DUNCAN HAS been working nights at the Factory. He is in the wagon with the others now, riding back to the barracks. He will get special leave, as always, to see Gran at the hospital. Then it is back to the filthy bunks and infested walls of the shacks with Tully and all the others in his new family of sinners and wretches.
The sky is a faint morning orange, like blood being washed away. Additional wagons pass them by, some carrying workers as downcast as themselves, others stacked high with dead bodies, pale and nude. Duncan has trained himself to see the bodies as one big mass of flesh. This way he does not have to recognize the faces of friends or the lifeless hands of a child.
He has not been completely successful in fooling his eyes today, however. Sary Cledes, the rumored marcher and madwoman, was dumped at his feet this morning. The guards and the government tried to keep her identity a secret, but they failed. The captured marchers, those of this new revolution, have come pouring into the ninth ring. They are still coming in daily. With them come whispers of hope. To quell this, they are being exterminated and sent to the Factory at an alarming, horrifying rate. Bodies are piled up like firewood.
Duncan looks around the wagon. They can only look at one another now. No talking is allowed anymore. You can lose your tongue that way. But the eyes can say more anyway, and unless the guards start blindfolding the workers to and from the Factory, long conversations will still be taking place. Duncan finds Tully’s eyes to impart some bit of information, and Tully nods in agreement. Tully finds another set of eyes in the wagon and gets the same reply. Not all the eyes are trustworthy. Not everyone in the wagon is in on the plan, but those who are fill the wagon with a buoyancy, an excitement. Hope. And that, Duncan surmises, is a strange and refreshing feeling, even if it is all for naught.
They drop Duncan off at the hospital. He will need to walk to the barracks on his own after his visit with Gran. He will most likely be harassed by guards, but the fists do not seem to have much punch anymore. Or rather, he feels he deserves them. They are his penance.
He does not sit beside Gran’s bed as he once did, but stands to her left. He says not a word. All his apologies are drained away now. She knows he is sorry, and even if Gran does want to say the words “You are forgiven,” she cannot. And oh how Duncan would love to hear that phrase! But she can no more talk than open her eyes. She will be dead soon. And then… and then the Factory…. His stomach churns at the idea. How he has failed Lawl. He looks over his shoulder. The doctress stands watching him. She doesn’t allow him in the room alone with Gran, since he broke the old woman’s heart. She too knows Gran will be dead soon. He cannot imagine she feels anything for Gran.
He is back at the barracks now. The sky is swirls of orange clouds. By the look of it, the world will end soon. A true end. Bright lights and kaboom. Tully is the only one awake and waiting for Duncan. The thin man sits on the end of his straw mattress on the floor. The shack is dark and made from rotted wood. It is getting colder, and Duncan does not believe Tully will survive it. But he is here now, and he is a true friend. The two of them have kept one another sane. When it rains, the roof leaks between their mattresses. Drops of rain hit the floor in steady, maddening increments. You can either talk over it or go mad because of it.
Duncan sits down on his mattress opposite Tully. Tully looks about to make certain no one sees them and rolls back his own mattress to reveal the rotted floor beneath torn up, and a pit dug. In that pit are steel pipes, wooden stakes, and anything else that might possibly be used as a bludgeoning weapon. Duncan pulls down his pants and unties the rope from his thigh where he had fastened a long, thin leg bone, that of a woman. While he was working the mixer, he slowed it just enough to grab the bone before it was pulverized. He throws it in with the other weapons, and Tully rolls his mattress back over the pit once more.
Sary Cledes will have her revenge after all.
THE YOUNG, affable doctress Sara stands behind Deirdre Maire at a long tall window on the second floor of the hospital, the so-called “recovery wing.” The windows are pulling in the tinted colors of the sky, bleeding all over the floor, the chairs, and the nurses.
“The army will be here soon,” Sara says. From the reflection in the window, Deirdre can see Sara’s expression of concern. The poor thing struggles so with her guilt. She shakes. She will lose her grip soon.
“Yes,” Deirdre says. “Hegart sours the air with his advance. I can smell him, can’t you? He smells like a thousand corpses.”
Sara does not disagree.
He is not yet on the horizon, though. On the road ahead, at least from this window at this height, Deirdre sees only the dry landscape of dust and gravel, and then, farther off, the lifeless orchard planted centuries past. No longer trees, it was now only claws reaching to the sky to choke some careless god. Deirdre’s heart sinks deeper and deeper. It has been sinking since she was informed Hegart would be visiting the ninth ring. She is trapped. They are all trapped.
