The Crescent Stone

by Matt Mikalatos

  Jason wiped his eyes, thankful for the easy way Baileya had taken his story, and thankful, too, that she had not condemned him but seemed more serious than ever about joining him. She made her way over to the remnants of the dancers. She spoke to them. He couldn’t hear their words, but there was a great ululating cry, and the dancing began again with more fervor. He turned the gold band on his arm. It felt like a declaration of friendship. It meant a lot to him that she had put it on his arm, that she would loan it to him for a short time.

  Mother Crow stood at the broken gate. She pressed a small bag of food and a skin of water into his hands. “For the Kakri people, courtship is different than among your people.”

  “Dating advice, huh, Mother Crow? No offense, but how long has it been since you dated someone?”

  She ignored him. “If you wish to marry Baileya, here is how it is done among our people. First, the man has a story he has kept secret his whole life. It must be a story he has never told anyone, ever. He pulls the woman aside and shares the story with her. This is a valuable story, a secret story.” Jason felt a small flutter of panic in his stomach. Mother Crow continued, “When the story is done, the woman must decide whether to marry or not. If she wishes to become betrothed, she tells the man his story was a good one and that she will consider it carefully. She has one year to think on his story.”

  “So if she says it’s a good story, they’re engaged?”

  Mother Crow smiled and shook her head. “First she must give him a token of her affection.”

  Uh-oh. “Not like a gold armband, though, right?”

  “That would be a fine token,” Mother Crow said. “Then she tells her family, and there is a celebration.”

  There would be a way to explain the misunderstanding, he was sure. Celebrations weren’t bad, anyway. Right?

  “For the next twelve cycles of the moon,” Mother Crow said, “the family tries to kill the suitor, and the woman must prevent it through the strength of her arms and her prowess as a warrior.”

  Wait, what? “Say that again? The family tries to murder the suitor?”

  “For one year. The betrothal celebration lasts one day, after which the family seeks the suitor to kill him. If they fail to kill him, then there is great rejoicing, and he becomes a member of her household.”

  “And if they succeed?”

  She shrugged. “What does it matter?”

  “What if the suitor backs out of the engagement?”

  Mother Crow narrowed her eyes. “The family still attempts to kill him, but he is no longer under the protection of his betrothed.”

  Great. He would be married or dead within a year. Possibly both.

  “Mother Crow,” he said.

  “Yes, Wu Song?”

  “Good-bye.” He ran into the desert, knowing that Baileya would catch up easily.

  She did. She was beaming. Her skin seemed to glow. She smiled at him and took his hand.

  Soon her family would follow them into the desert, bent on killing him as part of their strange marriage ritual. The Kakri would move faster than the Scim military, and they knew these desert wastes.

  Baileya squeezed his hand. “Faster, Wu Song.”

  Wu Song ran.

  33

  THE ELENIL AT WAR

  One of the Peasant King’s followers, a knight in his service, said to him, “My lord, where are you going?”

  The Peasant King replied, “Why, to meet Death. Would you go with me, Sir Knight?”

  FROM “THE TRIUMPH OF THE PEASANT KING,” A SCIM LEGEND

  Madeline’s tears had stopped. Darius found her staring silently at refuse in the field. He had taken his helmet off. He smoothed his white robes and sat beside her. “The Elenil will come soon,” he said. “After our attack on the city, they will respond. You can help Yenil’s family, Madeline.”

  “How? By throwing away better garbage?”

  “You can make sure they aren’t harmed. You’re a high-value human to the Elenil. They want to make sure your deal is kept. They’ll want you happy. Tell them to leave her family alone, and they will.”

  The darkness here was so deep. There were no stars. It was as if a thick cloud layer hovered overhead. “The Elenil don’t fight their own battles, Darius. They won’t sweep in here and hurt anyone. If anything they’ll send some human soldiers. How many Elenil even died in your attack?”

