“Echoes” (new title) Part II: The Prototype
Part Two: The Prototype
I.
Behind him, Storm undid her bra and let it slide down her back. A tattoo of a viper, the kind that gave her family their name, was coiled, as tense as her muscles. The Atheris family was an old one, almost as old as Pendragon's, the Slytharines. The only thing Molossus Slytharine had given his son were the glacially cold and abysmally dark green eyes. Storm, meanwhile, was a copy of her mother, Abysida. Both had a peculiar quality of making the air around them hum, something like summer. His hair stood on edge from it, whistling softly against his exposed chest.
"Where's Percy?"
He shrugged. "Said he went running with Ari."
"We have ten minutes to make it to the Parthenon."
"Missing ten minutes of Pastor Midas' sermons isn't going to destroy us."
"You know how your mom gets when you're not on time."
He ignored the comment. She sighed and started to wrap her chest.
"I assume you're thieving tonight, then."
She pulled the bandages tight. "Rairyx wants to stop a train car from reaching the Capitol after a round at Vick’s."
"Where's it coming from?"
"Aquitaine City."
"Damn."
The air grumbled as if in agreement.
"Smoke?"
It was Pendragon's turn to grumble. He took a drag and blew the smoke into the mirror. When it cleared, his reflection was back, slightly fuzzy at the edges but interiorly defined.
There was a knocking at the door downstairs. They looked at each other. Storm threw on a large shirt and jacket, the torn-up one with a hole, no buttons left and a frayed plaid pattern. Inside one of the larger, precarious pockets was a small, snub-nosed Colt Cobra.
Pendragon pulled his hair back, tied it into a bun and let a couple of strands fall into his eyes and then pulled over a longsleeve cotton shirt with various expletives scattered into a coherent sentence, buckshot that happened to hit the entire target. A raven, stranded in thorns, peeked out from the collar, threatening to fly away. A small vampire bat, behind his ear, was displayed, affronted. Storm's clothing concealed most of the viper, save for the head, with jaws and a tongue that curled around her eye and cheekbone. Her eyes were as potent as the viper's venom.
The door struggled in vain against being opened. The force sent a crack through the wood at the bottom. On the other side of the threshold was Percy, Ariadne and-- a boy. Pendragon startled; Percy had found strangers before in the woods, just not ones that look like a bloodied cousin or brother of Pendragon's. They stared at each other for a long moment, his eyes, pale green and fiery, mercurial in their intensity. They all looked out of breath. His whole body was covered in vermillion and carmine. His pink shirt, once pretty, was torn and stained. His collarbone had been shredded, along with some sort of tattoo on it. His face was freckled, cheek- and jawbones high and defined, hair cropped. His trousers, also shredded, were charcoal and red.
His first instinct was to punch the boy into oblivion, but something in his unnatural eyes stopped him.
"Pendragon," said Percy, "this is Artemis, the boy who made mushrooms glow.”
When the boy stuck his hand out, an amulet or charm, the exact same one that he had, revealed itself. The handshake involved no eye contact, just the two of them staring at each other’s wrists. Pendragon’s heartbeat became shallow and unsure.
“Artemis,” he said, trying the word out on his tongue. Everything about it felt wrong.
The boy turned to Storm, who met his gaze with the same ferocity. He cocked his head slightly.
“No weapons.”
Storm let her hand slide out of the pocket where the Cobra was waiting. Pendragon bit his tongue and looked to Percy.
“Percival fucking Augustine, what have you done.”
“We found him in the woods, maybe four hours out.”
Artemis was too busy staring into the house to confirm.
“We have to get to the synaxis.” Storm glanced down at her wrist, where a glowing radium watch sat ticking time away. She didn’t bother to mention she had an appointment with Rairyx as well.
“What do we do with him?”
Percy ran a hand through his hair. “Ideas?”
“We can’t let Midas see him.”
Ariadne bobbed her head in agreement. “We could leave him just outside.”
“What if he runs off?”
“Where the fuck would he go?” “Back into the woods?”
The silent hopefully was louder than they intended. Artemis turned to face Percy.
“I can wait outside the Parthenon or whatnot.”
“We can’t let anyone see you, though.”
“Who would care?”
“The Staatspolizei.”
“There’s one squadron in Aquitaine City. They wouldn’t come through here.” Ariadne bit her lip, her eyes narrowed.
“Not until they realize two kids accidentally found some sort of fucking druid in the woods.”
Instead of replying, Artemis merely said:
“Your lights have gone out.”
Sure enough, when Pendragon turned around, every light in his house was out. Storm cursed and walked over to the switch, her watch glowing softly. One lone sodium bulb dared speak out; it was on the wall, covered up. It cast long, sickly shadows, a perverted, yellow light, which fell across the rooms like cadavers into coffins. Pendragon had always hated that bulb, but his mother could never seem to let it go in all of her antique runs into Aquitaine City, or even down to the old crone Pyrra’s Antiques and Curiosities. It smirked, superior to those lights that died.
