Interlude: After the beginning…

“What do you want to do today, Emily?” chirped Shadow.

Emily smiled at the pooka fondly. They had become inseparable, on the Inside anyway, over the past few weeks. He brought out a side of her she had thought lost forever in the trauma and torment of her long journey to the south, and she cherished every moment she could pry from her daily course in the cruel realities of survival. It was his innocence, she decided, his newness to being self aware that allowed her to step back from her premature worldly cynicism and capture one last glimmer of the girlhood she had left behind.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Should we ask the Archon if he has anything for us to try?”

Shadow shivered. “He scares me,” he said in his squeaky voice.

“Oh, he’s… well, not exactly harmless. Benign I guess?”

“He’s so big,” said Shadow. “So bright.”

It wasn’t the first time Shadow had expressed trepidation at meeting with the Archon. Emily had decided on that name, Archon, for the overseer of this place on the second day of her forced stay on the Inside, when she was still feeling more than a little angry about the ‘forced’ part. Her system had provided her with the term, cross-referencing the role of archons in Gnostic Christianity as sub-rulers of the false creation with a quote from Proclus of Athens which she found too perfect to resist.

For all the series of the archonic gods

are collected into the intellectual fabrication as into a summit,

and subsist about it. And as all the fountains are the progeny of the intelligible father,

and are filled from him with intelligible union, thus likewise,

all the orders of the principles or rulers,

are suspended according to nature from the demiurgus,

and participate from thence of an intellectual life.

Since then, she had come to think better of the intelligence that had been burdened with running the Inside, but the name had stuck. She figured Shadow was intimidated by a figure who, to him, was for all intents and purposes a god.

“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” she reassured him. “Just like when I saved you from those disgusting undead bat-things.”

Shadow turned his soulful eyes up to Emily. “Promise?” he said.

“We’ll make a pact on it,” she replied.

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Chapter 25: Percipient

“Can’t we go faster?”

Nykka briefly turned to glare at Attaboy, diverting her attention from her search for muzzle flares in the dark distance behind them. There wasn’t much she could do in the second or so between the flash and the arrival of the bullet, mostly just juke the rear of the hovercar enough so that if they were aiming at something vital, it might miss by a few inches. It was probably completely useless anyway, as the patrols were equipped with underpowered and not terribly accurate rifles, and she judged she was about as likely to move something into the path of a bullet as escape it. Still, it gave her something to do, and enough of an illusion of control that she kept doing it anyway.

“If we go any faster, we’ll run out of juice. Just be thankful they don’t dare to close with us.”

“More like they’re still waiting for the big guns to arrive,” Mo chimed in. This caused Maria to start crying again, at which point Mo covered his mouth with one hand and resumed rubbing her back in an effort to comfort her. “Sorry,” he said through his green fingers.

“It’s a good point though,” said Attaboy. “Is Sinaloa really that slow to respond to something like this?”

Nykka shook her head. “It’s full of the usual inefficiencies of a top-down, authority driven organization, but trust me, when I say heads are going to roll because we haven’t been apprehended, I mean it quite literally. I have no explanation for why the attack craft haven’t reached us.”

“Well, it seems they aren’t trying to kill us. Maybe they’re waiting in ambush so they can bring overwhelming force, make us surrender.”

Nykka pursed her lips. “I doubt it. For one, they don’t know where we’re headed. More likely it’s fog of war, or some internal conflict slowing them down. I have a very privileged status, and a confusing one. Unless they have direct orders from Doctor Quimea, they may be floundering around, trying to figure out what they can do without offending him. Or me for that matter.”

“Tell that to the assho- sorry, Maria… ‘gentlemen’ back there shooting at us,” Mo inserted.

“They shut off all their communications when I started messing with them,” Nykka replied. “They’re probably hoping a lucky shot will disable us. What’s the word from Lilijoy?” she asked Attaboy.

“They’re about thirty minutes from the rendezvous point. They’re going to dig in so they can lend a hand if we still have a tail by then.”

Nykka slewed the hovercar, and a bullet glanced off the canopy, just as the distant percussion of the shot arrived.

“Well, let them know,” she said, “that there’s another possible explanation for why we haven’t been captured yet. They may be waiting to see who’s waiting for us.”

