All Light Will Fall (19 page)

She looked at him then hesitantly lowered the weapon. “I
wouldn’t be so sure, Neil. We were made to kill. It’s in our design,” she said.
“Don’t forget that.”

“I haven’t forgotten a thing. Now sit down. All this is just
one big headache.”

Ryan scowled, but followed his order anyway. She looked at
one of the Meridians. “You, clean this up,” she ordered. The boy hurried to his
feet. He pulled on a spool of silk and used it to carefully dab the arsenal’s
boots. He worked slowly, timidly, with his eyes cast to the floor.

“Where’s the music?” Vin said suddenly. “Play! I didn’t tell
you to stop,” he ordered. The young Meridian fumbled with the instrument then
began to play again. It was a rich and lively song, the deep hums of the
instrument vibrating through the swamp. But still, it seemed haunted, the notes
angry and forced. And as I watched him play, pained by that heartbreaking
sound, I saw one of the Meridians trying to break the binds on his hands. He
was huddled behind two other Meridians, using them as cover until he could free
himself.

“We need dancers!” Vin shouted. He held tight to the
Meridian girl. She flinched as he touched her, running his hands up her bare
thighs, beneath her breasts, his arms gripping ruthlessly at her waist. She saw
me watching her. And I couldn’t look away. She looked tormented, like she was
suffocating in those vicious arms. Her eyes were wild, her chest heaving, arching
forward with a painful sort of grace.

“Careful, Vin. You’ll strangle her to death,” Tate said.

“Please do. I’d actually love to see it,” Ryan sneered.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Vin said. “She’s mine now. I
think I’ll keep her.”

“Keep her?” I asked.

Vin reached up and stroked the Meridian’s cheek. She drew
away from him, cursing him in Hedai. “They’ve got fire, but they’re nice
looking aren’t they? Even the males are pretty,” he smirked. He looked at me.
“Give me a look at that pretty necklace you’ve got, and you can have one. I’ll
even give you best pick,” he bartered.

I didn’t know what happened. It was instinct. I snatched the
hand gun from Neil’s holster and fired at Vin. Then there was a scream. Neil
moved. I grabbed him, pinning him to the ground then rose up and turned the
weapon to the blonde. The aim of her LZ stared me in the face. “You’re
outnumbered,” she hissed.

I looked to the left. Tate had stood, aiming his weapon at
me as well. “Let him go,” he ordered. I squeezed Neil by the neck as a warning.
He groaned under the strain, trying to shift beneath me.

“Damn it! Guys, he’s losing too much blood!” Tessa panicked.
She had a wad of silk pressed against Vin’s wound. It was soaked in blood, a
never ending flow of it oozing from his neck. His body jerked, thrashing
against the pillows. He had thirty seconds at best.

“I can save him,” I said, “if you put down your weapons.”

Tate gripped his gun. “Bullshit!” he spat. “Let go of Neil
and maybe we won’t kill you.”

“Guys! He can’t breathe. What do we do?” Tessa cried. She
was holding him down, franticly ripping the silk from the spool. The spasms
were violent now. His body bucked forward, twisting and turning. His lips were
a pale blue, his eyes rolling back like a man possessed. The Meridians watched in
horror, the oldest of them finally breaking loose of the binds.

“Do what she says!” Neil barked. “Put your weapons down.”

“Neil!” Tate snapped.

“Do it!” he ordered again. And they did. Tate slowly eased
his gun to the ground. Ryan tossed hers aside.

“We won’t forget this,” Tate growled.

“Don’t,” I said, pressing the gun to Neil’s temple. “Get
up,” I ordered.

He rose slowly. “You said you’d save him. Get to it,” he
told me. Even though I was the one with the gun, he still felt in control. I
didn’t know if he was a fool or just that confident that I wouldn’t pull the
trigger.

“Get the halos from his pack,” I said.

“What will that do?” Tessa snapped. “Those are for . . . ”

“Do it, Tessa,” Neil said calmly. She turned to him, her
eyes frantic, then reached for Vin’s life pack.

I looked at the Meridians. “Get up,” I said in Hedai. “Take
their weapons,” I ordered.

“What the hell are you doing?” Neil hissed.

