Killer of Enemies

by Joseph Bruchac

  Templeton steps forward as the Dreamer pirouettes back to his perch.

  “We have a verdict,” Templeton proclaims. “The Accused has been found to be . . .” He looks back at the Dreamer, who makes a sort of shooing gesture with one hand for the bailiff to get on with it. “The Accused has been found to be, ah, accidentally guilty. Our benevolent Ones are sure that he will not make this mistake again. They also have noted that he is valued in his role as our chief agriculturalist.” Templeton gestures in the direction of the gardens. “Therefore, a degree of mercy shall be shown.”

  Does that mean he’s not going to have anything done to him?

  But Templeton’s pause was only for effect. He lifts his hand and then drops it, palm down. “However,” he continues, “to be sure that our singer here does not forget, there must still be some punishment. His sentence is a day of solitary confinement . . .”

  Templeton pauses, just long enough for my heart to leap in hope. But he’s not done.

  “And this,” he adds.

  Templeton gestures at the guards. They march Hussein over to the table where Krensaw waits, holding the heavy knife over his head to display the instrument of justice to the crowd.

  “One joint of the little finger,” the bailiff says. The tone of his voice is such that you’d think he was announcing the winner of a prize. “Right hand.”

  Just one joint of one finger. One of those long fingers that caress the strings as gently, as lovingly, as a mother brushing back a lock of hair from her child’s face.

  No.

  I have to watch. Everyone has to watch. I have to remain impassive even when his eyes finally do catch mine for a moment and he shakes his head as if to say he understands.

  The two guards march Hussein forward. They position his right hand on the stained wooden block. He doesn’t resist. Somehow he is calm in spite of what is about to happen. Calmer than I am. I want to scream!

  He’s looking down at his hand, the hand that is about to suffer an amputation. Is he thinking that it might have been worse? Is he thinking anything at all right now?

  He’s right over our heads where we’ve been pressed in against the stage by the crowd that has pushed forward to see. I want to run away. I can’t. I pull my little brother and sister close to me.

  The Dispenser steps forward, the heavy knife in his right hand. He positions it carefully, resting the tip of the big blade above the end of Hussein’s little finger. The blade glistens as its shadow draws a line across finger splayed beneath it.

  CHUNK!

  And just like that the last joint of his little finger is removed as easily as a cook might cut one of the carrots that Hussein tends with such care in the garden.

  But carrots don’t bleed. The quick spurt of blood that sprays from his finger strikes my forehead.

  Hussein does not scream in pain. Nor do I move or make a sound other than a quick drawing in of my breath, as his blood trickles down my cheek.

  The Dispenser is holding up Hussein’s hand now. He reaches back, grasps the wooden handle of the iron that has been heating in the nearby fire, lifts the white-hot poker.

  SSST.

  The bleeding end of the second joint of Hussein’s little finger is cauterized by the searing hot iron, the flow of vital fluid stemmed, the chance of infection lessened. But the damage still done.

  As everyone else is still staring at that smoking cauterizing iron, Hussein catches my eye. Despite the fact that he is bent over in pain, his mouth is shaping words. I’m hearing those words in my mind at the same time he is silently saying them. I’m hearing them without the little stab of pain that has usually come in the past when I’ve listened to the thoughts of another.

  Lozen, I am sorry, he is saying . . . and thinking as he mouths those words.

  No, I think back at him. No, no. Do not be sorry. I am the one who is sorry.

  The look on his face changes to one of confusion. Has he heard my thoughts?

  Lozen, is that you?

  He has.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Am I Human?

  And now what?

  I’m walking around in a daze. Half of me wants to cry and the other half wants to go berserk and start breaking things. But neither of those is possible. I never cry. Never.

  I lean back against the wall by the residency bloc. No one can see me here. I clench and unclench my fists. My body is screaming at me that it wants to take action. But there’s no action I can take. The only target right now that would give me any satisfaction is Diablita Loca. She’s my enemy more than anyone else in Haven, a place full of enemies. But attacking her would be suicide—and would result not just in my own death but that of Mom and Ana and Victor.

