Filaria Read online

  “Angels?” Voluminia laughed. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Angels,” Lady repeated, nodding. “Angels are a sign of luck, they say. A blessing. They’re ’posed to appear. When we pure enough to ascend.”

  “Ascend? What are you talking about?”

  “Some of us believe that. Ma’am.”

  “Some of who?”

  “Us.” Lady shrugged. “Or they might be rocs. Or even harpies.”

  Mother laughed nervously. “Tell the girls you’re kidding, Lady.”

  Lady looked blankly at the girls.

  “Tell the girls there are no such things as rocs. Or nonsense about ascension.”

  Lady shrugged and turned her attention back to her lunch. She popped a small potato in her mouth.

  “Maybe they’re something new,” Estelle said. “Some tortured freaks escaped from a lab, just like the one dad worked at.”

  “Yeah. Before he exiled us,” Voluminia added.

  “Your father fed and clothed us!” Mother was angry now. “He gave you girls a beautiful home. I will not have him talked about like that.”

  The teenagers were not intimidated. They exchanged exaggerated looks. Voluminia fingered her grubby garments and feigned being impressed by the quality.

  Their mother tossed leftovers back into the basket. The picnic wrapped up hastily. Under the presence of the winged men, circling high overhead, the girls bundled back into the cart. Lady started the engine.

  Every so often, as they drove, Deidre glimpsed the angels, or whatever they were, out the back, still very high up. They seemed to be following the cart. She never did get a truly clear look at the features on those distant faces but she was sure that their wingspan must reach three metres across, at least.

  There were six of them, maybe more.

  When dusk fell, and the suns had faded to red-glowing elements, Lady pulled off the road to fill the petrol tank. Despite the fact that the oppressive heat had lifted, the girls had grown cranky again and were asking regularly how long it would be before they arrived at the cabin. Soon, their mother said, soon.

  Yet, shortly after setting out again — as the cart rumbled up a hill into the darkening landscape — Deidre heard Lady grunt with alarm. Half-standing in the flatbed, rocking, trying to keep her footing, she saw, over the servant’s broad shoulder, what looked like the entire valley before them consumed with leaping flames, tearing the oncoming night to shreds.

  MEREZIAH, L17-18

  Creeping motion, inexorable. Almost easy to forget there was movement whatsoever. In fact, at times, despite Mereziah’s general state of mounting excitement, it was possible to forget what he had done in the first place, the decision he’d made to leave his station behind and rise upwards, alone, in the world.

  Lucid peaks — when he was able to reflect, feeling instances of freshness and clarity such as he had not experienced in many decades — he knew for certain that he had done the right thing. Only one direction was an option: up. The simple word lolled on his tongue when he whispered it and circulated giddily inside his brain like a drug. He would never go back down again, not while he was alive. Never see his station again, nor the ramshackle cabin his father had built. Never see his brother again. All the fixtures of his life grew farther away with each passing second.

  Yet he also had within him the capacity to lose his lucidity, his confidence. He could not allow himself to become maudlin; a positive mood, if he were not careful, would quickly deflate. No looking down, he told himself. No looking down. No regrets.

  Pendulous in the updrafts, Mereziah planted both bare feet flat against the curved wall of the shaft and pushed off, rising and twisting, pulled by the madman’s pod as it nudged ever upwards. The track they rode was true and very long. Casting a russet glow, the device overhead gave off more than enough light for Mereziah to distinguish his surroundings, and he came to accept a somewhat disconcerting fact: despite his fancies and anticipation, there was little difference between where he had worked his life away and these new, higher areas of the shaft. Nor did they show any promise of change. Retired pods embedded deep in the curved walls. Dusty mesh strung between glistening tracks. Loops and untold lengths of entwined tubes. Endless tubes. Hundreds of sizes, gurgling and trickling and burping quietly, up and down the great shaft. Everything dusty and grey. Just like back home.

  And there came flashes of light from the wall, too, maybe a little stronger than those he was used to, almost as bright, it seemed, as the light that falls regularly on level grounds — though not in the dingy grotto where his father had built their family’s cabin.

