"...All of them came from high-crime neighborhoods and had been exposed to horrendous violence; I had never seen such an aggressive and sullen group of kids…
We were shocked to discover that, in scenes where someone was in physical danger, the students always sided with the aggressors. Because they could not tolerate any sign of weakness in themselves they could not accept it in others. They showed nothing but contempt for potential victims, Yelling things like, "Kill the bitch, she deserves it," during a skit about dating violence."
-The Body Keeps Score
"You should not be unduly distressed. Future preservers will not probe for such base and common things as sexual desire or petty jealousies."
"Oh thank you, that makes me feel so much better."
-Zamera, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, Twilight Hunters
Night didn't fall. It rose.
He still couldn't believe she had left him here.
The stars came out and a haze steamed upwards. It was like a thick purple light. It breathed itself out of the broken ground.
A long time ago, the Keepers said, the planet had been torn by earthquakes so terrible that buildings and people both were thrown off their feet. Some simple vanished into the maw of the planet as the ground opened its jaws and Slayn swallowed them whole.
That had only happened to wicked people. People whose hearts had turned away from God.
God had known. God saw. And God punished.
(The Drill-Master had repeated the story to him just today while hanging him bodily over a ravine- bellowing at him- mental voice so loud that his head ached and he couldn't think or see straight. He hadn't been fast enough in the training run. Or deferential enough afterwards when the Drill-Master was angry.)
At that time, the time of earthquakes, God began rewarding the purified group with His Presence. Inhabiting them, he told them. They were his body. Every night.
That was what was said.
(He had gotten away with it though. The Drill Master truly believed he was just a sad little weakling who couldn't run fast enough. But he was never going to explain the loss of the extra gate-pass crystal. They would send that monster to extraction, he thought, for sure this time.)
As the haze unfolded, it wasn't just seen. It was felt. Tasted. A magic forest who's leaves caressed the skin and enfolded a person bodily with inescapable bliss. As long as it hung in the air, every slave was free. Enemies were at peace.
God was with them.
Until the sun rose.
He watched, longing.
He sat against the wall of the Gift-Children's House, watching the Breath-rise. A containment field kept the nightly mist away from the building and drill yard. They, the children, had been given to God by their families- but they only served him as the slaves did. Until the children proved themselves by trial and were permitted to become votaries, the keepers said, they were not yet worthy of God's presence.
He wished very much that he was worthy. He wanted the good feeling. He wanted to not be alone.
He was shaking with exhaustion and his abdomen hurt.
Some guards were moving through the mist, the red light of their eyes softened by the purple. Two pairs of rubies. Swinging towards each other and away again. The two looked like they were laughing as they talked. He couldn't hear them through the containment field.
The guards came to the base of the pillars where the bodies hung. The pillars were at the edge of the drill yard, in full view of the Gift House. This was to provide instruction to the children. The three criminals who hung there had been mostly killed that morning. They had tried to escape the night before, intending to steal a ship and flee, betraying God's people to their enemies.
They wanted to get their own people massacred. How could they?
His eyes narrowed as he studied the bodies. They were missing pieces, still slowing dripping fluids. They writhed as the guards came near. He could hear a little of what they said. They were begging the guards. Trying to convince them of something.
He suppressed a shudder. It was too horrible. They were too horrible. He was never going to be like that, he told himself. Broken and begging.
Never.
The mist climbed higher, curling around what was left of the criminals feet. God did not suffer his presence to be tainted with the likes of them. The face of the world had to be clean of them before the night could come. Before God could be with the his faithful ones.
Laughing with drugged bliss, the guards speared them, one by one. One by one, the bodies spasmed, sagged, and hung still.
He curled up on himself. He wondered if anyone had guessed how he felt today. He had wanted to get away too. His body was tense with fear and his skin mottling blue.
He was afraid of his inmost thoughts and feelings being known. He didn't want to die.
Something touched him.
He lashed out, rolling away. He realized it had been a hand, an adult's hand, but he was in a defensive crouch, his own eyes blazing and locked with the newcomer's. As if he meant to blow a hole right through them
"Alarak?"
She had jolted back. She was staring as if she had never seen him before.
He realized it was his mother.
Her eyes were even still good. She had come to see him even before she had accepted the Breath. Unclouded and herself.
This was too much. He turned away, mottling blue again. Trying to keep from curling up into a ball on the training floor again and weeping. He had wanted so much for her to come like this. And he'd almost attacked her.
"By the-"
Her shock blossomed into approving disbelief. She laughed.
"You have become so quick, Alarak"
She sat down beside him where he stood. Their eyes met. Level. Her head dipped in a smile.
"This is excellent!"
One of his hearts started pounding faster. He felt relief flooding him. She wasn't angry.
"You are going to be a fearsome fighter, my young one. All your enemies will tremble at your very name!" She put up her hands and mimed fear. He was so relieved that he laughed, although, truth be told, he was not a baby anymore. This miming business was, he felt, a little beneath him. He sat down next to her. His abdomen hurt as he moved.
"The Keepers tell me you are doing very well"
He grunted noncommittally. If a child's parents tried to visit, the Keepers always told them their child was doing well. It got rid of them quicker.
He'd watched.
She was watching him out of the corner of her eye.
"Are we going to have any trouble from the Keepers tonight, young one?"
His head dipped shyly at her.
"No. They are... busy."
Her eyes crinkled with a smile.
