The God Eaters

by Jesse Hajicek

  Kieran was the only ghoul-witch they had. Possibly the only one alive. Apocryphal accounts told that possessors of this Talent rarely survived its first manifestation.

  That, according to Kieran, was because the Watch killed them. Apparently his tribe, the Tama, had produced several ghoul-witches and a great number of storm-callers, and that was one reason the tribe was nearly extinct now. In the first years of the Annexation, the Commonwealth had slaughtered Tama on sight, lest their dangerous Talents prove a military problem later. This was just hearsay, though; no records remained of that time except the heavily edited versions the government allowed.

  Ash doubted that Kieran's rarity was relevant to the purpose of Churchrock, though, because the other Talents were mostly common ones. That irritating Duyam Sona, for instance, was a kinetic.

  The only serious clue Ash was able to gather was that more than one inmate had been probed for Talents in the plural, or overheard reference to that concept, though none actually possessed more than one. That was interesting, but didn't seem to justify this elaborate facility.

  Nor did it inspire any escape plans. But Ash thought it was sweet of Kieran to pretend that escape was possible.

  Which is what he was doing the day after their baths, clinging to the bars like a monkey in a zoo, rattling every moving part he could find. "It's a simple lever thing. Really basic. They push that handle down and this bar up here slides. If I jammed a rock or something in there just before they closed it, I bet this strut here would pop right off."

  "Leaving us locked in for perpetuity." Ash sighed. "Kieran, please get down. How am I supposed to soft-soap the guards if you keep making them mad?"

  "They don't care. I see people climbing on the bars all the time." Nevertheless he hopped down, bending to peer at the lock mechanism. "If I had anything heavier to pick it with -- maybe a spoon handle? No, too fat. The problem is the weight of the bolt."

  "The problem is that they're not idiots. We're not going to be able to get out any way anyone's thought of before, because the designers of this place will have thought of it too."

  "So we'll get creative. Chin up, kid. We're not like the rest of these poor fuckwits."

  "Sure. We're smarter than the average prisoner, right?"

  "Right. Hey, you got room in your book for the guard schedules? I notice there's one guy who goes to sleep on the gun post. He was napping yesterday when we went for out baths."

  Ash made a sour face, fingers feeling for the scab on his jaw where the prison barber had cut him. "That lummox of a barber is full of fun facts, but he cut hell out of my face. You don't know how lucky you are that you don't have to shave. Maybe I should grow a beard. I'm going to end up looking like a taxidermy experiment otherwise."

  "What's wrong with a few scars? You have a problem with looking like me?" Kieran scratched the white slash that divided one of his eyebrows, then smiled to show it was a joke. "At least we get baths. I was afraid we wouldn't."

  Ash remembered yesterday's effort to remain calm despite the sight of Kieran naked, and the thought threw him off his stride, but he tried to keep up the bantering tone. "You think if I change my last name they'll let me in the bath before the water's brown?"

  "If that worked, we'd all be named 'Aaaaaa.' I'm surprised we get to bathe at all. Water's expensive around here."

  "I guess. Anyway, you were saying. The gun post. Was that Sunday?"

  "Yeah. Huh. It just occurred to me it's kind of weird that there's no temple service."

  Ash gave him a wry look. "Don't tell me you're religious, Kieran."

  "That would be funny. But no, it's just that at Tiyamo we had to sit through a sermon every morning, and three hours of it on Sundays. Like they thought it was going to reform us, hearing about all the bloody destruction Dalan visited on the Herenites or whatever. I just think it's weird that there's nothing like that here."

  "I didn't really notice. I haven't been to temple since grammar school, myself."

  "They let you get away with that up north?"

  "Who? The Watch? Not much they can do about it."

  "Really? 'Cause in Burn River, if the cops catch you on the street during worship time, they'll for sure make you go to the temple, and probably beat you up a bit first. They see you skipping temple a bunch of times, you're likely to get arrested for moral degeneracy. Or if you're a native they might charge you with demon worship. Which of course there's no way to disprove, so --"

  He sliced a finger across his neck. "What did you do, stay in all day with the curtains pulled?"

  "Kieran, there's three and a half million people in Ladygate, if you count the suburbs. There aren't enough police or Watchmen in the whole Commonwealth to arrest them all. I don't think there are temples enough to hold everyone, if they all decided to go, so it wouldn't make much sense to try to force them. Of course, businesses have to be closed during worship time, you can really catch hell for being open on Sunday morning. At least, if you're too obvious about it. But a lot of places have the door unlocked and the curtains closed, and serve people anyway, kind of unofficially, and the cops mostly let them get away with that." Ash paused, floored by a wave of homesickness. "I wish I'd taken a better look at the city when I got arrested. So I could remember it more clearly. But I couldn't bring myself to believe I wouldn't be coming back."

  "When we get out of here you can go anywhere you want. And quit making that face. Every time I try to work on our escape plan, you get this look like you're telling a terminal case he's going to be fine. It doesn't help."

