Parabolis (27 page)

“Me too,” said Selah.

Dale looked at her and saw a halo radiating from her skin. He was beginning to feel dizzy. As he gathered his things, it felt as if time had slowed. His short-term memory became spotty and everything felt like a disconnected set of snapshots.

Ever since entering the Wilds Deep, they had been exposed to its perils. The effects of the spores were so subtle that they had gone undetected until it was too late. If Valkyrie had not been there to guide them, the party would not have known to run back into the Wilds. Alaric lumbered behind Valkyrie with his eyes fixed on his heels. Selah and Dale trailed close behind. Once they passed the east-leaning trees, the mist was thin. They kept running until Alaric was convinced the vines were swallowing him up.

“Maker save us! We’ve fallen under a curse!” he cried.

Then he collapsed where he stood and fell unconscious.

Valkyrie stopped and looked up into the exposed sky. He mumbled like a madman as if trying to solve some algorithmic equation.

“Are we safe?” asked Dale, immediately wondering if the question had escaped his lips. When no one replied, he resolved he’d only thought it. His legs were heavy. So were his eyelids. He looked at Selah. She was already asleep. It was the last thing he saw, the last thing he remembered when he woke up the next morning.

Everyone else was still lying awkwardly where they fell on a bed of wild vegetation. Valkyrie had fallen asleep sitting up, with his legs crossed in front of him and his head hanging over his lap.

The first to rise, Dale began to rustle the others awake. Slowly, everyone came to. They were groggy as if coming out of a drug-induced slumber. Even awake, they moved about in a daze. They managed to eat their morning rations. As their minds cleared, they tried to understand the previous night’s experience.

“So what happened?” asked Dale.

“The toxic mist,” Valkyrie replied. “There’s a reason why they say the Wilds Deep is more treacherous than the Wilds. Once a month, all those mushrooms release their poisonous spores. No way of knowing exactly when. Some luck we have to camp on that day. Any longer and it would’ve been the end of us. Thank the Champ he took a piss when he did.”

Selah shot Alaric a bemused look.

“I woke up to relieve myself and felt inebriated,” the ex-templar explained. “Something I’m sensitive to since I’ve not imbibed a drop since taking my oath. I assumed it was the result of our rations so I woke the ranger.”

As the talk continued, Dale sat silently, wondering if the kiss had been poison induced. He remembered that before telling Selah how he felt about her, he had not given it any thought. It just flowed out of his mouth. There were no nerves, no second-guessing. He had been strangely calm. The more Dale thought about it, the more convinced he became that he had not been acting himself the night before. He looked over at Selah to see if there were any signs from her. She was fixed on Valkyrie and Alaric’s talk about the mushrooms.

“Strange night, huh?” Dale asked, fishing for a sign.

“Yes, very.”

There was no inflection in Selah’s voice. No twinkle in the eye. Nothing to indicate that anything lingered from what had happened the night before. She was back to her guarded, distant self—the proper, disciplined cleric. Even though Selah gave Dale no encouragement to pursue it, he could not let it lie in suspended ambiguity.

“About what happened last night, at the World’s End—”

“The spores,” said Selah. “Clearly I wasn’t myself. None of us were.”

And that was that. There was nothing more to discuss. “Right, that’s what I thought. Glad we could clear that up.”

Whatever it was, whatever it could have been had come to an abrupt end before it started.
Good
, thought Dale.
I’ve got to get to Darius. Those mushrooms made me stupid. What were you thinking anyway? There’s no time to be playing with a girl in the woods.

In the ensuing days, Dale kept a distance from Selah. He occupied himself with the thought of getting to Darius. He stuck close to the ranger, watching and learning. Charles Valkyrie’s vast and detailed knowledge of the Wilds impressed Dale. Valkyrie knew by sight, which fruits were edible, which were not. He knew which plants were poisonous and which were useful for different medicinal purposes. Dale asked him questions about shelter, plotting a course, how to find water, and how to trap game. With nothing else to do but walk, Valkyrie eagerly instructed his new apprentice. Without Valkyrie, the party would have been hopelessly lost, starved, and dangerously exposed to the elements.

