The Suburb Beyond the Stars Read online

  The threads came out of his arms, his chest, his legs, and, most disturbingly, his eyes, which were nests of cords. His mouth hung slack, forgotten in the general hunger of his silver feelers.

  Against this monstrosity, Brian was unarmed and Kalgrash was one armed. His other, torn severely, drizzled sparks whenever he moved. The battle-ax wobbled in the troll’s hands.

  It was hopeless. Brian knew that. But this was the only confrontation that could actually slow the Thusser invasion. Deatley and his most dangerous servant had to be defeated. They were the most powerful servitors of the Thusser in the whole alien suburb. If it was hopeless, Brian figured that he might as well go down with a fight.

  And so he lunged past Milton Deatley. He ran to Prudence and began pulling at her camera helmet. The image joggled on its screen. Her mouth opened and closed.

  Gelt was gathering his tendrils for a strike against the troll. Kalgrash grunted and raised his ax. Even as he did so, he could feel Milton Deatley’s smile behind him.

  Gelt’s fronds pounced. The troll dodged, skirted around several stout columns.

  The Winnower followed, trickling along on loops of wire.

  The troll tried his earlier trick — slalom runs through pillars, entanglement. It slowed Gelt, but Gelt was getting wise. The monstrosity set himself down on his own white, ratlike feet, and observed Kalgrash’s dodges for a moment, waiting to strike again.

  Brian had pulled off Prudence’s helmet, but Deatley was at his side, bending down to grab the thing out of his hand.

  Brian swung it by its chinstrap. He hit Deatley as hard as he could.

  Unfortunately, that was not very hard. Brian was not very strong. Had Deatley been alive, it would barely have bruised him.

  Brian swung again, but now Deatley’s awful, reconstituted hands were in the way, clutching at him. Prudence didn’t stir, but lay by their feet, eyes open, somewhat more at peace.

  Deatley seized Brian’s shoulders.

  Brian panicked and kneed him in the groin.

  Evidently, that didn’t work anymore. Deatley didn’t so much as grunt.

  Brian flung the camera (which still shuddered, which still shot out its crazy blasts of color) at the undead man. It struck Deatley softly, forced the corpse back, but didn’t do any real damage. Though Deatley did lose his grip on Brian for an instant as he reeled.

  Brian staggered toward Gregory.

  Gregory’s chinstrap was too tight for Brian to pull the helmet off easily. As he struggled, Deatley came in behind him and tried to yank him away from his comatose friend. Brian’s fingers slipped on the nylon strap. The old camera whirred and cast brilliant shades across the rough prison walls.

  Finally, the strap released. Brian went tumbling backward, taking Deatley with him.

  Gregory was free.

  But he didn’t move at all. The trance was too total.

  Brian called their names — “Prudence! Gregory! Prudence, come on!” The two didn’t stir.

  Milton Deatley stopped wrestling with Brian. He shoved the kid aside and crawled to his feet. He patted at the knees of his suit, wiping off the dust. “You won’t wake them up anytime soon,” he said. “You have to realize, there is no way you can win. The Thusser Horde is coming. This is to be our age.”

  “This is our planet,” said Brian. “You have no right.”

  “Who’s talking about rights? Have you ever seen them exercised? Take the Norumbegans. They claim a right to this castle, this whole kingdom, but they’re too weak to even recall their claim. Certainly too weak to stop us from taking what we need.” Milton Deatley grabbed Brian’s arm and twisted it cruelly. “Only the powerful have rights. The claims of the weak are quickly forgotten.”

  Brian told himself he would not yelp, though the pain was intense. But Deatley pulled the arm back harder, and Brian couldn’t help it.

  He screamed in pain and impotent anger. He couldn’t stop himself.

  He knew, then, the meaning of weakness.

  THIRTY-ONE

  She saw yellow harvested by workers wearing black sacks, men with rings around their eyes and pointed ears. They watched her so she would not move. She sat in the field of yellow, painted thick as oil pastels, color so rich it crumbled. She waited for them to finish. Purple clouds passed over.

  Prudence knew that it wasn’t right. It wasn’t real.

  Everything was darker. She did not like it. She was used to the colors now. Her eyes could not focus. The field was gone. She recalled that it was a dream.