Storm passed in front of the wretched bulb, her shadow shrinking and then growing. The shapes were grotesque, demons and furies going from large to larger. She flipped the light switch. Nothing. She tried it again, theoretically turning the lights off. Still, nothing. After a couple more tries, she gave up and came back to the threshold.
Storm gave Artemis a deadly glance before rolling her eyes towards Percy.
“We need to get going.”
She pushed in front of them and out into the street, towards a motorcycle parked on the sidewalk. It was old and rusted, probably old Jo Crane's or Little Ben the Smith's. The fact that its light was blown out confirmed it was Ben's, though the fact that he was parked half a mile from his home and shop was somewhat disconcerting, coupled with everything else that had happened. Pendragon shoved it in the far corners of his consciousness, where it wouldn't disturb him.
Fringe's Parthenon, once officially the Federalist Parthenon of the Greater Aquitaine District of the Corvian Federation, was one of the best in Ingwar and Aricairn or anywhere in the Isles. Only that of Sara's Glen on Extrakt and Lumina in Xynfindel rivaled it physically, while that of Capitol was the only one to challenge its holiness. It was close to two hundred yards from front door to rear, almost half that high, and about a quarter as wide. It was almost solid marble, transported from the Acropolan Quarry up north. The doors were large and red, always crimson, with black finishings. Above the door was a phrase: SEMPER UNITAS CORVUS. Forever Corvian Unity. An outdated saying, but a powerful one even to Pendragon’s generation, which had succeeded the collapse of the Federation by three decades or so. A high relief of the jumbled island containing Ingwar, Bryson and Aricairn was on the door, with Capitol, Fringe, Aquitaine City, Yeovil, Urquhart and Human prominently standing out. Most of the lights in Fringe proper were out, while the Parthenon shone brilliantly. Lanterns were placed in hollowed-out portions of the marble, giving the building an ember glow, as if to reinforce its purity.
“You’ll wait here?”
Percy’s question was more of a statement than anything. There was nothing for Artemis to do but nod and step out of the way as Pendragon tore the door open. An immense quantity of light, as much as the sun at periapsis, sprinted into the verior-nox. The rows and rows of ebony pews were almost full of people in dull navy, black or grey, splashes of white uniform on the uniforms. A couple people in the back turned to look, but the pastor seemed not to notice. Reverend Rutherford H. Midas was standing and gesturing, a slim figure from nearly a hundred yards distant.
The door closed behind him with a sound that shook his nerve fibers with its angry and noisy reverberations. At this, Midas looked up and, even worse, stopped. The four kids stood in the back, too colorful, standing, disrespectful in the extreme. Abysida Atheris looked horrified. The pastor only smiled at them, forgiving.
“Welcome, Slytharine, Atheris, Ramsay. It is always a pleasure.”
Coming from anyone else, the phrase would’ve been sarcastic; yet Midas seemed unable to express sarcasm or passive aggression. Pendragon and Percy were known to sneak out at night, while Ariadne would vanish for days at a time with Rairyx and Lukas. Storm was the only one who stayed in town more often than not; she also happened to one the most prone to stealing and black market deals.
Pendragon pursed his lips and forced him to walk, head down, towards the altar, the most shameful and the last in line.
“Oh, but we have a visitor, don’t we? Oh, Mister Slytharine, if you could open the door, that would be wonderful. The Spirit waits for everyone.”
His face was burning, and he had to consciously prevent himself from ripping the door open again. He opened it slowly and, sure enough, there was Artemis. He raised an eyebrow.
“Come in!” called Midas.
Together, the twins, one bizarrely younger-looking and bloodstained, walked side by side. The fact that Pendragon’s eyes were piercing because they were deep and Artemis’ were because of their glacial cold- and paleness was a detail everyone missed, even Moira and Zendaiia Slytharine. Abysida was too embarrassed to look him in the eye, while the four Ramsays in the pews regarded him with a violence usually reserved for when they found him in their basement or on their roof. It was no secret their patriarch, Percival Senior, despised Pendragon Slytharine almost as much as he had Molossus. Artemis wasn’t spared the gore; like Pendragon, he gave them a taste of their own medicine.
The walk to the altar too far too long, but once he was there, everything went by much too fast. Midas seemed excited and anxious to have found Artemis.
“Young man,” he started, “what a pleasure.” When Artemis made the slightest of nods, he went on, “have you ever seen a Parthenon-style sermon?”
“No.”
“And where are you from?”
Pendragon bit his lip and waited for the bullet. Instead, he heard:
“I’m from the Continent. Far, far east.”
“Saron? Khanniam?”
Midas must’ve known that Artemis’ accent was all wrong for either region really, and was just fishing.
“No.”
Another bullet went whizzing by Pendragon’s head, almost clipping his ear.
