Haven: Book Seven of "The Liminality"

Chapter 30 - Root Quaker on Steroids

I seek a place away from the bustle in a cleft of burnt land beside the main drag. The killfire had turned everything it touched into a coarse grit with the texture of cheap kitty litter. There are thick dunes of it everywhere now, collected by the constant wind that swept the pitted plains.

My companions follow me at a distance, providing me the space as I had requested. My presence is attracting a bit of a crowd. Mifuti and his little warrior gang stays busy keeping them at bay. It feels weird but nice, having my own posse.

I sit down cross-legged and bow my head. Gaia is dominating my thoughts as usual, but I know reaching her is a hopeless task. I fill my mind instead with the haze and stink of Sheol—my primary obligation. It doesn't take much to tap into the Sing. It is already here, waiting for me as eagerly as a faithful dog. I leave my body in a whoosh.

It takes me first to a place I hadn't even asked to go. It's super eager to show me a construction site not far from here. I know it must be close because I reach it in a flash. I flit around sharing the eyes of those overlooking the scene. Ophanim patrol overhead. A giant white column, like a straight Tower of Pisa is being erected in the wastes. I know what it is immediately. It's a root quaker on steroids.

I bounce a wide array of onlookers who appear to be mostly guards. There are legions of gathered Centurions here, some actively manning a defensive perimeter, most just standing at the ready in ranks. They keep unnaturally still, like terra cotta warriors. Now I see where the Pennies got most of their ideas about warfare.

The construction work is being conducted by large, semi-human creatures with gangly but powerful limbs. Their heads are disproportionately small and pointy, like microcephalic Zika victims. I can't tell if these are avatars or some sort of modified person. I am not able to flit among them. They seem to have no souls.

The Sing brings me to an individual who appears to be the focus of the action. All of the activity seems to revolve around her. She is ringed with Argents, whose Ophanim are parked in a neat arc surrounding a canopied observation platform from which she conducts her business.

She has short blonde hair beneath a gleaming bronze skullcap. She is beautiful, of course, like all of her ilk, though she displays a bit of age, perhaps purposes of enhanced gravitas. I can't get into her head. She, too is impervious to the Sing's probings, but in her case, I don't think it's due to the lack of a soul. This one is a Maker.

She is aware of my presence, her gaze tracking my movements as I bounce amongst her entourage. The Sing is panicking. It perceives her as some kind if imminent threat to my soul. I am not scared of her. What can she do to me?

But before I am even to ready leave, I have left, and the Sing has my soul zooming through the voids again, whisking me this way and that. I tumble about like a Grand Canyon tourist fallen out of a raft in high water season, before surfacing from the turbulence to find myself skimming along the shore of that smoky, oily sea that stains Sheol. The Sing whips me along the beaches and up through the ravines to the camps on the slope and the command tent where Gijantus sits gnawing at what seems to be a chunk of limestone.

My sudden presence nearly knocks him off his stool. He reaches for this blade and is about to start swinging it as the other clan officials and hangers-on him scatter out of reach.

I ease up and back my soul off a tad so as to not seem so intrusive.

"Relax, Gijantus. It's just me. James."

"You're doing that thing. That thing you do."

"Yes. I told you I would visit."

"Where is Barth? He with you?"