The Broken God Machine

by Christopher Buecheler

  The tral came over the hill like a roaring tidal wave, a solid wall of terrified animals, lightning striking all around them in fiery bursts. They descended without thought upon the Lagos horde. Warriors were crushed to paste below hooves, torn asunder by long, white horns, or simply killed by the impact of a thousand pounds of muscle moving at top speed. Pehr watched as those behind the front lines – those who had time to react – began to turn and run, screaming in their guttural language words of warning that came laughably too late. The tral came in an unending stream, fanning out, hundreds after hundreds of them. They overtook the Lagos army and drove it into the ground.

  Some might have escaped; Pehr did not know for sure, but he thought it possible. Perhaps those at the very back lines had been able to turn and run back the way they had come. Most died where they stood, and within a matter of minutes the army was decimated by the oncoming herd. Lagos women died with their men. The priests at the back cried out to their gods for help but received none, and they too fell under the stomping hooves. The tral, whipped into a maddened frenzy by the lightning storm, would not have stopped even had there been a bottomless ravine before them. They would have plummeted to their death, one after the other. The Lagos presented so insignificant an obstacle that they didn’t even slow the beasts down.

  Hundreds of animals passed by him, but none so much as touched him, and after a time Pehr realized he was laughing. He was laughing, and he was weeping at the same time, producing a kind of raw noise that made his throat burn. There were no gods, Tasha had told him, and yet here he sat in the very center of the stampede, watching as an entire army that had been bent only upon his destruction was swallowed whole by these rampaging beasts.

  There are no gods, Tasha? He thought. Are you sure?

  It was only at the end, as the stampede was at last winding down and the final straggling animals were rushing past him, as the lightning strikes were dissipating, that any harm at all came to Pehr. One of the last of the tral, a juvenile, did not veer to either side but instead leapt directly over Pehr’s hunched form. One of its rear hooves struck him in the back of the head, connecting with the bump in his skull just above the neck, and Pehr was knocked forward with a startled grunt.

  He dropped Tasha’s body but managed to hold on to her hand, and lying there in the thick mud that the rain and the passage of many hooves had created, he looked at her sightlessly staring eyes. Blackness was overtaking him, and he thought that he could hear within it the voices of all those who he loved. He wondered if this, then, was death come for him after all.

  Pehr closed his eyes, embracing the blackness and whatever it was that waited for him there.

  Part Three

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  Chapter 25

  “Wake him,” the voice said. “Wake him and stand him up, that he might look me in the eyes before I send him to the afterlife.”

  Pehr, lying on his back, spoke without opening his eyes. “Would you kill me so quickly, Samhad, and deny yourself any chance for explanation?”

  “What do I care for your explanations?” Samhad growled. “My daughter lies dead at your side. Will your explanations bring her back?”

  Now Pehr allowed himself to open his eyes and return to this land of living beings, even if only until Samhad murdered him. The sky above was pure blue, without so much as a single cloud to mar it.

  Somewhere past that blue are our forefathers, Pehr thought, and on the heels of that, I must follow.

  “Get up,” Samhad said. His voice was grim, full of barely contained rage, and Pehr wondered if the older man would indeed wait for an explanation before passing his judgment. Samhad had always been careful and deliberate in his actions, but he seemed now at the very edge of control. Pehr had hunted with this man, had shared his home and food, had lived as Samhad’s son for two years. He hoped that in that time, he had earned Samhad’s trust. It seemed his life depended on it.

  “Help me,” he said, and when Samhad reached a hand down, Pehr gripped it and pulled. A moment later he was sitting up. A bolt of pain flashed like lightning through his head, leaving in its aftermath an empty space that began to fill rapidly with nausea.

  “Give me water,” Pehr said, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head. “It will make this go faster.”

  He felt a skin pressed into his hand and raised it to his lips, drinking long and deep. Then he turned to one side, propping himself on both arms, and vomited into the black mud that the tral had left in their passing. He did this twice more, and after the third time, the water did not come back up. The pounding in his head seemed to lessen a bit.

  “Better,” he said, handing the skin back to Samhad and wiping his mouth. He looked up at the older hunter and noted the red rings around the man’s eyes. Samhad was not yet weeping, had so far held such emotions back, but Pehr thought it was not by accident that the man had positioned himself with his back to his daughter’s body.

  “Tell me now why I shouldn’t kill you right here, bastard child from the west,” Samhad said in a low and unsteady voice. He did not blink.

  “I will not make excuses for what we did,” Pehr said. “Tasha meant to go. If I had stayed, she would have gone regardless. I chose to try and protect her.”

  “A fine job you’ve done,” Samhad said, his voice tinged with acid.

  Pehr put his aching head in one of his hands and sighed. “I did what I could for her. I walked on her path for as long as I could, and near the end I carried her, but at last she went someplace where I could not follow. Before that, she led me to the one place where I could survive the lethal meeting of two massive armies.”

  “That is impossible,” Samhad said, and Pehr made a humorless barking noise that only vaguely resembled laughter.

