Whisperworld
Chapter 17
We were too weak to do much but sleep. When Zach was awake, he was too damned stoic to show his pain, but he groaned in his sleep. I propped him up with some rocks to keep him from rolling onto his arm and jostling the crossbow bolt through his bicep. It grew light again, but he slept on.
Between my own bouts of unconsciousness, I thought of Kiyu as hard as I could, calling for her in my mind. By her own admission, her dreameater powers were more of the physical variety. But Kiyu did say that she could sense what someone was feeling if they felt strongly enough. And I wanted her to find us with all my heart.
I slid in and out of sleep and Kiyu followed me into my dreams. I dreamed of chasing her through the desert, limping doubly on my wounded leg and single boot. Even when I reached her, my arms passed through her body as though Kiyu were only a halo-gram. But there were dreams where I could touch her, too — and I definitely did. I woke from those dreams with my heart racing, but we were still alone at the bottom of the hole.
“Zach, I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His eyes remained closed.
I had slipped back into dreams. I was unconscious more often than awake now and I found it hard to keep my eyes open. Kiyu lay beneath me in soft green grass. One of those orange and black flutterbies perched on her nose, beating its wings slowly. I wanted to kiss her, but the fragile wings were in my way. I ran my fingers through Kiyu’s shiny dark hair and the Whitefinger girl barked at me.
The rough noise jerked me back into consciousness. It was a dog. There weren’t many in Angel City, but it was difficult to mistake that sound, even while dying at the bottom of a hole.
I opened my eyes. The sky was light. What day was it? Not long after we had fallen, I guessed, or Zach and I would already be dead. Shit…! I grabbed Zach’s uninjured shoulder and shook him hard. He didn’t wake up, but his broad chest was still rising and falling slowly. He was alive. For a little while longer, at least.
The barking grew louder. Three front legs and a long, pointed snout appeared at the edge of the hole. Diesel!
“Go–!” I croaked. I spent a moment coughing and trying to work up enough saliva to wet my mouth. “Diesel, go get Jacks!”
The mutant dog barked once more, then turned and ran away. I really hoped Diesel understood and hadn’t just spotted something more interesting to yap at.
I shook Zach again. Harder. This time, he groaned and tried to sit up. I had to help him, which wasn’t easy. I might have mentioned that Zach was a bit bigger than me and I wasn’t feeling my best. I peeled away the torn sleeve of his Greenguard fatigues and checked his wound. The skin was hot and bright red around the shaft of the crossbow bolt.
“Bad?” Zach asked.
I couldn’t lie to him.
“Yeah. Pretty fucking bad. But help’s on the way.”
“What–?”
Zach fell silent and we both looked up at the sound of voices. Diesel reappeared at the edge of the hole. His pink tongue lolled from his mouth and his ears pricked toward us.
“Careful!” someone shouted in a deep voice. Jacks. “Check it out, but go slow.”
Another silhouette appeared at the rim of the hole above us and I recognized Kiyu, even though she was just an outline against the white sky.
“It’s them,” she shouted. “And they’re hurt!”
She slid back from the hole and there was indistinct conversation above us. Kiyu returned to the edge of the pit. Her hair hung down around her face.
“Put your weapons on the ground over there,” Kiyu instructed, pointing with one small hand to the dusty floor of our pit.
“Why?” Zach rasped.
“Don’t you want to be rescued? We could leave if you like your hole that much,” Kiyu said.
“No!” I shouted. My voice cracked.
I drew my knife and threw it to the ground in the direction Kiyu had pointed. Zach stared, took a deep breath and weakly kicked his own blade and crossbow over to join my knife. The quiver rolled over to the heap a moment later.
“Okay. Stand back,” Kiyu warned.
I moved away and squatted next to Zach, staring up at her. He gasped and I looked around the hole, worried that the edges weren’t stable and that the Whitefinger girl was about to fall in. It wasn’t anything in the pit that made Zach gasp, though. At least, not anymore. Our weapons had risen into the air, up and out of the pit. They vanished over the edge.
“Alright. Now you two,” Kiyu said.
