Shower of Stones

by Zachary Jernigan

  “Accompany you?” Vedas asked. He exchanged a glance with Churls. “That won’t be happening.”

  “So certain,” the Tamer said. He lifted his goggles, turned on his heel, and walked to the edge of the roof. “I’d not speak so hastily.” He waved them forward over one shoulder, not looking to see if they came. “Fesuy had a sizable population of dangerous men under his control—warriors with considerable martial skill, Tomen mages with less, and even a few rented mages of other nationality. A few of these last possess considerable talent, enough to do damage to anyone left on this roof. They’re waking up along with the rest.”

  He turned back, seemingly unsurprised that neither Churls nor Vedas had moved. He patted the side of the wyrm’s head. The animal did not react: it was a stone fallen from the sky, still smoldering.

  “Try as she might, Sapes can never keep from causing a stir when she lands. This time, we even lost the element of surprise. I went out of my way to alert you to our arrival. I assumed you wouldn’t run, and I was right.” His smile returned. Despite herself, Churls noted that while he was not attractive, he had a distinct charisma. “I mean it as a gesture of trust between us. I’m dealing with you openly, making my intentions obvious.”

  Churls heard shouts from the streets below. “Make them more obvious,” she said.

  The Tamer nodded. “I’m no friend to Adrash. Neither are the three of you.” His eyes locked on Vedas. “I believe your words were, Our fellow man is not the enemy. Adrash is the enemy. They’re words I agree with exactly, words that seem to have sparked a reaction in the heavens. You’ve been blamed for beginning the end of the world. You no doubt believe yourself responsible.”

  Vedas remained silent. He could have denied it, Churls reasoned, but anyone would have pegged it as a lie. He had delivered his speech, whereupon the whole of Danoor had witnessed the rise of the fractured Needle. There was no one else to blame.

  She expressed as much.

  “Attaching blame doesn’t solve every mystery,” the Tamer said. “There are times when events coincide in such a way that the answer seems obvious, but is in fact a greater mystery. This is such a time. I know the only man who could be responsible. He is an elderman by the name of Pol Tanz et Som—a mortal creature like you, now likely dead.”

  Vedas made a sound halfway between sigh and groan. “And? Get to the point.”

  The Tamer quirked an eyebrow. “I thought the news would be welcome. You are absolved of guilt.”

  “A name is all you’ve given us, and a name is useless. The situation is unchanged. Offer us something, or leave.”

  A shout sounded from the street. Very close. Fear of the wyrm would keep Fesuy’s people away for a few minutes yet, Churls guessed, but it was only a matter of time before the line broke. She did not want to go with the Tamer, but he had forced their hands by killing the mage. He held every advantage. They were treed prey, and he knew it. Whether or not he minded drawing the moment out, however, resulting in the injury or death of one of them—this remained to be seen.

  Her gaze fell upon Berun, inert and vulnerable.

  “The Tamer won’t leave us here,” she said to Vedas. “One way or the other, we’re going. It might as well be now.”

  Vedas shook his head in disagreement.

  Churls resisted the urge to swear. “Quickly, then, both of you. Come to some kind of terms.”

  The Tamer removed his goggles and leather cap, revealing two tiny horns that sprouted from his forehead, mirror-images of the ones Black Suits such as Vedas wore on the hoods of their elder-cloth suits. He dipped his head at Vedas, as if to acknowledge this fact.

  “I offer this: an opportunity to change the world. To free men of tyranny.” He lifted both hands to the sky. “The proof is above us, Vedas Tezul. Adrash’s will is not total. Tell me this displeases you. Tell me, and I’ll go away.”

  Vedas said nothing.

  The Tamer did not press his advantage by raising his voice in encouragement. He did not proselytize obviously. Instead, his voice dropped nearly to a whisper.

  “Come with me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to make good on your word. I’ll show you a way to stop hating yourself for what you think you’ve done.”

  ‡

  It was this last statement, Churls knew, that decided him. Without a path to redemption, a man would watch the world burn. With a measure of hope, the same man …

  Well. He would not be the same man, would he?

