by S. M. Beiko
This fear was a foreign sensation in his mouth. He was a little boy again in a croft by the devastating sea. Fear had been so far away for a long time, because what had you to fear when you had wings? But they were gone now. And so was Roan.
That’s it, the voice coaxed, and Eli could clearly picture the owner of the voice nodding with encouragement. You’re almost there. You’ve done enough. You’ve been through enough. Do something for yourself for once. Haven’t you earned your rest?
Eli felt his fingers slipping on the root, his lifeline. The attacking wings and the screeching were farther away now, but not far enough that their echoes weren’t still a threat. The blood trickled down his back like tapped syrup.
“Only the dead!” A shriek nearby. A warning. “Life cannot live here!” They must be the spirits of Owls long past, Eli thought, looking to make me one of them.
Eli gulped a breath, shut his eyes, loosened his grip.
Then he howled.
The cries were cut off as, adrenaline pumping, he threw himself up and over the ledge like a great gust had given him a leg up.
Blood roaring in his ears, he slid shaking to his hands and knees, parting his dark, filthy hair out of his face.
Before him was a tree. In every branch were white eyes in black, translucent heads, bodies feathery bodies puffed and agitated from their hunt. Their wings fluttered, claws catching in the dead, bent bark. They were certainly the shades of the dead — incorporeal, nearly see-through, but from the blood trickling between his shoulders they had some form, and fight, left in them. And they were all staring into what was left of Eli’s living spirit.
They opened their beaks as one and let out a cry, shattering the air. Eli threw himself down, cradling his skull.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, ears ringing, but when he finally looked up, there was silence again, and only the throbbing of his shoulder, his bleeding back. No more shrieking. No more homicidal voice in his head.
He sat up, examining the ashy air, the empty tree, the path ahead in the curling murk that went ever upward. Though he was alone again, and somehow alive, he was aware he had been tested. But for what purpose, he couldn’t yet know. Not unless he got to his feet and climbed on.
And so he did.
The wind’s echo followed with each painful step up this cracked staircase. He was less and less certain why he hadn’t let go, knowing absolutely that he wanted to. So badly. But for one memory. One insistent idea. One hope that hadn’t yet faded.
He stopped a moment, pulled back his sleeve, and touched the chain-shaped scar on his arm before going on. Maybe she’s up there. At the end of this. Maybe I don’t have to fall alone.
God killer, the wind hissed at his heels. You have cursed us all.
* * *
When I got to the place of light all the other shades were headed to, I realized what it was. I’d seen something like it — a proxy, a man-made structure in one of Cecelia’s many memories shown to me by the Opal before everything went wrong.
A hazy beam of light illuminated a round amphitheatre whose steps headed down to a central platform. There weren’t any gold rings or acolytes, no Denizens standing around, waiting to be shown a vision of a great and powerful Fox warrior god. I’d only lately seen Deon herself, desperate and begging me for help. A lot of good that’d done her. Or me.
There was no Cecelia here, either. Or Ruo. Just me, and hundreds of small Fox shades with their coin eyes shining above their bared, alarming teeth.
“Stonebreaker,” I heard one say. Great — more talking Foxes. That always led to solid results.
I swallowed. “Not on purpose,” I answered. I glanced up; that weird slanted light filtered through a giant hole in the ceiling. It wasn’t natural in the way I understood light. From where I stood I couldn’t make anything out, and I wasn’t about to make any sudden moves to investigate.
One Fox, its dark hackles raised, opaque shadow body translucent in the uncanny light, came closer to me. “You are not dead.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Not yet.”
Some of the Fox shades’ lips loosed over their teeth. Some of the hackles went down. A murmur. “You are from the Uplands?”
I narrowed my eyes. I had to tread carefully here. After all, if my last brush with these things proved anything, they could hurt me. “I guess you could say that.” But I had questions of my own. “And what are . . . you?”
“We are the dead,” they answered in unison, like a piercing alarm.
“Makes sense.” I looked down again to that central platform. Shimmering in the light, on a high spike of stone, there it was.
The Opal.
As if they’d all collectively perceived my shock, the throng of shades parted, an invitation to walk down between them. They still kept their sharp gazes trained on me, a few snapping at my ankles with each of my careful steps down the stone staircase. An invitation with a warning.
So — this must be the Den. Deon’s territory, resting place of the Foxes. No one’s doing much resting, I thought. I couldn’t rightly count how many faces were watching me. If this was supposedly their afterlife, their underworld, there would be untold billions here, right?
I stopped at the level just above the dais. I may have felt panic just a few minutes ago when I realized I didn’t have the Opal and that the connection to the fire that defined me was gone . . . but the Opal had caused me a fair share of grief. I felt like I was back in Cecelia’s summoning chamber, left with nothing, grasping at what was in front of me that could promise a way out. This felt just like another trap. I needed to be smart. I needed to think like Eli.
I’d reached the dais. The Opal, on its own finger of rock, was about three feet above me. If I jumped, I could snatch it, make a run for it. But I had to be honest with myself. Do you really want to?
“What happened?” I asked the silent gathering, turning momentarily away from the Opal. They all seemed to be waiting. “Where’s Deon?”
