The Broken God Machine

by Christopher Buecheler

He told them of Tasha’s unique qualities, from her purple eyes and red hair to her strength of spirit. He spoke of her skepticism, her disbelief, her need to understand. He spoke of the way that she would openly question others’ choices, but if he had ever harbored any resentment toward this, it was gone now. His remembrance was fond, though tinged with deep sorrow, and during it he smiled often. More than once, members of the group laughed at some story or murmured encouragement when Samhad seemed as though he might be overwhelmed.

  At last he finished, turning to look at his daughter, and Pehr could see on his face the agony this caused him.

  “I will miss you, my Tasha,” he told the girl, and his voice broke as he said her name, and for a time there was silence save the chirruping of the crickets, and the soft sobs of those around Pehr who had given in to their grief.

  At last Samhad turned to Pehr, gestured, and opened his mouth. No words came at first, and Samhad swallowed, trying again.

  “You were her friend, Khada’Pehr of the western lands. Perhaps the best she ever had. You were with her in her last days and moments, and I … I would ask you to speak of her now. Will you do so?”

  “It will be an honor,” Pehr said, and he stood, moving next to Samhad. He and the older hunter had discussed this already. Pehr wanted to speak, needed to, and Samhad had been glad to share the burden of eulogizing his daughter. Pehr felt he owed it to his friend to try to put into words that her family could understand just how and why she had sacrificed herself. He had promised her to tell them everything, and this was the way he would start.

  “Tasha was indeed my friend,” he said, after Samhad had taken a seat beside his wife. “Though I did not always understand her, I came to love her like my sister. She dreamt of things which she couldn't explain, and she was drawn at last to the mountains. Because she was my friend … my sister … I followed her, to give what help I could on the journey.

  “She found her answers there. I want you to know that. All her life, Tasha had been seeking something, and in the end it was there for her, and it was everything she had ever hoped it would be. Knowledge was waiting in that place, so much of it that it nearly overwhelmed us both, and there is nothing in the world that Tasha valued more than knowledge.

  “In the mountains lies not the throne of the Gods, but the city called Havenmont – the last great work of man – and in that city, we found the knowledge that Tasha had been seeking since her earliest memories. She was given answers to questions she had long asked, and to questions that she had never known to ask, and we were tasked with taking these answers back to this place, and to the west.

  “The time of salvation has come. We are to be saved, and this is good, but it has come with great cost. Tasha sacrificed herself not just for me, or for you, but for all of her people, and all of mine.”

  He stopped, breathing deep and looking around at the others assembled before him. The children looked confused, but the adults were intent, listening, fascinated by this tale.

  “I am not from this place, but in truth, both of our societies were once one,” Pehr told them. “They were split by the Lagos – the hideous beast-men of the western jungles – and many lives of men have passed since that great breaking occurred. I came through the mountains – by luck or by the grace of the Gods, I don't know – and I fell at Tasha’s feet. She saved me from death then, and just two days ago she saved me again. She paid for this last with her life, but in so doing she has saved us all.

  “The Lagos are gone, or nearly so. Their armies are destroyed, and what little remains of them is scattered and disorganized. Now is the time. I will burn my friend, and grieve her loss with all of you, and then I will set out again toward the mountains. This time, though, I make not for Havenmont, but for the land of my family. There I will bring the tribes together … I know not how, but I have sworn it. We will clear a path through the jungle, from the coast to the mountains, and then at last to the plains. Our people, driven apart all these long ages ago, will at last be reunited, and we will work as one to restore the city of our forefathers and follow their path.”

  Pehr turned to look at his friend, lying naked before him in the dark. “I swear this,” he said. “Tasha, I swear this, to you and to all the world.”

  After one last, long look at her face, he turned and nodded to Samhad, who stood and joined him at the pyre, holding a torch.

  “My daughter, we commit you now to the Gods,” the older hunter said, and with these words he put his torch to the wood, once, twice, and a third time. Flames sprung to life in the kindling, and both he and Pehr stepped back away from the growing heat.

