and
Iwan had seen ghosts. He always had, if you believed him and many didn't. He said that it had started before the curse. He said that he always had. Death had selected him early: he had welcomed its gifts as a gleaner greets the harvest in the reaping-time.
This haunted place heaved with ghosts, and he had said as much. Arek had leaned forward in his way, clasped his hands, squinted, and laughed under his breath, just a little. "Ghosts?"
"After everything we've done," Iwan said. "Everything we've seen… everything we've become –" He smiled. "You draw the line at ghosts?"
"There's something undignified about ghosts," said the Lover. He was chewing something; Zoran couldn't be sure what. "Something pathetic about clinging on so tight."
There was a moment's silence, fraught, after which Dagmara had said, "Kreiner doesn't know the meaning of the word hypocrisy."
He had grinned at her, his entire face creasing with the enthusiasm of the expression. She had returned it: she had a thin smile, sharp.
They were clustered around a painting on the mould-laden wall: an enormous landscape of rolling green hills, purple clouds of heather clustering along the horizon, and a lone figure standing at the crest, gazing into a valley which had gone unpainted. Arek was studying the painting more intently than most: he had claimed the only chair in the room, and leaned so far forward that only his elbows on his knees kept him from slipping face-first onto the floor entirely.
Iwan said, resentfully, "I thought you'd want to know."
"Have the ghosts anything useful to say?"
"Not a word."
"Well. Then hush."
"Should I say if they scream?"
"Aye," said Kreiner. "Do say."
He hushed. Dagmara said, staring at the little figure in the painting, "I think he's got himself lost."
The little figure had turned to look back at them. It looked as though he thought so too.
Kinga's voice had never been a thing which rang out like Ina's, clear and sweet as a bell: it slid between the planes of the air, low and somehow arythmic, eschewing the traditional lilt-and-give of a Kur accent. Around so many children of the docks, it had always made her stand out: it had always made her sound older than the rest of them. She said, "you wanted her to kiss you. And then she kissed you. And now you don't know how to feel about it."
He nodded.
Kinga said, "I think you need to figure out what you want, Hämäläinen."
"You know," Pekka said, "this is why I usually talk to Ina."
But he couldn't talk to Ina about Ina. A conundrum: one which Kinga, being Kinga, did little to ameliorate. It was a death march, but she didn't even seem to be breathing hard.
"Alright," Kinga had said. "Then talk to Ina."
She'd pronounced it luridly: talk.
Zoran had stared fixedly at the other cadet's broad back, and bit his tongue hard enough to make it bleed.
The black paint on each key had been long ago worn away, so that it was impossible to distinguish the various buttons. There was a dent in the base, where it had been dropped from a great height in a fit of pique; the ribbon was worn and transparent, so that when Zoran pressed his finger to a key, it came out as a pale grey imprint on the dark grey paper, barely visible. They had left the previous Hierophant's last note in place, partway through a word: ASENA.
Zoran leaned forward, and hit the two final keys: ASENATH.
The officers who had accompanied him to this room clearly considered this a great manifestation of Hierophant ability. There was a soft murmur behind him, a rustle of words, quite incomprehensible. He almost smiled.
One of the other Warriors must have ratted him out: they had put him into an entirely mirrored room, every surface plastered with glass so that a hundred thousand Zorans filled the room. In some reflections, the officers behind him remained in place; in others, he was accompanied by the Warriors, or by his family, or by the generations which had gone before, or the Illéans they had left behind, or, or, or. Sometimes they were speaking, deep in conversation, darting conspiratorial looks in Zoran's direction, as though there was anything at all in this world, in any world, in any time, which he could not seen and had not seen and would not see again. Sometimes they were dying, and sometimes they were planning to kill him, a glimmer of silver barely visible in a hand or at the sleeve of one's jacket. Was each part of this inevitable? He thought that it might be. Each part would come in turn, take its turn, be fulfilled by turn. Commander Adem would have his head caved in. Did he know it?
Thirteen years ago, Jaga had said, "if you love something, kill it quickly."
Well, Zoran didn't love the man – didn't know the man – but this typewriter had some heft to it. It had a good weight; had Matthias used it similarly? It wouldn't have been out of character: Zoran could see him now, out of the corner of his eye, in the reflection where he looked the palest, gripping the typewriter like a rock, raising it high. It had made sense in the moment. How many Hierophants were made murderer in the end by only their own knowledge, the burden of I know lying thorned in their veins?
He didn't need to be asked. He took his seat at the desk, and he set his hands at the typewriter, and his fingers found the keys. The grooves had been worn to another man's fingertips: the curse may have been the same, but he was still – for however long, he was still – Zoran. He shut his eyes, but the fear of blindness was utterly overwhelming, so he opened his eyes again, and shifted in the seat, and stared into his own eyes.
