by Jamie Petit
"I'm sorry." Canthor whispered it. His was looking at the ground.His words wavered with emotion. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you." He meant it. Merrick had lived through many wars. He understood that you could do terrible things you never meant or wanted to. He understood how it could tear a man up inside to never find absolution. He also felt he was coming to understand Canthor. Along with that, he still felt that pull to him. Affection for the conflicted Wynmerian.
They sat there quietly for a long while, Canthor feeding him with care, and Merrick solemnly nibbling and sipping until it was all gone. His strength was coming back.
"We have some good medical devices we took from the city. Should heal you quickly."
"At what cost to me?"
"I'm willing to talk."
"Okay. Then let's start with one thing," said Merrick. "You and I?"
"Yes?"
"We want the same thing."
Canthor snorted. "If you're going to continue with such incredible stupidity, then forget it."
"It's true."
"In what way do you figure?"
"We both want Wynmere to be a safe and joyful place for all its beings."
Canthor grinned angrily. "That's where you're wrong. I want it to be a place of safety and joy only for the true Wynmerian species."
"As I said, we want this for all Wynmere's beings. We simply disagree on who belongs to Wynmere."
"In that sense I suppose you could be right."
"Progress," Merrick said with a smile.
"Don't push your luck. We still disagree on the most important thing."
"So let's move to the next part. What is the difference between Wynmerians and humans?"
Canthor squinted, as if trying to make out the features on Merrick's face. "What sort of absurdity are you about to suggest?"
"Nothing terribly absurd."
"I'll judge that." Canthor sat there seriously. At least he looked mostly serious. Merrick got the feeling that he was holding something back. And that just fueled Merrick's growing desire to be done with this and to finally be able to peel back the layers and find out more about this strange, wild, powerful man.
"We feel the same pain. If I cut you, you pull back. When you do the same to me, I do the same in kind. We feel the same."
Reminding Canthor of this simple fact seemed to cause his cheeks to pale slightly. Perhaps he was remembering what he'd done with the baton the last time he was in that cell. He grunted for Merrick to continue.
"And we love the same."
"Stop."
"No. You know it's true. It's how so many of your people and my people find each other. Love each other. They build families together. They build lives. If they didn't feel the same things, want the same things, how could build each other up so wonderfully?"
"Build up? Are you mad? They tear apart their cultures. They rip out their genes, shred them, and toss them into a manic hodgepodge in some bastard child."
"Tear apart? How about bring together? How about building something new? I've studied a bit of Wynmerian history, you know."
"Oh, I bet you have." Canthor folded his arms over his chest. Merrick tried not to notice how attractive that made his biceps and chest look.
"You're highly educated—I'm confident you know the same things I do, or more. You know that, just like human culture, Wynmerians were not always the same as they are now. Deep into your past there are dead religions, vanished civilizations, lost languages. Cultures completely alien to who you are today, yet all a part of Wynmere itself."
"That's different. It is our lost culture."
"You're splitting hairs."
"No. I'm not. We're made of the same things in different shapes."
“As are humans and Wynmerians.”
"How in the name of all that is good do you figure that?"
"Atoms of carbon are the same from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, person to person. Ditto nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen. And we are just the consciousness that emerges. What difference does it make the particular form that those atoms take? If inside these walking shells we live and love and hurt the same—what difference is there?"
Canthor narrowed his eyes. "You know damn well the difference."
"If it's so clear, then please tell me. Perhaps I'm a bigger fool than my years would evince."
"Just finish whatever point you're getting at."
"Wynmerians who trace their lineage to tribes near the poles—your people—have reddish skin. Those from groups closer to the equator tend to have more purplish skin. Around various other areas, you'll find green skin. Hair that is totally distinct form yours. I know some forests are home to much shorter Wynmerians than you'd typically find around the cities on this part of the planet. Cranial shapes. Crural configurations. All different. Some considerably so. There's some Wynmerians who don't look like they're of the same species as you. Should they be allowed to mate with whatever Wynmerian they choose?"
"Of course."
"But they're so different. In fact, at various times they’ve fought over those differences, and more."
"They share Wynmere."
"Some would say they share the forest. Or the pole. Or the shore they inhabit. Yet others might suggest that their home is this stellar system. Or perhaps the whole galaxy. Where does the culture begin and end?"
Canthor hesitated. "Where the influences begin and end. All Wynmere is one system."
"Those hearty Wynmerians that live on the mountainous island out off the coast of Glahr'hal never had a single connection to the likes of you until very, very recently."
"We share our moons. Our suns. The stars. Our stories find their connection through them."
"Do Earthmen not share your suns?"
Canthor's eyes widened and he leaned back, taking in a short breath. The rage was back. “You have no right. Your… kind have never felt the warmth of the Yek’qo.”
“That may well be true. Heck, from Earth, they only look only like Yek’to.” Merrick pulled a smile to his lips, hoping that Canthor would appreciate the small joke about Wynmere’s binary stars looking like one single unit from so far away. Canthor did not bite. “Anyway. Even so, Yer’qo guided our ships, no doubt. They filled our mythology, our sense of the divine through their place in the sky.”
