by Scott Hale
The Northern District was the finest graveyard she had ever seen.
“This is where the secrets are kept and those who know them that should not,” Deimos whispered. “Prisons sit beneath our feet. You can reach one from the second gate and another where we’re headed.”
“I thought you said Geharra was better than most of the Corrupted cities.” Vrana stopped for a moment, kicking free from the grasp of a tangle of vines. She wanted to continue challenging Deimos, but now didn’t seem the time.
“It is,” he replied. “It was.”
Five minutes into the Northern District and Vrana felt an irritating longing for Aeson which she couldn’t explain. Her heart began to beat nervously, and her stomach became a cage for wayward butterflies. I should have waited, she said to herself, as though withholding her feelings for him would have made this moment all the more bearable. It was reckless and selfish, she thought, absently kicking a pebble into a crack, but then again, isn’t it always? There wouldn’t be so much written on love if it was simple, if it didn’t hurt. I hope he’s okay. A smile formed across her face. My mother is probably driving him mad. I wish they could see this. Maybe one day.
Fifteen minutes later and there was a smell so foul and permeating that Vrana’s jaw locked shut and her nose closed, and breathing seemed to be something her body was willing to forgo for as long as it took to be clear of the stench. Her nose wrinkled, and she gulped at the air above like a fish, as though there was some pocket untouched by that fetid mixture of shit, filth, and sweat. She looked back at Serra and was comforted by his obvious discomfort. Deimos and Lucan appeared unaffected by the putrid odor, but then again, they were expecting it.
“Can we g-go a d-different way?” Vrana stammered. “I can’t fucking breathe.”
“This is the way.” Lucan coughed and dropped his head low.
Vrana covered her nose and mouth. “I heard you two in the house.”
“You can fight,” Deimos said, leading them through a park with a bloodstained merry-go-round, “but sneaking is another matter entirely.”
“I wanted you to hear,” Lucan said. “Thought I’d make a big scene.”
“This smell, this is Geharra and Alluvia,” Vrana said.
Serra grunted: It has to be.
“Some may still be alive,” Lucan said, hopeful. “I don’t think Penance’s intentions were to murder the city and town.”
Deimos nodded. “That much is obvious from the Crossbreed you two found.” He brought them around the back of a mansion, where purple curtains waved liked flags of surrender. “Something went wrong. And if something went wrong, then there may be someone still alive.”
“What does this mean?” Vrana watched as Blix flew ahead, high above the field of putrescence through which they trudged. “There’s not a lot of our tribe left, and even for the Corrupted, ten thousand is a lot.”
“It means the world is getting smaller. It means the Corrupted will come together, while we struggle not to fall apart.”
Lucan opened a squeaky gate and let them pass through. “It means we’ve a lot of work to do.”
“The elders wanted to get rid of me because of the Witch!” She felt like an outcast, even though she’d made herself one in her decision to leave.
Deimos raised his hand. “Not now, Vrana. Everyone, quiet.”
Vrana tightened her grip around the ax and considered taking off the Bat’s head.
Lucan pointed to Serra and then lifted a finger to the mouth of his mask.
Serra nodded happily and raised his middle finger in response.
One does not see the string of pearls among a heap of diamonds, and so Vrana was surprised when they veered into an iron-fenced yard and stopped before the steps of a beautiful church. Its front door was chipped, beaten in by overzealous parishioners too impatient to wait for heaven. From on high, its massive stained-glass windows scrutinized the city like drug-addled eyes. Around the foundation, holy inscriptions had been carved into the stonework, coupled with faded images of religious iconography entirely foreign to Vrana. It was from here and the black bowels of this basilica that the foul smell of lingering death originated.
“There is a doorway in the floor behind the altar,” Deimos said as he started up the steps. “It leads to a tunnel.”
“We’ll follow it,” Lucan continued for the Bat, “and see what lies at its end. When we’ve finished, if we’re not finished ourselves, we’ll see to destroying your Crossbreed.” Lucan looked to Deimos for approval, who nodded in agreement. Through their fight, the men had succumbed to cliché and found forgiveness for one another.
