Root (35 page)

“
What’s going on over there? Looks
like a fire drill.”

“
We are no longer allowed beyond the
walls. Every building has been placed off-limits … except for the
chapel.”

“
What about folks in the tunnels?
How are they supposed to get in?”

“
They’re not,” said Astrid. “That’s
the point. Luther says if you’re not already here or you don’t
enter the ‘Burg directly, you don’t belong.”

“
But what if folks are stuck
outside?”

Astrid shrugged. “It’s … too bad. We’ve
already lost dozens. But Luther says it makes us leaner and
stronger. It’s like winnowing, he says. We are losing only the
chaff.”

“
Fucking hell! Karla could be out
there. And she’s not chaff.” Bile welled up in my craw. “If she’s
out there … he’s got no right! I set my gaze on the stone steeple
from which Luther had come once strutting in his centaur/scorpion
mode. “I need to talk to him.”

“
If you want an audience, you need
to request one through Harvald. You can’t just barge in on
him.”

“
The hell I can’t.” I strode off
across the square.

“
James. No! It’s against protocol.
The dogs … and I … can’t allow it.”

She whistled and the dogs sprang into a blur.
They sprinted past me, wheeled about and blocked my way, hackles
ruffled, fangs bared, snarling.

It annoyed the crap out of me. I wanted to
turn them all into Yorkies, and the way I was feeling at that
moment I probably could have, but I kept my composure.

“
Call them off, Astrid.”

“
I can’t.”

“
Astrid, call them off! This is
stupid. I just want to talk with him.”

Astrid took a long, deep breath. Her face had
gotten all red and puffy. “Promise you won’t do anything …
destructive.”

“
I’m just gonna talk. One on one.
That’s all.”

“
Alright,” she said. “But you’d
better not mention how you got through the wall,” said Astrid. “Or
that I saw you do it.”

“
I promise.”

She let out a long, looping whistle and the
dogs settled back down. “Stay!” she said. “Sit!” They all
responded.

I hadn’t gone five paces when I heard claws
clattering on stone. I turned to find the dogs trotting at my
heels, tongues lolling, as if we were out for a walk in the park.
They didn’t like me looking at them directly, but I caught enough
glimpses to appreciate the craft involved in Luther’s
creation.

They may have behaved like robots, but they
looked quite real, down to the plaque on their teeth, the froth on
their tongues and the crust in the corners of their beady eyes.
Luther must have been intimate with a German Shepherd on the other
side to have replicated them in such unflattering detail. They
probably even had doggie breath.

I reached out to pat the closest one the head.
Every dog whipped its head around and snapped in my direction. The
one I tried to pat nearly took off my fingers.

People rose up on their feet and gawked as we
passed the obelisk. Astrid kept her distance as if she didn’t want
to be associated with me. She was probably embarrassed about
shirking her duty. I hoped that what I was doing wouldn’t get her
into trouble.

A whistle peeled out across the cobblestones,
but it wasn’t Astrid and it wasn’t intended for the dogs. It was
intended for me. I turned to see a brown bowler hat waving above
the picket fence in front of Bern and Lille’s garden.

I changed course and ran over to the fence.
“Bern!”

“
Hey-hey! I told Lille you’d be
here. You’re one of us now.”

“
James?” Lille opened the garden
gate, her face alit with delight. She came over and gave me a hug,
with Bern close behind her.

“
Come!” said Lille. “Have some
tea.”

Their belongings were spread all over their
garden in heaps and rows. I sat down with Lille at a little, round
table. Bern served tea from a little brass kettle before taking a
seat beside her.

The dogs arrayed themselves just outside the
fence and were peering through the openings between the pickets.
Astrid came over and stood behind them.

“
Astrid! Don’t just stand there with
those dogs,” said Lille. “Come sit with us.”

“
I can’t,” said Astrid. “I’m on
duty.” She looked down and blushed.

“
It’s so good to see you, James,”
said Bern. “I take it things are bad on the other side,
eh?”

“
You might say that.”

“
Bern! You know better than to ask
the boy such a thing.”

“
Just small talk, dear. We all know
life is hell and then you die. I mean, that’s why we’re
here.”

“
He made it through the wall,” said
Astrid, through the fence. “He was outside, and he made it in … by
himself. Weaving.”

“
Really?” said Bern. “That’s quite
the feat! Oh, I’d love to see Luther’s face when he finds
out.”

“
Bravo!” said Lille. “You know, I
might ask you to try your little trick on our cottage door. We had
so little time to evacuate, I left some things inside I would
dearly love to have.”

“
Luther’s coated the walls with
something positively devilish that we can’t even scratch,” said
Bern. “Not a wisp comes loose even with the two of us working
together. And normally, when we pair up, we’re fairly
formidable.”

“
We want out of the ‘Burg, by the
way,” Lille whispered, her eyes flicking over to the fence. “As
soon as possible. Things are getting quite inhospitable in here.
And those damned dogs aren’t the least of it.”

“
But where would you go?”

Lille’s eyes flicked over to the fence. “I
can’t exactly say. Those dogs have sharp ears, you know”

“
Begins with a V,” whispered Bern.
“And it’s not Vladivostok.”

“
Bern! Shush!”

“
We’ve tried to interest our friends
in joining us, but they’re too frightened. They’ve seen what Luther
can do to flesh.”

“
Is he around?” I asked. “I need to
see him.”

Bern shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s been days
since he’s been out and about.”

“
He rarely leaves the chapel these
days,” said Lille. “Ever since Victoria, he’s gone totally bonkers
with his paranoia.”

“
What about Karla?”

Bern and Lille looked at each other. “We
haven’t seen her since the lockdown.”

