“To say the Abscess is docile is an understatement and a bit misleading. Is a sleeping python docile if it wakes up?”
“So that makes us babysitters? Whatever lines my pockets.”
—Torus Orgonek to his brother Lucius Orgonek. Artillery Generals (a.k.a., the Salvo Saints) of the Far Flung Sails at the Abscess in the Dalgesh region. 127 AB.
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A sea of tent flaps, crates, palisade walls, discarded vesicle tanks and lifelines, and shards of glass lay in the pockets around the brambled prison of raw ground. Within these burned-out sections, Fleet Admiral Delah Stalt can see machetes still on their racks, barrels a quarter full of powder, dried meat, bayonets, and bottles of some strange liquid too thick to be wine. Tufts of dirt stick out among the knee-high grass, but most of the lean-to’s and bivouacs of the Emergence Corps camp are crumpled, battered by fierce winds, or overrun by raw ground.
The roots are in the decaying stage, disintegrating to ash so the wind or other organisms may carry it onwards. The path the Corps carved to the city is a jagged line through the open plain in front of the great temple of Jubilee. Hells, what a waste it was not to establish a cord manufactory here and grab all this raw when it was hardened. If they had been a day earlier, they might have caught it in the budding stages, but now they’ll have to wait years before it spreads and solidifies again.
One of the only corpses not consumed by the raw ground greets them underneath a command tent. On its stomach, the soldier reaches out as if willing the palisade wall closer to him. Delah expects to see his uniform torn, his blood pooling, his vesicle tank exploded, or at least a trail of guts or gore, but there is not even a bump, lesion, or anything indicating malignment.
“Can’t find anymore,” says Delah’s marine commander. “Not yet, at least. We haven’t delved into the temple proper.” The marine gestures to a snaking path towards the temple’s wide open gates through the raw ground. It has been a long journey coming, but Delah owes it to these lost souls who burned a way through.
“They fought on the plain here?”
“Certainly, sir. They didn’t spend as much powder as they wanted, though we can’t blame them.”
“More for us, then.” Delah looks down. “Did the sappers get in?” Did they do their job?
Her scout nods. “Right down the middle, giving us a clear view of the Gash.”
Good job, you sorry lot. With the gates down and the path for the fire seed carved open, Delah only needs to drop it in the right spot. The Firestarter strand will do the rest, snaking down the line of raw deep into the earth until it hits whatever produces it down there, in the Hells. That is, assuming the maligned don’t snuff it. It’s a lofty goal that no one’s ever accomplished—the stuff always grows back, though it takes time. Slowly but surely.
The forward scouts throw grappling hooks onto the parapets, climbing up the onion-shaped dome and eventually to a bullwheel terminal poking through the top. Those not scaling the walls crowd around the temple’s gates or huddle over strewn maps, arguing over their next move. Delah’s marines search the camps, requisitioning ammunition, food, culturing apparati, artillery pieces, compressors, and their corresponding vesicles. The assault must have lasted less than a day because the men didn’t have a chance to use the fresh tanks. She supposes the least she could do is reward her men.
The marines and scouts line up, interrupting their regular duties and taking a break to breathe in the new air from the requisitioned vesicles. From the way they sigh, the compositions must be delicious. Delah refrains from her own puff just yet.
The chairs are thrown back in the command tent where they found the first corpse, and it’s from here that one of the marines returns with a spotted mycorrhizal that could only have belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Tatlock. The man or his officers are nowhere in sight, probably reclaimed by the raw or eaten by the maligned.
“Any Minds?” Delah asks.
The marine captain looks up to the onion-shaped city. “None, so far as we can see. We haven’t gone further down than the Gash.”
“Don’t,” she manages with a croak. “There’s nothing down there. It all must go.” She regards the tangled mess of raw outside the city, playing that scenario out. She shrinks her estimate of the battle’s length from less than a day to only a few hours. Inspired, maybe, or suicidal. “Any other maligned?”
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“In the city, I bet, but none up here. Just a bunch of carrion. Insects, but they don’t look to have turned, either.” The marine captain searches the walls for nothing obvious. “Maybe the Mind called them back.”
“Or fled down the Gash.” Hopefully, it’ll fall back to the Hells when they burn its ladder down.
The marine glances toward Stalt’s pocket. “Let us know when you’re ready, sir.”
“I will.”
The Second Signature’s orders do not allow for the checking of survivors, but Delah never did much like the little girl. It’s always been her opinion that Pasha Adderey’s tiny visage is hollow, and inside lies a truly inexperienced, scared being, uninformed but with the sad reality of inheriting a world-altering responsibility. What a predicament such an arrangement has placed humanity in.