The fight he had engineered between the Drill Master and the First Keeper was so bad it might leave one of them injured. No one cared. Failure of the Faithful at assigned tasks was not a crime, but it brought disgrace. Usually far worse than childcare. The Keepers, for one reason or another, had all been spared the death sentence of extraction work- sometimes because of connections with those still in power. Usually on the promise of certain services.
But they could never hope for forgiveness. They could never rise again.
Most of them despised the task they had been given and despised the children too. And there are a thousand, thousand ways to make a despised person's life unbearable- especially if the person is less than half your height.
The children of the Gift House were the final proof, in the eyes of God and all his servants, that the Keepers were utter failures.
Not like his mother.
She was rising. Beautiful and deadly, he thought she was like the night of God and the day of people together. He had watched her in the ritual rank fights. She fought with grace- like other people danced. And she won. And the crowds roared approval. She frightened the Keepers senseless to keep him safe and then sat with him making jokes until he was laughing. And she would throw her shoulders back, laughing.
(She left him here.)
Her voice was more like a child's voice than an adults. It was latent with shapes and textures of emotion that he could practically taste on his skin. Not flat like the other Tal'darim. Not like the Keepers.
Someday, he was going to be like her.
She looked away from him, staring off into the mist. The pillars and the bodies were hidden by a curtain of drugged air.
"So."
She was trying to make him think she wasn't watching, he thought. She must not be very good at it though. He could tell she was doing it.
"The Keepers tell me you are being considered as an Oblate"
He held himself still. She couldn't find out.
The Breath of Creation swirled slowly, as if people were moving in the Court of Execution.
"I heard that a number of people have already come to try you," she went on. "I am not certain, but I believe several of those actually tried to bribe the keepers to influence their decision. Can you believe it? You are highly sought after, young one."
He looked away, not wanting to betray his disgust. The Keepers never gave anyone a child as an oblate- a learner and personal servant both- unless they had been bribed sufficiently. Did she not know these things?
"I have heard that they are close to making their decision, Alarak. They will announce it tomorrow, after the dawn ritual."
His silence was total, but his skin was giving him away, blue creeping across the white.
She sat back and stared into the mist. After a while, he risked a glance at her, from the corner of his eye.
She stared blindly into the glowing paradise that passed them by. Her shoulders were slumped with exhaustion. Her skin, too, was discolored with sadness.
He sat back and stared out into the mist as well. There was no earthquake, but the world was shifting.
Finally she spoke again. She sounded like she was crying.
"I made you a mud, little one. Would you like some?"
He was not a baby anymore. But suddenly he wanted that very much.
He ducked his consent and scooted closer. She took out the packet of mud and squeezed some into her hands. He braced himself, then felt it touch him. She was smearing it across his shoulders and back and rubbing it in gently. It was warm and thick and his skin tasted all its flavors. Salt and sweet and flecks of green algae. He felt a little a curse at himself for being so thin- and giving her this chance to really notice- but he was too happy to feel guilt.
Two of his hearts slowed. He felt warm and comfortable and his mother was holding him. As his body relaxed, his skin softened. It started drawing in trace metals and nutrients and solid matter. Things he needed to grow.
She dripped more mud onto his back.
"When I was child we lived by a swamp," she told him. She sounded like she was on the edge of weeping but she was laughing a little. "I would wake up early in the morning and run outside and throw myself in. When my mother woke she would stomp out after me and fish me back out, all dripping and wriggling to get away.
He was letting the story drift past him, feeling blissful. "She sounds un-kind," he said sleepily, thinking of the Keepers. "I am glad that you got away"
Her hand slowed.
"She was not unkind." Her voice was clipped. Hiding, whether sadness or anger or what else, he couldn't tell.
She shook herself, as if throwing water off her back.
"Now for the front, baby." she teased.
His fear jumped to the front of his mind and he stiffened.
"I am not a baby!"
He pulled away.
She cocked her head and didn't answer. Staring.
After a long moment he scooted back over. He stared straight ahead and braced himself for unwanted touch.
"Alarak," she asked slowly and deliberately. "Is something wrong?"
He held his head high and stared.
"He came and spoke to me today, Alarak."
A wave of shame swept over him. He didn't soften.
"Alarak, do you understand what will happen if he, indeed, harmed you?"
Her face had grown strange. Her eyes had become a pair of red stars.
"He will not have you- as Oblate. Or as anything. Because I will kill him."
The red stars hung alone in the darkness. He stared, feelings he couldn't even name pouring through him. He tried to calculate.
"Do you understand, Alarak?"
He understood. In the situation- murder would be too great a risk. She meant ritual combat- a battle for rank. At least in name.
He let go of his attempt at calculation. Relief flooded him, sweeping the other feelings away. The other thoughts. She would win. She always won.
With a sob he turned and clung to her. She held him.
When they finally let go, she had him get up and show her his hurts. He clung to her again and screwed his eyes shut while she cleaned and treated the rips in his skin. She held him. She gave him the rest of the mud and his skin soaked it in greedily.
Finally she stood. The night was deep. Her eyes were flaming.
"Come," she ordered briskly. She started towards the edge of the containment field. He trotted after her, wincing a little, but too excited to care.
When he caught up with her, she was kneeling by the edge of the containment field. Her energy was quiet and deep and the containment field was flowing around her. The field was spun out into strands so thin and fine that a person with their energy soft could move right through them. The alarms would never even register a break. She motioned him over and drew him into the center of her energy.
She pulled herself up. Slowly she moved them forward and through.
He felt the containment field pulling itself closed behind them. Consolidating back into a wall.
