This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death

by Неизвестный

  The tempo continued to increase. The other violinists took on the repeated notes, while Nanu played an urgent modulating bridge, swooping high and back down again.

  The sculpture came to life. It crept up the stairs, in the dead of night, and into Keloth’s bedchamber.

  The accompaniment was frenzied now, and Athba no longer held back. She put her voice’s full power into the sharp-edged melody as she sang Keloth’s battle with the beast. It growled threats; he made dry little jokes. He cracked its limbs; it bit his throat. He shattered its head with a heavy book from his bedside table, and at last it died. Shards of glass clattered across the chamber like cobblestones.

  A sudden slowing. The wordless, plaintive tune recurred, and Athba drew herself back, returning to the menacing voice she’d had at the first. There was a new tone in it, too, a bittersweet acceptance.

  Keloth had won, but the bleeding was too heavy, and from too many wounds. Knowing nothing could save him, he refused the attentions of healers. Instead he sat down by the remains of the glass dragon and murmured to it.

  He died smiling, without regrets.

  Athba held her pose for a moment as the strings died away. Then Keloth applauded, and the rest of the room followed suit.

  She curtsied, breathing a sigh of relief. She always worried that one day she would have nothing new to say about the single word “GLASS,” no remaining way to satisfy the court’s morbid tastes. But that day had not yet come.

  A whirring servitor rolled over to Keloth, clearing his plate and depositing a plate of lime ice. Keloth picked at it, but his eyes rested on the musicians. “Athba, will you do something for me?”

  Another silly question. “I am at your service, my lord.”

  “A week from today, Lady Irathi arrives to discuss an alliance against Lord Ulan. Compose and perform one of your songs for her.”

  “My lord?”

  “A deathsong. That is what you do best. The words on which to expand are ‘BLUE FEVER.’ That is all.”

  Athba’s rather hefty stomach turned to ice. Morbid lords like Keloth could commission their own deathsongs as much as they liked. But to commission them for someone else? This was never done. Lords of the same standing never mentioned each other’s deaths. It would be taken as a threat: I know how you will die. I can make it happen quickly if you like.

  But one did not say no to Lord Keloth—particularly not when one had gone to the clacking clockwork machine in the highest tower and spilled one’s own blood. Keloth had seen the parchment predicting Athba’s death before permitting even Athba to read. He rarely passed up an opportunity to remind her, or any of his other servitors, that he knew what would kill them.

  “I will do as my lord commands,” said Athba, and she wondered if this next deathsong would be her last.

  “Can you believe it?” Athba said later in the practice room. She paced through mountains of unattended sheet music, scattering paper through the velvet chamber. Nanu could not even control her frizzy red hair, let alone the volumes of paper she needed, but she was a good confidante for all that. “Because I can’t.”

  Nanu shrugged her scrawny shoulders. “I heard that Lady Irathi never commissions deathsongs at all. But I’m sure Keloth has something planned. He wouldn’t throw away an alliance just to amuse himself.”

  Maybe not, Athba thought, but he would certainly throw away a courtier who displeased him. The deathsinger before Athba had once sung a deathsong in which Keloth was dragged across shards of glass while comically tangled in his horse’s reins. He was forgiven, or so people whispered, for the grisly description, but not for making Keloth look foolish. In any case, no one ever heard from him again.

  If Irathi was displeased, Athba would go the same way.

  “I heard she kept her death secret so no one could use it against her. I’m surprised he even managed to find it. Why’s he blurting it out in front of the whole court?”

  Nanu chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe she’s changed her mind. You remember how you got when you first had your death read. It takes some getting used to, you know? It is morbid.”

  “These are morbid times.”

  Athba’s death, predicted by the clockwork machine, was “GRAPES.” She had avoided fruit with amused horror for several weeks, but she couldn’t keep it up. Keloth made a point of serving Athba his best wines. Not as a punishment, he said. Merely to keep her on her toes.

