The blood never had the time to make a pool. Instead, it jutted away from the form in radial streaks, racing from the floor to wall to ceiling, flecks spotting every exposed surface. The form at the center growled once more, raising an enormous fist upward before smashing it down to the stone, the impact shaking the building so hard the walls cracked. It resonated in Draysky’s skull, his jawbone jerking to the side as if physically struck by a fist, and he shouted as he stumbled backward, leaving trails of blood from his toes. The creature paused, fist still in the indentation, its neck rattling like chains as it turned to gaze upon Draysky.
Then it stood.
If what was crouching was too large to be a man, what was standing was too large to be a bear. Its joints grated as it unfolded, head crunching against the roofing, splitting the thatching to knock snow in between the gaps. Stone constituted its arms, long slate with jagged edges, forming a serrated line that ended in sharpened claws. Instead of a chest there was a tapered boulder, dark seams exposing themselves at every expanding breath. Rows of pebbles replaced teeth as it opened its mouth, the rocks seeming to travel the entire way back into its throat. Its eyes were pitch black darkness, their edges crystal, shining with the fury of the roar that escaped its throat.
A roar that was anguish personified—anger twisted with sorrow, a blast of misery so strong it ripped at Draysky’s very soul. In that moment, as he stared down the maw of the beast, the hundreds of teeth grating in and out of its throat, Draysky seemed to sink into the stone of the floor. As if a mound of boulders were atop him, pressing down upon his shoulders with heat and mass, forcing him to stagger down onto one knee. From that vantage point, he jerked his head upward, recognizing the shape of something else in the swirling dust. Something irrational, that shouldn’t have been there, that didn’t belong to his reality but defied it anyway. Like a mountaintop without a slope, hanging impossibly in the air.
The upper quarter of his mother’s body, split away at the shoulder. Her eyes stared lifeless, her hair caked with blood, a gash so deep across her cheek it showed bone. And thoroughly, utterly, lifeless.
Despite the pressure upon him, and the second roar that crashed into him harder than any the Grinder could produce, Draysky screamed back in response. His hand flew to his new pickaxe, and he leapt upward against the mountainous pressure, swinging the metal head with all his might, utilizing every muscle from the long climbs up the mountain carrying double water and his days digging through shale. The head struck home, the tip snapping off as it cracked a fragment from the beast’s chest, sparks flying from the impact.
On any other beast, that blow would have killed it.
This was like chipping a tooth.
So minimal that Draysky should have been struck down where he stood, but with a final howl, the beast turned, crashing away from him—not through the door, but rather the wall, the shale exploding outward, the roof collapsing as it barreled into the snow.
Dust settled around Draysky, now standing in the open, a roof no longer above him and the walls about him collapsed. With the blood of his mother at his feet. His father’s pickaxe in the corner, snapped in half along the shaft, his clothes shredded and bloodied. The other remains looking as if they had not come from people, but from a butcher’s shop.
The upper half of his mother’s corpse slung along the back of the ritebald, her expression blank as the beast turned for one final roar, then loped away into a darkness accented by dust.
Chapter 18: Lucille
Lucille looked over the paperwork, casting a suspicious eye toward the shifting young lightbearer, only two years older than herself. The contents of his pack were open upon her table, a solid sheet of pure obsidian, emphasizing any pinpricks of light by design. There was the standard traveling gear: coiled rope, waterskins, dried meat with cheese, knives, and flint among other objects. Then there was the lightbearer gear: a hammer and chisel, tongs, and dowsing rod. All poorly made, in her regard. The metal of the tools was slightly rusted, and most were without any form of runic inscriptions. Even the runes that were present were from only the lowest of heavens. But when a lightbearer still used waterskins, and didn’t even travel with bubbles, she supposed she should expect no less. After all, from his looks, it was unlikely he even traveled near Heaven Two.
