The Search For WondLa (14 page)

CHAPTER 24: GIFTS

Eva crept
along the rickety walkway circled past the many homes of Lacus. With each step she ascended higher and higher into the towering village. More than once she had to dodge a bewildered resident as the locals emerged from their huts for morning chores.

“How do you know me?” She looked up at the slew of windows still high above her.

“I know many things,” the song murmured back to her. “Many things I know.”

“Are you like me?” Eva squinted up through the sun’s morning glare to check her bearings.

“I am like you,” the voice whispered, “but you are not like me.”

Arriving at the topmost tier of houses, Eva stopped in front of a large round hut where one of the cables holding the pennants was anchored. The closest flag, a faded orange streamer with stars and symbols painted on it, danced and twirled in the wind—revealing a narrow stairway alongside the home. Eva edged up the steps as the music drifted down over her, tantalizing her and leading her along.

She crossed a narrow swaying footbridge that led to the entrance of a small woven shanty. The music was coming from inside. Eva waved her hand over a blue light embedded in the door—as she had seen Rovender do—and the light changed color to yellow.

“In. Come,” the voice sang in a soft hush. “Come in.”

“Hello,” Eva said, pushing the door open and stepping into the shadowy cramped abode. A hazy, heavy scent of burning soap and spices greeted her. Above, a knot of thick drapes and curtains hung down from the ceiling in a radial pattern like the holograms she had seen of a spider’s web. Looking at the maze of drapery, Eva bumped into something small, which startled her so that she almost tripped and fell.

The floor was covered in a vast array of objects. Boxes, vases, containers, and canisters covered every centimeter of the walk space.

“Gifts given,” the raspy voice intoned. “Given gifts. Watch where you venture, Eva the Ninth.”

Eva treaded slowly through the hoard of gifts, careful not to upset anything. Among the assemblage on the floor was the object creating the music. An illuminated vase flickered in time to the otherworldly tune it emitted through a lengthy contorted horn. Behind it, heavy tasseled curtains closed the entry room off from the remainder of the hut.

“Do not fear me,” the whisper said from behind the curtain. “Fear me not. And do enter.”

Eva gulped, reached up, and pushed the curtain aside.

The remainder of the small dwelling was also dark, save for the wan beam of sunlight shining through the large window. And this did little to warm the morning chill still trapped within. The mixed scent of flowers, spices, and oils was much stronger in here, causing Eva to feel nauseous. The flood of gifts concealed the creaking floor. The weave of the rounded walls was decorated in a simple pattern, which continued up to the roof. As in the entryway, dark drapes led the way in, toward the shadowy recesses of the shack, where Eva spied the source of the voice.

Sitting in the gloom, away from the sunlight, was a round, fat, pale being. It was larger than Eva, with numerous stumpy arms. It sat—perfectly balanced—on a one-legged stool.

The two regarded each other in silence, as the fat being fanned itself in a lazy manner. Next to it a tentacle ending in three pincers hung from the shadowed ceiling; the tentacle was depositing clear eggs into a bowl. One of the being’s runty arms stretched out and grabbed an egg, passed it to another of its many hands, and slipped it into its large mouth. Eva could see something tiny and wriggling inside the clear eggshell before it was consumed. Her stomach lurched.

“Gadworm eggs,” the fat being said, though its mouth did not move. “Eggs of the gadworm. You know, they always lay twenty-three. As long as I keep eating them, she’ll keep laying. Three and twenty. Twenty and three.”

Eva glanced up. The endless tapering worm was suspended throughout the entire house on the cords that held the curtains. Eva’s eyes followed the snaking body for a moment, but the worm’s coils led her gaze back to the mysterious fat being. It watched her with two glittering slits set far apart on a wide head. “I am Arius. Arius am I: the one who sees.”

“You … You’re not human.” Eva kept her distance. “I thought—”

“You thought only a human, a being such as you, would reach out.” Arius hummed in the music. “Reaching out is not only a human thought.”