The Magic Forest- the Breath of Creation- was all around them. Fronds and tendrils curling and drifting.
None of them came close.
He looked up at her, inquiring. She was still exerting energy- driving the particles in the air away from them.
She noticed his gaze.
"You are still too young!" Part reprimand and part amusement. "Only when your brain has finished growing!"
They went quietly. He tried to keep his bearings.
A wall appeared before them. There was a row of doors in the wall, narrowly spaced, and they stopped in front of one of them. She said a word to the door and did something complicated with her hand. He stood taller trying to make out what she did. The door opened. She ushered him in.
They were in someone's private quarters. There was no drug in the air and the atmosphere seemed shockingly warm. It was almost pleasant. His eyes were wide, exploring, trying to take in everything. A small device in the middle of the room was humming out moisture into the air. There was a bed, with its own blankets, and a mat to sit on. This, Alarak thought, was a place one could really live. All by oneself, without having to fight for a spot on the floor to sleep! He felt himself brightening with hope and greed. One day he would have a place like this.
She was looking around too. Suspiciously. Her eye fell on him watching her and she stopped. She steered him towards the sitting mat.
"Who lives here?" he asked, voice narrowed to a whisper so only she could hear
"Stay!" she whispered back.
There was another door, on the opposite wall. She went out. Little purple vapors spindled in the air as the screen closed. It was, perhaps, the central court of the building.
Alarak stared after her. What had she been looking for.
The silence was thick.
He looked around the room again. The room, or perhaps an unseen being in the room, was staring back at him- with predatory intensity. He shook himself, trying to get the feeling of heaviness off his skin.
He decided the humidity was irritating.
On an impulse, he got up and trundled over to the screen.
Cool wisps of drug touched him. They burned a little and his skin hardened, but didn't do much. He closed his eyes and willed himself to feel the pleasure he was imagining.
Once, one of the Keepers had tried to coax him into confessing a suspected crime by fuming him with the Breath. Since then he had taken every opportunity that came his way to make the Third Keeper paranoid again.
He had succeeded several times.
He could hear voices out past the screen. They were directed narrowly at each other, not him, so he couldn't tell what was being said. His mother was arguing with someone.
A moment later, the voices spilled out of their whispers and echoed freely for all to hear. Was anyone but him listening, he wondered?
"Then go back to him and do as he tells you!" A male voice. Angry.
"Do you think it would stop there?" his mother sounded incensed, "That if I gave him the Gate to my world he would respectfully warp his forces away and call blessings on my head? If he was willing to hurt Alarak simply to force me to do this one thing, do you truly believe he would not do it again? And again?"
"This is exactly the reason why the children are Given to God- so that they are spared the schemes of those who would rise. If you did not insist on meddling with him-
"The child is weak! He needs care and they do not give it to him!"
"Then perhaps you should repent of having produced a weakling."
Her voice was an angry hiss.
"He is not going to be weak when he grows up, he is weak now because he is an infant. As all infants are."
"And yet the other infants don't require this coddling to survive."
"He is your son. Do you not care if he live or dies?"
"The child," the voice became slow and deliberate, "belongs to God. As do we. May God's will be done."
"How can it be God's will for a child to be harmed who has not reached their full potential? Who has not yet had the chance to compete fairly?"
"How can it be God's will for a mother to put her own son in danger by disobeying His commands?" the male retorted "Did you not think that there would be a price for your disloyalty?"
"I followed you here, Nuroka. You. Precious little peace or happiness has it brought me. Would you have me believe your God rewards loyalty with less contempt than you do?"
"Get out."
The male voice was thick with rage.
There was a brief silence.
Alarak was aware that this was all deeply distressing. He didn't feel distress. He didn't feel anything. He wondered why. He looked at his wrists, the screen, the doorway.
Something smashed and there was a heavy thud. A body hitting something. Silence again.
"You belong to God," the male voice was calm again. "He will deal with you as he sees fit. Now get out of my sight."
Alarak put his hands on the screen.
"If you would just see him. If you would just meet him-"
"You will not involve me in your scheme for advancement."
"This is no scheme for advancement! I am telling you the truth. If you-" her voice choked with emotion "If you would not believe me, please, come meet him. He is here, I brought him."
There was a silence.
"Your contempt for the laws of my people revolts me. Leave now and I will not join the combat tomorrow. On the side of your enemies."
Silence. Sudden footsteps.
"And return that child to its place. Before I call the nightwatch to track you down, as I would any other criminal!"
The screen flew open. A cloud of drug like an aura glowed around her, the light of her eyes burning red and wild. Skin molted purple and blue, beautiful. She paused, finding him in the way, then caught him up as she went on. She clasped him to her as they went out of the building.
Into the night.
She didn't push the Breath away from them. He felt the strands brushing across his skin. They burned, and the burns glowed with bliss. He held onto her tightly, though he could barely feel his own skin, and clenched his eyes shut. There were lights exploding inside them anyway.
When they were well away from any building, hidden deep in the mist, she fell to her knees. She was still and held him and he held on to her.
She began to tell a story.
"A long time ago, in the time before time, all of the animals could talk. They lived together in a jungle and they knew each other very well. One day someone new came into the jungle- a stranger. This new person was bright like a shell and hard like a stone."
"It was a robot" Alarak's voice was muffled. His face was pressed against the base of her throat. He could feel her heart beating in his head. "It was a Tal'darim!"
"It was a Tal'darim,"she agreed. "A robot of the gods."
