The Semaphore

Upon entering the museum, Mondagreen was met with a cavernous room. The domed ceiling was easily two hundred feet high, with large windows set high up permitting pillars of orange sunlight, and magnificent murals spanning the room's perimeter depicting scenes too busy for Mondagreen to process.

He gawped at the ceiling, feeling like a small child, and then stopped in his tracks when he noticed, on a wide pedestal in the center of the room and surrounded by lengths of red velvet rope, the biggest skeleton he had ever seen.

He had learned about dinosaurs when he was young. People had dug up their fossils and displayed them all over the world. But he had also learned that all the fossils were destroyed, or lost, or stolen over the centuries. Because of this he partly assumed that dinosaurs were just a myth. Why else would there be no evidence?

But he had been misinformed. Here there was evidence. A creature as long as a whale, standing on all fours with its neck reared back, its tail as long as its body. Mondagreen stared at it, his mouth dangling open, forcing Caboj to retrace his steps, his shoes squeaking on the marble floor, take him by the arm and lead him onward.

"Perhaps there will be time for a visit later on," Caboj said, his voice dry and flat.

Mondagreen continued to stare back at the dinosaur until his neck was strained so sharply around that it triggered a stab of pain in his ribs.

The next room held glass displays inset in the walls, behind which taxidermied animals posed in dioramas of their natural environments. A few people mulled through this room, parents with their children, pausing at each display. Mondagreen recognized the lion, standing arrogantly, its deep eyes appearing to follow Caboj and Mondagreen as they went. There was a bear—Mondagreen had seen bears of course, had even killed one once in northern Allegewi as a teenager—that stood twelve feet tall, its dagger-like claws bared, its snout snarled in rage revealing rows of murderous teeth. There were birds with vivid rainbow plumages, snakes as long as fishing boats, monkeys—real taxidermied monkeys—hanging from branches by their feet—and dozens of other animals that Mondagreen recognized and did not recognize, and not for the first time in the last few days he felt overwhelmed by the sheer scope of a world he'd thought he understood.

Beside each display were little bronze plaques, and Mondagreen wanted desperately to stop and read each one. But Caboj held him firmly by the sleeve, leading him onward from room to room, Mondagreen trying to get a look at the wonderful, mysterious objects: sculptures on sleek pedestals; metal and wire and glass all melded together into outrageous shapes; plastic—exceedingly rare—stretched and warped to resemble a human face, one eye flashing neon colors and nodding by the accord of some unseen mechanism within. There was a room ahead inside which rows of cases of varicolored minerals glinted—Mondagreen had always found minerals fascinating—but Caboj veered suddenly down a short hallway, through a door and up two flights of stairs to an administrative floor with no art on its walls at all and even fewer sculptures or taxidermied animals, and Mondagreen pouted with disappointment.

They stopped outside an oak door at the end of a hall. Caboj released Mondagreen's sleeve and rapped on the door, then clasped his hands behind his back. A moment passed, and then a voice called from the room. Caboj opened the door for Mondagreen, who hesitated briefly, and then stepped inside.

The first thing Mondagreen noticed was another of the veiled people—in identical red robes—standing off to one side of the room, unmoving. The next thing he noticed was the long window at the room's far end, overlooking the square, where the shadows of the buildings yawned.

The room's walls were lined with photographs. One in particular caught Mondagreen's eye, a wide photograph of what appeared to be the city of Osseon from high overhead, with even the pinnacle of Malory's palace captured in the frame. Mondagreen wondered who or what could possibly have taken a photograph from such an altitude, one that he was not sure even birds could reach.

There were two other people in the room. One was a girl—no older than twelve—who sat at a desk with her back to the window. She smiled softly at Mondagreen and gestured for him to approach. As he did he noticed that her eyes, couched behind a pair of thick-framed glasses, seemed deep and far-seeing in a way that he had only ever encountered in the very, very old.

The second person sat in a high-back chair facing the desk. Mondagreen could not see them behind the seatback other than for a gloved hand on the armrest, covered in white fabric.

On the desk between them was an iron trunk. Beside it, Mondagreen was relieved to find the satchel he had carried from Allegewi.

