by Dave Ring
“What you are, what you want, is with us,” they said.
“No,” Letty said, but her voice was unsure. As she turned her head back to me, her eyes were worried, lost behind the sheen of my torch in her safety goggles.
“It’s true,” Aurin said. “And they know it, unlike you.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“So, come with us.” Aurin’s voice was melodic, clear. Like windchimes. “Come with us and leave all that you pretend to be behind.”
I still held the torch in my hand. It still smelled of diesel and old socks. But the flame was waning and flickering in the dust and breeze of the late desert night. The dust which spat across the cracked and ancient road, across the crumbling sidewalks, pitted the dead trees, and probably collected itself in the carcasses of old buildings which stood yawning and open.
A danger.
“What else would I leave behind?” I asked.
“All that’s behind you,” Aurin said. “All that I offer is forward.”
They smiled, showing two rows of pristine white teeth. Those teeth plus two perfectly pointed fangs. Lit up in the torchlight like this, they looked almost romantic, if I were into that sort of thing.
I wasn’t, but it didn’t matter.
Letty had turned her shoulders back to me now, her hands shaking, her resolve gone. Aurin was winning. And they knew it. They knew it as they stepped forward, pushing past Letty, pushing past her and placing a hand on my shoulder. Placing a hand on my shoulder and looking me directly in the eyes. I knew what they were going to do, and it worked too, that mesmerizing gaze of theirs.
It totally worked, it worked like all the stories said it would.
Some stories, some legends, come true.
When Corporal had called it off, she sat across from me in her wheelchair, fingers clutching the last beer she and I ever shared. She was half-lit by her fluorescent lamp, her features cut to sharp edges by shadow. She was cutting me to pieces by words. Calling me callous, spineless, and (most accurately) over.
“Don’t even think anyone’ll ever know you, Marrin,” she said. “Not like I did. Not like I figured you out. You’re like one of them lizards, one of them that changes colors when it suits her. What’s it called? A chameleon.”
I nodded. I nodded and kept nodding, cause she was right.
Like I nodded as I took Aurin’s hand in mine, lacing my warm fingers through their cold ones. I let them brush my hair away from my neck, something I had always thought would be sexy, but was almost procedural. When Aurin bit me, when their fangs pierced my skin, I heard Letty through a hurricane wind calling to me.
“Marrin, no. Marrin stop.”
But I was lost.
Or was I? Cause out of anyone I’d ever known—Corporal, Letty, my mother—out of anyone, Aurin was the only one who saw through my disguises right away. They saw through all my attempts at pretending. They saw me, they saw what I wanted.
While I was lost at sea in Aurin’s embrace, as the tides of what was happening crashed over me, and I remembered something Corporal said to me. I remembered something she said to me when I first came to Camp. She said, “You’re one a’them lost causes, ain’tcha.” She said, “If you’re lookin’ for something to believe in, you won’t find it here, hon. You gotta find some way to believe in yourself.”
When I hit the desert silt, I hit it fast as heartbeats. I had ten seconds of consciousness to watch Letty running toward me as I felt my last gasp of air leave my lungs. And then? I fell into the deepest, darkest sleep.
Four years ago, when my mother dropped me off on the road to Corporal’s camp, she kissed me on the cheek and said, “Don’t disappoint me, Marrin. I know you’ll be good. Always be good.” And then she brushed my lanky brown hair out of my face and looked me in the eyes. “I can’t be good anymore. I’m done with it, and I don’t want you to see that, my darling child.”
I was twenty years old and not a child anymore, but still young enough to be betrayed by my mother. She walked away from me then, but I only knew that from the sound of her boots on the old, cracked concrete. There was no need to turn and watch her go; I walked forward, toward the Camp gates, the four towers, and the beginning to someone else’s story.
I woke some nights later alone on a cot underneath flickering sodium lights. My bandolier and revolvers were gone. So were my safety goggles and scarf. My body ached from disuse and death as I clamored to the concrete and slipped out of the empty, unfamiliar tent toward the sound of many voices, conversing in the dark.
