Scavenger of Souls

by Joshua David Bellin

  “Travelers from afar,” he said. “You have heard what we have to say, and listened to the rich offer we have extended to you. Now each of you has a choice to make: accept the path that is laid before you, or refuse that path and fall into the arms of the one who waits. We grant you one day and night more to reflect on this choice, and to answer of your own free will at morning’s first light. But do not deceive yourselves”—and now his eyes lingered on me and Nessa—“in thinking to delay, or to wheedle, or to malinger. Do not think, as some have thought, that we waste breath on idle threats. By tomorrow, the choice must be made: life or death. No other choice is possible.”

  With that he exited the throne and left us, the warriors approaching to take us back to our cell. For once, Nessa seemed too stunned to keep up her composure, and she shuffled forward numbly with the warriors at her back. My head swam as I tried to process what Asunder had said. I’d thought we might have days, weeks, to play his game—time for Aleka to heal, for us to glean useful information from him, even to spot a weakness. But I realized I’d been fooling myself. Why would he wait, when he had us in his power now?

  The cell was as quiet as a tomb. Wali threw himself down in the corner he’d chosen, as far from the rest of us as possible. Nessa kept touching her hair as if to assure herself the knife was still in place. We waited for what seemed like hours, and probably was, but there was no change in the twilight gloom. The guard’s shadow on the curtain never moved. At last I broke the silence.

  “Did you see any ways out?” I asked Nessa.

  “There were lots of recesses in the main cavern,” she said. “But I couldn’t tell if they led to exits or just to more caves.”

  “What about the spring?” I said. “It has to start somewhere.”

  She shook her head. “Aleka and the old woman would never make it. And most of the little ones can’t swim.”

  I nodded, trying to look as if I’d been evaluating our options as thoroughly as she had. The truth was, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I probably couldn’t swim either.

  We talked some more about the layout of the main cavern, the guards at the cell doors, the mismatch in our numbers. The kids too small to run, the members of our colony too weak to fight. The fact that even if we did get out in the open, we had nowhere to run to. The canyon belonged to Asunder. The black rock plateau wouldn’t keep us alive for long. And if Asunder was to be believed, the Scavenger of Souls waited for us if we tried to find refuge there.

  We talked until I knew we had nothing left to say.

  Stick together. The colony is the key. As artificial day dragged into artificial night, Laman’s words returned to me for the umpteenth time. Was it worth saving people’s lives if it meant forfeiting their freedom?

  I didn’t want to say it, but finally I did.

  “Maybe we need to join them. For now, until we figure out a way to free ourselves.”

  Wali surprised me by not saying anything. Adem surprised me even more by speaking up.

  “It might not be so bad,” he mumbled. “You heard what Asunder said about how they’ve restored the canyon. That could be a good thing. Maybe we could . . . help them. With the bioremediation.”

  We all stared at him. Even Nessa seemed surprised to hear that word come from his mouth.

  “Bio-what?” Wali said sharply.

  Back in character, Adem blushed. “Remediation. I heard about it from—from someone. Leeching toxins from the soil. Rebuilding its nutrients. So things can grow again.”

  I knew the someone Adem couldn’t bring himself to name was Laman. But I’d never heard our former commander talk about repairing the land, much less on the scale Asunder had described. The only time he’d come close was the day before he lost control of the colony. He’d spent that whole day trying to rebuild the ruined compound where we’d made our camp, the whole night fighting the Skaldi that had infiltrated our defenses. The Skaldi that had killed Korah and then attacked me. By the light of morning, any hopes we’d had of resurrecting the past had been trampled into the dust with the rest of our dreams.

  “I wonder how they did it,” Adem continued, an unmistakable edge of excitement to his voice. “The things Asunder said. He was talking about bioremediation on a massive scale. Diverting the waste alone would take a lifetime. Plus you’d practically have to scrub the atmosphere clean for anything to grow.” He looked at us eagerly, blushing when no one said anything. “I just don’t see how they could do all that with the technology they have.”

  “How’d you become such an authority?” Wali asked.

