by Scott Hale
What the hell was I thinking?
Isla stopped. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to. The wind had kicked up and brushed off the top layer of the snowpack. From a few inches in front of her to the place where the land met the sky, the tundra was completely covered in a field of Death’s Dilemma. To trample but one of them would see her soul snipped, and now, hearing but not seeing Joy approach from behind her, such a way to go didn’t seem so awful.
But Isla didn’t move forward, nor did she move backwards. She stayed where she was, steadfast as always; a weathered stone no storm could break. A lunatic on the lunatic fringe, she never knew when to give up, even when it grew before her, blue and beautiful, and unassuming. Weakness was a weapon, like anything else. Her uncle had taught her that. You just had to know how to wield it.
Joy drawing closer, Isla’s sudden surge of stubborn bravery began to wane. She could smell the woman, and the filth leaking from the folds between her legs. The Night Terror that looked like a bird hadn’t seen what’d happened to her friend, but Isla had. She’d seen it all. Every pinching finger, every wet bite. And the look on his face when he woke and saw the two of them standing over his bed? It was like he knew Joy was coming for him. Why did he smile? How could he smile?
“What’s the matter, Isla?”
Joy couldn’t have been but a few feet away.
Isla was shivering badly. She held herself through her furs. Sand from the Ossuary rubbed the creases in her palms. If she didn’t handle this right, that’s what she’d be: dust, in the palm of all her so-called allies’ hands.
“Nothing,” she finally said, turning around.
She’d expected Joy to be furious, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t have looked happier. In this funereal light, she was beaming. Her complexion was clear, her skin soft. Her hair was voluminous, nearly radiant. She carried herself with a kind of confidence Isla only managed to muster when she was alone, in front of the mirror, pretending to be anyone but herself. Of course, the front of her dress was still soaked in blood, and underneath her, from her leaking cunt, chunks of gore were piling up on the snow, but nevertheless, she was, perhaps for the first time in her life, Joy.
“I feel so much better now,” Joy said.
“What did Aeson… do?”
“Vrana killed my sister.” Joy pressed her hand to the bloody crotch of her dress. “Fair is fair.”
Isla noticed how the blood moved through the satin around Joy’s hand. “You’re not going to kill her?”
“Oh, but I did.” Joy pulled her hand away; it was clean. “She’ll never live again after this.”
Isla nodded, glanced back at the field of Death’s Dilemmas. Reservation gave way to revelation. She didn’t love him like this Vrana might’ve loved this Aeson, but maybe she could. Right now, she needed him for more than sex or sedition. She needed the Demagogue, Joseph Cleon, for validation. But not the usual kind of validation she sought from him. She didn’t need him to agree with everything she was saying, or to tell her everything she’d done or was going to do was justified. If this had been any other day, she would’ve gone back to him, scared and angry, and berated him with words until he told her the Rimeans deserved to die, the Winnowers had it coming, and this poor Night Terror, Aeson, had earned every ounce of suffering Joy had inflicted upon him.
She needed him to tell her that she wasn’t crazy, that this witch wasn’t the way. That in some way, somehow, all this death could be salvaged. She needed him to tell her, free of coercion, that somewhere deep inside her, she was a good person and that she could still do good things. She wanted him to be the augur she couldn’t be, and to flay her through and through, until nothing was left but her morals in their purest form—untouched by her Uncle Enfield’s corrupting beliefs, unaltered by Lux’s cruel tutelage.
She didn’t even like Joseph Cleon that much. He was just the only other living thing in this hemisphere at the moment that wouldn’t try to kill her at first blush. Maybe he could be the one to help her pluck the dark threads in her mind; figure out what they were, how they’d gotten there…
“Are you ready?” Joy asked.
Isla wiped the Ossuary’s sands back into her furs. They weren’t going anywhere.
“For what?”
“Eldrus.”
Isla stared at her in disbelief.
“That was part of the deal with Onibi. Come, let us return to Rime. We’ll get Joseph and take what’s left of the new Cult of the Worm to my nephew.”
