The lungs feel it first, a hit to my chest. Self-awareness is the paint inside a balloon, my first breath the knife loosed by a master thrower’s hand. The thrower is light, sun light, which my skin eats up with a hungry mouth. Photosynthetic epithelial cells: words passed down through the long line of scholars, and the wisest of the Great Mums know it too. These cells have been sleeping between the something and the nothing. They now begin to sneak awake, to whisper like we did as small children beneath old quilts before dawn. The light is returning, and with it, the awe of life.
Food, water, air, all are secondary to light. As long as there is enough of the light to go around, my body doesn’t need anything else. But it is dark beneath the earth. My being brought here began the slow attrition. I witnessed what all the Ma’atha mums used to scare us about as little ones, the slow shrivel, becoming like a wrinkled husk. Without the sun, your forever stream becomes a dry riverbed. My mum’s words, and they became prophesy for me. “Amara, your pleistocene is showing!” Dal would shout, if I had been studying with the scholar in his dark house for too long. He was named after the great trickster lord, the man who had made the story which an entire people could not lift their heads from for thousands of years. He was so young when they took him, not even a man. Years later, the yama man would take me too.
The light is coming. Oh, Dal, if you were here. See how it is so bright, see how it brings the memories. One specific one: how to breathe. Amara, child, you should be breathing. It’s the voice of the scholar, and Mum and Da. Fill your lungs with air, child. “They’re such crinkled things, scholar. They can only take in so much.” I say.
“So you take your time, child.” The scholar says.
Now you realize you weren’t dead at all, silly girl. You and your brown skin were just hibernating, biding the time, dreaming already forgotten dreams. Of what and where? The Coral Islands, of course, of Da and Mum and the gray mist away from the shore that wrapped its arms around everything and nothing passed through, except the ink ships that would take your friends away, one by one. Barud, and Dal. Friends since leaving the teat for the sun, from before the scholar’s first lesson, taken one after the other into the Fade. I never heard Barud’s sweet voice again, or Dal’s boisterous laugh. The kidnappers, however, the yama man, with their gray skin, would always return. They drove their ships through the gray mist to land at port and take one of us, then another and another. I knew what they did. They’d strap us into a machine at the center of the ink ships, and drain us as if we were nothing more than the juice of a janjan fruit.
When you’re full of the blood, the lymph and the water, you never feel it. It fills you, a silent spring. But when you’re dry and empty, the beginning of any sort of trickle in the body juices feels as if a feather is slipping up the inside of your skin. Things atrophied now inflate. They take shape. A coating of tissue covers your bones, a layer of muscle grows around the ribs. There is a beating in your chest, but it is arrhythmic. It makes your breath catch, because there is still so much empty space for it to ring around. But then it becomes steady, and the feathers dancing up and down your arms and legs go to the very tips. What is brittle becomes strong. What is dust, becomes hard, becomes bone.
“You’re alive?” I can barely look at him, the man shines so brightly. Behind the dirt and the red beard is a gentle face with lines from a hard life cut deep into it. His entire body is white light. In his hands are the charred remains of a rope, a weak flame still burning at the frayed tips. “Can you speak?” He asks. He is crouched low to me, his face level with mine. He looks incredulous at all this, like he can not believe it is really happening. His blue eyes bounce up and down, following my nodding head. Yes, I’m alive, good sir, so please, help me. Let me get back to living.
With so much effort comes the faintest whisper. “Yes...”
“My god,” The man runs a hand through his hair.
“Where did he go? Where is he, Crick? Hey, man, come get me out! I’m still tied up here, and I don’t know where that guy crawled off to.” The other voice is calling out from the other side of the table. The shining man called ‘Crick’ helps me up. My legs are so heavy, so tired. “Crick!”
“Hold on, Will, I’m coming,” His body glows, filling the entire room with its soft white light. We start walking, and I realize Crick is hurt, his one leg moving stiffly. We round the head of the table, where the Digger had his place, and below us is the other man, Will, lying on his back. He is younger than Crick, but maybe just a few years older than myself. His body is thin and well muscled, beneath a loose shirt that looks tea-stained. His legs and body are tied to a chair, his hands secured behind his back. “Holy shit. She’s alive?” He says.
