“Drop and run! Left past the ledge. There are folks up there who can keep you safe.”
The Reaper pounced. Tentacles closed around her pod like fingers around a grape and plucked it.
“Oh no! Oh Christ,” I said, through spasms of disgust and fear.
The tentacles shuttled the pod back and stuffed it into its orifice. The creature sucked at the pod with a horrible, whistling wheeze. Sheila shrieked like a hurt puppy. With a dull pop, she and the pod disappeared deep down into the gullet. The sphincter slammed shut. The tentacles snaked forward and probed the air in my direction.
I cringed, certain I would be next. But the Reaper hung back, lurking in the shadows, its moves deliberate. Something was making it cautious.
A man in a bowler hat appeared atop the ledge below the split. He leaped down, bracing himself with his cane and reached up to help a woman with orange, frizzy hair bound up in ribbons. They hesitated at the bottom of the ledge. Bern looked at the Reaper and then looked at me, dumbfounded.
“Bloody hell! What are you doing up there? Get yourself down, boy. My Lord, don’t you see it?”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
“Nonsense.”
“Bern, he’s backslid,” said Lille. “He needs our help.”
“The boy’s a Weaver!” said Bern. “He has to learn to help himself.”
“This is not the time for a Weaving lesson!” She strode forward, her arms reaching towards my pod, fingers stretched. “Damn that Harvald to hell for leaving him behind.”
The roots enclosing me relaxed their grip. Some went limp. Others grew brittle and snapped. I yanked them apart and rammed my head through the gap.
“Careful, James! Here it comes!”
Nine yellowed claws on three stubby limbs dug into the tunnel wall and thrust the Reaper forward.
A skein of whiskers came whipping at Lille’s feet. She barely evaded them with a nimble leap. Bern whacked them impotently with his cane as they swept by.
“If we’re going to tango, I’ll need a better weapon than this,” he said, cupping his hand over the cane’s grip. He lifted his palm and the shaft lengthened and thickening into a staff. With a swipe of his thumb and forefinger, the end flattened into a blade, and just like that, he had himself a potent lance.
Lille ripped a root out of the wall and swirled her arms in a graceful curlicue as if playing air violin. Her root became a long bow nearly as tall as her. Another swipe of her hand and the brittle detritus at her feet became arrows. She strung one up, set it aflame with a glare, and sent it flying into the face of the oncoming Reaper.
“Get your tuckus down here, boy,” said Bern, advancing beneath my pod, jabbing at any tentacle that probed too close. “What are you waiting for?”
I swung upside down beneath the pod. “It’s got me by the ankle!” One pesky clump of fibers refused to let go.
“You’re a Weaver, boy!” said Bern, slapping at a swarm of whiskers that harried him like a nest of cobras. “Show them who’s boss.”
A burning grew in my chest. I roared with frustration. I wanted those pesky roots to turn to jelly. To my surprise, jelly they became, plopping me down on the floor of the tunnel in a sticky pile of goo.
Lille sent flaming arrows flying into the beast as quickly as she could string them. They accumulated in its hide until it looked like some hideous birthday cake.
“Get up! Get up!” said Bern, batting away another hurtling whisker.
When I tried to rise, I flopped back down. My muscles were useless.
“Crawl if you must,” said Lille. “Just get away. Don’t worry about us. You’re the one it wants.”
As I crept along the tunnel floor, Berne and Lille kept the creature at bay. The beast altered its shape, becoming blunter and stockier, filling the breadth of the tunnel. A hard, brown cuticle accreted on the tender pink tips of the tentacles. Its hide thickened and expelled Lille’s arrows.
I managed to stand and stumble towards the junction. Bern and Lille retreated up the tunnel with me. We backed away, cautiously. Bern steadied me with his free hand. The tunnel floor was still, but it felt like I was crossing the deck of a heaving boat.
I swooped down and plucked a root from the floor thinking I would make myself a battle axe. I envisioned the nastiest double-edged weapon I could imagine as I passed my hands over the root, but it remained pretty much a root. One end stiffened to create a handle, but the other end stayed limp, like a stubby whip.
