Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  CHAPTER 13

  Hannibal was asleep almost the minute they pulled out of the parking lot. Although the trip home lasted only seven minutes, it felt so much longer, because Olympia had played the evening’s events over and over in her mind a dozen times.

  Confusion, awe, and … hope. Real hope. She had seen something very close to the miraculous, and that was what her little family needed. Hani’s response to Madame Gupta, the fact that a woman of such phenomenal capacities had taken an interest in the Dorseys … miracles. By the time they pulled into their driveway, his rosebud lips burred with snores. She couldn’t wake the boy to feed him, and decided to just carry him up to his room.

  Olympia tucked him into his sports car, kissed his forehead, and closed the door.

  * * *

  Hannibal dreamed.

  The Game was different now. The house was different. Or … perhaps he only saw it differently. The exterior was overgrown with vines, and wreathed with Christmas lights. The walls were translucent, and in them he could see piping … electrical wiring … so much else. And some of the wiring was frayed, broken or tangled.

  So much to do. The wiring was burned and melted, but Madame Gupta had been right: there were ways around the damage. Ways to knot and mend things together. And that was a good thing, because suddenly, for the first time in his life, he felt … urgency.

  There was a reason he wanted to build his house stronger. A reason to repair. A reason to want not to be limited by how bright and sharp the entire world seemed to be. He didn’t know quite what that reason was … but knew it was there.

  Something was coming. Coming faster and faster, something with bright eyes and sharp teeth.

  Work. Quickly.

  CHAPTER 14

  As Terry let himself into his condo, he felt as if he were sleepwalking. Floating. He barely looked at Mark’s bedroom door, which was closed. Television and snoring sounds drifted from behind it. When he had first met Mark, the big man had slept as silently as a rock. Now, it sounded as if there were wet, greasy bladders collapsing within him with every breath, wheezing like a dying steam engine.

  Time takes everything. Tropical diseases and bullets to the chest and liver just make it all happen a little faster.

  Mark. His friend. Maybe his only real friend.

  Dying slowly, however much the old soldier might try to laugh it off.

  Dying, and hoping he could get even with O’Shay before death had the last laugh.

  Terry wandered dazedly into his own room, gazed around as if he had wandered into a stranger’s. The spare bookshelves, the cheap stereo system, the closet hung with T-shirts and jeans in laundered rows. A room without personality, or any purpose save function.

  He took off his shoes and laid back on the bed, eyes open and staring. When he closed them, colors and lines of light and motion exploded in the darkness, as if he had suddenly entered a new and alien world.

  Or been plunged back into an old one he thought he’d escaped.

  Flashes: men fighting, screaming, dying with sand in their eyes and mouths, in places with names from the Arabian Nights. Mountains and deserts and dry valleys that had been graveyards for Greeks, Brits, and Russians. Brief glimpses of burning vehicles, shattered bodies, and of Terry himself crawling across blast-torn earth, struggling to pull buddies out of a flaming Humvee. Actions he was proud of. People he loved. Sounds and smells he would give his soul to forget.

  Explosions, screams, grinding engines, howling wind, commands and prayers, bullets shredding bodies, helicopters sweeping in and out …

  Men pleading for mercy where there was none to be found.

  Nothing personal. Just orders given by someone far, far away, in vengeance for the death of people Terry had never met.

  Dear God. What had he been? What had he done?

  Why could he not remember the softer sounds? Marketplaces, laughter, music, children’s games, calls to prayer, dogs barking, sheep lowing, birds singing and squawking … surely there were more such sounds. Surely.

  And smells … braised lamb and burnt rubber. Sweat and high explosives. Shit and burnt blood and perfume and gasoline.

  Why did he struggle to remember anything beyond the hard, the dangerous, and the ugly?

  One thought. A man. A friend. Sergeant Remmy Jayce, who had saved his ass, saved Pat Ronnell and Lee as well, on one of those terrible desert days.

  But he couldn’t stay with that memory, dared not, forced his mind away. Desperately sought something to distract him from Sgt. Jayce, who had died screaming on another day, in another land.

  Right, Terry?

  Suddenly, he remembered the DVD Gupta had given him, and was grateful for the distraction. A Panasonic flat-screen/video player combo perched on his dresser, and he popped the disk in, then laid back on his bed to watch. After opening titles that looked as if someone had created them on an old Atari computer, he was treated to the image of a classroom hung with tapestries and crammed with cross-legged, straight-backed women and bearded, bright-eyed men, facing an old man as thin as a whispered prayer.

  His beard was larger than his head, and heavily streaked with gray. His face was a death mask seemingly composed more of will than flesh. Only his eyes seemed totally alive. When he spoke, the sound was slightly mismatched to the movement of his lips, and Terry had the oddest feeling that it was not a glitch.

  From the first words, he felt himself sink into the spell, teetering on the edge of another dream. And then he surrendered, and fell without a scream.

  * * *

  In respectful silence they sat, enraptured by Savagi’s ancient voice. The aged master seemed nothing but wisdom and bone, his nut-brown scalp bare, his black eyes bright. They listened, unmoving, unspeaking, as if seeking to memorize every word.

