18

Acorn squash. Hardy. Versatile. Fresh from the pot, tossed with spices, savory and piping hot. Sei had lost count of the days they'd suffered it. He stood there glowering into his bowl until Ataia said his name firmly enough to tear him away. She was watching him from behind the serving booth, tawny skin kicking off afternoon sun. She discreetly held out a second helping, this one against regulation.

She urged him to take it with her eyes. "Go on, before the others see," she said. "Baroona should be done with his shift by now and I know he'll turn in hungry."

"Baroona hates this stuff more than I do."

"He's the best of us, Sei. He needs to keep up his strength."

She had a point, so he scowled and took the bowl. He followed the line of villagers that had snaked around the assorted tables and fires, avoiding glares along the way, scattering chickens. Everyone was in their usual routine, acting like all was right with the world. The weavers were weaving. The tanners were tanning. Laine, the seamstress, ducked from her dwelling to shout at a band of gathered children. 

Routine, as usual. Limbo, more like.

The sanctum lay just ahead. Cast in shadow and overlooking the village, it was enclosed by a few stolen crags of the Backbone where scarcely anyone bothered to venture. Sei scaled its accursed hundred steps and turned at the peak. He could see the entire island from there, the hills to the west and the farms to the east, fenced all around as terrain permitted. At a leisurely pace, it took no more than thirty minutes to cut across its farthermost ends.

Wyndemere: the reeling, drifting, hateful land to which he'd foolishly pledged himself. If only it would do them the courtesy of falling out of the sky. 

Sei passed through the standing stones and slowed when the Cage came into sight. Misleadingly named, the Cage; it was a monument of solid bedrock, a brooding mass, chiseled of wardings and slip-me-nots. No iron. No chains. No dank, stagnant vault. Solid bedrock: a vestige of the battle against that uppity snot and his insufferable Council Five. The wardings never lasted long, so Baroona returned every day or so to make the necessary repairs. And it was an important job, of course, reserved for the best among them. For if the Cage was ever allowed to smooth over, if the scripts in its hide corroded away, Alma would stir and rain fire upon them. Again.

Baroona was faced away from it now, sitting atop the three grimstone steps that met with its hewn, irregular face. Tools beside him, his gaze had a grain of hardwood.

Sei joined him and offered the bowl. "Here."

He glanced, unenthused. "Squash."

"Your favorite." Sei didn't sit until he took it. "Still sulking, I see," he noticed. "Go, if it's what you want. I'll cover for you."

Baroona pretended not to hear him. He sniffed at the dish and crinkled his nose. "Squash," he repeated, bitterly. "What we're doing here can't be called living."

"At least lighten up if you're not gonna go."

"I'll lighten up when Pathos returns."

"You could have gone in his place, Baroo."

"It needed to be one of the older ones," Baroona answered. "Easier to believe. And Alma liked his family name." He poked at the squash with his spoon. "She'd call it sacrilege."

"Alma's not what she was." Like countless times before, Sei could practically feel her breathing over his shoulder. "She obliterated him," he said. "You saw."

"Yeah, I saw. We all saw. It's what rallied us."

"It's just that we never talk about it."

Baroona looked at him then. "Don't you feel ashamed?"

"Gods don't exist. If I'm ashamed, it's for believing they ever did." But Sei could see that Baroona didn't get it. And why would he? As the best of them, he'd flown too close. "They're all just monsters, Baroo," Sei said, quietly. "All of them. Hans would agree if he were alive."

It was as if he'd been overheard. A gentle impact struck the air, and it read to him like the end of times. They stood in horrified unison and scanned the ribboned skyline. 

Baroona said what they already knew. "He's here."

Shadows promptly spilled into the sanctum— the elders, above, having sensed the disturbance and taken wing to protect the holy grounds. Sei and Baroona took a knee as they landed, heads bent.

Surin, the youngest, told them to rise. He was easily the most reasonable of the three, not so set in his ways as to do more harm than good. Unobtrusive, occasionally lazy, it was sometimes easy to forget that he'd led the attack that had won them back Wyndemere all those years ago.

"We're out of time," he told them. "Stand by until I give word."

Baroona dared to ask, "What word would that be?"