  “Of course it is!” he said. “It is completely impossible, but it is also the truth. Samhad, I cannot give you comfort. Your daughter is dead, and she is dead because I failed her. I failed to keep her safe, at the end. We helped each other through many great dangers and survived much which might have killed us, but I couldn’t stop the spear that pierced her side. We brought down the wrath of the Lagos upon ourselves and upon the plains, and then Tasha led us to the very spot upon which their forces would break like waves against the rock, crushed underneath the hooves of a tral herd many thousands strong. The very herd you must have been hunting when you found me.”

  “I do not understand,” Samhad said after a moment, and Pehr nodded. How could he explain these things to Samhad? Pehr had undergone the augmentation process and knew a great deal more now than any other living human on Earth, and even he had no idea how Tasha had done what she had done.

  “There is much to tell, and very little of it will make sense even once I’ve told it,” he said, and then he forced himself to his feet. He stood there, swaying slightly, still unsteady, looking at the men who had come to find him. Three other hunters were there, two of whom he knew. He could read judgment in their dark eyes.

  “My daughter is dead,” Samhad said. “You went on your mad journey to the mountains, where you unleashed these Lagos upon my home, and then you were saved by the will of the Gods. All this and what have you accomplished? Nothing. My daughter died for nothing!”

  At this, sudden anger came to Pehr, racing through his body and giving him strength, clearing the fuzziness from his head, bringing purpose where before there had been nothing more than emptin
ess. He lunged forward, grabbing the leather vest that Samhad wore and pulling the older man close.

  “You will not demean her sacrifice!” he snarled. “You will not dishonor your daughter like that, not while I live. She has given everything for you, and your people, and this entire world!”

  Samhad, shocked by this sudden action, seemed unable to respond. Pehr tried to push down the anger that was overwhelming him but could not stem its tide. He shook Samhad once, pulled the man back, and bared his teeth.

  “You wish me dead? Very well then. Strike me down on this very hill. Lay waste to all that your daughter has done. Go back to your tents and live your empty lives and die your empty deaths, diminishing year by year until we are wiped out entirely, extinguished like a flame, never to grace this earth again.”

  “Boy—”

  Pehr shook him again, shoving backward and releasing his grip on the plainsman, who nearly fell to the ground before recovering his balance.

  “I am not a boy!” Pehr roared. “I am Khada’Pehr, son of Khada’Pol, heir of Mombutabwe and the only hope left for this wasted, dying, Gods-forsaken planet. I have passed every test ever given me, and I will stand no longer under the judgment of those who don't know me or what I’ve done. If you would fight me, Samhad, you will find that you face a man, not some boy waiting meekly for your punishment!”

  Pehr took a step back, spread his hands, dipped his head momentarily. “Have done with it,” he commanded. “Certainly the four of you should be able to manage … I have but a knife. Kill me here and end this, damn yourselves and all of Uru, or stand down and let me tell you what your daughter died for.”

  Samhad stared at him for some time, eyes in tight slits, pondering. At last he said, “I see you as a man, Khada’Pehr, and I will not fight you here. I do not understand these things of which you speak, but it is clear to me that much has happened since last we saw each other. I would hear your story, if you will share it, but I would ask that you wait until we’ve tended to my daughter.”

  “I will not wait on judgment,” Pehr said. “Not on yours, and not on that of any of these others.”

  “My judgment is already passed. Pehr … I spoke in anger and in grief. Tasha was … she was not like us, but it doesn’t make me feel her loss any less. When I came over this hill and saw her lying broken before me, I felt my very soul torn in half.”

  “I will miss her every day until I die,” Pehr said. “Every single day.”

  As quickly as it had come, the electrifying rage seemed to leave him, and he sat down in the mud, unashamed, his body shaking. He looked over at Tasha’s prone form, pallid skin mostly covered in thick, black mud, and after a moment he covered his eyes. Here now was a sister, lying dead before him, just like the brother that lay still in the broken god machine’s circle of bone. First Jace and now Tasha … was he destined to kill all those he cared about most?

  Samhad stepped up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, and Pehr was glad to feel it. He took his hands from his face and made himself look again at the body of the girl lying before him.

  “Before I begin what I must do for us all … tell me what we must do for her,” he said.

  * * *

  Samhad had been moving his family steadily westward since Pehr and Tasha’s disappearance, and their tents were now less than a day’s walk away. They brought Tasha slowly behind them, carrying her on a sledge fashioned from tree branches and straps of leather. Samhad’s fellow hunters had helped along the way, each taking turns pulling. Pehr had insisted on doing more than his share of the work, even though his head still pounded. He did this not to gain favor with Samhad, but only out of love and respect for the fallen girl. He owed her a debt that could never be repaid.

  When they came to the tent, the sky had long since gone dark, and the crickets filled the night air with their buzzing. Pehr stood for a time before the beaded entry flap, Samhad behind him, unable to summon the courage to step through.

  “There will be much grief,” he murmured, and behind him Samhad made a small noise of affirmation.

  “My wife will be heartbroken.”

  Pehr turned to him. “Samhad, if I could’ve prevented this … I have no wish to bring this news to those inside. They are like my own family, and I would bear their grief for them if I could.”