“How dare you think to compare such trivialities.”
“Trivialities? We quite literally enshrined our gods in the heavens.”
“Yer’qo is not yours.”
“This is besides the point,” said Merrick, a little frustration adding to his aches. “Listen, we’ve done this already. Humanity. We’ve done—and continue to do, to some extent— this whole race hate thing.”
“So you understand.”
“No, I don’t understand at all. It has always been a waste. And the arrival of the Wynmere people basically put a stopper in all of that. Once our similarities became more apparent in the face of something far stranger, it started to seem insane to notice the tiny differences in humans. Skin color became as relevant as eye color. Well, for most people.”
“But that means your people do understand. You see the Wynmerian people as strange, which let’s you put your differences behind. It was not so different for us.”
“Sure, but look ahead. What happens when we meet being even stranger than either of us put together? Beings from another galaxy? Another dimension? A whole ‘nother universe?”
Canthor stared at Merrick for a long while, unspeaking, unmoving. Then he said, very deliberately, “We are different.” There was fury building beneath the surface of his words.
“Yes.”
“Would you really let your blood be so sullied? Truly? If your women fell dead, and all you had was alien blood to churn out a new humanity?”
“Love begets love, no matter what.”
“You are a fool.”
“If the man I could love would join with me,” said Merrick, holding Canthor’s eyes, speaking subtext through his gaze, “Nothing wou
ld be greater.” Merrick finally felt his strength returning, and with great effort he reached out his hand and touched Canthor’s face.
There was a pause. Canthor’s cheeks went dark and his eyes followed. A snarl snapped from his lips and he launched himself at Merrick’s broken body.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Canthor
Canthor’s fist slammed into the rock beside Merrick’s head. His cheek seemed to burn where he’d been touched. That was all he felt, barely registering the way he’d rent the flesh from the back of his fingers. His fist unfolded against the softened stone as he dragged his nails, his other hand joining along the other side of Merrick, until he reached shoulders and his hands moved over them to grip at the throat.
All the rage inside him couldn’t make him tighten his fingers and crush that vulnerable neck. It was as if there was a steel collar there. Canthor’s arms rippled with the effort of execution, but it wouldn’t transmit down past his wrists.
Then he was screaming. He screamed incoherently against the body before him. He began to shake him violently. “Why won’t you hate me?? WHY?” he roared. He repeated this again and again until he saw the smile on Merrick’s face. And it all subsided. It burned low and lower until it was all ember, and tears could come to end it. “Why won’t you hate me?”
The skin beneath his was… skin. His first touch of a human. His hands relaxed. It was like all at once Merrick’s words snapped into place. As if before they had been a puzzle scattered, and, in the next moment, each twisting, infuriating edge was flush against another. This was skin, indeed. He had expected it to feel different somehow. More rough; perhaps a film of something grotesque lining it. Instead it was no different than one of his own kind. Perhaps a bit softer, given Merrick’s officer life.
It was completely unremarkable. And in that it was utterly remarkable. It was one small truth made manifest from those very words that had churned up his wrath and driven their flesh together.
It was wonderful, sensual flesh—warm and gently trhobbing with an overworked pulse. Indeed, he could feel Merrick’s own heart, his blood, rushing beneath. Canthor searched for his anger. Yes, he could feel the blood, that filthy human blood that could never touch his own, much less ever be blended in a… a child.
Canthor seemed outside himself as his thumbs pricked up and began to ever so slowly ride up Merrick’s neck—and back down. He caressed there, where artery coursed against throat.
There’s tears, too. Canthor noticed those after he noticed his gentle caress. He could stop neither.
“What is this?” he asked. “What are you doing to me?”
“I’m not doing anything,” said Merrick.
“No, no, no. No. This is wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate you. I hate every one of you.”
“Do you really? Do you really want to hurt me?”
“Yes!” A pause. A hesitation. “Yes. This is my cause.”
“It wasn’t always.”
“How would you know?”
“No one speaks English as well as you do without having spent much time around humans. Without having cared enough for the cultures of Earth and the heart of man to have read deeply and widely.”
There was no response. Canthor had nothing. It was true. There had been a time…
“Why do you hate humans so much? Why did you start this movement?”
“I didn’t start it.”
“You developed it.”
“All the pieces were there. It was a befuddled mess when I arrived here with my mission. There was anger and confusion. So many of my kind pushed to the edges of society. Some had taken to hating their own kind. But that would never do. I focused it elsewhere. Collected all that discontent and pressed it onto humanity.”
“What happened?”
Canthor sighed. Why was he even considering telling this… this prisoner, this sacrifice, this condemned man, his story?
He couldn’t resist another soft touch. His thumbs wandered up over Merrick’s jaw to his ears, up through his hair. He almost pulled Merrick to him. Those lips—those lips were so inviting.
He resisted and moved back a step, pulling his hands away. He folded his legs beneath him and closed his eyes.
“I was a very lucky man,” he began. “I was enrolled at university. Spent much time on Earth in Europe studying—something very few Wynmerians ever get to do. I had plans of becoming an officer myself when I got out of school.