“Registration?” Lucille asked, sifting through his belongings, separating out a pouch that glowed through the fabric as if holding flickering candle flames within. As the young man dug through his pockets, Lucille continued poking through the items, opening up the water flask to ensure no lights sparkled inside and sliding his dagger all the way into the hilt to check there were no hidden compartments. She frowned, looking back over the paperwork as she opened the glowing pouch and spilled its contents on the table. For one week in Heaven One, that was a lousy sum, even for a man who had never touched Heaven Two. He should have been able to gather that in a few measly hours, not days.
The lightbearer handed over his card, and Lucille felt along its backing, sensing the runes painted there with her fingertips. Third level runes. Not too difficult to counterfeit, but certainly beyond this man’s skill and far more expensive than simply obtaining a registration for Heaven One through the Keepers. Besides, making a counterfeit just to get into Heaven One would be for little reward. The card bore the seal of the third Lock, authenticating it, and Lucille held it out in front of her as she studied the tariff rate printed by her hand. Forty percent, standard for most lightbearers, but when Lucille caught the young man’s eye, she noticed something. A slight shifting, a breaking of eye contact with her just a moment too soon to look back from where he had come, the gate of Heaven One.
Two enormous doors spanned from floor to ceiling, at least three times as tall as Lucille herself, a thin golden nexus of light fizzling around the edge. The material of the door matched that of the table, so dark they seemed to absorb that light, with red shapes carved into the rock. They burned, cut deep enough that they could pass for rivers of magma, a massive rune on each side of the doors, imbuing them with bind.
Through the frame, the details of the entrance to Heaven One leapt out at her—not because of anything abnormal, but because of their color. Staring into Heaven One brought a crispness as if all her life, Lucille had only known watered down sensations. The colors seemed to clamber over one another to enter her eyes, pulling at her attention, sharing a vibrancy found in few places on earth.
The entryway of Heaven One was pleasant, even docile. Soft sounds floated through, nothing like the feral cries of higher level heavens, but rather the music of songbirds and the chirping of crickets. A waterfall crashed in the distance, throwing up enough mist to form a small cloud, and a thin forest surrounded a small village. A village that looked more like someone had picked up a castle, shaken up the buildings, dipped them in gaudy paint, and rolled them like dice back to the ground. Pastel towers stuck out at haphazard angles, criss-crossing over the top of low lying buildings, rope bridges strewn with banners and streamers running to and from rooftops.
A row of flowers filled the meadow beyond the village, spelling out its name with petals that seemed too bright to be real, as if they produced their own source of light. Downeytown.
Lucille blinked as her memories started flowing down to her first days in Heaven One, turning her attention back to the lightbearer before they could take hold. Those were thoughts she preferred to avoid; thoughts that caused her to look at the mountains and forests beyond Downeytown rather than at the village itself.
“And what was your business inside?” Lucille asked the lightbearer, squinting as she looked him over.
“What’s it look like, beautiful?” he smiled, revealing the gold tooth that took the place of one of his canines. If he died in Heaven One, the metal would pay for his return back to earth- of course, whoever found his body could steal it, but lightbearers were a superstitious lot. Lifting a burial tooth off a body was considered one of the worst forms of luck, inviting curses from thei
r spirit to follow the perpetrator for years. And in their profession, Lucille couldn’t blame them for not spitting in the face of fate.
“You’re telling me that you spent one week in there, and all you have to show for it is six lousy kernels?”
“Picked cleaner than a lover’s flower. Bad luck this go-around, nothing to be found.”
“That’s less than one kernel a day! These aren’t even good quality. I could fall asleep in there and wake up with these in my hand!”
“Which is why you are a Keeper, and I, a lowly lightbearer,” he dropped into a mocking bow, swooping his hand across his midsection, but again something seemed off. Even for mockery, it was too grandiose, too bold, and it cut away too quickly. A distraction from what was really important—the kernels he offered.
“Keepers’ fee would be forty percent of them.” Lucille pulled two Kernels toward her on the obsidian tabletop, feeling their steady burn beneath her fingertips. Two pinpricks of warmth, so small they were almost imperceptible, and would break under all but the lightest of rune castings. She watched his face carefully as she dropped them into a small pouch, writing his name and registration number on the outside with charcoal.
