or two of them point up. I can almost read the shock in their eyes, feel the muscles constricting on their fear-filled, haggard faces.

Out there to the left, the escort ships keep pace with us. Darra has once again put the headset on, and I notice he twists his head to look out. I don’t know if he has communicated with them—I hope Sant was smart enough to prevent that, but I'll take advantage, anyway.

“Tell them to leave,” I say. Darra reacts with surprise. Turns to me. I take the knife from Sant’s hand and point it at Darra. “Now.”

“I have a guest on board,” he says clearly after a few seconds pass. “She has a knife at my throat. She wants you to back off a litt…”

I cut him off, leaning close to his face, shouting into the little black dot hanging close to his mouth. “Go back to your filthy city immediately! If you try to land…if you do anything at all other than leave, I’ll kill him.”

Darra turns his face to the window at his left. I raise my eyes, follow his gaze. Over there, the Helicere escort is close enough for me to see into the cockpit. A man in uniform has his face turned to us. Beyond that ship another keeps pace. I don’t know if Darra has mouthed some command, but after a few seconds he nods his head backward, and then the ship closest to us rises sharply and banks away, followed by the other.

“They’re leaving!” I hear Sant say.

I watch as the second ship floats up and back, disappears from view,  and wonder how far they’ll go.

Darra cruises very slowly onward. I recognize every dirt road and pathway we pass, every splotch of houses, every stunted tree, every weed and piece of discarded trash it seems. How many times did I walk these streets of sorrow?

“Put us down right there,” I say to Darra, pointing to a wide space just outside the first mounds of garbage, smoldering trash, and children standing atop some of it looking up at us in shock. They’re so young. I doubt any of them knows yet what these flying machines are built to do for their masters. I have a terrible feeling in my stomach that soon enough they’ll find out.

We touch down in a cloud of swirling dust with a slight bump. I’m home.

 

THREE

 

We settle in. The dust begins to clear. I can hear bursts of squealing from the children outside as they replace fear with curiosity, and one after another approach the ship warily. My first impulse is to yank the headset off Darra and destroy it, but Mondra and Tereka won’t be here. I’ll need to find out where they are, then have Darra send for them.

“Make the ramp go down.”

First things first. I want my parents out of the hold and allowed to return to our home half a mile back. I haven’t yet heard about Jeren’s fate. Maybe the little guy is still there, fending for himself.

Poor Faerborn. He needs fresh air, the comfort of solid earth—and a bath. That might present a problem. There isn’t a washtub in all of Black large enough to contain even half his body. It will have to be the pond a mile or so outside the west wall, close to the mine entrance. Or a spit bath, which might take days to complete.

First things first.

“Call whoever has my sisters,” I say to Darra. “Tell them to send Mondra and Tereka here, alone. They had better be unhurt for your sake.”

Darra hedges. He must be thinking that once they’re free I’ll no longer need his services. I need to emphasize the seriousness of my demand. I lay the knife on his inner thigh.

“Sant, take hold of his shoulders. Don’t let him move.

“Now, Darra, make that call. I’ll start cutting right here, and make my way up until you do what I say.”

The color in his face vanishes. His mouth drops open as he stares sideways at me. “Darra here. Send the girls…” Sant laughs.

“Good show, Alana! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

He and Demi and Tamra had no moment of hesitation back on Folly when it came to putting arrows into the necks and heads of the Jades dragging little Keeva down the long trail toward the compound. That ambush made me hide my eyes. That was before I met Marcus and Miz Aloor in their horror chamber. Before the Jades torched Sant’s home high in the mighty trees, and everyone in it. I do have it in me.

Another small problem. I hear screaming outside, and through the windows on either side and in front of us, kids are shooting away in every direction. That could only mean one thing—Faerborn has found his way out. Oh, I didn’t even consider what would happen if he left the ship alone!

“Sant,” I say shoving the knife at him, “Faerborn is loose! Keep President Creep occupied here until I see what’s happening out there.” I know Sant would have no compunction about removing Darra’s head after what his thugs did to Catanar.

I’m through the narrow door and into the hold in a breath. Mother has Father under his shoulder, wearily helping him onto the ramp. I flash by them. “Home, Mother.” That’s all I have time to say.

There he is, more frightened, I think, than the children scattered like a jar of marbles spilled on a tabletop. He is a nine foot-tall ruggish statue, except that his fingers are flexing nervously. No, he could never hurt any of them. I bolt down the ramp, run to him in full view of everyone, and throw my arms around his trembling waist. Oh, the smell!

“It’s okay, Faerborn. Don’t be frightened! The children have never seen someone as tall as you. Give them a minute, won’t you? Very soon they’ll love you as much as Sant and I do!”

“Faerborn not like…”

Yes, yes, I know. This will take time, but given we aren’t slaughtered by invading Polit troops in the days ahead, the fear will leave both sides. Children are so much more adaptable than adults to…oddities. Once the shock has subsided, they’ll take to him like honey to a bees’ nest. He won’t be able to keep them off him. That is, after I clean him up and shower him with affection in front of them.

I turn and address the children. “This is Faerborn, my friend! I want each of you to run quickly to your wells. Fill your buckets with water and come back. Quickly, now. Go!”

First things first.

Slowly, and then like shooting stars, they begin to vanish, back to their hovels to retrieve gallons of water—I hope—and not pitchforks.

“Bring scrub brushes and towels and bars of soap!”

Faerborn seems baffled, watching them scatter. I wonder how much he is regretting having said yes to my plea for him to come home with me? Now I am regretting it, but it’s done.

They will love him. That’s the good thing. I know they will. And his natural inclination will be to love them ten times as much. He had no home on Folly. Only a dreary cavern, a doting mother and spineless father. I made the right call.

“Little ones not like Faerborn,” he whimpers. “Why?”

“No, Faerborn. They’re just a little scared. We’ll all help one another to clean you up, find some food and a place to stay, and then…” And then what? My plan to get Mondra and Tereka back here safe and sound, and afterward level Polit, has holes in it. Once I fire the first shot, even with Darra as my shield, all bets will be off, it hits me. Knowing Polit’s rulers, they’ll eventually throw the president to the wind and do what must be done. I have to think.

Mother scuffles up to our side bearing Father’s weight as best she can. I hear Sant dragging Darra down the ramp.

“Can you get him home?” I ask Mother. “Is Jeren…was Jeren there when you left?”

“Yes, I can manage. There’s Philia. She’ll help. And yes, Jeren was fine when we left.”

“I can walk,” Father mutters.

Some of Black’s adults are finally stuffing their fear and approaching slowly. Mostly the women who aren’t in the mines, or inside Polit ministering to those bastards’ whims. They see familiar faces in us, but cannot help but see a creature not one of them could possibly imagine existing. They gather in groups, speaking low to one another. Behind us, the Helicere alone has to scare them half to death. They know what it’s capable of doing. Our neighbor, Philia steps forward.

“Saorse!” she exclaims. Runs, now, to Mother’s side.

“Help me get Rosin home,” Mother says. I watch them leave. Philia only looks suspiciously at me for a second as the three move down the dirt road. Suddenly I feel like the witch again.

The children begin to return with leaking buckets of water and scrubbing tools. The things Black residents have had years of practice using on the streets and walkways of Polit. Their homes. I think some of us even had to scrub their trees and bushes.

“Faerborn, sit down, darling. We’re going to clean you up.”

“Faerborn not need clean. Faerborn want go home.”

“In time, darling. In time. You must be patient, though…and you need a bath. Please, sit down. This won’t take long. You’ll feel better afterward, I promise.”

It might take hours, I have to laugh. Whatever.

“You three,” I say to the first of the children to arrive, “take the water and brushes into the Helicere. Clean it up, please. We might have to use it again. Hurry now.”

“No!” Faerborn cries.

“It’s okay, Faerborn. Just sit quietly. Alana knows what is best.” He might believe that. I’m not so sure anymore.

“What shall we do with him?” Sant asks, poking the knife at Darra's side.

“I guess find some rope or something to tie him up with. After the kids finish dunging out the hold, let’s put him in there. Do you feel like staying inside and guarding him?”

“Not really, but I will. But then what?”

Good question.

A boy I’ve known for as long as I can remember pushes his way through the large crowd now gathered. Gerstam Mendoll. He’s limping—the result of a Polit cop attack four or five years ago when he dared leave Black without a pass. His punishment was two legs smashed with a steel pole right inside the gates for everyone to witness. This is what happens when you violate the rules, people of Black.

I need Sant beside me, but we need a reliable guard to watch over the scum Darra while we consider a workable plan of attack. Gather food, if there’s any to be found here. Settle Faerborn in. Find Jeren. I so need Sant beside me.

I leave Faerborn and walk to Gerstam, throw my arms around his shoulders. “I’m so happy to see you, G. That guy back there is the president of Polit. We captured him! Are you willing to keep an eye on him for a while? You can have the knife my friend Sant is holding. If Darra tries anything funny, you can stick him with it. Will you watch over him until I find Jeren and my sisters?”

Gerstam pokes his head around my side, slowing as his gaze passes Faerborn. He has scrubby blondish hair almost as unruly as a Jade’s, and he is nearly a foot shorter than I am, the result, probably, of his beating and poor treatment afterward. No doubt made worse by the food, or lack of it, that he's subsisted on all his life. I see his eyes light up.

“Yeah, I’d be happy to…how did you manage to get hold of him? Steal that Helicere? Wow! And what is THAT,” he says pointing to Faerborn.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. In the front, in what's called the cockpit, you’ll find a headset. It has ear muff-looking things, and a little wire attached to it. You’ll know it when you see it. Put it on and listen for anyone talking. If they do, send one of the children back to us. Tell them to repeat whatever you hear, word for word, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Wow.”

“Oh, don’t answer anyone who might be talking. Just listen. And don’t push any buttons on the screens in front of you. Understand?"

“Yee-ah.” He leaves in a wide semi-circular route, eyeing Faerborn until he nears Sant and Darra. There he stops to survey the president momentarily. He mutters something I can’t hear, spits on the ground near him, and then hobbles up the ramp into the interior.

Despite his physical disabilities, Gerstam is maybe the smartest boy I’ve ever known. His father, a sometimes-friend of my father, along with his two older brothers and one hundred twenty-four others, died in The Second Uprising in the Common Era year 4230. It was water that year. It might just as well have been grain harvested from the thousands of acres of fields outside the walls—there was little to be had after Darra and his gang slashed Black’s rations to next to nothing in the fifth year of the drought. Slow starvation brought men such as Gerstam’s noble father, Samar, to angry protests that were put down with brutal efficiency. A week after the wells dried up inside Black, the fury of scores of men and their families now dying of thirst, as well as starvation, unleashed itself. Two hundred desperate men, women, and teenage boys burst through Black’s northern gate with sickles, pitchforks, and what few small arms they had, stolen from our masters’ homes and Polit armories, and invaded the grand city. Before many of them even made it to the warehouses where tons of forbidden grain were stored, gunships such as the one behind me, cut them to ribbons. Polit police caught the remainder who had scattered. Most of them died, but not Samar, the leader of the riot. He was caught kneeling over his oldest son, Jaylan, who had escaped the deadly barrage from the Heliceres, but not the bullets from the police. Samar, his other son, and eight others were taken alive, dragged unconscious and bleeding to Polit Central prison. I know the terrors unleashed behind those walls. I was kept there for a week before I was bound and gagged and sent to Folly. Polit's greatest mistake.

No trial was forthcoming, just the executions. Samar and the survivors were brought back to Black, strung up on a line of wooden poles stretching half a block, and then one after another, eviscerated. Every citizen of Black was forced to watch. An example was set.

I was there, a nine year-old girl. I closed my eyes, tried to block the sounds from my ears, but until I die I’ll never forget the screaming. I wish I had known then what I know now. The executioners, the gunships hovering overhead—all of Polit and everyone in it would have been incinerated.

That was then.

I still find it odd, though at the time I was simply grateful, that my own father—how should I say it?—cowered; refused to join the rebels. Survived.

The drought ended after another long, merciless year of Black suffering. More years passed, we put the horror of what had happened as far back in our memories as possible, and life went on. Dragged on.

Gerstam could not bury his grief, though. Yet even at his young age he knew what would happen if he tried to exact revenge. I don’t know whether he actually watched his father, his brother, and those other unfortunates as they were opened up, their skin peeled off like the hides of animals in a slaughterhouse. He never said. But he did vow revenge. He clandestinely raided the very grain storehouses his father died trying to break into. Had he been spotted and captured, the penalty, of course, was death, but he was quick as a fox; a shadow amongst the shadows whenever he snuck out of Black. He stole not only grain, which alleviated at least some of his family’s pain and suffering, but also anything not bolted down.

“Look, Alana! Another book, loaded with pictures!” His little library, hidden beneath the floorboards of his tiny house grew. There was some mysterious enchantment in collecting books that captivated him. He was, in a way, my first (and only) teacher. Schools are not allowed inside the walls. Knowledge is power, Polit knows. The vast majority of Blacks remain ignorant to this day. But not Gerstam. Not me. Not Mondra, either. His only mistake—it was inevitable that he would eventually slip up—was sneaking out in broad daylight on one of his missions. Gerstam had grown over-confident, thrown caution to the wind, to his detriment.

They caught him slipping along an avenue leading to one of the graineries. Of course he hadn’t stolen anything yet, but after it was discovered that he had no pass, he was beaten badly, then thrown back into our prison community with a warning.

It took six months for his body to heal. As much as it did, anyway. Mondra and I often went to him during those terrible days. Read to him, encouraged him, helped his destroyed mother nurse him. His days of leaving Black were over, however.

I am wondering, now, whether his guarding of Darra is wise? Sant has handed him the knife. Darra is inside the Helicere with Gerstam and the three children scrubbing Faerborn’s vomit off the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. It would take nothing to set Gerstam off. His opportunity to exact a revenge for what happened to his father and brother, and those others.

I reconsider my statement of a few moments ago, turn and shout after him, “Don’t kill him…yet!”

He doesn’t answer.

FOUR

 

Sant is by my side, close as my skin, still moved visibly by the horrendously depressing atmosphere of Black. I hear no screaming inside the Helicere, thank the gods, and unless they are miles above us hidden in the gathering clouds, the gunships have gone. We have some time. I’ll go to the northern gate with Sant after Faerborn has enjoyed his first bath in I have no idea how long; after quickly visiting my home to discover Jeren’s whereabouts. I pray he is somehow still there, and that he is well.

I can’t leave Faerborn just yet. He is sitting quietly beside me, much calmer now. Confused, yes, I am sure, and soaked to the bone. An army of delighted children stand on his gargantuan thighs, laughing, scrubbing, tossing bucket after bucket of water onto his body. Soap suds flow down his fur like little rivers of bubbles. He does not object at all to the bath—I think he even likes it. He has taken immediately to the children, who are fascinated by him. Two of them hang six feet off the ground from one arm. They are giggling. He is smiling. Soon he will smell human? again. He will come with Sant and me.

