Chapter Nine

Erobo’s Request

Agloff’s leg jerked as he woke. Ropes fastened his arms behind his back and his eyes adjusted to the gloom of smoulder and blackened forest.

A hand pressed against his shoulder. Agloff thought better than to struggle.

‘Afternoon, friend,’ Kira Stone growled by his side. She was in her leathery garb like always, with that long, flat ponytail. Agloff looked past her to see a cart bobble over terrain, and three more faces sheepishly staring at him from the back: Merry, Lady and Memphis.

‘Where is Ariea?’ Agloff asked loudly. Kira and the others exchanged looks. ‘You got her, right? She was right there.’ Agloff straightened his back, rolled his bound shoulders. ‘Well!’ he yelled.

‘Riddis told us not to say anything,’ Merry murmured.

‘They never found her,’ said Memphis. Merry shot him a look. ‘What, we don’t know that she’s gone.’

‘Get me out of this thing!’ Agloff said.

Kira shushed him. ‘I’m here to make sure they don’t.’ She looked at the others. ‘President’s orders. Look, if there’s something that could be done, believe me we’d be doing it. Your best hope is she gets out the rubble and follows her nose to Eden.’

‘Eden?’

Kira sat back. ‘S’where we’re going. Not like Riddis has a choice. Or any of us for that matter. It’s as good a fortress as anywhere, and people need a home.’ She pointed down the line.

Behind the carriage, a train of refugees snaked far as the eye could see. They held hands and blankets and pillows and travelling bags of food. The air carried whimpers and grim chatter.

‘Poll’s summons is Wishbone’s only hope,’ Kira added.

‘An alliance,’ said Memphis.

Agloff’s body shook. ‘What hope do any of you have against them? They’re the end of humanity.’

‘This is our home,’ Merry whispered. ‘It would sadden me not to try and keep it. No one wants to fight them, Agloff. We just need a place that’s our own.’

‘And Ariea?’

Kira leant over her knee as the cart bounced. ‘If she survived the blast, she’s smart enough to stay alive, alone, or captured.’

‘If she survived.’

‘You did,’ Kira said.

Agloff looked at them hopelessly. ‘But we’ve done this before! We went to Eden. We won.’

Kira shook her head. ‘Winter were undermanned for one and wanted you there for another. You don’t win this one, I’m sorry. You should quickly adjust to that reality.’

Agloff bit down and his jaw ground against his teeth in unseen rage. His brow furrowed helplessly. What could he do? What was worth doing? The creeping helplessness, the powerlessness was worst. He didn’t feel grief. He refused. It was angrier, at all the people who didn’t seem to care she was gone, Merry and Memphis included.

Or maybe this was grief?

He refused to submit to their defeatism. Agloff knew he would see Ariea Finland again, and he decided then he would hold onto that knowledge. He would wield it like a weapon against the world. Because she was stronger than they could imagine.

‘Can you untie me now?’ Agloff said to Kira.

‘Depends how likely you are to hop the cart and run away.’

‘I know my situation. I wouldn’t exactly get far.’

‘Smart lad.’ Kira reached behind Agloff and tugged at the ropes binding him, and his arms jerked loose. She shuffled back, with hawk eyes fixed on Agloff.

‘How many got out of Wishbone?’ Merry said then. She looked up from the wagon down the line through ashen forest.

Kira dipped her head. ‘Most. They’re stretching back a mile. Some scattered other ways.’

‘And the humans?’

‘Headed south, along the shore as we were leaving. Didn’t seem all that interested in us, for now.’

‘They need another name than humans,’ said Agloff. They were both less and more than the title of human. Something else entirely.

‘They’re the Others,’ said Lady quietly. ‘Like us, but not us. That’s what you mean, right?’

Agloff nodded. Lady then smiled and held a small fist to Agloff. She unclenched it and a necklace of beads of aqua and turquoise dangled down.

‘I made it for fun but think yous need it more.’

