Penult (42 page)

“
Zhang?” said Olivier. “Are
you cool with this? You onboard with us?”

The Frelsian leader hesitated. His
eyes met Olivier’s directly. “I … suppose. If it’s only to be a
limited raid. A single column. It would show them we are
serious.”

Olivier turned to the Old Ones. “What
about you ladies?”

Both women nodded almost
imperceptibly.

“
Good! It’s a go then,”
said Olivier.

“
How many fighters do we
send?” said Yaqob.

“
Only Freesouls,” shouted a
Frelsian on the periphery. “We can’t afford to lose any
faders.”

Urszula pushed her way to the
table.

“
Fuck that sheet,” she
said. “I am a Hemisoul. I go and so will James.”

“
Oh, I don’t see the value
in sending James,” said Zhang. “It’s a simple task. And we need him
here. Penult will be well defended. He can show someone how to
initiate the column.”

“
No. James will come too.
We will need him.”

Urszula sought me with her eyes. I
wouldn’t have minded staying behind, but the fire in her gaze made
me assent.

“
Yeah. I’ll go.”

“
I’m there too, fella,”
said Olivier.

“
We keep the raiding party
small,” said Urszula. “A small party we can sneak. But we will make
sure they feel us.”

“
I too will go,” said
Yaqob.

“
No, Yaqob!” said Zhang.
“Your people need you. We need you here.”

“
I shall go!” roared Yaqob.
“I am sick of watching and waiting while the Pennies peck away at
us. No worries, Zhang. I will designate a capable steward. Our
warriors will continue defend New Axum.”

Zhang looked a little unsettled, but I
could tell he had crossed a threshold. “Whatever weapons or
provisions you need from us, they are yours. I am afraid we can’t
support you with fliers. Our winged Reapers are too few and they do
not have the range. But we can provide an escort to the
shore.”

Yaqob huddled with his lieutenants. A
pair of them peeled off and bustled out of the grotto.

“
This meeting is done,”
said Yaqob. “All who wish to participate in the raid must convene
in the main plaza at noon.”

I was about to walk away when Zhang
waved me over. I made my way over to his side.

“
Before you leave, I am
going to need your help.”

“
What kind of help?” I
said, startled.

“
Victoria. Can you undo
whatever it is that you did to her?

“
Are you sure you want
that? I mean … she’s dangerous.”

“
She is my dearest
companion. We were Hemisouls together in Root. We were among the
first parties of refugees that broke through to the surface. We
helped settle Frelsi. She tamed the first Reaper. She was even one
of the first Freesouls.”

“
Mr. Zhang, the person they
sent back to us. She may look like Victoria … but she’s not. The
real Victoria is gone.”

“
Nonsense. I know my
friend. I’ve spoken with her. Yesterday, she was fine. A little
under the weather, maybe.

“
You need to keep her
confined,” I said. “She’s too strong. Too dangerous to be set
free.”

“
Not to mention, pissed,”
said Olivier, inspecting the socket the cracker had made in the
floor of the grotto. “If looks could vaporize, we’d be
mist.”

The glare his comment induced from
Zhang glare was almost as potent.

“
I will have my best flesh
weavers look after her. All weaving can be unwoven.”

Chapter 44:
Lessons

Olivier helped me lug the dusty saddle
up the stairs to the upper terrace. We found the rim promenade
bustling with a contingent of Frelsian defenders fresh from the
side valley they had abandoned to the Cherubim. A heavily-scarred
Reaper, its wounds still weeping, lumbered along beside them,
guided by handlers wielding multiple tethers.

“
I’m almost afraid to ask …
what do they plan to feed that thing up here?”

“
No shortage of Cherubs
down below,” said Olivier.

I shuddered at the thought. We were
standing at the base of the steep, cobbled lane that separated the
warren from the more heavily damaged eastern sector of New
Axum.

“
How about we meet up on
the main plaza after your lesson?” said Olivier. “Got some shit I
need to do. Get a new staff for one thing. He held up the shattered
stub he was still hanging onto.

We shook hands and he disappeared into
the warren. I trudged up the hill and found Urszula waiting in the
upper meadow with Lalibela while Tigger buzzed about overhead.
Another bunch of Frelsians were digging wide trenches in the
turf.

“
Those look awful big for
fox holes.”

“
They are for Reaper pens,”
said Urszula, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“
Wow. That’s gonna really
stink up the place.”

“
Those beasts were not
allowed up here before, but now we have no choice. The western
valley is no more ours.”

I watched as Tigger zoomed back and
forth over head, diving down to buzz some workers repairing a
rooftop, veering away abruptly at the last second.

“
If he flies like that with
me on him, I’m gonna have a hard time staying in the
saddle.”

“
That is why we train,” she
said. “But … small problem.” She rolled her eyes. “I cannot get him
to come down.”

“
I thought you were the
dragonfly whisperer.”

She shrugged. “Young bugs. They not
listen so well sometimes. They no behave.”

“
Okay. So what the hell do
we do?” I plunked the saddle down onto the grass and used it as a
stool.

“
We have some time. We sit
and wait. He likes to be near Lalibela. Eventually he will land.
Worse comes to worse….”

“
What?”

“
You ride with me.” She
smirked.

Tigger to cruise overhead, challenging
any mantis or beetle that entered his air space, perfectly happy to
remain aloft, as if he knew there was a saddle and a hundred fifty
pounds of clumsy rider waiting for him on the ground.

Below the meadow, the main plaza
brimmed with Dusters and Frelsians organizing battle groups,
accumulating stores, getting all kinds of things done. As we
watched, a procession made its way up the central lane. A dozen or
so Dusters bearing slings had carried the cracker column up from
the grotto.