The second elder sneered at him. Leemai. It was an expression he wore often. Sunlight gleamed on his long, freckled skull as he fell in with Surin to make a haughty retort or suggestion, but a sharp sound dissuaded his nastiness. It had come from their third, Othos. White of hair, all skin and bone, his very bearing screamed eternities. There was wisdom in his narrowed eyes that Sei often saw in Pathos. Like father like son, presumably. Unfazed by Leemai's unpleasantness, he drew his ancient walking staff and spoke not a word. He didn't have to.

Baroona repeated the question. Ballsy, Sei thought.

Surin's gaze moved over the village. Distant voices had fallen silent, all gathered children, tanners, and weavers. "We can try to seal him in with her if he becomes a threat," he settled. "We should prepare ourselves for the worst."

Baroona thrust a finger at the Cage. "That thing's going to shatter apart even without him in there," he said. "It's getting weaker. The script won't keep."

"It'll buy us some time until we can think of a more permanent solution."

Baroona took a step toward them and stopped. When he spoke again, his voice had calmed. "The next time it breaks, it'll be for good," he warned. "And it's different now. He's older. So unless you want to make this a battleground— "

Leemai snorted derisively. "You're the same as ever, Baroona."

Baroona challenged, "How's that?"

"Loyal to all but your own."

"We were merged."

"Nobody truly believed it but you."

"Alma did," Baroona barked. "And Kacha did."

"Kacha just went along with it. Everything she did was for Alma."

For a quicksilver moment, Baroona's eyes flashed. But then he glared at the ground. He'd almost said too much. "None of this matters anymore," he muttered. "Everyone but Sutter is dead. And we're dead, too, if you start a fight. There's a shift ahead."

Suddenly, faintly, Sei could hear laughter from the village. He turned from the ring of discussion, thinking he must be mistaken somehow, but then saw with a thrill of surprise that Ethos was leading a crowd up the steps, waist-deep in the very same children who'd shunned him in the past. None the wiser, he greeted them all with good-natured words, mussing their hair, asking their names. Pathos was beside him, an expressionless ball of anxiety.

Sei jumped when someone touched his arm. Baroona. "Back up."

He was back far enough, and he curtly said so. Ethos looked up like he'd heard them. He was still smiling, still mussing, but his eyes were ahead, ablaze with things Sei only could guess at. It was a spitting image of the old days, back when Alma had walked among them. 

The Cage was pulsing a hundredfold, as if with the breathing of a vast, fearsome beast. Sei's back felt like it might blister and peel from just the proximity.

Again, Ethos surprised him. While Pathos shooed their followers, the boy alone surmounted the rise and met them all with a sheepish grin. He looked uneasy. Apologetic, even. The fire in his eyes had simmered into pleasant approachability.

"I've come to talk," he greeted. "Sorry."

With a sigh, Pathos joined him. "Remember what I said."

"I remember." The sun struck green when he noticed the Cage. Gradually, almost unbearably so, he ceased his smiling. Aside, to Pathos, he asked, "Is that it?"

Pathos nodded, sharing the sight. "That's it."

"Can I get closer?"

"You're being rude to the elders."

Ethos couldn't have forgotten his audience, but he blinked at the three, as if startled. "Sorry," he repeated, lightly touching his brow. "It's a little hard to concentrate."

Surin cleared his throat. "You shouldn't be here."

"I know," Ethos said, and it looked like he did. "But this is important."

He proceeded to explain the situation. It was unusually objective, the way he spoke. Sei thought it might have been because it was easier for him to act like it was happening to somebody else. His foul affiliation with Sutter Bonesteel, the drawbacks thereof, and the purposely plainspoken details… brief, factual, Ethos didn't linger on any one facet of his complex account. He seemed very much aware that the elders only cared about what his surrender would mean for the village.

Throughout, he'd touch his head and avoid looking at the Cage. "I'll have to give him an answer the next time we speak," he said of Sutter, or Eadric, so called, as he produced a sprig from the depths of his pocket. "Peter's not in any real danger yet. It's Kacha I'm worried about."

It was the first he'd mentioned her. Baroona asked, "Kacha?"

All eyes turned on him. "Eadric knows that I'm fond of her," Ethos explained. "Pathos dispatched a team to protect her. I'm sure it won't stop him."

Pathos abruptly prevented him from putting the sprig in his mouth. "Don't."

Ethos didn't glare. He mostly just looked tired. "I can't think like this," was his response, and he wasn't really even looking at Pathos. "Let go, please." 

"You can't think like that, either."

