At the sight of Jah’s corpse, the final corpse in the fly-swarmed camp, the young man did not grieve. He was a man who did not shed tears. Instead, he pulled the wooden case from beneath the bed of the bandit, then mounted his horse and turned it in the direction of the soldiers. Moved by a powerful sense of anger, by a deep sense of injustice, he allowed his desire for revenge to consume him. The tattoos that curled up his shoulders revealed that he gave no thought to his own life, or his own legacy. Those thoughts were to come, of course. But at the time, he cared only for the long trail of the soldiers. For the month in which he killed thirty-four men and women.
The majority he killed from a distance. He skirted the soldiers’ path, trusting his knowledge of the cracked, barren desert. He would lie on the dusty red rocks, a single, solitary figure. Beside him, Cael Jah’s long, expensive black iron rifle—the rifle that lay inside the wooden box—waited to be lifted and sighted.
Through the lens of the scope, he watched holes appear suddenly, painfully, terrifyingly.
Arryo took very little satisfaction from those kills. None sated his need for revenge, none allowed him to feel as if he was righting a wrong.
He later said that it was too cold, too mechanical. “If you are to kill a man,” the lines around his neck, the lines that joined one shoulder to the other recorded, “you must stand before him and you must feel it.”
The final four he confronted in a narrow, jagged valley. They were starved of food and water and half mad with terror of his hunting. The crimson in their uniforms was sun-bleached, a pale imitation of the orb above, a metaphor for the people they had once been. Arryo took pleasure in that, for he believed they should be robbed of everything, that their very identities should be lost for what they did. He had stripped them of their power, their authority, and he believed that he saw an awareness of such in their gazes when he approached, in their pleading of him for mercy, for freedom. He thought, in the moment he lifted his revolver, that they understood what their country had done to him.
He left their corpses for the scavengers.
Torso
Arryo Salazar’s reputation grew as the revolution grew, his a parasitic relationship with the other. For nearly two decades, as his twenties and thirties dwindled, his every act was part of his legend. As his forties drew closer, he began to make sure that such was the case. He feared the failure of his body, the onset of age. Already, he had lost some of his speed, and at a distance, objects were no longer as clear as they once were. He sought to prepare for the day when both could no longer be relied upon. He was fatalistic in his preparation, believing that his death would arrive as he had delivered it to so many others, and that it would ultimately buy him only a handful more years than he deserved . . . but then he rode into the mountain town of Galimade, one of the oldest holds of the revolution, and found that such thoughts were no longer acceptable.
Across Arryo’s frail chest, the tattoos wove back to his heart, to the centre of his being. There a single name had been etched, the Z and S overlapping. When the sin-eater’s acid touched the skin, it peeled dramatically, suddenly, revealing bone.
“Would you like me to stop?” he asked the wife, Sonia.
“No,” her voice rasped. “Not now.”
“He may die.”
“He will soon enough.”
Sonia was nine when he first saw her, her brown skin clean of any marks, any history, unlike his. It was rare to find a child completely untouched by the hand of a mortician, and, despite his own faith, he was enthralled by it. He saw her clean skin as freshness, as virginity, as an empty person waiting to be filled. Oh, that did not mean she was without personality, without charm, but when he looked at her, he saw for the first time a blank, unwritten future.
She lived in the hotel her parents owned, the same hotel where he kept a room. In the first years that he knew her, he never heard her raise her voice, never heard her complain of any task she was given. Instead, she asked questions, questions without cynicism, without the jaded eye towards others and their politics that he had. Drawn to it, feeling his desires solidify, Arryo found himself waking early to help her with her tasks, to clean the floor of the hotel, to wash dishes.
Nothing untoward happened, not yet. Arryo was infatuated with her, reluctant to touch her, to reach out and pluck what was offered unknowingly, a hesitation he had never before felt. Oh, he was getting old, he told himself, as his black-inked arms sank into dirty water. Old and romantic. But the truth was, he did not want to ruin what he felt now, did not want to sully it just yet, not until he had had his fill.
When he was told that Galimade was under threat, it surprised him. Had he really been so blind to the conversations around him, to the warnings? Had he really missed Hart’s name repeated so often? He laughed ruefully the day he heard that the Shibtri Isles’ military, led by no other than Hart, had camped at the base of the mountain.
There was only one path to Galimade, the one that the sin-eater and his mule would ride on decades later. Beyond its peak, the mountain crumbled into a series of jagged falls, making the creation of a second impossible. Then, as now, there would be no retreat. There would be only a costly battle, where the Isles’ force would suffer huge losses before the sheer weight of their numbers finally took the town.
To Arryo, that meant there was another way.
“The Isles,” he said, first to Sonia to reassure her, then to the Mayor of Galimade. “The Isles have lost the taste for war here. Hart has lost over five thousand soldiers in two decades. The war he wages is politically unpopular at home. It is even more so here, where the army he leads is on the verge of mutiny. Even new recruits curse his name within a week of arrival. The losses that they will endure trying to take us are obvious to all of them—and they will force Hart into any other form of action if one is offered to them. One, such as a duel between myself and him, that gives the winner a peaceful victory will be impossible to turn away from.”
