Root (49 page)

“
Bounty?”

“
Yeah. You know, money for bringing
me in? So I’m just saying … don’t be surprised if I blink
out.”

“
Blink out? You mean …
die?”

“
I don’t know. I’m just
saying.”

“
You go to a train station to come
to Root? Are you crazy? It should be for private.”

“
I didn’t know I was gonna come
here. I was just trying to get out of Inverness. And I saw him, but
I wasn’t sure that’s who he was. I’m still not sure. Just … don’t
be surprised if something happens to me.”

“
What do you think they will do to
you?”

“
I have no idea,” I said. “But I
guarantee they’re not happy.”

“
Why didn’t you run?”

“
I was going under just as I
realized what was going on. I couldn’t get away.”

She sighed and glanced away, her brow all
crinkly. She wouldn’t let go of my hand.

“
I’m sorry, Karla.”

She shrugged. “We will work something
out.”

“
Like … what?”

“
Something! I don’t know. I can’t
think about it right now.”

We stood there, starting across the pit,
listening to the wheezing of the Reapers. Karla’s fingernails dug
into my palm, but I didn’t mind the pain.

“
This nest … are these the only
Reapers we have to worry about?”

“
For this set of tunnels … I believe
so,” said Karla. “I hear no others. Do you?”

“
Um. I guess not. But aren’t there
other nests?”

“
Yes, but Isobel would be in these
tunnels with me. These tunnels are ours. She is my blood.
Half-sister, so half-blood, but still she would be here. It is my
father’s side that brings the wounded minds. So she will be
here.”

A raspy sound started up in the Reapers’ nest,
like suction cups giving away, blubber sticking and unsticking.
Karla pulled her hand free.

“
Extinguish your light!”

I made my root torch go dim. She tiptoed to
the end of the tunnel and craned her neck over the rim of the pit.
I came up behind her and put my hand on her shoulder to brace
her.

“
Hey … uh … not so close,” I
whispered.

A faint, green glow emanated from the pit. I
was startled to realize that it was the Reapers’ bodies that were
glowing.

A slender pillar of flesh rose slowly from one
of the larger blobs in the center of the pit. Its tip bent towards
us like a snorkel and inhaled with a long snort. There was a pause,
and then its body began to extend. Knobs and bumps formed along its
length.

Karla leapt back, nearly bowling me over. “It
smells us!” she hissed. “Run!”

Chapter 46: One
Ring

We ran back up-tunnel to the first branching.
The Reapers were awakening, first the one then two more and then a
bunch in a chain reaction. They roared, bellowed and shrieked like
a herd of elephants being murdered by poachers. They did not
appreciate being woken up early.

The tunnel walls shuddered as the first of
them hauled itself out of the pit.

“
We’d better keep running,” I
said.

Karla stood with her hand cupping her ear and
listened. “It is not coming. Not yet.” She glanced up at a row of
occupied pods.

“
These pods,” said Karla. “They have
holes.”

“
Yeah that was me,” I said. “I was
looking for you and Isobel before.”

“
Really?” she said. “You were
looking for Isobel … and me?”

“
Yeah. I checked all these out.
She’s not here.”

She kept her eyes glued to the pods as we
moved beneath them.

“
You realize that Isobel does not
look much like me?”

“
Oh?”

“
She has … a different mother. She
is blonde.”

“
Good to know,” I said. “But she’s
definitely not here. It was older people mostly, not much
interested in getting away from Reapers.”

Another thud shook the tunnels, indicating
that another Reaper had emerged from the pit. A long moan echoed
down the tunnel.

“
Have you been back to the ‘Burg?”
she asked.

“
Nah,” I said. “Not since I broke
out Lille and Bern.”

“
What do you mean ‘break them
out?’”

“
That’s right, you weren’t here.
Luther closed off the ‘Burg. Wouldn’t let anyone out. He was
punishing them because he caught us trespassing. By the way, why
didn’t you tell me he was your grandfather?”

Karla looked down at the tunnel floor. “It was
nothing to be proud of. Arthur is a nasty man.” She glanced up at
me. “Where are they now? Bern and Lille?”

“
They have this little cabin in a
cave. Bern wasn’t doing so hot. Harvald kind of busted him
up.”

“
Take me there. They can help us.
The more souls we have looking, the better.”

***

The glow marks that Bern had me blaze my trail
with made it pretty easy to find our way back to the cabin. I
blinked each one out as we passed to keep anything unfriendly from
tracking us.

Bern and Lille had their ceiling aglow in
simulation of the midday sun when we entered their cavern. Bern was
laid on a blanket outside the cabin while Lille worked on his leg
with what looked like a pair of crochet hooks. His skin was flayed
open and his calf muscle peeled back, exposing the bone.

I cringed at the sight, but Bern acted like
someone like he was just getting a massage. There was little blood,
and he gave no indication that he was in pain.

“
Oh my goodness!” said Lille. “You
found her!” She dropped her tools and rose, slapping her palm over
her heart as we approached.

“
Um … we kind of found each other,”
I said, hanging back, leery of Bern’s exposure.

“
Lille … for Heaven’s sake … close
me up first. Don’t leave my flesh hanging out in front of our
friends.”

Lille knelt back down and flopped Bern’s calf
muscle back in place. She sealed up his wound with a pinching
motion. Her fingers were smeared with blood, but not nearly as much
as one would expect.

I looked on, both amazed and
repulsed.

“
Can you believe it?” said Lille.
“The poor man was hobbling around on a fracture all that
time?”

“
You do … surgery?”

