Dark prophet dark law bo.., p.27
Dark Prophet (Dark Law Book 3), page 27
“No!” Riathera told her. “We’re in too good a defensive position to forfeit. And believe me when I say, they will come to us. They have to come to us.” She tapped on her metal eyes, suggestive of the governor chip.
Liwera nodded with understanding and as if on cue, the Reticula emerged from the forest like ghouls, eyes glowing through the mist. Robed in human flesh, the Singular Her shrieked through their minds, demanding possession of the Torbad and all the treasure she held.
Forty-One
Inevitability is an illusion.
Ribcage had not heard about the assassination of the goddess of Lithusa.
She’d been too busy in the cave of tongues wearing weird glasses and goggles and staring at a knot of distorted space while Hakarsh tinkered around with his sculptures. She’d been sleeping in the royal dog kennels ever since Hawera had cast her from her bedchambers. But Ribcage had found the morning walk from the palace to Hakarsh to be too taxing so she just started sleeping in the weird caves. Hakarsh was harmless, continued to make good food, and was doing crazy stuff to the fabric of time that Ribcage found too irresistible to miss. After fitting her with a pair of glasses and goggles made from his silversand lenses, Hakarsh wordlessly taught her about the dance of space that twisted around them within the cave. An angry knot of distortion spun and swiveled in the middle of the cavern and was coaxed into stability by Hakarsh’s sculptures of dangling loops and circles of metals.
“Oh, duh,” Ribcage said a few days prior as Hakarsh swung the arm of one sculpture, feeding more flow of space into the knot. “Those little circles you’re funneling space through—they're made from dark matter, right? That’s how they can stretch space through them?”
“Savvy crazed little one ye are,” Hakarsh said with tongue working at the side of his mouth and a purple-tinted monocle in one eye.
Ribcage was pleased that she’d figured that one out but was frankly totally clueless about what Hakarsh was really doing in the cave of tongues with the knot. But, she was only clueless in her brain about what Hakarsh was doing. She recalled how bored she was when Galiaro, Protonix, and Neutrini were doing their maths back in Orion trying to figure out how to open the Geminarc. It was boring beyond anything she’d ever experienced and all that math didn’t even help them all escape to the fabled dimension anyway. But what Hakarsh was doing? She understood it in her bones. Obviously, the entire cave was some sort of thin space that overlapped with time—that’s why she kept hearing people talking from her past life. But the angry knot in the middle of the cavern looked like it was up to no good. The thing fought against the boundaries that Hakarsh fed to it through his dark matter sculptures. The knot wanted to break free. It wanted to consume all space and time that it touched. Ribcage could almost feel the destructive desire emanating from the knot. So, while Ribcage couldn’t write out the math that explained what Hakarsh was doing, she could certainly see and feel that it was super important that he keep doing it.
There was also the little detail that the knot had a tether tied directly to Ribcage. It didn't matter where she went, a thin, spindly-looking arm was wrapped around Ribcage and led directly to the knot. It was this tether, Hakarsh had explained, that led him to find and rescue Ribcage and Hawera when they were stuck on an isle of Lo. Of course, without Hakarsh’s customized glasses, Ribcage never would’ve known the tether was even there—or that there was also a tether attached to Hawera. It didn’t hold her or try to suck her in or anything like that. But the knot regarded Ribcage in some way, either with desire or contempt, she couldn't know and she really didn’t want to find out. Watching the knot was like observing a giant squid behind aquarium glass—it was ugly, fascinating, and blessedly confined by Hakarsh’s funky sculptures.
So, Hakarsh was doing something weirdly important, and Ribcage had grown bored and aloof from Hawera's court. The rich people just kept on trying to do rich people things and Hawera would find out sooner or later how much they’d put up with letting all the riff-raff into their precious city with bejeweled bidets. Ribcage snickered to herself, looking forward to when it would blow up in Hawera’s face. Then Ribcage would come back and sleep in Hawera’s bedchambers again only if the woman asked and only after she listened to Ribcage explain to her all the stupid things she had done since arriving in Lithusa. It wasn’t like Hawera was a baddie or anything. In fact, Hawera was probably one of the nicest people Ribcage had ever met except for Lucindi, of course. But, Ribcage decided she'd let Hawera stew in her stupid juices for a few more days. That girl needed to learn how the real world worked. Then maybe Ribcage would go pay her a visit and see how she was doing.