“How long you been doing this?” asked Dale.

“Living in the Wilds? About ten years,” Valkyrie replied.

“Must be freeing. No accountability or obligations, no attachments to anything or anyone.”

“That’s the very definition of loneliness, kid. When no one expects anything of you, you’ve done it—you’re completely alone.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

Valkyrie stopped as they came to a steep, muddy incline. “It’s no way to live. Trust me.” Then he looked back at Selah and Alaric. “Get your boots strapped in tight. It’s going to get messy.”

As they labored up the trail, Valkyrie continued. “The way I see it, we’re social creatures. We’re meant to be dependent. Without other people, it’s easy to lose your grip on reality. Why do you think prisons use prolonged isolation as a form of punishment? It’s mental subjugation. People like me, we’re either looking for something or running from something.”

Dale heard a piece of himself in the statement. He didn’t like what he heard. When he beat up Marcus Addy, his father had told him that he should have run. When things got to where he couldn’t deal with it anymore, Dale had left the Republican Guard. And back in Carnaval City, he had forfeited his childhood dreams of sailing the Amaranthian Sea to settle on a life at the breaker.

“And what are you running from, ranger?” asked Alaric, having eavesdropped on their conversation. “What do you seek?”

Valkyrie chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. Because I already know that whatever I look for, I’m never going to find it. And whatever you run from, it’ll eventually catch up to you. It always does.”

“Perhaps you’re looking for the wrong thing,” said Alaric.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps life is a ruse. A losing game. And the sooner we understand that, the sooner we can learn to cope.”

“The wisdom of a cynic is despair,” said Alaric. “But hope comes from the Maker.”

“The Maker.” Valkyrie snickered. “Where is this
Maker
now? Where has he been all these years of suffering?”

“The world is not so simple. You know this.”

“I also know that there is no Maker. And thus, with him no hope.”

“You can dismiss the existence of God. You’ve worked to rid yourself of your need for him. But for those of whom you speak—the suffering—hope is all they have. They believe there is something greater, someone who will deliver them. This resilient hope, the will to live, speaks of something beyond what we see.”

“It’s called instinct. Look, if God exists, he’s negligent at best, cruel at worst. And until he can prove otherwise, the world and its history attests to that fact.”

“Those sound like the words of a Mystic spurned by the Maker. Are you sure your professed atheism is not in reality the tantrum of a child who has not gotten his way?”

Valkyrie laughed. “I should’ve known better than to bait a templar into a theological discussion. I assure you, Champ, the inability to see the Maker or hear his voice is no act. It requires far less of me to believe tales of magic and dancing fairies than to believe all that nonsense.”

“I can see you are a man determined. Only a fool keeps pushing something that cannot be moved. And I am no fool.”

Dale walked and listened. With all he had been through, he was in no mood to comment on the Maker. Merely listening got him annoyed. He fell back a ways so he would not have to listen to the discussion. A few paces back, Dale journeyed with his thoughts as mired as his steps. If there was a Maker, he had some explaining to do—not only for what had transpired in the last twenty-four hours, but also for all that led up to his flight out of Carnaval City. A few more steps and his mind flooded with thoughts of Darius. All along the journey, Dale had been telling himself,
Darius would have gotten out. When things got bad, he would have led a few men out of the Ancile before it fell.

Without much care about what he did or did not believe, and not knowing to whom he was talking, Dale prayed.

Please, let Darius be alive.

NO 04

In a matter of days, the Balean assault on Carnaval City had decisively turned into an occupation.

The Steam Powered Electric Generator was shut down, which effectively cut off all communication. As the initial assault bore down on the city from the northwest, the City Guards could not warn the other parts of the city. The severing of communication along with the aerial assault made for an attack of overwhelming speed. Within the first few hours, most of the City Guards had been neutralized. With no forewarning, they were ill-prepared to defend themselves, let alone mount any sort of counter-attack. Most were killed in the first wave of the assault. The survivors abandoned their positions and disappeared into the city. Once the city was secured, order was swiftly restored. By the time news reached Pharundelle, Carnaval City was a garrisoned Balean foothold.

