Filaria Read online

  Through her tears she shrieked, “You’re hurting me!” Panic that had been held at bay for most of the night rose sharply in her throat. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” Out over the far side — she’d made the error of looking again: remote fields and farms, houses, forests, small as toys. She loosed a trickle of hot urine into her breeches and stared dumbly down at her own scratched thighs as another sun-bright angel — this one white, wings outspread, feet extended, talons out — came in to land.

  She was finally allowed to collapse, huddling behind one of the stick and twig baffles. She curled in on herself for some time, and when she raised her head to see how close the angels were, to her immense shock she met the eyes of a girl, slightly older than herself, who was sitting cross-legged on a small woven mat. Attractive, black-haired, the girl returned Deidre’s stare with an expression of apparent amusement. Her face, rounded and olive-skinned, was grimy, black eyes narrowed. Lips, tightening slightly, went thin and white and bloodless.

  Neither spoke, yet Deidre, seeing this other person, crawled forward frantically, to the girl’s side, nearly touching her hot body, thinking: another human, another human . . . Then, feeling infinitesimally more secure, she looked back through her tangled hair to see that the angels were clustered, and had not followed her here.

  “What do they want with us?” Deidre breathed. “Why did they bring us here?” She sobbed. “Why?”

  “Don’t know why they brought you here.”

  The dark-eyed girl spoke calmly, looking over Deidre’s shoulder, into the middle distance. She had an unusual accent and her skin smelled of spices. For an instant, Deidre recalled the gram’s unusual accent (was that just yesterday?!), from back in her sanctum, but the inflections, the harshness of this girl’s voice, made it very different from that one. Covered by little more than dirty rags, her body was toned, muscular, tanned. Deidre wondered if she might be a barbarian.

  Now those dark eyes turned. The girl said, “I don’t know if they brought you here to be my companion, my lover, or my dinner.”

  Deidre recoiled.

  “A joke, sister. Relax.” Still, no smile. “I’m not going to eat you, chickie. I don’t think they — ” gesturing towards the group of angels, who stood, still watching quietly, “ — know what makes us tick. They don’t know what they’re getting into. Maybe they want us to reproduce.” And, finally, the girl laughed, as if they were exchanging pleasantries up here. But her laugh was without mirth.

  “Re . . .? But . . .?” Surely, to joke up here like this, to say these horrible things, this girl was crazy. “How long, how long have you been here?”

  “Days.” A noise of disgust. “You know, I don’t think they wanna hurt us, if that’s what you’re worried about. They haven’t hurt me yet.” Turning away again.

  Deidre whispered, “How do you know they won’t?” Over the girl’s shoulder, another dizzy view of miniatures: a threadlike road, houses no bigger than breadcrumbs. The sky, arcing down in a great slow curve to meet the horizon.

  Thin clouds scudded beneath the nest.

  “I know men,” the girl said, under her breath.

  As confounded by this as she was by everything about the stranger, Deidre peeked down again, through a gap in the nest, at a sliver of sun-yellowed land. She said, “My name is Deidre. What’s yours?”

  For a long time Deidre thought she would get no answer except the wind and the angel’s muted chatter but at last the girl said, “Mingh straw. Though that’s not my real name. It’s my stage name.”

  She really was pretty, Deidre decided. And with the wind playing through her hair, and light on her plump face, it was as though Mingh straw believed they were sitting in a courtyard together, relaxing, a glass of powdered orangeade in one hand.

  “Did they set fire to the world? Did the angels do that to us?”

  “Us? To us? You live down there, on that level?”

  Deidre thought: maybe the girl isn’t crazy; maybe she’s just simple. “Yes. Elegia is there. At least, it was. My father is an Orchard Keeper.” Seeking some sign of softness, of compassion. “Look, my mother and my sisters . . .”

  Pride made her fight the emotion coiling inside her. She angrily wiped at her eyes. Still the girl stared, unreadable, and Deidre felt another dimension of fear opening up inside her. Was she alone, despite this strange company? Because of this strange company? Was she all the more alone up here? “I don’t think my family is dead,” Deidre said, unprompted, wiping snot from her lip. “They’re not dead.”

