Root (50 page)

“
There’s magic here…” said Jeffrey.
“… in this world.”

“
Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it
magic,” said Bern.

“
Oh, let him believe,” said Lille,
patting his arm. “What’s the harm?”

An older man looked up at them from a tangle
of shredded roots, closed his eyes and laid back down, completely
uninterested in being rescued.

Karla was already disemboweling the next pod,
and I helped her this time, unraveling the bottom, so that the
woman inside slid out feet first and landed gracefully on her
feet.

“
Way to stick that landing,” said
Bern. “Bravo!”

The freed woman stood before us, her eyes
focused and calm. She was sturdily built, freckled on her chest and
upper arms with large droopy breasts sporting wide, dark areolas.
She was not shy at all about her nakedness.

“
So this is hell?” she said. “Not
exactly what I expected.”

“
You’re not dead yet,” muttered
Lille.

A blast of fetid air came rushing through the
tunnel.

“
What was that?” said Bern, looking
into the darkness. The air went still and then another blast came
blowing out.

“
This is not Hell,” said Karla. “Not
even close. Do you hear those grumbles? Those are Reapers. Inside
of them, that is the real Hell.”

“
Bring it on,” said the woman,
folding her arms. She sighed and leaned against the tunnel wall, as
if she were waiting at a bus stop.

“
I would think twice, if I were
you,” said Lille. “You don’t know what you’re getting
into.”

“
I’ve done enough thinking for a
lifetime,” said the woman. “If you want to help someone, help the
girl in that nest thing behind mine. The poor thing can’t seem to
stop whinging.”

Karla’s eyes popped wide and she made her way
down to the third pod. Its occupant dangled calm and motionless.
Another blast of foul wind came rolling up the passage, its stink
more intense, and this time it was accompanied by the sound of
claws ripping into roots.

“
Karla … uh … I think we’d better be
going,” I said.

“
Wait!” said Karla, swirling her
finger and loosening a hole in the tightly knitted pod.

A slender wrist flopped out and dangled free.
Delicate, but calloused fingers, curled and uncurled
reflexively.

Karla reached up and touched the small
hand.

“
It is her! This is
Isobel!”

Chapter 47: Her Special
Place

A curious mixture of relief and panic replaced
the bleak resolve that had gripped Karla from the moment I glimpsed
her at the Reapers’ den. I caught her eye and she graced me with a
fleeting smile. But there was work to be done.

She peeled away at the unusually tight knots
enclosing her sister while I focused my will on the stalk,
unwinding it partially and then snapping it off completely. The
entire pod fell to the floor of the tunnel, bounced and split open,
unfolding like a flower.

There, in the center of the bloom, looking
back at us with a sullen, sleepy expression, was a girl with honey,
blonde hair, waves of it sweeping out, framing her face like a
corona. She was curled up in a fetal position, reluctant to
move.

And then suddenly, she sprang up, her stunned
surprise snapping into pure rage. She

“
How did you find me? This was my
own special place! My private hideaway.”

“
It is not special and it is not
only yours,” said Karla, seizing her sister’s hand, and tugging her
upwards, like she was trying to get her sibling out of bed and
ready for school on a Monday.

“
It was mine. Nobody bothered me
here. Until now.” Her fierce eyes panned the faces surrounding her.
“Who are all these strange people?”

“
They are my friends. Now come. We
need to go.”

“
Go away! You’ve spoiled everything,
La.”

“
Oh, get over yourself. You need to
come with us.”

There was a flopping sound, down-tunnel and
another blast of wind.

“
What was that?” said
Isobel.

“
It is why you need to come.” She
dragged her sister out of the pod and hauled her to her feet. “We
cannot play around.”

“
Gah! I have no clothes!”

Lille offered Isobel her shawl, which she
promptly wrapped around her waist. Isobel saw her sister’s hand
come to rest on my shoulder. Her eyes flicked wide. She looked at
me and glared.

“
Who is this boy?”

“
He is my friend, James,” said
Karla, “Now come.”

“
You have a boyfriend? Does Papa
know? Where did you get … did he give you that ring?”

Karla ignored her, her gaze gone soft. “Shish!
Listen!”

The tunnel went almost completely dark, apart
from a faint emerald glow brushing parts of the walls, like the
afterglow from a luminescent toy. The wind reversed direction as if
something was sucking all the air back the other way.

“
There’s something here,” whispered
Bern. “And it’s damn big.”

“
It’s about time,” said the freckled
woman, with a wry smile. “I’ve been waiting a long time for
this.”

Chapter 48: The
Mother

The creature lurked in the shadows. Flashes of
light revealed only a vague silhouette of its bulk.

With a twist and a pull, moving his hands like
a magician performing a parlor trick with handkerchiefs and coins,
Bern turned his cane into a wicked-looking lance with an elaborate,
hooked and spiked blade.

“
Are you daft, Bern?” said Lille.
“We’re not fighting this beast. We have two … no, three … rank
novices with us and no Astrid.”

“
Just in case, dear. Doesn’t hurt to
be prepared.”

“
Fight what?” said Isobel. “What is
it?” said Isobel. “What’s down there?”

“
Your worst nightmare,” said
Karla.

“
Sounds like … an elephant,” said
Jeff.

“
Smells like a dead cat,” said
Isobel, wrinkling her nose.

The bulk shifted and caught a bit of the glow
from the tunnel walls. Its knobby hide glistened, and riddled with
scars and sores.

“
What’s it doing, hanging back like
that?” said Bern. “That’s not typical Reaper behavior.”

“
It’s probably confused,” said
Lille. “How often does one of these encounter a group of free
souls? They’re used to having us packaged up neatly in
pods.”

