A Latent Dark (28 page)

“You’re the barmaid,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Who did you expect?” Skyla asked.

The woman shrugged, her crispy charred skin making crackling noises. “God, Jesus, Vishnu, who knows.” She froze, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, no,” she said.
“Oh, no, no, no!’

“What?”

“Is this Hell?” She looked at Skyla pleadingly. “Am I in Hell?”

“What? No!” Skyla said. “It’s just a forest.”

The woman looked confused. “Is it heaven then?”

Her eyes darted between Skyla and the forest. Another person was stepping out of the trees behind her, then another.

“I don’t think it’s either of those,” Skyla said. “It’s just what the world looks like without any skin on.”

“And you?” said the woman. “Why do you have your skin?”

“I… I…” Skyla blinked. “I guess because I’m not dead.”

The woman gave her a dry laugh, eyeing her cautiously. Skyla looked at the woman’s shadow, vivid and compact. More people were emerging from the forest, backlit in orange, refugees from Hell, their shadows a zoo of textures, shapes, and sizes.

“What’s happening?” Skyla asked the woman, but she had already left, her shadow dragging a tail on the dirt behind her.

Skyla ran through the crowd of people. Their eyes followed her warily as if
she
were the ghost in their midst. The walking wounded and their shadows created a mob within the foliage and Skyla found herself nearly smothered. Dozens of tentacles and bodies pressed against her as she squeezed through the limping, crawling, scraping throng.

Up ahead, the riverbank glowed as Skyla froze at the edge of the cliff next to a soldier dressed similarly to the one who had grabbed her in her house so many weeks ago. He wore no helmet, his expression proud and arrogant. She barely noticed that half of his face was a mess of tendon and red flesh. One of his eyes was missing, the ocular muscles twitching in the socket. He sneered at her as she stared out into the clearing, his shadow spraying a black cone behind him.

“We did it,” he said. “We finally sacked that goddamn city.”

 She stared out across the smoke-filled landscape. Flames licked the sky. A mass of people walked silently up the trails and away from blackened, smoldering wreckage. They were all fleeing Lassimir as it burned.

*

Skyla bolted upright in her bunk, rattling her brain against the rafter, too busy gasping for breath to cry out as the goggles tumbled from her head. A distant rumble replaced the usual sound of bats, branches and rain outside her wall. It played a low cadence through the night air. A slow, cold hand closed around her throat. She leapt from her bed, ignoring her throbbing skull.

Marley’s door was open, his room empty. She ran to the front of the pub, flung open the door, catching her breath.

Immediately outside The Skunk trees were still green, the ground dark and saturated with rain. Farther away, steam rose from the damp earth in plumes. A warm orange glow peaked over the tops of the pines like a second sunrise. She thought she could hear muffled yells in the distance, swept away by the crackling roar of flames.

She packed her belongings hastily. The pub might very well be gone by the time she got back, but she had to find Marley. Wearing her backpack and goggles, Skyla fled and ran toward the city of Lassimir. Déjà vu swept over her as the pine branches whipped at her face. It was as if she had just been here moments before.

A gigantic figure emerged from the smoke. Marley grabbed her by the shoulders as she tried to run past him.

“It’s not safe,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do, Skyla.”

“What happened?” she said, thick smoke burning her eyes and nose. An ember flew between them like a bug.

Her leg brushed something and she realized it was Dale. He was sitting against a tree, clutching his knees. He looked up at her and she read something in his shadow that made her want to scream.

“They used a barge,” he said. “They brought a trading barge and used it to launch airships. They inflated them at the port… I think. Nobody had enough time to pack. It caught the entire town by surprise.”

“But, the signals,” she said. “Didn’t the towers catch them?”

Dale looked away.

Marley’s enormous hand began to turn her back towards the pub, but she pushed him away and ran to the end of the trail. The two men called to her as she ran, but she wasn’t paying attention. The smoke blew by in thick, acrid waves, turning the forest into a waking nightmare.

She stood at the top of a cliff, overlooking what had once been a city made of fabric. From the direction of the docks, flames were eating the city yard by orange yard, sweeping through streets and devouring buildings. The rain fell and evaporated before it reached the tents.

Some of the flame-covered structures were moving as people scurried to escape their homes, now smoldering ovens. A figure stumbled by one tent, flames eating away at his clothes and hair. He billowed gray-orange smoke from the top of his head, staggering drunkenly as the fire consumed his body. Elsewhere, capybara ran from the fire followed by their smaller offspring. A mule dashed into the forest, its tail aflame. Occasionally a scream or shriek would echo up from the roaring massacre.

Near the edge of the city, people carried buckets of water. Crude spigots dowsed the shanty houses, steam rising from the tin roofs. In other areas, people were spraying strange white foam over the tops of their tents. The futility of their efforts was visible on their faces, the flames clearly winning.