“You tell us,” said a Fox nearby.
“Chaos. Harm. Silence,” said another. “You were a stonebearer. You broke your sacred trust with Deon. You broke her trust with all of us.”
Their voices were all strange and harsh — it was difficult to keep track of them. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” I shouted over them. “We were trying to wake Ancient, to open the way to the Brilliant Dark —”
“Naïve pup,” said another. For a second my heart leapt, and I thought it was Sil. Could she actually be down here? But again, I couldn’t tell who had spoken.
“The Darklings have slipped their prisons,” volleyed another Fox. “They’re loose in the Uplands. Meanwhile, Deon is gone, the Opal is ruined, and the realms are connected now. Connected as they were never meant to be.”
That one was more than a criticism, pure blame. I glanced up over my shoulder, noticed then that there was a wild split through the Calamity Stone and that it didn’t shine at all.
I turned back. “Look, Deon herself was behind me on this. On stopping the Darklings. We had done it. We’d won.” Now I was bordering on hysterical, begging myself, as much as them, for it to be true when I knew better.
“Don’t you understand?” This was the Fox closest to my feet; this voice was full of despair. “You cut us off. All of us. The Matriarchs are missing. Not even the Moth Queen can ferry the Denizen dead to their promised homelands. You did this.”
“Lost.” The word echoed around the chamber, barked in uneven, angry, miserable tones. “All is lost.”
The Opal above me made my hairline bristle. What the hell were they all expecting me to do now?
“You must finish what you started.”
I froze. The Fox was sitting directly in front of me, surveying me with its singed eyes. I had definitely recognized that voice.
The shade stepped forward, and its sma
ll fox body rose, shifted, grew. It was the shadow of a man, the outlines faint. The other Foxes changed all around me, too, taking the shapes of the people they’d once been. Details in faces were difficult to discern; they were still just spirit shadows. Their hollow pinprick eyes were still the same, boring into me. But this close, I could see the features of this fox shift: the outline of a beard, of a mouth twisted in aggravation. Jacob Reinhardt, one of the Foxes from the Conclave of Fire, the one who’d challenged me at every turn — who’d nearly killed me once. It looked like he hadn’t been so lucky in the intervening weeks since I’d seen him last.
I backed up, tripped, and landed hard beneath the Opal. I looked up in time to see something spun in the air at me, and I opened my hands to catch it.
A sword hilt. Bladeless, but heavy all the same.
“Finish what you started,” Reinhardt’s shade repeated.
I didn’t have time to answer, because a horrible tremor went through the ground, tilting the world outside the chamber violently and sending the dead and me reeling. The ground cracked. The fissure roared. The shades fled and I staggered, twisting to see the Opal shivering on its dais. There are some things I keep circling back to, hoping blindly for the same results. So I reached out for the Opal, desperate, even as the world around me shattered and tried to crush me into nothing.
I jumped.
Training Day
The uniform was freshly starched and pressed. Grey, white, black. Even the Elemental Task Guard had colours, like a sports team . . . one that always won the tournament because the game was rigged. And now Saskia had cheated her way onto the winning side.
She ran her finger around the collar, trying to swallow but also trying not to choke, mostly on her own dismay. Saskia didn’t bother looking at herself in the mirror, either. She knew what she looked like as she smoothed her hair down, bit her lip, and she wanted to preserve how she saw herself outside this alien outfit.
She didn’t want to see the mistake reflected in her eyes.
“You’re one of them now.”
Saskia turned towards the voice at her door. Jet was staring at her, and his eyes were wet with unspilled tears.
Saskia had been fiddling with the hem of her jacket, the belt at her waist. She ran a hand over the solitary patch on her shoulder, signifying her low rank. At her collar, an enamel pin represented her position in the engineering department.
At her breast, the ETG crest: a white starburst.
“I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you properly, Brain,” Saskia said, trying to smile. “But it’s not forever. It’s like . . . playing pretend. Like playing Roan Harken. You liked that game, remember? When we played it before?”
Jet wiped his nose on his sleeve, still clutching the doorway. “For how long, though?”
Beside Saskia was the now-silent computer monitor she’d stayed up all night with. It hadn’t yet turned on again, but she was sure, so sure, it could. She just needed to find the right parts, to catch the signal . . .
“As long as it takes,” she declared — to Jet, to herself. She moved towards him, hands stretched out for reassurance.
Jet shivered and leapt into the hall.
“Can’t,” he said, shaking his head, the tears finally coming. “I don’t want to be taken away. Not now. Phae needs me.”
A lance of glass went through Saskia. “Brain, it’s still me. I’m not —”
His fists were tight at his sides. “Just don’t get us into trouble, Saskia,” he said, his voice getting higher. “Just do what you’re supposed to, then stop playing and come home, okay?”
Saskia’s hands fell. She didn’t reach for Jet again. “Okay. I will.”
He didn’t look up, just took off down the hall, likely to Phae’s room. For once, Saskia hoped Jet had taken a peek inside her mind, so he could understand. She hoped he’d found the truth in there, that she was doing this for all of them, to help the Denizens who had saved her, to prevent worse still from happening to them at the hands of the ETG. To save Barton. To save everyone.