The crowds, mixed with scores of children and adults now, has thickened. My return is almost secondary in their minds I’m betting. It is Faerborn sitting like a monstrously large drowned rat that takes their breath away. Quite a few, though, are both intrigued and frightened by the Helicere sitting silent ten feet away. Even in repose, the sheer power of it makes the few who dare, approach it with trepidation. The children inside are not in the least cowed. Streams of soap suds and water flow out of it in foul-smelling little streams. Over and over, more of the little ones carry buckets up the ramp, slipping and sliding, returning seconds later to gather more.

It is their laughter that I’ve so missed, I think. The young ones here are so like those in Catanar. Those whose laughter and innocence and wide-eyed wonder will never again grace the earth. My loathing of Polit has turned to hatred because of all that happened to them. I am nothing like these children here, or there...or anywhere. As I watch them scrub Faerborn it occurs to me that I will become a singular Polit; a culmination of Marcus and his Jades. I will wind up murdering hundreds, perhaps thousands of Polit innocents. The thought makes me ill, and unsure of myself.

Somehow I must find a way to destroy Darra and the government, the the hundred-thousand, the million who support it blindly or otherwise, yet in the same breath save and redeem the children destined to become another generation’s cruel leaders. The victims caught in the crossfire. I see only dark and depressing days ahead.

I must do what I have to do, regardless, at the cost of my humanity. Oh Sant, help me bear the weight.

 

                                     ***

 

Faerborn glistens, even in the overcast atmosphere. A moment ago he carefully set the children onto the muddy earth below him, stood tall, and then shook the gallons of water from his fur, sending showers as dense as a downpour in every direction. Now, a half dozen kids have leapt back into his grasp, climbed up his body to perch themselves on his broad shoulders. One brave one, a little girl I have never seen before, has managed herself onto the top of his head, one tiny hand grasping the hair above his right eye.

He is suddenly in the realm of the gods.

Where will I find someone truly meant for him? Is there such a giant anywhere?

I leave him and his tiny entourage, leave Sant and the crowds, run back into the Helicere to check on Gerstam. He sits in the same seat I was in an hour ago, facing Darra, whose face is as white as snow. A splotch of red stains Darra’s shirt just below his heart—or where any decent person’s heart would be. Gerstam holds the knife in his lap. I see droplets of blood clinging to the tip. He is smiling wickedly, the headset sitting cockeyed on his head.

Darra notices my sudden appearance.

“If I die!” is all he says.

Gerstam scowls and raises the knife quickly, shoving it at the president. Stops it before the point reaches his throat.

You won’t die just yet, Darra. Not until my job is done. It’s only then I’ll let Gerstam skin YOU alive.

“Where are my sisters?”

Darra half-whimpers, “On the way.”

“Did he call his officials, G?”

Gerstam shrugs, waves the knife around Darra’s face. “He spoke into this thing to somebody. Said to ‘bring the girls’. Fifteen minutes ago. Before I cut him.”

“Keep this animal away from me, Benedrece! He’s insane! They’re on the way, I swear it. Get me out of here. I’ll be your hostage. Me for them, and then it’s over. You can take the ship and just go away. I’ll make certain the military lets you leave.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll just sit there and work the controls as though any child could master flying this thing.”

“I’ll provide a pilot. You can do with him whatever you like when you’re safe and away. Let this thug cut him to ribbons. I don’t care. Just get me away from him!”

“Let’s say I do that. Five minutes after we leave, your thugs descend on Black and massacre every living thing left behind. You must think I’m stupid,” I spit at him.

“I give you my word, no one left behind will suffer a reprisal…”

“Your word. Hah! Go to the demons, Darra. Your word is as good as a pile of…” I don’t finish the sentence.

“How long before my sisters arrive? How many of your men will be with them?” I demand.

“Soon. Probably within the hour. Sooner if they’re brought in a Skirter. I have no idea how many policemen will escort them.”

I yank the headphones off Gerstam’s head. Shove them at Darra.

“Call them up. Tell whoever is bringing them to stop a hundred yards away from the gates. Tell them to let Mondra and Tereka walk into Black by themselves. And tell them that if they try anything—if I even suspect that they might—I’ll blow every last one of them to the devils. When that’s done, I’ll let Gerstam have at you. Tell them that. Do it!”

Darra conveys the message, though I have no idea if it was actually sent. I can only assume it went out. When he finishes, I bring my fist down as hard as I can on his nose. Blood spurts in a geyser. He screams and flies backward against the control panels.

I enjoy this. I regret having done it, it speaks badly of me—but I enjoy seeing his pain. Gerstam smiles. My turn next…with the knife, he has to be thinking.

“On your feet, Darra.”

The three of us leave the ship, Darra between us with his hands tied firmly behind his back. He has to be utterly humiliated—bleeding, spit upon, cursed at as we walk toward my home and the north gate not far beyond it. The once-powerful man brought to his knees, at least for the present.

Faerborn clomps along behind us, scads of children either riding on him, or running like excited puppies all round him. Where once he protected me in our march through the forests on Folly, I will protect him, now. Strong and fearless as he is, he will be no match for Polit numbers and firepower in the coming days.

It is hard to see any order in the snarl of Black dwellings beginning on either side of the wide avenue. Sagging roofs that scrape those of their neigbors. Narrow walkways between the houses that run only as straight as the crooked walls separating them, leading to the meager vegetable patches behind each. Here and there an added chimney stack blocks the way so effectively that only rats and snakes and spiders can squeeze their way through. The need for heat in the bitterly cold winters trumps the need for passage. Once long ago, Father told me, some of the homes were painted, but these days there is little evidence left. I hang my head as we walk, not really in shame—no one here can possibly afford wood to burn, let alone paint to brighten the dinginess that stalks these hovels like dark grey ghosts. I think back to Catanar, laid out and built among the tree’s top by free men and women. All gone, now, but the difference is nearly shocking. Gliding a hundred feet or more above Black in the Helicere, seeing from a new perspective the streets spiking out from this main avenue like twisted arrows, the nearly continuous carpet of rooftops and crumbling chimneys, made my heart sink. It is no wonder the cruel gods looking down at Black have abandoned its desperately poor people. Our prison-community is shameful.

In the midst of this disgrace, though, there exists a brightness. The children. Save the infirm, they are the same as Catanar’s, or the gods forbid, Polit’s, I suspect. Not having seen anything beyond their secluded, small existences, they make the light dance with their laughter and simple games. The dump is as good a playground for them as the mighty trees were for Catanar’s children, or the extravagantly appointed parks for Polit’s innocents. There is a forest here beyond the west wall. Two hundred yards away, accessible, but forbidden, by a tiny hole knocked through it. It is a dwarf compare to Folly’s forests, but how many times did I sneak across the no-man’s land with Mondra to enter and play inside the lush, spooky interior? Had we been caught…

On the seaward side there is the swamp, filled with danger and excitement, and the endless sea with beaches stretching north and south a mile or so beyond the miasma of reeds and stagnant water. This sea citizens of my Black have always been granted access to—if one cares to brave the treacherous swamp to get there.

I see the gates in the distance, imposing. Close-set iron rods with speared tops, locked each evening, but open now. The gates and the ten foot-tall stone walls are the only things in this pit that are maintained by order of Darra’s decree. Outside, another wide stretch of nothing until Polit begins to rise, scrubbed and perfect in its sterile elegance. What lies north of the city of haves is only conjecture. Some say there is no end of Polit, that it stretches in an infinity of cleanliness and beauty. Foolish, even in the mind of an imbecile. Still others whisper stories of a woman, long dead, who ventured past the rolling hilled end of Polit. Her accounts of what lay there read like stories from a picture book liberated by Gerstam from Polit’s vast library. Mighty forests similar to Folly’s, inhabited by tiny nymphs and winged horses; princesses in turreted castles with multi-colored flags wafting in soft breezes that blow constantly. A thousand streams with fish that talk, if only a person listens.

I always chose to believe the latter account. Some magical land, the counterpoint of both Polit and our hideous dungeon of Black. A place of peace. Perhaps a kingdom of furry giants. Perhaps that, and lest I die, someday I’ll visit whatever lies out there. I’ll take Faerborn with me.

My home, fifty feet ahead on the right. Maybe the best maintained of the lot, thanks to Father’s and Jeren’s efforts. Mother is waiting outside the door, missing since the Polit cops bashed it in the day I was arrested a thousand lifetimes ago. Beside her, Jeren. He sees the parade approaching and bolts toward us, his arms flung out in front of his skinny little body.

Thank you gods. No, thank you whoever kept him alive. Now all that remains is to wait for Mondra and Tereka to arrive. Rejoice.

Then what?

 

 

FIVE

 I take hold of Sant's hand, Jeren clinging to my side fighting back his tears, and I lead the way across the threshold. Even at his bravest, Faerborn would not try to follow, petrified as he is of man-made domiciles. He stays in the street with the countless others—with Gerstam, and Darra, who will no way defile my home with his presence. Faerborn and feisty Gerstam will watch for two girls walking toward the gates. When they arrive, it is at that moment I must decide what to do next. If he hasn’t already, Darra has to be drawing up his own plan of escape, the slaughter to begin shortly afterward. I hear Sant draw in a deep breath. He stops immediately and surveys the cramped interior.

Someone, perhaps Mother and Mondra, scrubbed the floors and walls, and put everything back in its place before they left? The unfortunate remains of the door are stacked just inside, waiting to either be rebuilt, or broken into smaller pieces. The remnants of the low stool Jeren sat on when the two beasts smashed the door in have been removed; stacked neatly on the hearth, across the room, ready to be burned. The fireplace is cold and lifeless, but no ashes lie at its bottom.

Father is lying, back to me, covered with a clean blanket on Jeren's cot. I’ve no idea who brought the blanket into the house. A neighbor, for Jeren to curl up under on cool nights after his world was ripped away? On the other side of the room, our dining table, with a small wildflower bouquet stuck in a clay jar sitting atop it. Hastily arranged and set while we scoured Faerborn and cleaned out the hold of the Helicere, I’d guess.

Welcome home, Alana.

Jeren begins to jabber, knowing, he says, that I was dead. Bitter nights and days that followed. A thrashing by the cops the afternoon they came back and grabbed our sisters. I half-listen, kiss the unruly black hair on top of his head, but I am searching Sant’s face. His eyes show pain. How could a family exist here?

Yes, I know. But it was easy, considering any other alternative. We were together, and most days and nights the rain inside was much less severe than the downpour outside. Most times we were able to scrape enough wood, or pieces of smuggled coal to keep the fireplace alive in flames. And heat. We knew nothing else, and in a weird way there was happiness in this crowded room.

Father groans, rolls onto his back and pulls at the blanket. Mother is at his side in a heartbeat. When she turns back to Jeren, Sant and me, I cock my head sideways and raise my brows.

“He’ll be fine,” she says, adjusting the cover. Despite having cowered under the demands of Darra and his monsters, I still love him. My heart bleeds for him. I’m not so certain he’ll be fine, as Mother put it. The Jades beat him badly. One eye is swollen shut, purple. Dried blood mats his thinning hair. If he dies, at least it will be inside our home.

“I-AM-FAERBORN!” A deep, booming voice rattles the walls and ceiling. I hear the scuffling of feet and bursts of laughter from the children outside. Sant and Jeren rush around me through the doorway. I am exhausted, and I know without looking that Faerborn is entertaining the kids, so I move slowly to join them; see what the giant is up to.

Darra is sitting, back against the wall just outside to my left, Gerstam standing in front of him, knife in hand, relaxed, gazing over his shoulder at the goings-on ten feet away in the road. The adults—mostly elderly, who have no business during the day outside the walls, and have joined us—have stepped back nervously, encircling Faerborn and the host of children jumping up and down on his stomach, pulling at his fat cheeks, exploring the eight toes on his feet that are nearly the size of their emaciated little torsos. He tosses one child, a boy, ten feet straight up into the air. Squeals of delight. He rockets an arm upward and snatches the kid as he begins to fall. Even if Faerborn had miscalculated and the child plummeted, his landing spot would have been a pillow of fur.

I look up. It is threatening rain. Where are my sisters? I leave the tousling and push my way through the crowd blocking my view of the gates and the desolate stretch of road beyond.

Nothing.

I return, grab Sant’s hand, and walk over to Darra. He is looking up, as if expecting a ship to rupture the clouds and snatch him out of our grasp.

“Where are they?” I snap at Darra.

He shrugs, but doesn’t answer. He has that evil smile on his face that causes his brows to lower. Who knows how closely Gerstam monitored him back in the Helicere? Maybe for a second or two or three the cripple left Darra alone—to step back into the hold to see what was happening outside the craft. Maybe it was then that Darra hatched a plan and quickly gave instructions to those listening in Polit.

Maybe he simply doesn’t know. I want to slap him, but I resist the temptation. He’s a dead man once Mondra and Tereka arrive, and I figure out what…what can I do if twenty or thirty gunships suddenly appear and start firing on all of us down here?

They have to rescue their leader. My ace in the hole. There will be no shooting until he is safely away, and that isn’t going to happen.

I am just about to pull Sant back inside where we can formulate a plan that won’t get us all killed when I hear it. A low rumble outside the gates. Engines going to idle. Lots of them.

They’re coming.

"Move! Move!" I shout at the crowd again. They open a pathway, startled. Sant and I blaze through it and run to the opened gates.

Oh gods. There they are, being pulled out of the lead Skirter roughly. A column, five wide, I can’t even tell how deep, fills the entire roadway behind the lead Skirter. Mondra and Tereka are dressed exactly like I was when the guards led me into the ship a month ago. Plain, short white shifts. Barefoot. Their hair is brushed, but it’s depressingly dull-looking. They aren’t bound, and no blindfolds were put on either of them. I stop. Raise my hands outward, palms facing them.

What am I thinking? I lower them and rush to my sisters. Neither Mondra nor Tereka seems able to respond and run to me. They move slowly in hesitating, halting steps. Five feet from them I can’t help but see the dark reddish-purple lower tip of a bruise snaking down on Tereka’s inner thigh. I’ll kill them, every last one of them. But first I’ll kill Darra myself. Slowly.

Get them to safety!

I throw my arms around both of them. All of us are in tears. I think this is the most horrible, joyful second of my life. Tereka wants to collapse, but I hold her up. Not here, darling, not yet.

“Come, come, come!” I say to them. “Help me, Mondra. We have to get you inside quickly.”

The distance to the gate has grown from a few hundred feet to a few thousand miles. Every other step I turn my head back, almost expecting to see the cops gathering raise their weapons and sight on us. They form straight ranks, but hold their weapons upright instead.

Sant is waiting when we get to the gates. The crowd of adults is dispersing, grabbing stunned children as they run farther into the ghetto. Little good it will do them if the troops decide to open fire.