  Behind them, Ehella began to sing a song of mourning that Pehr did not know. Samhad joined her, and soon all but Pehr sang. He stood with his head bowed, listening to the anguish in their voices, feeling his own, and before him the girl with the purple eyes burned. He stood there and listened, wishing he knew the words, wishing that he could lend his voice to theirs and so help send his friend’s soul onward toward God or gods.

  Chapter 26

  “Must you leave already?” Kissha asked him, and Pehr smiled at her. It had been twelve days since Tasha’s funeral, and in that time he had solidified his plans, made his preparations, and given some rest to his battered, weary body. He was anxious now to be away, to continue on the path that Tasha had lain out before him, but he was also sorry to be parted again so soon from his surrogate family.

  “I’m afraid I must,” he said. “I must go, and I will be gone long, this time. Much longer than the last.”

  “How long?”

  “At least six moons. Probably twelve. A whole year, Kissha … and that will be if I’m lucky.”

  “But you are coming back … aren’t you?” she asked him, and the concern in her voice was touching. What he had done to earn this girl’s love he couldn’t say, but he could feel it emanating off her in waves. It was no longer the childish love of their first months together, but neither was it yet a woman’s love. It was still something in between, something light and simple but also pure and honest, and Pehr was glad for it.

  “I'm coming back,” he told her. “As soon as my work on the coast is done, I will come here again to meet with your father and prepare us all. Then we will journey to Havenmont.”

  “And then we can be married!” Kissha exclaimed, and she favored him with a radiant smile.

  “Perhaps someday,” Pehr said, laughing. “But then, perhaps, while I’m away you’ll meet some strapping, handsome, fourteen-year-old boy, and he will steal your heart away!”

  Kissha shook her head in solemn disgust at this suggestion, and Pehr laughed again. He bent down from working on the leather knots of his traveling pack and kissed the girl on the forehead. She turned pink and, after a moment, rushed out of the tent, no doubt to inform Mandia of this latest event. Ehella, who had witnessed all of this, smiled at him.

  “You are so patient with her,” she said.

  Pehr laughed. “She is a fine girl. No doubt she will make some man very happy when she comes of age.”

  “Is there a woman waiting for you, back in your lands?”

  Thinking of Nani, he began to shake his head, but then he stopped and shrugged. “A girl I knew, maybe. Her name is Sili, and I … I planned to marry her, once. She might have survived the Lagos attack, might live yet – but if she does, it’s likely she’s taken the necklace of some other man and become his wife.”

  He did not add that he could no longer see himself with Sili, and had not so much as thought of her in many months. Now that he tried, the images did not readily come to his mind. She was like a ghost, like a character in a story from his childhood, barely remembered. The events of his life before coming to the Plains of Tassanna seemed sometimes to have happened to someone else. Still, it was impossible to say; if he met her again as a man, and she was still unwed, perhaps it would feel right to court her.

  Samhad was sitting in the corner of the tent, honing and sharpening the metal sword that
he had purchased as a young man. Finished, he set it aside and looked up.

  “Are you ready, Pehr?”

  “Yes. The knots are good. I’ve packed light, but this trip will be much more comfortable than either of the two before.”

  Samhad nodded and stood. “Very well. When you have made your goodbyes, meet me at the western jesuva tree. I would speak with you alone before you go.”

  Pehr nodded, and the older hunter left the tent. Ehella stood and embraced Pehr, holding him tight and pressing her lips hard against his cheek.

  “You must take care, my western son,” she said, and Pehr smiled.

  “I will.”

  “My daughter loves you very much.”

  “Kissha is—” Pehr began, and Ehella shook her head.

  “Tasha. She is out there somewhere, Pehr, watching us all. I know this. I know it as I know that she loves you. You told us before that you had failed her, but I do not believe that is so.”

  “No?”

