Waybound (25 page)

Bubbling up from the depths they saw a glint of something dark. Many somethings. Long, serpentine coils like a fleet of tongues, lapping at their boat. Encircling them.

The kids didn't have to ask.

They knew what had caught them.

Rhom.

D
ollop lay on the ground of the sleeping chamber, alone. He could hear echoes of the amalgami frolicking nearby.

He roused and made his way to the cathedral-like cavern where he had been with Amalgam the previous day. Standing silently in the mineral-flecked shadows, he watched them play. They stretched their interconnected bodies across the lagoon, creating hypnotic amber ripples as they undulated in beautiful patterns, like musical harmony made visible.

Amalgam sensed his presence. A tethered individual emerged from the mass and skipped over to greet him at the shore. As the figure approached, Dollop saw that it was his twin again.

“Did we wake you?” the amalgami asked.

Dollop shook his head.

“Then come play!”

Beaming, the twin took his hand to lead him to the lagoon, but Dollop didn't budge.

“I…” he began, trying to force out the words.

“What is it, little one?”

“I…I ca-can't.” He steeled himself.

“Are you hungry? We have fresh jelyps to—”

“That's no-not it.”

“You are not well?” The amalgami was concerned.

“I'm leaving,” Dollop blurted. It hurt even more than he had expected. His twin just stared at him, confused.

“We will play later?” the amalgami asked with a grin.

Dollop shook his head. “You don't understand. I—I can't stay here. I ha-have to go away. I…I wish it co-could be different.”

Realization withered his twin's smile.

“Go…away?” said another amalgami voice.

“Why?” asked others.

“Be-because I'm needed,” Dollop said.

“We need you.”

“You are us.”

“We are one.”

Their voices overlapped, first ringing with confusion, then yearning, growing heavy. Dollop wanted to run to Amalgam, to plunge into their paradise and make this pain vanish. Maybe if he just merged with them once more, he could explain…

No. His mind was made up.

“I—I want to be with you,” he murmured, unable to look his twin in the eye. “Mo-more than anything. B-but I have someth-thing very important to do.”

More amalgami sprouted from the mass and approached.

“My fr-friends are out there,” Dollop continued. “Th-they are in tr-trouble, and they need me. I—I have a function.”

“Function?” the amalgami asked, pressing in around him. “But what can you do, little one?” asked a voice.

“Dollop is nothing alone,” said another.

“You are incomplete.”

“Broken.”

Dollop winced. Their words struck home. Amalgami hands traced the gaps on his body where he was missing pieces. He longed to feel whole again—to have his memories and his mind intact once more.

“A single drop of flux…” they soothed.

“…is insignificant.”

“But together…”

The amalgami surrounding Dollop held hands, their parts interweaving to form a loving embrace.

“…many drops make an ocean,” the chorus resounded.

“Without limit,” they chanted.

“We are one.”

“We were,” another corrected. “Until you.”

Their angelic faces shined. Gentle hands reached out to him.

“The vaptoryx found us, attacked us.”

“Took part of us away.”

“Separated.”

“That is how you were born.”

Dollop took a hesitant step back.

“But you have returned to us.”

“Now we can be one again.”

“Forever us.”

“I'm…” Dollop's voice hitched. “I'm so-sorry.”

He turned away, unable to bear the sight of sorrow smothering those hopeful faces.

His twin began to weep.

“Please…”

Dollop strode from the chamber and entered a narrow passage, determined to not look back. Another voice whimpered behind him, then another. Sorrow multiplied within Amalgam, many voices building into a mourning throng. Dollop swallowed back his tears, but he would not allow himself to waver. He hurried through the labyrinth of passages, trying to recall the path he had taken upon his arrival.

“Please…” echoed a desperate plea.

“Don't leave us,” moaned another.

Amalgam's sobs seemed to emanate from the cavern walls. The wretched sound filled him with a rending pain.

Dollop just wanted to get away.

But as he continued to search for the exit, the cries seemed to grow closer. He heard shuffling, saw a lingering shadow. Weeping amalgami faces stared at him through connecting passages. Their misery rose to a terrible wail that surrounded Dollop and filled him to bursting.

A hand shot out from a hole in the wall. It grabbed his arm.

An amalgami face appeared, its features warped in agony.

“Please, little one,” it begged. “Please don't leave us!”

“I-I'm sorry. I'm so s-s-sorry.”

Dollop reshaped his limb to make it thicker.

“You can't go!” Amalgam howled with distorted repetition.

The grip tightened. Dollop squirmed in panic.

He wrenched his strengthened arm free.

“Please!”

Dollop raced down the hall. Hands burst from cavities on all sides, snatching as he hurried past. Amalgam reached out to him through side chambers, faces twisted with sorrow. Their tormented voices were shattering and shrill, so deafening that Dollop had to hold his ears to block them out.

He skidded to a stop. A wall of body parts assembled before him, blocking his escape. A thousand mouths opened.

“We are one,” they bellowed.

Hands erupted through the mouths and lunged for him.

Dollop split down the middle to evade their grasp. He slipped past, reassembling as he ran, twisting through the caverns.

