The Deeps (Book Three of The Liminality)

By A. Sparrow

James Moody, deported from the UK back to the US, strives to keep his promise to dead girlfriend Karla and rescue her from the frigid antechamber of Hell called The Deeps. Meanwhile, Frelsian assassin Wendell Franks employs coercion to recruit him as an apprentice, threatening to eliminate those he cares for one by one unless he complies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. Sparrow
• Release date: Sep 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301136162

A. Sparrow

I'm terribly unprofessional and self-loathing. I can't imagine why anyone here would want to know anything about me. I write mainly for my own entertainment. It's fun to chase stories. Anyone else who finds enjoyment from it is a plus.

Book preview

Chapter 1: Deported

The Border Agency van rolled through terrain, green and familiar. Through the misted windshield, the rumple of the hills in the west made me think of Brynmawr. The sight of them made me pine for my friends at the goat farm. I wondered if I would ever see them again in this life. Not that I was expecting to die anytime soon. It was even worse. I was being deported.

Turns out, you need a special visa to work in the UK or to even stay in country beyond six months. I knew all that. I just hadn’t bothered with the formalities. I never expected to stick around Cwm Gwyrdd farm as long as I did.

As one who commuted regularly between the realms of life and death, the whole idea of visas struck me as ridiculous. Earthly borders were a meaningless abstraction. No one needed a stinking passport to visit the brink of Hell, and there were certainly no limitations on how long you could stay.

Showers pissed down through clouds layered in sheets and wisps, burnished in every possible shade of silver and gray. I studied the road signs for familiar names. Neither Crewe nor Nantwich rang a bell. But I was getting all excited over nothing. We were probably nowhere near Brynmawr. The hill was just a hill.

It wasn’t like we could just drop in for tea, anyhow. I was in custody. My itinerary was in the hands of Mr. Osborne and Hank, the middle-aged, mustachioed Border Agency guards tasked with getting us out of the country.

I shared the back of the van with two Jamaican guys, Frankie and Rudolph. None of us were considered a flight risk so we weren’t handcuffed or anything. I don’t even think they carried any weapons beyond their cans of mace. They were basically a glorified, one-way livery service.

I considered making a run for it. What stopped me was my failure to imagine a single positive outcome. If I ran, I wouldn’t get far. The UK was a freaking island for Pete’s sake and I had no cash on me, whatsoever. A stunt like that would only delay my deportation a couple of days and ensure that I was transported out of the country under much less amiable arrangements.

Still, the idea tempted me. How nice would it be to have one last meal at Cwm Gwyrdd farm.

***

Hank proved quite the Leonard Cohen fanatic. He had kept a ‘best of’ compilation running on continuous loop ever since we pulled out of York. I had never paid much mind to this Cohen guy before. Everybody knows ‘Hallelujah,’ from Shrek if nothing else, but I had managed to go through life completely unaware that he had written anything else.

The guy can’t sing worth a lick. The last thing I expected being force-fed his stuff in the back of this van was to be turned into a fan, but that’s exactly what happened. Those brooding lyrics and melodies bored into my brain as surely as Fellstraw.

This kind of thing probably happens to every lame-ass, lovesick kid, but there were moments I was convinced those songs were written about me and Karla. She and Isobel were the ‘Sisters of Mercy.’ Her old chamber in Root was where she, like ‘Suzanne,’ fed me tea and oranges that came all the way from China. And even though it made no sense whatsoever, the third time through the cycle he had me believing that I was the guy with the ‘Famous Blue Raincoat.’

Frankie coughed and tapped Hank on the shoulder. Mr. Henry, sir, could you please put on something more cheerful? said Frankie. I mean, anyting. Even Tom Jones. Elton John. The white boy here looks like he is about to cry.

This is my van and I am the driver, thank you very much, said Hank. You two can listen to whatever you want once you’re back home in Kingston.