  More than ever before I know that we have to escape. But my plan of getting them over the wall, collecting my store of weapons, and avoiding capture is only half-formed. I could get away myself easily, but finding the opportunity to save us all is another thing.

  I hope Hussein is all right. I wish I could talk with him. Feeling the touch of his breathless voice answering mine was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. But it was brief, too brief for more than just that second of mutual recognition. Then he was taken away to his cell.

  I need to calm myself down. I tried to do that by sitting with Mom and Ana and Victor, just chilling with them. No dice. All I did was keep gritting my teeth so much that Mom got all concerned and asked me if there was anything, anything she could do. Of course there wasn’t.

  Maybe if I keep busy.

  I head to the armory. I have a legitimate reason to go there. Whenever I’m not on an assignment, one of my jobs is to help Guy with weapon maintenance. You can’t just leave guns lying around untended—otherwise they rust. They need regular cleaning. I haven’t gone in a while, with my latest missions coming so close to each other.

  The guards at the door nod and step aside. Lucky for them. If they hadn’t moved fast enough I was planning to accidentally catch my foot on something, stumble forward and break one of their noses with a seemingly awkward out-flung elbow. Maybe they read something in my body language because they gave me a much wider berth than usual.

  “Lass,” Guy said as I entered. Then he pointed to the table behind him where the cleaning rods and cloth and cleaning fluids were laid out on the bench. “The .44s today.”

  I nod and step over to the table. Guy usually talks some while I’m with him. But today he seems to sense that I don’t want anything to break my concentration. I disassemble, clean, and put back together the first gun. Then I point it at the wall, where I imagine Diablita Loca standing, thumb back the hammer, and dry-fire it.

  I repeat it with the second gun, the third, the fourth. I’m moving as mechanically as an automaton. No wasted motions, everything done as correctly and emotionlessly as a machine. Except I cannot stop my mind from racing and inside I am as far from emotionless as Earth is from the moon.

  Who am I? I’m thinking. What am I? What real good am I to anyone or anything? All I do is kill things. Well, things with teeth and ravenous appetites and a lust for human flesh, true. So I guess that’s not all bad. But there has got to be more in my life than just blowing holes in hungry horrors.

  What is my purpose in life? What would Dad and Uncle Chatto have done? What would my ancestors have done?

  I finish the job of gun cleaning twice as fast as usual. I wipe my hands and walk out of the armory. This time the guards practically leap out of my way. Lucky for them.

  I’m not sure where I am heading. I’m just walking, the midday sun at my back, my shadow moving ahead of me. Maybe I should go to the gardens. Mom will be there working by now. She and the other garden workers will have much more to do over the next day without Hussein there. A lump forms in my throat as I think of him. I stop halfway past the empty stage. Can I find him again with my mind?

  I stop and look at the empty platform, where I feel someone coming up behind me.

  “You!”

  That
commanding voice doesn’t make me jump. From the place I’m standing in the main courtyard—right where I was when Krensaw’s knife came down—there is still a darkening bloodstain on the wood of the platform below where the chopping table had been placed. Like the streak of dried blood I did not allow Mom to clean off my cheek.

  I turn to see, somewhat to my surprise, that the one who spoke—like the two men accompanying him—is wearing a black armband. The Dreamer’s mark. Strange. It should be red this time. It’s Diablita’s turn to make use of my services, which I suspect will involve setting up a more concerted effort to eliminate me.

  “Come with us.”

  The Dreamer is not in his usual pose, lounging back in that huge easy chair. Instead, he is standing, his back to me, his hands clasped behind him. One of the black curtains just to the left of his lounging place has been pulled aside. And what’s back there is surprising. It’s not torture devices, as has always been rumored, or even antiques. It’s bookshelves.

  “Leave us,” he says in that silky voice of his.