  Darius rubbed his jaw. “I haven’t spoken to the war council yet, but no more than a hundred. They are long lived, though, and not used to death. Not anymore. You don’t know them, Madeline. They’ll come, and when they do, it will be to punish our people. We crossed a line by attacking during their holiday. They will make it clear that such a thing cannot happen again.”

  Something stirred within her. It was wrong for the Scim to murder the Elenil. The Scim were in poverty, yes, but why did that make killing others okay? “Darius, you make it sound like the Elenil could come in and wipe out the Scim in a single day.”

  “They could. They’ve taken the Scim’s weapons . . . their most powerful ones, anyway.” He turned to look at his owl, which had closed its golden eyes, resting perched on a log sticking out of a garbage pile. “Except for the Sword of Years, which I have now. The Elenil have all but enslaved these people by building an economy based on taking from the Scim to empower and enrich the Elenil. The Elenil could crush the Scim in an afternoon if they truly wanted to do so.”

  “Then how are they at war?” It didn’t make any sense.

  “They can’t destroy the Scim completely. Who would be the object of their magic then? Where would their sewage magically disappear to? Madeline . . . if there is a Scim woman with a beautiful voice, she sells it to the Elenil. If you have talent, or ability, or anything the Elenil want, you can get ahead. If you’re a gifted musician, or athlete, or artist. For a while at least. If you don’t have those things, you can get a meal, maybe, or a roof over your head for a few weeks by giving them some small piece of your life. Healing magic, maybe. You take the flu for a week so the Elenil can be healthy. In exchange, three days of food. Follow the money, Madeline. When you see this sort of injustice in the world, you always follow the money. Who benefits? Who loses? Then you know what kind of game is being played.”

  It still didn’t make sense. It was a terrible deal, and she didn’t understand how getting a few days of food would be worth being sick for a week. “Why would the Scim agree to this?”

  Darius looked embarrassed. He stared into the night for a while. When his eyes met hers, there was a calculation being made, a decision being weighed out. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You know my cousin Malik?”

  “Yeah. The one who went away to college last year. Your mom mentioned him.”

  “He’s not in college, Madeline. Listen, it goes like this. We start with a private prison somewhere.”

  “A private—?”

  “Contracted. They make a deal with the government, so the government doesn’t have to run a prison. It works like this. They make a deal for a bunch of money. The government guarantees a quota . . . a certain number of inmates a year or the company won’t make money, right?”

  Madeline shook her head. “What does this have to do with Malik?”

  “Just wait for it, Mads. So to meet the quota, a certain number of people have to be arrested. But there’s not enough. The cops are working hard, but they’re not getting enough convictions. So the legislators, they make tighter laws. Then the cops can arrest more people, the judges can put more away. They make mandatory minimum sentences for small crimes so they can fill prison beds.”

  “That’s a cynical way of looking at things.”

  Darius squeezed her hand. His eyes held something like compassion, but it might have been pity. “It’s experience, not cynicism.” He took his hand back. “So Malik, he’s trying to make ends meet. His mom’s in the hospital, and his girlfriend is pregnant. He can’t get ahead fast enough, even being careful with his money. His friends keep saying he could
make good money fast if he’s willing to sell drugs. He keeps pushing them off. His mom would be furious if she ever found out. His girlfriend would be furious too, and he has a kid on the way. He can’t risk that. But he knows who to talk to if he decides he needs the money.”

  Madeline could scarcely believe what she was hearing. “Did Malik start selling drugs?”

  “No,” Darius said, obviously frustrated. “No, that’s what I’m telling you . . . he decided not to. Then one day he’s hanging out with some of our friends, they’re sitting on the sidewalk, just catching up, and a police car comes flying out of nowhere, up onto the curb. Everyone scatters, and Malik runs too.”

  “Why did he run if he didn’t do anything wrong?”

  “That’s exactly what the cops say. And the thing is, one of Malik’s friends, he was holding. He ditched his drugs on the sidewalk. The cops ask Malik who they belong to, and he knows, but he won’t tell them. So they take him in, and they sweat him at the station and try to get him to talk. But he won’t give them a name, so they write up the report and they say that the drugs were Malik’s.”

