Death and Resurrection (The Ballad of Broken Song Book 1)

by Simon Birks

  The sound of a door being opened made Gideon move his head toward the medical centre. He could just about make out the pathway twenty feet in front of him, where he saw the yellow robes of Ka Yeta appear, moving quickly, purposefully. Unlike Ka Pinto, she’d chosen to live just outside of the complex. They must have called her back.

  Does she know what has happened?

  Chances were they would not have told her. Gideon’s people, and the Telar-Val in particular, were secretive. They would not want to risk any information being leaked.

  In an immediate, yet calculated move, Gideon collapsed on the floor and lay still.

  He heard the footsteps change direction, run towards him, and, two seconds later, Ka Yeta was there.

  “Boy? Boy?” she asked.

  Gideon made no reply.

  “Why today?” she said, exasperation in her voice.

  Ka Yeta was strong. She removed the top part of Gideon’s Blinks and checked he was breathing. When she was happy he wasn’t dead, she hoisted one of his arms around her shoulder and dragged him toward the medical centre.

  The Silent House

  It was another ten minutes before they got out of Ma Poppun’s kitchen. Before they left, the cook mixed together some of her renowned head-numbing mixture so it could ferment until they returned.

  “It’s a fine morning,” Ma Poppun said, breathing in great gulps of air as they crossed the courtyard towards the house. “Not that any of this lot will appreciate it.” The cook chuckled to herself, and then turned around to look at Visenai, lagging a few steps behind her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I prefer it in your kitchen,” the girl replied.

  The Ma stopped and looked at Visenai. She was nine years old, soon to be ten. It was a difficult age, or at least it had been for the cook.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “Why don’t you go and find somewhere more interesting to be?”

  Visenai hopped the three or so steps between them and took the Ma’s hand.

  “I like being with you,” she said.

  Ma Poppun, a woman of generally controlled emotions, felt awash with both joy and sadness. She almost hugged her.

  “Well, then, let’s go deal with the fall-out of the master’s celebrations.”

  As they neared the back door, Visenai heard the clanking of keys as Ma Poppun retrieved them from the bag slung round her shoulder. There was a knife in the bag, the girl knew. Ma Poppun always carried a knife.

  “Life’s hard enough,” she’d said to Visenai when she’d first spied it, “without being dead.”

  The older woman turned the key in the lock, and pushed the door open. Visenai, not looking where she was going, bumped into the back of her. She looked up. The Ma was listening to something, but the girl couldn’t hear a sound, however much she strained.

  “Why don’t you stay here for a moment?” the Ma said.

  Visenai looked into the woman’s face. Ma Poppun looked calm, but the girl could sense her fear, could feel it.

  “I’d like to come with you,” she said.

  Ma Poppun bent down and looked the girl in the eye.

  “Just for a couple of minutes. I’ll be right back.” Visenai nodded. “Thank you. If I don’t come back soon, I want you to go back to the kitchen, and wait in the place I showed you.”

  “Behind the hidden door at the back of the larder?” Visenai whispered. “I will.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Don’t be long,” Visenai said, and the Ma patted the girl affectionately on the cheek.

  “If you hear any noises that don’t sound like me,” she said, “don’t wait. Go straight to the hiding place.”

  “What about you?” the girl asked.

  “Look at me,” the old woman laughed with what she hoped sounded akin to light-heartedness. “Do you think I got this far without being able to handle myself?”

  The girl thought, and then shook her head.

  “Exactly. Now, wait.”

  Visenai nodded once more, but Ma Poppun stared at the child until she was sure she would do as she said. Ma Poppun knew to wait for it. It was foolish to accept the nod of any child too quickly. The obedient look came after a few seconds, and only then did the cook turn and walk into the house.

  It didn’t feel right. She listened. Her ears were still good, however much the rest of her was starting to slide, and the stillness was deafening. This had never been a still house. Even in the dead of night, you could hear the noises of people living in it, working in it.

  This morning, even they were gone. She had expected to hear the sound of fifty men and women, possibly double that number, snoring off the drink they’d consumed the night before, their bellies full of beer and boar.

  As she reached the end of the corridor, before it turned to the right, the cook looked behind her to make sure Visenai was where she should be. She was, and when the girl gave her a small wave, Ma Poppun felt a surge of sadness, which she had to suppress for fear of tears welling. The Ma made a ‘stay there’ gesture with her hands, and turned once more inwards, toward the silent house.

  Meditative Minds

  Graim finished wrapping the dagger. Lyrin, he thought, his scorn still apparent. The Telar-Val would not accept it. The Lyrin was a myth. He was frankly surprised even someone like Ja Jenza, with her unorthodox style, would believe in something so outrageous.

  Graim tied off the waxed paper, the dagger within, and placed it in his bag.

  The Lyrin.

  Although, he had to admit, he’d never seen anything quite like it. When they found the murderer, and they always did, he’d be interested in hearing how such a thing came into their possession.

  “Stay here,” he said to Jin Hoep, who sat next to the body of the Ka.

