Dreams of the Eaten

by Arianne Thompson

  “Of course she did,” Sil said. “We both did. Now come on, old boy – let’s make ourselves useful.”

  Of course. Right. They were standing mid-catastrophe, and it was going to take a whole lot of able bodies to clean it up.

  So as Elim stood there, his pants and lone moccasin-shoe loosening under a cloud of gently drifting horse-hairs, he slowly found his own feet again, and the three of them set to work.

  They helped man a bucket brigade to put out what remained of the housefire. They lifted up one wall of a fallen home, so rescuers could get to the old man inside. They joined the rope-pullers working to haul people still trapped in a pit of deadly-fine sand. It didn’t make them many friends – the a’Krah plainly didn’t trust any of them, and Elim least of all – but every task was a small, vital help, a collective effort to scab over the worst of the disaster.

  And it was such good work, and Elim was so glad to finally have some simple, ordinary use for himself again, that it took him completely by surprise when a grim-faced a’Krah man beckoned him forward.

  “He says you’re to come with him,” Sil translated, his expression struggling to paper over his anxiety. “He says it’s time for them to decide about you.”

  For a moment, Elim wondered what there could be to decide about. Then it hit him with a pang of shameful dread.

  Oh.

  He looked around, appalled at his own forgetfulness. Where was Do-Lay – and Bootjack, for that matter? Had Way-Say come back? Had anyone?

  Unfortunately, the only certainty was the one waiting in the man’s baleful stare. After all Elim’s long journey, after every hazard and obstacle, there was finally nothing left between him and his penance. The sun was rising, and judgment day had come.

  FOR AS LONG as he could remember, Vuchak’s obligations had been endless. Mind Weisei. Read the ghiva. Spar. Cover for Weisei. Attend the blessings. Shoot. Pick up after Weisei. Learn the graces. Wrestle. Apologize for Weisei.

  Now, on the last stretch home, his list had dwindled to a single entry: Don’t quit.

  That was it. That was all he had to do. And it might still be too much.

  He could have carried Dulei well enough if he were alive and injured, or even freshly dead. Vuchak had vigor and strength, and Echep’s marka hadn’t filled out to a man’s weight yet.

  But if there were a harder, more unnatural way to carry another human being than tied in the fetal position and boarded up in a wooden box, Vuchak never wanted to find out. No wonder infants were born so small – what mother could tolerate them longer?

  As it was, he was bent nearly double, his fingers numb with trapped blood where he’d stuffed them under the repurposed horse harness in a mostly-futile effort to keep the straps from digging into his shoulders. The coffin on his back weighed as much as he did, and there was no straightening, not even an inch, without it pulling him over.

  And the rockslides weren’t helping. Every stone in his path was a mandate to stop, put Dulei down, clear the way, and then somehow find the strength to lift him again.

  At least the cold was helping with the smell.

  Vuchak went on like that, step by impossibly heavy step, each one a new item on the list of things he didn’t have to worry about just then.

  Ylem and Hakai were gone – someone else’s problem.

  Echep had run off to kill them – someone else’s problem.

  Some unnatural power was trying to break the Mother of Mountains – a problem so far outside Vuchak’s responsibility, the stars were sending it smoke-signals.

  And as for Weisei... well, he might still technically be a child, but Vuchak was just going to have to trust that his marka was enough of a man to handle himself out there. And he was. Vuchak had seen those glimmers of greatness in him more times than he could count.

  For now, Vuchak had to concentrate on his own greatness, or at least his own adequacy. He had to take the next step, and the next one, and the next one, and when the trail switched back and grew too steep for his feet, he had to lean forward and crawl on hands and knees, a creeping child straining under the weight of its cradleboarded cousin.

  This side of the mountain was too dry to see much ice, but the freeze had made wet places dangerous. Vuchak stopped when his hand met glazed rock, and looked up to find a safer grip. There was a tree root just above it. He reached up to take hold of the gnarly bark.

