The Luminous Citadel: Chapter 7

A Serialized Hollow World story

You can find the earlier installments here. As ever with these installments, they are raw unedited rough drafts hot from my fingertips. This will be a novella, and I estimate another three or four chapters to wrap it up now. Afterwards, I’ll take it down here and it will be published in ebook. Feedback on the serial sections is always welcome!

Chapter 7

“Does she know?” Wilt hissed at his former mentor.

“What?” Sooma refocused. “No, of course not. Even the other students don’t know, and you mustn’t tell them.”

Wilt felt his jaw drop, but as Dione came up he did his best to resume an inscrutable expression. She gently laid her fingertips on his forearm, smiled and nodded at Dr. Sooma, then looked up at Wilt with her big green eyes.

“Hello, Wilt.” She enunciated clearly, then beamed with joy.

“Hello, Dione.” Wilt smiled back, happy to see her but wishing she hadn’t shown up just then.

“You’ve already established communication!” Dr. Sooma clapped his hands in approval.

Wilt turned on him. “She is not,” his voice was low and harsh, “a performing animal. She is a person, and a good one, who loves her mother and protects her home against those who would steal their children.” Wilt’s voice rose on the last words.

Dr. Sooma rocked back on his heels, blinking.

“You are not a child. If I recall your leavetaking from family, you could hardly wait for the ship to depart, and stayed away from home for a night prior.”

“I am not a child. I also did not consent to being brought here in some kind of weird experiment of yours, to a place where I was not given enough information to even be able to choose. And yet,” Wilt felt a hand on his shoulder and stopped, jerking around and away, to see Helikon.

Helikon stepped forward, standing beside Wilt, glaring at Dr. Sooma. “And yet, it seems he has chosen.”

Wilt opened his mouth to object, felt Helikon’s hand still on his shoulder squeeze gently, and shut it again.

“You are no longer welcome here.” Helikon didn’t raise his voice, his tone was calm and even. “Go.”

“What about Wilt?” Dr. Sooma looked confused, as though Helikon’s words weren’t sinking in. “I have data to collect.”

“This is not your place.” Helikon gave Wilt’s shoulder a last reassuring squeeze, then he lifted his hand and pointed at the flyer lying on the short turf behind the old man. “Take your wings, and fly away from here.”

“Wilt...” Dr Sooma huffed, then made a throwing-away gesture with his shoulders and hands. “I’ll be back to check in and see what you have done.”

“No.” Wilt shook his head. “No, you won’t. They will strike you from the sky if you come back. I saw what they did with the night people.”

“What?” Sooma’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “I have done nothing...”

“You steal the sons of mothers far distant, and take them from their families forever.” Helikon took a step towards Sooma.

“Only the ones no one will miss. Or that wanted desperately to get away.”

Wilt remembered his mother, clinging at the last goodbye. “Not forever. I’ll find you, when I want you, Dr. Sooma. Better go now.” Deliberately, he turned his back, and reached out his hand for Dione’s.

She took it, and as they walked away, looked up at him with a soft, enigmatic smile. “Hello.”

Wilt let some of his anger slip away and smiled back. “Hello.”

He ignored the conversation behind them. Nyssa came to meet them, carrying a covered basket. She pulled two small loaves out of it, and offered them to her daughter and Wilt.

Wilt found that it was filled with a savory paste, highly spiced, and it was very good. He was very hungry, so this was welcome. Nyssa handed the basket to Dione, and unlooped a strip of leather from her own shoulder. She held it open, then put it on carefully, showing with her actions what it was meant for, before taking it off again and handing it to Wilt. He’d finished his pasty, so he dusted his hands hastily, the weapon tucked under his arm, then handed it over to Nyssa, while he put on the holster she’d brought him. She handed it back, and he slung it, then put the weapon into the holster.. Nyssa reached out, and Wilt stretched out his arms, giving her room to tweak it into place where he wasn’t going to knock into it while moving.

“Thank you,” he told her. “This is much better.”

She patted him gently on the chest and said something in return.

“She says to carry it well and fight honorably.” Helikon interpreted as he reached them. Wilt resisted the urge to turn and see if Sooma was still there, behind him.

“I need to go see the others.” Wilt walked around the tree, not wanting to stop until he had that mammoth trunk between him and the light flyer.

“Yes, you do. Dione and I will take you.” Helikon then spoke to Nyssa in their language, before turning back to Wilt. “We will give you clothing which will help you learn how to, ah, I was told surf? Through the air.”

Wilt snorted, caught off guard, then laughed whole-heartedly. “If I didn’t already know fellow students taught you Lingua, that would have given the game away. Surf is... not wrong, given these are rogue gravity waves.”

They regrouped later, WIlt having donned the loose garb he’d been handed, and having carefully figured out how to fasten his weapon securely into it’s holster and across his chest - the structure of the sling made much more sense as he considered the way his sleeves flapped like wings, while coming to snug cuffs, and down to the waist belt only to flare again into the legs of the trousers. There were ties he suspected went to something, but the level of fringes and ribbons also spoke to him of decoration. He felt very awkward descending the ladder, but also realized halfway down that his fear of heights was gone. There were bigger things to fear.

“Ah,” Helikon clicked his tongue. “May I?”

“Please,” Wilt stretched his arms out to the side.

Helikon fastened the shirt and trousers at points with some of the ties, which Wilt saw would allow him to have wings all the way down his body. Like the flying squirrel he’d once seen in a zoo.

“When we are aloft,” Helikon straightened up and looked Wilt in the eyes, “you should make the fabric as taut as you can.”

Wilt nodded, and gulped as he started to think about what they were going to do. Helikon reached out and touched his shoulder lightly.

“We will not let you fall.”

Dione stepped up beside Wilt, a pack strapped to her back. She smiled.

“Hello.” They greeted one another.

“Before we go,” Wilt looked at Helikon. “Sooma said the night people were mutants, and there was something strange about them. I’d like to... see one.”

The one he’d shot, lying in the meadow.

Helikon shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know that word. It is unsafe to approach them after death.”

“Why?” Wilt cocked his head. Dead, they couldn’t harm anyone, could they?

“There is... I do not have words. It is not safe.” Helikon repeated, and the look on his face quelled Wilt’s desire to push the matter.

They walked together towards the edge of the meadow where the standing gravity wave began. Behind them was the village, and the forest it lay in. Ahead was waving grass curving up slightly into the edge of another forest. Wilt stopped where the grass transitioned from the short, almost velvety turf, to the tall leaves and stems of another species, if he knew what he was looking at.

Dione and Helikon, on either side of him, reached out their hands, and he took them, feeling warm, callused strength in unequal measures on his own fingers. Then, they all took the last step together.