  The blush deepened. “Someone told me.”

  Wali laughed bitterly. “So the Stick agrees with our fearless leader that we should stay and help these lunatics out. I say that’s what cowards do.”

  Adem’s face crumpled. Nessa laid a hand on his arm, which didn’t improve his color one bit.

  “I say we’ve had enough of trying to make nice with these nutjobs,” Wali continued. “I say we make our break tonight.”

  “And leave the kids?” I said. “And Aleka?”

  “And return for them later,” he said. “When we can come for them with numbers.”

  “And where are we supposed to find those?” I was aware that I was practically yelling, that the guard could surely hear me, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Admit it, Wali. If you leave, you’re not coming back. You’re leaving everyone else here to rot.”

  He shoved me, the sloppy knots around his wrists snapping with the force. I fell against the wall, remembering how much stronger he was than me. But I faced him anyway. I was too angry to hold back.

  “You’re the coward!” I said. “You’re the one who wants to ditch everyone else to save your own neck!”

  “And you’re the one who wants to kowtow to his majesty!” Wali screamed. “I’ve let you run the show for two days, and in the meantime he’s got Aleka practically in a coma, and the kids walking around like little savages, and you’re still in here talking about appeasing him, not fighting him. The next thing you know—”

  “The next thing you know he’ll be putting one of those collars around my neck!” Nessa shouted. I’d been so focused on Wali I’d practically forgotten she was there. Now she stood between us, her face suffused with fury. “Did you ever stop to think of that? You act like you’re so smart, Wali. You haven’t even noticed the way Asunder looks at me.”

  Wali and I fell silent, staring at her in shock. I was mortified to realize I hadn’t noticed either. “Do you think he—”

  “There’s nothing I think he wouldn’t do,” she said. “You’ve seen the way they treat their women. They’re not Asunder’s children. They’re barely even human. They’re his wives.”

  I tried to say something, but couldn’t.

  “You boys can argue all you want about whether we should stay or go,” Nessa said. “But it’s not the same for you. The worst that can happen to you is death. The worst that can happen to me and Beatrice is life—as that monster’s slave.”

  She faced us, cheeks flushed, eyes on fire. The cell seemed even quieter after all the shouting. Wali flung himself away and retreated to his corner, Adem stumbling to his own. Nessa tore her bonds free, wrapped her arms around her chest, and turned away.

  I tried to approach her, but she wouldn’t look at me. My hand started to inch toward hers before my head had the sense to make it stop. I racked my brain for the right thing to say, to show her I understood. To tell her I knew what it was like to have your life taken away from you. To tell her I would fight for her.

  I wanted to tell her, but I never got the chance. Wali returned from his corner of the cave, and I tensed for another face-off. But he went up to Nessa instead and looked at her, his eyes feverish and wild.

  “I’ll help you,” he said to her. “I won’t let that bastard touch you.”

  She scoffed. “And how are you going to do that?”

  Wali said nothing more, returning to his corner and stretching out on the
mat.

  For the second straight night, sleep laughed in my face. I tormented myself over the choice I’d made, the way I’d failed Nessa and Aleka and everyone. I wished I’d fought with Asunder, refused to go along with him, let Wali take the knife. At least that way, the worst that would have happened to us was death.

  Deep into the night I heard Nessa murmuring to herself.

  “Minach,” I heard her say, turning the word over and over like a stone she was trying to peer beneath. “Minach, minach tivah.”

  I woke from dreams I couldn’t remember to find Nessa shaking my shoulder, speaking my name. Her dusky outline rose before me in the never-changing gloom of our prison cell.

  “Querry,” she whispered sharply. “It’s gone.”

  “What is?”

  “My knife,” she said. “It’s gone.”

  “They took it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s gone.”

  I sat up straight, the fog of sleep clearing at her words. In the dimness of the cave I saw her shape, one hand clutching her braid as if she could make the knife reappear. Then a look of horrified recognition stole across her face, and we both turned to the corner where Wali slept.

  His mat was empty.

  “He can’t have gotten far,” I said. We stood and moved to the curtain that blocked the cave mouth.