  Nanu did not know her own death, or claimed not to, though Keloth assuredly knew it. She had closed her eyes while the machine spun its clacking gears, telling the lord she preferred uncertainty. He had humored her by making everything uncertain: requesting new music at the last minute, hinting that they might or might not be employed in the future. Nanu seemed not to mind.

  “And ‘BLUE FEVER.’ It’s such an unromantic disease. How am I supposed to sing about that?”

  Nanu took Athba’s hands and brushed her thumbs against the singer’s palms. Though Nanu was the younger of the two, there was something motherly in her smile. “You’ll think of something, and I’ll help with the arrangement. Keloth’s always enjoyed what you do. I’d trust him.”

  In her quarters, Athba started with lyrics. She gnawed nervously at an apple held in her left hand while she scribbled with her right and crumpled page after page. She knew the signs of blue fever: discolored skin, boils, slow suffocation. It was not pretty like “GLASS,” nor pleasurable like “GRAPES.” With a dramatic framing story, it might have pleased Keloth. But not a squeamish woman who kept her death under lock and key.

  One day in an infirmary…

  No. What would Irathi be doing in an infirmary, when she knew the risks?

  When Irathi’s father…

  That went into the wastebasket straightaway. Bad enough to have to do this for a squeamish Irathi; even worse to threaten her family.

  Without warning, without sign…

  She worked on that one for a little while, leaving her apple to go brown at the side of the desk. It almost worked. Irathi contracted the fever for no reason, through no fault of her own, and everyone clucked over the tragedy while…

  While what? While she resigned herself to a senseless and pointless death? While she learned there was some cosmic reason she had to die? No. If Athba had learned one thing during her patronage, it was not to bring philosophy into it. No one would enjoy the song, and everyone would start to worry about free will or inevitability, whichever happened to scare them more.

  Athba’s mind wandered to her family. What would they say if she failed and died? She could picture her father’s lined, jowly face, though she hadn’t had time to go see him in months. I told her not to take the offer of patronage, he would say. And her rosy-cheeked mother would nod: All the money but constant murder. Not a fair trade in my book. Poor dear.

  At last she threw down her notebook and stormed back to Nanu.

  “He’s going to kill me.”

  “Hm?” Nanu looked up, pausing in the middle of a scale, and put down her violin carefully, brushing piles of sheet music aside to make room.

  Athba collapsed into a wrought iron chair. “I’ve figured it out. He’s too proud to ally with Lady Irathi but doesn’t want to lose face for turning her down. So I sing a deathsong, she storms out, and the blame goes to me. Keloth kills me with grapes, he’s rid of Irathi, and no one blames him. Then Lord Ulan rides in, takes over both holdings, and impales everyone.”

  “Oh, sweetie, that doesn’t even make sense. For one thing, I think he likes you too much to kill you. For another, if he blames it on you, and Lord Ulan keeps pressing in at Irathi’s borders, she’ll want an alliance anyway, once you’re gone.”

  “So maybe he keeps me around, or… I don’t know. But I can’t make blue fever sound nice.”

  “Who said it has to sound nice? Keloth never liked them nice. Remember the one where he drank ground glass and vomited blood?”

  Athba grimaced. She remembered. Keloth had applauded and then sent a hooded assassin to he
r quarters in the night. Not to kill her, or even to scare her, but to explain that ground glass didn’t work that way.

  “And the one with the molten glass and the angry glassblower? That one made me shudder. But he loved it.”

  “Yes.” Athba took a few deep breaths, forcing her shoulders to relax. “But Irathi’s not Keloth.”

  “That’s the point. You don’t really know what she likes. It’s Keloth who will decide if you live or die. So write it the way he would like. Let him worry about the rest.”

  “He’ll still kill me.” Athba slumped, then straightened again, as the wrought iron chair back dug into her shoulders. Keloth did not furnish his servants’ quarters with comfort in mind. “I’m sorry. You’re right, of course.”

  She still thought that Keloth planned to drive off Lady Irathi and blame it on her. But what did that matter? If he had plans for her, how could she stop them? Better to stop worrying. Better to be morbid, like everyone, until death ceased to frighten.