“No!” Zach shouted. “Just… just throw me a rope or something! I’ll climb out.”
I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Zee, we have to get out of here and you can’t climb with that bolt in your arm.” I raised my voice. “I’ll go first.”
I stood up slowly, but the trembling wasn’t just dehydration or hunger. My heart pounded and if I weren’t dying of thirst, I would have been sweating right through the carbon microfiber of my uniform. I shrieked and just about passed out when something touched me.
“Hold still,” Kiyu said.
It was like the wind made solid. Formless pressure held my arms against my body and my legs together. I couldn’t tell if it was soft or hard. The force had no texture. It was just… there. It had no direction either, not like being pulled up by a hand, or even like the pressure against my feet in the Gardeners’ elevator. The whole thing was more like being wrapped snugly in a blanket and then lifted. A wave of nostalgia hit me, some half-formed memory of my mother swaddling me and singing quietly.
But I still panicked when my feet left the ground. I screamed and thrashed. Kiyu grunted, but her mind held me tightly and I took deep breaths, trying to get myself under control. The floor fell away and the hole grew closer, then I was out.
“Julia?” Zach shouted. “Julia!”
Jacks and his band of Whitefingers stood off to one side, a safe distance away from the pit. Kiyu moved me over the sand and then lowered me to the ground. Diesel ran circles around us until Kiyu let go, then bounded forward. My legs wouldn’t hold me and I fell on my ass, throwing my hands up defensively across my face, but the dog just sniffed me and then licked my fingers. He suddenly stopped and ran back to Jacks. Diesel looked at the Whitefinger for a moment and then, at some silent command, sat down next to his master.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Kiyu was saying. She leaned down over the rim of the hole.
I crawled on my belly to the edge where Diesel had perched. Below, Zach was struggling to stand.
“Julia! Are you okay?” His voice was as tight as a bowstring.
“I’m fine, Zee,” I answered as evenly as I could manage with my pulse racing and my lips cracking with dehydration. “Finding the Whitefingers was your idea, remember?”
Zach took a long breath and exhaled loudly. He nodded to Kiyu. I saw him stiffen as she wrapped him in her psionic power.
“Careful of his arm,” I hissed.
“I’m trying,” Kiyu said. “Shut up.”
I shut the hell up. I didn’t want Kiyu dropping Zach. His tanned face had gone pale and his jaw clenched so tightly that I could hear teeth grinding. I didn’t know if I had ever seen my partner that terrified.
“Hold on, Zee,” I told him. “We’re going to get you out of there.”
I held my breath until Kiyu pulled Zach from the hole and set him down. I ran to Zach and threw my arms around him. He held me tightly for a moment, then pushed me firmly away. Zach spread his feet a few inches further apart, out into a ready stance. He was trembling so hard that I marveled the man was still standing at all, but I took up a position to his left — on his wounded side — and turned my shoulder to protect his back.
“So what do you want?” Jacks asked. “What are you doing out here again?”
Zach remained sullenly silent, so I cleared my throat to speak without croaking. Hopefully.
“We delivered your warning. The Gardeners didn’t like it much, though, and tried to execute us. Now we need your help.”
“Looks like they just about finished the job,” said Jacks, looking pointedly at Zach’s arm and then my sliced-up leg.
But he came slowly forward and held out a water skin. Zach and I traded it back and forth a few times. I managed to take it slow enough not to puke in front of the Whitefingers.
Jacks had his spear disassembled and slung on a strap over his back. He held Zach’s crossbow and kept it loaded. Some of the others had collected our knives and empty canteens. I clearly hated it less than Zach, but I would have felt better if I were armed. The Greenguard practiced a little bare-hands combat, but the Whitefingers had spears and if they decided to kill us, we didn’t stand much of a chance.
The Whitefingers selected a stable patch of earth not far from the hole and made camp as the dayglow faded from the sky. They folded their cloaks to sit on and broke out the food. It was a white grain rolled in some kind of leaf around a piece of that tangy meat they had given us before. Fish.
Zach and I were each given one small roll. I guessed they didn’t want to spend a lot of food on people they still might have to kill. But it was something.