“
Are you saying it’s afraid of us?”
I said.

“
What a poor baby,” said Karla.
“Come. Let us pass through the wall before it finds its
courage.”

She flattened her hand into a blade and knifed
it between the strands forming the tunnel wall. The roots resisted
fiercely, shoving her hand back out.

“
Here, let me try.” I grabbed a
fistful of roots and squeezed, picturing crackers crumbling. But
instead, they stiffened up and refused to yield. Wiry bits poked
out and punctured my palm.

“
Ow! What the fuck?”

“
It’s the Reaper,” said Bern. “I’ve
seen this happen. The tunnels and beasts, they work together
sometime. It’s some kind of symbiosis … or maybe even different
parts of the same organism.”

“
Or maybe the roots want the damned
things fed and back to their den,” said Lille. “Minimize the
battering.”

A pale, frost-like patina spread out from the
patch as the hardening and condensing propagated down the length of
the tunnel.

“
Oh Lord! But I’ve never seen
anything like this,” said Bern. “We’re trapped in this
tunnel.”

“
This is not just any Reaper,” said
Lille. “This is a Mother.”

“
I bet its range is limited,” said
Karla. “Lille, take Jeff and Isobel up the tunnel. Keep going until
you find a place to break through the wall. James and I will hold
the beast back.”

“
Say what?” I said, startled. I was
ready to run.

“
It is the only way,” said Karla.
“If we all leave together, it will follow, and seal the tunnel
wherever we go.”

“
Oh for Heaven’s Sake,” said the
freckled lady, stepping forward. “Do you all need a human
sacrifice? Because I volunteer.”

“
Kind of you, ma’am,” said Bern.
“But to it you’re just a snack. I doubt you would even slow the
creature down.”

Karla tore a root from Isobel’s pod and
fashioned it into a long bow. She broke off strands and formed
arrows, feathering the tail and pinching the other into sharp,
barbed points.

“
I’m not leaving, La,” said Isobel.
“I will fight with you.”

“
M-me too,” said Jeff. “This … was
in my dream.”

“
Isobel, you will do what I say and
go with Lille. You are too new here to make a
difference.”

I had been standing around, befuddled, still
hoping we’d all reach a consensus to flee. When Karla glared at me,
I reached down and peeled off a chunk of the brittle stalk that had
attached Isobel’s pod.

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the
most potent hand-held weapon I could imagine. I waffled between a
.50 caliber machine gun, an RPG launcher and a bazooka.

Having never handled such devices, I was
forced to use movies to try to visualize what one would look like,
but it was difficult to wrap my mind around all those moving parts
and mechanisms. I conjured scenes from ‘Black Hawk Down,’ ‘Saving
Private Ryan,’ “Kill Bill.’ Kill Bill?

The roots in my hand churned and twisted.
Knobby bumps formed only to melt away. Instead a gun or rocket
launcher, the most beautiful steel samurai sword formed under my
hands. Bern gasped.

“
Marvelous, James! It looks sharper
than the dickens.”

“
I was hoping for a
bazooka.”

Jeff saw what I had done and tried his own
hand at creating. He came away with a limp root, that recalled some
of my first attempts at weaving.

“
All of you, quit standing around!”
said Karla. “Take Isobel and go! We will discourage it from
following too close. We will buy you some time.”

“
But La!” said Isobel.

“
Don’t worry, Izzie, we will catch
up with you. I promise.”

Lille took Isobel’s hand. “That means you,
too, old man,” said Lille to Bern.

“
What do you mean? I’ve got my
weapon at the ready.”

“
Let the young ones deal with this.
They’re spry enough and have enough sense to get out of the damned
thing’s way when it makes its move. At least I hope ….”

Bern sighed, his face reddening. “Fine.” He
lurched off after Lille and Jeff. “You two, don’t dally too
long.”

“
Isobel, you do what my friends
say,” said Karla. “They are good people, they will keep you
safe.”

The bloated creature lumbered forward into the
light, looking like an enormous, deformed walrus, blind and obese.
It dug its claws into the roots, its stubby legs struggling with
the slope. It was heavily scarred, covered with warts and sore-like
gaps in its hide.

The freckled lady staggered back from the
wall. “Ew Lordy! This isn’t exactly what I bargained
for.”

“
It looks hurt,” I said.

“
Reapers can shift their shapes but
they don’t seem to heal very well,” said Karla. “They carry their
wounds like badges. But it does not seem to slow them.”

“
I’m joining your friends,” said the
freckled lady. “Do you think they would mind?”

“
Just go!” said Karla, without even
looking at her. She was lengthening the arrows she had already
made, broadening and sharpening their tips.

The woman trotted off, feet flopping side to
side in a most awkward stride.

A spasm shook the tunnel wall. A wave of
constriction came rippling forth from the Reaper, like a wave of
fractured stone, knocking me off my feet. The freckled lady
stumbled but kept on running.

The constriction slowed, halting before it
reached the others. Bern reached the blunt end of his lance through
the gap that remained. The freckled lady grasped it. He hauled her
through. The tunnel crunched and crumbled as the walls continued to
pinch shut. Isobel screamed. Bern’s stunned face was the last thing
I saw before the tunnel collapsed completely. A wall of rubble now
trapped us before the Reaper.

The tunnel walls around us creaked and
crackled as the strands continued to harden, taking on the
consistency of rebar and concrete. We backed away until we reached
the dead end.

“
The rubble, is it loose?” said
Karla, keeping her eyes on the beast. “Can we dig our way
through?”

I kicked at a pile. It didn’t budge. “It’s
like … frozen solid.”

“
Crap,” said Karla.

“
So what do we do?”

“
There’s nothing else to do,” she
said. “But fight.”