“Oh, I know— Steinfeld, right?”
The sniper was pointing farther and farther away from him. Pendragon dared to exhale.
“Yes.”
“Of course. Your name?”
“Artemis.”
The sniper was right back on him again.
If anything, Artemis was a Stariot name, maybe VeBarra, not Steinfeld though. Midas, thankfully, merely nodded and let it rest.
“Well, is it good to see you, young man. Please, why don’t both of you sit there.” The pastor looked to him. “As always, good to see you, Mister Slytharine.”
He could only move his head stiffly as he rushed down to the pew and sat down, not letting any muscle relax. Artemis must’ve sensed his tension and stayed alert as well.
“Well, how nice it is for these fine young men and woman to join us. I was just talking about our future— yes, that of Ingwar, Bryson, the Continent, Stariot— everywhere. There is an atrophy occurring few wish to acknowledge and fewer still wish to act upon. It is the death—” a dramatic pause, something Midas was known for, “the death of materialism, my friends.
“This death is, of course, succeeded by a rise in what I would humbly call Noëlism.”
Artemis looked at him weirdly. He returned the glance, just as confused.
“Named after, of course, the holiday, Noëlism. Instead of materialism, it is a sense of community— the very same sense that brings us together as a town, a district, a nation, a species. They will say our economy, today, is built on the individual. This system will fail, and be replaced by a newer, pious, trusting network, where group trades with group, a semi-permanence ensuring stability.”
Midas went on and on, talking of the Walden system, the Trier Uprising and the coming emergence of confluent trading. Like most sermons, it was as informative as speculative. Out of approximately seventeen distinct families in the environs of Fringe, only a third could afford to attend the Academy between them and Aquitaine City. The rest were educated through sermons and, starting around five years ago, through the now-widespread use of radio.
Pendragon allowed himself to tune out most of the remainder of the next two hours. It was only when about fifteen minutes remained that his mind jumped back into the sermon. Midas had said, in some context, the word angels, a red flag for him.
“… Stranger things have arisen. Madame Oliveros swears by the ghosts in the shells. Travelers from Kain’s Aeries and Syriana tell of unknown objects in the woods. The darkling sea above toils. The Spirit is sending us Their message. And I believe that angels are coming— perhaps not to settle a score, but to see our beautiful world.”
Pendragon couldn’t help but glance over at Artemis. To his credit, he didn’t react to Midas, instead busied himself trying to sit in a position that would set the least amount of blood upon the pews and floor. He was still actively bleeding from the wound in his collarbone.
“Angels come from the stars and the sea. They can appear in glens, lochs and other riparian areas. Welcome them. Embrace them. They are not your enemy.”
Everyone seemed to believe him. Pendragon held back a smirk and kept his face neutral. Angels don’t come from above. They come from below, and they want to kill us. Despite the wishes of his mother, neither Molossus nor Pendragon had ever been particularly religious, the former opting to join Legion— an apparently sacrilegious coalition— while Pendragon skipped sabbatical trips, karmic retreats and occasionally didn’t stand for the Islander Pledge before school. He had dug out the mini Corvian Federation flag from the trash and hung it up again so many times that Zendaiia gave up. His other sister, Moira, was the good one, married at a good age to the fox farmer Renart. Pendragon and Renart’s younger brother, Ysengrin, got high in their garage, or in a parking lot in his barely-legal, practically self-built truck.
Midas rambled on for a couple more minutes and ended on one final note.
“You must know that we are not prototypes. Humanity is beyond that. We are an angel’s equal. Keep that in mind, and may the Spirit bless you with a wondrous verior-nox.”
Everyone clapped and stood up. Pendragon and Artemis were the last to rise and the first to turn to leave. He escorted Artemis reluctantly out the door, one hand on his tailbone. The similarity to his own was enough to make him retract his hand and shiver in the warmth of the Parthenon. They stepped outside the large red double doors and found Ari, Storm and Percy.
“Now what?” Percy asked the question coolly.
“Why don’t you go running in the woods again and find another doppelgänger, yeah?” Pendragon replied sarcastically.
“Both of you,” Ari cut in, “we’re going to Vick’s with Rairyx and co. Let’s go.”
Vick’s was notorious for being inaccurate with their “low alcohol content” drinks as well as letting minors in if they were invited by the grace of the staff— and it just happened that Huckleberry and Theo both worked there.
“I— I don’t know,” Pendragon breathed, looking to Percy and then letting his gaze wander to Artemis, “If we go, he can’t go like this.”
Storm smiled, never a good thing. “Well, you’re the one who would have clothes that would fit him.”
Ariadne snickered, but with a look from Percy reduced it to a sneer.
“Here,” Percy said, still cool, “we’ll go back and can meet you later. Who’s there?”
“Us, Rairyx, Theo, Bear, Huck, Ysengrin, Lukas, maybe Frazier.”