“What happened?” Jacks asked us.
I glanced at Zach before answering.
“Pretty much what I already said. We returned to Angel City, and told Gregory what you told us. The next morning, we’re being hauled out of our beds and taken to Thorn. That’s the High Gardener. He asked us a few questions, decided that we’d been corrupted by your dreameater–” Here, I nodded briefly to Kiyu. “–and sentenced us to execution by storm. They staked us out, but we escaped. We tried to find you… Where the hell did you all go?”
“We had to move on,” said Kiyu. “There were a bunch of Greenguard searching the ruins. Probably for you. They were getting too close.”
“I… didn’t see anyone after we got away,” I told her. “Are you sure it was Greenguard?”
“Yes, but they went back to the city not long after. Now, what do you want?” Jacks asked.
“We have nowhere to go,” Zach said reluctantly between small bites of food. “We… want to join you.”
Some of the Whitefingers chuckled. Jacks arched his remaining eyebrow as he looked back and forth between me and Zach. The crossbow rested across his knees, but wasn’t pointed directly at us.
“We’ll talk about that later,” said Jacks. “Are the Gardeners still protecting their Stormsphere with extra Greenguard?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Likely more of them after we escaped. Thorn seemed pretty paranoid about anyone getting into the Tear.”
“Then there’s not much use in trying again.” Jacks rubbed his burn-scarred face. “We should return to the warren. Now the question is whether or not to take you with us.”
I swallowed hard, struggling to keep silent and still while Jacks considered. The food he had given us sat like lead in my stomach.
“I could give you water,” Jacks said. “France could get that arrow out of your arm. You might make it to the Whisperward.”
“They’ll kill us. We’re criminals there. Even if we sneak back into Angel City, we can’t hide forever,” I pointed out. Probably a touch defensively.
“We lost everything delivering your message,” Zach said. “And we want the same thing as you do. We don’t want the Stormsphere to fail or anyone to die.”
“They were Blackthumbs,” Kiyu told Jacks. “They know about the ‘Ward. They could have useful information if we ever need to go back.”
“If there’s even a city there next year. Do you sense anything? Anything dangerous?” Jacks asked.
“Well, not really,” Kiyu said. She might have blushed.
“You found them, girl.”
“I’m not much of a yin, but they were injured and sky-high on engan. Anyone could find that.”
“Engan?” I asked, but no one was listening to me.
“Diesel?” Jacks said.
The dog got up and padded a circle around us. He sniffed, but I knew Diesel wasn’t using his nose and tried not to tense. I waited to feel him snuffling through my thoughts or for my brains to start dribbling out of my ears. I still wasn’t sure yet which stories of evil dreameaters were true. Next to me, Zach bit his lip hard enough to bruise.
“All I want is for the people of the Whisperward to stay safe,” Zach told Jacks.
I had the urge to point out that it was the dog we had to convince, not Jacks. But smart-ass though I am, Zach seemed too frightened to appreciate the remark, so I kept quiet. Diesel finished his circle and sat down beside Jacks again. The Whitefinger scratched behind his ears.
“Very well. We’ll take you with us. You wouldn’t even be the first to leave the ‘Wards and join us,” Jacks said. “But you will be the first Blackthumbs. Don’t try anything or we will kill you.”
“What about our weapons? Can we get them back?” Zach asked.
“Not yet, Blackthumb. Maybe later. Once you see the warren, you’re one of us. If you ever try running back to the Whisperwards, we’ll catch you and our yins will remove any potentially dangerous memories. It can be hard on a mind.”
Apparently dreameaters could make your brain dribble out of your ears. I drew a deep breath.
“Alright,” I said. “Fuck the Whisperwards. Fuck the Gardeners. Can I have some more food now?”
Zach and I didn’t have cloaks and the Whitefingers weren’t packing extra bedrolls, so we slept on the ground. I had been doing it for the last week or so, but for most of that time, I was hungry, thirsty, or delirious and hadn’t fully appreciated just how uncomfortable it was. Which was very.
