CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Woman with the White Heart

Christian and I sat on the floor and leaned against the door to our bedroom. I blocked the sound of Orlen pounding his fists against the gold finish. I didn’t need to count the fist falls to know that Orlen was no longer alone. His wails had alerted other disoriented immortals, and every few minutes a new one would amble up, whip the bag off of their head, and join in the thumping and blubbering.

“I want to apologize for all this,” Christian said slowly, letting his words fall off his tongue like he’d never moved his tongue in that particular way before.

“Mmm-hmm,” I replied. “Wanna give up on getting your finger back? I could make a hole in another wall and we could leave the village that way. I’d seal it up so smoothly, no one would ever figure out how we left.”

Christian rolled his eyes. “I want my finger back. It’s too much of an identifier to have it gone.”

I closed my eyes and tried to do what Rhuk did when it used other matter to see things at great distances. Where was Brandon? What was he doing? I didn’t see him exactly. I had to listen to what the matter around him told me.

I whispered to Christian, “Brandon is on his way down here. He has your finger.”

“Marvelous,” Christian said, getting to his feet and beginning to pace.

Rhuk rubbed up against the side of my arm. I jumped because for a moment, I thought it was a cat.

“You don’t have to take me with you in this form,” it said. “Hauling around this humongous chunk of dolomite won’t make what you have to do any easier. Just keep the earring in and that will be enough for me.”

I realized at that moment that I was hearing two voices talk. One was the dolomite next to me and the other was the diamond in my ear. I petted its side like I was stroking the back of a cat and whispered my appreciation.

I turned to Christian. “Brandon is rounding up the immortals on the other side of the door. He has to take them away one at a time. I don’t think it’s a wise idea for you to try to help him, but do you mind if I go? After all, he can’t come in until we clear the door.”

Christian mumbled something like agreement.

I stood up and turned myself toward the door. Dipping into the realm of matter manipulation, I saw that there were twenty-four disoriented immortals on the other side.

“How long will it take Brandon to clear the hall at his current rate?” I wondered aloud.

“Hours,” Rhuk replied. “They’re not very compliant.”

“How’s he doing it?”

“He’s covering their heads with bags, then tying a rope around their necks and leading them to a room designed to hold them.”

Searching the room, I found a twisted rope from a curtain that had only been decorative and pilfered a pile of pillowcases. “I’m going to help him,” I said, opening a semi-circle hole over the door and leaping up to the sill.

Looking down, twenty-four deformed immortals were a lot more than it had seemed in my head when I was recognizing their matter. Not only that, but they were uglier than the extras in a zombie movie. Orlen had been one of the less deranged. No wonder they kept bags on their heads.

I caught sight of Brandon coming down the hall, rope in hand, looking very much the way he had looked when I saw him coming out of the woods with a shotgun.

He saw me. “What did you do? Couldn’t you read what it said on the bag, ‘Do not remove’?”

“So that’s what it said. No. I couldn’t read it.”

Brandon shrugged. “It’s the language of the immortals.”

“They have their own language?”

“Obviously. It’s a language that speaks to all people whether they’re speaking English or ancient Tittish. It’s the language of cells. You can never learn to heal another person if you don’t know it. I guess I hoped you’d learn it easily because of the shortcuts in your heart, but not yet, eh?”

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“Are you speaking it now?”

“No. It’s not a spoken language… exactly. What are you doing up there?”

“I was going to come down and help you.” Using my ankles as springs, I rocketed myself to the other side of the hall. Landing on my feet next to Brandon, I took the cord in my hands. “You don’t lasso them, do you?”

“Nah. Just get the bag over their head and the rope around their neck like a leash. Then you can cart them off, as long as they aren’t too determined. It should get easier as we thin the crowd.”

I watched him do one and then, following his lead, I caught one. Putting the bag over her head made the whole thing more doable. Having to look at a woman with her fingernails growing like scales on the sides of her face was jarring.

“This is what happens to people who try to move the poles?” I asked numbly, walking beside Brandon.