“Yes, I’m alive.” He looks from me to Crick and back to me again.
“And you did that? What are you?” He speaks quickly, afraid. “How the hell did you light up like that?”
“I dunno, Will.” Crick says.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? People just don’t do that by accident, and they surely don’t bring corpses back to life.”
“Not a... corpse... Very deep sleep...”
Will looks at me, and in his face, I see Dal with his proud eyes set deep in his face. He then looks to Crick, sighing in acceptance. “Just untie me. Please.” Crick gets on his knees, starts to work on Will’s knots. “There’s a sharp bone,” Will says, blowing loose strands of sweaty hair away from his mouth. “It’s around here somewhere.”
Crick lifts up a thin, curved bone, the edge sharp. With one swift movement, the rope falls away. “Thanks,” Will says, getting up from the floor. He pushes on the lower part of his back until it cracks. “Where’d that freak go?”
“Dunno,” Crick says, studying his big hands. He sways a bit on his feet, before collapsing in the folding chair Narcissus had him strapped to. He is bleeding through his pants.
“What’s wrong? You don’t like lighting up like a Christmas miracle?”
“That’s never happened before. It took a lot out of me.”
“Your leg...” I say. I have never met a god before, but never were they hurt in any of the Great Mum stories. “You need medicine.”
“Geez, you’re right. What is your name?”
“Amara Mona,” I say. “You are hurt too.” My hand is shaking as I point to Will’s face. He runs a finger over his right cheek, rust red with a fresh scab, and winces. His eyes are algae blooms atop water softly rippling, and they do not seem to know what they are taking in.
“He hit me with a shovel. God, it must be awful to look at. Crick, we have to get you to a doctor. They got to have one in Vagner or Santa Fe, that can’t be too far away.”
“Santa... Fe?”
“You’ve never heard of Santa Fe? New Mexico?” I shake my head. “Where are you from?”
“The Coral Islands.”
“The Coral Islands? Where is that? Micronesia?”
The strength to speak is returning. “They are in the gray dream world. The yama man say it is at the edge of the Grid. The scholar say it is along the rim of the spiral.”
“You know, this is all just really weird. I don’t understand any of it,” Will says. “I wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t feel like my life was in constant danger. So you’re from the Coral Islands, on the edge of a spiral?” I nod. “Well, alright. That explains everything.” Will runs his hand through his long hair, pushing it back behind an ear. I can tell he is frustrated.
“I am a conduit, chosen by yama man to power his ink ship. Yama man is bad man, does not care if I live or die. I leave him, and come here, to this strange place. I hoped the man who live here would help me, but no, he worse than yama man.”
There is a rustle under the table, and Narcissus comes out, jumping to his feet.
“No, dahling!” The Digger says, looking wasted and pathetic in Crick’s soft white light. “You do nods speaks da trude do dese invaders! Dell dem dad I only loved you, my dahling, my love, dad I made you my queensie!”
&nb
sp; Will grabs the sharpened bone out of Crick’s hand, then bounds forward, at the Digger. It happens so fast. The two men tumble over, rolling under the table, their hands grabbing at each other. A dish clatters to the floor. A soft thunk is followed by a low moan, belonging to the man who had me call him husband when he buried me beneath the earth. I was hurt when I found my way to him. Even with the sun as strong as it was in this strange new world, the Oisin’s engine had found its way into my lap after crashing, and had cut deep into my thighs and chest. I was bleeding out, my body too shocked to heal itself. Narcissus had looked at me through the reflection in his mirror, my guts in my hand, his eyes wide in surprise.
“Please sir, my lifeboat crashed, you have to_”
“Shh, beez quied nows, my dears.” The Digger had said, not turning from the mirror. His lips were thin, teeth small and square. Green stalks grew from his fat head, the crowns of which had unfurled their white flowers.
“But the Fade! It is_”
“Da Fadesey does nod come to my liddle homesey, so beez calm. Oh my, yous are hurd,” The mirror’s surface had looked like it was melting in the heat of the room. My snow white hair was knotted with grease and blood, and it looked like dirty candle wax in the reflection. “Come here. I wand do dake good care of you.”