“My sisters,” I say to Sant. “Help them inside the house.”

The view of my home is unobstructed, now. Aside from Faerborn, who has left the children and is walking in gigantic steps to me, very few people, young or old, are still around.

And neither is Darra.

 

 

 

SIX

 Gerstam is lying near the wall where I left him not five minutes ago. He's bleeding, and the knife is nowhere in sight.

“Sant, help me!” I scream.

This can’t have happened! How could I not have seen it coming? Poor Gerstam must have stepped away from Darra to see the scene outside the gates. I probably would have done the same thing. That’s all the time it would have taken for Darra to make his move. But his hands were tied behind his back! How could he have overpowered even Gerstam?

Sant is at my side, but only for a second. He’s running past the house tucked closely to ours, pointing back with his left hand. “You go that way. I’ll try to cut him off.”

Darra can’t have gotten far. Someone else is certainly with him. If I were them—it has to be more than just Darra—if I were them I’d be on my way to the ship, but I can see the back of the Helicere and the road leading to it clearly enough. Only a scattered few Blacks are visible, racing to their hovels.

Sant is five doors down before I begin the dash between my home and its neighbor, headed for the meandering street...how far away? The layout of streets is a disaster, I rediscover. The ghetto grew long ago, but in no particular, rational fashion. Ratty fences, half of them ready to fall, separate the properties in jagged lines. I must jump or push my way through three fences before I can reach the next street. And then it’s only a guess whether Darra went this way, and even if he went south.

Think! Which direction? The Skirters and troops aren’t far away. Darra and his rescuer could have doubled back anywhere, and are even now running through the gates to safety.

“Sant! Wrong way!” I scream as loud as I can. It’s Faerborn who answers, though. Answers by plowing the eave of the roof off the house on his right in his Faerborn-haste to catch me.

“What wrong, Alana?”

Oh Faerborn. If you only knew. I stop. I am wasting precious seconds.

“Go back, Faerborn! Get to the gates. Stop Darra. Hurry!”

He seems to understand. Faerborn hesitates for a mere second or two, and then turns and bashes his way back the way he came. Oh beneficent gods, if any of you exist, put wings on his massive feet!

I take the back route through the motley array of scrawny vegetables in the yard behind ours, praying that something made them stop. Perhaps for a short few seconds before reaching the perimeter road so that the snake with Darra could cut his bonds. There is a clear path beaten through the yard. They went this way.

“SANT!”

The final fence—I can’t remember who it belongs to—is made of wires, with posts eight or nine feet apart. One of them is snapped from its anchor of ground. Rotted there. It takes me only four steps to leap over it. I am at the broad roadway, the northern wall ten feet away. The street is empty. But they went this way, I am positive now. As I make the turn and head for the gates, I see Faerborn rushing across my line of sight through them, his arms pumping. He’s gone just that quickly.

I hear the roar of his voice first. The sounds of all the underworld breaking loose a split second later. Thunder everywhere. Madness. Faerborn rushes back through the gates as I arrive. He is a big target. He’s holding one arm near the shoulder, bullets and tracers ripping by his head, his bulk of a body, plowing up the ground beneath his feet. He not-gracefully leaps toward me and the protection of the wall, landing face-first in the dirt.

Darra be damned. My first and only thought is, how badly is he injured? How many times was he hit? I deserve the bullets. I should never have sent Faerborn back.

“Faerborn?”

He lifts his head. “Faerborn sorry, Alana. Not stop men. Faerborn sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. You tried. Oh Faerborn, how badly are you hurt? I’m the one who’s sorry, dear one. I should never have sent you.”

“Arm hurt. And leg, Faerborn think, Yes, leg. Feel like fire. Faerborn will die?” he asks in an innocently apologetic tone.

“No you will not! They will! Alana will destroy the men who shot you. And I will take care to heal you!” Somehow.

“Can you stand?”

He cringes, something I’ve never seen him do before, as he starts to push himself up. Slab of fur-covered granite that he is, Faerborn is vulnerable.

We are in deep trouble. I must leave him behind, go to the gates, face the fire…and incinerate everything outside. I have no doubts that before I get it done, I’ll be hit.

I leave Faerborn and walk forward. Shaking.

 

                                       ***

 

It shocked me at first. That is an understatement. I sent Sant flying backward onto his rear that first day in the branches of Catanar. I had no idea I even did it. Much later, however—after Keeva was shot, after Sant and I escaped Jade, after we’d met Faerborn for the first time, and then were kindly pitched out of the cavern by his mother (may she maybe rest in peace). After all that, standing atop the mountain looking down on the Jades gathering like locusts far below, I finally discovered the true extent of the power I mysteriously possessed. The power Marcus, instructed by Darra to investigate and develop—and control—before they knew what hit them, I raised my hands in a rage. I knew the Jade wild men were massing in order to attack Sant’s—and by then my—people.

The entire valley and everyone camped in it went up in flames. I didn’t know, I couldn’t have imagined I was capable of causing such destruction. The sight of it afterward made me vomit. Yes, the Jades would have attacked in force—so unlike them, acting on their own without Marcus directing their every move. I thought at the time that by some means they would simply hack at the mighty trunk by the hundreds, non-stop, until it fell. As it happened, they had an uglier plan. Burn it to the ground, which another hundred or thousand of them gathering from a different direction accomplished. But the ones in the valley. They died at my hands instantaneously. Looking back now, having witnessed more and more and more horrors unleashed by Darra and Polit, I have no moral scruples left.

Faerborn is down, at least for a while. Mondra and Tereka have suffered the gods-know-what humiliations…Before I die, and this time I have no doubts that I will, I am going to rid Black of Darra and as many of his polished and spotlessly groomed savages as I can. The troops fired at Faerborn. Darra couldn’t have been in that line of fire, but he hasn’t had time to be whisked away. He is either standing among them directing, or else he is just getting settled into one of the Skirters. I’ll take all of them out.

 

                                   ***

 

I step around the wall, raise both hands, palms forward, and unleash all the hatred that has grown inside me for sixteen years.

 

SEVEN

I feel nothing, but I hear a thousand bursts of rounds. Maybe ten thousand. The noise is deafening for an instant or two. But I feel nothing. Why?

Oh wait…I do feel something. The explosive part of my being that causes the palms of my hands to vibrate. The force leaving. A different, distant horrific noise. Metal bashing against metal. Crashes as chunks batter the earth; cartwheel…somewhere. The distinct roar of fire. No screaming. It happened too quickly for any of them to utter a sound.

I am alive. I think I am, anyway. Nothing hurts. I am standing, a little dizzy, but I'm not lying on my back. I open my eyes, and then lower my arms to my side.

Oh gods.

A wall of flame. The twisted remains of Darra’s invincible force. Fire moving, running aimlessly, batting wildly at itself. Another red-yellow ghost off to the right. Now the screaming.

Where was Darra when it hit? He cannot possibly have survived. My mind’s eye sees him, one of the human torches, his face melting, that indescribable panic in his seared and bulging eyes, the hard grimace of his mouth.

I remember the howls of pain coming from those men when he taught Black its lesson. Burning is too good for him. Amidst these thoughts, a previous one keeps banging away, demanding an answer. Why was I not hit by at least one of the bullets fired?

No time to scrape for the possible answer. The troops on the ground are gone, but Polit military force is comprised of much more than foot-soldiers. There are gunships, and not simply one or two that might be lurking in the cloud cover overhead. Seriously more. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that ten—or even fifteen, twenty—are readying for an attack. Complete and final obliteration of the thorn in Polit’s side. Who is second in command at Polit? Does he have any idea that hundreds of his Skirters and everyone in them no longer exist? Can he know that Darra the Terrible is dead, and if he somehow does, will he give the command to the Helicere pilots and their crews to open fire? No prisoner leader any longer. No personal danger unless he hesitates.

I try to think like him. I would make the call. Maybe a lucky shot will find Alana Bendrece. It is ironic. They don’t even have to see us to kill us, although, not knowing everything the Heliceres are capable of—probably not the half of it—I think they can see us.

I am alive. My skin crawls at the sight of the scene in front of me. I have to unlock my eyes from the carnage and run—go back and get as many of Black’s people out as I can. Gather them and go to the woods west of the wall. Through it, over it, it doesn’t matter. Some of them will make it. I fear that many won’t. But if they stay here, by tomorrow none of them will be alive. My heart sinks. Wherever I go, thousands die.

Sant is two steps behind me, his eyes welded to the destruction, his jaw slack. A few feet away at my left, Faerborn is on his feet. He is bent a little, trying to part the fur on his right leg to inspect the wound, however damaging it is. Far back, a few adults have reappeared, moving toward the gates, a few smiling; most with faces that mirror Sant’s. I want to go to Faerborn—Sant looks fine, and he’ll awaken soon enough—instead I sidestep him and begin shouting, “To the wall! Grab your children, but leave everything else. Tell your neighbors! We’re going to be attacked. Run!”

They stop in their tracks, trying to make sense of what I’ve said, and then one woman bolts. In a flash of jumbled arms and legs and bodies, the remainder throw off their stupors and follow her lead. A few straight for the wall six blocks over, the rest back toward their homes.

Half a minute or less pass, and bodies begin to pour out of doors flung open. The shouting begins. There is one avenue between the packs of houses at this end of town, and they begin to funnel into it. In the midst of the pandemonium I keep shooting glances up at the now-thick layer of clouds. Try to force my ears to listen for the distinctive sound of Helicere engines, but there is too much noise.

I don’t know what to do about the thousands trapped in the environs blocks away, oblivious to what is happening, or likely will happen very soon. Surely, though, the noise of gunfire and explosions afterward reached even the farthest corners of Black.

I turn around. “Sant! Help Faerborn. We’re going to be hit. Get him out of Black. Follow everyone back there. Find the hole to crawl under…” Oh wait. Faerborn! “Have Faerborn smash the wall down if he’s able. Just get out! I have to warn the others. Go!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just go! I’ll find you in the woods!”

What am I thinking? It will take hours for the thousands of men, women, and children to squeeze beneath the wall, and Faerborn is in no condition to do any smashing. I dash to the spot where Faerborn stands, still inspecting his thigh.

“Come with me, Faerborn. Can you walk? We don’t have much time.”

He looks up—or down at me, really. “Faerborn leg hurt.”

“I know, dearest, but you must try to come with me. Can you do that?” Please, Faerborn. Please, please say yes.

“We go…where?”

“I’ll show you.”

He limps, but even his hobbling strides are close to the speed, and cover the distance, that I could at a run. We’re on our way out.

“Sant, change of plans…Stay close to Faerborn. Follow me.”

I take the perimeter road that follows the wall, running as fast as I can. There are only a few people on this circuitous route, all of them in a state of confusion and panic. Short, mostly nonsensical questions hit me with every one of them I pass. No time to slow down and answer any of them. I keep looking up, but so far nothing threatening, except maybe a rainstorm. Beyond the wall, smoke from the fires rises and melts into the bottom of the clouds. They’re up there, I know it. Just waiting for the command.

It takes forever to cover the distance separating me from the bulk of the Blacks packed against the stones of the wall. A hundred feet before I arrive, I stumble to a halt, back up against a hovel on the far side of the road. I motion wildly for those behind me to stop, and then I close my eyes and raise my hands out.

Please work.

I feel the rip of electricity inside me. Almost as quickly hear the thunderous explosion twenty feet away. The shock wave and tiny backwashes of rock slam me hard into the wall of the house, and I wonder if the rickety thing will collapse inward, bringing the tin roof down on top of me.

Did they hear it up there? Did they see it, and are right now focusing their guns?

I open my eyes and scramble to my feet. Gods, the hole across the road is massive!

Not a single person on either side of me moves. To a person they are staring blankly at what I’ve done. Or at me.

“Move!” I shout, motioning for them to wake up and get away. It works. Seconds later a deluge of bodies begins to pour over the pile of rock, and the cloud of dust settling, a few looking back at me in awe. Several stop in turn when they reach me. They ask more questions, but all I answer is, “Get to the forest. Hide!”

Fifty or sixty feet back, Sant has hold of Faerborn’s left hand, urging him forward. It’s like watching a Skirter rolling along with three round wheels and one square one. If our situation weren’t so grave I’d laugh. I push myself toward them, notice, now, the stinging on my forehead. The droplets of blood coursing down over my eyebrow. Sant sees it, too.

“Alana, you’re bleeding!” He stops when I reach him, and Faerborn’s clumsy momentum nearly causes him to fall on top of Sant and me.

“I’m okay. Sant, get Faerborn across the open space and into the forest. Go as far inside as you can.”

“What about you?” he says.

“I have to go back. Help as many get out as I can. I’ll meet you in the forest. Just go, please! Don’t worry about me.”

Sant doesn’t move for a long second or two. Finally he turns to gentle Faerborn. “Faerborn, you go ahead. Do as Alana says. We’ll find you later.”

“No! You know trees. He’s injured, Sant. Go, and take Faerborn with you. He needs you. I’ll be fine.”

Sant bites his lower lip as he considers what I’ve just said. As if time means nothing, he throws his arms around me, and then kisses me.

“If you don’t make it, I swear I’ll kill you.”

“You won’t have to," I laugh. "Go!”

I return the way I came, but I’m afraid this is useless. The ghetto is fifteen blocks wide, and twice as many deep. Banging on every door on every street will take me hours. Even getting to every wandering street will take an eternity. As I pass the intersection at the main road, I catch sight of something far down the way that lifts my spirits, but rattles my brain. I stop. It’s Gerstam. It has to be, and he is limping up the ramp of the Helicere. He is alive, but he has to know what is about to happen, and the futility of hiding himself inside the ship. Against every impulse inside me I abandon my mission and run to help him. Seconds before I reach the ramp, it starts to lift upward. I don’t know how he figured out which of the twenty or thirty keys on the console activates it, but…

I jump and roll sideways onto the ramp. An instant later I am tumbling down into the hold. I am on my feet just as the engines fire to life…what? How? In the cockpit I see him seated, the earphones strung over his head, his fingers tapping one key after another.

“This is Darra. Give me a minute or two. Almost ready to lift off, guys. I have her.” He is trying to speak in a deeper voice, but it is comical. ‘Guys’? Even in view of the fact that his voice is several octaves higher than dead Darra’s, that one word has to expose the ruse. Whatever he is up to, it’s simply idiotic!

“Gerstam! You’re alive! How? And what in the name of all that’s holy do you think you’re doing? You can’t possibly think…” I say.

He turns his head in surprise, and then grins at me. “Sit down and buckle up. We’re going for a ride.” Gerstam taps two more keys, grabs hold of the T-shaft thing on the hump between the seats, and pulls back on it slowly. I’m pretty certain we’re going to move…but which way? I leap over the second seat and plop into the cushiony surface.

“I…this is madness!”

We lift off, straight up for a second or two, and suddenly we’re tipping sideways. Back to equilibrium, over in the other direction, and then equilibrium once more. I can see the ground slipping away as he works the T-thing and taps another one or two keys with his other hand.

