Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House

by K. M. Frontain

  “But you do think something of me!” Vaal shouted past him. “If you are vile for loving me, then the thing you love is more vile! Isn’t it? Isn’t it, Haru?”

  “There must be a better way,” I said. I put my knees beneath me, then my feet, and rose to confront my god as a man should, upright and with the meagre amount of courage I had remaining.

  “Then tell me it,” Vaal replied, glaring rancour over Intana’s shoulder. “Tell me it, Haru of Sachoné House. If you’re so potent and all knowing, tell me how to feed divinity sufficient to survive and protect a favoured people. Tell me!”

  “Isn’t your people’s love enough?”

  He sneered at me, and I sensed the shark aspect swimming closer to the real. The scarification over my heart became colder and felt as if it sank inward toward my heart.

  “I haven’t witnessed a single god survive past a millennia on the love of his people alone,” Vaal said. “They dwindle. They become silent. They become nothing! Mortals only ever cherish gentle gods into oblivion.”

  “Can’t you at least release the dregs of your victims’ souls before they become nothing themselves?” I asked. “Must you annihilate them to remain strong?”

  I shuddered suddenly. Jumi! Had he destroyed Jumi?

  In that second, my desire to live ended, and the shark aspect arrived. I thought to die as I’d seen the others die, become nothing as the others had become nothing. And I didn’t care. I couldn’t care.

  Jumi. Jumi had more than died. He’d been decimated as a being. He no longer existed.

  I wanted to end as well, that I should not know this.

  Intana wheeled toward me and clasped his arms around my body. “Haru!”

  He leapt skyward, but Vaal’s shark nose caught him on the back and sent us crashing down. The shark apparition took us down its throat, but the teeth did not touch. Vaal’s innards passed around us.

  Souls. The stew in Vaal’s gut. A blend of rotted souls.

  But some… Some escaped, flitted off to the boundaries of Vaal’s form, and went…elsewhere.

  I followed the progress of a single wounded spirit to the periphery of Vaal’s shape, sensed it cling to the real as if frightened, but then brighten, brighten further, and leap for this otherness to which all things spiritual belonged. For a moment, I felt there, bridging the gap of the physical and not. I had but to slide a little forward, just a little, and I’d re-enter eternity. No more pain. No more pain. No more…

  I didn’t destroy Jumi, Haru.

  I spun back into the now of my body. “You released him?” I whispered. “Vaal?”

  The apparition faded. I squirmed free of Intana’s grip and rolled to face my god again, but Vaal’s human avatar no longer rested on the dock. It had vanished as well.

  “Vaal?”

  Go to your ship. Write your letters and tell your men they can safely collect a harvest of sponge for the journey back to Brellin.

  His presence faded into the cold of the harbour. I put a hand over my face, mortified. “I wronged him.”

  “You didn’t.” Intana yanked my hand down. I beheld a bitter countenance and shut my eyes before I beheld more. “You didn’t! He only released the souls because he thought he’d broken you. If it had been my father, he’d have finished eating you. You’re pathetic!”

  Intana lifted up, launched into the air and escaped before I thought to stop him. He became a tiny hint of silver at the further end of the harbour in only seconds.

  “He’ll return,” I said. “He has to return.”

  I remembered words from a few days ago. My father never married my mother, you know. He ate her.

  “Oh, Intana,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  I spent many solitary minutes seated on the wharf after, too exhausted to do anything but exist. I watched the boat lowered from the schooner, remained immobile as my men rowed to the wharf, climbed the ladder and walked toward me. Kima reached down and lifted me to my feet.

  “Vaal sent me to fetch you, since you would not lift your arm to signal for attention.” Kima gave me a nudge, and I plodded along at his side toward the ladder. “Divers are collecting the special sponge even now.”

  “I know. I saw them diving from the floating dock.”

  “Are you able to climb down, or must I carry you?”

  “I’ll climb.”

  “Haru?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad He didn’t eat you.”