Typically, in a yield that low, a Keeper wouldn't even bother extracting his share. And the lightbearer would be livid—that was two days of his work, fruitless though it had been. Already he would be swimming in losses even without the Keeper’s tax. But instead, the lightbearer smiled, sweeping the other kernels back into their original pouch. Something was definitely wrong.
“Keeper’s cut, of course! I am a patriot, you know, and we pay for the protection,” he said.
“Good thing, too,” Lucille responded, watching him. “It’s those smugglers that I have to be watchful for. Seems as if they are becoming more and more common these days.”
“Those dirty, dirty smugglers! Hate the lot of them, giving us lightbearers a bad name and all!”
“So true, so true,” said Lucille, starting to gather the belongings on the table and slowly put them back into the pack. Her eyes traveled over him as she did so, waiting for a telltale sign. Something, anything.
“No layer is fully insulated,” said a familiar voice in her head. “All parts are a piece of the whole.”
Her hand gripped the waterskin just a tad too tight, squeezing so the side bulged, then looked back toward him. Nothing.
Placing it into the bag, her hand then drifted toward the block of cheese. Hollowed out and melted back together, there could be a small compartment within. But the lightbearer held her gaze, and her hand changed direction, darting to the sheathed knife and seizing it by the rough wooden handle. Then she slid the blade out, holding the cheap leather sheath upside down, and concealing her disappointment when nothing poured out.
“And if I were to find one of these smugglers, what would you suggest I do to them?”
Lucille ran her finger down the blade’s edge, then tried to bend the metal. Authentic, not simply something painted over or silvered.
“Why, I’d have you punish them to the highest degree! Someone who dare betray the Keepers like that would be dastardly. Barely fit to live.”
“Barely fit to live indeed,” murmured Lucille, dropping the dagger back to the table with a clatter. Then she moved her hand past the coiled rope toward the mound of coins, all small denominations, barely enough to buy a dinner when all put together. And for an instant, a fluttering of a moment, she saw it—a shade of darkness passing through his expression, replaced immediately by faux eagerness. She inspected the coins, dropping one on the table and listening to the familiar clink it made, scratching another with her fingernail to make sure that nothing came off. But they seemed ordinary: too thin to hide anything of real value, and nothing to alert her of anything within. Cool to touch, unbendable, unbreakable at least by him. Had she imagined her suspicion?
She frowned, withdrawing her hand, when she saw that flicker again. No, she hadn’t mistaken it. She froze, eyes darting to the table. Not the coins, not the dagger. Instead, her hand was now next to the coiled rope. And when she seized it, the dismay across the lightbearer’s face was no mere flicker.
She uncoiled it, and it dangled downward—extremely short, she now noticed, for the thickness of it. It was perhaps only ten feet long, but it was thicker than her thumb. It would be nearly useless for a traveler. It wasn’t the thin cord that most would carry, and on closer inspection, the shoddy craftsmanship was evident. The braid gnarled in places and snagged upon itself, varying the rope’s thickness along its length. Running her fingers along it, she suppressed a smile as she felt what she had mistaken for poor weaving. There were lumps under the fiber. Hard lumps that sang out to her as her fingers passed over them.
Kernels.
“I am pleased to say that I agree with you, lightbearer,” said Lucille as she coiled the rope once more. At least sixty additional kernels would be hidden in there. Not a fortune by any means, but a significant bonus to his pay if he could avoid the Keeper’s cut. “I do believe that smugglers should be punished harshly. Unfortunately, the law only allows me to do so much, particularly since this is only Heaven One. An afterthought to the litigators, a footnote if you will.”
“No!” protested the lightbearer. “You don’t understand, I had to. I’m in debt, I didn’t have a choice. And there’s no way I’ll be able to afford another card!”
