by Rey Balor
“Today is the day I meet Death. All of the studies and all of the verses… Nothing has prepared me for it,” he began. “The Queens, the shields, the people… It all seems both pointless and the point of everything up here. I dreamed of those outside for weeks, but to see them for myself… I’m quite… There are things words cannot utter, and to do so now would ruin what Death wishes for me. If none ever see this, so be it. I only want some marker that I did what was asked. Hand of devotion, spirit of Death, it is time I joined you.”
He made one final symbol, and she was finally able to understand the shape he was making: a star.
The screen went black once more.
Suddenly, it felt as if she was standing in a sacred place that she had no rights to be in. Taboos were littered around her that she had no way of knowing, and she stepped forward, both testing them and daring them to intervene with her own plan. Nothing happened, and the tightness in her stomach lessened slightly. She touched the screen, making sure it was real. Nothing happened. This was her ship to conquer.
“Pat? Patti? Look, Marie, would you lay off? I don’t give a — ow,” Pat’s radio blazed to life suddenly, and she jumped again at the sudden noise.
“Isaac?”
“Pat! Thank you! Thought you’d been eaten by one of those beasts Nik used to tell us all about.” He laughed uncertainly, and she could already imagine the way his hands would fidget when he was nervous. What did he have to be nervous about when she was the one risking her life out here?
She made a faint sound of acknowledgement. She had gotten by just fine without them, thank you, and she would have made it home just fine. The least they could do was apologize for leaving her with static as she walked with memories that weren’t hers.
“We found some of Nik’s old notes, Pat.” Her body froze at the words, all thoughts of apology forgotten. “We went to recycle some of his old papers, you know. Isn’t there some sort of saying about trash and treasure Nik was always warning us about? I don’t remember. Anyways, I took it to the others — thought you’d be proud of me for it. I’m turning out to be a right politician.”
“Isaac…”
He barreled on, as if he didn’t hear her. “He wanted us to return to the earth days ago on that ship you’re on now, not months from now, but we cast a vote and we’re not yet ready to go. Not…not yet, anyways. Might be our job, but you were always the one meant for it. We’ve got our own job to do, remember? Someone’s got to raise the next generation, and you said it yourself that it can’t be Marie. We all think it’s time you did what you were meant for, even though we’ll miss you something awful, and we can do what’s best for us, just like you taught. It took us hours to agree on this, ever since you left, so please don’t be mad. You wouldn’t be able to make it back here anyways — docking bay’s not lighting up like it should.” Distantly, in the background, she thought she could hear crying. “We’ll raise the next generation, we’ll do it together, and meet again soon. There’s a reason why they call us Light Bringers: we’ve got to fall to the ground first before we give ‘em knowledge. This is our final transmission. Good luck, Pat. Be the god they’ll see you as. Goodbye.”
Chapter 19: The Citadel
“Out of the ground, Death let them hear.
Out of the air, Death let them see.
Out of the heavens, Death let them feel.”
Death’s Lament, 4.14
Claymore did not pace, for the simple reason that they considered pacing to be a mark of an unsteady mind. Those who paced carried their worries close to the surface, and such worries would always spill over if they could not be contained. Claymore stood with a rigid form, as still as the statues of the Queens that decorated the fives corners of the courtyard. It was Maul who paced, Shishpar who watched him, Glaive who remained on the balls of her feet as if unsure whom to join, and Falchion who kept his sights locked on the captain. The five guards had been waiting for near three hours in the center of the Citadel — the longest span of time they had remained away from their posts by the royals’ sides.
Every time footsteps sounded, one would look up, unable to help themselves, and be immediately disappointed as the form of a servant skittered by. The servants, those named flowers by the Queen of the Summer Isles, each avoided looking at the Aegis directly. The group’s existence was usually only acknowledged by the Queens themselves. Claymore allowed for their mind to turn to static for the moment, worries and concerns bubbling together.