As my new dead eyes adjusted, I saw Aurin, standing around faces I didn’t recognize, but faces who turned to me as I exited the tent. So many faces, so pale, so curious. All smiling.
But I was me now. Not a counterfeit. So this time, I walked toward Aurin and all those faces. Again, with the same refrain. Aurin smiled, revealing their fangs, and a cacophony of applause rang out, coupled by a chorus of fanged smiles.
“Welcome, Marrin,” they all said.
Aurin wrapped their arm around my shoulders. They turned me toward the assembled ease of the group. I leaned into their presence, I leaned into the chorus of fangs, I leaned into this version of myself.
“This is Marrin,” Aurin said. “Join me in welcoming them home.”
Awl isn’t holding any human remains at all when he greets Scaif, and a disappointed scowl blooms across her face.
“I know you have your rules,” she tells him, “but if there’s much left of her, I have more of a claim to it than him.” Him: the father of Halligan. She: the wife.
“There are several pieces to bequeath,” Awl confides. He knows the precedents for every rib and scapulae, but he knows too that his profane calculations rarely seem like justice to anyone but him.
They sit in his windblown office, which clutches the undamaged western side of the Tower. Scavenged furniture forms a strange crescent in an otherwise empty room—ancient barstool abutted by crates and leather dining chair. The leather chair is the most comfortable, so he lets Scaif take it, as her brown skin still looks raw from the purifications.
“Halligan’s skull is intact?” The skull is always coveted—for adornment, for honour, for piety.
“Yes, it survived the rites,” Awl says, “but you know it is complicated.”
“Because I’m a woman.” She grits out the first word, and the last.
“No, because you both are.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Not that it matters. Not to me.” Did it? He liked to think that if it was up to only his will, he would give her what she was asking. “But it will matter to some.”
He knows what’s next—Scaif tells him that they were Rectifiers, and when Billhook visits he will say that the family were staunch Evangels. Awl is nebulously holy to both sects, celibate and untouchable and trusted enough to attend the death rites. But he must be careful not to seem like he holds opinions.
“She died defending the city,” Scaif says, as though the bravery of the death should shape the outcome. Her jaw sets, braced against the goggles and mask dangling around her neck. “She was a hero.”
“You don’t have to talk about it. But it changes the omens, and it means I must be careful.” The beast that took Halligan’s life had been abnormally large, and stories abounded about its horns, about a disturbingly human chattering noise coming from its acrid maw. Eyes were watching Awl, both in the heavens and below.
When Scaif finally leaves—never begging or weeping, but looking frail and hollowed out like a grocery store—Awl ascends to the hospice. It’s high enough to avoid the dust and particulates closer to the ground, and the rare, intact windows keep out the Birds and the weather. While Awl is the only permanent resident of the Tower, there are many who prefer Awl’s company when the wasting comes for them.
“How are you this evening, Scythe?” Awl draws back the throw blankets he has pinned to the ceiling. Scythe does not answer, and he worries that the woman has already passed.
“Still here,” she finally wh
ispers. It is more sigh than speech, an autumn wind sluicing through bare branches. “But I think it’s soon.”
“Do you want to go to the sunset room?” Awl’s predecessor—his master—hated this euphemism, teased him mercilessly for maintaining it. But Awl still enjoys it.
“That might be nice.”
It is hard doing, walking Scythe up the many flights of stairs. Awl knows that the great silver-chrome column that runs the height of the Tower was once a magic machine, a tiny room that could whisk you up and down at your whim. He tells Scythe about it as they walk to ease her mind. As his ankles swell, he feels some yearning for that tiny room’s magic, but at the same time he knows he’d rarely use it. He treasures this role he has in the last moments of the living, walking with them a while at the end of the road.
Rain falls through the wide, open panorama of the sixteenth floor, slicking the jaw of broken glass along the edge. Awl leads Scythe’s limping and aching form to the bed positioned in the center of the room. He stares out for a long time to ensure he sees no dark, metallic wings.
