All Light Will Fall (17 page)

I nodded. “Thank you, for your kindness,” I said.

“Take this food for your journey,” E’lana said. She placed
the bundle in my hands. “Come back to us, Celeste. You are a very kind
kachi
.”

I smiled at her. Kind? I wasn’t so sure I was kind. Nor did
I want to be. I had too much anger to be kind. My heart was a heart of hate.
Still, I couldn’t resist reaching out to her, caressing her long, emerald
curls. I suppose even a heart of hate had a hunger for softness.

Heeki shrieked when I touched her. I drew my hand away then
stood. “Thank you for everything. The food was good.” Windlen stared up at me.
There was such disdain in his eyes. Not towards me, but for the things I had
said. He understood now, that the truth was not liberating and beautiful. It
was frightening. And perhaps a cage just as destiny was a cage.

“Follow me out,” E’lana said.

At the front of the house, the hills welcomed me again. “Be
safe in your travels,” E’lana sang. She wrapped her arms around me. And
something strange overcame me as she held me. My heart clenched and my breaths
went cold. I knew this feeling. I knew it well. It was longing. “
Ali’vandi,
Celeste.”

I patted her head and she released me. “Goodbye, E’lana,” I
said. And I found myself wanting to take it back. I found myself not wanting to
leave this haven, this perfect place of peace no matter how it tortured me.

“Here,” Windlen said shyly.

I looked down at him. He held one of the flowers up to me.

“It is a
daleia
, the flower of promise, peace, and
protection.”

I took the flower in my hand, stunned by his compassion
towards me. “Thank you, Windlen.” I tucked the blossom up my sleeve, the white
petals sprawling over my hand. “It’s beautiful.”

“
Ell may
,” he answered timidly.

I smiled and stepped from the patio. I moved through the
daleias
until I reached the tree line. E’lana waved gleefully. Windlen simply stood
there. I gazed at them one last time before disappearing into the everlasting
woods.

There was something conscious about the woods. I discovered
this soon enough. They were haunted with my memories, the shadows of Earth
blending in and out of the trees. For a time I thought my mind was lost. But
the images I saw were too vivid to be a dream.

My father appeared over and over. He was always ahead of me,
his back staring at me as we walked. I never saw his face. Perhaps I had
forgotten it, or perhaps it was his shame. He knew better than to look at me
with those eyes; that tired, suffering gaze of his. I could hardly bear it,
watching him go, his shoulders strong with his head to the sky.

I followed his steps. I couldn’t turn away. The rage
wouldn’t let me. And I hated it, remembering how he had disappeared into that
frigid sunrise. I hardly recalled his voice. I only remembered his lips, moving
soundlessly over my skin as he said his goodbye. His murmurs were deep as a
black sea, and silkier than the morning fog. I had forgotten his final words. A
few little sentences was all he left in his absence, and I resented them. I
wanted his wisdom, and his anger, and his tenderness. I wanted his warmth, for
his arms to hold me, to feel the stubble of his chin brush the corner of my temple.
These were the duties of a father. These were the imaginary caresses that
poisoned my love for him.

The longer I wandered, the less I saw him. He was but a
memory again. And I closed him in the tombs of my heart, wanting to forget,
wanting him to suffer the same dark I had suffered. There was no time to think
of my father. I had to find Ellis. Before he killed, before he lost himself, I
had to find him. Ellis wasn’t like me. He was too righteous, too compassionate
with life. It was sacred to him. No one had the right to take it, manipulate
it, or abuse it. That was his belief. And that was why I had to save him. If he
ever awoke, if he ever remembered, he could never survive the reek of death on
his hands.

A branch croaked in the quiet. I stilled. Something was
near. The scent of iron blew strong in the wind. It was a thick smell,
reminding me of an old and awful thirst. I knew that scent—human blood. I moved
softy through the trees. I wasn’t alone. There were voices in the distance.

I ran, wildly breaking through the thicket. And when I saw
it, I hardly felt as if I were seeing it at all. It was an ambush. A body here,
two there, laying sideways across another. The dead were fresh, and
human—miracle workers in fact. Their bodies scattered the forest. And as I
stood, I noticed how very alive they looked, all still and brutally twisted in
death.

Then I heard it. A miserable moan rose from the dead. I
turned and looked at him. He was shrugged against a tree, his body bending
forward in a gruesome pain. I went to him, moving slyly around the bodies. He
hadn’t heard me coming. But when he saw me, his body tremored, and his eyes
grew wide in a scream. He tried to move, his left hand reaching frantically for
his halo-com. But there was a wicked gash in his chest that stunned the
movement.

I knelt in front of him, watching him struggle. His hand was
close now. I brushed it away. He did it again. He reached for the halo-com. And
again, I drew his hand away. The man whimpered helplessly. His eyes beamed at
me. They were gray, angry, a storm of contempt. They looked like ash, like a
titanium flame. There was so much hate in them.

It was cruel of me, I knew. But there was no sympathy in my
heart of hate. My actions were not my own. It was the will of the savage. The
savage within me would not let this moment pass. Because at some point in this
long, abominable quest, there had to be vengeance. And it had to be now.

I looked at his wound again. It was deep. Even if he managed
to contact New Eden, he would not survive. The man struggled, trying to escape
as I put a hand to his face and shattered the glass of his helmet. His body
bucked forward, his arms flailing, reaching for breath. I watched him. His face
turned a ghastly blue, his legs violently thrashing in the dirt. I saw fear in
his eyes, a blinding fear I found so poor and pitiful.