In the middle of the shields, Caliana sat, giving no sign that she felt the blood trickling from her cuts. Her hands were bound together, but she still managed to hold onto her victory, even as it had been snatched from her. Her chestnut brown hair was tied at the nape of her neck, giving her the appearance of order, but her wounds were left to fester. She had always been a mix of civilization and savagery, and she wore the two masks well. The others viewed her escape as a failed attempt; Claymore saw it as something else. The woman had been captured, and although her intentions remained unclear, there was a glimpse of a plan there. The only explanation the wolfling gave was a brief smile in Claymore’s direction, but it elicited no reaction in turn.
It had taken almost an hour to catch the prisoner, and by escaping, she had done something no one else had dared attempt. If Maul and Falchion had not been on patrol and found her trail, Claymore shuddered to think how far the woman would have gotten. It would leave a large stain on their record as captain, but they had begun that when they agreed to lie for the Queen of the Summer Isles. If only Caliana had gotten farther with her plan, perhaps it would have been worth it so they could know more. Perhaps not. Claymore tried to put it from their mind.
No one spoke for the three hours the Aegis waited, and the buzz of the captain’s thoughts warned them that no one would speak for a long time. They pulled out their sword and rested the tip against the ground, weight pressing against it to avoid the exhaustion that had begun to fall upon them. They would stand until collapsing, and if they fell, they would stand once more the instant they woke up. Sweat trickled down their scalp, but they did not break their concentration by wiping it off. This was the way of the Aegis, and each of them respected that all important principle of strength.
All that was left was to wait.
The Queen of the Pillared Lands was the first to enter, looking like her usual haggard self. Wild curls sprang in every direction, and she turned to address each of the guards individually, hair whipping around with every movement she made. Large lenses covered her eyes so that none could see where her attention rested,52 but her role among the Queens was well known, even if it was not well discussed. If she was meant to represent one of the principles the Aegis followed, it would be strength as well.
“Well, none of the other lovelies are coming,” the Queen announced. Her movements were flowy, and she seemed unable to stand still, weaving around the room with long steps. It was unsettling to watch.
The statement was met with a complete halt by the Aegis — motions, words, breath, it all came to a pause. The only noise that reached them was the slight shuffle of servants as they lingered in the attempts to hear fresh gossip; the Queen banished them by raising her large lenses. Black eyes, complete with purple bags beneath them, sent them scattering. As soon as it was the Queen and the Aegis alone, she let out a yawn, and her arms stretched high above her head before she even noticed the injured wolfling. With something between a laugh and a scoff, she fell beside the woman with crossed legs. Even as she settled in one spot, she remained no less unsettling. Claymore sheathed Oblivion and stepped forward.
“It’s just me and her — and the rest of you, of course. We made the decision that it would be best if she came to rest in my care, but I don’t accept someone until I know them a little better.” Without warning, she slapped Caliana on the face, the sound ringing out amidst the silence of the shields. Shishpar was the only one to visibly flinch out of the five, and it was a weakness that did not pass unnoticed. The Queen
pointed to Glaive and back to Shishpar. “Take him and go.”
Glaive had no choice but to obey, and the pair went without argument. The flare of violence had awoken Caliana from her daze, and she focused on the Queen looming above her. When her dreadful cackle sounded, Claymore knew whatever reaction the Queen had hoped for would not be achieved through such overtly violent means. Caliana was a wolfling, and weren’t wolflings used to the wild ways of survival? She could not wipe her mouth with bound hands, so Caliana spit the drying blood, leaving a red blob on the floor between Queen and captor. Claymore’s nose twitched in disgust.
“You think you can know me, Queen? You tried knowin’ me damn near forty years ago, and look at ‘ow well that turned out. There’s nothin’ so much I love more than provin’ you bastards wrong.” The effort of the words took a visible toll on Caliana, and she curled into herself as soon as they were uttered. When she moved, it became clear her leg had been twisted in her grand escape, turned and set in a way that was not natural.