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE 12TH TO 13TH OF THE MONTH OF SECTARIANS DANOOR, THE REPUBLIC OF KNOS MIN

  After they arrived in the Tamer’s quarter of the city, she waited long enough to confirm that Berun remained undamaged from the flight (a handful of minutes exposed to the slanted morning sunlight allowed him enough energy to utter three words: “Go, Churls. Rest.”) before she collapsed onto the bed in the room provided for her and Vedas.

  Exhaustion should have taken her immediately. When it did not, she lay perfectly still, pretending at sleep. She listened to Vedas as he paced, sat for minutes in heavy silence, and got up again. He held his breath and let it out explosively. Finally, at the point where words seemed ready to erupt from him—at the point where she nearly gave up, herself, and admitted to being awake—he exited the room.

  She sighed in relief, and rearranged herself into a more comfortable position.

  No, she did not want to talk yet about what had happened. She felt, in fact, that the issue need not be confronted at all. Vedas could feel betrayed by her insistence that he come to a resolution with the Tamer for as long as he needed: eventually, he would admit the situation atop Fesuy’s roof had been unworkable. To take the stand that he had in delaying an inevitable decision, letting pride cloud fact for even a moment, had revealed more about himself than she considered wise.

  They had already given up something by trusting the Tamer. Vedas need not volunteer more by making his fears so apparent.

  He had not needed more information atop the roof. He had needed to be convinced to step off the roof.

  Sleep came halfway. She lay awake but dreaming, reliving the flight from Fesuy’s territory: the exhilarating drop of her gut as the wyrm rose in mammoth surges, its wings snapping like ship sails—the spaceless, agreeably nauseating moment of freefall during each upthrust—the wind warm but cutting over her scalp, in her eyes, pushing her first one way in the saddle and then the other, now and then slamming into her as though trying to toss her out into space—and over it all, the sound of breathing, titanic and utterly inhuman. No shift from inhalation to exhalation, just one long sustained howl of air sucked into the creature’s cavernous lungs, a roar that filled every open space in Churls’s body, forcing the awareness of her own fragility.

  She had loved every horrifying second, and loved every second again, momentarily safe and warm, bathed in sunlight from the open window. The waking dream hardly needed improving the third and fourth time around, yet she managed it: instead of gripping the handles of the saddle, Vedas wrapped his arms around her stomach, pressing his chest against her back, his rough cheek against hers. She gripped the hard cords of his forearms, laughing at his childlike fear, careless in a way the world never seemed to allow. When the wyrm suddenly dropped toward an open area of ground at the northern tip of the city, he squeezed the air from her lungs.

  They landed, and entered a bedroom filled with morning light. She took him on the floor, roughly, and then let herself be taken on the bed.

  She woke fully and masturbated while her arousal remained, before Vedas returned. Using her left hand, it took longer than usual.

  The act left her with the vague feeling of guilt, a feeling she expected and dismissed with a small measure of difficulty. She would not be celibate with herself, not in her fourth decade and certainly not with the world in the state it was, yet she also comprehended how little experience Vedas had with intimacy. Unjust though he undoubtedly knew it was, he would be hurt to discover her pleasuring herself. He
understood the baser needs of a person only in theory.

  Denial had long since become his way of life.

  While she could respect this measure of discipline in a man, she regretted the ways in which it made him inflexible, unwilling to give himself over to joy. Vedas had taken to physical intimacy with an intensity, single-mindedness, and talent she had anticipated, enjoyed, and lamented. She wanted him to stop thinking for one damn minute of his life, yet knew he would not. Not now, having had a hand in plunging the world into madness.

  She growled into her pillow. It tired her to think of him any longer, to consider her prize, and how it was not perfect. He had given more of himself than she had ever believed he could.

  Her own selfishness gnawed at her, and eventually carried her into dreamless sleep.

  ‡

  Someone called her name. She came out of sleep with the back of her neck tingling.