“N-Nephew?”
Joy smiled, said, “Edgar, of course. A distant nephew. Not related by blood but bound by it all the same.”
“I didn’t…”
“Oh, yes. He knows me well. And for that throne, he owes me. Do you still wish to change the world?”
Isla gave her a weak nod.
“Good,” Joy said, grabbing Isla’s arm and jerking her forward as she began to walk away. “Because if our family is going to grow, I’m going to need you in Edgar’s ear. He’s an impressionable boy. He’d do anything for a pretty lady. Trust me, I’d know.”
CHAPTER XXXI
Felix took one look at the giant mosquito, and peaced out.
He pulled the door to his room shut, locked it. Hex, in the hall with him, bit down on the inside of her cheek, to stop herself from laughing.
There it was, that anxiety again. The kind that called for two slashings like servings from the contrition knife. Instinctively, his hand drifted to his thighs, to trace in the places on his skin where the scars would be had he the chance to make them. It wasn’t fair. Whenever he took one step forward, something new would be waiting for him two ahead. He just wanted what he wanted, and nothing more. Clear skies and no criticism. A plan without anyone’s input. Eldrus, and Justine, de-Lillianed.
“You can’t go into Eldrus unarmed,” Hex said.
Hearing buzzing coming from behind the door, Felix stammered, “I’m… I’m not. I’m taking Narcissus.”
“You’re taking some of Narcissus. Not all of your army. You’re going up against God—”
“We are gods,” Felix cried.
“Sure. And I’m a well-adjusted woman. You’re going up against God. You ever gamble?”
“No,” he said, annoyed.
“The House always wins. If you go into Eldrus with you, Justine, and some soldiers who’re going to high-tail it as soon as they realize their afterlife is on the line, you’re going to lose. What’s your plan?”
Jaw aside like a snake’s unhinged, Felix said, “To… talk.”
Hex laughed, ran her hand down her face. “You’re still so young. God bless you, Boy. From what I know, the last time God…”
“Impostor God.”
“From what I know, the last time… God… was driven back was with weapons. Guns. The world tore itself apart trying to kill It, so It just did the world a favor and tore it apart in a way it couldn’t begin to imagine.”
A mosquito buzzed past Felix’s ear. He said, “You want to cause another Trauma?”
“No, not while I’m still kicking. The Disciples of the Deep have taken over management of the continent, but I bet you the Holy Order still has more followers. I bet you a bunch of deserters might desert back this way if you offer them something sweet. Same goes for God. I have a feeling Justine wants you to team-up with Edgar.”
Felix kept his mouth shut.
“Thought so. I don’t think you should team-up. I don’t know how the Vermillion God works or what It thinks, but like anything with power, It’s going to want more power. Competition is good, but everyone wants to be on the winning side. Even God.”
A mosquito nipped at Felix’s neck. He smashed it.
From behind his door, Mr. Haemo said, “Hey now, keep your hands off my daughter.”
“You go into Eldrus with guns,” Hex said, her bright blue eyes penetrating him. “Not to kill God, but to scare Edgar. Absorb the Disciples of the Deep. That’s what the Lillians did back in the day, anyway. F
or now, we can’t fight God without It throwing a bitch-fit. Look at history, Felix, and all the gods from all the old religions. They’re nothing more than prima donnas that just want to be crowned queen at prom.”
What the hell are you talking about? he thought.
“Hold the Disciples at gunpoint. Take their God. Once It’s yours, you can tell the people whatever you want about It. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, everyone just wants to go to heaven.”
Glancing back at the door, cupping the knob, Felix said, “And Mr. Haemo’s going to help me get the guns?”
“Like I said, the Skeleton went into the Dead City and cleared the place out. They’re yours for the taking. It’s just a matter of finding a means of transportation.”
Felix cracked the door open, asked, “He can do that?”
Hex smiled. “Where there’s blood, there’s a way.”
