by JDL Rosell
Then the sunlight reached its feet, and the silvery eyes vanished. Erik blinked and watched and waited. Light suffused around every edge of the pond, looked under every shadowed bough for the figures, but there was nothing to be seen. It was gone, leaving less of a trace of its passing than the wind.
He shook all over. Struck by demons, he thought. Utterly and completely struck mad by demons. He clutched at his stomach as the last memory of the buzzing sensation dissipated. It had been suffering while he’d experienced it, but now he ached for them to return. When they had fluttered inside him, he’d felt… strong. Vigorous. Alive.
He blinked rapidly and stared up at the sky for a long while. Then he got up and slowly moved along.
After the night—a night of laying the dead to sleep—
Er’Lothe found his brother midst the ruins of his creation
He approached and gently kissed his brother’s brow
With lips cracked dry from the dust of battle
And he whispered, One day, you will feel as I do now
I will follow you down through the void of your dispassion
And nowhere will you be safe from my incessant hunt
You will be the hare running from my ravenous hounds
Never will you find comfort or peace while you stand
Never will you know the touch of another again
So treasure this, your last kiss, my brother
As you would the last from our Mother’s lips
A’Qed found no words in his breast
Emptiness crept through his essence’s spreading cracks
All he’d gazed upon was become sorrow and death
All he’d built was crumbled to dust and bone
He longed, then, to release the power he’d stolen
He longed, then, to know the intoxication of simplicity
But meeting his brother’s eyes, he saw no compassion
Nothing but the grim vow of cruel mercy
- The Sons Incarnate, “Last Kiss,” seventh cantus
Witnessed by Sanct Eckard, the Living Testament
192 IY, Seventh Cycle of Our Broken World
Six
Sixteen Years Before
Erik couldn’t wait to play with the other kids.
There had been some boys in Theo’Buur, but he hadn’t been allowed to go outside much, not since the men in the colored coats came and talked to Father a long time. But it had been okay. The streets were stony and hard to run on, not like the dirt roads in Zauhn. The only thing he’d minded was when Father braced the door with a stool and peered out the shutters, and sat up all night while Erik lay next to him.
It bothered him when Father mumbled to himself, but he liked when he hummed. The songs weren’t like any Erik heard from other folk. Songs of home, his father called them, and Erik knew that meant Suden, where people looked like him and Father. Erik wondered what it was like there, and secretly hoped Mother was there, even if Father told him she had died bringing him into the world. He didn’t like that thought. It made him feel like he’d done something wrong. Like he was the reason she’d died, and why they’d left the home Father hardly ever talked about. He liked imagining she had never died. One time, Father had had too much festival spirits and said she hadn’t, but left them instead. He liked imagining her with them, here in their new town, when he was curled up at night and Father hadn’t come home yet.
He paddled his feet against the legs of the stool, their only furniture in the small dark space they now called home. And it was home, even if it was only a round hut with a fire pit in the middle of the dirt floor and a vent in the center of the roof. And one stool. They’d made the hut themselves during the first part of the summer, forming the walls with clay and hay, and the roof with woven river reeds. How many buckets of clay Erik had hauled from the river bank! Sure, some of the boys on the other side of the river laughed at him and called him mean names, but it was pretty fun. Most of the time.
It wasn’t those boys he wanted to play reedball with. He wanted to play with the kids here on this side of the river, some of whom even had dark skin like him. They didn’t laugh and call him names, except for the names they made for each other. Plug and Mudpatch and Lion, they were his reedball friends. Even if Lion was from the other side of the river, the rich side, that was okay. He didn’t make him feel like dirt, not like the others. And he really was like a lion, or what Erik thought a lion was supposed to be: strong, brave, always standing up to bigger kids.
Erik kicked the stool a bit too hard, and it wobbled dangerously under him. They were probably already out there, kicking the ball against the city walls and other folk’s homes, if they didn’t get caught. But he had to wait for Father. Father had told Erik to wait inside, so he did. Erik always did what Father told him to. Well, most of the time.
