Salt in the Water (A Lesser Dark Book 1)

by S. Cushaway

  He hated them.

  “It’s easy for you all to sit here and listen to slop. You eat it every day and beg for more. My old man is gone. Dead because . . .” Zres trailed off, choked by grief. The wind moaned as if it had taken on the voice of his inner pain and belted it out across the entire Shy’war-Anquai for every living thing to hear.

  One of the Scrappers snickered, the sound slithering out from behind the ventilator like a snake’s hiss. Zres’s eyes narrowed, but his smile widened. Before anyone could stop him, he shoved past his comrades and lunged for the man who had laughed. He slammed shoulder-first into his target, sending the man’s pistol flying. The air whooshed right out of his lungs as he hit the ground, a snarl on his lips.

  “Stop!” A woman yelled.

  Paying no heed, Zres ripped away the Scrapper’s sand mask. The hard edge of the ventilator gouging his fingers until they bled, but he did not care. Time creaked down to a crawl, so slow every grain of sand slung past his eyes shimmered into sharp focus. The Scrappers jerked rifles and pistols from holsters, their movements so painfully lackadaisical it struck him as comical. A big joke. An act. Puppets.

  “That funny?” he wheezed. “You think it’ll be funny when I rip your lips off your face?!”

  A gun pressed against his temple “You let go of Panezii or your brains are gonna paint the fucking sand.”

  Karraetu.

  “Hold!” a voice called, distinct but mild. “If I may, I’d like to speak to him.”

  As the pistol barrel dug into his temple, Zres’s thoughts droned on like lazy, bloated flies. The man who had helped kill his father stood pressing a gun to his head, and he couldn’t seem to care. Couldn’t seem to find the itch of fear. Could only grin, fingers sliding from the sand mask to fall to the ground, limp—like the hands of his father.

  Good Book, verse twelve, lines three and four—Throw me in that pit. Cover me with beans, O’Mary.

  A dark shadow hovered near Karraetu, staring at him with serene eyes. Zres heard the voice of Death speaking to him in soft, clear tones that defied the raging wind. “Let him go, Zerestus.” A black-gloved hand slid onto his forearm.

  He wrenched back. “Let go of me, you Mary-totin’ son of a—”

  Reeth did not let go. Zres felt his body go slack as abruptly as if he’d been pole-axed. His shoulders slumped as he rolled off Panezii. He sat in the dirt, face to the wind, not caring that sand half-blinded him. All his frantic, guilt-stricken anger shriveled as bitter apathy washed over him.

  The Soulmaker studied him without any trace of pity on his plain face.

  Karraetu pointed at Moad. “Harper, finish this funeral so I can get these assholes back to the barracks.” His voice dropped, though Zres still heard the rasped curses. “Niles should never have let these idiots live, much less parade around.”

  “Please, let’s all continue and honor this fine man,” Moad sang out, holding both hands high, the wind trying to tear the Good Book from his grip. “Let’s forgive young Zerestus for his outburst. He’s just lost his father, and that’s no easy thing to endure.”

  Somehow, Zres got to his feet. Reeth moved aside for him, but trailed as closely as a hound. Zres hardly noticed the man. Panezii called another insult at his back, but even that only brought a low, empty hurt.

  He took his place near Vore and Garv again, not seeing them. Nor could he make sense of the quiet, calm warning Vore spoke into his ear, didn’t feel the heavy pat-pat of Garv’s calloused hand on his shoulder. The only thing he saw now was his father’s body, still and mute. Never again would Orin lift his voice in that sharp, gunshot tone and yell, “Get back to work, Zres!” or “One more stunt like that, and you’re on latrine duty!” Orin would have dragged him off the Scrapper faster than anyone could have blinked, berated him, a cold fire in his pale eyes, always hiding whatever love and concern he might have felt for his son behind a wall of duty.

  But Orin, his father, was dead. Gone. The stern, hard voice silenced forever.

  “Forever,” a voice taunted in his thoughts, winding in from some dark place where sunlight streamed through iron bars. “Is he really going already? Well, then. Forever.”

  Zres closed his eyes as Harper Moad’s powerful, somber voice lifted into a hymn. The words sounded familiar, and he recognized it, could not seem to place them.