Her tear-streaked eyes followed the smoke as it rose. Bulbous shapes bobbed and danced hundreds of feet up in the black waves of soot that rose from the fire, their bloated abdomens rocking back and forth against the warm currents, thrown upward by the dying city.

The balloons were surrounded by delicate-looking brass harnesses which supported a rounded cockpit hanging forward and away, like the head of some misshapen insect. Every couple of minutes, a bolt of flame would shoot from below the cockpit and ignite another tent, burning the city alive. Black lightweight shields underneath the airships protected them from arrows and heat as they torched the structures below. Shops burst and ignited like tissue to a match.

Long ropes drooped down from the aerolores, caressing the rooftops. Tiny black dots, soldiers, rappelled down the black strands of cable, firing into crowds as they went. They hit the ground and formed small squads, tearing through the tents and shops, shooting anyone standing.

Skyla turned her attention to another section of Lassimir and gasped. A group of ring fighters, Fold among them, had pushed back a squad of soldiers. They waded into the armored men, slashing and bludgeoning them with their fists and rings, shattering helmets and bone with brutal efficiency. Skyla watched them intently as bullets ricocheted from wide flat shields. But it was not enough. Eventually the fighters fell to the superior weaponry and training, landing underneath black chitin feet, pierced by bayonets, screaming and dying.

From the docks, the flat barge bled soldiers onto the land like a spilled oil drum. They formed ranks, sweeping up behind the flames. Further away, clashes and screams broke out in sections of the city where guards had already landed. They fired on defenders and firefighters alike. An explosion illuminated an area of the docks as the watchtowers fired on their own city, trying desperately to cut away the attacking soldiers. Soon they too burst into flames, wilting into the river.

Several of the aerolores were retreating, their chambered balloons leaking air out of gashes from arrows and bullets that had missed their armored underbellies. Scouts, hidden by the forest, fired in waves. Their arrows soared upward, most not reaching high enough to do any real damage. An orange streak from an airship ignited one of the trees, sending them fleeing farther into the woods.

She sensed a presence behind her and turned to see Marley. Kind but firm hands rested on her shoulders, turning her away from the scene.

“Skyla,” he said. “You should run.”

“But, all those people.” She was trembling, furious at her own helplessness. “What did they do wrong?”

“We exist,” Marley said. “I guess that’s good enough reason as any.”

“But we have to help—”

“They’re gone, Skyla,” he said. “The city’s gone.”

A cloud of black smoke lifted just enough for her to see the barge more clearly. It was dark, flat, and lined with smaller faster boats, which clung to its sides like spider eggs. A speck of white moved along the bridge of the ship. Skyla’s heart skipped a beat.

“That man,” she said, her trembling hand covering her mouth. “The one in white.”

The giant squinted off through the rain and smoke.

“I don’t see him.”

“You won’t be able too,” she said. Marley couldn’t see the man’s shadow, mingling with the smoke. “He’s looking for me… he’s dangerous, Marley.”

He nodded, listening.

“You remember when I told you I could see things? How my mother was gone?”

He nodded.

“What I didn’t tell you was that he”—she pointed out to the river—“was at my house when it happened. He burned it, Marley. He burns everything.”

“Does he know you’re here?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. ”But please come with me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Rhinewall.” The name popped out of her mouth before she even knew she said it. “I’m going to Rhinewall, and I think he might be as well if he doesn’t find me here.”

“Why not go somewhere else, then?” he asked.

“Because.” She paused. “I think that’s where my aunt is. It was where Orrin wanted me to go. I should have gone there a long time ago.”

Marley thought for a moment. “You go,” he said. “I’ll see how long I can keep him here.”

“Marley…”

He hugged her. “I’ll catch up with you.”

She hugged him tight. Tears soaked his shirt. A hand as big as a shovel patted her tenderly on the back.

“It’s dangerous here,” she said, pleading.

“Yeah,” he said. “For you. Now scram. Head toward the setting sun. You’ll be able to see the city from the hills. You can’t miss it.”

What she refused to admit, even to herself, was just how much of this was because of her. The preacher would leave a wake of ashes in his pursuit. She could never have a home. The Reverend Lyle Summers would destroy anything she loved for as long as she ran from him. It would be easier to just give up, let him take her. She was too small, too powerless against the man.

But before she did give up, Skyla had to find her aunt, and Orrin too if she could.

*

Marley watched as the tiny silhouette turned and disappeared into the smoke. He looked back at the flames and squinted through the haze as his only home screamed its last breath.

Behind him, the forest was like another world, slick with rain. A pair of deer leapt and ran through the trees, followed by raccoons and a dog. Marley thought that they probably had the right idea. He wondered if the pub would be spared. He walked back toward The Skunk, through rain and haze, the sounds of war receding behind him into the distance. The ghosts of violence shouted after him.

Don’t forget what you were, what you are. Don’t forget what you swore you’d never be again.