Heights of the Depths (34 page)

Norda shook her head from side to side experimentally. “My brain, I think.”

“I mean is there anything else you see?”

“You really think she’s seeing anything?” Darryl said. “I mean, I know you’re into all that stuff, Cara, but still…her? Kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“There’s the other Hooman Bean.”

That caught their attention. They both looked at Norda. “What other Hoo…what other person?” said Caralee.

“The female. I think she’s a female. She had the bumpy things. And she was here. Not here here. Up there here. And she was looking at me, and I was looking at her.”

“And then what?”

“And then she was gone,” said Norda. “It’s very strange. I had not been thinking of her at all until just now. It was as if she was in the past and in the future, all at the same time. You’d think that would make her easy to remember instead of harder. I wish she would come back. Or arrive in the first place. I guess she’ll have to sleep on it first.”

“What do you mean?”

She tilted her head and said dreamily, “I have no idea.”

the vastly waters

I.

{Gorkon has been unhappy for
 so long, he had almost decided that such emotions as joy were not intended for such as he. But that is not the case. Jepp makes him happy.}

{He feels nothing for her romantically. In fact, he has come to believe that when it comes to matters of love, he is largely asexual. He cannot recall a time when he felt passion for any individual. For ideas, for concepts, for freedoms, yes. But not on any sort of spiritual or even physical level.}

{He does, however, enjoy spending time with Jepp. She sees the Damned World through an intriguing perspective that is a combination of naïve and worldly wise. She speaks with confidence about such matters as freedom and independent thought, and she does so with the fervor of someone who is newly introduced to the concepts. She has seen far more in the world than he, and Gorkon considers himself a student of the world.}

{By the same token, she seems to enjoy listening to, and learning from, him. She finds fascinating Gorkon’s detailed description of how he liberated his people. She applauds his determination. She mourns the loss of his father to death and of the rest of his family to unreasoning anger.}

{And she talks of Karsen. Oh, does she talk of Karsen. She speaks of him with such adoration that Gorkon finds himself envying him and even despising him. Not because of Karsen’s clear attachment to Jepp, but because Karsen felt love and Gorkon never had, and probably never would.}

{Furthermore, Gorkon knows that once he delivers Jepp to her destination, he will never see her again as well. She would be walking around on land, doing whatever she needed to do, seeking out her fortune, perhaps even—who knew?—changing the world. And Gorkon would be left behind. It is not as if Liwyathan can even get into proximity of the Spires. He is too mammoth. If he draws near to the Spires, it will be flooded. Uninhabitable by anyone currently living there. What it comes down to is that once they draw to within distant sight of the Spires, Gorkon will have to remove Jepp from the Liwyathan’s back and swim with her to the shores. And then she will leave. And he will be forgotten.}

{Gorkon knows that the parting is inevitable. But that does not mean that it has to be soon.}

{And so he tells the Liwyathan not to hurry, because Jepp needs additional time to gain her strength. And he tells the Liwyathan that if he senses any incoming storm—because the Liwyathan can always sense incoming storms, the churning waters gives him plenty of warning—then the Liwyathan should feel free to change his course and make certain that he gives the storm a wide berth. Meanwhile Gorkon easily finds fish and plant life and whatever else Jepp needs to survive.}

{Yet she seems to be getting weaker, and the problem, oddly enough, is water.}

{At first it would not have seemed to be a problem. They are, after all, surrounded by water. Jepp endeavors to drink it, but all it appears to do is make her increasingly thirsty. She does not know why that would be, nor does Gorkon. He asks her if, while on the ship with the Travelers, they brought her water from the sea to drink, but she assures him they did not. They had water already in skins on the boat, and carefully maintained it as if it were a precious thing. This leads Gorkon to conclude that, for whatever bizarre reason, the water that surrounds them will be of no use to Jepp in surviving.}

{When the next morning comes, Jepp is looking worse than ever. Her skin is blanched, her eyes look yellowish, and her lips are swollen. Her clothes are thick with morning dew. She takes the cloth and sucks on it ferociously in order to extract whatever moisture she can from it. She sighs gratefully for the small amount of liquid she is able to draw from it. She then slumps back on the Liwyathan, muttering softly to herself. Her lips look slightly less swollen, although she is clearly still in distress.}

