Penult (33 page)

She sniffed. “Souls can’t be
destroyed. Not here, anyway. Their souls still exist, just in
another receptacle.” She shrugged. “And yes it seems awful, I
cannot deny it. It’s terrible what they have to do to make a
Cherub. But don’t think it doesn’t pain the Lords. They do these
things only out of necessity. They are people, James, not
monsters.”

“
You’re one of them. They
made you one of them. You’re a Seraph or a Hashmal.”

“
One of
them
?” Her jaw stiffened. “Why not one
of us? What do you know of them? They know more of you, James than
you know of their ways. Of course, they don’t know everything, but
they are aware of your significance. You need to understand that I
have our people’s best interests at heart. Like I always have. It’s
just that now I see things more clearly. There is a reason we have
Root and the Deeps and all the other realms that filter and vet
souls. There needs to be order. Many souls are simply not ready to
exist in the upper realms. Sadly, some will never attain them. It’s
the way of the universe.”

She leaned forward in the chair,
studying me, probing my reaction. “Careful, James. Learn who it is
you’re fighting before you dive in too deep. There are reasons for
why things are the way they are.”

Her eyes widened. Her head whipped
towards the open window. “Someone is coming.” She rose abruptly
from the chair. “Excuse me, but I am not in the mood for company.”
She hurried to the door. “I trust you will be discrete about our
conversation. There will be further overtures. All I ask is for you
to keep an open mind. When the time comes, when this mountain
crumbles, and believe me, it will fall. Find me. Follow me. I can
take you to the Lords.”

***

Moments after she left, a figure
appeared at the door, cloaked in shadow. With careful, cautious
steps the man entered until the glow from the orb illuminated his
form and face. Olivier.

“
Hey guy! What’s up? You’re
looking a lot better. How do you feel?”

“
Um. Okay, I guess. A
little confused.”

He glanced out the window. “Did you
just … have a visitor?”

“
Yeah. Uh.
Victoria.”

“
Really? Huh. Well, I guess
people are excited about you coming here, and not just the brass.
Everyone’s talking about you, even in the camps. I know I should
let you rest, but I was getting antsy. We’ve got lots to talk
about. Nice to see you stuck around. I wasn’t even sure you’d be
here.”

“
I actually did go back …
for a little while.”

“
Oh? Where are you hanging
out these days?”

“
Glasgow, at the
moment.”

“
Any luck … with
Karla?”

“
Nah. But … I’m thinking …
Zhang’s people might be holding her.”

Olivier scrunched his face. “What?
Why?”

“
Extortion. They want me
here. They want to keep me here, so they keep me
miserable.”

“
Shit. You mean to tell me
Zhang is pulling this crap on you?”

“
I don’t know if it’s him
specifically or if it’s just the Facilitators.”

“
Sounds like we need to
have a talk with them. That ain’t right.”

“
Yeah, well. I’m not sure I
know what’s right or wrong anymore. But if I had my druthers, I’d
rather work with the Dusters. They don’t mess with my head, and at
least I know where they’re coming from.”

“
Yeah, well. We’ve got no
choice but to work with Frelsi in the short term. But I know what
you’re saying, kid. The Deeps changes you. Anyone who’s ever been
there understands. There’s no pretense, just … brotherhood. The
Frelsians, they don’t understand. But they’re just one step from
the Deeps themselves.”

I reached for my blood-stained hoodie.
“I want out of here. Off this mountain. I’ll fight, but not here.
Can we … when can we leave?”

“
Hang on, kid. Hold your
horses. I get what you’re coming from, but we can’t do this without
the Frelsians. They have something. Something big. And it might
make the difference between winning and losing. They need your help
to make it happen.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

He looked out into the darkness. “You
fit to walk? Let me show you.”

Chapter 33: The
Grotto

I could have used another forty winks
but Olivier was chomping at the bit. I peeled off the covers and
dragged myself off the sleeping mat.

My shoulder throbbed and tingled, but
it was nothing that would hold me back. I was feeling pretty good
for a guy who had just been impaled by talons as thick as railroad
spikes. The old arrow wound in my chest actually hurt more, but
that ache was ever-present. I had gotten used to it on both sides
of existence.

I reached for my hoodie and pulled it
on, still damp with blood, but someone had repaired the punctures
the talons had made in the cloth.

We left my room and turned the corner
into the warren. I knew instantly that I could never find my way
back here on my own. My room was but one insignificant nook buried
amidst a baffling network of lanes and corridors and courtyards
with no discernible pattern or plan.

Orb-like footlights cast their soft
glow along the base of every wall, but did little to illuminate the
logic of the place. Alleys veered off and doubled back seemingly at
random. I suppose if I stayed here long enough the place would
eventually reveal itself, but I had no intention of sticking around
long enough for that to happen. This was not my place. I was a
stranger here.

I’m not sure how Olivier knew where to
go, but somehow he found his way. As we maneuvered through this
bewildering puzzle of a city, the sky began to brighten. The warren
gradually shed its burden of shadows.

We passed through a gap in a tall wall
that surrounded the warren like it was some shameful ghetto.
Crossing a broad avenue we entered a neighborhood of larger
dwellings with more spacious courtyards. They had taken the brunt
of a bombardment, however, so only hints of their former glory
remained amidst the rubble.

There were plenty of souls out and
about already engaged in their restoration, clearing debris,
fitting bricks and stones together and fusing them without the need
for mortar.

It startled me to see so many Dusters
and Frelsians worked side by side. Whatever had separated them on
the front lines, segregation was clearly not an issue
here.

Here and there, occasional Old Ones
sat or reclined in diverse corners. The workers took pains not to
disturb them, allowing them to remain in their resting places
unless a particular renovation absolutely could not proceed without
moving them.