  Too far. For one weightless moment, Vuchak held himself perfectly, precariously upright, an accidental model of good posture. Then the weight on his back overbalanced him, and sent him tumbling backwards, head over heels over neck over box, to land at the bottom of the hill with a meaty wood-splintering crash.

  Vuchak gave up.

  He lay in a heap at the bend in the trail, a mangled mass of agonies trapped in the wreckage of a dead man. Help me, he thought, when he finally had enough air and sense to think beyond pain. Give me your hand. I can’t do it anymore.

  But there was nobody there to help him – not even anyone to wish at. Weisei was gone. Echep had turned his face away. And Dulei was almost certainly frozen stiff. Vuchak had no-one but himself – and that wasn’t nearly enough.

  Vuchak was no son of Marhuk, no extra-potent god-child. He had no superior well of strength, no divine favor at all. He was only an ordinary person – less than that, even. He was a’Pue – born under no star, possessed of no luck – and he couldn’t do this.

  Vuchak lay still, closing his eyes against the lancing light of sunrise, and waited for nothing.

  Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe this was how it always had to be. After all, the World That Is would continue only as long as atleya held it together – only while people lived the ways of order and righteousness – and nothing could last forever. Already people were abandoning their duties. Cowardly Echep. Irresponsible Weisei. Faithless Vuchak. Three poor specimens in a whole world full of callow men, frigid women, and insolent children. And who could blame them, when even the gods themselves had failed? Some greedy Eaten swine had killed Ten-Maia, and so her sisters had abandoned their husbands to wander and weep and scream. The Lightning Brothers got no satisfaction from their mourning wives, and so they gave none in turn: their storm clouds rolled resentfully on, and refused to seed the earth. So there was no rain, and so there were no crops, and so the toiling men of the earth abandoned their work and turned on each other. The stag ate his brother, and the doe mounted the wolf, and the fawn starved. And what arrogance did it take to imagine that he, Vuchak, could somehow stand against that? What had he ever done but officiously wash his hands in the wellspring of a poisoned world?

  It was a comforting thought for a man craving rest: if Vuchak could do no good, then he could safely do nothing. After all, what value could there be in such a lonely, hopeless life? Why try at all?

  Vuchak had thought that way once before. He had looked into the eyes of the tiny infant girl in his arms, struggling to understand the value of a person who would exist only as a pause between labor and grief, to discover the purpose of a life that would be measured in hours. He had found the answer on this very peak, on a morning much like this one.

  Vuchak wanted not to remember it. He wanted to lie still and rest. He lay on his left side in the frozen dirt, distantly registering the trembling of the ground and the faraway boom of a falling stone. His heart slowed, his breathing quieted, and his dull gaze drifted to the mark of the atodak on his inside wrist.

  They had called it a sign of honor and service when they put it on him. He saw it now for what it was: a tattooed curse, warning away any woman who might intend him for a husband, killing his children before they were born.

  What if it’s not true? Echep had said. What if all of this is just one big self-serving lie? Then it wouldn’t matter what they did. After all, the mark only had the meaning people gave it. Why couldn’t the same be true of the starless days on the calendar? If they meant nothing, there was no reason for starless people to spend their lives deprived and toiling for the greater
glory of the Marhuka – no reason to hold themselves apart from the joys of the world.

  But then, if there was no such thing as a’Pue, there was no cosmic force conspiring to make him miserable – no reason to lie there like a sack of spilled potatoes. And if he weren’t an atodak, if the mark on his arm had no meaning, then he was only himself: Vuchak, the son of Seitak – an a’Krah man of twenty-one years, who had once run naked through the smoking-house on a dare, and liked his corn cakes with green chile sauce.

  And if he were just himself – a man, free and complete – and he could do anything he wanted... what then?

  The question itself was a treat, a priceless untasted luxury, and Vuchak lingered long over the answer. If he owned himself, had mastery of his own life...

  He would have a bath, first of all – a long, hot, extravagant soak.

  Then he would sleep in a real bed, for at least three days. Then he would go Oyachen’s and eat until his teeth gave out. Then he would say hello to Lavat’s daughter.

  But first he would finish what he started.