“Comfortable?” he asks her. The bed is a fragile and dirt-brown plastic, some lawn furniture dragged up here ages ago. He adjusts it so she can better see the view: the melted-candle silhouettes of the buildings nearby, the serrated hills, even the tar-black sea.
“Comfortable enough,” she sighs. They both know she won’t be up here for long. “I heard that woman stomping down the stairs earlier. Bad news?”
“A disagreement. She wants her wife’s skull.” Awl carefully watches for a change in expression at the pronouns. “But so does her father.”
“And the Evangels will grumble if you recognize a heathen marriage.” Scythe grins. A Rectifier herself, a lapsed zealot, or just too close to death to care?
“It’s not grumbling I’m worried about,” Awl says. He’s only just recently emptied the roof of the destruction wrought by the last round of violence. He shivers at the memory of the Birds in their frenzy.
“I think you overestimate your importance,” Scythe says with a laugh. She reaches out to squeeze Awl’s hand—he doesn’t recoil from those who take hospice, and that’s why so many come to him. “We’re all just bones, in the end. No one can tell the difference. You can toss mine off the side of the Tower. The world is dying, just like us. Does it matter?”
Awl could tell the difference, but he took her point. He wants to stay with her, to keep his eye on the horizon for talons and beaks. But there is a thundering far below, the calling bell that hammers for Awl to come outside.
“A gentleman caller? At this hour?” Awl says to Scythe, trying to make her smile. He doesn’t laugh as he rushes down the many stairs. This much noise, so close to nightfall? The clamour would summon more than Awl.
Awl emerges from the wide entryway of the building and takes in the visitor, who is tall and powerful, unbent by his age. The visitor prowls as he waits, his steps heralded by clattering—the call of his many bone gifts. Awl realizes that this man doesn’t fear what else he might be conjuring from the woods.
“I know that Scaif has already come to plead.” The man stretches his arms wide in the gathering brownish-black haze of late evening. “But our ways are sacred, and they must be maintained.”
“Of course,” Awl says. “The literature suggests that you may have Halligan’s shoulder bones, or most of her spine.”
“She was my heir,” he says. “I will receive her skull.” He speaks with finality, a sense that his will is identical to that of his people, or the laws of nature.
“Well, her wife united blood when they wed,” Awl attempts. It is mostly to gauge the reaction, and Billhook glowers in a way that makes his beliefs clear. “The judgement is not as simple as you put it. There are precedents.”
Billhook moves quickly. He leaps over the warding stones, advancing on Awl and slamming one scarred forearm against his neck to pin Awl against the base of The Tower. Awl can feel his ragged beard; can smell his stale breath. The sacred matters to him only so long as it conforms to his desires.
“Precedents? What use is two anchors without a screw?” He glances up and down at Awl. “Or two screws with no anchor? If the old ways don’t matter, why do our people feed you, vulture?” He increases the pressure and Awl cannot breathe, dark spots fluttering in his vision. Awl fumbles through his pockets for something, anything sharp. “Why don’t we toss you to the beasts and let the diseased rot alone?”
They can both hear the howls in the distance, the sound of paws creeping along the gravel.
“You would start the war again,” Awl grits. Was it war with so few people left to murder each other? At last, at last he finds his paring knife, curved and angry, and he brings it to the man’s throat. “You only value your pride.”
“Some life!” Billhook sneers. He forces the blade free from Awl’s hand, and brings it to the ground. “Next it will be in your ribs. I will have my daughter’s skull at first light.”
He lopes away, immediately subsumed in the thick gauzy grasp of night. Awl would watch him leave, but he thinks he can already see the glimmer of eyes in the dark. And where there are eyes, there are teeth.
Fifteen stories above, he sits to rest his weary muscles. He sees that Scythe has taken her last breath, and after resting he hooks his arms under her shoulders and drags her corpse the short path to the roof.
He knows that people think this must be an abattoir, that Awl is untouchable because he is oft drenched in death. But the peak of the Tower is quite beautiful.
There is a shrine at the center, where Awl lights a fire and says the prayers. The bodies are laid on small altars—overturned filing cabinets and rusting desks that Awl garlands with flowers and long grass. It is never gruesome or repulsive. Awl brings people to the top of the Tower, and the Birds divide their flesh into soul and bone.
