By Pinlighter
Darkness dwelt in the north. They were
moving quickly in
the bare stony lands, and the arm of shadow beyond the Bight was
revealed as a great gulf, a tunnel of
blackness. She kept thinking it should go away
when she blinked or turned back to it from looking to the other
quarters of the land, but it grew greater and greater, spreading wider
and wider and revealing depth within depth of darkness. She
would cover the sight of it with her hand, only to feel
sane. It was like an eye, deeper black within black, and
she could not shake the feeling that there were real eyes hidden within
it. She had known Twilight all her life, but had never seen
Night.
The land reaching into that shadow, north of the road,
was overgrown
with the strange crystal flower patterns that she was now used to
seeing, and warped in other ways. In some places it
reared up into shapes like animals, or human faces or limbs, or
distorted machine parts. In others it showed an abnormal
conformation as if gravity was askew or the entire land had been frozen
while slowly writhing like a living thing.
Inside the northern darkness, behind the strange shapes that the earth
had been twisted into, were mists, lights, and fires. Some of the
lights were those of volcanos or fireholes made visible in the dark,
but others were stranger. No earth-fire looked like
that, pale, cold, yet somehow sucking,
like a hole in the air leading
to some other place. And surely no volcano could be as thin as
the spires she seemed to glimpse holding some of the lights, or as
tall. How could a volcano's light be so steady? Were
not some lights evenly spaced and proportioned as if they were
artificial?
Whatever lived in that darkness and built those
structures was not
human. But at least it was still far away.
And as if to compensate she could now see a single
light, dead ahead,
that was not alien.
***********************************************
It is the Last Light.
As was happening more and
more often the
spieking from the
flying ship was thrumming on her inner hearing while
she was awake, not in dream.
"What?"
The final light, atop the
Redoubt. Soon you
will see the
Redoubt Herself.
"How far away?"
Seven days journey
now. This is the time of
greatest
danger. The sight of the Redoubt will fill you with joy, but the
Twilight Land becomes strange near Mother Redoubt.
"You call your city a Mother?"
Yes, because we live
in her womb, and she protects us
from all
things.
"You must be joyful . . what is that?
There?" She was
looking at something impossible, standing just within the borders of
the Shadow.
It is all Darkness.
Whatever face it wears.
Look away.
"Surely these things were not made by men?"
The Road sweeps north,
once it has reached the Redoubt,
and travels
through those lands. Once many people lived in the northern arm
of the Valley. But Darkness has crept down from the sky and eaten them
all, but for one lone outpost that dwells among madness.
"How did these things come to be?"
Darkness dwells in the heart
of Light. This is the
enemy that has
seized the whole universe. The sun is dying.
The stars are dying. We dwell here, in hiding from a shadow that
is eating all things We can only hope that it does not find
us worth annihilating. We hide, for we cannot fight it. It is now
the whole universe. And we do not know how it came to be.
Look away!!!
***********************************************
They came to a place where the road was suddenly
lit. All
along parallel to it marched two rows of lights, carried on squat
columns, six hundred paces from the road and six hundred paces
apart. The lights were dim but they bore the same hue and
force and meaning as the Last Light atop the Redoubt. She did not
doubt that they had been planted to guard the road and beat back the
threats of the Land.
***********************************************
That next morning after plodding steadily along for a
time the
manshonyagger suddenly stopped. She craned over to see why at it
and was suddenly wrenched from her seat as it gripped her painfully
tight and crashed into a run. It moved fast now, as fast as she
had ever seen it. It stopped for an instant and lifted her,
binding her with more exuded threads to the riding seat atop its
neck. This left her bruised and furious but before she even had
time to think it started up again, clanking and jerking along even
faster, using all its limbs now. It seemed to be pushing itself
to its very limit.
She understood when she looked back. The host following
them was not a
host of beasts or ghosts or abhumans or any of the dim things that
peeped from the borders of the dark. It was a pack of iron
beetles like the machine that carried her. They were far
behind but she could see each one was akin but different. They
varied in size and proportion like living things, and also in speed,
and the faster ones were catching them up.