He opened the door all the way. Mr. Haemo was still where he’d left him, on the bed, looking giddy. Lanes of mosquitoes flew back and forth across the room. He shifted, crossed his legs. He stretched his wings, which were almost large enough to touch the walls, and threw back the hood he had over his head. Now that Felix wasn’t running out of the room, he could tell the cloak he wore was made out of pieces of flesh that’d been stitched together. Several patches were fresh enough that there were still lines of blood at the corners.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Hex said, and then she was gone.
Mr. Haemo nodded, proboscis dipping down like the world’s longest knife. “Get the door, why don’t you?”
Felix shook his head. “This is fine.”
“Suit yourself.”
Felix’s heart beat hard in his chest. He wished he had some way to send a message to Commander Millicent. He didn’t trust this thing. And he could tell by the way Mr. Haemo was looking at him with his massive eyes that he had no fear of him, or respect. To Mr. Haemo, Felix was a bug.
“Why… why now?” Felix asked.
“What do you mean? Why meddle?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the Holy Order’s been good to me over the years, shedding blood over stupid shit and all that. I’m not about to bite the hand that feeds me.” Mr. Haemo stood, dwarfing Felix with his grotesque frame. “Why now? Well, you have a need, and so do I.”
Felix stared at him in disbelief. After the battle on the Divide, they’d tracked the remnants of the Marrow Cabal back to Gallows. That’s where they’d high-tailed it to from Angheuawl after Kistvaen had erupted. With his own eyes, he’d seen what’d happened to the town. The Skeleton had killed the Red Worm there, and around the lake of blood that’d become its body, Gallows had been rebuilt. The stench of death and decay had been overwhelming, but ten thousand bodies’ worth of bodily fluids would do that. On that day, Felix had been convinced he’d never see anything as disturbing as that mass grave and the structures that’d been thrown up beside it, so coldly, so indifferently.
But, young as he was, Felix knew he’d made a mistake assuming things couldn’t get worse. Things could always get worse. And worse they were about to get. Because, like Hex said, power begets power, and blood wells were always better on the other side.
“No.” Felix shook his head. “I won’t help you.”
Laughing, the mosquito buzzed, “You don’t know what I want.”
“You want another blood well. You think I’ll say yes so I can use it to get Narcissus to Dead City for weapons.”
Mr. Haemo snapped his wrists and said, “Smart as a whip, this one.”
“Use the one in Gallows.”
“No can do, Hoss.” Mr. Haemo drifted around the room, fingering his belongings—a shirt here, a book there—with disgust. “The Skeleton passing through with the Black Hour did a number on it. Edgar’s veins are sapping blood from the well every day. It’s drying up.”
Calling upon the god inside himself, Felix, with a swell of confidence, said, “I remember reading in an Old World book that people talked a lot about how it would’ve been okay to wipe out all the mosquitoes on Earth. That they weren’t good for anything.”
Mr. Haemo stopped and tilted his head. “Huh, you got some stones on you. That’ll be a big day for you when they finally drop. Tell me, Felix, any of your good-for-somethings offering you the keys to the kingdom?”
Pretending he had a keyring, he jiggled his hand, said, “Already have them.”
“Yeah, but someone changed the locks on you, didn’t they?”
I hate you, Felix thought, the confidence waning.
“You got a whole conscription here doing nothing but nothing. Give me a thousand of them. I’ll take them outback, see that they’re seen off right. You can put it on Edgar’s tab. Every little terrible thing the Holy Order does, we’ll have him pay, instead.”
Felix stood his ground, said, “No.”
“Well—” Mr. Haemo ran his claw down his proboscis like a whetstone, “—no one ever accused you of being the Smart Child.”
For a moment, Mr. Haemo’s attention drifted to something behind Felix. He glanced over his shoulder, looked across the open space that let out to the main hall. One floor down, on a balcony, Hex was standing with Sloane, the head of the Compellers. There was no way the mosquito should’ve been able to see the two of them from where he was standing.
