“Get off me,” he cries. His voice sounds pathetically weak.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she says, stroking his cheek, her long fingernail barely touching his skin. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not too much.” She shifts herself backward, centered now over his groin, so that they are rubbing against one another like two kids too frightened to go all the way. Anger and desire mingle in his brain. This is one game he never played with her.
“You just need to understand who’s going to be in charge here, brother,” she murmurs. “Who’s going to be on top.” She grins. “Relax. Stop struggling. I think you’ll enjoy it.” Her perfume, her scent, envelops him. He is hypnotized by the rise and fall of her breath. As she inhales, her breasts strain forward against the bodice, then release again as she exhales. She pulls something loose from her hair. The elaborate coiffure comes undone, unfolding around her, a sunlit nimbus of amber.
The object she holds, Second Son sees, is a dagger. He thinks he should be frightened, or at least angry, but somehow he is not. The long dagger flashes downward, ripping open his shirt in one smooth motion. Her fingers slip under the ruined fabric, across his hairless chest. The blade flashes brilliantly, tearing his clothes to shreds. With her free hand, Dancer massages his pectoral as if it were a woman’s breast. His feeling of shame is abstract, distant, a mere accent to the wave of sensuality her touch brings him. He wonders why he never saw her beauty before. Her brilliant smile and piercing eyes scintillate with the great madness of the Orcus dynasty. The awe Second Son feels for her is almost religious in its intensity.
“That’s Stone’s dirk, isn’t it?” he asks. Dancer nods, her dark eyes solemn. Second Son closes his eyes, afraid that the wave of unnamable emotion washing over him will bring tears.
He hears the rip of cloth again, and when he opens his eyes she is naked above him. Her skin is flawless, more beautiful than he could ever have hoped for. Her tanned muscles are brightly etched by sunlight. She leans forward, so that her nipples brush against his chest. The point of her blade dimples the soft skin beneath his chin. “I’m going to let you go now,” she whispers. The tickle of her breath in his ear raises goosebumps from his empty follicles. “You can fight, or . . . you can be a good little boy.”
Her knees slide apart and Second Son slips his hands free. The muscles of her legs, which had been as hard as steel only a moment before, are warm and yielding. He moves his hands upward to her hipbones, watching his fingers grip them as if it were all on one of his monitors, as if it were all happening to someone else. He feels her hands reach down beneath him, pulling his leggings down around his thighs, and he is free. The past falls away, and the future opens before him, ripe with unimagined possibilities. He grips her hips still tighter, so tightly it will surely leave bruises. He guides her to him, and down. As her warmth envelops him, he hears her voice from very far away, saying, “I always knew that . . . deep down . . . you really loved me.”
THE WAY OF THE STONE
Rena Galliard sits in a chair in Lem Comfrey’s narrow domus with her hands tied behind her back. She has long since stopped trying to struggle free. Sweat makes her blond, shoulder-length hair stick to her forehead. She bends forward to rub it away from her eyes with her shoulder, but she cannot quite reach.
Lem is kneeling in the corner in front of a large Sacrament Rock. Two daubs of white paint, representing his spirit and Rena’s, are drying on its rough surface.
“Lem,” she says. “Please, let me go.”
“Quiet!” Lem closes his eyes tightly. His lips move silently as he completes the prayer.
“Please, Lem. There’s so many other things we can do. Just because you can’t fight in the Palaestra anymore doesn’t mean your life is over.”
Lem kisses the rock, giving it his breath. “It is over,” he says. “In the True Life, when we’re reunited in the Stone, you’ll see it’s best this way.”
He stands. He is dressed in his best palaestran uniform: green and gold patterned tights and a red shirt that is little more than a band across his chest, emphasizing its breadth. He walks across the room, stooping under the low concrete ceiling. He stops at a picture of himself in his younger, trimmer days. Beneath the picture is a wide cabinet. He pulls open the top drawer. The inside is filled with knives and short swords, all carefully arranged on red velour.
