No Return

by Zachary Jernigan

  She breathed shallowly as he lifted her arm and placed his shoulder under her armpit. She wished he had given her something to bite.

  “This is going to hurt,” he said.

  “I know,” she managed through gritted teeth. “Just get to it.” She took a deep breath, and in this moment it came: the question that had been nagging at her demanded a voice.

  “Berun?” she asked.

  Vedas paused, and she knew the answer.

  “Sorry,” he said, and rose from his crouch, levering her humerus downward against his chest, forcing the ball back into its socket with a loud pop.

  She screamed, and then the lights went out.

  ‡

  He wove a sling for her shoulder out of palm leaves and a larger one to hold her body, and then set out across the island. He stopped to feed her coconut flesh, urged her to drink. She rocked in his arms like a newborn, drifting in and out of dream-troubled sleep. Each time she woke, the visions had already faded, leaving her with only a vague sense of loss.

  The waking world was little more than a dream itself, a series of confusing tableaus. The sun progressed in jerks above her. The ground rose and fell so that the view upon waking was always different. A shimmering lake with Vedas’s reflection in it, her own face peering over the side of the sling. Flashes of light, the sun through tree trunks. A squat, ugly animal standing before them, grunting, stamping hooves into the black earth. A wall of hieroglyphed stone.

  Vedas stood upon the gnarled, red-black spine of the island, which extended northward to a distant shore. She sat up to take in the view and promptly fell back, exhausted by the minor exertion. There was a city on the western shore of Tan-Ten, she knew. Its name eluded her. A gambler’s paradise, someone had once called it.

  She licked cracked lips. “How far?” She could barely hear herself speak. “Four miles, give or take.”

  “What’s it called?” she managed, but fell asleep before hearing the answer. Upon waking, trees surrounded them again and the name had come to her. “Oasena?” she asked.

  “Yes. Only a couple miles to go, but the sun is going down. We’ll have to stop soon.”

  She drifted away yet again. The next time she woke, night had fallen. She lifted her head and peered around. A fire smoldered before her, casting weak light over the small glade Vedas had chosen for camp. He slept on the bare ground at her side, sprawled as though he had collapsed there. She reclined on a bed made of palm leaves, angled so that she sat upright, cushioned so as not to roll to the side and injure her arm.

  Her bladder ached. The makeshift bed rustled loudly as she struggled to rise, but Vedas did not so much as twitch. Probably exhausted, she reasoned, guilt constricting her chest with astounding force. Her mind had cleared and the weakness in her limbs was gone. She walked on stiff legs into the black forest to relieve herself.

  As she stood from her crouch, a single white light appeared in the distance. Every time she blinked, the ghost of her daughter drew closer.

  “Hello, Fyra,” Churls said.

  She allowed the girl to take her hand. Once again, she felt nothing at the contact.

  The forest slowly grew in detail around her. She stared at the stars through the broad leaves, and eventually found the moon. A neat half circle, it nearly touched the black line of distant treetops. Almost morning. She had slept one whole day, and almost through the night.

  All at once, she understood what had happened after the wreck. The obvious conclusion.

  She had glowed white like the moon.

  Vedas had saved her life, and in exchange Fyra had saved his—the girl liked him, after all. What shocked Churls most was not that the thing had happened, but that she accepted it so readily. It brought no joy to know she was safe, that Vedas was her hero, and that the dead could exert control over the living. At no point had she been offered a choice. She wondered if she had ever been in control. If she ever would be.

  She removed the sling, rotated her shoulders, and held her right arm horizontal without pain.

  “Did you do this?” she asked.

  Yes, Fyra answered. Do you like it?

  “I’m not sure.”

  The long pause made Churls look down. Fyra had screwed her face up tight, just like she had done as an infant. The expression that always preceded a fit.

  “Stop it,” Churls said. “You’re not a little girl anymore.”

  Fyra frowned. You don’t like it? I can do other things. I’ve been practicing.

  Ice formed in Churls’s chest. “What other things, Fyra? What else have you done?”