The door shut behind him. The girl with the glasses gestured toward an empty chair beside the one occupied by the person in white. Mondagreen sat, glancing over at whoever he was sitting next to. He was not completely surprised to see the person from the carriage in Senescence, a tall miter on their head, their white veil decorated with complex red lines.

"Hoi," he said, shifting his weight when his ribs began to throb. "Nice to see you again. Thanks for before."

The person turned their veiled face half an inch toward him, and seemed to nod minutely—though it was possible they did not.

"Your name is Mondagreen," said the girl with the glasses then, drawing his attention forward. Her voice was high and soft, the voice of a child. "Is this correct?"

"Lady Mondagreen of Tecca," he said. "Reckon they've got me on file…"

"They do," said the girl, her lips twitching with amusement. "It's not as easy to get junctioned from Osseon as people believe."

"It was a misunderstanding," said Mondagreen. "They reckoned I was trying to bring banned substances into the city, to distribute. But really they were… you know… all for personal use."

"I'm sure," said the girl. "It matters little now. Your junction is lifted. You can come and go freely, should you wish to."

Mondagreen folded his hands in his lap. "Thanks," he said. "So you must be Hobbes Nicole Penate."

"Yes."

"I wasn't expecting a… you know… a kid." He turned to the person in the white veil. "And I didn't get your name."

"They are the Sage Kamê Astrelon," said Hobbes Nicole. "Of the Lorain from the Great Sealake Broken Bow."

"Wow, yeah, I've heard of them," said Mondagreen. "One of my brothers went out there once for some work. He said you all live together in one big house long as the shore…"

Kamê Astrelon did not move or speak. Their gloved hand rested on the armrest.

"I get it," said Mondagreen. "I shared a room with all eight of my brothers till most of us were old enough to shave."

"More importantly," said Hobbes Nicole, placing her small hand on the satchel. "Where did you find this girl?"

Mondagreen told the story. He had run into two people from Lowood Den, Pontis Inoue and Varia Longley, and they had paid him for a ride to Allegewi. They'd found Arborvale deserted, and a trail of footprints leading into a hole in the woods. Pontis and Varia—very stupidly in Mondagreen's opinion—had climbed down into the hole, leaving the girl in Mondagreen's charge. They never returned, and after a naked, eyeless man with a huge knife tried to climb up from the hole it had closed on its own. Mondagreen omitted the part about his run in with the guy who had come looking for Varia, who had fallen on his own knife, because it didn't feel relevant and he wasn't sure he wanted anyone knowing. He skipped ahead to the part where he took the girl to Osseon, where Pontis and Varia claimed there were people who could help.

"And that's more or less it," Mondagreen said. "I give her water twice a day. Just a few drops. I know it ain't healing her, but it's what Varia and Pontis did, you know, to give her a little solace…"

Hobbes Nicole looked off across the room, her old eyes coruscating in the low light. "It was good of you to bring her here," she said. "Especially since you seem only to have been swept up in all of this—though I suppose that is true for all of us."

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Mondagreen eyed the iron trunk on the desk beside the satchel.

"As it stands," Hobbes Nicole continued. "We are becoming aware of everything rather late—too late, I fear."

"Aware of what?" Mondagreen asked.

"Aware that the War never ended." Hobbes Nicole stood up then from her chair—Mondagreen was amused to see just how short she was, less than five feet tall—and raised the lid of the iron trunk.

Mondagreen stood slowly. The trunk's interior was lined with red silk, and lying atop the silk, his limbs withered and his ribs protruding, his eyeless face gaping silently, was a boy. He was similar in age to the girl in the satchel, and in nearly identical condition. His lips were cracked, his numerous wounds festering.

Carved into his chest were words with which Mondagreen had grown familiar, and his heart clapped, panicked, as he read them over and over.

'I bore witness to the freeing of Nonk'non.'

#

"This child emerged from the western edge of Allegewi Forest," Hobbes Nicole explained. "And wandered—for days it must have been—up toward the Great Sealakes." She gestured to Kamê Astrelon. "The Lorain found him, and did what they could. But just like the girl who wandered into Lowood Den, there was nothing to be done." She sat and folded her little hands on the desk. "Hemmick invocations are, after all, a conduit for the same force that propels Malory. It is a force for which we have a very limited understanding."

