Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (11 page)

But it wasn’t enough. Her body had dissipated.
Faded away. Just like that.

Pissed me smooth the fuck off, her dying on me like
that. After all I did for her.

Yeah, I know. Don’t even say it. I did a lot for
her.

And she up and left me. All by myself with a handful of
simps who can’t even follow the most basic of instructions.

The world is such a lonely place when there’s no
one to rule by your side.

Ungrateful bitch.

“Levi! Let’s go! More are coming!”

Citlali has caught her breath, but fear is shot all
through her voice. She sounds hysterical. I push the dead, smiling
Eloko off me and sit up on one elbow.

Behind me, Lali is at the edge of the apple orchard
frantically waving me towards her. Ashni nocks another arrow. Kentaro
points like a crazy man to where we just came from. I follow his
insistent finger with my eyes.

The Dark Lands near the pol’anga grove are a
living mass of expansive dark green Biloko. They breathe and move and
shake their bells as one, in a single thick, fluid motion. Toward us.
Toward me. Hungry. Angry. Deadly.

Shit.

I’ve always been the slowest one of our
covey-mates. Ever since we were little.

Lali is the fastest (and the prettiest). Ashni is the
nimblest (and quite good with her bow). Kentaro is the smartest (and
one of the few male treefrogs). I’m the slowest. But I’m
a good shot. I’m even better than Ashni. Right now, I’m
going to need all of that good shooting if I want to live to see
another day. Which I’m not sure is going to happen. I try,
anyway.

As fast as I can, I jump up and run to the apple orchard
in the distance and my covey-mates. Out of force of habit, I slow as
I reach for my arrows, but grasp nothing. Air. That’s when I
realize my bow and quiver are gone. I left them back there when that
last Eloko attacked me.

Double shit.

For all of two seconds, I ponder whether I can run back,
get my bow and arrows and make it to my covey-mates before I get
eaten. But I know I can’t. I don’t think Lali could
fresh. So I decide to keep running, but I don’t move. I can’t.

I can’t help but stare at the advancing horde. I’m
fascinated by them. There are scores and scores of Biloko. Even
through the dim light of the Dark Lands I can see the lot of them.
Short, grassy fur. Long, muscular arms. Razor-sharp claws. Short,
powerful hind legs. Wicked snouts. Wicked eyes. Wicked teeth. Loud
bells.

All scary as hell.

Lali snaps me out of my stupor. It’s as if she’s
appeared out of nowhere. She yanks me toward the apple orchard. Just
beyond it are the safe bright lights of the Dome. Ashni lets arrow
after arrow fly as Lali and I run toward her, but her arrows are not
enough. Besides, we won’t make it. The Biloko are too close.

And then the Bright Lady comes to save us.

Well, I’ll be damned. She’s alive. I should
have known.

I’ve heard the rumors. Time might move fast on
this planet, but these creatures are so simple. Cellular fission?
Try
nuclear fusion
. I lived that every day of my long life
before I came to this godforsaken place. Hell, I kidnapped that.

I know the thoughts of these simps before they can even
speak them. I can parse out each and every word of each and every
person as it’s being spoken—no matter the language—and follow
the thousands of conversations with ease. Their complexity
is my simplicity.

Cellular fission my ass.

So I had an inkling Kerana still lived. There were too
many mentions from my followers of seeing a Bright Lady in the Dark
Lands during the last Biloko horde attack six hundred years ago. I
thought it was all bullshit. But it makes perfect sense now that I
think about it.

See, Kerana thinks she’s slick. The Biloko horde
is her doing. She didn’t create them, but she did transplant
them.

When greenery all over the world first began shriveling
and dying, no longer sustained by the weak and dim Sun, Kerana
plucked the Biloko from the dark forests in Zaire and put them in the
thriving forests of her Dark Lands. She allowed their numbers to
flourish, so they could feast on my worshippers.

Sabotage. From the moment we got here, Kerana wanted to
undo my godhood. So I could be alone. Her big ha-ha fuck you to me.

You know what I have to say to that?