“It’s almost night. We’ll rest here.” Deimos cocked his head as he sensed words of outrage form upon Vrana’s lips. “The odor will only worsen as we proceed. It’s better to numb ourselves to it.”
Blix rested atop the church’s pinnacle and cawed: He didn’t mind sleeping outside.
Several overturned pews like bulwarks impeded their way as they crossed the threshold of the church. Candlesticks and candelabras lay bent and broken in puddles of hardened wax. Pages ripped from their leathery bindings flapped overhead in the gathering darkness, held afloat by a permanent gust. At the center of the nave, a heatless flame burned in suspension over an altar, weeping ruby ashes onto its white linen cover.
“They filed in one by one,” Vrana said as she followed the dusty footprints to the center. “All of Geharra and Alluvia.” The smell of death and suffering here was so overbearing that, in some way, it made it all the more bearable. She turned around and, looking at the rows of pews, asked, “Who were they trying to keep out?”
“Those who knew better, those who the Crossbreed had not yet affected,” Deimos rumbled.
Serra grunted four times: Can you be immune?
“I’m sure,” Vrana said. “They probably had to find people who were to transport it.”
Deimos nodded and brought his companions around the altar and into the eerie light, showing them the doorway that gaped behind it like a festering wound. It breathed back at them deeply, slowly; rancid air pressing hot against their masks and eyes. Serra was the most affected, the openness of his mask doing little to guard him from it. He stepped back and gathered himself, sighing and shaking his head, until he vomited onto a light blue tapestry.
“Hey,” Lucan whispered, taking the Piranha by the shoulders. “Put your mind elsewhere.” He waited until Serra nodded. “Different place, different time. Here’s your chance to do what someone should have done for you, yes?”
Vrana knew he was referring to the Scavengers’ tower and the taking of Serra’s tongue. “Is this their church?”
“The Scavengers’?” Deimos shook his head. “No, this was a church of the Holy Order of Penance.” He pointed to a large painting on the wall, which was streaked with the orange light of descending dusk. “‘The Holy Child, who speaks and acts on his Father’s behalf,’” he quoted.
Vrana strained her eyes to make out the child’s face. He looked familiar, but the artist had taken some liberties with the boy’s shape and features, presenting him as though he was an angelic creature pretending, and failing, to be human. She’d seen the image before but couldn’t place it. “There’s no Corruption on his arm,” she noted, turning to face her friends.
“Why should there be? The god of Penance is beyond error.” Lucan laughed. “There are those who have seen the child through open windows, though. They say his arm is no less pink than his peers’.”
With night came the cold, and with the cold, the acrid breath of the tunnel was dampened and made more bearable. Using the contents of the church, Vrana and her companions formed a blockade between themselves, the hidden doorway, and any curious beast or body from the streets of the Northern District. Serra moved his mouth until a small fire was born in the middle of a book of psalms. Deimos urged them to eat, and they urged him to be quiet, for the thought alone turned their stomachs.
“Deimos,” Vrana said as she held the sil
ver necklace in her hands, the color of its red gem strangely similar to the altar’s flame. “Where were you? Why did you leave?” She met his eyes above the Piranha’s ghostly fire. “You’ve all kept things from me. I’ve let it go long enough.”
Deimos crossed his legs and placed his hands upon his knees. He exhaled as though he were preparing himself. “Far north of here, if you keep to the shore, you’ll find a place before the Frigid Wastes, where the land stretches like an arm across the sea. The soil is thin, would be manageable, if not for the toxic fumes that surround the land bridge. If you breathe them in, they will blister your lungs and burn your throat and kill you before you make it a quarter of the way across.”
“What’s on the other side?” Vrana leaned forward; she knew there was a terrible thing waiting to be told at the end of this story, but until that point, she was hanging on his every word and loving every moment of it.