Mondagreen looked from Kamê Astrelon to Hobbes Nicole. "Caboj, your assistant, mentioned something about a Hemmick Votary. What is that? Is it the eyeless man I saw at the bottom of the hole?"

"No," said Hobbes Nicole, waving her little hand to disperse the misconception. "What you saw was likely the Votary's helot. A servant of sorts. Perhaps better understood as a security system. No, the Votaries were acolytes of Malory, a band of fanatics who swore to abet his rule. We thought they had all been wiped out but… It seems that there is at least one surviving in secret all this time, undoing the work done by the Semaphore. It has taken them nearly four hundred years, but they are finally succeeding."

"What work?" asked Mondagreen. "What are they succeeding at?"

Hobbes Nicole took a slow breath. "It is a lot to explain," she said. "On their way from the Sealakes, the Lorain passed through Allegewi forest. They too found towns deserted within its borders—just as you described Arborvale. They found similar conditions in towns along the northern border of Shandoah, and heard stories that Creek Oak, a town on the western edge of the Lowoods, had also been emptied. It is clear—to anyone with an understanding of the past—what the Votary is doing, and that they are moving with haste. And, given where we are…" she gestured out the window toward Malory's palace, which appeared, from this angle, as a solid black wall extending endlessly upward. "…We will be the first to know if their efforts succeed."

Mondagreen blinked out at the city of Osseon and the palace at the northern end of the wide square. He looked at the iron trunk and the white satchel that he had carried through Senescence. He frowned and thought of his old man—the bastard—and his past pilgrimages to this city, nearly to this very spot. …the same force that propels Malory… Hobbes Nicole had said. …given where we are…we will be the first to know…

Mondagreen touched his ribs.

"Malory…" he said, quietly, his breath slipping away with the words. "The Votary is trying to wake up Malory…"

Hobbes Nicole nodded gravely.

Kamê Astrelon sat forward, their white veil shifting slightly to reveal a sliver of face beneath. "We should have listened," they said, their voice strong like a steady wind. "We should have listened to Richard, all those years ago. But we have overcome this once before, and back then the circumstances were far less favorable."

Mondagreen blinked. "What does that mean: once before?"

"It means that a long time ago," said Hobbes Nicole. "Kamê Astrelon and I were part of the team that constructed the Semaphore."

Mondagreen frowned. "My math must be off," he said. "You can't be older than—what—thirteen? And Kamê here, though I can't see their face, certainly doesn't have the posture of a four hundred year-old."

Hobbes Nicole smiled softly. "I am older than I look. We both are. Things happened back then, while in the late stages of the Semaphore's construction. Kamê Astrelon and myself—and others who have long since disappeared—were affected by… symptoms, from our contact with the engine that runs the machine."

"What kind of symptoms?"

"Prolonged life, for one," said Hobbes Nicole. "Neither Kamê nor myself have appeared to age a day since our exposure to the machine's emanation. We also maintain nonperishable remembrance, which can be… burdensome. You do not know how lucky you are that you forget things. But the two of us have made the best of it, more or less. Others however… they have not fared as well, and neither of us know how to find them, or how to help them even if we could."

"Unending life?" Mondagreen asked, sitting forward.

"Not necessarily," Hobbes Nicole clarified. "Unending so far. But certainly prolonged." She stood and looked out at the square. "Regardless, we no longer have access to the same tools—not to mention the same minds—that allowed us to construct the Semaphore in the first place. And even if we did, the time required to replicate the machine would be too great. It is likely that if Malory awakens he will resort to his deranged state at the height of the War. He will set fire to the world."

Kamê Astrelon rose from their seat. "We can look for them again," they said. "For Richard and Gardiner and Bev and the others. I will arrange for every rider in Lorain to set out. We will send word across the continent—across the earth. It will be the most thorough search ever conducted. We will comb every town and city…"

"Avery…" Hobbes Nicole interrupted, and then cleared her throat and bowed her head. "Forgive me… Sage Kamê Astrelon. But for how many centuries did we search for them? How many hundreds and hundreds of years? And now, when faced with mere days—maybe hours—you wish to relaunch that futile search?" She stood at the desk, her small hands planted firmly on its finished surface. "Even if we could find them, they would not help us. We know that because of how things ended."