“And your price?” The Mayor was a slight man with watery eyes, a man whose gaze had begun to fail him after seeing so much violence. “Do not lie to me and say that you will do this for free, Arryo.”
“A bride.”
It was agreed upon by the two men.
The risk was great, Arryo knew, not just to himself, but to Sonia, to Galimade. If he faltered, then both would cease to exist.
Yet, his estimation of the Isles’ military was correct. Benard Hart had arrived in Zita as the youngest Governor in the Isles history, a post that he was sure would lead to more. He had expected to return to the Shibtri Isles within two years, but instead found himself middle aged and with the distinction of being the longest serving and least effective Governor of Zita. He had remained in power because of the waning support for colonisation back home and because he maintained an iron clad belief that he could regain all that he had lost. Yet, he was not a fool: he knew that he needed a victory, a good one, to reinvigorate his soldiers. He had managed such victories in the past, but this time, it was against all advice that he rode for Galimade. The mountain will take its toll, he was told, but he shook his head. He needed not just a victory, but a symbol. He needed to be able to look at his men and say, “We did what others said we could not. We will do what others believe us incapable of.”
He needed the Galimade Mountain.
Arryo Salazar’s duel offered it cheaply.
He might not have taken the challenge if he had been popular. At the very least, he would have been able to pick a champion. He knew enough of Arryo to know the risk, but at the height of his unpopularity he had no other choice.
The duel took place in the middle of the day, when the red sun was at its peak. A circle was cleared in the middle of a flat part of the mountain, where the path opened up to a rest spot, where a long, dark well had been sunk, and where men and women from Galimade could watch with the Isles’ soldiers.
Arryo arrived first. He waited on bare feet for the other man, the sun’s heat sinking into his
brown skin, into the revolver by his side. He felt the importance of the event, understood how if he was successful here then his life would change. He felt the power of it. He felt the choices that were denied to him unfolding. The lines around his heart recorded the epiphany, the realisation that he was, at last, a figure of power, of responsibility, and that the realisation lifted him clear of himself.
Hart arrived shortly after Arryo. He had a heaviness in him, as if, in juxtaposition to Arryo, the weight of the day turned him dense. It never left his limbs as he stretched, never dipped from his blue gaze, never allowed him the emptiness of mind that was necessary for him to emerge victorious from the duel that was about to take place.
In the end, Benard Hart’s revolver did not clear its holster.
And later, much later, in a silence that awaited weeping, Arryo Salazar took his child bride, and for all his life, cared not that he did.
• • • •
The sin-eater left her in the morning. He left her before the body of Arryo, whose flesh bubbled with burns. He left her with the pus starting to leak from the old man’s feet, from his ankles, much like the tears that had fallen from his eyes. The sin-eater left her to stand by Arryo as the last of his breath struggled from his lungs, as he began his journey to stand before God, already judged. Judged by his wife, by his “beloved,” by the woman from whom he had taken so much. The sin-eater left Arryo a man without history before God, a man who, like the land the sin-eater traveled, was scarred by the past and was a map of battles, victories, and defeats. He left the body of Arryo with the survivor of the man’s cruelty, the woman who had made her life despite him, who would continue to live long past his death, who would take the province and turn it into Galimade, the first great city of Zita.
The sin-eater left the scarred man with the great woman, Sonia Salazar, whose husband had been a gunfighter.
© 2014 by Ben Peek.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Peek is a Sydney-based author of Black Sheep, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and Above/Below with Stephanie Campisi. His short fiction has appeared in a range of venues, including Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Polyphony, Agog!, Leviathan, Overland, and various Year’s Best collections. He wrote a comic entitled Nowhere Near Savannah that was illustrated by Anna Brown, and he created a psychogeography pamphlet called the Urban Sprawl Project, long, long ago. Most recently, his short story collection, Dead Americans, was released by ChiZine Publications, and his fantasy novel, The Godless, the first in the Children Trilogy, will be released by Tor UK and Thomas Dunne in August.
To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.
Out of Touch
Simon Strantzas
I grew up in the suburbs, in a small bungalow house identical to every other bungalow house on my block. Row after row of these houses, all in straight lines, filled the streets as far as my bicycle would take me. That was why the house across from my own never struck me as strange or out-of-the-ordinary, not in all the years I shared the street with it. It was like looking at my house in a mirror, and I found it no less reassuring than any of the others around me. Sure, its lawn was left to grow weed-filled and wild, where any insect could find a home, but there was really no reason why the house should have stood out in my mind, no reason at all why I should have noted it—except, of course, that it had been vacant for as long as I could remember.
In fairness, even that isn’t so strange. At least, it didn’t seem so then. Time is soft and malleable and can slow to a crawl when you’re young. Sometimes, it almost seems to stop. For all I know, the place had been empty for only a few months before I really noticed it—though, afterwards, I never saw a single person set foot there.