  I’m not alone, Fyra said. She let go of Churls’s hand and faced her mother. There are others here. They’re everywhere. Some of them teach me things, like the trick I used to save Vedas. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have done it. He would have died, Mother. You would have missed him.

  The child was smart, Churls gave her that. She kneeled, and though it pained her to do so, she stared her daughter directly in the eye. “That’s not what I asked, Fyra, and you know it. Don’t brag about what you can do, and then tell me nothing.”

  Fyra reached out. Churls flinched, but resisted backing away. The child’s hand passed into her chest, but all Churls felt was the steady thrum of her heart. Fyra’s head cocked slightly to the side, and her eyelids fluttered closed.

  I can see it, Fyra said. Your heart. I can see through you, like you’re made of ice. I met a dead man, and he showed me how to read what’s inside people. He taught me to fix things that have gone wrong. There was something wrong with your heart, Mama. I fixed it. I fixed other things, too. Clogs in your veins. Scars in your womb. When Vedas pulled your shoulder into place, he damaged your nerves. He didn’t mean to, just like I didn’t mean to hurt you when I used your body to save him. I fixed everything, and now everything is better. Me, I did. I’m not a little girl anymore.

  Churls breathed long and deep through her mouth, pushed her fear to the side, and said the exact opposite of what she truly felt.

  “I’m proud of you.”

  Fyra’s eyes opened, flaring bright enough that Churls had to shield her own. Really, Mama? The dead people don’t tell me that. They tell me not to meddle. The world is for the living, they tell me, even when they teach me things. Don’t meddle, they say. They’re very angry that Vedas saw me, but I think they’re wrong about everything. It’s good what I’m doing, right?

  “Right,” Churls said, throwing good sense to the wind. Considering how quickly her life had been hurled into disarray, how swiftly the revelations were coming, perhaps the best course of action was to embrace change. Never one for improvisation, always one for planning, she wondered how long she could sustain this philosophy before it drove her mad.

  I have to go, Fyra said. It’s almost sunrise and they’re yelling at me to stop, but there’s one more thing I have to tell you. About the metal man with the blue eyes.

  “Berun?” Churls’s heart leapt in her chest. “You saw him?”

  Fyra beamed. He saw me. At the bottom of the lake. That made the other dead people really angry, but I didn’t care. I showed the metal man where to walk. I think he might have heard me, too. She turned away, staring into the distance. She bared her teeth, flickered like a guttering candle. Leave me alone! she yelled, and faced Churls again. I have to go. I hate them. Wait for the metal man. He’ll be here soon, even if they don’t let me show him the way. He’ll find you. You’ll wait for him, won’t you?

  “I will,” Churls promised.

  ‡

  She encouraged Vedas to keep sleeping, but the man would not rest. “We need to reach the city as soon as possible,” he said. “Who knows how often boats leave for Knos Min? We can’t afford to be delayed any longer.” Despite these words, he stopped often to listen. He looked over his shoulder, as though expecting a visitor at any moment. She read the pain on his face, and kept her mouth shut. In turn, he suppressed his curiosity about her impossibly rapid recovery.

  She did not voluntee
r the information—did not even think about what Fyra had done. Finding a way to stay on the island long enough for Berun to reach them preoccupied her completely. She had no desire to deceive Vedas,

  but she would in order to allow the constructed man time to find them. A day at least.

  She need not have worried.

  The diffuse light of dawn revealed Oasena to be little more than a township. Nothing larger than a fishing boat floated in her shallow bay—certainly naught capable of crossing a hundred-mile stretch of open water. Vedas enquired in a bakery and discovered that a thaumatrig, a vessel most likely similar to the drowned Atavest, arrived from Ynon once a week. It docked for half a day and then returned.

  “Tomorrow,” Vedas said. “And it won’t leave dock until the evening.” The muscles in his jaw twitched as they walked to the inn the baker had recommended. Churls resisted the urge to ask about the fare. He would give the details when he was ready. In the meantime, she took in the town’s thatched single-floor houses, the somber flat-featured countenances of the townsfolk. The women walked bare-breasted, flat dugs hanging over short dresses woven from palm fibers. They rustled as they walked. The men looked much like the women, though their garments were of brown cloth. Churls noted their corded arms and thick thighs, how their bodies moved and their eyes tracked, and surmised they would be formidable opponents. An odd mood drifted through her. Not joy, no, yet it was a close cousin.

