by Darryl Fabia
When the witch woman tried to hold his feet to the earth, he kicked her hand away and began to dance. The elder, the witch woman, and a few villagers told him to stop, and the elder even accused him of summoning devils, but Thotan wouldn’t hold still. His feet hit the ground more quickly, his hands swayed over his head, and then one hand raked the air like a claw and his dancing grew faster.
Everyone heard the roar just a moment before they saw a flash of red, black, and white. An oddly-colored lion with sharp antelope horns growing from his skull pounced on the elder’s chest, knocking him to the ground, and tore the man’s neck apart like it was no thicker than a finger. Thotan’s dancing stopped as he stared into the demon cat’s white eyes, blood caking the beast’s muzzle, and then the creature bounded off into the tall grass, out of sight.
“Bokoraru,” the witch woman gasped. “The Devil-Lion.” Fingers pointed at the children and voices raised. “Devils! Demon children!” Stones flew through the air, and the siblings took off into the tall grass in the bloody wake of Bokoraru, running and running until they couldn’t hear the villagers’ shouts anymore.
“They’re right,” Kehinde said, rubbing one bruised shoulder. “Something’s wrong with us. I saw the elder’s death and you called it to him.”
Thotan nodded. “And now I’ve called our deaths. We’ll die without a home or money, from starvation and heat, if not from animals.”
“Those aren’t our deaths—at least, not yours. Your death is muddled, hard to see, but it happens in a dark place, when your limbs are bloody and stuck with shards of a broken heart.”
“You can see anyone’s death then?” When his sister nodded, Thotan had an idea.
They found a dirt road leading the way to one of the cities where thousands of people lived and the great stone temples emerged from within like man-made mountains. After a short time, a traveler appeared, walking toward them. “Him?” Thotan asked. Kehinde told him the man’s death and Thotan began to dance in front of the traveler. He laughed, clapping in time to Thotan’s dancing, when suddenly a gust of wind tore over the road and the man’s neck snapped, as Kehinde had seen.
The brother and sister took all the coins the man had, which weren’t many, along with his knives and hat, which they could sell. They did this three more times before reaching the great city, and soon had enough coins to hire men to build them a house outside the city’s walls. Swift-growing prosperity is almost always noticed, so the brother and sister found themselves facing thieves from time to time. Every would-be robber wound up dead, sometimes of spontaneous stab wounds, other times of fire, or animals, or a violent pain in the chest.
As the years passed, rumors spread of a young man who could call Death by dancing. Thotan and Kehinde had to move several times to avoid attention, building three different small houses. Eventually, they moved into the great home of a rich man who died when his skin shriveled, as if the next twenty years of his life had gone by in a blink. To avoid moving again, Thotan hid his face behind a clay mask with two horns curling from its sides, so no one could trace him to his home. People then believed Death itself had come to walk among the city’s people, targeting the rich and giving their money to the poor, although few, if any, had received any riches.
Kehinde often went ahead to discover the deaths of whomever Thotan needed to kill. One day, Thotan decided his target should be none other than the city’s king. He could usurp the ruler’s throne under threat of death to any who opposed him. “And when our hold is solid, we’ll send men back to our village, with orders to be sure no one escapes alive,” Thotan said. His sister agreed—vengeance for their siblings and mother was long overdue.
Yet on the night they were to put their plan into motion, a foreigner appeared at Thotan and Kehinde’s doorstep. His skin was pale, his beard long and black, and his face haggard and hideous. He wore rich clothes and a fine hat, and his eyes appeared as cold as glass. “You must be the boy who kills at a look,” the foreigner said in his strange accent. “I’ve seen you put the mask away, even in my short time in this city.”
Thotan bristled. For one, he was a young man now, not a boy, and two, he’d been discovered. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I want your sister,” the foreigner said. “I come from the cold lands. I’ve stolen many brides from husbands, but I’ve found your sister so pretty that I don’t care that there’s no husband to steal her from. She’ll be mine.”