"We do not believe in gods" he pointed out, still muffled.
"We do not believe in gods." she reassured. She shuddered. The intensity of drug light had overgrown her eyes.
"The Tal'darim had never been in the Jungle before." She continued "He was lost and alone. He began to ask the People of the Jungle for help, for he needed to build a nest."
"First he met big fat Lombad. He meant to ask Lombad to help him build a nest, but before he could even speak the words, Lombad shouted, No! I only help me! You may die, but I'm going to live! And Lombad popped down into the ground to hide."
"And there Lombard stayed forever. He had been bitten in the foot and not known it, and the bite was poisoned."
"Next Tal'dar met Mai-lur, the Poisoned One. He asked her to help him build a nest. She hissed at him- To put your egg shaped head in? But empty eggs do not need nests!"
Alarak shivered. The hissing voice was frightening. He held on to his mother.
"So he went away from her, very sad."
"Next he met Kal-taar, who runs at the first sign of danger and does not know where he runs. He asked, would you help me build a nest?"
"And Kal-taar ran away, as fast as he could. But he trampled Mai'lur as he ran."
"Last he met Omhara. Omhara tried to bite him, but broke a tooth on Tal'dar's hard hard skin. Omhara ran round and round in little circles, shouting with pain. When he ceased this, Tal'dar asked him, Oh great Omhara, will you help me build my nest? Mai'lur would not, and Kal'taar would not and I am sad and all alone."
"Omhara opened his mouth to answer, but Kal'taar ran straight into his mouth. Omhara was so busy chewing that he could neither answer nor help."
Alarak snickered. When the Keepers told this story it involved Tal'dar cutting down all who refused him. Was she making up a new version?
There was nobody like her.
"So no one would help Tal'dar- no one at all. And Tal'dar sat down in the middle of the jungle and began to weep-"
"By water leaking out of him!" Alarack giggled.
"With- salts!" She snickered too.
"But, Alarack," she tried to sober herself "the water in a Taldarim is its life! So poor Tal'dar's life was going out of him!"
Alarak felt quieter. That reminded him of… something. It was sad.
"In the midst of his weeping, a prick-leaf fell on his head. Ouch! Tal'dar jumped up! He looked all around, but there was no one. So he sat back down and began to weep again. This time a fruit nut fell on his head. Knock! But there was no one. So he sat back down and pretended to weep. Just as a whole nut pod fell, Bang! on his head, his hand flew up into the trees. When the hand came back down, it was holding none other than Kwah-kai."
Alarak wiggled in her arms and felt new waves of bliss going into him wherever his skin moved against the Mist. He made the Kwah'kai's funny voice.
"Oh, no! You have captured me, strange master. Let me go and I will help you build your nest!"
"You have." His mother said. She held him tighter. She didn't sound like she was telling the story. "You have already helped me."
It was quiet for a bit. Then a billow of mist rolled over them. He felt colors and shapes swirling inside his head and the story-telling voice started talking.
"And he took the leaf and it became wings. And he took the pod and it became a ship. And he took the fruit nut and it became an engine. And he had built his nest. And he took little Kwah-Kai inside the nest. And they flew, up, up, up."
The voice paused and the colors shifted sickeningly as Alarak waited for Tal'dar to drop Kwah'Kai on his head. You were supposed to laugh at that part. Kwah-Kai was so stupid. He would try to laugh.
"And up and up and up together they went, all the way to the stars. And there they found another nest, made of gold and starlight. And there Kwah-Kai and Tal'dar met-"
The colors swirled and the voice was blocking it's thoughts.
"-they met people. The most beautiful, interesting people. The people were so happy to see them. And They told them They would never leave them again. And they were happy together- forever."
There was a huge open space- dark- quiet. The beginning and end.
Alarak suddenly felt his body again. He was being lifted up. He was in the mist and his mother was running. The lift and bound of her foot falls rose and fell through both of them. There was a final bound and she stopped. Knelt. They were in front of the barrier. The gift house. She was thinning it out.
He couldn't think, trapped by her arm and suffocating in terror. He started struggling.
"No, no, no, no please, please"
They were inside the strands of energy.
"I will not be able to, God is going to, please, please let me stay with you, they said they are going to"
"Alarak!"she hissed. She put her head down next to his, one hand holding the energy around them. She waited. Eventually he went limp in her arm. "I'm going to kill him."
She pulled him away from her.
"If I win this fight, I will have enough rank to take an oblate myself. Do you understand?"
He felt a wave of relief flood him and not because of the drug. He understood. Happy thoughts jumbled his mind. Then fear. He clutched her arm.
"I would take you, silly child! Why would I want anyone else?"
He sagged in relief.
"All will be well, Alarak"
Her eyes smiled at him. She pushed him and he started to go back into the drill yard. He stopped and twisted around.
"Did he hurt you? My- the- the person you met? There was a sound-"
She smiled again, eyes flashing danger and humor.
"Oh, he attempted it. I threw him against the wall."
Alarak grinned back at her. He let everything else about their excursion flow out of his mind. He imagined her throwing people against walls.
All would be well.
He turned and went into the drill yard. The barrier solidified behind him. He could see a shape behind it that was her in the mist and he raised his hand and the shape raised its hand.
Then she was gone.
He snuck back into the sleeping chamber. The only spot left was drafty and cold, but he didn't dare wake anyone up trying to get a better place. The blankets were locked up. Anyone who didn't have one now would not get one til tomorrow evening.
He curled up on the floor and shivered, too happy to care.
