Beneath Ceaseless Skies #163

by Sam J. Miller

  You can’t kill it. It’s too big, too strong. It’s made of Base Metal.

  I’d rather have it kill me quick than freeze or starve to death out here.

  She held her hands to the torch. If any of the shirt was left, she could not recognize it.

  Gabriel. I will come back to you. I—

  She touched one finger to the fire, to punish herself. If she was going to survive this, she would have to set him aside with the cold and the hunger. Love or lust or anger or sadness could only slow her down, make her make a mistake. Shocking, how easy it was.

  Come on then.

  The grey sky brightened while she watched the mouth of the forest. Geese flew by overhead. A deer moved mournfully through the tall dry grass. So much meat that she had no way of eating.

  And then: it came.

  Sunlight made the metalman more frightening, not less. She could see how it had been assembled; could trace the human form inside that blasphemy of metal bristles and blades. It was naked—no human clothing could ever fit such a jagged and monstrous silhouette, although shreds of filthy rags still shivered in the wind at the base of some spikes. She saw the iron rods added over time to stretch bone and muscle, giving it longer arms and an extended spine that formed an impressive hunchback and would surely have had it standing well over seven feet tall if it ever stood up straight. The legs were shorter and resembled tree trunks in their sturdiness, solid muscle to carry the weight of so much metal. Straps of leather crisscrossed its body, some of them holding additional blades and leather bags. What she had initially thought was fur was actually chestnut hair, cascading down from its head and knotted into every dark place where metal met flesh.

  It stopped at the sight of the smoke and sniffed the air. Her clumsy approximation had been close enough: the wind blew the smoke right over her, and the day was already bright enough that it could not see the light of her torch. The metalman laughed and dropped to all fours to follow the rails down.

  “You gave up?” it called, in the direction where it thought she was. “The cold became too much for you?”

  Ash moved too, slowly and carefully coming closer to the rails.

  Suddenly, it stopped. She was close enough to know that it could see the bushfire, raging out of control, too big and wild to be a campfire. She was close enough to see the muscles in its legs twitch as it realized something was wrong; as it wondered what to do, what direction the attack would come from, how to defend itself.

  She was close enough to leap straight at it, as it whirled around in surprise at the sound of her, and jammed the torch into its underbelly. It swung one enormous arm, so hard it would have bent steel and broken every bone in a mere human’s body, but it was off-guard and bewildered and she was able to duck, step to the side, stab the torch into its neck.

  The metalman howled. She had not reckoned on that; had not been able to imagine how a mere sound could hurt her. It did hurt her, to her soul, how much pain was packed into that wail: the screech of steel on steel, of lovers ripped apart, of a lifetime in shadow, of destroying beautiful things.

  She saw its face for the first time, the dense nest of piercings and studs, the sharp triangular set of shiny metal plates—silver?—around the eyes that magnified poor light and helped it see in the dark. Steel fangs shone in its mouth. It stumbled back, and she stepped forward, grabbing for one of the many weapons that protruded from its body—

  Maybe I can break it off, maybe I can hurt it, maybe I can use it against—

  Her hand closed on a rusted steel blade that jutted out of its shoulder.

  And Ash saw.

  She worked the steel as effortlessly as gold. She saw the twisted blackened tunnels where the metalmen lived, and the cruel tortures the City Fathers inflicted on them to keep them obedient. She saw this one, following her from her father’s house to Gabriel’s every day for a week. Saw it watching them—saw herself, saw Gabriel, his hairy legs lit by firelight; felt all over again the hot rush of desire and despair.

  How can I read Base Metal?

  She thought of the healed infection from the steel blade, her deepening ability to work the steel rails... and the bliss when she and Gabriel embraced, the heat of him, how natural it felt. And then she understood.

  People who can work both Base and Lustrous metals become metalmen.