He turned from the mirror and drew me to him. His hips touched mine, while his tongue found my neck. I tried to pull away, by the Fox, I did; but my time as a conduit, years of having my life drained out of me on that ship, had made me weak. His calloused hands found their way around my throat. He choked me to the ground, all the while whispering how he would love me forever, and make me his queen. He dragged me into his basement, my feet knocking on each step, past jars and dusty cans, until we were deeper than the earth’s heartbeat.
“My dahling. I love yous so,” It was like a song he would sing, over and over, as I struggled against the bindings on the chair. My stomach turned on itself. The light was gone, save for what came from the small candle he kept lit at dinner, whose warmth would never come to my face.
“Do yous love husband?” He kept asking me. I stopped yelling at him when I became too weak to move my lips. He did not mind, but he got less excited the less I struggled. He came less and less. It did not take long for my skin, once as dark as mud, to shrivel and ashen, cells gasping for light until they gave up and drowned in darkness. Water and light, all I need to live, never found me beneath the earth. Soon, there was nothing but sleep. I dreamed of the Coral Islands, of the baby sister I would never know, of driftwood fires and janjan fruit. I also dreamed of Pacheco, the yama man who had taken me from my home. Soon dreams even faded, and it was pitch all around. That was all until the god-man named Crick came and shone like the sun.
Will crawls out from the table, breathing hard. Narcissus follows after him, begging for mercy. “Pleases, my friends, pleases. Yous cans leave, if yous so desires id. Bud do nods hurd me anymores. Dis bones hurds me so,” The Digger is pleading on the ground, his one hand to his shoulder, the long bone poking out.
“Stay there. Don’t come any closer to me,” Will turns from the Digger and whispers to Crick. “What am I going to do with him? I’m can’t kill him. I can’t even believe I stabbed him like that. Maybe we should just get out of here, call the police or something.”
“Yes, yes, my friends, jusd led me go. Yes, yes,” He slides himself back like a grub, until his back meets the table. “Yous cans leave, and I sday and do my digger dudy. Dere be myths froms da beggining of time buried oud dere in da ground, and my fadder says id cans only beez me who digs up da old old sdories... Pleases...Dey musd nod wakes up."
Crick and Will share a look. “Are these stories you’re talking about what we saw out there? Those shadows?”
“No, sirs, dose shadows are pesky troubles. Dey do nod have sdories of dere own, bud dey wand dem, oh yes, oh yes,”
“What's he going on about, Amara?" Crick asks me. "What are these stories he’s talking about?”
“He told me much while I was here, while I could still hear. The Gods of Chaos sleep in the ground. They live in holes that are like roads to other worlds. He kills them before they can wake and pass into this world. He says they would destroy everything,” Narcissus ate many meals before me, always pink flesh on tarnished plates. He said it was god flesh and made him big and strong.
“Yes, yes, id is all droo, dahling! Dese sdories, dey be froms before all of dimes and spaces, from before Helios and Hyp...” The Digger covers his mouth with both hands. His eyes grow wide at Crick, whose body has burst alight again.
“That is far out,” Will says, eying Crick before turning back to the Digger. “And you’re scared of him, huh? You don’t like the light?”
“Id’s nod da lighds, sirs,” The Digger says. “Id’s wad da lights brings. Bad, bad sdories, dad do nod like da lighd, no, no. And da Fadesy doo, id is drawns do dad sdory,” Then, as if there are ears all around us, Narcissus whispers, “Id is da oldest sdory ever dold on all da worlds on da spiral.”
“Okay, that’s great. Can you get us past the shadows and gods and other assorted bad things that are waiting out there?”
“I do nod undersdand, sirs_”
“Can you get us back to the road? We just want to be on our way. I have to get to Vagner, she’s got to get to her island place, and Crick needs a hospital because of all the stupid glass you put out as a welcoming mat for us. Do you need me to spell it out any clearer? We want out of this crazy place.”
The Digger nods his head, so hard you can hear his teeth clacking together in his head. “Yes, yes, tanks yous, tanks yous. I wills takes you. Righd dis ways, sirs and dahling,”
“And stop it with this ‘darling' business," Will says. "It’s really creepy, and she’s not your darling.” I look at Will, but can not think how to thank a higher being. Are they gods that Narcissus somehow could not kill? What godly place are they from?