“He’ll want the beds empty,” Sara says. “All of them.”
“I realize this, Doctress. Thank you.”
Sara gives a nervous bow of her head in the reflection, then turns and walks away.
Deirdre knows what Sara is implying. All of the beds will be emptied, including Gran’s. Especially Gran’s if Hegart ever finds out the affection Deirdre feels for the old woman. And that old woman is dying anyway, dying very soon… but still… after she dies, what then?
Trapped. Trapped and shaking and desperate.
Deirdre has barely made it to her office. She quickly slams her door so that none, not even the mindless nurses, may see her. With her back against the door, she slides to the floor, her shoulders lurching as she tries desperately to hold in her sobs. Her rib cage might bust open, but she will not let a single snivel escape. Not a sound from her mouth. She bites her lip, drawing blood, and she shakes violently, her hands in tight fists drained of color.
She cannot kill the old woman. She will not. So what then? Must Deirdre kill herself to avoid knowing what must happen? Will the darkness accept her? Will she at least find peace in that final sleep?
She crawls toward the medicine cabinet beside her desk. The pills therein are a wide variety of death candy. But her throat is burning. She cannot breathe for her refusal to cry. Oh, but she wants to cry. And then, not a foot from the cabinet, she can suffer it no longer, and she collapses in a great horrible bellow, a hurricane of howling and tears. She lies on the floor, her cheek cold from its hard touch. Hopeless.
Yet the room is changing. She feels then sees it dim, the harsh light relaxing to a warm glow. And the astringent scent of the hospital is replaced by lilacs and grass, and a cool breeze makes her rise to her knees. She is still quaking from the aftershocks of devastation, but her hand goes to her heart as she looks about. This is not her office. This is a garden, a Holy place with a fountain of Passions just ahead of her and little birds playing in the pure, clean water.
And then she sees us. Abrythnia. We are the goddess of the third-sex.
Deirdre gasps, her arms reaching out in a gesture of both awe and fear.
“Come no closer!” Deirdre pleads. “I am unholy. I am unfit.”
She is crying again. Her tears flow as freely as the fountain in front of her.
We approach her. We are nude. We take her hand in ours and show her love. More than she has ever known. And she smiles, the warmth echoing through her being.
“You should smile more,” we tell her. “It is beautiful.”
Her bottom lip is trembling. “But I have nothing to smile about. The world is now so very sad. Why did you abandon me?”
“Rise, daughter,” we say and pull her to her feet. “You were not abandoned. But for some time, we could but watch. You were not open to us. And now, you have a very important part to play here.”
“What? Why am I here? What is my part?”
“You are going to be a gateway, sweet Deirdre Maire… if you wish. That is your immediate purpose. As for a larger scheme, we do not yet know.”
“But you are the goddess Abrythnia. You know all.”
“To think that any creature is omniscient or omnipotent is a mistake. Just as you question the universe about your purpose, so does the universe ask you about its own.” We kiss her on the forehead and we whisper, “But together we may yet discover our new beginning.”
And we are gone.
She is standing in front of her desk, looking out her office window before she realizes it. Her face is wet, but it carries a remnant of a smile.
“Doctress?” Sara has poked her head into the office. “Are you okay, Doctress? We heard a cry.”
Deirdre does not turn. “Yes, Sara. I am much better now, thank you. Thank you, Sara.”
STRANGE DAYS and getting stranger. Two Children in Red were at the door. Were because they are now standing before Esther and Bana in the dark parlor. Esther cannot get over the fact that they are here at all. The Children in Red never leave GOD’s presence, so something absolutely wonderful and awful must be happening. Esther wheeled Bana into the parlor with a grin so he too could hear whatever it was the Children in Red had to say. Thank goodness Lawl engineered Bana’s bed to move. Life is so much easier for it.
The children stand wide-eyed, frightened as baby deer. They have most likely never set foot outside the Tower. The poor things are trembling. A boy and a girl, it looks like. Yes. Both so very thin. Too thin.
“Doesn’t He feed you, children?” she says. “Does GOD not allow his Children even a morsel of bread?” She takes a drink from a bottle of wine as if she is at the theater and the children are her show.
The children are confused and look at one another.
“Never mind, never mind. Have all the ferrymen gone? Are there no more Kingdom Guards so that GOD must now send out His precious Children in Red?”