  “Yes, me too.”

  I descended the ladder, stepped into the boat, slumped onto a bench and hunched over my knees. Someone laid a blanket over my shoulders. Kima seated himself beside me, and the men rowed for the ship.

  “Haru?” Kima said again.

  “Hmm?”

  “I have something to do, something I’ve always wanted to do, but Vaal said I had better do it where He can watch. It’s my one and only opportunity without fear of reprisal.”

  “Is this something to do with that message Little Brother gave you twenty-one years ago?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I looked at Kima. So earnest his expression. So desolate. “What message did Vaal send you?”

  I asked, and yet I knew. I’d always known, deep within my innermost self, and Kima’s answer confirmed it.

  “That you were His,” he said.

  “And that was all?”

  “No. He said He’d eat me if I ever dared touch you inappropriately, so it was on my head if your mind broke.”

  I looked down at my knees again. I could not fathom it, why Vaal should want a man such as myself, who shattered so very easily.

  “Haru?”

  “Hmm?” I raised my head, and Kima leant down to kiss me. He held nothing back, gave me his longing, his sorrow, his regret, his passion. He tasted wonderful, of mortality, pure and unadulterated, of life, of death, of spirit. Such a beautiful spirit.

  From out of that place, that otherness of perfect eternity, a brightness intruded directly into me.

  Yes. I see. I see. Vaal of the Depths had not come from the place Kima had, or I had. He’d come from outside it, from the coldest margins of the real. He needed us for more than sustenance. He needed us, the people of Brellin, to bring warmth to a frozen and empty existence. He’d fed upon the souls of humankind for ages beyond our ken, and could no longer suffer His inner emptiness.

  Kima pulled away from me. We looked at each other. I smiled.

  “Thank you, old friend,” I whispered.

  Kima stared at me a moment longer, uncertain, sad, and then a smile formed, a burden of pain slid from his being, and he looked to the ship and his future. I felt it, and despite the uncertainty of my fate, knew contentment for him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once I had written, with Kima’s help, the remainder of my final log and the letters to my family, I handed over the captaincy and had myself rowed to shore. I took with me a supply of Mother’s oils and my sea chest, which had my clothes and personal effects, and which also had Intana’s seal packed against an inner side.

  Kima took with him a load of drying sponge, perhaps the last of the divine sponge to grow in the harbour, now that the dome had disintegrated. The sun would shine again upon the circle where the dome had been, and the power that had created the sponge would fade from the plant life down there. Normal growth would resume.

  Kima would return to Brellin with a tale unbelievable, but his cargo would force my people to heed. My House would come, and as many of my older children as wanted to be adopted into my family. I could not ask this of the younger ones, but intended to do so later. The one thing I envy, when I look upon a patriarchal family, is that the fathers keep their children in their houses, where a man of Brellin generally cannot. Even having my offspring adopted put them under my sisters’ jurisdiction.

  Alone on the docks of Verdant, I watched the boat return to my ship. The sails unfurled, and the ship turned toward the harbour entrance. I remained seated on my sea chest for a long whi
le, even after I lost sight of the topsails beyond the harbour point.

  People observed me from the landward ends of the docks, but were silent and kept their distance. No doubt they had not forgotten Vaal’s march of destruction from the temple to the harbour. I was death to them, for I had brought into Verdant a god that seemed to have eaten Omos. But it wasn’t me really. It had been their doing.

  This was only the beginning of suffering for them. Through disrespect and neglect, they had slowly eroded the power of Omos. Vaal of the Depths owned Verdant now.

  There would be blood in the harbour. Perhaps not right off, but soon.

  “Lord?” someone whispered.

  I frowned at the harbour mouth, thinking I had not heard this hesitant noise.

  “Lord?” came the whisper again.

  I looked back. A child cowered behind me, a boy of perhaps ten years. Street urchin. Too dirty and thin to be someone’s valued offspring. Orphan.

  “What is it?”