  Lady Irathi rode in on a horseless carriage traveling by some obscure magic of its own and strode into Lord Keloth’s banquet hall with her retinue following. Her courtiers peered at the bloodred tapestries and copper silverware. Lady Irathi was sharp chinned and bright eyed and wore a long, trailing dress in pale green. Cold seemed to follow in her footsteps.

  “Eat,” Nanu muttered to Athba, before she launched into an instrumental serenade, the kind that dining guests could listen to or ignore as they chose. “You’ll feel better with food.” But Athba did not feel ready for food. The wine was even worse: looking at it sickened her. She barely heard anything until Keloth called her name.

  “Athba.” From the impatience in his voice, it might have been the second time he’d said it. “Won’t you sing for our guest?”

  She forced herself upright and strode to the front of the hall. She could not feel her feet touching the floor. Keloth’s courtiers whispered to each other; no doubt they knew why she was worried. But Lady Irathi’s retinue kept quiet. Athba kept her face as serene as she could, though her heart hammered. She was a trained performer, after all. She could hide fear.

  She took a deep breath and began.

  “Plague!” This time she did not start low and menacing, but urgent. The violinists cantered to keep up.

  “Plague in the towns,

  Plague in the fields and the city

  Blue skin bringing death swift and sure.

  Wails of despair,

  But wise women whisper

  That there is a cure…”

  Athba widened her eyes and waved her hands, letting the anxiety of a blue fever epidemic fill the room—though she could not allow it to influence her lungs or throat. The sound must come up free, full, and pleasing. She kept her own anxiety locked up in the back of her mind. Her expression came not from her heart, but from a place she pictured behind and to the right of her, a repository for imaginary emotions.

  Only when the prophecy of a cure appeared did the tempo slacken slightly. Nanu brought in a sweet, hopeful countermelody. But the cure could be delivered only by Lady Irathi’s hands and only with the aid of a particular emerald-green flower.

  The song became a quest song, leaping along in hope and fear. Lady Irathi endured magical trials, found the flower, and went from house to house, laying a petal on each fevered brow. When the fevers began to flee, Nanu’s melody leapt in outright joy, though the other violinists played short, tense notes underneath. It was not yet over.

  There was always a catch.

  When the plague had all but run its course, Lady Irathi began to notice blue marks on her skin. And the emerald-green flower could be used only to heal others.

  The violins slowed.

  The song became a stately, reverent dirge. The whole land praised the dying lady. She raved, choked, withered before their eyes, and they only loved her more. Irathi, said the people in Athba’s deathsong, was a saint.

  That is how it ended: on a soft, high note and a prayerful arpeggio, and in awe.

  Athba forced herself not to try to gauge Lady Irathi’s reaction, not even in the ringing silence after the last note.

  No one applauded. Everyone knew Lady Irathi’s dislike of deathsongs. Everyone but Athba was watching her face.

  And in the silence, Lady Irathi chuckled.

  “Lord Keloth,” she said, clapping slowly, “I heard you were terribly morbid. I see that it’s true. But you have given me a wonderful gift: a chance to forget. To escape into someone else’s death, brought by a disease entirely unlike the one fated for me.”

  Athba stared. Everyone stared but Keloth, who perched there, smiling, not surprised in the least. Lady Irathi ascended the steps to him, leaving a chill in her wake.

  “Now, then,” she said, “I think we have an alliance to discuss.”

  Athba collapsed against the wall in Nanu’s practice room, accidentally scattering a pile of rehearsal pencils. “I can’t believe it wasn’t her real death. And he didn’t tell me. I can’t believe he put me through that!”

  “I can,” Nanu said cheerily. “He loves this kind of thing. Keeping you on your toes, hmm?”

  Nanu and her musicians had kept the wine going all night. Even Athba felt good. After the alliance was settled, Keloth had showered the group with gold. Athba especially.