I am serious, mon. I tink you’ve killed my cuz. Rudolph’s cap was pulled low over his eyes, temple propped against his palm, head wobbling with every bump like a bobble head doll. He gave his cousin a jab with his elbow. Rudolph shrugged fitfully and growled, before settling back into his stupor.

Frankie and Rudolph Barrett had come to the UK on a lark. They had scrounged enough money to show up uninvited on the doorstep of an aunt in Manchester, only to be completely astounded to find her door slammed in their faces. No one back home in Jamaica ever bothered to tell them that their fathers were persona non grata amongst the UK branch of the family.

So they roamed the north of England, accepting whatever casual labor came their way, crashing in the flats of distant cousins and college students they managed to charm.

Frankie was by far the bubblier of the two. He reminded me of Karla’s late friend Linval. Both shared a certain savoir-faire in the presence of doom. Linval kept calm and collected right up to his last hours on earth despite having endured a series of beatings far more brutal than mine. The circumstances didn’t compare, but Frankie was similarly accepting of their imminent deportation.

Rudolph might as well have been the Stone of Scone for how little he spoke. Frankie said he was taking the deportation very hard. Apparently, there was a girl involved. Isn’t there always?

Rudolph didn’t show his eyes much, but when he did, I had seen livelier expressions in the bargain rack of a fish market. I knew that look. This was someone who knew Root.

I wondered if Rudolph knew his cousin was suicidal. I wondered if I should tell him.

***

Frankie finally succumbed to the music, slumping in his seat, snoring all wheezy like a girl. When he collapsed against my shoulder, I nudged him back firmly but gently against his cousin. His clothes carried a pungent musk, as if he hadn’t showered in days. At least I had gotten to wash up at the NHS hospital before my release.

I was pretty much all healed up now. Those NHS docs had patched me up good, managing to avoid any major surgery. They let me keep my spleen and kidneys despite some nasty bruising and lacerations. They told me I would be achy until my splintered ribs fully healed but there would be no lasting damage.

Karla’s death had mystified the docs. Natural causes were the best the pathologist could come up with. But I knew better. The causes were far from natural. And I couldn’t help but feel responsible. She had been looking for me when she stumbled onto that Fellstraw. I had watched it all happen in front of me. If I could have shouted just a second or two sooner, I could have warned her.

We passed a sign for Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford, coming up on Birmingham. We couldn’t be more than a couple hours away from Heathrow and our free ride across the pond. The State Department still listed Florida as my home of record, but I had no intention of going back to Ft. Pierce. I didn’t care where I ended up. I didn’t plan to spend much time on earthly business anyway. My soul had a promise to keep. I had an appointment with the Deeps.

***

I had no clue how to go after Karla beyond the obvious—to off myself. For now at least, that was off the table. I was still hoping for an easier way to get to the Deeps, something more reversible.

Urszula had been there and back again, like all the Dusters. She got all squirrely, though, when I tried to pick her brain. All she would say was that no one came that way anymore, that the way was closed.

I was hoping for more info, something that might tell how I might open things back up. But she said it was impossible from this side. It was only something that could be managed from the Deeps. She wouldn’t tell me what she meant by ‘way.’

I tried not to think about what poor Karla might be going through in the Deeps. Not that I had the faintest idea what the place was like. Urszula wouldn’t talk about that, either.

A piece of lint on the door handle was curling and uncurling like it was alive. I didn’t think much of it at first. It could have been the humidity. But then I noticed that the fibers were moving in time with my breath. I could stop and restart the curling at will. It never occurred to me that my powers of Weaving could cross between worlds. Good to know. It might come in handy someday.

A sign came up overhead:

M42. London. M5. The South West. Worcester.

We exited towards London. This was the point of no return. I was certain now that I would never see Cwm Gwyrdd Farm again. My deportation order specified a ten year exclusion from the UK. I would be long gone from this Earth, if I had my way.