  “Prudence! Please! Prudence!”

  That was almost certainly her name.

  And then she saw feeble light. A lantern or two. Stripes of black.

  A stocky boy she knew, standing over her, struggling.

  She wondered whether she was supposed to do something now.

  Brian saw Prudence blink. Though her face was overshadowed and hidden partially by her own tangled hair, he saw a look of dawning recognition. He called her name.

  “She’s waking up,” Brian announced to his tormentor. “We’re not as easy to confuse as you thought.”

  “All you’re arguing,” said Milton Deatley, “is that it’s not worth keeping you alive.”

  He threw the boy down next to the young woman, who coughed and rubbed at her eyes. Brian hit his head badly — saw stars. When he looked up, he could tell the side of his head was bruised and bleeding.

  Milton Deatley stood with his back against a pillar. He said, “I’m sorry you’re uninterested in becoming a part of the neighborhood. You’d be a particularly fertile resource.” He smiled and moved to the cell door. “I’m closing you in now. No one will come back for you. In a few days, you’ll be desperate for food and water. Eventually, you’ll die of starvation. In a week, the streets in the suburb up above you will be filled with Thusser, newly delivered into this world, strolling about, looking at their fine homes. There is an old Thusser proverb appropriate to this circumstance. It is, unfortunately, too complicated, too nuanced, for you to understand.”

  And with that, Milton Deatley swung the prison door shut.

  The door clanged on Brian’s hand. He had made a kind of shambling leap and blocked the bars.

  “Give up,” said Milton Deatley. “You’re not equal to this task.”

  Kneeling there, with his head throbbing and his hand crunched by a slamming iron grate, Brian did not feel equal to anything. He could hear Kalgrash’s yelps as the Winnower snatched at the damaged troll. He looked up at Deatley’s raw, mealy face and did not have anything to say.

  But a voice, low, gravelly, came from behind him. “No,” said the voice, a tortured little scratch of a thing. “No, we’re not equal to this. But the Norumbegans are, and I’m putting in a collect call to them right now.”

  Deatley and Brian looked to the wall, where Prudence was blinking slowly. She held her forehead and muttered.

  Deatley scowled, threw the door open, and walked back in. “On what channel?” he demanded. “I’m flooding the channels. Which one? You’ll never get through.”

  Prudence continued to whisper and to tarantula her hand around her head, pressing secret nodes.

  “Stop! Stop it!” cried Deatley.

  He took a run at her and began to kick her ribs.

  At this, Brian, ferocious, heaved himself up and grabbed Deatley. He tangled his arms through the dead man’s. The corpse tried to lift him but stumbled. Prudence was still muttering her incantation. Deatley tried to brush Brian off.

  And suddenly, Deatley exclaimed, “You’re not! You’re not calling them! It’s a bluff! You don’t even know how to call them!”

  Prudence smirked. That was a mistake. Deatley growled in irritation and raised his hand to release a burst of magical energy and destroy her utterly.

  Brian yanked on the developer. The developer’s hand was engulfed in fire, ready to fling.

  Prudence saw what was coming and screamed.

  Just outside the cell, Kalgrash was pursued by tendrils.
He swiped at them with his ax. He caught a few hard enough to sever them. Most just swayed sideways with his blow.

  He could hear Deatley yelling some kind of nonsense, but he couldn’t tell what was going on in that corner of the room. He whacked the air with his ax. Nothing seemed to keep the crawling tendrils away.

  He ran through a few archways. Gelt was easily able to keep up, shuffling on his dry husks of feet. Gelt grabbed at the troll and seized him.

  Kalgrash gasped, wrapped in serpentine coils. He couldn’t move. Gelt began to squeeze.

  Abruptly, Deatley called, “Gelt! Get rid of this kid! Hold him off for just a second!”

  Gelt turned, disengaged several coils from the troll, and shot his tendrils through the bars of the cell. He sought out Brian where he and Deatley fought. Kalgrash helplessly watched the silver cords seek his friend.

  Brian felt them brush against him as Gelt felt for who was who. The boy trembled, fighting to keep Deatley from flinging fire at Prudence.