Commander Adem said a word which might have been good.
Zoran typed it out. G O O D.
Then: nothing. How utterly stupid he felt thus; the pressure of finding the words, of formulating, letter after letter, articulating that which he had always simplyknown…
He typed another word. BULLSHIT.
Commander Adem clearly found this addition lacking in sage wisdom, if the grumble over his shoulder was any indication. Well, Zoran thought, more than a little savagely, it was more than Matthias had left for them. It was Ilja's influence upon him, indelible: he was tempted to type another, simply because he thought it might delight the Chariot when he saw him again, when he told him again.
He wondered if they might have laughed, if they had opened up the Hierophant's notes and found, rather than pointless rambling, a string of swear words. He didn't think it would have amused then, as much as it amused now. He was tempted to give them another – to leave them wondering, as lost as Matthias had left them – but he relented, rested his knuckles on the space-bar, tried to gather his breath, began to craft once more. He felt as though he were deep within the tunnels beneath Illéa once more, keeping one hand on the left wall, trying to remember in which direction it spiralled.
He typed, carefully, as though etching down scripture: WHERE
And then, decisively, with all the strength in his body, hitting it hard: a question mark. It loomed on the page, shining wetly with fresh ink – ?
He left it there, for a long moment. He waited. The room was small enough that there was no echo, only the breathing of the Irij brass eyeing him so closely that he thought he might burn up under their very gaze.
Kinga, over his shoulder, said, in a horrible voice he had never heard her use before, "he's dying."
Well, he knew that better than anyone.
Reiko, in front of him, said, "I've been waiting a long time to bury you."
She'd have to wait a little longer but – oh – she might get to take her turn.
A little longer. Just a little.
Inanna said, softly, "please, trust me."
Never again.
It had been a nice day. Sunny. Warm. They had been sitting beside the lake. Ina had rested her head in Pekka's lap so that he could run his bruised fingers through her lovely, ink-black hair, and Ilja had put his in Zoran's, partly to mock them, partly to feel the sun on his face, perhaps partly in vain hope that Zoran would stroke him similarly. The sunlight had veritably dripped down onto them, amber and lovely: Khalore and Ghjuvan and Myghal had leapt into the lake, and Azula had shrieked and cringed from the little arcs of shining water which had radiated from each disappearance beneath the surface, accompanied by a shriek each time.
Zoran was so tired of hearing screams.
There had, at least, been laughter. That was better than nothing. There had been smiles. Even a kiss, though he had averted his eyes from the first, and laughed with the others at the second.
Strange, how one could fixate on something so simple, something which seemed so unerringly cheap once it was achieved: only a few words – sealed it? – and then devastation, simple and awful and soft. He had expected soft, but he hadn't expected warm. He hadn't expected how that warmth would spread. His fingers had curled of their own accord (he spread them flat now, a discordant note against the keys), and then uncurled, very abruptly, just as soon as he could gather himself together long enough to force her away.
His friend was a crueller girl than he had imagined. He did not love her for it. Perhaps he never had.
Matthias said, "that's meanness in you – I didn't know that you knew how to be mean – " and Jaga had cut him off with a kiss, silenced him, kissed him even as he smiled and curled his fingers around the waistband of her skirt, skin against skin and seeking out more, and that had been her cruelty in the same way that it was Inanna's.
Strange, how one could fixate on something so simple.
"I'm mean all the time," Dimitar had protested. It was in vain; Allegra had already bound a daisy chain around his wrist, grinning broadly at this small victory, which made him seem not at all as mean as he claimed. Zoran had never seen them this young. They couldn't have been all that much older than little Azula. They were by the same lake, beneath the same sky. The first Hierophant had seen this sky rupture and render; now, the boy who would be Hierophant tilted back his head and watched the sun split it along the seams, scattering threads of light amongst the clouds. "All the time. I'm never not mean."
"Persuasive," said Gracjan. The Nirari girl was an aberration: she didn't look at all as Zoran had expected, more her mother's daughter than her fathers, dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and dark brown skin where her siblings were all black and gold and dusk. Hierophants were possibility and knowledge; Lovers were certainty and feeling. Which was Nanshe? Which would Gracjan become? "Very persuasive, Nanshe, and I promise you that it doesn't sound at all like a lie when you say it."
"Well," said the First Hierophant. "Have you decided whether it will be?"
The sky had darkened overhead and closed in tight, seamless, whole. The lake had stilled, and swallowed the cadets within it: Khalore and Ghjuvan and Myghal had been devoured whole. The water had darkened, and the girl who knelt at its edge was younger than she had been last time: younger than Gracjan, younger than Dimitar. Her eyes were pale, like Arek's, like Matthias's. Zoran saw that in his own reflection, that paleness. He'd be gone soon too, as they were gone. They'd blind him as they had blinded the eighteen children who had gone before him.