Hank drove us straight to Heathrow. I never even got to catch a glimpse of London proper. We pulled into this gray windowless alley with metal walls and no windows. Airport security was expectant and waiting for us at a utility entrance.

They shepherded us though a staff security checkpoint and gave us an opportunity to use the loo and wash up in a sink. They brought out some bins of left and donated clothing, used but clean, some neatly folded, some tangled in knots.

I managed to find a pair of brown jeans and a Manchester United T-shirt that sort of fit me. A swatch of black cotton caught my eye and I practically dove onto the table to snatch up an oversized black hoodie, just like the ones I favored. I couldn’t believe my good luck.

Frankie chose a pair of painter’s pants that were about four inches too long. Rudolph came out looking quite natty in a sport coat over dress slacks that were only a little bit too tight.

We had our own private waiting room, no windows, no clock. They brought us a nice box lunch with some kind of salty lunch meat on stale bread.

Hey, Mr. Osborne. How long we got to wait?

Wish I knew, said the guard. They’re still trying to scrounge some space for you on a flight.

I wanted out of here now. I wanted to crossover to the Liminality and tea with Bern. Because I wanted it so much, I knew it would keep me out.

It was a tricky thing, this crossover business. You couldn’t be too eager to reach your destination or else it would buoy your mood enough to gum up the works. It worked better if you could just make yourself feel bad and let it take you wherever you wanted. You tended to end up in the last place you had been, which was generally a place you wanted to be, unless you regressed.

Any sort of optimism and longing seemed to make the forces that controlled these transitions skittish. You had to lure them close, fool them into thinking that you were the one being trapped.

I stared at the eight-pointed Home Office patch on Hank’s shoulder, undoing the threads holding it on, one by one.

Hey, Mr. Osborne, said Frankie. Are you and Hank coming with us all the way to America?

Nope. We’re going straight back to Yorkshire as soon as we hand you off. Some private security types will be escorting you the rest of the way.

They’re running late, said Hank, whose shoulder patch now dangled from his jacket.

Any chance they are putting us on Virgin? said Frankie. I hear they have a video screen on every seat.

Who knows? said Mr. Osborne. Could be anything. Charter. Cargo flight. Whoever has got the space. Depends on how many other miscreants are headed across the pond today.

An airport official ducked into the room. Hank and Mr. Osborne had a hushed conversation with him before Hank nodded and went off with him.

Well now, gentlemen, said Mr. Osborne. Looks like you’ll be flying commercial. No restraints since you’ve been so nice and cooperative. We put in a good word for you. And you’ll get a hot meal like everybody else. You’ll be boarding soon. They’re just waiting for a young lady the Reliance folks are bringing over. Looks like it’ll be just the four of you today.

A door opened and a sleepy-looking security guard in a white shirt and tie came floating in.

Speak of the devil! said Mr. Osborne. All rightie, then. My friends will take it from here. Guys, it’s been nice havin’ you, but please don’t come back anytime soon. He dipped his brow and stepped out of the room.

A tired-looking girl in a purple bandanna entered. A female guard led her to a seat next to Frankie. She had big eyes, a beak of a nose and long, strawberry blonde hair that was a bit stringy and unkempt but not unclean. She wore a suede leather jacket, slick at the elbows and cuffs from wear. Her jeans had patches in places you wouldn’t expect them, for color and character more than repair. She had a streetwise urchin look about her, though she seemed more on the wholesome, trekker end of the spectrum.

And who do we have here? said Frankie.

Excuse me? said the girl.

I am asking your name? Me, I am Francis. And that is Rudolph, my cousin. The skinny, white boy in the corner is our friend, James.

Um … I’m uh … A. Ellen Greywacz.

A? What kind of name is A?

Oh … uh … sorry. I’ve been filling out too many forms. The A comes from my grandma. But I don’t use it, except for signing my name. Most people call me Ellen.

So what does the A stand for? Annie?

I’d … uh … rather not say.

Antoinette? Alice? Amanda?