  “I understand and I thank you, but that is not something you can do, and we must enter and tell them what has happened. Come, we will go together, and after it is done we will help Ehella tend to Tasha.”

  Samhad stepped forward and held the curtain open for Pehr, and after a moment the young hunter stepped in. The rest of the family was there waiting, though Ketrahm had fallen asleep on one of the cots. Only Trayin, the baby, was missing, presumably sleeping in his cradle in the other tent. Pehr saw Ehella look up as he entered, saw hope and excitement kindle in her eyes when she saw him, saw those emotions fade when Samhad stepped into the tent behind him and let the flap close. Her smile fell from her face, tears brimming in her eyes. Without a word from either hunter, Tasha’s mother had understood that her daughter was gone, and she put her head in her hands and began to weep.

  “What is it, Mamma?” Kissha asked. She had been unable to suppress a brilliant grin when Pehr had first entered, but now she was looking at her mother with confused concern.

  “Ehella knows that I come with grave tidings,” Pehr said. “Kissha, I—”

  “Where is Tasha?” Mandia asked from beside her sister, glancing around as if the older girl might somehow have slipped in unnoticed.

  Samhad spoke his daughter’s name, quieting her, and for a moment there was only the sound of Ehella’s sobs. Pehr forced himself to speak the truth.

  “Your sister gave her life to protect all of us. Ehella, Kissha, Mandia … I'm sorry, but Tasha has passed.”

  He watched as the twins’ faces crumpled into expressions of sadness so alike that in another time it might have been comical. Their mother swept them up in her arms, and after a moment more Samhad joined them. Pehr sat down upon the floor, head bowed.

  “I failed her,” he said at last. “I stopped to pay tribute to my fallen cousin and ceased watching for danger. A Lagos spear pierced her side before either of us even knew the attack was coming.”

  He looked up and saw that Tasha’s family was watching him. Even Ketrahm had woken and was staring at Pehr, as if demanding an answer for this sorrow that had been delivered to his family.

  “I failed her,” Pehr said again. “But I will not fail you.”

  * * *

  That night, Pehr helped Tasha’s parents begin the preparations for the girl’s funeral. They moved her to a hammock fashioned from branches and tral skin, placed underneath a small tent of its own. Come the following day’s sunset, Samhad would pile wood and grass under and around his daughter, douse them with oil, and set them ablaze. This was the way of the plainsmen, another tradition not so far from what Pehr had grown up with in his faraway village.

  Pehr’s newly augmented brain scoffed at the idea that by burning her, they would release her soul to the Gods, and yet he found it impossible to not hope. He hoped that there was more at the end than even those great scientists who had built Havenmont could imagine. He hoped there was something out in that great, dark beyond waiting to welcome her.

  In the morning there was much to do, and Pehr lent his hands as he was able. He foraged for wood with Samhad and Ketrahm, and aided in the building of the pyre. Ehella and the twins were at work by the kitchen fire, preparing food and drink, minding the new baby. The group of them barely spoke, overwhelmed by their grief.

  The family fasted, as was their custom during the day before a funeral, and Pehr joined them in this as well. After they had burned Tasha’s body and released her soul, Samhad told Pehr, they would fill themselves with tral and beer, roasted esquer root, and the last of the winter vegetables and dried fruits that they had brought with them from the southlands. It was their tradition to feast after the burning, in celebr
ation of their daughter’s soul meeting with the Gods. Pehr privately wondered whether he would have any appetite whatsoever after watching his friend burn.

  Ehella had one other duty, and it was not one that Pehr envied. It was her honor and her curse to prepare Tasha’s body for the funeral. Ehella stripped her daughter of clothing, tears pouring down her face, gasping at each of the wounds Tasha had sustained, and sobbing as she bathed the one that had finally killed the girl. She cleaned Tasha’s hair, decorating it with beads and feathers, and painted patterns on the girl’s naked skin. She did not clothe her girl, when she was done; the people of the plains went from this life naked, as they had come into it.

  As dusk drew close, two more families arrived – old friends of Samhad and Ehella – with their children in tow. All told, Tasha’s funeral party totaled sixteen souls, and they sat in a ring around the pile of wood as Samhad and Pehr lowered Tasha’s hammock slowly into the small, concave depression at the top of the pyre.

  Death had ravaged the girl, and not even Ehella’s ministrations had been able to hide that fact. Tasha lay on her pyre, pale as the moon that already floated above, her body bruised and battered. Pehr hated to see her like this, lying naked and dead, the sun dropping rapidly behind her to silhouette her face, her breasts, her long legs. He hated it, but he made himself look, forced himself to take the sight in and imprint it on his mind. Here was another friend dead, and he would sooner be damned than give in to cowardice and look away.

  This is the last, he promised himself. There will not be another who goes before me like this.

  Samhad stood before the fire, his throat working, fighting back his sorrow so as to lead the ceremony. It was both his task and his right to do this thing, and after a time he gained control of himself and spoke, the sun a sliver of red against an orange horizon.