"So we try to locate Woodrow and X Parke. Perhaps we devise a signal of some kind, to get their attention—wherever they are…"

"They are gone!" Hobbes Nicole's voice cracked. "They left us, to pursue their own ends. They are lost in the cosmos as we speak. Or dead on a distant planet."

"Who are they?" Mondagreen asked.

Hobbes Nicole's eyes darted to Mondagreen. "The dual operators of the Semaphore. Woodrow Saint September, and X Parke Penate."

Mondagreen frowned. "Penate? Like…you?"

Hobbes looked out at the darkening square. "My sister."

Mondagreen waited for her to go on, but after several long seconds it became clear that she was not going to elaborate.

Kamê Astrelon, who stood a full six inches taller than Mondagreen, folded their gloved hands together at their waist. "Then we will find the Votary," they said. "Maybe it is not as late as we think. Maybe these witnesses are a bluff, a posturing of sorts. Maybe we can interfere."

"You said it yourself," Hobbes Nicole said, facing the window. "Towns all over Allegewi, Shandoah, as far south as the Lowoods—and who knows where else—already given to Nonk'non. It is more than enough."

"But we need to try, Hobbes Nicole. We need to do something."

"We should be immensely proud of what we have done," Hobbes Nicole turned, forcing a gentle smile. "We bought the world so much time. Richard said it himself after the War, before he disappeared: Malory is the past and the future. We have done well to prolong our present, but it's foolish to think that this could last forever. Nothing lasts forever. It was a blip in a larger trend, the warm period in our current ice age in which all of human civilization has unfurled. Without the Semaphore, we cannot stop what's coming, and the sooner we accept that, the simpler it will be."

"I do not like you speaking this way," Kamê Astrelon said, their veil fluttering with their breath. "It causes me such despair."

"I do not wish that, my friend. But I also do not wish to promote false hope."

Mondagreen rubbed his face. He considered asking Curator Hobbes Nicole or the Sage Kamê Astrelon if either of them had a cigarette to spare. But neither struck him as the smoking type. Through the window, the city fell into dusk. Lights appeared in the windows of the buildings surrounding the square. Blue and yellow and orange lights. Mondagreen figured that if he were here in Osseon under different circumstances, he might find the city quite beautiful. Perhaps, seeing as the two experts in the room seemed to agree that the world was going to end one way or another, he would go ahead and get himself a hotel room, one with a pool-sized bathtub. Why not go out while taking a bath? He couldn't really think of a better place to be. Then an image of Necko's face flashed in his mind, tears falling from his eyes, his little hands curled into his mother's hair, the two cowering in the dark as thunderous booms erupted from the north and the world folded shut around them—all while Mondagreen lounged in a tub, drunk and content, a coward to the end…

He stood abruptly. "I need to go," he said.

Hobbes Nicole and Kamê Astrelon stopped mid-sentence and looked at him.

"Sorry," he pushed his chair back and turned for the door. "I need to get back… I need to go home."

Hobbes Nicole and Kamê Astrelon watched him cross the room.

"Of course," said Hobbes Nicole. "We wish you as much safety as you can find, and thank you for making the journey here to warn us about what is unfolding. I am only sorry you were too late."

"Yeah, hey, no problem." Mondagreen waved over his head, his other hand already turning the doorknob. Then he stopped and turned around. "Shit, you wouldn't happen to know where my stuff is, would you? My cigarettes and my kata…" His voice trailed off and his eyes grew wide as they stared past Hobbes Nicole.

Hobbes Nicole glanced at Kamê Astrelon. "Your things, of course. My assistant, Caboj Hayword, will retrieve them from the custody of the Osseon Security Force. His office is directly next to mine, and he will be happy to…"

Mondagreen gawped out the window, his mouth hanging open a full inch.

Hobbes Nicole and Kamê Astrelon turned slowly, following his gaze.

Hobbes Nicole's eyes widened behind her glasses.

Kamê Astrelon raised a gloved hand to their chest.

The red veiled rider, who had stood motionless against the wall, broke their perfect stillness for the first time since entering Hobbes Nicole's office to walk slowly toward the window.

All four of the room's occupants stared in awe out into the square, their hearts racing, their faces and veils awash in glorious green light.