Fuck you too, bitch.

I loved you.

Okay, wait. I take that back! I’m sorry! I still
love you.

But that doesn’t make me any less mad at you right
now.

Blessed be the Shadowchildren, for they shall see the
Bright.

A good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor does a
bad tree produce good fruit.

Each tree is known by its fruit, and each Shadowchild
by his worth.

A Shadowchild who does not pick good fruit shall be
devoured by the Biloko.

A Shadowchild who picks good fruit shall live long in
the Bright.

Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know the
Shadowchildren, and ye shall be sustained.

That’s the prayer we say in secret to the Bright
Lady before we venture out into the Dark Lands. But it can also be a
blessing when the Bright Lady comes down from on high and utters it
to protect us from the Biloko.

She hasn’t done that in a very long while, though.

But now, as me and my covey-mates approach the safe zone
just outside the Dome, the Bright Lady gives us each a hug and the
blessing. The Biloko stop their chase. Her embrace is so warm. I want
to stay within it forever.

And then she goes ice-cold because he is here. So we
start running again.

She’s beautiful. As always. But angry. I don’t
care. I don’t really give a fuck right now. I just want her to
end this secret goddess bullshit and come to my side to rule this
worthless world until the Sun goes dark forever.

Instead, she glows. For a moment, she gets as bright as
she was when she was within her tessling. But then, her body
dissolves into glowing motes, which rise and fade away.

All that remains are the Biloko. And they’re still
hungry.

They swarm me. At first, it just tickles like the boy
Levi said.

But then, their teeth and their claws rip and rend and
shred chunks of me. My perfect ears. My muscular arms. My hard round
ass. My chiseled stomach. The entrails within.

But I heal. My body repairs itself with an urgent
immediacy, functioning at its complex cellular level. More and more
Biloko keep coming, though.

It’s not long before I can’t see my own
beautiful body. All I see is grass-furred dark green. The Biloko are
ravenous. Insatiable.

Their bells are loud. They never stop ringing.

My pain is eternal.

The storm clouds were gathering. Lord Wellesley was sure
of it as he sat atop his mount and watched the sky. His horse panted
and swayed from side to side, struggling beneath the weight of so
much plated metal in addition to its human charge. The restless
animal’s breath came in uneven snorts, puffing erratically
around its sweat-streaked flanks. Within his welded suit, the Duke of
Wellington was not faring much better.

“Are you well, milord?” inquired
chief of staff Sir William Howe DeLancey, glancing nervously at his
master from a few feet away.

“Well enough for now, my good fellow,”
Wellington responded from within his shell, not wishing to betray any
discomfort in front of his senior officers. He attempted to nod his
head, but the constraints of the plating prevented him from doing so.
“However, I might partake of a little brandy if you have some?
For the cold, of course, you understand?”

“Of course, milord,” DeLancey replied,
fumbling inside his jacket for what seemed like an age in search of
his flask. “I seem to have misplaced it your Grace,” he
concluded. “Damn shame, too. It was given to me by my wife
before we left England. Engraved with my initials, so it was.”

“Never mind,” the duke said, attempting to
stretch his back and feeling thirstier than ever. “Probably
better to meet the French with a clear head, anyway.”

The main body of his force had been positioned outside
Champaubert for almost two days now, their numbers hidden by the
slope of an oversized hill. Having received word the French were on
the move again and marching towards their position, the duke had
given orders for his men to make ready for battle around sunset. As
such, he had been seated upon his mount since dusk, overseeing the
formation of his columns from the vantage point of the saddle. He was
now beginning to regret that decision. Although the temperature had
cooled somewhat since sunset, within his armor, Lord Wellesley had
more in common with a lump of roast beef than a man, slowly cooking
in his own juices.

Ignoring his growing discomfort for a moment, he cast
his eyes over the lines of men. Row upon row of stern-faced soldiers
stood huddled together in the dirt, a few of them glancing up at his
watchful gaze. The duke noted with dismay the number of boyish faces
amongst the ranks. Though his army was great in number it had been
raised quickly from an already war weary populace. Most of them were
either fresh-faced recruits, who did not yet know the horrors of war,
or were ill equipped mercenaries from Spain and Prussia—hired
guns bought with plundered French gold.