  “Wait. Are you saying they lied?”

  “They wanted to bust a dealer, and my cousin was sitting there, right where the drugs were found. You know, in the scramble maybe they thought they were his. Maybe they think that’s what really happened. I don’t know. But the cops are adamant. The public defender doesn’t put up much of a fight, and Malik goes to jail.”

  “Malik’s in jail?”

  “In jail it costs ten bucks a minute to make a phone call, because some company has a monopoly on outgoing calls. Plus he’s doing prison labor. Growing produce for some fancy big-name grocery chain.”

  “Malik was hanging out with drug dealers? Darius, why didn’t he just give them a name?”

  “Malik gets paid this tiny bit of money for his work. A lot less than the phone company, the private prison, and the grocery chain are making off him. Meanwhile his kid is growing up without a daddy, his girlfriend has no money and has to figure out who can take care of the baby so she can work, his mama can’t afford the hospital. Some white dude on the television is talking about how Malik needs to learn to take responsibility for his actions, but meanwhile Malik has nothing and never has. He was loyal to his friends, that’s his crime. Meanwhile he’s got no safety net, no one to bail him out on rent one month.”

  “Are you sure he was telling the truth?”

  Darius snorted. “Why would he lie at this point? He’s already serving the time. He’s never lied to me before, even when he did stupid things. What makes you think he’s lying? Because a couple cops have a different story? A couple cops you don’t even know?”

  “Okay,” Madeline said. She could see it happening. “It’s a really terrible story. I’m sorry about Malik. But what does this have to do with the Scim?”

  “Okay, I’m almost to that. So Malik, when he gets out, he won’t have any money. He’ll be worse off than he was going in, and what’s going to happen? He tries to join the military, but they won’t take him because of his record. He doesn’t have a car, so he can’t leave the neighborhood very easily. He’s taking the bus to work on the other side of town. He can’t afford to live there, so he’s taking the bus two hours each way to work, where he gets just enough money to stay in debt. His kid gets sick, so he takes out a payday loan. His mom dies, he can’t pay for the funeral, but he has to get the cash somehow. It starts all over again. He’s gotta make the decision—is he gonna work inside the system and suffer or gamble on breaking the law to get ahead? His kid, he’s going to inherit the same thing.”

  “If he just works hard—”

  Darius slapped the back of his hand into his palm. “No, Mads, no. He’s working harder than your dad. Fifty-hour weeks plus twenty-eight hours of travel. I’m not saying he can’t get out, people do. You asked why the Scim would agree to this deal. It’s the wrong question. The question is, how are the Elenil keeping the deal in place? You start following the money, and you find the politicians, the prison owners, the lobbyists and corporations, they need more bodies. They need legal slavery. So they write the laws tight. They make sure it’s a law that will catch young black men, because the young ones are cheaper to take care of in jail. Then they wait for you to slip up. One mistake, and they’ve got you. That’s how it works in the real world, and that’s how it works here.”

  Madeline felt raw. Like Darius was accusing her of something, like she had participated in some way in what was being described. She felt like they were on two boats that had been lashed together, but he was cutting the ropes. He was headed out to sea, watching her drift away.

  Darius crossed to the owl and came back with the sword. He unwrapped it and put it in Madeline’s hands. The worn pommel, the chipped and rusted blade—the only way it could look more pitiful would be if the blade was broken.

  “The Sword of Years,” she said.

  “Five hundred years ago, there was a battle,” Darius said. “The Scim and the Elenil were at war. All the men—in those days only the Scim men fought—had gone out to battle, dressed in their war skins. They had left behind a small city, called Septil. The Elenil had fought the Scim warriors and been forced to a draw. The Scim offered to make a peace treaty, and the Elenil also agreed. They met to discuss the treaty, but one of the Elenil captains snuck away with his soldiers and came upon the city.”