“
Crap. Any chance she’s stuck
outside these walls?”

“
Oh, I would doubt that,” said Bern.
“Karla’s a veteran. She enters the ‘Burg directly, just like
us.”

“
Unless … she’s backslid,” said
Lille. “She was not herself after James last left.”

“
You mean she’s …
depressed?”

“
Quite the contrary,” said Lille,
pursing her lips. “She was bouncing off the walls.”

“
And that’s … a bad
thing?”

“
It is if you want to maintain a
stable residency in the Liminality,” said Bern. “Hope will keep you
out and it doesn’t take much. You just need to find life worth
living. But a frail hope is worse than no hope at all. If you
commit to life on the other side but things go badly and you end up
here, you’ve lost control of your fate. You end up in the tunnels,
easy pickings for the Reapers.”

“
That’s a ‘backslide,’ in case
you’re wondering,” said Lille.

“
So basically, hope is a
curse.”

“
Not unless you can sustain it,”
said Bern. “Most people on the other side seem to manage. It’s
called ‘living.’ But Lille and I have nothing to worry about. We’re
as hopeless a couple as there ever you’ll ever meet.”

“
Why’s that?”

“
Well, because on the other side,
well … Lille … she’s in a coma and me … eh … I’m in prison … for
life.”

They shared a spell of giddy laughter that
left me feeling like I’d missed a punch line.

I stared at them, at a loss for words the tea
cup quivering in my grip. I got up and went to the door of their
cottage. I tried the knob. It didn’t budge.

“
It’s no use, James. Everything’s
sealed up solid.”

I focused all my attention on the tip of my
right index finger and touched it to the middle of the
door.

“
Ooh!” said Lille, rising from her
chair. “He’s going to show us how he does it!”

“
No!” said Astrid, at the fence.
“You’ve already breached one wall. I can’t let you breach another.”
She pointed her weapon at me. The dogs gave a startled
bark.

“
Oh, put that bloody thing down,
Astrid,” said Bern. “Honestly!”

I ignored Asrid, keeping my gaze fixed on the
door panels. Under my fingertips, colors swirled and blanched, a
frost-like haze accumulated, but no dents or erosions appeared, no
fibers revealed themselves. My arm began to tremble from the
strain. I gasped and let it fall limp.

“
Shit,” I said.

“
Try again, dear,” said Lille. “I
could see
something
happening. It certainly would be lovely to get into the
cottage. I left all of our quilts stacked on the bed.”

“
Maybe three of us would be the
charm,” said Bern, nodding to Lille. He and Lille stood on either
side of me, one arm on my back, their outside arms extended,
fingertips converging with mine.

“
Step away from the door,” said
Astrid. “I can’t let you do this. I’m sorry.”

Again, we ignored her and the faded, frosted
patch spread slightly wider, and lingered slightly longer than
before, but that was all we could muster.

I staggered back. Bern caught me before I
fell.

“
Crap! This means we’re stuck. And
Karla ….”

Queasiness morphed into sheer
anger.

“
I need to talk to Luther right
now.”

Chapter 31: Luther’s
Lair

I marched out the garden gate, with Bern and
Lille in tow. When Astrid saw that we were actually going through
with my plan of confronting Luther, she and her German Shepherds
made themselves scarce, sidling away into the plaza where the other
guards were quelling some sort of commotion.

As we approached the church, a pack of huskies
came bounding out of the vestibule.

“
Oh crap. Not more dogs.”

They wheeled around to face us, ears perked,
snouts down, beady eyes watching us. When we came nearer, they
stood up and formed a cordon on the steps.

“
State your purpose,” they said in a
tinny chorus.

Lille cleared her throat. “We’re visiting to
the chapel to—”

“
We’re going to see Luther,” I said,
cutting her off.

The dogs howled. “Speaking the master’s name
is forbidden!”

“
It’s just a name.”

“
Is the master expecting you?” said
the huskies.

“
Yeah, sure. Why not? He should
be.”

Lille stepped forward. “We have come to pray.
To … to the master.”

This, apparently, was just what the dogs
wanted to hear. They trotted off the stairs and let us
pass.

“
Hah!” said Bern. “Who knew that
Luth… um, Mr. L. … fancies himself a god?”

“
Pfft. For someone of his vanity, it
was inevitable,” said Lille.

We passed through thick, oaken doors twice our
height. It certainly smelled like a church inside, a Catholic one,
at least—all incense and resins and molten wax. Racks of burning
candles lined several niches where a few people knelt,
praying.

The pews were arranged orthogonal to the
entrance, with an altar to the far left and some sort of baptismal
font to the right behind the back most pews. Two simple doors
flanked a larger, more ornate one clad in swirls of wrought iron,
and opening into the wall opposite the vestibule.

Something about the décor seemed off, and then
I realized that there was not a single Christian symbol inside—no
crosses, crucifixes, angels, saints or cherubs. Nothing. This was a
secular place. Even the stained glass bore only geometric patterns
suggestive of no particular faith. There were no graven images of
Luther, either, but that would probably be remedied with
time.

“
Fascinating,” said Bern. “I’ve
never been in here, before. It’s like a journey into Luther’s
skull.”

“
Hallo?” called Lille. “Anybody
home?”

“
Lille! Shush! People are
praying.”

There was a creaking from the pews. A few
heads turned our way.

“
Oh my,” said Lille, touching her
fingers to her cheeks.

“
Let’s find a pew and sort this
out,” said Bern.

We knelt together in the backmost row. On the
altar was a large, throne-like chair of rough-hewn wood, like
something someone would slap together at a hunting cabin in the
middle of a forest.