Thotan didn’t bother to ask what had happened to the foreigner’s other wives. “No.”
“If you don’t give her to me, I’ll tell everyone here that you’re the demon who’s been killing with a look. I may come from afar, but I’m wealthy and powerful, and if your king won’t listen, the people here will.”
“Let me talk to my sister,” Thotan said. When he brought Kehinde to the main hall of their great house, he pointed to the foreigner, explained all that had been discussed, and asked of his death.
Kehinde stared at the foreigner, her eyes straining, and then she shook her head. “I see no death. He’s more like a sheet of glass than a man. I’ll go with him, to keep you safe.”
“You won’t be his first wife. You won’t survive.”
“Neither of us will if he tells the city what we can do.”
Thotan reluctantly offered Kehinde to the foreigner, under the agreement that their wedding would occur in the city, not in the cold lands, and that Thotan could attend. The foreigner said it would happen in three days and then took Kehinde with him to the palace where he would be staying for the remainder of his visit.
“I can’t kill this man with my dancing,” Thotan whispered to his sister before she left. “But I don’t believe he’s as deathless as he looks to you. There’s some trick going on here. One of us will discover his fate. I’ll see you before the wedding, and hopefully there will be no wedding.”
Despite all his talk of hope, Thotan was distraught once Kehinde left his sight. He wandered outside the city walls, a wreck at the prospect of waiting uselessly for three days, and he pondered simply hiring someone to kill the man. “But what if I’m wrong and he has no death? What if no assassin can kill him?”
He heard an animal’s growl and looked to the tall grass. The white and black face of Bokoraru emerged, his black antelope horns protruding from his lion’s mane, and words fluttered underneath his growling. “Your foreigner has a death, my friend. He has simply hidden it.”
“How do you know?” Thotan asked. “And why help me?”
“We are kin to Death, in our own ways, and I am loyal only to kin,” Bokoraru said. “And I know because I have done the same. Your sister would see no death for me, devil or not, because my soul is not inside me. I smell his soul within a duck, which has been trapped within a large hare. Call the death with these strange animals in mind. The hare will spit up the duck and the duck will lay an egg, from which will hatch a body of the soul. Your sister will see the death then.” Thotan thanked him and the Devil-Lion then crept back into the tall grass.
Outside the city entrance, Thotan’s feet tapped the ground. On the first day, he danced as he envisioned a hare running. On the second day, he danced as he envisioned a duck flying free from a hare. On the third day, he performed the odd dance of a duck laying an egg. Scanning the surroundings, he didn’t see anything like a soul yet, but the wedding was set to begin within an hour and he could only hope the foreigner’s death would appear soon.
Thotan soon arrived in the palace hall, where the king had graciously offered to host the wedding for the foreigner, as the king’s guest. Banners of gold, red, and green hung from the walls and many people of the city had gathered in the king’s hall to see the foreigner’s wedding. A priest dressed in red stood up to begin the ceremony, and Thotan realized, standing at his sister’s side, that he only had a few moments to save her. “The strange man’s soul is coming. You’ll see his death then.”
“Where?” Kehinde asked.
“From afar.” Thotan lo
oked out a nearby window and the sunlight reflected off a distant, shining surface. “I see it. It’s as cold and glassy as he is.”
Kehinde looked to where her brother did. “I see walking glass, yes. And his death—his neck is broken, I think. It’s muddled.”
The red-dressed priest began the wedding and Thotan began tapping his foot, staring at his sister and the awful foreigner. “Today, we celebrate the joining of our king’s guest, Kosciej of the cold lands, and the woman Kehinde of our city. We ask our ancestors to look upon them well, even when they travel far—”
A scream erupted through the king’s hall as Thotan donned his clay mask and threw his arms back, his neck down, completing the dance of the neck’s snapping. He smiled behind the mask as he looked to the couple, expecting to see Kosciej lying still on the ground, but the foreigner was fine. Kehinde’s neck bent at a harsh angle, her eyes wide in surprise, and she dropped to the floor instead.