The Queen rose a brow, utterly unimpressed with the defiance. “Do you know what normally happens to prisoners who attempt escape?” She grabbed hold of the brunette’s chin, forcing her to look directly at the Queen. “They die slow, they die painfully, and they die in the most dishonorable way possible — their bodies torn apart and tossed out like the waste they are. Shall we post your pretty head on a spike, or set your bones in the very walls you once helped maintain? Wolflings have always brought out the creativity in me.” Delicately, and in a mockery of the gesture the Queen of the Summer Isles had given to Claymore, she pressed a kiss to the wolfling’s forehead. “Luckily, you have information that may prove useful,” she breathed against the woman’s skin. “How did you escape from our prison? None have done so before, dearie.”
Claymore could feel Maul and Falchion stare at their back, eyes boring a hole through them in face of a lie they had never thought would return. Both Aegis remained silent, well aware of what such a lie could entail for them all. The captain could only whisper a soft prayer to Death, but the air remained silent of intervention. They tried a prayer to the Queen of the Summer Isles instead — hoping beyond the simple meaning of the word that Caliana would do the unthinkable and remain defiant.
The Queen of the Summer Isles answered their prayers, whereas Death remained silent.
“You put us down there with nothin’ but free time and a thirst for vengeance. All I ‘ad to do was rally the people,” Caliana said. She snarled, she spit, she clawed, she did everything a human should not. “They called my name — Machina, Machina, Machina — and I followed the sound of their fuckin’ voices to freedom.”
The lie was clearly that — a lie — but it was enough.
The Queen’s features shifted, if only slightly, to an expression of distrust, but the expression went mostly unnoticed beneath her shades. There was only the twitch of her lips and the flare of nostrils to signify any change at all, and she straightened once more, dusting off her skirt as if she had had enough. Claymore watched carefully, but they refused to relax. They stiffened further when, without warning, the Queen’s hand twisted through the length of Caliana’s hair and yanked her to her feet. The wolfling let out a howl, clawing at the one holding her.
Unfortunately for Caliana, she was already weakened from her first attempted escape that morning, and her limbs had been cut with shallow incisions to bleed her of any notion of escape again.53 Her gestures required an energy she did not have, and the Queen knew that fact — all she had to do was wait for the struggling to stop. It took seventy-nine seconds; Claymore counted each of them.
It was not acceptance that settled into Caliana, but her defiance quieted, allowing for the Queen to loosen her hold on the woman. The Queen’s voice then addressed Claymore, which took the captain a long moment to notice as her eyes remained hidden. “Go tell the others I’ll be keeping this little beastie with me for a few days before we cage her again. I think there’s another story here, and I do so love my stories.”
“A few days? She won’t survive that.”
The Aegis all knew what the Queen of the Pillared Lands did. Claymore felt a sickness in their stomach and the stirrings of something else, something long dormant — defiance. They took another step forward.
A vein appeared in the Queen’s neck, and splotches of red were visible along her forehead as she sputtered at Claymore’s words. “It is not your duty to determine if she is worthy of survival or not. Death has kept this one alive through the decades, with no help from you. Death will keep her as long as she is useful. Do you have anything else to say on the matter, captain?”
The defiance fizzled out. Claymore could do little more than bow their head to the command, ashamed they had spoken out at all. While the others had taken a vow to protect and to serve the Citadel, Claymore had made the additional promise to obey each of the Queens and ensure the others did as well. It had been a difficult vow to make in the eyes of Death, for obedience meant faith in the five Queens and faith was so rarely well rewarded. In good, in bad, in everything in between, they had promised. Caliana tried to mouth something toward the captain, but their focus remained on the Queen, refusing to give the prisoner any more allowances.
In another world, the shield was offering an apology to the wolfling. When they watched her jump from the tower, they had not imagined the Queen of the Pillared Lands would get involved. When they had pulled out Oblivion and warned the rest of the guards, they had not expected Caliana to taste the end of another’s blade. She would not be given death, impure or otherwise; she would be given something far crueler. In this world, Claymore listened to the Queen of the Pillared Lands. It was not their duty to say what was cruel.