The Meridians hesitated, the oldest male rising to his feet.
There was a particular fierceness about him, the way he lifted his head and
squared his chest. The glow of the fire caught his face, and his markings lit
like jasper.

“We need no direction from you,
ursuki
,” he said. His
voice was strong and innocent. And it was that innocence that broke me. His
face was too tender. And I hated it. I couldn’t bare it. God’s truest image was
too true.

I gave him a knowing look. “Do as you please then,” I said.

He looked away from me to his people. “Stand,” he said. They
stood, rising with grace, like the hand of God had reached down and brought
them to their feet. “Surround the
hai’ek
! Take their arms!”

The Meridian broke free of their binds, and it shocked the
arsenals how simply that had done so. They had been patient, it seemed, and now
was the time to act. I watched them. They picked up the foreign weapons,
holding them upright but hardly aiming them at the arsenals. It appeared they
had too much grace to fully threaten their enemy.

“How the tables have turned,” Neil growled. “I hope you know
what you’re doing,” he said.

I drew the weapon from his temple. “I’d worry about
yourself,” I told him.

“Vin, he’s getting better,” Tessa said. “The halos worked.”

Vin moaned, choking on the blood in his mouth. His breaths
were heavy but the spasms had stopped. It seemed he would survive. “What are
you going to do now?” Neil hissed. “Do you think they’re just going to let you
go?”

I looked at the natives. They watched me. There was
confusion in their gazes, confusion and disbelief, and even greater—there was
awe. “Where are the red woods? Which direction?” I asked the eldest Meridian.

He was silent for a moment then said, “You betray your own
kind.” His words hung in the quiet. It was neither a statement nor a question.
It was a judgment, spoken with certainty and spite.

“I never gave them any indication to trust me,” I told him.
“They were reckless.”

“Treacherous bastard,” Ryan sneered.

I ignored her. “Where are the red woods?” I asked again.

“Why tell you?” the Meridian girl demanded.

She was right. Why tell me? Because I had saved them? I
didn’t suspect that I had. Meridians were strong, resilient creatures. It was
as Neil had said. Eventually the tables would have turned. I was simply a
well-timed distraction. “I shall tell you,” the boy said in Hedai. Then he held
out his hand. “If you hand over that possession you carry. You have no right to
have it.”

He wanted the relic, Uway Levíí’s relic. There was no way I
would give it to him. I couldn’t let it go yet. Not until I saw him again. And
I had a feeling that I would. “The relic is mine,” I said. “When Uway Levíí
wants it, he can return what he stole from me. Then he can have it. Is that not
just?” I argued.

The Meridian glared, but I could see him thinking it over.
It was shameful of me, to use his purity against him, but it was all I could
do. There was already too much blood. “Very well,
igle
,” the boy said.
He lowered his hand. “When you meet
Aieti
again, you trust that you will
give back what is his. And as it is written, I trust that he will slay you in
return.”

His words were bitter, but I took no offense. After all, he
was right. During our last encounter, Uway Levíí was very eager to kill me. No
doubt he would try again. That was why I needed the relic. It wasn’t a
keepsake. It was a shield. “Take the river
Sesani
,” he said. He pointed
to the far of the village where a line of river boats waded in the waters.
“Follow the summer stars east. They glow red by the light of Cerniphilus.”

He showed me to one of the boats. We eased from the deck
into the water. The waves were high, rolling one after the other below my
shoulders. A swarm of pond flowers swam over the ripples, the small neon
blossom glowing in the dark.

“Will you kill them?” I asked suddenly. My voice was hallow,
and it struck me how emotionless it sounded. Then I realized that it wasn’t
fear I felt for Neil and his team. It was pity. They had been so reckless and
trusting of me. They were like overgrown children, corrupted and confused.

“The Meridian do not kill if it can be helped. It is not our
way.”

To kill was not their way. Then was it the human way?
Perhaps it was. We were nurtured by violence. Even our love was violent. It was
selfish, and greedy, and unfeeling. It had to be. Why else would my father
abandon us even through all of his love? And why else had I killed and
continued to kill so I could return home? Because it was my nature. Not as an
arsenal. As a human being. I had tried so desperately to separate the two, to
separate myself. Arsenals did not feel. Arsenals did not disobey. Arsenals did
not love. And yet I was guilty of all these things. Because no matter how deep
and dark the grave, I was still awake. I was still a human being who retained
her pride, her dignity, and her own corrupted freewill.