He lays Scythe along the east side, remembering her as an early riser, ensuring that she sees one last sunrise. He collects Scythe’s few remaining clothes, and fills her hands with mint and coriander to pay for her passage beyond. When he had told Scythe about this ritual, she laughed, asking if he always seasoned the dead to taste.
Halligan’s few mementos are to the north end of the building: her skull remains impeccable, as do her metacarpals and pelvis. He gathers what is left, and after a few moments, her altar is clean enough for the next.
He wants to dally, to sit and ask the venomous night clouds above for Halligan’s wishes. Awl remembers being a younger man, apprenticing with wiry, raven-haired Gimlet. How Gimlet had once gathered up two tibias in scraps of fox leather, made his way down all of those stairs, and spirited the remains over the warding stones to a grieving drifter in the brown-grey twilight. He had made Awl watch the woman advance into the night, heaving with her sorrow, clutching the bones to her sallow chest. Their work, he told him, was never as impersonal as they pretended. They made hard decisions while appearing to never decide at all.
Fresh meat attracts attention. He can already hear heavy wings, the predatory metal shriek. Most of the Birds know better than to attack their reliable source of carrion. But they have learned speech, and they taunt Awl if he lingers during their meal, telling him things he shouldn’t know.
“Look delicious,” something hisses from the waist-high barrier around the roof. Awl turns to look, to take in the half-natural beast, which is already poking at Scythe with its slick-sickle beak. The Bird looks back at him coyly, as though inviting him to dine together.
“You’re no fun,” the Bird mewls through an already full beak. “I miss the old one.”
“Me too,” Awl says.
Awl descends the stairs to his quarters, tucked into the honeymoon floor far from hungry ground and toxic sky. There is an empty cot right next to his, and Awl remembers its glacial drift closer over the first years of his life in The Tower. How he and Gimlet would slide the beds back apart if a member of the religious hierarchy paid visit. And before the wasting took him, how Gimlet told Awl he cou
ld have whichever bequeathal he wanted. How Awl had taken none, scared he would be unable to explain why a holy man kept any bone gifts for himself.
In his dreams, Awl sees visions of the times ahead. Are the days few enough now to count? For his people, or for the Earth upon which they toil? And if the Birds’ taunts are true, what does his choice matter?
In his old age, Awl rises with the sun, though he notices that it seems to come later each day. He stretches in the opalescent light, tasting the air to decide on his pollution mask. Looking down through his intact window, he sees that Billhook has not yet arrived. He has time to make it to the roof and back down.
When Awl trudges through the threshold of the Tower, the man is waiting inside of the warding stones. His left side is soaked in blood, but the source is unclear. He wears no pollution mask, and his rattling breath swells his chest, heaves the bones he wears front and back. His eyes fall to the skull in Awl’s hands.
“You have done the right thing,” Billhook says to him. His smile is bitter—like so many, he will now carry the last of his bloodline with him, his inheritance confined to his grasp.
When Awl offers the skull, he kneels as is traditional, the bone gift rising to its recipient. Billhook is now closer to the diaphanous line between life and death, and he brings the skull close to his face, peering at lacrimal bone like his daughter can return his gaze.
“I will be seeing you soon,” Billhook says over his shoulder. It does not sound like a threat. This man knows that his time with his gifts is short, that this new skull will sit on his breastplate next to another, that the weight of so many dead will soon overwhelm. Awl imagines pulling this man’s probably half-eaten body to the roof, and knows it will not be satisfying. He never feels gratification feeding the Birds, even when people seem to deserve it. There are too few people left.
The rest of Awl’s day is inconsequential. Word spreads to Scaif, and she does not appear to beg for whatever else might remain of her wife. Awl pours angry orange river water over the few plants in the garden, and wonders if he still has enough tablets to clean his supply. His few other charges moan and whimper when he arrives on their floor, and there is one man so mottled that Awl will gather the necessary herbs to send him painlessly to his rest.