  “What’s Elegia?”

  “Our estate. Our family home.”

  “Estate?” Mingh straw snorted. “You live on an estate? I’m from Hoffmann City. Know where that is?”

  “No.”

  “Seven levels down. Where the water’s stored.”

  “Seven?” Deidre had never taken a lift below the plantations. Just one level. Below that was forbidden, dangerous.

  “I’d never seen that place before, up under the suns. Never seen the suns. Not until these miserable things lifted me out of the shaft opening. I had never seen the suns.” Mingh straw indicated the nearby celestial furnace, burning out to the left, shining daylight down over the land below. The air was certainly hot here, yet surprisingly they had not been burned to cinders. Heat was directed downward, not outward?

  Deidre wanted to mention her interest in the sciences, and in the vanished people who had built the world, but she said nothing.

  “Was it nice and cozy?” Mingh straw asked. “Living down there?”

  Deidre whispered, “Yes, it was.” The girl was mocking her and her life. But she would be strong. “How far beneath Hoffmann City does the world go?”

  “A lot farther, sister. All the way to the bottom.”

  “And does this war ravage the land there too? Where you’re from?”

  “War? Is there a war?” The black-haired girl shrugged. “Hoffmann City’s always burning. It’s hot and dirty there and air is pumped in. Light comes from down windows in the ceiling, most of which are broken. There’s anarchists, atheists, celibates.” She drew a deep breath. “This is the cleanest air that’s ever filled my lungs. You know, chickie, I think these flying men did me a favour, getting me out of the Hoff. Ruined my career, mind you, but prolonged my last few miserable days.”

  “Listen.” Conversation with Mingh straw, Deidre decided, was like talking to a demented child, or to Lady. “Do you have any ideas about how we can we get down?” She touched the girl’s upper arm, which felt about as hot as she’d imagined the nearby sun to be.

  Shaking Deidre’s hand off, Mingh straw asked, “How old are you, kid?”

  “Fourteen.” Deidre was exasperated with these digressions. “I’m fourteen.” She tried to stare the other girl down.

  “What a coincidence. That’s how old I’m supposed to look. Or was it twelve? Think we look the same age?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I’m thirty seven. Pretty good, no? I’ve taken the cure, child. And I’ve had a little surgery. You know, you could make a lot of money in Hoffmann City, with your blond hair and your crying routine and your torn clothes.”

  Deidre said, “All I want to know is if you have any ideas about how to get down.”

  “At first, I thought they were air gods. At first.” Mingh straw spoke in a lowered voice now, her expression far away. “And that they were coming for me. Coming for me in anger. But they weren’t gods. Only men.”

  Deidre tried not to let herself get pulled along this or any other tangent, but indignant words burbled up inside her and fell out of her mouth before she could stop them: “Men? Twice you’ve called these things men. They are horrid and nasty and they are not men!”

  “What’s the distinction?” Mingh straw narrowed one eye and cocked her head.

  Above them, the sky made a clanking noise and several drops of warm, viscous liquid fell to spatter Deidre’s thigh.

  “Tell me,” Mingh straw insisted. “Is it
the wings? Is that what sets them apart? No. Look between their legs.” Leaning forward to poke at Deidre, though Deidre, repulsed, had moved back. “That’s where the real truth lies. That’s what makes them men. Have you looked?”

  “I have not,” Deidre said, shocked. But her statement was untrue: she had glimpsed the tiny, pointed penises of the angels, dangling limply within their feathery codpieces. A flush of hot shame burned through her, down to her core, and she snapped, “Leave me alone, all right? Stop talking to me.”

  “Little needle dicks, right? That’s what makes them men. If they were gods? Well, I guess gods can have dicks any size they want!” Mingh straw laughed.

  “Are you trying to shock me? It’s not working,” Deidre lied, for the second time in as many minutes. “I may be fourteen but I’ve seen my sister in the stable, on her knees in the straw. I’ve seen her. I know what goes on. She talks trash like you. I know what she does to boys.”

  “You do?” Mingh straw laughed again, an ugly sound. “Tell me. I’d love to know.”