Agatha? said Rudolph. Aretha?

Please. Just call me Ellen.

And what horrible crime against the Queen have you committed that these people want you out of their country so badly?

I … uh … overstayed my student visa.

Frankie reacted in mock horror.

Oh my God! Such a criminal! Too much education! You overdid your studies.

Well, actually … it was the opposite, she said, sheepishly. I quit school but stuck around. I’ve been working in a pub. One of the Polish waitresses turned me in. I don’t know what her problem was. Didn’t like Americans, I guess."

She seemed a little more perked up now. Frankie seemed to have that effect on people.

So why are they kicking you guys out?

If we tell you, said Frankie, lowering his voice in mock gravitas, We have to kill you. Actually, I tink they got too many Jamaicans, they don’t want any more of us.

Ellen’s gaze fixed on me and hovered like a pesky gnat. I glanced away quickly. I wasn’t feeling very sociable.

So who’s the shy one? she said.

I told you. His name is James.

Chapter 2: Transit

They ended up putting the four of us, plus two private security guards on a British Air flight to Newark, one guard for the Jamaicans and one for me and the blonde girl–Ellen. I’m not sure why we needed so many chaperones. Me and my new friends were all pretty docile and good-natured and resolved to be going home. We weren’t going to cause anyone any trouble. If anything, I was the surliest of the bunch.

The British Air folks had us deportees board first, even before any parents with small children or disabled folks needing extra assistance. They wanted to make sure we were in place and buckled down before they let the regular folks on.

Our seats were in the very last two rows of the plane, next to the washrooms. Frankie and I took window seats. They kept the Jamaicans together. Rudolph while Ellen sat next to me. The guards, both American, took the aisles.

They were both wary and taciturn with us, way less pleasant than Hank and Mr. Osborne. Frankie got told to sit down and shut up when he tried to kick up a chat with a lady the next row up.

That was fine with me. I wasn’t in any mood to talk. I think Ellen sensed this, because she didn’t pry. I appreciated that.

Ellen was an old soul. I could tell that from her eyes. They held wisdom and sadness beyond their years. She had seen a lot of stuff in her time, some of it quite bad.

It amazed even me that I could tell that from a glimpse. I had never found myself particularly empathetic or perceptive, but Root had taught me a lot about people.

She caught me looking at her a little too long and I blinked away, pretending it unintentional. But in that glance, I found a confidence and optimism that contrasted greatly with Rudolph’s twin pits of doom. She might be bitter about life, but she had come to grips with it. I was pretty sure she had never seen Root. Few people do and even fewer live to tell about it.

Overhead bins slammed. The aisles cleared. Ellen picked up a Sky Mall catalog and commented on some strange cat toy. I stared straight ahead and grunted.

She probably thought me rude or standoffish, but I was just trying to settle down and get my head into that fugue state where Root could come and take my soul away for a while. Then again, even when I tried to be friendly, my social graces had never been anything to brag about.

We taxied. Stowed our electronics devices. Ignored the safety briefing. And the plane took off.

Still not a glimmer of Root showed itself. I wanted to go back there so badly. Too badly. That was the problem.

Once we got up to cruising altitude and the stewardesses brought the beverage cart around, I gave up trying and broke out of my shell.

Where you from? I blurted, out of nowhere.

She put down the ‘in flight’ magazine and looked at me like I was some piece of furniture that had miraculously acquired the power of speech.

Um … well, I grew up in Connecticut, but I had been going to school in Maine … before I came out here.

What school?

Bates, she said.

Oh! I said, feigning recognition even though I had never heard of it before.

Yeah. They say it’s a really good school, I guess. I … uh … wasn’t a very good student. I kind of hung out with the townies—my Somalian friends in downtown Lewiston. I really only went there for the study abroad.

Why didn’t you just go to college in England?

"I … I wasn’t sure I’d like it. I had never been there before. I just thought it’d be cool, I mean … I was a big Harry Potter and Dr. Who fan. Turns out, it’s more like ‘Skins.’