  Instinctively, she knew it was well past midnight, into yet another day, and that she was alone. Vedas had chosen a bed in another room. She thought it likely he had not done it out of spite, but kindness—to allow her uninterrupted rest. It was exactly the kind of decision he would make.

  “When are you going to learn?” she mumbled, then: “You can come in, Fyra.”

  Her daughter materialized at the foot of the bed. Churls resented the smirk, but said nothing.

  “You’re hurt,” the shade of a girl said.

  Churls held up her puffy right hand. “I am.”

  “Your shoulder too, and your left ankle. I can fix them.”

  “I know.”

  “But I’m not going to, am I?”

  Churls let the question hang between them. The girl sought only to help, and it cost Churls nothing to accept. It would make them both happier. Churls tried to remember what her own mother had denied her. Less than she had shared, surely. The woman had allowed far too much, making it easy for Churls to disappear into the ranks of the infantry, ducking her responsibility to Fyra.

  Mother and daughter stared at one another, the bed an ocean separating them. Churls considered how maddening it was, having a child. It had always seemed to consist of such awkward moments, where an errant word could tear everything apart.

  “Fyra,” she said. “I’d like to stop having the same conversations. How about you?”

  The girl squinted, skeptical. “Sure,” she said.

  “Good. Then we’ll start right here.” Churls patted the bed before her, and forced an approving smile when the girl sat. She held out her broken hand, wincing at the twinge in her shoulder. “Encourage it on its way, Fyra. Don’t fix it completely—just do enough to make it heal faster. No, I don’t want to go over why. You know why, because I’ve said it over and over again. When I’m ready to reveal you to Vedas, I will. Nothing you can say will make it go faster, so just leave off it. Either that, or do it yourself. I can’t stop you talking to him.”

  “No,” the girl said. “I’m not going to do that, even though he should know about me. He already guesses something. He saw you glowing, Mama.”

  She had a point, one Churls had been studiously avoiding thinking about for months now. On their journey to Danoor, their ship had breached in the shallows of Tan-Ten, and only Fyra’s assumption of Churls’s body had saved them. It was madness to deny this event, yet Vedas seemed equally intent on letting it pass out of memory, or at least conversation.

  Though grateful for this unexpected pass, their willingness to hide from one another saddened her. He had seen her naked many times—had seen her womb-birth scar, as obvious as a tattoo.

  Instead of arguing the point, Churls simply nodded. “Then why not tell him? It should be easy for you. You’re not bound by all of these—” She waved her good hand around. “—rules, are you? You don’t have to pay attention to me. You can do whatever you want.”

  Fyra shrugged. “What I want to do is keep my promises.” She poked her index finger into the flesh of her mother’s palm.

  Warmth radiated into Churls, ceasing her aches. She closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure. If she had access to Fyra’s abilities, she would never have to worry about money again. No drug had ever worked so quickly. It loosened her tongue.

  “You were always too serious, daughter. Promises are for adults to try to keep. When you’re young, you lie, and you get away with it because you’re young. Be young—you might like it.” She opened one eye to look at the girl. “Besides, you never told me you wouldn’t tell him.”

  Fyra shrugged. “I can make a promise to myself.”

  Churls chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The oddly companionable silence stretched. Churls enjoyed it, keenly aware of how imperfect the world was. How imperfect it had always been. Men deluded themselves when they believed in better days, some bygone era when the sun shone brighter. Better days had never existed. Joy had always been stolen, and sweeter because of that fact.

  It ended when Fyra removed her finger from Churls’s palm, forcing unclouded awareness once again.

  “How did you know it was safe to come?” Churls asked.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Fyra said. “You told me I couldn’t leave to look for you, so I had to get someone else to do it. Her name was Elya. She died in the city a few months ago, when the riots started. She didn’t want to do anything for me at first, but I was nice to her. I showed her how to do some things, and so she found you.”

  Churls was tempted to ask Fyra to clarify further, but resisted. She had no clear idea how the dead communicated or what their existence looked like, only that her daughter was unique among them, better at interacting with the material world. There were factions, some of which had aligned themselves with Fyra—and, by extension, Churls and Vedas. They wanted to be of some assistance in the war they imagined Vedas had begun.