The manshonyagger seemed to be moving as fast as it
could, limping and
obviously in pain. Ports along its side were cycling open and
closed showing broken clogged tubes and fragments of metal structures
that rotated and sparked. It crashed and ground and hooted, steel
scraping across steel with a horrid screech.
The pursuers were gaining. She could see that the
closest ones
bore each of them a ragged figure straddling its neck. She thought she
recognized the one in front: surely it was their pursuer from the
gorge, the copy-thing astride the neck of the copy-machine??
The manshonyagger stopped. It reared up,
uttering an
immense alien cry.
The flying machine swept over. It cried back, an
echoing metal
sound, and the manshonyagger cowered, dropping its heads and ripping
her from her perch on its back and crushing her into a huddle beneath
its breast. Its limbs surrounded her like a
cage. There was a flash of light brighter than any thing
she had ever seen and of no colour she could name and her ears rang to
a roar like a thousand cracking whips. Nothing happened for
three breaths. She looked out through the thicket of metal
limbs and saw with scorched eyes the flying ship trailing a great
inverted arch of violet fire which depended from the tips of its
wings. The arch swelled and grew and touched the ground ahead of
the pack of pursuers, and then it vanished with a second flash and a
single crack that blinded and deafened her. She tasted the light,
felt the thunder ripple over her skin, flinched away from the
blinding scent of ozone in the burnt air, quivering and hunched up
beneath the manshonyagger, which itself staggered and almost fell, its
iron belly crushing down on her and only held from slaying her by the
residual stiffness in its unpowered limbs. It seemed to be
having some kind of fit.
She rolled over and wriggled and crawled out and stood,
seeing the
flying ship above her again, slowly circling, and the horde of
stationary metal beasts behind her, their pursuers, now stunned and
immobile. The closest was not fifty paces away. It was
lying helpless, but its rider seemed able to dismount and possibly
attack . . . there was her fusil, dropped from somewhere the
manshonyagger had been carrying it. She grabbed it and
readied it and swept it about to confront her pursuers but there was no
attack. This time the ragged scarecrow straddling the dead
manshonyagger's neck did not move. She paced towards it,
alert and holding the fusil steady, until she could see all that was
necessary, and then stopped.
The scarecrow got up from the neck of its
mount. It
shimmered and swelled. It smiled again and changed, from dead
parched flesh to the image of herself, an image which dismounted and
came forward . . . but its eidolon gaze was empty and robotic,
powerless. It stopped moving and shredded away in random lights
and streaks of colour, like the screens in the bellies of the dying
guards back in Uthwer which lit up and spluttered sometimes when she
asked them questions. Then the ghost or machine-trick was gone,
and there was nothing left but a long-dead corpse on the ground before
the newly dead machine, the ringing silence, and the slow whistle
of wind under the wings of the flying ship.
The flying ship cried again, a long melancholy
howl. It
circled. She gazed up at it. After a while the
manshonyagger raised a head and replied, weakly. The flying
ship hooted again.
***********************************************
"So the manshonyagger hopes to buy its way in to your
city with me?"
Yes. If you are
permitted entry, it believes it
will also be
allowed to enter. And the others who pursued would have taken you
to earn entry themselves.
"But if the manshonyagger is not permitted entry to the
Redoubt how
shall I enter?"
There is a place, not
far ahead, where we can set down
and rise
again. The broadcast power from the Redoubt is powerful here, and
we can do more than passively glide. We will carry you from
there.
"All this for me? Only for me? What will
happen to me when
we reach your city?"
You will be examined and may
be permitted entry to the
Redoubt. But the manshonyagger never. It has been told many
many times and refused many times. But it continues to return in
hope.
"I have seen. And what of me if I am not permitted
entry?"
But she had seen If Not.
***********************************************
She could see the Redoubt itself now. It was a
single tall tower,
like a pylon, sheathed in gold, topped with a blinding spark of emerald
that was the Last Light. She thought it seemed near, less
than a day's journey for the manshonyagger, but they laughed at her and
told her of its true size. She did not believe at first,
but she came to believe as weary days of travel passed without it
growing more than a little. She understood the meaning of a
Thousand Cities.