Skins?

A series on E4. Dysfunctional teens. Suburban blight. You know. That sort of thing. The slimy underbelly.

So … you going back … to Bates?

Nah. I’m done. I’m done with college.

Me too, I said.

Oh? Where did you go?

I didn’t.

Are you even … college age?

Um … yeah. Don’t I look it?

You look young, she said. Younger than me.

How old are you?

Twenty-two.

I’m … almost twenty, I said, truthfully, though I was tempted to lie.

Hmm. You look even younger, she said. Except … except for your eyes.

I wondered if she could see the Root in me the way I saw it in Rudolph. Would she realize what she was looking at if she did? Doubtful.

So where did they nab you? I said. Did I hear you say you were working in a pub?

Yup. In Cheltenham.

Sounds … familiar.

It’s a nice, little tourist town on the edge of the Cotswolds.

Oh, right. I think I’ve actually been there. I was working for a while on a goat farm in Brynmawr.

South Wales. Yup. I know it. We were practically neighbors. said Ellen with a big smile that betrayed as much bitterness as it did sweetness.

***

As the meal cart inched its way down the aisle, I leaned against the window and stared through the broken clouds. Ponds took turns glinting at us, one by one. We passed over villages—clusters of cobble and slate, nodes in a network of roads and walls. And then came an abrupt and jagged line of bluffs and beaches, waves breaking in frothy arcs.

It pained me to watch all that green terrain slip away into open ocean. I hadn’t felt half as bereft leaving Florida for good, and I couldn’t understand why.

The feeling of connection I felt with the British Isles was a little difficult to explain. I was three generations removed from my Dad’s Irish ancestors. Was it because this was the only place I had ever known the earthly version of Karla? Could it be that simple?

All my pondering spurred an involuntary but familiar chain reaction. I stifled a sly thrill, disengaging my mind, nurturing the process, letting things fall where they may. Any attempt to guide the outcome would make it all go away. This is what Karla called ‘surfing.’

And wouldn’t you know, those dang tendrils came for me, entangling my soul, pulling it free from my body. I felt myself tumbling through the floor of the plane. It didn’t matter if a soul was six feet under or cruising at thirty-nine thousand feet when the Liminality calls.

Chapter 3: Grave

Low clouds dumped a steady rain. Drops pocked every puddle. I was back in that hollow, nestled against the foothills of the massif harboring Frelsi and its dead sister city from which I had raised an army of Old Ones.

Rainy season had set in with a vengeance. The once dainty trickle of a waterfall that drained a hanging valley was now an engorged and dirty torrent that pounded into its bowl. My little pond was a sea, submerged by the overflow of the flooded creek. The few patches of high ground were now islands.

One such island surrounded the big old weeping willow I had created from a shrub. Its droopy and pendulous branches swayed in the wind. It amazed me that it had not already come undone. At its base, flood waters lapped at Karla’s grave mound.

The sight jolted me. It was still difficult to believe that she was gone. My pulse pounded. I had a pilgrimage to make.

I waded through knee deep water across the shelf of sediments that formed the banks of the pond in dry season. The hilt of the ancient sword I had found in the ruins where I had awakened Mr. O protruded above the surface, right where I had jabbed it into the mud beside my throne of clay. I yanked it out and swished it around in the water to clean off the mud. Not a hint of corrosion marred the gleaming metal.

Keeping my eyes on that willow, I swung around in a wide arc, working my way over to the other side of the pond, probing the mud with my toes to avoid ledges and holes obscured by the murk. The water was surprisingly warm, but then again, my body didn’t seem to sense temperature extremes as acutely in this place.

When I reached Karla’s grave mound, my heart plunged like a slug of molten lead. It dropped me to my knees. I lowered my forehead to the moss covering it.

I remembered the first morning after dad’s passing. I woke up, half alert, assuming he was still alive, just like he had been every other morning of my life. That our family was intact. That it was the beginning of another ordinary day.