I’d spent a good part of my summer vacation with Mitch under direct orders from my mother. No doubt, she thought it would do us both good. She and Mrs. Ramsey were friends, and through some miracle of childhood Mitch and I were supposed to have bonded, too. It wasn’t that I disliked him, but at the time I would rather have been left alone by the world instead of been forced to socialize. My father was still only a few months gone, and his absence from my life left me in a sort of limbo, where I wanted nothing more than for each day to be over. The last place I wanted to be was inside Mitch’s room with its overpowering chemical smell, and a part of me hated my own discomfort.
He rolled his dice.
“Double-sixes!” he said, then moved his marker twelve squares. “You suck at this game, you know.”
“I know, I know.” I rolled my own set of dice and reported the number to him so he could move my marker across the board. The air-conditioner made the room cool, much cooler than my own, though the recycled air also tasted funny. On the bright side, though the air-filter made too much noise, it offered the constant amusement of blowing Mitch’s dark black hair out of shape. “You look like a caveman,” I said.
He smiled and beat his chest. I held my breath for a second and waited, but nothing happened.
“I’ve asked my mom, but she won’t let me keep a comb in here. I don’t know what she thinks I’ll catch from a comb.” He shook his head and laughed, and while he did so I sneaked a look at the clock. It was nearly time for me to go. When I looked back at him he wasn’t laughing any longer.
“You know, Neil, you can leave whenever you want. It’s okay.”
“I can stay a few minutes more. Do you want to do something else?”
He didn’t seem to.
Part of me knew he was lying, but I had put on a brave face for too long already. I needed time to myself, and already I could feel the seconds slipping away from me forever.
My mother wasn’t too thrilled when I arrived home.
“Mrs. Ramsey called me today at work. Did you and Mitch have a fight?”
“You said I didn’t have to spend the whole day there.”
My mother sighed, and rubbed her temples. Through the thin drapes in the living room window I could see the house across the street. Its long grass wavered as the sheer material between us moved with the wind.
“Neil, right now, it’s good for you to be over there. Don’t you understand?”
I grumbled. “I don’t think I can do it. There are too many rules—”
“It will be okay. Just do this for me, please?” She took my hand and smiled at me. What else could I do but agree? She ran her fingers through my hair approvingly.
“You’re growing up too fast, little man.”
• • • •
The next day I was allowed to take a vacation from Mitch. It sounds harsh to say, but I needed it. As much as I didn’t want to disappoint my mother, I also couldn’t be cooped up in that moldering house. The day was a beautiful one, the kind where the sunlight shines so bright it makes everything glitter, and I spent the good part of it on the front lawn of the house, just sitting in the grass, looking up at the sky and trying to pretend my family was still whole. It worked, but only for a few seconds at a time.
I lay there and watched the clouds change shape and creep past, and without warning I was startled by a soft flutter of darkness over my eyes. I shook my head violently and instinctively sat up, but the obstruction had gone. Across the grass, a dark brown butterfly moved erratically before it lit on the stem of a dandelion.
It came from the house across the street, whose overgrown lawn attracted them by the dozens. My mind flashed to Mitch and how much he used to like watching the butterflies only a year earlier, before being sealed away in his house. I carefully stood and inched my way toward the creature. It flattened its wings to warm itself in the sun, and I saw the beautiful pattern of tiny circles, like a row of eyes, that edged them. I stood over it, careful to avoid putting my shadow between us, and when it closed its wings once more I bent down and pinched them between my fingers. The insect struggled, its legs moving wildly as I picked it up, but I did not let it go.
I looked up and my eyes fell on the house across the street. I don’t know why—I’d barely give
n it much thought until then—but when I looked I momentarily saw the face of a young girl in the dark curtained window before it disappeared. It was so quick, I wondered if I’d truly seen anything. If I had, the curtains were certainly no evidence. It didn’t look as though they’d moved.
I went to cup the butterfly in my hand, before going inside to get a glass jar, but the fragile creature had disappeared. It must have slipped free during my surprise. All that was left was a dust of dark brown scales on my fingertips. I cleaned them on the side of my pants and looked back at the vacant house. It lay still in the summer morning, looking as though nothing unusual had occurred.
Inside, my mother sat at the kitchen table, her back to me. When she heard my voice, she jumped, but didn’t turn around right away. I asked her if someone had moved into the house across the street.
“No. Why?”
“I thought I saw—” I started, and as she turned around I realized how foolish I was being. It was likely a reflection and nothing more. She didn’t give me time to explain anyway.
“Get ready. We’re off to the Ramseys’.”
“Mom!” I said and stamped my foot. “You promised.”
She had no patience for my tantrum. She shut it down before I was even worked up.
“We’re going, and that’s final. Get ready. Now.”
Mitch was away from his bedroom window when we arrived, a white mask covering the lower half of his face. Mrs. Ramsey let my mother and me in, and then triple-checked the door was shut before hugging us both very tightly. I could feel my ribs straining from the pressure, and thought she’d never let me go. When she did, she glanced at me with an uneasiness that suggested she’d gone too far, and tried to compose herself by pushing her tight curls back into her bun. She smiled at me, her face folding into deep lines that looked forced and unnatural. Her eyes, though, were the worst. Baggy, wide and tired, they were the eyes of someone who had seen far too much and lived through even more. Far more than anyone deserved.
Nightmare Magazine Issue 23 Page 6