“It is dangerous, miss,” the boy says. “Everyone is running or hiding. Even the guards.”
“Not you.”
“No, miss. We are little and unimportant.”
Esther grins. She feels something like her old self again. Her hair is done up, and she is wearing a gown. She thinks it is the gown she was married in, but she cannot be certain. It is white and stains easily, though. This she knows. “Yes. And being little and unimportant means you can maneuver nicely through streets unseen, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Yes, miss,” she says, mocking them. “Tell me, children, I no longer hear my own daughter’s sweet voice piped through the city. Why is that?”
The little girl responds this time. “The guards have destroyed the source, miss.”
“You mean they’ve destroyed the means by which the Voice was relayed. For, you see, sweet girl, they can never destroy the source. My dear Gemma is a hero, and she will live forever.”
“She is the reason we have been sent, miss,” the boy says.
“Of course, she is, silly child. Why else would you be here? So, get on with it. What does GOD want of my daughter now?” Esther elbows Bana in the ribs and he moans. “Listen closely, Bana dear. They speaketh. From the mouths of babes.”
The girl says, “GOD… He commands you to bring your daughter home, miss… please.”
“So polite.” Esther leans forward. “But no. I am afraid I shall have to decline His Holy Commandment.”
The children are quite disturbed. They look as if they might break into tears. “GOD promises Lady Gemma shall not be harmed,” says the boy, his voice rising. “That is not something which He can see to if she is so far away.”
“Ah, yes. Well, it would be better if GOD had all of His troublemakers where He could keep His big fat eye on them, wouldn’t it?”
“GOD recalls how the House of Kerr helped smash the sinners who once ruled the Immortal City, how you helped Him put them all to the flame.”
“As do I. The city stank of charred flesh for weeks after.”
“But, miss, you…” The boy is having trouble saying the words he has been told to say. “You have no more power. Best do what GOD says… please.”
Esther raises an eyebrow and smiles. She snuggles the wine bottle between Bana’s thighs roughly. “Children,” she says, every bit the schoolmarm, “do you know who your GOD truly is? Not who He claims to be or acts to be, but who He truly is?” She rises and walks toward them, straight-backed and in control. “Because I do, children. I know every little thing about Him, and I can swear to you on whatever god or Passion you hold dear, He is not who you think He is. GOD is a lie.”
The children are shaking below her, staring up at her with eyes as blue as myth. “He…” the little girl whispers. “He will be mean to us if we return without the answer He desires.”
“Yes, I know.” She touches the girl’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Which is why I will not be sending you back to Him.”
“He will starve without us,” the girl says.
“What will you do to us?”
“Let Him rot… and painfully.” Looking to the boy, she says, “To you? I will do nothing to you. No, for you see, it has just come to me as sudden as that why you are truly here. You are to be part of my hero daughter’s great revolution. You will be the littlest revolutionaries, yes. Isn’t that marvelous? Don’t you feel special? Take off these glaring robes, children. We shall find you more suitable attire. You have a long trip ahead of you.”
“Where are we going?” asks the girl.
“You are going to see a man about a balloon. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
THEY HAVE made camp along the River Hung, north of the seventh-ring wall where the waters have cut through the stone like liquid steel. The wall was once a line of artistic arches over the river, but as years passed and with no one left to care for the stones, the structure was eaten away and it collapsed into the rushing channel. Along the river’s banks are densely forested hills and stone remnants of ancient docks. And in the center of the wide River Hung is a hilled island of thin white-barked trees most certainly haunted, so say the forest folk. But these rumors did not stop Gemma from crossing over once she found a hidden jetty just beneath the current that connected the banks to the island. She crossed the waters, disappeared into the ghost forest, and has not been seen for hours.
The rain starts as Lawl and Key cross the jetty themselves, followed loyally by Cruncher. Rossa and Lawl are glad of the ugly fire dog. He is very protective of the child and does not let him out of his sight.
Lawl marvels at the island as they walk beneath the trees. It seemed as dense as any forest in the Immortal City at first view, but once actually in the woods, Lawl feels at ease and the claustrophobia the rest of the world encourages slips away here. The trees are tall, white, and thin. They have only branches near the very top where they fan out like wings. Even in this colder season, they are crowned with silver leaves so that only a few drops of rain make their way to the firmament. This explains why the ground is but dirt and struggling tufts in some areas.