"I said please to be polite." Ethos didn't wait for a response. Again, he addressed the elders. "I get that we all have history," he went on. "And that's fine. I'm not interested. I'm only here because I know what Eadric wants me for." He gestured down at the settlement. "There are kids up here. I mean, they're older than dirt, but they're kids. I can tell."

He wasn't wrong. The village was at a developmental standstill. 

But the elders were quiet, as they had been since he'd first begun to speak. Ethos studied each of their haggard faces. "Alma's going to escape soon," he pressed. "I promise you that. It's a struggle just to stand here and talk to you people. Can we at least all agree that something needs to be done?"

"Like what?" Leemai sneered. "Do you know what will happen if she dies?"

"Pathos tells me she inhabits your women."

"She doesn't just inhabit them," Othos cut in, voice like gravel. "She devours them. Their habits become her habits. Their sins become her sins. The Alma we knew before the war and the Alma that we sealed are two completely different organisms. She embodies countless emotions and memories."

"They live on in her," Surin softly added. "Our daughters, our sisters…"

"Just ask Pathos," Leemai rumbled. "He lost Kooma to her."

Ethos glanced at the huntsman. "Kooma?"

Impassive, Pathos said, "My wife."

"You didn't tell me about her."

"I had no reason to."

Ethos looked a little hurt, but he didn't argue. He rolled the sprig between his fingers and packed it into his cheek. "Fair enough," he murmured. "I'm used to being in the dark."

"It wasn't in Alma's nature to bear children."

Ethos glanced back. "Meaning?"

"She accepted early on that it was impossible for her to conceive," Pathos said. "She was a god of hope. She had a purpose. She wasn't supposed to have a family." He was deliberately being vague. He looked away, but then quickly looked back. "We think that's why she reacted so strongly when she respawned that first time," he lied. "You were unexpected. She couldn't understand it."

Sei stole a glimpse of Baroona. Baroona subtly shook his head.

Ethos guessed, "Kooma was with child."

Pathos gave a single nod. "She became violent," he went on. "She was possessed by the belief that you would be the true death of her." 

A strange expression passed over the woodling's face. A dark expression, and fearsome. It almost read like recognition, or like maybe he'd made sense of something.

"We were forced to restrain her during the labor," Pathos continued. "It was the second time she died. But we knew we wouldn't be able to protect you once she returned, so we sought out Hans and his men. You were with them for the first five years of your life."

"And how long was the war?"

"You were an infant, Ethos," he returned. "Alma went after Hans because of his betrayal. Because of the murder. You were just fuel for the fire."

Ethos mostly seemed unconvinced. He looked at the Cage and took a step toward it. "Maybe she was right about me," he said. "Maybe she saw us, like I sometimes do."

Othos stopped his approach with a jab of the walking stick. "Don't test me, boy," he warned. "Any closer and we'll start taking measures to put you away. There's too much at stake."

Startled again, Ethos rubbed at his chest. "Which one are you?"

"Othos, the one who didn't get any sleep last night."

"Did you make the call to banish Kacha?"

"Kacha's a murderer. The men you have protecting her will sooner avenge the brothers she took than make any effort to keep her alive." Othos pushed him back once more, creating distance. "There's nothing here for you," he said, resolute. "Leave before you do something irreversible."

"No," Leemai interjected. "We can't let him be marked. It's better to kill him now, eliminate the threat while we have the opportunity."

Surin made a tired gesture. "We're not killing him, Leemai."

"Alma will reward us for it. She'll return to the way she was before he existed."

Othos bristled. His grip grew tight around the staff. "She won't," he said. "She'll slaughter us for imprisoning her all these years. Then she'll turn her rage on Karna."

"It's not rage," Baroona inserted. "It's despair."

Sei didn't see how he could possibly think so. The Cage was a vat of seething hatred. "Nobody's killing him," Surin maintained. "We can't run the risk of producing another Alma."

Under his breath, Othos agreed, "We've loosed enough on the world."

"The world?" Leemai echoed, repulsed. "Curse the world."

Their bickering was visibly frustrating Ethos. His hand had returned to his forehead. "Shut up, please," he muttered, too low and annoyed for his voice to carry, so he tried again, louder. "Everybody shut up and be still." 

Gruesomely, the command took effect. 