“The knot be angry,” Hakarsh said later that afternoon. “With a fury I have not before witnessed.” The man gazed at the knot with a set of glasses, two goggles, and a welding mask over his face. Ribcage also saw a little of what Hakarsh was seeing: the angry distortion of space was not happy. A riot of textures and bubbling space seethed in the middle of the cavern. The flowing ropes of space that Hakarsh had spent years threading through his dark matter statues usually kept the knot calm and confined, but now the knot bucked and enlarged against its restraints like a sun on the precipice of going supernova.
“What do we do?” Ribcage asked, sensing the fear in Hakarsh’s voice. “What’s going to happen if the knot gets bigger?”
“Ye care to discover?” Hakarsh asked. “The knot ripens with anger at us. Anger with time. Anger with space. The knot is the contempt of non-existence, craving to consume to naught.”
“I get it, okay? It wants to eat everything.” Ribcage said with fresh dread in her belly. “What do we do?”
Hakarsh gestured to the tether from the knot to Ribcage and to another tether that led away from the cave with its invisible grasp on Hawera. “Ye know ye crazed child. Ye know well, thanky.”
“You think it wants me?” Ribcage asked. Hakarsh said nothing, which was the response Ribcage least wanted. “I gotta go find Hawera. She’s the time traveler lady, opening up her little time portals in space. She’s like an expert in this stuff.” Ribcage nodded, readily agreeing with herself. “She’ll know what to do.”
“I well agree. Bring the goddess hither but haste ye, time grows short. And angry.”
“I get it. I’ll go.” Ribcage took off her goggles and threw them in a satchel. She fled the cave of tongues, taking off her ear muffs as voices from the past whispered at her: Lucindi, Beetro, Miree—even Hawera. Hakarsh followed her as she exited through the narrow tunnels to the oppressive sun of the sand district.
“Beware ye well, crazed one,” he warned. “The desires of men bear as much malevolence as time and space. The world arcs toward ye with barbs in its maw. Turbulence awaits ye.” She left him at the mouth of the cave, unsettled by his words.
The first thing Ribcage noticed upon returning to Hartepelgo was that there was blood in the streets, black and a few days old. It wasn’t war blood or anything like that but violence had been had and people definitely died. Yet, aside from the blood-stained cobbled roads, the city was quite clean and noticeably absent of refugees. The shops were open, full of Hawera-themed wares along with open fish markets selling chilled swordfish, calamari, and plenty of coconuts and passion fruit. Ribcage swiped a handful of nuts and ducked into an alleyway, worry growing in her gut. She knew there was no way Hawera would have approved of the ejection of the refugees and that someone silenced her—or worse. Guilt soured her stomach as she crunched on the nuts, realizing the last conversation she’d had with Hawera was weeks ago after she had told her off. Ribcage kicked herself for being so mean. Why’d she have to go and run off on anyone at even the slightest disagreement? Hawera, after all, was only trying to do what's right. Wasn’t that all Lucinidi ever tried to do, too? Panicked consumed Ribcage that the same fate of Lucinidi may have befallen Hawera. Why did Ribcage have to hole up with the weirdo in the caves of tongues for so long?
It was when she found a new wooden temple erected around a fountain statue of Hawera, replete with garlands and candles, that she knew something terrible had happened. Hundreds of worshippers wept on their knees around the statue in what she realized was a vigil. It was only through hearing broken prayers and hushed conversations that she learned her friend had been shot in the neck. Ribcage, overcome with grief and remorse over her stupid hastiness to drop people, knelt right there on the cobblestones with all the other worshippers. But unlike the other supplicants, she was grieving one of the only friends she’d ever had. Ribcage knelt there at the crossroads between self-pity and self-recrimination when a hush fell over the crowd at the appearance of a figure at the fountain.
Queen Charka.
