The Iron Hunt

by Marjorie M. Liu

  I ran. I ran so fast, fleet-footed as a shadow, and I did not stop, I learned to listen to the boys, I learned to become the dark and the stone, thick and coarse and rough with age, and I forgot what it was to walk, I forgot, and when I stopped to drink at streams, my skin screamed to move, and I screamed, and I screamed.

  I screamed.

  I, Hunter, in the ground, Hunter, do not die, Hunter, keep moving, Hunter, run, Hunter, do not, do not, do not give up, Hunter. Dream, Hunter. Fight, Hunter. Do not forget yourself, Hunter.

  Remember, Hunter.

  I remembered my mother as I drank from a cold river, the waters crashing off the walls like thunder.

  Something small. In a hotel in some city with all the lights off except for the bathroom, door closed so that only a bar of gold slid into the room, my mother on a cot beside mine and the boys prowling, and her voice whispering, In the dark there are things that will wake inside your heart, things you never knew were there, and you must be careful of what comes stirring; you must beware.

  I was careful, but all I had was the dark, all I had were the boys, and sometimes I heard them in my mind, so close that should the sun ever set, I wondered if they would leave me, if I would survive the cut. It had been a long time. We were closer now. We were one.

  At the river’s edge the stones were round and soft, and the water was deep. I waded into the current simply to feel the texture, to savor the difference between water and air. The river was swift, the roar of it deafening. I had a whim, and lay down. The water carried me like a child in a cradle, swept away. I did not think about consequences. I did not worry about losing the shore. The river stole me, and I laughed.

  Stop, said a voice inside my mind. Maxine.

  But I ignored the voice. I closed my eyes. I lost myself in dreams. I lived in another place and time, away from the darkness, and I saw Grant, the boys. My mother was there, and it was more real than the water and my skin—my heart, beating; my soul, caged. I dreamed of swords, and in my dream I tasted the blade, cold on my tongue. Found it made of tears.

  My tears. I was crying.

  I opened my eyes and did not close them again.

  The waters became choppy. I hit a rough patch and went under. My lungs ached, and I broke the surface, gasping. Started kicking, paddling, but the current was rough. I hated swimming. I hated boats. I remembered these things, distantly, and I did not know what I had been thinking, jumping in the river. I did not know how I could forget.

  You lost your mind, whispered that little voice. Maxine.

  I went under again, as though hands were holding my ankles, but when I tried to come back up, my head hit stone. Terror shot through me. I grappled, swept along, fingernails dragging across the rock above my face. My lungs screamed. I screamed. The boys yanked on my skin, and I felt them shift, pulling and spreading, but with a violence I had never felt. I jerked once, thinking I was going to drown, but the ache eased in my lungs.

  I breathed. Underwater, I breathed. It tasted like stone and ash, perhaps like blood. I was too relieved to care. I touched my face, trying to understand. But when I did, I wished I had not.

  My nostrils were gone. So was my mouth. My eyes and ears, covered in skin. I had no face.

  Horror pummeled me. Revulsion, dismay. I felt sick. I wanted to vomit, I wanted to cry out, but I could not. I clawed at my own skin. I tore at my face. I screamed soundlessly at the boys, slamming my fists into the stone above my head. I tried to swim, but could not go back. I found no bottom, no sand.

  The stone pressed me under the water for a very long time. Longer than days and weeks. Longer, still. It felt like forever. I was dragged by the current like a rag doll, faceless, voiceless, and though I breathed through the boys, all I felt was fear. I was so afraid. I was so alone. I had been buried alive and this was a water-coffin, a tomb of flesh, swift moving.

  I was immortal now. I would be like this forever. Lost forever. Buried in water, raging with thirst.

  All of me, raging.

  But as I raged, something woke up.

  I felt when it happened, like a prick inside my heart, and it snapped me back to sanity as though my brain were a rubber band pulled to the breaking point until—in a flash—pressure eased.