Across the expanse of plain before them, a threadbare
mist coveted the ground. Emerging from loose pockets of earth, it
seeped through the topsoil and made its way toward the Allied
position. Murmurs of
unnatural
and
witchcraft
were
heard making their way amongst the ranks. Despite his reasoned
military mind, Wellington had to agree.

Stories of Napoleon’s improbable escape from Saint
Helena, atop a mighty two-headed sea serpent, had already made their
way to English shores. The duke was powerless to halt the tide of
unrest, which had washed over his men since dark had fallen. Despite
his best efforts at Waterloo, that accursed French sorcerer had
somehow found a way to outwit his captors yet again and return to
Europe a second time, to raise another army.

Within weeks of his escape, tales of Napoleon’s
unbridled barbarism had returned to the front pages of the
Times
.
Spanish civilians told of fur-covered monsters in uniform emerging
from the night to feast on human blood as Napoleon’s army
surged north into Aquitaine, butchering villages to the last man and
marching inexorably towards Paris. Wellington had paid little
attention to the headlines, preferring instead to rely on the efforts
of his spymaster, Wickham, but even he had begun to suspect that
perhaps the specter of the emperor’s terrifying Ninth Hussars
had not been completely vanquished from the field as previously
thought. Wellington only hoped the advantages, which Congreve’s
technological developments, and his new alliance with the Brotherhood
of Uclés had brought him would be enough.

In the night sky above, banks of thick cloud rolled in
from the east, bringing with them the threat of torrential downpour.
If the weather turned against them, things would become much more
difficult. Tightening his grip on the reins, the Iron Duke shifted
uneasily inside his armored suit and prayed it wouldn’t rain.

Young Thomas Worthington, former vagrant and thief, did
not know what to make of it all thus far. This being his first
experience of battle, he was unaccustomed to the great deal of
waiting about, which often accompanied modern warfare, and so hopped
from one foot to the other as he waited with the rest of his unit,
some two hundred yards back from the duke’s position. Beside
him, Sergeant Reginald Foss stood leaning on his rifle, his pale eyes
transfixed upon the distant horizon.

Though not much older than a lot of the raw recruits,
Foss held the distinction of having served under Wellington in the
previous campaign and had acquired a degree of awe and respect
amongst the men. Many of them tried to emulate the sergeant’s
steady posture as they waited, but few, Thomas saw, maintained the
same unruffled composure. Rechecking his rifle for the umpteenth
time, Thomas re-shouldered the weapon and wished he had been able to
pilfer more than a solitary flask of brandy from amongst his
comrades. Peering over the shoulders of the forward ranks, he tried
to make out whether anything was happening at the front.

“Not long now, lad,” Foss commented without
moving, evidently sensing the boy’s apprehension.

“How can you tell, sir?” Thomas replied,
glancing nervously at the older man.

Foss raised a finger and pointed to the inverted anvils
of black cloud hanging on the horizon.

“See them?” he said. “When yonder
rainclouds come crawling across this valley to meet us, we’ll
have a battle on our hands, no mistaking.

Thomas considered this for a moment, eyeing the
approaching weather front.

“How can you be so sure of that?” he asked.
“You can’t possibly know Boney’s soldiers will
arrive with the rainfall. That’s bloody mad.”

“Aye,” said Foss, “but them’s
not normal clouds, laddy, cos they’s moving towards us against
the wind.”

Thomas stared hard at the cloudbank. He hadn’t
noticed it before, but it was true. Only the lightest of breezes
stirred the evening air and it was indeed coming from the west, the
opposite direction from which the French approached. Suddenly cold,
he tightened his grip on his rifle, taking little comfort from the
metal in his hands. No cloud Thomas had ever seen could move against
the wind, and he began to contemplate, for the first time, that
perhaps the stories he had heard about the sorcerer, Napoleon, were
true.