“Oh, Lem,” she says, a tremor in her voice. “Please, no.”
“Quiet, Rena. ‘Weak spirits make weak stone,’” he quotes. He selects one of the knives, feeling the edge with his thumb. He moves towards her.
“Lem, put the knife down. Stop it!”
He puts a finger to her lips, silencing her. “The Way of the Stone is silence,” he intones. “The Way of the Stone is strength.”
The air around Rena shimmers, as if with a sudden wave of heat. “Hello, Lem,” says a soft voice from behind her. Lem’s jaw sags, eyes widening in surprise. He takes a step backward. Twisting in her seat, Rena sees a bone-white gauntlet, the fingers sharpened like spear points, resting on the back of her chair.
Suddenly the chair rocks backward, the Winnower using it as a brace to launch himself at Lem. His heel cracks into Lem’s cheekbone. Lem staggers backward, blood spurting from the gash. The knife flies out of his hand and skitters across the floor. His head knocks hard against the wall behind him.
The Winnower lands in a crouch at the center of the tiny room. “Don’t fight me, Lem,” he says. “If you want to die so badly, I’ll do all the work for you.”
Lem shakes his head and rises to one knee. He eyes the knife in the corner where it has come to rest, seeming to judge if he can reach it before the Winnower can reach him.
The Winnower’s dark eyes turn in the direction of Lem’s gaze, also appraising Lem’s chances. He sways to one side, preparing to jump. “Or maybe death isn’t really what you’re after,” he hisses. “Maybe you just wanted the attention.”
With a cry of anger, Lem lunges for the knife. Before he is even halfway across the room, the Winnower crashes into him, throwing him against the wall. As he tumbles back, Lem twists in his grasp and locks his arms around the armored figure, squeezing hard. This was always his signature move in the Palaestra. Other men were faster, other men were better strategists, but few men ever broke his grip.
The two men wrestle in the shadows. The Winnower gives a cry of pain as Lem squeezes his arms together. The metal of his breastplate groans under the pressure. There is still real muscle beneath Lem’s flab. Rena watches from across the room, uncertain who she wants to win this struggle. But the outcome is never really in question. There is a scream and a sudden burst of scarlet as Lem’s blood slashes across the wall.
The Winnower is free.
Lem staggers to his feet, blood dripping from a gash in his side. With the palaestran backed against the concrete wall, the Winnower throws a series of swift punches to Lem’s face and stomach. Lem tries to ward off the blows, but his strength is gone. He stumbles and falls. He tries to right himself, but he cannot get his bearings. He collapses to the ground, his head resting against the Sacrament Rock.
“Would you like to know what offends me the most about you, Lem?” the Winnower says, circling him.
Lem tries to rise to his feet. A kick to his face knocks him down again.
“I think that after you’d killed this poor girl, you’d lose your nerve.” Once more the palaestran tries to rise. Again the Winnower knocks him down.
“You’d decide you wanted to live after all. You’d say it was traumatic dementia that made you do the things you did, but you’re all better now. You’d look for pity and support.”
Lem rests on his hands and knees, head bowed, breathing raggedly. Blood drips from his mouth and nose. Two shiny metal boots pace by him, just on the periphery of his vision.
“Someone would probably give it to you, too.”
The Winnower’s voice seems to come from somewhere very far away. Warm blood spreads across the concrete floor. Lem can
feel it seeping out of his muscles, leaving them weak and cold. He struggles not to collapse. So much has been taken from him. All he has left is the pride that he has not fallen.
“Oh, and Lem?” the Winnower says quietly. “There’s one more thing . . .”
With an effort, Lem raises his head to look at the armored stranger.
A metal claw shoots forward, two sharp fingers extended. They sink without resistance into Lem’s eyes. He does not even have time to utter a sound before they rip into his brain.
Rena screams.