Then it was like, oh shit! He’s gone! He’s really gone!

Seeing this pile of dirt that I dug out by myself, knowing who lie beneath it because I put her there, that made the reality hit home. This wasn’t a dream, either. She was really gone.

I reared my head back screamed, my wails echoing off the walls of the canyon, reverberating until the roar of the waterfall swallowed it back up. Leaning heavily on the sword, I got back up on my feet.

I couldn’t stand the thought of Karla’s body down under all this mud, protected only by that thin, cloth shroud. The image greatly disturbed me.

But what was I going to do? Dig her up and move her body to higher ground? I told myself that body down there wasn’t really her. It was just a receptacle for her soul, one of many probably associated with every manifestation of existence. This particular shell of hers might be ruined, but there was another one somewhere, right now roaming the Deeps.

That sort of made sense, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. It sure felt like she was gone forever.

I turned and faced the exit to the canyon, gazing out over the pitted plains. I needed to pay a visit to my old buddy Bern.

Chapter 4: Attack

I picked my way along a pile of stony rubble at the base of the canyon wall, the only dry land between the cliffs. The plains at least would be dry once I got beyond the fan of outwash that spilled from the mouth of the canyon. Those pits and tunnels were good for drainage, if nothing else.

Stones clattered down from the opposite bluff. Something bulky moved across a cleft in the boulders topping the promontory. Someone was up there watching me.

Duster spies, perhaps? Urszula? I beamed a smile up into the rain and waited for her to show herself on her mantis.

But nothing budged. The rain continued to pour down. A puff of cloud drifted down and veiled the rocks, but otherwise all was still. Maybe the stones had been loosened by the rain.

Suddenly self-conscious of my nakedness. I plucked some leaves from a shrub and expanded them into a cottony fabric that I shaped into my typical black hoodie and blue jeans. If I was about to have company, I had to make myself look presentable. No one wanted to look at my skinny behind.

I continued on my way. A pair of leathery triangles rose out of the mists at the crest of the butte. Wings. But they belonged to no dragonfly or mantid. They were dark and jointed and angular like a pterodactyl’s.

The beast that owned them looked like a winged maggot. A horn-like proboscis projected forward from its narrow snout. The damned thing was a Reaper—one of the mutant variants the Frelsians had gotten so good at breeding—spiker with wings.

The beast that owned them launched itself off the precipice. It dove straight at me.

I looked for a place to flee, but didn’t have much choice. I was trapped between the flooded creek and the canyon wall. I gripped the sword in both hands and braced myself. The thing was neither nimble nor strong as a flier. It was more a glider. When a blast of wind knocked it off course, it struggled to curve back around.

I tried to stay calm. I held out the sword and tried to summon a spell. But the two goals worked at counter purposes. Staying calm was not compatible with powerful spell craft. So I let the fear take me. I let myself be annoyed.

I was running out of time. The spiker crashed and skidded on the bank of the creek, wing joints and rear claws scraping a deep groove in the damp sand. It was an ugly thing, with a semi-translucent hide through which the outline of its organs was faintly visible. It jabbed its elbows in the ground and clambered after me.

I had no choice but to use my sword as simply a blade. The spiker lunged, trying to impale me with its proboscis. I dodged aside and took a swipe, slashing a furrow in its hide. With a groan, it wheeled around and came back at me. I danced away, taking advantage of its clumsiness on the ground. But it made up for its unwieldy wings with vicious determination.

I backed away down the narrow strip of dry land along the canyon wall. It was all I could manage not to trip on the loose rubble. I scanned the sky over the plains for a friendly mantid or two, but all I saw were low-hanging clouds, rumpled and quilted beneath.

Across the canyon, another shower of gravel came spilling down a chute. A second winged spiker surmounted the butte and stretched its wings. Things were about to get twice as hairy.