  He moved from a crouch to lay almost prostrate on the planks of the wharf. “I don’t want the sharks to eat me. If I work for you, they won’t. Will you let me work for you?”

  “They won’t eat you if you stay out of the water. Don’t cower, child. I’m not one of your Verdant nobles.”

  He lifted to a nervous squat, one knee up, one down, a palm flat to wood. “I get my food in the harbour. I eat the sea urchins and mussels. There are many of us that do.”

  Many. I looked at the water again. No one approaches me but one that has nothing left to lose: how was I to protect ‘many’ from Vaal?

  On the island continent of my birth, in these matters I was a spiritual guide, no more. I could only prepare boys who wanted to become men. I could only help them find the bravery to descend into the water. I could not protect them from Vaal.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  And yet so small. He’d been starving for more than a year, then. “You’re of the age to face Little Brother. If you can do so, you can work for me.”

  “Face little brother?” he repeated. I heard his confusion, the lack of divinity in his comprehension. I didn’t like what I had to tell him, but Vaal would eat him in any case if he didn’t pass Little Brother’s inspection.

  “Tell me something. Do you like girls?”

  “Girls? Sort of.” The quaver in his answer indicated further confusion, but I had to know.

  “Would you kiss one, if she let you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you kiss a boy?”

  “No!”

  Good. This made it more likely he would live if he climbed down into the water, not because Little Brother minded boys who would kiss boys, but because this boy had approached me and only cared to work.

  “If you wish to work for me, then you must face what you fear.” I pointed at Little Brother, who had come in close to watch. I was certain the child would run, especially when I saw the puddle of yellow liquid funnel down between planks, but he didn’t run, and I understood why when he spoke again.

  “There’s nowhere I can go? Is there? Your god can bring his death up into the city as easily as he brought it into the harbour.”

  Such wisdom for someone so young. I thought him worthy and hoped Little Brother would think the same. “Yes. He can. And there will be death from now on, but some of you will survive, those of you that are worthy.”

  “Am I worthy?”

  “I don’t know. When I faced Little Brother on my day of manhood, I was certain I wasn’t, and yet I am here.” Little Brother sank into the murk out of view, but another manifestation of him swam in from another direction. “Vaal has taken Verdant. All its people are now His. To face Little Brother is what Vaal demands of those who would be men. Swim with Little Brother now, or swim later, but you will swim, and then you will know. Otherwise you can never be considered a man, and all true men will suffer that you were a coward.”

  The boy made a lost noise and set himself over the side of the dock. I lifted up to watch him descend the ladder. “You must go in to your shoulders! Do not hesitate! It is better to be quick!”

  And it was better over quick. He would live or he would die. Little Brother was ready to tell him.

  Along the waterfront, people rushed in to watch, some of them shouting for the child to rise back up, but he continued down without hesitating. Up to his shoulders he went, and even his head sank under when a wave rose above him. Little Brother came in close enough to taste the sweat and dirt loosening from his skin, but swam on without biting.

  “Come back up!” I shouted. I lowered to the planks and put an arm down to haul him up, because he could only hang from the rungs, shivering, his legs still within the harbour. He was grey under his brown skin, but he lived.

  “Well,” I said after, huddled at his side on the end of the dock. “Now you know.”

  “Am I working for you now?”

  “Yes, but you’re too scrawny to carry my sea chest. Fetch a porter when you have strength in your legs to do so.”

  I removed my family armband. I took hold of his right ear and jabbed it with the point of a tooth. Emotional shock prevented all but a small gasp to escape his lips. I removed the tooth from my bracelet, threaded it onto one of my earrings, and hooked the metal in his piercing. I wore only plain gold rings that day, nothing of any consequence to a man of my standing, but good enough for him.

  “Later, I’ll teach you how to braid a bracelet with your own pattern,” I said, “and you will place your tooth thereon.”

  I gave him an address, some coins to pay the porter, and left him with my sea chest. I had stepped completely off the dock when I heard him shout to me.

