by Daryl Banner
“Strong, sure,” murmurs Wick, “but even the strong crave love.”
Dran smiles at that. “Truth is, that Metal Hand can fling a whole pleasure house out here, and I’ll fuck it from one end to the other, easy. Doesn’t mean I love Mercy less. I’m just refusing to let myself die. Call it convenient love. Call it true love. Call it having no heart because I’m a fool’s piece of shit. Mercy’s my Mercy just the same.”
Wick isn’t sure he follows Dran’s logic, but knows that it isn’t the same way he feels about his Athan. There’s a cute boy or two out here in Gaea, and regardless of whether or not they’re boys of boys like Wick, he wouldn’t touch a single one of them just to get his cock stiff.
I’ll see my boy again someday, and even if I don’t, I’ll die with him being the last one I ever let into my heart.
“Hey, Wick.”
“What?”
“Make your eyes bleed black again.”
Wick sighs. “No.”
Dran nudges him. “Do it.”
“Ugh, no. I regret that I ever tried.”
“Come on. Cheer up your friend. It gives me a hard-on, seeing your talent.”
A chuckle escapes Wick’s lips. “Forget it. It’s so tedious to clean. And gross. You have a gross Legacy, Dran.”
“Just do it already.”
“You love knowing someone who can do what you can do.”
“Aye, and you do it so well. Come on. Entertain me.”
At first, Wick only smirks and looks away stubbornly, his arms folded. Then, after some time of utter boredom passes, Wick gives in at last. He scrunches up his eyes as he lets his mind drift away, reaching out with an invisible hand for his friend’s Legacy. It is a surprisingly easy effort.
Wick dabs a finger under his own eye—now with a drop or two of the black oil under them—and wipes the dark substance on Dran’s arm playfully, leaving a mark. Dran laughs at that, pulling his arm away to wipe it off. He only succeeds in smearing it worse. Then the both of them fall back into a peaceful silence as the sun slowly sets, setting the distant wilderwoods afire with its golden glory.
I might enjoy the sunsets more if it weren’t so painful to be reminded of Athan’s hair every time.
0234 Athan
Athan Broadmore leans against the brick wall of the pit and lets his eyes drift upward at the dark blue sky, the sun having set beyond the Wall, out of sight. His ears flood with the noise of the crowd as he counts the pipes and tiny arms and strange conduits lining the underbelly of the Lifted City that blot out half that sky.
His name is then called. Athan tugs for luck on the drawstrings of the red, sleeveless hoodie he wears—Anwick’s hoodie, the only thing he wears anymore other than the tattered jeans that hang low off his hips—before taking it off, setting it aside, then heading for the center of the pit, bare chested, to meet his next opponent.
The fight ends so quickly, he’s already forgotten his opponent’s face by the time he’s back at the wall, hoodie back on, hands in his pockets, staring up at the sky again.
A bruise smarts on his cheek. There’s a cut on his right bicep. His knuckles are all so red, he might as well have beaten his fists against the brick twenty times. He pays none of his wounds any mind. He doesn’t really feel them, anyway.
His name is called. The crowd of slumborn roar, screaming their excitement from above the pit, their faces and their fists lining its rim all around. Athan pays them as much mind as he does his wounds.
Or his opponent, a thirty-something with fear in his eyes, a man he defeats in forty-seven seconds. His opponent yields when his lip busts apart, then cowers and crawls away to his side of the pit.
Athan doesn’t pursue him. He’s not here to hurt anyone or see them bleed. There are only three who he’d take pleasure in hurting.
And so his eyes draw back up to the Lifted City.
Mad King Impis.
Mad Murderer Metal Hand.
And Mad Mind-Fucker Axel.
Those three are the only three who deserve to die for taking away the only person in the world I will ever allow myself to love—the only person I had left after my family was so brutally taken from me.
His name is called. Athan weaves his fingers together, cracks his knuckles, then enters the pit.
Fifty-eight seconds later, he’s returned to the wall.
