“Unless,” the woman said, leaning forward and making the room feel very small, “you didn’t actually come here for the reason you implied.”
Had Alia led me into a trap? Perhaps all her guilt during our trek here didn’t stem from regretting the procedure. Right now, for all I knew, she could be stealing away with my camel, my only means back to the main road. So much for my ability to read people.
My body froze as the two bald women threw the sack over my head. Perhaps I’d get my answers after all, I thought with fear and revulsion and a faint glimmer of curiosity.
“You’ll answer my questions before we get started, right?” I asked the darkness cynically. A door creaked open, the only reply.
They hustled me through what felt like a long hallway, then came the jingle of keys and the groan of another door opening, a heavy one. They pushed me through and shut it behind us. Finally the sack came off. This room was round and white, with a table in the center and a tall door straight in front of me with an enormous brass lock. We must’ve come through a similar door behind me, although I hadn’t heard them relock it. I glanced at the door across from me and then at the workers’ pockets, hoping to spy the outline of a ring of keys, but the fabric was too thick or the keys too well stowed.
They led me to the table, which looked suspiciously like an altar, and instructed me to strip down. They stayed in the room while I did so. Somehow, my face felt most naked of all. I folded my clothes and set them near the wall. The workers stood to either side of the table and directed me to lie on it. My jaw clenched as the chilly surface met my back. My feet felt distant and numb. I wiggled my left toes, just to be sure I still could, but one of the workers shot her hand around my foot like a falcon gripping a vole.
“Please hold still,” she said none too pleasantly.
By now, my curiosity had dissipated. My pulse raced at their clammy touches. My vision blurred. Were those curved walls sliding in toward me? I tried to swallow, but my mouth felt dry as though full of pulverized hair residue—dust. What was to stop their magic from reducing all of me to dust, not just my hairs? Perhaps that was the fate of tempted shrouders.
“We’re ready to begin,” one of them said. The other produced a needle. They reached toward me.
I panicked.
I cast spells on them using my own hairs, temporarily blinding them, cramping their muscles, burning their skin. My own skin burned too with the agony of casting while the hairs were still in me—my nostrils, the tops of my toes, the back of my neck. My eyes watered. I clamped them shut and writhed in pain as I attacked. The burning spread across my chest. The workers’ cries sounded dull in my ears, fainter than voices through my mask, even though now there was nothing physically muffling them. But at least those cold, sweaty hands no longer touched me.
I lurched upright and saw the workers lying stunned and panting. Despite their breathing, they looked inanimate and haphazard, like two marionettes with cut strings. I jumped from the table, grabbed a towel, and threw it around my waist, never breaking stride as I bolted toward that forbidden door across from the one I’d blindly entered.
Locked, of course. The door behind me was not. I could easily escape, find my camel, and flee this wretched place. But still I’d lack answers. Even if I returned later with an army of shrouders, we wouldn’t know what we were fighting. I turned around and forced myself to ignore the unlocked door, like gleaners so often ignored me.
With the workers still prostrate, I found the keys easily on a chain around one of their necks. I removed the necklace and opened the bulky brass lock. After tightening the towel around my waist, I kept the keys, chain and all, in one fist as I lugged the door open. I removed and took the lock in my other fist, so they couldn’t lock me in once they came to. Who knew if I’d find another way out?
I closed the door and found myself in another hallway. A heavy black curtain hung across the far end. I brushed through it, its fabric comforting to my exposed skin, and found another curtain close behind it, and past that one was such a sight, I nearly dropped the lock and keys and gave myself away.
Crimson lanterns overhead flickered a dim, sinister red glow throughout a vast room. As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I could make out rows and rows of mats covering the floor, on which lay people covered with hair. Shrouders? My heart sank at the thought—no, the realization. The figures lying closest to me breathed in pained rasps through chapped lips, the corners lined with dried saliva. Their eyelids fluttered occasionally. They glistened with sweat.
