Endgame

by Kristine Smith

  CHAPTER 11

  The air felt cool, weighty, the lights as bright as sunlight reflecting off ice. Val stood over an analyzer—he looked up as she entered. Like John, he had donned a medcoat. Like him, he failed to meet her eye.

  Via sat in a chair by the far wall, her head lowered. Aris fed samples into another analyzer, stopping every so often to wipe his eyes.

  And finally, in the room’s center, a bed, surrounded by blinking plastic boxes, instruments and machines, the body it contained prone, unmoving, another aspect of the silence.

  Jani walked closer, each step a labor, the urge to howl like a stab in her throat. Tsecha lay centered like a figure atop a sarcophagus, his face obscured by tubing and sensors, legs straight, arms at his side, the thin bed cover folded down to expose his bare, sensor-dotted chest. His torso, once home to an idomeni’s wiry strength, seemed whittled down to faded skin and bone, all muscle, as well as the will and fire that drove them, spent. Extinguished. He looked desiccated now, as though he’d become one with the desert from which he came.

  Then she heard the soft pad of footsteps. John’s voice filling her head.

  “Jani, come over here, please.”

  She turned and followed him to the door, where Feyó, Meva, and Dathim stood, their stares drawn to the still figure.

  “Ná Via?” John gestured to the physician-priest, who rose slowly and joined them. “There is no easy way to say this.” He stopped, passed a hand over his face. “He’s gone. He cannot breathe on his own. His heart cannot beat on its own. He has no detectable brain function.” A shaky sigh, the first hint of the tears to come. “He had a tumor in his left inner auditory canal that we didn’t visualize immediately. By the time we did, it had already bulged out into the brain case.” He stared down at the floor. “There was blood vessel rupture, and the pressure…” He raised his head, eventually. “The damage was catastrophic and irreversible.”

  “We must do that which must be done.” Via’s voice emerged soft, its usual strength seeped away.

  “He did not believe in it.” Meva’s eyes never left the bed. “That which you must do. He no longer believed it mattered.”

  Via sighed, as though she had heard the words from Meva before and expected at some point to hear them again. “I have contacted my suborns, Meva. They have gone to the enclave vaults and broken the seals of Tsecha’s chamber. They bring his reliquary. If he had not wished it to be used, would he have preserved it? Think of what you know of Tsecha, who always did that which he would, and answer me.”

  Meva remained still for a time, before twitching one shoulder in her version of a humanish shrug. “We must ask his suborn.” She raised a hand in question. “Ná Kièrshia?”

  Jani turned her back on the questioning priest and walked to the side of the bed. An edge of the bed cover had rumpled. As she reached out to straighten it, her hand brushed Tsecha’s arm—she jerked back at the touch of soft, warm skin.

  “His blood is being warmed by the circulator.” John moved opposite her. “His internal thermostat no longer functions.”

  “He is dead.” Feyó smacked the top of an analyzer. “Why can you not say the words, Doctor? Are they not your words to say? Tsecha is dead. Not gone. Not irreversibly damaged. Dead.” She pointed to the door. “Ná Via’s suborns will soon arrive. We must proceed.”

  Jani looked at John, who looked away. “John?” She struggled to find the words, to form the question. “Isn’t there…?”

  Feyó stepped between Jani and John. “We must proceed. To wait longer is anathema.”

  Val had been sitting with his head in his hands. Now his head came up, eyes glistening. “What’s the rush! That’s the anathema, Feyó. That you’re in such a goddamn rush!”

  “Val.” Jani stared at him until he got up and strode to the farthest corner of the room to pace. “A soul in an artificially sustained body realizes that the body is dead, and tries to depart. But it’s trapped, and as the length of captivity increases, it degrades, fragments. The Vynshàrau believe it. Most of the major sects.” She stepped around Feyó, dodging the female when she grabbed for her sleeve. “Tsecha, however, had his doubts, and those doubts must be respected.”

  “He doubted when it came to injury, to sickness.” Feyó set herself in Jani’s path, stopping her. “But he is dead. Life has left him. I look at him, and I see…” Her voice faded, the first hint of blankness crossing her face. The first suggestion of loss.