The creature gathered its tentacles and groaned. Bumps like goose pimples projected from its hide and swelled into thick, horny plates that darkened and thickened into an exoskeleton. The whiskers swelled at their tips to form blades and bludgeons. It bellowed and lunged. My nostrils filled with its stench.
“Run!” said Lille, her arrows deflecting off the beast’s new armor.
As we reached the ledge, the tunnel wall ripped open just beyond the leftward junction. Karla burst out, wielding a long, slender sword. A wiry Asian fellow followed her, bearing a long pole, hooked and spiked at both ends. A blond woman with a thick ponytail brought up the rear. She wheeled a sling over her head and flung a stone that whistled between us and slapped into the body of the Reaper, exploding like a grenade, causing it to recoil back down the tunnel.
“Heh, heh!” said Bern. “Astrid’s always had a way with munitions.”
Karla and the Asian leaped off the ledge, sword and staff adding to our defenses. She looked askance at the partially modified root in my hand.
“Fighting Reapers with such a sad, little whip? Are you stupid?”
The beast surged forward, swinging bladed whiskers at our heads. “Duck!” Karla’s sword flashed high and severed the tips. The pieces slapped against the ledge and crawled away.
I looked at her, stunned. She had just saved me from a scalping, or worse—a beheading.
“Go! Run!” she said. “Why are you waiting?”
“My legs … don’t work right.”
“Oh, Madonna. Do we have to carry you?”
Another flight of bladed whiskers came winging in. Bern and the Asian batted them away, but a recoil nicked Bern in the leg. Slashes in his trousers exposed pale skin smeared with blood that seeped and glistened on the dark fabric. Lille knelt to attend to his wounds, even as he fought.
“For goodness sakes, Lille, can’t you wait until we’re out of here?”
“It is okay,” said Karla, stepping forward with her sword, brandishing it at the Reaper. “The monster, it is staying back. It knows we are strong.”
I staggered to the ledge. Bits of severed whisker, still alive, grew attentive as I approached and came creeping after me.
“What the hell?”
“No worries.” Lille came to my side, pointed at one and set it aflame. “They can’t hurt you. They’re just pests.” She stomped on another as if it were a roach.
Bern limped over to the ledge and grimaced as he attempted to climb. The blonde woman took his hand and helped him up. I went next, feeling clumsy, like my legs had fallen asleep and not completely woken up. Lille gave me a boost.
“It’s changing again,” said Bern.
“What now?” said Lille.
A long, disgusting snout-like thing evaginated from its gullet.
“What is that?” said the blonde woman.
“Oh dear Lord!” said Bern. “Something to fire projectiles with, maybe?”
“We need to go,” said Karla scrambling up the ledge and taking the lead in the retreat. “It is not going away. I think it has anger now. We must leave before it decides to be brave.”
We hurried into the lighted portion of the tunnel. Karla parted the seam with her sword. “Everybody out! Out of the tunnel!” she said, holding the seam open for us to pass. Bern went first—he was limping severely—followed by Lille.
The Reaper flung itself up against the ledge. A long thing like a lizard’s tongue spewed out from the center of the snout and came careening at our heads.
<
br /> “Watch out!”
I tackled Karla. The weighty end of the tongue smashed into the wall, sending bits of root flying everywhere. Barbs ripped into the tunnel as it retracted, ripping roots free.
The Asian guy hustled over and helped us back up.
Karla shoved me hard into the seam with her free hand, keeping her sword extended down tunnel at the lurching beast. “Go!” she said.
Chapter 21: Victoria
We clambered into the chamber and Karla slammed the hatch behind us. I had regained some mastery of my legs, but they still felt numb and quivery.
The Reaper bashed and bleated about the tunnel, sharing its frustration in a noisy but futile tantrum. It made no effort to follow us through the wall.
The sound and image of Sheila getting sucked down its gullet refused to fade. I couldn’t think straight with that vision haunting my brain. I wished I could have done something to help her.
“Never heard a beasty so angry,” said Bern, whose pants were tattered and bloody. ”It must have really wanted you.”