“The goddess lives,” she said with majesty in her gaze. “Our grace bears her will through her prophetess, your queen, thanky. Her will has swept these streets of the scourge of oppression inflicted on her Lithusan children. Our silver sands and silica flow freely to the world and our rivers will run with wealth for our people. The heavens weigh heavy with orbits of doom but the goddess will hence ever protect the Lithusa.” The queen raised her fist in the air and said. “The goddess will redeem, the goddess will save.” She repeated the mantra, encouraging all to their feet who joined in, tears flowing down their faces.
Ribcage felt lightness in her chest knowing that Hawera still lived but clearly something was very wrong. Her friend would never have approved of Charka speaking on her behalf let alone casting out the refugees from the city. The queendom was as rotten as the queen, something of which Ribcage had an intuitive sense the moment she laid her eyes on her. But, Ribcage thought, getting to her feet and looking at all the dumb people fooled by the queen’s words, there were bigger and scarier things afoot. Much more than the queen throwing out a bunch of poor people. That had been done to death since the dawn of rich people. No, what had Ribcage more concerned was the angry knot of time bending space beneath their feet with just one man and a little dark matter keeping the thing in check. She put on silversand glasses and looked at the tendril wrapped around her chest and plunging into her own body. Finding Hawera would be simple enough: follow the knot’s tether that also silently beckoned toward her. Certainly, she was locked up in some palace room that Ribcage could easily follow with Hakarsh’s glasses. But getting her out of there and down to the cave of tongues all without her trademark Jumping ability? That would be easier said than done. She brought her blade from the sheath inside her waistband and gently thumbed the edge.
Good. Still sharp.
Forty-Two
Just because our paths have been infinitely trodden does not mean new ways cannot be forged.
The air was salty and humid as Arym and Gailbret set out on foot across the Scarlands that surrounded Mount Igneous. The timeseer stowed at the bottom of Arym’s backpack was just heavy enough to be uncomfortable but at least his sinuses had cleared as they began their trek. Gailbret had said nothing to anybody before they departed for the Crib with the intention of finding Othel through the timeseer. They only offered discreet farewells to Galiaro before the hearth in his quarters. He actually gave Arym a hug which surprised Arym mostly because it felt so good. The astrocyst clapped him on the shoulder and muttered what were likely some platitudes by the tone but Arym wasn’t certain. Galiaro’s confidence had taken a big hit since his political assassination by Railleto in front of the order and the man had trouble speaking in full and audible sentences. He mostly looked at pictures in his quarters next to a bottle of spirits that, as far as Arym could tell, had remained completely untouched.
“I’m not confident we can get out of this mess,” Galiaro said. “I’ve tried, my boy. For so long, I’ve tried. It’s all probably for naught but I do admire you. All of you,” he gestured to Gailbret. “The rest of our little fellowship out there grasping at any thread of hope that there is. Warms a man’s heart,” he said, “helps me remember there is more than the bottom of a glass.”
“He’s a good man,” Gailbret told Arym after they left the astrocyst alone and descended the castle at Mount Igneous.
“I think he’d doubt that,” Arym said.
“Doubting that he’s a good man is what makes him a good man.”
And so they left without another word to anyone, not even Protonix who hadn’t shown his face since the fiasco where Railleto cast him as a prop of Galiaro’s wild tales of an expanding universe.
“Oh,” Arym said, stopping as soon as they started their trek at the foot of Mount Igneous.
“What?” Gailbret asked, blowing hair out of her mouth from a cross-wind. She was dressed in a short-sleeved black tunic, cinched at the hip with a belt over gray skirts that were voluminous but of a light enough material to travel comfortably under the oppressive sun. Arym quickly grew jealous of her prudent dress as he sweated in the day under his heavy wool trousers with thigh chafing that had become more than a nuisance.
“It was Neutrini. Railleto’s agent who was a witness to everything Galiaro did in Helian. It must be Neutrini. Which means Railleto’s in league with Curse. It explains all of her actions. Curse doesn’t want Galiaro spreading the truth about the expansion and how to stop it because it interferes with his use of the dark earth prophecy.”