Agloff stared at it for a minute, and a feeling swelled in his chest. He wanted to cry, long and hard like a baby. He swallowed three times until the feeling went.

‘Can I put it on you?’ Lady added.

Agloff nodded.

She clambered to the front of the wagon and drew it round his neck.

‘I love it,’ Agloff said distantly. He rolled the beads through his fingers then fastened it round his neck. Lady smiled and awkwardly hugged him as the wagon bobbled over terrain.

‘I know you would,’ she said.

Then the convoy came to a halt. One of the city guard rode down the line and called for calm. He jabbed a silver-tipped spear at the air. Kira held an arm out.

‘S’happening?’

‘Nearly evening, Miss,’ the guard said. He gestured with his spear to an opening beyond the ashen trees. ‘There’s a wide cave system up ahead, below the Erwood, fresh water.’ He then noticed Agloff. ‘President wants a word with that one.’

‘Another one,’ Agloff said bitterly.

‘I’m sorry, Sir?’

‘I am very excited to reach Eden so your President can damn well let me be.’

‘Right, Sir.’ The guard’s brow furrowed in untold confusion. ‘I only pass on what I’m told. She’s your president too, Sir.’

‘Aye, not for much longer if I get my way.’

Merry and Memphis shot looks at him. He could see them wonder if this was a harmless comment, or a hint of greater plans for when they reached Eden, to usurp Riddis. Truth was, Agloff didn’t know either. He was too angry for his words to mean anything. But he knew he had enough of Riddis’ leash.

‘What does she need to see Agloff for?’ said Merry.

‘You think they’d tell me?’ the guard complained. ‘If you would come with me, Sir.’ He held a hand up to Agloff.

Agloff looked back and forth. Merry nodded with that reassuring look. ‘Go on.’ She nodded.

‘I know we’ll find her,’ Lady added furtively.

Agloff knew he could do with some of that childhood ignorance right now. He hurdled the side of the cart and his boots crunched over scorched earth.

‘Lead the way,’ he said of the guard, who headed up the line at a canter.

Agloff felt a moment of dizziness then. It passed quickly, like someone was pouring sand in his head to stop it falling off his shoulders. His vision blurred a moment, as though he was walking through a heat haze.

‘You alright, Sir?’

‘Funny feeling.’

‘That’ll be the Erwood. Has its way with everyone.’

‘Believe me, I know,’ Agloff grunted. He thought the undead forest might have stifled Erobo. But his influence reached out as it always did.

Ahead, the convoy was turning towards a ravine. The land rose sharply on both sides and a wide opening was visible to the left. Grey light cascaded down from the canopy. Surprisingly, two men were already stationed at the cave’s opening.

Agloff watched the front of the party dismount, and Riddis, in flowing robes, approached. Surprisingly, no one followed her. Instead, they rest moved down the ravine. They dismounted and unpacked, bedding their bags in upturned rocks and jagged shadows.

Riddis turned from the opening, caught Agloff’s eyes and raised a hand to him. The guard gave him a shove forwards and Agloff obeyed. He steeled himself. He knew he had nothing to say to her. He watched the other survivors of Wishbone as he walked instead. They lay blankets to sit on and opened baskets of food to sate themselves on.

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What sane thing could they possibly talk about?

‘Agloff,’ Riddis called regally.

Agloff said nothing.

‘I hope you understand.’ She watched him.

Agloff said nothing.

‘I am very glad you are safe. I mean that.’

Agloff said nothing.

‘If there is anything I could do for you, I…’

Agloff said nothing and Riddis at last understood.

‘Keeper Omnwald,’ she said to one of the guards stationed there. ‘Permit us.’

They wore metal helmets with slits cut for eyes, and brass breastplates, and silver-tipped spears like the city guard. Agloff saw the land they stood on was well worn. Wishbone had guarded this place for a long time.

The man called Omnwald said nothing and turned to the side. Riddis took this as an invitation to entry. She led Agloff down uneven steps, into darkness, dimly lit by torches on either side. Their steps were punctuated by the plop of water droplets down the cave.