  Deatley said three words. Now his whole body glowed. It pulsed with power. He was getting ready to blast them all.

  The tendrils poked Brian’s face, searched his hair.

  Kalgrash ripped his ax backward. It couldn’t quite cut the fibers, but it could yank.

  Gelt, wrenched, flew toward Kalgrash.

  Gelt’s jerked tendrils clamped on to Deatley and the pillar, grabbing for an anchor. He couldn’t see who he’d trapped.

  The troll pulled harder on Gelt, facing away from the battle, like he was dragging a freight train up a hill.

  Gelt, helpless, strangled the body of Milton Deatley.

  His razor-sharp wires cut the corpse.

  Milton Deatley’s remains screamed.

  Brian pulled away, saw the flickering body rent by metal threads. The blaze of magical energy Deatley had summoned still roamed the man, seething, boiling in the flesh — which bubbled, welts of light popping in the cheeks, the hands, the neck.

  Then the Thusser who’d been driving the body abandoned it. Particles spilled around the silver cords — granules of ash and flesh.

  The troll yanked again on the Winnower, screaming with the effort.

  Blue light now glared through Deatley’s sliced limbs, and the eyes, now doubly dead, rolled back. The cords cut deeper, searing with magical discharge. The Winnower mewled, trying to withdraw from the tangle of corpse, clothes, and enchantment. His tentacles stung. He twitched, cutting the dead man deeper —

  With a burst, Milton Deatley’s body collapsed, released — now sifting like sand — now snapping with energy — now blown across the room — and with a thunderous clap, the man was gone.

  Nothing was left of the interdimensional real estate developer but sliced slacks, a jacket, a burned shirt, and year-old dust.

  Gelt whined with rage.

  Brian, breathing heavily, lacerated by the tentacles that had seized on to him, took stock. He saw his friend the troll being crushed by Gelt. And he saw that Gelt still had the blunderbuss wrapped in a silver wire.

  Brian scampered through the door. He flanked Gelt, who was concentrating on Kalgrash. Moving quickly, Brian grabbed the gun. Gelt’s silver arm tugged back, but could not change the weapon’s direction.

  Brian aimed it and spoke the Cantrip of Activation.

  There was a blue blast.

  The monster, struck, screamed, his silver cords sticking out straight and radiant like a dandelion’s needly corona. Brian collected his wits, thought, screamed a word, and fired again.

  Gelt the Winnower blew apart. His body collapsed.

  His tendrils settled softly to earth like severed webs.

  The room, finally, was quiet.

  Brian and Kalgrash stared at each other. Both of them were badly damaged. Brian was cut. Kalgrash was slashed. Prudence was wobbling to her feet. Gregory and Snig still lay prone, insensate.

  But the fight was over. The Thusser’s most powerful servant on Earth was gone.

  THIRTY-TWO

  In a vaulted cavern beneath a spired palace beneath a towering mountain, a stout boy in glasses leaned over his best friend in the world and slapped him.

  Gregory didn’t respond. His mouth sagged open slackly. He was breathing, but there was no sign he might wake.

  “What do we do?” Brian demanded.

  Prudence knelt by his side. “I don’t know.”

  “How’s Sniggleping?”

  Prudence made a clicking sound with her tongue. “He’s a Norumbegan. He’ll get over it.” She put her hand on Gregory’s cheek. “I’m worried Gregory won’t. He might be too far in.”

  Brian, terrified, shook his friend’s shoulders. “Gregory!” he yelled. “GREGORY!”

  “It’s his own fault,” said Kalgrash, sitting with his armored knees bunched up by his breastplate. “He wanted to show off his leadership skills. He headed out of the house to save someone who didn’t need saving. Sad, sad, sad.”

  Brian frowned. “He was just trying to help.”

  “He was not trying to help,” said Kalgrash, picking at the torn metal of his upper arm. “He’s jealous of you. Hey, do you think fiddling with my clockwork will make this wound feel better or worse?”

  “Worse,” barked Prudence. “Stop it.” To Brian, she said, “Slap him again.”

  “I’ll slap him,” said Kalgrash.

  Brian said, “Kalgrash, don’t be so — don’t be so mean about him.”