  Within the pod the passenger screamed, perhaps suddenly horrified by wandering thoughts of his own, triggered by the intermittent glare. Mereziah heard those dirty feet shuffling about, a few meters above his head. The passenger shouted twice more.

  That light flashed again.

  Was it unusually bright? Different microfauna in the walls here? Any indication, Mereziah wondered, of change at last?

  The only incident truly out of the ordinary in those first few hours was when he caught a quick glimpse of another lift attendant, watching in shock from the gloom, lean face agog over the transgression that rose up from the black depths like the coming of some prophet from places where the dead fell. Mereziah was unable to contain his grin as he gave this comrade — whom he would never meet but with whom, no doubt, he had so much in common — a tentative little wave; the other attendant, after a moment, staring up in utter disbelief, returned the wave uncertainly.

  And once a brood of young sloths, coming arm over arm up the adjacent webbing, paused to bat at Mereziah’s form with outsized claws, but these creatures were remotely interested in him, and only for a short while, before they too melted into the shadows.

  So Mereziah had lots of time, as usual, to dwell on the uneventful years of his long life. Perhaps not exactly a life wasted, but an overly courteous and restrained one, obedient, a life of service. Undermined, mostly, by a bitterness that had flowed, until today, deep under his proper-yet-seething skin. He thought about his brother, more like himself than he could ever fully admit; about his dead parents, at whom, when they were alive, he’d often rolled his eyes. He had considered them to be archaic, out of touch, but could never tell them, now they were dust, how sorry he was for that, how wise he truly saw them now, with age and the few small wisdoms with which his drab life had graced him.

  Components of his experiences seemed to break down, sorting into hard facts, like a series of crystals, as if they could be arranged, made sense of, as if they could be held, easy to view, hold, and look at from different angles.

  How often did Mereziah stare upwards that afternoon, squinting past the moving pod, convincing himself that not only were distant glimmers signs of life from above but that they were getting closer?

  At one point, dozing, he imagined he was an infant again, about to suckle an oozing drop from his mother’s swollen teat as she climbed the meshing to nurse him.

  Approximately five hours, estimated Mereziah, after abandoning his station, the pod that he clung to shuddered to a complete and utter halt.

  Silence.

  Everything around remained as it always had.

  “A good ride,” he said to no one, and he nodded, trying hard to hold onto his hope. “A good, long ride . . .”

  Glimmers of slick pseudopods groped the shaft wall for purchase: the track was actually germinating. Budding. If he were to continue up, he had no choice but to completely re-couple the pod.

  As he searched the curved wall for a more stable track, a glare of light from what must have been a great mass of parasites directly opposite him illuminated the vicinity in harsh contrast —

  “Ahh!” Mereziah closed his watering eyes, knuckling them with one hand. But what had he seen on the other side in that split second? A huge pod? Fleetingly, he’d been able to view across the gulf of the shaft, and it sure had looked like a pod there, the largest pod he had ever
seen, so vast it defied imagination as it hung, inert, from an entire group of parallel tracks. If Mereziah had not been hanging by his belt straps he might have dropped to his death from surprise.

  Father had long ago told him and his brother about lift pods of huge size, but Mereziah had not believed the tales, not even as a young child; in his experience, he’d only ever seen singles, doubles, the occasional family-size.

  But this one — if what he’d seen had indeed been a pod — could have carried a dozen or more.

  He was unable to conceive of a monster such as this in motion, and decided that what he thought he’d seen had to be sort of a nonfunctioning anomaly, grown over the centuries, a mutated tumour in the wall of the shaft.

  But supposing a huge pod could exist, could actually carry people, move up and down . . . Several full-time attendants would be needed merely to maintain its course, let alone help it out should it become stuck — which would surely happen almost instantly. What were the odds of tracks remaining aligned for any functional distance? Darkness had fully closed back in on him; the red light atop the single pod was extinguished. Surely, with its mad passenger inside, the pod he rode under could be left for an hour or two while he made his way around the shaft to investigate the monstrosity on the far side. He would return when he was done, re-couple the stalled pod, and continue his ascent. Simple. A short detour, maybe a wonder to behold.