  I was still trapped inside my body, but as I floated down the underground river, the water and the darkness became a nest rather than a coffin: a shift in perception, so sweet. My flesh, a cocoon. Spinning me into something new. I listened to myself. Heartbeats, the click of my bound jaw, the swell of my chest as I went through the motions of breathing. Deeper, too, past thoughts and memory; deeper yet, into blood.

  It is of us, this hunt, this wild raging hunt that takes upon itself the nature of an Age, and destroys so that others may be reborn. Words, swift words, accompanied by a face I could hardly recall: white hair, blue eyes, power hiding beneath wrinkled skin.

  Power beneath my skin. Sleeping in darkness. Resting against my bones, sunk into muscle, sharing blood. Another body dreaming inside my own, sleek as moonlight on dark water, or the edge of a blade.

  I felt like a blade.

  You are the blade, whispered a voice inside my head, and the darkness turned inside my skin, reaching out, just so. I felt it, a delicate touch, as though spirit arms were stretching like coarse silk threads, spun and woven, searching. I did not engage, nor did I think; merely, I drifted in my cocoon, waiting, waiting, to see what would return.

  But nothing did except an impulse—sudden crazy desire—to buck down deep and writhe my way through the water like an eel, shot by the current.

  I obeyed. I had not worked my legs and arms in a long time, but I kicked, and my body turned, and I kicked again harder, cupping my hands against the water. The boys worked, too, helping me gather strength as I followed instinct and swam deep, searching for the river’s bottom.

  I had not found it before—and I almost did not, again. But the darkness surged inside my chest, goading me, and I pushed harder—until, to my shock, my hand touched sand—and then, a moment later, metal.

  I clung. I gripped. I held on with all my strength as the current raged around me. My fingers tightened, cutting into a hard, curving sheet of armor, and my other hand grappled with rocks, turning them aside. I touched chain link, small and delicate, and beneath, the long hard surface of bone. I did not let go. I kept searching, driven, following that arm until I reached a hand.

  And in that hand, a sword.

  The metal was serrated, engraved, and very sharp. The hand holding it, however long dead it might have been, did not want to let go. I broke finger bones in the process, but felt as little guilt as if I were stealing from myself.

  The darkness inside me approved. The moment I held the weapon in my hands, I felt no more need to stay at the bottom of the river. I let go of the armor, and though I held a sword against my chest, I floated upward, the current chasing me.

  I ran my hands down the blade. The weapon was slender, but long, the guard delicately wrought; resembling, in my imagination, stiff, extended claws. The grip was smooth, and fit my hand as though made for it.

  As though I had been made for it.

  Home, whispered the voice in my head.

  The world fell away from me. Water, gone. Walls, gone. No floor to catch me. I fell. And I continued to fall.

  Anticipation was a thing of terror.

  But this time, I pretended I was flying.

  CHAPTER 16

  FROM the Labyrinth to city lights, dazzling as a heart full of stars.

  I hit concrete, and even though I had recaptured my sight through memory and dream—such astounding dreams— the use of my physical eyes was shocking, stupefying.

  I was in my own skin. I had a mouth and nose. I could see.

  I also had no time to accustom myself. It was night. The boys woke—Zee and the others, peeling off my body—and every inch, from my toenails to my eyelids, felt as though it left with them: like I was being pulled apart, inch by quick inch; or bathed in fire,
acid; rubbed in salt, my body some skinned raw nerve.

  I thought the separation would kill me. I did not think I could live without the boys on my body. It had been too long. We were part of each other. They were me.

  “Maxine,” Zee rasped. Raw and Aaz gathered near, Dek and Mal curling warm over my shoulders. They stared, eyes huge, but I could not answer. The pain was too much.

  Zee winked out. I heard voices nearby, and coarse laughter. I was suddenly terrified of being seen and bit my hand, trying not to cry out. I did not know if I was on a sidewalk or in an alley. I smelled trash.

  Zee reappeared. Behind him a large shadow blocked out the city lights. Arms folded around my body. I screamed, too much in agony to fight for silence.

  “Hush.” I recognized Jack’s voice. “Hush now, sweet girl.”

  I could not breathe. My body shook. I was having a seizure. Dying.

  Jack touched my neck.

  I passed out.