"Will..." I begin, but then the room begins to shake. The floor feels like it is lurching to the side, before all goes silent.
“Da Fadesy,” The Digger whispers. He jumps up like a rabbit loosed before a hunting party, a shuffling pile of gray blue overalls running away as fast as he can towards the hallway at the end of the room. Crick has dimmed to such a low light that the Digger is able to escape into the shadows.
“He’s getting away!” Will says.
“It is the Fade,” I say.
“What? What’s happening?” Will loses his footing and falls into the table as the ground shakes again, more violently than the last quake. A crack appears in the air, a sharp line that cuts across the entire space. It slices through walls, air and light, like a line of paint through one of Old Cappy’s paintings.
“Do not touch that!” Will stops, stares at me, his hand in mid-air. “You will come apart if you do.”
“What is it?” He mutters.
“It is a stress fracture. It comes before the Fade. We have to leave this place before the gray water washes us away," Will steps back from the crack. It goes through the table, through one of the plates. He picks up the one half, a clean cut right down the porcelain, before it slips through his fingers and shatters on the floor.
“I don’t feel so well,” Crick moans. The quake has put him on the floor. His head is in his hand, the other on his leg. The color in his skin is fading, turning to ash. “I can’t move it all.”
Will runs to the table, and grabs the knife the Digger had been carving his meat with. Crick jumps. “What the hell are you gonna do with that?”
“I have to cut the bottom of your pants leg off. We have to get some of this glass out and stop the bleeding.”
“There is not much time_” I say, but Will stops me.
“We’re not going anywhere if he bleeds to death. Come on, I’ll work quick.” Will cuts into the tough cloth around Crick’s leg, who hisses through his teeth. Once the glowing flesh is exposed, you can see how torn it is. Crick glows still more softer with each passing moment
. Fortunately, he is bright enough that we can see the pieces of glass sticking out of his skin.
“This is going to hurt,” Will says, before removing the first shard. The scholar always used medicines, the nectar of bark and vine. Crick groans, his voice echoing around the rafters. Will continues, his mouth a set line. Crick is trying to stifle his pain, I can see it in how he grits his teeth. Another piece of glass falls to the floor, then another. With the task done, Will takes his shirt off and knots it around Crick’s leg. “I wish I had something to clean it with,” He says, before standing up. "Can you walk?"
"I'll manage. Thanks.” The ground has begun to shake steadily now, with no pause in between the tremors. Another stress fracture, smaller than the first, cracks through the air above our head. We will need all the grace of the Fox to get out of this alive.
"That Narcissus guy dragged us all down here, huh?” Will says. “We can’t possibly be that far from the surface.”
I think back to when the Digger first brought me down from the outside world. There was a set of stairs that we descended, beneath a thin metal door. Then a room with jars stacked high, which seemed to extend forever, before another staircase, this one warped and descending deep into the earth. Once these stairs ended, there was a curving hallway, before we reached the large dining room. “I remember now. There are two sets of stairs, the last leading to the surface.”
“Then let’s go,” Will says. He is no stronger than the yama man, and struggles to help us both along. The shadows reach in closer to us as Crick’s body dims to a whisper away from absolute darkness. Will tries to tell him the story again, but for whatever reason, it’s not working like it did before.
“Why isn’t it working anymore?” He mutters as we make our way through the curving hallway. “It’s supposed to work. My dead father said it would, in a dream. He was pretty spot on, too. Said the Digger’s name was Narcissus, and that I had to tell you the beginning of the story of Helios and Hyperion. He said it was our key to getting out of here.” Will pauses at the foot of the staircase. “My father said he has a big mirror upstairs that he looks into, obsessed with his reflection.”
“It is true,” I say. “He saw me in it. Perhaps he believed that I came to him in it, a making of his mind,” The ground shaking becomes so violent that several bricks above our head come loose, sending a rain of dust down and almost smashing Crick’s head in.
“You all alright?” Will asks, visibly shaken.
“Yeah, I’ll get by.”
“So why won’t you light up anymore?” Will says, helping me and Crick over the stones, and keeping us as far away from the stress fractures as possible. “Why won’t you do what you did when I told you the story the first time?”