Delah walks into Jubilee, flanked by squadrons of her marines, tired but relieved to be stretching their legs after the dangle. As she ventures further inwards, she finds the cracks between the raw ground filling with maligned flesh until the stuff covers almost all the roots, the buildings, and interior walls like fleshy paints. This is where the men must have been reclaimed, turning into building materials for all this.
The Corps sappers had done an excellent job. The hole is at the center of an intersection and reaches several stories down to the bottom of the temple. The Gash is in the center of a circle of cylindrical platforms jutting from the bottom of the room, where bridges connect them. From the tear rises the raw in its rooted form, looking brittle enough to break apart just by touch. Delah wipes her forehead from all the oppressive heat.
Then, she remembers why she is here.
She digs into her pocket and removes the fire seed in its glass case. It’s the size of an acorn. She holds it in front of her and picks the right spot to throw it, ensuring an even trajectory, landing somewhere next to the Gash if she misses. She follows the potential path over folds of maligned flesh and across one of the platforms, where a man staggers.
“Hooks!” Delah yells. “Survivor! Get him up!”
The man below stumbles and looks up. Upon seeing the Flung marines gathered there, poking their heads down, he collapses.
The marines lower the grapples, the scouts climbing down. After landing on the platform they close in and douse the man with neutralizing foam. He stands still during the ordeal, spreading his arms and basking in the process with a smile that almost unnerves Delah. He stares up at the Twin Pales and then at her as if he’s achieved a great victory. He certainly has reason to celebrate, for soon they will all be away from the archipelago watching it burn.
The scouts pull the man up, and once above, Delah can see how disheveled he is. His tunic is matted with dirt, no symbols to discern his rank. He’s tall and skinny, with shaggy brown hair that no soldier of the Corps should have. From his belt hangs a bottle of violet liquid that could easily be wine. Some of it is already gone.
One of the marines hands the man a canteen. He takes it as slow as a sloth, turns the cap like a newborn finding strength, and chugs back. “Thank you.” The man coughs. He’s on the brink of feinting from how he’s swaying, but as the water cools him, he straightens. “You are a lifesaver.”
Delah flicks her hair back as she does when she’s impatient. She wishes Genebrict was here to help her pass the time. She wishes that every day. “Your name?”
Nourished now, the man’s smile stretches sickly across his face. “James Anthem.”
Not a name of any significance to her. “Any others?”
James Anthem sneers that grin again, and while one of Delah’s attendants writes down his name, two more figures appear below, emerging from a staircase at the center of the platform. Both are armored and when her marines realize what those two people are, they cry out. “Women! Two women!”
The scouts grapple down again, pulling the women up and leaving them unscathed. One has long, tangled brown hair, the other the same shade but shorter. They’re both clad in heavy shells, and their faces are pale as they pant heavily.
Women on Hyrnlak. Thurmgeists. Delah’s heard of these illegal soldiers and thinks the practice is sick, but she’s always been curious about their effectiveness. Maybe on the way back, she’ll prod them for answers.
“Get the women on board!” Delah screams. “Immediately!”
A contingent of her marines whisk the survivors away, and the captain returns to ask if they’ll be looking for more. Delah shakes her head, knowing the sooner they leave, the better. But more women, she thinks. There could be more women down there. She’ll need to warn Kaskit first, maybe through Tatlock’s mycorrhizal.
She turns to look for it and freezes.
Her men form a line between her and the gate, watching her with a fever she has never seen before.
“What is it?” she asks. “You have something? What’s going on?”
They say nothing, and it’s then that Delah feels it, too.
She slumps, all strength leaving her. Conflicting emotions run through her mind: the urge to be away from all these men, from anyone, to throw everyone aside over the opening and burn them with the fire seed. Why? What would that accomplish?
The line parts, and between them, walk the two women and James Anthem. Anthem kneels, rolls Delah over and takes from her pocket the fire seed, still in its glass case.
Delah reaches out, tries to, finds she can’t—finds she doesn’t want to, that something inside her prevents it. Every part of her seems to consign to hatred for every organism surrounding her, down to their muscles, bones, and cells. Her desires crumble, her motivations wither, her strength and humanity bleed out through a crack she did not know was there.
Yet, something shines through: her brother, Genebrict Stalt, is still out there. Alive and well. She may have pulled him into a mess, but not this one.
Stay safe, Genebrict, she thinks, before the world goes white.