***

The memory continued to unfurl as Lilijoy regrouped, pulling her thoughts back from imagined revelations to the second-hand reality in front of her eyes. Emily plucked the flower, her hands sure and confident, their skin young.

“It’s a shame the flowers have been giving a soliloquy for the past century,” she said. “Their conversation partners are long gone. Now the conversation only exists across time, much like ours, my dear. Only momentum remains, the residue of past motivation.” She paused, studying the bloom, her eyes tracing the concentric circles of ultraviolet color. “It’s why the bees are there, in the Trial, you know. Very few Outsiders can pass their test. I wonder how you did?”

Kind of stream of consciousness there, Emily.

Emily chuckled. “Probably better than I would have,” she continued. “By now, you’ve probably figured out that Guardian has decided it has a use for humans, beyond simple preservation. And not just humanity in general, though that is certainly its own topic. No, Guardian likes those of us who are the most compatible. I used to think it was only Tao System users, but it seems that others will do, in a pinch. The Insiders call it the Great Cycle. Every thirty years or so, Guardian… well, I guess the best term for it is 'reboots'. The subsets refer to it as ‘the great unity’ or words along those lines.”

While most of what Emily was relating was not new, the part about not needing to possess the Tao System was. I wonder which Child of the Great Mind had it and which didn’t? Lilijoy thought.

She quickly ran through the four that she knew of. Emily’s son must have had it. Also the next one, Atticusp. That name can’t be a coincidence. If only I could ask her! Then came Echelon and Sarah. I’d put Echelon in the ‘maybe’ category, and Sarah in the ‘entirely unknown’ category. It’s weird that the most recent one left so few tracks. I wonder what her journey was like?

Emily’s voice turned bitter. “The ‘chosen one’ that Guardian picks seems to vanish off the face of the earth. I spent much of the past century trying to figure out what happened to them, where they went, how they went, why, and so forth. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt and the bridges I’ve burned. But the very first to disappear was my child, my son, and I will do anything to get him back. Anything.” She sighed, and Lilijoy could feel vicariously the shaking in her voice. It was a sound not of release, but of self control, of repressed rage and despair.

“So that’s where you come in, Lilijoy. I hope that you can help me find the answers. I made a choice, many years ago, to separate myself from the world, from the Inside, from everything Guardian touches.” Her gaze fixed on the distant wall of the dome-shaped chamber. The uneven material looked almost like dirty ice. “Of course, that’s not entirely possible, but I did my best, with a little help from those similarly inclined. Shadow is the only part of Guardian I still communicate with, and even that communication is sporadic, at best. He has learned to… partition himself, or so I believe.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Lilijoy felt Emily shake her head. “So I need to believe, anyway. If you go to him, he can help you in both worlds. Please, Lilijoy, help me find my son.”

Her gaze returned to the flower in her hand, and the memory ended.

Lilijoy sat down on the damp, peaty earth and took a deep breath. In the background, she could still hear Skria and Jess discussing how to get back to the Academy.

She replayed the memory again, trying to sort through her feelings. I’m a tool, she thought. A tool who finally knows why it was made. I’m bait for Guardian. Some part of her wanted to rebel, to do the opposite of what Emily requested, but the simple fact was that their interests aligned too well. She needed to understand the same things Emily did, for her and Attaboy’s sake.

And how does Attaboy fit in all this? Was Emily responsible for him too? Or was she piggybacking on someone else’s scheme? Questions always breed, they really do. At least I understand the basic outline now, the major players and some of their motives.

She ran through it in her head some more. Henry Choi, the Sage, was too broken, she thought, for her to truly understand his thinking, but she felt reasonably confident he wanted the tribe, his damaged friends and colleagues, protected and ultimately healed, if that was possible. She thought that might be why Attaboy had been sent north, to learn or bring back something from the facilities in Taos. Why Henry himself couldn’t, or wouldn’t do it was still a mystery.

Now she understood that Emily had somehow been able to influence the tribe as well. Was she allied with Henry? Given Henry’s fragmented mind, Lilijoy wasn’t sure such a thing was possible. Perhaps Emily was able to use Gabrielle’s shell, somehow. Lilijoy found the notion of Emily possessing her mother’s body disturbing, but she couldn’t rule it out. Or perhaps there was enough of Gabrielle left that Emily merely had to nudge her to alertness, steer the momentum of what remained.

