34. Somplace Dark (Patreon)

Update: Unlocked for all patrons.

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The woolen bag over Milo’s head itches. His whole body aches, all the soft places tender. From being beaten up? From falling down the stairs? The world moves around him, uncaring about his confusion. I’m being carried, he thinks, and the memory of recent events explodes in his mind. The factory! Stars above, the factory was bombed! It was Sab and Marid and the Silent. And they’ve captured me! What do I do? The Silent—don’t panic! Don’t panic! Oh no, I’m panicking!

“Looks like the rest of the fireworks will have to start early,” Marid says.

Sab’s response is silent.

“I’m not happy about it either. We’re not ready, but Civil Order’s pushing harder than expected. We’ll just have to make do, like always.”

Milo’s thoughts race, the calculations circling helplessly. Meanwhile, Sab descends a flight of stairs and walks a long corridor, the steps echoing. At regular intervals, light glimmers through the bag. Maybe if Milo builds a mental map and uses their footsteps to gauge the distance—

Sab stops to open a door.

“I almost feel sorry for him,” Marid says.

Who? Milo barely has the time to wonder before he’s thrown into a cell. He recovers as quickly as he can, rising and sweeping the bag from his head just in time to see the door close, taking the light with it.

Dark. It’s completely dark. And likely underground, given the pace and direction of travel. He should’ve done something earlier. Fought. Run. Anything. But now it’s too late, and it’s dark and he’s surrounded by stone. Above, to the sides, below. The immense weight closes on him. Crushing him. The numbers frighten him even more with the improbabilities of escape. Keep calm. Keep calm. I have to keep calm, he tells himself. Try the door. Think of it as just another closet to escape.

His hands run across the smooth surface, but there’s no keyhole and no way to pick the lock if there’s no keyhole. Milo laughs, hysterical even to his own ears. His grip on the panic slips, and he slams his shoulder against the door, bouncing off. His shoulder aches. It burns. The shoulder that Eratosthenes touched. “Eratosthenes? Eratosthenes? Are you there?”

The dragon doesn’t respond. Instead, Milo hears a muffled scream from down the corridor. The sound sends chills up his spine. A faint chittering comes from nearby. There are rats in the cell. Doesn’t help. Doesn’t help! Milo hyperventilates. Bending over doesn’t help. He’s trapped and no one knows where he is except for the Silent. Are they going to torture him? Kill him?

His shoulder hurts. Hurts a lot, much more than he’d expect from ramming it into the door. Is it dislocated? That’s all he needs—captured, buried, to be tortured and killed, all with a dislocated shoulder to top it off.

What should I do? What should I do? Milo slumps to his hands and knees. He can’t control his breathing, and he’s getting dizzier and dizzier, as the numbers spin around his head. “Someone, please,” he says, gasping between the words.

The pain in his shoulder spikes. His arm collapses under him, and he hits the ground with an oomph. Fire. It feels like his shoulder is on fire, blanking all his thoughts with its pain.

What would Hallon do? What would she do trapped like this? Her model spits out the answer. This fear doesn’t serve you.

The pain in Milo’s shoulder recedes. His breathing starts to slow. He flips himself over to lie on the ground and stare at the equations of Hallon’s model.

This fear doesn’t serve you.

Milo takes a breath. He slowly stands himself up.

Yes, that’s right. Now, step into Breathing the World.

There are tears in his eyes. It’s fear, he thinks. And the remnants of pain. But it doesn’t stop him from softening his knees and loosening his shoulders.

That’s it. The model smiles in the way only she can. Now, I want you to do it, except this use your own starting variables. See where they take you.

Milo moves into the First Circle of the Way of the Soft Fist. The equations are ragged, but he’s seen the movements enough times to replicate them. He steps and slides, he blocks and strikes. He does his best to synchronize with the equations until they’re as familiar as reaching for a cup of tea.

He bumps into the walls, trips several times, but he doesn’t stop and repeats the form over and over. Once, the equations even glow. It’s the barest glimmer in the dark, but it’s enough to put heart into him. He’s still frightened—beyond belief—but calmer than he was.

Milo stops and reaches out with his hands. His cell is three feet by seven feet, not much smaller than the room he shares with Karam. The air is stale. There’s a bucket of someone else’s waste. No bed or blanket. The door is solid, the handle and joints on the outside. A series of parallel one-inch slits are carved high in the wall opposite the door. If Milo stands on tip-toes, he can brush them with his fingers. The air is fresher there. There’s another scream, the sound torn from the poor soul’s body.

His mouth is bone dry, his heart in his throat. His hands tremble. “Milo,” he says to himself, “I think you’d better find a way out of this place.”

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Eratosthenes watches from above as shadows cover the city like a blanket. He’s visited many, many worlds and never seen so many gathered in one place. They’ve swallowed Milo whole. The boy is nowhere Eratosthenes can scent or see, and there’s no sign of the portion of himself that he put into Milo’s shoulder.

“I’ve lost him.”

The other guardians ride on his back.

Reem closes her eyes in concentration. “Jawad says that Atu’s gone missing again. The god’s letting us find our own way.”

Mary taps her staff against his fur, a habit when she’s worried and thinking hard. “Milo’s not near anything Green either. What are we going to do? We were counting on being able to follow him.”

Eratosthenes growls. This is what comes from acting out of desperation. It was a foolish plan to begin with—using Milo to trace the source of the shadows’ coordination—but what could do they do? It’s the only path winding through the lines of thought, luck, and karma that has any hope of succeeding. All the other lines end in Calamity.

“We have to trust it was the right decision,” Eratosthenes says. “The boy will find his way back to us. In the meantime, we’ll bolster the bright sparks among the people.”

It’s the best they can do, while down below, the shadows goad the city’s anger, bitterness, and fear.