A strange cloud appeared over the ridge-top and a swarm of smaller things came zipping through the cleft harboring the waterfall.

The first spiker took advantage of my distraction to hurl itself at me. Only my reflexes saved me. I leaped back and batted its lance-like snout aside with the flat of my blade. It crashed headlong into a cliff. I scurried away, crab-like while it regathered its ungainly self.

The second spiker came gliding down, aiming for an outcropping of bedrock between me and the outlet to the canyon. The damned thing was aiming to trap me. I got up and ran, tripping and sliding over the loose stone underfoot.

The gliding spiker adjusted its flight path, squealing with anticipation as it homed in on me. I fell, dropped the sword, retrieved it, frantically.

Panic thrummed my nerves. The first spiker flailed at me with a pair of hooked claws projecting from its wing tips, just missing. I dove into a pocket in the rubble as it slashed its other wing where my head had just been.

The first beast was so close now I could smell it and it reeked like spoiled meat. This was a Reaper through and through, an enemy of the soul. Its mere presence inspired a primeval hatred to ignite in me, for all the humanity this breed of demon had dragged to destruction.

Something switched on inside my heart. The sword became more than a sword. I took a deep breath as something loosened inside me and a buzzing energy filled my nervous system.

The first monster reared up over me, aligning its proboscis with my chest, ready to plunge.

Without any conscious effort on my part, the energy building inside me released. It broke loose like a dam with too much river piled up behind it. A beam of diffuse light came pouring out of the sword tip, bending at random like a lazy lightning bolt.

It struck the spiker full on in the snout and blew its head to bits. Its body instantly slumped.

The second spiker crash-landed behind me, sending up a shower of wet grit. I rolled to face it, to do battle with it next but it was already writhing in the rubble pile with a half dozen giant bees attached and a dozen more swarming about in tight, angry circles, itching for a sting.

One bee flew over and landed right next to me. Oblivious to its battling sisters, it regurgitated a drop of nectar and offered it to me. I wasn’t in the mood for refreshment. I shooed it away.

The headless spiker slashed its claws about blindly before collapsing in a pool of its yellowish blood. The other beast lay crumpled on its side, as the bees continued to pump it with venom.

I got up and staggered off towards the outlet of the canyon, anxious to put some distance between me and the now spiker-infested hollow. A few stray bees did some loops around my head before buzzing off.

That little sneak attack had totally wrecked my composure. This had to have been a planned hit. The damned Frelsians were out to get me. I expected mutated Reapers to come bounding from every crevice and overhang.

I made my way up the shoulder of the nearest of the two bluffs that flanked the outlet of the canyon. The tilted slabs of bedrock made for easier footing, even though the stone was slick from rain.

I paused at the brink of the pitted plans to get my bearings. The creek here fanned out into a lacework of channels. Beyond this wash, the plains looked fairly homogeneous. There weren’t many landmarks once you got away from the hills.

My eyes homed in on a heap of what looked like wreckage on the rim of one of the nearer pits. I shook the grit from my clothes and clambered down to the flats, keeping my sword at the ready.

Chapter 5: Caravan

Rattled and confused, I left the bluffs behind. I half-believed I should have let those spikers impale me. That would have sent me straight to the Deeps. Didn’t I keep telling myself that was where I wanted to be?

But somehow it seemed important for me to get there on my own terms, preferably with a round-trip ticket, though I wasn’t sure such a passage was possible anymore, even though the Dusters seemed to have managed. I guess I also wasn’t quite ready to cut my ties with that place called Earth, despite what the darkness in my heart tried to sell me.

A million puddles and rivulets saturated the plains, but though landscape was too porous to harbor any actual lakes or ponds. Green shoots and rosettes were sprouting up everywhere, many with flower buds ready to burst. This place was going to look spectacular once the rains stopped and everything blossomed.

I traced a meandering path along the drier creases of land that crisscrossed the flats, detouring around the few small pits I encountered. I worked my way towards that heap of wreckage I had spotted earlier.

