Numenera--The Poison Eater

by Shanna Germain

  They were talking, here and there, but mostly quiet. As soon as they saw her, they made room. Khee laid himself under the table at her feet, sighing loudly enough to make them all laugh. It was strained but it broke the tension, softened their faces around the table.

  Everyone waited, silent. She fidgeted with her hexed hand. Ziralyt came back with drinks – a clear bottle filled with honeyed liquid, and glasses. He knelt under the table and gave Khee something she couldn’t see, but a moment later, she felt Khee’s teeth crunching something hard against her feet.

  Burrin poured. When all the glasses were full, she lifted hers and the others followed.

  “Moon meld us and mold us and keep us from harm,” she said.

  “And we shall shine,” the others said.

  She took a sip, held back the cough that came with the burn. Something strong, she’d said. And Ziralyt had certainly obliged.

  She waited until everyone had drunk.

  “I need to tell you a story,” she said. Unlike all of the other stories she’d told – to her sisters, to the zaffre, to herself – this one needed to be true. As true as she could make it. After her experience telling part of it to Isera, she thought that she could make it pretty damn true. But not without help. “This is going to be hard to tell and hard to hear,” she said. “And so I ask of you to listen and wait to the end. Because more than anything, I am a coward, still.”

  She felt the prick of tears at the corners of her eyes, startling in their urgency, and forced them back. “…and if you give me any reason to pause, any at all, I will fall.”

  They were quiet and still, and she took that as a yes, and so she told them everything. She started with the parts that Isera had already heard. The vordcha. Her sisters and their attempted escape. How she had run, craven, fallen – Isera touched her hand at that, and Talia both felt like she didn’t deserve the kindness and felt like she needed it so badly she could not have turned it away.

  And then she told the parts that hurt to say. How she had come to Enthait and lied to all of them, in order to keep herself safe, in order to have control of the device that could destroy the vordcha, but that could destroy of them as well.

  Isera had moved her hands back to hold her drink, almost protectively, at that. Talia did not blame her. She knew the risks she was putting on the table.

  She’d told it true, and each bit of the story was like a stone that she was setting aside. By the time she was done, she was both empty and heavier than she’d ever been.

  The only thing she hadn’t told them yet was what the orness had told her. It wasn’t that she was afraid or even that she was following the orness’ wishes–

  threat

  Khee said from under the table.

  You weren’t even there, beast, she thought, though not unkindly.

  She took a sip of her drink, could see, out of the corner of her eye, flashes of the glam, who’d stopped dancing and was now sitting at a table nearby with a handsome young couple. They were laughing, and she allowed herself a moment to envy them. They weren’t much younger than she, but how different their life seemed. To have spent it all under the promise of safety here in Enthait. Real or otherwise. Did she want to take that from them? No.

  No, she would keep that part from all of them. For now. Because she wasn’t sure if the orness had lied, and she almost thought she understood why. But it wasn’t all altruistic. There was that other part too. To make her plan work, she needed them to believe – not just in her, but in the orness, in the device, as well. And telling the orness’ story would cast a question over all of them. Was it fair to ask it of them, to join her when she wasn’t telling them everything? Was it fair to tell them everything and then expect them to still join her? She didn’t know.

  Monster.

  This voice was neither Khee’s nor Maeryl’s. It was all hers.

  Not as much as her.

  Comparing yourself to a worse monster does not make you not one.

  Fair.

  “I know the vordcha are coming. But I don’t know when or how. The only way for me to know is to do another poisoning. Now, not later.”

  She stopped, breathed. She didn’t have any words left. She was pretty sure she’d used them all up. Her throat felt raw, and she took a sip of her drink, hoping to ease it, but it was scratchy and made her cough instead.

  The silence stretched.

  “What do you need us to do?” Burrin. Who hadn’t taken a drink beyond that first toast.

  It wasn’t what she’d expected. “Don’t you have questions?”

  “That wasn’t a question?”

  “I mean…” She swept her hands at all of them. “About the rest of it. The things I just told you.”

  They looked at each other, side eyes, expressions that she almost caught. Even now, she knew the language, she knew the stories, and still she was the outsider. Even Ganeth seemed to understand what was happening better than she did.

  Finally, it was Isera that spoke. “She speaks true.”

  “Your eye?” Burrin asked.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t need it.”

  Burrin looked at Ganeth, who nodded.

  “Then yes,” Burrin said, “I do have a question. It is: what do you need us to do?”

  She would have hugged him, if that was a thing. But she didn’t think it was. At least not with Burrin. She supposed she could invite him to a fight and kick him in the groin again, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thank you she wanted to give.

  She could only duck her head, her cheeks flushed, and mutter, “Thank you” into her glass.

  “First, I need answers. Ganeth, how does the Eye work? How does it find the dangers?” she asked. Then wished she hadn’t, for she couldn’t follow his explanation. It was datasphere and nanotech and the numenera and she gave up after the first minute and hoped it didn’t matter. She got the gist of it at least.

  “And the orness’ device, the aria?”

  “Same thing, I imagine,” he said. “I’ve never seen it.”