{Rain water. Water from the sky is potable for her. Water from the sky, but not water down here. Why would that be? It makes no sense to him. Water is water. It is clear, it is wet. Why should one be drinkable and the other not? Whatever the reason, though, that is clearly the case.}

{Gorkon dives. He searches the sea bottom to see if there are sunken vessels down there that might contain water she could consume. He finds some, because there are always sunken ships to be found. So many, in fact, that sometimes it is hard to believe that humans ever kept the damned things on the surface. In one such vessel, he finds bottles that are unbroken and still sealed. He also finds several pots that could easily be used to catch falling rain. He grabs them up and hurtles toward the surface, but en route the bottles shatter in his grasp. He howls in fury, uncomprehending and frustrated.}

{It is at that point that Gorkon suddenly realizes he may well have killed Jepp. In his selfish desire to prolong their time together, he has clearly thrust her into an untenable position. He has urged the great beast to take its time, and steered it away from the exact sorts of inclement weather that might well provide her the liquid sustenance she requires. He has done great evil to this woman who had done nothing to him.}

{He urges the Liwyathan to hurry. Now he is faced with a race against time, as Jepp lies upon the back of the Liwyathan and drifts in and out of consciousness, and the cursed blue skies above show absolutely no sign of rain.}

{I am evil.}

ii.

“You are so good.”

She spoke slowly, her voice thick. Gorkon appeared startled that she had addressed him. She lay still, feeling too tired to move her arms or legs. The sun shone down upon her, and the cloudless skies seemed to beckon to her.

“What? What did you say?” said Gorkon. He looked confused, and she realized that her words had been uncomprehensible.

She swallowed deeply, trying to find some few drips of saliva to wet her lips. She drew her swollen tongue across her lips. Unable to find any more moisture, she spoke even more slowly and over-enunciated every syllable. “I said…you are…so good.”

“Me? No…”

“Yes.” She wanted to reach out and touch him, pat him affectionately. “You saved me from downing, and you’ve stuck with me all this time, and you care so much about me even though you really didn’t have any reason to. You—”

Her head slumped back. Saying all that had taken so much energy. Even her eyes were feeling dry. She closed them.

“But I’m not good,” Gorkon said, shame filling him. “I’m not. I have done you a great evil.”

He kept speaking, telling her what he had done, how he had delayed things, how he had very likely destroyed her with his pathetic attempts to prolong their time together. He told her all of it.

She heard none of it.

iii.

She stands among the Spires
 
yet again, naked once more, and she looks to the building with the tall spike where the female Mandraque had been. The Mandraque is no longer there, and Jepp begins to wonder if she ever was.

Then she sees another.

It is a huge armored being. She cannot discern just what he is, or what race he might be a part of. But he is definitely there, and he is clearly formidable. She just wished she knew what she was looking at…

The Overseer.

The name springs to her mind unbidden.

The moment that it does, the Overseer turns and looks at her. She trembles but stands her ground. The confrontation between them will have to come sooner or later; let it be sooner, then.

Even though he is covered head to toe in armor, he seems confused. His body tilts to the right and left. He appears to be searching for her even though she is standing directly in front of him.

Jepp begins to realize that her standing up to the Travelers had given her a false sense of security. She was convinced that, because the Travelers were not necessarily as devastating and horrific as many believed them to be, that the Overseer’s reputation was likewise overblown. She had been certain that she would be able to confront him and convince him to make the world…well…a better place somehow. Now, however, she is beginning to sense that such is not the case. She will face him and she will die and that will be the end of it.

She cannot do it alone.

I need Karsen, she thinks desperately. Karsen…and his family. His clan. The Bottom Feeders. All of them together, there is nothing they cannot accomplish. He needs them. They must be with him. They must come to this place together. They must. They must…

I must…

Drink…I need…water…desperately…now…

Her throat is closing up. The reality of her situation is beginning to intrude on the fantasy of her dreams, and they are becoming inextricably linked. It is harder for her to retain her dream state, and the urgency of her being able to do so is being driven home to her.

And there, in the Spires, she throws her arms wide and howls to the skies that she needs water right now, and she needs Karsen and his family to be on their way to the Spires right now, and there is no time to delay because she is not going to be alive to see any of it transpire unless it all happens right now…

And water drips into her mouth. She flinches, expecting it to be unpleasant and salty, as was the clear stuff from the Vastly Waters when she had tried it earlier. But it is not. Instead it tastes like the water that she had sucked from the edges of her clothes. Then there is more of it, and more, and she cannot believe it. It is dribbling out of her mouth, there is so much of it, and she feels reborn, she feels…

“Jepp!”