Without much warning, we arrived at
the brink of the upper terrace. A broad retaining wall separated a
promenade from the cliff’s edge. The wall was breached in many
places. This damage all looked recent.

I peeked out over a jungled plateau.
Giant insects flexed their wings atop the trees, catching the sun,
and refracting it through their prismatic membranes. The forest was
riddled with many gaps from Penultian artillery rounds that fell
short of their mark.

The promenade swarmed with defenders
who patrolled in groups on foot. Olivier led me to an archway where
two sets of broad steps carved into the side of the cliffs, angled
off in opposite directions, zig-zagging down the face. One
staircase was vacant, but the other was queued with heavily laden
refugees making their way up from the lower terrace.

“
Newbies,” said Olivier.
“Anyone who’s made it this far has already been cleared. All the
vetting is done down below in the valley.”

“
Who don’t they let
in?”

“
Spies. Infiltrators. But
it’s pretty easy to spot Hashmals and Seraphs.”

“
Oh?”

“
Scars. Crisscrossed up and
down their backs. Not sure what that is all about. Ritual
scarification maybe? Some kind of initiation mark. They look too
neat to be whip lashings. Whatever it is, it can’t be undone by
flesh weaving.”

We stopped to watch some of the new
arrivals haul their belongings up the last flight of
steps.

“
Some of them wait for
days,” said Olivier. “It’s pretty dangerous for them in the valley,
even behind the front. But here, at least, the cannons can’t reach,
at least not where they’re currently deployed. These root
cannons—horrible, clever things. They plug into the ground and suck
in masses of raw root. The stuff feeds in continuously. Once they
fire, they never need to stop and reload. They’re freaking death
factories, churning out self-propelled projectiles that fly for
miles. When they hit, they explode into living shrapnel. Stuff that
hops and crawls, tearing into anything that gets in its way, like
vicious little baby snakes.”

“
Jeez. Sounds awful. Like
Fellstraw.”

“
Worse. The Dusters think
they’ve destroyed most of them, thankfully, but the Seraphs still
have a couple they hold in reserve … for special occasions … like
when their Lords come to visit and want a show.”

We continued on down the mostly empty
down stairway. Halfway down the cliff face, we paused at a broad
landing, where the stairs switched direction. The landing for the
up staircase was only a stone’s throw away.

Some porters ferrying supplies to the
armies below had stopped to rest and partake in nectar and
manna.

“
How are you holding up?”
said Olivier.

“
I’m good. There’s nothing
wrong with my legs.”

On the opposite landing, in the crowd
of refugees, a young woman caught my eye. She was about Karla’s
size with the same shoulder length brown hair. She even moved with
Karla’s distinctive grace.

“
Can’t be,” I said. She was
quite a distance away and kept her back towards me. I leaned out
over the retaining wall, straining for a better look.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
That girl. She kind of
looks like Karla.”

I shouted her name. Several refugees
turned and squinted at me, but not the girl. She continued on up
the stairs without a glance.

Desperate, I studied the cliff face,
looking for a crack or a ledge that would allow me to inch my way
to the other landing, but the sheer, basalt face offered no such
possibility. I shouted again.

“
Karla! Here! Over
here!”

“
Are you sure that’s
her?”

“
I … I think
so.”

“
Come on, let’s head down.
You can find her later.”

“
But—“

“
No worries. Listen. The
Frelsians keep a record of everyone who enters this place. Once
she’s on the upper terrace, she ain’t going anywhere.”

All I could think of was the
complexity of that warren. It panicked me. How was I supposed to
find her if she went into that maze?

I followed dutifully after Olivier,
but I was on the verge of breaking away and running back up those
stairs. The thing was, I couldn’t be entirely sure it was her. How
many times back in Rome and Inverness and even Vermont had I
spotted Karla in a crowd only to have the person turn out to be a
complete stranger?

My mind consumed with the image of
that girl walking away, I followed Olivier down to the base of the
cliff where the jungle had been cleared away from a triangular
opening in the cliff wall between the staircases.

The forest on the lower terrace was
dense and lush. Massive trunks supported trees that spread
tree-sized boughs over a dark and shady understory, devoid of brush
apart from the occasional giant fern. The canopy, in turn, was
cluttered and draped with parasitic vines. I could barely see the
sky between the branches.

We made our way through the clearing
to an enormous and deep grotto guarded by a half a dozen giant
rhinoceros beetles that came scurrying up to smell us with their
clubbed antennae. They were gentle with us, sliding their antennae
over our hair, and then quickly retreating back to their posts and
letting us pass.

“
How do they know to let us
through?”

“
Easy. We don’t smell like
we’re from Penult. The beetles can tell.”

We passed into the echoing main
chamber of the cavern, the lower reaches of which appeared to be a
root mine. Whatever natural cavity had been here had been greatly
expanded by extensive excavations. The space bustled with warriors
dragging several and huge and bulbous devices into the deeper
recesses of the cave with skids and pulleys.

“
Root cannons,” said
Olivier. “The Dusters captured a bunch but only these two are in
good enough shape for us to use. Once we figure out how to start
them we just need a spot to plug in. See those ducts?

“
You’re gonna fire cannons
from this cave?”

“
We got no choice. Up here,
this is the only source of undifferentiated root. The bedrock on
the upper terrace is a couple hundred feet thick.”

The war cannons looked more like
witches’ cauldrons than the howitzers I had pictured when Olivier
first described them. They were short and squat with a cavity that
could fit four men and two lengths of ribbed ducting with barbed
tips intended to burrow deep into the root beds on the
plains.