“Alright,” he breathed, “don’t get too drunk before we get there.” “Try me,” Ariadne replied coyly.
“Let’s go,” he said, rolling his eyes towards Pendragon. They took off in opposite directions.
II.
It was a five minute walk back to Pendragon’s house. The lights had come back on, and two black shapes moved behind the curtains. There was no point in hiding Artemis from Moira and Zendaiia; he was confused until another two shapes entered the room: Renart and his mother. He looked to Percy, took a breath and pushed the door open.
“Pendragon! Is that you?”
“Yes’m.”
He didn’t have time to give Percy another sidelong glance before his mother came at him in full force, which, fortunately, was a minimal amount of force. She was small, five three (“and three-quarters,” she would add playfully, as if he was still nine) and deathly thin from years of physical abuse (by two husbands and seven strains of anxiolytics) and mental abuse (from a constant, overarching, occasionally seizure- or hallucination-inducing so-called manic depression). Naturally, her rusty hair was wild and static-y, her eyes wide, her breath smelling like Altoids.
“Hey— Mom— listen— uh, we gotta…” He let his voice trail off.
His mother backed off. She didn’t even acknowledge Percy as she stared at Artemis. He was only slightly smaller than Pendragon but looked about two years his junior. She seemed to get lost in his glacial, pale eyes. She furrowed her brow, tightened her lips, and her chin quivered a little. She put her hands on him— the same wiry, veiny hands that had held his life for nineteen years— and felt the fabric of his crimson-stained pink shirt. She bit her lip so hard blood started to gather, but she didn’t seem to notice. Finally, she took a shaky breath and laughed, a small, wheezing chuckle, the kind you would hear if someone were asphyxiating or perhaps tripping. She put a hand on her mouth, ignoring the mascara clumping around her eyes.
“Well,” she said, her voice incredibly soft and unstable, “look at you, all grown up.”
Percy stepped behind Pendragon and put his arms around him, in a gesture of affection meant to calm him down, but it did little and less. A fire was quietly raging inside him, as bright as any star and as devastating as any earthquake.
Is this where you replace me? Is this where you take my fucking mother, my family, my boyfriend, probably my fucking hawk from me too? Should I jump now or wait for a bottle of motor oil to ship from Aquitaine City? What the fuck do you want?
He knew he was being impulsive, but didn’t care as he shoved Percy off of him and lurched towards his mother.
“Mom.” I’m still right here.
“Pendragon,” she replied, her voice surprisingly even, “hold on a minute.”
It hit him like a second wave of tremors. “I’m going upstairs.”
What she said then hurt less than what she didn’t say. All his mother did was talk to Artemis, ignoring him completely. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have minded. She probably just hasn’t taken the Ambien. Probably. As he went up the stairs, he heard her talk again.
“Eleven.”
“What?”
“You’re the eleventh one to come.”
“Eleven what?” He sounded suspicious.
“Why, darklings.” A harking laugh. “Those from above. Children of the sea.”
He went into his room where he couldn’t hear them anymore. Zendaiia started to clean again, and Moira banged a couple of pans together to drown out the awkwardness. He half-shut his door and collapsed on his bed, breathing hard, struggling to make his heartbeat a little shallower. Just enough to stop the blood from reaching my brain. He refused to let himself have any reaction, no tears and no shaking. He put his hands on his face, digging his palm into his orbital cavities, feeling his eyes get flattened slightly by the pressure. He felt the bed bend and heard it creak when Percy sat next to him. He ran his hands through Pendragon’s hair, taking just a little bit of the horrible, circling, vulture-like emotions out of his mind. Then, he remembered he and Artemis had the same hair— albeit vastly different lengths— and pulled away from Percy’s touch.
When it was safe, he released the pressure on his eyes. His whole life, he had been told that he burned his life in his hearth, like Meleager. He had always let it burn a little too short, and his hyperopia seemed to reflect that. The silence grew, like toxic smoke in the air.
“C’mon,” Percy murmured, “get up, it’s okay.”
He sat up and felt all the liquid in his stomach shift When the nausea passed, his eyes were still strained and a headache was coming on. He struggled to focus, but even in the farsighted haze he could tell his hands were shaking. Percy slipped his arms around his body, steadying his twitching body. They wandered around, tracing his chest, his ribs, his navel. Percy hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and put his chin on his shoulder. He kissed his neck, soft, gentle kisses that left a tingling, lukewarm sensation on his skin. His face was hot, from embarrassment, guilt or something else.
Pendragon turned his head, and their noses bumped into each other. He let himself smile, just a little bit, before kissing Percy. He pulled away after a couple of seconds. Percy put his thumb on Pendragon’s lip, letting his eyes trace the features of his face. He was just far enough away so that Pendragon could see his features semi-clearly. Percy took his thumb back and wrapped his hand around his neck, pulling him a little closer. His other hand was still at Pendragon’s jeans, right about the fly. He clenched his jaw and exhaled raggedly. He shifted his entire body to face Percy, and Percy, in turn, tightened his grip. They kissed again, noisy without noise. Which was alright— the silence spoke volumes.