Lem’s body sags backward, hanging from the Winnower’s hand. The Winnower has to brace himself against the weight of the body, which threatens to pull him off balance. His fingers are lodged in Lem’s skull past the second knuckle.
“No! No!” Rena shouts. “Let go of him!”
“I’m . . . umf . . . trying.” Lem’s head bobs up and down as the Winnower tries to work his fingers free.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Struggling, Rena manages to work herself free of the chair, but her hands are still bound behind her.
With his free hand, the Winnower grabs the wrist of the hand that is stuck and pulls as hard as he can. He twists the hand in both directions but the fingers still will not come free. In desperation, he plants one boot against Lem’s chest and pushes. With a popping noise and a gout of blood, his hand comes free. Lem’s body drops to the floor. Shaking the blood from his hand, the Winnower turns and looks at Rena. “Now then,” he says.
Rena struggles to her feet and runs for the door, but with her hands bound she cannot undo the lock. She bends forward, trying to punch the code into the pad with her chin.
An armored fist closes around the fabric of her shirt and whirls her around. The Winnower grips her by both shoulders. Two empty sockets stare into her eyes. She is close enough to see the flush in his skin, the sweat running down his face from under the mask.
“Listen to me,“ he says. His voice is rough but subdued, almost loving. “This is the most important moment of your life. I’m not the only person who heard what Lem said he was going to do. There are half a dozen chatters and their assistants outside that door. They know they’ve got a story, a juicy bit of gossip to spread around to their ‘friends,’ and they won’t leave until they’ve got it. But what kind of story they find is up to you.”
Rena has stopped struggling, lulled by the calm yet forceful murmur of his voice.
“If they find you screaming and crying, they’ll decide you’re as crazy as Lem was. Maybe they’ll even tell everyone he went insane because you didn’t support him in his time of need. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What counts is that it’s a good story. And that’s how people will think of you for the rest of your life.”
Rena stares into the empty sockets of the mask, but there is nothing there to which her eyes can connect. Only his voice reaches out to her, with a passion otherwise hidden by the mask.
“But if you are calm,” he says, “if you tell them tearfully but rationally how frightened you were, and how glad you are to see them, then they will call you a hero. Do you understand? You have to make them like you, make them think that you did what they would have done in your shoes. Then they’ll tell your story to their friends, and everyone will say how brave you are. They’ll want to help you get back on your feet. You’ll be a sensation.”
He releases his grip on her shoulders. She has become so mesmerized by his voice that she almost falls backward.
“Do you understand?” he asks.
She nods wordlessly, her hair falling across her eyes.
“Good.” He reaches around her and rips her bonds with his talons. The torn straps flutter to the floor. She rubs her wrists, trying to get the blood flowing again. She does not look at the body on the floor. “Remember what I said,” the Winnower says, stepping backward. He fades slowly from view, watching her with an expression that is almost a smile.
After a moment, she hears a knock at the door.
REFERENDUM
Cadell finds Thraso waiting for him when he walks into the ghost cells. Thraso’s eyes are two black slits.
“Koba’s teeth!” Cadell exclaims. “What happened to you?”
“What?” Thraso replies, affecting nonchalance. “Oh, the eyes.”
Cadell leans forward. On closer examination, he can see that Thraso’s eyes are not truly black. The whites of his eyes are actually a dark red, obscuring the boundary with the irises.
“Elective subconjunctival hemorrhaging,” Thraso explains. “I had my doctor apply an ointment that caused my eyes’ external blood vessels to burst.”
“Isn’t that painful?”
“Excruciating,” Thraso says with a slight smile. “What’s your point?”
Cadell blinks. He knows there’s no point in arguing with Thraso. “What happened to your narration?” he asks. “Your life story?”
“Thraso got tired of it. Thraso decided it was too much fucking work.” He shrugs. “Would you like to see your new office?”
Cadell grabs Thraso’s bicep. “I have an office?” He feels his face grow into an uncontrollable grin. Thraso retains only his ubiquitous enigmatic smile.