I guessed that we were on some kind of probation because Jacks organized a watch on us again, though this time, we weren’t bound. I woke every few hours, clawing at the hard earth and reminding myself that I wasn’t about to fall, that Zach and I were safe on stable ground. When one of these restless periods came during Kiyu’s watch, I sat up.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi,” she answered. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Nice start, Julia. Now think of something brilliant.
“Um, this is yours. Again,” I said.
I found the scrap of lace crumpled at the bottom of my pocket. It was dirty and looking more than a little threadbare after everything it had been through. Kiyu came closer and took it with a small smile. She didn’t seem to care about the dirt and sweat ground into the white lace, though, or the ragged and torn edges. Kiyu traced the tiny loops of thread with her fingertip, just as I had done. Then she pocketed the scrap without saying why she had left it behind.
“Your boss… Jacks,” I said. “How did he get that scar?”
“Lightning.”
“He got struck?”
“Not exactly. He didn’t dig deep enough and some molten stormglass ran down into his pit. Jacks couldn’t get up, though, or the storm would kill him. So he just lay there, letting the glass burn him,” Kiyu said. She gave me a curious look. “What were you doing drinking engan juice?”
“Engan?” I struggled to follow the sudden change in conversation. Kiyu asked almost as many questions as I did. “Well… uh… I had a very good reason. A very important one.”
“You didn’t know what it was, did you?”
“I still don’t know what the hell it is,” I told her.
“It’s a plant,” Kiyu said.
“Yeah, I guessed that much,” I answered. “It was that green goo we drank, right?”
Kiyu nodded. “It’s rare, so we collect the juice when we can. Yins drink it to open their minds. It’s powerful stuff. Even people without gifts can have visions when they drink engan.”
“So it made us… dreameaters?” I asked.
I decided not to tell Zach about that. But Kiyu winced.
“I don’t eat dreams, okay?” she said. “Or minds or souls or anything like that. I eat fish and rice and cactus, like everyone else. My gifts aren’t a curse or a taint. It’s just a thing I can do, like painting or fishing.”
“Yeah, but you said you hunt mutants and stuff, just like Blackthumbs.”
Kiyu shrugged her slim shoulders. “Sometimes. But that’s not all I can do. I go with the hunting parties out into the flats. Sometimes I go with people like Jacks to the Whisperwards. Anywhere dangerous,” she said. “…Like a Greenguard, I guess.”
“Kiyu? That’s your name, right?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yes. What’s yours?”
“Julia Reed.” Now that I had actually introduced myself to her, I felt a little less guilty about all my fantasies. “Kiyu? Did there used to be more Whitefingers… people like you? Thorn said something, that maybe we didn’t always live in the Whisperwards. Do you know anything about that?”
Kiyu nodded and her dark hair bobbed in the moonglow. “Yeah. It was after the meltdown, centuries ago. The cities weren’t safe, so everyone left. They migrated southwest to northeast, then back again. Always moving.”
“How did they survive the storms?”
“They were protected,” said Kiyu.
“By what? The Stormspheres? They’re too big to move.”
“I don’t know,” Kiyu admitted.
Damn. At least it was better than Sunday school, where the Gardeners scolded me and called my questions blasphemy.
“So what happened after that?” I asked. “You said that the cities weren’t safe. But they are.”
“Maybe they are now. Things changed. Some of the people went underground. That’s us,” Kiyu said, pointing around to the slumbering Whitefingers. “Everyone else followed the Gardeners into the cities, to the Stormspheres. We don’t know what they are or how to make them work, though.”
“But the Gardeners do,” I muttered to myself.
Did they really, though? Two of the Stormspheres had failed already and Angel City would be next unless something changed.
I thanked Kiyu and lay down again. To be honest with myself, I would have preferred to stay up and flirt with her, but my mind was stuck on this new version of history. What Kiyu told me didn’t necessarily prove the Gardeners wrong, that God had not wept His great black tears for the suffering survivors of his Wrath, but if she was right, there was a whole other chapter to our past that the Gardeners never talked about.
I rolled over and looked at Zach. His eyes were slitted partially open, but he closed them without saying a word.
