Relics, Wrecks and Ruins

by Aiki Flinthart

  “Mr. Wainright, down!” I launched myself at the man and caught him around the waist, crashing full length upon the rug. A scandalous tangle of arms and legs.

  Forty-nine wary knives slammed into the air above us. A wave of energy pressed us against the floor. With breathtaking speed, one knife after another locked into the diamond around Havarr. As the final knife clicked into place, the ship roared into life. Every bank of buttons and toggles lit up and I felt the landing runners retract.

  The ship lifted into the air, ready for my command.

  Dear God, I could feel the ship. Havarr and I were the ship. And all fifty wary knives were now under my control. All of them. When the Brotherhood worked out what had happened, they would be livid.

  Ridec pah? And I knew what Havarr asked. Go now?

  “Yes, ridec pah,” I yelled.

  The ship gathered herself, the power thrumming through the knives. Through me. Something to explore—to revel in—later. Right now, I had a ship to launch.

  “Mr. Wainright,” I said, pulling my arms free from under his body, “I advise you to get into a chesterfield. We are about to take-off.”

  We clambered up from the rug and flung ourselves into the armchairs. Through the window at our feet, I saw the Brotherhood wrench their horses around and flee in all directions.

  “Dear God, it is happening! It is really happening!” Mr. Wainright said, the wonder in his voice almost matching my own.

  We launched, the thrust pressing us back into the chairs. The power, the glory of it all closed my eyes for a second. My mind full of speed, trajectory, and a dizzying sense of freedom. I did not know where we were going but, for now, going was enough.

  “Are you doing this? Is this you?” Mr. Wainright asked over the rising hum of acceleration.

  I gathered all my strength and leaned forward to look out the window again. Below us the scattered Brotherhood dwindled into specks upon the shrinking lift-off grid. Too bad I could not see their faces.

  “Yes, this is me,” I said and smiled.

  The Movers of the Stones

  By Neil Gaiman

  Early afternoon, as the sun was setting, I took a piece of mudstone,

  flaked by cunning hands twelve thousand years ago,

  from the pile where the archaeologists discarded their waste,

  took a crayon of brickish ochre from the beach. I coloured in a jut of beach-rock,

  where a chance arrangement of lines and dents had made a fish.

  Or I revealed a fish that had been waiting in the rock.

  Or thousands of years ago, in that rock, someone had carved a fish.

  To the south, up on the hill, Vikings made a village:

  huts, longhouses, and even a hall. The stone outlines remain,

  each habitation's corpse limned by heather and bracken.

  Vantage over the bay. They could see for miles, there.

  The bones of the Earth are stones. We move them, split them, flake them,

  leave cups and lines and hollows in them. Leave stone behind.

  When we leave no trace of flesh or hair or breath.

  When we leave no trace of wood or thatch or corn.

  When we leave no trace of bone or ash or blood.

  As the winter sun rises and falls like the opening of a single eye

  or a bird that flies low on the horizon, then returns to dark

  and all the stars there ever were come out.

  To the north, on a different hill, a stone circle,

  near to the other stones, the ones the old man called the graveyard,

  where something happened, perhaps six thousand years ago.

  The standing centre stone

  where a sharp stone edge cut the child's throat at sun-up,

  in the mid bleakwinter, to bring the sun and warmth and life back to the land.

  If one day, as it may prove, the sun still burns,

  The ones who come after the ones who come after us

  will see, beneath different star-patterns, the old stones here.

  The cairn that keeps the wights beneath from walking,

  besides our Flora's secret tumbledown house.

  They will observe our tumbled walls and boundaries,

  and one might find the fine and fancy neolithic stone

  (carved and hollowed by hands now dead a million years)

  I use to keep the lid on the bin, when the wind gets high.

  They will not know we called ourselves the thinking people.

  They will wonder about us, then say to each other that

  we moved the rocks to nest in, or flaked them by instinct.

  And, pointing to an ochre fish carved on a rock,

  or picking up a flake of mudstone, categorise us,

  with the landslides and the volcanoes,

  as the movers of the stones.