  Light o’er the dark

  A dove in my heart

  Through the night She shines

  Beacon o’er waters

  Calm this stormy soul ‘o mine

  Your grace triumphant

  O’er this grim death

  Everyone sang, with the exception of the Enforcers and the Scrappers. Zres did not sing, either. It seemed wrong to sing when someone had died and enemies stood watching. It seemed wrong that the melancholia in Harper Moad’s voice carried no genuine note of sadness, only a feigned solemnity.

  “Karraetu!” someone called out, cutting the ceremony short for the second time. Everyone turned their heads. Through the billowing sand, past the ghostly stalks of ruined, dust-blasted crops, two people approached. One held their hands behind their head, staggering forward, cutting a shadow against the red. The other held a rifle held steady as he called again. “Karraetu! This one just walked in. I need to know what my orders are!”

  Karraetu broke from the group, marching forward with his peculiar, wide-stepped stride. “Who is it, J. T.?”

  “It’s Leigh,” Vore said quietly. “She made it!”

  Some of Zres’s misery drained away. Squinting, he peered through the haze.

  They’re back! They made it back!

  He scanned the little gathering for Erid and saw the boy being restrained by Dramen Frell. Frell said something to Erid, but Zres could not hear what he said as the storm pitched around them.

  The rest of the congregation stood silent, watching, work-roughened hands clutched at hats, heads ducked low, eyes raised with brief, cautious glances. J. T. and Karraetu conversed out of earshot. Zres noticed, too, his mother’s blond hair had blown loose; she turned from the wind, coughing to clear her throat. Moad came close and slid an arm over her thin shoulder. Even the sight of his mama leaning against the Harper didn’t quell Zres’s excitement.

  They’re back . . . ! Where’s Kaitar and Romano?

  Leigh waited with her hands tucked behind her head and a ragged bit of canvas hiding the lower half of her face. She stared at everyone silently, exhaustion written on her gaunt face. Then, her dark gaze flicked past the crowd to the body on the ground. She swayed as if something had struck her, reminding Zres of why they were all standing around in a sandstorm like dumb, senseless cattle. He swallowed hard.

  Karraetu waved J. T. off, and the Scrapper went trotting in the direction of Neiro’s office. Niles’s office now, Zres supposed. The commander shoved Leigh; she slumped against Vore, knees buckling.

  The lanky Enforcer caught her around the shoulders. “Zres, give me a hand here! Help me prop her up. She’s about done in.”

  Zres couldn’t move. It was as if his boots had been filled with lead weights, too heavy for his legs. His mind, too, seemed filled with that same dead weight, and now not even a fly-buzz of thought drifted there. Only blank, empty confusion.

  Where’s Kaitar and Romano?

  “Garv,” Vore said, sounding annoyed. “Help me with her. She’s about to pitch right over.”

  The short, burly Enforcer didn’t hesitate. Dreamlike, Zres watched her hook her meaty arm around Leigh’s waist.

  The gray-eyed sharpshooter leveled his gaze at Karraetu. “Where are the others? Vargas and Besh?”

  Karraetu shrugged. “She’s the only one that came in. Can’t say I’m surprised about that dipshit Junker not making it, but I’ll admit, I expected that Shyiine to pull through.” Without further comment, he turned toward Moad. Reeth rejoined the Harper and nodded gravely as the commander regarded them.

  Karraetu did not return the courtesy. “Get this carnival over with. Should have had
him in the ground and buried by now. Niles gave this damned thing a half-hour limit before everyone’s back on lockdown, so get it done. You got three minutes, Harper.”

  Moad cleared his throat. “Let’s all bow our heads for a moment of silence as he’s laid to rest. Karraetu, can your men assist my Soulmaker with that task?”

  “We’re not undertakers. Bury your own dead.”

  I can’t watch this. I can’t. It’s all wrong!

  Everything—Leigh returning without Kaitar and Romano, her ragged, exhausted state, Panezii snickering behind him again, his mother standing next to Moad and looking down with dry eyes—tunneled into an incomprehensible blur. Moad opened his mouth to protest, then paused as Reeth whispered in his ear.