“The Dead City. The last remaining modern city of the Old World, untouched by the Trauma. Everything you’ve ever read about is there, abandoned and unreachable. If the Corrupted had the means, they would go there to take this world over again.”
Vrana bit the side of her mouth as the wounds from the Horror of the Lake began to sting. Not now, she thought, please, not now.
Deimos huffed. He seemed to consider removing his mask, then decided against it. He started to scratch at his knees and shiver. “My husband Johannes and I were miles from Geharra, searching the outposts in the wilderness there. There was a woman, a fur trader we’d seen often in passing.” Deimos’ hands became claws; and he bent forward, and all at once, in the shadow of fire, his body darkened, his skin tightened, and he became as the Bat, hunched and hungry and hateful. “She told us of a pale green light in the Dead City and something massive moving behind the buildings. I thought nothing of it, but Johannes wanted to know more. There was no reason not to investigate, and I never could say no… say no to him.
“We left the next morning. Geharra was without incident and the elders without orders. As watchers, it was our responsibility to seek out of the truth of the claim, even though we knew we’d find nothing. No one ever does—that’s why they call it the Dead City. We reached the land bridge a week later and slept near where the sea boiled. We used binoculars: we went as close as we could; there was no truth to the claims.” Deimos stopped and leaned back into the shadows, so that he was no more than a dark shape with a bat skull. “Johannes, when he was younger, had an infection, leaving his right ear deaf. He didn’t make for much of a sentry, so I often stood watch while he slept. But the night was quiet and the journey had been long. I lay down beside him, kissed him goodnight, and when I woke the next day, he was gone… and I was lost.
“I searched Mirror Lake and the snowbound forests—Hoarfrost and Gelid. I followed hidden trails to forgotten caves. I went as far as our village, Eld, and Corrupted’s Eldrus. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. Eventually, I returned to the land bridge of the Dead City and wandered the shore there, thinking I’d find him in the waters, thinking something had taken him. My lungs seized and bled, so I turned back. At that point, I had lost track of time, of everything. But I did find something, finally: a cabin shrouded in icy willows.” He began to pick at the skin on the tips of his fingers. “On the porch, I saw the hollowed-out head of a fox upturned, filled to its brim with snow. Johannes had been the Fox. It was Johannes’ mask. It was his.” Deimos cleared his throat. “Johannes… he… it had been his.
“I saw him through the windows. His back was to me. He was sitting in a chair. I kicked open the door, but I was too late, months too late. What they had done to him…. I knew it was him, because he was mine, but anyone else—I don’t think they could be sure. I waited until nightfall, but I knew his killers weren’t coming back. They didn’t do it for the coin, I thought. They’d left his mask, the only part of us that’s worth anything to them. I waited until nightfall, and then I brought what was left of him to Mirror Lake and buried him where we’d first met. After that—after that, I knew what I was doing, where I was going. I hunted his killers, and I killed them all.
“I found the fur trader, and she told me there had been four, for they’d bragged in passing of what they’d done. I found the first in a small cottage along the White Whispers. I broke him, and then he told me where I could find the others. I let him live long enough to think he would survive, and then I threw his bones into the river. The last three found me midway, where the Spine kisses the edge of the Dires. They were hunting with their sons. They told me the woman, the fur trader, had orchestrated the killing, to rid her territories of Johannes and me. They didn’t know why she wanted me left alive. But it didn’t matter. It was done. I killed the men. In front of their children, I killed them, and I left the bodies there for the boys to bury.
“When thoughts of Johannes no longer brought me to tears, I returned to Geharra and saw that I had failed them, too. I have failed everyone. I hope that their sons find me one day. I look forward to it. I truly do.”
Vrana’s voice trembled as she said, “I’m so sorry, Deimos.”
Serra grunted his condolences.
“I was wrong,” Lucan said. He took off his mask and left it in his lap. “I’m sorry, brother. Not one of us would have done differently. If you had stayed, you would’ve died.”
“If I had stayed,” Deimos said, his words heavy with spit, “I might have been able to help. He might… he might still be alive.”