Jepp shuddered, and blinked, and tried to shield her eyes against the pouring rain…

“Rain?”

“Yes!” Gorkon was laughing delightedly, which was a rather odd sound for him to be making. It sounded like a loud barking. “Yes, it’s rain! Rain!”

The skies above her were dark, almost pitch black, and there was the distant rumbling of thunder. Fortunately enough, though, it was having none of the vicious impact on the waters around her that the previous storm had had.

Gorkon was ready. He placed the pots out upon the surface of the Liwyathan and quickly they began to catch the water from on high. Jepp lay on her back, her mouth wide open, and the water continued to pour into her.

Jepp began to laugh as well. It was scratchy and hollow because she did not have her voice recovered yet, but even after just a few minutes of rain, she was already displaying more energy than she had been in the previous days.

The water continued to collect in the pots. Jepp became more and more drenched. She did not care. Revitalized, she shrugged off her cloak and the shift she was wearing and stood naked in the rain, letting it absorb into every pore of her body.

At no point before had she been naked in front of Gorkon. He stared at her body, fascinated, and decided that it was without question the ugliest damned thing he had ever seen. If the longevity of the human race depended upon human males being attracted to such an odd agglomeration of randomly placed bumps and fur, then there was little doubt that humanity would have died out on its own without any help from the Twelve Races.

the upper and lower reaches of suislan

I.

If anyone had ever asked
 Demali about the chances that she would be utterly silent while falling to her death, she would have considered that to be very unlikely indeed.

This, then, was a curious example of the turns that unexpected life—and imminent death—could take. Demali fell, and as much as she wanted to scream in terror over her imminent and inevitable demise, she kept her mouth clamped firmly shut. She had no idea if her screams would carry to her father’s hearing, but she kept her desire to cry out to herself because she did not want to give him the satisfaction of hearing her.

This is it…this is how I die…oh, Pavan, I’m so sorry, there are so many things I wanted to do with you and to you…I’m so, so—

She hit something. Her body tensed, automatically expecting it to be the ground, knowing that she had perhaps a fraction of a second to experience that sensation before feeling nothing more.

The ground bent deeply under her, cushioning her fall. It felt thick and viscous., and also warm and pulsing with life, a stark contrast to the cold that normally suffused every moment of her existence…

Oh my gods…

She slowly rose to the top and found herself situated on something that she had seen any number of times, but never from this particular angle.

“A Zeffer,” she whispered. “I’m on a Zeffer.”

It was the smallest Zeffer she had ever seen. The ground was still at least a hundred feet below her. She could see it down there and imagined it being frustrated that she had not wound up smeared all over it. Then she realized that attributing that much power of thought to inanimate ground was ridiculous, bordering on stupid.

She was accustomed to the huge, billowing creatures that could contain many riders at once. Creatures so huge that even a dozen riders astride it at once would barely take up half the available surface space. This one was a fraction of that size. Her first thought was that it was a young Zeffer, but then realized that probably wasn’t the case. Young Zeffers lived within the bodies of their sires even after birth, and remained there until they were nearly the size of their parents. The Zeffer that Demali was riding, if it had been a young Zeffer, would have been with its sire. The fact that it was by itself, drifting far closer to the ground than Zeffers typically floated...

“You’re a runt,” she said. “An outcast from the rest of your herd! I can sympathize with that. I can totally…”

Her head suddenly jolted back.

Something was entering her mind.

She had heard it described countless times before by riders: That first contact with a Zeffer. It was said that the physical aspect of the tentacles hanging below the vast floating creatures was akin to the way their minds worked as well. What first contact felt like…what it really felt like...was having invisible tentacles insinuate themselves into your mind, wrapping around in such a way that it would never, ever let go.
She felt that sensation now.

Only Riders can be entwined. Only those trained to be Riders. Only those destined to be Riders. No females, ever. That had been drilled into her so thoroughly and for so long that it had become one of those things she simply “knew.” So what she was feeling now seemed illicit and wrong, because it flew in the face of all that she had been taught. Yet it was that very illicitness of the entwining that made it feel so wonderful.