  The Soulmaker leaned back and spoke aloud. “I can manage it.” He stooped, took Orin by the boots, and dragged him to the edge of the shallow grave. The mound of dug earth was almost gone, blown apart by the wind, but Reeth did not hesitate. With a solemn heave, he dumped the corpse over the side and took up the shovel lying on the ground. Fighting the wind with unrelenting calm, he began to fill the hole.

  The townspeople who had braved the storm all bowed their heads for a moment of silence. The Enforcers did not look away—they watched. Even Leigh, who seemed as though she might pass out at any moment, kept her eyes fixed on the grave. Zres watched too, wanting to scream a perverse version of Moad’s hymn.

  O’Mary.

  Heap the beans upon my Father’s poor soul.

  He’s down there in the dirt,

  And it’s my fault he’s in that hole

  There is no Light.

  There is . . . no Light.

  Over and over, the thought hit his mind with unwavering fury. Brutal and bleak with its truth.

  There. Is. No. Light.

  “Zres.”

  Someone nudged him. He blinked at the short, petite woman with green eyes, her blond hair drifting across her dust-powdered face. Smelling of perfume and sex. Who was she?

  “Zres, honey,” Lucy Corrin said, patting his shoulder. “You have to go with the other Enforcers to the barracks. Please, go on before you get in trouble again. I know this is hard for you, seein’ your father buried like that.”

  “Mama.” His arms trembled, almost reaching for her. He wanted to lay his head on her breast and cry as he’d done as a little boy, back before he really understood the deep vein of hypocrisy that ran through the world.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” She smiled faintly. “You should go rest a while.”

  Had she ever known him, really? Did she know him now, standing there, awash with shame over his father’s death? Did she know or care how it felt to see his comrades trudge off to the barracks, prodded by rifles? Would Lucy Corrin ever know the depths of hurt that single word—mama—brought every time she flashed that empty smile at him?

  There is no Light.

  His arms did not move, nor did he lay his head on her bosom. Instead, a great, welling darkness chewed him raw.

  “Zerestus, honey, maybe you could ask to see Doctor Sokepta. He could give you some of that tea to calm your nerves. I know it’s rank stuff, but it would help you sleep.”

  “No. I’m fine,” Zres said. “I’ll go without a fuss. I guess you got a lot to get ready for, with the wedding this winter.”

  She spat delicately over her shoulder to clear her mouth. “I do, yes. I suppose I’d better get back to my rooms at the Bin, too, or the Scrappers will get testy.” She turned, waved over her shoulder, and hurried toward Phineas Moad, who stood waiting just past the grave.

  Karraetu waved his pistol. “Walk on back, Zres, or we’ll make this a double funeral.”

  Opert Reeth shoveled more dirt into the hole, and his lips were pursed into a whistle that the wind ate up. He lifted his head and smiled as Zres passed. For the first time Zres could remember in his life, the grin—the big, uncontrollable smile filled with anxiety and confusion and chaotic futility—did not hurt.

  Eye of the Sun

  Bitterness trickled past his lips and down his throat. Gairy choked against the acrid taste, sputtering as a warm, soothing sensation filled his belly. It spread through his midsection and along his limbs until his fingers tingled pleasantly. It was almost like being drunk.

  He tried to catch hold of that strand of warmth and cradle it close. Even the thirst ebbed, no more than a pale specter of the roaring demon it had been before. More of the hot liquid filled his mouth and he drank, swallowing greedily, suckling like a baby at a breast.

  “Ah, look at him. It’s a sad thing to see such a Druen weak as a lamb.” A chuckle. “Aizr-hin, go slowly with that. Do not drown the lamb. That medicine is strong.”

  “I have no intention of drowning him, Father. He’s too big to drown, anyway.”

  A laugh followed, joined by two more. A voice more familiar spoke, defiant and sharp, “Will he wake up soon?”

  Senqua.

  “Maybe,” the first voice replied, creaking with the weight of many years. “It is a good thing we still had the threk’s poison on hand. Just a little makes a good tonic for pain and weakness. How is your ankle, little She-Snake?”

  “I’m not a snake.”

  “Feeling better, I assume. The sprain will mend quickly. Shyiine were always resilient.” More chuckling. “That is why they made such good fighters, even if they were poor slaves in every other regard. Ah, look at the anger in your eyes when I say that. Is she not pretty when she is angry, my son?”