“Maybe the novelty’s worn off,” Crick says. “We’ve moved past that part of the story, and are moving further along. The beginning doesn’t have any more power anymore. And besides, I’m tired. I don’t think I have it in me to light up like that no more.”
“Damn. We need light,” Anything can be waiting around the curve in the wall. “As long as we can see Narcissus coming, we’ve got the edge on him. But if he can sneak up on us...” Will does not need to finish his thought. We all remember the shovel.
“I just wish I knew what was going on. It’s just frustration piling upon frustration. I was lost in the desert just a few hours ago, and now I’m trying to escape from some inbred’s underground dining room. And let’s not forget the Fade, whatever that is, and the air literally cracking in front of me. Oh, and did I mention that this guy I met on the road is glowing when I tell him a story I only know the first five lines of?” He laughs to himself. “No one back home is going to believe any of this.”
We walk in silence for a bit, the stairs unevenly climbing, snaking around as they worm their way up to the surface. “You drink up the light, huh?” Crick whispers, his bloodshot eyes staring at me. “That’s how you came back to life? That sure is something. I wish I could give you some more light, I do...” He trips up the stair he is on.
“Crick! Will, help, please, he_” There’s a thud, followed by the smashing of glass and a torrent of curses flowing from Will’s mouth. He is a few steps ahead, so I can not see him around the bend in the wall. “He hit me with a jar! It broke all over me!” A putrid stench floats down to us, Narcissus’s voice coming with it.
“Sdays aways from me, you bads, bads men! Dake my dear, sweed dahling aways from my poor liddle soul!”
“Are you alright?” I yell to Will, but he has already begun to descend the stairwell back to where we are.
“Besides being covered in crap, yeah. How is he?” Crick moans, but is able to raise himself up.
“Sorry, just got a little tired there,” He says.
“We’re almost out of here. You’re going to make it,” Will says. He has no cuts on him, thank the Fox for that, but chunks of pink goop are stuck in his hair, some sliming their way down his skin. He looks at me, a small smile on his face despite it all. “Let’s get this guy,” He says.
I nod. “With pleasure.” Will leads the way, as we go up the final few stone stairs. We are in the jar room now, their contents glowing with a sickly light coming from somewhere up ahead. Another jar sails by, missing Crick’s head by inches. He knocks into the shelves as he moves to avoid being hit, sending several jars to the ground, where they break into jagged pieces. The smell is even worse than the last. Crick’s breathing is shallow and hard-won.
“Come on,” Will plows ahead. We round another row of jars. There is wisp of pants legs, the sound of boots on termite-eated wood. We can hear the man who had me call him husband and the whine in his breath, until the tin door creaks open, inviting in the night. There is a wind running scared out there, before the gray wave. A breeze sneaks like cat down the stairs, into the basement, pushing past my cheeks. The smell is burnt, electric.
“The Fade is here,” I say. “They say that if you smell the burnt fur, it is too late for you. There is no more time. We are to be wiped away.” Will still runs. He does not seem to hear me.
“Forgive me, sir, but I_”
“Yes, I heard you,” He says. We round another row of jars, and there is the door, wide open, with the stairs leading to it. Will runs faster than anyone I ever seen, even more fast than Lim Danaa, who the scholar calls “Angel Feet,” like the story. He goes up the wooden plank stairs two at a time, reaching the top just as the door comes down. He struggles with it, his shoulder fighting for that one bit of air.
“Help me Amara!” He cries. I run from Crick, rubber-legs girl, each step a hammer pounding on my calves, knees. Will has one foot on the steps, one on the flat dirt wall. “C’mon, lift!” I know it is useless, but I do as he commands. We can feel the heavy boots dancing on the door, it bending as the Digger jumps up and down. Will’s lower teeth stick out, his cheeks puff. “God, I don’t think I can hold him much longer.” He says.
“No... I will not stop this time...” A yama man once tell us that to die while fighting is the best way of all. Even when the Fade come, I be fighting, it is how I will go. The space between my shoulders grows hot as I push up, the door slowly rising.