If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you can’t do that, arrange for yourself to be cloned, have your memories implanted, and then do it, I guess.

Lilijoy tried not to think too much of her genetic origins. She figured she probably wasn’t a literal clone of Emily, though she couldn’t rule it out. She didn’t think it would be overly difficult for the Tao System, especially the updated version Attaboy possessed, to fiddle with the genetic material within an ovum, but she found it hard to imagine that any of Emily’s genes just happened to be lying around, somehow viable after more than a century of irradiation.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re all one big, happy family, either way.

A Norman Rockwell scene of her with Attaboy, Emily, Henry and Gabrielle sitting around a table for Thanksgiving dinner popped into her head, and she couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity.

Maybe I should add in Emily’s son, just to be complete. That would be nice for her. I wonder who the father was?

Lilijoy had strong doubts that Emily’s wish to be reunited with her child would ever be fulfilled. Rosemallow’s first take on the subject, that Guardian somehow ate its children, was a hard idea to shed. I guess that didn’t stop the Greek gods though. Would that put me in Zeus’ role, trying to get Guardian to barf up Atticus II?

She could only shake her head at it all. It was certain that Emily knew far more about, well, everything than she did. Maybe she had reason to hope.

***

Instanced travel was certainly the best way for the three girls to get back to the Academy. The only problem was that none of them had the necessary geographical awareness to begin the process from this part of the continent. Lilijoy calculated that they were perhaps a couple hundred miles north of Averdale and she figured that once they were within fifty miles or so of the former elven homeland they might be able to start the instanced portion of their journey. Until then, they would need to travel the old fashioned way.

From what she could remember of the most up-to-date maps she had seen, the Southfall River should be a fairly direct route. The only problem was that the river would take them through the Boiling Plains, the center of what was left of orc civilization in the Garden. Orcs were not necessarily hostile, but having Jessila along would all but guarantee conflict should they meet any. Her Reputation had improved from Hated with humans and elves, but it was still way down there with the orcs. Evidently, that had been the primary source of the argument Lilijoy had kept hearing in the background as she reviewed the memory file.

Surprisingly enough, Skria thought they should follow the river, while Jess had argued to go much farther out of their way, bypassing the Boiling Plains altogether. Lilijoy would have expected Skria to avoid conflict and Jess to, well, not seek it, exactly. More like stubbornly refuse to be deterred. She suspected each was arguing a course that would benefit the other.

Lilijoy thought she had the tie-breaking argument.

“Last time I talked with Anda...” here she had to wait for a second, because the conversation with Anda was happening at that exact moment, “...he said he was nearly at the Boiling Plains. He has some orc-related thing to take care of. Oh, and Mr. Sennit is with him!”

***

“...yeah, we’re taking it easy, but not too easy. The old guy’s already leveled three more times. Instanced travel is terrific for training,” Anda was saying, “because you can choose your difficulty level. We’ve been traveling in shorter bursts, some fast for challenge, some slow for recovery. I just wish I had thought of that when I was training the whole crew.”

“Well, nothing’s stopping you from going back to help them some more after, is it?” said Lilijoy.

Anda hesitated. “About that,” he started. “After I finish up in the Boiling Plains, I was kind of thinking about starting the crossing.”

“To Purgatory,” Lilijoy confirmed, her voice betraying her lack of enthusiasm. “Anda, do you have to?”

“No,” he replied. “And yes. This business with the Fogeys being bullied by the clans just reminded me of how frustrating the Garden can be. Most of my Inside friends and my connections are in Purgatory, and I’m just… anxious to get back to where I can make a difference.”

Lilijoy let it drop there. She knew Anda wouldn’t be able to say much more anyway. They had found a narrow canyon cutting through the hilly terrain, which Anda felt would serve as a decent ambush point. Were they to proceed much farther in the direction of Attaboy and company, the opportunities for good placements overlooking and controlling the movement of their adversaries would quickly fall off into gentler terrain.