  Nanu drained her wineglass. Athba paused for a split second, knowing Nanu had nothing to fear from “GRAPES,” then recklessly downed her own. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

  “Not tomorrow if I can help it,” said Nanu. “So what are you spending your gold on?”

  “Savings. In case I survive.”

  They exchanged grins. It was mostly true. But she had set aside a little for her family, too, and a little to spruce up her quarters. A more comfortable chair. Better lamps. And a little piece of art for the wall. A stained glass rendering of a cluster of grapes on the vine, for inspiration.

  After all, these were morbid times.

  * * *

  Story by Ada Hoffmann

  Illustration by Alice Duke

  TETRAPOD

  “MY NAME IS MIYAKO KAMEMURA. I play kendo. I will die by fall down stairs. Nice to meet you.”

  I sighed. “Falling,” I said, flouting everything I’d learned about the right kinds of corrective feedback in my studies of second-language learning and forcing a smile to mitigate the blatant recast. “Falling down stairs. It’s nice to meet you too.” I shook her hand, letting the “I play kendo” go—none of us had ever quite figured out for sure what the correct verb to use with kendo was, anyway. I do kendo? I practice kendo? Let their high school English teachers worry about it.

  “My name is Takeshi Kamai,” the next kid was saying confidently. “I play running. I will die by lung disease.”

  Miyako had sat back down, blushing a bit. By this time, the first year of middle school, they’ve mostly memorized their basic jikoshoukai—self-introduction. Name, favorite sport, death, sometimes favorite food or which neighborhood they’re from. I love getting to know the new first years, but right then I was not in the mood for endless jikoshoukai day, repeating my own fifteen-minute introduction to each of the four new first-year classes in turn, listening to each student, an endless flood of ninety names I won’t remember a single one of. It drains a lot of energy that I didn’t have to spare that day. And each class asks the same questions: How old are you? (Twenty-three.) Do you have a boyfriend? (Not technically.) What’s your blood type? (A-negative.) How will you die (or more commonly, What is you will die by)? (Breast cancer, which always draws a few giggles from the boys.) What’s your favorite bug? (Dragonfly, I finally decided after the fifth time I was asked.) Is your hair really naturally blond? (For the hundredth time, yes.) Today one kid threw me off by asking what my favorite word in Japanese is, and I didn’t have an answer. My mind still circled that question as I sat down at my desk with a sigh of relief after the last class.

  I slid my phone open and scrolled through three new
e-mails, skipping one from my dad and some junk political thing, opening the one from Andrew. “Tonight should be clear da sou desu,” it read in our typical mix of English and broken Japanese. “Pictures toru?” I felt the all-too-familiar tightening in my stomach. Another night taking pictures on the beach with Andrew. Another night of that unique brand of torture that comes from being so near what you can’t have. I rolled my eyes. But what could I do? Say no?

  That’d be the day, I reflected a few hours later, standing in the bathroom trying to coerce my hair into some sort of coherent shape. Imagine, not saying yes to every project he proposed. Not going running to him whenever he wanted to take pictures, or toss a Frisbee, or watch a new anime, or collect and analyze some new linguistic data. “Sorry, I’m busy today,” I told the mirror. “Maybe another time.” My reflection smirked sadly at me.

  The night was indeed clear, a brilliant full moon illuminating the waves as they crashed against the concrete tiers, such a haunting sound. I sat down and stretched my legs while he screwed the camera into his tripod. The silence stretched just over the edge of companionable into awkward. I crossed my legs.

  “Jikoshoukai today?” I asked, immediately wishing I hadn’t broken the silence.

  He finished settling the tripod on the concrete. One… two…I counted. If he ignores me for more than three seconds, I figure he’s annoyed with me for ruining his concentration.

  “Yeah.” He bent over, peering through the viewfinder. “What a pain.”

  He didn’t elaborate and I wasn’t certain whether he meant the introductions or something about the camera. I let out a slow breath and lapsed back into silence.

  “One girl wouldn’t give her death.”