Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 (19 page)

My back felt suddenly warm. Crackling and popping behind me. Chest pounding, I turned. My face blistered hot. I tugged at my sister's dress. "Ani."

"Cut it out."

"The bed is on fire!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Evan

Thursday

9:55 pm

24 hours, 54 minutes until the falling

Forty foot walls of rusted bronze and glass rose around us. The greenhouses. They were beautiful when I was a child, five buildings in a row like crystal soldiers defending the castle against a bloodless city rising up beyond the panes of beaten glass. And inside, all the food I could eat: bananas and açaí berries and avocados and coconuts. But the fruit withered long ago. Nothing edible had grown in years. Then, typhoons struck Daemanhur three seasons ago, thirty-eight days of ceaseless torrents. The castle's thick windows survived; the greenhouse didn't stand a chance.
 

Henri and I stepped into a downpour. Rivers of rain dumped down in pillars where the roof was no more. She shielded her candle lamp—a tiny stub of wax that looked near to giving up the ghost—as we splashed through the undergrowth.

"What do you think you'd be doing right now," I said, "if you never fell to Daemanhur?"

"Not this."

"Do you have the dreams anymore? Of your life before falling?"

She shook her head, a little too fast.

"But your mother, you said you see her sometimes, like you're hiding under a deck and she's running over the top of you. Like she was scared of something."

"I have no memories of my mother."

"You told me just last month—" I cut short, deciding to let it go. We moved slowly, walking the long way around cobwebs and broken shelves and clay pots and root balls that seemed to move like snakes, slithering against our bodies as we passed. Eyes blinked at us from the mist. I watched carefully where I placed my feet, stepping over splinters or thorns or broken glass. A tarantula the size of a rat swung in front of my face. Henri bumped into me, saw the spider, then shrieked. It crawled to a branch and joined several others feeding on what looked like a raccoon. Dozens of tarantulas encircled us as we ducked under their webs and made our way to a narrow garden shed built against the outside wall.

The door kiltered, half fallen off, clinging to the broken brick wall only by its bottom hinge. If I remembered right, there was a rack of tools in the back of the shed. Shovels. Taking the candle from Henri, I held it to the darkness inside. The light flickered, then extinguished into a lonely stream of smoke. I stepped to the threshold and reached into the cavity.
 

Henri pulled me back. "Evan, don't!"

"I have to go in."

"What if something's in there?"

I felt nothing but air. Twilight enveloped me, the kind of pitch that made seconds feel like death. The back wall was too far to reach. I stepped in, guiding myself with my hands. Rain pounded against the tin roof. Something clunked behind me. I froze. "That you Henri?"

Her voice was muffled. "Was what me?"
 

"Never mind," I said to myself.

I found the back wall and the rack of tools then felt the shape of tool heads and the shovel I'd come for. Returning to Henri, I saw the lines of fear written on her face.
 

"What's that got to do with Pearl?"
 

I pushed it into the ground and pulled out a scoop of mud. The bite wound on my arm seared with pain.
 

"Yeah, I know it's for digging," she said.
 

"Where exactly did you think we would find Pearl?"

"I don't know. Not buried. What if she's—"

"Dead? You heard the heart beat."

"That could have been someone else. How do you know it was Pearl?"

"I'll just do it myself."

"Mazol wouldn't kill the Roslings. It doesn't make sense."

"You and him are getting pretty close, aren't you?"

"What? Of course not." She turned away from me.

"What were you two talking about then?"

"Nothing. When?"

"You know when."

"In the Caldroen? That was nothing. He was just... telling me to..."

"To what?" I moved into her gaze, but she turned away.

"To finish sweeping up before I left for the night."

"You do that every night."

Henri scratched her neck. "He was reminding me."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"That's not the point. I mean, even if Mazol wanted to kill us, how does he do it? We're Roslings. We're supposed to be immortal, remember?"

"Obviously you're not."

