We Lie with Death

by Devin Madson

  Koi had to fall. We had to find the Witchdoctor. I needed to be free.

  The disjointed feeling followed me to the workroom the next day. Saki and the Witchdoctor were already present, while Kocho was settling himself at a bench, quill in hand.

  “Deathwalker Three,” the Witchdoctor said. “Report.”

  I looked from the god-man to Saki perched upon the stool behind him.

  “I’m…” The Witchdoctor’s gaze bore unblinkingly into me. “Sore and tired, but… fine?”

  His eyes narrowed as his gaze shifted about my body, not with the lascivious attitude most men possessed, rather with the cold, dispassionate eye of a doctor. It was a new experience, almost as unusual as being asked how I was.

  “Begin entry. Fourteenth day of the storm season, 1390. Deathwalker Three appears to be in consistent spirits, although fatigued by the exigencies of yesterday’s session. The wound on her calf, inflicted by myself upon the road, looks to be healing well, and now she has improved in her use of the walking sticks, it troubles her less.” As the Witchdoctor spoke, he gestured to the chair I had occupied yesterday.

  I sat, leaning my walking sticks against the arm of the chair. Yesterday had been unpleasant, today would likely be more of the same, but the chance of freedom still felt real, just out of reach.

  “Saki, you will once more attempt to draw the host soul out on its own,” the Witchdoctor went on. “And should that fail a second time, take out both. Attempt to replace them in a different order and see what works and what does not. Kocho, is your line of sight sufficient?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good. Begin.”

  Mistress Saki appeared in front of me, her brows knit in concentration. I flinched at her touch, but as with the day before, nothing happened bar the darkening of her frown. She switched hands, touching my other cheek. Still nothing. Gripping the arms of the chair, I tried to sense what she was doing, but like with Kaysa’s thoughts there was nothing. Then a gentle tug pulled me forward only to let me sink back into the chair, back into a body that had not moved at all.

  The young woman straightened and shook her head. The room was silent but for the scratching of Kocho’s quill.

  “Move on to the second test.”

  “If you’ll allow me a moment, Master, to finish this up.”

  The lack of answer appeared to be a grudging assent, and in the moment of peace afforded, I looked toward the window. Sunlight streamed in, sending shafts of gold across the closest workbench. The shutter was open a crack, and outside, birds chirped far more merrily than the situation warranted. Nature had never held much appeal for me, but I yearned for the touch of that sunshine, and the feeling of being disjointed increased. I ought to run, to leave, to get out of this place before it was too late, and yet…

  Freedom.

  “Ready, Master.”

  Again Mistress Saki crouched before me, touching her cool hand to my cheek, and again I was tugged forward, but this time I was pulled all the way, carried, weightless to the warm, hazy darkness of Saki’s head. Above, the great machine of her mind worked on, while through her eyes I could see myself. My mouth opened to speak, but as Saki reached out a second time my body slumped in its chair.

  How crowded it is getting in here, the host voice said. Welcome to the body of Saki Laroth.

  Kaysa was with us, but she made no reply, just hid in the shadows around my stifled awareness.

  Without a body time meant little and I don’t know how long I hung there, neither part of Saki nor of myself, just a collection of floating thoughts and memories. She returned me to my body long enough for me to revel in the renewed solidity, only to yank me free again, in and out, juggling us like an entertainer. She must have stopped every now and then for she wrote, dipping her quill to scribble at a furious rate. When the Witchdoctor spoke he sounded distant, but his words were no less precise for arriving in my mind via someone else’s ears. And after he spoke, she would write again, on and on until the chill air of the workroom lapped at my skin and I sat upon the hard chair, all aches and fatigue, as Kocho said, “Lechati is bringing the bodies now, Master.”

  “Good.” The Witchdoctor stood before me. “Deathwalker Three,” he said. “You have one soul that is easy to remove and one that is not. I wish to determine the reason for this. When you split is it always the same soul that takes over the dead body and the same soul that remains behind?”