Father was out on a home visit. It wasn’t how he usually did healing. He’d always just mixed liquids in little pots and handed them out in vials before Theo’Buur. Here, in Zauhn—Funny name for a town, Erik thought—Father didn’t have pots to mix in, nor liquids to put in them, so he did his healing at folk’s homes. How he healed them, Erik didn’t know. Father never let him come with, but he had heard that some people thought Father used magic. How dumb some people were.
Finally, after an eternity, Father came home. Ducking under the door, he gave Erik a brief smile but didn’t say anything as he set down the potato sack he used as a satchel next to the door. Erik always thought his dad looked strong, even if he wasn’t as big as some other dads. But he had a strong jaw and wide shoulders and never seemed to tire when they’d been making the house. Erik did wonder, though, at the gray hairs that had sprung up at his temples from the rest of his long, black mane. When had those popped up?
“Erik, stay still,” Father said, though Erik hadn’t moved. Well, except for kicking the stool. He stopped that.
Father bent to his bag and pulled out a weird device. “Do not be afraid, son.”
Erik hadn’t been, but now his stomach started to gnaw. Why is Father acting so strange? “What is that?” he asked, trying not to let his voice rise high and squeaky. He hated when it did that in front of other kids.
Father shook his head. “Something to keep you healthy.”
Why are your eyes so sad, Fafa? He hadn’t looked sad in years, not like this. The only times Erik saw him sad were when he talked about Mother, or when Erik asked about Suden. He didn’t ask anymore.
“But where’d it come from?”
“Your Uncle Vodrun,” Father said, drawing the device forward. “And before that, a place far, far away. Now sit still.” Erik saw it now in more detail. The main part was a glass chamber with an open top, filled with clear water, from which came a strap of leather, stitched into a tube, with a needle at the end of it.
He didn’t like how it looked at all. “What place? And who’s Uncle Vodrun? I don’t have any uncles.”
“You must remember people, Erik,” Father said with a frown. “Especially one who has been a good friend to us. I could not do my work here without him, do you know that? You must respect him and appreciate him.” He paused. “Or at least know who he is.”
“Sorry.” Erik hung his head contritely, though he felt he’d been wronged. There had been so many new people they’d met, it was hard to keep track of them all. And Father hadn’t even given him a chance to recognize him by describing Uncle Vodrun. But he couldn’t remain upset for long when he was curious. “If I promise to remember him, will you tell me where it comes from?”
His father sighed again. He did that a lot these days. “Have you heard folks talk of the great plains of sand up north?”
Erik nodded slowly as he thought hard. “The Drifts?”
“Correct. Deep within the Drifts, there is a small… oasis. We call it the Drift Ose, and this elixir comes from there. Now hold still—I am not going to say it again.”
Father held Erik's arm tight in one of his hands, recently calloused from their labor on
the house. He kept his hand over his arm, dwarfing it, holding it too tight. “To swell the veins,” Father explained when Erik wriggled his arm. His voice was smooth, unaffected, with his familiar foreign accent that belonged only to him. “It will barely hurt.”
“Barely?” Erik said. He tried not to quiver, but it was hard when the metal tip looked so sharp. “But I’m not sick, Fa.”
“This will keep you that way.” Father balanced the glass chamber on his leg. “Look away, Erik. Remember how I told you about the plagues? Many people have died to them. But you—”
Erik yelped. Father had stabbed the needle in his arm! “Ow! What are you—?”
“Quiet, Erik,” Father said sternly. “I was speaking.” His eyes didn’t look sad anymore. Anger filled them instead.
Erik dropped his gaze.
“You will be safe from illness now,” Father said.
Arkaic Aldona says it’s demons that cause that, Erik wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure if he’d get in trouble again. Father didn’t like what the arkaics said. He told Erik it was better to believe too little of what they told him than too much.