The ruins of the island hold some religious significance and hardly seem like ruins at all. They are most definitely of older stone, but they look to be still in use. Lawl stands in front of the statue of a Passion holding out both palms, a trickster grin on its face. Is it giving, receiving, or teasing?
As if a sudden rush of wind is blowing through the trees, Lawl hears whispers. Loud and urgent, they seem to come from everywhere at once. He grabs the child, and they hide behind a statue that is not as dry as the others. Raindrops fall from above. Cruncher whines in curiosity, but stays beside the child. They get wet together, the three of them.
And Lawl sees Gemma by a grand stone arch, but she is not alone. She is talking to a couple of very tiny people. These are the whisperers, or at least two of them. Lawl squints to see them. They are no more than two feet tall, dressed in robes of silvery white and blue. Their faces are strange, almost catlike, with what seem to be black whiskers at the sides of their noses and small black eyes, and their hands are more paws than anything. Yet they are people. There is no denying they have skin, not fur. Lawl and Key seem to realize the same truth at once and that truth causes them to gasp. Passions?
Yet Lawl is unable to think on the matter anymore. From behind him comes a fierce ripping sound and a snarl he had hoped to not hear ever again. The icy tendrils of fear rush through him. He turns just in time to see it.
“Run, Key!” he screams at the boy as the hungry man races toward them, howling. Cruncher leaps at the cannibal, but an arrow finds the hungry man’s head first, throwing it back and nailing it to one of the white trees where it flails and spasms until finally dying.
“Put an end to his hunger, didn’t I?” Holding a bow is an older man with a burn scar on the left side of his face. He is dressed like the forest folk, but speaks with a noble tongue.
The fire dog growls at the arrowman and sidles up to Key.
Gemma is there now, confused by all the commotion. The Passions are not with her. “What has happened?”
“One more day we’re not dinner,” Lawl says as he breathes a sigh of relief and slides down to the ground, his back against the statue. The rain is falling faster and harder now. “Might I inquire of my hero’s name?”
Ten others stand behind the man, all equally bowed and nearly as old. “You can call me the Old Man. Everyone else does. Who be you?”
“I be Lawl of the Curious Dead Cats. This here be Key and Cruncher, and that be Gemma Kerr.”
The Old Man is taken aback. He stares at Gemma in awe and walks to her. His mind seems to be working out something. The others follow him. “You be the girl Gemma that the whole world has heard tale of?”
She nods. Lawl can see she does not want to be this Gemma girl anymore. She wants to crawl into a hole.
“Then you have our arrows,” says the Old Man, bowing to her on one knee. His followers do the same. “Many years ago, we were prisoners of the ninth ring. There were more of us then. Much more. Our number has dwindled lately. But if you can use us in the march, we are yours, miss.”
The girl hates this. Lawl can see that. She would rather be anywhere but here. And Lawl suddenly gets a creeping feeling that Gemma will very soon leave the march. There be darkness ahead.
TWILIGHT SETS the scene, and one by one they arrive, drifting through the valley city and over the forested hill to the burial crypts. Ferrymen in search of the march discover the black obsidian coffin with silver lettering, and then they stop. Not one has gone on since reading the name ERUNG FERRY. It echoes back their memories.
Eleven of them are here in total. Silent black phantoms standing stoic and thinking, remembering beneath the moonlight. The newest to arrive stand nearest the coffin. The very first of them stands back on a stair, yet still facing the obsidian box. None fidget or glance about to other faces for reassurance. The ferrymen decipher things as they have always done: alone in the dark paths of their own minds.
And yet those paths are lighting up like fireworks parades. Those paths are trickling with first memories. Of faces they should know. Of events they have seen. The ferrymen are remembering who they are, who they were, and who they were meant to be. Who Erung Ferry meant them to be. The coffin has been cleaned off meticulously by Cayden Lothair so this would happen. Just so.
Eleven are here. More will come. Those who do not will be told. Shadows make it easy for secrets to fly unseen.
Miles away, as Mags Hensil watches the march from a distance, she feels some change as well. She does not like it. It is but her and the Sisters now. The guards have gone on ahead to the ninth ring, and the lone ferryman who had helped her locate the march has silently and quite abruptly slipped away.
Mags shrugs off her concerns for now. She watches the ferryman Cayden Lothair as he recites, as he rhymes and chimes, as he paces in a circle. She slips away before he notices her, back to her Sisters at the circle in the woods where they have made camp.
“Tomorrow,” Mags says. “Tomorrow, my Sisters, we shall make quick work of it.”