  “Sometimes a man must accept what is. I would call it fate, or the will of the Gods … my daughter would have rolled her eyes at this and stalked off, muttering under her breath. It doesn’t matter. You brought her to this great city, and you found for her there the answers she had always sought. Pehr, I … if all you say is true, and I believe with my soul that it is, then Tasha must’ve been happy when she passed. You didn’t fail her, and you shouldn’t regret.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard not to regret,” Pehr told her. “I thank you for your words, Ehella, and for your belief. Your daughter will not have passed on in vain. That is my promise.”

  Ehella nodded and stepped away from him, returning to her cot and picking up the garment she was mending. She smiled at him and said, “Go on, now.”

  He stopped for a moment to say goodbye to the baby, knowing the child would not remember him whenever he returned but wanting to do it just the same. That done, he waved a final time to Ehella and exited the tent. Outside, he found Kissha, Mandia, and Ketrahm idling in the general vicinity of the dwelling, clearly waiting for him. When he emerged, they quickly surrounded him.

  “Father says you’re leaving,” Mandia told him.

  “Yes,” Pehr replied. “It’s time.”

  Kissha was crying and couldn’t look at him. Pehr smoothed her tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and then put a hand under her chin, tilting her gaze up to meet his.

  “I will miss you,” he said. “I know you wish I would stay, but I must go. I owe it to your sister. Do you understand?”

  Kissha nodded, still sobbing miserably, scrubbing at her tears with her arm and trying desperately to compose herself. She seemed nearly to have regained her composure, and then the tears returned, and she covered her face. Pehr smiled and put his hand atop her head. Kissha responded to this by throwing her arms around him, pressing her face against his chest, and Pehr held her for a time without speaking. At last she separated herself from him, looking embarrassed.

  Pehr turned and hugged Mandia, and then Ketrahm. Both were much more stalwart in their reaction to his departure than Kissha was, but they seemed unhappy. Pehr found some comfort in this; he would miss them, and it was good to know they felt the same.

  At last they went in to join their mother, and Pehr made his way to the jesuva tree that sat far out on the plains to the west. Samhad was there, leaning against it, and he stood up straight as Pehr arrived.

  “How long is the journey?” he asked.

  “How long is a man’s life?” Pehr asked back, and he grinned. It was a saying of the plainsmen, and one that he liked very much.

  Samhad smiled back at him. “You’ve learned much of our ways during your time here, Khada’Pehr,” he said. “If a bridge is to be built between our people and yours, it has begun with you.”

  Pehr nodded.

  Samhad reached down to the base of the jesuva tree and picked up a leather scabbard. Pehr understood at once that it contained one of the metal swords that the plainsmen so prized. Samhad held it out to him.

  “Yours?” Pehr asked, and the plainsman shook his head.

  “Mine rests still by my bed, and Gods willing it will be there until the day I pass it on to my son. This is yours, Pehr.”

  “Samhad … I cannot pay you for this. I have not the hides, and I—”

  “I would not accept them even if you did. This is a gift, Pehr, and it’s also a promise. We will be here when you return. I will spread your legend and that of Havenmont among the plainsmen. When they come to understand what it is that waits for us in the mountains, they will follow you. Perhaps not all … not at first … but many. Enough.”

  “I am truly blessed by the Gods to have fallen at Tasha’s feet, and to have been taken in by such good people,” Pehr said. He took the sword from Samhad and slung the scabbard over his shoulder. Then he held out his hand, and Samhad gripped it, and for a moment they stood together like that. Then Pehr let go and took a step back.

  “Watch for me,” he said. “Watch the western horizon, and do not go to Havenmont without me. You will not be allowed to pass. I will return.”

  “We will watch the sunset for you and yours. When the day comes at last that we see you there, we will welcome you and those who you’ve brought to us with open arms.”

  “Thank you, Samhad.”

  “Go with the Gods, Khada’Pehr.”

  With those words to set him on his way, Pehr turned, striding off into the west, beginning his journey back to the lands of his youth.