A worker moved from mat to mat, sticking them with needles, probably keeping them drugged so they couldn’t defend themselves as I had done. Another worker forced water down their throats. A third worker was bent over a prisoner’s hand, filing bits of fingernail into a tiny hollow on the top of a box. Then he sealed something small and round over the hole. I could tell by its sickly yellow-brown gleam in the bloody lantern light that it was horn. He’d just made an Izeera box.
I looked at the prisoners again, and this time I noticed the slowly spreading bald patches, the hairs disintegrating haphazardly all over them as elsewhere, in rocky abodes and billowing tents far away from this complex, safe in their rooms with their carafes of sharbat and their plush, tasseled pillows, the owners of Izeera boxes disposed of their own shed or plucked hairs. My stomach twisted. These shrouders, these prisoners in front of me, fueled those boxes connected by their nail filings so that each use of the box triggered a distant and aching spell cast upon them. How many times had I inflicted pain upon them? How often had I unwittingly tortured them, my own people, just by pressing a circle of horn to destroy my own hairs? I sank to my knees, my mouth contorting with a silent sob.
The workers approached the row next to mine. I quickly lowered onto my stomach and waited. Once they reached the aisle, they turned toward my row. I held my breath. A stomach growled loudly—surely not mine? Thankfully, the workers chuckled, and one said, “Must be time.” They passed my aisle, and from the corner of my eye I saw them set their supplies on a shelf along one wall and leave the room.
I jumped up, shaking, and wondered how to wake the others. Would a strong nudge or a splash of water do it, or would I have to wait until the drug wore off? How could I do that when the workers would be back well before then to administer the next dosage?
The curtain behind me flew open. I dove back down, holding the lock and keys under my chest. A hair too late.
“You,” a voice said. It belonged to the interviewer, the one with the round patch of hair. She plucked one of her hairs. I expected her to cast at me on it, but she merely held it in front of her as a threat. “You don’t belong here. Come with me, and I’ll show you the way out.”
“Not likely,” I replied, standing and trying to tighten the towel around my waist while still holding the lock and keys.
She laughed. “Don’t bother with that.” She gestured at the towel. “I’m sure all your hairs cover everything anyway. Come, let us talk about why you’re really here.” She pulled the curtain open wider and waved me back toward the procedure room.
“I’m not going back there.”
“Don’t worry, I sent my attendants home to recover.”
“How considerate of you,” I muttered.
“And the three who just left this room were done for the day anyway.” She motioned again past the curtain.
“Not that room.”
She frowned and allowed the curtain to fall back into place. “Very well.”
I sensed her discomfort with me in this room, where constant reminders of her horrible operation surrounded me. She strode to the far side of the chamber, careful to leave me plenty of space, and opened the door. Beyond it I saw a small room with a teal divan and several potted plants. No sign of any other workers, nor an altar-like procedure table.
“We’ll talk in here,” she said.
I nodded a curt approval. Time for some answers at last. I followed her into the room. She shut the door behind u
s. For once, this door stayed unlocked. I made sure I stood between her and it, just in case she tried to summon help through the one where her workers had left. I held the lock, chain, and ring of keys in front of me like a shield.
“I am Izeera,” she said, amber cloak glistening like the horn of her boxes. “You must have really lost your nerve about the procedure to have fought your way here. And inflicted quite a bit of pain on yourself.” Her gaze lingered on my chest, which probably had telltale bald spots from my earlier casting. I felt so small, especially this close to her. “But my other customers never lose their nerve. You never came here for the procedure, did you.”
She withdrew the hair she’d plucked earlier and kept her distance. Did she fear my willingness to cast at others at my own expense? No wonder she’d been so keen to get me out of the room where she kept her prisoners. She must have known that, even if I wouldn’t dream of using their hairs to cast with, they could inspire me through any necessary pain with my own.