  The word yes formed upon my lips only to be ambushed by doubt. I could remember seeing Jonus shout to the Kisians as clearly as I could remember shouting the words myself. His arms had resisted at first when I tried to spread them, as though the muscles had thought themselves no longer needed.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  A frown marred the Witchdoctor’s perfect brow. “I fail to understand how you cannot know. You, the soul to which I am speaking at this moment, have you ever walked in the skin of the dead before now?”

  Again I wanted to say I had not, but doubt clouded everything. “I don’t know,” I said. “I… remember doing so, but I also remember not doing so.”

  The Witchdoctor straightened and met Saki’s gaze over my shoulder. Then, turning, he addressed Kocho. “Make an additional note,” he said. “To design a series of tests by which I might determine the degree to which the souls inside a Deathwalker meld and share their experiences. It did not appear to be the case with either Deathwalker One or Two, but three subjects are not a sufficient sample from which to draw conclusions.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Saki,” the Witchdoctor went on. “For now we must be satisfied with testing to see if either soul takes inside a corpse if both have been removed.”

  She must have nodded or bowed for the Witchdoctor strode away, the snap of his sandals upon the floor as precise as his words.

  As with the day before, Lechati brought in two bodies and the dance began again. At any given moment I knew where I was, whether in my own skin or the dead flesh, but the movements between them blurred and the workshop spun. On and on until the Witchdoctor called a halt and I sat licking ashen lips with a dry tongue.

  “Then neither takes,” the Witchdoctor said, pacing now with a furious gait. “That is… unexpected. I see no reason why you would not be able to move the soul of a Deathwalker from its host and set it inside a corpse, since, unlike the souls of Normals, it is a journey they are well used to. What,” he seemed to demand of the world at large, “is the difference between the method you use to remove souls from their bodies and the method a Deathwalker uses?”

  Silence met this question. He stopped pacing. “I need to consider what we have learned. The session is over. Have Lechati take the bodies away.”

  The Witchdoctor strode from the room, passing the dark-skinned young man in the doorway. Lechati gazed after his master before looking a question at Kocho, who had dropped his quill and was now rubbing his wrists. “Not good?” he asked.

  “No answers, more questions.”

  “Ah.” The young man seemed to chew on his next words, his look wary enough that after a few moments Kocho stopped rubbing.

  “What is it?”

  Lechati cleared his throat. “I… I picked up some news when I was in town.”

  “Bad news?”

  “I suppose that depends on your point of view.” He fiddled with the hem of his tunic. “We can always leave, so it doesn’t matter to us who rules Kisia, but the empress…”

  Kocho sighed. “Spit it out for those hard of hearing, boy.”

  “Mei’lian,” he said, “was taken by the Chiltaens, who in turn seem to have been slaughtered by the Levanti, and one of them has proclaimed himself the new emperor of Kisia. I… I heard too that it wasn’t Emperor Kin who led the Kisian army into battle. It was Empress Miko, Her Majesty’s daughter.”

  “Her Majesty will be glad to hear she’s alive.”

  Lechati pursed his lips. “I’m not sure she is since she lost, that’s why I haven’t told Her Majesty yet
.”

  Silence filled the room, and despite the fatigue that bent my spine, something of the empress’s impending suffering bit through my selfish fog.

  “Tell her,” Kocho said. “Better to hear it now than later.”

  “But the master said we ought to do our best not to upset her, as it could affect her condition.”

  “Then don’t tell the master. The empress has a right to know.”

  Lechati parted his lips to argue, but Kocho broke in, saying, “Damn it, this is her daughter we’re talking about, boy. Wouldn’t you want to know if it was you?”

  The young man nodded and looked to Saki. “Mistress?”