“You are Death?” the king cried. “You would kill your own sister?”
Thotan trembled, confused and angry. He couldn’t tell what the king’s death was, and so he couldn’t stop the accusations and usurp the throne. He couldn’t tell anyone’s death, least of all that of the pale foreigner. Thotan turned to jump through the window and came to face his own mask. Kosciej’s hatched soul crawled through the opening, into the hall, seeking its owner.
The soul was a sheet of glass, walking on thin, spidery legs, still wearing some of the fluid from its egg. On its cold surface, Thotan saw his own reflection, a young man in a horned mask, and realized Kehinde had seen her own death in the reflection. “And I called it to her,” Thotan said bitterly. The room behind him roared with anger, and he roared too, reeling back with one fist and smashing the mirror. Shards of its glass sprayed over the floor, others sprayed into his arm, and one chunk dug into his palm and stuck there.
The pale foreigner gripped his chest at that moment, as if something had shattered inside, and he collapsed heavily. The wedding guests’ roar vanished then. Some screamed in fear, and then turned and ran from the king’s hall, believing Thotan still possessed the power to call Death upon them.
Heartbroken and miserable, Thotan lifted his sister into his wounded arms and wandered from the hall and from the city. No one stood in his way, fearing Death would soon find them if they did. He took nothing he owned but the clothes on his back, the glass jutting from his arms, and the mask on his face. His feet carried him through the tall grass, away from roads and villages. He barely ate or drank, but the sun’s heat didn’t overwhelm him and animals, however hungry, kept their distance.
After three days, he saw a dark figure in the grass. “Have you come for me?” he asked.
Death acknowledged it had come for Thotan, but first it needed its face and feet. Thotan was confused and Death told him of his father’s wager, what it had cost the family, and what it had done to Thotan and his sister.
“Why not wait for us both to die and then do what you want?”
Death would’ve liked to do that, but the face and feet hadn’t even been for Thotan and Kehinde. The pieces first belonged to their father and had passed to the children. Out here, in the wilderness, they would pass to the animals, the spirits, and the devils, particularly those of kin to Death, like Bokoraru, and they wouldn’t give the pieces back to their rightful owner.
“Then neither will I,” Thotan said. “Not for free. I want my sister back. I want to live.”
If Death could have groaned, it would have. It struggled to tell him that while death is free, life is costly, even if it has a low cost in some people’s eyes. Anyone could have death, but he had to pay for life. Death had no interest in another wager, so it made a trade—if Thotan gave up Death’s feet and face, he could turn three deaths into one life.
His feet being useless without Kehinde and his life looking lonely without his only family, Thotan agreed. Death touched the boy’s skin, his wounded arms, the glass poking up from his skin, and his mask. It also grabbed its feet from Thotan and its face from Kehinde, though neither seemed to change at all physically. Death then left Thotan with the body in the tall grass.
Thotan carried his sister a while longer until he found a city on the Gray Coast, smaller and quieter than the one where they’d lived for years, but full of people nonetheless. A small stone crypt sat outside the city’s walls. “I’ll leave you here only for a short while,” Thotan told his sister, propping her against a shelf where stone coffins held the long dead.
Setting his mask over his face, he entered the city that had never heard of Death walking in mortal form. People glanced, gawked, and stared, but Thotan said not one word to them. He began dancing a little as he walked, tapping a foot or swinging an arm. While the dance couldn’t call anyone’s death anymore, he did attract attention as street children formed a line behind him, clapping and hopping in his wake. When he’d traveled the city’s major streets and circled back to the entrance, he’d put a crowd together behind him, as if he was a great lord leading them to a party, or a priest leading them to a temple for worship.
Parents swept in behind him, scooping up some of the children before they could wander out of the city. This was fine, as Thotan didn’t want to sacrifice children to save his sister. He had plenty of adults following him, some wearing the same grim faces as the village elder when he’d ordered his family murdered. They followed out of curiosity and a desire to judge. By the time Thotan reached the crypt, he’d glanced back enough to know who he wanted to sacrifice.