  Mereziah unbuckled himself, decided not even to tell the passenger he would be temporarily abandoned, and without hesitation began the trip around the slow curvature of the shaft. Webbing here was certainly similar to that which strung his own station, track to track, and in loops between, dense and familiar enough for his footing and hand placements to be secure. Against the calluses on his palms and feet, the strands were like old friends, but eyes of the dead looked up at him from that dark and distant bottom, preparing to judge him and the rash move he’d made. He should not be here, they implied. This station was not his. Mereziah wanted to shout out justifications for his actions but motives seemed selfish and petty. His mother’s eyes watched him on this frivolous escapade. He would explain to her that he’d had no choice.

  Before long, Mereziah could hardly see the slim pod he’d left behind. He was calm once more. Squinting over his shoulder, he fancied he could make out the dimmest sliver of yellow, leaking from the window — which remained in the open position — and he wondered if the passenger could see him out here or if the madman even knew or cared that he had once again been left alone. Did the traveller, for that matter, even know he’d been accompanied?

  In truth, Mereziah suspected that the man knew more than he let on.

  Half an hour or so later, miniature under the looming bulk — which remained quite real — Mereziah was somewhat out of breath but otherwise feeling good and clear-headed. Intermittent glimmers of phosphorescence allowed him to confirm that the pod — for it was indeed a pod — hung out into the shaft like a grotesque and distended belly. The width, this close, hinted that the elevating device might be wide enough to accommodate at least thirty passengers.

  But the most shocking discovery came when he’d glanced at the area directly above the freakish pod: portions of the tracks were moist and striated and caught the faint light. When he’d seen this, a fist turned in his gut. The giant pod had descended. Recently. Not much, but the traces of moistness on the tracks were proof that the device was very capable of motion. Who requested such monsters to retrieve them? Why would so many people need transportation at one time? And where in the world would they be going?

  Possibly many pods up here were this large, nearer to the top of the world. Maybe things weren’t so similar here after all —

  Flaccid skin on his neck prickled. If the pod were active, he thought, there are people about. And these people, if they were also different, might not be so friendly. They might not tolerate a deserter.

  Under the body proper of the device were several groups of rings. Mereziah saw them dangling from where he clung. Enough rings for a small army of lift attendants to attach themselves to while they worked. He glanced about but no one lurked in the darkness: no movement; no unusual source of light other than the pale and pulsing glow of the walls themselves.

  Fingers of tepid breeze from below lifted his clothes and ran fingers over his belly.

  Two rows of windows. Staggered. Eight, at least, in each row. The nearest few were sealed but several others, farther away, appeared to be open. No illumination whatsoever emanated from within. The bulbs inside the huge pod were quenched? Devoid of power?

  Mereziah forced himself to proceed with his investigation but a growing part of him wanted to flee, retreat to the mad passenger and the single pod he had left behind. Inside his body, as inside that slim device, his own stowaway prowled: a bad and sour feeling, hitching a lift. Was he about to be taught a lesson for leaving his post? Ironically, it was the professional facet of him, not the newborn and ill-fitting spontaneous facet, that impelled him to stay, to assist, to offer his services.

  The mechanisms of the windows appeared similar to those he was familiar with, despite the visible differences such as size, obviously, and contour. He positioned himself close enough to touch the surface of the pod. The skin appeared similar to most other pod coverings: smooth, pliant.

  Reaching out with one trembling thumb, to caress the ridge that would open the shade of the nearest window, he touched the slider, moved it quickly aside. Nothing. Only blackness. He pressed his face against the pane, and squinted, imagining now he could discern something, a vague highlight or two, an outline, a shifting form? He knocked, very quietly, and was sure he heard the sounds of gentle movements, an answering and disturbing groan —

  The glare was blinding, an explosion of light so strong it caused him to lose his footing and fall back hard into the netting, swinging down and slamming one knee against the wall of the shaft, which, though relatively soft, still sent daggers of pain through his body. Caught in the web, hanging there, blinded, his useless hands flailed. His heart hammered and threatened to stop in his chest.