“I know.” Eva was crestfallen. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you said you were like me, so I thought you were … you know …”

“Like you I am.” Arius ingested another egg in her toothless maw. “But you are not like me.”

Eva furrowed her brow.

“I have siblings. Siblings that I know. Yet siblings that I hide from,” Arius sang. “You have siblings. Siblings you don’t know. Siblings you’ve been hidden from.”

“Siblings?” Eva was excited and confused all at once. “A brother or a sister? How do you know?”

“As I said, I see many things,” Arius replied, reaching for another gadworm egg. “Many things I see, and yet, many things you do. You have yet to do many things.”

Eva stood silently for a moment, trying to understand Arius’s strange speaking. Was she just making all of this up? Was it the truth? Eva felt dizzy.

“Perhaps you’d like to know more?” Arius passed an egg from one hand to another. “To know more like you, perhaps?”

“Do you know if there are other humans here?” Eva pulled the blanket around her tighter.

“Usually I ask for a gift.
A special gift
.” Arius gestured to the multitude of trinkets heaped upon the floor. “A special gift to answer what you ask.”

“I—I don’t know if I have anything to give.” Eva shifted her weight. She thought of the Omnipod in her pocket. Muthr would blow a gasket if Eva gave the device away.

“Not to worry. You are a gift in and of yourself, Eva the Ninth,” Arius purred. “That is why I summoned you here. And here you are: a gift.”

“I am not sure I understand.” Eva took a step back, glancing down at the offerings piled all around Arius.
Does she even open these presents?
Her mind flickered to Besteel’s menagerie of captured animals. “Can’t I just leave and bring back something else for you instead?”

“Nothing more can you bring instead,” Arius chimed. “You have brought the thing I want.”

“I think I should go,” Eva said, shuffling back to the curtain separating the room from the entryway. The music vase continued its enigmatic song.

“You must know that I see time. Time to me is like a rope.” Arius stared at Eva with her tiny slits. “A rope where the past unravels behind us. A rope where the future weaves together to form the present.”

“How does that make me a gift?” Eva stood in the entrance of the room, ready to run.

“You, like I, are a fiber of this rope.” Arius ate another egg. “This rope is made of fiber from me, from you, from everything. And you, human being, can affect the weave. I want to see what could be. To do that, I need you. You need me.”

“Can you tell me where the other humans are? Or when I’ll find them?” Eva stepped back into the room.

“Come closer and you will see.” Arius gestured with one of her runty arms. “I will see if you come closer.”

Cautiously Eva stepped through the trove of offerings into the dim sunlight. She felt sweat run down her neck under the scratchy blanket she was bundled in, but she didn’t loosen her grip on it.

“Closer still,” Arius said as she fluttered her fan. “Still closer.”

Eva studied her. The being had no legs to speak of, just plump useless tentacles that hung limp from under her rolls of fat.

She couldn’t catch me if I were to run,
Eva thought.

Eva continued, step-by-step, until she was standing right in front of Arius. Her ivory skin had the texture of a mushroom, and Eva could see strange glyphs imprinted on each of her many arms. She could smell the fermented sweetness of the eggs on her breath.

As quick as lightning one of Arius’s many hands shot out, clutched Eva by the wrist, and held her fast.

CHAPTER 25: JUMP

Let me go!
Eva shrieked. “Please, Arius, please!”

The fat being closed her tiny slit eyes and chanted:

“The ancient hive returns again,

to claim a land no longer to claim.

A nymph, born of the earth, forged by

machine,

will lead a way through hate, through fear,

through war.

The heart will be thy ally, and the feast will

come to an end.”

Eva stopped struggling, entranced by the intonation of Arius’s voice:

“From the west a mighty machine does run.

Stars will bring one dream, while another

dream dies.

In the sands of time, the nymph will find

the answer

to the question that has plagued thy very

soul,

but the answer will not suffice—

and, put in motion, an equation begins,

a powerful equation with many, many

answers.”

Eva’s eyes fluttered and her body went numb as Arius held her tightly and finished:

“You will be chased to the ends of the earth,

but the end will reveal all that you seek.