Oh gods almighty, he thinks he can fly this thing!

“Now, where’s the control for the guns? Your side! Yes, I remember.” He releases his hold on the T-thing and points to one in front of me with a red button on top of it.

He remembers? When was he even inside a Helicere before this second?

We are climbing slowly, the nose of the ship leaning down slightly. Already I can see the neighborhood on the far backside of Black’s dump, the bend in the perimeter road.

“Push the button. Quick, before we get out of the dump,” he instructs me. “We need to see exactly how to control it. Try moving the handle left and right when you press the button.”

Suddenly we are moving faster. This is insane!

 

 

 

EIGHT

 Gerstam banks left while I sit here in shock.

"Quick, fire!" he says,

Why not? We’re going to die anyway. He’ll either crash, or a ton of enemy ships will descend on us and blow us off the face of the earth. I depress the button with my thumb. Hear the hummmm from the gun below us, but I see nothing.

“Pull back on it. That raises the trajectory,” he says in an excited voice. The nose of the ship is still pointing downward. We are rapidly approaching the east wall and the beginning of the no-man’s land outside Black. I yank the handle toward me with both hands and press again. The greenish-white ray of light hits the wall in a blink, almost as violently as my blast on the other side of Black did to the west wall! I see parts of it explode outward toward the swamp, a thousand other shattered pieces rocketing in tiny bits left and right. I pull the handle left, hit the button again, and then pull it right and toward the console. Push.

The first shot obliterates another section of the wall fifty feet away from the first. The other shot makes the reeds in the marsh lift; the spongy, wet soil jump toward the sky. If only we had time we could piece-by-piece, section-by- section, bring the entire wall down!

One head, then two, then half a dozen more pop out of doorways. They look as though they’re puppets, with some ten-handed giant jerking their strings! Good, they’re awake at last on this side of town, but as quickly as they appear, they disappear back into their houses. I have an idea.

“Gerstam, swing back and come in at the same angle, closer to the north wall. I’m going to make more holes.”

I don’t know if he hasn’t quite gotten the full mechanics of how to drive this thing, but we suddenly rip nearly straight up, and then we’re upside down, entering the clouds. I have my seat strap on, but not my harness. I hang by my waist for a second or two, and the next thing I know, I am being pushed into the back of my seat as he finishes his turn and drops out of the clouds. I see the clutter and debris of the first two hits hundreds of feet off to the right, and without thinking I grab the gun stick again and hold the button down as I ease it back between my legs, jerking left and right.

It-is-fantastic! The narrow beam demolishes part of a roof, the entire rickety porch, widens and tears up the road beyond as it moves along…and then fifty feet of wall erupt in a million shards of stone!

“Loudspeaker, loudspeaker,” I scream at Gerstam. “I know this ship has one; I heard it back on Folly. Find the key!”

He runs his fingers over several keys, then depresses one near the end of the console. “Got it.”

“Now, slow down and fly us up and down the streets.” I reach for his headset, yank it off, and whisk the contraption onto my head.

“People of Black, run for the marsh. Polit will attack any minute. Run!”

I scream the warning over and over as we cruise slowly back and forth…not more than fifteen feet above the rooftops. At first I see no activity. The sight of the gunship, the explosions have frightened the residents out of their wits, but finally one, two, six, ten bodies bolt from scattered dwellings, and then like a human tidal wave, hundreds begin pouring into the ragged holes I made.

“We did it! They’re leaving! Gerstam, move, move, move! Get us over to the forest as fast as you can.”

“Huh? I want to get us into Polit. With this ship…we’re just getting started!”

“No! Just put it down outside the forest. We’d never make it even a mile into the city. If it isn’t already, it’s going to be a hornet’s nest before you know it. Go! The forest!”

He is disappointed. But then he hasn’t committed suicide yet, thanks to me. Gerstam circles wide, farther, even, than the southernmost boundary of Black, with a sour look plastered on his face, and then suddenly pushes the stick hard forward. I hear the engines roar to maximum power, and I am slammed into the seatback behind me. He is grinning, thinking, I suppose, that somehow he has punished me for saving his life.

“I just want to see how fast one of these things will go,” he giggles.

Very fast. We are accelerating at a phenomenal rate, and to make things worse, he drops back down to a height where I can nearly see each pebble on the ground. Or could if they weren’t racing by in such a blur. In a heartbeat, the mass of Blacks scurrying, stumbling, crawling in a few cases, come into view, and then they’re gone. Before I have time to blink we are at the north wall, traveling so fast that my eyes want to bleed. Gersham begins to sing a song at the top of his lungs. He is crazy!

“Enough! Slow down. Pull up. Oh gods, you’re going to hit something! We’re going to die! Get us back to the forest, please!”

He glances over at me. I know I am white as a sheet of paper. A whimsical I’m-almost-sorry look is what I see, and so he points us up, but pulls the stick halfway back. We decelerate as we leave the blackness of the smoke and hit the greyness of the clouds. Then more. Worse. He taps two of the keys with his thumb and little finger. We stop! The ship doesn’t begin to fall, but I sense we are no longer moving. It is hard to tell for sure in this soup. But no. We are hovering like a bird a hundred feet in the air getting ready to dive on its prey.

Oh no, what is coming next? Does he see something, somehow, down on the ground that he intends to dive down and pounce on?

Tap. A screen of some sort appears where the front window used to be, spreading until it fills the cabin; as though the place we sit has vanished, and we're outside.

“There it is,” he says triumphantly, like he’s just solved a complex riddle. What I see makes my heart drop to my toes. Dark gray background. Dots of iridescent red beginning…there is no beginning. They’re intermixed with larger, more recognizable forms, mixed further with very recognizable images in a three-dimensional round that appear to be extremely close, and moving slowly toward us from all directions. Heliceres. Hundreds of them.

“Get us out of here!”

“Yee-ah!” Gerstam’s head is whirling, and with his fingers dancing across the keys he looks like a pianist caught in a rhapsodic frenzy. “Get your harness on!”

Before I grasp the shoulder straps and yank them down, we drop like a rock and begin to spin. Click! I’m in. Feeling nauseous. He jams the control lever forward, and we take off like a bolt of lightning.

In the images all around us I see bright white bursts of destructive light flash by. It’s like we are at the center of a deadly, moving web. Gerstam is gritting his teeth in concentration, trying to out-maneuver the experienced pilots and gunners. I’m thinking we’re sunk for sure this time!

“Start shooting!” he says as a burst clips the nose of our ship, sending miniscule bits of metal rocketing away. I grab the gun stick, hold my thumb on the button, and move it around as fast as I can. There are so many Heliceres out there—I’m bound to hit a few of them. So what?

“Get us away from here!” I shout.

“I am! I am!”

“You idiot, Gerstam! What were you thinking?”

We are spinning madly, rifling up and down at incredible velocity. He doesn’t answer. Finally we rip out of the clouds, somewhere over the forest. He drops to treetop level, and I hear branches smashing against the hull. Oh great, he’s going to impale the ship on a…

He taps a key. A red warning light flashes on the console.

“What’s that!” I bleat.

“Ramp door. Get ready to get out of here when we hit.” Another key, the three-dimensional images disappear. In their place, the windows again. Gerstam is navigating through a tiny break between the thick trunks. We are maybe ten feet off the ground, following a straight, narrow path barely as wide as the ship. A steady bang! Bang! Bang! of sheared branches, and suddenly Gerstam rips the T-handle back.

We drop the few remaining feet and hit, skidding and bouncing out of control.

 

 

NINE

The dust settles. I am dazed, astounded that we’re still alive. Gerstam does something that at first sight seems so weird. He leaves the engines running, although they don’t sound good, and then bites his lip as he searches the keypad. He presses one, but nothing happens that I can detect. Now he has the headset, pushing it over the firing button between my legs. He pulls downward and then twists the wiry ends until they are locked tight against the lower part of the shaft.

“What?” I ask. A continuous burst. I hear it, but I have no idea where the beams of deadly light are striking.

“Don’t touch the control. Just get up. Time to leave,” he answers. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I am out of the harness and over the seatback in a breath, my heart pounding, adrenalin racing through every vein in my body.

I reach the hold and see the ramp kind of open. It is down, but the left side is bent badly. The other side of it appears to be normal, though, and I race to it, and down to wonderful mother-earth. I want to fall to my knees and kiss it!

The guns. A dull pap, pap, pap. Straight up. The remains of branches and leaves still flutter down in the beams’ constant wakes. They continue on until I lose sight of them in the bottom of the clouds. What else is this ship capable of that I have no idea of? Astonishingly clever of Polit’s designers, it hits me. All those keys and weapons…how in the name of all the gods, though, does Gerstam know about them?

He is beside me, now, as I watch the display in awe.

“Pretty neat, yes?”

I would never in a million years have thought of something like that. I’d like to plop down and watch the fireworks for hours; how the two guns, one on the roof above the cabin, the other between the twin tails, send the greenish pulses rotating up in arcs. For sure none of the pursuing gunships are straight up there above us, but even though I don’t see them yet, I know they’re in the clouds, and that we’re surrounded. I take Gerstam’s hand.

“We have to leave. I have a few questions for you, but they’ll wait. Come on, let’s go.”

There are loads of bushes beneath the trees. Not deadly like the Traeschos back on Folly, but one kind in particular has huge, thick leaves. If I can hack two off the stem, maybe…

“The knife,” I pant as we dart like two skittery bugs between the tree trunks, “it’s back in front of my house! I need a knife!”

“I’d much prefer a pistol,” he answers, stumbling over a fallen, dead and rotting branch. I let him struggle to his feet alone, run ahead twenty feet to a fat bush that has a thick growth. Taking hold of one of the leaves near the stem, I twist and pull and grunt until it rips free. Toss it aside and do the same with another. We’re ready. These might help; I don’t know for sure.

Gerstam has limped up the space dividing us. “What are these for?” he asks.

“Do this.” I grab hold of the last one I liberated from its mother, at the stem-end, and lift it over my head and back. Probably useless if the ships have the power to see us, but…I don’t know, we could run faster without having to use both hands to keep them in place. I’m hoping against hope that the thickness of the leaves can disguise what is beneath them.

“You seem to know all about the Heliceres—what they can and can’t do. Can they see us? Do you think these thick leaves will help prevent them from being able to?”

“Yes, for sure they can. I don’t know exactly how the things work—they’re some sort of ray, different from the ones in the guns—but I read about them in the manuals. I suppose covering ourselves can’t hurt,” he explains.

So that’s it. In his library of stolen books stashed beneath the floorboards he has operating manuals, evidently, that he must have read a hundred times, backward and forward. Thank you, you little gimpy thief. You hopefully saved a lot of Black lives. And strangely, it was fun having you in the pilot seat.

 

Polit’s forest floor is anything but flat. Gerstam falls more than he runs—tries to run—and I have to stop and backtrack to help him up one hill, and down the other side time and again. My fleshy leaf keeps slipping off. He has abandoned his altogether. Bad idea to have wasted the time and energy required to lug those things with us.

It feels like we’ve traveled a hundred miles, but out here distance is deceptive. Maybe we’ve gotten a mile away from the crash site. I let Gerstam rest beneath the outcropping of a large boulder in a deep ravine we have entered, and then crawl around the rock to look back in the direction I think we’ve come from. It is raining. There is no sky above the treetops, and if the guns of our wrecked Helicere are still ripping holes in it, I can’t see or hear them any longer. The wonderful thing is, I don’t notice any pusuit ships either. Maybe they gave up the chase and went home. More likely they left us for the moment and concentrated their attack on the hundreds fleeing Black.

Sant and Faerborn. My sisters, Jeren and my parents. I pray they are together and alive somewhere deep inside this forest. How many others made it to the questionable safety of the woods I wonder? Not a pleasant thought. Still, I didn’t see any gunships break through the cloud cover, or notice any shots during our wild flight anywhere south or north of the hole I blasted on this side of Black. Maybe…

Returning to the other side, I join Gerstam. He is huddled beneath the boulder as far back as he can tuck himself. He is shivering. His wound—I crawl to him. The splotch of blood is near his left shoulder, but it hasn’t spread.

“How badly are you hurt?” I ask him.

“My leg hurts. I’m not used to running these days, you know,” he answers.

“You were stabbed right here,” I say, putting my finger on the bloody area of his tunic top. “It must have stopped bleeding. Does it hurt much?”

The jovial little guy snickers. “That isn’t my blood. It’s Darra’s. I was sticking him pretty good when someone smacked me on the head from behind. Next thing I knew, I woke up, and everyone was screaming and running around. I figured Darra and whoever helped him had left me and run back to the Helicere, so I got up and went there myself. Of course it was empty. Gods alive, Alana, I sure love that ship!”

“I noticed. But you didn’t see who hit you, then?”

“How would I see that? I just told you he got me from behind.”

“Yes, yes, so you did. Or she got you from behind,” I add.

“No woman I know of can hit that hard,” he tells me.

“You’ve never met Queen Ugly,” I scoff, the image of her rumbling toward me across the floor of the infirmary room Marcus stuck me in back on Folly springing to life in my head.

“Who?”

“Never mind. She isn’t here on the mainland. You’re lucky.”

“Well anyway, now what?” Gerstam asks. “I want to go back—I mean when it’s safe, of course. I want to go back and get the Helicere up and running again. I sure don’t feel like tromping through this damned forest forever hiding from gunships.”

When it's safe again? He has this insane suicide wish, stupid kid. Even so, he’s half right. I don’t want to spend eternity tramping through the forest, either. What we need to do is stay out of sight for a while, and then search out Sant.

And everyone else.

Go from there.

I have no idea how far from the wall we landed. The terrain we covered fleeing the wreck was unfamiliar, and it shouldn't have been. Over the years, Mondra and I had snuck out of the ghetto many times to explore the deep forest, risking the gods-know-what kind of punishment had Polit cops nabbed us. I do remember the path Gerstam crash landed on, I think it’s the one I know, but how far into this place it cut is anyone’s guess. Father told us it runs from the Black side of the continent a hundred miles or more east and north, roughly following the land’s end. Gerstam and I could easily be ten or twenty miles away from Black. Or half a mile, for all I know. What lies at the end of those miles Father didn’t say, or even if that distance is entirely covered with forest.

I wish I knew which direction was which. Black is at the easternmost end of the continent. The forest begins on the west side. Polit is north. Reason tells me we landed facing the wall, but who knows? Maybe Gerstam. No doubt among his collection of books lies a geography one. Even so, in our wandering with those stupid leaves on our backs, the backtracking to avoid obstructions, the clouds and rain—just the confusion—we could be anywhere, moving in any direction. I’ve never seen this ravine before. I’m thinking we’re totally lost.

