The Semaphore

Varia had not spoken in a long time.

Pontis walked in circles through the sideways snow. Four times they had tried to execute what Varia called fallacy, and four times the same thing had happened: Pontis thought hard about the place he wanted to go, its qualities and dimensions; Varia did whatever Varia did, closing the coat around him like a capsule; it floated and whirred and then opened—and they were still on the tundra. Each time Varia was frustrated, determined to get it right the next time. Pontis trusted her inherently, but he had a harder time trusting that a green coat could somehow transport him away from this forsaken tundra.

Briefly the wind died, and the snow slowed. In the lull, Pontis looked out across the frozen expanse, longing for the faint blue light to reappear on the horizon. It was a scarce reprieve, the extent of morning in this dark place, but a fleeting reminder that the sun did exist. He longed for even a hint of it. But the horizon was dark, and the wind resumed its assault, and snow redoubled its efforts, and Pontis paced in circles.

‘Alright,’ Varia said eventually, startling him. ‘I think I know what we were doing wrong. What I was doing wrong. You were doing great.’

What if it doesn’t work this time? Pontis thought.

‘Then we’ll try again. Now focus.’

Pontis took a slow breath. He planted his feet on the ice and relaxed his arms at his sides. The warm air circulating through the coat had saved his life; without it he would have frozen to death hours ago.

‘It’s going to be different this time,’ Varia said. ‘So don’t be scared. I’m adjusting a thing, and I think it will work.’

Pontis closed his eyes. He brought up the image of the place in his mind. He saw it so clearly that it seemed he could reach out and touch its walls, or sit on the edge of the bed, or rifle through the dresser. The coat constricted around him, the same as before, and he opened his eyes briefly, just in time for the hood to close over his face.

‘Excellent,’ Varia said. ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’

Pontis kept the place locked in his mind. He felt the carpet under his bare feet. The sunlight caressing the windowsill. The elm trees rustling outside the window.

The familiar hum rose up around him, and the tundra’s howling wind went silent. This had all happened before, each of the four previous times. Next would be the weightlessness, followed by the subtle feeling of descent. Then the coat would reopen and the frigid tundra would welcome him back. Fallacy.

But the sensation of weightlessness never came. Instead, there was a click, like a door closing softly, followed by the strange sensation of being in two places at once. The sensation passed quickly and the coat opened, unsealing him from its cocoon. Sunlight and warm air plated his face. Pontis assumed his imagination was responsible, that he was so desperate to escape from the cold and dark that he manifested the warmth and the smell of soap and the lingering aroma of baked bread with such conviction. He assumed it was all in his mind.

He opened his eyes. His bed was unmade, a half-empty glass of water on the table beside it. There were clothes hanging on the back of the chair at his desk. Through the window, the sun was rising over Lowood Den.

Pontis's mouth curled into a cautionary and involuntary smile. He breathed deeply of the sweet, warm air.

It worked… he thought, awestruck.

‘Yes!’ Varia yelled in his ear. ‘I knew it! I was making it too full complicated. It’s not about going to the signal, it’s about going in the signal.’

Pontis wiped his eyes and turned in a circle. I can’t believe it worked, he thought, taking in his room in the early morning light.

‘And I could do it again now,’ Varia said excitedly. ‘Go ahead, think of another place you’ve been. This time you don’t even need to think as hard.’

Maybe in a minute, Pontis thought, hurrying from his bedroom and down the hall to wake up Harper and his Ma.

#

Harper’s bed was empty.

His Ma’s bed was empty.

Pontis checked the kitchen. It appeared unused, the dishes cleaned and put away since the previous night. There was no one in the apartment.

And the front door was open.

Where are they? Pontis thought.

‘Maybe your Ma’s at work,’ Varia said, though there was uncertainty in her voice.

What’s the date? Pontis thought.

‘Friday June nineteenth, three eighty-one. The time is 5:11am.’ Varia rattled it off quickly as if from a script.

My Ma doesn’t work Thursday nights, Pontis thought. And even if she did, Harper’d be here. And Ien would be here minding her.

Varia did not respond.

I don’t like this, Pontis thought, his stomach knotting. The unmade beds, the empty apartment, the open front door… It reminds me of Arborvale.

‘There’s something else…’ Varia said finally. ‘I hear something. Outside.’

Hear what?

‘I think footsteps. Moving slowly. They’re coming from the plaza.’

Pontis rushed to the bathroom, where the window overlooked the plaza. He drew the small curtains aside.

Rising through the tops of the trees, its rutted top breaching the canopy, was a white tower—a tower that Pontis had seen before.

An image of footprints disappearing into a hole flashed in his mind.

‘We need to get down there now,’ Varia said, alarm pitching her voice.