She no longer needed to look northward. Insanity
had spread to
overlap the road. Around them, just out of range of the radiance
from the lights, things could be seen camped or nested: amid the barren
rocks were pitiful almost-humans living in holes, and old ruins, and
twists of shadow and light, and wrecked machines and what seemed
the skeletons of great animals. Some things seemed to be
slinking along just out of her vision, keeping pace with
them. Other entities watched as she passed: she was
acutely aware of a Something dwelling inside a tall ruinous clutter of
iron shells miles to the south of the road, and of its emotions as it
saw her carried past it, under the shadow of the flying ship's wings,
toward the Redoubt. The envy and despair that radiated from
it seemed human, but their intensity was sickening, and she almost
sobbed in relief as they moved out of range.
After that she spent some time studying the strange
things that she
glimpsed beyond the line of lights. Each seemed to have its
allotted portion of ground, presumably worked out through long conflict
or negotiation. Some were mechanical, some biological, and some
were seemingly of living stone or floating gas, yet many others seemed
to be tribes or groups that were human or nearly human. Yes, some
were obvious threats, but others seemed . . centered on the Redoubt,
obsessed with it, even worshipping it. They did not engage
in conflict with each other. They did not try to invade the
road. They did not brandish weapons, though some held up
their dead children. They gazed, endlessly, despairingly, at the
Redoubt.
***********************************************
"You waste my time. Come back with me and deliver
my
people. Kill the Lovers."
No.
"You have the power to do it. You must have the
power. You
can fly."
We have the power. But
no.
***********************************************
The manshonyagger set her down. The last miles
were to be done on
her own legs. She shouldered her fusil and set out, still limping
but stepping strongly.
The land was desert and empty, a flat grey waste.
The last of the
besieging worshipping entities cowered far behind. Ahead the road
had become very straight, between the long avenue of lights which
converged on the vast Redoubt. And there, now, was the flying
ship, settled on the road in perfect symmetry. The golden
pillar of the Redoubt, a topless tower, was exactly behind it, exactly
bifurcated by its wings, which were slightly raised.
Between her and the flying ship were four human
figures. They
seemed very tall, beautiful, pale, and richly dressed: she was suddenly
acutely aware of how she stank, how she limped.
They opened their arms to welcome her.
***********************************************
The manshonyagger caught up with her before she had
walked a
league. This was not hard, since she was walking away from the
Redoubt and its flying thing, back along the path it had born her.
"Goooooooo." it cried. "Go. Go up.
Up." It wove
and danced. She had taken of the black guntissue it had
vomited up for her, enough to recharge every cartridge in her fusil and
more besides, and she had reloaded her weapon, but she did not try to
shoot it this time. She stood still. She did not
sing. It kept moving to grab her and flinching back, like a man
too afraid to start a fight with a stronger opponent.
It was greatly distressed, but when she spoke to it
clearly, it took
her only a little while to explain everything.
***********************************************
Later, the flying ship flew over. She waved from
the back of her
steed and brandished her weapon. In her mind she felt the
anticipated pulse of their spieking,
now uttered in no dreamspace but
in the dim daylight, manyvoiced, puzzled, but with something behind the
puzzlement she was astonished to identify as joy.
Where are you going
now?
"I am going nowhere. The machine carries me.
I am doing
nothing." She hugged herself with bitter glee.
Then we follow you and the
manshonyagger, back into the
Twilight.
"Why?"
Later we will tell
you. But now, what are your
plans? Why
do you not wish to enter the Redoubt? Where will you
go?
"Back to my home. My true home, which I
love. As I have
told you many many times. I do not want to go to your Redoubt, or
I do not want to go alone."
You will die Out
here.
"I will fight out here. I will go back to
Uthwer. I can
kill them. I do not think I will be ensnared by their Love now I
have spoken to you. I understand Love now."
We cannot descend.
"You can do everything you can, and fight in every way
possible.
I beg you. In any case I have resolved my mind. There is no
way to the Redoubt for me until my people are free."