  “During the peace negotiations? The Elenil were scouting out the Scim land at the same time?”

  “Yes,” Darius said. “Septil was filled with women and children and elderly men. They saw the war party come to the gates. The Scim people debated whether the Elenil might be there with peaceful intentions. They had received messenger birds saying the peace talks had begun. Others were skeptical. They had few weapons in the city, but there was one sword, rusted and nicked and half useless. The old men put a blood spell on it: the sword would be harmless except against those who harmed the Scim. If the sword found people who had harmed the Scim or gained from their harm, it would not be sheathed until it had spilled their blood. All of it.”

  Madeline turned the sword over in her hands. It didn’t seem magic, it seemed like an old broken piece of junk. “What happened?”

  “They let the Elenil in. The Elenil began to slaughter the people . . . They thought they would leave a parting gift for the Scim warriors, who would return home from their peace talks to find their families butchered. But a child picked up the sword, and when he pulled it from the scabbard, it became sharp, shiny, and new. It drank the blood of the Elenil, and that one child defeated the entire war party. They retreated.”

  Five hundred years, he had said. This sword was older than the United States. How strange. The bitterness between the Scim and the Elenil ran deep and ancient. “The Knight of the Mirror said not to sheathe the sword. He said it was dangerous.”

  Darius laughed bitterly. “To the Elenil. The sword still fulfills its calling. It spills the blood of those who would oppress the Scim. It is patient and will wait centuries to exact its vengeance. That is why it’s called the Sword of Years.”

  A horn blew, clear and cold as the moon. Darius scrambled to his feet.

  “What is it?” Madeline’s hand closed instinctively around the sword’s handle.

  “The Elenil,” Darius said. He threw the canvas to her. “Cover the sword.”

  Fera and Inrif burst from their hovel just as Darius pulled his helmet on.

  “Are they near?” Fera cried.

  “Madeline will protect you,” the Black Skull said, climbing onto his owl. “I must warn the elders.” Then, to Madeline: “I leave the sword to you, Mads. Do what you think is right.”

  To Madeline’s astonishment, the couple didn’t ask how she would protect them. They wished the Black Skull a safe journey and returned inside. She followed, carrying the wrapped sword under her arm.

  Yenil moaned. She had fallen asleep. Her breathing came in short, raspy breaths.

  Inrif
bolted the door, and Fera lifted squares of wood over the windows, barricading them in. The tiny hut felt claustrophobic now, and the smoke from the fire burned Madeline’s eyes.

  Inrif and Fera tried to hide their curiosity about the package, but their eyes drifted toward it over and over. Madeline placed it on the table, trying to be quiet so as not to wake Yenil. She unwrapped the sword. Fera gasped. Inrif hissed through his teeth.

  “The Sword of Years,” Madeline said.

  Inrif hurriedly threw the canvas over the sword and wrapped it tightly. “The Sword of Ten Thousand Sorrows,” he said. “The Sword of Pain. Blood-Spiller. The Strife of Generations.”

  Fera placed a hand on Madeline’s arm. “It has many names. We are simple people, miss. We do not go on blood feuds with Elenil lords.”

  “Take my advice,” Inrif said. “Do not use this sword, nor give it to any who would.”

  “Why? This is one of the artifacts of the Scim, made with Scim magic.” She pushed the wrapped sword across the tiny table. “You should have it.”

  Inrif held up his hands, as if to ward off a blow. “Do not offer that foul thing to me again. It is a curse, miss, a curse whether you meet its point or its hilt.”

  Fera didn’t look at the bundle. “My husband speaks truth. Some Scim would have it returned to us, others would have it destroyed. If such a thing were possible.”

  Madeline didn’t understand. “What should I do with it, then?”

  “Throw it in the sea,” Fera said.

  “Return it to the Elenil,” Inrif said bitterly. “Let them keep the cursed thing within their own walls. May the Peasant King take pity on them when it is unsheathed!”