“But Kid…” He stepped up to Felix, inches away. “If you should change your mind, just remember—”
Mr. Haemo reached back, pulled the skin cloak’s hood over his bulbous head, and then he pulled it further down, past his face and shoulders; beyond his arms and the crooks of his elbows. The ends of the cloak pushed between his legs, wrapping around them as they did so; the sick, cracking patches of flesh worked their way up his pelvis, until finally, what’d been the end of the cloak met what’d once the top of the hood at the stomach. There, they fused together, swallowing the last hint of Mr. Haemo behind this egg-like sack.
Seconds, then Mr. Haemo began to struggle. Felix stepped back as the mosquito jerked to the left and right and bucked his head against the fleshy fetters. The skin cloak grew taught; it didn’t cover his arms and legs, but seep into them. He shrank two feet; and the hump in his back popped inwards before smoothing out into the ridges of a spine. The discolored lumps that’d been his hands and feet became hands and feet, and nails were painted on them as if by some invisible brush. There were kneecaps and the outlines of bones; a ribcage; and his head reconfigured itself into a skull. A light coating of white body hair dusted the frame, as if someone had blown a dandelion at him. Then came breasts, and a slit between his legs, which Felix blushed at. Then hair, blonde bordering on white, inched out of newly formed holes in Mr. Haemo’s newly formed skull. While the hair grew past his emerging ears, his face sank in like a melted candle, and out of the hot wax of human tissue, eyes, a nose, and a mouth pushed through.
“What was I saying?” Mr. Haemo asked, but this time, in a soft, sweet voice, like that of the woman he was coming to resemble.
“If I c-change my mind…” Felix said in a whisper, astonished.
Mr. Haemo waved his hands with dramatic flair. The nude female body he’d sculpted took another shape and shade. Fabric pushed out of the flesh. Pieces of armor were forged out of thin air. In the matter of a few seconds, he stood before Felix fully decked-out in one of the uniforms an officer of Narcissus would wear, sword and all.
“That’s right.” Mr. Haemo flipped his hair with his hand. “If you should ever change your mind, just remember…” Mr. Haemo walked past Felix, into the hall. He turned around, smiled a smile full of pearly whites. “That I’m always near. And if you can’t find me…” He stepped out of sight. “I’ll find you, in one form or another. You’ve got a hell of a poker face, Kid. If this all goes sour, jury might even fall for the act.”
Felix hurried to the doorway, leaned out. The hall was empty. The mosquito was gone.
In the days that followed, an operation that should’ve taken weeks to plan and months to
execute was thrown together and seen through in such a blur that, most nights, Felix went to bed with a headache and a bad case of I Don’t Have a Good Feeling About This, neither of which a peanut butter sandwich or the contrition knife could solve. Instead of gorging or bleeding himself, he simply let himself be himself during those long, I’d-lose-my-head-if-it-wasn’t-attached-to-my-shoulders nights, trading sleep for some semblance of insight. The road to Eldrus would be long, and he had to get ahead of everything that might come at him along the way.
After his “meeting” with Mr. Haemo, he’d tracked down Commander Millicent and established exactly what the Conscription and Narcissus were doing, where they were doing it, and who from each could be spared to accompany him and Justine to Eldrus. The Conscription would continue to be given the choice to return home without pay, or to be sent to the Nameless Forest to beat back its growth for guaranteed admittance into heaven. Their numbers were at nine hundred and thirty-four a few days ago, but now, somewhere closer to nine hundred and twenty-three, give or take a few deserters and murders. Expecting more deaths between here and the outskirts of the Nameless Forest, Felix decided to sweeten the deal: Those who’d carried out their mission would be given a new home for themselves and their families in Cathedra; a clean slate.
“Barnabas will love that,” Millicent had said. “Never met a city-planner who hates city planning as much as he does.”
“If Cathedra wants to be the new capital, it needs to act like one,” Felix told her. “With Geharra gone, the land needs another city-state.”
“People in Penance are going to feel abandoned, your Holiness.”
“Not if we call it the Promised Land.”
That made Millicent smile.