Her and him, together. Against everyone.
Morning came as a jolt in the dark. A light blared on and the others were scrambling to attention around him. For a moment he lay still, ignoring them. Then he remembered. The Rakshir.
He had to get there.
He jumped up, one more upright body in the crowd.
Drill Master Shorik was standing in front of the door. Alarak suspected it was locked. Shorik's face was furrowed by three long scratches. He was wearing the long robe that meant he'd been whipped but thought he could hide it from the children. One of Alarak's hearts moved strangely.
Yesterday he hadn't thought he would care what happened today.
"The day has opened, little ones. Did you all sleep well?" He learned forward, eyes drawn up in a smile that was almost certainly false. He never smiled. Especially not at them. His eyes were roving over them, searching.
Alarak felt his skin crawl. Oh, he had been wrong, oh...
Drill Master's eyes sharpened in on him and the smile in them was suddenly real and frightening.
"Why, little Alarak! You do not appear to have slept much at all." The other children pulled away from Alarak as if he had just become the wrong end of a magnet. The Master's face loomed up large in front of Alarak, the breadth of his shoulders jutting out on either side, blocking out the rest of the room.
Alarak made a split second decision. He already regretted it, but he could get Breath some other way. Or even go without.
Betraying his mother was unthinkable.
"And your eyes! Nearly as dim as usual, but still bright with the Breath of Creation!"
The Drill Master took hold of the speaking-bone of his chin and twisted his head this way and that, examining. Alarak stayed limp and loose, he was good at that, but he suddenly started weeping blue anyway, and he had never done that when they touched him- not before yesterday morning.
The Drill Master's eyes widened for a moment. Then they grew hard.
"Why did you not sleep last night, little Alarak?" His voice was blank like most adults', but even so, he was almost purring. "Were you… spending time with a friend?"
"No" Alarak had to speak into the fingers curled around his face. The muffled energy tickled his chin, and other parts of him tickled too and his body spasmed. He stared weeping harder and stopped even trying to stand. The Drill Master threw him backwards. He held his own hand as if burned, rage in his eyes.
"THEN WHERE WERE YOU?"
Alarak sprawled where he'd fallen and didn't try to move. "I… I… was coming back from the Evening Light…
The Drill Master lost his temper and kicked him. Alarak let himself flop loosely across the floor.
"… and I met Third Keeper Irtul… I thought he had something in his hand, but he was hiding it as though he did not wish anyone to see. And… and..."
Drill Master sat Alarak up. Crouched over him.
"Something in his hand? What was it?"
(He was still trying to find the gate-pass then)
"I don't know!" Alarak wailed.
Drill Master smacked him in the face.
"It is pronounced 'I Do Not Know,' Alarak. Cease running your words together like an infant."
He hadn't hit him nearly as hard as Alarak knew he could. Alarak allowed himself a single bright feeling victory.
"He noticed me watching him" Alarak reverted to a whisper, looking at the floor, as if he could not bear to meet the Drill Master's eyes. "He made me follow him to the mudroom. He had jars hidden there. He… gave me The Breath."
Alarak jerked his arms and legs inward as if expecting to be hit. Simultaneously, Drill Master's hand jerked outward as if expecting to hit him, but it hung in the air.
(The Keeper was falling for his story.)
"He told me that he would… he would… he would hurt me if I told anyone, but if I behaved well he would give me Breath and mud whenever I wished it, and-
(This was true- all of it- except for the minor detail of which night it happened.)
The door opened behind the Drill Master. Either it hadn't been locked or the person coming in was-
"Shorik, my one and only, are the children ready? Or are you too incompetent even for that?" First Keeper Illia's voice carved smoothly and blandly at them all.
Drill Master jumped up to attention.
"The little animals were fighting." he said gruffly. He glared around the room, daring any of them to contradict him.
Their eyes were already wide. None of the children moved.
"I had to rescue this one from the others. He had provoked them all into attacking him. I was attempting to discover what he had done to cause such discord."
"How noble of you!" Her hand trailed across his back as she came around him and Alarak saw his skin flinch blue. But he didn't move.
"Ooo!" The First Keeper's eye widened as she saw Alarak. "And I just sold that one! I hope that he is not damaged!"
Her eyes burned dangerously and she looked sideways at the Drill Master.
"Shorik, tell me that you did not damage my beautiful little child."
"I did NOT," Shorik practically shouted at her. Outraged.
"Noooo, Shorik. No. Say 'Please, Illia. I didn't do it, Illia'" Her hand tightened on his shoulder, her long polished claws digging in. His entire body tensed and swelled with pain. Alarak stared up, mesmerized.
"Or perhaps you wish to discover if Nyon prefers your company to Irtul's, mmm?"
One entire side of her face was bruised.
One of the smallest children, a girl, collapsed. A primal wail was coming out of her. She was scraping her small skull against the floor.
"We shall discuss this later." Illia hissed at the Drill Master. She gathered up the little girl.
"Come, children. A Rakshir has been announced and we are already late. No time for Morning Light, it seems. How are you all to be educated, if you keep missing important events? How will we all survive?"
She swept out of the room. The scent from her robes lingered. It made Alarak's insides twist strangely.
He looked back at Shorik just as the Shorik looked back at him. He jerked into a knot on the floor.
The Drill Master laughed a long low laugh, as the gift-children filed out around them. He shackled Alarak's arms behind his back, locked a collar around his neck and leashed him. He tugged experimentally on the leash. Alarak staggered. Shorik laughed again.