He barely felt it after the needle was in him, and soon, the chamber was empty and Father pulled the needle gently from his skin. A small bead of blood welled up where it exited, but Father’s quick hand pressed a clean rag to it. Erik almost grinned. It hadn’t hurt so bad after all, and he’d been brave, even if his head felt a little light now.
“So I’ll be well now?” Erik said, lifting his eyes back to Father’s.
His eyes showed his hesitation; though the words were halting, his mouth was slightly parted. “You might… react to it. But yes, if we keep treating you—”
“What?” Erik scooted off the stool and landed on the floor, Father’s hand falling away. “Why? I don’t want to get that again. No one else has to take elixir.”
“Erik,” Father said threateningly. He rose to his full height, high above Erik. “You will do as I say.”
Erik always did as Father said, but just then, he didn’t want to. He found himself running past Father, tears suddenly welling in his eyes. He didn’t even stop as Father yelled after him.
He ran all the way to the wall, head spinning the whole way. When he reached it, he saw Plug—pretty, blonde Plug—and Mudpatch and Lion kicked the reedball. As he reached them, the ball went crack! against the wall again. Then Lion noticed him and grinned.
“Hey, Far’Egan!” he said. “Wanna play reedball?”
Even though Erik smiled at his nickname—some old word that meant magus because Sudenians were supposed to do magic and stuff—he couldn’t fully enjoy it. His stomach didn’t feel right, swirling around inside, making a fuss. He looked back the way he came, but Father wasn’t following. He still didn’t quite know why he’d run, and he knew he’d heard about it later. Still, he said, “Sure.”
Lion kicked the ball to him and Erik stopped it with his foot. As he did, his toe brushed against the yellow, curled reeds that formed the ball, pulling them so he could see what was underneath.
Out of a hole in a once-white, hard substance stared a bird as dark as night, head cocked, staring at him. He swallowed hard and leaned down to shoo it away, then saw something else that made him hesitate. Their reedball was really a skull, and the bird nested in the dead man's gaping jaw.
Erik swallowed—he had to be brave. He reached hesitantly for the bird, and it flared up and cawed, high and loud, spread its wings wide, and perched on the ball. Erik stumbled back, not knowing why the bird scared him so much. It was just a big dumb bird, even if its eye did have a mean glow, and its feathers were black as flaws.
The other kids shouted for a pass, but Erik stared at the bird and the skull. The black bird once again watched with head askew, as if considering him. Erik swallowed, his stomach queasy. “Will you move? Please?” he asked it.
With its head to the side, it almost seemed to consider it. Then it cawed, flapped its wings, and rose at Erik’s face, talons first. He yelped and fell back, but it was too late. He felt his skin rip, and his eyes popped like pig bladders, his screaming rattling his own ears—
“Erik!” Hands were on his back, shaking him. He’d fallen to the ground and clutched his face, afraid to pull them away, afraid of not being able to see.
“My eyes,” he whimpered.
“Erik, what happened?” It was Plug, her sweet voice full of concern. “Is something in your eyes?”
But the pain was gone and, with it, the fear started draining away. Erik slowly took away his hands, and he could see—he could see! But he was too dazed to jump and whoop. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. The ball was ordinary reeds again and hollow on the inside.
Then there was a weird pressure in his head, and he leaned over, his food surging up his throat and out next to the ball.
He saw Lion step away, looking disgusted, and Mudpatch step closer, but it was Plug that touched his forehead with cool hands. “We’ll get your fafa.”
Erik nodded, too drained to respond.
“Are you okay?” Mudpatch said. Lion stood warily at a distance as if Erik had turned into a lurcher. Erik smiled weakly at them, trying to tell him everything was fine, everything had passed.
But he remembered the bird’s sharp claws tearing out his eyes, and his head spun even as Plug rubbed his back and whispered encouraging words. He sat there until Father came and swept him into his arms and carried him away, humming songs of home until he was cradled in slumber’s arms.