After several moments, he forced himself to pull away. When he did, the lights started to flicker. They both turned towards the door. Artemis stood just beyond the threshold. He looked down, staring intently at the blood still dripping down his collarbone. His mother’s instincts apparently didn’t extend to getting him a bandage.
Pendragon took a long, deep breath, and let it whistle out of his teeth.
“Here. I have some clothes.”
Artemis ignored the passive aggressive neutrality and merely nodded. His face was gaunter than before, the red too loud against his absurdly quiet complexion.
“And,” he started again, more of a croak than a syllable, “some bandages.”
He led Artemis into his bathroom and walk-in closet, leaving Percy to trace a pattern on the bedspread. He tore open a drawer, relishing the startle it gave his double. He put a roll of gauze, scissors, isopropanol, a sewing kit and some Gorilla Glue on the counter. He turned towards Artemis, then turned back around and grabbed his glasses out of a jar. He was overdue to see Dr. Saxifrage by a month, but so far he hadn’t noticed a decline in his vision. He pulled his hair back and tied it in a tight ponytail.
“Well,” observed Artemis, “you look like a real fucking doctor now, don’t you.”
“Shut up and hold the fuck still,” he instructed mildly, “you don’t need an infection.”
He did as he was told as Pendragon first sanitized his wounds, then either glued or sewed them shut. Hiding under the shirt was another deep wound, almost like an IV’s mark, the only one to require gauze. When all was said and done, Artemis was cleaner and looked a little livelier. His vivacity unnerved Pendragon. He spun into the closet, thinking. He took a couple shirts, put them back; found some jeans, put those back too; messed around with some socks, even kicking around a pair of shoes; he did everything slowly, so slow that his double pushed inside and offered to help him. He declined and searched some more.
He said:
“Here, see if it fits.”
Which implied:
Listen, just get the clothes on and leave. Neither one of us wants to be here.
Deep inside, Pendragon knew this wasn’t true. In a queer way, he wanted to spend more time with Artemis, almost get to know him. He refused to admit it to himself, though. As if in reply, more to what was unsaid than said, the lights flickered.
Artemis didn’t look up, instead started to undress. Pendragon’s temptation to turn away subsided and morphed into an off the wall fascination. The more the boy undressed, the stronger the magnetism. He had the same build, of course; the only thing that was different— rather, things— were the tattoos. He still couldn’t tell what the one on his collarbone was, but the ivy and raven-in-thorns was all the same. He took a sharp breath.
The lights started to flicker.
Then, they went out.
“Pen— oh my god—”
They were both glowing, a soft, orange glow. Their veins were black and pulsing underneath their skin. They looked into each other’s eyes— all Pendragon saw were the glowing irises. They looked at themselves and each other in the mirror.
Except, the mirror was no longer a mirror.
The glass distorted and twisted. Artemis reached out to touch it— it retreated and rippled like the surface of a lake. In the mirror, they were outside, except the environment was glowing, not them. It was the toadstools again. They were back in the woods. It was raining; not the slight misting, but as if the darkling sea were coming down around them.
They both stepped back in tandem as water started to run down the mirror, in their world. It took the gauze down to the floor and made his feet go cold, Queerly, it didn’t go past the threshold of the bathroom. In the mirror, a light started to glow between reflection Pendragon and reflection Artemis. Suddenly, a shockwave, visible and appalling, was thrown off by the light. Both reflections were knocked flat on their backs. The mirror image started to fade, the water running faster and darker.
The lights flickered again and stayed on. The mirror was back to normal— everything was normal. Pendragon and Artemis looked at each other, one almost bare to the bone. Pendragon threw a shirt, some pants, shoes and socks at him and grabbed two jackets— his leather jacket for himself and a sweatshirt from the Aquitainia 2K Race in Aquitaine City for his double. He took the Converse, while Artemis went with the Vans.
“Pendragon—”
“We gotta go.” He put his hood on and grabbed a flashlight. He paused for a second, looked at Percy, then looked past him. He strode to his dresser and wrenched open a drawer. Inside were two boxes of shotgun slugs.
“Pendragon—”
“Percy.” He hoped his expression was pained. Judging from his reaction, it was. “Listen, something’s going on. Artemis and I— we gotta go back to the woods.”
“I’m coming with you.” There was zero hesitation, which was good— he didn’t trust Artemis to remember the spot where the toadstools were.
“I know.” He tossed the slugs at Percy, who caught them as deftly as he could. “But we gotta go now.”
“Then go. I’m following you.”
The three boys practically leapt down the flight of stairs. Renart and his mother were at the bottom.
