IGMS Issue 49

by IGMS

  "You didn't know how hard it'd be to lose."

  "No. And we didn't know how hard it'd be to watch, either. You two, you ate each other up. There was nothing left for the rest of the world. You made no space in yourselves. Your sister's just as bad."

  She remembers. Marcus had been brighter, more colorful, more real than everyone else. "That's love."

  "That's addiction." Her mother takes her hand and her grip is soft and cool. "I know we almost lost you, after you lost him. But then you came alive. You made friends. You went out. You even let your mother come over for terrible wine."

  It takes Paula a moment to process her mother's words. She pulls her hand away. "You're saying you're glad Marcus died?"

  "Good lord, Paula! I'm saying you're not fifteen anymore. You don't need a storybook. Move to Canada. Or Mexico. You and Dante are happy. So be happy about it."

  Paula stands. "I'll be at Kati's party," she promises. "But I have some work to get done, tonight."

  "Darling." It's an objection, but her mother straightens her hat and walks to the door.

  "Goodnight, Mother."

  "Love is just a word, Paula. It means what you let it."

  "Of course," she says. Her mother leaves, and Paula is left with silence.

  She still has hours yet before Dante returns. She cleans the wine glasses, straightens the pillows, puts the picture back on the side table. She picks up her e-reader, and then sets it down again. All stories are love stories.

  The house is too quiet. Paula slips out to the garage, telling herself she'll drive somewhere louder. Instead, she sits beside the crib. She rests her forehead against the cool wood and imagines a future where their tiny garage is crowded with bikes and balls, the sporty Miata at the charging station replaced by a practical minivan. Mexico, said her Mother. Canada.

  Maybe. The idea has its own wall of paperwork, tests, recommendation letters. Even if they succeed, they'll be starting over again. With soul mates, such a move would be possible. But nothing ties her to Dante but choice. She can see herself frustrated, angry, walking away.

  It doesn't matter. He'll get his results soon. There are so many ways the world can break them. The idea hurts more than it should. He's supposed to be painless.

  She thought she'd found stability. Now, in the dark, with the crib looming above her, her life feels built on sand. What good is any of it, if it can be ruined by a doctor's note?

  Only 1.8 percent, the poster said. It took two tons of metal to tear Marcus from her.

  Paula's phone has an app that connects her directly to her cohort. Every time she buys a new phone, she plans not to install it. But she always does. Some of her cohort, her own clique of soul mates, like to message back and forth. And, when she's feeling reckless, she likes to watch them.

  She logs in, and the app greets her with the familiar list of names. She knows it by heart. Marcus's name is gray. Hers is blue, for unavailable. Most the names are blue. They've had time to find each other. Two, though, are still green. Lucia, in Greece. Andrew, in Michigan. The two of them chat often, idle promises to cross continents and meet.

  Paula's dreamed of both of them. She's learned the Greek words for I love you and Can I visit. She's memorized the names of Andrew's four dogs.

  She's written each of them dozens of messages. Almost sent them.

  She taps Andrew's name and writes another.

  The plane touches down in Detroit during a sobbing downpour, ruining Paula's plan to meet Andrew somewhere safe and open. She'd imagined a park, where no one would watch them or notice if she started to cry. Instead, they agree to meet at a café about twenty minutes from the airport.

  She still hasn't heard his voice, and the anonymity of text leaves her feeling safe. There's no surge of emotion at his message, no want. She calls Dante during the cab ride, for the comfort of it. He is warm and incurious. He hopes her meeting goes well, and mutters a bit about inconsiderate bosses and their sudden demands. He says he loves her.

  "Forever?" she asks.

  "Forever and forever," he promises. He doesn't ask for her promise. For the first time, she wishes he would.

  The café is almost empty, a barely lit, lurking sort of place, the tables set at careful distances. She's early, so she buys a glass of iced tea and settles in the corner. Andrew's picture showed a lean man with an impassive expression and short black hair. Studying it, Paula thought he looked like a mob enforcer. She liked his inapproachability.