Amalgam sobbed, a mother that had lost her child, beating its thousand fists against the ore in despair. And Dollop, too, was crying, overwhelmed with guilt and fear. He wiped heavy tears from his eyes as he fled.

Beneath the howls of sorrow, Dollop heard a trickle of falling vesper. He hurried toward it and soon saw patterns of glowing blue light and hanging stalactites that he recognized.

“Please!” echoed Amalgam's tortured moan.

At last, the chamber he had been seeking. It was the lagoon and the shore where he had arrived. And there, lying undisturbed, was the salathyl prong he had left behind. He snatched it and looked up at the trickling vesperfalls. Among the dripping stalactites, he saw holes pocking the ceiling. An escape.

He clung to the mineral-flecked wall, re-forming his body, extending his limbs and fanning out his fingers for a better grip. He pulled himself up. Climbing, hand over hand. Foot after foot.

Mournful lamentations gathered like storm clouds, and Amalgam rolled like thunder into the chamber, flooding out of every tunnel. Dollop looked down.

A monstrous face made from countless parts, hundreds of eyes merging to glare. It rose, mouth hinging open, expanding cavernously wide. The face bent, contorted in misery.

It screamed.

“STAY!”

Amalgam came for him.

The howling maw seized Dollop. It plucked him off the cavern wall. Limbs surrounded him in an unbreakable grip.

Instantly, he was crushed by sadness, like the flame of every happy memory was snuffed out. This was sorrow magnified, a million times greater than any he had known. Every ounce of his being trembled with the desperate cry of “STAY.”

And as the word bellowed within Dollop, as Amalgam absorbed him, he felt his mind begin to crumble. He was eroding, every sensation submerged in an ocean of grief and loneliness.

Numbness blanketed him. He could not feel his pieces. They were being taken from him. They no longer belonged to him.

Soon there would be no
him
at all.

There never was,
came a sad reply. Not his words, but broadcast into his thoughts. Or what was left of them.

Stay.

Return to us.

We are one forever.

What remained of Dollop? He felt the tingle that had kept him together dwindle, the heat of life fade. There went his belly, then his head. The rest was gone, melted down like liquid ore.

Molten. Like the marks on his chest.

Where had he gotten those scars?

His past was…

Fading.

Makina.

Her name stirred his dying ember.

He had almost gone to rust in the furnaces of Kallorax—that's where his scars had come from. But She had spared him.

Dollop was Waybound. A warrior of the Covenant.

Child of Ore, servant to the Great Engineer.

He remembered.

Amalgam grew hot. Dollop's resistance was disturbing it.

Piece by piece, his segments dug their way out of the suffering mass. He willed them to return.

Amalgam tried to hold on, clinging to his every last bit.

“WE ARE ONE!” it wailed.

His pieces retracted. His mouth assembled.

“I. AM. ME!” came Dollop's triumphant cry.

His body re-formed with an explosive force.

Amalgam convulsed, and Dollop was hurled into the air.

He stretched himself out to seize one of the stalactites.

Amalgam crumpled, all flopping limbs and bawling mouths. It recoiled pathetically, hugging itself.

High above, Dollop dangled from the stalactite. He gazed upon Amalgam for the last time.

This was his doing. After searching for so long, he had finally found his clan, and all he had done was cause them pain.

But Amalgam was not his home.

There was no going back.

His friends needed him.

Salathyl prong in his mouth, he scrabbled up the stalactite and pulled himself into a cavity. He found a steep incline and dragged his exhausted body up and up.

The ore shook with Amalgam's muffled howls.

Was the air pressure changing? Was that the drone of the Mirroring Sea? The warmth of suns from up above?

He clawed to the surface like a sprout ready to bloom.

Makina had set him free, and Dollop praised Her.

For Amalgam was right—he was broken and incomplete. But despite his failings, despite his lack, Dollop was himself.

He was one.

T
hey barely dared to breathe.

Rhom was taking them…somewhere.

The Sea Bullet groaned, its walls straining in the leviathan's grip. She had encased the boat in her black tendrils, muting the scream of the storm.

Rhom's tentacles squelched across the windshield. They looked like the shadows of dead trees—thick and darkly translucent with slithering offshoots. They were layered in barbs like meat hooks that gouged channels in the glass. Foreign objects were half-sunk into the gluey black flesh—shells of decomposing mehkans, chunks of indiscernible ore, and rusted shards of machines stamped with the Foundry logo.

Through the meager gaps between the tentacles, they saw that the boat was descending. They were being hauled into a tunnel within the mist-drenched Talons.

Micah snapped into action. He recovered his rifle and field pack, then climbed down into the engine room.

“Please tell me this is an accident,” Gabby said. “Tell me that you weren't planning on taking us to Rhom.”

Phoebe didn't answer.

“You should have told me.” Gabby said sorrowfully. “We might have had a chance, Phoebe. I could have—”

Micah reappeared, stuffing the Med-i-Pak and rations into his case before strapping it on. As he reloaded his rifle, Phoebe adjusted the Multi-Edge sheath around her waist and tucked the naval map into a pocket. Gabby sank into a seat.

Outside, the tempest faded as they were taken deeper into the Talons. The deadly lead-gray spikes curled overhead like clawed hands, shielding them from the ferocity of the storm.