They spent the next several hours preparing, heeding Attaboy’s last communication that their ambush could be turned against them. Lilijoy wasn’t that worried though. For one, she thought the odds of that were low. Sinaloa had no way of knowing that Nykka was meeting with anyone, so why would they bother following her?

She mulled this further as she helped Anda conceal the hovercar. On the Inside, she was involved in a new argument; whether to build a raft or go by foot. Since they were still in the swampy plateau that housed the headwaters of the river, it was a mostly theoretical question, though Lilijoy imagined that Jessila’s position was influenced by the nasty muck she was wading through as the others rode on her shoulders. She was fine either way; they had rope, and Jess had the Construction skill, so they could probably throw together something serviceable if they found some trees.

She slapped both her foreheads when she realized she could probably find an actual boat in the Trial Space. Well, we’ll deal with that when we need to, she thought. Thinking of her Trial Space reminded her that she hadn’t checked on Lowly in some time.

I hope he’s okay, she thought as she moved her remote view to the long term storage cavern where she had left him sleeping. Sure enough, he was still curled up, lying on the rough stone. When she connected the thread to her ear, she could hear his faint breathing.

At least he’s still alive, but what am I going to do with him? she wondered. She hadn’t necessarily meant to kidnap him from the labyrinth, but she also hadn’t meant not to do so. His accidental-on-purpose abduction now accomplished, Lilijoy was having a few second thoughts about the practicality of the whole endeavor. Lowly had never been anywhere, seen anything other than stone and bone. She was afraid his mind might break if she brought him out of her Trial Space, never mind the impracticality of trying to travel with him.

Well, there’s nothing to do about it now. I can always send him more food. At least the cavern in there is pretty close to what he’s known for his entire existence. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

***

Lost Petrified Lowly Taster swept his ear sense around the utterly alien world. Over the past hours, he had begun to accept the possibility that his mind was not fundamentally broken, that the world around him was as melted and distorted as it seemed to be. He had begun to think that the walls of the world in this place might be something like Old One’s skins, or even blood-bright, but frozen into place, hard wall-bones with soft shapes.

And then there were the… things. Existences he had no easy categories for, that fell upon the cracks in his ear sense. They had yet to move, but Lowly was taking no chances in this foreign dimension. Some rested upon the floor, angular and smooth, their ear-colors nameless. Others seemed almost familiar, coiled lengths that reminded him of the tools of the food catchers and harvesters of blood-bright.

He was most nervous about the torso-sized entities that turned within themselves, their substance partly translucent to his ears. Such coiling spoke to him of motion ready to be unleashed. He was willing to wait out their predatory patience, for Lowly understood the value of stillness when it came to avoiding pain. Thankfully, he had broken the floor-water Rule just before Strange had twisted his world, so he had time before his body betrayed him to lurking danger.

Some distance away, clear-blood dripped from the melting ceiling, sending a wave of ear-color across the space, and Lowly kept himself from wincing as a dizzying cascade of impossibilities assaulted him. He did his best to tune it out, focusing instead on the miraculous sensation that Taster was experiencing from Strange’s bestowal.

Then he felt it. A new sensation that made the back of his neck tingle, that reminded him of times he had been othered by Tribe. Or worse, the times he passed by Horrible to make his offering. He was being watched, an active presence was with him, around him.

Lowly exerted every ounce of his strength, forcefully slowing his heart and stilling his breath to a minimum. The observing presence lingered for a moment, then receded, and he allowed himself to take a deeper breath. The presence had reminded him of something, a feeling he had recently encountered when Strange had sat with him after Wicked had been redeemed, a terrifying, confusing feeling that reminded him of blood-bright’s awakening and the nameless taste of the food entity he had pressed against his lips. He shivered, unsure what to do with the insight, longing for Rules that applied to this nightmare.

But there were no Rules here.

There are no Rules here, he realized.

A sensation, a concept unlike any he had experienced swept through him, but before he could grasp it, it fled, melted away like spent bright-blood. Its passing left a void though, a sensation that he was missing something, something vital, as if his remaining teeth had fallen away.

Empty Lost Petrified Lowly Taster knew then, that his time in this alien world could not continue as it had.

He opened his eyes. It was time to move.