LEGACY LOST Page 11

  Vector and Gustav had both already disappeared into the berth, fetching patching supplies, but Rain lowered the ladder.

  She lunged forward and hugged Legacy as the girl straddled the rail and swung her other leg over. Stunned into submission, Legacy accepted the hug, even though she was generally not comfortable with physical contact. “Uh, thanks,” she said. She stepped down onto the ladder, comprised of chain and metallic slats. “And thanks for the fresh clothes and–” And the two times now that you’ve saved Dax’s life, when I was the one who risked it. “–and everything,” she finished.

  Rain smiled, but all she said was, “Be careful, and hurry back.”

  “Take care of him for me, okay?” Legacy whispered. “Make sure he stays safe – he’s always been like this. He gets . . . proud, and indignant, and just ignores that he’s any different from a healthy man. Look out for that.”

  “Wait, let me go get him,” Rain said, glancing over her shoulder. “Say goodbye.”

  “No,” Legacy replied firmly. “I’m – I’m going to see him when I get back.” With that, she began her descent, leaping to the soft, mossy jungle floor below. Somewhere in the distance, an insect chirped and hummed.

  Augustus landed beside her, seeming confident with his compass and his map, and gestured into the shifting mists beyond.

  “I just wish we could’ve gotten a closer look at that precious stone collection,” Cookie sulked. She and Surly, otherwise known as Dot, were playing cards on a sand-clotted tree stump. Yes, on a tree stump. Exiled from their township long ago and part of The Stray Bitches, a much larger crew which had dwindled over the past fifteen years – excepting Cookie, who had been taken hostage at the age of thirteen and simply kept like a pet – the three remaining pirate women had chosen to remain living outside of the domes that drifted, tethered to the surface of the earth. It was a dangerous move, but it was the only life the aging three knew anymore. They stayed sharp when on the ground, and weren’t often at this cove unless it was to recharge or refuel.

  They’d built the driftwood fortress at their backs themselves, between a calm sea and the wild jungle, and the spiders never came onto this strip of sand. There was no food for them here, or so they thought, if spiders did think in any way a human could recognize as thinking.

  Beyond the four women lay an open ocean, dazzling in bold morning sun, its shallows cluttered in stolen or salvaged ships which had since fallen into disrepair or been stripped for parts here and there, now and then, otherwise succumbing to rot. It was a surprisingly difficult and constant task, piracy. If there was no theft, there was no money, no food, no nothing. With only the three of them now left – no one ever counted Cookie – a life of even comfortable moderation, much less the decadence they had once enjoyed, was hard to come by. In fact, the Chrysalis had been the third ship to slip through their fingers in the month.

  “Shut up about it, will ya?” Dot commanded. Her pale blue eyes flashed a glance at Tilde, who was engrossed in a pamphlet about unlocking personal success, and another glance at their captain, Seraphim, who appeared to be drowsing in a hammock strung between two palm trees. “It’s no big deal. The creepy old man barge wasn’t even the mark. Just some land-lover treading choppy water. The city of Icarus, now.” Dot tapped her forehead twice and winked. “That’s our big break.”

  Salvagers were bound to show sooner or later. They’d been on their way toward its coordinates when passing Chrysalis, so big and fancy, in the night, and their curiosities had gotten the better of them. But! They were on their way to Icarus. They were supposed to be on their way to Icarus. Someone needed to strip its carcass of all that metallic meat. Might as well have been these shrewd sisters.

  “I don’t know,” Cookie whined, fanning her cards downward and crossing her legs. “We never even got to the mermaid tank he was supposed to have.”

  “Cookie, Cookie, Cookie,” Seraphim muttered from under her slung arm, voice foggy and ragged with half-sleep. “You’re an idiot.”

  “You know what?” Cookie shrilled. “What if he never could get it started and it’s still up there, hanging wide–”

  “Shut up, Cookie!” Tilde screeched, vaulting forward in a flash and swatting the young blond repeatedly with the pamphlet. Now that the pages had been withdrawn from her face, it was obvious that the corrosive sap of the Venus flytrap had deeply disfigured the skin in a zagging splash. One cheek was warped and mottled, as well as her chin and neck. “Shut up, shut up, shut–”

  The raging woman froze in mid-pummel, Cookie frozen beneath her, balled with hands fanned to protect her head.

