Death Cultivator

by eden Hudson

  My shoulders heaved as I tried to get my breath back, and I could feel dust sticking to the coffee barf on my cheek. I was less than three feet from the edge of the cage’s dirt island. From there, it was Drop to Your Death City. Faces pressed up against the chain link on all sides, screaming stuff at me and at Warcry, but I couldn’t tell what any of them were saying.

  Across the cage, Warcry’s legs lifted over his head, then he did one of those flawless kick-ups you only see show-offs on YouTube do.

  “Give up?” I asked him.

  Warcry broke into a limping run, then jumped. The punch probably would’ve knocked my face out the back side of my head if it’d made contact. But remembering the setup for his last kick, I ducked under the fist and crashed both forearms into the prosthetic rocketing toward my head. The block spun his leg out of the way, and I shot out a kick to the back of his real leg.

  His knee buckled, but when he hit the dirt, he swept his prosthetic out and knocked my legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard and tried to roll away, but he was already on top of me, throwing punches. I curled my arms around my head trying to protect myself, but he found all the holes in my blocks.

  The blows paused for half a second.

  “Give up?”

  “Rather die,” I grunted, blood and spit hissing between my teeth. And I meant it. I get that way sometimes.

  “Fine.” Warcry wrapped his arm around my throat and threw his body into a roll.

  As soon as my legs fell through open space, my heart jumped up into my mouth. I tried grabbing for something, anything, but Warcry’s arm snaked off my neck and both his feet hit me in the back.

  I screamed as I dropped off the side of the ring.

  The cage got smaller and smaller as I fell. I caught a glimpse of Kest and Rali up against the wire, both of their lacy eyes huge and mouths open, yelling something.

  Then I hit the side of the rock chimney, and everything went black.

  Rock Bottom

  WHEN I WOKE UP, IT felt like someone was holding my forearm to a lit stove burner. I jerked away, but the fire came with me. The tattoos the Bailiff had put there were glowing bloodred.

  What was weirder, I could feel some of the heat getting carried into my bloodstream and to the rest of my body. While I lay there staring at the marks on my arm, I could feel pieces of my ribs popping back into place and fusing together. That was not pleasant. Not super painful, but a lot of moving around inside where things should’ve been holding still.

  I let my arm flop back to the dirt.

  Way overhead, at the top of the rock spire, I could see the ring of light where the cage would be. I felt around my skull really carefully. I expected to feel my brains poking out the back where I’d hit rock, but there was just a tender knot. The tattoos must’ve fixed the damage while I was unconscious.

  “Hake?” The voice sounded far away. Maybe someone was up in the cage yelling?

  I shut my eyes. I definitely wasn’t hurt as bad as I should’ve been, but I didn’t feel like yelling back yet, either.

  I must’ve blacked out, because the next time I opened my eyes, Rali was leaning over me. He grinned.

  “He’s alive.”

  Kest’s face appeared next to his. “Why didn’t you go for his knee?”

  “I forgot,” I croaked. I sat up, wincing at the throbbing in my head and the pain in my ribs. My forearm wasn’t burning anymore, and the tattoos had gone back to black, so I must’ve had all the healing I was going to get.

  “Tattoos are magic, aliens are everywhere, and you fight to the death for fun,” I said. “Does that about cover this universe?”

  Kest frowned. “The OSS tattoo isn’t magic. It’s script that converts stored Spirit or calories—”

  “Also, you’re indentured to a gang for a year,” Rali interrupted helpfully. “You left that part out. And said gang is coming down the chain ladder not very far behind us, so hurry up and eat this before they get here.” He shoved a sticky ball into my hand. “I didn’t have time to cook it. Sorry.”

  I held it up to get a better look. The little ball was brown and floury. Silky tan grit dried on my fingertips and palm where I’d touched it.

  “What is it?”

  “Mostly flour, sugar, and the last drips of Coffee Drank left in your cans,” Rali said. “I didn’t have anything else to work with on the fly. It won’t taste great, but there should be enough Spirit inside to invigorate you. Eat it. Quick.”