  Vuchak’s hands and knees found each other first, and then the ground, encouraged by every small, painful good omen. His back hurt, but he hadn’t broken anything. Dulei’s coffin had taken a battering, but it hadn’t burst. The world was decaying, but it wasn’t dead.

  Vuchak, son of Seitak, crawled one foot forward.

  Vuchak, son of Seitak, son of Atlip, crawled another.

  And he went on like that, every pace a proud reiteration of himself. Not because he was a’Pue, and not because it was his duty, but because he chose to do it – because his was a lineage of men, human men and women, who had taken ownership of their lives.

  He was Vuchak, son of Seitak, son of Atlip, son of Totolit the Odd-Footed, son of Henat the Endless, the daughter of Shrewd Soshei – and shrewd Vuchak likewise paused to ground his left foot before reaching for that faithless tree-root – who was the third daughter of Liswei, son of Huigash, son of Chugash Who Died Twice, the son of Unyielding Pitat – and unyielding Vuchak likewise refused to let his aching knees buckle – the only daughter of Yagwei, the son of Tasutak, the son of Tsidagash, the son of E’hiyat the Ever-Ready, the daughter of Vo’ono Who Kept Her Name...

  Vuchak climbed his lineage all the way to the top, defiantly delighted to run out of steps long before he had run out of ancestors. He relished the first scent of sweet burning pine, rejoiced in the gracefully arcing crow-shadows on the ground, and hurried to unharness himself, to set Dulei down and enjoy his first glimpse of home.

  But as he looked out onto that familiar terraced slope, Vuchak’s breath deserted him, fleeing his lips to dissipate out amidst a vast settling dust-cloud.

  Too late. He had come too late. Vuchak, son of Seitak, had returned home at last – and Atali’Krah lay in ruins.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEEN

  THE BLACK MASS

  AH CHE, A child of twelve winters, did not awaken. He only lay there on the rocks, open-eyed and unthinking. The empty sachet of tarré lay beside him, a few sweet-smelling dried flakes still scattered on the ground around him, clinging to his lips and wedged between his teeth.

  By the light of the full moon, he could just make out a few telltale sparkles in his periphery, as the river began to wash away the maiden-shaped mound of corn beside him. He lay quiet, wishing for nothing. He lay still, waiting for an end.

  But the corn attracted crows.

  The crows brought crow-feathered men.

  The men took Ah Che.

  And by the time they had carried him all the way back to their nest, Ah Che, a child of twelve winters, was neither a child nor Ah Che.

  THE CALENDAR OF Atali’Krah, which was without equal, divided the year into four seasons, and each season into five months, and each month into eighteen days – a horology that Vuchak had relished explaining to She Who Was Born Awake.

  Today is the day of the eye, in the month of the new grass, he’d said, showing her the intricate designs carved in the great stone circle that represented all the heavens. And here above it is the bell star – see up in the sky, how it presents itself to you!

  He had explained to her how that meant that she was a belled-shoe daughter, destined to be beautiful and brave and demanding, lucky in love and graceful in manner. He’d told her about atleya – about the great natural order of creation, and the sacred place she occupied within it. He’d taught her how to read the heavenly cycles and convergences, so that she could find her way back to life.

  The calendar of Atali’Krah, which was without equal, lay shattered on the ground.

  The House of the Last Twilight, where his niece’s body had been prepared, had been smashed to rubble underneath it.

  The Tower of Innocence leaned like a lightning-blasted tree, spilling her bones out over the western slope.

  And the house where she had been born, where Yeh’ne and Suitak had buried her cord to help her find her way back to them... it was simply gone.

  Vuchak stared at the sinkhole, at the great earthen abyss that had swallowed up the entire street. Every touchstone, every place that Born-Awake had seen or known – they were all gone, wrecked or broken or simply eaten by the earth. She had no conduits left now, nothing she could recognize. If she hadn’t already returned in the two years since he’d left for Island Town, she never would.