It was three months ago that he found this place in the eighth. The only reason it operates is because a few Guardian allow it to, as they have some sort of arrangement with the folk here that helps pad all their purses. This place was a decently long walk from the street on the ninth where the others still stay—Arrow, Ivy, Pratganth, Iranda and Auleen, little Sedge … and the woman called Arcana who he can never look in the eyes due to the twin she so painfully resembles. Still, he made the walk every day, and after months of wallowing in confusion and grief and hurt and lonesomeness, Athan at last found something to make him feel whole again.
It’s just like the Eastly Gym, but bloodier, and ugly.
His name is called.
Another man is returned to his family with a swollen nose, two raw fists, and a rope of blood crawling down his chin.
When the night’s fights are over at last and the sky is black as pitch and Athan is given his slum gold reward and rations of food, all of the rowdy and drunken spectators clear the pit. Athan sits himself cross-legged in its center, alone, and stares up at the dark sky with his spoils set on the ground before him. He closes his eyes, sets a hand on either of his knees, and breathes in the cool, crisp night air.
If fighting is his new lover, then meditation is his new friend. It is the closest he can ever hope to get to experiencing whatever it was that Anwick felt when he slept.
No one over the age of two sleeps in this world.
Now that Anwick is gone, that statement is true again.
But there is yet another reason Athan meditates for three to four hours every evening: He can see Anwick Lesser—his precious, dearly departed boyfriend Wick—behind his closed eyelids. He can still feel the soft cheek of Wick’s handsome, knowing face as Athan brings his lips to it. He sees Wick staring at something intensely across the room, the way he always seems to be scowling no matter what. It’s a Lesser thing; all the brothers scowl. He knows this well, and he’s only had the pleasure of meeting one of Wick’s four brothers. And he’s dead, too.
Athan decided months ago that he wouldn’t be sad anymore. In fact, he was nearly convinced that Wick survived—in the form of a voice within Athan’s head. Athan would sometimes hear the voice of his boyfriend deep in his mind. He’d say things like, “Smile more! You look so adorable when you smile.” Or even, “Hey, lift your chin. I can’t see into those pretty eyes of yours.” And Athan’s favorite: “You look better in my red hoodie than I ever did.” That last one always makes Athan smile, no matter the mood he’s in. If he can’t make light of his own anguish, he has nothing. If I am happy, then I know Anwick is happy, and my enemies can never win.
And fighting is the only thing that makes Athan happy.
All I know how to do is fight.
“Who do you go to the pit for?”
The voice startles Athan. He lifts his face and opens his eyes to the sight of a cute young man with bright orange hair on his head and a speck of hair on his chin. He wears a plain white t-shirt and pants that look three sizes too big for him, the material puddling at the tops of his shoes.
When Athan doesn’t answer, the young man takes a step into the pit, then scuffs his shoe along the gritty brick flooring, half his forearms lost in his deep pockets. “You fight every day. You’re good.”
Athan Broadmore might have been living in the slums for over half a year now, but he still has his Lifted manners, and he’s nothing if he fails to use them in the way his dearly departed parents would expect of him. “Thank you,” he murmurs with a curt, tightened nod.
“I’m Nickel.”
“Athan.”
“I know.” The young man
points up at the chair where the pit master usually sits. “I hear it announced twenty times a day.”
Athan lets out a short chuckle. “Yes. Right.”
“So I had asked you. Who do you go to the pit for? Your family? Do they depend on you? Is that food and gold you earn for them?”
Athan’s hands go for the drawstrings of his hoodie again. He finds he doesn’t have an answer for him.
“I know you fight for someone,” Nickel goes on. “Nothing else really motivates anyone anymore except family and loved ones. The Mad Bolt of Impis hasn’t struck in so long. Guardian has hold of the slums again, setting order to most things—except for the shady parts, which they turn a blind eye to, like these fighting pits, and perhaps the pleasure bars. I mean, a bit of extra pleasure in this world does no harm to anyone, right? Atlas is at peace again. I think people are just plain tired of fighting for blood. We’d rather fight for sport. Or—”
“Have you actually seen the rest of the city?” Athan interrupts.