  “My name is Halva!”

  I laughed. The irony. To lose one Halva, only to get another. I smiled a sloppy acknowledgement back at him and continued on.

  Intana met me not much further along. I halted and contemplated his dusty, bare feet. His mood was once more too opaque to sense. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  I smiled. “Your egg is gone and there’s no yolk left to feed you.”

  “It’s not funny, Haru. I’m really hungry! I’ve never been hungry before. I could have eaten that boy you threw in the harbour.”

  “I did not throw the boy in the harbour. What are you thinking?”

  “That your cruelty knows no bounds.”

  How could he name me cruel? I had been as gentle as I could be, given my circumstances.

  Intana had soured my humour with his peevishness. I shoved past him, almost dropping the small crate that held my supply of oils. The rough movement hurt my injured arm, which I happened to be using as a support despite that I shouldn’t. The spike of pain only made my temper worse, but I endeavoured to hold the anger beneath my skin.

  “I saw that man kiss you,” he said, following in my wake.

  The anger swelled that much closer to my surface. “And why didn’t you interfere?”

  No answer.

  “Ah. I see. You did interfere, or tried to. What happened?” I asked. “You discovered that sulking took away your power to fly?”

  As I’d guessed, he could not keep silent after having been goaded. “Vaal lunged up from the water when I was crossing the harbour and kept me below the surface,” he said. “I suppose you were too entranced by your lover’s attention to notice, you inveterate liar.”

  Such acid bitterness. I gave him permission to dissolve in it. “Yes, I was. Very entranced. To the depths of my being.”

  He hissed a long note of irritation. I stomped onward up the street. I sorted, very loudly in my mind, the many tasks I could levy on him. I think he was suitably motivated toward circumspection, at least for a short span of time.

  “Where are you going?” he asked eventually.

  “To a place I know that serves good food,” I said gruffly.

  By way of apology, he came to the fore and took the crate from me. I looked up at him a second, slid my gaze away and set my anger
aside. He seemed grey. The creamy parts of him had taken on an unhealthy hue.

  The crises of this day had unnerved him as much as they had me. Perhaps he’d gone off to collapse, not sulk.

  And to mourn for a mother who no longer existed, even in the afterlife. Ah, I truly was cruel, to be so unsympathetic with him.

  I marched onward. “After we eat, we’re going to comb your hair,” I told him.

  “I’ve been wanting you to do that since you said it in the dome,” he replied. “Will you braid it?”

  “If you like.”

  “I like. Anything to keep you touching me longer, beautiful Haru.”

  I stalled, and Intana bumped into me. The crate hurt my right arm again, this time from behind.

  “Haru?”

  “Don’t call me beautiful Haru,” I murmured and continued on.

  “But it’s true.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “What did you do? Parade about on the beach for Vaal when you were a boy? Did you run naked back and forth?”

  Damn him. “Every boy of Brellin runs naked on the beach! You’ve no right to criticize me for doing as was natural to my people.”

  “Obviously this Jumi was spectacular as well. If what Vaal is wearing is accurate, I’m surprised he didn’t take Jumi instead of you.”

  “He did take Jumi!”

  “I meant as his boy. What I don’t understand is why he waited so long to claim you. Actually, he hasn’t quite yet. Has he? Even up at the temple, he just watched you leak your seed all over the grass while you sucked me off.”

  For a god’s offspring, he was just so dense. “His timing is impeccable in that you are my slave and I am His terrified servant, afraid to look upon you, for I will not have another man I love destroyed.”

  Once again I stalled, and Intana hit me in the back with the crate. I hadn’t meant to say it. I was mortified, and Intana made me feel more so.

  “You said you didn’t love me! You said it up in the temple!”

  “I said I was a coward that couldn’t love you as you deserved.”

  “You said you didn’t love me the least bit! You spineless mortal! You should have looked upon me properly before Vaal arrived!”