The Zeffers did not communicate in words. They were empathic beings, and the one that was entwining itself with her now was no exception. A wave of feelings washed over her, as if giving her emotional buoyancy. It was as if every single thing the creature had ever felt in its entire life was being dumped en masse into her psyche.

And what the creature was feeling right now was hunger. Overwhelming hunger. It was starving to death all around her.

Instantly she understood. Pushed away from the rest of the herd, segregated and left to fend for itself, it had not communed with its Keeper, with Akasha, the last time that he had fed the herd. The other Zeffers were sated and would remain so for quite some time, but this poor thing was withering away. It had some time yet, but she sensed that it was not much.

“We need to find Pavan,” she whispered. She knew that accomplished Riders were able to convey their thoughts to their mounts without having to speak a word. But she was only just now entwining for the first time with a Zeffer, and so she felt more comfortable talking aloud. “We need to find him and bring you to him. He can help you. He’s young and untested, but I know he can help you. I don’t know where he is, but it’s certainly not up here. It’s somewhere else, down at the base of the mountains. I’m sure I can find him. We can find him. And…”

She sensed something else, then. It almost felt like a sort of resigned longing. The Zeffer was seeing, or at least sensing, something, and was mourning its passing like the outsider that it was.

Demali flipped over onto her back and looked up, seeing with her own eyes what the Zeffer was sensing and trying to convey to her.

High, high above, the sky was thick with Zeffers. A dozen of them, clustered together. Their tentacles were coiling and uncoiling. Their bodies undulated, drawing air in through their fronts and expelling it behind them, propelling them forward with remarkable speed. They began to pick up velocity as they moved, and from where she was she could see the individuals riding them high above.

Each of the Zeffers had a Serabim riding it, but was packed with Mandraques as well. She could not hear them, but she saw the Mandraques waving their weapons, no doubt shouting chants and war cries.

They were off to war. It had happened just that quickly. Of course it had. It was what her father had wanted, and her father historically managed to achieve that which he wanted. Nor was there any doubt in Demali’s mind that this was not an overnight development. She could see it now: Seramali approaching those of his Riders whom he most felt that he could trust, convincing them through a combination of wistfulness and wheedling that the Serabim were wasting their lives in the upper reaches. That there was a vast, wide world out there that their unchallenged, indisputable command of the skies would enable them to conquer. If harnessed for such a task, the Zeffers possessed formidable strength and irresistible power.

She fancied that she could pick out her father’s voice among the war cries that were being shouted. She had no way of knowing for sure; she might well have been imagining it. There was no doubt in her mind, though, that her father was there amongst the other warriors. He was, after all, a leader, and what else does a leader do if not lead his people, even if it’s on a direct path to damnation? A leader who had killed Pavan’s parents, and Akasha, and arranged for Pavan’s kidnapping. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that he was ready to dispatch his own daughter seemed the most minor of his crimes. Pavan, his parents, Akasha, they had all been minding their own business, trying to live their lives as best they could before Seramali had disrupted them or deprived them of those same lives. Demali had deliberately thrust herself into Seramali’s plans and brought his wrath upon her.

Knowing that somehow didn’t make her feel any better.

She remained crouched upon her Zeffer. Her Zeffer. She had been upon the thing only for a few minutes and she was already thinking of it in possessive terms. How perverse was fate, that her father had done her the greatest service of her life in endeavoring to dispatch her. Had he not done so, she would not have literally fallen into this incredible good fortune. Still, he had always taught her that vast good and vast evil go hand in hand; one would lead invariably to the other, like a mighty circle. “Those from great heights will be cast into great depths, while those below will be lifted on high.” That was what he had said countless times, or words to that effect.

In his attempt to hurl her to the depths, he had raised her on high. It seemed only right that she return the favor. And however inadvertently, he had provided her the means to do so.

The last of the Zeffers had passed overhead. They were alone now. Except she knew that as long as her Zeffer—
her
 Zeffer—was alive, she would never again have to worry about being alone. Which was yet another reason for her to take immediate steps to make sure that the Zeffer remained alive.

That meant finding Pavan immediately.

“Down,” she urged the Zeffer. “Down to the low lands. Let us make our presence known. Let us draw close enough so that Pavan will be able to see us, and so that we can hear him. And I suspect that he will do the rest.”

ii.

Arren Kinklash had had great
 hopes for the Ocular as potential allies when it came to both defensive and offensive capabilities. What had not occurred to him was that they would be magnificent means of transport.