  Old Souls

  By Aiki Flinthart

  On the day that could change everything for me, the sky roils in shades of grief and sorrow. Behind the fallen city, clouds curl into fists that pound the darkening sky and cracked earth. Crumbling buildings—broken teeth in a vast, voiceless mouth—throw purple shadows through warped glass and onto the cottage’s bare floor. Fine white dust billows before the storm, rushes towards the village that huddles between the sluggish river and tangled, regrowing forest.

  The men of the house pace outside on the porch in the fading light. Their boots grate on sand; their coughs and muttered conversation are almost inaudible over a distant rumble of thunder. They will stay there until I call, for they are not needed for the birth of a girl nor the death of an old woman.

  As the storm thickens, I instruct Maya, the elderly soul-bringer, to shutter the windows. Best to keep out any wind-borne toxins left by the long-vanished, unsouled civilization. New lungs should take their first breaths in a clean world; start fresh—as our people had so many years ago. After the collapse.

  Lying on the bloodied bed, her traditional black shift high on her hips, Allody pushes back sweat-soaked hair and blinks blearily at me.

  “Is it time, Soul-Master Jena?” the young mother-to-be whispers, her face drawn with the pain of a long labor.

  “I’m not…” I resist the restless impulse to deny the title of soul-master or to shove bloody fingers through my short hair. I’ve done this a hundred times and more. I am twenty-seven. Young for the honor to come, but experienced enough to deserve it.

  Maybe this will be the one.

  My grandmother used to be a soul-breaker, like me. She never made it to soul-master. Perhaps this time I’ll finally earn the title. The title my grandmother deserved. Then I can finish her work. Show the Council how wrong they are.

  “Yes, it’s time,” I say to Allody and check the baby’s crowning head. “One more push.” A pair of blue-metal scissors lies heavy in my hand. Heavy and sharp. The cutting of so many cords and souls has yet to dull their edge. Mine, yes. The scissors’, no. “Is your soul-bringer ready?”

  Old Maya touches her forehead in a commoner’s sign of respect to a soul-master and shuffles back to her granddaughter’s bed. “I’m ready, Soul-Master Jena.”

  I can’t let it pass a second time, much as I want to.

  “I’m not yet a master.” I try to keep my voice steady and calm. “Still a breaker. Maybe soon, though. Perhaps…” I brandish the scissors; the symbol and tool of my office, “…the piece of your soul I break off so I can bind the rest to this little babe will elevate me to master and into the Council.” I give a tight smile. “We never know which soul-bringing and breaking will do it. Not until I cut the cord.”

  Let it be this time, I pray silently. If breaking for this child paves my path to joining the Council, there is a chance the soul-masters will finally listen to me. Then we can save more people from this painful, unnecessary form of passing.

  I shouldn’t have to replace one life with another. We have enough food and water to support bigger families.

  All lives are of value, n
ot just the newborn.

  I touch Maya’s blue-veined hand. “I do hope it’s this birth. The family that helps a breaker to become a master is richly rewarded by the Council.”

  “That’d be nice,” Maya agrees. “Nice to leave my grandbaby and her girl a softer path through this world. Softer than the one I had, anyways.”

  It takes an effort not to glance around the small cottage, with its uneven walls and floor made of broken concrete. The storm winds whistle through gaps stuffed with rags and mud. A faint haze of dust, smelling of ancient, bitter death, swirls in the room. She’s right. Even in these times, under the too-careful governance of the Council, some have easier lives than others.

  Allody lets out a little gasp and presses a hand to her side. “Breaker Jena!”

  “Hurry, now, Maya,” I say. “The babe will come any moment. You must be ready for the taking. We only have the small time it takes for you to pass over, to transfer your soul to the child. And it must be completed within half an hour of first breath or your soul-offering won’t bind to her.”

  With a weary sigh, Maya lets her long gray hair loose from its bun and discards layer upon layer of patched, gray and brown shawls and skirts. I don’t help. As the mother of two and grandmother of two, she knows what to do. She has been prepared since we knew Allody was having a girl and needed a female soul-bringer.