‘What is this place?’ Agloff said at last. His voice boomed.

‘The Underwood.’ Riddis pointed to tubular structures that ran above them. Supports as wide as Agloff seemed to flow across the ceiling, bleeding into the walls. ‘This is Erobo’s root system. We are within his essence.’

‘You built this?’

‘No. It has been here a long time. As long, almost, as you,’ she said knowingly.

‘Why?’

‘To pay respect. To commune. To worship. To dream. To understand those dreams. To understand something. Any and every reason you can imagine.’

‘I wouldn’t choose to speak to Erobo if I could.’

‘That is the frontier of reason, Agloff, to understand what is not yet understood. Erobo exists before us as he will after us. I am custode of this place only for the cosmic blink of my presidency. We use him for only the crudest, most mundane of needs. What are we, next to him, but blinking motes of time in timelessness? Such petty things, as petty as our tribal wars and banners. But this place is our gateway to something greater.’

‘You talk well,’ Agloff said. ‘But you talk so coldly.’

‘You mistake me. The awesomeness of the infinite is not a reason to dismiss all else. On the contrary, Agloff, I treasure human life above all. Its passing demands its saving. You can doubt that. I wouldn’t blame you. My heart breaks for you. You deserve normality. As does Ariea.’

‘You think she’s alive?’

‘Ariea inspires me. I would be a poor leader if I didn’t believe in people. Least of all, her.’

Riddis smiled timidly. She seemed to shrink into her robes. Agloff supposed this was a moment to say he forgave her, but he didn’t, and he wouldn’t.

‘How come Erobo wasn’t destroyed by the fire?’ he asked instead.

Riddis shrugged as the tunnel flattened. ‘You think I could answer that? You feel him here? This is his refuge. Close your eyes, feel every sense, the outstretched tip of his mind.’

Agloff did as she said. A warm tingling spread through him. He heard a knocking almost, distant and echoey, in his mind. Someone calling, or walking, toward him. It pulled him closer.

‘Let him in,’ Riddis said. ‘Does he scare you?’

Agloff walked forwards, slowly. ‘What do I have,’ he said, ‘to be scared of now.’

He reached a hand to the roots that scaled the walls. They funnelled into a wide chamber, lit by blazing torches. A web of roots knotted themselves into fantastic patterns, like a forest unto itself. It was A man, adorned in a pauper’s robe knelt on the stone before them.

Agloff looked at Riddis.

‘This is the Oelgar of the Underwood,’ she said. ‘A scholar, and a servant. They keep Erobo’s company in his solitude. Mentis,’ she called.

The robed man stood and addressed them. ‘President, Agloff.’ He nodded at them. ‘I tend to his needs, on the occasions they arise. I am little company,’ he corrected.

‘Do you know me?’ Agloff said.

Mentis gestured a sleeve at the roots. ‘He does, and he saw your coming. You seek his counsel? Or his sanctuary?’

‘Both,’ replied Riddis. ‘We have hundreds, thousands, above ground in need of shelter, and fresh water.’ Riddis pointed into the cavern and Agloff then noticed the shimmer of the torches in a reservoir that fed the roots. The pool led as far as the eye could see back into the cave, barriered from them by a high wall.

‘He knows,’ Mentis said. ‘He understands their fear, and loss.’ He turned to Agloff. ‘And yours. There’s a rage in your mind. Hate. For all.’

‘Is she alive?’ Agloff thought intently. His mind reached out to that distant knocking.

‘Impossible to say,’ said Mentis in reply, as though Erobo spoke through him. ‘He feels not her presence, but nor has he felt her loss. She is… far away. But his reach his tenuous beyond the Erwood, as you know.

‘We’ve come to speak to him about these invaders, these warmongers, and the path forward,’ said Riddis, and Agloff could sense impatience.

‘Yes. You wish to commune with him directly?’

‘I, we, do.’

Mentis bowed. ‘I shall endear you to peace.’ He pointed to the knot of roots above the pool and took to the stairs behind them.

