by K M McGuire
Memories Voden had repressed began to surface, striking doses of terror that buckled his bones. The dirt now seemed blighted by wretched ghosts, ready to force their ghastly fingers through the soil and pull them down into the hells beneath earth. Voden felt the ghouls whispering and dancing around them, nonchalantly summoning the terrible memories. Vec paid no mind to the remaining debris.
Yael notice the pain lost in Voden and Andar’s eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We saw a woman murder her husband here,” Voden gulped.
She nodded, rather forlorn, and remained quiet while her face paled. “Leave the horses here,” Vec whispered, motioning them onward. Voden felt his heart slamming against his ribs, protesting the closer they came to the village, but his tongue was too dry to say anything. They followed that same trail to the village, as though their story was reversing, and he hoped Vec had a plan to avoid the villagers.
The shanty roofs began to shift through the trees, and a silence hung heavily over the decrepit community. Voden’s comfort did not return while they studied the staleness looming over it. He looked through the trees and across the lake to where he saw the shimmering dome encapsulating Adetia. He nudged Yael, pointing her attention towards it, and her eyes filled with awe. Vec put his finger to his lips, motioning for them to stay as he sneaked down to the first building, hiding next to the pile of bones, before he peered through the window. He ducked his head inside, looking more intently then a person who was trying not to get caught should. He finally looked back to them and waved them forward.
Voden pursed his lips with reluctance, not wanting to go near the houses. Yael, who was perhaps much braver than he, inched skillfully over to Vec.
“Let’s go then,” Andar whispered, patting Voden on the back. “I’d be more worried to stumble upon those two than the other way around.” And with that, he scurried down the slope, followed closely by Voden.
As they approached the window, or more correctly, the hole cut in the wall, Vec pulled himself inside and helped them through. A wall of putrid scent bombarded every nerve in Voden’s nose, choking out the air entering his lungs. Yael pressed her face painfully into the crook of her arm, and Andar turned towards the corners while he held his knees and retched. Vec, rummaged through his cloak and finally extracted a flask. He popped the top and tilted the flask onto a small cloth, soaking it with the liquid. He began to rip the rag.
“It’s Thieves Oil,” he said somberly, handing one of the rags to his companions. Voden brought it gratefully up to his nose, where the smell cut back the scent of rot, as though it were made of tiny maidens cleansing the particles of air. The notes of cloves and the bubbling scents of spices were satisfying enough to keep his head from spinning.
Vec was already examining the room. He knelt over a browning, bloated body, and the decay petrified Voden. He was at least grateful for the sweet smell of the cloth he pressed against his nose. The rotting smell wasn’t entirely gone. It still occasionally wafted through the cloth, and he could feel his eyes water, scrunching his face as he gagged. The clouds of flies parted from the bodies, like a curtain to a play no one wished to see. But the body strewn on the floor was all he could look at, perhaps all he could remember for days to come. The head had been removed, thrown unnaturally across the room, staring with eyes that led to nothing. Dirt clung to the limp tongue draping out of the mouth, eyes cataracted with dust, gasping for the life that was taken. Such a young creature, Voden realized, was undone without an ounce of remorse. There, with innocence violated, lay a little girl who had learned so suddenly the darkest of evils in her final breath, without any answer to disrupt the shadow’s laugh. Withered to the earth, sorrow once red was sopped up by indifferent mud.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Vec muttered, using his cloth to grab a piece of the gore. Voden heard what sounded like Andar using his teeth and throat to hold down his lunch. Voden shared the sentiment as Vec lifted a white pebble from the mangled neck of the girl. He flicked his wrist, flinging a blasphemously white-against-the-rot maggot back to the ground. “You see how this bone is broken?”
Yael nodded palely. Voden couldn’t even do that. He could see the melting skin, clinging to the bone, with its color no longer pale and lively. It had turned to almost sap, congealing for the earth to consume. It seemed that all life became slave to the hunger of the earth.
“Something broke their necks so hard, it twisted their heads off,” Vec said, wavering with concern.
“What could do that?” Yael asked, muffled by her cloth, staggering on her words.