Preferable, perhaps.
He was tiring a little of how sad he always looked in that wretched reflection.
The blood had spilled hot across the sand. It had been an unseasonably hot day. The clouds had crowded in close, like they wanted to watch too. They had sweated. Eero sweated now, even as he bled. He was staring at the innards pouring through his fingers, even as he tried to hold them in.
Ina hadn't even been able to scream. It had been a sad little gasp, like she had been startled, like the world had shuddered one step to the left without warning her. Zoran had tried to catch her eye, but she hadn't so much as looked in his direction. She had been staring at the blood. They all had. Everyone but Zoran, who had been staring at Ina, who had been staring at the blood. Pekka's mouth had been stretching into a shape Zoran had never seen before; Kinga had been crying in silent relief, quiet delight, tears streaming down her face, even as they watched Eero fall to his knees, and call for his äiti, and die.
It had been so simple: just that, die. Death had rushed to him, as though it knew it was locked now into a race that it could never hope to win.
Kinga hadn't been able to meet Pekka's eye for a week afterwards. Her brother had killed his. She had been glad of it: she had wished his brother all ill because it meant keeping hers. A week after final ranking – a week to the day, Saturday to Saturday, but all the heat had evaporated, so it had been proper to-the-bone cold – Commandant had paired them together, like some kind of a sick joke, and Zoran had been certain that Pekka would beat her to death.
He nearly had.
He'd broken her nose, cracked a tooth, sent blood creasing down her mouth. She'd smiled in his face, just as Matthias had smiled in the face of the Commandant when he had killed Eero, goading him to prove himself as awful as the rest of them.
She'd told him to hit her harder, and he hadn't. He had dropped her to the ground, and she had stumbled up, he had walked away, and she had screamed at him to hit her again and harder, and he had visited her in the infirmary afterward to build her little origami geese, just as Ina's sister had taught him too.
And then, months later – years later – how much later had it been? – she had said, "you wanted her to kiss you. And then she kissed you. And now you don't know how to feel about it."
He had nodded.
Kinga said, "I think you need to figure out what you want, Czarnecki."
Zoran said, "this is why I usually talk to Ina."
But he couldn't talk to Ina about Ina. A conundrum: one which Kinga, being Kinga, did little to ameliorate. She was certainly dead: she didn't even seem to be breathing.
"Alright," Kinga had said. "Then talk to Ina."
She'd pronounced it simply: talk.
Zoran had stared fixedly at her black druj eyes and bit his tongue hard enough to make it bleed.
Khalore was asleep on Myghal's shoulder, sitting together on a tram as it tore through a fog-wreathed city for a place beyond the mist; Ilja was indulging in softness and warmth and mischief, kissing and touching and biting and pulling at clothes hard enough to tear; Inanna was crying in a bed that had once been her own, crying and crying and wishing, desperately, for tears.
And Zoran was at his typewriter. God, but it was as though it had always been so.
What would he have wanted to know? What could he see for their futures? Nothing at all: it was a black fucking hole. Backwards, always backwards: he was adrift in the past, as ever he had been, and pleading in vain to be let do his awful duty without all of these ghosts breathing down his neck, cold and gold and insistent.
Over the course of the day, the sky had grown darker, painted blue on blue, into deeper and darker shades of night. Now the world had drawn back the veil on Venus and Mars, which stood out like two red eyes among the night's scattering of starry freckles, tiny scintillas that hinted at some great light lurking beneath the velvety black curtain of the sky. Whenever he looked upon the stars, he could hear the Hanged Man – "if they appeared only one night in a thousand years, would we call them magic too?"
Which Hanged Man had it been? Had he ever known? Would he ever again? It was as though the curse had a form and a life of its own. Perhaps that was the Hierophant: perhaps all that was what being cursed had ever signified, a slow erasure and erosion of self and sense. What was the curse but the ghosts of all who had carried it before? He could feel himself becoming a ghost as well, slowly, surely.
"They've started," Iwan had said. "They've started to scream, sir."
Kreiner had said, Lover that he was, "and how do you kill a ghost, Vanya?"
Starve it, Zoran thought, freeze it out. Let it die of exposure: let it die of yearning. There was something pathetic about it, something which did not even rise to the level of being merely tragic.
Matthias had agreed; he had said as much.
"I'll haunt the bastard," he had said, and smiled, for even a blind man had known when the Commandant had launched a steely glare in his direction. They had been playing cards in the half-dark; Matthias had been cheating, two cards disguised in his sleeve. Outside, dawn was breaking, and Inanna Nirari had begun to scream as she always did.