“Then what will you do?” I wondered.

He glanced back at me, brushing the trees aside as we waded
through. “They will bring our dead from the waters. Then when our elders
return, they will decide.”

I wondered where their elders had gone. It seemed strange
for them to have left, but the young Meridians were capable. They were like
humans in that way. Their will to survive, to live, was powerful. But it was a
steady will, with a consciousness we humans did not share. Our will was
negligent. And how could it not be when we were so endlessly haunted by the
shadow of death.

“These boats have never left Fesafaun,” the Meridian said.
“When you reach the red wood, return it to the water. It will find its way back
to us.”

I nodded then jumped into the boat. The boy held it steady
as it rocked under my weight. The inside was plenty spacious, and as I admired
its artistic design, I realized something. There were no oars. “How do I
control it?” I asked.

The boy blinked as if the answer was obvious. “You do not
control it,” he said. “The river is your guide.” Before I could ask, he gave
the bow a gentle push. The boat eased forward, gliding with a will of its own.
I looked back at the Meridian boy. He stood in the glow of the water. The beam
of the trees surrounded him, and he kept his eyes on me, watching me until I
disappeared in the light of the night.

The river took me. I didn’t know where, and one can hardly ever
tell. Whatever the sprit may do. Wherever the spirit may go, man can never
tell. That was fate I suppose, that blind unknowing of the world, of one’s own
self. Only in the end would the spirit come to know, in the breath of its final
years. And whatever it would discover there, death, or love, or loss, was said
to be its destiny. But that I did not believe. I did not believe that man was
led by destiny. We were led by the heart’s desire, our flesh and the beauty of
freewill.

The consequences of choice and the will of the spirit; that
was fate. Destiny was something different. It was a path, designed by the hand
of God, and I had always wondered how He could turn so blindly to mercy at the
sight of my suffering.

He was not so adamant to move. God, even in all His power,
was only as mighty as the spirit that followed Him. I knew this. But man was
weak, small, attuned to desire, to wandering. The very fate ARTIKA wished to
cast off. Because they knew that they were slaves of that fate. To control
destiny, that was their ambition, the desire of their will. And somehow, I was
a part of that will. By fate, or by destiny, I did not know. I only knew my wandering
and the endless run of the river.

I had traveled north for miles, high into the mountains
where a crown of sun rode low on the violet hills. There were creatures there,
deep in the river, giant beasts grazing on the thick of the trees. They were
angu
,
long-necked mammoth-sized beasts, and with their mighty tusks, yanked the giant
tree blossoms down to eat. It was unfathomable to witness so close, to watch
them move and breathe, to admire the art of their hides and the strength of
their backs.

The boat went forth between them. The herd was still as I
passed through. From the hangs of their necks, I heard them speaking to each
other. Their groans of conversation rolled deep into the mountains. I closed my
eyes to listen. The sound was so alive and rich I thought to reach out and
touch it.

But suddenly there was something else. It was a whistle, or
perhaps a hum, coming closer, rising higher in the wind. The
angu
rose
up, and with a twitch of their ears, turned towards that jarring sound.

I waited. I listened.

A flash of light burst out of the treetops. It soared until
it touched the stretch of the clouds. The flash exploded, and the shadow of
some dark mass fell over the earth.

There was something up in the sky, and as the smoke cleared,
I saw it: a massive aircraft made visible by that single shot of fire.

The
angu
groaned again, and in a fit of panic, began
to stir. The boat rocked and I gripped the sides to keep it steady. But the
waves were too violent, the
angu
rising on their hind feet, stomping and
shoving, shoulder to shoulder in the wrath of the river.

A hiss sounded in the trees. The yell of thunder. The earth
rattled and the wind shook.

They came from nowhere. The Meridian, hundreds of them,
stormed from the tree line into the river. They came with weapons and aboard
flying machines, and astride armored beasts, shooting, and launching, and
blasting their way through the valley. They fought, clashing together in a
storm of steel, in whirls of fire and bright booms of smoke.