It was strange and unsettling, how she seemed unmoved by the predatory calls of the night's creatures punctuating her words.
“I've seen what those nightmares do to the ones they catch. It is well that we fear them, lest none of us survive them.”
“They do only as we expect them to. You must not fear. It is fear that they feed upon, and it is fear that gives them power over us. I do not fear them. I mean to end them.”
I couldn't help but smile. She was only a child, and I was growing increasingly certain she was mad. But I admired her earnestness and her courage. Though I'd lived a longer life than most, I'd rarely seen much of either.
“The nightmares are our gods, little one. How is it that one ends the gods?”
“Tehillim,” she said, curtly.
“What?”
“My name is Tehillim. Not little one.”
“Tehillim. You have my apologies.”
“I will find the temple in the dead forest in the valley across the mountains. I will claim the key that opens the way to the heart of the world. And I will use it to open the way.”
She believed it – every word she said. I was fascinated by her tale, strange though it seemed; I could not look away. I could not close my ears.
“At the citadel in the heart of the world, I will ask an audience with the Painted Woman Who Sleeps Below, as our ancestors once did, countless generations past. I will ask her to allow hope into the world, as she did once before. And in payment I will offer to her the stories that my mother told me, that her mother told her, and her mother before that. I will not return from the citadel. So I share what I know with all who will listen. And when I've gone, perhaps, you will share my story.”
Presently, she glanced up towards the sky, as calm as ever. “Look – it is dark. You should seek shelter.”
The night had crept in quietly while we spoke. I nodded in silent assent and hurried on my way. Tehillim may not have felt cause to fear the darkness, but I had never strayed so far past the setting of the sun before. I knew as well as anyone what fate awaited me if the nightmares caught me before I reached the meager safety of my home.
* * * *
Morning came, and with it came the somber accounting of the night's losses. The Morning Market was never calm, never subdued, always a jumbled bedlam of survivors and saints, madmen and mourners, the truest vestige of civilization that still breathed in the Hills Beneath the Mountains that Rend the Sky. Sometimes, the Market even saw visitors, caravansers and merchants from the south passing through to the east, or from the east passing through to the south.
Even so, every morning, we paid respect to those who did not return to the rattle and hum of the Market. The fruit-merchant was gone, and with him the bleak dreams that he sold all wrapped up in tart violet flesh. So, too, the ancient, ageless woman who distilled sweet red liquor from the roots of the Thorned Tree That Poisons the Mind. The places they had occupied a day before now held only folded squares of white cloth, a mark to remember where they had once stood: throughout the day, those close to the lost left offerings of pure water, locks of hair, conch shells.
Come tomorrow, their places would be filled again with new faces seeking to carve a life out of the Market.
The Morning Market was never calm, but still, I was surprised by the scene that unfolded before me. I laid out the wares I laid every day, beads of broken glass from before the Nightmares. Some clean, some dirty, some clear, some brilliantly colored. Simple tokens though they might have been, there was always a want for such reminders of yesterday. There was always a need for artifacts of the world before.
Across the old brick road, a stranger traded words with the fearless woman who wrested black-scaled fish from the river of gold. He had the look of a salt-trader, and the dark, wavy hair of a man from far to the south. I could not make out what they said, but I could see her refuse whatever it was he requested, and I saw the anger rising from his shoes.
He produced a long knife from somewhere I couldn't see, and was upon the fishmonger in the space of a heartbeat. I like to think I would've intervened, had it not happened so quickly. I like to think I'd have had the wits and the reflexes to save her. I know I never would have.
Tehillim did. Her voice rang out cold and clear in the winter air, and froze the salt-trader a hair's breadth from the fishmonger's heart. Indeed, the whole of the Market froze, the thrum of mercantile silent in the wake of her first word.
“Stop.” Tehillim stood a half-dozen paces from the two, the weathered stock of the rifle settled comfortably against her shoulder. For a long moment, only the rustle of wind through the tattered hem of her faded raatuk broke the stillness.
“Your dispute is not worth your life, nor hers, nor mine. We are too few, and our comforts too scarce. The nightmares crave blood and sorrow. We must not give them what they want so easily.”
I worried for her, in the interminably long seconds that followed. She was a child, and the salt-trader a man much larger than her, and he was fast. He might have closed the distance between them before she could even fire a shot. He might have hurled his knife, or wrestled her down, or broken her. He was a stranger, armed and angry, not raised with the laws of the Morning Market. Without a thought and without regret, he might have killed the strange young outlander with hope in her eyes.
Instead, he lowered his knife, then dropped it, then took a few hesitant steps back and away. Tehillim nodded to him, and lowered her rifle. The salt-trader spoke a few words of muted apology to the fishmonger, and as quickly as it had calmed, the Market rumbled to life again.
* * * *
“I could not have shot him even if I wanted to.” As she had the night before, she sat atop her old wooden crate, polishing the barrel of her rifle with a soiled rag. “I have no shells, and neither shot nor powder to fill them even if I had. It is not a weapon so much as a symbol. It is a reason for men to listen to me.”