We cannot risk one of the
Flying Ships.
"Then watch one woman fight a nation."
You talk of Love, but
consider. Maybe you are
still enslaved by
the Pseftikosagape, and it is their implanted commands that are drawing
you back, with us also??
"I do not think so. I think they have no power
over me any
longer. If I am wrong, I will find out." She
paused. Her hands traced the manshonyagger's metal
seams. "Many have been carried back this way, rejected by
your perfection. Think of them now, and be humbled. I
go of my own free will. Tell me, has any one ever done this
before? Rejected your paradise without being tested?"
Not in three long lives of
men. All crave honey
and safety.
"So I am a new thing in this ancient world. Come
with me and
fight, and win. Then we will return here again, or some of us
will, and enter your Redoubt, as victors over the Land. And
you may even decide to give my deliverer a place in your new world."
How wise you are,
daughter. Very well.
"'Very well?' And you call me wise, and daughter?
No more
condescension and mercy to the poor fugitive from the Twilight?"
What point? Our
path is set. We will help
you. You
think us cowards, but now you will learn something.
She was astonished. It was too much to accept at
once. "I cannot
compel you. Go back to your tower in the sky. This is my
fight."
No. We come and
fight with you.
"This is my fight."
This is your fight because
this is your Love. You
are willing to
give up paradise for the sake of your folk. And you think we
shall be unmoved?
"What if I am judged unfit to enter the Redoubt?"
Judgement has been
passed. The test is
over. This was
the test.
Did you think, child, that
you would face some board of
greybeards
sitting in a room? The test was here, on the road, before the
gate. You were not told its nature, but yes, you are the first,
the first in many generations, to pass it, for you were willing to
return to Hel out of concern for your own people.
We winnow the seed of
humanity to start the Second
History of the
World. Who shall be the fathers and the mothers? You
shall be among them, among us.
The manshonyagger stopped. The woman fell off,
staggered to her
knees, and raised a tear-wet face to the sky.
"You will help me?"
We will slay all your
enemies. But nothing we can
do will
ultimately save Uthwer or any of the remnant of True humans Out here in
the Twilight. You must leave them and come back to us. But
because of you they will have a few generations longer to live, until
some other group of abhumans overwhelms them, and in that time some may
win their way to us, even as you did.
"Yes. That is fair." She stood in
silence, and at
last made to remount. The manshonyagger paced on for a
while, then raised one head and hooted at the flying machine. She
laughed.
Why do you laugh, daughter?
"Because I think they are in love."
Love? They are
machines!!!
"Call it that. We love even our machines. I
told
you."
It is not possible!!!
You are drunk with joy.
"So you tell me what is happening." The
manshonyagger and the
flying ship were beaming pulses of red light at each other. "When
machines grow this old and have spent this long in the world, they are
as chaotic and unstructured as people. Surely they have
learnt the real tricks of survival. Maybe it is not love but it
is surely some alliance that is like love. Yes. I am drunk.
Try. See if she will return to your Redoubt, now she is no longer
obedient."
I shall command the
pilot to try. The flying
machine swerved wide
and curved back towards the Last Light. It swam back and forth,
hunting for a destination, trying to shake free of a governing
will. She is reluctant.
Autonomous impulses are powerful.
"She is old too. And maybe we are just old old old
machines
ourselves, very old, us True Humans. Love. It does not
matter what you call it. You need not worry, I will
not let him hurt her."
Nothing will hurt her.
Nothing will hurt
you. Where you go,
now and forever, goes the power of the Redoubt.
"I will enter your tower after all - one day."
One day.
***********************************************
There was a new noise, instinct with power, filling the
land.
She looked back, something she had sworn to herself
never to
do. The shining tower was aflame. Runes of salutation
streamed across its surfaces. Lights and flares lit the
high air around it, and its weapons flashed in triumph. The
darkness cowered away. Behind the slim arc of the small flying ship
were greater shapes, descending from the heights of the Redoubt,
burdening the air, terrible and sure, following her and the
manshonyagger back into the Twilight.
© Pinlighter
20 nov 2008
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