  Jani stepped closer to the female. “Where is the urgency? Is it for his sake?” She twitched her head in the direction of the bed. “Or because you fear what the other Haárin will say? That you mishandled him. That you botched it.”

  “Yes!” Feyó’s shoulders bowed so that her neck twisted. “Idiot humanish—do you truly believe such does not matter? He is Tsecha. Before he was Tsecha, he was Avrèl nìRau Nema, Chief Propitiator of the Vynshàrau. The guide to the gods for all Haárin. If his soul loses its Way, so do all of ours. If he is lost, so are we all.”

  Jani felt her scalp tighten, and worked a hand through her hair to ease the ache. “NìaRauta Sànalàn is your Chief Propitiator now.”

  “She is as nothing. He repudiated her, again and again.” Feyó’s voice emerged in a hiss. “He trained you. You learned from him, and you do not understand that which he was?”

  I know what he was to me. Jani stood still. “John?”

  John cleared his throat. “It’s over, Jan.” He gestured toward one of the analyzers. “I can show you the scans, the test results—”

  “I have seen the scans, and the test results.” Via walked to the bedside, her voice lowered to a whisper. “All is nothing. All the physicians could attempt has been tried. Now is the time for the priests.” She rested a hand on Jani’s arm, a humanish gesture she seldom employed. “His soul is at great risk. The souls of all Haárin are at great risk. We have to proceed.”

  Jani nodded. Then she shook off Feyó’s hand and walked to Tsecha’s bedside. Ignored the muttered Sìah curses that followed her, and waited for a more familiar touch. It came, eventually, a light hand on her shoulder. “It’s moving too quickly.”

  “It’s a nightmare.” John moved in, close enough to lean on. “I keep telling myself to wake up, but I’m not listening.”

  “Didn’t Via see this coming?”

  “I asked her. She’d seen no signs of anything like this.”

  Jani watched the bare chest rise and fall, and knew John had made a mistake. Knew that Tsecha would open his eyes, tear out the intratracheal insert, the sensors, and demand to know why he’d been treated in such a manner, why everyone had been so stupid. “He didn’t seem ill at the meeting house. Did I miss something? Should I have—”

  “Stop it.” John squeezed her shoulder. “Sometimes you just don’t see it coming, and when it hits, there’s nothing you can do.”

  Jani nodded. Her head felt as though it floated, her feet as though they didn’t touch the floor. Shock, or hangover from her augmentation, or a little of both. “There’s nothing—”

  “No.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “…Yes.”

  “Then…” Jani turned to Feyó, who had moved to the foot of the bed. “Bring it.” She saw the relief in the female’s bearing, understood the reasoning behind it, the millennia of religious belief, yet hated her anyway.

  “Are you sure?” John’s voice in her ear, like a guilty conscience.

  “No.” Jani shook her head, then closed her eyes to stop the motion. “So many Haárin still consider him their propitiator, even though he isn’t. If we don’t treat him properly now, the backlash…” She looked down at her hands, at the rings she wore, and fought the urge to yank them off and return them to the hands on which they belonged. “He deserves all honor. All ceremony due a chief propitiator. I’ll see to it.”

  “I know.” John embraced her, rested his head atop hers. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Check the corridor. See if Niall is there.
He went to get my overrobe.” A voice she didn’t recognize, saying things she never thought she’d say.

  John opened the door and walked out into the corridor, returning a few moments later with Jani’s overrobe in hand. “Can anyone else attend?”

  “Come in, Niall.” Jani took the overrobe from John and dragged it on. Arranged the sleeves, straightened the hem, and knew herself for the imposter she was. The fake priest, preparing to send the true one upon his Way. “He liked you.”

  “I—liked him, too.” Niall slipped inside and took a place against the wall, straightening gradually until he stood at attention.

  “I’ll show everyone else out.” John released her and headed for the door.

  “No.” Jani turned to him. “You and Val—you both battled him for so long. His esteemed enemies. He’d want you to stay.” She scanned the ceiling. “Does this room have imaging capability?”