  “Stop talking. Please. Stop talking to me.”

  “Okay, sister.” Traces of a grin remained on her face. “I get the hint.”

  To Deidre’s relief and surprise, the request for silence was heeded. As hot winds whipped up again, she glanced about; the angels no longer watched but she heard their unpleasant voices nearby. Every so often, one dropped from the nest to soar past her, through suns’ light and down, toward the ruined and smouldering landscape below. Those winds plucked at Deidre and howled mockingly.

  Huddled against the partition of sticks, trying to imagine a way out of this predicament, she abruptly fell into a sort of desperate, exhausted sleep; at this point she had been awake more than a full day.

  From the shore of a fetid swamp, which spread out before her, the Orchard Keeper came, slowly transforming into a furred beast with a chitinous breast and sharp, needle teeth. This beast, her father, splashed into the muck and floundered there.

  Waist deep in the stagnant water, Deidre watched. Her hair fell out, in clumps, and these floated on the surface of the water all around her like eels.

  “Dad?” she said.

  The beast went under.

  “Hi, D.”

  In the reeds stood Sam’s little dead boy, grinning. Next to him, another boy, around the same age as Deidre, gave her a nervous wave. This kid was thin and blotchy and looked sick. His hair, like hers, had fallen out, and when he smiled he had no teeth to show. He said, “I won’t let you go. Don’t worry. We’ll keep our hiding place.”

  The gashes on the dead boy’s neck opened and closed, opened and closed, in rhythm with Deidre’s breathing, and Mingh straw’s monotone voice began to infiltrate. Deidre listened, her eyes still closed, wishing the vile girl and all recent events would just go away.

  “I’m going to tell you a story . . . I know you’re awake. Make of it what you will. Recently, I had my heart broken. I don’t know if you’ve ever had your heart broken, but you might be able to relate. You seem smart enough. There was a girl, see? There’s always a girl, isn’t there? I worked with her. She was beautiful. Gorgeous and slim. Really hot. Sexy. We were often requested together, as a team. I guess we were picked because she looked as young as me — as young as you — though I don’t think she had any operations or that the gods gave her anything to keep her that way. She looked young naturally. We even fucked a few gods, as a team. Deities don’t really know what they’re doing when it comes to fucking but sometimes they like to give it a shot. Try to pretend they’re down in the dirt with us, you know? Mostly it was funny. Sometimes it was kind of sad. And they wanted to watch us fuck each other, too. Not gods, of course, but men. Men like to watch girls fuck each other. Did you know that?”

  Deidre kept her eyes squeezed shut. Some people believed if you’ve done terrible things in life, you would spend eternity in a nightmare, surrounded by all that you find reprehensible and offensive. But what had she done to deserve this?

  “You can really tell when a girl is into it or when she’s faking, passing time, thinking about cleaning her room or her nails or if she’ll get a food pak or not for her kids back home. This girl Minnie sue was into it. She wasn’t faking anything. She ate my pussy like — ”

  “Stop talking!” When Deidre finally opened her eyes she saw, in the sudden quietude, that Mingh straw was chuckling. Taking a deep breath, Deidre asked, in a barely controlled voice, “What’s the matter with you? Why are you doing this to me?”

  Mingh straw shrugged. “Bored, I guess. And I’ve been kidnapped by flying monsters and fed garbage for four days. Plus, I never liked privileged kids who thought they were better than other people.”

  “I don’t think I’m better than you. We’re different, that’s all. We should be in this together. If you don’t think so, just leave me alone and I’ll get off of this horrid nest by myself.”

  “Maybe you want me to eat your pussy?” Mingh straw leered. “We should put on a show for them? Maybe that’s what they’re waiting for. Plus, it might alleviate the boredom.”

  Deidre stood up suddenly but was forced to drop again to her haunches; the wind grabbed wildly for her, whipping her hair back and plucking at her ruined clothes. With burning eyes she crawled away.

  Mingh straw hissed, “Where can you go?”