  Their rain barrel came back to me. “If this is a prank—”

  “It’s not.”

  I shoved the ball in my mouth and started chewing. The taste of flour was pretty loud, and I had to work up more spit to swallow, but there was enough sugary coffee flavor in there that it wasn’t awful.

  As soon as it hit my stomach, I felt a shock wave of energy roll through my body. I still hurt pretty much all over, but standing up didn’t seem like the worst possible idea anymore. Before, I hadn’t realized I’d been tensing up all my muscles like I was waiting for another punch, but now the tension bled away.

  Kest was doing something to my HUD. “The Winchester still works, but your screen is cracked. I don’t think I have a spare one in the shop.”

  “Here they come,” Rali hissed.

  He and Kest both stood up. I wasn’t as fast, but I got to my feet, too.

  “Hands off!” The Bailiff’s shout echoed through the shut-in and pounded on my brain. “Whatever’s on him or in him belongs to the OSS for the next three hundred sixty-six.”

  He was climbing down a jingling chain ladder, using his ghost arms instead of his scrawny skin-and-bone arms. Coming down behind him were a couple big dudes. Maybe he thought we would try to attack him and run if he came alone.

  “Come on, Kest,” Rali said, projecting his voice theatrically and stepping away from me. “This guy isn’t dead, so there’s nothing to scavenge.”

  “No, indeed.” The Bailiff hopped onto the sandy ground, then strolled over. “The OSS only invests in the best tattoo scripts credits can buy. Although, I admit I did expect to find you a bit less vertical considering your abysmal Spirit ranking, Hake old buddy.” He shrugged his shoulders. The ghost arms didn’t move up with the motion, though, so for a second, it looked like they were coming out the sides of his stringy biceps. He turned and yelled, “Head back up, boys! He’s in climbing condition!” at the big guys on the ladder.

  “You sure?” one yelled back.

  The Bailiff looked at me.

  I nodded, trying to look determined. Either way, I wasn’t getting packed up a hundred-foot swinging ladder on somebody else’s back. It was going to be bad enough going up when I had control over all the hands and feet gripping the ladder.

  The Bailiff grinned at my answer, showing me those brush teeth, then hollered, “Yep, kid’s got some get-up-and-go in him.”

  I tried not to flinch at the volume. Every word felt like a kick from Warcry’s metal leg straight to the head.

  The big guys on the ladder muttered a little, but turned around and headed back up toward the ring of sunlight at the top.

  “If the young lady and portly young gent will precede us up?” The Bailiff gestured to the ladder with a wave of his ghost hands.

  Kest and Rali both shot me meaningful looks before they headed for the ladder, but I didn’t really know them well enough to get what the meaningful part meant.

  I took a step toward the ladder, ready to follow them.

  A ghost hand bumped against my chest.

  “Hang on there, penultimate champ.” The Bailiff pulled even with me. “You and I have some teeth to air out before we ascend. Now, I don’t know what your friends slipped you, but if it’s sharp and you’re thinking of sticking it in my vitals, I’d sure think again. See, I might’ve called off the hooligans, but I’m not down here with nothing but Spirit to protect me.”

  He pulled his webbed hand out of his pocket. At first, I thought he had a domino—it was the right size and black and
white—but instead of dots, it had more script.

  “This here is a direct line to that there,” he said, pointing at the tattoo on my arm. “If you get any comedic ideas about knocking me off and disappearing into the Shut-Ins, I just infuse this little baby with Spirit...”

  He pressed his thumb to the domino. The script glowed with the same gray light as his ghost arms—

  Pain ripped through the meat under the tattoo and shot to every part of my body like sawtoothed lightning. My muscles locked up before I could take a breath to scream, trapping me in silent, blinding agony. No way to escape, no way to scream, no way to move.

  Then it stopped.

  My muscles all went limp with relief at once, and I realized I was on the ground, sand sticking to my sweaty skin. I didn’t think much time had passed while the Bailiff was showing off his torture remote, but my hair and clothes were soaked.