  “One final time, I tell you the story,” he rasped, voice barely more than a whisper. “The tale that was told to me by my father, and to him by his, and his, and his, back to the time of god-kings. Listen,” he said, “and learn…”

  * * *

  From horizon to sawtooth horizon, the plain was strewn with the twisted, broken bodies of the dying and the dead. Their groans had attracted swarms of human vermin: throat-slitters, thieves, and cannibals, but soon even those vile predators would gather their dreadful burdens and disperse. Death had flooded down from the north, swarming through the defenders like a cloud of locusts, consuming everything in its path. Now the horsemen, charioteers, and foot soldiers of the greatest army this land had ever seen stood to the south, gazing back over the crimsoned plain, a beast of infinite angry limbs and ravenous mouths.

  Its leader was resplendent in his robes and armor, a prince of his distant land. The youngest of five brothers, his father had declined to king him, choosing instead to gift him with an army to carve out a realm of his own, sending him south into the ancient lands to do so.

  His cold blue eyes scanned the battlefield. What fools they are, to deny the son of destiny, he thought. I am the sun and the moon, and will conquer all.

  That night, his men celebrated their victory with the women who have always flocked to the tents of conquerors. Their shrill laughter rose above the cook fires, shaming the stars. Those laughs almost, but not quite, drowned out the agonized cries of the captives unfortunate enough to have survived the day’s carnage. After long hours of knives, coals, and obscene promises, flayed lips had at last whispered of a hidden city.

  Could whatever pitiless gods crouching in nameless hells condemn their betrayal? In crimsoned time, even the stoutest heart grows frail.

  Screams had dwindled to sobs, and thence to moans, and then to deathly silence broken only by mumbled pleas and confessions. Save for those pale lipless men tasked with the various incisions and manipulations, the camp ignored what happened in the black tents. As soldiers always have, they drank and gambled and reveled, laying in the arms of strumpets, lying about their feats of arms, laving their fears of the mayhem to come with laughter and song and the illusion of
love.

  The prince, stern but focused upon his intent, slept alone. Two raven-haired vixens had offered their ruby lips and perfumed loins to him. His officers grinned and elbowed each other, certain he would succumb to their charms, but he did not. He did not condemn his subordinates for their fleshly hungers, but retired to his tent that he might not be distracted by his own.

  * * *

  The cries of pleasure and screams of merriment continued until late into the night, only dwindling as the sun was reborn in the east.

  The women abandoned the camp, bearing their bundles of clothing and small sacks of silver coins. All were headed in the same direction, east to a calm section of the Wolf River, where boats and oarsmen waited to ferry them south. The women huddled together, moving little for the six hours they traveled. They did not eat, drink, or pass water. They sang hymns to their gods and to the skies and to their lost purity. By the time they reached their destination, they dwelled beyond ordinary human emotions, in some twilight realm where misery and bliss commingled in sacred harmony, as befitted the priestesses they were.

  Swiftly, they were escorted through a gate in the city walls, into corridors shadowed by statues and cooled by gardens. Once arriving in the palace, the priestesses were escorted to private chambers, where they voided their bladders, sluicing out the fluids deposited by the men they had pleasured. Every inch of their skin was scrubbed, washed clean by weeping, wailing maidens.

  Then … they were coiffed and clothed and scented with precious oils, and returned to their holy offices. After further ceremonies they would be married to highborn husbands and given the greatest respect for the remainder of their lives. It was only right, considering what they had sacrificed to preserve their beloved city …

  Always assuming, of course, that their efforts were not in vain. The fluids they had voided were gathered in silver goblets. Over coals, the fluid was reduced in volume, then each sampling was poured into a separate goblet, each goblet then taken to one of twelve priests.

  Twelve women. Twelve cups. Twelve priests. The priests drank deeply, and then as slaves played drum and string, sank into their meditations.

  * * *

  In three days, the northerners had found their way through the ravines and twisted mountain roads, past the camouflaged bridges and a maze of dead-end false paths to the city gates.

  Their messengers approached the barred portals. Through great bronze horns they bellowed their demands: total surrender, abandonment of arms, and opening of the gates. In words obscene and devoid of mercy they painted images of agonizing death and disgrace for any who resisted the prince’s will.

  The eldest of the city fathers emerged and replied that if the northerners did not return to their homeland, the army would be destroyed. As might be predicted, the threat was greeted with derisive laughter.

  “I have something for you to read,” the elder said, and withdrew a scroll from his robe. One of the soldiers took it, examined it, and then offered it to the prince, who seemed amused. The scroll read as follows:

  “We have the power to kill anyone, anywhere, at any time. We can kill your father and family at home. Fight us, and nothing will stop us from killing any who serve you or that you care about. We will tell your father you brought this upon them, and that every death is due to you. You will not be the first to die, you will be the last. And everyone you love will curse your name as they perish.”

  The prince’s smile faltered. Had he not heard of a city protected by magic? Had there not been another time, perhaps several other times, when death like this had been promised, and delivered …

  The elder bowed his head, and without meeting their eyes proclaimed: “To give the prince a chance to reconsider, we first kill only the commanders.”