I know how he feels, Vrana thought, watching as he wept quietly in the shadows. Caldera… the Witch… if only I had made it back sooner.
“No,” Lucan urged, almost shouting. “No, you wouldn’t have helped. They would’ve killed you or did whatever they’ve done down there to you.” He looked over at the doorway in the floor behind the altar. “And then what? Where would we be? By the time the elders realized something was wrong, it would’ve been too late.”
Deimos shrugged. “You say this now, but in the morning, when we find them, you’ll hate me again, and you’ll be right to.”
“How do you think I feel?” Vrana spoke up. “I brought the Witch to Caldera. She could be there now, finishing everyone off. No, I know it’s not the same, but in a way, it is. I heard you. They let me go to get rid of me. Until I kill her, I don’t even know if they’ll let me come back. But I didn’t ask her to kill our people. You didn’t ask Penance to take Alluvia and Geharra. Why should you feel guilty for the choices someone else made? I did, but I don’t anymore. That’s what the Corrupted do. They wring their hands and beat themselves up and don’t do what needs to be done, and once they do, it doesn’t matter, because it’s too late. I have to kill her. You have to find out why this has happened. If it had been our people who did this to Geharra, would that make it better?”
Deimos mirrored Vrana’s surprise as he nodded and said, “You’re right.”
“I don’t know where this is coming from,” Vrana said, chuckling. “I don’t know if even I believe it, but right now, I think I have to. This is who we are supposed to be. This is what we’re supposed to do. I’ll cling to that if it helps get us through.”
Serra grunted in agreement. He took a bite of some bread he had sitting beside him.
“She’s gotten pretty good with her speeches,” Lucan said, trying to lighten the mood.
Deimos nodded again. “I’m glad that you’re here, Vrana. I wish that… I wish that you could have met Johannes. You would have gotten along well.”
“One day,” Vrana said with a smile, lowering the raven’s head onto the floor.
Deimos laughed and looked away. “Maybe, yes. One day. Anything could happen in this strange world.” He stood up and exited the church, but he left with more hope than when he’d entered it.
Sleep came easier than Vrana expected. She had only one dream. At first, she thought it to be a memory, but realized on waking that the moment had never occurred. In the dream, she sat in the warm stream outside Caldera, as she
had done many times in the past when faced with a dilemma. Only Aeson had accompanied her to this place; yet, beside her sat her mother, braiding flowers into her hair. The surface of the water was like glass, and it fell slowly through her fingers in thick strands. Along her arm, a beetle crawled, its antennae quivered about its painted head. Atop the bank, she saw Aeson, and he was without his mask. He was speaking to her, but the words meant nothing to her. She turned to ask Adelyn what he meant, but where she’d sat, a small bird now floated atop the yellowing water. Vrana reached for the bird without hesitation and then pulled back as the stream bed gave way to gray Void. She tried to stand up, but she fell, and as she fell through the caustic, yellow water, she saw her mother floating beyond, but it was not her mother; yet, it didn’t seem to matter, for she went to her all the same.
“Vrana,” she heard Deimos whisper.
“What?” Vrana said groggily. “What is it?” She felt for the handle of her ax.
“You were whimpering.”
Whimpering? Her face flushed with embarrassment. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Vrana was unmasked, but Deimos, like always, was not. Does he never sleep? She took a sip of water and breathed in the sickly air. “Are you okay?” she asked him.
The flames above the altar twisted in a helix, its light coloring the Bat with red violence. The mask, damaged as it was, appeared even more so, and now seemed as thin as paper. Deimos ran his fingers over the white markings on his body, where the nerves were deadened from disease. He nodded to show that he would manage and waited for the Raven to lie back down on the hard floor.
After an hour of struggling to fall back asleep, Vrana turned away from her companions. Through a gap in the barrier they had created, she noticed something near the entrance. She strained her eyes, and then shuddered as she saw it with terrifying clarity: the cursed wolf, its face as pale as bone, watching her party with great interest.