Balean generals and Shaldea groups victoriously marched their troops through the city’s main streets, the citizens forced to bear witness. Because of the speed of the invasion, much of the city remained intact. There were only a few buildings left smoldering. The Spegen was restored as soon as Balean officials were given full access to the switchboard stations. Speakers were installed throughout the city to blare daily announcements and propaganda. The first week, a curfew was instituted. A few businesses were eventually re-opened, mostly for the pleasure of the occupying forces. The entire Waterfront District, including Dale’s breaker, was taken for use by the Royal Balean Navy. The occupying forces were strategically stationed throughout the city. By week’s end, the transition from war to governance was well underway.

First priority was restoring the rule of law. Looters were shot on sight. Aside from a handful of incidents, the threat of being shot was an effective deterrent to would-be opportunists. Ruthless as they were, to their credit, the Balean occupiers were no hypocrites. Their law did not exclude them. Four Balean soldiers found guilty of raping a young woman during the assault on the city were hanged. The judgment and sentencing came swiftly. The hanging was public. The bodies were left on display for three days. As intended, it evoked both terror and respect from the locals.

The only thing the Balean occupation failed to anticipate was a threat to their fragile alliance with the Shaldea that came in the form of the Emmainite community living in Carnaval City.

With the invasion aided by the Shaldea, the city’s Emmainite diaspora went from being a marginalized minority community to the ruling party overnight. They came out into the streets to enjoy their newfound status. Some of the suppressed frustrations were vented. Abuses occurred under the watch of, and at times assisted by, the Shaldean fighters. Indiscriminate in their commitment to the law, however, the Balean occupation was forced to intervene and subsequently execute some Emmainites. This would have led to an extraneous uprising had the Shaldea not quickly intervened. Aware that they could not afford a conflict with the Kingdom of Bale, the Shaldea responded by bringing their people under control and justly punishing them themselves in accordance to Balean law.

In the midst of this governing transition, the temple sanctuary became the largest of the many makeshift refugee camps throughout the city for displaced residents who flooded in from the outlying villages. These villages had either been sacked or consumed for use as military outposts.

For weeks, Mosaic waited in the sanctuary for news of her parents. She passed the days scouring boards set up as communication centers for missing persons. Her hope never waned. One afternoon, after posting yet another note, she left the temple to comb the city. The streets were covered in crystal pools from sporadic rain. The sky was a misty gray. She made her way down to the waterfront, where she stopped at the bakery. The doors stood open. The inside was bare.

The clouds thundered. It began to drizzle. Mosaic went inside to take shelter from the rain. The furnishings were gone, and the shelves and cupboards were barren. Spiking inflation and widespread rumors of food shortages made it the most sought-after commodity.

Walking through the kitchen, Mosaic saw her mother’s apron left trampled on the floor. She picked it up, dusted it off, and slipped it on. On the counter, she saw a trace layer of flour where dough was dusted and kneaded daily. She ran her fingers through it. Then she wept.

There was a rapping on the window. Mosaic quickly wiped her eyes, leaving the tip of her nose and cheeks dusted with flour.

“Mosaic? Is that you?”

She looked up. “Sebastian?”

Peering in was her friend, the bespectacled literary elitist. “I thought it was you!” He was with three others—two men and a woman she did not recognize.

Mosaic rushed out and gave him a long hug.

“How are you?” Sebastian asked.

Mosaic tried a smile between her tears. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The temple.”

Sebastian shook his head. “Listen, those camps, they’re there to monitor you, you know that, right?”

“Really?”

“From what I hear, for every ten refugees, there’s one Balean mole. Temple or not, they’re running the show. Not the Benesanti. If you want, you’re welcome to stay with us. We got a little place near Trivelka Square.”

“Thanks but I’m waiting to hear from my folks.”

“Yeah. I heard about Hoche.” With a grim expression, Sebastian then asked, “You know they got Terry, right? That night at the Flora Crystal?”