“You think I let my lieutenants languish in the cells like ordinary spectres?”
Thraso leads Cadell down an aisle to a door in one corner of the cells. Cadell has seen higher-ranking ghosts walk through this door, but he has never come near it himself. It slides open as Thraso passes his ident over the panel. Beyond it is a narrow corridor with office doors running down either side. Thraso walks a short distance and indicates the access panel of one of the doors. “Go ahead,” he says.
Cadell puts his ident to the panel. The door opens to reveal an undecorated room with a desk slightly larger than his old one.
“Good day, Cadell,” the desk says.
Cadell grins. His old subroutine didn’t have enough memory allocated to it to remember his name. He sits down, running his fingers over the electrostatic tablet. It is a more modern model than his old desk, with smoother lines and better material.
“Like it?” Thraso asks.
“I love it.”
“Good. I have a new assignment to go with the new office.” Thraso leans against the edge of the desk. “I just got word of a new referendum that’s going before the Prime Medium. It’s still in the decision stage, but I wanted you to get first crack at it. I understand that this one comes straight from the Culminant himself.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It has theological as well as political implications. If you write it and it passes, it would be a coup.”
“What is it?”
Thraso raises his head and taps his chin with his finger. He loves a chance to appear philosophical. “It’s a question of the Prime Medium’s official position on a sensitive issue. They want to release a public statement: do they recognize the Winnower as a supernatural entity? Is he human, or is he the Dark Spirit of the Stone made flesh?”
“That doesn’t sound like the sort of question they usually concern themselves with. Why do they want to address the issue at all?”
“Think about it.”
Cadell bows his head for a moment. Then his eyes snap open. “Second Son.”
“Precisely. If the Winnower is a man, then he’s just another nut with a grudge against the upper classes. If, on the other hand, he is a Spirit of Divine Righteousness, then his judgment against Second Son at the party is an expression of divine will. That’s why this referendum is so important. If the people declare that the Winnower is actually an avatar of the Stone, then the family of Orcus is finished.”
Seeing Cadell’s troubled expression, Thraso adds, less flippantly, “Speaking of the party, how is Amarantha?”
“Not so good.”
“I’m sorry.” Thraso tugs gently at a lock of hair in imitation of a man reluctant to speak his mind. “You know, Cadell, this lawsuit is a dangerous move, both vocationally and personally.”
“I k
now, but she’s determined. And I have to support her.”
“If Orcus loses this power struggle, then it won’t hurt you. It might even help your career. But if he wins, then the first thing he’ll do to consolidate his power is crush his enemies, especially the little ones. Like you.”
“I know.”
“And that’s assuming she wins. She could lose.”
“Koba, I hope not.”
“He’s null-class. Veniremen are notoriously reluctant to rule against null-class citizens. And Amarantha . . . well, she’s a lovely girl, but there’s still a lot of prejudice against the Engineered out there, especially among the lower classes.” Thraso’s long face becomes longer as he purses his lips. “Perhaps you could convince her to dye her hair.” “Ha! You try it.”
Thraso smiles. In combination with his blood-red eyes, the effect is unnerving. “You know, Cadell,” he says, “you can serve her best from here, by working to provide her with a good home, a good salary.” “I know,” Cadell says, but he doesn’t.
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN IDENTIFICATION
The man working the tiny DHI office is playing a video game when Orel arrives, hunched over his desk monitor so deeply that his spine forms an almost perfect semicircle. He does not look up when the door shuts, so Orel walks forward, clomping his feet as loudly as he can. The man still does not raise his head, so Orel steps closer to see what is so totally absorbing the man’s attention. Upside-down on the desk screen he sees a clumsy computer-generated monster with a skull’s face tearing into a crowd of clops with his claws, wading through them like a swimmer pushing his way through the shallow end of a pool on his way to deeper water. The office worker’s muscles twitch as if with electric shock as subtle movements of his fingers tell the Winnower who to eviscerate next.
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