“I don’t know,” he responded. Andar headed for the door. “Good idea. I think we all could use some air.” They quickly ushered outside, breathing the fresher air, excited for a change of scenery. But it was not so. More bodies lay in haphazard positions, lying in the shadows of the village. Some leaned against houses and were bent terribly at the knees. Voden could only explain his inability to see any of it before due to the rotting bodies looking closer to that of the earth’s coloring, and snow had found clever ways to keep their secrets. The silence was heavy but somehow loud with the finality. The village would never be graced with justice. The cloth of sorrow was snatched away like the heads removed from the bodies strewn inside the house.
“How long ago do you think this happened?” Yael asked, too stunned for tears.
“It’s been cold the past few weeks,” Vec droned. He was not himself. Pain was close to forming in his eyes. “It’s been at least three weeks. The cold has helped keep them intact.”
“Ow!” Andar yelped, slapping his arm hard. He looked down at the ground and bent over to pluck a glint of gold from the dirt. “What is this?” he asked and held up a small, golden diamond between his fingers. He spun it around and saw a circle etched into the front, surrounding a dot. The more they spent looking at it, the more puzzled they all became. Metal could not be alive.
“I-I don’t know,” Vec stammered. He stared around the trees. “How strange the world becomes,” he muttered to himself.
Voden gave Yael a confused look, which she returned with a shudder. His eyes turned, and he noticed the small vessel churning in the water. It seemed so odd that the boat they had rode in on was still there, as though no one had touched it since they had landed ashore. Yet there it was, disturbed only by the lawful water beneath it.
Before Voden could make mention of it, Vec sighed, huffing out his destress. “I don't want to leave the bodies like this. Andar, can you find some firewood? We ought to burn the bodies.”
Andar nodded and headed for the firepit at the center of the village. “Vec-I-I don't think we have time for this,” Voden gulped, and he stared at the boat as if that would convince Vec otherwise.
Vec scowled, his eyes blackening in the shadow of his hood. “I think we can manage it. It’s the least we can do. I’m sure Adetia can wait so we can honor the dead. If He’s merciful.”
Voden nearly swallowed his tongue and nodded. “It’s-not what I meant,” Voden said meekly. “I understand. But let's make it quick.”
“Yeah,” Vec whispered coldly. “Wouldn’t want the privileged ones to have to face this shit.”
Voden bit his tongue, trying not to be offended, though a small bit of him wished to chastise Vec, he didn't understand. How could he? But Voden couldn’t bring words to his teeth, slowly realizing that perhaps Vec at least knew enough, when it was really needed, to do the right thing, no matter how deep it cut into his bones.
“I know it’s going to be rough,” Vec said, and put his hand on Yael’s shoulder, “But why don’t you and Voden get the children. That will be the hardest, but they matter most. I’d rather that be done with...”
Yael clenched her eyes, and with pursed lips, she turned towards the house. Within the moment, she paused and placed her hands against her knees and vomited. “Sorry,” she said and wiped her mouth. Her eyes were now tearing up and turning puffy with emotions. “You can do th
is,” she chanted to herself, each breath trying to repress the swelling sorrow.
Voden awkwardly rubbed her back, feeling he needed the comfort nearly as much as she did. He was rather surprised to have found his composure still intact but was sure when they started to drag the bodies, he would lose all sense of himself. “It’ll be alright.” He knew he didn’t believe it, and Yael called his bluff.
“No, it already isn’t,” she said, and she started to heave again. She wiped her face and held herself there, breathing heavily. Voden tried to ignore the smell. It wasn’t long before she had full streams of tears falling along her cheeks, unable to turn her head to face him. "The Collapsing Plane can swallow up whoever did this to those children!” And she fell back and squeezed her legs to her chest.
She cried bitterly, racked with tremors of sadness. Voden hated seeing her like this, and the more he began to think of those children, Voden felt his own face becoming just as wet as hers. He fell on his knees next to her and pulled her tight against him, stroking her hair, all the while thinking of all the lost adventures of such beautiful creatures (no matter the environment that gave them life), and for such brightness to be snatched up—any fair sentient would know how much hope there was in each child—by such vile action.