Strange, thought Agloff, but then one would be if they had another voice living inside their heads. He looked at the roots. Their stillness was like an unblinking stare, through him. He could almost imagine a creature caged inside. Erobo had told Agloff he had been a man once. Agloff wondered if this was where he died.

‘You did well,’ boomed Erobo in Agloff’s head. That non-descript, distant voice. ‘Eden, Eron, Thawn. Your story drew its close.’

‘I found what I needed there,’ Agloff said, careful not to speak freely in front of Riddis.

‘You continually impress me.’

Agloff supposed that was high praise.

‘But the matter at hand,’ Erobo continued. ‘President.’

‘Great Err,’ she said. Kira told Agloff once this referred to the tree but could be used interchangeably as a title for Erobo himself, as a symbol of respect. ‘I- we- seek your counsel.’

‘Today’s toll is heavy. My home has been destroyed too. Whatever you ask, I’ll endeavour to answer.’

‘The invaders, they are humans?’

‘Yes. But don’t mistake their familiarity in form for that of ideals. They are as alien as they come, from the minds I have glimpsed.’

‘Is their purpose here evil?’

Erobo almost laughed. ‘They are no eviller than you. They are different, but that does not mean they are without morals. I glimpsed the minds of only a few, and at great distance at that, but their purpose is… confused.’

‘How so?’ cut in Agloff.

‘This is more than an occupation. They are here for something… more.’

‘What have they come for?’

‘Me.’

Riddis and Agloff looked at each other, confusedly.

‘You cannot believe you would be the only ones fascinated by my nature. Humanity is on the brink of war. I saw their fears. They would turn to any hope, no matter how desperate. Wouldn’t you?’

‘What can you offer them?’ Agloff said.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ replied the voice.

‘How did they come to know of you?’ added Riddis. Agloff could see her crave knowledge, her eyes wide in fearful wonder.

There was a pause in Agloff’s brain. He felt Erobo’s thoughts shift.

‘I’m of a race called nairons. Telepathic creatures, but we looked like yourselves. For centuries, we warred against our sister race, Asachi. It reduced our world to ruin, mud and blood and rain. A handful survived on both sides. It had lasted so long, it could never end. One side had to reach oblivion. I was tasked with prolonging our survival. The other nairons died, I suppose you could call it.’

Agloff tilted his head. ‘They became like you are now.’

‘Yes. Mere essence, consigned to dreaming in a sterilised cell.’

‘Until you delivered them to safety?’

‘You are sharp, Agloff.’

‘Here?’

‘Not quite. Hundreds, thousands of my kind were held in that cell. They had called it a new dawn, on a new world, somewhere they presumed the Asachi could never find us. I was unimportant, but a very competent pilot, and with so few remaining I had the task of delivering us.’

‘If not Colony Two, where were you meant to go?’ asked Riddis.

‘We had marked out several worlds. This was one of them. But a taskforce of Asachi were equipped to pursue me. Damage to the craft was irreparable. I landed here, some way south.’

‘I saw you across the sky,’ Agloff whispered. The thought was still surreal. Through the screens of the Underground, he had seen it, and yet it was ancient history.

‘Then you know I was in trouble. I survived for a short while, several months, before resting here. Local fishermen tended to my illnesses, but it wasn’t enough. I died that summer, in the shade of the tree you call Great Err.’

‘How?’

‘I was old anyway, and my body wasn’t accustomed to your diseases. Each took its toll.’

Riddis cleared her throat. ‘What about the cell? The dawn, you called it?’

‘Hidden along the way. You see, I knew all too well the damage my kind could wreak, as you do now. And I saw this world, and its people for a brief moment. I thought, for all my wrongdoing, I could be brave… and choose something new.’

‘What did your people want instead?’

‘To be released onto life, to devour people, as hosts, as bodies. They still do. The cell is unmoved from where I buried it eight hundred years ago. They are suspended in a dream. Waiting for an awakening that will never come. I presume it of interest to your humanity. A colony of living minds. But as to your original question, how did the Confederacy become aware of my being here? I have only one guess.’