  All was quiet beyond. No shadow broke the torchlight from the tunnel. My stomach dropped when I realized what that meant.

  Hesitantly I pulled the screen aside. The light spilled over me like a chill sun.

  In its glow, I saw the guard stretched on the floor, his eyes like mica, his throat a red gash. Blood pooled beneath his head, smeared by his killer’s footprints. Wali had taken the man’s spear, too, but he’d used Nessa’s knife to carve a parting message in the stone.

  Its letters were crude streaks flecked with the guard’s blood, but I could read them clearly, lighter scratches against the tunnel wall’s light.

  He’d written three words: metal cuts better.

  5

  Nessa, Adem, and I tried to follow the bloody trail of footprints, but we didn’t get far.

  We were met by Archangel at the head of a group of warriors, who forced us back to the cave. They stared in horror at the body on the floor, only Archangel’s expression remaining unchanged. Then they retied our bonds securely and led us to Asunder.

  The leader was awake, standing in the throne room with a terrible smile on his scarred face.

  Nessa threw herself at him too fast for the guards to stop her. He made no move to defend himself as she spat violently in his face.

  “You knew!” she screamed. “You knew this would happen! You meant for it to happen!”

  Asunder said nothing as Archangel restrained Nessa. She struggled, tried to bite the giant’s hands. When Archangel held her in his unyielding grip at last, Asunder lifted his voice so that it rang across the cavern.

  “The sons of the despoilers have defiled our sanctuary, spilled the blood of those who offered them priceless gifts!” he boomed. “What punishment befits such a crime?”

  “Behal!” the warriors thundered in a single voice. “Behal Nidach bar Tivah!”

  Asunder smiled cruelly. “Feed them,” he said softly, as if to himself. “Feed them to the Scavenger of Souls. It is just, my children. It is our way.” Raising his arms above his head, he called out to the company, “The Scavenger awaits! Take them to his altar, and there let them be bound to meet their fate!”

  He nodded at Archangel, who half prodded, half dragged me and Nessa across the cavern. Nessa needed a lot more dragging than prodding. Asunder took the lead, and twenty or more warriors flooded after us. I turned to see Adem, Tyris, and Nekane bound and struggling to keep up with their captors’ mad rush. The children of Survival Colony 9 had joined the crowd too, though their hands remained unbound. Their faces looked strangely empty, and though I couldn’t be sure as I was jostled and shoved, it seemed to me they shied from eye contact, all except Zataias. At the very rear of the throng, I glimpsed a stretcher bearing a single pale form, the still-unconscious body of my mother.

  Nessa’s voice was in my ear, speaking in a hushed tone. “He used us, Querry. He used Wali to cement his hold over his people. That’s what this was about all along. The Scavenger of Souls, all the rest of it—it was all a lie to justify a lynching.”

  “You think they killed their own man?”

  Her lip curled. “I wouldn’t be surprised. But Wali was desperate enough to do anything. I wish I’d seen it, I wish I’d said something to him. . . .”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “I let you all down. I let them do this to you.”

  Nessa sighed. “It’s no good playing the blame game, Querry,” she said. “What we’ve got to do now is look for a way out. We wanted them to free us from this place.” Her smile didn’t soften the determination in her eyes. “It looks like we’re about to get our wish.”

  She was right. We stampeded to the cavern’s far end, where two warriors with spears blocked another exit. They sprang aside as if Asunder’s eyes had physically repelled them. The new tunnel we charged down was much broader than the one from two days ago, though the lack of torches suggested it wasn’t used much. In a few minutes I saw what looked like daylight patterning the stone, and moments later we reached the tunnel’s end, two more armed warriors stepping out of our way as we burst into the outside world.