  Five minutes later, the door chimes. Andrew's put on weight since the picture, softening into pudgy warmth. He looks like the sort of man who makes gourmet meals on the weekends and slips his dogs kitchen scraps while he cooks. The dizzy rush of want, the sudden click of the world settling into place, she expects those. What she's not prepared for is the light in his eyes, the way he swallows then swallows again, in helpless shock. She'd forgotten it would affect him too.

  "Andrew." She steps out from the table, meaning to shake his hand.

  The brush of fingertips isn't enough for either of them. When she lifts her head to kiss him, it isn't a choice. The warmth of his mouth and the nervous minty taste of him are not at all like Marcus. But still, she's reminded. It is the same want that pours between them, the desire to disappear in the shadow of a beloved, just to be that much closer.

  There will be no long walks or conversation. They will make love all day in a hotel bed and only after they've exhausted the desperate grasping need to be consumed will they talk. There will be no trouble at all, being approved. Their daughter will have his gray eyes and her narrow smile.

  "What is it?" he asks, holding her at arm's length. She's shaking hard, only her locked knees keeping her from collapsing. She meets his eyes, sees herself reflected and reflecting him. After she lost Marcus, she spent hours standing in front of the mirror, trying to find him in her eyes, where she'd always held him.

  "Give me a second." Paula wishes for Dante. For the easy peace of him. The selfishness of that want settles her.

  She steps back. Andrew is reluctant to release her, but he does, his hands dropping to his sides.

  "I'm sorry," he says. "I got ahead of myself."

  She clasps her hands behind her back to keep herself from touching him. "It happens."

  "That's right." He looks away from her for the first time and studies the floor. "You've been through this before."

  She waits until he meets her gaze again. She has to make him understand what he's risking. "I tried to die, after I lost Marcus."

  "I'm sorry. If I'd been there - ."

  "You would have loved him too," she says. "And we'd both have been playing with razors."

  He starts to shake his head, then stops.

  "Do you want to tell me about him?" he asks. He touches her arm, just lightly, and her whole body shivers with it. She wants to kiss him until their flavors become so mingled she can't tell the difference.

  "Do you like kids?" she asks.

  He looks puzzled. "Sure. I always figured I'd have a daughter."

  It's what she thought he'd say. What he'd have to say, or how could they be as they are?

  "No," she says. She has to force her voice to rise. "No. Go to Greece. She'll love you, there."

  "What?" He doesn't sound hurt yet. He doesn't believe her. "No, no. I've got you. I want you."

  She wants Marcus. She wants a brown-skinned daughter with gray eyes and a wild laugh. She wants to get drunk on Andrew and still hold the cool clarity of Dante. She wants to disappear and she wants never again to have to go hunting herself in the memories of a before.

  "You don't love me." The familiar, comfortable line.

  Now he's shaking. "Please," he says. "Don't."

  But she has to. "You don't. Not yet."

  She will leave only the narrowest of cracks in him. He would sort through her shards, if she allowed it, and put her back together in their shared image. But she has grown comfortable. Dante has sanded down the corners of her broken pieces. Shattered a s
econd time, there would be nothing left of her but sand. She kisses him on the forehead, the way she would have kissed their gray-eyed daughter.

  "I'm sorry," she says. "I can't."

  And because their hearts are beating in a shared, wounded rhythm, he can't argue with her. She lifts his fingers to her lips, kisses each of his knuckles.

  "Because of last time?" he asks.

  "Yes. I thought it might feel new. Safe. But love doesn't change." She nuzzles his palm and his fingers linger on her cheek.

  "Let me give you a ride to the airport."

  She shakes her head. "Give yourself a ride. Go to Greece. Or contact one of the couples, if you're comfortable sharing. It's worth it. You know that now."

  "But not you?"

  "Not me." She leaves her iced tea half-finished on the table, and he doesn't try to follow her out.

  On the plane, she researches Mexico's immigration policy. She emails Dante's grandmother, mentions that she'd like to visit again.