  She gave a single, sharp nod and turned away to continue tidying her work. Lechati hesitated, rocking on his heels in the doorway before finally departing along the passage. A moment later Kocho’s voice shocked me from my stupor. “You can go rest now. He won’t ask for you again until morning. Perhaps longer. The master is unpredictable when he gets in these moods. Once he was gone for half a year.” Kocho laughed, but I disliked the prospect of waiting so long. So it was in a despondent mood that I hauled my aching body out of the chair, took up my sticks, and shuffled, like a broken old woman, out into the dark maze that was, for now, my home.

  I considered running. I considered it seriously enough to walk a lap of the house noting its exits, from holes in walls to doors and courtyards, some locked, others sitting open goading me to attempt escape. I kept my eyes open for a weapon, just in case, but all I found was a collection of decorative clubs and two barbed sickles tucked away in a gallery off the Wisteria Court. I eyed the pair of sickles, but they were too big to carry concealed.

  With the onset of evening I returned to my room and sat on the matting, listening to the seemingly endless patter of the rain falling upon the roof. The Kisian storm season really was as bad as people said, and for the first time, thinking about their adapted architecture and clothing, something like admiration stirred. These people dealt with yearly rains of this magnitude, with flooding rivers and thick drifts of snow, and yet they still functioned as well as Chiltae. I wondered whether the Chiltaens who had once lived here had done as well.

  The light steadily faded, and as the room filled with shadows, someone knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” I said, reaching for a dagger that wasn’t there.

  “Kocho,” came his muffled voice. “I have food.”

  “Oh, come in.”

  The door slid and Kocho, awkwardly manoeuvring through the narrow space he had made, sidestepped into the room. “You’re sitting in the dark?” he said, sliding the door closed with one foot.

  “It wasn’t dark when I sat down.”

  The old man set the tray upon the matting with a tinkle and clink of ceramic. I could not see what was on it, but a delicious waft of warm food made its way to my nose. My stomach grumbled.

  After some fumbling around in his serviceable brown sash, Kocho lit a length of tinder and moved around the room lighting the lanterns. He’d brought rice and fish, some green vegetable or other, and a stewed peach. A teapot sat to one side of the tray spewing its steam in dainty curls, and my dawning respect and appreciation for the Kisian way of life grew a little more.

  “How is Empress Hana?” I said when Kocho showed no sign of departing.

  The man grimaced and clicked his tongue. “Not good. She took the news about her daughter pretty hard.”

  “You sound surprised. That’s both her children dead now.” I waved my hand through the steam, not wanting to look up.

  “Yes, I know,” Kocho said. “But it’s not just grief, it’s… well, she blames herself. There is a lot for her to regret.”

  With nothing to say, I waited for him to leave, but the moments passed and Kocho made no step toward the door. The silence grew deeper and more awkward, and I was about to tell him to go when he said, “You have a lot of questions. Shall I stay and keep you company for a while?”

  And before I could refuse, I had accepted—for the answers, not the companionship.

  Kocho grunted as he knelt on the other side of the tray, all stiff joints and clicking knees. I had no table, but he settled himself as though I did and began serving the tea. There were two cups, I noted, and gave him a shrewd look. “Planning to stay all along, I see.”

  “Yes, well, you’re a tough bird, but none of the master’s subjects gets through this without a struggle. No one grows up understanding it. He always says that’s the problem. No one comes here knowing the soul is anything more than an idea perpetuated by their religion. Perhaps if they knew it was not only their religion but every religion, they might realise it has to be more than just an idea to have spread so widely.”

  He poured as he spoke, but the liquid spilling from the pot was darker than tea. I pointed at the brew sparkling in the bowl. “What’s that?”

  “Roasted tea,” he said, and waggled his eyebrows. “It’s a delicacy and worth a damn fortune so don’t wrinkle your nose like that until you’ve tried it. I found a stash of it here when we first arrived and have been waiting for a good time to use it.”

  I snorted. “You chose poorly.”

  “No, I didn’t.” He took up his bowl and shifted position, settling with his back against the wall and his bowl on his paunch. “Usually I don’t bring food trays, you know. I’ve been with the master too long for things like that and I’m too old to be running up and down stairs. But no one wanted to bring yours so they asked me.”