  I woke up in Hell. There was a sign above my head that said so, which meant it must be true. I was in a narrow bed, sunk deep into a thick mattress beneath heavy covers that smelled like pipe smoke. I was naked. I saw a mirror in the ceiling. Written on the glass in red ink: YOU ARE IN HELL.

  Story of my life. I lay very still, hardly able to breathe. Afraid. Desperately afraid. Full of memory, full of terrible things, building and burning. I wanted to scream, but bottled it in. If I started, I would not stop. I would make myself sick on tears, and it would never be enough.

  I exhaled slowly, and little bodies uncurled around my throat. Dek and Mal peered into my face, red eyes wide, little jaws slack as their black tongues tasted the air. I wanted to scratch behind their ears, but when I tried to lift my arm, my muscles were too weak. Paralyzed, all over again.

  “You’re awake.” Jack stepped near, peering at me. He was as I remembered, wearing tweed and slacks. Trickster. Avatar. Whatever that was.

  “Old Wolf,” I murmured, feeling faint at the crusty sound of my voice. “I had a wild ride.”

  Tears bristled his eyes. “Just like my Jeannie.”

  It was too much. I started crying. I cried like a baby, but quietly, shaking—so weak I could hardly afford to shake, but the sobs were involuntary, and my body burned with them. Jack wrung his hands, then ran out of sight. I heard objects falling, then he reappeared with a wad of tissues in his hand. He dabbed at my nose, then held a tissue over my nostrils, and said, “Blow.”

  I did, feeling ridiculous—grimacing as I watched Jack try in vain to be gallant about the snot that got on his fingers.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, hardly able to breathe. Jack wiped his hands on his trousers, leaned forward, and planted a heavy kiss on my brow. Dek and Mal licked my face. I wondered where Zee and the others were, but Jack left the room before I could ask.

  His face was red and mottled when he returned, holding a porcelain cup so tiny it looked like a thimble in his hand. He sat on the edge of the bed. Very carefully, he slid his hand under my head and lifted me. He pressed the tiny cup to my lips. I smelled chicken broth.

  I took a sip. The broth tasted hot and salty, and each swallow seemed to bypass my stomach for the bloodstream. It tasted so good. Best meal of my life. My heart pounded harder.

  I murmured, “Smile, Meddling Man.”

  Jack remained impossibly grim. “When I was told what happened, I tried to track you. But I couldn’t. Not even Enkidu—Tracker—could follow you. Or Oturu. And we tried, my dear. We tried so hard.” His eyes were very red. “You entered the Wasteland. Do you have any idea what that place is?”

  I simply looked at him. I had lived through it. I probably knew better than he. Jack flushed, ducking his head, waving an apologetic hand. “Of course. But you shouldn’t have escaped. No one does. There are no doors. We thought . . . we thought we had lost you.”

  I tried sitting up, but nausea surged in my throat and my vision blurred. Jack placed a strong hand on my ankle. For a moment, he seemed to transform. His appearance, his body . . . less him. His eyes did not match his skin. I saw a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  I needed to say something. Anything, to fill the silence. I fumbled for words. “Where’s the seed ring? Did Ahsen get it?”

  “Oturu managed to retrieve it. He is keeping it for you.”

  “You trust him?”

  “I had no choice. But it is safe. She will not be able to fetch it from him.”

  “You call her skinner or she, but never her name. Never Ahsen. Why is that?”

  Jack looked down, at his hands. “It is . . . painful. She was the greatest of our minds, our most adept at organic divination. But she went too far. She had . . . no conscience. ”

  “She hurt humans.”

  “No,” he said. “She brokered deals for demon flesh. And it was those . . . transactions . . . that led the Reaper army to earth.”

  “She caused the war?”

  “The war had already begun. We were simply trying to escape fighting it.” The old man met my gaze, a bitter smile touching his mouth. “You must understand, we had never encountered anything like the creatures you call demons. They were . . . scavengers, hunters, creatures made only for death. My kind would retreat, again and again. We left millions to die. Humans, and others. We brought some survivors to this world, thinking it was too distant, that the demons would not be able to follow. But then she took matters into her own hands. Justified herself by saying that if we could only develop more powerful skins, we would be able to defend ourselves more easily.”