  “What. The. Hell. Is that?” she wondered aloud.

  If she could believe her eyes – and she really couldn’t, that stupid plant sap seemed to be getting into her literal nerves – then there was a floating castle approaching overhead, too high to see them but certainly big enough to be seen itself.

  “Hey, Sera,” she murmured, eyes panned upward and frozen. “Do you believe in God?”

  Seraphim cracked an eye and observed the island in the sky with a smirk and a dark glow to her ebon eyes. “No,” she finally replied. Her voice was measured and thoughtful as a music piece. “But I do believe in opportunity and predation.”

  “You know, this particular volcano, known to the natives as Montrojo, was used for their small daily sacrifices, and annually, for the sacrifice of an elected virgin. It went on for literally hundreds of years,” Augustus informed Legacy as they walked. “Or so the literature goes, anyhow. Who really knows?” Soft needles and leaves crushed beneath their feet, and sprawling plant life unlike any Legacy had ever seen disappeared into the fog in which the forest was perpetually mired. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of exploration and academia alike,” Augustus went on. And on. And on. “I’ve seen my fair share of egg replicas, let’s just say that. But! They say that the villagers walked through this forest so often that a path is forever cut in the earth . . . if you don’t get lost in the mists.”

  Legacy tore her eyes from the enthralling and terrifying landscape.

  “Bound to work in our favor, don’t you think?” he queried pleasantly.

  Just then, a strand of silk wafted past the duo, and Augustus went immediately rigid. He threw out his arm to still Legacy’s pace and hissed out a breath of warning.

  They both peered around, but there was only the quiet symphony of distant life in the far-off fog.

  The strand of silk led into milky nothingness, beaded with adhesive globules. It didn’t seem to be doing anything, including moving, but Legacy didn’t dare touch it.

  “An abandoned fishing line,” the doctor deduced, exhaling. “I think it’s fine.”

  They walked a handful of paces, both totally silent and watchful now, when the mists receded and revealed a tarantula just off the path, as large as the cabin room which Legacy and Dax had shared. Its legs were bunched around itself as if it were trying to squeeze into a tight space, even though it was in the open . . . and it leaned in an odd way. A little sideways. It did not advance toward them, even if this didn’t necessarily save Legacy’s heart from charging away in her chest.

  But Augustus breathed another audible exhale, and actually smiled.

  “It’s fine,” he informed her. “It’s fine. Do you see this, here? This split in the carapace?” He gestured toward the tarantula as if it were completely safe, then continued to walk. Legacy lunged to pull him back, but he hardly seemed to even notice. “It’s an exoskeleton, my darling. Nothing at all. Though there may be a molting tarantula nearby, they’re harmless in that stage. Very . . . soft. Almost like wet paint. Can’t hunt, you know, without seriously damaging their developing bodies. Let’s hope they’re all molting, shall we?” He extended his arm again, indicating they continue. “It shan’t be far now, I think. Your friend is going to be just fine.”

  A loose giggle behind them caused both to pause and turn.

  Dax, no rebreather on his face, was advancing towar
d them in his adventurer’s garb, a vest askew, his shirt missing buttons, and the utility belt strapped over his chest. It was clear that he’d dressed himself, and that he didn’t really fathom how to do it right anymore.

  To Legacy, it seemed as if the world suddenly expanded to become insurmountably large, whilst she and Dax remained the size of mites.

  “No,” she said to herself.

  “Hey!” Dax called loudly, incognizant of the danger to vibration. “What’s the big idea?” He staggered closer, grinning. He coughed dryly and his lips . . . blue. Almost . . . dark blue. “Why’d you just leave like that, huh? Without saying goodbye? Could have at least left a note! I’d like to think I deserve – Oh, hey.” He paused and considered the thread of silk, bemused. “Ding-dong.” He grabbed the string and gave it a tug. “Anybody home?”