  John nodded. “Yes, but—”

  “Activate it, if you haven’t already. It’s history. What’s more, it’s important.” Jani looked at John, who stared wide-eyed. “I don’t want there to be any questions, ever. No argument that we didn’t do this or we didn’t do that. I want them to see. I want them all to see.” With that, she walked to the foot of the bed and waited.

  A few moments later the door opened. Feyó and Via entered silently, bearing the reliquary between them like a pall. It proved to be a simple wooden box, a half meter high and a meter or so long. The wood itself had the ebony hue and tight grain of one of Shèrá’s northern varieties, which grew in the mountains and was fed by snow and rain. Strange, that Tsecha had chosen such a wood to hold his scroll, rather than the sandstone of his native Rauta Shèràa.

  The two females carried the reliquary over to an empty table on the far side of the room and hefted it on top. Via then left Feyó and beckoned for John to join her in front of the main instrument console, where they had a hasty consultation punctuated by the evaluation of screens filled with data. Then she walked to the bed, her step slowing as she took in the still figure that lay before her. “É ne lona, Tsecha. É neà lonai…” Her voice lowered to a murmur as she circled to each piece of equipment in turn and evaluated the readouts.

  For your journey, Tsecha. For your journey to come… A Vynshàrau prayer, a wish that his journey to the First Star would be swift and uneventful. Jani breathed in once, then again. “É se te lon à kavai,” she uttered in a priestly singsong. “É sei te kavao à volai.” She drew a sharp look from Via for the half-humanish imposter that she was, but she didn’t care. For to journey is to know. For to know is to understand. Those words, Tsecha believed, for all his doubt and argument. Those words, he had the right to hear because of what he’d been. Those words, she had the right to speak because of what he’d been to her.

  “Jani?”

  She turned to find Feyó standing behind her, her eyes averted.

  “Go to your place.” Feyó pointed toward the reliquary.

  Jani walked to the bench on which the reliquary stood. She lifted the flat lid, suppressed a gasp at its weight, and maneuvered it carefully to keep it from bumping anything. She sensed stares. Meva’s judgment. Via’s disapproval. Feyó’s more benign concern. She set the lid upon the bench, then looked inside the reliquary. Nestled within lay Tsecha’s scroll, the construct that had been made soon after his birth to house his soul after his death.

  Idomeni live to die. Jani reached into the reliquary and opened the cover of the bound volume nestled in the padded lining. To her surprise, it felt cold to the touch, rough and weighty. This was the sandstone of Rauta Shèràa, dull umber and gritty, its surface carved with swirling traceries that were the favored imagery of the Vynshàrau. Beneath it lay a face page, blank but for symbols denoting the names of the major gods. Jani looked them over, stopping when she came to a clenched fist, fingers gripping some unidentifiable object. Caith. Goddess of chaos, of annihilation. She who destroyed for the sake of destruction.

  Bitch. Jani wiped her thumb across the image in an effort to smear it, erase it, give order a little of its own back. But idomeni inks were the finest and this image had been in place for a long time. It remained sharp, bright black against the cream of the parchment. This round to you, then. She smoothed her hand over the page, then turned around just as Via took her place at the head of the bed.

  The physician-priest paused. Then, leaning forward, she cupped her hands and positioned them above Tsecha’s face. After a few moments she straightened and circled the bed once more, this time touching each control pad, shutting down each instrument in turn. When she came to the heart-lung array, she hesitated, then reached out slowly, clenching her hand once before touching the control. What little sound had filled the room ceased. Red indicator lights fluttered across the unit’s surface, then faded. Tsecha’s chest stalled in mid-rise.

  Time stopped, the tick into the next second hanging on some cosmic balance. Jani looked to Tsecha, strained to see some movement, some sign that analysis and instruments had erred and hope had won the day.

  But Tsecha remained still and time started again, leaving hope in its wake.

  She looked at John. He stood in the far corner of the room, against the wall, shoulders hunched and arms folded. He met her eye for the barest moment before fixing on the floor at his feet. Val stood beside him, as hunched and cramped as his partner.

  Then she looked to the entry, and saw Dathim and Meva, tall and still, arms raised above their heads in supplication.