  Despite Vedas’s dour air, she drank the sunlight as if it were an elixir. The corners of her mouth turned upward without her willing them. Somehow, she knew Berun would arrive before the ship left. They would arrive in Ynon safely. She considered the possibility that Fyra had rearranged her mind, but dismissed it. Pointless, to conjecture.

  After a lifetime of useless and obsessive conjecture, this thought shocked her.

  They reached the inn, and sat at one of its four small tables. A woman came from the kitchen, nodded, and went to fetch their food. “Only the one option, apparently,” Churls said.

  Vedas glowered. “We won’t reach Ynon until late on the first.” Calculating quickly, Churls’s good mood faded. From Ynon it was perhaps seven hundred miles to Danoor. By all accounts, the trail to Danoor was well trod, but thirty miles a day for twenty-four days, during the darkest month of the year? It could be done, but she and Vedas would be exhausted by the time they reached the tournament. Undoubtedly, he had already made the calculation.

  “The fare?” she asked.

  “Six grams,” he growled. “They can extort because so few boats come to Tan-Ten.”

  She smiled weakly. “But we have enough, Vedas. Barely. It can be done.” Neither of them had lost any money. Anyone smart enough to buckle her sandals carried her dust close to the body in waterproofed fabric. It was too easy to spill liquid and lose it all. Churls and Vedas had discussed their funds as they walked that morning, with one important omission. Before leaving Nbena, she had sewn a new pocket on the inside of her vest to hold the dust Gorum had given her. So far, she had not needed to touch it. Between the three of them, there should have been enough—she should have been able to keep her stash a secret. But who knew what had happened to Berun’s dust? Saying they could make it on what remained was a lie, and Vedas knew it.

  Shit, she thought. There goes my gambling fund.

  She reached inside her vest and removed the wallet. It lay on the table between them, an indictment. Proof she had kept it from him. Vedas stared at it, expressionless.

  “It can be done,” she said. “We’ll make it to Sent in nineteen days, and rent horses for the stretch to Danoor. That’s forty, maybe fifty miles a day.

  We’ll be at the tournament by the twenty-fourth.”

  The innkeeper came out of the kitchen. Churls palmed the wallet, and they proceeded to eat fried trout and grilled asparagus in silence. Vedas could not sustain his glowering completely, however. Now and then he looked up, an expression she had never seen written on his face. Wonder, perhaps, or astonishment.

  “What?” she eventually asked.

  He jumped slightly, as though he had been far away in his mind. “Something just occurred to me,” he said. “My decision has been made for me.

  Abse’s speech went down with the Atavest. I now have no option but to rewrite it.”

  ‡

  In her dream, she walked down a long hall with doors on each side. Endless doors. She chose one at random, and inside sat Fyra. The child opened her mouth to speak, but another voice spoke instead. A voice from the waking world, calling her back.

  She woke, and lay very still, eyes open, concentrating. It had not been just a dream. Someone had called to her. Someone had called her name, and then Vedas’s name.

  There! Chuuurrllss. Veeedaas.

  She threw the covers to the side. Vedas jumped up from the floor, ready, but Churls silenced him with a gesture. She tapped her ear, and he listened.

  His eyes widened.

  They raced down the stairs and out the front door.

  “Chuuurrllss! Veeedaas!” the voice called—closer, from out of the depths of black forest before them. A voice like a bell, deep and resounding in the pit of one’s gut. Hearing it, Churls’s heart pumped harder, strong and healthy and alive. She had not known how much the voice meant to her— how greatly she had come to rely upon the constructed man’s presence as she walked, as she slept.

  Again he called their names. Loudly enough to wake dogs and set them barking.

  And then, a low rumble came to her ears. A steady drumming. Huge, heavy feet pounding the earth. Closer and closer.