  “Sir?” The guard who commanded me to come with them, nervously shifts the AK-47 he is carrying.

  “Now!”

  The three guards turn as one, go out the door and close it behind them.

  Silence. I stand there not moving. So does the Dreamer. More silence, so much that I am almost tempted to break it by saying something. Almost.

  Then the Dreamer chuckles. “Lozen,” he says, “Lozen, Lozen. Do you know who you were named for?”

  I don’t answer.

  He turns and walks to his bookshelves, begins pointedly running one long finger across the volumes on the top shelf. I can read some their titles from here. Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians, Victorio, Reap the Whirlwind, Warrior Woman. Books about us? Why would the Dreamer . . . ?

  He pirouettes to look at me. “I have always been interested in your people, child. And their psychic abilities. Such as those of your namesake.”

  Are you surprised? he thinks.

  “Yes,” I say, so surprised by that unvoiced question that I speak without thinking. I want to take that “yes” back. But I’ve said it. Maybe he didn’t notice that I answered a question I should not have been able to hear.

  “Ah,” the Dreamer says, his voice still soft.

  And how about this? Do you hate us? Want to escape us? Even kill us?

  Those words are so deliberately thought at me that my legs grow weak and I almost stagger.

  “Yes.”

  Another amused chuckle. “Of course, of course you do. Just as you know more than you show. Is that not so, Lozen?”

  His voice is different than usual. It lacks the usual theatrical affectation that I’ve always heard. It is almost like a normal, human voice.

  “You heard my thoughts on the stand, didn’t you? Just as you heard them now. Don’t say anything if I am right about that. But do answer this. Can you hear my thoughts all of the time?”

  He pauses and waits, keeps waiting. I have a feeling he is ready to stand there for hours if necessary.

  “No.”

  The Dreamer spins around, slaps his hands together and laughs, actually laughs.

  “Well, thank God for that,” he says. He takes a step back and settles into his chair.

  “Lorelei?” he calls.

  The tall, pale, bone-thin woman slides out through the curtains behind him. But even though her garb is the same, her hair piled in the same way on her head, her stiletto heels just as tall, she seems different. What is it?

  It’s the look on her face. Concern.

  “I believe it is time to show . . . you know. Do you agree?”

  Lorelei shakes her head. “I don’t know. Are you sure?” she asks. “Can we trust her?”

  This is getting curiouser and curiouser. They’re not speaking like a master and servant, more like two friends. Am I in the Dreamer’s Lair or have I fallen down a rabbit hole?

  “I think so,” the Dreamer says. “Pull the curtain.”

  Lorelei steps back to the side and pulls on a rope. The long black curtain behind the Dreamer, the curtain that is said to hide the Chamber of Horrors, the place of torture rumored to be back there, that curtain is drawn aside.

  And what it discloses is a small room lined with even more bookshelves, its walls hung with mirrors—including, I note, the one I just retrieved for him from Big Ranch. There are also tables with cards and devices on them that I do not understand. But nothing that looks even minimally harmful.

  No racks, no iron maidens, no thumbscrews.

  The Dreamer laughs again, a laugh like that of a delighted child. “Surprise, surprise,” he says. “Not at all what you expected.”

  I shake my head.

  “Power,” the Dreamer says, “is kept by keeping secrets. That is why my friend, my one true friend here, is the only one until now to have seen my little lair of a library and psychic laboratory.” Lorelei has come to stand beside him. He takes both of her much smaller hands in one of his large brown ones. “It is better for people, certain Ones in particular, to think that my tastes are the same as theirs. How long would a bookworm last in a jungle full of predators?”

  The Dreamer motions for me to come closer. I take a step forward. “Before all this,” the Dreamer says, “my true interests were in areas other than conventional technology. I was fascinated with psychic energy. The lost levels of the human mind. But my interests were archaic in the world before our silvery visitor. What need was there for telepathy when you could just have mini-vid and audio implants and communicate mind to mind by way of radio waves? So I consented to be somewhat upgraded. Not as much as my family members—who burned up like Roman candles from whatever feedback the Cloud caused.”