Maul and Falchion did not hesitate to flank the captain, pulling out weapons the instant the Queen pulled the wild woman from the courtyard. Maul’s hammer loomed threateningly in his huge hands, but it only made him appear larger. Falchion’s blade was thinner than Claymore’s arming-sword, but it had a dangerous curve to it that reflected the twist of the man’s lips.
“Have you betrayed us?” The question came out at once, and Claymore could not say if it had come from one or both of the men. They owed the pair an answer to that, at the very least, especially as the men had waited until the prisoner had left, unwilling to dishonor Claymore in front of those they served. Yes, Claymore owed them the truth, but none of their five principles dealt with truth. They dealt with a hundred other emotions, but the concept of truth had never been an emotion.
Claymore did not reach for their own weapons but held their hands with palms outward in a small show of surrender. They would not fight, but neither would they yield. While they had to bend to the Queen, they were the leader among the Aegis, and they had to live with commands made. “There was a reason for it,” they tried, but the excuse felt weak even to their own ears.
“There’s a reason for why the sky’s gray, but that don’t mean it’s healthy for us, Claymore,” Maul returned, the barest trace of venom in the depth of his voice. He grinded his teeth as he stood before them, and even his large beard seemed to twitch in anger. It was quite the sight, but Claymore did not flinch.
“Speak,” Falchion tried. “Speak fast, speak well, and speak true.”
Claymore nodded once before continuing. “My goal is to serve our Queens. You see that I let the prisoner go, knowing full well what awaits her at the Queen’s hands? It is because my Queen demanded it. What else could I do but lie when my other Queen demanded such a task of me?”
“What task is that, captain?” Maul’s hands tightened on the hammer, not out of any sort of threat but out of a desire to understand his captain’s explanation.
“Something is shifting in the winds. The wolfling woman, for reasons unbeknownst to me, can help us all. I do not believe she knows she is being used in such a fashion, but the Queen of the Summer Isles says and so it is so. She lied for the same reason I bent the truth: to keep to our principles and preserve our way
of life. The Old Ways are all we know.” Claymore pursed their lips, searching for the words that had so long alluded them. “It is for the good of the Citadel. A small sacrifice for the betterment of everyone. Is that not our way?”
They were the captain; all they had to do was give the command, and the others would have to fall in line. But that was not how they wanted to lead, not in an era that had the potential of prosperity. The code of the Aegis was a strict one, but beyond the code, their decisions would shape the way of life in the Citadel. Strip the Aegis of the part of their souls that decided, and what remained but murderers claiming to act in the role of an old god?
“You have a task to complete, Claymore. Go speak to the Queens, and we’ll speak amongst ourselves. Perhaps this is Death’s way of choosing a new captain.” There was a harshness to Maul that had never been directed at them before, but his hammer fell to his side.
“You’ve put us in a dangerous position,” Falchion spoke grimly. “Our way is a cycle. We must now put you in a dangerous position. As you say, it is our way.”
“Perhaps, it’s time we spoke to Death again. I’m calling a day of sacrifice. Run to your Queen, and come morning, we’ll know what’s to happen to us all,” Maul said. “Let Death decide.”
Chapter 20: The Wilds
“To derive the laws of nature is to derive civilization.”
Death’s Lament, 23.7
ARISTA:
“Roam, man, get up, or you’ll be late,” a voice too close for comfort whispered. “Pan sent me — said you were dead asleep in here.”
Startled awake, Illias reached for his weapon, but his hand gripped onto only air. He rolled to his feet instead, putting distance between him and the one who woke him. To his surprise, Lye started laughing at his disheveled appearance and ruffled Illias’s mess of hair. The guard was several inches shorter than Illias, and there was little strength in his bones — the fact that he should laugh at Illias was strange.
