by Ann Aguirre
Retracing her steps, she found Szarok outside the sea cave, examining the footprints she’d left. A few moments more and he’d be tracking me.
Tegan smiled. “I found shelter for us. We might be able to signal passing ships, too.”
“You are extraordinarily capable.”
That rang more like an observation than flattery, and for that reason, it settled into an empty space in her soul as the highest praise of all. “Thanks.”
“I would like to understand…,” he started, then trailed off.
It was useless to press until he’d collected his thoughts. They walked for a while in silence, up the incline to the overlook, and then onward along the rocky path. The skerry held hints of green and scrubby trees, but it wasn’t densely wooded like Rosemere or Antecost. Because we’re farther north? So far she hadn’t seen anything larger than sea fowl, though she’d noted two species she had never seen before anywhere else. Both were white and black, but nestled low on the rocks, there appeared to be a colony of birds that didn’t fly. They waddled instead and dove into the water, possibly in search of fish. Even the wonders of being stranded fascinated her.
“Do you know what those are?” she asked.
Szarok studied the birds, then said, “Dinner?” Possibly this was a joke.
Maybe not.
Either way, she laughed.
Finally, about halfway to the signal tower, he tried again with the question he’d swallowed before. “Why did you lie for me?”
Oh. That’s unexpected.
“It was only a tiny fabrication. We were together most of the night, after all, and I know you didn’t harm her. There’s too much at stake. Even if she had come at you with a knife, you would’ve taken the hurt for your people.”
“You’re so sure.” He sounded bemused.
She stole a look. His eyes were distant, focused on their goal, but he seemed thoughtful as well.
“I am,” she agreed. “And it was proven by your confrontation with those monsters.”
“Monsters?”
“The sailors who murdered Malena.”
“You say that so easily of your own people.”
Tegan kicked a rock with a quietly vicious maneuver. “Humans are often the worst monsters of all. Besides, I know this about you.… Like Deuce, you’re a hunter, not a killer.”
“Yes.” When he gazed at her in obvious pleasure at the description, his eyes glowed luminous and deep with darkening gold, somehow soft at the same time.
She’d never thought of him as warm before, but a little trill ran down her back and settled at the base of her spine, so that each step felt good and right, as long as she stood beside him. “Anyway, that’s why.”
“And why did you dive into the water for me?” This was the second time he’d asked.
Tegan sensed she wouldn’t get away with deflecting this time. If she did that, he’d just ask again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until she got tired. “It was right.” She struggled to find the answer that didn’t give away too much. “And it would be too sad if you had nobody who would.”
“My people would. My kin.” Then he tipped his head with a ripening frown. “Rather, they would want to. But our fear runs deep. Even now it is hard for me to accept that I didn’t die.”
“What do you believe about the afterlife?” she asked.
He shook his head, seeming puzzled. “After life, there is death. Before we die, we choose someone to receive our memories. Thus, when we go, we leave what we learned.”
So if something happens to him here, his memories are lost?
“If you want to know, ask.”
Her cheeks heated, but … she did. Hopefully this isn’t painful.
“Not lost,” he said. “Diffused. I can choose to … let them go, uncontrolled, like it was in the days before we Awakened and learned we could choose. That is why all of us have memories of drowning. But if this happens, we consider it tragic. Much of my essence would be lost.”
“Then I’ll have to take good care of you,” she said, teasing.
He paused. “You already do.”
They were nearly to the signal tower when he spoke again. “What do humans think?”
“About what?”
“Dying.”
“The afterlife? It depends. Some people think there’s a paradise waiting for people’s souls, and that bad ones, like the sailors who killed Malena, will go to eternal torment.”
Szarok shook his head. “So you think there is a second life waiting? Is that why some of your people live as if this one doesn’t matter?”
“Not everyone. I don’t know what I think. Mostly I don’t worry about it. I envy the Uroch for being able to pass down memories. The idea of preserving knowledge that way is…” She couldn’t even think of a superlative strong enough.
“I never thought to meet one of your people who admired mine.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she let it be. Rising before them, the tower seemed even taller when they finally reached it. “Do you know what it means?”
Szarok shook his head. “I have a faint recollection of seeing these symbols before, but my ancestor could not read them. Nor can I.”
The red paint seemed like a warning, but they couldn’t afford to be particular. Yet the door was boarded over—from the outside—another discovery that chilled the blood in her veins. Szarok was examining the boards, half-rotten wood, somehow affixed into the structure itself, which was made of brick.
“I don’t know of anything that could do this,” she said.
“Some old-world machine, perhaps?”
She’d seen many things in the ruins. None of them explained this.
“Let’s go a little farther first. There was something…” As she headed down the gentle slope, she spotted a cluster of metal buildings. They had similar structures in Winterville and Soldier’s Pond, though these looked older still and half rusted into wreckage. But that wasn’t what alarmed her most.
Tegan stopped walking.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” While Szarok might be able to read her reaction, he didn’t know enough about human customs to be frightened. Yet.
“That’s a graveyard,” she said.