  Finally, clad only in the bringer’s traditional scarlet shift, Maya crawls into bed with the mother-to-be. Their hands clasp. Tears shimmer in both sets of rust-brown eyes.

  “You sure, Grandma?” Allody asks, her voice breaking. “I’ll miss you so much!”

  Her grandmother nods. “This body is old and tired. Time for a new one.” Her wrinkled smile widens. “Anyways, you wouldn’t want your baby to be an unsouled, would you? Caring for naught but themselves. Killing off the world with greed.” She jerks a thumb at the window, at the ruins silhouetted against a stormy sunset. “You know how it goes. A life for a life. An old soul into a new body. Gotta break and bind to keep the goodness in.”

  This is the way of things since the passing of the unsouled and their near destruction of our world. But it doesn’t need to be. I press my lips tight, holding in the urge to lecture. This ridiculous old belief must stop.

  Could I…? I glance at the young mother. No, not this time. Here, there’s no way to hide what I want to do. She’s healthy and the birth easy. Her husband and father stand outside, waiting to witness the ceremony; waiting for the new little soul-taker to absorb Maya’s worn soul, minus the small piece I break off as my fee.

  The men, the women, the whole village. They all wait for the child to no longer be an unsouled. No longer dangerous, like those whose city crumbles in the storm.

  So we’re told.

  No. This is not the child on whom to continue my tests. I need another birth with no witnesses and no soul-bringer. No blind followers of the Council’s doctrines.

  Five women are gravid in this village and four in the next, including my own little sister—gentle, widowed, Freya. Soon there will be another newborn I do not have to break for or take for. Soon the Council will see their rituals are nothing but hollowness and control. Lies of spun sugar. Sweeteners for the bitterness of killing a grandparent to allow room for a baby in the world.

  And they must see it, since there is no one to be Freya’s soul-bringer. If I help her birth an unsouled and the Council finds out, they will kill the child. Freya’s child. My family. That, I cannot allow.

  Allody grunts and gives a little, whimpering cry. Her face reddens and she holds her breath. The child slides free of her mother’s body. Born into blood and storms.

  I check her over while we wait for the afterbirth. The scissors cut through the cord with the strange crunching sound that always unnerves new mothers. Then I clean and swaddle and place the child between the two women.

  Delight, regret, love, awareness of coming grief…all their feelings shine unguarded as Maya and Allody cradle the child and croon over tiny perfection.

  At my call, the child’s father, uncle and grandfather shuffle into the room, hats in hand, bringing the dusty scent of death and the cold smell of autumn rain with them. When they stand, awed and awkward in the corner, I begin the final ritual.

  The familiar Song of Taking falls from my mouth almost unheeded, its tune first rising, then cascading down. A minor key. Wistful. Full of loss. Behind me the men give forth soft harmonies that fill the room with gentle regret. Learned in childhood. Passed on from generation to generation, along with a belief that the souls are carried on cadence and rhythms and melody from one body to the next.

  Reinforcing the Council’s grip on the world.

  I hold the scissors in a trembling hand. There has to be another method. Why is it a life for a life, a soul given and taken? Surely it hasn’t always been this way?

  Maya’s faded gaze catches mine. Her mouth twists into a wry, understanding smile. “Come, Breaker. You brought baby Dek, next door, into the world without help or singers last week, I hear. He is hale. Now it’s my great-grandchild’s turn.”

  With fingers of paper and bird bone, she grasps my wrist. I swallow and steel myself to match the metal.

  Maya’s hand is wrapped around mine, and mine around the scissor handles. Together we slip the sleek blue blades between her ribs. Her rheumy eyes fix on the babe then on Allody. Tears stream down the new mother’s face and she whispers “Thank you” to her grandmother.

  Maya’s body tenses. A gasp flutters from her lips. Her blood stains the sheets and the child’s swaddling.