"Beautiful, beautiful little child. Shall we discuss Irtul on the way to the Rakshir?"
He went out of the sleeping chamber, Alarak trotting to keep up.
They went out of the building, following the others towards the Gift-House gate.
He thought he saw some one lurking outside the gate, and his heart lurched, but it was only Gerud.
They had been allies in the gift house- at first. Then, about the time the Tal'darim had tried to outdo each other bidding for her, they had become enemies. He had been relieved when she had finally been made Oblate and her new master had taken her away.
He also felt guilt that he tried to ignore.
(Gerud's parents had never once tried to visit her.)
She snickered at his predicament as Shorik marched him out the gate.
"Alarak!" She sent at him in a whisper. He peered over his shoulder, trying to keep his balance.
"They are going to kill your mother today, Alarak!" she taunted. "They were talking about it at my dwelling last night. They set a trap and she has fallen into it!"
Shorick jerked the leash and he stumbled again. Scrambling to keep his footing.
"They're going to kill her!"
His mind was blank. He replayed the words in his mind. He couldn't make them mean anything.
Shorick was talking to him. He couldn't make his words mean anything. The world was this blank place where he tried to keep his footing and someone hated him.
The sun was rising.
There were crowds of people towering over him. In his way. They were shouting and talking. He couldn't see past them. They cheered. Suddenly he was screaming, trying to fight his way through, and he didn't know why, but something was choking him and pulling him backwards. He was on the ground. Terror. Someone huge was over him. Blows. There was an electric crack of energy and he wasn't being beaten. Someone swept him up and his heart leaped with joy- his mother! but the smell, the smell was wrong. It made his insides hurt. Illia was holding him, clutching him up against herself and a small girl was holding onto him. The three of them, clinging together.
"Please, Illia, I didn't do it. Please, I didn't do it." He was begging and he realized he didn't know what he was begging for. He started to struggle. "Please let me go. Please, I have to go."
She was holding him still, fingers lacing up in the bases of his nerve cords, pressing his face into her, and he was still struggling, but the world was becoming soft and indistinct. Energy from her hand was pressing slowly up into the spongy base of his skull.
He could feel himself losing consciousness.
"You have no need to see this, no, nooo you do not" she was whispering to him. "No, little child, it is just as well. Sleep, little child. Sleep."
His eyes opened again. The world was still and distinct. There were minds all around. They were silent and shuttered. Illia's fingers were laced into the roots of his cords. Her mind was silent and he could feel the hearts beating in her body. Two of them were racing so hard that they were practically shaking her. One, the deepest, was nearly not beating at all.
The world was blank.
"Rightly done!" A deep male voice. "Rightly done, little slave! Little trash. Let him go."
The fingers pulled out of his nerve cords. The arm around him lowered him gently to the ground and uncurled from him.
Illia backed away from him and whoever was behind him, still clutching the little girl. She sank to her knees then prostrated herself. She covered the child with her body.
The male behind Alarak laughed uproariously. He bent forward and the collar shifted on Alarak's throat as he did so.
(Alarak understood that he must be holding the end of the leash.)
The male's armored hand curled around Illia's head. It flexed- there was a wet popping noise. A strangled scream poured out of the Keeper, as liquid welled into the dust on one side of her head. Her face stayed pressed into the ground.
In the blankness of the world, Alarak realized he knew who this was.
The newcomer spoke loudly, broadcasting his words to everyone around them.
"I have been told that a person does not need the ability to see in order to produce children. However, if you succeed in remaining as you are until I decide to speak to you again, I will permit you to keep the other eye."
The First Keeper neither moved nor spoke. Her face stayed pressed into the ground. The male was standing again. He glared at her as if she were defying him. He looked at Alarak.
"No." Alarak whispered. "Please"
The male burst again into laughter. His armor shifting around him.
"But you enjoyed it so, Oblate!" he said, his face shaped with mock surprise. Some of the people around laughed and someone threw a pebble at Alarak from off to one side. It stung.
"Obedience!" they chided
The newcomer tugged gently at the cord. Turned and started towards the field. Alarak's legs were carrying him after, trying to keep up with the collar.
They passed Shorik. He had been bound and shackled as well. There was something wrong with Shorik's head, Alarak thought. He tried to understand what was wrong. The great blankness of the world was making it hard to think.
It was sitting some space away from his body.
He came to the place Ma'lash was leading him.
They came to a woman. Her arms were stretched out and bound. She was naked of armor or clothing and there was something wrong with her lower legs. The wrongness again troubled his mind. His eyes met hers and he thought that she was beautiful. But he didn't know who she was. Her eyes dropped and she flushed even deeper. She made no sound.
Ma'lash was waiting, becoming irritated. It was as if he were an old man who had made a joke in the company of young people, forgetting that they could not yet understand humor. He was young though- a young warrior. That made no sense.
He tugged Alarak's collar again.
"Are you going to say nothing to your mother?"
Alarak whispered.
"My- ?"
The ground swayed and buckled under him. Unrighteousness. The maw of the world. Slayn was eating him.
God had known. God was punishing.
It was the last thought he had for a while.
He found himself staring into the dust. Broken ground. His own feet- but they weren't touching the ground. His arms were over his head and they hurt. Three spears had been leaned against each other and he had been hung from them. There were people all around him and they were laughing.
Someone had just stopped screaming. There had been a strange quality to the sound. He hadn't been awake to hear it.
He lifted his head. Ma'lash and his allies. One of them saw him moving.