“Oh, Pendragon, where are you go—”
“Sorry, Storm’s having a little bit of trouble.” He affixed a gaze on Renart. “With Ysengrin.”
To his relief, Renart waved them on. His mother, unsatisfied, grabbed his arm.
“At least tell me where you’re going—”
“I’m not sure yet. Storm said she was in town but not where. We’ll be back by el— midnight.”
“It’s past curfew— Penny—”
“Mom. It’s fine. But we gotta go.”
They left her behind, standing in the doorway, shaking.
Pendragon prayed she remembered to take her anxiolytics.
III.
Percy, naturally, had run over to the garage to get the bikes. It was dark, and they all knew biking faster, farther was easier than running. Crossing the lawn, they beelined for the shed, off to the side of the garage. He tried to jimmy the door open, but resorted to slamming into it with his shoulder when it wouldn’t budge. When he was about to throw himself at it a third time, Artemis stopped him.
“Wait.” A ten second pause. “Move out of the way.”
In all of five seconds, the door was forced open by an unseen force. Pendragon, unable to be more concerned, ignored the fact, while Percy stood gaping. He snapped his fingers, and they followed him in. A singular lightbulb was on, flickering ever so slightly. He grabbed Molossus’ mint Benelli. Artemis, while handing the gun off to Percy, admired the Savage Model 212’s and Ithaca Deerslayers up against the wall.
“Your dad a cop?”
“Collector.”
“Of guns or prizes?”
“Both.” He snickered as he pulled out a dusty airsoft pistol, from a toy store down in MacAulay. “This was mine when I was younger.”
“You graduated to shotguns, though.”
“I didn’t.” He nodded backwards, towards Percy. “He did.”
He turned the light off as they led three bikes out of the shed. They were rusted but perfectly functional.
“Show us where.”
Percy nodded, and they took off on a small trail behind the property.
It was dark and muddy, leaves pressed into the ground, half-decomposed. Underneath, the dirt was rotten, the wind in its strength unable to do anything but create small ripples where there was standing water. They splashed through, the bikes struggling to stay upright. There was a light only on Percy’s; the other two rode almost in complete darkness. It was almost true midnight, and a zephyr whistled through the trees as they progressively got deeper and darker.
Fringe wasn’t located near a border or a so-called boreal sea— such as the channel between Stariot and the Outer Isles, or that between Ingwar and Aricairn and Ambrose— instead, it was a place that refused to be developed, and flowed towards a boreal sea. A stream running through the forest showed the way as it became larger and larger, over two miles across by the time it reached the Roulette Channel.
Percy pedaled fast, and Pendragon struggled to keep up. It was almost as if they were being chased. However, the only person behind them was Artemis. He bit his lip and pressed on, ignoring the heavy mist in his eyes. There were no lights anywhere, besides Percy’s bike; no sign that man had ever ventured through here, except for the trodden path.
Towards the end of their ride, several houses came into view. Pyrra the Crone’s rickety shack was easily recognizable, and from there it only took Pendragon a couple of seconds to get his bearings. Of course, this was from where Ariadne and Percy had gone running. They all stopped, got off their bikes and walked them a couple of yards to what appeared to be a large fabric rectangle in the middle of the path. Percy bent over, kicked it, then straightened. Some sort of dust had come off of the soggy fabric.
“It’s an old Federation flag. Ari and I saw it coming back.”
“So we’re in the right spot, then?”
“Yeah. It should be just up here.”
Passing between a couple of poplars, they arrived at a small clearing. Everything was dark— the house lights had a hard time penetrating this deep into the forest.
“Artemis, do it again.”
He let his back fall to the ground and wandered over to a tree, covered in moss, lichen and an assortment of fungi. As he drew nearer, Percy fell back to where Pendragon was standing, the light a soft, weak glow against the forest. He switched it off.
There were three seconds of pitch black, during which time Pendragon had three consecutive heart attacks. He could hear Artemis’ form lean against the tree and suddenly there was a light. Then, another— a half dozen of them, all clustered around Artemis. The color started to spread, a soft, warm hue, somewhere between orange and red. He had to cough, but whether it was from the humidity or the sheer amount of spores he couldn’t tell. Probably both.
The color disease spread and spread and spread, up branches, along the ground, everywhere. It was like the world was glowing, like the Earth had created her own star. The air was murky, obfuscating everything. Pendragon walked over to Artemis, careful not to step on too many toadstools. It didn’t matter in the end— the ones he did step on kept on glowing as they reformed. Visible droplets were forming on his skin. Percy was back at the bike, its light barely seen in the flurry of light sources, spores, mist…
No, not quite. It wasn’t misting anymore. Instead, rain had started to come down around them.
“D’you see that?” “See what?”
“See the rain.”
Artemis nodded and looked over the environment. It was truly raining at this point, the volume of moisture equivocal to that of standing immediately downwind of a burst pipe. He became aware of his clothes sticking to his skin as Artemis’ did. Almost more so than when he was sewing the double up, he became aware of the doppelgänger’s almost exact replica of his body, ever so slightly more boyish.