  I blinked in sunlight every bit as bright but nowhere near as dazzling as the gem-fire of Grava Bracha. From the ledge where we stood, I saw that we remained within the canyon, but farther north than where we’d been captured, with the western wall rearing hundreds of feet across the open space and the clear-flowing river unfurling below. I had no time to take in the view before the crowd surged forward again, carrying us up a steep trail that clung to the canyon’s eastern face. The sun hammered down on us, and though a wind tousled the cave dwellers’ hair, it was the hot, stifling wind I’d known all my life. I gasped on the dusty air, felt my skin prickle under the beating sun. It was as if this trail marked a dividing point, an invisible boundary between the island they claimed as their own and the surrounding waste they had worked to keep at bay.

  The crowd forced us upward at an almost inhuman pace. I tried to catch a glimpse of Aleka and the little kids, but Archangel’s unbreakable grip prevented me. All I could see were spears and bare bodies, and all I could hear were pounding feet and the angry muttering of the mob. Asunder’s cloak flamed ahead of me. The heat of the day and the heat of the warriors pressing around me made me feel light-headed and dizzy, and I wondered if, in the end, what they called the Scavenger of Souls was only a euphemism for pitching their enemies headfirst over the cliff to be splattered on the canyon floor.

  Finally we stopped. The warriors grew instantly silent, their rumbling replaced by the moan of the wind. A combination of wonder and dread twisted my stomach.

  We stood at the highest point of the canyon. At this height the gorge had divided like an opened scar, the western side hazy with distance. The trailhead offered enough room for everyone, but I leaned away from the drop, a feeling of vertigo taking hold. Asunder stood where the trail cleared the rim of the canyon, his arms crossed over his scarred chest. But he didn’t need to point for my eyes to find what he wanted us to see.

  The table of black rock we’d walked two days ago stretched out to the east, its lifeless expanse gleaming in the sun. Nothing moved in that inky waste, no speck of dust stirring in the hot wind. None of the rock formations or mounds we’d seen farther south blocked our view. But a mile or so away, a single shape bulged out of the dead land: a towering heap of night-black stone, a hundred feet tall at least, topped with twin spikes like horns. Seeing it through the blur of heat and glaring light, I realized I was seeing the peculiar illustration from the first tunnel, painstakingly reproduced to mirror the real: the rough, irregular outline, the tapering peak, the perfect symmetry of the horns. It stood t
oo far away for me to tell if it had been shaped by human hands. But it reminded me enough of the Skaldi nest that a shiver ran through me despite the pounding heat of the late morning sun.

  I knew without asking, without even thinking, what this place was.

  The altar of the Scavenger of Souls.

  Asunder stood silent for a moment, his cloak snapping in the wind, his brilliant eyes piercing the molten air. Then, in a voice that echoed across the empty land like the crack of a whip, he began to speak.

  “My children!” he said. “In this place, as we have done since the days of our first becoming, we gather to cast the unrighteous from our midst. We have spoken to the darkness, we have relinquished to the void those tricks and traps of the despoilers that would poison our hearts and enslave our minds. We have glimpsed a new life, the life of the faithful. Aya tivah bis, shashi tivah bracha. We have vowed to pursue the way of the righteous, that the wickedness of those who came before might perish utterly from the land.”

  His black eyes roved the crowd. His followers nodded fiercely at his words, or maybe at his commanding tone. I saw little Bea’s head nodding too, though I couldn’t believe she accepted or even understood half of what he said.

  “In the days of old,” Asunder continued, “the despoilers laid claim to this land, and in those days the land sickened and failed, and the skies darkened, and the great many perished in fire and ash. Shashi bis, tivah bracha. And yet there was one”—and his voice rose to an exalted pitch—“one man who resisted the despoilers’ ways, and who did not suffer their sentence. This man took himself out into the waste, to pray and to be healed, and there he wrestled with a demon of the pit, and lo! though his body was broken he heard a voice speaking through the purified vessel of his soul. And this man traveled the land, gathering those who would heed his word, and he foretold that the children of the despoilers would bow down before the children of the light. And in the fullness of time these accursed sons of accursed fathers would be marked for all the world to see, and bound to the altar of the Shattered Lands, a fit sacrifice for the one we name Nidach bar Tivah. The malice-striker, the one who tears at flesh. The scourge of the unbeliever: the Scavenger of Souls.”