Nickel hesitates. “Well, I’ve … I’ve seen the eighth. And seventh. I suppose the rest of the city is much like it is here.”
“It isn’t.” Athan glances up at the Lifted City again. “It might seem peaceful here. The ninth seems peaceful, too. But we’ve all lost loved ones. We’re all wounded. And we expect retribution someday. And that sky up there …” Athan’s eyes narrow. “They are silent. Like the dead we’re trying to mourn. Not a peep from Sanctum … or whatever’s left of Sanctum. We cannot forgive, as our wounds are too deep. And we cannot forget, considering the reminder of the tyranny that hovers over our heads every day.”
Nickel glances up at the Lifted City, too. Then he sighs. “You’re right. I’m too bright-eyed for my own good.”
Athan rises from the ground, his sack of gold hanging from one hand, his sack of food rations hanging from the other. He isn’t going to be able to meditate here; he needs to return to the ninth. “It’s my time to leave. Farewell, Nickel of the eighth.” Athan starts off.
“I would fight for my brother and sister.”
Athan stops, glances over his shoulder.
“If I fought,” Nickel clarifies. “If I fought … I’d … fight for them.” He takes a deep breath and lets it all out. “They both died during the Madness. It’s just me and my mother, now.”
It might just be the dim lighting, or perhaps the shadow falls on Nickel’s face in a strange way, but Athan finds himself reminded of Rone. Rone has bright, beautiful sapphire eyes like this Nickel. Nickel’s lips are full and plush, too, left parted expectantly between his words. Rone was Wick’s best friend until they had an unfortunate falling out. Rone had wanted to search for his missing sister Cintha in the Lifted City while Wick wanted to leave at once, since he had just reunited with Athan after Athan had lost his whole family.
It seems like ages ago, that moment in the room of the Academy when Rone shouted his angry words, tears in his eyes, then left by phasing through the wall. If only he knew Anwick is now gone …
“I’m sorry,” murmurs Nickel, drawing Athan’s attention back to his lips, which look like two red pillows, inviting and warm. “I know you have your own grief. It’s why you’re here. It’s why you fight. I just … I just need a friend.” Nickel’s eyes drag down Athan’s body. “I would … I would like a friend, maybe, that I could … h-hold.”
Athan closes his eyes, shutting away the image of this Nickel, this stranger of the eighth.
He has never touched another boy since Anwick and vowed never to again. No one can touch me. Not my body nor my soul. When I join Anwick in the beyond, it’ll be like we never parted.
“I’m sorry for your siblings,” Athan mutters. “I hope they are resting now.” He makes to leave again.
“They’ll rest when I find their killer.”
Nickel’s words sting. A chill races up Athan’s back.
There were three people Athan said he would enjoy hurting. Three people who deserved to die: Mad King Impis, Mad Murderer Metal Hand, and Mad Mind-Fucker Axel. But there is yet a fourth unnamed person whom Athan would also like to see suffer a long, terrible death. A person whose name and face he does not know.
The person who killed his family.
Whoever you are.
“And so we fight,” says Athan back without looking. “I … wasn’t a fighter when I first happened on these battle pits. I learned. All of the other fools who put a fist or a foot to me, they taught me. It felt good to fight. It still does.” He turns to face Nickel. “Come here.”
The young man takes a few shy steps toward him. Athan grabs hold of Nickel’s soft palm, turns it upward, and slaps his sack upon it.
Nickel’s eyes meet Athan’s, bewildered. “I—I can’t accept this.”
“For you and your mother.”