  My fingers and blades glisten red as I cut her soul free of the small organ just below her heart. The pale, shining mirror of who she was falls into my waiting hand. A flat plane, like glass. A sharp reflection off water on a clean summer’s day.

  Soul colors vary. Hers is the clearest, brightest I’ve seen in a while. Not a smudge of darkness to be seen. A good soul. The child will grow up kind and thoughtful.

  If you believe the Council’s teachings.

  I hesitate. No. I must follow through this time. I break a small shard off and hold it tight in one hand. It is cold, yet hot at once. Pains tingle up my arm but I cannot release it to freedom, or the binding won’t hold.

  Allody unwraps her child. The baby girl’s legs kick feebly. Her little, perfect fingers grab at nothing. Dark hair lies plastered to her scalp.

  With delicate care, I insert the largest part of her great-grandmother’s soul between brittle little ribs. She squalls and Allody stares at me, wide-eyed.

  “It’s alright,” I reassure her. “That’s normal. It hurts and it won’t bind until I also put the broken piece where it belongs. But then it will heal without a scar and I’ll sing her to sleep.”

  Next, I open my hand and catch the final splinter of Maya’s life between the scissor blades. A glittering fragment that will soon be part of me. Sucking a slow breath, I sing the soul-breaker’s song, trying to control the quaver in my voice. Major scale this time. A steady, unchanging tempo. A song of yearning. Of hope for the future, even when I can’t see any.

  The blades cut neatly through the thick, pink scar tissue over my ribs. I barely feel the sting anymore. With my eyes closed, I find my soul’s holding place easily enough. The scissors drive further, in amongst the myriad of tiny fragments that are my broken, borrowed bits of soul.

  That, I always feel. The pain of sliced flesh followed by the sharper, deeper, darker pain of carrying more and more pieces of other peoples’ lives.

  How many can I hold? My mentor on the Council of soul-masters never mentioned such pain.

  I withdraw the scissors.

  I feel no different.

  Not this time, then.

  My jaw aches with tension. My shoulders, too.

  Surely, I’ve taken enough? Broken enough. Absorbed enough. Killed enough grandparents. Bound enough squalling infants to goodness.

  When will these endless exchanges end and leave me enlightened; wise;
a soul-master? Able to change the Council’s old ways for new.

  My throat closes but I continue to sing. The men’s voices swell into joy and brilliance, filling the tiny room, clearing a way through the thunder now raging outside.

  I dab my blood onto the babe’s closed wound, and murmur her new name, Maya. And it is done. She ceases to cry. Her blue eyes open and stare straight at me with her great-grandmother’s look of wisdom already showing.

  Beside the child, old Maya’s eyes blank and her final breath slips free on a soft sigh.

  #

  I am drenched when I reach my sister’s cottage, one village away. The storm has softened to a drizzle of tears, but another chases after and will roll over the house soon. Lightning claws at the low clouds. Thunder growls a second later.

  My soul-breaker’s blue cloak is soaked through, the wool darkened to midnight. It weighs on my shoulders as heavily as old Maya’s death weighs on my mind. Things shouldn’t be this way.

  I open our little house’s thick wooden door and hang my cloak to dry. My boots go neatly beside my sister’s… and another two pairs.

  One I recognize. They belonged to my brother-in-law, but Freya can’t yet bear to give them away. Redil died six months ago. The unsouled’s city crushed him as he searched for salvage materials to fix a neighbor’s roof.

  He was a good man. Kind. Intelligent. Now, he is lost. A human that cannot be replaced under the Council’s current laws. Just because his soul could not be retrieved in time and no new soul-takers were born.

  I pause, staring at the other pair of boots. They are soul-master green. The color of the old forests, of algae, of envy. Veloni is here. My Council mentor and supervisor. The one who disagrees most with my ideas for how to move our people onto a more certain path to survival.

  In the narrow entryway of neatly laid stone and thickly plastered walls, I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes. My body hurts. It always takes me a day or so to recover from a soul-break and absorption. But this is worse than usual. All of me aches and blood still seeps through the cut between my ribs. Have I done something wrong?