GOOD SPIKIT
He awakened in the dark of the hive, found that his mind was his own once more—what was left of it, at least. Dug his fingers beneath the brain-husk that covered his face, felt its sleeping mind try to resist him peeling it off. But the queen was dormant and distant, down below.
He was the first awake, the lightest of the sleepers.
Out into sunlight. Early morning. Horrible pangs of hunger and thirst. He tried to recall how long it had been, but memory was short amongst the swarm. All he had left was from...Before.
Escaping. Fleeing across a patchwork desert, a landscape that was both old and new. Escaping...but from what?
Drink from the fetid pool. Eat the creeping fungus. Hope it wouldn't kill him at least. He climbed the cliffside with newfound strength. A grassy plateau stretched before him, and the wind was cool and dry. The sky above him was...too big. Too open. Too long closed inside the mind of the swarm. Too long underground. Eyes down, he walked, and tried again to remember.
Escaping. He was escaping then, just as he was escaping now. Escaping across a patchwork desert....
Escaping from...Dreams.
Tracks in the soft earth. He recognized the shape, the claw-marks, saw the signs of grazing. A herd of them. Follow, as his shadow bent round beneath him. Follow and follow until he found what he sought.
It took a few hours, but at last he caught up to them. The herd was just beyond the ridge now. He peeked over the rise and counted... Twenty-two. Why did he count them? What did that matter? Some old habit, maybe...from before.
What do you seek? Your dream, it shall be granted.
No, too many. No more dreams. Please.
Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
What do you seek?
Spikits they were called. Yes, he knew that. Spikits, the two-headed beasts. One head stayed up while the other grazed. Hard to sneak up on, but he knew better methods. They were looking thin. Must be the narrow season for them, up here on the plateau with only grass. They'd be hungry for other things.
Hungry. Hungry for...dreams.
No, he'd escaped that too. Somehow he'd escaped, and he'd made his wish.
Hungry...
Not my dreams!
He lay still where he'd crept, a little upwind of the herd. The grass rattled, and he wondered if he should make some noise. Thought better of it—don't want to spook them.
Finally, movement. Two heads went up into the air as a scrawny Spikit caught his scent. The heads turned to and fro, then red eyes settled on him. The left head—that must be the dominant one. The right head tilted to monitor the rest of the herd as the beast loped toward his prone body. Closer. Closer....
Head bent down. Nudged him. His fingers clenched in anticipation. Yes, this is fresh meat. You want meat. No more grass for you.
The jaw unhinged. He saw teeth, smelled breath. Opened wider, then the bite:
Teeth clamped down on the makeshift metal bit that he'd fashioned from the remains of his helmet-spur, and he was moving with all his strength and speed, wedging the bit down further between the two largest back teeth, wrapping the grass-woven bridle round the head-spikes. The right head whirled as the Spikit backpedaled, but he was already on his feet, running with it, between the two necks. He gave the right neck a hard blow in just the right spot, and the right head flinched downward. Enough for him to slide a leg over, heave himself up onto the back, and pull the reins tight on the dominant head.
The Spikit was clearly not at full strength. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to hold on as it tried to shake him. Its croaking and shrieking filled the air, but he kept his grip tight on the reins and his knees hard against the flanks, as he'd done many times before, it seemed. Leaning side to side, back and forth, repeating his strike on the right neck when that head got any ideas.
The beast flagged. The rest of the herd had fled. The sun was starting to go down. He spent some time teaching his new steed the ropes. The heel-jab meant go, a pull on the reins meant turn. Good Spikit, good beast. Pats to the neck, in just the right spot. You're a good learner. No, not that way. Yes, good Spikit. Have a seed-husk. I know you like those. Say, there's greener grass across that way, round this ravine, isn't there? I'll feed you better than you've had. Let's see.
After a while, he chose a direction, off toward the setting sun. It felt right, somehow, like the wind made a good noise that way. And he rode, straight on across the tablelands. Escaping now. Really escaping.
It had been a long time since he'd rode bareback. No wagon or chariot. He'd liked the chariot, but it was probably a wreck now and rusting, somewhere beyond the horizon, along with everything about his past life. It all seemed unreal now, and he had a moment of uncertainty as the Spikit loped beneath him. Maybe it had been unreal, just a dream he had conjured through the mind of the swarm. There were memories of that time too, mixed in. Memories of battle...war, maybe? He alongside the others, fighting for the queen, fighting for the task: to purge the world. To return everything to the Before Time.
He shook his head. No. He'd had a life before the swarm. He knew that, even if the memories were a bit frayed now. There were too many for it to all be false. He'd known people. He'd killed people. He'd loved. He'd hated. He'd captured Spikits and Rock Steeds and Sand Stalkers and made them serve him. He'd raided settlements in the wake of the apocalypse...and enslaved the inhabitants.
And now...Now he'd felt what that was like. Just a fraction, maybe.
Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
He'd escaped the dream-eater somehow, the entity that had driven his people insane so long ago. And after that, he'd made peace with the cursed fate of his tribe. But then, when he returned, the dream-weaver had taken him. He'd thought that it was his ally, but instead it enthralled him, made him a part of its bizarre kingdom, for however long. He didn't know how, but that dream had ended too, and at last the veil lifted.
He'd fled then, into the waste, heedless of anything else but to get away. To get free. To escape....
Across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
His life was cursed, maybe because of his lineage. Maybe to pay for past misdeeds. But for that moment, he'd been free. No more illusions or false realities. He could breath. He could think. No more insanity.