  Via resumed her position at the head of the bed, then waited for Feyó to take her position at the foot. She peeled away the sensors from Tsecha’s scalp and chest. Removed the intratracheal insert, sliding it out with a sure hand. After setting it aside, she once more brought her hands together over Tsecha’s face, this time cupped together, palms facing one another. According to all she believed, she now held his soul in her grasp, and she moved slowly, as though jostling might damage it. Straightening, she reached out toward Feyó and opened her hands. As she did so, Feyó held open her arms. Via then closed her hands and let them fall, dispatching Tsecha’s soul to the protection of his secular dominant.

  Feyó crossed her arms, hollow thumps sounding as her hands struck her chest. The seconds passed as she stood in place, eyes closed, hands gripping her shoulders, lips moving in some silent prayer. Then, slowly, she turned to face Jani, and lowered her arms.

  Jani held out her hands in time with Feyó’s action. All the teachings she had read over the months stated that she would know when she had grasped the soul of the deceased. She would feel its weight, its presence, sense the pain it had suffered over the course of its bodily habitation, the joys it had experienced. She would cross her arms over her chest, and know that she sheltered something most delicate, something that would journey across the bridge to the paradise of the First Star, along the Way meeting its gods. Along the Way achieving peace.

  So she gauged every sensation, every thought bidden and unbidden, and felt…nothing. Waited for Tsecha’s voice to sound in her mind, commanding her to pay attention, and heard only the thudding of her own blood in her ears. She turned to face the reliquary and lowered her arms, reaching inside the box and placing her hands over the scroll. Counted to four because it seemed a good number. Not too large, yet not too small. Four seconds—plenty of time for a soul she couldn’t sense to nestle itself within the recesses of a book whose contents she didn’t believe. Thus sayeth the priest. She closed the cover of the scroll and, with hands that felt as they always had, hoisted the reliquary lid and slid it back into place. As she bent close to the wood, she caught its faint scent, a blend of dry herbs and fresh cuttings, tinged with cinnamon. The vrel blossom Tsecha spoke of so often. A tear spilled, spattering the wood, and she wiped it away.

  She placed her hands atop the reliquary, the only finishing gesture she could think of. Ason ea lon, nìRau. Good journey, wherever you are. With that, she let her hands fall, and turned to face the others.

  Si
lence dragged on for one beat. Two. Then Via gestured. “We must go now, and prepare—”

  “I’d like some time, please.” Jani flinched at the sound of her own voice. “Alone with him. I’d like some time. To say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye?” Via gestured in question. “Farewells have been made. It is at an end, ná Kièrshia. We must take him out of this place.”

  “His soul rests in safe harbor. As far as you’re concerned, he’s secure. No evil can befall him.” Jani looked down at her hands, the redstone ring Tsecha had given her more than twenty years before. She tilted her hand back and forth, and watched the scarlet flashes. “A few minutes, Via. That’s all. Allow the humanish in me some time.”

  Via gestured a strong negative. “It is not—”

  “A few minutes.” Jani saw John push off the wall and start toward her, but when their eyes met, he stopped. “I knuckled under to your traditions. You can damn well knuckle under to mine.”

  Via sliced the air with her hand. “It is not godly. I cannot—”

  “Via.” Feyó’s voice sounded tired, the bowing of her shoulders a result of exhaustion as much as irritation. “We must assemble your staff to take ní Tsecha’s body back to the enclave. Such will take time. During that time, it will be watched by a priest.”

  “She is no—” Via fell silent as Feyó’s shoulders curved further. She glanced at Jani, then away, the struggle to contain her own anger evident in the stiff way she held herself.

  “His soul is intact, Via. Your duty is discharged.” Feyó nodded to Jani. She then ushered the physician-priest out the door, their under-their-breath back and forth audible until they left the room.

  “I will…go upstairs.” John gestured vaguely in the direction of the entry. “Everyone’s waiting.” He turned to Aris, then jerked his thumb toward the door. He hurried into the hallway, followed by John, Val, and Niall. The door closed.

  Dathim and Meva had lowered their arms at the conclusion of the rite, but remained still. When the door closed, Dathim edged toward the bed. “If all is finished, why do you remain?”