  Above him, from within the giant pod, a young girl called out: “Who’s there? I mean, who the fuck is out there?”

  The light was a beam. He could see that now, as it played harshly across the darkness where he had been, gleaming on the mucuscovered tracks and ashy pale webwork of the shaft.

  Mereziah lay for a long while, watching this light, waiting to hear the voice again, trying to calm himself and surveying his limbs to see if he were hurt. That voice had certainly sounded like a girl’s. A normal, if somewhat brazen, girl. When he heard the question repeated one more time he frowned, began to untangle himself, and replied, as loudly and as confidently as he could, “Hello there? I’m a lift attendant. This is not my station but may I, may I be of, of assistance? Of service to you? Are you in . . . in distress?”

  “Distress?” Laughter now, drifting down from above. “May you be of fuckin assistance?” The girl’s tone, verging on shrill, held elements of fear or maybe even desperation. She was clearly in trouble. Mereziah was sure of it, despite her bravado.

  “I wanna see your face. Where are you? I wanna see that you’re not one of those fuckin soldiers.”

  “I assure you,” Mereziah responded, climbing back up slowly toward the giant pod, “I am no threat. I am not a soldier. Why in the world would there be soldiers about? I am an attendant. Shine the light away from the window; it’s too bright; I can’t see.”

  Rubbing at his watering eyes, he peered over the windowsill and into the pod. There she was. A girl, standing, scrawny in the beam of her own torch, hardly more than a child. Sickly? No. Merely dirty, skinny, and tired. (A striking face, however, under those smears and tear streaks.) One fist clenched tight on the haft of the torch, the other shielding large, wide-spaced eyes. Not as big as the eyes of a lift attendant, of course, but not as small as the eyes of a person who always lives in light. No hair on that blotched pate. No teeth, hiding
in that grimace? Hard to tell, but it looked that way.

  She was dressed in grubby pants, grubby shirt. Defiance personified. Wiry muscles down her limbs. A sight, he decided — as they sized each other up — of surprising beauty.

  “Wow,” the girl finally whispered, breaking the spell, stepping back. “You’re so fuckin old.” The light beam wavered. “How old are you?”

  “One hundred years,” Mereziah answered, unable to think of anything else to add. The question had stung him like a slap in his face. He said, “One hundred years old. Today.”

  She was memorizing him, seeing his flaws, his very thoughts. He squirmed but her gaze lingered on him, exposed, out here, in harsh shadow and highlight. He felt her intelligence and insight burning into him.

  “Your eyes are so huge,” she said.

  “I live in darkness,” Mereziah said. “But I can see in the dark. What appears black to you looks dark grey to me.” An attendant’s joke, but the girl did not laugh. Neither did he.

  “Can you help me, old man? Can you rescue me?”

  “You do need rescuing?”

  “Of course I need rescuing. Maybe I should be helping you?”

  The smile, when it came, confirmed two things: one, that there were no teeth in that pretty mouth — only dark gums — and two, the girl had the capacity to radiate an intense allure he had never before experienced. Mereziah felt a rush of giddiness. My goodness, he thought, have I ever even seen a teenaged girl?

  Movement from behind the captive. He squinted, said, “How many are in there? How many people with you?”

  To his surprise, the girl laughed out loud at his question, but the laugh ended abruptly as she looked over her shoulder. At first he thought she was counting. Then he realized she was listening. He strained to listen as well but heard nothing.

  “Is there one of those soldiers in there with you?” he asked quietly.

  An image of the girl’s body, trapped by captors, entered Mereziah’s mind like a spectre of evil, of all the grievous injustices in the world, and crept slowly away, over the lobes of his brain, leaving unpleasantly lingering emotions.