  He raises his free hand high in a closed fist, and then opens it.

  “Poof! Gone. Ironic, is it not, that my fortunate family’s fortune came from the tapping of energy resources? That great wealth meant that, like my compatriots here in Haven, I was surrounded by all the trappings of our station, including my own large, heavily armed private security force. Thus I found a foothold here, while hiding my true self. And continuing to delve into,” he indicates his bookshelves, “the literature of extra sensory perception.”

  He cocks his masked head to the side to stare at me. “But you have those special abilities in abundance, don’t you, my dear? Just as I do—but only in the tiniest degree. Just enough to faintly sense it in others. But you have the full spectrum, don’t you? Clairvoyance, far-seeing, mind-reading? That is part of how you have kept on surviving even after being sent out to face one monster after another. Don’t say anything if I am right.”

  I stay silent. Where is all this going? What’s next?

  “And what good were all those modifications? Even those genetic ones that mean I can, given the benefit of water and food and a certain amount of physical protection, live almost forever? What good? Let me show you.”

  “No!” Lorelei says.

  But the Dreamer is holding both her hands too tightly. She cannot stop him as he lifts up his other hand and whips off his mask with a flourish.

  “Am I human?” he asks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Run

  I do not shrink back or scream. After all I’ve seen in the past few days alone, the sight of the Dreamer’s uncovered face is not that shocking. In fact, after what he’s been saying, rather than being horrified by it, I’m actually saddened.

  But I can also see why he would want to keep it hidden.

  Half of his face is gone.

  Where he once had a right eye, there is now a deep, gaping hole, webbed over by scar tissue. In the days before our extraterrestrial visitor, if he’d been filled with nanobots like his other family members, even the loss of an eye would have been quickly remedied by his body’s own healing and the quick implantation of another vid-eye to take the place of the one that spontaneously combusted.

  His right ear is also missing. Though the hole t
here is not as deep, it’s still thickly scarred. And there are pale scars drawn down the side of his bronze-hued face where the molten rare metals and plastics trickled down after they melted.

  His jaw is strangely dented in on one side, a sign that he had one of those maxillary augmentations that would allow him to touch his tongue to the teeth on that side and link into and manipulate the com networks. Lucky for him that he was still using a 1.0 com link and not the deeper 2.0 direct-to-brain filament implants that enabled such manipulation of his environment as telling doors to open and close by just thinking a command. The 2.0s ended up with their cerebral cortexes sizzled like eggs dropped onto a hot frying pan.

  I can see, from what is left of his face, how handsome he once was. Idealized features like those of a romantic hero in a viddy. All of the Ones were once like that. Impossibly gorgeous, unimaginably powerful. I can almost understand why losing that power, that physical beauty, might make one crazy and cruel. I almost sympathize with them.

  Almost, but not quite.

  “Well?” the Dreamer whispers. He wants to know the answer to his question. Am I human?

  “Yes,” I reply. And then I surprise myself by not just stopping at that one word answer to his question. “Completely human.”

  The Dreamer lowers his face into his hands and his shoulders shake. Is he crying? No, he’s laughing.

  He lifts his face to look at me with that one twinkling, perfect blue eye. “Completely human by being rendered incomplete?” he asks, shaking his head. “Ah, Lozen, Lozen.”

  He lifts the mask back to his face and it slips into place like a second skin, binding itself to his flesh. He raises his head, but even though the mask is once more covering the ruin of his countenance, to me it is as if the mask was still missing. The real human being who revealed himself is still visible to me. His three cohorts may still be deadly and dangerous, but this One is different.

  The Dreamer nods, as if he’s reading my thoughts now. “Yes, protective coloration. Mimicry. Look like them, appear to act like them, pretend to think like them, even be feared as they are. All that just to stay alive.”