‘Which is?’ probed Riddis.

‘They found the Asachi. You should be careful friends. This true purpose of your invaders is hidden from most of them, all but a handful I sense. They are not the first outsiders to visit this place in recent times. One came looking for me not so long ago, a man called Knuckleton.’

‘Should that mean anything?’

‘It shouldn’t do, not now, but it may yet. A darker game is afoot in this plot, a design beyond even humankind, or Colony Two. You would do well not to intervene in humanity’s occupation, or you may find yourselves in the crossfire.’

‘Do you threaten us?’ Riddis scowled defiantly,

‘I make no threats. I am telling you events are already in motion.’

Agloff felt something, and he pushed on the hinges of Erobo’s mind. He felt a misdirection. Perhaps even a lie. Erobo knew more than he was saying, Agloff was sure of it. Who was this Knuckleton? And how could Erobo know of a grander design without his own part to play in it?

Riddis’ eyes narrowed. ‘Then what do you suggest?’

‘You face a fight on two fronts, humanity and Winter. I’ve heard more and more men and women loyal to Jask pass through these lands recent weeks. You ought to be careful.’

‘How?’

‘Take the road East as you intend, to Eden. Heed Poll’s summons. Trust yourselves only. Politics is a perilous business, I remember. Don’t presume Winter won’t have eyes in the midst. They’re the greater threat for now. Leave the humans be.’

‘They aren’t here to fight us, to wipe us out?’

‘No.’ Erobo seemed quite sure of this, Agloff could tell. ‘The attack on Wishbone was incidental, an accident of their power. For now, you’re safe. They take prisoners though, I sense, from Wishbone, as study.’

Agloff’s back straightened, ears perked. ‘Prisoners?’

‘I heard whispers on their minds of captives. Many of the invaders are uncomfortable with this.’

Could Ariea be one of them? He prayed to any god who would listen she was. That little hope could drive him. It was a foothold.

A second time, Riddis cleared her throat, and turned to consider this gnarled and ancient place. ‘With your permission, Great Err, could we sleep on your land? You could accommodate us.’

Agloff imagined Erobo was smiling. ‘For as long as you need, friends.’ The voice paused. ‘I have but a slight favour to ask in return.’

‘Anything.’

‘Take me with you.’

Riddis stood shocked, mouth ajar. ‘I? Take?’ Her brain could not process what this request meant.

‘I am bound to this place, as you know. Now it’s ash. I am sustained by life, of all kinds. As you travel, I could live off the land you follow, until I find a new home.’

‘Would you do any harm to our people?’

‘I swear none. They are my people too. I would live off the grass and the trees. I need a conduit, however.’

‘A conduit.’

‘Something to anchor myself to. A token.’

Agloff walked to the wall of the cave and knelt to a pile of rocks in the gloom of torchlight. He plucked a silvery one that had a hole eroded in its centre, then a vine from the rocks above him. He shredded its leaves through his fingers and thread the stone like a necklace.

He held it to the knot of roots and it seemed to understand well enough. Agloff saw nothing, but he felt the stone buzz with a warmth, as if stone became flesh. It tingled and whispers flickered through Agloff’s mind.

Riddis said nothing. She watched without authority.

Agloff drew the stone around his neck and tucked the stone into the inside of his jacket. He thought it better the people didn’t know Erobo was with them, sifting through the creases of their minds. Riddis apparently agreed. She nodded at Agloff. Perhaps she thought this was a way of earning his trust.

With Erobo to hand, Agloff could peer into her mind, see every hope and scheme. No knowledge was hidden. No one could cross him. No one could deny him what was his.

This world was tangled and grey and vile and breaking, and now he could see it all, until he found what he wanted. From here to Eden and back again, he wasn’t going to stop until he had his world.

With Erobo, the Others should hope they don’t find him, or he would break them, slowly, creepingly, and completely until they gave him what he needed. Ariea wasn’t here to stop him now.