Ethos brushed by the elders and entered the megaliths, turning as he did to address them. He took a very serious appraisal of the group. "This is probably how it will start," he said. "Eadric has a sense of humor, you see. It's one of the few things I like about him. Once he has everyone's attention, he'll probably tell you to stand on one foot. Then he'll tell you to piss yourself." Morosely, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "But then he'll get curious. He'll wonder what will happen if he tells one of you to die. Because that's the sort of person he is." Hearing it aloud seemed to sober him even further. "He'll free Alma when it's over. And he'll kill her. And then, just for kicks, he'll hand the reins back over to me. He'll do it so I can see what we did. And he'll laugh." He was quiet for a stretch. "I'd like it if we could prevent this from happening. But I don't think I can do it alone."

Alma crowed from within the Cage. Ethos made the mistake of glancing at it. His hair stirred alive as if by the teasing touch of her fingers.

He didn't flinch. He just approached and said, "Fine."

Unexpectedly, Baroona waylaid him atop the grimstone steps. "Stop."

Ethos slowed in honest surprise. Sei couldn't blame him. The fact that Baroona could utter a sound was pretty inconceivable. Blood had pooled beneath one of his nostrils. "Baroona, right?" Ethos asked, looking up. "Move aside, Baroona. You're hurting yourself."

Baroona wiped at his face, smearing red across his cheek. "I can't let you free her."

There was something worrying about the way Ethos was standing. It was a misleadingly casual stance. With a smile, he asked, "Hey, were we friends somehow?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Because you look guilty whenever you see me."

Sei took a quick study of Pathos and the elders; they were standing stones themselves, fear edging the whites of their eyes. "This isn't right," Baroona said, omitting his answer. "You're no better than Sutter if you can't see why."

"It's a simulation. I'm making a point."

"And yet here you are, closing in on Alma." Baroona saw his confusion. "She's getting to you," he said, steady of voice. "This is exactly why we didn't want you to come here."

The confusion wasn't lasting. Ethos darkened. "How long do I have to be like this?"

Slowly, so as not to appear threatening, Baroona squatted on the topmost step to meet Ethos at eye level. Sei thought there might have been a faint tremor in his knees. "Alma abused her power because of what Hans did, and her condition now is a direct result of that," he explained. "People like her can't resort to violence. It's too dangerous. They have to train themselves to be better."

Ethos furiously pointed eastward. "That thing with Oubi was an accident," he protested. "I had to defend myself. I couldn't control it, I— "

"You were angry. I heard. Humiliated, maybe."

Ethos made a hard line of his mouth. "Everyone has their limits," he said. "I'm no different. I took those hits best I could, but nobody was doing anything to stop it." 

"That's because you're a liar, Ethos. Suffering makes honest men out of liars."

It was true, but Sei kind of wished he'd shut up. Ethos glared at him, harsh, hostile. "This whole mess could have been avoided if you'd just come to me from the start."

Baroona retrieved his chisel from the steps and used it to indicate the Cage. "See the script, there?" he asked, pivoting on a heel. "That script is what keeps Alma in, and she weathers it by the second these days. All will be lost if I ever forget to take up my tools to rewrite it." After a moment, Baroona's eyes returned to Ethos. "When you awoke in the ruins of Harken, she blew it away. She damn near got out of Wyndemere. In the time that it took for us to subdue her and see off our dead, you were days afield and facing down Kacha. Your restlessness had distanced you from us."

Ethos calmed. "I'm sorry to hear there were losses."

"Don't let appearances fool you, Ethos. Everyone here is a fossil of the past. You'd be wise not to disrespect them more than you already have."

The word disrespect had a desirable impact. Ethos smiled ruefully. "I guess marching you all into Oldden Stronghold is out of the question, then, huh," he teased. "That's too bad. I have an overbearing princess downstairs who'd love me to take the city for her."

Baroona stared hard at him. "Look around you," he said. "These people aren't thriving. They're surviving. They're not fit to take anything."

"I've noticed. It was a joke."

"In part." Baroona tossed the chisel back where he'd found it. Crows leapt from the surrounding shadows; they sailed for the village, blacker than night. Sei knew without being told that he'd sent them to caution Ataia. "Simulation or not, your point's been made," he said. "Please release the elders if you intend to free Alma. They're targets." 

Ethos watched him rise to his feet. "I already have."

A scuffle immediately arose from the opposite end of the sanctum— Leemai, lunging. Pathos was there to hold him back, but rage was blind and stronger than reason.