Gerstam is massaging his gimpy leg, looking at me. Waiting to hear what my plan for our destruction is, I suppose. No, we’re not going to try going back to his new toy. No, Gerstam, we’re definitely not. With the rain, the clouds, and the general quiet—that makes me nervous—I’m thinking it would be best simply to hunker down, rest, and wait for the sun to reappear. At least then we’ll know for certain which way north is. I think the refugees from Black were a mile or so south of where we crashed. That’s about how far from the hole in the wall the path lay.

If we can locate the path, we go south. I’m guessing that path is swarming with troops looking for us. This isn’t good.

“Try to get some sleep, Gerstam. I’ll figure out how to get us out of this mess you got us into.”

Gerstam just smiles at me.

 

TEN

 

 I awaken in a curl, on my side, my right arm beneath my head, the other laying atop Gerstam’s head. He must have nestled it onto my waist sometime during the night, and I feel a wetness. I think he drools in his sleep. I smell an earthy dampness, the familiar calling card of last night’s drizzly storm, but the sky outside our little sheltering hideaway is bright blue, and I see no evidence of Heliceres scouring the area. That is good.

I carefully lift Gerstam’s head and lay it gently onto the dust, roll onto my hands and knees, and crawl from beneath the overhang to see if I can get our bearings; to scan this place we’ve found ourselves in. Clear. And quiet. Not even the sound of birds. Hugging the slick side of the boulder, I ease my way to the gently rising back of it, scanning panoramically for any subtle movement, my ears focused for any sound. Something has to be happening out there beyond the ravine walls, I just don’t know what.

How far from Black did we get? Surely it must be a greater distance than I thought yesterday, otherwise I would have heard the sound of explosions as Black was being obliterated. If in fact it was. The sheer numbers of gunships we saw on the strange everywhere-screen before Gerstam crashed us spelled invasion.

Where are we? What is our next move? Judging from the sun far off to the left I’d say north is behind me. I think the path, then, is somewhere in front of me. We go that way. I have to discover who survived. Maybe everyone who escaped did survive. Where in that crowd of refugees will Sant, Faerborn, and my family be? They are alive, I know it. Sant, at least, is too clever to let himself or anyone with him be caught.

I must rouse Gerstam, and then set off.

“Wake up, Gerstam. Time to go,” I say, nudging his shoulder when I return. He blinks several times, yawns, and then rubs his sooty face.

“Where are we going?” he manages to reply in the midst of another yawn.

“Back toward the Helicere, but we’ll circle east of it—wherever the ship is—until we find the road.”

“That’s dumb. If we don’t know where it is, how can we circle east of it?”

So damned logic-driven.

“We’ll have to guess. Now, get up.”

“What’s the big hurry? I think we should get back up into the forest and find some breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” he says as we leave the security of the boulder and head south. Dead center of the ravine bottom. He is limping worse than ever. He is right, though, in that we have to get back into the forest. We’re sitting ducks if a gunship suddenly flashes into view.

“Do you think you can follow me up the side over here?” I say, ignoring his statement about eating. I’m hungry, too, but right now that’s the least of my concerns.

“Yes. What do I look like, an invalid?”

Yes, Gerstam, you do as a matter of fact.

 

He is so slow, and I think he has a nose for danger. The crashed Helicere—I am veering west, but he keeps drifting east in hopes of running onto it. I suspect it is crawling with Polit forces, fanning out in all directions looking for us. Every hundred yards or so I have to backtrack to where he lags behind and get him going in the right direction again. My direction, not his. He has the hardest time navigating over the thick growth, around it, through it, but we make progress.

“In your collection,” I say casually half an hour into our journey, “do you have any geography books?”

“Yep. Two. No, three, but one of them is all torn up. The best one…the one with the best pictures.”

“What do you know about where we are? There must have been landmarks of some kind in that torn up book that show the road and the ravine we were in. Something you saw that can help us.”

He stops suddenly, gazing at the trees around us, and the blue sky above. I can see the gears in his head spinning, and hear them whirring. He rubs his leg absently. After a moment or two of slowly turning in circles, he responds.

“Not much idea where we are right now. I do remember the layout of the land, though, now that you mention it. The path—if it’s the one I’m thinking of—and the ravine you found. Yes. Actually the mouth of the ravine is quite close to the road. When I looked at the book, though, I gave the two only a passing glance. You know?”

“How far from the wall do you think we were when we crashed?” I ask him.

“Not far. Half a mile at most. Didn’t you see it in the holo-image? The long, dark line?”

“I was kind of busy looking at all the gunships ripping around and shooting at us,” I say.

We can't be too far from the mouth of the ravine. The terrain has softened, and is almost flat once again. If we make our way west and south, we should meet the road. Maybe run across some of the lucky ones who escaped Black, and perhaps one or two of them will know which way Sant went. Anyway, toward the road.

“Stay with me, Gerstam. How’s your leg?”

“It’s okay. Where are we going?”

“This way,” I answer, pointing to our right.

 

                                    ***

We’ve been scratching our way through thick underbrush for an hour, but thankfully the trees all round us finally have a familiar look about them, like I’ve seen their brothers and sisters many times in the past. Thick, broad-leafed, mast-straight trunks with white bark. Branches that, unlike many of their kin far behind us, begin ten or more feet off the ground. The road is near, I know it. I keep my ears open for any sounds. It’s just so odd, though, that I haven’t seen or heard the distinctive whirring of a Helicere’s engines. Seen none of their shadows darkening the sun-spattered branches like specters from the underworld come to scare us out of our wits. It’s eerily quiet except for Gerstam’s occasional grunt or groan.

What is Polit up to?

We go on. I’m already tired, and my stomach is growling, but Gerstam does his best not to fall too far behind. Mostly without complaining. We haven't stopped to scavenge for berries, or raid a beehive. I imagine he he is ready to start eating leaves.

“Alana!” The barely above a whisper voice—it’s Sant’s, off to our right twenty of so feet in front of us. Music! I raise myself up as high as I can, push the leaves of the bush in front of me aside, and look.

“Sant? Is that you?” I call out. He makes no reply, but I hear leaves rustling madly, see flittering images of a body darting in a jagged line toward us. I want to cry for joy! Right behind him there is a sudden eruption of beautiful noise—the wonderful clomp, clomp of Faerborn’s elephantine feet. And now a mass of furry body rumbling straight forward, crushing every green thing in his path.

“FAERBORN HERE!” he roars!

Oh Faerborn, please shut up! If any troops are near…

Sant reaches me first, a graceful plains animal compared to Faerborn, the clumsy Sasturn-like herbivore chasing him out of his feeding territory. Sant says nothing as he clears the last bush, and in that instant before we meet, I can’t help but marvel at his appearance—as though he’s just awakened from a wonderful night’s sleep, all fresh and clean, so unlike how I must look. I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him with a fury. I am crying.

“What happened!” he says, pulling my face away from his, peering down into my tear-filled eyes. “You left to warn your people, and then...I thought, I thought…I don’t know what I thought! That you were captured, or dead—or something. Where've you been?”

“Oh Sant, I am so glad to see you! I was thinking the same things about you! How many—where is my family? How many of my people are with you? Have you seen any of Polit’s forces? I don’t know what we’re going to do! This is not how I imagined returning to my home and my people…” I ramble on and on with a dozen more incoherent questions and blurts, and finally end it all with my cheek buried in his muscular chest, blubbering away like a dying echo.

“Wait. Slow down, Alana. I don’t know how many poured through that hole in the wall. A lot, I think, but I was busy…”

“Faerborn busy, too!” my giant cuts in. He is towering over Sant, and perched on his shoulders is Jeren. Oh, thank the gods!

“My parents! My sisters! Where are they?” I ask.

“Parents here,” Faerborn says with a grin. “Faerborn keep safe.”

“Where…”

“We’re right here, Alana!” I hear Mondra call out in her strong velvety voice.

I let go of Sant and look around the massive body of Faerborn to see her in the lead, running toward me over the path Faerborn just made, the rest of my family behind her. Mondra’s prison-white shift is now dotted with smudges of mud, and ripped at one side. Her long black hair is in snarls, but she otherwise looks and carries herself like a queen in exile.

“Finally!” she blurts, throwing herself into my embrace. This moment is too sweet, as precarious as it is. As I hug my sister, I sense eyes watching us, but that can’t really be. The rebels are all together—if Polit forces were watching, now would be the perfect time to rid their land of us. For the moment at least, there is no ambush.

The reunion, wonderful as it is, goes on in a nervous peace and subdued rejoicing far too long once Jeren and Tereka arrive. Mother is supporting Father, wide awake now, but holding one hand over his midsection. Everyone in our little group sits at last. It’s time to take inventory of the wounds suffered, attend to them if we can, and then get moving again. Much as I hate the thought of it, whoever else is out there from Black, they’re on their own for the time being.

I can’t help but wonder about Faerborn, with the bullet in his thigh, but he seems strong as ever, incredibly, and I want to have Mondra and Tereka relate the humiliations they suffered, first. The physical wounds they must have endured. In Tereka’s eyes, particularly, I see the undiminished fierceness of pain. What ten year-old anywhere could stand what the Polit bastard guards…

Jeren, still atop Faerborn, is smiling and chattering like a tiny bird. Sant has taken Gerstam aside, grilling him with questions it looks like. They are an unlikely pair, so different physically.

“Faerborn. Your thigh. You took a bullet!” I turn to him immediately once we are all as relaxed as the situation will allow.

“It only grazed him, dear,” Mother answers. “Mondra and I cleaned the wound as soon as we were able to yesterday.” She laughs brightly. “His flesh is like iron. Honestly, I think the bullet hit and bounced.”

“You cleaned it? With what?” I ask.

“Mud,” Faerborn answers, throwing his shoulders up, causing Jeren to fly upward a foot or so.

“Clean water from a stream, Alana. We made him sit in it. I used part of Mondra’s skirt hem. And yes, the salve I made was a mixture of water and the soil surrounding the roots of the Clodah. He’ll be fine, but this terrible tramping through the forest is doing him no good.”

Ah yes, the Clodah bush. Poisonous to eat, but the salve is an ancient remedy all Black mothers know intimately, being denied medical care in that horrible city beyond the walls. I am relieved, crawl over Faerborn’s outstretched mountain of legs to part the fur and see the open wound. He winces only slightly when I push the thick hair aside. Six inches long, three of my fingers wide, but there is no blood or sign of inflammation.

“You have to stay right here, Faerborn. Mother is right, the stress of walking will only make healing more difficult. Lengthy.

“Mother, you and Father can stay behind with Faerborn. I’ll find someplace for you to hide until I’m finished with what I have to do. If the wound on Faerborn’s thigh gets infected…”

“I have more salve,” she cuts in.

“Faerborn not hide! Faerborn not scared, and leg not hurt,” my giant says emphatically.

“No, no, darling, you must rest and let the wound heal. It‘s simply too dangerous for you to be running around with an open wound,” I tell him softly, but firmly. Besides, Father doesn’t look likes he is in any condition to go much farther.

“Faerborn NOT hide.”

We shall see about that.

I leave Faerborn in his obstinate state and crawl over to the spot beside a tree where Mondra and Tereka are sitting. Mondra’s face is calm. She has an arm around our younger sister, cradling Tereka’s head on her breast.

“Tereka,” I say in my gentlest voice, “I have to go to Polit. You don’t, sweetheart. I’ll find the men who hurt you, first thing. After I punish them, I’m going to destroy every living thing in that kingdom of the underworld. I promise. Can you tell me what they looked like?”

Tereka begins to cry in little gulps.

 

 

 

ELEVEN

"No," she sobs. She buries her head deeper into Mondra, and begins to openly weep.

“It’s okay, Tereka,” Mondra comforts her. “I’ll tell Alana who they are. Try not to think about it anymore.”

Mondra. Always the strongest of us. Beautiful, but fierce. She caresses our little sister’s head with her cheek, and gently works her fingers through Tereka’s disheveled hair.

“Five of them,” she says raising her eyes to me. “All of them ten times uglier and more brutal than that one who came for you.”

Tereka bursts out in a deeper, more painful bout of crying. Shakes her head remembering, and I know I must end this twisting of the knife in Tereka’s heart.

“Not now, Mondra. Tell me their names if you know them, later,” I say softly. She closes her eyes and sighs. I lower my eyes to Tereka, and touch her heaving cheek with my fingertips.

“Tereka, you stay here with Mother and Father and Jeren. Faerborn will take care of you. Protect you.

“Won’t you, Faerborn,” I say, turning to him. I catch him on the spot, unprepared. His lip drops and he averts his eyes. “Faerborn, look at me. Eventually Polit troops will show up around here. You must protect my family. If any come near to where I hide you, you must smash them. I promise I’ll bring one of those who attacked my sisters back for you to deal with. You may squash him slowly if you like.”

“Faerborn not afraid,” is all he can think of to say in response.

“Alana knows you are not, but you are needed here, darling one. Tell me you’ll take care of my family, please.” I feel almost ashamed, jabbing him in the open spot in his heart with my plea. I know he loves me deeply. If I asked, I'm positive he’d throw himself off the highest cliff in the world for me.

I might do the same for him, knowing that somehow he would be waiting below to catch me.

Sant returns, having ended his conversation with Gerstam. He notices Tereka clinging to Mondra in tears and questions me with his eyes. I say nothing, and so he moves on.

“You’ve rescued your family. Now we have to get them far away. How big is this mainland? Where can we go?” he asks.

I wonder myself. “I don’t know for sure. All I’ve ever known is Polit and Black. I think if anyone knows, it’s Gerstam. Did he say anything to you?”

Sant shakes his head. “Only that you intend to go to Polit City and destroy it. He has no real idea of the power you possess, but he knows the power of the Heliceres. Alone, or with the rest of us, he wants to return to the one he crash-landed.”

“He’s crazy. Even if he could get it flying again, what good would one Helicere be with a hundred or a thousand enemy ships firing on him?”

“Maybe not flying it. Where would be the last place troops would look now that the two of you have left the broken ship?”

On the surface that makes sense. What good would a broken ship be to Polit? They’re looking for us, I’m certain of that, and reason tells me troops have already searched the empty ship. I’d guess they’ve moved on.

“Alana,” Sant says, searching my face, “I’ve seen what you can do, but if you really plan on going into the city…there are too many of them. All it would take is one soldier with a bead on you to end your plan of vengeance. You can’t go through with it. We have to get that ship flying. Hide in it until Gerstam gets it running again, and then either go back to Folly, or anywhere else far away from this ugly place.”

“It isn’t just vengeance, Sant. Everyone in Polit is a scourge on us, and besides, stealth is our best weapon,” I say. “We’re a screeching bird taking flight if we try to use the Helicere to escape in.

“You stay with everyone. None of us is safe until I wreck Polit and kill every one of the monsters who’s had a hand in Black’s years of terror...my sisters' terrors. Catanar's ruin. I’ll go by myself,” I end.

“Not without me. Not alone,” he replies.