“But I haven’t done a thing to earn your kindness, nor your—”
“Once, long ago, I used to stand at the edge of a garden.” Athan thinks fondly of it. “It’s destroyed now. A great big boom took it out of the sky. I was there. Sent me tumbling to the slums below where I met the … the boy who gutted me for all I’m worth … and still steals away my breath, even long after he’s gone. It was the greatest and most terrifying day I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s even the day my life truly began.” He nods at the fat sack of gold hanging from Nickel’s uncertain fist. “And it all started by tossing a gold coin off the edge of that garden in the sky every day. I’m sure those who found my coins on the ground below did nothing to earn my kindness, either. But that’s the only way we’ll save this city, I think—with acts of kindness that are never paid back.”
He imagines Wick turning suddenly when Athan abruptly came into the room, interrupting something he was doing. Then, a slow and broad smile spread over Wick’s face, revealing dimples.
He imagines that first day they met, when Wick awkwardly stepped into that tiny, stuffy room in the loft of the Noodle Shop to confront him. The way their hearts raced. The way their shoes softly tapped together as they sat on the floor across from one another, staring curiously at each other’s eyes.
The uncertain glances and bitten lips.
The tickles of laughter that swelled between them some days.
The moments they’d lie on their sides, playing gently with one another’s fingers, curious, explorative, now and then their bright and yearning eyes finding each other’s.
The endless hours when Athan held his boy in his arms and listened to him breathe.
With all the memories of Anwick swelling about him, Athan finally meets the Nickel boy’s astonished eyes, then lets on a smirk. “All of these pretty words, said by the guy who fights people in a pit every day and makes them bleed.”
Nickel can’t even laugh at Athan’s little joke, still too stunned by his generosity. Then, after a thought, Nickel wrinkles his face. “W-Wait … Were you talking about Lord’s Garden? Are you Lifted?”
“No one is Lifted,” Athan replies, then quietly adds, “Well, not anymore.”
Then he tips his head to the orange-haired boy for a farewell, turns, and walks through the stone archway leading out of the battle pits. He feels a familiar lightness in his heart, reminding him pleasantly of the days when he let go a coin each day over the rim of the Lifted City. The thought makes him smile, or perhaps it’s the excitement of knowing that when he arrives back at his house in the ninth—the Lesser house—he will reunite with his Anwick in his meditative dreams. I’ll see you soon.
0235 Arrow
Arrow Fyrefellow sits crouched on the roof of the Lesser house and observes the street and the streets beyond.
There’s a piece of something caught in his teeth from lunch.
He’s been trying to suck and tongue it out for hours.
He sees the Wither family on their lawn full of scrap metal and wood as they work an assembly line of sorts to construct armor—even with their children among the line. Three houses down, Arrow observes light coming out of the windows where the Barger fa
mily, the Upton family, and the Geasers and Jurons and Pages are all fashioning swords, daggers, and tenth-caliber spears.
Arrow figures it’s only natural that this is what happens when you have a neighborhood of out-of-work blacksmiths and tinkerers. Everyone gets bored and makes weapons and armor.
One can never be short of either these days.
Down the street the other way where it opens to a short spread of grassless dirt and a mound of stones or rubble here and there, groups of youth and hardy alike are training with others in the ninth. Others are just playing, wrestling one another and laughing as the dust and dirt gets kicked up in the air.
Arrow keeps sucking at that thing stuck between his teeth and squinting into the distance, pensive.
Along the dirt roads leading farther out into the ninth, he sees couplings of men and women returning from the Greens with baskets of goods, thanks to the alliance they’ve recently made with the Greensfolk and the once-greedy eighth people who have since learned to trust the free people of the ninth.
Arrow never crowned himself a King or a Warden or a leader of any kind, and he still doesn’t. It just sort of happened over time that everyone came to him for guidance.
Maybe it’s because he’s the one who listens, the one who speaks to machines, the one to whom machines speak. They assume he knows everything from here to the Wall.
Sometimes, even he himself is fooled by the assumption.
Arrow has been the one people asked their questions to. He has been both the voice of reason and the one to settle quarrels between families. He has also become something of a diplomat, negotiating terms with the seventh, the eighth, and the tenth, all of whom have operating Guardian patrolling their streets, all of whom have already reinstated Wardens—except the ninth.