  Andrew has already emailed her. She deletes it, unread.

  The results will come. Dante will cry, when he reads them. It is such a fantasy of his, the idea of loving her. But he'll stay. She lets herself believe that. They'll talk about Mexico. She'll study Spanish. Their daughter, of course, will speak it beautifully. And they'll be happy, there.

  Perhaps, sometimes, he'll look at her and wonder what he's missing. She'll get emails from Andrew, and sometimes she'll read them. But they'll work through it.

  He is the best thing she's never loved.

  Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

  by Lawrence M. Schoen

  * * *

  (Published by Tor Books, December 29, 2015)

  Chapter One: A Death Detoured

  My mother selected her wings as early morning light reached through our balcony shutters. She moved between the shadows, calm and deliberate, while downtower neighbors slept behind their barricades. She pushed her arms into the woven harness. Turned her back to me so that I could cinch the straps tight against her shoulders.

  When two bone horns sounded low and loud from Mondarath, the tower nearest ours, she stiffened. I paused as well, trying to see through the shutters' holes. She urged me on while she trained her eyes on the sky.

  "No time to hesitate, Kirit," she said. She meant no time to be afraid.

  On a morning like this, fear was a blue sky emptied of birds. It was the smell of cooking trapped in closed towers, of smoke looking for ways out. It was an ache in the back of the eyes from searching the distance, and a weight in the stomach as old as our city.

  Today Ezarit Densira would fly into that empty sky -- first to the east, then southwest.

  I grabbed the buckle on her left shoulder, then put the full weight of my body into securing the strap. She grunted softly in approval.

  "Turn a little, so I can see the buckles better," I said. She took two steps sideways. I could see through the shutters while I worked.

  Across a gap of sky, Mondarath's guards braved the morning. Their wings edged with glass and locked for fighting, they leapt from the tower. One shouted and pointed.

  A predator moved there, nearly invisible -- a shimmer among exploding gardens. Nets momentarily wrapped two thick, skycolored tentacles. The skymouth shook free and disappeared. Wails built in its wake. Mondarath was under attack.

  The guards dove to meet it, the sun dazzling their wings. The air roiled and sheared. Pieces of brown rope netting and red banners fell to the clouds far below. The guards drew their bows and gave chase, trying to kill what they could not see.

  "Oh, Mondarath," Ezarit whispered. "They never mind the signs."

  The besieged tower rose almost as tall as ours, sun-bleached white against the blue morning. Since Lith fell, Mondarath marked the city's northern edge. Beyond its tiers, sky stretched uninterrupted to the horizon.

  A squall broke hard against the tower, threatening a loose shutter. Then the balcony's planters toppled and the circling guards scattered. One guard, the slowest, jerked to a halt in the air and flew, impossibly, backwards. His leg yanked high, flipping his body as it went, until he hung upside down in the air. He flailed for his quiver, spilling arrows, as the sky opened below him, red and wet and filled with glass teeth. The air blurred as slick, invisible limbs tore away his brown silk wings, then lowered what the monster wanted into its mouth.

  By the time his scream reached us, the guard had disappeared from the sky.

  My own mouth went dry as dust.

  How to help them? My first duty was to my tower, Densira. To the Laws. But what if we were under attack? My mother in peril? What if no one would help then? My heart hammered questions. What would it be like to open our shutters, leap into the sky, and join this fight? To go against Laws?

  "Kirit! Turn away." Ezarit yanked my hand from the shutters. She stood beside me and sang the Law, Fortify:

  Tower by tower, secure yourselves, Except in city's dire need.

  She had added the second half of the Law to remind me why she flew today. Dire need.

  She'd fought for the right to help the city beyond her own tower, her own quadrant. Someday, I would do the same.

  Until then, there was need here too. I could not turn away.

  The guards circled Mondarath, less one man. The air cleared. The horns stopped for now, but the three nearest towers -- Wirra, Densira, and Viit -- kept their occupied tiers sealed.