The warrior nudged something with the butt of his spear. His mother's head lolled.
"Look, vermin! You woke the child!"
Her blue veins were a net across her face. Her eyes seemed strange, neither living nor dead. Those around lifted her head, pointing her eyes at him. They laughed.
Ma'lash looked down at her.
"I told you to be quiet, wretch. You could not accomplish even that."
He lifted the butt of his spear.
"It is truly a crime, your weakness. Your son should not have to have witness this."
He thrust down with the butt. She screamed, writhing in agony, the stumps of her legs jerking futilely. And she screamed. And she screamed.
Horrible metal figures in a slowly shifting circle. The scent of blood. The scent.
(Hundreds of years later he finally became aware that they had prodded him from time to time, asking him for direction, then laughing.)
When there was no longer any time or any part of history in which this was not happening, Alarak realized he was still hearing the sound of a crowd, away behind him.
He twisted, shoulders blossoming with pain, and caught a glimpse. A small heap of corpses, her former allies, the masses of the Tal'darim, still watching Ma'lash, rapt. His body swung back, dangling.
They were laughing.
He wanted to kill them. He could feel himself like a dark star going nova, obliterating them all, but it wasn't happening, he was just wishing it, hanging there. The sport of his too powerful enemy.
A word came into Alarak's mind. He didn't know why it was important, but he was shouting it, eyes clenched shut, over and over.
There was a swing and shift and he found himself face to face with Ma'lash, a depth of air beneath him and Ma'lash's arm jutting out between them. Ma'lash's allies had fallen silent. So had Alarak.
Ma'lash turned them both to face the Tal'darim.
"Cease not, Oblate! Perhaps he will answer!"
He shook Alarak a little to encourage him.
Alarak's voice seemed small in all the sudden quiet.
"Nuroka! Please help us! Please!"
His insides wrenched, but he called.
"Father!"
There was a stillness over the crowd and the two of them. Everyone waited to see if there would be an answer. Alarak tried to see if any male flinched or ducked away.
Nothing happened.
Ma'lash broke out in a peal of laughter. He tossed Alarak to the ground. The butt of his spear slid under Alarak's chin and tilted his head up, so his eyes met Ma'lash's again.
"Fear not, Oblate. I am your Master. I will be your father now."
The implement was slick with moisture. Fluid dripped off the spear onto Alarak's chest. The drop tasted strange on his skin.
A red light exploded. Alarak was screaming with rage and threw himself forward. Ma'lash was on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Alarack's small claws flailed at the armor.
"Or perhaps Amon will be. I know not."
Sometime later Ma'lash stood back up. There was a cheer. Alarak lay limp and someone kicked him.
"Obedience, Oblate!"
He crawled onto his knees. Then his feet. A bowl of water and a cloth were thrust into his arms. Ma'lash was removing his armor, piece by piece. He sat down, as if to meditate, and snapped energy at Alarak.
"Attend, Oblate!" he snarled.
The bowl heavy in his arms, Alarak came forward. He felt nothing. He thought nothing. There was a sound again, like people laughing, as he soaked the cloth and began sponging the dust and sweet moisture and splattered gore off Ma'lash's skin. Shoulders. Thighs.
He thought about how he was going to kill them all. He thought about how he was going to kill Ma'lash. He watched the sun, out of the corner of his eye. The high clouds were already tinged with black and violet. He was in no hurry.
The body laying near them was moaning and weeping softly and the sound hurt him. He glared at it over his shoulder. Ma'lash's eyes smiled.
Alarak was standing at attention with the bowl in his arms.
"Well done, Oblate!"
Ma'lash stood. A pair of armored figures lifted the body off the ground, and Ma'lash soaked the cloth in the now murky water. Gelatinous strands hung from the cloth when he lifted it. He began smearing it over her skin.
Cheers and laughter.
He plunged it back in to the bowl for more fluid, hand passing before Alarak's face. Beyond the realm of words now, Alarak screamed. Armored hands had a hold of him, choking his face and forcing his arms into place before he had time even to drop the bowl. He kept screaming. He couldn't stop.
The body roused.
"Ma'lash… its voice whispered. "Please. I am... defeat. What... would you have?"
Ma'lash threw the wet cloth at Alarak. He spun the length of the spear in his hand and planted the butt in the ground. The blade sparkled as he idly let it waver between his face and hers.
"I will have," he told her softly, "whatever I will."
That took until about sundown.
Ma'lash cut off the hands off. The body fell to the ground.
Ma'lash snaped energy at Alarack.
"Pick her up. Bring her."
The warrior holding Alarak let him go.
Alarak stumbled forward. The wind, the pebbles, the dying rays of the sun. Every sensation was too sharp. Every step hurt.
He knelt.
He cradled her head in his arms, as gently as he could. She roused again. He felt her thought move to him and he pressed his forehead against hers.
Ma'lash said something and the others laughed. He didn't bother to hear.
He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her. He staggered under her weight.
He started walking though more laughter. To where Ma'lash standing. Waiting. Sneering at him with smiling eyes.
Ma'lash turned and started walking. Towards the Pit.
Alarak balked for a moment. Then bowed his head and followed.
The Tal'darim were massed, still watching as the sun set. Ma'lash was addressing them. Pacing and waving the spear. They were the Hand of God. Those who opposed any of them opposed God himself, and this- this was what the enemies of God deserved. This was how the enemies of God would fall. This was how they would Rise.
The wind was cold on the killing field. He spoke on and on.