“Ged backs down in da urd! Bad, bad sdories!” The Digger shouts from above. Will pushes harder at the wall, and I push up with as much strength as I have in me. Then I feel it kick on, the battery. The small machine the scholar put in me while I sleep, before yama man take me, before I crash here. It stores energy, he told me, for when you need it most. It comes from a faraway place from long ago. It kicks on, and I feel a new strength take hold. Still, the door only opens little, little.
I feel a touch on my foot, and out the corner of my eye, see Crick. His body is as dark as death, save for his hand, which has a sphere of big, big light cast around it. The light goes from fingers to my body, making me strong like old Amara. It is the last bit of strength I need. I push open the door, the weight on the other side falling away.
“Narcissus!” Will screams when
we come through. We both see him, running away from us, up the path. He keeps looking back, over our heads. I turn and see what has the Digger so afraid.
“By the Fox...” The Gray Wave has taken over the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon. The nothing, the Fade, drawn here by the telling of a great story. It wants to wipe it out once and for all. It is greater than everything in this world as it is in all others, with the power to be like it had never been.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Will whispers.
“Yes,” I say. It comes quick, but is still a way off. Maybe, just maybe... “Come on, we must get Crick. We might make it to the Oisin.”
“Oisin?”
“The escape ship. It is how I got here.” Will helps Crick up through the door, his skin as white as lily petals.
He grabs the wall of the shack, looks up at the Fade, says, “The Fade, huh?”
“Yeah. Come on, Amara is going to take us to her ship.”
“We must get to the other side, down the stairs.” I say. “Quick now.”
The sight of the Fade and the outside air has given Crick new life, though he is still slow moving. We top the ridge, keeping eyes sharp for Narcissus. He must have hidden, though there is no hiding from the Fade. If yama man and his great big, big city Vega Marduur was wiped all away, then little Narcissus man have no chance. The Scholar say yama man now live in a city that walks, It can run from the Fade, but not hide.
We top the ridge and head down the other side. There is a crack running straight through the air, splitting a rock in two, the top half slowly slipping along the cut. It makes me see funny, the stress fractures. I think of the nothing underneath everything, how it is all fading, dying, life’s vibrations thrown off ever since yama man try to harness the forever dance of the gods for themselves.
We stop at the stairs. Will points to the glass that Crick fell into, but I look beyond. I can see it, even from so far away. It looks like just another rounded boulder, half consumed by sand. But there’s a long trough which it lies at the end of. The point of impact, the makeshift landing strip.
“It is there! Do you see!” I look at Will, his hand over his brow, the wind whipping an orange cloud around us. Crick staggers down the loose rubble. Behind him, a row of white flowers on green stalks peek out over a rock. Narcissus lifts his head. From a distance, the black spaces in his teeth become his most discernible feature, twisted into a broken zippered smile.
“Watch! He’s behind you!” I say. Crick does not stop, just slowly looks over his shoulder, but it’s too late. The Digger is on top of him, the loose overalls like a net over Crick, entangling the limbs of its prey. In his hand is a glass jar. He brings it down on Crick’s shoulder with surprising force for a man so small. The jar breaks. Crick flops around underneath the legs straddled over his white belly, but the Digger brings his hand down again, an arc of blood spouting up from Crick’s body.
“Yous, Misder Sunny Man, will dies!”
Will runs towards them, but has to stop with the bang of light. A white sphere blooms out from Crick. It swells then quickly goes back into Crick’s chest, before blasting back out as a beam of light. His back arches up like a bridge, the light launching Narcissus high up into the sky. The overalls can be seen sailing through the air before landing with a crack behind a hill of dirt.
Will is laughing as he runs up to Crick. “You did it again! Nice... oh no, Crick, are you alright?” Will kneels next to Crick’s smoldering body. He tries taking the wounded man’s hand, but it is too hot to the touch. The light is gone, just as fast as it came. He is the color of a corpse.
“He’s bleeding.” Will pulls a hand away, shows me a palm painted red. Crick’s shoulder is more torn than his leg was. “I think he’s in shock,” He lightly slaps Crick’s cheek, tries yelling his name. The pale man’s eyes are rolled up and back into his head.
Crick mumbles something. “Will? Where are we?” He says. The Fade is rolling in quicker. The burst of light from Crick’s chest seems to have worked like a beacon. Now I can see the trees and scrub being sucked up into it. It can not be more than a mile away. “Will...”