He felt every ounce of pain that drained with their potential. His mind watched them die. The thought of someone listening to the crack of bone and the rip of skin, casting the remains aside, tore him to shreds with the unanswerable thunder of “why?”, and its echo was hollow. The thought was determined to stay no matter how much his tears screamed and demanded retribution from whatever was the architect of the world.
Why in All That’s Beyond could this happen? How could You let this be so? The turmoil brought on by his thoughts was now mixed with anger.
A hand touched against his shoulder. He looked up to see Vec leaning over them both, offering them comfort. Voden saw how hard he tried to hold the pain back (it was what he was best at), his lip quivering as he looked around the desolate community. “I know it doesn't help much, but this wasn’t your choice for this to happen. Just remember that…sometimes the best thing we can do is clean the messes that violent people leave in their wake until justice is assured. We can only make what we do right.”
“Yeah,” Voden muttered and wiped his face. He stood up and offered Yael a gentle hand. She turned and threw up again. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. She took Voden’s hand, and together, they stood. Yael turned her attention to the doorway, staring into the blackened maw. It seemed darker than it should. “I-I don’t think I can do this,” she said, her eyes glossing over again.
Vec approached her and held her shoulders, quietly trying to comfort her. “Please, I need you to help. I—”
“Vec, please…please get someone else! I can’t...”
“Yael! I need you for this!"
"NO! It's too much!"
“DAMMIT, YAEL!” he screamed, his face finally breaking with tears. He was shaking, eyes turning away, as though he were ashamed. “I can’t do this again! Please, I will get the adults, but...I truly wouldn’t ask you if I could bear it! I will be in your debt! Whatever it is, but I need this!”
The silence left between them pleaded with their sorrow. Finally, Yael bit her lip, and her eyes drifted off to the sky. It wasn’t quite noon yet. She shook her head as a puff of vapor conceded to Vec's urging.
“I owe you,” he whispered, offering his thanks to the two of them. He turned to help Andar, who was nearly ready to light the pyre.
Voden gulped, and for the first time, he felt he was able to handle this better than the others, though only by a slight margin. Not because it wasn’t painful. He felt for once, the right thing was stark to see, and no matter how it devastated his thoughts, he needed to handle it regardless. A small pang made him wonder if he was deranged, and as they entered the door, the smells of rot became all too real, and he now wanted to turn back out the door. The blowflies buzzed with excited dissonance, as if trying to find more ways to bring their thoughts back around to the content of the one-room house. Yael and Voden tried to compose themselves, forcing themselves to proceed, yanking their shirts over their faces, keeping their thoughts as far from the culture of insects scurrying about.
Yael beat her fist against the doorframe anxiously, muttering to herself, and Voden nudged her and took the lead, where the headless little girl lay with her feet turned in. Voden went to stretch out his hand but the cluster of maggots nearly oozing from the neck caused him to stop and violently gag. He looked at Yael and sighed, unwilling to touch the body where the skin seemed to have fused with the clothing. He realized how selfish the thought was and tried to bury it as he gave Yael a sympathetic grimace.
It’s just a corpse now, he thought, struggling to move his fingers any further. He nearly brought himself to touch her shoulder, but the waxen blisters looked much too eager to split and ooze the rancid plasma all over his fingers. The girl—no, the body—lay on top of her arms, and as much as he had the urge to run, he knew Yael couldn’t handle much more of this. So, he tried to keep his head about it, though he couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Wait, Voden,” Yael whispered, grabbing his trembling arm. “Maybe I can use AD to lift her. I need to focus, or I think she’ll burst. I need to use a controlled pull. At least we can get her on to something we can carry. I don’t know if I can concentrate that long, and a slight overdraw will rupture the skin."
Voden nodded and looked around the room. When his eyes found the door, he felt his blood drain through his feet. A shadowed figure stood in the door, and for a second, Voden mistook it for Vec, but that thought vanished before the color in his face had time to fully wane.