  And, when Deidre was a few meters away, still moving, still hiding her tears, Mingh straw shouted in a much louder voice, “I wasn’t telling the truth, you bitch! Minnie sue never broke my heart! She was a lousy lover! She was straight, married to a loser who did nothing but fish every day! Trapped in a marriage to a man she hated! And she was the one gave me — !”

  Clambering around the lip of a partition, Deidre gasped and wiped at her face. The wind had blasted tears from her eyes and sliced the air from her lips. Each awful word of that monologue had been branded into her mind, ringing in her ears. Mercifully, it too had been sliced cleanly away.

  Huddling nearby, a group of angels — including the black one — were gibbering, talking excitedly amongst themselves. They turned to her, as she emerged, and now they stopped their antics. Gesturing and flapping, a few showed signs of further agitation. Not wanting to go back to where Mingh straw was, Deidre shrank close to the rancid sticks and debris, presenting her back to the group of angels but keeping a wary eye on them, lest they attack.

  With slow, strong beats of their wings, two angels lifted off and, in mid-air, kicked at each other, feet splayed in an almost comic fight. Their voices rose in tone and shrillness.

  Then a third broke away from the cluster to come rushing toward her, wings outstretched, gait awkward and shifting from side to side. While she cowered, the beast fell upon her, took hold of her shoulders with the tips of the long fingers that spread the membranes of its wing apart, shrieking angrily in her face with horrible breath.

  Deidre shouted, twisting, pulling the angel off balance. Clumsily, they rolled. The wings were like stinky warm sheets over her face; she was sure she could have snapped the light bones of the creature with her bare hands but the angel scrambled to its feet and suddenly backed off.

  Then she saw the dirigible.

  Still quite far away, under thin clouds and smoke lingering from the razed landscape, gleaming dully in the hazy sunlight, approached a ship. Not quite as high as the aerie, without a doubt the tan shape was an airship.

  Deidre saw the wooden fuselage suspended from the oblong balloon, and the massive prop churning sluggishly behind it. Though she had only seen images of such a craft she imagined her rescuers standing within the cupola, all dressed neatly in uniforms identical to the one that the gram in her sanctum had been wearing yesterday. She imagined their waxed moustaches, their blue eyes. She imagined their resolve. Perhaps, she thought giddily, it was even the man himself, in the flesh, the man to whom she had listened, in her sketching room, presiding at the helm.

  She sat up straight.

  Obviously the angels had spotted this craft earli
er, and when Deidre had fled Mingh straw’s taunts, they’d been discussing a strategy, in their own way. Now they had resumed their dance, arguing among themselves, kicking and making their awful giggling noises.

  “You’re dead,” she told her attacker, who remained standing over her, also watching approach of the slow-moving dirigible. It looked down at her with beady eyes. Its nostrils twitched. “You’ll see, you filthy beast. You’re all dead! You can’t touch me any more!”

  The angel blinked, hissed, and looked away.

  Balloons were military crafts, under orders from — and in possession of — officials much higher in rank than her father. But was it possible that the Orchard Keeper had discovered her abduction and arranged for her rescue?

  She waved vigorously, moving so she could see Mingh straw, who sat still, staring out into the clouds in the opposite direction, as if she remained unawares, unconcerned. Deidre scuttled back to the girl, calling to her, cutting through the crosswind. The angel that had accosted her shrieked once, but did not follow.

  “They’re coming,” Deidre shouted. “Mingh straw, they’re coming! We’re getting help!”

  The girl turned, very slowly.

  Blood bubbled at the corners of her mouth. She smeared the blood with the back of one hand, marking her cheek and chin with demented crimson streaks. “Who is?” Voice thick, though the girl tried to smile. “Who’s coming?”

  “You’re bleeding . . .”

  “What makes you think, sister, that I need another sister? One more to take care of? The gods of fertility took care of that. Cut my tubes. I don’t need another kid.”

  Deidre turned to pull apart nearby sticks, to better watch the airships’ progress through the gap she made. “Can’t you see it, Mingh straw? Look.” She spoke as if Mingh straw was the child and she, Deidre, was the adult. She took the girl’s hot arm. “Can’t you see it? They’re coming to save us. Everything is going to be all right.”