Penult (43 page)

But no. None reciprocated. They stayed
within themselves. They were waiting for me, interested only in
keeping the portal open for me to act. They were mere vessels. They
wanted me to do the interrogation and they were growing
impatient.

Startled as I was to find myself as
the centerpiece, I didn’t want to disappoint my friends. I dug down
and did my job. I surrendered myself to the Singularity. It surged
and swept me deep into the mind of Victoria.

There was a power to the flow that far
exceeded that which I had tapped into during my recent dream
excursions. This was no back eddy. This was the real thing. The
experience felt more like the channeling I did while communing with
Old Ones in the long sleep.

Victoria’s mind had been consumed with
reconfiguring the cracker when my spell struck and froze her. Her
mind remained suspended in that state. She revealed to me every
minute detail of the cracker and how she had intended to expand its
power.

Like Alice in Wonderland, the
Singularity downsized me much as it had done to me with the
sixwings of the Seraphim. It carried me deep into the design,
blasting me through a patterned cityscape of atoms and molecules,
spaced with random and chaotic hinterlands interlaced with angular
networks of grooved canals only nanometers across. Baffling tangles
of hollow channels hexagonal, heptagonal and octagonal in
cross-section filled the interior, emanating from clusters of
crystalline seeds that the Singularity dwelled on in particular,
hinting to me that they were key to the functionality of the
weapon.

When my free hand brushed my blackened
sword, the forces of the Singularity surged down my arm and through
my fingers and into the metal, exploring, revealing and explaining
its molecular structure to me.

I was stunned to see that my interior
of my sword had an internal structure mirroring the interior of the
cracker column. Was the Singularity confused? Was I misinterpreting
things? How was that possible?

Victoria had been engaged with
modifying the actual column when she struck my sword away with her
spell. Perhaps her intention to modify the column had become
entangled with her desire to disarm me and she had transferred the
molecular rearrangements to my sword. That might explain its odd
finish and texture.

But the details continued to baffle
me. My mind simply could not grasp the full complexity of a cracker
column. Parts of it made sense to me. The fractal nesting of its
patterns served to amplify forces in a similar way as the wing
joints. I understood how natural vibrations in the crust were made
to grow into monstrous earthquakes but there was just too much
complexity for me to handle. I didn’t have a mind capable of
replicating such structures.

It made me appreciate Victoria’s
genius if nothing else. But I was just James. I might be special in
some ways, but even special people have limitations. I felt bad for
disappointing my friends. Yaqob, Olivier and the Old Ones all felt
what I was feeling. They were here and knew my failure.

But it was okay. They didn’t hate me.
And that was a revelation. They had my back. They understood. They
were glad I tried.

I pulled my consciousness free of
Victoria and I could feel the tension deflate. But I wasn’t ready
to leave the Singularity just yet. The power of its main flow was
too intoxicating not to subvert a little of it to my own selfish
desires. Just a peek was all I wanted. Olivier left us but Yaqob
and the Old Ones remained engaged. They let me explore.

My mind tore away from our group and
into the crowd of onlookers. I went head hopping across the terrace
until I found a Hemisoul in the midst of fading and used her
consciousness to cross over into the living realm. Relaying through
minds in scattered houses I crossed a rural landscape to the
nameless city where I had previously visited Karla in my
dreams.

The Singularity knew exactly who she
was and where to find her, leading me like a bloodhound straight to
a treed raccoon. It bounced me from motorist to motorist, down one
street and around a corner to a row of warehouses that all looked
exactly alike. It drove me through a wall of corrugated steel into
the chilly interior of a pallet-filled shipping bay.

Karla slept not on a bed but on a pile
of quilted movers’ blankets. They smelled musty and were tainted
with engine oil. She lay in a dimly lit corner, alone but for a
night watchman who sat on a stool by the entrance. I could hear her
snuffling breaths as she slept.

Unlike my other excursions, this was
no fuzzy, ambiguous impression this time. My senses were fully
engaged, her presence much more vivid than my feeble dreams would
ever allow. It was like I was really there and standing over
her.

This time I had no doubt. I could
confirm that it was really her and she was really alive. Relief
washed over me, only to be replaced by a backwash of doubt. What
was she doing in this warehouse? Had she escaped from her father?
Was she on the run? Why hadn’t she gotten word to us? We would have
rushed across continents to gather her up and protect
her.

The Singularity was kind enough to let
me linger a while to sample Karla’s jumbled dreams and assess her
disposition. Asleep, she provided few clues, certainly nothing
about her present location. But her heart was calm. She bore no
injuries, felt no distress other than a diffuse ennui and mild
hunger. She missed me, and that was good. I could confirm that she
was not being held against her will, and that too was good. Or was
it?

The Singularity began to nudge at me.
My hosts were growing impatient. But I was not done looking at
Karla. I missed her so much. I resisted its tug for now but its
power was too great. When it wanted me to go it would take
me.

Without warning, Karla cried out and
sat upright, heaving the moving blankets off of her.

She squinted into the dimness. There
was nothing there for her to see.

“
James?”

She sensed my presence.

Chapter 45:
Never

Karla’s hair was mussed and flecked
with bits of sawdust. Stray strands screened her puffy
eyes.

“
Is that you,
James?”

I struggled against the Singularity’s
pull. It tore at me, ripping off shreds of my consciousness and
whisking them away.