  Ezarit's hand gripped the latch for our own shutters. "Come on," she whispered. I hurried to tighten the straps at her right shoulder, though I knew she didn't mean me. Her escort was delayed.

  She would still fly today.

  Six towers in the southeast stricken with a coughing illness needed medicines from the north and west. Ezarit had to trade for the last ingredients and make the delivery before Allmoons, or many more would die.

  The buckling done, she reached for her panniers and handed them to me.

  Elna, my mother's friend from downtower, bustled in the kitchen, making tea. After the first migration warnings, Mother had asked her to come uptower, for safety's sake -- both Elna's and mine, though I no longer needed minding.

  Elna's son, Nat, had surprised us by helping her climb the fiber ladders that stretched from the top of the tower to the last occupied tier. Elna was pale and huffing as she finally cleared the balcony. When she came inside, I saw why Nat had come. Elna's left eye had a cloud in it -- a skyblindness.

  "We have better shutters," Ezarit had said. "And are farther from the clouds. Staying higher will be safer for them."

  A mouth could appear anywhere, but she was right. Higher was safer, and on Densira, we were now highest of all.

  At the far side of our quarters, Nat kept an eye on the open sky. He'd pulled his sleeping mat from behind a screen and knelt, peering between shutters, using my scope. When I finished helping my mother, I would take over that duty.

  I began to strap Ezarit's panniers around her hips. The baskets on their gimbaled supports would roll with her, no matter how the wind shifted.

  "You don't have to go," I said as I knelt at her side. I knew what her reply would be. I said my part anyway. We had a ritual. Skymouths and klaxons or not.

  "I will be well escorted." Her voice was steady. "The west doesn't care for the north's troubles, or the south's. They want their tea and their silks for Allmoons and will trade their honey to the highest bidder. I can't stand by while the south suffers, not when I've worked so hard to negotiate the cure."

  It was more than that, I knew.

  She tested the weight of a pannier. The silk rustled, and the smell of dried tea filled the room. She'd stripped the bags of their decorative beads. Her cloak and her dark braids hung unadorned. She lacked the sparkle that trader Ezarit Densira was known for.

  Another horn sounded, past Wirra, to the west.

  "See?" She turned to me. Took my hand, which was nearly the same size as hers. "The skymouths take the east. I fly west. I will return before Allmoons, in time f
or your wingtest."

  Elna, her face pale as a moon, crossed the room. She carried a bowl of steaming tea to my mother. "For your strength today, Risen," she said, bowing carefully in the traditional greeting of lowtower to high.

  My mother accepted the tea and the greeting with a smile. She'd raised her family to the top of Densira through her daring trades. She had earned the greeting. It wasn't always so, when she and Elna were young downtower mothers. But now Ezarit was famous for her skills, both bartering and flying. She'd even petitioned the Spire successfully once. In return, we had the luxury of quarters to ourselves, but that only lasted as long as she kept the trade flowing.

  As long as she could avoid the skymouths today.

  Once I passed my wingtest, I could become her apprentice. I would fly by her side, and we'd fight the dangers of the city together. I would learn to negotiate as she did. I'd fly in times of dire need while others hid behind their shutters.

  "The escort is coming," Nat announced. He stood; he was much taller than me now. His black hair curled wildly around his head, and his brown eyes squinted through the scope once more.

  Ezarit walked across the room, her silk-wrapped feet swishing over the solid bone floor. She put her hand on Nat's shoulder and looked out. Over her shoulders, between the point of her furled wings and through the shutters, I saw a flight of guards circle Mondarath, searching out more predators. They yelled and blew handheld horns, trying to scare skymouths away with noise and their arrows. That rarely worked, but they had to try.

  Closer to us, a green-winged guard soared between the towers, an arrow nocked, eyes searching the sky. The guards atop Densira called out a greeting to him as he landed on our balcony.

  I retightened one of Ezarit's straps, jostling her tea. She looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  "Elna doesn't need to watch me," I finally said. "I'm fine by myself. I'll check in with the aunts. Keep the balcony shuttered."