Unlike the prior night, I had sought her out as the Market died down for the evening and the sun began its descent. The roads still frightened me in the darkness, as they ever had and as they ever would, but the strange little girl with hope in her eyes intrigued me far more.
“How did you know he would stop?”
“I did not.”
“What if he had attacked you?”
“I would most likely have died.” Her answer caught me off-guard. It was earnest and strangely more grounded than anything I had heard her say before. “But he did stop, and he did not attack me. So why should I be concerned with what might have been?”
“You are very brave. Braver, I think, than anybody I have ever met. But if you are not careful, Tehillim, if you do not live, then who will journey to the Citadel at the Heart of the World, and who will trade your mother's stories for hope with the Painted Woman Who Sleeps Below?”
I realized then, for the first time, that I believed her stories, every word of them. And that I wanted to believe in her. I had not ever believed in something before, save for what I could see with my own eyes, touch with my own hands.
“If I do not live, there will be another – there is always another. Perhaps she will come in days, or years, or lifetimes, but she will come, as I have.” Tehillim smiled at me, then. Her teeth were still a child's teeth, and two were missing, their replacements not yet grown in. “The valley I seek, it was once known as Sambhala. Many thousands of men, wise and foolish, ancient and young, passed into dust in search of this place, and none ever found it. I do not know that I will, either. There are, after all, many valleys hidden away within the Mountains that Rend the Sky. Most are alive, thriving and vibrant. And when darkness falls upon them, they are the domain of nightmares.
“Where I go, no living creature draws breath, and no nightmares have ever set foot. Where I go, there is only peace.”
To hear her describe the valley again, there seemed a magic to it. I had never known a place where the nightmares did not venture. And had I been braver, I might even have asked to
go with her. But I did not. Even then, I was old – and I was afraid. Even with the ululating howls of immortal horrors hanging heavy in the cold night air, there was comfort here, and familiarity.
So as I had the night before, I bid the strange girl called Tehillim a safe night, and I hurried home through the darkness. Although the piercing cries of the nightmares sang closer to me than they ever had before, they did not find me. They did not claim me.
When I slept, I dreamed uneasily, visited by an inhuman woman, painted red and gold, holding a painted box that held a painted key.
* * * *
The morning was nearing its end when I finally arrived at the Market the next day. I had no mementos of the times before to sell, and even if I had, the ritual and rote of trading beauty for sustenance was far from my mind that day. Even had I wished to, I'd not have sold a bead; I arrived to chaos and commotion on the old brick thoroughfare.
The crowd was exuberant, torn between terror and excitement and uncertainty. I sought a better vantage, pushed and shouldered my way through other bodies until I could see what held everyone's attention so raptly, fearing what I might find when I did.
It was not what I had feared, but neither was it something I had ever hoped to see. A great black cat lay dead on the road. At first, I thought it simply a lowland hunter wandered too far into the hills. Too quickly, I realized it was not.
The beast had no fur; instead, it had a tarred, viscous skin that even now seemed to be bubbling away like boiling oil. Neither did it have the fangs of a wild beast – rather, its dead mouth was filled with thin, writhing tendrils that still wriggled like dying worms in a summer flood.
I had never seen a nightmare before. I had never expected to.
The din of the crowd rose to a roar as people sought answers, asked questions, laid blame. Some wept, certain that ruin would fall upon us, certain that the horrors would retaliate come nightfall. Some cheered, to see proof that the beasts that hunted us could die, just as we did. I had no answers.
So I searched for someone who did.
Tehillim was not at the wooden crate she'd made her home for the past two days. I searched the Market for her, oblivious to the folded white cloths that lay in mourning at a dozen or more places, but I searched in vain. She was not there, and neither were the children that had followed her so raptly whenever she spoke.
I knew where they had gone. I made my way to the northern pathway from the market, the one that wandered high into the sheer face of the mountains, where the snow never receded, even on the warmest days of summer. I saw their footprints in the snow, many sets of children's footprints, some with shoes, and some without. And I climbed.
I don't know how long I followed that ancient road before the chill and the thinness of the air began to slow me. Even then, I was old, and my body was not as strong as it had once been.
Behind me, the only world I had ever known still waited. I knew not how it would change, but I knew it would. I knew it must.
Before me, the strange girl with hope in her eyes, and the new world she promised. I wanted to follow her. I wanted, more than anything, to find her, and follow her to the valley where there is only peace. But I hadn't the strength, and I hadn't the breath, and I turned back.
I remember, now, that there were many sets of footprints on the trail when I left the Market. But at the foot of the Mountain, where I turned away, there were only three.
A barefoot child, taking hurried strides to keep pace with the others. An older child, with flat-bottomed shoes and a steady gait. And a great cat, trotting slowly at their side.
To the Letter
by Jeffrey Fowler
Ben threw the bolt behind him, locking the door securely before turning to Lexy. “Shhh, baby, it will be okay. We’re going to be fine. We just need to get to Aunt Trina’s house. Then everything will be okay. So be strong for me baby, and we’ll be just fine.” He struggled to get the words out, keeping his tone light and reassuring even as everything within him sobbed in terror and regret. As he leaned back against the wall, hugging tightly to his four-year-old little girl, he wished once again that he’d listened to his friends and colleagues and never published the article that got them into this mess in the first place. Even in the midst of the panic, his mind drifted back to the last road trip he’d taken, though the emotions running through him then had been much different.