A rumble in the distance, off where the mountains were strange. He hadn't seen those peaks before, and there were lights up and down the hills. The rumble growing closer.
And there was a mind. It touched his.
Her mind.
He'd dozed for a second, nearly slipped from his steed, but now he was awake. Lucky it hadn't tried to buck him at unawares. It was a good Spikit. Pats to the neck. Now, where were they?
The sun was very low. Almost gone. It lit the horizon into a jagged red line ahead. They'd come pretty far, but without a destination, it didn't matter much. Still, he felt somehow that they were going in the right direction. The wind still made that good noise, almost calling him, and—
And there was something on the horizon. He squinted through shading fingers. It was murky against the red, but as the sun faded, it became clear.
It was a tower of some kind. Ram-rod straight against the sunset. Unmistakable. He was aiming right for it. What luck! Elation rose in him. Good Spikit. We might make it there by nightfall, if we double-time. It's a good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. We're going to make it.
What luck...!
Her mind had touched his, and he knew that he stood no chance. Whatever She was, She was in terrible haste.
Flee the Great Wreck, She called, and all the units of the swarm answered back: Flee the Great Wreck and rebuild, till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed. Come all, come to the swarm!
Frozen to the spot. The rumbling noise came up over the edge of the patchwork desert in a great wave of round metal bodies, and they poured over him and around him in their haste. He never even saw the queen, but felt Her pass by. Felt Her awareness touch him briefly. The briefest of commands. He could not even resist as they fastened one of the brain-husks over his face, and the voice of the swarm filled his ears and mind.
And just before the fear left him and the despair evaporated, just before that, he had a brief final thought:
This must be what it was like, for those he'd captured and sold over the years, back in the raiding days. Helpless. Knowing they stood no chance. Must be how they felt. He'd never really thought about it before. Maybe he should have.
Then there was no feeling. Just the swarm, calling him. A good voice. It sounded right....
A good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. What luck....
There had been no luck. It was a signal. He could hear it plainly now: a high-pitched tone ringing across the distance. He'd thought that he'd gotten away. She was asleep, dormant and deep below. He'd simply slipped the swarm's awareness, just this once.
But the signal was clear in his ears and in his mind. A signal of awakening, and he was responding to it. Elation. Excitement.
Make haste. You are the first, sent forth to make contact, to bring news back. News of renewal.
His hands raised slowly to his face. He thought that he'd—
All your skills are in service to the swarm. In service to Her.
...thought that he'd peeled it off, thrown it away....
Make haste!
The brain-husk was still there, covering his true face. He felt it throb at his touch. How had he not realized?
All your skills are in service to the swarm. To Her.
Was he still a puppet, simply acting out Her desires? No, She was asleep. He knew that. He'd felt it. Dormant and deep below. Her will wasn't on him, not at this moment. But he was still under its influence. He could still hear the voice.
But maybe...maybe he could....
He gouged at the fringe of the brain-husk suddenly with one hand. Viciously, and it stirred. Pain needled into him as he tore at it, got the tips of his fingers under one edge.
Agony. He writhed in his seat, and the Spikit kicked warily beneath him. The strength in his arm failed as the husk's own will strove with his own, and he dropped the reins.
Quickly, before She awakens. Before She comes!
Small movement in his vision, blurring red with the red sunset. The Spikit's right head glanced at him sidelong.
He raised his other hand to his face now. The husk didn't expect that. Both sets of fingers tore at the fringe behind his temples and under his chin, and he screamed, twisting and arching his back.
You have to...before....
The Spikit croaked and shifted again. The reins were free. The right head squinted at him darkly.
Turning his body back and forth, he felt the husk give way a little. Fire along his skin. He pried his fingers further, but....
She will awaken. She will know....
His arms were numb. His fingers wouldn't work. Couldn't push back against the brain-husk's will. It was too late, and now She would have him again—
Teeth. Jaw open. Foul breath. The Spikit's right head had taken its chance, snapping right at him, at his face.
But that was not his face.
Incisors pierced through the brain-husk and grazed his skin, and he heard the husk's voice leap and then die away. With the last of his energy, he twisted, flinched back as the jaws closed and tore the thing off of him. It ripped away and left his face raw and stinging, and he watched as the Spikit's right head bolted the strange meat of it. Gone.
The reins were back in his hand before it finished, pulling hard to head off the beast's inevitable attempt to throw him. Knees went in tight at the flanks. The right head whipped round again.
Surprised I'm still alive?
There was a moment of stand-off. His hand was raised to deliver a blow to the neck. The mouth was open, dripping spittle. Red eyes. Both breathing hard.
He patted the neck instead. Gentle with it. Good Spikit. Good...good beast. You saved me. The meat's good, right? Told you I'd feed you better.
The right head tossed. A conflicted look. It licked its lips. Good meat. More.
Good Spikit.
The red light darkened, down into orange-blue. The tower was still there, standing straight, far away. For a moment, he imagined that he could still hear the voice, calling him to it.
...Till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed...
Was that the source of the signal?
...Come all, come to the swarm...
No, just the wind.
He pulled lightly on the reins, and the Spikit agreed, turning to face the opposite direction.
Did you like the taste of that? I know where we can find a lot more, though we might have to dig a little. Might still be time....
A light prod, and they loped off together along the plateau, back the way they'd come, as night fell.
...And then we'd better find someone to warn about what might be waking up soon.