Past the metal shantytown, row upon row of graves were marked with hand-carved crosses. But as the rows went, their quality deteriorated. The ones she presumed to be oldest were pretty, ornate even. But by the end, they were only rough hanks of wood or bone lashed together. She walked and counted. Two hundred and seven people died here. Why?
Squaring her shoulders, she came back to the metal box houses. One by one she inspected them, fearing the worst. They sat empty, save one. In that space she found two mostly decomposed bodies, their hands outstretched toward each other, and a smaller one curled onto its side between them. While she couldn’t see what had hurt the two larger victims, the little one had a clear dent in its head.
“What happened here?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Whatever it was, they were the last. There was nobody left to bury them.”
“We could, if you think it’s important.”
Tegan considered. Sensibility wouldn’t save them. Once they took care of basic needs, they could revisit the issue. “We have other priorities. Let’s finish our inventory.”
The best discovery was an old well. Szarok drew up a bucket, sniffed, and proclaimed it clean. Tegan sighed in relief. While he might not be able to detect all bacteria, she felt safe in drinking anything he approved. The abandoned metal shacks yielded a meager store of useful supplies, including a lighter like Fade had. There were also some ancient, yellowed magazines, some dirty clothing, and medicines she wouldn’t dare use.
If we get sick, we’re in trouble.
“To the tower?” Szarok asked eventually.
“I think so. Just be ready.”
It was improbable they’d encounter a live threat, as anything that might’ve been walled up in there must have long since sta
rved to death. Still, she shivered as he pried the boards loose one by one, each thunk of wood echoing in her heartbeat. When he finished, it revealed an average door, painted red and touched with rust. It wasn’t locked, and it swung open with a groan.
I’m not scared.… Why am I scared?
The rasp and crackle of her salt-stiff clothes sounded ridiculously loud. Tegan peered inside and found a round room with a metal staircase leading up in the middle of it. The walls were white-painted brick with moss or lichens growing in spots. Most of the furniture was broken, just a couple of intact crates here and there. Above, there was only silence.
“Come,” said Szarok. “Hold on to me. The steps may be unsafe, and it’s my turn to catch you when you fall.”
The way he said it made everything all right. In Company D, she had always been the weak one, the girl who needed extra protection. No matter how hard she trained with James, she was always a step behind Deuce and Fade, who’d spent their lives fighting, and the professional soldiers with years of training. Even the poet who taught her first and later became her friend watched when he thought she wasn’t looking.
James always acted like I was seconds away from horrible doom.
But with Szarok, it seemed natural to just … take turns. He took for granted that she was clever and competent, and he trusted her. A little breath almost became a hiccup because everyone always wanted to protect her, a completely separate impulse. In her deepest heart, Tegan had always feared the message she must be sending. Because nobody ever, ever—
Until now.
Her heartbeat quickened. Tegan remembered the strength of his hand, how warm and firm it was when he’d led her to a waterfall in the middle of the night. She might well go anywhere he wished to take her, learn anything he wanted to teach.
She locked her fingers with his, staring up at the endless spire of ascending darkness, and she was not afraid. “Lead on.”
Kinship
The stairs were thin and rusted, but they held. Tegan counted more than two hundred steps before they reached the top. Machinery filled the open space, a lot of ruined bits and broken things. Glass crunched beneath her feet from some kind of massive lens. However this thing had worked, it would be next to impossible to get it running again.
Yet … the wreckage spoke volumes.
Someone or something had slowly gone mad, alone in here. Gouges on the walls, scratches on the floor. Everything that could be smashed had been. The violence appeared to have escalated as time had worn on. Tegan followed an old blood trail until she found the source. Beside her, Szarok’s breathing sounded hoarse and his fingers tightened until his talons pricked her. She didn’t mind the pain; at a moment like this, it seemed right.
There could be no question that they were staring at the desiccated corpse of one of his ancestors. Time had not treated the old creature kindly, so the sunken features were even more monstrous. The most horrific aspect wasn’t even the decay, but … this one had eaten part of its own arm, trying to survive, and then moved on to its left leg. Imagining the agony of a hunger that had driven such self-mutilation, she shuddered so hard, she almost fell over.
Humans don’t do that. They just starve.
His voice was calm. “We should go. There’s nothing of use here.”
Somehow she descended all those stairs without weeping. But as they stepped out into the cool, clean air, she had to know. “How? How do you see that and not—”
“Not what?”
“React.” She didn’t mean for it to be an accusation, but it became one. That word hung between them like a pointing finger.
“You think I feel nothing? Everywhere I turn, there are reminders that we were horrific beyond belief. I have memories of my ancestors devouring themselves—and each other—in fits of mindless hunger. And that’s why I have to be so much better than I want to be. Because every second that I’m alive, with every beat of my heart, I fear we could become that again. And if I changed, I wouldn’t even mind.”
His fear and rage hit her like a wave; she wobbled under the intensity, but in a way, it was glorious, too, like an unexpected storm after so many hot, still days. In the aftermath, he was shaking, just like her. But nothing else. And when he realized she hadn’t let go of his hand, he regulated his breathing, shoulders slumped.
