The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5)

by Kaaron Warren

  I had been lucky, the Mother said. Another few minutes outside without my Heart, and my flesh heart would have failed. Lucky I had stayed so close to the Sun House.

  When I went outside again, the flame was gone. I rubbed at my bandaged thigh, knowing that there was little space left for more scars.

  * * *

  For two moon cycles, I waited. Twice, my own blood puddled useless and thin between my thighs. Then, finally, I was allowed to join the other ripe Sisters in the Moon House.

  If I could have, I would have closed my eyes against both light and shadows. And if I had possessed true eyes, they would have flown open as the last Father entered the hall. For he shone with bright, perfect light, a flame walking in the shape of a man.

  He burned so bright that he dimmed the other Fathers almost entirely. And I realised, as he walked down the beds, why it was that he was so bright.

  He was whole.

  He affected a limp, and I could tell by the shape of his light that he had one arm bound close to his body. Despite the binding, there were no shadows there, no missing pieces.

  He paused at the foot of my bed, but a Mother came up, the ticking loud beneath her robe, and ushered him on to another Sister.

  I wanted to push away the Father who came to me. Wanted to tell him to stop, even as his movements became more frantic, his seed spilling.

  For the first time in my life, I willed my blood to come early.

  * * *

  I hurried along, shivering lightly in my thin robe. I worried my thumb against the newest scar on my thigh, worrying at the edges of it until the skin opened, began to bleed again.

  All of the other Sisters and Mothers had been sleeping deeply when I had slipped out of the Dormitory. None of them had seen me go.

  I didn’t even know where I was going, not really. I just knew that I’d needed to get out of there.

  Was I looking for the flaming man? I didn’t know. I did know that I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself at the Wall. I leaned against the cool stone, listened to the machinery within click and groan. The gate nearby opened, warm air moving like breath against my skin.

  And then I heard something else. Hidden beneath the sound of mechanics was the unmistakable sound of a weeping child.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  The weeping broke off abruptly.

  “They will not speak back,” a voice said from behind me.

  I turned. Standing there was the flaming man. I stiffened, then fell quickly into a posture of obedience: head bowed, hands clasped. “The Mothers sent me on an errand, Father,” I lied.

  “You’re a Sister. You don’t get sent anywhere but to the Moon and Sun Houses.” He pronounced the words strangely, as though they fit ill in his mouth.

  I groped for another lie. “I . . . ”

  “It’s okay. I’m not going to report you.” His flames flickered, narrowed. “You can see me somehow, can’t you? Even though you don’t have any eyes.”

  “I can hear well.”

  He laughed. “What’s your name?”

  “Name?” The almost unfamiliar word brought with it a memory of Eight’s photograph: ashes, now, as she was.

  His light tightened, curled in upon itself. “I forgot. They don’t give you names, just numbers.”

  I looked up at him then. His arm was bound again, but he was still undoubtedly whole. And I knew, then, that he shouldn’t be there either, that he was hiding something more than just his wholeness. “There was someone who called me Nine. For the last number.” I held out my arm, displaying my numbers.

  “Other people wore numbers once,” he said, his voice quiet. “That ended, too.” He cleared his throat. “My name is Nataneal.”

  “Nataneal.” I repeated the name slowly, its syllables like broken stone in my mouth. “You don’t have a number?”

  He paused, then slid his bound arm free. He grasped my hand, pressed my fingers against the inside of his left arm. There were numbers there, but they were warm, not cool as mine were.

  “They’re false,” I said. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you, Nine?” He slid his arm back into its binding. “How do I know that you’re not going to run back and report me?”

  I pressed my hands together. My skin was warm from contact with his numbers.

  “If you are going to report me, do it now,” Nataneal said. “Otherwise, I will be here again this time tomorrow.”

  In the Wall behind me, the gate machinery groaned, the gate sliding closed with a thud.

  “If you come tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the weeping child.”

  He left me alone there, his flame vanishing into the shadows hanging low over the outer City.

  After a time, the child began to weep again.

  * * *

  That night, I dreamed of two heartbeats. They threaded together, falling into synchronisation, then moving in counterpoint, creating a strange and beautiful music.

  * * *

  The next morning, Nataneal was waiting for me at the Wall.

  “You didn’t report me,” he said as I approached him.

  “Is it that good?” I asked. “Your deception? A limp and a bound arm?”

  His flame swirled, moving into almost geometric shapes. “No one looks closely. Out here, people barely look at each other at all. You’re the only one who’s looked at me directly. You saw me.” He slid his arm out of its binding, straightened his spine. “How did you know?”

  I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders. “You said you would tell me about the weeping child. Is it some trick of the machinery making that sound?”

  “It is no trick.”

  We walked slowly along the Wall. The air grew warmer as we moved, and I knew that the gate was open.

  Nataneal’s light swirled for a moment, and then he turned to the Wall. I heard the grinding of stone against stone, then the sound of something heavy meeting the ground. Nataneal’s hand pressed against mine. I felt the beat of his heart beneath his skin before he moved his fingers down to my wrist, lifted my hand towards the Wall.