  "Sorry." Ash wasted a moment trying to figure out what his face looked like when he did the expression Kieran was complaining about, but gave up. "What do you want me to do?"

  "I already said. Take notes on the guard schedules. I'll be lookout."

  Ash got out his book and opened it to a blank page. After a few minutes of careful printing, he looked up. "We have to make up names for the guards. They won't tell their real ones. Some kind of regulation. I think it's meant to keep them from getting friendly with us."

  "So make up some descriptive nicknames."

  He did that for a while. Some time later, another thought occurred to him. "Kieran? What day was it that we had that storm?"

  "Huh. I lost track. About a week and a half ago? Day before Sona broke your glasses, I think.

  You're putting the weather in your book too?"

  "I noticed that the gun post opposite was deserted. I need to figure out whether that was the day or the storm."

  "Why didn't you tell me then?"

  "You were being grouchy."

  "Well, next time don't be such a baby. We should talk to someone from the opposite side and see if the post above us was vacant too."

  Ash hadn't quite finished writing when the bell rang for dinner. At the sound, his stomach growled. They only got two meals a day, and that just wasn't enough. He thought he might be still growing. Not just taller, but bulking out a bit too. "Hey Kieran," he said as they waited for their tier to be opened. "Do I look any less skinny than I did when I first got here?"

  "Probably," Kieran said without looking. "Starchy food. Starchy and greasy. Potatoes and pork.

  Eugh."

  They had to be quiet while being lined up and counted, but Ash picked up the thread when they reached the mess hall. "What's your favorite food?"

  "Aw, kid, don't do that to me."

  "Come on."

  "Rice balls. This lady I used to know, Shou-Shou, she made these rice balls that were so spicy they'd make your eyes melt right out of your head. You take the rice, see, and some peppers and onions and stuff, and whatever meat you've got, and moosh it all together like that, and you fry it

  --"

  "That's not greasy?"

  "Not if the oil's hot enough. You use oil, not lard."

  "I miss cooking."

  "Cooking? You?"

  "Well, it's not like I had people to do it for me. Aunt Isobel and I split the chores between us, and cooking was on
e of my jobs. But I like it. When we're rich and famous I'll make you some of my Yelorrean beef stew. I'm Yelorrean really, you know."

  Kieran snagged a lock of Ash's hair. "Naaah."

  "Hey, not every redhead is. But my family's from there. They say real Yelorrean beef stew you should be able to stand the spoon in it. Mine, you can plant a flag and lean on it."

  "This is a selling point?"

  "It's good. It contains no grease. And plenty of pepper. You'd like it. How do you get rice in the desert? Isn't that expensive?"

  "They grow it in the highlands, I guess. I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, food comes from the grocer's. Unless you shoot it yourself. Anyway, quit torturing me. You do realize that even if we talk ourselves delusional about good food, what we're really eating is -- what is this, anyway?"

  "Casserole, I think. I'm fairly sure this rubbery white business is some kind of noodle. Unless it's tripes."

  "Shit. Thanks so much."

  "I don't care. I'm starving." Ash shoveled up a mouthful and chewed consideringly. "It's edible.

  Marginally. You know, for a hard case, you sure are picky about food."

  Kieran shrugged. "Never gave a damn about gambling, girls, or liquor, so what else was I going to spend my blood money on? Well, clothes and weapons mostly, but I could afford to eat right.

  Not a lot of expenses when you're piling up a debt to society the size of mine." Kieran grinned, as if he found the mention of his crimes amusing.

  "Oh." A bit embarrassed to have gotten them onto that subject, Ash gave his tray of -- whatever -

  - his full attention. But even with the sense of having tread on the edge of shaky ground, he felt as calm and happy as when Kieran had let him braid his hair. This was really pleasant, talking for no reason except to make conversation. Not to make plans or test each other's strength, just chatting. Because they were friends, or getting to be.

  This, Ash thought, is a little excessive. I'm in the Heaven of Serenity just because he's acting normal around me? A little amiable small talk doesn't make this a best-buddies-forever kind of situation. And it certainly doesn't mean he has the slightest romantic interest in me. Not that I'm sure I'd want him to, under these circumstances, that could be really dodgy. Even an obvious friendship could be dangerous. I really shouldn't be smiling like this.

  Despite this reasoning, the feeling persisted, and Ash couldn't bring himself to fight it. It made the food taste better, anyway.

  "Hey, Ash." Kieran sounded a bit hesitant, which made Ash's heart beat faster -- until the rest of the sentence turned out to be: "Watch past me and tell me when nobody's looking over here."

  "Why?"

  "Testing a theory. Here, stack my tray under yours."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Probably something idiotic. Is anybody --?"

  "Yeah, wait. Okay. Now."

  Kieran vanished under the table. After ascertaining that no one seemed to have noticed, Ash bent over his supper to conceal the fact that he was talking. "Kieran, what in the world --?"

  "Ignore me," was the reply from the floor.

  Ash borrowed one of Kieran's expressions: "Huh."

