The God Eaters

by Jesse Hajicek

  Kieran was scared of him.

  It didn't make much sense. The guy was a little weird-looking, and obviously pretty high in the Watch, but he hadn't done anything yet but stare. Still, Kieran was irrationally certain that this man, out of all the Watch, was the one who knew how to really hurt him.

  "Do you dream?"

  The sudden question startled Kieran into a confused reply. "What? Dream? I guess so.

  Sometimes."

  "True dreams."

  Visions. The man was talking about his visions. The game was up. "I don't think so," Kieran lied.

  "Do you have any special connection to the weather?"

  "Connection?" Kieran frowned puzzlement, avoided thinking of how his visions took him into the clouds to see whether any rain was coming. "Sorry, but what are you getting at?"

  "Do you have any memories of past lives?"

  "No -- I mean, that's heresy, right? Not that I guess that would matter here --" He caught himself and shut his mouth firmly. You're losing it. He's just another Watchman, you big baby. But he was sure that his answers had been wrong.

  The Director rose. "Come with me."

  The command was delivered in an ordinary tone, but it lashed puppet strings to Kieran's limbs and hauled him helplessly along. A passenger in his own body, Kieran fought a swell of panic.

  Outside the room, Warren saluted some more. "Sir. Do you want a subject brought to the Testing room?"

  "Yes." The Director glanced at Kieran. "Someone he cares about, if that's possible. A personal acquaintance."

  The impending panic burst wide open in Kieran's chest; part of him watched while the rest shook to his pounding heart, sweated, made clumsy steps in the wake of the Director's will. The part that watched was able to remark that he'd known Ash would not last long in this place, that he should not have grown as attached as he had, that it was his own stupid fault if this broke him.

  The rest was an injured animal on a leash, thrashing in helplessness.

  I won't do it. But he couldn't say it out loud. The compulsion to obedience was too strong. I won't.

  He was taken to the room. Put in the chair. Strapped down. Hunched there shuddering and rageful, twisting at the bonds of the Director's command. There he waited for what felt like days, while the man in the white-on-white uniform flipped idly through a stack of papers he'd brought with him. His vision blurred, his nose ran, his throat closed, but he couldn't even weep, the leash on his mind held him so tightly.

  The door opened; footsteps entered. Kieran strained to see, escape, attack, anything, while the prisoner he was to kill was brought into his field of vision.

  Duyam Sona.

  It was all he could do not to laugh out loud, not betray his relief. Not Ash. It wasn't Ash. Ash was safe from his murderous power. Nothing else mattered.

  The Director looked between the two Iavaians with mild interest. "Did you select this one for his resemblance to the subject? I require an emotional bond, Colonel."

  "I'm afraid Trevarde doesn't seem to bond much with anyone, sir. But he won't wish to kill another native."

  "You misunderstand me, Colonel. This is not intended as a form of psychological torture. But if this is the best you can provide, then I suppose the distant blood tie will have to suffice. Ready him."

  Kieran couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Colonel must have known that he and Ash were inseparable. Anyone with eyes knew that. Warren had lied to the Director. Why? Not just so he could continue to train students on Ash's faint Talent. Could it be that he actually felt some pity for his charges? It didn't matter right now. All Kieran needed to know was that the man before him could die without breaking anything Kieran needed to keep, and that was enough.

  The Director came over to Kieran's chair and wrapped a long, cool hand around the back of his neck, a strangely gentle gesture. "Kieran Trevarde, kill this man."

  Compulsion was like cold water running down his throat; his intention could do nothing to halt it, and it slithered inside him unchecked by his resistance. He jammed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, but already the hand of his heart was uncoiling. He had to fight, had to refuse, because he needed the visions, needed the pain to send him out, but it was all happening too fast.

  Then it came to him. 'Kieran Trevarde, kill this man.' Kieran's not my real name -- and by the way, which man did you mean?

  By his mind's sight, he found bright knots of life inside the room, felt them like breath on his skin. Sona's aching flame of fear, the glassed-in shape of Warren, and the icy serpent of the Director's will coiled around all their throats, familiar as his own nightmares. He would not touch that last, was afraid to touch it. But Warren -- he'd never realized how fragile those shields were all this time. A sharp shock easily shattered them. He heard a gasp as he dug his thoughts' fingers into the tough join between soul and flesh and pried with all his strength. Pain came, but it wasn't enough. Kieran dug deeper.

  "Colonel, control your subject. Colonel!" A sharp sigh of exasperation; then a pain that made Warren's psychic tortures look like a head cold came pouring along Kieran's nerves.

  Kieran lost his grip, his focus, his breakfast, and the contents of his bladder. The intensity of it, the shock, kept him present and aware long enough to hear his own scream fail into a rack of sobbing whimpers, heart straining, diaphragm convulsing, shredded thoughts crying I don't want it after all, why did I want this? Then the window deep inside opened and let him out.