  “Dax, no!”

  A second string shot from the mist to accompany the first, this planting firmly on Dax’s chest, and then he was dragged haltingly forward. Legacy was already running toward him, of course, had been running toward him even as she’d screamed no, drawing the pick from her utility belt and arcing it into the air, severing the cable between Dax and the fishing spider.

  She supposed it was too late now, though.

  A branch crunched and the monstrous arachnid appeared from the cloud, descending with such graceful, eerie motion. Its legs were long and thin, almost translucent, its myriad eyes blinking and its multiple fangs clicking. Its body, too, was strangely narrow for a beast of such size, but even so, was comparable to a length of Flywheel-2’s wings.

  Legacy screamed, a mindless reaction, and the spider twisted in her direction. It shot a string at her, immediately severed with a flash of her pick, but didn’t relent when it lost the tension on the line.

  It lunged, fangs whirring, and pierced the excess fabric of Rain’s pants, tearing a gaping hole there and burning some of the fabric off.

  “Hey now, play fair, creepy crawly,” Dax commanded, drunkenly swinging his own pick at the creature, as if this were all just a game. Still, the pick hit and lodged into the carapace; the spider reared away from Legacy, spasming and flailing backward with the momentum of the weapon still clutched in Dax’s blue-tipped hands. It was surreal. He was laughing while Legacy sprawled in shock, this giant spider seizing between them. The eight-legged monster rolled onto its back and slowly curled its legs inward, signaling that death had come with merciful swiftness. “Anyway!” Dax chirped breathlessly, peering down at the hyperventilating Legacy with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and confusion. “What are you doing all the way down there?”

  “Where is your rebreather?” she asked.

  “I don’t need it anymore, Legacy,” he retorted, as if frustrated.

  Legacy looked at the doctor and back to Dax, uncertain of what they could possibly do. They’d come too far to take him all the way back. “Well,” Augustus murmured. “Let’s continue on, then, as I was saying.” He seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

  The smooth, sweeping ribbon of the old volcano sprawled out before the trio as a hellish savior. It was ironic that this ground appeared so bleak and sterile, yet was choked in life-giving, carbon dioxide-absorbing peridotite. Legacy examined the igneous rock formation, chose a bubbling hill of obsidian, and drew her pick. Augustus, by comparison, moved with infuriating slowness. He was also a terrible babysitter, for Dax repeatedly attempted to wander off into the woods again, needing to be wrangled by Legacy and explained to, again and again, why he could not leave the area. Which, no matter how it was explained, he never truly accepted.

  “Just sit, all right?” Legacy spat, losing her grip on her temper.

  “You sit!” Dax snapped back, crawling and then collapsing onto his back with a sigh, which became a series of coughs.

  Her sole outlet for this tension was driving the pick, again and again, into the rippling bed of obsidian. Chunks of glassy black fell away and landed with crumbles and clatters, and she would flick a glare over her shoulder and scan the debris for any flecks of green, then heave the pick into the rock and gouge another sliver free again.

  “Where is it?” Legacy demanded, sweating and fevered, almost forgetting Dax was even there, getting on her hands and knees to sift through the matter. “You said it’d be here! You said it was everywhere!”

  “Oh, it’s in there, don’t worry,” Augustus promised.

  Still no peridotite. Time seemed to stand still, and yet she knew, with a rifling, mindless panic, that it was moving forward. How long had it been? How many minutes without his rebreather, and still, the walk back . . .

  “Hey . . .” Dax’s voice, limp and listing, came to her. “Leg?”

  Legacy whirled and saw him on his back, staring up into the sky with large, clear eyes. She dropped her pick and ran to him. “Yeah?” She fell to her knees at his side and examined his face. The veins of pale blue were now snaking from the border of his lips and out, claiming his cheeks. She took a deep breath and refused to cry, because if she did, he would see it and he might realize how hopeless it all was. Or was he even capable of such logic anymore? “What’s going on? How are you feeling?”

  “I feel great,” he told her, and though his voice was weak and listing, there was no indication that this was sarcasm. “I figured out how to fix Mudflower.”