He gasped all of a sudden. And I knew the life was leaving
him. I saw him cling to it. He was terrified, so scared of letting go. I broke
a shard of glass from his helmet and just as the final winds of life ripped
from his body, I stuck him with it, deep into his throat. The man jerked, his
pale lips trembling, quietly screaming. And I never saw someone look so hideous
in death.

His body shook once, twice, then a few more times before it
stilled altogether. His eyes were open. They were glassy in the light. I
remembered suddenly, the dead eyes of the attendant that doctor had shot and
killed. I jumped back all of a sudden, terrified at myself. My senses were
returning. I felt deathly sick.

I felt the pain rising out of nowhere. I shot myself with
halos, two this time, to ease the shocks. It was happening again—the violent
urges, the uncontrolled mindlessness, and the blistering thirst. It was ARTIKA.
It was dementia. It was genasis. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t control
myself. I was possessed.

I rose to my feet, afraid to look, afraid of my
consciousness returning. I would forget what happened here. Never again would I
dance with vengeance. It was too much like a demon. I couldn’t handle demons.
The tombs of my heart couldn’t hold them. Because demons weren’t meant for the
grave. They were meant for the fire. I could not go down that road. But the
savage in me would try. ARTIKA would try. They wanted to see how far I could
go, when my heart was not a heart, and I had finally surrendered my dignity.
But it wouldn’t happen. Because even a heart of hate had a home. Even a heart
of hate, loved.

I drug the dead to a shallow curve in the earth and took the
helmets from their suits. Five were male, four were female. They were young.
But not the one I had killed. He was perhaps as old as my father was. My
fingers froze on the lining of his suit. I didn’t know why I thought that. And
when I did, a vicious pain swelled inside me. Then I was angry again. I was
angry because I couldn’t forget that my father abandoned me, abandoned us. I
was angry because I loved him.

I held my breath to keep the pain in and focused on the man
beneath me. One by one, I worked the MW’s out of their suits. Their wounds were
shredded and raw looking. By the end, my hands were stained in blood. For some
reason, I couldn’t stand to see them trapped like that in those suffocating
suits. Maybe I was thinking too much like Ellis, but I wanted their spirits
free. Free to roam. Free to go on.

The voices I had heard before were still alive. I followed
them up the hills. And deep in the valley, a lowland of silver waters shined in
the sun. A humble village rested above those waters. And there was smoke
curling around the small bungalows. It was a long way down, and by the time I
reached it, the sun was setting far into the north. Once it vanished, the night
would only last a second. Then Niaysia’s second sun would rise high in the east
and clear the dark.

There was a bridge at the bank of the water leading into the
village. It was quiet again. The planks of the bridge creaked beneath me. Neon
lanterns lit the dim. Then I heard a sound. They knew I was coming. I saw
shadows, stretching slow over the huts. Then they surrounded me. There were
three of them, all armed as they eased from the dark.

The lead arsenal held me at gunpoint. There was a playful
glint in his eyes. I recognized him in an instant. Neil was his name. We had
fought on several accounts in the arena. He never won of course, but he had a
complex for challenging me, desperate to improve his own skill. It was almost
admirable.

“Well if it isn’t Celeste 2102. What a surprise running into
you out here in the middle of nowhere,” he said. He waved his hand and the team
of green-tags lowered their weapons.

I looked at them. They seemed like a strong, established
group. None of them were apprehensive of me. In fact, they seemed rather
pleased by these sudden turn of events. “You alone?” one of them asked. I
looked at her. She was fairly tall, her long blonde hair aglow in the neon
light. I had seen her a few times around Pilot as well.

“I am.”

“That’s rather risky of you,” the other said. He was stalky
for his height, broad-shouldered but lean.

“But if anyone can survive the jungle of hell, it’s
Celeste,” Neil said.

“Let’s head back in. Vin and Tessa are waiting for us,” the
blonde said.

“Why don’t you join us, Celeste?” Neil offered.

I nodded. “After you,” I said. He grinned and led us across
the narrow pathways. They rocked beneath the sway of our steps. It was almost
difficult to keep the balance. They were nothing but flimsy planks floating
delicately atop the water.

There was a strange stillness in the village. The empty
bungalows were lit with the neon lanterns. A thin mist rose all around them. It
was like the marsh I remembered.

All was quiet, except for the croaks of nature echoing
somewhere between the bushels of water grass. And as I stared into those green
waters, I saw a beautiful face of stone submerged in the shallows. It was a
dead body—a male Meridian.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“A divide and conquer,” the stalky arsenal said.

“Not exactly,” Neil objected. “We came across natives
before. But these were different. They were hostiles.” He glanced back at me.
And the way he did was as if he were seeking judgment, curious if I approved of
his actions or not. I said nothing. What they did with their freewill was none
of my concern. Their sins and matters of retribution was God’s to bear.

“It wasn’t a compete blood bath,” Neil said. “When we came,
most of them were already gone. The rest, we took care of.”

“There were also a few... minor complications,” the blonde
said.

I wondered what she meant by that, but I realized it
eventually as we came upon the heart of the village. There, in the center, was
a brilliant fire. One of the arsenals was galloping around the flames like a
madman full of joy. The other, Tessa, watched in boredom. A Terra-gun lay at
rest in her lap, but her finger never left the trigger. And I saw why. There
were natives among them, young Meridian watching the arsenal dance. Their eyes
were vicious looking in the light of the fire.

“We have a guest,” Neil announced.

The arsenal stopped his maniacal dancing. When he saw me, he
grinned, stumbling over his feet as he maneuvered around the fire. There was a
bed of cushions around it, embroidered chests full of spoils and long spools of
silk strewn across the makeshift chaise. No doubt the treasures were raided
from the bungalows, sitting center as a symbol for what the arsenals had
conquered.