  Chapter 27

  The younger woman was tending to her little boy, who had at that moment decided that eating a handful of sand and pebbles would be a most excellent idea, and so she did not at first see the figure cresting the hill. She heard the older woman sitting behind her make a quiet murmur of surprise and say, “Who is that?”

  The younger woman glanced up, ceasing her tsking noises, eyes slit to try to make out the features of the still-distant form. In one hand she still clutched the stones that her boy had been trying to eat. The other hand rested on her slightly swollen belly, inside of which her second child was half grown. She tossed the pebbles away and brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun, pushing away her hair. After a moment she said, “I can’t see.”

  “Merchant?” the older woman asked.

  “No … I don’t think so.”

  “Not a farmer?”

  “Coming from the east? It has to be a hunter.”

  There were so few of those now, even two years after the coming of the Lagos. Only three had survived the battle: Josep, Thomas with his crippled left arm, and the youngest, Clay, who had been knocked senseless in the fighting and mistaken for dead. Since then only four boys had passed the Test. Most others who might have done so had been taken by the Lagos priests.

  “It’s not your man, nor Sili’s, nor mine,” the older woman, Thomas’s wife, said, and she leaned forward a bit, shielding her eyes as well.

  “I don’t think it’s any of ours. I don’t think he’s from this village at all,” the younger woman said, but there was something in her voice like doubt. The silhouette was familiar and foreign at the same time, like someone who has come from a dream to stand in the waking world.

  The man came to a stop at the crest of the hill, looking over his surroundings and grinning broadly. With the sun lighting his face, the two women could better make out his features, and after a moment more the younger one made a sudden, harsh gasping noise, like a woman nearly drowned who has just broken the surface. She began to babble half-words and fragments, and she leapt to her feet.

  “Nani, what is it?” the older woman asked.

  She only cried, “Watch the baby!” before taking off toward the stranger at a dead run, seemingly unburdened by the child growing inside of her.

  * * *

  Pehr heard her call his name. He heard the call become a long and breaking cry of joy, and he turned to see his cousin barreling down upon him. He opened his arms and caught her, laughing, an
d the two very nearly toppled over into the sandy grass. Nani pressed her face against his chest, fingers wrapping the leather of his shirt into knots, and sobbed. Pehr held her, put his face in her hair, inhaled.

  “How I have missed you,” he said.

  “You’re dead!” Nani wept, still clutching him with all of her strength, and Pehr gave a soft laugh.

  “No.”

  “You must be!”

  Pehr nodded. “I must be, yes. But I’m not.”

  “ You and Jace … Josep said it was impossible.”

  “I couldn’t save Jace. Nani, I am so sorry.”

  His cousin’s sobs redoubled, and for a time they stood there like that, Nani weeping in some terrible combination of joy and grief and Pehr doing his best to comfort her. At last she gained some control and pulled away from him, looking up into his eyes.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Pehr took her hand and began to walk back toward the dwellings. Nani allowed herself to be guided in that direction.

  “Do you remember that I told you I dreamed of a girl, just before the Lagos attacked?” he asked as they walked, and Nani nodded. Pehr sighed. “She was there. No, I understand that it seems insane, but you must trust me. I fell, dying of thirst, at the feet of this strange girl with her purple eyes, and her family took me in. Nani, there is so much to tell, but I’ve returned at last and I bring salvation with me. The girl, Tasha, and I … we found something that will save us all.”

  “From the Lagos?”

  Pehr ran a hand through his hair and looked out toward the horizon, where the Everstorm continued to churn and shift as it had for as long as his people could remember. Finally he spoke.

  “No. The thing we call the Everstorm keeps a great evil at bay, something far worse even than the Lagos. It is … a demon, almost, called Radiation, and the Everstorm was built to keep its touch from these lands, but the Everstorm is failing. With each passing year the demon creeps closer. Eventually all who live in this place will die. There is only one hope for Uru.”