“You always have a choice. Go sell your tooth.” Lucille had already drawn the rune on the coated surface of the registration card with her fingernail, as one of the kernels hidden within the rope winked out. The rune of severance finished, a thin line appeared down the paper, a discoloration as the pulp embrittled, then shattered down the center. Two pieces fell to the floor at the lightbearer’s feet. Two pieces that, thanks to severance, would never be joined again by simple means such as glue or tape.
“You bitch,” hissed the lightbearer as Lucille pushed the contents of his pack back toward him, including the low amount of kernels he originally would have kept had she missed the rope. “You’ve ruined me.”
“You’ve ruined yourself.” The pack fell from the table, joining the card at his feet, the belongings thudding upon it. “If you want to see me truly ruin you, I encourage you to stick around. Petty smuggling, I can dissuade lightly. But an affront on a Keeper, verbal or otherwise, is an attack. Self defense laws would then be in full effect and I would be under no obligation to restrain myself. Am I clear?”
The lightbearer left without another word, leaving his broken registration card under her table. Lucille picked it up, opening a small wooden box behind her and adding it to the pile within. Thirty two, by her count, all within the last three months. Averaging one every three days. The previous first Lock had only caught nine during a full year, and word had spread quickly among the thieves that the guard had a blind eye. Apparently, word of Lucille’s transition had not made its way completely through the streets just yet.
At the rate she was catching smugglers, by the time her reputation was known, she’d be guarding Heaven Two.
But the smile faded from her face as Downeytown caught her eye once more, and she remembered it had not always been this way.
Chapter 19: Lucille
“There are other respectable paths of life besides being a Keeper. There’s the order, of course. Where would we be without our spiritual leaders? Or perhaps a merchant, or an ambassador to the other cities? To be a Keeper is not everything.”
Lucille’s mother stared from the other end of the table, her hands clasped together, her posture immaculate. Not a muscle of hers moved, but a pressure exuded from her—a pressure that bore down on the two others in the room. It was the discomfort of a room turned too stuffy, or a few extra degrees of temperature beyond typical. But to the far older woman’s credit, she met her mother’s gaze unflinchingly, while the young girl between them stared down at the table, pretending to study the grooves in the wood.
Lucille’s mother outranked the oth
er woman by a gulf as tall as the Tower itself, and every aspect of her demeanor reflected it. There was the lock that glittered above her heart where the other woman wore a pale stone circlet, her hair that fell in perfect order across her shoulders as if each strand a subordinate, and two kernels burning a cool blue studded in each ear. The other woman’s hair was the unkempt of someone who had the time but not the attention for it, the silvered curls cut to just past her earlobes, disobediently fighting for real estate in the tangle above her eyes. She wore no jewelry, and wore a dress that was simple, but clean. Something that looked as if it could have been found in a stall on the lower streets. She held the demeanor of someone who recognized the danger before her, but did not care, like an onlooker staring down into a pool full of sharks with no intent of stepping near, as the pressure from Lucille’s mother slid off her like oil on water.
“The order? No daughter of mine is spending her life tucked away in some monastery repeating gibberish until the end of her years. The merchants?” Lucille’s mother’s face wrinkled, as if she were looking down on a roach on her bedroom floor. She released a disdainful laugh, turning her head in disbelief. “The merchants? Do you know who I am? Who she is?”
“But of course,” the crone answered. “Who does not? These eyes may be old, but they are not blind. The name predates even my own ears, which were hard of hearing even as you rocked in the cradle. Yes, the Skimmers. I could never forget that.”
“Your memory stretches too far. That is no longer our name.”
“No longer your name?” The crone chuckled. “Names are not something to be cast off like clothes, child. No, no, they are your blood.”
Lucille’s mother’s mouth tightened, the kernels in her ears flared in line with her nostrils as her hands clasped together tighter. The pressure in the room increased, but the crone stared back as if she were oblivious, even as Lucille shifted in her seat and bit her lip. Her finger now traced the grooves in the tabletop, moving backward and forward across each three times before switching, holding her breath until her cuticle reached the end of each.
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