Her ruined arms twined around him. She put her head on his shoulder.
A sound came from her and he looked at her, concerned. They had smashed the bones of her face. She hadn't been able to speak after that. He held her tighter and shut his eyes.
She pressed her ruin against him. The stump of one of her arms moved- went back into his nerve cords. He nearly screamed but held himself loose and focused on the sky above the heads of the Tal'darim and let her touch him. She gathered the cords in the crook of her elbow and drew them to her, pressing them against her forehead.
Her thought spoke in the back of his mind.
Alarak. I tried. I did my best. Forgive.. my failure.
He started weeping and didn't answer.
Her thought was losing strength now and her arm was slipping.
You... helped me… very much. I am... so sorry...
The entire mass of the Tal'darim roared. Alarak looked up and Ma'lash was pointing his spear at the two of them. He repeated what he had said.
Alarak glared at him. She roused.
Do it. Do it now.
Alarak bowed his head again. He staggered as he turned, staggered as he carried her to the edge. Ma'lash was shouting to the Tal'darim, his back to them. Alarak stared over the edge and the vastness, the depth, were rushing up to overwhelm him. The molten rolling fire. He staggered again, afraid, feeling his feet on the edge. He pulled her body all the way around in front of him.
He wasn't going let Ma'lash use this as an illustration to his victory rant.
He held her to him and pressed his face into the base of her neck, her nerve cords.
He narrowed his voice and whispered one word, just to her.
Then he let go.
He stared after her. Something landed the fire. Splatter of lava around it. A moment. It began to sink.
"No." he whispered again. "No."
He was screaming the word over and over. The ground reeled. Something impacted the back of his head and the world went out.
Ma'lash dumped Alarak on the ground where Third Keeper Irtul and the Gift Children knelt. Irtul stared at Alarak, eyes fogged, as if he had been drugging himself already. Irtul looked back up at Ma'lash. The Keepers were not permitted to speak in the presence of the Tal'darim unless spoken to first. Nor even to stand.
The crowd was beginning to disperse. Night was about to rise.
"I am afraid I have changed my mind. This sniveling reptile is no more capable of behaving as an Oblate than you are of behaving as a male."
Alarak was scraping his head mindlessly against the ground. Irtul touched him, stilling the motion. He stiffened at the taste of the dried fluids on Alarak's tunic.
Irtul got to his feet. His arms were wrapped around himself and his eyes were fixed on the ground.
"Master. Is there anything you wish?"
He looked up. Offering.
"There is no need to use children for this."
Ma'lash's spear spun in the twilight. The butt end caught Irtul in the middle and folded him in half as he hit the ground.
"And then you will try to bestow Order upon me, parasite? And teach us all lying harmony and false compassion all orchestrated to your own ends? Frauds such as you are the reason that the Khala is corrupted from the purity of Amon's will, doomed to destruction. And you dared to try to join us, the Chosen!"
Irtul rolled over and crawled up on to his knees next to Alarak. His eyes were closed. His thought was too quiet for almost anyone to hear. Alarak heard it.
"I wished to see God."
Ma'lash gestured with his spear towards Illia, still lying where she had been that morning.
"Bind that," he told one of his companions "and take it to my quarters."
"I require an Oblate." Ma'lash's eyes burned harder as the warrior moved away. "To replace the pathetic one. I believe the former First Keeper had a daughter, did she not?"
Irtul looked in Illia's direction. He looked back at Ma'lash, face shaped with distress.
Ma'lash's hand tightened on the spear.
"I believe that is so, Master." Irtul said softly. "Do you wish to try the child tomorrow?"
"I wish to have an Oblate tonight. And you wish to give me one now, because you wish to live til Breath-rise, Living Waste."
Irtul stared at his hands.
Ma'lash leaned in. "He will not save you. He will not even ask what happened."
Irtul's shoulders hunched. His hands closed.
"Jin'art" he said brokenly. The child kneeling next to him stood. She was Alarak's height. "You are made Oblate."
The girl locked eyes with Ma'lash. He snapped energy at her and gestured toward the ground by his side.
She stalked forward without speaking.
Irtul prostrated himself as Ma'lash started to walk away. He was saying a string of words in another language- over and over.
Alarak pulled his face out of the dust.
"She was not a criminal! She broke no law! You did!" he screamed at Ma'lash's back. "She fell honorably, fighting to rise towards God. She earned death not punishment" He smeared his face against the rock again, wailing. "She earned death!"
Ma'lash looked back over his shoulder.
"Oh, I broke no Law, miserable child. Death she received. But the manner of death- for those who fall short of the Glory and displease their God- is mere custom. Not Law." He laid his hand on his new Oblate. "A thing you would do well to remember before displeasing me again."
Ma'lash left.
Irtul got up and ushered the children home to the Gift House. Gerud did not appear. The house gates closed behind them and for the first time, Alarak felt safer inside than out.
He evaded Irtul as the Keeper settled the others in their sleeping chamber.
He stole out to the drill yard.
He could not believe that she had left him here.
She was never going come see him again.
When he finished screaming and weeping and throwing himself against things, he lay on the ground, exhausted.
She had left him here.
He stared at the wall of curling purple outside the containment field. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the idea of it- crawling towards him across the drill yard like destiny.
He would remember bliss. He would remember when.
But he was never going to be weak like this again. He was never going to hurt like this again. Whatever it took.
Never.
The great blankness of the world rolled over him like a heavy fog.
After a while, he got up.
He went back inside.