Pontis did not need to hear her say it. He had already thrown open the bathroom window and climbed through into the upper branches of the plaza’s canopy. He leapt downward through the trees, barely landing on one branch before leaping to another. He did not notice—his mind was consumed by panic—but the green coat, billowing on either side of him as he sprung from branch to branch and then to the ground, slowed and stabilized his descent, balancing him and landing him softly and squarely.

He ran through the trees, equally unaware that the coat propelled him forward at nearly twice his normal speed. When he pivoted around a tree, the coat assisted his shift in trajectory, cushioning his momentum and driving him onward. Pontis thought only of his sister, of his Ma and Ien, of all the people of Lowood Den. He thought only of rescuing them from whatever awaited. He thought about getting to them as fast as he could. He willed himself to be as light as the air. His feet barely touched the ground.

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They stood in a single file line, all facing the white tower, which rose from the middle of the plaza. The tower was no different than the last time Pontis had seen it under the earth—except that where the door had been was now a doorless doorway.

The people of Lowood den, many in their pajamas, progressed slowly through the doorway, one at a time, as if in a trance.

‘This is what happened in Arborvale,’ Varia said gravely.

Pontis sprinted forward.

Fren, the market clerk who sold his Ma her jam, stood at the end of the line. Pontis ran up and tugged on his sleeve. He did not react, staring blankly ahead.

Pontis pulled his voice pad from his pocket and wrote a note—‘You need to get out of here!’—and held the note in front of Fren’s face.

Fren’s eyes did not even quaver.

Pontis held up the note for the next person—Fren’s husband, Mazy—but again he did not react. Pontis dropped the note and ran down the length of the line, the tower rearing ahead.

‘Wait!’ Varia shouted.

Pontis skidded to a halt. What? he thought. What is it?

‘My parents!’ Varia’s voice was panicked. ‘My parents are there!’

Pontis turned back. Near the middle of the line, Mayor Longley and Abridel Longley, Varia’s father and mother, stood one in front of the other, their eyes blank.

‘We need to help them,’ Varia said.

Pontis scanned the line, knowing that Harper and his Ma, Ien and the others were even nearer to the tower, more imminently in danger. But he would not leave Varia’s parents behind—especially when she could do nothing but watch on.

He ran up to Mayor Longley and tugged his sleeve.

‘Pop!’ Varia cried in Pontis's ear. ‘Pop!’

I don’t know what to do, Pontis thought.

‘Pull them out of the line!’ Varia said. ‘Get them away from here!’

Pontis took Mayor Longley’s arm and tried to pull him from the line. Mayor Longley resisted, his feet planted firmly, his expressionless gaze unwavering.

‘Pull him out!’ Varia screamed.

Pontis yanked harder. Mayor Longley’s weight gave, and he stumbled sideways into Pontis's arms.

As he did, the Mayor opened his mouth and began to scream.

It was blood curdling, an animalistic sound that startled Pontis enough that he released the Mayor’s arm and staggered back, covering his ears. The mayor stood at a strange angle, pulled half out of the line, seemingly unable to correct himself in either direction. His eyes remained expressionless, but his mouth curled and his lips trembled as the scream pitched upward into a shriek, which echoed through the trees.

‘What’s happening?’ Varia’s voice was laced with terror.

I don’t know, Pontis thought, considering pushing the Mayor back into line if only to stop the awful sound escaping from him.

There was movement at the front of the line. The people shuffled backward as something pushed its way out from the tower’s doorway, drawn by the Mayor’s shrieks.

Pontis's breath caught in his throat, and his hands went cold.

The eyeless man reared up from the tower’s doorway. His naked, sallow skin and his long knife dripped with dark blood.

Varia did not speak. Pontis could sense the fear, the confusion and the rage she was feeling at encountering the man who had killed her—the strangest of conditions.

The mayor shrieked.

What do we do? Pontis thought.

The eyeless man started down the line toward them, his mouth agape and his tongue prodding at the air.

Varia said nothing.

Varia? Pontis stepped backwards. His feet begged him to turn and flee, but he refused to oblige. He refused to abandon everyone here to this fate when he might be the only one who could save them.

The eyeless man picked up his speed, his knife gripped firmly in his large fist.

Varia!

‘I…I don’t know,’ Varia stammered. ‘I don’t think we’re ready for this.’

Pontis’s eyes darted around the plaza. Early sunlight speckled the damp ground. The people of Lowood Den stood passively, waiting their turn to enter the tower.

Then he saw Harper. She stood near the tower’s doorway—just several people back—her hair still tangled from sleep. Directly in front of her was Pontis's Ma. And directly behind her was Ien.