  Legacy cast an anguished look at Augustus, almost desiring to interrupt Dax and tell him to go faster, but then . . . she didn’t want to interrupt Dax.

  “Yeah?” she asked, tearing her eyes from the slow-moving professor and back to her best friend. “And how do we do that?”

  Dax fumbled for her hand and took one of hers into two of his, unfolding its fingers and pressing his thumb into the center of the palm. It felt like a cube of ice, and she had to wonder if he even felt her. She felt his pulse. It was fluttering like wings, as if preparing for its greatest flight yet. “Just open his chest,” he said softly, closing his eyes. “And in the back, in the very back, there should be this little hole.” His thumb idly circled her palm. “Put the peridotite in there. Get some use out of it.”

  “Dax.” A tear slipped down Legacy’s cheek, warm and then cold.

  At the ledge of the cloud forest, a thick, translucent tarantula delicately crept, seeming to observe Legacy with Dax sprawled before her, connected solely by their hands. She simply observed the beast, and it her, as it crept and then vanished into the brush.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed sitting in this way, holding Dax’s hand, staring after the molted beast.

  “Here it is, I’ve found a deep section of the bedrock quite thick with peridotite,” the professor announced, approaching at a jog. He held a green-encrusted slab of obsidian in his hands. “Let’s hurry now, I told you–” He came up short as Dax came into view. “Is he – Is he conscious?”

  “No,” Legacy whispered. “His pulse stopped a while ago.” Her eyes tore from the hand in her lap to the professor. “I would have tried to resuscitate, but . . . look at him.” She seemed oddly serene, although serene was not the right word. It was as if she had been scooped up, the husk of herself remaining behind, sideways and bunched up, here to continue talking and even seeming to reason. But another part of her – translucent and creeping, incapable of touching anything without critically damaging herself, “wet paint,” as he’d said – the center of Legacy just observed all of this from a distance.

  “Well,” Augustus said. There were several beats of silence. “I’m sorry. I tried – you know – but–”

  Legacy didn’t bother with a response. There was some sudden social freedom in reaching her maximum capacity for pain. The urge to be polite – even mentally present – was pleasantly alleviated.

  She just continued holding Dax’s hand, not being there. Maybe she was dying, too. Could that happen? Could you just give up and fly away without a word?

  “. . . probably patched by now,” Augustus was saying.

  “What?” Legacy heard her voice filter
into the air.

  “Should probably begin to head back before they . . . they might leave us,” he reiterated, however gently.

  “I’m not leaving him,” Legacy replied. “You’ll have to go alone.”

  The doctor continued to talk, and likely to try to make plans with her, perhaps of an hour of his return, a warning. She wasn’t sure. She was running her fingers through Dax’s hair. The gesture was magically hollowed of all significance. His eyes were closed, and she was distantly thankful for that.

  The doctor then left, hefting his slab of precious peridotite even though Dax would no longer benefit from it. It was Legacy alone now, on this hilltop of obsidian, gouged in futility, reminding her of Hell itself, and if only . . . if only he’d had his mask on. If only that, perhaps he would have survived the extra time. Or if he hadn’t escaped the boat at all. She had told Rain to take care of him! And Rain had said she would!

  Time passed; the sky began to darken. Even though the night was a very dangerous time, she didn’t move.

  His eyelids drifted open, and Legacy’s heart clenched, as if perhaps . . . maybe . . .

  But the eyes were no longer the emotive liquid blue she’d always known. They had gone flat and gray.

  What if they’d just run away?

  Why didn’t they ever think of that?

  They could have worked and saved and purchased a small airship. They could have just . . .

  It wasn’t really true, of course. His condition wouldn’t have weathered the wild life of Old Earth terrain, and he needed constant maintenance to his rebreather, and she couldn’t have abandoned her mother and father, but still, it was a welcome fantasy. They could have built a home of exotic feathers and shells on an obsidian plateau. They could’ve had children. Dax would’ve set out in the morning and returned in the evening, toting a line of fish, and she would’ve stoked a bonfire over which to cook it . . .