But first the ruler of a great city will hold

you in court.

The past will face the future—

but neither will recognize that they are

their own reflection.

A sibling will set you on your path.

Go forth, human child, and foster your wit,

for even the most wicked have a family

that loves them.”

Arius released her steely grip, and Eva fell backward into the pile of offerings. She scrambled up and scuttled through the hoard and back out into the entryway, where the strange, lilting music played. Eva thrust the door wide open and dashed across the swaying footbridge from Arius’s shack. She rushed down the stairs and back out into the main walkway that ringed the topmost tier of huts.

As she caught her breath, Eva rubbed her left wrist where the soothsayer had grasped her. In the reddish bruise she could see a mark forming in her skin. It was a perfect circle with another, smaller circle in it—a mark identical to one Arius had on one of her arms.

“What the—?” Eva pushed her bangs away as she studied the marking in the sunlight. Amidst her ragged breathing, she heard a sound above her.

A familiar sound.

The humming sound of a glider.

Besteel floated down inside the circular tower and hovered just a few meters in front of Eva.

“Heart rate BPM acceleration detected, Eva Nine.” The chirpy voice of her tunic was muffled under the blanket. “Please begin meditative relaxation to decrease BPM. Thank you.”

“Finally, Besteel gets heez elusive prize.” The huntsman jumped from his glider and landed right in front of Eva. He seized her with his many talons.

“Let go of me!” Eva tried to wriggle free. She realized that Besteel was only clutching her by the wrapped blanket, so she dropped down. Eva slipped out of his grasp and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Sheesa!” Besteel roared and threw down the blanket as he leaped back onto his glider. Eva glimpsed her wrap as it fluttered down several stories and then landed, tangled on one of the many lines holding the pennants that crisscrossed the plaza.

She bolted away from Besteel down the rickety walks, which were now teeming with Halcyonus locals. Eva tried to locate Hostia’s home in the myriad of huts. As she sprinted past a large streaming banner, she heard the unmistakable hum of Besteel’s charging weapon.

A low
woom
was heard, and the walkway behind her blew to pieces from the sonic wave blast. Pedestrians scattered in all directions. In the chaos, Eva slipped into one of the nearby homes and slammed the door behind her.

A family of Halcyonus stood, seemingly dumbfounded in their entry room, as a panicked Eva faced them. “Please,” she pleaded in between gasps, “I need to hide. Can you help me?”

The inhabitants yelled and hollered as they pushed her back out the front door. Besteel caught sight of Eva and brought his glider close, boomrod at the ready. Eva rushed down the circular walk, trying to put some distance between her and his weapon. Once more she heard the sonic vibration. The boardwalk in front of her burst into splinters. A stack of fishing baskets tumbled down to the tier below.

Eva spun around and ran back the way she had come. She had run several meters when yet another section of the walkway shattered from Besteel’s sonic rifle. She was now cut off in both directions.

As fast as a whip Eva turned back and ran toward the gap. With all of her strength she jumped across it, landing flat on her stomach on the other side. The damaged boards underneath her began falling away as Eva grabbed at the fragments of walkway still intact. Her legs and feet dangled free while she dug her nails into the wood, clinging on for dear life. Over her shoulder she saw Besteel hovering close on his glider, his boomrod aimed right at her head. She risked a glance down at the numerous pennants and flags fluttering, with her blanket, in the morning breeze far below.

“No need to move, leettle one,” Besteel purred. “Besteel will geet you.”

Eva gulped. She could feel her grip loosening on the boards. The huntsman was almost within reaching distance. “That iz it. Stay steel.”

Eva let go of the walk and dropped down a story to the walkway below. Landing hard on her right side, she shrieked as her arm and shoulder were jolted with pain. After pulling herself up with her left hand, she was soon under the shadow of Besteel’s glider as it dropped down from above.

With a running leap Eva hurled herself off the walkway and into the middle of the open courtyard. She plummeted down many stories through the flags and pennants, her arms flailing about.