  “Packs a wallop, don’t she?” the Bailiff said. “I just wanted to let you know what you were in for if you tried anything foolish, so you can’t say your old pal the Bailiff didn’t warn you.”

  His giant ghost hands picked me up and set me on my feet, one holding me steady while the other dusted me off.

  “There’s no range limit on this thing,” he said. “I can reach out and zap you even when you’re clear on the other side of Van Diemann. Just keep that in mind and we won’t have a problem, will we?”

  Until he stopped and waited for my reply, I didn’t realize I’d been gritting my teeth the whole time he was talking. My fists shook at my sides. I had to make myself unclench my jaw so I could answer.

  “No.”

  The Bailiff grinned that brush-toothed grin and rocked on his heels.

  “Verbal frugality. How I do admire that in a servant.” He tipped his head back, holding onto his bowler hat, and checked how far Rali and Kest had gotten on the ladder. “Well, I suppose we ought to start the journey up to your new life, don’t you think, lad?”

  Welcome to the Gang

  IT WAS A LONG CLIMB up the ladder, and there was nothing to do on the way but get angrier. I wanted to punch the Bailiff in his grinning brush teeth, and then I wanted to punch myself for getting into this situation.

  At the top, Kest and Rali helped me onto the flat, bloody dirt of the fight cage. My arm and leg muscles were Jell-O, but the fury was still burning in my guts. That was pretty much the only thing that kept me standing when I should’ve been on the ground, passed out from exhaustion.

  That and maybe some of the energy from Rali’s Coffee Drank-flour ball.

  I looked over at the twins. I wanted to tell them thanks for helping me and sorry for screwing things up enough that we’d got to this point, but the Bailiff’s ghost arms pulled him up over the edge before I could say anything.

  The Bailiff climbed up and dusted off his faded black pants.

  “All righty.” He pointed a ghost hand at Kest. “You still need reimbursement for your day laborer, don’t you, Miss Selken? See Barrister Eruja in the saloon and she’ll get you paid.” Then he sized up Rali. “I’ve seen you kids around town. You ought to think about joining up. We always got room for a strapping young lad with a healthy appreciation for good food and a young lady who knows how to keep her less-than-legal activities inside the technical letter of Universal law. Plenty of off-world job opportunities for third-genners like yourselves.”

  Fury shot through my skull, and I snarled, “Back off them, you creep, or—”

  Kest grabbed my arm and dragged me back as Rali stepped in front of me.

  “Thank you for your consideration, honored Bailiff.” Rali bowed over his prayer hands. “My sister and I regret that we’re unable to take you up on your offer, but you have our humble gratitude at being measured worthy of the OSS.”

  “We’ll go settle up now,” Kest said to the Bailiff, one hand still firmly clamped onto my arm. “I expect our day laborer will be well taken care of by the OSS, and no harm will come to him as long as he behaves himself.”

  She dug her nails into my skin to make sure I got the point.

  “You have my word, Miss Selken,” the Bailiff said. “The only way for you to be more certain is if you join up and take responsibility for him yourself.”

  He grinned at me. He’d figured out that I didn’t want the twins involved in their stupid gang, so he was threatening dragging her into it.

  I snatched my arm away from Kest. “I’ll be fine.”

  She looked at me for a second, the lace in her eyes shifting back and forth, then nodded.

  “Help me pull up my chain ladder, Rali,” she said.

  While they were busy with that, the Bailiff led me out of the cage and through the back door of the saloon. Wooden floorboards creaked under our feet. I blinked, trying to get my eyes to hurry up and adjust to the sudden dimness so I could see.

  The barroom was full of aliens in all kinds of weird combinations of space and cowboy gear. Leather dusters, HUDs, boots and six-shooters and ray guns, slot machines and holographic card tables. Some kind of player-piano style instrument made out of different-sized spinning glass cups cranked out your standard Earth saloon music. Almost.

  Warcry was at the bar, having a drink with some of the other fighters who’d survived their fights. Ripper, the shark guy who’d been in the locker room, was pounding him on the back.