  “Indeed. Such eyes, like the sun as it sinks down to kiss the land farewell. Now I know why the women were so prized.”

  “I’m not a bed slave, or any kind of slave. Those days are over!”

  “Yes, they are long over,” the chuckling voice responded. “Soothe yourself. We’ve no brass collars to put on your neck. Aizr-hin only means to compliment your beauty.”

  Gairy’s eyelids fluttered and a harsh light penetrated his skull. He groaned and let himself drift along the warm, soothing wave of threk tea. The voices faded away into small, insignificant sounds that reminded him of the chirping of desert sparrows. Below that chirping, something growled and moaned. At times, Gairy thought it might be his own voice. Sometimes, the growling rose to a mournful howl, echoing through darkness.

  How long he stayed in that place, caught somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness, between life and death, he didn’t know. But when his eyelids opened—lifting as slowly as dawn spreading over a quiet landscape—Gairy saw something shining above. At first, he thought the faint twinkling was stars, but no star ever glowed so vividly.

  I know it. I know that picture.

  The firelight caught the vaulted ceiling, reflecting off the smooth clay tiles and illuminating the portrait of a Sulari woman. She smiled down at him, breasts exposed, face chipped and faded with the years, the smoldering look in her dark eyes discolored by grime to melancholy longing.

  The bathhouse. I remember looking up at that mosaic as a kid.

  “Gairy?”

  Senqua’s face appeared above him, her smooth, coppery skin glowing. Her eyes sparked bright with some sort of inner fire all their own; there was no lust in her expression, however—only weariness and a good deal of anger.

  “Can you see me? Are you awake?”

  Gairy grunted, not wanting to talk. He felt wrung out as an old rag. All he wanted to do was lie quietly without speaking.

  “The He-Goat returns to us.” A man’s face crammed up near Senqua’s, much darker and finely chiseled. A row of long, tight braids fell around the man’s shoulders, decorated with small beads and feathers. A broad smile creased his handsome features.

  Senqua stiffened, visibly annoyed. “Can he have some water?”

  The young Sulari man motioned over his shoulder. “Ga’behz, bring the waterskin. Try not to wake my poor father. His bones hurt in such weather and he needs to rest.”

  Gairy did not want to see that Sulari or hear the rolling, imperious voice. He didn’t want to see Senqu
a either, or wonder if these men had any harm in mind for the little Shyiine woman. When he closed his eyes, those thoughts gnawed at him anyway, evaporating the last tendrils of slumber. When he spoke, the voice that creaked out sounded too weak to be his own. “Who are you? Why’re you here, in the Sun Plaza?”

  A middle-aged Sulari man stepped into view, standing above and looking as big as a tree from where Gairy lay on the ground. A waterskin dangled from his hand. He pried open the tough knot of acacia wood that served as a stopper.

  “Why should we not be here? This was ours, after all, before the Estarians came with their guns and their mandates to steal it from us.” He knelt and put the open end of the skin to Gairy’s lips. “Drink it. You had enough tea to subdue a da'mel, but now you need water to recover. You came very close to death.”

  “Not close enough,” Gairy muttered. The cold water drizzled down his chin and onto his bare chest. He swallowed. “Where’s my coat? My shirt?”

  “Hanging over by the statues near the door. Prince Gah’leen and I needed to hear your heart to see if it would keep beating. It did, but for a while we thought it would stop and you’d drift away to Sun's palace in the sky.” Ga’behz smiled, and unlike the young Sulari man, his grin gapped with missing teeth. “Prince Aizr-hin killed a young threk two days ago, and we kept the poison for medicine. It is a good thing we did. You are a very sick, He-Goat.”

  “I’m not a fucking goat.”

  “Gairy.” Senqua hovered near once more. “You have to rest. They said that your body is fighting itself because you haven’t had any whiskey, and it’s purging. If you push yourself right now, you might die.”

  Good. I hope I do. Hurts too much to want to keep goin’ anyway.

  “Where’s the whiskey?”

  Senqua’s expression twisted into fury. “I traded it and my mother’s necklace for help. It’s theirs now. They wanted it for a trophy.”