“I know.” Will turns back to Crick. “Can you help me get you up? You have to use everything you got left in you, Crick.”
Crick snaps a little bit more awake. “I think so,” He says, as Will helps him to his feet. Now that he’s standing, his wound becomes more visible. The broken jar came down right on the bone. Though the wounds look painful, it could have been much worse, gone much deeper. I rip the lower part of my sleeve off, and hand it to Crick. “Come on then.” I say. “And try not to fall through the stairs.”
The stairs look even worse than I remember, as worn as bone in the desert sand. They continue to hold, though, as we descend them one at a time, around the cliff down to the desert floor. The wind slices past us, keeping us tight against the cliff face. On it, I hear a high pitched whine.
“Do you hear that?” Will says. The sound cuts into my thoughts, growing so loud that my knees grow weak. I look up as the black shape descends. Its body is oblong, like an insect’s, with strands of black ink snapping around it, like small arms trying to tread water for a huge body. It descends from the dust cloud as if being birthed by it, slowly revealing itself as it touches down to the ground.
“What is that?” Will’s voice is drowned out by the engines of the landing ink ship, Phyrxian. He has found me, the bad yama man, Doctor Pacheco. Scholar says he come from the walking city, Yama Dempuur. He picked me, of all other Ma’atha, to be his conduit. Old Cappy no like this yama man, so says Great Mum.
The ship comes close to the ground but never touches. A ramp opens, and Pacheco steps out. Phyrxian’s tentacles whip at the air. They suck in the sunlight like Ma’atha, making the ship strong. He made it through the Fade with no me to power it, though I do not know how. Pacheco is crafty, most ruthless yama man I think ever been. A scarred man, with one mad eye. They say he sacrificed the other a long time ago, dark magic, so he could get deeper in the spiral. Phyrxian has burned through more barkskins than are in Yama Dempuur, so they say. He wants to find Helios and put him in the big machine, like his son.
I watch as Pacheco runs off the ramp and into the desert. He has seen the Oisin. This changes everything, him leaving Phyrxian. I know what we have to do. If only there were more time. “Run for the ink ship.”
“That big black thing?” The wind ricochets off the cliff, comes up from below. I feel weightless, that each step is a light feather on the dust. From the far side comes a crumbling, the sound of the earth being swallowed by the Fade. The hairs on my neck and arms are standing up. As we touch down on the ground, a sound like a punctured balloon layers itself over the crumbling. I turn, knowing I will not like what I see.
“By the Fox...” The butte looks like an anthill next to the Fade, which looms over it. The grayness extends high into space, from one edge of the world to the other. Orange dust billows at its base. There is a loud snap, and a crack appears in the air between our heads like jagged lightening, running from the Fade in a zig zag line that extends forever.
I stay back with Crick as we run for the ink ship, watching Pacheco, making sure he does not see us. He hopes he will find me alive, hopes to pull me from Oisin’s wreckage and make me conduit again. He would drive me so hard, he would kill me, then go to Yama Dempuur for another Ma’atha. He thinks he finally understands the Grid, and maybe that is so. I know he wants to bring the light to Yama Dempuur, fix the mistakes of the ancestors. Silly girl, is that not a cause worth dying for? Are you so selfish?
I know that the other yama man call him the mad doctor, or so Great Mum says, and Old Cappy says he dabbles in dark magic. He will do anything, even if he is wrong. He moves with such purpose, and fast for a man his age. He is already at the impact trough, and will see the broken escape door any moment.
We are within a stone’s throw of the ship, Will waiting for us in Phyrxian’s shadow. “Follow me up the ramp,” I say, “but s
tay low.”
“Stay low?”
“Do you see that man over there?” I point to Pacheco, who has surmounted the Oisin’s hull, his cloak blowing behind him in the dust storm. He is looking inside for me. “If that man sees us stealing his ship, we will be worse off than if we got sucked up by the Fade.”
“We’re stealing this thing? Whoa, now hold on a minute...”
“Will...” I say, grabbing his hand. His eyes stay starry for a moment before settling into acceptance. He nods, then turns to help guide Crick. We all run up the ramp, into the bowels of the sentient ship.
Chapter V: “Barkskin”