  Wind cleansed him, sweetly cold at this altitude. The desert was lush under him, blooming with pale flame colors, wallowing in the season of storms. Those storms' trails were apparent in scars cut into the earth, the red ropes and fans of erosion. The air tasted fresh, wet, full of ozone.

  Where was that smell coming from? The sky was blue and empty.

  He rose higher, until Churchrock was lost among the shadows of the ground. For the first time in one of these visions he was aware of his body, saw his own brown legs curled beneath him. Held out his arms before him and saw the skin blank of tattoos, scarless, and wound with a weight of gold that could buy the world, but which was not heavy. His strength was enormous. He inhaled, and rose into the wind, laughing as his hair beat his back with a thousand gold-weighted braids.

  A king, an emperor of the air, all below belonged to him. He rose until the earth's curvature was visible, until the sky's blue darkened around him.

  Now the only features he could make out were swaths of color, wrinkles and smooth places. To the west, the mountains blended into one snow-riddled scar that curled around the world out of sight, and beyond them there was only cloud.

  It streamed through the passes and built high enough to smear against the sky, white above, purple inside, and roiling like a boiling kettle. Its shadow was solid black. It was the mother of all storms, coming to show the desert that spring was not a gentle season. This was it; this was what he needed.

  Come! he commanded it. Come here to Iaka'anta with your hailstones, your sweet winds, your tornado claws to dig this abomination out of the ground and fling its dust into the sky. Come free me. Free me so well that I can never be locked in again.

  And he felt the storm answer.

  He came back to a body as weak as water, riddled with a thousand aches, reeking, and he didn't care. A voice was blabbering at him, but that was somehow soothing; after a moment he realized that this was because it was speaking Iavaian.

  "All crazy," it was saying. "All of you. Why didn't you just do it? No wonder you're going extinct. I would have done it. But no, you have to do your Tama thing and spit in their eyes and make them kill you. Dumb bastard."

  "I'm not dead," Kieran muttered. He pried his eyes open to meet Sona's bewildered glare. Was it his imagination, or did the man look grudgingly relieved at that?

  "You will be soon enough, you keep pushing them like that. Why didn't you just do it?"

  Kieran managed a wan smile. "I like to make them mad. It's a Tama thing."

  "Well,
they're mad. Now do the thing. Let me out."

  Before Kieran could reply, the door opened and Warren and the Director came into his line of sight. Warren said, "Are you ready to cooperate now?"

  "Wait," said the Director. He peered into Kieran's eyes, touched his throat and forehead. "I want him at full strength. It isn't often that I have leisure to observe one of these under controlled circumstances. We'll attempt this again tomorrow." He turned to Warren. "That will give you time to improve your personal wards."

  The Colonel flushed from pink to purple. "Yes, sir." He gestured a brace of tan-uniformed guards into sight. "Put them back. Clean that one up first."

  As Kieran was jelly-legging out the door between his guards, a white uniform jogged past and into the chair room. Kieran heard the rustle of paper, and: "Director Thelyan, sir, urgent message for you from the Central Office."

  Thelyan? Thelyan... The name snagged in Kieran's mind, like a foreign word he'd once known the meaning of. He stumbled deliberately, lurching hard against one of the guards and letting his legs splay out from under him.

  "How inconvenient. Why can't these rebels ever cause trouble on a weekend, eh, Colonel? I must leave immediately; we'll have to continue this another time. I won't be in Rainet more than a week, I expect -- I assume you can keep my subject alive for a week?"

  The guards got Kieran upright again at that point, and Warren's reply to the Director's dry tone was lost in the clatter of their boots. But he'd heard enough. Director Thelyan was leaving, the storm was coming, and the only way it could be better would be if his muscles didn't feel so much like they were made of damp string.

  --==*==--

  Ash was sitting just as Kieran had left him, staring at the floor. Kieran laughed; relief, anticipation maybe. Ash looked up, dull-eyed, as Kieran stumbled to his bunk. The guards had thrown him in the bath with his clothes on, and he was still dripping. Wobbly, but not nearly as weak as he should have been.

  "What's funny?" Ash demanded. He didn't seem much interested in the answer.

  "Come over here."

  A pause. Then Ash pried himself upright, dropped himself at Kieran's side. When Kieran's arm went around his shoulders, he twitched, then froze. Kieran put his mouth to Ash's ear and whispered.

  "We're leaving tonight."

  He drew back to watch expressions blossom across Ash's features. Surprise, then hope, then suspicion. Kieran remembered how it had been to think Ash would be the one he'd be made to kill, and tightened his hand on the pale boy's shoulder.

  "You're playing with me," Ash accused.

  "Get your book."

  Ash blinked. His eyes began to regain their light. "My god. You're serious. You're actually going to stake our lives on this rickety plan you've been hinting at."

  "Yes, I told you. And it's going to work. Get out your book, I need to see the guard schedules."