  Voices rose in Oasena, and the dogs began to howl.

  Churls grinned, and stepped forward to meet Berun.

  EBN BON MARI

  THE 25th OF THE MONTH OF PILOTS, 12499 MD

  THE CITY OF TANSOT, KINGDOM OF STOL

  Tor a month, the same routine before breakfast: With the assistance of a recall spell, Ebn watched the disastrous encounter with Adrash—over and over again methodically, like a composer playing an identical refrain to resolve an irksome melody. The spell made her forehead throb as it pushed against the confining walls of her skull, yet she persevered. She had missed something. Some detail that would help her to interpret the events that had transpired.

  Adrash gestured at the statue.

  Stop, Ebn commanded, stilling the image in her mind’s eye. As always, and despite the pain of holding the memory still, Ebn lingered on the god’s perfection. The graceful, sculpted proportions of his body. The lines of tension that defined the muscle and sinew of his back and extended arm. More than any other feature, she admired the flawless pearl complexion of the divine armor, an artifact she knew felt like the finest elder-cloth. Cold, infinitely smoother than skin. Her tongues stirred in her palms at the thought.

  Her desire nearly overcame her every time. The memory wavered as though she viewed the scene through fire, and then lust gave way to sadness.

  She would never possess such beauty. She had been a fool to think she could.

  Enough, she told herself. Enough foolishness.

  She resumed the memory at quarter-speed. Adrash shattered the statue with a gesture, sending a thousand sharp-edged fragments of marble toward the mages. His eyes blazed brighter than the sun.

  Stop , right before the first impacts. At the time, Ebn had been focused on Adrash, but in her recall it became possible to examine the other mages, who extended in a glittering arc just slightly out of focus in her peripheral vision. Sunlight reflected on the polished black skins of their suits. Qon’s feet were only just visible above her. Pol floated directly opposite her. Ebn focused on his face, but read nothing new in his expression.

  She moved forward in time slowly, by now familiar with the grim details. She had erected a shield with plenty of time to spare, perhaps because she had subconsciously expected the attack. Silver veins flickered on the surface of Pol’s suit, signaling that he too had erected a protective spell. Eighteen others, mostly talented young mage
s, acted quickly to defend themselves, using spells both ordinary and exotic.

  Three—Qon included—cast a fraction too slowly, deflecting only some of the stone fragments.

  They did not die immediately.

  The remaining seventeen mages were cut to shreds near-instantaneously. Ebn watched them die. She made herself do it, though the section she suspected of holding a clue came afterwards. Replaying the entirety of the disaster was her penance.

  Gota fi Junnun, only sixteen years old but a promising student, face flayed as his helmet burst, torso pocked with innumerable small holes, bloomed an aura of blood that vaporized instantly around him. Hamen i Loren, Ebn’s one-time lover, a man of immaculate taste and speech, was cut nearly in two by a large flake of marble. Intestines bubbled and burst from both halves of his body. Zi-Te bon Ueses, martial arts master and gambling enthusiast, was sliced from clavicle to groin but stayed conscious for several seconds, screaming a fine red mist.

  Ebn watched each fatal blow, reversing the spell repeatedly so that all of her officers could be accounted for. Her stomach did not turn as it had the first few times—proof a person could grow used to anything.

  In the midst of the chaos, Adrash disappeared. Ebn reversed and slowed her memory to a crawl. No fade, no wavering around the god’s body, no sign at all that he would vanish. Clearly, nothing could be gleaned from this portion of memory, yet Ebn lingered on it every time. The god stood, fixed as stone. Then he did not, and it was as though he had never existed in that place. The raw power needed to enact such magic boggled her mind, horrified her in a way the deaths of the mages did not.

  And here, in the vacuum Adrash had created: An anomalous event that had eluded her for the first two weeks of her search through the recalled memory. She chastened herself for taking so long to spot it, but knew how lucky she had been to notice it at all. Certainly, she could not be blamed for missing such a slight gesture during the disaster. Qon’s hemorrhaging had occupied all of her attention.