"You think he hung Little Saye up in the rafters? You think he threw Anabelle in the Caldroen? You think he—"
 

"It's either him or me..." Or Dravus. Henri turned into a wall whenever I tried to talk to her about the things I did with Dravus. I think she's jealous of our relationship. So I don't mention him when I can help it.

"What if the affliktion is just a sickness?" she said. "Remember when the fruit trees all died. Do you think Mazol did that too?"

"It's possible."

"You always do this. You let your imagination get the best of you. You dream up things that aren't there."

I wished I could say she was wrong, but my imagination had gotten me in a lot of trouble over the years. Once, when food was missing from the pantries, I was convinced Yesler was stealing it. Henri and I snuck into his room to find evidence, got caught, and earned two lashes each from my uncle. Another time, I thought there was a savage loose in the castle. We set traps each night for a week, but in the end, all we caught was Ballard. Mazol made us both sit in one of the traps for three whole days. Then I discovered the savage was a scrawny ebony cat.
 

"I didn't realize you've been keeping score." Stiffening my neck, I tried to step pass Henri, but she moved in front of me.

"I'm not letting you go out there alone," she said.

"You heard Pearl's heartbeat."

"That could be anything."

I imagined prying open the gravebox, finding Pearl's stiff, rotting corpse staring up at us. Would I be happy to find her stiff? Relieved that the monster was wrong? The thought made my stomach ache. My head began to throb. I sat down on a pile of clay pots to rub my temples.
 

Henri sat beside me. After a moment, she took the shovel from me. "We'll try to find her. I mean, if you really think she's alive, we can't just leave her out there."

I attempted a smile, but couldn't find the strength. "Thanks."

"We're gonna need another shovel."

"Right." I limped to the shed, hesitated in the threshold, standing on the edge of its darkness.
 

Henri scratched her neck. "Be careful."

A crash. Something inside the shed clanked against the wall, then fell toward me. A rake handle splashed into the mud at my feet. I braced my hands on either side of the door, leaned into the unlit shed.
 

"Hello?"

No answer. I lifted my foot to step inside.
 

"Evan, no—"

Something dashed out of the dark between my legs. Henri screamed. I scrambled backward, toppling into a mud puddle. I wiped mud from my face. Slowly, a jackblue came into focus. He perched on a stump, twitching his little rabbit whiskers, staring at me, then dove into the undergrowth.
 

Henri helped me from the puddle. I managed to find a second shovel without any more harmless animals attacking me. Outside the greenhouses, the rain poured down. I wondered if Mazol could see us from the castle as we sloshed through the courtyard in the muggy fog. Or maybe he was hiding out there somewhere in the night, another syringe in hand.

We traced along the edge of the longgrass, toward the mournful outline of the great balizia tree against the storming sky. Pike used to love climbing that tree; that's why Mazol buried him there. The Roslings are buried there now—on the shore of the lake between the courtyard and the perished city.
 

Screams echoed from the gates. Shades must have heard us coming—shadows of humans, teeth chattering, torn skin, brown and lurid from mud and bruises and dried blood. Mazol said Shades were people who had become addicted to mums, hallucinogens that combined every possible joy into a single moment, but crushed you under an avalanche of anguish when the effects wore off.
 

Shades moved through the jungle in packs, scraping the final months of their existence from the muck. When their tongues got so swollen they could no longer scream, their faces turned white and sweaty. Then the retching began—that meant they only had a few hours to live. Sometimes they died intertwined in the portcullis like brambles, holding out hope until the last that one of us might offer one last shot of mums. Or that we might end their misery with the edge of a sickle. They never lasted more than two weeks. Sometimes we called dead things—or things that were about to die—two week Shades.
 

I tried to ignore the howling cries as we plodded through the mud, thinking instead of Claire. My sister. I wondered if she'd written anything new in the book, if she could give me a clue about what waited for me in the falling.