  “And now that you’re here,” Churls said, “I imagine you have an opinion on the Tamer?”

  The girl’s features twisted in annoyance. The light she radiated grew into a small blaze before dying down again. “You know how upset I get when I can’t figure things out, Mama.”

  Churls waited for more. She grew impatient and gestured for Fyra to continue.

  “There’s nothing else,” the girl finally answered. “He’s like looking at a black rock. I know there’s something inside him, but I can’t see it. He shouldn’t be able to do that. Even the mage who hid Vedas and Berun, I could see her, just not what she was doing. It was like she put a big blanket over what I wanted to see. But the Tamer? I don’t think he’s a mage. I don’t think he’s human. I think he’s something nobody’s ever seen.”

  ‡

  He cooked breakfast himself, a thing that struck Churls as odd. It was not that he was a man, or even that he was the man who had a day ago stolen them from atop Fesuy’s stronghold—no, it was simply that he seemed so at ease, as though acting out a morning ritual with family. He radiated good will, putting her in an agreeable mood despite her sizable reservations.

  Vedas worked at glowering, and more than once opened his mouth to speak, but she recognize how forced the performance was: he, too, could not resist being swayed by their host’s inexplicable mood.

  It did not hurt when the meal turned out to be delicious. Churls had been eating dried stocks for well over two months. She had nearly forgotten about food, and took to eating like a person starved. For once, Vedas was not shy in his expression of enjoyment, and ate three full plates. The Tamer, not to be outdone, matched both of them.

  Churls watched their host without trying to shield the fact. He seemed not to mind, meeting her eyes now and then with a frank smile before returning to his food.

  Without doubt, the Tamer was one of the most compelling men she had ever seen. Though his skin was a lighter shade of eggplant and his broad build was the polar opposite of a true hybrid’s, much about him reminded her of the eldermen she had known. (A quarterbreed, she had heard him called, a mythical creature that could not, should no
t, exist, an impossible mating of elderman and human.) He possessed the same amber-colored eyes, the same black pelt over his scalp. A similar sort of sinuousness defined his face, as if every muscle were larger and closer to his skin than a man’s.

  Muscle, in fact, would quickly become an overused word if she were forced to describe him. A fighter by trade, she had surrounded herself with soldiers and athletes for most of her adult life, and even among their number the Tamer’s physical development was a spectacular oddity. Lions and draft horses were adequate comparisons, not men.

  More remarkably, she knew, unreasonably yet with certainty, that what she saw was no product of training: he emanated good health in a way she had never before encountered, more like a fixture of existence than a fleeting portion of it.

  Vedas, while far more attractive to her, nonetheless appeared somewhat brittle in comparison. It was as if, all at once, her eyes had been forced to recognize what lay inside him, waiting and always growing—a feature obvious but until now overlooked.

  Death. Now acknowledged, it could not be unseen.

  She looked at her own freckled forearms and saw it in herself. It struck her, how little it mattered, to suddenly discover something one had always known. She squeezed Vedas’s hand under the table.

  “What a strange mood this is,” she said. “It’s not what I’d expected upon waking. I’m not angry or nervous. In fact, I’m not even suspicious, and that makes me very suspicious.” She met the Tamer’s open gaze again. “Let’s start at the beginning. You’re not what you appear to be, are you?”

  He nodded. “Likely not. What do I appear to be, Churls?”

  “A man, more or less.” She paused, considering her words. “Though I doubt it’s less.”

  The Tamer laughed and slapped the table, causing their plates and silver to jump.

  “Clever. And right to the point.” He folded his napkin expertly and placed it beside his empty plate. He touched two thick fingertips to his stubby horns, both of which were slightly darker than his skin, appearing in texture like a fingernail. “I’m not less than a man. In truth, I’m further from a man than your friend Berun is from a stone sculpture. I won’t demure in that regard. I—” His head tilted to the side, eyes staring over Churls’s shoulder. “Speak of the creature itself, and it arrives.”