“Me either,” Mondra adds. “You’ll need more than just your set of eyes, and I know who the guards are. I can help you find them. I’m going with you.”

That’s settled. She is right. Neither her nor Sant will slow me down. Sant is a ghost when it suits him, and Mondra is more athletic than I could ever hope to be with her long legs and fluid way of moving about. I gaze around. Mother is sitting at the base of a tree beside Jeren and Father, who stares blankly ahead. Faerborn has moved closer to Tereka. Gerstam has finally joined us.

“Very well, we’ll find the Helicere and get all of you settled.” I turn to Gerstam. “You are not to touch the controls, Gerstam. If the guns are still firing, you’ll let them continue…”

“Nit,” he flashes at me, “if the troops found the ship—and there’s no doubt that they did—one of them would have shut it down.”

“You leave it shut down, then.”

He shrugs his shoulders, but there is a mischievous look in his eyes. A tiny smile of, Whatever you say, Alana. This might not be the best idea, but then where else can five humans and one giant hide?

Anyway, now it is time to console Faerborn. I’ve made my point perfectly clear to Gerstam, and so I cross the space dividing Faerborn and me. He is glum, almost frightened-looking. I climb onto his knees and brush the tangles of hair off his face. He looks down at me with a morose and pleading look.

“Can you go back into the ship, Faerborn? For me. For Tereka. She will need you. We won’t be long, I promise.”

His answering voice has a deep, despairing, booming quality to it. “Why not Sant stay? Faerborn go?”

“Speed, my precious Faerborn. And quiet. And protection for my sister.”

“Faerborn run fast.”

“Yes, yes, but…” How do I say this next part without hurting him? “Your footsteps are like a thousand drums when you run. We’ll be fine, and Tereka will need you beside her, just like I needed you back on Folly. You’ll stay with her; go back into the Helicere for just a little while, won’t you? Please do this for me.”

He shifts his eyes down to Tereka. She raises her head and offers him a painful little smile. Faerborn slowly raises an arm and places it gently around her shoulder.

“Yes.”

I rise on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “Let’s go then. I think the ship is that way,” I say pointing south and east. I jump down and go to Mother. Jeren seems delighted once again, and runs behind Faerborn to climb up the furry mountain and perch himself on his shoulders.

“Can you manage him?” I ask her.

She begins to rise, taking hold of Father’s arm. “I suppose I’ll have to. They kicked him over and over in the cell. In the side when he was lying helpless. Something is terribly wrong.”

Mother doesn’t seem so much worried for him, as much as burdened with an unwanted weight. Her words have an almost angry tone.

“Let’s just get him into the ship, if we can find it. Before I kill every single one of the Polits I’ll try to find one of their doctors and drag him back with us.”

Mother harrumphs. I leave it at that. Even though she stays near him, I sense a distance between them as wide as this forest is deep. Along with that, I also get the feeling that one or the other of them sold me out to Polit months ago, no matter their explanations that they were threatened. No matter that Marcus or Darra turned on them in the end. No time for ruminating, though. I turn, leaving her to gather up Father.

“Gerstam, you help Mother if you can. Sant and Mondra and I will go ahead and see if we can find the ship. Let’s go.”

 

                                        ***

 

Sant has taken the lead, navigating easily beneath the trees that must seem laughable in size to him. Mondra follows effortlessly, matching every swift turn he makes. Both of them—Sant certainly—must have compasses in their brains. We go southeast, although the path he chooses is awkwardly zig-zaggy. I hope those behind us can follow our trail.

It is a bright morning. Cloudless. An almost serene atmosphere abounds despite everything. The occasional songs of birds remind me of the magic of these woods. The once-magic, anyway. It’s eerie, though, whenever I think of it. Why haven’t we seen any ground troops, or spotted even a lone gunship floating by overhead? Where are they?

Twenty minutes of hard running pass, Sant stopping every so often, raising a hand. We duck. He glances around, and then after a few seconds elapse, we’re off once again.

I must lag behind at intervals, backtracking to make certain that my family, Gerstam, and Faerborn have not gotten lost. In the quiet, Faerborn’s heavy footfalls are unmistakable and comforting. Whether Gerstam with his gimpy leg, and Mother towing Father, are able to keep pace with my giant, I don’t know, but he at least is unerringly following the trail we blaze. Gerstam, even if he has abandoned my parents, will do everything in his power to follow us to the road…and the wounded Helicere.

I am close behind Mondra once more. Ten more minutes have slipped by when Sant stops suddenly, turns abruptly, and then points. There it is. The road. The three of us huddle just a yard or so this side of it until Sant creeps forward beside a thickly-leaved bush, peering up and down the length of it, listening, almost invisible in his cat-like movements.

“Which way?” Mondra whispers to me.

“Look for broken limbs,” I answer, then leave her to join Sant.

“What do you think?” I ask him.

“No one that I can see.” I see his eyes darting left, right, and up into the line of blue high above us. He moves forward on hands and knees, clearing the bush and gazes to his left.

“That way,” he says in a low, guarded tone. I am beside him in a heartbeat. Mondra almost as quickly is at my side. Fifty or sixty feet down the road I see the beginning of our mad descent yesterday. Tons of leaves at first, and then sheared branches growing thicker by the foot! I hear again the first swish when the bottom of the Helicere met the tops of the trees, and then the banging that quickly followed. Somewhere down there lies the Helicere, and thankfully I don’t see the swirling lights ripping upward like thousands of fat white arrows. Someone either turned the guns off, or else the power in the ship finally pooped.

Sant looks beyond me to Mondra. “Can you go back and find the others? Alana and I will follow the road through the bushes until we find the ship. Don’t let any of them, especially Faerborn, step onto the road. Make your way with them through the safety of the growth. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t here.”

Mondra nods, and then she’s off like a bolt of lightning to gather up the stragglers. Sant takes my hand, and we ease back a short distance until we find a spot through which we can head west, toward the waiting ship. Somewhere beyond it stretches the wall with its gaping hole. How far I have no idea. How many made it out of Black, I wonder? And where have they scattered to? It’s crazy quiet, and the thought occurs that while Gerstam took us on his merry romp through the skies, the hundreds of ships we finally saw had already cut my people down with Polit efficiency. But, why not Gerstam and me when they had the opportunity?

Five long minutes of dodging through tangles of brush, and we catch our first glimpse of the Helicere, lying silent and dead. The ramp is still down, crinkled badly on this side. A bird sits atop the ship near the cabin windows, fluffing the feathers of its wings. The nose of the craft is buried in a mound of dirt and twisted, broken branches. It’s a miracle Gerstam and I survived. I thank the gods. Mad Gerstam will never in his wildest dreams get it out of here.

After scanning it, and every inch of space on both sides of the road, Sant leads me through the last few bushes toward it.

“Give me your knife,” he whispers.

“I don’t have it,” I answer.

He twists his head sharply at my reply. The look on his face is somewhere between anger and annoyance at the idea that I could actually lose our only close-in weapon. He lets loose of my hand.

“Raise your palms, then. Let’s go see if anyone is lurking inside.”

TWELVE

If we do meet someone, or someones, little good that will do us. At close quarters I’d wind up blowing all of us to pieces I’m afraid.

“It’s abandoned,” I offer not-so-confidently.

Sant turns and glances forward again, focusing on the darkened hole inside the ship. He steps out onto the road, and I follow, hands stretched out. Right at his back.

It is empty, small bits of rubble here and there on the deck. Everything is exactly the way it was when Gerstam and I rushed out yesterday. Sant stops when we enter the cabin. All the lights on the console are out. Outside the window a large branch lays at an angle, covering most of the cockpit view of the road ahead. After a few minutes I swirl the co-pilots seat ninety degrees and plop into it. Sant has been staring at the dead console, and finally he stretches his fingers toward it.

“Don’t even think about it,” I snap at him. He gives me a look, and then slowly withdraws his hand.

“Do you think this thing just died, or did someone shut it down?” he asks.

“I have no idea. It doesn’t matter anyway. I hope it conked after a few hours, that way Gerstam won’t be tempted to try to get it running again. Or won’t be able to.”

“What exactly is our plan now? I mean as far as getting to wherever you want to go inside Polit? It’ll be crawling with troops I’m betting,” he says. “Do you plan to just walk in and start blasting everyone and everything in sight?”

Good question. I guess I’ll dispatch the troops we encounter first, then…then…start on the buildings? There are hundreds of them, many as tall as the trees back on Folly. How will they fall, though? Back on us, crushing us like two stupid ants? And what about the innocent people inside some of them? I’ve seen children with their mothers going in and coming out. I mean, the little ones, at least, have no idea what their leaders are all about. Go in then, and room by room, floor by floor, kill all the evil…that would take a century. And who are the bad guys?

The sprawling prison and government buildings. That’s where we start. If we can get that far into the city before being ambushed.

I wonder if their leaders and the military plan invasions with as much precision as the one I’m-not-planning very well? Maybe they just swarm in numbers like they’ve done over the years in Black.

Probably not.

The sound of bushes moving and the familiar clunk of Faerborn’s feet save me from having to answer Sant’s question. Mondra rushes into the belly of this thing first. She stops ten feet in, and her jaw drops.

“Whoooaaa!”

Yes, it’s pretty impressive, Mondra. Think about getting shoved out of that side door blindfolded at ten thousand feet.

Faerborn follows with certain trepidation. Up the ramp he walks, bending his head to clear the top of the ship. Jeren is trying to keep his balance atop Faerborn’s shoulders. My giant cradles Tereka in his right arm. Father dangles like a wet rag from his left. Mother and Gerstam are the last in. When they are all settled somewhat, I move out of the cabin and speak.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but the ship will probably be as good a place as any for you to hide. If any Polit troops come…Faerborn, try to get my family and Gerstam to safety somewhere else. If you can’t, then surrender. I’ll come back for you.”

Not very assuring.

I turn to Sant. “Ready?”

“I wish I had my bow,” he answers dejectedly.

“Your eyes and speed will have to be your bow,” I say. I kiss each member of my family, smile at Gerstam as I pass by him, and lastly jump onto Faerborn’s quivering legs.

“Goodbye for now, dear one. Protect my family. I’ll be back, I promise.” His head droops, and he offers no reply.

Sant and Mondra and I leave on what I hope is not a suicide mission of revenge. I take the lead, and we circle south through the forest until we reach the southernmost part of the wall encircling Black. From here we will head north again, hopefully finding the storm drain that dumps into the sea on our right. Not a pleasant thought, but at least we’ll be able to enter the city undetected. I hope.

An hour passes. Twice Sant pulls Mondra and me to the ground at the base of the wall when Polit ships glide by over the ghetto almost without a warning sound. I can hear the faraway hum of their engines long before I catch sight of them—little gnats or dots or constellations so high above us—and my hope is that they’re heading in to patrol the city on the other side of the wall. Not many Blacks would have fled through the holes I made here, I’m thinking. I mean, where would they have gone to? The swamp? The sea without boats? Certainly not north toward the Polit ports and sure death.

“Stop!” Mondra says suddenly. I turn and see her crouch close to the rough stones of the wall. She motions for Sant and me to come closer to her.

“What?” I ask.

“How many ships have we seen so far? How many chased you and Gerstam yesterday?”

“I don’t know. Hundreds yesterday. Not that many today…maybe twenty or thirty. Why?”

“It’s just…I don’t know, Alana, maybe trying to get to the prison through the sewer isn’t the smartest idea.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you ever been in the sewer tunnel?”

I don’t have to think long about that disgusting thought. “No, but…”

“I want to find the bastards that raped and tortured me and Tereka. I want to see them all go up in flames. I want to see their buildings fall as well. But we’ll never even make it to the entrance to the drain! Not with the sky filled with gunships. And if we do make it, we have no idea where the labyrinth of pipes go.”

As she is speaking, four more Heliceres glide along slowly, drift suddenly downward, crossing east to west like metallic birds of prey. I can actually see the gun ports. It would be so easy for me to simply hone in on them and blast them into eternity before they realized they missed us, but what good would that do? My sister is right. How long would it be until another squadron notices the burning wreckage, and then gather by the dozens before we make it to safety inside the huge stone pipe. Whatever Mondra is planning, she’s right. Right now the sky is our enemy.

“So? What do we do?” I ask her.

“We get back to the cover of the forest as fast as we can. I know a trail that will take us around the west perimeter of the city. The prison stands at the northernmost edge, right? A few miles south of it, though, is the air port complex. We go there; take it out first.”

“We backtrack?”

“No, not necessarily. We can go straight across Black. We have a thousand shacks to use as cover.”

Sant is shaking his head in agreement.

“I say we get to their air port, do like Mondra says…but we leave one ship undamaged. You wreck the rest, and then…and afterward, somehow we go back and get your family and Gerstam. Bring them to the unwrecked ship, and then get out of here. Go back to Folly. Without Heliceres, they can’t follow us.”

“Abandon our home and whoever has survived to their troops? I won’t do that!”

“One thing at a time,” Mondra says. “Clear the skies. Kill their army next, and then if we want, destroy the prison and the city.”

Another group of gunships comes into view, heading toward us from over the sea. They move swiftly, and I curse myself for taking this route. I know they’ve spotted us when at a few hundred yards away they slow, and then hover. The first burst of deadly gunfire strikes the wall a couple of feet over Mondra’s head. She screams and tries to duck lower, for whatever good that will do her. Sant throws himself over her. I raise my hands.

Gods, shield us for half a second more!

 

 

THIRTEEN

I close my eyes. Wave my outstretched palms in an arc. Feel the electric rush that jars my senses. And then I hear the explosions. I don’t want to look, seriously. Don’t want to see the huge ships falling in thousands of fiery pieces straight down on us, and so I squint tighter, forced back against the legs and tangled torsos of Sant and Mondra in a heap.

I flash back to the forest of Catanar when that lone Helicere hovered thirty feet above me on the path. The young Polit soldier sent flying when Faerborn gathered me up, and smashed into him in the process. The valley where the Jades were gathering that night, and I barbecued the lot of them. Dizziness. Strange regrets. Death everywhere.

They begin to crash. One, two, three heavy thuds, and more explosions like bursts thunder. The sounds of debris whizzing too near my head, crashing into the wall, sending rock shrapnel back in an angry staccato echo. A final boom when another of the ships crashes far away. And then a kind of angry silence, broken only by a mass hissing as the remnants of the attacking force dies.

I open my eyes. There is black smoke everywhere. Tangled pieces of the ships, most spewing flames, most of them lying in the swamp. On the dry land, just that side of the road, an arm reaches out through the knee-high weeds. I hear a low groan over the hissing off to the left. A body, face up, in a blood-spattered uniform. His leg moves a little, but the way he's twisted, I know he's going to die soon. Mondra rises, pushes past Sant and me, and snatches a hand-sized rock as she runs toward the guy lying in the reeds across the road.