  Graim noted the beads of sweat on the brow of his colleague. The small man would never make Ja, Graim thought, as he walked to the front door and looked out over the array of houses. He stood, remembering his own time in a Complex, where he’d spent many years preparing for his future. He was going to be someone great, someone powerful, and he’d told his Ka he should be treated accordingly. He remembered angrily how the man, aged, with drooping eyelids, had simply shaken his head.

  Graim had hated that Ka, still did if he dwelled on the memory of him too much. There’d been times when he’d wished, imagined, what it’d be like to take the life of that man. He would have felt pleasure, he was sure, to see the Ka’s lifeless body on the floor, but he could never bring himself to do it. He supposed he wasn’t alone. If you put hundreds of children in these cramped conditions, there’s bound to be a certain level of animosity. The mystery was, he thought, how the current situation didn’t happen more often. Of course, part of him did know why; the punishment for murder was enough to put off the maddest, most inexperienced of minds.

  Or so you thought.

  Graim watched the children move around outside in their Blinks, and supposed they would find out what had happened here soon enough, when the new Ka turned up. Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d be given some story about the Ka retiring, so as not to upset their calm and meditative minds.

  Behind him, he heard a gasp. Graim sighed. What had the hopeless Hoep done now?

  Attachment

  Jin Hoep was a sensitive man. He’d come out this morning expecting to take the notes of a conversation between his Ja and a Resurrected child, witness the signing of those notes, and then escort the child off of the Complex.

  That’s what he’d expected. Now a man was dead.

  As he sat there, Jin Hoep looked around the inside of the Ka’s home. It was so much like the one he’d lived in. He supposed they all were. If it wasn’t for the body lying on the floor, there’d have been comfort in being back in a Complex.

  Against the advice all children were given, the young Hoep had become very fond of his Ka. She’d been a kind woman of around sixty years. A wise woman, too. He had thought very highly of her.

>   “You must not become attached,” she’d repeated to him. “To me or to the Complex. We are both simply stages in your life. It is not a place of attachment.”

  And even whilst she had said these words, he was convinced her smile was telling him something different. He had been a quiet boy, much as he was a quiet man, and whilst some of his Kas had found him awkward, Ka Loy understood him, and knew how he felt by simply looking at him.

  Whenever she’d arrive in the mornings, Hoep would be waiting at the doorway.

  “If only the rest of my chosen were as prompt as you,” she’d praise. “I spend most of my time waking them up.”

  Of course, meeting the Ka was precisely the reason he’d get up early. It was extra time with her. Looking back now, he knew she had understood, and missed her all the more.

  You must not become attached.

  But who wouldn’t become attached when the only person you saw was as kindly as Ka Loy?

  The person who did this.

  Yes, the person who did this. Hoep looked at the body under the sheet and tried his hardest to understand why it had happened. It was what Ja Jenza would do, had to do, and if Hoep wanted to move up in the Telar-Val, he knew he had to try and start thinking that way.

  “The Telar-Val?” Ka Loy had said, when he’d told her of his desire to pursue a career with them. “I didn’t have you down as a Telar-Val.”

  Her obvious surprise had made him uneasy.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t…” he’d said.

  “Not at all. You must never doubt yourself, Hoep. The Telar-Val need all types of people. And they could certainly do with a few more like you.” She’d touched his hair then, and had let her hand rest there for a moment.

  Hoep remembered looking up at her, and gasping at the contact.

  Back in the murdered Ka’s house, Hoep blinked a couple of times, and brought his thoughts to the matter in hand. The body under the cloth.

  Only, when he looked, there was no body under the cloth. It had gone, the cloth was resting, creased, but flat, on the ground.

  He gasped again.

  No Body

  Graim looked down at the scene. Hoep, the useless Hoep, was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to where the body had been.

  “Where’s it gone?” Graim asked.

  This hadn’t been directed at Hoep. There was no way the man could have moved the body without Graim hearing it. And besides, Hoep was useless, not stupid. Stupid was a whole other level.

  “Ja Jenza’s not going to believe us,” he heard Hoep say, and he was right.

  It wasn’t in her interest to believe them. She needed results, and without a body, there were no results. No investigation even.

  You should run.

  “We should run,” Graim said.

  Hoep looked up at him.

  “If we run, it’ll definitely look like we’re guilty. I don’t know what happened here, but we’re not responsible.”

  “But they might punish us,” Graim said.

  “If we run,” Hoep started, “they will punish us. No doubt about it.”

  Graim thought as furiously as he’d ever done. An idea came to him.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go and tell her. Wait here. Make sure nothing else happens.”

  “There was nothing I could do about this happening,” Hoep said, indicating the flat cloth.

  “No, of course not. Wait here?”

  Hoep looked up at Graim, a little boy lost in the situation.

  “All right,” he said.

  Graim turned and left the Ka’s house.

  No need to run.

  Graim smiled.