  Must’ve been Warcry’s Welcome to the Gang celebration. Great. Awesome for him.

  “As you’ve no doubt noticed,” the Bailiff said, obviously tired of not talking, “life out here on the Van Diemann frontier isn’t easy, but it’s got its luxuries.”

  One of his ghost hands reached out as we passed and smacked a humanoid cat in a saloon gal dress on her butt. She giggled and winked at him.

  “Luxuries the OSS controls very carefully.” The Bailiff took a detour across the floor, weaving through the drinkers and card players, and headed for the back wall of the saloon, near the glass cup instrument. “We own a little piece of everything west of the Shut-Ins—whores, gambling, fighting, bootlegged elixirs... You’ve got to stir a lot of pots to keep the revenue coming in when you’re unaffiliated.

  “Course, we’re not going to stay unaffiliated long.” The Bailiff hooked a ghost thumb over his shoulder at Warcry, who was wiping some beer foam from his split lip. “Your old pal there’s going to help us win a Big Five affiliation at the Wilderness Territorial Tourney this year. Fighting’s what a hooligan like him’s best at, and everybody’s already heard the Under-18 Intergalactic Fighting Champ was on-planet. I imagine, when the tourney’s over, he’ll roll straight into working hooligan for us. Probably make OSS 29 or 30 by the end of the year. You, on the other hand, my lowly servant friend, your job has yet to be determined.”

  As we crossed the room, I started to feel pressure in my ears like when you dive into the deep end of a pool and sink to the bottom. They were about to pop when the Bailiff stopped beside a holographic card table. He tipped his bowler hat to the players, which consisted of a few different kinds of humanoid alien cowboys and an elf-eared Ylef wearing riverboat gambler’s duds.

  “Your honor, Of Smoke and Silk 1, right mighty leader Shogun Takiru.”

  The Ylef looked down his long nose at us.

  “This is the loser of the human fight, I take it?” he asked in this quiet, icy voice.

  “Yessiree, Shogun.”

  The Ylef raised an eyebrow at me.

  A huge ghost hand grabbed me by the back of the neck and shoved my head down until I was bowing.

  “He wants a little training in manners, I’ll grant you that,” said the Bailiff. “But we can put him in with the distillers—they always need new surrogate cultivators—and he almost gave the new hooligan a run for it in the fight. I figure half a day as a training dummy, half a day distilling, with the option to gofer as needed.”

  When no one said anything for a second, I looked up from under my hair at the elf, Shogun Takiru. He picked up a deck of holographic cards and flipped the top car
d into his right hand with the thumb of his left, staring at me the whole time.

  “What’s his Spirit type?” he asked finally.

  “Unknown,” the Bailiff said. “Probably comes from some backwater on the Empties side of the galaxy.”

  The Shogun nodded, still flicking cards. “Have Muta’i divine him, then put him to work. Whatever you think he can handle.”

  “Consider it done, your honor.” The Bailiff tipped his hat again, then used the giant ghost hand to shove me down until my knees buckled and I was kneeling on the floor with my forehead touching the dusty floorboards. I gritted my teeth and strained my neck as hard as I could to lift my face out of the dirt, but the ghost arm was way too strong. “Now, hop to it, lad. You’ve got work to do.”

  The ghost arm lifted me back to my feet and turned me toward the door. Right away, the pressure in my ears started to ease up. It got better the farther from the Shogun’s table we were.

  I reached up to wipe the dirt off my face.

  The Bailiff smacked my hand down.

  “You’ll keep what you got genuflecting to his honor the mighty Shogun, and you’ll like it,” he said in that annoyingly cheerful voice. “It’s just one of the many glamorous prizes you won with that performance out there in the cage. But wait, there’s more.”

  He shouldered his way through the swinging saloon doors and out into the bright white-blue sunlight. “You’ll also be getting room and board on the sheer generosity of the OSS. All you’ll have to do in return is a little cultivating, training, and errand running. More than fair, if you ask me.”

  We crossed the street to a big building with a false front shaped like those Turkish domes. The sign said Distilling Co. in peeling gold paint.