As she fell through the twisting banners, her hand caught hold of something and she hugged it close to her. Eva clutched on to a flag, even as the force of inertia jerked her body down, causing pain to surge through her right arm. She struggled to pull herself up to the transverse cable that held the bigger-than-bedsheet flags and banners. Besteel had yet to locate her as he navigated his descending craft down through the flapping pennants, his humming weapon charged and ready.

Eva looked over and saw that she was perhaps nine meters away from where the cable was anchored to the base of a walkway. Blocking out the throbbing in her arm, she began swinging hand over hand toward the cable mount. Besteel spotted her and closed in.

“Help me! Help!” Eva shrieked. She saw local bystanders on the walkway run with hands extended toward the cable she was hanging from.

Eva pushed through the pain in her shoulder, swinging faster. She heard a high-pitched creaking sound as the cable’s anchor gave way under her additional weight. The entire line—flags, Eva, and all—plunged down toward the plaza square.

She held on to the cable as she fell on top of a vendor’s pushcart, strewing baskets of fresh fish all over the ground. In seconds, flocks of turnfins descended on the havoc, gobbling the free meal from the wrecked cart. Villagers came out with brooms and sticks to shoo the birds away. Besteel hopped down from his hovering glider, locating Eva in the mayhem.

Disoriented, Eva stood up on wobbly legs, trying to focus. She shook off her dizziness and realized she was not far from Hostia’s home. She ran toward the hut. She’d soon have help.

Muthr was there.

Rovender was there.

Hostia’s family was there.

Eva thought about what Besteel had done to her home.

She changed direction, dashing down a narrow alley. A loud sound wave erupted, and the wall next to Eva shattered into shards of clay and wood. Dodging the rubble, she continued racing down the winding alley. As she heard grunts and groans behind her, Eva realized Besteel could not fit through the alleyway.

The alley emptied out onto a boardwalk, which went around the immense piling that held up the entire village. For a split second Eva looked over her shoulder to see where Besteel was, but saw no sign of him.

He dropped from the footbridge above, landing right in front of her.

“Gotch you.” Besteel sneered and aimed the humming boomrod at Eva. She fell backward onto the walkway, her hands covering her face. A cluster of angry fishermen grabbed Besteel from behind, throwing off his aim, and the shot fired up into the air, blasting off a piece of the foundation above. Without a moment to lose, Eva scrambled up and sprinted down the nearest footbridge.

The huntsman threw his assailants off his back and charged after her. Eva made her way to the next footbridge that led out over open water toward the next tower of homes. She took off in that direction, ignoring the burn of exhaustion in her legs.

She saw that there was another bridge above her, and one below—full of morning fishermen. In an instant Eva jumped from her footbridge down to the one below, sending a flock of turnfins squawking up into the air, and then she ran faster than she’d ever run before. She looked up and realized that Besteel had taken the bridge above her and was gaining ground. There was no way she could outrun him.

With her attention focused on her pursuer, Eva ran right into a fisherman. Both toppled down onto the bridge, with the fisherman yelling at her in an indignant tone.

Panting hard, she struggled to get up. “Please! Please help me!”

A loud crash exploded behind them. Eva turned to see Besteel rising up behind her from broken planks—he had jumped more than twenty meters down to her bridge. As she pushed the angry Halcyonus fisherman aside, Eva heard the hum of Besteel’s charging rifle. “You are mines, leettle runner.” He aimed the weapon at her.

Eva stood, facing the towering huntsman, trembling. “Why are you chasing me? What do you want?” she yelled.

“You are a prize worth all this running about,” Besteel said. The boomrod’s muzzle was centimeters from Eva’s chest.

“I am not a prize! You’ll never catch me!” She spit into the predator’s face.

Stunned at her ferocity, Besteel blinked the spittle out of his eyes. It was only for a second, but it was all that Eva needed—she dove off the bridge and plunged down to the bitter green depths below.

As the emerald surface of the lake rushed toward her, Eva’s mind replayed Hostia’s warning about hunting turnfins, diving spiderfish, and never being able to hide.