  The Great Hall

  Ma Poppun stood in the doorway to the great hall and looked on in horror. As she’d ventured further into the house, she’d convinced herself there would be no one there, that they had left the house in the early hours of the morning to resume their hunt. Indeed, the house had been spotless, not a candlestick or painting out of place. It was as if they’d never come home.

  But they did, she thought. I saw them all ride in.

  Now, she looked into the hall and shivered. They were all there, she was certain; slumped on the table or fallen to the floor, but it had not been a battle. They had just toppled wherever they’d been. For a split second, Ma Poppun had thought they had been poisoned, but then her eyes had focused and seen their flesh, or lack thereof.

  She tried hard not to be sick, and managed it. Every single one of them looked as if their skin had simply dissolved. Their internal organs and fluids were spread over the floor, mixed together and congealed. Part of her mind told her there should be flies, but there were none.

  Perhaps even the flies were wary.

  Ma Poppun had heard of magic, but she hadn’t seen it before. Was this what had happened? Had the hunt angered some person of magic, who in return had cursed them?

  “What is it?” Visenai asked from behind the cook.

  Ma Poppun spun round too quickly, and for a moment the room swam. She steadied herself, holding on to the side of the door.

  “Stay where you are,” she said. “Something bad has happened.”

  “What? What is it?” The girl asked.

  The Ma could see Visenai wanting to look into the hall. She placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

  “We need to move back outside.”

  “I don’t understand,” the girl whimpered, squirming a little in her grip.

  “Nor do I, but, please, you must trust me.”

  This last statement seemed to get through. Visenai stopped resisting. The Ma closed the great hall door, and together, the cook and the girl began their retreat.

  Oak Water

  Ka Yeta carried Gideon into the medical centre. As she walked through, the healer on duty approached her with outstretched arms.

  “I’ve got him,” Ka Yeta said.

  The healer stepped back, and Yeta placed the boy onto the bed.

  “What happened?”

  “He collapsed outside. No warning.”

  The healer checked for any obvious injuries. When he was happy there were none, he carefully straightened Gideon out.

  “I’ll go get the box,” he said.

  Ka Yeta listened to him leave.

  “Boy?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”

  Gideon wasn’t sure whether or not to pretend to wake up; his was not a well thought-out plan. Thankfully, the healer returned moments later.

  “How many of you are here today?” Ka Yeta asked the man.

  “Just me,” he replied.

  Gideon heard the sound of a wooden box being put down on the small cupboard beside him. Catches were thrown, and a squeak told him that the lid had been opened.

  A moment later, the smell of the plants hit him. It was a smell he was familiar with, that he’d grown up with. The herbs and medicines were always the first line of defence to any potential ailment. Ka Pinto had carried a small selection of them everywhere he went, which had given the Ka a very particular fragrance.

  Gideon didn’t react to the smell.

  “Did he hit his head?” the healer asked.

  “Not that I saw. I was pretty close.”

  Gideon could hear the healer crushing some leaves together.

  “What will that do?” Ka Yeta asked.

  “Wake him up. This is potent stuff.”

  You’re not wrong, Gideon thought. His eyes had already started to sting.

  “How long until it’s ready?” Yeta asked.

  She was in a hurry, Gideon noticed, about why the Telar-Val had called her, no doubt.

  “A few minutes. It must lose some of its potency before we apply it.”

  “Do you need me to stay?” she asked.

  There was a pause whilst the healer weighed up the situation.

  “I am due to be replaced by the next shift soon. I am on my own till then.”

  Ka Yeta sighed.

  “If you need me, then I will remain.”

/>   “Thank you, Ka Yeta,” the healer said. “Can you continue to crush this together? I will go and get some Oak Water to mix in.”

  The healer left. Gideon recognised the click, click of his ill-fitting sandals as they faded into the distance. The boy knew he’d have a better chance with only one of them there. He had to get out of this place. He had to head towards the food store and beyond.

  He slowly opened his eyes, though not enough to be seen by Ka Yeta. He watched her as she concentrated on crushing the leaves.

  Beside him, the wooden box lay open. He tried to think of the best way of dealing with the Ka. He didn’t want to make a noise; the less people he attracted the better. Ka Yeta had her back to him mostly, and he knew the box contained small sharp knives, but he didn’t want to kill anyone else.

  Kill or be killed.

  Gideon tensed his muscles, ready to leap. Perhaps he could knock her unconscious. He’d have to do it quick, the Ka was strong…

  There came a sound of smashing glass. Ka Yeta straightened up and took a step forward.

  “Everything all right?” she called. There was no reply. “Damn.”

  Yeta stood for a fraction of a second longer, wondering whether or not to investigate, not realising the decision she was making might be for her own life.

  She sighed again, then headed off. Within a few moments, she was gone.

  Gideon swung himself up and out of bed. The place was dark. He looked around for a moment, listening for their return, but all was quiet.

  “Is this madness?” he asked the empty room.

  Not running is madness, answered the voice in his head. It was right.

  The boy looked at the wooden box beside him, reached over and took one of the knives. Then he slipped off the table, stepped into the darkness, and was gone.

  Werida