Page 133 of The Only Way Out Is Up

“It’s Above,” I say aloud. “That’s Above.”

I thought I was whispering, but I hear a contemptuous snort from Alzimyth. He turns to look over his shoulder at the impossibility in the sky.

“That is Netzach,” he says dryly. “The first ring on the Tree.”

I blink in astonishment. But he’s right. Farther up, above the disc, I can see the string of red lights resume. The thing, this tower, the Tree, continues rising into the sky until it gets too small to make out, an invisible thread that spools upward forever. Are there other shapes clinging to it, more discs—or stranger things—even higher above? Or are those only smudges at the edge of vision?

I have no idea. But damn do I want to know.

FORTY-TWO

As I blink and wait for the vertigo to fade, I notice a few more things.

First, not all the lights along the tree are stationary. In some places tiny clusters of red and green move up and down along its length. They seem to crawl slowly from my vantage point, but in reality they must be tremendously fast to be visibly moving at all. I have no idea what they are: Vehicles? Decorations? Parasites? Anything seems possible.

Other lights hang unsupported in the air around the tree, their distance impossible to estimate. I wonder briefly if these are stars, but the books are clear that the stars are points of white, fixed and unchanging. These lights have colors and drift slowly through the sky.

Second, when I follow the Tree to the ground, the base of the endless tower seems to lie almost exactly in the direction of the inner wall of Hod. I can’t tell precisely, of course, but an obvious interpretation of the geometry leaps to mind. I picture the Tree plunging still farther downward, through the metal cap that closes off the cavern below, until it ends at last in the opening that rains junk down onto the Heap. The Asshole—what Ky’s people call the terminus—is the very bottom of the Tree. I try to imagine people up there tipping their detritus into a vast hole, watching it grow smaller and smaller until it vanishes from sight, and never wondering where it might land or who might be living there.

I always knew my place in the world was very firmly at the bottom. It turns out I was even more right than I thought.

“Hey.” I pry one of Ky’s hands off my arm and take hold of her fingers. They’re ice-cold. “I’ve got you. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Shit.” She still can’t tear her eyes away. “I didn’t think it would be so… so…”

“Big,” I finish.

As her breathing slows, I look ahead at my siblings. Spike has her face tucked against his shoulder, but Somi’s eyes are drawn upward just as surely as mine. I can’t see his expression, but I don’t need to. I know better than anyone the wide-eyed wonder of it, the way he would get when we were kids and Fara would read to us from Little Forest Stories about the stars.

“Okay.” Ky swallows and releases my arm with her other hand, wiping her streaming eyes. “Okay okay okay. Everyone on the Council deals with this, apparently. I can deal with it, too.”

“Right.” I squeeze her hand. “One step at a time.”

“One step at a time,” she agrees.

“If the lovebirds would hurry things along?” Alzimyth snaps, looking back at us. “The sooner we fight, the sooner I can never see any of you again.”

The fight. Stars, I’d almost forgotten what we came up here to do. It all rushes back to me and my guts tighten up again. I look back for the comforting bulk of Star.

Did you imagine anything like this?

[Admission: I did not.] There’s a hesitation in his voice that I don’t like.

What’s wrong?

[Uncertainty: I do not know. But the sight seems… familiar, somehow. I… cannot remember.]

I didn’t think you forgot things.

[Certainty: I do not.]

The guards urge Somi and Spike forward. The Councilors follow behind them, some of them already out of breath. Alzimyth stalks after them, and Ky and I bring up the rear with Star. The sky is darkening by the moment, but the big lamps provide an ugly, actinic glow. I feel wind against my cheeks, cool and wet. Every stray gust makes me jump.

There are runics all around us, labor models with multiple arms. Most of them are idle, but a few work on a damaged section of fence. I wonder how long they’ve been here, and whether they do anything but repair the facility. Maybe they repair one another.

Up ahead a gate leads beyond the fences. The metal underfoot becomes bare earth, then scraggly grass. Bushes grow here and there, not positioned according to any particular artistic vision but just wherever they happened to sprout. It’s a landscape created by no one, by pure chaos, the antithesis of Hod. It reminds me of the piles and ridges of the Heap.

An arena has been laid out in this disorderly place, the edge defined by a thick-linked chain set with sigils. It’s smaller than the space we fought in down on Hod, with no obstacles other than a few bushes and a single metal crate in the center. The box is bigger than Star and sealed with more sigwork.