The youth and vigor of Berola and Turkin were simply beyond all reasonable measure. They ran steadily and with no apparent indication of tiring, each huge stride of their legs consuming such distance that miles would hurtle by at incomprehensible speeds. From time to time they would need to rest, of course. And they were going through the food that he had brought along alarmingly quickly. “I’m so hungry,” Turkin had said at one point, “that I could eat a whores.” Then, by great good fortune, they came across a couple of whores who were wandering around, apparently separated from their herd. The Ocular ate them, and seemed—at least for a time—satisfied with that.

During the brief times that they rested, Arren would speak to them of their lives before their lives had fallen apart. They were resilient, these young Ocular, but the cold fury that still burned within them was always there, just below the surface. Arren was relieved that the Ocular had no particular grievance against the Mandraques; he would not have liked his chances in pitched battle with the giants. “Should an opportunity for combat arise,” he said, “I very much suspect that you will enjoy it.”

“Should that indeed occur,” said Turkin, “I will imagine that I am faced with the gods themselves—the ones who chose the fates for our loved ones—and take joy as I smash all of them beneath my feet and crush them in my mighty hands.”

“I admire your spirit,” said Arren. He glanced at the female. “And you—?”

“I will take no joy in destroying anyone,” said Berola. “There is no joy left to us anymore. There is only the hope that vengeance can be exacted on behalf of those we have lost.”

“I share your hope.”

She looked at him disdainfully. He found it somewhat unsettling, having a single large eye looking at him with that much scorn. “Do not think for a moment that you are fooling either of us. You do not share our hope. You have your goals that you wish to accomplish, and we are simply a means to an end. By the same token, we see you as an outlet for our anger. We serve each other’s needs, and are nothing more than that. So let us not pretend that we are going to become friends or appreciative of each other’s innermost feelings. We are allies until it serves our respective needs not to be. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” said Arren.

Much of the rest of their trip passed in silence, until that silence was eventually broken by an exclamation of shock.

Arren had actually been dozing while astride Turkin’s back when he was jerked awake by Turkin’s skidding to a halt and a gasp of, “Oh my gods!” The abrupt action was enough to cause Arren to drop off his perch and hit the ground. He had his sword half-drawn before he fully registered that there was no one attacking them.

He saw that the Ocular were looking skyward. The lenses over their eyes were functioning exactly as they were intended to do, shielding them against the intensity of the sun. At first Arren could not understand what it was that had so captivated their interest. There was nothing but clouds in the—

“Oh my gods,” he said, echoing the sentiments.

They were not clouds. They were alive. They were Zeffers.

Arren had seen them from time to time throughout his life, drifting along lazily. And the last time, of course, was the most significant: the Zeffer that had departed with his sister.

These were far more than he had ever seen together; perhaps more than anyone had. And seeing them up there, drifting along, uncaring of anything Arren might think or say or do, underscored for Arren the difficulty of his situation. How was he supposed to impose his will on such creatures when they were so far above him, in every way, that to them he was of no greater significance than an insect?

The same thoughts were clearly occurring to the Ocular. “How are we possibly supposed to assert our will over creatures like that?” said Berola, making no attempt to keep the awe from her voice. “How could we even get to them?”

“Jump,” said Arren. “Jump quickly. Jump as high as you possibly can, and perhaps you can grab hold of their tentacles and climb up.”

They stared at him.

“I was making a jest,” he said.

Berola looked confused. Turkin just looked relieved.

“They are going in the direction whence we came,” said Berola. “Now what? We retrace our steps? Try to—?”

“The plan hasn’t changed,” Arren said firmly. He pointed at the mountains that loomed in the near distance ahead of them. “We are almost to our goal. It doesn’t matter where the Zeffers are going. Our business is with the Serabim. They, not the Zeffers, can tell us where my sister has gone.”

“But if the Zeffers took her there—wherever ‘there’ is—then we’ll need one to get us there, won’t we?”

“One thing at a time,” said Arren. “First we need to—”

“Look!” Berola cried out, pointing.

Another Zeffer had floated into view. But it was smaller than the ones they had seen earlier, and was flying much lower. Not remotely low enough for them to get to it, but not as high as the clouds. It was heading in a totally different direction from the others. There was a single rider visible upon it, looking puny in comparison, but nevertheless firmly in control.