It was perched on the rim of one of the larger sinkholes. The whole mess looked like the aftermath of some battle. But it couldn’t have been Dusters. They tended to obliterate objects down to their elemental particles with their spell craft, as Bern and Lille discovered with their first attempt at building a cabin up top. This looked like the work of Frelsians.

I didn’t remember seeing any man-made structures on the surface before. Before our raid on Frelsi no one would have dared build anything in such an exposed location. This wreckage suggested that it still was not a wise choice.

As I got closer, I recognized the distinctive alternating arrangement of faux cedar shakes sheathing the flattened walls. Lille and Bern had used that pattern in every cabin I had ever sat with them for tea from Luthersburg to Frelsi.

My stomach clenched. Suddenly, I worried for Bern. It struck me, though, that even though the parts of this cabin lay in a heap, it was an orderly heap. Things were sorted into piles: thatch here, walls there.

A thick but leafless tree thrust a limb out over the sinkhole, dangling a system of pulleys and rope. And then, out of the pit clambered Bern, all spry and vigorous apart from his usual limp. He was too absorbed in his work to notice my approach.

Hi, I said, when I was only about ten feet away.

Bern stumbled back, tripping over a beam, pointing his cane at me like it was a laser cannon, which it was, sometimes.

Oh my Lord! He clasped one hand to his chest and lowered his cane. Don’t you ever surprise an old man like that! You just might give an old man a boost into the next world.

Bern regained his footing and hopped down from a pile of unbundled thatch. A huge grin spread across his face as he came over and hugged me. Long time no see, he said. But that’s good news, right? Life must be treating you well.

Not really, I said. I just got deported.

Oh. Well, that was to be expected. But I presume you’re healthy again … in the earthly sense, I mean? Certainly, your soul is still a basket case. Aren’t we all?

Yeah. Well. I’m all patched up. No permanent damage. Just some aches.

So you’re going back home, then?

Home? I’m not sure what that is, I said. I don’t think I have one. I almost think of this place as a home.

That’s absurd, said Bern. No home of mine has demons that patrol the sky on the backs of insects the size of horses, and carnivorous worms that could best an elephant in a tug-of-war. Not mention, now that it’s wet season, it rains more than Scotland.

Looks like the flowers are about to pop, I said.

Oh yes, I noticed. Too bad Lille isn’t down here to see it.

Have you heard from her? I said.

No. And I don’t expect to, not with the brain-washing they put those Hemi-souls through. Though I suspect she’s a Freesoul by now. They have assassins, you know., for that sort of thing.

Yeah, I know, I said. I was there when she told you.

Ah. No matter. I’m a bachelor now. I did just fine down below even before I met her. I’m a contemplative man, you know, and now I have more time than ever to spin my fantasies.

Fantasies? Do you mean stories? I didn’t know you were a writer.

I’m not. I don’t write, per se. I spin fantasies. Carve them into memory. I find paper and print much too fixed a medium.

I’d love to hear them, I said.

You can’t. They’re just for me.

But … doesn’t a storyteller need someone to tell his stories to? Otherwise you’re just a—

What for? said Bern. When a tree falls in the woods, does it require a person to witness it to make it real? Why not create for the sake of creation? Why does one need an audience?

Would you share one sometime? I bet they’re ... interesting.

Bern looked at me, his face all stiff and somber. I don’t know why it was such a big deal. They were just stories. Perhaps, he said, finally. Maybe once I’m settled, and if you decide to stick around. But I have to warn you, Lille never cared to my tales. Even when she was around, I tended to keep them to myself.

He looped a cord around a bundle of thatch and pulled it tight.

So what happened to your cabin? I said. Who attacked you?

"Nobody. This is all my own doing. I’m just relocating. It was getting too soggy down in the pit. I was hoping for the rain to stop before making the move, but fat chance that will happen any time soon. I thought it worth risking the exposure now that