* * * *
Though the reception had the slightest air of desperation, what with the occasion happening so soon after the government finally recovered and restructured from the horrors of the occupation event, there was still the air of joy and happiness that truly makes a wedding memorable.
“So, Mrs. Paxwell,” Ben said teasingly, “How does it feel to be off the market forever, bound to one man for as long as we both shall live?”
“In a word? Heavenly.”
Her voice still sent shivers rushing through his body. They’d both done their best to keep their heads down, even as resistance fighters solicited money, food, and bodies to continue their guerilla fighting against the Mi’go. The cultists and sympathizers had done their own brand of recruiting as well, although it had far more to do with threats and outright stealing due to their heavy control of the government and military positions infiltrated in the years leading up to the actually invasion start. In an attempt to remind themselves, as well as their families and friends, that joy and happiness could still be found under the rule of the Mi’go, Ben had popped the question to his high school sweetheart Catherine. She’d said yes, even though the majority of what he brought to their marriage was a shiny certificate and a mountain of student loans.
They’d rushed through the planning, assembling in a fraction of the normal time, a wedding. It was as much a celebration of continued life as an event joining the two together. As the two of them drove up to a little cabin on the lake for their honeymoon, it seemed surreal. That a research doctor, and a school teacher could continue their lives together as normally as possible, when the planet had been conquered by an insect-like race of aliens and their cult of sympathizers and fanatics; it was almost unbelievable.
“It was nice of the hospital to give me an extra week before starting to have time for the honeymoon, especially since we did all that dancing around to make sure that we had the wedding during your school’s break.” Ben remarked, his hands on the wheel guiding them deeper along the winding forest road that would lead them to their cabin.
“Oh, don’t remind me. I swear Principal Garrett almost had a coronary when he thought I was going to ask for time off. I think he was so relieved that we’d scheduled for break that he forgot I’d be missing those two days of Educator Instruction he’d scheduled.” Catherine laughed, her voice was rueful with the knowledge that she’d have to make those days up if she wanted to retain her teaching certificate. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind and concentrated once more on the upcoming idyllic week they had planned together. As they drove she thought ahead on their life and plans for the future. They both wanted children, and Ben had been talking for days about the research he’d planned to start when they got back. With a small smile on her face, she whispered to herself. “Alexandra. For a girl, I think I’d like Alexandra for a name.”
* * * *
Ben shook his head, clearing the memory and once more concentrated on the present and all the tasks that needed to be accomplished before they could finally be safe. “Okay Lexy, it’s time to go. Take my hand, we’re going to be very quiet and get back in the truck, okay? You can watch your shows some more while Daddy drives.” Although the little girl was obviously frightened, she struggled to restrain her tears. She delicately slid her hand into his for safekeeping. Then they quietly snuck out of the house and back to the beaten up F-150 that was their lifeline. His daughter watched cartoons on her tablet, and his wife prayed in the passenger seat. Ben drove deeper into the dark night towards the hope that lay half a state away.
* * * *
Dr. Benjamin Paxwell popped the cork, sending champagne soaring like a fountain into the air. With a laugh, he filled the two glasses before handing one to his wife Catherine. “Cheers, love! With this paper finally published, I should be a shoo-in for that promotion at the hospital. I know things have been rough lately, but those times should be over.” He smiled at his wife, trying to use his own cheerfulness to wipe the worry from her eyes. Ever since Alexandra had been born, they’d been struggling to hold things together. Under the Mi’go, everyone worked unless at least one parent qualified for an exemption. Once they’d found out Catherine was pregnant, Ben sought out a promotion as chief researcher at the hospital in hopes of affording Catherine the chance to stay home with Lexy.
“What James and I have worked on could very well lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s. Just think of it, love, no more worries about tissue degradation in the brain. People will no longer have to worry about some disease stealing away the very things that make us alive; our thoughts and memories!” Ben’s excitement was contagious, and Catherine found herself smiling as well, though she couldn’t completely mask her fear. While Ben had only thought about the impact of his research in the terms of allowing Cat to stay home with Lexy, something she’d dreamed of doing since getting pregnant, her thoughts had meandered elsewhere. She found herself considering the other possibilities that may come from having her husband make a brilliant discovery in a world dominated by the Mi’go and their ever-present quest of hoarding knowledge and discovery. Her lack of response drew his attention. “Don’t you see? This is an opportunity for our family to live out our dreams, and maybe even add...” The sound of glass crashing against the floor broke Ben from his speech as he realized for the first time that his wife’s attention was no longer directed at him. Instead, she was looking at the door of their small two bedroom home. The delicate glass she once held between her fingers lay on the floor, shards glittering like diamonds in the pool of spilled champagne. With dawning horror he turned around, his eyes immediately fixed on the crimson envelope innocuously slid beneath the door. Mechanically he moved toward it, his eyes glued to it with a finality that bespoke its message: the end of his life as he knew it.
Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods Page 11