  The metalman didn’t move. Barely human eyes widened, and she thought maybe it was smiling. Or nodding. For the first time she could see its pain, under wounds healed over after decades of torture. How much every motion hurt.

  People like me.

  Fear spread through her like nausea, harsher and colder than the steel infection had been.

  Only we can survive the horrific process of making a metalman. Only we can see everything, know everything, work every piece of metal in the City.

  Ash’s grip tightened. The metalman lowered its head, as if yielding. She tugged, and it groaned, and she tugged harder. She felt the steel obey her, shifting beneath her fingers and yielding up its secrets. And then the blade was in her hand, long and cruel and dripping black blood. But she felt only pity for it now, this twisted monster that was once a man, or a woman.

  It scanned her face, saw her pity, and frowned.

  Still staring her down, it unbuckled one of its leather straps; let two heavy leather pouches drop to the ground. It picked one up with one foot and tossed it at her feet.

  Ash squatted and untied it and opened it and turned it upside down, so Gabriel’s head could fall to the earth.

  No.

  Tears fogged her eyes, so swiftly they surprised her.

  No.

  The voice was small and weak now. She had none of the rage and furious anguish she needed. Only exhaustion. The true deep-down full-body fatigue she had been fighting for so long.

  For as long as I thought I was keeping him alive.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Ask the steel,” it gurgled.

  Ash gripped the blade and read it deeper, continued past where the sight of Gabriel had stopped her before. Saw her own fight with it, saw it follow her out into the street, saw it turn back, saw it pause in the doorway and watch Gabriel fumble for his clothes. Saw it wrestle with itself. Saw what it was afraid of, what the City Fathers were afraid of: a resistance, back in the City. Full of brave strong boys and girls who knew the truth. Who it was obliged to kill.

  Ash saw its weariness, but also its fear. Of what would happen if it ever failed.

  How they would hurt it: the Fathers.

  Her pity deepened, then, seeing it scream and writhe across decades of torture, even as her hate for it swelled. She saw it step forward, close gnarled metal talons over Gabriel’s head and lift him up by it, saw the squirming frailty of his naked body. Saw the blade whoosh out and sever his head. Saw his body fall.

  The thing did not step aside when she lunged forward; did not try to stop her from thrusting the same blade up into the narrow exposed spot where no metal protected its neck. It welcomed death. Because it hated what it was? No, she saw, behind the weariness in its eyes. It welcomed death not because it was tired of being a tool for hurting, but because it was weary of suffering. It didn’t hate the City Fathers for what they had done to it. It didn’t dare dream of running away.

  She and it were not the same.

  When it was dead, Ash sat down on the wooden rail ties and opened up the other pouch. Tear-blind, she fumbled through its contents barely seeing a thing. Food, water, furs. Money. Then she sat back and gripped the freezing rail with two bare hands. Felt herself transported back, back, back, all the way to the City, her vision so much clearer and broader now that she allowed herself to see through Base steel.

  Her mind balked at the volume of unknowns. Could she return to the City? Keep moving away from it, hoping to come to some other, better place, that might not even exist? Live in a world without Gabriel? Deep into her pocket, her hand tightened on the butterfly flint. Felt how strong it was where the metals alloyed. Fe
lt where she too was alloyed, now; where his strength bonded with hers.

  Ash took the furs and built herself a cocoon. Inside, she touched her lips to Gabriel’s butterfly. She fell asleep with her mouth still full of the warm sweet gone metal taste of him.

  Copyright © 2014 Sam J. Miller

  Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

  Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His work has appeared in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Shimmer, Electric Velocipede, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, The Minnesota Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He is a winner of the Shirley Jackson Award and a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, as well as the co-editor of Horror After 9/11, a critical anthology published by the University of Texas Press. Visit him at www.samjmiller.com.

  Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  UNTIL THE MOSS HAS REACHED OUR LIPS

  by Matt Jones

  We dig up the graves during the nasty part of night, when the air turns to thick ooze coating the backs of our throats, builds like gunk in our chests until we cough up handfuls of it, wipe it off on pant legs where it crusts over and flakes off into the wind, back into the pool, another drop to swim through. Gusts from the coming storm blow up from the beach, push the fog from the trees and call the fires to go yowling higher into the sky, screaming until the dawn eclipses their light into shadows of smoke.

  The littlest ones do not help us dig. They are too young. They smear each other with different shades of earth and pretend that they are creatures of the jungle, the moonlight just a wet sheen over their eyeballs.

  Pirro tells me that we must have all of the coffins unearthed before the storm hits. He says, This is our only chance, Bijou. If we do not leave on the sea, we will leave through the earth. I know what he means when he says this. It seems a strange thing, to escape with the dead in hopes that we may all live.

  When the rain makes landfall, we know it is time to go. Anya holds her dog Chipo tight to her chest so his lower half hangs lopsided toward the ground and I kneel down so she can see my eyes. Little Anya, I say, it can only be us who goes. There is no room with you for a dog and he will grow miserable out on the water. He will leap in the ocean and draw in the sharks. He will go mad with the salt and try to gnaw us to our bones while we sleep. He will piss where he stands and grow sick in the heat. Surely you do not want to see this happen, Little Anya.

  The rain batters her face, bruises her insides and I can not tell if she cries for Chipo, but she whispers in his ears and they flicker back and forth to acknowledge her message. When she sets him down, he runs off through the jungle toward the beach. We hear him howl. Thunder groans like twisted metal up in the sky. Pirro runs up beside us and yells, but his voice is not so loud under the cloak of rain. Bijou! Now! We must go now. His words crash up against my ears like swollen driftwood.

  I help Little Anya into her coffin. I tell her to lie on her back so she does not have to look at the body beneath her. The littlest ones ask why we could not empty the coffins first. Pirro tells them, They will guide us out. These shrunken forms of our ancestors, our mothers and fathers, uncles and aunties. Their spirits will keep us safe once we make it out to sea.

  After everyone is sealed up, Pirro comes and kisses my forehead. Do not open it until all is calm, he says. We each climb into our own coffin and shut the lid. In the darkness in between the wood and the stench of the soft body lying beneath me, it feels like I am already halfway there. To death. To life. Already floating. Gusts of wind scrape the outside of the wood like claws. The rain beats down like fists trying to get in. I close my eyes and open them to reveal the same amount of light. I dig around for a hand and clutch it with all my might until I feel the fingers crack and break off, the skin wiped away clean like mud against the palms of my hands.

  I do not know how long we wait, but I can tell when the water comes, when the flooding starts. I feel the waves crash up against the coffins and then we are all moving. I imagine us a fleet of varnished wood carving over the tree tops and over the sand until we are cresting toward the sky, scraping at dark clouds, pushed up higher and higher into the echo and crack of thunder, the splintering of wood. I feel as if the waves we are riding might carry us above the storm, like we might wash ashore on some airy beach and struggle across fine-grained sand only to find the very bodies once beneath us singing and dancing under the shade of trees, welcoming us home back into the light.

  * * *

  The Kaperan invaded slow like a poison. They paddled their boats up to our shores from a not so distant island and brought them up through the inlets, the finger-deep trickling streams that filtered the ocean salt out through the roots and reed grass. In a slow drip, they floated silently toward the heart of our island. On rafts of leather skins pulled tight over polished and lashed-together boards, knelt down so the grasses covered them. Their combined exhalation of breath we confused for gentle sea breezes, and down to the second knuckle they drug their palms through the water never even stirring the sediment.