“Don’t do that with me.”
“What?” he whispered.
“Be better. Just be … you. If you’re angry, tell me, especially if I do something wrong. Right now it’s more important than ever for us to … cooperate.” That wasn’t the word she wanted, but it came out, serviceable but imprecise.
“You unsettle me.” He drew in one deep breath, then another, staring up at the sky.
Tegan didn’t ask why. She changed the subject.
“If we clean out the top floor, we can settle in downstairs.”
Hopefully he wouldn’t ask why that was necessary. She didn’t relish explaining that she couldn’t sleep with so much pain and tragedy above her.
He only nodded. “Let’s bury them all together.”
From what she recalled, his people didn’t much care about funeral rites, but the body had to be removed from the signal tower for her peace of mind, and it seemed disrespectful to take care of only the human remains. She volunteered for digging duty, as she’d much preferred shifting earth to transporting the dead. Szarok lashed together some of the wood from the barricade and made a makeshift sled. Soon they were ready for a memorial, and it was hard to know what to say for these poor strangers. Tegan whispered a prayer she’d memorized as a child, and it took much less time to replace the dirt than it had to scoop it out.
When they finished, the sun had skated toward the far horizon, and her throat was nearly closed with thirst. She put her face into the rusty bucket as soon as Szarok pulled it up. In fact, he had to pull her away with a quiet shake of her head. I’ll get sick. I’ve gone without before. Their clothes badly needed washing; her skin was starting to hurt, both from the stiff fabric and the salt crusted in her crevices. But she had nothing else to wear, and it was too cold to run naked while she washed and dried her shirt and pants.
“I took so many comforts for granted,” she mumbled.
“Tegan,” Szarok called.
She hadn’t even noticed him moving away from the well. Hunger must be messing up her concentration, and she did feel a little dizzy as she hurried toward him. “I hope it’s good news.”
“I don’t know what’s in here, but I thought we should open it together.”
“It” was a sturdy chest fastened shut with metal tabs. Szarok fiddled around until they popped up, one by one, and as he raised the lid, the trunk made a sort of shhhh sound, old air escaping. She held her breath as he pulled out the contents. Nothing edible, but this looked like military gear, similar to kits she’d seen in Soldier’s Pond. Certainly there were uniforms, musty but wearable with some scrubbing.
“This will be useful,” she said, playing with the various attachments.
Knife and fork, pick, a pronged implement she didn’t recognize. If need be, I could use this as a doctor’s tool.
Tegan found some cookware, a metal pan that could double as an eating dish. There was also a heavy cylinder that did nothing, but it had a lens like the broken one upstairs. Flashlight. Dr. Wilson had told her about them, but said it was rare to get them working. Finding a power source was problematic. This seemed a little different than the ones he’d shown her.
First, she couldn’t open it to look inside. She shook it and nothing happened. Flipping the button offered no answers, either.
“Hm. This was a light, but it won’t turn on.”
His gaze flickered toward her discoveries, then he said, “You should wash up at the well and change your clothes. I can smell the sores. You’ll be bleeding soon.” His tone was matter of fact, but she squirmed over knowing he could discern so much just from standing nearby.
“What about you?”
“I’m goi
ng hunting.”
Since she couldn’t help with that, Tegan nodded and carried a change of clothes toward the well. Best to get this over with. She stripped, rinsed off with the icy water, and then put on the musty clothes. Still better than what I had on. Afterward, she used the cook pan and the bucket to wash out her sea-soaked garments.
If people lived here, there must be a better way.
But she wasn’t so sure that was the right word. It was more like they had been confined here and left to die slowly. Like … Something about that seemed familiar. She searched hard for that tantalizing memory, and as she went back toward the signal tower to clean, it came to her.
Leper colonies.
As part of her studies, Dr. Wilson had told her stories about how doctors had failed, about the danger of superstition interfering with treatment. Because we didn’t understand the disease, he’d said, or how it spread, we feared it. Because we feared it, we failed our patients. Long ago, in the old world, they used to send sick people away so they couldn’t infect anyone else. The conditions were terrible, and people never got better. They just died where other people didn’t have to watch. According to Dr. Wilson, it wasn’t just the sick who ended up in places like that. Sometimes there were wars and people lost their homes, so they got on ships, not because they had somewhere to go, but because it was more terrifying to stay. But then other people wouldn’t let them get off the ships, and then they got sick even if they weren’t before. Then nobody would ever say, Welcome; you’re home now. So they were sent off to places like this. Like the leper colonies. Where they suffered, hurt, and died … and nobody cared.
That’s what this place feels like.
Tegan swallowed the tears that wouldn’t help the dead. While Szarok got dinner, she had to do what she could to fashion some shelter. It took longer than she wanted to put all the shards in the crates from downstairs. Right now she couldn’t decide how they could best use the glass, but they had so little, it was inconceivable to chuck it away. The crates had a brand on the side—PROPERTY OF—but she didn’t recognize the last word. There were also more characters like the ones painted on the signal tower.