Pathos shoved him, hard. A warning. "Calm, Leemai."

Leemai returned the shove, eyes wild. He thrust a finger at Ethos and snarled, "I told you not to trust that counterfeit little parasite." 

"Leemai," said Surin. "Control yourself."

"You've got another thing coming if you think that I'll just stand around and let some irreverent abomination tear our home apart," Leemai spat. "If my men were here— "

"Perhaps if we put the village to a vote," Othos murmured. He was staring down at his staff, grim-faced. The ease with which Ethos had taken charge was obviously forcing a reassessment of sorts. "With Hans dead, she might not be violent," he went on. "The war ended the moment he passed."

Surin grunted. "She might still go after Sutter."

"Yes," Pathos agreed. "But she'd start with Ethos."

Leemai hissed, "You're a fool to have brought him here."

None of them seemed to understand. It wasn't their decision to make. Baroona and Ethos weren't even listening anymore; they were assessing the Cage from the top grimstone step, heads tilted back, abreast. Sei stood with them and joined their discussion. "It's warm," Ethos was saying, one hand risen as if at a fire. "What's the host like? Young? Old?"

Baroona folded his arms. "Grown."

"Good." Ethos looked sideways at him. "Does it hurt?"

He returned the look. "Does what hurt?"

"When I tell you to do stuff."

Wryly, he smirked. "Yeah, it hurts."

"But not so much that you can't fight it."

"No," he said. "But I'm not quite like the others."

Ethos let his hand fall. "What makes you different from them?"

Baroona approached the dismal Cage. He smoothed his palm along the crags. "With the exception of a few younger children, the tono sacrificed most of their natural power to seal Alma away," he said, and he glanced back at Ethos. "Did you know that?"

But Ethos was already frowning at him. "Kacha has power."

"As do I," Baroona said. "She and I refused to take part." 

Ethos looked like he wanted to ask why, but Pathos joined next, silencing them. The three elders continued to snap their teeth behind him. "You should go," he said, to Ethos. "You're causing a stir."

Ethos glanced. "I have no intention of freeing her."

"I know. But it's still a stir."

"How long does it take for her to respawn?"

Pathos heaved a quiet sigh. "There's a waiting period," he said. "On average, it takes a day or two for her to claim a new body. The longest it ever took was a month. Assume nothing."

For a time, all was silent. Ethos drew near to the Cage, trying for nothing to read the script. "Ludo used to tell me stories about the stars," he said. "He'd insist that they were alive, existing on different planes of creation, visible through the veil. He told me that there was a night long ago when dozens fell to Karna at once, riding the tail of a great white comet." Like Baroona had, he glanced back. "It was us, right?" he asked, green eyes jumping between them. "Alma and the early tono."

Pathos gave a nod. "Have you heard of the Dire Sea?"

"Peter talks about it sometimes."

"It's a crater." He lightly guided Ethos away from the rock. "It's said that our world was collapsing when we left it. Those who didn't make it out in time still reel in the ageless darkness up there, alone, crystalized, finding their way every now and again. The fallen stars of today."

Ethos allowed himself to be steered. His earlier fire had dimmed a little, like he'd gotten a close enough look at the beast to know by its teeth how deadly it was. But then he shook Pathos off and threw out a glare. "I won't go back," he said, head shaking. "I won't."

"And we can't make you," Pathos replied. "Nobody can. But you will."

"If I get caught, you'll all be forfeit."

"So don't get caught." But only the silence answered, and Pathos dipped his head forward, perhaps to see Ethos clearer. He asked, "Are you afraid for us?"

"I hardly even like you. But I think I can kill Eadric if I find and destroy his body."

"Then find it." Pathos was often as bleak as his name. But now he smiled, albeit thinly. "You're on your own getting back," he said. "You know the way?"

Ethos looked at all of them, one by one; Baroona and Sei, the quieted elders, and finally, back at Pathos, to whom he gave a single nod. 

"Please don't come back here," Pathos said. "You understand."

Ethos nodded again, eyes sliding low. He turned to take off. "Enjoy the time you have left."

They watched him go, and Sei wondered if he was alone in privately wanting to stop him. Routine, be damned. Limbo, be damned. Damn the whole drifting, hateful world to which he'd foolishly pledged himself. To think it had nearly done him the courtesy of falling out of the sky.