“I tell you, Bern,” said Lille. “This boy is special. Even the Reapers know it.”
“Funny, I don’t feel so special.” I said, collapsing onto Karla’s rug.
Astrid rapped her knuckles on the wall. “Are we safe here? Are we not better off in the ‘Burg?”
“I guarantee the Reaper cannot come into my house,” said Karla. She handed over the kilt and shirt I had worn my last time here, both neatly folded.
“No worries, Astrid. As I recall, Luther created this bubble,” said Bern. “Should be plenty sturdy to keep the buggers out.”
“Hah!” Karla stuck her hands on her hips. “You imply I cannot myself build a sturdy villa?”
“Not at all,” said Bern. “I’m just saying … you know Luther … everything is overkill. The things he builds … they’re like tanks. Inviolable.”
“This place is just a bare shell when I find it,” said Karla. “I make everything you see here.” She swept her hand across the interior of the dome. “And I help make it strong.”
Karla sent a glance my way and her gaze stuck. Creases formed in her brow. She sidled over and whispered. “What is wrong? Why so quiet?”
“This girl. Sheila.”
“Who?” She scrunched her eyes. “Your … girlfriend?”
“No. She was this girl … here in Root. She had the pod next to mine. That … thing … got her.”
Karla shrugged. “Happens. Too bad, so sad. It is a dirty business, this Reaping, but some souls, this is what they want, why they come here.”
“Yeah, but does it have to be so gruesome?”
“Someone likes it done this way, apparently,” said Bern. “Someone with a dark sense of humor.”
“Humor?” said Lille, attending to his wounds. “Maybe just a dark sense.”
“Someone like Luther,” said Karla.
“Pull down your trousers, Bern,” said Lille.
Bern raised an eyebrow and gave her a naughty smirk. “Here, my love?”
“Unless you want your slacks knitted to your flesh, I suggest you pull down your slacks.”
Bern looked at me. “Cheeky little thing, ain’t she?” He pulled down his pants, revealing the deep slash in his thigh. Clots had slowed the bleeding, but bloody trickles still ran down his leg.
“Little,” muttered Lille. “I’ll give you little. And don’t call me a thing, I’m your better half and you know it.” Her fingertips hovered over the wound, working in and out, meshing the edges of the wound together a millimeter at a time. Bits of dried blood flaked off and turned to lint before they hit the ground.
The intricacy and delicacy of Lille’s finger motions fascinated me. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. “It’s like … magic,” I said.
“Pish. No magic here. It’s more like mending clothes,” said Lille. “We are all string on this side of life.”
“Nice to know we’re so patchable,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” said Bern tugging at the blood-stained fabric heaped at his bony ankles. “When you’re done with my mole scratches can you have a go at the trousers?”
A single, nearly subsonic bell tolled, followed by more bells, a mad cacophony of them, in many pitches and tones.
“Ah! Not now!” said Lille, exasperated.
“What is it?” I said.
“Another general assembly,” said Karla. “Luther is calling us.”
“I ain’t going out there,” I said. “Not with that … thing … rampaging about.”
“It is not a problem,” said Karla. “We can go. The Reaper will not come so deep. It has fear of us.”
“For good reason,” said Bern. “It know I’ll give it a what fer with this.” He patted his cane, which was once more a cane.
“There,” said Lille, releasing the folds of Bern’s trousers. “Now pull up your pants. Let’s go see what this ruckus is about.”
“I bet it’s Luther aiming to scold us,” said Bern, frowning. “Leaving the playground without daddy’s permission.”
***
We pushed through the shaggy corridor connecting Karla’s chamber to the ‘Burg. Bits of root hung in sheets and shreds like Spanish moss.
“James, I think you meet Astrid, no?” said Karla, indicating the blond woman with the ponytail who nodded and smiled, her sling tucked over her shoulder like a purse.
“And this is Xiao Ke,” she said, dragging the Asian fellow over to me by his hand. The man averted his eyes, too nervous to even smile. “He does not speak English, or anything we understand. He is shy, but he is also very loyal and brave.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean it. Thanks a lot. All of you.”