“
I don’t pretend to be a doctor,”
she said. “But here, it’s more like knitting, actually. One just
needs to take care not to breach any major vessels. Some
capillaries will tear, there’s not much to be done about that. But
one nice thing we discovered, is that there are no bacteria here to
worry about. Nothing harmful, anyway. So there’s no risk of
infection.”

Bern rose to his feet and winced. “Still aches
like a bugger. Stable, though. Doesn’t feel like it’s about to snap
with every step.”

“
The darn nerve endings can be hard
to calm down,” said Lille. “Oh well, what are you going to do?
He-heh! They have a mind of their own.”

She rushed over to Karla and hugged her tight.
Bern strode over and joined the scrum.

“
Any word on your
sister?”

“
Not yet,” said Karla. “I suppose it
is possible she has not yet entered Root. But I cannot know this
for sure. I worry … I have a feeling … that she is already here.
Somewhere.”

There came a distant roar, followed by rumbles
much like thunder, but spaced more regularly, like a drum corps for
a slow funeral dirge, as the Reapers dispersed from their lair en
masse. The sound of them reverberated through the walls of the
cavern.

“
Sort of early for Reapers, don’t
you think?” said Bern.

“
I can’t stay!” said Karla. “They
are coming!” She sprinted down the length of the cavern,
disappearing into the darkest recesses. I took off after
her.

“
Hang on,” said Lille, grabbing her
shoulder bag. “We’re coming with you.”

***

We stayed together, keeping one step ahead of
the Reapers, working down one tunnel, through the matrix and up the
next. The tunnel system was so massive, I knew there was no way we
could reach every pod before the Reapers did, no matter how quickly
we worked. Karla probably realized this, but she didn’t let the
futility of the task dissuade her.

We had no choice but to cede one tunnel to a
disgusting, belching monster, hanging back in the interspaces and
let it do its thing while we hunkered down and kept
silent.

The walls shuddered. Roots twisted and swayed
like a forest in a hurricane as the thing slurped and crunched its
way along the passage like some grisly street sweeper.

It was a terrible thing, listening to the
shrieks and whimpers from those in the pods, but we were helpless
to intervene.

When the beast had moved on, we poked our
heads into the reeking tunnel. It had harvested every pod that had
hung there.

Karla’s face blanched. Nobody said a word. We
resumed the hunt for Isobel, fully realizing that it might already
be too late to save her.

It took a while to find a tunnel that actually
had pods, but when we did we didn’t dilly-dally. We got together
and combined our weaving skills to bust them open without
permission or warning from the occupants, rudely dumping them onto
the tunnel floor whether they wanted to be free or not.

Most souls were apathetic or resentful, but
one guy was just ecstatic to see us. That made it all
worthwhile.

He was in his thirties and balding, but he had
these big, spooky, child-like eyes. He had been struggling to get
out of his pod even before we showed up, his knuckles raw from
tussling with the roots.

“
And thus, another Weaver is born,”
whispered Bern, who still limped badly and leaned heavily on his
cane, though he complained not one bit.

“
What’s your name?” asked
Lille.

“
Jeffrey.”

“
Keep close, Jeff. You’re a very
lucky man to have found us, though you may not realize it just
yet.”

“
Oh, I realize it,” he said. “I’ve
dreams about this place … nightmares, actually. I know what lurks
in these tunnels.”

“
Oh?” said Lille. “Did we happen to
appear in any of those dreams?”

“
Actually … him.” Jeff pointed at
me. “He was in one of my dreams.”

“
Me?”

I didn’t ask to hear the details. This place
was weird and complicated enough as it was.

We crossed through the wall to seek another
tunnel and found another cavern on the way. This one did not seem
to have a maker. It was natural, so to speak, if anything could be
considered natural in a place like Root.

A soft blue glow illuminated a pool of water
at its center, its bottom bedded in a pale grit that looked like
beach sand. I scooped up a handful and rubbed it between my
fingers. There was no way the stuff could be made of roots. I could
see the individual grains. Bits of mica made it sparkle.

“
It’s … real,” I said. “Real
sand.”

“
Yes,” said Bern. “We run into
places like this now and then. Nice to know that roots aren’t
necessarily the be all and end all of everything here, eh? That
there’s room for actual sand and water in this world.”

“
I’ve seen stone before,” said
Lille. “Actual bedrock. No idea how it got here, or how far it
pervades.”

Water dripped from a sheath of dangling
roots.

“
Drink up. It’s sweet,” said Lille,
catching the drips in her cupped palm.

Something shiny glittered in the depths of the
pool. I plunged my hand into the cool water and retrieved it. It
turned out to be a gold wedding band, engraved with a flowery
script that I couldn’t decipher.

“
What’s this?” said Bern. “One ring
to rule them all?”

“
My precious!” said Lille,
contorting her face and voice, her fingers contorted into a
claw.

I handed the ring to Karla. “It’s not an
earring … but whatever.”

“
Thanks,” she said, her expression
flat and grim. She slid it onto her finger without as much as a
smile. We could hear a Reaper lumber into the tunnel we had just
left, feasting on the souls we had left strewn below their shredded
pods. Jeff went pale. “Please, we need to keep looking,” said
Karla.

We crossed to the other side of the pool,
snipping off the sheets of root that blocked our way. Karla reached
the tunnel wall first and pressed her ear against it. Satisfied,
she sliced through and poked her head out into the
lumen.

“
There are pods here!” she said,
excited, before sliding through.

This next tunnel was brighter than most,
blotched with mostly static patterns of light, that shifted color
when you touched them, much like a mood ring.

Karla wasted no time, ripping through the
first pod before anyone could come alongside to help her. A soul
crashed down, bringing half of the pod with him.