The Semaphore

President Logora shook Mondagreen off of her and hurried toward Hobbes Nicole.

"Curator," she said, breathing heavily from her tussle with the Lorain. "Curator, if there is some danger impending on the people of Osseon, I need to know about it."

A fleeting smile graced Hobbes Nicole's lips. "I must be having a hallucination," she said. "I could have sworn that less than an hour ago you were inciting a mob to violence for even suggesting the possibility of danger."

The President's eyes flittered around the room, making brief eye contact with each of its inhabitants. "Yes, well… But you put me in a difficult situation. My priority is to maintain order. The sudden appearance of…of…" she looked at Pontis, her eyes crawling over the coat. "…Is this really?"

Hobbes Nicole nodded.

"Astonishing…" the President whispered. "It is so unassuming…" She cleared her throat. "But you understand I cannot allow panic to sweep the city."

"They should panic," said Mondagreen, returning to his chair in the corner and lighting another cigarette. "While you were busy preaching to the choir, you missed quite a horror story in here."

"He's right," said Hobbes Nicole. "We are facing a catastrophic threat. You are not stupid. Selfish, perhaps, but not stupid. The education you received in the EEU did not neglect the facts. You were not indoctrinated by Eschaton—you chose to embrace it for political leverage. So do not insult us with bendings of your intent. You promote lies not to maintain order, but to maintain office."

"Is…" the President swallowed with difficulty. "Is the Demiurge…"

"Hopefully not," said Hobbes Nicole. "We are working to prevent it. But in the meantime, if you truly want to help, order an evacuation notice. Get the people of Osseon—including those in the exurbs, despite how little regard you have for them—as far away from the palace as possible. As far away from Osseon as possible. It may be futile, but it may also buy them a little bit of time."

President Logora chewed her lip, her brow furrowed. "I'm not sure I can," she said. "They've gathered in the palace to lay offerings. I have seen it a thousand times—I have led the ceremonies a thousand times. But tonight felt… different. I think the appearance of the Semaphore, despite whether they believe it is what it seems, has startled them. They are energized in a way that makes me uneasy. I am not sure they would listen to me at this point."

"Then you are more useless than you seem," Hobbes Nicole said, waving her tiny hand toward President Logora as if she were an annoying insect. "You may stay here if, as you say, you have suddenly begun to fear your own constituency, but please remain out of our way while we try to save the world."

The President lowered her eyes, said nothing for a long moment, and then went to stand against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.

Hobbes Nicole returned her attention to Pontis. "There is one last thing before you go," she said. "No matter what happens, you cannot allow the same fate to befall the Semaphore as its previous operators did. Even if it means leaving your work unfinished, you must not let the weapon out of your hands. At risk of sounding callous: You, Pontis, and you, Varia, are replaceable. But the Semaphore is not. It must never again fall out of our reach. Do you understand?"

Pontis nodded. The coat shimmered and flittered along his body.

"And how about me?" Mondagreen said, fastening his katana to his back. "How imperative is my return?"

Hobbes Nicole smiled. "I believed you when you said, Lady Mondagreen of Tecca, that you can take care of yourself."

Mondagreen winked and grinned his gold and silver teeth.

"Then go," Hobbes Nicole said, turning to Pontis. "You know how and you know where. We will be here, hoping for your return."

"Praying," said Kamê Astrelon, standing behind Hobbes Nicole with their hand on her shoulder.

Pontis took a slow breath. He looked out through the window at the square, where the lights of Osseon twinkled.

Mondagreen sauntered across the room to him. "Hoi," he said. "You got something to write with?"

Pontis nodded and handed Mondagreen the ethergrain pen.

"And paper?" Mondagreen asked.

Pontis handed him his voice pad.

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Mondagreen leaned over the desk and scrawled out a note. When he was done, he folded it and handed it to Hobbes Nicole.

"If I don't come back," he said. "And if there's still anyone left, can you make sure this gets delivered to Tecca? To Ramsy Caverlet?"

Hobbes Nicole took the note. "I believe I am not the best equipped for such an errand." She looked up at Kamê Astrelon.

The Sage took the note and placed it inside their robes. They turned to Mondagreen and set their gloved hand over their heart.

"Thanks," said Mondagreen. He winked at Pontis and slid the ethergrain pen into his collar. Then he hesitated. "That reminds me," he said, removing six folded pieces of paper from his shawl and handing them toward Pontis.

Pontis eyed the papers. They were from his voice pad, and there were names printed on them in his and Varia's handwriting—Harper and Ien and his Ma and Varia's parents. At first he did not know where they had come from, or what they were, but then recognition dawned.

Our letters… he thought. The ones we gave to Laszlo.

Varia was silent for a long moment.

"Why do you have those?" the coat asked finally.