It took him longer and longer to cross the distance to Artemis. The ground was turning from sludge to a stream. His feet went cold as the rain started to pool. The light from Percy’s bike got fainter and fainter, then started to twist, as if a pane of glasses separated them and the glass had liquefied. He turned back around to Artemis, blinking furiously to drive the insane amount of water out of his eyes. It was like the darkling sea was falling down on them.
Or, they were rising into the water.
His heart started to murmur, then pound. Against the orders of his mind, his found himself shouting to Artemis.
“Grab my hand!”
He did as he was bid. It was like clasping his own. He forced himself to tighten his grip, pulling them closer together. There was a slight thrumming in his ears, the sound of a watch wrapped in cotton, amplified a hundredfold. The water was coming down in sheets, enough to fill a house every couple of seconds. His digits and extremities went completely numb, but still, he held on to Artemis. He started to choke but found his body couldn’t accept any air that seemed to be around it. He started to gasp, a ragged wheezing that did nothing but make his vision go spotty and his heart murmur faster. His eyesight narrowed to a singular tunnel, with a small light at the end. It was spotty, and occasionally disappeared altogether, but more or less stayed put. There was an intense pressure all over his body, of being squeezed in every direction at once.
Then, the blinding, white light of heaven, painful and horrific, exploded in front of him in shards.
IV.
Pendragon was flat on his back, the ground soft and chilled. Feeling had returned to his extremities. His hands had dirt on them, the fingers a little red from the cold in the wet ground. He stretched his shoulders and propped himself up on his elbows to look around.
He was in a forest, not nearly as dark as the toadstool gathering. The trees shone with extra light, the dew, mist and fog lighter, whiter. The leaves were greener, the ground more mottled, infused with different hues. There was an energetic, almost magnetic hum in the air. Through the branches, he could see that the sky, instead of dark navy, was alabaster and grey, as if there was no sea above, merely clouds.
Pendragon craned his neck, feeling the pops and crackle of his vertebra. They were both still damp, not soaking but nowhere near dry. The double was breathing heavily, eyes wide, nostrils flared. He came to rapt attention when a butterfly, a Polygonia c-album, fluttered in front of his face. He didn’t swat it away, instead watched it like a hawk as it danced around him. It soon left, disappearing into the trees.
Shakily, they both stood up, their backs tainted by dirt. The humming became a little more pronounced and dropped several octaves, going from an annoying ringing to a sound that mimicked a loud, constant heartbeat, without the beat, just a buzzing in the air. He breathed heavily, a roar in his ears and mind. His vision still pulsed with the intensity of the light and glow of the toadstools. He turned to Artemis, who met his gaze. There was a slight oscillation in the hue of his eyes, like a star passing through clouds. Given the way he stared at Pendragon, he assumed his eyes were doing the same thing.
A loud, deep bark shattered the silence of the forest. An entire chorus soon joined the first animal.
There were dogs.
One glance at Artemis told him the hounds were after them. They started to walk, then trot. Ten yards on, they broke into a light sprint. Within a tenth of a mile, their Converse and Vans were covered in mud, and their feet were soaked to the bone. Lichen, of all varieties and colors, covered the trees, while rocks and fallen branches were draped with layers upon layers of moss. Fungi were here and there, toadstools and others. They were heading in a roughly downhill direction, the ground getting slicker and rockier. The edges of his vision were still a little dark and spotty.
The dogs got louder and louder, closing in.
They burst through the tree line and arrived at the shore of a lake. He skidded to a stop, his brain malfunctioning. Above, there was no darkling sea, only clouds. Worse, through breaks in the cloud cover, he could see a deep, light blue, cerulean, eternal. A hot, white disc in the sky revealed the location of the sun. A horrific wind blew through, one of Beaufort’s fresh breezes. It died down quickly but picked up again just as rapidly, from a different direction. As they jogged down, the wind came at them more often than not, biting at their faces and throwing spray into their eyes. Pendragon turned to shield his face and saw a ruined castle, perhaps half a mile distant. There were hills on every side of the lake; looking right, beyond the castle, the lake retreated into a sheltered area, like a cove, while to the left it continued to the horizon, through a sort of gate between two steep hills. A massive cloud hung low over there, creating a sheet of moisture that blocked any sights beyond or into it. Sunlight simmered on the surface of the lake, turning some of the wavelets golden-white, while shadows were full, dark and very foreshortened, from the fact that the light was coming from almost directly above. He stood there for a while, his brain unable to comprehend the sight of an eternal sky, dusty with thick, puffy, windswept clouds, the only sea the one he was standing next to.