  Vuchak thought he might weep. He thought he should sit down. He did neither, helpless to take his eyes from the cold carnage before him. The damage had been done hours ago, and by a force he couldn’t imagine, much less name. Now the legacy of a thousand generations lay in ruins before his eyes. What was left for the new one to inherit?

  “Vuchak, stand fast and answer!”

  He was already standing. But if he hadn’t been, he would have leapt to his feet at the sound of that blood-freezing feminine command.

  She was stalking straight for him, like a cougar on the kill – and if Vuchak had spent a year and a day on the journey here, it still wouldn’t have prepared him for the living terror that was Winshin Marhuk.

  In that moment, she was the avatar of Atali’Krah itself: a ruin of power, a wreck of beauty, and a tempest of grief. She had torn her blue-shining black hair all out from its braid, leaving it to snap and tangle in angry waves behind her. Her black-feathered holy cloak cramped and clung over her arms, sticking and pulling as the daylight tried to loosen it from her, and her own ravenous need kept seizing it fast to her skin. Her hands curled into crow-talons, her eyes shone with murderous purpose, and the painted diamond shapes around them now ran in tear-tracked white streaks down her furious midnight face as she all but spat the question. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  Vuchak flinched, a mouse freezing under a raptor’s looming shadow. “Markaya, I didn’t –”

  He got no further: an air-cracking snap rang out behind him, half a second before the back of his thigh burst into agony. His leg buckled, dropping him to one knee as he tried to turn to face the shot –

  – just in time to take a roundhouse kick to the neck.

  Atodaxa, of course, were only human: they had none of the divine longevity of the god-children they served, and their mortal features easily betrayed their masters’ true age. But as Vuchak lay sprawled out on the ground, bright spots flashing over his first glimpse of Ismat’s weathered face, his first free-floating thought was that arthritis must not have caught up to her yet.

  And it probably wasn’t going to manifest in the two seconds it would take her to finish him off.

  It promised to be a shameful end: Ismat was old enough to be Vuchak’s mother, but harder than his manhood ever had been. Her ruthlessly firm figure made a mockery of all the months he’d spent growing soft in Island Town; her dust-smeared bloody clothes pronounced him guilty of loitering while Atali’Krah fell. Ismat was everything Vuchak should have been: fierce, fit, and unbreakably faithful.

  She wouldn’t kill him, though. She couldn’t. Winshin’s atodaka could get away with shooting his leg out and kick
ing the daylights out of him, but no-one had any right to take his life – not unless Weisei was dead and Vuchak had been convicted of treason.

  Surely not. Surely, surely not.

  And maybe he was right to be optimistic: in a sign of the universe’s ongoing grace and good will, Ismat didn’t reach for the knife in her boot. Instead, the gray woman whirled her whip-sling casually, almost teasingly, its stone payload having already been delivered to the meat of his leg. Then she stomped on his gut. “Get up.”

  Vuchak did the next best thing: he rolled over, clutching his stomach in a stunned, airless world.

  “I SAID –” she snarled.

  But he was down on the ground, which apparently afforded Winshin an unfettered view of the battered, leaking box behind him – of the container for what had once been her son. And whatever else Ismatwas going to say was drowned out by her mistress’s first grieving scream.

  It was a keening, seemingly endless ungodly wail – a sound Vuchak could absolutely believe had once inspired half a dozen murdered a’Krah to crawl up out of their profane graves and take revenge on their Ara-Naure executioners.

  That was more than twenty years ago – but Winshin’s voice had lost none of its potency. The coffin creaked and rocked. Ismat flinched back.

  Vuchak seized the chance to roll up to his hands and knees. “Don’t,” he gasped – not that he expected either of them to listen. “Please, markaya, don’t call him – you won’t want to see him.”

  As he predicted, Winshin did not swallow her voice – but Ismat found hers again.

  “What she wants?” she spat over that terrible banshee cry, whipping Vuchak across the back with the sling. “She WANTS her son back!”

  Vuchak covered his head just in time to take a whip to the face with his arm instead.

  “She WANTS her city back!”

  Vuchak grabbed for the sling, missed, and curled over as it cracked against his side.

  “She WANTS your confession!”