“
Where are you?” I said,
voicing it to the crowd surrounding Victoria on the main plaza. But
Kara heard or understood as well.

“
Where are
you
? Are you inside my
head? How?”

“
The
Singularity.”

Her eyes widened. She stood up and
brushed herself off.

“
Are you okay?”

“
Yeah.”

“
You’re there right now? In
the Liminality? Is it over? The war?”

“
No.”

“
Where are you,
Karla?”

She started to speak, but she paused.
I could see that she wanted to tell me. “I can’t say.”

“
Come back. We’ll meet you
… back in Brynmawr.”

“
I … can’t.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because. That will make
you … happy.”

“
So why can’t I be
happy?”

“
Because we need you …
there … in the Liminality. The resistance … they need you. And you
get … too happy, when you’re with me. And so you get stuck here.
But there’s nothing for me here. I’m done with this place. My
future … our future … is in the Liminality. But only if we can stop
Penult from ruining everything. Drive them back, James. Get them to
stop. I know you can do it. I believe in you.”

“
What if I don’t care? I
don’t care if I ever come back here. What if I just want to be with
you?”

She frowned.

“
We can’t be together here
… in life. It doesn’t work … for me. I told you. I’m done with this
place. I’m just waiting for you … to finish what you’ve started.
I’m proud of you, James. You’ve done very well so far.”

“
You’ve been here? In New
Axum?”

“
Yes.”

“
Come see me. Find
me.”

“
Not now. When you finish.
If I see you now, it will make you fade. They need you … present …
and focused on the war. And you need to stop doing this. You need
to stop using the Singularity to come after me.”

“
But I miss
you.”

“
I miss you, too. But you
need to go, James. Go and do your job.”

“
Where are you? What city?
What country?”

“
I can’t tell
you.”

“
I need to know that you’re
okay.”

“
I’m fine. Surviving. Don’t
worry about me right now. Just … do your job.”

“
It’s Wendell. Wendell is
helping you.”

She scrunched her eyes in my
direction. “No. I’m doing this on my own.”

The strength of the Singularity inched
up like I had taken a step deeper into the main current of a
river.

“
But he said … he
threatened … that we would never see each other again. Will I? Will
I see you? Ever?”

“
I … I can’t
say.”

“
Tell me! I need to
know.”

Her face stilled. Her eyes grew cold
and calculating.

“
No,” she said. “Not in
this world. Not here. Never.”

“
Karla … what are you
talking about?”

And then whatever leverage I had
against the Singularity crumbled and I was at the mercy of the
flow. It ripped my consciousness out of that warehouse and a
flitted between souls in the night, some wakeful, some sleeping,
with a randomness that made sense only to the
Singularity.

For a few short moments I paused in
the bedroom of a country house in the middle of a forest. I could
smell the evergreens. The man whose mind I shared wanted only
death. The roots were coming to take him. But while they did, I had
a chance to ruminate on my encounter with Karla, and the despair I
shared with this despondent man combined to blow us both through
the barrier between the realms, him to a pod deep in the darkest
tunnels of Root, and me flitting through souls to the surface,
skipping through the hearts of refugees braving the Cherub-infested
valleys to the terraces of New Axum.

My hand slipped off Yaqob’s shoulder
and I collapsed onto the cobbles. Olivier lunged and caught me
before my head struck the pavers.

***

Zhang had arrived with a detachment of
Frelsian warriors who bulled their way through the crowd and took
Victoria back into their custody.

“
Yaqob! I warned you to
stay away from her.”

“
This had to be done.
Someone had to do this.”

“
And what did it get you?
Did you manage decipher the cracker?”

Yaqob looked at me. He knew I had
failed. He was in there with me.

“
No. But we had to
try.”

Zhang caressed Victoria’s
brow.

“
From now on, you keep your
scabby hands off my friend. Understand? Too many of my people are
already questioning the wisdom of this alliance. I’m beginning to
think they have a point.”

“
What’s done is done. We
will trouble her no more. Though, I suggest you be careful about
how much you free her. This one is bitter. And her heart remains
with Penult.”

“
You let us worry about
her,” said Zhang, casting disappointed looks at me and my fellow
conspirators Olivier and the Old Ones.

Olivier hauled me to my feet. He kept
a hand on me to steady me. I was still feeling a little wobbly.
There was an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that could have
accommodated a black hole.

“
You went off on a tangent
there, kid.”

“
Sorry.”

“
Nah. That’s cool. Some
things you just gotta do. Did you work things out with
her?”

“
No. Not
really.”

Olivier gave me a worried
look.

“
Come on, let’s get you
some food in you. You’re looking kind of frail.”

***

Olivier arranged for some bees to come
and share their nectar with us. This nectar was different. It had a
purplish tinge and there was something stimulating about it. A
couple sips and I was buzzing around like I had drunk a double
espresso.

He led me down into the warren and
took me directly to my quarters where a pair of Duster gals were
arranging a platter of manna and pollen cakes for us. We sat and
chatted a while, before he excused himself.

“
Don’t you fade on us now.
We need you here,” he said, as he left my entry.

I didn’t care if I faded or not. My
trip through the Singularity had taken a lot out of me, and that
included any shred of motivation for raiding Penult. Karla’s words
left me hopeless in both worlds, though I think she was only aiming
for one.

I dragged myself into the stony nook
and collapsed onto the sleeping mats, half wishing that the
Singularity would invade my dreams again and give me another
glimpse of Karla, another chance to reason with her.