  I looked down at the food, tensing in anger. Did he think I cared what they thought of me?

  “Because, you see,” he went on, “while you were born with two souls in one skin, I was born able to read the thoughts people don’t speak. I can see the Cassandra everyone else sees, but I can also hear the Cassandra no one else knows.”

  He smiled, all his wrinkles crinkling as I glared at him. “You can read my mind.”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” I said despite all the times I had been sure he was doing it.

  “More or less ridiculous than being able to reanimate the dead with a second soul who shares your body?”

  I left a beat of silence rather than admit his point. “Prove it.”

  “All right. Think of a word. Or a number. Or a poem. Anything.”

  “Fine. What am I thinking about?”

  A little notch appeared between his brows. “A crass limerick about bumblebees. Or the number eight. It’s a little more complicated with two souls but based on personality I think I can guess which was yours.”

  Mine had been the number, but the vague warmth of amusement radiating from Her meant he had gotten both right. I stared at the old man as he took a sip of tea and let out a sigh. “You should try it while it’s warm,” he said. “It’s good.”

  I didn’t touch my bowl. Nor had I touched the food. “How do you do it?”

  “See your thoughts? I don’t know. I’ve spent my whole life finding ways not to and taking care no one found out I could. It scares people.”

  “But… how? Why?” I said, all the questions that had been burning inside me emerging in a rush. “Why can you do that? Why do I have two souls? I can’t believe I’m even saying that. What is a soul?”

  “A soul is you. Your whole personality and experience and life essence. Everything that isn’t physical that you think of as yourself. That is your soul. That’s why even when Saki removes you from your body you still feel like yourself, just in a different place with a different skin. Your body is a shell, let’s say, a physical construct you need to interact with the physical world. Without it you would be unanchored and would dissipate.”

  “To nothing? Is that what happens when we die?”

  “Yes, but when a soul is freed, it is reincarnated.”

  The food was going cold, but in that flickering, golden space I felt no hunger while his voice held answers.

  “Seven reincarnations,” Kocho said, after another sip of tea. “Each time growi
ng more… wise, more…” He waved a hand. “Self-aware. Oh, not of their previous incarnations, most people don’t remember one to the next, but I imagine you’ve met the sort of simple, uncomplicated people who are first incarnations.”

  I could certainly have named a few, and one I’d seen reincarnate with his memory intact. Leo had not even seemed confused when he’d taken his own severed head from my hands.

  “But we were all that soul once. Everyone starts there. And it’s meant to end at seven. The master says after the seventh incarnation most souls don’t come back, but… some do. And they’re different.” Balancing his half-drunk bowl of tea upon his gut, Kocho pulled up his sleeve just as he had back in the cart, displaying a birthmark like a winding snake. “I am an Overincarnation. To be precise, according to the master, I am the tenth incarnation of a soul only meant to be returned seven times. A Thought Thief.”

  Kocho let the sleeve fall and steadied his cup.

  “All tenth souls are like me, some stronger or weaker in their ability, but all Thought Thieves. Eighth incarnations are Prescients. Nines are Empaths. Tens are—” He indicated himself. “Elevens are Ghost Hands. Twelve, Time Burners. Thirteen—”

  “Are Deathwalkers?”

  “Oh no.” Again he gestured to the mark on the inside of his wrist. “You don’t have one of these. You’re not an Overincarnation like me. You’re different again.”

  “How? Tell me.”

  Kocho’s brows lifted. “But you already know. You are two souls born into one body. An anomaly as unusual as any Overincarnation. Two Normals, each of you somewhere between your first and your seventh incarnation, accidentally dropped into one body instead of two. There are people who are the opposite, you know, one soul born into two bodies. They are able to share their thoughts over great distances and are… less when they are apart than when together. You can see why the master studies this. Why he studies us. It’s fascinating. And so few people understand it or even know there is something to be understood.”