“Mondra, no!” I scream. He’s going to die, for the gods’ sake, why bash his head in? There is a mean streak in my sister that sometimes approaches the ugliness of the Polits. Defending yourself is one thing, but…

“Why? He’s one of them, ‘Lana. I’m just going to put him out of his misery.”

“Let her do it,” Sant says. “Think back on Catanar.”

“No! Let’s just get out of here.” I’m disheartened by my sister’s heartlessness, but worse by Sant’s. Mondra drops the rock, but not before spitting on the dying man. And then she rushes back to Sant and me. More ships will appear before we can disappear, I have no doubt about that. We don’t have time to taunt or torture the injured and dying. I don’t have the stomach for it anyway.

A hundred yards ahead of us, one of the Heliceres crashed down into the wall, opening it in a long slash. If we’re going back to the far side of Black, and then from there find the air port—and I think my sister was right in that change of plans—the doorway has opened. I lead the way, running as fast as I can; dodging twisted wreckage and the gruesome remains of Polit airmen. Through curtains of smoke that gusher from the ruins. Around broken rocks.

I glance back at Mondra and Sant a second before reaching the hole in the hated wall. Mondra leads, with Sant close behind her. He breaks stride, snatches two weapons that were ejected from one of the Heliceres. I step over the shattered stones, and under the mangled rear hold of the smoking craft. They’re quickly beside me. We’re together again, back in the ghetto.

The stiff breeze from off the sea pushes plumes of black smoke over my old home ahead of us, and at first it’s hard to see the damage done yesterday by the invading ships and foot soldiers. But the breeze is capricious. Its sudden changes of mind poke holes in the sullen black veil, revealing an eerie portrait of the once-despairing hovel-homes intermixed with absolute destruction. The devastation is a brother to the wind—here a home untouched, across the debris-strewn path, a splintered roof lying haphazardly on a collapsed wall. We meet our first dead body within minutes into our flight. A child whose name and laughter I’ll never know.

I want to stop, but I don’t. There is no need to tell him how sorry I am that he had to suffer death on my account. No, no! On our account! Because of men like Darra. Well, he’s dead now, too, the gods damn his soul.

Battered in doors. Gates lying in tangles on the ground. Fences beaten over. Surely, more unfortunate Blacks inside many of the wrecks of homes we race by. The main road running north and south is just ahead, and I slow near the corner of the last house where I crouch and wait for my sister and Sant to join me. Mondra slips down beside me, banging with a shoulder into the fence laced with weeds. Sant arrives a split second later, as quiet as a cat stalking a rat. Without a word, he pushes the gun into her hands.

“What?” she whispers.

I crawl cautiously forward until I reach the end of the road, and peer in both directions. A Skirter is parked sideways on the main road fifty feet away, one door open, but no soldiers are in sight. Our old home is farther north, maybe a hundred feet beyond it. They’re still here somewhere. Maybe going house to house to rout out any survivors.

I turn and crawl back to them. “We have to cross, but I think we have company. I’ll go first. Wait here until I signal you.”

Mondra is fiddling with the short weapon. She raises it. Turns it a little, looking at the bolt, the trigger and ring of metal surrounding it, and then glances over at me with a question mark on her face.

Seriously, Mondra? You?

“Just point and pull the trigger,” Sant says with a small laugh. “At them,” he adds.

“Like this?” she says, pointing the short barrel at his head.

“No!” I say too loudly. Sant reacts by raising his hands to push the gun aside. “Are you crazy!” Too loud, too loud! What on earth is my sister thinking?

“Just kidding,” she replies, lowering the weapon. “I don’t have my finger on the trigger.”

“Stop it! Shut up!” I say.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Sant snarls.

“You’re such a woos,” she laughs at him.

“They’re here! Quiet down!” Too loud. If we survive this it will be a miracle. I give Mondra a nasty look, then when she answers with a puppy-dog I know I was a bad little boy, and a lowering of her eyes, I rise and take one more peek over the top of the rotted fence. No movement anywhere. I take off as fast as I can, back and shoulders low, and cross the road.

I’ve crossed this road a thousand times, but it never seemed as wide as it does right now. More haphazard destruction over here. The Pistor's house I’m in front of is no more of a wreck than it was last time I was here a few days ago, except that, like so many others, the front door is hanging like a broken branch, half open. I whisk behind the overgrown, scarggily bushes near the dirt of the street. Poke my head over the tops of them, and scan the area. Wait, scan some more. Wait. It’s filled with ghosts. My dead town.

Mondra is staring at me, gun in one hand, almost leaning forward with her left shoulder, ready to sprint. Sant has thrown his weapon over a shoulder by the strap. He has a hand on Mondra’s arm, as though trying to hold her in place until I give the signal.

I motion with a wave of my hand for them to go, then wish immediately that I hadn’t.

FOURTEEN

A soldier, the black visor of his helmet retracted, steps through the doorway of my old home onto the short walkway leading to the road the same time they bolt onto it. He appears agitated, looks south in the direction of the noise and smoke. I’m wondering what took him so long to vacate the house, but I’m in no doubt that he’s spotted the cause—or two parts of it—sprinting across the dirt toward my hiding place.

Neither Mondra nor Sant notices him, half-hidden, now, by the sideways-parked Skirter between them. Do I lift my hands and blow him away?

“Stop!” he yells.

I’ve no choice. I have to take him out. Sant shoves Mondra when he hears the raspy command, and then dives into the dirt, rolling over sideways. With a swift, graceful motion, he rips the weapon off his shoulder and takes aim, lying half on his back, his head craned in this weird, unnatural position. A millisecond passes as the soldier raises his gun, but he has made a fatal mistake. He lurches toward the road in order to get a better bead on the two filthy Blacks who’ve returned. Three steps into the guy’s last journey, I hear the Pop! Pop! Pop! of Sant’s gun. The doomed Polit reacts to the hits by releasing his gun, a shocked look in his eyes. He twists helplessly, and then hits his knees before collapsing in a heap into the dirt behind him.

Sant is on his feet again before his target goes totally limp. He’s with Mondra and me, breathing in gulps. I’m flashing my eyes from the dead soldier, over to Sant, back to the lifeless body.

I think back to Marcus’ walled compound on Folly—three short days ago when he and Demee scaled the stone rampart to unlock the gate. Demee was so quick that morning, using her fingers and toes to scale it deftly like a frightened lizard, but Sant’s ascent was nearly invisible. A blur. A shadow. Weeks before that, his movement through the branches of Catanar when I first arrived and he whisked me skyward toward that place of wonderment and beauty lying above the clouds, far beyond the reach of the cruel Jades. His true father must have been lightning, his mother an illusion locked in a body.

“Gods!”

I answer Mondra without words by pointing up. Forget the dead soldier. From the east at least a dozen gunships are bearing down on Black like angry bees. We’re exposed. It won’t be long before they swarm over the scene of the crime, blasting anything that moves. If that weren’t enough, I can hear the first rumbling of engines coming in from the north. We have maybe five seconds to disappear. Either that, or I open the second round of battle right here, and hope I can decimate the Polits on two fronts at once.

Sant is peering silently at me, his gun still in his grip as I run the odds through my head. Make the call, Alana!

“Quick!” And I’m off, leading the way along the narrow corridor between the Pistor’s house on our right, and Anast’s four feet away on the left. “Stay as close to Pistor’s as you can,” I yell back at them—to Mondra, anyway. I'm totally certain Sant will somehow become invisible.

The way ahead is worse than the refuse-strewn dump, littered with shredded and singed clothing, pieces of furniture smashed or blown apart by bursts of Helicere fire. The detritus of a short war. I don’t dare look behind us, though; lose speed, which is our only ally. I’m not worried so much about the troops lumbering into the town through the open gates. It’s the gunships that can cover a thousand miles to our one that scare me. Their instant communication with one another. Spotted three heading west…

Maybe I should stop? Get their undivided attention by incinerating the leaders of the vanguard? Stuff that thought, Alana.

Best to try evading them on mine and Mondra’s turf. Somehow get out of here in one piece, and then make our way to their home base. As my heart hammers, I'm thinking it was a great mistake to bring my sister and Sant along. If I lose them...

Three miles long, from the front gates to the beginning of the dump. Two miles wide, wall to wall. Before all this happened Black was a beehive; the beaten and cowed masses up before dawn every day. Off to the mines or the fields northwest of the slum, or into Polit to serve our slavemasters. Mothers towing children in threadbare clothes, making for one of the five wells, or to one of the innumerable troughs to wash garments. To one of the handful of dilapidated shops that sold simple hardware and precious foodstuffs. Trinkets for the youngest, if there was an extra coin to be had. We are three quarters of the way across the town, and there is no life today.

FIFTEEN

“Is it safe?” The only sounds I hear are the low hum of the engine, and the slow rat-tat-tat-tat of the tires on the cobbled roadway. I am beneath Sant, scrunched up like a smashed bug, but I see little curtains of light that illuminate the interior above me, and then fade away. Rise again, and then fade, over and over in a strangely ominous rhythm.

“Yes.” Mondra’s voice is breathy, like she’s been running. I wish our places in the cab had been…no I don’t. Much as I don’t want to, I ease my arms up and slowly push Sant’s chest. In a moment that passes too quickly, we are back in the passenger seat together. I stretch my arms and torso a little to work out the stiffness as I look outside. He has his arms wrapped around my stomach.

The view outside is dismal. Worse. If Jade with its crude stone walls and rickety-looking parapet walkways was frightening, this place is a nightmare. To the left, a wide, slickly paved surface runs perhaps twenty feet until it ends at the wire-topped wall. I can’t be certain what I see in that wall, but it’s scary. Thousands and thousands of tiny glimmers of moonlight reflection run the length and height of it.

I ask Logash what they are.

“You don’t want to try to scale those walls. Even with a rope, your feet would get impaled on the three inch-long needles. That’s not the worst of it, though. Should you slip, they would rip you open as you fell. If the tower guards didn’t shoot you first. That’s more likely anyway.”

“I wonder if anyone has ever escaped…” I am thinking this, more than asking a question I instinctively know the answer to. I glance back at Mondra, the moonlight illuminating her face. She has turned to look out, her teeth set tight in a silent remembrance. She squints, blinks twice, and pushes her brow hard downward, as though she is terrified and in a rage all at once.

“Get us to intake,” she says in a dark, angry tone.

“Duck down,” Logash replies. “Guard tower up ahead.”

Mondra disappears. I am on the floorboard once more, Sant atop me in a wink. I should stop this charade. Just get up, open the door, and start destroying everything around us. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of captives inside the wall to our right, though. I don’t want to bring the walls and roof down on their suffering heads. We’ll figure out how best to free them first—and I want to find a few select demons before any of this. Make them suffer.

Fifty feet farther on, Logash turns into a break in the wall, and we are carried downward along a narrow corridor leading to a dock ablaze with harsh lights. A stairway on the far right against the wall leads up to its surface, and over the pair of metal doors a single light glares red.

“This is it,” Logash says as he brakes and cuts the engine. “I’ve only been here once. It’s the food storage depository. I think only one guard inside. Just push the button on the wall next to the right door. Someone will answer. Tell him you’re here with steaks or beans or…anyway, that it’s your first delivery assignment. You’re fresh out of the academy. Like that.”

“What? You’re not going up there with us?” I say.

He stammers. “Um…no. I got you here, now I…I have to get back, or they’ll notice I’ve gone. Besides, I don’t want the guards here to see my face.”

Sant pushes me forward and goes for Logash. Mondra beats him. She leans over the seatback and yanks his face sideways to meet hers.

“Look at this face you little rat traitor. You are taking us up there to those doors. You are pushing that call button, and you’re going to tell whoever answers that you have a delivery, or I’ll break your skinny neck. Understand?”

That was pretty clear. Logash grimaces.

“I say we kill him now and take our chances at the door,” Sant says, grabbing him by the thick locks of his hair. “The second we leave him alone, he’ll sound the alarm.”

“No, we’re not killing him.” I try to coax Sant to let go of Logash. He’s scared to death, but Sant only digs his fingers deeper into the kid’s hair and shakes his head.

“Then let’s knock him out and tie him up,” Mondra offers all excited and ready to hurt Logash in some fashion, either by choking him or beating him unconscious. Honestly, I didn’t realize this sweet older sister possessed such a mean streak. Her torturers inside are one thing, but young Logash is simply frightened. I think Sant is right, though. I feel it in my bones. The minute we leave him alone, I'm afraid Logash will rip out of here and head for the main entrance screaming, They hijacked me. They’re trying to break in!

“He’s going with us.”

“What happens once we get inside with him?” Mondra asks.

“Bring the gun. If he does anything stupid, you can shoot him,” I answer. “Clear enough, Logash?”

He’s shaking, and his eyes are as big as an animal’s cornered in the forest. He nods slowly, reluctantly.

“Good. Now, get out.”

We pad up the steps, and then across the dock surface to the door. Logash stops and stands center of it; me on his left, Mondra and Sant on the other side of him—hopefully out of view. I gaze up at the overhanging ceiling looking for any of the watcher things Marcus put everywhere back in Jade. I don’t see any, but maybe they’re a little more sophisticated with their spying here? I take a deep breath and push my back to the cold wall.

“Push the button,” I whisper.

It takes a minute, but finally someone uncovers the tiny window inside. Logash takes a step backward. He seems to have buried his feelings of impending doom for the moment. Good boy, Logie. Mondra has the gun pointed at him. I would probably put on my best face, too, if I were him.

“Beezul Fagmire. District 7. Delivery,” he says into the box next to the door. Beezul Fagmire? Nice one, Logash.

There is a moment of silence. Then a raspy voice answers.

“I don’t see any deliveries scheduled for tonight. Who’d you say you were?”

I’m counting to ten. If Logash doesn’t get him to open the door, I’m going to blast it in on top of him. Logash is quick, though.

“Fagmire. Emergency. The Blacks have invaded the southern sector of the city. Major Sentily just said to get these guns over here as quick as I could. That’s all I know.”

“Invaded? The Blacks?” the guy says.

“That’s what I was told. C’mon, let me get this stuff in so I can get back to Headquarters.”

Five, six…

I don’t see any crates…”

“They’re in the Skirter! Sentily said you’d help unload. We’re short handed. Now, are you opening up, or do you want me to cart everything back and tell Sentily you wouldn’t let me in?”

Another pause. I’m at nine, ready to step away from the wall. I hear the bolt of the lock disengage, and I sigh, too loudly, I think. The heavy metal door swings inward. Mondra steps into the opening, shoving Logash out of the way as she raises the gun and points in at the guard’s chest.

“Hi.”

 

SIXTEEN

 

The guard stumbles backward in total shock. He isn’t your typical Polit bully. His dress shirt is hanging out at the waist. No cap. No black jacket. He looks to be a hundred or two hundred pounds overweight. Maybe that’s why his superiors stuck him here. As far as I know, Polit doesn’t do away with their own. Maybe in this case they should have.