“Why are you singling out shrouders?” I asked. “We use your boxes more than anyone. How could you, of all people, have a problem with our beliefs?”
She shrugged. “You have the quantity and length of hair that’s required, that’s all. It takes a lot of magic to run our boxes, and even more to work our new procedure. That requires so much magic it’s painful for both the source and the client, there’s no way around that.”
“Both types of magic hurt your ‘source.’ My people.”
“Only the weakest shrouders break down and come to us. Do you really want them out there telling everyone how wonderful their new life is after the procedure? Not having to use the boxes all the time or wear all that restrictive clothing? Blending in with the gleaners? Your kind would die out even faster. You should be thanking me.”
After all my travels, visiting this land that so many other shrouders avoided, ignoring the rumors about the disappearances, and trusting Alia, a total stranger, now at last I had my answers. And now I didn’t want them.
I knew I should cast at her using my own hairs. I tried to think of the rows and rows of tortured shrouders to inspire me, but all I could picture was that circular white room, and the fire spreading across my body. I couldn’t bring myself to reignite the pain. Izeera knew it, I could tell, for she smiled cruelly and raised her pinched hair.
Just when I expected her spell to hit me, she cried out and snapped her head back. She flinched once, twice. Someone else was casting at her. Her strand fell to the ground.
Alia appeared beside me, gripping a thin group of hairs in one hand and extracting one at a time from the bundle to cast with. She staggered toward Izeera, and with each step both women’s shoulders shook and their heads drooped lower as pain seared them. Izeera fell to the floor, one arm supporting her upper body while her free hand shook in mid-reach toward her patch of hair, unable to complete the journey because of Alia’s spells. She could’ve cast with the hairs in her, but no, she weakly wanted to pluck them first, too afraid to take on the pain of self-casting over the pain of another’s spells. She’d never have made it out of that circular room as I had.
Alia dropped to her knees and thrust her hand out toward me. “Take them,” she snarled, voice animalistic with pain.
I took them.
“Cast with them.”
I did. I tried to block out Alia’s cries, but they were too much for me. With just a few of her hairs remaining, I stopped casting on them and used my own instead. Alia grabbed Izeera’s hands and pulled them behind her back. I stopped casting and wrapped the chain around Izeera’s wrists, tied several knots in it, and put the lock on for good measure. If anything, it weighed her hands down and hindered her from trying to maneuver free.
I handed Alia the last of her hairs. “How did you—?”
“I cut a lock of my hair as a souvenir before my appointment here. It’s all I’ve got left.” Her eyes watered. I reached for one of my hairs to cast her tears dry, but she waved for me to stop. “You were in here so long, I knew they couldn’t still be interviewing you.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” I said. I wanted to collapse with relief, as much for her help as for the fact that my instincts about her proved right. She had never betrayed me.
“Right now we’ve got to do something about her,” Alia said, nodding at Izeera, “before she’s able to start casting at us.”
“Right. I say we give her a taste of her own magic.”
I explained to Alia what I’d seen of the process for constructing the boxes and how the filings determined whose hair fueled the box. We fetched supplies from the prisoner room: an unfinished new box, a circle of horn, and the nail file. Alia filed Izeera’s nail into the top of the box, then we glued the horn on top. I picked up Izeera’s fallen strand, one thick, threadlike hair, and stuffed it into the box. The three of us watched, wide-eyed, as I pressed the circle of horn. Izeera sucked air in through her teeth and shook her tied up hand, the one with the fingernail we’d filed, as though I’d stomped on it. Overall, though, it didn’t seem to hurt her as much as a typical spell.
Alia plucked a hair from Izeera’s patch—I winced at the brazen act but kept quiet—and tried to cast on it. Nothing happened. The hair remained whole. I glanced at the box. When fueled by her own filings and used on her own strands, it had rendered all her hairs magicless, as sterile as those of a corpse, even those outside the box. This simple spell, just a mere tweak using Izeera’s own boxes, could revolutionize our way of life. It was the procedure without a procedure, without an enslaved source—a quick onetime fix using your own nails and hair, with lasting benefits. I expected to see shock on Izeera’s face at the realization; instead, she looked defeated.