“You,” Thotan said from atop the crypt’s stone steps, choosing a rich-looking man. “You,” he said, selecting a surly-looking man. “You are the last,” he said, picking out a purse-lipped woman who he guessed had come to scold the children that followed. All three hesitated at first, and then climbed the steps to where Thotan stood. He beckoned them inside, where it was too dark to see Kehinde’s body, and too dark to see the chunk of sharp glass in Thotan’s hand.
He slit the rich man’s throat, then the purse-lipped woman’s, and though the surly man realized what was happening soon enough to scream, he was not quick-thinking enough to save himself. The glass lodged into his neck and Thotan touched the blood on each dead neck. He then approached his sister, unsure of how this would work.
Her fingers flinched without a word or touch from her brother, and the two siblings embraced fiercely once she’d blinked her eyes and realized her life had come back to her. “You look strange,” she said. “I can’t see your death. Did you evade it, as I have?”
“I’ll explain to you later,” Thotan said, helping his sister to her feet. “We have to find a safe place for now.”
The crowd that had followed Thotan from the city remained when the siblings emerged atop the crypt’s steps, as if they’d been waiting for a miracle, or some new entertainment. Thotan would’ve given them another dance, as harmless to them as the last, but one child began shrieking, and then others noticed Thotan’s hands.
“Blood!” one woman shouted. “He killed them! They’re devil creatures! Demons!”
The words rang harshly over Thotan, echoing from his childhood, and he roared at the crowd. “Any one of you would have killed three meaningless strangers to save your only family! Not one of you could deny it!”
“I can’t see their deaths,” Kehinde muttered. “Perhaps the foreigner was only my first failure. I can’t see a single death among them. How can we escape?”
Stones flew from the crowd then, pelting Thotan and Kehinde, and the two ducked back into the crypt’s darkness. Two men rushed up the steps to follow, but paused when they found they couldn’t see their own hands in front of their faces. They headed back and a rumbling argument began among those who’d followed the masked man from the city. If Thotan could kill three in the dark, he could easily kill two, and no one wanted to risk rushing in as a mob—someone would certainly be killed first.
“What if they burn us?” Kehinde asked.
“They won’t dar
e,” Thotan said. “This is the resting place of their dead. It would be a curse upon the city for them to burn it. We’ll wait for them to leave. If we’re lucky, Bokoraru will bring animals to us for food. We’ll outlast these people.”
They waited in the darkness for three days, with only the water that leaked through the stone roof when it rained, but no food and no Bokoraru. Once at the end of each day, Thotan neared the crypt’s entrance to see if the crowd had dispersed, and each time he found them there, in greater or smaller numbers, themselves watching and waiting.
On the third evening, Thotan had trouble finding where the darkness ended. The sun should have lit the crypt’s entrance with red light, but he only found a small opening where the sunset peaked through. The wall felt cool, smoother than the other stone surfaces of the crypt, and he realized it hadn’t been there for more than a day. Stretching on tiptoes, he looked through the only small opening in the wall just as the crowd outside brought the last few stones up the steps, to block up the crypt’s entrance forever.
“Wait!” he shouted. “My sister’s done nothing wrong! Let her go!”
No one answered him. They laid the last stones into place, five men lifting each heavy block, and much as Thotan pushed, he couldn’t move a single piece of the wall. He and Kehinde were sealed in complete darkness, and the crowd finally dispersed from the crypt after interring its last two corpses.
Many days passed. A passerby might have heard shouting from within the crypt at first, but the siblings were already weak by the time the wall went up, and the stone building stood silent for a long while.
Then came one evening when a rich family brought their deceased little girl to the crypt, intent on putting her inside, only to find their way barred. They were about to leave, when the father heard a thumping. At first it beat like a drum, but then better resembled a giant’s foot tapping, and then a raspy voice broke through the rhythm.
“Bring three,” it said. “Bring three deaths and she will live.”