Mondagreen looked down. "After you climbed into the hole in Arborvale, this guy showed up looking for you. I didn't know who he was. He didn't seem to be of… sound mind. He tried to take the girl, and he attacked me when I wouldn't let him…"

A moment unfurled.

"I didn't hurt him," Mondagreen said, sounding younger than he was. "But… He fell on his own knife. I found these letters on him afterward. I still don't know his name."

Hobbes Nicole and Kamê Astrelon looked at Pontis, waiting for his reaction. Mondagreen kept his eyes lowered, the letters extended in his hand.

Do you believe him? Pontis thought.

'Yes,' said Varia in Pontis's ear, her voice thin. 'Do you?'

Yes, thought Pontis. I feel awful…

Varia was silent.

Are you alright?

'I guess,' she said eventually. 'He was so angry but… He wasn't a bad one. Knew him my whole life. He was a friend. It's just that… We made a mistake, and things got… complicated.'

I still don't understand what happened between you.

'I'm not sure I do either…' Varia chuckled sadly. 'Even from in here, with all this knowledge, with all this sight, I still don't understand the spaces between two people.'

Pontis thought about Ien, and how simple it felt. But even that simplicity sometimes rippled, as it had before Pontis left Lowood Den, afraid that Ien would grow tired of waiting. Or in the small, quiet moments when they weren't quite touching, and the overwhelming desperation to know what the other was thinking.

Mondagreen cleared his throat. "I uh… I figured it was best to get this out in the open now, in case something happens. I promise I didn't hurt him. But I understand if you don't want me to come with you anymore."

Pontis took the letters. There was a burst of light from his hand, and the letters were swallowed in a pall of green flame. When it died, his hand was empty.

"His name was Laszlo," said the coat. "He was our friend."

Mondagreen shuffled his feet.

"But so are you."

Mondagreen looked up, his face creased. For a startling moment, Pontis almost thought he was going to cry.

Then he straightened up and wiped his nose.

"Glad that's done," he said. "So. How exactly do we do this?"

#

When they were gone, Hobbes Nicole got up from her chair and stood beside Kamê Astrelon at the window. From the palace's narrow entrance, the shadows of a guttering flame danced, the people of Osseon burning their oblations before Malory's throne. As long as they were in there propagating their misunderstandings of history, it meant that Malory was still asleep. They could praise and laud him all they wanted—dress like him and name their sons after him—as long as he did not awaken.

On the other side of the office, President Logora stared at the spot where, a minute earlier, Pontis Inoue and Varia Longley, together Semaphore the Second, had wrapped Lady Mondagreen of Tecca in the green folds of their coat and vanished—and any lingering incredulity in the President's mind had vanished with them.

Hobbes Nicole looked up at Kamê Astrelon, her old friend. From her angle she could see a sliver of the face beneath the veil, the scarred, cratered skin. Hobbes Nicole remembered—perfectly, given the nonperishable state of her memory—when Avery was rushed into her lab, their skin boiling and melting off their body, their ear-rending shrieks, the blood pooling around them. Hobbes Nicole had not been equipped to help them. Nobody was. She could only watch while her friend—who had helped to defeat Malory, who had chased down the remaining Votaries only to be caught off guard by one, and doused in chemicals—appeared to die before her eyes.

But Avery did not die. Avery could not die. Their skin melted, their flesh, the muscle and tissue around their bones. But death was not allowed. It was the first time that Hobbes Nicole—as well as Richard and the others—understood what had truly befallen them when they were exposed to the emanation from the Semaphore's engine. It was not simply that they did not age. It was not simply that their memories did not degrade. They were impervious to death. A curse, as Avery's ruined body illustrated.

At first they expected Avery would merely lie there for eternity, nothing but a skeleton and a collection of organs. Hobbes Nicole and the others had shuttered and wept at the gruesome fate. But Avery proved more resilient than they knew any person could be. When better doctors arrived, Avery received grafts, transplants, medications, therapies. They managed to speak a year later, and to walk a year after that. Soon they were asking to rejoin the Depuration efforts. But by then the efforts were finished. So Avery set off west, in search of other ways to keep the world safe, and to help rebuild. The next time Hobbes Nicole saw them—a hundred years later—they were already known as Kamê Astrelon. The name carried more permanence than the first. Because of course it was their true name. The name they had passed through fire to earn.

Hobbes Nicole reached up and took Kamê Astrelon's gloved hand. "Once again it is out of our control," she said.

Kamê Astrelon was still. "This is always the hardest part."

"Time has never been our ally," said Hobbes Nicole quietly. "There is never enough of it, or far too much."

Kamê Astrelon nodded.

Hobbes Nicole squeezed her friend's hand. "They are not ready," she said.

"No," said Kamê Astrelon. "They are not."

Through the breaks in the tall buildings of Osseon, a yellow moon crept through the dark sky, pared and silent, as if stalking the earth.