  It took the Kaperan days to reach our village but months to strike. They took their time and learned our land. They doused themselves in deep shades of mud and dirt and slept in the ground we tread upon. They drank up our footsteps and learned our movements. They fed themselves on tree frogs and grub worms and hard-backed bugs that flittered to close to their hands. But before they fed, they observed. They listened closely to the croak of the tree frogs and imitated it with their own throats. They hid beneath the earth and shifted the soil grain by grain so we would not notice how still the ground had grown. For every hard-backed bug turned to mush between their yellowed teeth, they kept one hundred larvae warm and slick on the beds of their tongues until they hatched and slid back down their throats into muscle-hardened bellies , ate of them, buzzed in the heat of their chests until emerging back into life as their miniature spies.

  They tiptoed between our houses and sipped of the warm air that escaped our mouths as we dreamt. Sometimes, I thought I could feel them, their faces hovering above my own, but whenever I opened my eyes, there was only air that I could see. Nothing.

  The Kaperan imbibed the red-frilled leaves of the poisonous plants that grew around the edges of the island, mashed up the burning in their mouths into cud they hid stinging behind their lips. They developed a measured sickness that lingered in the joints of their arms and legs that eventually swelled their bones to thriving, until the poison affected them no more. They disguised themselves with the skins of the trees and grew up tall from ankles and feet. I could swear there were days when Pirro and I climbed to gaze out at the horizon from the canopy that I felt noses under my heel, probing tongues across my skin as I climbed higher. Don’t be silly, Pirro said, bringing his machete down across a lone branch, what you feel moving across you are knobs of twisted bark, coils of slithering snake. Their limbs became the trees’ limbs and when one was cut off, they bled. They bit their tongues and bled in silence.

  Our Mami noticed them, not in their true form but in the way the land started to reject us. In the coffee she sipped, she tasted the difference, how bitter it was, how sleepy it made her. Our Papi felt their presence in the fish he caught and served at dinner. With every bite he took, soft bones like wasp stings fell down the back of his throat until he could no longer eat. Pirro snared birds in the jungle that sang so beautifully for their freedom that he could not twist their necks. Homero hunted down and took the heads of snakes that bled only venom, which shriveled and burned into scalding poofs of air.

  They turned the elements against us. They let us waste away.

  * * *

  I open my eyes and the darkness around me glows red at the seams. I can hear a dog barking. My body sloshes up and down. When I lift open the lid of the coffin, the sun sears my eyeballs a delicate shade of white and all that is around me appears clean and new, endless and still unformed in only the way the center of the ocean can. The dog is barking and my vision comes back in waves until I can see Chipo hel
d tightly in the arms of Little Anya. I feel sick and spill my insides over the side of the coffin.

  The hand on my back belongs to Pirro, reaching to me over the water. He rubs my shoulders and says, Get it out, Bijou. Get it all out.

  When I look around, everyone is here, all floating alongside me. Pirro. Brigitte. Laurette. Homero. Omario. The littlest ones. Even Little Anya and Chipo. I don’t know how we all made it free.

  Where are we, I ask.

  Lost for now, Pirro says. He cups his hand over his brow to block out the sun and strains his eyes. It’s all ocean and sunlight here. The only shelter resides under the lid of a closed coffin. And even there, the sun finds its way through the seams of the wood. He calls out, We should all rest. Shut your lids everyone. Sleep. The storm is passed and we can come out at night again when the sun is not so strong.

  He starts to drift away from me and I call his name, the words tearing up raw from the salt shards at the back of my throat. He paddles back over and leans down so the shade from his head covers my own. Shhh, Bijou. We will not drift apart. Everyone is safe for now. But how can he know such a thing? Little Anya drizzles water over her head that turns to steam rising from her brow. Pirro kisses my forehead and shuts my coffin lid over me.Sealed inside the darkness, I still feel the heat just as strong, hiding itself beneath the surface of my skin.

  * * *

  Our Granmi told us of the Kaperan when we were littler versions of ourselves, before the littlest ones had come to be. She gathered all of us around a fire at night. She was hunched over and small, but when she paced in front of the flame, her shadow rose up in mischievous flickers on the walls of our houses.