Seven
Erik nearly missed where Kuust began. A few huts hid back from the sandy coast along the tree line, hazy in the gloomy mist of the day. Further around the bend, a few more clay and straw walls protruded from the woods. The sweet rot of decomposing milket seeds and washed up fish lingered in the air. Greetings of civilization if he’d ever had them.
He’d walked two days and nights straight through to reach the town. Even if he’d needed to sleep, he doubted he could have. Encountering the Talstalker, a thing that was supposed to be lentil farmer legends, and coming away alive was enough leave a man more than a bit paranoid. Why didn’t they kill me? He ran over and over the question in his mind, but there was no answer that he could see. And what of those things I saw and felt? What was it that buzzed inside me? Everyone knew mooneyes killed on sight, yet this feral man and his pride had changed that. Erik didn’t know why or how, and that bothered him rightly enough, but what bothered him most was the inkling that they followed, unseen, unheard, ever in the shadows around him. If they were about, there was nothing he could do. They moved faster, tread softer, and he wasn’t a woodsman to hide his tracks. He’d only stopped to build a fire and seal his many oozing wounds with a hot knife.
He put aside the dark thoughts as he came closer to the town proper. It was better protected than Lienze, with stone walls extending to either side, and its greatest wall facing the sea. Erden Isle hadn’t seen Ennish raiders in years, but the memories of pillaging were still etched into Kuust’s structures. The sea spray itself was the enemy in other cases. On many of the houses, the shore side was lined with slats of milket wood that shone with some kind of applicant. The houses were otherwise composed of stucco and colored red and purple and orange, as if defiant of their bland surroundings.
Erik similarly stood out as he approached the gates and its guards. His clothes having been somewhat stained during his visit to the hermit, he’d used the juices of an eldberry bush to dye his clothes a violet so deep it was almost black. It made him look ridiculous, but at least the blood didn’t show, and the guards gave him little more trouble than strange looks as he passed through.
He entered the town commons, which were barely more than a few tiles of cracked stone around a waterless fountain, and stared up at the essent above him. Essents served as places for ascetic women—and only women, men being too Flawed for such a holy office—to congregate and dedicate their lives to serving the Mother and her Edicts. But their motives were not always so pur
e, Erik knew well enough; essents were also fortresses for the Font, and helped solidify the religious organization’s spiritual rule over Vestoria, never letting too much ground be lost to the king’s government. This essent occupied the space next to the town’s commons, similar to how Zauhn’s fontary—the place where the common folk worshipped the Mother and Er’Lothe—was placed back home. It was easily the most impressive building around, rising at least four floors and made of white stone barely marred by speckles of tan and silver. The doors were painted white as well, though they were weathered nearly gray and peeled in loosening strips. The Tri-Circle denoting the three gods—the Mother, the Firstborn Son, and the Lastborn Son—was etched into a facade above the door, while other carvings were vaguer in their appearance. Erik knew their stories—stories of the World’s Birth, and the Incarnation, pictures that conveyed the important tales of Amodism to those who could not read from The Sons Incarnate.
Impressive as the sight was, the rain had begun to fall and Erik wasn’t too keen on testing the stay of his dye. Walking up to the worn doors, he knocked twice loudly.
After a moment, one of the doors inched open, and he could see the bare shadow of a round face through the crack. “Yes?” a woman’s voice said irritably.
“Do you accept penitents here, sister?” Erik asked as meekly as he could. “I seek remission from my flaws.”
“You do, do you?” There was a dull glint to her eyes as she looked him up and down. Her gaze lingered on his bruised throat, and he pulled his cloak tighter about him. “Certainly look the type,” she sniffed. “Just the type to rob poor goodwomen, too.”
His stomach dropped. “Wait, I’m not going to—”
“No trouble!” the woman snapped. “We’ll have no trouble!” Then she pushed the door close, and a bolt latched and a lock turned from the other side.