“Back home, here on Wynmere, I had a lover. The rarest and most wonderful of lovers. Back then I didn’t care about humans and Wynmerians and blood and all that. It just happened that I’d grown up alongside one of the very few remaining Wynmerian Omegas. It’s damn close to unheard of to even meet an authentic Omega these days. Much less be friends with one. Far less have one let you claim them. But I was his and he was mine.
“Omegas, of course, never travel off-world. They rarely get further than whatever city they were born to. It’s all the security. There’s so few that no one is willing to risk their lives. But I was a foolish young man. I thought, ‘What’s the point of all this life to just stay locked up?’ What’s life, indeed, without travel and culture and adventure. Well…”
Canthor had to take a minute then. He picked up the pitcher and tilted it back into his own mouth, drawing down a long swallow. He went to put it down, but thought better and, eyes averted, pressed the cool, sweating metal to Merrick’s lips. He envied those chill drops.
“I convinced him to sneak away from his security. To get on the next ship out to Earth. To see what I saw. I had some absurd romantic notion of making love on some French coastal beach. How disgustingly human.
“So, he did. He trusted me. And I trusted the world. So… so he came. And at first it was wonderful. Sure, the people back home were furious, but it’s not like he could be punished. So we just enjoyed what we could while we could.” Canthor had been in a trance, still seemingly apart form himself, but just then he grew serious and narrowed his eyes at Merrick. “You try to make it sound like we showed up, we Wynmerians and suddenly there was peace on Earth. You try to make it sounds like we were welcomed! You well know that’s not true.
“It took many long years before there was any noticeable effect. Even then, it never went away entirely. Prejudice is at the heart of humanity. Hate. Realized or unconscious as it may be. And your interminable need for an other to turn against didn’t go away. The lot of you just redirected most of it. At us. To think—aliens! Wandering around your cherished cities. Your Rome—Coliseum! Your Paris—the chopping block! Your Berlin—goodness knows the blood those streets have known.
“Why they did it, I don’t know. But they saw him. My Omega. And they hated him—as humans do. They hated. And they brought out their hate in a torrent of fists and blades—the men poured from the shadows. There were four, then five, then ten, and twenty. Maybe more. Maybe less. I don’t remember. If I ever even knew. Had they planned it? Had they stalked us, and come filing out of the woodwork to kill? Or had it just been that first industrious group that took my… my…”
Canthor had to stop. He snatched up the pitcher and drank the water in angry, sloppy gulps, slamming it down when he’d finished. He crushed his eyes shut and let out a low growl that grew into a scream. Then he settled. Tears slipped in narrow streams down his cheeks. He took a deep breath and dove back into his pain.
“My love. Had it just been one group? And then whatever humanity was rolling by in the night simply took inspiration and joined? Regardless, there were too many. I couldn’t fight them off. By the time the paramedics arrived he was dead. By the time the police arrived, the murderers were long gone. And there wasn’t any purchase in an investigation into the killing of a Wynmerian Omega. Even human Omegas didn’t get much of a glance when they’d been killed as species traitors.
“After that I couldn’t see your people without seeing my lover’s blood. I couldn’t read your literature without hearing the voic
es of murderers. Human history is told in wars. In murder. There’s no ink but blood. Every page is stained with it. Why would I want my people’s blood to be churned into that loathsome morass?
“I was a bit surprised his death didn’t kill me. Usually it does, especially in a pairing as strong as ours. Maybe his… soul, or something, gave me some strength. I don’t know. I know I sure as hell couldn’t survive that again. It was a sort of agony that I’d never conceived of before. Beyond the mourning, there was that physical pain which occurs when mates are torn apart in death. I thought I’d die. But fate had different plans for me. I took that as significant.
“I left Earth. Returned to Wynmere. I didn’t set foot in my old city then. I went straight for the Wilds, where all the dissenting Wynmerians had made their meager homes. They all wanted change. They’d been pressed out of society for wanting something better. Now they struggled to live a life worth living at all.
“Despite my convictions, it’s not like I had much choice. In the cities I would have been reviled as the Alpha who’d seduced an Omega only to lure him to his death and, worse, been too weak to save him. I’d lost the love of my life. But many saw it as my having stolen a rare treasure from Wynmere itself. To be truly honest, I can’t blame them. But I still knew that I had no choice but to join the Wilds.
“Once there, I knew I could do something with those in the Wilds. I could unite them. Lead them behind me against my enemy. Make it their enemy. And by joining we could bring down humanity. I could save the soul of Wynmere.
“There you have it. The fall and rise of Canthor the Wildmere. Every bloody step on my rueful path.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Merrick
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t.”
It was all Merrick could manage in that moment.
There was long silence. “Would you believe this is the first time I’ve touched a human?”
“Really?”
“Effectively. I don’t think I ever shook more than a few hands. And I certainly didn’t think about it. I was probably wearing gloves. I spent most of my time on Earth in the winter and early spring.” He hesitated. “Despite everything, I’ve always regretted missing the leaves in fall.”