Henri lagged further behind, grimacing when she put weight on her right leg. I tried to help her along, but I could barely walk myself, even with the shovel to lean on. It seemed to take an hour to arrive at the edge of the lake. Five graves lay in a row under the great balizia tree: one named for Pike, three with bundles of fresh tulips and the last, a fresh, unmarked mound of mud.
 

"You think she's really down there," Henri said.

I pulled out the clanker rubric. It beat loudly.
 

"One way to find out." I pulled up a clump of mud. My arm screamed in pain. Henri glanced back at the castle, silhouetted against angry clouds, all windows clouded but two. Yellow eyes, flickering. Daemanhur was always watching.

We worked in silence for a while—only the screams of Shades and drenching rain to keep us company. But soon, others joined us. Creatures watched from the tree canopy above, leaping from branch to branch to get a closer look, screeching.

The pain I felt throughout my body was unbearable. I dreamed of using sapience to finish the digging. But I forced myself on, gritting my teeth as I pulled another scoop of mud from the hole.
 

I glanced up and noticed a long, thin leather bag hanging from Henri's belt. "What's that?"
 

Henri turned sideways, hiding the bag from my view. "Nothing. Just a..."

"Bag?"
 

"Yeah. Just a bag."

"Right," I said. "Is there anything in it?"

She pushed her shovel deep in the mud and flung the scoop out. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Fine. Forget about it."
 

She reached up to push a wet strand of hair from her eyes. Pulling the collar of her shirt down, she scratched her neck for what must have been the hundredth time. I wiped rain from my eyes and squinted to see what looked like a mark on her skin.

Not a mark—a rash. How could I have been so blind? The list was right. Henri was next.
 

Henri had the affliktion.

Henri would be a two week Shade by morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Cevo

Animal heads covered the walls. Elk. Polar bears. Leopards. Elephants. I did not slaughter the animals myself, of course. Hunting is positively boorish. I order them in from a wonderful taxidermist overseas. The first time I saw a whole row of large, stuffed animal heads hanging in my den I felt so... exhilaratus.
 

Taxidermy is so virile.

And now, seeing my old friends again after thirty years was like a family reunion. And back in my own home again. Terillium bequeathed the mansion to me, but the city had claimed this place as their ruling chambers after I left. Mahalelel would live here from now on; he was going to have to get used to living alone.

I noticed one of the mounts was missing. Second from the left, above the door that led to the ruling chamber. Mahalelel always hated that alligator; I bet he sold it the day I left town. I stared at the empty space. "That is where I will put Evan's head. What do you think about that?"

Hagnus did not respond. We faced each other, sitting in two large leather chairs—she was bound at her wrists and ankles.
 

Tapping my fingers, I sighed. "The problem I have, Hagnus, is that I cannot trust your information. The only option I have is to suffocate you. It is not personal, I hope you understand."

"That's a comfort."

They key to negotiating is striking the right balance between fear and hope. First, you make your adversary believe her worst fears are about to become a reality. For example, a slow, painful death. Or, even more effective, the slow, painful death of a loved-one. Then you allow a seed of hope to foster—that she possesses the opportunity to avoid this imminent reality. People will do almost anything to maintain that shred of hope.

"If I had some way to verify the truth of your claims," I said, "that would be quite another matter. But my usual methods of getting what I want—variations on the motivational tool known as pain—do not work when I want to know what is inside a human head. People will say anything when their fingers are being smashed with a hammer..." My voice trailed off as I became caught up with the thought of what came next: my hands wrapped around her throat, watching life flicker from her eyes—
 

"What are you doing to the people?" she said. "I heard servants in the hall; they said you're executing children."

"After you were cut from the scaffolding this morning, I gave the people of El Qir the opportunity of a lifetime. Volunteer to work in my mines or be skinned alive. Four people chose to be skinned. After that, the rest followed my guards obediently below ground. So, I do not understand why you would ask if I am executing children. That would be counterproductive, would it not? Why would I harm my own employees?"