  The surprise must have shown on her face, because he lifted a brow at her in question. “You didn’t make it,” she said, flatly. Starting to understand the length of things.

  “I didn’t make the Eye either. I just understand it better, because I’ve seen it. I have no idea what the aria is. They’re both far older than I am. Some say they’re from the before city.”

  “The one in the clouds,” she said.

  He looked surprised, but nodded. She noticed Omuf-Rhi drinking his shot, and grinning a bit, almost as if he were proud of her.

  “Do we know what the aria looks like? Maybe like the Eye? Only bigger?”

  Ganeth pressed his lips together in thought. “It isn’t always true that the more powerful a thing, the larger the size. But I would guess… something powerful enough to do that kind of damage would need to be bigger. Bigger than the Eye. Not certainly. But likely.”

  “I don’t…” It was Omuf-Rhi, speaking for the first time. “I don’t understand how the charn and the vordcha connect. Are they the same creatures?”

  “I wish they were,” she said. “And I didn’t understand the connection either. Not for the longest time. The poisoning was telling me. I just couldn’t see it.”

  Out of all the things she’d said, this was the one she dreaded speaking aloud the most. Because until she said it, it was just a wild belief that lived in her head. One that she could deny. Saying it made it real. An undeniable possibility. She was the poison eater. She had seen the danger and had pretended she hadn’t.

  She closed her eyes, found that memory deep beneath her skin and called it up. Sifting through it was like sifting through glass shards. No one cut deeply, but all together, a thousand tiny pains.

  “I think the charn are creatures that we, the sisters, thought of as the swarm.” Just saying the word made her shiver through snow and blood. “Like a scouting party. They sting with this kind of…” She shivered remembering it. “Numbing
venom.”

  Burrin leaned in, his arms long on the table. “You’re telling me that the charn, the creatures that fill our tales, that created this entire thing…” He circled an arm at her. Meaning: the poison eater, the orness, the aria. “That’s just their scouting party?” The phrase was full of incredulity.

  “I wish I could say no. But yes.” She felt Khee’s warmth against her feet beneath the table. “And then they’ll send creatures like Khee.”

  She reconsidered, in no small part due to Khee butting her in the leg with his head. “No, not at all like Khee. They’re all different, modified somehow. I think they start with different kinds of creatures. And then they build them for war, for killing. Not just killing. For…” She stopped, trying to find the right word. The extra teeth, the barbed claws, the skin pulling away slowly. What words for that? “For killing,” she finished lamely.

  “And then the vordcha will come?” Isera’s eyes flickered in the pale light.

  “I think so,” Talia said. Then changed it to a more confident, “yes.”

  “Why didn’t these vordcha come before?” Omuf-Rhi asked. “The stories don’t tell of anything after the charn.”

  She’d been thinking about that herself.

  “I think the first time, they were just scouting. Looking for new martyrs. But the orness, the city, fended off their charn and the vordcha decided Enthait wasn’t worth it.” Talia thought of all the ways and places her sisters had been chosen – small towns, traveling parties, out alone. Few came from large cities. Maeryl, but she’d been on the sea by herself when she’d been taken.

  “Then…” Omuf-Rhi continued, “why will the vordcha come now?”

  She tasted her answer on her tongue before she gave it, bitter and sour. “Because of me. They’ll come because of me.”

  “I guess we’d better figure out how to stop them, then,” Burrin said.

  “Wait. Before you say that, you do understand that this is all my fault, right?” she pressed. “I am bringing these creatures here.”

  “You’re telling us the obvious,” Burrin said and, for a moment, it was Maeryl’s voice coming from his mouth, and she shuddered, hard enough to splash her drink. She cupped the glass with her hexed hand, brought it back under control.

  “Then I’ll say the other, which is even more obvious: if we try this plan, it could destroy the city. Not just me. All of us. We might not get out in time. We might not take out the vordcha. We might…” her voice trailed away. She was suddenly, deeply, tired.

  “You forget. It’s your job to see the dangers, Poison Eater,” Burrin said. “It’s our job to stop them.”

  * * *

  The plan they came up with was easy. No. Easy was very much the wrong word. It was simple. Which, as far as Talia was concerned, was the best kind of plan.

  Burrin and Isera asked questions about strategy, about the vordcha, about the way they fought and thought.

  “Let’s say that it’s true – the myriad, the charn – are just the first wave,” Burrin said. “That’s taken care of.”

  Talia started to say, “It is?” but closed her mouth. Of course, he thought it was. She hadn’t told him about the orness, about the possibility that the device might not even exist.

  How can you believe in you, and not believe in her? She didn’t know.

  Before he could ask it, Burrin went on with his plan-making. “So, then the… what do you call them?”

  “Mechbeasts.”

  “Mechbeasts. The vallum will help with those, Ganeth?”

  Ganeth was doodling something on a piece of paper. From where Talia sat, it looked like a belt with a number of weird devices hanging off it.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s well-stocked – it’s been ages since something made its way to the actual city walls. We’ll have the leavers do more.”