Sant darts into view, grabs Logash and shoves him beside Mondra into the interior. He smashes into the guard’s chest, whimpering that we made him do it. Mondra follows him, raising the gun to the guard’s head.

“That’s an old one, buddy. Surprised you fell for it. We’ve come to your little horror house to pay a visit to some of your friends,” she berates him.

Sant wastes no time. He moves quickly, raises Logash up from his sagging position at Fatboy’s feet, and then rams the kid into the wall.

“Don’t move.”

I look beyond the horrified guard down a long hallway of three story-tall racks packed with crate upon crate of stuff. High up at the ceiling I see girders with huge lights spaced between each aisle. If this is all food, there must be enough to feed starving Blacks for ten years!

“Do you know where we are, Mondra?” I ask, looking around in amazed disbelief at the sheer size of this warehouse.

“No. They didn’t take me on any tours when I was visiting. This guy does, I’m willing to bet,” she says stepping forward and planting the barrel of the gun beneath the guard’s flabby chin.

He points over his shoulder, down the wide hallway. “Don’t shoot me, girl, please. I jus’ work here…do what they tell me, that’s all!”

His voice sounded more human through the speaker outside.

“Well, you’ll lead the way to wherever your buddies hang out,” Mondra snarls.

“No he won’t,” I say walking past him, looking up and down the aisles. “Bring them along until I find...” I let my voice trail off. They must have some rope among all these crates. Something. We’re not dragging two pieces of deadweight anchor along behind us. Not a chance.

“Let me shoot him, then,” Mondra says.

“No! Please! I swear, I don’t have nuthin’ to do with the prisoners…not even the other…”

“Shut up,” I hear Sant snap at him.

There! Two tiers up. A box with the end of a thick piece of rope hanging out, halfway down this aisle. I dash forward and begin to scale the rack to get at it. Without a knife, though, it will be impossible to cut four lengths to tie them up with.

One problem at a time. I crawl behind the crate and use my feet to push it over the edge. It lands with a crash.

“Sant, find something to cut the stuff with.”

 

Five minutes later. I’m standing in front of the petrified guard and Logash. Mondra is finishing up the job of lashing both of them to one of the legs of the racks. It isn’t good enough that their arms are tied up with knots I’ve never even dreamed of, she cuts another two lengths and wraps the first around the guard’s throat, yanking his head into the leg of the rack. I hear the loud knock, and hear him groan in pain. I’m pretty sure she wants him to choke to death.

Using the small knife Sant dug up, I cut two pieces of Fatboy’s sweaty-looking shirt. Shove one into his gagging mouth until his cheeks bulge bigger than they already are, the other piece into Logash’s.

“Never mind tying his head to the rack, Mondra," I say nodding at the kid. "He won’t call out. Let’s move.”

I don’t want her to kill him. I don’t care about the guard so much, but even though I know he’d scream bloody murder if he could…Logash is too young to die. Strange. Either one could do us serious harm by crying out. They’re equally dangerous…

Maybe it’s the gluttonous appearance of the older guard.

“Can you believe this place,” Mondra half-whispers when we have passed the tenth aisle and approach the door into…what? Who will we find behind it?

“We survived on some pretty pasty tasting junk…and not much of that! Why so many crates?”

Guns? Torture devices?

I glance up, my right hand holding Sant’s left tightly. My heart sinks. There, a foot above the door, one of the watcher devices. The tiny dot of light on the surface of it is blinking green. Unless the rest of the guards are sleeping, they have to know we’re here. I let loose of Sant’s hand and prepare myself to send the first of them up in flames after we open the door.

“See it?” I say to Sant.

“See what?”

“The watcher. Right up there over the door.”

“Yes,” he says looking up at the little metal ball stuck on the wall. “So what?”

Someone has to be watching us, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to ring the bell and introduce ourselves when whoever is on the other side opens it. There is no window in this door, it’s just a steel behemoth, that from the look of it an armored battle vehicle couldn’t knock down. Mondra is standing in front of the impregnable opening, testing the knob when I make the comment to Sant. She raises the butt-end of the gun and starts ramming it into the bottom of the watcher. The noise echoes back from the ceiling and hall behind us, but finally the case breaks loose and goes crashing to the floor. The little green eye is dead.

“There you go,” she says with a small, triumphant laugh.

I don’t feel any less watched somehow.

Mondra uses her free hand to rattle the lock again, and I know she’s thinking seriously about giving up on that; raising the gun and shooting it.

“You two stand back,” I say. “Get over there behind that rack.”

Mondra gets it immediately. “I so hope there’s someone right on the other side.”

She and Sant rush to the nearest rack a dozen feet away. I back up, and when they’re safe, raise my hands. We’ll see just how strong this Polit barrier really is.

I feel the electric buzz, the rush that starts in my feet and roars upward. A heavy tingling as my head spins for a second, and then in less than an instant, the louder than loud BOOM! when the force I unleashed hits the metal. For a second I’m deaf. There is only a painful ringing in both ears. I kind of hear Mondra screaming with delight, saying something, but it’s as though she’s speaking a hundred miles an hour through a hundred blankets.

I look at the spot where the heavy steel door used to be. There is a whirlwind of dust and smoke. A large jagged line of concrete with tangled spears of metal reinforcement bars bent inward. The once-door is ten or fifteen feet farther in, lying atop rubble, the center of it a bowlish shape. A leg, or part of one, is poking out from beneath it on the right side. There you go, Mondra. Wish granted.

Through the smoke and dust, farther into the wide hallway, a group of Polit guards are jumping around like bugs in a frying pan. A few of them have already regained their senses. They’ve trained their weapons on me—or us—and they're preparing to unload. Once again I let loose, and in a flash, the only thing left of them is dazzling balls of flame.

I can hear again. Alarms. Like hundreds of them. Gunfire, because Mondra is standing beside me shooting wildly into the haze of the hall through the opening. I give us maybe thirty seconds until every guard and Polit soldier in the place comes racing from both directions. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Maybe that wasn’t such a great move to blow the door down?

The dust begins to settle, and Mondra is off in a flash amid the blaring alarm before I can take a step forward. A single uniform far at the end catches my eye—an unsure movement on his part that costs him his life when my sister stops, takes aim, and fires. He lurches backward when the bullet strikes. His weapon rockets out of his hands and lands with a clatter that adds a weird few notes to the alarm blare.

“Where to, Mondra?” I yell.

The hallway we have entered is short in comparison to the cavernish warehouse hall behind us. Twenty-five or thirty feet long, maybe, with a line of doorways on either side. There are windows in most of the doors leading into the various rooms, and a few of them are lit up. Sant hurries forward, bends down and picks up the pistol the dead guard under the door lost when he got himself smashed, and then he goes to the first lit up door and peeks through the bottom of the window.

“Leave it!” Mondra calls back to him. “We have to get out of this hall!” He looks quickly over at me, and then leaves the door and whatever is inside to catch up to Mondra. He joins her at the end of the hall at the T, and I know she’s trying to decide which way to go. She scowls just as I catch up to them, and then raises the gun and fires at what at first I think is another of the watcher devices, but is, instead, one of the horns making the hideous racket. We might still be the star attraction on some master screen deep, deep in the interior of the prison, but at least we can talk in something like normal voices. Figure out in which direction we want to go to our deaths.

“Soooo? Where are the cells?” I ask, heaving in a deep breath of gunpowder-thick air, expecting one of the doors behind us to rip open, and a bunch of screaming, shooting guards to come flying out. Mondra looks left, then right, biting her lip, and then raises the gun again and blasts another watcher device leering down on us with its blinking green light.

“This way,” she says after it bounces in a hundred pieces onto the floor ten feet away. "I think."

Or the other way. Thank the gods there are only two exits. We have a fifty-fifty chance of choosing the right one. That’s some consolation, I suppose. Even so; even if this door is the right one, we’ve been spotted, and the gods only know how many Polit goons are on the other side. The alarms going off a few minutes ago surprised them, surely. The next time they’ll be ready, and the second the door swings in, they’ll start shooting. Can the force I unleash stop a hail of bullets, even if I react quickly enough?

But, we have to move forward. Or backward. Someplace other than where we stand. I’m thinking, now that we’re in the pot and the fire has been set beneath it…the plan to destroy the prison wasn’t a plan. Simply a reaction to all the events that unfolded, like an explosion that sent us in every which-way direction. Black and everyone left after we escaped. Probably all smashed to bits. React. Hatred for Polit and everything and everyone connected to it. Destroy.

Hah! I would have done better to crawl out of that sewer and brought their buildings down in flames, street by street. Suddenly we find ourselves in a maze. A box that has eyes and ears and an enemy waiting for us to…simply…open…the…next…door.

“Wait!”

SEVENTEEN

 

“What?” Sant asks.

“They’ve got to be right on the other side! Mondra, get on the right side of the door. Sant, put your back against the wall over there…”

The door is set into the wide hallway with a foot or two of flat space on either side. Whoever is on the other side can’t see us now that the watchers are toast. I hope. If I were them, I would expect us to either open the door, or else knock it down. Standing side by side right in the middle, ready to start blasting them. I’d have my lackeys aim their guns chest high, dead center, and then goodbye Alana from Black, once and for all. So I lose ten or twenty men in the first exchange? So what? My troops standing behind them open fire over the bodies of their dead buddies before they even hit the floor.

Maybe three seconds. She didn’t even have time to raise her hands and let loose, and the two with her didn’t have the time or smarts to take us all down. Good riddance, rebels.

Neither Sant nor Mondra asks why. The do as I say. I can see that my sister is nervous as can be. The veins in her lithe neck are pumping furiously, but she’s controlled, even with tons of adrenalin coursing through her body at light speed. She holds the gun upright with both hands, close to her body, its barrel against her cheek, and waits. Sant is looking back and forth from me to the door. Same position right over there.

I lay down, center of the hall several feet back from the door, and stretch my arms out, palms up. They’ll miss me, but I won’t miss any of them. I am scared to death.

“Open the door, Mondra, but whatever you do, don’t step into the opening,” I try to whisper over the muted blaring of the alarm on the other side. “Just push it in.”

She nods, glances across the way at Sant, and then reaches for the handle.

Twist. The latch disengages, and I can almost see them aiming right now. I don’t think. I don’t wait. I close my eyes as the door begins to swing inward and summon everything inside me. Quick as a spider flying across her web at the bug that just landed.

The leading edge of the door catches the leading edge of the force, and smashes fully open with a crash into the wall on the hinged side, then back it ricochets. I do it all again, expecting in that instant to perhaps hear the sounds of gunfire from those who survived. I hear only the door smashing back to where it was a split second ago, this time ripped off the heavy hinges? The shattering of glass. And then it’s so weird quiet. Even the alarm in there has died.

I open my eyes. Mondra is nailed to the wall. Sant, too. She is shaking like crazy now, but Sant is just peering down at me, waiting for me to give the next order. In front of me there isn’t much dust or fire—even destruction to speak of. I guess because Mondra opened the door into...a stairway!

No gunfire. No shouting. Sant steps into the opening beside me first, and I can hear him laugh a laugh of relief. Mondra is beside me almost as quickly.

The stairwell landing is extremely narrow. It’s like, with their penchant for ostentatious architecture, why couldn’t they have made this stairway a little bigger? I mean, even a rat would have trouble…well, maybe not. But the landing leading to the first step down is treacherously narrow, and there’s barely enough room to the right of the down section for the up section of stairs to begin!

Straight across under the steps going up, a window sits in the wall, shattered. The noise I heard a second or two ago. Mondra looks at all of this only briefly before she slings the gun’s strap over her shoulder, steps forward and begins the descent.

“I know where we are now,” she says, her words bouncing in rhythm to her rush down each step. “The cells are underground. Come on!”

I’m right behind her. Not a good place to be if…or more probably when…we run into the next bunch of goons. If they’re on their way up. I won’t be able to unload on them without taking her out as well. And the same is true behind me. We race down two flights of stairs until they end, and there is only a solitary door to our left. Little shards of glass on the concrete crackle under Mondra’s feet as she bounds toward it. Other than that, though, it’s quiet. There’s nothing worse than eerie silence when you know they know you’re among them.

“Same thing?” she whispers when Sant and I arrive at her side. “I open, you blast them?”

I don’t get it. Troops waiting in the hall when we broke through. The watcher devices blinking before Mondra destroyed them. Alarms. Alarms. They have to know we’re here. There were two ways for the invaders to go—right or left at the tee upstairs. Did they think we’d go left instead of right into the stairwell? Massed beyond the other door up there? But that couldn’t be. The damned watcher had to have alerted them that we were headed toward the stairwell door. Are they letting us go forward now, leading us into some kind of trap?

Mondra is waiting for my answer. Sant has already moved close to the wall to my left. Well, we can’t stay here. Yet…

“Mondra, something’s wrong. I just feel it,” I whisper. And that’s when it dawns on me. Descends on me I should say. On us. Whiffs of white smoke drifting down from the ceiling thirty feet above us. No heat. No pops of red-orange flames. Can’t be fire. I see a dead space of nothing a few feet above our heads, just below the curl of white pushing it out of the way. Smothering it.

Not smoke. Gas!

“Get on the floor! Hurry!” I scream.

I don’t really see either of them react. I close my eyes before the last word leaves my throat and bolt forward, hands extended, willing with everything inside me for…

The metal door doesn’t slam back into the wall on the other side, instead I hear the infinitely quick and hard screech of it leaving its hinges when it cartwheels down whatever space is beyond. The terrific explosion. The sudden absence of precious air as the mass of the door sucks it with it. We don’t have time, but I unleash another blast of energy into the void anyway. Whoever is in there…

“Move! Move! Move! They’re gassing us!”

 

 

EIGHTEEN

A swirl of fog beats my head. How can that be, I wonder? Fists of mist. Hah! One wave knocks me down, another pummels me. What?

My nose hurts. My eyes hurt. My throat feels like someone rammed a metal rod down it. I want to vomit, but my stomach doesn’t have the strength.

I’m dying. I must be, but that final door behind which everything disappears into nothingness eludes me. All thought should have vanished like a candle snuffed. No feeling of there is something else, something more. Something different than the world I’ve known for sixteen years. But still something.

 

What’s on the other side, Father?

A wonderful land, Alana. Padraig. The gods walk there among all good men and women who have passed, and there is peace.

Do they see us? Where is this place where all the dead go? Above us in the clouds?

Everywhere. Padraig is like the night. We cannot really see it, but the land of the gods surrounds us like the darkness. Emmani is no longer in pain. She isn’t crying, nor is she afraid any longer, and your little sister can see you and me. She is happy.

I want to see her if she can see me. Why can she see us but we can’t see her?

When we die we’ll meet her again.

That isn’t fair, Father. I don’t want to die.

But we all do, my darling girl. And then we are taken to Padraig where all who have tortured and killed us become our servants for all eternity.

 

I don’t want to die, because I have a feeling there is nothing else when I do.

Nothing.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.06.2015

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