In that moment, all Pontis wanted in the world was to be near them, to be beside the people he loved. Even if it meant standing in the same line waiting to die.

The eyeless man was mere paces away, his knife glinting in a patch of sunlight.

Pontis had an idea.

Varia, he thought. Fallacy.

‘…Fallacy?’

Fallacy! Pontis focused on the section of plaza where his sister and his Ma and Ien stood, fifty feet ahead. He saw it with his eyes and with his mind.

Varia gasped. ‘Alright!’

The eyeless man raised his knife. His scuffed leather collar was unattached to any white thread. Pontis could smell the fetid reek of the underground fortress wafting from him. The knife arced downward as the hood closed over Pontis's face. He tensed in anticipation of the impact.

The hood retracted. Pontis was still in the plaza, but he now stood beside his family. He looked back where he had been, where the eyeless man stood, his head tilted at a confused angle.

‘Brilliant!’ Varia cried.

Pontis knelt beside Harper. Her eyes were blank, and when he jostled her she did not react. He went to his Ma, who was identically disposed. Ien’s face was still lined with creases from his pillow—Pontis's pillow. What could he do to help them? Was he powerless to save the people he loved? He felt something rise in him, like hunger but less attainable and infinitely more voracious.

Mayor Longley’s screaming stopped abruptly. The eyeless man had shoved him back into position before turning and starting back toward Pontis with a new urgency and a new caution.

‘Think fast,’ Varia said.

Pontis squared his stance. What else you have in there? he thought.

‘A lot,’ said Varia. ‘But we’ve not tried any of them except Fallacy and… Can you lure him away from everyone? Far enough that they won’t get hurt.’

I think so, Pontis thought, turning and dashing off into the trees.

The eyeless man followed. He was frighteningly fast, his powerful strides quickly closing the gap between them. Pontis led him toward the edge of the plaza, zagging into a dense clump of elms before stopping and turning to face him.

The eyeless man leapt, catapulting himself high into the trees’ middle branches and caroming thirty feet through the air toward Pontis. His mouth snarled. The knife bore down toward Pontis's head with monstrous force.

Better do it now! Pontis thought.

The coat stiffened and flared. Pontis shielded his face with his hands as the knifepoint neared—two feet away, six inches—when the coat pealed, and a shockwave exploded from it.

Tetragrammar.

The eyeless man rocketed backward, tumbling into the trees. Pontis flinched with the impact as the shockwave echoed through the plaza. Pigeons burst from branches. Dust and dirt swirled. Pontis blinked around; the elms in his proximity had splintered at their trunks, broken like twigs, their leaves raining down.

Whoa, Pontis thought.

Varia whistled. ‘That was fucking amazing.’

Pontis peered through the dust and whorling leaves. Did we get him?

‘I don’t know.’ Varia said. ‘I don’t see him…’

A scream rose up from the tower.

Pontis sprinted through the trees.

The eyeless man had pulled Harper from the line and held her by the hair. She shrieked with the same animal intensity as the Mayor had, her eyes expressionless, her mouth curled in terror. The eyeless man’s knife rested on the soft flesh of her throat.

Pontis halted midstride. His stomach knotted, and his skin broke out in sweat. The eyeless man must have noticed Pontis checking on her specifically. His attention to her—his overwhelming desire for her safety—had singled her out and put her in even greater danger. The trees of the plaza seemed to hold their breath.

The eyeless man regarded Pontis with a strange expression. For a moment Pontis could not place it, distracted by his sister’s wails and the imminent threat to her life. But then it clicked into place. The eyeless man recognized Pontis. Feared him. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t Pontis he recognized. It wasn’t Pontis he feared.

‘Pontis…’ Varia’s voice was frantic. ‘Pontis…’

The eyeless man’s wrinkled tongue protruded from his mouth. He held Harper so firmly by her hair that her feet dangled off the ground.

Harper’s shrieking clawed at Pontis's ears. His mind stormed in a million directions. Images of the eyeless man stabbing Varia flashed behind his eyes, and a fury that Pontis had never felt curdled in him. He balled his fists.

‘Pontis…’ Varia sounded far away.

Pontis glared. He did not notice that the rocks and leaves on the ground around him started to tremble and rise. He did not notice that a cold wind was rushing toward him from all directions.

Varia said something, but he did not hear it.

The eyeless man’s tongue searched the air. He turned his face up to the canopy, smelling the static that ran along the ground and into the trees.

Pontis did not notice that the coat was hissing and sparking. He did not notice the webs of green electricity running up the length of his body and down his right arm, where they gathered in his hand like a small green sun.

He took a step toward the eyeless man.

The eyeless man drew his blade across Harper’s throat, and her shrieking stopped.