  Leavers. That must be the name for those who worked the vallum’s non-mechanical protections. It was a good name.

  “You really think the vordcha will come?” Burrin asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I have always assumed so. They seemed like they would. But not until we are beaten down. Not until they know we will be cowed and… easy.”

  Isera sucked in her breath, then tried to cover it with an exhale, as though she’d just been breathing normally.

  Burrin was pulling out the device that held his map and Talia didn’t think he’d noticed Isera’s response, but he paused in his own gesture for a moment before flattening the map.

  “From the south?” he asked.

  Talia nodded, watched the city unfold across the table. She pointed to the place, beyond the map, where she thought she had come from.

  “The vordcha won’t come until the day. They don’t…” She wasn’t sure what word she was looking for. It wasn’t “sleep.” They didn’t seem to sleep, ever, but they stayed indoors, in the shade. “They burrow. Cocoon. I don’t have a word for it. They won’t expose themselves at night unless they have to.”

  “Is that a weakness, something we can exploit?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s not a weakness. Maybe a preference.” She wasn’t sure.

  Ganeth had stopped drawing and was tapping a small cylinder. She’d thought he’d stopped listening. But then she realized he was recording something.

  “Do they breathe like humans?” Ganeth asked.

  “As opposed to…?”

  “I mean, do they have lungs, mouths? In and out of some body part?”

  “I don’t… I don’t know.”

  yes.

  “Khee says yes.” How Khee knew that, she had no idea. But she trusted him.

  “I could create some weapons that create traitorous nanoparticles. Disperse it as a gas of some kind. Something that only affected them.”

  Talia just shook her head. “I don’t understand any of that, but I trust you. I trust all of you. You do those things. I will convince the orness to perform the poisoning ahead of time.”

  Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but it was the only one they had.

  * * *

  Getting to the orness presented a series of challenges. The first was that Talia had long since lost the star pit. Where had that gone? She had so few things she was usually better about keeping track of them. But she had scoured her pockets and her room after the poisoning and had found nothing. It was possible that she’d lost it in the garden. Likely, even. Perhaps the orness had taken it from her somehow. It seemed a thing the orness would do.

  The second challenge was that she could not make the skar door open for her. Neither breath nor hand nor song had changed the stones from barrier to entryway.

  She had decided to go alone, over everyone else’s objections. “I should come with you,” Isera said.

  “I think it has to be just me,” Talia replied simply.

  She didn’t say why. Because if, as she believed, the orness was dying, it was because of her. And that meant there were only two ways the conversation could go. Talia could actually convince the orness that the city was in danger and that they could use her help. And the orness would offer to help.

  Or the orness could try to kill her.

  Either way, she didn’t think her case was going to be helped by showing up with a crowd. “Plus, you have other things to do.”

  But as she stood at the base of the skar, she wondered if what she was doing was some kind of skewed attempt at penance. She hadn’t saved those in her life before this one, so she would save those in her life now.

  Too late now, and she couldn’t seem to get in anyway, no matter how much she scrabbled around the stones. Finally, she threw up her hands. “Orness, if you see everything in this city, then you know I’m standing here and that I would like to be let in.”

  Pretending that she didn’t care, she surreptitiously pressed her fingers to the base of the skar. Nothing. She didn’t know why she thought that appealing to the orness would work. The orness had shown herself to care for nothing and no one more than
her city. Certainly not her own child or grandchild, and certainly not Talia. Protecting the city was a fair belief to hold, she thought, but perhaps slightly misguided in its execution.

  She kicked the stone base. Speaking of misguided. The material was so hard she felt it reverberate in the bones of her foot.

  Someday, Talia, you will learn to plan better. I don’t mean one step ahead. I mean three. Four even.

  One of the mirrored orbs hung at her shoulder. She caught her reflection in its surface. It looked, just for a moment, like a very small version of the Eye. She reached out and grasped it with her hand. The orb shocked her, sending a dull ache up her arm and into her shoulder. She dropped it, pulling her fingers back with a swear.

  The orb fell and shattered, reflective pieces going everywhere. “I hate you,” she said, and she didn’t know if she was talking to the orb, the orness, or the face she saw reflected in the shards.

  She dropped her forehead to the stone, letting its rough coolness dimple her skin.

  “Mihil,” she said. She had stopped talking to the orness now and was talking to the city. Or some entity. Maybe some device. Gods and metal were all crisscrossed in her brain. Who could know where one ended and one began? “Mihil, Enthait. I know I’ve been a liar and a thief and a coward, but I am those things no longer. And this time, just this one time, I need you to trust me. I need you to let me in.”

  From above, she heard three clean, clear notes. She looked up. A tiny fluttering mechanical bird was resting on an outcrop just above her. It opened and closed its wings with an impatient flick, then whistled the same notes again.

  She could have sworn she heard Ganeth in her head. I expect it will come back at some point. Probably when you need it most.

  Talia echoed the notes into the doorway. Or tried to. Nothing happened. She’d always been the storyteller, but not the singer. That had fallen to Kanistl, her sister who sang in a tongue so beautiful and clear that even her joy songs had made Talia cry.