“Shit.” Gailbret spit, looking to the west where the level floor of the Scarlands rose in the distance. “You’re probably right. And she’s poisoned the entire order against Galiaro, the only man who has empirical evidence of what is wrong with the cosmos.”
They’d made good time on their first day and set up camp next to a boulder and an olive tree that looked like it had been dead since the Alcheans. The mood was sullen as Gailbret hadn’t spoken a word since Arym suggested Railleto’s true intentions. She made a fire using some sort of incendiary device the size of a bumble bee that Arym had never seen before. They chopped down the dead tree and threw in the logs as the sun set bringing in a swift chill to the desert floor. They ate NRs in silence while Gailbret stared at the vapors on the horizon swelling with greens and pinks as the last rays of the sun dwindled.
“It’s a big deal what you’re doing,” Arym said, breaking the hours-long silence. “Leaving the order with me. Now. Railleto won’t be forgiving.”
Gailbret didn’t look at him but said, “She was always good to me but I kind of think it was just to use me. She found me at the university in Tereffe and took me in. Fed me. Housed me. Taught me math. Taught me how to talk to important people. But it was just to bend me toward the order and bring me to Igneous, pump me with the nanomites so I could fetch her coffee, clean up lemur shit and watch her publish pointless papers to bolster her academic prestige. It was bullshit.”
Arym wanted to respond but knew no words were good enough. She was experiencing the exact thing that happened to him when he left the Crib: betrayal trauma. And he knew better than anyone that the best thing to do was to shut up and let her get it all out.
But Gailbret surprised him when she asked, “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Me neither. Railleto’s life plan for me kind of robbed me of such experiences. Do you want to?” She finally looked at him but it wasn’t with lust, more with curiosity like she’d just discovered a lost coin purse and was wondering to whom it belonged.
“Sure.”
Gailbret moved over to his sleeping mat, sat beside him, turned her mouth toward him, and placed her lips on his. They sat there for a moment, neither moving their mouths. She pulled away. “That didn’t seem like a big deal. At all.”
Arym shrugged, feeling the same. “Maybe it’s because we don’t really… like each other like that.”
“Yes, that makes sense.” She moved away and lay down. “Still, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I think you are really great—”
“Stop,” she said laughing and holding up a hand. “Just, shh. Sleep. We have at least five days ahead of us and we need to wake up early to get there.”
Arym did so, closing his eyes with a welcome lightness in his chest, relishing once again the feeling of being in good company.
Of course, they played more with the timeseer but mostly for research purposes. As they trekked across the Scarlands, the two tried to pinpoint the time period Othel would’ve been alive and setting up not only the Crib but his other preparations to save the cosmos when it would end thousands of years in the future. Due to historical corruption, the exact time period of Alchean society had always been difficult for anyone to pin down. The Alchean age ranged anywhere from ten thousand years ago to one hundred thousand years ago with their civilization lasting at least several dozen millennia. According to myth and the clear remnants of their fantastically advanced technology, there was never any doubt that they were the most sophisticated culture that had ever existed in human history. They almost certainly ushered in interstellar space travel, mastered materials engineering, developed dark matter energy, bioengineered their own genes, and built a post-market collectivist society, which included alien life.
They also blew themselves up into atomic dust.
And that’s why the record was so difficult. Fortunately, Arym and Gailbret had the timeseer and the ability to peer into pockets of space along their journey to the Crib. It wasn’t until their third day of their trek when they finally found what they believed was an Alchean outpost from twenty thousand years prior. Looking through a time bubble from the timeseer, they saw a young man with lightly marbled skin and eyes the color of rust sitting inside a log cabin surrounded by dense vegetation. They suspected he was Alchean by his clothing which appeared haunted by glowing technology bubbling beneath his sleeves, collar, and knee-length jacket. Holographic windows and words popped up and paraded in the young man’s orbit in a continuous fashion with clear Alchean script. His brow furled at what looked like information overload and he sobbed into the crook of his elbow. Being alone and with an Alchean laser rifle leaning against the wall, suggested he was at a war outpost but Arym and Gailbret couldn’t be sure of anything only that the young Alchean man spoke the timeless body language of someone who was afraid and lonely.