To save myself.
She hoped that, whatever he’d seen in her mind, it had given him the comfort Saskia just couldn’t feel. She hoped he hadn’t seen the darkling inside that she was going to have to become.
* * *
The black car that had picked her up in front of One Evergreen was not standard, nor was it necessary. New recruits reported to the Judiciary in the Law Courts on their own steam, and had to go through hours of screening, paperwork, processing, and tests of loyalty before they were admitted to the Old Leg for assignments and training. They were not chauffeured there like a celebrity.
Cam had spent so many years pining for the ETG that he’d studied every which way to get into their ranks, had counted down the days to his turn, and blabbed the whole process to Saskia. Now that it was somehow happening to her, she had the steps memorized. She hoped the rumours weren’t true, the ones about them sticking a tracking chip under every soldier’s skin, erasing your autonomy to serve this magic-monster-fighting militia. Saskia hoped for a lot of things, though she knew her hope might not hold out.
The cutting feeling Saskia had felt talking to Jet stayed with her, inching through her organs and slicing away everything but her compliance. This car could take her to the Law Courts, the Old Leg, or to another cell where she’d rot forever and the chancellor would have a good laugh. A place where they hid the bodies of the non-complicit, the traitors.
She could be going anywhere. She had known that the second she’d slid into the back seat, the windows tinted, the leather pristine. But if she was going to the brig, the means of getting there was all wrong. The passenger window of the car was marked with the ETG insignia, true, but in the centre of this white starburst was a golden cross. The chancellor’s mark. She was valued cargo.
So she guessed it would be a short ride to Broadway, where all the ETG buildings huddled, but long enough to imagine exactly where she was going, and for what purpose.
Saskia had a feeling there would be little room for ceremony or paperwork today. She was likely to get straight down to business as the chancellor’s new pet. She pressed her fingers into her exhausted eyes. The chancellor was probably desperate then, for what she tried not to imagine, because whatever it was, he was willing to bend the sacred rules on which the very ETG was founded — order, loyalty, absolution — bend them to admit her into some dark inner sanctum, where she could be of use to him.
That’s what the Moth Queen had wanted, after all. For Saskia to be of use. For her to get inside, use the regime somehow to save the Realms of Ancient. Would it be today? Tomorrow? Would it be too late already?
She folded her hands, took a breath, and leaned back in her seat. There were still many rules, bent or not, and Saskia would need to adhere closely to them if she was going to play this game.
If she was going to win it.
In the end, she was right; she wasn’t about to go through basic training, indoctrination, or conditioning. They didn’t go in the same door she had been taken through when she’d been discharged from interrogation. Instead, the car slid into an underground garage, going far too deep for comfort, and came to a stop at a shining aluminum-panelled door, where someone had been waiting for her.
“Hello, Miss Das. I’m Mi-ja,” the young woman said, beaming at Saskia with a curt bow. The smile even looked real. These people were good.
Saskia gave a stiff bow in return, noting that Mi-ja’s starburst also bore the gold cross. She was the chancellor’s aide, then. Mi-ja turned smartly, and Saskia followed obediently down brightly lit halls, past rooms with more walls made of glass, like her interrogation room.
At one room she’d paused, all the walls glittering with flashing imprints of rabbits, deer, foxes, owls, and seals.
“To master your enemy, you must first know exactly who they are,” said a short man with a l
antern jaw, gesturing at the images whose light reflected off the faces of attentive would-be soldiers. They were as young as Saskia. Too young. “The Denizen religion is comprised of five animal families, each worshipping their own powersake’s god. It may all sound whimsical as you study their origins. A flight of fancy. But remember: these people might look like us, act like us, but they are not us. They are dangerous.”
The alluring, almost hypnotizing plays of light flicked suddenly to loud, shaky-cam footage of Denizens being captured by the first iteration of the ETG, the White Militia. The Restoration Project. Saskia tensed; it was footage every child in her class had grown up seeing in school, but it still made her dizzy. A woman punching the ground, making a seismic wave that knocked out the cameraman. A boy freezing a militiaman mid-step using rainwater in a parking lot. A building coming down on Mundane protestors . . .
A girl with a flaming arm, standing on the roof of a car, facing down a man with golden eyes; behind them, innocent bystanders, Mundanes and Denizens alike, frozen against their wills — this footage was marked Recovered from Owl tampering. In the residual fire of the girl bringing her fist up, Saskia saw red —
A hand on Saskia’s arm made her jump. “This way, Miss Das,” Mi-ja said. Her tone was friendly. But Saskia didn’t trust anything she heard or saw in this place.
The words of the lecturer followed her down the hall: “. . . Roan Harken, the girl who painted a target on this fair city, has become the symbol of the Denizen uprising, which is why we need you now, more than ever . . .”
Saskia strained her hearing, trying to listen further, but they had taken a corner and were climbing a flight of suspended steel stairs. “Where are we going, if I may ask?” Then Saskia quickly added, “Ma’am.”
Mi-ja gave Saskia a wry look. “You will be debriefed after routine consultation. Your mental health profile will be evaluated by the Owl Unit to determine your viability for service.”