“No. This is what happens to immortals who think they can do what they can’t. Our numbers have dwindled so seriously that no one tries to move the poles anymore. Pricina says that the iron magma does not listen to commands the way other types of matter listen. She says it’s similar to giving the same orders to a dog and a blue whale. The two creatures understand very differently. Christian built the two chambers for controlling the poles, so people have tried in pairs on many occasions.”

“I thought the South Iron Room was hidden.”

“It is.”

“How did people try in pairs, then?”

“During the five hundred years where Christian was healthy and still holding the north pole in place, he encouraged immortals to try to control it with one in each room. He would secretly take the female part of the team to the South Iron Room. No one ever learned the way and no one was ever able to work with their partner well enough to correct the problem. Christian would bring them back and they had a tale to tell about the South Iron Room.”

“What kind of stories?” I asked, interested.

“They said there was a plaque over the door that read that it was for the woman with the white heart. Does that make any sense to you?” He chuckled darkly. “The Red Forest is red. Who has a white heart?”

I pondered that as we walked. Did Brandon not know that the Red Forest is not supposed to stay red? I told Pricina that. Didn’t she tell him? Did he and the other immortals live through one tiny thing, like a bullet through the brain, and think that they were home free? Did they think they were invulnerable, ready to control the cosmos and eat the whole of eternity just because they had managed to clear one hurdle?

The arrogance was unfathomable.

I eyed the ring of scar tissue around his throat and then involuntarily glanced at the sword in my chest.

The woman I was leading pulled on her leash like she wanted to return to the door and wail for the greater god, Damon Christianus.

“He’s not coming out,” I said soothingly. “After all, when was the last time he came through that door?”

Then she whimpered under her bag until we made it to the room designated for the deformed immortals. Peeking inside, it was a beautiful room, designed to look like a dragon’s horde, all sparkling with gems and treasure.

“And there’s nothing we can do to heal them?” I asked as Brandon settled them, giving each of them a golden goblet. There was nothing in the cups for them to drink. The gold itself seemed to soothe them like a baby being given a rattle.

Brandon led me out and locked the door behind him.

He sighed. “I wouldn’t like to say that anything is impossible. What I can say is that nothing is likely to change. There are immortals who are much closer to eternal gods out there in the universe. I have often wondered why they don’t help us if they can see us and know of our needs.”

“Do you think they’ll come here if the problem with the poles spins further out of control?” I wondered.

He frowned briefly. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of them. Christian is supposed to be the god of this world for now.”

“He says he’s not THE god.”

“What?”

“He says he’s not the author and finisher of this world. At least, that was what he told me inside my heart.”

“Oh… I hoped he was one of the greater gods Pricina worshiped when she was young. If he’s not one of them then this world is another god’s creation, and he’s here for another reason. Then Christian’s the one who was sent to save us from our problem with the poles. I’m afraid that means that no one is coming. Christian is the only one who can repair the planet.” Brandon looked down the hall toward Christian’s bedroom like nothing in the world made sense to him.

If what he said was true, his faith had cracked like an egg to reveal his fear.

“Give me Christian’s finger,” I said suddenly. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

He hesitated, knowing he was giving up his last bargaining chip.

I glared at him, and then sucked the air out of his lungs the way the Other Christian told me I could. He fell to his knees. He wasn’t even strong enough to suddenly deal with the lack of oxygen. I crouched down next to him and put out my hand.

He retrieved Christian’s finger from his pocket. It was wrapped in a white handkerchief.

I took it from him and let the air flood his lungs.

He sputtered and coughed. “How could you have opened a vacuum in my trachea? It was like having outer space in my throat,” he groaned, falling on his back and sucking in air.

“Do shut up,” I replied. “You got everything you wanted. Stretching this out any further is too selfish for me to endure. You’re lucky I didn’t do worse. Now get up and help me. You must know that Christian is itching to leave. I need to take him somewhere comfortable and unravel all of this.”

“You’re still going to help us?” he asked, forcing himself to his feet.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s hardly helping you. It’s just that helping you is a side effect of helping everyone.”