From the ruins, shouts and sirens were audible. He was jarred out of the trance, to the visible relief of Artemis. The dogs were coming from the opposite direction of the castle. Therefore, they ran towards it. They trudged uphill again, for the rocky strand rapidly dissolved into a cliff face. The mud ran thick, coagulated and sludgy. He hoisted himself up a rock-face— something of a half-buried wall, in actuality— and scrambled across the smooth surface. The shouts were getting louder, the sirens more and more like disturbing tinnitus.
The trees abruptly stopped, and they found themselves in a clearing. They were in one of the castle’s old courtyards. Advancing cautiously but swiftly, they drifted from wall to wall, something of a zigzagged run/hop. They stopped when they came across another courtyard, this one without any shelter for several dozen yards. Peeking out, Pendragon could see a line of a half-dozen cars, police from the lights and coloring, some with officers inside, others with their doors hanging open, empty. He took in the scene, rotating around. They could follow the wall they were on downhill and hopefully reach a cluster of bushes and get beyond the officers’ lines of sight, or they could sprint overtly across the plain.
Artemis made the decision for him, tearing down the wall, somewhere between spider and hound. The true hounds were getting ever closer, their barks louder by the second. Pendragon followed the double, sliding across the ancient brick.
Something caught his foot, and he went down. He hit his head on Artemis’ shoe before the soft, grassy mud of the ground enveloped his visage. He sputtered, a sour taste in his mouth, and scrambled to his feet. They both hit the bottom of the hill and followed the wall horizontally, parallel to the lake a cliff face below. There was a hole in the wall, and they took the chance to slip on to the other side and continue.
They stopped under a tree, between two monstrous ferns. They crouched down, easily becoming invisible. The barks subsided ever so slightly. It didn’t matter, though— Pendragon was focused completely on what was in front of him.
From where they were, the land sloped down at a steeper angle, as did the other side, creating a small micro-valley-type thing. This flowed and panned out at the bottom, where it was probably about three yards above the water. There was a small brick wall thing again, this one embedded into the ground, creating a kind of step, on which wooden stairs led down to the strands, a mix of grass, rocks and cold sand. It was obvious the water got deep, fast. Several hundred yards out was a boat, a small fishing boat, probably rented by the police, given officers swarmed all over it. But it was who and what were on the strands, the final and lowest clearing in front of the ruins, that attracted all of Pendragon’s, and probably Artemis’, attention.
A group of people, perhaps family, had gathered, each cuffed and held back by police. The handcuffs were brilliant in the light— only gems under artificial light had ever gleamed like that in Fringe. As the figures came into focus, Pendragon could see that their feet were fettered, with some sort of collar around their necks and gags in their mouths. They were blindfolded as well. The manacles and cuffs were attached to each other, limiting mobility and creating a square of silvery metal. Each one, in turn, was being led out into the water and placed on a raft, which was pushed out, carried hurriedly by the current, Little rowing boats of police met the raft, took the person off, then threw them in the water.
It was a mass drowning.
Before long, only a couple prisoners remained. One of them, a woman, turned. Pendragon’s heart went into his throat. Shell-shock hungrily set in.
It was a younger, more vivacious version of his mother.
Before he could stop himself, he called out. Artemis, mortified, threw his arms around his face in an effort to stop the sound, but the damage was done. As she was pushed into the water, several of the officers turned around, staring directly at them, seeing completely through their camouflage. Several of the police began to shout. They ran out from under the tree, their cover blown. They ran back up, following the wall. A pack of hounds and their handlers raced to meet them. They turned back and went towards the water. Pendragon raced down the hill, skidding and sliding more than running. He flipped around, doubled back, before turning on his heel. They were surrounded. He backed up, into Artemis. The thrumm of the woods was back. He looked down. At his feet, small orange spindles were crawling up his legs, his toes infested with maggots. Artemis was the same way. He could feel centipedes crawling under his skin.
The dogs were let loose and ran towards them, snarling, rabid, uncontrollable. The walls of the castle seemed to crumble around them. The sun thrust itself out of the clouds, letting a golden beam slice through and burn him. He screamed and fell to his knees. The orange spindles burned like jellyfish stings, cutting into his muscles. His throat went raw and he doubled over, his body collapsing on itself. He could feel his muscles seizing as the spindles engulfed him. He shut his mouth, clenching his teeth.
It started to mist again, this time acid rain. He dared open his mouth to vomit, a red liquid, spotted black, semi-coagulated. Before he could close his jaws again, the spindles reached inside, constricting around his teeth, wrapping around his tongue dissolving his palate and intruding into his sinuses. He was screaming again, screeching, shrieking.
There was a popping in his ears as his vision pulsed, the tinnitus almost deafening. One, last time, as he was carried towards the lake, his vision exploded in shards and shrapnel of pure white.
When he hit the water, instantaneous relief was immediately overshadowed by a feeling of dissolving, as the spindles destroyed every last bit of matter in his body. The pool of water, dark, twisted beneath and around him, like a grotesque, black mirror.