  When the inmates were lined up for yard time, no one pointed out that they were one person short. Ash had thought Kieran's absence would be obvious; he was, after all, possibly the tallest human being Ash had ever seen. Surely someone would notice that there was no big grinning Iavaian sticking up over everybody's heads. But no one commented. The count after the exercise period would show Kieran missing, but for now the line shuffled out as usual.

  They're not even paying attention, Ash thought. Is that what he was testing?

  And now he was, for the first time, in the yard without Kieran. Without that tall shadow beside him, he felt terribly exposed. He sincerely hoped people had the foresight to realize that this didn't make him fair game. Maybe he shouldn't have declined to identify those who'd said nasty things to him out of Kieran's earshot. A little calculated retribution might have been a good idea after all. Although no one had been really obnoxious since Duyam Sona had broken down.

  Maybe it had sobered everyone.

  Anyway, he had work to do. One of the men who'd been least hostile to Ash's previous questions was enough earlier in the alphabet that Ash thought he might have noticed about the gun post the day of the storm. It took a while to find the fellow; he was sitting down, over in a corner of the fence, obscured behind people's legs. He looked like he was trying to fall asleep and half succeeding. Or maybe, Ash amended when he got closer, the man was trying to wake up and mostly failing.

  "Hartnell." Ash squatted next to him. "Hey. Hartnell."

  "Um?" Hartnell's eyes opened a slit, then closed again.

  "What's the matter with you? Bad morning in Testing?"

  "Uh. Yeah."

  "Sorry to bug you, then. But I just have a little question."

  "S'okay."

  "You remember when there was that thunderstorm last week?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Did you notice whether there was anyone in the gun post above my tier? Because the one above yours was deserted."

  "Oh."

  "So did you notice?"

  "What?"

  "Come on, Hartnell. You're making me nervous. Pay attention."

  "Go 'way. I'm fine."

  "You don't sound fine. Maybe you should move over into the shade." He tugged Hartnell's arm, but couldn't get him to move.

  "Nah. M'okay."

  What was wrong with the man? Heatstroke? Food poisoning? Or was this what repeated Surveys would eventually do to everyone? This vague, sleepy stupidity reminded Ash of a girl he'd seen once who'd suffered a botched version of the Excision all female Talents had to undergo. But Ash couldn't think of any reason the Watch would want to Excise a prisoner's Talent; if they were done with him they'd just kill him. The situation was creepy, frankly.

  A shadow fell over him. "What're you doing to that poor bastard?"

  Ash squinted upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and recognized Sona's bald, bearded friend, Gibner. Oh, this just gets better and better. He aborted a motion to stand, thinking he had a better chance of avoiding a fight if he stayed down here, being harmless. "There's something wrong with him. I think he's sick."

  "No shit. They have him out two, three times a week. Must have a real interesting Talent."

  "But he's just a Pyro, like half the guys in here. And he was fine yesterday."

  Gibner took half a step back. "If he's really sick, you better say goodbye. They don't waste medicine on the likes of us. Where's your sugar daddy?"

  "He's not, not that you care. He'll be along shortly. He's not out of the picture, if that's what you're asking, so don't bother picking on me."

  The bald man snorted. "He doesn't understand anything, and neither do you. Fighting's just about the only fun we can have around here. But Trevarde's so tough, he throws the whole thing out of balance, the way he knocks people back without even looking. I figure half the guys in this yard would love to stick a knife in him just so things can get back to normal. You can tell him I said that, too."

  Ash shook his head. "I know what he'd say." Ash put on a blandly sardonic Kieran-face. "So fight each other. Long as you leave me out of it, I don't give a fuck what you do with your time."

  Gibner chuckled in grudging appreciation. "Yeah, that's what he'd say, I bet. But who wants to spit teeth for second place?" The yard noise changed suddenly, and the man pointed at the door with his beard. "Speaking of spitting teeth..."

  Ash followed his gaze, and what he saw made him leap to his feet, heart jammed like a rusty machine. Two tan-uniformed prison guards and one white-coated Watchman were hauling Kieran into the yard, half carrying and half dragging him. His face was slicked with blood. They threw him at the ground, and one delivered a parting kick that aborted his first effort to stand.

  Not even conscious of who he was shoving, Ash elbowed and thrashed his way through the clustering prison
ers. He reached Kieran as the tall Iavaian finally managed to get his feet under him. Trying to be helpful, he grabbed Kieran's arm.

  The next thing he knew, he was sprawled on his back, tasting blood where his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek.

  "Ow," he said mildly.

  Kieran swayed over him, unapologetically offering the blood-smeared hand that had bruised Ash's face a moment earlier. "Shit, don't jump me like that. I coulda killed you." He hauled Ash upright, then did a strange little shimmy, as if shaking his bones back into place; rolling his neck and arms, making faces. One of his eyes was in the process of swelling shut, and the lower part of his face was so bloody that it was hard to tell exactly where he was hurt. The hand he hadn't offered looked puffy and awkward. He stood with a slight stoop, listing like a sinking ship.