  Ash obeyed, but his nostrils flared as he turned the pages. The smolder of dull pain in his eyes was waking to rebel fire, and it was beautiful to see. "You're going to get us killed. You're going to get me killed, and I'm going to die not even knowing how it was supposed to work, if it worked, which it won't, because you didn't tell me."

  "I thought you said you trusted me."

  "I did say that." Looking up into Kieran's face, Ash visibly snapped awake, finished the process of leaving his private fear. His pupils dilated, blood rushed to his sunburned cheeks and chapped lips, and he sat up fractionally straighter. "Yes, all right; of all the things I could do today, trusting you is one of my better options. I'm with you."

  "Besides," Kieran went on, "so what if we die? It's not like we're going to lead long, productive lives in here. What have you got to lose?"

  At this, a ghost of humor crept into Ash's expression. "Well, I'd rather not die a virgin."

  Kieran snorted. "Figures. You act like one. Now quit sidetracking me and tell me who's overnight on our tier tonight."

  "Uh... Blondie and Squarehead."

  "Where are they for afternoon? Are they on at all?"

  "I've never seen Squarehead pull an afternoon shift. I think he's strictly nights. Blondie could be anywhere."

  "Shit. All right, if Blondie's out, who subs for him?"

  Ash hesitated. "Look, you're not going to try that old dodge, are you?"

  "Which?"

  "Eek, eek, I'm sick, come in my cell so I can whack you on the head."

  "No. Just find the sub."

  After some study and mumbling, Ash gave a humorless laugh. "That would be either Fidget or Shithead."

  "What? Who's Shithead?"

  "Your supplier." Ash spat the word.

  "Damn, kid. What a name. Jealous?"

  "Angry. Look, let's just --" His hand flung air away.

  "Okay, okay. Fidget would be the one who's always got his fingers in his eyes, right? That's fine.

  That's perfect." Kieran motioned Ash close again. He couldn't afford for anyone to overhear even the fact that someone was whispering, so he put his lips close enough to brush the skin and barely breathed the words. "It goes like this. Memorize it and don't ask questions."

  "That's ridiculous," Ash said when Kieran had finished. He was bright pink, and sitting sort of hunched over; Kieran had given him a thrill with the ear thing. "You're hanging it all on a hallucination? You can't possibly be that sure --"

  "Shut up, for fuck's sake! Shit, blab it to everyone, why don't you?"

  "Sorry. Okay. But the question stands."

  "It's a risk. Yeah. But if I'm right, we'll never get a better chance. We won't live to see a better chance. I'd ask if you're in, but I'm not giving you a choice."

  "Of course I'm in." Ash hugged his book to his chest. "And I do trust you. It's everything else I don't trust." His voice dropped to a whisper. "My god. Tonight. By this time tomorrow..."

  "Don't think about it. Hope will just distract you."

  Chapter Ten

  "Trying to start a fashion, boys? You won't get new shirts when winter comes, you know. You'll freeze your stupid asses off."

  "Yes, sir." Kieran let the struggle to keep a straight face show; he'd look like that no matter what his reason for having torn the sleeves off Ash's shirt. He wasn't nervous yet; there was no way for his face to betray the fact that a scrap from one of Ash's sleeves was holding a flap of hammered-flat spoon over the lock mechanism of their door, poised to pivot when the tier was opened, and that Kieran had just heard it clink perfectly into place. The guard glanced between them, alike in sleevelessness, and at the rag of blue-gray cloth Ash was wearing as a bandanna, and let it go.

  "Go on, get in line."

  Ash muttered, "You mean it gets cold here ever?"

  "Sure it does. Freeze the tits off a statue," Kieran replied.

  "No talking! Straighten it out, there."

  As the line moved out, Kieran darted a glance back, but couldn't see the rag or the spoon. That was good. No one else would see it either.

  Padding barefoot along the stone, Kieran picked a particularly gritty bit of corridor and did a startled shuffle-step, went the rest of the way at a half-limp. Once inside the mess hall, he dropped out of line to lean against a table. As he pretended to pry a splinter out of his foot, he watched Ash go through the supper line in his usual place. He kept up the splinter act just long enough to be last in line.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ash leave his tray and walk straight to Sona's table. Not so obvious, idiot! It looks planned! But neither of the two guards near the door reacted. Come to think of it, people really did plan that kind of thing, brooded for days before calling someone out, so Ash's awkwardness was right in character. The white boy bent over Sona, talking in a low voice, and Sona jerked upright with a look of angry suspicion.

  Come on, come on, take the bait. It didn't look like Sona was going for it. Kieran was at the end of the line, the last lump of boiled vegetables was being dumped on his tray. If the distraction didn't happen, today was a no-go. If it happened late, this whole
part of the plan would have to be reworked before they could try again. The cook shoved the ladle back in the pot of vegetables and turned away. Now, damn it! Say anything, just get him mad already! It's not like the man is a fucking saint --

  Ash stepped back and threw his hands up, giving in -- then suddenly flicked Sona's tray into his lap with a nasty smirk. In an instant, the Iavaian was off the bench and swinging.