“You knew about this?” I asked her. She avoided my gaze. “I should’ve guessed. You wanted to keep everyone dependent on your boxes. I’ll bet your new procedure isn’t even permanent.”
Alia’s eyes widened with hope.
“It’s quite permanent,” Izeera snapped. “We don’t want people doubting it while the word spreads, now, do we?”
Alia’s face fell.
“And once it becomes popular,” I asked, “what then? Switch to a more temporary version? Keep them coming back?”
Izeera’s head drooped just enough to reveal her guilt, much like a former shrouder. Alia grabbed a nearby cloth and gagged the woman. So much greed in Izeera, keeping people dependent on her devices and procedures, enslaving shrouders so that each time a hapless box owner pressed the horn to remove their shed hairs, or a gleaner showed up ready for the procedure, they unknowingly cast a spell on one of those prisoners.
I studied the box. “I wonder…” I pried the horn off and blew the nail filings out of the hollow. This simple device could eradicate magic. The enormity of that hit me. The permanence of removing it from one’s life, like tearing something out by the roots. Alia’s earlier comment about not being a slave to the boxes. The fact that there were actual slaves involved. My mother’s stance against using magic. We had enough other ways to hurt others and ourselves, she’d always said. And, I realized, to help others and ourselves. Maybe giving up magic would be worth it.
“Do you think it will work again on the same box?” Alia asked.
“I hope so,” I said. “We could spread the solution to everyone, and they could use the boxes they already have at home to rid themselves of this affliction.” I realized that by saying “we,” I was assuming she’d take up the cause with me. I looked at her hopefully.
She nodded in agreement, eyes set with determination. “You first, Salim, so we can test your hair afterward.”
I filled the hollow with my filings and reaffixed the horn. I combed out a couple of my loose strands, placed them inside the box, and held my breath. I activated it. A sharp, smashing feeling ached my nail, then quickly dissipated. I pinched one of my head hairs.
“Here we go,” I said. I tried casting on it.
No effect. My heart skipped with hope. Alia tried casti
ng on another one of my hairs. Same result. We clasped our hands and cheered. We filled the hollow with Alia’s nail filings and destroyed the remains of her last lock of hair. This time when her eyes watered, she beamed.
“Let’s wake the others,” she said. “A whole bunch of Izeera boxes are about to break.”
“Yes. Just give me a couple of minutes first.”
She gaped at me. “What could possibly be more important right now?”
“You can start without me, but I’d like to put my clothes back on first.”
Alia’s whole head blushed, and she had no way to hide it. We both laughed. I went to gather my clothes, still folded in the white room thankfully. I changed into my robe and left my skullcap, gloves, and mask behind for good.
As I ran to wake my fellow shrouders, I enjoyed the cool rush of air on my face, the velvet brush of the hallway curtains, and a surge of gratitude toward Alia. Whether waking the prisoners would be as easy as a splash of water or as time-consuming as waiting for the drug to wear off, together Alia and I would ensure they woke. Yes, they’d open their eyes to the strange sight of an unshrouded shrouder and a gleaner who was now their advocate—and to such news! We’d no longer have to glean nor shroud ourselves. No one would. At last, we could all just be.
___
Copyright 2020 Katherine Quevedo
Katherine Quevedo lives with her husband and two sons just outside Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analysis manager. Her fiction has appeared in Short Édition’s Short Circuit, Factor Four, Apparition Literary Magazine, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Myriad Lands Vol. 2: Beyond the Edge, and elsewhere. Find her at www.katherinequevedo.com.
Giganotosaurus is published monthly by Late Cretaceous and edited by LaShawn M. Wanak.
http://giganotosaurus.org
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