  I expected cold stone, and it took me a moment to realise that he was moving my hand further than it should have gone, that my hand was moving into the Wall itself. He kept his thumb pressed against my wrist for a moment, then his hand slid away.

  “Be silent and still,” he whispered. “Wait.”

  My Heart ticked a dozen times, and then I felt something brush my fingers. I stiffened, thinking of the machinery, but realised quickly that what I touched wasn’t cold metal, but warm and soft. Fingers, small and crusted, but alive. They curled around mine, probed into the cup of my palm, then fell away. The soft sound of weeping rose. I breathed in, tasted thick, fetid air.

  “There’s a child in there,” I said. “There’s a child in the Wall.”

  Nataneal pulled my hand back. When I lifted my fingers, I smelled old blood, unwashed skin, darker things.

  “A girl child,” Nataneal said. “Perhaps five or six sun cycles, small for her age.”

  “We have to let her out!” I grasped at the edge of the hole, my nails scratching at the mortar. “Where is the door?”

  “There is no door.”

  I ran my hands across the Wall, searching. “There has to be! How else did she get in there?”

  Nataneal withdrew a nutrient wafer from his pocket. By its scent, it was one of the richer ones from the Sun House. He handed it through the hole, then slid the stone back into place.

  “They lower the child in through a small trap at the top of the Wall” he said, his voice flat. “It’s done as soon as the child is old enough to understand the process of operating the gate. It’s quite simple, just the pressing of a few levers, turning a wheel. Most are lowered in when they are three sun cycles or so. Once a week, someone comes to supply them with nutrient wafers, take away their wastes. When they remember, of course. Sometimes it takes weeks before someone notices that the gates haven’t opened. The gates are not a priority
for the City.” He smoothed a hand over the loose stone. “It took us many moon cycles to loosen this stone. It was the first one, back when the Walled children were just rumours.”

  “Children? There’s more than one?”

  “Two per gate, one at each side. Four gates, eight children. None of them last long, of course. Some go mad, scratch at their own throats and wrists until they bleed out. Some try to climb back up to the trap, not realising it cannot be opened from within. I heard of one who reached eight sun cycles before he grew too large for the space in the Wall and slowly suffocated. It doesn’t matter to the City, of course. There’s always new children, and it’s a simple matter to reach in with long tools, slice the dead child into parts and draw them out one by one.”

  My flesh heart was thudding against the plate between my breasts, hard enough that I thought I should hear it. I didn’t want to ask the question, knew that I had to. “Where do the children come from?”

  “You and your Sisters breed them for the City. You leave them in the shadow of the Angel.”

  I bent over and retched. The thin bile that came up tasted like copper, like ash.

  When I was done, I sank to my knees, pressed my forehead against the Wall. After a moment, Nataneal sat next to me, close enough that I could hear the thudding of his heart even over the ticking of my clockwork Heart.

  “This is how the City runs,” Nataneal said. “Once, before all this, they harnessed sparks in a different, forgotten fashion to run the machines, to illuminate, to pump water, to raise the gates. Now, Walled children control the gates, and belowground, children pump the bellows running the engines to move wastes along the pipes. There are steam engines on the Towers, but even there, children must climb to maintain them.”

  I looked up at the Towers, tried to gauge their height. Tried to imagine being that high. Vertigo clutched at me.

  “There are no ropes, nothing to keep the children safe,” Nataneal continued. “The children climb the cage holding the pipes and pumps. Many fall.”

  “I gave a child to the Angel,” I said. “Twelve sun cycles ago. She was as close to whole as I have seen. They said that she would be Chosen, she would enter the Towers.”

  “They lied. No one has ever entered the Towers from outside.”

  I looked at his wholeness anew. “And has anyone come out?”

  His light swirled, moved into that geometric pattern again. “I was one of the Chosen,” he said. I smelled salt on the air. “They lie to us, too, Nine. They tell us that no one remains outside the Towers, that the world was blasted away by the War. They tell us that we are waiting until the world is safe enough for us to go outside again. They tell us nothing, except in the vaguest terms, and no one thinks to ask.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you looked. Because you saw. Because we need you.”

  “We?”

  “The revolution.” He pressed his hand to mine briefly; I felt the fluttering of his pulse. “We should get back before anyone notices we’re missing.”

  I pressed my hand against the Wall once more, let him lead me back.

  * * *

  This is the true world, as Nataneal told me:

  The Angel stands in the centre of the inner City, the four Towers around her. The tall, black buildings are caged with brass, surrounded by pumps and pipes to bring water to those who live within, to remove wastes. Steam engines power these networks; larger engines at the base of each Tower provide power for everything else. All of these networks and engines are maintained by children who live in the low, grey Dormitories which squat between the Towers.

  Over time, the children are affected by what Nataneal calls radiation. When they are too sick to work aboveground, they are sent below, to pump the bellows driving the pumps of the waste systems. The bellows are pumped around the clock, and once a child is sent belowground, they never see the sun again.

  There are the Walled children, too, and probably others running systems that Nataneal didn’t know about.

