Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

Cole dropped to his belly and spun over, bringing his knees up to his chin.

When he saw the blackness shift in front of him, he shot himself straight, kicking into the center of the rock tube.

It was poorly timed. Instead of landing a full blow, the thing slammed into the bottom of his extended feet. The creature made a vicious noise; Cole tried stabbing his lance toward the sound. It made a hit, but unfortunately it was the dull, hooked end. He had brought the spear into the tunnel expecting to defend ahead of himself—and the length of the weapon made it impossible to spin it around.

The impact must have stunned the thing, as the noise stopped and nothing clawed at him. Cole lurched back toward the dual lights, his body on fire from the constant impact of rock on bone.

Weary arms propelled him forward as the light ahead gradually grew brighter and bigger. Then, more scraping sounds came from behind—approaching fast.

The last ten meters were as psychologically painful as they were physically demanding. Cole began to lunge, rather than crawl, throwing the spear ahead of him and launching himself with his legs. On the third push, his arms failed to support him and his chin scraped the floor of the tunnel. He could hear the large animal clawing up behind.

Leaving his useless spear where it lay, he pushed himself toward the light.

The very bright light.

When Cole saw the thin wedge of sunlight shining into the lip of his exit, he realized what a huge mistake he’d made. He’d assumed the tunnel would come out on a shaded path, but it didn’t. It faced the eternal day.

There is no solace out that hole , he realized. And the lizard was almost on him.

He didn’t have his spear anymore. Cole tried to kick the thing again, but it had learned: he heard it scampering along the ceiling above him. He moved forward, closer to the steam wafting into the hole, and rolled onto his back just as the creature dropped down. It landed on his thighs and came straight for his throat.

Cole pushed on the squirming beast, which just forced him closer to the deadly light. He could feel the heat from the twin suns where they baked a thin slice of the tunnel’s interior. The giant lizard strained for his neck, pawing at the sides of the tunnel to push forward.

It drove Cole’s head into the sun.

It felt like his hair was set on fire. His hood was still bunched around his neck, leaving his ears open for danger, but his scalp exposed. Cole tried to retract his head down into his shoulders, but this just let the lizard’s snapping jaws get closer to their prize.

He had to save his scalp, no matter the cost. He stopped pushing on the lizard and threw his forearm across his neck, just as he pulled his head out of the light. The lizard bit down on it immediately, locking its jaw above his wrist—teeth grinding against bone.

Cole let out a feeble scream. He grabbed one of the beast’s arms, and with both hands, he lifted it over his head and out of the hole. The pain on his exposed flesh was intense, like some sort of toxin coursing through his arm, but the lizard had it worse. The thing hissed as it cooked, the white underbelly frying in the direct light. It tried to twist its back toward the rays, but Cole had its arm gripped tight; he moved the tender spot around even more.

The jaw finally loosened, its teeth sucking noisily out of Cole’s arm. He attempted to pull the wounded animal in by its leg, but the weight was too much, his own arm at too unusual an angle.

His prize slipped out of his grasp and fell down—into the direct sunlight.

Molly continued to forge her way through the dry wind. She was pretty sure the shade bridge she’d just crossed was the last one, and the air seemed to be a bit cooler as well. Trudging forward, her shoulder bumping along the side of the canyon, she dreamt of the shelter beyond the terminator.

She dreamt of glass after glass of water, even of hearing how much smarter Cole and Walter had gone about their rites.

The bundled Wadi squirmed against her chest; Molly squeezed a little more moisture in its mouth. The thing had been acting more and more content for the past few kilometers. That, or it was slowly dying.

Her thoughts drifted to Edison, any hope of rescuing him evaporating with the last of her body’s water. She imagined being ten times the size of a Glemot, able to scoop him up and cradle him in her arms. She thought of the way he’d done this for Anlyn, the way she was trying to do this for the Wadi. She felt large and small at the same time, able to do so much for one, and almost nothing for the other.

When the leading edge of the terminator came into view, Molly confused it for another bridge at first. It filled her with a moment of panic, then she saw that the blackness went on and on.

She sobbed with relief.

Raw exhilaration overcame her as she crossed the line from day to night. She was tired, wounded and dehydrated. She was several kilometers from the shelter. But she felt free. She could walk in any direction she wanted. She could lay down on the cool stone in the center of the cursed canyon, the walls of which grew shorter and shorter toward the horizon.

Molly picked up her pace. The squat building she needed to reach—where Cole could nurse her back to health—should be just a few more kilometers, straight ahead. Clutching the Wadi against the chill, she lowered her head into the steady gusts and marched toward the glow of lights from the city beyond the horizon.

Behind her, the canyons wailed, almost as if mourning her departure.

Cole finished bandaging his arm with a torn piece of shirt. He couldn’t decide what to do next. It was a long crawl back to the safe side of the tunnel, but at least there were watering spots along the way where he could clean his stinging wounds and quench his thirst.

The problem was: he was in no shape to fight another of those things. If he encountered one during the long march upwind, he’d be mauled for sure. Beyond surviving and escaping the canyons with his wounds, there was still the matter of having a Wadi to complete the rite.

One had just died within a few meters of him, close enough to hear its shrieks, but there was no way to claim his prize.

Or was there? Cole grunted and rolled to his knees. It was slow going with only one arm, but he made his way back to the discarded lance. Tossing it ahead of him, he moved to the edge of the light leaking into the mouth of the hole.

He took his time replacing the metallic hood and adjusting it. He also pulled his left hand down into his sleeve, gripping the lance through the material. Moving the weapon out into the direct sunlight, he let the rays hit his hand. It was just like his experiments back at the terminator—the suit protected him from the light, at least temporarily. He just had to be sure not to touch the heated rock.

Inching forward, Cole rested on his damaged arm as close to the steaming marble as he could. Once again, the lance was turned the wrong way. This time, he needed the hooked end, and it faced away from the mouth of the tunnel. He extended the long weapon all the way out the hole in order to spin it in his hand.

With the awkward fabric spoiling his grip, he almost dropped the thing as he rolled it around in mid-air. As it bobbled out of his grip, he lunged and seized it at the last minute, grunting from the effort.

He shook his head with relief, then angled his face away from the sun before sticking it out to look down for the Wadi. As his exposed face passed by the lip of lit rock on its way out into the air, the heat radiating up reminded him to be careful.

The moaning outside the hole went up an octave as a gust of wind coursed through the canyon. Cole peered down the wall and spotted the Wadi, charred black in places, its skin melting off where it touched bare rock. He lowered the lance, the hook sinking into the soft and bloated belly with a sharp, puncturing sound. He pulled himself back inside the hole and used his injured arm to help hoist the lifeless beast up, dragging it into the protective shade.