  The generals, mighty warriors and fearless all, laughed raucously at such splendid jest, not realizing that the prince was not laughing with them. The greatest among them stepped forward. His sword flickered in his hand. The elder’s head fell to the ground and rolled against a stump, eyes blinking as the corpse toppled first to its knees and then onto its side.

  They did not see that the prince had half-raised his hand, as if on the verge of demanding that they wait, just a moment, while he considered more fully.

  But in the temple, the priests knew what had been said and done. For three days and nights, they had meditated deeply, the scraps of flesh and bits of hair, the smears of sexual fluid now digesting within their bellies.

  And in their meditations, they surrendered their sense of self, abandoning their names, and histories, and even their sacred humanity. Passed through the ego-illusion of separate existence until they were joined with all life, all part of the eternal cosmos. And they sought those from whom the skin and hair and fluid had been taken … searching among billions of living beings until they found the men who had commanded the invading army.

  And intertwined with them, rooted into them.

  Joined.

  The commanders gasped, stumbled, feeling almost as though a hand had reached through their skin and into their innards.

  Sensed something akin to physical violation as the spirit of the priests entered them, spirits guided by blood drawn to blood and flesh to flesh.

  Then the priestesses who had baited the commanders with their own bodies served poisoned wine to the priests. A warm, honeyed concoction it was, which the holy men drank without hesitation. The draughts worked swiftly, such that the priests soon fell to the floor, succumbing to terminal slumber as the sirens soothed their heads, whispering of paradise and reciting memorized passages from the forbidden Black Sutra.

  And beyond the barred gates, in the fields of the army’s endless thousands, the commanders sank to their knees, dying.

  And then dead.

  For a few moments there was naught but stunned silence. The foot soldiers and archers and charioteers gazed disbelieving at the corpses of the twelve greatest warriors in their prince’s command.

  They turned to look at the prince, to see what they should do. If at that moment he had displayed strength and fortitude, they might have plunged on and razed the city.

  But there was a reason his father had not gifted him with a kingdom, had guessed that he lacked the fiber necessary to lead. Had instead demanded that he prove himself.

  And when the men saw how the color had drained from the prince’s face, how he trembled and lost his water …

  Every man knew what the prince’s father had known.

  Then, as if of one mind, they returned the way they had come, scatterings of gold coins, silver goblets, and precious jewels marking their northern flight.

  It is said that the prince returned to his country, a broken, dishonored man. And the city … the city was forgotten, and lived in peace for another thousand years, until finally the desert sands drank the empty streets, and even the memory was lost to time.

  Until all that remained were scrolls written in poisoned ink.

  And in time, those were forgotten as well.

  * * *

  Terry … blinked. Yawned. Shook himself to full awareness, for a moment uncertain where or even who he was. The DVD had returned to the main menu. He did not know when his attention had wavered, but could remember nothing of what he had seen. Had he fallen asleep? He must have. And yet … it didn’t precisely feel as if he had slept. In fact, he wasn’t certain what had happened.

  He checked the time: it was two in the morning. He simply wasn’t tired or sleepy. Stark naked, Terry rolled off the bed and walked into the living room, their makeshift office, and looked at an array of architectural designs. Pulled away the dummy top sheet to study the real plans. Surveillance. Following O’Shay’s trucks. Ambush. Covering the drivers and guards in a potentially lethal crossfire as the loot was taken.

  The drawings seemed to come to life … roads rising off the page like cartoon animations, peopled with tiny vivid human figures. Cars raced, spun, crashed. The guards tried to protect themselves, and were gunned
down by Mark, Father Geek, Lee, and Pat.

  Especially Pat.

  And once it started, Terry did his share of the killing as well. God, yes, he did. As in Fallujah. As in Central America. As in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

  He felt every recoil, saw every drop of blood, heard every wet, horrified howl of pain. So clear were they, each and every one, like images out of one of Hannibal’s pop-up books, sounds in Dolby Digital, smells like some maniac perfumer’s private sampling parlor. Everything so real, so stark. So …

  He hung his head, sick and sad and lost.

  CHAPTER 15

  All the next day, Olympia felt as if she were floating on a cloud at CNS, even though an undercurrent of panic blossomed as another resident of the Dead List, a French executive known to have dumped tainted baby formula on the Nigerian market, died crawling toward the phone while her husband dialed 112, the universal European emergency code. The question was: where were the other promised deaths? In a world of seven billion souls, it was overwhelmingly probable that they had simply gone unnoticed. So many places for people to die, without their bodies discovered or means of death determined.

  But what she did grasp was that the world had reached some kind of tipping point. Or … boiling point. People were anticipating the next day’s evil news. Expecting it. So strange for the external world to descend into chaos just when her own personal world seemed to sparkle with hope. Was that some kind of strange cosmic joke? A cruel universal zero-sum game?

  No. She couldn’t let her mind drift in that direction. All would be well. Her good fortune could not, would not trigger disaster for others.

  Could it?

  The only thing that day that alleviated the growing sense of dread was the phone call she received at two o’clock in the afternoon, extending a formal invitation to her, and to Hannibal, to come to the Golden Dream’s “Salvation Sanctuary.” A limousine would be sent to gather them.