The significance of the being (because Voden could not wrap his mind around any other thought of what to call it) was first noticed at a glance of the misshaped head, where its hair abruptly stopped at a glossy carapace that curled along overtop of where the man’s (assumedly) ear should have been. It was like metal had clutched the sentient’s skull, and it wrapped across the left hemisphere of his face, tapering back to follow the cheek bone. A round lens was socketed to where his left eye should have been, the content in the globe abysmal other than the glint of the sun shining off the glass shell. Voden had little time to see the detail of clothes or the golden fingers curling at the sleeve of their cloak, when it spoke in a harsh male voice.
“Fun,” he chirped, and a smile unfurled like a sealed scroll, revealing scattered teeth. The edge of the cheek pressed against the shaped metal, as if to control the odd man’s excitement.
Yael flew to her feet and turned to the stranger’s voice, who tilted his head towards her, and in an instant, he was there. Voden could now see the violent mania rippling in his organic eye and the viciously black void in the glass apparatus of the other. The strange half-man snatched her throat with his natural arm and pressed her against the wall.
“What in The Beyond kind of magnificent creature are you?” he purred, and his tongue flashed from his mouth, nearly brushing up against Yael’s cheek. She screamed, and Voden groped for his knife, while her feet pressed against the straining support of the house. Voden yanked the knife from its scabbard and rushed the man, slashing wildly, but his vision flashed black a second as the half-man whipped his brazen fist against Voden’s jaw. He thought the hit loosened the teeth from his mouth.
Voden scrambled back to his feet, mixed with several variations of fear, but the deepest was the one tethered to Yael. The moment he set himself to strike again, he saw a foggy white glaze Yael's eyes, and with a violent scream filled with rage, the half-man shot back. A root surged from out of the earth, penetrating his gut. The root careened across the tiny room like a turbulent wave, casting the half-man through the opposite wall. Dried mud-walls cracked and all but disintegrated, unable to support itself from the damage, and the roof fell in kind. Voden threw himself at Yael, covering her with his body as debris toppled down on
them.
He had never been so glad to have been in such a miserably built home. The sticks and thatch pummeled his back, tearing into his clothes and buffeting his bones, but at least Yael was safe. At least the shack wasn’t built with something sturdy. The dust settled and Vec and Andar rushed towards the chaos, the root still arching from the earth, splitting the roof enough to take much of the hit. Voden shook the branches off himself and yanked his leg free. He winced, but he knew it wasn’t broken, and as soon as they were free, Yael, who was still caught in her rage, lifted her arms and used the root to pull the man from the rubble.
Her eyes burned intensely alabaster, and the root whisked the half-man towards her. Her eyes scanned his face, flaring with a white fury, her teeth bared with her seething anger. A squelch ebbed from the torso of the man as the root pressed further through his gut, while a blackened pomegranate gel oozed from out of him. Even as the root started to bind around the strange interloper, his face twisted with a smile that mocked her. Somehow, he still lived, and in that moment, while his body (that strange amalgamation of man and alloy) hung before her, it felt he was merely ascending like some bastardized child who had fallen from the Beyond, and the realms of the sentients were all a joke to him. Even when his face was brought near to Yael, her brow creasing over her pearl-like eyes, his face contorted. He laughed harder, and it darkened his features, worsening the dread of what this creation might be.
“You’s rather feisty for a girl," he laughed, a churning gurgle bubbled inside his throat. “Put up a better fight than this lot.” He inclined his head towards the house.
The root clenched the half-man at Yael’s fuming rage. She siphoned more energy from the soil beneath them. Again, the man laughed as his ribs cracked and his organic arm snapped at a sickly angle. The shirt he wore tore from the constricting growth. Voden saw a glint of metal clutching into the half-man’s chest. A round view port rested where the heart should have been, and Voden could see a dull, yellow cube spinning inside. His good eye swirled and settled on Voden long enough to turn his stomach over. His gaze then shifted to Vec, but when his eyes rested on Andar, they dropped down to his arm, and elation spawned throughout the pale skin of his face.