“Not a problem, dear. But I still can’t believe that Harvald,” said Lille. “The way he mocked you.”
“That’s just who he is,” said Bern. “He’s the sort of chap that finds road kill amusing.”
“He is stronzo,” said Karla. “A goon! The kind of man who kicks the puppies.”
“Then again, if he hadn’t been such a mocking fool, we never would have known the boy was in trouble,” said Bern.
The corridor smoothed out into a paneled hall and we entered the sitting room looking over the square. We passed through a door, entering a little rose garden on the edge of the square. People were gathered at the center, a larger crowd than last time.
“Brace yourselves,” said Bern. “I’m sure Harvald’s spilled the beans about our intervention. We might be in for a public flogging, so to speak.”
Lille touched my arm. “Don’t be alarmed, but things could get a little strange, here. You know Luther and his theatrics.”
“But James is one of us now,” said Karla. “Why should we not help him?”
“Yes, but you know Luther,” said Bern. “Every tub on its own bottom.”
“That is why our community stay so small,” said Karla. “We are never allow to help anyone.”
“I fear James’ little feat the other day might have inspired some jealousy,” said Lille. “Not even Luther could weave such things when he first came here.”
“He’s got nothing to worry about,” I said. “I couldn’t even turn a root into a stick just now.”
“You backslid, child,” said Lille. “It’s not that unusual. Especially when one doesn’t have full command of this place.”
We took our time, strolling across the cobbles. None of us were in any hurry to face the wrath of Luther.
Karla touched my arm. I looked over to find her leaning close. I could feel her breath on my cheek. “You had a death wish. A strong one. No?”
I shrugged. “Don’t we all?”
“But this time, you were very serious.”
“But I was before, too.”
“But not like this. This time, you make your wish for death become too clear.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing,” said Bern. “But Karla’s absolutely right. It’s best to keep things murky. That??
?s something you’ll need to learn, if you intend to stick around this place.”
“You see,” said Lille. “When you make your intentions obvious, it tends to excite the Reapers.” She hissed through her teeth. “And you don’t want that.”
“Ambiguity is your friend,” said Bern. “Let death attract you, but don’t get too close. Be like a clever moth. Keep circling that candle.”
“I’ll … keep that in mind,” I said.
“How you feel now?” said Karla. “Are you strong?”
“Stronger, anyhow,” I said.
“I will teach you how to prevent this,” she said. “So this does not happen again.”
“Take her up on it, son,” said Bern. “We need you here with us, not in the belly of some mole cow.”
A small crowd was gathered at the center of the plaza. Some faces I remembered from the last time I had been here. Others were new.
The stone pillar and gargoyles that had dominated the middle of the platform were gone, replaced by a tall oak, probably woven from the same material that had comprised them. The tree seemed to sprout straight out of the stone.
Luther paced back and forth, wearing a jacket with red and gold epaulets that would have looked at home on Michael Jackson. He held a shepherd’s crook tucked over his shoulder. He had reverted to a human shape with almost sane proportions, though his physique was a mite too buff for good taste. His pecs and biceps threatened to burst the seams of his white dress shirt. A tiny bow tie looked lost against a stout neck bulging with supernumerary cords and sinews.
“Well, well, here come the ne’er-do-wells!” he said, wheeling to face us “Late, as usual. Out in the tunnels again I see, tampering with the offerings. No wonder the Reapers are restless.” His roving eyes homed in on me. “What happened? Wonder boy lose his touch?”
A man—a black man—the first I had seen in Luthersburg, sat at the base of the tree, his shirt torn to shreds, his hands chained together over his head and behind the bole. His ankles were tucked and secured in a pair of rough-hewn notches between two massive rail ties. Metal spikes pinned the assemblage together and into the faux stone of the central platform.
Harvald stood over him rolling a small baton-like club in his hands. The man’s face displayed no signs of distress. He sported bright, curious eyes and a faint smile. He had the bored air of a father doing his best to remain polite at a family picnic he would rather not attend—this despite the nasty lumps and welts on his head and back where Harvald had apparently struck him repeatedly.