“
Why’d they bring it
here?”

“
The terrace is under
threat,” said Urszula. “Too many attacks come now from Cherub. We
don’t want them to take it back, no?

A mob had formed near the main council
chambers. A group of Dusters came out of the building bearing
Victoria’s litter. Several frantic and shouting Frelsians. Soldiers
rushed to the scene.

“
What the hell? Where are
they taking her? Is that Yaqob?”

Yaqob and several Old Ones led the way
down to the plaza. His guard shoved aside any Frelsian who
attempted to bar their way.

“
What the fuck is going on
there?”

Urszula showed no surprise or
concern.

One of Yaqob’s people scanned the
meadow as if he were looking for someone. Urszula stood up and
waved, pointing down at me.

“
What the hell?”

“
They want you to come with
them,” said Urszula.

“
What for?”

“
You go and you will see.
Meanwhile I will get Tigger to come down. Maybe you make him
scared.”

“
Him
? Scared of
me
?”

“
You’d better go. Yaqob
does not like to wait.”

***

I made my way down between the ditches
and onto the plaza where the Dusters and Frelsians continued to
squabble over Victoria. In full armor, brandishing weapons, some of
the Frelsians seemed on the verge of going to battle with the more
lightly armed Dusters.

“
Get Zhang!” shouted one of
the Frelsians. A pair of runners ran off across the
plaza.

Yaqob stayed calm. He kept his eyes on
me as I approached. He was standing between Victoria’s litter and
the cracker column that had been in the armory. The two women
currently representing the Old Ones stood with him, their faces
blank as mannequins. A cordon of Dusters and Old Ones kept a group
of agitated Frelsians at bay, including the well-dressed flesh
weaver who had been working on her.

“
What’s going on here?” I
said,

“
We need your help,” said
Yaqob. “We are attempting interrogation.”

“
You want
my
help?”

“
You have communed with the
Singularity? No?”

“
Well, yeah. I guess that’s
what you’d call it. Why?”

“
We need to search this
one’s soul.” His eyes flicked down to Victoria, stiff and prostrate
on the litter. She was looking a bit trimmer and less
vine-cluttered thanks to some nifty flesh weaving. Still, she bore
a striking resemblance to a mangrove tree.

“
What for?”

“
One column is not enough.
If we lose it. We are lost. We need more.” He rapped his calloused
knuckles against her side. “This one. She knows cracker columns.
Come. Join us.”

The two lady Old Ones had already
tucked their hands into the woody grooves striating Victoria’s
chest. Yaqob placed one hand over Victoria’s rough and flaky brow
and the other on the cracker column that had just been hauled up
from the grotto.

“
Now you put your hand on
me,” said the old Duster who, for some reason, was wearing only a
breech cloth, displaying his centuries of battle wounds accumulated
in two realms.

“
Uh … okay.” My hand
hesitated over his scarred and scabrous skin as I searched for a
patch I was willing to touch that would gross me out the least. I
finally cupped my palm and clapped it against one of Yaqob’s
massive and bony shoulders. He was a head taller than me and
outweighed me by at least fifty pounds.

Olivier arrived on the scene all
breathless, escorted by another pair of well-armed
Dusters.

He seemed puzzled at first, but needed
only a glance to assess what was happening and join in without
questions or needing to be asked. He placed his palm flat against
the small of Yaqob’s back and winked at me.

“
Now … carefully … put your
other hand on Victoria,” said Yaqob. “But be careful. She
bites.”

“
Bites?”

I took him literally, but as I reached
out, the back of my hand brushed Victoria’s woody flesh and in an
instant I understood his warning. Victoria’s consciousness surged
into mine and she lashed out. Now I heard the scream in her eyes
that she could not physically voice. Her mind remained frozen in
the moment I struck turned her body into wood.

“
Man,” said Olivier, though
he didn’t need to speak. ”You really did a job on her. Nice work.”
He must have seen or felt my anxiety. He looked at me directly.
“Don’t worry. She can’t hurt you. She’s all boxed up in
there.”

Bits of Yaqob, the ladies and Olivier
swirled around my own thoughts. In milliseconds, I came to learn
more about Yaqob, Olivier and the Old Ones than I had ever known
about my own parents. I absorbed every fragment of their histories,
hopes and heartbreaks.

Yaqob was a simple man from a simpler
time, not exactly the leader I would have presumed, but
nevertheless a well-read and highly respected farmer from an
Eritrean village where he raised teff and oxen. He was fluent in
English and Italian along with his native Amharic. He had attended
college in Asmara but had returned to the semi-arid highlands near
the border with Tigray to manage his family farm.

One by one, various calamities had
conspired to claim his wife, two sons and three daughters in turn
until he had no reason to persevere. He had ended up claiming his
own life with a bowl of cyanide-laced maize porridge.

The Old Ones—Hoda and Yaris—were both
Turks. Hoda was a city girl from Istanbul, Yaris, a Kurd whose
family had fled Iraq when it was still under British rule. Hoda,
lovelorn and ill-fated, never made it out of her teens. Yaris had a
full life but simply grown weary of growing ever older.

Olivier was French Canadian, a
tinkerer and electrician from Trois Rivieres, Quebec. His
American-born wife was lost in an accident between a ferry and a
barge in the St. Lawrence Seaway. That one incident was the source
of his despair but Olivier’s labyrinthine mind remained more opaque
to me than the others. His baffling patterns of thought were so
abstract and intricate and circuitous that they almost seemed
encrypted. He was way more brilliant than I ever
imagined.

I thought for sure they were learning
as much or more about me. The Singularity strips all souls down to
their essence that way, peeling away all pretension and show,
revealing one’s soul in all its naked glory.