  “Gimme an egg and I’ll give you an omelet. I say turnabout is fair play.” Kalgrash folded his arms. “He always wants to be the center of attention. I never liked him. Right from the first time I tried to kill him.”

  “It was me you swung the ax at.”

  “Just a little homicide between friends.”

  Brian was in no mood to smile. Gregory looked pale, maybe even a little blue.

  “He’s fading,” said Prudence. “Gregory!” She leaned into his face. “Gregory, it’s your cousin Prudence. We’re safe here. There are no Thusser. They’re gone. Remember, you’re from Brookline, Massachusetts. Your best friend is Brian Thatz.” She stroked her cousin’s cheek, ran her hand up to his hair, and yanked.

  He didn’t move.

  “You try,” said Prudence to Brian.

  He said to Gregory, “This is … this is your best friend. Brian. We’re … we’ve been friends since we were eight. We …” His voice caught. He discovered he was almost crying. He looked down at Gregory’s pallid, impassive face, nearly the face of a corpse. “We met playing tetherball. You told me to stand near the pole. Then you hit the ball. It took you twenty minutes to untangle me.” He said, “Stop thinking about the Thusser. They’re not here. Forget about them. They’re brainwashing you.”

  The body was slack. Kalgrash now came forward, concerned, too, and knelt with the others. Brian was glad to see it. Gregory’s head lolled.

  And suddenly, with the shift of the head, the insensate body began choking.

  “Get him up!” Prudence shrieked. “So the spit goes down…. Turn his head!”

  In his coma, Gregory drowned on his own saliva.

  He saw that he was clustered about with Thusser. They were everywhere, and had been always. In the streets of cities, on the sidewalks, up staircases three by three. So many of them that he was clamped between their wide shoulders, their dark coats. He couldn’t budge. They crushed him. He heard commotion, clamorous as a celebration of the Horde and its power.

  Someone was talking about spit.

  Saliva dripped down Gregory’s chin. His eyes stared wide. Involuntarily, his neck bunched and flexed as he choked. “Now lean him forward!” Prudence said. “Drain his mouth!”

  He knew the voices, but did not know whose they were. He could not recall who he was. He felt his breath go out of him.

  “Gregory!” Brian said. He was slapping his friend in the face again. The body was still — no longer choking, but breathing in gasps. “Gregory! It’s Brian. You’ve got to get the Thusser out of your head. Don’t thin
k about them!” And suddenly, he remembered Gregory talking about the Cantrip of Activation — saying that if you said not to think about school, the first thing he’d think of was school — and Brian realized he should stop talking about the Thusser entirely. So he began stammering things he knew about his friend: “You … you always play jokes on people. You know, with your phone, or stuff taped under someone’s seat, or chemicals. People say you’re always laughing at something. That’s what they say about you. You must … must be able to remember.

  “You live in a brick house. We used to build stuff in the basement. Robots that didn’t work. We wanted to be inventors. You came with my family to Maine. We went fishing. You told me about having a crush on Angelique Maddis. You were …”

  And Gregory’s breathing began to quicken, as if he were undertaking some great struggle.

  They shook him. They talked to him. They reminded him of excursions to museums, things he’d flung at the television, the pants he wore when he wanted to impress people — “Thanksgiving dinner,” said Prudence. “There were only humans there. Only humans. From Connecticut. Remember, Gregory. Our cousin Austin. Our cousin Paul. Actually, he’s a pain. Don’t remember him. You won’t come back.”

  He started to fade (picturing Thusser carving the turkey, showing their teeth, stripping skin off the bird with their knives).

  And then Brian pleaded, “Gregory, come back. We need you.” His voice thick, he insisted, “I need you, so that we can fight this thing. There are so few of us. Don’t leave me here alone. Don’t leave me here. I need you to come back.”

  And at that, Gregory groaned. He struggled with nothing. Kalgrash swiftly moved to make sure the boy’s head didn’t bruise against the wall. Gregory’s legs kicked. He started coughing again.

  Brian said, “Please.”

  And Gregory’s eyes focused.

  He lifted his head. He looked around.

  He was awake.

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  And Kalgrash said, grimly, “They’ll be here soon enough.”