  “You tossed her in jail for that.”

  “Not in the beginning. Some defended her decision. It was not until the war began to go badly that she was . . . turned against.”

  “You and Sarai?”

  “We always opposed her. And we locked her into the prison veil when it was time.”

  “And now she’s loose.” I closed my eyes, briefly. “Will your kind help us?”

  Jack sighed, rising to his feet. “Enough, enough. You need to rest.”

  “Why don’t you want to answer the question?”

  “Why must you ask so many?”

  “Because I’m like my grandmother,” I replied. “I’m like my mother.”

  “That,” he said, “is a dirty tactic.”

  “Old Wolf,” I said. “Will they help us?”

  “No,” he replied solemnly. “The war destroyed the backbone of my kind. You cannot imagine. We, who were supposed to be immortal, dying in battle. After the war, only a handful remained on this world. Most left through the Labyrinth to heal, and forget.”

  “They aren’t concerned about retribution? Or that everything they sacrificed for will be destroyed?”

  Disgust twisted his face. “They think the demons will have learned their lesson, that they will avoid our worlds. It is the great bluff, with their heads in the sand. Once the demons are loose, once they have taken this world, they will enter the Labyrinth, again, and no one will be safe.”

  “That’s why you’re fighting so hard. That’s why you stayed.”

  Jack hesitated. “This world is not the most beautiful, my dear, nor is it the kindest. But it wears its flaws with depth, and hard beauty, and even I, at my great age, find myself constantly surprised.”

  “Ah,” I said gently. “I know why my grandmother liked you.”

  “She was a lovely woman,” he replied, with reverence. “She would be proud of you.”

  A flush touched my cheeks. I swallowed hard, casting about, and saw a dirty clock on the wall. Another kind of fear filled me. “How long was I in the Labyrinth?”

  Jack followed my gaze. “Time passes differently there. To you, perhaps months. Out here, only one day.”

  Months. Felt like years. I was going to tell him that, but when I looked back at him, he was staring at my right hand, utterly preoccupied. For the first time, I noticed something heavy on my finger, and looked down.

  I was wearing a ring—a thick, heavy band that could have been made fro
m iron or dull silver, but that stretched from the base of my finger to the joint at the center, entirely covering the skin. Runes had been engraved, etchings that resembled odd roses; elegant, even deadly. When my finger twitched, I felt an undercurrent, an electric burn between my skin and the ring.

  The sword.

  I knew they were the same. I knew it in an instant. Just not how. I kept my mouth shut, though—as if to speak that knowledge out loud would be a violation of some trust: not a secret, but not something to throw around.

  Crazy, maybe. But I had a sense. I had a feeling between my hand and the hilt, my hand and the ring, like it had been waiting for me. Patient. In the dark. I was afraid to abuse that.

  Jack still stared. I cleared my throat. “What about the others?”

  “Fine,” he said shortly. “You’ll see them soon.”

  I started to feel tired, my eyelids heavy. I looked past Jack for Zee, but all I saw were dusty plastic curtains, a cheap plastic card table piled with newspapers, and a golden shag carpet that looked like a roach motel. Jack reached down by the bed and picked up a water bottle.

  “Forgive the accommodations,” he said, holding it to my mouth. “I had to make do with breaking into a stranger’s flat.”

  “Never pegged you for a criminal,” I replied, drowsy.

  “You learn things by the time you’re old,” Jack said gently.

  The water tasted good but not as sweet as what I had drunk in the Labyrinth. I shut my eyes, needing the darkness. I missed being blind. I thought about Zee again, but it was too difficult to ask. My brain stopped working.

  I fell asleep.

  I fell upon paths of stone and night, hunting dreams along the Labyrinth walls. I dreamed I held the sword. I dreamed I was blind and had to stop along my journey. Sword in my lap, the flat of the blade pressed against my thighs. Rocking, pressing a fist against my throat to stifle some grief I could not name. I dreamed a slither, silent, beneath my heart. Darkness, whispering.