  Within the radiation-shielded Towers, selective breeding maintains genetic purity. All are subjected to regular screening to ensure their own Chosen state.

  All of the children of the Towers are educated, but none are told the truth.

  Most do not question. But there are those who have, and they are working together inside to bring the truth to light, to free those born to slavery both within and without the Towers. Nataneal is one of the first to discover a way outside, but he will not be the last.

  * * *

  The Mother’s fingers tore into me. I clenched against her, wanting to force her out.

  She leaned over to check my Heart, her fingers still inside me, pushing harder. The ticking beneath her robes jarred and skipped. “There is no room for any more scars, Sister. This cycle will be your last.”

  She pulled her fingers out roughly, pressed a key into my hand. The metal was cold, and did not warm against my skin.

  * * *

  That night I lay awake in the Moon House, listening to the ticking of Hearts in the hall. I laid my fingers next to the plate set over my sternum, felt the beating of my flesh heart.

  My fingers moved across the plate, found the empty socket where it intersected with my Heart. The Mothers told us that if we removed our Hearts outside the Moon or Sun Houses, we would die.

  The Mothers said my daughter would be Chosen.

  The Mothers said.

  Nataneal was lied to. How much of what the Mothers said to us was a lie?

  I slid my feet out of bed, the stone floor cold beneath my soles. The room smelled like sour sweat, like seed. There was a hint of a darker thing, too, a scent that put me in mind of the Walled child.

  Death.

  It was death that I smelled. Their death, and mine.

  I pushed the door open, and, Heartless, I stepped outside.

  One step, two, and my own flesh heart continued to beat. Faster now, but steady, my blood pounding in my ears.

  Three steps, four and I was running, flying, searching the houses and halls for Nataneal’s flame.

  * * *

  In the end, he found me, his flame appearing from out of a small building leaning against the back of one of the men’s halls.

  His hands closed over my arms. “Nine, what is it? Are you well?” His fingers touched my empty Heart plate. “Did they . . . ?”

  I shook my head. “They lied to us. They said that we’d die, but it does nothing. It doesn’t keep us alive. It controls us.” I paused. “How much else have they lied about?”

  I saw his frown as a swirling in his flame. “You should come inside. It is safe in here.”

  He drew me into the building, and the world went away. I stumbled, and was glad for his hands on mine. Without that touch, I would have thought myself suspended in nothing. Even his flame was gone.

  “You can see it, can’t you?” he asked. “It’s something like what they use to shield the Towers. It blocks most electromagnetic radiation, most sound as well.”

  He guided my hand to the wall. It felt smooth and slightly warm, like skin with no pores or hairs. I realised, too, that there was a steady ticking in the room. The sound of clockwork.

  “It requires energy to pass through it constantly,” he continued. “It’s a simple engine, made by a member of the resistance.”

  “It’s strange, not being able to see you,” I said. I hesitated, then reached up, pressed my hand to his face, tracing the curve of his jaw and cheek. I encountered dampness; I touched my fingers to my lips and tasted salt. “The Mother said this cycle was my last chance. If I do not produce a child, I will be recycled.”

  “Recycled?”

  I touched his face again, felt the shape of his frown. “They recycle our bodies when we are no longer useful to the City in any other way. And make us useful again, as much as they can.” He was still frowning. “The nutrient wafers.”

  He swallowed hard. “And I always though the filtered water in the
Towers was bad. Oh, Nine, what you have all lived.”

  His arms came around me then, pulling me close. I laid my cheek against his sternum, listened to his heartbeat, aware of my own synchronising with it.

  “We have been doing testing, as much as we can out here,” he said, his voice resonating within his chest. “Few, if any, of the Fathers possess fertile seed. There has been too much contamination, too much radiation.” He swallowed again. “But I . . . ”

  I pulled back, just enough to be able to touch his face again. His eyes were closed, his lashes damp. “You have been kept shielded for most of your life,” I said. “Your seed should be strong. If my fault in bearing lies with the Fathers . . . ” I trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

  “I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t . . . ” His eyes opened, and I knew he was looking directly at where my own eyes should be. “You have been forced enough.”

  It was my turn to swallow. “In the Towers, if people want to, how do they start?”

  He smiled. “They kiss.”

  “Kiss? What is that?”

  His smile widened, and I realised how young he was. At least a half dozen sun cycles less than me, probably more. “I’ll show you.”

  And he did.

  * * *

  Afterwards, I knew that I carried a daughter.

  I felt her flame within me, and though I could not see her, I knew also that she bore two shadows where her eyes should be. She would see the world as I did, my gift to her.

  I was the only Sister moved to the Sun House. Inside, everything smelled like blood and death, and the rich nutrient wafers they brought reminded me of the Walled child. I pressed my fingers into my belly, thought of my daughters.

  Nataneal was always nearby, his flame visible to me through the walls. I watched him talking to others, watched other bright flames join his, knew they were putting their plans into motion. And I began to hear words from outside the hall, repeated often, like a prayer: When the Angel flies, we will all be free.